Probably another demiatma criticism post - with a story

[ShirakoShinkai]

This is going to be a very long post, but I hope you'll bear with me. I sincerely hope someone on the 14 development team reads this and understands that I am frustrated, and I don't want to be, and they need to more closely consider how the players are going to feel about the content they develop.

TL;DR: Atma grind is incredibly variable on how long it takes, which is frustrating when doing with other people and they finish twice as fast as you. Please take the "luck" factor out of it. I would like the FFXIV devs to reconsider the extremes they implement content at. Don't just be 0 or 100, find the middle ground.

I started playing the game back in Shadowbringers. I tried to keep up with the relics, so when the one-time step to grind fates in Stormblood zones came out - half in the near east and half in the far east - I was able to start on it right away. I started with my FC at the time, about 5 of us counting myself. By the end of the day, the others had finished the step, while I was only half way through. The next day, I continued the grind with my girlfriend at the time. She was starting fresh. By the end of the day, she had finished. I still wasn't done. I finally finished on the third day.

Fast forward to current times. Time for the new field operation, and new relics with it. Naturally, the first day of the new content, I'm there in the field operation. My boyfriend and I start pretty early, we unlock it, grab our relic quest, and get in there. It's pretty fun, honestly. And then after about 7 hours, I see a pop-up: my first demiatma. I had forgotten about them until then. I told my bf and asked how many he had; he had 5. I sort of laughed at the time; I mentioned it was funny how horrible his luck usually is, it's good that he's finally lucky at something. I only considered how mildly annoying it was that I was so far behind until later, when I didn't end up getting a second that day.

Day 2: we start FATE farming. We realize since the atmas each only have 2 or 3 locations they drop from in OC, it would be more efficient to be guaranteed the ones we need and not overcap. We spend all day farming. We have raid at 9, but once we finish at midnight we continue FATEs. He finishes getting all his atmas that night. I'm not even half way done. A little frustrated, but surely I'll finish tomorrow, right?

[ShirakoShinkai]

Day 3: more FATEs. He's kind enough to continue doing FATEs with me. By this point, we've both capped on bicolor gemstones twice, close to three times. I'm still not half way done. I actually cried a bit from frustration. How could I possibly be this unlucky. This was getting ridiculous. Raid again that night, so I once again continue after midnight. I'm exhausted and dizzy, but I don't want to waste another day of my boyfriend's time when we could be doing the actual new content instead of old shared FATEs. I join a group of people also suffering as much as I am. One person says alcohol makes it better. I feel a bit sorry for them. Another mentions their partner also finished far before them and usually has terrible luck. I go until 3 am. No atmas drop. Tired and frustrated, I go to bed.

Day 4: guess what! More FATEs! For some IRL reasons, I'm starting the day in a bad mood already, which certainly didn't help. I tried alcohol. It didn't make it better. I felt a bit sorry for myself. My brother asked me why don't I just not do the relics. I considered it. But I knew in the end, when the relics are BiS, I'd want them, and I'd have to go back and do this anyway. So I keep at it. I cried for the second time. My bf doesn't farm with me the entire day, due to IRL stuff, and occasionally needing a break to do something else. I encouraged it highly: he shouldn't have to suffer with me. A few other people farming for atmas also mention either they themselves are in my situation, or they know someone in my situation. The whole day, all I can think of is how miserable I was back in Shadowbringers, and now I'm feeling the same thing but worse this time. I keep wishing that I could at least access the next step to allow me to buy the tome items so that I don't have to worry about overcapping on tomes. Then at least, I wouldn't feel so rushed to get the atma step done. I wouldn't care if I overcapped, or if it took me a month, because I could at least be stocking up on tome items when I do other content. I almost want to quit, but I'm too stubborn.

[ShirakoShinkai]

At this point, with hours of ranting and complaining at our backs, my boyfriend comes to a decision. For every FATE that does not give me an atma, he would click a button towards the process of re-subbing to WoW. One click to open the WoW launcher, one click to the shop menu, one click to pick a month sub, etc. Probably to no one's surprise, he ended up at the point where he was purchasing the sub. Even if he hadn't gotten to that point, it sounded like he would have resubbed to WoW regardless. After hours and hours of FATEs, capping on bicolor gemstones almost 4 times (which, not only did I finish buying every single unique/untradable item from every expansion, I also ended up with 30 mount vouchers), I finally got my last atma. I almost cried again, but this time out of relief. It was already late, but we were finally able to go back to OC, so we went for a few hours, and while it was fun, I still wasn't having the best time because the sour taste of FATEs was still in my mind.

Now, I could have taken my time with this step. I could have done OC and possibly overcapped on atmas. I could have not done the step at all. But I am someone who wants to do all the content in this game. I am a raider, so I want the best weapons and gear. I play this game all day every day, and for the most part, I love it. I have been so dedicated to this game and it's developers for so long, and I try to defend them when I can, but there has to be a stopping point. There is a time when I not only can no longer defend them, but I am actively joining the people lashing out against them. I don't want to be that person. But recently, time and time again, it seems that they are actively working against the community. They balance jobs poorly (rip PCT hammer, and previously when they nerfed MCH AoE despite it being the worst in the game?? At least they fixed that, which I'm thankful for.). They constantly add seemingly endless and unbeatable slogs (I mean really, 100 Forked Tower clears???? And 1k coffers, 1k pot coffers, and 1k fortune carrots? And they've been doing this forever, looking at the infinite levequest grind, 3k Frontline wins (1 for each GC), 5k CC wins, etc. And don't get me started on the Hunt, or hell, 20k Accursed Hoard???). It's incredibly ridiculous. It's like they don't actually intend for players to do these things, which makes it feel even more insulting that they add stuff like this to the game. I'm an achievement hunter. Of course I'm going to want to do it all. But recently all I can think of is what a waste of time it is. And sure, MMOs are just a time sink, but they're supposed to be FUN time sinks.

