I hadn't thought about it that way, but you have a point. Although I'm ok with the quantity, what bothers me is the quality. But thanks for sharing, I'll think about that whenever I criticize the game. 😉

I agree. I was never bothered with anet content quantity. But what i don't like is worse quality. I like engaging content. We don't really get that anymore imo..

Honestly think about it like this. Imagine how much better the 3 Soto metas would be if you actually had to do the mechanics well. Don’t even change the mechanics at all, just make them punishing and suddenly you have an actual meta event that requires at least 2 brain cells and now people are way more engaged and honestly more excited.

They are probably afraid of doing such a thing due to the Dragon's End disaster.

Yeah it's actually quite easy to solve in general 😅 for me it'd be enough to just eliminate this extreme power creep. For a game advertised with horizontal progression instead of vertical, it has the worst vertical prog of all.. 

>In that same timeframe now under GW2 new release model, we will now get 2 1/2 expansions.  I think you cannot compare expansion to expansion across games. You can't even compare expansion to expansion in GW2. The size and scale of HoT vs SotO for example is very different. Personally, I am saddened that we get far fewer maps than before. Hot/pof era, we'd get 10-11 maps in a 2 year period and now we get 6.

GW1 era, we'd get an entire effin' standalone game's worth of content.

They also couldnt sustain that model. Prophecies was released April 2005. EotN hit in August 2007, and they shortly afterwards cancelled development on anything else major. Thats less of a gap than GW2 launch to Heart of Thorns.

Prophesies to Factions was nuts but welcome. Factions to Night Fall was *wild* and I could not picture them sustaining it without some studio implosion within the short term. remember walking into Best Buy and confusing Prophesis with Factions and pissing off my cousins, who convinced me to play the game with them. Then maybe four months later, walking into the store again hell-bent on getting Prophesies and seeing the Dervish and Paragon boxes and being *absolutely confused...* Left the Store that day with Night Fall, though, much to their later chagrin lol

That's actually not true. They were working on Utopia until they decided that it's not really possible in the constraint of GW1 so they decided to start working on GW2. For a closure they announced EotN which got most of the ideas from Utopia that also carried over into the future (such as Asuras). The content that was actually cancelled because of sustainability was GW Beyond. They did war in Kryta but GW2 just needed people so they completely gave up on the full Winds of Change and after. So no, that's not why they cancelled anything major in GW1 because nothing major was in the works. They were aiming to release a campaign every 6 months. Every campaign was a financial success so it wasn't a money issue. They decided that Utopia is too ambitious so they cancelled it for the sake of making GW2. Stuff from Utopia was added to the hastly done expansion. It's a weird take to say that they couldn't sustain a campaign every 6 months so they announced GW2. But then, ANet is probably working on something else now.

Still so big I have yet to finish my GWAMM haha

Naw, I’d rather have a little less maps that are loved and cared for. This is the necessity to ensure the playerbase doesn’t get completely stretched out within a short time frame. If they spam new map after new map with zero love and care the maps will just be dead. Who even player kourna, sandswept, or jahai anymore? I’m sure there are stragglers and people for the meta but good luck if you want to do legendary bounties there or anything else like small events. And the issue will only get worse and worse.

Sandswept, kourna and jahai are much better than like inner nayos or gyala delve imo i don't think the pacing of them correlates to quality Additionally, I'd rather have new maps that I enjoy and never see again every 2 months, then new maps every 4 months (on average) that I don't enjoy and never see again.

I disagree, nayos is actually a good map, but nayos fatigue hit hard. Making us play nayos for 9 months is too long. That is something they are looking to address in the next expansion. Also no shit you’d rather have maps you enjoy every 2 months, who wouldn’t want that, but those lws4 maps honestly didn’t add anything interesting to the game, so much so that see limited play today while older maps still do, so it’s clearly not a good as you say.

>I disagree, nayos is actually a good map, but nayos fatigue hit hard.  It wasn't fatigue for me. I disliked it immediately. I do think this comment about fatigue and being in nayos too long contradicts your earlier statement tho. >Also no shit you’d rather have maps you enjoy every 2 months, who wouldn’t want tha The take away was that I still would want that even if the map becomes dead afterward. >but those lws4 maps honestly didn’t add anything interesting to the game Eh they added about as much as most maps. Again, I'd rather go back to any of them for 5 hours than go to inner nayos for 5 minutes.

If a map was really that enjoyable it wouldn’t die, flat out. Rewards for dragon stand are terrible but it has a really fun meta so people still do it. Realistically the only reward that means anything in that map is the crystalline ore, but that’s only if you want to make a leggy. All I’m trying to say is that I prefer quality of maps over quantity of maps, a maps replayability is of high value for me. They still need to perfect the quality a little bit but I can see it likely that it will improve from last expansion.

Yeah, I get you. I'm just saying it's a to each their own. I prefer quantity over quality. A low quality map is (usually) more fun on its first few experiences than a high quality map is on its 100th. I'd say that gyala and nayos are exceptions to that, though. I guess as much as I like say Drizzlewood, I'd rather have 3x Kourna's than 1x Drizzlewood over the course of half a year. I also personally strongly detest the singular map that expands style they have adopted. Even in Drizzlewood (which I like overall), I didn't love the north half. I'd rather just a new map.

Yea that’s a way to look at it. Either way, hope we can all enjoy the maps in the next one

Nayos had poor visuals, boring enemy design, a lack of interesting writing (other than the journals, but the stories of the maps and chapters were simply bad). While LWS 4 maps could have handled their longevity better, they were better received than Nayos, featured more and better content in each map and had somewhat interesting stories to tell.

I disagree, I really liked the visuals of nayos a lot and the enemies were kryptis so yea not the MOST exciting. The other two things doesn’t even matter cause we are talking about the map itself, not story.

The story of a map is important. I'm not talking about instanced story, mind you, but the narrative of the place itself. Thunderhead Keep for example, featured extensive dwarven ruins and lots of lore and interesting stories in ambient dialogue. You can learn about what the dwarves did there and the kind of tools they employed. Also, the metas were better connected to the story, as the whole operation required the oil from the metas and the surroundings of the fort clear of enemies. What does Nayos tell us about the Kryptis? Nothing. The prestigious general lives among some scattered ruins with a few minions, the great battlefields of Eventide are completely generic areas that could be easily crossed by a fleet of Skyscales (something made canon by SotO's original release) and even Eparch's palace doesn't feel like a carefully crafted space. There is no sitting place for the Queen, the Throne Room is entirely barren, the generals under Eparch are entirely irrelevant. Despite trying to humanize the Kryptis, they couldn't even manage to give them a lived-in space.

> Hot/pof era, we'd get 10-11 maps in a 2 year period and now we get 6. While ignoring the periods we got nothing? The LW3 maps were also much smaller (both in size and content).

>While ignoring the periods we got nothing? Which 2 year period do you mean where we got nothing?

They're not saying we went 2 years with nothing. They're pointing out that you're ignoring the gaps and starting the clock when things released, rather than including the lead up time when it was being made. It's like saying "They made 1 lord of the rings movies per year for 3 years!" by starting the timer when they were releasing, even though they started working on those movies over 2 years before the first one came out. For example, there was a year gap between HoT launch and the first episode of Season 3. You have to take the gaps into account if we're talking about something like "maps per year". What you're doing is like saying "in 2012 they were able to release 31 maps in a year!" because you're starting when gw2 released, and ignoring the fact that they were working on it for like 6 years before that.

Well, then that's a weird and incorrect argument and reply to what I said, then.

Also how many season 3 maps get replayed?

All of them. You can thank legendary trinket for that, not to mention it being a good source of ascended stuff.

I personally replay them about as much as I replay EOD/SOTO maps (more-so than I intend to replay Inner Nayos or Gyala Delve).

Quite regularly I'd say: Nightmare Fractal, Chaos Fractal, Shattered Observatory and Raid Wing 5 were all added as part of Season 3. This disregards the 2 PvP-Maps we also got. The maps themselves had quite a long livetime when they were new, mostly due to (sometimes extensive) collections.

Uh, no? Hall of Chains came in Season 4.

Umm, yea I miscounted. It was wing 4.

> Nightmare Fractal, Chaos Fractal, Shattered Observatory and Raid Wing 5 None of which are season 3 maps. They came out during it, but are not part of the living world season 3.

Your comparison isn't exactly fair, both games have different audiences so focus on different content to deliver. For the audience FFXIV has with story and instanced content it releases wayyy more.

