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

[Nezerius]

How about you come back and say that once the Expansion is over? Consider there are 3-4 more steps in the process this is a premature conclusion at best.

We're already at the halfway point of the relic. There's two remaining additions to the quest chain, one in 6.45 and the other in 6.55. You also have to keep in mind that the x.55 additions of the relic weapons have generally been more like victory laps. Like the Anima Lux trials victory lap, the Hydatos step needing significantly less crystals compared to the previous steps, and the Blade's step only needing 15 Raw Emotions (at 3 per Dalriada clear).

[Stormpeaks]

How about you come back and say that once the Expansion is over? Consider there are 3-4 more steps in the process this is a premature conclusion at best.

just wait till 6.3.5 guys it gets better
just wait till 6.4.5 guys it gets better
just wait till 6.5.5 guys it gets better
just wait till next expansion guys it gets better
just wait till first patch guys it gets better
and the cycle of excuses goes on

[Kyrj]

I mean it's a lazy dog shit step, but I don't mind it in the sense that we're free to farm the tomes in any way we want. It's just w/e for me.

I knew we weren't getting another Bozja/Eureka this expac but I expected something more than...this.

[RobynDaBank]

As someone who's only ever heard of the legendary long grinds Relics take (and haven't made a start on any of them myself), I was low-key looking forward to experiencing the newest one step-by-step, patch by patch. I hate Hunt Trains, and lately my schedule has gotten extremely busy so I've not been able to manage much more than a couple Roulettes a day - so while it's a "relief" that the new Relic grind at least for my main Job isn't super unachievable or will not need me to spend much more time than a week, I definitely don't see myself kitting out my other Jobs' Relics anytime soon (maybe not even when the next step is revealed).

While "1500 Astronomies again" looks like a lazy route for SQEX to have designed, I suppose if you don't go for the most efficient route you can see it as, everything bleeds those Tomestones. Doing the new Deep Dungeon, I saw that the floor sets give Astronomy too. Roulettes (if you're cap) and cap-level dungeons give them as well. Hunt Trains do. IMO it's really the path that you decide to take with the farm that makes it fun or tedious copy-paste grind. In the context of "repeat FATEs over and over and over" and "get funneled into a zone that you may/may not struggle to progress if you're late", it seems like the middle SQEX tried to find.

[Emitans]

How about you come back and say that once the Expansion is over? Consider there are 3-4 more steps in the process this is a premature conclusion at best.

The expansion is 2/3 over at this point.

[Reinha]

Doubly so because every relic since ARR has had some REALLY grindy and annoying things to do to power them up. We're only on Step 2 out of likely 5-7 steps.

There are only 2 more major patches to come. This relic will have 5 weapon models at best and that's if they add a recolor to the last step in 6.55. Otherwise it will be 4 steps in total, half of which are identical and just tomestones.

[Turnintino]

I was surprised, but I'm pretty indifferent otherwise. I was willing to do another FATE grind -- I'm a relatively new player, but I've completed all my shared FATEs, and I did what I had to do for my SHB relic -- but I won't pretend that I complained about the near-handout lol.

But you get what you pay for, I guess, because I was so excited after I liked the chakrams' initial look -- I thought, "Awesome! The upgrade's just gonna be the same thing but with cool VFX!" And then they made the upgrade silver, which doesn't work with my current glam... Heartbroken. u_u

The replica was cheap, at least.

[Katashi90]

I don't see the point in adding any grind steps for Relic weapons. Grind steps are merely there to feel fresh for current players whom has reached end game, but its a slog for newer players whom came into FF14 in later expansions. Sprouts are not encouraged to do ARR relic until they're done with Heavensward(free trial)/Endwalker MSQ because the priority is always to play at the same content where majority of the populace is now. Veterans are not incentivized to help sprouts do FATEs in these low level areas because there's no system in place like the Duty Roulette, which gives daily rewards. So even if the sprout wants to take it slow and do these stuff instead of rushing MSQ, it's pretty much either a solo grind or a couple of friends out there willing to do it with them. So what is the merit of these open world grinds in the first place? Open up PF and see it for yourself, it'll be a friggin miracle if the number of FATE parties could make a scrollable page.

[DiaDeem]

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.

Not quite. Every relic has had short and long steps. The 60 FATEs in HW areas for the Resistance Weapons? You could grind that in a couple hours. Getting the base ARR Relic? Go to your designated location, find the weathered version, kill a few enemies, a few tomestones and the vessel weapon, then Chimera/Hydra/Amdapor and you're set. Again, it only ever took a couple hours and you were basically still just running dungeons and trials. Now.. I'd love to have Relic-specific trials again, but that's a different topic. HW weapons? If you made a Zeta for the same job you didn't even have to do the first step, which wasn't even that bad and also took only a few hours of FATE grinding.

My point is that there have always been short and long steps.
There will be long steps ahead, don't you worry about that.

[Arrius]

just wait till 6.3.5 guys it gets better
just wait till 6.4.5 guys it gets better
just wait till 6.5.5 guys it gets better
just wait till next expansion guys it gets better
just wait till first patch guys it gets better
and the cycle of excuses goes on

Not going to lie, I prefer it this way honestly. And you sure can expect that once we come to the stat allocation step, you likely need a few dozen of items - Which you will get via tomestone again.

And I can get those by doing any level 90 content instead of sleeping through Syrus Tower/Void Ark/Rabanastre/very specific lower level dungeons X times in a row.