Constructive feed back of Relic 3.15 Thus far.

For those not wanting to be spoiled i would suggest to stop reading here,

I will be updating this as i progress through the quest line with my thoughts on how the quest line holds up.

So first a run down of the steps thus far,

Phase one, Atma version 2. Same concept of atma, but requiring 3 atma equivalents in each of the 6 zones, totaling 18 items needed. (skip able by handing a completed Zeta weapon over)

Phase two, Complete dungeons with your weapon equiped.

Snowcloak
Sastasha (hard)
Sunken temple (hard)
Keeper of the Lake
Wanders Palace(hard)
Ampador Keep(hard)
Dusk Vigil
Sohm Al
The Aery
The Vault

Step Three,
Gain the following items via an npc via obtaining other items in exchange for said items by various means.

Enchanted Rubber
Fast-Drying Carboncoat
Divine Water
Fast-Acting Allagan Catalyst

-I Am Here!-

Thoughts after each phase.

Phase 1: To be honest i didnt mind the concept of recycled content, keeps the old content alive for newer plays etc, HOWEVER. i didnt expect the very first step to a brand new quest line after what we experienced with the first relic, to be such a let down. Hands on straight to a grind of current content. nothing new, at all. We are introduced to an old friend (albeit humorous) and another character we have been told barely anything about. the end result of all this hard work is the eso weapon with a worse stats and level. completely copied from current content. in all honesty I was very underwhelmed. There was nothing exciting and new. at all. Not a good start!

Phase 2: After completing phase 2 I was pleasantly surprised, the story gave much more than what i was expecting and perked my interest greatly, this step itself (although took me ages as a dps on launch day) really wasn't so bad, bland. but ultimately not very time consuming. The reward for all this was a nice shiney glow to our glamour copy of a "relic" but was something new none the less. so all in all quite happy with this step.

Phase 3: Underway!

Phase 4:

Phase 5:

I am only on the second dungeon on the list. I thought that they might randomize the order of the dungeons to avoid a "wave" of people moving through them but the order is the same.

I'm just worried about the third step. The part that requires you to trade items obtained from beast tribe, dungeons, and crafting.

It's going to blow

So, here is my question to the dev team.

The relic is claimed to be a means for "casual" players who do not have a sufficiently rigid schedule to form statics and tackle raid content (ignoring the very high difficulty of A3S and A4S which gates us from 210 weapons and has an abysmal clear rate), to obtain a weapon comparable to endgame raid weapons by investing a larger amount of time as opposed to tackling top end content.

Just looking at the final step, some people have calculated that if you were to grind Alex for the drops and spend the Law obtained from Alex, it would require about 640 runs.
At 20 minutes per run including wait time, that comes out to 213 hours. If someone can play an average of 5 hours per day, lets say after work, and does nothing but Alex for these items, it would take them about 42 days.

Lets say we use our Zetas to skip Atma 3.0 (now requiring 18 drops instead of 12!), we then need to clear a number of old dungeons for a random drop item, get 80 mats available from tomes and Alex tokens, and a number of HQ specialist only recipe items... Which I PRAY (but sadly know wont be the case) will not require a number of melded 170 or 180 Red Scrip items to HQ.

Again, 5 hours per day, which is really not "casual" from a time perspective. How long do you intend for this to take? 60 days? 90 days? We expect 3.3 around early Feb, some 45-50 days out, which will bring new tomes. 3 weeks of those (bringing our total to 66-71) and we can buy the new tome weapon, I hope. So is the intent for the relic to REALLY be doable within ~60 days of "casual" play?

60 days is a long time, a long time to grind, but if the quest is SO long, rng gated, and grindy, that it takes people until the next weapon becomes available to complete it, then you guys just created dead content.
Seriously, we've seen all of this before, this is a compressed version of Atma, Zodiac, and Zeta, nothing new here, just a chance for the new players to experience the 2.0 relic grind in a compressed form. The thing is, because we have seen all of this before, we have a sense of how long this takes, so SE, unless you can confirm that this IS reasonably doable BEFORE it becomes outdated, then nobody in their right mind will bother with this "content".