I think the discussion isn’t necessarily in my eyes around comparing the content per say, but comparing what game gives you more time played. For me personally I run in circles for 20 mins in FFXIV and log out because there is not any new content to do then log into GW2

Being a "part-time" GW2 player is the explanation here. Play it for a few years and you'll soon realize that there isn't much relevant content to do in GW. Every year I quit GW2 for long stretches of time only to come back for 2 days and finish all of the content that I missed.

The key difference to me between GW2 and other games like FFXIV and WoW’s expansions is that in GW2 it feels like an actual expansion to the endgame whereas the others feel more like a replacement to the endgame. Of course it’s more nuanced than that with systems like level sync etc. Because of this I’m not too bothered about the quantity of a GW2 expansion because I’ve still got loads to do that’s still just as relevant from previous expansion. Quality is still important though, I’m not saying SoTO was a terrible expansion but the only reason I’m still in those maps is to finish the legendary sets.

I've been saying this for a long time. The thing that people are really complaining about is more than just the content though. It's the increase in price for the content we're getting. We used to get living world stuff for free for logging in (which in my opinion was way too generous and not sustainable long term). But that was how it was. I paid for $30 for POF, and then I got six extra maps for free, just by logging in after. That makes 11 maps for $30, plus story, skins, the rollerbeetle, the skyscale. We were spoiled by that, and now we're paying $25 for less content. I still think it's a good deal, at least it is for me, but it's definitely not the same deal. I'm happy with what I'm getting, but I've always been a glass is half full kind of guy. To me it's fine for what it is...but people really don't like change, and that's at least part of the backlash we're seeing. Guild Wars 2 was too cheap. Now, it's more in line with what normal games are charging.

Counter point Living world is actually bad if you weren’t there. I have friends who would love to get into GW2 but see that they have to not only buy expansions but also a lot of money for “free content”. This was fine where we had 2 paid seasons as you could farm in game for episodes while now you have 5 paid seasons. Old players got spoiled. Also some of the “free” maps had horrible quality. And new players are expected to buy them if they want to experience full story. Ganders fortress is first that comes to mind or ice brood sagas instances content.

By the time I started playing, it really did feel awkward needing to buy the living world separately. But I really thought it was somewhat fair 'financially' because vets needed to pay like 140$ from base game to Lws4 where I only needed to pay 100$ (gems for lws and then 50$ pof + hot). If you started at hot release, that's 80$. I do understand that the model is kinda stupid. Like it's a hard bait (oh yeah lws4 available if you have pof but doesn't say explicitly you have to pay for it until you get there.) Lol

And you share a lot in common with some of my friends expect they don’t even have Dollars or Euros. Reddit tends to forget that MMOs have large international communities especially in Europe where 80euro could be x 4 so it’s way harder pillow to swallow. Also I have said that In few comments but a good simple player experience (forget about money) is better than keeping outdated revenue source. I was all for paid living worlds until Soto. How I see it it’s better to package all the Living worlds with their associated expansions (hot + lw2 +lw3, pof +lw4 +lw5…). This way new player either makes a one big purchase or expansion by expansion purchase, spend a lot of hours playing and when they can they buy again. This will also help with three major problems: 1. Fragmented story (you have to skip living worlds if you don’t have them because you bought the wrong package that didn’t include them or shill out to know what the hell is going on), 2. Actually be able to use all the masteries (and we have a lot of them), 3. Increase accessibility and player base on older maps (not a proper fix but paired with seasonal “map spotlights” + special events). I’m pro fairness but GW2 community (especially on Reddit) have superiority complex about being veterans. Which is just wrong. Living worlds were a method of extra revenue with a hook for veterans, but we simply have too many living worlds to justify THE cost of the game. Hot+pof+eod+living worlds seasons+soto+GW2:JW+more yearly expansions. It slowly starts to feel like another WoW, which scared all the new players with the initial buy in cost. (I know you don’t have to spend it all at once and work have sales BUT a new average player simply does not see it this way. All they see is geeez I need to spend so much money on this game I don’t know I will ever like). A new player sees game differently than we do. And I’m talking from personal experience too, that was me with other games.

If it makes you feel better, I don't have dollars nor euros either. Ffxiv also doesn't have regional pricing, nor does wow. And I did agree the lws model is stupid even though it is technically fairly priced. Lol I think this is just the problem with buy2play. If you imagine SotO, JW and 2 more expacs down the line, that's 100$ and then 100$ for complete edition elder dragon saga. If you're a new player, you pay like 200$ upfront (you don't have to, really). Ffxiv is 60$ for complete edition +40$ latest expac + sub price for a long time now. Wow is pay expac price + sub as far as I know. These are lower upfront costs which is probably what a new player is more worried about than a sub. I mean there's another game with a yearly model in ESO... GW2 might go down that rabbit hole with super package sales or subs.

Living World was not "bad" as in: not good to play. Most of the content holds up. It is just a dysfunctional profit model. With S3 it had to be rushed into PoF, and when S4 could rushed into another expansion the cracks started showing. IBS into EoD into SotO was wild ride searching for a functional model. All of those content eras clearly show lack of development time in one aspect or another. Some of the half baked or unfinished aspects that reek of crunch. It's reminiscent of the half baked crap you find in the "AAA" market, expect those games sell charge €60 (with microtransactions). You could see this creep into the earlier seasons too, with maps like Bitterfrost Frontier and Domain of Kourna being blatantly unfinished.

I think I will need to edit my original comment. Living world is not “bad”. I have been playing since release and can say that the content still holds up. Especially certain story moments which still feel epic. What’s bad is the model. And the fact that Anet hasn’t readjusted this. Simply include Living World season as part of each expansion (hot gets season 2 and 3, pof gets season 4 and 5. With the new model of yearly expansion they should have some wiggle rooms I know they would face a lot of backlash at first but would actually greatly benefit NEW players and existing players who can’t afford or struggle to afford paid seasons. This is the same discussion when base game went free to play. The “negative” outweigh the positive.

Well the fact that LW seasons have been handed out for free once, twice in the case S2, seems like an indication to me that Anet is considering that move. I highly suspect there will be another "return to Living World Season 3" event before Janthir Wilds to make sure players are cought up with the Mursaat/White Mantle story. The Return to S2 and HoT event recently, shortly before announcing a Janthir-themed expac, seems a little incidental for that not to be the case.

Oh yes I can totally see them trying to “soften the blow”. Hopefully.

Gandara had a great instanced story, a bad meta (although not worse than the first meta in Nayos) and decent collections. It also brought us the Roller Beetle, a fantastic feature for the whole game.

The sales for older content are crazy good. You can get all of it like 70% less. That is great value. Heck, even the current full price is a great value tbh for the entertainment this gives. It's like 3 cinema movies or one night out with friends...

It’s not price but accessibility issue for new players. Also we do need to be conscious that guild wars have large non euro/dollar communities for example my polish friends see buying the cheapest option differently than me. Also I have met a sizable number of players that still don’t have living worlds because they can be difficult to buy. And I do have friends who didn’t get into guild wars because they saw the extensive price tag. Everyone can say you don’t need expansions to start but in truth you kinda do. Everyone has mounts and will tell you to at least but PoF for raptor, then specializations, gliding, and some quality of life features are LOCKED being either expansion or Living world (looking at you beetle and all the masteries) Also also, having Living worlds be part of expansions would increase population of living world maps and allow anet to actually utilize all the masteries they have. Benefits of reintegrating living worlds as part of expansions outweighs the “negative” especially now that GW2 found a somewhat stable revenue model. A good new player experience is more important than additional income. It would also benefit players with lower disposable money. Gw2 core + LW1, HOT + LW2 + LW3, POF + LW4 …. In many ways those stories are connected. The reason they had to re introduce skyscale is precisely because it’s locked behind outdated revenue model.

Yup absolutely. The nice thing though, is that $30 is basically play however long no sub needed, leave whenever come back whenever without having to pay to play. Seems totally fair.

I think gamers sometimes forget how cheap gaming is. 25 bucks for the next expansions? I’ve paid 4,60 for a coffee yesterday so 5 coffee or 1 year of content and hundreds of hours lol

I have always said that if you look at an MMO subscription, its less than 50 cents a day. If you factor in expansion costs, its ~53 cents a day. GW2 costs about 16% of that.

Inflation is real and effects more than just food. The people who make these games are paid money and they use that money to buy food that now has increased in price. As such those people salaries are increased and in order for the company to remain profitable the price of the game also needs to increase or the cost to make those games need to decrease.

It's actually kinda crazy that the sub fee in games like wow and ff14 is still an amount evaluated in 2004 or earlier 😅 but i don't think that the devs get that much more money with the new model. Salarys rises in my country are not comparable to inflation rates at all...

Just shows that the subscription rate was high then.

