Feedback Regarding the Relic Upgrade Quest

[SublimeIbanez]

It's amazing to see someone use the phrase 'controlled RNG' so brazenly. I honestly was kind of happy to see a grind like this in a modern game, it was nostalgic. Though after reading all these forum posts I have to recant. Apparently what I enjoy is causing way too much pain and heart break. It's like I'm some kind of monster who can only get nourishment from poison and then some kids see me do it, eat the poison, and they die. Except the poison is just normal food and the kids dying are people flailing on an MMO forum.


EDIT: I don't really know what to say to people, I did about 700 FATEs (based on achievement numbers, not quite accurate) and got all 12. I had pretty big dry spells inside that grind. Though listening to people say "there's good RNG like how loot ALWAYS drops in coil" just blows my mind. That RNG can be just as frustrating as Atma, I remember waiting months for my shield in ICC. I just don't understand how you guys are so defeated by the lack of a little progress meter. If someone gave you free lottery tickets that had a 1% chance to win how many would you scratch off? You'd reach some kind of utilitarian curve where you have to evaluate the Jackpot versus your time spent scratching, but if it passes the test for the value of your time, then you'd certainly do it.

I mean you just look at the variety of people 'giving up' you have people calling it after 100 FATEs and others claiming they've been farming 3 weeks (straight through Easter I'm sure) the only issue here is how used players have gotten with taking themselves hostage to avoid adversity or resistance from a game. The only solution is to get the grind nerfed. Also yes it will be a nerf, since a linear grind is usually easier than a linear one. Yeah there will be those outliers who get everything done in 5 hours, but I feel like enough of your complaints are hinged on you being angry over people having an easier time at Atma than you.

Here's the thing. A good grind is just that. A good grind. Something you have to put your nose to the "grind"stone (heh) for and actually dedicate a serious amount of time towards. Usually there's a start and end point with constant progression in between. Something like this just alienates a lot of players that want to find enjoyment in playing this game.

There is good RNG and there is bad RNG. Both the Coil Loot system (though the second half takes a nice approach towards a more manageable system) and the atma farming design are.. well just terrible in the first place. Good RNG is there to make the game interesting. Like, the spawn location of an enemy in a boss fight to keep people on their toes (t7).

Hell, you could actually have this system in this game and make it enjoyable for everybody. Here, think about this for example:

You get the quest to start your relic upgrade beyond zenith. You are first pushed through a series of trials to "raw" out your weapon and make it malleable for future upgrades. you complete them, but to finish the process you must participate in a fate (spawns every 15 minutes). And after this fate you unlock the book portion with everything as it currently is (though, maybe a tad bit lower on the myth necessity.. and maybe w/o the fate requirements in the books themselves). And that would upgrade you to your animus. What about the Atma you ask? Well there's that one required fate that you MUST participate in. And in this fate, an atma can drop during a certain time (in game) of the day in relation to it's zodiac sign. The drop rate of this atma is EXTREMELY small, much smaller than it is now. Nothing was ever mentioned in the patch notes about these pieces. Nobody even knows they exist. The Devs stay absolutely quiet (hehe, they seem to be good at that >.>).. The community starts looking at these few that are popping up. The community starts trying to work out the mystery of these pieces putting bits of information together as it's gathered throughout constant testing (the atma will probably drop at certain times of the day within the zones that they're a part of and maybe even within a couple of fates that seem a bit more designed to fit the idea). Here's the kicker. The atma don't upgrade anything. They're trade-able. They're much more rare than thought possible. What do they do? They unlock content for the COMMUNITY. Maybe a dungeon? Maybe a boss? But once it's unlocked for the world that the atma reside in (not sure how it should work that way, that's for the Lore people to work with) the dungeon will then be accessible for everybody who can meet the level requirements.

I'm extremely tired typing this up, so a lot of things will seem a bit off here and there. But something with mystery surrounding it and something to get the community aroused in the idea would have been a much better path of design rather than forcing mindless content in order to meet a requirement. The difference is:

1. Not required
2. Community driven and involved
3. Luck is not a factor when all pieces can be obtained by multiple people and traded throughout
4. After you start the Animus quest (hidden unlock really), you can obtain the atma with any class at any level. Making it actually worth your time to some degree.
5. Essentially does everything Sqeex was trying to do with the current implementation but with a different outlook from the community as it's not being forced down their throats.

