I've been wanting to make this post for a while to get things off my chest.
At the moment, I'm fucking sick of playing FFXIV. I'm not enjoying it, and I think I'm long overdue a break.
Endwalker got off to a fantastic start. The story was fantastic, there was minimal issues apart from expected congestion due to the influx of new players, and my group cleared the first savage tier week one with ease. Things were looking great, I was pumped for the new ultimate, and I was really happy to finally get a week 1 clear without having to resort to hardcore hours.
Then something somewhat unexpected happened.
We disbanded.
A long story short, the group was very split in opinion on how much we wanted to raid after savage was dead. Half the group wanted to go back and improve our strat/do speed kills or log runs, where as the other half wanted to just clear for the week and chill.
I personally was firmly in camp chill. I have no interest in spamming the same fights over and over for the sake of swinging my dick around on FFLogs. If I can clear a fight, and my DPS/performance was good. I was more than satisfied, and I would rather go and play other stuff until new content arrives.
Despite trying to compromise, one of our members who wanted to raid more decided to leave. This then triggered a chain reaction of 2 other people leaving as university was starting for them soon, and at this point it was not worth replacing 3 core members of a successful group. So we called it a day.
To this day, I'm still sad/pissed off about this. This group was easily the most successful one I have been in. Everyone was capable, got along and it was genuinely a pleasure to raid. We got a lot of shit done, Well over 50 TEA/UwU/UCoB clears and week 1/2 savage tier clears over the course of over 2 years. For this to disband over FFLogs in my opinion will always be ridiculous.
At this point, I contemplated just quitting. But I decided to have a look to see if there were any groups recruiting for ultimate and go from there. I had zero luck on the recruitment discord, every group of light was seemingly still progging savage on week 10, which is way behind my expectations, or the few groups that were wanted to do FFLogs in the long run.
Honestly, fuck that website. It's created a ridiculous culture in this game and if I won the lottery, I would buy the site from the owner and delete it.
I was on the verge of giving up, when I was invited to raid on Chaos by Piz, After some discussion, I transferred to Chaos to prepare. I geared up NIN as I wanted to go back to it, and into ultimate we went.
We are currently on a two week break at the time of writing this, due to members going on holiday. But I have to say I haven't enjoyed raiding at all since my old group disbanded. I've logged in twice since our break, once to play PvP for a couple of hours, and another for the make it rain event.It's nothing against this group. They're a nice bunch of lads and very capable.
It could be that it's different to what I'm used to.
It could be that I'm just horrifically burnt out after raiding nearly non stop for 9 years.
It could be that I'm 31 years old this month, and I'm getting too old for this shit.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm leaning towards a burn out. I haven't had a decent break from this game since 2.0 launch. If I wasn't raiding, I was tryharding in Feast and this has been a thing for 9 years.
It's getting to a point where I dread going to raid. Most days I just want to play something else and forget about FFXIV, and what has happened since Endwalker launch, but I reluctantly attend, and do my best. some days I just want to some time myself to relax after a hard day at work.
DSR got off to a rocky start, but after talking it out and adjusting our mindset, we have made really good progress. We have reached the beginning of Phase 6, and are edging towards a kill. We also agreed to cut down our days and hours, as I wasn't the only one who was going insane from raiding 5-6 days a week for 4-6 hours at a time.
At this point, I just want to kill DSR, and go on a long break. I'm hopeful that once Memento and Kat are ready, we can reform our old group with a few new additions. I think a lot of what's causing me to feel this way is because I enjoy raiding with my friends, and it's just not the same without them.
My plan of action is as follows:
If the next ultimate is in 6.3, I will take a break for the rest of the expansion, and see how things are for 7.0
If ultimate is delayed until 6.5, I will take a break during 6.2 and 6.3, and return to the game in 6.4 to gear for the new ultimate, providing I can find the right group.
If ultimate is delayed beyond this point, then happy fucking days.
If I can't reform my old group or find one that's similar. Then it's game over for me and this game. My account is valuable, and I don't intend on wasting it's potential.
People might ask, why don't I just play casually? I have tried this before, and it's not for me. It just frustrates me knowing that I am capable of raiding at a very high level, but not being able to do so. I would rather just not do it at all.
Since our break, I've been chilling either playing single player games, or some FFXI with some of my old group. Mentally, I feel so much better, and if my UCOB prog from 4.1 taught me anything, is that pushing myself when I'm clearly burnt out is not good for me.
I've said it many times before, and I will say it again. Video games are supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, you should play something else.
I'm in far too deep to drop out of ultimate now, and it would be very disrespectful to my new group for me to do so at this point, so I will see this fight out until the end. But after this is done, I have some serious decisions to make.
Thanks for reading my rant. I want to type out some thoughts about the new PvP at some point. but that will have to wait for another day.
Until next time,
Dom/Aud.
P.S: FFXI is still the best MMO, and if you haven't tried it, you should.
