I think how quickly you get to relics depend on several factors.
For veteran players that have most ship nodes, cantina nodes, and hard nodes done it isn't that bad.
However newer players that still need to farm shards from those nodes face a much longer timeline.
If you are still having to farm characters from cantina, relic signal data is very slow to get. If you are still farming your ship node characters, g12 gear takes longer. If you are still farming hard nodes, kyros take longer.
The guild event store is great to reduce the stun gun crunch but if you are still getting hoda, wampa, gas, or malak from there that option doesn't help.
I don't think the gear crunch is as bad for players that have played for 5 years. However, for newer players it is a pretty steep climb. Adding another challenge tier with stun guns and kyros would go a long way to make to better.
