Question for the people who don't dislike the 2nd relic step

[IkaraGreydancer]

Do I hate the new relic step? No. Do i think it could have been better? Absolutely. As much as I would have loved a new zone to go into and farm out the relic. They clearly listened to feedback about last grind. No one who values their time wants to run alliance raids 15 times to get to a different step. I would have loved to explore a Eureka/Bozja like zone to get my next weapon but honestly I've been having fun with the new Deep Dungeon. I would have liked farming the relic in there but since the later floors require a fixed group I understand them not doing the grind in there for the solo players.

I'm doing my tome grind in Orthos same for some fc mates. It's not as fast as say...roulettes but it's steady progress. All floors with 90 class gives tomes so farming 21-30 is definitely viable.

Oh and even with the adjustments you can still wait hours for a book fate to pop. Not as bad as the OG days but still bad lol

[ZiraZ]

If only there were other alternatives to void ark for that step...
but I guess being a disingenuous literally who on twitter is more fun

[TaleraRistain]

Books as they are now are nerfed. And some fate spawn rates have been adjusted. No one who didn't do the relic back then will ever understand just how bad it was.



I remember some people farmed for atmas in some zones for months before they dropped....

Yeah I remember. The book step is still incredibly grindy even now. Some FATE spawn rates have been adjusted but then you have things like Bagoly that you're waiting around forever for still. Or the one with the big guy in Mor Dhona near Saint Coinach's. If they allowed all 9 to be done at once then it would be a good QoL to put it in line with all the other current steps because you could passively pick some of these up for one book while focusing on the FATE in another book. It's frustrating to do a FATE to clear FATEs for the book that you're on and then you end up needing that FATE in the next book and it won't spawn. The croc in Coerthas liked doing that to me. Even the materia step isn't horrible now since you can buy maps. I've casually over the last few months when I felt like it been getting my remaining ARR relics and they're all finally at the mahatma step.

Contrast with anima now and there's not really a bottleneck like the book step. Neither really take that long and can be pushed through but the books definitely slow the process down even as they are now. I've been working on remaining animas as well and I have a lot at the light step and it's really just limited by when I want to go solo A9S.

Atmas. Oof. I don't remember which patch they changed them in but I remember them just being awful when I did them back in ARR so it was probably before the change. When we had FATEs for HW I clenched my butt but then it turned out not nearly as bad.

But I think that experience is why I would have liked a little more on this step but I'm not too worried just yet. Because the grind is probably coming.

[Saraide]

ppl responding to me with thousands of forum posts i do not care what u say. obv u are not playing the game you just live on forums.

A comment written on the forum.

[Interstik]

I can enjoy spending time with my friends in-game, like doing roulettes EX trials, and not worry about some dinky relic grind for an entire week's worth of devoted time.

[Nezerius]

I'm surprised people are even complaining about the 2nd step. A reminder of what the 2nd steps have been so far.

ARR: Buy 3 Thavnairian Mists.
HW: Complete 10 dungeons with the weapon equipped.
SB: Do some NMs (Fates in Eureka) for Protean Crystals and then beat Pazuzu (is he up?).
ShB: Do HW FATEs (or Fates and Critical engagements in the 3 parts of 1st Bozja zone, you insane person) for 10 of 3 different kinds of drops.

If you look at that, ARR and HW, which Yoshi-P said this would be the equivalent grind of, are insanely easy for 2nd step. It's the 3rd step you all should fear...for that was the Atma and Unidentified Grinds. Remember, Atma was not guaranteed originally from FATEs. Unidentified had to be gotten from the ARR and HW Tribe quests, and Alex SAVAGE token drops, and I think you could also get some from the what was then current uncapped tomestones originally. You needed 10 of 4 different kinds of items. In other words, massive grinds.

The whole "Saga of the Zodiac Weapons" thing wasn't really talked about until patch 2.2, so it's a bit odd for you to consider the 2.0 relics (which were carried over from 1.0) to be considered part of the grind.

ARR: The second quest of the Zodiac Saga was the book grind.
HW: The second quest of the Anima Weapon was indeed completing 10 dungeons, but don't forget that this quest step was in between two grindy ones (Atma-like farm, and the Unidentified step), both released at the same time.
SB: Needed 1300 Protean Crystals and 3 Pazuzu Feathers. You also needed to be elemental level 19 to be eligible for the feather drops. Although it's debatable if this is even the 2nd step, considering the 1st step is simply a reward from doing your job quest.
ShB: It required 20 of each type of memories, not 10. Although they had a 100% drop rate with a gold rating, so I'll agree that this step was relatively easy.

Also minor correction, the tokens were from Alexander normal, not savage.

My personal issue with the EW 2nd step, is that they didn't even bother to dress it up as anything new. Just copied over the same 1500 tomestone cost from the previous step, which just feels kinda lazy. Really makes me think the relic is just an afterthought, this time around.

[Atelier-Bagur]

If only there were other alternatives to void ark for that step...
but I guess being a disingenuous literally who on twitter is more fun

From Gyr Abania Fates sure but they werent a guaranteed drop unlike the Mhach and Ivalice raids that gave you 3 memories each time. This is just going back to the whole "illusion of choice" matter with games, people will always go for the best efficient route and at least from what I recall upon release, spam running Void Ark was the fastest way to get those memories. Dont know if they ever went back to change the drop rate from Fates.

[Nezerius]

From Gyr Abania Fates sure but they werent a guaranteed drop unlike the Mhach and Ivalice raids that gave you 3 memories each time. This is just going back to the whole "illusion of choice" matter with games, people will always go for the best efficient route and at least from what I recall upon release, spam running Void Ark was the fastest way to get those memories. Dont know if they ever went back to change the drop rate from Fates.

While they weren't guaranteed drops from FATEs, they still had a pretty decent droprate. Personally I farmed Gyr Abania ones as BLU, while sitting in a queue for Orbonne as a dps job.

Also don't forget that Mhach/Ivalice raids only gave 1 memory per clear, until they buffed it to 3 in patch 5.58.

[Atelier-Bagur]

While they weren't guaranteed drops from FATEs, they still had a pretty decent droprate. Personally I farmed Gyr Abania ones as BLU, while sitting in a queue for Orbonne as a dps job.

Also don't forget that Mhach/Ivalice raids only gave 1 memory per clear, until they buffed it to 3 in patch 5.58.

One per raid initially? Yeah no thanks

[RitsukoSonoda]

Hmm... On one hand getting every relic and completing the first upgrade is cakewalk since it uses one of the tomestones the game hands out like candy for just about everything you do on a max level job.

On the other hand it feels lazy and kind of devalues the weapon at that stage because it was too easy

Also the Relic "grinds" in the past seemed mostly to be a method to get more people doing older content or a new side story zone in the case of Eureka and Bozja which might be the main cause of most people's gripes. We didn't get a new side story zone similar in mechanics to Eureka/Bozja with that relic upgrade.