Another article on PSU

[DAMASCUS]

..and was forwarded to this instead: http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=psu

BE WARNED: Its a major diatribe about all of the pitfalls most of us have put up with to play this game. It's all very true...and painful. Take this pill at your own risk.

Its a good retrospective and good for a few chuckles though...but, man whoever it is worked really hard just to slam PSU. Must be a work of passion XD

[ashley50]

I believe i've seen/read this before...

[Tyreek]

I've seen this too. About a good 20-30 mins of my time wasted as I read through it that noght. Though, she brings up some good points about this game.

[Zarode]

Too bad it is things that most players already know.

Here's hoping that the next Phantasy Star lives up to its name sake.

[Cell132]

I sadly agree with this. What I see from the brunt of PSU is, Wasted Potential.

However I still play it. *Shrug* Guess I'll never learn.

[Alnet]

That guy baws worse than anyone on this forum or PSU Official.

But at least he quit, so he's not pissing everyone off about it by forum posting how much PSU sucks everywhere even though he never plays.

Not saying there's no truth to what he's saying, but that is the most whiny piece of pseudo-literature of the last 10 years. Also, article is old.

[cApNhOwDy]

I agree with everything the author said, and more. It's a great article, good quality read from beginning to end, never once did I get bored. Anytime someone asks why I prefer PSO over PSU, I just link them to that article and say "here".

[APEXi]

looked around at their reviews for a minute - they gave max payne (movie) a favorable write up, while they trashed mass effect.

[_Vyser_]

Yeah, this article hit basically every point of PSU I could think of. It's not the best game in the world, but it's entertaining. I think the only things that are keeping me on PSU are: friends, the battle system and the fact I enjoy collecting things. I also liked the fact that a party of all melee characters could do any mission, whereas on games like FFXI, you couldn't. I didn't feel like I had to be a certain class just play to the game *coughFFXIcough* Although I've had a subscription before the game even came out (I must be one of the few left with a number around 1604...), even now I'm starting to get bored. At least PSU's updates have been a lot better in the last few months than they've been for most of the year. For now, I'll leave PSZ to feed my Phantasy Star fix, and play PSU to hang out with friends.

[Retehi]

Oh no, other people with different opinions. What is this world coming to?

[The Red Mirage]

I just spent 40 minutes reading that, and I must say I agree with the author 100%

PSU is the definition of wasted potential.

I still find the game enjoyable to play with friends, but that's about it.

Most of the random population that's left is people with no lives that shun you if you don't meet their exact requirements for being "pro" or "skilled" or whatever crap they wanna try and copyright and put on a T-shirt than no one has ever seen because everyone who wears it never leaves their home.

Still, the game is fun to play with friends who don't take it too seriously.

[jayster]

haha that's so funny. It's almost 100% true. It's hard to believe that a game with so many flaws could be so addicting!

[_Vyser_]

I just spent 40 minutes reading that, and I must say I agree with the author 100%

PSU is the definition of wasted potential.

I still find the game enjoyable to play with friends, but that's about it.

Most of the random population that's left is people with no lives that shun you if you don't meet their exact requirements for being "pro" or "skilled" or whatever crap they wanna try and copyright and put on a T-shirt than no one has ever seen because everyone who wears it never leaves their home.

Still, the game is fun to play with friends who don't take it too seriously.

And this is why I've either soloed or played with friends for over a year now. During events, I might join a random party, but that's pretty rare. It's nice being able to put everything on finder and trust that everyone will keep track of what everyone wants.

[Noblewine]

I tried to read all of it but stopped after a couple of paragraphs. It hurts my eyes. >0<

[DAMASCUS]

I was forwarded to this article when I tried to go to a PM maker program that wanted to show my friend who had just started.

Does anyone know of a good PM maker program that is still available?

[Calsetes]

I must be one of the few left with a number around 1604...

Yeah, same here. Forget what my ID is, but it's real low like that, like 1014 or something. I found it's great to not play for a few months then come back, they usually add enough stuff to make you interested for awhile before you take another hiatus from the game.

But skimming through the article, the author does get quite a few points right. There are a lot of similar enemies, everyone always charges way too much for the mats to make the items (to the point that the weapons are cheaper than the components, sometimes even cheaper than one of the components themselves), and people pretty much do nothing but flock to the flavor of the week and run it over and over again.

