New Relic Progression

Would like to see some feedback from the forum community on the current state of the Relic progression. I am not concerned so much with the time or gil commitment and I doubt many of you are either, but I wondering how you feel about having unique content for Relic progression.

By content I don't mean unique quests that recycle content everyone is already participating in, but unique encounters, that could take the form of scripted fights like the Main Scenario quests, or a unique boss fight, or a unique dungeon. Something difficult but not insane that brings relic wielders together to do content that is unique to relic progression. Maybe something that will help shed this idea that anybody with enough time/patience/gil can have a relic and there is no player skill required to obtain.

Eh. I never really understood why some would want unique and exciting content that struck the balance between casual and hardcore players. The game already has something like that, it's called Extreme Primals/Second coil. The original relic required you to beat the deadly three's amped up versions and it was no small feat at the same of release.

But SE didn't build the relic upgrades in line with difficult content because they probably didn't want to gate a relic weapon through well..difficult content!

As to the stigma of Relic owners being unskilled and casual, it's mostly untrue anyways. If you have time to put into a relic then you have more than enough time to coil. Most of the Raiders have relics too.

The quest to upgrade to the zodiac vessel is better than the light farm and atma grind imo.

The problem with unique content for the relics is that it either needs to be solo, or there needs to be an incentive for people to do it multiple times.

Imagine doing the first 3 primals now, if there were no tomes and no roulette bonus. You would form a group in PF, and beg people to help you out, or sit for hours in DF.

If they did put an incentive into rerunning the fights, then it would just be a new trial added in that required relic to unlock.

The solo route is a rough one, you would need a fight that was challenging and at the same time possible in 3-6 month old gear. And they would have to make one for each job.

I guess another route would be an open world spawn battle like the treasure maps that allows you to take in a party like the treasure maps. That's the only real option I see for it.

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Originally Posted by Coatl

As to the stigma of Relic owners being unskilled and casual, it's mostly untrue anyways. If you have time to put into a relic then you have more than enough time to coil. Most of the Raiders have relics too.

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You also need 7 others who are also somewhat competent. It's only a matter of time after that. Relics offer a way to progress without depending on 7 others; you can accrue atma, materia, light, gil, and zodiac pieces at your own pace.

As for unique content, the first leg of relic quest introduced Hydra and Chimera instances--these are the only pieces of unique content in the entirety of the relic/zodiac series to date. Everything else depends on grinding existing content.


I would like to see a return to 1.0's formula of a) unique, challenging content (Ifrit EX/and relic leves), and b) revisiting old content in a new way (Garu with no KO, 17m dungeons). Now I know mandatory speed runs are opposed to XIV's design philosophy and community opinion, so it doesn't have to be exactly that. Maybe a DPS-, tank-, and healer-only WP run, or a MGS dungeon run where you have to avoid all mobs. Something familiar, but mechanically different.

The entire relic chain is ridiculous and not worth the effort. That is of my opinion. A lot easier to opt for the i130 weps and Dreadwyrm.

I imagine it's going to be next to impossible to get a relic done when Heavensward hits. Nobody will be running the content you get the completion from and the duty finder is not structured to allow you to enter with a smaller group or solo. Unique content would aggravate this problem--if it were group content, anyway.

This is just indicative that a large change needs to be made to FFXIV's content model, otherwise this is all we can expect. If you want to do Relic, you have to be a slave to everyone who needs to access old content. And that is pretty lame.

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Originally Posted by Katsaria

The entire relic chain is ridiculous and not worth the effort. That is of my opinion. A lot easier to opt for the i130 weps and Dreadwyrm.

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For many people(particularly those who have kept up with Relic relatively well since Atma), paying enough attention to Relic Progression can get you a weapon capable of doing well in Raids before the Raid itself can give it to you. This could be because of having no static, having an unskilled static, or being a Tank or Healer waiting on all of the DPS to get their Encrypted Tome because their damage is more important. In addition, the i125 Zodiac Weapons are now the best weapons a player can bring into Turn 12 for a first clear. Additionally, some people like the customizable Secondary Stats and will opt for their own custom Relic over an equivalent iLvl Raid Weapon.

