What is the point of arguing whether having less grind or more grind is good design?

[hunkygladiator]

Break free of the cycle, fellow FF14 enjoyer.

[Oizen]

The truth is Relics have never been good content.

[Gemina]

The truth is Relics have never been good content.

Agreed. ARR being the one exception to that. Having the option to nuke that progress entirely to skip the first step to the Atma weapon, along with Diadem killed this content.

[EZGIL]

[TowaIsBestGirl]

I believe we should see the return of exploratory zones, without Relics tied to them. Just give us another banging story arc, Square. You know you want to.

That said, Relics were always meant to be a grind. A brag, harder content that isn't easy to obtain. Similar to Ultimate and Savage glam weapons and mounts. FFXIV has a shocking lack of those as is, compared to other MMORPGs. And the list is seemingly shrinking. By no means do I wish for this game to become another WoW grindfest, yet all the same, no grinds at all or cheevo brags is far from fun in my view.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Agreed. ARR being the one exception to that. Having the option to nuke that progress entirely to skip the first step to the Atma weapon, along with Diadem killed this content.

You Mean the Heavensward Animus...unless Im dumb and didnt know you could skip the 1st step of the ARR Zeta.

[Ayche]

Leisure time truly is a curse. We must hustle harder.

[Gemina]

You Mean the Heavensward Animus...unless Im dumb and didnt know you could skip the 1st step of the ARR Zeta.

You got it right. Nuke the Zeta to skip first step of HW relic.

[Arkdra]

I believe we should see the return of exploratory zones, without Relics tied to them. Just give us another banging story arc, Square. You know you want to.

That said, Relics were always meant to be a grind. A brag, harder content that isn't easy to obtain. Similar to Ultimate and Savage glam weapons and mounts. FFXIV has a shocking lack of those as is, compared to other MMORPGs. And the list is seemingly shrinking. By no means do I wish for this game to become another WoW grindfest, yet all the same, no grinds at all or cheevo brags is far from fun in my view.

Relics are the casual weapon not a bragging right. They indicate time invested, not skill, what is there to brag about other than your ability to devote approximately 40 hours to a step it doing them current and pre-ew? This isn't me hating on relics, relics are one of my primary motivators because I am super casual, but I aint doing them to brag. I just want the glow and the thing to do.

I agree with you that they definitely shouldn't ever tie the relic into the exploratory zones though, because Eureka remains the worst content they've ever added to this game and while bozja was broadly a lot better, DR is probably my 2nd most hated content (maybe beat out by secure). I would have probably never bothered with Eureka at all if the relic wasn't tied to it. Probably would have completed the bozja story and then never touched it again if it was sans relic (well until I used it to get exp on reaper back during ew launch I guess).

[Saraide]

I too wish people would put more thought into how much fun content is to do and less into demanding relics to be grindier. Unfortunately we are talking about an MMO and many of its players do not actually know what they find fun so if they dont have the game to tell them what to do they are suddenly dazed and confused.