2259: Back to Solo Play

I’ve been back and forth on whether or not I should continue playing Final Fantasy XIV for a while now. I do love the game and all it offers, but the long period of time between the release of expansion pack Heavensward and its first major content patch caused me to get significant burnout, and while I did get temporarily enthused around the start of the patch 3.2 cycle, I’m once again feeling that I don’t really want to do the endgame grind, nor do I want to raid.

Those who have been following my blog for a while will know that I’ve been one of the loudest, most enthusiastic people about Final Fantasy XIV ever since the beta of A Realm Reborn. So why the change of heart? Well, a number of reasons, really.

First up is the aforementioned endgame grind. This has always been present in the game — it is an MMO, after all — but first time around it somehow didn’t feel so bad, perhaps because I never got “ahead of the curve” and made content irrelevant by outgearing it within a day or two of it releasing. In other words, taking on challenges was always exciting and there was always something to aim for; that aspect is still there, but if anything, I think there’s now too much to grind on for what feels like relatively little reward.

Take the Anima weapons, for example — Heavensward’s version of the Relic weapons from A Realm Reborn. The first step of this process either requires you to give up a fully upgraded level 50 relic (which a lot of people had at least one of by this point) or to repeatedly run FATEs around the Heavensward areas until you got Atma-like drops at a very low chance. The second step requires you to run ten dungeons that, at the level you’re constructing the Anima weapon at, are completely irrelevant to you unless you’re collecting gear for alt classes. The final step requires you to collect 20 each of four different items and then do some other bits and pieces.

The first step either takes seconds or hours of boring FATE grinding, though you can at least attempt to get the items from FATEs while levelling another class. The second step is just plain tedious, though it is presumably there as an attempt to keep older dungeons populated for those who are coming up through the 50s. And the third and final step is an absolutely brutal grind that either takes weeks of daily quests or repeated running of dungeons and/or the first (now largely irrelevant) part of the Alexander raid dungeon. Oddly, the jump in item level and power for this final step is significantly smaller than that for the second step, despite the final step being by far the most significant undertaking.

I currently have 8 out of the 60 items required to upgrade my Relic to its (currently) final form, and the next step of the process is coming soon. I just don’t feel any inclination to do this alongside grinding daily quest reputation, Tomestones to purchase gear, XP for classes that haven’t reached 60 yet, not to mention crafting and gathering, both of which are one of the few reliable ways to make a decent amount of money in the game.

The trouble, then, is not that there’s nothing to do as such — it’s that there’s too much to do, but that too much is based on doing the same things over and over again for weeks or even months. The worst of both worlds, if you will — for me, anyway. There are plenty of people still playing who seem to be quite happy indulging in this grind. Some are even already working on their second or third Anima weapons.

I don’t begrudge anyone how they spend their time, but having been playing a bunch of other stuff recently, I just don’t want to commit the amount of time necessary to progress at a meaningful pace in Heavensward, because it means that I won’t have time to enjoy other games like Senran Kagura Estival Versus, Dungeon Travelers 2, the upcoming Trillion God of Destruction and the many, many RPGs that are still on my game shelves, as yet unplayed. I’ve tried finding that magic balance between FFXIV and other games, and it just doesn’t really exist for me — I always end up going in an “all or nothing” direction, and right now I’m feeling like I would rather play other things.

I’m not hanging up my Eorzean adventuring shoes completely; I fully intend to continue dropping in on the game to see how the plot develops with each new content patch, but I no longer have any desire to stay “current” with content progression, raids or Extreme-level Primal fights. In a way, I’m a bit sad that I feel this way, as FFXIV has been such a significant part of my life for so long — and my wife now plays more than I do — but ultimately, if you’re not happy or having fun doing something that is supposed to be enjoyable, then there’s really no point carrying on with it.

Alongside all this is the social matter: our Free Company has become very quiet over the last few months. I’m not entirely sure what’s caused this and I don’t really want to investigate for fear of dredging up any drama that might be involved. But playing the game isn’t the same social activity it once was, with Free Company chat a lively place filled with people having fun, joking around and enjoying themselves. Many of the regular faces are still there, but remain quiet in “public”, instead preferring to converse in small, private Linkshells rather than the main guild channel. It’s made for an atmosphere that isn’t anywhere near as welcoming and fun as it once was.

And alongside this is the matter of the overall game community and how it has declined somewhat over the last few months. MMOs always have a problem with elitism at their top end, but Final Fantasy XIV always used to feel like it was one of the more positive, friendly communities out there. Now, though, it’s a place where you get yelled at if you don’t speedrun dungeons, where newcomers to fights are sometimes kicked out of groups, and where players bitch about people they perceive to be “inferior” to them both in-game and on social media. The rise in popularity of DPS parsers also means that the particularly elitist players have data to hold over the heads of people they think are underperforming, and rather than offering feedback on how to improve, many of these people think that simply quoting them their DPS figure is enough to make them want to “git gud”.

This is a generalisation, of course; I’ve still had plenty of positive experiences in the game in recent months, and I always made a point to be the change I wanted to see in the community by being friendly and conversational when playing with others, offering advice without berating when necessary. But it’s just got to a point where this side of things has become exhausting and even stressful at times, and that’s not conducive to having fun.

So I’m stepping away. For how long, I don’t know, though as I say, I’m pretty sure I’ll be back in for the next patch, at least to see how the main scenario storyline develops. Raiding, though? Nope. Sephirot EX? No thank you. Anima grind? No, thank you.

Now, I’m 86 hours deep in Dungeon Travelers 2 and I have grinding to do… he said, without a trace of irony.