Sincere Question...No Troll...Has SE Gone Full Regress?!?!

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

Braindead grind is a bad game design when it has nothing else to offer. Simple as that. Considering that huge grind are mostly done with bots and 3rd party tools, that explains how "fun" they are.

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it has glowy weapons to offer at the end, and most people here make the first relic step out to be the worst thing they ever did even tho if you just do it for like an hour or two each evening (not even in OC) you can have the relic together by the end of the week, its not that hard and the second step is also done pretty fast so i seriously dont know why people complain about it here we finally have a piece of casual content thats not done in 2 hours and thats also wrong

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Originally Posted by theunhappypotato

it has glowy weapons to offer at the end, and most people here make the first relic step out to be the worst thing they ever did even tho if you just do it for like an hour or two each evening (not even in OC) you can have the relic together by the end of the week, its not that hard and the second step is also done pretty fast so i seriously dont know why people complain about it here we finally have a piece of casual content thats not done in 2 hours and thats also wrong

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IMO, the issue I took with the grind is that RNG-based ones simply are annoying to make measurable goals on.. You either get the thing, or you don't.. By contrast doing things like a Light farm objective-completion oriented ones (e.g., complete dungeons xyz).. It's the presentation of it that matters a lot, IMO.

Also LMAOO... These relics are only marginally better, like marginally marginally... Sure, it's a small step-up from Endwalker, but it's still a massive step down from Bozjan relics which made better use of the one-time steps... Also step 2... You mean roulettes? Which people are doing anyway for their tomes? Yep, great design.

"We finally have..." -- How far have our standards fallen exactly?

I'm a relicaholic and I spend no time in Crescent. It's simply not fun. Atma forget it not way I'm running my alts though that over and over again.

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Originally Posted by theunhappypotato

… most people here make the first relic step out to be the worst thing they ever did even tho if you just do it for like an hour or two each evening (not even in OC) you can have the relic together by the end of the week…

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I’m going to call this out as not representative of my experience at all. I spent an hour and a half grinding FATEs in Urqopacha and got zero demiatma for my trouble, so I gave up on FATEs and did CEs in Occult Crescent instead. I did an hour or two a day _on top of my other activities like roulettes_ and it took a couple weeks to complete that step. It was far from the worst or grindiest thing I’ve done, but it was more time than I wanted to spend and the RNG was maddening. The process was adjacent to a good design, but it needed to be a bit faster and a lot more predictable.

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Originally Posted by GraceHorizon

I’m going to call this out as not representative of my experience at all. I spent an hour and a half grinding FATEs in Urqopacha and got zero demiatma for my trouble, so I gave up on FATEs and did CEs in Occult Crescent instead. I did an hour or two a day _on top of my other activities like roulettes_ and it took a couple weeks to complete that step. It was far from the worst or grindiest thing I’ve done, but it was more time than I wanted to spend and the RNG was maddening. The process was adjacent to a good design, but it needed to be a bit faster and a lot more predictable.

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The drop rates seem to be higher in OC, but the problem with verdigris specifically is how little activity there is in the corner of the map it drops in. 2 FATEs, 1 pot FATE, and Calamity Bound is it.

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Originally Posted by theunhappypotato

it has glowy weapons to offer at the end, and most people here make the first relic step out to be the worst thing they ever did even tho if you just do it for like an hour or two each evening (not even in OC) you can have the relic together by the end of the week, its not that hard and the second step is also done pretty fast so i seriously dont know why people complain about it here we finally have a piece of casual content thats not done in 2 hours and thats also wrong

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people complaining about grinding in an mmorpg will never not be funny to me

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Originally Posted by GraceHorizon

I’m going to call this out as not representative of my experience at all. I spent an hour and a half grinding FATEs in Urqopacha and got zero demiatma for my trouble, so I gave up on FATEs and did CEs in Occult Crescent instead. I did an hour or two a day _on top of my other activities like roulettes_ and it took a couple weeks to complete that step. It was far from the worst or grindiest thing I’ve done, but it was more time than I wanted to spend and the RNG was maddening. The process was adjacent to a good design, but it needed to be a bit faster and a lot more predictable.

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I want to focus on that for a moment, has nothing to do with you I just use it as an example. Even with probably some of the worst RNG it took you a couple weeks, and it's not like you were grinding OC like there is no tomorrow.

I honestly can't remember the patch release dates anymore but there were something like 3 months and a few weeks between the first and second relic step. That is plenty of time to finish even casually since you only need to complete the step once.
Is the RNG annoying? Absolutely. But this is not some insane grind.

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Originally Posted by Deejudanne

people complaining about grinding in an mmorpg will never not be funny to me

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This has nothing to do with people complaining about grinding in an MMO. As I stated when I first made this post, I have completed every Bozja Relic, 85% of the Heavensward Relics, and three Zodiac Brave weapons—so I certainly know what it means to grind!

Any version of a grind that relies on pure RNG rather than progression is lazy design. Instead of giving players a clear goal to achieve, developers who create grinds like this are essentially saying, "We can't come up with a meaningful step for this stage of progression, so let’s just put a slot machine into the grind because we care more about subscription numbers than the quality of content because the RNG will keep players playing to get this done."