I think the game would be a bit better overall if more people actually went and did the other missions at times when they got bored (instead of spamming the event area with completely stupid things, like last night on the PC servers......), but then again, if you can't find a party who wants to do it, then you are pretty much stuck doing that one mission unless you go it alone.

The lack of guilds doesn't really bother me a whole lot, since if I had a guild, I'd probably invite at most about 5 people into it, and that's even assuming they didn't have guilds of their own (which they probably would). The elitest players have gotten really out of hand at times, though it's nothing horrible during this event from what I've seen (haven't seen anyone "demanding" that whoever joins their bonus party MUST have 50% arms and armor).

[DreXxiN]

I like how it states "ZOMG 1up CUP HAD A 2 THOUUUUSAND % DROP RATE LOLOL"

Fucking idiot. xD

[Chaos320]

Thats one pissy bitch -_-

[HyperShot-X-]

I'll say the author who put out that load of trash from start to finish is the biggest effing loser in the history of PS series.

Only 10% of the whole article mentions good side of PSU which got him* addicted to play in the 1st place, the other 90% spent on minor flaws that breaks the game for him and blows it out of proportion to no end. If the game bothers you that much, why even play so much to that point in the 1st place?
He thinks PSO was such a great series when it has been hacked & glitched to hell from start to finish on every release on every platform, and yet he can't put up with PSU's game design, wtf? What a self-contradicting hypocrite & a pathetic loser who failed miserably at playing on legit servers and adopting to changes, dealing with new updates.

An old piece of trash that should never have been brought up again is what this whole krap is about, and someone should have done the exact opposite for once to bring the truth and justice for PSU by now.. too bad they've been all too busy playing I guess :/

*he or she, or somewhere inbetween, I really don't care. The biggest f'king loser is truely what the author is for all I care, pff.

[DreXxiN]

Dude it's clearly because he didn't like the 2000% Drop rates. That's it man.

He likes to add 0's did I mention?

[fay]

i have to agree with everything in this. the guy girl hit the nail on the head!

the funny thing about this is. even though i already knew about how bad this was and i read over everything i already knew. it makes me not even wanna play PSU anymore and go back to PSO.
actually to be honest i think i will go back. after this event anyway. to be honest i solo 90% of the time and well.all i can do is solo on PSO. saying that i have some pals i can join in with :)

[desturel]

Dude it's clearly because he didn't like the 2000% Drop rates. That's it man.

The 1up cup bonus round had a 500% drop rate. Enemies had 1/4 HP. That is where the 2000% comes from. 500 (the percent) x 4 (the speed at which you can kill enemies).

Now are you done blowing that statement out of proportion?

Remember, before 1up cup 10* weapons and armor were very rare. That was the first place that [b] Gaozoran Rod dropped at a decent rate. It was where [b] Baji-senba went from impossible to find to so common no one wanted it. It was the first time many people ever got to see Har/Quick. It debuted Rabol Dunga, which was a armor/weapon combo that was highly sought after. There were people exclusively running B missions to try and get Tero/Rainbow. Hard/HP and Hard/Stamina still have not been released anywhere else.

Compared to what there was before, 1up must have felt like a 2000% drop rate to many people.

[Calsetes]

I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, but I don't think that equates to a 2000% drop rate. If the drop was boosted to 500%, then it has a boost of 500%. The enemies having 1/4 hp does make it easier to kill them, but it doesn't mean that there's more enemies then, or that the drop rate is boosted further because they have less health.

Plus you still had to get an S-rank on the mission leading up to that to get the bonus mission in the first place, which depending on the team you were with could have been no problem (they knew what went where) or could have been very troublesome (everyone thought someone else was getting chips, nobody knew what to do, etc.).

Also, as a side note, I still never got an S-rank weapon during that whole thing aside from the Song for Death (which you had to pretty much do nothing for and you got one). I did get lots of cheap striking weapons though, so I could easily make me a striking PM during that.

[desturel]

I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, but I don't think that equates to a 2000% drop rate. If the drop was boosted to 500%, then it has a boost of 500%. The enemies having 1/4 hp does make it easier to kill them, but it doesn't mean that there's more enemies then, or that the drop rate is boosted further because they have less health.

I understand that. I'm just pointing out that to harp on that and only that is rather silly. There are many other things you can harp on in that article. 2000% is the speed at which you are obtaining items.

