FFXIV & GW2 - THE FULL COMPARISION - First Impressions on FFXIV after 2 Months 

Open world in gw2 is not just better, its prolly the best one out there. As a xiv player i 100% agree.

dog im an ff14 player, I aint never played gw2 but just the footage of the open world was enough to convince of the open world arguement. shit looks magical

this video even further proves why i believe ff14 and gw2 are best played side by side. each game performs incredibly well in what the other is lacking. playing both games is such a complete mmo experience

2:00 - before you even said what you thought, the moment I saw GW2 appear on the screen I went "whoa" - and I'm an FFXIV devotee. This open world is GORGEOUS! I ain't mad, I'm actually intrigued!

It's refreshing to see the pro and cons for ff xiv and gw2. It makes me wants to try gw2 in the future. Great video

The good news is you can play both. You dont have to choose which you want to play. I hope to see you in FFXIV as well as GW2.

I actually just started GW2 this weekend and I’m loving it as much as I love XIV. These are my two main MMOs. Both are great in what they do and are casual enough that I don’t feel like I’m doing something wrong if I’m not playing.

i tried to get into GW2 i made a norn beastmaster but after the early story event i feel completely lost and without guidance. maybe you can make a guide for FF14 player that might want to try GW2 while waiting for Endwalker

I'm convinced it was the heart quest system that inspired world quests to be implemented in Legion. The Heart Quest system is essentially what the FATEs are in XIV. I agree GW2 has a better Open World system, and even though I'm now a dedicated XIV player, I fully recognize that GW2 was a huge inspirational revolutionary in the MMO space at a time when there was only WoW

Yoshi P has mentioned that the reason for the glamour issues is due to the amount of data it uses.

Pretty big one here guys. I have been a player in GW2 for 3 years or so and non-stop playing, its one of my favourite games of ALL time. So what do I think of FFXIV? Watch along and find out! REMEMBER this is a FIRST IMPRESSION video. There may yet be things I have not explored yet!

Not too sure where you're currently at with FF14 MSQ but at post-ShB, Bozja and Zadnor are very similar to Gw2 map meta events. Skirmishes/FATES pop up all over the map which chains into another set which then triggers Critical Engagements. Doing enough of these then opens up the dungeon where everyone on the map can join and do. It is also part of how you get your relic weapons in FF14 which are essentially, the legendary weapon equivalent. Very similar to Auric Basin and Silverwaste from Gw2 in my opinion. Open world aspect and map exploration is a key component/feature of Gw2 and one that they built the game around so no surprise that people will think that in that aspect, Gw2 outshines FF14.

Never played GW2, but the clips you showcased in favor of GW2 makes a really good case.

Yup, agreed for the open world part, I played gw2, inlove how open the map is

I’ve never played gw2 but you explained things in a way that’s really easy for me to understand. Very interesting and informative video!

Been keeping up on your channel every now and then watching you play on Twitch. Love that you did this video after over a month of playing FF. The pros and cons of both games are on point, and this is a very detailed review of both games.Keep it up brother, Love from Dubai

Honestly I recommend a lot of people play GW2 and FF14 side by side for the most fulfilling modern mmo experience. The two games perfectly complement each other in an incredible way, with the greatest weaknesses of one being the greatest strengths of the other. I don't think any single mmo could give you an experience as good as alternating between the two games.

That french shoutcaller in GW in the end made me laugh a lot as a native french... xD his accent is gold (and his "they're breaking my balls" too, which means "they piss me off")

Coming from GW2 to FFXIV about 3 years ago, same! I friggin loved GW2 combat so WoW style combat in FFXIV required a lot of adjusting (GCDs!? *snore*). Same goes for the overall movement and mobility of characters and mounts. WvW was super fun. Pvp was was super fun. Everything to do with combat and movement was so fun. At the end of the day I moved over because though I loved the gameplay elements in GW2, I loved the MMO feeling in FFXIV more because the product tailored accessibility in all content for everyone. The atmosphere was intoxicating: tight visuals and sound design, npc interactions, world building, accomodating community, fabulous main storyline, no need for alts, and great combat (once you get used to it). It just makes you feel more tied to the universe and keeps you going. I guess I was just looking for something different in an MMO. I could scratch the competitive itch by playing DoTA or Valorant. I can play Hades or Dark Souls or something for tight refined combat systems. And I can play FF14 to feel like I'm living in a different world, and have fun. I still miss my Mesmer sometimes though.

Your take on GW2 openworld vs FFXIV openworld is accurate. I used to play GW2 too so I know full well. FFXIV is trying to do a similar thing in later stage of the game, as a whole new openworld instance named 'The Bozjan Southern Front', with its own story and system of course. It has GW2 vibes, pretty challenging and fun to play, but the spawn rate of "world bosses" is far more frequent than GW2. A great direction for FFXIV. Oh, its also far more dangerous than the usual Openworld. It is also where you farm for relic weapons (equivalent of legendary weapons), mounts, hairstyles, and other things.

They cannot be compared, each one is a unique experience on it's own. Amazing MMo's both of them.

My biggest turn off about FFXIV is the fact that friends cannot play the main story line together(or at least most of it). I like that GW2 allows you to practically do anything in the game with your friends.

I feel like my experiences in these games went in the opposite direction. In GW2, I thought the early game experience was outstanding. Playing with different weapon combos, doing open world stuff and leveling in the zones felt very natural, and doing different early game stories while I tried different classes were all great. But once I hit max level, I felt like I lost a lot of the fun I was having, and the end game progression lost me. In FF14, the early game was kind of slow, the low level classes didn't feel great, and the leveling itself felt stale. But as I unlocked more abilities and got further in the story I felt myself getting more and more invested, and by the end of Shadowbringers my hype for the next expansion can't be matched. FF14 is my main game now, but I will say I had a lot of fun with my time in GW2 as well and I don't regret my time spent there at all!

Most of the problems with matchmaking in gw2 can be solved with joining a guild. Lots of guilds run practice runs for noobies, for fractals/cms and raids. And with the option to join 5 different guilds you can have different guilds that focus on different aspects of the game. The game is much more fun when you play with friends / guildies.

