Tomestones.. Again.. for a relic..

[seolhyun]

shb was only like that because the whiny afk people didnt want to go to eureka in stormblood. they just want to queue in town with their brain off. now in endwalker we compeltely killed new content. no more big new zones with hundreds of ppl or new raids. just a naked guy hitting robots for 5 min and the same roulettes u have been doing for a year.

[Stormpeaks]

shb was only like that because the whiny afk people didnt want to go to eureka in stormblood. they just want to queue in town with their brain off. now in endwalker we compeltely killed new content. no more big new zones with hundreds of ppl or new raids. just a naked guy hitting robots for 5 min and the same roulettes u have been doing for a year.

I swear these people only have one argument and it's basically :

"yeah you can make your own grind loool you dont need square to force you to do it" while its so insanely stupid, there shouldnt be a need to, it should be implemented as such to be entertaining and last for a little bit at least, not 2 hours (if you're not capped on tomes, else you just get it immediately)

same for

"yeah well duhhhh you're supposed to get all 19 relics thats what they want you to do !!!!"

Anything to justify the pure laziness of SE regarding relics, and it's always the same people defending this company as if their lives depend on it

[Melorie]

I feel like there is a certain social aspect of a guided grind where everyone is working towards the same thing that "now I can grind what I want!" simply doesn't have. I mean, it is nice that you can do things such as Deep Dungeon or maps in order to get your relic, still I wish they could have made it so that these activities are included inside the relic chain without being as vague as "get tomes". My biggest social interactions in the game happened with the initial stages of relic grind or some other stupid grind (like Yokai fate event), there's a certain quality in doing things with everyone else and everyone chasing the same thing that was a core aspect of going after something in a game.

There's something about the game guiding you that I actively enjoyed towards the relic process. It wasn't always a 100% fun experience, but that's beyond the point because nothing is ever 100% fun all the time. I don't really see where's the appeal of FFXIV simplying putting stuff where you can "complete doing whatever", the game is far from being a sandbox with a good deal of options at the level cap. If you choose to complete it by doing roulettes you'll most likely end up doing brayflox longstop, alexander and crystal tower for an entire week.

This huge aversion to the game saying "hey, DO X" like it's some sort of crime sounds so dramatic to me. "THE GAME IS FORCING ME TO DO X THINGY!!!" uh gurl, have you ever played games? That's, like, what they do. Also, in FFXIV it is sooo easy to simply ignore whatever they are proposing regardless, you are not obligated to do anything besides msq.

I also honestly don't understand the "not everything has to be a grind", that everyone loves to throw around because pretty much nothing is? Not everything has to be something extremely easy to catch-up just because you don't have time to play the game at the moment. When the game presented me with something I dislike, I just wait till it nerfs it and whoever actually want to give it their time are free to do so. Unless we're talking about some big achievements, almost nothing in the game is a grind, the only thing that WAS in fact a grind was... well, the relic. A casual grind, even. Otherwise, the game simply lacks timesinks or anything that requires investiment besides the MSQ and most people play MMOs to feel a sense of progression and not simply, logging in and catching up as quickly as possible.

Imagine playing a game where the current content of the game is tailored towards people that don't want to sink any time at all into it and want, in fact, to play other games. Makes no sense. If you don't have time to play it, come back when it's nerfed and get your weapon.

[Jojoya]

I also honestly don't understand the "not everything has to be a grind", that everyone loves to throw around because pretty much nothing is?

True, not everything is a grind though things that are less enjoyable tend to end up called grinds because the player is not having fun doing it and feel like it's taking up too much of their time they could be doing other things.

But let's flip the question around: why should anything have to be a grind? I'm not talking about just handing out things for the asking. There should still be effort involved. But is it really necessary that something require dozens if not hundreds of hours of time investment? It's a game, not a job.

"Well if they don't want to spend the time, then can skip the reward." Yes, I agree with that.

There are a lot of things I dislike and so I skip doing them. I did one ARR relic and one HW relic for the story. I totally skipped the SB relic because I hated Eureka from its release and while I did end up doing it in ShB with my FC just to see the story, I ignored the relic grind. I started on the ShB relic, got the first two upgrades done, decided I didn't enjoy Bozja any more than I enjoyed Eureka and quit it. I haven't really started on the EW relic yet because I've been focused on doing other things but for now I expect I'll get at least one done through the 6.35 content because I get to choose what I do. It won't be forcing me into content I don't enjoy. We'll have to see what the remainder of it is like before I can say if I'll finish off this one like I did the ARR and HW relics.

"Grind gives a sense of accomplishment". I'd respond with "wouldn't spending the time on something meaningful in life give you a greater sense of accomplishment?". I went through the Pteranodon grind in Shadowbringers. Now I have a mount I rarely use. I'm happy that I met a goal I set for myself but I don't feel like I'm a better person for having it done it. Some of the things I'm working on in real life right now that have taken a fraction of the time are giving me a real sense of accomplishment in comparison because they are leading to life improvements for myself and for others.

I think people put a little too much emphasis on what they do in a game at times. Why is probably different for each but I fear for too many it's because they feel incapable and powerless to achieve what they want in life so they turn to games to feel capable and powerful.

In the end, games should be fun and not feel like your time is being wasted. In other games in the past, players have ended up feeling that their time was wasted with the long grinds for rewards that were useless soon after. SE seems to be trying to tiptoe around that pit to find a spot that leaves the majority at least content with the result. They do listen to feedback and do make changes in response to it on occasion. So for this grind they listened to players who hated being forced into specific content in Stormblood and Shadowbringers. They've given us a grind where the player gets to control how much or how little effort they put into it.

