Why is "It's something to do" apparently a valid defense?

[Reilyn]

snip.

A good read, but one thing left me wanting; what of 2.0 relic? What did they take away from player feedback (if anything at all) about that? Any signs of inspiration from the original relic quest requiring the defeat of actual challenging content bosses is completely absent, instead replaced with a revamped culmination of numerous grinds anyone can do in their sleep (or fall asleep doing).

Why is it they exclude the possibility of involving something at least as challenging as thordan ex as an alternate route for players who want to climb a skill wall for a fast relic as opposed to mindless grinding for a slow one? That is a design choice they've never used again after 2.0, and I have a few theories as to why. None of them are flattering for SE, nor our fellow players who complained hardmode titan's giant butt being a veritable wall was bad for the game.

[Alahra]

A good read, but one thing left me wanting; what of 2.0 relic? What did they take away from player feedback (if anything at all) about that? Any signs of inspiration from the original relic quest requiring the defeat of actual challenging content bosses is completely absent, instead replaced with a revamped culmination of numerous grinds anyone can do in their sleep (or fall asleep doing.

Well, there was actually a lot of feedback about the original questline, too. The fact that we *don't* have to do challenging content for the Zodiac weapon and now the Anima weapon was because people wanted the weapon *not* to need challenging content. Rewards for challenging content have typically been in raid content ever since.

Mind you, I *liked* the original 2.0 relic quest, but I'm also a midcore player generally and I do enjoy handling tougher content (though Savage is beyond me, personally). I wish they'd put something like Titan HM in there again, too (in ARR, I was hoping for a stage that revisited the three original EX primals--still the best set of content we've ever received, in my mind--for the last part), but I understand why they haven't and why we have what we've got now.

[Reilyn]

Well, there was actually a lot of feedback about the original questline, too. The fact that we *don't* have to do challenging content for the Zodiac weapon and now the Anima weapon was because people wanted the weapon *not* to need challenging content.

And that is what grinds my gears. Have my like.

Rewards for challenging content have typically been in raid content ever since.

This annoys me even more so since unlike previous raid tiers, the relic is at ilvl of gordian/upgraded eso currently, and will remain on par with bis weapons until 3.2, or if they decide to bump up gordian weapon ilvl like they did with T5 weapons in 2.0 before 3.2 comes around.

As a result; Hilariously enough, bis weapons for DRK, WAR, and SCH to name a few don't come from any content resembling a challenge at all, unless you count trying not to fall asleep.

My co-healer and I go through healing savage manipulator with MP constantly <5k, and having to deal with sporadic damage. My reward is: no title, a mount that looks like crap, sounds literally like garbage (seriously, it's the sound of a bunch of trashcans), and the chance at a weapon... that gets outdone by doing content anyone can do while dozing off...?

[Alahra]

My co-healer and I go through healing savage manipulator with MP constantly <5k, and having to deal with sporadic damage. My reward is: no title, a mount that looks like crap, sounds literally like garbage (seriously, it's the sound of a bunch of trashcans), and the chance at a weapon... that gets outdone by doing content anyone can do while dozing off...?

Yes, the general tradeoff is that you can, with a solid group, get that weapon much, much earlier than the Relic/Anima questline (as the "max level" weapons for that avenue are always unobtainable until well after the raid content is released. Raid weapons are BiS for several classes as well (but that's an issue of itemization and the generally poor functioning of secondary stats in the game so far). They've at least deadened the impact of RNG on raiding thanks to the addition of the token system, at least.

[Moqi]

The fact that we *don't* have to do challenging content for the Zodiac weapon and now the Anima weapon was because people wanted the weapon *not* to need challenging content.

Did people complain about challenging content, or did they complain about Titan? Because Titan was a roadblock to many for reasons unrelated to the actual difficulty of the fight - and it was the same for Titan EX which had nothing to do with the relic. They had to unlock the other primals gated because people complained about the fight there too.

Genuine question because I've never seen anyone complain about Garuda, Ifrit, Chimera or Hydra. I actually see that part of the relic mostly getting praise. Maybe the problem wasn't difficult content but "Titan is unplayable, don't ever put that particular trial in the relic" and SE took it to mean "don't put any trial ever again in the relic"... and it wouldn't be the first time that SE completely misunderstands what peole are asking.

