Zodiac Quests

Even though I'm iLevel 88, I'm a casual player. I work full time and take classes at night, so I play about three to five hours a week, max. But I've been chipping away at my scholar for a while, and he's pretty high level, and I've enjoyed running instances.

But, this Atma quest is where I stop. It's completely unimaginative - the devs added nothing new, they just tacked an extremely rare reward onto existing content. What's more, they seem to have guaranteed you wouldn't benefit from it - you can't even level an alt, you have to devolve your level 50 character down to level 20 to mash your two buttons for a week just for a chance at getting an incremental upgrade to your character.

So, I'll skip it. And that wouldn't be so bad, except you haven't offered me anything to replace it with. I can't do hardcore raids, because I have a wife and responsibilities, and I can't schedule my life around a video game. You haven't made the raids I would need for a better weapon available through the duty finder, either. So, I'm quite disappointed with this particular aspect of the game - it's lazy to the point of incompetence. It's also annoying, since your character's weapon is by far the most important piece of equipment he can get, as far as impact on play goes. I'll see how this impacts my gameplay overall, but I feel like this is a slap to the face of the casual yet devoted player.

To be fair, you can try for a Leviathan weapon (through PF), but that's currently the only alternative available. People keep saying don't bother with this if you think it will take too long, as though clearing all of Coil2 is a possibility at the moment, or the as of yet missing unidentified tomes for the other level 100 weathered weapon. Given all the negative feedback, I wouldn't be surprised if they eased up on the drop rate a bit.

thread number 100, congratulations!!

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

thread number 100, congratulations!!

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The devs need to understand how insulting this decision is - I would hope for 1000 threads.

I will post in everyone too until someone listens and realizes this was the worst decision they could have made.

As Nutz said, the Levi weapons would be the casual friendly alternative.

I am baffled by the amount of complaining about this quest. I will agree that the first component of it is unimaginative and could have been done slightly different, but it is only the first component, we know very little about what is to come.

Secondly, the patch has been live for a couple of days and people are already upset that they haven't completed this yet? Come on guys, its a marathon not a sprint. Why is everyone always after instant gratification? Yoshida stated that this would be something that would require an investment of our time. It's a little off-putting how much of the player base wants everything handed to them immediately nowadays.

I personally don't think they will fix the drop rate because I am pretty sure they didn't intend for everyone and their brother to be walking around with an Atma weapon just a few short days after the quest was introduced. It is meant to be a grind and time sink, if that's not your cup of tea then you have many other options.

As far as the OP's issue. I am married with a one year old and a VERY time consuming job, so I can relate to your frustration. But people like you and I have to understand that MMO's at their core were never designed to be for casual folk and as much a developers today try and please both crowds, they cannot do so entirely.

You cannot expect to receive the same rewards when you are investing a fraction of the time that others do. I am not sure if I feel that the devs have done the best in balancing content to offer something to both groups of players but they have at the very least made an effort and there is something for both.

In my opinion the overwhelming sense of entitlement that casual players have today has done nothing but lessen the quality of the MMO genre. That's the opinion of a VERY casual player.

The thing you have to realize is that you CAN achieve this goal is you want to. They haven't taken that opportunity away from you by making it difficult or time consuming. It just means it will take you longer than the folks who have more time on their hands. And people should be ok with that because its not a fault of the game or really even anything to do with the game at all. It's entirely about the player.

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Originally Posted by nocks

The devs need to understand how insulting this decision is - I would hope for 1000 threads.

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How is this insulting?

it's insulting that any developer would think I've got so much time to spare, and am so desperate for minor achievements, that I'd sit and replay content they'd already given me literally hundreds of times just for the completely random chance that something will drop. With no other reward except the drop - no chance to level an alt, nothing. And then link that terrible design to one of the main achievements of the game, since I assume future patches will have future Relic weapon steps, and I'll need to finish this to unlock them.

They added nothing to the game to make this quest. Just 12 random drops, and yet it will take more time than doing every single instance they ever designed... twice. At least. There is a balance between the effort the devs put in versus the effort they expect players to put in, and MMO's are all about stretching that balance.. but this is just stupid, the devs put in literally zero effort to inspire us to meet the longest challenge of the game. Why would anyone in their right mind want to finish this? Why don't Square just ask you to send them a video of you hitting yourself in the forehead with a hammer, and award the weapon for that?

This is not whining...this is common sense and their version of grinding is total and utter bull poop. Is that really an accomplishment to some people: I am such a friggin' loser that I can afford to spend all day playing this frigging game, all night and all day. It should be more skill based to get these items...how about that?! Or a grind that has some end in sight...that would be nice. You can literally play for 6 months and not get even one of these 12 items if you are really unlucky....that is just poor...poor design. You are already faced with this on T5 where you can beat Twin 100 times and never get your weapon...I think if you beat her so many times you should just get it...come on now...what the hell are we trying to prove here?????????????

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Originally Posted by nocks

it's insulting that any developer would think I've got so much time to spare, and am so desperate for minor achievements, that I'd sit and replay content they'd already given me literally hundreds of times just for the completely random chance that something will drop. With no other reward except the drop - no chance to level an alt, nothing.

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I don't think you have a very strong grasp on what it means to insult someone. This is not insulting. Is it a poor design choice in a quest? Sure. But its hardly an insult, if you don't want to do it then don't. You can't go around saying any piece of content you dislike is an insult.

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Originally Posted by Mikedizzy

This is not whining...this is common sense and their version of grinding is total and utter bull poop. Is that really an accomplishment to some people: I am such a friggin' loser that I can afford to spend all day playing this frigging game, all night and all day. It should be more skill based to get these items...how about that?! Or a grind that has some end in sight...that would be nice. You can literally play for 6 months and not get even one of these 12 items if you are really unlucky....that is just poor...poor design. You are already faced with this on T5 where you can beat Twin 100 times and never get your weapon...I think if you beat her so many times you should just get it...come on now...what the hell are we trying to prove here?????????????

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The sad thing is that no matter what design SE created in this quest, there would be herds of people complaining because they can't get their hands on it fast enough. The instant gratification generation. I have news for you friend, MMO's were built upon many of the things you are complaining about. Time investment has always been a strong component in this type of game.

The only issue with this quest is that it was a re-hash of existing FATES. Drop rate makes sense to me but I agree that they should have at least tried to introduce some new FATES into the mix to break up the monotony.

So I just finished getting all the atma( granted it took me about 8 hours in total [The atma of the ram seemed to take forever to me]) and I kinda think you're being a baby about this. If you're against doing it, don't. First world problems aside, you're complaining about how long it takes you to get a weapon upgrade in the mmo you play. My friend in my fc happened to tell me about the legendary/mythic (whatever) weapons in ffxi, and how getting Burtang took him something like a year and three months. Comparatively your argument is mute. Ok, I'll simplify my point for you. if you don't want to take part in a quest, don't. Kinda simple, no? On a happier note, I'm loving 2.2, anyone with me?