Relic being tomestone step AGAIN is incredibly depressing

[Khryseis_Astra]

For those who loved the Atma/book grind of days past… what exactly did you have to do to fulfill all those steps? Run the Fates and duties that were current back then. Not really much different from a tomestone grind except that you were prescribed certain duties and Fates you had to do, rather than just picking your own. It was just set up differently.

I don’t mind a grind, but I didn’t really care about the EW tomestones either. For me, the best zone tie-in for relic grinding was Eureka. The currency came from inside the zone, you knew how much you were going to get per NM, you knew when you hit a certain number of crystals you could move on to the next stage. No wondering IF the NM would drop the currency you needed or not. I don’t like any “grind” that relies on RNG, because that’s not really a grind, it’s a CE/Fate gacha game, and it’s not fun. If I’m not able to see steady progress towards my goal, it sours the whole experience.

[AvoSturmfaust]

For those who loved the Atma/book grind of days past… what exactly did you have to do to fulfill all those steps? Run the Fates and duties that were current back then. Not really much different from a tomestone grind except that you were prescribed certain duties and Fates you had to do, rather than just picking your own. It was just set up differently.

Take as example the Books, 10 Monster 3 Dungeons, 3 Fates 3 Leves and no syn
Then Fates did forever sometimes to spawn so you had like 30-50 People waiting for the same freaking Fate, it involved so much more effort and the droprates for some atma were even way lower then the current one, i still remember when i chased literally 15h for 1 single atma

[dspguy]

I think SE struck a pretty good balance with this. Do some content in this specific zone. Then do whatever content you want to do.

Let's take a quick look at HW relics. It boiled down to:
- Do FATEs in HW zones for RNG drops
- Get 40 tokens (which was ultimately a tomestone grind OR a beast tribe daily grind)
- Umbrite/Crystal Sand step (which was a tomestone grind and/or a collectable grind)
- 50 Singing Clusters step (which was either a tomestone grind or a dungeon grind)
- 15 Pneumite step (which was a tomestone grind plus a dungeon gauntlet) as well as light farming (which was a dungeon grind)
- Lux step (which was a tomestone grind and a trial gauntlet)

Guess what you get while doing the trial gauntlet? Tomestones
Guess what you get while doing dungeon grind? Tomestones
Guess what you get while beast tribes? Tomestones (depending on your level)

The point is, one could simply boil HW down to:
- Fate grind
- Tomestone grind

Sure, you may have "used" these tokens in questionably interesting ways, like the Umbrite/Crystal Sand step. But in the end, it was just collecting tomestones.

If you look at some of the annoying ARR steps:
- Early steps: Dungeon grind, tomestones grind
- Atma step: Fate grind for RNG drops
- Animus step: The book grind - which was ultimately a tomestone grind with a touch of FATEs/open-world mobs/Leves (so that is different)
- Novus step: tomestone grind for maps (or dungeon grind for daily maps - then do maps for item you could buy with tomestones) - oh, plus materia
- Nexus step: light farm (dungeon grind)
- Zodiac step: tomestone grind, dungeon grind, GC seals, some gil and some crafting (some slightly different tasks in there)
- Zeta step: light farm (dungeon grind)

Again, in many of these instances, dungeon grind is just tomestone grind. It is essentially the same content, just with getting intermediary tokens

Eureka was wholly different

Bozja was a little Eureka but the ability to upgrade much of this allowed the player to earn much of it by way of:
- Fate grind
- dungeon grind, etc

Which isn't really anthing special

EW:
Is really just SE admitting that all of the relics before (minus Eureka) were just tomestone grinds with a different mask on.

DT:
A touch of Eureka, with the ability to earn items outside of it (like Bozja) and then a tomestone grind which is about 90% of what every relic grind is about.

Relics have been 90% a tomestone grind since 2013. I don't know we should be surprised that the game has consistently been formulaic with just different packaging around it for the last 12 years. I don't think we should expect relic quests to be vastly different than what we've seen already.

[Daralii]

They should really just make everything available for tomestones. Getting them is the centerpiece the entire game revolves around, and all roads lead back to them.

[Granyala]

I sadly just can't agree.
But I just can't agree that tome dumps are a compromise they have to settle on.

That is ofc your prerogative. After all, different strokes / what ever floats your boat and all that jazz. :'D
I agree that SE could be more creative and create new currencies to farm etc but ultimately, it would boil down to the very same thing: run content, get currency, grab weapon.

The rest is just numbers tuning really. How grindy do the DEVs want it to be?
I mean they can use tomes to present a grind that would bring even you to tears. Tomes aren't the inherent limitation here. They are just a convenient vehicle.

Take as example the Books, 10 Monster 3 Dungeons, 3 Fates 3 Leves and no syn
Then Fates did forever sometimes to spawn so you had like 30-50 People waiting for the same freaking Fate, it involved so much more effort and the droprates for some atma were even way lower then the current one, i still remember when i chased literally 15h for 1 single atma

Oh yeah waiting around for some dumb FATE to pop. YEAAAAH THE GAMEPLAY..... wtf that was one of the WORST things they ever designed. This wasn't "EFFORT" this was -literally- AFK and let the client idle for 4hrs while watching movies on a second screen.

Been there, done that. No thank you.

[mallleable]

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

[Striker44]

What is this about a tomestone step? Did they announce the 2nd step already?

Or is the OP talking about how after you do the initial grind for the relic weapon on something that isn't at all a tomestone step, you can then use tomestones on the same step to get additional relic weapons? Because that to me sounds like the perfect compromise that keeps tomestones out of the equation for getting the relic while making additional ones much more accessible to the casual player with less time.

[RenegadeInferno]

Something that absolutely NEEDS to happen soon is better storage of completed relics. Please let us store completed relics in like the Armoire or something.

Why not just buy the replica of the stage you like and store it in the glamour dresser?

Unless it's for Ultimate BiS, there's really no need to hang on to them.

[mallleable]

Why not just buy the replica of the stage you like and store it in the glamour dresser?

Unless it's for Ultimate BiS, there's really no need to hang on to them.

A fully completed Eureka weapon is BiS in Eureka zones, and we can assume a fully completed Phantom weapon will be BiS in OC zones. Can't really throw those away, and just have the replica. And ultimates I guess.

[RaionKansen]

People like you will never be satisfied.

1500 tomes is better than being forced to do like 60 fates, or some duty 10-20 times for one step. God forbid you get to work on your relics from basically everything. You can't tell me you seriously want to go back to doing something like running Hell's lid 15 times, alliance raid 15 times, or like 60 fates.

The people that complained got what they wanted. Several hours of grind to complete the first step, and then its just 1500 tomes.

There's so much dishonesty about this kind of take on the relics.

The bigger issue is that the relic is useless. It doesnt do anything for OC and its not even 755 to have any kind of relevance.