Fix ATMA or I quit

[skaterger]

My friends are quitting because of ATMAs. So I won't have a static party anymore.
LOL. I don't really know what to say.

If your static is quitting over this, its probably for the best since they have no idea how to prioritize their time in game. This might not translate well to clearing content either.

[Morphiana]

You don't have to do it right?

Relic quests will continue with future patches so, if you'd like to take part in those quests you will have to do this.

My friends are quitting because of ATMAs. So I won't have a static party anymore.
LOL. I don't really know what to say.

I don't either, I've lost a good portion of my FC to this update. People are afraid it's telling of future updates and don't want to stick around to find out. With Wildstar / ESO betas being handed out like candy and GW 2's new big patch coming... Sigh. Lets not forget Warlords of Draenor either. The patch notes were released today on it showing WoW is still working hard on their content to keep the game feeling fresh. Hats off to them for a game over a decade old.

[Caraway]

Personally, I feel the actual percentage drop rate is fine (and before the self-entitled whiners pipe up; I only have one atma after hours of doing various FATE events scattered about).

My only issue with it is that you have to do low level FATE events as your max level character. As I said earlier, I'm no stranger to grinding, but seeing all of that wasted XP kind of sucks (and I don't like the design of FATEs in the first place 'cause they don't actually teach you how to play).

[Morphiana]

Right now the drop rate isn't a fixed percentage. It's a randomly generated number which has a chance to not drop anything at all. This is why we see people who are getting it done in 12 hours to not having a drop at all in 28 hours.

[Undeadfire]

Right now the drop rate isn't a fixed percentage. It's a randomly generated number which has a chance to not drop anything at all.

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous, 2.5/3% drop rate is the most accurate number of drop rate. It's very possible you will walk with nothing for a massive grind with that percentage. SE isn't going to be that stupid to do that, unless they really wanted to anger the community.

[Morphiana]

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous, 2.5/3% drop rate is the most accurate number of drop rate..

This is not true. It is not a fixed drop rate like other forms of loot in game are.

[Undeadfire]

You will have to prove your claim if saying that.

[Caraway]

This is not true. It is not a fixed drop rate like other forms of loot in game are.

I don't think you know how percentage rates work...

If by 'other forms of loot' you are refering to trial/dungeon chest loot then what is happening there is there is a 100% chance that something out of a pool of available options will drop. Depending on the number of options, the percentage rate of the particular item you want can be determined (Hardmode weapons for example, there's one for each class so your effective drop rate is 1 in 9).

What's going on with these Atma FATEs is that there is a low percentage chance of a single item dropping at all. There is no pool of items to chose from for drops, it is just a percentage chance to say that X item is dropped.

At the 2%-5% rate you can conceivably go a very long time without ever seeing a drop. This is just probability at work.

[Purrfectstorm]

It took me about 20 hours to get all of my Atma. From my experience and a few others I've talked with, I believe the drop rate is around 2.5-3.5%. This seems pretty reasonable to me. People don't like the RNG element of this but a lot of things in MMOs are RNG. I played with a DRG who'd cleared T1 50 times before getting a certain armor piece. This isn't a big change to MMOs in general or FFXIV in particular.

People don't like that they aren't making clear progress towards a goal. This is true of any PUG (there's a chance to wipe and not clear). This is true of many loot drops (there's a chance Ifrit HM drops unneeded weapons a hundred times, or a thousand, or a million) but the odds are vanishingly small. Yes if you do x number of Fates, you are not magically "due" but the odds of NOT getting an Atma after 180 Fates are only 1%, so I'm thinking that people who have farmed for 30 hours with no Atma are in the very small minority.

Your feelings matter, your frustration is understandable. However, I'd suggest not making Fate farming the primary focus of your in-game activities and more look at them as just something to do while you're waiting on a dungeon queue. I've heard of DPS having 30 min dungeon waits. Maybe use that time productively and Farm some Fates, or work on your 20/100 enemy kills for the companion part of your challenge log (it's good companion exp), or chat with FC members, or connect with other players. To many, (myself included), the Atma complaints seem largely based on: "I want it and I want it now." This alienates other players and makes your voice go unheard.

My personal beliefs are that these type of games should offer different types of progression to appeal to different players: challenging gameplay or time consuming gameplay. The Atma quest is entirely optional and provides something for players that would have trouble (or simply don't want to) challenge hard content for an equivalent weapon. Both types of rewards satisfy players in different ways. For me, each Atma drop was tremendously exciting. True, it's in part because it signified progress towards ending something that felt tedious, but I actually feel that removing the grind would also remove the satisfaction of seeing that Atma message pop up.

Imagine if a similar nerf was proposed for the other style of content: Titan EX was hogtied, he was face down on the ground with his hands tied behind his back. You didn't have to tank swap, you didn't have to dodge, all you had to do was show up and rotate combos until he died, it would feel hollow to get anything from that because you wouldn't have overcome a hurdle that required effort.

And to those who say Atma grinding doesn't require effort, I disagree. You need patience. Some people have it. Some people don't.

[Zaygr]

But even patience won't get you anywhere if you're unlucky. That's not effort. That's just the gambler's fallacy. At least with chest drops you know it will drop something, even if it isn't something you can use, it'll probably go toward making someone in your group better or more versatile in terms of roles they can perform. Even when just doing FATEs on the side, it is massively demoralising when you do hours of FATEs and nothing drops. It's been 6 days since I've last seen an Atma, around 15-20 hours of doing FATEs that have yielded nothing useful. It's not the time taken that people are frustrated with, it's the sheer lack of measurable progress that happens when you combine non-content with RNG. I mean, people are comparably happier with the grind to reach Animus because even with the RNG elements like waiting for a specific FATE to spawn, it is still has measurable progress (enough myth for book, enough creatures killed, enough dungeons run, etc.)