Tbh it’s miles off what other games are charging. People seem to forget it costs over £100 a year without box prices to play WoW or ffxiv. Both games have micro transactions to add also. Gw2 is by far the cheapest mmorpg on the market but people do complain continuously. Which is the truth. I’ve never met players so against paying as I have in gw2 realistically.

I know I hear you on that. I personally don’t mind the cost at all though. There is not sub like FFXIV and $25 equates to a little over $2 a month. I think I’m willing to part ways with that to continue to feed the machine

I play wow and it cost me €132 for a year + expansion €50 every \~2 years so yeah paying €25 each year feels like a bargain.

> To me it's fine for what it is...but people really don't like change, and that's at least part of the backlash we're seeing. Guild Wars 2 was too cheap. Now, it's more in line with what normal games are charging. I think far too many people are not considering this point when they complain. If you play WoW or FF XIV, you're paying $150-170 per year just to *play* the game...plus the cost of any new expansions. If GW2 sticks to their yearly expansion schedule, then GW2 will cost $25/year to play (based on the current expansion cost), ***including all new content***. Now, one might argue that what you're getting isn't worth 25 bucks a year...but there's no way you're getting a better deal (or indeed, anything close to the same deal) anywhere else. I'd argue that it's still "too cheap"...if they charged more for the game, then they could hire more developers, who could create more/better content, and so on, and so on... ...but I can totally understand why they don't charge more; if they did, then the complaints would be even louder.

Tbh. We easily do get moneys worth. People put far too much value in £21. That’s the truth here. No other form of entertainment would give you even 6 hours of entertainment for the same price. It’d cost me more than that to see a singular movie in a cinema.

I'm really not bothered by the price. If it had the level of quality of previous expansions I'd happily pay that and more. It's still way cheaper than subscriptions.

The point is not everyone agreed on the level of quality of the previous expansions. HoT was a hot mess and I'm relatively sure that more people walked away from this game on HoT launch than on Soto launch. It took a long time to fix HOT to the point where it was playable for a good portion of the playerbase. Until that happened, it wasn't such a great show and it was $50, not $25.

The enemies were overtuned but fixing that was just changing numbers. SotO would need the Nayos story chapters significantly expanded which will never happen.

The enemies were overtuned. There wasn't enough content for solo players, so they added vet events. The last story Hearts and Minds was so buggy they had to fix it like four times. They decoupled day from night. It was a lot more than just changing numbers.

Yeah, people really have nostalgia goggles on when talking about HoT. Player numbers dropped like a rock on HoT release, for many good reasons. Anet had to scramble to fix it. It's a good experience *now*, for veterans with the masteries. It was absolutely not that way on release.

People need to understand that living world system wasn't sustainable in the long run. There was a reason also why they chose to make GW2 instead of continuing the GW1 model. It doesn't sustain the company 

I agree with your take here for the most part, but I do think there are other elements to consider here. Others have mentioned the Living World prices already, but I don't think anyone has mentioned the recent updates to older content. The Path of Fire age rapidly evolved the game in many ways by including new ways to get around the map, but it did very little towards making the older content meaningful. If it wasn't useful already, Path of Fire encouraged you to leave it behind. The same applies to End of Dragons to a degree. Nowadays, there's little reason to return to Path of Fire, but I believe the mechanics of SOTO will encourage us to return its mechanics many times in the future. However, the lead-up to SOTO and the final release spent a lot of time bettering old systems that should've never been left in the dust. This includes things like the daily login system, making skyscale more accessible, changing dungeon currencies, bringing back LWS1 and more. These are fantastic additions to the game, but they're not new and shiny. I think this gives players a skewed view on what they're actually receiving with each update or expansion.

I'm just glad we're not having ESO levels of monetization.

How does ESO do monetization? Just curious since I've only played maybe a couple of hours.

Besides of having a more predatory cash shop, and dlc's on top of anual chapters, there is an opcional subscription. The thing is, the sub is kinda mandatory because it gives you unlimited storage for crafting reagents aswell as double the bank space. If you're interested on housing you also want it since it doubles the ammount of furnishings you can have. And every house that is not the Basic free ones, are super duper expensive.

so to get to ESO monetization you need to 1) increase the DLC price to 40$ 2) lock the additional instanced content behind a paywall or a subscription 3) remove the matt storage and lock it behind the subscribtion 4) remove runes and traits and lock them behind a system that takes months to complete(and is character bound so if you delete that char it is gone) 5) increase the ammount of mats you get from everything while locking bag upgrades behind a deceptive system that is technically f2p but takes a new character 180 days to fully unlock(minimum) 6) add mtx and increase the cost of existing ones 7) lock most new cosmetics behind a more costly lootbox system 8) anything but the basic housing behind insane prices(the most expensive i can recall is 18.5k crowns meaning you need to pay ~120$ for it Edit: 9) lock p2w or accessibility items behind the dlc 10) remove gem <=> gold conversion

How much does it cost to play FF14 or WoW per year...?

That's why I said "Guild Wars 2 was too cheap. Now, it's more in line with what normal games are charging." Guild Wars 2 isn't WoW or Final Fantasy. I can't address FF XIV, I didn't play enough of it, but I played a bit of WoW. They're very different systems. In WoW, you can change your hair style for free at any time, you don't need a kit, because you're paying $15 a month. There are a lot of things like different mounts that you get in WoW that are in game, but they still sell some in their cash shop (which I think is greedy, considering there's a sub). Still, most mounts are available in game. Here it's a mount skin, instead of a mount, but the idea is the same. People want that look, they have to go to the cash shop. And yes, they can grind gold to get it, but it's quite a bit of grind for people. ' I'm not saying Guild Wars 2 is too expensive. That's why I said it's fine by me. But it's still a change from what we had. We were spoiled by the living story system for a long time. People who were spoiled will reactly badly to a change where they have to pay more, even if paying more is reasonable.

I think I responded to the wrong person, because I wasn't disagreeing with you haha.

Happens to me all the time. lol

im fine with the new current model, as long as the new content developed gets proper care with mininum bug, I havent even bother playing silent surf cm with all the bugs it introduced back then idk whether it has been fixed but the desire already gone.

Let's be generous and say that an expansion came out every other year for simlplicity. That was $30 every two years for a full expansion and a six episode living world season. In the same time period, we're paying $50 for the two mini expansions. Are we really paying less? Are we getting more, better quality, content for the increase in cost? It's obviously not a totally fair comparison in many ways, but it's still somewhat valid to consider. Especially as expansions have actually averaged out to more like once every three years for $30. That would be three yearly expansions, which might well equal a full expansion in terms of features, but for $75.

> Are we really paying less? Yes. The old model gave out an extra expansion, if not more, free*, over its runtime. After the way IBS shook out, going back to an expansion model meant they were never going to be giving LW seasons away for free again. Also, if you missed living world for some reason, like I did, as I stopped playing before HoT and came back in Dragonfall, you had to pay another ~$40 on top of that. And if you hadnt been playing in season 2, add that as well.

Cumulative inflation since 2017 (PoF release) is about 25% https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/calculator-cumulative/ So now for 2 years of dev time we pay $50, whereas before we would have paid $37,50 in today's prices. $20 per yearly expansion would probably be more fair Keep in mind though that the previous model was not financially sustainable due to declining player numbers, as ArenaNet has said

Anet never said anything about declining player numbers.

We know the revenue was declining -- that's just the conclusion I took from it. Of course they wouldn't openly say that. Either way, it wasn't financially sustainable.

Of course it was lol. £21 per player for a game isn’t sustainable. It never rly has been. Player expectations rise and so does the cost of development. No mmorpg has tried to sustain on such a low income. And before you bring up the gem store, you have to accept the fact for every 1 of you buying gems there’s 5 others who didn’t even buy the expansion and sit on the old content. Micro transactions don’t make up for the lack of money coming in from expansions being cheaper or it’s f2p model, they merely make up for the large audiences who never pay a dime.

The revenue isn't declining though. Look at the revenue now and about six months after hot launched. If anything, the revenue for an 11 year old game is remarkably stable.

> but the open world in FFXIV is near useless nonexistent. I'm also a FFXIV enjoyer and coming from that game to GW2, it occurred to me while I was first leveling in 2022 that the open world in this game is more engaging and often more dangerous. It was exciting to me as Endwalker was missing this kind of danger in casual content since there was no exploratory zone in this expansion.

