Dear Community what even holds you in this game

[Mawlzy]

I totally forgot about that one, the Marauder quests were even worse than the Warrior's.
"Look, this boy's family has been killed by a flesh eating buffalo and his jolly band of various predators. I'm a level 50 Warrior and could easily kill said buffalo - but it's your task to do so, for whatever reason. So please level up fast, before the flesh eating buffalo kills more people. Which I could easily prevent, but won't. Go figure"

Black Mage and Red Mage were both good in my book, while most of the DoH/DoL quest lines were horrible (can't remember the Culinarian one, it's been ages since I did them).

I liked leatherworker because the guild lady is always pissed off and sarcy.

[Kisshu]

I totally forgot about that one, the Marauder quests were even worse than the Warrior's.
"Look, this boy's family has been killed by a flesh eating buffalo and his jolly band of various predators. I'm a level 50 Warrior and could easily kill said buffalo - but it's your task to do so, for whatever reason. So please level up fast, before the flesh eating buffalo kills more people. Which I could easily prevent, but won't. Go figure"

Black Mage and Red Mage were both good in my book, while most of the DoH/DoL quest lines were horrible (can't remember the Culinarian one, it's been ages since I did them).

HW CUL questline was pretty fun, just a big cooking competition.

[TheInsomniac13]

Yeah it feeled often like the Jobs had different writer of obvies skill differences.
Warrior, you little Potato! This Bull is now your nemesis you have to grow strong to beat him!
Me: I am bealry above a civilian with an ax I do not feel any claim to be the one killing this beast PLEASE send a marauder out imidietly to deal with this monster!

And then we got in comparison the Pugulist questline which tells a rather good story about lost glory and working towards reclaiming it.

Or Dragoon which basicly introduces Estinien and Nidhoogs eye long bevore they became relevant in Heavensward and making you be recognized as a second Azure Dragoon in sayed expansion, again a thing I would have loved seeing more in future expansion but it feels we get less and less of it.

[Andanie]

Roleplay and housing. If I lose my house I'm out. If WoW housing is really good and I find ways to adapt a few of my fave characters into other games, I'm out.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Attachment to my character is my primary answer. I do like visiting the world of FFXIV and I enjoy having a house.

Second was having goals. Since I ignored most classes until Endwalker came out, it took me almost 3 years to max out all jobs and crafts/gathers and that kept my interest. After that I did some old Relic weapon questlines for Glam that took up a lot of time, and then also checked out a bunch of content I ignored over the years. There is a lot of it.

Now that that's done, I am playing less. I do enough daily roulettes to hit cap on the 450 tomes and do my weekly normal raids once a week. I do enjoy the combat in this game and the jobs I like to play, which is varied since I can pick out anything and just play it as I feel like it and sometimes gearing a new job will keep my interest for a while.

Outside of that minimum time investment I'm playing other games (BG3, Clair Obsure, ESO) until the relic weapons come out, then I will play more for those.

$13 a month (bundled) still feels worth the enjoyment I get overall, but if it wasn't then I'd just unsub.

[Commander_Justitia]

I am not subbed since some time, I used free login to play a few days PvP lol.

I think what isn't really talked about is how the game is preparing for the end of life status already. You will need trusts or squadrons to clear content. And all the dungeons that were redone, suddenly have mechanics that are solvable by NPC party members. At the same time new dungeons are made in such a way, that they are directly clearable by NPCs.
I fear it limits the creativity of devs in how to make mechanics. Like a self fulfilling prophecy that no dungeon will ever be totally different again. And this doesn't motivate as a player.

Did PvP ranked occasionally, it is no longer to my taste. And the series rewards are coming back, so it no longer matters really to participate.
Deep dungeons are nice, but hoped for something radically different from previous deep dungeons.

I also feel like it is difficult to join more difficult content, like cloud of darkness extreme or criterion dungeons hardmode, or eureka/bozja raids. Many things are organized by discords, players are scared to enter it just casually. And everything gets explained on voice chat. I just want to play the game when Im playing it - I do not want to plan my gaming time like its work. In other MMO this is more straightforward. You just login and can do whatever. You dont have to wait hours for a fate to appear - you can just directly queue into it without punishment of losing levels to grind hours again to relevel...

