SEGA released a summary report of future plans on balancing every existing class

[Manta Oyamada]

SEGA released a summary report of future plans on balancing every existing class in PSO2 JP server. For starters SEGA pointed out having both Gunner's "S Roll JA Bonus" Skill Tree and Braver's Photon Art "Shunkan Shuran" be downgraded later on by the end of April. As we are all already aware, Rangers will have an overhaul as well set on the same update week by the end of April.

SEGA did not have any specific mentioned classes after the statement, but it seems all classes that needs to have "downgrade revisions" will be implemented somewhere before we reach Episode 3 this year.

SEGA also mentioned some tinkering(s) on elemental attributes for either offensive & defensive purposes as well as further tuning of Photon Arts & Techniques - yet again, no specific mentioned classes or any given specific dates regarding in this matter.

by Junko

[gigawuts]

Excellent. I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of word on HU changes, though. I also hope that mention of element changes involves giving enemies more than 1-2 weaknesses, and not all by race. One element for an entire planet's/area's native species is a bit...terrible.

[Xaeris]

It'd be nice if those balance changes involved a redesign of the trees to prune them of bloat, but I'm guessing that goes beyond the scope of what they want to do right now.

[pkemr4]

RIP Gu/Hu and Br/Hu's RIP TD

[Sizustar]

http://ameblo.jp/sega-psblog/entry-11813489741.html

From Sakai's blog...

To get the full "balanced" gameplay will take about 6 month total tweaking and testing.
Short term goal, to get people to use multiple PA/Tech, instead of just one, some will be buffed and other will be nerfed

Shunka and Gu s-roll was talked about, basicly, they will be tweaked/nerfed in the late march, early april update, and Ra will also get a buff.

And future Pa/Tech tweaking, the team will put a focus on DPS and try to make all the class more balanced.

[Macman]

Short term goal, to get people to use multiple PA/Tech, instead of just one, some will be buffed and other will be nerfed
But I already use Infinite Fire AND Shift Period! What more do they want? :(

[SakoHaruo]

They want you to go back to Elder R!

[Touka]

http://ameblo.jp/sega-psblog/entry-11813489741.html

From Sakai's blog...

To get the full "balanced" gameplay will take about 6 month total tweaking and testing.
Short term goal, to get people to use multiple PA/Tech, instead of just one, some will be buffed and other will be nerfed

Shunka and Gu s-roll was talked about, basicly, they will be tweaked/nerfed in the late march, early april update, and Ra will also get a buff.

And future Pa/Tech tweaking, the team will put a focus on DPS and try to make all the class more balanced.

While this sounds good Sega has never been good at balancing PAs ever since they were introduced in PSU,there's always those OP PAs that stand above the rest.

Crossing my fingers that Sakai stays true to his word :p

[qoxolg]

FINALY! It's time for Techer to shine! ... Uh .. oh... :(

[Arksenth]

I know there's a lot of hate-ons for SEGA, but I have to give them credit that they're willing to make (slow) changes where they're due. I mean, a lot of the changes they've made up until now - grinding, inventory stacking, mob difficulty, etc - have been in line with player response, even if they haven't gone to an entire extreme. They aren't the worst company, I guess, if they actually bother listening to player feedback and evolving their game gradually along with it.

Also qoxolg, I hope Techer remains the niche skill-gate class. :wacko: Can't have all of the flavor-of-the-month losers flocking to our turf.

[Uncle_bob]

If GU and BR get nerfed too hard who is gonna carry all the scrubs in TD? :disapprove:

[gigawuts]

http://ameblo.jp/sega-psblog/entry-11813489741.html

From Sakai's blog...

To get the full "balanced" gameplay will take about 6 month total tweaking and testing.
Short term goal, to get people to use multiple PA/Tech, instead of just one, some will be buffed and other will be nerfed

Shunka and Gu s-roll was talked about, basicly, they will be tweaked/nerfed in the late march, early april update, and Ra will also get a buff.

And future Pa/Tech tweaking, the team will put a focus on DPS and try to make all the class more balanced.

Watch them give every class identical DPS, making FO king just like in the old days because of how it can hit things and how many of those things it can hit at once at any range.

Stuff like that is why balance is so difficult to attain in a game like this. With your standard complement of short range, long range, single-target, and AOE as your methods of applying damage, the usual issue is that the long range almost matches the short range so it doesn't have to worry about travel time making it the best...or the long range deals diddly squat and the short range's damage stomps all over it.

AOE vs. single target is the same deal - if AOE almost matches single target, AOE wins because it's more versatile. If single target is stronger, AOE is too situational to use half the time because it can't kill bosses fast enough.

It gets more complex when you add secondary roles to that, i.e. FO is long and short range AOE, while melee is short range single target and AOE, etc. Then the issue isn't just inter-class balance, but intra-class balance.

There are many solutions to this sort of thing, but they vary in complexity. Things like making techs not that great at damaging bosses, but able to hit multiple parts at once. The boss takes 7k damage from a tech, and any part in the path of that tech does too (gibarta on a banshee's face would bring both front claws and her face 7k hp closer to breaking, but still only damage the banshee for 7k). Melee should work that way too, honestly.

The lack of unique behaviors like that is what will keep classes from ever really approaching balance, since everything is just point-click-numbers. Whatever gets the biggest or most numbers will win every time.

[Arksenth]

If GU and BR get nerfed too hard who is gonna carry all the scrubs in TD? :disapprove:

Yes! This is my stage cue!

Go!

The prettiest magical girl in all of PSO-World High!

Magical Melee Techer Girl Arksenth is here, in the name of tough love and meseta!

-transformation scene with lots of stripping-

[WildarmsRE5]

Satellite Zondeel Combo will carry you all!!!

[Uncle_bob]

I hope so, pal. I just hope they don't nerf GU and BR right off the bat and not buff other classes until later on.

Otherwise we'll just kind of be in a limbo where everything is pretty much awful.

[gigawuts]

I just want to see sroll JA bonus removed, then make Aerial Advance be an extra 20% damage bonus for the player being in the air, and then get Aerial Advance 2 :wacko:

[WildarmsRE5]

I just want to see sroll JA bonus removed, then make Aerial Advance be an extra 20% damage bonus for the player being in the air, and then get Aerial Advance 2 :wacko:then what is High Time? I thought it was for us being in air and shooting.

[Arksenth]

Honestly, I think it's less "everything is awful" than it is that we're too used to setting GU and BR as our normal standard; outside of TD, GU and BR absolutely smoke everything that it's a complete joke. I'd describe the issue with TD as one of teamwork than class weakness - I've been in plenty of parties where there weren't any GUs or BRs or at least only one or two, yet we still manage to clear the run with 100% health and time for 3 because the teamwork is coordinated. GU and BR just happen to be strong enough that they can make up for a gulf in coordination, but really, players just need to learn to work together better.

The new TD2 is really crappy because a lot of people haven't figured out how the spawns and mobs function just yet, but the original TD has gotten a lot better - even without the presence of GU and BR, such that 3 runs is fairly consistent now.

[Xaeris]

Well, awful is a relative term in this case. Braver and Gunner make everything else look mediocre by comparison in most situations, but (most) of the other classes are still overpowered compared against the enemies they're pitted against. Rangers and Fighters, at the very least, would still demolish content if Braver and Gunner were to be rendered impotent (the worst case scenario of nerf); just not quite at the clip we've become accustomed to.

It'd be more a reacclimation than a period of struggle, I think.

[Sizustar]

Honestly, I think it's less "everything is awful" than it is that we're too used to setting GU and BR as our normal standard; outside of TD, GU and BR absolutely smoke everything that it's a complete joke. I'd describe the issue with TD as one of teamwork than class weakness - I've been in plenty of parties where there weren't any GUs or BRs or at least only one or two, yet we still manage to clear the run with 100% health and time for 3 because the teamwork is coordinated. GU and BR just happen to be strong enough that they can make up for a gulf in coordination, but really, players just need to learn to work together better.

The new TD2 is really crappy because a lot of people haven't figured out how the spawns and mobs function just yet, but the original TD has gotten a lot better - even without the presence of GU and BR, such that 3 runs is fairly consistent now.

Well, the new TD, I think it's also Fo/Te not bringing the right skill to help.
Status effect is more useful then single target Megid, or the new Light spell.
Ice freezing the enemy preventing them from touching the tower, or Zondeel trapping them for the other class to finish them.

[Uncle_bob]

but really, players just need to learn to work together better.

Good luck with that in pubs. :disapprove: Half the time I'm the only one that goes to defend Blu and Green towers when Vibras shows up and takes a shit-bomb on them.

It's amazing how few players bother to use Burst Barrier or heal the towers.

[Arksenth]

Is that a Ship 2 phenomenon or something? Because on Ship 8, everyone works together really nicely like, 95% of the time even without any communication going on. People know their class roles and they fill them.

[Sizustar]

Is that a Ship 2 phenomenon or something? Because on Ship 8, everyone works together really nicely like, 95% of the time even without any communication going on. People know their class roles and they fill them.

It's only in random team I've been in, in today's TD2 I'm the only one healing tower, and I only get 1 heal in TD2, having both wall break in the first wave, Fo using wind spell or Megid.
Ranger all shooting weak bullet on different spot on enemy.
Hunter not using the warcry ability, etc.

Doing it with my guild, doesn't really have that problem, As one of 2~3 force, my job is to patrol the lower section and pick up crystal, the Hu in the guild will use Warcry and draw the mob away from the wall, with the other Fo, freezing them or zondeeling them away from the wall, etc.

[Uncle_bob]

I'm not on Ship 2, fortunately. I can't imagine how much more horrifying it is to pub over there.

I usually only see Japanese players in TD, but they seem to be just as bad as "Westerners". Forces and Techers rarely use Zondeel when it is appropriate, Rangers don't WB, Bravers/Gunners somehow die non-stop. It's pretty fucking embarrassing.

[gigawuts]

It's pretty bad. It's to the point that if I see TD coming up, and it's TD2, I just go to my room or maybe even log out.

[Uncle_bob]

I've only done TD2 two times. It's just not worth the time.

[Sanguine2009]

im still not sick of TD 2 but yeah, its pretty horrid. only a handful of people using heals, people hiding by the tele to leech, people not rezing people, people outright ignoring the mobs in favor of zerging a boss for minutes straight and being unable to kill it in that time despite having wb and being gu and br. sometimes i wonder if people are purposely being awful, people ignoring infections and the dicadas/predicadas etc,

[RollTheDice]

Is that a Ship 2 phenomenon or something? Because on Ship 8, everyone works together really nicely like, 95% of the time even without any communication going on. People know their class roles and they fill them.

Please come to Ship 2 an teach this to everyone.

[Arksenth]

Please come to Ship 2 an teach this to everyone.

I might be the idol of PSO-World, but even I can't teach you people how not to be stupid!

Worship me regardless!

[yoshiblue]

But I only worship N64s.

[Tenlade]

Watch them give every class identical DPS, making FO king just like in the old days because of how it can hit things and how many of those things it can hit at once at any range.

Stuff like that is why balance is so difficult to attain in a game like this. With your standard complement of short range, long range, single-target, and AOE as your methods of applying damage, the usual issue is that the long range almost matches the short range so it doesn't have to worry about travel time making it the best...or the long range deals diddly squat and the short range's damage stomps all over it.
it wouldn't be so bad if the support roles actually worked in this game, like techer's buffs or rangers traps. Or if they weren't hidden deep in the tree and requiring huge point investements. If classes could actualy have a role outside damage, then not being the best at it wouldnt be such a big deal.


Well, the new TD, I think it's also Fo/Te not bringing the right skill to help.
Status effect is more useful then single target Megid, or the new Light spell.
Ice freezing the enemy preventing them from touching the tower, or Zondeel trapping them for the other class to finish them.
Ilgrants is actually pretty good at stunning vibrace.

[Arksenth]

Ilgrants is amazing for Vibras. You can keep him in permanent stunlock while everyone else just goes to town on him - prevents him from doing anything.

[pkemr4]

unless the EQ is occuring during JP primetime or when JP's are still online i usually will just avoid TD2 or not even bother with boosts.

[Skyly]

How did this go from Gunner and Braver rebalance to people talking about not being able to obtain more rates from TD. I got tired of playing Hu/Fi so boring I finally started playing Gu/Hu and it was fun. Short lived :(

[Kilich]

Well, even if all classes get unique roles and utility\support, most players would still go for classes with biggest damage and use the most damaging PA\tech, can't fix that

And I hope that Sega finds that balancing is profitable nonetheless.

[Zyrusticae]

If they ever get to a point where 7/7 classes are useful in most situations and the PAs all see some use (instead of 90% of it seeing no use at all) I would be very happy indeed.

But that's never going to happen, so...

[DoubleZero]

As a rare and fundamentally flawed HU/FO, I find I spend a lot of my Tower Defense time using Zondeel, War Cry and Guard Stance, with very little time to actually bring out the HU weapons. I feel that it's more like BR just does EXTREME DAMAGE way faster than HU ever could, which is really regulating me to stick to my sub-class's roles for Tower Defense.

I do have to say though, I've never seen Iron Will trigger as often as I have, and it's rather nice to Zondeel a bunch of mobs together and watch the BR classes to Shunka everything to death.

[Gardios]

If they ever get to a point where 7/7 classes are useful in most situations and the PAs all see some use (instead of 90% of it seeing no use at all) I would be very happy indeed.

But that's never going to happen, so...

I'd already be happy if they manage 5/7 tbh.

[gigawuts]

If they ever get to a point where 7/7 classes are useful in most situations and the PAs all see some use (instead of 90% of it seeing no use at all) I would be very happy indeed.

But that's never going to happen, so...

Yeah, most of the PAs will literally never see use. Ever.

You have a collection of virtually identical, or very comparable, PAs between 7 weapons melee classes can use.

Seven.

We don't even have seven palettes.

You will literally never see Scissor Edge and Peak Up-Throw used equally when just one would do fine, and the other could be replaced with something more versatile.

Stop wanting this. Don't stop wanting it because it won't happen, stop wanting it because it's stupid.

[Sanguine2009]

i dont think anyone in their right mind expects sega to rebalance PAs so that every PA has a use, however it would be nice if every class and weapon type was at least decent(not that expecting that is a good idea either)

[Z-0]

No matter what happens there will always be an optimum for X, and players will flock to that class. While there are classes better than Gunner and Braver for quite a few things (eg; these classes fill in roles that they can't), Gunner and Braver are the best classes overall for things like Falz, Tower Defense, etc.

[btw-Niji]

unless the EQ is occuring during JP primetime or when JP's are still online i usually will just avoid TD2 or not even bother with boosts.
Or just play with team Code.

[Rien]

I think it's dumb. Putting a focus on balance and DPS means they're clearly going to make every photon art have the same DPS (sacrificing a bit for something like stuns every now and then)

This means
1) Hatou nerf (unless the devs are idiots and fail to notice how hatou really works which I am skeptical of)
2) Ranged wins.... again. Then we're going to have to beg for melee buffs all over again. Melee ranged mob PSE bursts only lead to additional bullet clearing everything. Basically: melee = useless. If you want to actually balance, melee must exceed ranged damage.
3) They assume you have an optimized build, especially when it comes to technics. This is especially dumb because everyone may as well go fire tree since charge pp revival is so important.
4) Nerfing everything is dumb. It's hard enough for people with crafted weapons to fight and I don't need to see PUG quality dropping even lower. SH is hard enough as-is just to meet the (somewhat) difficult minimum damage requirement (meaning: You have to be able to deal 10k damage at-will, on-demand, and under that damn 6 second charge). One remedy to this might be buffting crafting, though it will end up obliterating the meaning of finding those elusive 10*s.

[btw-Niji]

RIP Team Code's constant 4 runs in TD1&2 when these nerfs roll in.

[Z-0]

I'm sure Code will pull through. Do you think they'd let that happen? They are perfect at Tower after all...

Also at TA I guess, if you mess them up they'll kick you.

[Kanade]

kicking is faster than walking to the other button!!!

fi revival hype!

[infiniteeverlasting]

Well, the new TD, I think it's also Fo/Te not bringing the right skill to help.
Status effect is more useful then single target Megid, or the new Light spell.
Ice freezing the enemy preventing them from touching the tower, or Zondeel trapping them for the other class to finish them.

this^ exactly what we need, i'd rather play fighter any day , however, i see some noob level 50 forces doing plain bullshit like NAMEGID ON FRICKIN ENEMIES IN TD, i even once saw some guy go namegid on a dagan.... i mean really? you're useless, stop pretending to be nice and play the housewife support class that you really are, you're more useful zondeelin 24/7 than attempting to kill one enemy with your shit namegid.

[Kondibon]

My biggest problem with the balance hasn't been that some stuff is stronger than other stuff, because like Z-0 says, that's always gonna happen. But the gap is ridiculous. Potentially loosing half your damage for going BR/TE instead of BR/HU shouldn't be happening, even WITH the utility TE adds.

Classes like TE add a lot of utility as subs but the combination of potential damage loss and the underpowered state of support, it ends up not being worth it, even if it sounds like a nice way to mix things up on paper.

I'm honestly scared they're gonna overnerf Shunka, and SRA, or nerf the wrong parts. I do think Shunka and SRA can be nerfed without making the classes useless (seriously, they aren't meant to be the baseline), but I can't imagine Sega using moderation here given how rarely they tweak things.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

My biggest problem with the balance hasn't been that some stuff is stronger than other stuff, because like Z-0 says, that's always gonna happen. But the gap is ridiculous. Potentially loosing half your damage for going BR/TE instead of BR/HU shouldn't be happening, even WITH the utility TE adds.


You post this just as I came in to say how bad I would like to see non-gimp hybrids again.

SEGA can use the most un-creative method to bridge the gap in damage benefits between HU sub and TE sub via a slightly weaker fury stance, or something. Even now the techs don't have to be huge powerhouses; if a player could do almost as much damage a xx/HU is capable of as a xx/TE, I'm sure we'd see alot more xx/TE for the sake of zanverse, megiverse, and zondeel alone.

It's lame how forced overspecialization is, and how fury stance just exacerbates it.

edit: as a matter of fact, they should make more territory-esque support techs that last longer. I like that last story feel.

[Kondibon]

You post this just as I came in to say how bad I would like to see non-gimp hybrids again.

SEGA can use the most un-creative method to bridge the gap in damage benefits between HU sub and TE via a slightly weaker fury stance, or something. Even now the techs don't have to be huge powerhouses; if a player could do almost as much damage a xx/HU is capable of as a xx/TE, I'm sure we'd see alot more xx/TE for the sake of zanverse, megiverse, and zondeel alone.

