Getting back into an MMORPG. FFXIV or WoW?

[Vitruviansquid]

Alright, so I want to get back into an MMORPG of the kind of bog-standard, subscription-based variety. I am debating about whether to get back into Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft primarily, but not ruling out any dark horses. Since I haven't played either since their last expansions (I quit WoW right before the release of WOTLK and I quit FFXIV right before Heavensward), I wanted to get some folks' opinions on these games. I would especially find it cool if someone has recently played both.

As for what I'm looking for in an MMORPG, all I want to do is 4-man or 5-man PVE content. I am not interested in raiding, crafting, soloing, achievements, or minigames. More challenging pve dungeon content is better. I have not played any Mythic 5-mans (back in my day, it was normals and heroics only). When I was playing WoW, there was no instance finder, so you could just not take overgeared people into dungeons. Can you still do dungeons with groups that are not overgeared? From what I've seen of FFXIV, once you hit max level, all the 4-man content is just being farmed by overgeared people who did raids so it is impossible to find an actually challenging dungeon run. This is why I quit FFXIV originally, so is it still true in Heavensward?

[Fri]

I only have experience with FF14. so here's my 2 cents on it, feel free to correct me.

On FF14: Extreme Trials. That's the thing people do for challenge in FF14. Also you can do minimum iLvl run in FF14, for challenge, which nerf your gear to the minimum needed for the dungeons. That's an option, and I guess some people use it, or at least you could mention it in party finder.

Also, I don't know how raids work in other mmo, but in my experience it's the same with normal dungeon only bigger in ff14? I mean, you queue with party finder, then you got dropped in a big place with 23 other people, no need to coordinate with guild or anything.

Also, there's new content in FF14: palace of the dead, where you do a roguelike-style dungeon with 100 or so level where you start from level 1 in the dungeon, your level and equipments outside of this specific dungeon doesn't matter.

[The Glyphstone]

It sounds like the new Mythic Keystone dungeon system in WoW might be right up your alley. It's a scaling-difficulty mode for 5-man dungeons similar to Diablo 3's Greater Rifts, if you play that - you start the dungeon with a ranked Keystone (say...Darkheart Thicket, Rank 2, to pick one at random). You're given a time limit that you must complete the dungeon in, and all the enemies in the dungeon get a +health and +damage buff that scales by your Keystone rank. If you beat the time limit, you receive a higher-ranked keystone to an even harder dungeon and even better loot (failing just gets you loot, and a 'depleted keystone' if you want to try the time trial again for an upgrade). Additionally, every 3 Keystone levels adds a random bonus ability to everything in the dungeon for even more additional difficulty, which are randomized each week.

[Vitruviansquid]

Cool. So both games have challenging small party content now.

How's pugging these things? Is there much rage, angst, wailing, and gnashing of teeth when people try to PUG the hard small party content?

[Fri]

For extreme trials? Yes, very much so, though I guess it depends, since you can meet raging salty people anywhere. I haven't played FF14 for a while so I forgot, but IIRC (I know the button exists but not sure if it's just for raid, or just for extreme trials, or for all contents, when you use the PUG finder now you can checklist a "learning" button or something, and you will only be matched with people who checklist the same button.

[Hunter Noventa]

For extreme trials? Yes, very much so, though I guess it depends, since you can meet raging salty people anywhere. I haven't played FF14 for a while so I forgot, but IIRC (I know the button exists but not sure if it's just for raid, or just for extreme trials, or for all contents, when you use the PUG finder now you can checklist a "learning" button or something, and you will only be matched with people who checklist the same button.

XIV has two different kinds of party finder.

One is the partyfinder which can be used for just about everything and lets you advertise for everything from dungeons to recruiting for your guild.

The other is raidfinder which is closer to what Fri is describing, and let's you get in line for XIV's raids and looking for people with similar levels of experience.

You're going to have some of the problem with overgeared people in lower level instances while you level up to 60 in XIV, especially with the new content that incentivizes going back to old content, and there's no real item level sync for story dungeons.

For harder content, there's what's been point out. You have Extreme Primals, which are 8-man boss fights with more difficulty and mechanics than the normal version. And you have Savage Raids, which are 8-man mini-dungeons with one or two boss fights and some trash.

