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FFXI or WoW
brandonb2008
Member Posts: 15
Out of the two of them which is better. Note I am a huge Final Fantasy fan and my friend really wants to try wow and wants me to?
Comments
EDIT: ok I was going to keep this post blank...but w/e. Uhm I never played FFXI So i cannot comment but I had a blast playing WoW..I eventually stopped because i was sorta bored though. FFXI does look neat though. Sorry that wasn't very helpfull
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Well, depends. All of WoW's end game content in instanced. Also, it's relatively easy and not that much of a timesink. Finally, WoW has a LOT of PvP.
As for FFXI, it's a MASSIVE timesink, and NONE of the endgame conent is instanced at all, which often leads to chaos for those people after certain pieces of equipment. But, it does share the same themes as the other final fantasy games (note: There's only 1 true sequal in the FF series, but they all share the same themes...self-sacrifice, fighting for the greater good, and of course, love). There's very limited PvP, and I think it's limited to just a certain area with a certain type of weapon or something (I haven't played FFXI myself to know for sure).
So here's how I'd make my decision if I were you. For starters, I recommend you figure out how many hours a week you have to play, and also consider how long individual time periods you'd have to play. If you've got at least 3-6 hours a day, most of it consecutive, then FFXI would probably be a better choice. As for WoW, if you've got less time, or want an "easier" game (easier by a hardcore gamer's point of view), then go with WoW. If you want a LOT of PvP, go WoW. Otherwise, go FFXI.
I played both (although I spent a lot more time on WoW)
FFXI: I uninstalled this after one day =/ the game is SLOOOOOOOW they aren't kidding when they say it's the king of grinders. It's not a bad game, but...as much as I love FF, this game just killed me. It's like playing an entire MMO in slow motion, even walking/running is slower.
WoW: Unfortunately, other then your traits (I forget exactly what they are called, its the powers you pick after level 10 that boost you a little bit like +2% fire damage) and your craft skills...the game is to cookie cutter for me. Every 10th level mage will have the exact same spells, every 20th mage has the same spells, with minor side effect changes. Every high level character tries to have the same equips as every other high level char built for the same purposes. It's one huge cookie cutter game. Fun game, yes. But I need more customizability in my games.
I have no experience playing WoW but a lot of experience playing FFXI so I'll just summarize what to expect from FFXI. I've been playing FFXI for just over a year and have over 120 days of playtime. I'm planning on quitting at the end of this month because I don't like the update they made to beastmaster and no longer have anything left to do in the game that I find fun.
First off, progress in FFXI is glacial. I didn't really have a problem with this, but it is something you should be aware of. After that much playtime, I have a level 60 beastmaster and a level 56 white mage plus various assorted other jobs. The level cap is 75. I think level 62 or 63 is the halfway point on xp to reach level cap and the rate you gain xp stays roughly the same as you level up. There is also a crafting system with equally slow progression. Crafting caps out at level 100 and the progress really slows after level 60. Skillups are random (based on many factors) and generally give 0.1 of a level each. I found that synthing the same item 12 times usually resulted in about .3 skillups. The game limits synths to a maximum rate of one synth every 30 seconds, so the time adds up especially after gathering ingredients. Combat is also fairly slow. It can take 5 seconds inbetween automatic weapon swings with several weapons. Some classes are very busy during combat while others auto-attack and do 1 special move per combat roughly. Travel takes a while. It usually takes about 20-30 minutes to get to an xp location.
I'll go over the most often cited pluses/minuses for FFXI that people mention and give you my opinions.
Party play
Parties require teamwork and cooperation to be efficient. I think this is probably the biggest plus to the game but also leads to its biggest weaknesses. Almost all content is 6 PCs versus 1 higher level mob. An efficient party will usually have the following elements: a tank, a healer, 2 damage dealer melee jobs, a mana refresher/buff remover, a damage dealing mage job. The tank keeps hate and keeps damage to a minimum (usually ninja[they get blink shadows] or paladin, sometimes warrior). The healer heals (usually a white mage, summoner, or red mage). The mana refresher/buff remover keeps mp up, removes buffs from the mob, and either buffs the party or debuffs the mob (either a red mage or bard). The 2 melee damage delears soften the target up and create a skillchain. The damage dealing mage magic bursts on the skillchain.
Combat is centered around the concept of a skillchain. Whenever you hit a mob, you get tactical points (TP). When you get 100 TP, you can use a weapon skill which is like an extra attack for big damage. You typically get enough TP to use a weapon skill about once per fight. If two players use compatible weapon skills 3 seconds apart, it creates a skillchain which does extra damage to the mob. The skillchain also reduces the mobs ability to resist magic of certain elements depending on the skillchain. If a spell of that element is cast at the right time after a skillchain, a magic burst occurs and the spell will likely hit for full damage. A skill chain plus magic burst can often take 1/3 of the HPs away from the mob.
