Why bother with ATMA now?

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Originally Posted by Yotsu

because this (in my opinion) is retarded

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This. That is all

So let me get this straight:

relic weapon will have to keep updating in order to catch up with coil weapons. By the time you get to, say, ilv215 Coil weapons, relic will have add an extension grind to the chain to compensate. That means if you start from the beginning, that's one incredibly long grind to keep your relic up-to-date. Who really benefits from this?

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Originally Posted by Dalvy

So let me get this straight:

relic weapon will have to keep updating in order to catch up with coil weapons. By the time you get to, say, ilv215 Coil weapons, relic will have add an extension grind to the chain to compensate. That means if you start from the beginning, that's one incredibly long grind to keep your relic up-to-date. Who really benefits from this?

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People who can't beat coils due to various issues. (ie. they're bad, or they just rp, or their connection is bad, etc...)

I got to the 2nd book stage before I gave it up before I gave the game up. It was the most miserable gaming experiences I've ever had and I've been playing games since the days of the Spectrum.

Coil also doesn't guarantee drops. You could farm coil every week and never see your weapon drop. The RNG in coil or horrible. The relic quest at least guarantees you get a near top weapon. Once HA sword drops I'll have all 3 i110-115 PLD weapons and won't regret it at all.

SE gave the player base multiple options to get to the same place. or close to the same place. There is no right way to play the game.

Do you have to do Animus? no...
Do you have to do Coil? no....

Can you do both? yes...

Does one marginalize the other? no....

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Originally Posted by AIex

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Being bad/having a bad connection is irrelevant when people have options as to how they want to go about getting their coil weapon, i.e. forming your own team of people who don't care that you're bad. Yes, those exist.

I'm talking about newbies in the future who look at the quest chain length, and wonder whether it's worth the time spent. Most of us have had the benefit of farming tokens with a massive amount of people all doing the same objectives. Future newbies will not have that initial rush to help them quickly farm what they need. Their time spent getting to current would have been much longer--it's just like starting a new game late into an expansion. Personally, if you wanted something close to BiS that badly, it's time better spent attempting coil weapons.

RNG in coil is also irrelevant, because you're doing the exact same thing with Atma & Alexandrite. Atma drop rate threads, anyone?

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Originally Posted by Dalvy

RNG in coil is also irrelevant, because you're doing the exact same thing with Atma & Alexandrite. Atma drop rate threads, anyone?

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They are totally different. Locked out RNG vs spamable content. Tonight is my 14th week of coil2 and I have zero left side fending drops. They haven't dropped a single time for my static. Players have no control over the RNG and have one shot a week.

ATMA farming I was very unlucky with central shroud taking over 18hrs. But after 15ish days of spamming I was done. Alex aren't even comparable. They are guaranteed from a quest, can be purchased with myth and lastly can be RNG fate farmed.

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Originally Posted by Ringabell

Just know that the Sol weapon will likely never be upgraded, whereas Novus is not the end of the Relic line.

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This is entirely possible. However, if SE decides to stop providing alternatives, then not only are they doubling back on that practice, but they'll be bottle-necking progression, if not slowing it down for everyone. Novus got pushed back once before because "not enough players had Animus weapons". Do you think they'd want to shoot themselves in the foot like so once again? The gap will only widen. And if players are forced to close the gap, as things stand right now, they'll have an even bigger problem later.

Sol weapons may not get upgrades, and that's fine. But if no other options are provided, especially as new gear and expansions and weapons are released, well, that would just be bad game design.

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Originally Posted by Yotsu

So in patch 15.9 relic will be ilvl190 while the best coil weapon is 185, still i don't think many endgame raiders will do it since its just too much of a boring grind for too less reward.

Usually by the time you have your relic maxed for the patch raiders have weapons for their subclasses.

Nothing will ever make me start the relic quest. I prefer to get my gear through fighting hard bosses not mindlessly grinding over and over again..

