Why is level grinding and progressing more fun in the original?

[Agitated_AT]

Whether you agree or not. What do you guys think?

Was it really more fun in pso or not?

I feel like it still is but i jus cant put my finger on what it exactly is. Maybe its a lot of things

[gigawuts]

Better pacing, and it not being strictly superior to play in a larger group. You could solo for just as much or even more experience. Boss fights rewarded you much better, and the emphasis on leveling went hand in hand with the emphasis on gear (it was arguably a lesser emphasis, even).

So yeah. Leveling happened as you played in PSO1. In PSO2, leveling is a requirement to make your character, due to skilltrees.

[Z-0]

Also, you didn't need to get lucky to make progress / have fun, since everything was there laid out for you.

[The Walrus]

What Giga and Z-0 said pretty much.

Pacing had a lot to do with it in the first. Leveling always felt kind of like an afterthought until the super high levels and even thought it gated your ability to do the different difficulties it didn't take long at all to hit ult which was awesome.

[Ezodagrom]

Whether you agree or not. What do you guys think?

Was it really more fun in pso or not?

I feel like it still is but i jus cant put my finger on what it exactly is. Maybe its a lot of things
For me leveling up/progressing in PSO was only fun in normal and maybe hard mode. In very hard it started becoming too much more of the same, and in ultimate, while interesting at first, the gap for the level required to do decently between each area is just way too big, it becomes dull very fast.
Overall, progressing in PSO2 is more fun for me.

[gigawuts]

The way the game handled its damage formula made leveling important as soon as you stepped into a new area, but not very important there after a little while. I didn't feel like it handled that very well at times (like your first forays into caves on normal). Reducing the def of monsters in a couple areas a bit would have been a good move. They'd take noticeably higher damage at first, but not noticeably higher damage later on since, I don't know, let's say an additional 10 damage on top of 50 is pretty big, but 10 on top of 200 isn't going to change much.

For much of the game I felt it handled it well, though. I don't know if they tweaked it over the different releases. If they didn't tweak the pacing, then I'm pretty impressed with how well they nailed it in the first go...but I do recall hearing horror stories of the damage formula in v2's ultimate so I'm pretty sure they tweaked it.

[Ezodagrom]

The way the game handled its damage formula made leveling important as soon as you stepped into a new area, but not very important there after a little while. I didn't feel like it handled that very well at times (like your first forays into caves on normal). Reducing the def of monsters in a couple areas a bit would have been a good move. They'd take noticeably higher damage at first, but not noticeably higher damage later on since, I don't know, let's say an additional 10 damage on top of 50 is pretty big, but 10 on top of 200 isn't going to change much.

For much of the game I felt it handled it well, though. I don't know if they tweaked it over the different releases. If they didn't tweak the pacing, then I'm pretty impressed with how well they nailed it in the first go...but I do recall hearing horror stories of the damage formula in v2's ultimate so I'm pretty sure they tweaked it.
Haha...v2 ultimate...
I only played it offline, and even in the forest, enemies defences were really high.
Though when I say that the gap was way too big, I was talking about the final itteration (Blue Burst), even after all the improvements to ultimate, it still got boring fast, in my opinion.

[ShinMaruku]

Because Sonic Team was not ass in 2000.
After 2004 all bets were off they went in the toilet.

[UnLucky]

You leveled as you progressed through the areas. If you couldn't beat an area, you kept trying or got better gear.

You could say it's a boring grind full of artificial difficulty, but it's not like every subsequent area was level locked. It's just a gear check. And gear was fun to hunt for.

See, new stuff was cool. What you already had was cool. You could keep both. When you got the opportunity to upgrade your gear, it happened. Doing that didn't invalidate everything else you could possibly have at the moment. Nor does failing that upgrade completely invalidate your otherwise best-in-slot gear.

So you played the game in high spirits. Even if you did a hundred runs looking for some rare gear, it's not like you'd be level 200 or anything, so nothing is wasted progress.

[Cyron Tanryoku]

You know you fucked up when you make grinding in old games seem fun

[Alisha]

ive commented on this in my team as well but in pso and even in psp2 you could just log on look at the party list join a game and have fun killing shit. its a lot more complicated to do that in pso2 due to the focus on CO's.

[SquashDemon]

Hm...tough thing to say, it might have something to do with the fact that all the development on PSO was done when they released it, console release, no patching, limited rebalancing could be done. PSO2 on the other hand has had no less than three different experience tables, and I'm willing to bet more'll be coming out soon.

Also, playing as an 'Every Hunters' (can not BELIEVE they never got around to fixing those translation errors for the GCN release) of the guild felt more...eh, mercenary-ish. With Arkz, it's more implied that you have a certain quota of missions you have to go on to continue living, it's like...a job.

and jobs suck.

also PSO had a hojillion weapons, several of which were exclusive categories. There was no 3 star katana, no 2 star doublesaber, no 4 star launcher/bazooka. You wanted spiffy new looking weapons unobtainable in the shops, you find them your damn self!

oh and trading. I miss trading with anyone. If anyone here actually remembers me, that was kinda my thing.

Oh how I miss buying Photon drops en masse. *snif*

[UnLucky]

ive commented on this in my team as well but in pso and even in psp2 you could just log on look at the party list join a game and have fun killing shit. its a lot more complicated to do that in pso2 due to the focus on CO's.
This is very true. You would show up, look at what people are doing, and join in.

Or you would start something yourself and people would join in.

Entirely voluntarily.

It was like some kind of online experience, it was very strange.

[gravityvx]

Whether you agree or not. What do you guys think?

Was it really more fun in pso or not?

I feel like it still is but i jus cant put my finger on what it exactly is. Maybe its a lot of things

Going through the maps was actually fun(minus caves until De Rol Le), the weapons, armor & barriers were faaaaaaar more fun to use, enjoyed the much darker story, so far more attached to the world since I know I'm not just going on a genocide spree, the enemies could actually kill you even with a full party on several occasions until you're pretty geared & above level so that challeng stepping into these areas, especially as a HU-anything.

Then there was the ability to play offline and still progress your character to bring online, oh and of course...trading with others, grinding without any frustration involved, the game jst felt a hell of a lot more rewarding for my time. And then there was the fact I could log in and play on any freaking difficulty without having trouble finding a party, in PSO2 all people do is level low classes through COs leaving the majority of N & H barren, I hate it. I could list more but all these is what made leveling in that game far more fun for me.

[Z-0]

So basically what goes on in AQ blocks. I like playing in the AQ blocks, because you make a game, people see what you're doing and join in because they decide to do it too. Language barrier is non-existent because nobody talks and just plays the game.

Or you look at the game list and decide to join that game too.

AQ is pretty much what I'd say PSO2 should be.

[Laxedrane]

They need to make it so you can set the difficulty of hans, revelle, and frankas COs for proportional EXP. I think a huge chunk of PSO2 problem is the pigeon holing of exp. Yes ruins and sanctum should offer the best exp options however the gap simply caused by COs in staggering.

The lack of being able to go back to forest, caves or desert unless you get a few decent Daileys going is just cutting off you own content. This is also why I think ruins is more popular(Other then friendlier maps) is becuase it offers a shit ton more COs to clear thusly better exp.

I think people would enjoy leveling more if they could pick any area and get roughly the same exp per hour with only minor differences based on areas.

To me talking about rares is kind of eh for the topic at hand. For how I played doing a certain area was an excuse to do it. Wasn't the sole purpose or left me wanting more if I didn't get said rare.

Legitmently I never had more then a comparable 9* rare in this game or a red weapon. All the super rares I never got and that was ok. I was fine with it. Just like I was fine with the premium glass ceiling until I got that. It's something I personally have a hard time relating to. So beyond what I already said, I don't have much input there.

[UnLucky]

So basically what goes on in AQ blocks. I like playing in the AQ blocks, because you make a game, people see what you're doing and join in because they decide to do it too. Language barrier is non-existent because nobody talks and just plays the game.

Or you look at the game list and decide to join that game too.

AQ is pretty much what I'd say PSO2 should be.

Not exactly, but as close as you can really get due to the nature of the game. You can join a TA/AQ block and have randoms join you. People actually do want to do those areas (well, maybe not every AQ). But most other progress is all solo.

In PSO you would see people in the middle of nowhere, and join their games. They'll be in like Mines 2, but who cares, that's a good area to run. Once the "quest" was over, you kept going. On to the next area. That's a good area to run, too. People will join on the way, people will leave. That's cool. More people is always good, but having less wasn't so bad as to make your time seem wasted. It wasn't universally better to sit in the lobby and wait for your party to form so that you might run some content. You just started running it.

