What MMO Grind is WORSE than relic/zodiac weapon grind?

So, just because past grinds are way worse (looking at you TERA), we're supposed to happily accept this one? How odd. My car is faster than a horse drawn carriage... Doesn't mean I'm not grateful someone decided to invent airplanes.

I've played alot of MMOs for years and trust me when I say absolutely nothing is worse then Ragnarok Online.
The grind to lvl 99 is painful, then you "transcend" which resets your level and grind back up to 99 in your now transcended class (Instead of Priest, High Priest now) which is much harder this time around, then change into third job and keep going to 120. If you die? lose 1% exp, which can take hrs to grind up. Granted despite all this, the game was fun.

Cards are basically the weapon upgrades in that game. You attach them to armor and weapons to add abilities. Simple at the forefront, except they have a .01 percent drop rate, and some of them are downright needed to function in things like PvE / PvP. Popular cards are farmed to hell by hundreds of players at once. Need to upgrade a armor or shield over +4? Good luck.

There is absolutely nothing worse. The people who complain about any grind in any MMO other then that one, have no idea what a grind really is.

They're other examples in the free to play market. Korean MMO(Dungeon & Fighter, Vindictus, Dragon's Nest) & SEGA's PSO2 can also be very grindy when trying to obtain good armor and weapons. Lots of RNG to play with as well.

Most MMO's that came out before or around the same time as WoW in general had worse grind than anything does today. The relic as it is now before and after nerfs is still nothing close to how bad even basic grinds like leveling were in older MMO's, and that was the norm (and acceptable).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Priya

So, just because past grinds are way worse (looking at you TERA), we're supposed to happily accept this one? How odd. My car is faster than a horse drawn carriage... Doesn't mean I'm not grateful someone decided to invent airplanes.

---

The thing is that relic grind is optional. No one forces you and there are alternatives in how to get a good weapon that lets you both match the item level you need in dungeons and actually clear it. And it's pretty much the only thing in the game that is a long time consuming grind. Everything else has timed lock-outs to do anyway and only take time because it's forced upon you to take time (beast tribes, coil, world of darkness, gathering materials, poetics and so on).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leowilde

Years? Literally??

---

Took me roughly 18 months to complete my Ninja relic Kikoku in Final Fantasy XI (doing Dynamis with 2 characters every week); that was without any help other than getting the items which were also a pain in the butt... granted this was years before they made it easy mode and before they got rid of the 75 level cap. I believe I completed it around June 2007, and at that time only 3 people on my server had it including myself if I remember; now everyone has a relic or two or three lol

Oh man I have a few from RuneScape. I played RuneScape for a solid 12 years.. and for all these I'm talking pre 2008 era, Like 2002 - 2007, before the GE and all that crap.

I would have to say getting 99 Mining, and the best way back then was to power mine granite in the desert. That took me a solid year to do. Then getting 99 Agility on Ape Atoll took me another solid year of training. Getting a draconic visage drop took me about 9,000 iron / steel drag kills to obtain.

Also getting 99 RuneCrafting though the abyss system doing Nats. I don't even want to mention how much time I put into that. But I cam out insanely rich :) Got my first Phat from doing that.

I also did 75 - 99 Fishing by fishing sharks.. Yep, all summer long years ago I sat in Catherby fishing.

Slayer was also one hell of a grind back then. It got fun around level 85 when you could slay abby demons for whips. Back then you could sell whips for about 5m+ easy

Prayer was also hell before Construction came out with alters.

The whole game back then was pretty crazy in terms of grinding. Now the game is pretty easy and that's what turned me off of the game tbh. Now getting 200m exp in a skill is a joke

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Priya

So, just because past grinds are way worse (looking at you TERA), we're supposed to happily accept this one? How odd. My car is faster than a horse drawn carriage... Doesn't mean I'm not grateful someone decided to invent airplanes.

---

Don't think people were commenting whether the grind was good or bad, but rather listing grindy games

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AlexionSkylark

why don't we start relating our worse experiences in MMO grinds

---

Still waiting on that free zodiac button
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...71#post2764671
and ice cream
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2764907

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ClaireAbigail

Ragnarok online

---

I took me a year to make a Valkyrie Helm. ;_;

Hmm... The quest to acquire the headgear ''Helmet of Orc Hero'' in Ragnarok Online required you to kill 10000 porings followed by 10000 orcs and then you had to kill the Orc Hero himself 100 times and get his drop each time (Killing him pretty much required a full party on the original servers). Also... There was even only 5% chance for you to trigger the quest when talking to the npc.

