What makes a good relic storyline / step

[TheNight]

Amazing overview.

I would just add that it's pretty easy for Sqaure Enix to ameliorate some of the pain points with a band-aid fix, so it's sad to see that they haven't. The Timeworn Artifacts step in particular needs a nerf. They can easily do this by simply making the step require 6 Timeworn Artifacts and boosting PotD's reward to 2 or even 3.

There is the concern about deep dungeon's lack of longevity however. While seasoned solo deep dungeon runners would have no problem at all with early floors, new players would and the queue times are insane now for grouping up. They should frankly give an Echo buff for the earlier floors if soloing. I don't think this affects the solo achievements at all (other than Lonely Explorer) since the hard floors have always been above F100 for PotD and F30 for HoH and Orthos. It will definitely affect scoring but the ability for new players to solo the easier floors should supersede the handful of people who even compete for scoring beyond just getting the solo title.

[Eastwall]

Amazing overview.

I would just add that it's pretty easy for Sqaure Enix to ameliorate some of the pain points with a band-aid fix, so it's sad to see that they haven't. The Timeworn Artifacts step in particular needs a nerf. They can easily do this by simply making the step require 6 Timeworn Artifacts and boosting PotD's reward to 2 or even 3.

There is the concern about deep dungeon's lack of longevity however. While seasoned solo deep dungeon runners would have no problem at all with early floors, new players would and the queue times are insane now for grouping up. They should frankly give an Echo buff for the earlier floors if soloing. I don't think this affects the solo achievements at all (other than Lonely Explorer) since the hard floors have always been above F100 for PotD and F30 for HoH and Orthos. It will definitely affect scoring but the ability for new players to solo the easier floors should supersede the handful of people who even compete for scoring beyond just getting the solo title.

Yes, l am working on resistance weapon right now. The timeworn artifact is a cancer... I am not making another one. That made me appreciate how easy ew relic weapons are.

[Minali]

Btw, for all the people doing Shb relics now: At least at my server in Light DC, DR runs are fairly frequently organized via Party Finder with 8 people. You don't need a Discord to organize this. During popular times it should be no big issue to find a group. If there is none open, open one yourself, they tend to fill up in maybe 30 minutes max? It's not great, certainly not like it was when it was current content and we could enjoy 24 people chaos every 10 minutes, but still beats PotD droprates and is more fun. (Afaik thanks to the echo you also don't need 8 people, but I made the experience with less people it takes forever and is a bit more risky if not everyone knows the ins and outs of the duty. But I also only had one or two runs with less than 7 players.) Maybe it is similar on your servers?