And disconnecting from the server didn't make you lose all current progress, except maybe those timed quest things, unless you could rejoin those I forget.

[Z-0]

When it came to questing in PSO, you could never rejoin quests, and people could not join you in the middle of them. People could only drop in and out if you were running the free fields. Most of the time I was running quests so it's pretty much the same thing to me here.

Although I do admit the whole "you are punished are playing solo" thing is really annoying.

[Sinue_v2]

It wasn't.

Pacing? Getting to 100 in v.1 was piss easy. v.2 introduced lvl 200, but only gave you one difficulty level to keep you engaged from lvl 80 to cap. This meant that exp did not scale with character level, making the grind from the half-way point (186, thereabouts?) a major chore. I never made it past 135, but by then, Sega had folded out of the console business and preview materials for Ep I & II were already trickling out and... what's the point if I can't bring my save file with me?

Ep I & II helped matters substantially by giving you twice the amount of areas to level up in. Though at the same time, they nerfed Ultimate mode so that you could actually hit stuff sub-lvl 100 and scaled it a bit more evenly. Still, by lvl 160 you were fully capable of doing Forest to Seabed with little problems, so before you were even to the half-way point - you really had nowhere left to go. At that point, it was best to not really worry about levels, and just focus on repeated runs to hunt rares... and let the levels come as they will. Also, abuse the shit out of Towards the Future.


Personally, I think the best leveling system so far is PSP2i's. Getting to level 200 is easy enough if you abuse Gurhal Heroes and Magashi Plan, and you never loose that sense of progress since even just spamming missions for rare drops provide an appreciable EXP gain. However, if you really want to run Infinity missions efficiently, you have to rebirth your character. Rebirthing allows you to break the level cap (effectively up to 250) and raises your class level caps by 20. Rebirthing resets your character level back to to 1 (with a stat boost), and to fully max out your character, you have to rebirth something like 5 1/2 times. This makes it much less tedious to hunt for rares that drop exclusively in lower-level areas since you'll be revisiting them often. And if you find one you really like, using extend codes on them can bring those shitty B Class noob weapons up to S-Rank quality.

The whole system was just a hell of a lot more rewarding all around.

[Xaeris]

I'd say it was because levels didn't matter as much in PSO as they do in PSO2. Aside from how worthless level up became around 140 or so (whee, +2 ATP), the game wasn't gated like PSO2 is. Offline, you could do whatever the hell you pleased at any level so long as you could clear the necessary content. Online, the threshold for Episode 1 Ultimate was 80 which, in Ep 1&2, was a laughable joke. So instead of restricting you, levels in PSO were just something that happened as a consequence of playing.

[Niris]

I think we where just younger and didn't know any better. It worked at the time. If I had to level a character to ult now a days I would have to gouge my eyes out by the time I reached hard.

[BlankM]

Yes as pointed out, levels didn't really matter in PSO much. You got gear, mats, mags and everything else to power your character up.

In PSO2 so many things are skilltree dependent so levels make your character. Also its harder to just jump into random games until you get to AQs. Then once you get to AQs they're repetitive. Random spawns, hope you get lucky and PSE, repeat process ad nauseam. Usually by the time you are at this point you're grinding more for higher numbers and not really utility, which also feels unsatisfying.

I think its as Lucky stated. In PSO1, you probably had gear you were attached to, even if it wasn't the best. That made it fun, because you had a playstyle and didn't mind playing it until you found another goal. (However hopeless said goal might have seemed)

Yet in PSO2, a lot of the best goals are either locked behind 1) A lottery, 2) Playing people who play the lottery, or 3) Just plain restricted via daily limits. (Meseta creation, Extreme Passes etc.)

Then you realize most of these goals are just reskins of stuff you've already had, so you can continue playing stuff you're already playing, albeit killing things slightly faster.

What PSO1 had was more engaging content/variety, more weapons with utility rather then just damage, and better pacing/reward for playing the game. Though you really had to dig further into the game to see the depth.

[lostinseganet]

Dreamcast was just soo dreamy back then. And I would love to get lost in seganet every day of the week!

[Du1337]

Because I played PSU between the older PSO's and this one, I am happy I have this version now... PSU really got my hopes down for the future, but now it's all good.

[strikerhunter]

Personally, I think the best leveling system so far is PSP2i's. Getting to level 200 is easy enough if you abuse Gurhal Heroes and Magashi Plan, and you never loose that sense of progress since even just spamming missions for rare drops provide an appreciable EXP gain. However, if you really want to run Infinity missions efficiently, you have to rebirth your character. Rebirthing allows you to break the level cap (effectively up to 250) and raises your class level caps by 20. Rebirthing resets your character level back to to 1 (with a stat boost), and to fully max out your character, you have to rebirth something like 5 1/2 times. This makes it much less tedious to hunt for rares that drop exclusively in lower-level areas since you'll be revisiting them often. And if you find one you really like, using extend codes on them can bring those shitty B Class noob weapons up to S-Rank quality.

The whole system was just a hell of a lot more rewarding all around.


This. Of all of the the PS series, PSP2i had the best and most rewarding leveling-up system. The extend codes is probably one of the best system in the PS series, I mean seriously go grab an old weapon you liked so much and turn it into a high-end weapon. This basically creates more creativity to the player and in the game, which is what PSO2 needs and I hope the road map update schedule for this December is something like this. PSO2 needs more creativity as PSP2/2i had.

From bumped.
[SPOILER-BOX]
System Update
New 12 Person Quest
Item Customization System Update[/SPOILER-BOX]

On topic, I would rather say PSO leveling beats PSO2's. In PSO2 it is really just a rush to cap level to able to start enjoying things from content to good grouping to
just having fun. But once you hit cap you won't get that feeling because you are thinking about "what the hell to do now? I'm at level cap now." When things becomes repetitive, players who reached near cap or hit cap level becomes bored and leave the game, even when hunting 10*s+. I took my time to enjoy the game and took it all slowly just like I did in PSO.

PSO wasn't gated by level whereas PSO2 has level gated content. As others posted (unlucky for example) leveling is just a thing that happens when you play.
And no it is not because the PSO's cap level is way higher than PSO2's, but that the fact that in PSO2 so much things are heavenly reliant on leveling up (skill trees, stats, areas, AQs, XQs, etc.) is what made leveling less enjoyable than PSO's leveling because it becomes something you must do rather than something that you would want to do.

Although it is true that the gap from 45-50 in PSO2 is pretty much a pain the ***, that level range is the closest to PSO's leveling style you'll get (not including COs) because you hit 45+ and made a good use of your class now and leveling up is something that wouldn't be on your mind until you hit closer to 50 because of that large gap.

[ShinMaruku]

Personally, I think the best leveling system so far is PSP2i's. Getting to level 200 is easy enough if you abuse Gurhal Heroes and Magashi Plan, and you never loose that sense of progress since even just spamming missions for rare drops provide an appreciable EXP gain. However, if you really want to run Infinity missions efficiently, you have to rebirth your character. Rebirthing allows you to break the level cap (effectively up to 250) and raises your class level caps by 20. Rebirthing resets your character level back to to 1 (with a stat boost), and to fully max out your character, you have to rebirth something like 5 1/2 times. This makes it much less tedious to hunt for rares that drop exclusively in lower-level areas since you'll be revisiting them often. And if you find one you really like, using extend codes on them can bring those shitty B Class noob weapons up to S-Rank quality.

The whole system was just a hell of a lot more rewarding all around.
PSP2i is the best Phantasy Star game in my view. It was well planned. Which begs the question why did they not use the psp2 guys instead of this lame group we got?

[strikerhunter]

PSP2i is the best Phantasy Star game in my view. It was well planned. Which begs the question why did they not use the psp2 guys instead of this lame group we got?

Because receiving the same exact system would make it rather boring as it would just be a simple copy-n-paste with the name PSO2 on it. It's like having 2 different game titles under the same series with the same system but different name.

Also do remember that PSP2i is a handheld game whereas PSO2 is a PC/Vita, which made it easier to handle comparing to it's console and PC siblings.
Point being: When there is less work to do to make a game when having lower resource, it forces developers to use that resource wisely and makes a great game out of it, but when having more resources, things becomes rather chaotic when not sorted because of all the ideas being scatter thus leading to imbalance and bugs in a game. (do not that this does not apply to every game)

This is why I would rather had something inspired by PSP2i's leveling and creativity system rather than the same exact stuffs.