That was a fun grind~. Also, the 0.01% drop chance to get a card you wanted could keep you grinding for weeks if not worst if the monster was remotely hard to kill... And don't get me started on bosses...

There was this one game in particular that I remember having a grindy quest chain to get the ultimate equipment, but the name escapes me.

Basically each time you complete a dungeon (about 3-10 minutes), there is a chance to get a 'card' between rank 1 to 5. Each dungeon has a unique card set save for two which shared their rank 1 to 4 cards. The card you get is based on a stat called 'Luck%'. The lower the rank the card is, the higher your chance of getting it. Luck% increases the chances of each card dropping.

Each card is checked one by one. So, per run, each rank card can only be obtained once and you can only get a maximum of two cards. There was also the chance of you not getting any card. If the card check gives you a rank 1 and a 3 card, there was no chance of you getting a higher tier card than the rank 3.

This was the list of cards you needed to collect, if I remember it correctly;

• 35 unique rank 1 cards [x30 each]
• 35 unique rank 2 cards [x20 each]
• 35 unique rank 3 cards [x15 each]
• 25 unique rank 4 cards [x10 each]
• 15 unique rank 5 cards [x5 each]

The relic grind pales in comparison to this, in my opinion. Rank 5 cards could take you a couple of days just to get one if you're lucky, and weeks to get one unique full set of rank 5 cards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noshpan

Level grinding in every. single. Korean MMO. Ever. Even the Westernized ones.

---

Its because they take gaming to a whole new level of seriousness XC
If there was a korea server or something for this game i'd bet they would down any new raid in the first 2 days lol...
>_> grinds mean nothing to them? Jk lol maybe....

But heh i'll stick with this mmo for now :p .
Its my first and after reading other posts i'm kinda hesistant if i wanna try others in the future as they seem to be more labour intensive with all the grindssssss.

I always thought the Mythic weapons in XI were harder than the Relics. While the relics required a lot of currency the gating to the content was less so than the Mythic. For the Mythic weapons you had to complete the entire ToAU storyline, do every mission to max out your rank, and tons of boss fights in addition to the 10K Alexandrite (that dropped a little less often than Ancient Currency). Or course the underbelly side of XI relics were people stealing banks of currency or people trying to steal or ruin Dyna runs for rivals. If you think people complaining about early pulling hunts you should have seen how people reacted if their Dyna time slot was "Stolen." it's certainly not something I miss.

Without going to the King of Grinding that is RO, I'll post what comes to mind first whenever someone mentions a grind: Dofus

From release until the first character reached "max" level 200 was 2.5 years. The grind has gotten easier over the years but its still a huge investment. The worst part about it is how it is split: from level 1-199 is 3,703,616,000 cumulative xp, from 199-200 is another 3,703,616,000 xp, for 7,407,232,000 cumulative xp. Now, fights in Dofus can give you upwards of 50m xp but since its a turn-based game these fights can take 20+ minutes depending on what you're fighting.

And if you REALLY want something to work for, you could go for level 201 at 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 xp.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirakumi

Original relics in ffxi.

---

pretty much ANYTHING in original ffxi, I am scarred for life from that game lol

it has to be Ragnarok Online. especially if you play in official server where exp rate isnt increased. if you find a place where the mob gives you 1% exp, thats a godsend and you farm there for hours and hours. it was painful but dammit i loved every minute of it

When atma first came out. Surely it did not take me longer to get all 12 than for me to get a set of steelys or ibis In maplestory. The nexus farm was quicker than me lvling 1 character from 1 to 70 pre 3rd jobs. And thats me killing hordes and hordes of the same mushrooms, drakes, and zombies for endless hours, each giving no more than .05% per kill as u get higher and higher lol. The whole relic quest grind is not hardcore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

it has to be Ragnarok Online. especially if you play in official server where exp rate isnt increased. if you find a place where the mob gives you 1% exp, thats a godsend and you farm there for hours and hours. it was painful but dammit i loved every minute of it

---

Grinded RO for 10 years myself! And loved every second of it. But yeah, that game is a true grind on official servers. Funny thing is though, i think the original korean RO had like 3-5x LOWER exp/drop rates than the international version.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirakumi

Original relics in ffxi.

