Idea to make relics less of a grind...

[BunnyChain]

+1

10 characters.

[Rizon]

My only complaint with Relics is the complete reliance on RNG for both the ATMA and final upgrades. Something this important should not be left to chance. In all other phases you can measure your progress. On those 2 you are at the mercy of chance. Just finished my 14th Hullbreaker Isle without a sniff. Make it difficult if you wish just make it measurable.

Update: I have done almost a weeks worth of Poetic on Hullbreaker Isle and I am no closer to my Kracken Blood now then I was when I started. This is not right.

[Felis]

Zodiac: Increase drop rate by x% for each item involved.

Or increase the drop rate by amount of dungeon rest time / 2

[Ecks007]

In general the only part that I don't like about the entire relic weapon quest is the part where you have to meld materia.

I don't know how it is on every server, but I imagine materia prices on grade III and IV materia that are sought out because they offer the best stats are stupidly expensive on the Market Boards like they are on our server.

So to alleviate this I think they should just add a materia vendor somewhere that sells Grade IV materia of all kinds for far less than what the MB tend to. I would say, maybe at most 100k for a grade IV that is in high demand. That's around a 100-400k decrease in cost on my server, and it may be a greater or lesser reduction on other servers (just guessing since I have no way of knowing the value of other server MB items).

I also just checked these average prices today, was a bit surprised that they had gone down a slight bit from what I remember. (they were relatively the same as they are now when I was doing that stage of the relic when it was first available but oddly, well after I had finished that stage of relic, months even, the prices drastically increased. So it is kind of nice to know they've settled back down, but unfortunately they are still quite expensive.)

I would put something like Grade IV Crit/Det/Accuracy/Craftsmanship/Gathering/Perception/Control/Spell Speed materia = 100k, all other Grade IV = 50k.

I can't speak for other servers but it seems Grade III and below on my server, even for the highly sought out stats are actually decently priced and not nearly as expensive as IVs. On my server they seem to average 15k-30k which isn't that big a deal so I guess it appears to just be the IV's that are an issue and have been since the Novus stage was introduced.

This is the only part of the relic upgrades that has not seen any kind of mode made easier to obtain/finish.

The only thing that might also help would be if they allowed Spiritbonding in the Crystal Tower again, we might see and influx of grade IV materia and hence a decrease in over all costs. But even so, we're talking a long time of waiting on players to undercut each other on materia to the point where prices become affordable to an average casual player. That still would take quite a bit of time, while adding a vendor somewhere would immediately provide an effective result.

That's just my idea.

I'm all for the relic requiring some time to complete, or fighting dungeons, gathering rare tokens, or fighting monsters in a trial.

I'm not a fan of the uncertainty and randomness of Spiritbonding to acquire specific materia, or having to spend a lot of gil to acquire materia needed for a relic. Nobody want's a weapon with useless stats, and even if you were to put cheap materia in to just zoom past this phase, you still have to spend a lot of gil if you want the desired and beneficial materia on nearly (if not every) all servers.

Sure, some folk my argue that technically you don't have to spend any gil on materia. I mean, you can spirit bond. Except that it's completely unreliable. Add in the fact that there are phases of the melding phase where you can lose your materia completely, and that just doubles the frustration for someone who just spend countless hours Spiritbonding to get that 1 materia they needed/wanted. It's hardly worth it, unless you are just the type of person who is a glutton for punishment.

I'm all for a grind, but that kind of grind is just too much, nor the kind that I can personally find enjoyable. I can't be alone on this.

[Blindheart]

They need to make 5 Alex drop from map chests, not just one. This would greatly speed up this step of the process for more casual players. That would make it 2 weeks of doing the daily mission if that's all you had time for. And then would still need to track down the materia but at least those are easy to locate/make.

[Deathscythe343]

I have a feeling that, as we get closer to the expansion and even in the expansion, that the 2.0 relic quest line will be made significantly easier.

[Ilitsa]

So to alleviate this I think they should just add a materia vendor somewhere that sells Grade IV materia of all kinds for far less than what the MB tend to. I would say, maybe at most 100k for a grade IV that is in high demand. That's around a 100-400k decrease in cost on my server, and it may be a greater or lesser reduction on other servers (just guessing since I have no way of knowing the value of other server MB items)..

How to kill an economy 101. I just did my own spiritbonding to get my materia, there was zero out-of-pocket expense. It takes time and effort but it's doable. Easily.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

How to kill an economy 101. I just did my own spiritbonding to get my materia, there was zero out-of-pocket expense. It takes time and effort but it's doable. Easily.

That's assuming you can even get the materia you want out of the process.

[Ilitsa]

That's assuming you can even get the materia you want out of the process.

Oh, you can. Maybe not every time, but you do eventually. The materia I didn't want, I put up on mb, or gave them away to my fc members, or put them in the next set of gear I crafted to speed up the sb rate, my fiance and I would simply gather our mats the night before, craft the stuff when we logged on, and spiritbond (usually used the small cave in coerthas, sometimes urth's gift) a set of hq gear melded to it's safe limit bonded so fast between the two of us. Only frustrating part was getting the element IV materia, but then we'd just take those to Mutamix, and if it was something we didn't want, threw it up on the mb, it takes time and effort, it's not hard though.


Edit since I forgot to say it before: I like the idea the OP is going for, as others have said it'd take some tuning and tweaking, but overall, it's a good idea.

[Arkenne]

Quite the reasonable option here, altho Im sure it would need some fine tuning but overall Im also up for it.

That's assuming you can even get the materia you want out of the process.

Well, you can get 10~13 per try... and materia I to III arent that hard to make... as for the IV... well, the place holder route might help the most.