Questions on Anima Weapon

On Dec 16, SE released patch 3.15 and introduced Anima Weapons.With a relic weapon zeta, players are able to skip the first quest. I think this is a good news.
The 2nd step is still acceptable.
But the last step, players are asked to complete 200 times of each floor of Alexander:Gordians, or collect nearly 20 thusands of allagan tomestones of poetics and laws,or hundreds times of beast tribe quests(or accurately 86 days). I think this step is horrible and far terrible.
The last step reminds me of the progress of relic weapon atma and aminus. But compared with this, Atma and Animus weapon progress is as easy as .Since the online player numbers is reducing every patch, a such high time cost can only lead to more players AKF permanently. Too many AFKs is to cause our be loved FFXIV to fall,or in other word. The anima quests are ruining this game.So please Please consider adjusting the difficulty of animus weapon story lines, for palyers also, for long-term prosperity of FFXIV.

The last step has to be a huge grind, otherwise they'll have nothing to nerf in future patches. And the final relic will be i210, so the alternative is to clear A4 Savage.
Pick your poison I guess

After reading LOTS of comments I'm of the opinion that they shouldn't nerf the grind, but they should also keep the weapon relevant for a long time. If I was them, I would make it to where getting the initial weapon takes a long time, but subsequent quests to keep it relevant are interesting, fun and relatively short. I want it to be a really tough investment for the few, but I want the reward to be good for a LONG time for those few. Does that make sense?

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Originally Posted by Katniss_

(or accurately 86 days). I think this step is horrible and far terrible.

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Actually, this is completely in line with how SE designs content. Things are meant to be done in multiples of 3: 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months. Stuff like relic/anima is always designed to take 3 months to complete so there's some kind of long-term goal for players to work towards, and the steps will be nerfed when the next phase of upgrades are patched in.

Edit: It takes about three weeks to earn enough gated tokens to buy a new weapon, for example. It took about three months to grind all the stuff you needed to finish relic, zenith, atma, animus, and zodiac. Only the zeta step could be done in a few weeks, if you were exceedingly efficient at light grinding.

Also, KaitlanKela, the relic weapon leapfrogged BIS with raid drops during 2.0's lifetime. I don't expect that to change going forward.

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Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Also, KaitlanKela, the relic weapon leapfrogged BIS with raid drops during 2.0's lifetime. I don't expect that to change going forward.

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That sounds good to me. I think there are two major concerns people are still having.
1. It's not really BiS right now, since the stats are kinda screwy. I'm SCH and I'm thrilled about the crit instead of det, but I don't think the PLD and DRG are as happy. The specs need to be looked at....
2. Is each step going to be equally as challenging and disinteresting? The subsequent quests to keep the weapon up to date will have to be fun or short or novel or ideally all three to make up for the initial investment. Any thoughts on that?

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

That sounds good to me. I think there are two major concerns people are still having.
1. It's not really BiS right now, since the stats are kinda screwy. I'm SCH and I'm thrilled about the crit instead of det, but I don't think the PLD and DRG are as happy. The specs need to be looked at....

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Relic zenith wasn't that great either, but once you got the ability to customize the stats with sphere scrolls/materia it became much better.

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

2. Is each step going to be equally as challenging and disinteresting? The subsequent quests to keep the weapon up to date will have to be fun or short or novel or ideally all three to make up for the initial investment. Any thoughts on that?

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Actually, all the steps for building a zeta were tedious and gil-intensive, specifically to discourage people from blowing through it quickly and getting a free 125 or 135 weapon. It's about as much "effort" as grinding the equivalent raid tier for a drop, so you balance how much time you want to waste on doing lots of easy tasks versus time you want to waste doing fewer harder tasks.

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Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Actually, all the steps for building a zeta were tedious and gil-intensive, specifically to discourage people from blowing through it quickly and getting a free 125 or 135 weapon. It's about as much "effort" as grinding the equivalent raid tier for a drop, so you balance how much time you want to waste on doing lots of easy tasks versus time you want to waste doing fewer harder tasks.

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Zeta had time and gil sinks in place to force a jump start on the crafting/desynth part of the game and the market as a whole. It's literally why they did it. It looks to be the same thing this time around because all of the necessary HQ turn-ins are specialist recipes made with mats from other specialist recipes.