Umbrites are terrible.

[Faliandra]

If you get it, you shouldn't be talking about how easy the step is in the first place, as it has nothing to do with the thread. You'll note I said nothing about the difficulty of the step and even specifically said my complaint has nothing to do with the rate of acquisition, only that the design of the step is not fun. The "other side of the coin" in this case would be that some people find being required to spam dungeons to death super fun and don't want it to change, not that they think it's super duper easy.

Yep, I found the mistake. YOU dont get it. Because this step does not require you to spam dungeons.

Thats what people have been trying to tell you over several pages.

[ManuelBravo]

If you get it, you shouldn't be talking about how easy the step is in the first place, as it has nothing to do with the thread. You'll note I said nothing about the difficulty of the step and even specifically said my complaint has nothing to do with the rate of acquisition, only that the design of the step is not fun. The "other side of the coin" in this case would be that some people find being required to spam dungeons to death super fun and don't want it to change, not that they think it's super duper easy.

You do know you get lore tomes other ways right? Not just roulette?

Some alternatives:
Daily beast tribe, Palace of the Dead, PvP, Raids....or do you consider all of the above Dungeons as well.

There is plenty of content can use and rotate. Now you have a pretty well developed character, overall DoH and DoL. From what I can tell the only thing you may be lacking is patience. As a fellow grinder there are different ways you can get lore tomes at a fast rate. Depending on the job you use to grind it can vary time wise.

For Example: a decent expert dungeon is 15-20 min. A level 60 same. It all depends how you approach it. I usually tank for flow control and speed runs. Dungeons is ONE way.

Beast men can get 100-200 tomes during downtime a day and pretty fast. Occasional hunts here and there while waiting for queue if DPSing. Throw in some random raids, days go by fast not as boring.

Now if all you do is one dungeon, you might as well just rage quit this game.

Try this: Get some friends involve who are dependable, you can probably clear dungeons in 12min. Have party members rotate roles for diversity ect.

Keep in mind: Your perspective on how to obtain tomes CAN make it a Horrifying experience. Be glad it's not like FFXI Dynamis. Before the mayor nerf. Lore tomes are EASY, just takes patience and with nerf even easier. It may not be for everyone and yes in a perfect world it would be nice if they would be like Alexandrite farm, of fates with relic wep, treasure chest as well. Lets face it THEY MAY do it after expansion comes out and this step is considered obsolete.

In conclusion : You have two options TRY to enjoy it by being creative or wait for next nerfed if any. Remember Relics are a GRIND no matter how you look at it. How you approach it, even if it's over and over again, will be a must.

[Faliandra]

You do know you get lore tomes other ways right? Not just roulette? Daily beast tribe, Palace of the Dead, PvP, Raids....or do you consider all of the above Dungeons as well.

They specifically mentioned "spamming" dungeons is what they dislike. At least thats how it came across to me.
Because...well, there are people who spam ARF 20 times in a row to get more lores.

Doing daily roulettes is not spamming dungeons. So idk if they are generally opposed to doing any dungeons or just simply opposed to spamming them.

But several people have stated that you arent required to do that. And you have also mentioned a good bunch of options what you can do even without roulettes.
So either way, plenty of options IMO.

[Xlantaa]

I'm doing my 6th relic. Is not as terrible as seems. I did it in 10 times before nerf. Now with nerf is very quick. Yes of course, don't expect doing in 1 day.

[Vidu]

Ah yes, the EX farms that I've totally done and will continue to do.

I think the problem here is that people assume everyone has the same play style. The only EX I've ever done was Leviathan and after a few attempts I just stopped because people just kept failing or were super rude. And that's if I ever got in. And don't just say "well get a group of friends or use PF" 'cause that won't automatically make it succeed.

I'd much rather have the option to get Umbrite from stuff I can do on my own, like beast tribe quests or gathering. Maybe the option to buy it with Poetics too, like previous steps.