Open world in gw2 feels more intentional, meanwhile it only serves as a story setting and dates seem like an other thought where rewards and xp don't make them feel worth it. I'm better off spamming duty finder. I do find final fantasy's class and leveling system a little more "sit back and enjoy" while leveling in gw2 feels like " the game starts for realsies at 80, time to steamroll open world" and it can become tedious. In terms of mounts, gw2 does it way better, however I DID quit farming for skyscale because farming unbound magic is hell. And for the story, ff has a better story, Lazarus came out of butt fuck no where and Braham was shat on completely.

I'm trying FF14. The absence of any voice-over feels very weird like I'm missing a sound file. Even in the first cut scene the characters just open their mouth and there is a text but no sound. The NPCs in the main city are not talking, all I can hear all the time is footsteps and background music. Is it only in the beginning like this? I wonder if they just didn't put the voice-over in English and if in the original game they are actually talking? Not comparing to GW2 here, but in many games the quest givers at least say "Hi" or somehting, and then you can read the text, and the actual story related cut scenes are voiced over.

I think the last good "World Boss" we had in FF14 was Odin. He still appears in the Shroud sometimes, and when he does, the entire forest goes dark, and little flecks of light start to come off the ground. It would take DOZENS of players to take him down. One of the coolest parts of it was that Odin's "Lore" has him jumping from body to body, so person who lands the killing blow would end up "becoming" the next Odin. Their name is displayed under Odin's, and before the fight starts, if you look closely he even has the appearance of the person who killed him last. And yes, if it was a Lalafell, then Odin and his horse are Lalafell sized. But then they went and made him into a Trial, so not many people go hunting for him anymore. :/

I love gw2 and it took me a very long time (years) to actually get into it but the one thing i agree with for the longest is that the game doesn't teach you much. That could be a good or bad thing depending on the player, but a lot of new players (once like myself) would get lost, wouldn't understand their class, etc. and would quit. Classes have a lot of depth but I did not realize this at the beginning. I've been an Elementalist main since 2012. I disappeared from this game for 6 years. Came back, gave it another try after reaching max level 2 years ago, disappeared for another 2 years and came back this year. Coming from WoW, I used to think gw2 combat system was just "press whatever ability was available off Cooldown" to kill enemies and that the trait system was super simplistic. But I was SO wrong after I realized that doing level 80 combat, especially in pvp, how much your build truly mattered and how much depth all of these things actually have because I personally couldn't kill players at all and would wonder what I'm doing wrong. But yeah I think the leveling system needs to be updated. I haven't leveled anyone in years but I do remember how dull it was. The open world leveling is the first thing newbies experience and it needs to make a better impression on players to truly grip them in.

Meanwhile, GW2 players complain GW2 animations are too flashy because they make some mobs impossible to see when fighting with a bunch of players.

When they are populated. the meta events in GW2 are great, but there's definitely some maps that are pretty abandoned these days. And hearts are OK, but I don't miss them at all. They're just as grindy and meaningless as any other sidequests, just a little more streamlined. The mounts are great in GW2, but the fact that all the cosmetics are in the money store takes away a lot of the fun of customizing them. Seeing the mounts in FF and figuring out how everyone went about farming them, then going to do the same yourself is very satisfying, IMO. One thing I do really really miss from GW2 is the crafting/collection bank; doing crafting and gathering in FF can easily become an inventory nightmare.

I someone who played GW2 too, I loved the open world of GW2. I can't remember well since it's 4 years but there was this area where you just ran around the forest and fly around and do world events or something. I met random players doing the same thing. However, for some reason, when I'm in towns in FFXIV, I feel more at home.

Funny... the thing i liek the most about gw2 are raids and pvp

this is so good! I was really curious about GW2 and a lot of the comparisons really resonate with me and how I feel about what can be improved in ff14. ff14 is the only mmo ive ever played so i dont have any perspective on this stuff but I definitely feel the ps3 hardware limitations in the game that permeate throughout it. glamour system being a big one as well as gear being pretty boring in general. the lack of class/gear customisation makes it feel a little lackluster when everything is just a statstick. I also would love to see more nuance with the mounts and give them a place in the world that makes them more significant. we'd need a more explorable open world for that though and that circles back to the simple hardware limitations that I hope one day we see resolved with maybe a ff14-2.

I agree with the takes, particularly open world. I played GW2 from the beta and FFXIV from Heavensward. I went back to GW2 primarily because I missed the open world and exploration, rewards rewards exploring like chests etc. Best part of FFXIV is having 1 character with all the professions, I'm a huge altaholic so would love that in GW2