[Reilyn]

Did people complain about challenging content, or did they complain about Titan? Because Titan was a roadblock to many for reasons unrelated to the actual difficulty of the fight - and it was the same for Titan EX which had nothing to do with the relic. They had to unlock the other primals gated because people complained about the fight there too.

Genuine question because I've never seen anyone complain about Garuda, Ifrit, Chimera or Hydra. I actually see that part of the relic mostly getting praise. Maybe the problem wasn't difficult content but "Titan is unplayable, don't ever put that particular trial in the relic" and SE took it to mean "don't put any trial ever again in the relic"... and it wouldn't be the first time that SE completely misunderstands what peole are asking.

It's a sad possibility I'm curious about too. We coulda've had leviathan, ramuh, shiva, etc be involved with the relic instead of me catching myself falling asleep at the keyboard in copperbell, and thousand snores on more than one occasion for atma books.

Right now, what I'm taking away from this is the casual/incapable players have literally resulted in killing the feel of satisfaction in anything relic related after 2.0; the last time I ever felt good about doing anything relic-related. Watching those people punch holes into a ship, and watching it sink since isn't cool.

[Alahra]

Genuine question because I've never seen anyone complain about Garuda, Ifrit, Chimera or Hydra. I actually see that part of the relic mostly getting praise.

They don't complain about it so much *now* but 2 years ago, people did, and Titan HM runs used to sell like crazy on my server back then. Titan was rather hard content at the time it was released, with DPS checks that were pretty difficult at the time given available gear and healing checks that required almost full i70 to reasonably survive, especially given that the game was new and people hadn't really worked out the best priorities for DPS and all of that. Titan did have *other* issues of course, namely with the apparent lag caused by the way Weight of the Land and Landslide render (I think it's telling they have't used those same effects outside of Titan EX and Ultima HM since then, at least, not that I recall).

[RiceisNice]

They don't complain about it so much *now* but 2 years ago, people did, and Titan HM runs used to sell like crazy on my server back then. Titan was rather hard content at the time it was released, with DPS checks that were pretty difficult at the time given available gear and healing checks that required almost full i70 to reasonably survive. Titan did have *other* issues of course, namely with the apparent lag caused by the way Weight of the Land renders (I think it's telling they have't used that same effect outside of Titan EX and Ultima HM since then, at least, not that I recall).

Even if you opt out the primals, look at the other steps of the base relic; you had crafting with materia melding, fetching items, and well..actual lore behind your weapon as an individual. The Anima quests opt out on all of this entirely (including trials), and makes you revisit 2.x dungeons rather than all 3.x dungeons and EX primals (which at this point have echo mind you, I don't think even titan HM on release had that). Same with step 3's progression if you aren't using Alexander to speed it up. It really looks like they haven't put any work in utilizing new content in the current expansion, but instead making us revisit 2.0. I brought the expansion with expectations that I'm playing with new features of the game, not features that require us to play in 2.0 areas to progress.

And speaking from experience, weight of the land was the only AoE marker that would lock up my screen during titan EX and most of my deaths would attribute to getting hit by it because we were stacked. Only way for me to avoid it was to stack way from the other players and move pre-emptively (so I don't drop it in front of them, esp during double weights)

[Alahra]

-snip-

I'll agree I was hoping for more weapon-specific Lore as well, though honestly, we don't know that there won't be any. If they don't at least talk a bit about what the Anima stage is when we get it for each weapon, I'd be pretty surprised (I'm sure the text has been datamined of course, but I'm sure most people have avoided it like the plague for spoilers). It does seem like we're not remaking an old legendary weapon this time though, so in a sense we're *making* the lore--so we wouldn't get a lore dump at the start anyway.

I was also surprised by the inclusion of 2.x dungeons, though I wasn't particularly surprised by the inclusion of Snowcloak and Keeper of the Lake, since those are story dungeons. It felt really odd to me that Great Gubal Library and Fractal/Neverreap weren't included, honestly, and I would have rather had those than the 4 Hard Mode dungeons we did get. However, they probably skipped Fractal/Neverreap because people complained so much about being burnt out on them.

