I bought the game and played 90 hours in 9 days - here's my experience

[branliminal]

In terms of the finale of the ARR MSQ, it was great. I loved the praetorium and...the other one, especially the robot blowy-up bit. Had a great time. Was getting really excited for Heavensward. Unfortunately, Heavensward wasn't excited for me, because the epilogue was a giant brick wall. If it felt like the first twenty hours were spent running around like a peasant, it felt like the last 60 hours were spent doing the epilogue quests - I was not happy. I was so not happy, in fact, that I bought a instalevel-to-70 class (DRK) to use so I could run through the epilogue quests faster. I got on the class, watched the class quest storyline on youtube, ran maybe 5 or 10 low level dungeons and the titan and ifrit easymode, then started using it to clear new content. Wiped a couple times on Leviathan, thanks to an instakill mechanic I still don't understand where he dives and we have to time using a machine, or something. Wiped a few times on the eyeball guy in World of Darkness, though I was playing a healer in that one, because apparently they kept facing him towards all of the casters? The alliance fell apart, and I requeued - second group ran through it like it was a joke. DRK wasn't incredibly fun in lower level dungeons, so I did the first gunbreaker quest and did it on that instead. I liked gunbreaker a lot more.

Even with all of my effort, though, I didn't actually complete the epilogue until this past Sunday - and haven't really played during the week other than to get and start levelling Astrologer(ian?). Have been saving Heavensward for this coming weekend - I hope my next big reply to this thread isn't about a Heavensward speedrun.

Overall

Fun things:
Golden Saucer Hammer Game
Dungeons
Trials

Unfun things:
Website (harder than the bosses)
Pre-Mount fetch quests
Epilogue (I liked Crystal Tower though)

Best experiences:
Getting carried in Praetorium by 8000 iq speedrunner tanks
Getting a chocobo
Finally getting to Ishgard
Most players were nice
Getting carried in Odin speedruns because a level 80 guy needed gloves
Getting an edgy white robe from crystal tower

Worst experiences:
Having a tank yell at me for not healing fast enough when we were in an early dungeon and I had 1 healing ability that I was spamming
Wiping repeatedly to an eyeball
Having the tank and a DPS both stand in the purple water in the electric dungeon
Paying 500 gil to go from limsa lominsa to ishgard

Classes I tried:
Scholar
Astrologer
Dark Knight
Gunbreaker
Gladiator
Red Mage

Classes by how much I liked them:
Gunbreaker
Astrologer
Scholar
Dark Knight
Gladiator
Red Mage

Favorite Dungeons:
Praetorium
Luigi's Mansion

Least Favorite Dungeons:
The Ice Castle
The Electric Water (was significantly better when I ran it on the tank classes)


Sorry for the spam post! Overall, please just make the game easier to buy (and maybe make teleporting cheaper)!