New Relic weapon quest - are we down to 1 hour content already?

[Iscah]

ARR Relic Weapon first step:

- Pick up an item from a zone
- Get a Crafted Weapon (Uses items dropped in Wanderer's Palace if you want to craft yourself) and double Meld it
- Do a unique Trial vs Chimera
- Go through Amdapor Keep
- Kill a few overworld enemies
- Do another unique Trial vs Hydra
- Beat Ifirit (Hard)
- Beat Garuda (Hard)
- Beat Titan (Hard)
- Buy some oil for 15 poetics

HW Relic first step:

- Farm FATEs in every HW zone for crystals until you have one from each zone.

StB Relic first step:

- Get 1300 Protean Crystals
- Get 3 Pazuzu Feathers

ShB Relic first step:

- Do a solo duty
- Watch some cutscenes

With the extra weapons being:
- Have 1000 poetics

Even with the nerfs (I.e. Buffs) to HW crystal drop rates, ShB's first step is probably the shortest one. Even with the 1k poetics a pop, given how easy it is to farm poetics these days.

Even if the others do have more/longer steps, you're not exactly describing them in equal terms.

Yes, the ARR weapon has "unique trials" but what did we get just now? A new field zone, unique dungeon with multiple bosses (and story for those who care), and unique EX trial. The trial doesn't drop weapon components of course, but it's part of the package and people will certainly be grinding for their dyeable relic gear whether it's valuable as equipment or not. Also Eureka's elemental gear suggests the possibility that this is step one of another gear grind.

I just don't see the appeal of having to farm FATEs to gather up huge amounts of crystals. If you're disappointed that SE didn't force you to do it to earn your relic, would you voluntarily participate in an equal amount of FATEs just to amuse yourself? If so, there's nothing stopping you. Make your own grind - tell yourself you're not getting that weapon until you've done X arbitrary tasks. Do FATEs and roll some dice after each one; only progress if you rolled a 12. Run all the Eden raids.

If you don't want to put yourself through that... why is it appealing to be required to do them, if you wouldn't want to spend your time on it otherwise?