Guild Wars 2 Vs Final Fantasy 14 - The Review

[@archdetective]

Best mmo experience for me through the years is playing both, because each game scratch a different itch.

[@itsSparrow-]

wat itch do they scratch 👀

[@courtjeffster8037]

Definitely agree. I mained GW2 for a long time before I out of nowhere REALLY wanted to play a trinity combat game. Sometimes I like action combat (GW2). Sometimes I want to play a specific role in a team (FFXIV). If you can afford the sub, play both. They’re very different and playing both keeps me from getting bored.

[@sniperu7436]

based MMO enjoyer

[@DagothDaddy]

Yeah FF14 is basically "What if Blizz stuck with their WOTLK and early Cata design philosophy of making it easier to get into and have things to do at max level but also having that cutting edge hardcore content.

[@ninja_sloth3906]

This is the correct answer. I splash out and binge FFXIV like it's a feature film every couple of months. Spending the price of going to the cinema for the same experience spread over a couple of months is well worth it. The endgame content and story is amazing. Then in the interim, fall back on GW2 like an always available, more casual free TV show to fill in the time. They both co-exist perfectly in my world.

[@Nyxnik]

Guild wars server architecture should have been the standard for MMOs for a long time, even in GW1 you could instantly switch regions with barely any difference in latency (which I think was astonishing back then). I feel this is something that should be a lot more appreciated. I cannot stand how in 2021 most MMOs don't allow you to switch regions freely and many even make you lose all your progress if you attempt to play in a new region.

[@kyrxon277]

Honestly it should! I met a couple in pvp one day and they turned out to be ppl i played with for like 5 years in a row. Funner than anyone else i met in the game. And they were on a different server than me. In any other mmo i wouldnt be able to play with them, i'd have to buy a server change for like $20 i bet just to play with them

[@maurxiel3152]

I'm always impressed by fast the game launches.

[@Chizzle751]

Latency is based almost entirely on your distance from the data centre. For instance, i have 270ms to NA and 100ms to KR.

[@Kantonar]

"if you don't have a specific quest specifically associated with a place, it's really just gonna look hollow and empty" is the perfect summation for me about why FFXIV never sticks with me for very long. I've played all the expansions, enjoy the story content and high level boss fights. But compared to GW2, it just doesn't feel like a *world* to explore. GW2 is, to this day, the ONLY MMO I've ever played that felt like it genuinely prioritized explorer players in its fundamental design. It's still wild to me that, almost 10 years later, baseline GW2 still feels ahead of its time and innovative in that regard. I'm of course biased, but it feels like exploration is a core selling point of the whole idea of MMOs, and yet in almost every one of them, you're punished for following your whims rather than following a set path.

[@Zyphent]

Agreed. Aside from non-mmo games like Breath of the Wild or Skyrim I can't think of many games that do open exploration anywhere like Guild Wars 2. I'm loving 14 right now, but the world between settlements does feel quite hollow as a result.

[@sleekslack]

the exploration part, yes, even though i got skyscale, griffon and such, but when i created new character, I tended to explore on foot.

[@djmeowth]

This is also the main reason I just can't get into FFXIV. I've tried six different times over the past eight years. Eorzea just doesn't feel like a world to me. The different regions feel cramped, tiny, and purpose-built to serve as areas in a video game. There's little 'wasted space' that allows the world to breathe and feel expansive, which is convenient if all you care about is minimizing travel times, but not if you want to explore a vast world. Everything kind of feels like a corridor leading somewhere else, and rarely did I ever experience the sort of moment you can experience in GW2 (or even WoW, ESO, or LotRO) when you climb up to a high vantage point and look around and see all sorts of interesting landmarks off in the distance. Even the quests contribute to this feeling of a lack of scale or 'epic-ness' - I remember getting a quest to kill 3 Garlean soldiers at this outpost nearby. I was anticipating some kind of fortress or citadel that I would be storming, but the outpost was literally one tower and a few bulwarks/barricades scattered around it. I think there were maybe six spawns of soldiers there, total. The scale is so small, it really just makes me feel kind of suffocated.

[@chillax319]

@@djmeowth Mix GW2 exploration with Final Fantasy level of character development and you can struck gold.

[@renno2679]

Ya thats probably because FFXIV doesn't focus on exploration. That's why you can queue for any content from anywhere rather than having to go to that place. They don't have any nodes to go after besides Fates and Aether currents. If you're into a more progression based gameplay with little to no job bias in PF (literally any job is viable. I thought this was impossible but it's actually such a small difference that it only matters if you wanna spend a couple minutes less in the hardcore content. Personally I HATE exploration and the story in GW2 but im trying to get into the progression of it.

[@TalynWulf]

"You might love GW2, but you'll log in and not really be sure what you want to do." I don't think I've heard a better description of my problem with GW2. I love the game, but I tend to log in, mess around for a bit, do world bosses for a few days, and then get out of the habit of it, and stop logging in for a long time. I haven't even gone through all the Living World content because I don't feel like I know what I'm doing there either. It really doesn't help that I beat Zhaitan, and then all of the sudden got thrown this entire new group of people who I don't know and cannot connect to because I feel like I missed a part of the story. Like reading Book 1, and then picking up Book 3.

[@luxxy707]

Agree. That is the problem for me too. I don't want to grind for that legendary gears either. So sad that they are being time gated.

[@astralbuddha]

Yeah, I had to watch a youtube video that explained everything but it still doesn't feel the same as going through the experience myself for the first time aka living world season 1. Huge flaw. And the paywall for living world for my super casual friends who don't have the time of day to even notice that there are parts of the story missing without buying those, and arguably one of the more entertaining stories with Palawa Joko. It's bad enough that even if that content were fully accessible and free, as a story, it had it's moments for sure, but I maybe felt things for about one tenth of the amount compared to what I felt from / during my entire playthrough of the FFXIV story.

[@NikeGipple]

After all you can do a choice in gw2. You are in power to select the type of activities you want not forced by the game. Many time in others mmorpg you can't do that. You need or better forced to do a specific progression. Check ffxiv MQS in that regard. Like one or other approach is only a player choice.

[@manuelsilva6244]

@@luxxy707 well legendaries on FF14 are gated too. You can't just start playing and have a legendary next day.

[@manuelsilva6244]

@@astralbuddha You have to understand that in FF14 you also have to pay to experience the story. The way of payment is just different. And at least in GW2 you can pay it gold, FF14 you can't.

[@Jarvice]

I do miss the dye system from Gw2 in FFXIV. I loved how you can change the colors of smaller details and even your mounts in Gw2!

[@WeirdDud_]

Picked up XIV's old 30-day trial back around 3.2ish during the post-HoT content drought. Figured I may as well since it was a more tolerable idea than running dragon's stand one weekend. That was a great mistake to make. And for credentials, I've clocked roughly 900 (~600 on my ele) hours in GW2 starting from early LWS2, and about a little over 2000 in XIV to date. I think I tended to lean towards XIV more and more as the "main" game over GW2 as time went on for a few reasons I'll try to briefly highlight. At first it was the QoL for alt-o-holics, such as myself. While I did pride myself an Ele main, the amount of time you had to spend on alt professions was a bit silly. HPs and Leveling aside, if you wanted to run a specific piece of content on an alt, say Chak Gerent, you would have to physically head there through SW, VB, and AB. Same goes for the dungeons if you wanted to do those, I remember Citadel of Flame being a pain at one point for this reason. This problem, I felt, got worse as new LW maps were added, especially if you didn't grind out the portal tomes. Meanwhile XIV being as it is, just a button press from inherently having everything on one character, which was a nice change of pace. Then it was the inventory. Oh good f***ing lord the inventory. I cannot begin to say how nice it is to not have my inventory space gimped by not forking over gold for better bags or gems for more bag slots (the latter exacerbated by HoT's new maps having individual keys that took up space before that got patched, and also the previously mentioned alt addiction). Granted retainers costed more after the 2nd and there wasn't any material storage to speak of, but it kinda came down to the feeling that the game wasn't intentionally flooding my inventory with useless junk. Except maybe faded scrolls and Triple Triad cards I couldn't be assed to trade in for mgp. And, aside from the amount of content as you already went over, it was the aspirational stuff that started really reeling me in. Cool looking armor and weapons were earned in game by clearing hard and harder stuff, as opposed to running the most efficient gold treadmill so you could offer up a weeks worth of bandit chest trains for a single skin. I don't mean to rag on the gem store's quality of offerings more than has already been done, but when most of the good stuff comes out of it, people (myself included) will try to efficiency the hell out of gold gain to the detriment of our own fun. This also extends to Legendaries, or in XIV, relics. GW2 leggies feel like a journey for about half of it, and a wealth check for the other, and I swear becomes more and more of a wealth check as time goes on (remember when Mystic Coins were like 20s? Good times.) Relics in XIV are much more... removed from your coin. For example, Bozjan relics, the most recent expansion's relic quest, is a matter of two additional in-game zones with a separate leveling system, additional skills you can loot and equip, and each with their own in-instance 48 man raid. And an extra 24 man raid and 8 man trial on top of that. Sure it's the same story and crafting route regardless of whatever bozjan relic you're going for, but it's not something you can skip by swiping your credit card. You knew that somebody holding one went through some skill checks to get one, or at least spent a lot of time trying. The worst that could come out of it all is getting PTSD from red choctober. Not to say XIV is a perfect game though, of course, this was just more of a stream of thoughts. That said, that period where XIV and GW2 would alternate content releases in the LWS3 - LWS4 era was so nice. Although it is disheartening to think that I initially stuck to GW2 for the narrative, and my interest in the main story path in that game has since only waned. I wont add another paragraph explaining my opinions on champions as that horse is long dead. Also I now have a crippling need to play Mahjong every now and then thanks to this game. Don't learn how to play it if you value your time. Anyways, thanks for reading. I see you're on the same world, so feel free to hit me up for extremes and the like. Yunalesca Astora on Cactuar. Cheers.

[@Tystolfo]

Dope comment, super interesting t hear the thoughts of GW2 players.

[@Neox999]

The inventory thing is very true. While GW2 has way more QoL features like the material bank and quick material depositing you really need them as the game would be almost unplayable without them. And you need bag slots, different kinds of bags, shared inventory slots and salvagers to make it less annoying. In FFXIV you just need to learn how to sell things via the annoying retainer UI from time to time and you are good to go.

[@princessjello]

Hello fellow cactuar resident

[@enferreine]

It's funny, because I am an alt-a-holic and FFXIV made me cry and scratch my eyes out. Trying to level different classes without the main story to access anymore made leveling other classes feel terrible and then when i saw the shop was selling skips for them, it made me even more angry. It felt like such a punch to the face. I leveled as Scholar/Summoner to get double and a dancer for the automatic early start and just kept rotating them out till they were both max level for the time. I tried doing a Bard and I never made it, I pretty much quit the game by that point, even after I preordered Endwalker, I have not returned. All the things you mention as a dislike for GW2, are things I prefer. Guess it really shows how much personal preference impacts these kinds of things.

[@Skallva]

@Hagogs Couldn't be further from the truth. The devs actually didn't even want to add skips to the game at first and they only did due to player requests. Aside from that, you can always reexperience the story with New Game+ and there are a lot of reliable methods of leveling up your jobs. Not to mention the jobs added in the expacs start off at higher levels than the base ones to ease up the grind at least a bit (it depends on the expansion but they get progressively higher-level with each eg. Sage and Reaper, the newest jobs, start off at lvl 70). And you get double the exp when leveling up any job that is lower-level than your highest-level one. It's still pretty grindy going from 1-90 without the MSQ but it's not that big of a deal. Certainly better than starting from scratch with an alt.

[@ITitITitITitIT]

I really like this review - it's very honest and objective for both games. One more thing about "lack of features" in gw2 and funding - I have a feeling NCSoft pulls a lot of resources from gw2 for other games and projects and my opinion is that gw2 would have much different development and current state if they had kept it.

[@OkayyyIGetIt]

I'm in love with both games. I will say, GW2 really is just beautiful though. I love the art style.

[@renno2679]

I find that hard to believe because in my opinion, Sourge's VFX looks like actual feces in vapour form. Like who decided that looked good? Idk. Ffxiv's style isn't really great either, but imo gw2's is kinda gross looking.

[@anti-macro]

I love both games. I've been a GW2 player for much longer and I've got to admit that FFXIV initially made me really jealous. SO many aspects I wish were in GW2 are so fleshed out in FFXIV. The world and setting and characters have the depth that I think Tyria would deserve and I couldn't help but feel engrossed in Eorzea. That jealousy quickly subsided once I realized that choosing one or the other isn't necessary, as GW2 with its lack of a gear treadmill and sub fee makes it a fantastic companion game for anything else

[@PrimarchRoboleonFrenchyman]

Equip your mount and roam around for 2 minutes in the wild. You'll lose any remain of jealousy from you.

[@Krieghandt]

I DESPISE gear grind. I still only have a precursor lengendary. AND I'm still competitive. I would like new weapon skills for old weapons, but the early game experience of FFIVX killed me.

[@donteo508]

The only thing ffxiv makes me jealous of when playing is the music. Don't get me wrong, I love the tracks we have in gw2 now but damn, xiv tracks are so hype and really immerse you in fights and what they mean to the player character and the bosses

[@enferreine]

Honestly, GW2 gives me the ability to sit in it all day and commit to something but I don't have to worry if I want to play something else and fear that upon return I will be nothing but useless. I have tried having those other things be MMO's and I just can't stand other MMO's anymore. Everything he said for positives for FFXIV were things that caused me misery or things I had an opposite experience with. GW2 lets me just play other genres and come back when I feel like, which is fairly often but I don't have to feel obligated to do so daily.

[@filips2146]

@@enferreine then you clearly havent played ff14 alot. I have 2 max lvls in gw2 and 6 of them in ff14 and ff14 wins hands down. Ff14 respects the very name of an mmo. Gw2 is just cool mounts, world bosses and exploration. Everything else is so half assed its instanty reflects the playerbase and its size.

[@gefilte86]

One things that both games can share, they both have incredible communities. As an retired veteran WoW player I must say, 99% of my multiplayer experience in GW2 is positive.

[@Dyskresiac]

What kind of crack are you smoking? Granted, maybe WoW Crack. But GW2 community is toxic and meta-hungry AF. In FF or even WoW I have never been nor ever seen anyone been booted for not having a "Meta" class. I have seen that time and time again for GW2. And before you say "In FF's High End Content...." MAYBE . But GW2 doesn't save that elitism for high-end content. And this problem with the GW community actually goes back to GW1.

