I'm not sure I can do this again.

[Moomba33]

No point in forcing yourself to play a game you don't enjoy. I'm sure your friends will understand, especially if you stay in touch outside of the game.
A lot of my friends have stopped playing in the last few months and they've said that losing housing is very freeing. You can just hop in and out of the game whenever you feel like it and not feel chained by the demo timer.

I still love the world and story of XIV but even I've been reducing my playtime in recent weeks. I've never been interested in grinding gear in and of itself and I haven't much cared for the style of the SB sets so far. In ARR and HW I had the relic quest to keep me busy but with Eureka's many delays I haven't had much to do this expansion.
These days I tend to just get on for Mentor Roulette and Beast Tribes then play some single player games instead.

The lack of a relic grind has definitely had a profound impact on any sense of progression if you aren't raiding, though contributing factors include the surprise focus on very niche content. Perform, Replay, PvP and Ultimate all cater to much smaller demographics yet have been the focal point of Stormblood for the most part.

I'm honestly curious how much use Replay has gotten. The other features I can at least say I have seen players utilizing them but the few times I've seen Replay mentioned were people disappointed that it was more limited than what they were interested in doing.