I think it’s both a vice and a virtue for it to be so alt focus. I personally will end up leveling classes I’ll never bother to touch simply because having more jobs maxed to 80 is both just something to do and I get to sort’ve help my ocd and having all jobs 80. I likely will never touch some of those jobs again. Especially melee and healers. The alternative leveling is actually quite dull because it’s ONLY roulettes and hoh/potd which are more often than not really bare. There’s times where I go to HoH and it’s mostly the same 6 people doing it. It’s also really boring. So most just do roulettes and level their jobs slowly.
XIV is generally more OK with alts since you can just put the gear in your bags and there’s only really two sources to get end game gear for your other jobs so it’s easy to keep up with and know. Also you can show off your alts which Is a perk. It’d also some of the only things you can do once you are max and caught up. Sure you can do housing if you have the money or like designing. I’ve had my house set how I like it for over a year now so it doesn’t bug me. If you want money, you can craft but crafting isn’t for everyone, then what do you do? Pvp? Ehhh… I would just afk and chat in xiv then stand around when it’s not raid time. And I only really do raid on 1 character for 4 fights that take such a little amount of time and I can’t work on more than one job at a time unless I had a entirely different character. Heck no. That game is very secondary character unfriendly. All my progress doesn’t matter and most of my mounts and my legacy tattoo don’t transfer over. I’ll pass on that.
So a lot of their hope (roughly 70%) for the game and people playing is socializing and alts and helping people play the game and getting them to that point, sprinkle in some crafting now that it’s easier to get it up there. That doesn’t help it stand out from other mmos. It’s got great story, cool gear, good music( some I’m mixed on since a lot lately has been remixes and ff8 there’s some really amazing tracks just not too much unique ones lately with shadowbringers) , and great graphics at least. In terms of gameplay, it’s lacking. Sure it has more buttons I guess but a lot of the buttons feel hollow or they do just one thing. Especially tanks, just flat damage decreases and then fight or flight, only a damage increase, no actual gameplay difference, that’s boring to me. The gear stats is also one of the worst things to me, getting better gear, I feel like it’s not much of an improvement there’s not much feeling different between them. you can maybe reduce your GCD slightly but that’s the only sort of your job feeling different in the xpac unless you get a patch for job changes.
I play alts heavily because there’s not really any classes I absolutely love. Smn and mch are close but they have issues with both that make me not love it or tolerate it for long. Tanking too. Love drk and gnb but still minor flaws.
WoW is more often than not anti alts and little incentives to even play other specs within their same class. Which also halts people’s learning experience. It’s not just so much the focus on end game. It can also be people generally Have 2 characters for dailies and m+ chests and resets that they keep up with and don’t play the rest or really change specs because you’d need an entirely different sometimes for min max, also a lot of specs may just not feel good. I personally don’t care for vengeance sigil play and on my druid, bear feels boring, same with feral.
With shadowlands I think the leveling experience will be greatly improved upon given the focus of per expansion but I assume it will be jarring not having the other expansions done and when your first character is put into bfa if you are a new player.
Everyone be at peace. 
FFXIV players NEVER bring up WoW. It’s a myth.
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