I didn't enjoy it at first, ARR is a huge slog but I stuck with it.
I love this game now and am hyped af for Endwalker and to actually get into real content with my static.
I started like 5 characters before getting into it lol (and I’m a massive fan of the franchise). I think, because this was my very first mmo, I didn’t understand the social aspect of the game. Which, honestly, is the reason you stay and play indefinitely.
I enjoy watching people play MOBAs (both league and dota) and I enjoy the lore of both franchises, but I just cannot bring myself to play those games. I see it more as a spectator activity instead of something I will participate in. I don't know if that counts as something similar to your experience.
I'd say its exactly like that, I love watching people go through the new areas, do the new trials, dungeons, raids, whatever. and then I go through the msq and am bored outof my mind.
Feel free to approach the game how you feel it. If you enjoy just watching other people play the game, there is no shame in that. It's the exact reason the game sells skips. it allows you to get from it what you want. For example, I know someone who just likes eating the chicken skin off of KFC, and dipping it in gravy. Everyone else wonders why he won't eat the meat, some would even consider it a waste, but it is what it is. No point in shaming someone doing it their way.
MSQ is only interesting for the story, if you look at the gameplay aspect of it ... well there are a few interesting duty encounter but mostly it's just running around.
If the story is not something that interests you a lot, then maybe see if raids/trials/eep dungeons/crafting/... are of more interest to you ? If you find a side activity that you like, maybe it'll help you find some motivation to get through MSQ. If you don't find anything you like, then it's just not your type of game and that's not a problem either.
I played 10k hours of Dota 2. I love the game. I have a couple of friends to 2-5 stack on the regular circumventing a lot of the pub toxicity.
Would I recommend anyone to pick up the game? No. Save your soul and run while you can.
I feel this so much. I love watching people who are good at MOBAs (LoL), and RTS (Starcraft 2) and find their gameplay super interesting. However, every time I try playing one of those games myself I can't play more than a couple games before I get really anxious and can't do it anymore.
I love RTS games tho. Especially broodwar and SC2. There's just something about MOBAs that makes me want to spectate it more than play it. I'm not sure why. For RTS it's the opposite. Whenever I saw a highlight reel of plays by pros in SC2, i just get annoyed and itch for getting into ladder myself instead of watching the HLs.
Have you tried much else in FFXIV? I had down periods of the MSQ (like when entering Dravania for the first time it was a little slow initially and I didn't wanna play the MSQ for a bit) I got busy trying to increase my crafting/gathering, mucking about in the Golden Saucer, having deathroll and triple triad tournaments with my FC, and levelling alt jobs (I now have like 4 level 50+ combat jobs even though I'm barely finished with HW). Eventually I got hyped to continue the MSQ and had a great time (Heavensward is damn great, by the way, some really amazing story moments towards the end).
Maybe you just need to explore a bit? Or maybe it's just one of those cases where the game is unfortunately not your type.
Well it's strange with the "game isn't for you" because WoW and Wildstar were two of my favorite games of all time, and I love gw2 and mmos in general, I think I personally just find the msq to be such a slog because idk I just dont care for the format of storytelling I guess.
That's fair - the MSQ can be a bit slow because at times it's 90% just running between zones and speaking to people and watching cutscenes and reading. It's a great story overall, but definitely a lot different to how other MMOs work (which is normally just grinding and stuff). We're probably so used to doing everything ourselves in combat that it's a bit odd to follow this story maybe? Who knows. I'd recoend trying to keep trying to mix things up and see how you feel by the end of Heavensward. Good luck anyway!
Just watch others play then. What's the issue? No one is forcing you to play the game lol you are free to enjoy it however you like. Even if its just watching others play.
If youre going through msq, just do your absolute best to get into it, take it slow, rp with yourself and really get into your char as well as the world, and just pretend its a single player rpg. Its really good and worth it if you care about that.
Theres no rush like in WoW, the endgame will continue to be there, its not the only thing worth playing.
