ATMA: the worst thing ever made on A Realm Reborn

[Eggnook24]

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.

[Kusari-chan]

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?

[Kusari-chan]

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

[Lord_Mord]

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?

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.

[Squa11_Leonhart]

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.

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

[revonine]

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
Of course I'm not saying we should settle for a type of system like this in the future because alternatives.

[xenok]

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.

[Grayve]

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

[EricCartmenez]

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.

[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.