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Well you're still grinding when doing coil. T5 for instance, it's the same boss doing the same thing each time you fight him.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

This is entirely possible. However, if SE decides to stop providing alternatives, then not only are they doubling back on that practice, but they'll be bottle-necking progression, if not slowing it down for everyone. Novus got pushed back once before because "not enough players had Animus weapons". Do you think they'd want to shoot themselves in the foot like so once again? The gap will only widen. And if players are forced to close thegap, as things stand right now, they'll have an even bigger problem later.

Sol weapons may not get upgrades, and that's fine. But if no other options are provided, especially as new gear and expansions and weapons are released, well, that would just be bad game design.

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They did not shoot themselves in the foot. They simply waited until enough people upgraded to their Animus. Animus and Novus are not intended to be something everyone has. It's supposed to be rare enough that you can be proud about it, yet not so rare that SE feels it wasn't worth the dev time.

At one point full Darklight was the Gold Standard. Now if you enter a DF dungeon with full Darklight you may get vote-kicked. lol. Turn 5 used to be quite difficult (and still can be if you use DF), then they added Echo to try and push everyone to higher content. When the next Coil is released we'll probably see Turns 6-9 get an Echo boost.
Even the Allied Seal/Hunt system was intended to boost everyone's everyone's ilvl for 2.4.

These things lead me to believe the next Relic upgrade may take it to 115+ with the next Coil top weapon being 120+. There may not be an 'alternative' 115 weapon and there doesn't have to be. I'm sure you'd still be able to complete all game content with sol weapons.

You realize the relic weapon gets better as time goes on right? There will be an upgrade further than novus etc thats why you need to do atma.

I actually loved the atma quest so much. ( love/hate ofc ) That feel when one dropped =D

Then onto animus......didn't even finish 1st book, mundane heap of crap.

....don't even get me started on novus....masochistic.

Yup, i'll pass all that rubbish and just get the ilvl 110 weaps from vendor ( one that requires UAT )

There are quite a few options for decent weaponry nowadays.....why are these atma threads still active? xD

i hope that in the future if your spirit bond bar with relic is full your relic STAT will increase but it will reseted if sprinit bond bar becomes zero.

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Originally Posted by Sessurea

I actually loved the atma quest so much. ( love/hate ofc ) That feel when one dropped =D

Then onto animus......didn't even finish 1st book, mundane heap of crap.

....don't even get me started on novus....masochistic.

Yup, i'll pass all that rubbish and just get the ilvl 110 weaps from vendor ( one that requires UAT )

There are quite a few options for decent weaponry nowadays.....why are these atma threads still active? xD

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This is so odd. The animus books are such a joke compared to the atma grind in terms of effort required.

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Originally Posted by Chrisbox

This is so odd. The animus books are such a joke compared to the atma grind in terms of effort required.

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And guaranteed! It's been do this, kill this, join these fates. It's not like you're joining hundreds of fates and finally... Atma! It's successful completion - Move on. 3 fates, that's it. 3 dungeons, that's it. 10 times 10 bad guys, move on. The hard part is getting all the dang tomes on the way! You can complete a book in a day, then 1500 tomes to the next one. Hunts help for sure with that. I've been maxed out several times because of hunts.

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Originally Posted by Chrisbox

You realize the relic weapon gets better as time goes on right? There will be an upgrade further than novus etc thats why you need to do atma.

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And do you realize it will always be a second best alternative.
Thats a lot of wasted time, when, you know, you could just raid or hunt.

I would still bother with the atmas personally. The biggest issue I see is that each individual relic takes a huge time commitment. I took my SCH book to Atma and Animus, then ended up switching my main class to DRG and I'd already started with the Novus. So...now I'm sitting 9 melds away from having SCH Novus, on a DRG with HA Spear, and Gae Bolg Zenith. Unfortunately, in a game which encourages players to do different things, the relics are going to very much be 'pick 1 or 2, and hope you stay playing these jobs enough to not regret it'.

