A Different Approach to Relics

[fulminating]

A...

I want to cut off their access to getting the long term grind rewards if they’re not going to grind, yes.

I don’t think the lack of a long term goal in endwalker is going to reflect particularly well come even 7.0. If the sheer number of jobs is too daunting, why not take a leaf from literally last expansion and have one time steps or the first relic requiring 8 tokens but subsequent only taking one? Why not have the items drop into inventory at a low% rate in v&c or from island sanctuary venture things to encourage engagement? Or mhach/ivalice/nier alliance raids if they want to encourage people to queue those. Or just alliance/guildhest/etc roulette when queued with the relevant weapon? The relic weapon as a concept is such an easy opportunity to force engagement with content areas that it’s incredible they’re not leveraging it. It’s not as if the complaints about anaemic content only turned up in 6.4, they’ve been there since almost the start of the expansion, albeit quieter.

I think it may be the case that the relic has a high level of engagement, but so does ew summoner. If it’s free there’s no reason not to pick it up, and it’s not even digging into the weekly tome allowance.

Next expansion, each relic will be ~6000 poetics. Come on now.

[TaleraRistain]

I want to cut off their access to getting the long term grind rewards if they’re not going to grind, yes.

I don’t think the lack of a long term goal in endwalker is going to reflect particularly well come even 7.0. If the sheer number of jobs is too daunting, why not take a leaf from literally last expansion and have one time steps or the first relic requiring 8 tokens but subsequent only taking one? Why not have the items drop into inventory at a low% rate in v&c or from island sanctuary venture things to encourage engagement? Or mhach/ivalice/nier alliance raids if they want to encourage people to queue those. Or just alliance/guildhest/etc roulette when queued with the relevant weapon? The relic weapon as a concept is such an easy opportunity to force engagement with content areas that it’s incredible they’re not leveraging it. It’s not as if the complaints about anaemic content only turned up in 6.4, they’ve been there since almost the start of the expansion, albeit quieter.

I think it may be the case that the relic has a high level of engagement, but so does ew summoner. If it’s free there’s no reason not to pick it up, and it’s not even digging into the weekly tome allowance.

Next expansion, each relic will be ~6000 poetics. Come on now.

They would be grinding. Just not in the same way. They'd grind their tomestones in whatever content they wanted to gain those in.

My personal preference is something more like ARR and HW questlines. I was hoping for that for EW. I even was kind of disappointed with the one time aspect of ShB steps because I'm one of the crazies that enjoys that checklist aspect. I would have done that one time step on all of my relics.

I just don't feel that now that another option has been presented, everyone needs to be forced into that. I've always advocated for choices in relic content, which is why I bristled against the Eureka and Bozja design, not to mention the FOMO aspects of those whereas ARR and HW remain much more accessible expansions later. So I really don't care if someone else gets their relic and their grind is tomestones.

Could even be something like being presented the quest and being told you can go find the items yourself through this specific content, or Rowena's rep conveniently has a supply for large amounts of tomestones each. It's really not that dissimilar than being able to shortcut your next relic after the one time steps.

[Nezerius]

They would be grinding. Just not in the same way. They'd grind their tomestones in whatever content they wanted to gain those in.

My personal preference is something more like ARR and HW questlines. I was hoping for that for EW. I even was kind of disappointed with the one time aspect of ShB steps because I'm one of the crazies that enjoys that checklist aspect. I would have done that one time step on all of my relics.

I just don't feel that now that another option has been presented, everyone needs to be forced into that. I've always advocated for choices in relic content, which is why I bristled against the Eureka and Bozja design, not to mention the FOMO aspects of those whereas ARR and HW remain much more accessible expansions later. So I really don't care if someone else gets their relic and their grind is tomestones.

Could even be something like being presented the quest and being told you can go find the items yourself through this specific content, or Rowena's rep conveniently has a supply for large amounts of tomestones each. It's really not that dissimilar than being able to shortcut your next relic after the one time steps.

The issue with this, is that most players will still end up picking the tomestone choice, for the simple fact that players can stock up on 2000 tomestones before the patch is released. Meanwhile, specific items from content (ShB's memories etc.) can't be farmed prior to the step being made available. The only way for you to even begin to make this a balanced choice, is if you were to make the tomestone choice be heavily timegated while the step is current.

And that aside, why does the relic weapon need an easier option? There's other easily accessible weapons that players can obtain, if they don't want to go through a more long term relic grind.

[TaleraRistain]

The only way for you to even begin to make this a balanced choice, is if you were to make the tomestone choice be heavily timegated while the step is current.

I could see that. Rowena's representative has a limited supply while the supply is greater if you go obtain it yourself.

As to why, well, it's obviously popular. They remarked that this relic has the highest participation so far. So I could see where they would want to continue that appeal. An optional grind path serves as something to not leave out those who enjoyed that aspect of relics, while also allowing them to remain accessible and appealing.

[Nezerius]

The weekly-capped seasonal currency would only be spent on gear. The only use for the uncapped seasonal currency would be relic progress. The two are independent. It's literally in what you just quoted:

Hence why I noted "With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear.", because your suggestion seems kinda confusing on whether you're talking about two or three currencies.
If you're simply talking about poetics/uncapped seasonal/capped seasonal, it seems like a relatively pointless change. That's basically the current system, with Poetics moved to be more important, while adding a currency that's basically "dead" for the first half of an even-numbered patch. Unless you mean the uncapped relic currency will be added before the actual relic step is made available (in the x.x5 patch), which would kind of defeat the point of the change. It would just give players a 2 month time window to farm up relic currency, which would again remove any choice on how one would work on their relic.

