Atma disappointment social help thread. For those with no luck.

[Jerichai]

Nothing to show?

Not overflowing with seals?
Not farming Gil via straight grind and challenge log?
Not farming Chocobo Companion xp via straight grind and challenge log?
Not Spiritbonding?
Not meeting new friends along the way?
Not improving skill rotations on less-used zeniths?
Not getting early drops for use in easy Beastmen daily quests?
Not occasionally getting atma?

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

I see you in almost every thread where people are voicing frustration with the ATMA system, basically telling people to grow up and like it. We get it, you love the system, and according to your other posts it seems like you've had the fortune of not experiencing extreme bad luck, congrats. But that's the funny thing with statistics. While there are many who sit at the average (the largest percent in a normal distribution), you will still have parts of the population at the extreme. With a pure RNG system, there will be people who end up having to do an ungodly number of FATEs, despite their best efforts, just to complete one weapon. That is a statistical fact.

And that's a problem when we consider the nature of FATE grinding. There is absolutely no justification (by your own admission in this thread) for one person to have to do several times more FATEs to complete a weapon compared to others in the same population (assuming equal skill level, and yes I already can tell you're going to harp on this point based on your other replies, and we can go down that road when necessary). ATMA farming is largely a skill-less grind. You run to a location, do some damage, and move on, hoping that the completion will win the slot machine roll that time. I guess you could argue moving to location to location in an efficient manner is a skill...but it's not a hard one to master and is honestly dependent on what FATEs are available to really matter. For such a skill-less grind, the number of FATEs completed should not vary to the magnitude we're seeing. Some yes, but not situations where one part of the population is finishing in under 300-400 FATE completion and another is still farming after 1000+. Note, I don't believe all grinds should be equal for everyone. The key determinant factor is how much skill is involved in the grind. I'm okay if more skillful players finish their Animus books faster (being able to myth farm efficiently, i.e. being better at getting through dungeons in a rapid manner) or that the most skillful players got their relics first before the HM primals became trivialized by gear. Having grinds reward skilled players with easier/faster completion creates motivation for players to improve, and that's a good thing. But FATE grinding does not do that. There are a limited number of ways to improve your FATE grinding 'skill', and much of that ends up being influenced by the random nature of how FATEs appear on the map. As a result, it's dumb to have such a spread in completion rate.

Look, you can love the current system all you want. Marry it, make love to it for all I care. But stop trying to tell people who are having to deal with the negative cold, hard realities of statistics that they have no right to be frustrated with the system as is. Just let people blow off steam. SE has already made it clear there are no plans to change drop rates until overall ilvl increases are released.

PS: A few weeks ago, we got into an argument in a thread suggesting limits on how many FATEs someone should have to do before the system threw you a bone and helped you get an ATMA. In that thread, you stated that someone should need to do 300 FATEs 'to truly earn the ATMA'. Considering here you've stated you haven't had an ATMA go over 400 FATEs, I take it there are several in your possession you haven't truly earned, by your logic? Just checking.

[Nabician]

This is the worst game design ever... I was around 500 fates done before starting and i'm now approaching 1300. Hell... 800 fates later i'm at 9/12. I'm ok with grinding and having some sort of progression but this is nonsense. I even got back to leveling alt classes since i was bored of this. Sad thing is i'm less then 10 levels of all 50 now... gonna have to get back on fates i guess :S.

A simple .1% increase drop rate by fate done(gold) would've been fine by me. I don't want content to be gifted, but being that stalled is pissing me off.

[Ikeda]

...how are you alive...are you even human??? O_O

Sorry, I'm just ... yeah, I won't for my life understand how some people can do things like this. /respect

Well it's not exactly difficult. It just takes patience. Mainly I was just lucky. My first 2 weapons only took about 3 days of farming to complete each. The others varied between taking about a week or a few weeks although it only really took a few weeks because I wasn't farming. Then towards the end I suddenly started getting like 5-10 atma a day for the last 2 or 3 weapons >.>; the drop rate's ridiculously random.

[BreathlessTao]

Nothing to show?

Not overflowing with seals?
Not farming Gil via straight grind and challenge log?
Not farming Chocobo Companion xp via straight grind and challenge log?
Not Spiritbonding?
Not meeting new friends along the way?
Not improving skill rotations on less-used zeniths?
Not getting early drops for use in easy Beastmen daily quests?
Not occasionally getting atma?

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

Not from farming FATEs for atma, no; more a nuisance than useful when you've nothing to spend it on, anyhow.
Yeah, because that 40-150 gil you get for a FATE is worth it so much; CL completion is actually annoying, seeing all the bonus XP getting wasted.
In about 450-500 FATEs, my chocobo got from rank 6 ... to rank 6.4. Would've happened without atma too.
No, because a) very low progress; b) I don't buy gear for another lottery system to maybe get a materia that's useful.
Not even meeting old ones because they a) are either already done with the several atma relics they need/want; b) can't be arsed to do this mindless lottery grindfest at all; that said, you might've seen ppl socialising during these FATE runs, I haven't even seen them curse their luck or congratulate someone else when they get the atma.
Those rotations aren't complicated enough to still need adjustments when you've already got your zenith (unless you're nothing but a content-burner, in which case you won't care about improving in the first place). Furthermore, how could you learn anything relevant in low-level content where more than half of your skills are unavailable?
Perhaps a few - that are also awesome to clutter up my inventory, because the pieces of atma that somehow aren't key items either by SE, don't do a good enough job of that already; not to mention not everyone still needs all of those...
Er, yeah, I guess it's lucky they nailed that part, at least, however abysmally.

