Just having a story isn’t the point. The point is that it’s a story being told badly. A new person doesn’t need to be told everything in one go. That’s just bewildering and offputting.
Oh please. Most people play the game and follow the story just fine without reading any extraneous material. And if they need to know it they can find it all for free.
You are comparing apples and oranges dude.
FF games are all standalone titles, you arent going to see Cloud and Sephiroth ducking it out in the middle of Ul’dah. Sure you are going to see some legacy characters and names like the primals being classic FF summons, but their lore, origins, appearances and roles in the game are 100% new and original to FFXIV.
WoW is the direct sequel to the Warcraft RTS games, in a sense WoW is Warcraft 4. Most of its worldbuilding happened in the RTS, and most of its storylines happen in novels.
I didnt understand how the crap we went from MoP to WoD until I had to read the Warcrimes novel.
Most of the reasons behind everything Sylvanas does is behind novels.
Caine’s death.
Theramore.
The list goes on and on and on and on.
Go look at Google trends and new articles from reputable websites, then come back here and delete your post.
Oh okay I see what you’re saying. That’s fair.
then you never heard of the Cult of Yoshida then 
Keep thinking of the fight with the Ultima weapon and the music and the blue-purple energy lines everywhere.
The Nier raids were literally, intentionally designed by Yoko Taro to piss off Yoshi-P that plays the turret caster.
People that call FF gameplay stand and watch just shows they havent gotten past the introductory part of the game.
You’re not accounting for your familiarity with WoW and skipping quest text. New people aren’t going to intuit all of this stuff, much like you didn’t with FFXIV.
There’s nothing wrong with not liking FF, but let’s not pretend that WoW’s new player experience isn’t a plate of diarrhea.
I have no idea what are you saying.
If you think combat is bland in FF, try playing a Samurai @ 30. Also, the Global Cooldown is longer, so the pacing seems a bit off compared to WoW. But by no means is that a bad thing.
Maybe it’s because her Twitch streams get like 1k or 2k views while Asmongold gets 100Ks of views? Asmongold in the short time he’s been streaming FFXIV has brought way more players in to the game than AnnieFuschia.
Saying that wows classes are so pruned that its gzmeplay is stale and boring, with 0 class identity. You may disagree but most classes now are generic builder spender specs that play virtually the same.
I wasn’t sure if you were saying that about WOW or FF earlier. I dunno I do find wow more boring than FF in combat. I liked the samurai stuff and I haven’t tried ninja class yet. I worry though that I wont be able to go back cause they said with all the new players its hard to get on servers?
I’m watching a video
" This FFXIV Boss is INSANE! Asmongold VS Ultima Weapon"
I dont like Asnomold but I gotta say that at least he is liking the raid design of the game, and the fact its not gated behind a crapload of systems and RNG gear is a big reason why.
FF is a beautiful looking game which I am not interested but I can see where it is appealing to some, But with that said the World Of Warcraft Graphics/Style are way more appealing to me. Plus the World Of Warcraft World is way bigger and has more to offer but the nerfing older content is slowly eroding that advantage. (imho)
Josh Strife Hayes on youtube made a perfect statement in that regard and I am paraphrasing here: The other MMORPGs don’t need to kill WoW, they simply have to outlast WoW and win the endurance contest and be there the moment Blizzard messes up.
It also helps that Final Fantasy XIV is probably one of the best MMOs you can play right now and comes with a very generous free trial so there is literally no downside to try it out.
Personally, I also believe that FFXIV caters to a specific kind of player which was left in the dust in WoW: The casual. I’m not talking about casuals who play only a few hours per week; I talk about casuals who can play for hours on end but are not interested at all in pushing endgame-content like Mythic+ or raiding.
People trying to justify the fact that they’ve warped their whole beings around the existence of a single game, and any threat to that is a slight to their existence.
Racists will find ways to be racist no matter what.