Final fantasy XIV any good?

[Kem0sabe]

It's very strange how FFXIV has suddenly, after all these years, become viral on every major gaming channel, especially those more focused on rpg/MMORPG like Belluar and Asmongold, both of which are almost WoW exclusive and then it's all FFXIV or videos comparing it to WoW and how much better it is.

Looks like Square is spreading some money or wow just doesn't push enough views anymore and they are looking to diversify their audience.

 

[Caim]

WoW having turned to shit in the last few years sure helped, but it's curious that it's Final Fantasy picks up the slack like this, yes. I get that it's not Runescape that's scratching the itch, but why not Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online to do it? I doubt that it's stealth marketing by Squenix.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

WoW having turned to shit in the last few years sure helped, but it's curious that it's Final Fantasy picks up the slack like this, yes. I get that it's not Runescape that's scratching the itch, but why not Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online to do it? I doubt that it's stealth marketing by Squenix.

weebs don't judge games based on quality

 

[vonAchdorf]

Because FF XIV has catbois and girls in sexy outfits.

 

[Advent]

It's a tab targetting MMO that also has a good amount of PvE to do, so it's an easy switch on a gameplay level.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

FFXIV becoming the new hot MMORPG will only further ensure this genre remains stagnant and soulless.

 

[mediocrepoet]

WoW having turned to shit in the last few years sure helped, but it's curious that it's Final Fantasy picks up the slack like this, yes. I get that it's not Runescape that's scratching the itch, but why not Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online to do it? I doubt that it's stealth marketing by Squenix.

FFXIV is a traditional action bar MMO like WoW. TESO is more of an action MMO and GW2 has different mechanics that are less class based than say WoW or FFXIV. There's a fairly clear line between WoW and FFXIV in style whereas the other ones are a bit muddier. The closest one out of what you listed would be GW2.

Otherwise, there's something like SWTOR, but that's a different theme instead of fantasy, so again it's not as clear of a relationship.

 

[Delterius]

but it's curious that it's Final Fantasy picks up the slack like this, yes.

I can explain that. FFXIV is a better realized version of what Retail WoW is. You have fewer bosses overall, but the hardest fights are longer, of a better quality and generally harder than anything in WoW. The 8man party format also gives each person enough responsibility to really feel important. Old content is a valid challenge for everyone and people are always doing prog on old fights with min ilvl enabled so that gives you a giant breadth of content that you can pursue at your leisure. The player economy is still valid as well, with crafting and gathering well integrated into the content and being a game unto themselves. Casual players get to enjoy the auxiliary content as well, such as the deep dungeons, relic grinds and 24man raids. But what really matters and I can't stress this enough is that FFXIV simply lacks most of Blizzard's bullshit. In the last WoW patch Blizzard invalidated most of the former patch's month long grind by telling people they have to re-create their BiS legendaries so that they can add gem slots to them. It is insane. And the reason why FFXIV doesn't have that is because it doesn't have to need to try and keep you subbed forever. The game's lead says on interviews all the time 'nah man just log in, do the new story quest/dungeons and unsub its ok'. There's also the novelty of playing in a warm weeby world that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Of course this hardly matters if you have a fundamental issue with the game's design. I don't like where they've taken Healers for the past few expansions so I don't play it. But I think these are the reasons why WoWfugees are a thing.

 

[d1r]

I wish FF14 had open world PVP, I really really do.

 

[Caim]

It kind of says a lot about the state of the genre where the main pull of the fastest growing game is "it's not as shit as the rest".

