Anima Weapons

[Zophar]

The reason I bring this up is because the 'required' stuff is relative to the goals of player. No one needs to be max level or have the best gear necessarily. If you cant dedicate a scheduled time to practice savage with a static and your goals involve maxing out a character, this quest is your only option. Many players are faced with a dilemma of giving up on their goal (and possibly unsubscribing because they can no longer progress towards their goal) or possibly spend a huge amount of time participating in content they dont enjoy.

See, that's kind of my point though, if a person isn't doing endgame, there's not really any need to have a weapon that high. The quest to get the i200 stage is very quick and easy, and i200 is more than enough for, well, honestly all content currently in the game. A 210 does help with getting things like Thordan and Alex S on a more farmable status, but otherwise, is just kinda unnecessary. It's just fluff. Sparkly fluff.

The idea of "having no choice," or being "forced to do content they don't enjoy" is purely psychological. I don't currently do endgame due to RL conflicts at the moment, but I plan to again when things calm down. For that reason I choose to make a 210 relic to help me when I get there. But, honestly, if I didn't want to endgame, I'd be perfectly happy with my i200 bow, and just ever so slowly build up stuff to eventually upgrade it. As I said, just doing your beast dailies once a day and doing nothing else, basically guarantees you get your 210 in, I think I calculated it out at 87 days, and that's not even taking into account the extra poetics/law you get from completing said dailies, or what have you.

I just think people are taking this WAAAY too personally and getting entirely too bent out of shape about it.

[Kallera]

...I'd be perfectly happy with my i200 bow, and just ever so slowly build up stuff to eventually upgrade it. As I said, just doing your beast dailies once a day and doing nothing else, basically guarantees you get your 210 in, I think I calculated it out at 87 days, and that's not even taking into account the extra poetics/law you get from completing said dailies, or what have you...

I think even the casual player wants to know that are not working towards a dud. The current trend of SE's content suggests that the relic may be exactly only for looks than for anything impressive, with limited customization, to be handed in at the end of its short life like a trinket for "10% off the next monotonous grind". This isn't what people come to expect out of a weapon that takes a lot of time and investment outside of their usual wants to do to just match the ilvl of current content, with nothing to stand out. No one wants to be sold a lemon no matter how affordable it is.

[Celtkhan]

Here's the problem with step 3 of the Anima weapon: It's intended to be a alternate path for non-hardcore-raiders to get their weapon. I don't want it to be easy, or fast; I just want it to be possible. And it's not. Between crafting being painfully difficult and the disappointing Specialist system, the number of endgame crafters has been cut drastically, possibly by more than half. And now, you require HQ (!) crafted items from at least three (!!) different crafters utilizing materials which can only be gathered in the Diadem (!!!). Needless to say, such components are extremely expensive. Unless you're the type of person who enjoys playing the markets, you're unlikely to have that kind of gil lying around. I thought 7 mil was good.

SE has done a pretty good job avoiding the mistakes of WoW, but they obviously have a specific design philosophy, and while it's not "raid or die," I'm none too thrilled with "join a big FC or GTFO." It's still dictating to me the "right way to play."

[winsock]

It's just fluff. Sparkly fluff.

^ you came to that conclusion solely because no one really *needs* a 210 wep right?

But truely, no one really needs anything in this game. The entire game is optional.
You don't need to progress a character by maxing out its gear or level.
I wouldn't call improved stats fluff. For example, the cash shop sells fluff. If this upgrade was added to the cash shop would you have a problem with it? It's just fluff right?

[Indignation]

The entire game is optional.

Square should just hire that guy to cover any complaint they ever receive, he'd make the pressure on the dev team absolutely zero. Which is real easy to do when you can handwave off everything as "optional". That even goes for things that have already been fixed...

"Uh, excuse me Square Enix sirs, but Chocobo Racing feels like it receives way too little reward in MGP for the amount of time."
"Chocobos are optional! Get out of here!"

"Okay, I decided to run Garuda, but I have some vision problems and it's hard to tell which mob is tethered in which way...."
"WHO CARES, GARUDA IS OPTIONAL, GET LOST STEVIE WONDER."

"Okay, Garuda down, but I am having some issues gearing my Paladin... nobody wants to take me on a raid because they've heard there are some issues with paladin..."
"We gave you boxers, isn't that enough you entitled whiner? The rest of the gear is optional! Paladin is optional! Roll a warrior!"