There is one major point I have to adress about both raids and groups. Guild Wars 2 has a major focus on the open world while FFXIVs focus are instanced raids and dungeons and because of the design of FFXIV raidcontent is basically where you need to go while in GW2 dungeons, fractals and raids are just options beside the open world. This is also why there has to be this different approach for introducing players in the raids in FFXIV. When it comes to mechanics GW2 does actually a quite good job and will give you an introduction to the mechanics of the bosses before hand and thats true for both raids and fractals. Fractals themself actually work quite the same as FFXIVs approach to the raids with the increasing difficulty tier of the fractals the bosses gain not just more life but in fact they add mechanicsto the boss itself as well as daylie rotating extra mechanics that will influence you as well for the full fractal experience. When it comes to the group issue you mentioned I have to say it is the first time I hear about them this said I play on Europe servers and can't say if american servers are more toxic on this behalf. I myself just did my first raid 2 weeks ago with wing 7 in a team that asked in lions arch if people want to join them for a chance to make the raid before the weekly reset. It was 1 o clock in the morning and we had lots of fails in between ^^ but nonetheless 4 hours later we killed the final boss and cleared the raid. Gear check on raids is actually not even needed beside the toughness mechanic some bosses follow for determi9ning which target they will attack first. In fact you could finish Guild Wars 2 raids in green gear as the game is skill based not equipment based. for the most part.. The major design difference when it comes to raids however is that they are basically no random player content. Raids in GW2 are explicit designed with coordinated groups in mind. So what the group finder mostly is used for is filling up an allready existing group and there people will be quite toxic about their ideas of what they need. The main idea is that you do this content with guild members. As GW2 allows you to join 5 different guilds you basically choose those guilds on behalf of the content you wan't to do rather than the overall mainstream idea of guilds other games have. Here is also where guilds will train new players in dealing with the mechanics of the raids or fractals and dungeons. So it is not that here is no friendly comunity introducing you to the raids it is just that the look for group tool is very rarely used for this purpose. And one thing to add about the music. Final Fantasy has basically music for each boss individually which is a lot of effort but it is not like GW2 has anywhere bad music and in fact some battle tracks are just epic. Also you might adjust youre volume settings ^^ For the combat in general there is something that needs to be adressed and thats basically that FFXIV has a terrible combat design which however they fixed later on by avoiding it for the most part. Basically what you experienced in the core game of Final Fantasy XIV this boring 3 skill combat is FFXIVs base combat and the global cooldown of 3 seconds is the worst in the genre for me and to fix that issue they put instant cast skills in there to get past this global cooldown issue. FFXIV could easely be on the level of GW2 combat wise with not global cooldown issues and the mmorpg blade & soul which copied FFXIV combat system (literally they even have the same times for item use) but they made everything much faster for a great combat experience with a little touch of extra combo mechanics on top. The main change is that the global cooldown and item times even shown as 9 seconds for example are done in a quarter of the time. FFXIVs magic clases also avoid the global cooldown in another way that is overshadowing the main issue of the combat as they use casttimes the length ofthe global cooldown itself. For the animations well they are shiny in FFXIV but this is basically it. Most of the animations have no other purpose as to be shiny while GW2 is not as shiny but you can read the animations to understand what the purpose of the attack is which leads to a more realistic and heavy feeling combat animation. I'm also unsure why you brought deadeye to the ring as it is basically shooting while youre renegade revenant for example has some great variety in attack design with the shortbow and even the core game thief has better animation choices. What FFXIV does good is basicallyrelated to the expansion content beside the story and roleplay elements which they did a great job with from the beginning. What they really did terrible however is their core game experience and this is a shame as it could have easely be so much more enjoyable and I myself will not acknowledge a game that ignores their content you have to do first in order to have a good experience after the paywall. GW2 has an issue with keeping the balance between instanced quality content and open world quality content rewards. While the Dungeons in GW2 have great story cinematics and a new player friendly difficulty as well as some tough challenges in explorermode they simply lack the rewards which is an issue that was once the opposite when dungeons were way to high rewarded so people did them in speed clearings for fast cashgrabs. However I find GW2 dungeons way better than FFXIVs early dungeons whichI had my worst dungeon experience with in all of the dungeons I played in over 20 MMORPGS so far. There is one more aspect I really want to adress here and that is how FFXIVs world design is akso very weak at least for the coregame so far. To explain what I mean I would say we should go with Guild Wars 2 first. The world design of Guild Wars 2 is basically an idea of every zone builds up to the lore. A landscape is not just a landscape but part of a connected world and the lore doesn'T stop with leaving a zone but continues in the next zone adding new impressions to it. Each map has weight and is important for the world design overall. FFXIV is basically biomes and there is rarely even a connection between the maps of one specific biome. Basically what FFXIV suceeds in storytelling and character developenment GW2 suceeds in developening a world which is something I only experienced in Elderscrolls online as well. Also GW2 is not just GW2 the world also includes the lore of Guild Wars 1 and some novels as well and the game does not ignore this lore but reminds us of it whenever it can. In a nutshell both games have their strengths and their weaknesses and both are basically doing things differently and while I like FFXIVs story there is so much I personally really dislike about it that I stopped playing it before it reached the moment it blinds me with shiny stuff ^^ If a game doesn't succeed in keeping me attached to it from the beginning I do not care about how great it might be in the endgame even more so when this endgame is tied to the worst business model where I have to spend money over and over and over again just to play a small percentage of the content of the game. Guild Wars 2 is by far not perfect and I play other MMORPGS and other games on the side but this is also why I feel so comfortable with Guild Wars 2. Lot of content I can do but I do not have to do, great genre revolutionizing aspects and everything for a fair price that also allow me to play the way and when I want to. Something to add: About mounts you should know that the comunity really disliked the idea of mounts in GW2 and the only people wanting mounts were allways new people from other mmorpgs. For us the world was not just a background but part of the game and a speedbuff skin which mounts were in mmorpgs all the time was unacceptable. This is also why arenanet had to reinvent mounts for the playerbase and why we love arenanet. Another such great impact was basically the housing concept. While GW2 features a home instance with some possible benefits you could add like daylie material nodes the real housing with decorations was not that popular in the mindset of the comunity. Well arenanet did no housing in the end but with the guild halls they basically gave us an entire map to decorate in ways unmatched throughout the entire genre. Their are even rollerbeetle race guilds out there that build race tracks in their guild halls to drive monthly race tournaments or just showing off their skill with this mount. And for Fashion Wars 2 by the way there are also themed tournaments like the autumn style contest where player show their style and skill creating such beautiful outfits for high price money and prestige something that is possible because of Guild Wars 2 beeing the way it is and with all the other elements GW2 has to offer beside core mechanics known of all mmorpgs FFXIV just can't compete anymore want an example? The FFXIV Gold Saucer is a nice place but you really want to challenge GW2 when it comes to minigames? Jumping Puzzles? Races? Festival Events? Even this content is not the most popular stuff despite the Festival events of course you couldn't even scratch the surface of it when you bring all FFXIV has to offer on the table.

It feels wrong to compare the sound design when you have one game cranked up and the other is almost mute. If anything I'd mute the boss music in ff14 because because it's not what I'm into and I find the vocals distracting.

I love GW2 HoT Meta Events - I've never really seen anything as good as those in any MMO. And Mounts are in fact perfection. But intanced content FF14 has so many variety and the sheer amount is so huge that wins easily. Glamour system i hate it, GW2 has the best one. PvP in FF14 is a XP bonus, but GW2 suffered some balance issues cause of this, then they decided to divide PVP vs PVE abilities. By the way, games with trait or talent like systems have more balance issues i've noted. GW2 is great but it needs (way) more regular content, period. PS.: Bozja area in FF14 has a similar feel to GW2 events, but still not there.