---

You had to even reach that point. FFXI during the early years through CoP required a player to level up for anywhere from 6 months to a year just to reach the cap.

It's difficult to fathom the grind required in the old-school MMOs today, because no one would believe it if you explained to them what the grind was really like in the old-school MMOs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hik0

even leveling your 1st job/sub to 75/37 was worse grind than XIV zodiac.

---

Try leveling a non-FotM class in Lineage II, where on top of a soul-crushing grind you had to deal with PKers and you losing exp and gear if they killed you. Sure, Atma in this game is a bullshit mechanic, and not having the most expensive AH gear and +1s was a bullshit limitation in FFXI, but nothing can break a man's spirit like losing the piece of gear you farmed forever to a PKer or finding out by your second class transfer that your class is a pleb compared to the "good" classes.

FFXIV Luminary Tools. Just simple crafting, not even HQ required. Just make the following:
•50x level 1-10 items
•300x level 11-20 items
•750x level 21-30 items
•1500x level 31-40 items
•3000x level 41-50 items

When you're done, hold your Luminary tool up high and cry because you've got to do it 7 more times for a complete set that is exactly equal to the tools you get from the level 50 class quests. :I Just to Quick Synth it all takes more than 3 straight days, but that's not including obtaining all the items and crystals necessary. Not so bad if you just buy it all, but just try gathering everything yourself without putting a single gil to the market board.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

Try leveling a non-FotM class in Lineage II, where on top of a soul-crushing grind you had to deal with PKers and you losing exp and gear if they killed you. Sure, Atma in this game is a bullshit mechanic, and not having the most expensive AH gear and +1s was a bullshit limitation in FFXI, but nothing can break a man's spirit like losing the piece of gear you farmed forever to a PKer or finding out by your second class transfer that your class is a pleb compared to the "good" classes.

---

could be worse.
Your class could be popular to the point no one needs you because they have 8 others just like you.

Sorry white knights, but I've never experienced something as mind-numbing as spamming FATEs in any game ever. Also length =/= boredom.

still haven't played FFXIV that long. However I've played a lot of other MMOs.

Worst MMO grind... Old school runescape... get every skill to 99... considering there was I believe 28 skills and the fastest skill IF you already had the money to just buy everything to level it took a month to hit 99...

Then there was mining... do you want money or do you want max level? what you want both? to bad if you want 99 mining drop that ore on the ground banking takes to long.

I don't know if its mentioned already:

Alien Invasion Level 30 in Anarchy Online. The 20 Shadowlevels before were piece of cake in comparison to that (they were a grind, too...)

I don't think mine technically counts as an MMO but it was a very early form of them at least as far as console's were concerned. Playing Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast way back in the day was awesome. I loved just grinding out my levels all the way to 100 and then running the Ruins (or whatever other level) over and over and over and over again hoping for the boss to drop something. I remember that before they banned certain weapons I believe the Lavis Cannon needed at least like 5000 hours play time to even have it available for dropping.

That could have been some false crap I read at the time but I remember reading that was a thing. That and the Sealed J-Sword needed to kill an absurd amount of enemies before it would become "unsealed." Spread Needles, Twin Brand, etc. The list of weapons in that game that required a sick farm/grind was huge. That game practically had no purpose once you beat it on normal. After that it was just a grind to level 100 and whatever weapons you wanted to get. IF you could even get them with your class ID.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leowilde

Years? Literally??

---

You just adopted the grind, i was born in it...molded by it. (Yes, seriously years PER weapon)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MeeDeggiThePunisher

Sorry white knights, but I've never experienced something as mind-numbing as spamming FATEs in any game ever. Also length =/= boredom.

