EW Relic Grind is just a streamlined version of ARR/HW Grind

[VerdeLuck]

I will take 1500 tomes per step to never have anything like Delibrum ever again, where it's borderline impossible to get groups together to run dead content for the relic step. At the very least these steps will never age out and become impossible to omplete in future expansions.

[Raikai]

I partially agree with the OP - doing all the roulettes (which is old content) is as good as doing an specific X old content Y times.

However, as soon as you exhaust the roulettes, you're back to farming EW expert or Hunt Trains. They could dillute the cost between Causality and Poetics, though, to ensure you could potentially spam old content for the requirements to purchase the items.

Honestly, to me, the only good relic grind was the Stormblood's one, because it had 4 whole zones dedicated to it and you could only do there, and although it was just as grindy, it was a more interesting grind.

[Jonnycbad]

Honestly, to me, the only good relic grind was the Stormblood's one, because it had 4 whole zones dedicated to it and you could only do there, and although it was just as grindy, it was a more interesting grind.

But even this is hindsight bias because people *HATED* Eureka when released.

[Remish]

In the early days of gaming, arcades were purposely designed to be difficult to the gamer so that they kept injecting tokens into the machine. Nowadays, games are designed to be easy so you can go purchase another game entirely faster. Games aren't designed to last anymore. They want you to get bored so you can buy another game (preferably one of their products) sooner. If games are made to last, then it creates a backlog for the gamer, and they may not even buy those other games at all because they are still playing something else. Unlockables were removed in favor of DLC. It's the new marketing strategy. They WANT you to be bored so you spend your money on more games or DLC.

[SieyaM]

I did the ARR relic relatively recently and grinding light is not the only thing you do for that relic. There are the books which have you doing specific FATEs, dungeons, and killing overworld mobs which while the number of them is ridiculous the concept of I actually enjoy. There was also the step where you filled a scroll with materia, which if I remember right set the substats of the relic at that time, or that might have been another step, it was just before EW launched that I did this. Anyway the point being dungeon runs were not the only thing you did to complete that relic, and it wasn't during HW either.

[Gullis]

One reason I could think of, is that they assumed a lot of people hadn't done any hildi at all, so the entire "grind" was gonna be doing the entire questline from ARR to EW.

Imagine being a new player in a year, and then realizing the amount of quests you gotta do to get those relics. That's a lot of work already. I think making them based on Hildi was a big mistake to begin with tho

[Deo14]

Progression in Overwatch 1, outside of Ranked mode SR, was solely cosmetic. One of the larger reasons for smurfing was literally just to shed the tacky/garish borders and avoid the stigma of "being a plat-border in plat" if playing the game casually.

In Overwatch 1, each time you "leveled up" you got 4 random rewards, with only the slimmest chance of them not being crap. Most of the best skins were also only available during seasonal events, available once per year, or occasionally during a specific other event that'd briefly unlock all seasonal skins, but such would also be horribly 'overpriced' if purchased outright instead of gained as random rewards.

In Overwatch 2, each time you "leveled up" your Battle Pass, you'd get an exact reward that you knew from the start you'd get at that level, with anything not crap being spaced out very infrequently and the majority of crap rewards (and a significant but not overwhelming number of the good ones) being available only to Battle Pass holders, which you could usually afford by having done the previous Battle Pass. If you don't get it during the Battle Pass, it's available only for ridiculous prices (relative to the grind during the BP that granted it).

Neither was/is good, but OW2 did not significantly remove a preexisting structure of progression. It merely traded out general levels and RNG rewards the size of the entire loot table (since you could and would get things you already owned for a pittance in exchange-value) and event-specific skins for BP-specific levels and known rewards among BP-specific skins (with BP seasons lasting far longer than any of the old events).

What was awful was simply the sudden price-inflation on anything from OW1 once the shift was made (RIP anyone who didn't spend all their in-game currency prior) and the new surplus of skins available only via direct purchase (previously limited just to the MVP skins).

Yet even this simple progression is still missed today. I really don't care about some BP bullshit simply because you can buy levels, so you never know if someone actually achieved the level, or if he just outright bought it. I don't even know if you can see other's people levels, and it also resets every season, so it's whatever, it's really hard for me to care about this "progression".