The thing about the mounts that can fly. There was a time a while back where you had certain mounts that were able to fly and others that did not. However they changed it later on to where everything can fly now just for ease I guess. But yeah originally you hadn’t flying specific mounts

I love you comparison videos, so explicit ^^ My very first MMO was GW and I played GW2 since its release until HoT (more or less back to it since last summer so I'm up to date on it). And I play FFXIV for more than 5 years now. (Beware, massive comment ^^) I agree on the open world, except somes activities like fates, hunts and maps, the XIV's world looks quite dry, expecially for the expansions areas which are larger and more empty, less lively than those of ARR. In GW2, there's a lot of thing to do in every map: fates, mini dungeons, guild activities, hidden chest and more... The world of GW2 give you many reasons to go through it again and again. World bosses and big chains of events, a good point in GW2, are barely lacking in XIV, the "world bosses" of this game having ridiculously hard conditions to be spawned (the first being a timer of 24 to 48 hours between two attempts! The second being that only specifics linkshells can warn you about it). When you're in the map, there is nothing to tell you if it's gonna spawn in 10 minutes or 12 hours or even if it's happning right now for some of them, the fate icon being visible only at a certain distance! For example, I never saw the Tempest world boss in 2 years, and I worked hard to spawn it multiple times. In XIV there is also quests to fill the world, a system more or less abandonned in GW2 (except for the MSQ) but that is not really lacking in this game, most of the lore being given elsewhere. About mounts: In FFXIV there is a lot of different way to obtain mounts. In GW2, after the original unlock you have to buy ALL the skins in the in-game shop, mostly with some stupid loot boxes! That is super annoying. GW2 does a very great job forcing you to spend your money (IRL of IG) in that shop and I don't like it. In FFXIV there is real flying mounts. WTF is this fake flying griffin? I was so happy when I got it (after spending more that 250 gold to get it) and boom, enjoy your improved delta-plane where you have to spam the space key to (barely) stay in fly... The Skyscale is barely better btw. Nevertheless, in GW2 the mounts are cooler in the way that they have specific skills, animations, they have a real utility while in XIV, it's just a way to move faster. About story: GW2 story is good, but sometimes it can be SO dissapointing. The fight against Zaithan. What the hell was that? We never fight him directly (quite convenient assuming his size) and we end him by shooting fireworks on him? Ok. But at least, this time, we had a final cutscene, with credits. When you kill Mordremoth (or a spritual form of it, again, more convenient than to fight a giant dragon), there is nothing, NOTHING! What the hell is this storytelling? Not even a congratulation, a small cutscene, no, just take your regular quest reward and go away. Damn, just compare to the end of Heavensward, it's night and day. Hopefully they did a better job with Kralkatorrik, finally a dragon that we actually fight, on multiple occasions, with a lot of epicness, but it took time to get that glimpse of scenery. Too bad that for Icebrood Saga they only were able to design heads. Outside more or less epic battles the story is mostly interesting, even if we spend too much time in HoT running in the jungle (like a Stargate SG-1 episode), and spend too much time with these boring storylines with Balthazar and Joko. The living story is interesting, the new crew (Taimi, Marjory and so) is more fun than the original one, cooler characters, with a lot of humor. But I don't know, sometimes, between two episodes, you have the impression of missing something, some offscreen stuff when you catch up with the (paying) seasons which can give the impression of being lost or that the story is choppy, irregular. FFXIV just know how to catch-up people. The scenery, the staging (GW2 have none of it, its rare cutscenes barely stand, and remember how the dialogues works in the original game), the characters, the storytelling, everything is built little by little and it's just amazing to see how far they take us each time. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you sweat. It's unique in MMO's industries. In FFXIV, the game is built around the story, while in other MMO's the story is just a small part of the game. It's not even comparable. Yeah there is boring and useless parts in this long MSQ but the good parts largely compensate for these drops. In GW2 when they killed Eir, I was just pissed by the devs for killing that character so stupidly and needlessly (and keep that boring Logan alive) but that was it. In FFXIV, when you loose someone, even if it's someone you know for a short time, you felt someting. This is how you write a story. This is how you write characters. In GW2, when a member of your crew no longer appears for a while, you just don't care about where is he, you almost forget him. You don't feel attached to them unlike the characters of XIV, they can be switched, and they are sometimes. About vilains: Well, what do we have in GW2. Angry dragons, an angry god, a megalomaniac undead. That's it. Faolain, the only interesting vilain, is turned into a random monster thanks to Mordremoth (the entire treatement of the Nightmare Court is appalling and frustrating in HoT btw). In FFXIV. Gaius, Nidhogg, Zenos, Emet, Elidibus, Yotsuyu, Fandaniel... All different, all interesting, all with a purpose, a back story, a personnal developpement. Just real antagonists. About voices: I wish FFXIV would have more voices. Like you say, in GW2, there is a lot of voiced content, even npcs in cities which makes the world more alive but XIV keep adding new content with great regularity, which is arguably incompatible with such an amount of dubbing, although more and more sections of MSQ are dubbed with each expansion, Endwalker will be no different. That being said, story in GW2 is also shorter and so less talkative. It is maybe also a difference of approach or culture between Anet and SE. Plus, at least in french, in exception of Haurchefant between 2.x and 3.0 (for the better), all the dubbers are the same from the beginning and it's a very good point. That's not the case is GW2 (again, in french) for several characters. About rotations: In GW2, use every skills whenever it's ready, else spam 1. So yeah, it's way more interesting in FFXIV, every dps having his own rotation. Tanks and healers are quite different. About raids: FFXIV and GW2 are completely different. There is high difficulty content in XIV, but's it's not really "raids" as we can usually find in MMOs. In GW2 it's more like old school raid with high difficulty. In XIV, 24 men raids are way more accessible. It's more large scale dungeons than raids. That being said I only experienced one raid in GW2, the very first one and I HATED it. I completely hated it. It was only about dps (with few mechanics in-between). Nothing else than a BIG FAT STUPID DPS check. "Ok, that was fun, thanks you bye bye!" (I quit the game shortly after). I experienced and conquered high level raids in Age of Conan and it was nothing compared to this. About glamour: FFXIV glamour plates is a very limited (and quite recent) system but that's all we can get in this game, with its limitations. We just can't get a full wardrobe like GW2. Same for the dyes, there is few options in XIV due to the limitation of the game when GW2 got hundreds of differents dyes of all shades and allow us to dye every parts of your armour. About bugs: In FFXIV, you will never be forced to restart a dungeon, a duty, a personnal instance because the boss refuses to do some mechanic, because a conversation doesn't trigger or because an event doesn't want to happen. In GW2 it happens way too much, in personnal instances, fractals, open world events and it's super annoying, especially when you see that some of these bugs are years old! What are you doing devs? Fix bugs, there's a lot of it! To sum up, for my part, I prefer FFXIV, for its regularity, its simplicity (there is not a billion of currencies or types of dungeons to deal with), the character buidling (our character), the jobs, even if GW2 got cool things to do and developped an interesting open world. I will probably put my hands on End of Dragons, but maybe not at launch in case it's another tragic failure like HoT (I could write another block to describe everything I didn't like about this expansion but I won't ^^). I'm hooked to FFXIV for a very long time! GW2 just being side content when I'm bored of XIV.

