Okay so we are over 1 year into HW.

[Tint]

And for people who have not bought it yet, its worth is way more than what we actually paid for. We payed $30(?) for HW at its release when it had MUCH less content. Someone who buys it now for the same price has all from 3.0-3.32.

technically, we all payed 30$ for the expansion AND all the content patches. so we all payed 30$ for the same amount of content, it just was not released yet.

[Werhusky]

I hated Gordias.... it was boring except for A3S. They made up for that with the fun I now have with Midas But dislike how old Savage is totally irrelevant on the spot even its gear.
Thordan is pure love of a fight, Ravana, Sepp, Niddy are okay and Bissy... well I like the weather idea but else its just boring.
Think glamours... oh well a few nice sets but most are just boring to me :X
The dungeons have their up and downs. I really loved Aetherochemical Research Factory on my first run of it and all the Coil mechanics they re-used here and in Sohm Al/Aery. Sadly like any dungeon they become boring if you run them too often in short time (speaking of "Roulette").
The new skills sometimes make me joke about when synced to 50: "How did we even survive like that?"

Overall it has ups and downs but they had too much downtime in 2.5 and start of Heavensward... I run out of content D:

[Katchoo]

technically, we all payed 30$ for the expansion AND all the content patches. so we all payed 30$ for the same amount of content, it just was not released yet.

I would have thought content patches were paid out from our sub not the expansion. We would have gotten similar patches without HW no?

[loreleidiangelo]

Cons:

-still hate the Tomestone method of gear acquisition that effectively funnels players into the two most current dungeons once per day. Either scrap tomestones entirely, or give players other methods of obtaining them that are just as rewarding as expert for the same level of time commitment.
-Alexander is probably the worst raid I have ever seen. Awful story, awful boss models, crappy music and atmosphere. It fails on so many levels that it's honestly mind-boggling that anyone does it at all.
-specializations are the worst thing to happen to crafting thus far. The slow and deliberate removal of omnicrafting doesn't help anyone, it just creates an artificial item scarcity where there was none before. Also, same with desynth, there are some that are universally more valuable than others, which completely defeats the purpose of the system to begin with.
-releasing Astrologian as a WHM/SCH hybrid with a tacked-on card mechanic that feels like an afterthought in a lot of ways was probably the biggest disappointment to me in HW. I had been looking forward to this job so much, and the actual execution of it is just this half-arsed mess balanced so poorly that I am actually worried about any healing class SE will release in the future. Of the three new jobs, only MCH seems to have it's own unique gameplay identity, and even then a.) it was grossly undertuned at release, and b.) original concept for the job showed that it originally was supposed to be so much more than what we got in the end.


Pros:

-the new 24-mans are an improvement over the old ones, though admittedly Void Ark only has any real difficulty at the third boss. Mhach is great and I find myself running it all the time just for funsies.
-for the MOST part, pacing and quest design of the new MSQ are a massive improvement over ARR. Quality over quantity; good work guys.
-Aquapolis is fun, though I agree that the instance design itself is dull. Still, I appreciate the devs offering us something new.
-I've enjoyed all the primal fights this far except Sephirot and Ravana, and that mostly has to do with disliking their music tracks immensely more than anything else. Also, "trolololol don't fall off the edge" gimmicks are lame and should have gone out of style after we killed Titan for the 6933779359th time.
-the brief period of time where gatherers could just gather collectibles to get their BiS gear was great. Not sure why we went back to them having to buy overpriced crafted gear off the MB, for those who weren't interested in crafting themselves. Still, while I dislike most of the new crafting/gathering system, the ability to get your best gear just from gathering I thought was nice.

[RobbieH]

technically, we all payed 30$ for the expansion AND all the content patches.

No you didn't, you paid that for the expansion only, content patches were paid with game time.

[Maero]

One if not the best dungeons was introduced> Aquapolis
Void Ark i do not mind, you just get tired of it running multiple times a day or week. To upgrade your gear, etc. Now i only do it once a week, lol
Weeping City normally i only run it once..
Sure Diadem turned out like a disaster but apparently they have been working to improve it
Loved Warring Triad and hope to see more single player content like this, so hoping Palace of the dead will be great
Oh and as far as Primal/boss fights go, Thordan has been rather fun.
With all this said, there is lots of room for improvement however.

[Starkbeaumont]

Story and general presentation is great. While we didn't get many new zones the visuals and the way we interact with the environment is well done. a little letdown is that old zones are almost non relevant anymore.

Most of HW's dungeons are great so far. we have a few exceptions (imo: Dusk Vigil, Hullbreaker HM and i somewhat dislike the library) but overall they feel entertaining and varied. expert roulette only consisting of 2 dungeons is a bit boring though, expecially when on top of that you end up with the same dungeon over and over again.

Raids are a bit different. I think NM Alex is a success, though it could have been a bit harder and you should be able to get as much loot as you want from the beginning, a loot lockout is stupid here imo. Savage Alex is basically fail for the majority of the player base. it is too demanding and you don't really feel the reward once you can clear it. for the real raiders it might be actually a pretty good goal to clear it asap. and the story and presentation is pretty bad compared to coil.
The Mhach story on the other hand is quite good and both raids so far are entertaining. CT with good, this one is better. unfortunately the gear looks crap so far.

EX fights are great designed and very enjoyable, but imo a bit too tough. that means PUG'ing them is even harder and you still need your static. and once it's absoled it's almost impossible to clear them.

The 3 new jobs were great additions. by now they were able to balance them with the existing jobs and you have at least one of them in most parties. The additions to the old jobs were good in most cases as well. they made some jobs more enjoyable to me this way, though some others less... overall the leveling experience from 50 to 60 was really good.

Gathering still feels like something that is nice to have, but not really needed. crafting on the other hand feels like a chore and more complicated and demanding than ever. Though I'm mostly a battle content player.

Side stories have imo the biggest quality drop. Hildi feels dull, so did the school story and the domam kids and all those moogle quests...

speaking of moogles. the beast tribe quest were much better this time around. increasing exp and level scaling, with a varity of quests and non of them requiring fates.

all those QoL changes are great, which means they somehow listen to us. it's also good, that they try to add new types of content. not everything is great, but as long as they realize this, we can expect something better to come.

imo HW was a great addition. there is stuff that could have been better, but I'm happily looking forward to what's coming next.

[Seraphix2407]

Yeah I really hope they gonna bring some good overhauls to next expension so far it's been a super copy of 2xx.

[itti18]

Zones: Most of the new zones are gorgeous, and it is really sad to see that for the most part we don't go to them. Since reaching 60, I find that I travel in the maps very rarely, and I find that a bad thing. That said, Hinterlands, Forelands and Sea of Clouds are amazingly beautiful, so good job on this one!

"

+1
you forgot the churning mists
those new zones are my favourite part of heavensward

also i loved all the new trials

the only fight i liked from alexander was A8

[Thayos]

My impressions:

Pros:
- Storyline is an improvement, both in overall content and quest quality.
- New maps are awesome. Flight is awesome.
- "Normal mode" raiding is great for most of the community -- adds another layer of content for people to dig into.
- 24-man raids are better. This last one was perfect in terms of difficulty.

Cons:
- DPS jobs lost some of their fun factors.
- Diadem was a total flop.
- No apparent justification to scale down to two tome dungeons/patch.
- Two of the extreme primals (Thordan and Sephy) were a little too driven by mechanics.

Basically, FFXIV still has an endgame problem, but there's still plenty to love. Can't wait for 4.0!