The new player experience and how FFXIV fails as an MMO.

[XtremePrime]

I think the new player experience is great for someone that is looking to play a Final Fantasy game, because honestly that's what it is. It's your usual Final Fantasy game but with other players populating your world and helping you on some adventures!
Endgame is not as much of a focus as in other MMOs such as WoW, instead the primary goal of FFXIV is the play and experience the stories offered through MSQ, SideQuests, Raid, A-Raid, DDs, etc as a story-driven game!

[Absurdity]

I think the new player experience is great for someone that is looking to play a Final Fantasy game, because honestly that's what it is.

That is debatable.
If someone wants to play a Final Fantasy story game I can think of quite a few I would recommend instead.
More focused experiences with fully voiced main stories and not as much pointless filler, while also offering deeper mechanics and combat.

If someone really wants a modern Final Fantasy game I'd tell them to play Expedition 33 instead... and then maybe the VII remake.

[Daralii]

That is debatable.
If someone wants to play a Final Fantasy story game I can think of quite a few I would recommend instead.
More focused experiences with fully voiced main stories and not as much pointless filler, while also offering deeper mechanics and combat.

If someone really wants a modern Final Fantasy game I'd tell them to play Expedition 33 instead... and then maybe the VII remake.

The 7R series has the issue of being a full series of games that are actually weird meta sequels to 7, which is such a humongous game that I'm not convinced they'll actually get through all of it. Sticking within the IP, I'd recommend the pixel remasters(or even the 3D remakes of 3 and 4) and the PS1 games first and foremost.

[Absurdity]

The 7R series has the issue of being a full series of games that are actually weird meta sequels to 7, which is such a humongous game that I'm not convinced they'll actually get through all of it. Sticking within the IP, I'd recommend the pixel remasters(or even the 3D remakes of 3 and 4) and the PS1 games first and foremost.

That's why I split it into FF games in general and modern FF games.
Some people can't get into really old graphics.

WoW's writing isn't stellar but I will say that it does at least know how to maintain a sense of intrigue and stakes in a way that XIV utterly dropped the ball on with EW by opting to terminate as many story threads as possible without actually presenting anything new in their place.

It kind of fundamentally took me out of XIV's setting once I came to the realization that nothing truly major or world-shaking is ever going to happen when we got through a literal apocalypse without any meaningful casualties or visible destruction in places we'd grown familiar with.

To be fair, both equally dropped the ball when it comes to their own lore. XIV in EW with "everything was always ancients" and WoW with...the entirety of Shadowlands.

But now that you mentioned it, the escalation of stakes became a complete mess in XIV. Up until the end of Stormblood the threat was comparatively small scale, maybe a nation in danger, at most a continent.
Then comes Shadowbringers and we suddenly need to save an entire world, even if that world is basically reduced to a few regions.
And in Endwalker we jump from that to saving the entire universe and all of existence.