It's lame how forced overspecialization is.

edit: as a matter of fact, they should make more territory-esque support techs that last longer. I like that last story feel.For me, I'd be fine with the idea of loosing 10-20% base damage for access to zondeel, resta, shifta, and the other utility techs, regardless of my tech damage. The funny thing though, TE gets more out of hybriding than FI, HU, or BR do because their stances help with techs and/or wand whacking, but all TE can do for other melee is Shifta and Zondeel, which you might as well have someone else do at that point.

EDIT: I think a lot of skills should just be combined to cut down the bloat on the skill trees as well. Territory PP save, should just be a normal part of territory burst, as well as making the techs last longer per tic for example. A lot of skills need to be on their own tracks, like the braver skills, and SRA are as well. There are WAY too many useless prereques that need you to invest like 10-15 points just to get the skill you want. The Wand skills, and the bullet skills on the bottom right side of the RA tree come to mind.

[Sacrificial]

ranger buff \('w')/\('w')/\('w')/\('w')/ maybe with that boosted accuracy bullets will actually hit moving targets!

[Kondibon]

ranger buff \('w')/\('w')/\('w')/\('w')/ maybe with that boosted accuracy bullets will actually hit moving targets!That doesn't change Ranger's awful skill tree. D: No one even uses the right side of it. At least HU has the option to go for automate.

And where's my trap buff? They've been medocre since the game launched and just becoming more and more useless.

[The Walrus]

Hmmm, if Ranger gets buffed in exciting ways I might have to try it out again...

[gigawuts]

Trap buff = create "racial" secondary subclass, let us use support techs or tweaked traps (or other new additions later)

connect the launcher and rifle tree at a more convenient place (after WHA1) and/or move the launcher skills to where the trap skills were

Oh also, the biggest issue with ratk (and gunner) is that while rifles are great with that headshot damage bonus, launchers and mechguns are far from it. Mechguns don't need doubled damage for headshots, and launchers need to do more bodyshot damage.

One bandaid fix is to reduce the headshot damage bonus from 2x to 1.5x, give Weak Hit Advance a special higher bonus for only rifle headshots (WHA being 45% for rifles would make them about 3% higher than current), boost launcher base damage by 50%, and I dunno boost mechgun base damage by 20%. Mechguns don't even really need that tbh. Then the only issue is bows and gunslashes, neither of which really need 2x damage for headshots tbh, but bows would need something extra on the braver tree.

[Kondibon]

Hmmm, if Ranger gets buffed in exciting ways I might have to try it out again...I's mostly just QoL stuff, but it might be enough to get me to use launcher again. And I'm glad they're finally deciding to update PAs without waiting untill level 17.
From Bumped.

Pausing after dive rolls reduced.
Adjusted the speed it takes between the firing stance and shooting the weapon.
Bullet spread (firing accuracy) improves for normal attacks while moving.
PA One Point’s bullet spread (firing accuracy) improved.
Reduced PP consumption and increased power for some PAs

[gigawuts]

Reduced PP consumption? Fucking finally. That whole "every melee move must hover around 30pp" bullshit has had to go since before the game even launched.

[Kondibon]

Reduced PP consumption? Fucking finally. That whole "every melee move must hover around 30pp" bullshit has had to go since before the game even launched.Considering it's only for ranger it's probably gonna be stuff like divine launcher using 30 pp instead of 40. :I I'm not expecting anything drastic, though it'll probably help make the less PP efficient PAs useful.

[gigawuts]

Oh, only for ranger. Still, that was a bad design mantra that they've used for all non-techs with the exception of only the heaviest hitting power moves, so I'm glad they're fixing it for ranger.

I don't know if I'd want Divine Launcher reduced though. I've gotten comfortable with rangers not using only that move. Now, show me a 20 PP Zero Distance or a 20 PP One Point and I'm in.

edit: Also, Fake Silhouette should have nuke-tier damage. It's a time bomb. It's like setting sticky mines. Let it hit like the slow fist of an angry god. I want to see dozens of Tron mannequins on Bird Falz's core when all this shit launches.

[Kondibon]

Oh, only for ranger. Still, that was a bad design mantra that they've used for all non-techs with the exception of only the heaviest hitting power moves, so I'm glad they're fixing it for ranger.

I don't know if I'd want Divine Launcher reduced though. I've gotten comfortable with rangers not using only that move.Eh, 40 is a bit much for what it does, and Concentrate One would still be cheaper even if it isn't changed. Hopefully we see more damage for grenade shell and one point on the rifle side of things. Especially since they're buffing one point's accuracy.



edit: Also, Fake Silhouette should have nuke-tier damage. It's a time bomb. It's like setting sticky mines. Let it hit like the slow fist of an angry god. I want to see dozens of Tron mannequins on Bird Falz's core when all this shit launches.It's supposed to be a distraction, so I don't think the damage really matters. It should be drawing agro WAY better than it does though.

[Daiyousei]

ranger buff \('w')/\('w')/\('w')/\('w')/ maybe with that boosted accuracy bullets will actually hit moving targets!

I've learned to lead targets, it's the bullet spread that's my biggest problem.

[Rien]

actually, just for fun, I'd like to compile a list of everything wrong with all seven skill trees.

[Kondibon]

actually, just for fun, I'd like to compile a list of everything wrong with all seven skill trees.The only skill tree that's remotely good is probably the BR tree, but since it was the last one to come out, and sega's track record for balancing new things instead of old things, they probably did that based on feedback about the old skill trees.

[mctastee]

im still not sick of TD 2 but yeah, its pretty horrid. only a handful of people using heals, people hiding by the tele to leech, people not rezing people, people outright ignoring the mobs in favor of zerging a boss for minutes straight and being unable to kill it in that time despite having wb and being gu and br. sometimes i wonder if people are purposely being awful, people ignoring infections and the dicadas/predicadas etc,

I have seen this so many times it hurts. Almost everyone will be on the bosses while hordes of mobs trash the towers. It's like they aren't even trying. The most I have ever finished with is 2 towers. I will most likely never see that again.

[Enforcer MKV]

I'd like them to go and revise skill trees. That would be really nice.

Also: change one big thing about their free to play model: Make it possible for all the base skill trees to be reset with MESETA.

That would at least encourage people to try other things instead of going for 'optimized' builds.

[gigawuts]

I'd like them to go and revise skill trees. That would be really nice.

Also: change one big thing about their free to play model: Make it possible for all the base skill trees to be reset with MESETA.

That would at least encourage people to try other things instead of going for 'optimized' builds.

This this this this this this this this this

Actually, half of the problems with the current skilltrees could be excused if resets didn't cost real life money. A large part of the issue is that you're forced to specialize at the expense of everything else, with little to no middleground. A complete lack of generalist options would be passable if we could reset between missions.

They could still sell extra trees and let us change between them in the campship.

[Kondibon]

I think circumventing the cost is enough to incentivise getting more skill trees on it's own. Though being able to change skill trees on the camp ship would be a pretty big boon.

[Enforcer MKV]

This this this this this this this this this

Actually, half of the problems with the current skilltrees could be excused if resets didn't cost real life money. A large part of the issue is that you're forced to specialize at the expense of everything else, with little to no middleground. A complete lack of generalist options would be passable if we could reset between missions.

They could still sell extra trees and let us change between them in the campship.

Precisely. In a game that seemed to have totted it's customization, it's a bit counter intuitive to restrict our ability to experiment with our builds. Receiving reset passes every time they change something about the trees isn't enough. Hell, the reset cost can even be semi expensive. Make it cost several hundred K. Make it cost a mil. Make it so people have the option of resetting their tree with in game currency, but have a cost in place that makes it so people are still wary and think about their builds a little. I think this would go a long way towards improving things just because it would remove one of the bigger BS concepts with this games F2P model. Honestly, this one change would make me really happy. This is probably the one other thing they could do other than an actual skill tree overhaul that would make me really happy.

I shun the optimized builds on most of my characters because they're cookie-cutter and boring. But it's difficult to justify experimentation sometimes with such a steep penalty in terms of cost.

[Arksenth]

100m per reset seems reasonable if that's what you mean by "semi-expensive". I'd go along with that.

[Kondibon]

An idea I got from DCUO was having the price go up each time you reset your trees for 24 hours. Maybe have it start at 100k and go up by like 50k each time untill it resets. That way you won't feel forced into buying a skill tree but it would still be appealing to people who change their trees often for stuff like TAs or whatever. Or you could be Arksenth and not care.

http://i.imgur.com/e8hFBZu.gif

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

100m per reset seems reasonable if that's what you mean by "semi-expensive". I'd go along with that.

Only 100mil?

You peasant.

[Z-0]

Yes, SEGA should be selling convenience to the player, rather than locking things behind pay walls.

It's the best F2P model morally, but is it the best financially? No idea, I don't look into this stuff.

[The Walrus]

Should be 100 billion. That's low enough.


Yes, SEGA should be selling convenience to the player, rather than locking things behind pay walls.

It's the best F2P model morally, but is it the best financially? No idea, I don't look into this stuff.

http://static.rogerebert.com/uploads/movie/movie_poster/somethings-gotta-give-2003/large_vjfjlq2N358twPX3WnaSL588TV8.jpg

[Arksenth]

Only 100mil?

You peasant.

Hey now, I'm just trying to be considerate and keep other people in mind.

Poor people, that is.

[Enforcer MKV]

Yes, SEGA should be selling convenience to the player, rather than locking things behind pay walls.

It's the best F2P model morally, but is it the best financially? No idea, I don't look into this stuff.

The thing is that often, the less draconian F2P models often help games more than the heavy handed ones. People like to rag on Riot and League of Legends and play the "Oh, that doesn't count" card, but the simple fact of the matter is the only thing you are 'forced' to pay for in that game is alternative player skins, and people still often shell out riot points [Aka, real money] for things that they could obtain without paying a cent.

Simply put; if you give people the option of paying real money to get something now, versus having to put in a bit of effort and get it later - people will pay for the convenience and to circumvent having to work for it. Also; the more heavy handed models tend to survive on less people paying more. I don't remember the articles I read [long day + 2 jobs = whythehellamIevenstillawake] But generally speaking, more restrictive models have smaller communities while more flexible models have larger pools of players that pay a little at a time. In the short term, restrictive models have better...'bursts' of income, but flexible models have more of a steady stream. They also have better longevity.

Of course, these are all articles I've read on the internet over...what, a year ago? It's completely possible they were flawed, skewed, or otherwise not completely accurate. That being said, the rationale behind it is sound.

[gigawuts]

Yes, SEGA should be selling convenience to the player, rather than locking things behind pay walls.

It's the best F2P model morally, but is it the best financially? No idea, I don't look into this stuff.

No, it's not financially the best to use PSO2's model as far as anything I've ever read indicates; but if you have little to no competition then players can't readily switch from your game to a better one.

While Sega can almost definitely make more money by doing the convenience model, that would require more work, and since the point of PSO2 is to make boatloads of cash they probably don't feel the need to fix it if it isn't broke.

[Dia79]

Not sure how much they are going to nerf s roll and about shunka i dont really care since katana has lots of good pas and maybe bow will get stronger too but i concern more about gu atm .
My only hope is that they wont put gu back into the LOL class it was before where jps parties were putting an X about it on their vhaq comment considering gu's bad versatility .
I dont actually blame some change into game and a rebalance is pretty welcome but somehow i feel like that when u start to nerf something u wont really do a balance but just force players to stop doing what they were use to do and let them consider the chance and the fun of playing a different class.
In other words a good profit for sega to revitalize the game without some real change.

[Enforcer MKV]

No, it's not financially the best to use PSO2's model as far as anything I've ever read indicates; but if you have little to no competition then players can't readily switch from your game to a better one.

While Sega can almost definitely make more money by doing the convenience model, that would require more work, and since the point of PSO2 is to make boatloads of cash they probably don't feel the need to fix it if it isn't broke.

You would think that a company, that wishes to make money, would be willing to put in a bit of effort in order to earn a better pay out.

It baffles me that companies are like this, sometimes.

[UnLucky]

Well the thing is, they could either continue to make money, or spend money to possibly make more or less money.

[Zyrusticae]

Yeah, most of the PAs will literally never see use. Ever.

You have a collection of virtually identical, or very comparable, PAs between 7 weapons melee classes can use.

Seven.

We don't even have seven palettes.

You will literally never see Scissor Edge and Peak Up-Throw used equally when just one would do fine, and the other could be replaced with something more versatile.

Stop wanting this. Don't stop wanting it because it won't happen, stop wanting it because it's stupid.
I won't stop wanting it, no matter how stupid you think it is.

The most annoying thing about this is that the similar PAs could easily be balanced against each other because, y'know, they're so similar... but nah, too much work.

[UnLucky]

If they're similar but not identical, people will use the better one. If they are identical, people will use the better weapon with other better PAs.

[Vampy]

I really hope they don't turn gunner in to a joke again I can live with a nerf as long as it doesn't make the class unplayable. I hardly ever see balancing done right by sega when it comes to this game. Braver will still be good gunner will be losing it's main source of damage. I feel sega should work on other classes instead of possibly gimping two classes or one in this case potentially.

[Kondibon]

The problem isn't that they're redundant. It's that a lot of them are bad at what they're supposed to be for, or contradict a key mechanic of the class that uses them.

While it's obviously not possible to balance every PA perfectly, and some stuff might still be useless. There are a lot of good PAs that aren't used, not because they're terrible, but because they're ridiculously outmatched by other stuff. Some good examples off the top of my head would be Surprise Knuckle and Illusion Rave. They're both totally salvagable.


I really hope they don't turn gunner in to a joke again I can live with a nerf as long as it doesn't make the class unplayable. I hardly ever see balancing done right by sega when it comes to this game. Braver will still be good gunner will be losing it's main source of damage. I feel sega should work on other classes instead of possibly gimping two classes or one in this case potentially.
Gunner was only ever a joke because it lacked variety in it's PAs and didn't have much of it's own damage multipliers. But now it's got a nicer variety of PAs and an easy to access multiplier, the problem is that +100% damage is a lot for just flipping. If they nerf it I'm expecting it to be more like +20-50%.

[Vampy]

I'll just wait and see either way I'll still play gunner and hopefully they buff fighter to a degree since they are the only only classes I care to play. Even with all of bravers advantages it's not for me it feels like the class that requires the least amount of skill. Followed by gunner to a degree though when I play gunner I use shift period, messiah time, heel stab, elder rebellion, and infinite fire. I try not to be one dimensional.

I feel SH the balancing issues really became noticeable. I feel with these changes possibly the next difficulty increase will only make them worse.

[Kondibon]

SH cause balance issues because enemies moved faster so stuff that worked in VH stopped being as useful (cluster bullet for instance). Ranger and Hunter have been keeping up the worst.

[Vampy]

I never did enjoy hunter felt generally very slow and as you said SH they have had a harder time keeping up. I feel fighter is the same to a degree since enemies sometimes move too fast and attacks completely miss or I hit and get penalized by how I hit them just because fighters stances can be so punishing.

[ShinMaruku]

No, it's not financially the best to use PSO2's model as far as anything I've ever read indicates; but if you have little to no competition then players can't readily switch from your game to a better one.

While Sega can almost definitely make more money by doing the convenience model, that would require more work, and since the point of PSO2 is to make boatloads of cash they probably don't feel the need to fix it if it isn't broke.

You show them how much more money they can make from the whales, and they may fix it. A simple 8% increase will be enough to make them want to change it.

[MetalDude]

Brave and Wise Stance should have never been stances to begin with.

[Nitro Vordex]

Brave and Wise Stance should have never been stances to begin with.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. One of many reasons is the "can't see shit captain" thing, sometimes you can only tell because your numbers are faltering.

I feel like maybe there should be more specialization in each weapon. Like Knuckles have a tree(or specific boosts) along with the other two. Give them different bonuses. Maybe knuckles have a longer distance dash or something akin to a "Fury Mode", where you get bonus movement speed and damage. Something like Katana Combat.

...I just want knuckles to be able to get there before all the GU's and Bra's just one shot everything. :disapprove:

[Neith]

Shunka Shunran would have to get hit with the nerfbat pretty hard to dissuade people from using it as much. Even at half damage it'd still wreck pretty much anything in Super Hard. Interested to see how much it gets downgraded. Surely BR would just start spamming Kanran and Hatou if Shunka got nerfed badly though, so I don't see how this will affect Braver much.

The balancing changes need to apply to other things too. Knock player characters down and buff up the enemies at the same time. One of the main issues is Multi-Party Areas, as soon as you get a group of 12 people, enemies just disintegrate as soon as they spawn. I don't know how you'd balance this but an already easy game becomes even more of a joke in MPAs. Maybe work it like Diablo where enemies actually get stronger the more people that join (instead of just spawning more weak enemies).

[Gama]

ading elemental weakness to enemies so that they have 2, is good for forces, so more builds will be wide range, but im unsure how this would afect the other classes.

[GALEFORCE]

Lowering sroll down to 50% would still leave gunner in a good spot. Lowering it even more than that would demand they raise ZRAs to 25% or so. I'd also like for AA to give its bonus when either you or the enemy is in the air, and double the bonus if both.

[Zyrusticae]

If they're similar but not identical, people will use the better one. If they are identical, people will use the better weapon with other better PAs.
In this hypothetical scenario the latter wouldn't even exist, so...

But okay, let's look at this seriously. We KNOW how many frames it takes for a specific attack to go through its animation. We KNOW how large its AoE is in exact terms. It's just math. Basic arithmetic. Knowing these factors, it shouldn't be so damn impossible to get within something resembling a decent balance (where every weapon, all PAs included, are within +/-20% of each others' strength).

A weapon that takes longer to go through its animation obviously should be dealing higher DPS overall... provided you can actually get through the animation without being knocked out of it (hence, Asagiri Rendan and Illusion Rave should be catastrophic for anything that gets hit by the whole thing). And obviously, vice-versa applies too. Same thing with AoE. The problem is, right now, the PA damage is basically completely arbitrary, with no regard for these factors whatsoever.

Even if you ignore the hard math, measuring the DPS values in combat testing should have made these things obvious. That is my one small, dim glimmer of hope in all this - maybe they will actually test this shit out in typical combat scenarios, instead of simply looking at everything's single-target damage and having everything go to shit. I mean, I share doubt with everyone else that they are too incompetent to do even this much, but that is our only hope.

