Is the New Design that Skill Doesn't Matter?

[SarcasmMisser]

Last I checked the reward for the grinding is a i100 weapon which is far below what you obtain in the difficult raid content, I don't see the basis of your worry.

[razzgrizz3]

I am wondering if we will see boss mob encounters that are ostensibly mindlessly easy fights with the chance that the boss mob might use an insta-kill mechanic that will wipe the group, no matter what they do?

this is already in place in a form of the extremely tight ping check/ servers randomly deciding to fart and screw you over.
example titan hm/ex, twintania divebombs/ an assortment of other similar stuff (albeit not as punishing).

[infinitezero]

What a ridiculous exaggeration. Let me take it in the other direction to give you an example of how foolish you sound.

Why don't they just take out RNG all together? Now every FATE drops an Atma, every boss drops every item from their pool all at once with enough duplicates to go around, every mob drops the same amount of gil and crafting materials to everyone that got a hit in on it. Now everyone can walk around in full 110 gear with a 115 weapon just for running through each bit of content a single time. No reason to play anything twice. No reason to craft. Nothing to spend gil on. Sounds like fun to me!

You're singling out one of 3 methods available to obtain an iLv 100 weapon (which is 15 levels below the best weapons - you know, the ones that actually require skill to obtain) and acting as though every aspect of the game is going to end up based on pure RNG and require no skill because of it. This is equivalent to saying life isn't fair because lottery draws are random and you don't want to try any other method of getting money, and those who have money only have it because they either got really lucky or bought a ridiculous amount of lottery tickets.

Does that clear things up for you?

[Raenryong]

The above post is a textbook strawman.

[Leira_Raine]

I feel like there are two different paths to take, which kinda makes me happy thinking about it.

Path one requires skill = Coil, Ex Primals, Etc.

Path two requires RNG = Atma Farming, Myth Grinding/Pure Soldiery Grinding (though that also somewhat interweaves with skill later).

I mean, the iLvls seem to be the same, and the stats aren't vastly different from each other.

It just depends on preference, I think.

I think in that sense, the RNG rates are fine, especially since Coil can be a challenge.

[infinitezero]

The above post is a textbook strawman.

Of course it is. It's the same thing that the OP did by suggesting that his argument against RNG for Atma grinding means that we're going to see other things that are superficially similar to it in the form of world mobs that sometimes insta-kill you no matter how skilled/geared you are, and dungeons that are sometimes unbeatable because of randomly generated dead ends. That is a clear misrepresentation of the design teams intent in a hypothetical future situation. I started out by saying my post would be a similar example, so I'm really not sure what you had hoped to achieve by pointing that out.

[Felis]

With the atma quest, SE has introduced a design philosophy - Player skill doesn't matter RNG will determine success.

Will that design philosophy be used going forward?

Do you mean clearing Coil 6-9 is for lucky people instead for skilled people?
Even though some contents are luck based, it don't mean that you don't need skill in other contents.

[Ikeda]

Atma is for causal players and won't be the best weapon.

Coil is for skilled players, if you can you should look there.

Only Temporarily. There's further upgrades and it will likely be getting a i110 upgrade in 2.25. In the end the Zodiac weapons likely will be the strongest weapons or at least need to be for the lore behind them to make any sense. Which would also make the current upgrade not feeling like it's worth the effort make sense in the long run. The weapons will likely eventually transform into the weapons that were in the AF 2 concept art in their final forms. Maybe even be upgraded further past that if they ever make AF 3 and so on.

[Ryans]

With the atma quest, SE has introduced a design philosophy - Player skill doesn't matter RNG will determine success.

Will that design philosophy be used going forward?

I am curious, because it is a fairly significant change in progression design. This type of design uses content that requires little to no skill, but has an overriding external random factor that completely determines success or failure of an objective.

I am wondering if we will see boss mob encounters that are ostensibly mindlessly easy fights with the chance that the boss mob might use an insta-kill mechanic that will wipe the group, no matter what they do?

Since the new design method focuses on random factors of success, rather than player skill- I am also curious if we should anticipate other changes, such as insta-kill abilities on otherwise unchallenging overworld mobs... dynamic maps in overly simple dungeons that might populate with dead ends, making the dungeon impossible to complete or other rng based methods that can make otherwise elementary tasks impossible?

Will this be used in crafting? Will there be a random chance for critical failure added to crafting that destroys the crafted item and components?

I was just curious if this new design philosophy is one that is intentional and will be used elsewhere or if it is an aberration?

The fact that there is one set of items (that aren't the best... or even second best... hell, not even third best in some cases) that relies on a mindless grind then the entire game is now being designed that way? I think you need a breather from atma farming.

[ispano]

Only Temporarily. There's further upgrades and it will likely be getting a i110 upgrade in 2.25. In the end the Zodiac weapons likely will be the strongest weapons or at least need to be for the lore behind them to make any sense.

Not likely. SE has made it pretty clear that relics won't be the best.