Adjustment to ARR relic book step

I am noticing while doing the books that the fate step is a huge pain. I get people will say "server hop" and all that. However, it occurred to me that they could make the same adjustment to them that they did for the fate step when unlocking crystal tower series.

So you would have something to interact with to make the fate appear but only if you are on the books step of arr relic. Would make that smoother and quicker

What’s the point of nerfing old relic content any further than it already has been, it’s just a glam farm at this point

If you don’t want to do the books in the form they are in then don’t do the zeta relics

only thing i would change with the book step is being able to buy them all at once

The books aren't even the worst part of ARR relics. It's the light grinding that's awful. Books at least keep you doing a variety of things. Light grinding is just same dungeon runs over and over.

Even worse, if you're stocked up on items, you jump right through the following step and land right on Mahatmas and even more light grinding.

Books are a blessing after that slog.

All they really need to do with the books is allow you to buy and have them all active at once. Then you can smoothly handle the FATEs in an area and tick them off. The drawback with current design is that a FATE you clear to get one you want to spawn is usually needed in the next book. This would also help with books that share mobs, dungeons, and levequests especially if you're working on multiples since levequests allowance is limited.

They're not super hard to do right now but it would be a good QoL adjustment.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

What’s the point of nerfing old relic content any further than it already has been, it’s just a glam farm at this point

If you don’t want to do the books in the form they are in then don’t do the zeta relics

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For the same reason they intentionally went out of their way to do things like update old savage raids to drop coffers, even in fights you could zerg in 1 minute so RNG on drops wasnt that much of an issue, or how they spent time completely reworking many MSQ-finale ARR instances (Cape westwind, Castrum, Prae, etc) when roulettes were making sure those instances stayed populated anyway to make sure they were never MSQ walls - just because its old content doesn't mean bad design from expansions past can't be updated to provide a better QoL experience for those who come after.

In a grind like the atma books, having objectives that are completely out of the player's hands and completely subjected to the server's whims is bad design; it's just an artificial wall. Especially when your only option to "mitigate" it is to tediously and meticulously hop from one server, going through multiple teleports and menuing to the next blindly praying it spawned somewhere.

A way to force procc certain FATEs when you have a book would help eliminate a tedious blemish on what is a fine set of grindy-ish objectives.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

…or how they spent time completely reworking many MSQ-finale ARR instances (Cape westwind, Castrum, Prae, etc) when roulettes were making sure those instances stayed populated anyway to make sure they were never MSQ walls - just because its old content doesn't mean bad design from expansions past can't be updated to provide a better QoL experience for those who come after.

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A way to force procc certain FATEs when you have a book would help eliminate a tedious blemish on what is a fine set of grindy-ish objectives.

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I think that the old Castrum and Prae were better designed than the current versions. They had actual character, whereas the current versions are more or less Ye Olde Generic Dungeon. (What the old versions lacked was a reasonable ilvl sync so that the party couldn't just zerg rush everything. Oddy enough, the new versions do have an ilvl sync.)

Similarly, there's at least one FATE required by the books that would lose its entire character if you could simply proc it whenever you wanted.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

What’s the point of nerfing old relic content any further than it already has been, it’s just a glam farm at this point

If you don’t want to do the books in the form they are in then don’t do the zeta relics

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I wouldn't call sitting and waiting for a FATE to pop an integral part of the experience or a challenge. I see no problem with having an item issues to players that they can use to start a FATE when they buy the books.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

I wouldn't call sitting and waiting for a FATE to pop

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I did all the books, I honestly don't recall sitting and waiting for FATEs that much. Prioritize them above all as soon as you get a new book and check all the zones where they spawn. If none of them are up then do one of the dungeons the book requires and then check again. Still have some FATEs to cross off but they still aren't up? Go to another zone and kill the overworld mobs then check again. One of the FATEs being stubborn and still hasn't spawned? Then tackle the leves (I leave Leves for last because some of them are the really annoying kind where they ask you to kill like 6 mobs then you have to park your rump on the zone for 5 minutes and do nothing since you can't leave)

If done this way then there is very little waiting for FATEs since your keeping busy with all the other tasks in the book. In the very rare occasion where a FATE has decided to be a pain today, then you can also spend time collecting some needed Alexandrite for a future step. (Don't know if this is an option if it's your first ARR Relic though)
The only FATE someone should purposefully wait for is the "Surprise" FATE in Upper La Noscea, since it's the only Defend the NPCs or fail fate.

