Reducing my play time. I need advice.

Asardes

At the moment I'm playing for 5-6 hours a day on average every day, and as much as 10 during the week end. I've kept playing like this almost daily for the last year. I feel I need to reduce my play time because it's very tiring and feels more like a job. I need advice on how to reduce my play time to around 1.5-2H a day, while I keep playing in the most effective way, XP and money wise. Has anyone taken this step?

vamp_emily

I don't think you can manage addiction. Best advice I could give you is:

Knootewoot

I reduced my playtime significantly. I don't know if it's effective. I just go PvP most of the times. 2 times a week I have a stealing spree and make around 50k which is my weekly income. For XP I just PvP.

I play 1-2 hours a day, but not everyday. So maybe 8 hours a week. 2-3 hours is stealing spree but casual as I am also a slacker. The remaining time is either PvP or a few pledged..

also I just like to wander around Cyrodill picking flowers.

Asardes

It's not an addiction. I just feel I'm wasting too much time overplaying certain content, to the point where it has diminishing returns in terms of gear, money and XP gained. For example I run the pledges every days. I was thinking about having some sort of a weekly schedule for example:
- Mondays: Solo questing
- Tuesday: Undaunted Pledges
- Wednesday: PvP day
- Thursday: flexible day
- Friday: trials
- Saturday: gather surveys and treasure maps
- Sunday: log off day
The only content I want to do every day is the writs, because they are time effective. Is such a schedule workable?

UppGRAYxDD

mix up your gaming experience. One day pvp for 2 hrs, next day farm mats, following day do dungeons, etc...Dont get hung up on the feeling that you need to complete a certain set of goals everyday. Just spread it out....

MasterLenman

Asardes wrote: »

It's not an addiction. I just feel I'm wasting too much time overplaying certain content

Sounds like an addiction.
psychguides.com/guides/video-game-addiction-symptoms-causes-and-effects/
video-game-addiction.org/

Asardes

Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines. I'm well past the CP cap, and XP gain is very low once I finish the illumination pool. It feels that I have no progression at this point. So time invested playing has diminishing returns. I won't stop playing in the foreseeable future, just make my play time more efficient.

Alucardo

Zenimax helped me reduce my playtime by making Cyrodiil even worse. Every waking hour I used to be on ESO, but now I'm barely online 30 minutes a day.

ValkynSketha

Duh, try Turning off your pc/console.

Izaki

Kinda feel the same to be honest. After all there isn't that much stuff to do apart the occasional trials or a few hours of PvP. I think that by making an actual schedule you're only going to make the game feel more like a chore though. Just log on see what other people are doing, do your writs, do a pledge here and there, run around collecting mats/fishing (with some nice music to relax), see if there's a trial going on, do the occasional vMA run, go into Cyrodiil, farm some Tel Vars, etc. There's a lot of stuff to do, just as long as you aren't just sitting on that rock in Rawl'kha casting AoEs for like 30 min straight, cause that's a real waste of time lol.

Asardes

Well, an addiction means something you have limited control over. My actions in ESO are very calculated, I have a long term development strategy, certain goals which I have mostly achieved at this point. That's why I feel the continuation of the previous strategy is unwarranted, and I should change both strategy and goals. In the past I have struggled both with smoking and eating addiction, but I have discontinued both in a very short time span. For cigarettes it was overnight, for overeating was about 3.5 months in which I managed to lose 1/3 of my body weight. The difference that I don't view ESO as a detrimental activity which ought to be suppressed, but as an engaging, positive experience, that I want to continue, just in a different way.

SaRuZ

Go outside.

No, but really. I do this too but only for a few weeks before I get burnt out. I did nMA for the first time and after beating it I didnt even want to play this game anymore for a long time. Only reason I log on is for dailies and to keep trait researching. Once they're at 27 days apiece Im taking a break.

