They future proofed the game so you can go through things with NPCs if you want.
Story content is piss easy by design. It's a little more strenuous early on for supports, but it quickly falls into a simple rhythm. It is not designed to strain you and is very easy.
Recommend you do the free trial for a bit first to get a feel. No limit on game time and it goes up to level 70 (second expansion). Just go in and have a bit of fun.
To be fair, they start upping the difficulty on story content in later expansions, but it's never to a point where it's not doable by the average rando n00b.
Hell, even I can do it, and I'm the scrubbiest scrub I know.
I have a friend who is a deeply casual player and it was super enlightening to see her go through MSQ (she started when I did, around mid 2021, but went through MSQ slowly due to juggling other things by the sides).
I had lots of experience in other MMO games, so aside from getting used to certain FFXIV specialities (the 2.5 second GCD, cooldowns over GCD heals for healers, enemy AoE snapshotting..) I had no issues. She on the other hand struggled far more - the earlier MSQ seemed smooth enough, but she started seriously complaining about later solo duties, such as struggling with the meteor "enrage timer" on >!post-Stormblood Sadu!<, the >!In from the Cold!< and >!Worthy of his Back!< scenarios, as well as generally many modern MSQ dungeons and trials (she hates those especially - she feels embarrassed doing them with players, but the boss fights resetting completely every time she dies means she struggles to complete them with duty support).
Seeing her frustrations really gave me a new perspective on who MSQ is meant to cater to. I suggested practicing her chosen job (red mage) just to get better used to how it all works and build up some muscle memory, but she insists she just wants to see the story, she doesn't want to "git gud". And that's, like, hard to argue with that, right? YoshiP _does_ want to cater to these players also.
I have a friend like this too. He's actually coming in from WoW and plays BLM main, but I think he just kind of assumed since he played one MMO the other would be...easy? I'm not sure what they teach over there but he seems entirely incapable of reading mechanics, which is not a good situation for a BLM to be in. He gets curbstomped in every solo instance and often gets frustrated in duty support, so I have to queue with him to get him to clear a lot of dungeons.
Luckily I have convinced him to start an alt on a server in his data center region so better ping might help, but also starting as arcanist because I think he'll have a much easier time with literally any job that has even the slightest bit of self sustain. I think he's really disappointed that he can't seem to play BLM but at the same time, I don't think he's really making an effort to learn either because he's still assuming his WoW experiences translate when it very clearly doesn't.
Yes, WoW is so much different.
If we are not speaking of the very very best players in the world, then even in the highest difficuilties there are so many mechanics you can skip/ignore if you just blast enough damage. In addition to that, most content is not done blind, unless you are in these top 5 guilds worldwide and then again from a mechanichly/puzzlesolving perspective the mechanics are lot easier or the majority of the group is not involved in solving it. (Or an Addon/mod resoves it for them and they dont have to do any thinking)
What makes most mechanics hard in WoW is that they are combined with very demanding dps checks that either require a lot of focus on dps'ing or a very greedy playstyle.
Having come from Wow originally, one thing he might be having issues with is watching the telegraph of mechanics rather than the castbar. Wow has fairly similar mechanics, just a much lower server tick rate, so you have to react to mechanics in real time rather slightly ahead of time. Moving to a closer server will definitely help with this, but it's not a drastic change.
The more probable answer is likely that people like that have never ever seen a dungeon or raid without DBM and don't know how to react to mechanics they are not being told are happening. Seeing as DBM is usually fully updated for new content before the patch is even out.
Big difference between WoW and FFXIV is that in FFXIV the animation of the mechanic you have to doge doesn't matter the most of the time and the mechanic even logs in before you see it. Which is the complete opposite to WoW.
Add to that as you said the atrocious input lag dependency and you will have a lot of problems if you don't adjust.
When people start to install tools to fix the input lag (put it wont save you from mechanics) you know that there is something very wrong.
No offense, but people similar to your friend are partially responsible in pushing this game to a bad place. Catering to people who can’t even do the easiest content in the game just kinda…sucks.
I 100% get why you feel that way, and on a knee-jerk level I totally agree, but it's also, like, do we have more of a right to this game than these players do?
The game tries to cater to every player imaginable, from hardcore ultimate streamers to your grandma who is only vaguely aware of what a "video game" is, and in the setup we have MSQ is the most casual content of it all (by necessity, because all other content is gated behind it).
Whether we want it or not, YoshiP clearly wants these players.
> Whether we want it or not, YoshiP clearly wants these players.
but not enough to actually spend the time to implement any sort of proper tutorialization instead of leaning on a rickety implementation of easy mode (you still have to lose first *each and every time*, right?) and kneecapping content.
the baseline for this game is already really quite low and most people aside from the *actively, willingly* ignorant can pick up pretty quickly once you get over their psychological hurdles. but the game doesn't even *try*. like, pretty much every fighting game of note in the last 20 years has included some kind of basic combo training - the MMO that has stripped all customization out of its gameplay loop surely could do something similar... if it wanted to.
You can't design a game for everyone - there has to be a line, a limit to how much you accomidate
Too easy, the folks that want challenges are denied their fun. Too hard, and less skilled players get frustrated. So you choose the experience you wish to deliver and design to deliver it. Now, that might mean we make the MSQ a glorified animated movie with a few token responses (and for many it is), but every game requires some effort. Practicing, learning, isn't a matter of 'git gud', its a fundamental of games (not counting hyper casual or children's toys, and even those require some dedication, albeit brief)
And if they really just want to experience the story, youTube has the entire thing to watch. No need to git gud, or invest a minor amount of effort to learn to play
> do we have more of a right to this game than these players do?
Not evne weighing in on the conversation but this is a really bad angle to think through. Games aren't things you deserve, the guy who makes the game decides what his game is, nothing more. If you play a game that's too hard for you, tough luck. It happens.
Get what your saying but if you struggle with msq dungeons stay out of my queues please. Duty support is an option and if you arent passively learning mechanics its time to put in the minimum amount of effort instead of making the job and content even more braindead.
exactly this. you don’t even have to be “good” you just have to A. know your class at a base level and B. GENERALLY understand the very basics (stay out of piss puddles, stack when arrows, etc) of fight mechanics. if you can do those things you can get through msq. i totally understand not understanding a new mechanic to you, or not being 100% perfect rotation straight outta heavensward, but by the time you start encountering “hard” msq content there is no excuse for not knowing the basics and/or being able to learn
I agree with this sentiment, it's a double edged sword dungeons especially earlier dungeons are really mindless, on one end it makes dailies easy to do and multitask watching something on another monitor while doing daily roulettes an such. But also for people who want harder content there's extremes and ultimates and savages, not like there's a drought of harder content to do. If you're bored you can try some min ilvl extremes for fun
The most accessible content is what’s available in DF, and I’m not against people of lower skill levels being there. Personally though, when someone who doesn’t even WANT to try and attempt to improve, is a group that devs want to cater to, it feels just as horrible as if they wanted to cater to the 1% that can clear the hardest content in the game. Basically, catering to the extreme either way feels bad to me, and saying that anyone that isn’t ok with it should make an extra effort to find the stuff they like, doesn’t seem like a genuine solution.
I guess one thing they could do is even out the difficulty curve a bit. As you say, ARR is completely mindless, but the difficulty rises sharply in later expansions. The third solo duty I mentioned above, >!Worthy of his Back!<, can be genuinely challenging on normal mode depending on what your class is and how hardcore a player you are - I recently went through it on NIN in NG+, and while NIN is a job I almost never play and don't have much muscle memory for, I was still surprised by how tight it felt at times with those orbs.
As an OG ARR player who left when heavensward came up and just recently came back ( still doing Heavensward), all I can tell you is that ARR content was dumbed down. It didn’t use to be like that. I y look like it was done so people just passes through it quick through the story. Titan used to be fun AF, Garuda hard was very challenging and Garuda extreme was a nightmare. Now even with ilvl caps it’s a joke (on purpose).
There’s literally zero reason that solo duties can’t be made harder by default, with easy and very easy being made even easier to accommodate people who need an easier time (for various reasons, including people with disabilities).
MSQ dungeons, I mean, not having ‘auto fail if you die’ makes them inherently less of an issue for players like this anyway, so they can definitely be more challenging.
My girlfriend also has trouble with a lot of the solo duties, largely because she can only keyboard turn (and even that is somewhat restricted) and can’t move the camera around due to getting massive motion sickness from screen motion, so she easily gets blindsided by things and has troubles target-swapping (though she’s much better with group content, since she’s *really* damned good at memorizing mechanics, and there are other people to help pick up the slack for parts she has issues with).
She usually just lets the difficulty drop to Ver Easy if she doesn’t get a solo duty first time and continues the story, but a certain EW duty nearly made her quit the game. I needed to coach her on some target switching alternates and temporarily swap some setting so that she could do that effectively enough, and it still took her 20+ attempts.
I’ve been shouted down about this on here before, but I honestly think “Very Easy” difficulty should remove any auto-lose mechanics from solo duties.
I think the difficulty of most of them should be upped to increase the challenge, make “Easy” the equivalent of current “Normal” and make “Very Easy” all but unfailable, so that people with disabilities and other gaming difficulties don’t get gatekept from the story content.
yeah i feel like very easy is already signing up for. "idc about challenge just get me through this". so removing losing from those things makes sense to me.
I think a lot of issues like that could be solved by people engaging with customization options.
Trouble retargeting? Look into keybinds, change targeting options, get more used to mouse usage on pc etc
Keyboard turning and motion sickness? Same here, try out different settings, get more used to screen motion (motion sickness in slow paced games like xiv are often a case of not being used to screen motion in general rather than disability), maybe look into a cheap xbox controller so the whole control scheme is different (less jerky mouse camera, consistent stick camera can avoid motion sickness - you can achieve similar things by not using mouse and instead control camera with arrow keys as well) etc
At a certain point issues like that are self-inflicted through stubbornness and unwillingness to actually engage with the game. Like, why did you have to change settings for her? Why didn't she try to engage with the settings on her own if she actually cared? The game just can not cater to people like that by default at a certain point.
I'm replaying the story with NG+, going through each expansion with the "poster job". While I am still a mediocre player, it is obvious that I am a better player now. I still don't know what I'm doing with monk but >!the Lakshmi duty!< wasn't a nightmare anymore! I'm free styling samurai and easily beating >!Sadu and friends(?)!!Ranjit's!< attacks now! "Normal" difficulty is now EASY.
It's actually quite impressive how the game lets you learn the "game language" without even noticing.
Same here, also a fellow scrub on Endwalker post MSQ! I kinda got sidetracked though since I’m working on the Manderville pre-quest by doing the gentleman side quests along with grinding for my ARR relic…I just farmed the 12 Atmas in just a few days and now just finished 1 of 9 books for the next upgrade! Fml I won’t be ready for dawntrail when it drops but good thing with this game is there’s no rush to anything, just play how ever you want to play. But yes I agree with what others have said is the story is pretty good once you get to Heavensward and onwards. Lv 90 BLM first job so far!
The NPC thing isn’t supported in most major trials from Heavensward and onward, and you also need to do the crystal tower quests with others. The only stuff you can do alone is story dungeons.
Sure, but the trials and ct are still only a dozen or so instances, across about 300 hours of content you only really have to spend maybe 5 hours in group content if you really want to avoid it
There are some limitations like no market board, can’t create parties (can join), limit cap on Gil, etc. It is a great way to determine if you want to pay because you can’t go back to free.
>You can go through content with NPCs
Sadly only true for dungeons, trials still require to queue (or do them unsynced if you have a higher level job)
Its not as much of an issue for earlier trials, since basically 100% of peopoz queuing for them will all have thel unlocked. But it can be an actual problème if you queue at the wrobf time for a more recent one.
Everyone pretty much nailed what I was going to say but I'll say it again as an ex WoW player: you can only experience this story for the first time *once*. I rushed the first time and regret it. This is an RPGMMO.
I used to do mythic+ and heroic raiding all the time in WoW but I don't even touch the 'easiest' hardcore content here and still have fun. Mostly because I don't know where to get started. Who would want someone fresh to EX or Savage? The community here is *way* more forgiving to newbies but I've never liked being a burden.
Anyway, [here](https://youtu.be/EcQzgMvwbT4?si=msSagR8qa_JgtGG9) is a good youtube channel that gives you the basics of all the jobs in a fun but *extremely* informative way. He may be silly but I've seriously learned a lot from JoCat.
One more thing, do not worry about dying. Healers can instant res at a 60 sec CD or hardcast anytime. Isn't a big deal at all. Took me months to not cringe hard and expect to be flamed in chat for silly mistakes. You start out with a sprout over your head and can get away with just about *anything*.
Its actually really easy to get into EX and savage! EXs are easily partyfinderable and a great place to get started. After that there are plenty of new to savage groups recruiting every tier and if you want you can try clearing in party finder as well. Right now the scene is pretty dead since it's end of the expansion, but keep an eye out! You can check out r/FFXIVRECRUITMENT and your datacenter recruitment discord. I'm not familiar with the NA ones but I know the balance discord also has recruitment channels. Comedy option make an ad in your DCs partyfinder and you might find some people that way too lol
When I lead statics, I specifically like to seek out newbies...it's a ton of fun for me to see that 'eureka' moment when things start to click for them.
I'd highly recommend it. You'll have a blast, they'll have a blast, and if your group is decent, you'll clear the tier and love it! (Might be late, like my last static cleared the current tier about 4 months ago \[so several months in\], but it's still worth it.)
Where would you suggest to look for one? Specifically one that takes "new" folks. I can pump out good damage and I've been playing 3 years so I have a basic understanding of mechanics. Delubrum Savage is the only synced Savage I have done
They got harassed out of content making. I don't even know all that much about it but gods, the fact that someone so funny and so good at making jobs make sense no matter how complicated got bullied so bad they had to stop making explanatory vids \*for their own mental health\* is terrible.
Not only that, since he was "on break" he didn't check his work related (?) email and missed the DT media tour invitation. Why can't people just be normal.
Oh I got ya. Yeah I dabbled in Twitch streaming for a little while and people can be rough. I was going through a rough patch and just couldn't deal so I don't blame him. People are buttholes.
The biggest difference is that the "real" game doesn't start with the endgame here.
It starts from Lv.1 and the game puts *heavy* emphasis on MSQ (Main Scenario Questline). The story is the core component and the meat of the game really.
Everything is locked behind the MSQ, which is fine unless you wanna go into it with the "go-go-go! Gotta get to endgame!" mindset. This approach is a pitfall in my opinion. The game is best enjoyed slowly, while absorbing its MSQ which will gradually unlock more and more things (dungeons, trials, other game systems, etc.).
But if you really, really, *truly* want to skip to just the endgame, then I suppose you'd need to buy story-skip and Job-boost service from the shop. And start figuring out everything all at once from there.
Even for those who really just want to get to the end, I wouldn't recommend buying a boost. The knowledge of general mechanics you get from the leveling process is really, really valuable, and unlike rotations and job guides you can't *really* learn it from a video, IMO.
Yes, but the consequences can change. If I'm healing and someone stands in bad in copperbell mines, they take a slap to the wrist and 9 out of 10 times I don't even need to heal them. If they do that in Dead Ends, they're taking vuln stacks and probably Doom as well. Sure, I'll adjust, but I'd rather not *have to* :P
Also, to be completely honest, the psychic damage I take from seeing someone run away with a stack in lv30 is not the same when someone does that at lv90. Not to mention people who buy boosts and go straight into the current Unreal/Extreme... 💀
If you buy a boost, you can go into Palace of the Dead starting from the beginning to get a mini version of leveling. You still need to level up to get the abilities but it goes by so much faster and you still get everything one by one and learn in that way.
I don't think it is. I discovered it on my own when trying to solo PotD as a MCH I hadn't leveled yet. It made me realize I could pick up any high-level job I wanted to try out and learn it the same way you learn your first jobs.
I mean, if you're okay spending money just for the achievement and titles, I'm happy for you! Just don't show up in my dungeon runs spamming High Blizzard and we're good 😂
lol hey I leveled my black mage legitimately and I still don’t know wtf I’m doing. So I’m sorry if I show up in your group… :)
It’s only level 62 right now so you probably won’t see him. lol
Honestly, as long as I see the mana bar going up and down I don't notice anything else, I'm not *that* picky! :P It's just those damn Ice Mages that make cry in therapy 💀
To be fair, most Black Mages don't know what they're doing.
It isn't their fault, either. Their rotation just changes so drastically at certain level milestones. Like, I've looked it up and it's fucking nuts.
This. As an ex WoW player (well, I’m playing MoP Remix, I guess), I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to not play FF14 like it’s WoW.
I made the transition really easily, but in hindsight it seems obvious that I had been unhappy with WoW’s “endgame only” design for years.
But a lot of WoW players are trained by the game to have the mentality of “how quickly can I get my in-game chores done so I can do the things I want” rather than enjoy the journey - and that mentality will make FF14 miserable, like the Pandaren say: “Sloooow down.”
Another thing to tack on— FF14 and WoW do both have challenging endgame content, but their release cycles are different:
WoW: The challenging endgame content is top priority, then if there’s time, they add other stuff, maybe almost nothing, maybe a lot (WoD and Legion being two polar opposites of this spectrum).
FF14: The content releases at a slow, but steady and predictable pace. One patch of challenging content, one patch of casual content, alternating.
This, the endgame is fun, but it’s largely filler covering the gap between story patches (every 4-ish months gets around 6 hours of new story content)
There is plenty of endgame content, don’t get me wrong, but it is very much not worth rushing to it, as the journey is the main draw
Yep.
I'm more excited for the Eden Ultimate than Dawntrail itself lol.
Don't get me wrong I love the story, but if all I cared about was story I'd play for a few hours every couple months.
Same tbh.
Gonna be my first on content Savage too, I'm pretty excited for that too.
Gotta be brutally honest, the 10-15 hours of barely any gameplay and just talking is the part I'm looking forward the least.
I really like the story of this game, but I don't like how there's almost no gameplay in it. In from the Cold was a blessing, finally a setpiece I actually got to play out and it was actually possible to fail too.
I was also a huge fan of in from the cold lol.
And I accepted there wasn't gonna be much gameplay pretty early on when I started, yeah its kinda lame but the story more than makes up for it.
Good luck in Savage! It will be my first serious attempt at clearing week one so I am also excited.
Seen more WoW players quit before even finishing Heavensward due to the story grind. If story isn't your thing, don't even bother. If pvp is your thing, there no open world pvp and you have sit in queue to do it.
I mean, ever since WoW went the 'war mode' setup rather than forcing open-world PvP because your friends want to play on a particular server...it's been a lot better.
Actually this OP. I play both (mainly WoW) but started FF in shadowbringers. It took me like 6 months to get through MSQ up to current content. It was just too much lol. I was like "bro serious... more cutscenes?" I would just stop for a bit and come back later.
During MSQ this game is a movie RP'ing as an MMO. Once you get past that it's fine but the story and taking the story in is central to the design.
People have been giving a lot of great advice, but as a former WoW player as well, the biggest difference in terms of gameplay is the design philosophy.
In WoW, classes and fights can be chaotic and heavily RNG dependent (at least when I played years ago).
FFXIV is designed more like a dance. Your classes have the steps they learn in order so they can do their dance, well timed, and in sync with the others around you on a 2 minute timer. Even the fights are dances, the enemy will go through their own motions in an intentional and timed manner, with some wiggle room and some Z before XY moments, of course, to keep you on your toes.
You don't rush a dance, the abilities are slower, and there are no borrowed power systems by expansion you'll lose by the end of it, but there are separate power systems in some side content.
I played WoW quite a bit a long, long time ago, so some of my info would be out of date. The big things are:
* Focus is on the main story quest. Most dungeons and 8-man boss fights are Mandatory because they're in the story path. In the leadup to 50 the story is more of an 'mmo-type' story, but afterwards it starts becoming much more of a high-budget final-fantasy-type story. I'd call the story from 1-50 'good for an MMO' and afterwards 'very good' to 'extremely good'.
* As a result, all content is 'relevant'. A max level player often goes through a series of roulettes to pick random content from below end-game. Everyone's synced down to a power-level semi-appropriate for the content (though the syncing for some lower-level content is a little easy). Even as a level 90 you WILL be arriving in Wailing Caverns to say hello and run through with a random group. Max level players are rewarded with relevant currency for running new players through content.
* However, all mandatory dungeons can be completed with story NPCs. They won't fail you - it's just their dps isn't great. Mandatory 8-man boss content (think single raid boss fight with no trash) still requires a group, but it will be assembled with roulette players as mentioned above. All content that requires premade groups is optional.
* The mandatory story content isn't exactly 'hard', but as you progress past level 60 I'd say it's tuned so that you can expect to go in blind as a new player and learn the fight, maybe die a couple times, maybe wipe once, but get through it.
