atma drop rates

[The_Juggler]

I finally got one!

After over 1000 FATEs and an unfathomable number of hours, I finally got an Atma for the first time.
Atma of the Goat - I'll cherish it deeply.
It was about a month ago that I started messing with Atma, so just 12 more months to go!

More seriously though, this confirms that there's nothing wrong with my character and I'm not doing it wrong, which is something I've worried about for a long time. I had thought that maybe there's some game bug or that I'm missing something really stupid.
Nope, it's not me, Atma is just incredibly stupid and unfair.

[RiceisNice]

Clearly I must be playing on a vastly higher level of player skill if I managed to get 3 Atmas in one day... all of which by doing one FATE at a time and moving onto the next one after the current one finishes.

There's no diminishing returns or pseudo RNG from what I've experienced here; a 3% drop is a 3% drop, nothing else to say about that. I don't see how "rolling 3 dices at the same time" is any different from "rolling 3 dices after each other", considering you only need one of them to hit that 3%

I also feel that the concept of Atma just offhands the design of the game; you're not really helping lowbies or doing well in FATEs if you're swarming them with a party or simply tagging it and running off.

I can't help but see the same problem being repeated in the future; There's always an alternative which is both more accessible and more-or-less the same stats (ST and hunts giving tomestones and allied seals for unweathered weapons)

[YanDere]

The quote is too messy.
You got the single phrases and cut them out of their context.
The grind is something very long and, for most players, boring. The grind is, by definition, something you don't like doing, that leads to a very good reward.
You can't ask for equality in an RNG-based grind, it's stupid.
Accept it, or don't do it, because atma grinding is not "for the skin", but for the animus: it's like saying that Hydra and Chimera are useless because I spent more time doing Ifrit-Garuda-Titan than them. You don't do animus by completing 9 books, you do it by completing A relic reborn, then grinding 12 atmas, then completing 9 books. You didn't spend more time grinding atmas than doing animus, because you were doing animus all along.

I don't see how "rolling 3 dices at the same time" is any different from "rolling 3 dices after each other", considering you only need one of them to hit that 3%

I explained this, twice, with examples.
But I know you won't bother scrolling up so here we go again:
If you roll 3 dices one every 10 minutes, you can get one reward at 10min, 1 at 20 min, 1 at 30 min, or none; if you roll 3 dices together after 10 minutes, you can get one at 10 minutes, or none.
The number of FATEs changes the overall drop rate, the time it takes to you to do them changes the time it takes to actually drop.
If doing 1 FATE every 10 minutes you drop after 15 FATEs, it takes 150 minutes. If you're doing 3 every 10 minutes, you drop after 50 minutes. It's like rolling a dice to get 6 (but not getting it) then waiting 10 minutes, or rolling continuously until you get that 6, it takes way less to go faster.

[RiceisNice]

...
.

That doesn't make sense in regards to "increasing overall droprate." It doesn't increase the droprate is what I'm getting at, and possibly what other people are getting at. You're still throwing out three dices at the end, and hoping for if one to hit the mark.

That's under the assumption that you're going to get a drop after 15 FATEs, which is not the case because it's based off a static percentage that doesn't change. It doesn't change based on how many FATEs you do, it doesn't change based on how much you tag in a given time. 3% the first time then its 3% the fifth time, and 3% the hundredth time if it comes to that.

The way I'd word it, its not "You increase your chances of getting heads if you toss a coin twice.", but "Your chances of getting heads on the second toss is still the same if you toss a coin twice". It's a poor analogy because its 50/50, but that's the point I'm getting at.

[YanDere]

"You increase your chances of getting heads if you toss a coin twice."

Well the fact is, you actually do increase your chances.
Dropping 1 atma from 1 FATE is more unlikely than dropping 1 atma from 2 FATEs. Each roll has 3% chance but the more FATEs you do, the more chances you'll have of dropping that ONE atma you need from MULTIPLE FATEs.
So that being said, doing more FATEs in less time increases the odds of dropping, and this is a fact.
Avoid comments like "explain me how a 3% drop can change if it's always 3%", that would be stupid, just read above in the 9999999 comments I made explaining it in different ways.

[Ringabell]

Well the fact is, you actually do increase your chances.
Dropping 1 atma from 1 FATE is more unlikely than dropping 1 atma from 2 FATEs. Each roll has 3% chance but the more FATEs you do, the more chances you'll have of dropping that ONE atma you need from MULTIPLE FATEs.
So that being said, doing more FATEs in less time increases the odds of dropping, and this is a fact.Avoid comments like "explain me how a 3% drop can change if it's always 3%", that would be stupid, just read above in the 9999999 comments I made explaining it in different ways.

Yep, it sure is.

If one person does 1 FATE per day and another person does 30 FATEs per day, the person doing 30 per day is probably going to get all 12 much quicker.

I say probably because the very nature of RNG means that it's POSSIBLE (though highly unlikely) that the person who does 1 FATE per day gets his 12 Atma in 12 days, and it's POSSIBLE (though highly unlikely) that the person doing 30 FATEs per day get's his 12 Atma in a year.

"Possible" simply means that there is more than a 0% chance.

Go in PF and start an Atma group for whatever area you're in so that you can down FATEs as fast as possible and get more done in less time. If you go into an area and see a lot of people are already doing FATEs but they haven't joined your party, send out a /shout letting them know you have a PF up.