FF11 and 14 vet here, GW2 open world looks amazing

While I'll probably never favor XIV over GW2, the real truth bomb in this video is that a devastatingly large part of the community will never see the deeper endgame scene even if they want to. It's hermetically sealed by veterans, terrifying and gatekeeping the casual open-world folks. Like a modern WoW without the catchup mechanics. Fortunately, people can occupy mountains of time without it!

I agree with your review regarding mounts. Bear in mind you have a chocobo that you train along side you as you level as well. I’m a healer main and initially leveled my chocobo to be my main offensive/defensive companion.

Good comparison overall, and I'd agree with almost everything. One thing I think you missed though is non-combat events and activities. It's ultimately what got me to bounce away from GW2 despite how good it is. As someone who couldn't get into the raiding scene and was tired of fractals, there just wasn't much to do and it wasn't fulfilling. You could always grind legendaries but that gets dull too. Whereas with FFXIV I've been playing for 6 years now and still feel like there's stuff to do and goals to chase. XIV feels much more like a place I can "hang out" in and kill time. Also the general update cadence: GW2 updates on a slower timeframe and with less content in each update (though the additional zones to explore is really nice). GW2 is fantastic and holds a special place in my heart, but it just doesn't have enough to hold me over the long term. But I will always check out the new updates and expansions when they release.

i love ffxiv to bits, literally my favorite game ever, but the open world of GW2 is just on another level no one can argue against that.

been feeling that MMO wanderlust lately since I've been running out of things to do in XIV. I've looked at and tried a couple other games and wasn't really feeling them, but I think this video finally motivated me to try out GW2.

Actually, once you get into really hardcore gw2 raid groups or daily fractals, it tends to be pretty lax. I played with a group that had the best player in the game and the guys that farmed the pvp monthly tournaments. Once you are on a certain level, it is easy to be aware of who the bad players are based on dps meters and addons that check gear. We can try to adjust our group composition if we have trouble, but if they are too bad, we let them leave after clearing one wing or if we cant complete a boss we will ask them to leave and apologize for our impatience. Most of us stopped playing because we basically completed all the content. It is a great game, but not unlimited content, and level open world is brutal because there isnt enough new players to spread around a massive world and experienced players use tomes. So the events can be impossible to complete solo

Gw2 open world verticallity is something I dream ffxiv would take a page from almost all ffxiv regions are open fields and I also like the mounts clinging to the side of the trees I wish that was possible in ff other than that I believe that you did a great job on this comparison.

I've been a GW2 player since the original GW, and despite FFXIV has stole my heart, that's so true about the open world experience! Personally, when I ended Path of Fire the story and characters weren't captivating me enough to keep playing, something that in my opinion FFXIV does much better. (But I have high hopes for Cantha, my favorite expansion from GW1). Both FFXIV and GW2 are amazing in their own ways though, and I'd love to see more people playing both!

Small trick u don't need put off party finder in FFXIV for inv people [from whisper], u copy name [special buttom in PF] name of ur PF and they come on the same rules like normal players into ur group. They get hotlink type in chat [like item link] and when they click on it they will see tab from PF with ur [or somebody - who u link] party rules. U can make closed Party group with "pin code" where can only come ur friends with pin.

-Leveling: While GW2 does have the advantage of being more seamless in the way you level a character, and you have a wide array of skills to play with, when you do unlock them they don't progress anymore. Yes you have the passive skill trees that can modify how each class works, but that modification only adds a certain amount of depth that falls flat past a certain level. In FF 14, as you mentioned there are power spikes, 30-50-60-70-80 and soon to be 90, and even during those power spikes, the skills evolve and become bigger and better versions of the old ones. For me, personally this is better, because even though you "suffer" up to lvl 30, you get a great payoff like you mentioned, but also the start, really emphasizes that you're a new adventurer. You go from killing giant ladybugs and rats to killing demigods ( primals ) and other world ending threats. The biggest strength of FF14 is making something small become bigger with subtleties, and you notice this on every aspect. -Mounts: GW2 is better and more detailed in this aspect, i agree, because the main reason for FF14's mounts to be the same for everyone is so that there's no discrepancy between players. This is also tied to combat, because every class is viable. The prestige comes from getting a very hard to get mount and flexing it, that's one of the End game aspects of FF14. -Story: FF14 has the best Story in MMO history, this i'm 100% certain, because the story isnt limited, isnt locked by chapters, and paywalls, and parts of the story arent "locked" forever if they're too old, and adding to this you have new game+. This was a huge turn off for me in GW2 when i was trying to do older parts of the story. -Hud / UI: Agree

I'm a ffxiv player but I used to play gw2 casually and I remember the game very fondly. As someone who loves to explore, the open world was a lot of fun!

About the open world, I have to agree with you. FF 14 core design doesn't focus on the open world activity. It's true that FF 14 have FATEs and there is special currency for FATEs that can be exchanged with unique items, but it failed to retain people from farming the FATEs. The special FATE (like a world boss in other MMORPG) was really popular for maybe the first 6 months, but after that no other special world boss introduced and the content start to dry up. The hunts and S/SS marks are just like a mini-boss rush. The rest of the world is only being used as a gathering area. This could be an improvement things for FF 14 in the future.

Excellent video. I've been playing FF14 since Realm Reborn and it's nice to hear some suggestions for improvements I haven't even thought about. You've also made a good case for GW2. I had previously dismissed it, but I might start playing it the next time I have some down-time. I especially agree with your point regarding the mounts, the mount system in GW2 looks amazing.

I'm kinda of the opposite of what you are as Ive been playing xiv for years and just recently swapped over to gw2 and I gotta say smth about the animation you mentioned. Coming from a very experienced perspective of a raider that has cleared all ultimate's and done world prog you reach a point where you're no longer paying attention to any animations at all. Because of how the combat is designed in xiv, having a rotation, the fights being heavily scripted etc you spend 90% of the time looking at cast bars, ground AoEs, Health %s, Party buffs and are no longer paying attention to any of those cool animations. Gw2 on the other hand, again from how the combat is designed, I'm always looking at my own animations to stow weapon, or the enemy player's to counter and dodge, the bosses attack pattern etc etc. Its kinda of a shame that the game with better animations has it as something that I often times turn it down to let me pay better attentions to the things that matter in the fight while the game with the shittier ones are the ones I'm closely paying attention to.

