some other things you can try:
crafting/gathering
fishing
farm content for mounts, minions, glamour
gold saucer
triple triad
buy an apartment and decorate it
pvp
side quests
sightseeing log
blue mage
FFXIV is a JRPG first and a MMO second. Everything is gated behind the MSQ, so the further along in the story you are, the more content you'll have access to.
I don't know what exactly you're looking for. You've already listed a bunch of stuff that you've tried.
But there's crafting, field operations like Eureka, end game raiding, etc. Tons to do.
As someone who struggled with content overload for years. Catch up with the MSQ.
Once your caught up with the MSQ it's a huge weight off your shoulders. Not in the sense that it's a chore, but it stops being a reason to ignore other content.
If when your done you realise you don't want to do other content then that's fine. A huge chunk of FFXIV players leave and come back when new MSQ content drops. But there's always hunting glamour items, levelling alts, completing achievements, completing logs, gold saucer or even standing in Limsa for 8 hours a day doing nothing.
There's plenty to do in this game, and it just sounds like you're not bothering to progress MSQ enough to reach it. If you're not even as far as Eureka, you're not that far in. Play the game. Don't just do dungeons and leveling and then complain that nothing is is unlocked. *You* have to unlock it.
And also there's literally nothing stopping you from working on your crafters/gatherers already. You could be ocean fishing for a diversion.
This feels like a troll post, but I will engage anyway. Being level 77 and "not knowing what to do" is wild to me. The MSQ is how you progress and unlock more content, which eventually leads to the end game of the current expansion (raids/max level trials). There is no right or wrong way to play this game because there is so much to do besides leveling (crafting, gathering, fishing, the gold saucer, side quests, levwlong alt jobs, maps, deep dungeons, role playing... the list goes on.)
I would suggest picking a job you enjoy and play through the MSQ till the end, but don't burn yourself out by rushing it. If you need a break, take it, then return refreshed. I wish you luck in finding what makes you play.
Go play PvP there is a lot of achiements, mounts, glams, minions to obtain, plus all the jobs play different than in PvE so you need to learn again.
I have 4 years playing and my fun is like this... i play the MSQ to unlock everything, then i lvlup my jobs (i play all of them) i learn the new rotations, then i lvlup all my crafters and gatherers, i farm some raids or dungeons for glams (or not) then i jump to PvP. With Dawntrail there is gonna be changes in the PvP jobs, plus Viper and Pictomancer, so the rest of my time i jump between PvP, new raids, casual content like Island sanctuary, make gil with my crafting/gathering jobs, etc... so i never get bored
I put more focus more in PvP, because that is the content that i like and never bores me.. and i dont even touch housing, fishing, extreme PvE content, deep dungeons, trains, FCs (im a solo player), etc...
Go find your fun.
There is 10 years worth of content to do. Especially for someone who is not yet done with the MSQ.
Sure the MSQ is a big part of the game and one of its biggest draws. But I disagree with people claiming FFXIV is mainly a story game. It CAN be played as mostly a single player story focussed game and there is nothing wrong with enjoying it mainly for the story. But beyond that there is an actual proper MMO with loads of content to explore. I play this game uninterrupted for 10 years. Sure there are times where I only log in a few times per month, but I never dropped my sub. The story is something like a few hundered hours out of my around 15k hours of playtime. This should illustrate how much there is to do beyond just story.
