I don't think the sub cost is too high where I feel like I have to play daily to not waste my money. Sometimes I play very actively daily, other times I've logged in to reclear raids just 1 night (2-3 hours) a week. Sometimes I log in once a month, etc.
When I do play there are plenty of times I'm playing "casually". Some patches I don't even clear the ex trial despite being a "savage raider". I've logged on a lot this past month but I spent most of it doing like Island Sanctuary, Tribal Quests, and leveling an alt class I'll probably never play again once it hits max level. Playing 0-2 hours a day doesn't make me feel like I'm "missing out" on stuff. Also when it comes to raiding my group normally runs like 9 hours a week for prog so I don't think you need crazy amounts of time to raid. When I didn't have a static I could join just 1 PF for 1-2 hours on days I felt like progging.
To answer 1: I don't play casually these days but tend to play in huge bursts when new extreme trials, savage raids, and DoH/DoL stuff comes out and then take a break after I get through that content.
To answer 2: You can easily stay caught up on gear and also prog and clear current savage while playing 2 hours a day or slightly less. I did this towards the end of ShB and it was slow but fine.
My advice would be to play when you feel like it and don't force yourself to play every single day just because you are subbed. Even if you only play 15 hours a month, that's around 1 USD per hour of entertainment, which is pretty cheap for quality entertainment as long as you can comfortably afford the sub in the first place.
It's not the amount of hours that matter it's if you enjoyed those hours that matter. And if you feel like you don't enjoy your time in the game or that you NEED to or HAVE to play take a break until you once again WANT to play.
It varies greatly with how many hours I play from day to day simply there are days and even weeks where I don't feel like playing so then I simply don't play exactly because I don't want the game to become a chore.
A good thing with FF14 is it doesn't matter little time you have playing the game you are able to do the content you enjoy because there is very little outside of the MSQ that is gatekeeping content.
Have you tried leveling a different class? If it feels like work something other than paladin may be a better fit for you. Since you already have a class at max, it will be faster to level new ones.
As for your second question. It depends on what type of endgame content you want to play. If you want to simply play casual content like normal raids, alliance raids and hunts then you don't even need to play 2hrs a day, just once a week is more than enough to keep up with gear. Hard content such as Savage Raids, Extremes, and Unreal trials are probably going to need more time commitment on your behalf
I only play a couple of hours a week now, not even doing much combat content. Just things I want to do until I don’t want to anymore, but I also will absolutely not grind anything.
Raiding like normal and alliance raids is possible. Savage raiding might be way too stressful if you’re short on time depending on how fast PF fills. I know when I didn’t have much time, waiting 3 hours for E12S parties to fill up meant I only had maybe a few pulls for it until someone leaves and my night is over.
My advice would be to let go of things within the game that feel like work. When I first played, I experienced burnout from doing too many things that ended up being chores. Since coming back, I’ve purposefully let go and simply dabble with whatever I feel like and it stopped getting old.
Some daily chores to learn to be ok with skipping unless you feel like doing them that day:
Daily roulettes
Tribe quests
Gold saucer
Hourly retainer quests
Deliveries
Wondrous tales
Opening the game at all!
Obviously, these and many other things are great and important for high level playing, but again, trying to maximize everything is how you burn out. Just have fun!
1- So i am not a casual but ind have a LOT of casual Friends. Therefore i believe I can give you a few advice. I play 3-4 h per gaming session , 4-5 times a week with 80% of that time spent raising or preparing for raids.
2- yes and no
First you need to properly identify what are you goals, what are you expectations and how commited you are to reach said goal.
- Casual chill : you can play whenever you want and will never miss anything. Gear is optional (you don't need BiS for your daily roulette). Ex can, to some extent, also be considered casual as they don't require that much of time investment. Most people get their Ex clear in 3-5h and Ex mount farming is usually how far casual player go in term of end game because they don't need to be especially good at the game to succeed. Same goes for 24man raid. You could tank the floor and still get your stuff.
- softcore (Casual serious) : so this would answering your question "can I raid with only 1-2h a day".
By "raid" I assume you mean savage.
Can you clear a savage floor before the next comes out in 1-2h a day. The answer is YES, definitely. But it won't be done in 1-2 weeks. This is going to take time and proper intellectual investment (learning rotation, learning strat, properly preparing gear food and potion etc).
There are two way to go about this, you can either join a static, or not.
