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Strider_M
Jun 18, 2011, 05:59 PM
You know what? Let me re-phrase that: What if the Force class was integrated into both Hunters and Rangers?

I remember in PSO that everyone (besides CASTS) could use magic I was a hunter and all I needed was Resta. I can't even recall seeing Forces until much later in the game.

A force class wasn't shown in the PSO2 announcement video so I began thinking, "Are they even in this game?" I'm sure they are but back to the main question.

Personally I wouldn't mind if everyone can use magic (including CASTS) but I want to know what everyone else thinks, especially the people who main Force.

yoshiblue
Jun 18, 2011, 06:15 PM
May as well just call it the Onion Knight Class(without the lame stats in the first 89 levels). If forces didn't exist, although they will be in the game, then there would have to be something to fill in the gap. Like a beast tamer class or something.

Zyrusticae
Jun 18, 2011, 06:30 PM
Meh.

If all you have is two real "classes", you may as well start designing the game to be classless right from the beginning.

Considering, y'know, the game is most probably going to still be class-based, I wouldn't count on anything like that.

Pillan
Jun 18, 2011, 06:40 PM
Honestly, I never thought Force was really all that necessary since PSU. All their spells had a melee or ranged equivalent (Tornado Break, Grenades, Laser Cannons, Rifles, etc.). And the Dam- and Nos- series could easily be replaced by new guns. With the tech linking system, Wands and Rods were pretty much slow guns in PSU anyway. At this point, the only real difference is TP versus ATP. (Not to mention that the non-Force version has essentially always been better...) So it is not difficult to envision a game where all of Force's components were integrated into Hunter and Ranger.

That said, I like the number three. So I would rather have Force for that reason. And there is certainly no reason to alienate the people who still want to play Force. I would like to see a bit more differentiation besides TP usage though.

Zyrusticae
Jun 18, 2011, 06:49 PM
What, really?

I thought it's always been obvious that the strength for Forces has always been in the AoE control. None of the other classes have so many different forms of AoE attack at their fingertips. A Force has a line, cone, circle, point-blank circle, and a high-damage single-target attack that they can freely switch between (and they do all elements, too). They can adapt to a huge number of different situations on-the-fly.

The only problem with them was simply that they couldn't kill as fast as the other classes in PSU (didn't play PSO to endgame so I couldn't tell ya there). Well, that, and non-stacking buffs.

If they give Forces in PSO2 a more action-oriented slant (like they did for Hunters and Rangers and I don't know why I'm capitalizing this, I guess because everyone else is for some nebulous reason) I can easily see them becoming masters of crowd control, and the literal version rather than the weird "mass mezz" variety that MMOs made popular for whatever reason.

Pillan
Jun 18, 2011, 06:58 PM
Force has never been able to use all the forms of AoE attack on all elements in any game (especially not light). Of course Ranger has line (laser cannon), cone (shotgun/crossbow), circle (grenade) and high single (twin handgun) in PSU/P2 and can get them all at every element. So that really only leaves the gi-series. Of course, in PSP2, you can just give Ranger swords, whips, or partisans to add that as well in every element.

I am not saying that they cannot do more with Force, just that they have not.

Seth Astra
Jun 18, 2011, 07:12 PM
I like Forces separate. My guess as to why they weren't shown in the trailer was they'd probably take a bit more work to program (note that I know nothing on programming) or they are still working out how the Force should play.

Shinji Kazuya
Jun 18, 2011, 07:15 PM
If there's no Force class? Won't affect me a bit. I'm not the type who doesn't play/try a certain game 'cause of stuff like that.

Zyrusticae
Jun 18, 2011, 07:41 PM
Force has never been able to use all the forms of AoE attack on all elements in any game (especially not light). Of course Ranger has line (laser cannon), cone (shotgun/crossbow), circle (grenade) and high single (twin handgun) in PSU/P2 and can get them all at every element. So that really only leaves the gi-series. Of course, in PSP2, you can just give Ranger swords, whips, or partisans to add that as well in every element.

I am not saying that they cannot do more with Force, just that they have not.
Difference being that Forces don't have to switch weapons to change the AoE effect. Which, when weapon-switching isn't instantaneous, is a pretty big advantage to have.

(If they really don't have all AoE types with every element, that's obviously a mistake that has to be fixed... especially considering rangers and hunters get every element on their weapons, although this is strictly PSU-speak and we have absolutely no idea how the elemental system works in PSO2.)

RemiusTA
Jun 18, 2011, 07:45 PM
Forces dont need all AoE forms, there was never a scripture that said the magician classes had to.

And if this game has no force class?......well, then they better show some AMAZING shit in the future, because i'll lost interest quick. It would seem like such a lazy cop-out.

Zyrusticae
Jun 18, 2011, 07:51 PM
Forces dont need all AoE forms, there was never a scripture that said the magician classes had to.

Of course not, that would be missing the point entirely.

Point being, they have to have something unique that sets them apart from all the other classes (aside from nifty spell effects or cast animations). Plus, as a point of balance, if every other class gets every element on every weapon then it only makes sense that, balance-wise, Forces should get the same.

Pillan
Jun 18, 2011, 07:57 PM
Force could only link 2 techs without having to deal with a switch pause in PSU/P2. Of course, tapping R is not as hard as tapping B+up/down (though both times are negligible on anything outside of the PS2 version of PSU). So it does cost force half to a quarter as much to have all the types on one element. But odds are you are really only going to use one multiple and one single target anyway, so it is not too much of a difference.

As far as techs go, linear only came in lightning, ice, and dark; cone came in fire, ice, earth, light in PSP2, and dark; circle came in every element in PSP2; close circle came in fire, ice, lightning, earth, light in PSU (removed in PSP2), and dark; and high single came in fire and earth.

And we already know that the versatility of a single gun is increased from the PSO2 preview, so it will be interesting to see how that works out with Force. If they remove tech linking, as I am sure everyone hopes they do, that would certainly make it easier to do everything with spells than with an assortment of equivalent guns.

NoiseHERO
Jun 19, 2011, 12:52 AM
So what?

What?

We're just going to call this game Reality Star Online 2? WE'RE JUST GONNA TAKE OUT THE MISPELLED FANTASY?? THIS IS GONNA BE FRICKEN JAPANESE ACTION RPG HALO NOW?

NO

SHUTUP!!

But yeah, no really I don't feel like thinking

Inside TL;DR: Keep forces in, make them not suck.

RemiusTA
Jun 19, 2011, 12:59 AM
Of course not, that would be missing the point entirely.

Point being, they have to have something unique that sets them apart from all the other classes (aside from nifty spell effects or cast animations). Plus, as a point of balance, if every other class gets every element on every weapon then it only makes sense that, balance-wise, Forces should get the same.

Forces were quite unique in PSO.

And the elemental system in PSU was complete and TOTAL garbage. If anything, we should hope they're straying as far away from that shit as possible.
If you recall, in PSO, there were Attributes (native, abeast, machine, dark), and then there were elements (foie zonde barta grants). The only class in the game that RELIED on the elements were the Force class. (and in a way, the ranger class, to an extent.) The only way to deal Elemental Damage in PSO was through an Extra Attack ability or a Technique but it could not compare to the damage of magic. Not to mention, Light Damage was only ever able to be achieved through use of Grants or a Mag Blast. Maybe some rare weapons, but for the most part this stays true. (which also makes Light damage pretty exclusive to forces....even if only a few enemies were actually weak to it. Regardless, its base damage was very high.)


In PSU, Attributes and Elements were one in the same, which now means 1) forces have to juggle like 80 something garbage ass spells around, and 2) they no longer have an outlet for unique damage output...which is probably why they sucked so bad.




They can give forces whatever kind of AoE they want. But they need to make sure they NEVER give us another PSU scenario again, with a bajillion spells. PSO used the same 9 spells and for the most part (excluding gibarta lolol) kept them from becoming obsolete because they continued to change form. Where in PSU, you had to find the spell with the form that matched the situation best (which was NOT the element you're supposed to be using 90% of the time.)


I hope they plan this out.

•Col•
Jun 19, 2011, 01:02 PM
Keep Forces. Add Vanguards.

Alnet
Jun 19, 2011, 03:14 PM
Keep Forces. Add Vanguards.
Except don't have Vanguards make all three of the other classes obsolete. You forgot to add that.

Pillan
Jun 19, 2011, 03:45 PM
Personally, I would love to see Force split into separate damage and healing classes, much like the way Hunter and Ranger are split by short and long range.

Nitro Vordex
Jun 19, 2011, 05:18 PM
Personally, I would love to see Force split into separate damage and healing classes, much like the way Hunter and Ranger are split by short and long range.
Support Force and Offensive Force. I could support that.

Randomness
Jun 19, 2011, 06:17 PM
Except don't have Vanguards make all three of the other classes obsolete. You forgot to add that.

Easy. Don't have EX traps. Problem solved.

Strider_M
Jun 19, 2011, 07:27 PM
Well I'm fairly sure Forces will still be in the game, but I still liked the fact that Hunters and Rangers could still do Magic attacks in PSO.

in response to having different types of Forces; well I don't know... it would probably make the system too dependant on having two different types of forces to make a efficient team, it'll probably work if the max team size was 6 (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187301) or something. But if it PSO2 is gonna stick with 4 people then fewer but more balanced/effective classes are better.

•Col•
Jun 19, 2011, 07:35 PM
Easy. Don't have EX traps. Problem solved.

^What I was gonna say.

Darki
Jun 19, 2011, 08:42 PM
Personally, I not only disagree with this idea, but I'd even say that I would love that the game didn't have only 3 classes.

With all the failures and imbalance that PSU has, I believe that if it was well done, it would be awesome that there still were hybrid and expert classes. Or maybe keep basic classes as the "experts" and add the hybrids.

If it was well done, and not like the shit they do in PSU (adding double sabers to Guntechers and grenade launchers to Fighgunners, wtf) it would make wonders to me. I would honestly hate that "hybridation" in PSO2 were like in PSO, race-based. I don't wanna have to be a dark-skinned long-eared bitch with low HP and no sense of fashion to be a battlemage.

Alnet
Jun 19, 2011, 09:50 PM
Easy. Don't have EX traps. Problem solved.
Actually... there's very little else that needs to be changed aside from this, lol. Maybe not giving them way more Evasion than Forces, as they need it more, but we're not discussing that game right now...

Personally, I would love to see Force split into separate damage and healing classes, much like the way Hunter and Ranger are split by short and long range.
Actually, I could kinda go for this, myself. It'd be like sorta the difference between White and Black Mages (exactly the difference between them, as a matter of fact). But how would Support work (assuming that "Support" gets its own category of Techs)? Would Attack Forces up attack power and accuracy while Defense Forces up evasion and defense? Or maybe Defense Forces up the party's stats while Attack Forces penalize enemy stats...

