Venting: COP Adjustments and SelfishnessFollow

Let me just preface this by saying some of you might be offended. However, I'm not going to apologize. There is a point to this rant.

I'm sure other people are as tired of hearing about it as I am. They're making some of the Promathia missions easier. They're taking away XP loss for deaths, taking the R/Ex flags off of some items, and giving people XP for completing some missions.

Yes it amazes me how some people are acting like this is the end of the god damned world, like they're the only ones who should have access to certain things at the end of the missions. Sea is Exclusive. NO ONE ELSE SHOULD HAVE IT.

Nonsense.

I got treated to a /shouted rant in Whitegate a while ago where this one person responded to a call for help on 8-4, and proceeded to complain openly about all the time spent, exp and gil lost from the many missions they've attempted. This same person even made a point of shouting about how they died 58 times on one mission.

My thoughts:
-(My nice side, what I really said) You should have had a better strategy.
-(My unsympathetic side, what I really wanted to say) Maybe if you didn't suck as a player...

"All I could get were pickup parties for the missions."

-This is because the people who had done them knew how difficult they were, and how much was required to pass the missions. These people didn't/don't WANT to have to repeat it if the could help it.
-The same people noted above are the ones complaining about the forthcoming difficulty adjustments.

I don't see what the big fricking deal is, really. Yes, you lost a lot of time, gil, and exp doing them before. It was your choice to do them, no one forced you.

You grabbed pickup parties, therefore you had minimal preparation, and probably didn't have the best party setup. No one forced you to do this, either.

Doing them now will not only take less time, but less gil as well, and HEAVEN FORBID you'll get some EXP for your time and trouble, rather than losing it.

Basically, the person complaining in shout had become the very same type of person as so many other jackoffs who couldn't be bothered to lend a hand to those who were behind. Selfish, self-important, and given to entitlement. And yet, for all the things one could stand to gain from the changes, still he/she has sworn off ever doing the missions again. It's your loss. Any COP mission I'm in will be better off without the extra, unnecessary ego slowing it down.

To the people who have finished all the COP missions, and who are now complaining about the difficulty changes, how many of you did them again gladly, just to help someone out who needed it? Probably not very many. Why? Difficulty. There's such a thing as something being challenging, and then being a difficult pain in the **** which you never want to attempt again.

Do you somehow feel "entitled" to what you can get at the end of COP? Like no one else should have it? Isn't it good enough to earn it just by completing the missions, regardless of difficulty? And what ever happened to the satisfaction of helping someone who needs the assistance, rather than the satisfaction of being one of the "first" or one of the "only" ones to have something?

Furthermore, if these things are supposed to be exclusive, why would SE have made a point of making all of these things publicly available, rather than to just a handful of elite individuals?

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are not entitled to anything special, just because you've got 1337 gear, a lot of spare time on your hands, and a six pack of Jolt. You have no right to be selfish. Furthermore, you have no real business complaining about how easy things will be now, or how difficult it has been, when you couldn't be bothered to share your experience with others before because of mission difficulty.

You lost gil, time, exp, and god knows what else. That's too bad, but it happens. You have my condolences. But at least the gil and exp can be replaced. Time? That's another matter. That can't be replaced, and nothing will make up for it. I understand that. But please, having an entitlement attitude makes it harder for other people to sympathize with what you've lost. If anyone's entitled to anything, EVERYONE is entitled to finish the COP missions at some point.

Change happens in MMOs. Accept it, and move on.

It's funny half of the people that are complaining about the CoP mission adjustments...Probably loved how easy it is to get to 75 now. With all the new areas and how they lowered the EXP requirement.

Funny thing is too. They nerfed CoP once allready > Prommy mea dem holla. Bet they didnt mind that.

It's all realitive. The big argument used to be omg it took me blah blah to get to 75 now anyone can. This is a game guys....they gotta change stuff every now and again to keep/draw in more people.

btw how many of the people complain about blu = easy mode?

I was going to point that out. Though lots of people did complain when they made it easier to get to 75, however those are the original veterans they've probably quit by now...mostly. :)

The fact is FFXI made this game take time so you would play it longer. They made it difficult. Players complained about the length of time and difficulty and SE will never make things happen faster...so they make it slightly easier to appease people.

Sorry, but I wholeheartedly disagree with you on both points. The missions don't make the player. If you suck at what you do, you suck at what you do, and you potentially drag other people behind by not knowing your role to begin with. The difficulty of a mission has nothing to do with it.

You tell em', Tenshi!


