15 Years of WoW vs 1 Year of FFXIV

over the last few weeks i've started to notice a lot of familiar faces from the world of warcraft community taking another look at final fantasy 14. so today i want to talk about the differences between these two games that while sharing many similar concepts diverge in their execution of the mmo genre as a fan of both games and 15-year veteran of wow i've often thought about this subject as i now play through final fantasy 14 on a near daily basis since august of last year i frequently get asked to compare the two and the simplest way i've been able to do so is the following world of warcraft is an mmorpg while final fantasy 14 is an rpg mmo what does this mean besides hopefully sounding clever in final fantasy 14 the entire creative process the direction the core concepts all of it are approached from an intrinsically different design philosophy than that of warcraft so it doesn't mean you can't enjoy both it just means they're made for two very different gamers let me explain i think most people have an understanding of what an mmorpg is beyond any sort of definition there are expectations as to what that experience will be which is why after playing final fantasy 14 i've come to call it an rpg mmo because while all the multiplayer elements are there i believe they aren't entirely necessary if the mmo were removed and all we were left with was the rpg the story the music the gameplay it feels like the player would still have a complete experience this is because the team behind final fantasy 14 from its inception has put its focus squarely on storytelling this design choice then influences every other aspect of the game from characters to world building to music to animation all serve to enhance the storytelling it is without a doubt the single most vital aspect to final fantasy 14 everything comes from the story everything is related to the story and everything exists to service the story so as we move forward in this video you'll see every time i bring up a comparison or idea in final fantasy 14 it's going to be in some way related to the story and it's because of this one fact that final fantasy and wow can still feel similar to a player moving between the two but also be vastly different experiences let me just throw this out there what was the story of vanilla world of warcraft if he had to think it's because there was no story there were quests there was lore certainly different adventures to get involved in but no overarching story there was no driving force behind what you were doing besides the desire to gain levels abilities to see what's around the next bend or explore the next zone the story of the world of warcraft was what you the player made it it was trying to find the right zevras in the barons it was sneaking into the undeveloped mount hyjal it's trying to raid the enemy capital those were the experiences we remember in fact the most recent example of a great wow memory i have is getting the alliance horde slayer title and that achievement in bfa the whole point is that you kill enough enemy players to literally be marked on the map as a bounty and then people try to come kill you and if you survive long enough you get an achievement it was one of the most exhilarating recent memories i have in the game i loved every moment of it in final fantasy 14 if you ask someone their favorite moment and i did almost every single person is going to say theirs is related to story obviously this isn't every player as many players find the same camaraderie and accomplishment as wow players when taking down harder bosses but for the majority of players the story is not just an important part of the game it's also something that binds the community together with that said after years of playing wild to say there isn't a fan base for the world or story building they're doing would be foolish as i am one of them but let's be real the majority of players simply do not care about the plot of warcraft i'd have to guess that's because it was never really the driving force of the game that got them playing in the first place and more importantly sticking with it the fact is as blizzard moves more towards storytelling in their more recent expansions they've developed multiple ways of getting across major plot information to players who may be interested but it's not integral for the player's enjoyment it's this delivery that provides the necessary surface level context to keep a player engaged but has also formed a complicated relationship with players who do enjoy story and world building of warcraft team leads and devs change shifting the vision for each expansion to fit what is essentially the rule of cool while main story beats are planned ahead it's very clear that things have changed or will change based on necessity main characters vanish story elements are left behind and lore's retconned to fit with the moment as a big old horn nerd years of that have definitely left me kind of jaded when it comes to wow a silly example is years ago at blizzcon i asked the devs about that weird snake tail and gun track i was like what is that thing their response then and ever since it's pretty much been we really don't know perhaps it was snuck in perhaps it was dropped content who knows all i could say is if it was in final fantasy xiv that snake tale would not only have had a purpose but it would have shown up two expansions later as an important character an ongoing story yep this is gonna be one of those videos that's long enough to be split into multiple parts but it's good because it allows us to dive a little deeper when it comes to content both games feature the staples of the mmorpg genre to differing degrees leveling dungeons raids pvp special events grinds and daily quests in fact some on the two dev teams are friends and they definitely borrow ideas from each other all the time yoshi yoship the director of final fantasy 14 is notably a huge blizzard fan the difference of course comes from what the dev teams have decided the focus of their game should be the best way i can simplify this is to say that warcraft is more about the destination and final fantasy 14 is more about