... anyhow, I'm just hoping that Force as a class will be in the game at all, since there's been that image of a FOmarl-looking character in a yellow dress as one of the initial release images. It'd be a real tease if that was just a costume for a Hunter or something, lol.

Dragwind
Jun 20, 2011, 06:23 AM
I highly doubt this would happen. There are too many players who love playing their force class, and they would be very upset if they couldn't have their pure tech nuker along with their special clothing and fancy robes.

Besides, I'm pretty sure at this point that one of the screenshots shown on the official website clearly displays what looks to be a techer (unless it's just customizable clothing, robes in PS usually indicate it's a FO.)

Spellbinder
Jun 20, 2011, 07:51 AM
If there's no Force class? This will sadly be the first online Phantasy Star (non-portable) that I won't play.... Don't make me a sad panda Sega....

r00tabaga
Jun 20, 2011, 11:03 AM
^What I was gonna say.
Ahhh yes, the Vantasy Guard Trappable 2 reference.

Mystil
Jun 21, 2011, 11:55 AM
Then I'm not going to play it. :]

NoiseHERO
Jun 21, 2011, 01:12 PM
It's like taking sakura out of naruto...

It's like sure I can live without her.

BUT NOT THOSE 40 MILLION CREEPY SAKURA FANS!

ARASHIKAGE
Jun 21, 2011, 01:23 PM
So what?
THIS IS GONNA BE FRICKEN JAPANESE ACTION RPG HALO NOW?

NO

SHUTUP!!


Haha! That's good stuff.

Michaeru is right, over 80% of us are sane (I assumed that number was a lot lower...), WE HAVE TO HAVE FORCES! Of course, we do! They are the paper of the Rock, Paper, Scissor, triangle! They are WAY more than just flashy techs AoE and Resta machines! Come on guys... They are the GLASS CANNONS the heavy hitters with low defense. If you enjoy range like a ranger, but you still want power like a hunter, you sacrifice defense and put on a dress! This is not rocket punch science, this is RPG 101!

Animal tamer class... seriously guys? :whip:

Darki
Jun 21, 2011, 03:08 PM
^I wouldn't care if it was like that, but at the end it will be that you'll sacrifice defense, power and speed to be able to cause tons of graphic lag to your comrades. :<

Nitro Vordex
Jun 21, 2011, 03:09 PM
If you enjoy range like a ranger, but you still want power like a hunter, you sacrifice defense and put on a dress!
THIS, IS A SORCERER'S GOWN!

moorebounce
Jun 21, 2011, 03:33 PM
I like how people are assuming things from one video. Most of the people who didn't read the "Letter from Sakai" are assuming a lot of stuff.

Here's the thread w/ the letter for all the people in the cheap seats. PSO world needs to make this a sticky so late comers can read it.
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187480

Pillan
Jun 21, 2011, 03:58 PM
Michaeru is right, over 80% of us are sane (I assumed that number was a lot lower...), WE HAVE TO HAVE FORCES! Of course, we do! They are the paper of the Rock, Paper, Scissor, triangle! They are WAY more than just flashy techs AoE and Resta machines! Come on guys... They are the GLASS CANNONS the heavy hitters with low defense. If you enjoy range like a ranger, but you still want power like a hunter, you sacrifice defense and put on a dress! This is not rocket punch science, this is RPG 101!

As nice as it might be to see Force as a glass cannon class, you might want to note that Force has almost always done the lowest damage. The only exceptions seem to be certain private servers of PSO where they doubled the power of element augmenting weapons and apparently PSZ, which I have not played enough to comment on.

Of course, it is tough to justify high damage, high healing, and being able to buff everyone else at the highest level, even with ridiculously low HP. And that is why I suggested splitting it into a damage and a support class.

yoshiblue
Jun 21, 2011, 04:00 PM
Hmm kefka forces

Randomness
Jun 21, 2011, 06:33 PM
As nice as it might be to see Force as a glass cannon class, you might want to note that Force has almost always done the lowest damage. The only exceptions seem to be certain private servers of PSO where they doubled the power of element augmenting weapons and apparently PSZ, which I have not played enough to comment on.

Of course, it is tough to justify high damage, high healing, and being able to buff everyone else at the highest level, even with ridiculously low HP. And that is why I suggested splitting it into a damage and a support class.

FOs were easily the most potent damage sources at a few points in PSU... the one that comes to mind is pre-nerf Dambarta. It made hunters obsolete while it lasted.

It's a good point that FOs have to be balanced around their insane support abilities (Resta, Shifta, Deband, Reverser, all in all, the first FO added to a group increases the combat ability of the group by miles, even if latter ones do not). I can see doing a split. One class with nukes and limited (Very-short range or self-heals only) support, and another with minimal AoE nuking but full on SDJZ hyper-support mode.

Akaimizu
Jun 21, 2011, 07:42 PM
Ok. MP3 song made. Had to be done. Here it is. The Parody musical of this topic title. Just how it reads. John Lennon Style.

https://files.me.com/akaimizu/jio7k3.mp3

But on a serious note. I kind of like the idea of splitting the forces if only because the split is done in other games that actually managed to get the spell-casting style classes to balance well into the game. Healers and party buffers usually were not much for fast damage. They kind of depended on the party for fast progress, but they were also a crucial part of supporting the party. Then again, the games were also made in such a way that support abilities and spells were a pretty strong aid in battle. Strong enough to make any party a deal better than they were without them. Of course, the cost of a support class usually means they kind of suck solo against strong enemies and bosses, but absolutely kill (in terms of usefulness) in a group.

Then there's another alternative that is to do a sort of Blizzard style balancing agent, if they want to keep forces utilizing both sides. Which usually means to give them the ability to cast truly devastating spells, but with a large enough cooldown that they can't effectively solo those big gigantic attacks. So they suffer a bit soloing in areas, but then become crucial in that (everybody protect the techer) fashion so that they can do their big work. So Hunters and/or rangers can pin down enemies for some bigger techs that greatly help everybody else down the enemies faster or kill weaker ones outright. That would change the feel a bit. Hard to say how people would take to that when in reality, they would be balanced as a great at both sides kind of class but requiring good group play to gain that effectiveness. It'll also keep them as that *advanced* class in which it's a bit of a struggle in the beginning, but with a major big payoff, for the work, later in the game.

Darki
Jun 21, 2011, 07:55 PM
FOs were easily the most potent damage sources at a few points in PSU... the one that comes to mind is pre-nerf Dambarta. It made hunters obsolete while it lasted.

It's a good point that FOs have to be balanced around their insane support abilities (Resta, Shifta, Deband, Reverser, all in all, the first FO added to a group increases the combat ability of the group by miles, even if latter ones do not). I can see doing a split. One class with nukes and limited (Very-short range or self-heals only) support, and another with minimal AoE nuking but full on SDJZ hyper-support mode.

The problem with that argument is that I don't really see support being that important.

Healing is faster and more efficient if you use items. Popping healing items is faster and heals all your health at least in PSU, and you can heal your allies too with atomizers. Same with buffs, it's true that buffing techs are better but still, you can always buff yourself.

Support is completely optional, and probably a party of 2 fighmasters and 2 gunmasters is going to deal the same or even more damage than 2 fighmasters, 1 gunmaster and 1 acrotecher.

now if support was something AWESOME, it could be a reason for techers not being as destructive as other classes, but still, I think there should be the option to be an offensive techer or a supportive techer. Because in my case, I don't like support, which means that for me the perfect techer is the nuker who blows a room away, not a nurse.

One option could be to divide techer classes into offensive and support, another option could be that supportive skills nullified offensive ones (like, if you use Resta at level 30, it will downgrade your tech power like a 10% or so). That way, if you wanna have support, you'll sacrifice damage, but those who don't want sill be able to keep up with it.

Akaimizu
Jun 21, 2011, 08:08 PM
Agreed, but that's mainly because they haven't really balanced Support very well. If they did it like some other games, where Support became a true tide-turner, (ala. FFXI or WoW), then I see a lot more of these ideas working, including mine. I actually want them to up the importance and relevance of support techs, anyway. If they plan to have them, they need to think about how they truly fit in the endgame puzzle.

chaoelite
Jun 21, 2011, 08:27 PM
dividing them is an ok idea but then we are making our forces like any other game franchise mages and that is a rather old and beaten dead horse imo. I think instead allow up to lvl 15 techs for non force classes like in pso and forces only can have higher tiers that makes forces unique and if you want to use higher tier techs then you play force. For people that must have diversity in their chars i would prefer pspo2 style job customization i never really got into the various classes in psu.

Akaimizu
Jun 21, 2011, 09:03 PM
There's also another idea of splitting the least applicable part of forces to a different class. I always saw Hunters as the general tanks and great close-range damage people. They should have fairly weak ranged at all meant specifically for tagging and such. However, if they close the distance, look out. They generally hit hard and get the true rewarding feeling that they closed the distance. (eg. No mistakes like making Uber powerful Slicers make slow (and deservingly strong if done right) close-ranged Swords obsolete to a long range weapon. That's the wrong class playstyle. It totally makes closing the distance, in some ways, an unsatisfying experience.

The Rangers being a less damaging fast ranged class especially designed to make things suck for mobs. That is, the mob controllers. So I think they would be best as the primary debuffer, trapper, and bad-status spreading class.

The Forces being the glass cannons, but can be helpful in boosting defense and survivability of the party, including healing potential.

If the overall debuffing was given to the rangers, with long range application plus damage and status effect assist, then the highly unused portion of forces would be balanced out to make the rest of what they have more effective. It'll also allow them to not give up balancing rangers as a support class and just make rangers the (other) damage classes. I thought in PSU it was a bit sad that they kind of gave up on their original plan to make Rangers good support for mob control and instead just tried to balance everybody into the damage role.

If overall, they make the Rangers the "sucks to be the monster" class, they don't have to be the damage people. They can be the Blue Deck of Magic the Gathering, per se. Plus, good debuffs are probably best if delivered from guns because the application you want them used on is by spreading the stuff on enemies as early as possible for the team to jump on them. The earlier, the better. And it's best if you don't have to close the distance to do it.

I still think they should take out items meant to do that classes innately do in battle. Mates, status effect removals and such, are fine. They were limited supplies meant to get one out of a jam when techs couldn't. But nothing that amounts to Shifta/Deband and such. Also not to recreate the PSU idea of getting more exp for the killing blow. This should be a community thing and the killing blow isn't a good measure of player participation. This lowers the need to make every single class the all around destroyer class in attempts to try to juggle some difficulty with one class gaining exp faster than others.

Rashiid
Jun 21, 2011, 09:03 PM
Didn't PSU have separate mages down the line?