Of course they'll probably fail, but, well, you can still hope for the best while expecting the worst.

ading elemental weakness to enemies so that they have 2, is good for forces, so more builds will be wide range, but im unsure how this would afect the other classes.
They should really drop the 'one planet = specific element set' and let every enemy have its own set of elemental weaknesses. It's pretty stupid that Forces are encouraged to keep a skill tree of every single individual element just to be optimal. Instead, players should be able to use whatever element they like most (though most will use fire unless they do something to actually balance out the skill trees).

And seriously, Element Weak Hit should not be a thing. In fact, most of those specific conditional damage bonuses shouldn't be a thing, unless they actually encourage styles of gameplay (like S-Roll and the Fighter stances). Element Weak Hit is particularly stupid because of the way every Force is pigeonholed into mastering a single element at a time - you will never switch elements mid-combat because of how horribly inefficient it is, hence Element Weak Hit may as well just be a straight +20% damage multiplier for how often it's actually useful.

Lowering sroll down to 50% would still leave gunner in a good spot. Lowering it even more than that would demand they raise ZRAs to 25% or so. I'd also like for AA to give its bonus when either you or the enemy is in the air, and double the bonus if both.
YES, PLEASE.

Though having two conditionals on a single skill may be more than SEGA is capable of (lol), it'd be a really interesting route to go.

[Silver Crow]

This has been probably said a million times, but they should just make Gunner use the same Pallet as Ranger. Problem solved.

[WildarmsRE5]

I's mostly just QoL stuff, but it might be enough to get me to use launcher again. And I'm glad they're finally deciding to update PAs without waiting untill level 17.
From Bumped.

Pausing after dive rolls reduced.
Adjusted the speed it takes between the firing stance and shooting the weapon.
Bullet spread (firing accuracy) improves for normal attacks while moving.
PA One Point’s bullet spread (firing accuracy) improved.
Reduced PP consumption and increased power for some PAs
inb4 Dive Roll Dashing


I'd also like for AA to give its bonus when either you or the enemy is in the air, and double the bonus if both.then what is the new High Time Skill for Gunners then?

[Kilich]

What problem exactly? Having to use Custom Combo to access the three slotted Shift Period? Or other three slotted PAs in the palette?

[MetalDude]

You should straight up be able to select the PA you want off your palette instead of progressing through them. Hell, the custom combo system would actually improve if you could actually choose which PA you wanted at any point.

[Zyrusticae]

You should straight up be able to select the PA you want off your palette instead of progressing through them. Hell, the custom combo system would actually improve if you could actually choose which PA you wanted at any point.
I would prefer they have a Metal Gear Rising/[insert Platinum game of choice here]-style control scheme where alternating between heavy and light produces different attacks.

But of course that'd be too difficult to implement and they want you to grind for those high-level discs, so...

[gigawuts]

I really want PAs on subpalettes.

I also really want source engine style scripting, so one button can be bound to changing your weapon, its PAs, and anything on your subpalette.

That would be all it could do though. No extra stuff or anything, the other stuff is what makes it kind of broken sometimes in source games.

[Kilich]

You should straight up be able to select the PA you want off your palette instead of progressing through them. Hell, the custom combo system would actually improve if you could actually choose which PA you wanted at any point.

Improve? It wouldn't exist then.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

You should straight up be able to select the PA you want off your palette instead of progressing through them. Hell, the custom combo system would actually improve if you could actually choose which PA you wanted at any point.

Closest I got to doing that is using my function keys to switch pallets.

[MetalDude]

Improve? It wouldn't exist then.
You'd be able to string PAs together in any order you wanted then.

[UnLucky]

In this hypothetical scenario the latter wouldn't even exist, so...
Well I'm going to assume every weapon doesn't have the exact same set of PAs.

One will be better at AoE, one will be better at single target. Or one will be faster, while the other is slower, but both do good DPS. Otherwise there's no point to using more than one weapon at all.

If one PA on one weapon serves a certain purpose, then you don't need to double up on another. You either use the best PA for that purpose, or your best weapon with the highest DPS PA for another purpose.

Like say one weapon has a wide area PA, but another is smaller but stronger. The big one is either strong enough to kill things, or totally worthless. The smaller one is either wide enough to be useful for clearing spawns, or absolute garbage. Doesn't matter how powerful it is until it's the strongest thing you have, but by then you wouldn't be using it for AoE.

If everything is perfectly balanced to be an even trade for time, area, damage, and other utility, some of them will still be better than others and see more use. Due to the nature of the game, you only need one or two PAs for any one thing.


And seriously, Element Weak Hit should not be a thing.
I'd rather it be more of a thing, actually. Using the correct element should give a much larger boost, like headshots. That way you won't be gimp in certain areas because you took the wrong tree. Like at least be better than a single mastery.

It's kind of ridiculous to require a whole respec just to use a second element without being terrible, and you'd never be able to have both in the same quest.

[Atmius]

then what is the new High Time Skill for Gunners then?

According to the skill list that was datamined from episode 2's release, it increases attack rate/speed or so it seems to imply. Pretty much none of the other skills that are to be implemented were in ithat list though.

[Triple_S]

I think weapons should have some specialization within their PAs. Swords should have slow PAs that hit really fucking hard to everything up close, for example. However, the Sword would still have some PAs that cover other bases but not as well as the other weapons, meaning that if you don't want to swap weapons for this one scenario you don't have to, but if you're going to be dealing with that situation for a little while then it'd be a lot better to just swap weapons.

I'd also like to see more passive weapon-specific bonuses that don't require obnoxious amounts of SP to get.

[GreenArcher]

Swords should have slow PAs that hit really fucking hard to everything up close, for example.

You just described Over End.

[UnLucky]

You just described Over End.
Uh, no? It doesn't hit that hard. Other weapons hit harder to a wider area and faster.

[Zyrusticae]

[spoiler-box]Well I'm going to assume every weapon doesn't have the exact same set of PAs.

One will be better at AoE, one will be better at single target. Or one will be faster, while the other is slower, but both do good DPS. Otherwise there's no point to using more than one weapon at all.

If one PA on one weapon serves a certain purpose, then you don't need to double up on another. You either use the best PA for that purpose, or your best weapon with the highest DPS PA for another purpose.

Like say one weapon has a wide area PA, but another is smaller but stronger. The big one is either strong enough to kill things, or totally worthless. The smaller one is either wide enough to be useful for clearing spawns, or absolute garbage. Doesn't matter how powerful it is until it's the strongest thing you have, but by then you wouldn't be using it for AoE.

If everything is perfectly balanced to be an even trade for time, area, damage, and other utility, some of them will still be better than others and see more use. Due to the nature of the game, you only need one or two PAs for any one thing.


I'd rather it be more of a thing, actually. Using the correct element should give a much larger boost, like headshots. That way you won't be gimp in certain areas because you took the wrong tree. Like at least be better than a single mastery.

It's kind of ridiculous to require a whole respec just to use a second element without being terrible, and you'd never be able to have both in the same quest.[/spoiler-box]
I think you're misunderstanding something here.

My position is that the game should allow for themed builds that are all at least viable if not optimal. For example, someone who wants to specialize exclusively on the use of a single element for techniques or a single weapon for hunter/fighter should be capable of doing so. Of course there are many who will simply use the single most optimal PA and don't give a shit what weapon it's on, but that's not what I'm concerned about.

I want to be able to play partisan and nothing but partisan and not be gimped. I want to be able to cast megids all day long and still not be dead weight. And so on and so forth.

[ShinMaruku]

I would prefer they have a Metal Gear Rising/[insert Platinum game of choice here]-style control scheme where alternating between heavy and light produces different attacks.

But of course that'd be too difficult to implement and they want you to grind for those high-level discs, so...

I prefer DMC4 or DMC3 control system and combo system. That would be sublime.

[UnLucky]

Well you can do it with Fo/Fi, no EWH required!

And Te/Fi can use uncharged techs with Elysion, it's perfect!

All melee weapons have AoE and single target now. Well maybe Partisan is lacking in a big boss killer other than maybe Slide End and like, Sacred Skewer.

But yeah, one of the major reasons I never made an ice build was it lacked good single target. Now that's no longer the case.

[Kilich]

You'd be able to string PAs together in any order you wanted then.

You already can do that with shortcut palette switching.

[Zyrusticae]

Well you can do it with Fo/Fi, no EWH required!

And Te/Fi can use uncharged techs with Elysion, it's perfect!

All melee weapons have AoE and single target now. Well maybe Partisan is lacking in a big boss killer other than maybe Slide End and like, Sacred Skewer.

But yeah, one of the major reasons I never made an ice build was it lacked good single target. Now that's no longer the case.
Oh, ha-ha. But I have neither an Elysion nor do I care for using uncharged techs exclusively nor do I want to level fighter at all on my pure Fo/Te character.

In what universe does it make sense that Force's natural counterpart is actually one of the worst possible choices for damage output? Such absurd nonsense. That needs to be fixed.

[MetalDude]

You already can do that with shortcut palette switching.
That's a complete waste of space though. HU and FI already get cramped enough between 4-5 different weapon types.

[Triple_S]

You just described Over End.

Except that Over End's damage and DPS is outdone by all sorts of things that are faster than it.

So no, I didn't.

[LonelyGaruga]

nor do I want to level fighter at all on my pure Fo/Te character.

I'm not sure why you're complaining about how Fo/Te doesn't suit what you just described when Fo/Fi and Te/Fi, which you don't want to play, suit a single element playstyle better. Fo/Te was never intended for single element playstyles, any more than Hunter was intended to have Gunslash maining a viable tactic on it. There's no good reason to ask for this.


In what universe does it make sense that Force's natural counterpart is actually one of the worst possible choices for damage output? Such absurd nonsense. That needs to be fixed.

Well, it really goes like Fo/Br > Fo/Fi > Fo/Te > Fo/Hu = Fo/Gu > Fo/Ra (or something like that). Techer is best when managing PP becomes important, like dumping Nafoie or uncharged Namegid/Ilbarta, stuff like that.

[Zyrusticae]

I'm not sure why you're complaining about how Fo/Te doesn't suit what you just described when Fo/Fi and Te/Fi, which you don't want to play, suit a single element playstyle better. Fo/Te was never intended for single element playstyles, any more than Hunter was intended to have Gunslash maining a viable tactic on it. There's no good reason to ask for this.
Wow, you're seriously asking me why I don't want to level a fucking melee class on my caster-only character?

I... I can't make it any clearer than that, man. I really can't. :-?

[Sanguine2009]

next your gonna tell us that every gunner or ranger using hunter as a sub is doing it wrong right?

[Taters]

I hope:
- Bullet Bows & Katanas are balanced better; I know there's situations for both, but I only have 1 mag, and even with an R-Atk mag
- Forces get buffed in more than just their weapon's element increasing damage, because they already require multiple trees and weapons; having to 50 all those weapons would just be... well, I can't even charge AC in the first place so I won't be doing any 50ing
- Fighter gets more useful PAs, rather than just 1-2 good ones per weapon
- Tech Crafting Lv. 2 helps make some use of those old Techs that have never been good
- Gunner doesn't get too big of a nerf (50% SRoll JA would be fine) because I like having it be the easy-to-level, easy-to-play solo class ; _ ;
- Eventually they finally decide to expand the Tech system in this game, because I hate it. I love playing FO and all, but there's no excitement of techs getting faster or bigger based on level. Instead, it's just spend 40+ hours hunting a certain lv 16 tech and then reshape your tree and playstyle around that one tech.

[Zyrusticae]

next your gonna tell us that every gunner or ranger using hunter as a sub is doing it wrong right?
Well I can tell you right now that this is one of the reasons I really want fury stance to get nerfed/reworked.

And that aside, gunner/ranger is not exactly a weak combination to begin with, especially compared to Fo/Te which is near outright uselessness.

[LonelyGaruga]

Wow, you're seriously asking me why I don't want to level a fucking melee class on my caster-only character?

I... I can't make it any clearer than that, man. I really can't. :-?

Said melee class has the second best T-ATK in the game, with absolutely no way of actually utilizing that stat by itself, a skill that specifically targets two particular techs, several skills based on status effects, which are best inflicted by techs, and has been, for well over a year now, a viable sub-class for Force and Techer, whether you're strictly casting or not, thanks to its stances applying for all three main types of damage (same deal with Braver here).

Quite frankly, I find it quite baffling that you talk about making every PA and tech useful, but then criticize Sega for giving viability to Fo/Br and Fo/Fi. Fo/Te, Fo/Br, and Fo/Fi all have very distinct advantages over each other, which is exactly what you're suggesting should happen with weapons. It honestly comes off that you don't like it because it isn't what you want it to be.

[Zipzo]

Oh, ha-ha. But I have neither an Elysion nor do I care for using uncharged techs exclusively nor do I want to level fighter at all on my pure Fo/Te character.

In what universe does it make sense that Force's natural counterpart is actually one of the worst possible choices for damage output? Such absurd nonsense. That needs to be fixed.

Techer is not FO's "natural counter part". A viable (though not currently competitive) sub for Force, sure, but it is it's own class with it's own unique game play prospects.

[Zyrusticae]

Said melee class has the second best T-ATK in the game, with absolutely no way of actually utilizing that stat by itself, a skill that specifically targets two particular techs, several skills based on status effects, which are best inflicted by techs, and has been, for well over a year now, a viable sub-class for Force and Techer, whether you're strictly casting or not, thanks to its stances applying for all three main types of damage (same deal with Braver here).

Quite frankly, I find it quite baffling that you talk about making every PA and tech useful, but then criticize Sega for giving viability to Fo/Br and Fo/Fi. Fo/Te, Fo/Br, and Fo/Fi all have very distinct advantages over each other, which is exactly what you're suggesting should happen with weapons. It honestly comes off that you don't like it because it isn't what you want it to be.Yeah, come back to me when Fo/Te is actually viable for something other than zondeel spam.

You are completely ignoring my actual reasons for why I don't want to run with a goddamn melee class on my goddamn caster-class only character and continuing on with this bullshit about the bloody game mechanics. I don't give a shit about the mechanics as they are now and I don't give a shit about your reasons for why they should be the way they are.

Techer is not FO's "natural counter part". A viable (though not currently competitive) sub for Force, sure, but it is it's own class with it's own unique game play prospects.Uh-huh.

And next you're going to tell me that Fighter is not a derivative of Hunter, or that Gunner is not a derivative of Ranger. :roll:

[Enforcer MKV]

And next you're going to tell me that Fighter is not a derivative of Hunter, or that Gunner is not a derivative of Ranger. :roll:

To be fair...you're both right. While the classes were probably birthed from the original 3, they have their own playstyles and set up.

[Zyrusticae]

To be fair...you're both right. While the classes were probably birthed from the original 3, they have their own playstyles and set up.
Yes, that's right.

Let's stop the semantic bullshit before it starts. You all knew what I meant: They're the only two classes in the game with the primary stat being T-Atk and the only two classes that primarily rely on techniques (or, to put it another way, the only two classes in the bloody game that can cast techniques at all). Unfortunately, combining the two as they are now results in a sub-par combination that is obviously mechanically weaker than combining one or the other with Fighter or Braver. And I don't mean just a little bit weaker, I mean 'completely unviable' weaker, unless you enjoy being a buffbot/Zondeel-spammer all day long.

Telling me the solution is to "oh, just roll fighter" is ignoring the goddamn point. Fo/Te should be just as strong for killing shit as going Fo/Fi; the differences should be in the details, not the in the bloody overall numbers. If anything, Fo/Fi should be slightly weaker for technique damage than Fo/Te because it's a freaking hybrid melee-technique class combination as opposed to the purely technique-focused Fo/Te combination.

[Macman]

I think you're the one hung up on semantics.
If you're that whiny about playing melee, just get yourself a cheap Umblla Stick or Amon Ra and raise it that way.
Yes, it's pretty bullshit that a techer subclass is ultimately weaker, the PP utility of them is nice, though. What can you do?

[Zyrusticae]

I think you're the one hung up on semantics.
If you're that whiny about playing melee, just get yourself a cheap Umblla Stick or Amon Ra and raise it that way.
Yes, it's pretty bullshit that a techer subclass is ultimately weaker, the PP utility of them is nice, though. What can you do?
No, I'm playing a roleplaying game by actually, you know, roleplaying and my character is specifically built to play only caster classes exclusively, and NOTHING ELSE.

I'm sorry if my rigidity is so getting on your nerves but I am absolutely not budging on the matter. If Fo/Te continues being sub-par I will simply have to continue keeping the character shelved until the matter is fixed, no amount of arguments to the contrary are going to get me to level anything that isn't a caster class on my caster-only character.

And to clarify, this isn't even exclusively a RP problem either. I specifically made all three characters level completely different classes with no overlap so I wouldn't level the same class twice. Obviously, leveling fighter defeats the purpose since I now have to level fighter on two separate characters just to work around a balance issue. Gee, wonderful.

[Macman]

Then maybe you should stop screaming at everyone offering legitimate alternative solutions to your complaints.

Oh wait, I almost forgot where I am. Nevermind, carry on.

[gigawuts]

With all the stuff Fighter can do and everything on Fighter's tree I honestly do see it as a half-tech class really, the same way HUnewearls were half-tech. The only problem is they don't have techs enabled - but a subclass fixes that the same way fury stance is needed for them to melee effectively.

[Zyrusticae]

Then maybe you should stop screaming at everyone offering legitimate alternative solutions to your complaints.

Oh wait, I almost forgot where I am. Nevermind, carry on.
Those "legitimate alternative solutions" are completely ignoring the actual reasons behind why I consider it so much of a problem in the first place by brushing it off entirely and pretending that there isn't a problem.

I don't see why you're being so damn condescending considering you haven't even attempted so much as to understand my position, instead preferring to treat me as a loon.

[Kondibon]

Telling me the solution is to "oh, just roll fighter" is ignoring the goddamn point. Fo/Te should be just as strong for killing shit as going Fo/Fi; the differences should be in the details, not the in the bloody overall numbers. If anything, Fo/Fi should be slightly weaker for technique damage than Fo/Te because it's a freaking hybrid melee-technique class combination as opposed to the purely technique-focused Fo/Te combination.Techer's casting aspect is heavily support based, which is why it doesn't add as much tech damage to FO. The support is supposed to round it out and up for the lack of damage multipliers, but it's not, because support is so underpowered, and techer doesn't do much to help it anyway. To me, the real solution would be to make FO a stronger main, and make support more viable.

Honestly, this reminds me of when GU, FI, and TE first came out and everyone who tried to play them like RA, HU, and FO was dissappointed. They really AREN'T meant to be counterparts and it bugs me that you have to play a class that works completely differently to unlock them in the first place.

