PLEASE CAP THE ZODIAC DROP RATE

[Allyrion]

This thread is discouraging. I came back recently after a year long break.

I farmed Atma non-stop when it came out and got it within a week (though I died a little inside). Then I did Animus.
I heard they raised the Atma drop rates, which is good. And Yoshida said he understood the complaints and wouldn't make it as bad going on.

Animus books were great. No RNG other than having to wait for certain fate spawns (which isn't exactly RNG either).
I'm fine with RNG in stats or combat mechanics. I hate ring when it comes to rewards.

Back then, I accepted Atma for what it was, but I *really* hoped they would make it more like the books going forward.
Especially since complaints back then were that the Atma could take a few minutes to eight hours in one zone. Worse if you're unlucky.
My average was 6-7 hours of pure farming per zone.

I restarted as a NIN now that I'm back and now I'm not sure if it's worth doing with the expansion around to corner or if I could finish.

[synesthetic]

This thread is discouraging. I came back recently after a year long break.

I farmed Atma non-stop when it came out and got it within a week (though I died a little inside). Then I did Animus.
I heard they raised the Atma drop rates, which is good. And Yoshida said he understood the complaints and wouldn't make it as bad going on.

Animus books were great. No RNG other than having to wait for certain fate spawns (which isn't exactly RNG either).
I'm fine with RNG in stats or combat mechanics. I hate ring when it comes to rewards.

Back then, I accepted Atma for what it was, but I *really* hoped they would make it more like the books going forward.
Especially since complaints back then were that the Atma could take a few minutes to eight hours in one zone. Worse if you're unlucky.
My average was 6-7 hours of pure farming per zone.

I restarted as a NIN now that I'm back and now I'm not sure if it's worth doing with the expansion around to corner or if I could finish.

There's enough time to start a relic from scratch and finish it. Even more so considering the 3.0 relics won't be released until a couple of weeks after launch, and i130 will be the best for a lot of the new content (and still extremely good by level cap).
There's also still hope that Yoshida will follow through with his comment on people who've finished their zetas getting some kind of compensation.

Is it worth it though? Depends on your tolerance for grind.

Farming up a full set of atma can be done within a day or so.
Animus book FATEs aren't tied to other FATEs' anymore, and have respawn times of around 30-90 minutes, from what I've seen.
I can't say what materia for a Novus sphere scroll will be like on your server, but it's probably still modestly expensive for a 3-stat build, and extremely expensive for a 2-stat.
Nexus light grind still sucks, but how much lights are given per message was all bumped up a tier.
Zodiac is a major test of patience and luck. But if you can get through it, you're done. You're also going to need ~1mil gil; 400k minimum from buying quest items, and then more from buying crafted turn-in items. Hopefully you have a crafter friend, or can find someone willing to craft with given mats.
Zeta light grind isn't so bad. Inflated numbers compared to Nexus' grind, but lots of tiers in between so it doesn't feel like such a chore. Also a lot of people do this step (or Nexus) while farming zodiac drops for their next relic.