This is only for ARR as that's all I've played so far.
I had a lot of fun playing with my friend and getting to learn the mechanics of the game. When this game is good, it's really good.
The primal fights and other dungeons were all really fun and engaging for me. The combat mechanics are simple enough to pick up but also have a lot of depth for you to get better. New dungeons and bosses steadily push you to get better.
I started playing for the story, so I was a bit disappointed with how slow it is in ARR. Having said that, I was pretty focused on the story and paying attention to all the dialogue. The political intrigues up until the last third of the game (for my playtime anyway) were interesting, but nothing special. The "beast men go apeshit and bring back primal and we barely miss the timing to stop them so here's a primal fight" story loop got pretty stale. But thankfully it really picks up near the end. The last MSQs really sold me on the story going forward. It was the kind of thing I'd been waiting for the entire time. Also want to mention how great the voice acting was (I play with Japanese voices). The script in English is sometimes offensively different, but then again, they're using different scripts. Not really a problem but it makes it really distracting sometimes to digest two different scripts at the same time.
I can completely understand if you'd wanna drop the game before the 50-60 hour mark if you didn't start the game with the intent of making it to Endwalker like I did, given the pacing. I think the pacing might have been a lot better if I had access to a mount way way earlier and had access to flight around the same time I got a mount. There's a lot of time wasting going from A to B, which flight almost completely alleviates.
I have high hopes for Heavensward and I'm really looking forward to how FFXIV improves.
I had a lot of fun playing with my friend and getting to learn the mechanics of the game. When this game is good, it's really good.
The primal fights and other dungeons were all really fun and engaging for me. The combat mechanics are simple enough to pick up but also have a lot of depth for you to get better. New dungeons and bosses steadily push you to get better.
I started playing for the story, so I was a bit disappointed with how slow it is in ARR. Having said that, I was pretty focused on the story and paying attention to all the dialogue. The political intrigues up until the last third of the game (for my playtime anyway) were interesting, but nothing special. The "beast men go apeshit and bring back primal and we barely miss the timing to stop them so here's a primal fight" story loop got pretty stale. But thankfully it really picks up near the end. The last MSQs really sold me on the story going forward. It was the kind of thing I'd been waiting for the entire time. Also want to mention how great the voice acting was (I play with Japanese voices). The script in English is sometimes offensively different, but then again, they're using different scripts. Not really a problem but it makes it really distracting sometimes to digest two different scripts at the same time.
I can completely understand if you'd wanna drop the game before the 50-60 hour mark if you didn't start the game with the intent of making it to Endwalker like I did, given the pacing. I think the pacing might have been a lot better if I had access to a mount way way earlier and had access to flight around the same time I got a mount. There's a lot of time wasting going from A to B, which flight almost completely alleviates.
I have high hopes for Heavensward and I'm really looking forward to how FFXIV improves.