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Originally Posted by velric42

You can obtain better weapons now without the stupid ridiculous grind. Even Everquest from 1999 didn,t have a grind like this, plus I think its stupid that were grinding for ATMA items from low lvl FATES.

Why doesn't our epic weapons drop from epic bosses?????????????????????????.
Wouldn't that make sense? O no I need to farm lvl 4 fates,LOL LOL

15 years later and Everquest still has a better loot system than this crap.

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Lies! It took longer just to wait for the boat in EQ than it does for an ATMA drop. :P

I will take Fate grinding any day over a Highhold Pass group, where you have to sit in line for a spot for 3 hours THEN spend 6 hours killing the same 4 things over and over.

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Originally Posted by Logo

And do you realize it will always be a second best alternative.
Thats a lot of wasted time, when, you know, you could just raid or hunt.

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Because not everyone has the availability/desire to start or join a raid group?

As a married father, I won't commit 2-3 nights to raiding. Too much going on. For me and others like me, there is an alternative that doesn't require a static.

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Originally Posted by velric42

Why bother with ATMA now?.

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I have been playing this game and enjoying it. There are so many things to do and i have a lot of fun every time i sign in.

Me personally i've noticed, as i gear each and every job, WAR, PLD, WHM, SCH, DRG, MNK, BLM, SMN that i find myself throwing away a lot of gear. Its not convertible, its not Grand Company provision-able, its not sellable. The only thing i know to do is just toss it.

I have 1 Novus (WAR) 1 Animus (PLD) and 2 Atma (WHM, MNK) and working to obtain all 9, (all 10 when they release Ninja.)

Why?

Because this is the only gear that is upgradeable and not something that i would just toss to the ground. High allagan, toss to the ground in 2.4, allagan, toss to the ground in 2.3, Darklight, toss to the ground in 2.0 etc etc. The only piece of gear thus far worth keeping would be your relic.

That is why you might want to 'bother' with ATMA now. :)

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Originally Posted by velric42

You can obtain better weapons now without the stupid ridiculous grind. Even Everquest from 1999 didn,t have a grind like this, plus I think its stupid that were grinding for ATMA items from low lvl FATES.

Why doesn't our epic weapons drop from epic bosses?????????????????????????.
Wouldn't that make sense? O no I need to farm lvl 4 fates,LOL LOL

15 years later and Everquest still has a better loot system than this crap.

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I remember when they added the epic quests to Everquest. I'm pretty sure the first atma weapons showed up in a much shorter timeframe then the first, oh Mage epic for example. Heck, even faster then the first Rogue epic ;) That was Everquest in 2000 though ;)

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Originally Posted by Daniolaut

I have been playing this game and enjoying it. There are so many things to do and i have a lot of fun every time i sign in.

Me personally i've noticed, as i gear each and every job, WAR, PLD, WHM, SCH, DRG, MNK, BLM, SMN that i find myself throwing away a lot of gear. Its not convertible, its not Grand Company provision-able, its not sellable. The only thing i know to do is just toss it.

I have 1 Novus (WAR) 1 Animus (PLD) and 2 Atma (WHM, MNK) and working to obtain all 9, (all 10 when they release Ninja.)

Why?

Because this is the only gear that is upgradeable and not something that i would just toss to the ground. High allagan, toss to the ground in 2.4, allagan, toss to the ground in 2.3, Darklight, toss to the ground in 2.0 etc etc. The only piece of gear thus far worth keeping would be your relic.

That is why you might want to 'bother' with ATMA now. :)

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The difference is:
With a Relic, you upgrade it into a new one.
Which is the equivalent of throwing the old relic away and getting a new one.

The only difference is the amount of time and effort required. Do you want to run Leviathan EX tons of times or would you rather blow 3 weeks of FATE grinding and Myth grinding?