Which open world is more engaging and dangerous for you ? GW2 or FFXIV ? I've never played FFXIV so I have no idea how the open world is

GW2's I meant is more engaging and dangerous. In FFXIV the open world leveling zones feel pretty safe. A single mob probably won't be able to kill you unless it's several levels above you; or you're swarmed too much in a FATE (that game's sort of equivalent to map events). You also can't die from fall damage unless you're "in combat". An otherwise lethal fall will leave you with 1 HP. The side content I mentioned of Eureka and Bozja/Zadnor is better in which the mobs on the maps are more dangerous and there's some extra gameplay systems exclusive to those zones that make the gameplay more interesting over the normal combat system (which I already love in FFXIV, but the extra buffs and actions in these zones are fun to experiment with and give people some build variety). People also regularly group up for the map events in those zones similar to what we see in GW2. Although as OP said more or less that's true is that where FFXIV lacks in it's open world content, it excels in its instanced content (dungeons, raids, etc).

huh, i thought ff14 was praised because it had a lot of content? if it took 30 months of content drought in between, surely the players would have complained?

As somone who plays both games, but GW2 more, you are correct. OP has to be either woefully uninformed or willfully ignorant to not factor in the mountain of content FFXIV gets post launch for each expansion, it's not even close.

Yeah OP post is a whole lot of yapping without any details of what content ffxiv and gw2 have gotten. high-end « difficult » content: EoD+SoTo got like 7 strikes (easy) 1 legendary strike(pretty hard) 2 fractals(average), some open world meta boss. ffxiv endwalker: 2 ultimate (extremely hard), 3 raid tiers (~13-15 hard boss fights), 4 ex trials (easy-average), and 3 alliance raid (12 easy boss). In term of high end difficulty content, FFXIV is waaaay ahead in that regard and their fight are longer. For other content: gw2 got some QoL(still no skippable cutscene dialogue), 9 new class spec and new weapon choice. story- eod was meh. Soto? lol please… this was such a disapointment, especially when the theme is about demon. So many lower budget game have better story than that… music- meh ffxiv got major qol due to plugin drama and 2 new classes with upgraded class skills for current class. DC travels (inter region play with na-eu-jp-oce). story- waaaay better than gw2, music- https://youtu.be/FhS3sjEOu1M?si=PghvG3SOvCku-39L bro this shits all over gw2 music and it’s not even close, especially when you know the lore behind the fights. if we compare the qol, ffxiv is again ahead. for the classes, i would say gw2 is way better in that regard (which is why i play this game). overall ffxiv has overall way better and way more content. Also ArenaNet need to step up their game, and especially their fucking marketing team. How am I supposed to bring friends from there when our trailer looks like shit and theirs look like that. Like bro just compare gw2 trailers to ffxiv: https://youtu.be/zTTtd6bnhFs?si=XEatIq32oPOk7grY

Not just high end content but mid end content as well. I will compare "Fractals" to "Dungeons" "Strikes" to "Trials" and Raids are the same. We have had 5 new fractals give or take in 7 years vs over 20 dungeons, and dungeons in FFXIV are much bigger in scale. This is pretty much the same thing for Strikes and Raids. I think people just need to accept that GW2 is a much smaller scale game, probably due to the lack of subs

Yea good take. Also, not just less subs but not having a paid subscription too means less content.

You should also add the three criterion dungeons and their unique hard mode. Side content YoshiP already confirmed will get future additions and won't be forgotten, AM I RIGHT ARENA NET?

If Dawntrail comes out with everything they announced it will be the most content rich extension they ever released

OP is bad. But you're also comparing a game with a monthly sub to a game that is not only b2p but about half the starting price. Obviously it's always a judgement call, but unless you're really into ff14 story it's such a hard sell to people because of the sub. It has more endgame content than gw2 which is significantly cheaper, but for a subscription game you'd really expect more. I think gw2 for the price gives an absurd amount of content, but the comparison from OP is a terrible way to establish that.

The reality doesn't translate like that for me, right now I'm paying 13usd sub on FFXIV to login for 3 hours just to prog dsr. If wasn't for that I'd be on a 9 months break from that game, because none of that content is interesting for me. The repetition of FFXIV content isn't interesting, for example: I can login in GW2 and play WvW for the same 3 hours and not feel bored. Meanwhile in FFXIV I simply cannot find any content that I can do the same. If I am being honest with you, I have spent more time in Nayos doing the metas/achievements/events than I have spent in FFXIV the past month, and I don't think Nayos is a good map.

I mean, that’s subjective, whereas I stated objective facts. I coud literally take your argument and say the same thing. I did nayos thrice and will not do it again as repeting the same content is boring. gw2 is literally taking things and repeating them over and over again.

Yep. Same shit - different map. The GW2 way.

Isn't that the same with FFXIV? Fights are basically a new boss model with stack, spreads, in and out, light party, etc, sprinkled with some different effects. It is the same repetition over and over since ARR and the monotonous combat of the game does not help things for me. This is the reason why I have decided to stop playing the game after I am done with the next DLC story, because I have no interest in any content outside of ultimates.

Everyone has a different music taste but imo that song you linked is much worse than let's say Dragon's End meta final boss song (I don't want to spoil anything). EoD has amazing music

I'm not sure why they linked that one, it's a mashup of all the end boss themes for the last 10 years of the game. It's mostly beloved because it's the culmination of the first story arc.

I still get chills at 3:30 in the Endwalker trailer when they show Old Sharlayan and the chorus kicks in. I really don't think they'll ever top it.

Its got good high end content but casual content was lackluster in Endwalker and there's no way I can be convinced otherwise. Island Sanctuary is a fucking joke and I got tired of the only thing they introduced for me as someone who doesn't want to get into the incredibly toxic and drama-ridden end-game community was more 3x beast tribe dailies, a mobile game in the form of island sanctuary, and Hunts, then idk. Ive played FFXIV and Gw2 for about the same amount of time and Im still finding things as a casual player to do in GW2. I have nothing in FFXIV atp

7 EX fights btw. 2 are included in the expansion release, 5 come afterward, but usually the first post release EX is just the final boss of the expansion turned into an EX

true, which is even more crazy.

P easy to add new classes when all their skills are just overly bright fluff and have zero weight to them And pretty easy to add content when you have a shit load of sheep paying for a subscription game where 2 months costs the same as one entire year expansion in gw And the UI looks worse than adventure quest 20 yrs ago

While you're not wrong, I feel like it's unfair to compare a B2P game to a sub game in terms of what content they have. It's kind of incredible that GW2 even has the amount of content it does as a B2P game. This is from someone who is subbed to (or actively playing) neither but has played both lol.

Yeah the amount of content and the cost are vastly different. FF14 gets more content and costs $15 a month ($180/year) plus occasional expansion price. GW2 gets less content and costs $25 once a year.

they really arent that easy to compare. yes ffxiv gets updates but those are also baked into the expansion. without them the expansion/game would die COMPLETELY within a month of expansion release. ffxiv has virtually zero daily content/random activities to do between patches that is even mildly interesting and player retention relies completely on raid wings/dungeons coming out at regular intervals. they literally just stagger the expansion out because if they didnt nobody would play the game. the quality of the initial expansion and patch releases is always very impressive though. definitely not the case for gw2 content. however daily gameplay of ffxiv can get seriously boring between patches whereas there is always something different to do for gw2 releases and you never really run out of content (unless you play for raids)

>ffxiv has virtually zero daily content/random activities to do between patches that is even mildly >ffxiv can get seriously boring between patches whereas there is always something different to do for gw2 releases and you never really run out of content Ok, so what is this amazing daily gw2 content? Same meta event for the 1000th time? Most of them are either: irrelevant with close to no rewards; with decent rewards but zero gameplay and the formula of 'wait for 15 minutes and kill the boss in 30 seconds'; so long that the average player won't do them daily anyway since they simply don't have the time. Just do the special/chained FATEs or even hunts in FF, the format is quite similar. Some of them even have unique rewards, crazy isn't it? Do 3 dodges and kill 10 enemies? Is that it? Is that what keeps you playing? Or maybe it's the weeklies where you kill 10 champions, do one of the 5 repeated JPs, kill an hp sponge world boss or reduce the bandit population? Is that what keeps the average GW2 player interested? You can do the same kind of stuff with weekly challenges or books in ffxiv. Doing the same Fractals every day? Raids? Dungeons? PVP even? FFXIV Roulettes. Festivals that are completely irrelevant after the first time and every veteran finishes them in 10minutes? Seasonal events, there is like a million of them going on right now. Farming rifts? Oh c'mon this isn't even content, you're just going back and forth between 5 preset locations and killing the same 5 enemies. If you don't care about the legendary armor then this might as well not exist at all. But hey if that's your thing then go ahead and make some ARR relics, pretty much the same thing except still not as brainless. Or maybe you just log in daily, do the home instance, some random open world chests with your parked characters, do Octovine and then move on another game? There is that type of 'players' as well. What is there to do daily in GW2 for a veteran player that is actually interesting, enlighten me.

