Relic being tomestone step AGAIN is incredibly depressing

For those who loved the Atma/book grind of days past… what exactly did you have to do to fulfill all those steps? Run the Fates and duties that were current back then. Not really much different from a tomestone grind except that you were prescribed certain duties and Fates you had to do, rather than just picking your own. It was just set up differently.

I don’t mind a grind, but I didn’t really care about the EW tomestones either. For me, the best zone tie-in for relic grinding was Eureka. The currency came from inside the zone, you knew how much you were going to get per NM, you knew when you hit a certain number of crystals you could move on to the next stage. No wondering IF the NM would drop the currency you needed or not. I don’t like any “grind” that relies on RNG, because that’s not really a grind, it’s a CE/Fate gacha game, and it’s not fun. If I’m not able to see steady progress towards my goal, it sours the whole experience.

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For those who loved the Atma/book grind of days past… what exactly did you have to do to fulfill all those steps? Run the Fates and duties that were current back then. Not really much different from a tomestone grind except that you were prescribed certain duties and Fates you had to do, rather than just picking your own. It was just set up differently.

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Take as example the Books, 10 Monster 3 Dungeons, 3 Fates 3 Leves and no syn
Then Fates did forever sometimes to spawn so you had like 30-50 People waiting for the same freaking Fate, it involved so much more effort and the droprates for some atma were even way lower then the current one, i still remember when i chased literally 15h for 1 single atma

I think SE struck a pretty good balance with this. Do some content in this specific zone. Then do whatever content you want to do.

Let's take a quick look at HW relics. It boiled down to:
- Do FATEs in HW zones for RNG drops
- Get 40 tokens (which was ultimately a tomestone grind OR a beast tribe daily grind)
- Umbrite/Crystal Sand step (which was a tomestone grind and/or a collectable grind)
- 50 Singing Clusters step (which was either a tomestone grind or a dungeon grind)
- 15 Pneumite step (which was a tomestone grind plus a dungeon gauntlet) as well as light farming (which was a dungeon grind)
- Lux step (which was a tomestone grind and a trial gauntlet)

Guess what you get while doing the trial gauntlet? Tomestones
Guess what you get while doing dungeon grind? Tomestones
Guess what you get while beast tribes? Tomestones (depending on your level)

The point is, one could simply boil HW down to:
- Fate grind
- Tomestone grind

Sure, you may have "used" these tokens in questionably interesting ways, like the Umbrite/Crystal Sand step. But in the end, it was just collecting tomestones.

If you look at some of the annoying ARR steps:
- Early steps: Dungeon grind, tomestones grind
- Atma step: Fate grind for RNG drops
- Animus step: The book grind - which was ultimately a tomestone grind with a touch of FATEs/open-world mobs/Leves (so that is different)
- Novus step: tomestone grind for maps (or dungeon grind for daily maps - then do maps for item you could buy with tomestones) - oh, plus materia
- Nexus step: light farm (dungeon grind)
- Zodiac step: tomestone grind, dungeon grind, GC seals, some gil and some crafting (some slightly different tasks in there)
- Zeta step: light farm (dungeon grind)

Again, in many of these instances, dungeon grind is just tomestone grind. It is essentially the same content, just with getting intermediary tokens

Eureka was wholly different

Bozja was a little Eureka but the ability to upgrade much of this allowed the player to earn much of it by way of:
- Fate grind
- dungeon grind, etc

Which isn't really anthing special

EW:
Is really just SE admitting that all of the relics before (minus Eureka) were just tomestone grinds with a different mask on.

DT:
A touch of Eureka, with the ability to earn items outside of it (like Bozja) and then a tomestone grind which is about 90% of what every relic grind is about.

Relics have been 90% a tomestone grind since 2013. I don't know we should be surprised that the game has consistently been formulaic with just different packaging around it for the last 12 years. I don't think we should expect relic quests to be vastly different than what we've seen already.

They should really just make everything available for tomestones. Getting them is the centerpiece the entire game revolves around, and all roads lead back to them.

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Originally Posted by Damnhedge

I sadly just can't agree.
But I just can't agree that tome dumps are a compromise they have to settle on.

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That is ofc your prerogative. After all, different strokes / what ever floats your boat and all that jazz. :'D
I agree that SE could be more creative and create new currencies to farm etc but ultimately, it would boil down to the very same thing: run content, get currency, grab weapon.