Say it takes you an 600 minutes (10 hours) to find a single item while running through a normal mission. If you increase the drop rate of the item 500%, then the average time spent to find that same item is 120 minutes (2 hours). If you then cut the time it takes to kill any single enemy, thus cutting down the time it takes to get through a run, to 1/4th the normal amount, it would then take you 30 minutes to find the item.

With the one up cup bonus room not only was there a large amount of creatures with a 500% boosted drop rate and 1/4 HP; those creatures were also in an area the size of stage 10 of World of Illusion alpha or, if you prefer, the last Ruins room in MAG. Because of this, travel time was also cut down to zero to kill those creatures.

Now this is completely ignoring the fact that you had to run through the stage in the first place to get to the bonus mission, but taken on it's own, the bonus mission increased your chances of finding something by a much larger amount than just the 500% listed.

The big problem is that something previously mentioned was limited to the items the creatures in the bonus mission dropped.

Add to that, the bonus missions, for the most part, were heavily favored to gunner classes (even without the MGG). The Jarba/Badira board was a joke. Compare that to the "techer" map of Go Vahra/Polhavora, or the "fighter" map of Go Vahra/Gol Dova and it's easy to see why Stormline and Halarod became garbage rares in the space of a month while the Sweet Death and Meteor Cannon stayed relatively rare for a few more months until Winter Event and the drop rate change brought on by the expansion.

The same held true for other EX missions as well. "Gunner" map, Gaozoran/Deljaban. "Techer/Fighter", map Dilnazen/Deljaban. "Fighter" map, Carriguine/Deljaban. It's not even like they balanced the maps to have more Gaozoran than Dilnazen or Carriguine. They had the exact same amounts. How is Gaozoran=Carriguine in terms of amount of time it takes to kill them?

The only one that was balanced in any sense was the neudaiz EX mission and even that was a joke of a balancing. Gunner Type Ageeta/Olgohmon. Techer type, Ageeta/Bysha type-Koh21. Fighter type, Olgohmon/Kamatoze. Even then you could see that there's no real balance. How is Olgohmon/Kamatoze the same as Ageeta/Koh21? The only balance is that all of the creatures were equally easy to dispose of.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The point is, the only thing that held it's value after the 1up cup EX missions was the Mugunruk, and that's because the Kog Nadd map was harder to complete than the Bil de Vear map thanks to the blocking and general knock down annoyance that Kog Nadd have.

[Shinko]

Mmm yea i seen this before. And i do argee with most of it. But yet and still I play xD. I think it's mainly because of the character creation and that its not a point and click mmo.

Because i wouldn't call myself a hardcore or even big or normal PS fan. So yea that has to be it. I just hope next time the make another PS online game they really put the time in to it so we have more ppl to play with. However, i still may get it if its like psu (not pso) xD. idk its something about it that grabs me and and hold me tight even with the flaws lol

[Rayokarna]

Everything about that seemed right to me. Even as a current player I couldn't agree with him more.

[RemiusTA]

..and was forwarded to this instead: http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=psu

BE WARNED: Its a major diatribe about all of the pitfalls most of us have put up with to play this game. It's all very true...and painful. Take this pill at your own risk.

Its a good retrospective and good for a few chuckles though...but, man whoever it is worked really hard just to slam PSU. Must be a work of passion XD

tl;dr


Seriously, after i skimmed through the first two points and saw how stupid they were, i kind of stopped caring.

That person is just one of those "PSU is PSO done wrong" people who cant get over the fact they changed too much. He's just doing his normal vent, except on a really, really large scale.



This game sucks PRIMARILY because Sonic Team thought it was genius to unlock content off the disc.

PSO had us hunting for rare weapons and playing missions through a HUGE pool of them, as we try to reach the bottom. PSU decided to put us in the bottom of an empty pool, and then just slowly feed us water ;SO slowly, however, that we dont even notice the water level is rising.

So by the time we get to the top, we've gotten tired of everything already and want to just jump the fuck out.



This game isnt bad. It has more potental than PSO ever could have. Its just that they're doing it wrong.

[landman]

I don't agree with most of the points, the guild one, meh, I don't care, but I recognise that party chat in xbox live with all your friends in different missions is very enjoyable. The hotkeying system... Phantasy Star is a console game, and it has to be designed to play correctly with a console pad, and I don't have any problems healing in the middle of a melee combo and continuing the combo, maybe the author just sucks at playing this game.

