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Renvalt
Jun 22, 2013, 02:21 PM
Okay, before you shoot me down for suggesting this, at least read and consider this massive list I took the time to type out. It's a very long list, and I thought long and hard about how to do this without screwing everything else over.

When you read this list, do not - I repeat, DO NOT - use your PSO1/PSU nostalgia as a reason for why such-and-such would not work. Instead, if you think it would be a bad idea/wouldn't work, use what you know of PSO2's current situation to state your case against anything you object to here. I will write off any criticism which doesn't follow the above criteria as "ignorant" or "didn't actually read the list".

Because of the length of this list, I had to save it as a PDF document. Also, it's largely incomplete, and there IS room for extra ideas and suggestions from anyone else, should they desire to do so.

You can find this document here (http://tinyurl.com/m6pt239).

Before I let you guys examine this and stuff, I need to reiterate a couple things:

-I am not an employee of SEGA Japan, so any changes listed here will most likely never make the live servers.
-This does not include any changes that will come with the Episode 2 patch. When these things do come, I will probably edit the list to reflect that.
-This is NOT a final draft. It is subject to all kinds of scrutiny, and I can change and edit it as I please.
-I am open to any suggestions, provided you don't "blindly channel" your Classic PS/PSO1/PSU "nostalgia", for lack of a better word to use here.
-These are all core mechanics changes. I'm not going to focus on stuff like costumes and whatnot because those are more for AC users, which I did not focus heavily on.
-While I did add stuff on Super Hard difficulty despite it not coming for a long while, we all know that's going to come eventually, so I figured "Why the hell not?". It also gets the fires of brainstorming and innovation going for those who like thinking of ways to make certain mobs easier/harder (because I do hear PLENTY of people complaining about how "easy" shit is in this game).


So without further ado, bon appetite.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 22, 2013, 04:16 PM
1.Monsters jump in the direction they signal, not change at the last second to where you are.

2.Skills are instant instead of releasing the RT button and then getting him. You release the button before getting hit so the skill must go off first too.

3.Balance out defense, very hard is unfortunately living up to its name especially in the limited quest area where plenty of things can kill in one or two hits.

4.Sometimes when you are hit you freeze in place, you can press dodge when hit but it doesn't dodge, and then the other thing hits causing a freeze reset, so you stand there just taking hits and dying. To address this no more chain stun attacks from monsters and can dodge at any time.

5. You are just as fast without a weapon when it is drawn

6. Monsters can jump, and that's a problem. The entire point of going to a higher plane is to hit them from a vantage point, you don't jump up to an incline because you want to be on a level plane as them after all. Others can jump really far, so you bleed less damage out of them before they reach you. Takes far less damage jumping to you than it does plodding toward you taking hits. Also gilneas jumps behind box covers.

I read the document and and the rockbear roll will only work if there are enough jumpable obstacles and he's slow enough to dodge.

Fang banthers also have enough range as it is they turn fast so if you dodge you still need to get in some attacks before it turns.

The problem with sequential lunge attacks is if you dodge you have a great chance of being hit anyway. Dodge does not mean take damage, the point is preventing it.

As is many enemy charge times calibrate to when you get up so there would be no chance of dodging if it is reduced a little, but reduced too much they fire before you get up =)

The wolgahda not stopping until it hits something isn't a well thought idea because it can hit many times before invincibility frames activate, and only needs two to kill.

Shadowth117
Jun 22, 2013, 06:44 PM
I'll have to look at this more in depth later, but something I wanted to say was that for certain attacks, you shouldn't have their behavior utterly change on higher difficulties. Mostly, the guwanada grab shouldn't suddenly change to disallow players to break out of it. It seems wrong for a grapple move to teach players they can break out of it only to remove that ability later.

A lot of this looks pretty good though I notice with the client orders there is quite a focus on the lower level ones. To an extent this makes sense, but it would have been interesting to see others played around with. Ex. Add titles for clearing a time attack mission under a certain amount of time. Perhaps give rewards directly in the mission end for doing so as well.

Anyways, to put out some ideas of my own as is customary for these types of threads:

Unlock Darker's Den abduction as a regular mission after having cleared it from being abducted once. If the guaranteed rare bosses are too much of a worry, give them a normal chance of being rare instead.


For kill interrupt rankings, have a mission specifically for that particular boss or enemy (as this method would allow for normal enemies as well too) that takes place in the XQ area with set spawns and the requirement that enemies must be killed in this mission and the mission must be completed for kills to count.

Give no actual drops to these enemies, but have their drops appear in the XQ kiosk at the end with sections showing each area they dropped in. Players can claim all of these and they are stored in a storage similar to the shop rebuy place that can also be accessed outside the mission. Rares will have priority should players choose to ignore the drops for the duration of the runs and, if it comes to it somehow, will be deleted based on lowest star rarity.


And that's what I have for now anyways....

Tetsuo9999
Jun 22, 2013, 06:57 PM
I'd like a sprint button. Switch dash canceling helps, but it's a bit too much work just to move across maps at anything but a snail's pace. I think this would help melee classes to catch up to mobs before the ranged classes kill them, too. Also, not having a sprint puts gamepad players at a disadvantage since switch canceling is really difficult on them.

Renvalt
Jun 22, 2013, 07:20 PM
So only two people replied, but I have data to work with. So, let's do this.


1. Monsters jump in the direction they signal, not change at the last second to where you are.

Okay, I'm confused. Are you saying this should be added, or that this is a flaw with something I put up there?

2.Skills are instant instead of releasing the RT button and then getting him. You release the button before getting hit so the skill must go off first too.

Are you referring to PAs/Techs or Class Abilities? Also, I had thought about adding a little UI change on the Subpalette Editor - when switching tabs at the top, it automatically defaults to the first skill on the list (making it hard to switch - at least on my controller).

3.Balance out defense, very hard is unfortunately living up to its name especially in the limited quest area where plenty of things can kill in one or two hits.

Interesting. I've been hearing arguments to the contrary lately. Certain individuals whining about how "game is too easy, do this and this and this". I'm definitely glad to hear that Very Hard is, true to its name, actually Very Hard.

4.Sometimes when you are hit you freeze in place, you can press dodge when hit but it doesn't dodge, and then the other thing hits causing a freeze reset, so you stand there just taking hits and dying. To address this no more chain stun attacks from monsters and can dodge at any time.

You bring up a good point here - especially on Clones. As a Knuckle Fighter I found I could abuse Quake Howling's stun to easymode through it. What would you think about adding gradual resistance to stun for these mobs? I know on FFXI they had a few build resistance to it over time (and sometimes resistance WAS pretty high to begin with).

5. You are just as fast without a weapon when it is drawn.

Ah yes, the infamous speed reduction whilst in combat stance. Definitely annoying, that's for sure.

Although if I may add to this slightly, in an unrelated aspect: allow a hotkey to toggle between walking and running. I know that pad players can walk by lightly tilting their analog sticks, but that sadly is not possible for keyboard players. This needs to be changed.

6. Monsters can jump, and that's a problem. The entire point of going to a higher plane is to hit them from a vantage point, you don't jump up to an incline because you want to be on a level plane as them after all. Others can jump really far, so you bleed less damage out of them before they reach you. Takes far less damage jumping to you than it does plodding toward you taking hits. Also gilneas jumps behind box covers.

The jumping issue is something I partly agree with, but only on the heavier monsters. For the lighter ones that can't fly or hover, they should retain jumping. But yes, heavy monsters need to feel the pull of gravity, literally speaking.

I read the document and and the rockbear roll will only work if there are enough jumpable obstacles and he's slow enough to dodge.

Fang banthers also have enough range as it is they turn fast so if you dodge you still need to get in some attacks before it turns.

The problem with sequential lunge attacks is if you dodge you have a great chance of being hit anyway. Dodge does not mean take damage, the point is preventing it.

I forgot to add a disclaimer at the end, crap. I should have mentioned this only applies to fights in their natural arenas, where they possess cutscene intros. This would not apply to E-Code encounters. It's why Quartz can't use his background "Supersonic Swoop" attack that he uses in his normal boss encounters.

As is many enemy charge times calibrate to when you get up so there would be no chance of dodging if it is reduced a little, but reduced too much they fire before you get up =)

I see. I'll have to think on that. Thanks for that.

The wolgahda not stopping until it hits something isn't a well thought idea because it can hit many times before invincibility frames activate, and only needs two to kill.

Okay, I'll confess: When I designed that little mechanic, I envisioned a full party of every class involved - with Hunter actually using Just Guard and War Cry so that he could be the one to prevent this little gimmick. I failed to mention that conditions for him stopping also included things like Just Guard.


Next up we have Shadowth117's opinions....


I'll have to look at this more in depth later, but something I wanted to say was that for certain attacks, you shouldn't have their behavior utterly change on higher difficulties. Mostly, the guwanada grab shouldn't suddenly change to disallow players to break out of it. It seems wrong for a grapple move to teach players they can break out of it only to remove that ability later.

Yeah, this was a stupid idea, but I couldn't think of anything else. I'm hoping maybe someone else can one-up me here.

However, for things like Vol Dragon and bosses that actually DO pose a threat even on lower difficulties (since not everyone will have a Level 60 friend to carry them through each fight), the reason I did this was to make it easier for those particular players. And besides, this was also a way to appease certain individuals who felt there wasn't really any difference of difficulty between Normal>Hard>Very Hard>Super Hard.


A lot of this looks pretty good though I notice with the client orders there is quite a focus on the lower level ones. To an extent this makes sense, but it would have been interesting to see others played around with.

Ex. Add titles for clearing a time attack mission under a certain amount of time. Perhaps give rewards directly in the mission end for doing so as well.

Ah yes, this one actually took more energy to think of than I had available to me. I also focused on the lower level ones for a reason: the ones I focused on, people hardly ever do (this is especially true of Class Masters/Weapon Masters' COs, which are annoying to begin with).

And yeah, I didn't even focus on titles. I'm not really all that on them, but I figured someone else might and offer me some good pointers on that.

Anyways, to put out some ideas of my own as is customary for these types of threads:

Unlock Darker's Den abduction as a regular mission after having cleared it from being abducted once. If the guaranteed rare bosses are too much of a worry, give them a normal chance of being rare instead.

The complaint I seem to see the Darker Den individuals giving is not the rare mobs, it's actually the ability to be cloned. They'd like some exclusivity to that. Fortunately for them I already thought ahead for that one: make it so that gaining a clone is flagged specifically for the random version. For the non-random one, gaining a clone from it will not be possible (in fact, not even experiencing player-made clones would be possible, but rather just generic Arks Member Clones - AKA random BnB NPCs).


For kill interrupt rankings, have a mission specifically for that particular boss or enemy (as this method would allow for normal enemies as well too) that takes place in the XQ area with set spawns and the requirement that enemies must be killed in this mission and the mission must be completed for kills to count.

Give no actual drops to these enemies, but have their drops appear in the XQ kiosk at the end with sections showing each area they dropped in. Players can claim all of these and they are stored in a storage similar to the shop rebuy place that can also be accessed outside the mission. Rares will have priority should players choose to ignore the drops for the duration of the runs and, if it comes to it somehow, will be deleted based on lowest star rarity.

The problem I see with the second half of this is that it devalues the worth of the rares themselves. That's not exactly a move I'd encourage, as it could harm the economy and discourage other types of play.

And that's what I have for now anyways....

I appreciate your input.


EDIT - Sounds like we have another person to reply to, so I'll do so!



I'd like a sprint button. Switch dash canceling helps, but it's a bit too much work just to move across maps at anything but a snail's pace. I think this would help melee classes to catch up to mobs before the ranged classes kill them, too. Also, not having a sprint puts gamepad players at a disadvantage since switch canceling is really difficult on them.

Someone actually covered what you just mentioned, but you're right. However, I feel like it SHOULD be exclusive to Hunters and Fighters - after all, as you said, they're the ones having trouble getting to mobs before Rangers/Forces can blow them up. I feel like it should be a kind of skill that you could cancel with regular dodges, and also that it should have a super armor effect. I wouldn't make it homing akin to WoW's charge, but I wouldn't disable any pre-existing lockon effects simply because you used it. In fact, I think that the only time it should ever home in is if you actually ARE locked on. It should also be subject to the regular immunity mechanics (i.e. Wonda & Sil shields/Krabahda shells/etc.)

Well, anyone else want to add to this?

Valimer
Jun 22, 2013, 10:52 PM
I've only played about 150 hours of PSO2, I don't really know the mechanics in depth enough to argue about the very specific changes you have made.

I do have an opinion on a sprint button though. There shouldn't be a sprint button. I don't want to have to hold down a button constantly. Who wouldn't want to sprint everywhere anyway? I wouldn't protest to a walk button however.

I see the changes you have made are very specific, but are there any more broad or radical changes that you think would make PSO2 have a more satisfying or fulfilling combat game play?

Resanoca
Jun 22, 2013, 11:23 PM
I do have an opinion on a sprint button though. There shouldn't be a sprint button. I don't want to have to hold down a button constantly. Who wouldn't want to sprint everywhere anyway? I wouldn't protest to a walk button however.There is a walk button. Using a controller. :3

Zyrusticae
Jun 22, 2013, 11:30 PM
Well, I would counter that by saying that we don't need a separate sprint button, but we CAN co-op an existing button with a sprint button - for example, making the dodge button produce a normal dodge when tapped, but making your character sprint when held down (essentially the way Dark Souls handles it).

Also, you wouldn't want to sprint all the time anyway if it drains PP.

Alisha
Jun 22, 2013, 11:47 PM
a sprint does nothing to solve the problem of Fo's destroying entire spawns. the change that needs to happen wont happen because this game is f2p.

Lostbob117
Jun 23, 2013, 12:16 AM
If I had the ability to tweak something it would be buffing Partizans(A few tweaks, not big), Wired Lances(Haven't really checked out this but I think they're PAs need a tweak ;A;), and Twin Daggers. Those all can be used but there is no reason why Sword shouldn't be doing more dmg faster than them, swords should be doing around the same amount of dmg but at the same constant pace.

supersonix9
Jun 23, 2013, 12:17 AM
a sprint does nothing to solve the problem of Fo's destroying entire spawns.

but cluster bullet does!!

MetalDude
Jun 23, 2013, 01:12 AM
As a general statement, way more useful latent abilities and a very high if not guaranteed chance for weapons to have them on at the start. Something to make all weapons more than useful for just stats like what PSO1 did.

Ranmaru
Jun 23, 2013, 01:20 AM
If I had the ability to tweak something it would be buffing Partizans(A few tweaks, not big), Wired Lances(Haven't really checked out this but I think they're PAs need a tweak ;A;), and Twin Daggers. Those all can be used but there is no reason why Sword shouldn't be doing more dmg faster than them, swords should be doing around the same amount of dmg but at the same constant pace.

Dunno about Wlances but agree with partisans being buffed. I would rather have a Saber as well. Why do I have the feeling one day they will introduce Sabers but they will be harder to get? :p

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 03:43 AM
I've only played about 150 hours of PSO2, I don't really know the mechanics in depth enough to argue about the very specific changes you have made.

I do have an opinion on a sprint button though. There shouldn't be a sprint button. I don't want to have to hold down a button constantly. Who wouldn't want to sprint everywhere anyway? I wouldn't protest to a walk button however.

I see the changes you have made are very specific, but are there any more broad or radical changes that you think would make PSO2 have a more satisfying or fulfilling combat game play?

The only reason I did small changes is because I knew those would most likely be the easiest to implement (AKA take the fewest resources). I didn't know what I could do to "change the game radically" as you put it.


There is a walk button. Using a controller. :3

The problem is, not everyone uses a controller. I didn't want to discriminate and have walking be a pad player-only thing.


Well, I would counter that by saying that we don't need a separate sprint button, but we CAN co-op an existing button with a sprint button - for example, making the dodge button produce a normal dodge when tapped, but making your character sprint when held down (essentially the way Dark Souls handles it).

Also, you wouldn't want to sprint all the time anyway if it drains PP.

The thought I had in mind for the Hunter sprint was more cooldown based - a rather short one (like 3-4 second cooldown). Doing it the way you did it would be cliche, and not to mention it doesn't really change the situation of Rangers/Forces being able to get to kills first.

Which brings me to this post here...


a sprint does nothing to solve the problem of Fo's destroying entire spawns. the change that needs to happen wont happen because this game is f2p.

Perhaps instead of being vaguely snide and just bashing the game for being "F2P", you could tell us what this "mystical change" is that you'd like?

Because I can pretty much tell you never read my disclaimer points. You just replied to a poster above you without taking everything else I had offered into consideration.


If I had the ability to tweak something it would be buffing Partizans(A few tweaks, not big), Wired Lances(Haven't really checked out this but I think they're PAs need a tweak ;A;), and Twin Daggers. Those all can be used but there is no reason why Sword shouldn't be doing more dmg faster than them, swords should be doing around the same amount of dmg but at the same constant pace.

Can you be more specific on what you'd tweak on Partizans, Wired Lances and Twin Daggers? I know for Swords that I'd probably either buff other PAs to be able to compete with Overend/Sonic Arrow as viable PA choices (and not just in the damage department either).


but cluster bullet does!!

We were talking about how to give Hunters the ability to not lose out on spawns to Rangers and Forces, not continuing on this path of making one or two classes end up being the "Master Race" as some would put it.


As a general statement, way more useful latent abilities and a very high if not guaranteed chance for weapons to have them on at the start. Something to make all weapons more than useful for just stats like what PSO1 did.

I wouldn't suggest this early on in the level grind, but in the later levels it would probably be a good idea. Especially since we kinda lack variety in our items.

Slightly related, Forces/Techers have only one common unit set type (that being the Circuende set), whereas Hunters and Rangers get at least two (Brostol/Shouldot for Hunters, Tiltwin/Psymalice set for Rangers). I feel they need another type of low level unit set for Forces, just to give them more choices - because the Circuende set DOES look fugly.

Also, I'd give Wands a basic common 7* that functions in the same manner as the Zaxe or Full Cylinder (AKA a cheap, common rare wand that any Force can use - and no, I'm not talking about the Nacht weapons).


