Just want to quickly put out my view on the current status of the Relic progression in 5.45:
A) Bozjan frontlines and Delubrum Reginae are fun content. In terms of difficulty, I've done Castrum and cleared it several times with Discord and non-Discord coordinated parties. I think that for the regular player, it should be doable, but if SE simplified Castrum a bit so that it didn't require coordinated play, it would have been better for future players who arrive later.
B) Relic grinding for weapons. Ok, here things start to go slightly downhill. I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying to farm the items in the first quest in bozjan, and not a single item dropped after doing 8 or 9 CE's. So, it looks like farming outside Bozjan is the way to go,which is weird as an optimal path being outside the new content. Now, grinding for a relic has never bothered me before. I've done it a couple of times for ARR, HW and SB. At least with the weapon at this stage, you can see a clear path to follow and structure so that you can spend some effort each day to get this sorted.
My real issue here is with:
C) Relic grinding for Armor. I really don't know how to start with this one. The previous step was already somewhat appaling. The base set could be easily obtained with coins, but the augmented set was locked behind a combination of having great luck in 1) clearing Castrum multiple times and 2) having luck obtaining an augmentation item for a piece of the gear. I don't think the majority of the players managed to get more than one or 2 pieces from farming in Bozjan/Castrum. On top of that, with the new step, you now need for the latest augmented gear in the 5.45 patch, the augmented gear from the previous set.
This wouldn't be a problem if the drop rates were nicer, but, since you are not going to be in Bozjan for the weapon relic step (because it is not optimal), then aiming to get the gear up to it's peak doesn't look appealing to anybody here.
I don't know why they have designed the rewards in such a way to make it so difficult to plan out an optimal course to get what you want.
I think with very small changes in the way rewards and the pieces you need drop in Bozjan could sort this out. and make the content still vital. I think it is a good idea of having two ways to do it (one outside Bozjan and one in). But obtaining certain elements inside bozjan mustn't be so obnoxious.