Black Raven Dragoons

[Tirian]

Guild Wars 2 vs Final Fantasy 14. /discuss

I've struggled to get into any GW classes, though I can't say why.

[Zancarius]

They're both MMOs?

[Grimblast]

I can list what I perceive to be pros and cons I suppose. Let's start with Guild Wars 2.

Pros:

No subscription fee, no holy triad(meaning no tank or healer), New content each month, reaction based gaming(the ability to dodge)

Large gaming world to explore with eye candy.

Down scaling of high level players based on a zones level cap as well as dungeon level cap.
Gathering nodes are instanced to you so others can plink the same vein or gather the same herb as you.

Plenty of waypoints for fast travel all over the world.

Crafting. Easy system that can actually level you to max level if you are dedicated enough.

Percentile based XP gain. Everything you do is worth a percentage of your XP. So even the most simplest actions can level you.

Simple gear stat Itemization. You get what you see. The stats are mostly universal across the board.

Cons:

Month to Month living content goes away forever once it has been in existence for a few weeks.

No holy triad(trust me, there are times you wish it was there)

Reaction based gaming(not everyone can dodge very fast, some factors include latency or no understanding of the dodge mechanic)

No mounts due to the waypoint system.

As much as I like Guild Wars 2, my biggest complaint is the fact all of the content they added just evaporates and doesn't come back save for the holiday content. It actually ticks me off after playing a year of the game. It was fun smashing dungeons and building a legendary weapon but the game would be more awesome if all of this so called living content stuck around forever. Why put all that work into building the content and not allowing it to stick around?

Now for Final Fantasy 14.
Pros

Multi class system allows any character the ability to be any class you want and change between them based on your weapon. Not to mention an actual Dragoon class.

Built in ability to define sets of gear for ease of use for each class you play on a character.

Subscription fee based on the number of characters you want per server. For instance, its cheaper to pay for a 1 character per server subscription than it is to have one for 8 characters per server. $2 or $3 difference though.

Massive world to explore with lots of eye candy.

Chocobo's for mounts(you know you want to ride one motherwarker!)

Holy triad based group makeup. Party sizes are typically 4. Some dungeons take 8 to get in.

Duty Finder. Think of this as an LFG tool to fill the blanks in your party if you are solo'ing or don't have enough to get a dungeon moving. It has been reliable so far and my general experience has been douche free.

Levequests. Think of these like dailies you don't have to do everyday. You can save up 100 allowances for them to do later if you want. They are consumed when you start a Levequest. Consider these as filler quests when you go to level other classes.

Aetheryte waypoints for fast travel in cities and to towns.

Way more dungeons than GW2. I've not seen this many dungeons since WOW.

6 Simple stats for gear itemization. Helps you sort out what stats you need. 3 for physical classes and 3 for caster classes. Pretty cut and dry.

You can customize your UI elements and move them where you want them.

Macros. You can build up to 99 Macros in game to make your experience a little bit easier but you are limited to 15 lines per macro. Sure makes crafting and healing easier at times.

Cons

Subscription Fee. It's a bummer to pay a subscription after a year of Guild Wars 2.

Holy Triad. Yeah, it's great to get back to it but people are still derpy and stand in the big red circle that indicates something bad is coming that way.

Duty Finder. If you aren't a tank and healer, the finder may take a few minutes. As with any MMO, there's always a shortage of tanks and healers.

Dungeons. The training wheels come off after level 20 so people start realizing how much they really need to upgrade that gear.

Crafting is like a complex minigame. Matter of fact, there are multiple crafting classes which means you have to work hard for those levels. Crafting in this game is not for the faint of heart but is worth it in the end if you can get it far enough for what you want.

Gathering. Refer to Crafting con. This is very grindy and takes time to go up in level once you clear level 10. Could be good or bad based on each players experience.

Lots of information on screen. Matt pointed out that when he started playing, he couldn't see anything due to the scrolling combat text and the name plates. He was able to adjust that off screen and only show if something is hostile towards him but it wasn't that way by default.

No Addons. I almost consider this a Pro but most seem to think all MMOs should have addon capability ever since WOW.

Possible language barrier. I've encountered Japanese players on the North American servers and while they all know english to some degree, I don't think they understand everything I type at times. There is an ingame translation command they use so their language is translated into something we see as them asking for help or an invite but I'm not sure it's very accurate. There isn't an alarming amount of them but I must admit, its kinda cool to play with people from other countries!

Not all cutscenes have voice acting. They choose the strangest cut scenes to have voice and then some that don't. I don't get it. So get your reading glasses on! It gives you that authenticate Final Fantasy dialogue reading experience!

When FF14 was first released it was an unfinished product and crashed badly. After they brought in a new team and director though, they seemed to have fixed the game and made it very playable. Like any subscription game, the content stays save for any holiday content. I've enjoyed playing different classes and being to cross class abilities(shared between classes) to add to my fun and strategy. It's been so long since I've experienced the holy triad that I've welcomed it. HG has been tanking while I healed for him and now we are branching out to other classes because this game makes you want to play it all. For players like me that usually have alt-itus, having all my classes on one character may not be a bad thing. The world is huge and you will get a mount as you progress your story quests. Lots of nice plot twists happen and great story telling happens. Just like any Final Fantasy game, you have your epic battle between good and evil. If you've ever played a Final Fantasy game, you will definitely have some nostalgia due to the class system since they used it way back in the very early days of the franchise and have brought it back in multiple games.

Anyways, this is all I could come up with on short notice and I'm sure others can add to this.

[Highgrade]

I am enjoying final fantasy. It lacks some of the polish of other games. But it's still relatively new.

[Elade]

14 is seven times better than 2. Bam. Question answered. Discussion dominated. Now I'ma go back to doing real life things.

[Highgrade]

wow Elade..... mind = blown. you win the game!

[Grimblast]

Hah!

[Tirian]

Thanks for the input guys, very help. Josh, super thorough as always!

I am surprised to say that I started leveling a druid on a WoW EU server. So far I'm having a lot more fun than I was managing with the 3 classes I tried in GW 2.