Game increases to be catering to casual playerbase, I think since Stormblood. I can understand why, but I am not that target group. And it was not when the game was launched.

The game is visually pleasing and has nice audio, but gameplay and system design wise it no longer grips me.

[Jeeqbit]

I think what isn't really talked about is how the game is preparing for the end of life status already. You will need trusts or squadrons to clear content.

It's not talked about because that's not their intention with it. Obviously, this was their intention with FF11, but in FF14 there were a number of other reasons for it:

• AI was being developed for the NPCs for solo duties anyway. You could already see them working on it throughout Stormblood as the NPCs became really good at mechanics such as entering stack markers, spreading, etc. This culminated in a demonstration of the soon-to-be AI in Ghimlyt Dark.
• There were so many dungeons that people were waiting ages to get a queue pop. Not due to lack of people doing roulettes, but simply the sheer amount of dungeons was making any individual one harder to pop.
• A lot of FF players just play the single player FFs, and they want to lure them in by saying they can just do the story first, which is obviously a trap because along the way many of them will end up socializing and come out of their shell. That's how socializing is for a lot of people. They're afraid of it until they get pulled into a group - such as an FC, and a significant amount of FF14 players can relate to having been shy at first and then getting dragged into the social fabric of the game. It was a smart business strategy to do this when the technology was already being made for solo duties anyways.

And all the dungeons that were redone, suddenly have mechanics that are solvable by NPC party members. At the same time new dungeons are made in such a way, that they are directly clearable by NPCs.

Mechanics have always been solvable by a computer in FFXIV. There are bots that clear ultimates. Most of the changes to dungeons were actually to make it intuitive/obvious to a new/returning player, whereas their old philosophy was to make it so you have to wait behind the purple line and discuss strategy, read status effects and figure out the mechanics such as untelegraphed stacks.

Many things are organized by discords, players are scared to enter it just casually.

Game increases to be catering to casual playerbase

You see the contradiction in what you said, right?

[Nana_Bear]

My reasons:

STORY: While at times story (mainly in some side or job quests) has been irritating (or worse) for various reasons, overall I've enjoyed all the stories, and some I've absolutely loved. (Same for many NPCs.) (And yes, I do go read a lot of backstory stuff online as well, like the "Tales from ..." short stories, for instance.) There's been no expansion I "hated," but definitely I have some favorites, heh.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS: I have RL family and friends who play too, plus friends I've made in-game. It's fun doing things with them, helping each other, comparing notes, etc. Shared experiences make good times and memories!

HOUSING: I love decorating housing and creating places for people to tour, visit, enjoy. I also enjoy seeing what others have done, especially the Museums and Aquariums. (Shoutout to the Eorzean Museum Network especially, heh.)

VISUALS AND MUSIC: I'm still in awe of how beautiful so much of this game is, and how so much of the music I love. (Applauds the visual artists and the composers and musicians!)

[Doomed_Raven]

I totally forgot about that one, the Marauder quests were even worse than the Warrior's.
"Look, this boy's family has been killed by a flesh eating buffalo and his jolly band of various predators. I'm a level 50 Warrior and could easily kill said buffalo - but it's your task to do so, for whatever reason. So please level up fast, before the flesh eating buffalo kills more people. Which I could easily prevent, but won't. Go figure"

Black Mage and Red Mage were both good in my book, while most of the DoH/DoL quest lines were horrible (can't remember the Culinarian one, it's been ages since I did them).

Sorry that's the one, Marauder not warrior, where you're avenging the boy you've no reason to care about. And yeah the skilled marauder's leave the bull to rampage across La noscea. I actually need to do red mage, so I'll try that next I think, I've heard form others they liked it.

The Paladin 60-70 I just did was decent, we actually get to fight in the coliseum finally (kinda funny they abandoned Jenylins and went back to the Gladiator characters)

[Doomed_Raven]

I should probably answer this thread too.

I still have a lot for content to get through, but currently Eureka content and playing as Paladin has been good, as well as Fordola and Yotsuyu's storylines, really good characters.