[BreathlessTao]

Well it's not exactly difficult. It just takes patience. Mainly I was just lucky. My first 2 weapons only took about 3 days of farming to complete each. The others varied between taking about a week or a few weeks although it only really took a few weeks because I wasn't farming. Then towards the end I suddenly started getting like 5-10 atma a day for the last 2 or 3 weapons >.>; the drop rate's ridiculously random.

Nevermind patience, but how's your brain not burned to ashes? O_O I only did one, with reasonable breaks too and doing other content in-between, been two days, and I'm still braindead. O_O So yeah...hats off indeed. /thumbsup
Ridiculously random is immutably true... especially the ridiculous party~

[wicked-one]

the drop rate's ridiculously random.

Either, you have some sorts of Lucky Potions, or the more Atma you got so far, the higher the drop rates get ^^

I just finished my Animus - my first of all, never doing one again until ATMA´s are sold at a NPC and they increas Mytho to a Level Philo Tomes were.

And well, i know that feeling, while waiting for a Book FATE, I randomly did other FATE´s to waste my time, droped one ATMA after 3 FATEs...

Thinking about it, 9 ATMA Weapons don´t even impress me anymore, throw out 9 Animus and I admit you as "King of the Nerds" xD

[Seif]

Honestly I would rather atma grind than wait for a specific fate to spawn for the atma books. Its the only thing that makes completing the books drag on, you would think with all the fate grinding to get a atma we would at least get a free pass of not having fates in the book lol.

What?!

There are fates after atmas too?!!!!!?!

Awww... Man why. I wonder if the community reps have ever told the dev team that no-one actually likes fates. They probably think they're giving us good content because even the Japanese live events are called fates. Anyway we don't like fates they're ALL the same. The fights have zero mechanics or design. It's just the same mobs scaled up and given an ocean of hp to zerg through.

A lot of people just auto attack their way through these. That's how little you need to pay attention in the bulk of this relic business.

[AiChyan]

What?!

There are fates after atmas too?!!!!!?!

Awww... Man why. I wonder if the community reps have ever told the dev team that no-one actually likes fates. They probably think they're giving us good content because even the Japanese live events are called fates. Anyway we don't like fates they're ALL the same. The fights have zero mechanics or design. It's just the same mobs scaled up and given an ocean of hp to zerg through.

A lot of people just auto attack their way through these. That's how little you need to pay attention in the bulk of this relic business.

Yes there are, and they aren't fates which spawn fast either

[Duuude007]

I see you... basically telling people to grow up and like it.

Not basically, not even kind of.
What I have been saying is that it is this way, if you don't like it, then there are other options more compatible with your progression needs, and to consider that many of us do not want this feature taken away in its current portrayal. Just as many would not want High Allaghans trivialized by nerfing SCOB.

The list that you so quoted was not a "deal with it" list. It was a list of things you can still take advantage of while slogging through the grind. To make the time more bearable- Call it a silver-lining.

Also- My average droprate across 2000 fates was 3.25%, or roughly 30 fates per atma drop. Until I did the math, averaged it out across a large amount of farming, You or I could have said anything and it could be taken worth a grain of salt. That said, even a layman could readily admit that guranteeing any sort of atma drop every 30 fates exactly is far too exploitable.

In about 450-500 FATEs, my chocobo got from rank 6 ... to rank 6.4.

If you only did 500 kills (not whole fates), 100 per week, not counting base kill credit, would be an automatic 10% 15%, (edit:I double-checked) level gain thanks to the challenge log.

It is actually a nice chunk of xp, my choco went from low rank 6 to mid rank 8 purely from atma farming.

I mean count things we had to do that was FATE related.

Considering that the list is:

1: Exp (one way of doing, ergo didn't 'have to do')
2. Atma (one weapon out of 4 similar iLevel weapons, ergo didn't 'have to do')
3. The occasional Beastmen tribe quest fate drop (uncommon to get, can always decline a fate quest in lieu of another one)
4. CT (An optional raid dungeon)

And The only one of these optional things that is a known prerequisite for future content is CT, well... The answer to your snarky question is in fact 1.
And that's being generous.

@DudeBismarck: A lot of things in this games are optional. Please tell me any other way to unlock CT.
I don't think there is none. So yes, in order to unlock CT. You HAVE to do FATE's.

Um... I already acknowledged that CT is 1 thing that requires fates to move on to future areas. I stand by that. Does anything else fate related fit the bill?

[ShinkuTachi]

I wonder if the community reps have ever told the dev team that no-one actually likes fates.

You should reword this, because everyone doesn't feel this way.