SE nerfs CoP missions :|

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In response to many player requests, we are planning to adjust the difficulty of the Chains of Promathia missions in the upcoming version update, as well as introduce a new experience point reward upon the completion of a mission battlefield.

* Adjustments to Difficulty

Particularly challenging Chains of Promathia battlefields, such as those that appear in the Promyvion areas (Holla, Dem, Mea, Vahzl), and the missions "Flames for the Dead" and "The Warrior's Path", will have their difficulty level toned down. These adjustments will include changes to monster level and placement.
We also hope that the following changes to items used specifically against Chains of Promathia enemies will encourage players to brave the dangers found in the mission battlefields.

* Rare/Ex Properties

The special items introduced for use against enemies found within the Chains of Promathia battlefields will have their "Ex" properties removed, allowing these items, such as psychoanima and mistmelt, to be put up for auction. Certain items will also have the "Rare" property removed, allowing players to carry multiples of the same item.

* Experience Point Rewards

After changes made in the March 8 version update, players no longer lose experience when being KO'd within a Chains of Promathia mission battlefield. In the upcoming version update, players will also be rewarded with experience points (or limit points) upon the successful completion of a battlefield. The experience point reward will be slightly less than the amount received for ENM quests, but it will be possible for players to obtain this new reward once every Earth day.

These changes will provide a tangible benefit for those who have completed a Chains of Promathia battlefield and wish to aid other players with their first attempts.

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Am I the only one kinda upset about that? XD I should make "I did CoP when it was HARD" t-shirts.

Haha. I'd be ticked if I were you, too. But this rocks for the more casual FFXI player, like myself. I'm excited to finally see what this CoP storyline is all about.

Yeah, when I read that I thought it was quite a kick in the teeth to those that roughed it out. On the bright side, now some casual players might be able to go to sea and see what made the hardcore players so bitter. Of course, they will be less bitter having not worked their asses off to get there.

I shouted for three hours (During prime time) for a Promyvion-Mea run with three members who each came and went (Two members (Not including me) were never present at one time). Hopefully after the update it will be easier to get a run together.

I'm taking my BST down to the crags as soon as the update comes to harvest myself some Anima and sell them for ridculous prices! $_$

Maybe it will be finally worth it to do these!

The Promy's were easy though. =\

Well, I guess not with a random group because of the lack of intelligence for some.

My guess is that they [S-E] made CoP easier because the new expansion might take its place as the "out of place omg wtf difficult" expansion.

Maybe now you won't be limited to specific jobs. It was ridiculous trying to get through, say, the Holla Promyvion as a Samurai, which is pretty lame I think since that's an example of poor game balancing.

You shouldn't have to level Summoner or Warrior/Ninja to level 30 in order to do a mission. It's more of a design responsibility to make sure that the jobs in the game all serve a useful purpose in the missions they implement.

I think a general "difficulty decrease" is sort of the easy way out, but it's more acceptible than leaving it how it was, because it was nearly impossible to organize a winning team with melee classes other than Warrior/Ninja for those missions.

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Originally Posted by Necronopticous

Maybe now you won't be limited to specific jobs. It was ridiculous trying to get through, say, the Holla Promyvion as a Samurai, which is pretty lame I think since that's an example of poor game balancing.

You shouldn't have to level Summoner or Warrior/Ninja to level 30 in order to do a mission. It's more of a design responsibility to make sure that the jobs in the game all serve a useful purpose in the missions they implement.

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You don't. It's not poor design, it's the players' inability to play other jobs intelligently. In any case you don't want every job to be good in every situation. We can change jobs at will for a reason.

I don't like the CoP nerf either, because Sea is a reward for hard workers, or should be. BUT, obviously this makes more sense for SE, they want more people involved in more aspects of the game, and much of the player base is just not capable of performing at the levels necessary to accomplish much of CoP's harder battles (though they're really not all that bad anyway). Sea is a huge part of the game that many people just aren't involved in so this makes sense. The post-Sea fights should definately -not- be nerfed, however.

You may be onto something USG, because it is being made by the same team that made CoP. It may be that they simply want people to be finished with CoP so that they'll be ready to jump into the next expansion when it comes out. If they're still strugling with CoP AND working through ToAU, then they're much less likely to get into an entirely new branch of the game.

It's easy to say, "just level XXX job to 30 to do promy," but it gets worse. Eventually you're doing 40, 50 and 60 cap stuff. What if you're in a static that gets to U/O and suddenly you, the tank, a PLD just can't make the cut? U/O is possible with a PLD that has deep pockets to medicate the hell out of themselves, but most groups can make it 10 times easier with a NIN (or 2) tanking. So should a PLD main level NIN to 60 just to have a shot at U/O because his static probably got someone else and left him behind?

