Atma farming...Follow

Love your entire post, ha! I keep coming back for more, too.

Personally, I already feel like there's way more to do now than there was a few months ago. I don't even have time to touch my beastman dailies, and I just finally put a static together to start moving through coil (we mastered the first couple phases of turn 5 last night).

I also haven't had time lately to level any lower-level or crafting jobs... and I really should spend more time to farm gear for my bard.

This game is -almost- where it needs to be... personally, I'm confident I'll be satisfied with the current pace of updates until we get an expansion, but I'm also not the kind of player who is just determined to burn through content quickly.

Just an observation.... I'm on a Facebook group (a couple of them, actually) and the ratio of casuals to experienced players is much greater.

I've seen exactly one thread complaining about Atma there so far, and the general chorus from others has been "what's that?" This appears to be the first MMO for the younger crowd, who skipped out on WoW for whatever reason. They're dithering around and taking their time. Every other post is "Hi I'm level 16 what server are you guys on?"

I wonder, based on that, if those who are at the atma stage now and complaining about being bored aren't really in the minority after all, compared to the Farmville generation.

I think there is already a way for everyone to progress in their weapons.

Let say you have a fresh job at 50, that you want to upgrade your weapon.

The first big weapon that you want to get, is the ilevel 90. You can:

1. Do the relic quest, that involve 1 treasure hunt, 24 mobs to kill, run a dungeon (AK), do 5 Trial run (at the Hard Mode level) and cough up 900 myth

OR

2. Do 3 Extreme primals

Now, doing it the first way is longer, grindier than the second. But the second is way harder, that Titan Extreme is very unforgiving. Do you prefer to grind? do you prefer to bash you head on Titan EX repeatitly? It's your choice.

Now for the new ilevel 100. You can:

1. Do the atma quest that include a lot of Fate and then serious Myth farming as well after it. On top of that, you need to complete each of the nine book which require 100 mob kill, 3 leve, 3 fate and 3 dungeons. NOW that is a grind!

OR

2. Do Leviathan Extreme for a chance of drop.

Again, we see the choice for Grinding or Challenge. Simply do the one that you feel is more fun. Casual player will most likely go the grinding path, since they can log in a bit each day and try to progress in their atma quest. By the time 2.3 arrive, it should be completed. If not, at 2.3 (if prior update pattern is applied again) myth farming will be easier, and I guess atma drop will go faster as well so you can catch up faster for the next part of the quest.

Yes, I know, both the Levi weapon and the Animus weapon don't have the exact same stat, and one of the them is most likely to be considered better than the other. That doesn't mean that the "less good" of the 2 is not enough to complete all the new end-game raid (second coil).

Those who request a new way to get an ilevel 100 weapon, think about it, which players group is this weapon should be intended for? The casual? The end-game challenger? The solo player who tries to pug everything? The players who want to play in small close-knit group? What the number of hours, or the difficulty needed to get this weapon? Time and difficulty need to be balanced somewhere. Keep in mind that if they all send us a ilevel 100 weapon via mail, cuz they like us, most of us won't be happy, we won't have the feeling of satisfaction to have reached a goal.

See that a problem and a nightmare for mmo's and really anything though.. Once you put it down for a while people rarely comback, people usually find something else they enjoy doing to fill the time.. ... They need too keep you playing..





I thought they got you for 6 months too...

Tes has been home for a few days and she has not even touched the game.. Figured after being gone for several weeks she would be dieing to play. I mean she played 3 times what I did.. She flew threw the atmas too and had 4 books done before I finished my atmas. she was luky as can be for the atmas and even has doubles of a few.. She said last night she didn't miss the game one bit while she was gone. Wow she played FFXI even longer than me and I have not heard her say that ever. A month ago she would have never said that, she was dieing to get a vita to play FFXIV while she was away..

I think if the walls were not there like titan ex and turn 5 I would not feel so bad.. Also the lag it kills people in this game and gets them frustrated and I still can not believe that aint fixed..

I think if our FC was more focused on beating turn 5 and Titan EX I would defiantly be on for that stuff.. Never know whan anythign is going down anymore and I dont just want to sit online waiting for something to maybe happen anymore.

But See Iknow its the new level 100 gear and the atma that is killing us. Right before that we were enjoying the game allot... We took up fishing which was really allot of fun.. Now all we do is get on and just run dungeon for tomes. boring boring boring.. run dungeaons for tomes for the new gear and books. Tired of it been there done that.. It was OK at first because the 3 new dungeons were fun but again the first 30 times we did them it was...

Edited, May 8th 2014 12:48pm by Nashred

Edited, May 8th 2014 12:50pm by Nashred

What I'm hearing from those who have a fully 9-book upgraded Animus and a i100 mirror-upgraded Levi weapon is that the stats ARE exactly the same.

