The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

[Firewind]

Trust me when I say it makes FATE grinding a hell of a lot more tolerable.

Take a drink if:

• You forgot to Level Sync.
• Forgot to equip Zenith.
• 2 or more chocobo companions in the raid preventing you from inviting more people.
• Someone dies.
• Two if the above person doesn't get raised and is abandoned by the raid.
• You walk out of the FATE and lose level sync
• Someone insists on telling you that FFXI Relic was worse.
• Group gets destroyed by Behemoth.
• Train runs away during Zantetsuken.
• You see a naked person with only a Zenith equipped.
• Someone AoE'd too much and is madly kiting in circles.
• Someone gets lost.
• Someone is up past 2am on a weekday.
• 2+ people get their atma before you and leave.
• Down it if someone joins and gets their Atma on the first FATE
• "This is the worst thing ever"
• Tank spams nothing but Flash and AFKs
• Take a drink for each low level player that is following the FATE Train.
• And another for each dead one you see.
• One more if they have Brink of Death.
• You accidentally hit a non-FATE target with AoE.
• FATE completes just as you arrive.
• Part leader doesn't seek reps via Party Finder.
• "BRB Smoke/Bathroom/Phone/Door/Wife/Kid/Fire"
• And another if they come back exactly when the FATE finishes.
• Finish the drink if it's been three fucking hours and you still have no Atma.
• Might as well finish it when you realise you're the only person remaining from the original 8 man.
• Party has no healers.
• You miss a free teleport because you're mounted.
• AFK Players Auto Attacking.
• Heavy while mounted.
• WHM spams nothing but Holy.
• "I just got 3 Atma in the last hour, I don't know why people are whining"
• Finish the drink if the whole party teleports to Mor Dhona/Black Shroud because Behemoth/Odin is up while you're taking the NM.

[Malacite]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

Heavy while mounted is one of my biggest peeves. I swear every time it happens it sends me into a psychotic rage now because there's no fucking way anything's going to come even remotely close to killing me. All it does is slow me down and annoy the hell out of me.

[Aeni]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

Trust me when I say it makes FATE grinding a hell of a lot more tolerable.

Take a drink if:

• You forgot to Level Sync.
• Forgot to equip Zenith.
• 2 or more chocobo companions in the raid preventing you from inviting more people.
• Someone dies.
• Two if the above person doesn't get raised and is abandoned by the raid.
• You walk out of the FATE and lose level sync
• Someone insists on telling you that FFXI Relic was worse.
• Group gets destroyed by Behemoth.
• Train runs away during Zantetsuken.
• You see a naked person with only a Zenith equipped.
• Someone AoE'd too much and is madly kiting in circles.
• Someone gets lost.
• Someone is up past 2am on a weekday.
• 2+ people get their atma before you and leave.
• Down it if someone joins and gets their Atma on the first FATE
• "This is the worst thing ever"
• Tank spams nothing but Flash and AFKs
• Take a drink for each low level player that is following the FATE Train.
• And another for each dead one you see.
• One more if they have Brink of Death.
• You accidentally hit a non-FATE target with AoE.
• FATE completes just as you arrive.
• Part leader doesn't seek reps via Party Finder.
• "BRB Smoke/Bathroom/Phone/Door/Wife/Kid/Fire"
• And another if they come back exactly when the FATE finishes.
• Finish the drink if it's been three fucking hours and you still have no Atma.
• Might as well finish it when you realise you're the only person remaining from the original 8 man.
• Party has no healers.
• You miss a free teleport because you're mounted.
• AFK Players Auto Attacking.
• Heavy while mounted.
• WHM spams nothing but Holy.
• "I just got 3 Atma in the last hour, I don't know why people are whining"
• Finish the drink if the whole party teleports to Mor Dhona/Black Shroud because Behemoth/Odin is up while you're taking the NM.

Japanese ATMA farming theory : ffxiv

^ You can thank me for it later. I've gotten reliable feedback on my server that it's no BS. Someone even got all their ATMAs in just a scant 12 hours following this. I suspect that WHM friend of mine may have been fortunate in seemingly finding herself in the right place and at the right time without even realizing it.

[Firewind]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

The theory is plausible but my FC have been spending the entire weekend on this and it looks to be a Myth. We basically made 4 groups of 3 people each:

1 Group following Sever Time (GMT+1). (3 Atma total in the group)
1 Group following Japanese time. (2 Atma total in the group)
1 Group following GMT (As we are in Daylight Savings and Server time is GMT+1). (0 Atma in the group)
1 Control Group just going where they wanted. (12 total in the group)
1 Solo player seeing if it was based on Eorzean time for shits and giggles. (I think he got 0 will have to ask him)

The control group actually more Atmas to drop over nearly 48 hours (Time doesn't include people logging off for food, sleep, family or running off to other FC events). FYI I was in the group following server time as per the thread and got zero atma.

What is plausible is that the seed for the RNG is based on the Server Clock and that affects drop rate. We are carrying on the testing as and when we can but the theory seems to pretty much be a bust.