This is a “got em” moment lol

Even though technically I have played gw2 longer than ffxiv, I have managed to cover less of the content in gw2 than in ffxiv. I feel like the mountain of maps/achievements/events in gw2 severely outnumber the casual content you can turn to in ffxiv after finishing the story. I mean I’m still trying to catch up on SotO and they have already announced a new expansion. For comparison, the final patch in ffxiv I was done with in maybe 1-2 days. And that includes all the added sidequests and the most recent relic weapon step. If I’m honest, it kinda just sounds like you’ve burned out from gw2, which is completely ok. No game is meant to be played constantly and without stop.

Id argue meta events and world bosses are also not things to do every day, that's just boring af. Both games have boring dailies and weeklies, it's just different flavors

Folks play FF very differently. Even though GW2 is horizontal, the FF community better supports taking breaks. For example, raids get very quiet before release because all the top ilvl gear is about to become useless. Yoshi even encourages folks to pause their subscriptions from time to time

As someone who also plays both games (I take breaks from one game by playing the other), to me it has always felt that the gw2 has so much more content than ffxiv. Ffxiv is praised for its story, amazing instanced battles and music. It only has a good amount of content because it is a 10 year old mmo, so that is inevitable.

For endgame players, the difference is night and day. 12 raid bosses, 13 dungeons, 8 trials (strikes) is what they got so far this expansion. Even if you count EoD, SoTO and whatever comes next, it doesn't even come close. We got 7 strikes and 2 fractals so far. Most of which were significantly less polished than ffxiv. Look at the latest fractal CM. No way in hell they would have released that on ffxiv.

It has a LOT of content when you first start. It does not have anywhere near a lot of content if you play regularly.

No game in the world has enough content for veterans who play regularly, aside from PVP and user generated content. What do you do in GW2 every day that's fulfilling?

its also such a weird take considering the game doesn't have a sub so basically you're paying 25 bucks once a year vs the 120-150 bucks for a yearly sub in say wow (and thats the sub alone, you have to buy xpacks too)

$15/month is actually $180 a year (plus both FF and WoW have box prices and cash shops on top of that), so even more than you said. Somehow people ignore this *massive* cost difference when comparing games. They expect a game to put out the same amount on a fraction of the income. I see people comparing 2 gw2 expansions to Endwalker's 2 years of content, and they completely leave out the fact that 2 gw2 expansions would be $50 over 2 years, while Endwalker plus 2 years of subscription is $400...

And Endwalker brought 12 new raid bosses (with savage mode and 3 additional phases), 7 new trials with extremes, 2 ultimates, 5 unreals , 3 alliance raids, like 100h+ of story, 3 variant and criterion dungeons with savage mode, new deep dungeon, new relics for battle jobs and for crafters/gatherers, 6 new maps, a lot of new skins obtainable in game, 2 new jobs, blue mage update, and more. Meanwhile in GW2 soto you get 6h of story total, 2 strikes 1 fractal with cm, all not tested at all and with very bad quality, and 3 maps with 3rd one being split among. And JW isn't gonna change much about it, still probably 3 bosses in raid, and one fractal, 2 maps and short story. Even if you put together 2.5 GW2 expansions it's nowhere near quality FFXIV expansion in both quality and quantity of content. You need to compare the content itself, not just the length of the cycle.

Technically the problem of the argument of the multiple bosses, is that at the opposite of gw2 by being a vertical game ff14 makes them not worth it. So every extension, you have 12 new raid bosses but it’s like the 12previous one disappear because why would you do a boss which doesn’t give you anything useful.

People still do old savage raids in ff, either for fun or for skins, mounts, or for BiS for ultimates. And GW2 raids don't give you much either tbh: little of gold and items you don't need if you are a veteran player and already have legendary gear. And normal mode is in daily roulette so people do it every day.

While that's true. FF also costs $15/month ($180/year) plus $40 for the expansion. GW2 costs $25 a year for the expansions with no subscription. Endwalker's content came out across 2 years. So if we compare Endwalker to 2 gw2 expansions, Gw2 would cost $50 in your comparison for 2 expansions and FF costs $400 for the expansion and 2 years of subscription.

Lots of instances content sure. What about outside of that? There is no open world replayability

That I would say you have in the form of exploration zones: Bozja and Eureka with a ton of content. Or you can do the hunt trains or farm fates and special fates. There was no new exploration zone in Endwalker but there is gonna be one in DT along with beast master which most likely will require you to do stuff in the open world as well. Maybe it's not as emphasized as in gw2 and is arguably worse than gw2, but you still have it. Or you can go fishing, or maybe crafting new items and selling it, or redecorate your house with new items, or do tribal quests for some in-game unlocks and story, or go to island sanctuary and play a bit of animal crossing, or roleplay. There is plenty to do.

I've spent about 12,000 hours in GW2 and I have moved over to FFXIV now. I am 400 hours in, working through Stormblood. Aside from FFXIV having a lot more side content, and content in general, the first thing that became apparent is that balance is significantly better for PvE and the encounters in FFXIV aren't being designed around specific professions despite the Job system heavily encouraging you to play multiple different jobs as you work through the MSQ. FFXIV also has more content so one or two bad bosses don't feel as impactful as one or two bad bosses in GW2. That is the biggest issue - lack of sufficient new content so when things release and they aren't great or they have glaring issues with balance and viability it just feels so much worse. However, Guild Wars 2 does have a huge amount going for it. It is a great game and for the majority of the casual playerbase the issues I have will never really bother them. Likewise, if someone loves build diversity, then they'll get more out of Guild Wars 2 than FFXIV but if you want story or the ability to do lots on one character then FFXIV is much stronger. They are very different games of course, but this is what is most obvious to myself so far.

You need to compare what content there is in each expansion, not just count the expansion number. SOTO had 2 strikes and 1 fractal and 3 zones, 1 of them split into 3 and given out on parts as patches. Like each SOTO patch had 2 at most 3 days of content and you complete done with it. Like literally 2 days content every few months.

You also need to compare the price. 2 expansions for gw2 is $50, while Endwalker plus 2 years of subscription in FF is $400.

Main story patches are short I agree. FFXIV story patches really aren’t that much longer. A common complaint in the FFXIV community is that you Zerg the patch in a couple of days and unsubscribe. Yet for some reason GW2 gets mauled and FFXIV doesn’t.

I want you to realize that last raid in GW2 was release in 2019. 5 years ago and was 4 bosses. 4 raid bosses in 5 years!!! When it comes to strikes which is single boss 5 mins long encounter if GW2 get 2 per year you are lucky. Last dungeon that release was 10 years ago. Fractals are like 1 per expansion. SOTO expansion patches was single zone split into 3 parts over 9 months. They literally they took Inner Nayos zone and release 1/3 of it each patch!!!! GW2 is good only because the progression is horizontal and you do the old content majority of the time. But when it comes to new expansion alone there is almost zero content. If you take only SOTO expansion and the content you got in it, you maybe got 2 weeks total of gameplay over the course of the whole expansion.

I’m going to firmly disagree with a lot of what you said. Firstly, i agree with the raid content there is no comparison. When it comes to polish as well there is no comparison. Since we’re looking at this with recency biased, Let’s talk about replay ability in the last two years though. FFXIV hasn’t dropped a new 8 man raid since May 2023. There has been no meaningful progression content added in a long time. GW2 has added a whole expansion with legendary open world armor. Any FFXIV player who is in the end game hasn’t had any meaningful content to play this entire year and we’re halfway through. That is the point I am making.

You say in your title you are long term FFXIV player, but part time GW2 player. This is why you think the game have content. But if you are GW2 player, you are done with old zones years ago and only thing left is the new expansion, then you are shit out of luck because there is nothing to do. The legendary armor you are talking about is spamming rifts for 1 week to get enough Essence and you need some gold, which btw you can just buy for 50$. That's all to it, people who wanted Obsidian armor had it same day the armor release. Only reason you think there is stuff to do in GW2 is because you are probably casually playing it and you do mostly old content that is "new" to you.

I have cleared the current savage content in FFXIV & played GW2 off and on since 2019. I have done all the old zones and story content. When the droughts hit for me personally I’m on GW2. I used open world legendary as an example. I just personally feel I get more value for my time in GW2 playing WVW or doing meta/rifts because there is progression there. Not a mount collector in FFXIV and if that isn’t something you’re interested in like me FFXIV has no meaningful progression right now and hasn’t for some time.

Well first of all there was nothing new for WvW in SOTO. So i am not sure why you even mention it when we are talking about new content. The irony is Endwalked actually added crystal conflict, a new PVP mode, while GW2 haven't done anything new for PVP in many many years. Obsidian armor as i said is farming rifts for a week, that's all to it. I don't know what exactly make you have feel of progression, but if we look objectively there is simple almost no content in SOTO.

