Why do long time players play the game so differently?

[Lunalepsy]

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.

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.

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.

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 They are more interested in doing outdated content than current seasonal content: they do their savage raids, but they spend a lot more time doing older savage and extremes unsynched, the deep dungeons,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.

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.

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?

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.

How dare you tell us how to play the game!

[LittleImp]

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.

When you've played this game for long enough, downed enough tiers and ranked in a way that satisfies you, the emotional returns begin to diminish. Pushing yourself takes time and energy, and some player simply reach a point where they're no longer interested in investing the same amount of effort into speedy clears or shiny logs. They probably still enjoy the encounters, but just don't want to take them as seriously anymore due to exhaustion or burnout.

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.

Their priorities have simply shifted to something which interests them and offers greater emotional fulfillment.

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?

If it gives you fulfillment now, pursue it. Everyone burns out eventually.

[Chasingstars]

I'll bite, even though my character is technically younger.

1. They don't seem to care about actively improving their gameplay
2. They don't seem to want to play the marketboard
3. They are more interested in doing outdated content than current seasonal content

1) I care about improving at my job, but only to the extent that a dungeon or trial or raid is completed in 1-go to the best of my capabilities.
2) I only seek out gil for stuff I actually want. Accumulating gil for the sake of it makes my brain feel like its on autopilot.
3) I don't feel interested in Savage Panda or Extreme Light/Dark, so I just go do stuff for fun with friends instead. I can also come back to it later when I feel like it.

[Seera1024]

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

1. Because they've improved all they want to improve for the content they do and the groups they want to play with. They've also probably reached a point in real life where they can't sink several hours a day working towards improving and still have time to do the things they want to in game. Meaning they have to be content with the slow improvement that comes with just regular play.

2. They've likely gotten the items they want and have enough gil to cover new things they want that take gil. They don't need to play the market board anymore.

3. Because they're playing the content that's fun for them.

I learned long ago that it's never worth it to work on a goal so hard that you burn yourself out when you obtain your goal. Like what's the point of obtaining something if you stop playing the game right after you obtain it?

[Thi]

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.

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.

Don't care enough about it anymore. I used to do orange savage parses back in the day, now I'm blue-purple.

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.

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.

Gil is worthless. Got enough to buy what I need, why put in the effort to get more.

Honestly as a player who has played for a while, the same treadmill since HW has burnt me out and I find myself just doing the bare minimum to stay at endgame. With the end of the story-arc in 6.0, I also have a sense of "completion" that just makes me kind of meh about the future of the game. 6.1 is going to have to really hook me with the next story or else I'll probably just move on.

[Jeeqbit]

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.

Because it just doesn't matter as long as you can clear. It's nice to want to improve your gameplay if you have the time and find it fun to do so, but if your gameplay is good enough to clear everything in the game, then what is the point of improving it?

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.

It's too complicated and too exhausting to bother with. That is my reason. Leveling 10 crafters and constantly unlisting and relisting items to compete with prices isn't what I would find fun and games are supposed to be played for fun. Submarines are boring, take years and require special FC permissions so why bother with it? Retainers take years to level as well so I gave up on that.

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.

Well yes, many veteran players are less interested in gear and more interested in achievement hunting, mount collecting, minion collecting and triple triad card collecting. These involve doing old content that you didn't get the rewards from yet.

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?

It's good to improve your gameplay, but there is a point where you don't learn much anymore because you already know everything. So maybe you could improve your gameplay until you aren't learning anything and then focus on something else?

[Adeacia]

1: I care about playing FF14, not Spreadsheet Simulator. Optimizing is unfun. Plus I learn how to play jobs the proper way, without a crutch like those that seem to be incapable of figuring anything out on their own so they have a tool do it for them.

2: Gil is worthless to me. It's incredibly rare that I ever even use it for anything to begin with.

3: Why focus on new content when there is tons of old content still to enjoy? The new stuff isn't going anywhere. This isn't WoW. All the content is always relevant.

[Teno]

I think long time players has been mistaken for "these few dudes that I have talked to for a few sec and that happened to be playing since 2014".

[Minarisweet]

Im sorry so many people focus more on being mean on these forums, anyways.

People play videogames for fun and there's not a lot of fun to be had in current content since its basically one and done, all the other rewards are super optional unless you are going for the current tier ultimate (if there is gonna be any). There's also no reason to get gil for playing the combat content either... its all really affordable with roulette money and gil only has uses for optional stuff that doesn't affect your gameplay signficantly or give you any real status in the community unless you are super into role playing... which I genuinely think is the hardcore mode of the game lol.

People try new stuff like old content cuz honestly its fun to do stuff in this game but there's no real incentive to do it again like in other mmos.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Why do forum posters make wild, unsupported generalizations?

Fixed that for you