Military Subway and pre-expansion mission point rewards unba

[ArsinSoiyru]

Has anyone else noticed that the Military Subway mission gives a bizarrely huge amount of mission points and meseta? I'll concede that it is fairly long and challenging but nowhere near enough to warrent the enormous reward.

On another note, it is also apparent that due to the heavily increased mission point rewards for expansion missions, all of the pre-expansion missions are nearly worthless except for high-level weapon farming. Not to mention the fact that even the expansion missions are heavily overshadowed by Military Subway.

I'm all for better mission point and meseta rewards, but this is just stupid. It would take the work of about an afternoon to bring pre-expansion missions up to speed, and until that is done, there's little incentive to do anything but Military Subway runs. Personally, I want some variety in my gameplay, and I would like it if I wasn't essentially being punished for doing any of the other missions.

I've tried to be positive playing this game, and I really enjoy it, but this is just ridiculous. It's difficult for me to understand how such an obvious problem even made it into the retail version of the expansion.

Anybody have any thoughts?

[Arada]

They made it so that low level characters could catch up fast/easily with the older ones. Cause playing alone at low level isn't that enjopyable.

I agree, though, that they shoud increase old/other missions rewards.

[Silver_Wyrm]

even if I hate him, sometimes I wish I had a reasont o kill re ragan again >.> and the low meseta awards on old missions really ensures no one wants to lvl with them x.x

[Reipard]

I don't need a reason, I just do whatever mission I feel like. If I'm feeling lazy- that's when old AMF and True Darkness get run ^_^.

[ArsinSoiyru]

In principle I agree and I will continue to do the missions I want, but it would be nice to get a proper reward for them.

[XDeathX]

+5 Blocks is enough for the reward. It takes 25 to more than a half hour for a party of 6 to do it which is more than any other mission.

Not to mention robots suck and its an all robot mission.

And its really long and the only thing that would keep people doing it is the reward. Look at white beast. Takes 10 minutes and can earn just as much in two missions.

[ArsinSoiyru]

Hmm, maybe. Still, though, the problem of the pre-expansion missions remains.

[Laranas]

On 2008-01-08 07:28, XDeathX wrote:
+5 Blocks is enough for the reward. It takes 25 to more than a half hour for a party of 6 to do it which is more than any other mission.

Not to mention robots suck and its an all robot mission.

And its really long and the only thing that would keep people doing it is the reward. Look at white beast. Takes 10 minutes and can earn just as much in two missions.Grove of Fanatic is a fairly long mission itself, also has Robots, and a boss. It only gives 8 MP on Rank C. On rank S it climbs up to 131 MP, but wow, isn't that around what Military Subway gives on C? Yup, Military Subway gives 135 MP on Rank C.

V1 missions used to do their best to match effort with reward, while keeping the rewards low, making it much harder to level a type to 15 (let alone 10.) AOI missions seem to ignore this balance to convince players to play them over old missions, but in the process the old missions are just a waste of time if you're looking for progress.

[Legendria]

On 2008-01-08 08:14, ArsinSoiyru wrote:
Hmm, maybe. Still, though, the problem of the pre-expansion missions remains.



Ever thought that part of buying the expansion was having access to more rewarding missions?

[ArsinSoiyru]

There is a difference between adding new, rewarding missions, and completely eliminating all of a game's old content. Adding ten new missions, one of which is extremely over-rewarding, does not make up for rendering the entire previous game useless. The key concept of an expansion, unsurprisingly, is expansion. I'd take thirty missions over ten any day, even if the ten are "new." Don't get me wrong, here. I like what they're doing with the game. But you can't deny that there is something wrong when an "Expansion" ends up reducing the amount of viable areas in the game to one third of what they used to be.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ArsinSoiyru on 2008-01-08 08:59 ]</font>

[panzer_unit]

You can't get an Adenha Cannon on Military Subway, lol. There's more reason to play Grove (for example) than a lot of other missions.

It would be EXTREMELY hard to avoid having one mission that's better than others for frags or MP vs time... and even if they did, I'm sure would be aribitratily more popular than the rest just because people looking for speed runs tend to look for the biggest crowd. Might as well make the hotspot obvious so it's easy for people to meet and trade cards.

