Reforged AF - Blocked on Step 1?

[Kensagaku]

@FaeQueenCory
While I agree that yes, this is an MMO, and it is centered around people playing together, being able to just be elevated to the end devalues the experience for those who had to put the hard work into getting there. Why did they strive if everyone was going to be on the same level with no effort? What is the point of achieving something if anyone can achieve it by whining that they're not as good as others? Why bother when you can just sit back and complain until you get the same tools that you would have gotten only a little bit earlier by working hard?

My point is that work effort should equal reward reward. Right now, things like the login campaign and the other "easy mode" tools are an example of do nothing for a reward. And this is from the guy who came in at the end of the ToAU era; I didn't even have it nearly as bad as those who came before, and I still think this is ridiculous. So people have to do a little bit of mission work, whoop de doo? If they don't like doing it solo, they can look for other people on the server who haven't done it yet. There are at least a handful of people, judging by the few that have spoken here, who haven't done these missions and are looking to do them. Maybe there's more. Post on server forums here or in the ffxiah.com forums, and they might even find people to do these with. I know the pain of doing missions solo, as I did a large majority of Wings of the Goddess solo. It was fun for its own reasons, but I did experience the blah of running it solo, mostly because I didn't bother to try and get people to help. I didn't feel like waiting. The only reason this game turns into a non-MMO is when people don't try to band together and work together. They're only doing so to get to the next shiny thing in many cases, especially if they can skip steps.

@The OP
Look, I respect that it's annoying that you have to get Sea access. It is quite boring compared to the old times, where you did CoP with the caps. There's just no fun or accomplishment in stomping a 40-cap mission at level 99, because you can just sneeze in the general direction and win, so I understand the annoyance. I finished mine just before the caps were raised, and it was memorable because of the time spent organizing groups and the work I put into beating these big bosses with a good combination of jobs. Freakin' Ouryu, despite being easy to others, was a pain because of my party setup of two blms, a blu, a whm, and some misc dds because that was all we had. It was... a train wreck for the first run. XD;

But while I do understand what a pain it is to go back and do these missions, it is the same thing I mentioned in the above section; to get something, you have to work for it. It's not just handed to you. If you want to get your AF+1 and AF109/119, you have to complete Chains of Promathia at least up to unlocking Limbus. I know it can be a pain, but the work is a requirement that everyone has had to meet to get to this point, and because you don't want to do it doesn't mean that you should take the work they put into it and throw it aside because you don't want to do a little bit of extra work. To put it simply, get through the work. Yes, it's a time sink, but isn't that what MMOs are anyway? Games to pass the time? Granted, it's easier with other people and more fun that way, but judging by a few of the posts here on the forum, there are a few people who have yet to finish them as well. Look around for people who haven't done them either, and make it an experience together. For fun, you can try and do some of them level capped, just to see how crazy it was back in the day. Or you can rush through them together, exploring the world together and enjoying the unfolding storyline. As many of the others have said, Chains of Promathia was one of the best storylines in the game, and by not going through it, I feel you're missing out on a pretty epic bit of in-game story.

In short, take the time to do the work. Make the reward worth it, and not just another shiny bauble you received because you bludgeoned a monster's head in with a staff for a few hours.

[Mordain]

@FaeQueenCory
@The OP
Look, I respect that it's annoying that you have to get Sea access. It is quite boring compared to the old times, where you did CoP with the caps. There's just no fun or accomplishment in stomping a 40-cap mission at level 99, because you can just sneeze in the general direction and win, so I understand the annoyance.

Whoa there! I wasn't the one complaining about getting Sea access! I actually don't mind. I love the CoP story, and this gives me the extra push to finish it off. I guess I can understand the people who are annoyed, but for me the only annoyance was that I wouldn't have figured out why I couldn't reforge my AF without consulting on the forums (i.e., they could have put a disclaimer on the quest or something).

[Kensagaku]

Whoa there! I wasn't the one complaining about getting Sea access! I actually don't mind. I love the CoP story, and this gives me the extra push to finish it off. I guess I can understand the people who are annoyed, but for me the only annoyance was that I wouldn't have figured out why I couldn't reforge my AF without consulting on the forums (i.e., they could have put a disclaimer on the quest or something).

