For me, there is just a profound sadness. I will shoot off my mouth on here, yes, but ultimately as a casual player who has played since the ARR beta and has spent 11 years of my life with this game being a part of it, it sucks to see it fall into this pattern of drawn out patch cycles with very little content in each (at least for me). The game is absolutely shifting its focus to players who love hardcore content, raiders and seems to be listening to the XIV content creators and what they want more than the actual player base. And listen, everyone plays for different reasons but its the content cadence schedule that is the problem.

If long-term, casual content dropped in 7.1 - it would hold those of us over who have ZERO interest in savage, ultimate and chaotic when those players get their drops. Instead we are left with nothing for huge bouts of time. I've learned to accept this is the direction FF14 will most likely continue in, so there's not much I can really do about it. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Folks will say, well there is a lot to do but you choose not to do it. Yes, you're right. I don't like hard fights that I find stressful. It's not why I play. And XIV has always been more of a single player RPG in an MMO wrapping. I also struggle with memory issues and visual cue stuff, so many of these harder fights are very hard for me to do. I could watch videos over and over and see repeated mechanics over and over, and still I would not remember them. I can get by with normal content and raids because I've done them enough and they aren't as punishing, and I also refuse to be a burden on other people.

Yes, I've been angry on these forums about the state of the game for casuals (and justifiably so). Other players on here seem to think we should be the ones to adapt and try harder content, but the truth is many of us don't want to because we simply don't find hours of progging, dying and learning a fight like that fun. It's really that simple.

So, just quit. Well, it's easy to say that, but this game has been a special part of my life for over a decade. It's not so simple as just quit. However, I am reaching that point. And I truly feel, for me, to make the break it would need to be a permanent blowing up of the bridge. A complete character and account deletion with zero ties left. I haven't reached that point yet, but I am so so close. If the story was at least keeping me interested there would be a silver lining, but this new writing team ain't it. And I have found 7.0 and 7.1 to be some of the worst storytelling I've ever experienced.

So, ultimately, I find myself at a crossroads (no pun intended). What I ultimately decide to do will fall to what the 7.2 and 7.3 content cadence looks like. If casual content gets pushed further to 7.4 and 7.5, I doubt I last to that.