Why do long time players play the game so differently?

[Izar_Chillen]

2016 is not old, it's already way too late to have enjoyed the game at its prime (HW DRK)

its 6 years ago , in terms of an MMO especially its is far from new as you make yourself out to be

Way to label a vast group of people based on your limited contact with some veterans

[Ixon]

Tbh I don't play the market board. Don't care enough. Would rather stay broke and spend my time doing other things and grovel at my FC mates for a crumb of gil when I can't teleport.

[Ronduwil]

I don't get it, does something fundamentally change about your gameplay once you spend a long time playing this game? These veteran players don't seem to be obsessed with the same things I and other newer players are obsessed with.

No. What happens is that you get older and learn perspective. You learn that all the time and energy that you're spending on a video game is time and energy that could be used to improve the other aspects of your life. You learn that no one really cares whether you clear the latest content the very first week it comes out or whether you clear it the following year.

Is it really worth it for me to spend so much time improving my gameplay and skill and rotations and my parse number

Only you can place value on your time and accomplishments, but in my opinion, the answer to this question is a resounding, "No."

The community seems to put a lot of emphasis on being good at the job

Define "the community." A handful of enthusiasts on the forums and on the Balance discord put an emphasis on being good at the job, but that is hardly representative of the entire community, which includes millions of players who have never even logged into these forums or onto a Discord server. I think that you're just lacking perspective. If optimizing your gameplay makes you happy and fulfilled, do that. I suspect that, like many of us, you'll find the dividends from this investment feel fleeting and empty over time. Then again, you might be that one outlier who continues to find a sense of meaning and accomplishment in beating a virtual bad guy in a virtual world several minutes faster than most other players until you're old and gray. Ultimately, it's your call.

[Izar_Chillen]

Tbh I don't play the market board. Don't care enough. Would rather stay broke and spend my time doing other things and grovel at my FC mates for a crumb of gil when I can't teleport.

AKA you play the game to have fun as intended and dont treat your time in game as a second job

like a lot of us , although i dont spend my gil so badly i cant afford to teleport though lol


buy some aetheryte tickets form the GC hunt vendor

[Vahlnir]

That was an awful lot of words to say you have no idea what you're talking about, OP.


Now get off my lawn! *shakes fist*

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

1. They don't seem to care about actively improving their gameplay: A few veteran players I know have been parsing and using ACT since 2015 (when it was first released for FFXIV), and they don't seem to have the same drive I and others like me have to continuously improve my rotation and gameplay and to become more skilled. Their job's kit changed drastically since the days they first raided, but they don't make an effort to learn the kit to its fullest, and sure as hell don't care about their parse. Some of them are parsing green and blue and they only do the savage tier to get BiS and be done with it, even though checking their old logs they had high purples and many of them oranges.

I've never been interested in being competitive. I play as well as I play and that's that. I excel with some jobs and do poorly with others. I'm old, my hand eye coordination has deteriorated over the years, and I am just not capable of the finger gymnastics required for many jobs. I do well when playing healers so that's what I stick with when grouping. I don't care about parses or meters or any of that stuff. It's not important to me. All that does is put stress on me and I play games to relax, not get stressed more.

2. They don't seem to want to play the marketboard: many of them refuse to engage in marketboard selling and buying, which is undisputably the most efficient way to make money, and prefer to earn money using passive methods like levequests, FC submarines and doing their weekly challenge log/doman enclave donation/retainer 18h ventures. Some of them often times complain about lack of money as much as newer players like me do, but they don't seem to want to put in the effort to earn it.

I put stuff up on the market when I have stuff to sell. I don't go out of my way, or make any special efforts to earn gil, but I also don't need to cause I've got hundreds of millions already. I tend to sell stuff I get from quick ventures, or gathered in excess. Very rarely do I craft gear to sell though I am capable of doing so. Gil is easy to earn and the primary thing to spend it on is vanity as far as I'm concerned. I'm kinda frugal most of the time. If I drop a large amount of gil on something it's usually a hard to get mount like Incitatus.

3. They are more interested in doing outdated content than current seasonal content: they do their savage raids, but they spend a lot more time doing older savage and extremes unsynched, the deep dungeons, side content like ocean fishing and diadem gathering, mount collecting, minion collecting and other things that don't increase their ilevel or their parse number.

