The Big Problem With Zodiac Farm

From personal experience, I have completed my atma weapon, and on book 3 of 9. I really have no issue with the time sink, but I think the biggest issue is whether or not the months of farming are worth the investment. Here is why I say that.

Currently, collecting Atma can take as long as a week, or done in a few days depending on the speed and RNG factors. For books, farming 1 book and completing its pages a week will still be well over 2 months. The big question is, will the final form (not animus) be worth the time sink?

In 11, your months of time sink for Relic, Mythic, Or Empy weapons was a great damaging weapon, with a special weapon skill and other unique modifiers. In 14, I'm afraid a Zodiac weapon (Granted more of the quest will be added in 2.25, so even more to do for the weapon) will be of lesser strength or equal to a High Allagan Weapon.

It's easy to say the zodiac is for more casual player base to work up to, since some have no access to coil, nor have the knowledge to even attempt turn 9 whenever that day may be. But therein lies the problem. Compared to the speed of your first relic, it will more than likely be in the same situation your previous relic was, weaker or on par to a High Allagan. No unique stats, no top of the line weapon that exceeds Allagan. Its just a more drawn out version of the relic quest.

GRANTED I cannot say for sure what the final iteration of a Zodiac may be, seeing as it's not even released yet. But I feel the time sink invested into zodiac weapons may just be for a slight boost in stats equaling a High Allagan. It Destroys the purpose of what a Relic was meant to be. There is no disputing t9 victors should be given a great reward for thier efforts, but the investment between the two seems disappointing. I think if the reward in the end seemed more appealing, more players would be excited to finish it, instead of farming levi for i100, and just using that for the new coil.

As of now Relic is designed to be the Starter Endgame Weapon to get players into Endgames and to get those endgame gears and weapons.

As of now I'm waiting to see how their progress balance out later but for now it seems they're keeping Relics depended on RNG during the start to make certain not a lot of people will hit Coil turn 9 too early until 2.3 when Relic ilvl 110 is released with CT 2nd raid for alternate ilvl 100 gears.

By 2.3 we should see a increase in RNG drop rate for Atma or it is completely removed because of ilvl 110 Relic Quest.

Currently by average a causal person will take around 1 month just to complete all 9 books done anyways to obtain Animus after they obtain Atma.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

As of now Relic is designed to be the Starter Endgame Weapon to get players into Endgames and to get those endgame gears and weapons.

As of now I'm waiting to see how their progress balance out later but for now it seems they're keeping Relics depended on RNG during the start to make certain not a lot of people will hit Coil turn 9 too early until 2.3 when Relic ilvl 110 is released with CT 2nd raid for alternate ilvl 100 gears.

By 2.3 we should see a increase in RNG drop rate for Atma or it is completely removed because of ilvl 110 Relic Quest.

Currently by average a causal person will take around 1 month just to complete all 9 books done anyways to obtain Animus after they obtain Atma.

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No way will any casual get near that done in one month. 45 hours total are needed for all 9 books if you straight farm myth with no stops in between, + the several hours to complete them. I understand the casual workup, but 45 hours to invest in a dungeon for one month is beyond casual.

And thats 45 hours if you're speed running Brayflox. Not sure even a lot of people are doing speedruns.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

No way will any casual get near that done in one month. 45 hours total are needed for all 9 books if you straight farm myth with no stops in between, + the several hours to complete them. I understand the casual workup, but 45 hours to invest in a dungeon for one month is beyond casual.

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It the average I manage to calculate together that round to 1 month or a bit over 1 month.

In total of work you need about 3 to 4 days to gather 1500 myth per book and 1 or 2 days to complete all 4 task in FATE (3 specific FATES must be completed both name and location is provided), Monster kills, Battle leves, and Dungeon boss ( only 3 Dungeon boss required and location is given) for 1 book.

in max a player can work up 5 days to finish 1 book and 3 days if they spend 1 day focus on completing 1 book. That is a average between 36 days to 54 days average depending on how much effort is put into the task for all 9 books.

1 month is the average minimum timeframe but at most it will certainly take about 2 months at the maximum timeframe if little effort is put into the Book daily.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

No way will any casual get near that done in one month. 45 hours total are needed for all 9 books if you straight farm myth with no stops in between, + the several hours to complete them. I understand the casual workup, but 45 hours to invest in a dungeon for one month is beyond casual.