The rest is just numbers tuning really. How grindy do the DEVs want it to be?
I mean they can use tomes to present a grind that would bring even you to tears. Tomes aren't the inherent limitation here. They are just a convenient vehicle.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

Take as example the Books, 10 Monster 3 Dungeons, 3 Fates 3 Leves and no syn
Then Fates did forever sometimes to spawn so you had like 30-50 People waiting for the same freaking Fate, it involved so much more effort and the droprates for some atma were even way lower then the current one, i still remember when i chased literally 15h for 1 single atma

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Oh yeah waiting around for some dumb FATE to pop. YEAAAAH THE GAMEPLAY..... wtf that was one of the WORST things they ever designed. This wasn't "EFFORT" this was -literally- AFK and let the client idle for 4hrs while watching movies on a second screen.

Been there, done that. No thank you.

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

What is this about a tomestone step? Did they announce the 2nd step already?

Or is the OP talking about how after you do the initial grind for the relic weapon on something that isn't at all a tomestone step, you can then use tomestones on the same step to get additional relic weapons? Because that to me sounds like the perfect compromise that keeps tomestones out of the equation for getting the relic while making additional ones much more accessible to the casual player with less time.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

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Why not just buy the replica of the stage you like and store it in the glamour dresser?

Unless it's for Ultimate BiS, there's really no need to hang on to them.

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Originally Posted by RenegadeInferno

Why not just buy the replica of the stage you like and store it in the glamour dresser?

Unless it's for Ultimate BiS, there's really no need to hang on to them.

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A fully completed Eureka weapon is BiS in Eureka zones, and we can assume a fully completed Phantom weapon will be BiS in OC zones. Can't really throw those away, and just have the replica. And ultimates I guess.

People like you will never be satisfied.

1500 tomes is better than being forced to do like 60 fates, or some duty 10-20 times for one step. God forbid you get to work on your relics from basically everything. You can't tell me you seriously want to go back to doing something like running Hell's lid 15 times, alliance raid 15 times, or like 60 fates.

The people that complained got what they wanted. Several hours of grind to complete the first step, and then its just 1500 tomes.

There's so much dishonesty about this kind of take on the relics.

The bigger issue is that the relic is useless. It doesnt do anything for OC and its not even 755 to have any kind of relevance.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

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I think it's because the relic line can have custom stats that can't be stored. They'd probably have to devise a separate storage altogether that just holds relic weapons.

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Originally Posted by RaionKansen

People like you will never be satisfied.

1500 tomes is better than being forced to do like 60 fates, or some duty 10-20 times for one step. God forbid you get to work on your relics from basically everything. You can't tell me you seriously want to go back to doing something like running Hell's lid 15 times, alliance raid 15 times, or like 60 fates.

The people that complained got what they wanted. Several hours of grind to complete the first step, and then its just 1500 tomes.

There's so much dishonesty about this kind of take on the relics.

The bigger issue is that the relic is useless. It doesnt do anything for OC and its not even 755 to have any kind of relevance.

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We had relics that were consistently useful during their intermediary stages in ARR. People complained that they devalued Coil weapons, so now they're catchup gear until the last ~6 months of the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

We had relics that were consistently useful during their intermediary stages in ARR. People complained that they devalued Coil weapons, so now they're catchup gear until the last ~6 months of the expansion.

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Considering the nightmare of a grind those stages were in ARR days, this really surprised me. :(

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

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The intention is probably that you just grab it from the NPC again if you need it for glamor. Fringe cases of OCD stat optimization in old content are none of SE's concern.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

What is this about a tomestone step? Did they announce the 2nd step already?

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After the Demiatma grind you need 1.5K Tomes for your first AND subsequent relics. The first weapon consists of both, subsequent weapons only need the tomes (thank God).

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

I think it's because the relic line can have custom stats that can't be stored. They'd probably have to devise a separate storage altogether that just holds relic weapons.

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Haha, you may be onto sth. With as weirdly as they code their gimmicks, that may very well be the cause.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Considering the nightmare of a grind those stages were in ARR days, this really surprised me. :(

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Raiders that are only in it for the gear can be extremely petty. Having raided for over a decade no: it does not surprise me one bit.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

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Personally, as someone who enjoys the collecting process of Relics, I'd gladly give up the custom stats, and need to go through a restating process should I want to use those relics again, for the ability to store them in the Armoire.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

After the Demiatma grind you need 1.5K Tomes for your first AND subsequent relics. The first weapon consists of both, subsequent weapons only need the tomes (thank God).