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Originally Posted by Mjytresz

The difference is:
With a Relic, you upgrade it into a new one.
Which is the equivalent of throwing the old relic away and getting a new one.

The only difference is the amount of time and effort required. Do you want to run Leviathan EX tons of times or would you rather blow 3 weeks of FATE grinding and Myth grinding?

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Levi X is i95.

Novus is a customizable i110 weapon, and will become the Zodiac weapon which will be the most powerful weapon in the game.

I dont "throw away" my Zenith and then farm to obtain Atma, I upgrade it. If you didnt need a Zenith to obtain an Atma your statement would be correct but you must have the zenith to obtain the Atma, then must have the Atma to obtain the Animus etc etc. So no i'd have to disagree with your statement.

I see your point, in saying that the way to obtain them is different and youre right.

I can farm Levi X for 15 months and rarely see a specific weapon drop and then lose it to another player, or i can do content step by step and ensure I obtain the weapon.

Also please dont say "well you could never obtain an atma weapon cause the drops are terrible." I have 4 atma weapons atm. Its not that time consuming at all. And yes i did have trouble with some drops for each weapon.

I can't wait for the threads to start from all the people that are totally against relic>atmas>novus come to find out in future patches that it'll turn into the best weapon in game for that class. Then they'll cry tears of blood and demand it be easier to upgrade them since it takes so long to do it now, even if you are on top of it each patch. Going to love seeing those threads.

I'd rather have the Novus anyway. It shows I put effort/dedication into it. It wasn't simply a quick buy or dropped from a carry. That may not matter to most but It's rewarding in my eyes.

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Originally Posted by Yotsu

So in patch 15.9 relic will be ilvl190 while the best coil weapon is 185, still i don't think many endgame raiders will do it since its just too much of a boring grind for too less reward...

Nothing will ever make me start the relic quest. I prefer to get my gear through fighting hard bosses not mindlessly grinding over and over again..

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Isn't that what raids are? Grinding the same bosses again and again, week after week. The only difference is the level of execution. I spent over 3 months on T1-T4 and didn't get a drop thanks to RNG. Is that any more futile than grinding FATES for ATMA? Sure, you got myth but there were other ways to get that too. I just started hunts on Saturday and by tonight I will finish my 4th Zodiac book. While waiting for the Zodiac FATES I've bagged another 3 atma for my next atma weapon. I can save the soldiery for 3 pieces of i100 gear for my alt. It's a very streamlined process if you use your time wisely.

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Originally Posted by Daniolaut

Levi X is i95.

Novus is a customizable i110 weapon, and will become the Zodiac weapon which will be the most powerful weapon in the game.

I dont "throw away" my Zenith and then farm to obtain Atma, I upgrade it. If you didnt need a Zenith to obtain an Atma your statement would be correct but you must have the zenith to obtain the Atma, then must have the Atma to obtain the Animus etc etc. So no i'd have to disagree with your statement.

I see your point, in saying that the way to obtain them is different and youre right.

I can farm Levi X for 15 months and rarely see a specific weapon drop and then lose it to another player, or i can do content step by step and ensure I obtain the weapon.

Also please dont say "well you could never obtain an atma weapon cause the drops are terrible." I have 4 atma weapons atm. Its not that time consuming at all. And yes i did have trouble with some drops for each weapon.

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That....the analogy.
When you upgrade, you're throwing the old one away for a new one.
When you grind a new weapon, it's the same thing.
The difference is the time involved.

In fact, I think you'll miss the point of that too.
When you upgraded to Atma, where did your Zenith go? Obviously not in your inventory or retainers, so we're left to assume that the Zenith is gone and the Atma took its place. Which is the equivalent to straight up getting a new weapon.

I wouldn't care if Novus was i666, I probably still wouldn't grind it.

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Originally Posted by Mjytresz

That....the analogy.
When you upgrade, you're throwing the old one away for a new one.
When you grind a new weapon, it's the same thing.
The difference is the time involved.