I spent a bit of time thinking about the classes and how all of them (except fighter) are actually meant fill two roles. Techer is Melee/Support, not Tech/Support. The problems come from the fact that it still gets bonuses to offensive techs so it ends up being Melee/Support/Tech and it's spread too thin. Something has to be dropped, and It would make the most sense for it to be the offensive tech aspect because FO is already Tech/Support.

And to be fair, GU is a piss poor sub for Ranger too. Even without hunter being there, most of Gunner's damage bonuses are best or only used by mech guns.


With all the stuff Fighter can do and everything on Fighter's tree I honestly do see it as a half-tech class really, the same way HUnewearls were half-tech. The only problem is they don't have techs enabled - but a subclass fixes that the same way fury stance is needed for them to melee effectively.
This would actually probably explain why FI doesn't fufill two rolls on it's own, and where the Melee Tech Damage class went.

EDIT: With that in mind
HU: Melee Damage/Tank
RA: Range Damage/ Support
FO: Tech Damage/Support
FI: Melee Damage/ Tech Damage (lol)
GU: Ranged Damage/ Tank
TE: Melee Damage/Support
BR: Melee Damage/Ranged Damage

[Macman]

If you wanna roleplay, that's fine. I just find it weird that you're willing to forgo huge game mechanics-based opportunities to stay 'in-character.'

It's like if I found an Orochiagito, but refused to use it because my character is Robin Hood.

[Kondibon]

If you wanna roleplay, that's fine. I just find it weird that you're willing to forgo huge game mechanics-based opportunities to stay 'in-character.'

It's like if I found an Orochiagito, but refused to use it because my character is Robin Hood.
To be fair, I use extended 3*s and the pink heart weapons for that exact reason. Just replace Robin Hood with 3*/Magical Girl

[Zyrusticae]

Techer's casting aspect is heavily support based, which is why it doesn't add as much tech damage to FO. The support is supposed to round it out and up for the lack of damage multipliers, but it's not, because support is so underpowered, and techer doesn't do much to help it anyway. To me, the real solution would be to make FO a stronger main, and make support more viable.

Honestly, this reminds me of when GU, FI, and TE first came out and everyone who tried to play them like RA, HU, and FO was dissappointed. They really AREN'T meant to be counterparts and it bugs me that you have to play a class that works completely differently to unlock them in the first place.

I spent a bit of time thinking about the classes and how all of them (except fighter) are actually meant fill two roles. Techer is Melee/Support, not Tech/Support. The problems come from the fact that it still gets bonuses to offensive techs so it ends up being Melee/Support/Tech and it's spread too thin. Something has to be dropped, and It would make the most sense for it to be the offensive tech aspect because FO is already Tech/Support.

And to be fair, GU is a piss poor sub for Ranger too. Even without hunter being there, most of Gunner's damage bonuses are best or only used by mech guns.
This is a fair point.

So this is a question that needs to be asked: Should all classes be equally good as subclasses?

Personally, I think they should, but the only way to do that is to either kill conditional damage bonuses entirely or kill 'brainless' damage bonuses entirely, or possibly(/preferably) both.

We are obviously going to have serious problems if the only subclass combinations that are actually of any use come entirely from two classes and only two classes. At that point you may as well eschew the subclass system entirely and just give people the ability to pick and choose weapons, PSP2-style.

Edit: And regarding your point about techers... I think it's fine if they do all three, provided the skill trees actually support that. They could easily separate the tree into three different branches covering the different aspects, so if you want to play Techer as a light/dark/wind version of Force you should be able to do so.

If you wanna roleplay, that's fine. I just find it weird that you're willing to forgo huge game mechanics-based opportunities to stay 'in-character.'

It's like if I found an Orochiagito, but refused to use it because my character is Robin Hood.
That's a pretty terrible example considering that's just one weapon versus an entire class, you know?

The thing is... this really shouldn't be so much of an issue in the first place. It just shouldn't. There should never be a situation where your class/subclass combination completely kills your combat effectiveness. Sure, some combinations are going to be suboptimal by nature, but they should at least still be viable. As it is, if you're not playing one of the class combinations that has Hunter in it you're basically purposefully gimping yourself.

[Kondibon]

This is a fair point.

So this is a question that needs to be asked: Should all classes be equally good as subclasses?

Personally, I think they should, but the only way to do that is to either kill conditional damage bonuses entirely or kill 'brainless' damage bonuses entirely, or possibly(/preferably) both.

We are obviously going to have serious problems if the only subclass combinations that are actually of any use come entirely from two classes and only two classes. At that point you may as well eschew the subclass system entirely and just give people the ability to pick and choose weapons, PSP2-style.
Yeah, something needs to be done to balance out the main/sub thing a bit more. Hunter is a bad main but a great sub, GU is a crappy sub but amazing main. TE is only a good sub for hybriding, but hybrids are UP, Ranger is only a good sub for GU... it goes on and on. 3:

[LonelyGaruga]

Yeah, come back to me when Fo/Te is actually viable for something other than zondeel spam.

Right now, if you're playing Fo/Te, you're better off as a Te/Fo. Better access to Elysion, better S-DEF, and Rods are almost entirely outclassed by Talises either way with maxed Talis Tech Bonus. Once Element Conversion comes around, there'll be a point to playing Fo/Te, but until then, Fo/Fi and Fo/Br are better at everything a Fo/Te can do, but a Te/Fo can't.


You are completely ignoring my actual reasons for why I don't want to run with a goddamn melee class on my goddamn caster-class only character and continuing on with this bullshit about the bloody game mechanics. I don't give a shit about the mechanics as they are now and I don't give a shit about your reasons for why they should be the way they are.

Your reasons are bullshit. Of course I ignored them.


Unfortunately, combining the two as they are now results in a sub-par combination that is obviously mechanically weaker than combining one or the other with Fighter or Braver. And I don't mean just a little bit weaker, I mean 'completely unviable' weaker, unless you enjoy being a buffbot/Zondeel-spammer all day long.

This just plain isn't true. The only casting advantage Fo/Br and Fo/Fi have is superior damage. Fo/Fi is virtually completely inferior to Fo/Br, while the latter gets some neat tricks with Banishing Arrow and Katana Combat/Combat Escape, but if you aren't gonna count Elysion (because it's really clear you aren't doing that), then Fo/Br literally only has better damage. And their damage isn't better for Light/Wind/Dark. Between EWH and the two Masteries, Techer sub offers 1.728x more damage for those three elements. Neither Fighter nor Braver can exceed that, unless you count Wise Stance for Fighter. Which is used maybe 2% of the time.


Telling me the solution is to "oh, just roll fighter" is ignoring the goddamn point. Fo/Te should be just as strong for killing shit as going Fo/Fi; the differences should be in the details, not the in the bloody overall numbers.

Do you use PP Convert? Like, at all? Do you not count following Zondeel up with an AoE for mobbing, which is significantly more effective with Territory Burst? Your problem, as I understood it, was that Fo/Te doesn't have superior damage to Fo/Fi and Fo/Br. So far, you've ignored everything, save Zondeel, that Fo/Te has going for it. You've ignored the better PP regen, you've ignored PP Convert, you've ignored half the elements in the game. Just to concentrate on this one, singular advantage that Fo/Fi and Fo/Br have. Somewhat higher damage. At the cost of 40% faster PP regen. At the cost of PP Convert. At the cost of better Wind/Light/Dark techs. At the cost of Territory Burst. And you call that an unfair trade. Seriously?


If anything, Fo/Fi should be slightly weaker for technique damage than Fo/Te because it's a freaking hybrid melee-technique class combination as opposed to the purely technique-focused Fo/Te combination.

Besides the fact that half the elements are, in fact, weaker as a Fo/Fi than a Fo/Te, the fact that PP Convert and Territory Burst are huge boons to casting, the fact that Techer is trying to pull three roles at once, one of them being melee, shoehorning roles into classes, and forcing them to only obey those roles, is asking for a game with even fewer viable subclasses. So what if Fo/Te doesn't outdamage Fo/Fi or Fo/Br for Fire/Ice/Lightning? It has several advantages that more than make up for it.

Te/Fo, right now, is the best casting class. Fo/Br comes close, but mostly in TAs, and only for Fire/Ice/Lightning, and still lacks PP Convert, so it has to have a huge PP pool. Te/Fo is the better boss killer, the better mobber, the better support, and doesn't require huge investments in equipment when compared to Fo/Br. And Fo/Fi has nothing over Fo/Br in the first place. The only reason it was brought up was because you mentioned wanting to use a single element everywhere. For Fire, Ice, and Lightning, Fo/Fi is the best, if you want to use only one element, everywhere. That is all Fo/Fi has over Fo/Br and Te/Fo.

Now, I'm going to ask you. How, exactly, does Fo/Fi suiting what you want better somehow make Fo/Te and Te/Fo horrible, horrible casting classes that shouldn't be considered under any circumstance when compared to alternative options for casting? Because that's exactly what you make it sound like. Because a class combination that you don't want to play suits what you want more than the class combination you do want to play. How is that not ridiculous?

EDIT: Oh, and replace every mention of Te/Fo with Fo/Te once Element Conversion hits. The level cap raise should make equipping Elysion more feasible as a Fo/Te, and Fo/Te will be getting even more damage off Wind/Light/Dark when compared to its other subclass options.

[Macman]

That's a pretty terrible example considering that's just one weapon versus an entire class, you know?
These days classes are becoming more and more about one weapon/type. With techers it's Elysion. With gunners it's Guld Milla or the latest ZRA mechguns. When's the last time you've ever seen a serious bow braver? :wacko:

[Zyrusticae]

Your reasons are bullshit. Of course I ignored them.
Congratulations, you have given me even more reason to disregard your opinion entirely.


Now, I'm going to ask you. How, exactly, does Fo/Fi suiting what you want better somehow make Fo/Te and Te/Fo horrible, horrible casting classes that shouldn't be considered under any circumstance when compared to alternative options for casting? Because that's exactly what you make it sound like. Because a class combination that you don't want to play suits what you want more than the class combination you do want to play. How is that not ridiculous?
You're right.

All combinations of casting classes with any other class SUCKS ASS.

This entire conversation is stupid and pointless. Nothing compares to Br/Hu or Gu/Hu in the game's current state, and the only reason to even bother with a casting class is to spam zondeel all day long - that is, unless you have an Elysion... and even then you're just spamming the same few techs with decent uncharged damage.

I don't even know why you assume I have an Elysion. I don't. And I don't care enough to farm one just so I can spam uncharged techs that I don't even enjoy using in the first place (and lest we forget, the point of these video games is supposed to be to have fun, and spamming those same techs over and over again is not even close to my definition of 'fun').

All this conversation has done is serve to highlight how completely and utterly fucked the game is by the horrendous balance situation. Hence, we go back to my point that, goddammit, I just want them to get to the point where no PA or technique is pointless to the point of self-gimping even if there are 'superior' options.

Edit: And while we're at it, fuck latents. Seriously. Fuck them. Having to grind a weapon a minimum of two times and having to use specific weapons just to get certain latents because otherwise you can't keep up... yeah, fuck 'em. They're a plague. The game would be better off without them.

[Sanguine2009]

All combinations of casting classes with any other class SUCKS ASS.

te/hu and te/fi say hi, though te/hu is more of a melee spec and te/fi is a hybrid spec. te/ra is also amazing support in TD

[Zyrusticae]

Sigh.

Did I really have to specify that I am talking specifically about using techniques to deal damage?

I thought it was obvious.

I really did.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

[Macman]

I don't give a shit about the mechanics as they are now and I don't give a shit about your reasons for why they should be the way they are.
Uh-huh.
If you don't care about mechanics, then why are you so pissy about your performance as a caster?
If you truly didn't care, you wouldn't be here right now yelling about how the game is screwing you over because the mechanics that you so clearly disregard are the sole source of your complaints.

Garuda has summed up my thoughts about Techer perfectly. It's a utility sub what with all the PP regeneration options that mesh well with force's Charge PP Revival skill. Yes, it's heavily support oriented, which would be fine except support is incredibly inconsequential outside of an occasional status heal and increased Zondeel range. It's also spread too thin and thus is mediocre in all these fields.
If you want it to be your sole ticket to big magic numbers then you want this game to become even more polarized and pigeon-holed than it already is.

The fact that fo/br and fo/fi are even viable is way more open-ended than any PS game has been so far with class builds.

[Kondibon]

If you wanna get technichal, better PP management means more sustain, means more damage. It's just not burst damage.

[XPKun]

Hence, we go back to my point that, goddammit, I just want them to get to the point where no PA or technique is pointless to the point of self-gimping even if there are 'superior' options.

Isn't this self-contradictory?

Something better will always be better even if the difference is really small. The fact that there can and/or will be superior options, even if things are more "balanced" as you say you want them to be, means you'll be gimping yourself if you don't use them.

[Zyrusticae]

If you don't care about mechanics, then why are you so pissy about your performance as a caster?
If you truly didn't care, you wouldn't be here right now yelling about how the game is screwing you over because the mechanics that you so clearly disregard are the sole source of your complaints.
READING COMPREHENSION.

I said I don't give a shit about the mechanics as they are now. "As they are now" meaning I want to see them changed for the better in the future, obviously.

I should also note that I am not particularly enamored with the subclass system as it stands. More builds are all well and good, but that means nothing if there's only a handful of builds that are actually good (or outclass everything else to the degree they do right now). The fact that the game is more "open-ended" in that regards is cold comfort for all the class/subclass combos that get shit out of the deal.


Isn't this self-contradictory?

Something better will always be better even if the difference is really small. The fact that there can and/or will be superior options, even if things are more "balanced" as you say you want them to be, means you'll be gimping yourself if you don't use them.
Once you reach the point where the differences are small enough that choosing the superior one grants a minute advantage... who really gives a shit if you're 'gimping yourself'?

[Coreven]

The people who actually care about min-maxing.

[XPKun]

Actually, you did. You speak like FOTE is so bad but it's only because you only want to play it your way.

What I'm getting from you is that you want to be able to play the only classes you want to play and use the only PAs you want to use and still be more or less equal to everyone else.

Sounds good on paper but I think a lot of people here have already explained why it won't be as good as you think it will be.

[Kondibon]

This goes back to what I was saying in another thread about how there's too much overlap in play styles. In most games organizing a raid, or a dungeon run requires you to actively seek people out and is usually removed from the normal gameplay. It's usually something that has a set schedule or you can do whenever you want, making it easy to get a dedicated group to play with. This seperates the "casual" players from the "hardcore" players and thus, there's less direct animosity between the playstyles. (less, not none)

In PSO2 on the other hand EQs are random, you either have to hope everyone you want to play with is on at that time, or go with randoms who might not be playing the way you'd like.

Zyrusticae is right that the game needs to be more balanced, but as things are right now, Any build IS viable. It's just gonna take longer. It only matters in the hardcore content, which is really just TD and TD2. Neither of which are required to progress in the game.

TL;DR: Play whatever the fuck you want unless you're doing TD and you'll be fine. :I

[ShinMaruku]

Techer is not FO's "natural counter part". A viable (though not currently competitive) sub for Force, sure, but it is it's own class with it's own shitty designed game play prospects.

FTFY :wacko:

[LonelyGaruga]

Congratulations, you have given me even more reason to disregard your opinion entirely.

Look. You have given me absolutely no reason to even consider you to be in a position to argue this. Your opinion is so disgustingly inaccurate on the matter that I should have called this a day the moment you said Fo/Fi was better than Te/Fo. But I didn't. I took it as seriously as I would any argument, and that's gotten me into more trouble than I'd care to admit, because I always get into arguments under the assumption that the person I'm arguing with has a good reason to say what they say, whether I actually feel that way personally or not.

Yes, I feel your opinion is bullshit. I think it's incredibly stupid that you would forego Fo/Fi and Fo/Br solely because they use a subclass lacking access to techs. I think it's incredibly stupid that you won't use those subclasses even though you're going to use techs just as much as a Fo/Te or Te/Fo would. I think it's incredibly stupid that you refuse to use a non-tech class even though you could easily level them with multi-class tech weapons exclusively (save SP COs). But I'm still going to argue like you have a legitimate claim despite my personal opinion that you are completely in the wrong here. So please, don't give me this nonsense. It's cool to roleplay, but please don't talk as though you have a right to have your class combination be exactly what you want it to be like, and that, by not acknowledging it, my word is completely meaningless. I'm not doing that to you.


You're right.

All combinations of casting classes with any other class SUCKS ASS.

This entire conversation is stupid and pointless. Nothing compares to Br/Hu or Gu/Hu in the game's current state, and the only reason to even bother with a casting class is to spam zondeel all day long - that is, unless you have an Elysion... and even then you're just spamming the same few techs with decent uncharged damage.

While I won't deny Br/Hu and Gu/Hu are terribly powerful right now, this was an argument about classes that can use techs. A specific grouping, not the whole selection. Moreover, that is still not all a casting class can do, and I already spelled that out as much. And even if it wasn't, Zondeel has been the cornerstone of a skillful Force's offense since its introduction. Why is this a problem now? Zondeel has always been massively useful, but it really comes off that you only have a problem with it now because it's more beneficial for other classes than for the Zondeel user. Which is because Force isn't top tier anymore.

It seems really clear to me that you don't run SHAQs, or, if you do, you either use a Rod exclusively, or don't use Force at all there. Elysion, in fact, is not all that great in them. Talises have always been the AQ tool for Forces since AQs were a thing, especially for bursts. There is absolutely no reason not to use Zondeel > AoE appropriate for the area, Zondeel for support, Zondeel...yeah, Zondeel is kind of important. You're right in that it gets spammed a lot. Because it's a really good tech. It's always been a good tech. It's always been spammed a lot. But not exclusively. Never exclusively.


I don't even know why you assume I have an Elysion. I don't. And I don't care enough to farm one just so I can spam uncharged techs that I don't even enjoy using in the first place (and lest we forget, the point of these video games is supposed to be to have fun, and spamming those same techs over and over again is not even close to my definition of 'fun').

I know you don't have an Elysion. Didn't you say so already earlier in the thread? My point was very much that. That you don't have a vital tool to making casting viable. Which is really unfortunate, but not a fault of the classes, but rather the lack of other viable weapons to use for casting classes. But even if you did have Elysion, Elysion's just a good weapon that helps casting become more viable. It isn't going to be used exclusively, nor should it be. There will always be a reason to use a Talis, and there is always going to be a reason to use some Rods. If a tech Elysion is not useful for needs to be used, you use something else.