Dunno about Wlances but agree with partisans being buffed. I would rather have a Saber as well. Why do I have the feeling one day they will introduce Sabers but they will be harder to get?

I feel like they tried (albeit poorly) to have Gunslash be the Pistol/Saber hybrid. The problem with this exists in the two classes whose stats are best primed to use it. Neither class has any skills that help boost Gunslash damage, and Gunslash also lacks a Gear mode.

My suggestion would be this: Add passives that boost the striking (AKA S-ATK) damage of any Gunslash attacks (be they basic slashes or PAs) to the Hunter tree, while adding the same thing to Rangers, but focusing on the bullet (AKA R-ATK) damage instead. If you add more boosts to a weapon that doesn't really have any to begin with, you start giving players incentives to use said weapon.


It's the same excuse I was making with those COs and MBs I did such laser focus on - I knew they were things people either attempted or just flat out skipped due to being wastes of time to do.

I figured if you nerfed the requirements, it made the effort worth the reward, without taking the stereotypical approach of "buffing everything". The rewards would stay the same, but you wouldn't have to work as hard for them. It's also why I specifically didn't affect anything beyond Desert, as by that time you're pretty acquiesced to fighting and clearing stuff already. Same approach SEGA has already; I just took it a little further.

Valimer
Jun 23, 2013, 03:58 AM
Well, I would counter that by saying that we don't need a separate sprint button, but we CAN co-op an existing button with a sprint button - for example, making the dodge button produce a normal dodge when tapped, but making your character sprint when held down (essentially the way Dark Souls handles it).

Also, you wouldn't want to sprint all the time anyway if it drains PP.

Are we talking about a button that moves faster than the characters do now at full speed, or a button that replaces the auto-run feature?

In my opinion, sprint buttons that use up a limited resource is an annoying. Especially a resource you share with your attacks. I would probably never sprint if that was the case.

Valimer
Jun 23, 2013, 04:04 AM
The thought I had in mind for the Hunter sprint was more cooldown based - a rather short one (like 3-4 second cooldown). Doing it the way you did it would be cliche, and not to mention it doesn't really change the situation of Rangers/Forces being able to get to kills first.




So you're trying to say you want to give melee classes a gap closer? Why not just put a gap closing ability in the skill tree?

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 04:12 AM
Dunno about Wlances but agree with partisans being buffed. I would rather have a Saber as well. Why do I have the feeling one day they will introduce Sabers but they will be harder to get? :p

Partizans do not need a buff. Assault Buster OHKO's all trash mobs that is all.

Alisha
Jun 23, 2013, 04:30 AM
it may be a 1hko but its boring

Resanoca
Jun 23, 2013, 04:39 AM
The problem is, not everyone uses a controller. I didn't want to discriminate and have walking be a pad player-only thing.

lol Oh, you actually responded to that.

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 04:46 AM
it may be a 1hko but its boring to me

^Fixed just stick to flinging your pixy dust simple. HU/FI's like to get it done not take forever kthx

starwhisper
Jun 23, 2013, 05:00 AM
Put a 20pp cost to mirage escape or put an invisible cd on it so force can only blink-blink thrice in a row. Now force have to l2P.

Ranmaru
Jun 23, 2013, 05:12 AM
I feel like they tried (albeit poorly) to have Gunslash be the Pistol/Saber hybrid. The problem with this exists in the two classes whose stats are best primed to use it. Neither class has any skills that help boost Gunslash damage, and Gunslash also lacks a Gear mode.

My suggestion would be this: Add passives that boost the striking (AKA S-ATK) damage of any Gunslash attacks (be they basic slashes or PAs) to the Hunter tree, while adding the same thing to Rangers, but focusing on the bullet (AKA R-ATK) damage instead. If you add more boosts to a weapon that doesn't really have any to begin with, you start giving players incentives to use said weapon. <snip>

See, that's the thing. For such a long time I mained Gunblade because nothing else came close to saber. It also saddened me it lacked a gear mode. I like the suggestion gave though. I use sword now because it's optimal. If that happened I would use the Gunblade more. Now I only use it to hit flying enemies or when I'm low on health/keeping distance.


Partizans do not need a buff. Assault Buster OHKO's all trash mobs that is all.

I don't think that alone invalidates a buff. More like debuff AB a bit and buff the actual weapon. I don't want the PA (or rather, one specific PA) to be the deciding factor for how good the weapon would be. (Kinda like how Overend is for Swords, yet I would still use it [the sword] only because of higher attack) Also consider that I don't have Assault Buster yet. In that case, Partisan isn't as good as you say it is. Sure me and others who don't have it, have to get it. But that means Partisan's won't be useful to use until that time.

I mean, it's a bit cheap to attribute all the worth of a weapon to one PA, and not because of the wealth of options it can give. For example, I really like how the gunblade can knock up enemies with a particular PA. It's supported by the PA, but it isn't a gimmick. It helps me link to another PA (the striking PA) in the air. I won't spam it, but I'll use it often enough to combo. Basically it isn't overpowered. Overend and AB do seem to be. (Yet I would use them, I do want to get the job done faster like you say, but only to get the job down, and not because I like it) Basically, I want to use the weapon, for the weapon, not for a specific PA it has. Spreading options out into many different PA's would be nice. That wave slice thingy in the picture seems like a good idea. (Was that for partisan?)

I also think it should swing wider so I can just attack groups without relying on that swing around PA to do so. (Like it used to be in PSO) Also consider I may want to save PP and attack for a bit. How good is the Partisan in that point?

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 05:42 AM
So only two people replied, but I have data to work with. So, let's do this.



Next up we have Shadowth117's opinions....




EDIT - Sounds like we have another person to reply to, so I'll do so!



Well, anyone else want to add to this?

Also and it's cosmetic, but Joseph stands out far more than the actual non-human NPCs! When you look closer to an alien with pointy ears than another human you have a little problem. Yes, I know numans are artificial humans, but still.

Real aliens, that look like Motavians and Dezorians, instead of subtle differences with humans.

As bad as run speed reduction is at least it's nowhere near as bad as some other games, but still needs to go we calculate running dodges and think we're in out of combat speed but then find it's slow instead.

Rien
Jun 23, 2013, 05:44 AM
Note that Assbuster is only OP if it is level 11 and above

level 10 assbuster loses out to bandersnatch 15 easily.

(Dammit Banther Oran, gief assbuster already :C)

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 05:47 AM
See, that's the thing. For such a long time I mained Gunblade because nothing else came close to saber. It also saddened me it lacked a gear mode. I like the suggestion gave though. I use sword now because it's optimal. If that happened I would use the Gunblade more. Now I only use it to hit flying enemies or when I'm low on health/keeping distance.



I don't think that alone invalidates a buff. More like debuff AB a bit and buff the actual weapon. I don't want the PA (or rather, one specific PA) to be the deciding factor for how good the weapon would be. (Kinda like how Overend is for Swords, yet I would still use it [the sword] only because of higher attack) Also consider that I don't have Assault Buster yet. In that case, Partisan isn't as good as you say it is. Sure me and others who don't have it, have to get it. But that means Partisan's won't be useful to use until that time.

I mean, it's a bit cheap to attribute all the worth of a weapon to one PA, and not because of the wealth of options it can give. For example, I really like how the gunblade can knock up enemies with a particular PA. It's supported by the PA, but it isn't a gimmick. It helps me link to another PA (the striking PA) in the air. I won't spam it, but I'll use it often enough to combo. Basically it isn't overpowered. Overend and AB do seem to be. (Yet I would use them, I do want to get the job done faster like you say, but only to get the job down, and not because I like it) Basically, I want to use the weapon, for the weapon, not for a specific PA it has. Spreading options out into many different PA's would be nice. That wave slice thingy in the picture seems like a good idea. (Was that for partisan?)

I also think it should swing wider so I can just attack groups without relying on that swing around PA to do so. (Like it used to be in PSO) Also consider I may want to save PP and attack for a bit. How good is the Partisan in that point?


In my thread going over talent tree changes I give the hunter a gunslash gear. Partisan gear advance used to be there but I just give normal partisan gear a buff. Gunslash is also one of my favorite weapons in the game, especially slash rave and addition bullet ^_^

Partisan is a great weapon if you have speed rain because it delivers quick damage almost instantly and has some range. It is the best weapon I've tried so far against Vol Dragon and you can dodge during the animation if you have to so you can get in some damage before dodging, can't do with techniques =(

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 06:02 AM
"Okay, I'm confused. Are you saying this should be added, or that this is a flaw with something I put up there?"

You know the wolves? When they move their face forward a certain way they signal they go in that direction, but instead of going where advertised they go towards the player. It is already in game and can be a problem sometimes.


"Are you referring to PAs/Techs or Class Abilities? Also, I had thought about adding a little UI change on the Subpalette Editor - when switching tabs at the top, it automatically defaults to the first skill on the list (making it hard to switch - at least on my controller)."

Techniques mostly. You charge a technique, release the button, and the technique travels without that half second window to be hit. Too much potential for being hit while charging itself, doesn't need more.

And yes we need to make +10 grinded armor actually worth the money instead of feel like a needless drain. On a big vardha quest I got hit with the big laser and only had 18 HP left, and that is with level 12 deband with a few points to improved deband. A buff shouldn't be that necessary. I went on to win after destroying the rest of his parts, going to core, then using the zondeel/zonde/zondeel/zondeel combo a few times. Vardha is a fun boss, but nothing is fun about one hit kills.

"You bring up a good point here - especially on Clones. As a Knuckle Fighter I found I could abuse Quake Howling's stun to easymode through it. What would you think about adding gradual resistance to stun for these mobs? I know on FFXI they had a few build resistance to it over time (and sometimes resistance WAS pretty high to begin with)."

I was mostly talking about players but yeah, give some mobs gradual stun resistance, then reset it after a certain time. Same with players, since players have much less HP than monsters the stun resist for players activates sooner.



"The jumping issue is something I partly agree with, but only on the heavier monsters. For the lighter ones that can't fly or hover, they should retain jumping. But yes, heavy monsters need to feel the pull of gravity, literally speaking."

Yeah light monsters should have higher jump.




"Okay, I'll confess: When I designed that little mechanic, I envisioned a full party of every class involved - with Hunter actually using Just Guard and War Cry so that he could be the one to prevent this little gimmick. I failed to mention that conditions for him stopping also included things like Just Guard."

Solo still needs to be viable and people mostly only take hunter NPCs mostly, and even those weak bullet the wrong places or even monsters. Aki weak bulleted those little robots after all the parts are destroyed and sometimes the Guwanahda bits. So also change to NPC weak bulleting big bosses during the final area only and not the extras that die easy without it anyway.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 06:06 AM
a sprint does nothing to solve the problem of Fo's destroying entire spawns. the change that needs to happen wont happen because this game is f2p.

It is not a "problem". If a force spends millions of meseta buying and grinding a 10 star weapon they earned the right. There needs to be a reason and motivation for having a full grind (yes, ARMOR included too!)

jooozek
Jun 23, 2013, 06:13 AM
Put a 20pp cost to mirage escape or put an invisible cd on it so force can only blink-blink thrice in a row. Now force have to l2P.

why should only force have to use PP to use their dodge? step is more abusive - not only you get full control over step but its also way shorter allowing you to time it better to evade the enemies movement
if enemies will really get faster in higher difficulties, force will have a really hard time with their dodge if they need to get close (imagine floating continent with all the jumpers and dashers), sure, you can't get hours of invisibility but whats the point if you can't deal any damage? mirage escape is already shitty as it is

but i imagine you didn't really play thoroughly as force so you don't have perspective for such insight thus just want some "nerf" because you see that people vanish for 2 seconds and nothing hits them inbetween

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 06:17 AM
See, that's the thing. For such a long time I mained Gunblade because nothing else came close to saber. It also saddened me it lacked a gear mode. I like the suggestion gave though. I use sword now because it's optimal. If that happened I would use the Gunblade more. Now I only use it to hit flying enemies or when I'm low on health/keeping distance.

Gunblade has its uses I keep one on me all the time because I use it to activate switches out of my reach when a RA or FO isn't present. Also AB=Additional Bullet is godly for trash mobs. Being honest there are time when Gunslash can be the best weapon in some situations. You should try to experiment with what you have is what I mean. I respect your opinion on using it just because nothing else came close to a saber.




I don't think that alone invalidates a buff. More like debuff AB a bit and buff the actual weapon. I don't want the PA (or rather, one specific PA) to be the deciding factor for how good the weapon would be. (Kinda like how Overend is for Swords, yet I would still use it [the sword] only because of higher attack) Also consider that I don't have Assault Buster yet. In that case, Partisan isn't as good as you say it is. Sure me and others who don't have it, have to get it. But that means Partisan's won't be useful to use until that time.

Its not the PA alone that makes it op its how skills from HU/FI tree as well cause if you didn't have those AB wouldn't be putting out those numbers. Also you said it yourself you don't like AB that alone doesn't invalidate a buff either that's just personal taste. All the PA's for Partizan are good Slide In, Speed rain and the like. Its just when it comes to utility AB fills that pocket and gets it done. Also Over end is good for trash mobs yes in a sense, but you won't always be reckless spamming it on everything you see. I wouldn't use on one or 2 mobs heavens no there are other PA's suited to the task.

I was hoping for a better reason for you to give me other than that's its overall usefulness is utter bad because you don't like or don't such and such PA, cause back before those PA's were even given to us Partizan still held its own. Im not that person that just sticks to one PA and one wep only I play with all of a person who sticks to one thing and uses that 100% of the time is a bad player because he/she doesn't want to take the time to experiment to improve his/her game play, but that's fine in general a lot of the player base is like this.



I mean, it's a bit cheap to attribute all the worth of a weapon to one PA, and not because of the wealth of options it can give. For example, I really like how the gunblade can knock up enemies with a particular PA. It's supported by the PA, but it isn't a gimmick. It helps me link to another PA (the striking PA) in the air. I won't spam it, but I'll use it often enough to combo. Basically it isn't overpowered. Overend and AB do seem to be. (Yet I would use them, I do want to get the job done faster like you say, but only to get the job down, and not because I like it) Basically, I want to use the weapon, for the weapon, not for a specific PA it has. Spreading options out into many different PA's would be nice. That wave slice thingy in the picture seems like a good idea. (Was that for partisan?)

2H sword has its uses is pretty much the wep that is the most versatile wep in the game for HU because how it can pretty much cover anything.

Bird in the air? Use Rising Slash. Want a safe approach to any given enemy? Use Sonic Arrow. Tired of those stupid shield guys blocking you atks? Use stun conciddo. So has so many combo possibilities its a shame how ppl don't take the time to go in depth on how each PA can solve a problem we are to lasy to see. The general laziness we tend to have then asking or suggesting buffs we don't really need is kinda silly.


I also think it should swing wider so I can just attack groups without relying on that swing around PA to do so. (Like it used to be in PSO) Also consider I may want to save PP and attack for a bit. How good is the Partisan in that point

^It's good in any point Careful use of Just Guard and swing after using your just atks also builds up pp faster. You would only run out of PP if you carelessly use PA's back to back without trying to take advantage Partizan Gear.

@Renvalt Ask them to add way for us to change the prices int he shop instead of having to take it down in order to change it it is kinda annoying when I'm selling something, just to log on the next day to see it go up and down in price and I have to take down my item just to match price tags.

Ranmaru
Jun 23, 2013, 07:03 AM
Gunblade has its uses I keep one on me all the time because I use it to activate switches out of my reach when a RA or FO isn't present. Also AB=Additional Bullet is godly for trash mobs. Being honest there are time when Gunslash can be the best weapon in some situations. You should try to experiment with what you have is what I mean. I respect your opinion on using it just because nothing else came close to a saber.

Thank you. I always do keep it with me, I just don't always use it as a main method of attacking. I don't have Additional Bullet but I'll look for it. I am also open to experimenting with the weapon.


Its not the PA alone that makes it op its how skills from HU/FI tree as well cause if you didn't have those AB wouldn't be putting out those numbers. Also you said it yourself you don't like AB that alone doesn't invalidate a buff either that's just personal taste. All the PA's for Partizan are good Slide In, Speed rain and the like. Its just when it comes to utility AB fills that pocket and gets it done. Also Over end is good for trash mobs yes in a sense, but you won't always be reckless spamming it on everything you see. I wouldn't use on one or 2 mobs heavens no there are other PA's suited to the task.

I was hoping for a better reason for you to give me other than that's its overall usefulness is utter bad because you don't like or don't such and such PA, cause back before those PA's were even given to us Partizan still held its own. Im not that person that just sticks to one PA and one wep only I play with all of a person who sticks to one thing and uses that 100% of the time is a bad player because he/she doesn't want to take the time to experiment to improve his/her game play, but that's fine in general a lot of the player base is like this.

Ah true the skill tree can contribute to the weapon as well. I am also sorry I couldn't give you a better reason, I post what I think and see how it goes. I was wrong. (And I learned something). I'll also concede to this. I feel I don't have enough knowledge about the weapon's PA's to really give a good reason and may have jumped to conclusions. (Example, i'm wrong in saying it's less useful without that PA because I jumped to conclusions there, as it may still be good without me showing much)


2H sword has its uses is pretty much the wep that is the most versatile wep in the game for HU because how it can pretty much cover anything.

Bird in the air? Use Rising Slash. Want a safe approach to any given enemy? Use Sonic Arrow. Tired of those stupid shield guys blocking you atks? Use stun conciddo. So has so many combo possibilities its a shame how ppl don't take the time to go in depth on how each PA can solve a problem we are to lasy to see. The general laziness we tend to have then asking or suggesting buffs we don't really need is kinda silly.

Ah, ok you have a good point. I forgot to mention that without Over End, Sword is still a solid weapon because of these options. I also like using stun coincide and the rising slash. My point is that all hunters shouldn't be aiming for swords only due to Over end, but due to it's other useful pa's.


^It's good in any point Careful use of Just Guard and swing after using your just atks also builds up pp faster. You would only run out of PP if you carelessly use PA's back to back without trying to take advantage Partizan Gear.

Ok, thank you. That works. I like the back and forth here, and I would like to play with you sometime. Maybe I'd learn a thing or two.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 07:11 AM
So you're trying to say you want to give melee classes a gap closer? Why not just put a gap closing ability in the skill tree?

