Are you sure? There’s a lot of times I’ve hung out in my FC house for a few hours and I don’t notice the bar moving at all but if I logout for 30 minutes and log back in I notice a small amount of increase.
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What's wrong with muting your speakers then before you go afk? That's what I do if I'm not browsing the internet whilst afk.
EDIT: you don't need to even turn off your speakers, just go to your audio options and select open volume mixer and mute ffxiv sounds, just remember to unmute them when you're back online!
SE basically gave their response to this in the patch notes
“The volume of the title screen music has been increased.”