Looking for some advice from those of you who've been working this quest today. I've completed my 2.0 to the atmas (ive finished the atmas, about to start on the book). Does it make more sense from a time perspective to go ahead and finish the 2.0 relic or just dump it and work on grinding the new 3.0 atmas? Ilevel 206 paladin if that helps answer the question

will have to see when i come to it, I'm holding out judgement. Thus far i'm rather disappointed with the amount of rehash already with literally zero new content in regards to this. Grinds are fine, Rehash is fine, but not if everything including glamour of new items is included. Hoping there is some nice story telling, or something but we shall see!

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Originally Posted by Badmoon

Looking for some advice from those of you who've been working this quest today. I've completed my 2.0 to the atmas (ive finished the atmas, about to start on the book). Does it make more sense from a time perspective to go ahead and finish the 2.0 relic or just dump it and work on grinding the new 3.0 atmas? Ilevel 206 paladin if that helps answer the question

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Id say scrap it and start the new, its looking to be alot of work as it is, and the book phase of the old relic is a rather painful experience then followed by a hell of a grind, your time wouldn't be saved in doing it now :)

Tried out an Unsynched Ifrit HM hoping that'd give an Ixali token or something but... sadly no luck.

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Originally Posted by Badmoon

Looking for some advice from those of you who've been working this quest today. I've completed my 2.0 to the atmas (ive finished the atmas, about to start on the book). Does it make more sense from a time perspective to go ahead and finish the 2.0 relic or just dump it and work on grinding the new 3.0 atmas? Ilevel 206 paladin if that helps answer the question

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unless you want the Zeta weapon for glamour you should probably just dump it and start fresh

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Originally Posted by Ashelia_Ferron

I'm just worried about the third step. The part that requires you to trade items obtained from beast tribe, dungeons, and crafting.

It's going to blow

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Last step is 800 or so alex runs without the tombstones factored in.

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Originally Posted by UnstablePersonality

Last step is 800 or so alex runs without the tombstones factored in.

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If your a devoted crafter im assuming that step would be as bad to be made out, on ones own you can make the crafted items for 1 item on your own, working with 2 other crafters should be enough to do everything and if not beast tribes and occational runs and daily maps should help alot with poetics and law along the way, everything combined with daily activitys doesnt seem to bad, if you grind however, yea looks bad XD

The (lack of) story behind these weapons bother me, when it, quite literally, invalidates what you have done with a zeta weapon and it's (already shallow) legend.

Most of the steps has you revisiting 2.0 content rather than new content, and because of the unsync option, it does't necessarily "breathe" life into the queues either when people can just usnync it.

And as a MCH, I find it incredibly hard to justify doing this (even in "preparation" for the next relic step" because not only is the finished weapon a very small upgrade, its arguably a downgrade from my thordan weapon, especially in the current perspective in the game that I really feel I can't be bothered to go beyond dailies and raid logging.

Honestly I saw the requirements, laughed and walked away. I'll just stick to my current weapons, not worth the headache for, as I recall with last relic, being able to get weapons of almost similar stats (maybe a few points shy of the relic). I am perfectly fine with that.

The immediate problem I see from my perspective is that this weapon is supposed to be geared towards the casual player. From the steps that I have seen listed, this is for anyone but the casual player.

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Originally Posted by neoxdeciple

If your a devoted crafter im assuming that step would be as bad to be made out, on ones own you can make the crafted items for 1 item on your own, working with 2 other crafters should be enough to do everything and if not beast tribes and occational runs and daily maps should help alot with poetics and law along the way, everything combined with daily activitys doesnt seem to bad, if you grind however, yea looks bad XD

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benefits of a big FC with master crafters in every job. LOL

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Originally Posted by Riki_Namu

benefits of a big FC with master crafters in every job. LOL

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haha i can imagine! only a few crafters in my own, myself being the maxed player. but a few with 60s, going to be just a challenge to see if we can get people to pull together :P

Anima seems to be a big rehash of the 2.x relic series starting from Atma.

