Can you please Ease Up on Atma now?

As far as I can tell, the people defending Atma grinds do so because they seem to have this idea that "Because I went through this much trouble, everyone should as well." It's some sort of bizarre fist-pounding contest with people not wanting something to be more accessible to others. It's stupid.
Atma grinding is just the start of an already long and annoying process to upgrade your relic, but it shouldn't be such a grind like this because a lot of people can't even FINISH it.
They can't get to the actual content because of this mind-numbing, not-fun-at-all grind that takes hours and hours of ridiculous FATE hunting just to OFFICIALLY start.
It needs to be more accessible to start it. Increase the drop of Atmas, so that we can do the actual hard part of getting the upgraded weapons.
The grind isn't difficult, no, but some people actually prefer having fun in a game, rather than trying to catch a bunch of worthless FATEs for 20+ hours only to get -nothing- to show for it.

I love how no one ever acknowledges my statement of:

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When Developers of a game create content, they should ask themselves this question:

"Would the players or myself do this content without any reward at the end?"

If the answer is yes. Add the content.
If the answer is no. Revamp the content to be fun.

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What's wrong with asking for 15-30 hour long content that is both fun and challenging?

I did the entire Manderville questline from start to finish in about an hour and a half (a little longer because of afk breaks and such). That was a fun quest. It wasn't challenging, but the rewards were a pet, a dance emote, and a ton of funny cutscenes to watch. That is how you make content.

You make them FUN. Then you assign them a challenge based on the reward. But the FUN comes first.

No one can explain why Atma shouldn't be a fun 15-30 hour challenging questline. They can't. There's no argument for that. Even opponents to the idea of changing it will NOT have the intestinal fortitude to debate my point. Because they know they are in the wrong. They got theirs and want everyone else to suffer. It is only cynicism, selfishness, and spite that motivates their argument.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

No one can explain why Atma shouldn't be a fun 15-30 hour challenging questline. They can't.

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That would require reworking the ENTIRE portion of the relic chain post +1. That's why no one is contesting it.

Just bring back LUCK as a stat and at least we can FEEL somewhat in control on this crap.

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Originally Posted by ZReport

Smart people do this. Dumb people will try to finish every FATE one at a time.

You can get Atma, even on failed FATEs.

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thats an odd way of spelling A***holes.

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Originally Posted by UltimateAoe2

I don't get why you're complaining.

My raid member started his Atma gathering on Tuesday.
He has the Summoner Atma Book by Friday. He did not stay up all day or night. He simply did them when available.


...99% of the threads I've seen haven't spent enough time on atma farm.

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Was Atma farming with Kusari-Chan for several weeks, averaging about 5 hours per day.... somtimes in the same zone.

spent 5 hours in middle la noscea with kusari chan
got 2 ram
she got none.

its not a matter of 'time'. Your continued claim of such is sheer ignorance.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

What's wrong with asking for 15-30 hour long content that is both fun and challenging?

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Because that would require actual DEV effort?
Slapping a super low RNG droprate on preexisting content, forcing your players to relive it for RNGesus knows how long is about as cheap and easy as you can make it.
Too bad that the Asian community adores such gameplay, that's why they can get away with it time and time again.

In this particular case, you also have the added benefit of making the world seem alive and allowing the few remaining lowbies to be very active on fates they often could not complete solo or duo.

So, from what I see in this thread...

Some people still mistake easy/hard for short/long. If beating up low-lvl mobs with your 1-5 combos is actually hard for you, you probably haven't even done the Relic Reborn questline when AK was not yet nerfed (not to even mention the other parts of it).

Some people seem to think that some others just "want an easy way out of it". On one hand, that's understandable if so: Atma is outdated content, and stuff that came even after that has already been nerfed a lot, so why not this? On the other hand: re: easy/hard and short/long, the problem isn't the difficulty level, it's the lack of sense of progression. In every other part of the whole relic questline, you know where you are at any given point in time. (Animus might be "harder", but you'll know how much you have left to do. Novus melds can fail, yes, but you still retain the alexandrites.) With atma? Yeah, you might have 11 already and only need 1, but that one might as well take longer to acquire than the 11 before - as good a chance of that happening as getting it in the very next FATE. It's just stupid.