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Originally Posted by Shadowkept

By content I don't mean unique quests that recycle content everyone is already participating in, but unique encounters, that could take the form of scripted fights like the Main Scenario quests, or a unique boss fight, or a unique dungeon. Something difficult but not insane that brings relic wielders together to do content that is unique to relic progression. Maybe something that will help shed this idea that anybody with enough time/patience/gil can have a relic and there is no player skill required to obtain.

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Yeah, been wanting stuff like this for the relic quest line for quite awhile. Been brought up in the past a few times to boot as well, but it seems SE in all their glorious wisdom is intent on clinging to gil/time sinks and RNG. /shrug

I really wish it involved unique challenges. I don't understand why people think it'd have to be EX Primal or Coil difficulty either, Chimera and Hydra's difficulty either pre or post nerf are fine. Though I really wouldn't mind a challenge with an EX Primal difficulty level, as long as it's not EX Titan or EX Ramuh tier. Sure both A Relic Reborn trials we have now are only worth doing for the roulette if you aren't on the quest, so they'd have to make an incentive to run them more times, maybe some mats like T4. Leves and a map style pop item would be good too.

Just something different that doesn't involve running the same things we already are.

Recycled content is the cheaper route to go if they want to spend less of their budget on it. New encounters cost them more money to make.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

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Except there are alternatives that can give relatively the same firepower for much much less trouble (and money). The highest you can get without touching coil is ilvl 115 from shiva (which isn't particularly difficult either). By the time you can clear T11, you already have the possibility of getting an ilvl 130 weapon, which would've been stronger than the ilvl 125 zoadic (which is a progressive gate versus getting a dungeon drop). Of course there's also the odd chance of you getting 75 successful melds, 2000 lights and all the dungeon drops if Shiva doesn't want to drop your weapon...

they really need to stop with the heavy rng as a "gate" for extending content. Many of us remember the horrors of the atma's only to find that it was only the intro the the real relic grind. The atma was only for a model texture while the animus was the one that actually gave the stats to make it i100. The 2.0 relic quest actually used skill with almost no rng as a "gate" with titan hm being the hardest at the time.

Yoshi needs to stop using the relic quest as an excuse to make people run old content again. If you want people to run old content again just increase the drop rate of the exclusive armors in the low levels so people can actually see results when farrming these dungeons as opposed to seeing nothing for an extended period of time, then giving up entirely because of rng. This is the main reason why no one does old content anymore.

(time x rewards) =/= satisfaction.

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Originally Posted by Katsaria

The entire relic chain is ridiculous and not worth the effort. That is of my opinion. A lot easier to opt for the i130 weps and Dreadwyrm.

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"easier" ? you sir do not know what you're talking about.

Quicker, I may agree. Easier ? let me laugh

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Except there are alternatives that can give relatively the same firepower for much much less trouble (and money). The highest you can get without touching coil is ilvl 115 from shiva (which isn't particularly difficult either). By the time you can clear T11, you already have the possibility of getting an ilvl 130 weapon, which would've been stronger than the ilvl 125 zoadic (which is a progressive gate versus getting a dungeon drop). Of course there's also the odd chance of you getting 75 successful melds, 2000 lights and all the dungeon drops if Shiva doesn't want to drop your weapon...

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That i130 weapon currently requires the defeat of T12 as well. If one doesn't see themselves doing that anytime soon, grinding up to the Zodiac could actually take shorter amount of time.

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Originally Posted by Katsaria

The entire relic chain is ridiculous and not worth the effort. That is of my opinion. A lot easier to opt for the i130 weps and Dreadwyrm.

