Be honest -- how long did the new relic quest line take to develop?

Half a day? And this was supposed to keep the content that players won't finish for patches to come?

The first leg of the relic quest was amazingly developed. Five unique bosses, dungeons to trek through, having items crafted...

I just don't understand how this is "content" at all. Maybe I'm just frustrated at the game at the moment, but currently, this seems to me like it's a pathetic excuse for new content.

Due to the power of a relic, it is actually supposed to take a long time to get it. They did not originally intend for the Zenith to be so quickly achieved, but it happened.

You want a perfect example of why the relic should be originally harder to get, take a look at how many weapons exist at 50 that become useless once you get your relic. They were intended to fill that gap as you went through the steps for the relic, but the relic was so easily obtained they are now just rare drop skins in these dungeons.

That isn't my complaint. I don't mind time consuming aspects. But they just reused the exact same things we were doing for the last 8 months of the game and called it "new content."

I won't disagree with you there, but really if we're going to be that nit picky...we're just all playing Everquest.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Five unique bosses

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Since when Ifrit, garuda, Titan and the chimeras are unique boss ?
I'll give you Hydra but the other aren't unique boss.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

That isn't my complaint. I don't mind time consuming aspects. But they just reused the exact same things we were doing for the last 8 months of the game and called it "new content."

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I'm sure it was never called new content from the devs. it is a new questlines that use old content in it, like the original relict quest 1.0 did it.

relict quest content during 1.0:
Hamlet defence to get 3 seals from 3 Hamlet each (the bottleneck, a pure grind only to be able to unlock the questline. Was already since 2-3 months ingame before the relict quest)
materia melding
two 17 minute dungeon speedruns for 100% dropchance of quest items (the droprate was abysmal if you needed longer)
Behest
Faction Leves
Chocobo caravan (I'm not 100% sure if it was in the questline)
NMs
killing Garuda HM with nobody dying in the party
Killing Ifrit extreme (the only one content in the list that was new at this time)

This is what I can remember and have heard. I was at the dungeon speedrun part before the "last save" day.

It's fairly obvious they took the lazy way out. There was a decent amount of effort put into the design of the books themselves, but that appears to be where they blew the budget. Honestly, everything from the atmas themselves to the grinding of old content via the books is just an excuse to prolong the game in the cheapest way possible.

Luckily there's still the right amount of new content to keep me enjoying the game regardless. Still feels a bit sore that they'd give us such a weak upgrade for so much time and effort though.

I think its a good way to keep old content relevant and has gotten me to do a few dungeon I hadn't touched in months. Also there is plenty of other content with more on the way.

I don't think they were lazy, they do however always seem to underestimate the skill of the playerbase.

Largely do to the ppl who complain about loldifficulty on these forums I'm sure

As tedious as it is, it was clever thinking on their part to do it this way, with the least amount of time and effort. They made an idea of an item desirable, to most of the players, while making us go back to content that most would never touch again once they leveled their desired class/job to 50 or completed a dungeon just once. It may be boring and rehashed but they know the majority will suffer though the grind to have the omg-OP-flashy-weapon sometime in the future. They just cashed in on human nature. Here's hoping the future steps will be more varied and more interesting. Not that I'm holding my breath since end game stuff usually just equates borderline tolerable timesink in favor of economic benefits. More time spent = longer subscriptions = more money <--- how that can be achieved with spending minimal resources....

http://i.imgur.com/aViKZB7.jpg

An old meme but basically sums up how game development works in mmo's (and other genre's as well).

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Originally Posted by Nuinn

As tedious as it is, it was clever thinking on their part to do it this way, with the least amount of time and effort. They made an idea of an item desirable, to most of the players, while making us go back to content that most would never touch again once they leveled their desired class/job to 50 or completed a dungeon just once.

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There's nothing clever about realising that half the players were ignoring low level content such as FATEs because they're tedious, and then forcing them down our throats.

Also, it's not a 'desirable' item. It's a stepping stone to the real desirables which have yet to come. Considering the amount of hard work you have to go through to get these, you'd expect them to at LEAST be on par with the upgraded wave weapons... But no. They're not.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

There's nothing clever about realising that half the players were ignoring low level content such as FATEs because they're tedious, and then forcing them down our throats.