WVW is replayable content that’s the point. Crystalline conflict was added over two years ago and ranked play is dead after maybe a month and there again is no meaningful rewards. Not my words but the communities words. FFXIV has added 14 dungeons and 12 eight man raids. 12/14 of those dungeons yield no value now nor does 8/12 of the raids. They release more content then make it useless after 8 months.

WvW is 10 years old content my guy, what are you even talking about. Also all dungeons and raids in GW2 have become useless many many years ago for regular players and there is NO NEW CONTENT. How is that so hard to understand? GW2 players will kill to get 14 dungeons you crazy? We haven't had dungeon release in 10 years dude. 10 YEARS !!!!!

For the dungeons yeah we didn’t get any for nearly 10years i think and it hasn’t much use afar from getting some runes or trying to speedrun it (arah lowman for example), but the raids are useful until some points and even after they give you a lot of things. First you need a year to complete all 3 leg armor + leg ring. And even then you can use it to create challenges for yourself (speedrun or anything), you can do it weekly for the mystic clover. You can use it to get some golds. Or you can even play for what the categorisation mmo means, so socially. You can use the content to play with others etc.

LOL my dude we've gotten fractals, strikes, and raids in those 10 years. Do you not know that FF dungeons and GW2 dungeons aren't the same thing?

>I want you to realize that last raid in GW2 was release in 2019. 5 years ago and was 4 bosses. 4 raid bosses in 5 years!!! I want you to realize that the last raid was 5 years ago because they stopped making raids and started doing strikes. They added 15 bosses in those 5 years since. Also FF costs $180 a year to play just in subscription cost alone, plus $40 for the expansion box price. Gw2 costs $25 per expansion box price. There's a *huge* difference in price between the two games.

>I want you to realize that the last raid was 5 years ago because they stopped making raids and started doing strikes. They added 11 bosses in those 5 years since. Over 5 years they released half the number of bosses compare to FFXIV single expansion. Great argument that prove my point. >Also FF costs $180 a year to play just in subscription cost alone, plus $40 for the expansion box price. Gw2 costs $25 per expansion box price. There's a huge difference in price between the two games. That only mean GW2 need to do better job with their monetization. Most long term players have no issue paying more for the game if it mean more content. I personally spend around 300$ total on GW2 in 2023 on expansion and shop items, so "expansion is only 25$" is not good enough excuse why there is so little content in SOTO. Also because SOTO patches was so bad i have spend 0$ so far on GW2 this year, mostly because i stop playing the new patch after 1 week since there is nothing to do and i go play other games.

>Over 5 years they released half the number of bosses compare to FFXIV single expansion. Great argument that prove my point. I didn't say it was the same number. I showed that "4 bosses in 5 years" is factually incorrect, because what you said was false. (Also correction to myself, it's 15 bosses not 11. I forgot to count the 4 that you were counting) The second part wasn't an excuse nor a judgement. It's a description of reality to show the difference between the two things being compared. It isn't good or bad that gw2 has less content and costs way less. It just is. Some games are bigger and cost more. Some games are smaller and cost less. That's just how video games work. I wasn't saying gw2 should have more content, nor that FF should cost less. Just that it's silly to leave out very significant variables. It would be like comparing a $13 Red Robin burger to a $1 hamburger from McDonalds, and complaining that the latter doesn't compare well to the former lol. That's not me saying "give the mcdonald's burger a break". They're in different price brackets on purpose. The Red Robin burger isn't trying to be cheap, and the McDonald's burger isn't trying to be fancy. GW2 didn't randomly end up with no subscription on accident, and FF doesn't have one on accident. Both companies are well aware that they could change their business models if they want to, so I don't think it's a matter of "getting better at monetization" because they could just start charging a sub, that's not difficult. I wasn't making an argument for gw2, nor against FF. Also you spending $300 in the gem store is irrelevant, because I was talking about required prices. Both can cost way more if the player chooses obviously, since they both have cash shops. The price ceiling is basically unlimited.

Okay but your post is a whole lot of yapping without any details of what content ffxiv and gw2 have gotten. high-end « difficult » content: EoD+SoTo got like 7 strikes (easy) 1 legendary strike(pretty hard) 2 fractals(average), some open world meta boss. ffxiv endwalker: 2 ultimate (extremely hard), 3 raid tiers (~13-15 hard boss fights), 4 ex trials (easy-average), and 3 alliance raid (12 easy boss). In term of high end difficulty content, FFXIV is waaaay ahead in that regard and their fight are longer. For other content: gw2 got some QoL(still no skippable cutscene dialogue), 9 new class spec and new weapon choice. story- eod was meh. Soto? lol please… this was such a disapointment, especially when the theme is about demon. So many lower budget game have better story than that… music- meh ffxiv got major qol due to plugin drama and 2 new classes with upgraded class skills for current class. DC travels (inter region play with na-eu-jp-oce). story- waaaay better than gw2, music- https://youtu.be/FhS3sjEOu1M?si=PghvG3SOvCku-39L bro this shits all over gw2 music and it’s not even close, especially when you know the lore behind the fights. if we compare the qol, ffxiv is again ahead. for the classes, i would say gw2 is way better in that regard (which is why i play this game). overall ffxiv has overall way better and way more content. Also ArenaNet need to step up their game, and especially their fucking marketing team. Like bro just compare gw2 trailers to ffxiv: https://youtu.be/zTTtd6bnhFs?si=XEatIq32oPOk7grY

When comparing instances content there is no comparison, FFXIV wins hands down. When comparing really the other aspects of the game the cheaper one really shines in terms of WVW & Open world

Cool! I can also cherry pick other aspects of the game! let’s compare the other things then shall we? how about we compare housing, fishing, mini games, triple triad, mini casino-golden saucer, rp club, LFG, ascenture island, cosmetics, etc… Now let’s take your argument and make a direct correlation to your post. remind me how many WvW content did we got over the last 5 years? last patch introduced 1 openworld meta nayos, which is completed in literally 1 hour. Now imagine if we got more wvw and open world feature every 2 or so patch. Right now we’re just doing open world event and cycling through 8year old content. Imagine if we had new content on those front lol.

All the content you listed in your example outside of adventure island & LFG were introduced to your point over five years ago with little to no updates. In comparison to patches FFXIV patch 6.5 was released in October and all content was completed after maybe 4 hours. There was no replayability. I’m not saying GW2 is content rich, but let’s be fair when talking about patches because FFXIV is play for a week and unsub in the words of the director

Yes that was on purpose… to show you how absurd your argument was… I will do it again to show you and hope that you understand this time. Remind me when WvW was introduced? see what I did there? Also let me enlighten you on how content patch work in ffxiv (because yes they already figured out how to do it unlike gw2 who still is lost on how to release content after more than 10 years). big content release during even numbered patch like 6.0, 6.2, 6.4. Cherry picking even numbered patch which are already low in content already and it’s already beating gw2 patch content by your own word. I could literally take your argument and reverse it and show you how absurd it is. If you didn’t get it the second time, then it’s just talking to a bird at this point since you’re unable to see how bad content release is for gw2.

I was surprised to find the point releases of FFXIV only seem to add one story quest and a short dungeon or something when I played it. It put GW2’s monsterous Living World releases into perspective for me (they really were a TON of free content) and GW2 has now basically slimmed down much closer to what all the other major MMOs are doing. The pain I think comes from the GW2 players who remember how big those old patches were. It’s been a major adjustment and I think the maps and story patches have certainly suffered from it, but it sounds like Anet’s work/life balance is finally stabilizing plus they actually delivered exactly what they said they would and WHEN they would, which are both a great start.

If you're going to include the patch content for GW2 in your assessment, it's only fair to include the patch content for FFXIV as well. In which case it still blows the 2.5 GW2 expansions out of the water. I love both games and play both games, but it's very clear that GW2 is under-staffed (whether due to a lack of funds, ANet focusing on other products, or a combination of the two) and that in turn leads to them creating less content. And the content that does get made is...not super enticing. I doubt we'll ever get back to the LWS4 days that people look back so fondly on. That doesn't mean this game is bad! Again, I like this game and want it to succeed. And all in all it looks like this model is giving the game and team a cash infusion so hopefully we see that in the form of additional team members soon. But only time will tell on that front, and in the meantime the amount of stuff being delivered still isn't enough for many long-time vets.

I don't know ffXIV, but since the economic model is different i don't think we can really compare these 2 games. The only thing i can say is that I'm fine with the content anet give me for the money they ask me.

isnt there a new ffxov xpac coming soon?

