Is it possible to enjoy FFXIV if I only like endgame content?

[KrayZ33]

Yeah, very dishonest to talk about mythic when you kept talking about mythic and never explicitly changed the subject.

1. You easily fall behind for an extended period of time if you take a break.
2. Constant time gating of new content.
3. Lots of daily/weekly chores to keep up with to stay current.
4. Rapid deprecation of old content to push players into only the newest content.
5. Consistently entices players back with promises of change being around the corner.
6. A power progression system that makes hard-stops and end-goals extremely difficult to pinpoint in psychologically satisfying ways.
7. Content scaling systems that provide incrementally harder difficulties.

Am I describing a predatory mobile game or am I describing WoW?

Except that never happened and I actually kept trying to make you realize that this isn't about mythic raiding, lol, but as I said, you wouldn't be able to prove it even if you tried.

Most of the points you just mentioned also apply to FFXIV and some are not even relevant or flat out cancel out each other.

And when you say "Blizzard wants WoW to be the only game you play", you don't get that by gating content. It's literally doing the opposite.

To clean this up:

1. only relevant for hardcore raiders, so you already bring up mythic raiding by yourself again. As 3 hours a week is enough to not fall behind to anyone but those that beat mythic raids. Nothing else in WoW but mythic raids apply here.

Again, my itemlevel was, after mere weeks of 3h of gameplay, already higher than Heroic Raider gear. Because once you do endgame content, you can do the "next" endgame content immediatly, or rather, get endgame loot and rewards

2. It's not actually the content being timegated beyond a point worth mentiong, but the gear progression, which means point 1 is less important because there is a limit to what players can achieve in that time. You are obviously refering to the story quests here, which, if you just want to do them, you can do whenever. I haven't done the new story when it came out, I just recently did it, actually, to unlock flying in a zone I'm not playing in... and again... I have mythic quality gear, so it's not like it's even remotely related to anything other than the thing itself.

3. there is literally 10 minutes worth of daily tasks... what is "lots" in your opinion and how is it different from FFXIV dungeon running and daily roulettes.

4. Even FFXIV content becomes absolutely irrelevant as soon as the new item tier hits. What you do in old dungeons is a chore that is worse than M+ and you are dishonest once again if you don't admit it. And M+ is old content that gets reused, hell, they even use timewalking and soon old dungeons for M+.

5. lol... they actually do change things so....
what's the point even. Changes you don't know anything about so I'm not suprised you even made this a point

6. ????? what, how so? That's a bold statement that can't be just left like that without mentioning an example.

7. It's great right? Btw. even FFXIV has it, lol.


Ps: I think you describe a cookie-cutter MMO or Game.

[NineSpine]

And when you say "Blizzard wants WoW to be the only game you play", you don't get that by gating content. It's literally doing the opposite.

Time gating content ensures that people have to keep coming back constantly.

To clean this up:

1. only relevant for hardcore raiders, so you already bring up mythic raiding by yourself again. As 3 hours a week is enough to not fall behind to anyone but those that beat mythic raids.

Again, my itemlevel is, after mere weeks of 3h of gameplay, already higher than Heroic Raider gear.

Everyone falls behind substantially if they take a break.

2. It's not actually the content being timegated beyond a point worth mentiong, but the gear progression, which means point 1 is less important because there is a limit to what players can achieve in that time.

They constantly time gate content.

3. there is literally 10 minutes worth of daily tasks... what is "lots" in your opinion and how is it different from FFXIV dungeon running and daily roulettes.

Right now the norm is more than 10 minutes worth of daily tasks, but I'll gladly admit this patch is a huge improvement. You also have the weekly events,

Tomestones are in the ballpark, but they are also very much optional.

4. Even FFXIV content becomes absolutely irrelevant as soon as the new item tier hits. What you do in old dungeons is a chore that is worse than M+ and you are dishonest once again if you don't admit it. And M+ is old content that gets reused, hell, they even use timewalking and soon old dungeons for M+.

Just because something is not relevant for gear progression doesn't mean it is irrelevant. Im not claiming roulettes mean everything is current, but the fact that all systems added to the game are self contained and evergreen means that people can still have fun with them in ways that wow renders so difficult logistically as to be functionally impossible.

5. lol... they actually do change things so, so what's the point even. Changes you don't know anything about so I'm not suprised you even made this a point

Did I say they never follow through on changes?

6. ????? what, how so?

I can list the content I enjoy in FF14 and the BiS gear for me from that content is extremely easy to identify. There is a very clear end goal for me. In WoW, this is a bit of a mess because the gear has so many increments and systems that play into it. The only very clear satisfying end goals are for the most elite high end of players, who of course will always have clear end goals.

7. It's great right? Btw. even FFXIV has it, lol.

A small amount of this can be great. Too much of it can be really bad.

You are a remarkably dishonest person, so I am not surprised that your reaction to all of this is to try and make little digs at each point rather than appreciate my point that all of these things taken together create a specific set of circumstances. The dark triad of behaviors that indicate a dangerous person are bedwetting, pyromania, and hurting animals. You would see that list and say "Since each of those behaviors are also exhibited by non-dangerous people separately, it means nothing!" You are missing the forest for the trees, on purpose of course.

[KrayZ33]

Time gating content ensures that people have to keep coming back constantly.

Yes, and I agree, I never didn't. But it doesn't mean WoW wants to be the only game you play.
Which was the very, very first point I made. Why did you bring it up?
Just why? Explain that to me.
It's the exact opposite of wanting you to keep playing it as it's only game.
THE-EXACT-OPPOSITE.

