Relics coming to an end?

[Ophie-Mio]

However, it's factually untrue and misleading to tell people that "alexandrite isn't so bad" because you saved it up for an alt relic using a former main relic that you made months ago.

But getting alexandrite ISN'T so bad. Animus is easier to get than ever and all it requires is time. But even if you don't get that quest, there's still hunts and maps. There are three different ways to get alexandrite.

First-time relic pathers who stick to their main won't have the option to gear their first job as quickly as you geared your second or third. Few relic pathers would even imagine switching main relics once they got past the extremely expensive animus step.

I'm sorry but this isn't true. All my friends and FC members have had easier times gearing up their second and third jobs way quicker than their first. Even if their main is still their main. I have an FC member who has FIVE animuses and one Novus all gotten before 2.4 and they have never changed main jobs. It was just content to do.
And I don't think it's true about switching either. Sometimes people just don't like the job anymore. Hell, I main SCH and got the Novus for WHM. I wanted SCH to be easy so I chose to endgame grind for its weapon.

Newbies didn't have months to save up resources from "When atma was new and hard". Newbies don't have a full kit of roulettes unlocked for months.

I was very fortunate then. I had a friend who told me to save up alexandrite when I got an animus that I didn't intend to do anything with. I got my myth tomes from grinding out dungeons that I unlocked as I went through story mode and ilevel grind. In comparison to others, my relic was a slow grind. To me, these new players will have to get these roulette unlocked too if they wanna do anything in this game. All of this stuff is usually just done concurrently to how you play.

...spending another week sitting in queue waiting for their dungeons to pop so they can unlock their HM roulette and are scraping together sol to inflate their ilvl just to participate in anything. Being new in 2.2 isn't anything like being new in 2.4 - the amount of content bloat to catch up on is absurd.

To me, you're playing an MMO. MMO's are notoriously designed to eat your time. Grinds are just factually a part of any MMO. To a new player, it's all exciting and new content, not old and boring.

[Nalien]

Also the expense required for the materia to make Animus is entirely out of reach of any players who aren't hardcore gatherers or crafters. The Relic Animus weapon should be called the Relic Crafter weapon because only they can afford the materia required to make it.

I think you mean Novus. Animus doesn't require Materia at all. Still, you're ignoring a couple of points;

1. Novus only costs a lot if you focus purely on two stats. Focus on several and the price drops substantially, not to mention anything up to tier III Materia can easily be farmed Spiritbonding basic Lv49 gears, tier I is a matter of buying gear off an NPC and murdering Lv10 monsters for a few minutes.
2. Materia prices will reduce over time as new gear is released and crafting them becomes easier. The moment we get tier V Materia, expect tier IV to crash in price. Any gear which produces tier V will likely produce a lot of tier IV as "unwanted" Materia. We already have Grade 5 Carbonized Matter from one of the main scenario quests, and Lv60 is the perfect chance to introduce tier V Materia.

I would in no way call myself a "hardcore gatherer or crafter" (not a single Supra), and I'm finding it very easy to Spiritbond my own Materia for a Crit/Det Yoshimitus Novus. Slowed down now that I'm on tier IV Materias, but I still wouldn't call it an insurmountable task unless you literally only have 2 Gil.

[Nicobo]

Also the expense required for the materia to make Animus is entirely out of reach of any players who aren't hardcore gatherers or crafters. The Relic Animus weapon should be called the Relic Crafter weapon because only they can afford the materia required to make it.

Actually it could be resolved easily by not using materialIV, I have seen many players especailly the new players doing this.
They will sell their MateriaVI for good price, for example the reward from unlocking CT, and earn the gil from those "hardcore". ^^;

[cookiecutter]

snip

I'm pretty sure the new 51-59 or so dungeons won't have an ilvl cap so you can go in whatever gear you have at the moment. They'll also probably incorporate armor similar to relics so people can be relatively geared for the new 60 dungeons. I'm all for people doing old content but, it shouldn't be forced upon you if you're a new player. WoW locked content out in similar way in BC with no one way to advance unless you attuned yourself to old raids that no one wanted to do. They realized that was a mistake and allowed easier access to gear and items for new players. Requiring people to do old content before trying the new content creates artificial blocks since you can only group with newer players since the older players will all ready be head first in new content. Sure some players that put a ton of time into relics and coil will be upset by this but, its really for the greater good so that newer players can quickly join in with the older players in experiencing the new content. Now if they want to backtrack and do coil and relics all over again that's completely optional which it should be. You're suggesting that it should be mandatory for players to backtrack and that really turns off some perspective new players. Also the grind you made isn't completely useless. You'll have a weapon that most players won't have when 3.0 hits. You might not be able to keep your stat upgrades but, coil players won't be able to keep their Dreadwyrm weapons either since the 3.0 weapons that replaces the relics will have a much higher ilvl. So by allowing you to keep your relic upgradable you're also forcing endgame players or prospective endgame players to grind out relic weapons right now so they'll be ahead for 3.0 and, trust me if the do that you're going to see a lot of flame. They'll be way more complaining than on this current thread.

