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

[Nezerius]

Because whether you consider the Zenith weapons part of the Zodiac quest or not, they are in fact steps required to get them. Saying they aren't is just not true by fact, and the weapons even share the same design all the way to the Zeta step. But for the sake of argument, let's say Zenith is an entirely different relic, even though it is not. My point still stand and may be even stronger with this weird line of thought, because now you're telling me we could fully complete an entire Relic in two or three days, with each step taking no more than a couple hours tops. So: Short steps don't mean bad quests. Length has nothing to do with quality.

If you've played during 2.0 you'd know that there was no indication on the Zodiac Weapon Saga being a thing. The quest was carried over from 1.0, and trimmed down significantly on its objectives. The journal entry for "A Relic Reborn" even specifies that it's the final stage of the restoration process. Not to mention that the journal doesn't even list these quests under the Zodiac Weapons tab. The addition of using the Thavnairian Mists was specifically added to +1 the relic (it literally added a +1 to the name), so it could match iLvl from the other gear purchased with Tomestones of Mythology.

As for them re-using the relic model for the Zodiac Weapon Sage, the game at that stage relied heavily on re-using models from 1.0 or FFXI. Likely because SE was very cautious about giving a large budget for a game that had already failed once before.

I made no such general statement of quality of the sort.

"There will be long steps ahead, don't you worry about that."
It doesn't take any mental gymnastics to tell that this boils down to "Just wait until the next patch." You're also still completely focused on the word "better", rather than the entire statement.

You have all the right in the world to worry, but pretending this step is THE WORST RELIC QUEST STEP I feel is born out of ignorance as to how bad relic steps can actually get, or is just being alarmist. I don't think you're either.

Calling this the worst step ever however is a plain overreaction.

I fail to see where I have pretended that this step is "THE WORST RELIC QUEST STEP"

I'm pointing out that having a step that's essentially a copy paste job of the previous one (down to buying 3 "meteorite chunks") is a worrying trend. Every relic weapon has had short steps, but none of them have had steps copied like this in such a blatant manner.