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Something worth mentioning is that they also streamlined the process of obtaining the relics a little, previously you had to do a repeatable quest for them, and this caused minor awkwardness if you were using that weapon for that Job since you had to turn it in, you could circumvent the issue by buying a Replica for 1000 gil to equip temporarily, but not everyone seemed to even realize that's an option, now you don't even need to be in the Job that weapon is for to get the relic, it's very small, but a nonetheless nice QoL upgrade from the last Relic set.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Umbrite/Crystal Sand step (which was a tomestone grind and/or a collectable grind)

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The Crystal Sand part was so much more than you're describing. To get crystal sand, you could turn in old elemental materia, amber encased vilekin you got from levequests, DoH and DoL scrips, primal items, alliance raid items, beast tribe currency, crafted items, things like moonstones, demimateria, and maybe one or two more I'm forgetting.

If they ever wanted to look for future relics at how they could maintain the "go out and do something special and collect this specific thing" idea but also make sure there was enough for variety for everyone, they only have to look at the crystal sand step for animas.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

We had relics that were consistently useful during their intermediary stages in ARR. People complained that they devalued Coil weapons, so now they're catchup gear until the last ~6 months of the expansion.

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They aren't even catchup gear. 745 is worse than the tome weapon. Should have been 750 or 755.
People doing Savage/Ultimate don't care if more casual players get gear that still isnt even better than savage. Especially like 3 months deep into the savage tier. Might as well make it 760 so people stuck reclearing m8s every week don't feel like they have to do it 8 times for one more weapon.

Very happy I don't have to farm ~1,000 fates per weapon.
Also happy the mid-tier tomestones are again of some use.

Sounds like OC tomestone rewards needs to be increased a little to incentivize players into doing it.

All relics should need atmas. Maybe not 3 of each, but 1 or 2 of each would be great.
Tomestones should only be an option. For example you can buy 1 atma for 500 tomes as a bad luck protection or if you are missing sprecific colours.

So everyone would have more options:
- farm OC and get atma + a few tomes
- do roulettes or hunttrains for lots of tomes
- farm outside fates for atma

I don’t know what the next step will entail, but Meteor was making a grimace in the LL pix…

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I don’t know what the next step will entail, but Meteor was making a grimace in the LL pix…

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lol. Pick another much-reviled step from a previous relic. That'll be the one-time unlock. Then for each weapon, it'll be 1500 tomestones.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I don’t know what the next step will entail, but Meteor was making a grimace in the LL pix…

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Please look forward to having books again or light farming!

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I don’t know what the next step will entail, but Meteor was making a grimace in the LL pix…

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If it's some form of books again, I will laugh my behind off

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Originally Posted by Infindox

Please look forward to having books again or light farming!

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*groans* At least the books had a list of things to check off, even if some were annoying, and you knew what duties would give you light. I don’t think we need quite as many books though! lol But if that’s where they’re going I might actually prefer either of those over the Demiatma, because at least it doesn’t have the RNG BS.

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Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

I for one liked the Tomestone grind in EW, it was the first time I ever had a FF14 relic in my hands. Guess what? I'm not going to bother with OC or a rng grind, just not interested in wasting my time waiting for a drop that will never happen.
So no matter from what perpespective you see it, the relic design in DT does not make any sense at all. The more grindy people see it as "yet another tomestone grind", and people like me will not even bother with it.
Seems they found another way to make every player unhappy at the same time. Which again poses the question: Who TF is DT made for?

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I've been playing FF14 since ARR & the only relic weapons that I have obtained were from EW tomestone grind; actually obtained 4 relic weapons. I did the demiatma grind for this new relic in the FATES & it sucks. I did get all 18, but it was boring, long, & monotonous. I don't mind grinding, but grinding has to be productive & efficient. That first stage, in my opinion, was not. Getting 1500 tomestones is easy but they need better options.

I didn't mind the tomestone grind for the EW relics weapons, but I would have wanted more options. In fact, playing FF14 since ARR, the only relics I have ever obtained were from EW. I thought the FATE grinding for Demiatmas was horrible & tedious. I don't mind grinding, but it has to be productive & efficient.

Why can't the next step be like you have to obtain crystals or atmas from all the 70, 80, or 90 dungeons with the relic weapon equipped, or every week you have to obtain a crystal with the relic equipped from all 3 alliance raids from EW, & this resets every week for a total of 4 weeks. Making the total of 12 crystals that are needed to upgrade the relic weapon. This is just an example.

