ATMA: the worst thing ever made on A Realm Reborn

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

Troll elsewhere.

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Not a troll, that's an accurate statement I'd fully stand behind.

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Originally Posted by Eggnook24

Wrong.
RNG is fair, it affects the same across the board. Just because someone else is hitting the right random algorithm, doesn't mean they aren't in the same ATMA boat as you. RNG is about as fair as anything can get, it's random no matter who you are.

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So you're saying someone getting their atma on the first fate vs someone whose been at it for hours is "fair"? Okay. Someone whose at it for fifty hours vs someone who got it in fourteen is "fair".

It's nothing but luck, and Luck is not fair.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

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Adds nothing to the discussion and you're insulting the thread. Pretty sure that constitutes as a troll.

Getting back on topic, I mentioned this before in a different thread; The Atma portion of the quest feels very pointless and nonsensical.
>No direct upgrade going from Zenith to Atma. Despite this, what little lore was associated with this boasts on about how you have a new found power. ...It even loses the nice cosmetic jesus glow for some reason. Did it just depower?

> Zenith? Some progress with building up the weapons. Animus? Progress with each book showing the exploits of the Zodiac Braves who once used those weapons. Novus? Melding a scroll with material to empower your weapon.

>As people have mentioned, the absurd RNG on top of needing twelve drops. Not sure where you're getting "finish within 12 hours reasonably" from if you're not trolling.

It certainly adds something to the discussion; basically places a big fat BUSTED on the whole topic.

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Originally Posted by Eggnook24

Wrong.
RNG is fair, it affects the same across the board. Just because someone else is hitting the right random algorithm, doesn't mean they aren't in the same ATMA boat as you. RNG is about as fair as anything can get, it's random no matter who you are.

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No, RNG is not fair. RNG is never fair. anyone who believes RNG is fair doesn't know what fairness is.

fairness is 2 people doing the same amount of work and getting the same reward when all said and done.

Animus is fair, and the great thing about animus is you actually can help people get those, same can be said about novus really, since you can sb party and everything.

Luck:
n
1. events that are beyond control and seem subject to chance; fortune
2. success or good fortune
3. something considered to bring good luck
4. down on one's luck having little or no good luck to the point of suffering hardships
5. no such luck unfortunately not
6. try one's luck to attempt something that is uncertain

Fair: Having or exhibiting a disposition that is free of favoritism or bias; impartial: a fair mediator. If a situation is fair, everyone is treated equally and in a reasonable way.

LUCK IS NOT FAIR.

If it was, you wouldn't have winners or losers in a card game.

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

LUCK IS NOT FAIR.

If it was, you wouldn't have winners or losers in a card game.

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Caps lock doesn't make your statement true. Luck is unbiased, and you have no control over it. That's about as fair as it can get. You'll get more ATMA than person two, and person three will get more than you. I'm still at 9 for 3 weeks now, but who can I blame? Person 3? No, because the system is random. And as much as we want it to be otherwise, random is fair to everyone, unbiased. Equally fair.

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Originally Posted by Eggnook24

Caps lock doesn't make your statement true. Luck is unbiased, and you have no control over it. That's about as fair as it can get. You'll get more ATMA than person two, and person three will get more than you. I'm still at 9 for 3 weeks now, but who can I blame? Person 3? No, because the system is random. And as much as we want it to be otherwise, random is fair to everyone, unbiased. Equally fair.

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While the textbook definition of fair means what you posted, language is more how things are said not what is said. Don't be a grammar nazi.

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

LUCK IS NOT FAIR.

If it was, you wouldn't have winners or losers in a card game.

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Fairness isn't about winning all the time, it's about being on even terms with everyone else involved.

And it's not being a grammar nazi to say that; they're 2 completely different concepts. Their only relation is opposite of what you're saying; the fact they're entirely luck based is kind of a necessity for it being fair.