the journey as an example in wow the leveling process and say a new expansion is a buffer between you and max level where the real game starts i was once told by a friend that he always thought of it is advertisement for places that later on at max level you'll spend time grinding once you've leveled up you can begin doing harder dungeons farming gear and mythic plus running raids joining pvp battlegrounds or arenas and doing your daily quests or grinding rep and for years this has not only been a pretty standard mmorpg cycle but wow has been the best at it the goal of course is keeping players engaged and logged in and going back to our original story discussion doing most of these things continues the warcraft story as well in final fantasy 14 it's a bit different with the story being the most important part this means leveling isn't just a rush to max level to experience the cool parts the cool parts are the leveling at max level there are certainly raids and dailies and grinds in pvp but they're they're nowhere near the complexity of wow leveling up a job in final fantasy 14 isn't just about the leveling process either sure and while you can level up an alt experience the other faction's story and a lot of people enjoy that but in final fantasy 14 each job has its own story and quests associated with it you know they're varying in size and scope but like the dark knight for example is universally loved for being some of the best storytelling in the game but again story is what it's about most large scale raids only have one difficulty level there are more events than actual team building struggles those raids and trials that do have harder modes are canonically fan fiction versions of the events so players who are just there for the story won't miss anything if they don't have time for harder content pvp while vibrant is nothing close to that of wow reputations and dailies exist but not in a way that forces the player to spend a significant amount of time investing in them but you're rewarded in a way that makes it feel like you're kind of getting one over on the devs for the amount of time you actually put into it let me give you some specific examples let's talk reputation grinds admittedly and wow i haven't played much beyond the start of max level content in shadowlands and this may be different but if we look at most reputation grinds it's usually something along the lines of like you earn 750 rep a day with a weekly bonus of some sort and you need 40 to 50k rep to reach exalted so you're looking at i don't know over a month of rep farming to reach max reputation this of course is part of the design philosophy again to keep you engaged in the world longer in final fantasy 14 while some of the older reputations are pretty similar the newer ones take pixies for example are designed not only to be fast but to feel very rewarding every day you get three quests that take roughly 15 minutes to complete and as a reward you get tons of reputation tokens that you can eventually buy rep items with and then loads of experience i'm talking like a quarter of your xp bar for three quests and this is great because not only does it make grinding rep easy but it also rewards you for doing it on one of your other jobs incentivizing you to level additional classes let's take another example unlocking flight in wow unlocking flight has always been a process a thing that you really had to earn currently i think to unlock flight it's something like getting renowned 44 and completing the last sigil and having completed chapter 12 of the covenant campaign receiving memories to unlock account wide flying and then you can do it in shadowlands in final fantasy 14 while exploring the map that you're already exploring anyway you use a compass to find little green wind orbies and when you find them all and you complete the area story arc you unlock flying for that specific zone it's not account wide but it's easy enough to get just by going through the leveling process from a design standpoint i love this when i first learned this is how you got flying in final fantasy 14 i was actually angry about all the time wow made me waste in final fantasy 14 you get to experience the zone which is what wild's trying to get you to do but 14 doesn't gate your ability to move through it quicker in the future behind some sort of grind which has probably got a few of you now thinking jesse you're making it seem like you don't have to work for much of final fantasy 14 but of course you do there are things like fancy relic weapon grinds and stuff like that but not nearly to the degree that wow makes you grind out stuff honestly i think we're so used to blizzard making us go through content multiple times for months in order to unlock something like flying that anything less seems ridiculously easy but that shouldn't be the case gang i don't know anyone who enjoys it but we still do it it all just comes down to the fact that the final fantasy 14 devs are not trying to keep you in their world for countless hours so it seems like everything is a little easier the fact is the 14 devs have literally said they don't care if you log in every day get what you want from their game come back when you want more instead the grindy bits of final fantasy xiv are something entirely different i recently saw this ad for final fantasy 14 and it made me laugh because i've never seen anything like this for a while but most final fantasy 14 players will tell you this is where the majority of your max level adventure lies look at this thing gathering crafting free companies or guilds housing fashion the gold saucer which is like a permanent version of the darkmoon faire and i'll be honest yeah this is this is pretty much end game in final fantasy 14. that's not to say 14 doesn't have challenging content for those looking for more traditional mmo rating experience but like the point i'm trying to make is that in wow the end game is on harder and harder rating and mythics pvp both arena battleground and world with all the other things in the game existing to aid in doing so in 14 the end game focus is more diverse although there are savage and ultimate difficulty raids