Are people still whining about this, seriously? You figure that fans would have just given up by now.
As far as I'm concerned this grind is acceptable. Relic itself isn't required to complete the main game and is entirely optional. I've run around for 20 hours now trying to get atma and have only got 1 so far, but I'm not complaining.

This is almost the same as whining about FFXI's lvl up grind, only there was even worse cause you could actually lose everything you worked for.