Von WeskAlber

47 Gedanken zu „FFXIV – Relic Grinds and Why They Matter“
  1. i have so much to do and catch up on this game i am 3 months in just lost my (its okay if you f**k up) symbol i understand people who been playing this since 10? years have maybe nothing to do but i am somehow glad i can just pick up a good weapon and have fun at max level without farming for that too expremely long, besides the manderville questline since arr wasn't really a walk in the park to complete too, and this game has sooo much to do and grind and unlock i am pretty sure nobody could really do 100% of everything in it, bit i still wish there will be a mmorpg as good as ffxiv coming out soon where i can be active from the very start and be a OG like wesk here, something build up like ffxiv but in a cyberpunk 2077 kind of future world would be a absolute dream

  2. The Relic grind this time is doing Hildibrand.

    You underestimate just how large a percentage of players find it to be just that: a tedious, grinding, unfun (and unfunny) bore. (Not I; I love it so I came in all caught up.)

    Spending current Tomestones on gained from what you were doing anyways after that to get/upgrade? Sugar to make the medicine go down- nothing more.

    At most, I would see acceptance of tie-ins to Island Sanctuary or the Variant Dungeon, but otherwise I think "Relics must be grindy" are as on their way out here as they are in competing MMOs with encounter design (and difficulty) replacing it in priority.

  3. One thing I feel like doesn't get stated enough in XIV is that there's often no reason to be out in the world for anything, especially this expansion. The only thing that really gets people out into the zones are hunt trains, but otherwise the new zones feel hollow and empty with basically zero player engagement. It's really a shame the Relic isn't being used to help address this, but I also really think SE need to go back to the drawing board in how they're designing content to bring more life to the zones. Making FATEs more diverse with mini-games (like what WoW has done with weekly quests in Dragonflight) and making them more rewarding to do would probably help quite a lot.

    Even just something like a traveling Gold Saucer troupe that setup jump quests and other events in random zones periodically would help a lot.

  4. I really think that you present the various points of view in a very calm and neutral tone, which is a very refreshing change from some of the posts in social media. Not that I blame people- i understand that they are disappointed – I would really recommend your video since you really present various points of view from someone who has done all of the relics and also understand s various player segments.

    Personally I would be fine if this relic had more of a grind IF we get the approach that we could choose our content and not be forced to repeat specific content over and over, AND if in return for that grind the weapon ilevel and patch made it worth the effort.

  5. I've noticed that a very vocal portion of this game's playerbase just straight up don't want to play the game and get annoyed when the devs actually make them play the game to get rewards. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I started playing in ShB and, even though I have some criticisms of Bozja and Eureka, they were still the most fun I had playing the game just bc it felt like I was actually working towards a goal. The new relic "grind" doesn't fill that void for me at all personally, and as someone who isn't doing savage rn, my time playing in between patch cycles is literally just dailies with the occasional mount farm. I wish I had something to get me excited about playing this expansion besides patch days.

    Skipping through the Manderville cutscenes and doing dailies I was going to do anyway, is easy, but not engaging.

  6. I just sell Mistletoe with my tomes now, I'd rather have a gold mount than an Endwalker relic at this point, they took all the relic's prestige away with the stupid zero-effort Manderville tome quests. Will be a fine poetics dump if I still like the look I guess.

    I miss Eureka man. I wish they retroactively added Eureka weapons for GNB and RPR so I have an excuse to return to Eureka, I have all the weapons for my StB main jobs so I'm kind of done with Eureka. It wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed it myself, it was chill and social content, the kind you rarely see in modern MMOs.

    Why does the relic need to be for everybody anyway? Ultimate is certainly not for everybody and they made 2 this expansion. PvP is not for everybody and they still made CC. Heck the PvP is the best thing Endwalker gave us! Relic weapons used to be content for casual and midcore players who play the full expansion to give them something fun and social to do with their sub, and gives you something cool to show off at the end. Now that content doesn't exist anymore and we have nothing to do.