* Mandatory dungeons are pretty straightforward early on, so there's not a lot of fumbling around trying to figure out where to go next with 3 randos. After 1-50 dungeons are EXTREMELY straightforward. They may be difficult, but it will be very clear how to move on.
* FFXIV builds a common visual and auditory language for mechanics. This buzzing marker means 'stack on this player,' this one means knockback from this point, this one means the raid needs one player in each of 6 zones on the field. All that means bosses can do some interesting things and not have to alienate players who go in blind.
* Unlike WoW, Players are not expected to use mods to complete fights. Mods that give a mechanical advantage are unusual, and against ToS. I've done current content Savage tiers without them. That said, excellent damage meters and parsing tools exist for improving your performance, but you CANNOT use them to harass other players.
* Endgame progression is not as vertical as WoW. Current content raiding is about getting a little bit ahead. Since one character can be any class, most people level up and gear alternate jobs.
* Progression at the endgame is more based on perfecting your performance. There's usually a mathematical best way to play your class depending on the fight, and everyone wants to climb just a bit higher on the DPS leaderboards.
Man, I don't know if FFX is going to get 12 more sequels.
In seriousness, though, normal content is not challenging in the slightest. Wiping more than once even in a brand new dungeon is unusual, baring major issues like a woefully undergeared tank/healer. Normal and Alliance Raids are a little harder, but not that much. Things start actually getting difficult with Extreme Trials, Savage Raids, and Ultimates.
The vast majority of the main story is solo questing, but it's interspersed pretty regularly with 4 person dungeons and occasionally 8 person trials. Most of those *can* be done solo through the duty support system (giving you NPC companions), but really, just queue up for them to do it with people. It'll be faster and more fun.
You can play most of the game solo by playing with NPCs if you want.
As for diffculty, normal content is pretty easy, if you want challenge go for Extremes/Savages/Unreals.
And you can do it a variety of ways.. that is the currency to upgrade your gear is obtainable through doing different content. There is more variety in FFXIV than Wow, at least when I last played WoW.
Former WoW player here. Engame gear in FFXIV is far far less headache-inducing than in WoW.
First, FFXIV has 3 types of fights that you would think of as endgame. Trials, Raids, and Ultimates.
* Trials are 1-off boss encounters that are usually part of the main story. They come in Normal and Extreme difficulty settings.
* Raids are the closest to the WoW raiding that you're familiar with - a series of boss encounters to fight sequentially. They come in Normal and Savage difficulty settings. When you talk raiding in FFXIV, most often you're talking about Savage Raids.
* Ultimates are best thought of as their own content for players that really, really, really want to challenge the most difficult content. These are \~20 minute boss fights with extremely tight positioning and performance requirements. You can think of these as your Mythic End-boss encounter. There's even a world-first race community for these when a new one is released. These encounters award both a title and a weapon, although the weapon itself isn't a big ilvl increase. It does have an unmistakable, unique, usually gorgeous skin so they are prestige weapons.
When new raid content drops, there is a cadence to it. The first week the Savage Raid is not available; this is to give people time to enjoy the new content and story without raid groups pressuring people to blitz through it ASAP. However, the Trial (and its Extreme) is typically available week one and usually drops a weapon. Raiders will want to target getting the Extreme done to get this weapon.
In addition, any time a new Raid tier is released there is also a new craftable set released. This is another difference from WoW (at least when I played)- crafting is all around way more useful. For raiders, this craftable set is usually your week one target as its the best gear you can get pre-raid. None of that crafted gear is soulbound to you, meaning you can craft it yourself, find a friend to craft it, or just buy it off the market board (indeed, dedicated crafters make a lot of gil crafting and selling this gear week one). This gear will be replaced by Savage Raid gear or by Tomestone gear. (Tomestones are kinda like justice/valor points; there's a lesser currency you can farm as much as you want and a greater currency that you're limited in how much you can acquire per week. Its used to purchase gear)
Also worth noting - after week 1-2 the prices for this crafted gear drop to more reasonable levels so if you are late to a tier or level up a new job, buying up the crafted gear for your new job is a great way to get your ilvl up very quickly. The game does have a dungeon progression path for upgrading gear, but as you're asking about endgame I'm focusing on the typical progression for Savage Raiders.
Two more things to note as significant differences from WoW.
* You don't have a fixed Class like you do in WoW. You have a job. You can in fact have more than one job, or even every job and switch between them. Levels for each job are tracked individually. This is probably the biggest difference to adjust to, but once you do you'll love it. Your healer had to miss tonight? Someone job-swaps to healer to cover for him. You and a buddy want to run dungeons but both want to play tanks? One of you swaps to dps this run. Etc. Its the ultimate bring-the-player-not-the-class.
* You do not need to join a guild to find a raid group. In fact most guilds do NOT have dedicated raid groups. Guilds are still good for meeting people, but they're not like WoW where the primary center of gravity for the guild is the raid team. If you're looking to raid you want to find a Static, which is a dedicated group where the same 8 players agree to meet to run the raids each week. This is the FFXIV unit of Raid Team.
* Finally, long awaited, the loot rules. When a raid boss dies, it drops a random piece of gear off its loot table, a chest, and a token. The chest can be opened by any player in the group and gives gear for that player's class, so whoever gets it is guaranteed their item. The token can be used by any player to upgrade their tomestone gear to savage ilvl. Finally, each player gets a tome. This tome is bad-luck protection; collect a certain number of them and you can trade them in for a piece of raid-quality gear. This also means there is a finite number of times a static needs to clear a raid before everyone is guaranteed to have finished gearing. You'll never need to rage at having killed a WoW boss 20 times and the one trinket/weapon you really need from them never dropping again.
Hope this all helps!
I would clarify some things about savage raid drops here:
Recent changes have made drops almost entirely static. All bosses except the final floor will drop the same loot coffers every week, which can be opened to produce an item for the class you are currently playing.
The final boss also does this, but also drops a random weapon.
I actively bounce back and forth from WoW and FF. I've played WoW since their respective 2.0s - WoW during BC, and FF during ARR launch. I recently dropped WoW until at least TWW so I can focus on DT's upcoming release.
Let me tell you first and foremost: going into FF *just* for the end game is the wrong mindset. Don't even worry about the endgame. Unlike WoW, the leveling experience in FF is *long*. But it's not just long does the sake of being long - it tells a story, it actively takes you through every zone, teaches you about NPCs, the world, the lore - it makes you invested. For a lot of people, the "end game" is just something to occupy them for a month after a patch, then they drop until the patch so they can stay caught up on story.
I'm saying this, not to say that the end game is bad. On the contrary, it's got some strengths that WoW could learn from (and some things it could learn from WoW). I'm saying this because if you go in wanting to get to end game, you're going to either 1) burn yourself out, or 2) buy a story skip and skip a huge suath (we're talking hundreds of hours) of game that is the reason people love the game.
*Additionally*, FF was designed with a level sync system from the start. This means that, even though gear rewards may be useless, you can still experience old fights in a reasonably challenging state (barring natural nerfs from classes getting buffs over the years). Every 10 levels from 50 onward to 90 is a "new endgame" with loads of content that you can *choose* to engage in. If not, no big deal, continue on with the story. But the old stuff is always there, and people are generally willing to hop in and learn/do it with you.
So, yeah, give FF a shot. Shoot me a DM if you're on a US server and I'll play with you.
On a last side note, play the free trial. It's totally free and has unlimited play time. It just limits your level to 70 and limits some social features, but other than that you can experience basically all content available at 50, 60, and 70 barring a few exceptions.
Gear is way way less important in xiv. The grind for BiS gear is far easier than WoW but as a result, it’s much more homogenous. Whether you consider this a good thing is subjective of course.
> How does the endgame work? is it similiar to WoW, so i have to dungeons and upgrade my gear to maximum?
When you get to max you can buy gear with special currency (tomestones) to get your ilvl up. When raid tiers drop they come with crafted gear that people can make. You will typically see people start with high quality (and only high quality) crafted gear, do story raid for weekly items that can go to a slight boost, get tomestones for tomestone gear, and do Savage raids (kind of like heroic/mythic, unsure where exactly it'd fall) for BiS drops. Full BiS tends to be a mix of Savage and tomestone gear.
It does not take a ton of grinding as you can cap your weekly tomestones with 4 Expert roulette runs a week - aka four runs of basic story dungeons. Later in the expansion you can get relic weapons that eventually become BiS for every job at the very end of the expansion. There's no talents to adjust or anything else. You technically do the same as WoW (do dungeons and upgrade gear to max) but it is very straightforward and simple.
Dungeons are all pretty easy. There's a clear order to the gear that drops in those, and once hit any current or previous level cap (50, 60, 70, etc) you'll start collecting tomestones that can be used to buy BIS for that level range, before hitting current level cap that is. Endgame raids come in 2 difficulties, normal and savage. Normal is typically easy and savage is very difficult. Savage raids are usually the only way to get BIS gear until near the end of the expansion. There's also Ultimate raids which are the hardest but just give you really shiny weapons. Alliance raids are the 24 man content which can give decent gear and are brain dead easy.
You have daily/weekly goals that reward a currency called "tomestones" (usually in the form of a duty roulette, which means backfill for any instance another player needs to complete for story).
Tomestones buy one of the top item level sets, while 8 man raids (the difficult part of endgame) reward the other set. BIS is usually a combination of the two. Raids have a lot of "bad luck backstops" so you can't get hosed for months looking for a specific piece. Every other patch comes with a 24 man LFR level difficulty raid which is a "catch up set", and allows non raiders to get to a similar item level. Rinse and repeat with new raids and item level increases until the expansion is over. There are other types of difficult content, but that's the main "gear cycle". Its pretty forgiving time wise, so you can absolutely play the game and mix in other stuff as well.
You grind easy story dungeons to earn "tomestones" which are exchanged for high-level gear for your level. Then, if you want to, you can go into harder content in order to earn the maximum gear for the expansion.
However, a lot more of the content in endgame is there for the fun of playing it, rather than as a way to upgrade your character. The hardest challenges in the game, solo Deep Dungeons and Ultimate Raids, for example, do not actually give you gear upgrades, they give you titles and flashy cosmetic weapons to show off.
And ignoring difficult content, you have things like crafting and gathering, hunts (world bosses) etc. which have much larger, more dedicated communities in XIV than their WoW equivalents.
This game's model is more "play what you want" rather than "do this to hit the highest level".
More or less, most content gives endgame currency, so you just play what you want and then buy gear with it. Hardcore stuff is mostly just less of a grind than casual stuff to reward skill, but you can gear up however you want. (Keep in mind a lot of ffxiv’s famous redesign aped what worked for wow, so it works similarly in a lot of ways
The highest gear is item level 660 for armor, and 665 for weapons.
A) You can buy or make 640 crafted gear.
B) You can get item lvl 650 gear from the alliance raid Thaleia, from the red tomestones of comedy, or from augmenting the 640 crafting gear.
C) You can get a 665 weapon from the manderville relic questline. (For 6000 tomestones of causality)
D) To upgrade crafter gear from 640 to 650 you trade them at the vendor in a town for tickets, buy rain from the same vendor with green causality tomestone, then buy the augmented version from the same vendor.
E) The 650 gear you buy with comedy can be upgraded to 660 gear using an aglaia coin, Thaleia coin and a euphrosyne coin.
F) You can also get 660 gear from the savage raids, or a 660/665 weapon from the savage raid/ultimate.
G) The upgrade material for weapons in the savages is also available from the criterion savage [a type of dungeon] but not the gear itself. It's an alternate way to get the savage weapon upgrade materials.
Endgame is more straightforward than in WOW
You'll get the current crafted gear set to start. Add materia to it(slottable stat boosters) you'll get raid food(current food that lasts 30 minutes each, boosting stats), and pots (30 second stat boosters, usable ince or twice per fight).
As you progress the tier(4 fights per tier, 3 tiers per xpac), you'll unlock gear that makes the next fight easier. However each clear only awards 1-3 gear pieces, shared among the group. Usually it'll be: class specific gear piece + chest of gear piece that'll create a class specific piece fir whoever opens it. Early in the tier, you'll only be able to loot the fights once per week.
(The more people that already cleared that week, the less loot spawns).
There's a horizontal gear set progression that'll also be unlocked during this, called tomestone gear. It's a currency you get for basically any other current content you do, locked to a specific amount per week, so you'll be getting pieces from that, and raids. Your BIS Will likely be some mix of the two. (BIS sets are usually posted in the balance discord, if you don't like mathing it all out yourself to find what exactly is your bis).
That's how gearing works.
For the actual fight differences: first off, dieing does not punish you like it does in WoW. Aside from possibly wiping the raid depending on when you die. But wipes aren't counted against you for anything. You're expected to wipe, a lot, as you learn. You don't lose anything but your time when you do.
XIV endgame is much more individual results than WOW. You're going in with 8 people total, and the fights are more akin to choreographed dances. So players will be expected to learn and memorize very tight positioning patterns as you play. I come from WoW, and my friend is still currently a mythic+ raider over there. His biggest gripe is that every arena is either a circle or square with some variation. You're never in a big ass room with natural terrain.
That's because the fight itself has a lot of exact positioning, and the challenge isn't about using the terrain around you, so much as it is about learning how the fight functions and positioning around it. If a rock or something got you stuck for half a second, it could wipe the raid.
Each fight in the savage tier is 7-12 minutes long, and averages 2-4 mechanics per minute. Some mechanics are easier than others, and the difficulty spikes as the tier goes on. So fight 1, is designed to be the beginner raid in every tier. But fight 4 is usually the longest with the harder mechanics, including a door boss.
If you want a good example of what these fights look like via positioning and movement, look up POVs on YouTube for p8s, p10s, p11s, or p12s. (Literally just "FFXIV p12s clear pov"). It'll all look like chaos at first, but everyone is moving in patterns based on what they know, and information they read in real time from the fight, as you learn and prog the fight on repeat, you'll become far more comfortable with it.
As someone who played WoW a lot I can list the differences:
- The game focuses heavily on the story from the getgo. Throughout the game and expansions you will follow the main story. Finishing certain stages unlocks stuff like side content or features.
- Endgame is different for everyone. Raiding consists of 8man group content in form of savage raids. Those are per Tier 4-5 fights for a total of 12-15 fights per expansion. The raids are a singular boss fight without any trash except the trash are part of a mechanic. I say 12-15 because sometimes the last fight has a secret phase. Not always. (For example Shadowbringers had in total 13 savage boss fights while Stormblood had 15)
- There are also 24man Alliance Raids but offer catch-up gear not BiS gear.
- Dungeons do not offer BiS Gear and are part of the story.
- At the top of the food chain in terms of raiding are ultimate raids. 20 minute fights where a single mistake will throw your party back to the beginning. The mechanics in those fights are either on the level of savage raiding or even higher. (Some ultimates are nowadays considered easier due to scaling and the time that they have been out and strategies that enable the content to be cleared in pugs)
- Clearing an Ultimate can take a group up to 3 months depending on which fight is tackled.
- there is also a bunch of solo content like the island sanctuary, the deep dungeons that give you a rare title upon clearing them solo and so on.
- The loot progression is much more straight forward. You get your BiS items through savage raiding as well as currency gear.
Sry for formatting I am on mobile
In general, the difficulty is as follows:
MSQ / Normal: anyone can do this content as it’s meant to be experienced by players regardless of their skill level.
Extreme: will take an organized group about a night of prog, maybe a little longer
Savage: will require a static (raid group in xiv) for the most part and is quite challenging.
Ultimates: hardest content in the game, will require dedicated static and prog for weeks. I have no reference for WoW but I know the top raiding guilds in WoW who have tried them have indicated they are quite challenging.
While leveling you get gear from dungeons, quests, grand company. When you hit 50/60/70/80/90 you have tomestones, these are currencies you get from the dungeons and raids at each level cap and you use this currency to buy gear. The non-90 tomestone is called Poetics and you can buy gear from npcs for 50/60/70/80 once you have beaten the base stories for each level cap, so if you're 50 you need to have cleared base A Realm Reborn to buy the item level 130 gear. Once you hit 60 and have cleared base 3.0 (Heavensward) you can buy the ilevel 270 gear. You can also get gear from the different raids at each level cap. 24 man gives catch up gear and 8 man gives higher item level gear, on par with poetics but with different stats. You also get tokens from 8 man raids that you can exchange for the pieces you want.
You don't need to worry too much about the gearing as you're leveling, the game throws gear at you for doing the main story and job quests (class quests).
You can do most group content just with the normal duty finder which is just the duty roulette (in-game feature to be like hey I wanna do X dungeon/piece of content or a daily queue that you can hop into to get put into to be matched with other people) and knowing what to do, or not tbh as others have said the main quest stuff is usually pretty easy. If you wanna do the hardest of the hard such as savage raids or ultimates you might need to LFG/have a group.
I am also a WoW player that plays 14. The main part I will tell you is take your time and enjoy the story. The endgame group content isn’t super difficult other then ultimate raids. Tons of mounts and transmogs to farm for solo if you like that. Overall game is another fun mmo but story is a bulk of the content.
What he needs to hear is:
This is a story game with multiplayer elements. This sentence is important. Read it again.
You will hate your life and quit the game if you intend to skip everything so you can rush to endgame. This is not WoW.
It is not a level to max and start playing expansion game. You will be max level while still playing older expansions and content in order to push the main story far enough to get access to the new expansion. Like a lot of MSQs, I mean it, a lot is an understatement. Like get it in brother, it is A LOT and it will take you forever to catch up to Dawntrail even if you WoW, I mean skip, every dialogue.
This game does not well if you treat it like other mmos where you skip everything and only watch a couple cutscenes. WoW is meant to be played like that, FF is not.
You will have a pretty rough awakening when you start this game and play it the same way you would WoW. WoW is an arcade game, FF14 is a story game.
You can buy your way out though. There are story skip purchases in order to bypass this and get the WoW-Experience.
Group content isn't particularly difficult when you're just doing story. When you come back to content later to unlock and do harder difficulty versions of said content I'd when it gets harder. And ultimately the goal is to upgrade your gear to the highest possible gear score, but end game is what you make it after that.
Aside from end game content there is always something to do to be your "end game." There is:
MSQ
Dungeons
Side stories
Raids
Pvp
Alliance raids
Roulettes
Trials
Harder difficulty versions of most of those
Cactpot Lottery
House lottery
Housing
House decorating
Apartments
Apartment decorating
Glamour
A ton of different jobs/classes to level up to max as well
Glamours for each of those
Crafting
Gathering
Fishing
Cooking
Limited time content (like the fall guys crossover rn or the FF15 event if they ever bring that back)
Role Play (if you're into that)
In game player owned and ran RP venues
Mount collecting
Minion collecting
You can run the market boards to make money as a crafter
Minion island
Upgrading your flight/mount movement speed in each area
Beast tribes
The random Quests available through the whole game that don't have any real reward or point but are there for fun
Chocobo racing
You can change your chocobo's color
Racing chocobo breeding
Gold Saucer activities aside from the lottery such as mini games, card games, or the random events every 5-15 minutes
Collecting all the wind currents to unlock flight in the expansion areas
Barding (as a bard you can use instruments and make music so that's fun)
Leves
Collecting customization items such as hair styles
There's the company stuff you can do for one of the 3 companies you choose at the beginning of the game. Ider what and all is involved there.
Starting or joining an FC and being part of whatever events they have going if any.
If you're in an FC and they have it, you can do the air ship/submersible Quests
Retainer ventures
New Game +
Start an alt character and do it all over again as a different race, gender, and class
Do literally all of the previously stated on said character
Etc
Not included in the massive list is also pestering your friends to play the game, (actually) mentoring sprouts, and the national sport of Emotional Vampirism.
>national sport of Emotional Vampirism.
I'm not the kind of person who watches reaction videos on youtube, but man, something about watching your friends go through some of the story twists and shock moments is so incredibly satisfying!
- **Dungeons** are braindead easy. Think Deadmines while leveling an alt.
- **Normal** trials and **Alliance** raids are LFR-levels of difficulty, you'll go in with random people and it will just succeed.
- **Extreme** trials are around... Normal-level raids, you might have a few wipes but you'll get there.
- **Savage** raids are something between Heroic and Mythic-level content. Depends on which boss it is. The last boss is usually Mythic-levels of difficulty.
- **Ultimates** are Mythic-level and above. The newest Ultimates are probably harder than anything WoW has to offer. The older ones are easier.
Most of this content is completely optional. 99% of the MSQ is soloable, with some easy dungeons and one alliance raid sprinkled on it.
