Quote Originally Posted by Alahra View Post
It comes from data that the developers track regarding quest completion rates. They track similar data for things like raid clears and primal clears, which is how they also determined that too few people were clearing Alexander (Savage) or that less than 50% of the playerbase cleared Titan (Extreme) back when it was current content.
I know they have the data for these things, but what I'm saying is that it's BS. Everyone had the Relic Weapons in 2.0. Vanilla 2.0. There wasn't much to do as a casual / solo player after the MSQ, and special weapons are always cool, so you went and did it. The fights were not a huge barrier like we've been told. They were a barrier, but one that most players were able to overcome, so the "casual / solo players don't want challenging fights and we don't want to tie Relic / Zodiac / Anima weapons to them as a result" is nonsense.

The real reason the Anima weapons are so ridiculously grindy is because they don't want raiders to feel butthurt that "filthy casuls" got an i210 weapon without putting in the same tremendous effort they did. They pretty much said so verbatim. I understand that raiding (the most difficult content) should provide the greatest rewards, but this treadmill we've been given in exchange is not what casual / solo players want or enjoy. It's not.

Quote Originally Posted by Alahra View Post
They are two separate issues that might seem related and in conflict at first glance but aren't necessarily so.
Here's the kicker: Titan HM was a prerequisite for going into T1. So as long as you had half a brain and knew about the Relics, chances were you had one anyway before going to fight Twintania. Making the Relic Zenith be an equivalent iLv to the Allagan weapons from T5 was a mistake on their part, which was rectified. After the Zenith, all semblance of difficulty was removed in favor of just making it take longer. That'll keep people playing, but it's not enjoyable and it doesn't make them happy - it's a treadmill to give them something to do, and people who recognize that won't bother getting on it.

They're trying to compare the difficulty and sense of achievement of raiding with what drives casual / solo players, which is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They made the last step of the Anima weapon try to be as difficult as clearing A4S, trading difficulty for time... which is utter BS in my opinion, especially when Alexander Savage was released months before the Anima weapon quest.