Square Enix should retire the relic quests with Endwalker

[Jojoya]

And that very decision is the major dealbreaker when comedy tomestone already fills the same niche. Why do we have to have tome 2.0. while also losing that optional grind that every prev expac's relic has? If they think that's too grindy, then why not leave it alone (just like if you're not willing to stomach savage/ultimate then just avoid it)? Why does that has to go in order to enable 'lazies' to pick up their shinies?

Last time I remembered from their 4gamer interview only sheds more light to just how increasingly muddled their vision are when it comes to the content's purpose. The moment you try to make all contents applicable to all types of players (no it doesn't have to be, really!) and fundamentally changed it in the name of that, that's when we get something like today's Manderville Relics questline.

Except Comedy doesn't fill the same niche for non-Savage raiders. For most players, it's the best gear they're going to get so it goes to their main job. They're still going to need the Causality to get gear for their other jobs if they don't have or don't want to spend the gil in crafted gear.

Again, your mileage is going to vary depending on how you play the game. SE decides who they want to get the weapons and they've decided that it should be as many as possible instead of just those with excess time on their hands for long grinds.

Should there be some sort of long grind content added each expansion for those with the time on their hands? Yes.

Does it have to be the relic weapons? No.

You may not be enjoying the relic questline this expansion but other players are. If participation makes this the most successful relic series in the game's history to date, SE is not going to ignore that going into Dawntrail even if the vocal few think that it's the wrong choice. It's still a for-profit product. They're going to do what they feel is in the best interest of making profits.

Is their vision muddled? I can't answer that because I don't think they've clearly shared what their current vision for the game is with the player base. The last thing we heard was they want to shed the MMORPG image of the game and make it known as a RPG that can be played solo or with friends.

Most likely they have a clear vision but the player concept of the vision is muddled because they're not sharing the entire picture with us.

The tomestone weapons already existed for said people, just saying “get all the weapons” is not any sort of substitute especially since the underpinning way you accumulate tomestones already isn’t terribly interesting because it’s what we already do anyway

No. Those weapons exist for those who raid. You cannot purchase them same expansion unless you collect multiple Blades from the correct raid end boss in addition to having the correct number of tomestones.

Not everyone raids.

1500 Tomes every four months is not, in any shape, a long grind. Even less so when you can stockpile tomes before the next relic step is available, meaning all you need to do is sit around for Manderville cutscenes then pick up your relic the minute your done watching them.

How are you going to explain that to players who only get to play 4 hours a week at best and don't spend every minute of those 4 hours trying to grind out end game tomestones? Players who may need those tomestones for other things, like meeting ilvl requirements to progress MSQ?

SE has made the decision that those players should have access to the tomestone weapons just as much as those who play 4 hours (or more) daily. They too are paying a $15/mo subscription for the game.

It's very easy to think in terms of "this is easy for me and best for what I want from the game". It's much harder to see things from the perspective of other players who play the game differently than you do.