My apologies, then! I totally misinterpreted the point of this thread. Then yes, I do agree that it would help if they gave some idea of what is required for these steps, rather than leaving people to guess. There is a train of logic that AF upgrades (+1) comes from unlocking sea access, so further upgrades (109/119) also requires it, but at the same time it would be nicer to have them specify these things a bit more.

[Vinedrai]

I can't believe some people here are crying about story related content being a road block on their way to shinies. This is a story driven game, what do you expect? Maybe you should just go play tetris or something, this isn't an arcade game for god's sake. @Crevox, they even handed you limbus items you needed for free (and pages for sparks, though idk if you got them that way), what else do you want? Next thing you will say SE should have added sea access to login rewards.

If anything, people with that mind set should instead be happy that you don't have to endure level caps, slow movement speed, much fewer transportation options and waiting forever to get a party together or the pain to set up a static. But you know what? Despite all that, it was so satisfying to overcome the challenge of CoP, the achievement you felt was amazing after all the sadistic limitations and requirements SE threw at you. It is too bad that newer players won't ever get to experience the same sense of achievement.

SE has already given you up-to date gear options for little to no effort (RoE and skirmish says hello). Don't worry, people won't be pointing fingers at you for not having item level AF while you are running around and beating some battlefields without breaking a sweat and it will only take you a few days... /sigh

[Crevox]

I can't believe some people here are crying about story related content being a road block on their way to shinies. This is a story driven game, what do you expect? Maybe you should just go play tetris or something, this isn't an arcade game for god's sake. @Crevox, they even handed you limbus items you needed for free (and pages for sparks, though idk if you got them that way), what else do you want? Next thing you will say SE should have added sea access to login rewards.

Time. Consuming. None of this is a challenge. I am not "earning" anything. I am running from place to place doing fetch quests. Like I said, I wanted to see the story, and I planned to do it at some point, but I am required to do it now for gear irrelevant to the level of the content. The story is fantastic, but it comes in bits and pieces between the monotony.

The greater majority of my game time has now been running from point A from point B to talk to NPC or beat up too weak to be worth while.

I understand it USED TO BE challenging, but it isn't now. Why are we stuck doing this still? If it's simply for the story, it shouldn't be required for level 99 content. This stuff takes a LOT of time. I could read the entire story script online in less than an hour, but doing this in game takes days. Yes, it is much more enjoyable in game and all that (and honestly, even then I could just watch it all on youtube), but the fact that this is being made a requirement for new content they're pushing out in patches just sucks. I am bearing through going through 4-5 different entire storylines for simple unlock flags that could be flipped on by SE an easier way, but I can't say if my friends will be wanting to do it all too. What's worse is some of it even blocks you from continuing until an earth day has passed (I just started Aht Urhgan, can't continue, gotta wait).

It's no wonder new people don't start playing this game. Not only is all of this extremely time consuming (and often complicated, requiring a guide), but anyone in game and on the forums just says "you guys have it so lucky, it was so hard back in the day, it took so long, quit whining." So friendly, so understanding. I really could care less about back in the day. Stop talking about it, the past is irrelevant to the present.

And for those of you who say it isn't required: it really is. First of all, I can't do any of the AA fights without doing Zilart, apparently. Important gear (sachet) comes from there, and it's the latest content everyone is shouting about, with tons of other things from it too. I can't get my AF+1 without doing CoP, which is very good gear, and for a SMN (me), job specific gear is often critically useful. There's also Alexander and Odin, whom I can't get unless I do Aht Urhgan, and I've already been refused from multiple parties and Linkshells because I do not have Alexander. Lastly, I can't go to Dynamis until I finish the nation missions (just up to rank 6 I think?) and many other things in the game also require rank. There's even more stuff past that, but I can't be bothered to think of it right now (and the more I play, the more things come up).

It's like a gigantic list labeled "Before you can start playing and enjoying the game, first complete this gigantic checklist of fetchquests:"

[Twille]

Time. Consuming. None of this is a challenge. I am not "earning" anything. I am running from place to place doing fetch quests. Like I said, I wanted to see the story, and I planned to do it at some point, but I am required to do it now for gear irrelevant to the level of the content. The story is fantastic, but it comes in bits and pieces between the monotony.

The greater majority of my game time has now been running from point A from point B to talk to NPC or beat up too weak to be worth while.