That was actually what I had suggested. Zyrus suggested one for all classes, however the problem with that would be that nothing would change as far as the whole "Rangers/Forces still killing things too fast".


lol Oh, you actually responded to that.

Is there a problem with that? I fail to see why you intended to troll or bait me into replying to a sarcastic response when this thread is for serious suggestions and such (even despite knowing this will never be implemented by SEGA, I still find it interesting to brainstorm).


Put a 20pp cost to mirage escape or put an invisible cd on it so force can only blink-blink thrice in a row. Now force have to l2P.

Bad idea. Forces already rely on their PP gauge for just about everything they do - no need to squeeze an already flat tire of air it does not have.

I suggest, instead, that Mirage Escape instead gets a slight (and I do mean very slight) nerf in the invincibility frames that it has. In this way, Forces/Techers now have to be smarter in how they use it. As well, I think making it a tad faster would also help balance that part out. Now suddenly you have Forces who use it blindly dying because they weren't actually paying attention when they used it.


I mean, it's a bit cheap to attribute all the worth of a weapon to one PA, and not because of the wealth of options it can give. For example, I really like how the gunblade can knock up enemies with a particular PA. It's supported by the PA, but it isn't a gimmick. It helps me link to another PA (the striking PA) in the air. I won't spam it, but I'll use it often enough to combo. Basically it isn't overpowered. Overend and AB do seem to be. (Yet I would use them, I do want to get the job done faster like you say, but only to get the job down, and not because I like it) Basically, I want to use the weapon, for the weapon, not for a specific PA it has. Spreading options out into many different PA's would be nice. That wave slice thingy in the picture seems like a good idea. (Was that for partisan?)

Exactly how I feel about that. Use the weapon itself because you like the style of it, not because X PA is godly and trainwrecks everything just because of it being what it is, and so anyone who doesn't use said PA is gimping themselves.

Min-maxers can still have their cake because a true min-maxer is going to peel through everything to find the most optimal way of doing things, but for casuals who aren't always that dedicated, make other options available to them.

As well, it also helps min-maxers because it gives them more data to play with, in terms of researching optimal combos/strategies/builds/etc.

And yes, the Wave Slice is actually Speed Rain. The tornado spin is Slide Shaker (also a good mob skill, not unlike Nova Strike on Sword - with Partizan Gear giving it more range).


Also and it's cosmetic, but Joseph stands out far more than the actual non-human NPCs! When you look closer to an alien with pointy ears than another human you have a little problem. Yes, I know numans are artificial humans, but still.

Would that not only apply to Hans as well? I mean, in a sea filled with whiteskins or purpleskins, he's the only black guy in the entire ship. We need more NPCs like that - it would help defeat a rather common stereotype in gaming.


Real aliens, that look like Motavians and Dezorians, instead of subtle differences with humans.

You mean like Raja and Gryz? You know, I actually think that MIGHT not be a bad idea. I mean, the furries would DEFINITELY like something like that (the tame ones, that is).


Note that Assbuster is only OP if it is level 11 and above

Really? I see....



In my thread going over talent tree changes I give the hunter a gunslash gear. Partisan gear advance used to be there but I just give normal partisan gear a buff. Gunslash is also one of my favorite weapons in the game, especially slash rave and addition bullet ^_^

Partisan is a great weapon if you have speed rain because it delivers quick damage almost instantly and has some range. It is the best weapon I've tried so far against Vol Dragon and you can dodge during the animation if you have to so you can get in some damage before dodging, can't do with techniques =(

Partizan Gear actually increases range on PAs per bar of meter. So in truth, Partizan is meant as weapon that has range, yet is still a melee weapon. It's meant to cover territory at a certain radius or all around the Hunter. Wired Lances are meant for control via gathering (or in the case of Heavenly Fall, delivering a heavy strike once you close range via default strikes). Sword falls between the two. It has more utility than the other two weapons.


You know the wolves? When they move their face forward a certain way they signal they go in that direction, but instead of going where advertised they go towards the player. It is already in game and can be a problem sometimes.


Okay yeah, that makes sense. That def should be fixed.


Techniques mostly. You charge a technique, release the button, and the technique travels without that half second window to be hit. Too much potential for being hit while charging itself, doesn't need more.

I always found that a problem with Forces. In fact, I would make another suggestion: raise the damage of uncharged techs slightly. This makes it so that charged techs are still valuable, but that you don't ALWAYS have to charge them to get your money's worth (this would actually make Techer stronger in this regard, since taking time to charge techs breaks combos - and Techer was, to me, designed as a melee mage).


And yes we need to make +10 grinded armor actually worth the money instead of feel like a needless drain. On a big vardha quest I got hit with the big laser and only had 18 HP left, and that is with level 12 deband with a few points to improved deband. A buff shouldn't be that necessary. I went on to win after destroying the rest of his parts, going to core, then using the zondeel/zonde/zondeel/zondeel combo a few times. Vardha is a fun boss, but nothing is fun about one hit kills.

Nothing's fun about one-hit kills at all - whether it's me or my enemy doing it. I agree - it feels... pointless somehow.

Though I feel like that laser shouldn't be too hard to deal with to begin with. At least not on the lower difficulties.


Solo still needs to be viable and people mostly only take hunter NPCs mostly, and even those weak bullet the wrong places or even monsters. Aki weak bulleted those little robots after all the parts are destroyed and sometimes the Guwanahda bits. So also change to NPC weak bulleting big bosses during the final area only and not the extras that die easy without it anyway.

The thing is, you didn't realize that Wohlga change was added to Super Hard only. Only really super-hardcore players are going to try soloing that stuff. Super Hard should NOT be made to be easily soloable - it needs to live up to its name somehow.

Also, I blame the whole Hunter NPC thing on the fact that Force NPCs are a rare sight to begin with. Nobody makes those.

But yeah, improving NPC AI is definitely something I'd agree with.


It is not a "problem". If a force spends millions of meseta buying and grinding a 10 star weapon they earned the right. There needs to be a reason and motivation for having a full grind (yes, ARMOR included too!)

Yet there also needs to be ample reward for a Hunter/Fighter/Ranger/Gunner/Techer who does so as well. Spending millions of meseta to gain the best stuff shouldn't be a privilege exclusive to Forces.


why should only force have to use PP to use their dodge? step is more abusive - not only you get full control over step but its also way shorter allowing you to time it better to evade the enemies movement
if enemies will really get faster in higher difficulties, force will have a really hard time with their dodge if they need to get close (imagine floating continent with all the jumpers and dashers), sure, you can't get hours of invisibility but whats the point if you can't deal any damage? mirage escape is already shitty as it is

That may be, but with Step you actually have to be smarter with it than with Mirage Escape. Working with Step actually requires you to think - which is the argument against Forces having a cheap dodge.

And 2 seconds is actually more beneficial than you may realize. Don't ever discount a second or two of time as being "worthless" - it might be the difference between life and death.


Gunblade has its uses I keep one on me all the time because I use it to activate switches out of my reach when a RA or FO isn't present. Also AB=Additional Bullet is godly for trash mobs. Being honest there are time when Gunslash can be the best weapon in some situations. You should try to experiment with what you have is what I mean. I respect your opinion on using it just because nothing else came close to a saber.

Why only mention Add Bullet and Slash Rave? Espec. with Slash Rave being a throw-only skill - that needs to go.

Ein Raketen is also a rather fast PA for what it's capable of. It's also largely ignored, as are a number of other PAs on this list (specifically, Tri-Impact and Serpent Air).

And that makes me think: Hunters need a passive of sorts to make comboing PAs easier. I mean, with what I just listed, I can already think of some good combos with simply spamming PAs:

Tri-Impact>Serpent Air>Slash Rave
Ein Raketen>Thrillsplosion>Additional Bullet
Tri-Impact>Ein Raketen>Thrillsplosion

Fighters need some kind of "combo gimmick" to make them stand on their own. As it stands, they're just glorified Hunters without all the benefits that make a Hunter what they are (i.e. Just Guard, War Cry, Iron Will, Defensive Buffs).

Fighters, to me, should be melee fighters that rely on combo attacks (and not just on default strikes, either).

I saw a good combo montage earlier, but I feel like it only covered a limited amount of melee potential. There's so much more that COULD be thought of, if only it were viable for us to do so.


Its not the PA alone that makes it op its how skills from HU/FI tree as well cause if you didn't have those AB wouldn't be putting out those numbers. Also you said it yourself you don't like AB that alone doesn't invalidate a buff either that's just personal taste. All the PA's for Partizan are good Slide In, Speed rain and the like. Its just when it comes to utility AB fills that pocket and gets it done. Also Over end is good for trash mobs yes in a sense, but you won't always be reckless spamming it on everything you see. I wouldn't use on one or 2 mobs heavens no there are other PA's suited to the task.

I was hoping for a better reason for you to give me other than that's its overall usefulness is utter bad because you don't like or don't such and such PA, cause back before those PA's were even given to us Partizan still held its own. Im not that person that just sticks to one PA and one wep only I play with all of a person who sticks to one thing and uses that 100% of the time is a bad player because he/she doesn't want to take the time to experiment to improve his/her game play, but that's fine in general a lot of the player base is like this.

The argument that was he was trying to make is that, because of how Overend/Assault Buster works, that the blindly ignorant crowd will flock to these PAs more. He was trying to come up with a way to give them less incentive to do that.

EDIT - Juan moar! XD

Ah, ok you have a good point. I forgot to mention that without Over End, Sword is still a solid weapon because of these options. I also like using stun coincide and the rising slash. My point is that all hunters shouldn't be aiming for swords only due to Over end, but due to it's other useful pa's.

There's also another benefit to Stun Concido - because it's a fast, short PA it can also cancel into Just Guard quicker, should you need to whip a JG out of thin air at the last second.

Ranmaru
Jun 23, 2013, 07:18 AM
I'll keep that in mind. I also like to use stun coincide to start a combo because it's quick. (Because the sword is slow xD) I still think that a wider range (normal attacks) for the partisan would be a nice addition, regardless of it's PA's being useful. I also never remember names of anything. xD Also, I would want the partisan to push back the crowd a bit to give me breathing room. Not like enemies just move in a way to gang up on me, anymore that is. Dem Evil Sharks. Or rather, since I may be surrounded, the PA that hits all around me could give some knock back, instead of just having them stay in place and I'm still susceptible to attacks while in the animation. I also think keeping it the way it is and just jumping out defeats the purpose of using that PA.

Although I will look into the other PA's and see how they help with crowd control.

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 07:40 AM
I'll keep that in mind. I also like to use stun coincide to start a combo because it's quick. (Because the sword is slow xD) I still think that a wider range for the partisan would be a nice addition, regardless of it's PA's being useful. I also never remember names of anything. xD

Umm I might have to delete some people from my Friend List I do have quite the in actives X3, but my ID is maxwell12 look for the arks card with Yuri on it and blood markings lol! Also im quite the tomboy so yeah lol.

@Renvalt Dunno if you saw it before, but could you maybe ask then to put in some method of changing your prices on items when selling instead of taking them down to change the em to match the market prices?

Ranmaru
Jun 23, 2013, 07:41 AM
Sure will do. :D Also no problem. :]

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 07:45 AM
Sure will do. :D Also no problem. :]

Will try to accept when I get on got things to do lol >o<!

Kion
Jun 23, 2013, 08:24 AM
My primary focus is on the story. If there's no emotional incentive to turn on the game, then it makes the game a mindless hack-n-slash fest, where you're given no real motivation to continue.


Get rid of blue tablets - The random blue tablet things that appear mid-mission and you click on them to see a short vid of a character talking to themselves is a pretty stupid mechanic. When you're in a mutliplayer party, they just keep randomly popping up and its more irritating than anything. I'd make each client order a side mission where you do something with the character and they talk along the way like a story mission. That would also have the side effect of making client orders not be fetch quests. Between team quests, daily orders, client orders, and tacos there's enough repetitive quests in the game. Tweaking client orders would make that slightly less annoying.

Put temporary structures on all of the planets- It's never really described why you're on the planets. It's kind of said that you're exploring them, but a civilization with intergalactic space travel: i think you can scan them with a probe or something. If you're just there to fight darkers then that seems like a really bad approach because planets are all over everywhere. You're fighting on 3 out of 3-hundred billion or more planets in the areas and all of those are covered in darkers. If you're on the planet, at least give a reason for it like mining operations, or studying the creatures. And even if Arks are just going down in camp ships; there's going to be some rest area or something. I'm not saying make it like psu where the lobbies where horribly fragmented, but you could at least show with the environment that something is going on, and you have some reason to be there.

Get of idol Kuna- Seriously a mysterious girl in an orange bunny suit that can disappear and stuff is interesting on its own. I really don't think that idol Kuna adds anything to the story. I mean chapter 9, you run into her in the field, track down the chrome dragon. There's really nothing that adds to the story with her being an idol, other than further making the game into a demented waifu-simulator. She could just disguise herself in normal clothes and no one would notice. Also side rant: chapters 9 and 10 are the exact same story. You track down chrome, it gets away in 9. And then in 10, you track it down and kill it. If they were going to do it that way, they should have made it chapter 9 parts A and B like the other chapters.

Give it a reason for being online- Xion gives you the matter board and the whole game might as well be you playing alone. You're playing the game single player, everyone else is practically playing the game single player and it doesn't really make sense that you all know the same characters and have the exact same experiences. I would make it so that Xion goes back in time (assuming she's from the future), and gives the player the matter board. Except the problem is that by doing so, she creates different timelines each one giving the matterboard to a different person. By doing so, space pretty much overlaps in the same place and other characters are the main character in their own perspective universe, except that you can interact with them. The problem is that because space is compacted, it also creates more darkers, as more light photons are compacted, it creates stronger darkers. (so it's pretty much the cell saga in dragon ball z, where trunks goes back to stop cell but makes him much stronger by doing so, with different reasoning). That would then make Xion and the characters have to rethink and react to the now much stronger darkers.

Make darker infections cooler- Darker infections aren't shown in most of the native creatures. It would be nice to see more variation on them than just a flower sticking out of their head on occasion. Something more like an infection, that starts in their eye and then twists it's way down their arm. Or something that changes the way that the enemy attacks you by relying on the infected part; either biting, kicking, throwing something, being faster, ect. You could also have multiple infected enemies attack harder and more often. There's so much gameplay-wise and artistically that could be done with the concept and it feels like its being wasted.

Make enemies appear off screen- This is something that I find pretty annoying. When you're in a mutli-party enemies only spawn in the block you're in, so enemies spawn, all of the forces blow everything up, you run to the next block and repeat. It would be nicer if the game made enemies appear in the blocks adjacent to the one you were in(depending on how many people are in your party), so you have a larger chance of getting surrounded, or being forced into combat. Or bring back the lock door mechanic from pso, where to open certain doors you'd have to face a certain number of enemies (but wouldn't repeat like the fucking collect code). And basically like Advance quests you would have to clear an area and move on.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 08:30 AM
I haven't fully read this thread, so pardon any repetition, but on the topic of gap closers and running I just want to add my two cents since I've discussed this a lot here and have had most of my ideas put through the PSOW wringer to the point that I feel most will be happy with these suggestions.


Some things to get out of the way...
First: This is only for weapons with step attack. Ranged classes do not really need these.
Second: They are ideally 1 SP skills, maybe automatically unlocked like Step & Guard or needing 1 SP like Step Attack All melee classes will have them, and like Step Attack & Just Reversal only one tree needs them to work on all appropriate weapons.
Third: These are two separate features to resolve two separate problems that face melee classes.
Fourth: Finer details can be tweaked. For instance, you don't want to hold down a button? Make it like some games where after you've started running you can release the button, but you keep running until you stop moving (Borderlands does this - clicking the left thumbstick once enables run, you keep running until you stop holding forward)
Fifth: I know other methods of travel exist. Triple stepping is something available to everyone, assault buster stepping exists, etc. I know that. That's something I'm going to set aside for the sake of this post. If you want, just pretend I'm saying everything goes as fast as those, or if you don't want that then start rallying to get all of those nerfed so they don't work anymore.

So before you read the solutions, read the problems:
Problem One: Melee classes travel at the same speeds as everyone else despite having the most limited range, except in the case that they use triple step or knuckle dashing (anyone who subs fighter can do this, but that's besides the point). Knuckle dashing is very easy to do, but requires knuckles to actually do. This limits your weapon palette options and requires you to have knuckles equipped to do. Knuckle dashing also either requires a macro or subjects your hardware to unnecessary wear after prolonged use.
Problem Two: Knuckle dashing is alright for longer distances, but in combat is not really the kind of mobility needed. Something that lets you travel shorter distances faster than knuckle dashing would be better, but it needs to be limited so you can't spam it.


The two different features I've had generally good feedback on are Faster Running (or Sprinting, but that term is misleading for this mechanic) and Lunging. Yes, I do mean to add both at once.

Faster Running is exactly what it sounds like. The speed will be exactly as fast as knuckle dashing - so there's nothing actually new here. You enable it by executing a step, just like now, but continuing to hold the step button until after the step finishes, then after you put your weapon away to run you will be doing the Faster Run. When your character is doing a Faster Run you can release the button, and keep running this fast until you attack or stop moving. This is a feature meant for all melee weapons to simply standardize mobility. Many people already use knuckle dashing constantly, myself included, and this will be a good addition to the melee classes.

Lunging is also exactly what it sounds like, and is also for weapons with step. It's meant for closing the gap in combat, and even leaping into the air a bit. Executing a lunge is done exactly the same way as a step attack - except you use your PA button instead of your normal attack button. You jump and travel farther, and can cancel the lunge with an attack in midair. Doing this costs PP - 20? 30? I don't particularly care how much. The jump could be one normal jump height, or maybe even higher. Again, I don't particularly care. How far does it go? I would like it to be about the same as a Grapple Charge, except without requiring the grapple to work, but do not particularly care.

That's pretty much everything relevant to this topic, that I can think of anyway. I covered the why, the what, and the how, plus a few other things for completion's sake. Have at it.

