This might be too anecdotal to confirm, but I've been seeing a fair amount of new players running older dungeons, which led to my FC claiming that FFXIV has been scooping up a large surge of WoW players who grew burnt out by the latter. They're claiming that FFXIV is now on the fast track to being the number one MMORPG in the world.
I would be honestly surprised if that was the case, but also pleased.
I can confirm seeing a whole bunch of newbies. I ran Tam Tara Deepcroft yesterday with a Conjurer who was so new and only played healer that she didn't know that using Protect at the beginning of the dungeon was standard. I told her to run the Hall of the Novice for a ring and some gear afterward and she was excited to check it out.
On the same hand, I've also been seeing a lot of clearly boosted characters--usually tanks--who have a very WoW vibe to them at times, mostly because of their attitude. Yesterday my FC mate was mount farming and the tank kept pulling without a countdown, with a Summoner in the party. It is usual to do a 15 sec countdown for Summoners and Ninjas so they can prep their openers, but this tank refused to do so and when he got annoyed enough he opted for a 5 second countdown, which is better but still not very helpful and a dick move. The other tank was probably a friend because he backed him up (and they shared servers) when my FC mate tried to call him out on the no countdown.
Other times I'll run mentor roulette and see stuff like Paladins not being in a stance at all or just being a Sword Oath main, Dark Knights dropping Darkside and Healers spamming heals. (My ears nearly bled when I ran a trial with two White Mages who spammed Medica II every 15 seconds @_@)
You see some shit in Mentor Roul.
