I've been reading a lot of threads lately about how the game is dying, the game is stale, the game isn't really appealing to people anymore, and it took a moment to sit down and look at my own gaming tendencies and how they have declined drastically since the release of Heavensward.

Recap: I've been here since 1.0 and have religiously played 2.0 and beyond on a daily basis to the exception of when 3.1 finally hit. I then saw a drastic decrease of play time.

So now, I need to sit down and figure out exactly why, personally, I've come to the point that I barely play and just keep my three month Legacy sub going.

Here's what I feel.

1) The content in 3.0 has not pulled me in like the 2.0 story did. In my opinion, Heavensward is a weaker form of story than 2.0's story. The battle of the Dragonsong War really did not interest me as it based itself off of a place we barely knew and that the entire story feels concentrated to Ishgard and not the whole Eorzea area. It feels like we're pretty much saving Ishgard from itself and not really the world right now. The primals were always a threat to the whole of Eorzea. The Empire was also a threat, and they took a back seat in this expansion to the Dragonsong War. In short: it just doesn't feel the same. I'm not engaged.

2) The content in 3.0 feels shorter than the 2.0 version. 2.0 came out with 50 levels worth of content from three different city-states. That's a lot of content. When I heard that 50-60 would have the same content as 2.0 did when released, I was highly skeptical but I felt like I would give S-E a chance as they've always produced quality stories in most of their games. I feel like the story really did not last that long. The content felt dragged through zones due to only leveling 10 levels and it was pretty dull content. The Moogle area (And if you talk to my FC, you will know that I live for Moogles) pretty much burnt people out and added nothing but fluff story to the entire main story itself. In short: The game, story wise, felt shorter than it was advertised to be. Kinda bummed out but I also kinda expected it.

3) Six months of wait between 3.0 and 3.1 really killed the flow that S-E had introduced in 2.0. They took six months to add two dungeons, a main story quest that was done in an hour, even if you didn't jump the cutscenes, did not really add much of a pivotal fight scene in the main story quest, and just fell flat. I recall each patch I played in 2.0, I would get excited because a new primal with its own story was being introduced in the lore. 3.1? It seriously just felt like a setup for 3.2; a bridge between chapters. It's that chapter in a book that is dull but required to link two scenes together. That discouraged me even more because once the story was done, it was just.."meh". I realized that I honestly have no attachment to any character whatsoever. I'm one of those people who never really got excited about Hauchefant. Felt like he was always there, and yeah, he helped you get in Ishgard and was a good friend, but his death honestly never struck me as an "Oh my gods!" moment. I simply said "Aight, you are killing my allies? Time to go slay you all." The impact wasn't there. The impact hasn't been there for any of the story at all lately. The only impact was the fact that Ishgard finally stated they were the cause of the war which made me go "Well...crap."

4) The change of content being added. I didn't think that the difference between 3 or 2 dungeons would impact me as much as it did and well..it kinda did. Repeating the same two dungeons made me wear out faster than I thought to the point I simply did not run them, no matter what incentives. (Poe tomes to buy relic items, Eso tomes to get gear for other classes.) I was so sick and tired of running the same two in 3.0, that it took me far less time to get sick and tired of the 3.1 dungeons. While I noted that their adventures in new content like Lords of Verminion or The Diadem were brave jumps, they were, unfortunately, poorly implemented. The mini game is just that: a min game. And it isn't even something that I was interested in much. I was expecting and hoping a more "Pokemon" style game similar to what World of Warcraft developped. That would have been far better but they chose this design, so be it. The Diadem had potential. But after doing it twice and realizing: "Wow..I'm in here for 20 minutes and doing objectives which are great...it becomes a grind on mobs for random drops that may or may not be great." It blew my mind just how much of a missed opportunity this was. But this is new, they will learn from this and hopefully, they will elaborate on it to make it decent content. This is a very rudimentary version of FFXI's Dynamis but far less scary.

In looking at all this, I personally came to the following conclusions in regards to my gaming needs:

1) I don't like cap increases. I really don't. You can increase the gear score of gear if you want, but the idea is you need to expand on your world, not make it to a point where you are so focused on leveling that a) you wanna skip the entire story which leads to b) putting poor story in sidequests that no one pays attention to then complains there's no content because of it. You're doing a disservice when you do this to your game because people simply don't care enough to read the text. They just blaze through to get to the cap to do the endgame stuff, thinking it'll be good. By not increasing the cap, you can fully implement your team to focus on the story, and make it so that in key moments, you unlock new skills. Or, you start looking into weapons giving you different sets of skills. I know we all love increasing our power as we are exploring new world and staying the same way just doesn't compute the same, but I think you have tools where that isn't a requirement. Look at FFXI, again: Merits. Merits work by increasing set stats as you gain experience. Make it around 10 levels worth of merits with allow you different options could also alleviate the need that people have to have some sort of flexibility. But, as we saw with the point system for our stats, sometimes it just flops to a point that it's no longer necessary. Bigger people who make more money know better about this so I leave it up to them to think up something.

2) There needs to be longer content when patches release. I'll give 3.1 the benefit of the doubt that it was a hiccup but 3.2 is set in the same fashion as 3.1 in regards to content which makes me worried we're going to get another small chunk of main story and a slew of side stuff. There has to be a balance: yes, give us side stuff to do, but try to keep some main stuff being the main piece of addition when a patch hits. Hopefully I'm wrong in 3.2

There's a slew of other minor issues but I had slew of issues in 2.0 which were bearable. Alexander is subpar compared to Coil. The Anima relic grind is kinda boring, truthfully; after having done the Relic grind in 2.0, redoing it in 3.0 kinda is dull. Doesn't feel like they put much thought in the process of getting the weapon. Just slapped a grind just like any other and they said "Have at it." While I get that, it doesn't make for compelling gameplay. Adding it to do daily beast quests that have been done before and you're recycling 2.0 content in an expansion which isn't really exciting whatsoever.

All of this has made me come to a point where I rarely log onto the game anymore. When the time comes where most of the people including my significant other no longer plays, I'll hang the Roe boots up on my character. I'm not there yet, but 3.2 is kinda of a medium to gauge what kind of direction S-E is taking this game on. I might decide after that..

This got longer than I expected it to be but like I said; I normally avoid the whole "The game is dying, ah mah gawwwwwwwwwwwd." threads. But I wanted to just post my opinions about why I have suddenly lowered my playtime with this game. Hopefully, they answer my questions and reservations in future patches.