designed for those who want a more challenging experience there's also things like building a cool guild house or crafting a special weapon from a weird boss drop or going on treasure hunts there's more to do than just raiding for the sake of raiding speaking of crafting one of the biggest issues i have with wow is that crafting for so long has seemed totally pointless once looking for raid was created any gear you could craft say as a leather worker was useless for those who could just get raid gear easily meanwhile in final fantasy 14 gathering and crafting is very much a major part of the endgame experience if you're curious about other things pvp for example i mean in this case wow definitely wins this one there is pvp in final fantasy 14 in the form of war games and there are many people who enjoy it it's just that there's a wider variety and larger community and wow it is after all part of the core concept faction warfare this doesn't exist in 14. there are no warring player factions in fact much of the story is about getting all the nations of the world on the same team the funny thing is as wow attempts to add more story the pvp they're doing makes less and less sense narratively and that's i mean just the tip of the iceberg of the endgame experience there's a lot more to talk about but since we are talking endgame i think we should flip it and do the starting experience going back to the design philosophies of the two games we can see differences in the premise of each and how it affects your intro into the game in world of warcraft you start your experience as just one of the many faces in service of your chosen faction over time your actions and defeating various threats increase your importance to the world in final fantasy 14 you are literally the warrior of light the chosen hero from moment one there is no denying your importance to the story the entire narrative revolves around you even though initially you're not recognized as such i mean that's what you are quickly proving yourself to the world from that point on every character not only acknowledges you but they recognize the importance of your role over theirs so add that to the story being the most important element and you'll see how this might be a daunting task for some new players much of the 14 starting experience is it's pretty slow world building character introduction lasting roughly the first 50 levels i actually think this is one of the biggest problems final fantasy 14 has as it's a hard sell to explain how phenomenal this game becomes only after you put in 40 hours but that's exactly what i was told and what i've told others because it's true the strong connection to narrative hurts the starting experience especially for new players who may have friends playing or seen an amazing moment from a recent expansion but they can't play it themselves without playing through 100 hours of story or paying for a skip and finding themselves completely disconnected from the plot and that is a real shame because the game uses all of that story and setup to build out the rest of the world so if you skip over the starting experience the amount of stuff you miss is mind-boggling and because the story is so well told and all the characters and locations and factions etc are so perfectly fit into the puzzle that is the main plot that when twists happen they make perfect sense when reveals are made it's like oh yeah of course all because of that level 1 through 50 experience laying the foundation and as i've said i've experienced both ends of this years ago when the game first came out i gave it a shot and around level 40 was totally burnt out it wasn't until i returned last year looking for something new then i gave the game a second chance on the recommendation of a friend i'm so glad i listened because for a fan of story like me what this game offers is a fantastic experience sadly the reason behind final fantasy 14 a realm reborn slow start can be traced back to its origins as a reboot of the disaster that was the original final fantasy 14. the budget was small the timetable was short and it shows it isn't until the later patches of a realm were born and the release of the first expansion heavens award the game truly shines the production value skyrockets the writing is less long-winded the voice actors change just about everything is better than where it started and universally everyone acknowledges this fact which is why i assume the free trial with memes and all includes heaven's ward if you're gonna keep playing the game it's the first expansion that's gonna get you what's totally insane about all of that is only by sticking with it can you then truly appreciate the slow burn a realm reborn was and all the ideas it introduces that later become very important it's like when your parents gave you some advice as a kid and you didn't listen and now you're 30 and you're like damn that was good advice i should have listened but again how do you sell that to people meanwhile the wow starting experience is much more welcoming to new players because they keep updating it and changing it a thing final fantasy 14 can't do without damaging the plot it's trying to set up because warcraft doesn't concern itself with this they now offer multiple ways to level a special starting zone designed to teach new players they have streamlined the process of getting your character to the end game which as we discussed is a core design philosophy but this means depending on when you started playing your story experience in world of warcraft could be entirely different from another player some moments i may have experienced years ago are no longer in the game making it so things that bind players and keep them engaged in the game are not story but its progression systems guild dynamics and faction conflict which i think explains why people enjoy playing classic as it has all the things i just listed but also a shared sense of existing in the same world which i feel like i think many of you would say the current iteration of wow does not have another way to look at this is how new content is delivered if we look at the two most recent completed content cycles in both