---

You clearly haven't tried kiting mobs for EXP in EQ1, or chain killing crabs for exp in FFXI
Also imagine if all those FATEs you had to do, with the same droprate as the old atma, spawned deep within an instance. Except it's not instanced. And the mobs respawn. And the rest of the server wants them. Basically, imagine if FATEs and hunts only rewarded EXP to one group.
Oh, and the mobs don't leash either. You get in over your head, you're screwed. Look up "train to zone."
If this sounds exciting, it probably is...for the first 10 hours. After that, imagine speedrunning dungeons without the "speed" part.
Oh and you can't do much of this alone. You need to drag a minimum of 5 others along with you for the ride. These people are also likely your competition.

The lesson you should learn before reading my comment- Korean MMO's will always trump the grind of any other MMO. Flat out fact. Anyways.

Level Grind- Maplestory Pre Big-Bang. (Maybe I should put Tera here too. BAM grinding was a numbing experience).

Without spending any money at all (no exp modifiers), you were likely getting around... 2% every hour of level grinding at higher levels (level 150 or so). Roughly 50 hours for one level, at 150. The max level was 200, and the amount of exp increased exponentially in the last 20 levels.

Gear Grind- Vindictus.

It could be the easiest thing ever, or the most time consuming thing ever. Pure RNG for the best items in the game, at extremely low chances. I think it was like 0.01 or 0.05% chance that you could get the material needed to craft the highest level weapon. Those battles were locked to 1 time a week, and were the difficulty of roughly T12. That is to say, you could pug it with a group of pretty good individuals, but you probably wouldn't win often. To add on to that, the weapons weren't BiS off the bat. Needed at least +10 to be 'good', +13 or so to be 'great'. Any upgrade past +8 has a high chance to break your weapon, meaning you needed the craft item again.

Good thing I don't play those games anymore. Trash.

grinding in the older MMOs were way worse than anything in FFXIV.

in Ragnarok Online, killing all enemies of the entire map will give you like 0.01% exp to get your lv.98 character to 99.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kyuven

You clearly haven't tried kiting mobs for EXP in EQ1, or chain killing crabs for exp in FFXI
Also imagine if all those FATEs you had to do, with the same droprate as the old atma, spawned deep within an instance. Except it's not instanced. And the mobs respawn. And the rest of the server wants them. Basically, imagine if FATEs and hunts only rewarded EXP to one group.
Oh, and the mobs don't leash either. You get in over your head, you're screwed. Look up "train to zone."
If this sounds exciting, it probably is...for the first 10 hours. After that, imagine speedrunning dungeons without the "speed" part.
Oh and you can't do much of this alone. You need to drag a minimum of 5 others along with you for the ride. These people are also likely your competition.

---

Bad Chardok memories huh?

"Still waiting on a rogue to picklock this door.....:/"

Lineage II
Ragnarok Online
Silkroad

Asian Grinder...


FFXIV Relic/Zodiac is kindergarten grind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AlexionSkylark

It was a given that most "unnoficial" L2 servers had triple or even 6x EXP rates. After lvl 60, it could require something from 8 to 10 hours...

---

The leaked server software for L2 wasn't even true to the official servers. It was the in-house developer test server software. In short private servers boosted 2 things in favor of a lesser grind. The amount of exp mobs gave was multiplied, the total exp pool of characters is not even a quarter of the original, damage of characters boosted as well, and any perks you can think of that private servers typically had: special npcs selling armor and weapons available at hand, while retail majority was crafted, all arrows except for newbie arrows were crafted. Even raid gear was crafted, you got mats from raid bosses, then you had to find a dwarf artisan (they were super rare among the player population).

Retail L2 and FFXI shared one thing, exping was best done in groups, no more like it had to be done in groups, being alone you risked getting attacked by a group of players trying to exp off a particular spawn of mobs.

Death was a fixed rate of 10% of your exp bar if you were slain by a non-PC, all deaths, aside from "fair pvp" had a chance to drop a multiple random items in your inventory and equipped onto the ground. People were brutal with this system, especially Dagger classes and bow classes that had a "feint death" and the fastest runs peed in the game. Some notorious individual would pull 30+ dungeon type monsters into a dungeon zone-in or common teleport-in and feint death on the spot, characters porting in would be instantly killed by the mobs, dagger/bow class would get up from feint and loot any items a char may have dropped upon death.

