Alliance raids have no business being a relic step.

[Mahoukenshi]

Could just run them until you do understand them, then. You might find you like them.

The relic steps are a convenient excuse to nudge you in this direction.

Sure... or some people don't enjoy running stuff over and over and over and over until it's "muscle memorized" and do it the "braindead easy" way. Not everyone gets the feel of exhilaration and adrenalin jump when clearing (in their point of view) hard content. Sound weird, but it is true. Yes, sure, for good players everything is "braindead easy" sooner or later.

[van_arn]

Sure... or some people don't enjoy running stuff over and over and over and over until it's "muscle memorized" and do it the "braindead easy" way. Not everyone gets the feel of exhilaration and adrenalin jump when clearing (in their point of view) hard content. Sound weird, but it is true. Yes, sure, for good players everything is "braindead easy" sooner or later.

It's level 70 content. You're not new to the game at this point. It's also not hard content. It's also comparatively nerfed since 4.0.

If you're not able to do this at 80, I'm perfectly fine with the game putting a barrier up before you get a 520 weapon. You can overcome that barrier with sheer tenacity (fate grinding for 12 hours) or... actually obtain level 70 in player ability.

Come to think of it, how the heck do you think you're going to get the next step clear if you can't handle Ivalice? DR is a huge step up from that. You're going to spend more time dead than alive if you can't handle mechanics.

[Arkevorkhat]

It's level 70 content. You're not new to the game at this point. It's also not hard content. It's also comparatively nerfed since 4.0.

If you're not able to do this at 80, I'm perfectly fine with the game putting a barrier up before you get a 520 weapon. You can overcome that barrier with sheer tenacity (fate grinding for 12 hours) or... actually obtain level 70 in player ability.

Come to think of it, how the heck do you think you're going to get the next step clear if you can't handle Ivalice? DR is a huge step up from that. You're going to spend more time dead than alive if you can't handle mechanics.

I can, and have, cleared DR with no trouble. I cleared it first night.

[van_arn]

I can, and have, cleared DR with no trouble. I cleared it first night.

Cool, so we know you have the ability. The only thing keeping you grinding fates is plain stubbornness.

That's not Square's problem.

[Arkevorkhat]

Cool, so we know you have the ability. The only thing keeping you grinding fates is plain stubbornness.

That's not Square's problem.

So balancing the game isn't SE's problem? The drop rate issue is causing a massive mechanical imbalance, and most game companies, although apparently not square, when they see a situation where one method of achieving a result is massively more effective than the other available methods and they would either significantly nerf the good method, or significantly buff the bad method(s).

Besides, this is an apples to oranges comparison. Ivalice isn't hard, the issue is that it's not at all fun for me, and generally I prefer to actually enjoy the time I spend playing a game, especially when I'm paying monthly to play it.

[van_arn]

So balancing the game isn't SE's problem? The drop rate issue is causing a massive mechanical imbalance, and most game companies, although apparently not square, when they see a situation where one method of achieving a result is massively more effective than the other available methods and they would either significantly nerf the good method, or significantly buff the bad method(s).

Besides, this is an apples to oranges comparison. Ivalice isn't hard, the issue is that it's not at all fun for me, and generally I prefer to actually enjoy the time I spend playing a game, especially when I'm paying monthly to play it.

I encourage you to play exactly what you want. If the relic steps provided aren't fun for you, then I absolutely encourage you to skip the relic. I did exactly that for the Eureka relic.

The steps are balanced, though. 18 runs of Ivalice is a substantial amount of time if you consider queue times, and 12 hours of fates is a good failsafe if you can't get the queue to pop.

Before this relic, it was difficult to get any Ivalice dungeon to pop outside of prime time (at least on my datacenter) so I'm happy to see encouragement offered to queue.

[Arkevorkhat]

Before this relic, it was difficult to get any Ivalice dungeon to pop outside of prime time (at least on my datacenter)

If a duty isn't popping because the duty finder can't find enough people, is it possible that it's because there's something wrong with the duty?
Perhaps the duty is dead because there's insufficient interest in the duty; the plurality of people don't want to do Ivalice and Mhach raids, for their own personal reasons.