So, reforging AF armor requires CoP?

[Yirivi]

Would have been nice if that was made public/common knowledge, on either the Wiki or the 'Adventuring Primer' that got me to come back to the game...

So, a couple days ago I decided to check on FFXI, see how its doing. I saw the Primer and liked what I read... I resubbed and was having fun. I read up about Records of Eminence and how I could earn sparks to spend on things... like in the primer, "Job-Specific gear!". To quote the primer...

"It’s also possible to obtain all of the chapters through Records of Eminence!

Brave the battlefields to collect a whole bunch of chapters of Rem’s Tale, or persevere with Records of Eminence to steadily purchase chapters with your sparks!

So I can choose how to obtain-wobtain the items based on my playstyle?
It’s nice knowing I can reforge equipment while solo by gradually-wadually saving up points."

Yeah, but you need to do CoP. THAT'S KIND OF A BIG DEAL. Here's the wiki page:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ca...Artifact_Armor

Makes it look like you can just earn sparks and upgrade your old AF gear. The primer also was very misleading. You can't just come back to the game, you better have done almost all of CoP 'cause otherwise you can't upgrade your old gear... and since I play a summoner, my AF gear is the only thing worthwhile. The regular gear you can buy with sparks are USELESS.

Now, but before a lot of people get all upset "yeah herp derp you need to do CoP to deserve the gear! You can't just get it for free you need to do the work!" FINE. GOOD. But don't leave that important info out! GEEZ.... very few people will have done all of CoP these days... if I knew I had to do that boring grind, I would not have returned to the game...

So, what did I lose out on? Well, my hopes were high for some fun times... I probably wouldn't have stayed around unless I made some friends... but since I can't even PARTICIPATE in current content (due to gear) I have no desire to do those insanely boring and easy grinds to catch up. As it is, I spent a lot of time completing all the old AF1 quests (coffers and keys, what fun!) and unlocking Toraimai Canal (very annoying...). I also spent a bit of time researching my job and looking into gear upgrades and how to get them... I was pretty pumped up, but now I'm deflated!

I doubt anyone cares, but maybe this post will come up on Google... YOU NEED COP TO come back to FFXI, FOR SOME ABSURD REASON.

Edit: Just to clarify, what happened is I farmed all this gear and stuff and when I got to the turn in NPC, they wouldn't talk to me. The wiki and the official page never listed the full-requirements and were very misleading.

[Karbuncle]

I wanted to verify what you said before I replied... so went to look

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...Version-Update

The update notes for reforged AF equipment. not even a squeek or peep mentioning requiring Chains of Promathia... so, I have to agree on the field they should at least publish this information instead of leaving it up to the community to figure out the requirements.

[Crevox]

I was annoyed by this as well, but the community on this forum told me I should stop begging for handouts and should just do CoP.

[Zarchery]

That probably should have been publicized, though I've got no problem with the requirement itself.

[Lithera]

Well BG doesn't straight out say CoP on their reforging page but do have links to the npc and on the npc's page put a warning that you need access to limbus. Gamerescape also lists limbus on their reforge page. So there is that.

[Edyth]

I think it's kind of assumed that anyone serious enough to reforge their armor has at least obtained a Rajas Ring by beating CoP.

[Crevox]

I think it's kind of assumed that anyone serious enough to reforge their armor has at least obtained a Rajas Ring by beating CoP.

As a new player, Rajas Ring isn't exactly high in the priority list. Beyond that, I personally only play mages at 99 (I have 3 level 99 mage jobs, not a single high level physical class). Why would I even bother going for Rajas Ring?

As a Summoner, my first priority was getting my AF armor upgraded, because the Summoner armor is so core and required to the job. When I found out after I got all the required materials to upgrade my armor to 109 that I had to spend days doing low level content before I could get it, naturally I was pretty annoyed.

[Stompa]

Yes but the original artifact upgrades, the level 70s AF+1, from <Long time.> ago, required you to farm Limbus, which is accessed through Sea, which requires COP progress.

