How long is "a break" to you?

The discussion around housing brought up an important point - often we tell people who are feeling burned out to take "a break" from the game and go do something else for a while. (That something else may be another MMO or an offline game or something not video game related at all.)

The general recommendation previously was to unsub until the next patch, which was usually no more than 1-3 months away. However, the long delay of 3.1 has now sparked concerns that future patches will also be thinner.

How long do you think "a break" is? (I personally think about a month is good, but do others go for much longer periods of time?)

Do you unsub during breaks? (I don't. I want SE to have money. I still pay for XI....)

I have too much to do so no I don't unsub.

the weekend

I haven't taken one yet but I have been considering it. I don't know how long. The sub fee is slowly starting to be gretaer than the value of content coming down the pipe. The 3 month updates are perfect imo. If it drags out longer or the cycle extends then I don't really see myself continuing. AT this point I'm literally getting on to raid and cap esos. It's becoming more of an inconvenience. than anything else. The whole house relinquishment thing would actually make me less likely to come back if I did unsub. Just my opinion.

In my FC, if someone has been inactive for 60 days and hasn't said they will be back, I usually kick them. A month to me would be a typical break, then I give another 30 days incase they decide to come back, but any more (in my experience) means they have either quit or won't be back for a long time.

I once haven't played for 5 months, but I wouldn't call that a break and definitely wouldn't expect my house to still stand.

2-4 weeks sound like a break to me, but if I had nothing to do in game between every patch and had to take 2-3 months breaks twice a year (or even worse) I would consider switching to other game. 2-3 months aren't a small break in my opinion, especially if it happens more often.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

The general recommendation previously was to unsub until the next patch, which was usually no more than 1-3 months away.

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Sorry, but general recommendation, by WHO? :S

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Originally Posted by Catwho

How long do you think "a break" is?

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From XIV? About 2 days? :D (so a weekend?) Longest break I've personally taken since 2.0 came out was a week when GTA V came out on PC. Other than that I login most days if only just to do trial roulette, give retainers new works and other basic things like that. How long I stay on per day depends on what I want to do and/or if friends are playing other games.

I certainly don't think I'm going to have a problem with the 45 day housing inactivity (if you have a subscription and actively log into the game, you're likely to go into the house at some point if only to use/sell to the vendors)

Unlike many people, I play the game every day for several hours. The way I do this and keep myself from getting burned out is that I have ceased content grind, I do not bother with gear, and honestly I just do things at my own snail pace. I always have more to do, and I'm never burned out so much that I don't feel like paying my subscription fee. What does turn me off to the game is actually the community, in the pubic sense. Concepts like making friends in an MMO, treating it like a hobby instead of a job, and even the difference between subscribing to a service versus purchasing an item are tough concepts for some people.

I do take breaks though. I log in for a few minutes to say hi, and maybe cycle retainers, and then I log out and do other things. A break for me is however long I need, and if I find something else that's a better hobby then I wish XIV luck because it was fun while it lasted.

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Originally Posted by WinterLuna

In my FC, if someone has been inactive for 60 days and hasn't said they will be back, I usually kick them. A month to me would be a typical break, then I give another 30 days in case they decide to come back, but any more (in my experience) means they have either quit or won't be back for a long time.

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Same here. I do make exceptions, such as for players who are known to have recurring financial troubles (and won't accept donations), but by and large, those who drop out for extended periods of time without bothering to leave any notice whatsoever tend to be uncommitted, both to the FC, and to the game itself.

For me it would be a month. Also I'm on the six month plan so I can't really unsub when bored.

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

Sorry, but general recommendation, by WHO? :S

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Whenever someone posts a "getting bored" or "should I quit" thread, the general recommendation from this forum, and from other forums and places like Tumblr, etc, was always "take a break until the next patch."

It's advice I also personally dispense but I am definitely not the only one.

I find it really disgusting that they take things away from you if you don't pay, it's basically extortion... SE: "Can't play for a month? Well looks like we're giving away your FC to someone else! And we're gonna give them the power to change its name too! Better keep playing or else... Oh seems our warning wasn't enough for you and you didn't pay for 2 months! Now we're taking your house".

SE needs to realise this is a sub based game not free to play, not everyone can keep up with payments consistently or even wants to with the minimal content they add. 1-2 months is not long enough to start taking things away from people when they can't just casually log in to prevent it.

My suggestion: add a 1 day a month free option, you can log in once a month for 24 hours for free. That way even if you can't pay or are on a break there's no excuse to not at least log in to check up on your stuff to make sure it's not been taken away.

I used to play like crazy for the past year. But as of early September, I stepped down from raiding and took a bit of break myself. I was gone for like 2 weeks before I logged in again. I am still on hiaitus from raiding. Not sure when or if I'll pick it up again. Sometimes you just need a breather from the game to do other things. Which a lot of people need. But if you are gone for 60+ days safe to say you are not going to return anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

My suggestion: add a 1 day a month free option, you can log in once a month for 24 hours for free. That way even if you can't pay or are on a break there's no excuse to not at least log in to check up on your stuff to make sure it's not been taken away.

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So people who don't know if they will ever come back can hold their house untill FFXIV is shut down?

I consider 1 month a normal break. That's the amount of time most people I know (me included) take off if they either have other, more important stuff to do or just don't feel like playing for a while.
It's also easy to slip right back into the usual payment schedule that way :)

Oh, and of course none of us pays during that month, unless it was done several months in advance. I don't see any problem with that - I don't go and pay for a train ticket everyday either when I'm staying at home..:confused:
Why would I pay for a game when I'm not able/willing to play?

