Variation in what you do in game, goals and station spinning and chatting to various people or often I have jita undock as my “screensaver”, just watching the noobs and wealthy come and go, get blown to hell and talking a bit of trash in local from time to time.
A lot of the burn out can be reduced by scaling back what you do or the hours you actually “play” in game. Taking longer breaks between undocks or fleets or doing less intensive PVE activities do help. Being in stressful areas of space doesnt help the burn out but adds to it even though it also adds to the “fun” factor through more adrenaline. Scaling down that adrenal factor often takes the edge off.
In almost 11 years I’ve “quit” 4 times. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break and trying something new. I’ve had good friends who have left and not come back because they’ve found something they enjoy more. Myself and other friends have left for a while but found that no other game out there is like EVE and we get drawn back in.
Take a break if you want. It’s even better now that Alpha’s are a thing. You can still keep your training queue going while you try something else.
Sometimes, I like to pretend I’m somewhere else, like flying through outer space in a distant future. I’ll even go so far as to imagine I’m not myself, but some sort of immortal, demigod-like being with great wisdom and power, able to cross vast distances and wield unimaginable power simply by thinking. It probably sounds crazy, but it’s pretty relaxing.
It’s helpful for me to distinguish between boredom and burnout, although I recognise that for some people it’s likely to be the same thing.
I simply became bored with a game which had ceased to offer me opportunities for novelty (as I saw it). Apart from the first few days of play, I never regarded myself as EVE-addicted.
This was not the same as so over-indulging in an activity that you are momentarily too drained to play. That is more indicative of a response to addiction, or at least to bingeing, I think.
Admittedly, they’re likely to appear the same from the outside, and the ‘cure’ - if there be one at all - is likely to involve the ‘break’ (at least as a first step) which so many posters have recommended.
To avoid burn out, try something totally different gameplay wise, infiltration is always always interesting, set yourself a goal of burning down a corp/alliance from the inside
No. They can mimick one another though, mainly in the boredom == burnout ideology you stated, but there can be real burnout. This usually happens in high stress situations when dealing with people mostly. Over the years Ive seen more leadership burn out than anyone else. Like in RL corporate or interpersonal relationship burnout happens a lot. Ive likened Eves interpersonal environment to much more of a sports team ideology than a true corporate/office style one. Turnover rates of leadership, much like hiring and firing GMs and owners coming and going, as well as FCs, more akin to player coaches, as well as high performing or even underperforming player members within the statistics world creates a lot of friction. In sports teams this turn over is a lot higher and cyclically faster than in a corporate world.
This interpersonal relationship stress causes the most true burnouts. Yet you raised an extremely valid and good point in your post regarding boredom.
Your case does not sound like a burnout, it sounds more like “been there, done that, getting bored”. If you actually suffered from a burnout, you’d tell us something completely different.