Most of the next points are just baaawing about the drops, synthing and grinding, provably because of frustration

Then I skipped most of the veeeery long text, to the updates, and I have to say that tanks to the updates and unlocking content I am still playing, I've never been on the top with the hardcore players, but thanks to the updates those hardcore players are not too far away from me, I still can play with them with not as good equipment, or not as high level, and the balancing of the game allows new players to lvl high enough to play with the veterans in a similar level in less time, so I think those updates and rebalancing are a great point in PSU

[xBladeM6x]

PSO had us hunting for rare weapons and playing missions through a HUGE pool of them, as we try to reach the bottom. PSU decided to put us in the bottom of an empty pool, and then just slowly feed us water ;SO slowly, however, that we dont even notice the water level is rising.

So by the time we get to the top, we've gotten tired of everything already and want to just jump the fuck out.



This game isnt bad. It has more potental than PSO ever could have. Its just that they're doing it wrong.
This.

Seriously that's all that needs to be really said. The only thing I'll add is that the article is true, but it doesn't make me think any less of PSU. Honestly it doesn't. My only hope is that will JP saying "Fuck the PS2" they are going to give the game an overhaul with being able to give detailed and different updates like other MMO's. Who knows, they may overhaul it gameplay wise, and graphically. :eek:

[AngelofEnders]

Overhauling a game takes money. As a business, why would you spend money to overhaul a game that's probably not making them as much money as their other games. Sega can't really afford to spend like it's Microsoft.

I'm gonna start buying blankets for all the people patiently waiting for PS2 support to be dropped because I don't want you guys to get sick of waiting.

[DAMASCUS]

I just hope that with next Phantasy Star Online game that SEGA at least acts like they EXPECT it to succeed. They know they will have a loyal core PSO fanbase. PSU could have been a moderate success if people didn't feel snubbed right from the beginning.

[Zarode]

Maybe SEGA should just hand over rights to a third party company with potential.

[Ithildin]

I think this guy makes some valid points but essentially he is just having a winge and a moan about a game he played for a while and in his opinion doesn't match up to its predecessor. To write that amount of crap about something he hates makes me think this guy has far too much time on his hands and really he should just p*ss off and convert that wasted energy into something more useful like slagging off WoW instead.

[ShadowDragon28]

I don't agree with most of the points, the guild one, meh, I don't care, but I recognise that party chat in xbox live with all your friends in different missions is very enjoyable. The hotkeying system... Phantasy Star is a console game, and it has to be designed to play correctly with a console pad, and I don't have any problems healing in the middle of a melee combo and continuing the combo, maybe the author just sucks at playing this game.

Most of the next points are just baaawing about the drops, synthing and grinding, provably because of frustration

Then I skipped most of the veeeery long text, to the updates, and I have to say that thanks to the updates and unlocking content I am still playing, I've never been on the top with the hardcore players, but thanks to the updates those hardcore players are not too far away from me, I still can play with them with not as good equipment, or not as high level, and the balancing of the game allows new players to lvl high enough to play with the veterans in a similar level in less time, so I think those updates and rebalancing are a great point in PSU
I concur. Well said.

[Follisimo]

I don't agree with most of the points, the guild one, meh, I don't care, but I recognise that party chat in xbox live with all your friends in different missions is very enjoyable. The hotkeying system... Phantasy Star is a console game, and it has to be designed to play correctly with a console pad, and I don't have any problems healing in the middle of a melee combo and continuing the combo, maybe the author just sucks at playing this game.

Most of the next points are just baaawing about the drops, synthing and grinding, provably because of frustration

Then I skipped most of the veeeery long text, to the updates, and I have to say that tanks to the updates and unlocking content I am still playing, I've never been on the top with the hardcore players, but thanks to the updates those hardcore players are not too far away from me, I still can play with them with not as good equipment, or not as high level, and the balancing of the game allows new players to lvl high enough to play with the veterans in a similar level in less time, so I think those updates and rebalancing are a great point in PSU



If the game actually had 1/80th the population WoW has then a guild system would be great. I am sure SEGA had the right idea of having PSU on the PS2 until Sony decided to scrap the whole HD idea after they realized it wouldn't get used much.

