My gaming for the last month and a half is a tale of pre and post vacation (with vacation itself being limited to only Clash of Clans on my iPad). The main victim has been FFXIV. But… why?
Pre-Vacation: All FFXIV
Before I left on vacation, I was playing tons of FFXIV. I was questing out in the expansion areas on Black Mage, working on a Paladin, gearing up to start levelling my White Mage, and so on. Everything was great. I was having fun and was accomplishing what I wanted. No complaints at all.
Post-Vacation: All Diablo 3, no FFXIV
Since I got back, I’ve logged into FFXIV twice. That’s twice, in over three weeks. What happened?
Well, season 4 started in Diablo with a new set and possible build i wanted to try. So I did that a lot. But even when I wasn’t doing that, I still didn’t play FFXIV. Like last night, I finished up in Diablo and instead of playing FFXIV, I went to do the dishes.
Yes, the dishes. Now, the dishes did need doing, but it was prime game time for me and I chose to do the dishes instead. After the dishes, we watched some Sailor Moon Crystal instead of playing FFXIV.
I Have No Idea Why
The kicker is that I don’t really understand what happened. FFXIV didn’t suddenly start to suck in those two weeks. I still really like it. I still on a rational level want to play it. Somehow, that doesn’t translate into actually playing it when I sit down at game time. It’s like while I was on vacation, something just switched into a mode where there’s nothing left I can get out of the game, which is usually a death sentence for me playing it.
That happens with games that feature lots of grinding, like Disgaea. I like the Disgaea series, during the story part. Inevitably the post game gets to a point where you unlock the grinding map in Cave of Ordeals (or something similar depending on the game), and run it ten thousand times to get your characters up to stupid high levels. That part? Once I unlock the ability to do it… I’m done. Actually doing the grinding is repulsive to me, because there’s no challenge. There’s nothing new to learn, no skill to master, no thought required. It’s mindless repetition, which as I’ve mentioned before (in why I don’t get the appeal of Marvel Heroes) is the kind of thing that my day job exists to automate out of existence. It’s also why I’m reaching the end of my Diablo 3 time for this season, as I’ve reached that point where it’s now run Tormet 8-10 repetitively to get better versions of gear, to make the numbers bigger. The fun part is done, and so I’m largely done too.
But that doesn’t apply to FFXIV. I was nowhere near the end game, let alone being grinded out on it. I have lots of story left, and I find the story interesting. I’m seriously puzzled by what happened to my desire to play it.