Zodiac Weapon quests's feedback to Yoshida (since you asked for it from your letter)

[KingOfAbyss]

You have to look at the amount of complaints and react accordingly.
In an mmo, losing a significiant enough number of a players can or likely will lead to more players being unsatisfied (i.e. less player may lead to longer queues which may lead to even less player which may lead to even longer queues and so on - this circle is very hard to break. There are players who decide not to play a good game because it has to little population)

What people on forums are getting into: complain much - SE will nerf it. ( I mean, why getting into a forum anyway, to give constructive ideas? To say that so far ARR is a very good rehash of version 1.0, a great game so far? - nuuuuuu)

Smart ones catched on very quickly, and now the trend has changed from - it's challenging and fun, I like it that way! to - it's challenging, I don't like it, SE has to change else I will rage/quit the game.

Plus.. I don't know about your FC which I see lots that have 150 members, only 20-25 online at any time, each doing their own stuff, and not having the luck of being mixed with more than average players to down Coil and EM Primals. (do we really need to be that perfect to complete the endgame?)

Less people will enforce grouping, and FF Fan boys-girls might still stick to it. - No queue cause you would be playing entirely with your FC mates. Duty Roulette? bah, we can skip and help lower ones by becoming our member and helping them through content. (sorry japanese solo players - the which DR was implemented for? - you'll be on your own)

As for PvP - Sadly, I don't like PvP. I am just tempted by it because of the Lion set gear.. go to with my Warlion.. ty Glamour.

There will always be some that will be unpleased by any game features added.

I hate RNG myself, but if it's how SE made it for this game, and I play this game.. good luck to all, even Yoshi

[gryphn]

The fate situation for Atma grinding basically sucks Yoshida because this. Everyone in my server is constantly (24 hours a day) destroying the fates so most people don't even get to join in on and roll the proverbial dice to get atma, if that's even possible. I have spent 3 weeks and gotten 6 when other players get them in a day. This is pretty F#$%ED up and completely biased.

[Teslo]

The fate situation for Atma grinding basically sucks Yoshida because this. Everyone in my server is constantly (24 hours a day) destroying the fates so most people don't even get to join in on and roll the proverbial dice to get atma, if that's even possible. I have spent 3 weeks and gotten 6 when other players get them in a day. This is pretty F#$%ED up and completely biased.

This. ^

I'm not whining to get SE to make it easier. I don't want it to be easy. I want it to be FUN. The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm raging at the fact that I could literally be stuck at the number of Atmas that I currently have until the end of time, no matter how many FATEs I do. Is that likely? No. Have I spent a LOT more time than most people farming for these things with no payout? Yes. If this was a challenge of some kind, through some boss, or just a simple "Put in your time to get the stuff to advance the quest" I'd have it by now. THAT'S what I'm raging about.

[Zophar]

It's actually the opposite thing on my server. Everyone swarmed the fates the first week or two then stopped almost all together. Working on my third right now, and for the most part, I'm soloing. There may be a group running around during prime hours. But try going at night, and the zone is abandoned, and based on the number of fates it took me to get my first two sets of atmas with people running around destroying them in a minute or two, going to soloing each one over the span of 5-10 minutes each is.... unsettling. But, it does give me something to do.

[Immut]

My major issue with the atma quest is how it doesn't reward skill at all. You're doing ilvl 50 or less content to get an ilvl 100 weapon. That's just not right. I think Novus should require the completion of an ilvl 100+ 4 man instance. Mostly because we also need ilvl 100+ 4-man instances.

[Enepttastic]

Gonna chime in here and throw some info, that I'm sure has already been mentioned, as well as a suggested change. Before I begin, I played during beta, wasn't terribly thrilled with how many things were. Subbed because some RL friends are playing. That said...

Until now there have been mainly two means of progression: the first being defeating powerful enemies in end-game content to obtain high-item-level equipment, and the second being collecting Allagan tomestones to purchase gear. The Zodiac Weapons do not have the restrictions of these two methods, but are designed to take a long time to complete.

Source: Live Letter Q/A 04/09/2014

If the Zodiac Weapons aren't to be restricted by tomestones, I have to wonder as to why they currently require more tomes than it'd take to fully outfit a character with?
Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil - 225 Tomes
Thavnairian Mist - 300 x 3
Books - 1500 x 9
Total: 14625

This is compared to a full set of Myth Tome gear:
Head - 495
Body - 825
Hands - 495
Waist - 495
Legs - 825
Feet - 495
Earrings - 375
Necklace - 375
Rings - 375 x 2
Total - 5130

With the tomes one would use to upgrade a single relic, you could get THREE jobs worth of tome gear and have overlap thanks to the waist and accessory slots.

This is absurd in an of itself before even getting into the hells that is Atma farming, which is honestly a slap in the face toward the player base IMO. That said, here's my suggestion on reworking both Atma and book acquisition, while keeping in mind the stated purpose of the grinds:

Atma Acquisition: Head's up, still FATE grinding and dealing with RNG here, but with a few tweaks.

First off, upon receiving the quest, one obtains twelve key items, Atma Synthesizers, each tied to the appropriate Atma. Lore-wise, they exist to harvest energy from the Fate mobs and create Atma out of it. Participating in Fates in the appropriate zone allows the Synthesizer to collect a percentage of energy. Once full, use it to get the Atma.

This method has a few perks to it compared to the system as-is. For one, you can actually see progress. It may not be much but at least you see some. This also helps those who have the misfortune of having the RNG absolutely hate them. Even if you get the lowest amount of energy from each fate, you know you will get there eventually. Additionally, having the synthesizers would also remove the requirement of having a Zenith weapon equipped to farm, meaning you would have the option to level other jobs while farming for Atma. This would also help relieve some of the tedious nature of the system as-is.

Book Acquisition: Only changing HOW one gets the books here.
There's nine books and 11 pre-50 dungeons. Pick nine dungeons, make a quest for each book that requires you to defeat the final boss of a dungeon. Make each book a 100%(preferably 100%, no lower than 25%) drop from the designated dungeon instead. This would be given to the player directly and not something rolled on either similar to how Atmas are distributed currently.

What this does: Gives some incentive to run the low-level dungeons, and yet again can be done as one levels a different class as well which can aid in the tedium. This also removes the absurd Tome requirement from the books, which reduces an idiotically priced grind that was stated to not be a part of the Zodiac weapons to begin with.

[SecsyMancat]

Do you want an i100 weapons --> No --> stop reading
Yes--> Do you have skill? --> Yes --> SCOB
No --> Then do you really need an i100 weapon? --> No --> stop reading
Yes --> What size groups do you like? --> 8 man --> Go do Levi EX and pray to RNGesus for a mirror
1-4 man --> Get a Zodiak
--> But I came from WoW and really really really want free loot --> Go back to WoW

[Freyar]

It's not about free loot, it's about not wasting an absurd amount of player's time.

[Duuude007]

It's not about free loot, it's about not wasting an absurd amount of player's time.

Who's time is it wasting? If you want to save time to get an i100 weapon, you would be farming SCOB or Levi (or SC2 in a month).

Those are for people who are hardcore or casual, respectively. Animus is for everybody else who fits in neither category (or both).

You were granted 4 different i100+ weapons, pick your own play style and shoot for that one. Don't try to force something from the rest of us who legitimately like the Animus process.

It's not broken, don't try to fix it.

[JeniLinsky]

The bottom line is that we speak the wrong language for Square Enix to give two poops in a barrel what we think about anything in the game.