Interview with Directors of CoP and ToAU

[BRP]

I hope for your sake you never play a Megaman game or something actually difficult to the point of frustration.

[Apelila]

As always, great work Elmer, have my babies. But I am sick of people reminiscing about the good old days when the good old days were really, really bad.

This. And all the leatherbars here closed / where a waste of my time anyway

[Septimus]

I hope for your sake you never play a Megaman game or something actually difficult to the point of frustration.

Yes, I have never played Megaman 1 - 6 on my NES when you pups were in diapers. I certainly never had to deal with the disappearing blocks, or Quickman's stage without Flashman's power (stupid laser beams) or anything like that. Obviously FFXI was my first video game that I ever played.

As I said back when you whippersnappers were knee-high to a grasshopper, "There is a world of difference between frustration and fun".

And you want frustration? Try out Milon's Secret Castle for the NES. That was the absolutely worst game that I ever played.

[Ayn]

And you want frustration? Try out Milon's Secret Castle for the NES. That was the absolutely worst game that I ever played.

Jesus fucking Christ, I had forgotten about that game until you'd said something. Now I remembered that, along with Solomon's key.

[BRP]

Fine, explain to me how FFXI's CoP missions are only frustrating? They are not that difficult, even including the trial and error. Certainly easier than most games.

[Jkun]

Fine, explain to me how FFXI's CoP missions are only frustrating? They are not that difficult, even including the trial and error. Certainly easier than most games.

MEGA MAN NINE.

[Septimus]

Fine, explain to me how FFXI's CoP missions are only frustrating? They are not that difficult, even including the trial and error. Certainly easier than most games.

Because frustrating is not something that we should want out of games. Frustration leads to demoralization, which leads to people quitting for other games. (Like nearly half of BG quitting for WoW.) Difficult is fine, but shit like portals disappearing within 30 seconds after becoming active like in the Prommies when they were first released is beyond ridiculous. Anyone who didn't beat CoP back before they nerfed everything needs to shut up about how great the expansion was. People who did beat the expansion before they nerfed everything need to go promptly to the Ha-Ha-Hacienda.

[Eldelphia]

As I remember back to doing CoP missions for Septimus, I am filled with a rage that promises to spill forth from me like the solar winds from our Sun when people talk about those missions with anything less than muted contempt. I was in Sea on the day it was available. I beat Promathia the day the BC was available. I fought Jailers the day they were put in the game. People who enjoyed any of that before it was nerfed needs to find their way to the LURE or some other leather bar and find themselves a burly man in leather to take care of their masochistic tendencies so we don't have to deal with them in game.

As always, great work Elmer, have my babies. But I am sick of people reminiscing about the good old days when the good old days were really, really bad.

I did CoP before it was nerfed and I enjoyed it. It was hard work and freaking horrible but I was damn proud of doing it.

[Charismatic]

I agree, in part, with both of you (BRP and Septimus).
There were some parts of CoP that were overly frustrating for no reason at all, but on the whole the expansion was still fun.

Yes, 30 second portals were ass... that's true but it doesn't take away from the fact that some of the other mission content was genuinely fun (or at least I thought so.)

[BRP]

That's a cool opinion. I am not going to call you a baby or a scrub or a casual. So how about you realize there are people who enjoyed the difficulty and generally enjoy the difficulty in games. What you want might be different than what I want, there is no "we" you can pile me into. Shouldn't throw around fetishes because you like the easy mode.

And yes there was some design faults within the original build of Promy and some others, but generally speaking I am talking about the whole of CoP. The idea that you won't win every fight on the first try even with effort. In the beginning Promy had huge risk factor which got fixed early on.

[blackmail]

"There is a world of difference between frustration and fun".

You can't spell "frustration" without the letters in "fun!"

[Pergo]

i think there's a difference between when cop was adjusted and then when cop was nerfed. idk, i remember deleveling my smn 37>35 the week cop came out because of many failed alliance attempts at promys, i still found it fun. that first follow-up patch is when they adjusted the portal timers and i think stray hp. i helped alot of people after that, and the missions were still a challenge. i think the way it is now, although i guess not much has changed(besides like xp changes in the bc battles), feels like a watered-down version of the missions players originally went through.

i think as BRP said, even with full preparation, the missions were still hard and didn't ensure victory. although my initial run in cop was filled with tons of trial-and-error, and exp loss, whenever my group won a new bc, there was that feeling of like "OMG!!!!", "F-YEAH", "WOO HOO!!!". but like whenever i won toau or wotg missions, the general feeling was like "oh nice, good job guys". maybe the problem is within me, but i wish i could find that feeling again from new missions

[Hyan]

The promies were awful when they came out ; ; However, year and a half later when I finally got static the missions were awesome.

