What makes a good relic storyline / step

[CNitsah]

StormBlood

I’ll not go over all the steps, because being linked only with Eureka, SB steps are really alike. What changes is the number of crystals you need. It’s a far more even experience than the HW relics. You run the fates in the zone to get enough cristal, and for the last step of the zone, you also need items that drop on the higher fate of the zone. With time they made farming easier.
There is one thing that I think was a very bad decision at the time : in Pagos (I could stop my sentence here), the crystal you actually need for the weapon obtained by gathering light killing some enemies. The problem is that the kettle you need to unlock that light gathering is only given in one of the last Pagos quests. So when you farm your first weapon, you can only begin to farm for your weapon when you’re nearly finished with the zone. Pagos being the worst zone Eureka, it’s a pain. That said, today, farming the light goes so fast if you know where to go, it’s more of an hindrance than a real problem.

I also have some questions about the last step (The baldesion one). I feel like needing to complete 4 successful baldesion runs to get the last step is too much. That said, that step is only for some eureka stat, and nothing else changes in terms of look or other stats, so I guess it’s ok. But there is always that feeling that “it’s not finished”. Given the involvement needed to make a single BA run today, maybe needing less eureka fragments might be a good thing. The thing is run at best once a week.

The weapons kinda lack a proper story compared to the other relics (well except EW ones), but being so tightly linked to Eureka, it kinda doesn’t feel like it.

Shadowbringer

> Resistance weapon. Very basic step, getting 4 scalepowder. nothing to say here, it’s just for the basic weapon.

> Augmented resistance weapon ask you to gather 60 memories of dying (20 of 3 sorts). You can either farm them on the HW zone fates, or get them in the fates in Bozja. I feel the HW fates are a better choice, because Bozja (and later Zadnor) suffer from the fact they’re divided in 3 parts, and each part gives a certain type (also, not 100% drop, far from it). Except in reality, players mostly farm the 3rd zone, which gives more mettle. Farming fates in zone 1 and 2 takes longer. It could benefit from dropping the number a little now we’re in EW, but overall, it was an ok step. It’s a little long now, and I think the drop rate in bozja should be increased, but not the worst step.

> Resistance recollection. Once again, ask you to get memories of dying, but only 6. You can get them by doing a 60 dungeon, the leveling roulettes, or rng drop in Fates and CE in bozja.

> Law's Order Resistance Weapon : you need 15 items. You get 5 by doing Castrum Litore, which pop pretty often or get one by doing any of the CT raids (you can also sometimes get one by doing a CE, but you know, you can’t count on rng). Whatever the solution, it’s pretty fast to do, despite not being a fan of the whole “doing 15 times CT”. You get it easily either being because it pops so often in the alliance (well, it probably gonna change due to what was announced in the last fanfest), but that’s not the most engaging step. I was fine with that step when it was the relic weapon step, but now that it’s basically to get a skin, reducing the number needed would be nice. (something like 10, with castrum litore giving 5 and one CT raid 2).

> Here there is a one time step, you only have to do once for all the weapons. you have to get items in either SB fates or HW and SB alliance raids. There are two different items, and you need 18 of either. Still not a fan of repeating the same content again and again, but the fact you can do fates and it’s one time thing make it pretty good.

> Then comes the worst step of all, the augmented Augmented Law's Order. You need 15 timeworn artifacts that you can get either in Delubrum Reginae (1 per run in the beginning, now 3), or in PotD. Both are awful. Delubrum Reginae on pick up can be a pain. Especially since it’s not that much ran today. Sure it’s scaled, and after 30 min, you get in whatever the number of people. And after that, if you’re not lucky, that can be a pain to finish. There is the solution of organized optimized runs, but I feel needing to go to a discord to get a precise date and hour to make an optimized run is asking a lot of engagement for a relic step.

The other option is not better. PotD is dead. And even during ShB, where a lot of people farmed it for the relic, the drop rate was just not that interesting. You can only drop them on the boss, and I never got more than 2 on 50 floors, often 1, and a few times none. It was an awful step at the time, but time made it worse. None of these things can be unsynced, so it doesn’t become easier, but PotD has returned to its dead content state, and people barely run DR. That step is the only single reason I’ll only ever have 3 ShB relics finished. It’s not just worth the time. It wasn’t at the time, it isn’t any more now that we added the infinite queue time. Making the PotD bosses drop them at 100% would make it better, but that would still be a cosmic pain to do.

> The next step is another one time step. Through several quests, you have to gather 30 versions of 6 different items that can either be gathered in Zadnor Fates and CE, either in the Alexander, Omega and Eden raids. I don’t have a lot of memories about those, but at the time it didn’t seem like too much to me. I would maybe now argue that 30 of each might be a little too much for a glam, but still a one time thing.

> The last step asks you to gather 15 items, you can get them either by doing the dalriada (3 per run), the DR (2 per run) or any 70 dungeon (1 per run), or Heavens-High (rng on the bosses). Overall, not really exciting, and repetitive, but at least it’s not that long.

In terms of story, the ShB relic took the best of both HW and SB. The relics have their own story, while being only one aspect of the resistance storyline. It’s satisfying, and you get the link between the two. Of all the relics stories, it seems to me it’s the most satisfying.

Overall, the ShB relic quest was pretty good, except for one step that downright the worst of all 3 expansions I talked about. As long as you did them outside Exploratory zones. Drop rates in bozja Zadnor were worse than outside of it. I appreciate the idea behind that move, giving us another reason to do old content as a secondary method. This is one of the reasons I think the whole Bozja popularity was never about the Relics, but all the other things it had to offer.

Another big bad point is that it’s the first relic that won’t get easier/faster with time. Everything has to be done synched or no drop. This relic has literally become longer to do now it’s a glam than when it was one of the best weapons. It's a no. Timeworn artifact has become so ridiculously difficult to get it's just not worth it. This has to change