Yet more glorified tomestone weapons

[AlliciaCapulet]

I thought rewarding players to go and do old content they've otherwise outgrown was the entire point?

That was mostly true in ARR and Heavensward, largely because the game didn’t yet have a better formula and was still experimenting with what players actually enjoyed. That experimentation led to Eureka in SB, which was a success for many players, and was then refined into Bozja in ShB. A significant portion of the community genuinely enjoyed that type of content.

In Endwalker, however—likely due to a mix of listening to some very casual voices and probably budget constraints—they introduced the 1500-tomestone relic formula. Yoshi-P later stated that it was a “success” because more players obtained relics, but that metric is misleading. When players have excess tomestones and nothing else to spend them on, relics become something you acquire passively, without actively engaging with relic content. That doesn’t indicate good design—just inevitability. Still, there were enough complaints afterward for Square Enix to promise a return to “Bozja-like content” in the next expansion.

That brings us to Occult Crescent: an instance that feels empty and unengaging, essentially a shallow copy of Bozja without its defining features. There are no CLL or Dalriada-style encounters, no duels, and no real incentive to farm relics inside the instance at all. In practice, this repeats the exact same mistake made in Endwalker.

That’s why we’re seeing so many discussions right now pointing out that relics, in their current design, are still unsatisfying.

What many players want is a return to a formula that actually worked, rather than continuing with what we have now. With the growing number of jobs, I’m not opposed to the idea of catch-up mechanics or relic boosts after completing a certain number, similar to how crafting relics work. But the primary place to progress relics should be inside the dedicated instance—in this case, Occult Crescent—not outside of it.

The fact that the third relic step is significantly slower inside OC than outside is simply absurd and completely defeats the purpose of having a dedicated zone. And falling back on tomestone steps afterward is just repeating the same Endwalker mistake all over again.

I can only hope that there will be enough feedback on the forums for Square Enix to recognize that there is a playerbase that enjoys Bozja-style content, just as there is one for Savage and Ultimate raids—and that in 8.x they finally deliver the relic experience they promised, but failed to provide in 7.x.

[Brandr]

That’s exactly the issue: Square Enix often ends up reacting to the loudest voices on the forums, not necessarily to feedback that represents the wider playerbase. Many players who enjoy grind-heavy content don’t post—they’re busy playing it. Silence doesn’t mean dissatisfaction. But some people came on the forum and complained.

One of Yoshi-P’s biggest weaknesses, in my opinion, is trying to please everyone. That’s simply impossible in an MMO. Long-term, grind-focused content has always been something a large portion of the community enjoys. Removing or heavily reducing it doesn’t suddenly make everyone happy—it just alienates those players instead.

Rather than breaking or flattening grind-based systems, the better solution would be to add parallel, casual-friendly alternatives. Give casual players something extra to do, instead of stripping depth from content that others actively enjoy. You can support multiple playstyles without erasing one of them. Relics should stay a long term grind-focused content, the same way savage should remain harder fight that are not fits for everyone.

This text should be pinned at the top of the forum.
Excellent assessment!

[HammAndCheese]

We have 21 relics now -> We still could have the same step for every weapon, but, with a buff similar to the crafting relics. Crafting relics are faster after 1, 3 and 5. Since it's 21 weapon, they could go a bit faster after 1, 5, 10 and 15, encouraging people to do relics farm (and keep them busy especially with those stupidly too long delay of 4 months between major patches).

Just to give an example, I did one season of PVP. We are not talking about a whole patch cycle, but 2 month. I did around 700-800 match of CC in those 2 months, that mean an average of 3-4 hours every evening. It's 20 tomestone per match. I ended up with nearly 11 relics made passively. This is too easy to get. And after that the question is : What do I farm? I used to live in Eureka and Bozja, but here OC is worthless and a very bad content that doesn't have cool stuff to do like CLL, Dal or even the duels.

Everything is wrong again with the relics, for 2 expansions in a row, and it needs to be said.