I honestly dont get people like you - why do you even bother to get a relic weapon if you're not interested in doing difficult/hard group-content? The 260 shire weapon (or even any of the other weapons that are easier to get, like the crafted one) are totally enough for content you are actually doing. If your however choose to do the relic (that you dont need) why are you so salty about it requiring you to do content then? Because its content you dont enjoy? I have a solution for you: Just dont do it! You dont need the relic to gather or do beast tribes, if thats the content you like.
If you however want the relic weapon and complain about how it takes you ages to get it because you dismiss doing most of the content that would give you lore... well...

Please note that gathering and beasttribes ARE infact helping your relic since both are giving you sand...
(and why play an MMO in the first place if you want to play alone?)

Umrbites and Sands are ofc the worst and most grindey step of the relic - but guess what: It gets better when you dont focus to much on it AND if you dont just dismiss content and limit your options - not saying everyone should be farming ex-primals, but again... why get the weapon in the first place when you only take it to Sastasha NM?

I've done the umbrite-step twice and got 35 more lying in my inventory - for the day I finish my ARR-scholar-relic and start the HW one (because I'd like a better weapon than the Sophia one on my scholar. So I can actually take that class into endgame-content.)

[ErryK]

I've done 3 days of roulettes and increased my Anima by 50 points. This is my fifth one going through the Umbrite stage. I think it's being blown out of proportion after the changes.

[Nixxe]

You do know you get lore tomes other ways right? Not just roulette? Daily beast tribe, Palace of the Dead, PvP, Raids....or do you consider all of the above Dungeons as well. There is plenty of content can use and rotate. Now you have a pretty well developed character, overall DoH and DoL. From what I can tell the only thing you may be lacking is patience. As a fellow grinder there are different ways you can get lore tomes at a fast rate. Depending on the job you use to grind it can vary time wise. For example, a decent expert dungeon is 15-20 min. A level 60 same. It all depends how you approach it. I usually tank for flow control and speed runs. Dungeons is ONE way. Beast men can get 100-200 tomes during downtime a day and pretty fast. Occasional hunts here and there while waiting for queue if DPSing. Throw in some random raids, days go by fast not as boring. Now if all you do one dungeon, you might as well just rage quit this game. It's a choice you want to take. get some friends involve you can probably clear dungeons in 12min. Party member job rotates ect. Your perspective on how to obtain tomes makes it a Horrifying experience. Be glad it's not like FFXI Dynamis. Before the mayor nerf. Lore tomes are EASY, just takes patience and with nerf even easier. It may not be for everyone and yes in a perfect world it would be nice if they would be like Alexandrite farm, of fates with relic wep, treasure chest as well. Lets face it THEY MAY do it after expansion comes out and this step is considered obsolete. So two options TRY to enjoy it by being creative or wait for next nerfed if any.

Well, I said instances in the OP, meaning dungeons, trials, and raids, which I would include PotD in. I just didn't bother to put it quite that way in my second post. Essentially, I don't really care for dungeons in this game after I've cleared them once and that's largely because "run forward until you hit a wall and then AOE" isn't a particularly interesting or fun playstyle, but that's pretty much level capped dungeoning in a nutshell (and even uncapped dungeoning in a lot of cases). I'll do them so long as I need gear to continue unlocking things and it doesn't bother me to do them for that purpose, but otherwise I just kind of stop doing them. I capped scriptures three weeks in a row, which is some kind of record for me. The dungeons in this game are cool the first time, especially when I'm advancing the MSQ with them, but there's just nothing there to keep them fresh the dozenth or more time (or even the second time, though at least it's still kind of new then). I only did Alexander at all because my FC carried me through it for bonuses. The 24 man raids are even more boring, though I do them once a week still to get shire upgrades for WHM since everyone else goes anyway. Like dungeons, they're cool the first time through when you're advancing story, but it's basically just a meaningless spamfest after that. Sometimes I spend half of the fight ressing people who didn't bother to do mechanics because it basically doesn't matter how many times people screw up as long as everyone doesn't screw up at once. It's pretty much the same thing as WoW's LFR, which I always avoided because it was terrible.