Getting 9 books worth of Myth at the current rates available is by no stretch of the imagination casual. Levi's 95 Weapon is far easier to obtain, except for getting to Levi EX, which has many people struggling with Titan EX still.

As for T5 and Titan EX, well Titan EX has a max 25% Echo buff now. Lose 4 times, assuming your party stays together, and you will be able to get past heart phase with ease. It's usually after heart that the party falls apart, and now getting there to practice post-heart phase is much, much easier.

Finding a party that will stick together thru 5+ losses is no simple task, but the Echo has eliminated the gear check portion of the fight. Alternatively, with good gear you only need 4-5 people who can stay alive alive to win. Of course that's both tanks, one good healer and a minimum of 1-2 dds.

T5 is easier too, although the Echo is set.

The fact that these are still causing casual players problems shows how dodge-fest content doesn't lend well to the whole "make-it-easier-over-time" design intent.

Edited, May 8th 2014 2:05pm by Gnu

Oh yeah, THAT would be a winner for the whole game.

The thing is, even hardcore players have casual friends. As the casual friends lose interest, the social aspect wanes. Then you ask your friends what they ARE playing. That's where I'm at now. Tuesday, which is Main Event night with our Progression based FC, and I saw 6 of the normal 30+ players. Ouch.

I know it's not popular to ask to be just handed wins, too-easy games are boring too. Still, known roadblocks causing casual players to quit should be addressed. When players quit for any reason the game, as a whole, suffers.

Echo upping movement speed is a perfect fix.

So exactly the same... except not... lol

And then we'll start seeing people falling off the platform on Titan EX because they're not used to moving so fast.

Eh it's more like x of secondary stat is equivalent to y of primary stat.

Good example is BRD. Animus is skill speed and accuracy. Skill speed is absolute garbage for bards...however, crit is everything to them. More bloodletter procs, more damage.

Same with BLM as well. CRIT is weighted slightly higher than SSPD and DET in 2.2. Though I would argue both the tidal wave and animus for BLM is pretty weak. Neither gives ACC and very few Evenstar pieces give ACC. You need some pretty good luck from coil if you are going to get to 480 ACC (T8 and T9 cap). Then again, Laevatein gives a crapton of ACC making it superior to both.

I think the Bravura Animus is pretty good isn't it? Gives some nice parry whereas the tidal wave weapon doesn't.

Anyways, depends on which is easier to get. Mirrors seem to be quite rare. I would say animus is probably more guaranteed than the tidal wave upgrade with a mirror since you aren't fighting 7 other people for it.

Edited, May 8th 2014 3:39pm by HitomeOfBismarck

Another kind of content this game is missing (which FFXI had in abundance) is easy content disguised as hard content.

Some examples: Dynamis and Sky.

This is content that nobody beat within the first week or two, let alone on day 1. Beating this content took some time to figure out. And even when most groups could easily farm this content, it still didn't feel totally easy. You had to pay attention. Things had to be pulled or fought a certain way, and each type of content contained several points where everyone could fail if things weren't done right.

That said, you didn't need fast-twitch reflexes or lag-free connections to overcome this content. It required teamwork. It took awhile. The fact you still needed 20 or 30 players to reliably clear some runs underlined how "difficult" it was... when in reality, it wasn't really that hard.

Right now, FFXIV lacks this type of content. Crystal Tower could have been this, but it was too linear and boss-heavy. This is the kind of content though that keeps people coming back for more. It unites hardcore and casual players. People need to feel like they're being challenged, but in a way that isn't completely frustrating like Titan HM used to be or Titan Ex is now.

It's also worth noting though that in FFXI, none of these game-altering content systems arrived until the first expansion.

I feel CT is a little like dynamis though.. Its hard content without being overly hard.. It also has that epic feel of allot of people playing together trying to accomplish one goal.. I love CT after most of the jags moved on... but it again is something I have had to do way to many times and I am bored of it.. but the additional levels of Ct are probably the biggest thing I look forward too..

My only complain it the limit on a fc.. We have to sit people out because we can not que a party and a half or so..

Yep, they should have just kept 1.0/1.23's armor design. CT offering side grade gear? Possible, but the major **** up is:

Shared gear.

For example Crimson is BLM/SMN, what if SE wanted to offer the body piece that boosts your Thundercloud chance to 12% per tic? e.g "Boosts chance of Thundercloud" as an added effect? That would be absolutely worthless for SMN. So while it allows SE to be lazy as **** in gear design, everyone having shared gear on some 'easier to obtain' sets really limits what they can do, more so than the class design.