Why does SE want Relics to be boring?

1.0 Relics had this fun 4 man trial part that was pretty cool. They should add that back.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

This frustrates me incredibly because the original relic questline IMO was one of the more interesting pieces of content in this game. Relics in turn had so much potential to be the sort of gear we were looking forward to, with things like additional properties or added effects, but the constant fear of backlash from the "have-nots" has basically led to a dearth of any sort of meaningful rewards in this game.

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Unfortunately, Stormblood as a whole can be summarized as "afraid of backlash." With the exception of Ultimate, every single thing they've done has been incredibly safe. Just to list a few examples...

- Tomestone grind remains unchanged for the third iteration
- Jobs universally simplified
- Battle "overhaul" amounted to near pointless gauges
- Difficulty of all content (Ultimate notwithstanding) reduced in varying degrees
- Prioritization on niche activities like Perform and Replay
- Dungeons remained unchanged outside aesthetic

They seem utterly terrified to do anything different. Not to sound overly dramatic, but if this trend continues I fear just how long the game will manage. I fully anticipate Eureka losing a good amount of subs—hopefully enough to wake them up. I don't know whether the dev team has lost their creativity or SE is simply strangling them with a small budget but something needs be done, and soon.

I don't understand, in a kind of gamedesign point of view, how you can get to that result... Something as boring and uninspiring than that. OK they can save some time with using already known mobs and all. That could be OK.
But as for the content, they could have so many things to make it less mindless and boring... it's like they didnt even try to think about it ! Disappointing...

I stopped looking at this as a relic grind and have to say my enjoyment of it went up considerably since. I'm doing it for the awards from the lockboxes (CARBY SLIPPERS), the story and Krile, while focusing mostly on NMs which makes this more like hunts than a mindless, horrible grind. By removing the element of the relic grind from the equation, I'm also not in any rush because by the time I'll get the items they'll be outdated anyway, and I'm in no rush for that sort of glamour. Though even that's not as horrible if you focus on NMs.
It's conflicting, though. For the awards alone I feel like people would still run this (though admittedly not as much) even without the relic, but this forces everyone who wanted the relic into content they can't stand and don't have the right point of view for. That is not to say it's a wrong view-point to have, just one that clashes with the content.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

Titan Hard was only too much for most average players because the server tick rate was utter garbage. That said, 'interesting' and 'challenging' are not in any way synonyms, so the idea that 'boring grind' is the only option left to relics to still be 'casual' is utterly ridiculous.

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I mean really, it can be a grind and still at least be interesting too. This is just the worst of the lot because there's literally no other options than killing trash for 2 hours and fighting the VERY occasional Notorious Monster. They put us in what's basically a new zone, yet there's actually NOTHING to do in it. Even giving people challenges and adding more quests would have helped, but they decided for whatever reason people would like just killing trash for their relic weapon. I refuse to believe most casuals find this engaging. I'm midcore and I certainly don't.

I've been playing FFXIV since around Shiva's debut. I've played long enough to have done the Zodiac weapon for BLM AND the Anima weapon for BLM and DRG. I'm absolutely NOT against a long meaningful grind for an awesome looking weapon. What I AM against, is mind numbing bore.

First off, both previous relic weapons had you doing an variety of steps during each stage of its refinement, to break up the boredom. ARR even had UNIQUE steps, starting with the Beast tribes, crafting weapons, melding materia, and a unique instances, the Chimera and the Hydra.

When I say meaningful, I mean that at the end of the grind, after all the boring grinds, you had a UNIQUE weapon. Something unlike anything previously seen in the game. Even if it wasn't BiS, it was AWESOME LOOKING! Eureka gear? It's literally just glowing versions of the gear given to you when you turn 70. Gear you've had since the very beginning of Stormblood.........REALLY!?

It's like they introduced the awakened step of the anima 2 patches too late.

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Originally Posted by PotatoTree

1.0 Relics had this fun 4 man trial part that was pretty cool. They should add that back.

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But this was also a grind

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Unfortunately, Stormblood as a whole can be summarized as "afraid of backlash." With the exception of Ultimate, every single thing they've done has been incredibly safe. Just to list a few examples...

(...)

They seem utterly terrified to do anything different. Not to sound overly dramatic, but if this trend continues I fear just how long the game will manage. I fully anticipate Eureka losing a good amount of subs—hopefully enough to wake them up. I don't know whether the dev team has lost their creativity or SE is simply strangling them with a small budget but something needs be done, and soon.

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Nailed it. It is as it is because it's been the time sink model they had so far. It's the same with almost every aspect in the game.

Haven’t played Eureka a whole day. Usually on patches I keep playing the content. What a sour experience.