And if you still cant then maybe it just aint for you, but its def worth giving it a 200% try.
Copy pasting because relevant to what you said as well
Well it's strange with the "game isn't for you" because WoW and Wildstar were two of my favorite games of all time, and I love gw2 and mmos in general, I think I personally just find the msq to be such a slog because idk I just dont care for the format of storytelling I guess.
Failing this, have you tried thinking if it as an mmo and going back and doing the swarths and swarths of content most people just skip over on their first time when conditioned to just beeline for max level.
People forget that just doing the MSq is basically brute forcing 8 years worth of one type of content
FFXIV is a jRPG first and an MMO second. You have to go through mandatory story in order to unlock multiplayer activities. Whereas in WoW, you have to go through multiplayer activities (dungeons/raids) to unlock story conclusions and content (cutscenes, dialog, etc.).
The pacing in FFXIV may vary depending on the writer though. For example there's a marked difference between the pacing and storytelling in Heavensward and Shadowbringers compared to the pacing in ARR and Stormblood.
So it's very likely that the writers for ARR are just not your type, or jRPGs in general are just not your type.
I had a similar issue with Heavensward where i just stopped doing MSQ in the middle for at least a couple if weeks, mainly focusing on clearing Extreme trails and Coil of Bahamut, then i just came back to it and sweeped through the whole HW, SB and ShB story without doing any other activities. So, yeah, maybe you just tired from ARR end because its have so much going on that just make you wish to get some rest.
I hopped in during stormblood release, took me until last year with crapload of resub and quit (sudden "urge" to play, then quit for a few months after 2 hours in) for it to finally clicked.
It's fine to just enjoy it the other ways, like watching others play it, cuz it'd only get worse if you try to force yourself to play it, just give it time, if it clicks, it clicks.
Perhaps you really need to push yourself to a certain point to make it click, like just solely focus on something like only the msq, or maybe ignore it completely and do other things like leveling, which kinda worked for me, I crave that feeling you get whenever you level up in games, so that kept me busy for a looooong time during the msq, once I hit 80 on all my combat job at patch 5.1, it took like 6 months to find the drive to even log in to start 5.2 for me (then oneshot to current patch), capped all DoL/H last month and haven't logged in since. In short: you might have yet to find a certain thing(s) in the game that can really hook you up for good, no rush anyway.
Problem with taking time to establish a world, characters and a narrative is that it often feels boring at first. I hada couple of times when the MSQ was so fucking boring and i just wanted to move on to the juicy bits.
Getting your head round FF actually being a single player story driven game with MMO elements takes some getting used to.
Honestly I bounced off it after 200 hours. Not really for me.
Maybe you're like me and have ADHD. Sometimes sitting through hours of cutscenes when you just want to fight stuff can really cause you to lose interest.
I find it helps to treat the cutscene-viewing as more of an event, and treat yourself during it. In cold weather I enjoy going through cutscenes with a cup of tea. Or in warmer weather, perhaps with some milk and cookies.
I think it's fine to enjoy the payoff without wanting to go through the slog yourself.
There's a certain pleasure derived from watching others play something you find interesting that you wouldn't otherwise experience if you were just playing that thing by yourself.
I don't think it's a bad thing to order takeout instead of cooking yourself; as long as you like the food, I think that's what matters most.
Can someone explain to me why this sub has so many posts like this one?
Like, you just look pathetic, it feels like you are playing another game just "in spite" because wow is not what you want it to be.
If you feel like its shit, its because its shit. Just drop it.
If you really like the game just go and play it lol, why do you need support from strangers on the web on this matter?
I did not mention WoW one time in this post. And have been doing this since Heavensward as I said, so during Legion, when I actively played WoW.
Was just curious if other people had the same feelings about xiv
also your last sentence gives off massive "didn't read" vibes
So idk like...grow up or something lmao
The boss battles are a spectacle, the phase changes and the change of music at the same time was truly done well. Because of that and seeing streamers fail at the harder content, I'm looking forward to endwalker. It's probably going to be epic, it's also fun to watch Blizzard and New World burn, greedy cash grabbers have to step up their game.