[ShirakoShinkai]

Overall, I just want the developers to care more. Because it seems like they don't. For atmas, not only does it basically encourage you to NOT do the content they JUST added, but it also makes it hard to do with friends. You finish at different rates, and when you're playing with people who don't want to move on without you, they're forced to sit there and continue to suffer with you. My boyfriend put it in a good way, [I][B][U]I don't ACTUALLY CARE if they want me to do 100 FATEs in each zone, I just want them to be honest. I want them to say "this is a guaranteed drop, but you have to get 100 of them." Because you know what? Then I can plan my time. I don't have to sit there wondering how long it will take, or feel bad when I get unlucky, or feel WORSE when everyone else is getting good luck while I'm having the worst luck imaginable. Now, do I actually want to do 100 FATEs in each zone? No. But if I'm going to be doing them ANYWAY, at least just tell me that yeah, you're going to do 100 FATEs and it's going to suck.

Please stop going 0 or 100. Find that 50 middle ground. Oh, people don't like the relic grind? Okay, just pay 1500 tomes for a weapon. Oh, they didn't want that either? Okay, back to the slog. Seriously, please figure it out. This is getting old.

Now, while I usually try to say good things with the bad, this is not the post for it. I will say though, the new field operation has been fun, as long as you don't consider the relics or how poorly implemented the Forked Tower is (and don't get me wrong, the fights and content of the tower seems awesome, but I'm with Xenosys Vex on this one - and I know the devs have to be listening to him at least a BIT - but what were the devs thinking by implementing such difficult content and then making it impossible to get a whole group of 48 people in.).

[ShirakoShinkai]

I still plan on staying subbed, but it is probably more out of stubbornness than enjoyment. Or perhaps I am delusional enough to think that just MAYBE they'll fix things, maybe things will get better, and my "loyalty" and "trust" in these developers will be worth it. But I think at this rate, my boyfriend is likely going to try buying me a sub to WoW to see if I enjoy it, and although I currently don't really have much of an interest in the game, I will likely give it another try, since last I played was back in early Pandaria. And I have a somewhat dreadful feeling that I am going to enjoy it, and I'm going to want to quit XIV. And if I don't quit, I will likely not enjoy XIV the same. I would like to enjoy XIV. I like the aesthetics, I like my character, I like the story, I like my friends, I like the combat (the combat team has been AMAZING this expansion, I hope they keep up the good work), and I love all that and much more about this game. I just hope the developers love it as much as I do, and that they understand they can't continue going down their current route, or players will seriously start quitting en masse. I'm already watching people quit around me.

[ShirakoShinkai]

Again, sorry for the long thread. I have just never been quite this frustrated at a game before, and I felt the need to express it here like this. I wonder how many other people feel the same.

[Wolwosh]

I am stuck on my last Atma for 3 days straight now.
Doing at least one lock out every night this week doing all fates and CE in the zone I know the Atma I need is from and its becoming incredibly frustrating.
Running stressed to the fates I need because these fates die in 2 seconds is not a fun experience.
I have over 10 at this point from the ones I don't need anymore and I wish I could trade those in, but ofc thats a quality of life function they add in when nobody needs them anymore.
On the other hand my husband who's done exactly the same time as me because we went together needs more even...
I don't mind a grind, but *****
If tonight doesn't work out I guess I need to grind out fates outside of the zone

[Mireille_Bouquet]

Again, sorry for the long thread.

Just a FYI...
When making a long post, instead of breaking it up on multiple posts, once you hit the text character limit on a single post, go ahead and post it, and then go back into it and "Edit Post" it.
In the Edit mode, you can add much more text characters, thus exceeding the text character post count for a single post.

[ConantSivrha]

On one hand, why? It'll be months before we're able to do the next relic step. Going slower on the first step when the second isn't even out won't prevent you from having the weapons once they're BiS. There's no reason to make it into such a brutal grind that you're dizzy from exhaustion and compelled to drink the pain away. Just spending time in Occult Crescent leveling your phantom jobs with fates and CEs would've earned you enough demiatma eventually.

On the other hand, yeah, I don't like this step either. The most positive thing I can say is that I'm glad it involves actually doing something, instead of just spending tomestones...until you finish it the first time, and it becomes a tome-dump step for all subsequent relics. Personally, I would've preferred needing many more demiatma, with fates being guaranteed to drop at least one (maybe two 5% of the time, just for fun), with the same process being repeated for each relic. I think this would satisfy a wider range of players, since getting a single relic wouldn't be too tedious and RNG-dependent, but those who want a longer grind for more rewards can try to collect all of them.

[ShirakoShinkai]

Thank you, this forum board is so jank sometimes that I usually avoid posting here. I'll keep that in mind for next time ♥