Oh wow, I didn't realize Wooden Potatoes did a comparison review

[cashew]

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So, Wooden Potatoes covered a pretty good amount of the pros and cons of each game, but I have a few nitpicks here.

Story of A Realm Reborn: I'm going to go against the tide here and say that I'm actually enjoying A Realm Reborn's story? Like, yeah, this isn't one of the most engaging RPG story's I've been thrust into (FF7 has everyone beat on that front), but for an MMO? This story is not afraid to basically ask your player character to play second fiddle to the main NPC cast and that's a great idea. (Also, who doesn't love Y'shtola? You monster. There's a reason she's the representative for FF14 in the Dissidia games.)

The fact that gamers (and WP is such a typical gamer) over value voice acting and denigrate textboxes is...ugh. Anyway, the point is, cutscenes do not a good story make if the cutscenes don't make sense.

The FF franchise has pretty much perfected the balance of textbox dialogue vs cutscene dialogue. As such, only major events get a cutscene, to really grab your attention. Meanwhile, most of the story is told through dialogue boxes and it is extensive. Every dialogue is written with character in mind. And I agree that there's a lot of archaic jargon and slang and turns of phrase that get bandied about, and as a player you have to really work past that and settle down to read. But once you've committed to pay attention to the story, it actually rewards you and each NPC has an actual personality, as opposed to the sheer blaaaaaaah that is the GW2 cast. (Again, name me one character that's interesting outside of Zojja and Rytlock. You can't.)

Remember how GW2 kills your mentor character after the tutorial arc because they needed to bring the personal stories into the unified main plot? Well, FF14 also had a problem of differing starting stories (based on city rather than race), but instead of killing off your mentor NPC, it's revealed that your mentor NPC actually belonged to a group called the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and they're trying to save the world from disaster. And that mentor NPC keeps going with you in the main story, because all the mentor NPCs now get to interact with your character.

And the organization, Scions of the Seventh Dawn, doesn't only consist of just "heroes". There's also a secretary NPC who is a non-combatant and is an absolute lark. She has no patience with you at the beginning and it's hilarious. But once she gets to know you through the events of the story, she'll become your number one cheerleader and can always be relied on to encourage you when the going gets tough.

Also, the story isn't afraid of slowing down and have your characters hit wall after wall after wall. You simply can't secure cooperation from people in the world that easily and yes, most of it involves running to character A, read text, run to character B read text, etc. But because I'm invested in the actual story, I don't need every beat to be about how "OMG something is threatening the world, we gotta go kill it!" Instead, I'm finding out about scoundrels who ditched their wives to follow their wanderlust, then said scoundrel would have you going back to the abandoned wife for a favor. And then you get chewed out as the messenger.

I've seen some people complain that they feel like a glorified postal service, and...yeah, that's not untrue. But this is what happens in JRPGs. You start as a nobody plebe trying to live your life as well as you could in a world that's inhospitable and people are grouping together out of sheer necessity. And it's not that long into the MSQ before you get captured by an Ifrit worshiping cult and you almost get burned to a crisp in a boss fight. (I...took like five tries before I figured out how to clear the boss.)

A good story slowly builds up to the big reveal. Think about FF7: Sure, you get throw into an exciting bombing mission, but then you immediately settle into running away from ShinRa for hours until the big Sephiroth reveal. You don't even fight Sephiroth, you just listen to Cloud exposition vomit for close to an hour about what happened in Nibelheim. You don't play through any of that, you just watch the horror.

ARR follows the same kind of storytelling pace. You hear about how bad things are in the world, you get some flashbacks about how there's these things called Primals that wake up every so often to fuck up civilization. The organization is called "Scions of the Seventh Dawn" because this cycle has been going on for seven times already. The world is in a bad place and you're just one lonely person who feels like s/he can't do anything about it. Except you turn out to be one of the SPECIAL people who have been blessed by the crystal. Because of your special affinity, you get recruited into a world saving guild and you spend most of your time being an activist trying to recruit people into the guild's cause or earn favors with locals to gain access to resources.

You fight as a last resort. Most of the time, you're playing the politics, and that's good storytelling.

And because this is a Final Fantasy game, ultimately, you're counting on the setups paying off to something big. (That is if you haven't forgotten the plot completely when you got distracted by the Gold Saucer.)