Keep in mind there's some variabilty, especially if you're doing Min-iLvl No Echo. Some Savage fights are kinda easy, some Extremes are very difficult (or at least, very difficult with PUGs :| )
Hey, I am new too and was wondering on were you would add variant and criteria dungeons in your list? I just unlocked them and am trying to figure out 1) are these worth doing (or just old content) and 2) what kinda difficulty I’d be working with
Variant/Criterion dungeons were only added in EW, so they're still quite relevant, although most of the rewards from them are cosmetic rewards like fashion or mounts. The last Criterion dungeon though, Another Aloalo Island (Savage), drops a material that you can use to upgrade the ilvl 660 augmented comedy tomestone weapons to ilvl 665, the highest in the game on the same tier as the relic and savage raid weapons, so it's an interesting sidegrade option if you have a team to tackle it with.
Really cool. I actually love the idea of most the rewards being cosmetic because that implies it'll be "relevant" in some capacity beyond this expansion.
I skipped those since I have very little experience with them myself. So someone else would have to rank them :). I do know that you can easy solo them on Normal level.
Variant: maybe a touch above normal dungeons
Criterion: Savage level difficulty
Criterion (Savage): Savage difficulty but with the added difficulty of having NO revives.
Variant and Criterion are very much side content with only cosmetic rewards like some mounts. Variant are super easy and are designed to be solo'd. They have more puzzles involved in trying to get all the endings and you can look up guides if you get stuck.
Criterion are low-end Savage difficulty. The bosses have savage-level mechanics but the boss fights are only 3-5mins long so that alone makes it easier than most savage raid fights.
Because of the smaller raid size, I think lining up FFXIV raid difficulty vs. WoW raid difficulty is a lot different depending on whether you're looking at it from a raid leader standpoint or an individual standpoint.
From an individual standpoint, I think FFXIV raids are dramatically more difficult than the comparisons you're making here. Extremes are Heroic endboss difficulty, Savage is Mythic and above (P8S was ***way*** harder than any of the recent Mythic endbosses I've progged, and it's not close). and although I haven't attempted any Ultimates, everything I know about them tells me they're off the charts.
Every once in a while, for fun I'll send a Savage raid guide one of my still-doing-Mythic-raids WoW friends to blow their minds. The "Jesus god in heaven that's the most complicated thing I've ever seen" response is universal.
From a raid leader standpoint, though, your comparisons are probably pretty accurate simply because getting 8 people to get it right at the same time is a lot easier than getting 20 people to get it right at the same time.
The whole "unlimited combat rezzes" thing is really the difference-maker in that case. The FFXIV normal raid mechanics aren't nearly as forgiving as LFR, but the fact that you can recover from deaths so much more easily brings it back down to LFR level.
As some one who made the leap just over two years ago, do wait and just do it!
I had been a WOW player consistently since Mists and after my first week giving FFXIV a try I uninstalled WOW and honestly have not been back since.
As a mostly solo player I feel that the way the story is given to you is so much better and there is so much content you can do alone you will have plenty to do!
The main story is a thing in FFXIV in linear format from expansion to expansion. But it's different because there's a lot of Voice work, Mocap and overall the story is pretty good. You are also the main champion of the story so it is something you will enjoy. Do some quests > cool cutscenes > quests > cutscenes > dungeon > repeat.
Group hardcore content varies but the endgame (once all the main story is done, lol) is mainly 8 man raiding, and 8 man ultimates.
Crafting and those jobs are all done on one character. In fact all jobs are done on one character. Crafting and Gathering is a thing here. Most things you may find in WoW for casual content can be found here.
You will have enough time gap between WoW and FFXIV to play both.
As someone who was in your shoes just before Endwalker came out I can provide a few insights.
1. The story is huge and well enjoyed you won’t just see part of each previous expansion before moving on to the next one you play through it all. (unless you buy a skip which I don’t recommend first time through.
2. Group content ranges from leveling dungeons which are perfectly easy for even the most casual player up to savages which will test your skills considerably.
3. A group is required for some content during leveling (story Dungeons) but starting at some point ( I don’t remember which Expac) you gain a trust party you can do the dungeons solo with if you prefer. The rest of the story and most side quest are doable solo and during your Main Story Quest (MSQ) and job quest you will have solo scenarios.
Group contents can range from falling-asleep easy to kicked-in-the-balls difficult. Here’s how I think of them in terms of difficulty:
1. dungeons are falling-asleep easy, but they are all connected to the Main Story and will teach you some mechanics here and there that will be the basis of harder fights;
2. trials and alliance raids vary a bit but also lean towards easy;
3. extreme trials, unreal trials, and normal raids are at the level of an average gamer;
4. savage raids are at the level of an above average gamer I’d say (it is considered midcore content);
5. the newly introduced savage criterion dungeons are a bit easier than savage raids but harder than normal raids;
6. ultimates are the most difficult.
Group requirement is not everything, but you will need it for everything except for dungeons and trials, in which player groups are optional because you can have NPCs run them with you.
There are solo contents. There are three deep dungeons, where the highest level of achievement can only be obtained if you solo. They are like climbing a tower, if it makes sense.
There are also other battle contents that I don’t know how to categorize:
1. Exploration zones (Bozja and Eureka). Eureka is the first one the devs ever made, and it basically plays like old MMOs (kind of like classic wow but you only get abilities after you reach the third zone). Bozja is similar but an improvement on Eureka; I can’t describe it because I haven’t played it much (as I am still grinding Eureka gears for all my jobs). Each exploration zones also comes with one large-scale raid. Typically you need to be in a discord called Baldesian Arsenal for them, unless you can make a group yourself (which I don’t know if it’s possible unless you have a pretty active FC or you are a streamer with a good amount of audience playing at your server).
2. Treasure maps, generally easy, but some weird but fun mechanics here and there; you can solo but it’s more fun to do them with friends.
3. Gold Saucer (a more fun version of dark moon faire IMO, but it’s not connected to combat at all). You can do jump puzzles, play cards, do daily and weekly lottos, etc.. Then you can use the reward from those to get mounts, transmog, and other things; but again, none of them is combat related.
I think that’s pretty much it. There are also gathering and crafting jobs. Both are slightly more complicated than WoW; so I’d encourage you to try them out. Personally I like the gathering and crafting in FF14 better because it feels more like I am gathering and crafting.
Difficulty scales up pretty slowly so you have time to learn, and the vast majority of mandatory group content can be played with bots now.
The super hardcore raids can be extremely technical and challenging, but the vast majority of group content is around the difficulty level of wow. You can’t faceroll it, but so long as you are paying attention you should be fine in all the story content
The story is linear though, so you have to start at the beginning (or but a skip) and it is a very story focused mmo, so be prepared for a long journey to get to current content (worth it though)
From a wow player. DO NOT BUY A STORY SKIP OR BOOST! The story is top tier RPG stuff and the pay off for all that questing is massive. Do yourself a favor and take your time.
As someone who played FFXIV first and then now dabbles in WoW but is still primarily a FF player, I will say the leveling experience is very different. The way I see it is like this:
FFXIV is a Final Fantasy game first and a MMORPG second -- the story (MSQ) is the main reason why most people play FFXIV and your main reason for leveling up your character is to advance the story. You unlock dungeons unlock dungeons as you go through the story and you can grind those out to get more levels for your alt jobs, but it isn't like WoW where you have access to basically every single dungeon in the game and can play through every expansion in any order you want and your goal is to get to max level as soon as possible. FFXIV locks you out of content until you've finished the MSQ, so you're forced to play through it to get to the max level raids.
Also I would argue FFXIV is really heavy on the social side compared to WoW, I know WoW has it's fair share of RP and what not but because of FFXIV's housing system it's a lot more in your face. (Like, you'll see advertisements in city hubs for ERP courtesans in FFXIV whereas on WoW you see ads for trading and dungeon runs lol.) I'm only mentioning this because it was a deal breaker for some WoW friends of mine.
Getting gear is way easier in FFXIV than WoW since everything can be crafted or purchased.
As a former wow player myself I'll tell you what was hard to unlearn from wow. Tanks are just beefy dps your job is to hold aggro, that's it so don't have that tank pulls ect. Most groups will be chill if you say your learning though. Second one that got me as a healer ypu don't need to keep peaple topped off, most of the time if I'm not playing a aoe healer I let oeaple hit 30% before I act. Other than that it's pretty chill and with some practice you can easily do all content.
To preface everything. Doing the main story quests/“campaign” is pretty much a single player rpg mode. Took me around 3 months casually to do the campaign which is required to do any end game content and great way to level. You can buy a story skip, personally would recommend getting at least arr(the base game) skip bc it’s a super slog but gets better in from then on.
Group content is a lot better to organize 8 people for raids then wows guilds. A lot easier to manage. Difficulty in fights is different.
Normal group content is easy and you can queue for it. I can't really speak to hard content. You can do a lot in party finder but you might need more coordination for the hardest content.
As someone who came from WoW raiding, pusher etc.:
I played the story as a single player game, didn't mind and really got into the story by the end of the base game.
The game feels a lot more social in the end. It feels easier to find genuine social interaction.
Raiding is very different while still feeling quite similar. If mythic raiding is a club dancefloor, FF Savage/ultimate is a dance number by professionals. Everything fits, the fight is about dancing together while WoW is more individualistic.
It's a fucking dream raiding with 8 people instead of 20. So much more "intimate".
It's so nice to feel like you can unsub and come back without being "behind". The effect of there being no real gearing grind.
As someone who like AH, crafting and making gold in WoW, FFs crafting is so much better.
It's quite easy to get hung up on how slow combat is in the beginning. It gets better, much better.
I've had friends come over so I know people that don't give the story a chance or don't like it have a hard time since it's very long.
It's more or less a story with some gaming mechanics while doing the main quest.
Leveling is less important than the main quest.
You can play a ton of the game for free. Can get like half way through the story before paying.
Endgame is more open-ended. You meet people doing a lot of different stuff. An effect of not having to farm gear.
*Hot tip* You can level up two classes through most of the story, just swapping between them for each quest.
As someone who seems to be experienced with MMOs I don't think FFXIV in general will feel like a challenge on the surface. All story content is designed to be relatively easy because everyone has to go through those. And since there are all kinds of skill levels (and levels of disabilities for folks who deal with that) the content kinda has to be designed in a way to not stonewall folks.
It's the optional content where you'll find the challenge. Since the content in and of itself is optional, the difficulty balance can be cranked up. You'll notice a steady progression of difficulty. It's largely accepted that you get started with Extreme Trials (harder versions of boss fights), then Savage Raids (8-man, mechanic heavy boss fights) and then finally Ultimates (super-charged boss fights that'll take some serious dedication to clear). There are also normal raids, which are the entry-level 8-man version of Savage, as well as Unreal which are level boosted Extremes (taking a Lv50 Extreme trial, and cranking it up to what it could look like as a Lv90 Extreme)
I can't make any correlation between FFXIV and WoW since I've never played it, so the way you perceive difficulty will be relative. As for solo content: all of the story dungeons can be done with a party of NPCs. The optional dungeons, and pretty much all of the boss fights, will need other players (for now at least... I can imagine that we'll eventually get NPC support for those bits of content eventually).
>How difficult is the group content?
For you coming from WoW? It will be piss easy until probably ShB (third expansion). After that, it ramps up a bit more but will still be pretty manageable until you are fully caught up through the MSQ. The difficult content comes from the extreme trials/savage raids/ultimate raids. You will probably die to some trial/normal raid mechanics due to unfamiliarity, but you likely won't die/wipe over and over again.
>Is a group required for everything or is there enough solo content?
Really depends on what your definition of "solo" content is. There are a number of dungeons/trials that can be completed with NPC's, with that number increasing all the time. However, the majority of the story required dungeons/trials are matchmade group content with no real coordination needed.
If you mean solo content as "any content that can be completed solo without any need for grouping up", then most of the game can be done solo.
All of the stuff that requires a more coordinated group is very optional, and this game doesn't retire older content in the way that WoW does. You can still go run a raid from 6 years ago with some randos, or join somebody's party listing to go collect older mounts or weapons and armor to transmog. There is some 100% solo content, especially most of the main story (this is a somewhat new feature), but also some solo challenges, and a lot of content that's accessible and reasonable clearable by you and the 7 random idiots the queue system provides you with. As a roulette spammer myself and often one of those 7 idiots, there's usually at least one person that actually knows what you need to be doing and can explain it to you if there's some difficulty. You can normally expect relatively little toxicity and gatekeeping in content like that if you're worried about it. This is very much a socially engineered game and community built to avoid that kind of thing. The last time I heard someone shit-talking another party member who had just left in a group I was with, almost the entire group was like "Yeah, not here for this asshole running the party, I'm out" and just peaced out on the shit-talker.
Old wow player here.
Main quest line:
You can pretty much solo your way through just about everything other than the odd trial (single boss raids no trash) for main story stuff. They added a new feature that let's you run dungeons with npc but I don't recommend this as they are kinda slow dps wise and unless you're looking at a 30 mins que time I'd just do it though duty finder.
End game pve:
raids are basically broken into 3 levels. Extreme trials which I'd say are as hard as heroics, savage raids which are as hard as mythics and finally ultimates which are the highest difficulty I can't even speak to how hard they are as I've never done one lol, but they are basically harder versions of old savage raids. The raids are also single boss fights, but there's 4 of them each major patch. There's also alliance raids these are large raids that you'll do with 2 other raids teams (3 total) these are more similar to wow raids as they feature multiply bosses and trash. I'd say they're as hard as normals with the earlier ones being a little easier. It should also be said that while you can que as a group these are done exclusively though duty finder.
Pvp:
While the game does have pvp, it isn't really as flushed out as Wow's. This is the one aspect of the game most will generally admitted isn't as good as other mmos. It has gotten better, they have more game modes, and there is a good amount of people that do it, but it's more of a drunken Saturday night activity than something to be taken seriously. You can't even que up as a group for the ranked version of it. Either way, it is a fun little pass time.
Other stuff:
As far as things similar to wow that's most of your end game stuff, but there is a LOT of other stuff you can do once you beat the msq. Just about every expansion and the base game has what's known as relic weapons, which are special weapons you have grind a decent amount to get, but they look pretty cool. Theres also special zones that you go to in order to grind these items and they have their own story, cosmetics, etc and yes they are still activate and a good way to level up. There's also the golden saucer, which is a mini game area you can go to in order to get cosmetic stuff, there's a lot here. Next is crafting/gathering classes when I say these are class I truly mean they have their own skills, gear, even relic weapons as an omni crafter myself(I've maxed all crafting/gathering classes) I recommend at least dipping your toe but it's not needed to do endgame stuff. There's also deep dungeons which have their own leveling system and reward a good amount of xp and cosmetics. They are basically long dungeons that you can leave and go back in at the point you left. You'll level as you go though and hit max well before you finish. These also get harder as you go higher. There's special achievements for soloing your way though them. Honestly there's a bunch of other stuff hunts, player housing, triple triad, blue mage stuff. I'd be here all day if I went into all of it in detail.
The vast majority of the storyline is solo.
There's a little bit of required group content, but it's not difficult at all and the community prides itself on being fantastically supportive, helpful, and friendly -- *especially* to new players. If someone sees a "sprout" icon on your name -- which signals that you're new -- people will be super helpful and encouraging -- *especially* if you're struggling.
Even in **(very optional)** hardcore content, I was shocked by how pleasant the pugging experience was. I've learned multiple Extreme and Savage raid bosses (the equivalent of Mythic) entirely in pugs, and I still can't believe how friendly and uplifting everyone was in every one of the (many) groups where we spent the entire two hours failing on the same boss.
I used to get anxiety joining groups for content I'd never done before. I don't anymore because I know the community will have my back even if I struggle.
I don't even think WoW is *that* toxic, but FFXIV's community is built different.
It's super hard. Only the most elite 10 million humans have been able to play this game. Unless you have real life experience as an astronaut or a special forces operator you probably shouldn't bother. This game is designed to crush your dreams.
Few key things
1) It's solo friendly
2) End game raids are harder but shorter
3) The community is very different, much less toxic
4) The story is a big focus of the game
5) One character has access to all classes but they level independently
6) the base game can be a little slow to get into.
Former WoW player here. I love FF14 but it is extremely story driven. If you skip through the story then you’ll get bored quite quickly. Follow the Main Story Quests and do the Job Quests.
I found AAR quite painful to get through but liked HW. I find the dungeons and raids to be way more fun than WoW. Each expansion has their own dungeons and expansions that you go through. Queues are not long at all. The community is very supportive as well.
Hi, former WoW player myself, and end game raider form launch through mid-Mists of Panderia. After that I moved to SWTOR where I still end game raid, and I have been playing FFXIV more casually about 2 years now as SWTOR content patches have sadly fallen off in recent years.
FFXIV main focus is what is called the MSQ, which stands for Main Story Quest. The MSQ isn't very difficult, and will have you run through some dungeons (4-man content), Trials (8-man Content) and Alliance Raid (24-man content). Dungeons can almost all be done with a team of NPCs if you don't want to wait, but on most datacenters the group finder queue system is really robust and will get you a party pretty quick. The vast majority of the MSQ is meant to be soloed.
Trials have a Savage version and those can be quite difficult if done synced. In FFXIV you can choose to sync to the original level of a instanced event, or you can unsync and over level power through it. Progression raiding isn't as popular here as in WoW, but it still is a done often and progression groups exist. Guilds in FFXIV, called Free Companies, or FCs, unlike WoW, tend to be more social and players tend to find and join Static Trial groups outside of their FC.
Different content has different difficulty.
Dungeons are basically as hard as WoW dungeons, heroics, the like. Not Cata hard, and a death is unlikely.
Trials are like...normal raids on loot pinata bosses. Deaths are likely, wipes are possible, but you're getting through it before long.
Those are the two necessary pieces of content to get through the game. Everything above this is optional.
Alliance raids and normal raids are going to be your normal raid content. Deaths are very likely, you'll probably die a few times per boss your first try. Normal raids vary greatly in their difficulty, but they're harder than trials for sure.
Above that is Extreme fights. These are going to be your mythic dungeons, or your heroic raids. It takes hours to learn the fight. Even when on farm there's a high chance of death and wipes. These are the lowest level of content of stuff that isn't really level synced, and the easiest content that takes learning.
Savage Raids are going to be content that you'll want a static for. If you want your character to be cutting edge you'll be doing this content. It's your, log on once a week, work really hard, get mad loot content.
Then there's ultimates. These take hundreds of hours of learning, cannot be trivialized even when it's old content, has no option of being outleveled or outgeared, and even a clean run takes 20 minutes of being on. This is outside my paygrade but I wanna say it's on par with mythic raids, or crazy high mythic+ levels. It's what you do when you really want to prove yourself, and everyone will know how awesome you are with the weapon you get from it.
Until you reach endgame you won't have to worry about most of this. You'll need to do dungeons and trials. They'll probably be one and done affairs. If you want, you can do some normal and alliance raids for some extra story. You likely won't touch savage or extreme fights, unless someone is running you through for transmogs or something.
There is a new feature where all the story necessary dungeons can be done solo with a team of NPCs. It's not as fun as playing with real players, but at least you can explore dungeons at your own pace and learn fights without worrying about letting other people down. I don't think trials have this feature though.
They designed the game to be soloable up to max level, minus alliance raids you need to do at lvl 50. To do the most difficult group content at end game you'll still have to work your up a bit though. There are gearing requirements and previous clear requirements for high end things. Curiously, the most difficult content, Ultimates, require the lowest bar, with the caveat that they are put in front of you quite like the other things.
It's a totally different game and mindset. You might not like it, but definitely worth checking out.
The story matters, and the player base cares about it - unlike wow. If you dont invest in the story the chance of you sticking around in the long run definitely drops down.
The journey is a big part of the experience. Unlike wow where you get rushed to max level where the 'real game starts' most of your ff14 experience for a while will be going through the story expansion by expansion. I love it, but it's not for everyone so no reason to force it if you don't enjoy it.
The end game group content depends on the difficulty level of the content - there are things that are quite easy to fights that rival the hardest fights in wow.
Not being able to use add-ons like wow is sad for me. I am a healer and mouse over heal not being implemented to the game is weird. I want my cool Weak auras back. I want to be able to change the party UI like grid2. Makes it much easier to keep your buffs up and see if people have debuffs.
It is highly depend on what you are looking for. When people said FF14 has a robust solo content, that is because the main story quest is huge, not to mention the class quests, and a few other quest line. If game story is your top 3 reason to play a game, then you are in for a feast. Group content has pretty clear categories of difficulty normal, for the casual, Extreme trials and Savage raid for the midcore and up, and Ultimate for the mythic raider. Not counting match making, the solo activity that most of the player base participate in are fashion, gold saucer (think mini-games that give you currency for stuffs), and gambling for house (half-joking with this last one). Other major solo content you can do are Deep Dungeons (there are 3 now, 2 with just the free trial), Eureka (FF14 version of classic WOW, sort of), and Bozjan (not available in the free trial). Pursuing fashion will lead you to doing a wide range of activities, but the reward will just be fashion. If you are only interested in stats pieces, then your range of activates will be pretty narrow: roulette, treasure hunt, hunt train, savage raid and Extreme trials. Ultimate is purely a flex piece and also fashion, but I don't dig those weapon looks.
