A Different Approach to Relics

[TaleraRistain]

There are people who want something that requires a lot of time and effort to earn. If you have an alternate route to get there that's considerably faster and easier, even if you are willing to take the harder road for the sake of fun, the fact that you could've just taken the easy route does not make that choice feel good.

Imagine if we took The Necromancer title, and made it so that if you complete floors 51-60 of Palace of the Dead 50 times, you get the title. You still get the title if you Solo Palace of the Dead all the way up to floor 200. Do you think someone earning the title the hard way would feel good about that? There is a level of prestige to it because it's hard to obtain. If you can otherwise just have it handed to you for little effort, then what's the point? Or what about if we spun it this way. Let's say you sell toasters for a living, and your boss promises you a bonus every month if you're able to sell over 300 toasters that month, but he'll also give that bonus to anyone who clocks in on time every day, and those are the same bonuses and do not stack together. How enthusiastic would you be about trying to sell 300 toasters?

That's why the suggestion I'm talking about involves having a cosmetic reward for the grind. You can get the stats with ease, but the particle effects are the reward for going beyond and doing something more than what was asked of you.

A grind is still taking a lot of time and effort to earn. I have done every ARR relic and advocate for changes to the book step because there's no reason others have to go through that like I did for the reward. Someone else's path to a reward doesn't change the work someone else put in.

You want to cut off another person's access to a shiny weapon not just because you want to work hard at it but, like I said, because you feel others are less deserving if they didn't do it the same way you did. And like it or not, the reason this relic has been so popular is because is it accessible and doesn't engage in that sort of exclusion. I love the old grinds. I want a choice of a grind back. I'm just fine if someone else can get it with tomes if that's their choice of how to go about things.

[ty_taurus]

A grind is still taking a lot of time and effort to earn. I have done every ARR relic and advocate for changes to the book step because there's no reason others have to go through that like I did for the reward. Someone else's path to a reward doesn't change the work someone else put in.

You want to cut off another person's access to a shiny weapon not just because you want to work hard at it but, like I said, because you feel others are less deserving if they didn't do it the same way you did. And like it or not, the reason this relic has been so popular is because is it accessible and doesn't engage in that sort of exclusion. I love the old grinds. I want a choice of a grind back. I'm just fine if someone else can get it with tomes if that's their choice of how to go about things.

Alright, then let's take it up a notch. Why spend tomestones at all? What if someone doesn't have time to grind up the tomestones? Relic weapons should just be given to you. Would that appeal to you more? All you have to do is talk to an NPC and have your job at level 90, but having your job at level 90 also requires a grind... So why don't we remove leveling altogether. When Dawntrail releases, every player will start at level 100, that way all level content becomes completely accessible. No one has to worry about being left out of any job's relic weapon at all.

And while we're at it, why don't we do that for other things players are currently "excluded" from. All titles are automatically unlocked for all players. Want to be the Necromancer but don't have time to do Palace of the Dead? Now, you're no longer locked out. We can fully unlock all minions and mounts as well. Do you want a minion that someone else had to spend $30 for? You should just have it. We don't want you feeling excluded from having that content. Same with all the mogstation items. Honestly, isn't the entire concept of gearing inandof itself exclusionary? When a new patch drops, why don't we get all the new pieces of gear mailed to us, including all the new tomestone gear and raiding gear. When 6.4 dropped, we should've had all 660 gear mailed to us along with the 665 weapon. Think about it. How many people are being excluded from raiding gear because they don't have the time to raid, or maybe just don't want to have to work that hard for something that might be a really cool piece of glamour for them?

You know how long it took me to get the Al-iklil mount from Bozja? How many players would love that mount but don't have the time to grind out the Bozja RNG or the skills to win any of the duels for the field notes? Or what about the Astrope mount? How is that fair that players are expected to do 2000 mentor roulettes if they want to ride on a pretty pegasus?

[Saraide]

Alright, then let's take it up a notch. Why spend tomestones at all? What if someone doesn't have time to grind up the tomestones? Relic weapons should just be given to you. Would that appeal to you more? All you have to do is talk to an NPC and have your job at level 90, but having your job at level 90 also requires a grind... So why don't we remove leveling altogether. When Dawntrail releases, every player will start at level 100, that way all level content becomes completely accessible. No one has to worry about being left out of any job's relic weapon at all.

