I just had an interesting idea of how Relic weapons should be upgraded

[Zfz]

The relic is not a raid weapon. It may be good enough to raid, and upgraded it can be better than other non-drop weapons, but it is not a raid weapon. After zenith, the relic had been about non-raiding content. Yes you can get the relic quicker if you do harder content, but it isn't required. Hence it would be contrary to the positioning of the relic to tie it to the Trials again.

If you are looking for a raid weapon, there are plenty of drops at the various item levels.

The later stages of the relic are not tied to the Trials for a reason. There are people who don't do raid and trials. They would love to have a nice relic, too, and the current relic is exactly the ultimate weapon for them.

Yes they don't need it, but that isn't justification for taking it away. Saying that if you don't raid you don't need the relic so you shouldn't be able to get it, is like saying someone has only 1 child so he doesn't need all that money so he should be prohibited to become a millionaire.

IMO the relic is perfectly fine as it is. It is a grind weapon. It is something you do now and then over the course of a patch, then the next patch, and have something tangible that is a representation of the combined efforts over a long year.

[aisustrong]

Also, having to get to a certain ilvl? really? I'm ilvl 126, and I can increase that to 130 if I want... It's just that for the items I have right now, I get more DPS with these lower ilvl items. I could replace some with more crafted items too, which would lower it even more... ilvl means nothing

this. pentamelded 110 is bis pretty often, especially for war
plus it looks better than ironworks jewelry, except maybe the rings

[Lemuria]

Dev made the original Zenith too easy to obtain and regretted it - everyone can get it easily and therefore it had no special value to it.

No... it just has no special value to it. Period. There's nothing unique about the weapon besides appearance, nothing special about the primary statistics either. Sure, you can play around with the secondary stats, but they amount to so little that it's barely worth a footnote, and also require a huge expense in tier 4 materia to cap them.

The irony now is that the fully upgraded relic actually takes more time and effort than getting a raid weapon of equal or greater strength. Merely getting to Novus requires a gargantuan amount of time and effort to grind through the various books, atmas and alexandrites. Getting the equivalent 110 weapon requires a week. If that.

This isn't 'casual' content. Anyone who deems it otherwise has no idea what the term casual is supposed to represent, or is stretching the interpretation so far that any content could equally be considered 'casual'. The Novus to Nexus grind alone requires a minimum of around 500 Garuda runs or 1000 fates, a massive time investment alone, to say nothing of doing other content which would take far longer to complete.

Whenever someone brings up the obvious flaws in the grind, there are always defenders who assume that people just want them given away like candy from a pinata. Simply untrue. However, there's a big difference between a meaningful climb and an obvious grind. To use one perfect example, while working on Nexus you have absolutely NO clear indication of how far you have to go. Each 'progress report' is only given after each 10%, and those steps can take some time to reach. You could grind for quite some time and see no discernible change.

No, what we wanted was something meaningful. Something fun. If you can make the grind fun, people don't notice it and actually praise you for it. When you make it as obvious as a red light in a blizzard, people will complain and rightly so. SE forgot to make fun grinds somewhere along the way, and that's why the zodiac quest suffers. People don't realize how long something takes, while they're enjoying the ride.

This zodiac grind, however... is not fun.

[Felis]

It would be cool if we can increase the zodiac ilevel in 3.0 with level up the weapon with just killing enemies.
They are alive now, give them their own exp bar ^^

[Craiger]

No... it just has no special value to it. Period. There's nothing unique about the weapon besides appearance, nothing special about the primary statistics either. Sure, you can play around with the secondary stats, but they amount to so little that it's barely worth a footnote, and also require a huge expense in tier 4 materia to cap them.

The irony now is that the fully upgraded relic actually takes more time and effort than getting a raid weapon of equal or greater strength. Merely getting to Novus requires a gargantuan amount of time and effort to grind through the various books, atmas and alexandrites. Getting the equivalent 110 weapon requires a week. If that.

This isn't 'casual' content. Anyone who deems it otherwise has no idea what the term casual is supposed to represent, or is stretching the interpretation so far that any content could equally be considered 'casual'. The Novus to Nexus grind alone requires a minimum of around 500 Garuda runs or 1000 fates, a massive time investment alone, to say nothing of doing other content which would take far longer to complete.

Whenever someone brings up the obvious flaws in the grind, there are always defenders who assume that people just want them given away like candy from a pinata. Simply untrue. However, there's a big difference between a meaningful climb and an obvious grind. To use one perfect example, while working on Nexus you have absolutely NO clear indication of how far you have to go. Each 'progress report' is only given after each 10%, and those steps can take some time to reach. You could grind for quite some time and see no discernible change.

No, what we wanted was something meaningful. Something fun. If you can make the grind fun, people don't notice it and actually praise you for it. When you make it as obvious as a red light in a blizzard, people will complain and rightly so. SE forgot to make fun grinds somewhere along the way, and that's why the zodiac quest suffers. People don't realize how long something takes, while they're enjoying the ride.

This zodiac grind, however... is not fun.

I agree that they could make the grind more fun, but at the same time, they can't just add more content to the game without sacrificing something else... Or hire more developers, which isn't going to happen.

They are putting out as much content as they have time for, and unless they are to reduce content somewhere else, the Relic quests have to remain a rehash of old content. Isn't the easiest making a fun grind out of content already in the game.

