Can we go back to using tomes to get relics?

[AmiableApkallu]

And did anyone find that substantial additional grind fun I wonder? I know I didn't, I would have sooner paid a 9000 tomes than do another book, dear lord.

To answer that question seriously: Are you talking about when A Realm Reborn was current? Or today, when Dawntrail is current?

Because I have to assume (I'm a child of post-ShB) that it's a vastly different experience today grinding out an ARR relic, when you have flight and can unsync basically everything, compared to back-in-the-day, when you had to run everywhere and grind everything at-level.

Today, I'd rather pay 100 tomestones and do another book rather than increase the cost for that step by 8000 tomestones. Back-in-the-day? I can't say.

[Selsix]

We are two sides of coin, because fates being the main thing in fate farming place for SB and ShB relics was the thing which turned me away from those relics. There is nothing wrong in preferring fates of course. Just... awareness that there is fate haters out there, hi.
Whenever i have itch to do some, its short burst. Farming and farming and farming just feels dreadful to me, for example

You're absolutely allowed to dislike FATE grinds, I myself even admitted I believe they could come up with something more fun. That being said, I would hope you're not defending EW style relics which I like to think most people wouldn't. It's perfectly understandable to think the grind for a relic shouldn't be too extreme or that it should be fun, but EW relics were essentially just given to the player for free for just doing their usual daily roulettes. The problem with tome relics is that those tomes are only coming from three sources:

-Current patch "greater" tomes used to buy current tier equipment.
-Current patch "lesser" tomes only used to buy old equipment and crafting materials.
-Poetics, which are only used for previous expansion equipment and relics.

Using greater tomes for the relic is a horrid idea because it will directly compete with gearing your main and side jobs due to the weekly cap. Using lesser tomes runs into the issue where there really isn't anything else to spend them on EXCEPT the relic. EW had this problem. Once the crafting materials crash due to market saturation, the lesser tomes become functionally worthless, only having marginally more value than Poetics which as everyone is aware are truly worthless. (I shouldn't need to explain why Poetics being used for a current relic is similarly an awful idea.) This meant that nobody did any extra dungeons to get EW relics (unless they were incredibly impatient).

I am of the mind that WHATEVER they do for the relics, be it an exploratory zone or otherwise, cannot double dip on something the player was already going to do anyway. In this example, roulettes. During EW I finished 3 relics and never once did a single roulette more than I had to do on any given day to accomplish this. Adding a relic that doesn't require any extra work is pointless, it feels cheap and unearned (because it is). The player should have to engage with content they otherwise wouldn't be (majority speaking), regardless of if said content is brand new or not. If not exploratory zones or world FATEs, they should send us into a deep dungeon or something. Maybe give Criterions a real point, you get the picture. They should require -effort-. Should that effort be fun? Well, fun is subjective but as this is a video game the answer to that should be yes leaning. Regardless however, they should require work.

[Burmecia]

While I’m not saying your opinion of farming is invalid there is the element of the relic has always been farming content

I’m not saying you said “I don’t want to farm for my relic” but the people who do say “I don’t like farming so that’s why I like tomestone relics” are basically saying they are walking into maccas and asking why they don’t serve KFC chicken strips

I grinded through arr and hw relics, i was expecting anima like experience with SB relic. When it was not i walked away, leaving people who liked that to enjoy.
EW relic was far from satisfying experience, but it was simple so i prefer even that to never ending fate rush.

It sounds like no one likes current relic, so again i havent been interested in it at all. But i dont think that voicing preferences is asking chicken in burger place level of weird in thread which seems to be asking for option i find less bad.

[Infindox]

It sounds like no one likes current relic, so again i havent been interested in it at all. But i dont think that voicing preferences is asking chicken in burger place level of weird in thread which seems to be asking for option i find less bad.

Current relic's only complaint is the demi-atma step. I would do them again though over whatever the hell they were doing in EW.

[Yeonhee]

That depends greatly on how easily one can collect poetics. I'm lucky I manage a little over a thousand a week from doing Wondrous Tails, Blue Mage challenges, and combat Society quests.

Looking at the Crystal Sand/Umbrite step for my HW relics right now, the variable 4000+ poetics means over a month for a single weapon, and that's after the months for the aether oil and Unidentifiable items before that. There is nothing "free" about any relic weapon demanding thousands of poetics unless someone is raking in 20,000+ a day.
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And did anyone find that substantial additional grind fun I wonder? I know I didn't, I would have sooner paid a 9000 tomes than do another book, dear lord.