These things make me want to PUT-THIS-GAME-ASIDE.
Not because they are just "bad" or "unfun", but because I-CAN'T-DO-ANYTHING-IF-IT-ISN'T-THERE-AND-GATED
Just like how I don't run FFXIV dungeons if I don't need or even CAN'T get more tomestones.

Everyone falls behind substantially if they take a break.

except they don't, because you play a bit for like a month, get M+ gear and leave the game for 5 months, come back to the next patch and you can start doing +15 again which rewards the/most of the best gear available to players.
If you ain't good enough, you do your +10 or whatever for a week instead which is already heroic raid gear.

They constantly time gate content.

And it's relevant because? That's the question here. Because the content that *is* time gated, can be enjoyed later without any malus to your gameplay experience whatsoever. It's the story, not gameplay mechanics or whatever relevant to your sub-time, the 3 raid bosses that came later is a special thing, and it would be dishonest to use them as an example, but I don't think you mean that, so what is it?
They are usually timegating *grinds* and story. Which means they allow players that can't play 24/7 to not fall behind too much.
It's not like you have a fucking shop where you can skip this gating and get better gear than others from it like in D:I. It's not even an *inch* different from other games.

In this case, you can only complain about one thing, either it's the immense amount of time you need to do something OR the gating that prevents you from going further than that, not both, or players falling behind for not playing, or players being gated even though they want to play.

Right now the norm is more than 10 minutes worth of daily tasks, but I'll gladly admit this patch is a huge improvement. You also have the weekly events,

Tomestones are in the ballpark, but they are also very much optional.

Every single daily and weekly task in WoW is optional as well, so kinda a moot point, isn't it? You obviously wouldn't count a weekly raid-lockout here, would you?
I really don't have to do dailies at all, I just... don't. It's the *exact* same thing as in every other game. There is a task that boosts whatever you are doing... but these tasks are there so you do something more efficiently. That is all.
It is a good thing. What are you trying to point out here? Stuff exist and can be done - that is all you are saying. None of the weekly task get you anywhere significant. They help you with your pet battles, your transmog farming, alt gearing or some shit. I-haven't-done-anything-and-have-just-about-the-best-gear-available.
These things exist for the sake of there being something you can do if you aren't a PvE/PvP god and suck at this game.
FFXIV has this all over the place as well...

Just because something is not relevant for gear progression doesn't mean it is irrelevant. Im not claiming roulettes mean everything is current, but the fact that all systems added to the game are self contained and evergreen means that people can still have fun with them in ways that wow renders so difficult logistically as to be functionally impossible.

You can do old content in WoW as well and have fun in them.
What is it in FFXIV that remains relevant, but doesn't in WoW?
Point it out.

Did I say they never follow through on changes?

So why did you bring it up in the first place? Explain. They patch whatever is bad in the game. Which developer doesn't promise improvements when the community isn't happy about it? If they follow up, what's the problem?

I can list the content I enjoy in FF14 and the BiS gear for me from that content is extremely easy to identify. There is a very clear end goal for me. In WoW, this is a bit of a mess because the gear has so many increments and systems that play into it. The only very clear satisfying end goals are for the most elite high end of players, who of course will always have clear end goals.

That's just nonsense. And it just basically means that FF14 has absolutely no build diversity in any way whatsoever. You are making a good thing sound bad and a bad thing sound positive. What's your problem in WoW regarding that?

A small amount of this can be great. Too much of it can be really bad.

Uhum... and how is it bad in WoW and not in... FFXIV for example... or Destiny 2?
You are, obviously, not talking about raid difficulties because those exist on mass in FFXIV as well. Destiny 2 has multiple difficulties that just scale enemy HP and damage as well or simply make you take more damage and deal less.
The only thing these games don't have is M+, but M+ is a good system and very enjoyable - it also keeps "old content relevant".

You are a remarkably dishonest person, so I am not surprised that your reaction to all of this is to try and make little digs at each point rather than appreciate my point that all of these things taken together create a specific set of circumstances. The dark triad of behaviors that indicate a dangerous person are bedwetting, pyromania, and hurting animals. You would see that list and say "Since each of those behaviors are also exhibited by non-dangerous people separately, it means nothing!" You are missing the forest for the trees, on purpose of course.

You are just making shit up .... as shown here.

[Blizzaga]

FF14 doesn't time gate things the way WoW does. Not even close.

I did not list "new content with better rewards".

I did not list "entices people" broadly.

We just had three expansions in a row that were primarily criticized heavily for the chores, such a Torghast and AP.

The issue is not that no other game does any of these things. Destiny 2 is one of my favorite games and they looooooove their relentless time gates. However, the picture all these design decisions create taken together is very clear.

You're a pathetic little retard, delusional beyond help.

FF14 does timegating.

Getting a 590 weapon is timegated to 4 weeks, used to be 7 weeks. Getting 590 gear is timegated. Upgrading your gear is timegated to 1 per week.
Your fucking house will be demolished if you dont stay subbed.

[Inukashi]

Eh.. at some point I just ignored reading the pages before. So I just want to leave a constructive comment here as someone who has played WoW and FF14.

Compared to FF, WoW is a dungeon crawler, not an rpg. You level your character within 20 hours playtime and then you go dungeons. WoW has much more to do around dungeons. You have m+. You have raids in different difficulties and that's also how the community is.
They play for the numbers and if they don't get em, they get toxic, but if you like the feeling of progressing, this might be the better game.

