final fantasy 14: the pros and cons, what is better and what is worse from a sprout (new player) perspective.
with the recent drop in activity in world of warcraft, given the lack of new content and the only reason i was logging in was literally just for raids, i started looking further afield to fix my mmo content.
final fantasy 14: a realm reborn, also known as ffxiv (or simply xiv), is the mmo that some would tout as the biggest and best competitor to wow. this, despite the fact that the games have completely different styles, but for the most part, the comparison and the claims of the competition are true.
Originally had a disastrous reception in 2010, was reworked and eventually re-released as a realm reborn in 2013. I originally picked up the game in 2015 and gave it a try, but quickly gave up, not being able to get in as much as I thought I would. would.
Most of the game’s systems felt strange, compared to what I was used to in wow, and the early game, like vanilla wow, was a complete grind and not the most exciting game in the world to play.
Three years later, in 2018, I decided to give the game another chance, but with the same result. I still couldn’t get into it and as a result I gave up.
both adventures in eorzea, the world of ffxiv very similar to azeroth is to surprise, they were abandoned at quite low levels (below level 15).
However, with a lot more time on my hands recently due to not really having much of interest to do in wow, I decided to give it one more try.
This time, things were different.
In late 2020, square decided to rework the initial game, similar to how wow’s initial game was reworked with shadowlands. leveling was made faster and much of the grind was removed or abstracted from the leveling process, so the meme level “gather 100 bear butts” was optional, rather than a requirement for leveling.
so, after hearing this a few months ago and being extremely bored at wow, this was the time for me to give the game another go. And I’m so glad I did, because the game has been improved in subtle but immeasurable ways.
First and foremost is the actual experience of leveling up. With the grind removed, players can focus on completing the game’s actual campaign, called the main scenario questline, shortened to msq by players.
msq takes the player and puts their character front and center in the story, and by playing msq, the player can level up from 1 to the original game’s maximum level of 50. later patches and expansions to level up to the current level cap of 80.
endwalker, the next expansion to be released in November, will raise that level cap to 90 and end the story arc that the current game has been running since the original re-release, a kingdom reborn.
The leveling experience now feels much more focused and primarily msq driven, rather than being forced to engage in grinds like completing hunt logs and such. a much more efficient process.
For starters, I thought I’d pick up where I left off: wow: playing a tank class. this one would eventually become a paladin (more on that in a bit), so he’d be playing a paladin tank in two different mmos 😂
As of this writing, my character is level 41 and became a paladin after level 30, having completed the first 32 levels as a gladiator, the base class for the paladin “job”.
in ffxiv there are basic classes (or jobs, as they are known in ffxiv), like gladiator, marauder, summoner, etc. after gaining some experience (i.e. your first 30 levels), your character is given the opportunity to further specialize in their chosen class, which in my case ranged from the basic gladiator class to the more specialized paladin class.
there are only 8 basic classes in the game, with many more specialized classes later in the future of each base class, with some jobs/classes locked behind much higher progression, say after level 60. some base classes can become multiple specialized classes, while some only have 1 additional specialization later on.
so I’m a newly minted paladin right now, and I’m still leveling up via msq.
alts in ffxiv: this is where the biggest difference between wow and ffxiv comes in.
wow, when you want to try to play and level up a different class, you have to recast a new character. you can’t recast the same character you’ve been playing in a different class, that’s the way the game is and always has been.
however, in ffxiv, the same character can play different classes! classes work, in practical terms, very much like specs in wow. a quick click of a button and your level 33 paladin tank can become a level 1 caster.
yes, your level is directly related to the class or job you are currently specified in!
Now, I was assured that leveling a new class once you’ve maxed out with your parent class is much faster compared to the first, but I have yet to start leveling a new class on my current one. paladin, so I can’t really talk about that much. however, the idea that you can have every class in the game on one character is mind blowing for a veteran like me.
sure, you can include a new character if you want. that’s entirely doable and most players have more than one character.
however, that’s where the wow comparisons start to lean a bit in wow’s favor…
the mail system. it’s a strange point to start talking about the downsides of alternatives in an mmo, but this is where the biggest problem lies for me.
with ffxiv, you can’t submit your own alt.
in one of the biggest mmo of 2021? really. you can’t mail your other characters in ffxiv. this means you can’t send your alt currency, gear, or anything at all.
Each character is treated as the first character you cast into the game. it’s its own completely separate entity, with no connection to your other characters.
everything you’ve earned with your original character is forever tied to that character. there is no advantage to lower level alts, it’s basically starting over a second time.
You can only send messages to characters on your character’s friends list. and you can’t add your alternate characters to your main character’s friends list, which makes it impossible to send mail to your alternate characters.
well, not impossible. technically speaking, you can mail stuff to a trusted friend, who then forwards it to your alt, but if you’re sending lots of money, it better be someone you trust a ton (or a second account!).
This is an important one for me, given how much of a collector I am. but given how far apart alternate characters are from your main character, since you can play every class on any character, it makes sense.
There are account-wide pets and mounts, but they are handled quite cumbersomely in ffxiv. each account-wide item appears in your mailbox when you first log in with a new character. the same way account-wide items in wow used to be before the introduction of shared collection tabs there.
