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ESO Gold Edition or Final Fantasy 14?
Wedlen
Member UncommonPosts: 146
Elder Scroll Online Gold Edition/all dlc or Final Fantasy 14 with all dlc?
What do you think is the better MMO and why?
What do you think is the better MMO and why?
Comments
Depends which has the more appeal in features and subject matter really. Put it this way ESo = western RPG in MMO format, FFXIV = JRPG in MMO format.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The way to try both would be to:
Even if you subsequently decide to sub to FF you will still be able to play through "main storyline stuff" in ESO treating it as a "single player" game essentially - it is well done.
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
the only "cons" is that FFXIV is p2p , and that endgame is a bit repetitive/grindy
ESO - i cant say i played it a lot , i tried to enjoy it at least 5-6 times to no avaliable , its f2p so thats a plus , but the gameplay is a bit rough imo.
my advice:
Try both games ;
- ffxiv has a trial up to lvl 30 (limited in chat and money to fight gil sellers)
- Teso is F2p so go download it
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
All of the ES games traditionally have had a muted earth tone palette. If anything, ESO brightens that up quite a bit, although never on the same level of brightness and saturation as the GFX-crazed Asian MMOs.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
In RPG's and MMORPG's and some other genre's, immersion is very important to me.
Has that aspect improved over time?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I started FFXIV in 1.0, played through 'til they took servers down, then played 2.0 and 3.0 up 'til around 3.3 or 3.4. I'm a "Legacy" member of FFXIV; I have the Hydaelyn tattoo, name in 2.0's credits, the whole enchilada... I absolutely loved FFXIV through 2.x and into 3.0, after which things started going downhill and I ultimately got fed up with the game's direction, and Yoshida's newfound love for saying "no" and giving arrogant responses to sincere player requests, and left.
I played ESO back in Beta but didn't care for it, came back some time later and found it had improved greatly. Now ESO it's my main MMO and I will never step foot into FFXIV again. On many levels, ESO has is the kind of MMORPG experience I'd hoped FFXIV would become.
Anyway... Here's my take...
In a nutshell, I'd choose ESO all the way, all day long.
Why? At this point, ESO is making Yoshida (FFXIV's Producer/Director) and SE look like amateurs. That sounds like a bold thing to say, I know, but I don't say it flippantly. I'll share some of my reasons with you.
1. Setting:
ESO is a self-contained, internally consistent true MMORPG experience set in the Elder Scrolls world. FFXIV is increasingly becoming more of a Final Fantasy Fan Service Simulator than a proper stand-alone title, relying heavily on cross-overs and references to other FF games, cultural references that have no basis in the game world at all, etc.
2. World Design
FFXIV's world design in the 2.0 zones is amazing, however, very "guided" and not very open. There's not a lot to discover, as everything is marked on a map.
ESO's world design is wide-open and begs to be explored, rewarding you with hidden spots not shown on any maps, treasure chests to be found, out of the way quests to be opened up, tomes to be found which bestow skill-ups upon reading them, and bits of detail that really sell ESO's Tamriel as a, believable, lived-in place.
3. Character customization.
There's no contest on this. ESO's customization options at character creation utterly dwarf FFXIV's.
4. Character development
Again, ESO utterly dwarfs FFXIV in this category.
You choose a base class at character creation, but after that, it's wide-open. There are skill lines for World, Race, Class, Weapon (you can eventually equip 2 weapons at once, each with its own skill bar), Armor, and so on. Then, as you progress, you can join various Guilds, like the Fighter's Guild or Mage's Guild, or Undaunted, etc... each adding another skill line you can work with. Join the DarkBrotherhood or Thieves Guild and get even more skills to unlock and work into your skillset. Become a Vampire or Werewolf and tap into those skill lines. The options available to you in ESO are so wide open and varied, you'd be hard pressed to find some kind of build or playstyle you *couldn't* create, and probably in more than one way.
ESO allows you to equip whatever weapons you want, regardless of your class, providing you more options on how you'd like to build your character.
In FFXIV, your class/job is decided by your weapon. Equip a polearm, you're a Lancer/Dragoon, period. Equip fist weapons, you're a Pugilist/Monk, period. No weapon choice or variety. You can level up other classes to unlock skills you can "cross-class" with, but they're very limited and quite specific in terms of which are beneficial or not. Character development in FFXIV is very limited overall.
5. Gear and Weapons
Yet again... ESO dwarfs FFXIV in this category.
For a long time now, players have been asking Yoshida/SE to please add more interesting stats to gear, set up gear set bonuses and such to FFXIV, to make character development more interesting. Yoshida has refused (something he does a lot), stating it would be too difficult to balance and "people will feel forced to use certain items based on the stats".... as though that isn't the case already. So, what you get is a limited set of gear choices with very few options.
