Long loading times when zoning after launching the game
It's hard to succinctly describe this problem in the title. :/
Anyway, recently, like in the last month or so, I've had absurdly long loading times. I've historically had pretty quick loading times no matter where I was going (which was something I've always appreciated about this game), despite even using an HDD instead of a SDD. I've also had some weird lag or delay upon opening certain menus, like my inventory, retainers, etc., though I'm not sure if it's related.
The weird thing is that it happens only after loading something for the first time after launching the game. So if I teleported from Shirogane (where my apartment is) to Rhalgr's Reach for the first time that session, it takes 35 to 45 seconds, which is quite long. If I teleport back to Shirogane, it takes about 6 to 8 seconds, and roughly the same amount if I teleported back to Rhalgr's Reach a second time. I've bounced around testing this, and the first load of an area for that session takes super long, but the rest don't.
I would expect this after doing any sort of disk cleanup or defrag that would clear out temp folders or something, but I don't do that between playing.
Is there anything that could be wiping the cache or something? I don't think I have a lot of things installed that could be doing that in the background without telling me, but that's the only thing I can think of. Also: Can anyone tell me specifically where FFXIV stuff is cached, if possible, so I can see if it's getting cleared out between sessions?