I think Acrotecher excelled in support and Forcemaster(?)(no idea what the name is, I left before it was introduced) was a pure nuker?

I'd like that. That was the issue before they added that - Fortechers were both nukers and support, but any half decent one would be stuck supporting most of the time, but I blame Hunters for being so careless about their own health. That's a whole different rant.

I was a career Force in PSU and wanted to be one in PSPo2 but sadly they're garbage in that. I would be sad if it wasn't included in PSO2 :(

Black Paper
Jun 21, 2011, 09:11 PM
Join my group, the ANNOYANCe. poor name, but it definitely would suit your interests in the FORCE class. Invite your friends too. Great for if you all like to debate the best skill levels for forces, or if you want to continue the current conversation

ARASHIKAGE
Jun 21, 2011, 09:29 PM
As nice as it might be to see Force as a glass cannon class, you might want to note that Force has almost always done the lowest damage. The only exceptions seem to be certain private servers of PSO where they doubled the power of element augmenting weapons and apparently PSZ, which I have not played enough to comment on.

Of course, it is tough to justify high damage, high healing, and being able to buff everyone else at the highest level, even with ridiculously low HP. And that is why I suggested splitting it into a damage and a support class.

Tell that to any PSU Masterforce and let them enlighten you with Limit Break Diga on Ragan.


THIS, IS A SORCERER'S GOWN!
That's a running joke I have with one of my FO friends, I call it a dress he calls it his "death shroud". lol

Darki
Jun 21, 2011, 09:40 PM
Tell that to any PSU Masterforce and let them enlighten you with Limit Break Diga on Ragan.

The problem is, actually, that to do that as you said you gotta get the LB, while a Fighmaster with cheapo weapons can easily get to that level of DPS.

High-end forces, of course, are awesome, but the problem is that while you're not a high-end Force, you suck more than any other class. Even a Newman Fighmaster with good gear can pull decent damage, but try doing that, for example, with a Beast/CAST Masterforce (yes, I know they're not the classes they excel in, but then why do they let them to be those classes? if the option is given, there should be at least a reason to do so).

Another thing is that melee and even guns in PSU are a more dynamic style than TECHs. Even if your damage suck, if you play well your cards you can at least bash your enemies and keep them busy with your attacks, the difference between a newman and a beast playing a hunter class is that the newman will have to do a bit more combos. But the opposite side doesn't happen. While fighting evolved from PSO's slow-boring style to PSU's dinamic skills, techs are the same.

When I think about this it always comes to my mind the style wizards use in Cabal Online, where you have combos and magic has some knockback effects that keep monsters at place.

RemiusTA
Jun 21, 2011, 09:53 PM
FOs were easily the most potent damage sources at a few points in PSU... the one that comes to mind is pre-nerf Dambarta. It made hunters obsolete while it lasted.



Ahhhahaha

Man, that was so brief it wasn't even worth mentioning...

But they need to rethink the class, seriously. I dont want a shitty class like PSP2 forces. It makes the game unfun for me. I dont want a broken class like PSZ forces, which makes the game unfun for others. I want a balanced class that nukes up the field.


Tell that to any PSU Masterforce and let them enlighten you with Limit Break Diga on Ragan.Like i keep saying, you shouldn't have to get to endgame status with maxed out EXP, Technics and a pallete of S-ranks for your class to become decent. PSU forces are boo-boo.

Akaimizu
Jun 21, 2011, 10:18 PM
Sounds like the techer-hybrids as well. They all required grinding to end-game everything.

ARASHIKAGE
Jun 21, 2011, 11:01 PM
While fighting evolved from PSO's slow-boring style to PSU's dinamic skills, techs are the same.

That's a really good point I hadn't thought of...
Other than adding Dam-techs and subtracting Grants, the Force spell cast style didn't change much from PSO to PSU (and Megiverse). This begs the question that a few of us are wondering; will tech casting go through an overhaul in PSO2? As a ranger I welcome the fast paced, third person shooting style I have seen so far. Would the FOs out there welcome a drastic change to their tech casting?

Darki
Jun 21, 2011, 11:32 PM
Well, we have the fact that in PsPo2 you can link techs in a combo, if I remember well, so at least we could hope for something ike this.

People seems to complain about the multiple techs that came in PSU. While I agree that most of them were the same with different elements, I don't think that going back to 11 techs is a good idea. People talks about how techs "evolved". But the fact is that while any fighter will have a crapton of weapons to choose, and if they add something similar to skill PAs in PSO2, you'll have a shitload of diferent moves, Forces having only a handful of moves is going to be really boring in the long term.

Something that was said, about techers having advantages from hunters and rangers, made me think that maybe the answer would be to "turn TECHs into ranged-melee combos".

Before anybody kicks/bans me, let me explain: imagine Foie, your basic fireball attack. Now, instead, or better, apart from "evolving" into a biggarz fireball, Foie as a Tech could gain combos. So first you shoot the fireball, then you do a swirl and throw a spinning fire wave, then you jump and make a fire explosion at some range.

So, techs would have the "ranged" sense of guns, but each combo would add a different sense to the idea, making them more dynamic.

Another idea would just be that you could link techs one after another meeting certain conditions like not using the same tech twice, or something like that.

Pillan
Jun 22, 2011, 12:30 AM
Tell that to any PSU Masterforce and let them enlighten you with Limit Break Diga on Ragan.

Ignoring the end-game issue, that certainly would support my "split it into two classes" point.

Polantaris
Jun 22, 2011, 01:31 AM
I wouldn't be surprised if Forces simply hadn't been really worked on yet, which would explain their absence from the trailer. Plus, it leaves you with content to expect in future trailers. No one ever shows everything in one video, especially when the release is far away.

RemiusTA
Jun 22, 2011, 01:50 PM
Im pretty positive thats what happened too, Polantaris.

Tetsaru
Jun 22, 2011, 02:29 PM
No Force class? Seriously? I agree that they need to be improved, but come on, it just wouldn't be right. You HAVE to have a spellcaster class in an RPG; there's just no way around it.

Some things that I think would help improve Forces:


Place limits on what players can buy from the NPC shops. One thing that I thought was fucked up about PSU is that practically EVERY shop in the game allowed you to buy buff items, a stack of 10 Scape Dolls, and large quantities of just about anything else you needed to keep yourself alive. In PSO, certain items weren't always available, and if they were, they were usually rather expensive. Also, in PSO, they had lower stack counts (10 Mono/Di/Trimates compared to 20 in PSU; Scape Dolls didn't stack, etc.). PSU's Forces lost a lot of their support usefulness because of this, especially after hacking incidences and when AotI came out, and meseta flooded the market.


Using items is instantaneous, in both PSO and PSU. Someone who needed a heal often would just pop a Trimate and be done with it by the time a Force was able to cast Resta. Again, limit the availability of such items. Either that, or make it to where items have a "casting" or "drinking" animation similar to spells, but I think that would distract from the action of the game.


In PSO and PSU, Forces have always had to stand still to cast spells. This greatly hurts their mobility compared to Hunters who have very dynamic moves, and Rangers who (in PSU at least, and now in PSO2, according to the video) could strafe and fire with certain weapons. I remember countless times as an Acrotecher when random party members would run ahead of the group while I was trying to buff everyone. This lack of mobility also makes Forces very easily kill-able when combined with their lower defensive stats. I think some spells, like Foie, Zonde, Barta, etc., should be made to where Forces can cast them while moving or strafing, or make it some sort of ability that can be learned or equipped at certain levels. Certain spells could also be "chanted" - standing still BUT continuously casting them for a significantly stronger effect compared to if you had just cast it normally or while moving, OR some spells could have a "rapid fire" ability to where you could shoot multiples of them in rapid succession (such as Foie)... these are just a few examples. Basically, just allow Forces to cast their spells in various ways.


Enemy hitboxes were stupid in PSU. Hunter and Ranger classes essentially had a damage multiplier against large enemies and bosses because they could hit multiple parts of the enemy at once, while Forces couldn't take advantage of this, even with AOE spells (at least, not until recently with certain customizations, if I recall, but I was on PC/PS2 and never got that luxury). Regardless of the size of the boss and the size of your weapon or spell, all enemies should only be able to get hit by ONE hitbox UNLESS they have different "parts" that can be brought down strategically (for example, Body, Right Leg, Left Leg, etc.), OR the damage should be capped or divided evenly amongst those hitboxes to prevent certain moves from being overpowered. There's no reason a boss like De Ragan should die in 10 seconds because everyone spams Anga Jabroga and grenades on it.


Don't link PA's to weapons. Don't force players to have to use Force weapons to be able to cast spells. Should be a no-brainer - you should be able to access and customize all of your moves however you want, because it's stupid to only be able to use 4 moves at once. I liked how PSO:BB let you set shortcuts to each of the number keys, and FFXIV also does this, except it has 3 rows you can scroll through with the arrow keys, and you can also set macros with Ctrl or Alt + the number keys as well. I would personally like to see these features, or something similar to them, in PSO2... or, if they have controller support, be able to set moves to something like "Up + X" is one move, "Down + X" is another, "Down + Y" is a third move, etc. There are tons of possible combinations, but that's been discussed already.


Scale spell damage differently than physical damage. Forces seem to suffer from a lot of DPS issues, so the TP/MST stat needs to be balanced appropriately. Also, certain individual techs need to do appropriate amounts of damage depending on the battle situation: Rafoie should do high damage to multiple enemies in an area of effect, Barta should do moderate damage to all enemies in its path, Foie should do very high damage to a single target, etc.


Finally, and I've stressed this before: make each job or class able to do something completely unique that no other job or class can do. I'm not talking extending the level cap of PA's or what rank weapons they can equip, I'm talking stuff like Protransers being able to use EX Traps, Fighgunners (originally) being the only class that can use doublesabers, CASTs not being able to use spells but could use traps and were immune to certain status effects, Master/Acro classes being able to attack faster - stuff like that. This will help specialize each role in parties and encourage cooperation for tough missions and quests. For Forces, I think each spell should do something unique like in PSO, instead of PSU's "tiered" spells. I had a post somewhere that discussed some ideas I had, but I don't want to search for it atm...

RenzokukenZ
Jun 22, 2011, 02:49 PM
Using items is instantaneous, in both PSO and PSU. Someone who needed a heal often would just pop a Trimate and be done with it by the time a Force was able to cast Resta. Again, limit the availability of such items. Either that, or make it to where items have a "casting" or "drinking" animation similar to spells, but I think that would distract from the action of the game.



Add a cooldown to items.

Randomness
Jun 22, 2011, 10:53 PM
Add a cooldown to items.

Certainly an option... but...