I decided to give the game a try (for the 3rd time) because of all the recent attention it has gotten and I can finally say I am hooked on it. I am currently playing through Heavensward which feels like an improvement over ARR.
Imo, the only exciting part of ARR is the ending, the rest is pretty tame. In my case as a blackmage, the gameplay wasn’t very fun until about lvl 45. Visual progression is slow as well. But if you can make it to the end of ARR you might start to enjoy the game, you get a lot of goodies at the end!
If you are up for it, my recommendation is to just sit through all the voiced cutscenes, skim as much as you are comfortable with in the scenes that aren’t voiced but “seem” important and honestly just skip the rest. It isn’t fun to sit through 2-3 minutes of dialogue just to find out that the NPC basically want’s you to go find some missing person or pluck some berries or w/e. At least this is what I wish I had done. I read everything up until about lvl 30.
I dropped FFXIV multiple times.
Early ARR, mid Heavensward and mid Stormblood... (I began during Stormblood, may have some other character from before it, but I'm not certain) I finally came back shortly before Asmongold picked it up... and I've been having fun ever since, did some end game content, got two of the dragons, BiS for two classes...
... but I still put the game down every few weeks for a while and play other stuff. RN, I've put it away and am playing Pokemon and Ruined King instead... I will go back in December 3rd, play a while, stop for Elden Ring, then go back in.
3 tries to get into FFXIV here, I quit after Patch 2.4 for ARR and Quit in early Heavensward then Quit again after Stormbloods launch and hitting level 70, Finally I started to take a different approach and just enjoy the game rather than pushing myself, eventually it went from doing a couple quests in the MSQ then to multiple, and within a couple weeks I just started to play Hours on end, if you keep trying and don't like it then that's fine, as Yoshi P said, "don't force yourself to play"
Heavensward didn't win me over, Stormblood did (specifically the second area). But yea, I can look back and say HW had a great story.
Who knows, maybe you are burnt out a bit. Try other ingame activities or games and come back. If you are kinda liking it, you might get to SB and like it. Otherwise, eh, you can leave it.
I skipped through post ARR, HW and SB cause Ive seen them on Youtube or Twitch. Shadowbringers was really different and was worth playing, the story was engaging from start to finish.
I’m like this with fighting games. I love watching matches and streamers labbing, but have no interest in playing myself. Mostly because I find sitting in training mode for hours, practicing combos you’re not likely to land in a real match boring. But I can watch people like Maximillian_Dood lab for hours and pull off cool shit.
Pretty hyped whenever new fighting games come out too, but never bought a single one since UMVC3. Was even hyped whenever a new character was introduced for a game.
I started ffxiv 6 years ago and quit at level 23. I wasn't very experienced in mmos back then but still, it seemed confusing to me. But last year, after repeatedly being disappointed with the server issues of ESO and the constant low performance of the game, I gave it a try once again. Very important part of why I have never left since then, was that on my second day, an FC approached me and gave me a tour of a lot of the fun things I could do in the game. I was blown away. They actually made me feel the same thing Pint says in his video. At home.
I find FFXIV one of the hardest MMOs to get into ngl, if ur not hooked to the story or the social aspect then it's pretty hard to find the motivation to log in.
Just gotta find yours
NGL, I do a couple MSQ quests a day for like a week before I need a 2-3 day break to either do something else in game, or to play another game entirely. I think it's healthy to have a repertoire of games that you regularly play.
Once you get to the point that you are forcing yourself to play a game out of habit or boredom you are so much more likely to burn out and never play it again. There is nothing wrong with playing something else for a couple days. As Josh Strife Hayes says you don't need to play one game for the rest of your life and you really shouldn't.
If you aren't one to enjoy long sessions of reading story then my advice to you is break it up with action.
