Given the acrimony that have been stirred in this thread in response to a legitimate issue (Relics as implemented in 0.35), I thought I would put a capstone on this commentary with some reflections as a result of the 0.36 Update (surprisingly, they are mostly positive!)
As addressed previously, my main concern (beyond the patch note delivery) was that with the number of relic types introduced (60!) and the amount required to evolve items (4 every rarity beyond Uncommon!), whatever systems were introduced in 0.36 would be inadequate to allow players to reasonably over time evolve gear. Thankfully, the developers clearly understood the same issue and put in a much needed change:
This is pretty big! I want to be very clear throated here: This is a good change and I think goes a long way to mitigating the issue. I understand that Glyphs will still be a sore point, but I’ve always assumed these were going to be costly and rare and we will see what changes are in store down the line. But as it pertains to Relics, this change is good to see. One concern I continue to have on evolves: the midrange runes/scrolls, particularly the epic rarities are hard to target and at the rate that they are collected could very well end up being more of a challenge to collect than the Relics for desired evolves over time. Better ways to target specific rarities without having to do lesser level content would be good; the ability to use higher rarity versions of the same runes/scrolls for equal or lower rarities I think would be better.
What about the concern that Relics would be locked behind a “drip” system and there would be no way to acquire them outside of that system which would render doing non-event content less rewarding? Indirectly, I think they took a good step to addressing that as well. I had originally assumed when they confirmed that Relics would show up in Daily Deals that they would be priced in gems/crowns currency only. Given the “conversion rates” previously calculated I was not optimistic about the gems prices. However, much to my surprise, the majority of Relic offers in the Daily Deals so far seem to be denominated in gold and at reasonable values per rarity. Given that gold is an infinitely farmable resource, this goes part way to addressing this concern; the ability to “farm” for Relics outside the event system. Is it ideal? No; I still think rates on relics should be increased from Dungeon completions as a way to be more targetable (especially in light of the changes to “Difficulty”). But I appreciate this approach and helps to not only provide additional Relics from “farming” (non-Event/Challenge play) but also provides a reasonable use for gold which was absent pre-0.36.
There are many other issues that 0.36 has brought about that need to be addressed, but for this specific issue I would like to acknowledge the changes that were made as a positive step.