wow and 14 the picture we get of everything i've been talking about becomes more clear in wow the new content starts with the release of a trailer a big budget stunningly well made sometimes shocking reveal it's usually a way for blizzard to show the first major inciting story moment this is something like sylvanus breaking the helm of domination or deathwing destroying the world then before launch there's a book and maybe some short stories about major characters involved in the next expansion we'll get a pre-patch event and then the expansion will release and for the most part every wow expansion follows a similar formula we get a short burst of main story before pausing for leveling content and eventually returning to the main plot then a major raid is released and the story for the main plot continues as we get a series of patches culminating in the last patch of the expansion and the showdown with the big bad then the cycle begins again with a new trailer because of its heavily story based nature almost all of the content in 14 is delivered in game so in the previous expansion's fourth major patch you'll get hints of a new story by the time the fifth major patch rolls around you'll have more information important details or new jobs will be hinted at and then you know around the same time we get the trailer unlike wow it's not a single moment but a series of vignettes and a hint of things to come in the next expansion then at launch the main story is experienced and completed throughout the leveling process the first major patch and so on are there to wrap up loose ends tell new smaller stories either via raid or a series of max level trials or introduce new areas that serve as a way to grind out special weapon skins and then by the end of the third major patch the story of the expansion is wrapped up and then the fourth patch continues the trend of hinting at what will be in the new expansion so once again i'm sure the obvious difference comes down to the initial design choice by the two dev teams the reason the warcraft patch cycle is what it is is to keep players engaged longer so if you're a fan of story for example you need to keep with it through all the patches to see the end while final fantasy xiv designed to deliver story most of all gives you a completed one at launch then adds additional adventures afterwards [Music] the most notable difference in gameplay between the two i think is to start the global cooldown in final fantasy 14 is 2.5 seconds so when you're level 10 for example and you only have three abilities it seems like there's a lot of down time later on as you unlock other off-cooldown skills or increase your stats to lower your gcd this changes but for the start it definitely feels pretty slow this also translates into differences between the spell and ability rotations of the two games warcraft is more reactionary build up a bar or wait for a crit to trigger an ability while final fantasy xiv is more proactive where the player weaves a pattern of combos together to create a string of pre-planned attacks even the procs in final fantasy 14 are associated with patterns and planning combat and wow is like a street brawl and final fantasy 14 is like a dance and because 14 is more of a dance the combat is more spectacular and the spell effects are way more flashy than those in wow and for the most part spell effects aren't necessarily designed with large groups in mind unlike warcraft so when you're in a 24 man raid and all the effects are going off it can sometimes feel blinding so much so there are options in 14 to decrease or turn them off for other players speaking of making changes to the game 14 has a pretty amazing hud customization in the base game well you can do a lot more with the various add-ons and wow 14 gives you enough tools to customize your experience so that you don't feel the absence of add-on support this ui customization allows for the use of a controller which the game was designed with in mind allowing for cross-platform play between pc and playstation this allows for some pretty fun player interface options and looks letting you clutter your screen with as much information or as little as you want and we can't forget about the accessibility of players who simply can't use a mouse and keyboard accessibility can be found in 14 in the form of universal language on markers and effects i'm sure that as you've watched this video you've noticed in the final fantasy 14 segments the same markers on the ground over and over and over again to the point where players can have some idea of what's coming their way based on the effect they understand what's about to happen and what's required another major gameplay difference which is probably what we should have started with is the ability for one character to play every job or class in the game and switch between them if you choose black mage to start for example like i did and you end up hating it like i did then you can switch to another job and try something new fall in love with something new like a red mage or a warrior or a dragoon like i did and 14 is designed with this one character leveling multiple things in mind wow on the other hand is designed around having to create multiple alts to try different classes but unlike 14 each of these new characters has some sort of racial ability or special action and 14 doesn't have that it doesn't mean you can't level alton 14 but it's unnecessary to experience all the game has to offer warcraft does however have more overall combat diversity with the option to choose talents and spec out your character in fun weird ways although a lot of the time people just look up what the best is also the classes in wow seem more wild and vibrant compared to that of final fantasy xiv there are no demon hunter or brewmaster analog for example it does have a blue mage but it's treated as more of a joke class with wacky overpowered abilities that isn't really allowed in current content also wow really nails rating in pvp it's what the game was designed for and they do it very well the raids and wow are larger and more intricate the pvp is more varied and complex but final fantasy 14 does