In fact, I think you'll miss the point of that too.
When you upgraded to Atma, where did your Zenith go? Obviously not in your inventory or retainers, so we're left to assume that the Zenith is gone and the Atma took its place. Which is the equivalent to straight up getting a new weapon.

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There's actually a vendor in the game that will sell you the previous incarnations of your relic weapon, but what makes the relic weapons unique to any other upgrade is that you have to follow the line of progression. In normal players, this creates a sort of awe, and bonding to the weapon, especially since it's customizable in it's Novus form.

Atma farming is hardly the worst thing that people have been grinding in this game. If you hate going from FATE to FATE where the atma RNG can have you pinging around anywhere from 15 min to 48 hours. The exception though is that you don't have to be on consecutively to grind the Atmas and you can take breaks to dungeon or do tasks with friends. After the Atmas you get the Zodiac Books which require you to do certain specific FATES, some of which have 4 hour cooldowns in addition to requiring a party in order to accomplish since they are easily failed (I'm looking at you "Enmity of my Enemy").

This isn't to say that these are impossible though, and to be honest, it's really not hard to get the alternatives that can be obtained through farming Hunts now. Regardless of what you may think now, I can 100% assure you that at some point in this game's future, the Zodiac weapons will be the strongest option due to the massive amount of work it takes to upgrade them. As more and more steps are added on, it becomes less and less worthwhile for newer players or players who simply chose not to upgrade their weapon. Even one of the developers mentioned that he did not expect very many people to complete a relic weapon all the way to it's final form.

I think the question is better answered with another question. What kind of player are you?

Depending on your answer, you'll have answered the your other question. People who see the ATMA grind and think "I'm not getting enough reward for the grind" aren't seeing the secondary value of the relic weapon. It's not just a "weapon with decent stats" it's part of Eorzea's lore and your character's progression as a citizen of Eorzea. People who prefer Coil weapons are just a different kind of player. They're more focused on the "mmo-g" part of the "mmorpg". Regardless of where relic weapons will stand at the end of FF14's life, whether they're the best or secondary to an epic boss drop, they present a different experience for the people who oversee its progression.


Myself, I'm only going to focus on one relic weapon and will, most likely, proceed with "less tedious" means of procuring weapons for my other classes because I see both sides of the issue. It does seem an ineffective way of becoming stronger, but it's also part of the experience.

You know I had really bad luck getting atma the first time around and I don't like grinding without a definite end in sight but I think it's worth it. The relic weapon is a special item in this game and I personally look at people with novus relics or coil weapons as the committed players in this game. The soldiery weapons are just lazy filler with a really short shelf life. I have all of the relics to at least zenith, whm at novus and sch I'm doing the books for animus currently. After that I'll probably grind atma for smn xP at the end of the day, we all have different play styles: choose what suits you.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

Atma farming is hardly the worst thing that people have been grinding in this game.

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This is the main topic of discussion when relic weapons are considered though. I already finished my Atma and working on the animus books, but even I feel that the Atma portion is completely unnecessary, partially because of how it is executed (completely RNG dependent) and the end reward (or lack of) for that particular step.

I was incredibly confused and a bit annoyed (by the lore/story) when I found like that the step from Zenith to Atma has absolutely no upgrade to the weapon, but instead unlocks the portion that allows it to gain additional stats to match an Ilvl 100 weapon, and eventually turn into another ilvl 100 (animus) with the stats to match.

http://puu.sh/as6E8/967c5774eb.png
"...savior the newfound power that courses through it!" This is the part of me that got annoyed by the lore context. What new found power? It's exactly the same stats as the Zenith, minus the glow. And it doesn't even get passed off as "the power to absorb the souls of the fallen", because Jalzahn straight up tells you immediately " I have more plans to empower your weapon even further!", making me doubtthe possibility that the "new power" from earlier is infact, its ability to gain additional strength from slaying enemies or following the exploits of the zodiac heroes.

