Freaking gacha games respect my time more than Demiatmas, and that's sad

[AvalonBright]

I'm a longtime gacha addict and as the title says, nearly every single one of them that isn't a crappy anime tie-in respects my time more than this godawful grind. I don't care that it only takes once, because the once is a nightmare enough on its own. I have been grinding the second of three Verdigris atma for SIX HOURS, four of which have been today alone.

I would have liked to think your dev team was capable of an interesting Relic questline but at this point, maybe not? Maybe "Eh, phone it in" is enough? I don't even mind a grind, I LIKE a grind, when I'm making progress in it. I have no real complaints about leveling Phantom Jobs or earning coins to get glams and other items from OC.

This? This is beyond egregious design. I almost feel like this is a deliberate punishment to those of us who wanted something more involved than last expansion's godawful tome phone-in and you're being spiteful at us for daring to expect a modicum of effort put into an expansion-long special item questline. There is no place I can see anyone on this team somehow thinking anyone was going to find this entertaining, or that players would feel anything upon actually completing it besides exhaustion and bitter annoyance that it's finally over.

And sure, repeats of the first step are tomes only, but what in god's name else is in the works if this is only the first step?!

ETA: Speaking of incompetent design, who on the dev's team stellar idea was it to put a single CE in the Verdigris zone in the first place? I just wanna talk. I earned no less than 4 atmas in a run of OC today as well and none of them are useful because NOTHING SPAWNS IN THE ENTIRE VERDIGRIS ZONE, SE.

[Dorito_Burrito]

Holy crap why do so many people farm the atmas in OC?

[Chasingstars]

Holy crap why do so many people farm the atmas in OC?

Because the drop rate in normal dawntrail fates is abysmally lower by comparison. Like okay, your farming your one to three verdigris, that is over in Kozama'uka. You might, keyword might, get what you want to drop quickly after a few minutes. But your also far more likely to cap on bicolor gemstones as the demiatma doesn't drop and its been hours of fate farming. They just simply have a higher a drop rate in the crescent.

[Espon]

I dunno... Demiatmas don't ask me to drop $35 to draw 10 random items with a 100% chance to get a quarteratma on the 10th pull.

[Jeeqbit]

1. People asked for relics to be grindy, including myself, because Endwalker's ones were not. This is good!

2. They are not even all that grindy. The droprate from CEs is 20%. On average, 5 CEs will get you an atma, and CEs spawn constantly.

3. You do not have to do it. Relic weapons are the exclusive priviledge of those willing to earn them. Endwalker was an exception to that, and people were not happy with it.

4. It's barely even been 2 weeks. This content is meant to be able to last months. Take your time - if you want (or don't, if you don't want, this is time-sink content).

[Kranel_San]

1. People asked for relics to be grindy, including myself, because Endwalker's ones were not. This is good!

2. They are not even all that grindy. The droprate from CEs is 20%. On average, 5 CEs will get you an atma, and CEs spawn constantly.

3. You do not have to do it. Relic weapons are the exclusive priviledge of those willing to earn them. Endwalker was an exception to that, and people were not happy with it.

4. It's barely even been 2 weeks. This content is meant to be able to last months. Take your time - if you want (or don't, if you don't want, this is time-sink content).

EW relics grind have done more damage than what we might have thought. People weren't complaining this much about the grind back in ShB, and that one was much more grindy than EW and DT grinds combined.

[dspguy]

1. People asked for relics to be grindy, including myself, because Endwalker's ones were not. This is good!

2. They are not even all that grindy. The droprate from CEs is 20%. On average, 5 CEs will get you an atma, and CEs spawn constantly.

3. You do not have to do it. Relic weapons are the exclusive priviledge of those willing to earn them. Endwalker was an exception to that, and people were not happy with it.

4. It's barely even been 2 weeks. This content is meant to be able to last months. Take your time - if you want (or don't, if you don't want, this is time-sink content).

5. Relics aren't even as powerful as somewhat readily available tomestone weapons.
6. Relics become obsolete the moment 7.4 comes out.
7. Final upgrade relics become obsolete again in a few months after that when 8.0 drops

They'll just gather dust after you earn one and then replace it by running a fairly simple M-4 for a few weeks. I wouldn't stress the demi-atma drop rate. Yeah, some people earn them quick. Some earn them slow. Some might have the worst RNG ever and never get them. There really isn't a "relic questline." It is almost always the same. Players that don't get atma drops aren't missing out on anything. Gerolt has drinking problem. He sends you on a fetch quest for some annoying item. Rowena gets involved and you can trade tomestones for upgrade items. Rinse and repeat for every phase. If OC is what a player cares about, finish that story, get to 20 and wait for OC: Next Phase.