Crystals = Atma
I skipped this part since I had 3 zetas. It's nice that once you've progressed in your first Anima, you can pick up the prior quests with any other job to progress in it if you want to help people out etc. The drop rates for the crystals sound like they're way better than OG atma, and you can get them even while levelling unrelated jobs so that's a plus.
Dungeons = Light farming for Novus
Hated that you didn't have a choice on which order to tackle the dungeons. Lore-wise we only revisit dungeons in our memories ala the CT weekly, so it doesn't make much sense for Ardashir to tag along. Though I suppose it doesn't make sense to test our weapons against memories, either huh. Guess suspension of disbelief is in order. This phase felt really extraneous since it's one and done + can unsync the ARR ones.
Unidentified junx = Zodiac but with grind
Personally feels about 50% overboard. I like that there are multiple ways to get these items, but 20 each? geez. Crafted part still doesn't bother me though it doesn't validate specialties except as a way to exclude omnicrafting, and the materials are nothing special. I DO NOT LIKE having to carry around 8+ new currencies not including the old beastman FATE stuff. Seriously use the damn currency tab more. I'm on this phase and all the HW currency junk as a crafter is getting in my way.

The devs really seem hate it when players grind out content in a week whether raid or relics, and I agree with that sentiment. These 210sweapons aren't much better than Thordan and with only a few exceptions not better than Gordian/enhanced Esoterics, but the models look mostly nice (dat bard bow though...) and the awoken effect looks amazing. Not to mention you get a "free" 200 esoteric-looking weapon from just farming fates (albeit with better drop rates) and levelling dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Jeykama

Anima seems to be a big rehash of the 2.x relic series starting from Atma.

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Of course they chose to leave out the part that was the most well recieved and liked among the playerbase; the questline to create the base relic.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Of course they chose to leave out the part that was the most well recieved and liked among the playerbase; the questline to create the base relic.

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Are you kidding, you don't remember the amount of whinging that happened when apparently no one but raiders could clear Titan HM.
I wouldn't have minded a skill check like at least Ravana HM though.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

and a number of HQ specialist only recipe items... Which I PRAY (but sadly know wont be the case) will not require a number of melded 170 or 180 Red Scrip items to HQ.

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I just want to give info about this particular thing, I can craft 2 star 60 stuff with fully melded "white" items, HQ of course, just wanting to say that cause 170-180 stuff is a little overkill unless you're just trying to macro everything. Oh and the items in question are only 1 star 60 items, albeit locked behind specialist and master books.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

The (lack of) story behind these weapons bother me, when it, quite literally, invalidates what you have done with a zeta weapon and it's (already shallow) legend.

Most of the steps has you revisiting 2.0 content rather than new content, and because of the unsync option, it does't necessarily "breathe" life into the queues either when people can just usnync it.

And as a MCH, I find it incredibly hard to justify doing this (even in "preparation" for the next relic step" because not only is the finished weapon a very small upgrade, its arguably a downgrade from my thordan weapon, especially in the current perspective in the game that I really feel I can't be bothered to go beyond dailies and raid logging.

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There is story, just no big fights. Having said that I found the story somewhat confusing. If we are trying to create a self aware weapon, wasn't our Zeta already self aware?

If your a MCH you might be better off just leaving it. The questline will almost certainly be nerfed later like the 2.x relic lines were and certainly the crafted stuff you need will very likely be a lot cheaper by then.

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Originally Posted by darkendfaith

I just want to give info about this particular thing, I can craft 2 star 60 stuff with fully melded "white" items, HQ of course, just wanting to say that cause 170-180 stuff is a little overkill unless you're just trying to macro everything.

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Yeah the crafted stuff is quite feasible without Red Scrip gear though you do need melding. It does mean working with other crafters though since you cant specialise in everything.

On the upside the materials for the crafted items are all actually pretty easy to get and most of them are also pretty easy to get HQ so you can generally afford a few failed attempts at HQ without it being too costly.

