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.

[Kosmos992k]

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.

Or you could have taken it easy instead of grinding it out in weeks, and benefited from the enhanced Atma drop rate... :P

[Wournsfeik_Untawhasyn]

...

You obviously don't know how to handle a grind. While I was doing that I was catching up on my shows or listening to awesome music or working on improving my rotations. You go into these things with an extra objective in mind. You bring stuff to craft in the field or stuff to track like more SB gear. The only part that got a little annoying to handle was the FATE spawns for Animus. But I dealt with Lottery Spawn NMs in FFXI that wouldn't spawn for literally days. So to me that sounds like a hollow complaint. Nobody said you had to do Animus books, and if you weren't on the tip of Relic progression you would've had plenty of warning when you went looking into it.

The purpose of Relic is to get the most out of old content. And while I'll agree it showed some of the issues with the FATE system (that being a absolute lack of control on the player's part. None as opposed to any kind of slight nudging we can do. Even like being able to interact with something to bump up a FATE's position in the queue/FATE cooldown time), but none of it was as bad as you're making it out to be if you go in expecting the grind. I could finish an Animus book done in a Night and I only had maybe 4 hours to give. You just have to tackle it right.

[Stanelis]

You obviously don't know how to handle a grind. While I was doing that I was catching up on my shows or listening to awesome music or working on improving my rotations. You go into these things with an extra objective in mind. You bring stuff to craft in the field or stuff to track like more SB gear. The only part that got a little annoying to handle was the FATE spawns for Animus. But I dealt with Lottery Spawn NMs in FFXI that wouldn't spawn for literally days. So to me that sounds like a hollow complaint. Nobody said you had to do Animus books, and if you weren't on the tip of Relic progression you would've had plenty of warning when you went looking into it.

The purpose of Relic is to get the most out of old content. And while I'll agree it showed some of the issues with the FATE system (that being a absolute lack of control on the player's part. None as opposed to any kind of slight nudging we can do. Even like being able to interact with something to bump up a FATE's position in the queue/FATE cooldown time), but none of it was as bad as you're making it out to be if you go in expecting the grind. I could finish an Animus book done in a Night and I only had maybe 4 hours to give. You just have to tackle it right.

Well I think I do, thank you very much. Nobody's here is complaining that it was too hard (please), also, nobody said it wasn't possible to farm for a zodiax, but that it was boring. We re talking about entertainment here. Also, there is not much to do while you wait for a fate in any given zone. Because if you stray away you take the risk that the fate will spawn and be completed before you come back (and as some fates of the books had like 2~4 hours respawn timers it wasn't a trivial).

Some people here actually talked about feeling accomplished by completing the relic quest. Personally, to be honest, I only felt relief each time I completed a step. Relief that the grind was over (until the next patch).

And be sure I noticed those animus fate with lower spawn rates than the normal ones. I also played FFXI and camped those, NM, but that wasn't the best mechanic of FFXI, to say the least.

Or you could have taken it easy instead of grinding it out in weeks, and benefited from the enhanced Atma drop rate... :P

That's what I did, in the end (however, I got my atma in 8 hours at the beginning, but it was still 8 worthless hours of zerging fates, I don't know how people can defend those sort of grind, that's just 100 % boring, there is no challenge and you don't even play your class). Couldn't stand running Brayflox hundreds of times to get enough tomestone to buy books or spam Garuda to get the lights during nexus.

However it doesn't change the fact that it is terrible game design, no matter how you present it.