Milkman 1up Interview 5/22/09

[Plow]

...except that (for the level capped areas) the people who you did the mission for are unable to get ENM triggers before completing said mission. CoP strikes again!

lol...

let me just quote directly:

"Venessa in Ru'Lude Gardens (H-10) will offer you the first three ENMs in Promyvion if you have completed the first cut-scenes to start the Chains of Promathia missions."

"Venessa in Ru'Lude Gardens (H-10) will offer you the option into Promyvion - Vahzl if you have completed the Chains of Promathia missions and reached chapter 5 or above."

"A character must have reached Chains of Promathia mission, chapter 2-5 or above, to receive access into Monarch Linn. "

etc. etc.

If you can access a CoP BC area, you can do the ENM.

Not only that, but at the promys at least, I don't remember on the others, when you win the ENM, it spits you out at a spot with an option to immediately go back to the bc entrance.

This is specifically set up so that you can take people that need the mission, do the ENM first, warp back to the bc entrance, do the mission fight, and be done with both when people get spit out to the random places in the world after missions.


Perhaps if you knew jack shit about CoP you wouldn't hate it so much...

So they could have, except that they didn't? Great.

We know that they didn't. That's not the point. The point is that there was more than one way they could have executed a level-restriction-based expansion, and they chose the easiest, laziest way out.

I just don't know how I can possibly get it through your head. The level cap zones were intended to be world zones, and major dungeons, not small quick scenarios.

It's an entirely different concept. I just don't know what to say, you're just blocking out reality.

The level-capped zones are "the entire base of the game"?
Or are you saying that instancing was against everything FFXI stands for... right up until the very next expansion, which made heavy use of instancing?

Yes. Assault, Nyzul, and Salvage basically take facets of FFXI, and put them into as WoW-like a package as possible. The CoP team was asked to design a huge new chunk of the world, and run a massive story through all of it.

The part of the ToAU team that functioned differently was given areas created by a team charged with the CoP team's roles, and asked to create varying scenarios within these small zones.

It's.

A.

Different.

Fucking.

Concept.

I don't understand how I'm leaving out the majority of players, any more than city and RoZ and TAU and WoG left out "the majority of players." I have no problems with high-level players actually benefiting from being high-level and walking through the early missions.

The majority of players at the time of Zilart were Japanese players, a huge percentage of which were around the level 50 cap. This put them directly on track with the new city missions, the early zilart missions, pretty sure a full alliance around 60 could handle normal behemoth, not to mention a large chunk of the zones, ... started listing and I'll just copypasta all of them

* Eastern Altepa Desert
* Western Altepa Desert
* Rabao
* Quicksand Caves
* Kazham
* Yuhtunga Jungle
* Yhoator Jungle
* Sea Serpent Grotto
* Korroloka Tunnel
* Cape Teriggan
* Gustav Tunnel
* Kuftal Tunnel
* Valley of Sorrows
* Temple of Uggalepih
* Den of Rancor
* Norg
* Ifrit's Cauldron
* The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah
* The Boyahda Tree
* Dragon's Aery
* Ro'Maeve
* Hall of the Gods
* Ru'Aun Gardens
* Ve'Lugannon Palace
* The Shrine of Ru'Avitau
* Labyrinth of Onzozo
* Full Moon Fountain
* Stellar Fulcrum

Many are for lower level jobs, however many are also largely left out of the mission progression. Overall, they range from just above starter zone levels to still challenging to navigate at 75 now.

WotG again offered low level content (a meriting with sanction in outdoor zones quality exp upgrade even) and, obviously, everybody and their dog has a couple 75 jobs now.

ToAU was all mid to high level content, but we're pretty much all mid to high level players now, so it works.

And as for CoP not having new jobs... well, "the only retail expansion NOT to introduce new jobs" is just another line on CoP's resume.

Yeah, it's unfortunate they didn't have the resources to do the biggest expansion in the game in terms of story, possibly the biggest raw area size wise (I'm not sure between CoP and Zilart), and add in more new jobs on top of it. And gosh they could've at least made it all instanced with optional level caps while they were at it!

There are no situations, ever, where adding T mobs (as opposed to VT) to a merit party killing VTs is good. None. They do not exist. This is why you don't fight T mobs.

Ok, whatever you say.

If the Sea Puks at MJSP were 81-82 instead of 77-78, MJSP would be THE. SAME. BUT. BETTER. Period, full stop.

Sea Puks suck fat hairy balls as vt-it exp mobs due to their tp moves and evasion. Sea Puks being 81-82 would wreck that camp, especially for anything less than the premier parties. Replacing them with mamools might make it better for the penultimate pt, but even the best pt in the world have variables.

Sea Puks are one of the primary reasons why MJSP is ultimately not as good as colibri/wivres (the other three being Lurkers, Fang Rush, and Dread Shriek).

MMJSP is better than colibri/wivres for the best possible pt, and it's the lurkers, and the painful tp moves of all mamools and skoffin that make colibri the better camp for ezmode.

