Why do long time players play the game so differently?

[hagare]

okay so I'm seeing this pattern being repeated across this thread
basically people who have "already done it", i.e. have already parsed and got all hot and bothered about it, don't seem to want to do that endlessly for every single patch, every new savage tier, every new expansion
which begs the question: does parsing really matter when you have to do it all over again every 6 months to 2 years?
it feels like some endless carrot chasing that doesn't result in any long term reward or achievement, and more of a thing that you do when you're new and have something to prove.

parsing doesn't even matter anymore.
As someone who took a 5 year break.
I'm done running in the wheel.

[SeiyaSoiya]

parsing doesn't even matter anymore.
As someone who took a 5 year break.
I'm done running in the wheel.

I'm curious as to why you consider parsing a chore and a hamster wheel, isn't parsing something you should do for your own self improvement and on your own volition?
Not necessarily talking about you in particular, I see this sentiment to be all too common: parsing is an obligation and something you MUST do to prove to some strangers that you are good at the gamr, even though there has been no recorded ingame instance of people judging you on your parses.

[Saimeren]

You're upset that people play different aspects of the game and don't solely focus on the one specific aspect that you enjoy the most?

What a weird thing to concern yourself with. Especially since their gameplay didn't affect you in the slightest.

[IdowhatIwant]

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.

1. As far as logs go I pull above average dps which should be sufficient for clearing content. So I am already better than over half the players playing my class which I can play all classes at this level at this point. You can pull purple or orange dps, but if you can not do mechanics you can not clear raids regardless. Sadly in this game a good 90% of pugs are not able to do mechanics or follow directions. I speak for myself here but I find most classes much less interesting then they were in previous states, so it
gives me very less drive to care about improving game play between that and the pug problem.

2. I already have enough gold to do what ever I want in the game. Playing the marketboard? I am the marketboard.

3. I have completed that content already, it may seem new and exciting to a new player but at this point it is nothing but a waste of time for me and in some cases a rehash of other content.

So to you, all of this stuff is new and exciting, to me it's PTSD of a grind already completed. You have to remember that almost every thing has a 6 month period before additional content is released to replace it. This is a pretty long time to be repeating content so many veterans clear it, get there mounts with in a month or less, and quit the game for a few months. Play it through an expansions patch cycle and you will see, it is actually a pretty terrible lazy and predictable patch cycle which demotivates a lot of veterans and new players IMO.

[Deveryn]

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.

-snip-

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.

-snip-

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.

The numbers can be misleading. I haven't been here long, but I've been in the MMO scene for many years. I had essentially retired, but a friend told me about all the fun FF goodies and how much the game had improved, so here I am.

On the 2nd point. I don't play the marketboard because people don't know how to play it properly. All the undercutting is excessive and ridiculous and speaks to a severe lack of patience. There's actually plenty (enough) to be made just running normal content. I want to play the actual game, not camp a board to move some paltry items.

You don't get other people and ask if it's really worth it. Forget about other people and focus on yourself. Find what works for you, just as we have.

The community puts emphasis on being good because so many are careless and oftentimes bad, resulting in a lot of headaches. It takes a few minutes to look over a guide or a video for a piece of content. It doesn't take a huge amount of effort to put together a decent set of gear for the top level dungeon, but people get lazy on that. Somehow, we veterans are supposed to bear the full responsibility of educating people and carrying people through content and we have 60 to 90 minutes to complete that task.

[hagare]

I'm curious as to why you consider parsing a chore and a hamster wheel, isn't parsing something you should do for your own self improvement and on your own volition?
Not necessarily talking about you in particular, I see this sentiment to be all too common: parsing is an obligation and something you MUST do to prove to some strangers that you are good at the gamr, even though there has been no recorded ingame instance of people judging you on your parses.

oh no.
I wasn't even talking about parsing.
I don't mind the parsing as long as they're not used to put people down.
It's a tool, and the positive and negative only comes from the one using the tool.
When I was raiding, I like asking for my numbers from each raid run so I can min max my rotation to the fight.
But that was then, now I just don't.
I quit 5 years ago because I don't see the end of the hamster wheel of get gear to raid, clear raid to get gear to clear raid easier.
It's like a mobile game. You clear things to get better stuff so you can clear things so you can get better stuff and so on and so on.
I got tired. I quit.

Now, I don't plan on raiding, I'm just here for the story and the atmosphere.
And since I don't do content that needs min maxing anymore, eh *shrug*
Of course, this is just me.
different takes for different people.

[andrealfus]

if you don't log in to this game solely to play mahjong with your fellow levin chads, you're already doing it wrong. sorry.

[IckeDerTyp]

They huh! Is that all of the veterans? Just some? A minority? A majority?

Leave people to enjoy the game in their own way ^^

[SamsaraTrickstar]

Easy this players don't like the game to much any more but got no where to move. New world is trash and lost arc is ungodly boring for most if the early game,way more that ff14 ever was.

[dspguy]

The veteran players played like the OP played back in 2013 and 2014. They did all the new stuff. They strived to play the best they possibly could, etc etc. Then they moved on. They realized that all that min-maxing doesn't usually add up to much. All that grinding for gear in content that you don't need the gear to clear it and just becomes moot a few months later when everybody can get an upgrade to better crafted gear on Day 1 of next tier... They don't play the MB because many have enough gil to last the lifetime of the game.

OP, you'll see for yourself after you become the veteran. You'll find yourself grinding old content for achievements, mounts, or whatever it is you find fun.

Mind you, there are still plenty of veterans out there doing all the things you claim they aren't doing such as trying to get better and relearn the job when the abilities change. However, there are also plenty out there where I think that statement does apply.