FF14 first impression/initial experience as a GW2 veteran.

[DaniTheHero]

This isn't supposed to be an actual rant, nor am i intending to offend anyone who plays either game.
I felt like i should share my experience as a new player in this now increasingly popular MMORPG.


Note this is going to be VERY long.



First i'll tell about why i chose to be playing GW2 up until now to reflect on my latest experience with FF14.
I am not trying to sell the game to you, nor to "take away players" from here, as i barely play GW2 myself now.

I have been playing GW2 for a very long time, and although i have been taking breaks from time to time (as GW2 is known to having content droughts between Living world/Expansion periods) i always come back to it eventually.

GW2 has many things going for it.:

It has a completely free Base game with no time limit, so you can get any friend to try it out and not be restricted to pretty much any content from the Original/Vanilla game pre expansions other than some Spam avoidance and trading/mail system restrictions to avoid botting.

If you decide to pay, you get the entire game, including previous expansions at the price of one, with no monthly subscription, i repeat no monthly subbing.
You pay once, and hop on whenever you want, FOREVER.
No need to cancel every time you take a break and pay again when you return and if you play long term, no large stacked up sum. Just play when you want.

GW2 has no gear chase/treadmill. From the release of the game, the highest tier of gear has been something called "Ascended" and it always remains relevant as the best Tier of gear even a decade later. Meaning even if you take long breaks, you don't need to chase a new ceiling just to enjoy new content properly, and you can hop rightinto it as the same End game character you were before.
The only time that you'll need to get new gear, is if you want a different sort of build for your character, so you'll need a different set of ascended gear for those stats (This can be negated by Legendary armor, that has the same stats as ascended but you can change it's stats whenever you want. This however requires a huge grind to get).

The game has no Mana/Stamina system, nor do you use potions to even heal yourself.
Your attacking is only depended on your cooldown managements and your healing depends on your global class heal (That is by default your 6 key) that varies between classes. No annoying potion usage and purchase management. There is food, but it's used for self buffing.
This system complimented the game well, as the game, at least initially didn't have the concept of holy Trinity. Everyone mostly did everything, or more specifically, everyone was DPS who was capable, and accepted to heal themselves.
Later on as end game raids were introduced more properly, some sub-classes have emerged to sort of fill that old gap, Druid being an old school healer sort, and Chronomancer being a more traditional tank among others, but the mentality of everyone technically being DPS still exists. Some just serve side roles, such as DPS's that can also do useful Squad/party buffs.

The game has a dodge/roll system sort of like in Dark souls, that is limited by a cooldown. This makes the gameplay more mobile and dynamic, and instead of just standing still most of the combat,you dodge and rotate a lot to avoid damage that isn't just enemy AOE.

The combat is very fluid and action-y. Fast. You are constantly on the move, and at times even 'Spamming' moves as cooldowns are short and most classes don't really have more than 5ish damage dealing attacks, unless you weapon swap mid fight. There isn't really a time when you aren't attacking.

Mounts are fairly a new concept in GW2, but instead of having many of them, there's only one of each "type" of mount that serves a purpose(One for dashing, one for jumping, one for flying and so on), and you can change it's appearance with paid skins if you wish to do so.

Questing, although sort of only existing in the base game, is managed through heart areas, meaning you reach an area where the certain quest exists, and you are meant to to tasks around this same area to complete it. There's no fetch quests, no backtracking, no unneeded walls of text just for killing 3 rats.

in GW2 there is no "EXP" grind from killing mobs. You level up near exclusively from doing world events, quests on the map and map exploration. As you you reach the level cap in the base game, the EXP you gain in the expansion zones is used for gaining different sort of mini abilities, passive buffs or unlocking sort of mechanics or merchants that exist in these new zones. No boring hours of fighting the same batch of mobs to level, at ANY point of the game.