But let's be frank, there is not of new content to do for a relic grind. How many times have we done the old alliance runs, old dungeons runs, FATE runs, etc., to obtain something we needed for the relic upgrade? I fought a few mobs in the OC with Phantom relic equipment....NOTHING!! Was the point?

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Originally Posted by Nighthawky2010

I did get all 18, but it was boring, long, & monotonous. I don't mind grinding, but grinding has to be productive & efficient..

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The problem wasnt the length and it being monotonous, it was the feeling of not getting progression. Too much dependant on RNG making it feel bad when you have a bad streak.

If it was 6x50 atmas with 100% drop rate it would have been significantly better as now you see the progress taking place.

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Originally Posted by Dranari

The DT relic grind started off okay. I don't think Demi-Atmas are great, since a 100% RNG-oriented grind is honestly terrible game design—but at least doing the new content gives you some progress toward them.

Then I saw the next step… and all the following steps were tomestone grinds. I was devastated. They really just pulled out the exact same grind as Endwalker. As usual, the daily grind ends up being by far the most efficient way to obtain the relics.

It's criminal how little reward the new content gives toward the relic. I played Occult Crescent to death when it released—14 to 16 hours every day—because I love grinding. I got all the Demi-Atma on day 2 and picked up my first relic that same day.

The next day, I went into Occult Crescent with 80 tomestones and did another 14-hour grind. When I came out, I had a whopping… 1,140 tomestones.

Why did they even advertise OC as being “attached to the relic grind” when it's quite literally the worst possible way to grind it?

I pray—I hope—they don’t make this mistake for all the relic steps. These tomestone stages are some of the laziest, most boring, and uninspired design choices I’ve ever seen in any game.

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It could just be because this is the start? And that since the next step is right along the corner they didn't want it to be too much...

BUT

An alternative may also have been to have Occult Crescent monsters also drop skins, claws, or other things to get a specific weapon? Maybe not difficult to get no RNG but something you could grind?

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Originally Posted by Nadda

It could just be because this is the start? And that since the next step is right along the corner they didn't want it to be too much...

BUT

An alternative may also have been to have Occult Crescent monsters also drop skins, claws, or other things to get a specific weapon? Maybe not difficult to get no RNG but something you could grind?

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That's more or less what we had in Bozja for the first "real" step. Random 4th Legion mobs could drop memories, FATEs would drop memories, and CEs would drop memories. I wouldn't be overly surprised if the next step will be light(obviously with a WoL PTSD joke) that's tied to aetherpool.

I have done all relic weapons since Shadowbringers. Here is the problem I see. With more and more weapons, getting all the relics for an expansion gets harder if you do not have some sort of compromise. Right now, I have to farm 31.5k tomestones to get all 21 relics. Last expansion it was 28.5k.

At least with tomestones, I can choose what to do to earn tomestones for the relic weapon. It also creates scarcity in a way as people that may use tomestones for something else have to choose between relics or materials or gear.

Ask yourself do you want them to stop making new jobs so they can come up with a more grindy relic weapon? Time to pick your poison.

P.S. People complain about anything they do not like. I am no exception.

unpopular oppinion,:

you don't need to farm the relic weapons right away, they aren't even good.

You should already have at least a tome weapon and the Zelenia wepons for the other jobs.


Just buy them when ever you got the tomesstone on hand.

Is it a day that ends in y? Looks like we're getting tomestone relics baby.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

Please look forward to having books again or light farming!

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Wild conjecture: When you pick up your relic, Gerolt tells us the following:

To marvel at its glory is all well an' good, but the power within's naught but an illusory whisper─a fleetin' phantom, if ye will─until it's awoken in the throes o' battle.

That's not so far off from the plot of Toughening Up, which had us run ten specific dungeons and gave us the Awoken relics in HW.

(Maybe that's a little too on the nose...)

To be fair, i think it a good mix of both old and new method to get relic weapons. I really don't want to spent who know long to get all of the stones while waiting for the right fate to pop up on Occult Crescent is a pain. And while i can understand the other side that want to grind. There has to be a balance between the two where both parties can get what they want. It's not a perfect solution. But i think this is a good direction and hope that the next phase can be both challenging, but also not too much time consuming to get the relics we want.

I feel like the only major issue with "tomestone relics" is that the means of acquiring tomestones at optimal efficiency is dull and unvaried (Hunt trains, or dailies if you really can't be bothered).

