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andrewrew
Apr 5, 2011, 12:17 AM
I really want it to be split screen, and on 360. That would be awesome.
I'm really hoping it'll be mostly like pso. Also, it would be amazing if they had split screen... ONLINE. :-o

Anyone else?

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 5, 2011, 12:20 AM
No.


Also, this didn't need to be its own topic.

Dongra
Apr 5, 2011, 12:25 AM
I can see split screen working as long as it is separate from online accounts. As for preference, I enjoyed PSO more but there are still some things in PSU I would like to see carried over.

andrewrew
Apr 5, 2011, 12:29 AM
That's how I feel. Some things in psu were cool, but a lot of things were dumb, such as being able to buy your rare weapons. -_-

And yea different accounts is what I meant.

BIG OLAF
Apr 5, 2011, 12:39 AM
I would have voted if there was a "Just like PSP2: Infinity :-D" option.

FOkyasuta
Apr 5, 2011, 12:44 AM
That's how I feel. Some things in psu were cool, but a lot of things were dumb, such as being able to buy your rare weapons. -_-

And yea different accounts is what I meant.

Guess i wasn't the only one with that thought. If its Anti http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/d/2/4/d245777abca64ece2d5d7ca0d19fddb6.png, I'll be one happy CAST! otherwise if it is i might just leave it be. Now i know ill be called out on that within 5 seconds or so cause i said that.

Dongra
Apr 5, 2011, 01:07 AM
Anti http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/d/2/4/d245777abca64ece2d5d7ca0d19fddb6.png
I think I'm finally starting to understand you.

Miyoko
Apr 5, 2011, 05:36 AM
Guess i wasn't the only one with that thought. If its Anti http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/d/2/4/d245777abca64ece2d5d7ca0d19fddb6.png, I'll be one happy CAST! otherwise if it is i might just leave it be. Now i know ill be called out on that within 5 seconds or so cause i said that.

... I'm not the only person who feels this way? Wooo.

Kaziel
Apr 5, 2011, 11:19 AM
Ughhhhhhh.

Topic #432123

Also why bother with a poll if it's biased? Remove the freakin emoticons.

Hypocritically OT: Like PSO.

NoiseHERO
Apr 5, 2011, 11:38 AM
Kind of stupid to pit pso vs psu, when the people that don't want it to be a clone of pso don't want it to be a clone of psu either.

Tetsaru
Apr 5, 2011, 11:44 AM
A split-screen mode would be awesome, but I don't really see how it would work out. I could see them having to make it solely offline, meaning they would have to make an entirely different mode of play like how PSO was, which would be awesome, but they'd most likely have to devote more time and resources towards developing that. Also, there would be the issue of whether or not your offline character could be used online again and vice versa, so hacking might become a problem if another exploit in the game was found (duped rares, anyone?). Granted, if there was a competent development team behind the game that kept it updated in terms of both patches AND online content, then things could stay under control... but then again, this is Sega/Sonic Team we're talking about, unless they announce some other developer working on the game that we're not aware of yet.

Also, if they DID manage an online split-screen mode, how would both you and your friends be able to sign in on a PS3 system? I think you can have multiple accounts signed in on a 360 (correct me if I'm wrong; I don't own one), but you can only be signed in on one account at a time on a PS3. How would multiple people access their accounts? Would one person sign in, and the others have to play some sort of dumbed-down "guest" characters? And if the game was ported for multiple consoles, would one port (360) have the feature while the other port (PS3) wouldn't? These kinds of differences would be very problematic - like how the PS2 version of PSU held back how much content could be put into the game without hard drive support. We wouldn't want anything like that all over again... Or even if it stayed PC only, wouldn't it seem a bit awkward trying to get multiple people playing on the same computer, or hell, a laptop? You'd have to have multiple controllers set up or something, because I couldn't see people sharing the same keyboard and mouse... or hooking up multiple ones... =x

NoiseHERO
Apr 5, 2011, 11:51 AM
I wonder how popular split screen/co-op is in japan..............

PS series feels like a hikikomori fest...

Dongra
Apr 5, 2011, 11:59 AM
Also why bother with a poll if it's biased? Removed the freakin emoticons. I actually didn't notice those. Yeah, that's pretty bad.

BIG OLAF
Apr 5, 2011, 12:28 PM
Also why bother with a poll if it's biased? Removed the freakin emoticons.

Because some people are crybabies that unjustly thought PSU was the devil incarnate. While yes, it did have it flaws (mainly in the support department), it also had many good points, too. But, hey, let's ignore all of the good things, and focus on the fact that it wasn't like PSO, and therefor is undeserving of any shred of respect, right? PSU apparently makes everyone ":("...

...which makes me "^^".

EDIT: Also, I still stand by my "Just like Infinity, please" vote.

NoiseHERO
Apr 5, 2011, 03:05 PM
Because some people are crybabies that unjustly thought PSU was the devil incarnate. While yes, it did have it flaws (mainly in the support department), it also had many good points, too. But, hey, let's ignore all of the good things, and focus on the fact that it wasn't like PSO, and therefor is undeserving of any shred of respect, right? PSU apparently makes everyone ":("...

...which makes me "^^".

EDIT: Also, I still stand by my "Just like Infinity, please" vote.

Hey...change that "everyone" into "everyone but michaeru" D:

Zyrusticae
Apr 5, 2011, 03:57 PM
Where's the "both" or "none" options?

Why did this warrant a new thread to begin with?

WHY AM I HERE?! D:

MegaZoneXE
Apr 5, 2011, 04:00 PM
i went with more like PSO but really i want it more like PSZ...which combined both PSO(heavy attack) and PSU(Photon Arts)

Vashyron
Apr 5, 2011, 04:02 PM
Better would be to combine the points they did well in both games.

Wish at least some PSO2 concept art was shown at this point to talk about, anything but discussing the same things over and over and over.

andrewrew
Apr 5, 2011, 05:45 PM
If you really liked PSU an emoticon shouldn't make a difference.
I just thought pso was better. That's just my opinion. Calm down.

Nitro Vordex
Apr 5, 2011, 06:25 PM
A poll should be unbiased. Not making you feel bad OR good about what you chose.

Arkios
Apr 5, 2011, 07:59 PM
Also why bother with a poll if it's biased? Remove the freakin emoticons.

Hah, I didn't even notice that. Then again I chose: PSO

Mike
Apr 5, 2011, 08:09 PM
I really want it to be split screen, and on 360. That would be awesome.
I'm really hoping it'll be mostly like pso. Also, it would be amazing if they had split screen... ONLINE. :-o

Anyone else?
No thank you. And I voted for PSU just to spite the smilies.

Dragwind
Apr 5, 2011, 11:07 PM
I voted for PSU as well for the same reason. :-)

Basically, I'd like a mix of both games. More-so the art style and atmosphere of PSO, with some PSU elements.

Randomness
Apr 5, 2011, 11:41 PM
PSU's flaws are pretty much fixed in PSP2, and it does improve over PSO in a number of areas. Like combat. It is significantly improved over PSO, which just feels stiff by comparison.

Frankly, the correct comparison is probably PS0 vs. PSP2, since those are the most recent styles of the series (With PS0 being like a hybrid of PSU and PSO). In that light, I still want some things from both games.


Also, since when could you buy rares in PSU? The issue was box colors being based on rarity, not some "rare" flag. Nothing below 10* that wasn't Kubara was a rare. (Barring early at release, when 5 and 6 stars required materials in short enough supply that they could be considered rares)

Wayu
Apr 6, 2011, 12:08 AM
I vote for PSP2i.

-Wayu

yoshiblue
Apr 6, 2011, 01:36 AM
All in all, they should just look at the good parts of all their games and put them in. Then fix or modify the parts in need of it.

Although i would laugh if they made it to were two players could combine cannons/bazookas to perform a SUV. Heh

Corey Blue
Apr 6, 2011, 01:51 AM
I hate PSO's combat now,so damn awkward.but the atmosphere was great though.PSU's combat was fun,but the atmosphere was to childish.So hopefully they'll find a way to please all of us.

Milla
Apr 6, 2011, 02:24 AM
I really want it to be split screen, and on 360. That would be awesome.
I'm really hoping it'll be mostly like pso. Also, it would be amazing if they had split screen... ONLINE. :-o

Anyone else?

As much as i would love a split screen mode again i really doubt it will be added. It seems some developers tend to ignore it these days and focus primary on online play.
Also take into consideration that if it does get released on 360 it will just be a straight port from the P.C version which will probably not have split screen anyway.

I refuse to vote in a poll that makes me sad.......

RenzokukenZ
Apr 6, 2011, 04:47 AM
I vote for PSU.

At least I don't have to worry about some stupid girl becoming a god of death in that game. That and I don't have 10 years to farm for a damn sword.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 07:17 AM
Also I voted PSU, though I much rather have PSP2i, with PSO like "atmosphere."

(Hint for Sega: Bath Towels, Bikini's, Rappy Suits and other ridiculous clothing is a sure fire way to ruin atmosphere.)

andrewrew
Apr 6, 2011, 08:33 AM
There is some really expensive things in the game, and really powerful weapons you can buy. Aren't those rares?
In some stores theres ones with more than 7 stars.
Honestly I'm not sure since I'm not as much of a fan of PSU. Its not bad though

RemiusTA
Apr 6, 2011, 10:43 AM
IMO, PSU/psp2 never really improved over PSO's combat. They were in different territories. In PSP2, they added dodging and blocking, so the focus is more on not getting hit and playing like an action adventure game. PSO never expected you to not get hit. In fact, unless you knew how to hit enemies correctly, you were going to trade hits after you were finished anyway. While fighting more than one enemy, getting hit was almost inevitable. Enemies were designed to have attacks that you would evade through regular movement, and some had attacks that were impossible to dodge. (Chaos Sorcerer, Dark Falz, Vol Opt) Honestly, im able to so easily go from PSU/PSP2 back to PSO with no issues because in all truth, they play nothing alike. The concept between the three are very similar, but their execution is much different. In all, i feel that PSO's execution of its battle system worked better than PSUs.


The biggest difference i feel between the titles is the Targeting system. I feel that PSO's targeting system was WAY better than PSU's targeting system, which just did not work 80% of the time unless the enemy was right in front of you. This was never really a problem for Hunters, but i feel it absolutely crippled Ranger and Force gameplay in PSU, and it even carries over into PSP2 at times. It also made Slicers oh-so disappointing. (they used to bounce from target to target. What happened.) Forces are an absolute bitch to play in PSU, and im not even talking about the fact that the class itself is garbage. Im talking about how the targeting system completely fails you. You miss about 50% of your technics unless the enemy is right in front of you. Targeting on Ra- technics was abysmal, and the only way to really aim line/projectile technics was to go into strafe mode and line yourself up with the enemy before casting. Rangers....i just never felt like i was ever shooting an actual gun in PSU. The animations had no feel of actual recoil, and the aiming was wonky. Guns never auto-targeted flying enemies, or enemies at all, really. For PSO2, they need the auto-targeting that PSO had and maybe include the ability to lock-on to a singular enemy (like PSU), and even switch between different targets in range. That would make Forces and Rangers SO much more fun to play with. First Person Shooting is an okay gimmick, but honestly i dont care for it and I never did. It just doesn't fit in the game. Just because a game has a gun in it and Halo/CoD is a popular franchise doesn't mean FPS makes your game cool. It's just annoying. If you're gonna add it, then actually DESIGN mechanics around the usage of the feature. Like second function fire on certain weapons. Dont just slap it on there and give us a damage increase. Thats why it's so fucking boring to use in PSU.



As for splitscreen? Fuck yes, please god. It would finally allow me to play this game with REAL people again. It was always fun to have that first forest run through with the new recruits who never touched the game before. I love to see the hilarious panic reactions they get while trying to fight off the enemies, the "HOLY SHIT" they get when they first fight the Dragon boss, and the excitement they give off when they find new weapon types or use their first MAG blast. It was damn addictive, and it's why i got into the game in the first place. Loss of Splitscreen multiplayer in videogames is such a tragic loss, honestly.

Allow us to create accounts for Offline Multiplayer, and seperate them from the server-side Online accounts. DONT be assholes and limit the offline mode to bullshit, like Extra Mode did for PSU. It was trash.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 10:51 AM
I think the First Person aspect really wasn't really just some influence from FPS games, but it was their method used for targetting specific parts of a monster so that Rangers would have some unique ability for supporting a Boss take down. Guess they wanted it done in a fashion outside of creating a new auto-targetting system which would obviously label all the weak points. To a degree, Monster Hunter also followed this tactic. For which I wouldn't be surprised would be the larger influence.

We all know this franchise is way Eastern-centric. So I would imagine that (Monster Hunter rules all) craze may have something to do with it.

One thing I'll only half disagree with is the combat. For me, I actually enjoyed two aspects of improvement from PSO. The first being movement. While PSO isn't bad. While I do understand the reason for that slow initial movement aspect to a medium trot (which has everything to do with why general targetting was easier in PSO, since initial slow movements allowed the player finer adjustments), there's just something about the freedom of quickly being able to move around the battlefield and dodge stuff. It just felt more intuitive for me. The strafing was also a nice touch, instead of having to do the double adjust method in PSO, which is further hampered by the slow initial start movement aspect.

On the other hand, whatever they used for auto targetting was pretty smart in PSO, so I'll definitely give it to them. I think the changes to hunters, among other things, brought about a bit of dillemma as to how Rangers fit in this. How to not simply make them long-ranged hunters.

RemiusTA
Apr 6, 2011, 11:14 AM
You're probably right about the First Person aspect, but it was still pretty badly executed IMO. There rarely were enemies with weakpoints, and even if they had them, the FPS controls were so terrible and the bullet collision was so wonky that it rarely ever mattered anyway. I just think that if they're going to add it, they should make it feel more natural, like it belongs in the game. PSU's just felt tacked on. I think it would fit better for PSO/PSU/PSP2 if it was a kind of "over the shoulder" mode instead, with a neat gimmick for each type of gun. Or something different each time. Keep it fun!

I agree half in part about the movement physics. First off, the physics engine was FAR improved, which nobody can complain about. (PSO's sticky invisible walls). But the walk --> run aspect of PSO always made the game feel more unique and natural to me.

They probably did include that feature so targeting would be made a bit easier, but it seemed more like a general feature of the game's design. When you approached enemies in PSO, your character would actually slow down to a walking pace and assume a battle position with their equipped weapon. (which looked really cool imo) Im not sure if this was for anything other than cosmetics or to warn you that you were near an enemy, because if anything it did you more harm than good. But it never bothered me, since there was no dodging or blocking in PSO anyway. If they return that feature in PSO2 (which would be really awesome), they should just have a kind of "escape" button like in FFXII where the character ignores the enemy and goes straight from walk to run as if they wern't there so you can avoid being hit. (In PSO, you could do this by simply opening the menu and running.)

Also, in PSO, when you pressed a direction different than the one you were looking in, if it wasn't a completely different direction (i.e. north --> north east), your character would slowly pan in that direction. If it was opposite, they would completely turn around. In PSU, IIRC, your character generally faces whichever direction you press immediately. That's what really made the simplest targeting so god damn annoying.


Strafing was a definite improvement. Instead of a dodge roll from PSP2, i think a kind of side hop or back hop from strafing movement would be a better idea for PSO2. You know, almost like Legend of Zelda. Whatever they do, it just should have less invincible frames than PSP2 did. Also, im kind of tired of Perfect Blocking. Its cool in games like Devil May Cry where skill is a huge factor of gameplay, but since PSO was obviously more stat based i'd prefer they stick to a regular block instead, where actually avoiding the attack is the best course of action. Being able to block absolutely everything really kind of takes all kind of incentive to fear an enemy/boss away from the picture.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 11:19 AM
It's still scary if you miss. But I think there's an even larger Monster Hunter influence for the PSP2 dive rolling and user-controlled blocking aspect. Catering to the Japanese audience, who seems to love those aspects of skill used in the game. Yep, we know about stat-based performance only, but you kind of see how well that worked in PSU, when ST has trouble balancing anything. So putting a few extra things, in the players hands, acts as sort of a workaround to increase the idea of skill bringing more out of whatever you played.

Again, like Monster hunter. Where they may not have balanced all the weapons and such for the game, but the amount of allowances for player skill can make up the difference. On the other hand, PSP2 did kind of go back to the drawing board and limit the number of classes again to what they can handle better. And they gave the players the customization and tools to not only be more unique, but not be so limited in potential based on the class they picked. They already entertained the route that DPS would not be their only goal for success. It's just that they haven't been as successful at accomplishing that since they strayed from PSO. Back when Support actions actually really mattered. One case where games like FFXI actually excelled at.

RemiusTA
Apr 6, 2011, 11:29 AM
Yeeaahh, the influences from Monster Hunter run deep in PSU/PSP2's design. Blocking, dodge rolling (especially), PSU's synthing, and even that whole "cut off the dragon's tail!" thing. And yeah, PSP2 solved alot of problems. Im not too estatic about the whole charge-shot abilities for the rangers (which basically turn handguns into shotguns, rifles into launchers and lasers into SUV weapons), and i was hoping they'd completely revamp the forces instead of just removing their retarded warmup/cooldown times. The only reason im not saying i want PSO2 to be like PSP2 is because PSO and PSU/PSP never played the same to me.




PSO's battle engine, to ME anyway, always felt like a Real Time version of a traditional Turn-based JRPG. You know, like how Phantasy Star I-IV would be if it was in real time. Everything was stat based, and the enemies hit you back when you hit them. When you encountered an enemy, your character would slow down and basically be focused to the enemies. The moment you finished hitting them, they immediately get their turn to hit you back, like in a real RPG. Every now and then, you'd miss, and they'd miss (barrier block, EVP). I think this is why PSO worked so well for everyone unconsiously. It wasn't an action game, and it wasn't an RPG, it just combined features of both. This is why when i play PSP2 or PSU, which add more Action-Adventure qualities to the game, i can still go back to PSO (which is designed completely differently) and still have just as much fun as i did beforehand.

It has its flaws, but it (obviously) worked extremely well. These days are times where everyone is really focusing on what is working/selling, so people rarely go off and try new things, but i really respected PSO's gameplay. PSP2, while it's extremely addictive, doesn't have the feeling that it's doing anything...new, persay. It's just doing alot of different things right. I miss the days where people did new things, though. Im just hoping PSO2 has that feeling. Though im pretty sure it wont, because game developers just aren't doing that anymore. (Sonic Team quit doing it years ago. Square Enix to a degree has stopped as well.)