Ff14 is an rpg with some mmo elements. It's like 6 Final Fantasy games in a row. You have to put like 350-400 hours of game before getting to the endgame. The endgame has only few dungeons and the difficulty setting exists for even less dungeons. There is no m+. New raids are done within weeks. Someone who is into raiding will play a month and then go on a break for two months. Is this worth leveling a char for 300-400 hours? I don't think so. Even less if you don't enjoy the story.
But, what is a good thing: Old content stays relevant. People do old raids with downscaling their chars for fun and transmogs and old raids stay a challenge. FF14 is like a themepark without any chores to do. You log in and do what you want. A lot of people run dungeons with new players, downscaled to farm money. That's why you have 5 minutes of queue time at 4 o clock in the night as dps. You enter the dungeon as new player together with 3 full epic equiped players. Some people don't even level higher than 40 to go to the casino all day and play minigames and there we come to the community.
Everyone is really nice. You create your character and people give you free pets and pat your head. Wiping your group results in a "It's okay, we just go again!" and everyone cheers. Sometimes it's really funny. As a sprout (newby) tank you go a step and have three fully equipped players behind you, watching like "What is he gonna do now?" and they care for you to have a good experience.
If you don't have that chilled, very relaxed, non-progress oriented mind you won't fit into ff14. If you are only a bit of toxic it will result in a warn and a ban. While a DPS meter exists as third party tool, it's against the TOS, talking about it ingame may result in a ban. Being AFK in a bg, while losing can result in a warning and a ban. Raging after an hour of wiping may result in a warning, if people report you. FF players are nice and they want it to stay that way.

So if you want an rpg in a really fluffy environment without a lot of progress-orientation, play FF. If you want a dungeon crawler with harder and harder challenges, play WoW.

The Story in FF isn't everyones taste. It's all around making everyone your nakama and then defeat every villain with the power of nakama.

[NineSpine]

Yes, and I agree, I never didn't. But it doesn't mean WoW wants to be the only game you play.
Which was the very, very first point I made. Why did you bring it up?
Just why? Explain that to me.
It's the exact opposite of wanting you to keep playing it as it's only game.
THE-EXACT-OPPOSITE.

Time gating pushes you to stay subbed and keep logging in consistently. It gives you FOMO. The fact that you think time gating pushes people to play the first week and then cancel and go play other games is just bizarre on its face.

These things make me want to PUT-THIS-GAME-ASIDE.
Not because they are just "bad" or "unfun", but because I-CAN'T-DO-ANYTHING-IF-IT-ISN'T-THERE-AND-GATED
Just like how I don't run FFXIV dungeons if I don't need or even CAN'T get more tomestones.

What? The gating ensures that people are pushed to engage with the game consistently. Once they are engaged, they play other content besides the time gated content.

For example, lets look at Destiny 2, one of my favorite games, just to be fair. They time gate like crazy. Every week, there is new seasonal content for the first 6 weeks or so of a season. If it all came out at once, I'd knock it all out that week and who knows how much I'd log in after that. By staggering it, it pushes me to engage with the game weekly. Now that I'm here... maybe I'll do some Gambit matches... and aren't there some achievements I can work on while doing this?

Consistent engagement is how you rope people into doing the other busywork in the game. Every season of Destiny, I play a fuckton until the seasonal content runs out. Then I fall off until next season. Am I only doing the seasonal content during those first six weeks? Not at all, I'm engaging with lots of parts of the game, but the time gated content is what is pulling me back in every week and making sure that I log in and get that urge to keep playing.

Your apoplectic confusion at this notion is the best evidence yet for how insanely dishonest and unwilling to have an adult conversation you are.

And it's relevant because? That's the question here. Because the content that *is* time gated, can be enjoyed later without any malus to your gameplay experience whatsoever. It's the story, not gameplay mechanics or whatever relevant to your sub-time, the 3 raid bosses that came later is a special thing, and it would be dishonest to use them as an example, but I don't think you mean that, so what is it?

Off the top of my head, there were numerous time gated aspects of Covenants, including story missions, anima progress, and soul binds. On top of that, torghast wings were time gated and access to parts of the maw were time gated.

They are usually timegating *grinds* and story. Which means they allow players that can't play 24/7 to not fall behind too much.
It's not like you have a fucking shop where you can skip this gating and get better gear than others from it like in D:I. It's not even an *inch* different from other games.

As I said, lots of games use time gating. It isn't always bad, and it isn't only bad games that use it. Just like bedwetting doesn't mean you are going to be a psychopath... but if you are bedwetting, setting fires, and torturing animals, the combination of factors indicates something beyond what the individual issue does.

In this case, you can only complain about one thing, either it's the immense amount of time you need to do something OR the gating that prevents you from going further than that, not both, as WoW doesn't require you to invest a lot of time before you get "gated".

Every single daily and weekly task in WoW is optional as well, so kinda a moot point, isn't it? You obviously wouldn't count a weekly raid-lockout here, would you?
I really don't have to do dailies at all, I just... don't. It's the *exact* same thing as in every other game. There is a task that boosts whatever you are doing... but these tasks are there so you do something more efficiently. That is all.
It is a good thing. What are you trying to point out here? Stuff exist and can be done - that is all you are saying. None of the weekly task get you anywhere significant. They help you with your pet battles, your transmog farming, alt gearing or some shit. I-haven't-done-anything-and-have-just-about-the-best-gear-available.
These things exist for the sake of there being something you can do if you aren't a PvE/PvP god and suck at this game.
FFXIV has this all over the place as well...