Seriously, I'm no slouch, but I've yet to complete CoP. Part of it is due to interests in other aspects (leveling jobs, crafting) but part of it has been the frustration I've had at several points in the mission chain (2-4 and 4-2 come to mind months, even years, after I completed them) which just caused me to say "***** this" and do something that was more enjoyable.


This almost sounds like people are worried that Limbus will get crowded more than it is about the damn kids have it too easy these days.

And frankly, having been playing for several years now, I can safely say "@#%^ the haters" without fear of reprisal.



I respectfully disagree Nights. A player can learn things by coordinating and doing CoP missions, but I believe a player learns all these skills by running their own XP party, reading Alla for quests, playing multiple (and more importantly, different types of) jobs, and doing other quests (DM, Opti Hat, and Joytoy camping spring to mind) that aren't necessarily tied into the CoP system.



Edited, Jun 3rd 2007 11:02pm by Cambot

I have mixed feelings about the adjustments. Personally, I love the fights, they are a good challenge in a game where most mobs/fights can be beaten by simply throwing job XXX at it or by bring along a couple lvl75 friends to fight it for you (ZM's/Genkai).

On the flip side, I've been stuck on 3 paths for almost a year now. I've been thru 4 statics to get thru 3paths with. Hell, I even brought a whole new static up from Riverne, basically redoing all the missions again with them, only to have that one break before we got to mithra's. All my time helping that group get thru their missions, and it broke after the moblins...

I put together a PromyV run with 16 people, 14 of who needed the mission, only to be left alone again when time comes for the missions I needed help with. The people who have won, dont want to go back, period. New people trying to do these missions, have to rely on friends, or pickup pt's. One thing I have noticed, if you are in a big enough endgame shell, they will help you, if you've gotten past PromV. Thats how my static fell apart that I redid all the missions with them. 3 of them went off with their endgame ls, and cleared thru to sea. thx.

When SE announced they were nerfing the fights, I gathered a group of friends that I knew were all relatively close in missions, and got moving. I've been almost fanatic about it, but in the past 10 days, I've gotten all 3 paths done, and went back and redid moblins for a fill-in, since, once again, another person left static once we won snoll. My goal was to finish PM's before the update, I want the hard fights, I love the challenge, even though it may cost me tons of gil in meds, tons of time running around doin cs's, redoing fights, farming cores, whatever, I love the challenging fights. I was excited, physically heart thumping excited every time we entered snoll (2/5 btw) I wanted to do the same thing with airship battle, and tenzen, I wanted those hardass fights, but I guess I'll have to settle for what I get Tuesday.

At least now, if this static breaks, I have a little more bargaining power to get help with these last few missions in the way of exp bonuses and easier fights. Maybe I can get some of those people already in sea to help out since they get something now instead of a headache and -exp. I know I'm 2 major fights away and I'm actually hopin to be done by end of june, depending on how this group holds together, I may be one of the "nerfed" sea noobs. But at least I'll be able to solo blm in an area that's not overrun.

btw, this is pure speculation on my part, but I think se might one day uncap CoP. If they are doing this kind of adjustment to cop battlefields almost 2 years after the expansion was finished, in another year or two, they may decide there still isnt enough people in Sea, and just uncap everything. It'll be just like ZM's are now, a pt of lvl75 can run you thru it in under a week. How will you feel then?

gees, sorry for the short story, i didnt expect this post to get this long.

I'm with Kestra, if you're in my shoes, LS pretty much gone, no time for hard core play, it's easy to feel like you can't get anywhere in the missions.

All I do now is garden, raise birds, and fish. Maybe get a party on my THF one night during the weekend, but those are getting scarce as I'm climbing closer to 50. I would like to see more for the casual gamer, especially soloing jobs. I will say, the exp rings and signet bonus has helped soloing, I went from 40 to 44 solo on THF and it wasn't that terrible, just expensive.

Same with missions, I've pretty much written off getting to rank 10 for Wintskitty, the time involved with trying to organize something like that could be better spent.

