Hello.
I have made the decision that I will be retiring from FFXIV for at least the forseeable future, and mostly likely permanently. There are several factors that have lead to this decision. But I feel as if this is the right time to move on.
I was really looking forward to Dawntrail. I was raiding with my friends again, Both new jobs and the setting for the expansion also looked really promising. However, this excitement didn't last long, and I quickly fell into a mood where I wasn't really interested in playing any more.
To elaborate some more on why this has happened:
1: I'm getting old.
I turn 34 this year. I'm not getting any younger, and while I am by no means ashamed of where I am in my life, or how I have lived it so far. I am not quite at the point where I would like to be, and I am therefore stepping away from the game to focus on my personal life. Most notably I really want to own my own place by the time I reach the ripe old age of 40, and so I can have it paid off for when I retire. To do this, I'm going to either take on some overtime at work for the next few years, or take on a second job/side hustle. This means that not only will I not really have the time or energy to commit to FFXIV, but that I don't really want to have a scheduled commitment that raiding with my friends brings, and I wouldn't raid with any other people.
I am also not as sharp as I used to be. I can feel my reactions, and how quickly I process information fading, and this impacts my performance when raiding and playing PvP.
2: The game is stale.
I have played this game for a long time, and it has mostly felt like I've been playing the same game since 3.0 but with a slightly different coat of paint. Every patch it's go and cap tomestones, and compete with 7 other people for savage gear each week. odd patch content was mostly one and done, and didn't contribute to the power level of your character. It's got to the point where I have dreaded having to do this for the 50th time whenever the ilvl ceiling increased. The formula is in desperate need for a shake up, but Yoshi P either doesn't have a creative bone in his body, or is afraid of change. Either way, the player numbers speak for themselves, and people are unsubbing or quitting in droves for various reasons.
3. I just don't enjoy it, or have a passion for it anymore.
Even raiding with my friends, it just got to the point where there were a lot of days where I would have rather have played or done something else. Raiding started turning into a obligation rather than something I was doing for fun. I think I am at the point where I just want to freedom to be able to do whatever I want in the evening, and because I have played XIV for over 10 years, my interest in the repetitive and unoriginal content has just killed my enjoyment of it now.
It's not all doom and gloom however. The game has been a big part of my life for the past 14.5 years (I started playing on 1.0 release). I have met some amazing people, have some great memories which I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and have had some amazing opportunities, such as being able to attend fanfest to play Feast on Stage. So thank you everyone, and to Square Enix.
Some people/groups I want to shout out in particular.
My raid group. In particular:
Memento Mori, Kool Kat, Medas Skibi, Kiiry Kamishirasawa, Inertia Coeurl.
I started raiding with these 5 at the start of Shadowbringers and they were by far the best raid group that I had the pleasure of being a part of. We accomplished so much, and in casual hours. So many savage fights clears, ultimates farmed, and overall, just a great group of people to play other stuff with. I'm sad we couldn't keep things going again, but we cleared M4s week 1 really easily, and FRU on a limited schedule and over the xmas period in a month, and I have no doubt we would have kept this going should our motivation to actually play the game again have stayed.
Hashtag Freetaru. In particular:
Jinrai Phantomedge, Naxam Naekovu, Sycko Fallalafel, Sheria Barnes
The feast, and fanfest PvP gang. Going to Paris and playing in that tournament was such an amazing experience and I had so much fun. A shame we didn't win, but we did damn well, and proved all the doubters wrong.
Disbanded FC
FC's were pretty much useless in XIV, but I had been in this one since the end of 2.0, and felt no need to ever go elsewhere except on a couple of occasions where I had to go to a different server for raiding before cross server and data centre travel were a thing. So thank you guys, and all the best.
FOE/Dojacord Discord Servers.
FOE was my go to spot in the Feast PvP days, and Dojacord somewhat replaced this when Feast was retired. Both servers filled with really cool people who were nothing but kind to me. So thank you all!
I very much anticipate that this will be the last post on this blog, or at least for a very long time. So take care everyone, and all the best for the future.