Important long-term stuff like XP and PA experience are balanced across all missions. Reward money is almost irrelevant with what you can make from cash and loot drops now. Lots of missions have unique loot that makes them worth doing.

[Laranas]

On 2008-01-08 09:08, panzer_unit wrote:
You can't get an Adenha Cannon on Military Subway, lol. There's more reason to play Grove (for example) than a lot of other missions.So a Material that makes a weapon that only 3 (of 11? counting basics) can use justifies that someone can get more MP killing Lv10 monsters over Lv100? Oh yea, there's a PA Fragment on top of it. =/



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Laranas on 2008-01-08 09:16 ]</font>

[Pengfishh]

The mission isn't too breezy either, even on C. Those fucking crazy rifle Casts will eat you alive.

[JAFO22000]

On 2008-01-08 08:20, Legendria wrote:

On 2008-01-08 08:14, ArsinSoiyru wrote:
Hmm, maybe. Still, though, the problem of the pre-expansion missions remains.



Ever thought that part of buying the expansion was having access to more rewarding missions?



Yes, it's almost as if it were planned this way...

[ArsinSoiyru]

In response to the comment about it being difficult to avoid having one mission that is better than the others:

Of course, I agree with you. Microbalancing something like that to perfection is impossible. But there's a difference between one mission being better, and one mission being so much better it makes almost all of the other ones useless. I understand that in the end-game, farming for equipment is the priority. But maybe you've forgotten that there are 109 character levels and who knows how many character type levels to gain along the way. There's more to PSU than the end-game, and it would be nice if you didn't have to repeatedly grind one mission in order to feel like you were getting anywhere.

I'd like to emphasize again here, that as bothersome as the balance issues are, the game as a whole is enjoyable and well put together. You'll notice that through my complaints I'm still playing. This issue doesn't break the game, but it would be extremely nice to see it addressed.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ArsinSoiyru on 2008-01-08 09:32 ]</font>

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-01-08 09:15, Laranas wrote:
So a Material that makes a weapon that only 3 (of 11? counting basics) can use justifies that someone can get more MP killing Lv10 monsters over Lv100? Oh yea, there's a PA Fragment on top of it. =/


Well yeah. Considering how we will spend most of our playtime with a maxed job rank even without Military Subway making it 4x faster, there are more people who would get "something" out of hunting Adenha Cannons and "nothing" out of doing some mission that's only good for job ranks and low-rank mag boards. Something > nothing.

Maybe it was some labor of love to get your job rank to max and you're really proud of being a rank 15 Whatever, but once you've gotten there for a while you'll get bored and change jobs to something else just for fun. Going back and grinding rank as if getting your stats back isn't some kind of achievement... if people had to work on it as if it was nobody would play around with the PSU classes as much as they deserve.

[Laranas]

On 2008-01-08 09:43, panzer_unit wrote:
Maybe it was some labor of love to get your job rank to max and you're really proud of being a rank 15 Whatever, but once you've gotten there for a while you'll get bored and change jobs to something else just for fun. Going back and grinding rank as if getting your stats back isn't some kind of achievement... if people had to work on it as if it was nobody would play around with the PSU classes as much as they deserve.Actually, I tend to switch to a different type the moment I hit 15, mostly to try out the other play styles in the game, but also to avoid completely wasting the excess of MP these missions give. Yea, back when expert classes had just come out I stayed Wartecher 10 because it took a god-awful amount of work to get there. But now getting a class to 15 is like deciding between drinking Pepsi or Sprite.

Anyway, getting off topic. The fact that rewards are all-together useless at endgame (or in this case, middlegame if you don't switch) is no reason to leave such a huge disparity in mission rewards.

[EDIT] I guess I'm also too used to the concept of specializing in something in online games. Before, maybe a month of so after getting expert classes, it felt like you'd choose 1 or 2 classes and level them up. In the process, you get really, really good at playing that class. Most of your PAs for that class near their max level, your stats are perfect for the role, and you generally have a good idea of what you can and cannot do.