ESO, on the other hand has a ridiculous variety of gear, ranging between light, medium and heavy - and any character can wear any combination of armor they want. You can be a heavy plate wearing mage. You can be a light robe wearing assassin type, or anything in-between. As mentioned above, each armor type has its own skill lines. There are also set bonuses, where as you equip 2, 3, 4, etc pieces of gear, you get additional bonuses. As gear can be mixed and matched you can wear, say, 5 pieces of one set to take advantage of its bonuses, and then 3 of another to take advantage of its bonuses... or any combination you find works for you.
Gear is found in world drops, dungeons, world bosses, crafting, etc..
I mentioned above that ESO makes Yoshida and SE look like amateurs. I say that because in most every case, where players have asked for something that would make FFXIV more varied, engaging and more in-depth, Yoshida has responded by saying it would be too difficult, not possible, not enough resources to do it, it wouldn't work, etc... In each of those cases ESO has implemented those very things, demonstrating that Yoshida either has no idea what he's talking about, or is just lying to his playerbase.
FFXIV has been plagued by RMT spam for years now. Players have asked them repeatedly to please deal with it. SE has made token efforts to deal with it, but none are lasting, and the spam continues. Players have had to turn to 3rd party (unsanctioned) apps to block it because SE can't/won't. The excuse is "it's too difficult to get rid of RMT spam, but we're doing our best. Really". Meanwhile, in all my time playing ESO I've gotten exactly 1 RMT spam, and that was early on. It just doesn't happen. So, clearly it *is* possible to do and, again, either SE doesn't know what they're doing, or Yoshida is lying to his playerbase.
How about housing? FFXIV implemented housing a couple years ago now, and it's been a train-wreck ever since. Players couldn't get *any* house, much less the one they wanted, becuase they were bought up - sometimes by folks only interested in re-selling them for several times the cost. They've applied band-aid on top of ineffective band-aid trying to remedy the symptoms, but they're short-lived and the issues have persisted. The reason for these issues? Well, if you ask Yoshida it would be "resource limitations". Players have suggested ways to improve or even eliminate the problems, such as using instancing, or making them account-wide for people with alts, etc... Yoshida ignored them and just kept doubling down on his broken implementation.
ESO implented housing a short while back and, would you be at all surprised by now to know that it's working just fine? Not only can you get *a* house. Not only can you get exactly the house you want. You can get one of every single house offered in the game. Why? Because, unlike Yoshida's people, the folks at ZOS were smart and realized instancing was a much better way to implement them - something Yoshida ignored when it was suggested. They also made them account-wide to alleviate the problem of availability for alts... another thing Yoshida ignored when it was suggested.
For as long as this post is, I could go on and on with even more examples of how ESO utterly humiliates FFXIV, on numerous levels. I didn't even get into the writing or voice-acting in each game. ESO takes it hands-down in that category as well - and does so without cheesy cultural references.
I would also say that while FFXIV is certainly a MMO, ESO is the only one of the two that truly deserves to be called a MMORPG.
But of course, the only person who can decide which is better for them is you.
Dungeons in ESO are fun, PVP i personally hate it but people who actually like PVP say its fun, but the balance of classes in ESO is super skewed and it shifts every couple of DLCs going towards magic classes some times and melee (stamina) classes other which creates a feeling of "flavor of the month" which most players follow mindlessly.
Additional things i would have to say are to not be fooled by others saying you can play the game the way you want if you want to partake in challenging end game PVE or PVP content, specially true with PVE as all classes have their cookie cutter builds ( basically even tough there is hundreds of available Gear sets to wear you only should use 2 or 3 with one always being 4-5% superior, which BTW also changes every couple of DLCs which means the set you are wearing got nerfed and/or another set gets a significant buff/change and its now superior, so there you go to farm that set spending lots of hours grinding AGAIN ) because most of the skills of are either fluff or not as good performing as the ones the ones the hard core end game guilds tell you in the forums you should be using (now remember you are free to do as you like but if you don't pull enough DPS and you are doing HARD content you have no right to complain when the other people in your group say that you are dragging down the wipe lane start getting pissed at you) as the class and role you are playing.
Now on the FFXIV aspect i can not say much about it as i only have about 150-200 hours in the game, but i will give my very limited view of it ( i have only reached lvl 57 ) and i will start by talking about the wide range of classes* you can choose in FFXIV vs ESO.
Very few things are held in such high regard by me as the importance of a wide variety of choice in classes in an MMO are, this game in particular has a very wide range of choices ( there is 13 classes available for you to choose from and 2 more coming in June bringing the total number to 15 ) for you to make your pick and they are all very different and fun, don't rush go ahead and try a few things or maybe watch gameplay of them on youtube so you can choose what you want to do the MSQ ( main story quest ) with because i guarantee you will like at least 2 of them. Meanwhile in ESO there is 4 ( arguably 12 if you ask a fanboy ) and one more coming in a few months.
