Manderville Relic Criticism

[Absurdity]

They really should've thrown it into Alliance Raid Roulette. At least then, there would still be possible to complete it within a reasonable timeframe but I guess Lost Actions kind of makes it difficult to balance around.

I honestly think they should throw a reworked version of all the Bozja raids into the roulette and duty finder, they were by far the best thing about that zone, I'd even go as far as to call them the best "alliance" raids we currently have.

[ForsakenRoe]

Knowing that solo instances have a “very easy” mode haunts me daily, the base mode is very easy, what does very easy mode even do, the boss just walks up to you and keels over or something

to my knowledge, it allows you to literally afk in the Hien instance at the end of SB, as the other NPCs whittle the enemy's HP to zero, you only have to interact with the game when it comes to the enforced 'stack with ally to save them' bit

actually idk if this is even on very easy mode, might be normal for all I know

I feel like what they’re doing with the Manderville weapons might just be SE's attempt at future proofing a relic. Maybe it’s just a Materia thing, but Bozja and Eureka are very much dead here. This isn’t to say it’s a good attempt, but it’s the best I can come up with for why it’s the way it is.

Their 'solution' will probably be to just say 'oh if you can't get groups for stuff, use cross-DC travel' when it comes out and lets us go between regions (if Materia's not already connected to JP)

[Supersnow845]

to my knowledge, it allows you to literally afk in the Hien instance at the end of SB, as the other NPCs whittle the enemy's HP to zero, you only have to interact with the game when it comes to the enforced 'stack with ally to save them' bit



Their 'solution' will probably be to just say 'oh if you can't get groups for stuff, use cross-DC travel' when it comes out and lets us go between regions (if Materia's not already connected to JP)

Materia is stuck either way there, NA is probably too far (unless they can do cross DC between all 4) and JP doesn’t want them because the reason they released materia was to get English speaking people off JP anyway

[Derio]

I figure they are just taking a break from large content concerning the relic. Dont expect much from this relic. I figure this will go down in history as if you want a cheap and quick relic get the EW relic.

[CNitsah]

Having redone some one HW, SB and ShB relic for a more or less exhaustive take on relics (that I never posted), I'd take the current system over some steps we had in the past. Especially the ShB ones, that, if they worked when released, are an horror to do right now, because everything has to be done synched, and with the content being less alive, it takes more time to do ShB relics now that it took during ShB. HW (and ARR, iirc) are enjoyable to do nowaday because a lot of the steps can be synched.

Though I wish they had given the relics a proper story instead artifially sticking them to hildibrand quest.

[Tamaerl]

As a whole I've been disappointed with the Manderville relics. The only positive for me has been the appearance; as a BLM, I've liked the appearances of the Manderville BLM relics. I do not like how easy it's been to acquire these relics, however; even the regular tome weapons have been harder to acquire than these relics. It adds to my frustration to see these great BLM weapon appearances be wasted on such bland relics that can't even be bothered to have proper names.

I know I'm gonna be in the minority on this, but I enjoyed doing ARR relic books for acquiring the animus step; when my lala was still in ARR I went out of my way to grind all the way through the nexus step before moving on to HW doing everything synced, and I had fun doing the ARR relic grind (I couldn't complete the Zodiac brave step until the start of post-SB MSQ because of gil issues, but once I did I got my Lilith Rod Zeta the next day). I also had fun levelling through Eureka and grinding out the SB relic.

On the other hand, I have had no fun at all doing the Manderville relics; despite how these look, I feel like I've been given a free handout. At least the HW relic felt like a bit of a time investment, even though I didn't feel as satisfied finishing it like I did ARR and SB. I'm also still working on the SHB relic, so I can't give much of an opinion until I finish it, but I've liked progressing through Bozja so far.

[Toutatis]

I don’t mind the new relic system. I like the fact that tomestones accumulate rather fast as I do a mix of roulette (just a few per day/every few days), hunts, deep dungeons and pvp on whatever job/role I feel like playing. I get a few more tomes on other activities such as the V&C this past week or if I go for other current content. I can play whatever content I want, I can do various activities in between instances, help friends with whatever they need and I am able to get a good weapon on different jobs without having to live in the game. Relic weapons will become BiS only at the end of the EW expansion anyway, not long before the release of 7.0 so might as well have time to gather and use them before they become good for glamour only.

I much prefer the new system to being stuck in a single instanced area for hours like Eureka or Bozja killing the same stuff over and over or be limited to a few specific dungeons/trials or farming old irrelevant fates on a specific job regardless of efficiency. At least Bozja had CLL and Delubrum rather early on to break the monotony but I found Eureka dreadful (plus it discouraged teaming up with friends who were not the same level). I only got one relic in Bozja as I was bored and felt a bit burned out after doing it once and ended up doing the Eureka story only without finishing the relic itself as I stopped bothering with the mind numbing grind at some point. HW wasn’t too bad but required very specific duties and we had to play a specific job in them. As for the ARR relic, it was designed for people with way too much time on their hands and was downright masochist (my life is not boring enough for me to want to finish this unhealthy BS).

[Eastwall]

I am doing my first and last resistance weapon. The timeworn artifact is cancer. I don't mid current system either, But it should be tied to the variant dungeons in someway. Maybe you should do the variant dungeon at least once for an item alongside with tomestone item, Or just make it a choice. Like you can do variant dungeon Or grind tomestone.

[HyperiusUltima]

I am doing my first and last resistance weapon. The timeworn artifact is cancer. I don't mid current system either, But it should be tied to the variant dungeons in someway. Maybe you should do the variant dungeon at least once for an item alongside with tomestone item, Or just make it a choice. Like you can do variant dungeon Or grind tomestone.

2-3 weeks, Variant Dungeon completely died. It's directly a problem with futureproofing, and honestly? Tying Relic directly to this would've been the play, especially since there's 12 Variants. 12 items, just complete Variant Dungeon 12 times. Easy, right? On top of that it doesn't take forever due to actions. Add this with Tomestones(which are farmable in Variant Dungeon as well) and you already are future-proofing the content to NOT die after a couple weeks.

[Toutatis]

2-3 weeks, Variant Dungeon completely died. […] Tying Relic directly to this would've been the play, especially since there's 12 Variants. 12 items, just complete Variant Dungeon 12 times. Easy, right?

Except variant dungeons are at least easily soloable on any job for pretty much everyone and there is no waiting. I find that soloing them is the best way to do them as you don't have anyone interfering with what you need. If someone wants to run them a year from now, they would be able to easily do so and requiring a one time clear of the 12 paths would have been ok though I prefer how relics work atm. Someone who wants to do the variant dungeons can do so anyway.

However, I am quite happy that we don't have to redo the 12 paths for each weapon. Once was enough and while the place is pretty, it is also monotonous (repetitive bosses and mechanics) and adds along the paths offer nothing: except two small groups of special adds on a path variation, they have no mechanics other than stay out of their very slow and predictable cone, line or circle aoe and there's walls everywhere to slow you down. I wouldn't redo the grind, no matter the reward (I can't imagine doing that ninja boss 12 times on each job or 228 times total for all jobs lol). At most I'll go again with friends for a few paths if they ask me.