The Relic Grind: Replayability missed

[Amenara]

Before bursting your bubble new player... then they did the same in shadowbringers, first few steps easy... then you got to hit the wall more with the other content that came up, such as bozja and more to it... so you are not missing out on anything, and I assume they are doing the same road this time, as it worked rather well the previous expansion, without making it a too die hard grind.

Am I crazy or was the first step poetics and the second step (where we are now) is where the grind started in ShB? Granted we had options in ShB for how to do the grind but I am pretty sure the second stage is when it actually started.

[Kaurhz]

Am I crazy or was the first step poetics and the second step (where we are now) is where the grind started in ShB? Granted we had options in ShB for how to do the grind but I am pretty sure the second stage is when it actually started.

First step was 1000 tomestones of Poetics, the second step (where we are now) was 60 open world FATEs in Heavensward, and 6 leveling roulette / Level 60 dungeons. Alternatively, you could get them from CE and Skirms in Bozja.

I suppose they were more grindy, but there are fewer classes then, than there are now, and even then this grind only essentially took 3-5 hours, really. Not exactly what I would call a 'grind' either way, personally.

[Amenara]

First step was 1000 tomestones of Poetics, the second step (where we are now) was 60 open world FATEs in Heavensward, and 6 leveling roulette / Level 60 dungeons. Alternatively, you could get them from CE and Skirms in Bozja.

I suppose they were more grindy, but there are fewer classes then, than there are now, and even then this grind only essentially took 3-5 hours, really. Not exactly what I would call a 'grind' either way, personally.

I guess compared to what comes a bit later in ShB, yeah it's not much of a grind. That being said, it's still more than doing your daily roulettes...

[Kaurhz]

I guess compared to what comes a bit later in ShB, yeah it's not much of a grind. That being said, it's still more than doing your daily roulettes...

Comparing the latter stages of a relic to the earlier stages is quite a pointless thing anyway.

But this aside, I would disagree, the one-time-only quests gave a somewhat false sense of 'grind', but for any subsequent relic it was pretty tame, and the only part that I would have considered to be 'grindy' would probably have been the Augmented Law's Order, which required the Timeworn Artifacts, but the only reason this felt like it was because people practically refused to use any fragments whatsoever.

Yeah. Shadowbringers relics weren't a hard grind, but they were still something you had to put in a little effort for. What I want is for relics to feel like an actual goal again. To say I was disappointed by not just 1, but 2 steps in Endwalker so far would be a massive understatement.

Idk, maybe I'm apathetic, but ShB relics didn't exactly strike me as something I felt required even the most minuscule effort. Nor did I feel a sense of achievement from them, frankly. If you had classes to level, provided you picked up the quests, you would largely complete the relics naturally as part of the leveling grind.

Relics have hardly felt like a grind since Heavensward. I would include Eureka in this, but the simple fact that, if possible, you could alt-tab and do other things, watch Netflix, and/or play other games simultaneously was a pretty monumental disappointment in and of itself.

[yams88]

I'm so happy to finally see someone have a similar idea I have been feeling for awhile now and not just for tomes. EXP wise I wish 'do your daily leveling and spam dungeon' wasn't the only options.

However, I do not understand the discourse in this thread over this idea.

When one of the biggest complaints I hear about adding more content is the issue with budget and someone finally comes up with a way around this, but now people find a way to knock it down?

Just because someone can choose to run FATES for tomestones isn't going to affect the person that wants to log in for 30 min to do their daily expert and CT run. Those will still be options that do not and have not gone away in the last 10 years. The idea of adding other incentives isn't just about drawing people to other content but just getting a break from the monotony

If someone told me that the only way to progress this current relic grind was to run deep dungeon, despite this being on of my favorite content, I'd be pretty upset. But if you tell me that in a game that has been around for over 10 years is finding a way to make use of all that time and money it has spent to make its old content evergreen content, then that should be a positive.

Sure I would like a bigger budget and we just have new zones, but I know we got limitations here.

-edit-
Small edit here but didn't want to make it seem like I'm being rude. More that I kinda hope people might be open to the idea of better rewards or uses over other content so long as it doesn't mean reducing anything from the content most preferred. I do get it that for a lot there is nothing wrong with the relic step and more roulette is more than fine. But I think for some it may help open up some ideas and play time to make use of rewarding the other content in the game. Sure you could run fates for the sake of running it for no other reason than to run it, but its kinda nice to have the bonus.

[Vahlnir]

First step was 1000 tomestones of Poetics, the second step (where we are now) was 60 open world FATEs in Heavensward, and 6 leveling roulette / Level 60 dungeons. Alternatively, you could get them from CE and Skirms in Bozja.

I suppose they were more grindy, but there are fewer classes then, than there are now, and even then this grind only essentially took 3-5 hours, really. Not exactly what I would call a 'grind' either way, personally.

Yeah. Shadowbringers relics weren't a hard grind, but they were still something you had to put in a little effort for. What I want is for relics to feel like an actual goal again. To say I was disappointed by not just 1, but 2 steps in Endwalker so far would be a massive understatement.