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 11:32 AM
(Hint for Sega: Bath Towels, Bikini's, Rappy Suits and other ridiculous clothing is a sure fire way to ruin atmosphere.)

Well, they most likely won't be getting rid of any of that, seeing as most people actually like those types of "casual" outfits (except Rappy Suits. The general consensus there seems to be "DESTROY") . Better than walking around dressed like some jester from a 1970's disco party. I mean, what the hell? The non-CAST outfits in PSO made me ill, honestly.

Though, Sega should just put a little bit of everything in PSO2, so no one can complain.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 12:14 PM
I think it's because game producers, of their calibur, often can't afford to go and do the *new* thing. They have to have some hopefully guarranteed working ideas to help ensure the product sells. It's a bad catch 22 thing when it comes to modern development. Too many folks *want* games that have enormous budgets behind them, to the point that if it doesn't sell, it threatens to put the company under. On the other hand, companies take risks for the *new* when they can afford the loss.

SEGA, as a whole, is not some financially stable company sitting on lots of money, so sadly I can understand some of the dilemma. Square isn't either. Especially now that they've long established themselves as the (We spend money money) company. Now, outside of mobile phones, they pretty much dump potential company-ruining money into everything. That alone stifles innovation.

It's precisely why we're now seeing some of the most innovative stuff come from the Indi developers and the small teams, now. Sure, they may not have the prettiest games, but they certainly can afford the labor of love and the small (wont kill our company) budgets they use to finish them.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 12:21 PM
Well, they most likely won't be getting rid of any of that, seeing as most people actually like those types of "casual" outfits (except Rappy Suits. The general consensus there seems to be "DESTROY") . Better than walking around dressed like some jester from a 1970's disco party. I mean, what the hell? The non-CAST outfits in PSO made me ill, honestly.

Though, Sega should just put a little bit of everything in PSO2, so no one can complain.

I felt as silly as some PSO costumes looked, they still kept a "dark" atmosphere to the game. (The blocky graphics probably helped.)

While in PSU if they tried to establish a atmosphere in some place, (If any, unless it was a wacky atmosphere) having someone in your party in a Bikini, Bath Towel or Rappy suit just ruined it.

(Not to say clothing is the only thing that can ruin atmosphere.)

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 12:32 PM
I felt as silly as some PSO costumes looked, they still kept a "dark" atmosphere to the game. (The blocky graphics probably helped.)

While in PSU if they tried to establish a atmosphere in some place, (If any, unless it was a wacky atmosphere) having someone in your party in a Bikini, Bath Towel or Rappy suit just ruined it.

(Not to say clothing is the only thing that can ruin atmosphere.)

Well, I, for one, feel awesome kicking monster's asses whilst wearing a bikini and looking sexy. It's a lot of fun. Not every game has to be serious business all the time. Sega puts those types of outfits in the game for fun. Obviously they realize the frivolity and ridiculousness of it all, but it's all for entertainment purposes.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 12:39 PM
Ok. I'll have to admit. I did enjoy taking Mufonna and going crazy with an earth-shattering monster busting Jabroga while wearing the most elaborate and ornate beautiful fashion princess kind of look. Something about that says a person is ridiculously overpowered when they can do that kind of stuff, wearing that. It's silly. It's crazy. But it is cool in that "That's so wrong" kind of way. Sure, in body, she was built to seem like she could do such a thing; but to have total disregard for proper attire and get away with it, priceless.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 12:53 PM
I figured those outfits were added in because of lolfanservice.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 12:57 PM
Well, I, for one, feel awesome kicking monster's asses whilst wearing a bikini and looking sexy. It's a lot of fun. Not every game has to be serious business all the time. Sega puts those types of outfits in the game for fun. Obviously they realize the frivolity and ridiculousness of it all, but it's all for entertainment purposes.

I know it appeals to people, but to some people like me I rather have a good atmosphere over a selection of wacky clothing that throws the atmosphere out of the window. Now PSU never really tried to be serious (It tried in some places, but ultimately failed to me.) so I didn't get bothered by it too much.

Just hoping that if PSO2 is more like PSO "atmosphere-wise" they don't add anything as ridiculous, but since Sex sells even in digital games, I'm expecting mass amounts of skimpy clothing for females again this time round. It's much easier for them to do that than to establish a serious atmosphere.

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 12:59 PM
I figured those outfits were added in because of lolfanservice.

Well, PSU/Sega isn't the only game/company that adds such things into their games. Besides, as I said, it's for fun. Yeesh. If you want to look super serious (and probably pretty boring) all the time, that's your business. But, some people like wearing those "fan service" outfits, because they're cool...

...except Rappy Suits.


I'm expecting mass amounts of skimpy clothing for females again this time round.

Let's hope so. That stuff is fun.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 01:04 PM
For me. I always had a complaint about the attire, but it wasn't as much for atmosphere. PSU set that kind of less-serious atmosphere, from the get go. It was more on the restrictive aspect of clothing. If I have my *out of place* silly costume options, I better have my regular and kick butt (in atmosphere) costume/hair/etc. options to go with them.

So it was less about destroying the atmosphere, as in making the odd, skimpy, sexy, loli the *only* options you have. So my complaint was more for *more* choices, not to let the *off kilter* aspects of fanservice take over so that you don't have a choice but to wear them.

When I made Mufonna, and decided on her character, part of that was a bit in revolt. Using the aspect of comparing Mufonna's (off kilter) wardrobe to Tynselle (who was to wear the more serious, and kick butt choices). Alas Tynselle's wardrobe was small, and never grew. Mufonna's was practically the entire opposite, and the choices kept getting bigger and bigger. So the problem was more that the *good atmosphere* clothing line was severely taking a back seat. Almost non-existent.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 01:08 PM
Well, PSU/Sega isn't the only game/company that adds such things into their games. Besides, as I said, it's for fun. Yeesh. If you want to look super serious (and probably pretty boring) all the time, that's your business. But, some people like wearing those "fan service" outfits, because they're cool...

...except Rappy Suits.



Let's hope so. That stuff is fun.

Nah, I hope not, though again unless Sega have turned over a new leaf I expect them to be in as they are much easier to just throw in the game without thought, while at the same time appeals to mass amount of people who want to drool over something while playing a video game.

lostinseganet
Apr 6, 2011, 01:13 PM
Split screen online you would have to be charged double. Unless the second player is a hinshin digivoled mag that has turned into a magical school girl/guy/can't tellamon!

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 01:13 PM
Nah, I hope not, though again unless Sega have turned over a new leaf I expect them to be in as they are much easier to just throw in the game without thought, while at the same time appeals to mass amount of people who want to drool over something while playing a video game.

There's nothing wrong with wanting skimpy outfits for girls in a game. And, while others might find it stupid, I like looking at attractive ladies, even if they're virtual. In PSU, taking pictures of my character and dressing her up in different things is one of my main pastimes. I even have an album on my profile page.

I find it fun. Big deal. It's my game, I paid for it, so I can do it if I want to.

But, I hope they have a good balance between revealing outfits and regular clothing this time around (PSO2), though.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 01:13 PM
If you want to look super serious (and probably pretty boring) all the time, that's your business.
Which is exactly what I will do because it will fit in better. I play games for fun and atmosphere, not so I can jerk off to a double D lolinewman in a bikini.

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 01:16 PM
Which is exactly what I will do because it will fit in better. I play games for fun and atmosphere, not so I can jerk off to a double D lolinewman in a bikini.

Lolis are gross. Also, don't get so defensive. Don't ridicule others for wearing "fanservice" clothes. People can play the games the way they want to. There's nothing wrong with running around in a bikini if someone wants to.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 01:16 PM
Though I feel like SEGA has completely abandoned ever creating a Phantasy Star game with a dark mysterious atmosphere, and instead has gone completely to anime fanservice. I'm completely prepared to the notion that Phantasy Star, from here on out, will be an anime fanservice kind of game and no longer what it was. I still have the wish, that those wanting a more serious or less flashy fanservice extreme look, will actually have more choices this time.

That's all. Can't they actually cater to both audiences instead of just the fanservice ones? Sure, one will say it's your choice if you want to wear something more boring and serious. The issue is. That choice isn't there. So that's why I feel I could never make another character like Tynselle, for which the clothing choices were already hyper limited. Even those days are numbered, as I expect the line she could wear will entirely disappear. Going forward, I'll have to go with more anime-trope fitting characters. Heck, my PSO characters wouldn't even work anymore.

It's just that I'm a bit more imaginative than that. I hate to be stuck with the anime tropes the whole time. Mufonna was about as much a stretch I could make, with such limitations. Even then, I felt like I was limiting her to the heavy limitations the anime-fanservice tropes put on a character.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 01:19 PM
Though I feel like SEGA has completely abandoned ever creating a Phantasy Star game with a dark mysterious atmosphere, and instead has gone completely to anime fanservice.
If this continues then I fear this series will die. At least it had a good run.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 01:21 PM
No. It wont die. The new and the fanservice stuff is working. At least in Japan, it is. So because that's a money maker, it'll continue to move in that direction and possibly not look back. Kind of like how they brought new Shining Force games, though to me, they already killed the series after Shining Force 3 part 3. They altered it to something completely alien to me, but hey, they went all with popular tropes and slapped the Shining Force name on it. More power to them, but not my bag.

Phantasy Star, I'll probably continue with it, as long as it is a good sci-fi hybrid action RPG. But I'll probably be living in the past in terms of ultimate enjoyment of atmosphere. I may lose a little personal connection with the game, but I do love my Dungeon hackers, if there's anything unique about them.

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 01:24 PM
No. It wont die. The new and the fanservice stuff is working. At least in Japan, it is. So because that's a money maker, it'll continue to move in that direction and possibly not look back.

^This. Phantasy Star is an explosive success in Japan. So, the series will not "die" just because Sega decided to put a few swimsuit outfits in their games. That's just silly to think.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 01:25 PM
There's nothing wrong with wanting skimpy outfits for girls in a game. And, while others might find it stupid, I like looking at attractive ladies, even if they're virtual. In PSU, taking pictures of my character and dressing her up in different things is one of my main pastimes. I even have an album on my profile page.

I find it fun. Big deal. It's my game, I paid for it, so I can do it if I want to.

But, I hope they have a good balance between revealing outfits and regular clothing this time around (PSO2), though.

Dude, like I said that's all fine if you like it and want it in game, but some people don't and you can't expect people to just sit back and watch a game series turn into anime fan service without complaining.

SEGA's taking the lazy route and I don't blame 'em, but it is damn annoying to the people who originally liked it originally for anything but the anime fan service.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 01:26 PM
So, the series will not "die" just because Sega decided to put a few swimsuit outfits in their games.
And then those swimsuit outfits will be the only thing I see everyone wearing. Perhaps this is more of an issue with the community rather than the game itself.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 01:28 PM
^This. Phantasy Star is an explosive success in Japan. So, the series will not "die" just because Sega decided to put a few swimsuit outfits in their games. That's just silly to think.

True. But I'm also being realistic as well. I still think it would be a lot better if they actually keep the other outfits instead of making the swimsuit outfits the only choices. You see. My issues are real, that the serious or awesome (in not a fanservice way) is completely disappearing. The choices are getting very very slim now. I would even say the community is the issue, but literally, the serious choices are becoming slim to none. It's a total eradication of anything but the swimsuit/magic girl/oversweet/or sexy choices. So If I wanted to be different than that, I wouldn't have a choice. It started in PSU, and it's still like that.

BIG OLAF
Apr 6, 2011, 01:29 PM
And then those swimsuit outfits will be the only thing I see everyone wearing. Perhaps this is more of an issue with the community rather than the game itself.

I would agree. Sega only gives the options. It's up to the people to decide whether or not to utilize them. It's a bit of a vicious circle.

-SEGA's main focus is Japanese gamers.

-Japanese gamers loooooooooove them some big, bouncing boobies in bikinis everywhere, all the time.

-SEGA inputs many revealing, "sensual" outfits in their games to draw Japanese gamers in, and release more and more to keep them hooked.

-Repeat steps 2 and 3.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 01:31 PM
And then those swimsuit outfits will be the only thing I see everyone wearing. Perhaps this is more of an issue with the community rather than the game itself.

The people playing those "double D lolinewman in a bikinis" show that the game is getting attention for all the wrong reasons, but it works for SEGA in the end so I doubt they care.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 01:33 PM
(Hint for Sega: Bath Towels, Bikini's, Rappy Suits and other ridiculous clothing is a sure fire way to ruin atmosphere.)I still don't get all the hate for the Rappy Suit. I mean, yeah it looks dumb and breaks the atmosphere a little but at least people aren't popping boners for it..... or are they?

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 01:35 PM
I still don't get all the hate for the Rappy Suit. I mean, yeah it looks dumb and breaks the atmosphere a little but at least people aren't popping boners for it..... or are they?


Nah, I was just talking about it being around "there" in the amount of breaking the atmosphere as the real skimpy stuff.

NoiseHERO
Apr 6, 2011, 01:58 PM
Thought pso started the whole skimpy outfit thing. :0

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 02:06 PM
I find the rappy suits are fine. It may be odd if everybody does it, though. At least the whole Rappy suit thing was actually a part of PSO's storyline, in the first place. Now everybody can relive that professor's infatuation with them. Yeah yeah, I know we're hunters, but he did get license to go out to the field.

And in PSO, anime fanservice outfits, that previously showed up in other anime, was really scarce. It's just that now, they have almost completely erased the Phantasy Star specific non-fanservice ones. Sure everybody wants to be sailor chibi moon, sugar plum fairy, Urd, Morrigan, and Felicia; but leave a little bit for those who'd like to be something else. ;)

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 02:08 PM
Thought pso started the whole skimpy outfit thing. :0
I'm glad you brought that up since it is true for a couple of classes. The HUnewearl had hardly any tolerable outfits and is the biggest whore out of the classes, probably the first instance of fanservice in the game, though she sucked so I guess that balanced out. FOnewearl was the original lolinewm and the only reason this stuck was because not enough of her outfits had pants and shorts. Still, it's not like the outfits in PSU were a step in the right direction and it only continues to get worse.

Vashyron
Apr 6, 2011, 02:13 PM
I'm glad you brought that up since it is true for a couple of classes. The HUnewearl had hardly any tolerable outfits and is the biggest whore out of the classes, probably the first instance of fanservice in the game, though she sucked so I guess that balanced out. FOnewearl was the original lolinewm and the only reason this stuck was because not enough of her outfits had pants and shorts. Still, it's not like the outfits in PSU were a step in the right direction and it only continues to get worse.

Though that is true, like I said in a past post the "blocky" graphics really didn't make it seem as bad.

And like said, PSU only kept making it worse by having more skimpy stuff than "normal" clothes. (Not sure if true now since I haven't checked up on JP PSU new items regularly, but the amount of it sure makes it feel like it is.)

Kaziel
Apr 6, 2011, 02:15 PM
You called?

http://www.multiplayergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screen-shot-2010-07-05-at-11.11.08-PM.png

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 6, 2011, 02:18 PM
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I actually have to aim?!?!? What is this bullshit?Yeah ok.

Akaimizu
Apr 6, 2011, 02:19 PM
Don't know which game that is. Then again, a lot of games don't really have much in outfit choices, as your look was dictated by the class. That's fine an dandy as people often make class choices just to get to a variety of clothing, but in a game where they expand the outfit choices, I'd like a little more balanced representation.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 02:20 PM
Yeah ok.You call it aiming?

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 6, 2011, 02:21 PM
I guess I should have clarified. I was commenting on RemiusTA's post a few pages page, where he was saying it was difficult to use rangers and forces in PSU, which is a completely ridiculous claim.

Kaziel
Apr 6, 2011, 02:22 PM
Don't know which game that is. Then again, a lot of games don't really have much in outfit choices, as your look was dictated by the class. That's fine an dandy as people often make class choices just to get to a variety of clothing, but in a game where they expand the outfit choices, I'd like a little more balanced representation.

I just wanted an excuse to post that picture. :-D

But the game's TERA, and yes, as long as you aren't a Castanic Mage (or just a Castanic), you'll be (better) off.

Dongra
Apr 6, 2011, 02:27 PM
I guess I should have clarified. I was commenting on RemiusTA's post a few pages page, where he was saying it was difficult to use rangers and forces in PSU, which is a completely ridiculous claim.They weren't really hard to use, especially not rangers, but a little clunky. I would have liked it if I could have targeted a monster on a force when I cast a tech for the simple versions anyway. Fucking Diga shot over monsters when I used it sometimes. Anyway, was a minor nitpick, simply button mashing was enough for me to eventually hit the targets

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 6, 2011, 02:30 PM
Sorry, but anyone saying that PSO had a better combat system is completely of their rocker.

yoshiblue
Apr 7, 2011, 02:01 AM
Diga was overpowered IMO.

PSO has a cool battle system. Now make it like Kingdom Hearts! Not really, although the combat was awesome.

RemiusTA
Apr 7, 2011, 03:42 AM
Sorry, but anyone saying that PSO had a better combat system is completely of their rocker.

Oh, hey. Way to completely take my statement out of context. Why don't you try reading next time, genius?

Did i ever say PSU's targeting system made using the class difficult? I could have sworn i said it crippled the gameplay. It was fucking boring. Shooting felt awkward, FPS mode sucked, and the only real way to ever accurately shoot a moving enemy was through strafing, since it was the only thing that gave you any real steady control. Same with forces. Unless you want to say you were just magically super accurate hitting single enemies with your line/projectile/ra technics. In which case ill say you never played a force / you're lying your ass off. As for having to actually aim? Well, i'd rather it aim for me if the controls for it are so poorly tacked on.

I never said it was hard, I said it didn't work well. There's a subtle difference.

And nobody said PSO had a better battle engine. Once again, learn to read. I said, in MY opinion anyway, that they are actually quite separate from one another. They work differently, despite technical improvements. PSO had design qualities that worked in a superior way to PSU's qualities, and vice versa. If you're going to try and argue that PSU was a universal improvement over PSO, then I can most definitely point out the blatant flaws in that argument. That's only if you want me to, though. Because (once again, in my opinion), PSU almost fucked up just as many things as they improved on.

Gunslinger-08
Apr 7, 2011, 12:36 PM
I voted "More like PSU" because it had the sad face, and because PSU had a lot of PSO in it already, just not enough.

Nitro Vordex
Apr 7, 2011, 01:59 PM
It needs to be more like Phantasy Star IV.

But seriously, I'd like the more "What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" atmosphere from PSO rather than PSU's anime "Let's save the world!" atmosphere.

