PSO - Addressing the Arguments Against "Competitive Play"

[BlankM]

Hello everyone. I decided to make this post because there's been a lot of bashing going around recently(Or rather always) that I wanted to address. Most of these threads get locked and/or posts get deleted so its hard to get ones thoughts out properly. I think if we deconstruct the logic behind such irrational bashing, we can remove a little more of the toxic/spiteful attitudes that plague your average gaming community(Because the PSO2 community is nothing special in this regard).

First I'll take a look at a post from a recent thread. There are of course other posts I looked at that I'd love to respond to...but they've been deleted.


I think it's alright to worry about efficiency with certain types of games that are highly competitive, require a lot of skill, and can win you a lot of real-life rewards if you're good enough at it (DOTA, Starcraft, etc.).

PSO2 isn't one of those games, though. Hell, it's not even trying to be one of those games, but some people will always find a way to think otherwise... And that's just sad.

To begin deconstructing this post I will first define the word "competitive."

com·pet·i·tive
adjective
1. of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition:

According to this definition, anything that can be decided by a competition is therefore competitive. Because efficiency can be gauged via a time record(Which PSO2 lists for you) then PSO2 is by definition competitive. There is a second criteria which is "require a lot of skill." This one is highly subjective so I won't be addressing it as it can be argued elsewhere.

The third criteria I will address. The appeal of material gains. First lets look at some of the biggest competitive video games. This poster mentioned mostly PC games so I'll throw one out there, League of Legends. When looking at the broad spectrum of its competitive appeal, how many competitive players in the field actually make anything? Compared to its huge player base...its a very low percentage. Yet a lot of people play the game in a competitive setting knowing they will most likely make no material gains whatsoever. The vast majority of people who play anything competitively are in fact, "losers". But without them, there would be no winners. Life is full of things to be appreciated that aren't solely measured by material value.

This brings me to the next criteria. The idea that the game must "try to be competitive." Lets look at successful examples where this is not the case. Summer Games Done Quick is coming up. Speedrunning is a highly competitive field. It actually does have material gains in this case in the form of twitch revenue and donations(Usually towards charity.) I think if you looked at the games played there it would be hard to argue any of them were "made to be competitive." Video games are made for money first, and competition second. Yet here people are, doing great things with them. Most of the time the end-result of these runs is the product of tireless labor, and large amounts of collaboration and knowledge from all sorts of different contributors. By the time you are watching them, people will have melded the game into something completely different from what the original developer might have intended.

Another scene worth looking at is the Smash Brothers community. Most people will(And still do) claim its nothing more than a casual party game. But if you're open to another idea I implore you to watch "The Smash Brothers" documentary. You'll see that smash has been carried to a higher pedestal over the years. Much like my previous example, the game as it is now is completely different from what the developers might have intended. The main thing I want people to take away from this is that its not the game itself nor the developers that make something competitive, its the competition. Its the players that put in the hours to meld the game into something worth paying attention to. Its people from around the world evolving a game constantly into new heights. It is only through the player's efforts that games become competitive at all.

Sometimes in the case of PC games, they start off as mods, until they grow so much that developers are forced to acknowledge the communities behind them. Because of the effort these players put in despite people's attempts to convince them their games "Aren't made to be competitive" they continue to push forward and thrive. I assure you most of them find the results are anything but "sad."

So then why the hate? Lets examine some of the irrational spite put towards competitive play. Specifically, the "tryhard" mentality. Not everybody is willing to put in effort into a video game without reward. So in their attempt to understand people that do they must attach a false dilemma. "Why would this person try so hard for no money/fame? They must be trying to gain the attention, show off their gaming egos, or indirectly attack my gaming credentials." A false dilemma is a type of informal fallacy that only presents limited possibilities. They completely skip over the possibility that one might enjoy testing their abilities, or find the game to be more intricate/full of depth this way.

Another irrational source of contempt is time justification. People commonly like to bash how other people spend their time, in order to further justify how they might spend their own. This is dangerous as it tends to lead to people mistakenly judging character, and forming uncalled for ad hominems. Also insecure folks can look at someone and go "I could do what hes doing if I had more time/motivation/gear/lived in that region/circle of friends." This could be true but its all hypothetical and is no call for hostility. Finding self-respect is key to avoiding this mindset.