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What makes you think they will be doing just dungeons? There are other ways to earn it. I haven't even tried to earn myth in dungeons and have over 400 (last 6 days) and 70 soldiery tomes just by daily beastman and group treasure hunts. Happy enough earning 60-90 myth an hour on treasure hunts.

I haven't really been in and endgame dungeon in a month or two. (except CT before 2.2 patch) and a couple times in coil. Been feeling to crappy to play much for a bit and typically been in game 1-3 hours a day lately. If I actually felt good enough to do some dungeons I could knock that out pretty quick, but as it is I'm good with earning around 400 - 600 tomes a week until I can get back and play more :)

Sure it might be a couple months before I get any books but I got no problems with that.

You know, many people in the game are not in it to be hardcore (like you seem to be from your comments) They play for fun because its fun. How about stopping to smell the roses (as it were) and just enjoy yourself without worrying about how fast other people will or won't get things :)

Who cares about what's weaker or more powerful. Who cares about rewards vs efforts. If you are having fun, you are having fun ;)

Still impossible. Casuals will not run 10 brayflox in 1 day, even assuming they can find a group to do it. If using the df, forget about it. By my estimate it will take at least 2 months to get it. Add in the Atma grind and it's closer to 3.

Levi ex weapons are ideal starter weapons for raids. Relics are more like a long term investment.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

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That why I said it will take 3 to 4 days to gather the 1500 myths for 1 book given that they use the Roulette bonuses, beast Tribes, and treasure maps.

The task per book is a average of 1 to 2 days since only section with a lot of work to do is the monster kills while the others are quite easy to complete within 1 day being the FATE(3 specific FATES to complete), Dungeon (kill 3 Dungeon bosses), and Battle Leve of the Book's 4 tasks for each one of the book.

So it may take around 6 days per book for maximum time.

Casuals to me don't spend all their time with progression. They also do other stuff like gardening, glamour and crafting. Not to mention some can't log on every day. Seems like we have quite different views on casuals. We will have to agree to disagree then.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

Casuals to me don't spend all their time with progression. They also do other stuff like gardening, glamour and crafting. Not to mention some can't log on every day. Seems like we have quite different views on casuals. We will have to agree to disagree then.

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The data I put together is excluding other activites that does not involve progressing in getting Atma into Animus. I am only caculating the time they will spend when they are putting work into getting Atma into Animus.

I've already taken those factors into consideration and did decide to remove those factors because those do not involve progressing in getting Atma into Animus since those are other activities not involved in the amount of time to obtain Animus.

If you remove the amount of time a player would spend performing activites not involved in getting Atma into Animus it will be within the time of 6 days.

If I did add in the factor of other activities not involved in getting Atma into Animus the total amount of time for a players to get Atma into Animus will be between 4 to 6 months.

After 6 months the time frame will be decreased greatly since Myth would be replaced by Soldiery tomes and the Tier 4 tomes would be released in 2.4. With Soldiery replacing myth the books will be reduced to be 1/4 its original price be that in 2.4 it will cost 375 soldiery tomes which cuts the time by 1/4 of the current time or less since it will be easier to obtain 375 soldiery in one day in 2.4

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Originally Posted by Rhas

Who cares about what's weaker or more powerful. Who cares about rewards vs efforts. If you are having fun, you are having fun ;)

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Good for you then.

But definitely that won't work with other people.

Personally, I finished my Atma with the mindset that it'll be atleast on par with or even higher than High Allagan Weapons, but to my surprise, even Gerolt's weapons are greater than Animus (with the current set of items available ingame).

After seeing this trend, I li-low'd on farming and think whether it'll be worth my time to continue collecting the books for the upgrade.

Imagine you need 13,500 myth or 270 Brayflox HM run (If you're doing Speed Runs, 8-10 minutes each) for all 9 books. That's alot of farming for sure, while the reward is only on par with the Weathered version of Gerolt's / Levi EX weapons.

Edwin: That estimate too, though, is based on the idea that the average casual player is enthused about this system. You can probably triple or quadruple that guesstimate for your average casual, if they can even be bothered to put up with such a system at all.

The more I think about it, it's easier to get a Leviathan weapon than this; after all you can buy EX Primal carries. You can't sell the grind. What's in it for an Animus weapon right now is far beyond what a casual is willing to put up with in any reasonable amount of time, IMHO.