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Originally Posted by Winterfang

I did all the books, I honestly don't recall sitting and waiting for FATEs that much. Prioritize them above all as soon as you get a new book and check all the zones where they spawn. If none of them are up then do one of the dungeons the book requires and then check again. Still have some FATEs to cross off but they still aren't up? Go to another zone and kill the overworld mobs then check again. One of the FATEs being stubborn and still hasn't spawned? Then tackle the leves (I leave Leves for last because some of them are the really annoying kind where they ask you to kill like 6 mobs then you have to park your rump on the zone for 5 minutes and do nothing since you can't leave)

If done this way then there is very little waiting for FATEs since your keeping busy with all the other tasks in the book. In the very rare occasion where a FATE has decided to be a pain today, then you can also spend time collecting some needed Alexandrite for a future step. (Don't know if this is an option if it's your first ARR Relic though)
The only FATE someone should purposefully wait for is the "Surprise" FATE in Upper La Noscea, since it's the only Defend the NPCs or fail fate.

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Bagoly and Quartz Coupling can be a pain with spawning as well as the Coerthas one near the giants spawned by the NPC. Oh and the one in the shards in Mor Dhona.

There are a few that seem to spawn very slowly, and I think there was one that was part of a chain of FATEs that you had to start. It's been a while since I did one so I don't remember which FATEs were involved.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

There are a few that seem to spawn very slowly, and I think there was one that was part of a chain of FATEs that you had to start. It's been a while since I did one so I don't remember which FATEs were involved.

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that's the one in the shroud. i can't remember the name of it but you have to do the first to spawn the second one. Worst ones for me was making sure to be there for the escort fate at zelmas run near bronze lake in la noscea. It used to be it felt like you had less than a 1 minute to get there or teh guards are killed and then the ultimate pita was the one in Coretha's because that sucker did not show up on the map when they first introduced it unless you were there to speak with the knights. of course this was back when it zodiac saga relics were first made live

If they want to make the FATE part more consistent, they could just change it to "Complete 3 in these 3 zones"

Id say just make each stat only be 1 book.

I have no issues with the nerfed light farm that exists today for ARR relics. While the book grind is exactly that, it is in line with the reward. Instead of the HW relic where the steps between "clear these dungeons" and "do the light farm" are all things that you can farm beforehand... that just puts the grind on the front-end. Grinding dungeons for poetics. Grinding beast tribes for the unidentifiable whatevers. The book farm is just done in series. You are either grinding content one way or another way.

If anything, it makes the book grind one of the few unique steps across nearly all of the relics in FFXIV. Having the player do leves, hunts, FATEs and dungeons? Honestly, that is ARR in a nutshell and fits very well. Even if it is annoying.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

I have no issues with the nerfed light farm that exists today for ARR relics. While the book grind is exactly that, it is in line with the reward. Instead of the HW relic where the steps between "clear these dungeons" and "do the light farm" are all things that you can farm beforehand... that just puts the grind on the front-end. Grinding dungeons for poetics. Grinding beast tribes for the unidentifiable whatevers. The book farm is just done in series. You are either grinding content one way or another way.

If anything, it makes the book grind one of the few unique steps across nearly all of the relics in FFXIV. Having the player do leves, hunts, FATEs and dungeons? Honestly, that is ARR in a nutshell and fits very well. Even if it is annoying.

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The only issue with the grind is that originally back when it was relevant, those activities; more specifically the dungeon grinds were used to help with getting more people to queue in specific dungeons for other players. But now that its old content and people do it unsynced whats even the point with the arbitrary activity?

What I would change with the book grind is to just have 1 book per stat, annex the specific FATE objectives; instead making it where it only requires you do a number of them in a specified zone and make the dungeon objective only count if its done synced. This is why later relic grinds that have dungeon objectives force you to do it synced for that purpose to filter in queues.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

I have no issues with the nerfed light farm that exists today for ARR relics. While the book grind is exactly that, it is in line with the reward.

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I have a counter-argument for this.

Years ago, I would've been largely fine with leaving the relic steps as is, nerfed from their original design but remaining some level of grind.
However, with the inclusion of Heavensward in the base game (and free trial), the lowest level cap in the game is now 60.
Prior to this, I might justify the relic grind for cases of 50-capped players still managing to use them as best available weapons.
As it currently is, though, it's simply not even possible to complete a relic at level 50 to keep them still somewhat relevant. (short of maaybe getting some others together to run every dungeon unsynced to prevent getting exp. Again, level 50 players, they're not unsyncing a whole lot here)
That means the ARR relic is effectively relegated to 100% pure glamour.

As such, I think ARR relics are deserving of one final pass to examine the grind.
They won't get it, obviously. But there's a few points that could be tweaked down further to render the weapons somewhat useful along the way.

I don't think anybody is going to do the light farm for HW at 60 by running A9S sync'd. Similar to your ARR argument, it likely won't be done the way it was intended back in 3.5. And all relics up to and including ShB are all glam anyway. People aren't doing these grinds for a weapon with +5 iLvl over the one you can buy with a run of MSQ roulette instead.