I hate the idea of a nerf, but I think the issue about game imbalance is absolutely true. As I mentioned in the other thread, it's about what jobs CAN do another role. There are always 3 main roles (tank, damage, healer) and in FFXI there are almost no jobs that can comfortably take 2 roles with great versatility. This limits you to a very narrow spectrum. Add to that that out of 18 jobs about 75% at damage dealers. This creates a serious problem because in that case it's always gonna be about finding which one is THE damage dealer. For Promyvion the simple fact is, WAR/NIN makes the best tank and SMN and RNG make the best DDs because of their spike damage abilities. This really gives nobody else a shot.

This is further complicated by the fact that the community sucks. They'd rather get 2xWAR/NIN, WHM, 3xSMN or RNG or some similar set up and forgo farming anima which would let damn near any group succeed.

Whie this is a laziness issue at the low end of CoP, it's a very serious problem at the high enough where certain jobs just can't fill a certain very necessary role for a 6 man BC.


I just think when you have to level a different jobs than your main to 30, 40, 50 or 60, just to get a chance in hell of ever getting sea the game definitely becomes more about work and less about fun.



The nerf is a good thing in that the BCs shouldn't be so hard, but it's a bad thing because it's a kick in the teeth to anyone who spend 100s of k of gil, hours of time farming items and thousands of XP lost in deaths to CoP the first time around.

What is so great about sea? And what is it?

I don't think this is a laziness issue.

Del Murder and I would do these missions if we could to them ourselves. But no, you need to round up a full party, and that's difficult to do. CoP just isn't priority for a lot of people so it's hard getting people to do these with you, especially when you're not "hardcore" and don't play for hours and hours everyday.

People complain that FFXI isn't accessible to more casual players, but then when SE adjusts things to make it a tad bit easier, people also complain.

I remember a BUNCH of 75s complained when SE adjusted the amount of exp you needed to level past 50. It's like, ok, I get it. You had to do the whole grind, but why be bitter that it'll be easier for others?

Well, we still can't do them ourselves.

This was a smart business decision on SE's part. I'm sure the new expansion will be plenty hard for the hardcore players. But us casuals also have 12 bucks to spend and we'll be more likely to spend it if we can do this stuff.

When I said lazy I was talking about anima farming. The fact that you can just zerg the crap out of Promies if you have 6 SMNs or 2xWAR/NIN, WHM and 3xSMN:RNG means that people will be lazy and do it with that zerging easy mode party and not do it with anima with a normal party.

You just can't find a group of average players with a random mixing of jobs that is willing to farm anima. Somehow they think it's just easier to level up one of the primary 'necessity' jobs for Promy.

My only complaint is that SE should've done this either WAY sooner or from the beginning, but at the time of CoP SE was still being incredibly lazy about fixing ANYTHING in their game (which they've recently gone complete 180 on and I applaud them for it).

I'm not sure how upset I'd be about it if I still played. It's good that they are doing it so more people can be involved in the game, but at the same time it IS a kick in the teeth to people who did it the hard way. What took some people 6 months - 1 year to finish will probably now only take a few weeks of getting pick up groups.





As for what sea is.... well sea is the Lumoria region. It's a really pretty zone that includes Al'taieu, the Garden of Ru'mhet and the Grand Palace of Hu'Xzoi (pardon spelling if I screwed up... it's been months). It's a very pretty place and there are very odd mob behaviors there. Sea is CoPs version of Sky. In sky you fight NMs that drop triggers to pop gods and the gods drop seals to fight Kirin.

Sea is a little more complicated but is the same idea. The problem about sea is, the drops aren't 100%. Imagine claiming Ulli and NOT getting an Autumnstone. While competition is low, that will change with this update. Also, the drop-rate on the decent items is low. I believe when I left our main Paladin was 0/28 on a Fortitude Torque.

Add to this that the jailers (sea gods) only have TWO pieces of loot in their drop tables. The weapons, which are crap, and the torques which are pretty good. But torques never drop.

Another problem is that if you got the drops from the Ix'Aerns (required for first tier jailers) and then fought first tier jailers and got their pop items and then popped a tier 2 jailer... after 3 weeks of farming... and he didn't drop the pop item for JoL... guess what... START ALL OVER from the beginning.

If you eventually get to pop Jailer of Love (the tier 3ish jailer from the pops dropped by 3 tier 2 jailers) not only will you find that he has a less than stellar drop rate on his goodies (which include the his weapon, torque, and 2 of the best earrings in the game), but he may not pop AV. Beyond that, AV is unbeatable. Every time someone found a way to beat him, SE broke that method. Not just the iffy methods, but the legit methods. So the reward for all of your work as an NM that cannot be killed.