The point about Elysion, however, is that Elysion very much does give Force and Techer very viable damage output, and actually is very important to make Te/Fo more distinct from Fo/Fi and Fo/Br, because spamming uncharged techs can burn through PP very quickly, depending on the tech, making it completely unviable to do so for anything but a Te/Fo. And for the damage? We are quite literally talking about being able to 2-3 shot every single mob in the game, with the right tech. While Shunka and Gunner obviously have better damage, they not only actually require a delay in their attacks, they have shorter range. This puts a very viable gap between damage and range here, that firmly plays Elysion into territory that makes a Te/Fo and other Te/ variants much more viable. And you can still switch to a Talis to support with Zondeel for when it's more useful to do so, whether to help others wipe enemies out or to group them up for your own AoE.

Now, about fun? Absolutely, it's a problem with Elysion being so important. A game really shouldn't make it so that a class underperforms so badly compared to others without a particular weapon. It's a problem if you have to be shoehorned into using that particular playstyle just to keep up, when other classes are disgustingly overpowered. But that has nothing to do with the previous topic about Fo/Te, Te/Fo, Fo/Fi, and Fo/Br. That really has no bearing right now.

Absolutely, the game should be changed. But right now, either you work with what you've got, or accept that, right now, casting underperforms without high end gear. You can't call Te/Fo underpowered fairly, however, because it isn't, as long as you have the correct setup. What you can say, however, is that the class is a problem without this setup. There's two solutions to that. Either make it easier to get what the class needs, or change the class, or the classes it competes with, so it doesn't need that stuff anymore.


All this conversation has done is serve to highlight how completely and utterly fucked the game is by the horrendous balance situation. Hence, we go back to my point that, goddammit, I just want them to get to the point where no PA or technique is pointless to the point of self-gimping even if there are 'superior' options.

I have absolutely no idea what you could mean by that last sentence. If you're doing something that is in every way inferior to another option, then you're gimping yourself pointlessly by definition. Mind clarifying with examples?


Edit: And while we're at it, fuck latents. Seriously. Fuck them. Having to grind a weapon a minimum of two times and having to use specific weapons just to get certain latents because otherwise you can't keep up... yeah, fuck 'em. They're a plague. The game would be better off without them.

Honestly, if I were replying the same way you did with me, this would be the part where I disregard anything you would have to say. But I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to point out that latents have the potential (no pun intended) to really help with balancing out class divides. Give a TMG high T-ATK, Force and/or Techer equippable, and a latent that buffs a particular element, or techs in general, and Fo/Gu and Te/Gu become much more viable than before, regardless of skill tree. Uncharged techs sucked before Elysion's buff and more uncharged techs were made viable to use, but it would be more practical for players if more weapons had Innocent Appearance. The problem with latents isn't the fact that they're tied to particular weapons, as that could be rectified by making the latent more common. The problem with latents isn't grinding, as grinding could be made easier, and/or changes to unlocking them could be made so that grind level isn't reset.

The problem with latents is that this stuff isn't true. Where we could see melee or ranged weapons with huge T-ATK and special latents that buff techs, we don't actually get those. Where we could see legitimately useful potentials for unique class combinations, we don't really see that. Where we could see weapons help to bridge gaps between two completely different classes, we don't. Where we could see absolutely game changing latents on multiple weapons, or at least on ones that could more easily be farmed, we don't. Whether we will in the future or not remains to be seen, but this seems quite deliberate on Sega's part. Which is disappointing, but can't really be helped if that's what they want to do. We can try to steer them in a more player-friendly direction, and it seems they are inclined to looking into bettering the game experience for players, given exactly the information provided in the first post of this thread, but more common rares means less money spent to purchase them, and I don't count on Sega doing things right.

In short, yes, fuck latents. Absolutely, the whole game needs to be balanced better. I would never argue that Force isn't underpowered relative to other classes, for the amount of money and effort needed to put into it. I would never argue that it is absolutely not cool that Force needs at least three skill trees to be viable where other classes need only one. There's a lot of problems with it, and I think the point of contention is what constitutes as a problem, and what doesn't.

EDIT: I haven't read anything past this quoted post, as I was busy writing it up while said posts were...well, posted. Sorry if that ends up causing an inconvenience.

[ShinMaruku]

I was once mad about how forces where but that was in the last game and foresaw them going to shit and when SH came out I dropped the class completely. But that is no reason for a rant. But lovely post Garuga.

[Kondibon]

On the topic of latents, I think they're fine, they just need to not be tied to grinding.

EDIT: And of course, there needs to be more that do interesting or unique things instead of just damage multipliers.

[WildarmsRE5]

On the topic of latents, I think they're fine, they just need to not be tied to grinding.

EDIT: And of course, there needs to be more that do interesting or unique things instead of just damage multipliers.there are, PP regeneration, Stunning chance (totally useless), ability to survive a lethal attack, HP regen (exclusive only to Guld, Elder Pain, Celesta).

just saying.

[Kondibon]

there are, PP regeneration, Stunning chance (totally useless), ability to survive a lethal attack, HP regen (exclusive only to Guld, Elder Pain, Celesta).

just saying.I said there needs to be more, not that there aren't any at all. 3:

[LonelyGaruga]

there are, PP regeneration, Stunning chance (totally useless), ability to survive a lethal attack, HP regen (exclusive only to Guld, Elder Pain, Celesta).

just saying.

Oh, there's plenty more than that. They're just either trash or extremely rare.

[Zipzo]

FTFY :wacko:

Usually fixing something means you're correcting it to properly demonstrate facts, not your own lousy opinion.

I think the Techtor is a great concept, it's just a matter of the PSO2 teams execution of it, which leaves a bit to be desired. If it was just "shitty designed" game play mechanics, you wouldn't have folks enjoying it, like I do. Obviously some enjoy it, therefore it's it's not shittily designed, they just have to work on the skill tree.

[ShinMaruku]

The execution is exactly the shitty design. Concept is great, they could make your T-attack and element of your weapon amp your damage up to do decent damage but the skill tree is so messed up and the numbers and multipliers are so bad that I would call it shit design and execution. The main problem with pso2's team is 90% execution 10% design their skill trees bloat and questionable placing of skills and some of the number is shit design.

Lots of things are great in concept but when you put in humans and execution you see great concepts can quickly be realized in terrible ways.

Looking at the concept you would think techer could take some pointers from dfo's battlemage and put a phantasy star theme on it but alas they did not.

Me I'd take the wand gear and put into two different uses: Increased strike damage with element and your t-attack scaling your attack or a caster approach where with the gear you get reduced pp uses and instant skills that will deplete the gear in increments where you would have to build it again. That would be a start on techers

[UnLucky]

I have absolutely no idea what you could mean by that last sentence. If you're doing something that is in every way inferior to another option, then you're gimping yourself pointlessly by definition. Mind clarifying with examples?
It's a matter of degree, here. Honestly, it's totally fine as it is strictly between the tech classes because Fo/Fi is not disgustingly stronger than Fo/Te. Using Fo/Fi as the base, Fo/Br is stronger for Fire/Ice/Lightning, and Fo/Te is stronger for Wind/Light/Dark (though to a lesser degree). But Fo/Te makes up for it with boosted PP regen and Territory Burst.

The problem here is Fo/Te's damage with Fire/Ice/Lightning is shit compared to anything outside of the tech bubble. It could have infinite PP and still be vastly outperformed by other classes in almost every case. And yeah, probably even Nafoie spam.

Another problem is Techer alone is a terrible casting class. Zero PP regen while casting, charged or uncharged, and no general tech damage skills whatsoever. It really needs a way to make use of its own PP skills without relying on Force, and anything at all that boosts all tech damage.

If Fo/Te could be closer to Fo/Fi both with Fire/Ice/Lightning and closer to Fo/Br's damage but with Wind/Light/Dark instead, but not exceed (like 20% weaker), and also work as a pure caster as Te/Fi and Te/Br without heavy PP issues, while at the same time improving tech damage to compete with other classes, we'd see a lot better balance.

As in, Fo/Fi, and Te/Fi would be the best at ignoring elemental weakness, Fo/Te and Te/Fo will be slightly worse without matching but slightly better with it, while Fo/Br and Te/Br would be the worst with the wrong element but the best with the right one. All within 10-20% of each other, so you could reasonably casual it up without falling far behind as anything but Braver sub.


Instead, I'm going to point out that latents have the potential (no pun intended) to really help with balancing out class divides. Give a TMG high T-ATK, Force and/or Techer equippable, and a latent that buffs a particular element, or techs in general, and Fo/Gu and Te/Gu become much more viable than before, regardless of skill tree. Uncharged techs sucked before Elysion's buff and more uncharged techs were made viable to use, but it would be more practical for players if more weapons had Innocent Appearance. The problem with latents isn't the fact that they're tied to particular weapons, as that could be rectified by making the latent more common. The problem with latents isn't grinding, as grinding could be made easier, and/or changes to unlocking them could be made so that grind level isn't reset.
Uncharged techs should have been buffed innately or on the skill tree, not be tied to a single rare weapon that can't be easily equipped by every class/race combination that would want to use it. Normal Tech Advance is still only +10% damage, after all.

The problem with latents as a balancing act is that they get outdated. When the next set of weapons come out with much higher T-Atk, suddenly Elysion's tradeoff isn't strictly better even within its own niche. Until Elysion mkII comes out, that is.

You're stuck waiting for a specific set of gear to validate your class role's entire existence. And then you'd better make the most of it while you still can before everything else that isn't so gear reliant completely outpaces you.

We shouldn't be seeing 2x damage latents. It's absurd. Uncharged builds should be viable right from the start, with Innocent Appearance simply improving it.

Imagine if Fury Stance stayed the same old +150 S-Atk but there was a 10* sword (Fighter equippable!) with Enraged Stance +100% at lv3?

[Zipzo]

The execution is exactly the shitty design. Concept is great, they could make your T-attack and element of your weapon amp your damage up to do decent damage but the skill tree is so messed up and the numbers and multipliers are so bad that I would call it shit design and execution. The main problem with pso2's team is 90% execution 10% design their skill trees bloat and questionable placing of skills and some of the number is shit design.

Lots of things are great in concept but when you put in humans and execution you see great concepts can quickly be realized in terrible ways.

Ok, and Techtor isn't exactly special in this regard. We have a thread discussing all the different things we'd do to the skill trees that we mostly regard as being at fault for the current wayward balance, so given that we place a lot of blame over the awkward class execution based on the dorky and in a lot of cases incoherent skill trees, it seems just a bit redundant to bother saying Techtor alone is shitty based on their skill trees.

With your logic, it's like going in to the skill tree thread and saying "the skill trees are shitty!", and then providing no real solution to pair along with the statement. Well yeah, we know that. That's why the thread exists. To talk about it.

[UnLucky]

If it was just "shitty designed" game play mechanics, you wouldn't have folks enjoying it, like I do. Obviously some enjoy it, therefore it's it's not shittily designed, they just have to work on the skill tree.

Uh, what?

Because some players are idiots, it excuses Sega also being idiots?

People like to tank, support, and use a gunslash or bow as their one and only weapon. None of that is well designed despite their delusions.

It's not so much that Techer's tree is bad. It's severely lacking functionality on a base level. It took them months to add just one skill that boosts melee damage. And then, after lots of complaining, caved in to player demands and gave them one more on a cooldown.

[Zipzo]

Uh, what?

Because some players are idiots, it excuses Sega also being idiots?

People like to tank, support, and use a gunslash or bow as their one and only weapon. None of that is well designed despite their delusions.

It's not so much that Techer's tree is bad. It's severely lacking functionality on a base level. It took them months to add just one skill that boosts melee damage. And then, after lots of complaining, caved in to player demands and gave them one more on a cooldown.

I'm not sure how we're in disagreement. I explicitly stated that the skill tree needs work, as do the the skill trees of most of the other classes (all?).

I don't see how I made an excuse for SEGA in the slightest. I think there's a conceptual difference between how close something is to its intended design, and how well you believe something is designed to cope with the current game mechanics.

Being a tank Hunter, or a melee Techtor has fundamental benefits to that of the player playing, it's fun for them and it's likely that its fun in ways that SEGA intended for it to be fun.

The problem is that they aren't as effective as other methods in the current game balance in coping with the enemies and missions we consider "endgame".

With this logic, I'm also of the opinion that tank hunters aren't shittily designed either. It's the game mechanics and enemies that are.

[Kondibon]

With this logic, I'm also of the opinion that tank hunters aren't shittily designed either. It's the game mechanics and enemies that are.I agree. It's pretty obvious that hunter got so many hyper armor PAs so they can facetank things, but the lack of hard to avoid weak damage, and the fact that guard stance only protects you from S-atk damage, makes it more ideal to just get better at dodging/blocking than using overend on hunars face.

EDIT: Which brings up an important point. With GMs, Megaverse, Automate, and/or messiah time, Gunner can do it without sacrificing as much damage. So the problem obviously isn't with the strategy, but with how hunter's skill tree requires so much investment for damage, while gunner is lolsroll.

MOAR EDIT: CHECK OUT THESE SUPER KRAZY KOOL TANK BUILDS FOR HU/FIGUTE! (http://ryuhiroshi.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?06gAbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIk0lbk Ikbj5kIsIdIkJkjbn00000febrbGBIbGFrbfJk0000lb000000 jdBeDbs4QbxHQfhn5cI20000Ib000000jkbdq5df2S526GBqs0 0000Ib000008)
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxzace7JGY1rn95k2o1_400.gif

[D-Inferno]

I personally want to see TE get it's tech power buffed to the point where /FI and /BR are basically not needed for best tech output for FO. Perhaps they can add "Element Weak Hit Charge" (Elysion doesn't need this boost imo) as a skill with 30-40% dmg boost. As Wind, Light, and Dark tech power are tied to Techer, they need to have a good multiplier if they don't want to possibly say get outclassed by mono element spam from the above two class comboes (I think with Ilbarta, FO/BR might already do so in a few cases). And I honestly do not think using the "incorrect" element should be killing faster than the correct (although certain techs could use better functionality). Not to mention that leveling /FI and /BR on a tech dedicated character is very annoying to do (granted, the new exp curve makes this easier, but still). However, I do think FO/FI and FO/BR could use a damage boost for the sub's weapons. For example, the Tech Charge and JA skills can possibly be changed to include PA damage. A reworked Photon Flare that boosts all damage would help too. This way they're actual hybrid builds instead of simply being used for the stances (although FO/BR already does a decent job at being a "hybrid" via Banish Arrow).

Also, I think that SEGA should nix Light Mastery from the TE tree, and just somehow make everything Darker related (includes Funji/Baize/Clones/PreEp2 Rare Darkers) extra weak to light techniques (not extra weak to light weapon element, though said things need a light weakness anyway). And then have whatever elemental mastery the user has maxed on the skill tree(s) being used to get the planetary natives (and as another way of attacking Darkers).

TE could also do with actual wand PAs, as well as better melee multipliers for subclass weapons. This is were I think the HU/FI/BR subbing thing would be more suitable for. Having Wand Gear trigger PP Charge Revival kicking in with faster recovery rates for each level (with Lv3 Gear being faster than FO's PPCR) could make Wands do better with techs as well.

[Zipzo]

How would one begin in designing Wand PAs given the current state of Wands? Right now Wands are casting weapons, and the Techer is meant to have the ability to cast. To give Wands their own PAs would essentially be changing its weapon category, and nixing the ability for people using wands to cast without using 1-0 on the keyboard.

[Z-0]

SEGA could just be smart about it, and let you place PAs in the slots where techs go too, so you can bind both.

That can't be too hard, can it?

[gigawuts]

With the way weapons are set up, I actually do suspect it would be that hard.

Which is why they could just do more techs like Il Zonde, and give Techer a cheap skill that improves them.

I've wanted tech tier masteries for a while now. Force would get simple, gi, and ra tech masteries that presumably buffed damage while techer would get na, sa, and il masteries. Il masteries would charge faster instead of dealing more damage, preferably tied to wand gear for the effect (more gear = faster charge. Heck, why limit it to wand gear? Any gear could work).

[ShinMaruku]

SEGA could just be smart about it, and let you place PAs in the slots where techs go too, so you can bind both.

That can't be too hard, can it?

Depends where they are coded. If it's two different things coded they'd have to recode it and they would hate that. (Actually anybody would)

If Sega is so intractable with wand gear they could either make it scale better with whacks or make you expend the gear with instant tech at a much reduced pp cost. That could help with casting. What I would rather do is they remove charging and rebalance pp costs (Or give teching class a larger PP pool) and remove the pp regen points from the tree and give some skills that do better with giving elemental flavor. Also fix the SE effects as well if we have these things that increase status effect rate (Make them last longer and be more effective if you have these point in the tree)

[Zipzo]

Bumped has translated a lengthy Sakai blog on the current state of balance. It seems like they aren't too out of touch with the current issues. Hell they even admit it will take them half a year. If half a year of initiating a "Balance Team" isn't somewhat telling of the scale of how much they are aware of needs changing...not sure what could be...


On Friday, Sakai wrote a lengthy blog post discussing the current issues over the game’s balance. His plan is to enact both short-term and long-term adjustments to change any glaring issues that affects the game enjoyment. Sit back and relax and enjoy the PR embedded within this article.

First, as for their long-term goals, they want to balance the power between classes. All classes, skills, and photon arts, will be targeted for possible buffs and nerfs.
All the work and testing required to perform these long-term adjustments are likely to take about half a year. However, they also feel that it’s necessary to perform some short-term adjustments to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. As of now, they’re seeing a tendency of advanced players leaning towards Gunner and Braver. Specifically, the team recognizes that the power of [Shunka Shunran] and [SRollJABonus] is standing out ahead of the pack. In order to correct this problem, from early March through late April, they’re implementing balance adjustments for existing elements, and improving some classes through newer elements. Based on these adjustments, they’ll analyze which contents are target for rebalancing in the near future. Due to these findings, there’s a possibility that some nerfs may arrive in a later update.

Now you see, the development team’s policy isn’t to perform nerfs, rather, they’ll generally buff some areas in response to certain areas that stick out. However, this methodology, while addressing some issues, does impose some limitations.

As for the problem with [SrollJABonus] and [Shunka Shunran], after implementing the balance adjustments though late April, if the team only adds buffs to their balance adjustments, the game’s overall balance will become worse—narrowing the playstyle and diminishing the lifespan of the game. To extend the game’s enjoyability they must correct things, even if those corrections turn out to be nerfs. This seems to be a problem with the development team, when they were working on strengthening Gunner and Braver, they worked on each part at the same time. When they implemented them on different schedules, each part stood away from their intended balance.

