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

[WinterLuna]

That's exactly it, like this entire thread is pretty much "if you like what i don't like, Something is wrong with you, white knight" etc.

As the old saying goes: Misery loves company.

I got called a white knight for saying I enjoyed the relic in another thread so this isn't entirely true. It's the first thing people jump to in their defense of disliking it. "OMG you love SE white knight can't you see they are BRAINWASHING US!? It's so bad I hate it so you can't enjoy it!!!"

And my response is cool, unsub then. You're right about the misery part and I agree with you although we don't share the same opinion on the relic.

[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)

[Reilyn]

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).

I seen the videos of the funky lag, but never really experienced it first hand as clearly (or maybe I just accepted any hiccups as my fault, and muscled through it anyway). One such video is of a person clearly getting out of landslide's visual before it dissappeared, but being ejected out of the ring anyway...