I don't even care about the items in OW2 (or well, in those first 2 seasons that I tried to like that dumpster fire), I did somewhat care about skins in OW1, but having simple level up and being rewarded with a dumb lootbox every now and then still added nice flavour. It also made events interesting, it was simply fun to farm events. There was also bonus lootboxes for doing weekly arcades. Now you get like 60 credits for weeklies, but you need like 1800 for single legendary skin. None of these are some significant progression systems, but it's still nice to look at your account and see big numbers and how many cosmetics have you unlocked. Considering that you cannot just get better equipment in this kind of games, I would say that was somewhat solid system. And I don't know anyone who was actually buying lootboxes, you could get most of the stuff without any MTX, unlike OW2, where you cannot get nearly any skin without opening your wallet, legendary skin takes like half a year to get without paying.

And no, removing levels certainly does classify as significantly removing preexisting structure of progression, along with other major changes.

[Shurrikhan]

Yet even this simple progression is still missed today. I really don't care about some BP bullshit simply because you can buy levels, so you never know if someone actually achieved the level, or if he just outright bought it.

You... could also buy Lootboxes. Which was the sole thing the OW1 "levels" gave. It was literally a just counter of how many lootboxes you'd gotten in-game without weekly Endorsement rewards, but those Levels' reward was likewise purchasable with real money then, just like the result of BP "Levels" can be purchased with real money now.

I preferred the OW1 model, but they're identically illusory in terms of any indication of 'progression'. The main difference is simply that you tended to get drab generic rewards 85% of the time and cooler thematic FOMO event rewards 15% of the time before, and the availability of generalist skins has since declined far more than the event skins (BPs being those FOMO events now) have increased.

And no, removing levels certainly does classify as significantly removing preexisting structure of progression, along with other major changes.

Those levels still exist, though? They're just Season-specific.

Or does Savage progression not exist simply because it's effectively reset each new 'season' (Savage tier)?

They're the same. I say this as someone who played since Beta and preferred OW1. OW2 has the same degree of (or, maintains the same lack of) progression that OW1 had. It was purely cosmetic then, and it's purely cosmetic now; it was --if pure cosmetics could ever warrant the term-- just as 'pay to win' in terms that progression back in OW1 as it is now in OW2.

[Deo14]

You... could also buy Lootboxes. Which was the sole thing the OW1 "levels" gave. It was literally a just counter of how many lootboxes you'd gotten in-game without weekly Endorsement rewards, but those Levels' reward was likewise purchasable with real money then, just like the result of BP "Levels" can be purchased with real money now.

I preferred the OW1 model, but they're identically illusory in terms of any indication of 'progression'. The main difference is simply that you tended to get drab generic rewards 85% of the time and cooler thematic FOMO event rewards 15% of the time before, and the availability of generalist skins has since declined far more than the event skins (BPs being those FOMO events now) have increased.


Those levels still exist, though? They're just Season-specific.

Or does Savage progression not exist simply because it's effectively reset each new 'season' (Savage tier)?

They're the same. I say this as someone who played since Beta and preferred OW1. OW2 has the same degree of (or, maintains the same lack of) progression that OW1 had. It was purely cosmetic then, and it's purely cosmetic now; it was --if pure cosmetics could ever warrant the term-- just as 'pay to win' in terms that progression back in OW1 as it is now in OW2.

You could not buy levels, that was second most prominent indicator of you as a player, right after your rank. There was much better form of progression for "f2p" players, because you could get theoretically anything. In OW2, getting skins as f2p is chore and it is impossible to keep up, no matter how much you play. So even if you consider BP as a meaningful progression, this progression is limited to people who bought it (unless you're satisfied with the free leftovers in BP). And yes, it's all illusory, it makes you think you're progressing something when you're not, it's just like EW relics, but at least in OW1's case, it gave a decent illusion of progress. Same cannot be said about OW2 or EW relics.

And obviously it's all cosmetic, what else do you imagine OW could give you?

In the end, OW1 progression isn't masterpiece, but it's still miles ahead of it's pathetic "sequel".

[Shurrikhan]

You could not buy levels, that was second most prominent indicator of you as a player, right after your rank.

But what was actually being progressed? Your collection of skins. Which, in OW1, you could buy with real money directly or via lootboxes.

We don't look at an XIV raider and think, "Ahh, yes, their hours-played is their real progression, not his ilvl," do we?

In the end, OW1 progression isn't masterpiece, but it's still miles ahead of it's pathetic "sequel".

On the whole, agreed. But both allowed you to speed your way towards their actual rewards / progression via direct payment. Neither was a closed economy.