Also, it's not a 'desirable' item. It's a stepping stone to the real desirables which have yet to come. Considering the amount of hard work you have to go through to get these, you'd expect them to at LEAST be on par with the upgraded wave weapons... But no. They're not.

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> implying obtaining atma is hard work

wut?

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Originally Posted by Karnyboy

Due to the power of a relic, it is actually supposed to take a long time to get it. They did not originally intend for the Zenith to be so quickly achieved, but it happened.

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Zenith aka +1 was definitely not easy to get when the game first came out, that's why you'd see groups selling titan HM like crazy. And im sure what the OP is talking about is the WAY you get atma/animus.

You grind fates for hours for a low drop chance. Time consuming or low drop chance isn't the problem, it's the fact that all we do is grind fates for hours upon hours. I'm supposed to be upgrading my "relic".. why the hell do i have to pick up cactuar leaves and then hand it over to some bum?

At least getting zenith (which was hard back then or at least titan HM was) required u to fight different boss encounters and what not. Dat feel when u finally downed titan hm, got ur relic while everyone else on server was still using garuda/ifrit weapons... yeah

But now. Mindlessly grind fates for hours... whoa so cool bro

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Originally Posted by Karnyboy

Due to the power of a relic, it is actually supposed to take a long time to get it. They did not originally intend for the Zenith to be so quickly achieved, but it happened.

You want a perfect example of why the relic should be originally harder to get, take a look at how many weapons exist at 50 that become useless once you get your relic. They were intended to fill that gap as you went through the steps for the relic, but the relic was so easily obtained they are now just rare drop skins in these dungeons.

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People had to use Titan sellers because back in the day no one could pass HM Titan..and people still can't today.
You also had to PT up for Chimera, Hydra and that good stuff, they didn't have the DF version I believe.
So it was pretty rough back then, but not too much. Atma isn't really "hard" it's dedication and time must be on your hands.
Oh and yeah, it's boring as hell.

I just don't find Atma's fun so I opt out on it. Just will casually do a FATE...or not, depends on my mood lol.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

-snip-

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"How can we reuse old content and make players go back to it and spend as little time and money on it while we focus on other stuff" <--- That's why it's clever. For them. They could have fixed the tedious fates, made old dungeons appealing to us again etc. but it would most likely take considerably more time to think and apply the solution to that. Furthermore, it was clever cause they knew the majority of us would swallow it.

It's why I said they've sold us on an an idea of an item desirable, to most of the players. It's not out but we know that if we don't take their "quick fix" we won't have the end product, eventually.... and they know it too.

id have preferred a large hunting log of rare but easy mobs of a timed spawned based on day of the week and local time. like....

Must kill 15 rare orochus in south shroud but only pop on thursdays @ 3pm pst. and when you get there only 5 spawned so you essentially have to spend 3 weeks to finish that particular log. Thats easy, you can see the progression, and its long and drawn out till the next patch.

in any case, the atma/animus questline should be made easy..not like the original relic since your not jumping 30ilvls from end game i45/50/55 to i80.

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Originally Posted by WingsofWar

id have preferred a large hunting log of rare but easy mobs of a timed spawned based on day of the week and local time. like....

Must kill 15 rare orochus in south shroud but only pop on thursdays @ 3pm pst. and when you get there only 5 spawned so you essentially have to spend 3 weeks to finish that particular log. Thats easy, you can see the progression, and its long and drawn out till the next patch.

in any case, the atma/animus questline should be made easy..not like the original relic since your not jumping 30ilvls from end game i45/50/55 to i80.

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Back then when game was new and people were not overgeared so you had to carry your own weight in RQ you better had atleast your Ifrit weapon and DL or else the tank would leave. Just saying. So there were no 30 ilvl jump. 20 at best as you really wanted ATLEAST Ifrit weapon before taking on Titan.

