I liked the Atma grind. I'm actually a bit disappointed it didn't take as long as what I was expecting. I really liked going to the lower level areas and putting FATE parties together with newcomers to the game, people working on their first atma weapon like myself, and those who were working on their second or third atma weapon. That breadth of player experience was really great to come across. All on my local server too, so if I wanted to make friends with the people I met I could just add them to my friends list. It's a great chance to communicate, interact, and potentially create lasting bonds with people on your very server.

I liked making my own gear and spiritbonding it while I leveled my chocobo. I never used my chocobo in battle before the atma grind and it was a new and neat aspect of the game to me. The FATE descriptions were fun to read and the logistics of getting from one side of the map to the other before a targeted FATE ended also added strategy to the hunt. I'm looking forward to doing it all again for my second weapon as well and actually hope it takes a little bit longer this time honestly.

I really like that the atma grind specifically has us do FATEs in the lower level zones rather than the endgame zones, otherwise newbies would never be able to complete a FATE on their own as everyone would just be too focused on endgame content like they already are (see Hunt grinding). Even then there were a few instances where I was stuck having to kill a FATE boss all my lonesome without anyone around to help me, thus failing the FATE due to time running out.

I also like that the game offers other weapon alternatives especially for difficult content and that upgrading your relic isn't the only option available.

I'm curious when people say they've spent weeks or months getting atmas. While I get the frustration, everyone's "time" is different. Some people can only commit 30 mins, 3 times a week to the game, while others will literally have the game played for them by a sibling or significant other while they are sleeping or at work. Saying it took "months" is a bit misleading as that's not actual time spent in game but spent in one's own subjective real life time. I for example, just so happen to be on vacation so I was able to dedicate pretty much two whole days to grinding out atmas. With that knowledge in mind, I'll be able to commit the same amount of time even when I go back to work as I have weekends as well. That's the thing though, I know people don't have access to my kind of time, and I sure as hell don't have the kind of time or resources that some people who play this game have.

With that being said, I don't think I'm too much against a hard cap on how many FATEs need to be done in order for a person to be guaranteed an Atma. I'm not really a fan of RNG content in general. I don't think people should have to completely rely on the random nature of the drop rates. Time is time. It's pretty obvious that the devs have a "timeline" in their head whenever they release such content. In essence, based on the percentages, "it should take someone about X amount of time to complete Y content. That should hold the populace for awhile while we work on new content for an upcoming expansion / update etc."

With that in mind, if there is a set "time" then that "time" should be measured in gameplay hours. Once it's been established then just make milestones and achievements based on that amount of time rather than a random number generator.

In conclusion, low level FATEs and utilizing "outdated" content is essential for the gaming population. I don't think mixing old players with new players through content really needs to be an aspect of the games design that needs to be debated. It just needs to happen in order for the game to stay healthy, end of story.

RNG based progression I don't think I'm necessarily sold on so much. You can still create "timegates" in other ways besides just random luck.