These Relics Aren't Relicing

[Avoidy]

Agreed, thank god Endwalker is behind us though, and hopefully Dawntrail's relics are actually FUN to get this time, like Shadowbringers relics were.

Mr. Yoshida mentioned in some interview that he viewed the Endwalker relics as a great success because more people obtained a relic this time than in prior expansions. His logic was "more people are doing it, therefore it must be good."
Of course, we all know "more people did it" because... it was basically a free relic you obtained by just logging in and doing the bare minimum daily roulette stuff. Many people logged in already capped and bought it in the first minute.

For some people, everything I've just said is a massive positive and they have ZERO issue with it and that's fine. For other people who really wanted something to "work towards" that didn't involve progging the same wallboss for weeks with a group, it was extremely disappointing. I doubt they're going to change course though, because this sort of relic grind is easy to design, lots of people prefer it, and the engagement levels were high so it "works." I would be (pleasantly) surprised if DT saw it change at all. Someone somewhere said it best, that this game feels like it's being made easier to manage, without much care for how much actual enjoyment is obtained in the process.

On an unrelated note, I thought it was really really bad of them to anchor the relics to Hildibrand quests. I did all the prior Hildibrands before I even knew that a relic was going to be tied to them. I saved them for when I had absolutely nothing else to do, and I took my time with them as a result. I had low expectations, because most of the writing/presentation in this game's quests is not good. But to my surprise, I enjoyed it. And I think that's largely because I approached this as optional content and just did it because I felt like it. For many many people on my friends list and here, they sped through it just to get the relic and were bitching the entire time because they didn't want to do it and felt compelled to or they'd be gated from doing one of the few things on offer for this expansion. And hell, in EW, every time they added a new chapter to Hildibrand I'd find myself sort of rushing through it in the same way because my tomes were capped and I wanted to unlock the next relic step ASAP so I could spend my tomes and stop overcapping. There were times where I didn't really want to do hildibrand at all, but did it anyway so I could hurry up and unlock the next step of the relic grind. I just think it's unfortunate. I hope they make the new relics independent of Hildibrand in DT so I can just do Hildibrand at my own pace without screwing myself on the relic content.