What party is this? DD DD BRD BRD BRD RDM?

Even if your party is DD DD COR BRD BRD RDM:

a) DDs should not be doing 50% each
b) with those buffs, DD + COR should still be able to chain

40/40/20 at worst, if your dd's are falling near 33/33/33 with a cor they are not the dd's in an amazing exp pt.

[Spider-Dan]

This is specifically set up so that you can take people that need the mission, do the ENM first, warp back to the bc entrance, do the mission fight, and be done with both when people get spit out to the random places in the world after missions.

Fair enough. I seem to remember specifically not being able to do an ENM and a mission battle in the same run when CoP came out, but perhaps they've actually made it sensible since then.

I just don't know how I can possibly get it through your head. The level cap zones were intended to be world zones, and major dungeons, not small quick scenarios.

It's obvious what the intentions were; much like the intentions for ground kings were to have players compete for high-value spawns with one-off loot pools. That doesn't make the intentions any less flawed and/or avoidable.

Yeah, it's unfortunate they didn't have the resources to do the biggest expansion in the game in terms of story, possibly the biggest raw area size wise (I'm not sure between CoP and Zilart), and add in more new jobs on top of it. And gosh they could've at least made it all instanced with optional level caps while they were at it!

TAU took on far more and did a better job with it. So did RoZ. The storyline excuse only goes so far; how many people were writing CoP's story, again?

Sea Puks suck fat hairy balls as vt-it exp mobs due to their tp moves and evasion. Sea Puks being 81-82 would wreck that camp, especially for anything less than the premier parties. Replacing them with mamools might make it better for the penultimate pt, but even the best pt in the world have variables.

Sea Puks are BRDs (i.e. their evasion is not a factor) and they have only one TP move of any consequence.

If you seriously think that you would rather fight a VT Lurker or Infiltrator than a VT puk, I don't know what to tell you. It's just absurd.

[Plow]

Fair enough. I seem to remember specifically not being able to do an ENM and a mission battle in the same run when CoP came out, but perhaps they've actually made it sensible since then.

I think the Movopolis one is set up to separate the ENM from the mission.

It's obvious what the intentions were; much like the intentions for ground kings were to have players compete for high-value spawns with one-off loot pools. That doesn't make the intentions any less flawed and/or avoidable.

Right, comparing expanding the world by new world zones to instancing everything and changing the entire purpose of the expansion is totally comparable to kings in some stretch of your imagination.

Did it ever occur to you that a lot of people like FFXI for the adventures in the world and the fighting, not the ways it tries to imitate WoW?

TAU took on far more and did a better job with it. So did RoZ. The storyline excuse only goes so far; how many people were writing CoP's story, again?

ToAU did not take on far more than CoP, not even close. Again, I just cannot seem to get through your head the difference between small instanced scenarios and the game world.

Sea Puks are BRDs (i.e. their evasion is not a factor) and they have only one TP move of any consequence.

If you seriously think that you would rather fight a VT Lurker or Infiltrator than a VT puk, I don't know what to tell you. It's just absurd.

Pretty sure Puks as a mob type have generally high evasion (pre-75 parties on them always sucked balls, I could be wrong tho), and they also knock you all over the place, not to mention they attack fast as fuck, and if you're not using shadows their tp moves are every bit as dangerous as Mamools.

[Bakthi]

Pretty sure Puks as a mob type have generally high evasion (pre-75 parties on them always sucked balls, I could be wrong tho), and they also knock you all over the place, not to mention they attack fast as fuck, and if you're not using shadows their tp moves are every bit as dangerous as Mamools.

Having used the camps in Wajaom Woodlands around level 60 (when people used to actually need a bridge between colibri camps instead of just syncing to someone and riding a wave of pink birds from 36 to 75), I can say that they did indeed suck. I've done them on NIN and on COR, and neither time was particularly exciting.

[BRP]

I can't wait until SE turns Colibri into the THF/RDM they are destined to be.

[fantasticdan]

Pretty sure Puks as a mob type have generally high evasion (pre-75 parties on them always sucked balls, I could be wrong tho), and they also knock you all over the place, not to mention they attack fast as fuck, and if you're not using shadows their tp moves are every bit as dangerous as Mamools.

I've done a lot of leveling on the tier 1 puks in wajoam woodlands, and I've never noticed them having any above average evasion(maybe you are looking at parse results without taking it's flash tp move into account?), just low hp and really low defense. The only damaging TP move normal outdoor puks have is crosswind, which doesn't even do that much damage with no shadows up, comparing it to rushing stab/drub/slash or firespit is silly. The only really dangerous thing about it is the potential for it to knock you into other mobs.

EDIT: I forgot about wind shear, but that's pretty much the same thing except aoe and less damage.

[Plow]

The times I partied on the lower level puks were on nin, I'm sure that contributed to the overall "holy shit this sucks" factor.