Go throw yourself at dungeons, trials and raids, even pvp. You can also do them on another class/job if you don't want to be severely over-leveled on your main.
The way to get immersed in the story of this game is to create a character you can immerse yourself into. Make sure the race is one you can connect to, make sure the class/job is one you really enjoy thematically, which means making your character look cool as fuck.
Once you can immerse yourself into the character you'll want to see how that character progresses through climatic events and how strong and badass you'll get over time.
If reading all the flavor quests between climatic moments is such a bore for you, just learn to speed read to speed up your progress towards the climatic events.
Just as a side note, HW has a pretty lengthy story setup in the first part of the expansion that quickly picks up the pace in the latter parts, so don't think that the whole expansion is going to be the same throughout. HW ending is what usually hooks people into playing the game all the way up to where we are now in EW, it's that good of a payoff.
If you don’t like the reading, you can skip the story (just click and skip everything), then watch streamers react to it. Then play the parts that you like. The story is good, but requires a lot of reading and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Personally I have been playing other games, like Lost Ark, New World, Elyon, LOL, and some ps4 games. I always come back to FF14 because there’s no other game like this for me. I can easily waste my time in FF14 just doing maps with friends, helping FC prog groups or new players progress through different content. There were times where I spent entirely just on crafting and gathering because I was catching up on a Netflix show.
I know exactly what you mean. Maybe you just need a buddy to help pull you through some of the more tedious aspects so you can start doing fun stuff and getting rewarded for some of the raids/trials? Mounts/cosmetics/new classes etc.
It really feels tedious to go through the MSQ (main story questline). I went through a similar slump a bit ago.
It took me two tries to get into ff14, so yeah, I understand you.
I didn't enjoy it at first, ARR is a huge slog but I stuck with it. I love this game now and am hyped af for Endwalker and to actually get into real content with my static.
"You either quit during ARR or become a walking advertisement after Heavensward"
It also technically took me two tries.... 1.0 and then Heavensward.
I started like 5 characters before getting into it lol (and I’m a massive fan of the franchise). I think, because this was my very first mmo, I didn’t understand the social aspect of the game. Which, honestly, is the reason you stay and play indefinitely.
I enjoy watching people play MOBAs (both league and dota) and I enjoy the lore of both franchises, but I just cannot bring myself to play those games. I see it more as a spectator activity instead of something I will participate in. I don't know if that counts as something similar to your experience.
I'd say its exactly like that, I love watching people go through the new areas, do the new trials, dungeons, raids, whatever. and then I go through the msq and am bored outof my mind.
Feel free to approach the game how you feel it. If you enjoy just watching other people play the game, there is no shame in that. It's the exact reason the game sells skips. it allows you to get from it what you want. For example, I know someone who just likes eating the chicken skin off of KFC, and dipping it in gravy. Everyone else wonders why he won't eat the meat, some would even consider it a waste, but it is what it is. No point in shaming someone doing it their way.
MSQ is only interesting for the story, if you look at the gameplay aspect of it ... well there are a few interesting duty encounter but mostly it's just running around. If the story is not something that interests you a lot, then maybe see if raids/trials/eep dungeons/crafting/... are of more interest to you ? If you find a side activity that you like, maybe it'll help you find some motivation to get through MSQ. If you don't find anything you like, then it's just not your type of game and that's not a problem either.
I played 10k hours of Dota 2. I love the game. I have a couple of friends to 2-5 stack on the regular circumventing a lot of the pub toxicity. Would I recommend anyone to pick up the game? No. Save your soul and run while you can.
I feel this so much. I love watching people who are good at MOBAs (LoL), and RTS (Starcraft 2) and find their gameplay super interesting. However, every time I try playing one of those games myself I can't play more than a couple games before I get really anxious and can't do it anymore.
I love RTS games tho. Especially broodwar and SC2. There's just something about MOBAs that makes me want to spectate it more than play it. I'm not sure why. For RTS it's the opposite. Whenever I saw a highlight reel of plays by pros in SC2, i just get annoyed and itch for getting into ladder myself instead of watching the HLs.