[blace]

They went crazy because we had PC's in an age where Minecraft could only be run on supercomputers.

Then shit happened and they got lazy. Or you know, the tsunami happened forcing them to release the game as is.

[ShinMaruku]

Because receiving the same exact system would make it rather boring as it would just be a simple copy-n-paste with the name PSO2 on it. It's like having 2 different game titles under the same series with the same system but different name.

Also do remember that PSP2i is a handheld game whereas PSO2 is a PC/Vita, which made it easier to handle comparing to it's console and PC siblings.
Point being: When there is less work to do to make a game when having lower resource, it forces developers to use that resource wisely and makes a great game out of it, but when having more resources, things becomes rather chaotic when not sorted because of all the ideas being scatter thus leading to imbalance and bugs in a game. (do not that this does not apply to every game)

This is why I would rather had something inspired by PSP2i's leveling and creativity system rather than the same exact stuffs.

I am not talking about systems I am talking the design team. That one is superior to the ones we have right now.

[Blundy]

what giga said, but also the atmosphere was just amazing in the first one, i cannot say why. i played the gamecube one offline both with and without friends and no matter what it always felt like an indepth adventure, ironic considering how linear the game is compared to what we we currently have.

if i had to say, i'd feel better about this game if there was just one mysterious planet rather than jumping around through what i believe is now four of them.

still having fun regardless. bosses really should drop more, and arks missions need those box rewards at the end like the portable games. even the meseta bosses drop feels pitiful.

[NoiseHERO]

Probably because one was a videogame that happened to be online...

And the other is an "online game."

[strikerhunter]

I am not talking about systems I am talking the design team. That one is superior to the ones we have right now.

Then it be the different scenario then. Which is why I said this in my earlier post:


Also do remember that PSP2i is a handheld game whereas PSO2 is a PC/Vita, which made it easier to handle comparing to it's console and PC siblings.
Point being: When there is less work to do to make a game when having lower resource, it forces developers to use that resource wisely and makes a great game out of it, but when having more resources, things becomes rather chaotic when not sorted because of all the ideas being scatter thus leading to imbalance and bugs in a game. (do not that this does not apply to every game)

A team of developer that worked on a game for a handheld system would not be on their turf when dealing with another system completely different form what they are used to working on with. You have to understand that developing for one system is not the same as developing for another which explains why you don't see many developers working on multiple systems that they are unfamiliar with.

[jooozek]

how do you mix up code monkeys with designers?

[Sinue_v2]

Point being: When there is less work to do to make a game when having lower resource, it forces developers to use that resource wisely and makes a great game out of it, but when having more resources, things becomes rather chaotic when not sorted because of all the ideas being scatter thus leading to imbalance and bugs in a game.

Well, I think a big part of it was that PSP2 & PSP2i were designed to be released as full games with near total access to all content available since day one. It was much easier to a construct a flow to the game's progression when you aren't having to throw up arbitrary timed release roadblocks that force you into half-assed rebalances every three months or so. I think Sega's still stuck on the idea that players need constant influxes of new shit to keep them playing and paying, when really, I think that if the game itself is well made - people will WANT to stick around for longer. Then you can focus on making well-rounded expansions every year or year and a half to bring back some of the players that have moved on.

[EvilMag]

In other words, PSO2's huge success is the reason why the game's been shitty and be dumbed down from previous games?

[strikerhunter]

Well, I think a big part of it was that PSP2 & PSP2i were designed to be released as full games with near total access to all content available since day one. It was much easier to a construct a flow to the game's progression when you aren't having to throw up arbitrary timed release roadblocks that force you into half-assed rebalances every three months or so. I think Sega's still stuck on the idea that players need constant influxes of new shit to keep them playing and paying, when really, I think that if the game itself is well made - people will WANT to stick around for longer. Then you can focus on making well-rounded expansions every year or year and a half to bring back some of the players that have moved on.

Right on bro.

If PSO2 can just keep decent size updates every 3 months with good amount of contents rather than add something new (female clothings, yea we all know) every 2-3 weeks, and expansions yearly, then maybe and just maybe PSO2 may have a fighting chance to out do the experience of PSO.

[Punisher106]

While I admire sega's effort to offer a varied environment in PSO2, I do kind of miss the simplicity of the past PS games. Yes, yes, PSO was HURR TTF and PSU was HURR WHITE BITCH, but still. They were really based off of the exp you get from killing the monsters, rather than doing ludicrous weekly tasks for schmucks about the ships for 10-20k exp.

[Agitated_AT]

Dreamcast was just soo dreamy back then. And I would love to get lost in seganet every day of the week!

i think not many people are talking about their experience back then. most of us still occasionally play it. don't dismiss everything people say because of this weird idea. if a game is bad, people "would" realise if they went back, despite ther being any nostalgia involved.

i feel like, if pso bb got new content from now, most of us would go back, experience it, and fall back in love with it.


In other words, PSO2's huge success is the reason why the game's been shitty and be dumbed down from previous games?

no its succes exists more around them being smart and focussing on an easy(japanese) audience. in other words that would be, its more of a business than it is a game made with passion and heart.

[Renvalt]

I've been playing PSO1 recently, and I can share some of my experiences from the ground up.

For me, I don't think any online Phantasy Star outdoes the other. Each one has pros and cons, but in order to fully rate something, you have to look outside of a stereotypical "constantly overdone by everyone including ol' Percy's grandma" content piece. Like for me, TTF ruined most of the PSO1 experience for me when I was playing over at Schtserv, so I made it a point that I wouldn't play it again if it meant dealing with people who made a point to swear by that quest as the "best thing since sliced bread".

Likewise, with PSO2, I don't play the game for the sake of just mindlessly grinding to endgame content, so I can just AFK in the lobby. Some bosses I just tend to downright suck at, some I love doing and just fight them because, well, I could use a good fight to pep up my bad days sometimes. I also enjoy the story, badly written though it is (and despite the gripes I have with it). I can enjoy the level grind simply because every encounter, every new update is always something to look forward to, something to learn from.

In the end, what the OP said about PSO1 having the most fun progression is really up to each individual - while you have your right to think that it is (and I should respect that right, even if I get a little heated about my disapproval with it), I also expect you to respect my right to see all the PSO games for what I think they are.

In the end, extremist opinions about anything - be it PSO or whatever - only just serve to make unwelcome atmospheres. And nobody likes feeling like they might get killed for having a different mindset.

[LaMBtRon]

It just seems so easy to burn through everything with a full MPA. Single parties just don't have enough to kill outside of normalized missions and enemies don't strike fear or conern into players hearts such as the one- hit -K.O. megid spitting Flowers (I've forgotten their names). PSO was one of, if not, THEE first of it's kind and there wasn't much to compare it too. Pso2 players are jaded and pso2 itself has too many rivals. I think the originality and innovation has died. I still love pso2 tho, feel meh?

[Dongra]

i feel like, if pso bb got new content from now, most of us would go back, experience it, and fall back in love with it.


I know I would.

[The Walrus]

I still go back to it every so often. Like when I take a long break from PSO2 due to there being nothing to do and my being pissed off at all the shit it did badly.

[MetalDude]

PSO2's been dying out for me and I feel like EP2 will only band aid that for a while. I end up sitting around on TeamSpeak for hours because that's really the only thing I stick around for.

[Renvalt]

PSO2's been dying out for me and I feel like EP2 will only band aid that for a while. I end up sitting around on TeamSpeak for hours because that's really the only thing I stick around for.

You have the right to think that way. I think I'm probably going to enjoy PSO1 for a while, until Episode 2 gets here. This way I can expand my knowledge of the series and try to understand what you all saw in that game that I hadn't (prior to starting my long playthrough, that is).

And at the very least, like the Duke of Derp here mentioned, it's something I can return to, should I be pissed. It's one game that won't die, even should the Japanese decide to go Bakumatsu on our asses in regards to JP PSO2.

[MetalDude]

Questing and the weapon progression (and just general utility) were the two biggest points for PSO (no comment on PSU as I'm not familiar with it), the lack thereof being PSO2's critical flaws.

I want to set a goal to hunt something because that's what you do, but I can't because
1) Random spawns, you never get guarantees on what you're looking for. Good luck finding anything off Falz. The rare you're looking for drops off a rare version of a boss? Not in a million years, kid.
2) Why bother? Outside of the rare few weapons (Guld Milla is to die for and the latent would actually make PK awesome), I'm set with pyroxenes (and a Signo Head Launcher) on all classes. If it weren't for pyroxenes, I would not have a single 10* up to spec with the new ones. I have not found a single AQ 10* weapon. That's completely unacceptable.

