what can i do to keep interested in this game?

[Schan]

Hmmm this is a very interesting subject.

The thing is unlike most MMORPGs out there FFXIV literally just asks you to play about 30 minutes a day to "keep up" gearing wise. After that you are free to do whatever you enjoy.

It seems to me that people are so used to be put in this treadmill where you need to farm X, grind reputation with Y and do Z (which by the way all of these need to be done daily and will require at least 2 hours of game time if not more - which for a lot of people is all of the available time they have to play per day) if you want to "keep up". I think people forget you can do stuff that does not increase you character's stats and can be *fun*. Playing a MMORPG does not just involve the things you must do (and therefore kind of turning it into a job)

What I personally want from a game is not just the "must dos" but also the "want to dos" and i personally find it that FFXIV respects you time.

After I've done what i need to do to keep up (daily / weekly stuff) my time is dedicated towards goals I have set myself:
-Still working on leveling everyone to 80. DRK to go
-Leveling crafters and then start working on crafting my own gear
-There's stuff I want from the Gold Saucer and I want to get the MGP for it so I need to set time aside to go to the Gold Saucer.
- Ex, Savage, Unreal (these are MASSIVE time sinks. They're great if you deal with frustration well and you have a ton of time to burn. Otherwise be aware that you might be frustrated with the fact you just spent 5 hours trying to get into a good farm party only to finish empty handed)
-I want a perfectly bred Chocobo. not high in my priority list but it's something i slowly work towards
-Hosting parties for your FC, be it teaching them fights (there's a lot of people scared of Extremes for example. get them new people to dip their toes into a bit more challenging content in an environment somewhat safe) or treasure maps, or glam hunting parties if they are into that
-go around taking screenshots of the scenery / your character ( I struggled with this for the longest time mostly because I was too stuck in the "treadmill mindset" so doing anything that didn't get me any rewards ingame or didn't boost my character's numbers was seen as "wasting time". Until I realized I actually had *fun* noticing that my composition skills got better and sometimes you took really cool screenshots.

I am forced to prioritize what I want to do due to an actual lack of time for the stuff I enjoy doing ingame so at best I can work in 2 things once, maybe twice a week.

I don't know how much free time you have OP.