I think what irked me the most was from a lore perspective just how quickly my Relic weapon was destroyed and turned into crystals. I mean, we basically made sentient voidsent weapons in the zeta questline, it was already "alive" in a sense. Now we're making even..more alive weapons I guess that even our character didn't look that pleased to be making in the cs. I wouldn't have minded if they worded it differently and we just ascended our relic and transferred the soul into the new host, and combined with the anima gave it even more life. I swear by the end of this questline this weapon better be singing and writing poetry.

I also think the new relic questline is completely creatively bankrupt. Rehash rehash rehash with a goal that will break the wallets of so many and turn the weak willed to RMT just so they can AFFORD to make their relic weapon when crafters start charging more than the combined worth of Ul'dah and the vatican for just 1 piece of the required materials.

I wanted to do new thread about something similar, so to avoid even more relic thread clutter, I'll put it into this thread. Here are some things about the relic a lot of people seem to miss or willingly ignore:

No Job Lock

You are not locked into doing any of the stuff in the relic quest with the job you're trying to get the relic for - you can do them with any job you want, including the initial FATE farming if you don't happen to have a Zeta (or are unwilling to turn it in). I'm currently happily leveling my Bard with FATEs - something I would have done anyway - while getting those crystals for my White Mage's relic.

It's a long term goal

The relic is not something you are supposed to grind out in three days. You probably can - and I'm sure we'll see the first completed 210 relics before next week - but that's not how they are supposed to be done. They are a goal you can work on a bit every day, and quite likely get before the next patch hits with barely any additional work, which gets me to the next point:

Synergy with Stuff You Already Do™

There's at least 3 different ways to get every one of those items for the third step (crafting excluded), which can be mixed and matched at your leisure, and, again, can be done with any job you want to. These are:

- running floors in Alexander normal, with 10 floors for one item
- paying 680 tomestones of either law (Ore, Seeds) or poetics (Shell, Bone)
- paying 1000 allied seals (Bone, Seeds)
- doing beast tribe dailies (13 tokens/item, item type depends on beast tribe)
- doing HW treasure maps (Shell, Ore, not 100%)

If you do some of the daily roulettes anyway, participate in the occasional hunt, and maybe even do some beast tribe dailies, you should average out to at least one item per day. These are mostly things most players do anyway, and again, you can do them with any job you want (I can't stress this enough), so you're looking at a little over 2 months to get your relic without doing anything you probably wouldn't normally do anyway. Any extra grinding (like running Alex a few times every day) is simply speeding up the process.

It's giving people what they asked for

Seriously, the relic is what you were asking for, though probably not the answer you expected. You wanted content that's not outdated after two weeks. You complained about the HW areas being next to dead. You wanted ways to revive old content. You wanted raid tier weapons without actually having to raid. There you have it: the relic is all of this - if you don't grind it out in a week while complaining about said grind which you are almost entirely forcing upon yourself.

I'm sometimes wondering whether the playerbase actually even knows what they want (or are unable to properly communicate it), because every time SE releases something people have been asking for, all I hear is whining about how it's not what they asked for (see also: Diadem, LoVe).

In conclusion

There's certainly stuff you can criticize about the relic, the stat choices for some jobs being one of them. It's also true that it's not very innovative, but then again, not everyone has played since 2.0 (myself included, I've started in 2.5). I also agree that it would have been a lot better to have new content like the trials for the original relic to go with the new one. It's certainly not a pinnacle of good game design, but it's by far not as bad as many here make it out to be, either.

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Originally Posted by Jeykama

Are you kidding, you don't remember the amount of whinging that happened when apparently no one but raiders could clear Titan HM.
I wouldn't have minded a skill check like at least Ravana HM though.

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Ravena HM is a story boss.... that is not a skill check. Raven-Ex would be more like it (though still its pretty easy you can be carried even if you jump off first chance you get).

It took me the entire day and took my white mage from 50-54 just to get the 3 coerthas crystals

RNG is a very very bad way to go about it i'm thinking >_>

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Originally Posted by Alex_Lenderson

Ravena HM is a story boss.... that is not a skill check. Raven-Ex would be more like it (though still its pretty easy you can be carried even if you jump off first chance you get).

