Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[MilesSaintboroguh]

How exactly did Atma help the game? If people weren't complaining about the grind itself, it turned Fates from a mindless zerg to an even more mindless zerg that newbie players may get pushed out of.

[Starbirth]

You were never required to do the atma grind. You could have just done primals for weapons or gotten your 110 through raids.

[Lilith_Merquise]

You were never required to do the atma grind. You could have just done primals for weapons or gotten your 110 through raids.

Exactly! There are other and honestly better alternatives to relics, go do Savage Alex or Thordan EX. But if that content isn't for you and your a casual who only does roulettes, dungeon, and leveling grinding. Why is this system a bad thing? You literally can accumulate the atmas on any class, which you're going to do anyway by grinding that over doing more End Game Content?

There isn't even content in this game that makes that weapon even necessary, the fact that a stage 2 completed relic (just fates and dungeon grind, can be done in less then 3 days tbh) gets you an i200 weapon which is your eso weapon but with better stats and not costing Eso? Like how is that a negative. You don't even have to get the weapon because there isn't challenging content enough to require it outside of Alex Savage and Thordan EX, which you're not doing anyway if you are concerned about Relic weapons lol...

[Starbirth]

Exactly! There are other and honestly better alternatives to relics, go do Savage Alex or Thordan EX.

The problem is these alternatives are less accessible than their 2.0 counterparts.

[Belhi]

The problem is these alternatives are less accessible than their 2.0 counterparts.

This is something they addressed though in the last live letter. Midas Savage will have its difficulty tuned down and its rewards tuned up.

[Dhex]

This is something they addressed though in the last live letter. Midas Savage will have its difficulty tuned down and its rewards tuned up.

This doesn't make their raiding structure any less tired or rigid than it has been since 2.0

Alexander Midas will be another set of instanced circular-arena fights exactly like BCoB, SCoB, FCoB, & Alexander Gordias were.

You will deal with another set of four scripted fights just like you did in your Darklight gear when the game relaunched.

Please look forward to it.

[Belhi]

This doesn't make their raiding structure any less tired or rigid than it has been since 2.0

Alexander Midas will be another set of instanced circular-arena fights exactly like BCoB, SCoB, FCoB, & Alexander Gordias were.

You will deal with another set of four scripted fights just like you did in your Darklight gear when the game relaunched.

Please look forward to it.

My comment was primarily addressing the accessibility of Endgame weapons outside the anima options, not the pros or cons of the raid structure itself.

I think the fight arenas could be more interesting but I don't have a fundamental problem with the model. I personally used to find it really annoying back in WoW, having to clear half a dozen bosses every weak that I had already downed so many times I could practically sleep through it and still clear just to get to the boss my group was trying to progress on.

I suspect turn 5 made them cagey about the nature of arenas since the strat for avoiding divebombs was probably not intended and makes the mechanic a lot easier to clear.

[Lilith_Merquise]

How exactly did Atma help the game? If people weren't complaining about the grind itself, it turned Fates from a mindless zerg to an even more mindless zerg that newbie players may get pushed out of.

so you're saying that people actually DOING HW Fates is a bad thing? Because did you see the zones before and after Atma Grinds? On top of that there are fates that are gated behind doing other fates in a chain or just doing fates at all in that zone to spawn them? Also the people that wanted to que up for a dungeon but had to choose that or put your chocobo out to heal yourself because you were the only one out there doing fates and if you couldn't keep yourself alive it was one or the other (DPS ques I'm looking at you).

Saying that "Atma Grinds" were bad for the game couldn't be further from the truth IMO, it put people in an unpopulated places, and honestly made people discover things that thy wouldn't otherwise know about the zones because nobody did them.