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.