Open World: WP's description of GW2's more involved open world events is true, but that's actually the reason I don't like it. Like, at first, I was all, ooo, everybody smack a boss, sounds fun. But then I realized those bosses are on a timer and the sheer amount of organization needed for open world meta events makes it a PITA when the map is disorganized and you have to do this weird taxi thing where you bring people into the right shard via a LFG and discord coordination and...

I'd rather just be able to do the events myself without relying on 40 strangers all having the same goal and knowing how to achieve that goal. Yes, it's fun when the map knows what its doing. But unless it's a major world boss event (that's on a timer), the map usually has no fucking clue and only a small percentage of people are working towards the objectives. And if you missed the timer by even a minute, you get thrown into an empty shard. So if you want to succeed at the world boss, you're gonna have to camp the boss. And if the boss event needs even the slightest amount of organization, well, I hope you have teamspeak/discord/whatever VOIP and know which channels to join so you can actually listen in on instructions to get into the correct shard, or good freaking luck trying to get anything done.

I think the best description of FF14 is that it's a single player game with multiplayer dungeons, and that's a really good description of how things work. When you look at the dead maps on GW2, despite their level scaling and shit, you realize how little fun you actually get if you're not playing on the most recent maps. Whereas with FF14, no old content is truly obsolete, because there's so much back tracking, and you can complete it yourself without needing 15 other people helping you with the boss. Oh, and map bosses spawn so much faster. (Probably less so in higher areas, but low level areas do not have this boss camping problem.)

Map aesthetics: I'm not getting into map design, since the two games have very different ideas for the map mechanics. However, in terms of environment, just the visual aesthetics, FFXIV is far more detailed. Like, for example, you leave footprints in the snow or soft sand. The weather is super involved. Your clothes changes to a wet texture when it's raining. Wind can blow rain sideways in a downpour. There is sometimes (but not always) a thunderstorm when it rains. Day-night cycle includes twilight and dawn, with a reasonable transition during the cycle. You can actually watch the sun rise and set. Some mobs only show up at certain times of day (in-game time) or under certain weather conditions. The monsters are all rendered with great detail and not everything is "ugly" to feel threatening. Herbivores can also be aggressive and attack you, because herbivores are prey animals that startle easily. There are giant deadly hornets. And you have the classic FF mobs like Marbolos, Cactuars, Tonberries. Much effort went into rendering 3D Cactuars is all I'm saying.

I mean, it's Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy aesthetic is very beautiful. I mean just look at these beautifully fantastic floating islands, or the marshy surroundings of Camp Tranquil, or the obnoxiously difficult to navigate pirate city, or or the majesty of the snow-capped mountains in Mor Dohna. The environments are truly stunning. Even the desert is not without greenery. You may find FF's story to be melodramatic, but no expense was spared on making pretty aesthetics.

Depth in every system: I really felt WP's point about how every non-combat system is also deep, unlike the shallowness of GW2's non-combat systems. Take the minions (mini-pets) as an example: my cat will literally fight any dog minion that comes close; Mammet #001 will salute other Mammets; the baby chocobo will keep circling under my feet, whereas my cat will wander off every so often before coming back. And then there's the terrible MOBA using minions in your collection, which requires hunting down minions through sidequests and achievements and dungeon drops. (A baby marbolo dropped in Aurum Vale, but I didn't get it in the loot roll.)

And then there's the entirety of the Gold Saucer.I can pretty much spend all of my in game time in the Gold Saucer and do nothing else because those minigames can be ridiculously addicting and even triple triad is obnoxiously deep if you ever get into the game. (I'm one of those "hate card game" people, but that's not most people and, from what I understand, triple triad is one of the more popular FF card games.) Chocobo racing is pretty much an FF themed Mario Kart and wow...that shit gets deep and all available on a free trial account, too!

Combat Roles: FF14 showed me that the problem with the trinity wasn't the trinity, it was the fact that finding a healer is a PITA. FF14 PUGs don't suffer this problem, because the duty finder automates PUGs seamlessly. And the game incentivizes playing a healer by giving bonus currency tokens to the healer PC (seals, poetics, or whatever other token needed for end game). Instead of giving loot based on damage or GW2's mob tagging system or some such nonsense, everyone gets an equal share at rolling for loot. And by letting the same character multi-class, it makes swapping job roles that much easier. You're not locked into playing healer for other content if you don't want to. And that means there's plenty of healers to go around when it comes to dungeons. I swap into a White Mage for easy dungeon duties, then switch back to being a DPS/Tank when doing story.