Edit: Look, the devs catered to the idea it may be too hard, they proposed a fair challenge to test it. And it came out on their side.

Not being a grammar nazi at all. It was being stated as fact, emphatically, and was incorrect. So, I was stating a defined fact. No big deal, but I see "It's not fair" all the time, and wanted to make a clear statement that it's as fair as it can be, no bias or tricks to pull ahead of anyone else, just pure RNG. But yes, it sucks.

I would like to know why the developers thought it was a good idea to center end game content and weapon progression content around waiting on the off chance that an item will drop, an item that isn't even stored in your key items, so if your inventory is full, you still miss out. How was it a good idea to have massive fate grinds on low level fates for end game content?
I understand that RNG is 'fair' but I think the big problem is that it's not 'equal', and in a game like this where everyone can achieve the pinnacle of everything if they work hard enough, equality is expected, and when something is not perceived as equivalent, it is deemed unfair.
If two people go into an area together, farm for the same amount of time, doing the same fates, shouldn't they get the same reward?

Someone suggested to me that they make start atma by giving you a piece of atma that can only be filled, soul gem style, by running fates in a specific area, and it would fill by degrees, like desynth skill, based on contribution and fate level. Once that Atma is 'filled' you would return to the alchemist and receive another piece, and they could make it more like the rest of the quest, where you have to spend myth tomes to acquire an empty atma, like a the trials books for animus, or the inks and scrolls for novus. All in all, I don't believe the Atma portion of the quest ties in very well to the rest of the quest.

Atma is not fun, it does that add enjoyment or relevance to the story content, and it contributes next to nothing toward the actual weapon it supposedly enhances. other than the removal of the glow and the change in ilvl, which is negligble, Atma is an entire step in the progression that could be left out completely

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Originally Posted by Kusari-chan

If two people go into an area together, farm for the same amount of time, doing the same fates, shouldn't they get the same reward?

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Atma is almost the opposite of this. Rewarding many for little to no effort, and with no reward for some who have dedicated weeks of their free time.

RNG is not "fair" in this implementation.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Mord

Atma is almost the opposite of this. Rewarding many for little to no effort, and with no reward for some who have dedicated weeks of their free time.

RNG is not "fair" in this implementation.

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Exactly, there isn't any effort or work involved, contrary to what people here seem to think.

It'll be toned down hopefully come 2.4, or perhaps 2.38 when the next step in the relic questline becomes available, then I might actually enjoy it. In the meantime I'm happy with my Glanfaust :D
Of course I'm not saying we should settle for a type of system like this in the future because alternatives.

One thing I notice in reading all the ATMAs thread is that most are posting one of two things,
1) anecdotal evidence. e.g. I got mine doing it this way. OR, I've grinded some insane hours and got nothing. WTF!
2) fairness argument

I'll address #2 first. The R in RNG stands for RANDOM, in case you forgot. Google the definition of random, and the first definition you get is: made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision. RNG is transparent, among many other things, but it's really not about fairness. That's not the point. In fact, it is often (and IMO correctly) used in cases where it is difficult to distinguish between candidates or have resource scarcity. E.g. if 100 people qualified for something with the exact same score, but there's only 10 prizes. RNG it and give it to the 10. It's not fair, but it is transparent and one of the few ways to resolve a resource scarcity issue (which by the way, virtual items don't really qualify)

Now I'll address #1. This is actually a mathematics/probability problem, and you can actually do the math and figure out stuff. So why don't we do that instead of using anecdotal evidence? So this atma grind is actually something called a geometric distribution. In this context, it can be defined as if the probability of getting an atma (i.e. a success) is P, and the number of attempts is K, what is the probability that I will get an atma after K attempts?

I'll give you a concrete example, but let's start with some assumptions.
For atma, I am assuming P is 1% (i.e. there's a 1 in 100 chance that an atma will drop after a FATE)

Let's do the intro-level probability first.
So on average, how many FATEs do I have to do to get 1 atma?
If you answered 100, give yourself a cookie, you're absolutely right!