[Nero-Voidstails]

5. Relics aren't even as powerful as somewhat readily available tomestone weapons.
6. Relics become obsolete the moment 7.4 comes out.
7. Final upgrade relics become obsolete again in a few months after that when 8.0 drops

They'll just gather dust after you earn one and then replace it by running a fairly simple M-4 for a few weeks. I wouldn't stress the demi-atma drop rate. Yeah, some people earn them quick. Some earn them slow. Some might have the worst RNG ever and never get them. There really isn't a "relic questline." It is almost always the same. Players that don't get atma drops aren't missing out on anything. Gerolt has drinking problem. He sends you on a fetch quest for some annoying item. Rowena gets involved and you can trade tomestones for upgrade items. Rinse and repeat for every phase. If OC is what a player cares about, finish that story, get to 20 and wait for OC: Next Phase.

we should already have a other step to make it 760 so it stay good and not wait for a 7.3

[ForteNightshade]

1. People asked for relics to be grindy, including myself, because Endwalker's ones were not. This is good!

2. They are not even all that grindy. The droprate from CEs is 20%. On average, 5 CEs will get you an atma, and CEs spawn constantly.

3. You do not have to do it. Relic weapons are the exclusive priviledge of those willing to earn them. Endwalker was an exception to that, and people were not happy with it.

4. It's barely even been 2 weeks. This content is meant to be able to last months. Take your time - if you want (or don't, if you don't want, this is time-sink content).

1. They did. What they didn't ask for was RNG that only acts as a stopgap to the exact same EW relic "grind"

2. Citation needed. Not to call you out, but I haven't seen anyone confirm the actual drop rate but merely speculate.

3. People have waited almost an entire year for there to be something to do in this game besides high end raiding and your suggestion is telling them to chill out and take it slow? At this point, people just want an actual reason to play XIV outside capping their tomes.

All they needed to do was up the amount of Atmas needed, but make it a guaranteed amount. Afterwards keep the atmas as a tomestone alternative. Heck, toss them in other content to and put the RNG in there! That way you incentivize other content while making OC the guaranteed option. Why do we have to keep settling on extremes?

[Jeeqbit]

2. Citation needed. Not to call you out, but I haven't seen anyone confirm the actual drop rate but merely speculate.

I have been gathering data here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Farming-Method

My latest data is:
CE Data: 25.47% (27 Atma / 106 CEs * 100)
FATE Data: 4.28% (9 Atma / 210 FATEs * 100)

Unlike everyone else, I have been separating my CE and FATE tallies. This is important, since the rates are clearly different and it's not even close. There are lots of people in the thread who say "mostly from CEs" and others who say their FATE grinds outside Occult Crescent were consistent with my FATE rate.

So far, when I've done linear regression instead of division, the median is exactly 30% and 10% respectively, but I'm still gathering more data. I don't intend to hand in the Atma until I've leveled all Phantom jobs. I already have done over 200 FATEs. When this is over, my sample size will be decent, but it's way beyond the margin of error at this point. 27 Atma is way to much to be a mistake - the rate from CEs is high.

People have waited almost an entire year for there to be something to do in this game besides high end raiding and your suggestion is telling them to chill out and take it slow?

Yes. That is my suggestion. Because they have turned from "waiting for something to do" to being "overwhelmed by a grind" and "having too much to do and not enough time to do it". In order to solve that, they could pace their playtime better and take breaks. Instead of burning through it all day1, losing sleep and tearing their hair out over how hard it is to do a month's worth of content in 1 day.

All they needed to do was up the amount of Atmas needed, but make it a guaranteed amount.

Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of guaranteed amounts. Bozja's currency farm was perfect because I could farm what I wanted and plan it weeks before I did it and calculate how many hours it would take me.

But because CEs and FATEs (both in OC and out) give me lots of other rewards, it's not an issue. By the time I have all Phantom Jobs and all the gear, I will definitely have all the Atma. I actually am only missing 1 Atma that I need currently, but I'm not going out of my way to focus on a specific area of OC to get it, since I want to collect droprate data for everyone else.