There's just no drive at all to play and outside of Braver holding me over for a month, I don't see myself playing for very long.

[Porkmaster]

It was more fun for me simply because of the fact that I saw a lot more rares drop in PSO than I do in PSO2. Even if I know exactly what's in that red box before I walk over to pick it up (lolprobablyanothervarista,) at least I got to see the pretty red box. Rare drop rates are horrible in PSO2. Plus the Section ID system was like the best loot idea ever. I thought it was really cool.

[Shinamori]

I don't mind the grinding. It's just that I wish PSO2 had PSO1's drop system without the ID drops. In PSO1, I almost all the time got a rare drop from rare enemy. In PSO2, I got nada except an Infinity Fire from a Mi Micda.

[gigawuts]

I'm still pretty convinced that there's something different going on with the drop system. They've never once actually said it works like PSO1's, with actual rates.

I feel like there's this list of items you're most likely to find, and you're likely to find them roughly in order. It's just bizarre how I'll find a crappy rare INSTANTLY on going into an area I haven't been in for 3 months, and then the floodgates open like last night when I found a court edge D and cougar sword camo within 30 minutes.

[BlankM]

Well I've heard drop rates are effected by enemy kills according to JP wiki, and they get progressively better. I've seen many people get really good rares in a row during bursts, sometimes two holy rays or for me two ammys.

And I think I get way more rares in PSO2 then I've ever gotten in PSOBB, its just that most of said rares suck. And the uber ones you want to hunt are given out in daily lotteries ie. Falz.

[DreXxiN]

As others have stated, the pacing. I don't think any game had better pacing than PSO which was only amplified by the level design. Every area felt like an adventure and near the end, it felt like you were "advancing" into the next stage. It was fantastic.

[Zipzo]

I want to say a lot of this is pretty rose-tinted but here's my personal take...

With the level cap so high, leveling in and of itself stopped being relevant to you as a player pretty early on so you could focus on other things like hunting for that rare you wanted so much. Since 200 was a difficult to reach objective, running something "just for shits" was always an option since you were always progressing towards that mega-high 200 goal.

In PSO2 your character is completely defined by your skill tree, which in and of itself is defined by your level because you only gain SP by leveling up. To boot, the level cap is 60, leaving a lot of people "stranded" at the cap every update until they next raise the cap again. If you are not 60/60, you are basically playing an incomplete character. They made this slow increasing level cap mistake in PSU and I'm still confused as to why they're doing the same thing here. At cap all we have to really think about in terms of progression is getting insanely lucky and finding something better, and upgrading your current gear through affixes/potential unlocking/grinding. None of these things are considered fun by anyone...so there we have it.

If I had to postulate, it's because online gaming since PSO has mutated to a more "end game" type mind set where you hit the level cap, then you experience what the game has to offer in terms of difficulty or challenge. PSO wasn't like this, hitting 200 was sort of a bonus achievement, really. If you hit 200 you were recognized as putting in the time and effort to do it, but it didn't really make a huge difference in your performance since 150-160 or so. As stated, it gave the feeling that at least if you could never find the weapon you wanted, you were always kind of progressing in some form.

In PSO your character was more or less defined by your run times, in my opinion. Getting great gear was tough, and if you had something nice it was cool, but as long as you could run ruins or seabed or any of the often run hunters guild missions at a good break neck speed nobody really hassled you about your weapons or stats, or specifics on optimization. To this point, it was a more laid back feeling where you could just focus on playing the game (Not dying a lot, killing things quickly) instead of "playing" the game to exert every form of maximization possible.

These types of players typically resorted to C-mode times or battle mode win ratios for their competitive fancy anyhow. C-mode was a good way to separate those players in to their own community. I dabbled in everything really, as it was all in good fun. Though I was never a battle mode nut...I did make sure to give it a good run for its money with some of the more well known battles to see what I was missing out on.

In conclusion...really what PSO did better than PSO2 is that it knew what it was...a basic dungeon crawler with lots of spreckled hidden loot. PSO2 doesn't seem to know exactly how to achieve this (admittedly sometimes mundane) simple formula so it's throwing all sorts of things at us like skill trees, main and sub classes, extreme quests, advanced quests, emergency quests...yada yada...and seeing if it sticks. Some of it has stuck and has worked...other stuff not so much.

[gigawuts]

I really think they don't actually know what made PSO1 such a success and are instead just imitating everything that successful games seem to be doing. Hell, maybe that's what they've been doing all along, and it happened to mesh really well in PSO1 by sheer coincidence.

[Zyrusticae]

Eh, personally level 60 remains a largely unattainable goal for me since I flit between my three characters (and, by extension, all 6 of my classes) pretty regularly. :/

[Zipzo]

Eh, personally level 60 remains a largely unattainable goal for me since I flit between my three characters (and, by extension, all 6 of my classes) pretty regularly. :/

Honestly I felt the same way for a little while but the 3 classes I "flit" between all somehow ended up at 60, lol. Changed my perception a bit >_<.

The problem here is that by not being level 60 you aren't playing a 'complete' class. In PSO you didn't have to be lvl 200 or even 150 to have the ability to use all the tools available to your chosen class. This gives motivation to hit 60, but little else in terms of "fun" remains once 60 has been achieved...

[gigawuts]

What's even worse, and makes it more boring, is you have to pay real money to swap between what was previously a weapon-based ability. Better support tech range? Stronger elements? Debuffs? Tanking vs. offense? All of that was a mere gear swap away, but now it's all held back money - except for just one of your choosing per class. And if you mess up you get to pay anyway.

[Z-0]

I feel like the whole "skill tree" business is why people won't deviate into other builds, and instead everyone is using the cookie cutter glass cannon builds, because they are always the most efficient. I'd love to actually mess around with a tank build (although not efficient), or something like a support TE tree, but I have to pay money for these things, and frankly, my money is going to go into better things.

[Zyrusticae]

Funny, because as soon as I hit 45 and finish the SP quest I essentially run out of incentives to keep leveling. Yes, sure, 15 more SP, but only after several hundred more hours of play? Give me a break.

My hunter is the only one approaching 60, and that's just because I really like playing her. Of course, you could consider it a failing of the game that I don't even play the game enough to hit 60 in the first place (because I'm just not that interested in it), but seriously? Hundreds of hours of gameplay. Hundreds. Per class.

Just ain't my thing, man.

[HIT0SHI]

I've only focused on Ranger and Gunner so the pacing as been fun for the time being. I'd managed to make my Ranger lv60 and Gunner lv59 so I'm almost there, I even got all the extra SP quests and the almost complete skilltree does make the game a lot more fun than what it was before when starting the game for the 1st time or maybe it's just me. I'm not gonna lv up the other classes but i might make an exception if i could combine Braver with Gunner or Ranger depending on it's skilltree (like the Bullet Bow might get a Weak Bullet-ish skill).

[oratank]

run taco everyday and your level will rise up u never notice

[artbunker]

This is just my opinion. I played PSO is a weird manner and also offline with friends.

I use to play PSO 1 with friends using memory cards on GAMECUBE and even now on the BLUEBURST SERVER . We got up to level 120 on ultimate and stopped. We loved the game though. I think one of the things PSO had over PSO2 is the fact that your leveling mattered . It matters here a little , with the SP points and all, but in PSO I can tell you as a force it mattered a lot. You could actually see your progression form level 5 to level 8.
I was one of those fools who used sabers with forces ,until I discovered the joys of Mechgunns, as well so trust me I definaly noticed the difference.

You don't see that in PSO2 much. Sure if you get your skill tree leveled up the right way in PSO2 , you can see it right away. But lord forbid you mess up and don't have a skill tree reset. Speaking of that, PSO your classes could hold weapons form different classes and play very different. I missed the fact that my force cant use mech guns. I hate the fact that grinding went form being cool and pleasurable, to a chore and a game of chance. They killed the fun of Grinding in PSO2 . Sorry I don't like depending on chance to get my weapons up in levels.

Back to the weapons issue, I don't like how Sega split up the three main classes to make 6 sub classes instead. That was a ploy to get people to play longer. Sure I can level up my force and then sub class it with a techer to almost have a PSO1 FORCE character, but that takes a hullva lot more time than it should have. Just to get a toon that didn't need messing with in PSO1 or in PS ZERO. Sorry breaking the classes up and making leveling almost a afterthought in this game is what makes leveling a drag in this game.