I'm talking about time gating content, not time gating gear or power, although there is an argument that putting content behind gear walls nd then time gating the gear is time gating, I'm wiling to let that grey area go because it's not really what I am talking about.

You can do old content in WoW as well and have fun in them.
What is it in FFXIV that remains relevant, but doesn't in WoW?
Point it out.

You can run old instanced content scaled down to it, when you want. Oh, wow has timewalking? But its limited to certain TIMES and otherwise it is GATED OFF... what do we call that... and I wonder why they would do that rather than just making it a full features evergreen system... Could it be that it is exactly what I described above?

Deep dungeons are evergreen content. Ultimates are evergreen content. FATEs are evergreen content. Hunts are evergreen content. Blue Mage is evergreen content. Do you want me to keep going?

So why did you bring it up in the first place? Explain. They patch whatever is bad in the game. Which developer doesn't promise improvements when the community isn't happy about it? If they follow up, what's the problem?

Because Blizzard keeps selling us on "We heard you! We get it this time!" and then not really fixing the real problems. For example, "We hear you on a artifact power, we won't do that again".... "We hear you on azerite power, we won't do that again!"... 'We hear you on anima power and soul ash, we won't do that again!"... Things change and improve, and usually by the end of the expansion things are prettied up. But they made the exact same mistake three expansions in a row.

That's just nonsense. And it just basically means that FF14 has absolutely no build diversity in any way whatsoever. You are making a good thing sound bad and a bad thing sound positive. What's your problem in WoW regarding that?

This has nothing to do with build diversity, at all, like in any way. In FF14, I can say "A full set of 590 is the best I can get with the content I like doing!" and then I can target and achieve that in a pretty straightforward way. That's not the case in WoW. The gear and the systems around it are too granular for anyone who isnt playing the highest end content.

Uhum... and how is it bad in WoW and not in... FFXIV for example... or Destiny 2?
You are, obviously, not talking about raid difficulties because those exist on mass in FFXIV as well. Destiny 2 has multiple difficulties that just scale enemy HP and damage as well or simply make you take more damage and deal less.
The only thing these games don't have is M+, but M+ is a good system and very enjoyable - it also keeps "old content relevant".

You are conflating difficulty settings and content types in FF14. Those aren't the same thing. As far as raids/trials go, no form of content really has more than two difficulties.

Nothing on my list is necessarily bad in complete isolation, and at least one of those things is probably present in virtually every online game. In fact, granular scaling difficulties is one of the most important qualities of Diablo 3 and the game probably wouldn't be very good with it. Destiny very nearly has M+ with their Nightfall system. I'm talking about these things in totality, which is something I have repeated multiple times now and if you wanted to have an honest conversation you would engage my points as such rather than picking one out and saying "BUT BEDWETTING CAN BE PERFECTLY NORMAL SO YOU CANT SAY ItS A tRAIT OF PSYCHOPATHY!"

[Yarathir]

The problem is that ninespines is an nototious bootlicker for FF14. Nothing you say will make him admit he is wrong, and that FF14 is exactly the same as wow. Despite, you know, the creator of the game even admitting it is. Every single one of his perceived "issues" with wow are also present in FF14, b--bb-but its different because....it just is okay?

Hell, Square enix is even copying the abusing of employees, but no one apparantly gives a fuck about that, its only bad whne blizz does it i suppose

So he's a bad cultist because he's not agreeing to your vehement (and wildly incorrect) claim that two games that are different are the same? Just admit you're upset he rebukes you and stick with that, don't try to spin it into something virtuous or lofty.

[Otaka]

You can run old instanced content scaled down to it, when you want. Oh, wow has timewalking? But its limited to certain TIMES and otherwise it is GATED OFF... what do we call that... and I wonder why they would do that rather than just making it a full features evergreen system... Could it be that it is exactly what I described above?

Deep dungeons are evergreen content. Ultimates are evergreen content. FATEs are evergreen content. Hunts are evergreen content. Blue Mage is evergreen content. Do you want me to keep going?

This right here, ladies and gentlemen.

Pretty much every dungeon/raid available in FF14 is doable at any point during the year... there is indeed no stupid timegating that rotates once a month like timewalking in WoW. You dont have to wait 5 months just to get a chance at doing Wotlk-timewalking again... also those old dungeons are shuffled into the daily dungeon randomizer so you end up doing them anyway, this helps new people who are leveling so that they can do dungeons easily since everyone is queueing to them.

Oh and darkmoon faire? yep, can only do that once a month... the equivalant to that in FF14 is the golden saucer and its open ALL THE TIME, with significantly more content than DMF has ever even had.

Their original Torghast is also much older and ive heard there are multiple versions of that in different expansions... they also stay relevant at all times and even after years there are still challenges you can try to beat if you havent yet. Like imagine Mage Tower but Torghast-style floor advancement design.


Its sad how far behind WoW is.... i have hopium that maybe one day WoW reclaims the title again.

[NineSpine]

This right here, ladies and gentlemen.

Pretty much every dungeon/raid available in FF14 is doable at any point during the year... there is indeed no stupid timegating that rotates once a month like timewalking in WoW. You dont have to wait 5 months just to get a chance at doing Wotlk-timewalking again... also those old dungeons are shuffled into the daily dungeon randomizer so you end up doing them anyway, this helps new people who are leveling so that they can do dungeons easily since everyone is queueing to them.