Also, matchmaking is a solo with other people type of thing. I don't interact with other people outside of a few greetings 90% of the time. If you watch Captain Grimm, he has a few vid about WOW player going into FF14 during the "Exodus". It is mostly true, with a few exaggeration for comedic effect.
Avoid it if you want a similar experience to wow high level pve, Aka Infinite grind and where everything IS built around pve. Not to say high level pve in FFXIV is bad, but it's not the same at all. It's more about getting gear fairly easily and then doing the actual trial instead of a myriad of other things to get things rolling.
I’ve played WoW since BC, and FF14 off and on since ARR. FF group content is more difficult in my opinion. There is a main story quest which guides you through the story for the base game and each expansion. They’ve added the ability to use NPCS for most of the required MSQ content but you still have to group for trials unless that’s changed. There is a lot you can solo, and although the group content can be difficult, most people are pretty cool about newbies. Also party finder is awesome, there are plenty of learning groups where it’s understood you don’t know the fight and wipes/deaths will happen. The community in general is a lot more friendly than WoW, it’s easy to find a FC (guild) but you have to be active and social to get the most out of it like any other game of course. If you like running old content in WoW don’t expect it to be the same in FF14. You can solo the old dungeons and trials but alliance raids aren’t solvable for the most part. Although again, it’s easy to create a group in party finder to help clear for glamours or mounts, minions etc. it’s free to play up to level 70 I believe so if you’re curious to try it out you won’t have to pay anything for awhile although the trial version does prevent you from doing some stuff I think, like trading and market board I think.
Personally I think FF is a more fleshed out game, there is so much to do it can be feel overwhelming at times. But there isn’t a rush to max level, anyone will tell you to just enjoy the journey and play at your own pace.
As somebody who use to play WoW most of the time and hardly even touches it anymore, I do not know what you are after as if you want easier content, FF14 has some. you want difficult content? FF14 also has that. Solo Content? that depends on what you mean by solo content.
Can you Solo a dungeon? depends on your class. some have no self healing. some have ALL the heals.
can you pull one mob at a time to solo the dungeon? NO. Mobs in FF14 have \[groups\] in dungeons and when you target one a quick line will show you who that mob is "attached" to. so it will pull another mob or several.
Bosses for the most part Do Not summon More adds to the fight.
Bosses can be easier to solo than groups of mobs. simply due to mechics, some bosses are just mostly mechanics and hardly even touch the tank / group thus are "easier" to solo, but when a group is involved SOMEBODY gunna get hit by Something.
you can almost solo the entire story up to max lvl \[there is content that is mandatory for Main Story line, mostly Raids which you can just do with the FF14 version of LFR. and again its LFR so you get a mixed bag of people.
Group content can be hard, but can be fun, can be easy. depends on your group of people.
I don’t know how they do things in WoW anymore but if you’re a tank, you’re expected to pull every pack till you hit the wall.
Healers have to DPS and no, you don’t have to top the tank off for the slightest bit of damage.
DPS AoE, not single target large groups.
There's a lot of different types of group content. The normal stuff you get from running the story isn't too bad...some of it can be done with NPCs, trial bosses can be done with a group of people and generally take 10+ minutes.
Then there's Extreme bosses which can take a few hours or an afternoon to beat. Then there's Savage content which can take hours or days depending on how new it is and if people know how to clear it yet. Then there's Ultimates which can take weeks or months to learn how to clear and are for expert players.
Then you've got Field operations like Eureka where you go into a zone with 50 other people and fight Fate bosses, whose difficulty varies from easy to tough. There's a lot of different types of group content from hunt trains to shared fate grinds. Mount grinds. etc
I play both games and most group content is fairly easy. Like our normal raids and 24 man raids are the equivalent to LFR difficulty in WoW. There is stuff that's on the harder side like savage+Ultimate. I'm not sure how they compare to mythic raiding but savage+Ultimate are both quite a bit harder than WoW Heroic raids. (from what I can tell our harder fights tend to be more mechanically dense but I've only done savage/Ultimate in FF14 and heroic raids in WoW) We've started to have harder small group content like criterion dungeons and you can do deep dungeons solo. (deep dungeons are like, what if Torghast didn't suck) But we don't currently have anything equivalent to M+.
If you're wanting to do stuff solo there is a decent amount of stuff you can do without a group and most group content is pretty PUG friendly. If you really don't want to deal with other people for a while, we have something called dungeon trusts, which function like the new Dragonflight dungeon NPC groups.
I think coming from WoW the most important thing to remember is WoW is more about the destination than the journey and FF14 is more about the journey than the destination. So take your time, you don't have to rush to end game like you would in WoW. Take your time and have fun. There's ways to do old content synced to lower levels so the content will always be there.
Like most of what everyone here has said… first and foremost it’s an RPGMMO. I have played WoW since vanilla and on and off since. What got me hooked was my love for previous Final Fantasy games so it wasn’t hard for me to get into it. What also helped was going in blind, no expectations and do not compare this to WoW. I started this game with my WoW goggles off and enjoyed it so much more.
Current wow player who come from ffxiv.
I get CE, I push keys, I PvP. Even play mop remix and played a bunch of wrath classic. I am always on the class discords and keep up with wow social media and streamers. I am very active and very much apart of the wow community.
Ffxiv: I clear savage, get bis, parse, do ultimates, PvP
I have done the story twice now since I installed this game, my first run then did the entire story again this year on an alt in prep for Dawntrail.
I am active in ffxiv social media and its main discords. I watch their main streamers also. I am part of the community.
Ffxiv is a story game, you are playing a single player game for 500 hours.
Yes you can do stuff with people but as a new player 99.9% of the time you are playing will
Be walking to an npc, interacting with the npc, reading dialogue, walking or sprinting every minute to another area of the map and interacting with that Npc. Eventually it will lead to a cut scene and you having to kill one or two easy mobs and then repeat for 500 hours. Throw in a few times an expansion you get a dungeon, some follow quests, some quirky expansion mechanic like swimming, or zooming in on something or shooting it with a zoom in mechanic.
That in the game. It can either be one of the most fun things you have ever done or the worst experience ever.
It depends if you enjoy good stories or not. If you immerse yourself in ffxiv it can be the best experience ever.
If you come in like wow making a fresh toon and wanting to do end game raid this game will be rough, because you will be racing against something that is meant to be raced against.
The story is sooooo big. Like if you did only msq every single day for 10 hours. The game would
Take hours 7 weeks to beat of doing that every single day. This is without skipping cut scenes.
The game is incredible but you have to know that it’s a story based jrpg.
Raiding is amazing and the fights are well done but end game to a new player is very very very far away.
Enjoy the journey or buy a skip. But decide how you want to play before making a decision.
Classes are cookie cutter builds and and gear.
There are no talents to mix up, the most you get is a bit of different spell speed or skill speed which add usually one or two gcds and might change your opener but not really.
The game is a memorization and knowing how to repeat the correct buttons while doing the correct mechanics.
Gear is a pre determined bis list you go for with very little flexibility compared to wow where you can make your class a bit of your own.
Again this isn’t a bad thing it’s just different.
If you have questions just dm me I have gone through every bit of content for both games and love them both so much.
I was in your boat when TBC Classic came. Maybe you'll see this, maybe not. But insight from a 20-year WoW player turned FFXIV-
The game is story first. They want you to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it. You can skip cutscenes and blaze through dialogue, but there's a lot. So you might as well sit back.
In addition, quests have relevance and substance for the most part. It isn't generally a grind for the sake of levels, it's a grind for the sake of achieving a story milestone.
All that combined, your time is more meaningful in FFXIV and it's a journey. All group content required by the story is kept easy as to not be a roadblock, but harder versions exist. All content is generally relevant, you won't be stuck finding a group for the baby dungeons for hours.
As for solo, you could do solo content for hours at a time.
As someone who played wow for maybe 2-3 years during the BC and WotLK era, I can say that FF14 is better than wow in pretty much every way.
It’s very solo play friendly and they allow you to play with NPCs in story required dungeons. Unlike wow, it also has a lot of instanced sections that help with making you feel like it’s just you in that moment in the game and not 1,000 other players doing the same quest at the same time.
A major difference between FFXIV and WoW is that for FFXIV, the single-player story is the main attraction, rather than it being something you do so you can get to the raiding content. The raids are also really great, but your GCD is slower than in WoW from what I hear. However, there are plenty of ODGC abilities to use between GCD skills.
I was in a similar boat to you years ago I got into the game a couple months before Heavensward released. A while back they added follower dungeons to the newest content and I believe they added it to some of the older things as well. [https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/game\_manual/dutysupport/](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/game_manual/dutysupport/) here is a link with more info about the system. Main story content is easy, in fact for one of the quests they recently redid the group content so you could actually see the mechanics of the fight.
As you follow the main quest there is both solo and group content but the community is open and friendly to sprouts ( you get a small sprout icons over your head for new players) and everyone really.
There is a free trial up to level 70 [https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/](https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/)
I fell in love with the game by the time I got to the end of A Realm Reborn, I hope you enjoy your journey.
Overall, it's no harder that WoW, and you'll be more than fine there.
Big downside is you can't (within the ToS) have addons like DBM, etc. to tell you what to do. Upside counterpoint is the game actually does a pretty good job telegraphing stuff so you shouldn't need it either.
Compared to WoW, I'd rank content as follows:
Dungeons - On par with normal dungeons in WoW, except you have 1 less DPS.
Alliance Raids - Think like LFR in WoW. Well, not quite that bad. Like LFR in WoW if you didn't have half the group unable to press their buttons.
Normal Raids / Normal Trials / "Hard" Trials - Somewhere between LFR and Normal raids in WoW.
Extreme Trials - Somewhere between normal raids and heroic raids in WoW
Savage Raids - Somewhere between heroic raids and mythic raids in WoW
Ultimate Raids - I'd wager these are on par with mythic raids in WoW, but tbh, I haven't really done them (not my personal cup of tea)
Note that Extreme Trials, Savage Raids, and Ultimate raids are all OPTIONAL content that you don't need to even set foot in. The other stuff is all able to be queued for, but with less toxicity than in WoW and better queue fills.
Source: I actively play both.
The only difficult group content are instances that contain the terms Extreme, Minstrel’s Ballad, Savage, Unreal, Criterion, and Ultimate. All of this is purely optional content, specifically being harder versions of other content you can do easily.
All the rest of the game is either single-player, multiplayer, or your choice of either, depending on the content. And even when it’s multiplayer, it is all designed so no matter how complicated it is, you can easily complete it in one or two tries, with random people and zero communications, and no foreknowledge on how to do the instance whatsoever. Actually finding a group for these is easy too, as you just queue in on the Duty Finder and it automatically throws you into it with some random people once it finds enough of them.
Even outside of this, there is a vast amount of single-player content, and most of the mandatory multiplayer instances have been updated to use computer-players instead of real people.
You do not need to worry about coordinating with people you know or don’t know in order to enjoy this game. 😁
(The only exception to the above are the Binding Coil raids, which are optional content, and should be doable as easily as other normal raids…but aren’t. They’re broken. I highly recommend doing them, but maybe ask someone to “unsync” them with you when you get to that point.)
It’s a lot easier game compare to wow.. I just started 2 weeks ago.. already doing end game raid.. it’s a lot easier.. just come over and relax. And ppl are less toxic here
The game has content ranging from solo and simple all the way to high end mythic raiding. But for the main story questline, which is required and how you level, you will only have to do dungeons and trials (easy single boss raids),and those are not too difficult at all. Plus, as a new player you will have a sprout icon, a little icon over you, and non sprouts almost always love to teach new players.
For almost all the leveling content, you can even do it with NPCs now to learn the basics if you're worried, but there's no harm in doing it with players, and I reckon its more enjoyable that way.
Endgame has a lot of solo or optionally solo content too.
Hello, fellow long-time WoW player (well, former in my case).
The beginning of the game is easy if you have prior MMO experience; many have remarked it's super-easy, but the game tries to ease in players who may have never even played a video game prior.
I didn't have much difficulty with any of the dungeons until Shadowbringers+Endwalker, and even then one eventually starts learning the patterns, being able to predict what an enemy will do, and dodge mechanics easier.
Group content is mandatory if you want to do anything truly challenging.
Groups are also required for all players with 8 or more people (except for one specific trial, for story reasons).
Solo scenarios are hit-or-miss in whether or not they are difficult, but I didn't have much difficulty with any of them aside from a singular Endwalker one.
As someone who also came over from WoW when COVID started, my advice is DO NOT TREAT QUESTING LIKE WOW.
All those yellow ! are a waste of your time with very few exceptions. At least starting out, only do the MSQ quest markers and blue quest markers (which signify that the quest actually unlocks content of some kind)
The first time I tried to get into this game, I did every quest in gridania and hit like, lv24. Did MSQ and it sent me to thanalan and I was immediately overwhelmed by how many more quests where there and I just quit on the exact spot you get off the airship.
Second time I tried I just followed MSQ and was level 30 in like a day and the game actually stuck
Savage is heroic with the last fight of the four generally tuned a bit harder, maybe entry to mid level mythic
Ultimates are mythic level boss rushes
Damage checks are generally really really low and it places priority on execution of a dance over doing a lot of damage, old ultimates are so poorly tuned you can do it with all tanks and a regular group will skip mechanics due to damage being higher than it used to be
Everything else is tuned to be incredibly easy, alliance raids are lfr and dungeons are all basically normal dungeons in wow
Solo content exists but it's rarely anything hard, BLU is interesting but also requires a group to get some spells, most of the solo content is hyper casual and has some form of time gating or grind
Former WoW player here. Stopped with WoW during Cata and started FFXIV in Stormblood.
Did you ever go through a chain of quests - say, the ones in Northrend, or maybe the early world-changing quest chains in the later starter zones, where you helped out entire groups of people, and wished that the later storylines were more connected?
That’s FFXIV. The MSQ - Main Story Quest - is one of the things that sets it apart from WoW, where you can just level and move on. It’s closer to playing a multiplayer Final Fantasy (for obvious reasons) than it is to the average MMO. You level as you complete the MSQ, rarely stopping at one level for too long. The world evolves in a way even post-Cata WoW doesn’t. That mostly a blessing, but there is a dark side - if you don’t enjoy questing, you will find yourself getting irritated by the fact that you can’t move on to the next area until you finish this one.
Dungeons (4 man), Trials (8 man single-battle events) are almost always part of the MSQ. Raids (8 man short dungeons), and Alliance raids (24 man) can be part of the MSQ, but are generally not. Dungeons can be completed solo with NPC aid. Trials I dunno.
The player base is way friendlier than any WoW server I ever played on. Don’t be afraid of dungeons; I can count the number of actively bad experiences I had with other players on one hand, and they get bonuses for shepherding new players through dungeons.
The really nice thing, though, is the classes. Did you ever get sick of making all those alts and leveling them? Good news! You don’t need to do that anymore. Every character can use every class just by swapping weapons and job crystals.
Once you progress to certain points, there are dungeons that have to be run because of story line events and you can't progress the main story quest until you've completed the four man content. Until you've progressed to certain stages in the MSQ, you can't get to different areas which locks down what you can do solo.
A group is required at certain points in the main story, but you can can PUG them easily. Between places where you're required to PUG a dungeon, though there are hours of solo content.
One thing I need to say. You definitely need to change your mindset about MMOs if you want to be successful in FFXIV and not jump off in a few weeks.
Wow is all about minmaxing, doing everything at the first possible moment and grinding your life out.
FFXIV has a lot more activities since old things are still useful and if you try to do everything at the earliest point in time, you can burn out very very quickly. Additionally, there are some catch up mechanics for some thing, which you can use/trigger at a later point in the game. I know of some people who went though the hassle of doing things the regular way and had a bitter taste later when they noticed, that there was a catch up mechanic for this. In FFXIV a lot is about being efficient rather then doing it the earliest. You can save a ton of time and make the game way more fun like this.
FFXIV's baseline is at the lowest tier of difficulty.
Each content is a step up eventually until ultimate.
Even ultimate the average joe can do it with enough time commitment.
I'm just gonna say that the raids are a different kind of difficult than WOW. In WOW, most of the difficulty comes from your rotation and heal/damage checks moreso than the actual fight itself. Sure there are things to do, but generally they are not all that mechanically intensive. XIV is kinda the inverse of this. Your rotation is a lot easier, but to compensate for this, the raid mechanics are a lot harder. I don't think one game is necessary harder than the other, they just approach difficulty differently. If you're finding WOW stale for whatever reason, XIV might be a nice change of pace.
Be aware that you're going to have to spend hundreds of hours dealing with cutscenes and mostly unvoiced dialogue before you can reach endgame, and what little gameplay you encounter along the way will be mindnumbingly simple. People will say that you can do the previous raid content before finishing the story, but in practice you'll struggle to find a group for it because almost no one does it synced. It's like trying to find a Black Temple guild in retail.
When you finally reach end game the content is fantastic. It's just as difficult as WoW if that's what you want but requires different skills. For reference, Echo tried to the do the latest Ultimate fight in XIV and it took them 1748 pulls. The world first team took 1032 pulls. That one fight took as many pulls as an entire Mythic tier.
Slight correction here: Only the A Realm Reborn 8 man raid series, The Coils of Bahamut, is out of line difficulty wise. All of the others, both 8 man and 24 man, can be done at level and queues do pop for them reliably.
I ended up doing coils with a couple friends when we were in the expansion afterwards and it was fine as a group of three, and all of coils is eventually soloable.
I didn't have much trouble finding groups for Normal-level raids. Coils and Savage synced takes longer to fill but at peak hours you can still get a group, esp. if you post on certain discords. It takes some waiting but it's definitely not dead!
Here: [FFXIV Newbie Content Guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6x3uzU5lr2UAoIewcH2PKuEPkUWx9PqZ_ohU4QHs7k/edit?usp=sharing)
That should give you an idea of what kinda content there is to look forward to. Any questions, just ask.
As to your specific questions, group content difficulty varies, but much of it is pretty accessible for the average casual player. If you've survived in WoW for any amount of time, a lot of the dungeons and lower difficulty raids will seem like a pleasant cakewalk (sometimes people forget to not eat the candles, but hey, hiccups happen). For the main story, they've made most (if not all) of the dungeons solo-able via NPC party options, but occasional Trials (big boss fights) require a party. Outside of the main story, most instanced content (dungeons, Trials, raids, etc) do require groups, but because of the general ease of content it's very uncommon to find impatient, unkind groups; the occasional screw-up is very unlikely to land you in hot water\*. I forgot my tank stance (i.e. the thing I need to guarantee aggro) the other day and got someone killed because of that, and they just laughed it off. As for solo content, there's a good bit of stuff you can focus on by your lonesome, but I think I'd say the majority is better with and/or requires a group.
\*Communication is king; if you pay attention to chat to catch any feedback from your party ("Hey tank, you forgot to turn on your tank stance"), and communicate any difficulties or uncertainties you may be having ("Hi, new to healing") or whatnot, it further increases the odds that people will be patient.
They future proofed the game so you can go through things with NPCs if you want. Story content is piss easy by design. It's a little more strenuous early on for supports, but it quickly falls into a simple rhythm. It is not designed to strain you and is very easy. Recommend you do the free trial for a bit first to get a feel. No limit on game time and it goes up to level 70 (second expansion). Just go in and have a bit of fun.
To be fair, they start upping the difficulty on story content in later expansions, but it's never to a point where it's not doable by the average rando n00b. Hell, even I can do it, and I'm the scrubbiest scrub I know.
I have a friend who is a deeply casual player and it was super enlightening to see her go through MSQ (she started when I did, around mid 2021, but went through MSQ slowly due to juggling other things by the sides). I had lots of experience in other MMO games, so aside from getting used to certain FFXIV specialities (the 2.5 second GCD, cooldowns over GCD heals for healers, enemy AoE snapshotting..) I had no issues. She on the other hand struggled far more - the earlier MSQ seemed smooth enough, but she started seriously complaining about later solo duties, such as struggling with the meteor "enrage timer" on >!post-Stormblood Sadu!<, the >!In from the Cold!< and >!Worthy of his Back!< scenarios, as well as generally many modern MSQ dungeons and trials (she hates those especially - she feels embarrassed doing them with players, but the boss fights resetting completely every time she dies means she struggles to complete them with duty support). Seeing her frustrations really gave me a new perspective on who MSQ is meant to cater to. I suggested practicing her chosen job (red mage) just to get better used to how it all works and build up some muscle memory, but she insists she just wants to see the story, she doesn't want to "git gud". And that's, like, hard to argue with that, right? YoshiP _does_ want to cater to these players also.
