The Relic Grind: Replayability missed

[Amenara]

Before bursting your bubble new player... then they did the same in shadowbringers, first few steps easy... then you got to hit the wall more with the other content that came up, such as bozja and more to it... so you are not missing out on anything, and I assume they are doing the same road this time, as it worked rather well the previous expansion, without making it a too die hard grind.

Am I crazy or was the first step poetics and the second step (where we are now) is where the grind started in ShB? Granted we had options in ShB for how to do the grind but I am pretty sure the second stage is when it actually started.

[Kaurhz]

Am I crazy or was the first step poetics and the second step (where we are now) is where the grind started in ShB? Granted we had options in ShB for how to do the grind but I am pretty sure the second stage is when it actually started.

First step was 1000 tomestones of Poetics, the second step (where we are now) was 60 open world FATEs in Heavensward, and 6 leveling roulette / Level 60 dungeons. Alternatively, you could get them from CE and Skirms in Bozja.

I suppose they were more grindy, but there are fewer classes then, than there are now, and even then this grind only essentially took 3-5 hours, really. Not exactly what I would call a 'grind' either way, personally.

[Amenara]

First step was 1000 tomestones of Poetics, the second step (where we are now) was 60 open world FATEs in Heavensward, and 6 leveling roulette / Level 60 dungeons. Alternatively, you could get them from CE and Skirms in Bozja.

I suppose they were more grindy, but there are fewer classes then, than there are now, and even then this grind only essentially took 3-5 hours, really. Not exactly what I would call a 'grind' either way, personally.

I guess compared to what comes a bit later in ShB, yeah it's not much of a grind. That being said, it's still more than doing your daily roulettes...

[Kaurhz]

I guess compared to what comes a bit later in ShB, yeah it's not much of a grind. That being said, it's still more than doing your daily roulettes...

Comparing the latter stages of a relic to the earlier stages is quite a pointless thing anyway.

But this aside, I would disagree, the one-time-only quests gave a somewhat false sense of 'grind', but for any subsequent relic it was pretty tame, and the only part that I would have considered to be 'grindy' would probably have been the Augmented Law's Order, which required the Timeworn Artifacts, but the only reason this felt like it was because people practically refused to use any fragments whatsoever.

Yeah. Shadowbringers relics weren't a hard grind, but they were still something you had to put in a little effort for. What I want is for relics to feel like an actual goal again. To say I was disappointed by not just 1, but 2 steps in Endwalker so far would be a massive understatement.

Idk, maybe I'm apathetic, but ShB relics didn't exactly strike me as something I felt required even the most minuscule effort. Nor did I feel a sense of achievement from them, frankly. If you had classes to level, provided you picked up the quests, you would largely complete the relics naturally as part of the leveling grind.

Relics have hardly felt like a grind since Heavensward. I would include Eureka in this, but the simple fact that, if possible, you could alt-tab and do other things, watch Netflix, and/or play other games simultaneously was a pretty monumental disappointment in and of itself.

[Vahlnir]

First step was 1000 tomestones of Poetics, the second step (where we are now) was 60 open world FATEs in Heavensward, and 6 leveling roulette / Level 60 dungeons. Alternatively, you could get them from CE and Skirms in Bozja.

I suppose they were more grindy, but there are fewer classes then, than there are now, and even then this grind only essentially took 3-5 hours, really. Not exactly what I would call a 'grind' either way, personally.

Yeah. Shadowbringers relics weren't a hard grind, but they were still something you had to put in a little effort for. What I want is for relics to feel like an actual goal again. To say I was disappointed by not just 1, but 2 steps in Endwalker so far would be a massive understatement.

[Avoidy]

the funny part is they literally had people crying about how alliance raids after CT take forever to pop. they could've solved this partially by just doing what they did in shb and making nier raids a part of the relic grind to get players running that content in the same way ivalice raids had to be spammed in shb. but nope, 1500 tomes please.
missed opportunity to actually revive content from last patch. hell, i'm surprised (but a bit relieved tbh) that they didn't implement criterion at all for this. they really went for the least inspired method possible.

[Kolaina]

Not necessarily. When it is extremely open ended you stretch out the playerbase. When its a tome grind, dailies are prevalent which is already the norm. Would you rather farm tomes doing Crystal tower once a day from your daily alliance raid, or Euphrosyne? The option is quite obvious. Funnel players into current content

Stretch it out into…. doing your roulettes as people do anyway? The horror

[TomsYoungerBro]

Stretch it out into…. doing your roulettes as people do anyway? The horror

More like pointless. People already have plenty of incentive to do roulettes. Why create content that incentivizes already flourishing content. Pretty sure without any statistics we can all agree the daily roulettes are one of the most active activities in the game. Imagine if the ShB relic had funneled the playerbase into its current content instead of secondaries being crystal tower XD. Maybe Nier Raids wouldn't be 20-30 minute queues

[Zeastria]

still early in the stages.. i remeber doing old relics too... they where easy the first 2-3 stages too...

[Xelanar]

Using tomestones as currency rises another issue as well. Unless people are farming for multiple weapons, they most likely already had 1500 tomestones lying around.

For some, this is great. For those who were looking forward to grinding... not so much.