Let's think a bit harder about this though. So that's on average? What about on the whole? So let's say there are 10,000 people on a server (most servers actually have around 2X that), and everyone did the atma grind. How many people will have 1 atma after everyone did 100 FATEs?

If you guess 63.4% or around 6,340 people, then you know your geometric distribution. i.e. after all 10,000 people put in the same work, 6,340 get their reward, 3,660 get nothing. Yes, more than half got their atma, but around 36.6% (not an insignificant minority) got nothing. Also, we can revisit the fair argument here. In this scenario, everyone put in the same effort and did 100 fates, but 36.6% got nothing. Would you argue this is fair?

How about if we want to figure at a 1% drop rate, how many FATEs do I have to ensure a 90% chance of getting an atma? Or 95%? 99%?
I'll just give you the answer. You'll have to do about 230 FATEs to be 90% sure of getting that atma. About 300 to be 95% sure, and just under 460 to be 99% sure of getting one.

Of course, this is all dependent on the assumption around P. If it's higher than 1%, then you'll see better numbers. I just wanted to show some numbers to show two things, 1) geometric progressions can give you some non-intuitive answers (since our minds tend to think in linear terms), and 2) to move this discussion beyond anecdotal evidence.

Just cause I thought someone might be interested, here is my grind so far, tracked by the in game fate completion achievement.

Set 1: 882 start
Maiden: 5 fates 887
Lion: 17 fates 906
Archer: 28 fates 934
Scales: 24 fates 958
Goat: 24 fates 982
Water Bearer: 13 fates 995
Ram: 19 fates 1014
Twins: 12 fates 1026
Fish: 72 fates 1098
Bull: 28 fates 1126
Scorpion: 52 fates 1178
Crab: 62 fates 1240
Set 1: 1240 end
Total 353 fates

Set 2: 1240 start
Crab: 42 fates 1282
Scales: 17 fates 1299
Maiden: 41 fates 1340
Twins: 104 fates 1434
Goat: 11 fates 1445
Scorpion: 22 fates 1467
Water Bearer: 83 fates 1550
Fish: 40 fates 1590
Archer: 32 fates 1622
Ram: 30 fates 1652
Bull: 45 fates 1697
Lion: 42 fates 1739
Set 2: 1739 end
Total: 499


Set 3: 1739 start
Scales: 6 fates 1745
Goat: 184 fates 1929
Fish: 148 fates 2077
Ram: 22 fates 2099
Twins: 22 fates 2121
Bull: 9 fates 2130
Maiden: 55 fates 2185
Crab: 122 fates 2307
Water Bearer: 123 fates 2430
Lion: 9 fates 2439
Archer: 9 fates 2448
Scorpion: 16 fates 2464
Total: 725 fates

Set 4: 2464 start
Twins 12 fates 2476
Crab: 28 fates 2504
Archer: 30 fates 2534
Fish: 21 fates 2555
Scorpion: 28 fates 2583
Goat: 14 fates 2597
Scales: 42 fates 2639

Set 5: 2476
Twins 1 fates 2477

Wow! I thought I had a lot with 3 full sets and a couple extras, but 4 and moving to 5?!?! Nice work, Grayve. In my latest run, I had a few Atma drops on fate 1 and even did less than 10 for some. Starting set 4 soon. I bought a couple of extra relic weapons and Zenith'd them so that I could farm in preparation to level a Scholar and possibly a Summoner.

Got a full set and another 6/12 (19 total) in just 30 hours of fate grinding. Thats almost 1 atma per 1,5 hour.
Can`t see why ppl think atma grind is the end of the world. And we all know that there are other ways to get similar weapons without the need to grind any fates.

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Originally Posted by xenok

Let's do the intro-level probability first.
So on average, how many FATEs do I have to do to get 1 atma?
If you answered 100, give yourself a cookie, you're absolutely right!
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Sorry, but no, thats not how it works at all.