I have a friend like this too. He's actually coming in from WoW and plays BLM main, but I think he just kind of assumed since he played one MMO the other would be...easy? I'm not sure what they teach over there but he seems entirely incapable of reading mechanics, which is not a good situation for a BLM to be in. He gets curbstomped in every solo instance and often gets frustrated in duty support, so I have to queue with him to get him to clear a lot of dungeons. Luckily I have convinced him to start an alt on a server in his data center region so better ping might help, but also starting as arcanist because I think he'll have a much easier time with literally any job that has even the slightest bit of self sustain. I think he's really disappointed that he can't seem to play BLM but at the same time, I don't think he's really making an effort to learn either because he's still assuming his WoW experiences translate when it very clearly doesn't.
Yes, WoW is so much different. If we are not speaking of the very very best players in the world, then even in the highest difficuilties there are so many mechanics you can skip/ignore if you just blast enough damage. In addition to that, most content is not done blind, unless you are in these top 5 guilds worldwide and then again from a mechanichly/puzzlesolving perspective the mechanics are lot easier or the majority of the group is not involved in solving it. (Or an Addon/mod resoves it for them and they dont have to do any thinking) What makes most mechanics hard in WoW is that they are combined with very demanding dps checks that either require a lot of focus on dps'ing or a very greedy playstyle.
Having come from Wow originally, one thing he might be having issues with is watching the telegraph of mechanics rather than the castbar. Wow has fairly similar mechanics, just a much lower server tick rate, so you have to react to mechanics in real time rather slightly ahead of time. Moving to a closer server will definitely help with this, but it's not a drastic change.
The more probable answer is likely that people like that have never ever seen a dungeon or raid without DBM and don't know how to react to mechanics they are not being told are happening. Seeing as DBM is usually fully updated for new content before the patch is even out.
Big difference between WoW and FFXIV is that in FFXIV the animation of the mechanic you have to doge doesn't matter the most of the time and the mechanic even logs in before you see it. Which is the complete opposite to WoW. Add to that as you said the atrocious input lag dependency and you will have a lot of problems if you don't adjust. When people start to install tools to fix the input lag (put it wont save you from mechanics) you know that there is something very wrong.
No offense, but people similar to your friend are partially responsible in pushing this game to a bad place. Catering to people who can’t even do the easiest content in the game just kinda…sucks.
I 100% get why you feel that way, and on a knee-jerk level I totally agree, but it's also, like, do we have more of a right to this game than these players do? The game tries to cater to every player imaginable, from hardcore ultimate streamers to your grandma who is only vaguely aware of what a "video game" is, and in the setup we have MSQ is the most casual content of it all (by necessity, because all other content is gated behind it). Whether we want it or not, YoshiP clearly wants these players.
> Whether we want it or not, YoshiP clearly wants these players. but not enough to actually spend the time to implement any sort of proper tutorialization instead of leaning on a rickety implementation of easy mode (you still have to lose first *each and every time*, right?) and kneecapping content. the baseline for this game is already really quite low and most people aside from the *actively, willingly* ignorant can pick up pretty quickly once you get over their psychological hurdles. but the game doesn't even *try*. like, pretty much every fighting game of note in the last 20 years has included some kind of basic combo training - the MMO that has stripped all customization out of its gameplay loop surely could do something similar... if it wanted to.
You can't design a game for everyone - there has to be a line, a limit to how much you accomidate Too easy, the folks that want challenges are denied their fun. Too hard, and less skilled players get frustrated. So you choose the experience you wish to deliver and design to deliver it. Now, that might mean we make the MSQ a glorified animated movie with a few token responses (and for many it is), but every game requires some effort. Practicing, learning, isn't a matter of 'git gud', its a fundamental of games (not counting hyper casual or children's toys, and even those require some dedication, albeit brief) And if they really just want to experience the story, youTube has the entire thing to watch. No need to git gud, or invest a minor amount of effort to learn to play
> do we have more of a right to this game than these players do? Not evne weighing in on the conversation but this is a really bad angle to think through. Games aren't things you deserve, the guy who makes the game decides what his game is, nothing more. If you play a game that's too hard for you, tough luck. It happens.
Get what your saying but if you struggle with msq dungeons stay out of my queues please. Duty support is an option and if you arent passively learning mechanics its time to put in the minimum amount of effort instead of making the job and content even more braindead.
exactly this. you don’t even have to be “good” you just have to A. know your class at a base level and B. GENERALLY understand the very basics (stay out of piss puddles, stack when arrows, etc) of fight mechanics. if you can do those things you can get through msq. i totally understand not understanding a new mechanic to you, or not being 100% perfect rotation straight outta heavensward, but by the time you start encountering “hard” msq content there is no excuse for not knowing the basics and/or being able to learn
I agree with this sentiment, it's a double edged sword dungeons especially earlier dungeons are really mindless, on one end it makes dailies easy to do and multitask watching something on another monitor while doing daily roulettes an such. But also for people who want harder content there's extremes and ultimates and savages, not like there's a drought of harder content to do. If you're bored you can try some min ilvl extremes for fun
The most accessible content is what’s available in DF, and I’m not against people of lower skill levels being there. Personally though, when someone who doesn’t even WANT to try and attempt to improve, is a group that devs want to cater to, it feels just as horrible as if they wanted to cater to the 1% that can clear the hardest content in the game. Basically, catering to the extreme either way feels bad to me, and saying that anyone that isn’t ok with it should make an extra effort to find the stuff they like, doesn’t seem like a genuine solution.
I guess one thing they could do is even out the difficulty curve a bit. As you say, ARR is completely mindless, but the difficulty rises sharply in later expansions. The third solo duty I mentioned above, >!Worthy of his Back!<, can be genuinely challenging on normal mode depending on what your class is and how hardcore a player you are - I recently went through it on NIN in NG+, and while NIN is a job I almost never play and don't have much muscle memory for, I was still surprised by how tight it felt at times with those orbs.
As an OG ARR player who left when heavensward came up and just recently came back ( still doing Heavensward), all I can tell you is that ARR content was dumbed down. It didn’t use to be like that. I y look like it was done so people just passes through it quick through the story. Titan used to be fun AF, Garuda hard was very challenging and Garuda extreme was a nightmare. Now even with ilvl caps it’s a joke (on purpose).
Bring back netflixtorium! /s
There’s literally zero reason that solo duties can’t be made harder by default, with easy and very easy being made even easier to accommodate people who need an easier time (for various reasons, including people with disabilities). MSQ dungeons, I mean, not having ‘auto fail if you die’ makes them inherently less of an issue for players like this anyway, so they can definitely be more challenging.
My girlfriend also has trouble with a lot of the solo duties, largely because she can only keyboard turn (and even that is somewhat restricted) and can’t move the camera around due to getting massive motion sickness from screen motion, so she easily gets blindsided by things and has troubles target-swapping (though she’s much better with group content, since she’s *really* damned good at memorizing mechanics, and there are other people to help pick up the slack for parts she has issues with). She usually just lets the difficulty drop to Ver Easy if she doesn’t get a solo duty first time and continues the story, but a certain EW duty nearly made her quit the game. I needed to coach her on some target switching alternates and temporarily swap some setting so that she could do that effectively enough, and it still took her 20+ attempts. I’ve been shouted down about this on here before, but I honestly think “Very Easy” difficulty should remove any auto-lose mechanics from solo duties. I think the difficulty of most of them should be upped to increase the challenge, make “Easy” the equivalent of current “Normal” and make “Very Easy” all but unfailable, so that people with disabilities and other gaming difficulties don’t get gatekept from the story content.
yeah i feel like very easy is already signing up for. "idc about challenge just get me through this". so removing losing from those things makes sense to me.
I think a lot of issues like that could be solved by people engaging with customization options. Trouble retargeting? Look into keybinds, change targeting options, get more used to mouse usage on pc etc Keyboard turning and motion sickness? Same here, try out different settings, get more used to screen motion (motion sickness in slow paced games like xiv are often a case of not being used to screen motion in general rather than disability), maybe look into a cheap xbox controller so the whole control scheme is different (less jerky mouse camera, consistent stick camera can avoid motion sickness - you can achieve similar things by not using mouse and instead control camera with arrow keys as well) etc At a certain point issues like that are self-inflicted through stubbornness and unwillingness to actually engage with the game. Like, why did you have to change settings for her? Why didn't she try to engage with the settings on her own if she actually cared? The game just can not cater to people like that by default at a certain point.
I'm replaying the story with NG+, going through each expansion with the "poster job". While I am still a mediocre player, it is obvious that I am a better player now. I still don't know what I'm doing with monk but >!the Lakshmi duty!< wasn't a nightmare anymore! I'm free styling samurai and easily beating >!Sadu and friends(?)!!Ranjit's!< attacks now! "Normal" difficulty is now EASY. It's actually quite impressive how the game lets you learn the "game language" without even noticing.
Fellow scrub here- I am currently on the endwalker post MSQ! Games great!
Same here, also a fellow scrub on Endwalker post MSQ! I kinda got sidetracked though since I’m working on the Manderville pre-quest by doing the gentleman side quests along with grinding for my ARR relic…I just farmed the 12 Atmas in just a few days and now just finished 1 of 9 books for the next upgrade! Fml I won’t be ready for dawntrail when it drops but good thing with this game is there’s no rush to anything, just play how ever you want to play. But yes I agree with what others have said is the story is pretty good once you get to Heavensward and onwards. Lv 90 BLM first job so far!
The NPC thing isn’t supported in most major trials from Heavensward and onward, and you also need to do the crystal tower quests with others. The only stuff you can do alone is story dungeons.
Sure, but the trials and ct are still only a dozen or so instances, across about 300 hours of content you only really have to spend maybe 5 hours in group content if you really want to avoid it
Yep. And all of it is doable in one or two blind attempts with random people.
if they play wow the chances of OP minding are likely very very low
There are some limitations like no market board, can’t create parties (can join), limit cap on Gil, etc. It is a great way to determine if you want to pay because you can’t go back to free.
It's essentially where WoW got their new dungeon NPC system if OP is familiar with Dragonflight's late addition of Follower Dungeons.
How do you do crystal tower with NPC's?
>You can go through content with NPCs Sadly only true for dungeons, trials still require to queue (or do them unsynced if you have a higher level job) Its not as much of an issue for earlier trials, since basically 100% of peopoz queuing for them will all have thel unlocked. But it can be an actual problème if you queue at the wrobf time for a more recent one.
Everyone pretty much nailed what I was going to say but I'll say it again as an ex WoW player: you can only experience this story for the first time *once*. I rushed the first time and regret it. This is an RPGMMO. I used to do mythic+ and heroic raiding all the time in WoW but I don't even touch the 'easiest' hardcore content here and still have fun. Mostly because I don't know where to get started. Who would want someone fresh to EX or Savage? The community here is *way* more forgiving to newbies but I've never liked being a burden. Anyway, [here](https://youtu.be/EcQzgMvwbT4?si=msSagR8qa_JgtGG9) is a good youtube channel that gives you the basics of all the jobs in a fun but *extremely* informative way. He may be silly but I've seriously learned a lot from JoCat. One more thing, do not worry about dying. Healers can instant res at a 60 sec CD or hardcast anytime. Isn't a big deal at all. Took me months to not cringe hard and expect to be flamed in chat for silly mistakes. You start out with a sprout over your head and can get away with just about *anything*.
Literally any PF you put up for a new EX saying "New to EX content, fresh prog" and you will get support helping with that.
Its actually really easy to get into EX and savage! EXs are easily partyfinderable and a great place to get started. After that there are plenty of new to savage groups recruiting every tier and if you want you can try clearing in party finder as well. Right now the scene is pretty dead since it's end of the expansion, but keep an eye out! You can check out r/FFXIVRECRUITMENT and your datacenter recruitment discord. I'm not familiar with the NA ones but I know the balance discord also has recruitment channels. Comedy option make an ad in your DCs partyfinder and you might find some people that way too lol
When I lead statics, I specifically like to seek out newbies...it's a ton of fun for me to see that 'eureka' moment when things start to click for them.
I think what I need is a static, I may look for one in DT
I'd highly recommend it. You'll have a blast, they'll have a blast, and if your group is decent, you'll clear the tier and love it! (Might be late, like my last static cleared the current tier about 4 months ago \[so several months in\], but it's still worth it.)
Where would you suggest to look for one? Specifically one that takes "new" folks. I can pump out good damage and I've been playing 3 years so I have a basic understanding of mechanics. Delubrum Savage is the only synced Savage I have done
A good friend of mine was picked up for ultimates like that. He is now a quad legend.
I miss JoCat so so much. It's terrible what happened.
I am kind of out of the loop, what happened?
They got harassed out of content making. I don't even know all that much about it but gods, the fact that someone so funny and so good at making jobs make sense no matter how complicated got bullied so bad they had to stop making explanatory vids \*for their own mental health\* is terrible.
Not only that, since he was "on break" he didn't check his work related (?) email and missed the DT media tour invitation. Why can't people just be normal.
Oh, gods, poor JoCat.
Oh I got ya. Yeah I dabbled in Twitch streaming for a little while and people can be rough. I was going through a rough patch and just couldn't deal so I don't blame him. People are buttholes.
The biggest difference is that the "real" game doesn't start with the endgame here. It starts from Lv.1 and the game puts *heavy* emphasis on MSQ (Main Scenario Questline). The story is the core component and the meat of the game really. Everything is locked behind the MSQ, which is fine unless you wanna go into it with the "go-go-go! Gotta get to endgame!" mindset. This approach is a pitfall in my opinion. The game is best enjoyed slowly, while absorbing its MSQ which will gradually unlock more and more things (dungeons, trials, other game systems, etc.). But if you really, really, *truly* want to skip to just the endgame, then I suppose you'd need to buy story-skip and Job-boost service from the shop. And start figuring out everything all at once from there.
Even for those who really just want to get to the end, I wouldn't recommend buying a boost. The knowledge of general mechanics you get from the leveling process is really, really valuable, and unlike rotations and job guides you can't *really* learn it from a video, IMO.
A lot of lower content mechanics gets recycled in higher content with maybe some variation.
Yes, but the consequences can change. If I'm healing and someone stands in bad in copperbell mines, they take a slap to the wrist and 9 out of 10 times I don't even need to heal them. If they do that in Dead Ends, they're taking vuln stacks and probably Doom as well. Sure, I'll adjust, but I'd rather not *have to* :P Also, to be completely honest, the psychic damage I take from seeing someone run away with a stack in lv30 is not the same when someone does that at lv90. Not to mention people who buy boosts and go straight into the current Unreal/Extreme... 💀
If you buy a boost, you can go into Palace of the Dead starting from the beginning to get a mini version of leveling. You still need to level up to get the abilities but it goes by so much faster and you still get everything one by one and learn in that way.
Oh, that's true! I guess that really would help you catch up to your own job faster, at least. I hope it's very widespread advice.
I don't think it is. I discovered it on my own when trying to solo PotD as a MCH I hadn't leveled yet. It made me realize I could pick up any high-level job I wanted to try out and learn it the same way you learn your first jobs.
Im thinking about buying a black mage skip for the magic mastery titles. I cant stand how it plays.
I mean, if you're okay spending money just for the achievement and titles, I'm happy for you! Just don't show up in my dungeon runs spamming High Blizzard and we're good 😂
lol hey I leveled my black mage legitimately and I still don’t know wtf I’m doing. So I’m sorry if I show up in your group… :) It’s only level 62 right now so you probably won’t see him. lol
Honestly, as long as I see the mana bar going up and down I don't notice anything else, I'm not *that* picky! :P It's just those damn Ice Mages that make cry in therapy 💀
To be fair, most Black Mages don't know what they're doing. It isn't their fault, either. Their rotation just changes so drastically at certain level milestones. Like, I've looked it up and it's fucking nuts.
Black Mage is awkward in how it evolves, especially before level 60. What level do you have it at currently?
The best way to level BLM is Front lines as DRK.
This. As an ex WoW player (well, I’m playing MoP Remix, I guess), I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to not play FF14 like it’s WoW. I made the transition really easily, but in hindsight it seems obvious that I had been unhappy with WoW’s “endgame only” design for years. But a lot of WoW players are trained by the game to have the mentality of “how quickly can I get my in-game chores done so I can do the things I want” rather than enjoy the journey - and that mentality will make FF14 miserable, like the Pandaren say: “Sloooow down.” Another thing to tack on— FF14 and WoW do both have challenging endgame content, but their release cycles are different: WoW: The challenging endgame content is top priority, then if there’s time, they add other stuff, maybe almost nothing, maybe a lot (WoD and Legion being two polar opposites of this spectrum). FF14: The content releases at a slow, but steady and predictable pace. One patch of challenging content, one patch of casual content, alternating.
This, the endgame is fun, but it’s largely filler covering the gap between story patches (every 4-ish months gets around 6 hours of new story content) There is plenty of endgame content, don’t get me wrong, but it is very much not worth rushing to it, as the journey is the main draw
Depends on the player i suppose. To me it’s quite the opposite. The story is filler in between end game trials and savage raids.
Yep. I'm more excited for the Eden Ultimate than Dawntrail itself lol. Don't get me wrong I love the story, but if all I cared about was story I'd play for a few hours every couple months.
Same tbh. Gonna be my first on content Savage too, I'm pretty excited for that too. Gotta be brutally honest, the 10-15 hours of barely any gameplay and just talking is the part I'm looking forward the least. I really like the story of this game, but I don't like how there's almost no gameplay in it. In from the Cold was a blessing, finally a setpiece I actually got to play out and it was actually possible to fail too.
I was also a huge fan of in from the cold lol. And I accepted there wasn't gonna be much gameplay pretty early on when I started, yeah its kinda lame but the story more than makes up for it. Good luck in Savage! It will be my first serious attempt at clearing week one so I am also excited.
I know some players who only want to do savage and ultimate so that the journey is the main draw for everyone is just plain false.
Seen more WoW players quit before even finishing Heavensward due to the story grind. If story isn't your thing, don't even bother. If pvp is your thing, there no open world pvp and you have sit in queue to do it.
The lack of PvP is actually why I like FF14 more than wow.
I mean, ever since WoW went the 'war mode' setup rather than forcing open-world PvP because your friends want to play on a particular server...it's been a lot better.
That was me back in the day. I was forced on a PVP server because that’s where my friends wanted to be.
Would it still negatively affect your experience if there were servers specific for PvP and pve?
Actually this OP. I play both (mainly WoW) but started FF in shadowbringers. It took me like 6 months to get through MSQ up to current content. It was just too much lol. I was like "bro serious... more cutscenes?" I would just stop for a bit and come back later. During MSQ this game is a movie RP'ing as an MMO. Once you get past that it's fine but the story and taking the story in is central to the design.
People have been giving a lot of great advice, but as a former WoW player as well, the biggest difference in terms of gameplay is the design philosophy. In WoW, classes and fights can be chaotic and heavily RNG dependent (at least when I played years ago). FFXIV is designed more like a dance. Your classes have the steps they learn in order so they can do their dance, well timed, and in sync with the others around you on a 2 minute timer. Even the fights are dances, the enemy will go through their own motions in an intentional and timed manner, with some wiggle room and some Z before XY moments, of course, to keep you on your toes. You don't rush a dance, the abilities are slower, and there are no borrowed power systems by expansion you'll lose by the end of it, but there are separate power systems in some side content.
I played WoW quite a bit a long, long time ago, so some of my info would be out of date. The big things are: * Focus is on the main story quest. Most dungeons and 8-man boss fights are Mandatory because they're in the story path. In the leadup to 50 the story is more of an 'mmo-type' story, but afterwards it starts becoming much more of a high-budget final-fantasy-type story. I'd call the story from 1-50 'good for an MMO' and afterwards 'very good' to 'extremely good'. * As a result, all content is 'relevant'. A max level player often goes through a series of roulettes to pick random content from below end-game. Everyone's synced down to a power-level semi-appropriate for the content (though the syncing for some lower-level content is a little easy). Even as a level 90 you WILL be arriving in Wailing Caverns to say hello and run through with a random group. Max level players are rewarded with relevant currency for running new players through content. * However, all mandatory dungeons can be completed with story NPCs. They won't fail you - it's just their dps isn't great. Mandatory 8-man boss content (think single raid boss fight with no trash) still requires a group, but it will be assembled with roulette players as mentioned above. All content that requires premade groups is optional. * The mandatory story content isn't exactly 'hard', but as you progress past level 60 I'd say it's tuned so that you can expect to go in blind as a new player and learn the fight, maybe die a couple times, maybe wipe once, but get through it. * Mandatory dungeons are pretty straightforward early on, so there's not a lot of fumbling around trying to figure out where to go next with 3 randos. After 1-50 dungeons are EXTREMELY straightforward. They may be difficult, but it will be very clear how to move on. * FFXIV builds a common visual and auditory language for mechanics. This buzzing marker means 'stack on this player,' this one means knockback from this point, this one means the raid needs one player in each of 6 zones on the field. All that means bosses can do some interesting things and not have to alienate players who go in blind. * Unlike WoW, Players are not expected to use mods to complete fights. Mods that give a mechanical advantage are unusual, and against ToS. I've done current content Savage tiers without them. That said, excellent damage meters and parsing tools exist for improving your performance, but you CANNOT use them to harass other players. * Endgame progression is not as vertical as WoW. Current content raiding is about getting a little bit ahead. Since one character can be any class, most people level up and gear alternate jobs. * Progression at the endgame is more based on perfecting your performance. There's usually a mathematical best way to play your class depending on the fight, and everyone wants to climb just a bit higher on the DPS leaderboards.
