I'm not sure I can do this again.

[ElazulHP]

Take a break from the treadmill. I'm doing that right now myself. Not participating in Savage this patch and taking it easy just leveling alt classes and crafting and gathering. I know i'm going to grind my ass off in Eureka anyways so no need to burn out before that lol...

[HyoMinPark]

I completely agree with you that the predictable nature of this game has gotten very stale. Even one of the people I used to raid with told me that, if Eureka isn’t something new and different and awesome, they’re probably going to drop the game again because it’s just the same thing every patch. And I have to agree with them; it’s getting hard to find reasons to remain subscribed with the stale formula the devs won’t deviate from.

That being said, I think you should probably take a bit of a break from the game if you can, before you end up just hating it entirely. A break may do you some good, OP. Best thing I did was take a 2 month break in 3.5 because I was burnt out on the same-old-same-old. I came back and felt refreshed, even though nothing had really changed. But the grind felt like less of a grind and less of a chore after taking some time away from it all. I’ve actually been considering going on a semi-break again. I dropped my static for personal reasons this week, and I’m considering just going either PUG-life/Party Finder-life, or sitting out this tier entirely to allow me time to relax and enjoy other things besides grinding and raiding. Like reading. I got several books for Christmas that I would like to sit down and actually enjoy.

[Mesarthim]

I share some of the sentiments. Originally I spent a little time doing sigmascape normal for drops to get 350 gear but then it hit me. It's just 350 gear, not even 350 crafted gear. It'll be outdated in no time at all so then I decided to do kefka for the crystalloid and then leave it at that.

I mean I havent even touched my crafting since 4.1 started because since I'm presently not doing savage for reasons beyond my control I suddenly lost any and all drive to actually play for a significant amount of time each day. I've just done the ananta beast tribe quests, maybe check my mini cactpot, retainers and then log off.

[Theodric]

Eureka is going to be the real test, I suppose. It's a chance to shake things up and give us content that will last for more than a couple of weeks. I don't even bother with roulettes any more since simply tackling hunt marks gives me the tomes I need each week...

[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.

[Swilly]

I know how this feels, though I wouldn't say I'm totally burned out on FF14 just yet. While I like doing raids/DF stuff (casual only), I'm finding it super difficult to bring myself to do it nowadays.

As for story stuff, I think the Omega arc is more compelling than the MSQ right now (not to say I dislike the MSQ, it's mostly about the characters involved), so I guess I'm hanging on mostly for that. And I really am looking forward to the next chapter in the Ivalice raid, but I was a big FFTactics fan.

Otherwise, I spend my time crafting and gathering. It's fun and pretty rewarding, while not making me feel obligated to play as seriously as I did when I was still doing leveling/puggy stuff. I say take a break if you can!

[Aomine1992]

Take a break I stopped playing this game half way through HW becuase it was the same crap and the same class balancing issues and I'm glad I did before I hated the game all together

[odie]

My breaks get longer and longer. First i'd take a day or so off. Then it turned to weeks, then months. Then I was gone for a year and a half. My main is only 130-ish right now and I may do one roulette or something but can't bring myself to grind out tomes. I was really excited when they mentioned the diadem, then disappointed when it really didn't actually offer anything that you didn't get from the rest of the game. They claimed they could do so much more with the PS3 gone...well, its gone. Your move, SE.

[KaldeaSahaline]

The formula wasn't really changed here though, the feel of it most definitely has been improved no argument, but I wouldn't necessarily say the formula has changed. It's still the MMO standard tried and true receive quest, fulfill quest, turn in quest, receive rewards.

I mean WoW already let you level strictly via dungeons (granted the new scaling tech gutted dungeon xp, so that option is not very good now). It let you level exclusively through PVP if you wanted. You could in theory grind mobs all day long. You've had options for a long time. You didn't HAVE to quest.

More importantly though, do you have any insight/ideas into how the leveling formula could be shaken up/improved? I'd be more interested in hearing about that than discussing the semantics as to what does/doesn't qualify as a formula change.

I'll give you that one. It's largely a feature I don't use due to having to use Party Finder instead of LFD. I simply don't like putting up with peoples ridiculous requirements such as needing certain addons or unreasonable ilvl expectations. So I avoided this system as a whole.

You're looking at it the wrong way. If I am ilvl 970 and doing a +15, I'm going to set it to people around my ilvl. I'm not going to set it to 910 even though they could easily clear the +15. There's no reason too when I have a staggering list of 960+ candidates trying to get in my party.

What addons are you referencing for M+? I've never seen or heard of anyone requiring specific addons and I acquired KSM long before NH dropped.

Take your own Keystone (you can get one from a regular DF'able Mythic dungeon) and make your own party and get other like geared/minded players and have a blast. See how high you can take the key.

Mythic + has hands down supplied me with some of the most rewarding experiences in my MMO career (10+ years, even as a top 20 US raider for a portion of it). You're doing yourself a disservice by not experiencing it. I'm alliance on NA Stormrage if you wanted to group up.

I dunno, I'll give you the flex raid part, but at the same time it feels like they don't try to break the mold enough. Sure there's a few fights throughout WoW that you can claim to have done this such as Malygos, healing the green drake in ICC, Arthas kill mechanic which has been used twice now considering Argus, Flame Leviathan, etc. Perhaps it's more of a time thing in looking back at all the raids and what's been done. But personally WoW's raids have felt kind of stale to me as of late. XIV's dev team seems to strike a balance in trying something new here and there to break up the monotony of mechanics such as Cruise Chasers timed event and Byakko's falling mechanic.

It depends on what we consider breaking the mold. By your examples, it appears that unconventional mechanics are what dictate your consideration. That's fair. Gimmicky encounters can be cool, but if they're overused they lose a lot of what makes them fun.

That said, I agree that WoW encounters have been a bit stale lately. In ABN, I really wasn't impressed with any of the bosses until Coven, and it ended with Coven. I took a break through ToS, and only came in like twice to full clear it with old guild for fun so I don't want to comment on it as I didn't progress it. NH had a few good fights. Elisande, Spellblade, and Botanist get credit for being fun fights. ToV Odyn & Helya were both good fights (I HATED Helya, but that's because I had shit mobility). EN sucked. I actually liked Nythendra the best out of all of them haha. The mind control + rot stacks was a really neat mechanic interaction.

[Rufalus]

Just got to go to Rhalgar's reach and talk to the dude!...or Lyse, be honest you didn't check, just run up there!

Blasphemy! I will never get tired of this. Patches are my Christmas. There are some elements of the game which I sometimes wonder what it would be like if they were different. Some things can get tired after years. Overall though any new content and story is very exciting to me and probably will be forever. The characters underneath those quest icons do matter to me.