In PSU, forces could just drop Resta for any hit whatsoever and not run out. That was also part of the problem. PSP2 helped a bit, with people being less godly-immortal where a newman force could take the strongest hits and live. (And of course immediately heal to full)

yoshiblue
Jun 22, 2011, 11:08 PM
Would it be bad if resta no longer heal all at cast and just became a Giresta without the 1up?

Darki
Jun 22, 2011, 11:41 PM
And in what would that help making Force's support more useful? ._.

I don't think is bad that Resta heals a good chunk in one cast, in most games healing abbilities are like that. And I don't know what game is people talking about because it's not true that FOs are invincible when they cast Resta. 70% of the times I've been killed in PSU has been because I was too late to use the skill, or the damage I was getting was too much to handle. And I'm a beast WT, I mean that even being a crap class I have a good chunk of HP that other FOs don't have.

I think an option could be something I mentioned already: Resta and other supportive abbilities could also serve as a self-debuff, for example, if you use Resta you lower your offensive stats (phisical and magical) a certain percentage for some minutes. That way, you can have your weak-well-balanced FO that does crap damage because it buffs, but you can also have a nuker that can blast a room with techs because it doesn't do support. Of course, there could be a "safety" level, so you can actually have some buffs at low level without killing your DPS, but if you wanna be able to heal 3 times your HP you'll do crap damage.

Alnet
Jun 23, 2011, 02:39 AM
And in what would that help making Force's support more useful? ._.

I don't think is bad that Resta heals a good chunk in one cast, in most games healing abbilities are like that. And I don't know what game is people talking about because it's not true that FOs are invincible when they cast Resta. 70% of the times I've been killed in PSU has been because I was too late to use the skill, or the damage I was getting was too much to handle. And I'm a beast WT, I mean that even being a crap class I have a good chunk of HP that other FOs don't have.
Yeah, seriously. And even in PSP2, especially in PSP2, I get one-shotted a lot, making Resta meaningless at times.


I think an option could be something I mentioned already: Resta and other supportive abbilities could also serve as a self-debuff, for example, if you use Resta you lower your offensive stats (phisical and magical) a certain percentage for some minutes. That way, you can have your weak-well-balanced FO that does crap damage because it buffs, but you can also have a nuker that can blast a room with techs because it doesn't do support. Of course, there could be a "safety" level, so you can actually have some buffs at low level without killing your DPS, but if you wanna be able to heal 3 times your HP you'll do crap damage.
I don't agree with this idea at all. It's pinning down Forces who want to use their superior healing abilities into being only good as healslaves. Having superior Resta and support doesn't mean that they'd want to only use that. And if they keep Resta's healing based on whatever the magic-damage-modifying stat is, then you're going to just make the Resta heal less if you just use it repeatedly. Then you do worthless damage and can't even heal effectively.

And unless they keep Techs for Force-only, then that means that Hunters and Rangers are affected by this as well. And since these classes basically revolve around dealing damage, they're not going to do that, so that burden then would lie with the Forces, ruining their ability to do anything offensively. In the event a self-reliant Hunter or Ranger wants to use a healing Technique, they've just killed their own ability to do damage. This idea is just punishing anyone who wants to use support techniques.

Tetsaru
Jun 23, 2011, 03:22 AM
I know I make a lot of references to FFXI and FFXIV (although they're really the only big online RPG's I've played somewhat extensively other than PSU), but here's another suggestion that they do with their cure spells:

All spells in FFXIV, from what I've seen, have cooldown times after using them. This is pretty standard for any RPG, but each time a Cure spell is used in rapid succession in FFXIV, its cooldown time doubles. After using it the first time, you'll have to wait around 4 seconds to use it again. If you DO use it again, you'll have to wait 8 seconds, etc. Not only that, but spamming support spells tends to generate enmity - that is, the monsters suddenly turn their attention towards attacking you instead of say, the tank or the damage-dealer.

I believe this was a way of allowing party members to use their Cure spells more judiciously, instead of constantly spamming them. Or, if you were soloing and you were struggling to stay alive and having to heal repeatedly, then it was a subtle way of telling you that the monster you're fighting is probably too strong for your level.

Although putting cooldown timers on moves might distract from the action a little bit, it would also make combat more strategic. There needs to be a point where "press X to win" becomes "use this move first, then follow up with this move, let your partner do this move, then finish with this move."

Darki
Jun 23, 2011, 04:47 AM
That might work with some secondary supportive abilities. But I don't think Resta can be applied in that way. If you're getting mobbed, I don't see logic that you first have to wait 2 secs to heal, then 4, then 8, etc. If that is the case then I wouldn't even bother on healing, the only thing I'd do is waste PP/TP and time.

@Alnet: The idea about self-debuffing buffs was something really random, but what I wanted was just to pop a situation in which the supposed obligation for Forces to be weaker because they can support were nullified. As I said, I don't like support. It really bothers me a lot that people tell me "you heal so shut up" when I complain about the lower DPS of my favorite class. I'd gladly sacrifice support to be more powerful, and the truth is, PS series is one of the rarest games I've ever seen where mages are healers at the same time.

About the situation in which a damage dealer would be downgraded for healing, my question is: is that actually bad? that would mean that you'd have to leave the work to professionals. On the line of what Tetsaru said, it would add a degree of planification and strategy to the game that it doesn't have now. It would make you think twice to run away from the supporter because you're too pr0 for it, and would make people to rely on supporters for those things.

RemiusTA
Jun 23, 2011, 09:26 AM
Resta was never very spammable in PSU unless you were fast enough / still alive to use it, and in MOST cases, Resta in PSP2 was just plain suicide because of how pathetically slow it was. (and how quickly you can become damaged)

I dont think a cooldown for healing items is completely needed. In fact, i HATE games that use cooldown for everything to work right. All they need to do is make them not so easily accessable.

If Ryuker/Telepipes return, make them expensive to use so you wont waste them so lightly. (Ryuker = 25% TP or something) Make Di- and Tri- items expensive again. Dont allow the ability to stack 20 of them in a battle, and dont make them drop so damn easy.

The issue with PSU's mates is that you just had way too many of them -- 20 + 20 +20 = 60 healing items....but if you remember correctly, if you ever went into a hard mission, especially by yourself, it isn't uncommon to waste ALL of those, and end up in a position where you're quickly screwed.

IIRC those were the moments PSU felt at its best for me, and felt the most like PSO, where i was encouraged to manuver myself 1) NOT GET HIT and 2) Use the best weapon for damaging where im out of harms way but still effective. I remember this feeling most in the Cubo lab missions on PSU when i was playing X_X


Therefore, they need to simply keep the value of the healing items. Dont make everything so easy to obtain and replenish.

Alnet
Jun 23, 2011, 01:41 PM
There needs to be a point where "press X to win" becomes "use this move first, then follow up with this move, let your partner do this move, then finish with this move."

About the situation in which a damage dealer would be downgraded for healing, my question is: is that actually bad? that would mean that you'd have to leave the work to professionals. On the line of what Tetsaru said, it would add a degree of planification and strategy to the game that it doesn't have now. It would make you think twice to run away from the supporter because you're too pr0 for it, and would make people to rely on supporters for those things.
I'm for this kind of playstyle being implemented. Especially since this isn't really a MMORPG, and really more like a cooperative RPG that just so happens to be online, I would want the smaller parties to be much more precise and tactical in their playstyles. If you're going to send in a 4-person team to take on a whole forest or cave or factory or haunted underground spaceship, they need to know how to work together. Flailing weapons willy-nilly might (and probably should) work at first, but by the endgame, people should be well-oiled machines that methodically neutralize much larger and stronger targets intelligently, rather than rushing blindly.

The problem I have is that I don't believe it to work in execution, believing there to be just so much stupidity that my tongue rips out in my screaming frustration. It requires a level of competence that's probably too high for a lot of people, getting everyone killed. But that's me predicting based on nearly every random group I've been in in PSO and PSU, so YMMV, and it might not even be applicable if lots of people congregate into guilds.

As for cutting healing power if you're going to be an offensive build, I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I'm saying it's a bad thing to cut offensive power if you're going to increase your healing potential (which I believe was what you were going for in your previous post, and it's totally possible I misconstrued this). It sounds like what you're thinking of is a skill-point-like system? That seems to be the kind of thing that cuts off access to certain abilities or makes them stronger or weaker. Or something like an "alignment" system - depending on the way you dispatch enemies, you end up being more "offensive" or "defensive" or something else, which determines your available skills and status abilities.

I need to stop breaking this into an "offense/defense playstyle" dichotomy.

@Alnet: The idea about self-debuffing buffs was something really random, but what I wanted was just to pop a situation in which the supposed obligation for Forces to be weaker because they can support were nullified. As I said, I don't like support. It really bothers me a lot that people tell me "you heal so shut up" when I complain about the lower DPS of my favorite class. I'd gladly sacrifice support to be more powerful, and the truth is, PS series is one of the rarest games I've ever seen where mages are healers at the same time.
Ain't it tragic. I don't mind being a support Force, so long as people make it easy on me by not acting like idiots who run away from healing/buffs and not running blindly into attacks from enemies and blaming me when they die. As far as I'm concerned, it's not really an obligation, but it's more a privilege of my party to have someone around who would willingly take up that slack. Though the bottom line is that when someone has the monopoly on that skill, they should use it to their best benefit, which includes keeping alive meatheads who do all but try to get themselves killed.

But to the point: if there's a penalty on using support, then people are still going to demand that the class with the best support use it because there's going to be a penalty nonetheless. I don't think the problem lies in that Forces have the best support, but that they have the lowest DPS values of all classes against nearly every kind of enemy, which limits them so severely that they need to put up with people who think Forces are only meant to provide heals and buffs. If Forces could contribute more to the offensive game without totally breaking the balance (in that they have the lowest HP and defenses, or that their attacks cost the most TP or something), then it wouldn't be such a huge issue.

Darki
Jun 23, 2011, 01:55 PM
Thing is, I don't really see the problem with Forces being atomic powerhouses with support abilities. If you're healing you're not killing, but it seems like an issue to many people.

In any case, creating some sort of incompatibility between support skills and offensive skills doesn't seem a bad idea to me. As I said, that would make non-support classes to think twice before using them and forgetting about the party, while support characters would have to sacrifice some DPS for taking care of the party, and also it would give them a bit harder time soloing too, which I think is not a bad idea.

RemiusTA
Jun 24, 2011, 12:11 AM
I wouldn't enjoy Support forces for this very reason. Players dont NEED 24/7 support from a force...at least, they shouldn't. Therefore, Forces should have support ABILITIES that boost the surrounding team, and then also be able to fight on their own.

I hate support classes. They're boring, and i hate relying on them

Randomness
Jun 24, 2011, 12:50 AM
I wouldn't enjoy Support forces for this very reason. Players dont NEED 24/7 support from a force...at least, they shouldn't. Therefore, Forces should have support ABILITIES that boost the surrounding team, and then also be able to fight on their own.