Every fate you do is still a 1% chance using a rng invisible dice where the odds are entirely stacked against you. You can do 500 fates in one region over the course of 36 hours and NOT recieve an atma.

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Originally Posted by thiagohc

Got a full set and another 6/12 (19 total) in just 30 hours of fate grinding. Thats almost 1 atma per 1,5 hour.
Can`t see why ppl think atma grind is the end of the world. And we all know that there are other ways to get similar weapons without the need to grind any fates.

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as Ansem once said. "You who understands nothing, knows nothing."

Stop ignoring all the people who have stated their thousands of hours of fates just because you managed to get lucky.

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

Sorry, but no, thats not how it works at all.

Every fate you do is still a 1% chance using a rng invisible dice where the odds are entirely stacked against you. You can do 500 fates in one region over the course of 36 hours and NOT recieve an atma.

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Unless you want to argue that probability theory is wrong, and that expected value is calculated wrongly; this is exactly how it works.
Again, my statement was ON AVERAGE (so that doesn't mean you or any other single person, but if A LOT Of people did this and we took an average of the number of attempts it took) it takes 100 FATEs to get 1 atma if the probability of a drop is 1%.
Or, it can be rephrased as the expected value of an atma drop is 1, after 100 attempts.

You're also right that it is possible (though not likely, since the probability is 99.343%. Not a 100%, but close) that you do 500 FATEs and you don't get an atma.

If you roll an unbiased dice six times, it doesn't mean you're guaranteed to see at least one 6 being rolled. But that doesn't mean the dice is biased either.

You being extremely unlucky doesn't mean probability theory is wrong; not that it's any consolation.

I have been doing nothing but Fates for the last 4 weeks. I have probably spent 80+ hours do pretty much nothing but fates and I have only gotten 1 atma. Give me a break this system is really broken. I understand that you want ppl to stay and play the game and not everyone to have it. But really i have been in zones for hours and i am the only one doing fates there. Plz fix it or anounce when a possible update to address it will be instantiated. I will still play the game wether or not but i would like to get to my animus weapon it is really frustrating when you spend all day doing something and get nothing in return.

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Originally Posted by brdlyrcr

I have been doing nothing but Fates for the last 4 weeks. I have probably spent 80+ hours do pretty much nothing but fates and I have only gotten 1 atma. Give me a break this system is really broken. I understand that you want ppl to stay and play the game and not everyone to have it. But really i have been in zones for hours and i am the only one doing fates there. Plz fix it or anounce when a possible update to address it will be instantiated. I will still play the game wether or not but i would like to get to my animus weapon it is really frustrating when you spend all day doing something and get nothing in return.

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ATMA was truly only implemented as it is, because SE wanted players mixing it up back in the field doing fates and stuff so all the new players had help with them.


and Animus proves that they could have easily done it a different and more time managed way....

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Originally Posted by Grayve

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O_O screw that!! It is not worth it!

I just finished Atma this morning, after probably about 1 week and a half of a trying seriously. Each session was on average three hours or so, sometimes less and many times more. My last 4 were pretty fast, got one on Friday, and then late Saturday night I got two back to back and then it took another three sessions of about 2-3 hours each of farming South Thanalan to get the last Atma. This was not fun in the slightest, but I got it done. I do feel for those that have been going longer and nothing, there really should be a system that starts to kick in around Fate 10-15+ that starts to increase the chance of Atma as long as you stay in the zone. Once you leave it resets.

I think that might go a long way to alleviate some of this RNG. That way eventually the chance will rise to where you are assured to get an Atma in a zone after so many Fates.