Kaziel
Apr 7, 2011, 03:57 PM
It needs to be more like Phantasy Star IV.

But seriously, I'd like the more "What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" atmosphere from PSO rather than PSU's anime "Let's save the world!" atmosphere.

That is a great thought and you should feel good about it.

Stupid Ethan Waber.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Hdebrucxu74/R67oQy902BI/AAAAAAAABY8/T705RJCaH6g/s400/no_more_heroes_logo.jpg plz

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 7, 2011, 05:21 PM
I do not understand the concepts of sarcasm and exaggeration for comedic purposes.I never had a problem controlling PSU, while I have tons of problems controlling PSO (namely, it being so fucking boring that I fall asleep).

Basically, you are complaining that rangers in PSU had to strafe and keep moving instead of standing in one place pressing light>hard>special over and over again, while the autoaim takes care of everything else.

PSU had some wonky hitboxes (especially for flying enemies), and the control could use a little fine tuning, but it puts PSO to shame in every way possible. You are delusional if you think otherwise. Or maybe you just have really shitty opinions about video games.

Nitro Vordex
Apr 7, 2011, 07:02 PM
I never had a problem controlling PSU, while I have tons of problems controlling PSO (namely, it being so fucking boring that I fall asleep).

Basically, you are complaining that rangers in PSU had to strafe and keep moving instead of standing in one place pressing light>hard>special over and over again, while the autoaim takes care of everything else.

PSU had some wonky hitboxes (especially for flying enemies), and the control could use a little fine tuning, but it puts PSO to shame in every way possible. You are delusional if you think otherwise. Or maybe you just have really shitty opinions about video games.
Can't remember how many times I dozed off in the Caves.

I found Rangers in PSO to be incredibly boring, unless you didn't kill them right away and they started slapping you in the face. Then it got real exciting.

Despite PSU's bashing for button mashing, it did improve PSO's battle system. I know how clunky it was, and I know it was pretty bad at times. I'm not going to sit here and say it was better than PSU's system, because it wasn't. And you didn't have to button mash is what people didn't get. You could time attacks for strong attacks, except for guns I think. I believe that it shouldn't be button mash central, but it also shouldn't be 1-2-3 rinse repeat x908019247 times.

Though, it's not like it was hard to play any kind of gun class in PSU. Strafe and shoot with anything that wasn't a rifle I think and you win. Though I mostly used Single Gun/Single Dagger or Sword for my setup.

Draggoon
Apr 8, 2011, 12:01 AM
I want it to be Like PSO with elements of PSU in it. If the Split Screen is it was on Game cube I'd like that.

MadDogg
Apr 8, 2011, 10:24 AM
More like PSO. I want the way you selected stages, missions, and story missions back to the way they were in PSO. I also prefer PSO's simple lobby. Just give me 1 lobby and desk where I can see all the parties, instead of going through mad empty planets/lobbies in PSU in hopes of finding a party in a stage I want to go 2. Also, get rid of the stupid mission reward system in PSU, the reason no one wants to budge from white beast is because it gives the best pay out for the least amount of work.

One thing I want to keep from PSU (mainly portable 2) is it's combat system, it was way more fun than PSO's oldschool stiff weak/hard/hard, weak/hard/special, or weak/special/special combos. The only two things I want sega to add to it is actual PAs for rangers (combat techniques instead of just different colored bullets) and the special attack button back. Rares don't feel like rares to me unless they actually do something unique, like shooting lavis cannon waves and such.

RemiusTA
Apr 8, 2011, 02:09 PM
MY OPINIONS ARE LAW I AM INFALLIBLE also editing quotes makes me look cool desu


O ok



Basically, you are complaining that rangers in PSU had to strafe and keep moving instead of standing in one place pressing light>hard>special over and over again, while the autoaim takes care of everything elseO WOW i can strafe in this game and i couldn't in the last one so PSO is infinitely inferior and psu is a 100% improvement in every way possible on earth in the universe


No sir, i was not complaining about the fact you can do more in PSU. I was complaining that Rangers in PSU were still fucking boring. They were more fun in PSO to me, because their gameplay consisted of more than just strafing and shooting at you. You still could use techniques, and the extra attack system in PSO worked best for the ranger class due to their accuracy and low-risk weapons. Im not about to get in-depth, but they were able to do alot of things with PSO's battle engine. Perhaps once you got a super powerful weapon things were reduced to standing and shooting, but in that argument that pretty much happens to everybody in the game. Auto-target never killed anything for you. It just worked. You know, because thats what it was put in the game to do. Work. You know.

PSU, on the other hand....well. Rangers had some issues in my eyes. They wern't necessarily RANGER issues, but emergent issues of PSU's design itself: [spoiler-box]

1) Damage was determined not only by your weapon but by your bullets; this is the EXACT same giant fuck-up PSU had with Forces except backwards. (technic lv should be more dominant in elemental damage, not the weapon.) So anytime you changed bullets, you (most likely) started doing significantly shittier damage.

2) This wouldn't be such a big deal if leveling bullets wasn't so fucking stupid. Leveling bullets was worse than leveling technics, which was almost worse than watching paint dry. My eyes would lose focus. It was boring.

3) Remember that extra attack function on PSO i mentioned up there? Yeah, PSU had it too. Sort of. It was in the bullets. No, im just kidding, ha ha ha. All you can do with rangers in PSU is shoot. At least in PSO, while i was doing weak/hard/hard or weak/hard/special, i was cutting a fraction of my enemy HP, or watching a cool fire / lightning effect appear, or sacrificing HP/TP for extra damage, or paralyzing/confusing my enemy, or stealing HP/TP, or freezing, or shooting a DIFFERENT projectile, or raining down holy light upon my enemies based on a funky time algorithm. Yeah, all you do in PSU is fucking shoot, and it pissed me off. Strafing didn't make it any more fun. The only special effects you could get out of your weapons was the predetermined ones you got out of your shitty bullets....

4)...and that wouldn't be such a big deal if 1) leveling bullets wasn't fucking stupid like i mentioned earlier, or 2) there wern't so damn many of them. If you want to take advantage of your weapon, you had to use bullets. For bullets to be useful, you had to LEVEL them! Ice, Fire, Lightning, Earth, Light, Dark, potentially 50 levels each. Better get to work if you wanna be a ranger. This is excluding things like mayalee or penetration, which were all useless anyway. (well, penetration was neat.) It all pretty much comes down to Killer Shot in the end anyway. Which also sucked pretty hard too, seeing as bullets no longer have a second function button, so they had to tone down the success rate. But dont worry, once you grind your bullets to 41 they get uber badass!

5) Oh and that wouldn't be such a big deal if the bullet types wern't separate entities for every fucking weapon in the game. So, now, not only do you suck when you change bullets, you suck when you change weapons too.[/spoiler-box]



PSU had some wonky hitboxes (especially for flying enemies), and the control could use a little fine tuning, but it puts PSO to shame in every way possible. You are delusional if you think otherwise. Or maybe you just have really shitty opinions about video games.You think so? I mean, i really can keep going with this.[spoiler-box]

Forces in PSU were fucking trash. Complete lack of insight. Nearly NOTHING about forces works correctly in PSU.

6) Photon Art linking was a neat idea. For Melee weapons. It sucked for ranged weapons (lets spam the square button all day back n forth forever), but it absolutely blew for Force weapons. Same goes for the idea of leveling your abilities. Picture this. You have to level every ability in the game. For them to be useful, you have to have them at LEAST at level 11, but unless you consistently use the same ability it'll take about 10 regular levels before one of your technics upgrade form. OH yeah and dont forget that the damage formula for Technics in this game is complete ass too, so you're basically REQUIRED to get your technic to lv11 before you walk into a real mission with it. Otherwise you'll be there forever.

7) The idea of giving you like 7 technics for one element was the DUMBEST idea in the whole game, right up there with weapon breaking. Instead of 3 spells for each element with versatile functions, like in PSO, you have 7. Each one has to be leveled to be useful, but no one technic exactly makes up for the next one. (Except for Diga and Dambarta for actually being useful.)

8 ) Once again, this wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't SIX ELEMENTS IN THE GAME to choose from. What the hell Sega.

This is a big gripe with me. In PSO, you had two different attributes to enemies that affected damage: Type, and Element. The game told you enemy type, so that was never a big deal. Weapons with enemy type attributes were basically just extra, fun damage. ELEMENT of the enemy was something you had to figure out, and the only way you would EVER care about it is if you were a Force or a Ranger. You see, this way, Hunters had their own way of dealing extra damage, and Forces had THEIR own way of dealing damage. Fire, Ice, Lightning, Dark. Dark was rarely EVER used, since the only way to take advantage of it was through a MAG blast or Grants.

Here comes PSU, and now Element and Type are the same fucking attribute. Good Job Sega, now instead of having to worry about 3 different elements between 6 specifically useful spells (+ grants and megid), i have to worry about 6 different elements between like 80 different COMPLETELY ASININELY USELESS spells.

9) Oh man, and THAT wouldn't be such a big deal if you could equip more than FOUR technics to one weapon. Well let me rephrase, it wouldn't be such a big deal if you didn't have to bind technics to the weapon to use them. PSO solved that issue. It was called the Quick Menu.

10) Oh, you could argue that the action pallete does the same thing. Except it doesn't, because technic damage is more dependent on your WEAPON than it is your STATS or Technic Level. Oh delightful; now, when you want to switch to a different element on your weapons, you have 2 choices. One, you can change weapons (and unless you have multiple copies of the same weapon, this makes your damage fluctuate madly), or two, you can leave the room and take a whole minute out of your time to relink your technics to your weapon. Oh, not to mention, you can only have technics of the same element on one weapon, or you're losing damage. Ha ha.

11) And back to leveling technics, instead of your technic form (range, speed, power) increasing as it continues to level, it does it at 10 level increments that take FOREVER to achieve. (Well, you can do it in one sitting if you really like, but it'll take HOURS to accomplish. Trust me, i know.) This is made even more sad when you take into consideration that the form change is tons more efficient than the damage change ever will be, because the lower level forms are severely lacking.

12) They removed MAGs from the game. Great, bb great chunk of depth and fun from the game. (If you try and argue that MAGs broke PSO then im going to choke you. Dumbest shit ive ever heard.)

[/spoiler-box]
Im going to ignore Hunters because im tired of typing, and they actually were something i think PSU did RIGHT. But unfortunately, they seemed to have based absolutely everything about PSU's battle engine off of the Hunters. This runs deep enough that when they implemented Just Attack, they left it out for rangers and forces because there was no real way to implement it (thus breaking the balance of the whole game lolol) because PSU only uses 2 buttons for attacking, whereas PSO used 3 interchangeable (with 3 more alternate) and customizable ones.



Seriously dude. Just because im not saying PSU is better than PSO doesn't mean im saying PSO is better. I could do the same thing to PSO...although the game is old as shit and it wont make nearly as big a difference. If PSU adopted a few of PSO's qualities, it'd be a much, MUCH better game all around. Not to say it wasn't fun, but it could have so easily been much better with a few simple changes. The game WAS great. Just terribly flawed. And im only talking about the battle engine. I havent even gotten started on the synthesis / photon art balance / class balance / stage progression / reward system / grinding / boring ass bosses yet.


But if you're gonna whine about it, i can make another post bashing PSO to make you feel better? : 3


PS: "IMO." There. Maybe some people like overly complicated (useless) system mechanics that require you to grind about 1/2 your total playtime on your character before it's useful. Maybe my taste in games really DOES suck.

Dongra
Apr 8, 2011, 03:24 PM
Ok, well that post pretty much summed up most of my issues with PSU. Too much emphasis on grinding, even more so than PSO, every little thing to the point it became so boring. Not to mention not enough variety in combat.

RemiusTA
Apr 8, 2011, 03:44 PM
Forgot another fact about them going from Enemy Attributes + Enemy Elements to just Enemy Elements.

It crippled everybody, the Hunters too. It was just annoying. If you remember in PSO, when you picked up a melee weapon with an Enemy Attribute percentage (Native/A.Beast/Machine/Dark), it didn't decrease the damage you did to the other ones, because there were no opposites. And when you found a weapon with an ability (say, Burning or Thunder, or a rare with a hidden ability) it never affected the damage of your weapon unless you used special attack.

In PSU, everything is based off the same system, so one weapon will be good for one element and bad for another. Just another thing that PSU annoyed me with. I was tired of getting Neutral / low% weapons. It just makes you feel like you got a wasted rare. Lets pray PSO2 adopts its old system. Or, at the very least, does away with PSU's. It's tedious and just plain annoying. The color idea was neat at least.


The ONE thing PSU did 100% infinitely better than PSO was character customization. It's customization system was pretty god damn fun. So was the My Room feature doubleI'd say its social system was fun too, but the lobby animations they give you for PSU failed compared to PSOBB allowing you to use pretty much the entire keyboard for various animations, including battle ones...and they even let you do them mid-mission for neat poses.

Dongra
Apr 8, 2011, 04:13 PM
I much prefer PSO's lobby system to PSU's since it was far easier to find people and games. I felt like most of the lobbies in PSU were a waste since no one would go outside of one or two missions.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 8, 2011, 05:00 PM
a whole lot of shit I wasn't even talking about.You missed the point.

You make a lot of valid points about the flaws of PSU in general, but they are not what I was talking about. I was talking about the combat alone. Not leveling your bullets, not worrying about elements, none of that, just the flow of battle itself. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Comparing just that, strafing and shooting in PSU is way better than standing in one place doing three hit combos over and over and over. Rangers in PSU may be really boring, but nowhere near as boring as they were in PSO. Weapon specials were fun, sure, but many of them were so unbelievably gamebreaking, that they made playing rangers excruciatingly boring.


Regarding your other points: yes, PSU had a lot of problems. I agree with a lot of the concerns you have raised, and think PSO did a lot of the smaller things (elements, skill leveling taking far too long) better.

Nitro Vordex
Apr 8, 2011, 05:34 PM
Ok, well that post pretty much summed up most of my issues with PSU. Too much emphasis on grinding, even more so than PSO, every little thing to the point it became so boring. Not to mention not enough variety in combat.
Agreed.



Comparing just that, strafing and shooting in PSU is way better than standing in one place doing three hit combos over and over and over. Rangers in PSU may be really boring, but nowhere near as boring as they were in PSO.
I thought PSU's was more boring; it wasn't really a step up, since all you really had to do was move back and forth and fire. It wasn't that much more exciting when you got down to it. Personally, I think it was just a little faster than PSO's flow of combat so it seemed more exciting, but 31457 missions and you realize that it ain't that exciting anymore. Then again, I suppose that could be said of any game.

I just kinda figure you can't really expect someone who's supposed to fight from a distance to be exciting. Point, shoot. That's the idea of a gun. Same with swords and the like. Aim, swing, though that requires a bit more movement than just the pulling of a trigger. Magicians kind of speak for themselves on that one.

tl;dr Ranger is supposed to be boring to an extent, IMO.

BIG OLAF
Apr 8, 2011, 05:48 PM
Not to mention not enough variety in combat.

Just thought I'd say that PSO's combat wasn't exactly a smorgasbord of entertainment, either.

Dongra
Apr 8, 2011, 05:50 PM
I don't really have much of a preference for either Ranger. I liked being able to move and shoot in PSU but the challenge was pretty much non-existent because I would never get close enough to the enemy to worry about damage. Only projectile spamming enemies are a problem and that applies for every class. In PSO you actually have to worry about taking hits, however, that challenge drops off once you get deeper into the game. When you obtain the lol broken ranger weapons you should have enough crowd control to keep most enemies at bay (though I admit, I love the feeling of being able to do that as well). My favorite ranger would have to be the low level PSO ranger and challenge mode ranger.


Just thought I'd say that PSO's combat wasn't exactly a smorgasbord of entertainment, either.
I'm aware, but the extra attack gave me more options. At least PSU had a wider range of useful weapons, especially for Hunters. Unfortunately, no matter what weapon I used, I would just end up spamming the PA button. You'll probably bring up PSP2 again but, as I said before, I don't know much about the new series and I consider it a different game anyway.

Kent
Apr 9, 2011, 01:29 PM
Rangers have always been pretty boring - it's why I refrained from playing them pretty much entirely, save for trying out a RAmarl, 'cause I like me some hybrid gameplay (though it wasn't nearly as fun as a HUnewearl or a FOmar, not by a long shot).

I really think Ranger gameplay would be a lot more fun if it handled more like a modern third-person shooter. That is, an over-the-shoulder view with manual aiming alongside movement, and FFS, make precision matter for things like headshots and manually hitting weak points for massive damage with far more accurate hit-detection. That's not to say that people shouldn't be able to fire guns without going into that kind of an aiming mode - that's almost half as idiotic as having to bind techniques to weapons in order to use them - I'm just saying that they have the option of doing so if they want to be more precise with their weapons, but can still do their "firing from the hip," so to speak, with their lock-on option. It's just that if they choose to do that instead of manual aiming, their bullets are less-accurate (physically less accurate, not lowered ATA - the bullets have a wider spread than normal).

Extra attacks as "alt fire" for weapons in general would be a good change, I feel, mostly because of the versatility it affords over merely loading different elements of ammunition into a weapon. Some rifles, for example, could have an underslung grenade launcher that allows you to do a bit of AOE damage, but needs to recharge (or cooldown, or reload, etc.) before you can fire another one. At the very least, such a change would see a much wider variety of ranged weapons coming into play, because suddenly, a lot of weapons (except for maybe basic weapons with no special property on them) have both a primary and secondary function you have to take into account. For Rangers, this simply results in more depth and more interesting (and tactical) gameplay, which is what's really needed for them.

For melee weapons, this could work just as well - one button (say, X) could be used for both light and heavy attacks (press and release quickly for a light attack, press and hold for a heavy attack), and then another button (say, Y) for your weapon's Extra Attack, which varies based on the weapon. Basic weapons might have something similar to a PA here (for example, a basic Saber may have a heavy overhead strike with a substantial recovery time that leaves you open), but weapons with elements or other properties on them (freeze, burn, shock, HP/TP steal, etc.) would have this property applied to that attack. Rare weapons may have different attacks overall, or simply the basic attack with a powerful or non-basic effect attached to them. They could even have the normal/heavy attacks handled on them in a similar way to the basic attacks.

Of course, it'd sure be nice to see the light and heavy attacks perform different animations from each other, as well as leading into different combos for a given weapon, based on where in the combo you did which attack, but that may be stretching it a bit considering what we know of the developers.