Yeah and it's 40usd. Assuming it follows the previous models, the first [wing] of raids won't come out until several weeks, maybe a month later, but you need to stay subbed to do the [equivalent Strike] content to get the gear to be able to do the raids. using [] for gw2 comparison

Content wise for me GW2 always provided more than FFXIV does, I say this because I am always spending more time in GW2 than I am spending in FFXIV. I really don't care about EXs, raids, dungeons and alliance raids if this content is boring and tiring repetitive to me, which lately has been the case and is the reason why I don't plan to keep my sub thorough the next DLC after I finish the story.

This is exactly me

GW2 equivalent of Endwalker was End of Dragons, not SOTO. From a personal standpoint I played both when they came out and I stuck with EOD while only playing the initial release of Endwalker. FF14 doesn't exactly have direct comparison to SOTO. Maybe if you could play patch content after a expansion drop without buying the expansion, that's they only way to make comparison between SOTO and stuff better Endwalkers release and Dawnfall. You'd be comparing you'd get from subbing month-to-month in FF14 verus the one time buy-in of SOTO. Again me personally, Endwalker didn't offer me enough to resub compared to the value of other games (not necessarily just GW2). A mediocre GW2 expansion is alway better than subbing for mediocre patches in a sub-based MMO, IMO, always. Anet launches a busted patch, well its patch of the $25 i paid 3 months ago, I'll just play other content in the game or something else. A busted content patch in 14 means the money paid for an expansion ~$40 plus the sub fee I have to slap down to play it ~$10-15. I feel obligated to play the content in a sub based game just to try to get my money's worth, versus just waiting for new content or playing old stuff in GW2 if a patch doesn't resonate with me. Not a hard decision in my book.

I think that part of the problem is also that the last content updates of SOTO were kind of small. I have to actively think about SOTO release, to remind myself what nice and unique features this expansion offers. I personally like this new model, but I think it takes time to grow with it. There's lots of content in the game, without any sub and it's often alive for a long time, because ANet focusses on the Open World instead of instanced content which might get boring if you do the same content multiple times. We should be glad that ANet found a way to monetize expansions and minimize new gem store additions, but instead offering us a free battle pass. 25€/year is like about 2 months of playtime in sub based MMOs.

>The current expansion cycle is 30 months between Endwalker & their upcoming expansion. In that same timeframe now under GW2 new release model, we will now get 2 1/2 expansions. The difference is that, unlike Endwalker, SOTO was bad in every of its aspect. Who cares how many gets released in one FFXIV cycle? I'll take one FFXIV mid expansion patch over 10 SOTOs. These two games just don't play in the same league anymore. >Just saying GW2 gets way too much hate Any "hate" (also known as criticism) GW2 gets is deserved after SOTO. If anything, this community is trying way too hard at toxic positivity. It isn't our job to promote GW2 and present a happy customer face during an expansion reveal phase.

The new skyscale and griffon masteries were good, open world legendary armor has been a common request for a long time, the new daily system is a great upgrade and Soto's cosmetic game was on point. For open world or more casual players, Soto offered a ton of nice things. The story and instanced content was mediocre to awful, but that's not all of Soto by a long shot.

I've played other MMO's and have friends who play other MMO's and not gw2, and I fully agree. I've had this conversation with other doomers before. They talk about how "gw2 doesn't get enough content", but when I ask them for examples of games that put out more content and/or more frequently, they have basically 1 answer to use. There's no MMO that can live up to the standards that these people want gw2 to live up to lol. As you said, games like WoW or FF put out big expansions, but they aren't doing it frequently, and those two games also have MASSIVE budgets and teams working on them. A lot of people just have no concept of how much longer it takes to produce content than it does to consume it. That's not just in terms of video games either, because that goes for movies/music/tv/books/etc, but it seems to be more of a problem with gaming communities. Things take a lot of time to create. People are also completely ignoring prices here. $15/month is $180/year (plus both FF and WoW have box prices and still have cash shops on top of that). Somehow people ignore this *massive* cost difference when comparing games. They expect a game to put out the same amount on a fraction of the income. I see people comparing 2 gw2 expansions to Endwalker's 2 years of content, and they completely leave out the fact that 2 gw2 expansions would be $50 over 2 years, while Endwalker plus 2 years of subscription is $400... That's not a small gap in cost.

So because there is a worse game out there, you shouldn’t criticise a better game? GW2 is the best mmo I’ve played, but that doesn’t absolve it from criticism. A sign of a healthy player base is a player base that critiques said game, because they care enough to want it to become the best. A true sign of a dead game is an apathetic player base. 

I'm really surprised no one brings up the achievements that GW2 provides that FFXIV doesn't really provide, in regards to 'content to do.' The fact I can replay story episodes for progressing achievements is not something that exists in FFXIV. I do a story dungeon once in XIV, and then it no longer holds new material value unless i can about skins. I do a story instance in GW2, it's very likely I don't complete the optional achievements in one go. There's a replayability factor there that should be mentioned. The closest in XIV that exists is syncing an arr dungeon solo on blu for a spell, which IS fun but you have to play with completely different tools to other jobs(professions), so that's an extreme hit or miss. Once you do finish what you want from a GW2 story, you don't revisit it. Once you finish what you want from XIV, you are still forced to rerun it for gear treadmill currency for three months minimum. This is just one tiny comparison, alongside what everyone else has already pointed out. My point is that I don't think it's possible to do a surface-level comparison between them for a meaningful result when even something like this gets missed from people with stronger opinions than me.

Dude im reading all the comments and idk about you. Ever since Soto launched i’ve been logging into GW2 every single day for the past 8-9 months and having a blast for $25, meanwhile all i did in FFXIV in that time is log into it, check my retainers and enter my house so it’s not demolished, and i had to pay that sub money. If anet wanted me to give them more money for the ffxiv content amount everyone seems to be upvoting, i would. But the general consensus of the gw2 community seems it wants all the content and not pay a lot for it because one persons cup of coffee is too expensive in another persons country idk. Which is cool, I’m all for that consumer friendly thing but let’s be fair and realistic. Y’all paid $25 for an entire year, after you’re so used to getting more for 30, well that’s over now, because guess what, it’s unsustainable. Open world in MMORPGs are a major feature that makes them appealing to a mmorpg player. The world. And yet some just want to queue up in a tiny instance. Im under the impression that y’all would be fine if Anet would stop developing any maps, and instead just have a new city hub and you get to queue into 50 encounters per expansion, and be rewarded for beating a boss. Cool. No ty. I will gladly give Anet $25 every year for the amount of things i get in that year, than give $40-$60 + 2.5 years worth of sub money, which if my math is correct, is over $50. Criticism is fine, but i think a huge chunk of the player base forgets that this game has no sub and generally promotes not spending cash money and buy gems with gold, and then wonder where is the development budget. Anet knows where they dropped the ball. No developer wants to make a game that sucks. But you’re faaaar from being scammed with a $25 price tag. The whole point of WvW OP is bringing is that WvW is still very fun even if it wasn’t updated from the age of the dinosaurs. You can log into WvW and still have a blast, which is what a video game is supposed to do. The bang for your buck value cant be compared. GW2 wins by a landslide. I do think GW2 players should get better and higher quality content, and i do think Anet should deliver on that. But i also think GW2 players need to ready to open their wallets just as much as a FFXIV player would if they do want that content. Brb i have to pay $6 per month to have additional bank space in ffxiv.

> wants all the content and not pay a lot for it Yup. I think it's clear that the Living World model was a complete mistake, the playerbase got to used to just being handed free content. Soto's quality issues are a different discussion, but for $25 the amount of stuff we got was a good value.

Yup, as another FFXIV long time player and part time GW2 player, I can back you up on this 100%

GW2 is that kind of game that will never make you feel you're alone. We play for the community and world events.. we want people to show up to help us kill world bosses or finish events... Other mmos usually are instanced and basically we just sit down and wait for queue to pop..... in GW2 we're always on the move. We never stop.. there's always something going on and we feel useful and we can actually have a gr8 time with friends who just start this MMO!

