Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

[Firewind]

Basically going to sum up the good and bad point of both games for those still on the fence:

I'm also going to mark things that are subjective. If you re after an objective summary then ignore the hell out of any point with (Subjective) on the end of it.

Why FFXI is Better

1. Game has been out for longer so there is a lot of established lore and content.
2. The community has had time to figure out things so there are a lot of guides.
3. You can get the game for pretty cheap.
4. RMT seem to have abandoned the game.
5. More classes available.
6. Crafting system is simpler and there are no annoying gathering minigames. You can really craft and gather when semi-AFK on XI.
7. Soundtrack is much better (Subjective).
8. Stable economy.
9. Has an AH system
10. Crystals are much easier to obtain
11. POL is better than having to use Click and Buy for subscriptions.

Why FFXIV is better

1. It has it's own client so you don't have to spend ages going through POL.
2. Tarutaru no longer talk like Ned Flanders and are actually cute as a result instead of a form of digital diabetes.
3. Much more solo friendly. You can get things does even if you can't find help, it will just take longer.
4. The interface in general is faster than FFXI's, especially when gear switching and job switching.
5. Battle system is much faster. Grinding is actually fun due to the faster pace instead of XI's slow and sluggish "Engage, hack away for ten minutes, disengage, gain 10XP" thing.
6. Gathering points are shared. No more fighting over mining or woodcutting points
7. Quests are much easier to follow as you are actually SHOWN on your map where you need to head to.
8. Combat is more tactical and less predictable. In FFXI you could engage a mob and within the first TP move you can judge how the fight is going to go.
9. The graphics are pretty.
10. Mioq'te are adorable.
11. Voice acting in cutscenes. It's not the best but its nice to have it.
12. More macro bars.
13. The free trial kiddies and Anti-FFXIV fanboys have fucked off back to WoW.
14. No death penalty to punish you for having a bad party or a run having bad luck.

Why FFXI is Worse

1. Slow and sluggish combat and UI compared to FFXIV.
2. Not as many macro bars which means you have to rely on external programmes such as windower in order to be useful at endgame.
3. The game just seems so dead even in places like Whitegate
4. If you don't have Nyzul Floor 100 and every single mission in the game cleared you're even less likely to get help to clear them now than before.
5. Newbie zones seem to only ever contain people's bank and item alts so good luck if you're just starting the game.
6. NM camping.
7. Death penalty punishes you for someone else's mistakes or just sheer back luck.
8. Tarutaru talk like Ned Fucking Flanders
9. Doctor Marysuetotto.

Why FFXIV is Worse

1. The game has just started so there isn't much content beyond levelling up at the moment. It makes the game feel empty.
2. Click and Buy.
3. Crafting is even more likely to fail than it did in Aion.
4. No PvP options (Subjective).
5. People crowd the camps so they tend to have silly lag
6. Click and Buy
7. Dodos
8. Click and Buy
9. The game has silly system requirements. A fraction of the people in the game can actually run it properly with a good framerate and no interface lag
10. Dodos.

[jenova_9]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

they released a helpful guide

FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone



oh and I think people can find another ways to pay subscription, I heard people can buy game cards at a real store and use that to subscribe.

[Mhurron]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

FFXIV doesn't have people coming back, doing a mediocre Abyssea party for 2 hours and saying they've had more fun in those 2 hours then they did in 2 weeks of playing FFXIV.

FFXIV doesn't have people standing in La Theine shouting that FFXIV sucks.

FFXIV doesn't have people claiming in response to the above shout that the best thing about FFXIV is that it breathed new life into and got more players to return to FFXI.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

FFXIV doesn't have people

This.

Make of it what you will.

[ShepardG]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

And now for a subjective review of the the review ^^:


Why FFXI is Better

1. Game has been out for longer so there is a lot of established lore and content. true
2. The community has had time to figure out things so there are a lot of guides. true
3. You can get the game for pretty cheap. true
4. RMT seem to have abandoned the game. false, their still around, just not as in your face about it
5. More classes available. true
6. Crafting system is simpler and there are no annoying gathering minigames. You can really craft and gather when semi-AFK on XI. true, system is much more simple
7. Soundtrack is much better (Subjective). use of the word subjective is key here ^^, i hate 14 but it's soundtrack is so amazing it will honestly be hard for a FF to top it for me.
8. Stable economy. true
9. Has an AH system true, thank god
10. Crystals are much easier to obtain true, to the point that their often thrown away they have such an abundance
11. POL is better than having to use Click and Buy for subscriptions. true