Oh I completely agree with you, I finished the last step almost solely by doing hunt trains, it felt cheap. The entire step could've stayed the paste and just used the CE tool upgrade system where after a few you need less paste. I want to move away from tomes, I miss the grind I had during ShB.

[Garruss]

I don't mind that the grind is for one weapon, then the rest can be bought, you did the work, so where is the harm in getting the other weapons easier?

[Mercury_Grey]

I don't mind that the grind is for one weapon, then the rest can be bought, you did the work, so were is the harm in getting the other weapons easier?

That's exactly how i feel! You pour the blood, sweat and tears into your first one and you get rewarded for it. Yeah the atma drop rate is horrible. Took me 5 days to ge tlast 2 i needed but thats because i was busy most of the time. atleast the current step of crystal paste is 100% drop rate and you can get the 1200 before you turn in the first 100

[VeyaAkemi]

I wouldn't mind the tome aspect so much if it wasn't the only option, quite honestly, I'd prefer to have the option to keep doing a diet version of the one-time step as an alternative.

[Voidmage]

In Endwalker, however—likely due to a mix of listening to some very casual voices and probably budget constraints—they introduced the 1500-tomestone relic formula.

It wasn't really only the casual players who complained. It's frankly the same crowd that now cheeses the roulettes and the ones who back in the day cheesed A-raid roulette, many of whom have actually Legend titles.
The truth is that everyone has their own favourite content in the game. The problem is that Relics have been the content that suffered the most from one sided complaints by the ones who didn't like it instead of that crowd simply not doing it.
I am a bit annoyed by the casual side always getting all the flak when no one can even define what a casual even is.

At the end of the day though the fault lies to a big part with the devs, same as with the jobs because they implemented the feedback and as the feedback for relics in EW was ignored till the next expansion as well as the feedback now for optional grinding parallel to Tomestones is also ignored, it's pretty clear that on their end it's a mix of not knowing what they want the relics to be and simple refusal to acknowledge feedback in timely manner.
I also still have the feeling that they are still miffed because of all the negative feedback for the EW relics.
Add to that our community managers seemingly not bringing feedback to the devs as well as the community here being unable to not make 2000 threads for the same topic to condense it and voila.

[Valence]

That was mostly true in ARR and Heavensward, largely because the game didn’t yet have a better formula and was still experimenting with what players actually enjoyed. That experimentation led to Eureka in SB, which was a success for many players, and was then refined into Bozja in ShB. A significant portion of the community genuinely enjoyed that type of content.

I legitimately don't see how what we got after HW is any different to the ARR/HW formula. Outside of Eureka we didn't have any option, but outside of Bozja, it was the exact same formula: fates one step, dungeons or roulettes another. It's always been about either fates, light farm of some variation, either through targeted duties or roulettes, and the rest on tomes.

What has changed is the amount that is required per relic, that's about it. The content required remains the same.

As for the idea that the content that could be run inside Eureka or Bozja themselves, it was new but also not really since it was all about glorified fates and NMs anyway.

In Endwalker, however—likely due to a mix of listening to some very casual voices and probably budget constraints—they introduced the 1500-tomestone relic formula. Yoshi-P later stated that it was a “success” because more players obtained relics, but that metric is misleading. When players have excess tomestones and nothing else to spend them on, relics become something you acquire passively, without actively engaging with relic content. That doesn’t indicate good design—just inevitability. Still, there were enough complaints afterward for Square Enix to promise a return to “Bozja-like content” in the next expansion.

Why do they even have an excess of tomes? Where are they getting those tomes from? Are they actively farming their daily roulettes? What for? What's so different than fates? I certainly don't run my dailies all the time when I have no use for tomes, that's busy work for nothing. Same as fates, etc.

Also even if one was to do dailies sometimes, you'll still be limited by the capped variant of tomes which would leave you to do dailies for... what exactly? The second variant of tomes just for the sake of those? Without a relic requiring those, I really don't see the argument there.

