Square Enix should retire the relic quests with Endwalker

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

snip

The interview in question: https://www.4gamer.net/games/199/G019924/20230825055/

Jeeqbit has underlined some parts, one of them being the relic weapons in another thread:

[...]On Relics: "In the past, the idea was that it would be okay if you just made one job, and the time calculation for Zodiac Weapon was set at 120 hours, but now that the range and amount of content has expanded, there is less time to devote"

"If you plan to have multiple jobs produce items, it will take a toll on your inventory if you go around collecting special reinforcement items, and it will be difficult to tell how much you have strengthened. Therefore, we made it so that Allagan tomestones"

"young people who play online games these days choose not to play unless it is easily available. However, as I mentioned earlier, if players are enjoying playing multi-jobs these days, I think our game design should be designed to reflect that."

"On the other hand, there are also voices saying that they want enhanced content or exclusive content for weapon production. It's a voice that never existed before... However, in Bozja we created a system where weapons could be strengthened both inside and outside of the content, but in the end it came down to efficiency. For that reason, it is difficult to know what to do with the next series, but the fact is that many players have strengthened the Manderville Weapon this time to the highest level ever."

Again, from ARR to ShB, they stayed consistent with their "grindy, time consuming"-formulae for Relic weapons. This is what I meant by having their vision muddled: relic does not need to appeal to ALL players, and then suddenly they deviate from that.

Tome already filled the niche of not wanting to deal with that but still keep up with the iLv progression. Why do we need another one? (a question not directed at you specifically) So what do we get in return after having this one piece of content ripped off from us? Oh, none? Lmao. So much for being labelled a "theme park MMO".

Using participation as a metric of success can be whacky as we all know it. How are you going to tell that people actually enjoy your content when they set the metric as low as... say, by being online daily without taking account of what you're actually doing to play the game?

By that logic, we should all get relic weapons, necromancer title, a housing plot of our choice, 4th savage floor mount, Isle Perifool/Adenium etc, by simply logging in. Surely that oughta boost the number of engagement in said content, yeah?

[Jojoya]

Tome already filled the niche of not wanting to deal with that but still keep up with the iLv progression. Why do we need another one? (a question not directed at you specifically) So what do we get in return after having this one piece of content ripped off from us? Oh, none? Lmao. So much for being labelled a "theme park MMO".

But relics haven't been taken from you. You're still able to get them.

It's still a theme park MMO. There are still a variety of rides to choose from.

There are still long grinds available to players. The relic weapons going forward will no longer one of them from the look of things.

What you quoted isn't a sign of a muddled vision. It's the sign of a changed vision. Their goals for the past are no longer their goals for the future.

It only seems muddled because the change is not one that you want. Unfortunately for those who preferred the relics to be long grinds, I don't think anyone is going to get SE to reconsider.

It's not like this is unprecedented in the gaming industry. WoW gave up on its own long grinds for legendaries years ago. I don't know if any MMORPG on the market today still has a long grind for fabled weapons anymore. You'd probably have to ask around on a generic gamer's forum for suggestions.

SE doesn't owe you any explanation if you don't have the time to play the content.

I'm struggling to understand the logic behind this, given that if a player only has 4 hours a week to play this game they really wouldn't be interested in any kind of progression system like savage or a relic grind. 4 hours a week doesn't even give you the time to show off your glam.

Nor do they owe you explanation for why relics are no longer a long grind.

You're struggling to understand the logic because you're looking at the weapons differently from how other players view them. They're fancy glamour items, not power progression. Glamours can be as much for personal satisfaction as for showing off to others.

It sounds like you're trying to get some sort of public validation from possessing a relic weapon. The honest truth is few people care what you have these days. They only care about what they have themselves. You can thank the global marketing machine subverting social media for that. What people have has become more important than what people do.

Just wait for them to get tired of this, this is the issue du jour on the forums right now.
A few weeks ago it was Eureka and pretending like the reception to un-nerfed Eureka wasn't overwhelmingly negative.
Then It was "Streamer said game is dying are we in trouble?", now it's relics, just wait for the MMO boomers to watch a new opinion video and find a new fight to yell on the forums about how "It used to be better, now it's so bad and everything is too easy to get, these kids today".
My personal guess is we're going to see "The jobs are too dumbed down, we need more moments of glory" and then it'll be just repeating that Lynx Kameli video ad nauseum and doggpiling/misrepresenting the posts of anyone who disagrees.

I do empathize with the players upset about the change to some degree. Gaming has changed and I can't say all the changes sit well with me. But I'm also a pragmatist. As things around me change, I know I'll have to adapt or move on. Things won't revert just because I want them to.

Empathy stops when people start talking like a game owes them validation. Do things because you find them fun, not because you're seeking admiration from others based on what you have.