I was in LOVE with WvW. So sad ANet never cared about this content, it's by far the best part of GW2. Great video btw. 100% spot-on.

Im glad you made this video, i really thought you stopped for good

really hate it when people pointing "what doesn't make sense" in a fantasy game such a tiger that can swim or an elephant that can fly. THE GAME IS FICTION AND FANTASY GAME FIRST and second if we really have to rationalize and apply real-world concept to fantasy game, shouldn't the first question be - "How can the character fucking conjure fire from a staff"? or at the simply "WTF MAGIC?" I died when he said that FFXIV has more focus on boss mechanics rather than rotation.

I agree GW2 have the best open world in any mmorpg in a market atm. I play FFXIV like 4 years and i did try GW2 for 5 months so ya i can tell.

For mounts, FF 14 used to have a mount that can fly and a fully terrestrial mounts. I think lots of player hate it because the terrestrial one are practically useless once you unlock flying. You used to have a normal Chocobo and the black one, the normal one can't fly, but the black chocobo could. The devs hold this position for quite a long time, until one day they "listened" to players plea and made every mount able to fly. But I agree with you, GW2 mounts are better because the devs design mounts as a part of the gameplay. In Final Fantasy 14, mounts are just being used in open world map or certain type of PVP.

This is how you properly do the pros and cons for MMORPG. I think Xanblast could take some notes because what I understand, she pissed off a lot of FFXIV community and was chased away into GW2. Anyway, I agree with majority of the pros and cons for FF14. I have been playing it since beta and whats worse about these cons is that it's something that didn't really exist until recently. The progression and skills at early levels were much more complex and deeper back in 2.0. We had many other stats that no longer exists. We had options to raise or lower base stat. We also had cross class skill which is like what you said about customizable skills in GW2. We had the ability to share spells and skill from other class you leveled. Believe it or not, Paladins had Ninja skills back in the day. That's how crazy it was. But of course, all these had to be changed because FF14 also supports consoles. This is where GW2 and FF14 comparisons veers off to different directions. By early late heavenward era, the amount of skills were bloated. Things had to be cut down or omitted. It was a controversial move by the dev and it made a lot of us veterans complain when we saw how much was changed in stormblood launch. Anyway, thank you for taking time to make this. Awesome job! Oh btw. You can whisper someone your party finder link to invite people. Seems like you didn't know about this recent quality of life change

GW2 and FFXIV are almost mirror images of each other (ie opposite) as to where the games’ strong points are. FFXIV has a lackluster open world and “OK” combat gameplay with a flat out amazing story and good dungeons/raids. GW2 has an amazing open world, very good combat gameplay, but a lackluster story and just “OK” dungeons and raids.

I agree with u as a FF14 player. The open world is pretty dead as in terms of is just not 'active' or threatening. Hunts, fates, gathering is not enough. Not sure what they could do but there's more potential there

Watching you talk about GW2 got me the itch to get back into it. I played the shit out of it at launch but fell off of it when I hit max level. But it was a lot of fun for my brain goblins to complete everything on the map. Glad you're enjoying FFXIV. Both games are amazing and deserve the time investment.

Its interesting to hear an opinion from a GW2 player. I will admit, GW2 I tried to like but I just found little I actually liked, and the combat in particular being its biggest weak point. I had tried hard even had 2 classes to 50 back on launch and still couldn't enjoy it just trying to force myself to like it but couldn't find any enjoyment in it. Mounts you mentioned do seem interesting though they weren't around when I played. Its good to see the story got better, I know vanilla GW2 the story was rather weak to me with as far as I remember a few intro race stories being decent but beside that ranging from bad to 'okay'. Nice to see people with different tastes can find certain games they can both enjoy.

Personally I agree with the mounts and flying in ffxiv. I liked it better when ffxiv had certain flyable mounts and certain swimming mounts because it made sense. I purposefully do not fly if I am on a ground mount. Also not many realize but FFXIV used to not have a glamour system. They added it later on and it was a big moment for ffxiv fans.

As a former GW2 player that had 8 max level toons with Ascended gear and 3 legendary weapons, I have to say that I agree with the open world being better in GW2. IMO both the level scaling (which is automatic and feels completely natural) and dynamic quests are vastly better. I'm not a fan of how FFXIV strips your high level abilities from you when you're synced down, and FATES are just plain inferior to the world quests that pop up naturally in the course of exploring the vast open world in GW2. Especially since most of those quests have elaborate quest chains that feel like a mini adventure you stumbled upon. I also feel like player interaction in the open world is more natural and not needing to be constrained to parties or alliances to be able to play effectively as a group. Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to return to the soul-crushing grind-fest that is the Legendary weapon system or the constant zerg-rushes that is WvW, but there are a few aspects of GW2's open world that I do miss.

I haven't played GW2 but I still agree about the open world. The flood of sprouts definitely will make older zones more active but it won't last and I always felt once we're "done" you don't go back. The FATES aren't as popular as they were in AAR+HW and I really do think something needs to be done to keep older areas relevant. The Wine quest is universally hated, also not wrong. Hence why we kept saying to get past AAR. The mounts do bug me a bit, they shouldn't all fly.

For party finder what you can do is link the party finder for your group to that person. I'm not sure if it works for tells but you can link it in fc and ls chats. Then they just click on the link and will see your party finder and can join that way.