That’s why we’re seeing so many discussions right now pointing out that relics, in their current design, are still unsatisfying.

Always has been recycled old content. Nothing new there, again, people complain about the amount required which is valid, but the type of what's being actually asked to do? Same shit every expansion, follows the exact same formula variants that they keep recycling.

[Aidorouge]

Eureka and Bozja were popular precisely because they replaced pure RNG and passive grinding with structured, goal-oriented progression in dedicated content. People enjoyed working toward relics when the effort felt intentional and tied to meaningful gameplay.

That was mostly true in ARR and Heavensward, largely because the game didn’t yet have a better formula and was still experimenting with what players actually enjoyed. That experimentation led to Eureka in SB, which was a success for many players, and was then refined into Bozja in ShB. A significant portion of the community genuinely enjoyed that type of content.

Meh... Eureka bored me to tears just trying to gain elemental levels and complete the initial story, I can't imagine going back out there for the relics, logos, and final magicite slots. Doubly so if the "whole point" of doing it is a Savage-tier fight which I could never clear, rendering anything I do in Eureka pointless. And no, I doubt Bozja is "so much better". I already got gaslit/trolled into thinking Eureka was "fun" and I'm not getting tricked again.

I'm more inclined to believe that some people didn't enjoy the actual grind of Field Operations so much as they enjoyed having something they could mindlessly farm while doing something else in another monitor, because leveling in Eureka only became bearable when I propped my phone up and watched other things while brainlessly smacking mobs. It's either that or some kind of bizarre need to see other players suffer alongside them/help them end the suffering faster with more warm bodies, so they make the content sound way better than it actually is otherwise they would be stuck having to solo everything out there (as I did).

Or perhaps they think Field Operations are better because none of the steps seem "gated" like tomestones can be? Folks are always trying to rush content so they can hurry up to start waiting again... oh man, I think I get it now. Field Operations are the "no walls between pulls and bosses" that people keep yearning for. It all makes so much more sense now why people keep trying to paint it as "peak" content while simultaneously hating on having to do roulettes again.

I mean, they're both grindmines at the end of the day, but one of them is in a tunnel while the other takes place in a open quarry, but I guess the open air DOES make it sound more pleasant.

[Aidorouge]

What has changed is the amount that is required per relic, that's about it. The content required remains the same.

That, and the amount of relics needing to be done. 21 and counting is probably starting to become daunting for some (even the developers), and that might be another reason why they let you speedrun the other DT relics after you finish the step legit, doubly so if its on jobs you're still leveling and can't even use the relic yet but still need a tomestone dump.

...Incidentally, wouldn't people leveling other jobs be amassing tomestomes via other content and not Occult Crescent its self? It gives the impression that Square-Enix was trying to give people a "two birds with one stone" option, but it doesn't account for people who may already have all jobs maxed out and were expecting to do something "exclusive" on their jobs per relic.

...And so we come around again to why removing job quests/relying on role quests was a mistake, to say nothing of job homogenization eventually leading to content homogenization as it relates directly to jobs. Dawntrail really has been a compounding of past issues coming home to roost.
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As for the idea that the content that could be run inside Eureka or Bozja themselves, it was new but also not really since it was all about glorified fates and NMs anyway.

That's a good point actually.

What is fundamentally different about running around killing specific mobs/FATEs in a Field Operation for STB/SHB relics versus doing hunt trains in the overworld for EW/DT relics? I gaze upon my Anemos/Protean Crystals and Poetics and I keep telling corporate that they're the same picture.

Between this and the epiphany I had about the "no walls" thing earlier it's even more confusing. Field Operations and roulettes are both synced, so there's no way to trivialize the difficultly by over-leveling it. Field Operations and hunt trains both take place in an "open" area so one can't say that peotics farming is entirely claustrophobic.

I struggle to understand what element of Field Operations is truly revolutionary from doing any other kind of synced or open world content anywhere else for a currency that gets fed into a relic, aside from tomestones taking up no inventory space.