Also, because of the duty roulette system, I see vets playing low level dungeons all the time with n00bs. It's very relaxing because vets are rewarded a lot and n00bs get help. PUG-ing has never been easier and it's all very low toxicity because if someone leaves, the duty roulette will plop another person from the queue into the party. Oh, and there's a short-cut system that allows you to quick travel past everything you've already cleared in the dungeon if the party wipes. And you get damage boost because you wiped to make it easier for you. Also, story dungeons will give you NPC party members if you're not in the mood to party with real people. The NPCs know all the mechanics and are sometimes even better than PC parties.

Build Variety: GW2 build craft is a lie. Yes, you can try out a bunch of different things and look for synergy, but the reality is that there's only one or two ways to play a profession. (Like, Elementalist is basically overload bot. Build any other way and, yes, you can probably get through content, but it won't feel good getting through content.)

Meanwhile, FF14 straight up throws that shit out the door and say, look, we'll show you how to build for your class. There's 18 different combat jobs and each plays differently. There's 3 roles, but each role can be done by multiple jobs with a different strategy.

Like, say you wanna tank. If you go Paladin, you're relying on damage mitigation. If you're going Warrior, you're relying on self-sustain and high HP pool. If your going Dark Knight, you're going for life leech. If you're a Gunblade...ahahahahah. 🤣 Ahem. I mean, Gunblades are supposed to be the more DPS-y tank, but you'd rather get a Warrior for that. (I joke, Gunblades are fine, is a very popular job.)

You wanna heal? White Mage makes HP bar go up. Scholar puts in shields to prevent HP bar going down. Astrologians basically play a mini deck building game (they draw cards, like Yugioh). Sage...heals through DPS, if you ever get tired of healing, I guess.

What if you just want big damage numbers? Machinist (the FF version of Engineer) has lasers, and is one of the most popular solo clear classes in Palace of the Dead. (Learn a lesson, GW2.) Bard plinks while supporting song buffs. Dancers spin with chakrams. Ninja ninja. Samurai has apparently a mind-boggling combo system. Monks...punch things. Dragoons jump...and kill themselves when they time it poorly.

And let's not forget casters: Black Mage makes big fire balls, Red Mage is basically a jack of all trades, Blue Mage uses monster skills, Summoner...summons BAHAMUT (if you FF you understand why BAHAMUT deserves all caps). Ok, Summoner's start off with a dinky carbuncle, but y'know, you work your way up the summon chain of big flashy stuff. Also, you hit things with a book.

Remember, in FF14 you can play all the jobs, which means you effectively have 18 builds on the same character. In GW2, you'll need to either swap to an alt to play a different profession, or be limited to three elite specializations (if you have all three expansions), because the base profession is not competitive. And no matter what role you play, it's pure damage build or GTFO. Balanced stat distribution? Pfft. Building for ranged damage? Ahahahahahahah. Every point in defense is a point wasted, so good luck "tanking".

Race design: OK, I'm just gonna have to outright disagree with WP about race design. First, the dragon race is fine. It has the biggest sex difference between male and female models (tiny female, giant males). The scales and horn are very much in tune to the Eastern standard of Dragon People. Hrothgar, the least "human" looking of the races, are fine. They have animal faces (much like Charr), stand with a bit of a hunch, and fur everywhere. The rabbit race (Viera) is hilarious to me, because the males also walk on their tippy toes. Viera is basically the sexpot race, males included. You want bishies? You make a Viera.

But more importantly, things like tails, animal ears (cat ears, rabbit ears, dragon horns) are all accounted for in the glamour. There's no clipping off vital bits. Tails don't just stick out or, worse, disappear. Hoods have special ear vs no ear models to account for different parts on different races. Races with tails have some covering and a tail hole built into the armor pieces. Tippy-toe walkers (bunny race) have shoes redesigned that adjust to fit the tippy-toe foot model instead of just stretching the texture all out of proportion (like what happens on Charr shoes in GW2). Lalafell (the chibi race) has everything chibified. All the skins have a different chibi model to fit Lalafell. Yes, even the chocobo mount is smaller for Lalafell.

