Alliance raids have no business being a relic step.

[Arkevorkhat]

We didn't have to do it with Eureka but enough people complained they wanted to do in world out of zone content so here we are. Running old content is nothing new for relic by the way.

Old, not new at all, THIS OLD, yes. for ARR Relics, you had to do content that was at maximum 2 years or 5 minor patches old. Anima weapons maxed out with having to do hardmode ARR dungeons, which were released in patch 2.4, which was 3 and a half minor updates and about 14 months of time prior to the release of that step.
In contrast: the current ShB relic step requires 15 crystal tower raids, the youngest of which was a little over 5 years old at the time of the patch's release, and the oldest of which was over 6 years old.

They had the option of making it so the content we had to do was on the same order of magnitude of age as it was back in the day, but they chose to not, instead making us do the same content people did back in 2.x to finish their relics, half a decade later. We could've had a relic step call for YoRHa raids, or Eden raids, or level 80 roulettes, but instead we got yet more Crystal Tower, Shadow of Mhach, and Return to Ivalice.

[LaylaTsarra]

Old, not new at all, THIS OLD, yes.

It's old content what's the difference. Personally I'm not happy about it I preferred the in zone relic content we had in Eureka. You can try and spin it however you like but this is what we got because people didn't want to do in zone stuff.

And I might add the second stage is ultimately about as mindless as you can get and it penalizes those of us with more than one account (character).

[Arkevorkhat]

The reason is to make yourself useful and help new players or go play Bozja.

It's always been like that.

- Mentor system with unique mount rewards
- PF leveling
- Event mog when there is no more content
- Relics 5.35 go Bozja or go HW fate (helps newbies to Xp)
- Token to get materia VIII with PF Raid alliance / Leveling

Square Enix always needs new players out of those hard-working people to make the two MSQ dungeons so big rewards, in tomestone/time to farm ratios, it's profitable and you can do something else while the new ones watch their cinematics.

The free trial is between ARR and HW in its entirety. It is true that why Crystal Tower and not Voids Ark raids. Maybe because you have to finish the Crystal Tower raids before doing Shadowbringer, why? Well you had to do the MSQ of the extension, you know why.


Either you're going to farm in no brain mode, or you help the new ones, it's always been like that. There is no other logic.

You're implying there's a choice here. If I offered you a sandwich and a used tissue for lunch, you'd take the sandwich every single time, because there's not actually a choice there.

Bozja is the same way, our choices are A: Do the thing that gets people to irreversibly change their free trial account into a paid account, making Square Enix money, or B: spend dozens or hundreds of hours grinding in Bozja to get the same reward.
The only way I would ever see this as anything short of disingenuous is if the facts of the matter were that both options were vaguely comparable in investment and difficulty; if it's gonna take me 10 hours to do it in the Alliance raids, it shouldn't take 10 times that long to do it in Bozja.

[Arkevorkhat]

It's old content what's the difference. Personally I'm not happy about it I preferred the in zone relic content we had in Eureka. You can try and spin it however you like but this is what we got because people didn't want to do in zone stuff.

And I might add the second stage is ultimately about as mindless as you can get and it penalizes those of us with more than one account (character).

Yes, and now they've told us "you bitched about doing zone content, so we're gonna ruin it for *everyone* because we don't understand how to do nuance. Here's a 15 percent drop-rate if you wanna do it in bozja, go fuck yourselves."
People who complained about Eureka failed to understand that bitching only gets SE to make things worse for people, never better.

[Vyrerus]

Old, not new at all, THIS OLD, yes. for ARR Relics, you had to do content that was at maximum 2 years or 5 minor patches old. Anima weapons maxed out with having to do hardmode ARR dungeons, which were released in patch 2.4, which was 3 and a half minor updates and about 14 months of time prior to the release of that step.
In contrast: the current ShB relic step requires 15 crystal tower raids, the youngest of which was a little over 5 years old at the time of the patch's release, and the oldest of which was over 6 years old.

They had the option of making it so the content we had to do was on the same order of magnitude of age as it was back in the day, but they chose to not, instead making us do the same content people did back in 2.x to finish their relics, half a decade later. We could've had a relic step call for YoRHa raids, or Eden raids, or level 80 roulettes, but instead we got yet more Crystal Tower, Shadow of Mhach, and Return to Ivalice.

