Design Flaws with Atma, let me count the ways

[Lord_Mord]

1. Does not reward based on any sort of skill. Most Fates are simply 2 or 3 shoting low level mobs, or spamming AoE's.

2. Does not reward based on time invested. Any player selected could be done with quest in under 10 hours as easily as it could take them 100 hours.

3. Promotes negative game play - The most efficient way to grind Atma is to tag a fate, and leave, so long as you are semi-confident others will complete it. Meaning you get max % chance by maximizing leeching from other players. (This to me, is the most embarrassing flaw in my opinion and the one they should be most ashamed of).

[Lord_Mord]

4. System is far to fast for a select few players. I can only assume as experienced Game designers they had a set amount of "Time Invested" as the gating mechanic. For a select few this "Time Invested" is practically negated by luck. So these individuals are basically skipping this step of the quest chain.

5. Renders GC Seals mute. There's no built in integral Grand Company Seal dump... You just get more and more and there's nothing to do with them but buy more and more crafting mats. How many stacks of GC craft mats does one person need?

6. Force's High levels to basically Harass low level players who are actually leveling in the zones. When I was leveling I rarely needed help solo'ing any fate except a few, and its not like I needed those more difficult fates in any shape or form to progress. But what was pissing me off is High Level fate groups steam rolling past me on chocobo's and finishing the fate I had to walk to, before I could even participate.

[ZhycranaDranix]

Must be a casual player

[AlexPayne]

Why do people think they're forced to do anything in this game? If you don't like the way it works, don't do it.

[Lord_Mord]

Today, 05:30 PMZhycranaDranix
Must be a casual player

If only casuals are gifted with the ability to point out blatant design blunders, then yep I R Casual.

Today, 07:18 PMAlexPayne
Why do people think they're forced to do anything in this game? If you don't like the way it works, don't do it.

I have stopped Atma grinding, and listed 6 reasons why.

More trolls plz.

[Ferth]

Why do people think they're forced to do anything in this game? If you don't like the way it works, don't do it.

Why do people think that just because we aren't forced to do all the content in the game we aren't allowed to express our opinions on the content in this game?

[CodeCass]

There is faaaar too much sodium in this thread already...:P

[Jaarlask]

While i agree the grind is..less than fun. The moment you get the notification that you got an Atma..that does feel wonderful.

[Avarghaladion]

Why do people think they're forced to do anything in this game? If you don't like the way it works, don't do it.

So you just wanted to make sure to come on here and complain, so everyone knows you're crying. Good, congrats, now we know. I'm sure someone will feel sorry for you, somewhere down the line.

Super unhealthy attitude. Would you rather the large number people who are displeased with SE's actions just quit the game? This isn't stellar time for MMOs, unlike ten or so years ago. There are a lot more options out there. If you remotely care about the game you should want people to provide feedback. People are extremely upset about this trash "content" and rightly so... they paid SE to make it! I personally know over a dozen people who unsubscribed... non-casual players who are just conscienscious consumers and won't stand for a crap product. This content is so extremely horrific that a big part of me believes that SE is intentionally trying to force themselves into a F2P position with this game. More profit:effort...

While i agree the grind is..less than fun. The moment you get the notification that you got an Atma..that does feel wonderful.

The first Atma I ever got I felt like "yaaaayyy" but for every drop after that I felt terrible. I can understand that some people get that sense of euphoria though and that is actually my primary concern with this stuff... They made it a drug and they want you to be addicted enough to grind for that high. In FFXI, SE was no longer allowed to do the MogLottery on NA servers because it was considered gambling. It was a literal lottery where you bot virtual lottery tickets and you could win prizes that included the rarest and hardest to get items in the entire game, including extreme sums of gil. The only difference with Atma is that instead of buying lottery tickets you're pulling the handle on a slot machine... each FATE is a spin and addictive personalities run the risk of getting sucked right in. I watched a person irl spend nearly every waking moment farming ATMA for two weeks straight... It isn't just bad content, it's immoral content that teaches people that if you gamble forever you'll eventually win.

[Tsuga]

While i agree the grind is..less than fun. The moment you get the notification that you got an Atma..that does feel wonderful.

Not for everyone. I have a friend who runs dailies with me, we do sahagin dailies every day, and we do every single fate in the area as they pop. We've been doing it for a month or so, now. She has 5 crab atmas, now, I have zero. She feels terrible every time one of them drops, and I've become slightly bitter about it.

Another example. I grinded in north shroud for 2 hours last weekend to get my atma, finally got it. My SO walked into the zone that night, did one FATE and got a drop. The same thing happened for their crab atma, which they got after farming 3 FATEs with us when we tried to grind the area last month.

I've determined that I do have terrible luck in regards to this system, but that isn't an excuse for bad design - actually, it's a perfect example of it. One person can put in literally hours, days, weeks of work and get nothing, while another can spend five minutes in the zone and get the drop. There's not even any kind of challenge involved, so the drops don't feel rewarding at all (the ones that I've had drop only made me happy because I could finally leave the damn zone, I felt no sense of accomplishment).

tbh I'm fine with low drop rates on items. I played XI for years, it had abysmal drop rates in some cases. The thing was that with so many drops in XI they would AT LEAST drop into the loot pool to be lotted on. If nothing else I'd like it if the atmas were not untradeable. It would create a viable market for the people who have gil and don't have the time to grind FATEs (or would rather be doing something, y'know, fun?), and give those lucky few who get 5 atmas during their dailies a source of income. Right now one person can go months without getting a single atma (or literally never get one at all, since it's a dice roll), which is kind of silly considering that alternatives to the relic are getting easier to obtain than the atma weapon alone, not including animus.

My last point - Yoshida himself pledges that the game is supposed to be about fun more than anything (it's one of their four(?) core pillars), but so many people (even those defending it) describe atma farming as work. You have to work for this super special item because "that's MMOs!". It doesn't have to be that way. Items can still be gated, still be difficult to obtain, and not be tedious work - and if the game is about fun then SE should be making strives to correct, and avoid implementing content that fosters bitter players. ATMA can still be gated, still be difficult to obtain, but at least make it fun to do, and not grindy busy "work".