Structured PVP works well in theory, the action combat, the fairly decent balancing and the fact that most classes can technically do anything works well. SPVP is also separate from the "main"/PVE game. You can hop into SPVP from level 2, and inside there, gear doesn't matter, you are max level and all your abilities are unlocked. The only thing that counts is your skill as a player, your teammates performance and of course what you pick for your SPVP 'build' (The builds are instantly changable in SPVP). Sadly SPVP and WvW(World vs World) is mostly abandoned by the devs for quite a long time, so you won't really be experiencing anything new there after a while.

Voice acting. Almost everything is voiced. Story missions, the NPC talking around you, world events and so on.

Most of the content encourages, almost demands cooperative play. Soloing is almost never recommended, sometimes may not even be possible. For people that play MMORPGs, for the actual MMO aspect rather than playing it as a singleplayer RPG that sometimes have real people walking around you, this is very nice.

Of course i can go on praising the game for a long time, but the elephant in the room is:

The biggest issue with the game is that due to lack of funding from NCSoft, and generally the huge loss of capital for being one of the only MMORPGs without monthly subbing, content gets added less often. And periods of content droughts are common. if you are a veteran player that plays a lot you run out things to do, unless you grind for fashion or Legendary equipment.
However as a new player, you still have A LOT of content to go through for months or even years before you reach that drought yourself.

A lot of the content, or pretty much all of it that isn't Raids or fractals(End game dungeons), can be summed up to "zerging". A huge amount of players stacking together spamming something until it dies. Can be fun when it's new content, but gets old REAL quick if repeated. Raids and Fractals do require a more old school approach though.




Now let's actually dive into my FF14 experience.


I've obviously known about this game for a long time, as FF14 pretty much is ( or was?) a direct competitor to GW2, but i never researched or bothered with it as i was content with GW2 and the idea of paying sub didn't appeal to me.
However after many many years in GW2, the recent Exodus of WoW players to FF14 and me dying inside from the anticipation for Ashes of creation, i have decided to finally try FF14.
The game stated to give a 30 day trial that is mostly not limited, which didn't sound bad at all.
I haven't done much research still, and decided to just sign up, install and hop on.

I was first greeted by a.. confusing server selection. As i'm European, Light or Chaos seemed to be the relevant options and Light, was highlighted for some reason, so i assumed it meant i'd have better ping there so i chose it. Inside the server i also needed to pick a World and most were already full apparently. I picked one of the open ones, Lich.

I was then greeted by a fairly robust character creator which was nice, however apparently most of the choices do have some sort of influence on different ingame stats, though upon googling the differences, they are pretty much negligible (I wonder if some people pick things they don't like, but have favorable stats for the job they want in order to minmax here. A bit of a shame if this is a thing).

I was then presented with 8 classes that seemed fairly traditional in nature.
I usually play Strong DPS melee dudes, but i wasn't exactly sure what each job does from the ingame descriptions so I have decided to research a tiny bit and learned that 2 of the melee ones are more focused on tanking, the other two are more DPS oriented.
I have decided to go for the Lancer, as not having an actual weapon and using my fists didn't appeal to me.
Upon further research i have learned there are a lot of more classes to unlock in the game, either by "upgrading" the current classes, or complete new ones you can switch into at around level 50.

The opening of the game was a terrible slog. A lot of conversations and wall of texts of things i don't care about (yet?), no voice acting, seemingly outdated animations and no combat involved.
You're then treated to a lot and i mean A LOT of text walls, dull fetch quests, backtracking, and once again none not even the main quest ones are voiced.

The game, also assumes you have never played an MMORPG, or any video game before.
I appreciate the effort to make this accessible for pretty much everyone, but as someone who isn't playing a video game for literally the first time, this was excruciating.

I was itching for some combat to actually experience the gameplay, and i assume that at some point i could have ignored most of these and go outside to fight, but i didn't want to miss vital information that i may need by not doing these starter quests.