Yeah, but you had to have the relic equipped by duty's end. Also back then, 24 man raids were great sources of Light for both Zeta relics and Anima relics. I'll take this new method where the choices are fewer, but I can play anything I want, except BLU, in order to execute the duties.

The relic's also not done until 5.55, so we'll probably get steps more in line with current content when we get to the i530/535 step or whatever.

[Arkevorkhat]

Yeah, but you had to have the relic equipped by duty's end. Also back then, 24 man raids were great sources of Light for both Zeta relics and Anima relics. I'll take this new method where the choices are fewer, but I can play anything I want, except BLU, in order to execute the duties.

The relic's also not done until 5.55, so we'll probably get steps more in line with current content when we get to the i530/535 step or whatever.

So... Because we can use our current gear and do it on any job, it's totally fine that they just grabbed a pile of random alliance raids that are both years old and at best tangentially related to the weapons' stories?

All I'm asking for here is for SE to not be so damn transparent through their game mechanics that Bozja was never the intended manner for obtaining the relics. The only steps in this relic grind that aren't 15% as efficient and thus strongly discouraged by the game mechanics are Loathsome Memories which are about as efficient to get by doing castrum, and the Delubrum Reginae step.
The FF14 team are telling us that the canonical way you get the relics is by doing piles of unrelated Alliance raids. Imagine the backlash back in the day if, in addition to the absurd requirements, the anima weapons all but required running almost exclusively ARR content. People would've rioted, but SE has conditioned the community to accept mediocrity, and that's the harbinger of a dying MMO.

[ForteNightshade]

I've had anywhere between 10 minute and 30 minute queues for Puppet's Bunker, with my chosen role having little effect.
Granted, I'm on Aether, might be different in EU.

Which is precisely why the dev team uses the relic to bolster queues. They always have prior to Eureka because they don't want new players locked out of content. Alliance Roulette literally exists for that purpose, though they've allowed it to be horribly imbalanced.

Can we all agree that the one place that has ZERO business being a relic step is the Palace of the Dead?

To be fair, the issue is less PotD specifically and more they didn't allow much in the way of choice, period. You basically got two options and that's it.

[Arkevorkhat]

Which is precisely why the dev team uses the relic to bolster queues. They always have prior to Eureka because they don't want new players locked out of content. Alliance Roulette literally exists for that purpose, though they've allowed it to be horribly imbalanced.

Is using, kindly don't imply that they've been doing this for a long time, because they haven't.

Regardless, if they want to bolster the queues for this, they should have taken the time to actually make the content good, instead of just gating the relic weapon behind it. One of those solutions fixes the problem permanently by making the desire to run the content intrinsic to the content itself, and one of them fixes the problem for a month at best by tying it to an extrinsic motivator.

[testname]

I do not like running each year the same old raids, the same old mechanic the same old all.

I promised myself to never go back after getting all to 80. I do not know how You people find fun with running the same OLD raids multiple times.

I strongly believe that we should expect having new things to do, with new content and if new relic, then in new zone, in new dungeons. (and if there is option for people to go old, fine for them, but make it optional)

Forcing me to go back for new relic, is no for me, and it will be my first relic that I will not finish just because that is not fun to me, to do in total "xx" runs of the same old raid. (I did them many times before, and I do not want more) Thus I really liked D2LoD and PoE, where I ran same over and over and over, with nice itemization stats, which in here I have no clue what chance to crit I have, or how strong my crits are. mehhh... I am just getting salty. Good Luck

[Vahlnir]

I do not like running each year the same old raids, the same old mechanic the same old all.

I promised myself to never go back after getting all to 80. I do not know how You people find fun with running the same OLD raids multiple times.

I strongly believe that we should expect having new things to do, with new content and if new relic, then in new zone, in new dungeons. (and if there is option for people to go old, fine for them, but make it optional)

Forcing me to go back for new relic, is no for me, and it will be my first relic that I will not finish just because that is not fun to me, to do in total "xx" runs of the same old raid. (I did them many times before, and I do not want more) Thus I really liked D2LoD and PoE, where I ran same over and over and over, with nice itemization stats, which in here I have no clue what chance to crit I have, or how strong my crits are. mehhh... I am just getting salty. Good Luck

I'm sure it's someone's thing, but it's not fun for me in large doses. However, I wanted my GNB relic. So...I did the thing. Grinding isn't always supposed to be fun (as is the MMO way), though I do wish they hadn't tied so much of this current grind to old content and let people grind it out through Bozja if they wanted. You know, the content we had to do to get it in the first place.