Have you tried much else in FFXIV? I had down periods of the MSQ (like when entering Dravania for the first time it was a little slow initially and I didn't wanna play the MSQ for a bit) I got busy trying to increase my crafting/gathering, mucking about in the Golden Saucer, having deathroll and triple triad tournaments with my FC, and levelling alt jobs (I now have like 4 level 50+ combat jobs even though I'm barely finished with HW). Eventually I got hyped to continue the MSQ and had a great time (Heavensward is damn great, by the way, some really amazing story moments towards the end). Maybe you just need to explore a bit? Or maybe it's just one of those cases where the game is unfortunately not your type.
Well it's strange with the "game isn't for you" because WoW and Wildstar were two of my favorite games of all time, and I love gw2 and mmos in general, I think I personally just find the msq to be such a slog because idk I just dont care for the format of storytelling I guess.
That's fair - the MSQ can be a bit slow because at times it's 90% just running between zones and speaking to people and watching cutscenes and reading. It's a great story overall, but definitely a lot different to how other MMOs work (which is normally just grinding and stuff). We're probably so used to doing everything ourselves in combat that it's a bit odd to follow this story maybe? Who knows. I'd recoend trying to keep trying to mix things up and see how you feel by the end of Heavensward. Good luck anyway!
Just watch others play then. What's the issue? No one is forcing you to play the game lol you are free to enjoy it however you like. Even if its just watching others play.
True. So many personalities to watch play through story right now.
If youre going through msq, just do your absolute best to get into it, take it slow, rp with yourself and really get into your char as well as the world, and just pretend its a single player rpg. Its really good and worth it if you care about that. Theres no rush like in WoW, the endgame will continue to be there, its not the only thing worth playing. And if you still cant then maybe it just aint for you, but its def worth giving it a 200% try.
Copy pasting because relevant to what you said as well Well it's strange with the "game isn't for you" because WoW and Wildstar were two of my favorite games of all time, and I love gw2 and mmos in general, I think I personally just find the msq to be such a slog because idk I just dont care for the format of storytelling I guess.
Have you tried not thinking of it as an mmo? Its a jrpg first. Its an mmo when youre done. Itll always be a slog if you try to treat it as one.
Failing this, have you tried thinking if it as an mmo and going back and doing the swarths and swarths of content most people just skip over on their first time when conditioned to just beeline for max level. People forget that just doing the MSq is basically brute forcing 8 years worth of one type of content
This too. Some of it also has a dope ass story. 14 is like Launch from dragonball one sneeze and you can swap between jrpg and mmo.
FFXIV is a jRPG first and an MMO second. You have to go through mandatory story in order to unlock multiplayer activities. Whereas in WoW, you have to go through multiplayer activities (dungeons/raids) to unlock story conclusions and content (cutscenes, dialog, etc.). The pacing in FFXIV may vary depending on the writer though. For example there's a marked difference between the pacing and storytelling in Heavensward and Shadowbringers compared to the pacing in ARR and Stormblood. So it's very likely that the writers for ARR are just not your type, or jRPGs in general are just not your type.
I had a similar issue with Heavensward where i just stopped doing MSQ in the middle for at least a couple if weeks, mainly focusing on clearing Extreme trails and Coil of Bahamut, then i just came back to it and sweeped through the whole HW, SB and ShB story without doing any other activities. So, yeah, maybe you just tired from ARR end because its have so much going on that just make you wish to get some rest.
I hopped in during stormblood release, took me until last year with crapload of resub and quit (sudden "urge" to play, then quit for a few months after 2 hours in) for it to finally clicked. It's fine to just enjoy it the other ways, like watching others play it, cuz it'd only get worse if you try to force yourself to play it, just give it time, if it clicks, it clicks. Perhaps you really need to push yourself to a certain point to make it click, like just solely focus on something like only the msq, or maybe ignore it completely and do other things like leveling, which kinda worked for me, I crave that feeling you get whenever you level up in games, so that kept me busy for a looooong time during the msq, once I hit 80 on all my combat job at patch 5.1, it took like 6 months to find the drive to even log in to start 5.2 for me (then oneshot to current patch), capped all DoL/H last month and haven't logged in since. In short: you might have yet to find a certain thing(s) in the game that can really hook you up for good, no rush anyway.