All it'd take to correct that, honestly, is to balance the means of tome generation and buff variation-adding mechanics like weeklies, Wonderous Tales, etc. atop that.

Had they made such improvements to the game in general starting from a time long enough before relics release that most players would have gotten 2000 or so uncapped tomes, I doubt most would take issue with what would then be "Do what content you most like to build up the bulk of your relics' materials."

Given that it's too late now, though, I hope to at least see a new granular and inventory-space-less currency take up that role, such as Light from before -- but ideally without the obfuscation. I wouldn't mind back Anima books, either, so long as we only had to do, say, 5 of the 8 pieces of content to progress to the next book (with the ability to farm up more Light in advance by doing all 8 if we so wish).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I feel like the only major issue with "tomestone relics" is that the means of acquiring tomestones at optimal efficiency is dull and unvaried (Hunt trains, or dailies if you really can't be bothered).

All it'd take to correct that, honestly, is to balance the means of tome generation and buff variation-adding mechanics like weeklies, Wonderous Tales, etc. atop that.

Had they made such improvements to the game in general starting from a time long enough before relics release that most players would have gotten 2000 or so uncapped tomes, I doubt most would take issue with what would then be "Do what content you most like to build up the bulk of your relics' materials."

Given that it's too late now, though, I hope to at least see a new granular and inventory-space-less currency take up that role, such as Light from before -- but ideally without the obfuscation. I wouldn't mind back Anima books, either, so long as we only had to do, say, 5 of the 8 pieces of content to progress to the next book (with the ability to farm up more Light in advance by doing all 8 if we so wish).

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The biggest disappointment for me is that Occult Crescent is the least efficient method of getting Tomestones for relics. Sure, you are doing other things at the same time, but even the FATES don't give tomes. Once you have relics unlocked, you still have to go back to the same tome grinds that already existed. They really should have better integrated the relic process into Occult Crescent.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

The biggest disappointment for me is that Occult Crescent is the least efficient method of getting Tomestones for relics. Sure, you are doing other things at the same time, but even the FATES don't give tomes. Once you have relics unlocked, you still have to go back to the same tome grinds that already existed. They really should have better integrated the relic process into Occult Crescent.

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OC should just continue to drop gummies and poke set of gummies can be traded for one relic weapon on top of tomes earned

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I feel like the only major issue with "tomestone relics" is that the means of acquiring tomestones at optimal efficiency is dull and unvaried (Hunt trains, or dailies if you really can't be bothered).

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Still less dull than fates.
It's kinda sad that I've come to not even expect anything better from it. Tome content like dailies and endgame dungeons used to be more engaging sadly.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

The biggest disappointment for me is that Occult Crescent is the least efficient method of getting Tomestones for relics. Sure, you are doing other things at the same time, but even the FATES don't give tomes. Once you have relics unlocked, you still have to go back to the same tome grinds that already existed. They really should have better integrated the relic process into Occult Crescent.

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SE have always been absolutely terrible at balancing options. It was the exact same song in Bozja (doing fates outside was infinitely better), and the exact same song as well with the Sands step of Anima.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I feel like the only major issue with "tomestone relics" is that the means of acquiring tomestones at optimal efficiency is dull and unvaried (Hunt trains, or dailies if you really can't be bothered).

All it'd take to correct that, honestly, is to balance the means of tome generation and buff variation-adding mechanics like weeklies, Wonderous Tales, etc. atop that.

Had they made such improvements to the game in general starting from a time long enough before relics release that most players would have gotten 2000 or so uncapped tomes, I doubt most would take issue with what would then be "Do what content you most like to build up the bulk of your relics' materials."

Given that it's too late now, though, I hope to at least see a new granular and inventory-space-less currency take up that role, such as Light from before -- but ideally without the obfuscation. I wouldn't mind back Anima books, either, so long as we only had to do, say, 5 of the 8 pieces of content to progress to the next book (with the ability to farm up more Light in advance by doing all 8 if we so wish).

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While I agree with your point in general, I will say that just doing CEs in the zone has been enough to cap me on high tomes every week, and give me enough mid tomes to get 5 relics so far. lol

That will likely change though once I finish my last phantom job and I’m not spending as much time in the zone, so hopefully there’s more variety (and no RNG!) to make things more interesting.

For the sake of not panicing, ShB was also the same - first step was 1500 tomes. That relic ended up being MUCH more involved by the time it was complete.