A friend of mine is considering switching from WoW to XIV, and I've been trying to help him as much as I can with questing, where to go, most efficient way to get things done, etc. He's still stuck in the worst part of the story so I hope he doesn't quit before it starts to get better. However there's something he mentioned that really got me thinking: he wants to try a class before committing to playing it.
Before you guys chime in "PotD!"- we tried that. He wasn't really feeling it as a BRD so we went to get him THM and jumped in from floor one. PotD doesn't let you access job-exclusive skills if you don't have the job crystal and things die too fast for you to get a handle of how to play the class properly. It's fast, and can give you a general sense of "I might like it" or "maybe not for me", but it's not sufficient for helping people get a real feel for what they want to invest their time in. He's only got time for leveling one job right now and I feel awful telling him that there's no way for him to find out if he likes it or not until he's committed a lot of time to starting over and over again from level 1, stalling the MSQ and all the content it hides, until something sticks.
So I wonder if SE could do something like he said WoW does- you can try a class at max level before rolling it and starting the game. Like an extra, optional part of character creation when you can select your starting class, only the "try class/job" option would take you to a SSS-like instance to play around and see if it suits you. It'd really help veteran MMO players like him who are willing to make the jump but aren't willing to spend time (and possibly money) on something he's not sure he'll like after a lot of investment on his part.
I keep telling him "it gets better I swear" but he's not really sold on it (and I wouldn't be either if I was in his position- it's a really weak endorsement). He's willing to buy SB and a MSQ skip potion to catch up but only if he likes the game, which is entirely fair. If he could easily find a class he's willing to work on I think it'd be a much better experience for him. He's already had enough trouble figuring out where to go and slogging through all the hand-holding and terribad early story- why not ease the drudgery a little and convince him (and others) the game really might be worth their while by letting them see what they can look forward to?