Finally, people might have anecdotal experience with competitive players that lead them to believe they are a negative influence. It is because of this bad experience that they bash competitive players only furthering the divide and misunderstanding. These are my observations from playing games competitively over the years and how they relate to PSO2. Feel free to discuss/criticize/ridicule. Just thought I'd put into words what might actually be on some people's minds already. Time to go to bed and read everything/find that this thread is closed or dead by maintenance. o/

[EvilMag]

Another scene worth looking at is the Smash Brothers community. Most people will(And still do) claim its nothing more than a casual party game. But if you're open to another idea I implore you to watch "The Smash Brothers" documentary. You'll see that smash has been carried to a higher pedestal over the years. Much like my previous example, the game as it is now is completely different from what the developers might have intended. The main thing I want people to take away from this is that its not the game itself nor the developers that make something competitive, its the competition. Its the players that put in the hours to meld the game into something worth paying attention to. Its people from around the world evolving a game constantly into new heights. It is only through the player's efforts that games become competitive at all.
That casual party game argument very well works with Brawl. Considering they went out of their way to make sure that game wasn't serious in terms of competitive play. It does show though. I never hear of any tournaments for Brawl yet I hear of a lot for Melee and hell Project M. A freaking fan made mod that is currently in beta has almost as big as a competitive scene than melee. I'm really hoping they don't pull that shit with Smash 4.

[BlankM]

That casual party game argument very well works with Brawl. Considering they went out of their way to make sure that game wasn't serious in terms of competitive play. It does show though. I never hear of any tournaments for Brawl yet I hear of a lot for Melee and hell Project M. A freaking fan made mod that is currently in beta has almost as big as a competitive scene than melee. I'm really hoping they don't pull that shit with Smash 4.

Brawl was actually really competitive for a while, and still has pretty major tournaments(Sometimes flying japanese players here), built off the legacy Melee had and pure accessibility/appeal of the franchise.

It dying down could really be attributed to the pacing/balance issues it ended up having towards the end of its lifespan. Coupled with issues streaming it because LolNintendo. Though honestly I'd only say its dead in the regard that people are waiting for Smash 4, and Melee is getting bigger.

[SolRiver]

I think OP would be better balanced by adding negative side stem from the competitive players, which may have bred the mentality of people being so defensive about competitiveness. Then a solution that bring better harmony between two groups.

Other wise I will have to see TC as someone on the defensive he mentioned in OP (just on opposite side).

Well, anyway, just bored and reading all sort of forum and news...

[Takatsuki]

I don't think it really needs to be "competitive".

But what DOES need to happen is that even casual players need to address their dreadful equipment. I don't expect everyone to be running around with top tier weapons with 5s+ affixes, but I expect that if you are in SH, you at least have a mid-tier 10* and at least a Soul and Attack III on every single one of your equipment pieces. It should be the bare minimum. Not having that just makes you a drag on the party.

I'm sick and tired of going into Super Hard EQs and seeing people using Roundeet+3 with Blow Resist II and Stamina I on them, and ungrinded, uncrafted, unaffixed Tagami units.

[milranduil]

I think OP would be better balanced by adding negative side stem from the competitive players, which may have bred the mentality of people being so defensive about competitiveness. Then a solution that bring better harmony between two groups.

Other wise I will have to see TC as someone on the defensive he mentioned in OP (just on opposite side).

Well, anyway, just bored and reading all sort of forum and news...

What you're poking at is stuff such as tryhards bashing people for not playing to their standards. But guess what? That's because they're crappy people not because they're competitive (anecdotal evidence).

I don't think it really needs to be "competitive".

But what DOES need to happen is that even casual players need to address their dreadful equipment. I don't expect everyone to be running around with top tier weapons with 5s+ affixes, but I expect that if you are in SH, you at least have a mid-tier 10* and at least a Soul and Attack III on every single one of your equipment pieces. It should be the bare minimum. Not having that just makes you a drag on the party.

I'm sick and tired of going into Super Hard EQs and seeing people using Roundeet+3 with Blow Resist II and Stamina I on them, and ungrinded, uncrafted, unaffixed Tagami units.

If you can't afford premium, that's not going to happen (the 10* part). 2s minimum +60 atk is a reasonable expectation for people who are actually interested in getting better at the game, but not everyone has that mindset, and therefore you can't expect that of every single person who logs into pso2.

[Takatsuki]

What you're poking at is stuff such as tryhards bashing people for not playing to their standards. But guess what? That's because they're crappy people not because they're competitive (anecdotal evidence).


