Does FFXIV ARR provide the best MMORPG experience?

I really enjoy it, and it has pushed out content faster than any other mmo I have ever played.

Hell no. It could be, maybe, if SE bothered to fix some of the glaring problems (servers, housing, item storage) that limit where the game can go. It saddens me, because under this big pile of flaws, there's this really great game desperately trying to claw its way out. You can tell Yoshida and co are sincere in their desire to provide a good experience, at least they seem to be to me, but I can't help but shake the impression that they just don't get the necessary support from the higher ups at SE to fully deliver. I wonder about this game's budget and the size of its development team, to be honest. Really can't help but think that neither is sufficient at the moment to deliver on all the promises that were made.

I would say so. Compared to other MMOs FFXIV ARR has far fewer flaws than the other MMOs out there while still holding a rich experience for players.

Its an easy game. Shallow mechanics and a lack of diversity. Oh to have a game that's actually hard again, can only hope.

There's not a lot of thinking required in this game. It's mostly a matter of "am I doing max DPS? If not, how do I do max DPS?" I would have loved to play a dedicated support job or do crowd control or anything else beyond just hitting mobs as hard as I can. The most thought required is determining how to best spread aetherflow or minimize loss of buffs like greased lightning in boss fights.

Unfortunately, the crafting system has a lot more depth to it than the combat in this game.

It's good but not the best, LOTRO was amazing until after Rise of Isengard (such a good expansion) and then it went mega downhill to where it is now, and other MMO's I've played are dead

The game is too easy which makes it too quick to blast through content and go "what now?" I have five classes at ilvl 190+. HW dungeons were mind-numbingly easy -- even during early access. The classic dungeons were far more difficult before the gear buff in HW. I wished Square didn't implement that buff and I wished the HW dungeons were tuned to be slightly more difficult. Most of the content is by-the-numbers with little concern of deaths outside of Nidhogg or Alex Savage (i.e. DPS checks).

I really think this game has made major improvements since launch, believe it or not the difficulty of the first relic and ex primal drove a lot of players away. Que up Titan hm
Sub item level i70 and you will see what I mean, or try turn 5 sub i90.

The only thing I'm going to add here as to why this game does NOT provide an excellent MMORPG experience is community.

As in it doesn't exist. Not on these forums, not in game.

Whats worse is SE does absolutely nothing to help promote community. You can literally be online all fucking day in this game and not see a single person use chat feature outside of FCs. Now I've been at this a long time. I've played many many MMOs over the course of 20 years. I've never played one where the only communication that occurred was through relatively private chat channels. It's like we all want to be in our own little micro communities and piss on everyone else, and then wonder why this game is so toxic.

Whats sad about this.. if that most of these posts are talking about content. The thing is, if you have a strong community in a game. content can often times take a back seat, even in themeparks.

it's my current favourite, but it has it's niggling issues.

So... yes, maybe, perhaps. But it's all about your own tastes.