I've had this opinion for a long time now, but after hearing about Eureka I wanted to hold onto it due to it supposedly "Reworking" the relic system. After playing around with it, it's safe to say that the Relics are still being implemented against the flow of FFXIV's design.

I think the concept of the relic weapons is great and that they are achievement gear that you spend a lot of time building. The problem is that the building process is, and has always been, stale.
Why couldn't they make the Relic "building" process more entertaining aside from "Run x Dungeon 200 times" or "Kill 300 of this monster"? Why did their creativity in revitalizing older content and systems stop at the basic premise of Kill x Monsters and Beat x Dungeons?

Perhaps they could've given relics different goals during the building process to take pressure and focus off of the menial setting/task. Instead of running x Dungeon 100 times, why not have challenges in place for Relic grinders that make the content more interesting? Like having random challenges in these dungeons such as removing the Tank's defensive stance for the whole dungeon, or healing spells are at 5-10x MP cost? Or possibly let the party roll for multiple of those challenges for a much higher payoff? Try making the quality per dungeon or whatever go up instead of having them run it so many times in a row. Same goes for FATE "atma" grinds. Why not have special skills/challenges/gimmicks in place to alleviate the pressure of raw FATE grind and increase the quality of the user's play time instead of wasting it?

As for Eureka, why is the element system so bland? It's like they once again just stopped at a basic premise and didn't go beyond to keep things new and interesting.

Some ideas:
-Make half the fight built around mastering the elements, rather than passive boring stat buffs.
-More intricate monsters and bosses that REQUIRE proper in-combat element management to create a whole new layer of depth and a fresh new playstyle to keep players interested.
-Give the players a few different Eureka-Only skills that expend their elemental resource points and passive ways to recharge it. Skills like 30 second weapon element imbue for passive damage, a 30 second armor element imbue for passive mitigation, a oGCD elemental attack (Burst window exploit tool), a oGCD heal that heals/damages based on a player's current weapon/armor imbue, and so on.
-Letting the storms and weather effect how your elements react with the monsters and environment to create a more sandbox-like effect. (eg. Lighting oGCD attack turns into AoE during rain storm, or Ice oGCD attack perma-binds all monsters standing in water, etc)


It's not some end-all-be-all, just some ideas thrown out there for ways to make relic grinds more entertaining and new. I'm not against long content, but why do Relic grinds always got to be so BORING? I play games to have fun in the small pockets of time I have, not throw it away. Relics are everything this game seems to stand against.