wowbabs

it comes down to what exactly are you wanting out of this game

if you're wanting high level raiding we have that, 1 tier every other patch, each tier has 4 floors, there are also ultimate fights which are even harder. people can usually pug the first floor  or two of savage raids depending on how hard it is but 3 and especially the 4th floor of every tier is insanely more difficult to pull off and you need voip + people that actually want to learn the fight or else ur not gonna clear

high-mid there are ex trials which are the boss fights that are scattered throughout the expansion (two on release, probably another 3 or 4 over the course of the expansion) they have pretty intense mechanics but most people can actually get ahold of them as long as they put forth some effort. i would say this is like a gateway to savage raid, they give good weapons (strength is right below the higest-end savage weapon) and also each boss has a mount they can drop, but they are usually part of the expansion 'set' (HW was birds, SB was fox) and if you collect all of the set you get a bonus extra shiny mount at the end


those raids i mention earlier have normal versions, more meant for casual players, but some are still challenging-ish they have not nearly as many mechanics, but similar, and telegraphed instead of not telegraphed like in the harder version.

midcore there's a special weapon system called Relics that come out each expansion, which are added onto as the expansion progresses they give you really fancy weapons which glow, so it's basically like showing off your huge dick to everyone about how dedicated you are to that particular job (or if you're an actual crazy person you can get as many for as many jobs as you want but most people would rather kill themselves) . the last one was Eureka which was a completely different part of content separate from the main game, and it was considered really grindy by a lot of people, but an overall success, quoted by SE themselves so we will most likely get a system like this in shad (which will hopefully be a little more tuned) eureka also had a lot of mounts and armor gated behind it which will also probably happen again
for midcore there's also Hunts, which are overworld bosses, and they have their own currency which you can buy QoL stuff like free teleports, mount speed upgrades, etc, each expansion area has these, so the older ones are pushovers but the current-expac ones are pretty tough, they vary from B-rank (easy to kill, faster respawn) to S rank (very hard to kill, cooldown 24~48hours ish), the spawning conditions are all unique and cryptic(die in this location, fish up this fish at noon, etc.) but that is getting changed with shad apparently
along side hunts there's some unique boss that is usually very rare and hard to track, which give special rewards (SB was Ixion and his mount and we also had fox-lady which brought the cat-ear blight)
24-man raids (shad is NieR:A) are every other patch after the first, 3 floors in total, give good gear, can only get 1 piece a week, also you get a token one a week for clearing which you can use to upgrade your tomestone (weekly cap) gear
FATEs (overworld event quests) are getting a currency system in shad per area which gives cool shit like minions, glamour armor, etc.. so there's some more midcore stuff

if you happen to be of jewish decent or really like crafting then this game is for you. people will siphon millions of gill off onto you when raids drop if you can get them HQ raid-ready gear, you can also craft some things like mounts, house decorations, if you're dedicated you can be what is called 'omnicrafter' which is having maximum crafters leveled up, which in turn lets you 'borrow' skills from the other crafters, which lets you create higher-quality items. if you're lazy but still want to make money you can level a gathering profession and sell mats to crafters, not nearly as much money, but you don't have to play the market as hard and it's kind of relaxing
the actual crafting and gathering is extensive, lots of abilities and stuff to get maximum return/yield like gather +1 item of a rare item that only spawns once every 5 hours (huge) every item you gather is high quality, etc.. crafting is similar, you play a minigame which you try to balance durability and quality using all the skills you've learned from all crafters

minigames we have golden saucer is fun to dick around in, chocobo racing, triple triad, lord of verminion (like lord of vermillion but with FFXIV minions) jump puzzles, fashion contest and some events that pop up, there's also scratch cards and lotto tickets. there's a shitload of cosmetic gear and mounts gated behind this content but it's actually fun and you can find something you like doing to grind it out

pvp is lololo we have big fights which is a 3way fight 24 people in each faction, supposed to be tactical but always ends up a clownshow, if you're serious about pvp we have 4v4 which is really stale as fuck and annoying imo but there's armor sets and weapons which are given to the top RANKED PLAYERS ONLY and they look badass

oh the story is good too (well ok not really post-SB but there's some cool things happening) shad is going to be good for sure, lead writer is highly praised among JP/NA community for the quests they wrote, shad is going to give us "role quests" which are RP scenarios where you play as NPCs, we also are getting Trust system which lets you party with NPCs in MSQ dungeon (so DPS don't have to wait thank goddd)

dress-up system is amazing, way more detailed than any game on the market for sure
idk there's a bunch of stuff just come play its fun i guess thanks for reading my blog t. someone who played Legion the whole way, tried BfA and quit right before raids launched because shit just isn't going to change (I played ele shaman lolololo also i've played FFXIV since 1.0 anyway)