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Is this game easy to get into if you've never played it since the game launched?
It can be played almost entirely single player from the beginning now, and the story is really good after ARR (which is serviceable for setting up the world).
There is also a free trial that goes through Stormblood (the second expansion) so you can try without paying anything
It depends what you’re looking for. If you don’t care about story and community, you can purchase a boost right to the endgame (or I guess, start-game of this expansion) and start playing the latest content almost immediately. It’s really not a hard game even at the 2nd hardest content tier. I could regularly out-DPS the DPS players as a healer in pugs.
However, FF14 also famously has some of the best storytelling and communities in the genre. Even catching up to Stormblood would take hundreds of hours and there are like 3 new expansions since then.
Personally the appeal to me was the immersion, working through the story from the start, making bonds and connections with other players and your guild. This takes time and if you have it, the game will show you plenty to do.
You’d have to get through a couple hundred hours of main story quest to get to current content.
So if you like JRPG stories and/or extensive character dress-up: Great idea do recommend
If you like endgame content and raiding and stuff: It’s not the best and probably not worth the couple hundred hours of MSQ
I started playing in August of last year and finished endwalker (the last expansion before dawntrail) in January. It's very "easy to get into" imo but the base game is a slog for sure. If you don't mind putting in time (or as the other comment suggests, money) then yes, it's a very easy game to get into. It's my first mmo btw.