And while we're at it, why don't we do that for other things players are currently "excluded" from. All titles are automatically unlocked for all players. Want to be the Necromancer but don't have time to do Palace of the Dead? Now, you're no longer locked out. We can fully unlock all minions and mounts as well. Do you want a minion that someone else had to spend $30 for? You should just have it. We don't want you feeling excluded from having that content. Same with all the mogstation items. Honestly, isn't the entire concept of gearing inandof itself exclusionary? When a new patch drops, why don't we get all the new pieces of gear mailed to us, including all the new tomestone gear and raiding gear. When 6.4 dropped, we should've had all 660 gear mailed to us along with the 665 weapon. Think about it. How many people are being excluded from raiding gear because they don't have the time to raid, or maybe just don't want to have to work that hard for something that might be a really cool piece of glamour for them?

You know how long it took me to get the Al-iklil mount from Bozja? How many players would love that mount but don't have the time to grind out the Bozja RNG or the skills to win any of the duels for the field notes? Or what about the Astrope mount? How is that fair that players are expected to do 2000 mentor roulettes if they want to ride on a pretty pegasus?

Oh no people would be expected the play the content they find fun then instead of having the game tell them what to do. What a nightmare!

[TaleraRistain]

snip

Now you're just being silly. Most of the things you've mentioned have never had a different way to do them. The cat is already out of the bag with relics. We're very unlikely to go back to a completely restricted version. So the idea is compromise. Let people take the path to the relic in a way that will require the amount of effort on their part that they desire. The grind is there. We can do it. But the tomestone option will also be there for those who like the new style. It still gives us something to do, which is the main complaint I've seen about the lack of a relic grind.

[fulminating]

A...

I want to cut off their access to getting the long term grind rewards if they’re not going to grind, yes.

I don’t think the lack of a long term goal in endwalker is going to reflect particularly well come even 7.0. If the sheer number of jobs is too daunting, why not take a leaf from literally last expansion and have one time steps or the first relic requiring 8 tokens but subsequent only taking one? Why not have the items drop into inventory at a low% rate in v&c or from island sanctuary venture things to encourage engagement? Or mhach/ivalice/nier alliance raids if they want to encourage people to queue those. Or just alliance/guildhest/etc roulette when queued with the relevant weapon? The relic weapon as a concept is such an easy opportunity to force engagement with content areas that it’s incredible they’re not leveraging it. It’s not as if the complaints about anaemic content only turned up in 6.4, they’ve been there since almost the start of the expansion, albeit quieter.

I think it may be the case that the relic has a high level of engagement, but so does ew summoner. If it’s free there’s no reason not to pick it up, and it’s not even digging into the weekly tome allowance.

Next expansion, each relic will be ~6000 poetics. Come on now.

[TaleraRistain]

I want to cut off their access to getting the long term grind rewards if they’re not going to grind, yes.

I don’t think the lack of a long term goal in endwalker is going to reflect particularly well come even 7.0. If the sheer number of jobs is too daunting, why not take a leaf from literally last expansion and have one time steps or the first relic requiring 8 tokens but subsequent only taking one? Why not have the items drop into inventory at a low% rate in v&c or from island sanctuary venture things to encourage engagement? Or mhach/ivalice/nier alliance raids if they want to encourage people to queue those. Or just alliance/guildhest/etc roulette when queued with the relevant weapon? The relic weapon as a concept is such an easy opportunity to force engagement with content areas that it’s incredible they’re not leveraging it. It’s not as if the complaints about anaemic content only turned up in 6.4, they’ve been there since almost the start of the expansion, albeit quieter.

I think it may be the case that the relic has a high level of engagement, but so does ew summoner. If it’s free there’s no reason not to pick it up, and it’s not even digging into the weekly tome allowance.

Next expansion, each relic will be ~6000 poetics. Come on now.

They would be grinding. Just not in the same way. They'd grind their tomestones in whatever content they wanted to gain those in.

My personal preference is something more like ARR and HW questlines. I was hoping for that for EW. I even was kind of disappointed with the one time aspect of ShB steps because I'm one of the crazies that enjoys that checklist aspect. I would have done that one time step on all of my relics.

I just don't feel that now that another option has been presented, everyone needs to be forced into that. I've always advocated for choices in relic content, which is why I bristled against the Eureka and Bozja design, not to mention the FOMO aspects of those whereas ARR and HW remain much more accessible expansions later. So I really don't care if someone else gets their relic and their grind is tomestones.

Could even be something like being presented the quest and being told you can go find the items yourself through this specific content, or Rowena's rep conveniently has a supply for large amounts of tomestones each. It's really not that dissimilar than being able to shortcut your next relic after the one time steps.

[Nezerius]

They would be grinding. Just not in the same way. They'd grind their tomestones in whatever content they wanted to gain those in.

My personal preference is something more like ARR and HW questlines. I was hoping for that for EW. I even was kind of disappointed with the one time aspect of ShB steps because I'm one of the crazies that enjoys that checklist aspect. I would have done that one time step on all of my relics.