@Housing: Having a house is somewhat of a commitment.
Even if they added additional housing in each area to the point where everyone could buy their own house, it would be sad and boring just as much as it is now in most areas, with 90% of each area devoid of any people.
The new 3.1 way of doing things ensures that everyone who DOES want to make the commitment will have a nice, lively neighbourhood to enjoy and bond with :)

I'm gone for two weeks, tops.
If it's any longer than that, it's probably a game I wasn't heavily invested in yet or one I've quit.

A break to me would be like a week or two.

Idk breaks for me very, just depends if I'm bored with raiding or just bored of the game in general. So I could go a few months without playing or it could just be a weekend break. But even when I take breaks I kind of just got myself into the habit of logging in even just for a second mainly because I knew that were planning on doing this for housing & I have a personal house on an Alt I play.

And I never unsub even if I take extended breaks. Although the hubby and I did finally decide to unsub our alt Legacy account just because we don't really use it much anymore. But our main accounts we always leave active cause its cheap.

Going to wc, eat, sleep and work times :p
Ah and maintenance days.

took a 8 months break in 2014, when i left people were paying gils for primals HM wins, when i returned i had a lot of new contents one shot like gold saucer, housing, hunts, primals ex, and more, so basically my long break gave me interest in a game i was bored with.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

For me it would be a month. Also I'm on the six month plan so I can't really unsub when bored.

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Same, also I wouldn't unsubbed regardless; Just because the next patch has been "postponed" 2 months, there's lots of fun things to do in the interim. Also, a break from the game to me is moot, I really only play a few nights a week at most, so I don't really require a extended break.

It's going to sound vague, but a break to me is pretty much until I feel like playing again. Sometimes it's only a few days, sometimes it's never.

A break to me, is however long it takes for me to feel recovered, or to miss what I'm taking a break from and want to end the break. I don't really give times on my breaks unless I'm given a time limit (like at a job). But for the most part, if I say I'm taking a break, it basically means I'm gone and I'll come back when I feel like it, if ever.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

However, the long delay of 3.1 has now sparked concerns that future patches will also be thinner.

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As far as I know 3.1 should the exception in this regard as the dev team took some time off after HW (and well deserved, they're certainly one of the harder working teams in the MMO space). I also think a bit of time has been allowed between 3.0 and 3.1 to give people time to do stuff. Put it this way, some of us went from all classes (DoW, DoM, DoH and DoL) capped to needing 10 more levels on 20+ classes and having 3 new classes. I'm nowhere near capping all classes yet, only got to almost 10 of them done so far :D

To me? A break is any period of time while I'm not playing the game but am willing to pick it up again someday.

e.g. I took a break from 2.1 to 2.55. I'm currently on break from WoW but I might play it again sometime. I'm NOT on break from Wildstar because I'm never touching that disaster again after Carbine's second failed launch.

A month. Anything longer is extended leave.

In the general sense, a month is a good amount of time to take off of a game. If you taking longer then your basically giving up all but the closest relationships you've made on the game. Most people will have moved on to make new groups or invite others to replace you at that point unless you keep really close contact or are friends with people IRL.

As long as i need. may be a day, may be a month or so with infrequent log-ins to see how things are going.

It depends on how strong a pull the game has, for me having zero interest in rerunning the dungeons or PvP for tomes, not even going to bash my head in to Alex Savage, I am content. Only reason I am still logging in daily for Gold Saucer and retainers is cus I forgot to turn off the auto-sub this month. For me a break is a month or so, just discovered a PS2 game called Soul Nomad and currently enjoying SkyForge and looking towards a few others that may be coming out soon. I guess for FCs the inactive part isn't really an issue as I would assume at least one person plays, for private housing perhaps they should give a bit more of an extension, but that's just me.

I've accidentally taken a long break... which has been about three days, not counting the day maintenance.
Need to get my butt ingame and collect those damn Ores and Greens :(


(Got sucked in to staring at Ruby which is funny because apparently I missed staring at code all day and getting frustrated when it wouldn't run due to a missing comma)

A couple days at most for me, and even when I'm in a "break" period, I still tend to cap every week (just one Expert a day or so). If I intend to be gone for longer it's usually because I'm moving to another game and then I unsubscribe.

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

It depends on how strong a pull the game has, for me having zero interest in rerunning the dungeons or PvP for tomes, not even going to bash my head in to Alex Savage, I am content. Only reason I am still logging in daily for Gold Saucer and retainers is cus I forgot to turn off the auto-sub this month. For me a break is a month or so, just discovered a PS2 game called Soul Nomad and currently enjoying SkyForge and looking towards a few others that may be coming out soon. I guess for FCs the inactive part isn't really an issue as I would assume at least one person plays, for private housing perhaps they should give a bit more of an extension, but that's just me.

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I would suggest checking out the other games by that games publisher as well...

As for me, maybe a week or two at most would be a big enough break.

1 month or less, there was a time when I left the game for 3-4 months but I had no intention of ever coming back, so I don't consider that a break to be honest. I was subscribed during that period only because I had subbed a few months in advance, otherwise I see no reason to continue to subscribe, if I'm unpleased with the game enough to leave, I wouldn't believe SE is deserving of my money. I'm assuming this thread was brought up because of the housing thing, and I believe 90 days is more than enough for a break (I think that's how long you have until you lose both your house, furniture and the 80%). I don't believe you have any right to take up a limited resource when you're not a paying member.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

I would suggest checking out the other games by that games publisher as well...

As for me, maybe a week or two at most would be a big enough break.

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Might have too, I know I've tried a few titles of theirs though my main draw was due to my want of more Ogre battle 64 and the whole create your own units drew me in.

For me, 3 to 4 days at most. I haven't unsubbed since I started playing, though some weeks I play more than others. If I'm doing something else or if I don't feel like playing I won't log on that night, so I haven't really burned out on playing yet.