[Coatl]

You guys make it sound like newbies WANT to be power-progressed all the way to the top in one day. Newbies want content. And that's what the relic line is. I doubt Yoshi-P is going to throw that away, and I doubt any newbie is going to quit the game because they can't get an all-powerful weapon instantly.

[AzakaTonnerre]

Hmm, hopefully the current relics will be involved somehow. Kinda sh!tty knowing i coulda just not did anything and waited for expansion.

Sadly you can basically say that about any piece of gear from every patch, every three months.

[Krr]

But getting alexandrite ISN'T so bad. Animus is easier to get than ever and all it requires is time. But even if you don't get that quest, there's still hunts and maps. There are three different ways to get alexandrite.

There are actually four ways to collect Alexandrite, although two of them have the same final step (Mysterious Maps.)

*You may do the quest Morbid Motivation, of which the prerequisite is owning at least one Animus weapon and doing the quests beforehand. This grants you one Mysterious Map per day which can yield an Alexandrite.

*You may also purchase a Mysterious Map for 400 soldiery as many times per day as you wish. This does not require the prerequisite quest.

*You may farm FATEs for a low (2%ish?) drop rate on Alexandrite, similar to ATMA minus the locational requirements.

*You may spend 200 allied seals for one Alexandrite.

You cannot do the daily map or farm FATEs until you have at least one Animus weapon. The only way to 'save up' Alexandrite is by farming hunts (which are now by and large dead, inefficient content) or banking Soldiery. These are facts that need to be noted and accounted for when we lecture fresh players on how to 'correctly' go about doing things efficiently.

I honestly don't care how easy or hard you think getting Alexandrite is. It's easily the least-awful step, Materia aside. But please don't misinform the playerbase by telling them to do things they cannot actually do ingame just for the sake of making a point. If you think a month of grinding dailies for Sol and Morbid Motivation (or much less in hours spent grinding RNG fates) is an acceptable rate to gain Alexandrite, that's fine by me. But don't misinform new players as to how the system actually works for the sake of satisfying an argument.

It's also equally negligent to ignore that the Soldiery conversion rate for Mysterious Maps is actually worse than the 2.3 Mythology rate was, if you are doing hunting, meaning if you did your Alex through in 2.3, it's actually considerably slower in 2.4 to the point where many players consider doing FATE Alexandrites or 4-man dungeon speedruns more efficient, and even then, it still actually takes twice as long per Alexandrite then it did in 2.3

Not that I ever want to see Huntpocalypse 2014 again, or that I think the old rate was acceptable. But it's important to keep full and accurate bases of information when S-E makes changes and tells us they are favorable when they aren't.

Also, it's a hell of a stretch to call doing any of the Relic weapon tasks 'content', as many have been over before. But if people actually enjoy spending 4500 soldiery as an entry ticket to killing 900 overworld trash mobs, doing 27 recycled dungeons, 27 recycled FATEs, and 27 levequests that have been in the game since launch, all the more power to 'em. But I also don't see the fault in removing a lot of what is functionally artificially padding out the quest with gating in the form of Tomestone sinks, RNG blocks, and daily limitations on doing things.

[Deathscythe343]

EQ snip

I was around that game when they did this. It was really nice. I loved the way they did that. I also loved that the epic weapon quest was unique to each class. It is something I wish they would do in this game.

[Yuki_Tokita]

They made the Relic quest a succession of increasingly ridiculous grinds. If they don't reset it and start over in Heavensward, new players will literally never be able to catch up.

Square should just drop the relic quest line completely. Remove the ability to get the weapons from the game. That way, new players will be able to start Havensward's equivalent to the original relic weapons immediately, and the people that completed their original relics will be able to keep those now unobtainable weapons as a reward.

Everyone wins!

[atomicdeath]

Sadly you can basically say that about any piece of gear from every patch, every three months.

I agree that sucks too. Just feels like relic should actually be something special that you put alot of time into, not to be thrown away so new people dont feel left out. Slap in the face if it happens.

I want my millions back for all the materia I had to buy.