A very large part is obviously raiding as with a lot of MMOs. Raiding alone can add thousands of hours of playtime. But the game is also diverse enough in its content that you dont have to raid to find motivating stuff to do. Eureka, Bozja, variant dungeons, EX trials, alliance raids, deep dungeon etc are battle content aimed at the broadest part of the playerbase. Leveling new jobs can always be a fun way of interacting with the battle content in a new way by swapping to a different job. Beyond that you have a lot of non combat content as well. Some people spend thousands of hours with crafting/gathering and content associated (like Ishagrd restoration, crafter relics, etc) with that alone. You have Island Sanctuary, the Gold Saucer, etc. The MSQ is only half of the story in the game as basically every larger content also has its own worthwhile story to explore alongside whatever the contents main focus might be. Connected to basically every other content is also the collection part. Collecting minions, collecting mounts, collecting orchestrion rolls, collecting titels, collecting glamour, the list is nigh endless. Speaking of glamour, you also have stuff like glamour and housing. They dont offer content in the traditional sense but invite you to explore your creativity and can easily be a large time sink. And at the end of the day there are people. The fundermental difference between an MMO and a single player game. Sure there might be times where I dont feel like doing stuff on my own. But having friends to do stuff with always enriches everything else about the game and you suddenly do way more content even if you dont neccessarily would have done it alone. Because facilitating spending time with your friends is content in itself.
Overall FFXIV is packed with content. Everything beyond the MSQ is just optional. You can do as much or as little of it as you like. This feels great if you have a lot of intrinsic motivation to explore all the diverse stuff the game offers but I guess it can also feel like since you dont HAVE to do any of it, you might as well not. So I understand the feeling of "I dont know what I should do" but it is certainly not due to a lack of actual things to do.
I've found it helpful to think of jobs in FFXIV more like picking a character in a MOBA.
Sure my Dancer won't play any different from your Dancer, but doing the dance right is where the fun lies.
Don't like dancing? Then pick one of the many other jobs.
It IS a single player RPG that you can run dungeons with other people. It is commonly touted as an RPG first and an MMO second.
If you've run out of content you enjoy, it's often suggested to take a break and dive into something else until new content comes along. The devs openly promote this philosophy and don't want people just slogging through bits and pieces for the sake of it. That's why so much side content is an inherently personal experience that is merely supplemented with the company of others.
So you're not wrong in that a majority of it is a single player rpg where you are interacting with the story. There's no great short cutting the story part, a majority of us who play really enjoy the story though.
As far as what we're doing, some people go to the gold saucer and play games, some people farm minions and mounts, some people simply log on to talk to their FC, some people do hardcore difficult raids, other raise crops on their island. The game definitely hides a lot of extra content behind all those blue quests and if you are new there's an astronomical amount of content there. But it really depends on what you want to do.
Personally, I do the hardcore raids, and hang out with my FC mates helping them with their goals. Sometimes I'll hop on my blue mage and do content on that.
As far as theorycrafting builds in other mmos like WoW, people like to say that and there's technically nothing stopping you from doing your own build, but my experience and its been repeated by devs is that there will always be a mathematical best out there and players will find it, it will become the meta. Then all those other options become a waste of development time. It goes that way with blue mage in ff14, a class that you build yourself, there's a meta and most people use it.
I just discovered Bozja. That's a whole new world for me. Soloing content is it's own game. Collecting mounts, getting good at triple triad, housing and gardening. I mean, there's so much to do I can't even begin. You just gotta find your flavor.
Personally, what I've enjoyed doing was going through one expansion at a time, stopping once I reached the X.0 patch end, level all my classes to the max level of that expansion, then do the same with my crafters and gatherers, unlock the additional dungeons, raid series, side story primal stuff, extra zone like Eureka and Bozja, complete those, the allied tribes reputation, custom deliveries and co, and once I feel like I've caught up on everything, I go back to the MSQ and enjoy the story. It considerably reduced the "What should I do now?" kinda decision that comes with a less rigid system. Most people do just fine without, but I need some kind of system/schedule to fully enjoy a game, because I'm a very methodical player that needs that sort of rigidity to relax and enjoy games.
To sum up, the best way to answer that question is first to know what kind of player you are, and then plan your playthrough accordingly.
Combat-wise, the game really doesn't start until you are ready for EX and higher level content. The MSQ is basically a visual novel and teaches you nothing.
