Why I'm liking FF14 right now, let me tell you why....atm

Reese_Flamelocks · May 2022

Hello,

Long time ESO fan and its lore. Played TES back when I was 14. Arena changed the landscape of RPGs for me back in what, 1995? Anything was possible. A true digital role-playing game in the greatest sense, and don’t even ask me how many days of school I missed to go home and play TES: Daggerfall. Revolutionary.

First of all, ESO is awesome. What a well put together game. I kept thinking to myself as I played, there is no way to put together the architecture of DAoC or TERA, or even DDO. Hell, throw in LOTRO, and make the mechanics as precise, to the point that you either know what you are doing, or you lost yourself. FF14 is not doing this, but….

Just out of curiousity, I decided to take a break. I paid for High Isles about 4 months ago, because I thought to myself, well duh, you’ll be playing this then. But, for whatever reason I started playing FF14.
So, this is not a needling of ESO, but rather a reflection of my time in FF14.

1. First, the crafting in FF14 is far superior. I asked myself, so I don’t just need to “research” stuff and deconstruct items I find? I actually have to plan where things come from, and go get them? It creates an adventure.
a. Frankly, it reminds me of old MMO’s, and I like that. Werk, werk, werk..
2. I’m still deciding how many combat options I have, but as I peruse the actions available to me, it seems diverse. Especially the Ninja job. And the “flow” seems better than ESO because I don’t have to keep switching from back bar to front bar and wait for the weapon to change.
3. Negative: World seems small, but again I’m 45, and conversely, the fact I can go anywhere in the ESO world and succeed is appealing.
4. Neutral: The fashion is flamboyant, maybe too much? You could literally put on rags and it will look good. But…I think we all learned that we really do care how much we look in the game and how bad ass, or “pretty” we look” doing it, so I cannot hold it against either F14 or ESO.
5. This is on me: it’s new and novel, so definitely count it against me for its novelty.

Any thoughts on those who have played both? Thank you.

Amottica · May 2022

We all have our opinion about what is superior and what we think is done best. Most of us that prefer ESO like the game because it is a departure from the old games we are tired of. So while I am glad you like FF14, we have moved on from that game and similar ones.

And yes, I recently returned to FF14 to run with some friends and it reminded me of what I like about ESO and the more fluid combat we have here as well as pretty much everything in ESO.

Enjoy your game. Glad you like it.

Iselin · May 2022

I just can't do tab target combat any more and I find child-like races a big turn off.

Glad for you that you're finding something to enjoy while you take an ESO break but I tried FF14 years ago just long enough to know it's not for me.

kieso · May 2022

Why bother with a post like this. If we want to play ff14 we would probably lookup YouTube videos to check it out and then decide.

LordRukia · May 2022

Playing FF14 for me was like wading through a quagmire of molasses , it has a certain charm to it and great devs behind it (everyone wants yoshi as their dev) but are limited by engine. The pvp I just can't do anything but laugh at , combat is awful until near max lvl, most your time is spent pressing 1,2,3 in formation which to me is unforgiveable unless its got an engaging action combat. 2.5s global cooldowns. Extremely static, more so than WoW.

Graphics are not great even in 4K, very outdated. Feels claustrophobic and clunky, dead open world with focus on solo story/instances. Most of players in instances, cities for fashion/RP/afk.

I am not one to hold onto nostalgia for outdated game design . Its like a interactive story more than anything, but it does have cinematic instances so I give the raids and later dungeons a thumbs up. Its like a single player JRPG. The best fight I did had an active time event and that was awesome because I was a fan of it since FFIX, probably the only MMO that does this.

If you are looking for a much slower paced experience then I'm sure you will enjoy, nowadays even as I get older I crave the more free form action combat and builds. I could never go back to such a restrictive system. And to be honest I prefer our crafting to be simple, no need to make it a mini game or I would have ignored it like I did in 14.

I think its a good game but I really didn't like it.

Blinx · May 2022

I ran away from Eorzea, and left my lev 70 white mage behind for the the greener pastures of Tamriel, that was over 2 yrs ago ago.
I prefer the questing, and the solo friendly atmosphere of ESO, detested areas closed off until dungeons were cleared in FF14, and the forced grouping to advance in certain parts of the MQ.
Even with the sour taste that AwA has left me with, I still enjoy this game for what it is, and will prob continue playing until the entire map is filled in.

Froil · May 2022

I like FF14 but crafting in that game is so awful and daunting. You need to level them up for the active skills and can either spend a lot of money on the market looking for the material(s) you need or you can maybe go farm them yourself, which means levelling up another job and doing its quests for the active skills.

In ESO I can chill, go to a good route of nodes and make gear with a lot less clicks and button presses.

Ermiq · May 2022

FF14 is not for me for many reasons.
It's not about target lock combat though. I have no problems with that.
The first and foremost, it is an asian style RPG in terms of the visual setting, races, monsters, sounds. This all, combined together, feels so grotesquely disgusting to me. Sure, many people like it, even more just don't care, but I'm one of those who just can't handle it.
Next, the world, in terms of level design and world building. I heard that the newer DLC zones are better, but while I was going through the vanilla game, I didn't ever feel like this world has any life in it. It's so dead and built off fake decorations. Quite beautiful decorations if you look at them separately, but as a whole it all feels fake and empty.
The story. Again, people say the newer stories are better, but the vanilla story I've been going through is an absolute boredom. And this boredom is stretched out onto the very long 'journey' up to level 45 or something. I sincerely have read the dialogues, as I always do in MMORPGs, but in case of FF14 it turned out that it failed to catch me in. Really, zero immersion and zero interest in the story, and that's quite uncommon for me.
Another minor issue is the amount of GUI windows and buttons/text on them. Quite overwhelming and cluttered.

Nightowl_74 · May 2022

I like both. It's fun being able to do DB and thieves guild here in ESO, because there's nothing similar in FFXIV, but it's fun doing Gold Saucer and various side content in FFXIV for the same reason. I like housing a lot more here and like you, I also prefer the crafting and gathering system over there.

I'm not into fashion in ESO because it's too involved. In some ways the FFXIV system is also complicated, it's certainly not perfect, but I can craft or buy all my dyes and create a bunch of outfits without worrying about any sort of tokens or spending game currency. Also, I can hide any armor slot I choose. The interface is kind of weird but to me it's more user friendly, overall. I will say, there's nothing like my cadaverous assassin polymorph though, and I love that thing.

I don't always like the linear progression in FFXIV. While I do enjoy a very large amount of the side content and "fluff" sometimes it's annoying to have the next four or eight person instance hanging over me, waiting to be done. It doesn't always bother me, at times I'm in a mood for group content and get it done as quickly as I unlock it, but I'm not the type of player to blast through all the new content as soon as it's released and it can be irritating not to have access to various zones and features until I do get around to it.

Which one I play most depends on my mood and what my husband is doing because he plays on the PS4 and FFXIV is cross platform.

Aztrias · May 2022

I tried F14, but I'm just not a fan of the aesthetics and felt zero immersion while playing it.

ZOS_Icy · May 2022

Greetings,

While we understand that you may have interest in other games, this forum was created to talk about ESO. As we want to keep the discussion on the forums focused on this game, we've closed this thread.

Thank you for your understanding.