PotD is nice for leveling alts and I still have a few to take care of, but the amount of lore from there would have to be pretty good. I'm basically just mentally checked out the entire time I'm in there because unless someone screws up horribly, it's completely faceroll. I've been trying to get people together to do higher floors, but it's proving difficult because everyone has their own thing they're doing, so getting three other people together with the interest and a couple hours to work on it has not gone well.

How are beast tribes giving you 100-200 a day? Vath and moogles don't give lore and Vanu only give 45 per day if you don't rank up that day. I already go kill every S rank that gets called in the linkshell if I'm not in a dungeon or something, whether it's ARR or HW. I've tried doing Frontline a bit, even though PVP seems totally unappealing in this game, but it keeps telling me the queue times are 30 minutes, so if I'm going to go do something I'm not overly enthusiastic about for lore, I may as well go do Gubal or Xelphatol, which I can complete before the queue for Frontline even pops while probably getting more lore anyway, especially if anyone is new.

I mean, compared to Crystal Sands, it's just very narrow. What I primarily do in this game is level, quest, and I've taken up crafting. I'm just doing the anima because it looks cool and I like to play through all of the quests once. I couldn't even care less about it as an upgrade or anything, since I have no intention of ever doing savage and I only do ex primals when my fc decides to go. I wouldn't even mind the step if there were some reason for it to be designed this particular way from the perspective of the story, but it's just another oh hey all that stuff you need comes from one of Rowena's people. What a surprise... Instead of anything interesting, it's just a naked grind for the sake of being a grind and the game doesn't even bother to dress it up any other way.

[Faliandra]

so my personal question is:

what do you want the devs to change?

It's the relic and the best weapon in the game (to everyone: spare me the il280 weapon ramble, its a lottery win so to say,so I dont count it), so even if you dont need it as such, it still doesnt change the fact that it IS
the best weapon and it shouldnt be simply handed to you.

Devs also cant make the acquiring part very hard because if they do, people like you who dont "have any intention" of doing hard content, will be the first ones to complain because it wont be accessible to everyone.
So they make it a small grind (yes, it is a SMALL grind...and every oldschool MMORPG player will agree with me here) that may be boring sometimes but still makes it accessible to everyone.

After a while, the steps get nerfed to make it even more accessible and more casual-friendly by requiring less time and effort to let them catch up.

And you still complain. I don't get it.


If youre more of a crafter, then the only thing i could think of as a suggestion to the dev is to make a DoL/DoH relic that can be done completely without any DoW/DoM duties.
I wouldnt expect it to be a very exciting grind either, though.

[Nixxe]

so my personal question is:

what do you want the devs to change?

It's the relic and the best weapon in the game (to everyone: spare me the il280 weapon ramble, its a lottery win so to say,so I dont count it), so even if you dont need it as such, it still doesnt change the fact that it IS
the best weapon and it shouldnt be simply handed to you.

Devs also cant make the acquiring part very hard because if they do, people like you who dont "have any intention" of doing hard content, will be the first ones to complain because it wont be accessible to everyone.
So they make it a small grind (yes, it is a SMALL grind...and every oldschool MMORPG player will agree with me here) that may be boring sometimes but still makes it accessible to everyone.

After a while, the steps get nerfed to make it even more accessible and more casual-friendly by requiring less time and effort to let them catch up.

And you still complain. I don't get it.


If youre more of a crafter, then the only thing i could think of as a suggestion to the dev is to make a DoL/DoH relic that can be done completely without any DoW/DoM duties.
I wouldnt expect it to be a very exciting grind either, though.

It's because you're not listening to me. You're too busy trying to find reasons to criticize me for taking issue with the step. What does being "casual friendly" have to do with anything? Dungeons are casual friendly. The unnerfed umbrite step is completely accessible. These aren't the issue and I never brought them up. What I've said repeatedly is I simply don't like the volume of the type of content that you have to do to complete the step and would like more viable options on the longer steps in the future. It's not about the time. It's not about the effort. It's about the monotony. And for what it's worth, if the design of whatever thing isn't accessible to me, I just wait and do it later. However, the umbrites aren't going to get any quicker, and in fact will probably be slower, come SB, since fewer people will be in the dungeons and even tank queues are not always instant for lower level dungeons. The unnerfed umbrite step was totally accessible. Nerfing it didn't make it more accessible.