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 08:38 AM
How running and lunging should be in pso2 to bad they might not ever add this mechanic.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjuV-BRv9dU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjuV-BRv9dU

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 08:50 AM
In my mind PSO2 could benefit from having each class type (striking, ranged, tech) offering radically different gameplay from the others, to the point that they can even feel like completely different genres of gameplay you rarely find together in one game. Make them able to do off the wall stuff, and then give each class combination different bonuses.

Ah, and while I'm at this...
1. Give every class a second bonused def stat. Why? More unit options for classes that need them. Give HU rdef equal to its sdef. Give TE tdef equal to its sdef. Do this for each class, each being an appropriate secondary type.
2. Give a small set of bonuses to each class combination. Hybrids would get larger innate bonuses. HU/FI may only get a small bonus of some kind, but HU/TE would get a much heftier bonus. I will not say exactly what every combo should get because that's pretty subjective, but it should promote hybrid playstyles and innovation in the metagaming community.

Zenobia
Jun 23, 2013, 08:55 AM
That reminds me a lot of how Borderlands did that with the mods how they gave different synergies to one another allowing you do one roll while progressing in 2 others was pretty cool I was addicted to hat always trying out different class mods.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 08:59 AM
I was the same way. Honestly, the only reason I ever went to med shops was for the class mods. Always looking for class mods, always. Having something like that here would be nice, actually, but I'm sure they would make it all about the AC purchases.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 09:27 AM
To Kion:


My primary focus is on the story. If there's no emotional incentive to turn on the game, then it makes the game a mindless hack-n-slash fest, where you're given no real motivation to continue.


Get rid of blue tablets - The random blue tablet things that appear mid-mission and you click on them to see a short vid of a character talking to themselves is a pretty stupid mechanic. When you're in a mutliplayer party, they just keep randomly popping up and its more irritating than anything. I'd make each client order a side mission where you do something with the character and they talk along the way like a story mission. That would also have the side effect of making client orders not be fetch quests. Between team quests, daily orders, client orders, and tacos there's enough repetitive quests in the game. Tweaking client orders would make that slightly less annoying.

I think that blue tablets should stay, but that they should not appear out of chronological order. That is to say, you can only see the first Echo tablet (where you tell her Zeno was looking for her) after seeing the gold tablet from MB1 Node B-2. Do the same with a couple other event tablets and now you have a story that starts making sense - not because the information was irrelevant, but because you could process it in an order that made sense.


Put temporary structures on all of the planets- It's never really described why you're on the planets. It's kind of said that you're exploring them, but a civilization with intergalactic space travel: i think you can scan them with a probe or something. If you're just there to fight darkers then that seems like a really bad approach because planets are all over everywhere. You're fighting on 3 out of 3-hundred billion or more planets in the areas and all of those are covered in darkers. If you're on the planet, at least give a reason for it like mining operations, or studying the creatures. And even if Arks are just going down in camp ships; there's going to be some rest area or something. I'm not saying make it like psu where the lobbies where horribly fragmented, but you could at least show with the environment that something is going on, and you have some reason to be there.

Actually, I think Megaten Imagine had a similar idea to yours. The premise was this: half-way through the dungeon, you would enter a tunnel area. This tunnel area had an NPC called "Yagiya" which allowed you to restock on certain supplies. To prevent RMT taking advantage of this, selling at the Yagiya in dungeons was forbidden. What I think could be done here is either A)add an area between 1 and 2 that acts as a rest area, B)add a supply ship to Area 3. The latter was actually done in PSU (as I recall from single player), so it COULD work here.


Get rid of idol Kuna- Seriously a mysterious girl in an orange bunny suit that can disappear and stuff is interesting on its own. I really don't think that idol Kuna adds anything to the story. I mean chapter 9, you run into her in the field, track down the chrome dragon. There's really nothing that adds to the story with her being an idol, other than further making the game into a demented waifu-simulator. She could just disguise herself in normal clothes and no one would notice. Also side rant: chapters 9 and 10 are the exact same story. You track down chrome, it gets away in 9. And then in 10, you track it down and kill it. If they were going to do it that way, they should have made it chapter 9 parts A and B like the other chapters.

I'm going to suggest an alternate opinion here: instead of removing Kuna completely, move her chapters to the start of Episode 2. Her story makes more sense when placed in that manner for two reasons: the first being that MB9 and 10 are shorter than the boards that come before and after them (MB8 and MB11), and the second reason is that, chronologically the events that take place during MB9 and 10 have holes that could've possibly been explained during the Falz encounter but were never elaborated on.


Give it a reason for being online- Xion gives you the matter board and the whole game might as well be you playing alone. You're playing the game single player, everyone else is practically playing the game single player and it doesn't really make sense that you all know the same characters and have the exact same experiences. I would make it so that Xion goes back in time (assuming she's from the future), and gives the player the matter board. Except the problem is that by doing so, she creates different timelines each one giving the matterboard to a different person. By doing so, space pretty much overlaps in the same place and other characters are the main character in their own perspective universe, except that you can interact with them. The problem is that because space is compacted, it also creates more darkers, as more light photons are compacted, it creates stronger darkers. (so it's pretty much the cell saga in dragon ball z, where trunks goes back to stop cell but makes him much stronger by doing so, with different reasoning). That would then make Xion and the characters have to rethink and react to the now much stronger darkers.

Or you could do this: in specific missions where there is free space available, make it possible to drag a second person along with. This makes it so we avoid having to resort to the PSU problem of a glorified 1P mode but a terrible online mode.

This would actually work wonders for the revamped Ch9-10 that I have in mind. I'll get on that in a later post.


Make darker infections cooler- Darker infections aren't shown in most of the native creatures. It would be nice to see more variation on them than just a flower sticking out of their head on occasion. Something more like an infection, that starts in their eye and then twists it's way down their arm. Or something that changes the way that the enemy attacks you by relying on the infected part; either biting, kicking, throwing something, being faster, ect. You could also have multiple infected enemies attack harder and more often. There's so much gameplay-wise and artistically that could be done with the concept and it feels like its being wasted.

Or perhaps you could make the infections graphically dependent on enemy race. Like, the flower WORKS for the natives because of where they are (and because Elder is a pun on "Elder Tree", which is what was holding down his true form), but for the Dragonkin I think a growth of tainted crystal might work (considering that all of Amduscia's big dragons have to do with minerals) and for Machines I think maybe something akin to that chest attachment Elder has on his chest/Apprentice has in her hair (kinda like an artificial tampering device). For the Neptunian creatures, I'd use something like moss or a bulbous tumor.


Make enemies appear off screen- This is something that I find pretty annoying. When you're in a mutli-party enemies only spawn in the block you're in, so enemies spawn, all of the forces blow everything up, you run to the next block and repeat. It would be nicer if the game made enemies appear in the blocks adjacent to the one you were in(depending on how many people are in your party), so you have a larger chance of getting surrounded, or being forced into combat. Or bring back the lock door mechanic from pso, where to open certain doors you'd have to face a certain number of enemies (but wouldn't repeat like the fucking collect code). And basically like Advance quests you would have to clear an area and move on.

I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that .hack//G.U. had something like this (.hack was actually inspired by the first PSO, so it's kinda ironic that the inspired would inspire the one who first did the inspiring).

Perhaps make it so that there is an artificial barrier during E-Codes that prevents players from going too far from an E-Code - with the check to that being that if you persist leaving the barrier enough, you can exit its perimeter at the cost of failing the E-Code.


To Gigawuts:



Some things to get out of the way...
First: This is only for weapons with step attack. Ranged classes do not really need these.

Amen to that.

Second: They are ideally 1 SP skills, maybe automatically unlocked like Step & Guard or needing 1 SP like Step Attack All melee classes will have them, and like Step Attack & Just Reversal only one tree needs them to work on all appropriate weapons.

I like your idea. There's just one problem: what you're proposing would add 3 extra SP to a build that would master all weapons. Not to mention, it would require removing the Step Attack skill altogether - both from Hunter AND from Fighter.

Third: These are two separate features to resolve two separate problems that face melee classes.

I'm aware that melee classes have a hard time beating ranged classes to the punch, but what's the other problem you're referring to here?

Fourth: Finer details can be tweaked. For instance, you don't want to hold down a button? Make it like some games where after you've started running you can release the button, but you keep running until you stop moving (Borderlands does this - clicking the left thumbstick once enables run, you keep running until you stop holding forward)

I believe Vindictus also did this, but it also had running and dodging separate.

What about this: instead of making Dodge usable via double tapping the directional keys for movement, you have said double tap be a command to initate running. It would GRADUALLY drain PP at a very slight rate (much like how Vindictus does it).

Fifth: I know other methods of travel exist. Triple stepping is something available to everyone, assault buster stepping exists, etc. I know that. That's something I'm going to set aside for the sake of this post. If you want, just pretend I'm saying everything goes as fast as those, or if you don't want that then start rallying to get all of those nerfed so they don't work anymore.

Also, not everyone is that boss to be able to really do Triple Stepping. And methods like Assault Buster and such cost huge chunks of PP.

So before you read the solutions, read the problems:
Problem One: Melee classes travel at the same speeds as everyone else despite having the most limited range, except in the case that they use triple step or knuckle dashing (anyone who subs fighter can do this, but that's besides the point). Knuckle dashing is very easy to do, but requires knuckles to actually do. This limits your weapon palette options and requires you to have knuckles equipped to do. Knuckle dashing also either requires a macro or subjects your hardware to unnecessary wear after prolonged use.

*raises hand* Knuckle Dashing also requires that you have Knuckle Gear unlocked to do it reliably, and it can't be done barehanded despite the fact that bare hands count as knuckles.

Problem Two: Knuckle dashing is alright for longer distances, but in combat is not really the kind of mobility needed. Something that lets you travel shorter distances faster than knuckle dashing would be better, but it needs to be limited so you can't spam it.

Not to mention you lose the speed bonus if your meter is reset for whatever reason (which as a Knuckle main, I can testify that this happens all too often.)


The two different features I've had generally good feedback on are Faster Running (or Sprinting, but that term is misleading for this mechanic) and Lunging. Yes, I do mean to add both at once.

Faster Running is exactly what it sounds like. The speed will be exactly as fast as knuckle dashing - so there's nothing actually new here. You enable it by executing a step, just like now, but continuing to hold the step button until after the step finishes, then after you put your weapon away to run you will be doing the Faster Run. When your character is doing a Faster Run you can release the button, and keep running this fast until you attack or stop moving. This is a feature meant for all melee weapons to simply standardize mobility. Many people already use knuckle dashing constantly, myself included, and this will be a good addition to the melee classes.

Lunging is also exactly what it sounds like, and is also for weapons with step. It's meant for closing the gap in combat, and even leaping into the air a bit. Executing a lunge is done exactly the same way as a step attack - except you use your PA button instead of your normal attack button. You jump and travel farther, and can cancel the lunge with an attack in midair. Doing this costs PP - 20? 30? I don't particularly care how much. The jump could be one normal jump height, or maybe even higher. Again, I don't particularly care. How far does it go? I would like it to be about the same as a Grapple Charge, except without requiring the grapple to work, but do not particularly care.

Hrm. I'll have to think on this. I don't really have any good counters to this right now.

That's pretty much everything relevant to this topic, that I can think of anyway. I covered the why, the what, and the how, plus a few other things for completion's sake. Have at it.


Dunno if you saw it before, but could you maybe ask then to put in some method of changing your prices on items when selling instead of taking them down to change the em to match the market prices?

You know, that was actually on the edge of my mind and I forgot about it. That would actually be VERY good to add.


I would also like to add my own two cents to this, since nobody's mentioned this:

Knuckles are supposed to be the definition of unarmed combat, yet they suffer from a glaring flaw: kick attacks! Not only do none of their PAs use your feet, but none of their basic attacks do either! This hardly makes Fighter live up to its name (and yeah, I feel that Symphonic Drive belongs in the list of Knuckle PAs, despite how it DOESN'T benefit Knuckles).

So perhaps add a skill in the skill tree that extends existing Knuckle attacks (be they PAs or default strikes) to have kick extensions at the end of them, with these extensions being negatable through the use of Step Dodge.

I also feel like Twin Daggers don't utilize most of what makes them what they are. What about some grappling backstabs? Or perhaps a way to end combos by using your Gear Meter to execute a grounding finish?

We also lack good, detailed info on Braver. I feel like I could say more if I knew what all Braver could do. That will be possible in 4 weeks, but I feel like until we know what all Episode 2 is changing, this might possibly end up unraveling for the worse.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 09:32 AM
You would think barehand counts as knucles, but they actually unfortunately don't. "Knuckles" as a weapon type seems to refer less to the use of hand to hand combat, but instead the actual weapon shell you put your hands in.

I also find it disappointing that knuckles are the ONLY weapon type without a grab. The one single weapon type literally all about hands, and they don't think to give it a grab? What?

I also agree that mixing in kicks would be fun times. Mechgun melee moves practically focus entirely on kicking, but knuckles, which are all about physical hand to hand combat, don't? Feh.

I think my biggest issue with knuckles is that their concept is just inherently flawed. I'd really prefer to see them always be at level 3 gear attack speeds, and then have the gear work just like swords - a specialized bonus for each PA. Faster charging, longer ranges, longer stun, etc. as you deal damage.

edit: I forgot to comment on this bit

I like your idea. There's just one problem: what you're proposing would add 3 extra SP to a build that would master all weapons. Not to mention, it would require removing the Step Attack skill altogether - both from Hunter AND from Fighter.
Thank you. Why would they remove Step Attack though? These would be additional skills. They could be automatically unlocked, or put next to step attack. They wouldn't replace or remove anything at all.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 09:49 AM
For Gigawuts.


You would think barehand counts as knucles, but they actually unfortunately don't. "Knuckles" as a weapon type seems to refer less to the use of hand to hand combat, but instead the actual weapon shell you put your hands in.

Which is funny, because they give you a nerfed version of Ducking Blow and you USE the Knuckle animations. Makes zero sense to me.

I also find it disappointing that knuckles are the ONLY weapon type without a grab. The one single weapon type literally all about hands, and they don't think to give it a grab? What?

Because Wired Lance has that area covered. Wired Lance is just like Knuckles (think of Vega/Claw from Street Fighter), except it relies on grapples. That's the thing - I think they remind me more of the Hookshot Claws from Zelda: Twilight Princess. And looking for an MMO whose combat mechanics closely matched that game was one of the big reasons why PSO drew me in.

I also agree that mixing in kicks would be fun times. Mechgun melee moves practically focus entirely on kicking, but knuckles, which are all about physical hand to hand combat, don't? Feh.

I think that Twin Mechs need more dakka in them. I've always felt that Gunners were supposed to have the speed that Rangers lacked. Sadly, that never ended up being the case.

I think my biggest issue with knuckles is that their concept is just inherently flawed. I'd really prefer to see them always be at level 3 gear attack speeds, and then have the gear work just like swords - a specialized bonus for each PA. Faster charging, longer ranges, longer stun, etc. as you deal damage.

The problem is that Twin Dagger also has its own gear mechanic, as does Double Saber. Not to mention I believe it already does the things you said, to a certain extent.

edit: I forgot to comment on this bit

Thank you. Why would they remove Step Attack though? These would be additional skills. They could be automatically unlocked, or put next to step attack. They wouldn't replace or remove anything at all.

Or, how about removing Just Reversal from the Step/Roll/Mirage branch altogether and just placing at the very top of the tree itself? In its place, put said "Step" modifying skill in the gap created by Just Reversal.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 09:54 AM
I really think all of the just reversal and advance & attack skills should be completely separate.

Zyrusticae
Jun 23, 2013, 10:32 AM
The thought I had in mind for the Hunter sprint was more cooldown based - a rather short one (like 3-4 second cooldown). Doing it the way you did it would be cliche, and not to mention it doesn't really change the situation of Rangers/Forces being able to get to kills first.
No thanks. An active-ability with a cooldown is just counter-intuitive to an extreme. Every game out there that has an actual sprint function either makes it time- or stamina-limited or just lets you spam it endlessly. That might make it "cliche" but it's a "cliche" that works. Doing something differently for the sake of doing it differently has zero merit in and of itself.

And the whole premise of rangers and forces getting kills first seems flawed to me, given my actual experience in the game. People have been saying this is a problem for awhile now, but frankly, I've never actually felt that it is, as much as that everything is simply so weak that people get bored because everything's dying too fast.

(I had a massive write-up here about this, but let's face it - there's really not much to discuss here. Either you see it as a problem or you don't, and that's it.)

Rien
Jun 23, 2013, 10:42 AM
You would think barehand counts as knucles, but they actually unfortunately don't. "Knuckles" as a weapon type seems to refer less to the use of hand to hand combat, but instead the actual weapon shell you put your hands in.
This is because the japanese name of knuckles is "Tekken", literally meaning "Iron Fist". Knuckle didn't quite give you the hint about the shell, but it's real name does. (If you wonder where I got that word, you'll see it on all the knuckle related client orders)


I also find it disappointing that knuckles are the ONLY weapon type without a grab. The one single weapon type literally all about hands, and they don't think to give it a grab? What?
Because I think it's pretty difficult grabbing your enemy with what amounts to a pair of steel boxing gloves. Then again, lol photons. Maybe a photon pilebunker style attack would do nicely.


I also agree that mixing in kicks would be fun times. Mechgun melee moves practically focus entirely on kicking, but knuckles, which are all about physical hand to hand combat, don't? Feh.
Well apparently to them hand to hand does not include the leg.


I think my biggest issue with knuckles is that their concept is just inherently flawed. I'd really prefer to see them always be at level 3 gear attack speeds, and then have the gear work just like swords - a specialized bonus for each PA. Faster charging, longer ranges, longer stun, etc. as you deal damage.
My biggest issue with knuckles is the hitstop wrecking all the things you could otherwise accomplish with it.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 11:43 AM
So I think we can all agree that the weapon that needs the largest set of buffs would be Gunslash.

And @Zyrus - yet if you make it all class, then it completely negates anything you had done to try and bump Hunters to not be beaten to kills in the first place.

Also, your example about what we've debated about Rangers/Forces is flawed simply because I know for a fact you have a powerhouse machine. Many others are not in your situation. These buffs would actually power you up if we went with your idea. And... I don't exactly know what to say to that.