When EW was current, the relics materials were not buyable with poetics but with the unlimited level 90 tomes, which you get from doing pretty much any roulette at level 90. You could very easily racked up 500 tomes per day just by doing your daily roulettes that you were gonna do anyway for the limited tomes. Essentially, you could get a relic stage every 3-4 days without going out of your way for it. So yeah, they were a 100% free.

[Destati]

This is the first time I have ever heard the grind of Relics compared to the effort of clearing Savage. I wouldn't consider them to be even remotely equivalent.

Bad phrasing on my part, sorry. I mean, obviously everyone's mileage will vary with this so it might not be the same amount of effort but it feels like the way SE sees it is if you want the strongest weapon you can either buckle down and learn harder content and prog to get your weapon, or you can take the easier and potentially slower route of grinding for the relic. Does that make more sense?

[Raikai]

It is tomestones.

However, before you get to the tomestone step, you first have to do the traditional relic grind to "earn" your relic. If you don't do that then you didn't earn it. In MMORPGs, you are meant to earn your rewards, otherwise they have no prestige or respect.

The grind is not that bad, really. If you think it's bad, then you should try playing older MMORPGs that make you grind for years to get things, and that's without accounting for eating and sleeping. This is a tiny fraction of that because it's a modern MMORPG.

I honestly think this method (unique grind of whatever is needed THEN just tomes for additional weapons) is the most balanced out they ever came up with, because it grabs the best of both worlds - well assuming the player isn't completely against RNG based grinds.

[Kozh]

I honestly think this method (unique grind of whatever is needed THEN just tomes for additional weapons) is the most balanced out they ever came up with, because it grabs the best of both worlds - well assuming the player isn't completely against RNG based grinds.

I have to agree. Well if it's up to me I wouldn't want any tomestone on my relic step, but I understand the need to compromise since the amount of jobs is growing. Still, I wish the initial grind is longer and more.. well, unique, than what we got right now. Maybe can balance it by actually lowering the amount of tomestone required for the next weapons.

[Shistar]

I literally just took DRK from 90 to 100 only doing FATEs and still needed 4 Demiatma. Currently needing just 3 now.

At least give us an option to buy the materials with Tomestones in addition to the normal way please. Say 200 each or heck even 500 would work for me.

I had some terrible luck working on one of my characters' Demiatmas too. Took me two days and a half to get the singular Demiatma I was missing, spending tons of time spawning CEs in the zone I needed (sometimes wasting them as the FATE wiped us once, somehow...) so I understand the struggle. I recommend trying out OC since the chances are better there, especially if the Demiatma you're missing is from a zone that is big enough to house multiple CEs and FATEs.

What I think we would benefit more from is being able to trade wrong Demiatmas for the type we need. We get the tomestone step right after, so two of them back to back would just be disappointing...

I'm genuinely curious. To all the people that seem to praise or at least defend the current relic steps that aren't tome based, do you find those steps fun and fulfilling to do? Do you have fun while farming fates? Do you find the fate gameplay enthralling or?

I personally had fun getting the Demiatmas because it was a good excuse to assemble my FC mates, get matching adventurer glams and do a chill activity that doesn't require a lot of brain power for anyone but is fun enough to do while chatting. We explored the map, figured things out as we went and we got our relic by the end of it, over a couple of weeks or so when this content came out. There's also the added bonus that it doesn't feel like you're not getting anything per se, because if you're not getting stuff for your relic you're still leveling up your Phantom Jobs/getting Knowledge.


The roulette step also encouraged me to finish up leveling some of my jobs, so that was also nice. I just wish there was an option to do this step in OC instead (which I believe they're adding in 7.4 if I understood correctly?)


I just like anything that allows me to drag my friends along for an adventure or simply an excuse to hang out, even if the adventure itself is not incredible 11/10 send out the fireworks, etc.
And having options to go about it is what I like as well. Don't like OC? You can do FATEs in the overworld, which also works towards your Shared FATE progress and gives you bicolor gemstones.


In short: Having multiple options to bounce between is good (maybe doing something like roulette items like the ShB memories from leveling roulette + regular FATEs + Field Ops + PvP as options would be best, so we can bounce between different things at will or laser-focus on the option we like best), having activities you can do with friends is good, having a Field Ops area that doesn't make me depressed just looking at it (Bozja...) is also good, being able to slowly progress multiple grinds at once is lovely.

[ChrysOCE]

The thing with the EW tomestone relics is, unless you like that particular look (and fair enough, same for all of them but whatever), there is absolutely no value to the EW relics. They are throwaway items. I doubt anyone is going to throw away an ARR, HW, Stb or Shb relic. Just due to the sheer amount of effort and time it takes to invest in obtaining a finished relic weapon. That is what relics should be. Not some fast-food like option.