[@xxxAceBlade]

@@Dyskresiac "high end content" player here in FF. Outside of speedkill groups (something very few players do) there are zero unviable classes in this expansion. Some idiots will say otherwise and insist on going for super optimized comps in their half-assed static that's going to take 2 months to clear anyway, but world first geoups have consistently shown that its just not necessary. If you get good at a class you like, you'll have a spot in raids.

[@Dyskresiac]

@@xxxAceBlade That's the thing. Every GW2 player thinks they're speedkill groups. So if one class is 5% more DPS than another, it's the ONLY class anyone should ever play. I wasn't sure about FF but good to hear it's not like that.

[@Dyskresiac]

@Colin Deal with the way gw hands out level skips like candy (I have like 20+ lvl 60) and how leveling Artificer and cooking gets you 16 more... I consider the leveling a non issue. But you are right that due to Meta gatekeeping, the really isn't much "choice" for endgame content in GW2. I mean, nobody's ever been kicked for their class in FF. And that happens all the time in GW2 even in casual content. So yeah there's less choice overall

[@ilputridumediyoutube7972]

@@Dyskresiac Maybe he was talking about openworld content, where the community is not toxic and where everyone spends most of the time in the game

[@Kasaaz]

I play both games, but for very different reasons. I just think all the things I would weigh in favor of GW2, I liked more in GW1. They're all very different games, but when it comes to buildcraft or combat in general, I definitely prefer GW1. The thing I like the most from Arenanet is things like... world / zone design. They make places that feel like places. I don't really know exactly how to describe it. I guess I'd just say in most MMOs zones kind of feel like movie sets, but the zones from both Guild Wars games always felt like places I was in... I just wish there was more of that in all games.

[@FirionDude]

The thing that I liked the most in GW1 was how many skills each class had. It was like collecting cards. I still remember those damn Ranger/Necros touch in pvp.

[@Kasaaz]

@@FirionDude Yeah. That collecting aspect also made it easier to set short-term goals. I feel like that's missing a lot from GW2. There's plenty of loooong term goals to work towards. But things like grabbing an Elite Skill you needed to try out a build yourself or on a Hero or getting the drops to get a part for a weapon from a Collector, etc. I miss those things. I miss putting together whole team builds and seeing what havoc I could get up to. I miss 55 Monks, trying to solo with damage reflection and regen with only 55 health and struggling so hard to stay alive.

[@rogthepirate4593]

@@Kasaaz I actually feel like that GW1 buildcraft/spell collection thing is kind of similar to Blue mage in some ways. The class is a complete rabbit hole, I've been spending weeks with it now and it keeps on giving. As to map design, I very much agree that the individual locations feel more .... realized. But on the flipside, FFXIV definitely excels at ... well, scale. The world just feels open and wide, whereas in GW2 everything feels kinda scaled down on many maps. It kinda works with the art style for the most part, but it's noticeable. But in general ... I wish someone would create an MMO that takes the best elements of both of these games and combines them. Like, FFXIV-level story content with GW2 world design and mounts, deep feature systems combined with deep buildcraft, FFXIV's glamour system with GW2's dye system, XIV raid content and encounter design with more GW2-like combat, that sort of thing ... man that would be beautiful.

[@Kasaaz]

@@rogthepirate4593 It would be cool to see. I think it's difficult to try and do everything, because if you don't have a main focus, like story or world, etc. You end up with things competing for attention. I don't just mean for the player, but for the developers too. Sometimes story is better supported by having a simpler other system instead, etc. I don't really know how to describe it...

[@pedrodias5166]

Guild wars 1 was the best mmo in my opinion

[@TheLazySage7]

Yeah, mounts in other MMOs are "Cosmetic Speed Buffs" I forgot where I first heard it phrased that way. But its truly the perfect definition.

[@anti-macro]

It is a double edged sword however. While GW2's mounts definitely feel better and have actual gameplay use, they're also a lot more limiting when it comes to variety. Really there are 8 mounts, and while skins are great they generally don't change them massively. The fact that FFXIV's mounts aren't linked to gameplay mechanics means they can go a lot crazier with them - like mechs, cars, tanks, armored suits or even things like palanquins, hot air balloons, etc. In my experience getting a new mount in FFXIV feels more exciting than a new skin in GW2 for that reason

[@DaRealJGRIF]

@@anti-macro I'll take quality over quantity I generally feel the opposite way I'm much more excited when getting a new mount in gw2 since it opens up a new avenue for gameplay, although I agree that getting a new mount in XIV is better than the experience of just paying gems for a new skin, but game feel is much more important to me than visuals

[@TheLazySage7]

@@anti-macro That works well cause you actually earn most of them in game. I think GW2 would feel better if more mount skins skins were earnable IN game.

[@kevinarnold8634]

Actually, EverQuest II has mounts of diverse movement ability so GW2 isn't completely unique among MMORPGs in this regard.

[@kevinarnold8634]

@@anti-macro It's style versus substance. In game play, a diversity of function is superior to a diversity in form. A thousand different looking mounts that do the same thing is woefully lacking compared to eight that do different things.

[@7BitBrian]

One thing you have to consider with FF features is what you said with the Card game, it's literally copied and pasted from the old PS1 game. They have 34 years and 16 different games to pull from, and this covers side features, classes, skins, everything. And they have access to all of that source code and documentation. And they lean on this a lot, like a lot a lot. 90% of Final fantasy 14 is things taken from the other FF games and smashed into 1 world. GW2 does not have such an advantage.

[@stormblessed2673]

I do agree with you that the FF series has allowed 14 to draw a lot of content from. However, even if that's true, as a consumer we ultimately judge the game on what it offers us, regardless of it's systems being inspired from legacy games of the franchise; as a player I'm interested in what content I can engage with, not the developers advantages/disadvantages in bringing it to the current game. Besides, GW2 has some brilliant features/systems from GW1 which it seems to almost intentionally ignore rather than draw inspiration from. Even if GW2 had a history of 30+years and multiple entries, it hasn't shown us its overly willing to draw features from it's franchise, if anything it takes risks and distinguishes itself from GW1 and other mmo's in general (for better and worse).

[@ok_listen]

Not only that, having a solid fanbase and such a funded design/art style helped a lot. GW2 is not that navigated in that regard, so it started heavily disadvantaged. But I think it’s a total win being able to compete with a colossus of Square Enix, IMO.

[@prettyunicorn261]

Truuuue I never thought about it but its a very very good thing for the longevity of the game, you know they have X amounts of content to be inspired from, and we already know all the jobs that can exist in a FF universe (Hints its 90+ ) so I feel like its very reassuring, I love that they have that huge of a franchise ! I love this game even more XD

[@sarkaztik3228]

I'm honestly very confused by the through that FF14 somehow has a ton to do because as someone who played FF14 for the last two expansions, FF14 has SO LITTLE to it after the main story outside of grinding for mounts and doing dailies (ultimately doing dungeons and trials ad nauseum), crafting, doing some side games in the Golden Saucer and uh... leveling up your classes? Maybe Fashion Fantasy? FF14 just lacks anything to do if you don't enjoy doing dungeons and raids for your entire experience (which you do have to do in order to do your daily roulettes) As someone who has put an equal amount of time into GW2, there is WAAAAAY more to do and, if anything, I have trouble trying to decide what I want to focus on-- something I've never thought about in FF14. I think the sheer amount of things to do is a bit overwhelming, but at least I have that choice. Plus, classes in GW2 are actually interesting and I can build a class however I want instead of being forced to be the same as everyone else like in 14.

[@prettyunicorn261]

@@sarkaztik3228 This is were you realize games are made for different audiences, I find that there's close to nothing to do in GW besides going for achievements or legendaries which are just collectionist interests so not for everyone, FF does keep me more engaged with the gearing treadmill that soft resets your progression and give you more objectives to look up for, plus the social aspect in FF is huge and you can pretty much just open party finder - Other, and find loads of people to hang out with or go to parties etc, not to mention how the gold saucer has pretty much a mini progression systems that also keeps you engaged, it pretty much comes down to FF having shit loads of different kind of content, even if you're not a raider you'll prob find your home. Its just for different audiences, and its good that we have both games, some stuff may feel stupid to you and amazing to me or other people, just a fact !

[@RisqueBisquetz]

12:32 the reason why build craft isn't a thing in XIV is to normalize the playing experience through the jobs and roles, and so that a player can simply pick a class without worrying about meta. The only thing the devs changes is the class' identities and how they plays. Granted that this also comes with its own problem, like 2 jobs being a bit too similar and one will feel better to play like DRK vs WAR, or the polar opposite problem where a job like SCH being as powerful as other healers but doesn't feel as tight to play because they try to give it its own identity.

[@ninja_sloth3906]

12:47 I would argue the opposite: GW2 offers too much in the way of build options without first laying down the foundations of skill required by the playerbase to engage with such customisation. The result is sub-par builds across the board. Even FF14 with it's static builds suffer from poor player performance. To offer such incredible build diversity successfully, a game must first require - by gating content if neccesary - how to engage with such tools before allowing the player to use them in team instanced content. By failing to do so, GW2 backs itself into a content creation corner where the majority of the playerbase is incapable of meaningfully interacting with the build diversity tools, and as a result balancing instanced content becomes divisive. When 1/10th of the playerbase is contributing 9/10ths of the dps, the game is either overly grindy or unsatisfyingly easy for all, and finding a satisfying middle ground becomes impossible. Don't forget that GW2 was developed precisely because the devs felt that GW1 was becoming too skill-bloated - they then fell into the exact same trap in their sequel, without offering the tools required to successfully utilise their new buildcrafting catalogue.

[@kevinarnold8634]

Apparently, 1/10th of the population managed just fine as things are. Do they not share their wisdom so that other players can benefit from it?

[@ryanl4821]

WVW and PVP keep me in gw2. Can't seem to get into any other mmo.

[@zenith110]

I do feel like these things -which are taken for granted by the non PvP/WvW section of the community - are among the best in genre. And even then, we still have our problems - but I can enjoy it a lot.

[@qaztim11]

Yep, i'm a 14 player, but Gw2s WvW and PvP is the best in the genre, hands down.

[@jacksheldon8566]

@@qaztim11 sadly it didn't evolved much in 9 years.

[@qaztim11]

@@jacksheldon8566 yea, GW2 had a such a strong release, but it kind of had an inverse situation of FF14. 14 kept adding permanent side content (in addition to seasonal events)and features in addition to expansions and new maps, while in almost 10 years GW2 only added fractals, edge of the mists, 1 new WvW map, and a couple of pvp maps while adding almost no permanent side content, and the lack of dedicated pvp and WvW just made the communities shrink and search for other games.

[@joelhodoborgas]

WvW is just great!

[@carlo8262]

Thanks for the video. Great content. I've picked up FF14, but I couldn't get it to stick. After watching this video, I see that it's not the game for me. The ways in which it excels over GW2 are all aspects of MMOs I no longer care about. Again, great video! It was super helpful.

[@filips2146]

@Hagogs gw2 is not even an mmo or too crap to be one. Gw2 excels in areas where an mmo should.

[@veliona8920]

@Hagogs This is probably the worst way I've seen someone describe FFXIV, the only thing FFXIV and WoW share in common is the fact that they are both MMO's. The 2 games could not be any different from each other than they are.

[@tubintheweb1]

@Hagogs I agree with Gald here, this is terrible description of FFXIV, have you ever played FFXIV? They don't feel even remotely the same at all. If you don't like FFXIV, thats fine, but man this just makes you look silly making a comment like this.

[@tubintheweb1]

@Hagogs Also, if the game was as you describe, it shouldn't be the Most actively played MMO, not only is FFXIV the most played MMO now, its doing it while still charging a subscription. Which makes it even more impressive.

[@kesamek8537]

GW2 is my preference but no question it needs a bunch of fresh instanced content (fractals, raids, strikes) and polish (finish/fix what you started) to really shine.

[@Zanbatoss]

I really want to keep loving gw2 I do, but raiding the same 25 raid encounters for 2 years straight with no further new raids or farming the same drizzlewood/HoT metas are just making me so mad. Hopefully EoD can keep me for more than 3 months before I put down the game again.

[@NagaTales]

As someone who is coming from the opposite direction (thousands of hours in FFXIV and maybe one or two hundred in GW2), there's a part of me that wants to go point-for-point with this video; not as a salty defender of FFXIV, but as someone who [wanted] to love Tyria and GW2 but just... couldn't. So instead of point-for-point, I'll hit the two major ones that have been real barriers to my enjoyment of GW2. The first is the combat; not the Buildcraft vs. Fixed Kit, or Action vs. Tab Target, but the way the game teaches you to play. The Core Tyria experience does next to nothing to prepare you for the way combat is done in HoT and beyond. I got very comfortable with how my Thief played in Core Tyria when I first started playing. Then I remember hitting HoT for the first time and getting absolutely crushed, with no clear indication of why I was suddenly unable to hold my own like I had for the last 80 levels. It was very much not an enjoyable experience, sitting on the ground waiting for an NPC revive, only to get downed again moments later. The fact that GW2 players even acknowledge that Core Tyria is so different from the rest of the game just makes it all the more glaring when people are allowed to rush straight to PoF, or EoD once it's out, right after finishing Orr. The game teaches you to play one way, then it feels like it punishes you for it later, and it's a very jarring hurdle to hit. Now I could absolutely buckle down and get over that hurdle if I set my mind to it, but the fact that I must [re-learn] how to play a game that I just finished grinding out 80 levels on feels more like a slap in the face for time invested rather than a challenge to be overcome. I don't want the new content to be easier, mind you. Just that the combat experience of Core Tyria should be preparing players for how things are *actually* done later on, rather than teaching bad habits. Second is the story. Now I will agree with WP that the actual narrative of Core Tyria, from starting zone to Orr, is absolutely better executed than FFXIV's 1-50 narrative. I don't think one is necessarily better, as they're telling very different scopes of story, but I fully agree that GW2 delivered its first story arc better than FFXIV did. In fact GW2's 1-80 experience is one of my favorite parts of GW2 for that reason. My issue is how it was delivered after, and how you experience it as a new player. To be absolutely blunt, the Living World is terrible for new players. Not only does your purchase of the game not include these vital bits of past story arcs, which you must purchase separately, an entire foundational chapter of the story is unplayable. For veterans who went through it, I have no doubt that Season 1 was excellent; the brief overview cinematic they were kind enough to include certainly seems like it would be a blast. But... I can't experience it, or any of the character moments and relationships my Commander would have established with the new cast. And that becomes the first domino in a very big problem for someone who [wants] to get invested in the story and characters. The game won't let me or, in some ways worse, charges me for the privilege of seeking that investment. And if, personally, I can't get invested, my interest will not stick long enough to get stuck into the game for the long haul. Say what you like about how long FFXIV's narrative is, but save for the failed original version, every player gets the full story, no matter when they start playing, and build their attachment to the cast and world in the same way veterans did, and that unity of experience is very visible in the FFXIV community. Tyria is absolutely a wonderful world, and I love the races, history, art style, and the [concept] of its gameplay. There's a reason I'm subscribed to WP, because I do *like* the game. But whether looking at story or gameplay, at some point I feel the game doesn't *want* me; or at least it's not doing a good job enticing me to play past Core Tyria for either story or gameplay. To me, it seems to be designed for the veterans who have kept up-to-date, and unfortunately, as a late arrival, that means it feels like it's not really being designed pull me in. And I hope that changes one day, because I could absolutely see GW2 becoming my side-hobby right next to FFXIV one day. Just... not in its current state.