In short, yes, maybe the racial traits aren't as obvious, but the little details matter and are accounted for when designing in game clothes. And that matters to me far more than having a race that looks completely foreign.

Mounts: I...honestly don't understand why GW2 players are so happy with their mounts. Like, oh yay, you can move differently with mounts now, but...um... FF14 literally gives you a mount at level 20. And that mount will fly when you get to the appropriate part of the story (the chocobo even gets a little aviation hat for flying). And every mount after is merely different skin, same effect. Which is good because, god, mount chasing is the absolute worst. The idea is that you don't get locked out from basic gameplay simply because you don't have a specific mount. And a mount's only purpose is to help you travel faster (be that running or flying) and that's...fine. I don't understand the obsession with interactivity on maps that don't do anything meaningful. Like, yay, you found a secret passage...so what? I'd much rather have a story to go with all that map exploration. I guess I don't feel like I need exploration in my games when the story leads me through the world to explore already? And there's plenty of sidequests and NPCs to talk to in order to either unlock content or get rewarded with difficult to obtain items (like dyes and glamours skins).

I guess I don't quite get the hype of mounts in GW2, because it sounds more like players being glad to have convenience when it always should have been given at the get go.

Inventory: First, I disagree that GW2 inventory is better. It is most certainly NOT. FF14 give you a special "armory" inventory, so all your weapons, armor, and accessories go in there, freeing up your actual inventory for shit you'll use. There's also a special tab for Key Items (quest items) that, again, does not count against your 140 inventory slot space. And then there's a special crystals bag to contain crafting crystals, which, again doesn't count against your inventory slots. Oh and currency is stored just as a number in the log, so you don't have to have to waste inventory space on that either. While the invisible bag is pretty neat given GW2 inventory system, the chocobo saddle bag achieves the same effect. And if the equipment is assigned to an equipment template, then there is an option at NPC merchants to "hide things linked to equipment templates", so you don't accidentally sell gear you're still actively using. Anything else you can easily buy back.

Glamour vs. Transmutation: OMG, no, WP. You are simply wrong. The transmuting system sucks. I totally remember farming transmutation charges on alts to fund my fashion needs. Holy shit, that stuff was difficult to get. The only reliable way to get transmutation charges was either pay RL money, or level lowbies for map completion, which I could complete maybe one zone after 45 minutes to an hour for a single charge (sometimes even longer). Even city completions (no battles), still takes like 20 minutes to unlock every PoI and complete every Vista. Whereas in FF14, glamour prisms are cheap easily accessible with in game currency (company seals). One daily roulette (~10mins) and I have enough seals to buy 10. I've burned through about 50 of these things now and I have enough seals to buy like...50 more.

Second, glamour plates are so convenient for previewing the full outfit. Yes, you have to acquire the actual armor piece first, but then, you can do whatever with it. There are so many nice pieces of armor that aren't locked to a specific class (unlike the heavy-medium-light system in GW2), and the best part is heavy classes (tanks) can wear robes and jerkins, too! (Light classes - casters - can't wear heavier stuff because those skins are locked to "Disciples of War" only.) As someone who prefers the more light look (and have no desire to dress my white mage in platemail), this is a godsend. If you want a paladin to tank while wearing a pointy wizard hat, you can do that in FF14.

Also, with glamour plates, I don't have to consume anything when leveling lowbie jobs. Sure, I might change armor every 5 levels, but I can keep my look by applying the glamour plate every time for free. Do you know how freeing that is? It's so nice to not worry about whether I want to waste a transmuation charge to change the look of leveling armor.

The only thing I'll give is that the dye system is better in GW2...slightly. Being able to choose different secondary and tertiary colors is neat. Locking dye colors behind RNG...much less so. (I get you can buy the specific color off of the marketplace, but that's why certain colors are obnoxiously expensive.) And while I agree having dyes be permanently unlocked is nice, the ease of access (buying from NPCs or crafting) of dyes in FF14 means you don't have to really worry too much about reacquiring the desired dye colors unless you want some really rare stuff. But then...that's what crafting jobs are for. Once you craft, you can basically have access to any dye color you want without RNG. Because dyes lack RNG, that means there's less pressure to "unlock" a color. Just buy or craft whatever color you want.