    Perhaps the support for this is indicative that the game needs a "mini-relic" mid-expansion for people who can't put the time to get a real one. Or perhaps the relic should be something like you get the base weapon for watching cutscenes and story, but you need to actually play the game to put on it. But this… just isn't it man. There is nothing exciting about the Manderville weapons.

  7. Thank you! Relics are supposed to be a personal achievement, not just handed to you easier than dungeon loot. It goves the illusion of way more content because you have a set goal and it makes you do content you otherwise would not be doing. It's baffling to me they couldn't at least tie it to Criterion or the new Deep Dungeon at least. I feel less attached to these relics than I do to random stuff I bought in the moogle tomestone events because you at least have to go out of your way to do certain content for moogle tomes.

  8. I'm happy with the Manderville weapons. I know they're not crazy interesting but I've done every relic weapon on release since ARR and this is the first time I felt…idk kinda free? Eureka led to horrible burn out where I needed to step away from the game twice. Bozja burnt me out as well, tho I played thru it. Endwalker is the most I've ever stayed logged into the game and I attribute part of that to not being bogged down relic grinding. I've finally found time to start progging UCoB and some DSR which has been so much fun. There's still a lot I want to do like blue mage raids and criterion savage. I think this type of relic came at the right time for somebody like me. However, I am still down for another exploratory zone in 7.X. Bring it on!

  9. I dunno man. I've got every relic in the game as well (including Physeos). I would think that since you're also in that achievement grindset (top 10 life), you would also share the opinion that the weapons were always 'softcore' grinding anyway. I like that I can do it passively while doing other in-game activities – rather than be forced to do one activity that I otherwise wouldn't be doing. (I mean, yea – Stormblood FATEs gives me Fate achievement progress towards 10k but uh.. literally nothing else :/ Doesn't tickle that multi-tasking itch). Astronomy Tomes ARE variety. I've been earning mine from farming FL's for Wins and Mentor Roulettes. Hunts? Treasure Maps? As long as you're actively playing, you get your relic. And not only that, now you can get as many weapons as you want if you're playing casually. I love that.

    You touched on the fact that there's a lot of 'varied' content in EW. This is the problem I think people are bumping into, but don't really realize. For people who don't want to engage in deep dungeon, or islands, or pvp fomo series rewards, variant currency – the game isn't pushing people into a singular direction like with the last two instanced mega zones. There's entire sections of this expansion that players are choosing not to engage with – and that's OK! Could they have tied all of these additions together with the relics? Yes. But could you imagine each of these things being required for the weapon step?: 100k Cowries? 100 Sil'dihn potsherds? 25 Crystal Conflict Victories??? People would fucking riot.

    (You mentioned HW relics, but speed running 255 DRNs made me the saltiest out of every step of every weapon to date. Group formation for efficiency is so toxic. Never again.)

    EDIT: Inb4 the final step is 1m MGP.

  10. The people saying you're stupid if you want an excuse to break your routine for a positive grind that isn't stressful as high end raiding……. like. I don't even know what to say. Stupid. Yes, being able to articulate exactly what I'm missing this time around means I'm clearly dumb. Cool.

  11. Im not a big relic weapon grinder. But changing the big expansion weapon to nothing was a bad call. Next expansion lets just give out extreme mounts on the first clear to all 8 players wouldnt want there to be too much grind…

  12. Every single person claiming this is too easy ..was complaining that eureka was too much and Anima fate grinding was the devil..no one is ever just happy..and that's why it's simple now all the team ever heard was why must I do so much….

  13. I really wasn’t too bothered about the first two steps of the Manderville weapons as I thought it was going to be like ShB. The first few steps being basically free, then the begin with the grind. From what you’re saying though, it doesn’t seem like it’s going that way.

    I’m not sure how to feel about it, I suppose it gives me time to do other content and having farmed previous relics, I’d still like the grind to exist somewhere. I feel like they’re missing the mark with relics but hopefully we will get a better system soon or at some point in the future.

  14. I personally think it more comes down to how burned out a player would feel after the grind regardless if the actual progression is fun or unique or whatever.