[@regendo]

Haha no, Season 1 was far from excellent. It had a fun dungeon early on (that, along with everything else, got removed, but at least the dungeon was recycled into two fractals) but was largely of unacceptable quality and only got good toward the end. The finale, with the assault and razing of Lion’s Arch, actually was excellent but looking back at it, season 1 on a conceptual level is the stupidest, most short-sighted idea imaginable. And as you’ve described, it still cripples GW2 to this day.

[@_Banjo_]

@@regendo Yes theres a weird irony about Season 1. Can yuo really put that as a negative about Gw2 that its missing... when actually it wasn't that brilliant anyway.

[@wisniamw]

My main problem when I started HoT recently was, most of the characters I bassicly didn't know. Other than that, it was IMO ok with the flashback as cutscene. I also don't have THAT much of a problem with difficulty of mobs, althought they definitly hit harder than standard ,,Tyira" mobs

[@kaseigunsou]

As a gw2 vet with thousands of hours of playing and having started when the game was still in beta, I agree with what you're saying about GW2 overall. It does a bad job at welcoming new players and the HOT curb is real. It's an issue veterans, such as myself, have with the game too. I truly hope EoD will learn from it and be more friendly in that matter. Now, I'm a fairly new player in FF14. I've started playing it in 2016 or something and have been playing on and off since then. The main gripe being that because of the huge amount of things to do, the terrible experience of the 1-50 MSQ pacing and needing to group over and over for small pieces of content, I've been feeling discouraged to continue after a while. FF14 is very well produced, but it requires literally tons of hours for players to actually get to the "real" endgame and unlock all the necessary features. The fact you have, as a new players, to dig through tons of different guides to learn what quests are mandatory, or what features are still relevant, is a proof of how bad the new player experience is in FF14. All in all both GW2 and FF14 have their own struggles in bringing in new players. GW2 suffers from production discontinuities issues (the constant shift of focus from Anet is hurting the game deeply) but FF14 suffers from it being too tentacular. Sounds like they could both learn from each other.

[@lasselen9448]

I'll be honest: I may be a long time GW player (played GW2 since early access, after playing GW1 from a year after launch to GW2's release), but I still think the story is terribly disappointing. As much as I love the open world and background storytelling, the structured story (aka Commander's story) is something I can't really appreciate. Each race's different selectable starting arcs are great, the Order stories (one to choose from 3 possibilities) are good, and then... Then it gets generic and boring. Some story missions are great but overall it feels like you (the Commander) are carrying a bunch of barely competent folks who, according to their positions, should be much more able than you. You mention missing meeting the new cast, but I barely even remember how I met them because I never felt any involvement with them (I do with the old Destiny's Edge cast, however). FFXIV on the other hand, putting aside the terrible base game, puts you as the muscles in a team otherwise filled with perfectly competent specialists that you quickly bond with. Sure, you're doing the carrying as far as killing stuff is concerned, but you're mostly incapable of doing any of what the others do, being intelligence gathering, scholarly studies, complex spells, politics or military speeches. In GW2 the Commander is a godlike being who can do all of that perfectly and it seriously gets on my nerves. So don't get too frustrated by missing bits of the Commander's story in GW2, it's not worth it. Instead, go explore the world and discover all the smaller stories that are not told through cinematics and flat exposition. On a different note, HoT ramps up the difficulty like crazy. It wasn't easier for the veterans when it came out, but people understood that they were supposed to play in groups. Afterwards people came up with builds powerful enough to solo this kind of content, but it wasn't the case at first. The difficulty went down with PoF, although it's still harder than core Tyria. Take it slowly, find people to play with, experiment with builds and don't believe those who say you should only run damage stats. You'll do that once you're good enough to never get hit. Oh, and you obviously didn't experience pre-nerf Orr. THAT was true hell.

[@cottontailsify]

"The way he's talking about ARR and the story it sounds like he hasn't done Shadowbringers yet." *Check the Vod* "Yup." You will probably amend some of your story perspective.

[@saxonknight0]

Experiencing ARR voice acting though :/

[@cottontailsify]

@@saxonknight0 unfortunate, yeah. i wonder if it's even possible to redub it with the new voice actors.

[@EurrikkeEdward]

@@saxonknight0 hated minfilia's character with a passion because of the deadpan VA quality. Still havent gotten over it even after just finish HW haha @cottontailsify did WP only just do ARR and called it a day or did he stop at stormblood?

[@Daccura]

@@EurrikkeEdward just play with JP voice acting in ARR. Infinately better.

[@cottontailsify]

@@EurrikkeEdward he just finished 4.0

[@Xivinux]

This is really interesting coming from a guy who adores the guild wars games. Thank you for your work.

[@ardidsonriente2223]

So, what I translate from this... GW2 offers a better constructed experience for the player who wants to explore, travel through the world, find stuf to do right away, a very direct, action focused and chaotic combat, with deep and flexible build mehcanics, with a more immersive environment where the lore is directly integrated on the world, more interesting visuals, more diverse races and overall less grind. Also, it has a very accesible horizontal progression poorly tied to narrative elements and with a weak reward system. All with a great technological infraestructure, fantastic UI and ease of life design, super limited addons, a story defined by hollywood formulaic mainstream standards and a company philosophy focused on innovation. And not many or very interesting minigames or interconection between secondary systems, and a constant debt on look-feel details like emotes, and horrible "housing". FFXIV offer a less active but way tighter combat for parties of overly dedicated players, well polished but mostly fixed mechanics, much larger quantity of well done but generic dungeons, grittier environment with a lot of lore mainly submerged in muntains of text, and lots of narrower and more repetitive traditional grinding quests. Also, it features a traditional linear progression well mixed with narrative elements and a strong reward component. All with a basic technological support, terrible UI you can customize to make better, extensive addons, a story marked by JRPGs melodrama standards, and a fully conservative bussiness strategy. And lots of minigames and interconection between secondary systems, and lots of well made look-feel details everywhere, and great housing.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Nailed it!

[@Kyniel]

Phew, now I don't have to watch the video 😉

[@heylookitsnana]

Just want to add that a lot of Ffxiv's casual content is for spectacle and story progression. They're purposefully generic because where FFXIV shines is in its 8 man content (trials and 8 man raids). Most dungeons have custom music, lots of lore, and story. This makes doing the dungeons the first time always fun, because while mechanically there may be only one or two surprises, you van focus on taking in the art of the dungeon.

[@roadwarrior1624]

OMG!!’ This is such a good review. I couldn’t (and didn’t) say it so well myself. I just wanna add that WP seems to emphasize in this review things that are MORE (not better), and everyone knows that singing louder (but off-key) is not better. Saying that an RPG has more of some thing does not define it as an improvement over a game that is taking some time to focus on things like the visuals, that in my opinion, matter so much more than a clunky (but very customizable) UI that needs your input and effort to make it usable. If anything, this review has solidified that I am not an FF player and never will be.

[@TheRayzorOne]

This but without all the cynicism in the FFXIV part!

[@Kalas286]

GW2 has sick combat and level design. FFXIV has cool story and has far more things to do when it comes to an MMO.

[@Emberrs]

I've spent over 120 hours trying to get into FF14 but never managed it. The lack of voice acting, empty open world, infinite fetch quests, and endless monologues keep pushing me from getting invested into the story and world.

[@startthemachin3]

@@Emberrs One thing I hate in games is walls of text, I don’t even read them in GW2 and there’s not that many of them. Then again, I prefer gameplay over story any day.

[@dayari139]

@@Emberrs Exactly, when you're done with the MSQ, there's simply little to do. Unless you're into high-end raids and trials, or have a shitload of gil for fashion/housing.

[@zenith110]

That's basically it. They have a more "complete" MMO experience and even the most scrutinizing look at GW2 can't come up with enough content/systems to compare it on the same fronts. In a way, it suffers from the same problems its predecessor had - not much to do outside of combat.

[@KeithEngel]

@@dayari139 Saying this as someone who plays both, and what is there to do in GW 2 that is any different, grind out Meta's to try to get an RNG Drop for Gold? Grind out a Legendary, Do WVW or Fractals, or Raid if you want. Honestly, once you hit a certain point in any MMO it's boils down to the same type of thing or repeating content again on a different class/character.

[@TheSilverSkeejee]

As an FFXIV vet coming back to GW2 on occasion now you *definitely* nailed some of the experience for me! GW2's mounts have been a wonderful breath of fresh air, and god I wish we had them in FFXIV; but GW2's telegraphing is *absolutely infuriating* . Half the time I cannot tell if it's a friendly or an enemy AoE; I've been flattened for what felt like no reason whatsoever. GW2's PvP is without comparison and I adore its active combat system; but once I hit 80 I was *completely* at a loss for what to do or how to do the things I wanted to do. GW2 has the superior glamour system by far *but* the tone of the world is completely lost by how ridiculously over-the-top all of the shop bought glamours are *and* I feel like I can't earn anything cool, I have to buy it. And touching on your new player thing, the sheer *hump* I feel between catching up in FFXIV and catching up in GW2 - the GW2 one is massively offputting. I quit FFXIV for 3 years, coming back in ShB, and I knew exactly what to do, what I could do and where to go and nothing was unavailable. GW2 was just...now what? Oh and I gotta *buy* all of the story to actually get my skyscale and understand what's going on? I nearly quit right there and then, and now I *finally* got to the skyscale section I'm just feeling super burnt out. And gods I dislike GW2's UI. I can't change it to what I want, and I often lose important information from all the noise on screen. But as much as FFXIV is my game of choice, I still really enjoy GW2 and the itches it scratches are very different; and I'll probably be buying End of Dragons. Really solid video, glad I watched it!

[@hiko7386]

gw2 doesn't have a linear progression throughout updates like other mmos which the only progression is your mechanical skills and your understanding of the game. While I do prefer this system as I do have really high mechanical prowess, gw2 does not expand on the possibility of this and just stick to making story content and no challenging contents. My favorite game mode which is PVP has been left ignored since day 1 as they couldn't be asked to balance it and kills the esport scene. ff14 on the other hand has a much inferior gameplay, but the joy you feel for the game does gets better over time unlike gw2 where as when you reach a certain skill levels, which is not even comparable to the highs many others and myself have reached, the game almost becomes a joke in pve due lack of challenging content, me and my friends can pretty much full clear all raids with a group of 4 or 5. PVP and WVW suffers from the lack of population which results in us getting matched with lower ranked players and non of us have a good time

[@ansalem12]

I feel pretty much the same. Although I think the two games are about on par with each other in the glamours department. I would say in terms of aesthetic and variety they're basically equal, in terms of usability GW2 is better, and in terms of availability of glamours FFXIV is better. Which one is better overall honestly is kinda down to how much cash you can afford to throw at the game. GW2 does have plenty of cool looking gear attainable in the game itself, but it's still a lot harder to get the ones you're after in most cases I feel like, especially if you're new to the game or don't play consistently. And on that note, my approach to the games is quite different. For me FFXIV is a game I can play on a regular basis and it doesn't get old very easily at all, plus I don't think I've ever logged in and felt like I didn't achieve something worthwhile. Meanwhile GW2 is more of a gotta be in the mood for it type situation. I've been playing it on and off since initial launch, but I play it in bite size chunks so I haven't actually played all that much with only 3 max level characters and only 1 with the gear for it. Despite the fact that in general I agree with Potatoes that GW2's combat feels better to play mechanically than FFXIV's does, it also starts to feel stale for me personally pretty fast if I play too much at a time. And I hardly ever feel like I'm achieving anything meaningful in GW2, but to be honest I also don't really feel like I need to. So at least to me it's actually a positive for both games in that department despite feeling exactly the opposite. I'll be getting End of Dragons for sure... when the GW2 mood finally hits me again.

[@silveruki2036]

"nothing was unavailable" is a statement I heavily disagree with - you're gatekept by the main story from ALL new extreme and raid content - to actually start playing the game with my friends and start learning my job, I had to sit through an overall mediocre main story, which I couldn't even play with my friends either. They had to wait for me to unlock a 4-man hallway every second level. FFXIV is an MMO I played 80% of alone. "I knew exactly what to do, what I could do and where to go" - yes, because the game does the same formula since HW - Endwalker will have a dungeon on lvl 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 2 lvl 90 dungeons, there will be 2 EX trials on 6.0, the story finale's extreme will be on 6.1 patch, the raid tier will come out 2 weeks after 6.0 release. Every expansion you know EXACTLY what you're going to get, if anything it's more likely they'll remove something from this formula than add to it.

[@ansalem12]

@@silveruki2036 I mean, you're not wrong, but you're basically just saying you have to get to the end of the game before you can do endgame stuff. That's every MMO ever. Meanwhile FFXIV has probably the best downscaling system to date. It is pretty frustrating your friends can't join your story missions, but for the things they can join you for at least they're not ruining the experience by being overpowered for the content, which is how it normally goes in other games even the ones with downscaling systems. I can see how the main story being mandatory could be frustrating for someone who thinks the story is mediocre, but I think that opinion is the minority. Well, ARR isn't great, but most people love the story in the expansions as far as I've seen. I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, just to be clear. Nothing is for everyone, after all.