Therefore they decided to change up the structure of the development team. From hereon out, under the supervision of the “Balance Adjustments Team,” while having the final balance and DPS in mind, they plan to adjust each skill, class, and PA. The end goal is to make large enough changes to achieve a balance between classes, but this process will take almost half a year to go through. Hopefully, the upcoming changes can create a more stable environment and help make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

The part I bolded is a section that I believe shows that they're aware of power creep.

[Gardios]

How would one begin in designing Wand PAs given the current state of Wands? Right now Wands are casting weapons, and the Techer is meant to have the ability to cast. To give Wands their own PAs would essentially be changing its weapon category, and nixing the ability for people using wands to cast without using 1-0 on the keyboard.

Give Techers a skill that transforms techniques into PAs when tapped. For uncharged techniques, just hold the button for a short moment, for charged techniques, just keep it charged.

Basically, Tales of Xillia's Milla Magi system.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_OWDP65ZlI

(Skip to 2m) First is the spell tapped, followed by the spell casted normally. The tapped spell is the same for all spells of the same element, with more powerful versions/variations depending on the spell rank. Could work exactly the same here, since techniques are ranked, too (Zan beginner; Gi Zan, Ra Zan and Sa Zan intermediate; Na Zan advanced).

[Zyrusticae]

Damn, Sakai's post got my hopes up... just a little bit. Just a wee bit. A smidgen, if that.

Please, Sakai. Please get this right.

Side note: It amuses me how much their rigid, compartmentalized corporate structure bites them in the ass. That just doesn't work for game development. They seriously need to consider a better-suited, more horizontal structure. But it's SEGA, so I guess they really will just make a balancing department and call it a day. Better than before, for sure, but that really shouldn't be necessary to begin with.


[spoiler-box]Look. You have given me absolutely no reason to even consider you to be in a position to argue this. Your opinion is so disgustingly inaccurate on the matter that I should have called this a day the moment you said Fo/Fi was better than Te/Fo. But I didn't. I took it as seriously as I would any argument, and that's gotten me into more trouble than I'd care to admit, because I always get into arguments under the assumption that the person I'm arguing with has a good reason to say what they say, whether I actually feel that way personally or not.

Yes, I feel your opinion is bullshit. I think it's incredibly stupid that you would forego Fo/Fi and Fo/Br solely because they use a subclass lacking access to techs. I think it's incredibly stupid that you won't use those subclasses even though you're going to use techs just as much as a Fo/Te or Te/Fo would. I think it's incredibly stupid that you refuse to use a non-tech class even though you could easily level them with multi-class tech weapons exclusively (save SP COs). But I'm still going to argue like you have a legitimate claim despite my personal opinion that you are completely in the wrong here. So please, don't give me this nonsense. It's cool to roleplay, but please don't talk as though you have a right to have your class combination be exactly what you want it to be like, and that, by not acknowledging it, my word is completely meaningless. I'm not doing that to you.[/spoiler-box]Okay. That's fair.

My insistence on separating my characters by class is almost entirely irrational, I will admit (aside from the part where, yes, I do not want to level the same class twice on multiple characters). The fact remains that it is an essential condition, one that I will not budge from no matter how many people think it is completely stupid.


[spoiler-box]While I won't deny Br/Hu and Gu/Hu are terribly powerful right now, this was an argument about classes that can use techs. A specific grouping, not the whole selection. Moreover, that is still not all a casting class can do, and I already spelled that out as much. And even if it wasn't, Zondeel has been the cornerstone of a skillful Force's offense since its introduction. Why is this a problem now? Zondeel has always been massively useful, but it really comes off that you only have a problem with it now because it's more beneficial for other classes than for the Zondeel user. Which is because Force isn't top tier anymore.

It seems really clear to me that you don't run SHAQs, or, if you do, you either use a Rod exclusively, or don't use Force at all there. Elysion, in fact, is not all that great in them. Talises have always been the AQ tool for Forces since AQs were a thing, especially for bursts. There is absolutely no reason not to use Zondeel > AoE appropriate for the area, Zondeel for support, Zondeel...yeah, Zondeel is kind of important. You're right in that it gets spammed a lot. Because it's a really good tech. It's always been a good tech. It's always been spammed a lot. But not exclusively. Never exclusively. [/spoiler-box]My problem is that doing anything other than Zondeel is essentially pointless with how low the damage output of the casting classes is right now, that's all. Of course you can manage to cast stuff in-between zondeel waves but that's cold comfort when your techs are providing something like 10% of the damage output of the entire party (as opposed to the 20-25% they should be doing as a squishy caster class).

And yeah, I use rods exclusively. Go ahead and call me stupid for self-gimping, I guess. I have no argument against that. I simply dislike the flavor of the talis and refuse to use it. Completely irrational. Infuriating, isn't it?


[spoiler-box]I know you don't have an Elysion. Didn't you say so already earlier in the thread? My point was very much that. That you don't have a vital tool to making casting viable. Which is really unfortunate, but not a fault of the classes, but rather the lack of other viable weapons to use for casting classes. But even if you did have Elysion, Elysion's just a good weapon that helps casting become more viable. It isn't going to be used exclusively, nor should it be. There will always be a reason to use a Talis, and there is always going to be a reason to use some Rods. If a tech Elysion is not useful for needs to be used, you use something else.

The point about Elysion, however, is that Elysion very much does give Force and Techer very viable damage output, and actually is very important to make Te/Fo more distinct from Fo/Fi and Fo/Br, because spamming uncharged techs can burn through PP very quickly, depending on the tech, making it completely unviable to do so for anything but a Te/Fo. And for the damage? We are quite literally talking about being able to 2-3 shot every single mob in the game, with the right tech. While Shunka and Gunner obviously have better damage, they not only actually require a delay in their attacks, they have shorter range. This puts a very viable gap between damage and range here, that firmly plays Elysion into territory that makes a Te/Fo and other Te/ variants much more viable. And you can still switch to a Talis to support with Zondeel for when it's more useful to do so, whether to help others wipe enemies out or to group them up for your own AoE.

Now, about fun? Absolutely, it's a problem with Elysion being so important. A game really shouldn't make it so that a class underperforms so badly compared to others without a particular weapon. It's a problem if you have to be shoehorned into using that particular playstyle just to keep up, when other classes are disgustingly overpowered. But that has nothing to do with the previous topic about Fo/Te, Te/Fo, Fo/Fi, and Fo/Br. That really has no bearing right now.

Absolutely, the game should be changed. But right now, either you work with what you've got, or accept that, right now, casting underperforms without high end gear. You can't call Te/Fo underpowered fairly, however, because it isn't, as long as you have the correct setup. What you can say, however, is that the class is a problem without this setup. There's two solutions to that. Either make it easier to get what the class needs, or change the class, or the classes it competes with, so it doesn't need that stuff anymore. [/spoiler-box]Well-stated.

I will have to quibble in that I still don't believe that you can say that Te/Fo isn't underpowered because of a single weapon - all you can fairly say is that that weapon makes the class viable in a game where a few other classes can be such with much, much more common weaponry. Hence, I echo Unlucky in that I believe no latent should be so powerful that it becomes a requirement for an entire class to keep up.

I do accept that casting for damage underperforms without Elysion... hence why I've shelved my character until changes are made.


I have absolutely no idea what you could mean by that last sentence. If you're doing something that is in every way inferior to another option, then you're gimping yourself pointlessly by definition. Mind clarifying with examples?
Unlucky already covered this pretty well, but let me give you an example:
Assault Buster and Slide End both cover the same niche: wide-area mob clearance. Kanran Kikyou is pretty much the same thing, but does half the damage with a shorter charge time, a KD effect instead of KU, and a much, much larger AoE. In other words, it has a trade-off. While it can be argued that Assault Buster and Slide End are inherently inferior to Kanran Kikyou or vice-versa, in reality the difference is so small that you likely would have to measure the differences between the three to find a total victor. (That being said, AB and SE lose in any situation where they take two swings to kill a target that takes three swings for KK... until the PP disadvantage from KK shows up and you have to regenerate, anyway. Hence, trade-offs.)

This is what I think the end-goal should be: for every trade-off a PA has, it has corresponding strengths that offset it. There may be superior options but the advantages are so small that it's difficult to genuinely tell which one IS the superior option. Of course there probably will always be a superior option, but if you can diminish the difference between that and the inferior options to the point where nobody cares, you're good.

I think that such a situation is, in fact, quite possible, unlike so many other posters who seem to think the idea completely stupid. You just have to work out the math, tweak things until you get it right. Iterate, iterate, iterate. With Sakai's recent post there is hope yet that they just might do this.

(As for the last part of your post... yep, Unlucky's got it covered.)

[Inazuma]

I agree that Elysion being required to play Force and Tector is not a good thing. 5 of my 6 chars cannot equip Elysion because they have pure tech mags. When I use them for Falz Elder, I feel like I'm not contributing much damage at all. Maybe this problem will be solved 6 months from now, but for right now it's only going to get worse.

At the end of the this month, Element Conversion comes out. You will need a 50 element Elysion for every element you use. You may not need 6 Elysions, but you will probably need at least 3 or 4. You would have to buy twice that number in order to get the elements to 50. Long story short, Forces without premium will be gimped.

We all need to change our main back to Force and also buy/raise a new mag. For some people this is asking too much, so they will find themselves gimped as well.

Ideally Sega will balance rods, talises and wands, along with charged and uncharged techs. Forces were decently balanced before lv 16 techs and Elysion latent happened. I remember a time when rods and talises were balanced, along with all 6 elements and many of the techs within them.

I think this period was after the Zonde nerf and before the 20% talis skill and lv 16 techs. The ironic thing is that both of these additions were supposed to improve the balance.

[gigawuts]

Yes, the balance with other classes...not the balance between techs.

Balancing techs and classes simultaneously is hard, let them do things one step at a time. I'd much rather see FO compete with other classes by using namegid and rafoie than see light compete with fire...and have FO be utter shit regardless of what it uses.

[Inazuma]

Yes, the balance with other classes...not the balance between techs.

Balancing techs and classes simultaneously is hard, let them do things one step at a time. I'd much rather see FO compete with other classes by using namegid and rafoie than see light compete with fire...and have FO be utter shit regardless of what it uses.

I agree. You are right that I was only talking about the balance for techniques. Thanks to stuff like Elysion and Sazan 16, Forces can keep up with other classes. Hopefully in the future we can play Force in many different ways and have good balance with every other class.

[Zyrusticae]

They're going to need to figure out what their baseline is going to be first, especially if S-Roll Arts and Shunka aren't meant to be that baseline.

Also, I feel compelled to note that there are some technique properties that are difficult to account for with pure DPS measurements - things like megid's slow-ass projectile speed and Ragrants' extra charge period before it actually deals damage, stuff like that. It's going to be interesting to see how they handle that (if they handle it at all...). Edit: Okay nevermind, thought about it some more and this should show up in DPS measurements if they do it right (measure the total amount of time it takes for three casts to go out and strike the target(s), then divide the total damage by that number to figure out the DPS). Hopefully they test multiple situations, including single-target, three-target, PSE burst crowds, and so on, to get this shit right.

Edit #2: So. What about those grab PAs? Would you use them if they got buffed to the point where they can one-shot garongos? And what do you think they will do with stuff like Deadly Archer and Backhand Smash? Are they going to stay the way they are or do you think they'll get nerfed to stand in line with whatever they decide is the new baseline?

Lots of stuff to speculate on here, people.

[Inazuma]

Also, I feel compelled to note that there are some technique properties that are difficult to account for with pure DPS measurements - things like megid's slow-ass projectile speed (where there is a delay for every projectile to reach the target, but this won't show up if you just measure how much damage it does over 3 consecutive casts) and Ragrants' extra charge period before it actually deals damage, stuff like that. It's going to be interesting to see how they handle that (if they handle it at all...).

As long as every technique has a situation where it is the best technique to use, that's good enough. If element weakness actually matters, that would balance the 6 elements right there. Even if dark techs are slow, you would use them over instant attacks like Rafoie and Sazan because the dark techs would do considerably more damage.

Next they would need to balance the individual techs of the same element, so all are worth using. Each one should be the absolute best tech, depending on the situation.

- Namegido for the highest DPS, but the AOE size and PP cost means it's only viable for bosses.
- Ramegido for highest chance to poison.
- Gimegido for immobile enemies.
- Samegido for enemies right in front of you or far away.
- Megido for enemies at medium range.
- Irumegido for scattered enemies.

Something like this could work. Think of fighting games. There are times when using a weak punch is better than doing your super move. Every move needs a situation where it is the best choice.

[Triple_S]

There are issues making techs weakness-centric though.

For one, weapon costs will skyrocket to levels that even the rich will feel if they want to be as efficient as possible, since they're already going to make weapon element affect your tech damage. Fixing this would be easy; either make any element amount boost damage by a flat amount, scale it like PSU where matching tech elements on a weapon palette boosts damage, and/or don't let a weapon element affect techs at all (current behavior) but give all techs a straight boost.

Another issue is skill tree dependance. They'll need to rework skill trees a whole shitload to make people want to even bother with Force. Making Fo/Te the only way to cover all three bases and not have the SP to do it well becomes a huge problem if elemental weaknesses become that significant. Moving it all to Force would mean Techer needs a rework, and I think turning into a real spellsword-type class (or paladin, or magic knight, who knows) would help. Slinging spells as a part of a melee combo with wand explosions would be sweet. Maybe we could move Simple Tech Up and Tech JA Up to Techer and boost them, or something. Support techs would stay as an alternate build, and could shine better on the tree without elemental masteries in the way.


EDIT: Oh right. Don't compare fighting games to PSO2 when discussing situational usefulness, at least not yet. At the moment there are too many situations that are so infrequent it'd almost be better to use a less effective tech to be more efficient, especially if elements on weapons boost techs. Plus sometimes PP efficiency gets beaten out by speed, like when it'd be better to just chain cast two Rafoies instead of hurling a single Megid ball.


And if elements of weapons affect techs... I really hope this extends to all weapons and not just casting weapons. I'd also like to see a way to put T-ATK on anything, even though it'd still be notably less than casting weapons.

[ShinMaruku]

Think of fighting games. There are times when using a weak punch is better than doing your super move. Every move needs a situation where it is the best choice.
I think that is way above Sakai's pay grade. Call me cynical but I have more faith in the owner of the Knicks than Sakai. That would be ideal. The thing in fighting games is it's rarely using the super move unless you can combo into it or if it leads into a reset, then doing a light attack that you can link into a special or another move is preferable.

My idea for techs is if you don't have the skill tree for the damage in a area having a skill that boost weak point damage with any tech would be good. Then you can pick a tech from your tool box to then choose which one is best for each situation but that will be needed in conjunction with them looking at skill costs and cast times.

[Sanguine2009]

on the topic of PAs for wands, how hard would it be to code some new techs to scale off s-att rather than t-att? it seems to me like a simpler solution than converting an entire weapon class from tech to PA. hell let forces and rods use them too, there are a handful of rods with higher s-att than t-att after all

[ShinMaruku]

Given the games age it would be hell to code some techs to scale off s-ttack what would be better and easier to do is make techs scale more and be more sustainable. The rods with higher s-Attack where made by idiots and we should shun those weapons.

[LonelyGaruga]

[SPOILER-BOX]Okay. That's fair.

My insistence on separating my characters by class is almost entirely irrational, I will admit (aside from the part where, yes, I do not want to level the same class twice on multiple characters). The fact remains that it is an essential condition, one that I will not budge from no matter how many people think it is completely stupid.[/SPOILER-BOX]

And that's fair, yeah. Just, I don't agree with complaining that the game doesn't cater to what you want from that particular class combination. Complaining that it's bad is certainly right, but complaining it isn't good in a field that you want it to be good in isn't. Pretty much it.


[SPOILER-BOX]My problem is that doing anything other than Zondeel is essentially pointless with how low the damage output of the casting classes is right now, that's all. Of course you can manage to cast stuff in-between zondeel waves but that's cold comfort when your techs are providing something like 10% of the damage output of the entire party (as opposed to the 20-25% they should be doing as a squishy caster class).[/SPOILER-BOX]

Well, personally, in SHAQs, I find myself doing a lot of damage, even in parties fo Gunners and Bravers, because there are still only four people. It's more efficient to let the Gunner wipe out my Zondeeled mobs using Shift Period, but in PSE Bursts, or particularly large spawns, or when dealing with single targets, it's better for me to actually directly attack them as appropriate. I dunno about you, but I wipe out most mobs in two casts of whatever AoE I use for the respective area, and my equipment is definitely average (and of course, single skill tree problem). I never felt underpowered in SHAQs, because there was always something I could contribute to the party, even damage-wise.

Force is pretty bad in stuff like TD, but Ilgrants gives it an advantage that it doesn't need Elysion for. That thing hits hard enough to wipe out any enemy in about 2-3 casts, virtually guaranteed panic, and stun locks Vibras with ease. Wiping out infections was a pain for me before it, and with it, while I'm certainly not wiping them out as fast as a Gunner or a Braver, I do it fast enough that I don't find myself hoping that someone else comes along to assist me.

Point being, Fo/Te and Te/Fo do better than 10% damage, and can do other things too. They're still going to have the problem of other classes doing so much more damage than them, but their damage isn't insignificant right now, and hasn't been since SHAQs were implemented.


[SPOILER-BOX]And yeah, I use rods exclusively. Go ahead and call me stupid for self-gimping, I guess. I have no argument against that. I simply dislike the flavor of the talis and refuse to use it. Completely irrational. Infuriating, isn't it?[/SPOILER-BOX]

Well, that's fine. Just, you're going to face more difficulties than you already would otherwise if you used both a Rod and a Talis, and only because of your own personal limitation, and not anything that flawed design is responsible for.


[SPOILER-BOX]Well-stated.

I will have to quibble in that I still don't believe that you can say that Te/Fo isn't underpowered because of a single weapon - all you can fairly say is that that weapon makes the class viable in a game where a few other classes can be such with much, much more common weaponry. Hence, I echo Unlucky in that I believe no latent should be so powerful that it becomes a requirement for an entire class to keep up.[/SPOILER-BOX]

Yeah, I agree. They should be for enabling particular builds for that class combo, not making the class combo viable in the first place (well, at least, for mainstream ones, it'd be pretty difficult to make every class a viable subclass for every other class without designing weapons with this in mind too).