I kind of disagreee with the updates on COP missions, but what can you do, the masses want the missions to be easy. It's not for selfish reasons, but a sense of pride is being taken away from you. I completed COP more than a year ago with a static group. We researched, strategized, attempted, lost, won, and put a lot of time, and resources completing COP. We all contributed and we all did our jobs. Now, I think with the update, I'm not saying all, but doing these missions, some will just cruise by, others will put their time and effort to complete it. Those who will just cruise by will get the so-called '1337' gears, but yet not skilled players. I think that's where the frustration is. Once you have access to Sea, then you will have access to Limbus. And I bet, the people who just cruised by and/or tagged along completing COP, will be doing Limbus (kind like Dynamis). So anyways, these people with '1337' gears, will be running around not knowing how to do their jobs. So, it's not all about selfishness. If you have skill, and the people who you with have skills, then COP is doable. And now, I'm helping my Social to do COP, since I want to appreciate the storyline again. Good Luck completing CoP.

I wonder if your opinions will change once the RMTs flood the gates of Sea.

i think that overall, the quality of the average player that is now able to get sea will be lowered. when the fights were a challenge it really made you think about "how should we do this, what jobs should we use" etc. it forced people to level other jobs high enough to help their group if they had a job leveled that wasn't as usefull for some of them. now people will be able to slide right through without having to take the time to prepare by leveling another job, or working with limited resources.

i also agree with what one of the previous posters said, just wait until the RMT move in and take over like they've been doing in sky.

I think the main thing that is stopping players from doing PMs on a constant basis is getting help. Making it easier might make ppl who have sea want to help more but I doubt it would make that much of a difference really. I'm not going into a debate into "easier missions makes for bad player debate" because I think its irrelevant. We are already in the era of bad players that don't know what a MB or SC. It is already here. There is nothing challenging about merit pts, the whole population of 75s nowadays, hell you can just TP burn Kirin now, and not even making PMs HARDER will reverse this trend.

The missions aren't even that difficult per se (although i'm only on 4-2) but convincing people to buy a whole new set of equips is just not appealing at all. It's not the difficulty that puts ppl off its all the hassle.

XP bonus? Don't lvl75 gain double limit points in lvl capped areas already and yet its still like pulling teeth to get any help on panty raids and missions. I don't really think the changes implemented by SE will make ppl want to help.

I think the better way to encourage people to help is to give out more substantial rewards. Why would I take out my time and money to earn double limit points at 1k-2k/hour when I could be making 15k-20k/hour killing birds? How about letting ppl get another ring if they repeat the whole set of missions? Now that would motivate ppl to repeat missions. Why not let people rent decent (but not godly) gear that can only be used in mission zones, they do that in besieged so why not do that in PMs?

I know everyone has read this, but just quoting it as a reminder:



This is a very limited amount of adjustment and "toning down" and mob placement adjustments are not the equivalent to gimping.

Moonpie, I have nothing but the utmost respect for you as a player. You accomplished a lot and helped a lot of people get to where they are. I wish I was one of them!^^ However, I must strongly disagree with you as regarding Sea being an exclusive area. Exclusive means that not everyone has a right to be there. It is a priviledge, yes, but one everyone has a right to as long as they earn it. The problem with earning it, I believe, is not the difficulty itself, but the willingness of players to go through those difficulties, whether they have completed the missions before or not. So the real issue is getting help with the missions. With these adjustments and the new rewards, perhaps getting help will no longer be such an issue. The missions will still be quite time consuming and costly, which should be just enough to keep the RMT's out.

And speaking of RMT's ... would someone please kill Bisas?! XD A mithra RMT that monopolizes The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah. Down where the Goobbue's hang out. I farm there sometimes to make my gils and s/he frustrates me (and many others, I'm sure) more than the diffculty level of any mission ever could.

Edited cuz I sux at punctuation! :p

Edited, Jun 5th 2007 3:57pm by ElijahBismarck

I've been playing a long time and I want nothing more than to get sea, I look up all the strats, buy the lvl capped gear before i even get a team together...... well that's where the problem is.

Moonpie, its not just about have the WILL, its also having the WAY. If there was a way to solo the PM's then I would've done so by now. You had a devoted LS and friends that in all likelihood needed the same missions as you, or knew and liked you enough to repeat them with you.

The same cannot be said for the vast majority of us. SE wants to encourage others to help so that players that have the will to complete them will finally have a way as well. If you cannot even allow for others into your "1337 club" then I don't know what else to call you than a snob.

Think about it, you have sea already, if you heard me /sh'ing in whitegate for help on the savage or diabolos fight, would you say:
1)those were fun but why would i waste my time and money to help a nobody when I don't need it myself.

2)"I'll help"

I'd think you'd say #1 9 times out of 10, and with PMs the way they were you'd be correct. In terms of risk and reward you'd have to be super nice (not saying you aren't nice) to pick #2.

Odds are I won't care, because by then, I'll probably have gotten through it.