Even if these account-wide items were the only items put into a shared account-wide collection window, that would be a noticeable improvement. As it is, being still new to the game, I still have to loot nearly two dozen in-game couriers to collect all the stuff (pets, mounts, and items) I already have across the entire account. this includes pets and mounts from the various expansion collector’s editions, as well as purchases from the store.
The wardrobe is especially important. wow, when you collect a new skin, given the level restrictions, you can use that newly collected skin in an alt.
Not so in ffxiv, where new characters need to re-collect appearances. which could be a huge pain.
Speaking of appearances…
transmog, or the glamor system as it’s known in ffxiv, is the method by which characters can change the appearance of their equipped gear to something much more palatable.
Unlocked after doing a level 15 quest, it’s a bit more complicated build compared to wow.
first, you acquire the piece you want to use as a transmogrification. from here you have the option of putting it in something called a cupboard in your inn room, or placing it in a form of storage used directly by the glamor system. in the latter there are 400 spaces, but this is not as restrictive as it seems.
gear pieces in ffxiv can be dyed to change their color, so you will only need to have 1 version of a piece of gear with that basic appearance. while wow’s skin set can have multiple helms, all with the same base skin, differentiated only by slight color variations, in xiv you only need 1 version, which you can then dye multiple times to change its color.
The entire system is based on what are known as glamor plates. think of these as the various costume slots available in wow, where you can store up to 16 different builds that you can transmog into a transmog vendor/mount.
However, once you assign a skin to a Glamor Plate, you can freely switch to a Glamor Plate Skin without any charge or need to visit a vendor or your Glamor Vanity, as long as you are in a Glamor Plate. important city.
The only restriction is that you can only use an item’s appearance if the class you’re currently in can equip it. there’s really no difference with wow, where armor types are restricted to specific classes.
There are a lot of skins that all classes can use, so they make up a lot of basic skins, at least at lower levels.
As for the variety of appearances in question? mind-bogglingly huge. the variety of appearances, from medieval knight to business suits, maid suits, warriors of the holy light, past characters from previous ff games, literal Japanese schoolgirl outfits (!) to… well, anything you can imagine.
the range and variety are astounding, and exceed a thousand times the wonder. from simple everyday items like a knitted sweater and jeans, to a fantastic wielder of gothic black magic. is a fantastic advantage over wow, even if the base system that supports it is, as I said, a bit more complex than wow initially. eventually you get the hang of it, but it’s definitely not as intuitive as wow’s.
As far as the external systems go, there’s a cash shop (obviously), where you can purchase a much larger variety of items than are available in the wow shop system.
in the wow cash shop you have about 20 mounts, a few spawns, a couple dozen pets, and a few toys, and that’s about it. in terms of services, you have the career change, server transfer, name change, etc all available as expected.
ffxiv also has these latest services available, and this is another place where you have a big advantage in wow.
career changes in wow cost around £13. with this you get a free name change and you are good to go. however, if you’re happy with your character’s name, then it’s not an option you’re likely to use outside of the career change itself.
A change of race in ffxiv costs £5.75. Seriously, it’s less than half the price. you buy a potion called a fantasy potion, which is delivered to the character in question by mail. drink this and on your next login you have the option to redo your character’s race, gender, and identity. appearance.
However, this is somewhat diminished by the fact that when using this system, there is no option to change your character’s name; it’s a separate paid service (again £5.75, vs £9 on wow), and add in the fact that the in-game change appearance option, the equivalent of the hairdresser in wow, is so much more limited in what can be changed.
in shadowlands, you can basically change everything about your character, except their name, in-game with gold. skin tone, gender, hairstyles, faces, everything can be changed at the hairdresser.
However, in ffxiv this option, the beautician, can only change superficial things like hairstyle, hair color, etc. even seemingly basic things like eye color and skin tone will require going down the fantasy route.
however, it’s easier to avoid choosing skin colors & eyes not quite right in character creation given that you can see your character in different environments and lighting before committing the character which is not something you can do in wow. so it balances out, but not quite in my opinion.
Also in the store are the usual services such as name change, server transfer, etc., which work exactly the same way as in wow, but again for much cheaper than the price charged in wow.
then there are the items you can buy, like mounts, pets, costumes, emotes (!), level ups for specific jobs, items for the ffxiv housing system (which I haven’t even mentioned!), dyes, weapons, etc., all of which are cosmetic, with the obvious exception of level increases. There are also msq skips available, which will mark the msq marked complete for a character, but will not increase their level. useful if you want to get msq out of your way and level up through side quests and job quests.
a huge number and variety of options, ranging in price from items as low as £1, through top jumps costing around £18, to party-sized mounts (seats 8) which costs £28.
These are the aforementioned literal whale mounts 😉
Most mounts and pets are account-wide, but there are a few that are character-specific and as such only cost around £7. This character-specific approach applies to just about everything else, where costumes and class increase etc. are specific to a single character.
for me, ffxiv’s cash shop, while featuring a lot more content than wow’s, somehow feels less heinous than wow’s. Maybe it’s because the prices on the ffxiv cash shop are so much cheaper than wow’s for specific services. one character race change (£5.75) and one name change (£5.75) total down to less than one race change with one name change included free in wow (£11.50 vs. £13 ). and if all you want to do is change your race (and leave the name as it is), it’s less than half the price of the equivalent service in wow.