    Me personally after experiencing Zodiac grind and got my hands on my first Zeta,I'll promised to never go through such exhaustion ever again.it's just not worth it.
    The Burnout left me not playing the game for a week even through there is no denying the reward was TOO damn satisfying ya know ? It felt like i got a badge i should be proud of and my friends also happy for me even through they put their time by carrying me onto grinds that requires me to do 20+ unsync trails.
    and not to mention,It did felt like breath of fresh air and i actually put my time onto something i never bothered…Like doing 10s dungeons or Fates where i only done them once to twice before i started the chain.

    so after hearing how easy it is to obtain the Manderville Relics i was a bit glad cus i don't have to go through such grind let alone burning out again but at the same time i don't like the feeling of getting such rewards in a silver platter too.

    I'd say the grind needs a proper balance in between actual hard work and effort while also be comfortable and fun to go through.
    Something that's genuinely not as burn out inducing as the Zodiac/Resistance relics nor is it Effortless as the Manderville Relics.

    Make the grind somewhat like that and i am sure both parties would find an understanding cus i can see why most people prefers Manderville Relics grind AND I can also see why many liked the Anima relic grind cus apparently it's just like what i mentioned above.

  15. I've been thinking a bit about this since cider spider made a video about this and I noticed I've probably done most of EW dungeons (sabe expert/90)not more than twice because after the msq is done, nobody's queueing for it. There's a lot of content people just forget because there's no need for it.

    My point is, Relic steps may help on that too

  16. They've done so much experimentation in the past, only to drop it all to make the entire game mostly designed for hypercasuals. I am definitely seeing more people ready to quit the game too, including some ultimate raiders.

  17. Hello! I'm a total newbie, levelling my first class. I've already completed realm reborn, going towards the end of main heavensword. I wonder, if it is necessary to grind end-part-of-story relics, or I can just focus on the story flow until the last expansion, and grind the older ones only for cosmetics? Or you grind up your first relic in realm reborn, and then progress it through all the expansions? Sorry for dummy questions

  18. I still will always say that Eureka and Bozja were the best relic content by far. I played in Bozja for weeks if not months just grabbing all the relics I wanted, it was this whole other world of content to engage with, it was a lot of fun. I'm hoping YoshiP skipping it this expansion is due to them maybe working on something really big or unique for the next expansion and they don't have the staff to work on Bozja style content right now.

  19. So far I've completed one relic weapon and that was the Zodiac relic. That was fun, I like the grind/farm. Currently working on one Anima relic for now. I'm on the last couple of steps to finish it. I understand the feeling of "wow! I finally did it!"

  20. I do wish the grind for the 2nd step was bigger. Do not mind the first step being as simplistic. I just look at this from a perspective though that wonders if resources that normally would be put towards the relic stuff was redirected to the graphics overhaul, or other stuff, and thus when Yoshi looked at the big picture and had to choose an item to cut on, the relics just fell short on the list. Will have to see what comes going forward, but I do wonder if some of the bigger projects coming caused the relic step to suffer.

  21. In endwalker we have a deep dungeon, more creative normal dungeons, criterion dungeons, reworked pvp, variant dungeons, and yet none (beside normal dungs) are done either for cosmetics, like an umbrella, a mount, or a title. The relic would've been the perfect way to make people do all this content again.

  22. It’s wild to see that they basically threw away relic content and gave us what? Nothing in return. FFXIV since ShB has been taking away content and not replacing it. Hell, they could’ve revived Anemos at least the first area for a step if they weren’t going to give us an area, and then maybe revive Bozjas first area for another step. Just feels bland to just basically do dailies to get the relic. They can go back to have a FATE grind in older areas even like yokai. But tomes is just boring.

  23. Really good video! I'm a new-ish player (August 2022) but I've done an Anima weapon and I'm halfway through another, and I want to do a Zodiac as well! I personally really like that we're not being forced to go to some random instanced area to do menial tasks and nothing else for weeks on end to get a relic weapon, but I definitely feel like the variety is really missing.