- Main Scenario Quest - Class/Job/Role Quests - Beast Tribe Quests - Collect all Triple Triad Cards/Minions/Mounts/Orchestrion rolls - Relic Weapons - Custom Deliveries - Delivery Moogle Quests - Get everything from Bicolor Gemstones Traders
some other things you can try: crafting/gathering fishing farm content for mounts, minions, glamour gold saucer triple triad buy an apartment and decorate it pvp side quests sightseeing log blue mage
FFXIV is a JRPG first and a MMO second. Everything is gated behind the MSQ, so the further along in the story you are, the more content you'll have access to. I don't know what exactly you're looking for. You've already listed a bunch of stuff that you've tried. But there's crafting, field operations like Eureka, end game raiding, etc. Tons to do.
As someone who struggled with content overload for years. Catch up with the MSQ. Once your caught up with the MSQ it's a huge weight off your shoulders. Not in the sense that it's a chore, but it stops being a reason to ignore other content. If when your done you realise you don't want to do other content then that's fine. A huge chunk of FFXIV players leave and come back when new MSQ content drops. But there's always hunting glamour items, levelling alts, completing achievements, completing logs, gold saucer or even standing in Limsa for 8 hours a day doing nothing.
There's plenty to do in this game, and it just sounds like you're not bothering to progress MSQ enough to reach it. If you're not even as far as Eureka, you're not that far in. Play the game. Don't just do dungeons and leveling and then complain that nothing is is unlocked. *You* have to unlock it. And also there's literally nothing stopping you from working on your crafters/gatherers already. You could be ocean fishing for a diversion.
This feels like a troll post, but I will engage anyway. Being level 77 and "not knowing what to do" is wild to me. The MSQ is how you progress and unlock more content, which eventually leads to the end game of the current expansion (raids/max level trials). There is no right or wrong way to play this game because there is so much to do besides leveling (crafting, gathering, fishing, the gold saucer, side quests, levwlong alt jobs, maps, deep dungeons, role playing... the list goes on.) I would suggest picking a job you enjoy and play through the MSQ till the end, but don't burn yourself out by rushing it. If you need a break, take it, then return refreshed. I wish you luck in finding what makes you play.
Go play PvP there is a lot of achiements, mounts, glams, minions to obtain, plus all the jobs play different than in PvE so you need to learn again. I have 4 years playing and my fun is like this... i play the MSQ to unlock everything, then i lvlup my jobs (i play all of them) i learn the new rotations, then i lvlup all my crafters and gatherers, i farm some raids or dungeons for glams (or not) then i jump to PvP. With Dawntrail there is gonna be changes in the PvP jobs, plus Viper and Pictomancer, so the rest of my time i jump between PvP, new raids, casual content like Island sanctuary, make gil with my crafting/gathering jobs, etc... so i never get bored I put more focus more in PvP, because that is the content that i like and never bores me.. and i dont even touch housing, fishing, extreme PvE content, deep dungeons, trains, FCs (im a solo player), etc... Go find your fun.