FWIW, I think it's meant to be an alternative high level weapon; High Allagan probably won't be a viable option until very late into the current patch cycle; it's a matter of stat weighting and preference in your build and it's something for the future, because the current competition in weaponry eclipses it now, but probably has no further upgrading potential when new content comes out.

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Originally Posted by Thorauku

Good for you then.

But definitely that won't work with other people.

Personally,

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Lets just stop that post there at personally. It just doesn't work for you. :)

Nothing wrong with that but don't try to assume what other players actually think about it. You know what assuming does.

It also definitely does work with other people because I play with a decent size group of "those people". So, sorry to burst your bubble about that misconception that there are many people out there that actually just play for fun and to help other people and don't really care too much about reaching end game as fast as humanly possible hehe

Sure being more powerful has its benefits but life just doesn't revolve just around that.

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Originally Posted by Moirear

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Well there are other things I would have considered but right now I'm not certain about those ideals until 2.3 hits when both the ilvl 110 Relic is released and CT 2nd raid is released.

Once 2.3 hits we will start seeing some kind of alteration to current Relic Quests that could atler SE expected rate of players getting their relics at a 6 month timeframe.

As of now it seems SE plans to make Relic something players should only work towards only for their 1 Main Class/Job they plan to use for the majority of their contents.

its only been 1 week, an many people have already finished atma, an several have started the next phase. The OP said himself he is alread 3/9 on books, on another thread i just read a min ago, somebody said they were on book 6 or 7, there is a few people in my fc that are on their 3rd or 4th book. I think it is a bit early for ya'll to claim its going to take 2-3 months. And dont worry, in 3-6 months it will be nerfed so that everyone else can catch up in 1 day.

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Originally Posted by DoubleT

were on book 6 or 7, there is a few people in my fc that are on their 3rd or 4th book.

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Wait, wait... i though you could buy 4 books only before 2.25 patch o.o

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Originally Posted by Rhas

What makes you think they will be doing just dungeons? There are other ways to earn it. I haven't even tried to earn myth in dungeons and have over 400 (last 6 days) and 70 soldiery tomes just by daily beastman and group treasure hunts. Happy enough earning 60-90 myth an hour on treasure hunts.

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What the man say is effective farm, 8 min is what you need to farm in brayfox for 50 myth tome and that is so far the effective way to do. And I am sure you are aware about the OP point that the animus wep take to much time to finish but it is weak crap, the wep are only ilvl100 and that is not even 2nd strongest wep at the 2.2.

And leave your casual & hardcore opinion a side pls, it is not what we talk about in this thread

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Originally Posted by DoubleT

its only been 1 week, an many people have already finished atma, an several have started the next phase. The OP said himself he is alread 3/9 on books, on another thread i just read a min ago, somebody said they were on book 6 or 7, there is a few people in my fc that are on their 3rd or 4th book. I think it is a bit early for ya'll to claim its going to take 2-3 months. And dont worry, in 3-6 months it will be nerfed so that everyone else can catch up in 1 day.

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I know for myself, I've been a bit hardcore with it, spending 5 hours to cap myth. I'm not sure if everyone has that kind of time to invest lol

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Originally Posted by Merle

Wait, wait... i though you could buy 4 books only before 2.25 patch o.o

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When you talk to the NPC she only have 4 books to sell you.
But that's because they are book-serieses and you can't buy Book of Skyfire II without completing Book of Skyfire I.
All books are available though.

The exception to the rule is the books for PLD, as those are divided into 7 for sword and 2 for shield.
4 book-serieses for sword, 2 book-serieses for shield.
That means 6 available books, as is mentioned when you do that part of the quest.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

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All in all the grind here isn't too terribly bad but I can agree. I've been thinking the very same thing as I work on my books and grind out myth as to whether or not it's actually worth the time and effort. All I can say is after 13,500 myth tomes, dozens of hours invested, and whatever comes next after animus this Zodiac weapon better have a damn aftermath effect on it or something to that nature. Otherwise I'll just move on to coil weapons.

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Originally Posted by Rhas

Lets just stop that post there at personally. It just doesn't work for you. :)

Nothing wrong with that but don't try to assume what other players actually think about it. You know what assuming does.

