Originally Posted by
netz
There's no doubt that there are many good things to be had from sea and CoP dynamis -- IF ONLY THEY'D FUCKING DROP THEM.
The only thing comparable in frustration and time expended is the Zilart king HNM, but they're at least guaranteed to drop something every time you engage them. Spend a month on JoL pops, no guarantee you'll get anything but a halberd. If you make it that far. Kill Xolotl daily 3 weeks in a row and you'll be lucky to walk away with 5 zoolater hats and maybe 1 bandomusha kote. Win Dynamis-Tavnazia, get a 3 line cutscene as your reward. Beat the other CoP zones, walk away with a handful of currency and less than a handful of AF for the same monetary expense but lower time (this should come as NO SURPRISE WHATSOEVER. The # of drop rolls you have is connected to the # in the zone. Ever heard of 700+ currency towns? It's cause 55-60 people were there and they killed absolutelyfuckingeverything.)
The zilart stuff at least showed some sense, and a small amount of things introduced in CoP follow in that logic. Elemental obis/gorgets are reasonable to obtain. Limbus is a frequent activity in which most people participate. There were a few new force pop NMs added with good/100% drop rates. But, as you go further and further into the CoP storyline and the zones unlocked, you find less and less sense applied to their design, culminating in the 100% timesink known as the jailers.
But Square knows I'll be there, since I need my justice torque. Just remember that CoP was designed around the principle that your time is worth absolutely nothing. It's at least balanced in theory, since it fucks the casual and hardcore players alike. Playing more than anyone else doesn't mean you're ever going to see that item you're after. You'll only get it by sheer dumb luck (Xolotl, those new bizarre spawn NMs around the world, jailers), and time is a minimal factor in changing that. At least people who attend the ground camps for a few weeks usually turn up with something. Most people hit brick walls with Jailers that absolutely refuse to drop their virtue, or Ix'Aerns that simply do not fucking exist (Ix'DRK, HOW ABOUT ENVELOPING SOMEONE IN SHEER ANIMOSITY AFTER 6 HOURS?).