And for the record. 72 hours 12 atma 2056 fates at a .58% drop rate. I spread it out through the first week of the patch and it turned me off of this game. I've currently un-subbed and am just playing until my subscription runs out unless there's a comment from the devs stating that they're going to do something about it. All I want is them to acknowledge, I haven't seen that yet and at almost a month since the patch release it's extremely pitiful that it's taken so long. There's no reason to keep your already dedicated paying customers in the shadows unsatisfied with a product they had such high hopes for. That's like punishment for liking a game, which goes against the concept of a game itself.

[Chromheart]

I haven't done Atmas hunting myself so I couldn't feel the pain you all are posting about.

So I read about the drop rate of Atma being 2% (I don't know where that person came up with that number but lets just base my suggestion on that number).

----------------Suggestion----------------
The initial drop rate of Atma = 2%, and drop rate increases by 0.5% with each "Gold rank" you get with Zenith weapon equipped. The drop rate increase up to a maximum of 20%. Think of it as a "hidden buff" parameter, duration wise, 30 minutes would be sufficient. Timer resets and the buff gets +1 when you achieve the "Gold Rank" in FATE.

So to lay it out:

Initial Drop Rate of Atma in FATE: 2%
Increment of Drop Rate per "Gold Rank" achieved: +0.5%
Duration of the Drop Rate buff (Reset upon getting another "Gold Rank"): 30mins
Maximum Drop Rate of Atma in FATE with said buff: 20%
Buff resets with Atma obtained / Exiting field (If they can not reset the buff upon logout that would be great, hate to get DC'd with stacking buff on)

If we start out with 2% in drop rate, we would have 36 fates to do before getting to the buff cap of 20%. Lets just say if there are actually people doing FATEs in that area and FATEs are popping at a decent speed, you spend 10mins doing it and 5mins to get to another FATE. 15mins for a "Gold Rank". You will be spending 9 hours grinding nothing but FATE in order to get to the max buff, longer if there's no one else in that area running FATEs with you. At least you would have an "increased" chance of getting an Atma since you have actually worked for 9hrs in one field.
----------------/Suggestion----------------

Well, after typing all those up I realized there will always be players going like "oh if the buff's only 30mins, does that mean I will actually have to sit in front of the computer for X amount of time? If I need to off a load/go out for dinner/go to school/catch a pokemon then I am screwed", well darn right you are. I just realized as a developer, you can never win over every player, so just stick with the current drop rate and system so they can keep complaining about it.

[ArcFinix]

I haven't done Atmas hunting myself so I couldn't feel the pain you all are posting about.

So I read about the drop rate of Atma being 2% (I don't know where that person came up with that number but lets just base my suggestion on that number).

----------------Suggestion----------------
The initial drop rate of Atma = 2%, and drop rate increases by 0.5% with each "Gold rank" you get with Zenith weapon equipped. The drop rate increase up to a maximum of 20%. Think of it as a "hidden buff" parameter, duration wise, 30 minutes would be sufficient. Timer resets and the buff gets +1 when you achieve the "Gold Rank" in FATE.

So to lay it out:

Initial Drop Rate of Atma in FATE: 2%
Increment of Drop Rate per "Gold Rank" achieved: +0.5%
Duration of the Drop Rate buff (Reset upon getting another "Gold Rank"): 30mins
Maximum Drop Rate of Atma in FATE with said buff: 20%
Buff resets with Atma obtained / Exiting field (If they can not reset the buff upon logout that would be great, hate to get DC'd with stacking buff on)

If we start out with 2% in drop rate, we would have 36 fates to do before getting to the buff cap of 20%. Lets just say if there are actually people doing FATEs in that area and FATEs are popping at a decent speed, you spend 10mins doing it and 5mins to get to another FATE. 15mins for a "Gold Rank". You will be spending 9 hours grinding nothing but FATE in order to get to the max buff, longer if there's no one else in that area running FATEs with you. At least you would have an "increased" chance of getting an Atma since you have actually worked for 9hrs in one field.
----------------/Suggestion----------------

Well, after typing all those up I realized there will always be players going like "oh if the buff's only 30mins, does that mean I will actually have to sit in front of the computer for X amount of time? If I need to off a load/go out for dinner/go to school/catch a pokemon then I am screwed", well darn right you are. I just realized as a developer, you can never win over every player, so just stick with the current drop rate and system so they can keep complaining about it.

