A Different Approach to Relics

[AnnRam]

And just like that, you've lost about 80% of the playerbase. A lot of them reaaaalllyyy hate PvP, my dude. Putting a relic weapon step behind it would cause the lion's share to just not bother with it.

With posts like this its why Relics are earned by doing nothing special.

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

With posts like this its why Relics are earned by doing nothing special.

That response has more to do with quality/effort put into reading more so than it does whether players would like PvP also to be an option by which to progress relic steps.

________________

Hot take, possibly, but I wouldn't mind relics being based on tomes (especially, if Seasonal but basically uncapped), if only...

1. There were more high-effort content than just Raids by which to progress your maximum ilvl reachable by Week X after a new season's (Savage Tier patch's) start,
2. Everything (yes, including even Exploratory Missions and PvP, give or take their rate of exclusive gear acquisition) gave tomes in roughly equal efficiency (assuming experienced runners), and
3. There were additional seasonal and weekly completion rewards (think Challenge Log, Wandering Tails, and the like) by which to bribe people towards trying a variety of content.

In the end, every reward system is a way to push the playerbase towards the most fun per minute they can have from each other through the content the game can, itself, provide, usually by pushing them towards an equilibrium between matchmaking speed and perceived quality of content (which tends, among what little subjective matters the game can control, correspond to variety of content and just enough time in them to make further optimizations, if the players so desire).

As long as you balance the reward efficiencies of content and prevent pre-banking, using a single currency (be it tomes, "Light", or what have you), just means...

• greater flexibility in choices (as one doesn't necessarily have to run content they dislike, even if it might be the most efficient means of generating that currency at the time),
• less RNG dependence (especially where it could most hurt)
• finer and more dynamic control over the reward balances themselves as to create informal events and the like (be that through Challenge Logs, "Light rotations", or whatever else), and
• less inventory bloat caused.

As such, I don't really get the concern with a relic step being based on uncapped-but-seasonal tomes or any other single currency. The concern should only be its pre-banking and reward balance, which is a concern even with many-item/currency systems anyways.

...Frankly, we should be pursuing a tighter balance among reward efficiencies regardless, as not to push time-crunched players just towards Expert Roulette and Hunts, etc.

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.

Only under the way tomes have been handled so far, but that's not something we need to continue.

We could as easily make room for a currency used only for Relics by just using Poetics on everything but said Relics and our Weekly-capped gear purchases, likely with their cap raised to 9999. Voila, we're then free to start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

We'd still be free to gate how far one could go with those relics at/until a given week, with players then be able to progress the Relics for additional jobs accordingly.

Similarly, we don't have to leave Hunts and Expert Roulettes the only particularly time-efficient ways to get our weekly tomes. It's a current circumstance, not a necessary design constraint.

[Nezerius]

Only under the way tomes have been handled so far, but that's not something we need to continue.

We could as easily make room for a currency used only for Relics by just using Poetics on everything but said Relics and our Weekly-capped gear purchases, likely with their cap raised to 9999. Voila, we're then free to start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

We'd still be free to gate how far one could go with those relics at/until a given week, with players then be able to progress the Relics for additional jobs accordingly.

Similarly, we don't have to leave Hunts and Expert Roulettes the only particularly time-efficient ways to get our weekly tomes. It's a current circumstance, not a design constraint.

A change like this would essentially force people into the "grindy" option (fresh uncapped currency) if they want to be able to purchase weekly-capped currency gear. With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear. That doesn't really sound like a fun choice to make.
It would also require SE to actually release relics during the initial major patch launches (x.1-x.5). SE loves spreading out patch content too much to pull it from the x.x5 patches, leaving players with 2 months to stack up however many currency they'd need to hit the cap of either form or currency.

The question of "Why do relics need this alternative?" remains. There are low-grind alternatives to obtaining weapons, with crafted weapons, EX trial weapons, and tomestone weapons obtained through clearing the last floor of the current raid for 4-7 weeks.

[Shurrikhan]

A change like this would essentially force people into the "grindy" option (fresh uncapped currency) if they want to be able to purchase weekly-capped currency gear. With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear.

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:

We could as easily make room for a currency used only for Relics by just using Poetics on everything but said Relics and our Weekly-capped gear purchases, likely with their cap raised to 9999. Voila, we're then free to start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

non-capped

[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.

[ty_taurus]

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.

Participation is a flawed metric to go by though. Obviously it’s going to have a higher obtaining rate than past relics because you’re a hop, skip, and a jump away from just handing them out for free. If that’s what makes content successful, then the most successful way you can introduce content is to just place the item into every players inventory automatically during maintenance. That way you’ll have a 100% player obtainment rate—a perfect score. If that’s all that matters, then that’s literally the best way relic weapons could ever be handled. Nothing else will lead to a literal 100%.

[ReynTime]

They should just put the relics in the cash shop for those that do not want to grind the content.
Win/win for SE, I guess?

Players who want every reward but complain there is time commitment behind them deserve to be whaled through the mogstation agreed.

Anyway I'm completely against the idea of offering players who think relics are too much of a grind an "easier" path. Yoshida's mindset that every content should appeal to everyone is what ruined Endwalker for me. I liked Relics because they gave people like me, who enjoy the time-consuming fixed party grind side of socialization in MMOs a unique reward to go after. I don't think the social part in a game should be limited to spamming dance emotes in a stupid pretend DJ party or asking "MARE????" to other players.
If you don't enjoy doing raids, you shouldn't get raid rewards. If you don't enjoy the relic grind you're not entitled to the relics. I can't stand that janky blunderville crap and I'm not complaining it exists and doesn't appeal to me, or asking to be entitled to the currency and achievement titles.

[strawberrycake]

I still laugh that in 2023 that this many adults have such bad time management and can't dedicate 2-3 hours to a game you pay a 15-20 dollar sub for and probably already spend most of your time on. Theres every excuse in the world to just go vibe with a few friends and grind out a relic, this isn't even about content. I just remember as far back as ARR theres always soemone I see online every day all day seemingly having an issue with just playing the game, yet the people with jobs and kids and who arent on seem to be able to get their relics and in no time flat.

The issue with XIV relic content at least in NA isn't even about the grind, it's about the fact that people are gonna be held to a standard in group based content, it's about the fact that it's not just given to you, it's about the fact that people have to leave their comfort zones and randoms won't tolerate their attitudes. It's that simple.

[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.