SE nerfs CoP missions :|

[eternalshiva]

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.

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

[Germ Hamee]

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.

[Yeargdribble]

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.

[ScottNUMBERS]

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! $_$

[Del Murder]

Maybe it will be finally worth it to do these!

[Rostum]

The Promy's were easy though. =\

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

[UltimateSpamGrover]

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.

[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.

[chionos]

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.

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.

[Yeargdribble]

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.

[Del Murder]

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

[Miriel]

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?

[Del Murder]

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.

[Yeargdribble]

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.

[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.