 

[Kem0sabe]

I can explain that. FFXIV is a better realized version of what Retail WoW is. You have fewer bosses overall, but the hardest fights are longer, of a better quality and generally harder than anything in WoW. The 8man party format also gives each person enough responsibility to really feel important. Old content is a valid challenge for everyone and people are always doing prog on old fights with min ilvl enabled so that gives you a giant breadth of content that you can pursue at your leisure. The player economy is still valid as well, with crafting and gathering well integrated into the content and being a game unto themselves. Casual players get to enjoy the auxiliary content as well, such as the deep dungeons, relic grinds and 24man raids. But what really matters and I can't stress this enough is that FFXIV simply lacks most of Blizzard's bullshit. In the last WoW patch Blizzard invalidated most of the former patch's month long grind by telling people they have to re-create their BiS legendaries so that they can add gem slots to them. It is insane. And the reason why FFXIV doesn't have that is because it doesn't have to need to try and keep you subbed forever. The game's lead says on interviews all the time 'nah man just log in, do the new story quest/dungeons and unsub its ok'. There's also the novelty of playing in a warm weeby world that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Of course this hardly matters if you have a fundamental issue with the game's design. I don't like where they've taken Healers for the past few expansions so I don't play it. But I think these are the reasons why WoWfugees are a thing.

For all the shit wow itemization gets, FFXIV is much much worse. The items are completely devoid of anything interesting, with minimal gains in the upgrades.

Playing TBC classic is much more appealing than playing either retail or Final Fantasy, and it will be even better with Wotlk.

 

[Delterius]

The items are completely devoid of anything interesting

That is irrelevant to the analysis, really. You're arguing with someone that posted about 'toxic levels of streamlining' in FFXIV's class design. You don't have to convince me of the game's flaws. And the more you try to the more you miss the point. This isn't about me, its about the people migrating from WoW to FFXIV.

FFXIV is a straightforward multiplayer game. To a player who only cares about hard fights then item prog is irrelevant. Just give them all the mechanics associated with their class from the getgo and they'll spend weeks wiping through Ultimates and they'll be satisfied with their game time. Vanilla, TBC and, to a lesser extent, Wotlk were MMOs which approached an RPG experience. In those games, interacting with the Auction House or being a crafter yourself or finally acquiring Season N's special tier set with an ability that makes a different spec of your class not only viable but powerful is very satisfying as well.

That you enjoy TBC more than Retail WoW or FFXIV is not a new set of data. It is part of the analysis already. People who jumped ship from Retail WoW made a choice between these two markets, a considerable amount of them picked Classic and TBC Classic. It was a natural choice. Another considerable amount is now picking FFXIV. Part of it is the generous trial period. Part of it is the need for novelty. Part of it are the famous streamers making the change. A handful of people probably need to take a break from Blizzard's writing. Nonetheless I think the core issue is that Retail WoW is killing itself. In its own terms. To paraphrase the meme, it is bad for what it is.

Shadowlands did some important strides towards level scaling that redeems old content, the level squish and the overal improvements to class design. However it ends up being the worst of both worlds. It carries the trappings of an RPG without doing anything special with it. It imposes on the player to spend months grinding content that quickly loses its luster only to throw that grind on the trash. Retail WoW is meant to be a casual experience, something that can even complement Classic for some people. But what it does is casually disrespect the player's time. FFXIV doesn't care if you log off for months at a time.

Wether this second exodus from WoW will stand the test of time remains to be seen. I believe that a lot of these people will come into terms with WoW's death and will quit MMOs altogether. What I think is evident however is that there's a market for FFXIV and another for Vanilla/TBC/Wotlk WoW. Retail WoW better adapt, offer something entirely new or continue to decline.

 

[vonAchdorf]

It's so popular that their digital store ran out of "copies" for a day.

 

[Caim]

It's so popular that their digital store ran out of "copies" for a day.

More like they balance out how many new accounts can be made on servers to balance the load and they were getting bumrushed by new players, so they had to put the kibbosh on making new characters for a bit.

