Possible Alternative to current Atma?

[SionDurant]

I understand SE wants this to be longer, drawn out. I respect it for different various reasons.

But the current state of RNG for Atma is very atrocious, 30 hrs spent to show for 1 atma stone whereas my FC mates come in 3-5 HR's and get 11/12 or even 12/12. It's not a very balanced system considering.

Perhaps SE should consider a Korean Style grind if they insist on a grind, see below.

Instead of complete RNG, break the Atma's into fragments.

Example: 10 Maiden Atma Fragments builds 1 Atma of the Maiden.

Rules:
Must obtain Gold Rank in Fate.
Must participate in fate until it's completion.
Atma Fragments have 50/50 chance per Gold Ranked Fate to drop, a set value, not randomized (edit from confusion)

Note: This means no matter what, you have to do at minimum 120 Fates. That's still a lot of Fates, and would still take players time when coupled with the books. SE could even just consider increase the myth count of each book to compensate for this to 2000 a book. People would tolerate the system a lot more if it wasn't so fecklessly based on RNG.

Of course I won't be complaining if Atma is just slapped with a nerf bat. Please, no more mindless RNG, it's very boring and discouraging.

[Arcaloid]

RNG will be fine if they can do what Diablo is doing, in that game for every 2 hours if you didn't get a legendary drop, the drop rate will be double.
Blizzard said 99% of the players should get at lease 1 drop within 2 hours, yet they still develop such a system for the unlucky 1%, while SE is just ignoring them.

[SionDurant]

They could also even make Crafting more relevant in this system too, make it so any crafter level 50 can utilize the materia melding tool to create the Atma pieces out of the 10 fragments, this would put more barriers that are not dependent on RNG and also add another gil sink.

[Nekodar]

Inconsistent... You want to retain RNG (50% is still RNG), but you don't want RNG...

[SionDurant]

Inconsistent... You want to retain RNG (50% is still RNG), but you don't want RNG...

50% to clarify I mean that you have a 50/50 chance on each Fate to get the fragment, that's not RNG that's a set increment.

[Nekodar]

50% to clarify I mean that you have a 50/50 chance on each Fate to get the fragment, that's not RNG that's a set increment.

Chance... 50%... still RNG...
Granted, less than 0.1% chance that you go 10 fates without getting a fragment, but RNG is RNG.
If you mean 50% on first try and 100% on second, say that instead.

[SionDurant]

Chance... 50%... still RNG...
Granted, less than 0.1% chance that you go 10 fates without getting a fragment, but RNG is RNG.
If you mean 50% on first try and 100% on second, say that instead.

RNG is random number generation.

A set increment is not a set of random numbers, I'm just saying, not to be rude.

This is also years of nerdery with dice roller builds talking by the way (Text Based RPGer and former developer).

[Xandim]

RNG is random number generation.

A set increment is not a set of random numbers, I'm just saying, not to be rude.

This is also years of nerdery with dice roller builds talking by the way (Text Based RPGer and former developer).

Its just that from what you said it appeared that after getting gold you'd have 50% chance to get an atma fragment, which is still a RNG. But if you have 50% and if you don't get it the next fate will have 100% chance, than yeah, its different =P

[Shaone]

Chance... 50%... still RNG...
Granted, less than 0.1% chance that you go 10 fates without getting a fragment, but RNG is RNG.
If you mean 50% on first try and 100% on second, say that instead.

Yep, if they want a "korean grind" system, why not just say "20 fragments with 100% drop rate".

Anyway, any proposals like this simply compress the size of the bell curve for FATEs vs atma, up to the most extreme version (as in 100% drop rate) simply being a fixed number of FATEs.

Personally, I think they might as well just make Atmas tradeable (which would mean sellable by default, so might as well add them to market boards too). The thing that really, really bugs me about the quest is that I can't do the first part with friends without whoever gets the first drop either being penalised and hanging around or splitting with the rest of the group to work on next Atma. If they were tradeable, then your party could stay in a zone until there have been drops for all who need them, trade them around so everyone has one, then move on to the next zone. But I know that's a crazy concept for an MMO, making an open world parties of friends to reach a goal together and help each other out! Maybe I should lay off the Moko grass.

Responsible disclosure: I got my last 5 Atma in about an hour, BUT I do want to get other Atma weapons, and I probably used this decades luck allowance up now.

[Delsus]

Another way they could do it is have it as a complete xx amount of FATEs to obtain the atma, they could tie that into lore by saying something like once so many mobs have been defeated (but we would still use FATEs) the aether released by the slewen monsters would react with the Zenith and crystalise forming a type of crystal known as Atma. Also to tie seperate zones into lore they could say "the environment inwhich the aether crystalises seems to affect the type of Atma created."