I didn't really mind this relic grind. I skipped out on the atma farming by trading in my old Zeta (though I did wind up helping a friend farm over half of hers) but even that has a pretty decent drop rate that I wouldn't have cared about sitting through it. Dungeon step was easy and only took a couple of hours. Final step seems like a huge slog but if you're actively playing the game it's something you can always be chipping away at no matter what you're doing. I finished my relic 4 days ago and it flew by and didn't really feel like a grind at all. I joined a handful of A1N and A4N farm groups when I was bored and my friends were doing it but the grand majority of my items just came from poetics, law and maps. I had a ton of fun just dicking around in coil again with a bunch of friends and teaching new players the fights, maps can get pretty samey but just burning through some each day duoing with a friend has always been enjoyable to me for whatever reason. I probably wound up doing around 100~150 a1 and a4 combined which in hindsight sounds like a lot but it never felt like there was any pressure to do so. I'd join a group if a friend asked and knock out however many runs I felt like, if I got bored I'd just stop. I think so long as they can keep your options to actually progress varied like this I won't really mind however grindy it gets. If you're trying to rush the relic quickly it's probably going to be a struggle to sit through, but when there's a few different ways to actually feel like you're making headway on it (especially the tomestone options) it's kind of just an inevitability so long as you're not just idling in game all day. Steps like this and the old light grind are perfectly fine with me, it's when they expect me to sit around 3 hours waiting for a specific FATE to pop that I'll lose interest and not bother again.