A Different Approach to Relics

[Atelier-Bagur]

And just like that, you've lost about 80% of the playerbase. A lot of them reaaaalllyyy hate PvP, my dude. Putting a relic weapon step behind it would cause the lion's share to just not bother with it.

Not if it was optional. I rather go with the remix of revisiting older and new areas/content approach as long as they dont make it stupid like getting an absurd amount of items just by doing one activity.

[TaleraRistain]

And just like that, you've lost about 80% of the playerbase. A lot of them reaaaalllyyy hate PvP, my dude. Putting a relic weapon step behind it would cause the lion's share to just not bother with it.

He's not talking exclusively. Just one of the options. I proposed something similar in threads we've had about relics. We could get a single questline with multiple ways to get the items for a step. Very similar to the crystal sand step in HW. Then you have the flexibility that exists now with the structure that players can choose to have that's missing now.

[Reap00]

And just like that, you've lost about 80% of the playerbase. A lot of them reaaaalllyyy hate PvP, my dude. Putting a relic weapon step behind it would cause the lion's share to just not bother with it.

80%? I don't know where you pulled that # from. I queue for frontline whenever shatter isn't up and my queue of 72 people is always less than 5m. PvP is actually the best it has ever been in XIV since the Endwalker changes.

[Krojack]

80%? I don't know where you pulled that # from. I queue for frontline whenever shatter isn't up and my queue of 72 people is always less than 5m. PvP is actually the best it has ever been in XIV since the Endwalker changes.

It's because people like me still queue for daily frontlines roulette even though we hate doing PvP with a passion yet it's the ONLY way to get the series malmstone rewards.

[Aravell]

And just like that, you've lost about 80% of the playerbase. A lot of them reaaaalllyyy hate PvP, my dude. Putting a relic weapon step behind it would cause the lion's share to just not bother with it.

But it would also gain the approval of those of us who love PvP, because it's something to finally spend wolf marks on, add trophy crystals too and you've got yourself a deal.

[AnnRam]

And just like that, you've lost about 80% of the playerbase. A lot of them reaaaalllyyy hate PvP, my dude. Putting a relic weapon step behind it would cause the lion's share to just not bother with it.

With posts like this its why Relics are earned by doing nothing special.

[Shurrikhan]

With posts like this its why Relics are earned by doing nothing special.

That response has more to do with quality/effort put into reading more so than it does whether players would like PvP also to be an option by which to progress relic steps.

________________

Hot take, possibly, but I wouldn't mind relics being based on tomes (especially, if Seasonal but basically uncapped), if only...

1. There were more high-effort content than just Raids by which to progress your maximum ilvl reachable by Week X after a new season's (Savage Tier patch's) start,
2. Everything (yes, including even Exploratory Missions and PvP, give or take their rate of exclusive gear acquisition) gave tomes in roughly equal efficiency (assuming experienced runners), and
3. There were additional seasonal and weekly completion rewards (think Challenge Log, Wandering Tails, and the like) by which to bribe people towards trying a variety of content.

In the end, every reward system is a way to push the playerbase towards the most fun per minute they can have from each other through the content the game can, itself, provide, usually by pushing them towards an equilibrium between matchmaking speed and perceived quality of content (which tends, among what little subjective matters the game can control, correspond to variety of content and just enough time in them to make further optimizations, if the players so desire).

As long as you balance the reward efficiencies of content and prevent pre-banking, using a single currency (be it tomes, "Light", or what have you), just means...

• greater flexibility in choices (as one doesn't necessarily have to run content they dislike, even if it might be the most efficient means of generating that currency at the time),
• less RNG dependence (especially where it could most hurt)
• finer and more dynamic control over the reward balances themselves as to create informal events and the like (be that through Challenge Logs, "Light rotations", or whatever else), and
• less inventory bloat caused.

As such, I don't really get the concern with a relic step being based on uncapped-but-seasonal tomes or any other single currency. The concern should only be its pre-banking and reward balance, which is a concern even with many-item/currency systems anyways.