 

[Seethe]

I can explain that. FFXIV is a better realized version of what Retail WoW is. You have fewer bosses overall, but the hardest fights are longer, of a better quality and generally harder than anything in WoW. The 8man party format also gives each person enough responsibility to really feel important. Old content is a valid challenge for everyone and people are always doing prog on old fights with min ilvl enabled so that gives you a giant breadth of content that you can pursue at your leisure. The player economy is still valid as well, with crafting and gathering well integrated into the content and being a game unto themselves. Casual players get to enjoy the auxiliary content as well, such as the deep dungeons, relic grinds and 24man raids. But what really matters and I can't stress this enough is that FFXIV simply lacks most of Blizzard's bullshit. In the last WoW patch Blizzard invalidated most of the former patch's month long grind by telling people they have to re-create their BiS legendaries so that they can add gem slots to them. It is insane. And the reason why FFXIV doesn't have that is because it doesn't have to need to try and keep you subbed forever. The game's lead says on interviews all the time 'nah man just log in, do the new story quest/dungeons and unsub its ok'. There's also the novelty of playing in a warm weeby world that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Of course this hardly matters if you have a fundamental issue with the game's design. I don't like where they've taken Healers for the past few expansions so I don't play it. But I think these are the reasons why WoWfugees are a thing.

For all the shit wow itemization gets, FFXIV is much much worse. The items are completely devoid of anything interesting, with minimal gains in the upgrades.

Playing TBC classic is much more appealing than playing either retail or Final Fantasy, and it will be even better with Wotlk.

It also has ZERO class customization.

 

[zielakxar]

Recently I've spent 3 months with a buddy in FF XIV trying to find mmo to play for longer time and get invested in. We kinda forced ourselves through leveling phase believing there will be something better to do afterwards. Long story short - there wasn't. Leveling is an absolute chore, story is boring as hell - somewhere in the halfway we started to skipp all the dialogues/videos. Then the Heavensward expansion hit us hard. The momment we spent whole evening watching story videos that suddenly became unskippable and none of us found them interesting we realized game is just overadvertised and boring.

 

[Saerain]

It's so confusing and disappointing that FFXIV is the roleplaying Mecca when I can't give a single shit about the setting.

 

[Advent]

It's so confusing and disappointing that FFXIV is the roleplaying Mecca when I can't give a single shit about the setting.

I don't think the RP authority ranges further than the ERP.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

It also has ZERO class customization.

Yep.

In Lord of the Rings online you had a skill tree to customize your character (probably in other MMOs as well). FFXIV characters are very cookie cutter-esque in comparison. You do have Materia for gear, but that just feels like min-maxing.

Otherwise I don't have too many complaints. The UI could use some work... A large specialty bag specifically for crafting ingredients would be great, because sorting all of that junk is a real chore... The mog station (game store) could really use some work... And some other little things to make crafting more comfy.

 

[J1M]

It's very strange how FFXIV has suddenly, after all these years, become viral on every major gaming channel, especially those more focused on rpg/MMORPG like Belluar and Asmongold, both of which are almost WoW exclusive and then it's all FFXIV or videos comparing it to WoW and how much better it is.

Looks like Square is spreading some money or wow just doesn't push enough views anymore and they are looking to diversify their audience.

It makes sense when you consider that the prominent WoW streamers spent a lot more time talking about switching to FFXIV than they did actually playing it. Even people like Bellular and his sidekick openly admit to never playing any FFXIV endgame when it was timely. They still spent weeks of talking about how much better that game did things compared to WoW.

Basically, WoW streamers are like a teenage girl trying to make her boyfriend jealous by flirting with the new guy in the hopes that her real boyfriend will notice, get jealous, and treat her better.

 

[MajorMace]

Wether this second exodus from WoW will stand the test of time remains to be seen. I believe that a lot of these people will come into terms with WoW's death and will quit MMOs altogether. What I think is evident however is that there's a market for FFXIV and another for Vanilla/TBC/Wotlk WoW. Retail WoW better adapt, offer something entirely new or continue to decline.

I'm much less pessimistic towards WoW retail. Its biggest shortcoming is also its biggest strength in this current situation. The fact they xpacs are basically standalone games which overwrite most of the content/trials etc of the former xpacs is a huge plus when the goal is to make wow great again.