I think if I wanted to see elemental weapon attacks, I'd rather them be activated via the Extra Attack option, or a temporary enchantment via a technique, rather than something that's baked into the weapon. With the exception of some rare weapons, that are always of a set elemental property, just as a standard parameter for them (that is, there could be a rare Spear that always adds lightning damage to its attacks - it's just a property that particular rare weapon always has - but it adds lightning damage, as bonus damage on top of physical, rather than making the weapon deal purely lightning damage).

RemiusTA
Apr 9, 2011, 06:39 PM
You missed the point.

You make a lot of valid points about the flaws of PSU in general, but they are not what I was talking about. I was talking about the combat alone. Not leveling your bullets, not worrying about elements, none of that, just the flow of battle itself. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Comparing just that, strafing and shooting in PSU is way better than standing in one place doing three hit combos over and over and over. Rangers in PSU may be really boring, but nowhere near as boring as they were in PSO. Weapon specials were fun, sure, but many of them were so unbelievably gamebreaking, that they made playing rangers excruciatingly boring.


No, im sure i was still talking about the same thing.

Strafing and shooting vs. standing and shooting really doesn't make much of a difference. In PSU, you strafe to aim and avoid enemy attacks. In PSO, you're only real method of avoiding being hit with a ranger is by either bombarding them with weak attacks before they reach you, or pushing them away with Hard attacks while they're close. When they get close and you're in danger of being hit, you run.

PSO Rangers (in my experience anyway) were always less about damage and more about status effects and variety. I remember the first time i reached the caves with my ranger, i found a Rifle but still was doing single-digit damage. I was REAAALLLY close to giving up, until i decided, "Hey, let me actually use this extra-attack button for a change", seeing as i almost never needed it while playing a Hunter. Suddendly, by using elemental shots or instant-killing weapons, im able to keep up in damage with my teammates. (Or, with Dim or Shadow weapons and a Rifle, technically outdamage them through instant-kills.) This continued even after i got my first few rares (Varista, Guilty Light, Vise).

Weapons like the Vise and Varista were fun to use. Vise allowed me to do tons of damage to a single enemy, and Varista allowed me to keep my teammates safe by paralyzing the bigger enemies like beldras and whatnot. A Freezing shot that pierces (guilty light) was also quite useful at times. And outside of Rare weapons, i was continuously able to feel happy whenever a "????" type gun dropped, as it may be something with a higher grade effect i could benefit from. Different types of guns made these even more fun to try out. (Shot type + absorption ability = funny)

The way I see it, Hunters were pure damage, Rangers were effect/damage, and Forces were support/damage/crowd control. At Lower levels, this persisted in PSO. At higher levels this balance may have started to fall apart, but by the time you notice it, it's pretty much happened to everybody. I can't really speak for ultra high leveled rangers though. (But If by "unbalanced" you're talking about the Charge-type skill on mechguns, then that required a high level and tons of meseta to pull off anyway.) Unless it was a HP sacrifice attack, i have no idea what you mean by "game breaking".

Enter PSU, and i've been stripped of all of this. The versatility of my weapons was reduced to playing elemental rock-paper-scissors with 6 elements and no visual effects to have fun with. Weapons in PSU no longer come with special 2nd function attacks like they did in PSO, so Rare weapons are nothing but model swaps with greater damage output. Sure, one or two weapons had a built-in "freeze" or "burn" effect or something else equally boring, but to use it all you had to do was mash the square button like usual. The fact i was able to maneuver better did absolutely nothing for the monotonous battle mechanics. I was never able to be surprised by a rare drop in PSU. You know exactly what it's going to be -- a cooler looking weapon model, but you're going to use it the exact same way you used the last one.



So essentially, you're just a hunter that will never get hit. Thats what i mean by boring. They added a piece but removed a chunk. I could never get into PSU rangers. If i want big numbers, i'll play a Hunter. If i want to play Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, i'll play a Force. Rangers were just boring. Now, guns aside, add in the fact PSU removed universal technique casting and you have an even more boring class.



Rangers have always been pretty boring - it's why I refrained from playing them pretty much entirely, save for trying out a RAmarl, 'cause I like me some hybrid gameplay (though it wasn't nearly as fun as a HUnewearl or a FOmar, not by a long shot).

I really think Ranger gameplay would be a lot more fun if it handled more like a modern third-person shooter. That is, an over-the-shoulder view with manual aiming alongside movement, and FFS, make precision matter for things like headshots and manually hitting weak points for massive damage with far more accurate hit-detection. That's not to say that people shouldn't be able to fire guns without going into that kind of an aiming mode - that's almost half as idiotic as having to bind techniques to weapons in order to use them - I'm just saying that they have the option of doing so if they want to be more precise with their weapons, but can still do their "firing from the hip," so to speak, with their lock-on option. It's just that if they choose to do that instead of manual aiming, their bullets are less-accurate (physically less accurate, not lowered ATA - the bullets have a wider spread than normal).

Extra attacks as "alt fire" for weapons in general would be a good change, I feel, mostly because of the versatility it affords over merely loading different elements of ammunition into a weapon. Some rifles, for example, could have an underslung grenade launcher that allows you to do a bit of AOE damage, but needs to recharge (or cooldown, or reload, etc.) before you can fire another one. At the very least, such a change would see a much wider variety of ranged weapons coming into play, because suddenly, a lot of weapons (except for maybe basic weapons with no special property on them) have both a primary and secondary function you have to take into account. For Rangers, this simply results in more depth and more interesting (and tactical) gameplay, which is what's really needed for them.

For melee weapons, this could work just as well - one button (say, X) could be used for both light and heavy attacks (press and release quickly for a light attack, press and hold for a heavy attack), and then another button (say, Y) for your weapon's Extra Attack, which varies based on the weapon. Basic weapons might have something similar to a PA here (for example, a basic Saber may have a heavy overhead strike with a substantial recovery time that leaves you open), but weapons with elements or other properties on them (freeze, burn, shock, HP/TP steal, etc.) would have this property applied to that attack. Rare weapons may have different attacks overall, or simply the basic attack with a powerful or non-basic effect attached to them. They could even have the normal/heavy attacks handled on them in a similar way to the basic attacks.

Of course, it'd sure be nice to see the light and heavy attacks perform different animations from each other, as well as leading into different combos for a given weapon, based on where in the combo you did which attack, but that may be stretching it a bit considering what we know of the developers.

I think if I wanted to see elemental weapon attacks, I'd rather them be activated via the Extra Attack option, or a temporary enchantment via a technique, rather than something that's baked into the weapon. With the exception of some rare weapons, that are always of a set elemental property, just as a standard parameter for them (that is, there could be a rare Spear that always adds lightning damage to its attacks - it's just a property that particular rare weapon always has - but it adds lightning damage, as bonus damage on top of physical, rather than making the weapon deal purely lightning damage).


I like most of these ideas. But i think the biggest thing they should focus on with Rangers is giving them a real, specific role separate from the other classes. I'd like the idea of a third-person shoulder mode for the weapons. This could further make each ranger weapon a different entity from the next.

Your idea for ATA being an actual physical accuracy modifier rather than a forumla for hit/miss would actually be pretty interesting, but i still think hit/miss is a far better idea for this type of game. If every bullet has guaranteed accuracy when it hits you (like forces), it'd make extra effects hard to implement without being broken, and it would also likely encourage you to be in the face of the enemy to insure you're gonna hit them. Unless the damage formula was also based on how far away you were when you shot it. It'd probably be better if physical accuracy was based on your weapon type and race. It could maybe be increased at certain intervals based on your ATA. During manual aim, weak shots should let you line up easier for hard shots, which could need the weaker ones to connect properly. (In an FPS, you'd just use hard shots continuously, but this actually would encourage you to use your other tactics.) Or something. Anything other than monotonous shooting.


I think that it should auto-lock for hip fire, but then give you separate spots on the enemy to target when you manual fire. I think it'd be more challenging for the game if you weren't able to move during this ability. Different guns, however, should have something else going for them instead of manual fire. For instnace, Handguns should be a general all-purpose weapon, with manual fire for a little extra damage. Rifles should get a damage boost for precision body hits. Twin Handguns could give you two inverted crosshairs for aiming at more than one approaching enemy. Mechguns second function could allow you to stand still and steady the weapon. Also, for auto aiming, iirc the level of the gun in PSO actually affected the amount of leeway the game gave the auto-target system too, so this could also be a factor.

There are lots of ways for them to make Rangers fun, but they just need to NOT make them "ranged hungers". They should be able to take advantage of enemy weaknesses that Forces and Hunters are not able to. Weakpoints are likely the best candidates for this. It'd be hard to implement though, as typically in FPS's bullets hit enemies within about 2 frames while in PSO/PSU the bullets move slow enough to easily track and most times downright evade.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 9, 2011, 07:18 PM
Let me put it this way. PSU is better because you have to press buttons other than shoot. You are constantly in motion, and that makes the action of combat with rangers much, much better.

A lot of the other gameplay mechanics (like elements and the like) were indeed done better on PSO, but the actual action was better in PSU, because you strafe and shoot instead of just shoot.



That is all that I am saying.


I should probably add that rangers in both games bore me to death, but less so in PSU (thanks to the action being a bit more kinetic, and not having stupidly overpowered weapon specials).

RemiusTA
Apr 9, 2011, 07:27 PM
All i was saying is that strafing didn't do jack shit for the gameplay of the rangers. It took care of having to use Hard shots to keep distance from enemies, but then gave you no kind of gameplay aspects to compensate for those they removed. That, and EVERYBODY in the game could strafe.

Whatever. To each his own.

And you still haven't explained these so-called "stupidly overpowered weapon specials" you keep referencing. PSP2i has stupidly overpowered Charge Shots for rangers, but PSO? Have no clue what you're talking about.

And regardless, you make it sound like a bad thing. If im at the level cap, i'd EXPECT to have a super rare weapon that allows me to nuke everything in the damn room. At least it's better than my lv 50 bullets freezing you every now and then and doing a couple points more damage than the last.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 9, 2011, 07:49 PM
This is a stupid argument, since we're both responding to exaggerated caricatures of each other's positions, so let's stop with that.


Anyway, I'm talking about things like Frozen Shooter (guaranteed freeze, 100% of the time, usually from beyond the range of the enemy even noticing you), Berserk S-Rank Needle (decimates everything in seconds with virtually zero risk, especially if a force is in the party), and things like that. I tried playing a couple rangers in PSO, and I could never get very far with them before getting outrageously bored with everything being easy-mode.

I agree completely that weapons in PSU never felt different enough, but there needs to be a happy medium between "barely better than a common NPC weapon" and "so broken it kills or immobilizes everything the second it spawns."

Kent
Apr 9, 2011, 09:47 PM
There are lots of ways for them to make Rangers fun, but they just need to NOT make them "ranged hungers". They should be able to take advantage of enemy weaknesses that Forces and Hunters are not able to. Weakpoints are likely the best candidates for this.
You may remember, though it's not really the most obvious thing in the world, that Rangers were originally not intended to be able to kill things as quickly as a Hunter or even a Force - their original role was to support other characters primarily by shooting encroaching enemies to cause them to flinch instead of hitting an allied Hunter in the front lines, or one trying to sneak up on a Force. Because Rangers are able to do this easily and from a safe distance, they're able to keep doing this to enemies rather easily.

Handguns and Rifles for single-targets at a distance, Mechguns to keep an enemy stunlocked (or do massive amounts of pushback) and Shots to (attempt to) keep multiple enemies back. The additional status effects were part of it, with Rangers intended to be able to take advantage of their excess ATA in order to make the shots with the effects hit in the first place.

As it turned out back in V1 however, there was nothing a Ranger (or Force, for that matter) could do that a Hunter couldn't do just as well, if not better (far better in the case of Rangers - Rangers were basically useless back then). V2 broke the issue by making enemies in Ultimate mode require roughly double the ATA someone would reasonably be expected to have at that point in order to hit them a decent percentage of the time, but things balanced out a little better as of Episodes I & II, though there are still severe balance problems regarding the weapon progress rate of guns and how some rare ones break the game entirely.

However, it's still noticable when someone in PSO is actually good at playing a Ranger - a good Ranger will provide covering fire to his allies, whereas a bad one will just pick off his own targets instead, ignoring his teammates' situations. This is why people don't want Rangers for Challenge Mode - because they generally have no clue as to what they're doing, and just sit back and push the pew pew button until the enemy dies, or gets to close (in which case, they run to the hallway).

I think ranged combat support is a great role for Rangers that needs to be a bit better-realized and more obvious of a role type for them. Covering fire to prevent Hunters and Forces from getting surrounded (maybe make hits to weak points inflict extra hitstun), and then added effects on weapons, for them to inflict status effects through that weapon's Extra Attack.

It'd be hard to implement though, as typically in FPS's bullets hit enemies within about 2 frames while in PSO/PSU the bullets move slow enough to easily track and most times downright evade.
Well, most first-person shooters don't actually use "projectiles" for anything other than rockets, grenades and alien plasma whatsis at all. Rather, they use what are called "hitscan" weapons, where whenever the weapon fires, it casts a ray (the mathematical kind) within a randomly-generated position within a cone going out from the gun's muzzle point or the player's viewpoint. Then, the shot "hits" whatever this ray comes into contact with first. In frame-timed games, this calculation actually happens within the span of a single frame. A few notable games that fool people into thinking they don't do this would be Half-Life 2 and the Gears of War series, which both merely have the gun emit a series of "projectile" particles out to the location the bullet has already registered as hitting. This is most noticable when you fire at a wall, and the bullet hole appears before the "projectile" even gets there.

Comparatively few games actually use projectiles for all of their weaponry - games like Tribes and Borderlands primarily use projectiles for almost every single weapon (except the laser rifle). Borderlands in particular, is a great example of how to use projectile-based gun mechanics in not only an action-oriented loot-hunting game, but also in how you can implement relatively-slow traveling projectiles in a game where there's a big emphasis on hitting enemy weak points to either stun them or deal massive damage.

So no, I wouldn't really say that having visible projectiles flying through the air is counterintuitive to a game about hitting weak points on enemies - in fact, it actually can work out quite well, if the designers tweak the game properly.

SStrikerR
Apr 10, 2011, 12:27 AM
Before you guys keep going on about how Rangers in PSO were more about supporting the party and not for dealing damage, I'll stop the pointless arguing.

Yes, there was the Frozen Shooter.
Yes, there was the Spread Needle.
Yes, there were weapon specials that helped the party out, moreso than in PSU.

HOWEVER

Rangers were also very overpowered. If you give a racast Shifta, and you Zalure the enemies? Guess what, your Hucast and his cute little sword won't even have time to get to the enemy before his Charge Arms/mechs, Heaven Striker have mauled it down already. They could deal massive amounts of damage from a distance with guns that hunters couldn't use. Want proof? Go watch a Blue Burst time attack video on youtube. A lot of runs are either 3 rangers and 1 force, or 2 rangers, a force and a hunter. There's a reason for it.

I think you guys both know Rangers in PSU were also overpowered, so I don't need to go over that.

I prefered shooting in PSU, as standing still in PSO can leave you vulnerable, and just isn't very action-packed in general. I liked the strafing PSU had.

NoiseHERO
Apr 10, 2011, 01:26 AM
It always felt like nobody really took advantage of the different things the bullets could do to make things interesting in PSU. They could do a lot of things but it was annoying because you had to level the bullets, and most of the unique situations were rare.

The most fun I've ever had in PSU was stun locking jarbas with mech guns, back when they used to be overpowered.

RemiusTA
Apr 10, 2011, 03:42 AM
You may remember, though it's not really the most obvious thing in the world, that Rangers were originally not intended to be able to kill things as quickly as a Hunter or even a Force - their original role was to support other characters primarily by shooting encroaching enemies to cause them to flinch instead of hitting an allied Hunter in the front lines, or one trying to sneak up on a Force. Because Rangers are able to do this easily and from a safe distance, they're able to keep doing this to enemies rather easily.

Handguns and Rifles for single-targets at a distance, Mechguns to keep an enemy stunlocked (or do massive amounts of pushback) and Shots to (attempt to) keep multiple enemies back. The additional status effects were part of it, with Rangers intended to be able to take advantage of their excess ATA in order to make the shots with the effects hit in the first place.

As it turned out back in V1 however, there was nothing a Ranger (or Force, for that matter) could do that a Hunter couldn't do just as well, if not better (far better in the case of Rangers - Rangers were basically useless back then). V2 broke the issue by making enemies in Ultimate mode require roughly double the ATA someone would reasonably be expected to have at that point in order to hit them a decent percentage of the time, but things balanced out a little better as of Episodes I & II, though there are still severe balance problems regarding the weapon progress rate of guns and how some rare ones break the game entirely.

However, it's still noticable when someone in PSO is actually good at playing a Ranger - a good Ranger will provide covering fire to his allies, whereas a bad one will just pick off his own targets instead, ignoring his teammates' situations. This is why people don't want Rangers for Challenge Mode - because they generally have no clue as to what they're doing, and just sit back and push the pew pew button until the enemy dies, or gets to close (in which case, they run to the hallway).

I think ranged combat support is a great role for Rangers that needs to be a bit better-realized and more obvious of a role type for them. Covering fire to prevent Hunters and Forces from getting surrounded (maybe make hits to weak points inflict extra hitstun), and then added effects on weapons, for them to inflict status effects through that weapon's Extra Attack.

Well, most first-person shooters don't actually use "projectiles" for anything other than rockets, grenades and alien plasma whatsis at all. Rather, they use what are called "hitscan" weapons, where whenever the weapon fires, it casts a ray (the mathematical kind) within a randomly-generated position within a cone going out from the gun's muzzle point or the player's viewpoint. Then, the shot "hits" whatever this ray comes into contact with first. In frame-timed games, this calculation actually happens within the span of a single frame. A few notable games that fool people into thinking they don't do this would be Half-Life 2 and the Gears of War series, which both merely have the gun emit a series of "projectile" particles out to the location the bullet has already registered as hitting. This is most noticable when you fire at a wall, and the bullet hole appears before the "projectile" even gets there.

Comparatively few games actually use projectiles for all of their weaponry - games like Tribes and Borderlands primarily use projectiles for almost every single weapon (except the laser rifle). Borderlands in particular, is a great example of how to use projectile-based gun mechanics in not only an action-oriented loot-hunting game, but also in how you can implement relatively-slow traveling projectiles in a game where there's a big emphasis on hitting enemy weak points to either stun them or deal massive damage.