ShinMaruku
Jun 23, 2013, 11:48 AM
a sprint does nothing to solve the problem of Fo's destroying entire spawns. the change that needs to happen wont happen because this game is f2p.

Tera online and DoTA 2 make that point rather suspect. Even if this game was p2p or b2p it would still have shitty issues because Sega is shit

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 11:50 AM
"That may be, but with Step you actually have to be smarter with it than with Mirage Escape. Working with Step actually requires you to think - which is the argument against Forces having a cheap dodge."

The biggest mirage step problem is you are stuck without invincibility frames for a fraction of a second... when a fang banther or Persona can two shot you. The small hunter step allows you to be behind an enemy and immediately start attacking and if you did that with mirage the monster turns forward and you're now face to face. Monsters don't spend too long stuck in their animations or stunned.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 11:53 AM
"That may be, but with Step you actually have to be smarter with it than with Mirage Escape. Working with Step actually requires you to think - which is the argument against Forces having a cheap dodge."

The biggest mirage step problem is you are stuck without invincibility frames for a fraction of a second... when a fang banther or Persona can two shot you. The small hunter step allows you to be behind an enemy and immediately start attacking and if you did that with mirage the monster turns forward and you're now face to face. Monsters don't spend too long stuck in their animations or stunned.

It might just be me, then, but I seem to recall the speed of my dodge ending me in more shit than it ever did with Mirage Escape. Although I need better data on people using properly before I go shooting my mouth off a second time.




a sprint does nothing to solve the problem of Fo's destroying entire spawns. the change that needs to happen wont happen because this game is f2p.
Tera online and DoTA 2 make that point rather suspect. Even if this game was p2p or b2p it would still have shitty issues because Sega is shit

I'm still waiting on Alisha to explain to me what this "mystical change" she thinks will save this game is supposed to be. I think the Banther got her tongue, if you get what I mean.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 11:56 AM
Well...gunslash initially tried to be something but couldn't do it right. Gunslash right now is, as the name suggests, gun first and slash second. Its major shortcoming is just how limited the melee range actually is. It's barely longer than barehanded attacks. Gunslash actually performs somewhat competitively with every other melee weapon before the gear, at low levels, but as you level up and get melee attacks with longer reach plus gear for each melee weapon that kind of falls apart.

If guns focused on something like gear, which is basically always useful, as opposed to bullets which are situational and always on cooldown, gunslash would also fail to meet the needs of gun classes.

So the solution to the gunslash, for me, is to give a different gunslash gear to each melee class. These will actually be able to overlay with one another and work in tandem. Hunter may get a longer reach on the blade attacks (hunter is currently focuses on slightly longer range attacks than fighter), while fighter may get bonus hits (works with chase and focuses on plain old damage, like the rest of fighter's arsenal). These extra strikes may or may not be bonused with long range, that's not for me to say.

For braver a third gear could be added that does whatever it is braver focuses on. I can't really say yet.

In fact, this is an inherent problem with melee right now. Gear was a nice step up when it was new, but now it's become the standard. The gear model is one of mastery and improvement. That means additional gear needs to be added over time to maintain this pace. Put secondary gears that will work in tandem with the existing gears, the same way I just said to do gunslash gear on multiple melee classes, and I think melee would have more going for it. I would say this is something every class should have, actually. With more customization in your specialization skilltrees would be a lot more interesting, instead of just a minor minmax task (maybe someone doesn't care about such-and-such gear bonus, because they don't play in that way often).

Also, unlimited free skilltree resets. The endgame as it exists is about minmaxing. People who will benefit from something in low levels will be indirectly punished for having it, by not being able to get something better without paying real money. Then keep charging for additional skilltrees, and let us switch between them in the campship. There's your real cash cow, Sega.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 11:57 AM
"Would that not only apply to Hans as well? I mean, in a sea filled with whiteskins or purpleskins, he's the only black guy in the entire ship. We need more NPCs like that - it would help defeat a rather common stereotype in gaming."

Yes but Hans isn't in your army so I used the other guy who looks different instead =) Hans and Joseph stand out more than the Asians with pointy ears, and different races should look different instead of humans with a slightly different feature. Also a male CAST NPC on your team can't hurt, especially another weak bullet ranger =)

jooozek
Jun 23, 2013, 12:10 PM
(...)
I suggest, instead, that Mirage Escape instead gets a slight (and I do mean very slight) nerf in the invincibility frames that it has. In this way, Forces/Techers now have to be smarter in how they use it. As well, I think making it a tad faster would also help balance that part out. Now suddenly you have Forces who use it blindly dying because they weren't actually paying attention when they used it.
(...)
That may be, but with Step you actually have to be smarter with it than with Mirage Escape. Working with Step actually requires you to think - which is the argument against Forces having a cheap dodge.

And 2 seconds is actually more beneficial than you may realize. Don't ever discount a second or two of time as being "worthless" - it might be the difference between life and death.
(...)

that sounds like "uh oh i saw some force gameplay on youtube force can nuke from a mile so op oh he dodge oh he invicible so op"
the reality is that mirage escape is almost as bad as dive roll is, the only thing better is that it doesn't root you in place for as long as dive roll does
but seriously, there is no point even arguing any of this as long as you have some preconceptions and not just actually played the class for longer than 5 minutes
also, no, you don't have to be smarter with step, you just need to have good reflexes

ShinMaruku
Jun 23, 2013, 12:12 PM
Well in the Phantasy star meta universe aside from casts all the other races that look human because they are human still all homo sapiens so of course they'd all look the same.
That said I think why Hans is the only brotha in the game is because well most Japanese designers have no seen many black people thus they have this strange view. However he's not a jive talkin musical git or a mockery of Mike Tyson I let that slide. (Although Capcom has gotten much better)

Gardios
Jun 23, 2013, 12:30 PM
That said I think why Hans is the only brotha in the game is because well most Japanese designers have no seen many black people thus they have this strange view. However he's not a jive talkin musical git or a mockery of Mike Tyson I let that slide. (Although Capcom has gotten much better)

How dare you forget about the dude from the first chapter.

Who dies before he can even utter a word.

ShinMaruku
Jun 23, 2013, 12:33 PM
I never watched the first chapter I skipped it.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 12:38 PM
How dare you forget about the dude from the first chapter.

Who dies before he can even utter a word.

That's standard for bad scifi though, the black guy ALWAYS dies first.

Now I'm waiting for the president of the arks to also be a black guy - then we'll knew we're all going to die.

ShinMaruku
Jun 23, 2013, 12:45 PM
This is why I love Tekken and DOA brotha never dies first. Matter of fact in DOA brotha is rich as fuck and gets all the bitches.

Dextro
Jun 23, 2013, 12:46 PM
New Tactic (Super Hard Only): During “Wohlga Tackle”, Wohlgahda will now continue to usethis attack until he hits an enemy
Oh god, we definitely don't need this lol

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 12:49 PM
Well...gunslash initially tried to be something but couldn't do it right. Gunslash right now is, as the name suggests, gun first and slash second. Its major shortcoming is just how limited the melee range actually is. It's barely longer than barehanded attacks. Gunslash actually performs somewhat competitively with every other melee weapon before the gear, at low levels, but as you level up and get melee attacks with longer reach plus gear for each melee weapon that kind of falls apart.

If guns focused on something like gear, which is basically always useful, as opposed to bullets which are situational and always on cooldown, gunslash would also fail to meet the needs of gun classes.

So the solution to the gunslash, for me, is to give a different gunslash gear to each melee class. These will actually be able to overlay with one another and work in tandem. Hunter may get a longer reach on the blade attacks (hunter is currently focuses on slightly longer range attacks than fighter), while fighter may get bonus hits (works with chase and focuses on plain old damage, like the rest of fighter's arsenal). These extra strikes may or may not be bonused with long range, that's not for me to say.

For braver a third gear could be added that does whatever it is braver focuses on. I can't really say yet.

In fact, this is an inherent problem with melee right now. Gear was a nice step up when it was new, but now it's become the standard. The gear model is one of mastery and improvement. That means additional gear needs to be added over time to maintain this pace. Put secondary gears that will work in tandem with the existing gears, the same way I just said to do gunslash gear on multiple melee classes, and I think melee would have more going for it. I would say this is something every class should have, actually. With more customization in your specialization skilltrees would be a lot more interesting, instead of just a minor minmax task (maybe someone doesn't care about such-and-such gear bonus, because they don't play in that way often).

Also, unlimited free skilltree resets. The endgame as it exists is about minmaxing. People who will benefit from something in low levels will be indirectly punished for having it, by not being able to get something better without paying real money. Then keep charging for additional skilltrees, and let us switch between them in the campship. There's your real cash cow, Sega.

Free unlimited resets would be great except it would defeat the purpose of buying more. You reset the tree in the volcano and switch to ice + essential skills in fire tree + max out light skills for darkers, or max lightning in tunnels, etc. A different tree for a different area is what Sega wants, and I still might spend money for a couple extra skill trees.

I only have hunter to 30, but gunslash is still a favorite of mine =) Also somewhat works on force for the client orders or switching to get behind the monsters faster. You don't have mirage step when gunslash is your weapon.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 12:54 PM
that sounds like "uh oh i saw some force gameplay on youtube force can nuke from a mile so op oh he dodge oh he invicible so op"
the reality is that mirage escape is almost as bad as dive roll is, the only thing better is that it doesn't root you in place for as long as dive roll does
but seriously, there is no point even arguing any of this as long as you have some preconceptions and not just actually played the class for longer than 5 minutes
also, no, you don't have to be smarter with step, you just need to have good reflexes

Err, more like I've heard different tidbits of info from others and never had a way to validate that for myself, as every Force is different and yet they talk as if they're all the same somehow... (Where do they find this stuff? Honestly...)

And it's good to know. I knew I had terrible reflexes. Only took several years to admit that.

Anyways, if you read my PDF document, you'll see that I tried one way to get others to try the other three branches (would probably extend that to four once Braver comes out), as I feel you SHOULD try each class out to at least 20 before you really decide. I also feel like you shouldn't be so careless with your Mag (you only get one after all - excluding the AC one).

So I feel like there should be a way prior to having any class over Level 30 that you can reset your Mag for free, but this would only apply to characters with no classes at or above Level 30. In other words, yeah, it'd be a shitty way to drop cash flow, but it's also a good way to be sure of what you want before you get all serious mode after Level 30.


Yes but Hans isn't in your army so I used the other guy who looks different instead =) Hans and Joseph stand out more than the Asians with pointy ears, and different races should look different instead of humans with a slightly different feature. Also a male CAST NPC on your team can't hurt, especially another weak bullet ranger =)

Hans is still the only black dude that hasn't died, though. Not to mention, he pairs up with Joszef for the Arks Score Attack in MB11. Same with Revelle and Barbara.

Although, you bring up a good point - the only CAST NPC char we actually have is known to be a perp of moe-titis. In fact, I don't believe that you gain any Male CAST NPC partner cards....

*now waits for Regias or Zig to come out of retirement*

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 12:56 PM
Well in the Phantasy star meta universe aside from casts all the other races that look human because they are human still all homo sapiens so of course they'd all look the same.
That said I think why Hans is the only brotha in the game is because well most Japanese designers have no seen many black people thus they have this strange view. However he's not a jive talkin musical git or a mockery of Mike Tyson I let that slide. (Although Capcom has gotten much better)

We have dragonkin in this game even who are human sized enough to justify having them as a playable race too, and are actually different enough. As long as the body and size are human enough to plausibly use the weapons and not have issues getting through things. It doesn't even need to be a combination of an animal and human, which is a cheap race creation but still different enough from human. Breath of Fire series loves doing this.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 23, 2013, 01:02 PM
Err, more like I've heard different tidbits of info from others and never had a way to validate that for myself, as every Force is different and yet they talk as if they're all the same somehow... (Where do they find this stuff? Honestly...)

And it's good to know. I knew I had terrible reflexes. Only took several years to admit that.

Anyways, if you read my PDF document, you'll see that I tried one way to get others to try the other three branches (would probably extend that to four once Braver comes out), as I feel you SHOULD try each class out to at least 20 before you really decide. I also feel like you shouldn't be so careless with your Mag (you only get one after all - excluding the AC one).

So I feel like there should be a way prior to having any class over Level 30 that you can reset your Mag for free, but this would only apply to characters with no classes at or above Level 30. In other words, yeah, it'd be a shitty way to drop cash flow, but it's also a good way to be sure of what you want before you get all serious mode after Level 30.



Hans is still the only black dude that hasn't died, though. Not to mention, he pairs up with Joszef for the Arks Score Attack in MB11. Same with Revelle and Barbara.

Although, you bring up a good point - the only CAST NPC char we actually have is known to be a perp of moe-titis. In fact, I don't believe that you gain any Male CAST NPC partner cards....

*now waits for Regias or Zig to come out of retirement*

We still have Barbara who freezes things and she's a serious lady not a cute girl, though I haven't used her in awhile more NPCs mean more monsters for kill quota client orders. Maybe I should do matterboard past Kuna (I'm on seven just got the Quartz Dragon drop from 6 in the level 50 city) to see them team =)

ShinMaruku
Jun 23, 2013, 01:09 PM
Oh god, we definitely don't need this lol

Only if you can pull off a parry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpddl5xsuWI

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 01:12 PM
Free unlimited resets would be great except it would defeat the purpose of buying more. You reset the tree in the volcano and switch to ice + essential skills in fire tree + max out light skills for darkers, or max lightning in tunnels, etc. A different tree for a different area is what Sega wants, and I still might spend money for a couple extra skill trees.

I only have hunter to 30, but gunslash is still a favorite of mine =) Also somewhat works on force for the client orders or switching to get behind the monsters faster. You don't have mirage step when gunslash is your weapon.

No, that is the point of it. People would buy additional trees to avoid the hassle of resetting every single time they play in a different map. The standard would not be having one or two decent trees, but optimizing your tree continually and having multiple trees to switch between on the fly in the campship. I know of at least one game that has this exact setup and it sells plenty of additional trees that people switch between in the spawn area as the game calls for it.

Unless you like assigning SP before every single match, that is.

MetalDude
Jun 23, 2013, 01:47 PM
A comment a page back reminded me: please for the love of god making the dive roll less horrendous. Even just a much farther dive distance would help.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 03:02 PM
No, that is the point of it. People would buy additional trees to avoid the hassle of resetting every single time they play in a different map. The standard would not be having one or two decent trees, but optimizing your tree continually and having multiple trees to switch between on the fly in the campship. I know of at least one game that has this exact setup and it sells plenty of additional trees that people switch between in the spawn area as the game calls for it.

Unless you like assigning SP before every single match, that is.

Or you could award one free extra skill tree upon reaching a certain level - by means of a CO that would have to be designed so that the effort of the tasks equaled the reward you gained (said reward being a free extra skill tree, good for one class only - you could cash it in for whatever class, but not tradeable within the account).

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 03:18 PM
Well...hm. That still limits it a bit, and many people will see a finite cap and not use it.

What about a daily reset per tree? That great for long term, but won't let you minmax every single game - you'd need extra trees for that. I think this is a nice midway point.

Saffran
Jun 23, 2013, 03:21 PM
The dive roll issue is, well... invest points in it and you'll be invincible during the awkward moment where you seem to be glued on the spot. You don't want to invest in it? Don't use Dive Roll or learn to use it really well, it takes training.
Mirage Escape is actually what gets me killed most of the times when bosses are getting desperate and start dishing out attacks faster. It requires you to travel (you can't side step an attack, you have to go far, far away and change your camera) and leaves you 1/2 second completely open at the end. And bosses tend to one-shot you when you use PP revival and the likes.
To expand a bit on the Side Step/Step Attack and possible Running/Lunge mash ups, I can see running to be a separate strait (possibly hidden or innate if you prefer) for Hunters and Fighters (and Bravers). Char speed when the weapon is unsheathed would be the top speed we have right now, char speed with the weapons sheathed would be as fast as triple dash. The lunge would basically be the step attack if you used it from afar. (as in too far for the regular step attack to connect but close enough that your char doesn't jump across a whole map tile)

To expand a little bit on tree tweaks (and adress something I think Gigawutts pointed out), I'd like some skills (I'm thinking of the Stats Ups) to be effective on yourself at all times. You spent 5 points in Tdef to get PP convert, well, it applies to *you*, so you get those 18 points of TDef even if your a Ra or a Hu.
Admittedly, TDef is not going to improve much of anything, but think about how much a Te could benefit from the SAtk or Sdef Ups. It would allow players to recycle their gear. Plus it would give the more "one pattern players" who apparently ouright refuse to play anything outside of their chosen combination an incentive to do something else in the game and possibly get some sense into their heads.
Likewise, trees should interact (even if limitedly) with each others. You unlocked Step Attack in Hunter? It's already filled the same in Fighter at no cost.

I do agree on the gunslash gear belonging into every tree, with different effects. For forces, you would embue the weapon with an element and it could last for a few - 30s or so.

Renvalt > I read the doc, I agree with the general spirit of the changes, but it sounds often like "gee I can't be bothered to actually play the game, unlock all features plox". Now, the change to the Tier III weapons mastery quests is heartfelt and I wholeheartedly agree, the 3x requirement makes no sense. They already toned down the requisites for the advanced classes though, didn't they?
For boss changes, I agree with most if the points you made. A note on the Fang duo though, their tree prowl move takes ages. It should be just the wolves' attack, or at least have them jump faster from tree to tree.
Also, none of that "leader goes in first" easy mode nonsense business anymore.

SakoHaruo
Jun 23, 2013, 03:46 PM
As of right now, I don't care about tweaking anything other than AI. gonna drop a few ideas here.

introducing AI Smart Cancel for Super Very Hard or whatever >.>

Smart Cancels will give the mob/bosses some form of cancelable attacks instead of forcing them to commit to one attack at a time. for example, when a Rockbear in rage mode uses his three hit rage combo, Smart Cancel will allow it to cancel that attack to use his command grab or belly flop attack, them AI mind games/mix ups :O

So.. how do I balance this? Well, each boss can only SC twice per string of attacks. but, each boss will also have a Smart Cancel Reset tied to an certain attack that allows them to continue using SC. for example, if Rockbear did.. 3hit combo> smart cancel > belly flop > smart cancel (it'll lands on its feet) > Backhand fist (SCR here), since his backhand fist has SCR he could/can SC into moves again. Also, mobs can only use one Smart Cancel per attack and don't have any Smart Cancel Resets.

so.. here's my idea of buffing Rockbear using AISC >.<

Super Very Hard mode only.

