The relic weapon quest is OBSCENELY boring...

[Gralna]

I personally enjoyed it quite a bit. Different strokes for different folks.

I enjoyed it too, will I farm another one up to zeta? most likely not since I have to manage my time, and a zeta relic for an alt job isn't a top priority.

[Wournsfeik_Untawhasyn]

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

It's not the only content though. Also at no point throughout my entire Animus section did I ever wait even 4 hours for a FATE. I know some have that issue, but that's why you target FATEs are priority and do other things in those zones while you wait, overlapping your time. By your argument you shouldn't bother doing any content until patch 2.55 hit because it's all literally now worthless at this point in time. Which is a poorly conceived argument at best. As someone already stated, plenty of people complained that the original leg was so boring and easy that many people just relic'd out with Zenith for all of their classes. And had it continued like that for up to Zeta that weapon who's stats YOU personally get to choose and cultivate would have been more powerful than the Raid Weapon for nowhere near the effort or patience.

How would that have been remotely fair to the others who were putting effort into their weapons or giving up weeks from their Poetics farming or working with crafters (or blowing millions on the MB for the proper materia).

The only reason you're having any issues at all is because as I pointed out, you're not tackling the grind correctly. You're not ensuring you're accomplishing multiple goals at once, and in essence are wasting a lot of time.

Now, on the remark about the grindy and rehashed content. ARR was never going to be h-amazing! it's goal was the pull a failing game out of the fire, dust it off and give it a chance. They had to play it somewhat safe. Now that it's successful I expect and hope that Heavensward brings us new ways to fight, explore, and cooperate with not only our FCs but with our community to surmount huge challenges. I love some of the ideas they've thrown out about exploration using Company Airships, and I'm hoping at least one leg of the next Relic journey allows for use of that system to help get whatever material is necessary at that stage (but don't make it required, that'd be bad). The Zodiac Relic weapon saga did one thing very right: It was a tour de force of the content of the game.

[Rgbg]

I personally enjoyed it quite a bit. Different strokes for different folks.

Same here, while I'll admit I hated some of the atma book stages I've always found ways to combine what the relic/zodiac quests required me to do with stuff that I wanted or needed to do anyway. Like spiritbonding gear for DoL/DoH materia (also lots of gil just selling what you won't need there), get my pvp rank ups (I did my war and whm nexus weapons in pvp exclusively), get pvp coins for eventual wardrobe items (nice side effect was I never had to actively crawl towards 250 wins for ADS, I was already there when they introduced it yay), once done with all the wardrobe items I wanted I still found use for my pvp coins for desynthesis purposes. While running dungeons for the zodiac drops of course I was frustrated when they didn't drop after like 9 runs but I tried to see it positive, I needed the soldiery anyway for the next couple of holy spring waters for the other zodiacs. Also, I totally loved how it really bonded me with my weapon and my job. Each time I got my upgrade I felt like the hardship had been so worth it XD It's not the same as "just" purchasing a weapon, at least for me XD It's my Ragnarök, it's my Nirvana and it will be my Longinus (currently also on Nin-Nexus stage but not sure if I'll continue, I seem to enjoy Drg more when it comes to playing as dps). If it turns out that with Heavensward they will be just glamours, then allright, I'm all zen about this, the journey is the destination Is it a grind? Yes. But I think if you do just one weapon then it's really so totally doable.
Granted, with the introduction of the new frontline mode and change to pvp Q I don't know if I would pvp as heavily as I did and thus get Nexus that fast, I also switched to a different data center where hardly anybody seems to pvp (cry) so it's kinda slow atm in comparison to 4-5months ago. What I was trying to say is, if it's boring maybe find a way to make it not so boring or the right state of mind XD Or just leave off it altogether, after all, nobody forces you to do it and as many ppl have mentioned there are other ways to get a decent weapon.
Gotta say though, I simply loved Gerolt's dialogue throughout these quests

[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.

[Airget]

I enjoyed it too, will I farm another one up to zeta? most likely not since I have to manage my time, and a zeta relic for an alt job isn't a top priority.

Exactly, I look back at relic and I think, I enjoyed doing this for one job, but no I would not take the time to do another, not because I "hated" doing it but because I have no desire to put that time into getting another weapon like that for another job. I think of what I did enjoy and didn't enjoy and the overall mark that hits me is, I would prefer not to do the books again, I have no desire to spend gil on materia and crafting items and I just don't want to farm lights again lol. It was ok the first time around but hey the achievements speak for themselves, they understand that a person would most likely only go through the process once that's why they don't make it for every weapon and just turn it into an achievement for obtaining one.

[CGMidlander]

In hindsight, I think the relic quest gave me something to do, even if it was repetitive as hell at some points.

I'd probably do a 3rd one if I wasn't low on Gil. I'm finally diving into crafting.

[Spawnie]

i quite enjoyed it gave me somethin to do on a daily basis when i logged in :3 id do my ninjas but funds are low atm and dont have much time to farm materia due to busy in rl

[Lemuria]

It's not the only content though.

Please at least put in a little effort towards comprehension. What was meant by that snippet is that you're not crossing any new ground by working towards a relic. You're retreading old ground. Old dungeons, old fights, old content. It's not 'new', it's just being revisited.

Also at no point throughout my entire Animus section did I ever wait even 4 hours for a FATE. I know some have that issue, but that's why you target FATEs are priority and do other things in those zones while you wait, overlapping your time.

Genius. Why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I did. Most of the 'content' in those areas is done within a few minutes, but those Fates can literally take hours to spawn. Great that you're one of the amazingly lucky few who never had to wait, but many of us did. Consider yourself the exception, not the rule.

