The relic weapon quest is OBSCENELY boring...

[Welsper59]

Oh, !@#$% no. I was either smashing my mouse/keyboard so hard they almost broke, or I was so burnt-out I just barely even noticed I can go to another zone.
You mention the keyword yourself: progression. To be more precise - the sense of progression. With Atma, there is none; granted, it's much better now than it was pre-nerf, but the fact still is that you have no idea whether you need to do 100 FATEs for the next one to drop, or just 2, because it's basically simple lottery. The books aren't any more fun either, that's true, but at least you do know where you are with that progression.

Again though, that was targeted at the concept of the old school grind. The feeling of progression being a huge part of the reward with this model. In this case, perhaps it's that sense of relief that you're one step closer to being done with something you have no idea how long will take to complete. It's somewhat along the same feeling in Coil that people get when, for example, a drop happens that YOU can use and want. Isn't there that sense of relief that not only did you get it, but you have thus "beat" the system by avoiding the unforeseen amount of time it would have otherwise took? That's the old school reward system, which is actually why MMORPGs were so dear to people in the past. It gave you all of these senses and emotions lol. You legitimately celebrate when you beat the odds... usually. Animus does not do this for most people, simply because you can track it (the primary difference between the two).

I agree about being able to track your progress effectively being a lot more friendly (to the extent that you can more or less predict when you'll finish). That's the newer model of MMORPGs. For today's generation, that's kind of what people expect. If it isn't along the lines of how Atma is now, it's too much of a grind. When Atma/Animus first came about, the drop rate was "fine". Alternatives existed (Zenith, followed by Levi EX weapons, was good enough for progression sake) and matched the content difficulty to acquire them. Many people were turned off by the low chance to get Atma, which resulted in a lot of burn out, but that's not exactly the fault of the developers. That is, assuming players don't expect them to baby the player base and be concerned that players will play way too much when they design content... no developer should have to worry about that, unless again, we aim to be babied and think of SE as our parents, always watching out for the poor choices we make. To those of us that lived through the old school grind over a decade ago, we kinda laugh at the fact people still can't control themselves (since that existed back then too).

SE's decision to finally up the Atma drop rate is an example of the proper design philosophy that I was talking about. When there is so much content available, along with very easy to obtain alternatives, the old school grind DOES NOT WORK. Their decision to bring it back again however, with the latter Zodiac stages, just showcases another example of their inability to properly implement it. That's speaking from the outside though. I do not know what limitations they have, what restrictions are in place, exactly how much of a percentage of players are doing old content for relic, etc. But even of those hindrances are legit reasons, it doesn't change the fact that the Relic quest, as a whole, is widely seen as extremely lackluster for what you get out of it (digitally and personally).

[RichardButte]

Again though, that was targeted at the concept of the old school grind.

And I think we all get that, but there are infinitely better ways to add old school grinds to an MMO that don't involve gearing progress even one bit.

WoW has some of the most ridiculously long grinds in it (The "Insane" title, for starters), but none of them will affect your gearscore even one bit.

And like I said, WoW's version of this quest took you the entire expansion to complete and did so without being a boring, simplistic grindfest like this is...

[Kiara]

Again though, that was targeted at the concept of the old school grind. The feeling of progression being a huge part of the reward with this model... Isn't there that sense of relief that not only did you get it, but you have thus "beat" the system by avoiding the unforeseen amount of time it would have otherwise took? That's the old school reward system, which is actually why MMORPGs were so dear to people in the past. It gave you all of these senses and emotions lol. You legitimately celebrate when you beat the odds... usually. Animus does not do this for most people, simply because you can track it (the primary difference between the two).

I agree about being able to track your progress effectively being a lot more friendly (to the extent that you can more or less predict when you'll finish). That's the newer model of MMORPGs. For today's generation, that's kind of what people expect.

Hi Welsper,

Some great thoughts about the differing systems. I would say one factor to add into the discussion about the "Old School Grind" vs. tracking progress is:

* Vertical Progression with Fast Item Level Changes undermine the Grind.

I don't mind the Old School Grind (like finally getting your drop from Nidhogg, or FF XI's Relic Grind (early years) (OK, the currency grind was TOO long, but the general steps were OK)), but it doesn't work with Yoshi P's current Vertical Progression Pace.

I did enjoy the sense of accomplishment and relief when you finally earned a drop off a Rare NM and you knew that item was going to be BiS for a long time.

But with Item Level inflation the way it is in FF XIV, it makes EVERYTHING you earn feel like "disposable gear" / worthless every ~5 - 6 months.

Note for those that have only played with these newer WoW-inspired methods: With Horizontal Progression you *can* have plenty of New Gear as well. Sure there might be some that are truly "the best in slot," but with proper balancing the other gear (same Item Level, but with different unique stats) would still be meaningful and useful to get (while you try and get the most desired version).