Just look at it this way. Like a single player game. What are you truly gaining from this? You beat it and it's game over and it's fun but eventually there isn't anything left to do and it's time to move on. Happened to me with Skyrim. Hence why I wont rebuy it or ever play it again. All games end and ESO is no exception

Asardes

One of the problems I have currently that I'm generating potential merchandise too fast to be absorbed into the trading guilds I'm a part of. I have constant sales, but the stores can't keep up with my output. Playing less will generate less, so there will be enough time for the merchandise to move out of inventory and into the stores. For example I have stacks of alchemy reagents, purple tempers, base materials that are near storage capacity - I don't sub for bag because I consider it financially inefficient. I don't have such high sales. My net profit is 4-500K/week, including both guild store sales, and income from vendoring various items and quest rewards.

schroed360

Yeah that is possible. But it dépend on what you prefer in game ie PvE pvp trial dungeon....because you won t be able to do it all.

So the first thing is to set up your priority regarding those different aspect of the game. Then stick to it.

Then you need to think of ways to get the maximum out of your gaming time.
Exemples:

you want to farm flower? Get up before 7 am and farm flower. The 20 mn morning coffee picking flower at this time will equal to an hour at any other moment of the day.

You want to run vma do it late when poeple aren t availlable anymore for group activity.

You want to run pledge , be good, found a good guild run then all 3 in under an hour.( setting up the hour and the group before help).

Take your non gaming free time in the day for theory crafting, setting your priority of gaming of the week to maximise efficiency.

Last but not least... It s the part that is really hard prepare yourself to become what i call casual hardcore^^ Your good , your efficient but you ll be always à bit late compared to poeple that have more time.

I for instance have an around 2 h gaming time average on eso...kinda casual ( comparé to 4-6 H).
Have 3 of my 4 max lvl character( stam dk, stamblade and magdk) that proudly wear the flawless conqueror tittle...kinda hardcore i suppose.
Yet i m still a pvp noob and have run really just a few trial because....there at the bottom line of the priority list.

Hope it give you some idea^^

Illuzion0216

Find a very very busy job. By the time you reached home you don't even want to log in.

Asardes

I work a full time job and I'm pretty tired by the time I get home. I play from 8 p.m. to about 2 a.m. But some days are a lot more tiresome than others. For example yesterday was simply awful. I found only very bad groups to run pledges with. Severely restricting the number of people I'm considering for running pledges to just close acquaintances and guild mates will probably improve my time allocation a lot. Time wasted with scrubs is one of the primary reasons I want to change my gaming strategy. And I'm not even convinced that the continuation of pledge activity is necessary. I have used up all 215 keys earned since One Tamriel went live on Sunday, and I've gotten about 20 usable shoulders. So it's basically 2 full days or running pledges for a good shoulder, and in time the probability increases that's one you already have. It's an example of the diminishing returns the game tends to have.

AlnilamE

That sounds like a good schedule OP.

Alucardo

Hobbies man, you need hobbies. With nothing to distract you from ESO, it's obvious all your time will be spent in game. I have a full time job, so that helps, but I also make custom raspberry pi systems (consoles, mini arcades, media centres, file sharing servers, etc) for people and sell them.
I made my own retro console that plays old snes/nes/sega games, so I spend a fair bit of time reliving the classics on that too.
But yeah, hobbies are a good distraction.

Tandor

If the OP wants to avoid playing a computer game becoming too much like a job then setting up a weekly schedule doesn't look to me like a promising start.

How about just limiting the amount of time you play the game and doing whatever you fancy doing each time you log in?

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

vonScuzzman

If it's starting to feel like a job, then you need less of a plan, not more of one.

Find a group and just do whatever they want for week. You don't sound like you need anything, so go help someone else get what they need - it's actually quite fun to put all that hard work to use.

Asardes

I find scheduling necessary for efficient time allocation, because most guilds run various activities on a schedule. For example one of my guilds runs trials on Friday. Also I've noticed that there's a weekly rhythm to the game. In some days there are fewer people online, and those who are are usually very bad. So I will probably avoid doing group activities during those days.