Comparative Scenario:
So in terms of sky... You pop the gods... Byakko doesn't drop a seal so you have to go back and kill Ulli and Despot and try him again. Once he and all of the other gods FINALLY drop their seals, you go to pop Kirin... but you find out your seals were no good and the top boss for sky doesn't pop at all. You walk away with little or nothing and start from the ground floor again. However, not that it would matter since he's unbeatable anyway. Yeah... that's what sea is like.


Did I also mention that almost none of the drops in sea (except JoL earrings and some capes) are good for casters? Oh yeah... thought I'd throw that in.

Ok so if there is all these problems with that stuff and it gets real frustrating then why do people do it? From what you described there's no way in hell I'd ever sink so much time trying to do that stuff.

Theres a few rewards like Raja's Ring, or certain NMs that become availible to camp for stuff like Jaeger Ring or Suboro GKatana or the H Kote which are worth quite alot as well as opening of ENMs and Limbus as you progress through.

Besides you dont NEED the 'required' setup for Promyvions since they are in general very easy...as long as you can get a decent enough tank healer and nuker with the Anima, then you can take them down. With it now removed with the Rare/Ex status, its definetly possible.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

Ok so if there is all these problems with that stuff and it gets real frustrating then why do people do it? From what you described there's no way in hell I'd ever sink so much time trying to do that stuff.

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Well, for people that have all sky has to offer, who would rather not camp against 150 people (50% of which are probably botting) in Dragon's Aery, Sea is the next big area. There's maybe 1 good thing for each job there (with a few exceptions). So you work your tail off with a group hoping that you won't go 0/28 trying to get that one piece you're after.

I really do hope that some of it will get fixed once sea is flooded by people who can finally make it through. However, the only saving grace to mobs with horrible drop rates is the fact that they generally aren't heavily camped (or in some cases are uncampable). However, I think having 10+ LSs camping Jailer of Temperance, Ix'DRG or Ix'DRK is gonna make life absolute hell.

Still doesn't sound worth it, but I guess there is some thrill in the fight itself.

Do these 'elite' armors really make that much a difference or is it more about showing off (not that there's anything wrong with that, to an extent)?

Rajas Ring is one of the best rings for DD, and Suboro is one of the best TPing GKatanas out there (it ocassionally attacks twice, and ALOT). It depends on the job, but some are definetly worth it.

Well in retrospect, almost no armor in FFXI makes a big difference. Every armor is just a minute upgrade, especially in endgame with a few exceptions (RDM relic hat etc.) However, due to the community of FFXI, you will be expected to have these tiny upgrades by many and then of course there is the e-penis issue.

That's not to say that there aren't some nice pieces of gear and that the combination of several minute upgrades can add up, just not in a largely noticeable way that will make a huge impact on your performance except for a few points on a parser.

There's also limbus
Homam is sweet gear, and really not all that hard to get.
Limbus is also how you get the r/e items for af+1, some of which is even better than af2. Also abc's can be a good way to make steady money. And above all, Limbus is fun.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/7/7d/Rajas_ring.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/e/ea/SattvaRing.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/e/ec/TamasRing.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...aeger_Ring.PNG
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...roSukehiro.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...agerSallet.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...al_Earring.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...lowearring.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...ticEarring.JPG
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...ic_earring.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...io_Earring.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...ia_Earring.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/..._zucchetto.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...am-Corazza.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/..._manopolas.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...mcosciales.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/1/16/Homamgamb.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...muts_staff.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...t%27s_mask.png
Also Diabolos, an avatar you have to do some CoP to get
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...oloss-pole.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...7s-Earring.jpg
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/7/7f/Storquezt3.png
love torque is sick
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...ove_Torque.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...xersMantle.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...al_earring.png
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/images/...us_earring.PNG
And you're not just missing out on gear, CoP's storyline is the best in the game; the cutscenes are great; the area's gorgeous and fun and new; and the fights are all hella fun.

I think the CoP changes are a good thing. If you did the missions when they were tougher, all the credit to you. But you have gotten your reward for doing it, its not like SE are making you do it over. This just gives other people a chance to get something out of CoP.

I have been playing for about 3 years now, and I still struggle with CoP missions. I will be glad for these changes, might give me a shot at last.

I stayed up till 2AM last night with a useless party, and a leader who thought he was the best thing ever, trying to do Phomiuna Aqueducts (this was my second attempt by the way, I'd already done the first half before).
One minor slipup and everyone died, it was so late I just wanted to sleep and left, but I was fuming that we got so far, literally one cs away from completion.

