Zodiac Weapon Questline vs Anima Weapon Questline - Your preference?

[FinaSel]

I'm currently working on another Zodiac weapon and Anima weapon and I can't help but see such a big difference between these two quest lines.

There is no doubt we will see another quest line similar to these in the future.

I am wondering what your preference is. What type of weapon quest line would you like to see in the future?

Although I have only experienced the Zodiac quest line post-nerf, I personally prefer the Zodiac Quest line.

To start, the first step in obtaining the relic weapon has a unique story for each class in the Zodiac quest line "A relic reborn."
The AW quest line does not.

In the ZW questline, you follow in the footsteps of former heroes, to strengthen the weapon. (Zodiac Books)
In the AW questline, you just go to a few dungeons to strengthen the weapon's spirit.
To me, the ZW seems a lot more interesting.
However, doing the books is more tedious, BUT the variety of things "killing mobs, doing FATEs, Leves, Dungeons" gives us different things to do.

Alexandrite and Materia vs Crystal Sand and Umbrite
Although they come at different points in the quest lines, they are comparable.
The Alexandrite and Materia one stands out better than Sands and Umbrite to me.
First, there are many ways to acquire both Crystal Sand and Alexandrite. Neither is really preferable.
However, materia is better than Umbrite.
Materia can be gathered by yourself relatively quickly. It can also be purchased. Many different activities can spirit bond gear.
However, Umbrite is acquired though one method: Tomestones. And the only reasonable method of getting them is running the same dungeon(s) repeatedly or doing roulettes every day. Nothing else even comes close.
Materia wins hands down because there is less monotony required to get it. Plus, if you have money earned through crafting or just saved a lot, you can simply buy materia. Can't do this with Umbrite.

Gather light vs Gather a whole bunch of seemingly meaningless items
Gathering light is preferable. First, it takes zero inventory space. Second, it can be done through a various activities that actually require(d) fighting.
Gathering light means / meant going into dungeons / PvP and fighting. A key point is that it can be acquired through a variety of dungeons.
On the other hand, AW weapon items (unidentifiable items and those crafting items) can be gathered through activities which require little / no skill. Therefore, making them boring and grindy.
Beast tribe quests are repetitive, boring, and honestly, way too easy. Even Heavensward ones. They can be bought with Allied seals / Grand Company seals. Or easily made through crafting. Or just purchased with, yes, tomestones.
Gathering light happened naturally as you FOUGHT. It is simpler, takes no space, and it's faster. No exchanging items every day.
Furthermore, you got a lot more light from difficult Instances than from easy ones. Going to a raid is far more efficient. Again, this gives players a reason to challenge difficult content.
AW has really no incentive for this.

ZW questline - Gather meaningful items (Ponze of Flesh etc)
In the ZW questline, you are tasked by 4 people to gather a variety of items. Most from top tier dungeons (at the time). A couple items from vendors, and Grand Company Seals.
But the key point is you are sent to tough dungeons. Again, to fight. Plus, each person explains the reasons for needing each item. Unlike those cursed unidentifiable items.

In the AW questline, you are never really tasked with fighting anything tough. You can just gather ESOs running Aetherochemical Research Facility all day and get almost everything you need. Umbrite, Unidentifiables, Aether Oil. It's basically all about ESOs

In summary
AW questline:
More monotonous
More grindy (gathering tomestones for almost everything)
Less fighting / Easy fights
Less meaning associated with items tasked to gather
No unique story to your weapon
Requires a lot of inventory space
No title awarded (I think they said the AW questline was finished?)
Little / no incentive to challenge difficult content

ZW questline
Less monotonous, but has some monotonous parts. Need less monotonous quests in the future.
Required to partake in more difficult fights / dungeons.
Meaning is assigned to the items you need to gather.
Each weapon has a story.
More variety
Title awarded
High incentive to challenge difficult content. Often required.

So which did you prefer? Do you have a different perspective on these quest lines?
What type of relic quest line do you want in the future?

[Snat]

I much preferred the Zodiac quest line myself - it at least originally felt more like restoring an old weapon. The Anima just feels like I'm making the new tome weapon for people (which kina is what it is about I know, but still).

[Warlyx]

the 1 step of the relics were good , after primals.... all went downhill....to grind hell of not fun allowed

[worldofneil]

I'm not sure you can really compare the now super nerfed zodiac relic to the only just nerfed Anima relic...

It's like with the original zodiac, without the light nerf, light farming was way more tedious than you've made it sound...

And the dungeon drops were originally random drops (10%?), not guaranteed. Some dungeons you had to run 30+ times to get your drop (Dzemal Darkhold was one I remember well as it took over 50 runs...) and it was incredibly disheartening to not get your drop and have to repeat a horrible dungeon (like Aurum Vale) again for another 30+ minutes in the hope you might get a drop. At least the Umbrite is guaranteed and you will definitely get there within a preset amount.