something very fun with its dungeons raids and trials by including synced unsynced and minimum item level settings you can change the difficulty of a dungeon for example to be exactly how it was when you first ran it in your low level gear or to cheese the hell out of it at max level the last thing of note is that when crafting or gathering 14 is much more visual and complex than wow it's not just clicking a note there are actually separate jobs separate skills separate stories and separate gear that you can play without ever doing the main story although you'd need it to unlock some zones there are whole events built around using these crafting and gathering jobs building a city for example and as i mentioned before crafting actually makes viable gear unlike wow whose crafters are mostly useless once people can do looking for raid you're going to get tired of hearing me say it you probably already are but story plays a major role in the aesthetics of 14 vs wow as well both games look very good let me be clear but they each have their own visual style wow is slightly more cartoony and exaggerated everyone has giant muscles even the fat dudes in the gnomes 14 is a bit more subdued in all regards even the colors are more toned down some might call the character designs a bit animu meanwhile the wow character designs are more diverse than 14 as well trolls undead humans pandas in 14 it's more like human tiny human cat human horny human the biggest difference i've noticed comes down to 14's emotive characters and wow's wider array of visually diverse zones these emotive characters make it so 14 can easily work in numerous in-game cutscenes and match the voices in order to do the same thing in wow custom crafted scenes are made which take time and limit the number that can be included that's not to say that warcraft characters can't show emotion or final fantasy doesn't have visually diverse zones but each does their thing better wow can get more wild with their visual design because they aren't limited by players on older consoles the ps3 version of 14 was still available until 2017 which means the ps4 version will be limiting players for a few years still because its limits are fewer and the devs can update and change their graphics more frequently wow can create a more wild outlandish and visually striking environment for players to explore and because 14 was started with storytelling in mind characters faces are designed to show a wider array of emotions wow on the other hand added story after the fact so the game wasn't designed to have a lot of close-up facial animations so as they add new in-game cinematics many of the ones we're getting now seem to have these weird flappy jaw yapping things going on and that stands out from the other higher quality cinematic stuff we're used to getting in wow the music of these games is also another thing worth pointing out as it again is a perfect example of my original thesis like the graphic design of the games they both have good music but similar to wow's visual style final fantasy 14's musical style is far more diverse and wild and fun in warcraft music is mostly ambient used to set the mood of a zone or dungeon usually something catchy repeating and not all that intrusive but many times because of its generalized nature there are moments where it might not fit the events that are on screen in an epic boss fight for example there's plenty of times i remember struggling through a raid to get to the final boss and the music was pretty much the same as when i started the raid meanwhile in 14 because the music like everything else is connected to the story it's more moment to moment than wow again it's not like wow doesn't do story moment music or final fantasy 14 doesn't have ambient zone themes but they both do their own thing way more final fantasy 14 has musical themes for sad moments and happy moments and silly moments and tense moments it sometimes even tells a story there are theme songs and light motifs and more importantly battle [Music] music [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] it's just so good nothing makes wiping or learning a fight more tolerable than a catchy song in the background truthfully final fantasy xiv just has a larger variety of music and uses it better than wow which is crazy because i remember listening to the soundtrack for wow legion and thinking how great it was only to find out there were some songs not even used in the game or if they were i don't remember or missed it i recall multiple versions of anduin's theme only for him to barely be involved in the main legion storyline and his theme to show up like maybe once or twice that's so crazy to know they have all this amazing talent at blizzard making music and they don't even use it all and remember elite torn chieftain final fantasy 14 has a band of devs called the primals except they don't just do meme songs they play like all the hits from the game lyrics and all and let me tell you they got some bangers the difference is while etc was phased out of live events the primals are the highlights that everyone looks forward to it's as if the wow community thought etc was kind of lame and final fantasy 14 fans are like more primals please so there's one last thing to talk about and i'm sure it won't be controversial at all the communities i've been in the wild community long enough to have formed a pretty substantial theory about it i know i'm gonna get lots of crap for this one but i think the general notion is that it's it's pretty toxic yes your personal guild might be awesome but generally i think we can all agree there are high levels of toxicity in the wild community and i believe this stems from the nature of the game itself wow is based in conflict a game where two factions are pitted against each other from the beginning so players already have an established enemy or other to focus their iron it is thematically ingrained in the community culture and not only is player versus player part of the game but so is competition on a pve level with world first and server first and more at a macro level and then tools like dps meters at a micro level to determine who is the best