So What do you guys think of this expansion so far?

[Aana]

I was never excited about the story. Evil mega powerful empire. Poor downtrodden farmers need help. Start a revolution. Wow never seen that before! Whats that? You want to start a SECOND revolution at the same time against the SAME empire! BRAVO! /facepalm. The story was quite bland imo. Heavensward easily takes the cake as best story arc so far.

That said, the presentation was a nice step up. HW trounced ARR in presentation. Voice acting, in game cinematics, quest variety, pacing. SB dialed all that to 11. SB also had better developed villains.

SB easily had the strongest presentation. I just gave no Fs about the story arc. HW had the better story arc, and was a step up in presentation from ARR to be sure, but SB edged it out there.

[Renato]

I was never excited about the story. Evil mega powerful empire. Poor downtrodden farmers need help. Start a revolution.

I can agree with this. But it seems like this is a staple in FF in general where the enemy is some kind of powerful empire or corporation. We've yet to really learn more about the Garleans much which is why I'm excited to see where the next part in the story goes, especially with a possible civil war occurring in that nation.

I enjoyed the story and the areas are beautiful, only thing I wish is for them to add more activities to actually push us to go outside into the world 90% of the time I'm stuck at the FC house because everything is a queue.

How would I resolve this?
2.) Make it easier to locate big hunts, no reason to have to rely on a linkshell.

All I want is a reason to be in these beautiful zones, don't make the whole game a lobby.

I've been saying this for the longest. I even threw out a suggestion in the forums a while back to add monster tracks to the game in areas that hunt monsters frequent. Each footprint increasing in size depending on what rank the monster is. I do wish they would do more with the overworld area though. I feel like the FATEs are starting to get more interesting though. Like there's one on the Azim Steppe where you have to defend a tribe and once completed, they build a base in that area or the one where Grand Companies are training in the Area Outisde the Reach (I can't remember the name) and they attempt to fight you to measure their strength. Maybe SE should take notes from GW2 and have it to where when you finish certain FATEs they unlock vendors who sale rare/exclusive items.