So please, stop defending Square Enix on this. If you think putting slot-machine-style progression into an MMO is good design, then, with all due respect, I feel you are lost. Even in FF11, which had a lot of RNG, the Job weapons and armor relied on a deterministic progression system where you acquired currency to unlock your gear. You had a clear, direct way to gauge your progress.

In FF14, both Atma grinds offer no such thing; they are based on pure gambling. If it were another light grind, for example, would I be saying, "Oh yeah, this is the best ever"? No, of course not. Yet, I would be ten times less vocal because you would actually know where you stand! That is the difference between pure developer laziness and competent design.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I honestly can't remember the patch release dates anymore but there were something like 3 months and a few weeks between the first and second relic step. That is plenty of time to finish even casually since you only need to complete the step once.

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The time until next patch is a poor basis of comparison. The relics become obsolete except as glam and the raw materials for the next step as soon as the next major patch drops. In order to be useful, they have to be available for a large fraction of the time between patches. So two weeks isn’t absolutely terrible, but it’s obnoxious; I and all the people I play with resented the process, and some of them just didn’t complete the quest because it was too much work. But the most significant indictment of first relic stage quests was that iirc SE themselves mentioned they’d listened to feedback on the first stage and made the second stage easier in response.

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Originally Posted by GraceHorizon

The time until next patch is a poor basis of comparison. The relics become obsolete except as glam and the raw materials for the next step as soon as the next major patch drops. In order to be useful, they have to be available for a large fraction of the time between patches. So two weeks isn’t absolutely terrible, but it’s obnoxious; I and all the people I play with resented the process, and some of them just didn’t complete the quest because it was too much work. But the most significant indictment of first relic stage quests was that iirc SE themselves mentioned they’d listened to feedback on the first stage and made the second stage easier in response.

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They become pretty much obsaolete as soon as you get them, until the very last patch in an expansion. There is no point in going for a relic as an actual gear upgrade until patch X.55, it's a glorified glamour stick. It is, at best, slightly better than an unaugmented tome weapon, most of the time it is worse than an upgraded crafted weapon.
If you're looking at it from that angle then every relic quest so far has been a horrible grind, because the amount of work you put into getting one is infinitely more than buying a weapon for 200k from the marketboard that easily gets you through 8 months of casual content.

And their so-called "fixed" second step was just making you run roulettes for the 500th time, which I guess is technically easier.

Dawntrail's relic's second step very much feels like an "Oh shit! Everyone despises Forked Tower! We better make a substitute fast!" moment. I don't do roulettes anymore so it was more annoying than anything.
The demi-atma step was grueling, but only because the verdigris wouldn't drop in OC and I had to go outside (at least overworld fates give you bicolors as an extra). A simple trader would've worked wonders here (3 of a piece for one of another or something) and it's a shame that such an easy fix was forgotten about entirely.

As for relics in general, I've done one ARR and one HW. I do prefer when we have multiple avenues to grind 'light', and I also enjoyed the books step since it made me go out into the overworld and learn about mob placements.

The best for a relic is simply to offer multiple ways to grind for what you need. That satisfies many different types of players.

I definitely agree on having multiple avenues to complete relic steps. One of my friends hates Occult Crescent so she did the demiatma step mostly through FATEs. I personally enjoy roulettes so I didn’t mind the aetherwell step, but I have no objection to there being other ways to do it. The Manderville weapons gave me a taste for relics so I like getting them as long as the grind isn’t too obnoxious. After all, I have other things I want to do even in this game, let alone in the rest of my life.

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Originally Posted by Deejudanne

people complaining about grinding in an mmorpg will never not be funny to me

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People thinking this is an MMO because it's given us an 8-hour grind in 4-months will never not be funny to me.

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Originally Posted by Deejudanne

people complaining about grinding in an mmorpg will never not be funny to me

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same i'm glad we finally got some content that had a shelf life of more than 2 days (except savage) and sure its mindnumbing but all the other relic grinds are mind numbing too, and its a one time only thing so i dont really see an issue here

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

People thinking this is an MMO because it's given us an 8-hour grind in 4-months will never not be funny to me.

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Your opinion doesn't change the fact that it is an MMO.

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Originally Posted by Deejudanne

Your opinion doesn't change the fact that it is an MMO.

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Wooosh....

I didn’t have an issue with the core idea fo atmas, it works well. The issue I had with the OC implementation is the spawn rate of the needed fates. By the time I had the final one of the rarest drop, I had stacks fo the others. Why? Because the final arms dropped from a fate that almost never spawned more than once in a lockout.
I did the original atma grind in ARR and this took LONGER when the devs said it should be shorter as the drop rate was 20% on the fates. Back in ARR, you had a good idea when a fate would spawn but the OC was double RNG because you never knew when or if it would spawn.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

I didn’t have an issue with the core idea fo atmas, it works well. The issue I had with the OC implementation is the spawn rate of the needed fates. By the time I had the final one of the rarest drop, I had stacks fo the others. Why? Because the final arms dropped from a fate that almost never spawned more than once in a lockout.
I did the original atma grind in ARR and this took LONGER when the devs said it should be shorter as the drop rate was 20% on the fates. Back in ARR, you had a good idea when a fate would spawn but the OC was double RNG because you never knew when or if it would spawn.