Oh and darkmoon faire? yep, can only do that once a month... the equivalant to that in FF14 is the golden saucer and its open ALL THE TIME, with significantly more content than DMF has ever even had.

Their original Torghast is also much older and ive heard there are multiple versions of that in different expansions... they also stay relevant at all times and even after years there are still challenges you can try to beat if you havent yet. Like imagine Mage Tower but Torghast-style floor advancement design.


Its sad how far behind WoW is.... i have hopium that maybe one day WoW reclaims the title again.

Torghast is an interesting example. Torghast is so much more detailed and complex and nuanced than FF14s version of it (deep dungeons).... but somehow it's still more fun in FF14. It's kind of a great example of the overall issue. WoW has a lot of bells and whistles but there is something missing at the heart of it these days.

I didn't even think of the Gold Saucer. It's so good.

[Ghost of Cow]

Pretty much every dungeon/raid available in FF14 is doable at any point during the year... there is indeed no stupid timegating that rotates once a month like timewalking in WoW. You dont have to wait 5 months just to get a chance at doing Wotlk-timewalking again... also those old dungeons are shuffled into the daily dungeon randomizer so you end up doing them anyway, this helps new people who are leveling so that they can do dungeons easily since everyone is queueing to them.

See, I would tend to disagree with this.

Sure, XIV dungeons scale, but you have no reason to ever touch them outside of one leveling roulette a day, if you even want to bother with that. Also, the XP doesn't scale well, so once you've done that one leveling dungeon you're just back to spamming your highest level dungeon over and over for leveling. Not to mention the scaling system just removes all your abilities and usually knocks your gameplay down to the lowbie 1-2 combo state.

WoW, on the other hand, has come a long way with their scaling systems. Want to do any specific set of dungeons while leveling? They all scale to your level now through Chromie Time. (Up to level 50) Wanna hit all the WoD dungeons, then go back and do some Wrath ones? That works, they'll all be scaled to your level with appropriate loot and XP. And you'll keep your full kit of abilities.

Granted, once you're at endgame both games kinda narrow their focus to the current endgame dungeons. Yeah, WoW you can do timewalking every (other?) week for some relevant loot, and XIV you can technically do leveling roulette for tomes but Expert kinda makes that less than ideal. But neither option is particularly stellar in terms of scaling at that point.

Oh and darkmoon faire? yep, can only do that once a month... the equivalant to that in FF14 is the golden saucer and its open ALL THE TIME, with significantly more content than DMF has ever even had.

Yeah, Gold Saucer is great. Blows any of WoW's stuff out of the water.

Their original Torghast is also much older and ive heard there are multiple versions of that in different expansions... they also stay relevant at all times and even after years there are still challenges you can try to beat if you havent yet. Like imagine Mage Tower but Torghast-style floor advancement design.

There's PotD and HoH. They're actually fairly barebones as far as mechanics go, but they're an effective (if grindy as hell) way to level. Solo runs are also something that people do for the titles, but it's not for everyone as the runs are really long.

[eschatological]

PotD and HoH are interesting in concept, but not in execution. The meta of them has been to not even care about chests except the ones you get on the way to getting the bare minimum of enemies killed to activate the gateway. You rush to the exit, killing everything on the way, and if you still need more mobs, you look in nearby adjoining rooms.

If you start hunting for chests for buffs or something (not really necessary once your aetherial weapon/armor are leveled with the rogue-like mechanic), others will be disapproving. They won't say anything, but they'll also just sit in the exit gateway and not help you at all, silently judging you, since you need every player in the gateway before it activates.

[Wrecktangle]

I do basically nothing in WoW but play for ~3 hours a week and all my gear except the legendary slots are at max level or one ilvl-step below it. (that means way better than heroic raiding gear) and has been for quite a long time as well.
And I didn't even raid this tier.

Since it's not about "gating" gear or anything, as "the only video game you play" means that you invest a lot of *time* in that game, that statement is simply not true.

My experience echo's this as well, granted it's ~6 hours a week for me.

Nobody said anything about things being "mathematically impossible" except you. I don't care what the best 100 people in the world do. It is meaningless. I care how it impacts the average person who does the content. If the average person who regularly does the content cannot complete it without X gear level, then that is the gear wall.

I mean you using gear wall as an absolute sounds functionally identical to "mathematically impossible" but that aside the average savage raider doesn't full clear on week 1 either, hell they take weeks usually to get to floor 3, the real wall to most casual raiders. You know how they get there? They get X gear level, the gear wall as it were. It's literally identical in both games.

Just out of curiosity do you actually raid savage? pug or static, because your takes are just so wildly different than my experiences in FF14.

This is going to vary by group, but the norm for a mythic raider is going to be an expectation to do considerable amounts of M+ and heroic raiding, on top of multiple nights per week progressing. This is on top of the usual chores Blizzard has put in the content for the last few expansions.

I'm not an average mythic raider, I'm a top 100 US player and not once has "considerable amounts of M+ or heroic raiding" been on my menu. Heroic becomes optional for us after usually the first clear, and while a ton of people do M+ a lot, I usually find it's because they enjoy it rather than feel compelled. Me personally I usually do my one key for the week and logoff, because I'm a filthy casual.

You are either lying or mistaken. What you describe is not physically possible. It's certainly possible to GET TO a point where you play ~3 hours per week, but the idea that someone is clearing mythic and getting BiS by consistently playing ~3 hours per week is absurd.

