A Different Approach to Relics

[Nezerius]

Fair enough. My point, though, was just that whether players can bank ahead of new relic steps or not comes down to a very arbitrary design decision that, yes, XIV could as easily flip the switch on as leave settled. There's plenty else they've changed in that regard. Accessories used to be usable by all, to the point that players said they always would. Overnight, they weren't. We had a consistent inclusion of Exploratory Missions for 3 expansions in a row (Diadem, Eureka, Bozja). Then we didn't.

I.e., just because an issue exists under a current arbitrary circumstance does not mean that even tradition/stagnation-loving XIV must maintain that issue. As such the complaint seemed an odd one to me among a thread specifically on different approaches to Relics.

Which goes right back to what I mentioned in my most recent post, SE changing things if they feel like the result would be significant enough. Diadem was reworked multiple times, up to its current relatively okay state as a gathering zone for the Ishgard Restoration. The playerbase will always be split on whether Eureka or Bozja were good or bad content, ultimately leading to SE being cautious about adding new exploratory missions. This type of split hasn't really been seen about the tomestone system at its core, with the complaints mainly being about the limit of the weekly cap.

The accessories thing was hardly an overnight thing either. This was an ongoing issue during a large part of Heavensward, with more and more tanks deciding to equip Slaying accessories instead of Fending ones, opting for more dps over more health. SE didn't do anything major about this until the release of Stormblood.

But alrighty. Let's say they likewise break the mold by adding a new granular currency, which they've only done once outside of the addition of PvP and Hunts. Instead of messing with any tomestones or thereby needing to correct any longstanding issues in reward balance for that broader system, we just add a new currency tab for Relics, complete up to 4 separate currencies therein for their different steps. In that way, again, nothing can be pre-banked, but we avoid the inventory bloat issues and don't have to return to Hyrstmill to ask how bright our light is glowing as not to risk overcapping a stage's progress, etc.

Personally, I would like that we could progress anything from anything, as with a revised tome system, but I'd be happy just avoiding the excessive constraints of Books or the item bloat of the HW Relic grind, myself.

Huh? The NPC gave you a key item that could be used to show your relic's progress. You only had to return to Hyrstmill to proceed to the next step.

While I personally don't think the previous relic's inventory bloat issues are as severe as you make it sound, I'd obviously welcome having relic-specific items being moved to a currency tab. That's just a straight up QoL change, no debate about it. However, it's clear that SE is hesitant to adding too much to the currency tab as it currently is. They'd have to significant rework this tab to show a larger amount of currencies first.