So I'm GLAD they're making these missions easier. Yes, maybe they are easy if you have lots of time on your hands, know alot of nice, friendly, helpful and CLEVER people, have loads of money to spend on suitable armour and items and whatnot, and have the mission memorized or whatever. Realistically though, whatever you say, they are by no means easy. That word is overused.

And after the update they won't be easy, they just hopefully won't be as difficult. Hopefully.

The only aforementioned areas are getting adjusted the rest stay the same really outside of the exp bonus and item adjustments. Aqueducts are easy though, its probably one of the easiest one next to the NM fights for 3-1 > 3-3.

Besides most of the equips you should probably have stored anyway...i have a bunch of stored equip and old equipment that i kept for level capped BCNM fights(like beastmen seal ones, not COP) and honestly i would think most people would understand the value of being able to do so. Most NQ gear is pretty cheap i have stored, Seer Tunic is 6K on middy, and Eisen is 9K, with RS Chainmail 10K, and most expensive being IM body being 25K...the higher lvl 60 cap only means you get free AF to use.

Items are cheap too now thanks to Assaults dropping potions left and right. Hi Pots +3 are 2K at most now, and Hi Pot Tanks are 8K for 20 uses, Hi Ether is 1.5K for one, with the tanks being 15K. Rest of it are reletively cheap meds too like Echo Drops and Antidotes. Reading the mission comes beforehand and should always be done with the only thing being the REAL problem is : Stupid people, which is say ask some friends and plan things out.


What i am trying to say is, i think you are overexaggerating things, while its true you might wipe a ton of times and waste item and gil doing so, its not as difficult as never being able to do it. A lil prep goes a long way really. The only real problem honestly is just people. Find a good COP LS or some close friends, thats all one can say, and this patch might be able to give you some more help when you are missing that one person.

I just finished Mammets and the only thing that made it a 7hr trip is a stupid party member, in which we decided to all go back to whitegate and shout for another person(we actually made it farther with 5 than with 6 people..). Then we won with the right ammount of thinking(thank you Armando for Flat Blade <3) and execution. Half the fun in COP is knowing that you can lose, unlike RoZ missions.

And yes you can farm Anima soloing or with an NPC via Signal/Tactics Pearl, its reletively easy to do so too...just fight Wanderers at Floor 1 and you will eventually get some.

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Originally Posted by Lionx

The only aforementioned areas are getting adjusted the rest stay the same really outside of the exp bonus and item adjustments. Aqueducts are easy though, its probably one of the easiest one next to the NM fights for 3-1 > 3-3.

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*kills joo*

ITS HARD.

If you think Aqueducts is hard, CoP is going to eat you alive regardless of whether they soften it up a bit. It is, by comparison, one of the easiest mission. It takes people who aren't clueless to do CoP missions. That's the biggest problem. Trying to get 6 completely competent people with enough time on their hands and a willingness to do the mission simultaneously is quite difficult. On top of that, a good number of people are through with CoP... these people being generally competent. So the number of competent people that actually need the missions is pretty low.

Key to Phomiuna is this:

-Clear Fomor hate ahead of time or else, be KEENLY AWARE of blood aggro.

-Know how to fight Tauruses and be ready to either turn around, spam cursna, use Holy Waters, etc.

-If it's unlikely that everyone in you group can sneak past a group of mobs, just fight it. It's easier to take them out without risk than training 5 of them. Be KEENLY AWARE of blood aggro.

-Have at least one person aware of the point where you get drawn in to the Minotaur and make sure they inform you not to go beyond that point until ready.

-Be slow and patient in the libraries and make careful pulls so as not to get multiple Tauruses. Be KEENLY AWARE of blood aggro.

Yeah I done it now. Whew. It wasnt easy though. It is the people you're right, but that's WHY it's hard.

Missed the Nashira Gear, Chionos. ;p Although I've heard that (SPOILER)Proto-Ultima is the tough one in terms of Limbus.

In terms of CoP, I'm on 6-4, and about, oh, 0/5ish on it. Sure, not trying all that much, but now that I've left my HNMLS and tend not to trust pickup groups on the whole, along with the fact that shouts for this are rare anyway (or at least my catching them), this makes even trying to do it tough. Out of all the tries, I've gotten to (SPOILER)Ultima ONCE, and had my group not wiped on (SPOILER)Omega while it was at 5-7%~ HP, we likely would have won. Time is really an issue in that fight. Although, I really don't need sea all that much outside of wandering around like I do in sky, since I'm wary of joining any other HNMLSes (also, I've heard the "goldfish" mobs there are excellent for practicing enfeebling since they don't attack unless you do damage, and I could use enfeebling skillups.).

