How do you think they should handle relic weapons in the next expansion?

[Ekimmak]

I wouldn't mind if they send us back to older content like they used to. It gives a reason to DO older content. The more variety, the better.

[Vidu]

Seconding Canas statment here - I'd like to see more lore for my specific weapon, not for the relic in general.

What I would also like to see:

- Trials, that are designed for the relic-quest again, like Hydra and Chimera, with a difficulty between NM and EX. Make us earn this weapons through at least some level of skill again, like Titan HM did!
- Riddles/places to find to get some items to progress. A bit in the style of Alexandrite-maps. I wouldnt mind it being maps again, but I'd prefer something that has a bit more varation in it again. Maybe something like a mix of the maps, the wedding quest and the riddle quests: you purchase an item with tomestones, that gives you a hint where to use it to enhance the weapon. Lets say its a bottle of enchanted water thats meant as a sacrifice. Or you're buying an old book that gives you a clue on where to find a special ore, something like that. You figure out the clue, you get to the place (here could be variation again: The place could be inside a dungeon, so you need to run the dungeon. Or once you reach the place in the open world, strong mobs spawn. Or it includes doing a light jumping puzzle.), spill the water, get your ore, whatever.
- I'm biased here, being a mastercrafter, but I wouldnt mind seeing crafting involved again - I get that not everyone will like that though.
- I want to be able to solo it or rather to progress by myself. Eureka does a terrible job at letting you solo AND play with your friends. If you want to work on your relic together, you have to be of the same elemental level, so you basically have to always stick together. Like a relic-static. The HW and ARR relic always allowed you to continue the quest with your friends, even if you're at different stages. One could be running a dungeon for their book, while the other one joined to grab tomestones to buy their next one. I want that back: The ability to switch between solo-ing and playing with friends, without anyone being a liablity.

What I also desperatly want back are options. I "liked" the light-states because they allowed me to do whatever content I felt like doing, while still progressing my relic - it gave me a really nice feeling of getting stuff done.
Same with the feeding-part in HW, where you can just pick what you wanna do to get crystal sand.
Eureka locks me in one place, with no choice but to grind excatly one thing: mobs.

What I also think we need back is the ability to pick up the relic-quest at anytime - I havent been into Anemos lately, but I know that I eventually only went in, because I was worried that if I dont do it now, I wont have the chance in a few months, because my assumption is that Eureka (at least Anemos) will be dead by then. That plays into the soloing stuff part aswell.

In short: I'd like a more engaging questline, with more intresting objectives and more variety in general.
I dont mind if it includes backtracking to older content and/or a grind and/or a massive amount of tomestones, as long as it also offers some fresh content, an actual challenge and a story/lore for the weapon beyond "Rowena made Gerolt craft this".

[DamianFatale]

it's clear that Eureka has been a failure with the majority of the playerbase ripping it apart.

Wrong. The forums are ripping it apart. That’s different, because the majority of players do not post here.

I actually happen to like Eureka.

[Vidu]

Wrong. The forums are ripping it apart. That’s different, because the majority of players do not post here.

I actually happen to like Eureka.

...I dont want to turn this into a Eureka-discussion, because we have enough of those, but just because the majority of people might not speak out about Eureka here on the forums, they sure do elsewhere. I'm the only one in my FC who posts on the forum, but I can tell you that they dont have kind - if any - words for Eureka in our FC-chat and Discord-chanel. I'm reading the same from many posts speaking out against Eureka: People mentioning how their friends and FC-mates dont like it and dont want to play the content.

I'm happy for every person like you, who manages to find something about Eureka they like - but you might not be in the majority either.

And honestly: Seeing what conclusions the devs must have drawn from Anemos to tweak Pagos the way they did speaks more to people playing, but not enjoying the content. I'm talking about how they killed the NM-train, because they dont want people to just afk and wait for a spawn, which means that that is indeed what most people did (I mean, we already knew that, but them admitting it makes this a fact and not just an anecdote from the 3 evenings someone spend in Anemos), which speaks to them not enjoying the content (=mob-chaining).

To get this back on track of the topic at hand, I'll repeat in this light that I really, really want the next relic to offer options and involve different kind of content - I would be fine with ONE step of the relic being something Eureka-like. Then you can just bite the bullet and tell yourself "Maybe the next step will be something thats more enjoyable to me". Best case scenario would obviously be the option to choose what to do to get 3 Pazuzu-feathers. Do you do the Eureka-Fate? Do you climb up trees and mountains in the open world (=jump puzzle) and find a Pazuzu-nest? Do you run HoH and get them out of the nest on the 100 floor (yes, I know, its supposed to be a Dodos... just ideas)? Do you grind 2.000 uncapped tomestones for each? ...just a few ideas.
I dont mind the relic involving Eureka, as long as it isnt only Eureka. I always liked how each relic step was a little bit different. This time... Eureka is pretty much the same, just with a different background.

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

Wrong. The forums are ripping it apart. That’s different, because the majority of players do not post here.

I actually happen to like Eureka.

Reddit has also been ripping it to shreds too, this level of backlash is not common for most content released, its pretty clear people in general are not happy with it for many reasons.

[Shurrikhan]

What do you hope to accomplish by adding said relics?

Solely a unique time-sink? Then just take the greatest flexibility among components of ARR and HW's relic grinding alongside hefty bonuses to reduce queue times or give satisfying player counts on relic activities.

Actual customization? Well, then you've just triggered the fabled disillusioners of not-choice and the backlash may well kill off all future jobs before they could even be born. Current compositions should hide their not-quite-meta children.

[FlanKitty]

Seeing that Eureka is a hot mess programming wise (limitations of instance server) then the next best thing is to ignore it all together and make 5.0's relic part of a beast tribe. That way there's variety of player options to complete, is time gated without resorting to fake difficulty (pagos bullet sponge mobs) and lore can be liberally sprinkled in quest/npc text.

[dragonkyn20]

Honestly I want the relic released at the same time as the expansion like it was back in ARR. I'm getting tired of having wait 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 patches to work on my favorite part of the game.

[Nixxe]

Make it more like ARR in that it's very long, involved, utilizes diverse content, and perhaps has content created for it or don't bother. It also should be BiS every step of the way at the time that step is added. Having a relic weapon just to say you had a relic weapon is pointless, especially when it's irrelevant until the eleventh hour of the expansion.

[Lunalepsy]

Just remove them from the game. They feel like some remote fanservice without any purpose.