[SPOILER-BOX]Unlucky already covered this pretty well, but let me give you an example:
Assault Buster and Slide End both cover the same niche: wide-area mob clearance. Kanran Kikyou is pretty much the same thing, but does half the damage with a shorter charge time, a KD effect instead of KU, and a much, much larger AoE. In other words, it has a trade-off. While it can be argued that Assault Buster and Slide End are inherently inferior to Kanran Kikyou or vice-versa, in reality the difference is so small that you likely would have to measure the differences between the three to find a total victor. (That being said, AB and SE lose in any situation where they take two swings to kill a target that takes three swings for KK... until the PP disadvantage from KK shows up and you have to regenerate, anyway. Hence, trade-offs.)[/SPOILER-BOX]

OK, this is completely unlike what I was thinking you meant. For a case like this, absolutely, they're completely different ways of performing a particular task. What I had in mind prior was stuff like Stun Coincide, Fudou whatever, Assault Buster vs Straight Charge, things that had a terrible premise or were pretty much doing the exact same thing as other options. I wasn't thinking roles. Roles can definitely be balanced like this, as the example you gave indicates.


[SPOILER-BOX]This is what I think the end-goal should be: for every trade-off a PA has, it has corresponding strengths that offset it. There may be superior options but the advantages are so small that it's difficult to genuinely tell which one IS the superior option. Of course there probably will always be a superior option, but if you can diminish the difference between that and the inferior options to the point where nobody cares, you're good.[/SPOILER-BOX]

Extremely difficult, but a genuinely good goal to try to achieve. Superior options will exist, but making differences not worth bickering about ("why use X instead of Y here, it has slightly more range but almost the same damage!") would be nice. Though, as can be seen in every single thread discussing balance (including this one), it can be difficult to find an agreement on what needs to be balanced, and how it should be balanced. I'm pretty sure that a general consensus can be found on everything, with sufficient effort, but that effort is...well, a lot.


The rods with higher s-Attack where made by idiots and we should shun those weapons.

^This.

So much potential exists for viable multiclass weapons that have abnormal stats. Rods with abnormally high S-ATK and abnormally low T-ATK are a complete waste of this potential. It completely guts what a Rod is actually good for.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

Bumped has translated a lengthy Sakai blog on the current state of balance. It seems like they aren't too out of touch with the current issues. Hell they even admit it will take them half a year. If half a year of initiating a "Balance Team" isn't somewhat telling of the scale of how much they are aware of needs changing...not sure what could be...



The part I bolded is a section that I believe shows that they're aware of power creep.

They had different teams working on improving braver and gunner independently of each other at the same time with no communication....

I thought people had more sense than to do shit like that if making a somewhat balanced game was their goal.

[UnLucky]

At the end of the this month, Element Conversion comes out. You will need a 50 element Elysion for every element you use. You may not need 6 Elysions, but you will probably need at least 3 or 4. You would have to buy twice that number in order to get the elements to 50. Long story short, Forces without premium will be gimped.

We all need to change our main back to Force and also buy/raise a new mag. For some people this is asking too much, so they will find themselves gimped as well.
Yeah, it pretty much kills Techer main as a caster. Again. Did that skill really need to be main class only? Force sub is utter trash on anything except Techer (well, Fighter or Braver with specific weapons, but it's still worse than Force main regardless).

Put that skill on Techer, which works as a sub, and make it boost all elemental damage. Suddenly you'd have Hunter with a rainbow palette of Swords that does comparable damage to a Fighter sub (just Brave, at least), but with all the support of techs.


I'm not sure how we're in disagreement. I explicitly stated that the skill tree needs work, as do the the skill trees of most of the other classes (all?).
I don't see how I made an excuse for SEGA in the slightest. I think there's a conceptual difference between how close something is to its intended design, and how well you believe something is designed to cope with the current game mechanics.
The skill tree doesn't need work. It needs a skill tree at all.

They barely had a concept, period. They just said "ok, Techer has good base S-Atk" and stamped it for release.


The rods with higher s-Attack where made by idiots and we should shun those weapons.
Especially considering rods actually have a penalty to melee attacks. Try using a rod with identical S-Atk as any other weapon. It deals less damage.

And then explain Elder Rod's latent.

[ShinMaruku]

Elder rod's talent makes me http://www.chatslang.com/images/shortcuts/twitch/admins/failfish.png Seriously the man behind these things needs to be fired.

[Misaki Ki]

They had different teams working on improving braver and gunner independently of each other at the same time with no communication....

I thought people had more sense than to do shit like that if making a somewhat balanced game was their goal.

It was pretty clear there was something wrong when they buffed katana in various ways a bit after Shunka was released.

Class balance is a major issue (my major gripe at the moment,) but even once this is done, there still isn't a whole lot to do that we haven't been doing for the last two to three years. Anything that is newer is still behind RNG or EQ.

[Lego]

10/10 would cry joining TD2 with 11 other Ranger/Fighters.

TD2 is way too fast paced in a random mpa. When theres no braver and gunner. 100% walls break before wave 3.

[UnLucky]

Being a tank Hunter, or a melee Techtor has fundamental benefits to that of the player playing, it's fun for them and it's likely that its fun in ways that SEGA intended for it to be fun.

The problem is that they aren't as effective as other methods in the current game balance in coping with the enemies and missions we consider "endgame".

With this logic, I'm also of the opinion that tank hunters aren't shittily designed either. It's the game mechanics and enemies that are.
But it's simple fact that the tanky specs are woefully inadequate for what they're trying to do.

Like just completely ignore the fact that they deal no damage as a drawback for a second. The level of damage reduction they can stack is nothing. At most it's around 60% passive reduction on Striking damage, 35% Ranged, and 30% Tech. When enemies deal 500+ per hit and bosses deal 1k+, especially boosted named changeovers, you will still die. Like take any other game, if your main tank can only survive one more hit than the squishiest class in your raid, you need to find a new tank.

In a game like PSO2, even taking everything from a traditional tank and spank gameplay and putting it into Guard Stance would still be bad. Like turn Guard Stance into 90% total reduction to all damage all the time and Fury would still be the better choice because you can just block or dodge for 100% avoidance.

The most effective tanking spec (http://ryuhiroshi.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?06fbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIk0lbkI qBGQbn5dI2cAbxfGA000007b000009b000000lb000009b0000 00lb0000000Ib000008)(IMO, after level cap increase) can still use Fury Stance.

There's just a fundamental flaw in the base concept. Tanking does not work in PSO2, and there would need to be major revisions in every aspect to change it into a completely different game for it to be viable.

[Cyclon]

The people who actually care about min-maxing.
That's not everyone though, so that's fine. Like, really. I'm pretty sure most players aren't actively min-maxing/finding it fun. Also, the closer you get to a hypothetical perfect balance, the heavier personal taste and opinion weigh in the mix, and those can really tie the loose ends. There's simply very, VERY little place for that in-game at the moment, because the superiority of some PAs is notorious, not to mention excessively obvious.

[Omega-z]

Unlucky - I agree with Zipzo more on it.





Like just completely ignore the fact that they deal no damage as a drawback for a second. The level of damage reduction they can stack is nothing. At most it's around 60% passive reduction on Striking damage, 35% Ranged, and 30% Tech. When enemies deal 500+ per hit and bosses deal 1k+, especially boosted named changeovers, you will still die. Like take any other game, if your main tank can only survive one more hit than the squishiest class in your raid, you need to find a new tank.

I agree that a person that takes one more hit then a Pure DPS build is not a Tank and needs to look at there build better. But a True Tank won't even take over 200 from a Boss (even in PSO2 on SH+). Take Vol, his Fire Meteor attack, Does 1K+ damage to DPS builds (there FC's take 1800~1900 damage). When I playing my Tank version that damage is 135 at the highest, and this isn't completely Mini-Maxing all the way as a Tank either.


In a game like PSO2, even taking everything from a traditional tank and spank gameplay and putting it into Guard Stance would still be bad. Like turn Guard Stance into 90% total reduction to all damage all the time and Fury would still be the better choice because you can just block or dodge for 100% avoidance.

This Part right here is one of the main reasons why Defense is useless and needs a Nerf/Rework for this mechanic, Otherwise nothing is going to change.


The most effective tanking spec (http://ryuhiroshi.funpic.de/pso2/skillcalc.php?06fbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIkbnIk0lbkI qBGQbn5dI2cAbxfGA000007b000009b000000lb000009b0000 00lb0000000Ib000008)(IMO, after level cap increase) can still use Fury Stance.

I would "NOT" count this as a Tank but a weaker DPS build that acts like a weak punching bag/ bait. I would call it more as a Drawing/Trapper build Specialist.


There's just a fundamental flaw in the base concept. Tanking does not work in PSO2, and there would need to be major revisions in every aspect to change it into a completely different game for it to be viable.

Tanks are not flaw'd but other OP fundamental base concepts which are. This drives out the need for Defense in general. Generally Tanks are suppose'd to be weaker attackers but have less downtime retreating from attacks which in-turn keeps there DPS up. When using a DPS build that isn't OP (TE) this holds true, which the Tank isn't much slower then a DPS build or sometimes beating it.

Even tho I've seen this it's still just a exception to the rule since many don't try it or understand it, Then which just gets overshadow'd by other builds. But I would wait and see what Sega does with all their re-balancing, They may make Tanks viable again maybec.......but knowing Sega who knows.:-?

[Xaelouse]

there should be no such thing as tanking, but I'd love to abuse the super armor on some moves to open up with an offense while not dying. That's all those defensive skills should be worth.

[Triple_S]

The biggest problem has been stated before. Tanking VS just not getting hit. The easiest way to fix this would be to make Tank strong enough that players say "Well if I build pure Fury I'll hit much harder but have to spend time dodging, but if I build pure Tank I'll be able to continuously attack."

Basically, there needs to be some appeal to being able to constantly stay in the face of the enemy and never stop attacking. They shouldn't make blocking or dodging less effective (though making Just Guard more appealing for tanks could help, maybe giving a "reflect and multiply damage" ability for Tank HUs that Just Guard) because one of PSO2's strengths is that you can actually avoid and block attacks yourself rather than the auto-attacking dice-roll system of other games. It just needs to be something that hurts your DPS more. Or shit, maybe make Tank HUs able to absorb the damage taken by allies as well, so even though your DPS is low you can keep everyone else's DPS at maximum because they never have to dodge.

[Omega-z]

Triple_S - That the thing tho, Making Block better and making Tank do non-stop attacking would be nice but maybe to OP (not the block part) to drop damage to 1 on every attack from now to endgame with little work. This will just feed into DPS instead "if" it's to easy to get. But it would be still pointless since parry / dodge is to "good". Which DPS will just look at it and still pass it by since they can still do way more damage, since they can do both at the same time and take "0" damage. Until they hit heavy resistance and put a cool down on parry/dodge and have roll cost PP there's little hope of it competing. And trying to add attack mod's to a Tank won't fix it either, all it will do is give another option for DPS builds to have their cake and eat it too.

[gigawuts]

Which is why I think Massive Hunter needs to be expanded on, and last significantly longer.

[Crystal_Shard]

Which is why I think Massive Hunter needs to become a passive skill.

Edited. Massive Hunter should be what it was in PSPo2i and not be a short lived "I'm a tough guy" button.

[Triple_S]

Triple_S - That the thing tho, Making Block better and making Tank do non-stop attacking would be nice but maybe to OP (not the block part) to drop damage to 1 on every attack from now to endgame with little work. This will just feed into DPS instead "if" it's to easy to get. But it would be still pointless since parry / dodge is to "good". Which DPS will just look at it and still pass it by since they can still do way more damage, since they can do both at the same time and take "0" damage. Until they hit heavy resistance and put a cool down on parry/dodge and have roll cost PP there's little hope of it competing. And trying to add attack mod's to a Tank won't fix it either, all it will do is give another option for DPS builds to have their cake and eat it too.


S'why I'm saying we have to find a way that doesn't make dodging or blocking a worse defensive option, but a worse offensive option. Needs to be something that cuts DPS enough to make tanking a hit worth doing, but not something that discourages a DPS build to block/dodge if they need to.

It's definitely not easy.

[Macman]

Sega's solution if they took your idea would be as minimal effort as "Just Guard now does 10x damage" or something. Just Counters would always crit.

[gigawuts]

Edited. Massive Hunter should be what it was in PSPo2i and not be a short lived "I'm a tough guy" button.

I don't know about passive.

Knockdown immunity can be a drawback sometimes, if you're being whammed with a hard enough hit that will come around for another hit after that.

I think having it last 120 seconds, with a new 1sp skill to give hyper armor during fistpumps, would be good.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

I don't know about passive.

Knockdown immunity can be a drawback sometimes, if you're being whammed with a hard enough hit that will come around for another hit after that.


Wolga comes to mind.

[Triple_S]

Sega's solution if they took your idea would be as minimal effort as "Just Guard now does 10x damage" or something. Just Counters would always crit.

Sad but true. Though again, if we're talking SEGA, they'd bury "Just Guard Up" way down in the right side of the tree, so at least it wouldn't be something Fury HUs could get.

[gigawuts]

Sad but true. Though again, if we're talking SEGA, they'd bury "Just Guard Up" way down in the right side of the tree, so at least it wouldn't be something Fury HUs could get.

Nah, they'd make it a main-exclusive skill and have it available without any prereqs, next to Rare Mastery Hunter.

[Macman]

And nobody would use it because they're all using Susanogurens anyway.

[Triple_S]

Nah, they'd make it a main-exclusive skill and have it available without any prereqs, next to Rare Mastery Hunter.

Wait wait, even better

It'd also work on Katana Counters

And through a bug not to be fixed for a month or two it'd actually affect the entirety of Katana Gear's boost

[deusalkaiser]

if they want some sort of balance they need to look at passive tree and find skills no one bother using or is underwhelming, example ranger trap side of tree is completely useless. If they fix this tree there can be a lot of classes that can use for utility.

[gigawuts]

Wait wait, even better

It'd also work on Katana Counters

And through a bug not to be fixed for a month or two it'd actually affect the entirety of Katana Gear's boost

Oh no, that would be intentional.

We can't have bravers spending SP on something they don't need.

[Angelo]

Edited. Massive Hunter should be what it was in PSPo2i and not be a short lived "I'm a tough guy" button.

I think it should be a short lived "I'm a tough guy" button, just a significantly better one with situational utility.

[Akakomuma]

Thank goodness. Shunka is way too OP compared to other melee moves.

[cheapgunner]

Here's some idea I had cooking (probably terrible ones but idc ):

Give hunters and fighters a sizable boost to movement speed attack speed. Give homing normal attacks to daggers built in, and up cruel throw, nova strike, rising edge and the falling edge pa's up in damage quite a bit.

Boost hunters base hp so that newman hunters w/o subclass or any investment at lv 65 get like 1200~ or so Hp. Add a skill that activates war cry ability automatically when you just guard ( repeatedly ). Give hunters small hp regen and chanced hyper armor ( 100% when hit with attacks that are 10% or lower of max health. ) when hit by enemies.

[Omega-z]

cheapgunner - kind of like Solid Body in PSU's GAS/GAM system with a HP regain unit.

[Rien]

I think the Guard tree could easily be fixed by removing the damage penalty altogether.

Not having increased damage from fury stance is penalty enough.

[cheapgunner]

cheapgunner - kind of like Solid Body in PSU's GAS/GAM system with a HP regain unit.

True. The hp ups should give like 150 hp at lv 10 to make them worthwhile and boost stamina based affixes by an extra 10-20 hp as well. Guard stance should be 200 s- and r- defense and 150 t-def at lv 10. No reduction in player's damage output and increased movement and attack speed so you can attack and defend much faster. Also, would make it easier to cover allies across big maps where our current running speed may not save them in time.

[Gardios]

I think the Guard tree could easily be fixed by removing the damage penalty altogether.

Not having increased damage from fury stance is penalty enough.

While I don't think this would fix the problem altogether, that should still happen. Ideally, Guard Stance comes with an indirect damage penalty simply because you need to guard more often (and thus are unable to attack).

[TheAstarion]

I think the Guard tree could easily be fixed by removing the damage penalty altogether.

Not having increased damage from fury stance is penalty enough.

Same for Brave, Wise and Weak stance really. Not getting a 44, 56 or 67% bonus is bad enough without suffering a 10-20% damage nerf, with the only response being "you should be using the other stance at that moment in time".

The easiest way to balance it would be to implement diminishing returns for stacking multipliers between main and sub, up to a maximum of, say, 2.5x normal damage, or 150% stacked boosts. If your multipliers would put you over this, I guess it could go towards sega-criticals.

Using 150% of boosts as an example, Hunter gets 119% from fury side, compared to 33% average stance, 44% brave stance, 56% weak stance and 67% wise stance, and optimally 107% for ranger and again optimally, 164% for gunner, but both gunner and ranger's multipliers are pretty situational and sometimes difficult to maintain (other than keeping a permanent weak bullet to ensure cheesy weak hit advance and s-roll shenanigans). Fighter of course can stack higher with chase, and flat numerical bonuses aren't taken into account either.

Another idea could be to make the flat stat-ups into scaling boosts, along the lines of "reduce equipment requirement stats by 1%/lv, increase relevant damage / decrease relevant incoming damage by 1%/lv", working for both attack and defensive boosts.

That's give gunner 166% on its own just from s-roll and the available r-atk ups, leaving a fair bit of SP for other utilities... maybe chain could even make a comeback. Would free up the sub to be entirely a choice, too... Weak bullet is the obvious choice but there'd be no disadvantage in going guard hunter in that case, or even running a stanceless fighter for chase bind and slayer skills, or even trying to be clever and running guntecher.

The lowly Fighter/Techer gets up to a 72% boost with brave and elemental weak hit, but could run up to 129% with fighter's s-atk ups replaced by 1%, and 152% with techer's wandwhacker s-atk up replaced by 1% too. I played FITE extensively... Levels 30 to 60 were a great sweet spot in which my FITE could two-shot entire spawns with Zondeel & Deadly archer, but enemy hp at 61 has outstripped my lack of stacked multipliers. So I've had to lay Zondeel to rest and be a sheep like everyone else, for fear of never getting another kill in SH again.

With a multiplier cap in place, it would be easy to balance enemy difficulty, and free up the development offices to giving interesting and potentially gamechanging convenience tweaks for skill tree expansions. It'd be nice for hybrid offense/defense builds or even dual stat attack builds to not only be viable, but encouraged with inevitable spare SP. And it'd be future-proof, extending to the 100/100 cap and perhaps beyond.

[gigawuts]

A stacking penalty has been used to good effect in other games, but winds up with some irritating results in a game like this. It would, in large part, push us to the balance the game launched with: Force and Ranger would have the best multipliers all over again simply because they have the largest and most condensed multipliers, while Hunter would suffer because of how heavy of an investment Fury Stance with such minimal gains (10 sp for 50 satk during fury stance! hooray! 10 sp for 10% wouldn't be far off after enough of a stacking penalty, but damage is damage man!).

Then, if you fix that, the issue becomes that some classes perform adequately despite having low multipliers, resulting in classes that aren't faced with reduced SP effectiveness and can grab whatever they want instead (See: Average Stance Braver, which has a mere 21-33% when out of Katana Combat).

Some don't even have their multipliers in their skilltrees: Techer relies on wand gear, which deals an explosion for each enemy it hits, providing quadratic damage growth. The multiplier is in the field. Now you're eking into some dangerous territory - do you want to give Sega the ability to nerf damage in the field if they think you're doing too much? It's like giving a loaded gun to a toddler.

I'm not against the stacking penalty, I just think that it highlights the real flaw: How large the Fury Stance tree is, and how little the gains are for 70 SP compared to individual skills of other classes. It'd be better to just fix hunter's tree and cut out the excess complexity.

[TheAstarion]

The problem with the fury tree for me is how large and 100% reliable the total gains are, compared to other classes (fighter) with a lower absolute maximum, and nutty conditions to meet them. If I could get a 119% boost from Fighter, with the only drawback being that I only have 5 SP left over, take 5% extra strike damage (which is mitigated by a single blow resist iii or certain units' innate resists), and having to do just attacks, which anyone worth their salt would be doing anyway... I'd do it. Step and one gear, I'd do it. Because with how fighter stances stand right now, the moment you flip a Zesh you're boned, may as well turn off fighter stance and attack unboosted. Conditions are tight, SP investment is light, that's fine, but the boost is still low in comparison. I even think Weak Stance should be much higher; sure it affects more than Weak Hit Advance (and it shouldn't; WHA with tech and melee compatability would be great for hybrids) but being a stance it has inherent drawbacks.

I don't see a problem with 1%/lv boosts, I don't particularly like +50/10lv flat stat boosts... anything ahead of the +1%/lv curve should have some kind of condition. And usually it does... Zero range advance, weak hit advance, elemental weak hit, perfect keeper, even fury combo has 3 conditions (have stance up, do your JAs, have it at level 10 to get it on your first JA), I just wish other stances had something like fury combo helping them out.

I see what you mean about weapon-based multipliers but weapon selection is already at a bottleneck. Class selection is currently about a single weapon selection (shunkanaut, sarabande) or tree selection (fury, weak bullet), and too rarely both (gunner, techer). With a cap in place, only people running hunter for the weapons would be going full fury for multipliers; in a capped world you could just pick a sub based on sub weapons and playstyle of tree synergy like a lot of FOBRs do with vibrace bow. But that raises another point that's already been stated; it puts class combo viability in the hands of a random weapon drop, and then at the mercy of dudu.

[gigawuts]

1%/level I can and normally would like just fine, just not forty of them.

I think the biggest gripe I have with Fury is that Hunter relies on it for its offense so completely. Hunter's weapons are now balanced around investing heavily into the Fury tree. In many ways so are Fighter's - it's just katanas that don't need that extra damage.

Best possible fix, IMO:
1. Remove ~30% damage multipliers from Fury's tree completely (any 2-3). Just lift the skills right out. Fury Stance Up 2 is a must, both JABs would be nice.
2. Boost multipliers of all of HU & FI's weapon attacks by 30% (every normal attack, every step attack, every PA, and doublesaber gear)
3. Remove/reduce cost for most of the stat ups in the guard tree, and/or heavily reduce SP requirements for utility defense skills (Iron Will & Automate Halfline should require 1 SP in their prerequisite skills, SATK Up 1 should cost 1 sp in Guard Stance to make Sword Gear easier to get , etc.)
4. Make the Flash Guards 5 sp and/or way easier to access

Pure offense HU builds should have at minimum one defensive or supportive skill - [I]which one is where player choice comes into play. Similar to how the Fighter tree lets you choose between PP Slayer or Chase - not really an evenly balanced choice, but still a choice.

They spent all this effort making a skilltree system to give players choices, then didn't give players any choices by charging real money every time you want to change even one thing. Great job Sega.

[Zipzo]

I agree. You are right that I was only talking about the balance for techniques. Thanks to stuff like Elysion and Sazan 16, Forces can keep up with other classes. Hopefully in the future we can play Force in many different ways and have good balance with every other class.

Since finally acquiring Sazan 16 I have put a decent amount of playtime in to the build, in an attempt to fully understand both where you're coming from, and what the hubbub over the build was in general...I've come to one central conclusion here...what the honest heck are you talking about?

It's a somewhat neat-o build. It's interesting and sometimes fun to pick off mobs from a distance but that's all it can fricken' do. It still doesn't even reach a fraction of the damage gunners deal, or that of the Shunka. Not even close.

It's terrible on bosses, and the PP management of it is pure junk because of no PP recovery during non-JA'd casts. You're basically living from PP convert to PP convert, and sometimes even fish (assuming you have the fish like any smart caster). Spirit Collector Gunslash/Dbl Saber swatting obviously helps but not only is this phase completely unnecessary to "other classes" you speak of in order to do more than 5-6x the damage more consistently, but switching can be a huge pain mid-combat due to weapon loading times (occasionally), and you spend precious seconds doing rubbish damage in order to restore your PP bar. Meanwhile the "other classes" are consistently clearing all of your prey right in front of you. It's incredibly dorky feeling a lot of the time to run out of PP.

Sazan build is a gimmick, absolutely nothing more. It's unique and somewhat laughably fun to use for a little while, but it sure as heck is not making Force or Techer "competitive" with anything.

I am honestly curious, on the technical side of things, why you put so much stock in it.

[isCasted]

There's a moment about Sazan+Elysion combo. Basically, that's all you do, and that's a problem. If I spam right clicks I don't play Force! Playstyle of Force is based on thinking about how, when and in what order you should apply your variety of techniques. It's a game of mind, not just "mind" of character but also mind of player! Stuff like elemental masteries already limit your ability to apply this variety, and Sazan spam comes down to no variety with no thinking, and if you don't even have to charge it you don't have to pay attention to anything.

Do you say Force is strong that way? No, at least because it's not Force.

[Kondibon]

Stuff like elemental masteries already limit your ability to apply this variety,
Elemental weakneses will become limited to bosses.

BUT

You can only use one element.


WOULD YOU PRESS THE BUTTON!?

SEGA: [spoiler-box]http://econwiz.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/tumblr_lnvvttaubb1qzc8l4o1_250.gif[/spoiler-box]

[gigawuts]

Elemental weakneses will become limited to bosses.

BUT

You can only use one element.


WOULD YOU PRESS THE BUTTON!?

SEGA: [spoiler-box]http://econwiz.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/tumblr_lnvvttaubb1qzc8l4o1_250.gif[/spoiler-box]

Yes, just to watch all the forces squirm while I play gunner.

[Kondibon]

Yes, just to watch all the forces squirm while I play gunner.

I actualy meant resistances, to point out what they actually did with PSO2 by conciously downplaying elemental resistances, then balancing the game for min-maxing a particular element.

But this is something I wouldn't put past them either... so yaknow... :wacko:

[Inazuma]

Since finally acquiring Sazan 16 I have put a decent amount of playtime in to the build, in an attempt to fully understand both where you're coming from, and what the hubbub over the build was in general...I've come to one central conclusion here...what the honest heck are you talking about?

It's a somewhat neat-o build. It's interesting and sometimes fun to pick off mobs from a distance but that's all it can fricken' do. It still doesn't even reach a fraction of the damage gunners deal, or that of the Shunka. Not even close.

It's terrible on bosses, and the PP management of it is pure junk because of no PP recovery during non-JA'd casts. You're basically living from PP convert to PP convert, and sometimes even fish (assuming you have the fish like any smart caster). Spirit Collector Gunslash/Dbl Saber swatting obviously helps but not only is this phase completely unnecessary to "other classes" you speak of in order to do more than 5-6x the damage more consistently, but switching can be a huge pain mid-combat due to weapon loading times (occasionally), and you spend precious seconds doing rubbish damage in order to restore your PP bar. Meanwhile the "other classes" are consistently clearing all of your prey right in front of you. It's incredibly dorky feeling a lot of the time to run out of PP.

Sazan build is a gimmick, absolutely nothing more. It's unique and somewhat laughably fun to use for a little while, but it sure as heck is not making Force or Techer "competitive" with anything.

I am honestly curious, on the technical side of things, why you put so much stock in it.
You must be doing some things wrong. It sounds simple to grab an Elysion and spam Sazan 16 all day long, but there is much more to it. When all of the pieces fall in place, you will see that it's the best way to play Force, in most situations.

- Elysion
- Sazan 16
- TE/FO
- Multiple skill trees for using Elysion, both for TE and FO.
- A mag with 7 S attack to equip the Elysion.
- You need to add a lot of PP to all your gear. Elder soul, spirita 3 and spirita boost are good.
- Craft a PP - 10 Sazan. It has to be PP - 10; it makes a big difference.
- Use a gunslash to recover PP, such as the Nero Parasol with the faster PP regen latent.
- Use Territory Burst Zondeel to gather enemies.
- Use a PP reduction crafted uncharged Megiverse to heal yourself.

This is for right now. In a few weeks you will need multiple 50 element Elysions and a S attack mag for lv 70 FO/TE.

Sazan is decent on bosses but if you can, use an ice tree and Il Barta. Il Barta is better than Sazan/Sazonde on every boss except the ones weak to dark, where Namegido is best.

Zipzo, let's do some ADs together and you can see what I'm talking about. Sorry, I'm too much of a lazy fuck to make videos.

[Gardios]

Uh-oh, here we go again.

[UnLucky]

You must be doing some things wrong. It sounds simple to grab an Elysion and spam Sazan 16 all day long, but there is much more to it. When all of the pieces fall in place, you will see that it's the best way to play Force, in most situations.

- Elysion
- Sazan 16
- TE/FO
- Multiple skill trees for using Elysion, both for TE and FO.
- A mag with 7 S attack to equip the Elysion.
- You need to add a lot of PP to all your gear. Elder soul, spirita 3 and spirita boost are good.
- Craft a PP - 10 Sazan. It has to be PP - 10; it makes a big difference.
- Use a gunslash to recover PP, such as the Nero Parasol with the faster PP regen latent.
- Use Territory Burst Zondeel to gather enemies.
- Use a PP reduction crafted uncharged Megiverse to heal yourself.

Te/Fi is better damage, and doesn't need an S-Atk Mag (neither will 70/70 Fo/Fi)
Any class can stack a lot of PP to be effective
Even with the recipe, the damage/PP is not as good as Gunner or Braver
Likewise, they don't need a Spirit Collector gs/ds to sustain their main weapon PAs
Anything is good with TB Zondeel, and using a talis for that would be much more effective (oops, weapon switch won't let you Elysion)

And goddamn, getting Elysion, finding lv16 Sazan, and crafting a perfect tech recipe is so many layers of insane RNG I'd rather hunt Quartz all day for a Susano.

You absolutely have to charge Ilbarta for the final hit, which gets a lot more complicated if anyone else is trying the same thing (Elysion or no).

After playing with Elysazan quite a bit in the LQ and TAs, I've since gone back to -PP crafted Foie and -PP latent Na/Ilfoie. As Fo/Fi this is effective anywhere, and as Fo/Br it's pretty devastating even to bosses, especially using Vibras bow. It isn't nearly as RNG reliant since the gap isn't so staggering compared to standard weapons, and if you're already willing to get multiple skill trees then pure Ice and Lightning Fo/Br is also really effective without specialized gear.

I wanted a single spec to use anywhere, and Wind/Dark Elysion Techer was not it. You can potshot some things at a distance, but it's nothing impressive.

[Inazuma]

If you can't or don't want to put forth all the time and effort to maximize use of Elysion, that's fine. I agree that it's very demanding. I'm not OK with being decent at Force. I want to be the best.

I know that BR and GU have higher DPS than EL on bosses, but EL is better than them in many situations involving small fry. If we are just talking about AD, EL and GU are great and BR is crappy.

This game has become more about speed and less about power.

[btw-Niji]

Ok guys.

Idk how many times we gotta say this but

The only way to play FO is Sazan16+Elysion.

If you don't have both of these, then you're a bad FO.

Also, Inazuma is all knowing and the best player on ship2. Do not ever think of trying to argue with him.

[gigawuts]

Ok guys.

Idk how many times we gotta say this but

The only way to play FO is Sazan16+Elysion.

If you don't have both of these, then you're a shit FO.

Also, Inazuma is all knowing and the best player on ship2. Do not even think of trying to argue with him.

right on

[btw-Niji]

right on
this.

[UnLucky]

If you can't or don't want to put forth all the time and effort to maximize use of Elysion, that's fine. I agree that it's very demanding. I'm not OK with being decent at Force. I want to be the best.

I know that BR and GU have higher DPS than EL on bosses, but EL is better than them in many situations involving small fry. If we are just talking about AD, EL and GU are great and BR is crappy.

This game has become more about speed and less about power.

Except I have been. And maximizing Force doesn't mean using Elysion everywhere, and maximizing Elysion isn't using Sazan for 90% of your damage.

There's no way Sazan is better than Gunner or Braver's AoE DPS. And there's no way using Zondeel from a wand is the most effective mobbing tool available to tech casters.

[Kikikiki]

Sorry BR is soon going to become good AD because lolspinningarrows so your point remains invalid.

Beardazuma vs PSO-W: Chapter X (X∈N+)

http://media.tumblr.com/293abf3d4ca5c39a478a8ea3105b69b5/tumblr_inline_mlacqiA0WI1qz4rgp.gif

[Arksenth]

I feel bad for people who have to justify their own gameplay preferences as the best most optimal end-all of all gameplay that everyone else has to follow because THEY HAVE TO BE THE BEST and EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST TOO STUPID TO SEE HOW THEY ARE THE BEST.

Like, how much of an insecure basement dweller do you have to be?

The next thing you know, you'll actually be buying tickets to my handshake events.

Man, I can't wait for you to pay out $800 for me to spit on your face and call you pathetic!

Ohohohohohohohoho!

I really am the idol of PSO-World!!!

[Kondibon]

Man, I can't wait for you to pay out $800 for me to spit on your face and call you pathetic!

Ohohohohohohohoho!

I really am the idol of PSO-World!!!INSULT ME MORE ARK-SAMA! STEP ON MY FACE AND STAB MY CHEEKS WITH YOUR HEELS!

[Arksenth]

INSULT ME MORE ARK-SAMA! STEP ON MY FACE AND STAB MY CHEEKS WITH YOUR HEELS!

I don't even wear heels.

What kind of sick fantasies are you having about me?!

Kyaaaah!

My innocence!

-covers chest and weeps-

I can never be a bride now!

[infiniteeverlasting]

INSULT ME MORE ARK-SAMA! STEP ON MY FACE AND STAB MY CHEEKS WITH YOUR HEELS!

Oh look, we have a foot fetishist, or otherwise known as a neet.

[gigawuts]

Oh look, we have a foot fetishist, or otherwise known as a neet.

There's no need to go around calling people bravers.

And heelstabbing isn't quite the same as a foot fetish.

Not to say I'm not into both. I play GU after all.

[Walkure]

If you're not blowing them away with uncharged L16 Sazan, you're just blowing!

[infiniteeverlasting]

There's no need to go around calling people bravers.

And heelstabbing isn't quite the same as a foot fetish.

Not to say I'm not into both. I play GU after all.

Well you know it always starts out with the foot grinding into the nuts, which then turns into moans of pleasure, that's when you know a foot fetishist is born. And all the gunners who do nothing but heel stab are just sadists who just don't know it yet.

[Arksenth]

Well you know it always starts out with the foot grinding into the nuts, which then turns into moans of pleasure, that's when you know a foot fetishist is born. And all the gunners who do nothing but heel stab are just sadists who just don't know it yet.

So what does that make Techer?

I need to know these things.

[Walkure]

So what does that make Techer?

I need to know these things.
Masochist, obviously.

[gigawuts]

Masochist, obviously.

God damnit you beat me to it by like 15 seconds.

[btw-Niji]

If you're not blowing them away with uncharged L16 Sazan, you're just blowing!
right on ... !!!

[Gardios]

Godwin's law of PSOW: Every discussion will eventually be about uncharged Sazan.

[Inazuma]

Godwin's law of PSOW: Every discussion will eventually be about uncharged Sazan.

I only use Sazan 99% of the time because it is the best tech to use 99% of the time. I would prefer if every tech was worth using. I like constantly using different techs based on enemy location, etc.

Looking forward to what Sega's balance team comes up with.

[Z-0]

I disagree. If you are strong enough, you can one-shot enemies in Zondeels with other techniques (specifically, Nafoie, Ilbarta, Namegid and Zonde).

Sazan is most certainly not the best tech to use most of the time. The easiest, surely, and it may be effective on everything, but it's not the best tech.

I mean, right on!

[btw-Niji]

I only use Sazan 99% of the time because it is the best tech to use 99% of the time.
right on.

[Walkure]

right on.
Ride on.
Close enough, right? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXScCMnwHMY)

[gigawuts]

Ride on.
Close enough, right? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXScCMnwHMY)

Sega can definitely still make spectacular game soundtracks.

They clearly just choose not to anymore.

:(

[MetalDude]

Hey, Lost World had like at least... 2 good songs right?

[yoshiblue]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8cLe9ZUh1w"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8cLe9ZUh1w

[Enforcer MKV]

INSULT ME MORE ARK-SAMA! STEP ON MY FACE AND STAB MY CHEEKS WITH YOUR HEELS!

Kondi is a masochist....*Scribbles notes down in a notebook*....

[Cyron Tanryoku]

i turned people into masochist

[MetalDude]

That was the second one that came to mind, right after Windy Hill Zone Act 1.

[Zyrusticae]

Sega can definitely still make spectacular game soundtracks.

They clearly just choose not to anymore.

:(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3z0j6Q950

^^

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

I just thought of the possibility that they'd nerf weak bullet.

It is the single most powerful thing in the game.

[cheapgunner]

Give grenade launchers a gear that boosts attack speed. Weak bullet could go from 3x on any body part to 1.5x on any body part with weak point multiplier maxxed at 3x on natural weak points.