If SEGA actually looked at what makes WoW so popular and some of the other games people have played for years they might learn how to appease to a larger playerbase to a degree. I personally don't think the person was saying how PSU isn't like PSO as much as they are probably saying PSU isn't of better overall quality than PSO.

[Dana]

-Ugh, she was so right ._. (nuff said)

[Meta77]

i like the game nuff said

[Syaoran_69]

IMO, if they don't like psu... don't play? Go play on the lame pso servers?

[DAMASCUS]

In Sonic Teams defense, this was their first attempt at making a more 'massive' version of PSO. In that respect they do have a bit of a mess between things that worked really well and ideas that turned out a bit messy but had some potential.

My main concern with the next incarnation is to streamline all of the new ideas and make it more intuitive. Some more classic PS elements wouldn't hurt either; towns anyone?

[AngelofEnders]

I don't think that's a good defense considering they had a ton of references to look at when considering what to add to the game. The battle system is fine imo. The mission and stage layout system is poor.

[Immovable One]

The games need more actual classic Phantasy Star fan service instead of an overload of fan service from Sega's other franchises. I mean, having Sonic characters, Nights, and Burning Rangers are nice and all, but I was expecting more obvious things like clothing sets that make you resemble characters from the old games.

I mean I can't even accurately copy Searen's look! And the best Lyla Brangwen I could make was one with a long brown coat instead of a pure bright red like she should be - I was more successful at making a terrifyingly accurate Lyla in Soul Calibur 4!

Weapons like NeiClaw and Falclaw are a good start (although I believe they were from PSO before). I smiled like a maniac when I heard a remix of the classic dungeon themes on PSO EP2, and I was really disappointed not to hear anything similar on PSU.

Plus we don't need too much references on PSO as that game is still only last gen and is still being played to this day. There's not enough nostalgia compared to having references from something that came out in the 80s.

Learn from Nintendo, Sega! Althoug
I'm not saying they should rehash the hell out of your games, Nintendo sure knows how to keep their franchises consistent, with any improvements (in both technology and design) being a great bonus.

PS: Where the hell are my flying cats Sega!?

[Dana]

I like PSU. I like PSO. They are not the same game--simple to see. I like to PSO areas in PSU. I think the levels are way to small and that finding games is annoying. I like the PA idea. I hate that techers get the short end of the stick.

That's how I feel

[Meta77]

Yes in the end its sad its not the greatest game but it is what it is. No one forced anyone to sign up to play. if you didnt like it you would have quit playing when it first launced. enjoy it for what it is if thats not enough for you then get off.

[Kazemi]

Plus we don't need too much references on PSO as that game is still only last gen and is still being played to this day. There's not enough nostalgia compared to having references from something that came out in the 80s.some how missed all of the whining from the ps fanboys about how badly ST used references from the ps games, did we? the story's full of references to characters and whatnot from those games. a payment to the legacy of the series but the fanboys obviously didn't like them. people say that PSO is better because of their nogstalgia for the game. considering that only JP BB has been the only official PSO server for awhile... most of the people that say PSO is better haven't touched in awhile and their memory's been warped from the nogstalgia.


Learn from Nintendo, Sega! Althoug
I'm not saying they should rehash the hell out of your games, Nintendo sure knows how to keep their franchises consistent, with any improvements (in both technology and design) being a great bonus.Never heard of mario sunshine? about the only thing that's mario about it is how it has mario in it. wind waker was quite a depature from the normal zelda series as well. the N64 ones went for realism and suddenly we have one that's overly cute.

[rayner]

I think there is too much emphasis on PSO instead of PSU... I always wanted a system in PSO that allowed you to level-up techics. Remember how just finding a tech-disk allowed you to learn a spell. This same person would be the first to complain about Forces being "cheap" in PSU I'm sure everyone wants the highest level P.A's and at 2700 hours how do you NOT have 4 characters with MAX P.A's?

One thing I do agree, the synthesis / grinding system for Hunters blow! It's mainly why I've stuck with Ranger / Force type classes. Ready-made Hunter weapons are almost useless...

[matchboxmatt]

PSO is an excellent game that gets old the moment you complete Normal, since you basically completed all the content it has to offer.

PSU is a decent game that gets old after a week, since that is about the amount of time it takes to complete all the content it has to offer.