It's possible to make some changes though.

Also, the grind have shortened a lot now... The Atma books are still very annoying, but the very long Novus phase have been reduced to a pretty short grind if you know what you're doing. Nexus light farm is extremely boring, but the light have at least been doubled, and it's manageable.... Zodiac is still very good weapon currently, so you can't say anything about that grind, which isn't too bad either. Zeta is a joke...

If you start from scratch right now, and don't have another relic already, then you're either new to the game, or you have just wasted a huge amount of time that you had before this... it's been out for a very long time now after all. If you're new, it's gonna take a while to gear up and get any weapon at all, so doing relic quests which doesn't require you to be very geared, is a good option.

If you already have a relic, the previous stages can get easier for the other relics you might want to make. I have BLM Zeta, and I just started on my MNK's relic from scratch. I'll be able to do many of these stages all at once, which cuts the time in half pretty much.

[FranSeara]

Hello OP, this idea could
work if it was "Optional" with special rules and increase difficulty
It could take away some of the grid but how many playes would try this method is another story.
The relic quest as it stands now should (IMO) see some changes.

[thunderbreak]

To all the folks who think this method is going to make it easier to obtain the relic, or it's going to take less grind. Let me give you a perspective.

If you are the MOST hardcore raider, and the LUCKIEST raider, it'll take you 7-8 weeks minimum to get the relic using this method.

example

Week 1. Currency 450, obtain Head and upgrade item from raid, purchase/upgrade currency Belt, 75 currency left

Week 2. Currency 525, obtain Chest from and upgrade item from raid, purchase/upgrade currency Neck, 150 currency left

Week 3. Currency 600, obtain Leg and upgrade item from raid, purchase/upgrade currency Earrings, 225 currency left

Week 4. Currency 675, obtain Hands and upgrade item from raid, purchase/upgrade currency Wrist, 300 currency left

Week 5. Currency 750, obtain Feet and upgrade item from raid, purchase/upgrade currency Ring, 375 currency left

Week 6. Currency 825, obtain Ring and upgrade item from raid. Save currency

Week 7. Currency 1275, obtain Weapon upgrade item from raid, defeat Primal Challenge

Week 7 ALT. obtain raid weapon, defeat Primal Challenge, Highest rank Relic unlocked

Week 8. Currency 1725, purchase/upgrade currency Weapon, Highest rank Relic unlocked

The difference between the current bullshit grind, and this grind, is you are going to gain currency anyways, so it doesn't really feel like a grind. If you are just an average Joe casual player, to get every slot maxed to the highest level via currency gear it'll take 14 weeks. And you'll have to participate in 24 player raid for upgrade parts, as well as defeat Primal Challenge.

This method isn't gonna hold your hand and give you your Relic in a ribbon. You'll have to earn it the old school way. And anyone who says 2.0 was easy to get Relic, I'm just going to say this;

If people all agree Titan HM at ilv 50-70 is easy, and grind 200 FATEs, or run Primal HM 50 times a day on ilv 125 for the next week is hard, Then there's no more to discuss.

[thunderbreak]

No... it just has no special value to it. Period. There's nothing unique about the weapon besides appearance, nothing special about the primary statistics either. Sure, you can play around with the secondary stats, but they amount to so little that it's barely worth a footnote, and also require a huge expense in tier 4 materia to cap them.

The irony now is that the fully upgraded relic actually takes more time and effort than getting a raid weapon of equal or greater strength. Merely getting to Novus requires a gargantuan amount of time and effort to grind through the various books, atmas and alexandrites. Getting the equivalent 110 weapon requires a week. If that.

This isn't 'casual' content. Anyone who deems it otherwise has no idea what the term casual is supposed to represent, or is stretching the interpretation so far that any content could equally be considered 'casual'. The Novus to Nexus grind alone requires a minimum of around 500 Garuda runs or 1000 fates, a massive time investment alone, to say nothing of doing other content which would take far longer to complete.

Whenever someone brings up the obvious flaws in the grind, there are always defenders who assume that people just want them given away like candy from a pinata. Simply untrue. However, there's a big difference between a meaningful climb and an obvious grind. To use one perfect example, while working on Nexus you have absolutely NO clear indication of how far you have to go. Each 'progress report' is only given after each 10%, and those steps can take some time to reach. You could grind for quite some time and see no discernible change.

No, what we wanted was something meaningful. Something fun. If you can make the grind fun, people don't notice it and actually praise you for it. When you make it as obvious as a red light in a blizzard, people will complain and rightly so. SE forgot to make fun grinds somewhere along the way, and that's why the zodiac quest suffers. People don't realize how long something takes, while they're enjoying the ride.

This zodiac grind, however... is not fun.

See she knows what I'm talking about.

[thunderbreak]

Also, having to get to a certain ilvl? really? I'm ilvl 126, and I can increase that to 130 if I want... It's just that for the items I have right now, I get more DPS with these lower ilvl items. I could replace some with more crafted items too, which would lower it even more... ilvl means nothing

iLv is the condition of UNLOCKING, like unlocking anything in any game, once it's unlocked you can go in to final coil in your underwear if you wanted.

[thunderbreak]

no thank you

Enjoy the FATE you've done 2000 times already then.