Been away from MMO's for quite some time, but I finally have a bit more time to sink into one. I'm looking forward (and a backer) to Camelot Unchained as an avid DAoC player ages ago, but looking for an MMO to fill in the gap until then.
FFXIV and GW2 both caught my eye and though i dabbled in both, i never progressed super far due to being in college and lacking time. How would you compare these two in terms of:
PvP?
Dungeons?
Class/character development?
General thoughts on the state of the game, community, accessability for someone starting anew?
Comments
/2cents
While GW2 is one of the best Modern MMOs.
Honestly if you don't mind one of the worst combat system in the genre, absurd grindiness of the traditional MMOs, then go ahead with FFXIV. They are releasing a ton of content pretty damn fast, even though it's not of a high quality (filler content). At least you won't have to worry that you'll run out of things to do.
Othervise if you're looking for a modern MMO, then GW2 is a very good choice. However it has plenty of faults as well. Main one probably their update schedule, which is very slow and lackluster. Anyways if you're actually looking for a modern MMO, then I'd recommend ESO, it's way better in pretty much everything than GW2.
GW2 -- pvp is fun and gear doesn't matter
Both are fun depending on what you want. GW2 is f2p for the vanilla game. FFXIV has a free trial.
You own both, so play one for a few weeks and then play the other. Decide which you prefer yourself.
Both have huge negatives and positives, whether they are a big deal depends on you.
GW2, while I used to enjoy the game a lot, Anet has done nearly everything in it's power to ruin that game. They've overnerfed most incentives to do things like dungeons in the game. Though things have gotten a little bit better on the pvp side, they still screwed up the meta pretty badly. WvW is still waiting for that love Anet keeps promising and never seems to deliver. Etc. Simply put, Anet went so far into their expansion that they actually ruined the core game experienced to try and force players to play the expansion content more. As a result, you may still have some casual fun in GW2 but I would not recommend it anymore.
Nearly all the main guilds in that game have given up on it after the stuff Anet pulled post- HoT. (pulling content promised in the expansion and diverting those resources to work on their next expansion)
Dungeons=FFXIV
Class/Character Development=Toss Up. I like both. but edge out towards FFXIV
IMO, I think FFXIV is on a SLIGHTLY better path than GW2. ANET has made a lot of deep mistakes as of late. I think FFXIV has simply put out a better expansion at this point.
If you're crafting oriented, FFXIV may be better, but if you're achievement oriented, GW2 will be more your speed.
You made bias free evaluations of both games without drifting too much into one corner.