in the current party everyone is judging everyone at all times in warcraft it can feel overbearing even wow's more cooperative events can seem like competition between players as players are in the game longer and learn more and think they know more biases form opinions valid or otherwise take root and soon the forms are littered with waste you know toxic 14 at least in my experience has been different and it's hard to explain because sure there must be toxicity in the community i've heard of it i've never seen it and maybe that's streamer privilege maybe it's just i'm very lucky i don't know but most people if you ask will tell you how nice and wonderful and kind the 14 community is but it's also jarring if you're a wow player coming to the final fantasy 14 community there's a lot to understand that's different let me give you a great example rare mobs or in the case of 14 ranked mobs in wow if you see a rare monster you find a way to kill that thing as fast as you can to grab friends grab guilties you want that special drop in final fantasy 14 that's frowned upon by most of the community i found this out one day when i saw a rare and asked my free company my guild for help and they were like dude wait for the hunt train i was like what what the hell are you talking about it's right here right now and they explained that's not how the community does it when all the rares have finally spawned hunt trains form and like a hundred players move from zone to zone killing them each getting credit for the kills and any sort of rewards this idea baffled me i was like i am here right now what if i'm not online later i have to pass up the kill just cause and they were like yeah i know it sounds crazy but having done multiple hunt trains now i understand it completely and i actually prefer it it's almost like if wow had this same concept i may have actually seen a time lost proto drake once or twice warcraft eventually had moments like this for nash to tar and mechagon but it's not on the same level this camaraderie in the 14 community translates to how they treat new players for the most part as well sprouts as they are lovingly called are new players with a little icon next to their name normally one would assume an icon next your name letting everyone know that you have no idea what you're doing would seem like you just got yourself a scarlet letter and became a pariah but in final fantasy 14 it's the exact opposite instead of trolling or treating them poorly most players cheer them on or offer advice and tips and dungeons it makes it easier to understand if someone has no clue what's going on you can instantly see they're new and it's okay and the game even rewards players with bonuses for having them in your group and that's what i think is so special about the community in 14 i've seen plenty of players try new classes or a build or whatever in both wow and 14 and people can get intimidated about being yelled at for sucking or not knowing something but in 14 that little sprout icon lets players know immediately that you're newer to the game so they have an expectation that you might not know some things and it makes it easier to ask which is honestly the biggest problem and wow new players are always afraid to ask what to do just as an example of how this mentality rubs off on you i was doing my 14 roulettes or dungeon dailies and got the final omega raid when it popped i was in a group of almost all sprouts for those of you who don't know this fight is what you would call a complicated dance we wiped a lot and in my guild chat i was cursing up a storm i was so upset that i had to go through this thing that i thought was gonna take me five minutes but i'm here on like minute thirty but in party chat with the sprouts i was like we can do this come on i'll teach you how to do this fight i've often thought about what sprouts and wow would be like and the only thing i can think of is that it would mostly be people dropping from parties that they showed up in again this isn't to say the final fantasy 14 community is perfect obviously play all sorts of games but the general nature of the player base seems a bit more relaxed yes someone will tell me i'm doing something wrong while i stream but that's every game for everyone the biggest difference i think is the final fantasy 14 community does not tolerate a lot of the stuff that wow does the crackdown on bad actors is swift and immediate and some of you may be like that doesn't sound cool i guess for the people who don't want to deal with that stuff it's pretty cool i don't know the last big takeaway i have on community is this the wow player base seems always ready to attack their game even while loving it and the final fantasy 14 community is always trying to defend their game even if it doesn't need it so you've made it some 30 minutes into a youtube video and you find yourself here this was all just sort of a long-winded way of saying again what i'm sure i made clear in the first five minutes but i really wanted to expand upon the differences between wow and 14 and how there are players who like each of these so i guess that's pretty much it for this video sure there's definitely going to be something i missed or couldn't find a way to fit in the video that's what comments are for i suppose so please if you have something to add or additional thoughts or insights or if you think i'm way off let me know this video was done out of love for both games and the knowledge that each has its own audience and it's okay to like one and not the other i hope the takeaway is that if you enjoy story games as much as i do you'll check out 14 and if you could care less you're probably already invested in wow and i don't see why you should leave that's what it comes down to at least for me anyway thanks so much thank you to all the amazing patrons who make videos like this possible please if you like this share it with your friends or give it a like that'd be swell uh i would love it if you consider subscribing and hit the bell and do all the things that you know you have to do on youtube in order to see a video these days but that's it thank you so much and i will see you in game