Now I party daily with "Acrotecher Lv15" that don't have a singer TECHNIC in their PA list. That's more of an arguement to bring AOI rewards down, but I think more balance might do some good all around.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Laranas on 2008-01-08 09:57 ]</font>

[GuardianElite]

On 2008-01-08 09:25, ArsinSoiyru wrote:
In response to the comment about it being difficult to avoid having one mission that is better than the others:

Of course, I agree with you. Microbalancing something like that to perfection is impossible. But there's a difference between one mission being better, and one mission being so much better it makes almost all of the other ones useless. I understand that in the end-game, farming for equipment is the priority. But maybe you've forgotten that there are 109 character levels and who knows how many character type levels to gain along the way. There's more to PSU than the end-game, and it would be nice if you didn't have to repeatedly grind one mission in order to feel like you were getting anywhere.

I'd like to emphasize again here, that as bothersome as the balance issues are, the game as a whole is enjoyable and well put together. You'll notice that through my complaints I'm still playing. This issue doesn't break the game, but it would be extremely nice to see it addressed.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ArsinSoiyru on 2008-01-08 09:32 ]</font>

they say the expansion more for the casual player not for someone who plays all the time

[chibiLegolas]

I remember hearing something about rebalancing the rewards for pre AoI missions in one of our updates. Am I remembering things wrong? Did it happen yet?

[PEx]

It must be ok considering that no one bothers to run it.

[Pengfishh]

I was just there and managed to find one other person there to do a B run with. Went from Force 3 to Force 5 with an S rank. Military Subway is a beautiful thing for those of us who want to get to our chosen classes. Idling as a Force when I'm set to be a Wartecher is not cool, and now it's no thing at all. Mmm.

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-01-08 09:25, ArsinSoiyru wrote:
there's a difference between one mission being better, and one mission being so much better it makes almost all of the other ones useless.
...
I understand that in the end-game, farming for equipment is the priority. But maybe you've forgotten that there are 109 character levels and who knows how many character type levels to gain along the way. There's more to PSU than the end-game, and it would be nice if you didn't have to repeatedly grind one mission in order to feel like you were getting anywhere.


If grinding the one SUPER MP mission is the only way you can feel like you're getting anywhere, you've got my pity. If Sega "balanced" Military Subway MP with other missions, I guess you'd be totally screwed. If Sega "balanced" the good missions with one that offers nothing of interest BESIDES disproportionate MP rewards, I'd be disappointed that noobs don't even pretend to earn their stripes as a group before freeloading off of capped-and-maxed friends (or randoms) in loot hotspots.

There's a lot more to PSU than grinding jobs. You will spend so much time with a maxed job rank while leveling and building up your PA's that you're going to regret wasting your time and enthusiasm on power-leveling it; you'll eventually picking some new jobs and skills randomly (or start an entirely new character) just to go mess around with new stuff and feel like you're making some character progress again.

Fortunately the real measures of character power (character levels, PA levels, equipment %'s and grinds) have NOTHING to do with what mission you're spending your time on.

[Tita]

489 mp is nothing to sneeze at.
and i like running MS, as it's one of the few truly challenging (by psu standards, heh) missions in the game.

i get a certain satisfaction soloing it or duo-ing it with a friend... especially as a PT.

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-01-08 09:51, Laranas wrote:
[EDIT] I guess I'm also too used to the concept of specializing in something in online games. Before, maybe a month of so after getting expert classes, it felt like you'd choose 1 or 2 classes and level them up. In the process, you get really, really good at playing that class. Most of your PAs for that class near their max level, your stats are perfect for the role, and you generally have a good idea of what you can and cannot do.

Now I party daily with "Acrotecher Lv15" that don't have a singer TECHNIC in their PA list. That's more of an arguement to bring AOI rewards down, but I think more balance might do some good all around.


Well, that was PSU and now this is AOI. They look the same but they're different games.

PSU pretty much had nothing to do EXCEPT level jobs and carefully build a PA list until the very end. That was fun for a while, but let's be honest that it only goes so far.

