Coming from WoW - Questions/Concerns

[Atoli]

I know most of this has been answered already, just adding a second opinion which might reinforce some things others said or make you question them :3

Combat: You do get more used to it, but it also does get a lot better. Unless you are MNK or NIN, the GCD will stay the same, but every class gets enough off-GCD abilities as you level up that you have plenty to do even during the cooldown.
And that's not even taking into account all the dodging and mechanics you'll have to do when fights get harder

As a healer, you'll get several instant cast abilities that can be used to quickly save someone from dying, but generally the thrill of the role IS to learn how to keep everyone alive without being able to always instantly save them with one button press

For tanking, if the monsters are too spread out, walk a few steps and they will follow you, moving closer together in the process. The threat meter also tells you how close your other party members are to pulling threat off you, so you don't have to keep on spamming AoEs when no one is dangerously close on taking hate away from you. You can mark monsters too, btw, to make your dps players focus on a certain monster so you don't have to make such an effort to keep all of them on you.

Classes:Yes, the classes get more unique. You have to keep in mind that SE considers FFXIV a "beginners MMO" which REALLY eases the players into the whole MMO deal, so it all starts very basic and uncomplicated.
Playstyles for most classes change over the course of leveling, with several of them having their biggest changes past Level 50.

As for gearing up - you can get an unlimited amount of decent gear (as long as you have time/money) in which you can do endgame raiding just fine (currently ilvl 220). The BEST gear however is behind a weekly limit/lockout (230 and 240), but it is no requirement to participate in anything, it just makes things easier. Also, as my friend from WoW would like you to know, the weekly stuff is by FAR not on par with what WoW requires you to do, and you can easily finish it all in a day if you want to.

Mobility: You get small movement skills for some classes (DRG jumps, NIN teleport) but they don't really matter outside of combat. You get access to mounts in the early 20s, so there really is no need for sprint anymore outside of PvP. With the aetherytes as well, you have most players just teleporting to the nearest one and then riding to a specific location.
As for TP usage, DRG has a TP regeneration skill that can be cross-classed by all other melees, so spending some TP on running doesn't hurt as bad with that skill either

Macros and Binds: Don't the keybinds automatically differ for every class? o.Ô I was pretty sure about that. For macros, they are shared between all classes, but you can just write 2 different macros and use the one you want with the pet you want.

Gathering and Crafting: Both are very useful and worth it. The best way to make money is through these, and especially crafting comes with a lot of useful additional things (like being able to make your own stuff which can get pretty expensive in endgame (100k+ per food item and so on), you can repair your own gear mid-dungeon, insert materia into gear, and so on.
As I myself am not that much into crafting though, I can not tell you much about how it is in endgame (more complicated, I can say that much xD), but it IS worth it, especially if you end up having fun with it anyway.

Storage: Barely any of the Lvl 1-20 crafting ingredients are worth spending inventory space on. Soon after level 20, you get 2 free retainers with a combined 200 additional item slots. If that isn't enough for you, you can hire more retainers (which do cost monthly though, and yes, it's been a complaint of FFXIV players for the longest time that that's even a thing in a P2P MMO). In general, those nearly 300 item slots are enough for quite a while, as you do not need to keep cheap mats around.

RNG: Stats on gear are only random on pink, non-endgame gear. And even then, it's just the secondary stats, main stats are fixed on everything.
Once you get to 50 (pre-expansion endgame) and 60 (current endgame), most content has a token system in place; meaning even if you have the worst of luck and never get the item you want as a drop, after 10 or 20 runs you can just buy whatever you wanted with said tokens. So in general, it's not all that bad on the RNG-side

Utility in Group PvE: Simple answer - yes. There is a lot of that the higher your level gets. Some classes have more utility than others, of course.

End Game: Class balance may change from patch to patch, but at least during this one, it's pretty well-balanced, actually. There are some classes that are OP in dmgdealing, but without a lot of utility which other classes that deal a bit less dmg bring to the table instead, so no matter what you pick, you'll have no trouble finding a group.
About plenty of fun stuff to do...well, that really depends on who you ask. Some feel it's not enough, others think it's just right, some feel overwhelmed. It greatly depends on how good of a player you are and how much time you play every week.
In general, there is A LOT to do if you don't just stick to running the same raid/dungeon over and over.

Lastly, if you edit your post, the 1000 char limit can be bypassed
So just post one sentence first and then edit the post and add the entire text.

[Niwashi]

You have to keep in mind that SE considers FFXIV a "beginners MMO" which REALLY eases the players into the whole MMO deal, so it all starts very basic and uncomplicated.

This probably comes from being a genre departure. Since most of the Final Fantasy franchise consists of single player RPGs, but this one is an MMO, there are a lot of FF fans who get it having never played an MMO before. If every other video game you've ever played pauses the combat whenever you're choosing a skill to use (as the single player FF games do or at least can), then even the slow-paced combat in FFXIV's early levels can seem hectic at first. SE deliberately keeps the early levels slow and easy to give new players a chance to get used to dealing with real-time combat, as well as keeping the early dungeons easy enough for players who are just learning the concept of party roles.

But it does speed up quite a bit (or at least seem to since you'll have more going on) as the game progresses. It's just adding that speed and complexity gradually. (And some jobs get more complexity than others.)

Soon after level 20, you get 2 free retainers with a combined 200 additional item slots.

It could be as early as level 17 if you're on-level with your Main Scenario Quests (though it is true that many players are over-leveled at that point, so it might end up being after 20 in that case). Retainers are unlocked from The Scions of the Seventh Dawn. And two of them give a total 350 extra item slots (it's 175 each).

[Atoli]

It could be as early as level 17 if you're on-level with your Main Scenario Quests (though it is true that many players are over-leveled at that point, so it might end up being after 20 in that case).
And two of them give a total 350 extra item slots (it's 175 each).

Wow, I'm stupid
I even went to count the rows and columns to get the 5x5 per bag, and then missed that I have a second page with 3 more bags and the crystals on my retainers xD
Sorry about that. Yes of course, it's 350 extra slots!

About the quest: I assumed it had to be past 20 since the OP played the game to 20 and had not encountered retainers yet. And I did the quest just this morning myself on my alt, which was 23 at the time without having done any sidequests, so I just assumed that was the natural level you'd be at. I guess SE cranked up the exp gain by a lot to make it easier for new players to catch up