- Rockbear always in Rage Mode

- increase health and attack damage

- Start up and Recovery is reduced on all attacks

- His command grab is now an "untechable" grab.

- 3 hit rage combo now tracks the character

- New Move *Shoulder Charge* - does a quick/short range dash attack using his shoulder. has very little start up.



AI Smart Cancel sheet for Rockbear

Three Hit Rage Combo

- can only be SC on the first or second hit.

- can SC from/into any attack, even perform another rage combo.



Belly Flop

- can SC from/into all attacks except for another Belly Flop, so no Belly > SC > Belly



command Grab

- not Smart Cancelable



Shoulder Change

- can SC from/into any attack, even perform another Shoulder Charge



Bankhand Fist

- can SC from/into any attack

- Smart Cancel Reset is tied to this attack



Now, here's some craziness with AI Smart Cancel

Quartz could do things like.. G.Rain > SC > Thrust Attack > SC > Rockets

Ex Drag already has some form of Smart Cancel but still.. Red ExDrag - Sword Thrust > Shield > 360 > SCR > Sword Attack > SC > Sword Attack > Shield > SC > Overend. your speed and reaction time will be put to the test against this guy.

Renvalt
Jun 23, 2013, 03:54 PM
I read the doc, I agree with the general spirit of the changes, but it sounds often like "gee I can't be bothered to actually play the game, unlock all features plox". Now, the change to the Tier III weapons mastery quests is heartfelt and I wholeheartedly agree, the 3x requirement makes no sense. They already toned down the requisites for the advanced classes though, didn't they?
For boss changes, I agree with most if the points you made. A note on the Fang duo though, their tree prowl move takes ages. It should be just the wolves' attack, or at least have them jump faster from tree to tree.
Also, none of that "leader goes in first" easy mode nonsense business anymore.


@The Bolded part - which bits were you directing that towards?

Also, regarding the +5 SP quest, I wasn't sure if they had already nerfed that one. I have no way of checking due to something I did (won't say what - should be easy to figure out). But most of the low level content changes were directed at the crowd beneath Level 20 because I figured that with all the people at Level 50 or 60+, they could use a bit of a boost. And I never addressed the Advanced Classes - I figured that was beyond the level that I wanted to focus on with most of these.

Also, I've gotten a number of people telling the Wohlgahda idea was bad, to which I can now say "Yeah, I goofed. Sorry!" Regarding the Banther Tree attack, the second plan you listed was factored in when I made that particular tidbit, yet I didn't word that very clearly now, did I?

I had incorrectly assumed, based on my own experience, that the AI reaction speed gets buffed through each difficulty tier; hence why I never mentioned that bit.

And yeah, definitely agree on removing that "Leader First" loophole - even though runs I do with others would probably take forever.

EDIT - @Sako: I get that you feel that this game is "too easy", yet how many people within our own community (as well as the JP side) would agree with that?

SakoHaruo
Jun 23, 2013, 04:06 PM
adjust the rare drop rate in SVH mode so the player has a better chance to get rewarded for all that hard work. done >_>

UnLucky
Jun 23, 2013, 05:22 PM
Mirage Escape is aggravating when locked onto an enemy. God it controls like shit. Just try to ME past an enemy. You can't. You just circle around them no matter which direction you hold, even if you rotate your pad/arrow keys appropriately.

Not gonna lie, the invuln period is really nice when lots of things are happening at once by multiple enemies, but it's a bit much if you're just dodging one attack. Yeah, you can cancel it by landing on level or higher terrain, but that's not nearly as reliable as Step.

One Falz Arms run I switched to my Gunslash and followed one of the hands while it did its repeated slam, double dashing right underneath it the whole time. Mirage into the middle of that and you're likely to eat a hit, even if you mash dodge. Also that brings up another point I wanted to make on Giga's faster run: Gunslashes are all-class. If the run is inherent to Step, every class gets it. If it's part of Hu|Fi's trees, then Fo/Fi, Ra/Hu (or Fi), or Te/Hu or whatever else can also Fast Run, so pure melee classes only get the leap attack portion but still lag behind the kill train.

In response, you could:

Not do anything, they sub a "melee" class, so they should be able to run fast too.
Make Faster Running and the Lunge only work on your main class.
Remove Faster Running from Gunslashes, but keep the normal Step.
Make it a Ranged weapon (blue) and give it Dive Roll instead.
Increase enemy health, so that mobs don't die at their spawn point.


I do think Super Very Hard should increase enemy health quite a bit, but not their damage or stats at all, while giving them new attacks that they would actually use instead of walk around aimlessly waiting to be killed. Things right now are either "retarded easy" or "bullshit oneshots" with no middle ground, and very little influence from defensive gear.

Enemies need to live longer and attack more often, but players shouldn't be seeing their units as a vessel for extra Atk affixes and not much else. Harder enemies should have higher percentage based damage boosts with relatively low stats to make players' defensive stats mitigate damage better. Remove flinching except on critical hits, for both mobs and players. Allow Just Reversal to work in the air (perhaps with another 1SP skill underneath it?) to avoid infinite juggles. Also if a hit does less than 10% of your health JUST GRIN AND BEAR IT YOU PANSY, don't be getting sent flying from a single point of damage.

And for the love of God remove hit stop from everything. Your weapon should not be dealing full damage to new mobs right as they spawn just by holding it out in front of you, unmoving. Your JA timing should not be dependent on the number of targets you hit. Dash attacking through enemies should not be at a snail's pace (I'm looking at you, Straight Charge).

What else didn't I touch on... Oh, skill tree resets. Pay meseta for however much SP you want to refund. More MST sinks to prevent inflation and discourages respeccing all the time. You can fix mistakes for an accessible cost, but it can be avoided if you know what you're doing.

And while we're at it, let's allow unlimited free mag resets too. Who the fuck pays money to drop your mag back down to level 1? Do you even keep your trigger slots and evolution? Regardless, it can't be worth 500 AC to do that.

Z-0
Jun 23, 2013, 05:25 PM
Don't keep Evolution. Don't keep triggers, but slots are still retained, I believe.

MetalDude
Jun 23, 2013, 05:54 PM
Pretty much everything you said about combat (getting hit, defensive stats actually mattering more, no flinching) I agree with. It's probably the most aggravating part about the main gameplay right now.

gigawuts
Jun 23, 2013, 06:20 PM
Well...I think "easy" is subjective. Some things are definitely easy, but other things are really too punishing. The difficulty is out of whack. Being grounded and still taking hits is really dumb in my opinion, as you're not in control of your character at that time. A boss' entire arsenal of attacks might deal less than 500 damage with big tells and big delays between attacks, except for one single move that will wham you for 1200 or flinchlock you for 5 consecutive 350+ damage hits with zero tell. The difficulty there isn't very well distributed, at all.

Kion
Jun 23, 2013, 07:49 PM
Woke up and found a lot more posts in this thread.


I'm going to suggest an alternate opinion here: instead of removing Kuna completely, move her chapters to the start of Episode 2. Her story makes more sense when placed in that manner for two reasons: the first being that MB9 and 10 are shorter than the boards that come before and after them (MB8 and MB11), and the second reason is that, chronologically the events that take place during MB9 and 10 have holes that could've possibly been explained during the Falz encounter but were never elaborated on.

This probably got lost in the wall of text i posted. By saying get rid of idol Kuna I didn't mean get rid of Kuna completely. Kuna's has two modes, Asssassin and Idol so to speak. I don't think the idol aspect really adds anything to the story. I think just having Kuna as a mysterious Assassin character would be fine.

Sinue_v2
Jun 23, 2013, 08:27 PM
the reality is that mirage escape is almost as bad as dive roll is, the only thing better is that it doesn't root you in place for as long as dive roll does
but seriously, there is no point even arguing any of this as long as you have some preconceptions and not just actually played the class for longer than 5 minutes
also, no, you don't have to be smarter with step, you just need to have good reflexes

To be honest, I started off using a FO and got both it and Techer to lvl 40 before I started working on getting GU & FI unlocked. I've found it much harder to dodge and evade with the other classes, and by comparison, FO is easy mode. So much so that I've found that it's easier to keep a few Multi-Class FO weapons on hand just so I can switch to them in anticipation of particularly tricky areas and large AoE enemy attacks. Dodging Falz's freezing laser blast or dodging hordes of dicahda enemies while pressing buttons in that one Sanctum Time Attack mission, for example.

I'd take a trade-off. Cut the invincibility and distanced traveled using Mirage Escape by 1/3 (or maybe even 1/2) in exchange for PP expenditures from charged techniques not subtracting from your pool until you've actually cast the tech. It's annoying as hell to have substantial portions of your PP depleted because you had to dodge or got flinched. The whole "charged tech" mechanic was brought over from PSZero, and it sucked over there due to super-long charge times (without a compress unit anyhow)... but at least served a purpose due to the limited face buttons available. Now that we have access to a sub-pallet hotkey bar, it's pretty pointless. Nobody really uses uncharged techs that I've seen - and even the class build suggestions stickied on this site recommend pouring class points into charged tech boosts and not for normal techs. So bringing it over was bad enough, but at least in PSZero it didn't eat PP until actually cast.

Zenobia
Jun 24, 2013, 12:22 AM
Give every race there own blast animation I missed how beast could go beast Humans could summon and all that other jazz I wanted Dumans to have there Infinity blast.

ARChan
Jun 24, 2013, 01:24 AM
Dead Approach being a stun instead of a knockback skill.

EDIT:
Also, I'd like to have Messiah Time shots pierce enemies and have stopping power. It's practically useless since it really lacks crowd control ability.

HUs need a better Partizan Gear. It's almost pathetic getting it...

jooozek
Jun 24, 2013, 02:37 AM
To be honest, I started off using a FO and got both it and Techer to lvl 40 before I started working on getting GU & FI unlocked. I've found it much harder to dodge and evade with the other classes, and by comparison, FO is easy mode. So much so that I've found that it's easier to keep a few Multi-Class FO weapons on hand just so I can switch to them in anticipation of particularly tricky areas and large AoE enemy attacks. Dodging Falz's freezing laser blast or dodging hordes of dicahda enemies while pressing buttons in that one Sanctum Time Attack mission, for example.

I'd take a trade-off. Cut the invincibility and distanced traveled using Mirage Escape by 1/3 (or maybe even 1/2) in exchange for PP expenditures from charged techniques not subtracting from your pool until you've actually cast the tech. It's annoying as hell to have substantial portions of your PP depleted because you had to dodge or got flinched. The whole "charged tech" mechanic was brought over from PSZero, and it sucked over there due to super-long charge times (without a compress unit anyhow)... but at least served a purpose due to the limited face buttons available. Now that we have access to a sub-pallet hotkey bar, it's pretty pointless. Nobody really uses uncharged techs that I've seen - and even the class build suggestions stickied on this site recommend pouring class points into charged tech boosts and not for normal techs. So bringing it over was bad enough, but at least in PSZero it didn't eat PP until actually cast.

sure, the skill ceiling is low and there is almost no place no place for improvement (sure, you can jump and dash instantly to make it shorter but how will that help you if you are in middle of a dash and want it to end?), that's why mirage escape is bad - not to mention that dashing on uneven ground will cancel the whole dash, it's really bad
you say that you had a harder time using other classes dodges, not gonna argue this because like I said you need reflexes but you can improves on those
when using mirage escape the only thing you have is prediction but that won't help you much if you want to deal damage
now it isn't much of a problem in most places but in case enemies do in fact get faster and more aggressive you will have loads of problems with the already dreaded mentioned by yourself dicadas and groups of sadininans for example; dicadas will hypothetically eat you straight away and sadinians most likely too
forces don't have much HP in this game and their defenses are squishy
not to mention that in some cases you are better off not using mirage escape and simply keeping on running because at least when you run, when an enemy is dashing after you will be still on full speed run but when you use mirage escape you are forced to walk for the after-dash downtime

also, weapon switching isn't really a viable tactic since it's connected to network latency and on a controller you don't have "quick switch" buttons that allow you to press some button and have the weapon palette choosen and there is only a handful of weapons that boost T-ATK and have step, not to mention that in that case you'd be forced to cast from the subpalette

Saffran
Jun 24, 2013, 04:46 AM
Renvalt > You want to halve most requirements or tone them down in terms of leveling to progress on the MatterBoard. I can certainly support the idea of a maximum number of kills being relatively low (maybe 5 for real bosses, 7 for mid-bosses, 11 for harder enemies and 17 for regular enemies) but taking the story away from the latest difficulty level available? That game mechanic is essential to the facade of scenario going on.
Also, yeah, some COs want many enemies of a sort, why not? Join a group and play the game, they come in no time. Sure, if you solo, it will take ages. But that's like Time Attack: it's supposed to be teamwork. You want to solo it? Play something else.
My bad on the Advanced Classes, the 7 Rappies + 5 Ragnes is the +5SP CO... (I think it's 5 and 3 now though)
The banther tree attack is too slow in general. I understood that you want the enemies in SVH to be faster, and that's OK with me, but that particuliar move takes ages as it is right now. The jumping down itself is fine. The 40 seconds + spent going from one tree to another is not. Espescially when the only quest to guarantee the boss is timed.

Gigawutts on Boss attacks > Being grounded and still taking hits is fair - look at Zesh, what should he say?
But I agree with the attacks being all over there in terms of damage, Chrome in particuliar. If you solo and he gets you once with the red pillars, he can get you again and again and again just as you enter back through the telepipe, because his AI is set to him using it again as his first move when you face him again. I also had Dragon Ex one shot me sort of in that fashion. Got back through the telepipe and died immediately - he had been using his final move on some random darker and the pipe was in the way...

Rien
Jun 24, 2013, 05:01 AM
So I think we can all agree that the weapon that needs the largest set of buffs would be Gunslash.

ONLY the melee portion. The ranged attack portion needs no adjustments.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 24, 2013, 06:11 AM
ONLY the melee portion. The ranged attack portion needs no adjustments.

Maybe you don't use gunslash with high S-ATK but I noticed range was considerably weaker, at least the switched mode after pressing RB. Melee with gunslash is much funner anyway, slashrave then addition bullet for bleeding extra damage =) I will farm tundra for the T-ATK gunslash, I need a good one for my force to complete those client orders! :D

AgemFrostMage
Jun 24, 2013, 06:17 AM
Well...I think "easy" is subjective. Some things are definitely easy, but other things are really too punishing. The difficulty is out of whack. Being grounded and still taking hits is really dumb in my opinion, as you're not in control of your character at that time. A boss' entire arsenal of attacks might deal less than 500 damage with big tells and big delays between attacks, except for one single move that will wham you for 1200 or flinchlock you for 5 consecutive 350+ damage hits with zero tell. The difficulty there isn't very well distributed, at all.

Like that time I dodged too soon against Quartz Dragon's fly off screen then charge attack and got hit once and died =( Mirage step hurt me then, but I miscalculated so that was a legit failure at least. Many failures though are too cheap =( I know force isn't meant to be a tank but come on! Some things just hit too hard to justify the +10 armor grinding and needed a talented level 12 deband to survive Big Vardha's main cannon.

Agree with you, some things are too easy while other things are too hard. It is very class dependent too, like guwanahda being too easy for force while being too hard for hunter and maybe fighter (don't have my fighter high enough to even face it on normal but is less defense than hunter and without sword surf to get away so is probably even harder)

I noticed fewer rares and rare monsters as the gap between deaths and S-ranks closes. Maybe I should do many early areas to widen that gap again just in case it effects the RNG? =)

UnLucky
Jun 24, 2013, 06:22 AM
Maybe you don't use gunslash with high S-ATK but I noticed range was considerably weaker, at least the switched mode after pressing RB. Melee with gunslash is much funner anyway, slashrave then addition bullet for bleeding extra damage =) I will farm tundra for the T-ATK gunslash, I need a good one for my force to complete those client orders! :D
For a striking class, a gunslash is not very useful in slash mode compared to their other weapons. Gun mode is their only good range weapon.

For a ranged class, a gunslash is extremely useful in gun mode to compliment their other weapons' utility. Slash mode is worthless.

For a tech class, slash mode is a nuisance. Gun damage is largely irrelevant, but it's still added ranged capability.

Zenobia
Jun 24, 2013, 06:25 AM
Maybe you don't use gunslash with high S-ATK but I noticed range was considerably weaker, at least the switched mode after pressing RB. Melee with gunslash is much funner anyway, slashrave then addition bullet for bleeding extra damage =) I will farm tundra for the T-ATK gunslash, I need a good one for my force to complete those client orders! :D

No it isn't I can use gunslash with both R atk and S atk or dex and hit for 1-2k damage or higher if I wasn't to lazy to affix em.

Also you said it yourself melee part of gunslash is funnier therefore very opinionated on your part though I will not fault you for it. Anything those other PA's do AB does it better and will kill before you even think about getting those off (I will also include also if you're fast enough to be fair) so yeah only the melee part.

Sinue_v2
Jun 24, 2013, 07:06 AM
it's really bad
you say that you had a harder time using other classes dodges, not gonna argue this because like I said you need reflexes but you can improves on those

My reflexes are fine. I have no problems dodging in other games, such as PSP2i where as a Dewman - it's pretty much a required skillset. Plus (and I notice this a lot more on a RA/GU class), hitting dodge doesn't always work. I think it's tied to the animation loop, but I find I can't reliably switch between attacking and dodging. The issue isn't present with HU's dodge or Mirage Step, but with HU I find that there's a small discrepancy between the animation and when the hit actually registers - causing me to get hit mid-dodge.

