The last time I wrote a proper post here was June 10th and at that point I’d been playing FFXIV for about 10 days. And until about a week or two ago, I’d been playing it every day, pretty much exclusively.
Then I skipped a day for some reason. And another day. Then I logged in for about 10 minutes and that was that. I may be done with FFXIV for now.
This always happens to me; it’s my cycle of Discovery, Ridiculous Enthusiasm (accompanied with “gonna play this 4-ever!” giddiness), The Routine and finally, the big DROP happens. I think I need to learn to acknowledge when playing has just become due to habit rather than desire, and maybe step back at that point. If I play a few times a week rather than every day maybe I can keep the enthusiasm up. Makes sense, but y’know, at my age I’m not sure I can learn new tricks.
What really killed FFXIV for me was the Horrible Hundred; the huge swathe of quests that happen after you finish A Realm Reborn and before you start Heavensward. During these (which took me a few weeks to get through) there is almost no multiplayer content. A few raids and dungeons, but mostly you run around doing fetch quests.
Back when these were new people were probably mixing them up with doing dungeons for fun, but with the “Road to 70” buff I was already so over-leveled that I didn’t want the XP that would come with doing anything extra. I just wanted to get to Heavensward so every night I’d log in, feeling vaguely irritated by how much these quests sucked, but determined to get through them.
And I did, finally. And then Heavensward began and it was more of the same. Heavensward, at launch, was meant to take characters from level 50 to level 60. I was level 60 before I started it, meaning now the Heavensward quests are trivial. The ‘correct’ course for me would be to level a 2nd job, and I thought about leveling a healer but now it’s been so long since I’ve done MP content that I’m facing my natural resistance to doing it. I was a social gamer for a while, though!
Plus as soon as I stopped logging into FFXIV I started remembering the 5,000 other games in my backlog, frontlog and sidelog. (OK I exaggerate a little.) I’ve been bouncing around from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to Dragon Quest Builders 2 and then to Days Gone (among others.).
The best thing about playing an MMO is that you save money on other games, but the worst thing about playing an MMO is that you miss out on so many other games.
My only real regret is that I bought TWO 60-day time cards in order to get two Fat Chocobo mounts for 2 characters and so my sub is paid through to something like October.
The good news for everyone else is that in patch 5.3 (which is out sometime later this year I believe) the developers are going to streamline this early content to make it faster to get through. There are no real details of that, but if you’re considering picking up FFXIV, I’d urge you to wait until 5.3. Right now the grind is really depressing. And despite what some will tell you, the story does NOT make it worth it. (Well obviously that’s my opinion.)
I had a good run, though. Hopefully before too long I’ll be ready to jump back in for a while. I do come out of it with some fond memories….
[Announcer voice]
And as the sun sets on our erstwhile hero, we segue into a montage episode where we can relive all of the laughs, the loves, and the weird fashions that are…Final Fantasy XIV
I bought FFXIV on whim becuz I’d been given a gift card for Amazon and it was “something different.” It didn’t “click” with me during the free month, so I let it go for a few week, but then I felt annoyed with myself for not at least getting my chocobo mount, so I resubbed just so I could do that. And then I got hooked. I got my Black Mage to level 50 and was working on maxing out her gear ( level 130! ) when the Heavensward expansion came out. I’d already been through all the MSQ quests so I was able to simply jump right in to the new expansion, at least. Basically kept playing through the Stormblood expansion up until the 4.1 or 4.2, when I finally got bored of the gear grind, so I unsubbed for about a year. Just came back a couple of months ago to try to catch up before Shadowbringers dropped, but still didn’t really have any enthusiasm anymore, so I didn’t end up finishing the catch-up until 8 days after ShB released.
I’ve played through ShB to the point where I’m level 80 on the 1st class and I think I just have the final Trial and then a whole mess of cutscenes, but… I hate trials. Always have. So I’m having a hard time being motivated to log back in and queue up. Especially since after I complete that then I’ll just be back to the old gear grind that lost my attention a year ago, ya know?
Which means I haven’t played in a couple of weeks, and I truly have no idea when I’ll log in again either.
@pkudude99 — I was checking out FF XI, the other Final Fantasy MMO, and it looks like the “trust” system works through the entire game. I’m hoping that eventually the same thing happens in FFXIV so we can use the Trust system to do trials. As a dps queue times are pretty long and then you get a trial that is either silly easy and over in a few minutes (early game) or frustrating for a PUG to do and you get people starting to be abusive to each other (later game). My worst PUGs were in trials.
Boy do I hear you on the great drop. The pattern you outline is identical to the one I frequently go through.
The issue is acknowledging and admitting to myself when it has happened rather than thinking, ‘Nah! I’m totally going back to it. Soon.’
…Having just said that, I am going back to FFXIV soon. I still need to finish the horrible hundred, and it was very easy to be distracted by practically anything else during this period. But I still do have a desire to see the content from the expansions at least once.
@Naithin — I hope after a bit of a break I’ll be able to get back into Heavensward. To be fair I only did the first handful of quests so maybe they get less “fetch-y” further on. I should probably bite the bullet and level up a new job, even if it’s another DPS job, just so I’m more in-line with what the game expects me to be, level-wise.
The 1st quests in HW are very “fetch-y” to send you running around Ishgard to learn the layout of the city. SB is the same when you unlock Kugane, and ShB is the same in the Crystarium. Just how it is, I suppose. Fortunately there really aren’t that many of them in any of the locations.
Yep, that pattern is very familiar to me too. You can see the evidence in countless posts on my blog, everything from Twin Saga, Blade and Soul, Archeage, Balck Desert, even Revelation Online and Bless for like five minutes.
It’s fun when it’s new and when you’re learning but once you’re settled and know the basics there needs to be more. Some MMORPGs have it – EQ and EQII, Vanguard, GW2 for me – some come close – LotRo, WoW, Rift – most miss by a mile.
As for FFXIV, ironically I have found it to be far more enjoyable when I completely drop the MSQ, don’t do any of the quests for it, and just wander about doing side quests, kill logs and whatever happens to fall into my path. Played like that it feels like a virtual world from the pre-WoW era. The free trial is fantastic for that. I feel no need or inclination to pass level 35.
@Bhagpuss — Actually that’s what that Viera alt was doing and I was enjoying that for a while. Then I let myself decide she’s going to be a serious crafter and started focusing on that and I kind of killed my own enjoyment. 🙂