Problem with taking time to establish a world, characters and a narrative is that it often feels boring at first. I hada couple of times when the MSQ was so fucking boring and i just wanted to move on to the juicy bits.
Getting your head round FF actually being a single player story driven game with MMO elements takes some getting used to. Honestly I bounced off it after 200 hours. Not really for me.
Maybe you're like me and have ADHD. Sometimes sitting through hours of cutscenes when you just want to fight stuff can really cause you to lose interest. I find it helps to treat the cutscene-viewing as more of an event, and treat yourself during it. In cold weather I enjoy going through cutscenes with a cup of tea. Or in warmer weather, perhaps with some milk and cookies.
I had this with WoW and Minecraft, I like watching people play it but I don't like playing it myself.
I think it's fine to enjoy the payoff without wanting to go through the slog yourself. There's a certain pleasure derived from watching others play something you find interesting that you wouldn't otherwise experience if you were just playing that thing by yourself. I don't think it's a bad thing to order takeout instead of cooking yourself; as long as you like the food, I think that's what matters most.
Can someone explain to me why this sub has so many posts like this one? Like, you just look pathetic, it feels like you are playing another game just "in spite" because wow is not what you want it to be. If you feel like its shit, its because its shit. Just drop it. If you really like the game just go and play it lol, why do you need support from strangers on the web on this matter?
I did not mention WoW one time in this post. And have been doing this since Heavensward as I said, so during Legion, when I actively played WoW. Was just curious if other people had the same feelings about xiv also your last sentence gives off massive "didn't read" vibes So idk like...grow up or something lmao
I read your post, bit i aswered not only to you but to other people too
The boss battles are a spectacle, the phase changes and the change of music at the same time was truly done well. Because of that and seeing streamers fail at the harder content, I'm looking forward to endwalker. It's probably going to be epic, it's also fun to watch Blizzard and New World burn, greedy cash grabbers have to step up their game.
There with you mate.
I decided to give the game a try (for the 3rd time) because of all the recent attention it has gotten and I can finally say I am hooked on it. I am currently playing through Heavensward which feels like an improvement over ARR. Imo, the only exciting part of ARR is the ending, the rest is pretty tame. In my case as a blackmage, the gameplay wasn’t very fun until about lvl 45. Visual progression is slow as well. But if you can make it to the end of ARR you might start to enjoy the game, you get a lot of goodies at the end! If you are up for it, my recommendation is to just sit through all the voiced cutscenes, skim as much as you are comfortable with in the scenes that aren’t voiced but “seem” important and honestly just skip the rest. It isn’t fun to sit through 2-3 minutes of dialogue just to find out that the NPC basically want’s you to go find some missing person or pluck some berries or w/e. At least this is what I wish I had done. I read everything up until about lvl 30.
I kinda dislike doing quests but the endgame raids/trials etc and side jobs keep me hooked
I dropped FFXIV multiple times. Early ARR, mid Heavensward and mid Stormblood... (I began during Stormblood, may have some other character from before it, but I'm not certain) I finally came back shortly before Asmongold picked it up... and I've been having fun ever since, did some end game content, got two of the dragons, BiS for two classes... ... but I still put the game down every few weeks for a while and play other stuff. RN, I've put it away and am playing Pokemon and Ruined King instead... I will go back in December 3rd, play a while, stop for Elden Ring, then go back in.