I hate support classes. They're boring, and i hate relying on them

The balance in Phantasy Star has always seemed to be that Resta in the party was a godsend, and buffs were only needed for the hardest stuff. Of course, in PSU, having Resta support REQUIRED a force. Unlike PSO, where RAmarls and HUnewearls could cover the gap except for reviving... WT never got the love stateside before PC got shut down :disapprove:

The only good thing about playing support is that you need pay little attention to 90% of the screen.

RemiusTA
Jun 24, 2011, 01:00 AM
Yeah, but unfortunally it's a very boring thing... :/

Rangers in PSO doubled as a support class, IMO. They kept enemies in hitstun regardless of their damage and were able to apply quick and deadly status effects. Thats how forces should be, just in a different way from the rangers.

Akaimizu
Jun 24, 2011, 07:41 AM
Very different. The hitstun and status effects make the most sense as the Ranger's specific specialty. It greatly separates them from both the hunter and the force roles and gives them actual meaning.

Later PSU basically gave WT, GT, and ATs the ability to act as combat field medics. Even though, I technically was doing the very same even as a GT when they first were out. Before the tech boosts. In that case, due to the lack of survivability, mobile weapons, very short support tech distance and such; trying to act as a multi-role combatant and support unit was the toughest challenge in the entire game. It required you to constantly take risks, (keep in dangerous close to medium range of attacking monters while having low defense, laughable tech-defense, and 2nd to lowest HP), know that over-head map like the back of your hand, and swear you wish they gave you those drones ala. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.

Of course, that challenge also made it the most fun you ever have playing the game. IMO. So while there were easier classes and such, playing as one of them seemed like you actually were playing the game with the challenge that was *meant* for nearly everybody. Going out of that was just a more boring, simpler experience. Making straight Rangers the single button constant shooting folk basically sucked a lot of fun out of them and was one of the primary reasons why I'd gladly lose the speed and ease of the strong class to go to a class that just felt like I was playing Phantasy Star. So while a lot of classes got overpowered here and there. It seemed like the WT and the GT were actually getting the Phantasy Star challenge that the game was *really* balanced for.

What they went wrong, a bit, was losing focus on what classes should do what. What unique specialties a given class really should have. And whether those specialties even matter in the thick of things. I also agree that they really needed a few more Stats to make this happen better. Plus more systems that support more stuff to it. I still think Support techs would have a better place if the game was designed to make them a major factor of the game. That would actually make them seem more fun if they have an apparent positive feedback to them. They were relying on way too little stats, and too simple of a system, to differentiate the classes which left too many cases where one class literally over-writes the potential of another class because there's too much overlap.

NoiseHERO
Jun 24, 2011, 08:25 AM
So should it be like this? <_>

Damage: Force > Hunter > Ranger

Defensive Support: Hunter > Ranger > Force

Offensive support: Ranger > Force > Hunter

...

...

...

I dunno, shut up.

Tetsaru
Jun 24, 2011, 04:18 PM
So should it be like this? <_>

Damage: Force > Hunter > Ranger

Defensive Support: Hunter > Ranger > Force

Offensive support: Ranger > Force > Hunter

...

...

...

I dunno, shut up.

The way I see it, in terms of what roles each job should have:

Hunter should obviously be the damage-dealing front-lines job. They should be able to dish out and take the most damage. Seeing how jumping and aerial combos are going to be implemented, I also think they would be the best at "acrobatic" things, like dashing around the map, or linking combos together. I know that PSO and PSU never really had a "tank" role, but out of the 3 main jobs, Hunters should be most suited for that, if implemented. In terms of weaknesses, they should have the worst accuracy, and little to no support abilities.

Rangers should be offensive support - usually the guy who covers everyone else from a distance with a hail of gunfire. They would most likely be the best at their ability to set up attacks from various distances: sniping single enemies from afar, getting up close and personal with a shotgun, or somewhere in the middle spraying down machine gun fire. I could also see them doing things like lobbing grenades, placing mines, traps, and turrets, applying status effects to the enemy, and juggling airborne enemies caught in an aerial combo that was set up by a Hunter. Rangers would do the least amount of damage though, and their survivability would be between Hunters and Forces. They would also have the best accuracy.

Forces would be the best at spells and defensive support. They can provide the party with healing and buffs, or they can be their own sort of "glass cannon" by being able to do tons of magic damage to enemies in various ways, along with some minor melee abilities, should their magic run out. The versatility of their spells would rival Rangers' combat abilities, but would focus more on things such as elemental or enemy weaknesses, and taking advantage of certain situations. Their spells would always hit, but knowledge of what enemies to use them on would be critical - some spells might do 0 damage, or may even heal them instead. Using the proper support spells in the right way could also turn the tides in a losing battle. Forces would be the "squishiest" job and would require a lot of know-how to use effectively, but would by far have the best magic power and TP(?) to fuel it.

From there, I could see various other classes branch out from those 3, like how PSU did, but they would have to be very specialized and play differently from each other, and again, do things that no other class can do.

Darki
Jun 24, 2011, 08:19 PM
If only it was that way, I'dlove it, but I'd also love it if there were hybrids that worked well.

Pillan
Jun 25, 2011, 08:32 AM
I will go ahead and address the idea of a Force with higher damage with Hunter and the highest support. Ideally, you want to make the classes all have an equal usefulness, which I will call [damage dealt]*[time survived] = [constant]. So classes that live longer do less damage and vice versa.

So, we will start with Hunter, as it is the status quo. I will not go into details about it, since it is the standard.

Next is Ranger. Yes, you may note that they have about 70% of Hunter’s defensive stats. But then remember that they have range. This means they are hit about half as often as a Hunter, so they have about 50% more survivability than Hunter. And this is why they end up with around 60-70% of the damage output of a Hunter on a game.

And that brings us to Force. Force has a little less health than Ranger, but they have the range benefit once again. So ideally that would put them at around 80% or so. However, now we can add in the effects of increased support. If say Force buffs add about five percent more than their Hunter/Ranger equivalents and the team cap is four, that is a 15% overall damage and survivability increase from having a Force on the team. Thus the damage would be reduced back to near or below Ranger levels on this balance equation. And then they would take another hit in power since spells never miss.

That is why most of the time we see Force end up looking fairly under par from the pro-Force group expectation. The designers’ math generally ends up looking something like that each time, so I do doubt this will be an exception.

However, it is not difficult to change that balance by decreasing Force’s HP to less than half that of Hunter’s, removing their healing/buff advantage by splitting it from the class or giving it equally to all classes (through spells or items), and allowing spells to miss.


But other than splitting Force into a white and black mage and providing an improved version of PSP2’s customization, I certainly hope there will be no other new classes. Traps do not need their own class, as Ranger works well enough for that. And you can always hybridize the classes much more effectively (and more ideally) in PSP2 than any of the hybrids in PSU.

NoiseHERO
Jun 25, 2011, 08:55 AM
People seem to pretend they don't exist, but I've always loved acrofighter.

I hope some type of class returns that utilizes quick and small weapons, and has slight attack and speed boosts, and eva. I was annoyed when they took it out in PSP2 and just made that god class: vanguard.

But with the way they talk about extended class customization, I'm not complaining if I can customize the hunter class into some sort of speed and eva based ninja class.

Darki
Jun 25, 2011, 01:03 PM
I actually never liked acro classes because I always though they made them just for commercial purposes (to sell AotI) and they broke the game a lot taking roles that could have gone to other classes. For example, Fighgunner has all weapons that AF can use (save for Cards, that being supposedly Force weapons, AF shouldn't have anyways). If they had given S rank Slicers, maybe another S rank around, and the speed boost to FiG (and S rank cards to GT), you'd have an AF.

Don't take me wrong, I respect that people likes them, but I believe they could have done it much better by giving hybrids most of the roles that Acro classes have, and if they really had intended to add them from the beginning, they could have planned it better. For example, at the first release WT supposedly was the hybrid for offensive techs and melee, and GT the one for support techs and ranged combat. If they intended to add AT from the beginning, they wouldn't have made it so that the release of them made WTs and GTs almost useless (at least till now that they're supposedly "fixing" them).

I don't think this game needs too many classes. Seeing how PSO fanboy drama goes on, I would even doubt they add a proper class system, they'll most probably go with the fixed class+race system of PSO (I'd pay real money for them not to). If they added some sort of "secondary class" stuff like it was though some time ago, that could let you get hybrid, you could probably have your AF and me my WT. And in any case even if they do it not too well, they should learn that every class+race combination should be worth the try. I would leave the fast melee combat with single handed weapons to newman hunters, for me they fit the role pretty well.

Randomness
Jun 25, 2011, 03:28 PM
Rangers having the least damage makes sense, as long as it isn't pitifully low. PSO2 looks like we'll be able to kite and abuse terrain to avoid getting hit ever, so maybe give Rangers and Forces a tie (on basic attacks/techs, but I suppose Forces get the damage edge from giant death spells) in damage, and a tie in squishiness. Then have Rangers get mobility where forces get support skills.

Well, I'd still like Forces to be able to move while attacking, but make them have to stop for the big guns.

Darki
Jun 26, 2011, 01:59 AM
They could let some spells to be able to strafe, like the basic ones.

In fact, they could try to add some originality to spells, and not making them all the same. They could add fast, weak spells that can be strafed, spells that could be aimed like with guns, spells that are cast "normally" (making you inmobile), spells that can be chained into a some sort of "melee" combo, and even devastation spells that have to be chanted for a relatively "long" time and thart could deal pwn3some amounts of damage...

NoiseHERO
Jun 26, 2011, 07:35 AM
I would like a system like Lost Magic or Crystal Chronicals, where you use a combination of spells to make bigger higher leveled ones. and as you get stronger you can unlock more diverse combinations.

Like the basics would foie, zonde, barta, megid, grants

The first TECH you use would be the element and the second TECH would make the ability of the magic. So foie would be a piercing attack that hits multiple enemies, foie would be a quick hard hitter, and zonde would be the fastest and the best range, megid would be AOE or something, and Grants would be support moves.

Then you can unlock the next step which would come with a raTECHs or something, Then I don't know... The next level could be GiTECHS and after that you could increase your combination to 3 TECHS at once. All of those would bring even more abilities, that I don't feel like thinking of.

Maybe I wrote that all in a confusing way... Or someone already thought of this, iono. e_e

D-Inferno
Jun 26, 2011, 02:50 PM
Forces are clearly in the game. The two robed characters in the trailer are clearly FOmar and FOmarl(try pausing when their head appears/is about to be shown). And no RPG-like game is complete without magic-based characters, and removing them would spark an outrage.

