To give a more in-depth judgement, FF14 is the most straight forward theme-park style MMO I've ever played but in a good way.
Pros
- You only NEED one character because that character can do every class and trade. You switch between them by changing your active weapon outside combat. Leveling other classes is pretty easy compared to WoW because you get an in-built XP bonus for other classes depending on your highest class.
- Every class feels distinct and has it's own mechanics. Red Mage and Thamaturge/Black Mage are both long range casters, but the "gimmick" of each class gives them a unique role and feel.
- Every class and trade has it's own sidestory that you unlock as you progress.
- An expansive, single player story that's comparable to any Square Enix game. Less so in ARR, but I really love the Heavensward and Stormblood stories.
- A pretty good tutorial on how to play your role in a dungeon. When you hit lvl 15 and the game is getting you ready for your first dungeon, go to the training hall they direct you to and do EVERYTHING. You get some good armor and a super useful ring that gives you bonus XP up to lvl 25 for any combat class.
- Lots of side stuff to do that unlocks as you level. Beast Tribe quests, raids, bonus hard mode dungeons... you even have special side stuff for crafting and gathering classes. They even got a series of comedy questlines that exists for no other reason than they were screwing around with the in-game models one day and realized they could do some wacky shit.
- Fight mechanics that actually mean something. Assuming you have a decent healer to do AOE healing when it's their time, most of your success and failure in big epic fights is tied to your ability to understand and avoid targeted attacks. It's not WoW where you just die because someone didn't do something random.
- An English translation team that actually gives a fuck! Damn near every mission has a punny name. Expect to see references to not just other games from Square Enix, but the Simpsons and even the musical Hamilton.
Downsides
- You wanna DPS? Prepare to (routinely) spend 5-15 minutes waiting for a dungeon pop. This is a problem early on because you will do almost every dungeon as part of the main story. They are changing this in the upcoming Shadowbringers expansion (you can bring your NPC allies along for MSQ dungeon runs instead of waiting for players) but it can be an issue.
- Outside of dungeons, trials, and raids... you're gonna be soloing virtually everything. That's just how the game is designed. That said, it's VERY solo friendly so it's just fine to play by yourself.
- Some parts of the story are just... ugh. Everything post-ARR/pre-Heavensward is THE WORST. It's long and your running around not doing a lot for a good period of time until the story rights itself. This is because THIS part of the story was hastly written when they had to remake the game for 2.0 after 1.0's troubled launch. Grit and get through it though and you'll hit some of the best stuff.
Let me or
@Ravenpoe know if you decide to sub after/during your trial and
we'll hook you up with a friend code for some nice stuff. I recommend starting on a server with the low pop XP bonus (it'll let you know which those are when you make a character).
