I keep hearing good things about the story and how this game is the best FF in years but I don't really like MMOs, I don't like partying up with people, and I'm not a fan of lots of super grindy fetch quests or long grinds where it takes forever to level up (my main experience with MMOs is watching dorm-mates flunk out of school for playing too much Everquest in the early 2000's, or watch my brother just walking around in FFXI).
Could you play the story without needing to do all that typical MMO shit like join a clan or go on guild raids?
If so, how long is the story? And is it very grindy?
yooooo, this is me.
Here's the dealio. ARR fucking sucks. That is lvl.1-50, originally story. The story sucks so much in the expansions they're slowly writing out all the original ARR characters from the story so it's like ARR never existed! The maps aren't that great (no flying makes certain things tedious af), and difficulty-wise everything is a joke. Otoh, Heavensward, the first expansion, is a really good 50-80 hour rpg. The main story is good, the areas have the best atmosphere ever, the gear is cool looking, combat is opened up enough at 50+ to be fun for most jobs (50-70 has really just been a slight added complexity for a lot of jobs, lvl.45/50 is when the key parts of the job open up), the boss fights, especially in Extreme mode are cool stuff.
Stormblood, the second expansion, is a good 50-80 hour rpg as well. The new bosses are great, areas are a bit of a step down from HW imo, but it's an enjoyable rpg and the end game is good. Especially the SB raid tier is super fun FF fanservice.
Honestly, if I could rewind time and jump in again I'd do it A LOT differently and more efficient. Here is what I would do:
1. Buy a jump potion to skip to HW and lvl.50 character. At this point you can also unlock lvl.50 Samurai/Red Mage in addition to your jump potion job. Those are both DPS jobs and unfortunately in FF14 there are only 3 real jobs Tank/Healer/DPS and all the jobs within those 3 groups play different but for balance reasons all play kinda the same and do the same damage/usefulness. Just saying that in case you're interested in being a tank or healer you can job potion up a tank or healer and then also have 2 DPS jobs at lvl.50 to pick from. Otherwise the Dark Knight Tank and Astrologian Healer job start at lvl.30 and lvl.30-lvl.50 is a grind. It's only about a 15-20 hour grind, but it's still a grind. Otoh, it gives you a chance to grind out lvl.1-50 dungeons which you skipped so maybe it's less bad in that case.
2. Ok, now you're at HW. First learn how to play. Ok, you have that down? Now play HW's story but also go back and play the 24-man raid from ARR, The Crystal Tower. It's about a 4-8 hour mini-rpg and it's great (although too easy now). You should also play the 8-man raid from ARR about Bahamut
but don't do it now because even unsync (which means overleveled characters doing low level content with no limitations) some of the maps have complex wipe mechanics and you should get used to the game first.
3. Btw, don't touch the crafting/gathering jobs. They're nothing but a trap.
4. But go check out the Golden Saucer because it's fun.
5. Keep playing HW, enjoy the story and the bosses. After you beat it, do the 8-man raid normal mode ALEXANDER, have fun. Do the 24-man raid Void Ark, be kinda bored until the 3rd part which is cool.
6. Alright, now you are lvl.60 and doing post-HW content. Keep going. Try out some Ex bosses and work your way through the boss trials from ARR you skipped (hard/extreme modes). When you've got the hang of the game, jump in and do Coil of Bahamut. Enjoy the story, boss fights and music.
7. Ok, now you're pretty much caught up with ARR/HW (well do the ARR dungeons whenever you feel like it; might be a good way to level up a 2nd character while doing so), jump into SB and enjoy the game.
8. Get to endgame and do the Deltascape 8-man raid, the Sigmascape 8-man raid, the first part of the Matsuno 24-man raid (part 2 soon). Do the Ex bosses from SB and enjoy current level challenge fights. Try some Savage Raids at current level and see if you enjoy it.
9. Now you're pretty much good. Make sure you did Hildebrand in ARR. Otherwise, come back later on in patches for new content or summer 2019 for next expansion.
Overall time for the above? Probably about 200-300 hours of content there. But a huge amount of dungeons, bosses and lots of story! I didn't know all this so instead I'm 905 hours in and most of it was a waste! (mostly just the 400 or something hours crafting/gathering and 100+ on ARR).
And no, you don't have to join a guild, everything is auto-matching or you use party finder from Ex/Raid old content. Still, you should probably join the #Era guild (on Ultros server) just because it's nice having dozens of people online at any time if you ever need anything.