There was a theory that the Atmas have a higher chance of dropping inbetween certain local times for each zone. It is as follows:

Atma of the MAIDEN - Central Shroud - 1:00
Atma of the SCORPION - Southern Thanalan - 2:00
Atma of the WATER BEARER - Upper La Noscea - 3:00
Atma of the GOAT - East Shroud - 4:00
Atma of the BULL - Eastern Thanalan - 5:00
Atma of the RAM - Middle La Noscea - 6:00
Atma of the TWINS - Western Thanalan - 7:00
Atma of the LION - Outer La Noscea - 8:00
Atma of the FISH - Lower La Noscea - 9:00
Atma of the ARCHER - North Shroud - 10:00
Atma of the SCALES - Central Thanalan - 11:00
Atma of the CRAB - Western La Noscea - 12:00

Though it won't guarantee a drop within that hour, and has only been loosely proven, it's at least easier on the mind since it feels like you're making swifter progress. You can find the whole theory thread here: Reddit Atma Theory

I can say with certainty that my Atma of the Scorpion, the last I needed, dropped after about an hour of farming this morning around 10 to 10:30 AM Central time.

The same genius's behind 1.0 must have come up with this idea. It seriously feels like this game has gone nowhere. I have PTSD from atma grinding. Just thinking about it gets me short of breath and agitated.

I was pretty lucky, got mine over the course of 4 days, and was still able to craft a little and do some duty's too
The worst was a 6 hour grind at Lower La Noscea

I don't think it's that bad personally, the grind is fine, and it's good to have people going back to low level area's
The thing is the RNG
If they just had, complete 50 fates per area, it'd still be a grind but no RNG, I think it'd be better personally

They should just give everybody the ATMAS, then give them the alexandrite and materia.
You think the complaining would stop ? probably start complaining about how easy it is !

Then again if the game "stinks" then save your money. Why complain about it ?

I think they should implement a different way to get them.

Complete 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 fates per atma instead of having a chance to get them randomly.

It'd still be more realistic than it is now. At least I'd know where I stood.

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Originally Posted by moteets

They should just give everybody the ATMAS, then give them the alexandrite and materia.
You think the complaining would stop ? probably start complaining about how easy it is !

Then again if the game "stinks" then save your money. Why complain about it ?

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Let's consider two scenarios
Scenario A: A person does 1,200 FATEs (which would imply a 1% drop chance for each fate), but got 0 atmas or a handful, and starts complaining.
Scenario B: A person does 20 FATEs, gets 0 atmas, and starts complaining that the atma grind is BS and the drop rate is ridiculous.


In your world, do you think both scenarios are equivalent? Some seem to equate all forms of complaining to whining. Some would say that those who have been very unlucky do have a legitimate gripe.
If you thought enough about this, you would realize that this particular form of RNG game mechanic practically guarantees that there will be a small group of people who will grind like hell (do more FATEs than anyone else) and STILL not get an atma. You know how some people get lucky and get their atmas in a few days? Probability predicts that their unlucky counterpart exists; i.e. people who grind like hell and never get their 12 atmas. And I happen to think those folks have a legitimate gripe.

And your last statement is inane. Can't we just copy+paste that comment to every single piece of criticism someone brings up?
<insert any gripe/complaint>
If the game "stinks" then save your money. Why complain about it?
This is after all a community forum, and I think one of the purpose is voice your feedback.

Or I could use your logic and simply say:
How about if you don't want to read complaints, don't read the forum, in particular the FATE forum? Why post about it?

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Originally Posted by xenok

Let's consider two scenarios
Scenario A: A person does 1,200 FATEs (which would imply a 1% drop chance for each fate), but got 0 atmas or a handful, and starts complaining.

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Kusari-chan is in this category, and I agree with her and others that there is a major imbalance because of this RNG design that needs to be addressed.

I must be one of the only people here who actually cares that some people are getting shafted, regardless of my own collection success....

atma of the goat in east shroud not droping im here more than week and nothing its frustrating:(
think atma drops are somewhat broken.