And the book stage where you had to kill 10 of each monster (now only 3) and run the 3 dungeons and 3 fates and 9 different books... Sorry just combined with the original light farming and original dungeon drop rate, I just don't agree at all with your saying Zodiac Weapons are "Less monotonous, but has some monotonous parts."

[FinaSel]

Sorry just combined with the original light farming and original dungeon drop rate, I just don't agree at all with your saying Zodiac Weapons are "Less monotonous, but has some monotonous parts."

I see. I did know that the original drop rate was not 100%, but I didn't realize how low it was.
And I didn't know that 10 enemies were required, and not only 3.

That does sound more monotonous.

I had no idea it had been nerfed that much.

However, despite the amount of effort required for each, I still feel the ZW quest line is more interesting than AW. The interactions between the characters is more interesting as well.

Despite the nerf, it seems to me that ZW required more fighting through challenging content than AW.
Doing AW felt like just collecting countless items.

[Eul]

I don't like at first anima step weapon is just copycat of eso weapon, also for SCH, Last Resort > every Anima SCH book

[myahele]

What I like about Anima is that it doesn't involve long waits specific FATEs like the books part, materia melding RNG (and its gil cost) and the RNG for dungeon atmas.

Other than the FATE grinding, there has not been any RNG-based mechanic for the Anima weapon. Atleast, not yet

[Zojha]

Ugh...personally, I found the Zodiac questline worse in many regards.

I only did it in it's nerfed version, but I can easily imagine the materia step was literally a present to crafters, but screwed battle class players over. Not only does the spiritbonding require items to spiritbond, you have to willfully downgrade your gear during the process. The fact that the materia AND the process of attaching it involves a good amount of RNG seems like a huge middle finger. Especially when you consider that the later steps required gil (and crafting mats) again.
Waiting for a FATE to pop was, uh...annoying. More than annoying. It was literally two hours of "No gameplay involved here".
I don't even want to imagine what Atmas and the Zeta drops were like when they were recent. I imagine Luminous Crystals cranked up to eleven.

I, uh...also must admit I actually "like" roulettes being the go-to option and found one of the biggest flaws was having aetherochemical research facility give more esoteric tomes than leveling and 50s roulette. Roulettes outside of expert allow for a wide variety of dungeons at least and it helps keeping the stuff populated. Whether this is facilitated via the tomes they give or via "light"...I honestly don't care.

The one thing I don't understand however is why people claim tomes have less variety. Nearly everything outside of leveling awards tomes. Some ways are more efficient than others, sure, but, uh...the primary difference here is that you didn't get to choose which ways you want to go in the Zeta. The game told you to do Haukke (hard) and no other dungeon would do. You might rather want to run Brayflox HM, since you could finish it faster, but you couldn't. The main difference seems to be that the game forced you to do inefficient options, whereas now you force yourself to do efficient ones (or don't, which I do).

Can't comment on the challenge thing - I know people who struggle hard in normal mode raids because they have focusing issues. I wager it's subjective.

[Reinha]

I prefer the Anima questline. I have made more progress on the Anima weapon than any Zodiac weapon despite how nerfed it is nowadays. Apart from the 2 unique trials the Zodiac quest just isn't that fun.

1) No need to wait for specific fates or run around the world killing specific mobs.
2) Less RNG.
3) You can level alts when grinding a weapon for your main.
4) You can make progress on multiple steps at once.
5) You can passively make progress on your Anima with your daily/weekly activities on multiple steps.

A few things where Zodiac wins:

1) Appearance. Anima weapons have not yet looked as appealing as the Animus step for Zodiac weapons. Impress me, SE! :P Lets get some dripping blood or pulsing void effects on them.
2) No new instanced content among the grind.

[AskaRay]

Well I personally think the Yoichi Bow is one of the best bows in the game.... but hey whatever
I really like the plot of both.... I actually LIKED the zodiac grind. The only part I really hated was... Alexandrite. Before that was nerfed I wanted to die it was so bad.
The books? Fine. Set goal. Kill 10 of these things. Easy.
The dungeons? Fine. Monotonous, especially if a certain item wouldn't drop (COPPERBELL HM IM LOOKIN AT YOU...) but still a set thing. Easy.
Light farming? More than fine, I finished both those steps in like a week.

The anima...it's okay. I do really enjoy the story for it but... IDK.... there ARE more options for getting the Sands and the Umbrite but. the thing is. I have all the sands I need in the form of the red scrips. I haven't had to grind for that at all. In fact when I'm done I'll still have some left over (that's what you get for having 100+ tokens). But the umbrite? I'm not a fan of tome grinding so...ugh