Early Game - first 20 hours - very slow.
Mid Game - from 20 to > 1000 hours - gets way more fun.
End Game - huh, idk, still haven't gotten to that part yet.

Main Story Quest is TERRIBLE! It's boring and has hundreds and hundreds of delivery quests. More than half of them starts with "Speak with...". This game does not respect your time. Be ready to be delivery guy...
In some quests you need to talk to the same NPC but in different locations.
Everything is locked behind Main Story Quest so you HAVE to do it!

It's pretty good. I didn't think I'd like it, especially since I grew up with WoW. However, after a bit of getting used to the map, it's definitely a 4.5/5 for me.

DO NOT GET THIS!!!

If you want to play this game, get the version from their website, you still will have to create an account with them and all you are doing by coming through steam is lock your account up.

IF YOU ALREADY GOT THE GAME THIS VERSION IS USELESS!!!

dear god i need to stop playing this stupid mind numbing game i love it

not bad

Funnest and most friendly mmo I have ever played!

One of the best if not the best MMORPG you can play at the moment. it will always remain within my top 3 MMORPG's I played. I made a lot of friends here and even a little community for my self. going true the story, using gpose to make memory's of our story's.

If your new to MMO's or MMORPG's like FFXIV this games community is happy to teach anyone and everyone how to play and how things work from dungeons to raid, to crafting and house decorations even the roleplay community its a compleat 180 compared to World of Warcraft where people there can come over as really toxic.

Though sadly its subscription based like most MMORPG's in this style its well worth it in my opinion and wouldn't wish to give it up for as long as I can.

It's just a silly catgirl game.

Judging my hours, it's weird for me to say that I have mixed feelings about this game.
Is it good? Yea. I'd say pretty good. But FAR from perfect. There are so many other MMO's that have features working better than FF14 and it pains me to see this game in such a state of... wasted potential? However, what makes FF14 so good and fun to play is that it gives you so much stuff to do that you barely find yourself wondering what to do. There's always something, and nothing feels meaningless. THAT is what makes it good.

Starting with positives:

It has compelling stories both base game and throughout the expansions - don't let reviews fool you, because with most things, it comes down to taste. No story is objectively good or bad - you just either don't enjoy it because it isn't for you, or you enjoy it because it is for you. I personally liked them.

Crafting and Gathering, unlike in other games, doesn't feel like a stupid, stretchy grind. Not saying that it isn't, because it definitely is, but it works much better and the "minigames" you have during crafting or gathering are enjoyable little "shut your head off" times. If you're spent from grinding dungeons, raids or trials, go level a crafter or gatherer. It's so relaxing.

Speaking of content: The designs of the Raids, Dungeons and Trials are phenomenal and only get better with expansions. Some of them feel super cinematic, others just lull you in with their atmosphere and music. There's also something this game does better than other games when it comes to older content - you can "unsync" dungeons, raids and trials, which means you can go in as a high level character and oneshot the enemies to get their loot. Since 70% of the content is outdated and the loot is only usable as Skins (called "Glamour" in this game), you'll get your hands on your desired skins, pets or mounts very easily without having to queue for content no one plays anymore. Huge quality of life effects here.

Leveling alts is made very easy, because you only ever need one character. Your starting class (Job in this game) does not decide what you are. You can start as a Warrior and play all the way to 100, but if you want another class, you can speak to a guild and swap to it. Your one character can learn and level EVERY class available in the game. Plus - if you already have a high level class, leveling the lower ones will go faster thanks to the so called armory bonus. Meaning you don't have to painfully grind from lvl 1-100 in the same amount of time. You get tons of bonus XP, which makes it much easier to get other classes to higher levels.

Now with all those things in mind, the game does sound incredible, doesn't it? Sadly, for my taste, there are points that make me disappointed in it regardless.

Outdated gameplay system:

It feels like playing an MMO from the early 2000's. While I understand the original FF14 came out 2010, the actual game we play today, which started 2013 with "A Realm Reborn" and replaced the failed original game, we can see that there was a lot of time to rework the clunkiness of the game. It is just hard to look at when you play things like Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online. Given that GW2 came out 2012 - one year before FF14 launched its new approach - and has infinitely better graphics and gameplay/movement/combat, it's just sad to see FF14 this clunky and outdated. I can only enjoy this game so much before I grow tired of the same static gameplay for hours on end.

Housing:

FF14 still relies on the extremely stupid approach of making houses actual unique objects, meaning there is only a limited amount of houses available to the entire playerbase. To compare it to something that makes much more sense - Elder Scrolls Online utilizes individual instances for houses, meaning every player can own every house, because each player is assigned an instance of it. Also, in FF14, you lose your house if you aren't online for 40 days. That means 3,1 million Gil down the drain, because that is the minimum betting price for the smallest house size. There's no refund.

Classes are unique - until they aren't:

This might be a more nitpicky thing to say, because in essence, every MMO relies on the same individual formula. My major caveat with FF14 is that no matter what class you play, you fall back to the same systems and copypasted abilities while having a marginally different rotation and some unique class abilities.

All melee DPS have positional requirements. Sometimes you flank an enemy, sometimes you attack from the rear, sometimes it doesn't matter where you stand. You get different buffs per class that have the same or extremely similar effect. You get the same abilities to heal yourself or remove positional requirements for a certain time (and by "the same" I mean literally the same - these skills are copypasted to each class, same name, same icon, same effect.) Nothing unique here except for the class-specific actions that are sometimes a bit more complex (Ninja, Samurai) and sometimes very straight forward (Dragoon, Monk)

All tanks have copypasted mitigation skills + two class specifics that, again, do almost the same thing just with a different name. Every tank can become invulnerable. You see where I'm getting? In essence, the only variety you have are the animations and rotations, but it doesn't matter if you play a Warrior or a Paladin. Dark Knight is a bit more different because it's limping behind the other tanks so you have to use your panic buttons a bit more, but... that's it.

All in all, I will still recommend this game. It is, after all, a pleasent experience and fun when you overlook the downsides. It's by no means a terrible game. It's sadly just never used the full potential which is available nowadays. Alas, I enjoy my time, I love my guildmates and the friends I met in the game, so with my mixed feelings, I recommend everyone to give it a try!