The relic weapon quest is OBSCENELY boring...

[Lemuria]

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.

Sorry, but it remains a worthless argument.

1. (Low Time, High Cost): A Crafted Weapon, pentamelded if you care.

The best crafted weapons are level 110, which already matches Novus level on a relic. There's a lot of grind needed to even get to that stage.

2. (Middling Time, Some Cost, High Skill): Coil Gear, RNG-y but if you have T13 on farm, it'll drop eventually

Worth noting that the drops from said content are equal in level to a fully upgraded Zeta Zodiac at this stage.

4. (Middling Time, Some Cost, Low Skill): Your Tome Weapon. Not hard to get, perfectly serviceable even if it's not BiS.

This here is why the argument fails as an argument. In three weeks you can have a level 130 weapon which is stronger than a base zodiac weapon. Thats months of grind worths of content in a mere 3 weeks by comparison. Better still, it doesn't require any high skill level or grind to obtain.

The real reason the argument falls apart though is because you have STILL not justified why this has to be such a long-winded and BORING quest for such small gains. I need to wait four hours for a Fate, kill 100 enemies, do 3 dungeons and multiple levequests (which don't always appear as an option initially) for a measly +2 vitality? I have to grind 2000 light for +2 weapon strength and +3 vitality? The rewards do not match the time spent on the content.

What's worse is that people will happily eat this content up because, like a starved dog, we lack for content so any bone thrown our way seems like a massive step up from the dust we've been eating thus far. Take a long hard look at the game as a whole. How much of it is rehashed and revisited content as opposed to adding new twists and new ideas? We grind tomes by revisiting the same dungeons we've done countless times before. The same primals. The same boss fights. The same content over and over until you're sick with the stuff.

The problem is that none of these areas are remotely dynamic. They're unchanging. The same number of enemies in the same formations with the same attack patterns. It's as predictable as knowing the sun will rise in the morning. Now look at other games which offer similar content. Overworld areas being utilized for grinds, with their random spawns and dangers, dungeons with varying paths or different ways to complete them.

FFXIV has so much potential, but if it continues to play out in this manner it won't have a very long life. It's in danger of becoming so homogenized that it's indistinguishable from the crowd. It's storyline is it's most compelling aspect so far, and it has room for growth if they choose to do so. In that regard, Heavensward is looking amazing and will certainly raise the bar for future updates. That's not an excuse for the rubbish grindy mess we've got so far, and the zodiac weapons are a prime example of an idea gone horribly wrong.

Forcing players to replay old content with little to no reward isn't fun. It's a half-assed attempt to keep that old content on life support as the gear treadmill pushes players towards the higher level dungeons and away from the newbie areas. None of that issue would even exist if the content had been designed with that in mind from the start, let alone dragged along further by the constant removal of old currencies and the addition of new ones.

tl;dr. Don't excuse poor content just because it's the only content.