In this picture, FOnewm and FOnewearl appear to be in the 3rd row, and in columns 4 and 5, respectively.
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/4730/i03058841305053132.jpg

Zipzo
Jun 26, 2011, 06:27 PM
You know what? Let me re-phrase that: What if the Force class was integrated into both Hunters and Rangers?

I remember in PSO that everyone (besides CASTS) could use magic I was a hunter and all I needed was Resta. I can't even recall seeing Forces until much later in the game.

A force class wasn't shown in the PSO2 announcement video so I began thinking, "Are they even in this game?" I'm sure they are but back to the main question.

Personally I wouldn't mind if everyone can use magic (including CASTS) but I want to know what everyone else thinks, especially the people who main Force.
I don't find this post to be very accurate.

Although hunters and rangers did indeed possess the ability to use Resta, if you wanted quick, clean ultimate runs through ruins or seabed you needed a force who knew how to S/D & Resta. It was annoyingly difficult otherwise.

Also if you were a hunter who didn't use J/Z in the absence of a force then you failed :P

Pillan
Jun 27, 2011, 07:55 AM
Forces are clearly in the game. The two robed characters in the trailer are clearly FOmar and FOmarl(try pausing when their head appears/is about to be shown). And no RPG-like game is complete without magic-based characters, and removing them would spark an outrage.

It might be fun to note that you can wear those Force costumes in PSU and PSP2 as well as long as you are not a Cast. So costume choice could very well be independent of race and class, as it has been for the last five years.

Even though I am more than willing to bet there is a Force class, it is fun to point out that costumes mean little, especially with the FOmarl lookalike in the trailer specializing in rifles.

RenzokukenZ
Jun 27, 2011, 09:21 AM
Forces are clearly in the game. The two robed characters in the trailer are clearly FOmar and FOmarl(try pausing when their head appears/is about to be shown). And no RPG-like game is complete without magic-based characters, and removing them would spark an outrage.


Outfits, and character's appearance in general, will be customizable in this game a la PSU, from the looks of the gameplay video and screenshots on the official site, as well as quoted from one of Sakai's interviews.

However, any game that calls itself a fantasy RPG must have a melee character, a ranged character, and a spellcasting character as they are essentially the staples of the genre.

So obviously, Forces are in.

Strider_M
Jun 30, 2011, 10:53 PM
Well even though the subject of this thread is "No force class", I'm very certain that there are forces in this game. However I see many people just pointing out that having no forces isn't a possibility without even addressing the idea of both Hunters and Rangers having all the force techniques.

So I hope the poll is reflecting people's answer correctly...

But my idea however was based on everyone being able to achieve advanced force powers but could also sub as a Hunter or Force.

But forget all that. New question concerning the "I somewhat like this idea" option from the poll: Since forces are almost certain are going to be included in this game, would you like it if Hunter/Rangers also had force powers to the same extent as they did in PSO?

Kent
Jun 30, 2011, 11:18 PM
But forget all that. New question concerning the "I somewhat like this idea" option from the poll: Since forces are almost certain are going to be included in this game, would you like it if Hunter/Rangers also had force powers to the same extent as they did in PSO?
Considering that PSU's technique limitations only came about as a result of its idiotic technique-binding system, I expect (human and newman) Hunters and Rangers to have some breadth of technique capability, but obviously not as much as Forces. After all, technique capability is one of the key advantages to not playing as an android in the first place - if someone is unable to use them at all due to their class, they might as well limit Hunters and Rangers to being android-only.

D-Inferno
Jul 3, 2011, 07:07 AM
I never played PSU much, but I know that in PSO, a Force's techniques made those of Hunter and Ranger's useless, meaning HUcasts, RAcasts, and one Force were always the best team. Although techniques do help a Hunter and Ranger in solo, multiplayer is what Phantasy Star Online is all about.

Again, I'm not sure how Humans compared to Newmans, Beasts, and CASTS in PSU though.

NoiseHERO
Jul 3, 2011, 07:11 AM
Multi-player is the whole point of a lot of online games, that doesn't stop people from smothering the concept of solo play.

isn't it called solo play because you're playing alone in a multiplayer choiced game? other wise it wouldn't be called solo play, it'd just be called playing the game!!

durrrrrr!!!

i don't say "herp derp!! i'm solo playing zelda ocarina of time!!"

Checkmate
Jul 4, 2011, 04:16 AM
Hasn't Phantasy Star's formula, no matter what the game/platform, always been Shooter/Slasher/Caster/Hybrid?? Why would that change now? What is the point of this thread other than mass hysteria and speculation? Why am I posting here?

Ooooooh! Squirrel!

/chase

w8... wut?

RemiusTA
Jul 4, 2011, 02:31 PM
PSO did technique balancing pretty well, IMO.

All humans/newmans had access to pretty much all techniques except Reverser, Grants and Megid. More support-tilted humans had access of techniques up to lv 16, while all newmans had access to techniques up to Lv20.

Forces, on the other hand, were given all techniques of all levels (Lv26 being the final evolution of the technique, and obviously being the fastest, strongest and coolest looking), had much higher MST for damage, and above all else had class damage multipliers for their damage. This was a big factor in balancing the seperate force classes.

Fomar had the fastest casting animations, Fomarl was the best support (and thus had the strongest Grants) along with the best weapon capabilities, Fonewearl had the highest damage numbers (due to basic spell multipliers) and strongest Megid (auto-pierce), while Fonewm had the greatest crowd control. (Multiplers on all normal and advanced techniques)

PSU featured NOTHING of this type of balancing -- everything was stat based, which is why balancing failed in most cases, because the TP and DEF stat accounted for shit. Each class and race shared the exact same animations.

D-Inferno
Jul 4, 2011, 03:14 PM
Attack techniques were terrible on Ultimate however; except for when in solo/single player(where enemy stats are lower). And as I said earlier, when a Force with 21+ techniques is in the party, their support techs render the Hunter and Ranger's techniques useless. HUnewearl and RAmarl can be interesting substitutes for the Forces though, but HUmar and RAmar are not only missing some of the support spells, but their Resta is extremely weak. HUmar's lack of S/D is another reason why the class is so disliked, such as in stituations where the entire party is HUmars and CASTs.

In Single player mode, as well as Normal through Very Hard, HU/RA techniques are actually useful though, since I'm pretty sure that Lv16+ technique disks only drop in Ultimate.

And the individual tech boosts really wasn't that great of an idea honestly. FOmar got the short end of the stick with only Gi boosts(weaker than Ras in N-VH, useless altogether in Ultimate) and a Grants boost(too bad 90% of Ultimate has like 70+ ELT). FOmarl was a good supporter, but as stated earlier, Grants is trash in Ultimate. FOnewm, being the supposed "black mage", is rendered the worst thanks to stupid resistances in mutlimode. FOnewearl isn't mech different from FOmarl, though the Megid pierce can be obtained with a Demonic Fork on the others.

PSZ's tech boosts seemed alright, and I wouldn't be suprised if they went the PSZ route with PSO2. It seems like they want FOnewm to be the primary magic attacker rather than FOnewearl, though the Universe games has females with higher TEC(difference is small I think though). I'm not sure which one of the two will be the better technique attacker in PSO2, though I will use FOnewm regardless.

ARASHIKAGE
Jul 4, 2011, 04:03 PM
I enjoyed many things about PSZ like the tech charging by holding down the button. That's nice because it adds AoE to your tech without filling up an extra button slot.
What I disliked about PSZ techs was that RAs got Jellen Zalure, while HUs got the Shifta Deband. This irritated me because rangers shouldn't have to walk up close to an enemy to use their status tech, that's idiotic.

I enjoyed PSU's use of Dark Techs and how we had more than just Megid. But above all Megid could do serious damage and it wasn't just a one hit K.O. gamble.
What I disliked about PSUs techs (in the interest of time I'll pick one) was no Grants. -_- The enemies had all kinds of Grants, but it was strangely absent from the brilliant minds of our techers. I sure hope Grants makes a big come back in PSO2.

Edit: Oops I forgot about Regrant... There was one light tech in PSU (and I hear it's being used to murder Mother Brain now days).

NegaTsukasa
Jul 5, 2011, 03:02 AM
Forces have been more recognized, at least in the early days of PSO, as more of a supporting class that can get teams out of tight niches when need be. Though not necessarily a Melee based class, their variety in elements and how damaging and spread out they can be along with high level support spells puts a nice gap between other classes.


They will not go away. there is even more to it about this class then what I stated that would make it stupid for Newmans/Forces to be eliminated. Their role's fill a niche that's needed in the game and then some.

Dracheseele
Jul 5, 2011, 06:38 PM
What if they set up a system similar to psp2's Type-extend for techs? Let stats limit the power of techs rather than skill levels. Techs are just another weapon in a manner of speaking.

Forces obviously have easy access to everything. Hunter perhaps could have decent access to Gi- & Dam- techs as they're close range combat specialists. While rangers get ra- & nos- style techs. Maybe have some exclusive techs to each class as well.

Techs in general do need utility to actually be useful, S/D & J/Z are obvious utility application. But building enemies around tech usage could have fantastic results. Perhaps have an enemy that emits a fire barrier and if you blast it with barta the barrier drops briefly.

Omega-z
Jul 6, 2011, 10:13 PM
Actually, ARASHIKAGE the JPN PSU server's just got Grants, Damgrants and Nosgrants. I know finally, no word yet on the 360 most likely have wait 2 more years if they get it.:\

RemiusTA
Jul 6, 2011, 11:55 PM
And the individual tech boosts really wasn't that great of an idea honestly. FOmar got the short end of the stick with only Gi boosts(weaker than Ras in N-VH, useless altogether in Ultimate) and a Grants boost(too bad 90% of Ultimate has like 70+ ELT). FOmarl was a good supporter, but as stated earlier, Grants is trash in Ultimate. FOnewm, being the supposed "black mage", is rendered the worst thanks to stupid resistances in mutlimode. FOnewearl isn't mech different from FOmarl, though the Megid pierce can be obtained with a Demonic Fork on the others.

It was a good idea, it just wasn't a good idea to buff the enemies in such ways. Either that, or the growth of the techniques should have changed once you get around the level where you'd be using them in ultimate mode.

Grants was always trash to me, honestly. It was slow and took tons of TP for only one target. It just looked cool.

And i honestly dont know why so many enemies in the game had such high Light resistance when there were only like 3 or 4 ways to even deal Light damage in the game. (Mag Blasts, Grants, and i THINK J-sword and Heavens Punisher). They just didn't think very far ahead.

Regardless, balances like that need to return. They'll have a hard time selling different force race/sex combos if each type is only different because of their stats. If they dont give them different animations, or make their techniques different in some kind of ways (other than limiting spell levels), then i dont know what they'll do.