4 hours a day of leveling 300 days a year under ideal conditions got you to level 75, going from 75 to 80 took you another 300 days. Then you unlock sub classes that start at level 40 capping those out took about 150 days, then you are granted access to a 2nd subclass which is another 150 days. then as the game updated continued the level cap was raised to 90.

Each level made your character that much more powerful. So the game world would have level 75's running around and a level 76 that could easily wreck 2-3 level 75's.

Lineage 2 was one of my best ole style MMORPG experiences, then FFXI came around to NA/EU. Both games were all about socializing and adventuring. FFXIV doesn't capture this magic as much as its mostly because of the players that choose to solo what is solo'able. while the earlier titles required group adventuring.

The grind feels like its nothing when you are among friends. People just cry "omg its so grindy" because they are trying to do it alone.

As others have mentioned... Ragnarok Online and EverQuest.

Ragnarok Online had 0.01% item drop chances from boss monsters that had a 72 hour respawn timer and were contested (anyone could attack it). Whether you got a drop was based on the amount of damage your party did to it. You could spend your time killing a boss and get no rewards. And if you died you lost experience.

EverQuest you had quests that did not give you clear instructions as to where to go. You had to actually talk (by typing keywords into /say) to the NPCs to get clues as to where to go. No minimap, no quest markers. You had to collect rare drops from rare spawns (placeholder mobs spawned 4/5 times or so, on a mob with a 45 minute respawn timer) that were also contested, in dangerous locations that require assistance getting to. And if you died you lost experience. And if you lost enough experience you lost a level.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' Epic quest involved a lot of (legit) work, and a lot of grinding. The legit work involved following clues to special mobs throughout the world to kill and get pages needed to unlock a doorway. Once in the doorway you had to complete trials for the gods within the building. Once that was done you needed to increase your favour (faction grind) through killing mobs or diplomacy (card game progression path). Then you needed to do more faction work to get to tier 2. Again, you could kill mobs for 1-10 faction per kill (endgame mobs), or you could diplomacy with a level 50 diplomat for 100. You needed thousands of faction. You also had to do more trials (special mini quests inside of the building). Then you needed to kill 100 mobs on the opposite faction's side of the building. Then you needed to grind out materials. You needed rare mob drops, ultra rare harvesting node drops, questable mob drops (100s) and these all only came from mobs in one area that required a full group to get. You also needed to know a max level crafter to help put things together. Then you needed to find and fight multiple high powered bosses that required a full six man group so you could unlock a fight that required a twelve man group. This got you your epic 'catalyst'. It was an item you could put into a socketed weapon. Which dropped from raid (12 man to 24 man content) bosses.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MeeDeggiThePunisher

Sorry white knights, but I've never experienced something as mind-numbing as spamming FATEs in any game ever. Also length =/= boredom.

---

You do this only during atma farming. And you can already finish it within some days.
During Animus books you don't spam them, you camp them ^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Evangela

grinding in the older MMOs were way worse than anything in FFXIV.

in Ragnarok Online, killing all enemies of the entire map will give you like 0.01% exp to get your lv.98 character to 99.

---

Oh yes
And from 96-99 you needed the same amount of exp like from 1-96 (deaths not included)

I remember lineage 2 sending me an email bragging about how only a handful of players had hit the level cap 2 years after launch.

I went from EQ (circa 2001) -> FFXI -> WoW -> TERA -> FFXIV ARR.

If you're an old dog that's played the older MMOs then you'll probably just roll your eyes whenever you see someone complain that the FFXIV relic chain is "too grindy". The Zodiac chain is pretty casual, especially when parts of it gets nerfed over time making it even easier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noshpan

Level grinding in every. single. Korean MMO. Ever. Even the Westernized ones.

---

Yes.
After Phantasy Star Online(Dreamcast)and FFXI my first westernized MMO was Rising Force Online anno 2006.

As a Cora Dark Priest i was grinding separate
-every single magic Tree(Dark,Fire,Water,Wind,Stone)
-my Staff Weapon
-Bow Weapon for Ranger Armor=Fast Speed
-defence for better Armor
-my Animi Pets
Level 43+ 0.01-0.03% each Mob.