Why the heck should I care about parse numbers? I only care about my ilvl insofar as I try to have the best ilvl I can without driving myself bonkers or stressing myself out. Tomestone gear fits that bill and I'm guaranteed to get that gear. No RNG BS. Glamour means far more to me than measuring my epeen against someone elses. If I wanna lay my junk out next to another guy's to see who's is bigger, I'll get on a dating app. FFXIV is not where I look for that kind of "fun." In FFXIV I like collecting things like mounts, pets glams, and TT cards. Why should I care about anything else if it doesn't make me happy? Parses don't make me happy.

I don't get it, does something fundamentally change about your gameplay once you spend a long time playing this game? These veteran players don't seem to be obsessed with the same things I and other newer players are obsessed with.

Different strokes for different folks. I don't obsess over competition and that's all parsing really is. To see who's "better". I just... don't care who is better. I only care that I can clear the content I do, to get the things I want to get. As long as we win and I get my glam I'm happy.

Is it really worth it for me to spend so much time improving my gameplay and skill and rotations and my parse number, if once I've played this game for 5 or more years, I will no longer care to do so anymore?

Only you can answer that question. But no one can see the future. You could still be obsessed with parsing and gear 10 years from now. It's not the time spent playing the game that makes you change. It's the time you spend living. We all change as we get older. Some of us started gaming in our 20's doing all sorts of crazy stuff, and then we get older, have families, careers, etc and sometimes we just prioritize other things.

The community seems to put a lot of emphasis on being good at the job, but what it looks to me is that I will burn myself out optimizing and improving for one savage tier, maybe two, maybe for a whole expansion, but then never do it again.

You can easily burn yourself out if you worry about all that nonsense. That's why I... don't. I play my way and do my best to minimize how my way of playing impacts others. I don't take jobs I know I suck at into group content unless its with friends who know full well I suck at said job and don't care.

As far as I'm concerned games are meant to be fun. Getting stressed over parses and epeen comparisons doesn't sound like fun to me so I don't do it.

[SugarPuff]

When I quit playing FFXI, I was done investing a large amount of time and energy toward MMO related accomplishments. That was a year or so before I even began playing this game, so by time I got here I was really only interested in doing what I feel like, when I feel like. I can remember "studying" and practicing various aspects of FFXI, but that type of thing doesn't interest me anymore.

The market board... If I want to make gil that is how I'll go about it but aside from maybe a FC housing upgrade, which I already have the gil to do anytime if one were available, there's no reason.

[Chie_M]

I'm distracting myself from being unwell right now, so I'm gonna take your bait. As you can see from my forum join date, I moved from WoW to XIV during BfA -- so I'm not a "long-time" player, and yet according to you, I play like one.

1. They don't seem to care about actively improving their gameplay

This isn't a veteran player thing. There's several reasons someone won't want to actively improve their gameplay. I see far more arrogant sprouts who refuse to use provoke, sprint or swiftcast than I see veteran players who refuse to improve their gameplay -- and if I made the same argument as you, it would hold just as little water. Neither sprouts nor veterans can be defined as uncaring on the whole.

2. They don't seem to want to play the marketboard

Neither do I. Never have, never will. It's not interesting to me, and gil isn't necessary in this game.

3. They are more interested in doing outdated content than current seasonal content

So am I! I'll get my savage clears in the current tier, I'll get the EX mounts when they're current, but after that? Nah. I'd rather hang out in PF and join random groups, no matter whether they're doing ARR content, or StB content, or something current.

[DPZ2]

"I started playing this game recently, and I noticed that there is a massive difference in the way people who, like me, started playing after the wow death craze, and the people who have been playing since Heavensward, ARR or even have legacy accounts."

The WoW 'death craze' didn't occur until ShadowBringers, which is 2 expansions after you joined, so "people, like me" doesn't fly.

Players who started in ARR are now 8-9 years older, most have graduated from high school and college and have real lives not centered around raiding. And because they don't raid as much, any logs you might come across were probably uploaded by someone else.

I believe the sample size for the anecdotal evidence presented is much too small.

[ZephyrMenodora]

2016 is not old, it's already way too late to have enjoyed the game at its prime (HW DRK)

Its prime? It has record playerbase with Endwalker.

I guess it depends on your opinion.

Anyway, this is finally a situation where "difference in playstyles" is a legitimate response. Really odd to have a "why doesn't everyone care about what I care about" post.