The Tragedy about Manderville vs Brilliant Relics

[TaleraRistain]

Not wrong, but you must always procure different materials. You have to engage with each specific job and gather/craft/buy unique mats for each one, and that alone makes each tool so much more engaging than just 1500 more tomes you happened to have anyway.

I don't want tomes for the EW relics but I do have to say that there is an element of crafting relics where you may already have had these items on hand. All I needed to go out and get was some of the lower level items. And once I wrote my crafting macro for the second step (I could just reuse the last for the 1st step) I was able to just use that on all my jobs. The only additional work was the 1 HQ item needed for the 2nd step of the latest if you weren't on a specialist. So I don't feel the DoH side was too much different than having tomes on hand. The DoL was, though, since you have to go out and gather all the items fresh.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Old relics made you do nothing of note for a long time and were therefore boring. Endwalker relics make you do nothing of note for short time and are therefore less boring. If you wanted to play old relic style content you could just do that. There is nothing stopping you from doing random dungeons, running through areas or doing random fates. The fact that you are currently not doing that and are instead complaing about the game not telling you to do that shows that you dont actually like old relic content.





If you just want a checklist to complete literally anyone can make one for you and it will functionally be the same. It's not about showing off, right? I have made someone a checklist to work through, do you want it?

No, you're just proving that you lack the necessary empathy to understand why people actually enjoyed the older relic content while demonstrating your own self entitlement issues as you attempt to hide it under convoluted posts where you do nothing but try to attack and insult people who don't agree with you. It literally reminds me of all those fresh out of college kids I turn away on job interviews that expect to be handed the job after they demonstrated their high school diploma amounted to nothing more than a participation award and their college degree little more than a sales receipt.

[ChrysOCE]

I don't want tomes for the EW relics but I do have to say that there is an element of crafting relics where you may already have had these items on hand. All I needed to go out and get was some of the lower level items. And once I wrote my crafting macro for the second step (I could just reuse the last for the 1st step) I was able to just use that on all my jobs. The only additional work was the 1 HQ item needed for the 2nd step of the latest if you weren't on a specialist. So I don't feel the DoH side was too much different than having tomes on hand. The DoL was, though, since you have to go out and gather all the items fresh.

Outside of the fact that you definitely don't have a situation where a patch drops, you do the quest to unlock the next relic stage, and you have the required currency on hand to get the next step in the crafting relic there and then. I suppose it's entirely possible someone has all the required mats to begin crafting straight away. But I would say that would actually be a fraction of players...

[DiaDeem]

If you just want a checklist to complete literally anyone can make one for you and it will functionally be the same. It's not about showing off, right? I have made someone a checklist to work through, do you want it?

No, it's not about showing off or whatever. I however feel you don't understand quite well what I'm saying, and your argument feels weak...

Any quest in any video game is a checklist of things to do.

What matters is how these checklists are framed and how the devs go about making said checklists. I used the DoH Relics as an example of a current grind that's better than what the Manderville Weapons are. They feel more connected to the world, they ask you to engage with a wider variety of content, and they are just more fulfilling as quests.

That said, a better comparison I feel could be with the Anima weapon. We went through this whole journey about creating and awakening some kind of living being that was, in a way, fighting with us. We found different ways to empower it, find new vessels for it, as well as materials that would be appropriate for each step. We were then asked to engage with all sorts of battle content where we'd be bonding with the weapon, in a way. Heck, we were even asked if the entity felt more feminine or masculine to us. All of these things make the entire thing feel like a journey. Not that the Anima was perfect, but Manderville feels just... mechanical, and very detached from everything, even the ongoing Hildy story.

So, yeah: The way the dev implements the checklist is what makes the whole difference, not the fact that there's a checklist, because there's always a checklist.

why are you investing a few hours in photoshopping a ton of pictures so the post looks entertaining when it could easily be done with words in less than 1/5 of the time?

Cause it's fun lol. It has nothing to do with the state of the game. I'm not even sure how you made that connection, but I legit just enjoy adding bells and whistles to posts where I'm OP.

Anyways, game would benefit from some fun midcore content. EW was a huge miss from the devs in regards to post endgame content people would actually find fun to play. Simple as that.

See, now that's I can definitely agree with. I've made posts about HM Dungeons, Exploratory Zones, Primal HM Modes, and Criterion being an actual step between Variant and Savage Criterion. I've also said a few times that having a Deep Dungeon doesn't mean we shouldn't have an Exploratory zone. Content shouldn't exclude each other.