GW2 does have more colors, however. I'll give that. But most of them look terrible on armor, and armor has a tendency to look samey. FF14 has less colors, but that's because you rely less on colors to stand out, because you can put together a far more unique look, rather than relying on palette swapping. I mean, what's gonna look more different, a different colored jerkin or a completely different design?

Also, also, all outfit pieces in FF14 come separately and thus can be mixed and matched with other outfits. GW2's fixed costume system is...meh. It means even more dependency on dye colors to stand out from the crowd. This is what contributes to the "Shiny" mentality, whereas FF14 fashion is far more down to earth (and looks better to me).

Again, just consult the Eorzea glamour gallery and see how much people are rocking different kinds of looks all over.

(And also, don't forget all the accessories, earrings, necklace, wristbands, rings, all can be reskinned and shows up on your character model. So...details.)

Finally, at over ten years old, FF14 has a lot of "event only" skins. These are skins that are available only to people who were in the game at the time, pretty familiar to any GW2 vet who remembers halo dragon wings. However, FF14 allows you to use RL money to purchase those skins after the event is over. So if you were there, you can get it for free. If not, you can pay RL money to get it, thus the skin is never really locked out of the game. (Given the game is subscription, you're already paying for it, so...)

Jumping Puzzles: OK, fair enough. GW2 jumping puzzles are better. The jump mechanic is better than FF14. I literally didn't think it was possible to have a worse jumping mechanic than GW2, but FF14 proved me wrong. I...have nothing to defend FF14 here. The jumping is just shit. I can't even. Of course, GW2 jumping isn't exactly its selling point. Literally Genshin Impact, a gacha MMO, has better jumping mechanics than GW2, so it's not saying much.

Gear Grind: WP said something about GW2 devs believed in respecting "the player's time", so there's no top tier gear grind. Clearly, he forgot the grind of ascended armor, ascended weapons, new runes, insignia and inscription grinds. Yeah, you can avoid all that by grinding for legendary gear and easily stat swap...but you'll literally spend less time throwing ascended stuff into the mystic forge, but you lose expensive runes and the insignia/inscriptions themselves are also a pain to get. Not to mention more transmutation charges to get the look back. Ugh.

Meanwhile, yeah, FF14 has gear grind, but it's very easy. You spend tokens to buy second BiS, then you work towards first BiS, or simply settle for second BiS because you're busy buying glamour items. Also, lower gear is completely viable for lower dungeons. The level sync doesn't reduce your armor rating the way GW2's level sync decreases your stats. In other words, you can wear level 20 gear in level 20 dungeon, it doesn't matter if your job level is higher, only gear level. In GW2, you'll get punished for wearing lower level gear on a higher level character thanks to their "dynamic difficulty". You're literally better off as a level 20 wearing level 20 gear than a level 50 wearing level 20 gear.

Now, you might argue that Exotics have the same effect. Technically, you don't have to grind for ascended at all. Exotics will serve whatever it is that you need. I have three responses to this claim:

1. I've tried to clear later stuff in exotics. IT IS A FUCKING PAIN. The extra stats on Ascended gear really does help.

2. Swapping in new exotics to test out builds is literally more painful than just sucking it up and going full Ascended. Once ascended, you can focus on crafting insignias/inscriptions to quickly stat swap and save your inventory space. Inventory space is at a far higher premium in GW2 than in FF14.

   • In FF14, armor has a dedicated armory chest (which has 35 spaces for each equipment slot). Main hand, off hand, head, body, glove, pants, shoes, earring, necklace, bracelet, rings, each gets 35 slots separate from your bag inventory. That's 385 equipment inventory slots. In GW2, all that gear is going into your bag. Just imagine carrying an alternate set of stat gear for differing builds (4 land weapons, 2 water weapons, 7 land armor, 1 water breather, 5 trinkets); that's 19 slots gone. Carry a second alternate set and that's 38 slots dedicated to gear alone.