There does seem to be a lot of confirmation bias screwing this up, and it is also making it impossible to farm certain zones (Central Thanalan, C. Shroud etc) at certain times of the day. Honestly with the Control Group swimming in Atma I'd be tempted to call it a bust but if the RNG i using the Server Clock as a seed then it could the theory is plausible.

[Malacite]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

Yeah someone in my FC was saying it seems to be true as well. Still sounds like superstitious BS to me though.

[Aeni]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

I actually think this is true because SE is lazy with their programming. Think about it this way ...

What is the logic that is driving the ATMA appearance in a FATE? They cannot allow ALL FATEs to have a chance for an ATMA to drop, because that would be too much work on the server. Remember, this game is unlike most other MMO games, in that the server drives everything, including UI functions, player input checks and a host of other things. An example was beautifully illustrated by an anonymous game programmer when he outlined the difference between FFXIV and Rift/GW2/WoW/EQ2, etc. This explains why the servers are constantly under strain around the clock, whether due to events, or other factors.

I can tell you that if I am crafting near 5 other crafters who are either just crafting in a typical fashion or are using Quick Synthesis, that my results are almost always better than if I'm crafting next to the only other player in the area who is SPAMMING SHIT CAUSE HE WANTS TO JUST FINISH IT QUICK. That spamming is overloading data being sent out from a particular area and is no different than RMT spamming. It's forcing the server to bypass or even miss checks entirely (you can look up any 3rd party add-on which uses this theory to fuck things up and make item duplication possible)

As a result, to prevent this from becoming an issue, it's better for SE to "plant" a condition that particular times will see an ATMA drop (still restricted by RNG) and at any other time and/or at any other place, to completely remove ATMA from the tables. I don't think the Reddit article is completely right (although to be fair, it's based on the work of JP players and a blog post about this), in that I think there are multiple locations at each of the times listed that are affected in a non-random pattern. Whatever testing you and your friends are performing, be aware that everyone needs to look at their own local time when testing this.

In other words, if Player A is in New York and Player B is in London, they are NOT THE SAME LOCAL TIME, so you cannot party them together. They must be solo and or with other players in the exact time zone. This is an important point that is missed by many, many players and was pointed out in the original JP blog post (most of the JP testing was done by people soloing)

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, within 15 minutes, got my ATMA of the Scales from Central Thanalan (11:00 local time) which fits with the schedule. Will post updates.

[Firewind]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

Then explain 2 days of playtime with 3 people in the same timezone following it without an Atma Drop to show for it (I didn't get a simple one of those Atma noted above).

I'm not saying it's not plausible, especially when it's pretty simple to use clock time as a seed for RNG. I'm saying a lot of this seems to be stemming from confirmation bias with pretty small sample sizes.

What it is is a way to make artificially make the game seem more full for the PS4 release by forcing people to run around after these things. Once people have their Animus, the zones will empty again. It is also a massive disrespect to the time of the playerbase by making it tied to RNG, as opposed to something you can work towards in your own time. If it is tied to the clock then it's a massive slap in the face of many fans. How the fuck am I supposed to get the ones at 1-5 AM/PM without quitting my job? I've also had to ditch my entire weekend to frantically level my WAR because as a BLM and SCH, it is downright impossible to farm in some areas because mobs die before your spells go off.

Why not make it so you just need the quest open to get Atma? Then jobs that need the XP can be used. That alone will solve a lot of the issues with the above, and also make it more of the "something to do when the game is quiet" thing the devs intended. Instead what we have is Magians 2.0, except the game randomly decided if it should award you the right to progress and pisses over the time and money invested each time it says "lolno".

It's just a terrible way of making the game seem longer and more alive than it really is. It's frankly insulting to the people that stuck with the game.

[Etra]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

It's frankly insulting to the people that stuck with the game.

My subscription says hi.
Wait. No it can't. It's cancelled.

[Malacite]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

Plus when I got my atma the other day I literally got 2 back to back in Central and then Southern Thanalan (Central Shroud was a bitch tho for my last one) so that kinda craps all over the time theory as well.


It's just pure RNG luck.

[Aeni]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

t's just a terrible way of making the game seem longer and more alive than it really is. It's frankly insulting to the people that stuck with the game.

I'm not arguing over the RNG aspects, but I feel that it's not likely to be completely RNG, because it is (according to what I've seen) based on location. If you guys think that it is completely RNG, where it has no direction or structure, then explain to me how fair is it that someone might be farming an hour or two every day for 2 or 3 years and not get a single ATMA to drop? Because with unstructured RNG, that is possible, and it can happen. There's more true stories out there about how damaging an unstructured RNG can be than there are anecdotes on how a completely unfettered RNG can be beneficial.

Let's put it this way: the Zodiac weapons by themselves are not the only means of progressing through end-game, but even SE realizes at some point that it will become an obstacle or barrier for entry into later end game (current) content. Sure, you can get better weapons (at this time) from Leviathan, but no one really knows for sure if that will hold up once the Zodiac system gets up and running, and since Yoshi-P expressed enthusiasm that "dedication to raising your weapon like one would a favorite pet should be justly rewarded" makes me think that the weapons ARE A MUST for any serious end-game enthusiast.