Eventually i was finally sent out to kill some mobs ( Kill some squirls! yey ! ).
And the moment i hit my first enemy, it struck me.
GCD 2.5sec. The combat is very, very very slow.
Even with more moves unlocked later on, every move you make, gives you a near 3 second delay before you can do another move. This was devastating. I could feel literally my brain counting down the miliseconds of the delay between me chaining even something as basic as ability 1 and ability 2.
There's also no real way to avoid damage, enemies completely lock on you so unless you are ranged, you might as well seem to be standing still.
I assume later in the game, enemies will have AOE's that you will need to move away from, but still, this seems awfully static.

It seems that a lot of aspects of the game are slow upon further research. Traveling, moving around the map and although they are mounts, they seem to be restricted in a lot of ways.

I also have learned that as a free player, i can't even party anyone ( unless a paid player invites me himself) or add anyone to my friendlist. Why? What if i wanted to team up with other free players that are trying the game with me?

I continued trying to grind ( As this seems to be the most efficient way to gain exp, and because i was tired of meaningless tasks and endless text from the side quests) to see if something speeds up, but no.
Upon even further research, late in the game there are some abilities that aren't restricted by the GCD that you can weave in, but the combat itself doesn't REALLY speed up.

I also noticed, although the character models, when zoomed looked quite nice and rather fan service-y. The graphics and the engine itself seemed awfully outdated.
Sure GW2 isn't the biggest looker anymore, and the engine is quite dated as well as the game IS from 2012, but FF14 being a newer game, a bigger IP in general, and having far more income brought in and funding put into the game, it's a bit disheartining that the game.. doesn't look good.

At this point i've done further research. How late game works, how gear works, how many things that MMO's do, work here. and the more i read, the more disappointed i started feeling.

Now after having all these first impression thoughts and after learning a bit about the future, i had one final thought lingering on my mind.
Even if this DOES get better later on, do i really want to be buying the game all it's expansions AND be paying 13$ a month for this?


When this realization caught on to me, i swiftly exited, uninstalled and after some thought, came here for this post.

[Schizovoker]

It is nice how gw2 doesn't charge a monthly fee. I wish this was the norm.

This game does not make a good first impression but it gets much better if you continue. It's a hard sell though for someone who's not feeling it at the start that's for sure. I think a lot of people end up quitting before level 50, which is understandable.

The combat does get much better. Travelling has never been an issue for me in the game.

[Slayze ツ]

thing long
me no read

[Melcor]

Can't believe I read all this just for it to boil down to "muh 2.5 GCD" and "too much to read". Rotations get complex later on with a lot of double weaving. The game is designed around this GCD. As for too much text... Guess you are not an RPG player. If you are too lazy to read a few lines of text this is not the genre or the game for you.

[DaniTheHero]

Originally posted by Melcor:

Can't believe I read all this just for it to boil down to "muh 2.5 GCD" and "too much to read". Rotations get complex later on with a lot of double weaving. The game is designed around this GCD. As for too much text... Guess you are not an RPG player. If you are too lazy to read a few lines of text this is not the genre or the game for you.

RPGs as a whole, is my favorite genre. Story heavy games in general are things i appreciate a lot.
However substance is important too. If i wanted to read a novel, i'd do that. If i'm playing a video game, i want the story, narrative, or at the very least MAIN STORY quest conversations to be voiced, or keep the non essential dialogue to a minimum. Do i really need to read 10 different speech bubbles with some drunk guy in a bar, that i'll never interact with again?
If these were voiced which adds character and depth, it would of been a different story.

Also although 2.5 GCD can be boiled down to most of my issues with at the very least the combat, it's not JUST that.

And again, for all i know, you may be completely correct. At a very later part of the game, it may become far more bareable, even fun (Although i doubt that late game rotations suddenly change the whole rythem of the game), but is it really worth it for a new player, that had such a bad first impression, that could be playing many other options and it would would also be cheaper?