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Originally Posted by Jican

I can't wait for the threads to start from all the people that are totally against relic>atmas>novus come to find out in future patches that it'll turn into the best weapon in game for that class. Then they'll cry tears of blood and demand it be easier to upgrade them since it takes so long to do it now, even if you are on top of it each patch. Going to love seeing those threads.

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You're delusional if you think they won't nerf lower tiers of Atma -> Animus -> Novus when Zodiak is released. They have already nerfed Animus by adding Hunts, the 13,500 Myth which used to be soul-destroying to grind out falls from the sky now. They'll probably do some kind of nerf to Novus as well when Zodiak hits.

I'm a bit surprised they haven't nerfed the Atma step yet but that's just random chance anyways.

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Originally Posted by Yotsu

Why would i care about the Relic Questline i've killed T9 and didn't even started the Quest.

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Huh? It's been some time but a finished Relict quest was the requirement to start Coil if I remember correctly. Maybe I am wrong, it is almost a Year ago for me.

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Originally Posted by Illya

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That's more of a indirect nerf than anything. The hunts provided as a source of mythology, which wasn't necessarily implemented to nerf the relic questline as much as it was to introduce another source of myths.

Again, what's earning the most ire from people is not the relic questline, but specifically the atma step. I described how I feel that it's completely useless and unnessescary due to it's execution, relevance and the end result of that particular step. I mean it could be worse, the atma step could've been introduced as the only upgrade step to the relic weapon in patch 2.1 or something (with base and zeneith being in 2.0).

I look at it like this, the Atma step is an equivilent of a boss in a Dungeon
In a dungeon you go through mobs to reach a boss, then after the boss you go through more mobs to reach next boss,etc. yes?
Well in my way of seeing this, Atma, is the boss for the Relic progression, yes its a bit tedius at times but only the strong willed (or lucky) people will progress.
I'm sure that the Relic upgrades will get harder and harder and offer the more committed players a challenge to sink their teeth into.
Sure some bits will be long winded and hard going, but isn't that why we all play?
To challenge ourselves and work through the mundane parts to get to the juicy bits and feel like, yes, i've worked my butt off to get this far and I have something to show for it ;)

ATMA is not a juicy bit, it is rinse and repeat trivial low level content to win.

The Grind may be a way to challenge the time rich player, but is a poor way to provide challenging content to pretty much everyone else.

Some challenges test skill, some patience... some your will to live. :D

I really feel iffy about calling the relic questline, specifically the Atma aspect of it, a "challenge". The only part of it that I felt "challenged" was trying to solo the alexendrite maps and some of the FATEs (looking at you, Surprise). Everything else is just an exercise in repetition with Atma being the worse of it. There's nothing hard about bashing your head against a 1-3% droprate, just tedium.

"They don't want everyone to have an upgraded relic weapon" has been mentioned a few times. Well gee, its not like the atma aspect even helps in that regard when there's the off chance that people have gotten all 12 within the week or even 3 days (and I've seen the latter in my guild). Even then, you still have the long process of animus books and novus alexendrites (and melds on top of that).

Unless people really feel that having something be incredibly up to RNG to be a testament of player skill or earn you some sort of self-satisfaction...

Atma is and will continue to be a poor design until they do something to mitigate the outliers on the RNG spectrum, namely the players who get hung up on this step for weeks of regular play. Adding a currency for FATE completion that would allow players to gradually progress as an anti-frustration feature could at least stop them from being gated for an absurdly long time without speeding up the process for the average player.

I'm about to complete my Omnilex Novus, and I unfortunately have no desire to progress past Zenith on my other jobs. I kind of liked having the to-do lists for the Animus, but Atma farming dragged on for far too long to be fun. Finishing Atma was 0% accomplishment and 100% relief, which is a little messed up.