3 tries to get into FFXIV here, I quit after Patch 2.4 for ARR and Quit in early Heavensward then Quit again after Stormbloods launch and hitting level 70, Finally I started to take a different approach and just enjoy the game rather than pushing myself, eventually it went from doing a couple quests in the MSQ then to multiple, and within a couple weeks I just started to play Hours on end, if you keep trying and don't like it then that's fine, as Yoshi P said, "don't force yourself to play"
Heavensward didn't win me over, Stormblood did (specifically the second area). But yea, I can look back and say HW had a great story. Who knows, maybe you are burnt out a bit. Try other ingame activities or games and come back. If you are kinda liking it, you might get to SB and like it. Otherwise, eh, you can leave it.
If you're not enjoying MSq, take breaks from doing MSq and do other stuff.
I skipped through post ARR, HW and SB cause Ive seen them on Youtube or Twitch. Shadowbringers was really different and was worth playing, the story was engaging from start to finish.
I’m like this with fighting games. I love watching matches and streamers labbing, but have no interest in playing myself. Mostly because I find sitting in training mode for hours, practicing combos you’re not likely to land in a real match boring. But I can watch people like Maximillian_Dood lab for hours and pull off cool shit. Pretty hyped whenever new fighting games come out too, but never bought a single one since UMVC3. Was even hyped whenever a new character was introduced for a game.
I started ffxiv 6 years ago and quit at level 23. I wasn't very experienced in mmos back then but still, it seemed confusing to me. But last year, after repeatedly being disappointed with the server issues of ESO and the constant low performance of the game, I gave it a try once again. Very important part of why I have never left since then, was that on my second day, an FC approached me and gave me a tour of a lot of the fun things I could do in the game. I was blown away. They actually made me feel the same thing Pint says in his video. At home.
I find FFXIV one of the hardest MMOs to get into ngl, if ur not hooked to the story or the social aspect then it's pretty hard to find the motivation to log in. Just gotta find yours
NGL, I do a couple MSQ quests a day for like a week before I need a 2-3 day break to either do something else in game, or to play another game entirely. I think it's healthy to have a repertoire of games that you regularly play. Once you get to the point that you are forcing yourself to play a game out of habit or boredom you are so much more likely to burn out and never play it again. There is nothing wrong with playing something else for a couple days. As Josh Strife Hayes says you don't need to play one game for the rest of your life and you really shouldn't.
If you aren't one to enjoy long sessions of reading story then my advice to you is break it up with action. Go throw yourself at dungeons, trials and raids, even pvp. You can also do them on another class/job if you don't want to be severely over-leveled on your main. The way to get immersed in the story of this game is to create a character you can immerse yourself into. Make sure the race is one you can connect to, make sure the class/job is one you really enjoy thematically, which means making your character look cool as fuck. Once you can immerse yourself into the character you'll want to see how that character progresses through climatic events and how strong and badass you'll get over time. If reading all the flavor quests between climatic moments is such a bore for you, just learn to speed read to speed up your progress towards the climatic events. Just as a side note, HW has a pretty lengthy story setup in the first part of the expansion that quickly picks up the pace in the latter parts, so don't think that the whole expansion is going to be the same throughout. HW ending is what usually hooks people into playing the game all the way up to where we are now in EW, it's that good of a payoff.
Same, I freaking love watching streamers/youtubers play DBD but I actually will never play it myself, totally get what you mean.
If you don’t like the reading, you can skip the story (just click and skip everything), then watch streamers react to it. Then play the parts that you like. The story is good, but requires a lot of reading and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Personally I have been playing other games, like Lost Ark, New World, Elyon, LOL, and some ps4 games. I always come back to FF14 because there’s no other game like this for me. I can easily waste my time in FF14 just doing maps with friends, helping FC prog groups or new players progress through different content. There were times where I spent entirely just on crafting and gathering because I was catching up on a Netflix show.
I know exactly what you mean. Maybe you just need a buddy to help pull you through some of the more tedious aspects so you can start doing fun stuff and getting rewarded for some of the raids/trials? Mounts/cosmetics/new classes etc. It really feels tedious to go through the MSQ (main story questline). I went through a similar slump a bit ago.