3.0 Relic Quest Speculation (SPOILERS)

For those of you who have not completed up to the grind to the Zodiac weapon, I suggest you refrain from reading this unless you want to be spoiled to the contents of the quest. So as we know, players who have completed their relic pre-3.0 will receive an advantage on progression in the new expansion. I suspect this means that SE will be providing a seperate means of providing a relic to newer players who just can't spend the unfathomable amount of money & time on making a relic from scratch when there will be a very serious scarcity of players doing lv50 dungeons after Heavensward comes out. The solution? Simply grant players the ability to complete a quest in order to get base Zodiac weapon (aka Yoichi Bow, Excalibur, etc). There are 3 reasons why this would make sense:

1) There is a definite advantage to players who previously completed the quest since they will not only have a leg up on other players since they are already in the possession of a Zeta relic, but I believe that any player who skips the initial string of quests for the relic weapon will not be able to customize the stats on it. While this customization is a rather minor competitive edge, it still gives that player a weapon that best suits their style of play.

2) The quest that requires you to create the Zodiac weapon requires 16 dungeons, and each of these dungeons are dungeons needed for the Trials of the Braves upgrade, and some of which are required to complete the main storyline. I suspect that additional items may also be added in to substitute for the lack of a relic, which means they can effectively rope in any other story-required quests they see fit to include. Additionally, the Zeta upgrade doesn't require you to go to any specific dungeon, and simply requires you to present soldiery tomes (a requirement which may be removed in 3.0 since it's already very trivial) and farm light. This means that the quest is quite literally already ready to go, and only needs the drop rates in the 16 dungeons increased for the 3.0 patch.

3) The 1.4% chance of losing your relic is in hindsight a very hilarious thing, with a very tense moment for players who don't know it's a farce. The accumulation of time, effort, and money put into one pales in comparison to the player's aversion to RNG related progression. On the flip side though, if this percentage was more fair, and was applied to the shortcut quest, it could make for a fair grind for players who want in on the Relic Race, with an added bonus of keeping players playing older content that is required to progress in the main story line. I'd say that a fair percentage would be 40% with the added drop rates of the Zodiac quest and with it only requiring you to re-complete the Zodiac grind quest.

It will be interesting to see exactly what they do with the Relic quest since it may have been nerfed before, but that doesn't mean that new players will be willing to do a sluggish grind for what will eventually become a truly massive undertaking. What do you think of my speculation? Is there anything Yoshi has said recently or before to contradict my theory?

They've said they're nerfing some more of the zodiac chain (probably the zodiac dungeon drops). I expect that to happen with this upcoming patch.

Other than that though, I don't think they'll make it any easier to obtain a zodiac or zeta weapon.

A new player starting in Heavensward simply doesn't need it. They just won't have whatever the advantage is going in to the 3.1 shrelic weapon build.

Well those completing their Relics come Heavansward may have it much much easier then it is now so might be worthwhile holding off on other Relics if you want to do them.
Is it however worthwhile completing it once Heavansward is out? Probably not considering 3.1 or 3.2 may see another Relic again.
I think people misread about those with Zeta, there has not been confirmed that i know of to be an advantage only that "those with Zeta will be taken into consideration"
However should there not be an advantage? Some of us started Relic before atma drop rate increases, etc. it was hell so we were kind of testers for SE in a sense and now they have made it easier.
I truly hope dungeon drop rate is increased in todays update, it is just a horrible horrible quest. My first Zeta was bad but now for my blm it seems 2x worst

I don't think having a finished Zodiac weapon will result in a huge benefit for progression, though Yoshi's statement to that fact was somewhat vague so it's still a possibility. I'd imagine we're more likely to get something cosmetic.

My original line of thought was akin to yours, that the 3.0 relic questline would begin with the Zodiac stage, meaning those of us with Zetas would already be a little bit ahead. Given the recent revelation that the new jobs will not have Zodiac weapons at all, though, I'm not so sure that will be the case now. Chances are we'll see a new type of Relic entirely (perhaps Mythics reborn, if they follow the FFXI naming conventions).

What we might see, if they do intend to give us a slight progression edge, is the ability to transfer our Zeta's stat configuration to the future relic, though, so that we don't have to go through whatever new stage they put in to customize the new one. I would be fine with that.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

(perhaps Mythics reborn, if they follow the FFXI naming conventions).

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I really hope they don't. Calling the 2.x weapon a "relic" caused so many problems with perception and expectation.

I guess with the game moving on, the only thing that makes you want make a Zeta, will be the "Z" achievement for showoff.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

I don't think having a finished Zodiac weapon will result in a huge benefit for progression

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I don't think it will either. Probably a .001% increase in drop rate for whatever RNG nonsense they roll out.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

I really hope they don't. Calling the 2.x weapon a "relic" caused so many problems with perception and expectation.

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I think they know what people's expectations for the questline are now, though (they clearly didn't initially, however). While the Zodiac line wasn't near as punishing as the original implementation of Relics in FFXI, it was extended over time and large enough in scope that I think those expectations have been met well enough when you consider that XIV is a Theme Park MMO.

That being said, I don't know if they'll actually go with Mythic or not, since a large number of the Mythic names were used for the Unidentified Tomestone weapons back in 2.2. I'm hoping for NIN to get Kannagi just for the nod to my personal favorite REM weapon though.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

I don't think it will either. Probably a .001% increase in drop rate for whatever RNG nonsense they roll out.

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I'd hope it's something slightly more substantial than that!

one of the biggest problems is while I'm not looking for spoilers from heavensward etc .. i feel as a community its more beneficial for them to at least give us definite info on whats happening with the relics I've got ninja zeta on 2 of my characters and it to close to 3.0 to bother with any more but at HUGE materia costs (on some worlds) massive grinding many others could and will be asking do i or don't i bother what benefits will i get for busting my nut to get zeta before 3.0 and do i really need it to do content in 3.0 !! being as its close to a month till release info would be nice.. i really don't care what the info is along as it gives ppl knowledge being that there is speculation surrounding it and it's not as if its a 1 hour dungeon run or something that takes 10 minutes