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Not sure about other Jobs but BRDs would use the Yoichi Bow over the crap 130 Magitek Bow any day.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

The problem with unique content for the relics is that it either needs to be solo, or there needs to be an incentive for people to do it multiple times.

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Definitely agree.

Looking back at the Relic Quest so far in 2.0, it feels really obvious that the Dev Team recycled old content for the sake of spending their resources elsewhere. It's definitely the cheapest way to go for Development Costs (Time, Schedule, Team Members). Why have them make original content when they can "ingeniously" send players back through all the old Dungeons, FATEs, collecting Light, etc. without having to spend time creating new animations, art, designing custom battles, etc.?

I don't agree with this at all, but it's very clear they were doing that. :mad:

Perhaps Yoshi P can take inspiration from an older Final Fantasy game where they incorporated upgrading Ultimate Weapons by having it involve a brand-new Raid / Gameplay System as an OPTIONAL / Side Objective:

* In Dynamis, player could challenge multiple objectives:
* Battle through the land and face Dynamis Lord
* Challenge various NMs for Artifact Armor Drops
* Most Mobs you killed had a chance at dropping Rare Currency (that you could sell or collect to help you for Relics)
* You could challenge and try to get Fragments for other upgrades
* You could go through Side Paths, Side Objectives to challenge Rare NMs to try and get an Attestation for your Relic (Attestation of Might, of Celerity, of Force, etc.).

I always felt it was a great way to incentivize players to do an activity together and have different purposes within that mass Raid. There were multiple objectives and rewards.

I hope Yoshi P creates some unique challenges for the Relic in 3.0 Heavensward, to make it more fitting to that idea of what a Relic Weapon can be. :)

I think the biggest thing for me is getting that sense of accomplishment. And right now it's lacking for me in the Relic quest chain. It's almost a foregone conclusion that given enough time you will get your next Relic stage completed, so when you complete your Animus or Nexus or w/e stage you're currently on it's anticlimactic. Sure, you're happy to be done with that stage, and have the final product for w/e reason glamour, functionality, or because you're a completionist, but there is also this pseudo buyer's remorse that wonders if it was all worth it, or will it ever be worth it in future stages.

If the content progression was engaging and fun and not recycled and repetitive the end result wouldn't be such a big question mark on the risk/reward scale. I'd more happily settle for a 2nd best or even a glamour only weapon, if the progression to achieve it was fun and challenging.

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Originally Posted by Shadowkept

I think the biggest thing for me is getting that sense of accomplishment. And right now it's lacking for me in the Relic quest chain. It's almost a foregone conclusion that given enough time you will get your next Relic stage completed, so when you complete your Animus or Nexus or w/e stage you're currently on it's anticlimactic. Sure, you're happy to be done with that stage, and have the final product for w/e reason glamour, functionality, or because you're a completionist, but there is also this pseudo buyer's remorse that wonders if it was all worth it, or will it ever be worth it in future stages.

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I got my Ragnarok last night. I am also on T13 progression, and this axe is the best weapon I can get until we not only clear T13, but the Axe drops (which could take weeks or months). The Ironworks axe is not worth the 1300 Poetics and its a waste of a twine to make it 130.

Sometime in 2.5 there will be another Relic quest to make it 135...which makes it the absolute best Axe I can get. No regrets from me for doing this quest.

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Originally Posted by PArcher

(which could take weeks or months)

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I still remember how it took 25 runs of T5 untill our BLM saw his weapon, this was after lockout removal but when lockout was in place it would have meant 25 weeks of not seeing it. For this reason keeping relic up to date is extremely useful even if you are already clearing final turn, atleast as an tank/healer as you are mostlikely last in tome weapon priority.

I got my Lilith Rod Zodiac this afternoon. Personally the relic hunt has been a big part of my Final Fantasy experience. I'll be working on my Yoichi Bow Zodiac soon after a short break. I've reactivated one of the four relic quests and will spend a bit of time getting that done when I'm in the mood.

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