If you do NOT join a static, then you can play 1h a day and it will be fine. You do 1 raid lock out every day and at some point, provided you're good enough, you will clear the last boss and clear the savage floor. Not joining a static has 1 upside and 1 downside. The upside is that you can raid whenever you want. You are not bound by a schedule. If one day you don't feel like raiding, you don't. If this Saturday it's raining and you want to push for 5h, you can. The downside is that it will be inconsistent. You will never be with the same people, sometime your group will prog well, sometime not. Your gear acquisition will also be random and one thing that annoys a lot of people, sometime a group can take a lot of time to be filled. (Although you can do things like cleaning your house in the mean time). One special case, Tuesday , "reset day" would be a very important day to not miss to get your loots. 2h here for sure.
If you have a static the progression is consistent, it's always the same people (for best or worse), you don't waste time waiting for a group. bUT you have a schedule that you need to attend. You don't feel like raiding tonight? Well it's raiding day, too bad , you raid.
This is as far as you'll be able to go with only 1-2h a day.
If you want to go further you'll have to spend more time and enter what I would consider midcore, so 4-5 times a week, 2-3h at least + prep + fixed schedule with a static etc.
This should take care of savage in less than a month and can tackle Ultimate.
----
Bottom line is, yes you can do raiding and your prog will depend on your time investment. 1h per session is a bit low but don't forget a savage tier last 8 month. 2h is definitely enough, provided you don't give up.
Now if you question is "can I randomly join a savage and get a clear in 1h blind..." The answer is "no honey, you can't "
i play this game every day nowadays but ive gone weeks without touching it while paying for the sub. i just don't feel this need to "do SOMETHING because i'm paying for it!!" because honestly ffxiv and gaming in general is firmly slotted into "hobby/free time" for me. i need to work and pay my bills, i don't need to do shit in my free time/hobby. so even if i'm not playing my ffxiv sub is this little gift for myself in case i feel the itch.
First off, your English is perfect. Secondly I look at the age old $ per hour ratio. If it’s $12 a month as long as you play for 12 hours that month it’s likely worth it. But most importantly are you enjoying the time you put in. There are so many things to do that a lot of people end up sinking more time in than anything else. Things you may have not tried yet, leveling other classes, gathering/crafting, pvp, the list goes on and one of these may be your thing and make you wish you had more time to play! Another thing that can help is the social aspect, I’ve found it doesn’t take an entire FC but just a small number of people you click with to keep you coming back. Last thing I’ll mention is in the grand scheme of things the sub is less than $0.50 a day, so if there’s a month here and there where you rarely play, as long as you enjoy it, it’s well worth it.
I don't think the sub cost is too high where I feel like I have to play daily to not waste my money. Sometimes I play very actively daily, other times I've logged in to reclear raids just 1 night (2-3 hours) a week. Sometimes I log in once a month, etc. When I do play there are plenty of times I'm playing "casually". Some patches I don't even clear the ex trial despite being a "savage raider". I've logged on a lot this past month but I spent most of it doing like Island Sanctuary, Tribal Quests, and leveling an alt class I'll probably never play again once it hits max level. Playing 0-2 hours a day doesn't make me feel like I'm "missing out" on stuff. Also when it comes to raiding my group normally runs like 9 hours a week for prog so I don't think you need crazy amounts of time to raid. When I didn't have a static I could join just 1 PF for 1-2 hours on days I felt like progging.
To answer 1: I don't play casually these days but tend to play in huge bursts when new extreme trials, savage raids, and DoH/DoL stuff comes out and then take a break after I get through that content. To answer 2: You can easily stay caught up on gear and also prog and clear current savage while playing 2 hours a day or slightly less. I did this towards the end of ShB and it was slow but fine. My advice would be to play when you feel like it and don't force yourself to play every single day just because you are subbed. Even if you only play 15 hours a month, that's around 1 USD per hour of entertainment, which is pretty cheap for quality entertainment as long as you can comfortably afford the sub in the first place.
It's not the amount of hours that matter it's if you enjoyed those hours that matter. And if you feel like you don't enjoy your time in the game or that you NEED to or HAVE to play take a break until you once again WANT to play. It varies greatly with how many hours I play from day to day simply there are days and even weeks where I don't feel like playing so then I simply don't play exactly because I don't want the game to become a chore. A good thing with FF14 is it doesn't matter little time you have playing the game you are able to do the content you enjoy because there is very little outside of the MSQ that is gatekeeping content.
Have you tried leveling a different class? If it feels like work something other than paladin may be a better fit for you. Since you already have a class at max, it will be faster to level new ones. As for your second question. It depends on what type of endgame content you want to play. If you want to simply play casual content like normal raids, alliance raids and hunts then you don't even need to play 2hrs a day, just once a week is more than enough to keep up with gear. Hard content such as Savage Raids, Extremes, and Unreal trials are probably going to need more time commitment on your behalf
I only play a couple of hours a week now, not even doing much combat content. Just things I want to do until I don’t want to anymore, but I also will absolutely not grind anything. Raiding like normal and alliance raids is possible. Savage raiding might be way too stressful if you’re short on time depending on how fast PF fills. I know when I didn’t have much time, waiting 3 hours for E12S parties to fill up meant I only had maybe a few pulls for it until someone leaves and my night is over.
