Bizarre burnout

[Illmaeran]

I know the obvious answer is to just stop playing, but ffxiv is (was?) my favorite game, and I just hate seeing all this stupid negativity and stupid reworks in the game. I've met so many nice people and I would hate to stop talking to them because of a lack of common interest anymore. I just don't feel like there's anything else to really do anymore, since all the jobs I like are leveled up to max, and most relics just look ugly.

The obvious answer is probably the best one, just not as a permanent alternative. I've hit points where I was so frustrated with the game that I couldn't bring myself to play, unsubbed, and came back six months or even a year later when the next expansion was set to release. I love this game too; it's there in my top three favorites of all time. I want to continue loving it so I've made the decision to take breaks when and as I need to in order to refresh myself before growing to hate it.

Other options:
1. Stop reading all the doom and gloom social media crap. It's amazing how other peoples' opinions can sway our own even if we don't realize it.

2. Try just playing the game, do things you don't normally do, play a different job, anything *casually*. Give yourself permission to do anything you feel like at that moment even if it's just people watching in Limsa.

3. Go back to ARR or your favorite expansion and do *EVERYTHING*. Aim for a 100% clear of it, barring achievements unless you want to do those too.

4. Find "stupid goals" as I like to call them. Pick a couple of pets and grind them out then move on to something else. Come up with a menu for an RP restaurant and gather/craft everything for it on your own (I'm doing this now and it's surprisingly satisfying). Complete your entire Challenge Log for the week. Anything goes, just don't push yourself to get it done NOW.

[OhNooo]

1. Stop reading all the doom and gloom social media crap. It's amazing how other peoples' opinions can sway our own even if we don't realize it.

To this point I just wanna say that as someone who started playing in StB, I didn’t even know the OF existed and wasn’t looking on social media about the game at all. I didn’t make a forum account or start looking at the game subreddit until after 5.0 - even so, I could feel the game change during Shb and I felt uncomfortable, but I still kept pushing hoping the game would get better. I took breaks, tried all sorts of different things in the game, but nothing worked. It got even worse for me in EW. The one thing that has kept me giving it another try time and time again is all that sunk cost fallacy - the hundreds of hours I’ve spent grinding deep dungeon solo.

To OP, just do what’s best for you. The devs obviously have a vision for the game that some of us just can’t get on board with. Waiting and hoping for them to fix things or leaving are pretty much the options we have. At some point, enough is enough.