I'd like to suggest speeding up REPEAT, Legacy Relics, and also adding BLU Relics

[redheadturk]

I definitely think the Book step should be streamlined a bit. Even if it means instead of repeating dungeons, you just have to do ALL of them (or perhaps better, run X number of them, but must be done using Duty Finder, so it keeps queues for lower level players short).

But mostly, I'd just like to see REPEAT Relics shortened a bit. Ideally, each Relic would get a little shorter than the last, but even breaking it down like "Relic 1 takes the most work, 2-3 are a bit quicker, 4-7 are substantially quicker, and 8+ outright have certain stages removed" (ie. going from 75 melded materia down to 60, down to 40, and maybe even down to 20 at the very end). Something where you feel like "if I want to be a completionist, it doesn't mean dedicating my whole life to the process".

Again though, I totally get if some people are against this. Just my personal take.

This, tbh. I *quit* at the book stage because it was that damn frustrating. Streamline the books, let us buy them all at once, and not for 100 poe a piece.

[grinkdaboy]

Going through the ARR Relic Weapon quest has proven to be quite a time-sink, although it's definitely given me an appreciation for what it took to get these awesome weapons back in the day!

When it comes to getting ADDITIONAL Relics of the same expansion, however, I feel like it would be nice to speed things up a bit here and there, at least on the most tedious steps.

For example, once you've completed the ARR Relic, maybe working on the second and beyond, you need only complete 1-3 of the "Books", maybe you only need 50 materia instead of 75 (35+15 for PLD), and for the Light infusion, maybe the values are multiplied 5x-10x?

Or if it's not TOO much work, maybe the amount of work is a little less for EACH Relic you make, so those interested in collecting them all can actually do so in their lifetime.

As a related but SEPARATE suggestion, I would like to suggest adding BLU Relics to all LEGACY Relic Weapon quest-chains. There are multiple reasons:

1. Considering there are only a couple of "Canes" in the entire game, it should be super easy for the team to create some new designs, and apply some glowy effects.

2. It gives Blue Mages even MORE content they can run on their own, which is sort of the main draw of the Job for a lot of players!

3. It gives players an arguably "easier" path for experiencing the STORY of the Relic Weapons, particularly for players like me who primarily play jobs acquired in LATER expansions.

Now, seeing as I've yet to do a whole lot on the Bozjan front, that might mean the BLU needs a modified means of acquisition and upgrading. I don't really know how much is involved there, so that could be way more work than I realize. If that is the case, and you don't want to allow BLU's to run Bozjan content, then maybe provide Relics up through Stormblood, and they can maybe get more Relics down the road, when Bozja is so obsolete that there's no issue allow BLU's to run around there.

I think both of these suggestions would just make getting Relics way more approachable, since you wouldn't feel like "I guess I'll try and get ONE and then bounce". Or like me, I really didn't get a good enough look at the ARR Relics for WAR, and now I'm sort of regretting going for the PLD ones (in fact, WAR's have some really good Relics start to finish, although I'd say the final Shadowbringers one, Paladins have the best one).

Just my two cents!

there are ways, like with the ARR relic to finesse it once you've completed your first relic. you will have the quests available for the materials that i think comes after the materia scroll step, or i think after the books. they will often have dungeon quest objectives that are shared with some of the books. you can use this to kill 2 birds with one stone.

you can also server hop and check what fates are up in each zone to reduce waiting.

overall i agree that they could stand to nerf the books, reducing the cost, allowing you to get multiple at once, increasing light gains, making atma drop faster, and just changing the fate, enemy, and leve steps to be just done in a certain area instead of having to meticulously fly around and scan for which enemy or fate you need.

and as far as the materia step goes, i'm pretty sure the ARR beast tribe vendors sell the base lv1 materia for gil

[LeonKeyh]

IMO, I think that Shadowbringers Relics made a decent attempt at balancing "Upfront grind for a single relic" and "Easier grind for additional relics" and it would definitely be cool if that design philosophy made it into other relic grinds, but I definitely wouldn't expect that to happen. I think that a combination of their solutions were the best way of handling it:

1. One time steps that are skipped for future relics
2. Content overlap whenever working on relics on different steps (i.e. the same content gives you items for Steps 2 and 5 meaning you're working on 2 relics at once)

Also, technically related was making more items drop as the content aged, it might be nice to bake that into running multiple relics as well (e.g. DR drops went from 3 per run to 5 per run IIRC?) would be nice if the first relic would take 15 and the second+ would take 9 for example.



