Taking breaks doesnt work for me.

[Wissp]

I think the issue with this is that then I'd depend on said people to have fun and I have lived through this before, its not healthy for either parties.

I feel like its more healthy to play the game together because you both find it fun, like I do with my gf in destiny 2. I don't need her to log in but feel way better when we play together.

You know, you are not wrong about this, especially if there is not a mix of friends to play with, relying only on one specific one. Relying on them too much can get to be too much for the person and make you a pest.

I kind of have this with my game wife Aria, one game BFF above all others. But because of my Raiding and EX parties to keep me busy, I am fine if she is not around to hang out with. Even if she is I might be busy in a hard instance to have time to be with her, and she's fine with that too as she does her own thing.

[Boblawblah]

A lot of people love FFXIV precisely because they don’t have to play it. They can log on, idle, and tab out to play something else. Some people use the FFXIV party finder to find people for other games. That’s just how Yoshi-P likes this game. It’s not meant to be a “main game” anymore in the post-Endwalker era. It’s a nice little side game like Cookie Clicker or Neopets, not an actual video game that you’re supposed to be focused on.


And a lot of people love FFXIV for this reason too. It’s an “anti-game” because it encourages you to go outside and touch grass. FFXIV players likely have better mental health than most people because of that. Not a lot of games give you permission to stop playing, right?

caffe_macchiato: continues to afk in Limsa/her virtual house she's paying real money to keep.

[Atelier-Bagur]

It means your interests have shifted away from the game and its probably time to move on from FFXIV. Which is totally fine, people get burnout and sometimes it can be a permanent one.

[Denji]

Why is it always the people who want to solo everything in an MMO complaining about the fact that most of the content is more fun and rewarding when you tackle it as a team with buddies.

Baffles the hell out of me.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Glad you know this about yourself. Maybe your mood is telling you to move on. This is a video game, and not all that important in the grand scheme of life, and that's okay.

OP lists like 10 things, doesn't like any of it. That's fine, but what are you looking for here exactly? Not enjoying how you are spending your time, do something else.

[Themarvin]

Listen, if it came to that, find a new game to play, it would be more healthy and not everything can be solved by having a break... if it was boring to you back then and still is when you get back... find something else.

[Ravenblade1979]

I have come back after 6 months and I still dont feel like playing anything, especially after doing some roulettes and falling asleep again. Playing other games like destiny 2, souls games and some offline games had made me realize how little this game does with the fun and reward factor in any content...

Roulettes are boring but kind of rewarding thanks to gil and tomes.

Extreme trials are kind of fun but very pointless unless you collect mounts.

Savage and ultimate are very stressing during gameplay with rewards that you might not use for other content (since a lot of content is ilevel locked).

Relic weapon farming CAN be fun and rewarding (eureka and bozja have islands to explore, both have ways to earn gil and bozja has very fun fights that you dont need to study for to do good just quick reactions and maybe a broken set of spells)... But I already did most content from both of these and this expansion's relics are tomes... which are VERY boring and only reward you're getting are the weapons.

Deep dungeons are honestly just not for me since it seems like either a lot of repetition or a lot of going slowly cuz im solo and trying to evade traps and you have to be incredibly lucky to make gil out of them.

Maps are VERY VERY rewarding but mostly boring especially since the same formula has been reused forever.

Island sanctuary even after giving it a fair shot it just felt like a really bad farm sim that just so happens you can have a cute character in.

Crafting is the probably the most rewarding thing in this game economically and socially since people are gonna want you to craft stuff... but its not fun at all.

All these issues that are very personally me were not resolved with just taking a break... all a break did was me forgetting my rotations. Im just not sure how to like this game again like I used to.

Dont take it personally if I call an activity you like boring I just need more stimulus in my brain than the usual person but also not too much like savage... I just want to like this game again and I hope someone that has gone through the same can tell me if something has worked for them.

time to move on then. obviously this game doesn't have anything really to offer you then.

[MaxCarnage]

With how slow the update cycle is, I get it. Maybe take a break until the next expansion. Or even 7.3 or 8.1. If you feel like playing then, that is.

I took a year hiatus from this game after extreme burnout. When I came back, I spent time catching up on what I had missed. Now that I'm caught up, I still try to limit how much I play. I'll play other games as well as 14. I don't feel like 14 is all I can play. If I don't feel like playing that day, I don't. If I only feel like running alliance, that's all I do.

I found a lot of my burnout came from trying to force myself to play.

[NekoMataMata]

Most of the problems really just comes down to needing friends to play with it seems. Doing Deep Dungeons or Maps with randoms just isn't that much of a thing.

It sucks but I feel like FCs and other groups that host group content have this weird monopoly on it. You can either run a lot of content solo at a very inconvenient pace, or you can find randoms on PF which may also take a while or you can bend your schedule around a specific group's and try to make yourself as useful as possible to them in order to be able to do that content efficiently.

And from what I know of, this is a MMO issue. Literally any other game like FPS you can just queue up with random players. I mean you can do that with most dungeons/bosses, but every other piece of content isn't so convenient.

[Turtledeluxe]

I feel like the "it's time to move on" argument is silly defensiveness of the game. When the story focus is done with, the glaring issues of the game reveal themselves easily. Let's be honest, unless you make the game your life/job by submitting to the raiding paradigm the combat of the game is pretty bland at this point. As someone into crafting and gathering (and by extension housing) as well as access to social things even I can acknowledge those are bandaids for meh gameplay.

Though for the record I acknolwedge it's a difficult problem maintaining a popular MMO that needs to cater to casuals who aren't good, casual players, hardcore players, etc. and still meet financial goals.