Aion 1.0 on CN Server was a funny grind too.^^

I remember back when I got my Shadow Knights Epic weapon 2.5 on Everquest. Like others have said those quests required 40+ person raids to get some of the components and others you had to farm a rare spawn mob (sometimes wouldn't spawn for days) for a item he rarely drops all the while competing against several others needing the item also.

Still though... as I've gotten older my patience isn't what it used to be. The hunt grind really ticks me off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Duelle

Try leveling a non-FotM class in Lineage II, where on top of a soul-crushing grind you had to deal with PKers and you losing exp and gear if they killed you. Sure, Atma in this game is a bullshit mechanic, and not having the most expensive AH gear and +1s was a bullshit limitation in FFXI, but nothing can break a man's spirit like losing the piece of gear you farmed forever to a PKer or finding out by your second class transfer that your class is a pleb compared to the "good" classes.

---

That was early L2 (up to C2?) but I still remember the chaos of trading gear to a friend in town when hunting reds, was fun times ^.^

Getting into a larger ally more or less protected you from any reds/neutrals (in fact thx to my tag noone bothered to go for me when I was red xD)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

Retail L2 and FFXI shared one thing, exping was best done in groups, no more like it had to be done in groups, being alone you risked getting attacked by a group of players trying to exp off a particular spawn of mobs.

---

Playing solo was valid to your late 60s/early 70s and in general just with access to buffs, but duo/trio wasnt bad up to 80.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

Death was a fixed rate of 10% of your exp bar if you were slain by a non-PC, all deaths, aside from "fair pvp" had a chance to drop a multiple random items in your inventory and equipped onto the ground.

---

Even back in C1 (where I started) death at 40+ was only 4%. Later exp loss was further reduced 76+ (C5 or Interlude?) to 1% at 78+ and if killed from a war target only 25% penalty. Dropping stuff was removed quite early as well.

And rezzes had % on them from the start, high lvl EE 80%, bish 90% and not to mention brezes later (but even lowbie PP rez was 20%).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

People were brutal with this system, especially Dagger classes and bow classes that had a "feint death" and the fastest runs peed in the game.

---

That only worked on PvE and noobs. You could still target a fake death, real death only with shift-click :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

Some notorious individual would pull 30+ dungeon type monsters into a dungeon zone-in or common teleport-in and feint death on the spot, characters porting in would be instantly killed by the mobs, dagger/bow class would get up from feint and loot any items a char may have dropped upon death.

---

Never seen that. However training bots was great.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

4 hours a day of leveling 300 days a year under ideal conditions got you to level 75, going from 75 to 80 took you another 300 days. Then you unlock sub classes that start at level 40 capping those out took about 150 days, then you are granted access to a 2nd subclass which is another 150 days. then as the game updated continued the level cap was raised to 90.

---

Never counted my days but I started early C1, made it to 40 when C2 came around (about 6 months), quited and returned and rerolled with the release of C3. Played until Gracia and made it to 80 (was playing a PP >.>). Exp 78-79 was the same amount you needed 1-78 lol. On a good day I made about 3-5%. 3% with an avarage party, 5% with a perfect, and by good day I mean one without PvP (on our peak we had 16 wars up so these days were rare). And then you had days where you went home with lesser exp than you had before (lost once 27% to Antharas -__-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

Each level made your character that much more powerful. So the game world would have level 75's running around and a level 76 that could easily wreck 2-3 level 75's.

---

Ooookay? But you played retail, right? Or did you mean by a hero? (but at hero at 76?) Nuker maybe? Got my and my groups ass handed by a single sps but sps with hero UD was plain stupid...

Aion was grindy, really really grindy, and heavily based on RNG. Miragent/Fenris pants made people rage quit a lot. I did it twice. I've never felt the boredom and frustration I actualy experience with my relic.
Relic weapon is just boring.

I've only played PSO and FFXI, but you can take it as the gospel truth that any grind in XIV pales in comparison to the Tanaka-era grinds in XI. The R/M/E grinds were made all the worse due to the messed-up mindset of the players that certain jobs weren't worth playing without a R/M/E weapon (Ask any Paladin and they'll tell you once they've gotten past the stream of obscenities). If ever there was a reason to carve Yoshi's image into a mountain, it's for avoiding this pitfall entirely with the Relic/Zodiac questline.