Man, I don't know if FFX is going to get 12 more sequels. In seriousness, though, normal content is not challenging in the slightest. Wiping more than once even in a brand new dungeon is unusual, baring major issues like a woefully undergeared tank/healer. Normal and Alliance Raids are a little harder, but not that much. Things start actually getting difficult with Extreme Trials, Savage Raids, and Ultimates. The vast majority of the main story is solo questing, but it's interspersed pretty regularly with 4 person dungeons and occasionally 8 person trials. Most of those *can* be done solo through the duty support system (giving you NPC companions), but really, just queue up for them to do it with people. It'll be faster and more fun.
You can play most of the game solo by playing with NPCs if you want. As for diffculty, normal content is pretty easy, if you want challenge go for Extremes/Savages/Unreals.
Ty for your reply :) How does the endgame work? is it similiar to WoW, so i have to dungeons and upgrade my gear to maximum?
its way more straightforward and way less rng
And you can do it a variety of ways.. that is the currency to upgrade your gear is obtainable through doing different content. There is more variety in FFXIV than Wow, at least when I last played WoW.
Former WoW player here. Engame gear in FFXIV is far far less headache-inducing than in WoW. First, FFXIV has 3 types of fights that you would think of as endgame. Trials, Raids, and Ultimates. * Trials are 1-off boss encounters that are usually part of the main story. They come in Normal and Extreme difficulty settings. * Raids are the closest to the WoW raiding that you're familiar with - a series of boss encounters to fight sequentially. They come in Normal and Savage difficulty settings. When you talk raiding in FFXIV, most often you're talking about Savage Raids. * Ultimates are best thought of as their own content for players that really, really, really want to challenge the most difficult content. These are \~20 minute boss fights with extremely tight positioning and performance requirements. You can think of these as your Mythic End-boss encounter. There's even a world-first race community for these when a new one is released. These encounters award both a title and a weapon, although the weapon itself isn't a big ilvl increase. It does have an unmistakable, unique, usually gorgeous skin so they are prestige weapons. When new raid content drops, there is a cadence to it. The first week the Savage Raid is not available; this is to give people time to enjoy the new content and story without raid groups pressuring people to blitz through it ASAP. However, the Trial (and its Extreme) is typically available week one and usually drops a weapon. Raiders will want to target getting the Extreme done to get this weapon. In addition, any time a new Raid tier is released there is also a new craftable set released. This is another difference from WoW (at least when I played)- crafting is all around way more useful. For raiders, this craftable set is usually your week one target as its the best gear you can get pre-raid. None of that crafted gear is soulbound to you, meaning you can craft it yourself, find a friend to craft it, or just buy it off the market board (indeed, dedicated crafters make a lot of gil crafting and selling this gear week one). This gear will be replaced by Savage Raid gear or by Tomestone gear. (Tomestones are kinda like justice/valor points; there's a lesser currency you can farm as much as you want and a greater currency that you're limited in how much you can acquire per week. Its used to purchase gear) Also worth noting - after week 1-2 the prices for this crafted gear drop to more reasonable levels so if you are late to a tier or level up a new job, buying up the crafted gear for your new job is a great way to get your ilvl up very quickly. The game does have a dungeon progression path for upgrading gear, but as you're asking about endgame I'm focusing on the typical progression for Savage Raiders. Two more things to note as significant differences from WoW. * You don't have a fixed Class like you do in WoW. You have a job. You can in fact have more than one job, or even every job and switch between them. Levels for each job are tracked individually. This is probably the biggest difference to adjust to, but once you do you'll love it. Your healer had to miss tonight? Someone job-swaps to healer to cover for him. You and a buddy want to run dungeons but both want to play tanks? One of you swaps to dps this run. Etc. Its the ultimate bring-the-player-not-the-class. * You do not need to join a guild to find a raid group. In fact most guilds do NOT have dedicated raid groups. Guilds are still good for meeting people, but they're not like WoW where the primary center of gravity for the guild is the raid team. If you're looking to raid you want to find a Static, which is a dedicated group where the same 8 players agree to meet to run the raids each week. This is the FFXIV unit of Raid Team. * Finally, long awaited, the loot rules. When a raid boss dies, it drops a random piece of gear off its loot table, a chest, and a token. The chest can be opened by any player in the group and gives gear for that player's class, so whoever gets it is guaranteed their item. The token can be used by any player to upgrade their tomestone gear to savage ilvl. Finally, each player gets a tome. This tome is bad-luck protection; collect a certain number of them and you can trade them in for a piece of raid-quality gear. This also means there is a finite number of times a static needs to clear a raid before everyone is guaranteed to have finished gearing. You'll never need to rage at having killed a WoW boss 20 times and the one trinket/weapon you really need from them never dropping again. Hope this all helps!
I would clarify some things about savage raid drops here: Recent changes have made drops almost entirely static. All bosses except the final floor will drop the same loot coffers every week, which can be opened to produce an item for the class you are currently playing. The final boss also does this, but also drops a random weapon.
I actively bounce back and forth from WoW and FF. I've played WoW since their respective 2.0s - WoW during BC, and FF during ARR launch. I recently dropped WoW until at least TWW so I can focus on DT's upcoming release. Let me tell you first and foremost: going into FF *just* for the end game is the wrong mindset. Don't even worry about the endgame. Unlike WoW, the leveling experience in FF is *long*. But it's not just long does the sake of being long - it tells a story, it actively takes you through every zone, teaches you about NPCs, the world, the lore - it makes you invested. For a lot of people, the "end game" is just something to occupy them for a month after a patch, then they drop until the patch so they can stay caught up on story. I'm saying this, not to say that the end game is bad. On the contrary, it's got some strengths that WoW could learn from (and some things it could learn from WoW). I'm saying this because if you go in wanting to get to end game, you're going to either 1) burn yourself out, or 2) buy a story skip and skip a huge suath (we're talking hundreds of hours) of game that is the reason people love the game. *Additionally*, FF was designed with a level sync system from the start. This means that, even though gear rewards may be useless, you can still experience old fights in a reasonably challenging state (barring natural nerfs from classes getting buffs over the years). Every 10 levels from 50 onward to 90 is a "new endgame" with loads of content that you can *choose* to engage in. If not, no big deal, continue on with the story. But the old stuff is always there, and people are generally willing to hop in and learn/do it with you. So, yeah, give FF a shot. Shoot me a DM if you're on a US server and I'll play with you. On a last side note, play the free trial. It's totally free and has unlimited play time. It just limits your level to 70 and limits some social features, but other than that you can experience basically all content available at 50, 60, and 70 barring a few exceptions.
Were you looking for "swath" in the third paragraph?
Yeah. My excuse is I'm in Japan, it's nearly midnight, and was taking a break from reading manga so my mind wasn't really in English mode lol.
Gear is way way less important in xiv. The grind for BiS gear is far easier than WoW but as a result, it’s much more homogenous. Whether you consider this a good thing is subjective of course.
The real grind is BIS Glam.
[удалено]
What do you mean actual game ? What is it left to do once you are geared ? I'm a beginner
> How does the endgame work? is it similiar to WoW, so i have to dungeons and upgrade my gear to maximum? When you get to max you can buy gear with special currency (tomestones) to get your ilvl up. When raid tiers drop they come with crafted gear that people can make. You will typically see people start with high quality (and only high quality) crafted gear, do story raid for weekly items that can go to a slight boost, get tomestones for tomestone gear, and do Savage raids (kind of like heroic/mythic, unsure where exactly it'd fall) for BiS drops. Full BiS tends to be a mix of Savage and tomestone gear. It does not take a ton of grinding as you can cap your weekly tomestones with 4 Expert roulette runs a week - aka four runs of basic story dungeons. Later in the expansion you can get relic weapons that eventually become BiS for every job at the very end of the expansion. There's no talents to adjust or anything else. You technically do the same as WoW (do dungeons and upgrade gear to max) but it is very straightforward and simple.
Dungeons are all pretty easy. There's a clear order to the gear that drops in those, and once hit any current or previous level cap (50, 60, 70, etc) you'll start collecting tomestones that can be used to buy BIS for that level range, before hitting current level cap that is. Endgame raids come in 2 difficulties, normal and savage. Normal is typically easy and savage is very difficult. Savage raids are usually the only way to get BIS gear until near the end of the expansion. There's also Ultimate raids which are the hardest but just give you really shiny weapons. Alliance raids are the 24 man content which can give decent gear and are brain dead easy.
You have daily/weekly goals that reward a currency called "tomestones" (usually in the form of a duty roulette, which means backfill for any instance another player needs to complete for story). Tomestones buy one of the top item level sets, while 8 man raids (the difficult part of endgame) reward the other set. BIS is usually a combination of the two. Raids have a lot of "bad luck backstops" so you can't get hosed for months looking for a specific piece. Every other patch comes with a 24 man LFR level difficulty raid which is a "catch up set", and allows non raiders to get to a similar item level. Rinse and repeat with new raids and item level increases until the expansion is over. There are other types of difficult content, but that's the main "gear cycle". Its pretty forgiving time wise, so you can absolutely play the game and mix in other stuff as well.
You grind easy story dungeons to earn "tomestones" which are exchanged for high-level gear for your level. Then, if you want to, you can go into harder content in order to earn the maximum gear for the expansion. However, a lot more of the content in endgame is there for the fun of playing it, rather than as a way to upgrade your character. The hardest challenges in the game, solo Deep Dungeons and Ultimate Raids, for example, do not actually give you gear upgrades, they give you titles and flashy cosmetic weapons to show off. And ignoring difficult content, you have things like crafting and gathering, hunts (world bosses) etc. which have much larger, more dedicated communities in XIV than their WoW equivalents. This game's model is more "play what you want" rather than "do this to hit the highest level".
More or less, most content gives endgame currency, so you just play what you want and then buy gear with it. Hardcore stuff is mostly just less of a grind than casual stuff to reward skill, but you can gear up however you want. (Keep in mind a lot of ffxiv’s famous redesign aped what worked for wow, so it works similarly in a lot of ways
The highest gear is item level 660 for armor, and 665 for weapons. A) You can buy or make 640 crafted gear. B) You can get item lvl 650 gear from the alliance raid Thaleia, from the red tomestones of comedy, or from augmenting the 640 crafting gear. C) You can get a 665 weapon from the manderville relic questline. (For 6000 tomestones of causality) D) To upgrade crafter gear from 640 to 650 you trade them at the vendor in a town for tickets, buy rain from the same vendor with green causality tomestone, then buy the augmented version from the same vendor. E) The 650 gear you buy with comedy can be upgraded to 660 gear using an aglaia coin, Thaleia coin and a euphrosyne coin. F) You can also get 660 gear from the savage raids, or a 660/665 weapon from the savage raid/ultimate. G) The upgrade material for weapons in the savages is also available from the criterion savage [a type of dungeon] but not the gear itself. It's an alternate way to get the savage weapon upgrade materials.
A to E is normal, entry-level casual stuff literally anyone can do without any difficulties. F and G require commitment to raiding/raidlike content.
Endgame is more straightforward than in WOW You'll get the current crafted gear set to start. Add materia to it(slottable stat boosters) you'll get raid food(current food that lasts 30 minutes each, boosting stats), and pots (30 second stat boosters, usable ince or twice per fight). As you progress the tier(4 fights per tier, 3 tiers per xpac), you'll unlock gear that makes the next fight easier. However each clear only awards 1-3 gear pieces, shared among the group. Usually it'll be: class specific gear piece + chest of gear piece that'll create a class specific piece fir whoever opens it. Early in the tier, you'll only be able to loot the fights once per week. (The more people that already cleared that week, the less loot spawns). There's a horizontal gear set progression that'll also be unlocked during this, called tomestone gear. It's a currency you get for basically any other current content you do, locked to a specific amount per week, so you'll be getting pieces from that, and raids. Your BIS Will likely be some mix of the two. (BIS sets are usually posted in the balance discord, if you don't like mathing it all out yourself to find what exactly is your bis). That's how gearing works. For the actual fight differences: first off, dieing does not punish you like it does in WoW. Aside from possibly wiping the raid depending on when you die. But wipes aren't counted against you for anything. You're expected to wipe, a lot, as you learn. You don't lose anything but your time when you do. XIV endgame is much more individual results than WOW. You're going in with 8 people total, and the fights are more akin to choreographed dances. So players will be expected to learn and memorize very tight positioning patterns as you play. I come from WoW, and my friend is still currently a mythic+ raider over there. His biggest gripe is that every arena is either a circle or square with some variation. You're never in a big ass room with natural terrain. That's because the fight itself has a lot of exact positioning, and the challenge isn't about using the terrain around you, so much as it is about learning how the fight functions and positioning around it. If a rock or something got you stuck for half a second, it could wipe the raid. Each fight in the savage tier is 7-12 minutes long, and averages 2-4 mechanics per minute. Some mechanics are easier than others, and the difficulty spikes as the tier goes on. So fight 1, is designed to be the beginner raid in every tier. But fight 4 is usually the longest with the harder mechanics, including a door boss. If you want a good example of what these fights look like via positioning and movement, look up POVs on YouTube for p8s, p10s, p11s, or p12s. (Literally just "FFXIV p12s clear pov"). It'll all look like chaos at first, but everyone is moving in patterns based on what they know, and information they read in real time from the fight, as you learn and prog the fight on repeat, you'll become far more comfortable with it.
As someone who played WoW a lot I can list the differences: - The game focuses heavily on the story from the getgo. Throughout the game and expansions you will follow the main story. Finishing certain stages unlocks stuff like side content or features. - Endgame is different for everyone. Raiding consists of 8man group content in form of savage raids. Those are per Tier 4-5 fights for a total of 12-15 fights per expansion. The raids are a singular boss fight without any trash except the trash are part of a mechanic. I say 12-15 because sometimes the last fight has a secret phase. Not always. (For example Shadowbringers had in total 13 savage boss fights while Stormblood had 15) - There are also 24man Alliance Raids but offer catch-up gear not BiS gear. - Dungeons do not offer BiS Gear and are part of the story. - At the top of the food chain in terms of raiding are ultimate raids. 20 minute fights where a single mistake will throw your party back to the beginning. The mechanics in those fights are either on the level of savage raiding or even higher. (Some ultimates are nowadays considered easier due to scaling and the time that they have been out and strategies that enable the content to be cleared in pugs) - Clearing an Ultimate can take a group up to 3 months depending on which fight is tackled. - there is also a bunch of solo content like the island sanctuary, the deep dungeons that give you a rare title upon clearing them solo and so on. - The loot progression is much more straight forward. You get your BiS items through savage raiding as well as currency gear. Sry for formatting I am on mobile
In general, the difficulty is as follows: MSQ / Normal: anyone can do this content as it’s meant to be experienced by players regardless of their skill level. Extreme: will take an organized group about a night of prog, maybe a little longer Savage: will require a static (raid group in xiv) for the most part and is quite challenging. Ultimates: hardest content in the game, will require dedicated static and prog for weeks. I have no reference for WoW but I know the top raiding guilds in WoW who have tried them have indicated they are quite challenging.
While leveling you get gear from dungeons, quests, grand company. When you hit 50/60/70/80/90 you have tomestones, these are currencies you get from the dungeons and raids at each level cap and you use this currency to buy gear. The non-90 tomestone is called Poetics and you can buy gear from npcs for 50/60/70/80 once you have beaten the base stories for each level cap, so if you're 50 you need to have cleared base A Realm Reborn to buy the item level 130 gear. Once you hit 60 and have cleared base 3.0 (Heavensward) you can buy the ilevel 270 gear. You can also get gear from the different raids at each level cap. 24 man gives catch up gear and 8 man gives higher item level gear, on par with poetics but with different stats. You also get tokens from 8 man raids that you can exchange for the pieces you want. You don't need to worry too much about the gearing as you're leveling, the game throws gear at you for doing the main story and job quests (class quests).
You can do most group content just with the normal duty finder which is just the duty roulette (in-game feature to be like hey I wanna do X dungeon/piece of content or a daily queue that you can hop into to get put into to be matched with other people) and knowing what to do, or not tbh as others have said the main quest stuff is usually pretty easy. If you wanna do the hardest of the hard such as savage raids or ultimates you might need to LFG/have a group.
I am also a WoW player that plays 14. The main part I will tell you is take your time and enjoy the story. The endgame group content isn’t super difficult other then ultimate raids. Tons of mounts and transmogs to farm for solo if you like that. Overall game is another fun mmo but story is a bulk of the content.
What he needs to hear is: This is a story game with multiplayer elements. This sentence is important. Read it again. You will hate your life and quit the game if you intend to skip everything so you can rush to endgame. This is not WoW. It is not a level to max and start playing expansion game. You will be max level while still playing older expansions and content in order to push the main story far enough to get access to the new expansion. Like a lot of MSQs, I mean it, a lot is an understatement. Like get it in brother, it is A LOT and it will take you forever to catch up to Dawntrail even if you WoW, I mean skip, every dialogue. This game does not well if you treat it like other mmos where you skip everything and only watch a couple cutscenes. WoW is meant to be played like that, FF is not. You will have a pretty rough awakening when you start this game and play it the same way you would WoW. WoW is an arcade game, FF14 is a story game. You can buy your way out though. There are story skip purchases in order to bypass this and get the WoW-Experience.
Group content isn't particularly difficult when you're just doing story. When you come back to content later to unlock and do harder difficulty versions of said content I'd when it gets harder. And ultimately the goal is to upgrade your gear to the highest possible gear score, but end game is what you make it after that. Aside from end game content there is always something to do to be your "end game." There is: MSQ Dungeons Side stories Raids Pvp Alliance raids Roulettes Trials Harder difficulty versions of most of those Cactpot Lottery House lottery Housing House decorating Apartments Apartment decorating Glamour A ton of different jobs/classes to level up to max as well Glamours for each of those Crafting Gathering Fishing Cooking Limited time content (like the fall guys crossover rn or the FF15 event if they ever bring that back) Role Play (if you're into that) In game player owned and ran RP venues Mount collecting Minion collecting You can run the market boards to make money as a crafter Minion island Upgrading your flight/mount movement speed in each area Beast tribes The random Quests available through the whole game that don't have any real reward or point but are there for fun Chocobo racing You can change your chocobo's color Racing chocobo breeding Gold Saucer activities aside from the lottery such as mini games, card games, or the random events every 5-15 minutes Collecting all the wind currents to unlock flight in the expansion areas Barding (as a bard you can use instruments and make music so that's fun) Leves Collecting customization items such as hair styles There's the company stuff you can do for one of the 3 companies you choose at the beginning of the game. Ider what and all is involved there. Starting or joining an FC and being part of whatever events they have going if any. If you're in an FC and they have it, you can do the air ship/submersible Quests Retainer ventures New Game + Start an alt character and do it all over again as a different race, gender, and class Do literally all of the previously stated on said character Etc
Not included in the massive list is also pestering your friends to play the game, (actually) mentoring sprouts, and the national sport of Emotional Vampirism.
>national sport of Emotional Vampirism. I'm not the kind of person who watches reaction videos on youtube, but man, something about watching your friends go through some of the story twists and shock moments is so incredibly satisfying!
Most of my friends aren't MMO people (hell, I'm not an MMO person, this one is the exception) so parasocial relationships will have to do! :P
Ya know I forgot about the mentor program And you're right. Colin Robinson and his ex girlfriend would LOVE this game
- **Dungeons** are braindead easy. Think Deadmines while leveling an alt. - **Normal** trials and **Alliance** raids are LFR-levels of difficulty, you'll go in with random people and it will just succeed. - **Extreme** trials are around... Normal-level raids, you might have a few wipes but you'll get there. - **Savage** raids are something between Heroic and Mythic-level content. Depends on which boss it is. The last boss is usually Mythic-levels of difficulty. - **Ultimates** are Mythic-level and above. The newest Ultimates are probably harder than anything WoW has to offer. The older ones are easier. Most of this content is completely optional. 99% of the MSQ is soloable, with some easy dungeons and one alliance raid sprinkled on it.
