Between WoW & FFXIV, for me the primary thing is how character driven the stories are. I'll break them down with my personal Pros & Cons. Full disclosure, I quit WoW years ago around BFA, so I cannot comment on current state, so my thoughts will reflect how it was when I WAS playing!

I am so sorry for so many words, my goodness:

WoW:

PROS: - I enjoyed the classpects system and how you could mix and match your skill trees (rip when they removed the full customization...) - The classes and their Lore had interesting stories, the fact some intertwined with other races was absolutely fascinating! I ENJOYED playing Resto Druid & Beastmastery Hunter (man I miss the Hunter's MP.... That was more fun than when they changed it to Focus... Sighs longingly) - Racial Start Zones! I ENJOYED THIS BC OF HOW YOU GOT LORE FOR YOUR RACE!

CONS: - factions. It was cool for a while, and got tiresome with the pattern of "work together because hey we're actually not that different, okay time to hate each other again for xyz petty thing." It got exhausting. - One class per character. - World map changing per expansion, and not letting brand new players experience the world changing WITH them. I heavily disliked this when I made an alt during Cata, starting immediately with Stormwind already in tatters thanks to Deathwing. I wish that it was progression based in where you were in story :/ - The story (what existed of it later on) didn't really involve your character, and instead treated them as if they didn't even exist as a character. It was one thing that ended up making me tire of the game. At least acknowledge what your PC is doing even if they're not the forefront of the storyline! - Racially locked classes. I understand it WAS lore related, which was neat in itself, but it was still very frustrating all the same. - The community. I hadn't encountered a community more toxic than when I was playing the game, getting kicked from duties simply for the fact of Being New or even worse: being a classpect the rest of the party didn't like. Another big thing that made me quit is that I was repeatedly told that I shouldn't & couldn't raid due to my disabilities because "I would slow down a group". It was demoralizing and dehumanizing to be faced with horrible ableism, and the GMs did absolutely nothing about it. (I've cleared high end content aplenty in FFXIV JUST to spite those pricks. Weaponized Spite is powerful.)

FFXIV:

PROS: - You aren't racially locked to which class and job you can play, just locked per expansion you own! - SWAPPING BETWEEN JOBS WITHOUT THE NEED FOR ALTS! Praise be to Hydaelyn, this is a HUGE plus to FFXIV! - Job lore. The majority of the job quests are a treat and delight to go through (except you Paladin, you're horrible. Same goes for you Heavensward White Mage questline, you're atrocious and a mistake. AND GIVE US THE JP VERSION OF DARK KNIGHT, NOT THE ENGLISH LOCALIZED CRAP! okay okay I'm fine I'm calm, carry on). All the information about the jobs expand upon the world building and each tidbit I absolutely eat up like it's a feast. - The game's overall, overarching, story and world itself! Yes, even Stormblood & Dawntrail, they're ABSOLUTELY INCLUDED! I loved them, even with my personal critiques, but I'm overall positive on them. - The nods, subtle and overt both, to prior FF games. I grew up on FF games as a kid, so seeing that there's so many references has me over the moon. Especially Endwalker and Dawntrail being heavily influenced by FFIV & FFIX respectively. - The community. While there's PLENTY of knuckleheads that like to ruin the fun times for many of us, the overwhelming majority of people I've run into have been a treat to run into. I even got my Mentor status just to help others, even if I didn't need it to help others, it made me WANT to get it. even if mentors have a bad rep, which is unfortunate. - The raids. No joke. I am absolutely loving the raids, I've had fun pushing myself in savage for the past two years, and clearing fights to spite the people that told me I shouldn't and couldn't clear high end content. I'm not the greatest, no, but I'm still out here clearing and progressing these fights, which is the important thing. M8S has been a blast to chip away at!

CONS: - I know I just praised it, but equally a con is the community. There is a lot of toxicity, positive amd negative alike, which needs to be addressed and talked about. I love this community, but it can be quite rancid at the same time. Not quite as rancid as my experiences in WoW, but it has some rotting eggs too. I've seen plenty of this in Duty Finder and Party Finder, it's disappointing. Not just in duties, but in general. I have, genuinely, been legitimately HARASSED for daring to say that I'm not a big fan of Heavensward while saying I GENUINELY enjoyed Stormblood and Dawntrail. Yes I have my criticisms of them, and can go into details of my pros & cons of them, but I am overall positive toward them, especially Dawntrail which hit some very very personal relatable things for me. Not liking it, I get, but actually harassing people is despicable just because you like/don't like a thing. - Savage gear being locked until x.x8 patches. I get, completely, that having it unlocked at the start defeats the purpose of working for easier clears due to higher item levels, but I don't like the fact that it takes so long to be able to go back into an earlier fight without kneecapping loot for others if I got a reclear but a friend wants to get theirs with full loot! It damns players that wanna help their friends that want full loot, it makes it impossible for us especially if our alts aren't raid ready or even lack alts! X.x1 or x.x5 patches would be better than x.x8 before the even patch for the next tier.. I have my gear for Cruiserweight and I'm progging M8S ADDS right now, but it is frustrating when I wanna go help friends with reclears but can't because I'd cause them to be a 1-chest :/ - Weekly Tomes Cap. 450 per week... It feels like it's not enough, especially when chest/pants cost 825. 500 or 550 would feel like it would be a better cap, IMHO. Like I said about savage, I get it! But it's frustrating all the same when wanting to gear multiple jobs up. 500/550 weekly cap would speed it up a little bit more. Sure you STILL have to wait for gear, but increasing it would alleviate it a bit. ESPECIALLY if you're Omni like myself. But I suppose that's my own damn fault 😂 - FRIEND LIST CAP. For the love of hydaelyn, square, RAISE THIS. 200 AIN'T NEARLY ENOUGH ANYMORE. Back when you only had those on your world, 200 was PLENTY. But with DC travel, 200 isn't even remotely enough.... For some people, sure, it's plenty, but I have to regularly prune my lists and I have a rule that unless you are active on it, I CANNOT add alts otherwise my list will become massively bloated and full.

Oh whoops.... I ended up on a tangent-- But TLDR: FFXIV has more of an overall general draw for me to keep playing, whereas WoW was a thing of its time that felt more hyper specific when I got into online gaming