SuperLouis64: "it's the people more than the game" honestly I think you summed up my burnout with this line alone

dragifire: What you said about nuance being lost online is also happening with Helldivers. You're either a "glazediver" or you're so hateful you're harassing the devs. It's all so tiring. Can I not just...enjoy the game and recognize there are places where I'd like to see improvement?

TheFlu-54: I have never quite understood Dawntrail bad as a simple explanation of why the game is falling off, its just more complicated than that. And agree that the discussion around it ridiculous, here is a short list of factors that will contribute to the decision to play less that I have struggled with.

1) Endwalker was an ENDING and so there is inherently some permission from the game to stop playing or move on

2) The game has an older playerbase and life often gets more complicated as you get older leading to fall off

3) Dawntrail is flawed, not 2/10 bad like a lot of people exaggerate, but its had missteps that leave it at like a 7 or 8

4) The world is just in a place where people are feeling really stressed

5) 2025 has been a great year for other games

6) Frankly Dawntrail showed the FF14 community's ass, its not fun to talk about the game anymore

7) Just life stuff, personally did more real world trips this year than previously; more family stuff is happening

8) We are no longer in Covid lockdown scenarios and people's budgets are shrinking, sometimes the game has to take the cut for rent. (Not me, but others I imagine)

And this is just a short list, there a lot of complicated multifaceted reasons why people are not playing the game as much as they used to. But the playerbase is clearly not in the mood to have a reasonable discussion about any of this. Which frankly for me makes the problem worse.

selectioncrescimento: As someone who enjoyed DT's story and characters yet thinks it could be a lot better, discussing it with anyone in the community makes me annoyed lol

God forbid I say I like wuk lamat; gunned down in the streets.

someoneelse7287: The toxicity extends beyond FFXIV. Helldivers, Destiny 2, Zenless Zone Zero, Duet Night Abyss, Genshin, Diablo, HSR, etc. It's internet discourse as a whole, which as long as you're on the internet, won't leave regardless of where you go. There are very few multiplayer live service games that don't have this. My time in FFXIV got substantially better when I stopped looking at Reddit and the Forums. ZZZ is enjoyable if you ignore the content creation scene and overall discourse. Overall, I think the current system of online discourse rewards extremes. Only way to win, or keep your sanity, is not to play. Do your own thing.

Side note, I love the stance you've been taking with your videos. The examination of DT and EW, the analysis of the job discourse, you've been doing great work. I hope you continue!

rfygband: The internet as a whole decided that a middle ground does not exist on anything anymore. It’s either amazing and miraculous or it’s fucking trash and has to be publicly called out as trash. And let’s not stop at it being just trash, let’s also harass voice actors, devs, and people that enjoy said things in hopes that we get clicks and engagement out of it.

TheBeholder333: the more vids i see about ff14 the more i see that it attracts certain people that cannot fathom that you can like something despite its flaws

markcollier3644: Dawntrail was when the XIV community showed its whole ass. The game will go on, and will continue to have highs and lows. But I ultimately think it would be better if the more toxic elements of the community decided to move on.

Roro0500: Hi ex Japanese to English translator here (I still work in loc and publishing just in a different role). First of all, thank you for touching on this subject, it's rare that people talk about translation in XIV. Currently I have a very middling relationship with this game, I still enjoy the battle content, I still do all the savage tiers and ultimates, but I also don't really vibe with a lot of the decisions made in dawntrail, so I don't play the game all that much outside of doing content on release. One thing that didn't change though is the absolutely stellar localization this game has. I don't think the English playerbase realizes just how good they have it when it comes to the translation. People entering this industry look up to this loc team and wish that one day, they'll grow to be half as good as they are. From the way they handled Urianger's weird Japanese, through Zenos' unapologetic insanity, to freaking lopporit names, every single character voice and minute detail is crafted with such care and genuine knowledge that it should be studied. This is not an easy IP to work with, it's a massive world steeped in history, there are so many characters and locations and references and so much lore that I bet anyone entering their loc team has to be guided and reviewed extensively for months on end until they can work on their own, and this is not even getting into the quirks of translating from Japanese to English specifically that you don't even notice because they are simply that good. I know you didn't need this affirmation, but god, what they're pulling off with this game is nothing short of incredible.

Decimator1227: The community negativity around Dawntrail’s launch is definitely why I stopped engaging with other people in the game. It was just too much

dreameater2661: I've even seen THAT YouTuber who just posting the most negative video. It's either Yoshi p needs to be fired or the wokeness. I can't even watch a ff14 video because when u search up it just negative doom and gloom video.

carboneden4106: Agree with you a lot, People just can't have naunce opinions on games anymore and it sucks, I'm mostly positive on Dawntrail (my only real complaint is jobs need to be better and I think 7.1 was pretty bad story wise) but ff14 especcially recently just is filled with a bunch of rage bait grifting to the point I just don't wanna interact with the community anymore.

Momokujo: I'm glad you posted this because, I've felt like a lot of xiv content creators are saying the opposite of what you've said in this video so much louder and it's made me so uninterested in watching any content related to the game. I've played every single day for the last 8 or so years and recently have also been taking a very minor break because I wanted to wait for 7.4, then I saw the glam and got even more excited. I know as a content creator you see a lot of comments that are rage bait or just really nasty people and I just wanna say I love your videos. I tell everyone to take a break if you need it and if you need it do it!

thisisnotargun: I recently just came back from a year long break from 14, and I'm glad that I took that much needed break. I totally agree, I think the Dawntrail hate has gone way overboard. I was in the novice network a couple weeks ago, and somebody just started randomly talking about how Wuk Lamat is bad. Then they kept making jokes about how often you have to talk to her. It just feels like people are WAY overcompensating for the "toxic positivity problem".