Atma farming is terribly uncreative and mind-numbing. It's a million times worse on a server that doesn't have a huge population, too. Who the hell, after leveling up their character, wants to level sync and kill goats in Eastern Thanalan for hours upon hours on end? I don't mind a progressive grind, but the rng associated with atmas is crap. If I wanted that, I'd go play Diablo III. I want the game to continue to succeed, but I'm not going to continue to pay to pretend I'm level 20 again...

I agree farming atma is mind-numbing (I have 1 animus and 2 atmas, on 11/12 on my 4th grind at the moment) but the whole zodiac questline is more than just obtaining animus, no? I doubt it's half a day XD

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Originally Posted by WingsofWar

> implying obtaining atma is hard work

wut?

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do you know where my sanity is? i can't find it. i think atma stole it.

cradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpentcradletheserpent...

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Originally Posted by Lunavi

Back then when game was new and people were not overgeared so you had to carry your own weight in RQ you better had atleast your Ifrit weapon and DL or else the tank would leave. Just saying. So there were no 30 ilvl jump. 20 at best as you really wanted ATLEAST Ifrit weapon before taking on Titan.

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right i remember, but @ the start of relic reborn we didn't have a primal weapon, at the start our best to obtain was a i55 obtained from wanderers. Sure by the time you actually GOT your relic you had already obtained a Garuda or titan weapon with equal power, and the next highest tier was i90 with both Allegan weapon and Reliic+1. So from start to finish it was a nearly a 30lvl jump. For Atma at the start we ALREADY have i90 weapon capable of taking on all the hard content already including SCOB, so the progression scale isn't at all the same. Its also a 10lvl jump to Animus.

The point on making is theres no reason for Atma to be anywhere near challenging in difficulty like relic reborn.

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Originally Posted by WingsofWar

right i remember, but @ the start of relic reborn we didn't have a primal weapon, at the start our best to obtain was a i55 obtained from wanderers. Sure by the time you actually GOT your relic you had already obtained a Garuda or titan weapon with equal power, and the next highest tier was i90 with both Allegan weapon and Reliic+1. So from start to finish it was a nearly a 30lvl jump. For Atma at the start we ALREADY have i90 weapon capable of taking on all the hard content already including SCOB, so the progression scale isn't at all the same. Its also a 10lvl jump to Animus.

The point on making is theres no reason for Atma to be anywhere near challenging in difficulty like relic reborn.

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True I understand what you're saying.. But there's no need to make it as boring/lame as fate grinding no?

Did people not ask to go 'travel outside of RT'?

Did people not ask to have more horizontal/multiple progression options?

Did people not want various ways to level?

I think Atma achieves all 3 of these. 2.1 really killed FATE leveling, and 2.2 gave it a nice jolt - not massive, but enough to be viable. End of the day it's an optional quest for an alternate weapon.



What do you suggest they add for a relic quest? The way I see it; they want it to be something that's not as fast as Zenith to get, and something everyone can progressively work towards.

Its funny, I thought the Atma "questline" would mean there are a lot more people out doing FATEs... Not so. For at least 80% of the time for the ones I attempted I was either solo or with just my IRL friend. I was asking in Shout every couple minutes, I was in Party Finder. Then after grinding an area for 5 hours all of a sudden 6 people would join me in PF. Then all get theirs in 20 mins to an hour, leaving me to solo the level 50 boss fates in Outter LaNoscea...

I honestly dislike FATEs. To the point where I almost hate them. But to make me grind for 9 hours on FATEs solo without getting a single Atma piece? That is not fun in any way, so I say screw the Animus. It sucks for my class anyways. Maybe I'll attempt it again later on my Scholar when they let us swap the crap stats for useful ones, and hopefully make it easier to obtain. But until then, no freaking thanks. In the same time I could be doing dungeons or Coils and gearing out my other classes to i90.

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Originally Posted by WingsofWar

Must kill 15 rare orochus in south shroud but only pop on thursdays @ 3pm pst. and when you get there only 5 spawned so you essentially have to spend 3 weeks to finish that particular log. Thats easy, you can see the progression, and its long and drawn out till the next patch.

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This it isn't made for casual players.