[@silveruki2036]

@@ansalem12 To compare to GW2, the moment I hit lvl 80, I am able to do Strikes, Raids and T1 fractals - story is not mandatory and, on top of it, I can play it with friends, which led to some funny inside memes. About being overpowered, I don't enjoy getting thrown into Sastasha during lvling roulette and not having a single aoe skill. Finishing Sastasha in 5 minutes because my friends have access to Doton or cartridge aoe skill wouldn't hurt my enjoyment of dungeons and trials that are nothing to write home about. If anything, it'd make it better because we can play our jobs properly and continue at improving at them. Problem is that this game features a single player story in an MMO - what attracted me to this game wasn't the story, but the endgame raids I saw on streams and videos, so obviously, I would rather want to experience the thing that got me to play the game as soon as I can. ARR and SB MSQ are poorly written in my honest opinion, I think it's terrible that it's mandatory AND it is forced on every character you make. I didn't enjoy playing catch-up to my friends, nor did my friends enjoy playing jobs with half the skills locked in dungeons and trials. There is another issue with this design: I don't have secondary characters, but think about this - we will be having 19 jobs, but the tomes for BIS gear are still at 450 weekly cap during content patch - if someone wants to play multiple jobs, they won't be able to gear more than 2 and they'll have to make alts, which will have to do the whole story again, which they've already watched (or skipped) and played through. The only way to bypass this is to open the wallet.

[@Xbob42]

FFXIV's queue isn't "fake," it was recently implemented as DDoS protection. That's why it's always a fairly short queue, the server isn't necessarily full (although that can also be the case) -- it's just not logging everyone in the second they hit the login button because DDOSers have taken advantage of that to really do some damage over the years. The idea of a fake queue to make the servers seem more full is absurd, we're not talking about Blizzard here.

[@KayeZage]

If the queue is DDOS protection, it's still fake right? You aren't actually waiting for other people to log out, you are waiting for the sever to let you in, and the people in "front" are doing the same. The server's capacity is not full, but you still have to wait. Instead of pretending like you are in a queue they could just throw up a 2-minute timer and say it's authenticating or smth.

[@Xbob42]

@@KayeZage Do you... do you know what a queue is, Hector?

[@KayeZage]

@@Xbob42 A queue is specifically a system that signifies the ordering of people. So the limiting factor is the number of people in front of you and the time it takes for each person to exit the queue. What you described and what it likely is is simply a timer. You don't have to wait for the people in front of you to enter, instead you have to wait pseudo-arbitrary amount of time before you are allowed to make a connection. What I'm saying is that the queue isn't a actually a queue it's a pretense to get the player to accept waiting. In truth there aren't any other people waiting, and whatever number they provide is changed based on how long they want you to wait. That isn't to say they also have a real queue system for when the server actually fills up, but that is a lot more noticable because it's way slower. Which can be seen during expansion launches.

[@Xbob42]

@@KayeZage You're making a lot of assumptions there, which you're free to do as you may be more technically literate with these systems than me, but in the end whether you're waiting for other players or a small timer, the intended effect is the same in terms of basic DDoS protections. They aren't "pretending" that the world is full, they were quite open about this measure and the "world is full" message is simply them repurposing the existing queue service, as adding additional code to identify whether you're waiting for people to leave the server or if you're just waiting for DDoS protection is in the end irrelevant to the player and a waste of dev time when they've been busy prepping an expansion during COVID times. It's by no means perfect, but it's also not anyone trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

[@KayeZage]

@@Xbob42 My comment was more specifically targeted at the fake wording. I would say that a the game pretending there is a queue when really it's a timer is like the definition of fake. Their reasoning for implementing the fake queue is at least to me irrelevant. Forcing extra waiting is a crude but effective solution and you don't need to evaluate any of the traffic. I just think it's by definition a fake queue.

[@danyangel87]

I would love to see you do the same review for ESO especially since I think these two games are more similar than ffxiv and gw2

[@dyewars2234]

i played ESO for a couple hundred of hours and I have to admit, story wise, even for a non-elder scrolls fan like me, is a big win compared to gw2, the region-based story is so good, it feels like every part of the world has their own story, i legit played from level 1 to max level just by doing story lines from each map (as well as side quest which are essentially side stories) but the combat in eso is.....quite bad (im obviously understating this because people might get triggered) i legit just stick to one combat style after trying all the other styles because its the least clunkiest

[@josephisrael72]

Is there a free trail of ESO?

[@kaluk1321]

@@dyewars2234 I couldn't stomach the combat in ESO, dropped in lv 20 even tho the story is quite good.

[@danyangel87]

@@josephisrael72 they usually don’t have a free trial but they do give specials throughout the year. Towards the holidays I’m sure they’ll have one.

[@kevinarnold8634]

@@josephisrael72 They occasionally have free play periods, but not an ongoing free trial. These occur a few times per year, as I recall. As it happens one such period is ongoing, but will end on October 25th so the window of this particular opportunity is tight.

[@albertport2642]

the only thing I can remember is finding Lord Faren, in a room, almost naked, telling a girl "I'm rich, you know".

[@Nightly_Winter]

As a FFXIV player who plays GW2 casually on the side, I must say I completely agree with almost everything on this video. I actually feel like the video could have given GW2 good aspects more credit but anyway, I think the biggest thing holding GW2 back is the payoff almost always feels off, for me at least. Like I dont wanna spoil but I havent been satisified with any Elder Dragon kills, I always walk away from the fight feeling 'thats it' type of feeling. Also there are so many weird holes in the lore that get bigger the more you think about them ,but the biggest thing that annoys me about GW2 is the ArenaNet is so weird in their communication like I kinda quit GW2 for a while becuz I heard that they dont wanna do another expansion and they wanna stick to LW so I felt like there wont be any major updates for the game anymore ,but lookey here they are making another expansion, and that hippity hoppity indecisive attitude is annoying tbh As a FF player, it sometimes feels like ArenaNet doesnt want the game to be anything more than it is now, like every step they take forward they also take one step back anyhow sorry for the rant

[@labdG]

FF14 seems like a better game overall. I prefer GW2 and I could not stand how FF14 felt when I tried it but it's just not for me. GW2 isn't the best MMORPG ever but it's the best one for me and I just hope it can do even better.

[@igcometa]

thanks for giving it a try

[@spinnenente]

gw2 is easily top 3 when it comes to the world design and combat. FF14 has boatloads of content but im not going to see it because it feels like a downgrade from gw2 in those regards.

[@ArifRahman-qj4ny]

Respectable opinion

[@akhsdenlew1861]

well its not better if you want stuff like Mounts, combat, pvp Structured, pvp open world, build variety, Open world maps ( both in beauty and gameplay), exploration, achievement system , good gear system and probably more but that's all i have right now. it is better though if you want stuff like Holy trinity, tab target, good pve content in early-mid-late game, Good Story ( and sidestories), good crafting system, housing system. Stuff like Skins and character optimization and races are a tie for me since it's really up to a person. Cus catgirls are REALLY good to some people and REALLY bad to some others.. there's not a real way to determine what's objectivly better here... personally i'd never play a bunny/cat person or a salad person but hey.. thats just me.

[@labdG]

@@akhsdenlew1861 Yeah. The games are very different and fits for different people. I just have the impression that FF14 is better at I guess keeping content from varying very much in quality. Like the games do different things and FF14 is just a little bit better at doing it's thing than GW2 is. But it's not like I've played alot of FF14 myself so what do I know really. x)

[@clarkbogner471]

I want to let you know your time and effort put into this is appreciated

[@jjfrank]

I think one of the major benefits and successes of the slow pace of the storytelling in FFXIV is that you see the characters develop and show actual growth. You see their thought processes, their faults, their strengths- as this happens you actually grow an attachment to these characters. Its the first game in a long time where I actually care about the character's wellbeing and if something happens to them. I don't think I ever felt that level of attachment in GW2. Like when Rytlock went into the mist I genuinely didn't care what happened to him.

[@metaomicron72]

Im the opossite. By the time you are doing the expansions you feel connected go everyone. I cried during the Aurene and Blish scenes. FF has zero voice acting at the start.

[@bladerunner2006]

have to second this, I couldn't care less when Eir died i just played the first fe hours of ARR in FFXIV. everyone rags on that story because its so slow, but i am ALREADY more attached to the characters than in GW2 FFXIV actually gives you some time with them and shows them in different situations. Eir in GW2 is such a cliche, shallow character it just bores me to no end. from the first moment you meet her she is "strong, stoic hero woman" and NOTHING else EVER. theres zero growth or upsetting of expectations. not like in the book at all, where she's actually interesting.

[@GamesRule]

I get to spend more time exploring and doing races and jumping puzzles in GW2. I have plenty of optional achievement grinds if I want to take them on. GW2 is the MMO where I can jump in and just play, no strings attached. I don't need to hit a certain level or beat a certain dungeon to keep going. Once you hit 80 in GW2, the 'trunk' of the MMO branches out into a million different maps with a million different places to explore, find loot, participate in events in the open, participate in concerts, world bosses, races, jumping puzzles, etc. I don't think I could get into a traditional mmo anymore after playing GW2 for years.

[@rogthepirate4593]

FFXIV is kinda similar in some ways, in that the leveling (at least that of your main class) is entirely taken care of by the main story quest. In other - I would argue even more "traditional" MMOs - you'll be grinding a bit more, going from quest hub to quest hub and slaying the proverbial 15 rats over and over again to level up. In FFXIV you basically play a mostly (except for dungeons and trials) singleplayer narrative game until you hit max level (which would be the 'trunk' in your analogy) and the same kind of branching out (with focus on some different types of content from GW2 maybe, but still) happens all along the way - just that the vast majority of it is kept perfectly endgame-relevant through some pretty smart gamedesign choices. For an expansion, the 'trunk' is basically extended, but still consists of the main story only, no side content or grind required to level. It's what you're gonna do first anyway (which is pretty much the same in GW2 too, you unlock most of an expansion's new stuff along the way of the main story, you just don't happen to also level up while doing it), after that everything opens up. My point is this: The approaches as to HOW both games handle this issue is very different, but the result is essentially pretty similar. You don't have to take my word for it of course. The free trial for XIV isn't time-limited and does include everything until the post-expansion patches of the first expansion, so you wouldn't have anything to lose by trying it out. Whether you do that is your business, but I think it might surprise you if you did. Certainly surprised me.

[@scanbu]

You failed to mention that GW2 Gem store purchases can be made by exchanging gold made in game for Gems. You can't buy expansions that way but you can buy everything else.

[@beilog7489]

Thats true, but the main issue he mentioned is that ingame you cant earn many armors/weapons through quests/exploration/whatnot. Almost all the good armors/weapons are on the store.

[@Kasaaz]

I do like thinking about the what ifs of mixing the staffs. I really would have loved to see where the Square Enix writing team would have taken Palawa Joko, etc. He could have been a really interesting and deep character with a lot of interesting motivations.

[@joshuabadach543]

I'm extremely glad you made this video and that you're playing FFXIV. I've been playing FFXIV since 1.0, prior to Realm Reborn. On the flipside, I've been playing GW2 since launch, and typically flip between the two between content patches or based on my long term goals in each. I actually think you did a really great job remaining objective and emphasizing that these are two very different kinds of games, with very different sense of pace. I think you nailed it, at least from my perspective, for a lot of these points from both sides of the games. I will say that there are some (few) where you can tell you're not veteran of FFXIV, but it didn't really effect the validity of your perspective (except that you haven't completed Shadowbringers which should be a requirement for a review like this). One point that I think is VERY important is the differences between the developers of the two games. I think highlighting the FFXIV developers would show a glimpse of what makes the game so special . I've been playing MMORPG's for 20 years and have played them all. I love both dearly, and for different reasons. In my opinion, FFXIV is currently the best MMORPG on the market, but GW2 is my favourite.

[@Name.is2]

Ffxiv only took the place because of what’s going on with blizzard, and ffxiv is just a reskin of WoW with a bit more polish and far better at telling a story. Similar to you who had been playing both, GW2 is also my favorite of the 2. Though I started since AAR launch.

[@WatCatz]

@@Name.is2 FFXIV plays really different from WoW tho, i would say GW2 is a lot similar to WoW compared to FFXIV esp with the open-world format, FFXIV world design is a lot more streamlined and quest/story focused. I def enjoyed the more focused playstyle of FFXIV where i can just do story and then pivot into harder content like extreme trials and savage raids. Though tbf, the free trial really carried my feelings in buying the game as i experienced a 60hr game without paying which really allowed me to know what i was getting into and playing.

[@Name.is2]

@@WatCatz I’m talking about gameplay, also GW2 is not open world it’s a zone in map like ffxiv only difference is ffxiv did an extremely bad job at it so it feels very cramp and has no feeling of immersion while GW2 on the other hand is a zone in like ffxiv did an amazing job creating their maps.

[@WatCatz]

@@Name.is2 Well, immersion in a zone doesn't really matter to me, how much time can i really stay there? What matters to me imo, is the overall story and feel of the game and PVE content which ffxiv fulfills. Immersive zones don't really matter usually as what happens is that a zone will look good but have no real point in it existing in-universe which causes it to be just another glorified grinding spot or battle spot which lets face it, is done 10x better in most Single-player RPG games.

[@Willias]

@@Name.is2 I feel like your criticism is aimed at ARR, and not FF14 as a whole. ARR was definitely a WoW clone, but the further FF14 has gone since then, the more FF14 has honed in on the good parts from WoW and then done its own thing. You talking about zones feeling cramped definitely tells me you're talking about ARR.

[@MegaMrASD]

I think GW2 also has great race identity built into the game, a lot of times having completely different dialogue in story scenarios depending on who they talk to or what is going on. Great example is the beginning of HoT. If you play as Sylvari the NPCs act a bit more aggressive and distrustful towards you because of the whole mindcontrol situation going on.

[@davidgast3175]

I'd push back on this. I feel like this kind of reactivity is something they really failed on tbh. The sylvari HoT reactivity was pretty good. Charr and Norn IBS was highly disappointing.