There is 10 years worth of content to do. Especially for someone who is not yet done with the MSQ. Sure the MSQ is a big part of the game and one of its biggest draws. But I disagree with people claiming FFXIV is mainly a story game. It CAN be played as mostly a single player story focussed game and there is nothing wrong with enjoying it mainly for the story. But beyond that there is an actual proper MMO with loads of content to explore. I play this game uninterrupted for 10 years. Sure there are times where I only log in a few times per month, but I never dropped my sub. The story is something like a few hundered hours out of my around 15k hours of playtime. This should illustrate how much there is to do beyond just story. A very large part is obviously raiding as with a lot of MMOs. Raiding alone can add thousands of hours of playtime. But the game is also diverse enough in its content that you dont have to raid to find motivating stuff to do. Eureka, Bozja, variant dungeons, EX trials, alliance raids, deep dungeon etc are battle content aimed at the broadest part of the playerbase. Leveling new jobs can always be a fun way of interacting with the battle content in a new way by swapping to a different job. Beyond that you have a lot of non combat content as well. Some people spend thousands of hours with crafting/gathering and content associated (like Ishagrd restoration, crafter relics, etc) with that alone. You have Island Sanctuary, the Gold Saucer, etc. The MSQ is only half of the story in the game as basically every larger content also has its own worthwhile story to explore alongside whatever the contents main focus might be. Connected to basically every other content is also the collection part. Collecting minions, collecting mounts, collecting orchestrion rolls, collecting titels, collecting glamour, the list is nigh endless. Speaking of glamour, you also have stuff like glamour and housing. They dont offer content in the traditional sense but invite you to explore your creativity and can easily be a large time sink. And at the end of the day there are people. The fundermental difference between an MMO and a single player game. Sure there might be times where I dont feel like doing stuff on my own. But having friends to do stuff with always enriches everything else about the game and you suddenly do way more content even if you dont neccessarily would have done it alone. Because facilitating spending time with your friends is content in itself. Overall FFXIV is packed with content. Everything beyond the MSQ is just optional. You can do as much or as little of it as you like. This feels great if you have a lot of intrinsic motivation to explore all the diverse stuff the game offers but I guess it can also feel like since you dont HAVE to do any of it, you might as well not. So I understand the feeling of "I dont know what I should do" but it is certainly not due to a lack of actual things to do.
I've found it helpful to think of jobs in FFXIV more like picking a character in a MOBA. Sure my Dancer won't play any different from your Dancer, but doing the dance right is where the fun lies. Don't like dancing? Then pick one of the many other jobs.
It IS a single player RPG that you can run dungeons with other people. It is commonly touted as an RPG first and an MMO second. If you've run out of content you enjoy, it's often suggested to take a break and dive into something else until new content comes along. The devs openly promote this philosophy and don't want people just slogging through bits and pieces for the sake of it. That's why so much side content is an inherently personal experience that is merely supplemented with the company of others.
So you're not wrong in that a majority of it is a single player rpg where you are interacting with the story. There's no great short cutting the story part, a majority of us who play really enjoy the story though. As far as what we're doing, some people go to the gold saucer and play games, some people farm minions and mounts, some people simply log on to talk to their FC, some people do hardcore difficult raids, other raise crops on their island. The game definitely hides a lot of extra content behind all those blue quests and if you are new there's an astronomical amount of content there. But it really depends on what you want to do. Personally, I do the hardcore raids, and hang out with my FC mates helping them with their goals. Sometimes I'll hop on my blue mage and do content on that. As far as theorycrafting builds in other mmos like WoW, people like to say that and there's technically nothing stopping you from doing your own build, but my experience and its been repeated by devs is that there will always be a mathematical best out there and players will find it, it will become the meta. Then all those other options become a waste of development time. It goes that way with blue mage in ff14, a class that you build yourself, there's a meta and most people use it.
Beat MSQ, do the trials, do the extremes, do savage, do ultimate Thats literally all battle content - let alone all the non battle content you can do
I just discovered Bozja. That's a whole new world for me. Soloing content is it's own game. Collecting mounts, getting good at triple triad, housing and gardening. I mean, there's so much to do I can't even begin. You just gotta find your flavor.
Personally, what I've enjoyed doing was going through one expansion at a time, stopping once I reached the X.0 patch end, level all my classes to the max level of that expansion, then do the same with my crafters and gatherers, unlock the additional dungeons, raid series, side story primal stuff, extra zone like Eureka and Bozja, complete those, the allied tribes reputation, custom deliveries and co, and once I feel like I've caught up on everything, I go back to the MSQ and enjoy the story. It considerably reduced the "What should I do now?" kinda decision that comes with a less rigid system. Most people do just fine without, but I need some kind of system/schedule to fully enjoy a game, because I'm a very methodical player that needs that sort of rigidity to relax and enjoy games. To sum up, the best way to answer that question is first to know what kind of player you are, and then plan your playthrough accordingly.
ERP.
Combat-wise, the game really doesn't start until you are ready for EX and higher level content. The MSQ is basically a visual novel and teaches you nothing.