Some people seem to justify it with being rewarded by the Relic Atma weapon. The only true part of that is for the level of difficulty, the level of "reward" seems to be in balance: a recolor and an ilvl number bump for beating up low-lvl mobs. The problem is that it's not a "reward", it's a win. You haven't been training to get better to eventually finish something that requires skill, you are just throwing yourself at a rock with the label "luck" on it. That's something casinos are for. Not to mention that by the time you win it, you're most probably sick of even the markers of FATEs on your minimap and you don't even feel happy about it, just sigh and feel relieved it's over. (Compare Zenith: that recolor + ilvl bump, which actually bumped stats as well, was far more straightforward to obtain, even when you couldn't yet pick myth tomes off every orange tree in La Noscea.) And hey, if you love farming FATEs so much, there's nothing stopping you to just go out there and do it. You'll also be adequately rewarded with GC seals.

Some people seem to think that because they "worked hard" for it, it shouldn't be made any easier for those who are still to do it. Well... sorry, but you haven't worked at all (especially those that claim they got theirs in a matter of few days, with like 1-200 FATEs). You showed perseverance, I'll give you that - but anyone who commits themselves to the relic questline, commits themselves to doing just that. But, once again, atma is outdated content and it will continue to grow even more outdated - or are you saying nothing you've managed to do in its original form should ever be changed? (And hey, if they do drop out halfway, why would it hurt you? It'll be their lost time and energy, not yours.)

FATEs were designed for casuals - anyone can pop in any time, everyone's free to ignore them. The fact that they were turned into grinds by hardcore powerlevellers is one thing (XP rewards being higher than what you could get in dungeons, for example), but that doesn't mean everybody loves this kind of grind. In fact, like I said, many I know have hated it back then already. You think open world would be so dead that we have to be forced back to such content if people liked doing it? But it's not a solution to the problem; it's a band-aid slapped onto it that if you scratch, you'll see the ugly wound beneath.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Some people still mistake easy/hard for short/long.

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Well in an MMO there are 2 reward schemes:
Reward time invested.
Reward skill.

Both have their purpose and both appeal to a different audience.
There is nothing wrong with an easy but time consuming grind. You still need to put in effort and show dedication in order to succeed.
However if only raw RNG decides whether you get your reward or not, while making dude A do 3x the amount of work dude B did, because dude B got lucky, that's crappy and unfair design and shouldn't exist in games.
At least not w/o a safety net to keep the amount of effort similar for everybody.

Real life is often unfair enough when it comes to luck, we don't need that in games. (personal opinion of course)

Real Talk.


I stopped playing when 2.2 hit because I wasn't into the Atma Grind at the time, plus lots was not known about it. I took a break from the game and came back two weeks ago. Now I play quite a bit every day, but my time is split between a lot of activities. I help FC members with things they need done, and sometimes end up just afking awhile looking at the forums and other websites. In the last two weeks I've Capped i90 gear on near all 9 of my jobs, and started gearing out my main. I ran through the Atma quest on my main and am nearly done with upgrading animus, while also getting ready to work on the second. I also Zenith'd all the remaining relics I hadn't. I still feel Atma is a terrible grind. I've been having fun working on the Animus (at a rate of a book a day,) and am looking forward to the Novus.

My FC mate just hit 50 about the time I came back, and we ran her through all her Relic quest to get her Relic, and then she was able to immediately Zenith it. Not a day or two later she was also full i90, and had unlocked roulettes. The way the game is set up is to allow people to catch up so that there are more players able to play at the "current step" of content, but right now Atma is a real wall to this concept.

While personally it didn't take me long I can see how frustrating it can be to others who are having trouble finding those certain few. There are strats that can help speed it up a little; like tagging all fates in the zone to make sure you get at least fail on all of them, and thus more chances for Atma, but it still takes quite a bit of time if you have bad luck. Most of the time I spent grinding Atma was in South Thanlan. It just wouldn't drop, but my FC mate who came to help me fight Return to Cinder for my Animus book got one; the first fate after getting Zenith.

That's how luck works. Just bare with it, and hopefully they'll increase the rate some. Now I need to get back to doing my other 8 (soon to be 9 with Nin..) Relics.