So if you wanted your Summoner artifact +1 many years ago, you would have to go and grind Temenos/Apollyon. And that was just for your lvl 70s AF+1 with the comedy bonuses that made people laugh at you for wearing it.

So its not SE's fault, this is a game mechanic dating back forever, if you wanted to upgrade your base AF you needed to farm Sea, by progressing through COP. All SE did was extend this process to 119.

And since you can finish COP on solo in very little time nowadays (in sparks/bayld gear, or even less) and you can farm Limbus solo too, and get the Limbus items from log-in points, it seems that SE have gone out of their way to make this process easy to solo. The fact they made it possible to leapfrog the Limbus items by using AF & 10 chapters instead of AF+1 & 5 chapters, doesn't change the fact that upgrading the core artifact is storylined to Limbus items and NPCs.

I do agree that they could explain this to new players, who might not understand that Artifact armor is Storyline Armor, the story begins with your AF quests and then continues with the Limbus items and the Limbus NPC sending your armor to the East to get it upgraded to the ubber lvl 70's version, and how the same NPC's repeat this upgrade process for 109/119.

[Crevox]

Yes but the original artifact upgrades, the level 70s AF+1, from <Long time.> ago, required you to farm Limbus, which is accessed through Sea, which requires COP progress.

However, upgrading AF armor to 109 does not require AF+1. They easily could have made it require it, but they didn't, it just costs more chapters.

The whole requirement of doing CoP just to unlock the ability to upgrade AF armor is a huge thing that players (depending on their job) have to complete just to be able to participate in end game, which is already a gigantic growing list. The majority of that prep work is also just playing by yourself, in an MMORPG.

If you and your friends start playing together and you all want to start doing end game content, some of you or all of you are going to have to go through tons of different things solo, like CoP. Sure, you could NOT do it solo and do it as a group, but then as soon as one person has to leave for any reason then you all have to stop to stay in sync. Even if you don't, you'll all be backtracking to help that other person catch up, and one way or another, it's either going to take like 5x longer than it would have solo or you'll all be doing it solo cause you're no longer in sync. Even then, most people that would play would debate if it's even worth the valuable time that some people actually have to play with one another, when you're all basically just watching a movie together. This content, at the moment, as a requirement, is not healthy for an MMORPG.

There's nothing wrong with leaving CoP in the game and offering personal useful rewards like Rajas Ring for players to work on in their own time, but locking important, core job armor that practically everyone needs (and some jobs basically cannot operate in end game without) behind a solo endeavor that takes days is just wrong. It's extremely off-putting to new players, and even more so for those that start the game playing with friends. With CoP and other things that all need to be done alone, this game quickly shifts from an MMORPG to a long solo grind with the carrot on a stick at the end of the tunnel saying "once you do all this, you'll be able to play with your friends!"

The harsh reality of end game after that is yet to come, but requiring CoP and other things is just cruel. It takes far too long to get going in this game, and simple things like this just make it worse. There was no reason they had to make this a requirement; they just did, and they shouldn't have.

[Stompa]

However, upgrading AF armor to 109 does not require AF+1. They easily could have made it require it, but they didn't, it just costs more chapters.

Yeah, I said those very words in the post you snipped one line out of.

SE helped you out by offering 10 chapters instead of compulsory farming Limbus. Then they helped you out further by giving the Limbus items away for free in login campaign. Thats a lot of helping you out. My point was just that upgrading artifact was always tied to the skilled craftsmen from the Near East, and the Sea-related NPCs who have contact with those craftsmen. So it makes logical sense to upgrade the same armors further using those same Sea NPCs.

This is a roleplaying storyline game, you play the storylines because they are part of the roleplaying world. Some items and armors are tied to those storylines. It would suck if you could just buy AF 119 in a shop for gil. Its much more fun to make some armors storyline-related and you need to play the roleplaying game storyline to unlock those armors.