I Hear a Lot of Talk About Fairness These Days

[m3eansean]

Some people play the lottery their entire lives and never win anything. While unfortunate, disagreeable and frustrating, it is sadly, still mathematically fair.

[i2agnarok]

The lottery also takes less than five minutes out of your day.
When I can give 10 Myth tomes to my Retainer for a chance at winning an Animus Weapon, or even an Atma stone, or whatever is subject to "fairness", this might be more relevant.
These two things don't compare at all.

[m3eansean]

The lottery also takes less than five minutes out of your day.
When I can give 10 Myth tomes to my Retainer for a chance at winning an Animus Weapon, or even an Atma stone, or whatever is subject to "fairness", this might be more relevant.
These two things don't compare at all.

They are in fact, quite comparable, both are optional and both are subject to mathematical percentage based win ratios. Time investment is a function of luck and desire. Some people gamble once and win the jackpot, some gamble every day and struggle to break even.

It is possible to run fates for only 5 minutes a day and still obtain Atma pieces.

[i2agnarok]

True enough. Going off of pure mathematics, you are absolutely correct. I'm not arguing that. However, let's look at this from the perspective of the game.

It was given that the quest would take a while to complete. It wasn't supposed to be something to be done overnight. This was the pretense of the whole thing. It isn't the best weapon around, but it is something you are supposed to be able to acquire without going the "challenge" route. It was assumed it would be less involving (though that is an understatement). It was supposed to be something that you could do as an alternative.

However, you jump into it and its all RNG. Not just the normal RNG that you find everywhere else in the game, but extremely low to the way everything else is laid out. Sure, it is laid out to you that you have a chance to gain this and it isn't a guaranteed drop. If it were going to take a while to get, people are fine with that, but the fact that it may take you a while to get while your neighbor there can get it immediately, that's not quite cool. "Fairness" depends on the perspective. Maybe it is in the way it was interpreted, but it doesn't sound "fair" in comparison to what it was portrayed as.

You can say that it is standard fare in MMOs; RNG is everywhere, everything is up to chance, but everything else in this game has been fairly lenient. You have been given alternatives at pretty much every route. You have a grand prize of A, but if you don't get A, you can save up something to get B. Its viewed as unfair in the sense that while doing this quest, which is completely optional and no one is arguing this (at least I am not), there is no secondary out. It is a large departure from the rest of the game. That is why people think it is "unfair." When you change something up in the formula, people tend to lose their cool if its completely out of left field. Probability and randomness are cruel and unforgiving by nature, but this isn't the expectation that people had.

If it is a matter of "you had the wrong expectation," that's fine, its life. I sympathize with anyone that feels that its "unfair." Is it "unfair" in the literal sense? Not really, no. You are correct.

[m3eansean]

I think the secondary option you mention is a consideration, but it is possible the Atma is viewed by the development team as the secondary option to the Soldiery/2nd Coil weapons. So players that might not have statics or FC's that are downing high-end content can still access a decent enough weapon and not feel gated out of new gear.

I consent there should be more options after 2nd Coil/Soldiery, then Atma, as it is now (if you can't clear the XM modes and T5), your only other option would be an ilvl 70 crafted weapon, I believe.

[i2agnarok]

I think the secondary option you mention is a consideration, but it is possible the Atma is viewed by the development team as the secondary option to the Soldiery/2nd Coil weapons. So players that might not have statics or FC's that are downing high-end content can still access a decent enough weapon and not feel gated out of new gear.

I consent there should be more options after 2nd Coil/Soldiery, then Atma, as it is now (if you can't clear the XM modes and T5), your only other option would be an ilvl 70 crafted weapon, I believe.

Thus the amount of complaining. To my knowledge, the Soldiery weapons also require an item from 2nd Coil to obtain them. So you're still stuck floundering around. If you can't down T5 or XM modes, your only other choice is the lottery, which is why people are saying things are unfair. Also, you get nothing in return for the lottery. It is just wasted time. This is why people are so strung out over it being unfair. Yes, it may be mathematically fair, but it is all an extreme amount of luck that you go through not once, but 12 times, with nothing else to show for the time invested.

