I've just done chapter 5, about 20 hours in. I'm going to take some time now to explore more thoroughly than I have done, and to complete the 15 or so side quests I have in my log before I head to the two continents to the north of Primordia.
I'm really enjoying it but there are flaws that I'd hoped would be patched out. Having to find certain items with low drop rates can be a pain, just did a quest where an NPC asked for a part in Noctilum, they said it was near a certain landmark so I spent 30 minutes searching that area before resorting to Google and finding out the item I needed was actually in a different area. I enjoy the lack of handholding but there should be an in-game feature which tells you in what parts of which regions items are and what their drop-rates are. Increasing drop-rates for rare items when you have an active quest that requires them wouldn't hurt either.
That being said, most gathering quests I complete just by exploring, and I appreciate the fact the game highlights quest monsters even if that quest isn't active at the moment.