Identifying & Overcoming Burnout in FFXIV

National awareness of burnout skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic as a special type of work-related stress - a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity. But it can also apply to activities outside of work, and really anything in which you apply yourself, such as competitive video games. I of course mainly play Final Fantasy XIV, and chances are, if you’re watching this video, you do too, but burnout can apply to any game or ongoing competitive activity.

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#ffxiv #ff14 #finalfantasyxiv #finalfantasy #mmo #mmorpg #gaming #healing #burnout #raiding #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness

[CaerEsthar]

Check out some of my other videos if you like what you see!

[Animah]

Babe wake up, new Caer Esthar video dropped.

[socram]

The timing of this video was perfect! I was having the same issue for the past couple of months and have been thinking about how to get over my burnout too, and I also left my static and decided to start progging TEA on a healer (I've never played healer before) whenever I felt like it and on Party Finder with a couple of friends. It's been a blast and I'm having true fun again

[RaynorExtreme]

I think this tier has caused a significant amount of burnout in general amongst pretty much all raiders due to design things: most players, even those who had cleared multiple previous tiers and ultimates, had run into friction that they just don't have the words to describe: a combination of strict player expectations combined with a lack of meaningful expression within the fights themselves. This of course is compounded by a lack of being able to communicate skill levels leads to lots of groups with mismatched expectations and in some cases being unable to find groups for to meet their expectations.

[Narlaw]

I've been stuck in p8sp1 for 6 weeks now in PF, and I definitely see the burnout crawling in my mind.

[vnmanning]

NGL This video completely crushed me by the middle.

I can't say I have anything that's been helping me to get through this burnout period myself. I've been struggling leading a static and feeling just disenchanted with the game overall. I've never had a job I've "mained" properly so I've always felt like a jack of all trades master of none and it really hurts my motivation in the game. Being able to swap jobs at the needs of a group and do fairly well proficiency but not get the achivements that give the dopamin hits I'm looking for hurts a lot.

I've been trying to play other games more but there are other deeper underlying issues I need to address but won't in a youtube comment LOL

Being done with that deep self reflection - Good video. You made me feel things I've been trying not to address

[chiekokurokumo]

Instant Sub. The ending pieces of advice were spot on. For me, I started playing FFXIV a year ago (and a few months, who's counting?), and I have to say that I'm definitely enjoying myself... but I'm not playing efficiently. I went one week just leveling my gathering classes to 80. Then stopped, did some Savage progging in PF. Stopped, caught up on Hildy stuff. Now that's done, I'm thinking of working on CRP again... and grinding tomestones for some gear. There's also that Zodiark weapon I need to grind Atma for... And if I don't wanna play FFXIV for a few nights...? I don't! I go and hang with my sis in Terraria or work on my side hobbies--programming and writing. For me, creating something is really energizing because it moves you from a passive sense of self to a more empowered one. People underestimate the power of a creative hobby.

[Snark_x]

Right now it's especially bad with the crowd that's suffering from what I like to refer to as the "Endwalker Post-MSQ Hangover". The current storyline seems more like an interlude than its own developing story arc and a lot of folks are finding it tough to stay interested even when they WANT to. It's like when people binge watch a series/anime and they're getting by on teasers until the new season/edition/spinoff shows up.

[cladinshadowss]

Great video as always, Caer. Looking forward to the new series!

[alexandrezolla]

Great video, Caer!
You nailed the burnout subject :)

[MrCarlWax]

Great video! Spot on how I felt a month ago. Currently doing Ocean fishing ^^. I should start doing more cooking too, I really enjoy it but I'm usually exhausted after work.

[SpawnOfJenova]

Another solid video. I've certainly felt this happen to me this tier, and had a complete burnout as a healer. I had cleared multiple tiers and ultimates on healer, and it was absolutely the lack of control that caused me to just wear down. My static is great, but I felt like any time something happened, be that someone dying or us not meeting the dps check, was my fault somehow. I had to stop playing healer mid tier, and I'm so lucky to have a static that was cool with it and willing to help me gear out my dps role. I've been playing MNK, and loving it. This has been my first tier cleared on dps, and I even was able to prog UCoB and clear on MNK. I'd highly recommend taking a break, or even trying to swap roles if needed.

Also Caer, not sure if it's just me, but your mic seemed a little low on this video, just fyi

[ReyOfLight]

Ah, yes, sounds very familiar even though I’m not personally dealing with FFXIV burnout (my partner is however, so we’re currently playing another game together) but I do deal with a Star Trek Online burnout due to lack of content in STO and too many bugs and glitches and too much visual spam being introduced even though the player base has been asking for LESS visual spam. I’m not the only high end STO player who has taken a break or outright left the game just since the summer. I’ve logged in once for a few mins in the last two months. Before the DPS boards got wiped recently after some major nerfs of stuff and more issues, I was like #15 on one of the maps used for parsing, and before the ground map boards were wiped due to major changes, I was in the top 10 on both, so yeah… Gone from that to essentially not playing at all, all because of how the devs there are behaving…

Seeing my partner is having a FFXIV burnout, I’m taking a bit of a break from FFXIV as well. I still play but not as much or as often as I want to play games together with my sweetie, and me having a bit of a break could also prevent me from getting a FFXIV burnout, along with mentally preparing to try more difficult content in FFXIV down the line.