    The best part of Anima weapons is that it's not JUST tomes: You're going around doing FATEs, raids, dungeons, roulettes, CT (that quest got removed now :(), getting GC seals, DoH/DoL, all SORTS of stuff that makes you run all around everything the game has to offer to gather the materials you need. JUST getting tomes is limited to a few sources, and as you said, EW has a MASSIVE variety of content! I don't see the problem of making it so, I dunno, Orthos or Sildhin can drop some materials, or Barb EX can drop another, or maybe you can buy them with Faux Leaves…

    They can pretty easily integrate so much side content into the relic quest but they just aren't right now 🙁

    Beats going to Eureka any day though, holy shit I fucking hate that place

  24. not having something goal-oriented to work towards is my problem with the manderville relics. but more than that, i can't appreciate them because the steps being only "do dailies to pay 1500 endgame tomes" feels like it cheapens the Hildibrand quests associated with the weapons in the first place, and that makes me very sad because i adore those quests quite a lot. someone only doing them because they want a cheap shiny that's worth the same effort as getting endgame poetic gear? ok i don't normally judge how a person plays, (as long as they're not griefing) but also i am absolutely judging them for that specifically.

  25. The relic steps so far is 2 days = relic upgrade per weapon and it takes 4 days currently as of this post to get 1 full weapon obtained by doing all roulettes. In time i had all of them without really trying hard. In the past i felt a want and need to set a sechedule of what i plan to do for the relic step. Like i'll go into Eureka back in SB for a lockout or two to progress slowly on the weapon and not burn out. Bozja i did the same even with alternatives and did the better one.
    Manderville Relic is just…bad. Boring. Back during Mists of Pandaria in wow, the Legendary Cloak Quest had some design ques some would say mirror older relics in ff14 with how they interconnect with bits of content (except the forced PVP step) and each one required different materials or attend different raids to obtain. Making people go back to the older ones on alts if they had organized players and friends. Even Warlords had a better grind for a powerful item step than Manderville.

    It's also not just the grind. The Story around the weapon feels like the WOL is 100% uninvolved unlike other steps. There was in game explaination for why the WOL would go to older content during Anima grind. It was literally them remembering to give into the weapon and provide it power. In Eureka they were tasked to find ingredients for Gerolt to empower the class weapon further because they could only be the ones to venture out to grab them. even SHB with Bozja has lore reason for the content choices of why these parts are obtained in other bits of content.

    Manderville is literally this: Godbert tells you ancestor once made powerful weapons and he wants to get them made because he saw the final days and wished to create them to help in some way if tragedy came about once more. But every step is more about Godbert and him looking for the ingredients, giving Gerolt the inspiration or tools, he is the one driving the weapon quest not the WOL. Not You! You are just a pack mule of tomestones to buy them from a convenient vendor to do HIS quest. It's just deflating as a whole. At least the ARR relics when it came to light farming the explanation is to try the weapon out for yourself and empower it through the combat. Actively making your character involved.

    Even if the final look and glow are amazing i just can't shake the feeling that these are mass produced In Lore compared to the others.