Why FFXIV is better

1. It has it's own client so you don't have to spend ages going through POL. true
2. Tarutaru no longer talk like Ned Flanders and are actually cute as a result instead of a form of digital diabetes. true, they talk like snobby english folk. quite funny, mhyes, quite.
3. Much more solo friendly. You can get things does even if you can't find help, it will just take longer. key emphasis on take longer...much much longer...
4. The interface in general is faster than FFXI's, especially when gear switching and job switching. flat out disagree here, 14's interface is horendous and if it was put to a race between 11 and 14, to change job's 3 times, 11 would win hands down. not to mention changing ability's, or swapping in job specific armor, 14's interface is horrible. They only thing right is the ability to swap on the fly, but that's a nicety that i'd give up for an interface that remembers my job specific ability set. if you've played blue mage in 11 imagine having to set your spells for each job every time
5. Battle system is much faster. Grinding is actually fun due to the faster pace instead of XI's slow and sluggish "Engage, hack away for ten minutes, disengage, gain 10XP" thing. false-ish, yes 11's battle system was slow and grindy, but has since been revamped and allows for solo play, aswell as alliance level exp parties during latter levels. with a group of friends one can sacrifice their cruor (a sort of currency) to provide a service to an alliance of 18, while gaining massive ammounts of Experience. going from 37-60 in 5-6hours is not unheard of. The fights are engaging also, allowing for every type of job to participate.
6. Gathering points are shared. No more fighting over mining or woodcutting points True, and well appreciated
7. Quests are much easier to follow as you are actually SHOWN on your map where you need to head to. true, just not on all of your maps...
8. Combat is more tactical and less predictable. In FFXI you could engage a mob and within the first TP move you can judge how the fight is going to go. Disagree, there are 100's of mobs, and NM's currently that completly change their attack style at a certain percentage of life, or based on types of magic cast on them, or based on certain job abilities that they use. Mobs that deal damage from the side's, and then proceed to add the combined total of said damage delt, into a heal, then multiply said damage by x2.5 and sometime within the next 2 mins will do a frontal "vomit" type attack to anyone within a 30 degree arch in the front.
9. The graphics are pretty. True, but reused oh so much, but they are very gorgeous
10. Mioq'te are adorable. subjective
11. Voice acting in cutscenes. It's not the best but its nice to have it. i never had to much of a problem with the quality, i actually thought it was very very nice.
12. More macro bars. ...meh, 3rd party tools improved the game (ffxi), but were never adopted officially by SE. Arguably a glaring fault of SE itself. However, 14 does indeed have more macro bars, they just don't work very well, or equip gear at a acceptable level of success, imo.
13. The free trial kiddies and Anti-FFXIV fanboys have fucked off back to WoW. wow, not the game, the expression. I've never played WoW, i'm a die hard 11 game, but if you can't see why most people have left the game, then your being quite biased yourself.
14. No death penalty to punish you for having a bad party or a run having bad luck. true, and welcome

Why FFXI is Worse

1. Slow and sluggish combat and UI compared to FFXIV. Again, this is flat out false. I have a quad-core, 6gig, 1gig video card, 7200rpm HD, and XIV lags well behind 11, they both lag, but 14 was to the point that i could not play it anymore.
2. Not as many macro bars which means you have to rely on external programmes such as windower in order to be useful at endgame. not necessarily, your just not going to be as efficent as the guy next to you who's know's when his buff's are going to wear, or when his healing spell can be cast again /shrug.
3. The game just seems so dead even in places like Whitegate whitegate is dead, with the addition of abyssea, the new focal point is Jeuno again.
4. If you don't have Nyzul Floor 100 and every single mission in the game cleared you're even less likely to get help to clear them now than before. true, however, clearing them with the increased level cap will be loads easier with 2-3 @ 85+ allowing for you a few friends to finish them.
5. Newbie zones seem to only ever contain people's bank and item alts so good luck if you're just starting the game. true, 1-37 is tough arguably, it works like this now. Solo to 11 or 12, get a summoner burn together which will take you to 20ish, solo in valkrum from 20-21or22, party in qufim till 37 (level sync means no repeat armor to buy, no new spells to worry about, and your close to town also)
6. NM camping. is pretty much dead and moot. Most new gear is better than older stuff from world spawn NM's, or comes from World spawn NM's with a 30 min re-pop.
7. Death penalty punishes you for someone else's mistakes or just sheer back luck. true, but considering the state of abyssea EXP groups, 15k can be made in 10-20 mins or while hunting out seals for your AF3 pieces.
8. Tarutaru talk like Ned Fucking Flanders but they don't have voice acting so it's all in chat, so arguablly....you think like ned flanders talks .... /shrug ^^
9. Doctor Marysuetotto. ???