I won't comment on the ~3 hour mark, but I play ~ 6 hours a week when I'm raiding/subbed. I don't have BiS, but I have BiS enough for me and post up solid ~90% logs, 95+% by ilvl. I literally barely play either game and achieve this in both.

Unless something has changed (I haven't played the game in a long time) this is wrong. This is a video I came across a while back regarding new players and how WoW's design philosophy hurts them (it's a short video):



WoW does not respect my time. If I want to take a break for 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months, whatever I am falling further and further behind. If I'm a new player, I have an enormous mountain to climb to be able to do current content. To be clear, this person put in some serious work to try and re-join the game. He spent hours grinding up all of the honor gear for PvP. The problem is that it wasn't enough. He needed to do hours of Torghast for his legendary, to do his covenant, to work on his conduits...so he just quit instead.

WoW expects you to play it and to continue playing it. FFXIV has similar problems in some ways (such as needing to do story to do current content) but WoW is truly on its own level when it comes to shit you need to do to play. I felt punished when I took a break from WoW.

I am usually able to catch up in 1-2 weeks time of playing whenever I come back. I don't PVP regularly so I won't comment on that, but IME that grind is much harder/longer than PVE. I have never found either game to "expect me to continue playing it".

What do you mean... you just run some Mythic+. And I didn't say "BiS". I said way better than heroic raiding gear, which is enough to clear mythic raids if you actually want to as only the very last few bosses actually drop higher ilvl

Honestly, I know you're getting a lot of shit, but my experience is pretty much on par with yours.

That video is super dishonest if you consider the context here in this thread.
You have to do shit to do shit. That's the case in FFXIV as well. You don't just have "gil", you don't have just your gatherer up, you don't just get your gear from PvP. You also do shit there. I clear FFXIV savage every tier and *I* don't have Gil to buy gear. It's *way* too expensive to do so and it takes time and weeks before the prices fall down.

Agreed, you don't just show up one day in FF14 and be fully geared and ready to jump into savage. There's prep work, that while small for an established player, is still prep work and not something to be dismissed.

Im not sure we are talking about the same thing at this point. By the time M+ has paid off that kind of gear, you are way way way way way into the tier. If your argument is that after 3 months of +15 weekly chest rewards you will have good gear for mythic, sure, but I don't know what that has to do with what I said.

How is this different than tomestone gear? By the time tomes have paid off you're weeks into the tier.

The design punishes you very, very hard for falling behind, such as waiting a month to come in and try the new raid or get going in M+. You start off VERY substantially behind everyone else no matter what level you want to raid or do M+ at. None of this is debatable. You guys get so weird about this stuff. There are upsides to this design. It isn't even a value judgement. It's just a fact of how the game works and is designed.

Ok but like, hi I'm a fresh end game character a month into the tier, new to the game and broke, firstly, there's few if any learning parties left, secondly I'm broke and can't afford crafted so I have to wait on weekly drops/caps to get gear to join, if people even take me since my ilvl is low and there are abundant higher ilvl players to pick from.

I don't know why it is so important to people like you to categorically deny basic, clear difference between two games. It's like you have some kind of chip on your shoulder and you can't stand to give even an inch. It honestly starts to feel like a defense mechanism after awhile.

This is just a comical statement coming from you TBH lol.

Let's just say this: I was an average, at best, mythic raider. World 300-500 for most of the last decade. I peaked at U.S. 8 in Cataclysm, which came out in fucking 2010, and that's because most of the top guilds were banned for abusing LFR, which had just come out, for trinket stacking etc.

I can count on one hand the number of mythic bosses where I've hit enrage while everyone does mechanics perfectly. It's never happened on heroic. I think the curve is pretty good in WoW that you have more than enough gear from just normal playing of the game for your skill level such that you can kill it when you get to it. There is no effective gear wall - there's only a skill wall.

Also, those "top 100" mirror the top statics which clear Ultimate. WoW has a much higher, exponential curve of "# of guilds who clear X boss" because the gear nerfs the content, but the beginning of the curves look exactly the same among the top groups. I totally agree with the idea that Ultimate holds its difficulty well past that of mythic in WoW, because it's only "nerfed" in later expansions when the ilvl you're synced to raises to something higher than when it came out. In terms of "endgame hard raiding" WoW is much *better* to the "average" raider. Even scrub guilds can kill 3 or so mythic bosses by the end of the tier.

Well said.

Enrage is not the only indicator of throughput. The tolerance for mistakes gets higher and higher the better your gear is.

How is that different than FF14? This is literally identical.

Generally speaking, the second half of Heroic and the first half of Mythic are not very different from a complexity perspective, but massive numbers of people clear Heroic very early and very, very, very few people clear the first half of Mythic very quickly. Why? Because there is a very steep gear curve. Can you overcome this with skill? Of course, but that doesn't change that it is CLEARLY tuned for gear above what is available day 1 of the raid.

Agreed on the complexity piece, but hard disagree on the reasoning why. Recruiting for mythic because lack of flex is why heroic raiders don't rush into it. It's a pain in the ass. The first few bosses literally roll over to successful heroic guilds, even without a huge ilvl bump. I have not found the gear requirement in early mythic to be ANYTHING meaningful.

[MsSideEye]

1 wow major patch is about the same as 5 FF14 major patches. So no FF14 does not do more.

Last I checked, 14 doesn't flat out just remove entire raids, storylines, and more to end an Expansion early because they decided 'Mmmm, this expansion is a bust, let's get to the next one ASAP'. WoW's done that... what, 3 times now? (Wod, Shadowlands... and I think BFA even has entire cut content like that as well?)