[Silamon]

Originally posted by smug anime girl:

It is nice how gw2 doesn't charge a monthly fee. I wish this was the norm.

This game does not make a good first impression but it gets much better if you continue. It's a hard sell though for someone who's not feeling it at the start that's for sure. I think a lot of people end up quitting before level 50, which is understandable.

The combat does get much better. Travelling has never been an issue for me in the game.

Honestly I prefer mmos with a sub fee, they tend to have better content and less intrusive monetization.

[I'm Probably Batman]

end of dragons cant come out fast enough

[Kiana]

Originally posted by Melcor:

Can't believe I read all this just for it to boil down to "muh 2.5 GCD" and "too much to read". Rotations get complex later on with a lot of double weaving. The game is designed around this GCD. As for too much text... Guess you are not an RPG player. If you are too lazy to read a few lines of text this is not the genre or the game for you.

I stopped reading at the 'free base game' part, because GW2's "free" base game also comes with restrictions. Including the same kind of social restrictions as XIV's trial. At least with XIV's trial you can still level every crafter and gatherer.

Nice of DaniTheHero to open with proof that this wasn't going to be a fair comparison of pros and cons.

Edit: And for the record, I'm saying this as someone that has played both games and I have recommended GW2 before. On this forum, in fact, because if you want a game where you're better off tuning out most of the story (though the expansion plotlines are better than the base game, that's damning with faint praise) and/or focusing on PvP, it's not a bad option.

[DirtyMick]

"I felt like i should share my experience as a new player in this now increasingly popular MMORPG."

I never understood this. Why? Can't you just have an opinion and not feel like you have to share it with strangers? Maybe its because I grew up pre-internet, where sharing your personal opinions with the world was impossible lol.

[Oku]

Originally posted by Kiana:

Originally posted by Melcor:

Can't believe I read all this just for it to boil down to "muh 2.5 GCD" and "too much to read". Rotations get complex later on with a lot of double weaving. The game is designed around this GCD. As for too much text... Guess you are not an RPG player. If you are too lazy to read a few lines of text this is not the genre or the game for you.

I stopped reading at the 'free base game' part, because GW2's "free" base game also comes with restrictions. Including the same kind of social restrictions as XIV's trial. At least with XIV's trial you can still level every crafter and gatherer.

Nice of DaniTheHero to open with proof that this wasn't going to be a fair comparison of pros and cons.

Edit: And for the record, I'm saying this as someone that has played both games and I have recommended GW2 before. On this forum, in fact, because if you want a game where you're better off tuning out most of the story (though the expansion plotlines are better than the base game, that's damning with faint praise) and/or focusing on PvP, it's not a bad option.

GW2 also pads out its own loot pool with lootboxes that require you to buy CSGO-style keys to open, essentially turning its own gameplay loop in to an advertisement for the microtransaction store that has a large, dedicated button permanently on the game's HUD.

The only reason they even went B2P in the first place is because they knew from the very beginning that if they tried to have a Sub Fee, they'd be competing with WoW and at the time, that was a death sentence for every new MMO, so they went with an aggressive and predatory microtransaction based economy and loot table instead, that even has its own built-in RMT system. They then added a free option because the game was dying by the time the first expansion was out because everybody joined in to try it out, realized is was awful, and then uninstalled.

[Sosii]

FFXIV is not trying to be GW2 btw, I didn't bother to read the mega paragraphs of text but judging from the title you are trying to compare the 2 which makes 0 sense to me. They are both mmorpg's but very different, ik bc i've made it late game in ffxiv and pretty far into GW2. I just can not see a comparison between the 2.

Only things i can kinda see you comparing is the music, the voice acting, the story, the dungeon quality, the raid quality. In which case ffxiv wins in all those aspects by a long shot (not base game ffxiv though).