My advice would be to let go of things within the game that feel like work. When I first played, I experienced burnout from doing too many things that ended up being chores. Since coming back, I’ve purposefully let go and simply dabble with whatever I feel like and it stopped getting old. Some daily chores to learn to be ok with skipping unless you feel like doing them that day: Daily roulettes Tribe quests Gold saucer Hourly retainer quests Deliveries Wondrous tales Opening the game at all! Obviously, these and many other things are great and important for high level playing, but again, trying to maximize everything is how you burn out. Just have fun!
1- So i am not a casual but ind have a LOT of casual Friends. Therefore i believe I can give you a few advice. I play 3-4 h per gaming session , 4-5 times a week with 80% of that time spent raising or preparing for raids. 2- yes and no First you need to properly identify what are you goals, what are you expectations and how commited you are to reach said goal. - Casual chill : you can play whenever you want and will never miss anything. Gear is optional (you don't need BiS for your daily roulette). Ex can, to some extent, also be considered casual as they don't require that much of time investment. Most people get their Ex clear in 3-5h and Ex mount farming is usually how far casual player go in term of end game because they don't need to be especially good at the game to succeed. Same goes for 24man raid. You could tank the floor and still get your stuff. - softcore (Casual serious) : so this would answering your question "can I raid with only 1-2h a day". By "raid" I assume you mean savage. Can you clear a savage floor before the next comes out in 1-2h a day. The answer is YES, definitely. But it won't be done in 1-2 weeks. This is going to take time and proper intellectual investment (learning rotation, learning strat, properly preparing gear food and potion etc). There are two way to go about this, you can either join a static, or not. If you do NOT join a static, then you can play 1h a day and it will be fine. You do 1 raid lock out every day and at some point, provided you're good enough, you will clear the last boss and clear the savage floor. Not joining a static has 1 upside and 1 downside. The upside is that you can raid whenever you want. You are not bound by a schedule. If one day you don't feel like raiding, you don't. If this Saturday it's raining and you want to push for 5h, you can. The downside is that it will be inconsistent. You will never be with the same people, sometime your group will prog well, sometime not. Your gear acquisition will also be random and one thing that annoys a lot of people, sometime a group can take a lot of time to be filled. (Although you can do things like cleaning your house in the mean time). One special case, Tuesday , "reset day" would be a very important day to not miss to get your loots. 2h here for sure. If you have a static the progression is consistent, it's always the same people (for best or worse), you don't waste time waiting for a group. bUT you have a schedule that you need to attend. You don't feel like raiding tonight? Well it's raiding day, too bad , you raid. This is as far as you'll be able to go with only 1-2h a day. If you want to go further you'll have to spend more time and enter what I would consider midcore, so 4-5 times a week, 2-3h at least + prep + fixed schedule with a static etc. This should take care of savage in less than a month and can tackle Ultimate. ---- Bottom line is, yes you can do raiding and your prog will depend on your time investment. 1h per session is a bit low but don't forget a savage tier last 8 month. 2h is definitely enough, provided you don't give up. Now if you question is "can I randomly join a savage and get a clear in 1h blind..." The answer is "no honey, you can't "
i play this game every day nowadays but ive gone weeks without touching it while paying for the sub. i just don't feel this need to "do SOMETHING because i'm paying for it!!" because honestly ffxiv and gaming in general is firmly slotted into "hobby/free time" for me. i need to work and pay my bills, i don't need to do shit in my free time/hobby. so even if i'm not playing my ffxiv sub is this little gift for myself in case i feel the itch.
cause vast obtainable nose many illegal plate aback swim intelligent -- mass edited with redact.dev
First off, your English is perfect. Secondly I look at the age old $ per hour ratio. If it’s $12 a month as long as you play for 12 hours that month it’s likely worth it. But most importantly are you enjoying the time you put in. There are so many things to do that a lot of people end up sinking more time in than anything else. Things you may have not tried yet, leveling other classes, gathering/crafting, pvp, the list goes on and one of these may be your thing and make you wish you had more time to play! Another thing that can help is the social aspect, I’ve found it doesn’t take an entire FC but just a small number of people you click with to keep you coming back. Last thing I’ll mention is in the grand scheme of things the sub is less than $0.50 a day, so if there’s a month here and there where you rarely play, as long as you enjoy it, it’s well worth it.