Now to contradict myself, one of the thing sin PSO2 that is great is the fact that if your in a room with 12 folks in it, and your on any difficulty, you will start o level fast, I mean very fast. take the Limited Quest for instance. I went in with a level 44 at 268000 exp needed to level . I ran it on Very hard and after about 3 runs and 45 minutes later, I was at 45. As much as I hate on the game at times, Having all those bosses and monsters to beat down with folks who are just mega killers is pure greatness. Killing Darkforce arms and then the main guy himself with toon one normal or hard makes them level very fast as well . that is a improvement I cannot take away from PSO2 . Gettiing exp for kills you didn't even earn is something I cannot hate on either in PSO2.

But that being said, they didn't want people to hit level caps so fast so they made it a chore to attain the next level after about 25 . I know its a MMO and I know its still a work in progress, but to make it take forever to attain a level is crazy. I also think the enemies have too much HP. This comes back to the weapons grinding issue probably as well. I remember playing PSO 1 and my friend gave me her Grass Assiassn Arms grindied up to its limit. I was around I think 40 with my force at that point. The weapons were stronger. I still got smacked a lot in the Mines and Ruins but man taking down those bots and darkers was a lot easier back then it seems . Either the enemies had less HP or our weapons were stronger .

In PSO2, the only time I even felt half as powerful, was when I subclasses my ranger with my Hunter and had the Soul Reaper at level 1 or some low level like that. Even then, it still took a few swipes to bring the baddies in the forest down.

Again, I still love playing PSO 2. I play it every other day , but sometimes I now just play to help friends out on lower difficulty missions. Or lend them a hand on Very Hard if they need one. I just don't think its as fun to level in PSO2 as it was in PSO or PS ZERO. I just don't see the results of becoming a world beater as I did in those games . Oh yeah, I miss my force blasting away with mechguns from a safe distance. I also miss both Mechguns and Daggers being worth a spit as well .

Again this is only my opinion folks.

[Sinue_v2]

I really think they don't actually know what made PSO1 such a success and are instead just imitating everything that successful games seem to be doing.

Whether it's Sonic, Phantasy Star, or Nights - Sonic Team is pretty much the poster boy for Cargo Cult Game Design.

[Rosel]

Overall, progressing in PSO2 is more fun for me.

WOW!

Yeah, everything that needed to be said already has, but:

PSO2 just feels like a chore, and there's really no guarantee that you will make any progression after spending months grinding. It's really depressing. I always had fun on PSO.

Also, PSO had more character and life to it. The areas were cool. In PSO2 they are automated. They're just grinding treadmills in different clothes. They don't feel like locations.

But ultimately the reason why PSO had better progression: you never progress in PSO2.

[ShadowDragon28]

I have to agree with Ezodgrom.
With the daily Emergency Quests, special event EQ's, MPA's chance for PSE and Crossbursts grinding overal has been fun. It's just a matter of getting the right client orders. My Fighter went from Lvl 51 to 56 in only 12 days. The Burning Rangers EQ has as awesome of EXP payout as the past, limited time EQ "With Wind And Rain" and IMO doing two runs of those and now doing 3 runs of Ark's Ship Fire Swirl are some of the most fun things in PSO2 IMO. I've felt a real sense of progressing in these past 2 months. I Love the layout of nearly every area of the game. My fav is Tundra, and Dragon's Shrine are IMO BEAUTIFUL.

I really dont get the over-critical, harsh criticisms in this thread at all. Meh whatever I'm going back to me having my fun in PSO 2.....

[MetalDude]

Because it's all randomized. It's a slurry of pieces put together with random spawns. The only thing that changes with new areas in this game is the enemy composition and the set pieces you're playing in. Grinding's certainly not difficult, it's just boring as shit. Sure, I could do exit burst AQs and reach all 60's no problem, but it's not interesting at all. Wind And Rain was decent if not quite good, Arks Fire Swirl is... ok. EQs are almost worthless otherwise (outside of Falz, but like as if arms fight for the 50,000th time is interesting) which is a serious issue.

Quest variety is seriously bad right now and progression feels almost meaningless. It's not overly critical, it's a huge problem. Episode 2 will fix none of this unless we get real, stable questing (no RNG trash, something we can do all the time without requirements besides maybe level) and weapons to care about and reasonably obtain.

[Z-0]

Fire Swirl is awesome.

If you ignore the fires.

[MetalDude]

I do actually like the spawns. I don't care to mash the attack button over and over on fires.

[gravityvx]

I have to agree with Ezodgrom.
With the daily Emergency Quests, special event EQ's, MPA's chance for PSE and Crossbursts grinding overal has been fun. It's just a matter of getting the right client orders. My Fighter went from Lvl 51 to 56 in only 12 days. The Burning Rangers EQ has as awesome of EXP payout as the past, limited time EQ "With Wind And Rain" and IMO doing two runs of those and now doing 3 runs of Ark's Ship Fire Swirl are some of the most fun things in PSO2 IMO. I've felt a real sense of progressing in these past 2 months. I Love the layout of nearly every area of the game. My fav is Tundra, and Dragon's Shrine are IMO BEAUTIFUL.

I really dont get the over-critical, harsh criticisms in this thread at all. Meh whatever I'm going back to me having my fun in PSO 2.....

Alright, take the "Arks Quests" for example, go down that list, read the titles for each, take a look at the objective for each area. Now, look at all the EQ(lolrng), look at all the objectives, see the pattern here? The only content that have anything remotely different and remotely fun are seasonal or event EQs, darkers den layout, yes the layout, not the lolrng bullshit sega tagged onto it. COs are nice for a nice boost in exp, I'll give them that much but nothing about them is fun to do. I mean, leveling is so damn boring that people actually say dumb shit like "waiting for COs to reset" to level their lower classes. Seriously, I pretty much have to solo anything below 40ish most of the time.

Which is a major problem with this game after a years time, anything outside of VH is empty for the most part, not to mention even in VH nobody runs shit outside of AQ so say you're only 40 you've got a long road ahead...or many falz runs(more rng to deal with), and even by some 1/100 chance someones running a VH mpa, guess what, it's almost always the "latest" area released and nothing else. PSO2 gets harsh criticism from some people because it deserves it, it's not a terrible game but it's not anything near what I'd call great either, there's far too many small things that needs attending to that they obvious don't intend on ever adressing.

Also, areas can look amazing all they want, but it doesn't make the game, FFXIV proved that much. But in my opinion they aren't as unique looking as the games before it. This new beach area coming soon looks promising though.

[Ezodagrom]

PSO2 has alot of problems, there's no denying that, but, when it comes to leveling up/progressing, I still feel that the worst part of PSO2 (VH before AQs) is more tolerable than the worst part of PSO (Ultimate).

Randomized areas... I actually like them. Set maps get boring faster than randomized areas for me. Though it would be nice to have a new type of quests with set maps and more unique objectives...
Also, other than a few exceptions (like forest, CCA), it's not like PSO maps were anything special, they were mostly similar corridors and rooms with the occasional unique room.

[gigawuts]

Wait, what kind of leveling are we talking about here? Reaching the cap, or as an aspect of ordinary gameplay? Because you can't seriously try to say PSO2 handles ordinary, run of the mill leveling, as in not to achieve the cap, better than PSO1 did by blue burst. Early on, sure, I hear it was pretty meh.

Also, no, PSO1 maps weren't anything overly special. What they were was longer than 5 minutes, and they were a large focus of the game - not rushing the boss or plain PSE Burst respawn farming. The map was a part of the run, with forks you could take lasting potentially 40 minutes to see where it went before backtracking to check out the other path.

[Z-0]

I thought PSO1 maps had a far better atmosphere than those of PSO2. They weren't necessarily unique or different or anything, but something about them felt right.

But eh, the maps themselves didn't make PSO1 special to me. It was all about the variety of quests. Running one thing in the same map actually felt different to running another, but in PSO2, I feel like everything is the same despite "random maps", which means they're actually different.

[gravityvx]

With pso, you had the indoors areas, memorable landmarks, dark rooms, poison rooms, rooms that took a little coordination with switches, different kinds of traps besides damage bombs, the actual feel of progressing through a dungeon, im probably missing a few but this kind of stuff is what made the areas more enjoyable than PSO2s run in circle kill all things that cant attack you(excluding those bastards in city AQ, most progress on enemy agression so far).

[gigawuts]

Wait, are we talking about the environments or the layouts? Because those two should not be counted as the same thing. I could take PSO1's maps and make them into boring, small, randomly arranged puzzle piece arrangements too.