Although, I've yet to do any of CoP on Allegro, and since I'm a semi-perfectionist when it comes to her gear, I'll at least be trying for Riverne-#B01 access so I can get Soboro. Promies being easier might help since I'm going as WAR/NIN and I strongly dislike Blink-tanking.

I left out nashira on purpose. Homam should be enough to convince ppl to attend limbus =).

6-4 is probably the biggest obstacle for most people. 30 more seconds and it would be easy. As it is, you basically have to have a perfect run, if you mess up on mammets or omega, you'll never have time to take ultima down. IMO, having a rdm to chainspell Ultima at the end is a key to victory.
Ultima is more difficult, although after killing them a few times neither is much of a big deal.
You should try to finish, not only getting sea, but you're close to your ring too. Sea's cool even without an ls to take advantage of it with. It's a gorgeous area.

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Originally Posted by Necronopticous

Maybe now you won't be limited to specific jobs. It was ridiculous trying to get through, say, the Holla Promyvion as a Samurai, which is pretty lame I think since that's an example of poor game balancing.

You shouldn't have to level Summoner or Warrior/Ninja to level 30 in order to do a mission. It's more of a design responsibility to make sure that the jobs in the game all serve a useful purpose in the missions they implement.

I think a general "difficulty decrease" is sort of the easy way out, but it's more acceptible than leaving it how it was, because it was nearly impossible to organize a winning team with melee classes other than Warrior/Ninja for those missions.

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I agree with you.. I'm usually cynical when it come sto SE well after they nerfed the DRG job... I mean they nerfed it so badly that it is just one of those jobs that if its the only one out there, and a party of 5 takes notice to that. Te party will just disband.
Anyway by lowering its difficulty I think they just appealed to its non japanese base.

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Originally Posted by nozkits

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Originally Posted by Necronopticous

Maybe now you won't be limited to specific jobs. It was ridiculous trying to get through, say, the Holla Promyvion as a Samurai, which is pretty lame I think since that's an example of poor game balancing.

You shouldn't have to level Summoner or Warrior/Ninja to level 30 in order to do a mission. It's more of a design responsibility to make sure that the jobs in the game all serve a useful purpose in the missions they implement.

I think a general "difficulty decrease" is sort of the easy way out, but it's more acceptible than leaving it how it was, because it was nearly impossible to organize a winning team with melee classes other than Warrior/Ninja for those missions.

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I agree with you.. I'm usually cynical when it come sto SE well after they nerfed the DRG job... I mean they nerfed it so badly that it is just one of those jobs that if its the only one out there, and a party of 5 takes notice to that. Te party will just disband.
Anyway by lowering its difficulty I think they just appealed to its non japanese base.

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What Nerf?

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Originally Posted by nozkits

I agree with you.. I'm usually cynical when it come sto SE well after they nerfed the DRG job... I mean they nerfed it so badly that it is just one of those jobs that if its the only one out there, and a party of 5 takes notice to that. Te party will just disband.

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How did they nerf DRG?

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Originally Posted by Crossblades

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Originally Posted by nozkits

I agree with you.. I'm usually cynical when it come sto SE well after they nerfed the DRG job... I mean they nerfed it so badly that it is just one of those jobs that if its the only one out there, and a party of 5 takes notice to that. Te party will just disband.

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How did they nerf DRG?

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It was a few years back.. DRGs could pull in more hate than they can now, and they could do a looot more damage than they can now..

I dont think that was a nerf to DRG, it was a nerf to TP and among other things namely a nerf to MNK using Relic Knuckles to gain over 100TP per Asuran Fist. Everyone got hit by this, DRK's Guilitione, WAR's Rampages, PLD Vorpal Blades....its just DRG was famous for Penta spam, and now its fixed. But this update was never intended to be focused on DRG specifically, its just the way people saw it. Everyone got affected by it with the exception of Samurai since they never had more than 2-3 hits per WS.

Besides why get a SAM when you can spam multi hit WS and gain more than a SAM? That is whats really broken.

DRG's are absolutely fine, it's just the mindset of the playerbase that is generally the problem.

They nerfed CoP by making it easy, reducing mobs in Promy's, gainning EXP after the BCNM battles, no exp loss when you diedoing a CoP Mission, changed Snoll fight to super easy, took out timers on items for snoll fight, made the memories items from promys non-rare/ex, AH sellable and stackable.

that's how. I want my 45K exp I lost doing these missions =|

If you help others do certain missions 45 times, you can get it :]