While the cooperation required makes combat more interesting, the inflexibility of party roles makes parties hard to form. This leads to long looking for party times which is one of the main complaints people raise about FFXI. Parties form fairly quickly up until level 37 or so. After level 41, party dynamics are very rigid in most cases (although I hear they become more free-form again near level cap). A 41+ party almost always consists of: tank (ninja or paladin only), healer (white mage, summoner, or red mage only), mana refresh/mob buff removal (red mage or bard only), mage damage dealer (black mage only, sometimes replaced with another melee damage dealer), 2 melee damage dealers (any of about 9 jobs). As you can see, there is an excess of melee damage dealers and these jobs tend to have long looking for party times. If you can't find a PC of the appropriate job to fill one of the needed party roles, you are just SOL. The hardest roles to fill are mana refresher, healer, tank in that order. Additionally, it is very inefficient to party with people that are more than 2 levels different from you. A full party of 6 is almost required, although 5 can do ok. Putting together the appropriate combination of jobs and levels can easily take an hour even if you are one of the in demand jobs. Add in 15 minutes waiting on people and 30 minutes to get to camp, and taking 1.75 hours to get in position to get xp is not uncommon.
A typical xp sessions goes: look for party(.5-1.5 hours), gather everyone together and decide where to go(.25-1 hours), travel to camp(.25-.5 hours), one person pulls mobs one at a time and everyone beats them up(until people have to leave), either replace leaving members or everyone warps back to town. Killing things is by far the most common way of getting xp and probably the fastest. Soloing is horribly inefficient at higher levels. The only job that this is an exception for is beastmaster, but this was recently made more difficult. A few other jobs can get halfway reasonable, but slow experience solo at higher levels, but most jobs cannot. A very few select quests give xp (give non-tradeable item that gives xp), but most quests do not.
Graphics
I think FFXI has pretty graphics. FFXI uses a realistic style to graphics. Characters and equipment look nice but there is very little variety. There is a lot of pop up of mobs which is kind of irritating at times.
Crafting
The crafting system is ok and one of the few things that can be done solo other than farming mobs for money. When you attempt to craft something, you either fail (possibly losing items), succeed, or get one of 3 high quality results. The durable crafts are basically huge money sinks at this point since all of the reasonable skillup paths include synths that either nobody wants or the normal result is dumped for a loss by crafters attempting to create high quality items. Since items in FFXI don't wear out, many synths become bigger and bigger losses over time.
Economy
The economy continues to experience significant inflation largely across the board. The best loot in the game almost always comes from a hard to obtain drop that is often then crafted into the final equipment. The best items continue to rise quickly in price as the resources to make them are inherently limited. The items that can be farmed from mobs also go up in price though and at a similar pace. It is a losing proposition to be holding onto gil as it loses it value over time which makes it trickier to save up for big ticket items.
Plot
FFXI has 5 main mission storylines, a major storyline for each job, and a few other major storylines in quests. In general, FFXI has very well done storylines. The 5 main mission storylines are 1 for each starting city (3 storylines), 1 from zilart expansion pack, and 1 from chains of promathia expansion pack. The city storylines can be started at about level 7 but cannot be completed until level 70 or so. The zilart storyline requires a lvl 65+ character mostly. People tend to rush through the zilart storyline to open up access to a zone referred to as sky which is one of the few places that is feasible to xp at/near cap. The promathia storyline requires very difficult missions that start out level capped with level caps that increase each mission. The promathia mission line ends in uncapped missions that lvl 75 characters (or close) are probably needed to complete. The storylines for each job have an intro at about level 40 and the major part is from level 52-60. These quests are for the artifact gear for each job. Generally, there are 3 parts to this quest that require an alliance (max 18) of players to complete. There are a few random storylines in random quests in the towns, but to finish these requires high level characters again. Overall, there is very little storyline that can be finished by level 50 and most requires a level 65+ character to finish.
Overall
The player base is getting very top heavy. It takes a really long time to progress. The graphics are good but repetitive and have some pop up issues. The party centered play for xp is interesting, but becomes repetitive, requires a lot of time (much of it spent waiting), and is very rigid. The economy has quite a bit of inflation, but it's fairly uniform. The best items are so much better than the second best that they are almost required but are rare enough that they are very expensive. Gil buying/selling is pretty rampant. Most notorious monsters (boss mobs with good loot and long repop times) are heavily camped usually by highly organized gil-selling teams using 3rd party tools to cheat.
In the end, I'm quitting the game. My main reason for quitting is that since I got a normal job instead of being a student, I can play about 8 hours on weekends on 3 hours of weekdays. The 3 hours on weekdays is not enough time for me to get experience in a party and I am no longer enjoying soloing with my beastmaster after the change. I'm not interested in only have the chance to progress on the weekends and the pace is so slow that weekend only advancement will take too long to allow me to experience the mission and other plot driven content.
You sure made FF XI sound pretty bad. I've never played it but god ...why would anyone. That sounds more like a bad job then a game.
WoW is fun, not much too it. It's pretty easy to find lvling groups or you can solo if you want right up to 60. Once you get to 60 you either raid/PvP or make an alt. Most people get pretty bored once they get to 60 unless they like PvPing or alts.
Well I am a little biased since I'm quitting the game. Parties in FFXI are really fun once you get them set up which is easy to do until about level 40 or so. The crafting system is fun as long as you stick to non-durable crafts. The whole game progresses faster at the lower levels and low level gear is usually pretty cheap. The pace really slows down in the high 50s and a lot of the plot based content doesn't start opening up until level 65 or so, so there is a bit of a gap in content. I really enjoyed the lower levels and think it's probably the best part of the game, but I've used up that content and can't get to the rest of the content. The long times to set up for things doesn't matter as much if you have long blocks of time available. 1.5 hours to setup a party that lasts 4-8 hours once you get there isn't too bad.