[MetalDude]

Again, the problem with random is it makes it so no experience is really notable, it's just different on the most basic level every time. The spawns are negligible most of the time and feel the same. Nothing you experience in the game, despite being unique to you because of RNG, is actually meaningful or, I don't know, actually interesting save for some giant spawns. Thanks for AQs containing mostly neutral codes (no boss on top of spawns with potential midbosses with it or anything; it's really rare), it's even less eventful.

You can write Arks Quests and Free Exploration off as nobody really runs though anymore, TAs are for money, Extreme Quests are ridiculously short (new one is somewhat better) and have an annoying fee, and AQs are just higher level enemies in limited spawns.

I honestly think the biggest problem is the RNG on top of the RNG on top of the RNG. I'd like some fuckin' guarantees in this game for once.

[Ezodagrom]

Wait, what kind of leveling are we talking about here? Reaching the cap, or as an aspect of ordinary gameplay? Because you can't seriously try to say PSO2 handles ordinary, run of the mill leveling, as in not to achieve the cap, better than PSO1 did by blue burst. Early on, sure, I hear it was pretty meh.
I mean, going through ultimate mode until the player can do well on every area. The highest I ever reached in blue burst (in a certain non-official place) before I got completely bored was like lvl 145.
Eventually ended trying PSOBB again, that time my limit was lvl 140, though it took me like over a year to go from 120 to 140 because in the end I just didn't feel like playing.
(I guess megid everywhere also helped making some areas even less fun to go through...like caves).


Also, no, PSO1 maps weren't anything overly special. What they were was longer than 5 minutes, and they were a large focus of the game - not rushing the boss or plain PSE Burst respawn farming. The map was a part of the run, with forks you could take lasting potentially 40 minutes to see where it went before backtracking to check out the other path.
Well, I don't usually rush to bosses (unless I'm helping someone that wants to rush to boss), and I don't really MPA farm either, when I play arks quests or free fields I usually kill my way to the end, sometimes checking out a few corners and such, like how I would play in PSO or PSU (unless I'm doing client orders that require specific enemies, then I won't go directly to boss, in those situations I do take advantage of the respawning enemies, but I don't usually stay in the MPA for a long time anyway).

[Alisha]

are you crazy megid everywhere was awesome. it kept you on your toes.

[Zipzo]

He has a point...

In PSO2 the area before the boss is just beans...you can farm the giant circle they've given you (or whatever simple variation of a circle) for whatever amount of time, or you can just consider the area an annoying obstacle towards running to the boss.

In PSO the area itself was the experience, the boss being the pinnacle of that experience...ending with a nice clump of experience to reward you for your effort in treading through that (possibly) long dungeon. If you wanted experience and you decided on doing a "Ruins run" you beat your way through the ruins to Dark Falz, and took him out, and at the end you were 150k (I believe it was ~100k for the run if you cleared most rooms, and ~50K for Falz himself) experience richer.

In PSO2 the areas are just...kind of meaningless. Leveling consists mainly of running around in a circle doing codes. I'll tell you which one was more interesting from a long term stand point...

[Reyva]

You know, if I look at it in the present, I don't know why I played PSO / PSU / anything after that so much. In the end, they were all dungeon crawlers where your main purpose is just getting pretty weapons anyways. However, I'll play ball here and give my 2c anyways even though its probably going to have some contradictions in it:

Why PSO was better

===================================

* Back then, PSO was my very first ONLINE rpg (Dreamcast). I guess I was like 16 at the time (28 now) and I think at that time, I was just getting into the RPG genre with FF7 as my first RPG. So when I went to PSO, I was madly addicted to its repetitive, boring ass combat. I was fresh. However, if PSO came out in 2013 after I've played pretty much every game that came to the U.S, then I'd quit probably after level 30.


* The community was fun. You had that small little ass lobby where you can sit in those photon chairs and talk BS. I always had a good time logging on at 12am to get in some in depth conversation just to waste time and piss some ppl off. Oh and i guess the photon chair races.


* I dunno, but I found the hacking hilarious. People join a party just to get NOL'ed. Black screen of death. FSOD. Casting Razonde/Gizonde in lobby and killing ppl. All that crazy stuff while bad, was seriously fun for me.

* Battle mode. This was in v2 onward. Uh, retarded, but gave you something else to do. I also like the fact that you could see other player's win / lose over their head.

* Challenge mode and endless nightmare? Endless nightmare crap was a good time. Nothing like 405840584 hildebears popping out and your force getting pwned lolz. Remember mines? That crap was crazy and gave me a rush.

* The dumb music. Yeah, nothin like Forest, Ruins, and that Desert / Crater / seabed / etc music.

* Units? Yeah, I loved me some God / Battle. Specially the hacked ones lolz.

* Weapons? Uh yeah, I was motivated to get whatever units / weapons / armor in PSO. Wasn't like that in PSO2. I could get by with crap gear in pso2 and still own everything easily. AT least the weapons had unique effects.

* The usual Forest - Ruins runs lolz. Oh wanna do a complete Forest - Ruins run? Yeah boy cept we gonna skip caves cuz that area is boring and depressing. I always enjoyed seeing who died to any of falz's forms or someone screwing with falz so he doesn't load. Here comes Mega Grants! Yeah look, force + ranger dead, let me go pop a moon! No wait...let me go steal his stuff and leave the party lol.

================================

Eh I could go on and on. Even though we aren't talking about anything other than PSO and not PSU and so on, I will say PSU kinda expanded on this as I was motivated to level, had a great time, and was motivated to get rares.

================================

But lets be fo real guys and gals. Its like I said a long time ago in the past. Sega just keeps pouring some of R. Kelly's doo doo butter on the game series and the hamsters that make the games and run the servers are finally tired of it:

==================
PSO is exempt
PSO v2 had just a slither of R.Kelly's doo doo butter.
The GC / Xblox versions had another tiny dropling
They poured a lot of butter on Blue Burst. It kinda failed with that sorry excuse of Guild system and so on. The hamsters I heard were pretty tired of the butter too.

So Sega came out with PSU. Apparently, there was a shortage on the doo doo butter, but that was fixed when AoI came out.

So with each and every new version after PSU, they kept dousing their hamsters with this stuff and nothing really improved.

I'm pretty sure for PSO2, Mitt Romney, John Mccain, Sarah Palin, George Bush, Herman Cain, Dick Cheney, Justin Beiber, Michelle Bachman, Elton John, and the Wu Tang clan, who were all the creators of PSO2, sat down and said lets just go back to PSO standards, but change this and that. I'm not going to say who had what part in what, just use your imagination.

Ofcourse, the doo doo butter was involved as you saw in some of those patch updates in the past for PSO2. Especially with those Koffee quests lol. Oh and don't think PSO2 was the only one that got this. FFXIV got the Chinese version of R.Kelly's doo doo butter and was hoping when people played it, they wouldn't notice it was just another generic Chinese RPG :P. What a great way of making the sequel to FFXI a failure.

====================

So if you got anything from my post, PSO2 is not a horrible game. I'm just not as attached to it as I was with the previous versions since I was young and these games were some of my first online RPGs. I'm actually hoping FFXIV: ARR is as good as everyone says so I can actually get addicted to online games again.

[gravityvx]

Doodoo butter, sounds delish.

[Valimer]

Well I think in these 8 pages you all have covered a lot of good points.

I go to school in San Fransisco for game design and design theory has been one of the subjects I've had to study (not that I'm more qualified than anyone here, I mean it's not hard to recognize what's "fun"). I've thought about PSO and its design, like why it works well while still keeping it relatively simple.

Personally the main difference that I have noticed between PSO and PSO2 is the feeling of progression, especially in the start of the game. PSO was designed to feel challenging from level 1. That way you felt like you were getting stronger as you leveled up and found new gear to use. Eventually you could easily progress through the area and you felt good about that. Then you stepped into the next area would be met with stronger, faster, and more different enemies with new behavior that changed the way you strategized.

The pacing in PSO made it feel less like a job. PSO2 does do this to an extent, but not as well. The beginning of the game is fairly easy so you don't feel like you're getting stronger or progressing. It's also easy for the wrong reasons. For instance, enemies in PSO1 were always aggressive providing challenge, in PSO2 enemies sit around and wait to die.