But most of the content used in the Anima line, outside of the dungeons for the 170-200 stage, is still "new" content that came out this raid tier, which has been par for the course with the questline ever since they introduced the Zodiac Saga during SCoB. It's almost never engaged with the absolute newest content except in indirect ways. As I said above, I'm still rather surprised Diadem doesn't have anything as of yet to do with the Anima questline, but I'd lay money that it will be involved with whatever the next stage we get in 3.2 is (if there is one in 3.2, anyway).

Beyond that, they're kind of in a catch-22: one of the longstanding complaints about the game is that it is too quick to abandon old content. The Relic's a rather effective way to create reason to run some of the older stuff, as people aren't going to run outdated content without suitable carrots (cosmetics simply aren't enough for a lot of the population). However, putting old content in the Relic line is seen as a disappointment to some players--but if they didn't, they'd also have to find suitable ways to get people interested in the *older* stuff. And they also have financial incentive to milk content for as much as they can, since the team is small--I don't mean that as an excuse for them, but just a reality of the situation. Given the team's size, we're lucky we do have so many things to do with what content we do have (hell, WoW's team is probably 3 or 4 times the size of FFXIV's, and they have *less* content).

Edit (for a brief aside on lag and Titan): Some of the complaints about lag were in part because people hadn't yet realized that you have to be out of the marked area when the *cast bar* finishes, rather than when the visible animation for it finishes. That's the case for all AoE's, but in Titan, it's of special note because of how weird Weight of the Land is. Something in its visual effect causes a lot of animation display, so it frequently displays late or lingers for a little longer, creating the appearance that it's still "safe" when it's not. Similar things actually could happen in Leviathan with the water spouts before his Dives (especially on PS3) and we haven't seen attack animations of that nature since then, either.

[RiceisNice]

But most of the content used in the Anima line, outside of the dungeons for the 170-200 stage, is still "new" content that came out this raid tier, which has been par for the course with the questline ever since they introduced the Zodiac Saga during SCoB. It's almost never engaged with the absolute newest content except in indirect ways. As I said above, I'm still rather surprised Diadem doesn't have anything as of yet to do with the Anima questline, but I'd lay money that it will be involved with whatever the next stage we get in 3.2 is (if there is one in 3.2, anyway).

The circumstances between the two are different though, mostly due to the expansion (and the expectations that well...come from an expansion). Zodiac has you revisiting level 50 content. Most of the approaches in anima requires you revisiting 50 content at level 60. Even if you exclude the dungeons, you have four 2.x beast tribes, 2.x hunts, and 2.x tomestones, while leaving the "current tier" or even 3.x content mostly un-utilized, specifically the EX primals and the level 60 dungeons.

Beyond that, they're kind of in a catch-22: one of the longstanding complaints about the game is that it is too quick to abandon old content. The Relic's a rather effective way to create reason to run some of the older stuff, as people aren't going to run outdated content without suitable carrots (cosmetics simply aren't enough for a lot of the population). However, putting old content in the Relic line is seen as a disappointment to some players--but if they didn't, they'd also have to find suitable ways to get people interested in the *older* stuff.

Again like I mentioned above, there's a difference between when they were making old content in 2.0 be relevant for future 2.0 relic steps. We're in the 3.0 cycle now, it's backwards thinking to make people go revisit 2.0 areas, especially for something like beast tribes that doesn't make you interact with other players like you would for dungeons or even FATEs. Is there a pressing need to make something like 2.x hunts (which in hindsight actually give more than 3.x since you use allied seals for relic, but not centaruo seals) or beast tribes more lively?

And they also have financial incentive to milk content for as much as they can, since the team is small--I don't mean that as an excuse for them, but just a reality of the situation. Given the team's size, we're lucky we do have so many things to do with what content we do have (hell, WoW's team is probably 3 or 4 times the size of FFXIV's, and they have *less* content).

There's going to be times where this just won't fly anymore with the players, especially if they're not meeting the standards that they themselves have set in the past. Even if you're trying to argue that WoW gets less content (because their patch cycles, while longer, add a lot more content which lasts a lot longer, including a new area, daily hubs, and the such), there's always the aspect of Quality > quantity.