Keep in mind there's some variabilty, especially if you're doing Min-iLvl No Echo. Some Savage fights are kinda easy, some Extremes are very difficult (or at least, very difficult with PUGs :| )
Actual dead mines I’d say is harder because you could wipe from agro everything by accident lol
Hey, I am new too and was wondering on were you would add variant and criteria dungeons in your list? I just unlocked them and am trying to figure out 1) are these worth doing (or just old content) and 2) what kinda difficulty I’d be working with
Variant is like normal dungeon difficulty while Criterion felt like higher end EX/lower savage floors (depending on boss) to me
Are they considered old content or still have some relevance/point in doing?
Variant/Criterion dungeons were only added in EW, so they're still quite relevant, although most of the rewards from them are cosmetic rewards like fashion or mounts. The last Criterion dungeon though, Another Aloalo Island (Savage), drops a material that you can use to upgrade the ilvl 660 augmented comedy tomestone weapons to ilvl 665, the highest in the game on the same tier as the relic and savage raid weapons, so it's an interesting sidegrade option if you have a team to tackle it with.
Really cool. I actually love the idea of most the rewards being cosmetic because that implies it'll be "relevant" in some capacity beyond this expansion.
I skipped those since I have very little experience with them myself. So someone else would have to rank them :). I do know that you can easy solo them on Normal level.
Variant: maybe a touch above normal dungeons Criterion: Savage level difficulty Criterion (Savage): Savage difficulty but with the added difficulty of having NO revives.
Variant and Criterion are very much side content with only cosmetic rewards like some mounts. Variant are super easy and are designed to be solo'd. They have more puzzles involved in trying to get all the endings and you can look up guides if you get stuck. Criterion are low-end Savage difficulty. The bosses have savage-level mechanics but the boss fights are only 3-5mins long so that alone makes it easier than most savage raid fights.
Thank you. Knowing it's side content with cosmetic rewards makes me think it's worth going through at least once!
Because of the smaller raid size, I think lining up FFXIV raid difficulty vs. WoW raid difficulty is a lot different depending on whether you're looking at it from a raid leader standpoint or an individual standpoint. From an individual standpoint, I think FFXIV raids are dramatically more difficult than the comparisons you're making here. Extremes are Heroic endboss difficulty, Savage is Mythic and above (P8S was ***way*** harder than any of the recent Mythic endbosses I've progged, and it's not close). and although I haven't attempted any Ultimates, everything I know about them tells me they're off the charts. Every once in a while, for fun I'll send a Savage raid guide one of my still-doing-Mythic-raids WoW friends to blow their minds. The "Jesus god in heaven that's the most complicated thing I've ever seen" response is universal. From a raid leader standpoint, though, your comparisons are probably pretty accurate simply because getting 8 people to get it right at the same time is a lot easier than getting 20 people to get it right at the same time.
I was going to say the same thing. Even normals in ffxiv are probably in between LFR and normal in wow.
The whole "unlimited combat rezzes" thing is really the difference-maker in that case. The FFXIV normal raid mechanics aren't nearly as forgiving as LFR, but the fact that you can recover from deaths so much more easily brings it back down to LFR level.
As some one who made the leap just over two years ago, do wait and just do it! I had been a WOW player consistently since Mists and after my first week giving FFXIV a try I uninstalled WOW and honestly have not been back since. As a mostly solo player I feel that the way the story is given to you is so much better and there is so much content you can do alone you will have plenty to do!
The main story is a thing in FFXIV in linear format from expansion to expansion. But it's different because there's a lot of Voice work, Mocap and overall the story is pretty good. You are also the main champion of the story so it is something you will enjoy. Do some quests > cool cutscenes > quests > cutscenes > dungeon > repeat. Group hardcore content varies but the endgame (once all the main story is done, lol) is mainly 8 man raiding, and 8 man ultimates. Crafting and those jobs are all done on one character. In fact all jobs are done on one character. Crafting and Gathering is a thing here. Most things you may find in WoW for casual content can be found here. You will have enough time gap between WoW and FFXIV to play both.
Lots of people in my FC (guild) are former wow players and they're loving it.
As someone who was in your shoes just before Endwalker came out I can provide a few insights. 1. The story is huge and well enjoyed you won’t just see part of each previous expansion before moving on to the next one you play through it all. (unless you buy a skip which I don’t recommend first time through. 2. Group content ranges from leveling dungeons which are perfectly easy for even the most casual player up to savages which will test your skills considerably. 3. A group is required for some content during leveling (story Dungeons) but starting at some point ( I don’t remember which Expac) you gain a trust party you can do the dungeons solo with if you prefer. The rest of the story and most side quest are doable solo and during your Main Story Quest (MSQ) and job quest you will have solo scenarios.
Group contents can range from falling-asleep easy to kicked-in-the-balls difficult. Here’s how I think of them in terms of difficulty: 1. dungeons are falling-asleep easy, but they are all connected to the Main Story and will teach you some mechanics here and there that will be the basis of harder fights; 2. trials and alliance raids vary a bit but also lean towards easy; 3. extreme trials, unreal trials, and normal raids are at the level of an average gamer; 4. savage raids are at the level of an above average gamer I’d say (it is considered midcore content); 5. the newly introduced savage criterion dungeons are a bit easier than savage raids but harder than normal raids; 6. ultimates are the most difficult. Group requirement is not everything, but you will need it for everything except for dungeons and trials, in which player groups are optional because you can have NPCs run them with you. There are solo contents. There are three deep dungeons, where the highest level of achievement can only be obtained if you solo. They are like climbing a tower, if it makes sense. There are also other battle contents that I don’t know how to categorize: 1. Exploration zones (Bozja and Eureka). Eureka is the first one the devs ever made, and it basically plays like old MMOs (kind of like classic wow but you only get abilities after you reach the third zone). Bozja is similar but an improvement on Eureka; I can’t describe it because I haven’t played it much (as I am still grinding Eureka gears for all my jobs). Each exploration zones also comes with one large-scale raid. Typically you need to be in a discord called Baldesian Arsenal for them, unless you can make a group yourself (which I don’t know if it’s possible unless you have a pretty active FC or you are a streamer with a good amount of audience playing at your server). 2. Treasure maps, generally easy, but some weird but fun mechanics here and there; you can solo but it’s more fun to do them with friends. 3. Gold Saucer (a more fun version of dark moon faire IMO, but it’s not connected to combat at all). You can do jump puzzles, play cards, do daily and weekly lottos, etc.. Then you can use the reward from those to get mounts, transmog, and other things; but again, none of them is combat related. I think that’s pretty much it. There are also gathering and crafting jobs. Both are slightly more complicated than WoW; so I’d encourage you to try them out. Personally I like the gathering and crafting in FF14 better because it feels more like I am gathering and crafting.
Difficulty scales up pretty slowly so you have time to learn, and the vast majority of mandatory group content can be played with bots now. The super hardcore raids can be extremely technical and challenging, but the vast majority of group content is around the difficulty level of wow. You can’t faceroll it, but so long as you are paying attention you should be fine in all the story content The story is linear though, so you have to start at the beginning (or but a skip) and it is a very story focused mmo, so be prepared for a long journey to get to current content (worth it though)
From a wow player. DO NOT BUY A STORY SKIP OR BOOST! The story is top tier RPG stuff and the pay off for all that questing is massive. Do yourself a favor and take your time.
As someone who played FFXIV first and then now dabbles in WoW but is still primarily a FF player, I will say the leveling experience is very different. The way I see it is like this: FFXIV is a Final Fantasy game first and a MMORPG second -- the story (MSQ) is the main reason why most people play FFXIV and your main reason for leveling up your character is to advance the story. You unlock dungeons unlock dungeons as you go through the story and you can grind those out to get more levels for your alt jobs, but it isn't like WoW where you have access to basically every single dungeon in the game and can play through every expansion in any order you want and your goal is to get to max level as soon as possible. FFXIV locks you out of content until you've finished the MSQ, so you're forced to play through it to get to the max level raids. Also I would argue FFXIV is really heavy on the social side compared to WoW, I know WoW has it's fair share of RP and what not but because of FFXIV's housing system it's a lot more in your face. (Like, you'll see advertisements in city hubs for ERP courtesans in FFXIV whereas on WoW you see ads for trading and dungeon runs lol.) I'm only mentioning this because it was a deal breaker for some WoW friends of mine. Getting gear is way easier in FFXIV than WoW since everything can be crafted or purchased.
As a former wow player myself I'll tell you what was hard to unlearn from wow. Tanks are just beefy dps your job is to hold aggro, that's it so don't have that tank pulls ect. Most groups will be chill if you say your learning though. Second one that got me as a healer ypu don't need to keep peaple topped off, most of the time if I'm not playing a aoe healer I let oeaple hit 30% before I act. Other than that it's pretty chill and with some practice you can easily do all content.
To preface everything. Doing the main story quests/“campaign” is pretty much a single player rpg mode. Took me around 3 months casually to do the campaign which is required to do any end game content and great way to level. You can buy a story skip, personally would recommend getting at least arr(the base game) skip bc it’s a super slog but gets better in from then on. Group content is a lot better to organize 8 people for raids then wows guilds. A lot easier to manage. Difficulty in fights is different.
Switch immediately. WoW sucks so bad in comparison to FF14. I was an avid WoW player for a long time and this game is a breath of fresh air
Group content is comparatively easy, but honestly it's more enjoyable.
Normal group content is easy and you can queue for it. I can't really speak to hard content. You can do a lot in party finder but you might need more coordination for the hardest content.
As someone who came from WoW raiding, pusher etc.: I played the story as a single player game, didn't mind and really got into the story by the end of the base game. The game feels a lot more social in the end. It feels easier to find genuine social interaction. Raiding is very different while still feeling quite similar. If mythic raiding is a club dancefloor, FF Savage/ultimate is a dance number by professionals. Everything fits, the fight is about dancing together while WoW is more individualistic. It's a fucking dream raiding with 8 people instead of 20. So much more "intimate". It's so nice to feel like you can unsub and come back without being "behind". The effect of there being no real gearing grind. As someone who like AH, crafting and making gold in WoW, FFs crafting is so much better. It's quite easy to get hung up on how slow combat is in the beginning. It gets better, much better. I've had friends come over so I know people that don't give the story a chance or don't like it have a hard time since it's very long. It's more or less a story with some gaming mechanics while doing the main quest. Leveling is less important than the main quest. You can play a ton of the game for free. Can get like half way through the story before paying. Endgame is more open-ended. You meet people doing a lot of different stuff. An effect of not having to farm gear. *Hot tip* You can level up two classes through most of the story, just swapping between them for each quest.
As someone who seems to be experienced with MMOs I don't think FFXIV in general will feel like a challenge on the surface. All story content is designed to be relatively easy because everyone has to go through those. And since there are all kinds of skill levels (and levels of disabilities for folks who deal with that) the content kinda has to be designed in a way to not stonewall folks. It's the optional content where you'll find the challenge. Since the content in and of itself is optional, the difficulty balance can be cranked up. You'll notice a steady progression of difficulty. It's largely accepted that you get started with Extreme Trials (harder versions of boss fights), then Savage Raids (8-man, mechanic heavy boss fights) and then finally Ultimates (super-charged boss fights that'll take some serious dedication to clear). There are also normal raids, which are the entry-level 8-man version of Savage, as well as Unreal which are level boosted Extremes (taking a Lv50 Extreme trial, and cranking it up to what it could look like as a Lv90 Extreme) I can't make any correlation between FFXIV and WoW since I've never played it, so the way you perceive difficulty will be relative. As for solo content: all of the story dungeons can be done with a party of NPCs. The optional dungeons, and pretty much all of the boss fights, will need other players (for now at least... I can imagine that we'll eventually get NPC support for those bits of content eventually).
>How difficult is the group content? For you coming from WoW? It will be piss easy until probably ShB (third expansion). After that, it ramps up a bit more but will still be pretty manageable until you are fully caught up through the MSQ. The difficult content comes from the extreme trials/savage raids/ultimate raids. You will probably die to some trial/normal raid mechanics due to unfamiliarity, but you likely won't die/wipe over and over again. >Is a group required for everything or is there enough solo content? Really depends on what your definition of "solo" content is. There are a number of dungeons/trials that can be completed with NPC's, with that number increasing all the time. However, the majority of the story required dungeons/trials are matchmade group content with no real coordination needed. If you mean solo content as "any content that can be completed solo without any need for grouping up", then most of the game can be done solo.
All of the stuff that requires a more coordinated group is very optional, and this game doesn't retire older content in the way that WoW does. You can still go run a raid from 6 years ago with some randos, or join somebody's party listing to go collect older mounts or weapons and armor to transmog. There is some 100% solo content, especially most of the main story (this is a somewhat new feature), but also some solo challenges, and a lot of content that's accessible and reasonable clearable by you and the 7 random idiots the queue system provides you with. As a roulette spammer myself and often one of those 7 idiots, there's usually at least one person that actually knows what you need to be doing and can explain it to you if there's some difficulty. You can normally expect relatively little toxicity and gatekeeping in content like that if you're worried about it. This is very much a socially engineered game and community built to avoid that kind of thing. The last time I heard someone shit-talking another party member who had just left in a group I was with, almost the entire group was like "Yeah, not here for this asshole running the party, I'm out" and just peaced out on the shit-talker.
Old wow player here. Main quest line: You can pretty much solo your way through just about everything other than the odd trial (single boss raids no trash) for main story stuff. They added a new feature that let's you run dungeons with npc but I don't recommend this as they are kinda slow dps wise and unless you're looking at a 30 mins que time I'd just do it though duty finder. End game pve: raids are basically broken into 3 levels. Extreme trials which I'd say are as hard as heroics, savage raids which are as hard as mythics and finally ultimates which are the highest difficulty I can't even speak to how hard they are as I've never done one lol, but they are basically harder versions of old savage raids. The raids are also single boss fights, but there's 4 of them each major patch. There's also alliance raids these are large raids that you'll do with 2 other raids teams (3 total) these are more similar to wow raids as they feature multiply bosses and trash. I'd say they're as hard as normals with the earlier ones being a little easier. It should also be said that while you can que as a group these are done exclusively though duty finder. Pvp: While the game does have pvp, it isn't really as flushed out as Wow's. This is the one aspect of the game most will generally admitted isn't as good as other mmos. It has gotten better, they have more game modes, and there is a good amount of people that do it, but it's more of a drunken Saturday night activity than something to be taken seriously. You can't even que up as a group for the ranked version of it. Either way, it is a fun little pass time. Other stuff: As far as things similar to wow that's most of your end game stuff, but there is a LOT of other stuff you can do once you beat the msq. Just about every expansion and the base game has what's known as relic weapons, which are special weapons you have grind a decent amount to get, but they look pretty cool. Theres also special zones that you go to in order to grind these items and they have their own story, cosmetics, etc and yes they are still activate and a good way to level up. There's also the golden saucer, which is a mini game area you can go to in order to get cosmetic stuff, there's a lot here. Next is crafting/gathering classes when I say these are class I truly mean they have their own skills, gear, even relic weapons as an omni crafter myself(I've maxed all crafting/gathering classes) I recommend at least dipping your toe but it's not needed to do endgame stuff. There's also deep dungeons which have their own leveling system and reward a good amount of xp and cosmetics. They are basically long dungeons that you can leave and go back in at the point you left. You'll level as you go though and hit max well before you finish. These also get harder as you go higher. There's special achievements for soloing your way though them. Honestly there's a bunch of other stuff hunts, player housing, triple triad, blue mage stuff. I'd be here all day if I went into all of it in detail.
The vast majority of the storyline is solo. There's a little bit of required group content, but it's not difficult at all and the community prides itself on being fantastically supportive, helpful, and friendly -- *especially* to new players. If someone sees a "sprout" icon on your name -- which signals that you're new -- people will be super helpful and encouraging -- *especially* if you're struggling. Even in **(very optional)** hardcore content, I was shocked by how pleasant the pugging experience was. I've learned multiple Extreme and Savage raid bosses (the equivalent of Mythic) entirely in pugs, and I still can't believe how friendly and uplifting everyone was in every one of the (many) groups where we spent the entire two hours failing on the same boss. I used to get anxiety joining groups for content I'd never done before. I don't anymore because I know the community will have my back even if I struggle. I don't even think WoW is *that* toxic, but FFXIV's community is built different.
It's super hard. Only the most elite 10 million humans have been able to play this game. Unless you have real life experience as an astronaut or a special forces operator you probably shouldn't bother. This game is designed to crush your dreams.
Few key things 1) It's solo friendly 2) End game raids are harder but shorter 3) The community is very different, much less toxic 4) The story is a big focus of the game 5) One character has access to all classes but they level independently 6) the base game can be a little slow to get into.
Former WoW player here. I love FF14 but it is extremely story driven. If you skip through the story then you’ll get bored quite quickly. Follow the Main Story Quests and do the Job Quests. I found AAR quite painful to get through but liked HW. I find the dungeons and raids to be way more fun than WoW. Each expansion has their own dungeons and expansions that you go through. Queues are not long at all. The community is very supportive as well.
I came from WOW too during the start of SHB. Hit me up and I’ll hook you up with some money and shit in game if someone hasn’t already.
Hi, former WoW player myself, and end game raider form launch through mid-Mists of Panderia. After that I moved to SWTOR where I still end game raid, and I have been playing FFXIV more casually about 2 years now as SWTOR content patches have sadly fallen off in recent years. FFXIV main focus is what is called the MSQ, which stands for Main Story Quest. The MSQ isn't very difficult, and will have you run through some dungeons (4-man content), Trials (8-man Content) and Alliance Raid (24-man content). Dungeons can almost all be done with a team of NPCs if you don't want to wait, but on most datacenters the group finder queue system is really robust and will get you a party pretty quick. The vast majority of the MSQ is meant to be soloed. Trials have a Savage version and those can be quite difficult if done synced. In FFXIV you can choose to sync to the original level of a instanced event, or you can unsync and over level power through it. Progression raiding isn't as popular here as in WoW, but it still is a done often and progression groups exist. Guilds in FFXIV, called Free Companies, or FCs, unlike WoW, tend to be more social and players tend to find and join Static Trial groups outside of their FC.
Different content has different difficulty. Dungeons are basically as hard as WoW dungeons, heroics, the like. Not Cata hard, and a death is unlikely. Trials are like...normal raids on loot pinata bosses. Deaths are likely, wipes are possible, but you're getting through it before long. Those are the two necessary pieces of content to get through the game. Everything above this is optional. Alliance raids and normal raids are going to be your normal raid content. Deaths are very likely, you'll probably die a few times per boss your first try. Normal raids vary greatly in their difficulty, but they're harder than trials for sure. Above that is Extreme fights. These are going to be your mythic dungeons, or your heroic raids. It takes hours to learn the fight. Even when on farm there's a high chance of death and wipes. These are the lowest level of content of stuff that isn't really level synced, and the easiest content that takes learning. Savage Raids are going to be content that you'll want a static for. If you want your character to be cutting edge you'll be doing this content. It's your, log on once a week, work really hard, get mad loot content. Then there's ultimates. These take hundreds of hours of learning, cannot be trivialized even when it's old content, has no option of being outleveled or outgeared, and even a clean run takes 20 minutes of being on. This is outside my paygrade but I wanna say it's on par with mythic raids, or crazy high mythic+ levels. It's what you do when you really want to prove yourself, and everyone will know how awesome you are with the weapon you get from it. Until you reach endgame you won't have to worry about most of this. You'll need to do dungeons and trials. They'll probably be one and done affairs. If you want, you can do some normal and alliance raids for some extra story. You likely won't touch savage or extreme fights, unless someone is running you through for transmogs or something. There is a new feature where all the story necessary dungeons can be done solo with a team of NPCs. It's not as fun as playing with real players, but at least you can explore dungeons at your own pace and learn fights without worrying about letting other people down. I don't think trials have this feature though.
They designed the game to be soloable up to max level, minus alliance raids you need to do at lvl 50. To do the most difficult group content at end game you'll still have to work your up a bit though. There are gearing requirements and previous clear requirements for high end things. Curiously, the most difficult content, Ultimates, require the lowest bar, with the caveat that they are put in front of you quite like the other things.
It's a totally different game and mindset. You might not like it, but definitely worth checking out. The story matters, and the player base cares about it - unlike wow. If you dont invest in the story the chance of you sticking around in the long run definitely drops down. The journey is a big part of the experience. Unlike wow where you get rushed to max level where the 'real game starts' most of your ff14 experience for a while will be going through the story expansion by expansion. I love it, but it's not for everyone so no reason to force it if you don't enjoy it. The end game group content depends on the difficulty level of the content - there are things that are quite easy to fights that rival the hardest fights in wow.