I just don't feel that now that another option has been presented, everyone needs to be forced into that. I've always advocated for choices in relic content, which is why I bristled against the Eureka and Bozja design, not to mention the FOMO aspects of those whereas ARR and HW remain much more accessible expansions later. So I really don't care if someone else gets their relic and their grind is tomestones.

Could even be something like being presented the quest and being told you can go find the items yourself through this specific content, or Rowena's rep conveniently has a supply for large amounts of tomestones each. It's really not that dissimilar than being able to shortcut your next relic after the one time steps.

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. Meanwhile, specific items from content (ShB's memories etc.) can't be farmed prior to the step being made available. The only way for you to even begin to make this a balanced choice, is if you were to make the tomestone choice be heavily timegated while the step is current.

And that aside, why does the relic weapon need an easier option? There's other easily accessible weapons that players can obtain, if they don't want to go through a more long term relic grind.

[TaleraRistain]

The only way for you to even begin to make this a balanced choice, is if you were to make the tomestone choice be heavily timegated while the step is current.

I could see that. Rowena's representative has a limited supply while the supply is greater if you go obtain it yourself.

As to why, well, it's obviously popular. They remarked that this relic has the highest participation so far. So I could see where they would want to continue that appeal. An optional grind path serves as something to not leave out those who enjoyed that aspect of relics, while also allowing them to remain accessible and appealing.

[Nezerius]

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:

Hence why I noted "With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear.", because your suggestion seems kinda confusing on whether you're talking about two or three currencies.
If you're simply talking about poetics/uncapped seasonal/capped seasonal, it seems like a relatively pointless change. That's basically the current system, with Poetics moved to be more important, while adding a currency that's basically "dead" for the first half of an even-numbered patch. Unless you mean the uncapped relic currency will be added before the actual relic step is made available (in the x.x5 patch), which would kind of defeat the point of the change. It would just give players a 2 month time window to farm up relic currency, which would again remove any choice on how one would work on their relic.

This is also ignoring the fact that SE probably wants to keep Poetics as more of a legacy currency, rather than using it for current expansion things.

As to why, well, it's obviously popular. They remarked that this relic has the highest participation so far. So I could see where they would want to continue that appeal. An optional grind path serves as something to not leave out those who enjoyed that aspect of relics, while also allowing them to remain accessible and appealing.

Their remark of it having the highest participation is just an absolute meme. Lowering the bar of participation is obviously going to result in higher overall participation.

[Shurrikhan]

Hence why I noted "With the assumption that you're talking about weekly-capped currency being spent on relic progress -or- gear.", because your suggestion seems kinda confusing on whether you're talking about two or three currencies.

What do we have now? Three types.

• Basically Uncapped Non-Season Tomestones not limited to endgame -- Poetics.
• Weekly-Capped Seasonal Endgame Tomestones -- currently called Comedy, but the name changes / a new tier is shifted in each time a new Savage tier is released (i.e., the start of each new 'season').
• Basically Uncapped Seasonal Endgame Tomestones -- currently called Causality, though each new season the former Weekly-Capped Tomestone is degraded into its position.

How many are there between "Poetics, Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones, and Weekly-Capped Seasonal Tomestones". Three types. The same three types.

The differences are merely that you'd buy old levelcap gear with Poetics, too, now, while the Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones would just be used on Relic progression, while Relic progression in turn only uses that currency, and the Uncapped Seasonal Tomestones would be new with each season, rather than just the previous capped tomestone being degraded to its position.

Done. Players would no longer be able to bank currency ahead of a new Relic stage, all without having to demand handfuls of inventory bloat or inflexible tasks.

At that point, all that is needed is reward balance enough to give players actual choice in content, which is something we'd want regardless of the inclusion of Relics.

That's basically the current system, with Poetics moved to be more important, while adding a currency that's basically "dead" for the first half of an even-numbered patch. Unless you mean the uncapped relic currency will be added before the actual relic step is made available (in the x.x5 patch), which would kind of defeat the point of the change. It would just give players a 2 month time window to farm up relic currency, which would again remove any choice on how one would work on their relic.

Then just start the Relic quests with the launch patch. Why would you not, anyways? They'd be using an independent and singular currency; the devs would be free to increasingly ramp up the rewards pace as the season edges along if they so please.

All this is besides the point, though. Again, all that matters is that it's simply a singular, intuitive currency. Call it Light. Call it Essence. Call it Magia. Call it SparklePopPower. Or keep it a core, easily found currency as per tomes. It doesn't matter what the name is or what tab it falls under long as it can't be pre-banked, which can as easily be prevented whether it's "Tomestones of X" or "Relic Points".