[@MegaMrASD]

@@davidgast3175 Fair. I honestly don't care all that much in MMOs. I don't really care to replay the story multiple times anyways. In regular tripple A rpg I care a lot more about decision making and multiple paths in stories for me to try on different playtorughs, like Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect and such

[@Cebertus]

I used to love the GW franchise, and I still think GW2 has the better gameplay, but i lost all my trust in arenanet. When I started FF14 back during stormblood many people started to complain about the predictable content schedule in FF14, to someone coming from GW2 where most of the time you are unsure what will happen in the future this was mind-blowing. I never knew when the next raid release in gw2 would happen, i never knew if there would be a new raid, at many points I was unsure if there would be a new expansion. When shadowbringers released everyone knew we would get 5 major patchcycles, everyone knew which type of raid was in which patch, how many trials we would get. Sure there were some new surprises and much more content then just raids, but we knew the bare minimum we would get, there was a minimal expectation and everyone was confident square enix would meet those expectations. And if covid wasn't a thing, we would be able to guess the release dates of all the patches and the next expansion. GW2 always neglected some parts of the community, I remember dungeon runners complaining back in the day, I thought they shouldn't complain because we got fractals, but those people quit the game. Then we got raids and I liked them... But arenanet neglected that part of the game, and now I quit the game. FF14 has so many features and subcommunities, I'm always happy if they release a feature that's for a niche part of the community, even if I will not use that feature. Even PvP seems to get attention in endwalker which is non-existent for most people. And last but not least, im much more confident about the storytelling in FF14, they don't open new plotpoints all the time if they not intend to finish them. Sometimes it takes some time, but we get our conclusion, like for example many plotpoints if stormblood being introduced in Arr.

[@SheonEver]

This is why only MMOs backed by megacorporations are able to compete - people just want that steady stream of new content, only to forget about it entirely come the next expansion.

[@Cebertus]

@@SheonEver one of ff14 strengths is preserving old content. It still blows my mind how many wow refugees are mindblown by the fact that 8 year old endgame content is still playble in a fun and somewhat challenging way. When did you feel challenged by core Tyria the last time? Isn't it strange that GW2, which was always about horizontal progression and avoiding gear treadmills, is worse at preserving the challenge of old content then a rpg with a gear treadmill? And sure ff14 has a huge dev team, but the team of GW2 isn't small. it's not that much about size, it's more about project management. There are much smaller teams like that of Albion online that are able to grow their game and satisfy their playerbase. When ff14 Arr was developed they worked on patching 1.0, basically developing a new MMO with 2 0 and preparing post launch content under time pressure. That's only possible with godlike project management. GW2 had a great content flow with season 3 into pof into season 4. That was basically the ff14 content schedule. It almost felt like they found their way of developing the game, but then they started talking how they didn't need an expansion for exansion like features, that ice brood saga could do that(which it didn't in my opinion). They completely damaged all the trust and goodwill they got during s3-s4. I wasn't sure if we would ever get an expansion again. After the layoffs this sounded like they are facing the end of GW2. In my opinion we are now in a similar situation like before heart of thorns, they had to stop developing the live version of the game, so they could finishing the expansion. It's literary the same situation like 2015. Doesn't feel like they learned something... Or maybe they did but those people got fired. And I don't want to shit talk about GW2, like I said, the moment to moment gameplay feels so much better then ff14 yet ff14 manages to be the better MMO. It's like looking for a car, sure a Ferrari looks amazing but it's not as useful as a family car.

[@SheonEver]

@@Cebertus Whew, that's a long response. I read it all, but will respond in point form. -Of course new players feel that way about the old content, but veteran players feel it's a little easy and simple by comparison; I think it's unavoidable, though I agree it's nice it's all still playable at least, and certainly not bad. I'm more like a FFXIV refugee to GW2, a year ago, btw. :P -GW2 shifted gears a bit after the initial release, based on player feedback, so core tyria isn't in line with everything that came after, and sadly probably never will be. -Anet's team seems a fair bit smaller to me, and it sounds to me from your own admission that things were on track until they were forced to lay off people, which is something that happens to smaller studios, vulnerable to mandates like that from their publisher, which is in line with my point. -All that said, GW2 is on track for an expansion, on average, every 3 years, which is 2/3rds the rate of ffxiv which we cannot expect to keep pace with, being the biggest subscription based game there is, now. Hopefully, EoD will get things back on track for the quality of the living world. -GW2 is the ferrari and FFXIV is the family car in that metaphor...? I think it's the other way around. :D Besides, which is better or worse is up to the individual's needs - if you're a racer, you want the ferrari; if you want to road trip with your mates, you want the reliable family car.

[@myhr2320]

@@SheonEver What I think GW2 lack is vision. They changed course so many times, between "no expac, living world instead" to "no we're doing expac", from "no trinity-based dungeons and no raids" to "soft trinity and hardcore raiding content", from "FOMO season 1" to "map-based season 2 and 3" to whatever they're doing now...Sure, innovation led to some incredible things, like the mounts that are lightyears ahead of the rest of the industry. But the overall experience is just...inconsistent, they keep reinventing the wheel, and while 1 times out of 10, they have THE thing, the rest of the time it's just...shallow. To me, GW2 is a lot, and I do mean a lot, of missed opportunities in exchange of some really nice things. Now I perfectly understand that it can be more than enough to delight players, and I enjoyed it for years... It's just...I dunno, I feel we're in the bad timeline for Arenanet...I mean, there are so many great things about GW2, I agree with everything said in WP's video, but man...they just needed a great project manager like Yoshi-P to keep them on track with whatever budget they had, and there would be no competition at all.

[@SheonEver]

@@myhr2320 It's easier for ffxiv because they're not doing anything different than anyone, and have a reliable budget and staff. When you try new things, you have to be prepared to respond to player feedback and adjust accordingly, rather than being like wow and 'sticking to their vision' even as their players are all quitting.

[@deeliriyum]

From what you're saying a perfect MMO would be somewhere between these two games. GW2 for combat and exploration and FF14 for social features. The biggest problem with GW2 is that they never ever EVER! finished anything they started since launch. The only commitment they've shown is to constantly throw random shit at their playerbase that lives in constant uncertainty that their favourite feature will be abandoned. GW2 is a game of infinite and never realized potentials. Sadly daydreaming about what it could have been does count as content. Show dedication and willingness to stick with things you have and people will respect you a lot more. This is what FF14 did and it paid off big time.

[@BladexEyes]

very true

[@starbog1]

This

[@TobiNano]

Like WP already said, gw2 lacks length of content but has close to equal breadth, even if they are artificial like naming dungeons, fractals, and strikes differently even if they are pretty similar.

[@monalisa-bs4zs]

with eso's monetization. gw2 has too many detriments that can be linked to the cash shop.

[@sanguis_aeternus-x]

Played GW2 since beta and stayed mostly on for all these years. I will say this, finishing Shadowbringers and caught up to patch 5.55, FFXIV has, in no hyperbole, the absolute best narrative of *any* MMO, and hell, *most* single RPG games I've ever played. It's honsetly up there with Nier/Halo/Mass Effect, and is critically acclaimed for a reason

[@hawkecro]

Story in ffxiv is not as good as in mass effect 😂 you can't even compare it True its best mmo story I seen but not at all close to the halo/nier and definitely not close to Mass Effect

[@sanguis_aeternus-x]

@@hawkecro Yeah, you're right. It's even better than Mass Effect and Halo. Nier's the only story that can compete with it

[@hawkecro]

@@sanguis_aeternus-x sure 😂😂😂😂😂

[@sanguis_aeternus-x]

@Vile Disturbance oof, over 9000 dead meme. But for the sake of argument, I've played both games, more gw2 than ffxiv, and find that wooden potatoes agrees with me. What do *you* think?

[@sanguis_aeternus-x]

@Vile Disturbance Every community has its flaws. We're all human, after all. But let's say just say that a story enjoyment is subjective. He enjoys Mass Effect's story than ffixv, for example. Then how can we determine what's better? Awards? Ffxiv has won numerous wards on narrative alone, just recently too. Numbers? Can't discount the rate of growth if the game itself is not enjoyable. And since FFXIV tours itself as a mmo that emphasizes on story, then its main selling point is successful for the long spanning longevity of the game. Also, you discount how my own player experience and label me a ffxiv fanboy. I love mass effect, halo, and especially nier. Just because I enjoy ffxiv, doesn't mean I discounted my experiences. I brought those up because those games are heavily into story, and is a good, direct comparison. And I made the original comment. His response was rude in itself and I responded in kind. And yet, you would call *me* the fanboy for responding to his response?

[@301SO]

Duty Finder is what made me choose FF14 over GW2, I was looking for ways to do content without having to find a party and fit whatever role they needed me to be. I wanted to just jump into content and pug. On top of that, the amount of content available (Dungeons/Raids/Trials) in FF14 easily stomps GW2. Oh also the Relic grind is so much better than the Legendary grind in GW2

[@decro3177]

Yeah... waiting in queue for 30 mins.. so much more fun than getting a group in less than 5 mins >.>

[@MerrStudio]

That's an opinion I had before I even gave LFG a damn chance

[@X1OProductions]

This is such a honest and genuine review of these games. Rewatched months later and I still think this is the best video on all of youtube about this topic.

[@wpelfeta]

As an FFXIV player, there are so many things in GW2 I would love to see in the game. I really hope the SquareEnix devs try out GW2 and pluck a few of their features over. xD I would bet that the Sightseeing logs and Jumping games were lifted from GW2. So hopefully more of GW2 starts showing up in FFXIV. ArenaNet really did some things very right.

[@Hornswroggle]

There are many features and ideas of Guild Wars 2 that Naoki Yoshida is keenly aware of and more than once I realized that some of them were directly inspired by its GW2 equivalent. Yoshida actually puts great emphasis on learning from his competitors. In fact the first thing he did after he took over the team and was staring down the abject failure that was 1.0 he sat down his team and had them play WoW for about a year. For one of course to take notes as to what can be improved on their own project. But it also served for the team to bond in a gamefied way and fostered morale and good spirits in the face of a crisis.

[@guiltycross]

@@Hornswroggle i also need FF14 boss michael bay entrances and fights to jump over to GW2. I also hope devs cared for dungeons too like in FF14. GW2 dungeons have been supplanted by fractals and are just part of the MSQ now.

[@Ulfhrafninn]

My biggest complaint with FFXIV (which I am playing right now) is the storage of armor and appearances, it is just incredibly lacking and unintuitive, they seriously need to rework that whole system.

[@StarRailingYourMum]

I agree. This is what most players want. I think we'll be getting it soon.

[@talimityy]

This is a great video! I've played FFXIV for eight years but only very briefly tried GW2 at launch, so I don't really remember much about it. But I think you really sold its exploration, jumping puzzles, combat, and mounts (your mount footage looks genuinely amazing), enough to make me want to give it a shot again. Not like I have to pay for a second subscription after all...

[@marinhrabric6162]

​​@@chadmeckstroth4394it's not overwhelming trust me. Sure there's lots of things to do in the game, but it's never gonna make you feel like you are falling behind others. Everything that's been implemented in the game since the beginning is waiting for you and not going anywhere. You don't have to rush. Just get in there, play at your own pace, have fun and go step by step. Don't rush. And please don't watch any beginner guides. They ruin the initial surprise. Just go in and let the game wow you.

[@shimapanzer9930]

@@talimityy I hope you ended up enjoying it!

[@Belledelatour]

I've been wondering if I'd like FFXIV more for a bit, but this definitely solidified that GW2 is the game for me.

[@Kushrada]

As some who has played Guild wars 1- current GW2 and FF14 from 1.0 to current patch FF14 is the one I'm primarily player. I've always like GWs painting esthetic more than FF14s though I've enjoyed the cutscenes and character growth more than GW as a whole. In terms of supporting characters I liked Destiny's edge and....what ever our current band is called. Which is actually a good point, i cant remember what our current band is called which should say a lot. My issue with GWs characters if they are in limbo far too often. Taimie's health has been up in the air for months, its something I want to care about, Souja has been MIA since Heart of thorns. Braum has gone from okay, to annoying to cool to "he's still alive after all that? ...okay." Caith is a character threatening to be interesting but just feels lost. Marjory and Cashmere were great individually then as a couple but have been in limbo since Heart of fire. Doesn't feel the the devs know what to do with them. Not to say FF14 crew is perfect, I hated Alphinaud at first, much like Many until Heavensward expansion, his sister Red Alphinauld was a tough one to swallow but she's become so damn relatable lately. Urianger is...still a weirdo but at least there's more to him than just the strange guy we talk to for side quests every once in a while. Thancred is a freaking G and Y'sthola is well...uncomfortably hot grandma. Really comparing the two I gotta give the writers and devs a lot of credit for both game. Gameplay wise I like the exploration of GW2 more, the maps are more intimate and the mounts for exploration are the best, FF14 while having a lot more flashy mounts doesn't feel as special or good as GW2 mounts. I'd say Fates in FF14 are better than GW2 map events but not so much better that I will say its the best, GW2 world bosses blows FF14 map bosses out of the water while standard FF14 fates are more enjoyable and plentitude than GW2 events. In terms of dungeons I love and enjoy FF14 a lot more than GW2 and the dungeons in GW 2 used to be some of my favorite content when the game first launched, FIRST Launched. My memory of GW2 dungeons became toxic cesspools of meta strats or GTFO, being kicked for joining groups when THEY don't specify restrictions and far too many restrictions down to class, weapons, builds and even to specific skills. Made me never want to touch a GW2 dungeon again after years of that crap. Meanwhile in FF14 even the worst dungeons are enjoyable of an experience than GW2 bests experiences from again my personal experiences. But this is where Imma be a lot more harsh with GW2 over FF14 and that's with development and implementation. GW2 development hasn't been great lately, a slapstick of systems stacked on systems where that feel like busy work. The kind of shit I hear WOW vets complain about as horror stories. Hell a perfect example was when I first started playing the charr storyline after the charr rock concert map(Yes I could look these specific maps and content updates but this is how i best remember them) I was so put off by the giant cut up flow charts that was the map I quit the game for half a year. It was just too much shit going on, all the systems from the previous years Frankenstein'ed together as busy work to waste time and keep me busy. It didn't help I JUST finally got finished getting my skyscale which felt so much worst getting than the Griffin, an activity that Also made me quit the game for half a year since I got so damn fed up with all the fetch quests and busy work for a mount. And all that to say nothing of the rushed and lack luster finale with Primordious and Jormag which just left me feeling...nothing for what should have been a monumental event in GW2 history. Am also pissed for all the teasing of my Favorite GW1 things like Koss being under utilized, M.O.X being a paper weight and Liva(favorite characters) showing up and f-ing off. Thought the game was building back towards a companion system like GW1...but nope. Which makes me mention GW1, recently been playing it, enjoy it more than current GW2 content. In closing I feel GW2 needs some adjustments in its writing, deciding which systems it wants to use instead of implementing the same system three different ways the same way yet again. These are criticisms I just cant pin towards FF14 since their vision and focus with their game as only been improving to me. The alts in GW2 I used to consider a blessing, focused towards a class and all enjoyable for mechanical, lore and aesthetic reasons but after being routinely spoiled by FF14 class changing and how cumbersome GW2 characters feel in comparison trying to keep them all up to date with story content(I've got 9 of them) I don't feel like catching them all up any longer. I don't want GW2 to fail, I wish nothing but the best for it and am looking forward to Cantha, my very fist GW1 experience in Factions and still my favorite GW campaign and setting. I just would like more polish and less spit shine.