By your argument you shouldn't bother doing any content until patch 2.55 hit because it's all literally now worthless at this point in time.

Worthless? No. But going over the same content ad infinity isn't going to carry this game long term. The last few updates were essentially the same. 3 New dungeons, replace old tomes with new ones. Add new gear which is higher item level, but otherwise virtually identical. Feed people the same stuff for so long, and they get so used to it that even a minor change feels like a world-changing one.

As someone already stated, plenty of people complained that the original leg was so boring and easy that many people just relic'd out with Zenith for all of their classes. And had it continued like that for up to Zeta that weapon who's stats YOU personally get to choose and cultivate would have been more powerful than the Raid Weapon for nowhere near the effort or patience.

Plenty of people? Please point me to these people, because so far all I've seen is praise for the initial Zenith weapon quest. It was varied, showed real progression and, while easy, infinitely more enjoyable than the grind which follows. There are means and ways to make things take longer without them being nearly as boring. At the very least some new zodiac-specific content would have been preferable to recycling old dungeons.

The only reason you're having any issues at all is because as I pointed out, you're not tackling the grind correctly. You're not ensuring you're accomplishing multiple goals at once, and in essence are wasting a lot of time.

Oh, I'm so sorry. How exactly was I supposed to tackle the Animus to Novus stage while accomplishing multiple goals? I didn't realise I could craft my way to getting 75 alexandrite, or mine them out of a rock somewhere. Perhaps they drop from meaningful a dungeon I missed somewhere...? Nope. It drops from 2 places. Maps, which require grinding dungeons for tomes to purchase or daily roulette, and Fates.

Incidentally, it's been the casual nature of my progress through Nexus light which is the reason it has taken me months (yes MONTHS) just to hit 80%. With a measly +32 at best given from any one piece of content (and even that's with bonus light) it would take a minimum of 63 runs to accomplish. Realistically speaking, since I'm doing dailies and weeklies, it would take around 167 dungeons to complete. At roughly 20 minutes each that's a total of 55 and a half hours end to end. That's longer than an entire play-through of any previous final fantasy game. And that doesn't even consider finding a party or potential new players on the team.

[Divine_Intervention]

Hands up \o/ i've been a big whiner about this relic quest. It's taken me a LOOOOONG time to get through each stage, much more than it should have.
Friends have come and gone on their relics, and moved onto others, after i had long started mines.
It's REALLY repetitive.

However.. it gave me something to do. It was worth the upgrade (currently working on nirvana > nirvana zeta). God's I hated the RNG of the last stage.
I LOVED the book stage, and the initial stage. It was a shopping list of things to kill, things to achieve. I hated atma, and the rng of dungeon drops. Those were my bane. Light farming? Yes please! An amountable achievable goal with an end in sight so to speak.

What did i do today? I went to start on another relic for my offclasses. I appreciate having things to do, an outwith raiding and crafting, this was it. Besides, they look really cool and have comparable (SELECTABLE) stats to the augmented ironworks stuff.

Before anyone goes back to read my other posts on these kind of subjects, re-read my first sentence, i'm a whiner about this questline, but i do appreciate it being there, kinda:

Just my 2p!

[Ashkendor]

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.

The difference is, the Novus has potential to improve. The crafted weapon will never go higher than i110.

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

Equal in item level sure, but not equal in stats. Zeta gives the stats of your choice, and it gives more of them.

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.

Sorry but I have to call you on that blatant exaggeration - nobody's waiting four hours for the fates anymore. The longest I've waited is 15-20 minutes; if you hang out on any one of those maps for a few hours and pay attention, you will see the fates several times. They pop incredibly often now. I use the enemy kills to spiritbond and get chocobo experience. The levequests are a joke. You can finish each one in 1-2 minutes even on a tank class. The mobs are pathetically squishy and the mechanics can be largely ignored in favor of just murdering things.

As far as the grind itself, you have to remember that the quest chain was put in in installments. Each one of these steps was meant to keep people busy for awhile until the next major patch content went in. Doing the quest now is like reading all of the parts of a serial novel back to back. Sure you get the whole story all at once, but it's also pretty long. Some of the requirements have been eased (atma drop rate, alex drop rate, cost of books was lowered, fate timers were fixed, light was halved) but it still does require a fair amount of effort to put a relic together.

Oh, I'm so sorry. How exactly was I supposed to tackle the Animus to Novus stage while accomplishing multiple goals? I didn't realise I could craft my way to getting 75 alexandrite, or mine them out of a rock somewhere. Perhaps they drop from meaningful a dungeon I missed somewhere...? Nope. It drops from 2 places. Maps, which require grinding dungeons for tomes to purchase or daily roulette, and Fates.

Cmon, think outside the box a little. I've used the mob kills to level my chocobo and spiritbond an ungodly amount of gear.

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

But it's not the only content. My static can farm T13 but I'm still making a fourth Zeta relic (ok that's partly cause 3 people are in line for claws before me but still). It's something constructive to do to pass the time until Heavensward. It doesn't require a huge investment as far as learning new things. I get to go back and tread familiar ground again and I don't mind that. I like running into newbies in the dungeons I'm doing. It reinforces to me that that's precisely why we're being shuffled back into the older stuff time and time again - to keep the Duty Finder churning for new people.

Plenty of people? Please point me to these people, because so far all I've seen is praise for the initial Zenith weapon quest. It was varied, showed real progression and, while easy, infinitely more enjoyable than the grind which follows.

Uhhhhh... collecting 900 myth tomes for Thavnairian Mist is varied and infinitely more enjoyable than the grind which follows? Last I checked that was 2 or 3 weeks of grinding dungeons, depending on if the cap was 300 or 450 whenever you did yours. Are you maybe referring to the base relic quest? :P