I hope you don't leave the game permanently Wesk, I can't thank you enough for how much you helped me learn this game! But leaving because of the AI replacement situation is totally valid and I would understand.

Dobutsu001: I get what you mean about people in that space. I saw a popular “FFXIV decline” video where they seriously complained that being able to revive in Titan Normal was “removing unique mechanics.” That kind of take just wore me down. It’s the reason I ended up stepping away from that space altogether.

I actually enjoy the game a lot more now that I’ve pulled myself out of the XIV spaces. Talking with my friends and the people I meet in-game is way better than dealing with all that noise.

notoriousvex1632: I'm a destiny veteran that also has played for close to 8 years non stop before hitting a massive burnout and then started playing ff14 in 2023 and it's been amazing to catch up to everything

but most importantly I noticed the same kind of behavior from the community, having measured conversations is just not possible in most places anymore, people are so volatile for no reason

I really empathize with you and everything you voiced, big love wesk

williamcrawford2651: I think there's more people in the "middle ground" of liking and disliking aspects of the game than we think. Thing is it's easier to hear more extreme comments when you operate in places like YouTube where the people watching these videos are typically more invested in FFXIV as a whole. It's also easy for people to fall into parroting what they hear if they hear it enough, which can eventually change how they feel about something.

I think it's important to remember:

-No game is perfect, a great game will stumble at times

-You can still enjoy something people say is mediocre, other people's opinions don't need to become yours and vice versa

ctrtoken: It's the Endwalker patches all over again. It gets a slightly "mixed" reception and it's like blood in the water for these people.

masterkogha6121: (Access to) Anonymity is, as much as governments and corporations may try to work around it, a key founding principle of the Internet and I truly hope that that never changes, however freedom from "real" consequences just brings out the worst in some people. The fact that the Internet can simultaneously allow anyone with a connection to set up a channel and start making content helping people learn to play a specific singular game and grow it out to the point that it can contribute to their livelihood, and simultaneously it permits other people to become just the worst possible version of themself... it's truly unfortunate. I think to myself on occasion, "if you total it all up, has the Internet been a net positive or negative for humanity?", and when it first started the answer was resoundingly "Yes" but as time goes on I wonder if it shifts away from that...

PKcrash: I blame politics for the reason people lost the ability to see anything other then black and white. Its either you are Democrat or Republican. You are pro ffxiv or you are anti ffxiv. Its been like this for many many years now. So many people think the world is just yes and no lmao

melancholism3553: Your point about the burnouts being induced by people more than the game definitely respnates with me. I'm sort of a casual player with this game, as I mostly just do MSQ, normal mode dungeons and raids, and roulettes. This is because my irl situation is intense enough and having chronic hand related pain makes high intensity and mental input needed for complex fights to be too much.

I made the mistake of voicing my frustrations with the game's content releases for this expac and people just assumed I am a hater and a bigot on one side, meanwhile said haters and bigots tried to recruit me into their little hate cult and I'm just like "my queer ass is not going with you clowns, go away."

It felt like you are allowed to only love the game without pointing out its flaws or hate it without pointing out what it does well. Why can't I want better content for me while also just not being roped into being a stupid hater at the same time?

Nuance has been entirely lost. I hate it. This game has become a very lonely experience for me because finding a community of mostly normal (by that I mean well adjusted, empathetic but rational) people has been the biggest challenge for me. By far. I just play this as a single player game now and try to go play other games and MMOs where the community is nicer.

deathsheadcashew: The discourse I saw about the layoffs was WILD on some platforms. People rejoicing about it and complaining about how 'wokism' is going to be thumped out by JP SE and that the layoffs was proof of this. Like oh BOY. People's brains are just ROTTING.

thuncerd1087: Wuk lamat bad please updoot

JudgementScythe: this really has been my experience. just an impossible time talking about the game without people just turning it all into a screaming match. The nice thing is that I'm really enjoying myself lately again but that's only because I mostly log in to do menial tasks like crafting and gathering while I'm working or I'm with my static. I've been spending so much more time playing other games so it's been a very good change of pace and really has gotten me out of the pattern of logging in to play every day. I log in, do like some basic island sanctuary stuff, then usually just log out for the day unless I'm feeling up for doing stuff.

I still adore helping but I've limited it to friends lately helping friend get through some extreme and savage but I haven't been farming like I used to, I just chill with friends and it's been such a good change of pace from before where I was burning myself out completely. The only daily roulette I do is my Mentor because it's just a nice daily thing where I just do 1 a day when I log in and have since I unlocked it in shadowbringers.

but seriously burning out and realizing it was the best thing for me because I also recognize the signs of burning out and can go ok time for a break, like last week I was getting mad at Unreal groups and I found myself angry posting, I took a full week off of pretty much everything because yeah, I've learned to recognize when I start to slide. I took time off my statics 8 prog and just kinda chilled and played a ton more Fantasy Life I which is maybe this years Harvestella for me.

Seriously though I've spent a lot of time curating my space to avoid as much of the more unhinged parts of the community as I can since every post seems to turn into an arguement and that's just really not fun and it's chased a lot of people away from the game. I know for myself It pushed me from wanting to talk about it because people can't bring themselves to go "You know, I understand a lot of the complaints, I don't necessarily agree, but I can understand them" Because yeah there are a lot of very valid complaints people are making, it's just surrounded by this weird rage that's turned everything into an unneeded and angry arguement.

TheJacktheripper92: i wish it wasnt one extreme or the other, just give conscructive criticism of what the game could be better at without all the gloom and doom of some people especially other youtubers. Just stop playing the game if it infuriates them this much, there are a ton of times ive paused the game to come back on another update

Nov 26 2025

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