Are you kidding me? There are so many systems in FFXIV where I have no fucking clue how they work until a random person is like "oh hey, what do you think of X?" Like, I remember leveling the Firmament, had no clue what it was for, was leveling my gatherers "normally" and someone is like......"uh, why aren't you leveling in the Firmament?"

There's whole systems which I just didn't know about. I didn't know about desynthesis until I hit 90. I didn't know I could meld my own gear til 90. Etc, etc.

While I won't deny that there are systems in 14 that you aren't aware about for a while and some that have been left behind as the rest of the game has moved forward (Hi Squadrons), there's one major big difference here between 14 and WoW that needs to be established. Unless they changed it in WoW recently, they may have and I wouldn't know, there is nothing in the game that tells you straight out when these a quest that unlocks a feature for you in game. You're expected to grab the quests at the start of an expansion (with a pop up as you open the game even telling you to not forget it!) and after that, they kinda expect you to be aware of it already.

FF14, on the other hand, has anything that unlocks a feature for you within the game itself, be it a new class, a new dungeon,a new side content like Triple Triad or the Artifact weapons, every single one of those has a Blue quest to signify that 'Hey, this is important!'. What's more is that roughly 80% of those have tutorials that goes along side doing those that tell you what you need and will give you a general idea of how to move forward.

Let's not ignore the fact that WoW has put in entire systems into it's game that have been completely scrapped once an expansion is over, leaving a huge swath of it's content that was designed to support it as useless. The Legion Weapons, the Azarite Gear (and Necklace!), and I fully expect Covenants and Torgath to either be deactivated/useless once Shadowlands is officially done with. That's not to say the fact that 14 hasn't also removed stuff either, but it's very rarely something that was expansion defining.

[KrayZ33]

Let's not ignore the fact that WoW has put in entire systems into it's game that have been completely scrapped once an expansion is over, leaving a huge swath of it's content that was designed to support it as useless. The Legion Weapons, the Azarite Gear (and Necklace!), and I fully expect Covenants and Torgath to either be deactivated/useless once Shadowlands is officially done with. That's not to say the fact that 14 hasn't also removed stuff either, but it's very rarely something that was expansion defining.

I don't want to bash in FFXIV because I play it as well every single patch... but what is, in FF14's case, "expansion" defining. Because I don't believe that even exists. There hasn't been a system like Covenants, Legion Weapons, Azerite Gear.... something you spend your expansion interacting with, in this game at all, has there?

What I'm saying is, you can rightfully say that about WoW, but the only reason you can't say that in FFXIV is because it didn't even reach the starting line. The game is essentially the same with no "freshness" added to it in that regard since HW. Most of the time, the legion weapons and such are for classes so that they feel good and fresh and new. FFXIV doesn't have that.

The stuff that comes close to it (like Eureka-ish systems, even though I wouldn't even count that, because you don't interact with it at all in the first place) will be forgotten as well.

[Stormwolf64]

Problem with FFXIV raiding is how absurd the bosses and abilities are. Visual queues basically mean nothing. It has a high "wtf happened" total wipe factor. Maybe you stood on the wrong pixel at the wrong time and the screen just goes black. Either you look to 20 minute videos or use cacpot (ffxiv deadlybossmods) or it'll be a tough time in savage

[MsSideEye]

I don't want to bash in FFXIV because I play it as well every single patch... but what is, in FF14's case, "expansion" defining. Because I don't believe that even exists. There hasn't been a system like Covenants, Legion Weapons, Azerite Gear.... something you spend your expansion interacting with, in this game at all, has there?

What I'm saying is, you can rightfully say that about WoW, but the only reason you can't say that in FFXIV is because it didn't even reach the starting line. The game is essentially the same with no "freshness" added to it in that regard since HW. Most of the time, the legion weapons and such are for classes so that they feel good and fresh and new. FFXIV doesn't have that.

The stuff that comes close to it (like Eureka-ish systems, even though I wouldn't even count that, because you don't interact with it at all in the first place) will be forgotten as well.

Honestly? I'll take good game balance and regular updates from my developers over 'Oooh, shiny' any day. I could care less that we're getting similar content every expansion, because you know what? I actually KNOW what I'm getting from 14. Shadowlands was sold as this massive, world changing expansion... and remind me just how much of it was cut? Probably one full raid tier MINIMUM if not more? Was the Covenants and Torgast REALLY worth it, knowing that in 6 months time they're going to be absolutely dead content?

And here's the thing, there ARE still 'Expansion defining' aspects for their content. Heavensward introduced Flying and established the system to unlock it that is used today. Even if you don't count it, Eureka is still a massive thing that was new to the game that didn't exist before that got added in Stormblood. And we got an arguably better version in Shadowbringers with Bozja, so an update to something that was established an expansion before.

Shadowbringers also introduced the Bi-colored Gems/Fate system, giving more actual reasons to do fates in the world and carried on in Endwalker, and the Trust system, which turned out to be so popular and useful to players that in effort to make the story more accessible to players they're going back and adding it to all the old story dungeons in the game.

And that's not even mentioning the upcoming Island Sanctuary OR the Criterion dungeons that are upcoming and we're going to be learning about this next live letter. Oh, and let's not forget the Adventurer Plate which, while a relatively simple thing, has probably sparked more creativity and fun I've seen in a long time that isn't related to player housing.