So until there's more "scientific" data and not just anecdotes by players who never bothered to jot down the exact local time, drop and from what FATE, other than saying "I got them mere minutes apart in different zones" (looking at you Mal), then this discussion isn't likely to be fruitful. I will be sticking to that Reddit schedule, however, as I dislike "aimless" wandering in order to get something. It just makes all that time spent online a complete waste. It's like trying to farm for diremite webs off of colibris in Bloodshore. Why would you want to do that?

[Firewind]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

The thing the list does do is break things up a bit by changing scenery every hour. Personally I can only stand to farm for about an hour or so before I start to get angry and want to go do something else.

Still at 2/12 Atma by the way \0/.

Really, the best way to increase drop rate just seems to be bending over and taking it from SE by participating in this for longer than is sensible.

[Malacite]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

I still think it should have just been 12 new NM fights against the Lucavi - that would have been amazing.


At the very least though they could have the drop rate increase by 1% for every fate you win and don't get it so that eventually it *will* drop.

[Aeni]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

I need someone to verify with my list (not that list on Reddit)

01-02 Sagittarius (Archer) - North Shroud
02-03 Capricorn (Goat) - East Shroud
03-04 Aquarius (Water Bearer) - Upper La Noscea
04-05 Pisces (Fish) - Lower La Noscea
05-06 Aries (Ram) - Middle La Noscea
06-07 Taurus (Bull) - Eastern Thanalan
07-08 Gemini (Twins) - Western Thanalan
08-09 Cancer (Crab) - Western La Noscea
09-10 Leo (Lion) - Outer La Noscea
10-11 Virgo (Maiden) - Central Shroud
11-12 Libra (Scales) - Central Thanalan (11:15am, Sunday 4/13)
12-01 Scorpio (Scorpion) - Southern Thanalan (12:25am, Tuesday 4/15)

Using the standard Western Zodiac and then realigning it by the order of the month in the year ... I decided to test this out by jumping into Southern Thanalan (I did not have luck with the next two time slots) Within 5 minutes, I have received the Atma of the Scorpion (12:00~1:00) It's 12:29 now ... my previous was 11:15AM, Atma of the Scales (note that if I had followed Reddit, I would have had to go to Western La Noscea) I suspected that maybe the list was ordered wrong if people's anecdotes are to be believed. The name "Zodiac" has its roots in astrology. Since SE is heavy into myths and cultural stories, I figured that they would apply the same principal to this flawed weapon "upgrade" system.

I just need someone who hasn't had any luck with that Reddit listing to try and see if my own re-ordered list increases their chances (note, I did not say you are guaranteed, because there is an element of RNG, but I suspect that the chances are boosted significantly enough that there should be some "hits")

[Aeni]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

At the very least, the ATMA only drops in certain locations, as I've not heard of anyone receiving an ATMA in Coerthas, Mor Dhona, etc. So whether or not the ATMAs are tied to any specific FATEs, or whether or not they are "rigged" by certain times during the day is inconsequential in as far as you have to be in the right place to receive a particular ATMA.

The central question remains: does participating in a FATE at a particular time increases your chances, or does this chance remain the same no matter what?

(note, it does not matter whether you have a silver star, a gold star or just got one hit in, participation is just enough to have a chance at an ATMA drop, and there are no evidence whatsoever that fully participating in a FATE increases that chance)

What drove that question, especially by JP players, were those that have thought it peculiar to tie an important event to just random chance. People have long sought information regarding the "urban legends" surrounding the hocus pocus of crafting in FFXI. At one point, Yoshi-P confirmed they would do nothing of that sort for FFXIV, but he did hint that they may introduce "some aspects of this", but have said they "would never reveal the secrets of the inner workings of their game system". I will never rule anything out and especially if there's empirical evidence to support that something like this is more than just "chance". If you were to roll a 6-sided die, the probability should be that each side has an equal chance, assuming that the die that's being casted isn't disfigured or altered in anyway. We're talking about SE here and I would not put it past them to do something like this.

[Firewind]

Re: The Atma FATE Farm Drinking Game!

I'm still more inclined to think they they simply use the Local Time as the seed for the RNG as right now, it is the answer that makes the fewest assumptions about the facts:

1. You need to have a Zenith Equipped for one to drop.
2. You just need a Bronze medal to get a roll on the loot table
3. It is not guaranteed after X amount of FATEs.
4. You can obtain the same Atma twice (I can confirm this, it just drops to the floor as though the inventory is full), so you are not prevented from obtaining an Atma just by having another one.
5. Being solo, with your Chocobo or in a Light or Full party has no affect on the drop rates (though it does make it easier to keep up morale by having friends with you).

It is why I want to see more testing done. I've been following the Reddit list since Friday and have no Atma to show for it personally. I know Reddit is hardly the most credible source of research but all the confirmation bias going on is throwing off genuine theory testing.