What MMO Grind is WORSE than relic/zodiac weapon grind?

[AlexionSkylark]

I got an inspiration from seeing another topic, so I'm making this one ^^

So, to give some more perspective (or to give reason to) the people who complain so much about the relic weapon grind, why don't we start relating our worse experiences in MMO grinds, and how they relate to the "extreme" grind of the relic (now branded Zodiac) weapon chain quest?

I'll start with a simple one, that I mentioned in said topic: Lineage 2 leveling.

It was a given that most "unnoficial" L2 servers had triple or even 6x EXP rates. After lvl 60, it could require something from 8 to 10 hours of playing to go up a SINGLE level. And that with NOTHING to do besides killing random mobs on the field. Quests, Leves, exp bonuses? nah, we don't need no cheatin' in old MMO land. Our very LEVELS were conquered one by one in the firey pits of repetitive grinding! pfeh!

Relic weapon my schmepon... these kids know nothing, Jon Snow

[Mirakumi]

Original relics in ffxi.

[AnaviAnael]

Original relics in ffxi.

Beat me to it.

[PandaPause]

Original relics in ffxi.

Beat me to it.

Agreed/10char.

[Welsper59]

Original relics in ffxi.

This is honestly the epitome of a "grind" for MMORPGs. When it's considered the norm to take 1-2 YEARS to complete, and not because of step-by-step quest introduction, well... we kinda have a winner.

Otherwise, I'd have to go with raid mount farming in WoW. Ashes of A'lar... /sigh. A lot easier now though, with account wide mounts/pets.

[Leowilde]

This is honestly the epitome of a "grind" for MMORPGs. When it's considered the norm to take 1-2 YEARS to complete, and not because of step-by-step quest introduction, well... we kinda have a winner.

Years? Literally??

[Welsper59]

Years? Literally??

That was the norm back when it was relevant, yes. A handful of players finished in several months, but that was through the entire LS's attempts to get this ONE person their completed relic and everyone took the initiative to get currency from others. In other words, a true sense of the "greater good" needed to happen among all members. Nearly the entire process was based on RNG from an event that you could do only once a week called Dynamis. Among other things, you'd need Beastmen currency... A LOT of currency. The average take away was around 200 or so, if I remember correctly. You'd need around 17500 or so coins, among which was a mix and match between 3 different types of Beastmen currency. Again, that 200 or so is assuming your LS has agreed to give ONLY you all currency drops. It was also possible to buy currency, but it was essentially a career long commitment to invest in at the time.

[LineageRazor]

Years? Literally??

Yes, literally. Real-life years.

The process involved, among other things, collecting roughly eighteen thousand pieces of Ancient Currency from an instanced event called Dynamis. A typical Dynamis run would drop somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred pieces, and on rare occasions a special piece with the value of one hundred regular pieces would drop as well to bring the total to two hundred. Dynamis could only be done once every three days, so if everyone in the Dynamis group cooperated and poured all the currency into building up one person's Relic weapon, it'd still take around 150 runs just to build up the proper amount of ancient currency. 150 runs with one run every three days adds up to around a year and a half. Dynamis was not something you could run solo, either - you NEEDED those other people in order to earn your currency.

And that's speaking of an ideal situation, where everyone in the group is happy with building up one person's weapon - often it was the case that several people were trying to build weapons, and so the currency would need to be split among them. Most serious relic-builders needed to purchase some, if not most of their currency from other players in order to get their relic done in less than five years - and currency was not sold cheap. I sold around 200 currency at one point, and that was enough to purchase a Cleric's Briault for myself, at the time the best of all healer body armors and one of the more expensive crafted items in the game. Being seen with a relic usually meant that you were REALLY good at earning gil in FFXI.

And, of course, while currency was the grindiest part of the relic, it was not the only part. You also needed to present a large number of crafted items as part of the quest, many of which could only be created by top-tier crafters. You also needed to defeat specific notorious monsters in Dynamis to obtain special items needed as part of the relic process. These monsters were difficult to pop, and in the case of the monsters for the final stage could actually warp out of the fight if not defeated in a specific way (for many, that specific way was never actually puzzled out by the FFXI community; the preferred solution was to pop all cooldowns and zerg the thing fast enough so that even if it tried to warp, it'd die before the casting animation finished).

The so-called "relic grind" in this game is a complete laugh compared to the utter horror of the FFXI relic. I never would have touched the Relic grind in FFXI. In FFXIV, I'm working on two, with the Atmas stored up for two more if I ever feel the urge.

On the flip side, though, as a result of this ridiculous difficulty, there was no expectation in the FFXI community that a player should go out and obtain a relic weapon. They were powerful, yes, the strongest weapons in the game by far at the time, but no one would ever call you a bad Warrior just becuase you had no plans of obtaining a Bravura (the WAR relic). It was recognized that Relics were special, an above-and-beyond kind of thing that took a special kind of player and the cooperation of a lot of people helping that player to achieve.

[DoctorPepper]

Yes, literally. Real-life years.

The process involved, among other things, collecting roughly eighteen thousand pieces of Ancient Currency from an instanced event called Dynamis.

Also, don't forget that for a long time there was a 1 million gil entry fee for the timeless hourglass. The timeless hourglass gave a single entry to dynamis so every 3 days you would need a new one. It's been reduced to 50k now but back in the day the fee was pretty significant. The value of the ancient currency you got from a run was more than the cost of entry but it was still pretty pricy if you weren't selling any of that currency.

In addition to that, more than one group could not enter a particular dynamis zone simultaneously. So often you would have to wait for another group to finish before you could start. Many servers had an unofficial dynamis schedule but there were still plenty of groups that completely ignored these schedules if their group could not adhere to the times available.

[Werewolf]

Years? Literally??

Took me roughly 18 months to complete my Ninja relic Kikoku in Final Fantasy XI (doing Dynamis with 2 characters every week); that was without any help other than getting the items which were also a pain in the butt... granted this was years before they made it easy mode and before they got rid of the 75 level cap. I believe I completed it around June 2007, and at that time only 3 people on my server had it including myself if I remember; now everyone has a relic or two or three lol