[@relentlessnights4211]

I agree with some of what you said but when you start venting about the sky scale fetch quest …. I mean ffxiv’s entire game is fetch quest between dungeons…. Hahaha Both great games though had to say it

[@Kushrada]

@@relentlessnights4211 "ffxiv’s entire game is fetch quest between dungeons" The fetch quests for Titan even after being nerfed are still excessive in a realm Reborn. I agree both games are great.

[@TorlandoYT]

Loved seeing your FFXIV UI layout. Would love to see (even a short) video from you explaining your setup and how you got there. Thanks!

[@satedsnail]

How hard is it to get the outfit at 4:46? I've never played GW2, but that outfit looks sick that I want to give it a try just to wear it

[@zenith110]

On the one hand, the things GW2 does right are really right. On the other, when I'm faced with the sheer lack of breadth the game offers even in those places where it is hitting hard makes me wonder what's holding it back. Is it funds? Is it the technology [added in edit]? Is it vision or direction? Is it it's parent company? What don't we know? Why won't it dare to do more? Why did it take as long for it to be in the [better] position it's in right now? I just feel like it's so close to a breakout, but it never quite gets there - and I'm not even exasperated like I was in 2019. I genuinely like the game, but FF really does more and does it better (except the feel/flow of combat, which I still vastly prefer in GW2).

[@kaluk1321]

It also makes me wonder why, that's a great mystery which sadly won't be unveiled anytime soon or probably ever.

[@next_lvl_]

Obligatory "wasted potential wars 2" comment. It sounds harsh but comes from a place of love. Invested GW2 players are very justifiably frustrated with it because we see where it could've taken a different, better route, but it didn't, and it keeps making highly questionable decisions sometimes. I just want my favorite mmo to be the best.. But what does it, the mmo, want to be?

[@zenith110]

@@next_lvl_ And it frustrates me to no end that this your quotation is *precisely* the place GW2 has been in since its inception. It's a damn shame, and I wish I could understand how it came to be stuck in that position its entire cycle to-date. But like the other commenter, we might never know.

[@Mousseline711]

I can only speak for myself here, but when I tried GW2 years ago as a new player (to GW2, not MMO's in general) it felt almost impenetrable, like they swung so hard on trying to do things differently than other MMO's that it didn't feel intuitive or easy to understand when you're new. The thing I generally enjoy the most (small scale group PvE content) was pretty quickly squashed as an option when I got to my first dungeon and when asking around I was told to come back and do them at max level because what's what everyone did/does apparently? So most of my playtime was spent doing hearts around the world and map completion by myself, or with the occasional party that dropped after completion, which made for kind of a lonely experience. Even when I got to max level and watched some videos on dungeons/fractals it wasn't easy to figure out at a glance what people were doing at certain times and why, and I didn't feel like the game did a very good job at teaching me about my class or preparing me for group play because I always felt like I came to the game way too late or there was just very little group play while leveling, I'm still not sure. The general playerbase seemed very established already and they have their specific way of doing things and it felt difficult to break in to. The game is gorgeous though and the few people I did connect with were lovely and accommodating and went above and beyond to help, but they were all long time players with a very different grasp on the game and it was rare I ran into one, let alone several, fellow complete GW2 noobs that were also still figuring things out so I always felt out of the loop or like a nuisance being carried by experienced players and kind of just fell off eventually. It's really a shame because I think the game has a lot going for it and I did enjoy my time with it, but it just never really clicked to the point where I wanted to keep coming back. 😟

[@R_SENAL]

IMO one of the greatest achievements of GW2 is actually one of its biggest barriers to game development resources : Elite Specs. It is an absolutely brilliant idea and executed masterfully and gives the game such amazing gameplay versatility and combat style options, it is just off the charts incredible! However, every expansion the devs are pushed to reinvent the wheel 9 times over, spending thousands of work hours honing and perfecting a system that other games spend a fraction of their time working on. A lot of blood sweat and tears goes into new elite classes and maybe we need an expansion or 2 where we just get more "breadth" added in all the other elements of the game.

[@zearcjustice7837]

i been so spoiled by gw2 voice acting when i start playing ff14 i just naturally assume that i would hear voice acting

[@fayte0618]

FF14 was designed to be a complementary MMO, even the director encourages you to play other games.

[@AssAssiN05GW]

This concept Guild Wars was put forward earlier.

[@KD-637]

This review is pretty much exactly what I had hoped from you, articulate as always and I'm glad you're self aware enough to stay in your lane and comment on things you've experienced first hand, you've admittedly experienced so little of XIV and you address it and work your comparisons around that aspect. As someone who has thousands of hours in both games, I really appreciate that as this was the only way to fairly critique the game on your part. Well reviewed man, I hope you enjoy Shadowbringers, the end game raids and all the extra content that comes along with hitting endgame.. for about 2 days, then Endwalker drops haha.

[@MattyPGood]

I finally started working on a legendary, so I've been working on Heart of Thorns map completion. I had forgotten just how amazing those maps are. Sure getting around is somewhat trivialized by having a Skyscale, but they're still amazing.

[@youareacoward8459]

That is why you dont get the flying mount, you ruin the whole experience.

[@RabbitConfirmed]

@@youareacoward8459 sadly you're kind of right, the skyscale kind of ruined the other mounts

[@slytouge764]

Sky scale was a mistake.

[@Reinaerys]

I've played both games and I really do love both of them but when you said "You might love GW2, but you'll log in and not really be sure what you want to do." it really hit home. I've played GW2 since launch but I stopped.. probably two-ish years ago? I tried coming back multiple times but I just felt like I have nothing to do - even tho there were a few things I could've been doing but I couldn't really make myself to actually do them. So I ended up searching for a new games to play, tried ESO for quite a bit, such a nice game, and even WoW cuz I never played that before.. and actually stopped playing it rather fast. And eventually found FFXIV and tbh.. I love that game so much. The story hits like a truck, the music is so great and as a level/map designer myself I appreciate the environment too. And when you compared the races.. I think FF races are more my style tbh. I love being a bunny girl. I never really liked playing the GW2 races but that's rather a personal thing :> The only thing that GW2 will be always better at for me is the WvW PvP, that was my top thing to do and I'll never forget those times :> But yeh, I guess it was time for me to move on and FFXIV it is. Otherwise very nice comparison :3 Edit: I actually wanted to say two more things I kinda forgot. Combat: I actually like both of them but surprisingly for PvE I personally prefer FFXIV one, it just feels more rewarding when you do your rotation just right while doing mechanics and movement while also timing your burst phases with the boss phases perfectly etc, I love that. I guess it goes mainly for higher end content idk. And lastly one thing that FFXIV wins - again for me personally - is the lack of alts, I hate alts.. :D Even in GW2 I tried to focus on one class - tho I ended up playing all of them, i just have much less time on the other ones. I just enjoy being able to have everything on one character :3

[@rogthepirate4593]

I actually like having alts because I like making multiple distinct characters for different classes, but what I really DON'T like about alts, especially in GW2, is that it's just such an incredible hassle to keep track of it all. On which char did I have my ascended zerker stuff right now again? Can't remember, oh well, let's go relog 10 different times until I find it.... Plus, having to buy bag slots PER CHARACTER is just goddamn ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Ideally, gimme a one-character-solution like that of FFXIV but let me completely swap out the visuals, including the character itself, not just the outfit. That would be a dream.

[@raycs4250]

You convinced me about Rotation, I have been played Revelation Online 3 years, but now are so less players and I can't play money for be op because I don't have money for that. Talking about rotation in Ro the combat is like this, you do rotations and wait while you get your special skill while you do bosses mechanics, that sounds good for me when you talk about FFXIV, now the main problem is my pc and the bills XD, I just want to do PvE and kill solo bosses just for fun how I did in Ro (some of them, not all XD) If FFXIV exist when I reach 30 (now I'm 23) maybe I'll try it, for now I only can play f2p and I don't have mood to play f2p again, less time than before and less and less XD.

[@begley09]

What has put me off with games like ESO and FF is how everything is zoned, it no longer feels like this open world any longer but instead just like level in a game that you're passing through. I never thought that would bug me so much until I went back to classic WoW and just felt so much more immersed in the game. I'm not entirely sure if GW2 does to the extent of ESO/FF but I just started up and it does give off more of that open world like feeling.

[@roxstar5088]

Funny, for me it's the exact opposite. I often need to run around in older zones in FFXIV while I can't remember while I last gone back to area's I already cleared in GW2. Base game zones, I think I haven't been there for 3 years or so.

[@networknomad5600]

@@roxstar5088 You only say that because you haven't experienced an actual immersive MMO experience, where the world actually feels alive. FFXIV doesn't do that, GW2 gets pretty close to doing that, and WoW(specifically classic/vanilla) perfected it.

[@arcady0]

At 46:00 in - yes in FFXIV as soon as you hit the end of the main story and have done each done and raid once, it can feel like "why am I logging in?" The devs actually encourage people take breaks. A difference though is that you know something will be coming, and because of how regular they are with their patch cycle you can even schedule when that something is going to get you hyped up again.

[@TheRetifox]

That's kinda weak excuse for not doing anything more with content. We can same the same about WoW "In battle of azeroth we had nothing much to do becasue devs actually encourage people take breaks" Like come on.

[@arcady0]

@@TheRetifox That's one way to look at it. But another way to look at is that FFXIV does a narrative story and when the story is over they want you to put the book down and go read something else. They do not make endless grinding loops you get stuck on. They DO have a bit of a grind though - they aren't as perfect about this as they claim. But it's nothing like that found in inferior MMOs like WoW. Yoshi actually takes pride in playing his game, and playing other games, and is getting his players to take breaks. Of having the clout in the organization to be able to get 'business' to see that a customer that wants to come back is better than one that feels it can't dare to step away. As I noted, FFXIV actually also sticks to it's patch cycle, with very close to clockwork precision. Content is coming, and players know when it's coming. And they don't do gimmicks trying to move releases around to steal the thunder of other games. One of the great advantages to this, is that a player like me that loves both GW2 and FFXIV is able to play both. Neither one of them is trying to turn me into a 'junkie' that plays for endless hours out of fear of being left behind in the grind.

[@YoukoZuki]

@@TheRetifox I prefer contents with an end-goal and you can take a break knowing you won't be far behind when returning, instead of mindless grind treadmill that goes nowhere, punish you if you stop grinding for too long, and what you grind becomes irrelevant when you come back.

[@TheCatslock]

I love both. Im super casual though so I tend to play gw2 a little more then ff14, but if I get a couple days off in a row then I find it easier to sink more time into ff14.

[@Kasaaz]

One thing about the FFXIV telegraphs I like is that they're also explained in the lore, which I did not expect.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

The echo, right?

[@Thornefield]

@@WoodenPotatoes Basically. Sensing aetheric intent - as explained when you recently dealt with Fordola

[@Kasaaz]

@@WoodenPotatoes Yep. It's why Urianger couldn't tell you what the device was. You'd put out a telegraph for Fordola if you knew.

[@LagunaLoiregr]

GW2 Maps: Indeed more variety, AGREE GW JPs: AGREE GW Buildcraft: AGREE GW Combat: AGREE I think both are clunky for different things. When raiding / fractals and stuff, GW2 combat feels bad for me. When solo it I enjoy GW2 more. Mounts: AGREE (although don't like the fact that you have to buy all the cool skins) GW Races: Its subjective as you said. Indeed it feels like GW2 has more variety but I feel FFXIV races look nicer Queues: This happens only lately. Also in FFXIV it scheduled in 6.1 to be able to play with different Data Centers so everyone in the world. Dungeons/Raids: AGREE FFXIV Authenticity: AGREE FFXIV Story: AGREE FFXIV Character progression: AGREE FFXIV Features: AGREE FFXIV Gold Saucer: AGREE FFXIV Music: AGREE FFXIV I think you missed 1 important thing. You can play all classes with one character. You don't have to go back and do all the quests again to play more than 1 classes.

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

What do you mean buy cool skills for mounts? You don't buy you just unlock with XP

[@LagunaLoiregr]

@@Kermit_E_Frog Mistyped. I meant skins. I corrected it :)

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

@@LagunaLoiregr well you can convert gold to get them too

[@LagunaLoiregr]

@@Kermit_E_Frog Sure you can. but if you want to buy a mount (which is random as you buy contracts and not the actual mount) you would have to spend 700g for just one contract. That is not an amount that you farm easily in gw2. unless you are really lucky and you drop a precursor or something, it would take months to have enough gold to buy just a contract. and again, i am not saying it is good or bad, i am just saying that i personally don't like that the all the cool skins are in the shop. It would be nice if they add a cool skin as reward for doing something ingame.

[@Kermit_E_Frog]

@@LagunaLoiregr I get where you're coming from but I'm pretty sure a large majority of the money that keeps the game afloat comes from cosmetics since gw2 opted out of having a subscription system

[@qwinn9963]

The biggest problem with GW2 is that new content is releasing so slow compared to most of big MMOs

[@ninja_sloth3906]

That is sadly the price we pay for no subscription. Instead of paying money, you pay in downtime.

[@qwinn9963]

@@ninja_sloth3906 I want to return in to game after few years... At least try to finish my first legendary :)

[@shamanoty8115]

I'm not sure this is true we got 2 expansions and 4 living story expansions that's crazy amount of new maps. Yes from time to time we have pause in new content like we have now and we all know why but there's so much content and things to do and i appreciate a little brake so i can catch up.

[@MahalGC]

After playing FF XIV as a way to take break from GW2 I realized how much we take server architecture for granted, as there is no other MMO currently that has such good server uptime and availability (unless you're a WvW player on reset night for obvious reasons). Most monday late nights i've wanted to play FF XIV there was always some maintenance downtime, and the server i play on has had 3 days where it crashed entirely for like 3 hours before it became stable again, which made me transfer to a different one within the same datacenter. Playing with people that happened to be on a completely different datacenter made it even more frustrating, as i had to choose one friend group over the other to join them, and while datacenter travel is coming out sometime after Endwalker launches, it's currently a pain point for me. Both games have their highlights, and I can't easily choose one over the other; I'll just play them in tandem whenever i feel like it and still have lots to do on both.