So I have three different "dodge" playstyles I have to adjust to work around, and so far Mirage Step is the only one which hasn't been frustrating to deal with.


when using mirage escape the only thing you have is prediction but that won't help you much if you want to deal damage

Being able to target specific weak points and nuke them at a distance, especially if you're using the surrounding terrain to block attacks for you (such as Ragna's red spinners of death) more than makes up any time lost by Mirage's Step taking you out of the action. A much bigger issue is how it cancels your techs and, again, after the PP drain has already occurred. That'll take you out of the action for longer than anything, waiting for PP to regen because having the audacity to dodge an attack means you'll either have to whack trash mobs around a bit, or just deal with a reduced PP pool.

You said yourself a few pages back, "why should only force have to use PP to use their dodge?" Well that exactly the scenario that often occurs. It's situational, but dodging DOES cost PP for Forces when it counts the most.


now it isn't much of a problem in most places but in case enemies do in fact get faster and more aggressive

Well if and when enemies do become faster and and more aggressive, then I will adjust my play style to compensate. But for now, I don't have any issues with it. A distance/duration nerf would be fine by me, but it should be at least twice the invincibility window that other classes get when the appropriate skill tree option is maxed out to compensate for their squishiness.


at least when you run, when an enemy is dashing after you will be still on full speed run but when you use mirage escape you are forced to walk for the after-dash downtime

Yeah, but all classes suffer from that same concern, since you unsheath your weapon to dodge and you'll be stuck in a jog for a half-second until you put it away. The period of time between executing dodges and executing mirage step is (afaik) exactly the same. So you can chain MS just as well as you can chain dodges to move forward.


also, weapon switching isn't really a viable tactic since it's connected to network latency and on a controller you don't have "quick switch" buttons that allow you to press some button and have the weapon palette choosen

You're not getting what I'm saying. Of course it's not a viable option on fly. It's an anticipatory move, requiring you to read the situation, be familiar with the area/spawns, or observant enough to pick up on the big tells most bosses display before launching their attacks. Also, mirage step is long enough that you can cycle your entire pallet by the time it's animation ends.

It's not exactly a science I have it worked down to, or a skill I've honed. It's just a tool I occasionally employ when I feel it will heighten my chances of survival.



Mirage Escape is aggravating when locked onto an enemy. God it controls like shit. Just try to ME past an enemy. You can't. You just circle around them no matter which direction you hold, even if you rotate your pad/arrow keys appropriately.

This, this, this. I would be happy to see this fixed. You can only go backwards and in a big a frickin circle around them. Well, you can go forward too, but it won't shoot you past them. You'll just rocket right into the enemies face and then promptly do tight little circles around them until the animation ends and you are thoroughly disoriented. And half the time, even if you ME away from an enemy, the game decides on it's own that it wants you to go in a big fucking circle anyhow.

Otherwise, you have to get used to disengaging from the enemy before it becomes really effective.

---------------------------------

Lastly, what about this idea. Have a GU/RA skill tree option to tighten up the spread on weapon fire. I haven't noticed whether or not it tightens on it's own as you level, but what the hell is the point of a precision aiming mode if the bullets are just going to go wherever they damned well please? I understand that keeping gun users mid-range and (preferably) standing still is a way to balance out how OP RA/GU would be if you could snipe from across the map. Still, a 20 to 30% reduction in weapon spread would be nice, and they could put the skill for it higher up on the tree to make harder to reach and max out until you're mid-high level.

Rien
Jun 24, 2013, 07:08 AM
Maybe you don't use gunslash with high S-ATK but I noticed range was considerably weaker, at least the switched mode after pressing RB. Melee with gunslash is much funner anyway, slashrave then addition bullet for bleeding extra damage =) I will farm tundra for the T-ATK gunslash, I need a good one for my force to complete those client orders! :D

This is so contradictory I can't hold my laughter.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 24, 2013, 07:13 AM
This is so contradictory I can't hold my laughter.

Yeah I thought about that. The ranged PAs are good, but the normal ranged damage that accumulates instead of spends PP... falls short -_- Also the sync and reliability instead of raw numbers is why it chains, slash rave knocks down, then addition bullet hits for extra damage while they're down.

jooozek
Jun 24, 2013, 07:22 AM
(...)

what i mean is
forces are fucked thanks to mirage escape because their damage comes from techs which have a massive charge time
you can already feel this shit when you zondeel stuff in AQs
step has no such drawbacks, hell, you even get step attack which gets you directly into an attack
if you get hit when stepping then you either need to put 3 points into step advance or actually adjust when you are stepping
with mirage escape you have no place for such tweaks, you are stuck into an animation that you can't cancel at will while having only sloppy control over where you character lands
the NA techs that are going to come out seem to be all AoE where the effects radiates from the character so you will have to get closer to enemies
just because something can't hit you for an hour doesn't mean mirage escape is good

AgemFrostMage
Jun 24, 2013, 07:25 AM
what i mean is
forces are fucked thanks to mirage escape because their damage comes from techs which have a massive charge time
you can already feel this shit when you zondeel stuff in AQs
step has no such drawbacks, hell, you even get step attack which gets you directly into an attack
if you get hit when stepping then you either need to put 3 points into step advance or actually adjust when you are stepping
with mirage escape you have no place for such tweaks, you are stuck into an animation that you can't cancel at will while having only sloppy control over where you character lands
the NA techs that are going to come out seem to be all AoE where the effects radiates from the character so you will have to get closer to enemies
just because something can't hit you for an hour doesn't mean mirage escape is good

The real answer falls between. I have been screwed over by mirage step's mechanics, and found it annoying that I cannot dodge behind the monster and fight it in time, while the seconds of invincibility have came in handy other times though getting hit with tracking missiles and lasers right out of a mirage step isn't fun and is usually too close.

gigawuts
Jun 24, 2013, 07:38 AM
Gigawutts on Boss attacks > Being grounded and still taking hits is fair - look at Zesh, what should he say?

Just so you know, you are speaking to someone who found their first rare zesh in a boss room while solo, was doing a perfect run, and then got hit with the spinning bomb spam for one attack that launched, 3 that hit in midair, and 2 more that hit on the ground before finally dying.

No. Taking hits while not in control is completely random and can easily be entirely unpredictable, as with that example. How often does that happen? Not very. I shouldn't die just because they can't distribute attack damages with consistency.

IF you are meant to take 2-3 hits, then have one single orb deal the damage of 2-3 attacks. IF his double slash is meant to deal that much damage, have each slash deal that much damage. IF they are supposed to be separate, have them flinch instead of knock down like quartz's quad horn slash.

Why do people on this forum absolutely insist on not using critical thinking skills? Why does every single idea have to be subject to "But giga! If you do exactly that and only that, why, this miniscule detail - if left completely unchanged - would slightly not work in my opinion! Therefor the entire idea is horrible and you are horrible!" Why not just say "Well if that's what you do, you'd have to rebalance attacks that focus on knocking players down."

UnLucky
Jun 24, 2013, 08:34 AM
The only difference between multiple hits that always combo to death and a single large hit is you can survive if you walk into it partway through. That, and defense mitigates the damage on each hit.

Getting hit initially is usually death, no matter what dangerous attack it is, but a multi-hit is always dangerous, whereas a large hit (even if it persists for a while) is completely safe if you avoid the beginning of it.

gigawuts
Jun 24, 2013, 08:40 AM
Which is why it needs that be appropriately rebalanced - but I'm not talking about just one enemy here either. When an enemy offscreen nails you in the nuts while you're lying on the floor, that's bullshit and not something you should not be held accountable for.

It is unnecessarily punishing for something you could be entirely incapable of seeing coming (what with enemies starting attacks after you've been knocked down) and invulnerability when in the ground is something PS has benefited from in the past, as do other games PSO2 is imitating (see: monster hunter).

~Aya~
Jun 24, 2013, 08:46 AM
See Dark Falz

UnLucky
Jun 24, 2013, 08:57 AM
That much I agree with.

Just even with all the bullshit guaranteed deaths stacked up against the players, it doesn't make any MPA hard because everyone can revive any number of people up to 5 times. I don't even consider Dolls, but there are those too maybe I suppose.

gigawuts
Jun 24, 2013, 09:10 AM
Yeah not everyone MPA's and mechanics that are balanced to work well with solo players can never be balanced to work well with 12 players.

Do not even try to balance this game's mechanics around MPA's. It cannot happen. Try to balance them around small groups, preferably 1-4 players, and then change enemy behaviors with larger groups of players. Things like damage mitigation when taking hits from multiple players, heavier usage of AOE and sweeping attacks, etc. that do not apply to groups of 1-4 players.

And on that note, the game should stop placing such an enormous emphasis on larger parties. People are not rewarded for bringing more players, they are punished for bringing fewer. That's gotta fucking go.

UnLucky
Jun 24, 2013, 09:16 AM
Oh yeah, MPAs are ridiculous for various reasons, and soloing is masochistic at best.

They could do a lot of things to change that.

Walkure
Jun 24, 2013, 09:18 AM
Just so you know, you are speaking to someone who found their first rare zesh in a boss room while solo, was doing a perfect run, and then got hit with the spinning bomb spam for one attack that launched, 3 that hit in midair, and 2 more that hit on the ground before finally dying.

No. Taking hits while not in control is completely random and can easily be entirely unpredictable, as with that example. How often does that happen? Not very. I shouldn't die just because they can't distribute attack damages with consistency.

IF you are meant to take 2-3 hits, then have one single orb deal the damage of 2-3 attacks. IF his double slash is meant to deal that much damage, have each slash deal that much damage. IF they are supposed to be separate, have them flinch instead of knock down like quartz's quad horn slash.Well, at the very least, having them implement damage through several very damaging moves allows some utility out of Automate Halfline!

Though I'd agree with your point overall - I'd rather have Monster Hunter style mechanics and punishment.


Why do people on this forum absolutely insist on not using critical thinking skills? Why does every single idea have to be subject to "But giga! If you do exactly that and only that, why, this miniscule detail - if left completely unchanged - would slightly not work in my opinion! Therefor the entire idea is horrible and you are horrible!" Why not just say "Well if that's what you do, you'd have to rebalance attacks that focus on knocking players down."
In my defense, when I do that, I don't even disagree with the idea.

gigawuts
Jun 24, 2013, 09:23 AM
Automate halfline as it exists is dumb as balls, and you're right the awful damage-while-down mechanics are the major reason to get it. I'd much rather see it reduce a hit's damage with a *mate than heal you after it's been applied.

But, still. Even if they gave you invulnerability when down automate halfline would be healing you from the hit that knocked you down (which would possibly now be dealing a more damage). Without automate halfline you're still looking at having to heal after getting back up. Worth 10 SP? Hell no. But, then, is automate halfline worth 10 SP now? I would still say "hell no."

Walkure
Jun 24, 2013, 09:45 AM
I only recently bought a spare hunter tree for it. If you don't carry monomates then it pretty much makes you unkillable from anything that can't take you down from above half health instantly.

Not worth it on a single tree, but a pretty fun option that helps avoid almost all rage-inducing moments while solo.

AgemFrostMage
Jun 24, 2013, 09:51 AM
Agree totally on MPA. Sometimes in Boarder Break limited quest you can run into big cats twice and Persona three times. Happened before. I also got the +5 point very hard client order done there with changeover code duel for a second quartz dragon, and using cover and environment helps a lot since it can't squeeze through certain areas and boxes provide ready cover.

Walkure
Jun 24, 2013, 10:38 AM
Also, this:
http://i.imgur.com/MKvCaLE.png
Dishes out L14 Over Ends with no gear or weak bullet for about as much damage as

http://i.imgur.com/13Dqndg.png
on a single target using L15 Flash Thousand WITH weak bullet on the same spot ON a spot weak to thunder, even. (Falz Handbutts)

Can knuckles have a good standing damage move? Using straight charge and iframes on bosses or the small clump of enemies cobbles together knuckles into a pretty decent weapon. Then, you get a vulnerable moment like a Ragne/Banther leg breaking, Mizer smashes the ground, Vardha exists, hands just sitting where, what have you. Time to Flash Thousand, right? Yes, let's deal the damage of Deadly Archer, but at the range of Rage Dance, the PP cost of Over End, and about the speed of a Speed Rain!

gigawuts
Jun 24, 2013, 10:45 AM
Yeah, knuckles are hilariously limited. The interesting thing is its most damaging move, Straight Charge, actually depends on hitstop to deliver all of its damage to one target. Hitstop, which is absolutely horrendous for almost every other move, benefits Straight Charge but halting your movement with each hit and keeping you in place for the next hit.

Sinue_v2
Jun 24, 2013, 08:33 PM
That much I agree with.

Just even with all the bullshit guaranteed deaths stacked up against the players, it doesn't make any MPA hard because everyone can revive any number of people up to 5 times. I don't even consider Dolls, but there are those too maybe I suppose.

Edit: UnLucky schooled me on game options. See below.

If you can get them to. Though part of that is that it's sometimes difficult to see who goes down where when there's a lot of action on the screen. Many people either don't have an "on death" autoword set up, or it plays in party chat instead of nearby. Coupled with everybody having tunnel vision on the foci of the event, and you're better off half the time just returning to campship and hauling ass back before they they finish it off.

I DO revive, and I try to do it before the boss dies, and I do help with heals when I can. So another gameplay tweak I'd suggest is health bars that display over non-party members heads in multi-party areas. Sort of like how it does for NPCs during elimination and protection ECs. That would help the more support oriented players to better manage their PP for heals and help identify dead players in need of a pick-up & dust off. (But don't display the health meter above their AI partners)

Oh, and since 1,200 or so meseta is chump change, and since you already have a practically infinite supply of Moons via the shop... why not just go ahead and bring back Reverser? I mean, you can get by as it is, but it's annoying as hell when you end up "wasting moons" because somebody else popped them off at the same time due to network latency or just not paying attention. Mates and Atomizers are crutches that HUs/RAs fall back on in lue of a FO/TE's support techs. Don't make FOs/TEs rely on that same crutch. Hell, just make it a Techer only spell since they seem to be more support oriented and FO is a better subclass to pair with HU/Fi, so they will be more likely to rely on Moons more often.

Plus, it would be awesome to be able to just throw a Talis into the middle of a fray and have it churn out a Reverser... rather than hurling your squishy mortal coil into the meat grinder or just making them wait till the action dies down. Yeah yeah yeah, if they didn't want to miss out on XP, then they shouldn't have died in the first place. L2P.. blah blah blah. That's all well and good social darwinism, but I'm not an asshole like that. (Neither was Darwin, come to think of it. Social Darwinism was the invention of an economist). Anyhow, I WANT to help people... and it would be cool if Sega would help me to help others.

UnLucky
Jun 24, 2013, 08:41 PM
You can see the HP bars of everyone in your MPA by changing your Overhead Display in the Quick Menu.

gigawuts
Jun 24, 2013, 10:06 PM
I'd really like it if moon atomizers weren't consumed if there was nobody left to moon :[

ShinMaruku
Jun 24, 2013, 11:36 PM
I think they'll keep that in to discourage 'misuse'

UnLucky
Jun 25, 2013, 12:00 AM
Every resurrection should reduce a counter for the MPA so you'd have to save them to revive multiple people per attempt (without completely wiping) or else you waste your 5 collective moons.

Buying more doesn't raise the counter, so you can't just have one person pop out to restock.

Zeik2006
Jun 25, 2013, 12:20 AM
I will say the threat of wiping PSO has always been very very low.

It just didn't happen much. It WOULD have been easier to wipe in this game then PSU had it been for the lack of free scape dolls. But now with 12 players in each area with 5 moons each, it didn't really change much.

I agree that something should be done to actually make that a threat.

Shinamori
Jun 25, 2013, 01:13 AM
They should change the Extreme Pass system.

Walkure
Jun 25, 2013, 01:16 AM
As long as not EVERYONE leaves the boss room, you don't even have to worry about returning to campship aside from XQs and TAs where "Retire" is there instead. So even if moon atomizers were out of the question, wiping would be almost unheard of as things stand.

Falz actually has a pretty decent dynamic for working around the problem of wiping being difficult. There's no issue about wiping in a falz run- the real challenge is that breaking everything requires teamwork and coordination from multiple roles and multiple classes.

The game pretty clearly isn't designed towards wiping being part of the difficulty, so why not make it more focused on teamwork being essential for the benefits instead?

Alisha
Jun 25, 2013, 01:27 AM
with a name like falz wiping SHOULD be a concern.

gigawuts
Jun 25, 2013, 07:51 AM
Yes and no.

People need to keep in mind that this is Phantasy Star.

Are you discussing wiping based on stats, or wiping based on skill? Because with dodging, guarding, and kiting the chance of a party wipe is VERY low. What made Falz a threat in PSO1? Mainly his freezes, his tracking attacks (rafoie/rabarta, the orbs, etc.), his large area attacks, his attacks that bypassed defense, and his HP absorb trick that forced you to damage a specific player in your party. More than that, though, was the field the player could move in. The first two fights were in a large circular field, with the second forcing you to follow him around. The third fight was in a large ring where you actually had very little maneuvering space, and evading attacks was either completely impossible or required you to run on a slight curve.

Of those mechanics I'll just grab the one that really does not work in PSO2: The HP absorb attack. Players here would throw eachother under the bus in a heartbeat for a tenth of a second faster kill time. That's absolutely best left out.

The others fit, though. And we actually have a lot of them already. So what's the problem? Invuln and being out of reach. You can be completely out of range, see moves coming and walk away, dodge, and guard literally everything. You either take the hit or you just plain don't.

So, like the rest of the game: It's a threat just fine. Invuln frames and a modicum of skill completely negate it. The only way to make that "harder" would be to make the moves more damaging and harder to see coming and harder to avoid - but now we're just making it so only the super skilled can compete. That's not really good, IMO. The alternate is to just accept that this is how this game is, which I am fine with. (Or we make moves super hard to avoid, but NOT super damaging. Or we make dodge & guard a damage mitigation with hyper armor for the full animation, not a damage invulnerability, and reduce the heaviest hitting moves to make it more about tanking and player location than dodge-guard-dodge-guard but now kiting classes are op so then we could---).

Walkure
Jun 25, 2013, 09:27 AM
It'd be more fun to have mobs that don't instagib, but throw out so much shit at once that it's hard to handle.

Imagine if Hands runs had hands that dealt less damage per hit, but were extremely aggressive, and lacked those silly safe spots like the pain train currently has.