So with that being said ffxiv is a very slow burner, if you're not into that it's fine. Just uninstall and go back to gw2. No need to write us in the forums your essay. You're not the first person to feel this way about the game, you don't have to announce it to the world about your experience as we genuinely don't care if you uninstalled bc you didn't like it. At least us on the forums, people in reviews might care about your take/opinion, bc that's basically what this is. A review...but on the forums instead of where it should properly go

[dorkenstein]

GW2 is not easy to get into as a new player. There's so much STUFF to consider. The gear treadmill is extremely confusing with all the reward tracks and whatnot. WvW is utter trash blobbing and structured PvP is way too difficult. A lot of content is GW2 requires grouping and a lot the dungeons and stuff are dead because of the way "progression" works people just ignore a lot of the group content that isn't easy so they can farm reward tracks in blobs or other mindless grinds.

FF14 is just pure fun. It's modernized. It's got a real single player game and it all makes sense.

[Cuponoodle]

complaining about wall of text in a game by using a wall of text to complain...

GW2 and FFXIV both fairly good games for what they are, but 1 thing they are is rather different in a lot of ways.

I prefer FFXIV but gw2 and the ability to convert in game money to store gems is nice especially given how easy it is to make tons of gold on that game. Wish I could do that with gil :( gw2 for sure has its merits and is a good game in its own rights. I could see picking it over this one. On the flip side the progression on this game is considerably less confusing and gw2 reward tracks are...well weird.

In the end personal preference should prevail and be the only guide in the decision of what game to play.

[DB]

Ain't reading this OMEGALUL

[J]

too much walking. slow grind burns you out. gcd. Gw2 was a bit the same. After forcing to level up a character to a high level it kind of burns you out. This is what all mmos are like. This includes ESO. although out of all of em eso has more fun pvp and dungeons and the equipment feels/looks better imo. Ive stopped playing both eso and gw2 and after this sub for ff14 ill prob stop for it too.

[Kiana]

Originally posted by Kethriss:

GW2 also pads out its own loot pool with lootboxes that require you to buy CSGO-style keys to open, essentially turning its own gameplay loop in to an advertisement for the microtransaction store that has a large, dedicated button permanently on the game's HUD.

The only reason they even went B2P in the first place is because they knew from the very beginning that if they tried to have a Sub Fee, they'd be competing with WoW and at the time, that was a death sentence for every new MMO, so they went with an aggressive and predatory microtransaction based economy and loot table instead, that even has its own built-in RMT system. They then added a free option because the game was dying by the time the first expansion was out because everybody joined in to try it out, realized is was awful, and then uninstalled.

Yep. I had so many black lion boxes in my inventory, because they drop rather frequently. But keys? They can technically be obtained without using the cash shop, but you're unlikely to get more than the first freebe unless you buy the base game. And even then, you're looking at maybe two a month. If you log in every day.

Oh, and the quality of life limitations! Base game had massive maps. For "immersion", allegedly. In reality, it was just a time waster. Giant fields of bandits. Giant fields of centaurs. Giant fields of bears. And the fun part of its world design - the semi-hidden mini-dungeons / exploration areas / jumping puzzles - were few and far between. It only became tolerable once mounts were added, but that required owning the first expansion and getting a character to 80. (GW1 had a level cap of 20. GW2 comes across as being designed with the same cap, but then stretching the leveling process out four times as long.)

If you can snag the first expac on sale, I can absolutely recommend GW2 as an alright game. But I cannot recommend its free trial to anyone that does not have exceptional tolerance for slow walking simulators. (I personally only made it to level 45 before doing the aforementioned snagging on sale.) I suppose if you can tolerate WoW Classic, you'd probably consider GW2 a quality of life improvement...

By contrast, I can recommend XIV's trial whole heartedly, with the only caveat being that if you absolutely need whispers, shout chat and/or guild chat to enjoy an MMO (because the social aspect is a big part of the genre, after all) then the trial is going to feel very restrictive.