However that is a good control system. we are given a chance to get better drop rate with dedication.. no 1 to blame but the player.. with current system.. pure RNG is.. just bad

[ispano]

and which source did u get both comment from? unless it is an official source, any speculation or rumor are just theory crafted explanation.

From a Live Letter where Yoshi said the best weapons would come from Coil and similar. Relic has its place and on top is not likely it. The only way you'd likely see Relics as the best is if they were gated behind the hardest raid/whatever at the time.

[ArcFinix]

From a Live Letter where Yoshi said the best weapons would come from Coil and similar. Relic has its place and on top is not likely it. The only way you'd likely see Relics as the best is if they were gated behind the hardest raid/whatever at the time.

I believe yoshi said it will not be top for the patch but will eventally become the best in future

[Penguinmayhem]

From a Live Letter where Yoshi said the best weapons would come from Coil and similar. Relic has its place and on top is not likely it. The only way you'd likely see Relics as the best is if they were gated behind the hardest raid/whatever at the time.

I absolutely hate the mentality of the developers about this shown in comments like that because it keeps reinforcing the mentality in the userbase that Coil gear should be "the best".



Why? Why can't we have tiered endgame gear that doesn't revolve around power level bullshit and instead is just explicitly oriented around different kinds of content? Is it too much to ask that we do something that doesn't keep feeding the player base's insatiable need to obtain whatever item is considered "best" no matter what it takes and drive the entire game into the ground trying to get it? Wouldn't it be better for the game on the whole if, say, the content the devs force you into to prepare and gear up for particular stretches of the endgame environment, such as Coil or Crystal Tower or Primals or Dungeons, reflected on the style of gameplay found in those particular instances? Wouldn't that allow the game on the whole more freedom to be flexible with its content instead of expecting every single player to enjoy the same stuff? Especially when we clearly don't?

[ApolloGenX]

^^This x 1000. Developers confirm they will continue with one dimensional itemization and lack the ability to create a diverse and interesting item table for players to enjoy.

Enjoy the linear ilevel train.

[Deathscythe343]

snip

I have seen other people suggest similar things. Those people have suggested increasing the drop rate by .5%, assuming a 1% initial start, for every fate you complete until you get it. No gold requirement. To me, this seems to be the better option of these 2 suggestions, in my opinion, because 1) with all the people zerging the fates a gold requirement may be tough on people, and 2) in the long term, you can say to people that if you keep at it, you will eventually get it.

Now, I have also seen people suggest that making it something like, do 50 fates in x area to get your atma. Not a bad idea. You would still have the grind portion, for the players that like that sort of thing, and you would have a visual progression for the players that don't.

[brigannd]

They'll address the poor excuse of end game "content" with the drop rates and methods to obtain Atma around the time they do something about RMT spam.

[Shirana]

I don't absolutely hate the atma quest I just find it incredibly boring. Out of the 6 Atma's I have, I seem to be averaging 1 to 1.5 hours per Atma. But it's so life suckingly boring xD I liked the original relic quest where you did dhorme chimera, hydra and the primals. More special bosses like that would have been great. Gathering the Atma's is boring and the second part seems like a chore (though I still prefer it over mindless FATEs).

I would have liked it better if we didn't have to play on a lvl 50 with the zenith equipped. I don't like grinding but at least it would have been more convenient since you have to have a zenith anyways to accept the quest. That way they can keep the Atma quest chain locked to zenith bearers only like they want and you could do something with FATEs that at least felt like progress...like leveling another character while you wait for the drops. So instead I just stopped caring and went to level other classes lawl I'll come back to it whenever.

Edit: Edited to clarify my last paragraph.