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Ravana HM is essentially a "Normal" mode. Titan HM was much more difficult at the time, in comparison, IMO.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

Ravana HM is essentially a "Normal" mode. Titan HM was much more difficult at the time, in comparison, IMO.

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Why do they name things so silly? Maybe I should make another thread. By why does SE call "Ravena Hard Mode" when it is just normal mode?

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

No Job Lock

You are not locked into doing any of the stuff in the relic quest with the job you're trying to get the relic for - you can do them with any job you want, including the initial FATE farming if you don't happen to have a Zeta (or are unwilling to turn it in). I'm currently happily leveling my Bard with FATEs - something I would have done anyway - while getting those crystals for my White Mage's relic.

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Err, this part is actually not true. The 2nd phase of the quest ("Toughening Up," 10 dungeons) requires that you be on the job of the relic you're working on, as you must have the weapon equipped when you exit.

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Originally Posted by Kanemano

Err, this part is actually not true. The 2nd phase of the quest ("Toughening Up," 10 dungeons) requires that you be on the job of the relic you're working on, as you must have the weapon equipped when you exit.

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I stand corrected. Still, that's probably the shortest part of the entire process anyway (unless you skip part 1 or have serious luck with the drops), so eh. Plus you can do most of it unsync.

My constructive feedback:

-Please make use of our key item inventory more often.
-Please do not make an important item like 'Unidentifiable Bone' have the same Icon as a lowly Bone Chip and allow us to vendor said important item.

Someones heart is going to break when they do it on accident.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

My constructive feedback:

-Please make use of our key item inventory more often.
-Please do not make an important item like 'Unidentifiable Bone' have the same Icon as a lowly Bone Chip and allow us to vendor said important item.

Someones heart is going to break when they do it on accident.

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i must admit making use of the Key items tab would have been nice in this instance, it seems that this last step will take a considerable amount of time and having all of these items on a person at that length of time seems to be unneeded clutter but nothing that cant be Dealt with,

About to hit this phase hard today, i've not checked myself yet but to me it seems you need both the 20 collected items and 4 crafted items for each item for the quest but have had many question if its one or the other, anyone that can clear this up? if not i will craft a bunch myself and test this out today.

I believe that you need both of them to complete it. X_X It would have been much better if its one or the other to complete it so that if you are a crafter at heart you can do it that way and if you want to fight instead do it the other way. (Maybe they could have increased the amount of crafted items for that)

My main problem is not he first two steps. Even the last one would have been better if it was only the collected items but having to collect them and crafting specialist items is way overdone. Maybe if it would have been the best weapon for the next half year than it would have hurt less but I can already see it coming that I will already have a much better weapon before I will finish it. :(

Contructive feedback:
Rather than yet another pile of soloable FATEs, beasttribe quests and half a dozen unsynced instance runs, perhaps you should have required players to run the Crystal Tower instances again so there'd be a reason for people to queue there?

Getting my minion out of WoD is way more impossible than current anima atm.

One positive about the Crystals, well you can fly but that is not it......THEY STACK! I was over joyed when they stacked...unlike the original Atma.

But i would of loved to do other things to gain a Crystal, maybe like Duty or a Raid...Chests or even gather/craft for them then have to do fates...

Should be multiple ways to acquire the items.

My two cents:

I knew it would be a grind, and a slow one. Anyone who expected different is crazy. I wish it was a more interesting grind for a more interesting weapon, but alas, it isn't. This is something I'll work on as I feel like. If it never gets completed, so be it.

The 2 only things I would like to see changed--
1. Make ALL the beast tribe quests give a token. This way, I can work both on my anima weapon AND the rep with a beast tribe that I haven't gotten to level 3 yet. I still have 2 tribes at neutral that I'd love to work on, but now I shouldn't because I'll be wasting allowances that can be used with tribes that will give me tokens.

Not a huge deal, but I think this little change might make players without max rep in all beastmen tribes a touch happier. Especially newer players who definitely haven't played long enough to really get into beastmen dailies.

2. Make the fates needed for beastmen dailies pop faster. Waiting for one to pop forever isn't cool at all.