The relic weapon quest is OBSCENELY boring...

[Stanelis]

Okay, actual serious post time.

Relic was designed to be 'Time versus Difficulty', it's the extreme end of the Time Spectrum. Is the RNG associated with some of the steps punishing? Sure, but y'know, it's really the only solid example of 'hahaHA, RNG has screwed you' in this game. Raids at the extreme end are similar, but only when the weekly lockout is a thing. After that nobody cares. The thing is the reason this argument is used is it's not worthless.

You have three/four options for gear:

1. (Low Time, High Cost): A Crafted Weapon, pentamelded if you care.
2. (Middling Time, Some Cost, High Skill): Coil Gear, RNG-y but if you have T13 on farm, it'll drop eventually
3. (High Time, Some Cost, Low Skill): Relic Weapon, still RNG-y but only during specific sections, designed to be pure grind out of the request for some high end grindy content not unlike Trial of the Magians.
4. (Middling Time, Some Cost, Low Skill): Your Tome Weapon. Not hard to get, perfectly serviceable even if it's not BiS.

Considering you have three other options: then Relic as it stands now is not terrible (and yes, I spent about 1 month on 1 Atma prenerf, I remember that frustration. I'm glad the drop rate is higher, but I also remember how good it felt to get that last one)

You know, you could imagine something which take a while to obtain without being as boring to farm as the current zodiac weapons.

But then SE would have to actually stop trying to recycle the content you've already completed several times (having to farm fates in low level areas for atmas, as an example, was a poor joke, as you already have to farm fates to level up). Also That relic weapon was full of awful idea (who remember having to wait a few hours for a particular fate to spawn, during the animus step of the weapon ?).

The fact that SE wants something in the game to take a while to obtain doesn't imply it must be as boring as it is now.

However, it is pretty obvious that most steps of that relic are intended to make sure high level players still farm the lower level content rather to entertain the players. And that is what disturb me the most.