Casuality tomes really are just an illusion of choice. The reason being that they are handed out in large quantities by any piece of lv 90 content. There is no actual need to "farm" these tomes if you're doing other activities for other rewards. Most cases when doing so you end up capping those tomes and not noticing until that message starts popping up saying you can't carry any more. This is why a specific type player thinks it's the greatest thing in the world. They're basically being given a reward for doing nothing that used to take a commitment of time and some small amount of effort.

They're not an illusion of choice. It very much depends on what the player normally does with their time. Not everyone at level cap spends all of their time on only roulettes (assuming the roulette will award Causuality) and level 90 content.

I spend about half my game time crafting. That doesn't earn me any Causality. The rest of my time gets split up in various ways, some which will earn Causality and some that won't.

For me, i have to make a choice of whether I will take time away from doing other things to focus on earning Causality. Then I had to decide if I'm going to use the Causality to buy more crafting materials or use them to upgrade a relic. Fortunately I've got plenty of gil so I can buy the materials and use the Causality for the relic.

How do I get the Causality? I do a lot of hunts but there's not always a hunt happening on the same data center and going cross data center for hunts is usually an exercise in futility. Sometimes I poke my head into Variant. If I'm on one of my Dynamis 90s, I keep an eye on the PF for parties doing first time completions for MSQ. Sometimes someone needs a level 90 dungeon or trial, sometimes it's older content that only nets Poetics.

I've got a lot of choices I sift through.

If someone's normal play is to only queue for Roulettes that reward Causality, then you're right. It's more illusion than actual choice because they don't have to change anything unless they want to earn the Causality faster.

[Volgia]

Nor do they owe you explanation for why relics are no longer a long grind.

You're struggling to understand the logic because you're looking at the weapons differently from how other players view them. They're fancy glamour items, not power progression. Glamours can be as much for personal satisfaction as for showing off to others.

It sounds like you're trying to get some sort of public validation from possessing a relic weapon. The honest truth is few people care what you have these days. They only care about what they have themselves. You can thank the global marketing machine subverting social media for that. What people have has become more important than what people do.

I disagree, after all, during base game + 3 expansions they made the relic weapon as a goal for people who enjoy a good grind. If all of the sudden they decide to no longer make that content it does leave people in the air, and for what? For people who barely play the game to begin with? They have a right to ask why they cut this content out of the expansion.

You make it sound like this is just the way things are and we just gotta accept it. What they did was make the relic into the laziest content possible, removing any gameplay elements and instead exchanging it for watching cutscenes.

This idea that glamours and skins are both worthless and wanting to be entitled to them because people barely play confuses me. The journey to get your relic weapon was always the point of the relic, and this time we skipped the journey entirely to the reward.

[Jojoya]

I disagree, after all, during base game + 3 expansions they made the relic weapon as a goal for people who enjoy a good grind. If all of the sudden they decide to no longer make that content it does leave people in the air, and for what? For people who barely play the game to begin with? They have a right to ask why they cut this content out of the expansion.

You make it sound like this is just the way things are and we just gotta accept it. What they did was make the relic into the laziest content possible, removing any gameplay elements and instead exchanging it for watching cutscenes.

This idea that glamours and skins are both worthless and wanting to be entitled to them because people barely play confuses me. The journey to get your relic weapon was always the point of the relic, and this time we skipped the journey entirely to the reward.

The change most likely is because they're trying to change what the game is.

Go back to the Live Letter with the 10 year Roadmap (think it was 68?). They don't want the game to be considered a MMORPG anymore because that has deterred many of the long time Final Fantasy fans from picking the game up. They want the game to be considered a RPG that can be played alone or with friends.

That means updating some of the more popular features to be friendlier to solo players while leaving group play intact. Relics appear to be one of the conversion tests. In the past, there would be no way to get a relic weapon at the intended level solo. By changing what was needed to Causality, which does have a couple of solo sources (Variant, level 90 treasure maps though the player would have to skip a portal if spawned) in addition to all the group content, a solo player could still earn their relic. It would be really slow but it could be done.

As I said, personally I don't agree with all the changes they're making but I'll adapt or move on. The move from MMORPG to RPG that is solo or with friends is one of them. It's a move that has an unpredictable outcome for the sake of people who, as you said, aren't even playing the game. Considering how much effort they've put into making content more solo friendly, it's unlikely they're going to revert the changes. I can waste energy fighting a change I'm not certain will have a neutral or positive effect on the game experience, or I can walk into it with an open mind to see what happens. I don't see this as a battle worth fighting. SE is going to do what they want to do and only reconsider if they start losing more players than they gain.

The value of glamour and other cosmetics is subjective to the individual player. You say that to you, the journey was the point. Would you have gone on that journey without relic weapons being a reward? That's what I did with Castle in the Sky. Expert crafting intrigued me and I wanted a long term goal to work towards. The mount was not my objective and the only time I use it is when I get Aswang as my SB weekly B rank (or when I'm chasing it around the Steppe to map Orghana) because I find it amusing to hunt Aswang while riding Aswang. If it wasn't for that coincidence, I wouldn't use it at all.

