Final Fantasy 14 online looks small after playing Genshin Impact

The Last Fantasy 14 and The Genshin effect are all big guys. Although developer Hoyoverse has released Genshin just two years ago, the game has grown to cover several large regions and has a regular six-week cycle of new content and events. Similarly, Square Enix released The Last Illusion 14 in 2010 (and then again in 2013) and it still updated regularly; it has grown to receive four large expansion after A realm of rebirth reissued. Two massively multiplayer online games attract large audiences, both of which require commitment. The only difference is The Last Fantasy 14 respect my time in a way Genshin No.

For those unfamiliar, The Genshin effect takes players on a free open world adventure set in an anime fantasy world. You can play the game in a variety of ways, focusing on building strong teams, exploring multiple areas of the game, or powering up the story, but Genshin Can feel quite stressful to keep up with. Story quests with important lore and entire regions can be locked after time-limited events; even building a team of four characters can take a long time as you have to level up the characters, their weapons, individual skills and items called stats affecting artifacts.

Genshin unravels a seemingly endless to-do list, which is rewarding if you get through them all, but also immerses the player in a cyclical game loop that focuses on repetitive tasks rather than develop a story. Each completed quest seems to reveal more required quests. Furthermore, the game rewards you with an in-game currency called Primogems; You can spend this currency on gacha and gamble to get new characters. Mechanisms that encourage daily players to persevere through battle and complete all the right quests to win Primogem, which can make you feel financially incentivized to play in a unique way determined. In my case, this led to a growing sense of burnout, even a lack of motivation.

Unlike Genshin, The Last Fantasy 14 derived from a more linear formula, resulting in the feeling that the game time is not thrown into an infinite black hole. Yes, I have the option to do daily and weekly repetitive quests, but whether I do them or not is really up to me as a player. I can level up relatively quickly for a job by doing the main quest and unlocking game content later. It doesn’t look like a continuous job as I arrange different tasks. After play GenshinLooking down the barrel of this 300 or more hour game strangely doesn’t feel too difficult.

Image: Hoyoverse through Polygon

before I started The Last Fantasy 14 seriously this winter, I played about ten hours of the game six months ago. With The Last Fantasy 14, I was able to take a six-month break and come back without blinking, because I knew I could just click the buttons and just follow the map icon prompts for the main quest. Besides, The Last Fantasy 14 contains other basic but important quality of life features, such as the ability to skip certain cutscenes or speed up dialogue during the duller parts of the journey.

Another great way to take players through a long journey is to seek help from teammates. The best part of playing The Last Fantasy 14 have been adventuring with friends and studying under their tutelage. (Genshin has multiplayer features but limits how and what you do.) I was offered by a friend and longtime gamer to be my driver on her giant Moogle mount, meaning was that I basically had someone drive me from one mission point to another. As we progressed through the rather tedious early game quests of A realm of rebirth, she taught me about the world of games. I learned about its history and about what has changed in the world since she played. She told me about a wedding she attended, and the rituals required in Eorzea. She chatted with me about the characters and told me about the drama in her clan. In-game chats don’t just allow me to connect with my friends — it makes Eorzea feel like a more alive world.

This is not to minimize real-time immersion while playing an MMO. I do not think The Last Fantasy 14 is for everyone. But I don’t think the long-term commitment in itself needs to be the thing that scares players away. That is because The Last Fantasy 14 shows the value of having a game that the developers don’t need you to play every day, fully realizing that players love to take their time off. During a Q&A session at Gamescom, The Last Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida (known to fans as Yoshi-P) offered advice to a player who asked about dealing with low gaming motivation. Yoshi-P surprised fans with his response by telling players they really shouldn’t be playing the game that much. According to one Reddit post that translates the answerI said:

It’s okay not to play it every day. Since this is just a game, you can stop forcing yourself if you find it difficult to continue. Instead, it will only pile up unnecessary stress if you limit yourself [to] just play that one game because there are so many other games out there. So go back and play it to your heart’s content when the main patch starts, then stop it to play other games before you [get] get burned out, and then come back with another big patch. This will really make me happier, and in the end, I think this is the best solution I can answer to keep your game motivated.

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

For me, this goes to the core of why The Last Fantasy 14 feels arguably easier than, for example, even going back to a regular job Genshin. In order for the game to be enjoyable, sometimes you just need to take frequent and frequent breaks. In Genshin, I need to enforce boundaries in a way i don’t with The Last Fantasy 14, the getaway feels natural. This is one factor that makes playing a big game feel difficult even with single player games. I’ve played RPGs that find it a bit hard to come back after a week off, because once you leave, you come back and find yourself forgetting some of the combat systems or feeling too lost in the dungeon. dark.

Sure, jump in The Last Fantasy 14 maybe a doozy. From the moment you arrive here, you are faced with the difficult prospect of exploring a vast city. You see a map dotted with strange symbols and observe dozens of other players trading around you. You have to learn about jobs, mounts, costumes, etc. It can certainly be overwhelming, but I found a game that allows me to uncover the secrets of the world in it at my own pace. alone, step by step.