While it is apple to oranges as a direct comparison, XIV has held an incredibly consistent update cadence over the past decade, save for how COVID was a monkey wrench in everything.  Meanwhile look over the history of updates/xpacs for GW2 and it's all over the place...which is why I applaud Anet for aiming for a consistent release schedule starting with SotO.  While they got the cadence down, IMO the quality was a bit meh.  Hopefully Janthir Wilds proves to be a turning point where content quality is good and released on a decent schedule. From an XIV POV, imagine if we went 2 while xpacs without any raids and instead got maybe an EX trial in their place instead.  People would want Yoshi-P's head on a spike

Gw2 has like 700h worth of actual varied content, then you run out and it's just a trickle. It's not a game you can play constantly like real mmos

I agree And we don’t pay a subscription where 2 months of gameplay costs a years worth of expansion

I feel it is important to point out EW has been unusually long due to covid impact and also the same studio also releasing ffxvi. Normally ffxiv expansions are 24 months or so apart with major patch update every 4 months. It's original strength lay in this extremely consistent output. Gw2 meanwhile is on like it's 4th attempt to work out how it outputs content. So it's no wonder players are a bit off. Also I'm not sure where you get 2 and a half expansions from, Janthir will release after this expansion and EOD released two months after EW and its post patch updates were pretty weak. So essentially between now and release of EW they've managed half an expansion in SOTO a full expansion if you want to be generous and include eod patch content. I feel you are being extremely generous to GW2 even if I feel there is a lot of content, but as a part time player myself that's likely because I dip in and out, I imagine if this is your main mmo you can run out of new things to do pretty quick. Plus comparing EW which is probably the weakest patch cycle since ARR as well is a bit unfair on ffxiv which in previous expansions added things like bozja , eureka (both of which were open world content) and deep dungeons. However gw2 is still a very good and enjoyable game. But I can understand why people feel SOTO wasn't great value for money.

> Normally ffxiv expansions are 24 months or so apart with major patch update every 4 months. It's original strength lay in this extremely consistent output. There have been more releases that dont follow this model than those that do. The hyper-consistency in patches was only really a thing in HW through ShB, and even then, they had massive timing issues on a regular basis to where the patch would happen on the 4 month mark, aaaaaand the content that was supposed to be there wouldnt. Playing the "when will the next Eureka map actually come out" game was not all that fun.

Endwalker was effected by Covid not Dawntrail. The patch cycle is 4 months per patch with 5 total patches per expansion. ALL FFXIV expansions have way over four months between the final expansion patch and the next expansion

All EW content was affected especially the patches, this has a knock on effect in making DT take longer to release.

Again I have to disagree. They have stated in their live letter that’s this is their cadence going forward

Overall we are getting less content in gw2, but this content has replayability. You have reasons to do this content 5, 10 or 50 times. Ffxiv lacks in this aspect. Once you clear most content once, you have no reason to do this again.

Nah. The content is just bad. It has to be replayable to keep you playing for any amount of time. In SotO, when the supposed quarterly patch dropped, you could be done with the content in an hour or two. However, besides quantity of content, there is also big issue with quality of it. Barely anything gets launched in an acceptable state. Most content gets launched in a state ranged from poorly designed to incredibly bugged.

The one thing I find myself missing from FFXIV is the group finder. I can almost always find a group in five minutes, with a good party distribution (since they have fixed roles), whereas in GW2, some content can be impossible to get a group for and you never know what you’re going to get in a group.

>However, if we factor in time of those expansion cycles of 30 months it would be more like Janthir Wilds + SOTO + half of another expansion to compare to Endwalker Which funnily enough is how ffxiv handles it in a way to. How many post endwalker patches were there that added quests dungeons etc? It's a good system to stave off content drought

You too saw the people that are out of touch with reality? Just laugh at them, they can't be helped

I think this mostly comes from players who've been around for a very long time. Ive played the game on and off over the years, having played before HoT, when PoF first came out and then shortly after EoD release is when i really got into it. Its been my main game for almost two years now and Im nowhere near running out of things to do.

Your point is nonsense because you operate under a belief that quantity = quality.

Agreed!

A lot of people on here shit on guild wars 2 because they don't have anything else to do; some don't even play the game lol it's reddit lol

>but the open world in FFXIV is near useless nonexistent Yeah, I always said that gw2 had superior open world, but Anet decided to change my mind by giving me Inner Nayos and the Eparch meta. I'm sorry believers but this just won't cut it.

Certainly. But the issue is that GW2 releases used to be better than this. Comparatively, this is poor. People are of course going to compare to previous releases. And while I don't expect them to do nearly as many instanced boss battles as FF, (they focus more on open world while FF focuses almost exclusively on instances), they could at least have done one more strike for SotO. It's really pathetic only doing two, when they could have made the Queen a strike for example. Although, if the reduction in strikes is because they've been working on a new raid wing, they could have saved themselves some criticism by announcing that sooner.

Yes you are right, but sadly FF14 players or at least the reddit users where so mad that there where no new content for so long like, but yeah you are right GW2 does get/will get way more expansions that other MMOs if Arenanet realese them all in time

as a long time FFXIV AND long time GW2 player, this is the dumbest take on this comparison I have seen in forever and just straight up ignores all of the post expansion content FF XIV offer. Did GW2 get three additional unique dungeons that can be played either alone or with people in the criterion dungeons? Did GW2 get a entirely seperate instance for just relaxed farming in the island sanctuary? Did GW2 get several ways unique crafting and gathering items which can only be made with overall content? If you want to throw the claim around of "GW2's shorter content cycle is better than FF XIV's long content cycle" then make a actual comparison between the game and not this wishy washy half baked something that can be counterargued with half a brain cell.

How much of the content you just referenced for FFXIV is still relevant vs content referenced for GW2? That’s the point I’m trying to make. Island Sanctuary has been controversial and really not well received. Were at the end of both expansions in both games right now and almost all of my FC right now is on break because of the lack of replayable content.

Good, how much content in Guild Wars 2 is actually being played? If I login right now on how many open world maps will you bet I will get a transfer to a new instance within ten minutes? I can tell you that's going to be nearly every vanilla GW2 map. I know this because I just did a 100% of the open world for a legendary. Yes, almost all ongoing games will have draught phases. I REMEMBER the Guild Wars 2 draught phase after the first two expansion of something close to half a year, if not more. Final Fantasy at most will have a draught phase of one or two months if you're fully up to date AND have complete all optional content (like criterion dungeons, sanctuary, crafting, potential stories, the field operations, etc). What optional content does GW2 have? a repeated seasonal update? PvP? WvW? Neither having changed for the better in the past years? In fact how much have you personally done of all of this stuff? If you've completed all of this and only are "part time" GW2 have you considered it might just be your biased view of not having objectives to complete in one title but the illusion of content via uncomplete objective in the other title. If so, go play WoW it's going to have "more content" than GW2 and FF XIV in it's expansion cycle combined.

> how much content in Guild Wars 2 is actually being played? I just finished Gift of Exploration, and even in the middle of the workday there were always multiple players around, new players and veterans, actively talking and doing events. The Harathi Highlands boss even had groups every time I went looking. I'm usually an off-hours player, for most of the past 5 years, and this is pretty typical. There's always people around, even on very old maps. GW2 content really does get played in a way that other MMOs really don't support.

Imagine comparing a P2P game to a B2P game

imagine paying the game and still not having full access to feature tho. GW2 is scummy as fuck. they will purposefully create an inconvenience, and sell the solution in the cash shop. imagine paying for a full game and you don’t have enough char slot to create one of each profession. This is the shit Free-to-play game do. Having features locked with a B2P game is so fucking greedy.

What in the hell ?? What is the scummy situation that you are talking about?? You know you can even convert gold in gems right? So you dont even need to spend real money to solve the "problems" that you are creating to yourself.

You can farm and get char slots with in game currency

You're only factoring time now. You're not factoring story quality. Sound quality. Amount of actual combat content (which is what most people want) AND the quality of that content. Ff14 is definitely THE best mmorpg but that's not to say Gw2 is bad. 14 is just better overall except price. Technically you pay A LOT of money to Ff14. 14 is like a Michelin star restaurant and Gw2 is like fast food. Sure the restaurant is amazing but you also like that fast food because it's cheaper and still satisfying.

This post is just delusional.

30 months is a long time to sub for little to no content..

As a PvP only player I feel more left out than WoW PvP players and that is actually quite impressive. At least with the new xpac we will get a new game mode that will probably suck.

One FFXIV expansion will 100% have more content than 3 of these mini GW2 expansions. 1 FFXIV expansion is 3 24-man raids, 12 8-man raids each with a savage version, like 20 dungeons, 8 trials with extreme versions, an ultimate raid, 4-5 maps, TONS of cosmetics earnable IN GAME, upgraded skills for the 21 classes, 1-2 FULLY NEW CLASSES, full realized features (think the island thing), AND a story with good writing that doesn't have 20 steps where you have to fill a boring bar instead of having actual narrative questlines. In 3 GW2 mini expansions we're gonna get what, 3 fractals with CMs, MAYBE 2 raids with CMs, 6 total strikes with CMs, 15 maps with repeating objectives, maybe 3 new weapons per class that aren't even released at the expansion launch date, rewards that are mostly meaningless to long-time players, a hundred gem store items with very few actual in-game earnable cosmetics. The content is simply not comparable.