Why do long time players play the game so differently?

[Doc_Seraph]

Think of mmorpgs as giant chat rooms with very sophisticated avatars. Most of the fun comes with hanging out with other people. Kupo <3

[FlareVyzar]

For #1, because most of us who parse are doing it to see improvement, and have reached the point where we have sufficient/deep knowledge about the job. To be able to self optimize during week 1 or world prog without having to "ask" around on what is best from others. Once you have the skill to beat the game at it's peak difficulty, you don't need to care about getting high numbers. Because they don't matter anymore. And once you master any job and acquire the knowledge about the game, everything else pretty much plays the same way, because the core of the game is the same and it is extremely easy to learn.

Tldr, not caring anymore about parsing because we are already good enough to clear any content with ease, at its peak difficulty.

Now for those who parse to compete on fflogs, that is another thing. That is the drive for competition only, you will occasionally see those players compete every now and then again and take a break.

For #2
I believe it was boredom and repetition. Before a hardcore raider, i was a hardcore crafter back then and used to do it for many hours. It was fun playing the marketboard and all. Making gil felt good. But nowadays, gil does not really feel like it is spent on anything in the game. I used to grind it to spend on houses. But then found myself being forced to sub to keep my house and now i don't really bother.

Both #1 & #2 can say it's kinda like "don't care much anymore"

#3 every now and then complete things that we may have missed or still enjoy. Like mount farming. Some do it for nostalgia. Don't really do old contents as much though, since i do it on content but i have seen people do it depending on their availability to play at any given point.

[Wyso_Derivative]

Well I’m new, relative to how long this game has been out, and normally lurk though this topic got me out of hiding. It does bring up a very good point: Is it truly, absolutely, terribly, unconscionably wrong to put pineapple on pizza?

[Minarisweet]

Think of mmorpgs as giant chat rooms with very sophisticated avatars. Most of the fun comes with hanging out with other people. Kupo <3

this is only true for xiv, a lot of people use mmorpgs as giant chat rooms sure but xiv manages to only excel at that and forget to make meaningful activities for people to do daily

[Vahlnir]

this is only true for xiv, a lot of people use mmorpgs as giant chat rooms sure but xiv manages to only excel at that and forget to make meaningful activities for people to do daily

Eh, I can find something to do daily just fine, and I've been here since ARR open beta. But I do feel that they've been playing it way too safe for far too long. I think the failures that were Diadem 1.0/2.0 and Verminion spooked them a bit. But that was like, 7/8 years ago so...lol This game needs more side content and open world content, plain and simple.