On another note, I've played FFXIV during the last two weeks. I only played through the base game but here's a quick rundown :

PROS
- Very arcade game. You can log in, launch a trial on any sort of difficulty (there are quite a lot) and have a couple of fights.
- Boss fights. Simply the best designed set pieces I've witnessed in the genre. And apparently it gets better in the xpacs.
- Hard mode for dungeons means a whole new dungeon which simply takes place in the same location as the normal version. New enemies, bosses, and sometimes a whole new route. I really appreciate the fact they didn't just bloat stats and call it a day.
- Leveling is quick, story-driven and makes it pointless to create an add. You can only go through the story once and have all classes maxed up.
- Strong community feeling. Housing, Fashion, Events make it a cool social experience.
- An actual FF game. This isn't just a pro for FF fans, as I'm not simply talking about fan service, but FFXIV really went back to the roots of the series. The closer games to this one, from my experience, are the first 3 games of the series. These were blobbers where you'd create your party of 4, save the world by restoring crystals, fighting baddies and their summons etc. It's basically FF1 : the mmorpg.

CONS
- A single player game with multiplayer content. Not unlike pretty much every other PvE mmorpg, the game is almost completely doable solo, with matchmaking for mandatory group stuff. You can go from beginning to end without uttering a word. It's quite paradoxal considering the strong community around the game.
- PvP is clearly not the focus.
- A disjointed and corridorish world. I read it's due to the PS3 limitation from back then, but the areas of the base game are mega small.
- Weeb shit everywhere. The universe is difficult to take seriously when a child-looking girl rules over the "megarich-merchant-city-of-the-desert" for example.
- Dungeons are corridors with 3-4 bosses and mobs in between. I'm from the Wow Vanilla school, I went in BRD, I visited BRS and Maraudon, endured Zul Farrak runs. I just can't for the life of me fathom the 2010's school of dungeon design in MMORPG. It's shit, like in TESO, WOW RETAIL etc. Fuck this.

Overall the game is quite good. I doubt it's the kind of game you play during more than a few weeks at a time. But it sure feels like you'd get back to it for every peice of content. Boss fights are very well done, and I would love a boss rush mode.

 

[Caim]

- A disjointed and corridorish world. I read it's due to the PS3 limitation from back then, but the areas of the base game are mega small.

I'm not far into the game yet, but the areas I've been in so far feel very... empty. I've been in a fair chunk of the Thanalan areas (around the city of the tiny merchants) but I think that only half of the space is used to do something in, and the rest isn't even just filler for in between the interesting areas.

 

[Mojobeard]

Thread's main complaints are still "It's weeby" and "I think I have an opinion at level 20" and "I went in wanting to hate everything and I hated everything, do I fit in yet?". Noted.
It's a themepark MMO, best one every made. If you wished for another kind of MMO, it is not that.

a child-looking girl rules over the "megarich-merchant-city-of-the-desert"

She's not much more than a figurehead, which is a pretty major plot point. She makes speeches and has a family name. Nothing is done without the merchants agreeing to it. And the big military force of that city is Raubahn's personal army, while only the handful of Paladins belong to the princess.
Lalas are even used sparingly as important characters, since I'm pretty sure they knew exactly how hard they are to take seriously.
And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

PvP is clearly not the focus

Which is a good thing. No one likes minding their own business and have some jackass camp their corpse for the whole day. A day they paid a sub for. There's a reason PvP MMOs are going the way of the dodo.

Dungeons are corridors with 3-4 bosses and mobs in between

This is what I personally dislike. From all the things they stole from FFXI, they didn't take the dungeon design. They're actual dungeons you get lost in and murdered by enemies 50 levels higher than you if you're not careful.
That game is seriously good, but barring the endgame stuff, pretty dead nowadays.

I'm not far into the game yet, but the areas I've been in so far feel very... empty.

I mean that's every MMO. They're big. XIV's base game is at least pretty compact, and there is a reason for most areas. There's the hunting log, hunts, FATES, levequests, gathering spots, sidequests, job quests.
So no, you're far into the game yet. That's a pointless complaint.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Oh my god, somebody is defending this shitty, shitty game.

 

[moleman]

Oh my god, somebody is defending this shitty, shitty game.

Audiatur et altera pars.