  26. I've been playing for something like three and a half years now but two of those years were as a free trial. During the free trial period I got one ARR relic and all HW relics. After I subbed to the game I got two more ARR relics alongside some friends and a StB relic and some armour pieces. I still haven't finished the msq. I am at the very start of EW. I'm doing Bozja now. So knowing all that I have to say that I absolutely hate grinds in games. I think that they are more of an excuse for the developers to just include something mindless or boring instead of something actually interesting to do. I agree on a lot of your points. Doing relics with friends and being social can be a lot of fun. But doing them alone is one of the most boring and tedious experiences in the game. I hate doing fates alone. I think fates shouldn't even exist. Just leave the big fates that require more people. But again this is only my opinion. I really didn't like Eureka. Sure you had a lot of people but mindlessly grinding mobs to spawn boring fates was really tedious. Right now I'm enjoying Bozja a lot more because encounters spawn way faster and are actually somewhat challenging and the social factor is even bigger in my opinion. I've had more conversations in Bozja for the past few days than in Eureka for a month. I think that the cooperation to down something that's actually somewhat challenging and requires some attention is the reason but I might be wrong. This all is why I also don't enjoy deep dungeons. They feel very samey and boring to me. I've done PotD once to floor 180 with 3 other friends and that was kind of fun just because we were together. The actual content wasn't fun in my opinion. That's why I'll never do a solo run, I just find it boring. I do savage raids and what not because you have the challenge and also the social aspect. I still haven't done anything in EW so I have no idea how the relic grind is done there. I believe there is a sweet spot, somewhere in the middle, not too grindy but not without any grind at all. But I absolutely think that they should encourage cooperation and socializing during the grind because everything is more fun with friends. Again this is only a single opinion. I do not disagree with anyone. You can like what you like and you are not wrong to do so. Just sharing my thoughts.

  27. I'd prefer a grind, but nothing on the level of the past relics.
    Doing the HW relic series is a fucking borefest of a grind in the early steps (seriously, the Anima step (between Awoken and Hyperconductive) is a snoozfest of grinding out A1-4 30 times each (or spending even longer grinding Poetics tomestones (OR EVEN LONGER grinding Tribe quests))). To me, that's way too far in the grindy direction.

  28. 12:02 I love reclic grinds, I HATE the yokia event. Fate open world grinding has almost never been fun. Litgit any other type of grind is more fun. I will ALWAYS prefer stuff like Euraka and Bozja fate grinds where they are like boss gauntlets.

    What I'm most surprised about however. Is that Variant dungeons were RIGHT THERE. They had a PERFECT candidate to tie them too, with an alternate route of Criterion dungeons that they could have made "harder but faster to get your shiny stick of choice". Considering how sparse the rewards for VC dungeons are as well. It would have added a much needed reason to do them. They are functionally dead content RN on my DC.

    And this is coming from ME, the guy who often says that if you need to get a shiny stick at the end to want to play a game, then you shouldn't be playing that game because you don't enjoy it, you enjoy getting the shiny stick. Honestly I'm sick of modern games and grind. It's more often then not just a way to pad out a game. How about spending that time used to make a grind, to instead make a longer game that actually has content?

  29. I don't mind the grind for ARR relics but I always thought they should've get rid of the materia step since the materials are now very expensive and you don't need the stat increase at all. Also the light grinding step needs to be normal rather than having a randomized double light timer which prolongs the dungeon runs.

  30. Its not just the lack of the relic grind. Its everything in conjunction. I was excited for the deep dungeon because i remember when HoH launched and the weapon from that was an okay upgrade if you didnt want to do the relic and a fun grind with loot bags! But the weapon from orthos is worse than the manderville and the manderville is 100% easier too get so…why bother with it?

  31. running the same raid over and over and over and over and over 100 times in a row PER GOD DAMN JOB is NEVER EVER fun EVER, or in the worst case of original HW, 640 RUNS OF THE ALEX RAIDS… NO… we need ALTERNATIVES, not A GIANT MULTI HUNDRED RAID SPAM SHIT SHOW

  32. At least we have new savage coming in just over two weeks. They could trash these weapons permanently as long as I get 3 savage tiers, 2 ultimates, and 6 extremes every xpac. I spend so much time with this game just doing prog, it’s no wonder people who don’t do hard content are bored. They aren’t wasting hundreds of hours progging top like us masochists. If I hadn’t sunk all the time I had into clearing and reclearing dsr and top, I would’ve def quit this game this xpac due to boredom. But they always give me the content I want so I’m happy, hope they keep it up.