When I do dungeons, I get a shot at the loot, plus an handful of tomestones. In Coil, I still have to deal with RNG for the drops, but at least I saw loot, and I got another handful of tomestones for my trouble. What of all these people spending x amount of hours trying to do Atma farming and getting nothing? They probably feel abandoned. It is frustrating. That is why they say it is unfair. They can't progress and feel lost. If the Atma quest felt like you had even an inkling of light at the end of the tunnel, people wouldn't be so angry about it.

You also play against RNG in any treasure chest, but you at least see the contents. You have nothing to show for yourself for Atma. Some people may thing it is whining, but it sucks for the people that are just plain unlucky.

[m3eansean]

I can see your points, but it is still perception managment. For instance, you aren't guaranteed loot from a dungeon, you do see it come up on your screen and you try to get it by pressing a button and hope you rolled higher than anyone else. With Atma, we are doing the same thing, just against the computer. Perhaps if we had a screen pop up after every fate where you need to roll a 95 or higher to get the Atma it would be perceived as a chance to win, as opposed to just hoping to hear that chime as the atma falls into your bag.

Also the point that dungeons gives you tomes is valid, but the Fates also provide little consolation prizes, like gil and seals, which if used correctly, can be made manifest into large amounts of gil through purchasing previous Philo mats with them and re-selling on the market -- so its not a complete loss.

I think many people are causing themselves undue stress by being so incredibly focused on acquiring the weapon ASAP and mis-perceive the luckiness of others' speed of acquisition as a slight to their time investment, since we should be going into this knowing it is a gamble.

[i2agnarok]

Sure, I can agree with that. As I said earlier, I believe it was a matter of what the expectation was going into it. Maybe something was lost in translation. That definitely happens.

As for people causing themselves undue stress, you're right. I know I stressed about it. You know what I did? I stopped caring. I regulated myself to the point where I focused myself almost completely on Coil. I used Party Finder, I chatted in FC chat, I lost myself in other things and I only even remotely consider farming Atma as filler to waiting on Party Finder when we only had a few slots to fill or we're getting ready to jump in. They started dropping like candy. Excitement didn't come until I actually started doing the first book and felt an actual sense of progress. A watched pot never boils, I suppose. The prizes like gil and seals (mainly the seals) can be used for income and other things (mainly the selling of mats), but since it doesn't seem to directly contribute to your immediate goal (gear, specifically a weapon when weapons are harder to come by), they may be overlooked. It is as you say. Perception.

Regarding the loot from the dungeon, its always going to be perceived differently; you have x amount of chests at the end, depending on what you do, your first test of fate is what is in the chest, and the second being whether or not you have to roll against anyone. There are still feelings of bitterness, but there are definitely less vocal complaints about it (CT being dubbed Bard's Tower is a joke I often make, but I feel nowhere near as strongly about it as Atma, for example). I just think that when you have such a large amount of backlash on it, you have to take a look at it from a few different angles. Yes, most of these threads are incoherent whines with nothing backing them up or elaborating, and not many people can talk about the subject and have anything productive coming out of it like that...but that's another story. We don't agree with another completely, but we can see each other's point, at least. ^__^

[givemeraptors]

Low level fates unfortunately don't give very much gil or seals...

But I guess everyone can work on that 1,000 FATE achievement!

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Fairness aside, it is generally an unrewarding system for both people who get it quickly and for those who don't. For those who don't get it quickly, it's pretty self-explanatory. And being told to just go for the Leviathan/Coil weapons is no fix for the problem; it actually makes it worse. How? Novus. The next upgrade level was postponed, one of the reasons being that not enough people had Animus weapons yet - which is directly linked to those who've been unfortunate getting Atma, and those who decided/were told to just go for the alternatives. So those who DO have Animus weapons have just been unnecessarily halted in their progression, through no fault of their own. And as for those who have yet to get Atma weapons, once Novus is added, an already long grind just gets longer. Nobody really wins with the system as it stands right now, and even SE has taken notice of that.