So no, I wouldn't really say that having visible projectiles flying through the air is counterintuitive to a game about hitting weak points on enemies - in fact, it actually can work out quite well, if the designers tweak the game properly.

I figured as much. I DO remember a long time ago, when i was doing Halo PC mods with HMT (halo map tools) i was able to lower the speed of the bullets a handgun/assault rifle would shoot not only to the point of them being visible, but they'd actually curve downward to the ground from gravity. Don't remember experimenting much with that...but i just remember thinking "cool, they actually accounted for gravity in the trajectory of the bullets."

Off-topic, i dont think bullet raycasting or actual projectiles matter much, it's just more of a preference for Phantasy Star, really.


And about the function of the ranger class...yeah, i always thought that was supposed to be obvious, given the absolutely shitty damage you do and ability to use extra functions better than any other class due to accuracy. (Not to mention, the only ones really able to safely utilize the feature thanks to long-range weapons.) Weak handgun spam is almost invaluable to lower level parties in more difficult places, at least from my experience playing with friends and PSOBB and my ranger.



Honestly, the amount of depth in PSO is pretty respectful. I never really realized it, but starting to play again recently (and playing classes i never really touched before) has really let me see just how much thought was put into the game's design. From MAGs (evolutions, special evolutions and feeding charts), MAG blasts (Donating, Chaining, Synchro and IQ), extra attacks, class attributes (I never really realized that Fomar, Fonewearl, Fonewm and Fomarl had specific Technique boosts and casting speed/animation differences, and that casts had different boosts on a few special attack series), as well as the amount of varied animation between the classes, which is one of things PSU messed up BIG time on.

The fact PSU gave you freedom to choose your own class but still gave stat differentiation between Sex and Race wouldn't have been so bad if the races had varied attack animations.

If Newmans, Humans, Casts and Beasts had different attacking animations, then it would have balanced out alot of the problems behind the classes. For instance, if a Human's attacking animations with striking/ranged/ one-handed weapons were made in a way to make them slightly more efficient, they'd be a much better hybrid class. If Newmans had overall more nimble attacking animations for specific melee/ranged weapons, as well as more efficient casting animations for technics, they'd be also be better forces/hybrid hunters as well. Beasts, being more physically powerful, should have had animations better suited for handling Two-handed weapons (swords, axes, spears, ect), and Casts being more accurate should have had, oh i dont know, cooler looking gun animations (one-handed rifle fire would have been epic).

Take that concept, further apply it to sex, and you have more terms on which to balance your classes other than simply stats. Honestly, the way PSU was setup, they didn't even have to base it on race/sex. They could have based it on CLASS. Hunter animations are different from Fortefighter animations are different from Fighmaster animations. That would have made exploring classes a much more enjoyable scenario.


PSO did a somewhat nice job of this. Maybe not completely more efficient animations, but something that just made your class feel different. The One-handed OG shot that the Ramarl's do with Handguns was the deciding factor on me making that class. Hucaseal's dagger/unarmed animations were pretty badass, and actually gave her a nice advantage when using them.

PSU, on the other hand, had terribly stiff animations. I dont really get the feeling that many of them were mo-capped like PSO's were. Also, the photon arts more often than not looked just...awkward, like they wern't even real attacks, and just thrown together. The Gun firing animations looked like they had absolutely no real recoil to them -- the gun just moves up when they shoot, whereas in PSO their whole bodies would absorb the impact as if they were really shooting handguns/rifles/grenade launchers. Melee weapons were never really swung with much emphasis either. Sabers were just flailed around like sticks, the swords were used like they'd never touched one before...the only weapon i say i really enjoyed the animation for was Twin Sabers. (At least they had the smarts to fake the impact with hitlag on the model.) Forces...same shitty casting animation for every goddamn spell.

I really hope PSO2 takes advantage of the fact they're starting from scratch. I hope they REALLY examine PSO deeply while they're designing and programming this game. And i also hope they realize that you can't bullshit one aspect, focus heavily on another, and think it'll balance it out. They have alot to account for between PSO and PSU. But sadly, knowing how Sonic Team has been doing with Sonic the Hedgehog (they just cant get it right..), i dont think this is going to happen.

But the cold hard truth is the Sonic Team who made PSO was NOT the Sonic Team who made PSU, and aren't the people who are going to make PSO2. The old Sonic Team (Sonic Adventure 1/2, Burning Rangers, Nights, Samba De Amigo, Space Channel 5, Chu Chu Rocket, PSO) has always had a sort of "Squaresoft" creative and innovative feeling to me. It's completely gone now, but hopefully there'll be some hope. (Sonic Colors was actually decent looking for a change...)

Akaimizu
Apr 10, 2011, 05:44 AM
Actually, from a (keep you awake) standpoint. It was kind of amazing how much the simple required 3-step button rhythm (combined with more than one-button attacks) for rangers, helped keep you awake in comparison to the 1-button button mashing of PSU. Apparently, I can put button mashing on auto, but I can't do that with the 3-step timed stuff.

Still, those who played V1 will remember that it started off very unbalanced, from a class perspective. It not only make Hunters the easiest class to play, it also made them the *all-around* best class to play, capable of pretty much doing everybody's job, but better. And the main reason they were better was that they had everything plus a lot more survivability. V2 was basically the first major fix.

Rangers, in PSO, never even got interesting to me until Episode 1 and 2, when Ramarls pretty much came into place. I was not keen on the look of them, at first, but the concept of mixing techs with guns was pretty wild. To a degree, thanks to the combo, it made them pretty easy to get into and also fairly strong, in their game, for players new to the ranger.

Still, I think that Sonic Team has always had this dilemma on where to even fit Rangers into the mix. Half of their decisions and tweaks seem to always be, "Um. lets try this." Never being really sure of what to do. I know we get the overall jist of the overall concept of how they fit, but the execution and what really works always seems to be kept in mystery. Hard to fault too many players for not playing Rangers to their true methods if they didn't have like the most Cryptic and confusing aspect of even trying to figure that out. Even those who experiment around, trying to figure this out, have trouble seeing obvious results. When you start to do things right, the gains are so minimal that you need to advanced calculator, a notepad to jot individual numbers down (and not just for damage, but for a collection of things), and some time to do some high math to figure out what's going on. When you start to do things right as a hunter and force, it's pretty blatantly obvious.

Zyrusticae
Apr 10, 2011, 11:23 AM
I still find it amusing how people apparently have a need to compare the sequel entirely with its past games, and don't do anything to look at other comparable games in the industry.

Y'know, this is kinda the reason why Final Fantasy XIV failed so incredibly hard... they couldn't see the forest for the trees, they just kept on doing what they felt like doing and utterly tanked because of it.

I'm not saying they should just copy parts of other games wholesale (which would obviously be stupid and ruin the feel of the game), but the competition is the competition. If they offer nothing unique other than visuals, well, that's no good for the bottom line...

yoshiblue
Apr 10, 2011, 11:02 PM
I want to blame the people of this generation because of how all they seem to talk about is how awesome ones graphics are or how one wants to seem the most flashy way to destroy or do something. Then call another game horrible due to the not as great graphics. Its nothing to point all the blame to though.

Another part of me wants to say thats its kinda hard to make something without copying or takeing material from elsewere. Some would say this is a poor excuse but I feel this is also true.Maybe i need to have more dream sessions and something will come.

NoiseHERO
Apr 11, 2011, 01:20 AM
I want to blame the people of this generation because of how all they seem to talk about is how awesome ones graphics are or how one wants to seem the most flashy way to destroy or do something. Then call another game horrible due to the not as great graphics. Its nothing to point all the blame to though.

Another part of me wants to say thats its kinda hard to make something without copying or takeing material from elsewere. Some would say this is a poor excuse but I feel this is also true.Maybe i need to have more dream sessions and something will come.

Everything comes from somewhere else, because everything's already been done or thought of. Now it just depends on how good you use it.

When talking about sequels or games from the same series, it's given that they'd all be similar. But it's pointless to make the same game all over again but with a few tweaks and better graphics...

Unless it's a megaman game, it's cool when they do it. ]:

I think a true sequel should try to make everything that was good in the last game, better without "fixing" what wasn't broken while adding in new in interesting concepts.

Of course a lot of the things that they "fixed" from pso in psu some fans didn't think they were broken, while other fan did but think it could of been better.

Then the whole thing just leads back into the endless "PSO vs PSU until we see real game footage and shut up" argument. :\

Itoshi
Apr 11, 2011, 12:00 PM
Personally, I believe that in order for this game to successful, it's gonna take elements from both game series.

A lot of us can agree here that Phantasy Star Online is a great game. It brought all of us together pretty much. I think looking back a lot of us can see that there were some serious innovations the game made, but it is also pretty flawed. Rare items and 4 player action RPG to the positives (plus split-screen as well) but the combat is pretty outdated.

Then comes Phantasy Star Universe. Personally I'm not too huge of a fan, and AoTI improved on a lot of things, but there was still tons of problems. The whole game has changed direction now, and after reading a lot of the changes for the portable versions, I can't wait to get my hands on the game (Comes tomorrow :D).

When it comes down to PSO2, I'm personally hoping that it's the child of both games, but instead of taking the bad aspects of each, it just takes the good aspects. Personally, I wouldn't want the game to be too much PSO (then it would just feel outdated), and I wouldn't want the game to be too much PSU/PSP2 (Because then why is PSU JP getting all these Portable updates?). If it was a combination of the two, the game would be great.

RemiusTA
Apr 11, 2011, 05:27 PM
I still find it amusing how people apparently have a need to compare the sequel entirely with its past games, and don't do anything to look at other comparable games in the industry.

Y'know, this is kinda the reason why Final Fantasy XIV failed so incredibly hard... they couldn't see the forest for the trees, they just kept on doing what they felt like doing and utterly tanked because of it.

I'm not saying they should just copy parts of other games wholesale (which would obviously be stupid and ruin the feel of the game), but the competition is the competition. If they offer nothing unique other than visuals, well, that's no good for the bottom line...

Well FFXIV was more an example of what happens when a development cycle is unorganized. Apparently, it was the same deal with FFXIII, according to the devs. A lack of coherence is what caused these games to "tank". Pity for FFXIV. It looked promising.


PSO....is still one of the most unique games ive ever played before. It's battle system was completely unique. In terms of "forest for the trees", the 3-hit combo was indicative of the battle system than most people think, which is why when people say "PSU HAS PHOTON ARTS AND STRAFING IT'S BETTER" it strikes a nerve with me. New Super Mario Bros has ground pound, new powerups, 3 jumps, and a 2.5D engine. Does that make it a better game than Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES? No, it doesn't.


Honestly though dude, there isn't much from the MMORPG genre that PSO2 needs to copy nor emulate. What do you want them to do? Some elaborate Crafting System? Class rebirth? Skill trees? Sorry, the most successful of all MMORPG concepts are grind-heavy aspects in nature, and honestly, i wish people would come up with more innovative ways to maximize content without stretching it out through grinding, random stats and failure rates. PSO was a great game without any of these things. Even MAGs, which took time to raise especially how you wanted them, were in complete control of the players. It even allowed your lower characters to raise themselves higher without the same grinding time as your previous ones.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 11, 2011, 05:56 PM
Just had to bring this back up, didn't you?
the 3-hit combo was indicative of the battle system than most people think, which is why when people say "PSU HAS PHOTON ARTS AND STRAFING IT'S BETTER" it strikes a nerve with me.The problem with the light-hard-special 3-hit combos of PSO is that, apart from a few numbers, they all look exactly the same, and accomplish the same thing. This is boring. Again, you have a point that specials were nice to have, but you are seriously selling PSU's innovation short.

In PSU, you have variety in your combat. Different PAs don't just look different, they are for completely different situations. PAs aren't just there to be cooler looking hard attacks. They serve a much more strategic purpose when it comes to number of targets, enemy positioning, effects such as knockdown and blowback, and everything like that. The problem is that PSU is poorly balanced, so there is never much need to use PAs in a tactical fashion, but the potential is still there. The same can be said of PSO's specials, by the way. No reason to get fancy when you can just shoot it with your 50% hit Charge Vulcans.

The point is that combat in PSU is much more kinetic. Something is always happening. Enemies are flying all over the place. Players are zipping back and forth. In PSO, the only thing that ever happens is that enemies slowly walk towards you, flinching a little bit here and there until they die, or they reach you and hit you for zero damage. Apart from moving room to room, you can quite literally play PSO with your eyes closed.

Dongra
Apr 11, 2011, 06:35 PM
you can quite literally play PSO with your eyes closed.
And you would die every time.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 11, 2011, 06:41 PM
Nope.

Randomness
Apr 11, 2011, 06:41 PM
And you would die every time.

Yeah... lol, have fun with Falz! Pay attention or die on final form. And equip lots of light resist. And pack lots of healing, etc.

NoiseHERO
Apr 11, 2011, 06:55 PM
Just had to bring this back up, didn't you?The problem with the light-hard-special 3-hit combos of PSO is that, apart from a few numbers, they all look exactly the same, and accomplish the same thing. This is boring. Again, you have a point that specials were nice to have, but you are seriously selling PSU's innovation short.

In PSU, you have variety in your combat. Different PAs don't just look different, they are for completely different situations. PAs aren't just there to be cooler looking hard attacks. They serve a much more strategic purpose when it comes to number of targets, enemy positioning, effects such as knockdown and blowback, and everything like that. The problem is that PSU is poorly balanced, so there is never much need to use PAs in a tactical fashion, but the potential is still there. The same can be said of PSO's specials, by the way. No reason to get fancy when you can just shoot it with your 50% hit Charge Vulcans.

The point is that combat in PSU is much more kinetic. Something is always happening. Enemies are flying all over the place. Players are zipping back and forth. In PSO, the only thing that ever happens is that enemies slowly walk towards you, flinching a little bit here and there until they die, or they reach you and hit you for zero damage. Apart from moving room to room, you can quite literally play PSO with your eyes closed.

I do miss the light saber chaotic moshpits that psu brought... and everything was unpredictable and people actually needed to help each other, outside of buffs or pressing a button. and bosses were seen for the first time and they were challenging cinematic.

it only truly got boring when EVERYONE was the same few over-powered classes spamming the same weapons and pa's and the same strategies though every mission and it working.

Then everything just became predictable, you could play the game half asleep, and sega pretty much nerfed like 80% of the challenge the game brought because people complained enough.

Ignoring all of sega's general screw ups killing the population and causing a content drought these things pretty much made me quit. e_e

PSO started out interesting and different, but a lot of PSU's new ideas made everything almost(ALMOST) perfect even though they sacrificed too many awesome things from PSO as well...

I seriously need a PSP. e_e

Dongra
Apr 11, 2011, 07:07 PM
Nope.
I'm sure you will recall that PSO wasn't simply about timing normal, heavy, and special attacks. There is a lot of movement and repositioning involved in the game and if you didn't you would simply get swarmed, comboed, hit with megid, or instant killed. There is as much activity in PSO as there was in PSU but at a slower pace. Both games have several broken mechanics. PSU's variety in attack animations thanks to PA's was a welcome change and I wouldn't mind seeing them replace hard attacks completely, but as you already stated, they botched that. Personally, I would like to see melee PA's used solely as a way to mix up combos rather than an attack you can spam level up so that it would become game breaking. Tactical strikes with unique design would be a welcome change.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 11, 2011, 07:21 PM
Tactical strikes with unique design would be a welcome change.This is what PAs are, the problem is that SEGA is so shit at balancing the game that only 3 or 4 of them are worth using for every situation.

The problem isn't the PAs themselves, it's the numbers attached to them.



About playing PSO blind, you people here are really bad at understanding how to handle hyperbole. That said, I remember a game with every common enemy up to and including Goran Detonators doing zero damage to me in Ultimate (as a FOmar, no less). The only problem with being swarmed was trying to attack between the nonstop block animations.

Randomness
Apr 11, 2011, 07:25 PM
This is what PAs are, the problem is that SEGA is so shit at balancing the game that only 3 or 4 of them are worth using for every situation.

The problem isn't the PAs themselves, it's the numbers attached to them.



About playing PSO blind, you people here are really bad at understanding how to handle hyperbole. That said, I remember a game with every common enemy up to and including Goran Detonators doing zero damage to me in Ultimate (as a FOmar, no less). The only problem with being swarmed was trying to attack between the nonstop block animations.

Indeed, the balancing of numbers bit was ultimately the issue. Of course, some PAs would have been useful even at crappy numbers. (Generally, anything with lots and lots of knockback/up/down)

One thing I really want to see is actual gun PAs. Basically, like PSZ.

Dongra
Apr 11, 2011, 07:35 PM
The problem isn't the PAs themselves, it's the numbers attached to them.
I'm starting to wonder if the PA's would have been better without the ability to level up. If they didn't increase in damage and accuracy to a broken point and had the full combo would they have been more balanced?

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 11, 2011, 07:42 PM
No, then you'd be removing another form of progression from the game, one that is actually decent.

The way to fix PAs is to make them balanced, so that they do roughly equivalent damage per time (when factoring in number of targets and number of hits). That way, you choose a PA depending on the situation, considering number of targets, enemy position, and potential effects like knockdown and the like.

It honestly isn't that hard to do. Start with that basis, and then start throwing in twists, like certain PAs that are stronger, but don't even make enemies flinch.

yoshiblue
Apr 11, 2011, 07:45 PM
Hopefully SEGA gets a good beta team to pick out the bugs and balance issues. Hopefully.

Add on new and old bosses. Rebalance the weapons and who gets what. Maybe add a new class of weapons (Maybe a kicking weapon).

Add in new mechanics for the rangers(maybe body part shots as said earlier. Could add prone for longer shots.)

Maybe add different attacks depending on the angle between you to your foe(epic programming there). Hunters could throw or stab with something that could do damage overtime and stack with fire. Shield walls to protect allys.

Forces could combine spells (sounds kinda lame but hey).

To many maybes and should be pitch to SEGA if they would listen I guess.

Dongra
Apr 11, 2011, 07:46 PM
Progression, eh? Well, as long as they get it right. I'd just like to be able to get a new PA and be useful in a party right away, rather than have to grind it to level 21 to be useful in a party. Perhaps this is where we don't see eye to eye, I was never a fan of the unnecessary grinding that was forced into PSU.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 11, 2011, 07:52 PM
I agree completely that most PAs took far, far too long to level, especially bullets and techs (but also quite a few melee skills). However, that's easily fixed. Just have them level up a hell of a lot faster.

