What is wrong with people on the forum..?

[HorseBoots]

The funny part is that everyone is just complaining about the crystals, when:

1. If you completed your Zeta you completely skip this step entirely, they nerfed the original Atma grind IMMENSELY since it's launch, you could have had a Zeta complete in a weekend before patch.

2. You are allowed to level other classes while Fate grinding, which literally just turns the entire process into Fate grinding. It would be no different if you were leveling an alt class.

3. Right off the bat the drop rate is light years better than the original Atmas, In about an hour and forty minutes I had 1 third of the process completed. The entire night I was chatting with my static WHM and she had all of her crystals done in about 5 hours.

After the crystals the quest line just transitions into repopulating dead content with no RNG left tied to it. People were complaining that stuff like Alex Normal and CT were just dead in the water, well here's your solution.

These weapons are ilvl 210. THE ONLY OTHER OPTION TO OBTAIN A ILVL 210 WEAPON IN THIS GAME AT THIS VERY MOMENT IS TO CLEAR ARGUABLY THE HARDEST PIECE OF CONTENT THEY HAVE EVER ADDED TO THIS GAME SINCE IT'S CONCEPTION.

Of course it's going to be a grind. If you didn't want an RNG grind you had 5 months to dedicate yourself to progression raiding and get a 100% grantee chance at a better weapon to begin with.

There are other games on the market that generate an even worse grind for players. This is pretty soft in comparison.

[AzureFlare]

There are other games on the market that generate an even worse grind for players. This is pretty soft in comparison.

Most of those other games also give you a way better reward for the grind put in, or make the grinding more tolerable, or seeing some actual useful development during the whole process. Here at most you'll find use for the reborn stage and then nothing until the final stage.
Why are we even defending grinding because 'other games have worse grinds' anyway?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Most of those other games also give you a way better reward for the grind put in, or make the grinding more tolerable, or seeing some actual useful development during the whole process. Here at most you'll find use for the reborn stage and then nothing until the final stage.
Why are we even defending grinding because 'other games have worse grinds' anyway?

The grind is actually tolerant if you delve into it and take a casual approach. If you did hunts, dailies, fates and Alex normal runs, you'll have an Anima weapon within a couple weapons. People decrying typically look at a single method (farm Alex Normal 620 times) and love their minds. This content was not designed with farming in mind, but allowed it as an option for those willing to put in that level of dedication. Even if you did just farm Alex, it would take a conservative 50 hours (4 minute speed runs, plus additional 'extra' time to account for possibly slow queues). Divvy that up over a two week period and you're looking at: 3.6 hours a day. And 2.3 hours over a three week period.

Even if you toss another ten hours, it's not all that difficult. Of course the grind will be somewhat monotonous. We are getting a weapon equivalent (or one level below) to the best in the entire game. If the grind is too much, just settle for an il200 and attempt Alex Savage.

[HorseBoots]

Snip.

Because 1. The amount of time and effort you would have to dedicate as an individual to get a complete Anima weapon I feel is appropriately comparable to the amount of time a static will have to put into A4S alone in order to even come close to a clear.

A Raider has to find 7 other like-minded players around their same skill level, work out a proper schedule with those players to take time out of their lives every week to play said content, spend time thinking about their itemization, party composition, working out a fight by fight strategies to make up for their group's strengths and weaknesses and then put in the blood, sweet, and tears and overall improve as a player or die trying.

After they accomplish all that maybe they'll actually clear A4S and then their group will eventually be awarded with an overabundance of 210 weapons. Every active player at level 60 also had this option available to them for 5 months prior to the release of this questline.

Someone gunning for an Anima weapon has to

Fate grind an alt class for maybe a day, run some unsynced dungeons, properly do their dailies every day, and put some time back into Alexander normal and eventually they can see themselves with a shiny new 210 weapon in like maybe 2 weeks to a month depending on how much time they feel like playing video games.

And 2. It is 100% true that this grind is very mild in comparison to other games on the market.

Let me compare that grind to the other current relevant weapon grind in my life, Phantasy Star Online 2's Austere weapons.

To obtain an Austere weapon, debatably the best weapons depending on the weapon type you're gunning for you have to:

collect 100 chunky chungas stones from the boss "Profound Darkness". This boss will only show up at pre-scheduled times and you get to fight him once per sever every time he shows up. You will on average get maybe 5 stones per kill. Next up collect 100 "Excubes", that part's easy done worry about that. So after about 15 Profound Darkness kills (You get some bonus chungas stones through title rewards) you are finally free to get an "Invade" weapon of your choice!

That's not an Austere.

Now after obtaining an Invade weapon, you have to collect 100 more stones from Profound Darkness, but on top of that you need to collect 100 Nero stones as well. Nero stones from from PD and any other "Dark Falz" variant in the game, it's not a 100% drop and you can at most maybe get 3 Nero stones per Falz kill if you are super lucky. You also need to collect 50 stones from clearing Ultimate difficulty in three different zones, getting maybe 3 stones per clear. You also need to get 5 stones from clearing the three different sets of Extreme quests, so 15 stones from XQs total. Finally after all that, you hand over 300 more Excubes and destroy your Invade weapon and you are given a half upgraded Austere weapon.

Now repeat that entire process again, and you have a fully upgraded Austere weapon for one of 17 different weapons.

[AzureFlare]

Stuff

So you use an N=1 comparison to say it is very mild compared to other gameS.

Look, your comparison is nice and all, but that's completely besides the point, especially for people who have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You go None->170->200->210, with the largest segment being stuck into 200->210. Meanwhile the 210 segment is incredibly dull, long and either punishes you for already having done content (could've leveled those reps and done the relic at the same time), while solving absolutely none of the content problems (coil synced, primals synced, CT). The only segment really tackling content problems? None->170, and that segment can be skipped by people with zetas. Meanwhile, there is zero transparency what is to come since they say A and do B. They even said they acknowledged the complaints from before, and then they repeat the same things.

Your comparison tells me nothing of how long it takes, whether it is fun to do, whether there is any possible differences within the fights (randomization), whether you have a lot of options bonding or helping other people unless I go and investigate myself. And that is one single example out of a myriad of other games. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the relic's supposed to hold people for longer than one day and they intend to make it last the whole patch cycle, but.. that's it. All it should do is hold your attention. If it doesn't, then.. what other selling point really is there in just the patch? Anyone who looked up to the patch to hold their attention just lost any reason to stay.

But most of all, I'll repeat: why are we justifying grinds because Game Gamma had grind Hoobliehoob for Shiny Bracelet of Doom that was worse and arguably more monotone? Designers should be stepping away from these things, not justify them because they used to be worse or are worse in other games. Especially an entry-level MMO that is supposed to advertise itself to a very, very big audience. If you feel it is appropriately comparable to getting a Gordian (like you did in your post), that's a way more solid argument to justify it.