Here are some theories I have

Enemies in PSO1 had less health in general, even at the very start of the game. The reason why it took the amount of time it did to kill them was because you had to spend less time dealing damage and more time kiting and positioning. In PSO2 enemies have more health in general because you spend a lot more time dealing damage than dancing around the enemy. This might sound OK but it is actually less engaging for the player and makes it feel monotonous. (of course this only applies to solo play in PSO2 because in groups you wreck everything instantly anyway.)

As a summary I'll just say progressing in PSO1 was more fun because it was more challenging, in a good way.

[gigawuts]

On the topic of hacking:

I found hacking to be an interesting test of personality. You could learn a fair amount about a person based on their reactions to A. a hacker in the lobby, B. a hacker joining the party, C. someone knowing a hacker, and D. creating the party without a password.

Some people were militant in their hacker hatred. It was bizarre. They acted like hackers were behind every single bad thing in the entire world. I saw ordinarily totally lax people flip their shit over hackers, even just alleged ones. Even knowing a hacker without reporting them to every authority from here to the moon would get you blacklisted by someone like this.

But, then, other people loved them. Others weren't really bothered so long as they weren't directly impacted.

I honestly feel hackers (ones that kept their shenanigans mostly to themselves, that is, being NOLed probably really sucked) had a beneficial effect on the community in a long term sense, keeping it from stagnating and becoming too samey. If nobody's out looking to exploit the system then a game does tend to feel safe for the devs, and a game that feels safe for the devs always seems to just get boring for some odd reason. It's like they know a lot of people will only hack when they're bored, so they combat that by keeping things interesting.

[Zipzo]

On the topic of hacking:

I found hacking to be an interesting test of personality. You could learn a fair amount about a person based on their reactions to A. a hacker in the lobby, B. a hacker joining the party, C. someone knowing a hacker, and D. creating the party without a password.

Some people were militant in their hacker hatred. It was bizarre. They acted like hackers were behind every single bad thing in the entire world. I saw ordinarily totally lax people flip their shit over hackers, even just alleged ones. Even knowing a hacker without reporting them to every authority from here to the moon would get you blacklisted by someone like this.

But, then, other people loved them. Others weren't really bothered so long as they weren't directly impacted.

I honestly feel hackers (ones that kept their shenanigans mostly to themselves, that is, being NOLed probably really sucked) had a beneficial effect on the community in a long term sense, keeping it from stagnating and becoming too samey. If nobody's out looking to exploit the system then a game does tend to feel safe for the devs, and a game that feels safe for the devs always seems to just get boring for some odd reason. It's like they know a lot of people will only hack when they're bored, so they combat that by keeping things interesting.

I'd say a vast, vast majority of the hacking/cheating/action replay-ing that was present in PSO directly impacted legit players, some of it even born specifically of the intention to disrupt and ruin legit players (FSOD the 2nd save). This is why they were hated overall.

Post #77 is a good example of the kind of trash you needed to watch out for.

I don't miss it, and neither would you if you had experienced even at least one single circumstance in which it ruined your experience or even forced you to lose your best gear or your whole entire character.

[gigawuts]

That falls on the person using the hacks. I don't care if people are spawning themselves weapons to use. Hackers in PSO2 don't bother me even a little bit. Why should I care if they can fire 500 launcher rounds per second? Hell, it looks hilarious. Doesn't directly affect anyone else, so I'm not bothered.

That's the key qualifier though: It doesn't directly affect anyone else, so I'm not bothered.

Which means that if any hacker does directly affect anyone else I'm bothered.

I should've been more specific with the anti-hacker bit, though. That was meant to include even people using completely "legit" duping exploits, even to create a backup copy in case they were NOLed. "Legit" meaning no external influence was required, just doing something anyone can do with the game disc. The whole "legit" thing that developed was toxic. For some people it got to the point where if you didn't play exactly like them, exactly, you weren't legit. Some people would even start saying things like TTF weren't legit.

[gravityvx]

I kinda miss it(not on pso2 of course), and I've been NOLed, resta PKed had my best weapon stolen(lol), FSOD multiple times right at falz after an hour of running through the ruins, just all kinds of nonsense. But it's thanks to them Dark Flow went into circulation since sega removed it from the list and maybe a few other weapons and armor if I'm not mistaken, there's some douches out there but some had a positive impact.

[Zipzo]

That falls on the person using the hacks. I don't care if people are spawning themselves weapons to use. Hackers in PSO2 don't bother me even a little bit. Why should I care if they can fire 500 launcher rounds per second? Hell, it looks hilarious. Doesn't directly affect anyone else, so I'm not bothered.

That's the key qualifier though: It doesn't directly affect anyone else, so I'm not bothered.

Which means that if any hacker does directly affect anyone else I'm bothered.

I should've been more specific with the anti-hacker bit, though. That was meant to include even people using completely "legit" duping exploits, even to create a backup copy in case they were NOLed. "Legit" meaning no external influence was required, just doing something anyone can do with the game disc. The whole "legit" thing that developed was toxic. For some people it got to the point where if you didn't play exactly like them, exactly, you weren't legit. Some people would even start saying things like TTF weren't legit.

I do remember the "legit" craze and how the concept of the word was twisted in to a variety of ways, but I ultimately blame that in and of itself on hackers. People wouldn't have needed to twist the word to fit any sort of mold if it wasn't so difficult to be legit at that time.

I understood duping to have copy, that didn't bother me, but that also wasn't really 'hacking'. Especially in GC when it was just a simple shop glitch.

In a round-a-bout way even multi-equippers and people who fire off 500 rounds and blow up everything in front of you is affecting you. Most legit players don't want their legitimate climb of experience to be tarnished by an "unfair advantage" due to someone cheating. This is why legit players locked/pw'd their rooms to avoid being subject to that advantage specifically.

It may not bother you in a sense, since you're not the one cheating so whatever, right? That's not how a lot of people thought though. It still directly affected you, in the sense I described, it just may not have been in a way that bothered you specifically.

[gigawuts]

Right, that's the implication behind the statement.

[Gama]

it kinda pissed me off to have to take a screenie of each rare i got
just to be able to trade them, or just to be free from acusations.

[gravityvx]

Pretty sure passwording games didn't stop hackers from entering. Legit or not running into them or players with ridiculous % weapons time to time(which was more times than not) was unavoidable unless you were playing on some empty block, and that is pretty meh unless you're with friends.

[Zipzo]

And ultimately that's why the 'hackers' ended up being hated.

I think at first there was a neutral air about it, where as long as you didn't bother anybody with it...nobody really cared all that much.

The hatred for hackers and the rise of the 'legit' craze was ultimately the fault of the people doing the cheating in the first place because neutrality quickly turned to vehemence because of how regularly sadistic people who used these cheats were to legit players. It's their own fault really.

[gigawuts]

People hated asshole hackers. Assholes are assholes m8. Saying it's their own fault that people who hacked (i.e. used a gameshark) were hated is like saying it's their own fault that people with tattoos are hated. Not all people with tattoos are assholes, yet they still get plenty of hate no matter how nice they are.

So what you mean to say is it's their own fault that assholes were hated, which doesn't really need saying or explaining.

This is a really dumb thing to even be arguing and I'm not really sure why you're pushing the topic when it's pretty clear that people hated asshole hackers because they were being assholes, and like most things in life, didn't distinguish the nice ones from the shit ones. In many peoples' minds even owning a gameshark lumped you in with the guy that NOLed them. That is not the fault of the chill guy that bought a gameshark to tinker around with the game they bought and own without negatively impacting anyone else.

[Zipzo]

People hated asshole hackers. Assholes are assholes m8. Saying it's their own fault that people who hacked (i.e. used a gameshark) were hated is like saying it's their own fault that people with tattoos are hated. Not all people with tattoos are assholes, yet they still get plenty of hate no matter how nice they are.

So what you mean to say is it's their own fault that assholes were hated, which doesn't really need saying or explaining.

This is a really dumb thing to even be arguing and I'm not really sure why you're pushing the topic when it's pretty clear that people hated asshole hackers because they were being assholes, and like most things in life, didn't distinguish the nice ones from the shit ones. In many peoples' minds even owning a gameshark lumped you in with the guy that NOLed them. That is not the fault of the chill guy that bought a gameshark to tinker around with the game they bought and own without negatively impacting anyone else.

Because the act of cheating in and of itself no matter who it's meant to affect, others or only themselves, was defining enough for most people. Like you said, the act of hacking on its own inferred some things on ones personality, and this was true for the most part with cheaters in PSO. There was no need to make a distinction between the "nice" ones and the "mean" ones.

It may not have mattered to you (clearly), but someone who loved to openly cheat even if just for their own individual benefit wasn't a shrine for inviting praise from anyone who played legit. A lot of legit players didn't feel like they needed to "get to know" a cheater before judging them. They were a cheater, nothing else mattered. It's an online game, people wanted to play it how they saw fit, and if that method was devoid of cheating...then cheaters were naturally judged as "lesser" players. Plus...it's cheating. Since when is cheating ever a good thing? How can you really argue that?

The real pointless argument is coming from your end, not mine.

[gigawuts]

But...I already said some people disliked all cheaters. I covered that. Some people disliked cheaters no matter what. Okay, cool.

I'm not even arguing anything. I was explaining a point. I have no idea what it is you're trying to argue with me over. You do this a lot, it's annoying. It's like you're looking for anything, anything at all, to argue over, even when there was never an argument in the first place. Maybe you should join a debate club?

[Zipzo]

But...I already said some people disliked all cheaters. I covered that. Some people disliked cheaters no matter what. Okay, cool.

I'm not even arguing anything. I was explaining a point. I have no idea what it is you're trying to argue with me over. You do this a lot, it's annoying. It's like you're looking for anything, anything at all, to argue over, even when there was never an argument in the first place. Maybe you should join a debate club?

Well maybe neither of us are arguing anything and you just lept to the conclusion that it was an argument right around here...you were the first person to even mention the word 'argue' in relation to what I'm saying.


This is a really dumb thing to even be arguing...

When I think about it, I'm not really arguing anything. I'm just oozing my discontent for all things cheating.

I think you have projection issues. Maybe go back and re-read the conversation and be amazed at how there's really only one way to interpret this conversation...and easily that interpretation is you flying off the handle for no reason. You do that a lot, and I think everybody finds it annoying.

[HIT0SHI]

Because the act of cheating in and of itself no matter who it's meant to affect, others or only themselves, was defining enough for most people. Like you said, the act of hacking on its own inferred some things on ones personality, and this was true for the most part with cheaters in PSO. There was no need to make a distinction between the "nice" ones and the "mean" ones.

It may not have mattered to you (clearly), but someone who loved to openly cheat even if just for their own individual benefit wasn't a shrine for inviting praise from anyone who played legit. A lot of legit players didn't feel like they needed to "get to know" a cheater before judging them. They were a cheater, nothing else mattered. It's an online game, people wanted to play it how they saw fit, and if that method was devoid of cheating...then cheaters were naturally judged as "lesser" players. Plus...it's cheating. Since when is cheating ever a good thing? How can you really argue that?

The real pointless argument is coming from your end, not mine.

The only reason why I would consider cheating a goodthing, is when you can no longer get an especific item like an Mag Cell or an especific weapon like the the Samba Maracas which was etheir a event weapon or a DLC mision prize iirc. And what about as for the people who don't want to spend months griding to reach Ultimate to only grind more to get the item you want? What if you have the wrong Section ID so it would be almost impossible to hunt down said item? As long as it din't affect anyone else, it should'nt matter.

[gigawuts]

"you have projection issues"
"you fly off the handle for no reason"

Man I'm just not even gonna comment on the irony in that...

[Zipzo]

"you have projection issues"
"you fly off the handle for no reason"

Man I'm just not even gonna comment on the irony in that...

Well, no, that's not what you do when you're blatantly in the wrong. You just take jabs and try to guffaw it off. I wouldn't expect anything more. I could recap the conversation and go in to detail on each response on how your reaction was unjustified and overblown but...I'm not sure you're worth the effort.

[Yuicihi]

If nothing else, the hacking in PSO and Diablo made developers realize that, hey, putting all of this data client side might not be the greatest idea ever after all.

[gigawuts]

On the one hand, that's false. But, then, on the other hand I'm okay with you thinking that, or at least saying you think that, and don't feel like watching this devolve into a slurry of off topic personal attacks that you try to wedge in almost any time we're posting in the same thread in a lengthy post quoting each word I've posted individually in a post that, if printed out, might actually be long enough to fully wrap around the earth's equator.

So instead what I'll do is report this and half the posts will probably be deleted, because I'm not vain enough to really care about what you say or think about me.

[Zipzo]

On the one hand, that's false. But, then, on the other hand I'm okay with you thinking that, or at least saying you think that, and don't feel like watching this devolve into a slurry of off topic personal attacks that you try to wedge in almost any time we're posting in the same thread in a lengthy post quoting each word I've posted individually in a post that, if printed out, might actually be long enough to fully wrap around the earth's equator.

So instead what I'll do is report this and half the posts will probably be deleted, because I'm not vain enough to really care about what you say or think about me.

Yeah.

Cheating is bad, and legit players didn't care to find out if a cheater was "nice" or not because of play style differences. That's all I was saying. You can sling as much mud and call it an argument all that your heart desires...

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b10/draketai/2u3.jpg

[DreXxiN]

I think the amount of effort put into arguing on this forums is a good testament to how boring the game we argue about is in its current state.

[ShinMaruku]

What does that say about the people that still play it religiously? :E

[Alisha]

i hesitant to say this but perhaps duping made pso more enjoyable? suddenly gone is the despair of not being able to get what you want. so you can just enjoy killing things to your hearts content.

it's also worth mentioning that yuji naka left after ep3 but before psu.

[Zipzo]

i hesitant to say this but perhaps duping made pso more enjoyable? suddenly gone is the despair of not being able to get what you want. so you can just enjoy killing things to your hearts content.

it's also worth mentioning that yuji naka left after ep3 but before psu.

Some didn't find that to be a disparaging factor of PSO, a lot found that to be the crux of the experience.

Then there were some who just would rather focus on the killing, and so they had no objection to using dupes since they'd rather circumvent the whole hunting thing.

[Achelousaurus]

I like PSO2, it's mostly just...different.
But of course, as long time Blue Burst (and before Ep1&2 GC) player, there are some things I dislike.
For example the mag system sucks.
It's unbelievably slow and offer little boost. Where you could sit down and feed your mag to raise pow by 20 and adding 40 to your atp so you could equip better weapons, now something like that takes a week or two.

While in it sounds nice that you can feed weapons, they STILL raise stats at the same rate or less than avrage mag feeding rates used to be. Not to mention the mag being bound to a single character sucks and means every new character MUST make their new mag and you cannot buy or trade for toher people's finished mags either.

With the small boost, the lack of materials and units arbitrarily having atk boosts or not, the only real way to equip that weapon 60 atk higher than current is to lvl up, not much you can do about it.
Greatly discourages even caring about higher lvl gear cause it will take a long time to be able to use it anyway, enough to possibly find it by chance.

I am also disappointed in the lack of an accuracy stat. I REALLY enjoyed PSO being so very different from your average rpg with such a big focus on accuracy and such ig punishment if you missed. Aside from cluncky movements and arbitrary delays after a combo finished, it was a great setup to encourage getting better at dodging and timing, not to mention the idea that a weapon could be greatly enhance by hit% was sweet and could transform useless junk into epic crowd killers.

Also, what truly hurts the game and is a HUGE GLARING FLAW is the multi party system.
Should have just stuck with 6 players like in PSU if you want more than 4.
All those multi target areas and quests are cold and inhuman. You meet 20 others people but not a word is spoken (very rarely) and no, not just no English word but I rarely see anyone sy anything that is directed at nearby players besides the rare, lone autoword no one cares about.
Old PSO was intimate, when you were in a room with 3 other people there was no way to avoid playing and communicating with them.
You also required team work in most situations, but now it's like those crappy mmorpgs where people are anonymous faces in the mass you just forget about.
Bosses often require little effort because you just sit back and doge while other people kill it.

It's FAR less engaging in this way than the old PSO was.

I do have to say separate drops for all player s is an awesome idea, though.

[The Walrus]

You are the only person I have seen, and probably ever will see, who wanted an accuracy stat in this game.

[gravityvx]

Accuracy would be anti-productive given the fast paced gameplay change compared to PSO, while it was a stat that heavily influenced gameplay in PSO(which I do miss) it would just not work here. More so because we have lots of cheese invincibilty dodges that completely counter the "miss" penalty of getting raped because of said miss or misses. And these days, missig when actually hitting the target in this kinda game just looks...eh.

[Zyrusticae]

You are the only person I have seen, and probably ever will see, who wanted an accuracy stat in this game.
Remius was also big on this.

I, too, will never understand this mindset.

[ttdestroy]

Remius was also big on this.

I, too, will never understand this mindset.

I can see where they're coming from, I just don't see it as that big of a loss.