Either way, it is far better than being gimped because you couldn't manage to get a random drop of a higher level Resta or something.

yoshiblue
Apr 11, 2011, 07:53 PM
Or do what PSZ and PSO did and find them as lv based disks.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 11, 2011, 07:56 PM
No, that is an absolutely awful idea.

Dongra
Apr 11, 2011, 07:58 PM
Either way, it is far better than being gimped because you couldn't manage to get a random drop of a higher level Resta or something. I dunno, I was kind of ok with the shop and drop system since they were never hard to get. I wouldn't mind a mix of both actually, shell out some good meseta on a higher level or save the money and spend time grinding so long as the time spent is reasonable.

Seth Astra
Apr 11, 2011, 11:39 PM
I am definitely in favor of both discs and level ups for PAs. I'd post some elaborate argument for it, but I'm not in the mood to type one up. Instead I'll just watch you guys.

Wayu
Apr 11, 2011, 11:43 PM
I didn't like the leveling up thing but that's just me. I thought it was too time consuming.

-Wayu

Zyrusticae
Apr 11, 2011, 11:54 PM
Honestly though dude, there isn't much from the MMORPG genre that PSO2 needs to copy nor emulate. What do you want them to do? Some elaborate Crafting System? Class rebirth? Skill trees? Sorry, the most successful of all MMORPG concepts are grind-heavy aspects in nature, and honestly, i wish people would come up with more innovative ways to maximize content without stretching it out through grinding, random stats and failure rates.
You're completely remiss to assume I am speaking entirely of other MMOs.

But let's look at that first: there are MMOs that compete with it on the customization front, i.e. APB, Champions Online, Aion, and more recently, EVE Online; There are games that compete on the action front, i.e. Vindictus, TERA, Blade and Soul, Continent of the Ninth (the latter of which admittedly are still a ways out from landing over here).

But really, other MMOs aren't the only competition out there. Sure, the PSO series has a very unique combination of visceral (if repetitive) gameplay combined with a manga/anime sci-fi aesthetic and remarkable character customization. But they really need to look at other games that do their individual parts better.

In particular, the "action" bit is incredibly dated in both the PSO and PSU and even the PSP series. Compare them to almost any action-adventure and you can see how PSO has the relative depth of an overused sponge. Yes, you have to time your attacks - yes, you have to worry about positioning a whole lot... but guess what? You do that in every action game ever made. Quite frankly, the gameplay is from 1999, and trying to pretend it's anything else does no one any good. It needs to rejoin the 21st century.

If you want to talk about 'extending gameplay without repetition', that's really the best way to do it. Make the gameplay more engaging and less blithely repetitive; give people room to experiment with a large set of possible actions (beyond "block", "dodge", and "spam") and reduce the occurrence of obvious "you must do this OR YOU DIE" solutions. Increase immersion with physics and variable enemy damage reactions and A.I.

Y'know... stuff that's been perfected in modern action games that we now pretty much take for granted and will immediately notice their absence.

Notable examples include: The Assassin's Creed series; Batman: Arkham Asylum; the God of War series; The Force Unleashed (no, it wasn't perfect by any means, but the action is quite solid); Bayonetta; the Devil May Cry series; the Uncharted series, and so on. You will quickly notice that none of these games encourage mindless button mashing, nor do their set of possible actions limit you to a single attack chain at all times. You will also notice that many of these games incorporate physics into the game world, increasing immersion considerably. Finally, you may notice that they don't suck.

PSO's gameplay is the most bare-bones you can get and still be considered anything remotely resembling an "action" game. PSU did very little to advance it, though PSP2 certainly took quite a few steps forward. Still, there's a ways for them to go if they're going to rejoin the modern era...

NoiseHERO
Apr 11, 2011, 11:59 PM
Combine PS gameplay with Shadow Of The Colossus.

Best online game of the decade.

(Orrrr....it'd just be monster hunter FUTURE)

Nitro Vordex
Apr 12, 2011, 12:14 AM
Combine PS gameplay with Shadow Of The Colossus.
Never played Shadow of the Colossus. Probably don't want to mix it with Phantasy Star anyway.

NoiseHERO
Apr 12, 2011, 12:22 AM
Never played Shadow of the Colossus. Probably don't want to mix it with Phantasy Star anyway.

I kind of just liked the way the character moves around all human and realistically a lot. Struggling everywhere and stumbling over rock while he's getting chased by a giant monster, as you cry for survival while ps2 rendered rocks and smoke fly in your face while you panic to climb on top of things and dodge roll to survival in order to climb the monsters back and stab it on the forehead, to would-be godzilla music.

But for actual dungeon crawling and what-not...no it wouldn't fit, or it'd feel like a really interesting game of zelda that makes you feel like a ragdoll.

Itoshi
Apr 12, 2011, 01:16 AM
Combine PS gameplay with Shadow Of The Colossus.

Best online game of the decade.

(Orrrr....it'd just be monster hunter FUTURE)

It'd be glorious, but it would just be exactly what you said, a futuristic anime version of Monster Hunter with everyone running around in fabulous clothing and skimpy bikinis.

#1 Best Seller.

Zarode
Apr 12, 2011, 01:24 AM
It'd be glorious, but it would just be exactly what you said, a futuristic anime version of Monster Hunter with everyone running around in fabulous clothing and skimpy bikinis.

#1 Best Seller.

Monster Hunter is already pretty damn anime, especially since my character needs to stand there like a retard to cheer himself about the potion he drank while getting trampled by a god damn dragon.


uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

RemiusTA
Apr 12, 2011, 02:17 AM
Just had to bring this back up, didn't you?The problem with the light-hard-special 3-hit combos of PSO is that, apart from a few numbers, they all look exactly the same, and accomplish the same thing. This is boring. Again, you have a point that specials were nice to have, but you are seriously selling PSU's innovation short.

In PSU, you have variety in your combat. Different PAs don't just look different, they are for completely different situations. PAs aren't just there to be cooler looking hard attacks. They serve a much more strategic purpose when it comes to number of targets, enemy positioning, effects such as knockdown and blowback, and everything like that. The problem is that PSU is poorly balanced, so there is never much need to use PAs in a tactical fashion, but the potential is still there. The same can be said of PSO's specials, by the way. No reason to get fancy when you can just shoot it with your 50% hit Charge Vulcans.

The point is that combat in PSU is much more kinetic. Something is always happening. Enemies are flying all over the place. Players are zipping back and forth. In PSO, the only thing that ever happens is that enemies slowly walk towards you, flinching a little bit here and there until they die, or they reach you and hit you for zero damage. Apart from moving room to room, you can quite literally play PSO with your eyes closed.

Well first off I definitely wasn't referring to our original argument, but...


You keep putting everything here on a slippery slope. "boring 3 hit combo" vs "amazingly kinetic" with "lots of moves with depth" and "stragetic PAs with different uses." Whatever, dude -- you can take absolutely any photon art and spam it until it's lv21 and you'll do just fine. The problem with Photon Arts is that they took what SHOULD have been a strategic extension of the original 3 hit combo of the weapon you're using and turned it into a contest for which animator can design the most amazing looking acrobatics feat. AotI Photon Arts looked absolutely retarded to me. They're cool to use, but i've become accustomed to the ridiculous animations the characters use now. The only difference between them are the ones that are better than the others. (too many hits, too many targets, multipliers that are too big, ect ect). What are you going to call worse? 50% charge vulcans / frozen shooter / all the broken PSO shit or Majarra/Jarbroga/Blade Destruction/Dus Skadd / all the broken PSU shit? Are we seriously having the argument of "i dont have to think to play this game"? You calling PSO's gameplay easy enough to play blind is hilarious BTW. Nice one there.

Potential is a good word. I've been saying for YEARS on this forum, "PSU has AMAZING potential that's squandered due to laziness." Sure, PSU COULD be a 100% better game than PSO, but that is absolutely positively NOT the case, and we both know that fact. PSU kind of met PSO halfway inbetween on the "innovation" marker, i believe. It did indeed create the platform for innovation, but then they just kind of left it there. Allowing you to strafe and mash the triangle button for massive damage isn't much of an innovation.

For the last time, PSU IS a good game, it just did things that they should not have done. And honestly, the Photon Arts is both the best and worse thing to happen to PSU's battle engine. Not that they shouldn't have existed, but they should have functioned differently.




But really, other MMOs aren't the only competition out there. Sure, the PSO series has a very unique combination of visceral (if repetitive) gameplay combined with a manga/anime sci-fi aesthetic and remarkable character customization. But they really need to look at other games that do their individual parts better.

In particular, the "action" bit is incredibly dated in both the PSO and PSU and even the PSP series. Compare them to almost any action-adventure and you can see how PSO has the relative depth of an overused sponge. Yes, you have to time your attacks - yes, you have to worry about positioning a whole lot... but guess what? You do that in every action game ever made. Quite frankly, the gameplay is from 1999, and trying to pretend it's anything else does no one any good. It needs to rejoin the 21st century.

If you want to talk about 'extending gameplay without repetition', that's really the best way to do it. Make the gameplay more engaging and less blithely repetitive; give people room to experiment with a large set of possible actions (beyond "block", "dodge", and "spam") and reduce the occurrence of obvious "you must do this OR YOU DIE" solutions. Increase immersion with physics and variable enemy damage reactions and A.I.

Y'know... stuff that's been perfected in modern action games that we now pretty much take for granted and will immediately notice their absence.
Sorry, I stopped agreeing with you right here. But ill wait...



Notable examples include: The Assassin's Creed series; Batman: Arkham Asylum; the God of War series; The Force Unleashed (no, it wasn't perfect by any means, but the action is quite solid); Bayonetta; the Devil May Cry series; the Uncharted series, and so on. You will quickly notice that none of these games encourage mindless button mashing, nor do their set of possible actions limit you to a single attack chain at all times. You will also notice that many of these games incorporate physics into the game world, increasing immersion considerably. Finally, you may notice that they don't suck.I dont know about Assassins Creed or Force Unleashed, and much about Arkham Asylum becuase i never played them much. I've seen enough of bayonetta through gameplay videos though.

But these games all follow a trend -- they pick a theme to work with, and they build their battle engines around these themes.

Example. God of War? Not the best battle engine on earth. In fact, being a DMC fan, i think it actually sucks pretty fucking bad. But it's still fun. Know why? Because the game isn't fun for its battle engine. It's fun because the gameplay is built around the brutal, merciless destruction of hordes of enemies. When you grab them, you can beat them and rip them to pieces. Once they're weakened, you initiate an EXTREMELY simple "QTE" event (first made popular i believe by Shenmue, which i wouldn't really call an action game), which completely destroys your enemy in a satisfying way. I can overlook the annoying battle mechanics of the game for this reason -- im still having fun.

Devil May Cry? It's all about style. Stylish moves, taunts, tons of combos, and sprezzatura (so you naturally are encouraged to not get hit.) It helps that it was developed by capcom, which has tons of experience with fighting games. Regardless, it does its job. It's less of a "physics engine" and more of "the attacks do what they're supposed to." Bayonetta? Same as DMC, except add too much sexy in. Oh yeah, and COMPLETELY over the top action. Throw in some dominatrix torture moves too.

Uncharted? A rare case of platforming and action that actually works. This is most likely because the focus of uncharted is more about exploration of your environment. The shooting mechanics are pretty damn basic; nothing we dont see in every single action game on the planet today. In fact, it got pretty annoying at times. But the physics engine of the game actually COMPLEMENTS the action scenes, so when you sneak up on an enemy and dispatch of him with a few easy button presses, it feels natural.

One you didn't mention that i feel follows the same trend is Infamous. It had the exact same shooting mechanics of Uncharted, and almost the same physics for movement. Big difference? The design of the game was focused NOT around having a "good physics engine". It was focused around making the player feel like the character hes playing. You want your player to FEEL like a lighting powered superhero? Let him climb up metal objects, float using magnetism, absorb electricity, ride power lines, blow people away, jump off buildings and blow shit the fuck up. It wasn't JUST because the game had good physics.






PSO's gameplay is the most bare-bones you can get and still be considered anything remotely resembling an "action" game. PSU did very little to advance it, though PSP2 certainly took quite a few steps forward. Still, there's a ways for them to go if they're going to rejoin the modern era...
Well, thats probably because PSO wasn't trying to be an action game.

This whole notion of "modern" or "next-gen" or "21st century" with videogames is exactly whats killing them. On one hand, people are expected to expand the possibilities with the resources given, but on the other, we're starting to lose focus on what makes videogames fun in the first place. Amazing physics and graphics dont make videogames. A good direction makes a good videogame.

PSO had a good direction. It's battle system wasn't amazingly deep in controls, but it was still fun. Fun enough to stay up hours at night playing. Fun enough to anticipate the next boss, or the next area, or the next weapon type you'll pick up, despite the fact you only have 1 3-hit combo to use. Every group of friends I meet, i introduce them to PSO, and about 80% of them become instantly hooked to the gameplay. These are people who dont even play rpgs most of the time, and are more accustomed to games like Ninja Gaiden, God of War and DMC. It has nothing to do with its physics engine or graphics -- they're nothing special by today's standards. But it's something about the game that was done right. It's the reason this fucking website exists right now.

What PSO lacked in amazing combos it made up for in it's enemies, which were FAR more varied than they were in PSU. It had enemies that required you to approach them differently. The limitation of your movement and combat abilities actually helped the game accomplish this. There are no Sinow Beats, Beldras, Chaos Scorcs, Debiters, Reconboxes, Garnaz, Panarms, Belclaws, Slimes, ect ect in PSU that actually DO things that are unique -- they just have enemies that get bigger, faster, and utulize cheeper projectiles/do more damage. Not to say there aren't feared enemies in PSU. They're just feared for different reasons. I dont remember enemies in PSU fusing together / splitting themselves / attacking other enemies in the room to get stronger / using copy illusions/ going invisible and sneak attacking/ spawning other enemies / absorbing your damage to make themselves stronger. You know, the kind of things that MOST IMPORTANT fighting games in the past have done, and thats give you some variety to battle. PSU is chocked full of reskins and remodels. PSO was too, but it (sadly) had a much bigger AI pool to draw from. In fact, PSP2 is FULL of enemies from PSO, that actually DO LESS IN PSP2 THAN THEY DID IN PSO.



Anyway, im not saying that PSO shouldn't innovate or improve upon itself. But i AM saying that just because you have swords and guns in this game doesn't mean we need amazing air combos or ridiculous photon art animations for the game to be fun, innovative or modern. PSO/PSU never needed a dodge or block button in it's design for it to be fun, but now that it HAS IT, the entire makeup of the game now has to be changed to fit around it. Do you think Sonic Team is going to "innovate", or are they just going to copy more Monster Hunter? When they improve on Rangers, are they going to make it more "Phantasy Star" or are they going to make it more "Monster Hunter / 3rd Birthday / Peace Walker?" If they add a jump button, will the game expand on Phantasy Star's combat system, or is it just going to make it more "Kingdom Hearts / Dissidia / Devil May Cry"? This is what they should be thinking about. Personally, if i wanted to play those games, i'd just play those games. But when we're talking about Phantasy Star, i'd like to have them create an experience where i can truly feel like im playing something unique.

I still get that feeling when i play PSO. PSU v1 still had that feeling somewhat. But PSP2 is where it ends. It no longer feels like Phantasy Star. It just feels like a sell-out. They've ditched their own artstyle, most of the content is from different manga artists and popular anime, the moves are over the top and ridiculous....it just isn't the game i used to play anymore. Not to say PSO was anything like PSIV, but at least it was still unique.


Modern =/= good game. There are improvements, and then there is just plain conformity. In a market where things have quickly become hit-or-miss, conformity is getting pretty popular. And i fucking hate it.

NoiseHERO
Apr 12, 2011, 02:37 AM
I've always grown up favorite action adventure/action rpg's over traditional style rpg's ever since zelda on the snes and 64.

and rpg with action is what made pso fun for me.

Then I played kingdom hearts...and it was just a zelda hack n slash with rpg elements that maybe a couple fanboys won't admit...

At this point...I won't mind if theres more kingdom hearts, DMC, Ninja-Gaiden "action rpg's" and PSU becoming one of them.

Strategy is one thing...But that horrible boardgame feeling from PSO, well..who knows what sega will go for now anyway. :0

If anything PSU wasn't fun because it didn't have ENOUGH fast paced hack n slash madness.
/trollface

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 12, 2011, 03:23 AM
Stuff responding to me.Look. We aren't really in much disagreement here. We both know that the games were broken to hell and back. Here's my beef with you, though: if I'm going to be playing a broken game, I'd at least like it to be broken in a more interesting way.

We also agree that PSU had a lot of untapped potential. PSO, on the other hand, pretty much played out everything it had to offer. I think this too is a point in PSU's favor, as we seem to be in agreement that more could be done with its battle system.

Anyway, this is stupid, and I don't want to argue this anymore. No one will ever convince me that PSO's battle system was better than PSU's. If it's going to get old eventually, I'd at least like it to get old with more action and better controls.



Regarding your later comments about modern games losing site of the goal, let me reiterate something I've said dozens of times: PSO was more fun, but PSU was the better game.

Nitro Vordex
Apr 12, 2011, 03:29 AM
I was pretty sure PSO just only had one major rule for gameplay.

Don't get surrounded.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 12, 2011, 03:30 AM
Until you maxed out your defense, at which point the one rule became "Don't play Towers, because it's fucking cheap."

RemiusTA
Apr 12, 2011, 03:49 AM
let me reiterate something I've said dozens of times: PSO was more fun, but PSU was the better game.

This made me laugh for a good 4 seconds just so you know


I was never saying PSO's battle system was better than PSU's. Honestly i dont even know how it got into a battle on PSO vs PSU. I was saying PSU should have adopted more of PSO's mechanics. Honestly i dont even know why this debate is going on anyway. The Sonic Team who created PSO is dead and long gone now. This is just going to be Phantasy Star Portable 2 with (hopefully) better graphics. I doubt they're even thinking about this as deeply as we on this forum ever will.


PSU during its development was looking like a much different game than it was now. I can still watch the first PSU trailer and wish that game was still coming out. But I already know the people who made that trailer are gone.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qchDkrStK30

I want this game to be THAT fucking game. I've been waiting on it for years. I watch that trailer and get chills i haven't gotten from game trailers in fucking years. But i know we wont get it.....so whatever. PSU was everything in that trailer, except toned down in quality, over-animed' and jpoped to death. (Ryukros is in there, but in the final version they turned it into a giant dark eye clam.) They even ruined that EPIC ass theme song. (which is the same song which plays through the whole game except not nearly as amazing because PSU's music sucks)

So whatever, i really dont care which is better. We'd be lucky to get better than what we have now. PSP2i honestly doesn't make me feel too happy for this game.