[Reapz]

The promies were awful when they came out ; ; However, year and a half later when I finally got static the missions were awesome.

I actually loved promies when they came out, but I am one of the people who loved CoP for its difficulty and sense of accomplishment when reaching the end

[Gulkeeva]

The cop missions when they first came out were pretty rough...

I remember alot getting stuck on the fight with the... 3-5? shape shifters then oryou (forgot how spell his name) earth element like dragon. They nerfed it pretty quick though.

[ronin sparthos]

CoP was flawed to all hell with its million ways to fuck over a run (dissipating portals in promy/riverne, tile drops in Diabolos, Snoll Tzar, no RR in promy etc) but the feeling of accomplishment when you accessed an area that most of the playerbase did not have was fulfilling and to this day nothing has even come close to that feeling.

The good old days may have been a huge pile of shit but in this time period when patches are completely eviscerated within 24hours, it feels good to know that I beat the hardest legitimate challenge ever presented to players in FFXI.

[Enedin]

I actually loved promies when they came out, but I am one of the people who loved CoP for its difficulty and sense of accomplishment when reaching the end

Same, that's why I did 3 full statics, one for me and our first static, then one for an alliance of 15 people (with 6 WHMs, we used a DD WHM spamming banish on Diabolos just to squeeze him in there), and this year one for 6 people.

CoP is great, but the nerfed versions of it are too easy. I agree Snoll sucked, but we killed him in 20s last time...

[Arthars]

i totally agree games need to go back to old school difficulty.

Games like Megaman 1, Double Dragon 1, Langrisser 1, Shining force 1, SD Robot war 1, Devil May cry 1, Bio Hazard(aka Resident Evil 1), NES DBZ1(JP onry sadly), super mario 2, FF4(w/o ninja tossing gils) etc really psyched me up. Im sure theres more old school games that i forgot to mention that really is the shit in terms of difficulty. And theres also certain RPG games that REALLY MAKE YOU SIT IN A DUNGEON FOR HOURS TRYING TO FIGURE HOW TO GET OUT AND NOT DIE AND GAME OVER AND QQ!!!!!!!! remember how hard it is to get up to the burning castle in FF4 after the black hole incident? climbed all up for 2-3 hours and get pwned by that dark knight! thats the real rpg man. OH and also Lufia 1 FTW

and then comes the sequel for MOST of the above games making it commercial, marketting, graphical wise for better "packaging" and thus removing the "difficulty" for most games.............this makes kids really happy because of nicer graphics, animation and shits........but make core gamers like us losing interest really fast(on screen map on FFX? in battle tutorial? wtf for noobs?)....................this is why i totally lost interest in console games after FFX.........everything become graphical and animation onry since then and theres no more challenges in MOST games...

moar excitement prz................. i do agree COP mission is da shit and the end game content(lolAV) but still, it had the best storyline and excitement(frustration too, but hey, dont you like how coupon,watever spelling it is, blow you away in the arena in FF3?)

maybe thats just me, but i pay a game to make me have fun and challenges. Not buy it, cheat it with game shark, win through it, and yay toss the game into cupboard for a good 1-10 years or so. Always start with the highest difficulty man.

[Kyreth]

Personally, I'm all for the tough stuff- as sidequests.

Main storyline stuff, difficulty doesn't have to be set to 11. Drop some stuff on the sides that gets you unique, nice stuff and is TOUGH AS FUCK TO WIN. Bonus points if it makes the main storyline stuff more challenging as well.

Imagine if there was a sidequest in ToAU that let you beat up on some fuckhuge construct in the Ruins to liberate an Astral Candescene as a key item, plus some nice pieces to turn in ala Omega for shinies. Of course, if anyone has said key item at the end battle for the storyline, Alexander drains it to become a third-stage boss form instead of the once-twice-and-gone battle we get now....but also changes the ending CSes for a more powerful, non-trophy version of the crown you get from the Empress.

Hard mode should be optional, rewarding, but not required- sorta like the difference between Divine Might and just beating down the Ark Angels one at a time.

[BRP]

What is mandatory or optional in this game?

Those concepts don't make sense in FFXI. People are the not forced to do missions to progress or go to sea or limbus to progress. Consider how nonlinear FFXI is with several parallel set of missions(rank + RotZ aside) and most endgame content can be done in any order and players can exclude any amount. Someone can do RotZ and then do some ToAU then some RotZ and then pick and choose out of CoP. Or they could just do ToAU and never unlock Sky or Sea.

The only thing I could relate to your idea would be level cap quests.