Actually, you know what'd be funny? If there was another hand during that train attack that would try to come in and just BITCHSLAP everyone out of the safe spot. It'd be easy enough to see coming, but it'd be hilarious to see someone get caught off-guard. Every time.

gigawuts
Jun 25, 2013, 09:31 AM
Yeah, which is why I'm saying we shouldn't take hits while not in control. Have things deal a good amount of damage that's hard to avoid, but don't have it hit you all at once if you get hit once.

Walkure
Jun 25, 2013, 10:02 AM
Well, in my specific example, that'd limit the devastating effect of it. What's the fun of bitchslapping people into the train if they're invulnerable while being sent flying into it?


Also, what makes it pretty easy to get ganked by things behind you in PSO is that there's hardly any audial cues that trigger from behind the camera for some reason. Hands POUNDING THE FUCK OUT OF THE GROUND? Muffled to nothing until they pound your ass.

On the other hand (heh), Elder himself during that fight is a GREAT example of good audio cues. By listening to him you can tell when his ball attack, laser attack, or hands from the sky attack are coming.

jooozek
Jun 25, 2013, 10:03 AM
in the past the sounds played normally, ever since the vita version release sound system was hopelessly fucked up
its been like that already good 4 months

UnLucky
Jun 25, 2013, 10:06 AM
Spoilers ahead:
By saying get rid of idol Kuna I didn't mean get rid of Kuna completely. Kuna's has two modes, Asssassin and Idol so to speak. I don't think the idol aspect really adds anything to the story. I think just having Kuna as a mysterious Assassin character would be fine.

I wholeheartedly agree that idol Kuna feels tacked on as if some bigwig showed up and was like "Picture this: PS☆2: ♪Idol♪Audition♪. Make it happen."

But come on, they can't take that out. The idol business is huge, the fans go nuts, it sells cute costumes, and the Vocaloid crossovers- it just prints money.

Now I've been thinking about it since I just did MB9 and 10 for the campaign, and it makes no sense the way you're introduced to idol Kuna, or even why she chose to become an idol to discretely gather information however that is supposed to work. Besides, she goes by the same goddamn name. Very covert.

It seems like they had the story done up, where you find this brooding girl and gain her trust, then you find out she's an assassin type, also she happens to enjoy singing to relieve stress. But that's not enough! We need a super popular idol or we won't move AC! This character is perfect, let's doll her up and sell her to her adoring fans! -The motive is clear, but it fits, so everything works out right?

But it could have been so much better. What if she wasn't always an idol? Then it actually makes sense that you advise her to take up a hobby or something in the dialog. Like hello? She already enjoys singing, but thanks for the suggestion anyway. The player character could be the catalyst for idol Kuna, like a coping method or something. Hell, it would even explain her split personality in and out of the lobby. It's like all the hints are there, but they ruined it by being too hasty.

Meet plainclothes Kuna, she is troubled. Help cheer her up, offer your assistance, Hadred happens, heavy shit ensues. Idol Kuna is born. "Glad to see you're doing well" Yeah?

gigawuts
Jun 25, 2013, 10:16 AM
Kuna is such a hilarious turnoff in this game. One of the most alien things to western gamers is this bizarre idol culture Japan has developed, where idols can't so much as be seen as kissing a guy without a major shitstorm from the fans.

Kuna might work in Japan, but if they add that squeaky leaking balloon voiced idol-by-day-teleporting-hero-by-night (that magically turns into an ordinary grown woman's voice when lip syncing singing) in the west people will look at it with the blankest stare a human being can give.

Walkure
Jun 25, 2013, 10:24 AM
Make her into a superhero wannabe in the translation?

Also holy shit that summary of matterboards 9&10 sounds painfully suetiful.

BlankM
Jun 25, 2013, 10:36 AM
Yes and no.

People need to keep in mind that this is Phantasy Star.

Are you discussing wiping based on stats, or wiping based on skill? Because with dodging, guarding, and kiting the chance of a party wipe is VERY low. What made Falz a threat in PSO1? Mainly his freezes, his tracking attacks (rafoie/rabarta, the orbs, etc.), his large area attacks, his attacks that bypassed defense, and his HP absorb trick that forced you to damage a specific player in your party. More than that, though, was the field the player could move in. The first two fights were in a large circular field, with the second forcing you to follow him around. The third fight was in a large ring where you actually had very little maneuvering space, and evading attacks was either completely impossible or required you to run on a slight curve.

Of those mechanics I'll just grab the one that really does not work in PSO2: The HP absorb attack. Players here would throw eachother under the bus in a heartbeat for a tenth of a second faster kill time. That's absolutely best left out.

The others fit, though. And we actually have a lot of them already. So what's the problem? Invuln and being out of reach. You can be completely out of range, see moves coming and walk away, dodge, and guard literally everything. You either take the hit or you just plain don't.

So, like the rest of the game: It's a threat just fine. Invuln frames and a modicum of skill completely negate it. The only way to make that "harder" would be to make the moves more damaging and harder to see coming and harder to avoid - but now we're just making it so only the super skilled can compete. That's not really good, IMO. The alternate is to just accept that this is how this game is, which I am fine with. (Or we make moves super hard to avoid, but NOT super damaging. Or we make dodge & guard a damage mitigation with hyper armor for the full animation, not a damage invulnerability, and reduce the heaviest hitting moves to make it more about tanking and player location than dodge-guard-dodge-guard but now kiting classes are op so then we could---).

I feel like the huge map sizes makes for really bad design with these boss battles. Not only is there little cue when danger is coming your way, but there is just too much room to run around. Not to mention a bunch of bosses just jump and fly everywhere making it a really boring kitefest until you stagger them to death to make them stay still.

Small maps not only make dodges more satisfying and meaningful, but also lends itself well to more engaging and familiar patterns. You're more likely to start learning sweet spots, keeping situational awareness, and perhaps tracking multiple spawns/attacks rather then having one or two people handle mobs during a boss fight...

gigawuts
Jun 26, 2013, 08:14 AM
Also the game would really benefit from content aimed towards 2 player parties, or possibly a matchmaking system for lazy people like me. I'm way too lazy to try to assemble a full party nowadays.

On the odd occasion I actually try to fill a party, when I skim my friends list everyone has been in a full party doing AQ's or XQ's for hours before I even signed in. And of course they have, there's zero reason not to try to get a full party. You're even punished for not having a full party. Not only do things take longer to kill, but fewer things spawn. Essentially every single gamemode directly benefits from having 4 players instead of anything less unless you're looking to upload a video and brag about soloing a boss or something.

Also, they should give us a small section to leave notes about people on our friends list. I have no idea who half of these people are, and will eventually just start removing people to reduce clutter.

UnLucky
Jun 26, 2013, 08:26 AM
"Hello who are you why are you on my list when did I add you?"

"何w?"

Also people with multiple characters, I can't keep track of all that.

gigawuts
Jun 26, 2013, 08:35 AM
A list of someone's characters would be great. Maybe just the ones you've partied with, if someone's going to raise concerns about hiding their secret waifu character or something.

Inazuma
Jun 27, 2013, 11:26 AM
Also, they should give us a small section to leave notes about people on our friends list. I have no idea who half of these people are, and will eventually just start removing people to reduce clutter.

Great idea. I would also like an option to display character names instead of account names in whispers and team chat.

And last but not least, I would love a way to check a friend's last login date! It's such an incredible pain trying to delete some friends to make room on my friend list. If someone hasn't logged in for 6 months, I want to know about it.

Niris
Jun 27, 2013, 12:41 PM
Bring back Olga Flow! But to kill him you have to do more than just hit his ankles.

Saffran
Jun 27, 2013, 01:33 PM
Giga > I only said "being hit on the ground is fair" ( because *we* rely on precisely this mechanic to kill enemies). I do indeed not agree with many of your views on this game, but I don't think I was insulting you when I said that.

gigawuts
Jun 27, 2013, 01:48 PM
I don't really think we should rely on knockdown or flinch mechanics to kill things either. With such boring flinch and stun mechanics killing things isn't about fighting - it's about flinching and knocking enemies down before they flinch or knock you down. Simple as that.

Enemies shouldn't be knocked over nearly as much, and enemy downtime should be considerably lower. They should still be knocked away, swirly-star-over-head stun should still work, etc. Sure. But flinch and knockdown is too excessive on both sides.

It just cheapens the whole game when everything is about stumbling bosses and using lift to knock over gorongos. Enemies should deal less damage, knock players over less, and be knocked over less. THEN they should be more aggressive. More aggression with the current state of the game would basically turn everything into a slightly riskier "flinch it before you get flinched" game.

Large bosses should also stop soaring across the map with jet engines and leaps that could span entire small towns so often. Occasionally to close a gap, yeah ok. As regular attack patterns? God no, that gets way too obnoxious.

The best example of all this is Ragne. That boss goes from potentially obnoxious with its leaps to stumble heaven as you break each leg and waste it while it's just lying on the ground completely defenseless. Yeah, that was fun when we didn't know what the hell to do and our equipment was so low that breaking legs too real work, but now Ragne is less threatening than a wave of fish darkers.

Renvalt
Jun 27, 2013, 02:24 PM
Bring back Olga Flow! But to kill him you have to do more than just hit his ankles.

Didn't the PSPo2i version of him catapult you to meet him at around chest or eye level? I swear I recall something like that occurring (and it was utilizing a similar platform type to PSO1's Dark Falz).

Zenobia
Jun 27, 2013, 02:28 PM
Didn't the PSPo2i version of him catapult you to meet him at around chest or eye level? I swear I recall something like that occurring (and it was utilizing a similar platform type to PSO1's Dark Falz).

Yes it did you had to use the commands to lift the platform up and down. And you were at chest lvl.

Alisha
Jun 27, 2013, 02:41 PM
Yes it did you had to use the commands to lift the platform up and down. And you were at chest lvl.

no thats dark falz dios your thinking of. what flow did was similar to pso's dark falz final form.

Sinue_v2
Jun 27, 2013, 02:44 PM
Didn't the PSPo2i version of him catapult you to meet him at around chest or eye level?

Chest level, yes.


Yes it did you had to use the commands to lift the platform up and down. And you were at chest lvl.

That was Dios.

ShinMaruku
Jun 27, 2013, 03:05 PM
I have an idea who would you like sega to contract to make this game aside from Sonic Team?

sibladeko
Jun 28, 2013, 01:42 PM
Time to offer my expert opinion!

"I haven't used these weapons but I think these weapons should be fixed."
it may be a 1hko but its boring

"I haven't played FO but I think their dash is why people complain about them..."
Put a 20pp cost to mirage escape or put an invisible cd on it so force can only blink-blink thrice in a row. Now force have to l2P.

"I haven't read the thread but..."
Monsters can jump, and that's a problem.
Monsters can jump, and that's a problem.
Monsters can jump, and that's a problem.
Monsters can jump, and that's a problem.

I haven't had this much fun since the ascended Talis sheathers.

Rien
Jul 4, 2013, 06:43 AM
Hunter's defense tree needs a revamp.

Keep Guard Stance as-is, but change flash guards and what not to Guard Advance, increasing it's damage mitigation and also increasing the time window for Just Guard. Then add Guard Reflect, which adds Just Guard's damage reflect to the basic Guard (maybe for less). Extend Warcry duration to 1 minute (and match cooldown accordingly)

Following that, add Guard Reflect Advance which increases Guard Reflect/ Just Guard Reflect damage.

For more skills, consider:

Rapid Guard, decreasing PP cost for regular Guards
Guard Awareness, giving a bigger range (>180 degrees) to Guard
Shield Attract, making Guard generate large amounts of Haet.
Wall Break, allowing attacks to ignore an opponent's shields (Krabada, Gawonda/Guwonda, maybe even Goronzoran's barrier)

Baseline, change Defense tree to focus on the use of Guard and Just Guard.

gigawuts
Jul 4, 2013, 08:13 AM
There seriously needs to be a whole expansion on the core mechanics of each class, most importantly melee. While RA and FO focus on not being hit, which means that the new PA's are expansions on most of their core mechanics (hurting things), melee's core mechanics include things like step attack, the stances, gear, and guarding.

Things like PP and/or HP absorb on a just guard, a PP reduction for JA'd PA's, advanced gears, etc. What made HU interesting during the early game was you frequently gained new abilities as you played, but after something like 30 SP that just stops and all you gain anymore is plain old damage. The gain of those new abilities helped define the class, and as enemies gain new defenses and modes of attack HU has begun to stagnate. This is a problem for all classes, but with HU taking hits the most easily it's especially clear with it.

It would also be nice if the fury tree's SP cost was cut way way down so you weren't pigeonholed into being good at offense or being good at defense, or being awful at both. Generalizing isn't viable, and it should be.

Kilich
Jul 4, 2013, 09:04 AM
I think that only skills that do something should keep their 10sp cost, while skills like Fury up, or Ja, or zero range should become 5sp. And those sp would be used in weapon trees that are unique to each weapon, if rare, or weapon type, if below 7*. Resetable at any time for free like with Mags.

And its skills were based from its looks and description.

And since its Sega, make the skill tree tiered and every tier unlocked the same way that potentials are leveled now. You can even make the final ability into an unique active, to be worth the Dudu effort.

Shinamori
Jul 4, 2013, 09:14 AM
How about this: Paying for specific people runs. Say like you have a party of 4, but only 1 of you doesn't have the required item. The leader could pay just for himself and that one person who doesn't have that required item.

Saffran
Jul 4, 2013, 10:37 AM
>Generalizing isn't viable, and it should be.
Well, they make the game easier and easier to accomodate that. (and I hate it)

I'd actually like just guard (and guard cancels, jump cancels, daggers' guard) to be less omnipotent. I'm sorry to annoy the fighters, but no, you did not avoid a diamond wing the size of a wall and stayed right where you were, a few pixels near that dragon's head. Also, you can't avoid lethal rain or an attack from underneath you by twirling. Those attacks have cues, you can get out of the way if you want to avoid damage, so DO IT.

I do agree on some skill like JA PP reduction being a possible perk for Hu and Fi. What about a resistance to Status Ailments ? It would make Hunter clones quite a tad harder, I guess.

Also, I'd like to go again at it with the idea of opening exact same skills on different trees. If you invest in Sdef1 on Hu, then it's unlocked as well on Fi. That would enable you to get to skills in one tree by unlocking requisites in the other tree. Of course you'd need to compensate for the fact that people would lose the possibility of maxing Sdef1 on both trees, I guess. But it would make life simpler for dodge, just reversal, etc.

Rien
Jul 5, 2013, 04:14 AM
Some upcoming Episode 2 skills I think is worth mentioning:

Braver: Snatch Step and Step Attack are separate. Also, ridiculous number of skills. It's a bit like the Fighter Tree, splitting into Average Stance and Weak Stance. Warning to bow users: There's a Stance Charge Advance, increasing damage for charged attacks (bow focuses on these) and it's one for each stance. The amount of SP you'd need for all this is just absolutely insane.

There's also Just Reversal Bonus (Braver only) listed in the skills, and I don't know what they're pulling.

Hunter: Massive Hunter, increasing damage for large enemies (e.g anything you generally can't pick up with a throwing PA). Also, S-attack up 3 because I don't know why.

Fighter: Adrenaline. No idea what it does yet.

Ranger: Power Bullet (increases rifle damage). Bullet PP Save (decreases pp cost of rifle PAs)

Gunner: S Roll Up/Arts/Combo (Expanding on the shift dodge?), Show Time Star (expansion on Show Time)

Force: Freeze Keep (Freeze is now harder to break), Photon Flare Tactics (Chance not to use PP when casting a tech, I think), Freeze Ignition Up.

Techer: All wand skills lol who uses that.

gigawuts
Jul 5, 2013, 07:42 AM
Are those suggestions, or confirmed info?

Z-0
Jul 5, 2013, 07:46 AM
New precede came out today, information was pulled from there.
I am liking how Ranger gets more OP skills (then again Power Bullet probably can't work with Weak Bullet).

gigawuts
Jul 5, 2013, 07:54 AM
Of course, how could I forget that. I'm not finding that much detailed info in the usual places, mind giving me a prod in the right direction?

I'm a bit disappointed to hear ranger will get even more bonuses that stack, while gunner, and techer get bonuses in every odd direction that have virtually no synergy with the pre-existing, insufficient bonuses. Hunter's massive hunter skill seems like it should be an innate ability for grab weapons...

Gardios
Jul 5, 2013, 08:05 AM
What do the Techer skills do?

AgemFrostMage
Jul 5, 2013, 08:15 AM
I have an idea: have a player booth in lobby where you stand there and sell services such as buying burst from people and hire yourself as a mercenary. To avoid abuse and scamming the quest will be instant and will be stuck until the objective is complete =)

Sometimes I feel like buying burst... but don't know who to trust -_- Besides no premium so cannot trade anyway.

AgemFrostMage
Jul 5, 2013, 08:20 AM
Kuna is such a hilarious turnoff in this game. One of the most alien things to western gamers is this bizarre idol culture Japan has developed, where idols can't so much as be seen as kissing a guy without a major shitstorm from the fans.

Kuna might work in Japan, but if they add that squeaky leaking balloon voiced idol-by-day-teleporting-hero-by-night (that magically turns into an ordinary grown woman's voice when lip syncing singing) in the west people will look at it with the blankest stare a human being can give.

But I LIKE KUNA!

gigawuts
Jul 5, 2013, 08:23 AM
What do the Techer skills do?

The skill names are

Techer: MainWand, PowerWand, TecherAtpStrikeUp
I'm not sure where the description info is coming from, though.

Gardios
Jul 5, 2013, 08:41 AM
That doesn't sound that bad.

Inb4 the skills are in the dark tree.

gigawuts
Jul 5, 2013, 08:43 AM
No, that would actually be nice because of PP convert.

They'll be in the wind tree, requiring 5 sp in PP Up 2.

Gardios
Jul 5, 2013, 09:05 AM
Most TE mains rather go wind/PP Restorate though. I mean, yeah it's not bad, but wtf I don't want to have a journey through the entire skill tree. :/

But oh god I didn't even think of PP Up 2...