[winsock]

Which is real easy to do when you can handwave off everything as "optional".

^ perfect summary. And what really gets me is this "it's optional" crowd has the nerve to say its "psychological" or "you're entitled" or, without beating around the bush:
"it's the player's fault the content isn't enjoyable."

The players didn't develop this content.

[kensatsu]

Say : the relic is optional seem a bad joke to me,
i can say everything in the game when you finished the Story is optional
Normal raid is optional
Savage raid is optional
the Arch is optional
Diademe is optional,
crafting 2 star item is optional
every added content is optional.
i don't get why players say relic is optional, just because it's a long quest ? or just because it's a grind ? or say you don't have to do it ?
If you are sub, all these content is not optional or why continue to play the game right ?
you don't need the relic to do savage, but you still have better luck to beat it with a 210 weapon, if you want the best stuff for your JOB and if the relic have good state, i think players just want it because the weapon is BiS, if the weapon is not BiS you may want it because you know there will be a way to change state later.
just don't say it's optional when everything is also optional....

[TatoRazzino]

Yes, all content is optional. You get to choose what you do and what you don't do. According to people in this thread, casual players choose not to raid, do Thordan or any Ex-Primals when they're launched; apparently, they also choose to not craft or gather anything, and they also choose not to save the gil their get from their roulettes; they choose not to have any retainers leveled up to bring them stuff to sell to get gil as well. Now, the relic comes out, and casual players choose to do it, and then they hit a crafting requirement and cry in the forums because it's hard to save the gil to buy the items (which are getting cheaper by the day, at least in my server). What bugs me is: casual players choose to ignore basically all the content in the game and they also choose not to be friends with anyone that crafts or gathers, so why bother with the relic? Why do they want the Anima weapon in the first place? Why is it such a big deal? Developers don't have to worry about pleasing people that choose to ignore all the alternative content they produce. The Relic is matching all the other weapons, so it should be hard, it should make people hit brick walls. They're gonna nerf this step soon, so what's the rush? Casual players usually wait for nerfs and echo to do anything anyway, why are they being picky now?

[Zophar]

Yes, all content is optional. You get to choose what you do and what you don't do. According to people in this thread, casual players choose not to raid, do Thordan or any Ex-Primals when they're launched; apparently, they also choose to not craft or gather anything, and they also choose not to save the gil their get from their roulettes; they choose not to have any retainers leveled up to bring them stuff to sell to get gil as well. Now, the relic comes out, and casual players choose to do it, and then they hit a crafting requirement and cry in the forums because it's hard to save the gil to buy the items (which are getting cheaper by the day, at least in my server). What bugs me is: casual players choose to ignore basically all the content in the game and they also choose not to be friends with anyone that crafts or gathers, so why bother with the relic? Why do they want the Anima weapon in the first place? Why is it such a big deal? Developers don't have to worry about pleasing people that choose to ignore all the alternative content they produce. The Relic is matching all the other weapons, so it should be hard, it should make people hit brick walls. They're gonna nerf this step soon, so what's the rush? Casual players usually wait for nerfs and echo to do anything anyway, why are they being picky now?

Exactly this. There is lots of other content to do in the game, much of it would even help you make your Anima. People seem fine with skipping crafting, and gathering, and Alex, and Thordan, and hunts, and beastmen dailies, and so on and so on. Why, is it for some reason massively more important to do this than all the rest of that? I mean, to the point where people are overreacting and threatening to quit if they don't get their way?

[Nyghtmarerobu]

I mean, to the point where people are overreacting and threatening to quit if they don't get their way?

People want things to be easy. Funny thing about it, is the quest chain is easy. Nothing about the relic chain is "Hard". Its a time sink, that is all. No matter how you look at it, there are ways to make gil, and you can do the relic with relative ease on any server. Check the Market, find what sells, and do your best to profit off of it. It might require a bit of work, but thats all it is, time and effort. There are ways if you are determined enough to do it. And like others have said, it is optional. Thordan weapons are great, and if you aren't doing thordan, the i200 eso or relic step weapons are just fine with current content.

Only thing that I can see people bringing up, like I've said previously, is the lack of original content in the new quest chain. Its the same song and dance routine we've seen before, and I had hoped they would maybe make some interesting steps and maybe some solo or party trials just for the relic chain. Oh well, all I can do is be hopeful that they will do something better the next time around.