And of course those who prefer a grind are now complaining because they took the easy path to completion instead creating a grind to their liking.

The devs just can't win with us.

[Melorie]

"Grind gives a sense of accomplishment". I'd respond with "wouldn't spending the time on something meaningful in life give you a greater sense of accomplishment?". I went through the Pteranodon grind in Shadowbringers. Now I have a mount I rarely use. I'm happy that I met a goal I set for myself but I don't feel like I'm a better person for having it done it. Some of the things I'm working on in real life right now that have taken a fraction of the time are giving me a real sense of accomplishment in comparison because they are leading to life improvements for myself and for others.

I think people put a little too much emphasis on what they do in a game at times. Why is probably different for each but I fear for too many it's because they feel incapable and powerless to achieve what they want in life so they turn to games to feel capable and powerful.

In the end, games should be fun and not feel like your time is being wasted. In other games in the past, players have ended up feeling that their time was wasted with the long grinds for rewards that were useless soon after. SE seems to be trying to tiptoe around that pit to find a spot that leaves the majority at least content with the result. They do listen to feedback and do make changes in response to it on occasion. So for this grind they listened to players who hated being forced into specific content in Stormblood and Shadowbringers. They've given us a grind where the player gets to control how much or how little effort they put into it.

And of course those who prefer a grind are now complaining because they took the easy path to completion instead creating a grind to their liking.

The devs just can't win with us.

Sorry, but your argument is kinda ridiculous and even offensive. People that enjoy grinding aren't necessarily trying to get an achievement in a game they don't have in their own life or are trying to feel better than others. This has very, very little to do with this. Fact is, when you sink time into something and feel like you're doing effort to get something, you automatically create a memory and an experience around that thing, that item. I did the entire Zeta questline with my boyfriend and it is a memory we both have together, even in the parts that weren't as fun. I can't say the Yo-kai watch fate grind was FUN, but I had memes and conversations with my FC for months because we were, everyone, at the same map, doing something ridiculous and creating a memory regarding that stupid experience.

Also, every single game is a timesink. If don't want to feel that you "wasted time" I don't know why you would play a game, that argument leads to nowhere. The whole "games should be fun, not wasted time" is a vague response, the concept of whatever is "fun" is arbitrary and there's zero point in discussing it. Some people actually find doing roulettes and getting the same half dozen dungeons because of their terrible roulette system and almost never ever playing a single current-expansion-content uber "fun". Some people find ocean fishing "fun" (I do). Some people find that setting a goal that will take a bit up of their time and their focus on that particular thing is fun.

You can't really say what FUN is. Not even Square. What I do know is that in order to search for something FUN, Square should've given at least a new suggestion for players. Saying: keep doing what you've been doing since the start of the expansion is the least fun option of all of the possible options. In an MMO, especially a themepark with a strictly linear and vertical progression such as FFXIV, fun also means something different in which the community can actually engage. Even when the relic step was "do this stupid crystal tower if you wanna avoid DR", you had people making parties and working together towards that stupid goal, that's fun in a MMO for me. Now it's all the same as it was before the patch. No change, no suggestion, nothing. So yeah I understand why people feel like this is a lazy solution for a relic quests, that even with all it's faults, used to be something that bonded people.

[Stormpeaks]

Lmao, now that was a good one

I think people put a little too much emphasis on what they do in a game at times. Why is probably different for each but I fear for too many it's because they feel incapable and powerless to achieve what they want in life so they turn to games to feel capable and powerful.

Sorry to you guys who want to accomplish something in game, Jojoya decided that if you want to accomplish things in game its because you are powerless and incapable to achieve things in real life, and you are coping by wanting some content in a video game that isnt doing 2 hours of hunt train

In the end, games should be fun and not feel like your time is being wasted.

I have a good solution for you, since you talk so much about real life, stop playing video games and focus on that, if games are a waste of time to you.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

shb was only like that because the whiny afk people didnt want to go to eureka in stormblood. they just want to queue in town with their brain off. now in endwalker we compeltely killed new content. no more big new zones with hundreds of ppl or new raids. just a naked guy hitting robots for 5 min and the same roulettes u have been doing for a year.

Most people in Eureka just AFKed and let others spawn stuff so they didn't have to do anything. Not really seeing the difference here.

[seolhyun]

Most people in Eureka just AFKed and let others spawn stuff so they didn't have to do anything. Not really seeing the difference here.

the difference was:
new content
new areas to explore
new actions to play with
new progression system
not running the same roulettes as the last 3 xpacs
biggest raid ever at the end
relic armor
pazuzu
hundreds of ppl killing NMs

now i can queue roulettes or do hunt trains. same thing i have done all xpac bc there is nothing else to do. the only replayable battle content is queueing for raids where u fight a boss in a tiny circle with comically large hit boxes.

[DiaDeem]

the difference was:
new content
new areas to explore
new actions to play with
new progression system
not running the same roulettes as the last 3 xpacs
biggest raid ever at the end
relic armor
pazuzu
hundreds of ppl killing NMs

now i can queue roulettes or do hunt trains. same thing i have done all xpac bc there is nothing else to do. the only replayable battle content is queueing for raids where u fight a boss in a tiny circle with comically large hit boxes.

I don't mind the step too much, and I think there's positives to it, but can't deny that you've got a point there.