Why FFXIV is Worse

1. The game has just started so there isn't much content beyond levelling up at the moment. It makes the game feel empty. true, but then again, leveling up is what people should be doing now honestly. I think the game feels empty because the guy who gives you leve quests, is about as empty a NPC as you can get. helga isn't going to hire merc's to find her wedding ring, but a nice adventurer who happens to pass by and says hello, might......none of that in FFXIV
2. Click and Buy. Buy crysta with a credit card or use pay pal.
3. Crafting is even more likely to fail than it did in Aion. agreed, crafting in 14 is horrendous.
4. No PvP options (Subjective). agreed, would like to see something in the future, i like how they made shield more of an active skill instead of just being something you equip in your off hand.
5. People crowd the camps so they tend to have silly lag yeah, SE brought this on themselves when they effectively doubled (if not tripled/quadrupled) their server load by having every SINGLE ACTION verified server side.
6. Click and Buy Buy crysta with a credit card or use pay pal.
7. Dodos being silly i hope ^^
8. Click and Buy Buy crysta with a credit card or use pay pal.
9. The game has silly system requirements. A fraction of the people in the game can actually run it properly with a good framerate and no interface lag true, i have a great system, yet it still lags me out on my end sometimes. SE's lack of programing experience along with the self imposed restriction of programing for the PS3 lead to this failure, imo.
10. Dodos. oh you

[Raydeus]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

Tarutaru talk like Ned Fucking Flanders.

You need to specify this is for the NA version of the game. Tarus in the Japanese version have waaaaaay better dialog, but since there's no cultural equivalent (like usual) they did what that they did with the NA version.

So yeah, tarus in english really needed normal speech.

[jenova_9]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

credit card and pay pal are largely unsafe. it's best to pay using gamecards from a store.

[Raydeus]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

You can set a separate debit card for online purchases and only keep there the money you are planning to spend online and/or an amount you wouldn't mind losing.

Or at least that's what I do.



PS > LOLClick&buy, there's no way I'd play XIV using that.

[jenova_9]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

ya I did that before but I didn't like it because it made me paranoid about misplacing the card.

And it cluttered my room with bank letters updating my current debit card/checking account balance and all that confusing stuff.

And having to travel all the way to the bank to fill it up with more money.

[DakAttack]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

credit card and pay pal are largely unsafe. it's best to pay using gamecards from a store.

Surgeon General Warning: Credit cards are prone to explosions and Pay Pal gives you cancer. Pregnant women should avoid these methods of payment at all costs and all others should use them at their own risk. They are UNSAFE.

[Firewind]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

Actually Paypal isn't an option for EU users. It's buy Crysta with a credit card or Click and Buy.

And yes I was silly with some of most of the cons because to be honest any topic like this is just going to be inviting flames and to be honest it's more amusing to see people taking a silly post seriously. I really could shorten that post by saying the following:

"FFXIV fixes the problems XI had but there's no content outside of levelling because it's a brand fucking new MMO and they all do it anyway. The only reason people call out FFXIV for it is because it's a Final Fantasy game. WoW was exactly the same worse at release (at least FFXIV's servers are stable) and took a full year before it was anything near what it's like today."

However one con I found out today while playing FFXI on Windows 7 is that it is impossible to play the game with a 360 pad without forcing Windows 7 to disable driver signing then using the XBCD drivers. It's not too bad if you like to use custom drivers for your hardware but wow it sucks for those who are worried about security. The triggers don't work either but considering that macros can be assigned to analogue clicks it's not too bad.

[Murphie]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

I heard that a credit card once robbed and killed a child's parents in an alley behind a theatre. This child grew up to be a vigilante hero, but was later defeated by pay pal. They are just menaces.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

credit card and pay pal are largely unsafe. it's best to pay using gamecards from a store.

Honest to god J9....if murder was legal...

I have paid for my FFXIV account with both credit card and Paypal. Both types of payment are entirely safe.

To anyone new to the forums, please take J9 in extremely small doses. It's been known to cause brain cancer.

[Firewind]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

To anyone new to the forums, please take J9 in extremely small doses. It's been known to cause brain cancer.

Bloody hell TGM warn me when you're going to say something like that. I just spat tea all over the living room

[Aksannyi]

Re: Quick Comparison of FFXI and FFXIV's for those still on the fence

silly post

Might have wanted to put that in the OP. I came in thinking the thread was serious (as did most, it seems) and I was kind of wondering about some of the stuff, since most of your points seem more subjective than not.

And I'm not even going to touch J9's posts.