...Frankly, we should be pursuing a tighter balance among reward efficiencies regardless, as not to push time-crunched players just towards Expert Roulette and Hunts, etc.

The issue with this, is that most players will still end up picking the tomestone choice, for the simple fact that players can stock up on 2000 tomestones before the patch is released.

Only under the way tomes have been handled so far, but that's not something we need to continue.

We could as easily make room for a currency used only for Relics by just using Poetics on everything but said Relics and our Weekly-capped gear purchases, likely with their cap raised to 9999. Voila, we're then free to start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

We'd still be free to gate how far one could go with those relics at/until a given week, with players then be able to progress the Relics for additional jobs accordingly.

Similarly, we don't have to leave Hunts and Expert Roulettes the only particularly time-efficient ways to get our weekly tomes. It's a current circumstance, not a necessary design constraint.

[Nezerius]

Only under the way tomes have been handled so far, but that's not something we need to continue.

We could as easily make room for a currency used only for Relics by just using Poetics on everything but said Relics and our Weekly-capped gear purchases, likely with their cap raised to 9999. Voila, we're then free to start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

We'd still be free to gate how far one could go with those relics at/until a given week, with players then be able to progress the Relics for additional jobs accordingly.

Similarly, we don't have to leave Hunts and Expert Roulettes the only particularly time-efficient ways to get our weekly tomes. It's a current circumstance, not a design constraint.

A change like this would essentially force people into the "grindy" option (fresh uncapped currency) if they want to be able to purchase weekly-capped currency gear. With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear. That doesn't really sound like a fun choice to make.
It would also require SE to actually release relics during the initial major patch launches (x.1-x.5). SE loves spreading out patch content too much to pull it from the x.x5 patches, leaving players with 2 months to stack up however many currency they'd need to hit the cap of either form or currency.

The question of "Why do relics need this alternative?" remains. There are low-grind alternatives to obtaining weapons, with crafted weapons, EX trial weapons, and tomestone weapons obtained through clearing the last floor of the current raid for 4-7 weeks.

[Shurrikhan]

A change like this would essentially force people into the "grindy" option (fresh uncapped currency) if they want to be able to purchase weekly-capped currency gear. With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear.

The weekly-capped seasonal currency would only be spent on gear. The only use for the uncapped seasonal currency would be relic progress. The two are independent. It's literally in what you just quoted:

We could as easily make room for a currency used only for Relics by just using Poetics on everything but said Relics and our Weekly-capped gear purchases, likely with their cap raised to 9999. Voila, we're then free to start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

start each season with a fresh weekly-capped amount (spent on neither-much-grind-nor-difficulty-required means of progression) and a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

a fresh non-capped amount (spent on Relic progression).

non-capped

[Mayhemmer]

Snip.

On paper, I don't really have any objections to this. I even applaud you or not arbitrarily including FATEs in the list, and only just Bicolor Gems. I will never understand the devs' insistence that FATEs from previous expansions be the option for obtaining certain items required for a later expansion's relics. A few of the Shadowbringers relic steps offer the option to do FATEs for said items, but only FATEs from Heavensward and Stormblood.

Meaning, if you choose this option, you'll be doing FATEs you not only have probably already done, that reward less exp for those looking to level as well, and that also neither reward bicolor gemstones NOR contribute to your Shared FATE levels for Shadowbringers. They may have done this in consideration to those who were not already at level 80 and thus could not easily participate in FATEs from higher level zones, but overall it feels like a fumble.

Overall, my belief is that the complexity of the activities offered during a grind matter more than JUST the overall time required to complete said grind. It's why Bozja still shines and is held in high regard. The activities there were varied, and your options to approach them were as well. Rewarding players for participating in whichever content THEY feel most engaged with while adding new avenues is important, and is a mark I feel the Manderville weapons failed to achieve, because they only prompted you to do content you were likely already going to do, and thus added nothing new for players to participate in.