It also definitely does work with other people because I play with a decent size group of "those people". So, sorry to burst your bubble about that misconception that there are many people out there that actually just play for fun and to help other people and don't really care too much about reaching end game as fast as humanly possible hehe

Sure being more powerful has its benefits but life just doesn't revolve just around that.

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No point arguing with you then, you have your own group of "people" who shares the same PoV as yours, I have mine. So just call it quits, but don't come telling us here to not care about the rewards vs efforts just because you think that life just doesn't revolve around that. HEHE

for animus weapon u need to :

farm 12 atmas (hours of farming fates , rng rng rng!)

Buy 9 books , 13.500 tomes (thats a grind itself)

each book is 3 dungeons , 100 monster , 3 fates , 3 leves x9 = 27 dungeons 27 fates 27 leves , 900 monsters

after all that work u get a weapon that is sometimes worse than Tidal wave weapons. (varies from job to job)

Zodiac Weapons will get upgrade later on but i guess wont be ever better than current top tier weapons. FFXI weapon had something special and that was a new WS (usually very powerfull) , maybe Zodiac weapons give players a new skill at the end (dont think so ><)

I hope we can exchange stats later on because some weapons are already gimped (S.speed sucks)

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

I hope we can exchange stats later on because some weapons are already gimped (S.speed sucks)

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Now that you've mentioned it, I thought when they say we can modify our Weapon's stats. they mean we can actually choose what stat. we want? Or will that be implemented in the future?

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Originally Posted by Thorauku

Now that you've mentioned it, I thought when they say we can modify our Weapon's stats. they mean we can actually choose what stat. we want? Or will that be implemented in the future?

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Its either "Customize your stats" By choosing what you want to upgrade first out of the locked four, or actually being able to adjust stats on the weapon how you actually want them. If that was the case, it would defiantly be a worth

the problem is that it's boring and need lot of time
you play hours and not enjoy a second of it
that's really not what the game needs

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Originally Posted by Rhas

You know, many people in the game are not in it to be hardcore (like you seem to be from your comments) They play for fun because its fun. How about stopping to smell the roses (as it were) and just enjoy yourself without worrying about how fast other people will or won't get things :)

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Like I stated in my op, it was never about how fast you get them, its about what exactly your getting with well over 60 hours of investment into a weapon, which ironically can be weaker than your levi weapon. It's a broken system, and needs to have a extra oomph to really be worth investing the time into.

Everyone's rushing right now to get their Atmas so they can get to the book phase. I have a feeling alot of the people being labeled as casual are going to be happy just to get the color change and slow down a lot on the books. Everyone's just in a hurry right now to feel special showing off the color reskin. I know once I get my last 2 atma I will be slowing down and getting back to things I've been putting off, like farming coil to gear my alts.

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

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I completely agree with you. If they were going to make the Atma/Animus weapons this much work, they should have made the Atma weapon have iLvl 100 stats and the Animus weapon have iLvl 110 or at least iLvl 105 stats. As it currently stands you can put around 120 Hours into getting your Animus weapon, or you can spend a small fraction of that getting your Leviathan EX weapon. Granted I'm in it for the long haul, I finished my Atma weapon, but I'm in no rush to get the Animus weapon. It's just currently too much work to be worth dedicating 100% of my game time to.

The way the game is currently set up you can either play multiple classes and enjoy the game, or be stuck grinding Atma/Myth for your (underwhelming) Animus weapon. There is just not enough time in the day to do both unless you aren't planning to get your Animus until 2.25.

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Originally Posted by Ulathskullsplitter

Everyone's rushing right now to get their Atmas so they can get to the book phase. I have a feeling alot of the people being labeled as casual are going to be happy just to get the color change and slow down a lot on the books. Everyone's just in a hurry right now to feel special showing off the color reskin. I know once I get my last 2 atma I will be slowing down and getting back to things I've been putting off, like farming coil to gear my alts.

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I'm in a hurry because I don't want to be the dude farming fates by myself when the bulk of the population is done with fates. Trying to finish a fate by yourself is reeeeeeeeaally boring.

It's reasonable for a casual player to farm a book and clear the book challenges every 2 days. No reason you couldn't have a weapons done within the first month. I am on my 3rd book now as well, and I only play for a few hours after work, and some weekend grinding. Fortunately the new beastman dailies take very little time to deal with. Hope to be up to like book 6 by next week when coil gets echo #1. The chest armor & improved weapons should make things a lot more manageable.