Glaiceana

Asardes wrote: »

It's not an addiction. I just feel I'm wasting too much time overplaying certain content, to the point where it has diminishing returns in terms of gear, money and XP gained. For example I run the pledges every days. I was thinking about having some sort of a weekly schedule for example:
- Mondays: Solo questing
- Tuesday: Undaunted Pledges
- Wednesday: PvP day
- Thursday: flexible day
- Friday: trials
- Saturday: gather surveys and treasure maps
- Sunday: log off day
The only content I want to do every day is the writs, because they are time effective. Is such a schedule workable?

This seems like quite a good schedule;e actually! You can time yourself as well, literally start a timer up on your phone or computer, whichever, and when it runs out, say in 2 hours, thats it, stop playing.

Or you just give yourself not enough time to play the game each day, by trying to fill your day up with other tasks. Even if its not chore type things, maybe walking or some physical activity, or even giving time to try out some new game.

Zerok

Yes it's doable. I cut my playtime in half since last year, from ~40 hours per week to ~20 hours per week.

I came to the same conclusion as you. I was working 40 hours a week (a stressful job) AND playing 40 hours a week, so I felt tired ALL the time.

On weekdays (~2 hours per day), I will usually do the following:
- Upgrade horse
- Collect hirelings materials
- Consumable crafting writs on all my characters
- Equipment crafting writs (cp90-140 mats) on one of my characters
- Non-DLC veteran pledges on one character OR guild event

On weekends (~5 hours per day), I will add these things:
- Veteran pledges on one or two characters
- Leveling & gearing up new characters

Also I almost never farm or grind because it's boring. I play the game for fun, not for a second job. The corollary of this is that I can't use BOP sets, I have to use only crafted or BOE sets.

Lightninvash

ok to reduce play time go outside lol jk

just set a timer for x and when it goes off stop playing. if mid dungeon finish the dungeon and go outside or something.

you can always grind for xp if you need more CP or do 1 dungeon a day for items and you can grind or do pvp after for the remainder of the time.

Junipus

Asardes wrote: »

At the moment I'm playing for 5-6 hours a day on average every day, and as much as 10 during the week end. I've kept playing like this almost daily for the last year. I feel I need to reduce my play time because it's very tiring and feels more like a job. I need advice on how to reduce my play time to around 1.5-2H a day, while I keep playing in the most effective way, XP and money wise. Has anyone taken this step?

Get a job. Easiest way to reduce your playtime and gives you something to feed into the expeditious crown items

Asardes

I'm not a procrastinator by character. In fact I tend to drive hard to achieve certain goals within a time schedule, and achieve them in significantly less time because I keep pushing harder and harder. My goals related to this game have been achieved in less time than planned. For example CP cap took 6 months instead of 9.

Asardes

Junipus wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

At the moment I'm playing for 5-6 hours a day on average every day, and as much as 10 during the week end. I've kept playing like this almost daily for the last year. I feel I need to reduce my play time because it's very tiring and feels more like a job. I need advice on how to reduce my play time to around 1.5-2H a day, while I keep playing in the most effective way, XP and money wise. Has anyone taken this step?

Get a job. Easiest way to reduce your playtime and gives you something to feed into the expeditious crown items

As I have mentioned above I already have a full time job. I start playing as soon as I arrive home, and only stop late at night, when I go straight to sleep. I sleep ~5 hours a night, but that's a lifetime habit

Suter1972

@Asardes Just reading through the comments you made on this thread. I don’t know you (aside from the helpful replies you gave on some of my threads) but it reads like you do in fact treat the game like a job.

Even the solution you came up with, ie a rota of what to do on each day, sounds very job like.

It may be that you’ve just reached the limit of the game. Nothing is new anymore and you are repeating old content, over and over and over again. It gets monotonous and boring and you combat this with adding in duties and tasks to do yourself eg guild trading etc etc. It then hits you, as you’ve noticed….. you are doing an online job within a game…..

If I was in your shoes, I’d probably take the time to meet new friends in the game. Go help some newbies on a dungeon, try a new guild. Do stuff you haven’t done for a long time.

Either that or just play something else for a while.

ZOS_JohanaB

We've moved this thread to Players Helping Players

Rohamad_Ali

Just load in PvP . That should fix that .