XIV player here. On the topic of open world-ness, while the contents being compared imo isn't complete (as in, the explained ffxiv content is just a few compared to the full scope of content xiv has to offer), from this video GW2's open world system does look more inclusive and expanded upon than ffxiv's. On the topic of content scarcity, I would argue ffxiv is not as barren as it is might seem here. Firstly, there are way more 'outdoor' instance content than what is being portrayed here, eureka and bozja southern front being said case, also Hunt trains (not hunt log). Yes, eureka and bozja-like instances do stop being super relevant after the next expansion comes out, but by no means dead or solo content. Second, what most might forget is that the current ffxiv base game only had 1-2 year(s) of development time and it was meant to function well on both PC and PS3, as some not-so-small part of its previous 1.0 user base were on PS3. Objectively, the end result isn't as polished as GW2's 6 year development time, but imo ffxiv's expansion expands upon this 2.0 base game nicely. Why is overhaul not a viable option? Patch/expansion cycles. To overhaul an entire world system would dismiss too much old assets and in need of way more new assets. To dedicate resources for this would be a monumental undertaking that is detrimental to upholding ffxiv dev team's planned patch/exp cycle. As it is not an issue, it wouldn't be high up on the list of things to change. Third, ffxiv development team constantly put out events aimed at certain open world areas to repopulate it, some are by doing its fates, some are seasonal quests. I'm talking about new relic grinds, the yokai watch event, yearly golden saucer make it rain event, and much more. It's not a 1 day event, but by no means a daily/weekly stuff as well. It's there to bring back old players to parts of the world they rarely go to when they've cleared everything (not endgame, people doing endgame content still grind relics for glamour and do other stuff in the open world). Though from watching the GW2 clip shown here and listening and reading about its open world content, I think it has a very interesting system and looks really good. As I've only played its first vanilla iteration, I don't think my opinion on GW2 open world system is valid for comparison by any means. TL;DR ffxiv has more open world content than what is said here, just that. But seeing as this is a "I've played x amount of hours/days/weeks of game A vs years of game B", your opinion is an opinion, far be it from me to discredit it. I actually do agree that GW2's open world system might be better.

Regarding raids and rotations in GW2: I wish snowcrows also gave simplified rotations. As long as your group knows mechanics and communicates, you do not need to hit max dps rotations. A third of that is totally fine. The perfect rotation is often too crazy! (With animation cancelling) Once you understand the priority of the skills on the rotation by reading the guide, you can often find a variant of the rotation that suits you. Re new to raids - yup have to go to training discord, which is an amazing resource!

Hey Alninio! Just coming back to this video, cos the latest Producer’s Live Letter mentioned that they will be implementing the adjustment that sounds like what you mentioned here at 56:20! Yay for NIN players!

I could not agree more on the point of glamour/wardrobe. The number of gamour plates we get is extremely limited, and as someone who is obsessed with glamour, 400 cap on the glamor dresser is miniscule. I wish they could implement the system and GW2 has. I don't know how difficult it would be. Perhaps the glamour dresser is way too insinuated into the game's system now to ever be removed. But if that is the case, I hope the capacity for everything gets increased over time.

Absolutely agree on both open world and glamour, GW2 was an interesting world to explore and heightened by all its jumping puzzles which I absolutely loved to do. FF14 has some pretty areas, but you usually go through them once, there isn't much to them besides some side quests, fates and aether currents, and maybe at endgame you do some mining/gathering, treasure hunts and hunt the A or S rank hunts, thats it, you barely go out in the open world... most of the time, people just sit in limsa or at their house/fc house. Glamour in FF14 absolutely needs a work-over.. as it stands, it's actively discouraging me from doing dungeons because why would I? I don't have space for that gear, no matter how cool it looks.. my glam dresser is full, my retainers are full, my inventory is full, heck even my chocobo is even full. The hardest endgame content of FF14 is figuring out what glam you can remove to have space for more >_>

Thanks for the comparison, if I have any constructive criticism it’s the way you framed your presentation. What I learned about GW2 from your video is that it’s designed as an open world game first and foremost, so everything else (like the mounts) is built around that. While FF14 is more of a theme park experience where the open world is just one aspect, there are activities that you can do in it but it is ultimately not the focus. So I think you should have approached the comparison in terms of what each game excelled at, rather than a better/worse argument, because it is very apparent to me that the core design philosophy is different in GW2 and FF14, so it’s not as appropriate to compare them in the same way one would for FF14 and WOW. Seeing many comments recommending playing the two games as companions to each other rather than as replacement, it really goes to show that they are just not the same like apples and oranges.

Trials are such a great system. Having a single boss fight that scales up in difficulty with new or boosted mechanics is so fun

Excellent review/comparison. I play FF14, GW2 And ESO daily on rotation about 3-4 hrs each. I get my fun quenched, i get my dose of story, and i get my elder scrolls lore fix as well. Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the greatest time to enjoy multiple mmos and experiences and lore we wished we had 10+ years ago. Theres more greatness coming for GW2(end of dragons), FF14(endwalker) and ESO (Blackwood chapter).

As someone who's played GW1, GW2, WoW and FFXIV, I'd say your observations are pretty accurate. Although, I believe I stopped playing GW2 before mounts as I don't seem to recall mounts.

The problem I have with GW2 open world is sometimes when the map is dead, its soooooo painful to travel around. HoT maps particularly felt really painful to travel around when the map have very little players. Of course, when the map is filled with players, the open world becomes amazing. But when I am solo playing and not playing with a group of friends. I feel so stuck at times.

Maybe an idea for a video, for people from gw2 that wants to play xiv what should they do and for people from xiv that wants to play gw2.

Fates were popular at this xpacs launch as there was crafting material unlocks tied to them via the "Fate Levels" that were introduced. I made at least 10mil off simply doing fates this xpac, while not a large amount, it was a nice boost in the early xpac.

Absolutely agree about the open world. When u get the skyscale, the world in GW2 opens up vastly as the verticality of things is extremely awesome and the whole games becomes even more immersive. FF14 on the other hand, when I get my flying mount, it feels worse because the illusion of scale and how the world connects starts to break down. It definitely gets better after expansions due to dropping ps3 support, but GW2 maps have verticality built in mind as well, so it will still feel alot better.

gw2 pvp looks like high end league of legends. i wanna try that

There is a key on your options menu, that you can define to stow/draw weapons, to interrupt your own skill, putting it on a low cooldown without weapon swapping. The option is on "miscellaneous". There are skills that go on full cooldown if interrupted with stow or weapon swap, usually channeling skills like ranger longbow 2 rapid fire, or ele staff 5 meteor shower.

