Hildibrand for relic? Really?

[Akiudo]

I mean it sounds like any style of content, there's tons who liked it and tons who hated it. After two expansion of exploration content being tied to relics it's not surprising people find the older format refreshing or at least different.

it's not just that, "the old style" of relic aquisition was in large part loathed for its sheer scale and time investment needed. the newer relic questlines simply go by a lot quicker if you compare them to a realm reborn.

lots of people don't really see this because they didn't play back than, or not all that active, but just think about the fact that the "book step" of the arr relics wasn't seen as particularly bad when it came out. like no, no one thought that was easy but it also really wasn't any worse than the steps that came after. (it's just that they never found a proper way to nerf the books [and even there they nerfed the amount of mobs you need to kill AND raised the fate spawn rate for corresponding fates], so now they stick out hard compared to the rest).

ARR Relic style (doing fates, dungeons, spending tomestones and maybe some gil) is totally fine every once in a while as long as i only need to do 200 fates for a single step and not 2000 (and yes, i counted, that was for ONE step)

[Nezerius]

Hildibrand is..... a thing, yeah. But you know what the real sin is?

The new relics being an ARR-style grind. Once upon a time, the near entire community loathed this manner of relic acquisition process. Wonder what changed?

Oh, right. Endwalker happened and suddenly no matter what, Yoshi-P became an infallible god overnight and literally nothing ever went wrong with FFXIV ever again.

You mean Stormblood happened. More specifically Pagos (but also Anemos to a lesser extent). Pagos was absolutely disliked on its release. Mainly for its slower spawn rate of NMs, and the fact that it put a higher emphasis on getting a chain bonus up to 30 without breaking it (which was almost carpal tunnel inducing). Anemos was generally regarded as boring. Most people quickly ended up on NM trains, where the majority of the train wasn't even able to help spawn NMs.

The general opinion regarding both of these zones, is that players disliked being forced into them as the only option to progress their relics. Players preferred having multiple options to progress their relic, rather than an instanced zone with a singular goal.
This is exactly why ShB's Resistance weapons didn't have their progress exclusively tied to the Bozjan Southern Front/Zadnor. But even with this system, there was a portion of the playerbase who disliked the fact that they were forced to complete Castrum Lacus Litore.

So they gave players what they were asking for during SB/ShB.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

You mean Stormblood happened. More specifically Pagos (but also Anemos to a lesser extent). Pagos was absolutely disliked on its release. Mainly for its slower spawn rate of NMs, and the fact that it put a higher emphasis on getting a chain bonus up to 30 without breaking it (which was almost carpal tunnel inducing). Anemos was generally regarded as boring. Most people quickly ended up on NM trains, where the majority of the train wasn't even able to help spawn NMs.

The general opinion regarding both of these zones, is that players disliked being forced into them as the only option to progress their relics. Players preferred having multiple options to progress their relic, rather than an instanced zone with a singular goal.
This is exactly why ShB's Resistance weapons didn't have their progress exclusively tied to the Bozjan Southern Front/Zadnor. But even with this system, there was a portion of the playerbase who disliked the fact that they were forced to complete Castrum Lacus Litore.

So they gave players what they were asking for during SB/ShB.

In other words....no matter what, they cant win.
-They do something: People complain
-They try a new thing: People complain
-They try something completely new taking in feedback: People complain, saying how its locked to 1 system and its slow
-They retry it, taking in feedback allowing more paths to goal: People complain, say they liked old way
-Do something else: People complain it should be like last time

No matter what, they cant win.

[hagare]

In other words....no matter what, they cant win.

DING DING DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!

[Midareyukki]

No matter what, they cant win.

tbf I wanna say something like how they went about it the worst way.

They did tie the relic in Eureka to its story and progression, and people didn't like it. Because in Heavensward and such you had other methods of grinding for the materials you needed. There were optimal ways to do it, but if you couldn't access them, you had alternatives. Eureka had no such thing.
Bozja at least did have that. But then they tied the relic's progression steps to having cleared CLL despite having told people they wouldn't do that. The relics in general went about "fine", though still with a really obvious and repetitive grind. The problem was more so that they said they wouldn't lock the relic's progression to the story, and then they lock it behind Castrum. That's why people complained at the time. Here's the thing tho: I don't know if Yoshida said for sure that he wouldn't do it. All I know is that people perceived it that way from their comments, and felt like he had lied.

But even if they hadn't, someone would have complained.

Just like they are right now.

There's nothing different than Bozja's first step anyway in this one. It's just not done with Poetics, which if anything it helps keep current content alive, rather than try to keep past content alive. Yet people are going ballistic about it. Why? There's a precedent for this, you know what's coming. You want mind-numbing grinds? Calm down then, you'll get your 100 runs of Sil'dih Subterrane soon enough. The first step is always the easiest one. "Because they're repeating themselves"? I mean, considering how well-received the first Resistance Weapon was, why wouldn't they? Do you want to start out cranking up a light farm?

[Almandaragal]

Hildibrand is..... a thing, yeah. But you know what the real sin is?