There was also Palace of the Dead mentioned, which goes as follows:
Start at level 1, your gear doesn't matter, you have special gear that's only for this randomized dungeon that can level up at random from chests you find.
Floors 1-50 are pretty easy, and should get you to level 60, only a portion of the exp gained here translates to your level outside the Dungeon.
51-100 isn't much harder, mostly a more dangerous variety of mobs and some coordination required, but not super difficult.
101-200 is supposed to be harder, basically the hardest 4-man content currently in the game. You'll want to go in with a balanced party of people you know to finish it, supposedly.
You can get treasure from these dungeons, mostly glamour gear and minions. But once you level your armor and weapon up enough, you can trade the levels you have on it in for a weapon you can use outside the dungeon that's pretty decent, and faster to get than all the other weapons.

I haven't played WoW since WotLK either myself, so I can't really compare, but XIV has had more regular content releases from what I hear.

Your main difficulty would be finding group that actually want to do things at minimum item level, so you'd have to hunt around for an FC that's into that sort of thing, as well as savage raids and extreme primals. I don't do Savage raids myself, so I can't say much about them.

[The Glyphstone]

Cool. So both games have challenging small party content now.

How's pugging these things? Is there much rage, angst, wailing, and gnashing of teeth when people try to PUG the hard small party content?

I don't play above the +3 level or so, since I have a regular raiding team, but at the relatively low stakes/margin of failure there it isn't very angtsy. I can't speak for pugging high-rank keystones, since everyone who does it that I know of does so with known-quantity teammates, using voice communications.

But as mentioned, you can find salt and RAEG anywhere on the internet, WoW is no exception.

[Sian]

For what it's worth, it's widely opined that WoW: Legion is the best expansion since WotLK, which many consider to be the best as of yet, and given your preferences for small parties, it might well be better due to the aforementioned scaling Mythic+, there's even the option of being scaled down and sent back into the dungeons of former expansions, if that suits your taste

[Vitruviansquid]

The thing I couldn't stand about FFXIV was how I hit level cap, then couldn't find fun dungeons without overgeared people, and even if I advanced in getting higher and higher gear, I only have raids to bring that gear into. I could stomach a stretch of gearing up in these unfun dungeons if it ultimately led to a 4 or even 8 man endgame. So are these extreme trials, savage raids, and Palace of the Dead actual endgame content, or will I be finding overgeared people trivializing them too?

[The_Jackal]

WoW is in a pretty good spot right now, if you can get in a guild of like-minded people. PUG play is as unreasonable as it's ever been, with players insisting on only bringing people who don't need the gear that the content alleges to drop. That's not a design flaw with the game, it's simple a refutation of intelligent design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design).

[Fri]

The thing I couldn't stand about FFXIV was how I hit level cap, then couldn't find fun dungeons without overgeared people, and even if I advanced in getting higher and higher gear, I only have raids to bring that gear into. I could stomach a stretch of gearing up in these unfun dungeons if it ultimately led to a 4 or even 8 man endgame. So are these extreme trials, savage raids, and Palace of the Dead actual endgame content, or will I be finding overgeared people trivializing them too?

Extreme trials are endgame content, you can only access them at level 60 IIRC. As with Savage raids. Palace of the dead can be accessed from level 17, but once again, your gear outside it doesn't matter. Think of it like the ancient cave from Lufia 2.

But I actually understand what you mean. I'm also feeling that. The problem is, I'm not confident doing extreme trials/savage raid :smalltongue:

(I've only done one of them, Bismarck Ex, and it's not that bad, but I was doing it as guest in my friend's experienced guild, so not sure if I dare to try other ones).

also for low iLvl runs, I often see video of people doing them, so I guess if you're a social person you could try to find community of similar minded people who like to challenge themselves, but who actually play MMO for social experience!?

[Spore]

Player quality (and the quality of their talent choices and gear choices) in WoW can vary wildly. This is why you cannot say anything about the quality of pugs in that. It is best that you join premade teams filling out the or one of the two last slots.

[Hunter Noventa]

The thing I couldn't stand about FFXIV was how I hit level cap, then couldn't find fun dungeons without overgeared people, and even if I advanced in getting higher and higher gear, I only have raids to bring that gear into. I could stomach a stretch of gearing up in these unfun dungeons if it ultimately led to a 4 or even 8 man endgame. So are these extreme trials, savage raids, and Palace of the Dead actual endgame content, or will I be finding overgeared people trivializing them too?

I can't speak to the lowest levels of Palace of the Dead for actual difficulty, but due to the separated gear system it shouldn't be possible to overlevel said content.

That said, yes it is entirely possible to overgear the Extreme Trials, skipping entire phases due to mega DPS. Savage content is a bit harder to overgear, since that's where most of the best gear actually comes from.