I understand it USED TO BE challenging, but it isn't now. Why are we stuck doing this still? If it's simply for the story, it shouldn't be required for level 99 content. This stuff takes a LOT of time. I could read the entire story script online in less than an hour, but doing this in game takes days. Yes, it is much more enjoyable in game and all that (and honestly, even then I could just watch it all on youtube), but the fact that this is being made a requirement for new content they're pushing out in patches just sucks. I am bearing through going through 4-5 different entire storylines for simple unlock flags that could be flipped on by SE an easier way, but I can't say if my friends will be wanting to do it all too. What's worse is some of it even blocks you from continuing until an earth day has passed (I just started Aht Urhgan, can't continue, gotta wait).

It's no wonder new people don't start playing this game. Not only is all of this extremely time consuming (and often complicated, requiring a guide), but anyone in game and on the forums just says "you guys have it so lucky, it was so hard back in the day, it took so long, quit whining." So friendly, so understanding. I really could care less about back in the day. Stop talking about it, the past is irrelevant to the present.

And for those of you who say it isn't required: it really is. First of all, I can't do any of the AA fights without doing Zilart, apparently. Important gear (sachet) comes from there, and it's the latest content everyone is shouting about, with tons of other things from it too. I can't get my AF+1 without doing CoP, which is very good gear, and for a SMN (me), job specific gear is often critically useful. There's also Alexander and Odin, whom I can't get unless I do Aht Urhgan, and I've already been refused from multiple parties and Linkshells because I do not have Alexander. Lastly, I can't go to Dynamis until I finish the nation missions (just up to rank 6 I think?) and many other things in the game also require rank. There's even more stuff past that, but I can't be bothered to think of it right now (and the more I play, the more things come up).

It's like a gigantic list labeled "Before you can start playing and enjoying the game, first complete this gigantic checklist of fetchquests:"

So you want to skip past all the actual content of the game and just have the rewards given to you?
Sorry, but this is an MMO, the ultimate time-sink.

[Olor]

Time. Consuming. None of this is a challenge. I am not "earning" anything. I am running from place to place doing fetch quests. Like I said, I wanted to see the story, and I planned to do it at some point, but I am required to do it now for gear irrelevant to the level of the content. The story is fantastic, but it comes in bits and pieces between the monotony.

The greater majority of my game time has now been running from point A from point B to talk to NPC or beat up too weak to be worth while...

It's like a gigantic list labeled "Before you can start playing and enjoying the game, first complete this gigantic checklist of fetchquests:"

Yeah, it really sucks. It is just 100 per cent NOT fun to have to spend an evening running between NPCs when you wanted to play a video game. Old missions should not lock new content.

[Vinedrai]

Sorry but all I am seeing in your posts is "I want to skip everything so i can get a reward". You are not really making any sense by saying "I can watch all the cutscenes on youtube". You can find full playthroughs and/or video compilations of so many games on youtube. In that sense, nobody should ever play any game you can find on youtube because all the cutscenes and gameplay are already there, so why should we even play it ourselves, right?

I mean, you must be joking (or should I say trolling), because this is too absurd to be true...

[Demonjustin]

In all honesty, why need they be connected though? I can think of no reason that CoP in any way should actually be a requirement, I know that it is and I know its important to do, I fully agree, but if someone wants to complete this content without doing the majority of CoP first, why should we be against that? To me, it seems like a random and pointless requirement in my opinion, just like the VW requirement for unlocking Empyrean WSs was a random needless requirement they just threw at us out of no where.

[Vinedrai]

There has to be requirements for something new added to the game. To progress in Abyssea, you had to have zone boss wins then caturae wins, to progress in VW, you had to kill NMs on your current tier once to get to next tier etc etc. Also, it may sound unrelated to some people (especially newer players) but AF upgrading was always related to CoP.

They could have made it so that you can upgrade your AF with 10 papers without doing any CoP but then they would definitely set a different requirement and don't forget that there is also the option to upgrade them with 5 papers if you already have the hq and you need limbus access to have them so there is still a connection beyond "suck it up and get sea access regardless".

The story justification is that the new NPC is a collegue of the original AF upgrade NPC. It makes sense that the new NPC would only serve you after the original NPC is available to you. The process is technically new and they should be following the timeline. I don't know what else to say if people don't care about stories and chronology. And btw, (this isn't directed at you) asking why ZM progress to fight AA is required is even more pointless because you are not supposed to see them at all before reaching that point in the story.