Anything but PSU's Wartecher/Acrotecher/Fortetecher/Masterforce setup though, please jesus god in heaven. Female Newman Forces shouldn't be the only ones worth playing because they're the ones with the most damage. I wouldn't mind sacrificing damage for some speed, or added range multipliers, or cooler animations.

ttdestroy
Jul 7, 2011, 03:31 AM
I don't even know why we're arguing about this, they're prolly just going to release a broken balance table and then patch it up over the course of a few months. Not that I'd mind getting the game earlier, it's just the way MMOs are released these days.

D-Inferno
Jul 7, 2011, 09:29 AM
If Forces get individual tech boosts, they'd better be like PSZ's, and not the mess that was PSO's.

Hotobu
Jul 11, 2011, 08:35 AM
Jesus Christ, some people have no imagination. "They haven't worked well so far so let's get rid of them and let other classes cannibalize their abilities."

There's plenty of super simple things they can do with forces to make them better.

Make healing items less effective and more expensive.
Get rid of Star Atomizers.
Let forces cast spells faster.
Give them a "get off me" spell cast (i.e. a spell that casts around them, stuns enemies and lets them get away from danger"
Give them a "slow" spell, that also prevents enemies from jumping. This would be great for rangers and forces as they could stand on shit without getting attacked and fire away.
Make the Atk/Def down spells (it's been a while I forget what they're called) ONE spell when cased by a force.
Give ice a better chance to freeze.
Let them cast flight.

And this is just off the top of my head. I'm not saying they should get all of these things, but any or all of them would make the FO class better.

Pillan
Jul 11, 2011, 01:21 PM
It might be good to note how you want Force to improve. That seems to throw Force more toward the support role while there are a number of people who are disappointed by the class because they want it to fill a more offensive one. Of course, those changes sound quite nice if that is the intent.

Nitro Vordex
Jul 11, 2011, 01:31 PM
Make healing items less effective and more expensive.
Get rid of Star Atomizers.

I'd have to disagree with these, on the account that Trifluids are expensive as hell. At least, offline they were.

Star Atomizers were great to have, if you needed instant healing for everyone around you in a pinch, rather than have to wait for the casting time. On the other hand, it might have taken you just as long to bring up the quick menu and select Star Atomizer as it would have to actually cast Resta.

Pillan
Jul 11, 2011, 01:36 PM
You really will not need to worry about Trifluids and such as it has already been shown that they are going with something similar to PSP2's PP regeneration system. So the bar will probably refill from zero to full in 15-30 seconds, depending on race/gender.

Hotobu
Jul 11, 2011, 01:56 PM
I'd have to disagree with these, on the account that Trifluids are expensive as hell. At least, offline they were.

Star Atomizers were great to have, if you needed instant healing for everyone around you in a pinch, rather than have to wait for the casting time. On the other hand, it might have taken you just as long to bring up the quick menu and select Star Atomizer as it would have to actually cast Resta.

Wow! Way to completely miss the point. First of all trifluids aren't healing items. As for Star Atomizers the point is that if they aren't in the game people can't use them as instant super Resta. The force Resta will be the only way of healing everyone.



It might be good to note how you want Force to improve. That seems to throw Force more toward the support role while there are a number of people who are disappointed by the class because they want it to fill a more offensive one. Of course, those changes sound quite nice if that is the intent.

Not really. Some of those changes are as much about support as they are offense. Faster casting = more damage. Flight = don't have to worry about getting hit (except by flying/ range enemies). A few of the others are offensive as well.

Also it'd be nice if some techs had a "knockdown" ability"

RemiusTA
Jul 11, 2011, 02:23 PM
Jesus Christ, some people have no imagination. "They haven't worked well so far so let's get rid of them and let other classes cannibalize their abilities."

There's plenty of super simple things they can do with forces to make them better.

Make healing items less effective and more expensive.
Get rid of Star Atomizers.
Let forces cast spells faster.
Give them a "get off me" spell cast (i.e. a spell that casts around them, stuns enemies and lets them get away from danger"
Give them a "slow" spell, that also prevents enemies from jumping. This would be great for rangers and forces as they could stand on shit without getting attacked and fire away.
Make the Atk/Def down spells (it's been a while I forget what they're called) ONE spell when cased by a force.
Give ice a better chance to freeze.
Let them cast flight.

And this is just off the top of my head. I'm not saying they should get all of these things, but any or all of them would make the FO class better.


I laughed at the Star Atomizer one, only because it's so random. (and because i never used them -- they were always mag food to me.)

The problem with some of these is that you're assuming Forces to play like they did in PSU, and all these changes might not even hold the same weight anymore. For instance, they may not need to cast faster on this game if they have some techniques with large warmups but extremely high damage output.

Hotobu
Jul 11, 2011, 02:33 PM
I laughed at the Star Atomizer one, only because it's so random. (and because i never used them -- they were always mag food to me.)There's nothing random about it. A group of people willing to use Star Atomizers for each other negates one of the most attractive team oriented force spells - Resta. By taking out the best healing item, and making other healing items more expensive Resta gets better.


The problem with some of these is that you're assuming Forces to play like they did in PSU, and all these changes might not even hold the same weight anymore.

...I'm assuming stuff about a game that doesn't even have a release date?... really?


For instance, they may not need to cast faster on this game if they have some techniques with large warmups but extremely high damage output.

...um yeah, and they could also just still let them cast faster. Nuke spells? fine. Why should that exclude them from getting other relatively quick firing spells?

vagabondkitten
Jul 11, 2011, 02:34 PM
I definitely wouldn't touch this game if it doesn't have forces. They are easily my favorite class. Though I'm sure they will, I'm guessing they are probably just the class with the most complicated gameplay mechanics, so Sega probably wants to work out the class more completely before they show it to us. At least that's what I hope...

yoshiblue
Jul 11, 2011, 03:46 PM
PSO2 can't be PSO2 without the three basic classes.

THLPSC
Jul 11, 2011, 03:52 PM
What if there isn't an online mode?

yoshiblue
Jul 11, 2011, 03:55 PM
then its a complete joke. lol

Darki
Jul 11, 2011, 04:01 PM
I laughed at the Star Atomizer one, only because it's so random. (and because i never used them -- they were always mag food to me.)

The problem with some of these is that you're assuming Forces to play like they did in PSU, and all these changes might not even hold the same weight anymore. For instance, they may not need to cast faster on this game if they have some techniques with large warmups but extremely high damage output.

I think forces should be more versatile and not to be locked for the third time into the same inmobile, back quarters caster role.

For example, those nuking spells could fit that role: a slow casted spell that will blow the hell out an area and do massive damage to many targets, but that would requite the rest of your party to keep the monsters together and away from you.

But I think it should be possible to chain combos with techs, and leave some techs that would do little damage but a huge secondary effect: for example an area spell that would cause knockback to all monsters around you, far enough to give you time to cast a mid-long cast Gi-spell that would take effect before they reach you again, etc.

Or some spells that could be strafed and even aimed.

Another thing that would rock if they did it right would be the possibility to chain combos with techs and melee, or guns in between: for example you use a melee combo that in the second step can knock back the monster, and as the third combo you shoot a fireball to the far away target, etc. Combo'ed spells could take less tiem than normal to be cast.

Games are full of awesome concepts already created, and it's sad that the only thing that never changes is tech-casting.

yoshiblue
Jul 11, 2011, 04:03 PM
If they had assassin rush(Fable) and some daggers, that would be cool. Then just warp else were when the mob turns around.

LK1721
Jul 11, 2011, 04:37 PM
In my opinion, Star Atomizers should stay but also be somewhat less useful. Rather than totally healing up everyone it would be something you would use in a pinch. (I.E. Someone's about to die, so you pop a Star Atomizer so they can get away and heal.) Which would still allow the Forces to play up their role for support, but not have to tail everyone spamming Resta the whole time.

Really what items could be gotten rid of would be the stat boosting items (if we're talkin' PSU) because that does downplay the Force's role of buffing, especially earlier in the game. On the other hand, those items are very useful if you solo and play a class that can't use techs.

As for attack techs, I do like their various attack styles for crowd control but those have ALSO been downplayed in favor of the ranger weapons that could do pretty much the same thing. I'm thinking to enhance the status effects, include some Force-specific skills like nuke spells, spell chaining, and perhaps forces can cast a spell no matter what weapon they're using (like in PSO) but other classes wouldn't be able to do so and will have to switch to a wand? Or perhaps other classes will have a significantly slower casting rate when not using a wand or rod, while Forces won't deal with this penalty. Which generally means in a party situation where everyone needs to be on top of their "role" a Hunter or Ranger stopping to cast Resta would be not only irritating, but also dangerous.

Honestly, I always found Forces to be extremely versatile and very fun to play in PSO/PSU/P2 (even though my RAmarl will always have a special place in my heart :-P).

D-Inferno
Jul 11, 2011, 04:48 PM
I prefer that Star Atomizers are like Resta; it means that Forces aren't as much of a support slave, unlike in PSO.

Hotobu
Jul 12, 2011, 03:05 AM
Oh, and how about exp for casting support spells? Part of the problem with many people is that they only see the benefit of something if it's got instant gratification and has big numbers attached to it. The truth is that in a full party Shifta is the strongest spell in the game. Giving everyone else the ability to do more damage is far stronger than any other attack spell that a force has. Unfortunately many forces just want to make fireworks, and aren't concerned with making the team better.

Oh and I just thought about something else. How about giving the other classes a way to boost MST? This would help encourage lazy forces to reciprocate with their support spells.

Akaimizu
Jul 12, 2011, 03:36 AM
Well, Shifta boosts are nice, potentially. It really comes down to the system itself and how well it supports that. If the time to cast Shifta only gives everybody a damage boost that doesn't give them any more benefit than if you simply casted attack techs, it does very little. It's made even worse in a system when people seem just as happy to pop in an item that'll give them full boosts in a small fraction of the time for you to cast all the buffs.

To a degree, I think that was one issue really created by PSU and such. Let's make the techer have to cast twice as many techs to boost the party, and give them a lot of extra support items. I kind of like PSO's idea a bit better. Make it so that the techs are technically better than item use for effectiveness, but have it so that the items work best as last minute lifesavers. (Particularly since in PSO, items can be used regardless of the player's state outside of incapacitation, instead of how in PSU, items are locked out, in some states.) In some ways, a good balance of item amount restrictions (and a lack of item-based buffs) would go a long way.

Seriously, the only real logical reason to counter-balance a class' damage output and such, is if their exclusive access to buffs make it so that while they buff themselves, you need to to keep them from overpowering other classes. So you test their output while they are buffed. But if you remove their exclusive access to self-buffing, it kind of makes the point moot.