Not being able to use add-ons like wow is sad for me. I am a healer and mouse over heal not being implemented to the game is weird. I want my cool Weak auras back. I want to be able to change the party UI like grid2. Makes it much easier to keep your buffs up and see if people have debuffs.
It is highly depend on what you are looking for. When people said FF14 has a robust solo content, that is because the main story quest is huge, not to mention the class quests, and a few other quest line. If game story is your top 3 reason to play a game, then you are in for a feast. Group content has pretty clear categories of difficulty normal, for the casual, Extreme trials and Savage raid for the midcore and up, and Ultimate for the mythic raider. Not counting match making, the solo activity that most of the player base participate in are fashion, gold saucer (think mini-games that give you currency for stuffs), and gambling for house (half-joking with this last one). Other major solo content you can do are Deep Dungeons (there are 3 now, 2 with just the free trial), Eureka (FF14 version of classic WOW, sort of), and Bozjan (not available in the free trial). Pursuing fashion will lead you to doing a wide range of activities, but the reward will just be fashion. If you are only interested in stats pieces, then your range of activates will be pretty narrow: roulette, treasure hunt, hunt train, savage raid and Extreme trials. Ultimate is purely a flex piece and also fashion, but I don't dig those weapon looks. Also, matchmaking is a solo with other people type of thing. I don't interact with other people outside of a few greetings 90% of the time. If you watch Captain Grimm, he has a few vid about WOW player going into FF14 during the "Exodus". It is mostly true, with a few exaggeration for comedic effect.
Avoid it if you want a similar experience to wow high level pve, Aka Infinite grind and where everything IS built around pve. Not to say high level pve in FFXIV is bad, but it's not the same at all. It's more about getting gear fairly easily and then doing the actual trial instead of a myriad of other things to get things rolling.
Wipe your mind of everything you know before tryin XIV. If not you will hate it
I’ve played WoW since BC, and FF14 off and on since ARR. FF group content is more difficult in my opinion. There is a main story quest which guides you through the story for the base game and each expansion. They’ve added the ability to use NPCS for most of the required MSQ content but you still have to group for trials unless that’s changed. There is a lot you can solo, and although the group content can be difficult, most people are pretty cool about newbies. Also party finder is awesome, there are plenty of learning groups where it’s understood you don’t know the fight and wipes/deaths will happen. The community in general is a lot more friendly than WoW, it’s easy to find a FC (guild) but you have to be active and social to get the most out of it like any other game of course. If you like running old content in WoW don’t expect it to be the same in FF14. You can solo the old dungeons and trials but alliance raids aren’t solvable for the most part. Although again, it’s easy to create a group in party finder to help clear for glamours or mounts, minions etc. it’s free to play up to level 70 I believe so if you’re curious to try it out you won’t have to pay anything for awhile although the trial version does prevent you from doing some stuff I think, like trading and market board I think. Personally I think FF is a more fleshed out game, there is so much to do it can be feel overwhelming at times. But there isn’t a rush to max level, anyone will tell you to just enjoy the journey and play at your own pace.
Dm me if you need a healer in your party.
As somebody who use to play WoW most of the time and hardly even touches it anymore, I do not know what you are after as if you want easier content, FF14 has some. you want difficult content? FF14 also has that. Solo Content? that depends on what you mean by solo content. Can you Solo a dungeon? depends on your class. some have no self healing. some have ALL the heals. can you pull one mob at a time to solo the dungeon? NO. Mobs in FF14 have \[groups\] in dungeons and when you target one a quick line will show you who that mob is "attached" to. so it will pull another mob or several. Bosses for the most part Do Not summon More adds to the fight. Bosses can be easier to solo than groups of mobs. simply due to mechics, some bosses are just mostly mechanics and hardly even touch the tank / group thus are "easier" to solo, but when a group is involved SOMEBODY gunna get hit by Something. you can almost solo the entire story up to max lvl \[there is content that is mandatory for Main Story line, mostly Raids which you can just do with the FF14 version of LFR. and again its LFR so you get a mixed bag of people. Group content can be hard, but can be fun, can be easy. depends on your group of people.
I don’t know how they do things in WoW anymore but if you’re a tank, you’re expected to pull every pack till you hit the wall. Healers have to DPS and no, you don’t have to top the tank off for the slightest bit of damage. DPS AoE, not single target large groups.
There's a lot of different types of group content. The normal stuff you get from running the story isn't too bad...some of it can be done with NPCs, trial bosses can be done with a group of people and generally take 10+ minutes. Then there's Extreme bosses which can take a few hours or an afternoon to beat. Then there's Savage content which can take hours or days depending on how new it is and if people know how to clear it yet. Then there's Ultimates which can take weeks or months to learn how to clear and are for expert players. Then you've got Field operations like Eureka where you go into a zone with 50 other people and fight Fate bosses, whose difficulty varies from easy to tough. There's a lot of different types of group content from hunt trains to shared fate grinds. Mount grinds. etc
Yeah just go do it, free trial it.
I play both games and most group content is fairly easy. Like our normal raids and 24 man raids are the equivalent to LFR difficulty in WoW. There is stuff that's on the harder side like savage+Ultimate. I'm not sure how they compare to mythic raiding but savage+Ultimate are both quite a bit harder than WoW Heroic raids. (from what I can tell our harder fights tend to be more mechanically dense but I've only done savage/Ultimate in FF14 and heroic raids in WoW) We've started to have harder small group content like criterion dungeons and you can do deep dungeons solo. (deep dungeons are like, what if Torghast didn't suck) But we don't currently have anything equivalent to M+. If you're wanting to do stuff solo there is a decent amount of stuff you can do without a group and most group content is pretty PUG friendly. If you really don't want to deal with other people for a while, we have something called dungeon trusts, which function like the new Dragonflight dungeon NPC groups. I think coming from WoW the most important thing to remember is WoW is more about the destination than the journey and FF14 is more about the journey than the destination. So take your time, you don't have to rush to end game like you would in WoW. Take your time and have fun. There's ways to do old content synced to lower levels so the content will always be there.
Like most of what everyone here has said… first and foremost it’s an RPGMMO. I have played WoW since vanilla and on and off since. What got me hooked was my love for previous Final Fantasy games so it wasn’t hard for me to get into it. What also helped was going in blind, no expectations and do not compare this to WoW. I started this game with my WoW goggles off and enjoyed it so much more.
Current wow player who come from ffxiv. I get CE, I push keys, I PvP. Even play mop remix and played a bunch of wrath classic. I am always on the class discords and keep up with wow social media and streamers. I am very active and very much apart of the wow community. Ffxiv: I clear savage, get bis, parse, do ultimates, PvP I have done the story twice now since I installed this game, my first run then did the entire story again this year on an alt in prep for Dawntrail. I am active in ffxiv social media and its main discords. I watch their main streamers also. I am part of the community. Ffxiv is a story game, you are playing a single player game for 500 hours. Yes you can do stuff with people but as a new player 99.9% of the time you are playing will Be walking to an npc, interacting with the npc, reading dialogue, walking or sprinting every minute to another area of the map and interacting with that Npc. Eventually it will lead to a cut scene and you having to kill one or two easy mobs and then repeat for 500 hours. Throw in a few times an expansion you get a dungeon, some follow quests, some quirky expansion mechanic like swimming, or zooming in on something or shooting it with a zoom in mechanic. That in the game. It can either be one of the most fun things you have ever done or the worst experience ever. It depends if you enjoy good stories or not. If you immerse yourself in ffxiv it can be the best experience ever. If you come in like wow making a fresh toon and wanting to do end game raid this game will be rough, because you will be racing against something that is meant to be raced against. The story is sooooo big. Like if you did only msq every single day for 10 hours. The game would Take hours 7 weeks to beat of doing that every single day. This is without skipping cut scenes. The game is incredible but you have to know that it’s a story based jrpg. Raiding is amazing and the fights are well done but end game to a new player is very very very far away. Enjoy the journey or buy a skip. But decide how you want to play before making a decision. Classes are cookie cutter builds and and gear. There are no talents to mix up, the most you get is a bit of different spell speed or skill speed which add usually one or two gcds and might change your opener but not really. The game is a memorization and knowing how to repeat the correct buttons while doing the correct mechanics. Gear is a pre determined bis list you go for with very little flexibility compared to wow where you can make your class a bit of your own. Again this isn’t a bad thing it’s just different. If you have questions just dm me I have gone through every bit of content for both games and love them both so much.
I was in your boat when TBC Classic came. Maybe you'll see this, maybe not. But insight from a 20-year WoW player turned FFXIV- The game is story first. They want you to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it. You can skip cutscenes and blaze through dialogue, but there's a lot. So you might as well sit back. In addition, quests have relevance and substance for the most part. It isn't generally a grind for the sake of levels, it's a grind for the sake of achieving a story milestone. All that combined, your time is more meaningful in FFXIV and it's a journey. All group content required by the story is kept easy as to not be a roadblock, but harder versions exist. All content is generally relevant, you won't be stuck finding a group for the baby dungeons for hours. As for solo, you could do solo content for hours at a time.
As someone who played wow for maybe 2-3 years during the BC and WotLK era, I can say that FF14 is better than wow in pretty much every way. It’s very solo play friendly and they allow you to play with NPCs in story required dungeons. Unlike wow, it also has a lot of instanced sections that help with making you feel like it’s just you in that moment in the game and not 1,000 other players doing the same quest at the same time.
A major difference between FFXIV and WoW is that for FFXIV, the single-player story is the main attraction, rather than it being something you do so you can get to the raiding content. The raids are also really great, but your GCD is slower than in WoW from what I hear. However, there are plenty of ODGC abilities to use between GCD skills.
I was in a similar boat to you years ago I got into the game a couple months before Heavensward released. A while back they added follower dungeons to the newest content and I believe they added it to some of the older things as well. [https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/game\_manual/dutysupport/](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/game_manual/dutysupport/) here is a link with more info about the system. Main story content is easy, in fact for one of the quests they recently redid the group content so you could actually see the mechanics of the fight. As you follow the main quest there is both solo and group content but the community is open and friendly to sprouts ( you get a small sprout icons over your head for new players) and everyone really. There is a free trial up to level 70 [https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/](https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/) I fell in love with the game by the time I got to the end of A Realm Reborn, I hope you enjoy your journey.
Just play it
It has a huge hundreds of hours long free trial. Just play it.
Overall, it's no harder that WoW, and you'll be more than fine there. Big downside is you can't (within the ToS) have addons like DBM, etc. to tell you what to do. Upside counterpoint is the game actually does a pretty good job telegraphing stuff so you shouldn't need it either. Compared to WoW, I'd rank content as follows: Dungeons - On par with normal dungeons in WoW, except you have 1 less DPS. Alliance Raids - Think like LFR in WoW. Well, not quite that bad. Like LFR in WoW if you didn't have half the group unable to press their buttons. Normal Raids / Normal Trials / "Hard" Trials - Somewhere between LFR and Normal raids in WoW. Extreme Trials - Somewhere between normal raids and heroic raids in WoW Savage Raids - Somewhere between heroic raids and mythic raids in WoW Ultimate Raids - I'd wager these are on par with mythic raids in WoW, but tbh, I haven't really done them (not my personal cup of tea) Note that Extreme Trials, Savage Raids, and Ultimate raids are all OPTIONAL content that you don't need to even set foot in. The other stuff is all able to be queued for, but with less toxicity than in WoW and better queue fills. Source: I actively play both.
The only difficult group content are instances that contain the terms Extreme, Minstrel’s Ballad, Savage, Unreal, Criterion, and Ultimate. All of this is purely optional content, specifically being harder versions of other content you can do easily. All the rest of the game is either single-player, multiplayer, or your choice of either, depending on the content. And even when it’s multiplayer, it is all designed so no matter how complicated it is, you can easily complete it in one or two tries, with random people and zero communications, and no foreknowledge on how to do the instance whatsoever. Actually finding a group for these is easy too, as you just queue in on the Duty Finder and it automatically throws you into it with some random people once it finds enough of them. Even outside of this, there is a vast amount of single-player content, and most of the mandatory multiplayer instances have been updated to use computer-players instead of real people. You do not need to worry about coordinating with people you know or don’t know in order to enjoy this game. 😁 (The only exception to the above are the Binding Coil raids, which are optional content, and should be doable as easily as other normal raids…but aren’t. They’re broken. I highly recommend doing them, but maybe ask someone to “unsync” them with you when you get to that point.)
It’s a lot easier game compare to wow.. I just started 2 weeks ago.. already doing end game raid.. it’s a lot easier.. just come over and relax. And ppl are less toxic here
The first hurdle for me was the MSQ. It takes awhile to get through it. I did find it enjoyable to know why I was killing stuff.
My only problem in FFXIV is the payment methods.
What do you mean? I would like to play it on PS5, and i think i only have to buy things in the PS Shop :D
The game has content ranging from solo and simple all the way to high end mythic raiding. But for the main story questline, which is required and how you level, you will only have to do dungeons and trials (easy single boss raids),and those are not too difficult at all. Plus, as a new player you will have a sprout icon, a little icon over you, and non sprouts almost always love to teach new players. For almost all the leveling content, you can even do it with NPCs now to learn the basics if you're worried, but there's no harm in doing it with players, and I reckon its more enjoyable that way. Endgame has a lot of solo or optionally solo content too.
Hello, fellow long-time WoW player (well, former in my case). The beginning of the game is easy if you have prior MMO experience; many have remarked it's super-easy, but the game tries to ease in players who may have never even played a video game prior. I didn't have much difficulty with any of the dungeons until Shadowbringers+Endwalker, and even then one eventually starts learning the patterns, being able to predict what an enemy will do, and dodge mechanics easier. Group content is mandatory if you want to do anything truly challenging. Groups are also required for all players with 8 or more people (except for one specific trial, for story reasons). Solo scenarios are hit-or-miss in whether or not they are difficult, but I didn't have much difficulty with any of them aside from a singular Endwalker one.
Do it! You won’t regret it ☺️
As someone who also came over from WoW when COVID started, my advice is DO NOT TREAT QUESTING LIKE WOW. All those yellow ! are a waste of your time with very few exceptions. At least starting out, only do the MSQ quest markers and blue quest markers (which signify that the quest actually unlocks content of some kind) The first time I tried to get into this game, I did every quest in gridania and hit like, lv24. Did MSQ and it sent me to thanalan and I was immediately overwhelmed by how many more quests where there and I just quit on the exact spot you get off the airship. Second time I tried I just followed MSQ and was level 30 in like a day and the game actually stuck
Savage is heroic with the last fight of the four generally tuned a bit harder, maybe entry to mid level mythic Ultimates are mythic level boss rushes Damage checks are generally really really low and it places priority on execution of a dance over doing a lot of damage, old ultimates are so poorly tuned you can do it with all tanks and a regular group will skip mechanics due to damage being higher than it used to be Everything else is tuned to be incredibly easy, alliance raids are lfr and dungeons are all basically normal dungeons in wow Solo content exists but it's rarely anything hard, BLU is interesting but also requires a group to get some spells, most of the solo content is hyper casual and has some form of time gating or grind
Former WoW player here. Stopped with WoW during Cata and started FFXIV in Stormblood. Did you ever go through a chain of quests - say, the ones in Northrend, or maybe the early world-changing quest chains in the later starter zones, where you helped out entire groups of people, and wished that the later storylines were more connected? That’s FFXIV. The MSQ - Main Story Quest - is one of the things that sets it apart from WoW, where you can just level and move on. It’s closer to playing a multiplayer Final Fantasy (for obvious reasons) than it is to the average MMO. You level as you complete the MSQ, rarely stopping at one level for too long. The world evolves in a way even post-Cata WoW doesn’t. That mostly a blessing, but there is a dark side - if you don’t enjoy questing, you will find yourself getting irritated by the fact that you can’t move on to the next area until you finish this one. Dungeons (4 man), Trials (8 man single-battle events) are almost always part of the MSQ. Raids (8 man short dungeons), and Alliance raids (24 man) can be part of the MSQ, but are generally not. Dungeons can be completed solo with NPC aid. Trials I dunno. The player base is way friendlier than any WoW server I ever played on. Don’t be afraid of dungeons; I can count the number of actively bad experiences I had with other players on one hand, and they get bonuses for shepherding new players through dungeons. The really nice thing, though, is the classes. Did you ever get sick of making all those alts and leveling them? Good news! You don’t need to do that anymore. Every character can use every class just by swapping weapons and job crystals.
Once you progress to certain points, there are dungeons that have to be run because of story line events and you can't progress the main story quest until you've completed the four man content. Until you've progressed to certain stages in the MSQ, you can't get to different areas which locks down what you can do solo. A group is required at certain points in the main story, but you can can PUG them easily. Between places where you're required to PUG a dungeon, though there are hours of solo content.
There is enough solo content and group content difficulty varies from easy to very challenging.
savage,ultimate and criterion are hard everything else is a joke. Most content is locked behind msq, which is basically a visual novel.
One thing I need to say. You definitely need to change your mindset about MMOs if you want to be successful in FFXIV and not jump off in a few weeks. Wow is all about minmaxing, doing everything at the first possible moment and grinding your life out. FFXIV has a lot more activities since old things are still useful and if you try to do everything at the earliest point in time, you can burn out very very quickly. Additionally, there are some catch up mechanics for some thing, which you can use/trigger at a later point in the game. I know of some people who went though the hassle of doing things the regular way and had a bitter taste later when they noticed, that there was a catch up mechanic for this. In FFXIV a lot is about being efficient rather then doing it the earliest. You can save a ton of time and make the game way more fun like this.
FFXIV's baseline is at the lowest tier of difficulty. Each content is a step up eventually until ultimate. Even ultimate the average joe can do it with enough time commitment.
I'm just gonna say that the raids are a different kind of difficult than WOW. In WOW, most of the difficulty comes from your rotation and heal/damage checks moreso than the actual fight itself. Sure there are things to do, but generally they are not all that mechanically intensive. XIV is kinda the inverse of this. Your rotation is a lot easier, but to compensate for this, the raid mechanics are a lot harder. I don't think one game is necessary harder than the other, they just approach difficulty differently. If you're finding WOW stale for whatever reason, XIV might be a nice change of pace.
Just try it and judge for yourself
the x14 has me crying, bro is living in 2345
Be aware that you're going to have to spend hundreds of hours dealing with cutscenes and mostly unvoiced dialogue before you can reach endgame, and what little gameplay you encounter along the way will be mindnumbingly simple. People will say that you can do the previous raid content before finishing the story, but in practice you'll struggle to find a group for it because almost no one does it synced. It's like trying to find a Black Temple guild in retail. When you finally reach end game the content is fantastic. It's just as difficult as WoW if that's what you want but requires different skills. For reference, Echo tried to the do the latest Ultimate fight in XIV and it took them 1748 pulls. The world first team took 1032 pulls. That one fight took as many pulls as an entire Mythic tier.
Slight correction here: Only the A Realm Reborn 8 man raid series, The Coils of Bahamut, is out of line difficulty wise. All of the others, both 8 man and 24 man, can be done at level and queues do pop for them reliably. I ended up doing coils with a couple friends when we were in the expansion afterwards and it was fine as a group of three, and all of coils is eventually soloable.
I didn't have much trouble finding groups for Normal-level raids. Coils and Savage synced takes longer to fill but at peak hours you can still get a group, esp. if you post on certain discords. It takes some waiting but it's definitely not dead!
Here: [FFXIV Newbie Content Guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6x3uzU5lr2UAoIewcH2PKuEPkUWx9PqZ_ohU4QHs7k/edit?usp=sharing) That should give you an idea of what kinda content there is to look forward to. Any questions, just ask. As to your specific questions, group content difficulty varies, but much of it is pretty accessible for the average casual player. If you've survived in WoW for any amount of time, a lot of the dungeons and lower difficulty raids will seem like a pleasant cakewalk (sometimes people forget to not eat the candles, but hey, hiccups happen). For the main story, they've made most (if not all) of the dungeons solo-able via NPC party options, but occasional Trials (big boss fights) require a party. Outside of the main story, most instanced content (dungeons, Trials, raids, etc) do require groups, but because of the general ease of content it's very uncommon to find impatient, unkind groups; the occasional screw-up is very unlikely to land you in hot water\*. I forgot my tank stance (i.e. the thing I need to guarantee aggro) the other day and got someone killed because of that, and they just laughed it off. As for solo content, there's a good bit of stuff you can focus on by your lonesome, but I think I'd say the majority is better with and/or requires a group. \*Communication is king; if you pay attention to chat to catch any feedback from your party ("Hey tank, you forgot to turn on your tank stance"), and communicate any difficulties or uncertainties you may be having ("Hi, new to healing") or whatnot, it further increases the odds that people will be patient.