   • For the longest time, GW2 maxed out at 20 spaces per bag, where as FF14 gave you 35 spaces per bag. Sure, GW2 gave you 5 bags, but FF14 gives you 4 bags for a total of 140 slots vs the GW2's 100 slots. GW2 has the bank tab with an additional 30 spaces (and guild bank if you can afford a private guild, which you can't in the new system) and requires running to the NPC every time. FF14 gives you 70 spaces in the chocobo saddle bag that you have access through a hotkey. Oh, and 2 retainer NPCs (the actual bank NPC) that have access to 175 slots each, for a starting bank inventory of 350 additional slots. (And if you argue "but you don't get retainers on free trial", well, you only get three bags on free GW2, so...)

   • GW2 tokens (shells, shards, relics, blah blah blah) all go into the inventory. FF14 puts all those different currencies in the coin menu. There's only a few tokens and they're meant to be exchanged immediately, not sitting in your bags as you slowly rack them up.

   • There is an armoire in FF14 to store seasonal items, so you can free up the inventory space even more.

   • A full stack in GW2 is 250 items. A full stack in FF14 is 999. The point being, GW2 space is at a high premium, so you're gonna want gear that can change stats without having to carry a whole new set...hence ascended gear grind.

3. The fact that ascended trinkets are given out via grinding living world says everything about GW2's respect for your time. Sure, they could let you just craft the new stat trinkets, but let's make you collect 600+ winterberries instead despite having ground up your Jewelery craftsmanship to 400. Oh, did you want to try full vipers stat distribution because "build variety"? Go grind. The constant new stat distributions mean the gear grind simply takes on a new form, it doesn't actually stop.

Regarding Cash Shop vs. Subscription: I might have accepted that GW2 was less polished due to its pay once model, but...that's not true with the cash shop, is it? While yes, FF14 is double dipping with cash shop and subscription, which is pretty scummy, GW2's heavy cash shop push is also pretty scummy and possibly worse than FF14's cash shop. Because here's the thing about FF14 cash shop, it's not RNG. There's only loot boxes within the game. You get what you pay for in the cash shop, no RNG bullshit.

Meanwhile, GW2 not only locks desperately needed convenience items behind cash shop (as per my inventory discussion earlier about how the game squeezes you into buying more inventory space), but they also put cosmetics behind Real Money Lottery. That to me is far scummier than having a straight forward cash shop plus subscription. Granted, I feel like you really only ought to have one type of monetization: subscription or cash shop. And neither should charge an upfront fee. Like, if people are going to be paying $15 per month to play this game, they really shouldn't also be shelling out an additional one time payment of $35-$60. And if a game has a cash shop system, then it should go full free-to-play, because micro-transactions have insane income. (Obviously, you can still lock the free-to-trial experience until Real Money purchase in the cash shop, at which point the account should count as a "paying" account and switch off the free trial limitations.)

But, in terms of free trial, GW2 only gives the base game, while FF14 gives base plus first expansion. And I don't buy that FF14 subscription makes them more money when microtransactions have proven to be far more profitable than subscription models and they have lootboxes in the cash shop. Also, FF14 development team is notorious for going to extreme lengths to make their budget stretch as far as they can (while FF15 eats all of SquareEnix's profits or something). I don't think the team is on a shoestring budget, but it sounds like all FF14 profit is strictly reinvested into FF14 rather than funding other SE ventures, while GW2 profits go into developing other terrible ANet projects that fail.

In summary, I think the problem with GW2 is that it literally punishes you for investing. If you become emotionally invested in NPCs, good luck hoping for satisfaction to how their character growth ties up. If you get attached to a profession, it's probably going to get outclassed by whatever new elite spec comes along. If you liked your old build, a new set of stats will make it obsolete. If you like a particular movement mechanic, it's probably going to be replaced or not usable in the next expansion. Oh, and also you literally pay less for more game if you start later. And all those in-game skins you earn are going to look dull and drab compared to the new skins in the cash shop.

Meanwhile, FF14 treats NPCs with care and won't fridge them. If they die, there's going to be a damn good reason and the death will be felt through the rest of the story. You will not be allowed to forget important NPCs. Tearing down a political structure has consequences. If you invest in a job, it will not suddenly become useless in the next iteration, because trinity system means your role will always be necessary. Crafting is meaningful and can get BiS without dungeon grinding. Investment in FF14 is never invalidated by later expansions.