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 12, 2011, 03:56 AM
This made me laugh for a good 4 seconds just so you knowThat's cool. I know it's counterintuitive, but I've got a point. What really made PSO for me wasn't the game itself, but the community. To be completely honest, both PSO and PSU are pretty bad games.

RemiusTA
Apr 12, 2011, 04:04 AM
No, they were both great games. One's just terribly outdated, and the other feels like it's a completed game off an unfinished base.


PSO2 is going to disappoint me anyway, im just waiting for the first screenshots and gameplay for it to be confirmed. It's gonna look decent, until we realize they didn't put any real content into the game and they added even more stupid grinding based aspects to it.

Or, even WORSE, it'll just be PSP2i with better graphics. In which case im not touching the loli jpopfest of a game. Ive had enough of fucking 15 year old 4'5" lolis with pink frilly (default) magical outfits swinging around swords and guns. And the only reason im not going to say i hate the entire cast of PSP2 is because Emilia's English translation actually made me laugh. If she wasn't a fucking Loli i'd adore her as a main character. But unfortunally this is japan soooo

Ffuzzy-Logik
Apr 12, 2011, 04:09 AM
PSU during its development was looking like a much different game than it was now. I can still watch the first PSU trailer and wish that game was still coming out.

I want this game to be THAT fucking game.Didn't I discuss this same point with someone here before? Hell, it might have even been you!

Ok, here's the deal: that trailer has fuckall gameplay footage. Zero. Zilch. Nada. PSU is that game. That game is PSU. I don't get what was even slightly different about the trailer. A few characters they hadn't finalized yet? Shittier looking renders? That's about it!


Ive had enough of fucking 15 year old 4'5" lolis with pink frilly (default) magical outfits swinging around swords and guns. And the only reason im not going to say i hate the entire cast of PSP2 is because Emilia's English translation actually made me laugh. If she wasn't a fucking Loli i'd adore her as a main character. But unfortunally this is japan sooooIt's fucking Japan, what were you expecting? I agree that it's cheesy (maybe even a bit creepy), and all the characters are dumb, unlikeable twits, but that's the least of the problems the series has. Who even gives a shit about the story and NPCs in an online RPG? I sure as hell don't.

NoiseHERO
Apr 12, 2011, 04:24 AM
LOL @ the trailer "Phantasy Star Online 2"

I could only imagine them starting over with PSU...interesting...

But with that thought...

Technically it would be psp2i with better graphics.

Akaimizu
Apr 12, 2011, 06:13 AM
True enough. Yes, it's Japan. But I can also see where people (even though they know the usual anime tropes) are going with this. You see. Phantasy Star, from conception, WERE the games that broke the typical generic cut and paste Japanese norms.

So in a way, what you see is a bit of progression that starts to show a breakdown of originality for the series. The more it leans to stereotypical anime tropes, the more it loses its artistic originality. Sooner or later, Phantasy Star could pretty much become just a name for something that is just like everybody else.

Then again, I think this is where a lot of the Japanese industry has started to take notice of. Why the new fears of how Western development has made major strides to take over the industry. Yeah, there's a lot of shooters, but there's more than twice as many other things than shooters coming from the west. Just that people (who are less on Western games) pay attention to some AAA title that happens often (and they don't play), and ignore the sea of others. So obviously, Puzzle Quest, Braid, Torchlight, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Splosion Man, Comic Jumper, Magicka, Guild Wars, Plants vs. Zombies, a plethora of racers including Burnout, Need for Speed, Test Drive Unlimited, etc. don't exist. It's all CoD and Halo to them. Take note, I took care to mention stuff that sells in high numbers, and not even all of them. Just stuff off the top of my head.

The bigger problem is that games, over in Japan, started to get treated like anime where you can watch or play a dozen titles and you'd might as well be playing the same game. The only difference starts to get as to which character has which hair color and style, but what of these 11 or so anime character types (everything from cookie cutter personalities to same likes, fetishes, and fears) do they fall under.

They know this, of course, and has been a subject of talks as to try to reenvision japanese gaming. Sure, cookie cutter tactics have worked well in Japan. More power to them. But the issue with ignoring the non-ethnocentric population has begun to take its toll. Now, there's lots of scrambling to figure out how to break convention and attract those other markets better. However, after so many years, many have forgotten how to. This is easily seen by quite a few failed attempts, by even larger Japanese companies, to try to copy some Western ideas; but like a *lost in translation* many attempts simply try to shoehorn a genre taking in only skin-deep elements.

So they trot on an interface, which I like to say is a Mask on a Japanese game style, but totally get lost as to direction. They get lost in the idea of trying to throw some aspect of western game development in there, and you end up with a game that both hampers the artistic delivery in the attempt and fails to capture what good games (utilizing those interfaces) did to make them good. This is because they didn't bother to integrate all the ideas to support the whole.

It's copying with the eyes, not with a true understanding of what really was good about the top games with Western sensibilities. Lesson to be learned, "If you want a hybrid game to attract other audiences, don't shoehorn their interface ideas to a game idea that obviously wasn't made with that in mind. Also, take more time to research and ask those who enjoy the games you want to borrow from, what they like about it."

Though not the only one, Infinite Undiscovery was definitely one of those things that was pretty obvious about these missteps, from the beginning of the game. Though it got some likers, who plodded on through it, it also is one to have quite the lukewarm reception. And yes, this is from decent developers; but the idea of trying to figure things out (by themselves) was quite apparent.

Now one might be saying, "Now to be fair, the west falls into these tropes" I'll have to disagree on one point. With more games following an anime approach, many of these don't deliver characters and designs that break any mold. While over here, we could even have drastically different personas that are even the same character.

For instance. No one would mistake the entirely different vibes, and different emotional impacts of:
Batman the Movie (Tim Burton) : Joker
The Dark Knight: Joker
The Animated series: Joker.

Pretty much the same overall background stories, but with little twists in their pasts, and all of a sudden 3 different jokers that (without you even having to go into a long detail on their past) will give you an entirely different vibe within the first 20 seconds. You'll be sure that they feel entirely different by 5 minutes in.

But in anime convention, the typical character traits (and the actual vibes you get from them) gets shared without being a specific character so you can guess which is more limited. So what you need to do to be different, is to drastically alter from the norms of character design and (to a lesser degree) character makeup. This is where Phantasy Star started, but the direction started to make a major leap towards the cookie cutter with the more recent Phantasy Star games. In story yes, it has already done that in PSU, but now it's starting to do so even outside the story. So the typical anime tropes start to bleed into every facet of the game without an escape from it. Just a bit more push, and I'll probably see Gosick and Moonphase characters in Phantasy Star as the new norm. Maybe spliced in with a few character makeups from Read or Die and AIC anime. We went from the mystery of Red Ring Rico, to Nekomimi mode! And while that's cute and all, there's about 1000+ MMOs out there, in which you can already do that stuff to your hearts content. And with more and more of them being full-speed action RPGs, and becoming more 3rd person, the identity is even further in jeopardy.

It's almost a shame where I can actually see where WoW's got its appeal, and still holds such an audience. With so little of the competition actually emulating its unique atmosphere and style, it manages to retain its identity even though other games managed to get plenty of its game systems down pat. Or why the interest in Aion, because of the uniqueness of character design, and the whole celestial aspect. It is, invariably, design and atmosphere that really set your game apart and get people to notice it.

When you saw PSO, the character designs, you said "Whoah. What the?" And this is after already watching tons of countless anime. If that isn't a litmus test for originality, I don't know what is. Then after a bit of great gaming, you really love what they did there. It, in itself, transported you to a world that was a mystery to you. What to expect? You had no anime tropes to go on, it's like being thrown into an alien jungle you've never been in before. You redefined what to expect from the world and you were learning with baby eyes again. Kind of like the experience many had when they played Morrowind, the first time. Panzer Dragon. Jet Set Radio. Anyway. I think, from a style standpoint, I understand.

Itoshi
Apr 12, 2011, 08:45 AM
A lot of good discussion going on in this thread.

I can't help but think that the reason SEGA called this game Phantasy Star Online 2 was because they were actually going to make a sequel to the game. Phantasy Star Universe is still up in Japan and according to updates they seem to be getting content from the PSP games. Which leads me to believe that Phantasy Star Universe will stay as such and Phantasy Star Online 2 will be a new breed of game.

A lot of expectation for the game comes from nostalgia, like split-screen and etc. It's probably more realistic to think that they will reboot the series will redesigns of the same classes (HUmar, FOnewearl, RAmar, HUcast...etc), and redesign the areas and items like in PSPo2i. SEGA knows that Phantasy Star Online fans want those old areas, enemies, rares and music back. It's why they recycle it so much in the current games.

What I hope for is a game that combines the good aspect of both PSO and PSU. What I can see PSO2 being is a lot of remade areas and redesigns with PSU gameplay smacked on saying it's a new game.

Zyrusticae
Apr 12, 2011, 11:13 AM
Urgh, walls of text crit'd me. I am now dead.

Excuse me while I try to re-insert my soul into my lifeless husk and assume control once more.

Edit: Okay, here we go...



Sorry, I stopped agreeing with you right here. But ill wait...
Why would you apologize for not agreeing with me? Just... kinda weird.

Here, have a donut! :donut:


I dont know about Assassins Creed or Force Unleashed, and much about Arkham Asylum becuase i never played them much. I've seen enough of bayonetta through gameplay videos though.

But these games all follow a trend -- they pick a theme to work with, and they build their battle engines around these themes.
I don't necessarily disagree with you here (or in any of your examples). I wasn't suggesting that they carbon-copy any of these games, but rather wanted to point out how far games have gone since the original PSO was released so many ages ago (and in gaming terms, it WAS ages ago).

Certainly, the PSO series is not supposed to have as much of an action-slant as any of those games. But you'd be rather remiss to deny that, y'know, 99% of the gameplay IS combat... and as such, they should probably do it some good, yes?

It's a shame you didn't play Assassin's Creed (especially the sequel), actually. The gameplay is an excellent example of a direction PSO could go in without destroying its feel. Well, aside from the silly invincibility-during-counter-kill stuff, at least.



Well, thats probably because PSO wasn't trying to be an action game.
I can't agree with this at all.

They went from a turn-based traditional JRPG with a unique sci-fi aesthetic to a completely real-time, 3D combat-oriented RPG. Even if it didn't look like an action game, it's pretty damn obvious what direction they were headed. In fact, the actual RPG aspects were incredibly minimal. You had customization, you had stats, you had something of a vestigial story, and that was it for the RP aspect.

If it wasn't trying to be an action game... well, sure as hell fooled me.


This whole notion of "modern" or "next-gen" or "21st century" with videogames is exactly whats killing them. On one hand, people are expected to expand the possibilities with the resources given, but on the other, we're starting to lose focus on what makes videogames fun in the first place. Amazing physics and graphics dont make videogames. A good direction makes a good videogame. Harsh. And kind of grognard-ish.

I will have to disagree with the assertion here. A good direction does not make a good video game. Neither does amazing physics and graphics.

A good video game is the sum of its parts. Nothing more, nothing less.

For example: Cave Story. The graphics are very simple, but quite charming all the same. The physics are remarkably fine-tuned. The story is amazing for all its simplicity. Oh, and don't even get me started on the music. It's a very retro-styled game, but that's not what makes it great. What makes it great is simply that everything fits together, feels right, and that a whole lot of care was obviously put into every detail.

On the other hand, we have stuff like Dragon Age 2. The combat is markedly improved over the original and the companions have quite a bit of life to them... but the game was very clearly, very obviously rushed. Re-hashed environments, false choices (ESPECIALLY this), and the whole thing can be run through in a fraction of the time of the original.

Point is, the game had a good direction: fix what was wrong with the original, and do it cost-effectively. Hell, even the story premise is incredibly original (following the growth of a hero from start to finish, with no great big "epic" threat at the end). They just cocked it up by screwing up a whole bunch of its more important bits.

Execution is most important. Blizzard games are the most incredibly un-creative bunch on the planet, but they thrive by polishing the hell out of everything they make. Half-Life 2 is, in concept, a very, very simple game, but one that is polished to near-perfection.

PSU had a good start... but let's face it: The execution left tons to be desired.

It, itself, is also quite indicative of the direction the devs wanted to go in...


PSO had a good direction. It's battle system wasn't amazingly deep in controls, but it was still fun. Fun enough to stay up hours at night playing. Fun enough to anticipate the next boss, or the next area, or the next weapon type you'll pick up, despite the fact you only have 1 3-hit combo to use. Every group of friends I meet, i introduce them to PSO, and about 80% of them become instantly hooked to the gameplay. These are people who dont even play rpgs most of the time, and are more accustomed to games like Ninja Gaiden, God of War and DMC. It has nothing to do with its physics engine or graphics -- they're nothing special by today's standards. But it's something about the game that was done right. It's the reason this fucking website exists right now.

What PSO lacked in amazing combos it made up for in it's enemies, which were FAR more varied than they were in PSU. It had enemies that required you to approach them differently. The limitation of your movement and combat abilities actually helped the game accomplish this. There are no Sinow Beats, Beldras, Chaos Scorcs, Debiters, Reconboxes, Garnaz, Panarms, Belclaws, Slimes, ect ect in PSU that actually DO things that are unique -- they just have enemies that get bigger, faster, and utulize cheeper projectiles/do more damage. Not to say there aren't feared enemies in PSU. They're just feared for different reasons. I dont remember enemies in PSU fusing together / splitting themselves / attacking other enemies in the room to get stronger / using copy illusions/ going invisible and sneak attacking/ spawning other enemies / absorbing your damage to make themselves stronger. You know, the kind of things that MOST IMPORTANT fighting games in the past have done, and thats give you some variety to battle. PSU is chocked full of reskins and remodels. PSO was too, but it (sadly) had a much bigger AI pool to draw from. In fact, PSP2 is FULL of enemies from PSO, that actually DO LESS IN PSP2 THAN THEY DID IN PSO.
I'd hate to resort to this ridiculously overused idiom, but somehow I get the impression you're looking at things through rose-tinted glasses.

Or maybe our tastes just differ wildly. You clearly hold the original game in much, MUCH higher esteem than I do.

I, for one, found combat in PSO to be incredibly boring. My attacks? Their effectiveness determined entirely by dice-rolls behind the scenes. Enemies just fall over dead, though admittedly with nifty animations at times. There is no Z-axis traversal (particularly annoying when you have FLYING ENEMIES). And the repetition! Oh, gawd, the repetition...

But, as you say, the enemies play a big part in making it more interesting. It succeeds in ratcheting up the tension, which is a huge factor in the game's success. In fact, I'd say it's the biggest factor in its success, aside from the customization and aesthetic. Ever-so-slowly whittling down the enemies' numbers while avoiding your eventual demise as long as you can always works well as a method of maintaining interest - hell, it's the primary conceit of the Diablo series (and, by extension, all Rogue-alikes).

But, come on, really. You can get that without making the actual combat part incredibly basic and boring. They just need to not neglect any one part... which, I'll admit, seems rather unlikely with SEGA's current track record. But that's a problem on the development side, and less a problem with the direction.


Anyway, im not saying that PSO shouldn't innovate or improve upon itself. But i AM saying that just because you have swords and guns in this game doesn't mean we need amazing air combos or ridiculous photon art animations for the game to be fun, innovative or modern. PSO/PSU never needed a dodge or block button in it's design for it to be fun, but now that it HAS IT, the entire makeup of the game now has to be changed to fit around it. Do you think Sonic Team is going to "innovate", or are they just going to copy more Monster Hunter? When they improve on Rangers, are they going to make it more "Phantasy Star" or are they going to make it more "Monster Hunter / 3rd Birthday / Peace Walker?" If they add a jump button, will the game expand on Phantasy Star's combat system, or is it just going to make it more "Kingdom Hearts / Dissidia / Devil May Cry"? This is what they should be thinking about. Personally, if i wanted to play those games, i'd just play those games. But when we're talking about Phantasy Star, i'd like to have them create an experience where i can truly feel like im playing something unique.

I still get that feeling when i play PSO. PSU v1 still had that feeling somewhat. But PSP2 is where it ends. It no longer feels like Phantasy Star. It just feels like a sell-out. They've ditched their own artstyle, most of the content is from different manga artists and popular anime, the moves are over the top and ridiculous....it just isn't the game i used to play anymore. Not to say PSO was anything like PSIV, but at least it was still unique.

Modern =/= good game. There are improvements, and then there is just plain conformity. In a market where things have quickly become hit-or-miss, conformity is getting pretty popular. And i fucking hate it.
Okay, first of all... you're pretty clearly damning Sega of Japan here. That's got nothing to do with modernity and everything to do with them being pretty suck for the last half a decade or so.

Secondly, it's not "innovating" if they're regressing. I... don't even know what else to say to that.

I guess you place immersion on a different level than me? Because, well, to me, seeing enemies able to dodge and block and do all these sorts of nifty things and me being COMPLETELY INEXPLICABLY unable to do any of that myself (or at least, not manually) really, really hurts my immersion. It also makes me feel considerably less heroic, which is bad in a game where you're supposed to be, y'know, a hero.

Being unable to jump just feels wrong. But obviously they shouldn't just add these things for the sake of it. I'm not saying that. I AM saying that omitting them for the sake of some nebulous "feel" or to be "different" (lol, sorry, that just makes me laugh reading it out loud) is most certainly not a better route to go. Let's reiterate that: Being "different" for the sake of being "different" is no better than "conforming" for the sake of it.

See, these physics and graphics and most certainly sound we've been adding to games over the last ten years aren't just because they're purdy. A big end-goal of any game is to increase the immersiveness of the experience, and frankly, being unable to navigate the world in any convincing way is a huge blow to immersion. Invisible walls, anyone? Untraversable waist-high obstacles? Really, now...

No, it's not much better if it's just thrown in there without a second thought. Obviously, the game has to account for it in its design. But if you could really, honestly convince me that a game is worse off for having it... well, I'd be damn surprised, for sure.

I say adding stuff (BASIC stuff) like being able to jump is just a good thing. You could call it "conforming" just because every other game has it... or you could call it the standard.

Whatever the case, I, for one, would rather have a functional, immersive play environment rather than one expressly designed to appeal to hipsters. :-P

Akaimizu
Apr 12, 2011, 12:44 PM
Hard to say. Dodge rolls can be cool, especially when it's in context. Something I think worked well. The enemies did it first, now the heroes can.