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The CE spawns in OC can be manipulated, and I absolutely did this to encourage the ones I needed, but yeah … still not my favorite thing due to RNG as I mentioned before.

At this point, you might wish to assume a complete dump of at least the NA player base by 8.0

Because, if you want to talk WoW comparisons, consider the possibility of "Cataclysm"...

EW relic was by far the best. Best looking and best way to achieve. I have every single one on two characters. Only doable because it was tomes.

The demiatma I wouldn’t mind so much if there was a pity system so to speak… like once you have done a certain amount of ce or fates it completes automatically. One of my mains I thought was fine, got lucky and completed quickly enough. The other took over three months of grinding and hundreds of fates and now I’m so behind on them they just got their aetherwell T v T barely want to bother anymore so just bought a courtly weapon.

Having options for the relic is always good as it gives people just that options. If someone has no interest in OC they can still do the relic without having to do the content they don't wish to do

Before Bozja, there might have been a lack of options. But Bozja actually solved that problem really well.

In Bozja, you had real choices. For example, for memories, you could either farm the three different zones inside Bozja to get the crystals, or go do FATEs outside. Every step worked like that: there was always a “Bozja option” and an “outside option”.

In OC, the first step gives you a choice: you can farm in OC or do FATEs. But the second step? Just roulettes. No OC option at all. And once you’ve done that step once… you just farm tomestones? That’s boring. At that point, there is literally no reason to do OC anymore. It’s basically just a remake of Endwalker relic farming.

For players who enjoy achievement hunting and relic farming, content like Eureka or Bozja is some of the best content in the game.

Some people, like you, don’t enjoy that kind of content? That’s fine—just don’t do it. You’re not forced to do Savage either, even if the gear is BiS. If you don’t like that type of content, you simply skip it. You can still get good weapons. If you want the BiS, then you do the grind—same logic as Savage.

And honestly, BiS in an MMO like FFXIV doesn’t really mean much. The first time you clear Savage, you’re far from BiS, and you still clear it. Better gear just makes the hardest content more forgiving if you mess up mechanics. It’s not strictly required for anything. You don’t even need to farm one raid fight to be ready for the next—you can clear all four fights with gear below BiS.

In the end, everything is for glamour anyway.

So my point is: if you don’t like Eureka- or Bozja-style farming, you’re not forced to do it. But then why shouldn’t SE create content that other players enjoy, especially when those players are asking for more options instead of just tomestone farming? Why should players like me or the OP be denied content we like—content similar to Eureka or Bozja—just because some players don’t enjoy that kind of grind?

You can’t please everyone in an MMO, and the developers shouldn’t try to. Relic farmers do love Eureka and Bozja, so SE should keep making similar content, not make it worse. And as the OP said, it shouldn’t be purely RNG-based either.

Also, they really messed up the chest drops in OC. Everything you can get from chests—emotes, mounts, minions, glamour—is basically worthless because the drop rates are way too high. I don’t mind having to find chests on the map instead of getting treasure chests directly from FATEs or CEs, but “rare” items should actually be rare.

In Eureka or Bozja, when you farm the instance for relics, rare drops eventually happen—and they feel rewarding. I had way more joy when my Copycat Bulb minion finally dropped in Eureka than I had getting any OC drop, because I got everything in OC after just one or two days of farming.

Well, the next Relic step is out, and they once again linked it to crafting.

I was looking forward to upgrading my relics but I guess I need to level and gear up all the crafters first then, since SE thinks that's an interesting part of OC.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Well, the next Relic step is out, and they once again linked it to crafting.

I was looking forward to upgrading my relics but I guess I need to level and gear up all the crafters first then, since SE thinks that's an interesting part of OC.

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The materials are dirt cheap though and fall in price by the minute on the marketboard.
While I would have liked alternatives to the crafting step like getting materials from battles for the battle relic, they are by no means a wall in any way.


For the topic overall:
I really hope relics change next expansion because right now, no one is really happy with one side wanting more to grind and the wrong other side wanting less.
Just give more options to obtain the individual step goals, make the relic more intractable from the start in it's stats and, for the love of god, bring them earlier.
It's frankly criminal that this relic step is more or less at the same time as the Tomestone weapon is available.

I also really don't like the bait at the beginning of this relic step. You show us three different methods for strengthening the weapon but of course only one is available, namely the one to make Gerold's tools for the weapon better. Can't have a relic without the stupid only Tomestones right?

@the devs, though I know you don't care for the opinions of your players.
The relics are content for the ones who liked to invest time so maybe you could start finally listening and give OPTIONS for the DAMN SECOND STEP NEXT TO TOMESTONES!
How many people, with even Mr. Happy saying that repeatedly, do you need to finally get up from ignoring that obvious solution?

I don't know why they don't just borrow the system from cosmic exploration relics, where you get 50%, 100%, and 150% additional gain after getting a certain number of relics.

Like from my perspective these current relics are only marginally better than the delivery in Endwalker.