[GimmeTOKYO]

YouTube recommended me this today a few hours before my raid time, and I’m definitely in full resonance with what you said in the video. I’m not enjoying the tier at all and there are too many variables outside of my control that make me just wanna quit the tier and come back after 6.4 with better gear.

[Etikka]

The timing of this video is inpeccable. I'm definitely suffering from burnout in FFXIV. I'm loving the game and love raiding. But after progging DSR (and not clearing) I felt really burned out already and soon it was time for savage. Not only this tier wasn't kind for healers in general, we had issues within the static. Wasn't having fun at all and I was having anxiety every raid night before the raid. Sure I could have quit but I was conflicted since I did want to raid, wanted to play the game despite all the issues. And being in this same static for 3 tiers made it hard. I didn't want to go to PF since I didn't know the strats and it was already few weeks after the tier started. We're having our 8th kill from p8s tomorrow and I can't wait it to be over. Gonna take a well deserved break and play other games, focus on myself. I'm not interested in the new ultimate atm so I don't feel pressured to resub for a while.

[Edge]

Good video, glad you were able to hang in there.

[van_damage]

Great video, Caer. I find breaking up the more serious content with more lighthearted content is a great way to balance life in the game. It can be as easy as organizing a derust DSR lockout with some friends and just laughing and memeing for 90 minutes as I did recently. As you pointed out, sometimes we can forget this is game that we play with our friends for fun so we should aim to have fun when we play it. Also cooking videos when?

[CrispyRaha]

Nicely timed video! Hope you do more like this in the future ^^

[smallcat]

I think i casually mentioned it before, but im a returning player to FF, i've been playing on an off since around 2.4, but i missed the end of shadowbringers and the beginning of endwalker. I'm currently somewhat going through a similar issue where im simultaneously progging, p5s-p8s (currently 2/4), p4s (to unlock DSR), trying to get groups for the EX trials i missed, level my alts (2) so i can help my friends without being a hinderance, working in corporate AV fulltime, all while trying to clear the hardest ultimate i've ever being... social *gasp*. (im usually pretty anti-social by nature so i've been trying to forcibly break myself out of that as of late), and it's definitely a lot.

one thing i've realized is that a big part of trying to combat burnout is preemptively taking action as well even when you dont feel it coming on.

A couple things i've found that help me keep with pre-burnout stressors are a few things my coach taught me:

1. take what we called micro breaks. Any time that i could find, to do anything to lower the level of "neediness" i felt towards my work, i had to take advantage of it. For example taking a day off to just decompress, or even something as simple as standing up and stretching any time there was a break between pulls, or after your gaming sessions decompress with something that's not technology related. Basically anything to try and fight the "I NEED to do this mindset that we sometimes have for gaming" and reminding our brains it's okay to detach from it.

2. Creating minor goals to focus on, instead of trying to always deal with the big picture. for example maybe you're hardcore progging DSR, a lot of people will just go into the fight, try the mechanics but ultimately their only visible goal is just to down the fight and get the clear. It is very widely believed that breaking down your main goal into a lot of smaller goals, that allow you to mentally get a grasp over your progress will help you in the long run to keep your mental fortitude maintained. Ways to do this in FF are things like, maybe focus on just how to get use of your least used spell, or focus on recognizing a tell of the mechanic you're struggling with the most, or even something as small as exploring the fight a bit more to look for a bit more uptime, just any set of small goals that will allow you to maintain focus on all the smaller victories you're achieving on the way to your bigger goal.

3. This one is going to sound kind of goofy but just actively realizing that burnout is a thing and could happen to you, will that sounds simple on paper during out day to day activities it's not always the easiest thing for us as humans to correctly identify what kind of exhaustion we're facing. Sometimes it could just be general tiredness from having to be on point while playing for 2 hours, but sometimes it's not, and the ability to recognize when it's not just simple tiredness is an important skill to develop.

In learning these things i've felt like they've helped me over the years, especially when i was playing Dead by Daylight for 18 hours a day cuz we were being delusional trying to make a pro-scene for that game lol, and maybe they'll help someone else out as well.

Side note if the new series just happens to be adopting a raider to teach i volunteer as tribute XD

[felix_potata]

Luckily I don't have burnout despite me basically living in Limsa. Somehow I always find something else to do, but at the end of the day I don't have enough time to do what I wanted. Which might be why I don't have burnout? My playstyle is casual, I don't care about raids and savages and most of the time I even forget to do the weekly stuff.
-I spend my time being active as a mentor, helping sprouts clear content and answering their questions.
-I've recently started Shb in NG+ mode which makes me more excited to play, because it's my favorite expansion.
-Most days I spend a few hours crafting or making gposes too.
-I do main healers but for the past 2 weeks or so I've enjoyed tanking so much more. head empty, fell cleave only.
So it's probably the big amount of variety of activities I do ingame that prevents me from burning out.
(I also have a fantasia addiction lmao)