AOI is the game that's really all about hunting rare gear. Powering up to meet minimum requirements for effectiveness in S-rank missions (lv60, lv21 skills, lv15 job) is effortless because why frustrate people and waste their time on a warm-up to the real game? Instead it's fast enough to actually be enjoyable.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: panzer_unit on 2008-01-08 13:11 ]</font>

[physic]

MP isnt that big a deal, the balance on the level is its only good point is mp. even when it gets higher level mobs, since humanoids tend to drop stuff one rank lower than they should, it will still have very little purpose other than mp. Honestly you spend more time capped in this game than anything so its not really that big a deal, even if you switch to a new job every time you max, i think you would max most jobs before you hit the current cap. Basically you play the level for mp, some levels you play for exp, others for mp, others for loot, some for a combination. if your all about mp, then only a few missions will entertain you.

[lostinseganet]

On 2008-01-08 08:17, Laranas wrote:

On 2008-01-08 07:28, XDeathX wrote:
+5 Blocks is enough for the reward. It takes 25 to more than a half hour for a party of 6 to do it which is more than any other mission.

Not to mention robots suck and its an all robot mission.

And its really long and the only thing that would keep people doing it is the reward. Look at white beast. Takes 10 minutes and can earn just as much in two missions.Grove of Fanatic is a fairly long mission itself, also has Robots, and a boss. It only gives 8 MP on Rank C. On rank S it climbs up to 131 MP, but wow, isn't that around what Military Subway gives on C? Yup, Military Subway gives 135 MP on Rank C.

V1 missions used to do their best to match effort with reward, while keeping the rewards low, making it much harder to level a type to 15 (let alone 10.) AOI missions seem to ignore this balance to convince players to play them over old missions, but in the process the old missions are just a waste of time if you're looking for progress.

Wow this subway sounds great! I have no idea where it is! (^_^)

[Reipard]

Wow this subway sounds great! I have no idea where it is! (^_^)

Holtes West, just north of GRM past that large railroad-blocker looking gate. Follow the road and you'll find your way.

Personally, I think AOI missions have just been continuing the growing trend. As missions were released they became more rewarding than previous missions, with notable exceptions. True Darkness, for example, is absolutely ridiculous- and it was the last v1 mission available.

[XDeathX]

Tell me. How many people run this AMF mission these days. How many people run Whit Beasts these days.. You should be more focused on White Beasts population because Mother Brain is almost vacant as so every other AotI mission and all I have to say is.....

Welcome to the Otoku City Underwater Seabed Plant Base (AKA Pavilion of Air). Enjoy your new life here untill your next home arrives.

Please leave space between trailers.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: XDeathX on 2008-01-08 16:06 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: XDeathX on 2008-01-08 16:08 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: XDeathX on 2008-01-08 16:09 ]</font>

[TheTofuShop]

On 2008-01-08 09:17, Pengfishh wrote:
The mission isn't too breezy either, even on C. Those fucking crazy rifle Casts will eat you alive.



Those damn rifle CASTs DO eat me alive...http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_argh.gif

[ArsinSoiyru]

To Panzer Unit:

I am not entirely obsessed with "getting somewhere" as you seem to think. I don't emphasize getting the max level in games. I play to have fun. But it irks me that the best way to progress in levels is to ignore most of the game content.

I don't want Military Subway to be destroyed in terms of rewards, and I don't want every mission to be worth such a massive amount of points. Military Subway is a long mission deserving of a high reward. But you can't possibly say there is nothing wrong when running a C-rank mission is worth considerably more mission points than a fucking A-rank mission. Even if it's longer, that does not come close to balancing it out.

Because the people here disagreeing with me seem to have missed this point, I'm going to say it yet again: I love this game. It's awesome. I'm having fun. I am not letting mission point balance problems ruin my fun. But that doesn't mean those problems should just be overlooked. It doesn't make them any less real, or any less annoying.

I am stressing out over this issue as much as I am only because I see a few obvious flaws that are easily correctable, and yet are seemingly being overlooked. I hope ChibiLegolas is right about mission point balance changes being planned for future patches. If not, that's disappointing, but it certainly won't ruin the game for anyone. Everyone here is having fun playing the game, I believe, and that's what's really important.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable. If you disagree with me, that's fine. I don't want an argument, but I am willing and able to have a reasonable debate. I apologize if I've offended anyone. It was not my intention.

[BahnKnakyu]

1) It's a robot mission. This automatically nerfs any hunter types in the party.

2) It's 5 fucking blocks long with little to no PP cubes.

3) It has no lobby cube after B3.

4) Did I mention it's FUCKING LONG?

