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

[Nezerius]

Why would I dislike it? It's simple, it's straightforward and I can progress while doing anything else I want.

I made Zeta weapons when ATMA grinding was current content, with the original drop rate. I had to pick up books one after the other, being made kill 900 specific enemies and sit down for literal hours waiting for each one of the 27 specific FATEs to decide to spawn, and hope someone didn't kill them before I arrived, and gotta make sure you have your relic equiped or it won't even count. Anyone who made a Zeta weapon back then knows what it feels like to wait for 40 minutes for a FATE to spawn, only to realize you had your Soldiery/Coil weapon equiped instead of your relic. Did you know they adjusted the spawn rate of these FATEs because some could take over an hour to spawn? Oh, and that's just one step for one weapon.

Does that sound better to you? It wasn't interesting. challenging or engaging. It was a waste of time and nothing more than busywork. People quit this game because of that quest.
All you have to do right now is run your favorite dungeons or trials for some Astronomy and you're set.

Why don't I hate this step? Because I know how bad it can get, and this is not it. Not by a very long shot.
Pray they don't come up with some Animus Book or ATMA level bullshit for the next step, because then you'll wish you were just grinding Astronomy once again.

I think you're missing the point of the relic weapons. The game generally had three paths to obtaining a weapon at a decent/good iLvl:

Long term path: Relic weapon. A mindless grind that just about anyone could complete, as long as they're able to put in the time.
Semi-short term path: Savage/Augmented tomestone weapon. Requiring the player to be skilled enough to clear the 2nd/3rd floor, or the 4th one on Savage.
Short term path: Extreme trial weapon. The in-between option. Lower difficulty than Savage, but requiring more skill than a mindless grind would.

Turning the relic weapon steps into something that can be completed with two days worth of roulettes removes the long term aspect of it. Along with the reason for this path to even exist in the first place.
At that point, you might as well just add a second augment option for the crafted weapon. Obtain the crafted weapon with the even numbered patch, augment it in the odd numbered patch, augment it again two months after said odd numbered patch.