Still, I don't think the real issue is having trouble balancing forces. It's really their issues of balancing the whole culture of damage. The very basics of risk vs. reward is where we want Sonic Team to improve, this time. That's all. If they go to just that simple very basic Action RPG 101 tactic alone, they'll go a long way.

If Hunter classes in PSU/PSP1-2, (without even taking into consideration of other classes) are imbalanced to themselves, someone obviously has issues of following the basic steps. A hunter, known for brawn, hitpoints, and *strong Melee* attacks should never ever have a sweeping long ranged weapon that outdamages a strong-looking (only in appearance) slow and short ranged weapon class. Slicers > Swords should not happen for a warrior-style class. Despite out-damaging a similar style weapon for Rangers. I don't care what RPG you ever ever ever ever created. That just breaks a basic RPG law. If you break the basic elementary risk vs. reward system, you basically kill your very own weapon balance, even if you are the only playable class in a game. So if they had trouble with that, I really think a whole lot has to be looked into well before taking the scant idea of trouble balancing forces into account.

(Seriously, I can understand maybe having a "Whoops" moment, when they made updates. But to simply leave things like that for so long (as in never fixing it), there's no excuse. This would be one of the exceedingly rare times I could say I'd do a better job if I worked there because this is one of those cases where it just feels like my exposure and familiarity with the genre exceeds those working on the project. And to be fair, a failure in risk vs. reward shouldn't require much experience to catch, nor be an action-RPG specific thing. There's enough people working for them that understood that in other projects, so it still baffles me.)

NoiseHERO
Jul 12, 2011, 03:51 AM
Instead of just star atmomizers I'd rather have it so that you could heal team mates with your normal items. Kind of like final fantasy and traditional RPG's.

*toss item into the air*

*party member heals*

I think it would be useful during emergencies... especially when you have no force, and all 5 of your star atomizers would be gone quick in dire situations/boss fights.

Cause yanno I like being able to heal my buddies without being a pseudo paladin, or a support slave.

Akaimizu
Jul 12, 2011, 03:58 AM
It's different in a turn-based RPG. When you decide to make a different class heal another, you severely have to take a hit in damage since you sacrificed a whole round of that class doing their job to do the heal. Made even worse since you can only do it to 1 single party member. And healing items where you can heal as good as a true healer were not common at all. True healers had the exclusive ability to do party-wide heals, in those games, as well. Most of the time.

It never really applied that much in Phantasy Star Online. Using items are instantaneous, and using manual dexterity, you sacrificed very little to use such items and keep on attacking away. Taking a none healer, to do a healer role, in a turn-based RPG, was something you really regret on doing because forfeiting damage for an entire round is a game changer. It was a necessary evil at times, but always painful when you had to do it.

Hotobu
Jul 12, 2011, 04:33 AM
Well, Shifta boosts are nice, potentially. It really comes down to the system itself and how well it supports that. If the time to cast Shifta only gives everybody a damage boost that doesn't give them any more benefit than if you simply casted attack techs, it does very little. It's made even worse in a system when people seem just as happy to pop in an item that'll give them full boosts in a small fraction of the time for you to cast all the buffs.



See this is exactly what I'm talking about. In every game in the series thus far casting a spell that gives the parties' non forces +20% to their damage is better than casting a spell 100% of the time. Not only because of the spell casting rate, but because hunters and rangers can do lots of hits in succession, and killing things faster means the party takes less damage. The party damage output increase, and other intangible benefits from high level shifta trumps the damage output from a single spell caster 100% of the time. It's sad that people don't understand this.

...and it's not like active shifta negates a force's ability to cast spells as well.

RemiusTA
Jul 12, 2011, 11:30 AM
It's different in a turn-based RPG. When you decide to make a different class heal another, you severely have to take a hit in damage since you sacrificed a whole round of that class doing their job to do the heal. Made even worse since you can only do it to 1 single party member. And healing items where you can heal as good as a true healer were not common at all. True healers had the exclusive ability to do party-wide heals, in those games, as well. Most of the time.Healers in most games are also simultaneously among the highest damage dealers. Lets see...In FF7, if you were using healing materia then your magic automatically goes up. FF9, the healing characters (Garnet, Eiko) were also the Summoning characters. FFX, Yuna was the healer, and once again the summoner (which made her one of the most OP characters in the game once you got Anima). Breath of Fire III, Ryu (the main character) gains nothing but defensive and healing abilities as you level up, but has the exclusive ability to use dragon transform (strongest in the game.) Final Fantasy XII, Ashe and Penelo were probably the best magic users. Their healing was absolutely amazing, but if you turned them around and made them attack with magic they'd outdamage your entire party.


The difference between healing in PSO and in most good RPGs is the time difference, i believe. In PSO, your HP decreases extremely fast, and thus the ability to quickly heal is pretty important. Also, healing items usually restore most of your HP, and are not very difficult to obtain. The reason RPGs require healing characters is because if the non-healing characters were left to heal on their own, they would recover damage slower than they received it. And most importantly, while the damage dealer is being focused on staying alive, he isn't doing any damage.

And if by chance one of the damage dealers DIE, well....you have a big problem, because now 1) your enemy has 1 less person to attack, meaning alot more damage is going to the other characters, and 2) he's going to be MUCH harder to keep alive than when he was just low on HP, because once you revive him you still have to bring him out of critical health. The Healing character isn't the only one that's losing damage, it's the entire party.


In PSO, when the damage dealer starts to die, he immediately pops a mate and keeps fighting, probably without interrupting his combo. The only thing Resta does in PSO/PSU is save the other players money/resources and stop them from having to run away, and save them time from having to do it themselves. So, if they want to make classes more relied upon, all they really have to do is balance the amount of time the actions on this game take to carry out. If a Hunter has to flee battle to be able to safely pop a monomate, then the ranger giving him cover fire or the other hunter on his team is going to be very, very useful. But if there is a force nearby, he can get back to health far quicker. And while the force is maintaining the party, inbetween safe periods it can choose to dish out some serious damage.


The force will need both faster (but weaker) and slower (but more powerful) techniques to use in case he is not maintaining the party. A staple of healing characters is that their defense is terrible, which is usually because they have a lower chance of being targeted because you can put them BEHIND other characters. Therefore, they usually are able to end the battle in a single attack if left to themselves. So yeah, the issue really is timing. Healing items and Magic don't need COOLDOWN times, but they most definitely need Warmup periods. This not only makes them risky to use, but it makes you respect the fact that others can do it better/faster than you. Shifta/Deband/Zalure/Jellen should definitely be Force specific gimmicks, too.




Aaaannnddd finally, the biggest mistake that MMORPG developers make is that they base the ENTIRE game around the stats of the characters. You are COMPLETELY allowed to let a Force character nuke an entire field of enemies, but only if it doesn't work throughout the entire game. Perhaps their magic defense is a bit higher, and it would be a waste of TP to use powerhouse techniques, forcing you to debuff them and use faster ones. They need to make sure the ENEMIES are unique enough so that you have to switch up your strategy. PSO was able to achieve this by making the different elemental abilities actually function differently, so you are forced to fight different element enemies in different ways. But there are many ways they could do it.

NoiseHERO
Jul 12, 2011, 11:37 AM
It's different in a turn-based RPG. When you decide to make a different class heal another, you severely have to take a hit in damage since you sacrificed a whole round of that class doing their job to do the heal. Made even worse since you can only do it to 1 single party member. And healing items where you can heal as good as a true healer were not common at all. True healers had the exclusive ability to do party-wide heals, in those games, as well. Most of the time.

It never really applied that much in Phantasy Star Online. Using items are instantaneous, and using manual dexterity, you sacrificed very little to use such items and keep on attacking away. Taking a none healer, to do a healer role, in a turn-based RPG, was something you really regret on doing because forfeiting damage for an entire round is a game changer. It was a necessary evil at times, but always painful when you had to do it.

Looking at fast paced this game is, assuming your have to go through your menu to reach the item and hoping you'd heal your team mate in time.

I assume there's enough risks to make up for the traditional Rpg game "Turn" ESPECIALLY if they made so that you had to be within range of your heal target.

I'm not seeing this as a truly horrible or flawed gameplay element if it's just there as option.


Of course doing something like giving monomates resta aoe(which would make no since anyway because I assume it's a food ration) would be ridiculous.

Akaimizu
Jul 12, 2011, 12:53 PM
Mates as super easy to access and pop off, they really don't take much time. Everybody can work in the finger dex to pop off the item instantaneously, if they need it. Especially in both PSU or PSO. Especially if the player typically arranges the (insta heal) stuff to the quicker to reach place (like a ready-to-hit default button), and with fast finger dex, not even break their stride. And items are always allowable to be set in quick-action buttons.

Blue burst also being a major culprit due to its PC nature and access keys, you always have instant access to any commonly used item, even if you decided to set all non-items on the default controller buttons. Now take into consideration that we're talking about straight rangers and hunters, not something as amazingly diverse as Force or techer hybrids. They have a lot less to have to configure to the main slots. So there's no real excuse not to have nigh instant item access for your main important items for those classes.

Heck, as a Guntecher alone, I typically run through a mission with fingers flying 3 times the rate a hunter, regular ranger, or hunter/ranger hybrid class needs to do, just to handle the multi-role aspect of the class. And I can get to quick items, most of the time. It's a doddle for the non-techers.

Akaimizu
Jul 12, 2011, 01:12 PM
See this is exactly what I'm talking about. In every game in the series thus far casting a spell that gives the parties' non forces +20% to their damage is better than casting a spell 100% of the time. Not only because of the spell casting rate, but because hunters and rangers can do lots of hits in succession, and killing things faster means the party takes less damage. The party damage output increase, and other intangible benefits from high level shifta trumps the damage output from a single spell caster 100% of the time. It's sad that people don't understand this.

...and it's not like active shifta negates a force's ability to cast spells as well.

I totally agree with what this is for. However, it doesn't quite get rid of my issue with a particular all-stat boost item. I'm always big on Buffing, regardless. That's what I do as a techer or a techer hybrid, who is there for that job. On the other hand, the buff items have definitely made folks lower the idea for buffs quite a bit. Not to mention, the way powerful (even ranged-based) attacks of hunters being so powerful, they accomplish maybe a bit too much unbuffed or partially buffed. But this goes back to typical issues discussed way too many times, on these forums already. Also why people, in PSU, were clamoring for tougher and more resilient beasts. Anything to increase the benefit of support tech and percentage-based DoT attacks (so that rangers don't have to be balanced in as direct-hit DPS machines like the hunters were)

Edit: And because of recent news showing Forces, I'll finish this now dead topic with a song. The official topic theme song.

https://files.me.com/akaimizu/jio7k3.mp3