Channel: Jesse Cox

Views: 807,775

Rating: 4.9021602 out of 5

Keywords: omfgcata, Jesse Cox, Steam, PlayStation 4, PC, wow vs ffxiv, world of warcraft, wow vs final fantasy, wow vs ff14, ff14 vs wow, final fantasy vs wow, ffxiv, wow ffxiv, wow final fantasy, final fantasy 14, final fantasy xiv, mmorpg, wow refugee, wow, ffxiv vs wow, final fantasy vs world of warcraft, ffxiv 2021, wow to ffxiv, most played mmorpg, mmorpg 2021, wow killer, final fantasy

Id: 5T-mcLYBnKc

Length: 36min 19sec (2179 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/math_chem]

"FF14 was designed with RPG before MMO, while WoW was made with MMO before RPG"

Amazingly put by this guy, job well done. Like I have been saying for years of playing FF14: This is a single player JRPG that has MMO elements enbedded into it. The game would still be great and a "complete product" if they removed all MMO aspects.

[u/wetsploosh]

I play and like both a lot for different reasons, on FF I love not feeling the fomo pressure and the constant patch resets and catch ups, old content in wow sorta sits around lifeless when you get to max level. I also love how final fantasy handles professions and the horizontal non power progression, quest lines for new emotes, RP gear, housing all that stuff. I like spending time in the world and doing stuff that isn't necessarily a power increase.

But for me, the kinetic feeling you get from pressing skills and just the impact sounds and abilities has makes wow combat and high end pve stuff more fun (purley my opinion I'm not saying it's better) so I love going back to a new wow patch and getting AoTc and playing but I generally don't stay subbed to wow anymore after AoTc. I'd love for them to introduce a whole mythic+ gear set similar to tier sets. That could make M+ seasons feel more fun instead of grinding for the exact same trinket but higher ilvl from de other side. If my friends aren't online for dungeon runs and it's not guild raid night I don't log on for the most part. WoW pvp might be an unbalanced mess but I still enjoy the occasional battleground as well.

[u/shapookya]

the craziest thing to me (and I don't think Jesse mentioned it here) is how the core endgame loop in FF14 is very similar to how WoW has been way back in the days with Valor and Justice points. You have your raid and you have a daily dungeon for those Valor/Justice points where some very easy content rewards you with some of the best ilvl pieces over time.

WoW was changed to a "reward appropriate to its difficulty" system with a lot of difficulty levels for dungeons and 4 difficulties for raids and that comes with upsides but also downsides. The upside is that everyone has their own personal progression no matter where they are and how good at the game they are. But you don't necessarily get good ilvl gear and I think that bothers a lot of players. Seeing people run around in 226 gear while you can only get 190-200 gear from doing easy content can feel discouraging. Meanwhile in FF14 the casual players might not get the best high-end raid gear but they get some gear that is close enough, like 210 instead of 220 ilvl. And with the relic weapon grind, pretty much everyone can get the best weapon of the expansion eventually by just doing not so difficult grinds.

WoW is the wet dream MMO of performance seeking players. You put in the effort and you get rewarded greatly for it. But players who don't want that performance stress kinda get left behind.

[u/Karmaze]

So, there's something that wasn't put up top in the video, maybe it's addressed later, but I think it's somewhat different from what is being said. For me, what made me fall in love with FFXIV, in a way that I rarely if ever got out of WoW, it's not so much the story, although it's LINKED to the story.

It's the aesthetics.

A recent raid boss, just on normal difficulty, meant to be doable by pretty much everybody, I think is one of my greatest experiences in gaming. It might not seem like much, right? But for me, it hit exactly all the notes. After the mid-point transition, the music switches to a remix to one of the most iconic FFXIV tracks, I think one of the tracks, at a point in the game, where a lot of people were like.....is this something fresh and unique? (Oblivion, for those who know). But instead of the punk-pop of the original...instead it's a dancehouse theme. The the lyrics are brilliant, they perfectly fit what's going on, and wonderfully sung. And at the end of the fight, you're trying to outdamage and outheal basically a DPS race....but everything stops, all the characters are frozen, the music is still going, and a character jumps in, a cutscene in the middle of the battle triggers, revealing some story...but it's just all...aesthetically and emotionally resonant.

To me that's the difference between WoW and FFXIV. WoW just rarely has those moments of resonance. It's not like it doesn't. The Lich King fight is one that I think will always stay with me. Same with the Gul'dan fight.

But it's....not that common, I think, where FFXIV brings that to me kinda constantly.

Yeah, the story is better. But it's mostly I think that the aesthetics bring an emotional connection.

[u/Dictionary_Goat]

Great to see Jesse Cox getting some love, he's maybe the youtuber I have watched the most reliably since I started getting into Youtube.

[u/PontiffPope]

His categorization between WoW as a MMORPG, and FFXIV as a RPGMMO made me wonder what turning point caused MMOs to seemingly have an increased influx on focus upon narrative and story. I think maybe it was around when WoW had their Wrathgate in-engine cinematic a decade ago during the Wrath of the Lich King that caught many by surprise how there suddenly was a dedicated quest chain that lead up to a narrative focused moment, filled with actual cutscene direction, and that followed up with the epic Battle of Undercity-quest (Sadly removed from the retail game.).

Regarding having player character focus within the MMO-narrative we suddenly had Star Wars: The Old Republic come out later the same year in December of 2011, and it had dedicated storylines for each class; some that are even noteworthy playing for it alone as a proper sequel to the Knights of the Old Republic-games (Even if there were some story continuity controversies regarding Split Dark- and Light-Revan, as well as the Exile's bus crash.). The next year in 2012 had Guild Wars 2 launch, where each player race started out with their Personal Story quite a hefty representational budget, with full voice acting and famous VAs.