Now, does all this have the same impact as 'HEY, EVERYONE, HERE's THIS COMPLETELY NEW SYSTEM THAT WE DESIGNED SPECIFICLY FOR THIS EXPANSION'? No. But I frankly think smaller features, things that are constantly used, updated, or new versions of the same idea (In the case of Eureka/Bozja) are flat out the better option and have more long lasting appeal.

[Wrecktangle]

Honestly? I'll take good game balance and regular updates from my developers over 'Oooh, shiny' any day. I could care less that we're getting similar content every expansion, because you know what? I actually KNOW what I'm getting from 14. Shadowlands was sold as this massive, world changing expansion... and remind me just how much of it was cut? Probably one full raid tier MINIMUM if not more? Was the Covenants and Torgast REALLY worth it, knowing that in 6 months time they're going to be absolutely dead content?

I've kinda had this discussion before, cited a bunch of data and examples and frankly FF14's balance isn't as great as people think it is. Yes it's definitively better than WoWs, but it also has about 10% of the total knobs and borderline offensive homogenization. To be abundantly clear, this is not me saying this is a bad thing, but I think it's important to mention. With how their game is designed, their balance really should be pretty much spot on, and frankly it isn't.

WoWs balance on the other hand is surprisingly decent the last time I did the exercise, but generally is skewed by a few small outliers (one useless spec, like comically poor performing for no reason), and like 2 specs that have no business being 10%+ over the 3rd place spec, but the entire middle section is usually very competitive against each other. Given how many performance tuning knobs their are I'm usually surprised how good the balance is discounting the outliers.

Before people jump on me and say blah blah blah, FF14 has had occasions of their own outliers over the years too. Sometimes not fixing them for entire expansions (WoW syndrome as it were).

And here's the thing, there ARE still 'Expansion defining' aspects for their content. Heavensward introduced Flying and established the system to unlock it that is used today. Even if you don't count it, Eureka is still a massive thing that was new to the game that didn't exist before that got added in Stormblood. And we got an arguably better version in Shadowbringers with Bozja, so an update to something that was established an expansion before.

Shadowbringers also introduced the Bi-colored Gems/Fate system, giving more actual reasons to do fates in the world and carried on in Endwalker, and the Trust system, which turned out to be so popular and useful to players that in effort to make the story more accessible to players they're going back and adding it to all the old story dungeons in the game.

And that's not even mentioning the upcoming Island Sanctuary OR the Criterion dungeons that are upcoming and we're going to be learning about this next live letter. Oh, and let's not forget the Adventurer Plate which, while a relatively simple thing, has probably sparked more creativity and fun I've seen in a long time that isn't related to player housing.

Now, does all this have the same impact as 'HEY, EVERYONE, HERE's THIS COMPLETELY NEW SYSTEM THAT WE DESIGNED SPECIFICLY FOR THIS EXPANSION'? No. But I frankly think smaller features, things that are constantly used, updated, or new versions of the same idea (In the case of Eureka/Bozja) are flat out the better option and have more long lasting appeal.

Eh, out of your examples the only thing that really qualifies IMO is Trusts. They've done a great job with them at growing and supporting the system.

[Ghost of Cow]

I've kinda had this discussion before, cited a bunch of data and examples and frankly FF14's balance isn't as great as people think it is. Yes it's definitively better than WoWs, but it also has about 10% of the total knobs and borderline offensive homogenization. To be abundantly clear, this is not me saying this is a bad thing, but I think it's important to mention. With how their game is designed, their balance really should be pretty much spot on, and frankly it isn't.

WoWs balance on the other hand is surprisingly decent the last time I did the exercise, but generally is skewed by a few small outliers (one useless spec, like comically poor performing for no reason), and like 2 specs that have no business being 10%+ over the 3rd place spec, but the entire middle section is usually very competitive against each other. Given how many performance tuning knobs their are I'm usually surprised how good the balance is discounting the outliers.

Before people jump on me and say blah blah blah, FF14 has had occasions of their own outliers over the years too. Sometimes not fixing them for entire expansions (WoW syndrome as it were).

Yeah, the balance thing is one of those topics that gets repeated so much that everyone just starts taking it as gospel, but the data just doesn't bear it out - at least not to the extent that people claim.

And at the risk of just repeating you - of course XIV's balance should be great, their job and encounter design is such that there really shouldn't be any surprises or unexpected outliers. It's so rigid that people in the parsing community had a small freak-out over P3S because people might be "padding" with DPS on adds or something!

[A Chozo]

People who think FFXIV has no timegating / FOMO here are delusional.

-Special material nodes only available X times per day, can't farm;
-Gotta sub and enter your house every 2 months or Yoshi-P demolishes it;
-Can't farm Aglaia because it's only 1 piece of gear per week;
-Can't farm more tomestones because of weekly cap;
-Can't chain roulettes because the bonus is daily;
-Lots of stuff shown at launch like the Island Sanctuary are still missing, postponed to fill content gaps into later patches.
-Gotta log in for every event otherwise you don't get the special emotes and gear, which go to the cash shop;

Both WoW, FFXIV and even Guild Wars suffer from shitty timegating. I won't be disingenuous and pretend FFXIV has no timegating like y'all are doing. It has. As much as WoW and other mmorpgs. It doesn't stop the game for being fun for me, but it's there.

[KrayZ33]

Is the island Sanctuary actually a housing 2.0 thing where I need crafter stuff to actually enjoy it?
Did they say anything regarding that?
Since it's been mentioned right now, I thought I'd ask.