The new relics being an ARR-style grind. Once upon a time, the near entire community loathed this manner of relic acquisition process. Wonder what changed?

Oh, right. Endwalker happened and suddenly no matter what, Yoshi-P became an infallible god overnight and literally nothing ever went wrong with FFXIV ever again.

Nah, the real sin is saying/implying that we'd be able to do the ShB relics solo but then locking progress on it behind crap you can't duty find, because you had to be in an already instanced zone. So, if you played off-peak hours and didn't have dedicated groups to get non-sucky essences, you were basically screwed. I'd rather have a grind that gets boring at various points than one I legitimately can't complete because people aren't on when I am.

To this day the only relic I've completed is an Anima. Partially because I mostly want relics for my main (RDM) and Eureka was so garbage the various times I tried it the first year it was out that I haven't been back since, and partially because I can't progress in Bozja even if I could enjoy it because of when I get to play. Frankly I hope we never get another exploration zone if we're going to be forced to (not get to) complete our relic there.

That said, if they can actually balance an exploration zone to not suck for someone playing primarily alone, then bring it on. For now, I look forward to whatever they might do with this relic, but I won't hold my breath. ShB was fine too, until I started getting blocked by crap I couldn't get to pop/have enough people to complete.

[Rufalus]

As a matter of taste, I would have to say ShB had the best weapon series because Matsuno was guest writer and they spent a lot of resources on that content. Had that cool Cid's memory Bozja Citadel solo instance, the Varis fight, a few raids and a couple of quite dull field ops instances, but the duels there were an interesting twist. Actually the CEs in those dull zones were very cool too if they popped, like Belias and Shemhazai. Matsuno's Ivalice stuff is some of my favorite stuff in the whole FF series.

[Midareyukki]

As a matter of taste, I would have to say ShB had the best weapon series because Matsuno was guest writer and they spent a lot of resources on that content. Had that cool Cid's memory Bozja Citadel solo instance, the Varis fight, a few raids and a couple of quite dull field ops instances, but the duels there were an interesting twist. Actually the CEs in those dull zones were very cool too if they popped, like Belias and Shemhazai. Matsuno's Ivalice stuff is some of my favorite stuff in the whole FF series.

As a die-hard Matsuno fan whose favourite FF game is 12, played through not only the Ivalice Alliance, but also Ogre Battle and Crimson Shroud, I can say that they spent a little too many resources. The tone and depth Matsuno goes for isn't the sort of thing 14 is used to. And there just was no balance between those aspects or the additions from FF12 and Tactics's stories.

Now don't get me wrong. It still takes self-restraint not to gush all about the Return to Ivalice plot to my friends, and Bozja overall reminded me of a really good version of FF12 (complete with all the brown! xD) mixed with Type-0. So much of it was well executed, and for fans of Matsuno it's an honest treat. But from a FF14 perspective, someone coming in not used to how he chooses to write and present his narratives is sure to feel iffy about it. He's dry, he's verbose and he's incredibly politically-heavy. That's not everyone's cup of tea.
14 did start out that way, trying to capture that essence, but they never really succeeded. And rarely are Matsuno's works whimsical. FF14 plays the whimsy every waking moment. Bozja is dense. You're constantly confronted with the geopolitical aspect of it all, the characters around you philosophize about how to proceed in ruling a country without going for the KH-esque "I will rule from the heart!!!" trope...

However. One thing I will point out is how these elements just did not blend well together. Probably because of circumstances, notably the pandemic. Yes, having the codex was a phenomenal way to give what people wanted: a FF12 Bestiary that expanded on the lore. But holy hell, the characters that were meant to be important to us on our journey got offed so unceremoniously. Then the lore just gets handwaved for drama yet again. And people ignore all the heinous realities around them just to focus on some chick with foresight. And all of their backstory and resolution gets shunted onto the codex.
...no. That's not how you do Matsuno content. You have the characters show their impact to the player and\or plot around them, you explore the stuff they have a connection to and you make their losses feel like they have either a meaning or a consequence past them. And while you can expand on your world through text entries, don't shove the resolution of your overarching plot on some paper!

All in all, it was a lot of investment for something that they just ended up shafting at the end. That was just not great, and definitely not a good send-off for Matsuno's involvement in the project.

[LianaThorne]

I love how people complained that Eureka/Bozja was an awful relic grind and they should do something else.

Now we're back to people complaining that it's an ARR/HW type grind.

I wanna ask, what EXACTLY is wanted from a relic grind because it seems like some dont actually know.

[Mimilu]

I love how people complained that Eureka/Bozja was an awful relic grind and they should do something else.

Now we're back to people complaining that it's an ARR/HW type grind.

I wanna ask, what EXACTLY is wanted from a relic grind because it seems like some dont actually know.

Seems more like a case of "You can't please everyone" to me. （*´▽｀*）
Some people preferred the Eureka/Bozja approach, some preferred ARR/HW's, some don't like doing the relic quests at all, and most don't say anything at all so you can't tell what they want. (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))