Mounts are cheaper, costume sets are much cheaper, and there are a variety of additional goodies like emotes.
I guess it’s the idea that you can afford a little more at any given time, for a little money, that makes the ffxiv cash shop less egregious for me and, ironically, less profitable. others may disagree, as the wow cash shop is much more limited in scope, but has prices that are generally much more expensive, so it’s very subjective.
I haven’t even dealt with things like housing, which is a big thing in ffxiv. you can buy a house in a residential district in the game (there are many, but free places are still rare), and then decorate it the way you choose.
guilds (called free company or fc) can buy a specific fc house, which will be open to all fc members, or a person can buy their own with enough gold/gil.
Speaking of guilds, the guild system is much more basic in ffxiv than it is in wow. things like a list of who’s online at any given time isn’t as easy to use as wow, but the basics are there.
I recently joined my first free company in the game, so I’m still getting used to the full setup, just like with the shell and a lot of other aspects of the game in general, so I haven’t delved too deep into neither here.
ffxiv and wow are very similar in some ways and very different in others.
similar in that they are both MMOS with millions of current active players, with multiple playable classes, races, a cash shop, collectible stuff like mounts, pets, titles, and skins, and a story-driven approach to gameplay. leveling up, where quests and dungeon exploration will make up the majority of the time spent reaching the level cap and regular late-game raid launches.
however, where wow takes a more class-centric approach, where a new character must be used for a new class each time, ffxiv takes a more character-first approach, where the same character can play with each and every one of the classes. (There are no breed/class restrictions here!).
If you have a particular attachment to a single character, this will be a huge plus, as you can spend 100% of your time and effort on the character of your choice.
However, if you’re the type of player who prefers to play multiple races in your mmo, wow will have the upper hand in this regard, as long as the race/class combination you choose isn’t banned (gnome paladins anyone?).
Given that choice, everything else will flow from that.
If you like having multiple characters of different races, be prepared for a long haul with each character as they will have completely roped off currencies, skins, gear, etc. everything has to be redone from scratch out of the entire account items you receive in the mail on first login.
which may or may not be your specific cup of tea.
However, if you want to invest in fewer characters, just one or two (or however many you’re comfortable with given the advice above), then you’ll be able to further explore and use each one. those characters.
Since there is a huge amount of content for even one character to get through, and each character can be used to level each class, then there is quite a bit of content available for a single character. alone.
so, while wow is a broader but shallower build, where it’s easier to level and equip a single character, then do it all over again on another and another (and if you’re playing multiple classes, then necessarily), ffxiv has a narrower but deeper focus and experience, playing fewer characters, but spending more time on each character with multiple classes per character.
Personally, I have chosen to use two characters: one for my martial classes, such as gladiator>paladin, marauder>warrior, etc., and a second character for my more magic-based classes, such as thaumaturge>black mage, etc.
mainly for aesthetic reasons, as my paladin is a huge elezen (elven) woman, while my magic user will be a much smaller and slender mi’qote cat-girl character.
Overall, I’m glad I decided to give Final Fantasy 14 a third chance. I’ve now fallen deeply in love with the game and have already pre-ordered Endwalker, the next expansion that won’t be out for another 6 months at the time of writing. . I also bought the collector’s edition goodies for all the previous expansions I didn’t already have (stormblood and shadowbringers), and bought a more paladin-like costume for my paladin tank from the cash shop (£6 for both armor and weapons, sold separately: £4 and £2).
I spend all my free time playing the game and only log into wow recently for raids and not much else.
at the very least I’ll have a backup option which should continue to drag my heels on content releases and if I ever decide to hang up my protadin & board, even for a while.
I know if 9.1 turns out to be hot crap, then I’d be tempted to stay away from it for a while and be more casual while I spend more time on ffxiv.
I’ve seen that after I started playing the game, a lot more wow players start to get more interested in ffxiv, including the likes of bellular, preach, pyromancer, luxthos, etc, etc. it’s encouraging to see many visible wow content creators. considering ff, and quite a few of them have been impressed by the quality of the game.
particularly the storytelling in the game, which by all accounts, especially by shadowbringers, completely destroys the storytelling of wow. shadowbringers has been rated as the best expansion of all mmo’s, by multiple streamers, so I can’t wait to get to that part of the story!
There is no question that much of this adoption of ffxiv by wow streamers and youtubers is largely due to the lack of content right now on wow, and whether any of them will continue to produce ffxiv content once 9.1 drops wow it’s ready for the atm debate.
However, I know I’ll definitely be playing it after the 9.1 drops.
It’s a fantastic game, with a humble and talented development team that really cares about its player base (the developers added flying in the original target areas, as well as various other features in their spare time just to be able to give it to the players), a fantastic (if a bit convoluted) transmog system, great graphics and an engine that runs really well even with everything maxed out, and the friendliest non-toxic player community in the mmo space.