Lets put it in this persepective. What if, instead of thursdays @ 3pm pst, they decide, "Hey, we've noticed a lot of people running the new coil at 8pm pst on Tuesday nights. Lets make this mob that is required for progression only spawn at 8:30pm pst, so that way people will have to choose between their coil group running half an hour or more later, or running on time. Or better yet, we notice most of our fanbase only plays between the hours of 5pm pst and 12am pst, So lets make this mob spawn right at 8am pst. That'll get more people to play"

A warrior of light, brave hero/-ine, mole whacker and slayer of cute little fluffy things. Oh no, the wasps are attacking again!
(it took me a bit to get my Atma from Middle la Noscea)
But if you think farming FATEs for hours is stupid, wait till you have to wait hours for that one FATE to spawn.

Please look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

That isn't my complaint. I don't mind time consuming aspects. But they just reused the exact same things we were doing for the last 8 months of the game and called it "new content."

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They are trying to keep FATES relevant...at least in the low level areas. I hardly ever saw anyone doing fates in the late 30's+ =/

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Originally Posted by BunnyChain

A warrior of light, brave hero/-ine, mole whacker and slayer of cute little fluffy things. Oh no, the wasps are attacking again!
(it took me a bit to get my Atma from Middle la Noscea)
But if you think farming FATEs for hours is stupid, wait till you have to wait hours for that one FATE to spawn.

Please look forward to it.

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You have NO IDEA how stuff like this bugs me.

Our character basically single handedly takes out the Garlean forces and all the primals multiple times. Yet there are quests AT LEVEL 50 where they force us to be servers or waiters, bringing people their food, talking to one person and relaying a message to the original quest person WHEN THEY'RE BOTH IN THE SAME LINKSHELL! You communicate with them both through your story line linkshell all the time, yet not only can they seem to not be able to talk to each other, you can't relay the message through it either. Does it have a daily charge or something, limited uses?

There are quests where we have to pick up items right beside the NPC who wants them, collect and deliver people's luggage, perfume a damned chocobo because somebody finds them smelly. Don't they have servants for this type of thing? Do they need to send their number one Primal slayer, the savior of Eorzea?

I go to Gridania and see this gate with two guards and no way in. I decide to talk to them and they tell me it is the Gridanian Residential area and that dirty adventurer peasants like me have no business being there and that he will "deal with me" or some such if I try. As if he could even scuff me armour, but the attitude alone! I am personal friends with Kan-E-Senna, the ruler of Gridania. I've saved your butts from your Primal problem. I've went out and /poked and /tickled sylphs for some reason. The people love me. Yet I'm still a filthy adventurer, and the guards think I would offend the Gridanian people with my presence.

Well if I had my choice, I'd say screw the lot of them! I'd go out on my own, maybe visit Garlemald and become their new leader (regardless of who tries to stand in my way there), then lead my own invasion force! That'll show them for forcing menial labour on me and not showing me the respect I deserve!

Ah who am I kidding... I'm too busy, I've got some ladybugs somebody wants me to slay.

Truthfully, Zenith onward reminds me of trial of the magians (the worst thing that ever happened to xi) over again. Not for the sake of "go here, kill 50 of these while a stupid weather effect that takes hours to come and a minute to disappear is active, come back for upgrade", more like "we're not actually giving you any content here."

On one hand, it's disappointing- and not something I'd expect from a game that's not even a year old. On the other, they're working on the ishgard expansion, continuing main scenario, coming out with some new dungeons, as well as acquiescing to half of the requests the players are submitting regarding stuff like vanity, mounts, hairstyle clipping, etc etc etc. I can sort of see why some areas of the game are being rushed through on the development team's part.

I'm ok with them using older content for the Atma books. Actually gives me a reason to kill some of those random world mobs I never touched for hunting logs in the past, or doing some of the more obscure levequests. The dungeons and FATEs serve the purpose of helping out other people that are doing them.

I kind of grimaced when I heard Alexandrite though. I never got a Mythic in FFXI but I read plenty of stories.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

I kind of grimaced when I heard Alexandrite though. I never got a Mythic in FFXI but I read plenty of stories.

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Probably a good thing. I got Spharai (Monk relic) in FFXI and while it was nice bragging rights....It just wasn't worth the ridiculous amount of gil/time I put into getting it. Took me 3 years... *sigh* lol