The challenge to casuals isn't completing the books. The challenge is being able to access the books by completing the stupid fate gate. People keep saying "well I got mine in a few hours" or "mine only took a day". Guess what? Random is random. I've been at it since saturday night and I'm only halfway done. I know plenty of people that are in worse shape. And I play everyday, at least 4hrs a day if not (way) longer.

Random is random, and often times random sucks. There is no guarantee that someone grinding fates will ever finish, let alone finish in a day like so many people have alluded.

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Originally Posted by Doki

It's reasonable for a casual player to farm a book and clear the book challenges every 2 days. No reason you couldn't have a weapons done within the first month. I am on my 3rd book now as well, and I only play for a few hours after work, and some weekend grinding. Fortunately the new beastman dailies take very little time to deal with. Hope to be up to like book 6 by next week when coil gets echo #1. The chest armor & improved weapons should make things a lot more manageable.

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That would be great, except the time it takes to get to the book phase. I am 0/12 on Atmas right now. I am excited to get to the book phase. I think a better implementation would have been to forgo the Atma and jump right to the books.

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Originally Posted by NyneAlexander

I'm in a hurry because I don't want to be the dude farming fates by myself when the bulk of the population is done with fates. Trying to finish a fate by yourself is reeeeeeeeaally boring.

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This is where I think the vast majority of the playerbase is right now.

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Originally Posted by Timethiuas

That would be great, except the time it takes to get to the book phase. I am 0/12 on Atmas right now. I am excited to get to the book phase. I think a better implementation would have been to forgo the Atma and jump right to the books.

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Yeah, I like this. The books sound like they would actually be fun - a variety of activities that you need to complete to upgrade the stats on your weapon. But as it is now, you have to grind fates for hours/days/weeks to "upgrade" to a weapon that's essentially just a paint job. What's the point of that?

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Originally Posted by Timethiuas

I think a better implementation would have been to forgo the Atma and jump right to the books.

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A better idea would have been to let players purchase the books as soon as they have the atma weapon quest, but not allow them to start them until they get all of their atma. It would give players the ability to get a large chunk of the grind out of the way. Another idea would have been to also include the mobs killed during the fates as potential drop chance for the atma.

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Originally Posted by NaliaBrown

Yeah, I like this. The books sound like they would actually be fun - a variety of activities that you need to complete to upgrade the stats on your weapon. But as it is now, you have to grind fates for hours/days/weeks to "upgrade" to a weapon that's essentially just a paint job. What's the point of that?

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From what I have been told, the books do a much better job of letting you know where you stand on finishing the upgrade. From what I have gathered from this thread and others like it, is that most players hate that there is no kind of visual progression. Meaning there is no way for them to tell that moving towards the goal. They are just doing the fates hoping that they can finally get their atma.

Agreed, the book does a very nice job, one of the better parts of the entire quest.

Im a casual olayer who also does endgame stuff and when im not maxing soldiery or running coils im fate grinding and havent seen 1 atma drop... i play 3 to 4 days a week looks like it will be well over a month or so for me to get the atmas ... the drop rate is terrible just up it to 25-40% and absolute after 20 fates per zone.. or something like that more reasonable

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Originally Posted by ZeroRains

Like I stated in my op, it was never about how fast you get them, its about what exactly your getting with well over 60 hours of investment into a weapon, which ironically can be weaker than your levi weapon. It's a broken system, and needs to have a extra oomph to really be worth investing the time into.

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And like I said, if it's fun doing and getting for you it doesn't really matter about time invested. You are playing and doing it for fun, not because of any other reason.. It isn't an investment, its just plain fun.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

By 2.3 we should see a increase in RNG drop rate for Atma or it is completely removed because of ilvl 110 Relic Quest.

Currently by average a causal person will take around 1 month just to complete all 9 books done anyways to obtain Animus after they obtain Atma.

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This is what I'm afraid of. If they nerf the relic quest to make it easier in 2.3 they are just compounding the problem. Making it more and more appealing to just wait. Why waste 3 weeks getting your animus now if you can do it in 3 days later and just use Levi for now?

I'd like to thank blizzard once again for ruining the genre!

Also like to thank SE for ignorant forum design. Can't even quote without using up your measly 1000 characters. Pantheon, can u please launch sooner.