I have partaken in raids in both games but FFXIV has definitely a better design and grasp on this particular aspect, dungeons have been quite enjoyable but i can not give a solid opinion on this as i have not done Hardmode dungeons yet, tough ESO dungeons are as much fun as FFXIV in my limited opinion. The community aspect is a hard topic for me to pick and compare as i have far more experience ( and game time ) in ESO but something i will outright state is that healing is a farm more messier business in FFXIV and the first time people actually are bitchy and outright rude with me for making mistakes while learning how to ( god damn cleric stance i freaking hate it ) heal in a game since 2012 in WoW, i will say how ever that the "guild" ( Free company ) i am on is very nice and helpful ( Azure Infinitum in the realm Midgardsormr of the Aether NA Datacenter ) and overall awesome and kind people, in ESO tough i never had any issues with this kind of people but that might be because healing requires a lot less skill in that game compared to FFXIV (once again the guild i am on is very nice and helpful Aldmeri Elite in the NA servers).
Now onward to the topic of Subscription vs Buy to Play, i will just say that the only way to get a cool looking mount in ESO is to spend real life currency other wise you are stuck with a horse, also one of the perks the optional subscription gives is too good to pass as it makes the overall experience of the game far more enjoyable ( unlimited space for crafting materials which otherwise will clutter you bank and bag and take a lot of your time to sort trough ) , FFXIV does something similar as it has 2 additional retainers that you can get for an extra fee along with the already mandatory sub, not to mention space is a constant issue in that game as your glamour armor takes space and the stacks are only up to 99 ( Although that problem aside you can get amazing rewards in the game like mounts, pets and glamour items from raid bosses, achievements and bought with in game currency )
As a final point ( as i have been rambling on for far too long now ) the spell visuals in FFXIV are far superior and do provide a feel of impact vs the spells in ESO that are mostly botched animation that you have to cancel ( yes animation cancel is a thing necessary for Hard end game content but it makes every spell/skill that you cast look awful ) to be competitive and also lack a sense of impact.
Clasess*
Used a generalized term as both games have systems different to the regular class systems you find in most MMOs.
signed
mmo homeless
..............................................hello Chuck
If you want very slow, tedious combat which is rarely exciting go with final fantasy. If you want a more action combat experience that can be fast paced, go with ESO.
If you want quests which go well beyond "kill 10 rats" go with ESO. Quest chains are voiced over, meaningful, and contain great stories. If you want "kill 10 rats" go with Final Fantasy.
i like the darker themed MMO's......goes well with metal playing in the background.
Although I do like the Single Player Final Fantasy Series and play up to FFXI online version on PS2 many years ago I can't say FFXIV is great because of the bad design of the cosmetic & housing systems to me this is a big thing in a MMO to be done right.
And go kill 10 rats you say? Wasn't this a quest in The 4th Coming, Many years ago lol.
Ever since its release, it has had a steady, unbroken rhythm of content releases every 3-4 months, each of them expanding the game with LOTS of stuff. Read that again: MAJOR content patches every few months. No other game on the market comes close, and especially not for such a long time.
The endgame bosses and raids are really good. Look up Sophia Extreme, or the different Alexander bosses ,for fun, varied and well-balanced 8-man raid content. I never liked the way ESO does its bosses, or its combat in general, because you end up trying to optimize, animation-cancel and stat-stack one or two major moves, and your character always feels like a one-trick-pony, not an adventurer.
FFXIV has a slow start, and the classic ARR zones (not the newer zones in Heavensward and beyond, those are much better) are guided and somewhat small.
However, as far as side activities and sheer content goes, ESO is a dwarf compared to FFXIV.
ESO is much easier at the high-end though, I ll admit that. The difference between a bad and a great black mage in FFXIV can be 150% additional DPS easily. A bad player is sometimes enough to wipe a raid. A good player is bounds ahead of even a mediocre one, and it really shows in current content and raids. Some guilds never complete the content of the patches or game before the next comes. Many guilds dont even attempt the hard content at all.
So if you want to see and defeat everything, but are honestly not that great of a player, ESO will probably be more comfortable in that regard.
FFXIV was much more immersive to me. I connected and felt part of it. For me, this is important as I get meaning from the game. I play for months, take some time off and then come back. I get wrapped up again in this game like I just started. I liked the graphics, combat and story in FFXIV and this kept my attention, focus and desire to play. I never got this feeling from ESO and the times I have gone back to ESO it become more and more obvious to me that its missing something.