There essentially seemed to be a shift from viewing the player character in an online universe less of a mere bystander among other players pretending to be mere bystanders, and more as an internally realized character within the own universe, something that I think MMOs maybe had to reflect with various attempts towards. I haven't played Destiny 2, but it seems that it surprised players in 2018 when in the Forsaken-DLC had the player Guardian actually speak out with agency, and it seems that its latest content since then was quite positive in terms of actual narrative and story-telling that seemed to take advantage of its rich and colorful lore, instead of acting like a more silent bystander, staring while other NPCs fills the exposition and have the focused story arcs.

I've played around 6 years of WoW myself, and is currently around the same amount of time for FFXIV with more time planned for Endwalker later this year, so I see bit of myself a bit in the video regarding why I fell in disfavour of WoW, especially regarding wanting more from the game's universe and lore to be utilized in more narrative engaging ways than just acting as a mere excuse for raiding. Maybe I have just grown out of it of MMOs being mere gameplay focused around direct player-to-player engagement, and more viewing the MMO-genre act as something of a common social space for players to share their own experiences with the universe's lore and stories. It's a bit back in the days of Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Witcher-series, where a longer narrative was established between each game where certain plot threads from older games reflected in the sequels, and it was alot of fun engaging, discussing and speculating with the fandom on how it would reflect in the next game. Some certainly faltered more than others (ME3's infamous ending to the whole trilogy, Witcher 3 abandoning Witcher 2's narrative regarding the Scoia'tael's route.), and of all those type of games with grander, longer narratives; I honestly think FFXIV is so far the best in that category thanks to its nature as a MMO that allows it, and with the heavy focus on it. The upcoming Endwalker-expansion will conclude the current ongoing saga, so time will tell if it will succeed where others have faltered.

[u/Klashus]

I remember thinking this about the kotor mmo. Really awesome story didnt overly need people. Tho it lacked endgame.

[u/BillyBean11111]

It's one of my favorite games to check in on every 6 months and holy shit what a soundtrack. I have at least 15 songs from this game in my regular music rotation, it's really outstanding.

[u/hamoorftw]

While I absolutely adore ffxiv and disappointed with wow lately, it’s still has something that I couldn’t find in any other current mmo, the combat is just sooo tight and responsive and overall more satisfying even when ffxiv is has more bombastic effects and flare, wow still feels a lot better to play.

And I’m not even talking about GCD’s as you can argue that’s a matter of personal taste. For an example mobility spells in ffxiv, some for some unknown reason some spells cannot be quick casted (you hover over your mouse where you want to leap and immediately jump there) like the ninja teleport ability, you have to press the spell, then choose where you want to leap and click again where in wow I can immediately heroic leap with my warrior with one smooth click. Speaking of mobility there are some weird verticality issues in ffxiv. For an example a dragoon has an ability that makes you do a very high back flip, but for some reason even when you see your model back flip in a high elevation, you cannot backflip over small obstacles like fences, it almost like the jump is just an animation where your model is actually never left the ground, contrast that with wow and demon hunter where if you can perceive that your backflip is higher than whatever obstacle you want to jump through, you will go over it.

Another thing that might seem minor but is actually really important is the feedback from using spells, and classes like machinists are the biggest offenders. What am talking about is there are some spells where you see your character do a cool multi hit attack, but the feedback and the numbers on the screen just register one hit and the rest do nothing and are basically for show. In machinist you have this spell where you wave your gun to summon five big bullets where then they lock into your target in a staggered fashion one by one, but the damage you see on your screen is just one number. Again, spells in wow actually register each individual hit on the screen. When I press rampage on my fury warrior which is a five hit attack, you actually see 5 different damage numbers on the screen for each hit. It feels so good to press and in ffxiv it just feels off to see your character do 10 slashes with their sword from an ability and only one number is registered.

Another thing I felt lacking in ffxiv are utility spells. For dps classes there are barely any, your bar is mostly abilities that do damage or amplify your your party’s damage. Add to that the lack of emphasis on unique CC options and you have dps classes that just do damage like samurai and occasionally boost the damage of others like bard and dancer, the only exception is red mage insta cast res which I felt was really cool and I hope they have more of those unique utility for dps classes in the future. Meanwhile in wow you have some really exceptional utility spells for some classes that makes you stand out and offer more than just numbers like death knight grip, portal for teleporting your raid members with warlock, divine shield from paladin and etc.

For anyone who hasn’t tried wow but is an ffxiv player, go launch wow with free trial and play around the open world for a few minutes with demon hunter and you would instantly understand what I mean by wow feeling more tight!