Anyway, glad we can agree about something.

[Saraide]

No, you're just proving that you lack the necessary empathy to understand why people actually enjoyed the older relic content while demonstrating your own self entitlement issues as you attempt to hide it under convoluted posts where you do nothing but try to attack and insult people who don't agree with you. It literally reminds me of all those fresh out of college kids I turn away on job interviews that expect to be handed the job after they demonstrated their high school diploma amounted to nothing more than a participation award and their college degree little more than a sales receipt.

Which part of my post is convoluted?

[Hyperia]

Every relic quest I have done, the real quests in the past, have all felt fulfilling when I completed them. I really had a sense of accomplishment when I finished. With the current relic, its nothing more than a tome weapon, there is no sense of accomplishment.

Imagine if they did the same thing to the Ultimate weapons that they did to the relic quest, turn in 1500 current tomes to get an ultimate glowy weapon. Doesn't feel good, does it? This is how I feel about what they did to the relics.

The relics were meant to be something, they showed that you earned them, not walked up to the cash shop... errr... vendor and bought it.

[Bonoki]

That's completely fair, though I'd like to ask an honest question:
As someone who was turned off by the grind, do you think it'd do the game better if they simplified the whole quest for people like you?

Genuinly curious to know your answer.

I'm not sure what I really want them to do, to be honest. Crafting relics are a different beast imo than regular combat relics. I can do a single combat relic for my main and call it a day. Whereas crafting jobs, I feel more compelled to collect them all because you kind of need all crafting jobs to a degree. So it feels more awkward to have only a couple of the relics unlike combat jobs. So looking at it from a "I want to get them all" aspect, it's just to tedious and time consuming.

[Hyperia]

So looking at it from a "I want to get them all" aspect, it's just to tedious and time consuming.

Easy aspect to this for the DoW / DoM jobs, once you have finished a step on the full grindy quest part, you can buy the items to complete the past steps for additional relics. Hence, we get both, a nice fun grindy relic and buy past or grind past (if you want) for future relics. Both sides win.

[DiaDeem]

I'm not sure what I really want them to do, to be honest. Crafting relics are a different beast imo than regular combat relics. I can do a single combat relic for my main and call it a day. Whereas crafting jobs, I feel more compelled to collect them all because you kind of need all crafting jobs to a degree. So it feels more awkward to have only a couple of the relics unlike combat jobs. So looking at it from a "I want to get them all" aspect, it's just to tedious and time consuming.

Yeah, I feel you and I can respect that! I guess I just find the whole go on a gathering/crafting journey kinda appealing, though I can completely see where you're coming from.
And you're right in that Combat Relics are a bit different. I guess what struck me (and motivated me to do this post) is that while I was crafting for my DoH stuff today, I thought to myself: "Oh wow... unlike Manderville, I feel kinda invested in these".

But I do get what you're saying!

[Atelier-Bagur]

they have never made a good and engaging relic grind ever.

but i say why not give people who want a grind a grind and make a psuedo grind for players who want it but allow other players to just spend some tomestones for it and move on. that way everyone is happy.

Hot take, I think people who clamor that grinding is fun are pretty delusional. I seriously doubt they have the same positivity when they actually have something to grind for. You know why? Its not because of the activity itself, its because grinding allows one to turn their brain off and do other things in the background such as chatting with friends or listening to videos or podcasts. Nobody gives 100% of their focus on the menial tasks for a grind. The hidden beauty of this system is that its a low effort dopamine hit for slowly getting that progression. And progression itself is fun! but the content itself should also theoretically be fun too. This is why people turn their brains off in say Fate/Hunt Trains or when you're doing Eureka or Bozja and slowly filling that challenge log. Heck streamers found a way to milk this system by using it as a pseudo-background form to interact with their audience.

And me personally I think we should try to veer off from that because if the activity itself isnt fun, they why does it need to exist? Grinds have been a lazy way for developers to churn out mediocre activities in order to justify retention.

For the record, Im specifically talking about grinds where you're just spamming the same activity over and over again; like FATEs or running a specific dungeon or raid numerous times. If the grind had you do different objectives to receive the reward no matter how long it takes, or if those objectives align with other objectives on another content which pushes you to do varied content to reach your goal, then thats not a grind. Thats just playing the game. Grinding is literally stopping yourself to do a single activity over and over again. Thats the system that I have issues with and this kind of thing has been applied to multiple relic steps in previous expansions.

Of course this is all just a single opinion on the issue.