If it gave any less than what it did, it wouldn't be worth it.

Actually, you know what? It's still not worth it. You can squeeze in 2-3 runs of White Beast S in the same time it takes to clear Military Subway S and get equal to if not more MP, Meseta, and EXP. I stab my team members who insist on running this.

[Laranas]

On 2008-01-08 22:40, BahnKnakyu wrote:
1) It's a robot mission. This automatically nerfs any hunter types in the party.

2) It's 5 fucking blocks long with little to no PP cubes.

3) It has no lobby cube after B3.

4) Did I mention it's FUCKING LONG?

1) Good point there, but Fortefighter is the only class in the game the has -only- melee. The rest can find other ways around killing robots. Some more than others.

2) There's a PP cube in the last block, before the last room. But nothing stops you from warping to the lobby and cubing there when you enter a new block.

3) Doesn't really matter since after block 4 is the quick kill fest of block 5.

4) Yes, it's long. Not everything in this game is a speed run.

If people honestly think Military Subway isn't worth its reward, I concede. I can't argue amongst people this spoiled.

[Reipard]

It's still leagues ahead of most v1 Moatoob missions that are near that length with much harder mobs and give next to nothing in terms of rewards.

[PEx]

Fact is, almost no one runs Millitary Subway. Considering that the MP reward as it is now is not enough to attract people to do the mission (it's the longest and hardest mission in the game thanks to being full of robots and those knockdown rifle guys) over white beast or even mother brain, how can you say it has an unbalanced reward? You might say that it has an unusually high reward, however considering that in the real world no one does the mission means that in the real world, the reward is, if anything, not enough. It might be unbalanced compared to pre-AOI content, but compared to all the content in the game right now, it's actually a weak mission to run.

[Tiyr]

On 2008-01-08 22:57, PEx wrote:
Fact is, almost no one runs Millitary Subway. Considering that the MP reward as it is now is not enough to attract people to do the mission (it's the longest and hardest mission in the game thanks to being full of robots and those knockdown rifle guys) over white beast or even mother brain, how can you say it has an unbalanced reward? You might say that it has an unusually high reward, however considering that in the real world no one does the mission means that in the real world, the reward is, if anything, not enough. It might be unbalanced compared to pre-AOI content, but compared to all the content in the game right now, it's actually a weak mission to run.



At S-rank it's fine.

For leveling characters, you can run it in a few minutes and get 189 MP for the B-rank.

I'm with the OP--it's grossly disproportionate, if not at higher levels than definitely at lower ones. A lot of the S and S2 missions give decent MP and, let's face it, you're likely capped at that point regardless. It is, on the other hand, kind of annoying when you want some variety but know you could get over ten times the MP for this mission as you would every other mission of similar level.

Go look up missions with level 20 mobs, and notice what they give for MP rewards. There's nothing even close to this thing.

Also, I don't think anyone's saying "nerf subway," we're just saying bring similar difficulty missions in line with it so you don't feel like you're screwing yourself just because you wanted some variety.

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-01-08 22:39, ArsinSoiyru wrote:
I play to have fun. But it irks me that the best way to progress in levels is to ignore most of the game content.

I don't want Military Subway to be destroyed in terms of rewards, and I don't want every mission to be worth such a massive amount of points. Military Subway is a long mission deserving of a high reward. But you can't possibly say there is nothing wrong when running a C-rank mission is worth considerably more mission points than a fucking A-rank mission. Even if it's longer, that does not come close to balancing it out.


You're mistaking mission MP and job ranks as like the ONLY source of character advancement as well. What about levels? What about equipment? Even comparing same-rank missions you will actually gain levels MORE SLOWLY in Military Subway compared to doing a lot of the other A and S rank missions mid-level characters can do where the monsters are 30 or 40 levels higher than you instead of just 10. Yeah you get faster job ranks, but at the expense of poor drops (5* vs 7* at A rank, 7* vs 9* at S rank... major difference in how much those items are worth) and level progression (for base stat increases and access to even higher-level missions).

Comparing Military Subway missions with S/S2 missions having the same MP rewards is absurd... how does it benefit you to almost stop earning XP and money in order to level your job maybe twice as fast? That's something a lv110 character might consider for quickly leveling a totally new class.