[@crimsonfancy]

I've spent much more money in GW2 than I ever spent with 14 including the monthly fee and I've played both about the same amount of time

[@PathWars]

How?

[@miguelcondadoolivar5149]

Did you play little or are you a whale?

[@daviidallan]

Well well well! A pleasant surprise to find you on FFXIV after all these years. I quit GW2 around Heart of Thorns and went back to FFXIV, nice to see one of my favorite GW2 content creators getting the FF bug a bit.

[@Hornswroggle]

On the point of the Sub Fee 1:10:30 IMO a point should be made that both games have a pretty good free version as well - in fact most of the FF14 footage you show was recorded on the free trial.

[@rodgerdodger07]

I wouldn’t count ffxiv trial as a free version. Once you buy the game you can never go back to the free version

[@jaredw3379]

I’m really confused about this because I bought the game before I knew about this free Version (up to 60 I think? ) and I never had it activated. I wanted to activate it after so I could stop some of those subscription costs but it seems that as a player who already bought the game that you can’t do that. Kinda strange. Subscription games with box prices have always confused me though so maybe I’m just missing something

[@rodgerdodger07]

@@jaredw3379 if you buy the game and don’t activate it you’re good, but let’s say you activate it play the 30 days free time and try to play afterwards, you’ll have to pay a sub. This is even if you are still in the free trial zones.

[@jaredw3379]

@@rodgerdodger07 Oh okay, gotcha Thanks!

[@corsair2441]

I'm actually the inverse of your play experience. Longtime FFXIV player dipping into and progressing (as of this moment) into the opening Heart of Thorns story for the first time. Me and a few friends in our FC are taking a sensible break leading up to the Endwalker's release and trying out GW2 (mostly, I'll add thanks to your videos on the story, lore, and character builds looking intriguing). We're having a blast so far for every point you put out, and reflecting a bit of the others all too real. Mostly over the shock of lack of character connection or development (Your video about the lack of Living World Season 1 in a play through helped me and some others cope with suddenly being asked to care about an all new cast we had never interacted with.) Our current kind of 'collective thought', especially as self professed story driven players, is that we love the gameplay of GW2 that we've gotten so far, we're just hoping the story at some point catches up. Considering the things people have said about the expansion stories being good, that's what we're hoping. Hoping you have fun in 14, Edgewalkers (Get it, EDGE? Cause edgy stereotypes and... yeah.) will be a blast, but don't rush your way through the story! Take your time, enjoy it. Will probably start watching your Twitch a little more consistently. Hoping End of Dragons is great when we eventually get to it!

[@ninja_sloth3906]

>we're just hoping the story at some point catches up. It will never reach the level of FFXIV, so I'd advise lowering your expectations somewhat. It definitely gets better. HoT and PoF are far better stories than the vanilla game, but it will always play out like a drama show, episodic in nature with characters popping in and out with no explanation. It lacks the depth and breadth of storytelling that FFXIV provides, but does it's job as a sort of drama TV show rather than a feature film with increasing proficiency in the expacs.

[@R_SENAL]

I don't play FFXIV, but I've played I, II, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, XII, and FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus, so I know how amazing and in depth (and sometimes confusing) FF games can be with their plots and side-quests. That said I like GW2 story up to HOT and beyond, but I LOVE the story of POF and especially Living World Season 4, it has 2 moments in particular that for me outshine any moments in any games I've ever played before. So sometimes it can be a bit of a soap opera, but other times the story will rock your world! Have fun!!

[@Moogri2]

The problem I find with the GW2 story is that it's really good at build up and hyping you up but then it fails to deliver. FF14 has a more subtle build up but when it delivers, oh boy does it deliver.

[@aquapendulum]

Regarding story: I think ArenaNet is perfectly capable of telling great stories if they just take their time and not rush everything. Even in their greatest blunder - The Icebrood Saga - there is still a glimpse of greatness. The end of Ryland Steelcatcher's story is the testament to ArenaNet's capability to write a very well developed villain. And this was after ANet delivered a polar opposite flavor of villain - Palawa Joko. Ryland is the sympathetic and tragic villain. Joko is the Guild Wars flavor of the lich king archetype, irredeemable but so competent as a villain you can't help but feel some respect towards for how he managed to build an empire where his zombie army and living people form a symbiotic society. I'd go so far as to say the work they've done with Joko and Ryland is some top-tier villain writing that could rival FFXIV's villain writing... if not for the fact that Ryland and Joko are only secondary villains. All of the sudden, the decision to "End of Dragons" made sense. The point about forming unity and alliances for common survival has been made, Guild Wars lore doesn't have to revolve around the Elder Dragons (as GW1 has proven). It's ready to move on from the Elder Dragons as the main villains to graze on greener pasture (... literally?).

[@rogthepirate4593]

I second that eye on his twitch channel, because I do want to see his reaction and hear his thoughts on Shadowbringers ... heheh

[@eysedrise1453]

Thank you. Everyone deserves to experience what GW2 does with their mounts. Its amazing. However, you're absolutely right. After I hit lvl 80 and acquired all the mounts, I suddenly didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know what to play towards anymore.

[@iridradiant]

I play and enjoy both, but I think you overstated the open feeling of FF14's maps. Yes they have better stuff visible in the distance, and I do like how they handle the map boundaries (that force field visual effect rather than GW2's frustratingly invisible walls), but most of the maps have large, impassible areas that constrain the character's movements on the ground. Not only does GW2 do verticality better, but it utilizes the volume of space better. Some people may point at how unrealistic the boxy borders are between some of the zones in GW2, but at least you can explore the space corner to corner. Some of the zones in FF14 have gorgeous outlooks over areas you will never be able to tread. In addition, this makes the point you mentioned about the hidden easter eggs in GW2 stand out all the better - there is usually some use for the remote corner.

[@sarkaztik3228]

Honestly FF14 maps just feel so empty and lifeless to me. They're beautiful, but they don't feel alive at all. There is zero optional exploration or payoff for exploration. FF14 strikes me as the very worst of the major MMOs when it comes to interesting maps specifically. All of FF14's playerbase and life is in guild/private housing and the major hubs, even when it comes to the RP scene. There's very little incentive to leave the hubs because there aren't a lot of interesting places to actually conduct RP. Once you're done with an area for your main story, there's also no reason to ever return there as a player. I like the world they've created, but the maps themselves aren't terribly interesting or dynamic. If you take the pretty backgrounds out of the maps, you're not left with much more than some middle-of-the-road MMOs already have. It's all fluff. It's pretty fluff, but fluff is fluff. In GW2 I never had an issue returning to an old zone in order to mess around because all of them have their own personality and interesting locales. I think even WoW was good with this, to an extent. I may not be required to return to these places, but I find myself doing so because I actually enjoy them. I never once returned to an older area in FF14 unless I was gathering or helping new players. There was zero reason to bother.

[@KidDynamite22]

Agree with this 100% the map exploration of GW2 is what I really missed. Random mini dungeons / puzzles / hidden areas. Chests hiding here and there. Even after 9 years I often stumble across nooks and crannies I've missed even in Core areas.

[@iridradiant]

@@sarkaztik3228 Ironically, I like the way that the zones are revisited at higher level story quests in FF14 - that some areas in the zone are for higher level adventurers and some for your initial level entering the zone. In that way, FF14 does mob level variety better than any other MMO I've played; it feels more natural that the caves in one corner would have more dangerous stuff than the plains leading up to it. But, with the way GW2 does down scaling, I understand why they could not do the same.

[@sanguis_aeternus-x]

@@KidDynamite22 Honestly, as much as I love the exploration of GW2, its boxy borders limit its exploration in a way, making it feel artificial. But the biggest gripe for me, as it extends to the whole game, is the reward system. GW2 has a terrible reward system that not only dampens its exploration, but also incentives to do more with the game

[@KidDynamite22]

@@sanguis_aeternus-x indeed but compared to FFXIV it's a world apart. Save for unlocking flying in a zone there's almost no reason to explore it and the way the game is structured by the time you do unlock flying there's almost no.point because you almost never return to the zones. When you do there's very little to do on the map so it's really just flying from one objective to another.

[@Naroz94]

43:40 Yeahhh I often find myself logging into GW2 only to think to myself what do I want to do again? Playing since launch and done most of the content has me a little bored. Considering FF14 and glad I found this video. Gonna use that free trial and see how I find it.

[@orimu836]

How's the game so far fellow free trial player? me I finally found my home. I've been playing FFXIV free trial for months, just maxing out my DoL/DoH jobs before I start subbing. You know, maxing out stuff and gathering stuff that I can in free trial. Been playing GW2 for a good year before, and I loved it... Until I hit max level, it got pretty boring. So I switched to FFXIV. I still tend to log on to GW2 because I find the mount and sight seeing experience in GW2 so much better. Im basically like an adventurer now on GW2, just exploring not much fighting lol

[@Naroz94]

@@orimu836 I unfortunately haven't had the chance to play it yet. Installed the free trial on my desktop which I haven't been near for the past week. But from all the KZbin ffxiv video's I've seen I have a strong feeling I'll be subbing to it at the end of the free trial (I really wana be a edgelord reaper). I'm really looking forward to being a noob again, it's been too long. I do agree that the mounts on ffxiv seem to fall behind gw2 but I'm excited for the sheer variety of mounts ffxiv has to offer that aren't related to the cashshop.

[@lordyellowman]

One day a lone company will make an MMO that truly gets the best the genre has to offer, and meld it forge it into the perfect product. An mmo so incredibly good that you will almost literally feel like an isekai playing it. I hope it happens relatively soon....

[@huntingcarbon]

Maybe the League of Legends MMORPG coming up

[@xpkiller00]

@@huntingcarbon maybe :)

[@RSmeep13]

I really enjoyed this video, thanks. I tried FF14 a while ago (with no prior experience with that franchise) and I bounced right off of it. I think the ugly UI and particularly the generic font of the ui, uncomfortable combat, and the fact that I was locked into one role in regards to buildcraft really pushed me away quickly. Hearing you say that you're enjoying it more than GW2 makes me want to try to wrest past all that discomfort and find the great game underneath. Have you considered making a "Guild Wars 2 player's guide to FF14" video? Your experiences with fixing the UI, customizing the soundscape with macros, and stuff like that would be really helpful, particularly because you'd be able to frame it from a Guild Wars 2 player's point of view.

[@PinkyMan]

I have 4K hours in gw2 and am really enjoying ff14 significantly more rn. Have you looked at something like Material UI for final fantasy? It improves the look a lot, and once you get into it you might realise how superior the ui in ff is because of the amount of customisation it has especially if you get into all the plugins. The rest of it I can’t help with, I had similar thoughts with combat and builds but more I played the more it meant less to me

[@regendo]

The UI macro is something he sets up on stream in one of the Heavensward streams (they’re on the WP2 youtube channel). Unfortunately I don’t remember which one, but I think there’s a youtube comment that tells you when it happened, or you can just check each video to see if he has it already set up and then check the previous video. The combat is just something you have to get used to with time, there’s no shortcutting it. I personally started as a Gladiator and got used to it pretty quickly, but I do think it feels best on melee DPS classes so perhaps start as a Pugilist or Lancer, or pick up Rogue at level 20 (remember that you can freely swap classes on your character).

[@regendo]

Also personally, I’ve had much more fun in FF14 on a controller than using keyboard+mouse. I think it feels less clunky that way.

[@Relhio]

I played GW2 for around 1,5k hours and on FFXIV I'm reaching 1,2k; don't worry, I quit FFXIV 3 or 4 times in ARR before getting into the game. It's a slog, it's very slow, it's very clunky but Shadowbringers was freaking great and just as you I like having agency over my builds by making something that works but nobody plays, yet the way the jobs flow at endgame is so intuitive (and annoying at times) and so well done. Coming from someone who has played a damn lot of mmorpgs, FFXIV had hands down the worst first impressions of any game I played, but it is worth the pain.

[@einherjar4902]

I guess thats one thing people will always be divided about: Build Crafting I am one of those people that dont really do build crafting. Its simply not enjoyable for me. I look up meta builds, choose which one seems interesting to me, apply it, learn to play it and stick to it until they become either unusable due to balancing or it gets boring to play. 3,5k hours out of my 4k playtime in GW2 is just on one class, on one character with one build. I play both games actively but this is a thing that FFXIV clearly wins, from my perspective. I dont want to have to deal with the whole buildcrafting stuff. I just want to play the game (raids, dungeons, open world and whatever). Final Fantasy makes this extremely easy for me and completely removes a (from my perspective) obnoxious tedium. It also brings some very nice side effects to encounter design I really like.

[@stormblessed2673]

Great review WP, thought you did a really good job at going in depth and being as balanced as possible in your praise/criticms of each game. Here's hoping that both games keep improving, even drawing inspiration from each other to improve the quality off games within the mmo genre. p.s would be super keen to see you dive deep into ESO too if you've got the free time.

[@Vidiri]

I imagine he eventually will, but you can only really dive headfirst into one mmo at a time imo

[@qaztim11]

on his streams WP said he is interested in trying out other MMOs like ESO and to make more MMO comparison videos.

[@bladerunner2006]

This is such a well-made analysis. You are really insightful and have a great way of breaking these things down.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Thanks bladerunner!

[@StefanHayden]

I'm a GW2 player who also played through all of FF14. I fell out of love with FF14. It's fine but I prefer guild wars. While I agree FF14 has more story/content I'm always amazed how much content there is left for me after 1200 hours in GW2. I've yet to get legendary anything and a lot of those collections are just as fun as anything else.

[@Young-bn8wt]

All those fetch quests in FF14 were driving me insane & they never got better through expansions. Sure the story gets interesting but mindumbing quest system in FF14 is just on a whole new level.

[@MerrStudio]

Yup, literally the main reason I started playing GW2 after spending 400h in FFXIV, the gameplay loop just doesn't get better

[@soliquidsnake3990]

@@MerrStudio this is a flat out lie

[@MerrStudio]

@@soliquidsnake3990 oh really? Tell me which expansion is different that being a delivery boy with lazy in game cutscenes and instanced content thrown every now and then to break the monotony?