This is also ignoring the fact that SE probably wants to keep Poetics as more of a legacy currency, rather than using it for current expansion things.

As to why, well, it's obviously popular. They remarked that this relic has the highest participation so far. So I could see where they would want to continue that appeal. An optional grind path serves as something to not leave out those who enjoyed that aspect of relics, while also allowing them to remain accessible and appealing.

Their remark of it having the highest participation is just an absolute meme. Lowering the bar of participation is obviously going to result in higher overall participation.

[Shurrikhan]

Hence why I noted "With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear.", because your suggestion seems kinda confusing on whether you're talking about two or three currencies.

What do we have now? Three types.

• Basically Uncapped Non-Season Tomestones not limited to endgame -- Poetics.
• Weekly-Capped Seasonal Endgame Tomestones -- currently called Comedy, but the name changes / a new tier is shifted in each time a new Savage tier is released (i.e., the start of each new 'season').
• Basically Uncapped Seasonal Endgame Tomestones -- currently called Causality, though each new season the former Weekly-Capped Tomestone is degraded into its position.

How many are there between "Poetics, Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones, and Weekly-Capped Seasonal Tomestones". Three types. The same three types.

The differences are merely that you'd buy old levelcap gear with Poetics, too, now, while the Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones would just be used on Relic progression, while Relic progression in turn only uses that currency, and the Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones would be new with each season, rather than just the previous capped tomestone being degraded to its position.

Done. Players would no longer be able to bank currency ahead of a new Relic stage, all without having to demand handfuls of inventory bloat or inflexible tasks.

At that point, all that is needed is reward balance enough to give players actual choice in content, which is something we'd want regardless of the inclusion of Relics.

That's basically the current system, with Poetics moved to be more important, while adding a currency that's basically "dead" for the first half of an even-numbered patch. Unless you mean the uncapped relic currency will be added before the actual relic step is made available (in the x.x5 patch), which would kind of defeat the point of the change. It would just give players a 2 month time window to farm up relic currency, which would again remove any choice on how one would work on their relic.

Then just start the Relic quests with the launch patch. Why would you not, anyways? They'd be using an independent and singular currency; the devs would be free to increasingly ramp up the rewards pace as the season edges along if they so please.

All this is besides the point, though. Again, all that matters is that it's simply a singular, intuitive currency. Call it Light. Call it Essence. Call it Magia. Call it SparklePopPower. Or keep it a core, easily found currency as per tomes. It doesn't matter what the name is or what tab it falls under long as it can't be pre-banked, which can as easily be prevented whether it's "Tomestones of X" or "Relic Points".

[Nezerius]

What do we have now? Three types.

• Basically Uncapped Non-Season Tomestones not limited to endgame -- Poetics.
• Weekly-Capped Seasonal Endgame Tomestones -- currently called Comedy, but the name changes / a new tier is shifted in each time a new Savage tier is released (i.e., the start of each new 'season').
• Basically Uncapped Seasonal Endgame Tomestones -- currently called Causality, though each new season the former Weekly-Capped Tomestone is degraded into its position.

How many are there between "Poetics, Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones, and Weekly-Capped Seasonal Tomestones". Three types. The same three types.

The differences are merely that you'd buy old levelcap gear with Poetics, too, now, while the Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones would just be used on Relic progression, while Relic progression in turn only uses that currency, and the Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones would be new with each season, rather than just the previous capped tomestone being degraded to its position.

Done. Players would no longer be able to bank currency ahead of a new Relic stage, all without having to demand handfuls of inventory bloat or inflexible tasks.

At that point, all that is needed is reward balance enough to give players actual choice in content, which is something we'd want regardless of the inclusion of Relics.

Look, I'm not saying your suggestion is bad, but you're not actually paying attention to what SE has been doing over the past few expansions, and how the types are of tomestones are relegated.

Yes, we have three types of tomestones currently

• Tomestones for legacy content (anything prior to the current expansion - Poetics
• Uncapped tomestones for the current expansion's crafting materials, and pre-savage gear/gear from previous tiers - Causality (or whatever name they give it with every other new tier)
• Weekly capped tomestones for the current savage tier - Comedy (or whatever name they give it with every new tier)

SE absolutely loves this structure, as can be seen by how they've handled it since the release of Heavensward. It gives a clearly defined currency for previous expansions, and two clearly defined currencies for the current expansion.
The chances of SE changing this to work with your suggestion are very, very low, unless the result would be significant enough for them to change a system structure that's been around for almost a decade.

Then just start the Relic quests with the launch patch. Why would you not, anyways? They'd be using an independent and singular currency; the devs would be free to increasingly ramp up the rewards pace as the season edges along if they so please.

Which would be absolutely great, yes. But again, you're not paying attention to how SE has been handling patches, and how they've been spreading out content for several expansions now. Something that's honestly surprising for someone who has been around since pre-ARR, and this active on the forums.

It's unlikely for SE to see enough reason to move relics from the x.x5 to the initial major patch release, otherwise they would've done so already.

All this is besides the point, though. Again, all that matters is that it's simply a singular, intuitive currency. Call it Light. Call it Essence. Call it Magia. Call it SparklePopPower. Or keep it a core, easily found currency as per tomes. It doesn't matter what the name is or what tab it falls under long as it can't be pre-banked, which can as easily be prevented whether it's "Tomestones of X" or "Relic Points".

I mean, you're the one who completely latched onto the tomestones part of my post.

A post in response to TaleraRistain, in which they suggested multiple options to obtain a relic. With said options being 1) obtaining items in specific content, or 2) purchasing items with tomestones.