If you don't you may find yourself soloing a FATE and taking 8+ minutes to finish something that would've taken 2 minutes with a full party.

[RiceisNice]

Then I'm at the part where I just simply don't agree with that ideology and probability, i or at least the fact that it's applicable in this situation. Not much else to say beyond that; I don't feel that you're increasing any chances of obtaining an Atma if it remains the same rate, whether it be doing 10 FATEs in 10 minutes in a hardcore grind or 10 FATEs in 30 minutes at a leisurely pace.

Yep, it sure is.

If one person does 1 FATE per day and another person does 30 FATEs per day, the person doing 30 per day is probably going to get all 12 much quicker.
.

That's where I'd have trouble believing that this actually improves the odds of getting an Atma. I don't see the probability thing being applicable in something like this. I've had parties a couple of times and we've even come to a complete stop at times because the entire map was cleared of FATEs.

[Ringabell]

Then I'm at the part where I just simply don't agree with that ideology and probability, i or at least the fact that it's applicable in this situation. Not much else to say beyond that; I don't feel that you're increasing any chances of obtaining an Atma if it remains the same rate, whether it be doing 10 FATEs in 10 minutes in a hardcore grind or 10 FATEs in 30 minutes at a leisurely pace.

If it's 10 FATEs in 10 minutes vs. 10 FATEs in 30 minutes, you're talking about the same percentage.

That's not what we're talking about.

Let's look at the two people in your example:

Why are we assuming Person A is grinding less time? If someone does 10 FATEs in 10 minutes, they're doing 30 FATEs in that 30 minutes.

With that in mind let's compare them again.

Person A does 30 FATEs in 30 minutes and Person B does 10 FATEs in 30 minutes...one-third as many.

If they keep up this pace, with Person A tripling Person B's output, who is more likely to get their 12 atma first?

[Axlle10]

The quote is too messy.
You got the single phrases and cut them out of their context.
The grind is something very long and, for most players, boring. The grind is, by definition, something you don't like doing, that leads to a very good reward.
You can't ask for equality in an RNG-based grind, it's stupid.
Accept it, or don't do it, because atma grinding is not "for the skin", but for the animus: it's like saying that Hydra and Chimera are useless because I spent more time doing Ifrit-Garuda-Titan than them. You don't do animus by completing 9 books, you do it by completing A relic reborn, then grinding 12 atmas, then completing 9 books. You didn't spend more time grinding atmas than doing animus, because you were doing animus all along.

Did not take any of your statements out of context. those were the core statements of your arguments. Its sad that you beat around the bush and try to justify a broken system with a logical fallacy. Its not always possible to farm efficiently, i proved you were wrong on that. The grind was not very long for some players, i proved you were wrong on that as well. Equality indeed can happen. Smart game companies have done it, and they continue to do it. SE even did it when they gave multiple ways on how you can obtain the Animus/Novus upgrades. People love options, and thats what they should have done for something so meaningless as just a new skin. So.... guess what, proved you wrong on that too

And if we were talking about the absolute start of the relic quest > Novus then yes, atma is not just for a skin. But guess what. This topic concerns ONLY the atma stage. Nothing of the animus and novus systems are being discussed here.

So basically you are stating all opinions on how you gathered all 12 atma. You never had to deal with any of the issues that most others have. You are turning a blind eye to any sort of logical reasoning as to why its not good for a game to block something behind a purely RNG system with such a small reward as a new skin.

it's getting to the point that getting this weapon is starting to make this game a lot less fun

and when game companies see a lot of these, they tend to do something sooner or later, which they have already said they are doing. But now its just going to be save up 1300 soldiery and get a UAT from ST. and thats all people are gonna do till they fix this broken system.

[Avarghaladion]

More seriously though, this confirms that there's nothing wrong with my character and I'm not doing it wrong, which is something I've worried about for a long time. I had thought that maybe there's some game bug or that I'm missing something really stupid.
Nope, it's not me, Atma is just incredibly stupid and unfair.

I had the same concern during my last dry spell. I finally got another Atma to drop after about 80 hours of nothing. During that time it felt like my character was glitched or something. I submitted a bug report and got an Atma a few days later. This doesn't confirm that there was anything wrong with my character but it does highlight another major problem with the Atma system: the absolute lack of transparency. You have no way of knowing if you're falling victim to a bug of some kind unless you actually get the Atma drop. This is true of most RNG except Atma is so incredibly rare that it's difficult to verify.

An effective solution would be to do something like they did for DoH/DoL i70 grinds. Make an item called "Atma" or "Uninfused Atma" drop every single time you complete a FATE with a Zenith on. The sole purpose of the item would be to trade it in to the quest-giver for a food that can bolster your Atma drop rate. This solves the problem of transparency by showing players that there isn't anything wrong with the programming or their character and it would actually make it semi-bearable by ameliorating the system overall through a Lore based boost.

I can't help but see the same problem being repeated in the future; There's always an alternative which is both more accessible and more-or-less the same stats (ST and hunts giving tomestones and allied seals for unweathered weapons)

This is a major concern of mine. The implementation feels very F2P-esque. I want to say that at some point SE is going to have to stop screwing around with relic, given that with each stage it becomes, increasingly, the most difficult weapon option to acquire. I don't have a lot of faith in SE right now when it comes to content balance though.