  33. I love adventure forays and deep dungeons. They said we werent getting eureka/bozja but get a deep dungeon Ethos. They literally gave us the perfect content to tie relics to in some way similar to how blades you could get timeworns from potd floors sets. They completely bamboozled! Another way would be doing Fates in ShB/EW, this EW relic, going to ARR or HW is not

  34. When I got to Radz at Han, with Godbert, I totally expected him to expect me to find the Manderville Meteorite Shards scattered all across Eorzea… as a thought: Maybe there are several nodes scattered across Eorzea, and each node has a Hunt boss level fight attached to it? So, the nodes spawn randomly, and you have to do a Hunt for access, but everyone in the Hunt can collect the node?

  35. I never really find Grinding Rewarding,. Well atleast certain grinds are not rewarding.

    ARR had a few good interesting ideas, I really liked the Book, but the Crystal RNG was annoying.

    HW was more of a Tomestone grind now then it was for EW. I believe my item was around 9-10k Poetics, and I still had to throw in about 90-100k Gil for materials, and I still haven't gotten myself my Lux yet.

    SB, is literally the worst one to get because it is completely tied to Eureka, and Eureka is very Low Population, it was ok, when it was released, because it was a new thing but as time goes on, this makes it harder and harder to reach, it is not satisfying it is just annoying. I gave up because I took a break from Eureka, and by the time I decided to get back into it, I found no one really their to help me get caught up and get the gear.

    ShB was the time I really was determined to do Relics, and it was annoying to say the least. I never been so angry at seeing Blue Mages, since the Yokai Watch Event. The First one was a rewarding thing for the grind, but that only lasted for the first one, every other weapon was very much a hassle, it took me a day or two grind to get my First 2 Relic, but it took me a month to get the willingness to finish my 3rd, by the time I finished my 4th, I literally gave up trying to obtain any more because it wasn't worth it.. And similar to Eureka, Bozja is pretty empty.
    ———–

    How EW is handing it so far may not seem the most exciting or time consuming, I still feel the most at ease getting the Relics, it is not a hassle, and I can grind any max level content I want and I can get the Relic, I can't do that with any of the others.

  36. I only started playing when Endwalker got released, so perhaps that doesn't bother me as much, but I can honestly say that I absolutely hate grinding for grinding's sake. This is just my opinion, but if I can stockpile materials for later, I'm all for that. I think grinding just to have something to do feels artificial, and it feels like the game is just using this as an excuse to artificially inflate the play time. At the end of a long grind, I only get satisfaction if it DIDN'T feel like a waste of time. For example, I lave and hated getting the Eureka weapons and gear. Once I go them, I felt relieved and satisfied. Then when I beat Shadowbringers and did the Bozjan weapons, I got seriously bored with how long it was taking me to do the same thing over and over. When I completed by Resistance weapon, it felt more like "about time, it's finally over" instead of a moment of triumph. The Resistance Gear in particular felt way too boring to grind, so much so that I only completed one set and one weapon and said never again. With Eureka, I got all my healer weapons and the summoner weapon because it didn't feel that bad and the grind wasn't as long. I'm still doing the EndWalker MSQ so I haven't started my Manderville weapons yet, but I'm not upset with being able to stockpile what I need so I don't have to grind. That's how I feel at least.

  37. Not gonna lie, with Ultimate Weapons being much more fun and much better looking weapons, they need to make better incentives to make relics worth my time again.
    Maybe make them +5 iLVL during the current savage tier, because IMO there's zero point in making a weaker relic when the step to get said relic is months after the savage tier drops anyway.
    Also might need to have better designs; they don't NEED to be ultimate weapon level, but I feel like they haven't matched the quality of ARR/HW relics since.

    As it currently is, I like not having to grind them. They're weaker weapons and don't look as good as ultimate weapons. But if those change, I'd be onboard with the grind.

  38. thankfully i started raiding in endwalker and got the savage weapons cause i would have been pissed if i didnt raided and didnt have a relic to grind so it doesnt affect me that much i just hope this is a one off occurence cause part of the team is working on ff16 hope the next expansion will have more interesting content cause so far all of the non raid content in EW feels lackluster criterion was fun for a bit but is pretty dead now the playerbase will always catchup to whatever is new in island sanctuary faster than the devs can make content for it so what else is there for casual content?

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert