I'm used to the Pathfinder craziness, but I can see how the Pathfinder Class system can be particularly daunting for newcomers because it forces A LOT of choices immediately into the moment of character creation. You're basically asked to specialize before you even had a chance to play and get to know the game. From a meta standpoint too - knowing the game can be 50-100+ hours adds on to that analysis by paralysis.
This is something D&D 5E have fixed in multiple regards, despite all the issues I have with its simplicity. For many classes (outside of a few thematic ones) the "subclass choice" is moved a few levels back (level 2, level 3), so you have had a chance to at least playtest a bit. Also by making sure that Subclasses only ADD, never subtract, you're less worried about picking the "wrong class". Lastly - all subclasses of the same class in 5e get their features at the same level - so it's much easier to compare and contrast.
I respectfully disagree. Yes, D&D5e changed the subclasses choice to level 2 or 3 for some like fighters, rangers, druids... But for Sorcerers, Warlocks, clerics,... you still have to choose at level 1. And you do not have the opportunity to change that. Say, you are an arcane archer but you will love to add the cool battle master manoeuvres to your repertory (Only archetype that makes fighters do more than "I Attack" every turn TBH) ... you are, again, out of luck. In pathfinder, you can even have two archetypes with the condition that those two cannot change the same thing. So, in PF you can customize your subclass too (but nobody forces you to do that, you can even play the plain class without the archetype, in 5e they always force a subclass on your character, and you are stuck with it).
The "simplicity" of D&D5e makes that you make even more decisions at character creation than pathfinder. Let´s see why:
The skills, languages, tools you can use... your character will know you will learn at level one, in character creation, and that would be all the skills you will have available all the 20 levels afterwards! You choose animal handling as a skill for your ranger but the campaign ends up being in the Underdark where there are no animals, only aberrations and drows? Well, tough luck pal.
You have no possibility of learning new skills besides using a feat for that, a few archetypes and classes. You are stuck with what you learnt at the first level! Even weapon and armour proficiencies, you mostly have the ones you got at level 1. Even if you multiclass you only get SOME of the proficiencies of the new class, and besides ranger and rogue, NONE of the skills of the new class. You do not even got all the weapon proficiencies of the new class. For example, A fighter multiclassing to cleric is still unable to pick the heal skill, a wizard multiclassing to rogue or bard is still unable to use rapiers, hand crossbows or bows... just because.
[And about bards, let´s not talk about how 5e Bards are unable to give your song to all the party, only one at a time. Same as with bless, aid, haste etc that you have to take an extra step just to give support to all your party members. Absolutely logical for a party-based game... aaanyway]
In comparison, in Pathfinder you can learn new skills when you level up, you can even put points in skills that are not from your class. You can learn new languages with the linguistic skill, you can pick new tools whenever you want. And of course, when you multiclass you got all the weapons, armour, proficiencies, abilities and skills of the new class, not only some spares.
In PnP, most DMs are able to surpass the character creation limitations of D&D5e giving the opportunity to learn new things by roleplay: learning new languages, training in the use of new tools, make your familiar or animal companion use the skills you can´t, change your deity or patron by roleplay.... but sadly that does not translate to the 5e videogames because you do not have a DM. They do not even have multiclass, so in the case of the D&D5e videogames, Solasta and BG3, they "solved" the excess of options by forcing you to choose the skills and weapon and armour proficiences for the entire game at level one or wasting a feat just to be able to learn more (let's remember that in 5e feats are limited to 3 in BG3/Solasta-, 4 for fighters- and you have to choose between a feat or +2 to your stats). In Pathfinder you only have to... well... level up. And even if you have to use a feat to learn new things(You usually don´t) for some reason, you have more feats in PF and you do not have to choose between +2 to str, dex, etc and the feat...
And specifically about weapon proficiencies in the WoTR videogame, you have a upgradeable talking weapon, Finnean, that could change into any weapon in the game. Even if you do not find a weapon of your choice that you like, you can use Finnean the entire play.
That makes it even more meta and forces much more decisions that you have to make at level 1 for the entire 20 levels in 5e.
