Going to try and not sound overdramatic, but here goes.

Final Fantasy XIV is a game I started playing during late Heavensward, and while I really enjoyed the story, I really fell in love with it during Stormblood for the gameplay. I met my SO on this game way back then and we're finally moving in together next month after years of trying to get to that point. And that's great.

What isn't great is that we haven't been enjoying the game much since Shadowbringers. During that time, my FC fell apart in an event that actually traumatized me, and I had to take a long break. Once Bozja hit, we basically just quit since I had lost my in-game house then. Fast forward to endwalker, we try again and although going through msq was fun, we once again took a long break until news of Dawntrail hit. This is when I finally got excited enough to play again after several old friends reached out to me.

Although that ended up going nowhere, playing the game was fun again, and I actually ended up making some new friends on light - and even lucked into a mansion. So we had a blast, all excited for Dawntrail. One thing that pissed me off though, is that the job design of Shadowbringers, which I hated as a former bard, was there and worse than ever. Then came Dawntrail, in which I was told "wait til 8.0" as if people hadn't been waiting since 5.0.

DT itself was just... Bizarre. Easily the worst msq in the game bar none. Events are still in the shitter. Cookie cutter design. Literally Endwalker 2.0 job design. So I'm struggling to enjoy it especially since I can't actually play with my new friends on the other DC.

Then they open it up again but not really, and I'm basically just being told to suck it up and deal with it. I started playing XI a bit in the free week they're doing right now and I got sick, so I've been away from the game for 10 days now and... I just don't miss it. I have nothing to miss. If I log in, all I will find is a dead pf, crystal tower raids, artificial time gating, hunt trains with annoyingly rude people all the damn time and job design that makes me wonder why the heck I'm even playing when a rudimentary script could probably play just as well.

There's nothing to enjoy for me anymore. They make it a point to kill everything I enjoy with every expansion.

Might resub for the ball and chain that is my house, might not. Yoshida's continued public showings make me skeptical about his words, because tbh... The man is out and about so much, when is he *actually* in the office? Does he even play his game anymore? Did he even see the state of msq? And finally, he's taken to blaming *us*, the community of his game, for everything we give negative feedback about, while saying that everything is too hard or too much work.

So yeah. I'm just tired, and honestly, I'm out for now. Screw this.