The current atma-system is broken and extremely unfair!
The comments in this or other atma-related topics are the best proof of that.
Many people got several atma-weapons in no time, while many other people will never have the chance to continue only one zodiac-questline. Just because of the lack of time (casual gamer) and the random drop rate. The japanese time-theory or the "go to another region" are just rumors and wont help.

So... do I have a problem with grinding? - No.
Do i have a problem with FATEs? - Not really.
Do I have a problem with random drop rates? - Hell no.

But I have a huge problem with ATMA! Why? Because traveling loooong distances (south thanalan for example) from one FATE to another, doing this all alone and get nothing. Even Primals or Crystal Tower will reward me with new equip for my other classes, stones of mythology and soldery. And I never have to do this all alone. Every part of the game gives me a kind of progression and motivation. But the atma-system is the worst part in the entire game!

Some people might say: "Atma is challenging." or "Try Leviathan or Coil". Atma-Grinding is a waste of time and doing FATEs like a stupid donkey is far away to be a challenge.
Leviathan give me new 5 weapons, but only 1 is kinda usefull. To be honest, compared with Animus, the Leviathan-weapons are not a good alternative.

In the past, some parts of the zodiac-questline gets a bit easier. You can reach your cap of 2000 stones of philosphy in no time and your Animus-weapons, too. You can get your relic-weapon in only a few hours! Only the Atma-part is still the most annoying and frustrated part in the entire zodiac-questline!

Maybe I have to wrote that in japanese, because I think SE ignore foreign players... :(

The most tragic thing is that we started complaining on April and it's September and nothing changed. meh.

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Originally Posted by xenok

Let's consider two scenarios
Scenario A: A person does 1,200 FATEs (which would imply a 1% drop chance for each fate), but got 0 atmas or a handful, and starts complaining.
Scenario B: A person does 20 FATEs, gets 0 atmas, and starts complaining that the atma grind is BS and the drop rate is ridiculous.


In your world, do you think both scenarios are equivalent? Some seem to equate all forms of complaining to whining. Some would say that those who have been very unlucky do have a legitimate gripe.
If you thought enough about this, you would realize that this particular form of RNG game mechanic practically guarantees that there will be a small group of people who will grind like hell (do more FATEs than anyone else) and STILL not get an atma. You know how some people get lucky and get their atmas in a few days? Probability predicts that their unlucky counterpart exists; i.e. people who grind like hell and never get their 12 atmas. And I happen to think those folks have a legitimate gripe.

And your last statement is inane. Can't we just copy+paste that comment to every single piece of criticism someone brings up?
<insert any gripe/complaint>
If the game "stinks" then save your money. Why complain about it?
This is after all a community forum, and I think one of the purpose is voice your feedback.

Or I could use your logic and simply say:
How about if you don't want to read complaints, don't read the forum, in particular the FATE forum? Why post about it?

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I like they way you looked at this. I complained on here so much I got suspended at one point (I was a little crazy at the time! lol) because I had spent almost a month in east shroud with no luck. As to what you said: It's true. Some got very lucky, apparently there is at least one person who has gotten all atma weapons + a set for ninja. Good for him. I also heard someone won the powerball and is a millionaire. Neither of those help the ones who farm for days/weeks/months (aka buy thousands of powerball tickets a year) and don't get drops (win the jackpot, or anything for that matter).

I finally managed to finish my first set of atma (which I will save for ninja instead of using on whm/blm/war/mnk zeniths) but I will never do atma again. I don't have time to play and accomplish nothing, and I can't expect others to want to do the same. For every lucky person there is an unlucky person. So yeah you could get 120 atma in 120 fates, but you could also never get an atma, ever, for the rest of your life. This is not a fair system.

When you put it that way, it's incredibly depressing. I've already experience some of this, grinding for about 16 straight hours and only having 2 ATMA to show for it, but there's got to be people with even worse luck out there. I'm not quite sure what the dev team was thinking with this one. One thing is for sure, I'm only going to do this for my Bravura. Never again.