• PSO2 JP Additional Changes to Economy on October 10th, Detailed on Official Blog

    In a lengthy post on the official PSO2 JP blog, Phantasy Star Online 2 producer Satoshi Sakai has detailed some additional changes that will be made during the October 10th content update. Here is a brief summary of the changes, courtesy of Mike in the PSO2 forum:


  • Rooms that have existed for over four hours will no longer spawn enemies nor will rooms nearing four hours (at 3 hours & 30 minutes) be accepting new parties.
  • Vendor prices for weapons and units will be falling to "combat inflation."
  • Vendor prices for single star weapons and items will be raised.
  • 10 star and greater items will not be tradeable in any way.
  • Level 11 disks will not be tradeable in any way.
  • 7 Star or greater weapons will now drop with elements in the 20~45 range while tekked items will range 25~50.
  • Bosses will drop more meseta when they drop meseta (this doesn't mean they'll drop more meseta but the value of the meseta they drop will increase).
  • Eventually, the amount of meseta needed to grind weapons will be decreased


  • According to a full translation of the blog entry, posted by PSOW member Kion, these changes are a result of three major problems that have been brought to the development team's attention during their observation of player activity:


    1. Players were farming random fields endlessly, as they yielded the best return. This was negatively impacting the chances of meeting new players.
    2. Rare items could be obtained from player shops much easier than actually hunting for the items, ruining the experience of actually finding the items. As a result, most players were just farming meseta rather than hunting for the items they wanted.
    3. Higher ranking items could be sold to NPCs for too high of a value, leading to an environment where the value of money decreases and people are forced to farm more and more to buy items from player shops.

    Sakai-san noted that these issues would only breed continued inflation and did not feel that would have a positive impact on those who play the game. Some possible solutions that were rejected in favor of the above changes included spawn caps on enemies once a certain number have been defeated, reduced drop rates, and limits on how much items could be sold for.


    The changes are being met with mixed reactions so far, but we won't know the actual impact on the economy or how the game is played until sometime after October 10th, when the update goes live. Thanks to everyone who reported this news and helped provide translations!

    Comments 7 Comments
    1. Meyfei's Avatar
      Meyfei -
      Oh wow, bad BAD BAD move. and here i thought SoA was gonna kill things first. Untradable rares means i have a rats ass of catching up (what with 200kb/s i cant even be bothered to login) and the hell?
      I've just about given up on PSO2, they neglect us by not going international, and now they're forgetting not everyone has time to spend grinding endlessly for low-end rares the game isnt even at the point yet where it even matters!
      I hope what ever happens this fails horridly and they can revert back. and replan this.
    1. ZeGoose's Avatar
      ZeGoose -
      Well the good news is that they are going through trial and error with the Japanese servers, and hopefully bring the resolution to the American servers when it launches.
    1. ZeGoose's Avatar
      ZeGoose -
      You can trade rares just not 10+ stars. And the game is coming to NA some time in Q1 2013.
    1. Scyris's Avatar
      Scyris -
      I dunno about this, the whole point of pso2 is to hunt stuff to use or trade, its really stupid to not have 10 star or lv 11+ disks tradeable, its going to destroy the game. Not everyone has weeks to hunt for a single rare item. I hope they change this because if not I'll probally not bother with it when it comes to the US. Now some powerful items should be bind on pickup but not every single 11+ disk or 10* and up item.
    1. NitroPenguinz's Avatar
      NitroPenguinz -
      An easy solution for this problem would be to increase drop rates for weapons so that theyre more common.So people can actually find the weapon, cause i never found any good weapons and buying off the market is the best option for getting weapons. Still dont know why they want to fix it, because every mmo does this. Plus grinding an area for hours and still may not find a weapon is annoying, id rather take the quick way.
    1. Renvalt's Avatar
      Renvalt -
      Here are my thoughts regarding this. He (Sakai) knows that on the initial grind to cap (which will be 50 after the patch), that rares don't mean ALL that much. The decisions here aren't going to affect THAT particular group.
      What it IS affecting is 10-star/11-star items that are normally reserved for BiS in the cap levels (and obviously as the game evolves and develops it will lead to higher tier 10/11-star items that ultimately whilst being rated such, will need heavier stats to wield, which level cap increases will provide the means to do so).
      How Sakai is right to do this is he is essentially saying that rares shouldn't matter in terms of getting to cap, meaning that he's saying gear /= skill. It may HELP, but it's not the end-all-be-all.
      I can also interpret this as a(n) (possibly wasted) effort to actually get people to PARTY UP rather than solo with NPC friends as a good number of certain people who shall not be named are doing. I think that's where he's aiming - the soloists who outright refuse to party with others.
      This isn't a single player game - if it was, it wouldn't be called Phantasy Star "ONLINE" 2. I quoted and caps'd the online part to stress extreme emphasis.
      If you're on a netgame, you're gonna meet other people. If you don't want that, then play a single player game. Simple as that.
    1. Cyrillic's Avatar
      Cyrillic -
      but weren't you still going to spend weeks or so farming up the meseta/ other rare drops to sell to just buy them? It seems like time spent to me either way. Unless endgame economy favors raw meseta grind.
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