[@axelwolf2115]

It's really interesting hearing the point of view of players from other MMO's it has been soooo long since I played another other than FFXIV and boy oh boy I can see I've been missing out of a lot of cools stuff in GW2

[@AMKTaurus]

I think the currency exchange in gw2 should have been mentioned. You can buy stuff from the gem store while being completely f2p. And gold isn't difficult to acquire. Personally, I prefer the lore in gw2 over ff14. However, ff14 tells the story so much better than gw2. And what really grinds my gears is the living world content, why the hell do I have to pay to unlock story content? The absence of the traditional quest feature in gw2 is a breath of fresh air, the amount of fetch quests in ff14 was just infuriating and tedious. I think that's what Arenanet was trying to stay away from and renown hearts are a decent way of dealing with that. The amount of content in ff14 got me very excited when I first started playing it. However, it was depressing knowing that with the time available in my hands I wouldn't even experience half of it due to life responsibilities. So instead of paying a subscription fee and not getting the value out of the game, I may as well stick with a f2p model and if I feel like spending money it'll be because I want to not because I'm forced to.

[@LeiosLabs]

Gotta be honest, I would love to see something like this for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2.

[@ghostymytoasty7007]

Too rough of a comparison tbh. It'd be like comparing call of duty to among us you really grasp for straws to find any similarities. GW1 was a PvP game that had built PvE around it. GW2 is a PvE game, that sometimes remembers PvP exists. GW1 is an innovative take on the trinity system. GW2 tried to reinvent the wheel (and failed) GW1 had 2 years of developer time before they announced they were working on GW2 GW2 has 9 years of content (though somehow still feels like less in some modes compared to GW1) and thats just surface level. There isn't any other game out there that is like GW1 (except maybe magic the gathering, a card game, which is what inspired the devs) so hard to really compare it to anything.

[@devinbelver7124]

I recommend a fantastic video called "worst mmo ever, guild wars". Where a guy reviews the game thinking it'll be terrible and falls in love with it WP also has a video called "the death of guild wars". Which is semi close to what you want

[@Allaraina]

What's that ff14 cinematic playing at 1:19? I don't recognize it and I'd like to watch the whole thing.

[@W4lhalla]

I guess its the trailer for FFXIV 1.0.

[@marchemaximillian6821]

I played GW2 from release to around 2015 and moved to FFXIV. I have like 5000 hours played in GW2 and it felt I had found my forever home. Then in early 2015 I was a bit bored and decided to try FF thinking that I'd be back to GW pretty quickly, but turns out I never really returned. I've occasionally gotten back, but I haven't even fully played through PoF story soo yeah... FF completely stole me from GW completely.

[@KotCR]

I kind of feel the same. I absolutely adored Guild Wars 1, it's still my favourite GOAT. While I enjoyed Guild Wars 2 for a while (till they got carried away with some less than desirable decisions), I feel like Final Fantasy XIV has more in common with GW1 than GW2 does. Which is weird. Just the way the characters, the story, and the content are handled. Even if GW1 and GW2 share the same world. The gameplay systems are more different between GW2 and GW1 than they are between FFXIV and GW1 - the truly open world of GW2 and FFXIV aside.

[@tinybird2413]

I am very curious what you'd think of Warframe.

[@Tewlipz]

Funny enough, I think the sheer depth of some of Final Fantasy's social systems is what interests me the most about the game. I am definitely someone who enjoys a deep story like what I have seen on the streams, but ultimately I always think that the social systems and the ways you can interact with other players is the best part of an MMO experience. On that note, it also helps that FF14 has a ton of group content, which is something I always enjoy in MMOs, and something I feel Guild Wars 2 has always been terrible at; not that the content in Gw2 is bad, but there's just not enough focus on it I feel.

[@lukapitkanen3333]

With final fantasy I feel like there is a lot of soul to the game. It really feels like a place populated by its players. The interactions you can have with other people like doing silly emotes or have guild house next to a player run club that people visit is pretty cool. None of my irl friends are interested playing the game with me but I never feel alone playing the game. It feels very lively.

[@dragocrafterr8286]

btw a lot of the random sidequests also lead into quest chains with cutscenes, even if they don't have a blue marker

[@MrPhyxsyus]

Final Fantasy 14, subscription fee and a combat that just looking at it made me sleepy. No go for me. Did I mention subscription fee? Even after you buy the game and expansions and still have a cash shop?

[@Carpet_Carp]

This video first helped me with the decision to start Guild Wars 2, just to make it hard again immediately afterwards.

[@matthewmanuel566]

I want to love GW2. For the things it excels at, it excels at as the best in the industry including non MMO's, and ultimately I do value a beautiful world above all else. But every time I play it, I'm just reminded what the game isn't and its a shame. It's a great side game, but it's hard to play it as your main game which isn't the space it is competing with. Also I think features they tried to market as ground-breaking and great game design really worked against the game in reality. XIV feels 5 years older than GW2 and clunkier in a lot of ways, but somehow it is this gift that keeps on giving and there's this optimism amongst the playerbase that the best is yet to come even after sinking 1000+ hours into it. There's a lot of fluffy aspects to the game, but the game just throws so many gems at you kind of just want to come back for more. I'm a strictly solo player, and I appreciate that the game mandates you having to do group content, they set this expectation early on so the player base learns mechanics they'll experience again in later content. Rag on XIV's dated UI all you want, but it's muted aesthetic is there to emphasise the spectacle that the game is. GW2 (and New World similarly)'s UI I feel was designed with dopamine hits in mind in that it almost feels like its a casino which I can't stand, perhaps its my distaste of mobile games design creeping into PC games. Build craft is cool and all, but I'll take the ability to experience everything in the game in one character any day for any MMO now. It changes the way you absorb content in the world, because you are now playing a character instead of a class/build.

[@next_lvl_]

Your take on the single character with all classes, no alts, is quite interesting. I figure that FFXIV players will value this, but as a GW2 player with 30+ characters I can't trade the alt-friendliness of GW2 for anything else. Yes it's a preference thing. But I love having dozens of characters with distinct looks and personalities (not a big rp guy but I love giving my characters SOME flavor), build-template-characters because it outright feels wrong to me being a mage and a tank archetype on the same character, storage-characters which I pay for once, and they're my customizable "retainers" for the rest of my ingame life.. I'd pick GW2 alt system at any given time. I hope this doesn't come off as hostile, just wanted to share a different experience!

[@matthewmanuel566]

​@@next_lvl_ Thanks for sharing your perspective. I'm loading GW2 as we speak and giving it another chance, but I'll start again, prepared to slog it through again. I guess with having one character, it's easier to appreciate and absorb the mundane/slice of life aspects of the game as no task is beneath the warrior of light. I approach XIV as a lifestyle game where you schedule goals to do in between queues so you might be levelling a tank, whilst queued for a raid as a mage. It would be cool in GW2, if you could queue into instanced/pvp content in one character whilst playing another. It's just a way to keep years old content alive.

[@OldManInternet]

I used to watch your stuff back when I was playing a bunch of GW2, and I enjoyed it! Seeing this video on my YT reel was a pleasant surprise that kept me up an hour longer than I wanted before sleeping. As someone who is pretty heavily invested in FF14, I'm looking forward to seeing what (if any) kind of FF14 content you make once you finish the MSQ and have more time in the game. You already seem to have an idea of the depth that the game has to offer, so it will he interesting to see what aspects of the game you decide to focus on.

[@Themostfluffiest]

I'd love to try final fantasy but the combat is absolutely unbearable. I feel like I'm in a time capsule 20 years into the past. To be fair I generally hate MMOs though because of mainly their combat sucking. Gw2 very much offered me a giant multiplayer experience with a high skill ceiling of gameplay from Mount usage to combat to jumping puzzles in general.

[@yarkinno]

FFXIV took the crown from GW2 back in 2016 and still hold it, but I regularly play both games. The big issue for me about GW2 is, even with high rig, it has very bad performance. The big issue for me about FFXIV is, the subscription fee.

[@Lydeck]

Oh, one other thing to maybe try: leves are basically useless for combat classes, however for crafting and gathering it can be good for leveling but also making gil! There is one in Shadowbringers (and was one in Stormblood but they update each expansion) where if you do 99 of them you get around 1.8million gil. It can take a few hours to grind out the crafts, but given leves refresh from 0-99 in a two week span, you only have to do it every other weekend and is a great way for folks to passively make Gil, especially new people that freshly hit max level.

[@rachymn7883]

Leaves are for crafting definitely

[@ShariCory]

[09:10] SurreaOsluna: The book used by someone in particular for secret question was called "Dancing The Loom" , Where they danced lumi to keep her in the dark for an all to end the world. There is mention of a tapestry unweaving that was also mentioned in the game Guild Wars. Was also reference to keep the women sewing. Alot of stories wrapped up that had my life and others in turmoil. Wasnt fair to any of us at all.

[@FirionDude]

Having played both for quite some time. FFIX is better in terms of story, music, dungeons, raids. Guild Wars is better in PVP, World Exploration/Content, questing, class builds/diversity. FFXIV mounts are prettier but in guild wars they are more fun to move around. Gameplay wise can't decide which one is better because one is tab targeting focused on 20+ skills rotations and the other is more action oriented, reaction based. I like them both on their own way. Sadly never reached Guild Wars endgame content and I have both expansions.

[@MKhrome]

What is the music from the beginning of the video? I could swear it's from GW2 but i can't find it in the OST's.

[@prettyunicorn261]

Yesss do New World or TESO next it'll be much more interesting ! Actually GW2 and FF14 dont have a lot in common and their combat system is so different that you can't really compare them (Some people prefer tab targetting, but it seems like you think hybrid combat is just superior, which fair enough if you think so ) I play both FF and GW2 and I love both games but if you're not into legendaries or WVW there isnt much to do in guild wars 2 end game sadly, there's very little intent to do the old raids or strikes, fractals are just a way to farm gold or another piece to the legendary system, you either play with the same 50 people or bots in sPvp, so whilst I love the WORLD and the mounts, the game doesnt push me towards anything after beating the story and clearing the PVE content. Its definitely a great side-game though and I find myself coming back to it every now and then. Comparatively, in FF I have cleared tons of content (About 4k hours-ish compared to my small 1k8 hours in GW ) but there's still a lot for me to look forward to especially on mount unlocks ! I hope EOD brings us more fresh content, my pre-order is already placed !

[@mattg6106]

I think this was a very well thought out and interesting video. I would love to see you do this later with ESO once you make your way through that. I'm sure 'this vs. that' videos are probably more popular but the information in your videos, and the ideas of comparing patches and how they compare, make this seem more like an insight into MMO evolution and business practices which I find far more interesting.

[@kaseigunsou]

To my eyes, GW2 is much more user friendly : you log into the game and the second after, you can start playing activities. There's no queue. The UI is close to perfection (storage, crafting, auction etc). Plus, every progress you make is account wide which is incredibly user friendly and time saving! These are the areas where it shines the most. FF14 though is a meatier and overall better game strictly speaking. It's full of very well produced content, rewards players for being friendly and caring about the game, allows you to jump from frantic paced activities to leisure ones, has tons of wonderful emotes and animations, is perfectly optimized, and provides you with a perfect match between MMO and solo RPG story. It has some terrible downsides though, apart from it requiring a monthly fee. It requires people to engage into dungeons very often to progress into the story, which can become tedious when trying to enjoy the story at your own pace in solo / duo. On the other hand, teammates can't access your personal story instances which feels like a huge restriction compared to more recent games. Your progress is linked to one character only. The UI is a mess, from the tedious and clunky mechanics behind crafting to the hard limitations of storage space. As for the combat, its slower pace isn't the main problem compared to the ton of abilities you unlock by the time you reach max level, which don't bring anything to the table except for just being part of a rotation you have to know by heart in order to perform well. It's overly complex for nothing. And finally, as for the content, sometimes meatier means harder to get into. I've never felt lost in GW2, but in FF14, it is very hard, especially for new players, to get the sense of what they should be going for. The content and length of the story is terrible because it requires you to go through tons of hours of reading just to catch up. The overall pace is very unintuitive and can become tedious quickly. And the game NEVER tells new players what old piece of content is relevant or not. FF14 would benefit from learning some of the simplicity of GW2 (limiting the skills, limiting the storage issues, giving players a better pace story wise) and GW2 would benefit from FF14 better content and overall production values.

[@WarrickRanger]

I've played both games pretty substantially (enough to form an educated opinion), as well as both FFXI and WoW. My favorite MMO is...whichever one my friends are playing. Playing with friends trumps any specific feature may have or lack.

[@smoov5046]

So many older players love the final fantasy franchise (like myself) from their single player games. FFVII introduced me to the RPG genre, endless hours playing FF7-FF10... The franchises will always hold a special place in my heart. I remember when they went into the MMO business with FF11, I played that for several months, but it was no where near enjoyable as it's single player games. When I was looking to get into an MMO a few years ago, FF14 was very tempting for me, only because of the franchise reputation, but I decided I'd try something different, and tried GW2 instead--and tbh, I have no regrets, and no interest in FF14 now, regardless of how much I love the FF franchise, GW2 has everything I want in an MMO. I wonder if FF14 didn't have the FF name, would FF14 would be a top MMO? GW2 continues to fall under the radar, they don't invest much in marketing, it doesn't create the hype and consequent disappointment like other highly marketed mmo's... yeap, but under the radar, the game continues to do well and development doesn't look like it will stop anytime soon. I'm glad I didn't just dive in based on name recognition, and took a chance with a relatively unknown MMO game in GW2--and I am very satisfied with my decision.

[@veliona8920]

FFXIV would still easily be one of the top MMO's because the teams they have behind their story writing, musical composition and boss design are some of the best talent you'll ever find. While it does still have a strong family name It would be just as strong without it.

[@Hiyooma]

what a fantastic comparison video. Here is where I am at. (wall of text warning) =] I'm not a huge mmorpg player the most time ever spent in a mmorpg was in the ArcheAge beta. I come from a fps/moba background.. While playing and loving the old Final fantasy games. Turn based I wanted to give it a try.. but ended up quitting every time. The Skill Effects/Numbers are so fucking gorgeous however the beginner story from 1-60 is so fucking boring and tries to flood you with cut scenes. It's sometime unbearable. Ended up quitting currently and trying GW2. I think GW2 made me much happier to just mindlessly grind in the open world it delivers. The double edged sword for me was How all the people who were in the game with me were old vets with mounts flying through content while much of the time I was by myself and felt empty (the game telling me to switch channels frequently). While it felt easier to level through it felt much less alive unless I run into a huge raid which was amazing. Yet it felt a bit cheesy. in terms of actually feeling as I did much of anything. They were never really that difficult at all however I think It's crystal clear to me after your video. I absolutely need to get through FF14. I think I'll GW2 Isn't for me based off the end game comparisons. Without this video I would not have known which game is for me and which to sink all my time into. Thanks so much WoodenPotatoes cause I have been so bored for so long.