If we want a journey to experience, we do have some small ability to create them for ourselves even though this isn't a sandbox. I've got a friend who sets restrictions on himself every time he starts a new character. Maybe he's doing it semi-hardcore (no dying due to his own mistake), maybe he's RP walking everywhere and refusing to use teleports unless unavoidable, maybe he's doing it without any XP buffs outside of those he can't control. He's doing it for the fun of a different journey.

SE gave us all the chance to create our own journeys for this relic series depending on our personal preferences and it seems like almost everyone ignored the opportunity in favor of efficiency or some other excuse. So it goes.

[TomsYoungerBro]

The change most likely is because they're trying to change what the game is.

Go back to the Live Letter with the 10 year Roadmap (think it was 68?). They don't want the game to be considered a MMORPG anymore because that has deterred many of the long time Final Fantasy fans from picking the game up. They want the game to be considered a RPG that can be played alone or with friends.

The relic being a grind makes it an MMO? Did you seriously type this? For FINAL FANTASY of all things that has some considerable grinds within their own single player RPG games?

[Atelier-Bagur]

Grinding stopped being a thing after FFIII my dud. If we're talking about required grinding to progress.

[Absimiliard]

Grinding stopped being a thing after FFIII my dud. If we're talking about required grinding to progress.

FFXI would like a word with you. Many have been removed or at least toned way down now, but that game had some of the most grueling grinds I've ever seen in an MMO. Leveling was a grind, gearing was a grind, even raising your level cap could become a grind if you weren't lucky enough to chain crit Maat in your opening volley.

[Nebelheim]

Grinding stopped being a thing after FFIII my dud. If we're talking about required grinding to progress.

You probably haven't played ff11 during the level 75 cap era that had so much grind it took months/years to get relics and various other endgame weapons/gear or even just to get to lvl 75. It could take over a year just to get a base relic from dynamis let alone the long process for each upgrade.

[Jojoya]

The relic being a grind makes it an MMO? Did you seriously type this? For FINAL FANTASY of all things that has some considerable grinds within their own single player RPG games?

Are you seriously so tunnel focused on relics as to think it's the entire picture instead of a single piece of it?

The other poster was wondering why SE thought the change to the relic system was needed. I provided a guess on my part that could explain it - it's one of many changes being made to make the game more solo friendly. Assuming nothing changes in 6.5, this will be the first relic that players could complete entirely solo during the same expansion the relic was introduced if they desired.

Is that a coincidence or was it intentionally planned that way? The most we can do is speculate.

It's not the only thing that has been changed and there are likely more changes yet to come.

Of course there is more to what makes a MMO a MMO but you're ignoring what YoshiP said during the Roadmap Live Letter - they do not want this game to be considered a MMO in the future. There are already some players that don't consider this to be a MMO because so much of it can be done solo.

If this game is being made so solo friendly that they are ripping out game staples to make them even more solo friendly (because none of the on patch relics required anything that wasn’t solo friendly unless you are going to count the roulettes which barely count) why am I still even paying a subscription

There are 14 mainline non MMO FF games and however many spin-offs and connections if I wanted a single player game I’d play one of those, what’s the point of having the design (and all the downsides that come from it) of an MMO if the game isn’t going to actually be an MMO, no matter how solo friendly it is MMO’s have downsides, no matter how good 14’s story is it will always be worse than playing a tight single player game that was designed that way

Which are some good questions to ponder.

Why should players who came here to play a MMO continue to subscribe if they're remaking the game for the sake of Final Fantasy players that want a solo game?

Can SE successfully blend the elements of solo and multiplayer into the game to satisfy both types of players?

For now I'm still enjoying the game and so I'm willing to wait things out a while to see what happens. I also can understand why some would choose to unsub at this point.

That wasn’t my point

I’m not asking why i choose to pay a subscription based on how much I enjoy the game, im asking what’s the point of an online subscription model when we are just getting functionally solo content anyway, make the patches cheap add ons to the expansion DLC’s and you are functionally in the same position

If you're talking about the cost perspective, I suppose that's going to depend on how many a player is already used to paying on their other games. $15/mo isn't that much compared to what some pay monthly on F2P cash shops, gacha lootboxes or additional DLCs in some cases.

It's on the individual player to determine if they're getting appropriate value for their money.

[TomsYoungerBro]

Are you seriously so tunnel focused on relics as to think it's the entire picture instead of a single piece of it?

And are you seriously so hard-pressed to defend this lazy relic change that you are willing to throw every straw man in the book to tie this to their future design philosophy? I would hardly call doing over 100+ of the same variant dungeon "solo friendly" when there are far better options if you just queue up duty finder lmao