Yea I completely agree about the open world of ff14, but it used to not feel that way in ARR. The devs made quite a shift in HW, to where you saw fates become less desireable. Also Odin/Behemoth world events were HUGE in ARR, to the point where the zone could be full before you could make it in. They do have similar big fights in HW, like Kaiser Behemoth, but sadly its not the same. Being a former player of GW & GW2, I completely agree that the living world is much better, and I wish it was so in ff14. FF14 1.0 world also felt more alive, because nothing was instanced. That's right, even dungeons were not instanced. The issue with this being people being competative over grind spots and what not. So still gw2 had a better coop iteration of an open world experience which let you seamlessly band together with other players. As for the lvling experience, ff14 is pretty much weighted at max lvl. Meaning some jobs/classes don't feel right, or feel complete until you hit max lvl. This has unfortuantely become more apparent as the lvl cap has increased. GW2 for sure has a better weapon/skill system, in that you actually get to customize your class/job a bit more than ff14. The best we had in ARR ff14, was being able to redistribute your attribute points (you got so many per lvl). The weapon portion of ff14 sadly has been condensed due to weapons being the core of each job (like pld used to have daggers prior to thf/ninja :P). I seriously hope there's some interesting changes for Endwalker, since for me the game as become much more mainstream/diluted compared to what it used to be. Sadly I know the SE dev team, and they will play it safe by continuing to do what they always have done. This isn't a bad thing, I would just love some fun changes that add more depth to the game play.

I think my left hand developed some form of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from playing Holosmith so much in GW2 PVE and PVE. I like the GCD system. You get time to decide your next move and every move counts in FF14, due to combos and such For GW2 you just button mash anything that does DPS.

WoW also gives you a choice of powers, to an extent. But things are generally unbalanced so there's really only one 'real' choice if you want the best DPS. Are the choices of powers in GW2 an actual choice?

46:35 You _think_ that there is no system to distinguish bad players (and subsequently remove them from the party) because you haven't reached end-game yet. Extreme trials (even at min-ilvl) are actually considered casual raid content. So, no one bothers kicking players even if they're terrible (unless they keep fucking up mechanics obviously). True difficulty starts in Savage (specifically when a tier is still current), and players _will_ be monitoring each other's performance in Savage. They can see not only everyone's DPS, but a full breakdown of other players' rotations and whether or not they are properly using mitigations, thanks to ACT and FFLogs. People won't openly tell each other when they're shit, because harassing people over performance can lead to a ban. They will, however, gently remove bad players from their parties. And if they're not party lead, they would simply leave (because they know the party won't be getting anywhere). In other words, player performance is under just as much scrutiny in FFXIV as it is in GW2. It's just less openly talked about (due to the grey area of using 3rd party tools) and only acted upon starting from Savage difficulty. It is also worth noting that Ultimate prog/re-clear and Savage _parsing_ communities are way more open and more strict about player performance. PUG Discords will require your FFLogs link before giving you certain roles, and PF parties are quick to kick anyone who shouldn't be in there.

In terms of skills, a long time ago in ff14 you were able to pick and choose skills from other classes/jobs within the same role. They streamlined it to role skills now

Hey @Alninio9 i noticed at the Combat Animation part (28:35) i can hear the error sounds for using abilities still on cooldown... this can actually be turned off but i totally forgot where. It should be somewhere on the Character Configuration... Great review btw!!!

As a ff14 player I have to agree. GW2 Open world is a class on its own. Were Ff14 to do that aswell it would have been crowned as the best MMORPG but since they dont want to lose the sales of the consoles they wont be able to implement this.

There is one thing. You can invite people from other worlds as long as they are on the same datacenter. Your party then turns into a Crossworld party

spot on with this comparision. Specially with this raiding in GW2 is exactly how it is now. That is very unfortunate.

I would agree that open world events in FFXIV are lacking, but in some cases the events that do occur (Notorious Monsters, Hunts) are so populated that you cannot even enter the areas. These happen a few times every hour across servers. One of the reasons many players don't know about these because they aren't advertised in game (some NM Fates don't even appear on the map, and the SS Rank Hunt has a low probability of spawning), so you need to join a link shell or discord to find out about them.

I like both games, but I far prefer the GW2 animations. I like seeing other stuff on my screen than flashing colors

I think this was a really fair comparison. Hoping to see you try some savage in xiv sometime!

Oh... the glamor system is like that to help out the crafting system. A lot of that stuff is crafter created.

The only thing i don't like about the GW2 Transmutation System is the need of Transmutation Stones for every piece. So if you don't want to farm those Stones you need to buy them for Gems (mtx, but can buy gems for gold which is expensive for casual players)

I enjoyed this comparison a lot, I actually tried GW2 shortly after starting ff14, long time ago. Tbh i dont remember much about it except I was this weird short sloth character and i thought the areas were really cool. I was new to MMOs though and just felt FF14 grabbed me because of my attachment to the single player FF games. The GW2 mount system might be enough to get me to try it again, that's really cool.

I played ffxiv for awhile now so I think I can speak for ffxiv in a less rose tinted glasses way. I REALLY like the video when it touches on the GW2 aspect. This is what I came up with ( sr wall of text ): - GW2 open world seems very potent and is not just community based but also objective based. Seems like a major aspect of the game that the devs want you to experience. The dynamic between different mounts sounds awesome. FF has events and world bosses too, but nowhere near as interactive. FF’s open world is charming though if you feel bored and go for a walk, can really appreciate its visuals and sounds. - I think most can agree, FF is objectively a series with the greatest worlds of wonders and stories in video games. FFXIV is no exception. The game is so rpg you can take the mmo aspect out and get a full experience going thru the msq. Amazing. Especially 5.3 my favorite patch and probably one of my all time favorite rpg stories. - I don’t actually know how gw2 pve really feels but pve in gw2 does have its funness. That being said, encounter presentation in FFXIV so far I think has blown me away, blown everything out the water if I have to exaggerate. Every boss fight, you get fully immersed with the visuals and the boss themes; and the difficulty can ramp up very quickly from normal mode raids to savage mode. I have not played gw2 so difficulty wise I can’t speak but FFXIV ultimates are some of the hardest encounters in all MMO’s BY FAR. - Gw2 combat also seems very polished and has its fluid feeling to it. Like you said the 2 combat styles are different. FF rotations are quite standard for most jobs outside of openers, decently low floor but still has a ceiling. FF openers are very bursty though, similar to GW2 - Our community is overall positive and welcoming just as you feel. There are bad apples and dramas too, but behind closed doors and if it affects others you can feel it is being policed well enough.

As a big FFXIV fan, i agree that GW2 90% beats out FFXIV, its just better. But end of the day FFXIV is a final fantasy game first, mmo second. you just cant beat it in story. also FFXIV's party finder system and level sync is the best implementation in any mmo. So, im going to jump back into GW2 now and then and get back into it