Regular Jumping, for the sake of it, does still seem a bit out of place. On the other hand, it's a design decision for all 3rd person action-RPGs and MMOs on whether they want it or not. To a degree, this is split down the middle. However, I can see a reason for not having regular jumps. Don't go putting in a character control unless it actually has a logical use. Standard jumping just didn't have any practical use. You'd use it, but accomplish what? If something only introduces more potential bugs without a significant use, don't include it.

Monster Hunter, and games that are taking ideas from it, never had jumping either, though Dodge rolls are par for the count. Now, take into consideration, PSP2 had some general monster movement and attack abilities changed from the previous PSU-based games, just to accomodate the new dodge rolls and blocking. They didn't add them and leave the old monsters well enough alone. They spruced them up in such a way that you'll run into way more situations where the dodge roll and the blocking would be the best idea at the time.

So I definitely give them credit for a good design decision in tandem with new abilities. I also think the waist high walls were probably a design decision from both a visual and camera perspective. So it's a bit gamey, but it certainly helps against camera issues with walls. I like to call it the Pacman clause. Because even when Pacman had versions where he could jump much higher than those walls, he could never go over the walls. Jumping was just for the Ghosts and dots.

Zyrusticae
Apr 12, 2011, 02:10 PM
I suppose I should say less about just plain "jumping" and more about "realistic character navigation".

Final Fantasy XIV was (still is) really bad about this. When you go down an elevated position you simply slide unnaturally down with no animation whatsoever, which is COMPLETELY immersion-breaking, especially with the otherwise incredible character graphics and animations. At least have a slide animation or something.

And of course, these very same walls you slid down, you couldn't just climb back up. Friggin' irritating.

And then there's the completely nonsensical level designs with invisible walls EVERYWHERE you see all over PSO and PSU. I am sick of it. If there is to be no jumping I hope to hell they do something about the invisible wall syndrome. Goodness, do I hope...

Akaimizu
Apr 12, 2011, 02:18 PM
Ahh yes. Invisible walls, a commonplace thing in so many a path-based Japanese RPG. I kind of doubt they'll get rid of them completely. Having specific geometric corridors (even when the look of the place is more natural-looking) is a classic aspect of JRPG (even action ones) design which does a ton of wonders for heavily simplifying the bug-testing phase. It's also a part of how so many of them can release with so little bugs both back in the past and in the present.

Take in consideration, with games like Morrowind, where you're access of travel and climbing was pretty much per pixel in the entire 3-dimensional space of that enormous map. Per pixel. Even within the same object, if there was no specific barrier in that negative space, and you could possibly fit there, you can go there. It takes a seemingly lifetime of bug-testing (for that crew at the time) just to create the game where most of the players wouldn't encounter a major game-stopping geometry failure where they fall through the entire landscape. It also raises considerable demands on the hardware needed to accomplish it. No problem for a PC-only or current Gen Console release. Portable systems, that's another story. Thus a part of why the PSU engine ported so well to the PSP.

Alas, for the very reason of bug-testing, I would be really surprised if the Invisible walls disappear. They might get a little more accurrate by increasing the invisible barrier geometry to fit the landscape a bit better.

Take note, this is precisely one of the differences I see in even systems with gigahertz processors like iPhones or Androids. The Elder-scrollish, big area games generally have cheap invisible geometry borders which heavily differ from said games on the consoles and PC. But they do run great. Were coded in a much shorter time schedule, with less people. And they do avoid a plethora of bugs that way.

RemiusTA
Apr 12, 2011, 02:26 PM
o man




Why would you apologize for not agreeing with me? Just... kinda weird.

Here, have a donut! :donut:Because i was and then stopped. Thought it was obvious.



I don't necessarily disagree with you here (or in any of your examples). I wasn't suggesting that they carbon-copy any of these games, but rather wanted to point out how far games have gone since the original PSO was released so many ages ago (and in gaming terms, it WAS ages ago).

Certainly, the PSO series is not supposed to have as much of an action-slant as any of those games. But you'd be rather remiss to deny that, y'know, 99% of the gameplay IS combat... and as such, they should probably do it some good, yes?



It's a shame you didn't play Assassin's Creed (especially the sequel), actually. The gameplay is an excellent example of a direction PSO could go in without destroying its feel. Well, aside from the silly invincibility-during-counter-kill stuff, at least.dont reallly know how to take that last statement, so whatever




I can't agree with this at all.

They went from a turn-based traditional JRPG with a unique sci-fi aesthetic to a completely real-time, 3D combat-oriented RPG. Even if it didn't look like an action game, it's pretty damn obvious what direction they were headed. In fact, the actual RPG aspects were incredibly minimal. You had customization, you had stats, you had something of a vestigial story, and that was it for the RP aspect.

If it wasn't trying to be an action game... well, sure as hell fooled me. Incredibly minimal? Are you serious? The whole game was built on numbers, what are you talking about? Action oriented, yeah, but "action game" genre in the sense of the ones you mentioned in your post? Nah.



Harsh. And kind of grognard-ish.

I will have to disagree with the assertion here. A good direction does not make a good video game. Neither does amazing physics and graphics.

A good video game is the sum of its parts. Nothing more, nothing less.

For example: Cave Story. The graphics are very simple, but quite charming all the same. The physics are remarkably fine-tuned. The story is amazing for all its simplicity. Oh, and don't even get me started on the music. It's a very retro-styled game, but that's not what makes it great. What makes it great is simply that everything fits together, feels right, and that a whole lot of care was obviously put into every detail.

On the other hand, we have stuff like Dragon Age 2. The combat is markedly improved over the original and the companions have quite a bit of life to them... but the game was very clearly, very obviously rushed. Re-hashed environments, false choices (ESPECIALLY this), and the whole thing can be run through in a fraction of the time of the original.

Point is, the game had a good direction: fix what was wrong with the original, and do it cost-effectively. Hell, even the story premise is incredibly original (following the growth of a hero from start to finish, with no great big "epic" threat at the end). They just cocked it up by screwing up a whole bunch of its more important bits.

Execution is most important. Blizzard games are the most incredibly un-creative bunch on the planet, but they thrive by polishing the hell out of everything they make. Half-Life 2 is, in concept, a very, very simple game, but one that is polished to near-perfection.

PSU had a good start... but let's face it: The execution left tons to be desired.Perhaps i was too vauge. Obviously, one aspect is definitely not going to make a game good. I agree with everything here. Graphics and Physics alone will do nothing for a game if you dont do anything with them is what i was getting at. And your post suggested that just because games today have them means they are superior. Yeah, perhaps the technical sense, but it doesn't make them fun games.




I'd hate to resort to this ridiculously overused idiom, but somehow I get the impression you're looking at things through rose-tinted glasses.

Or maybe our tastes just differ wildly. You clearly hold the original game in much, MUCH higher esteem than I do.Yeah, i probably do.


I, for one, found combat in PSO to be incredibly boring. My attacks? Their effectiveness determined entirely by dice-rolls behind the scenes. Enemies just fall over dead, though admittedly with nifty animations at times. There is no Z-axis traversal (particularly annoying when you have FLYING ENEMIES). And the repetition! Oh, gawd, the repetition...

But, as you say, the enemies play a big part in making it more interesting. It succeeds in ratcheting up the tension, which is a huge factor in the game's success. In fact, I'd say it's the biggest factor in its success, aside from the customization and aesthetic. Ever-so-slowly whittling down the enemies' numbers while avoiding your eventual demise as long as you can always works well as a method of maintaining interest - hell, it's the primary conceit of the Diablo series (and, by extension, all Rogue-alikes).

But, come on, really. You can get that without making the actual combat part incredibly basic and boring. They just need to not neglect any one part... which, I'll admit, seems rather unlikely with SEGA's current track record. But that's a problem on the development side, and less a problem with the direction.
I can see how PSO can be considered basic and boring compared to PSU. I've mentioned before that i really dont even compare the two games anymore because they dont play the same. PSO is far more basic than PSU, but in the end it still has an equal amount of depth to it's battle system. PSU improves on plenty of PSO's downsides but at the same time doesn't back them up.

First few years playing PSU, i used to think it was 100% better than PSO, improved in every way possible. But in the end, i just can't see it that way anymore. The combat has dated itself quicker than PSO's did, a game that came out 10 years ago. When it comes down to it, when i look past the photon arts and improved engine, i see tons of holes everywhere and it pisses me off. But honestly, honestly, the reason i hold PSO higher than PSU has very little to do with its battle engine.

Like you said, a good game is a sum of its parts. And PSO was a much better sum of its parts than PSU was. That's my opinion, and there isn't much that can happen at this point that'll change it.

PSO had a superior atmosphere, art direction, level design, boss design, soundtrack.... It's story really was just as stupid and cheesy as PSU's was, but the whole idea of "figure it out yourself" made it more interesting to uncover by not trying to make EVERYTHING SUPER DRAMATIC OMG ANIME and whatnot. I enjoyed the progression system better (MAGs were fun to play around with, and allowed me to create new characters without having to go through the dumb shit i had to when i first started)...about the only thing that PSU did better than PSO was the community aspect. And when i say "community aspect" i really just mean cut-in chat, lobbies and My Room feature.



Okay, first of all... you're pretty clearly damning Sega of Japan here. That's got nothing to do with modernity and everything to do with them being pretty suck for the last half a decade or so. Or with everyone being pretty suck for the last decade or so. (I dont care if it's SoJ or SoA. They both suck. And there hasn't been a SoA for a while now)

You would be lying to me if you'd claim this generation of games isn't chocked full of rehashes and copies. You can argue it's always been like that, but you'd be lying to yourself at this point. It's gotten bad. It's the reason Indie games are blowing up so fast. It isn't ONLY because they now have an outlet. It's because they're making risks that the big devs aren't able to make anymore.





Secondly, it's not "innovating" if they're regressing. I... don't even know what else to say to that. I dont get this. They can't innovate just because they're making a sequel???




I guess you place immersion on a different level than me? Because, well, to me, seeing enemies able to dodge and block and do all these sorts of nifty things and me being COMPLETELY INEXPLICABLY unable to do any of that myself (or at least, not manually) really, really hurts my immersion. It also makes me feel considerably less heroic, which is bad in a game where you're supposed to be, y'know, a hero.
I agree, but i dont know what you're getting at in terms of this argument. Maybe PSP2? I was pretty estatic actually when PSP2 announced we'd be able to block and dodge.



Being unable to jump just feels wrong. But obviously they shouldn't just add these things for the sake of it. I'm not saying that. I AM saying that omitting them for the sake of some nebulous "feel" or to be "different" (lol, sorry, that just makes me laugh reading it out loud) is most certainly not a better route to go. Let's reiterate that: Being "different" for the sake of being "different" is no better than "conforming" for the sake of it. No. What im saying is, if you're going to add a feature, then DO SOMETHING WITH IT and dont just add it because you can. You CAN have a fun game without being able to jump or block or dodge. Im not saying "PSO2 should be just like PSO, 3-hit combo only with better graphics" or some stupid shit like that. Im saying if they're going to add a feature, i hope they can make it work well for the game.

You laugh at omitting something to retain a feel? Hah, that's almost laughable in itself. But i guess it is more of a personal preference. Are you one of the people who believe Legend of Zelda should include Voice Acting? Or maybe you enjoyed watching them butcher Samus in Other M? Voice acting is an example of something i'd never knock a game for omitting, for the simple fact the best games ive ever played in my life have oodles of text in them but not a single voice file on the disc. The notion of them remaking Final Fantasy VII and adding voice actors is almost cringe worthy.

I have a friend who I argue with who enjoys Western rpgs over Japanese RPGs becuase "western RPGs let you do whatever you want to". Yeah, they pretty much do. But in my personal opinion, i dont think the fact that i can murder whomever i want in Fallout 3 has ever helped immerse me in the game any better. It surely gave me something to do when i got bored with the main campaign, yeah, but if anything it restricts me from making any real connections with anyone in the game. Sure, you DO have more freedom, but at the same time, what have you really gained?


Im not saying to omit jumping because PSO didn't originally have jumping. Im saying you can still make the game fun as a game with jumping by making the ground combat better. You CAN add jumping, and air combos. Fuck, you can even add flying if you want. But are they going to add it and DO something with it, or just keep it in as another half-assed feature, like they did Synthesis and tons of other shit?




See, these physics and graphics and most certainly sound we've been adding to games over the last ten years aren't just because they're purdy. A big end-goal of any game is to increase the immersiveness of the experience, and frankly, being unable to navigate the world in any convincing way is a huge blow to immersion. Invisible walls, anyone? Untraversable waist-high obstacles? Really, now...

No, it's not much better if it's just thrown in there without a second thought. Obviously, the game has to account for it in its design. But if you could really, honestly convince me that a game is worse off for having it... well, I'd be damn surprised, for sure. I think you have me all wrong. I'd like nothing better than to actually have jumping in the next PS game that actually serves a GOOD purpose. Fuck, might as well add in some climbing too. But this is Sonic Team we're talking about. They just created a sequel to a game made almost 16 years ago and it's inferior in almost every way to the original. A sequel to a physics-based game with a physics engine inferior to one made on the sega genesis.

Maybe im just thinking too much. When i hear "jumping in PSO2", all i can see is wonky air combat controls, exploits and glitches. Sure, they've been getting better. But i can recall a few years ago when their last sonic game included an obvious ripoff of a God of War styled combat system. And it was shitty as hell. I can also recall Castlevania doing the same fucking thing.




I say adding stuff (BASIC stuff) like being able to jump is just a good thing. You could call it "conforming" just because every other game has it... or you could call it the standard. So yeah. Im not saying "DONT DO IT BECAUSE PHANTASY STAR DOESNT DO THAT IT DOES 3 HIT COMBO AND DOESNT HAVE TO BE LIKE THOSE NEW GUYS OVER THERE DO YOUR OWN THING". PSO was too different from PSIV to even warrant that in the first place.

All im saying is, if you're going to do something, do it right. But we're taking about a team who's been striving off half-assed'ness for a good few years now.



Didn't I discuss this same point with someone here before? Hell, it might have even been you!

Ok, here's the deal: that trailer has fuckall gameplay footage. Zero. Zilch. Nada. PSU is that game. That game is PSU. I don't get what was even slightly different about the trailer. A few characters they hadn't finalized yet? Shittier looking renders? That's about it!Shittier renders? Same game? I guess you're just blind then. There are so many things that DONT appear in PSU in that trailer....if it wasn't for the 3 planets and guardian's colony you could almost call it a completely different game. The animation quality in that trailer is better than any of that pre-rendered fuckshit PSU had.

Looking at that trailer and looking at the finished PSU trailers, they do not feel like the same game. You're just being difficult now, dude.



It's fucking Japan, what were you expecting? I agree that it's cheesy (maybe even a bit creepy), and all the characters are dumb, unlikeable twits, but that's the least of the problems the series has. Who even gives a shit about the story and NPCs in an online RPG? I sure as hell don't.
Not a problem to you at all, huh? Well, guess theres nothing much more to say then.

Zyrusticae
Apr 12, 2011, 02:35 PM
I get the impression that a lot of this is just us talking in circles when we actually agree on a lot of points. ^^;

Really, I just hope PSO2 isn't a rehash of the original, and from what I understand, you (Remius) don't want them to fall to conformity or feature creep.

With their track record, we can only hope Sega manages to find a healthy balance... I have to say, though, the way you put it really doesn't leave much room for optimism. :-(

Akaimizu
Apr 12, 2011, 02:37 PM
"Sure, you DO have more freedom, but at the same time, what have you really gained?"

^ Very easy to answer. From the other point of view, you've gained a personal connection to the choices of your own character-emotions in a character you created. The idea is that, like the original roleplay games, it is truly your creation for which you now interact in that world. To some, it actually brings a bigger connection to the NPCs because it is their choice to harm or protect them. They know that the choice is there, so people of all character attitudes can play their role. The idea is that they also get involved in some of the story direction, but hopefully wish that regardless of choice, the story carries through to them. Takes a lot of work, but that's the wish.

Basically, it's the whole taking Pen and Paper RPG freedoms and push it to as much of a real-time immersion as possible. It takes a heck of a lot of programming to emulate the variety of changes a real person can do in reaction to the players, as well as present all the other things about it, Music, graphics, etc.

But not everybody is the same. Just like some people are artists, others are viewers/listeners. Except artists love to interact in other artists' worlds. One accomodates creative people more.

Never think of it as simply a choice between killing everybody and not killing everybody. A person playing the character always decides (based on events and such) what non-monster they'd want to kill. The choices are character personal. Maybe they have a real beef with certain things, certain docile animals, etc. It's just not monsters, per se.

For me, both are good. In one, you are basically taking the battles aspects and playing that as a game, while the game itself plays like an unchanging book you read. For me, when you add in the personal creation aspects to my thirst for exercising my imagination, I really get a double dose of intrigue. That's my main reason for leaning towards the Western side of RPGs. I also started with them when there pretty much wasn't even a JRPG market to begin with.

RemiusTA
Apr 12, 2011, 02:57 PM
My beef with western RPGs are more personal if anything. I've just never gotten much out of them story wise.

Then again the only western i've played would be mass effect and fallout 3.

Zyrusticae
Apr 12, 2011, 02:59 PM
Never played Baldur's Gate 2!? Planescape Torment?!

:-o

Akaimizu
Apr 12, 2011, 03:04 PM
Oh my. Yeah, a lot of people never played those on the PC. And Planescape easily had the depth of story of an entire JPRG introduced to the player within the first 3 hours of play. Heck, it made you ask questions about the possibilities and all the cascading issues of such an existance. They also never played the first two Fallouts as well. When you had a party.

If you weren't really the type, and you played a dark character in the first Fallouts, just imagine the emotional connection someone gets on getting party members that have a great dynamic with their character. Seem great to have along. Then faced with a possible economic situation, making the conscious decision that it was in their character to sell such a devoted character into slavery. The things that go through the player's head. Let me tell ya.

Now, there's certain levels people can get into certain Western tastes as well. You even have already mentioned some beefs that actually side with Western tastes. It is the western influence for such character creation, in the first place. For which PSO/PSU kind of introduces. The demand for a better variety of clothing falls right into that place. Why? Because with this setting you want to be able to have a choice in the kind of character you create. Siding all clothes to one or two sensibilities doesn't do it, because it hampers the characters you can make, and in a nutshell, loses the potential connection you can have with your created character.