I honestly think that additional relic grind only really matters to a small number of people so lessening the grind won't really affect many people, but it will make those people happy.

[TaleraRistain]

I disagree, old relics are simply cosmetic and have zero gameplay impact and hence completely optional. The difficulty of acquisition has already been nerfed multiple times and if we just make it so easy, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be able to get one with zero effort and it would devalue the time and effort which other players have committed to get theirs before.

If the difficulty being nerfed hasn't already devalued that time, then further streamlining isn't going to magically make that happen. Plus we have to get away from this whole idea that someone having an easier time later is devaluing the work someone put in. Someone getting it easier isn't going back in time and erasing all the time someone else spent on something. They simply don't have to follow the same steps. I don't begrudge anyone having an easier time with things now than I did in the past when these things were current. That time I put in wasn't wiped away and it still means something to me. The only reason to be concerned about others having what you have is you're tying some false sense of superiority to acquiring it.

[LeonKeyh]

If the difficulty being nerfed hasn't already devalued that time, then further streamlining isn't going to magically make that happen. Plus we have to get away from this whole idea that someone having an easier time later is devaluing the work someone put in. Someone getting it easier isn't going back in time and erasing all the time someone else spent on something. They simply don't have to follow the same steps. I don't begrudge anyone having an easier time with things now than I did in the past when these things were current. That time I put in wasn't wiped away and it still means something to me. The only reason to be concerned about others having what you have is you're tying some false sense of superiority to acquiring it.

Agreed. In an MMO, cosmetic based items are like a new car; Their value (popularity) tanks very quickly as time goes by. The more people that have a cosmetic item of some sort, the less value it has, but if we're talking about cosmetic items from 4 expansions ago, that value has tanked a long time ago. Nobody is impressed seeing a relic from ARR right now. Hell, not many people are impressed with seeing the ShB relics anymore.


They're partially right, the value of the cosmetic is based on how many people have it, but there gets to the point where enough people have it that it's just like anything else, and most (if not all) relics have hit that point. Really, the Ultimate weapons are the only _fairly_ evergreen impressive cosmetic items (ignoring cash shop and items that were available for a limited time). Anything outside of those are less of a "show off" and more personal taste.

[Terin]

I disagree, old relics are simply cosmetic and have zero gameplay impact and hence completely optional. The difficulty of acquisition has already been nerfed multiple times and if we just make it so easy, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be able to get one with zero effort and it would devalue the time and effort which other players have committed to get theirs before.

I think that's a very valid point. I do think think there's a balance to be found somewhere, that the INITIAL grind remains almost entirely untouched (save for stuff like that ARR book phase, which is literally repeating the same content and trying to cover it up, or the Materia stage which isn't even POSSIBLE based on the market), but I think when it comes to trying to make ADDITIONAL ones, I feel like lightening the load a bit would be great.

I definitely support the notion that "Glamour is the true end-game of FFXIV", and I think part of respecting players' time, means not immediately rendering a bunch of hard work obsolete. But it would also be nice if you're already done all the work, if you get an expedited process when you decide "actually, I didn't play a WAR back then, but now I do and I'd like to get the Axe from Heavensward". Maybe the more you complete, the shorter it gets, so true completionists don't basically have to quit their job and play FFXIV full-time.

[Deceptus]

This, tbh. I *quit* at the book stage because it was that damn frustrating. Streamline the books, let us buy them all at once, and not for 100 poe a piece.

There's an easy way to streamline them as well. Don't make the books "everything all at once". Fates, mobs, dungeons all in one book

Have a set of Mob books to work through, Dungeon books to work through, FATE books to work through.

The difficulty of acquisition has already been nerfed multiple times and if we just make it so easy, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be able to get one with zero effort and it would devalue the time and effort which other players have committed to get theirs before.

Honestly. Does anyone really care about how long OTHER PEOPLE spent doing their own progress? I would guess No. If you care about nothing more than "how long you spent" on content years ago vs people doing it today, that says something about you.

"We're going to keep doing this specific thing as janky as possible, because that's the way it's always been done" is a terrible reason to keep doing things that way.