Like I've been saying, it would just be nice if there were more diversity in how to acquire the stuff on longer steps. If they don't just want to duplicate the Crystal Sands by making them available from poetics and hunt seals (even centurio seals) and beast tribes, they could always give them a small chance to drop from Fates in addition to being able to be purchased with lore or whatever or have them be a rare drop from select mobs out in the world. They can do basically whatever. I just ask for some reasonable options that offer a bit of diversity. Alternatively, if they really want it to come from dungeons, trials, and raids, just do more to have the game explain why I have to be doing a bunch of really unrelated instances, which means not just dumping it on a tomestone vendor and calling it a day. Make it like the ARR quest where each thing I did had a specific purpose, which even if it was a thinly veiled attempt to ensure steady participation, at least made an effort to sell me on the necessity of my actions.

[Vidu]

I mean, compared to Crystal Sands, it's just very narrow. What I primarily do in this game is level, quest, and I've taken up crafting. I'm just doing the anima because it looks cool and I like to play through all of the quests once. I couldn't even care less about it as an upgrade or anything, since I have no intention of ever doing savage and I only do ex primals when my fc decides to go. I wouldn't even mind the step if there were some reason for it to be designed this particular way from the perspective of the story, but it's just another oh hey all that stuff you need comes from one of Rowena's people. What a surprise... Instead of anything interesting, it's just a naked grind for the sake of being a grind and the game doesn't even bother to dress it up any other way.

...wait til we're three patches into SB and do it then if you're not interested in doing any meanigful content with it?

I'm not saying you should "enjoy" the grind in any way - but if you dont enjoy the playing this game like the devs intend it to (because yes, you are supposed to do content to get the rewards, go figure) then dont?
This step doesnt has to be nerfed to meet the requirements of someone who doesnt want to play the game.
You're making this step so narrow for yourself btw - I actually thin its good that the relic requires you to do actual content as DoW/DoM - because thats what you're getting the weapon for (or what it is intended for). Its not for your miner, its for your healer, tank or dps and should be earned as one of those classes.
(I'm already looking forward to your complains about the light step now...)

I promise you: It will get a whole lot easier with SB, so if you're only in for the quest, why dont you wait for that?
(To put that in perspective: I'm doing a ARR-relic atm and I'm at the anima-book step. Those books were at 1.500 poetics, now I'm paying 100)

As Faliandra pointed out correctly: Those weapons are a grind and not locked behind difficult encounters so everyone can eventually get them - to make sure that even the most casual player can get their hands on one of the best weapons in the game. And yet you come here and complain that it isnt casual enough because it requires you do to a dungeon a second time? Sorry, I really have no sympathy for you.
Wait for SB and for the relic to get nerfed even more - you can even quit the game until then if you dont like playing it in the first place...

(PvP queue times, specially in The Feast - matches are lasting 8 minutes max, rewarding you with 20 lore - are far from 30 minutes nowadays btw)

Maybe my problem with your complains is that I really do enjoy playing the game... still not super excited about a grind, but hearing thwi kind of whining ("wääähääää, I have to do something that I dont wanna do!!") from someone who doesnt need the weapon really makes me itchy - you CHOOSE to do this content...

Make it like the ARR quest where each thing I did had a specific purpose, which even if it was a thinly veiled attempt to ensure steady participation, at least made an effort to sell me on the necessity of my actions.

...so if they put an old lady in, making you do the level 50 roulette for 50 days to get your umbrites alexandrites, that would be better?

I dont know if you've done any of the ARR pre-nerf but if you did, your memory is kinda clouded now... again, yes, I get that umbrites take long and are boring, but as soon as you brought up the ARR-relic and how that gave you some reasons to run AV 45 times (yep, met a person like that) because they were unlucky with their drop, I couldnt help but think that you've either never done that or forgot about it.