If you can't afford premium, that's not going to happen (the 10* part). 2s minimum +60 atk is a reasonable expectation for people who are actually interested in getting better at the game, but not everyone has that mindset, and therefore you can't expect that of every single person who logs into pso2.


It can happen and it MUST happen. If you don't have a 10* and you're playing on SH, then you are just LAZY. You're telling me that you have not gotten ONE 10* for your class on TD1, TD2, ITDR2, or any of the other, older seasonal EQs (Easter, White Day, etc)? These quests drop 10*s like CRAZY. If you can't be arsed to run a few EQs, where you will no doubt get a truckload of 10*s, how the hell can you be at a level required to join SH quests?

[SolRiver]

But guess what? That's because they're crappy people not because they're competitive (anecdotal evidence).

I see. So people that get defensive against competitive play are just crappy people as well.

Let's close thread. There is no problem to begin with.

Just avoid crappy people. Need a new guide to teach new players how to avoid crappy people instead.

[milranduil]

It can happen and it MUST happen. If you don't have a 10* and you're playing on SH, then you are just LAZY. You're telling me that you have not gotten ONE 10* for your class on TD1, TD2, ITDR2, or any of the other, older seasonal EQs (Easter, White Day, etc)? These quests drop 10*s like CRAZY. If you can't be arsed to run a few EQs, where you will no doubt get a truckload of 10*s, how the hell can you be at a level required to join SH quests?
To be fair you said mid-tier 10* which is not the shitty drops from either of them. It's not unreasonable, however, to expect someone to be using at least the second tier AQ weapons though. Those are farmable stones and most require only 9*s that are cheap.


I see. So people that get defensive against competitive play are just crappy people as well.

Let's close thread. There is no problem to begin with.

Just avoid crappy people. Need a new guide to teach new players how to avoid crappy people instead.

No, there is a problem because people associate anyone and everyone from someone who is mildly interested in efficiency and improving to rage hard elitists to all be the same: douche bags. That's the problem. People are not the latter have every right to be defensive when they are being stereotyped as a snotty nosed elitist when they just want to get better.

[SolRiver]

No, there is a problem because people associate anyone and everyone from someone who is mildly interested in efficiency and improving to rage hard elitists to all be the same: douche bags. That's the problem. People are not the latter have every right to be defensive when they are being stereotyped as a snotty nosed elitist when they just want to get better.

What? I find that hard to believe

So you are saying non-crappy people become angry defensive name calling jerk as soon as you tell them that you are competitive?

Could be effective troll move if that is true. I should take note for future reference.

[milranduil]

What? I find that hard to believe

So you are saying non-crappy people become angry defensive name calling jerk as soon as you tell them that you are competitive?

Could be effective troll move if that is true. I should take note for future reference.

What about the OP of this thread is an angry, defensive name calling jerk? You're the one making that assumption.

[SolRiver]

What about the OP of this thread is an angry, defensive name calling jerk? You're the one making that assumption.

Uhh... huh? I am not sure what you are referring to. You totally lost me now.

[AlexCraig]

There are good and bad people on both sides of the spectrum. There are competitive players who are friendly, understanding, and welcoming people with good insight into competitive play, and there are asshats who feel it is the "only way to play". Just like there are casual players who are there for fun, but can understand the competitive angle, and casual players who feel that competitive players are overhyped on something that should not be. The thing is, there is a massive influx of players of the more "dickheaded" persuasion.

I know there are people who play competitively here, but can understand and respect those who play just for fun. Same with people who play casually, but can respect those who play competitively. It's just the assholes seem to take center-stage most of the time.

It's the same thing when playing Pokemon. There are those who play the games just for fun, and those who play to breed particular aspects onto a pokemon and train it to be a war machine.

There needs to be an understanding and mutual view from the community. I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Sp-24]

Being a tryhard in a dressup simulator is bad by default.

Also, do note that, unlike LoL and Smash, PSO2 offers zero PvP options now that Panic is gone, so competition is limited to counting your affixes and measuring attack mods, and then declaring yourself the very best in general chat or on the forum (or calling those whom you outcompetitive'd "lazy").

And you'd think that a post defending competitive play would at least mention the competitive PSO2 community itself, instead of focusing on trying to stigmatize terms like "tryhard" and my favorite "no life loser". After all, it's not concepts that make people dislike something, but their real experience with the thing.

[GuardianGirth]

Some people are competitive simply because they love the desire to be the best.

[SolRiver]

Some people are competitive simply because they love the desire to be the best.

Just adding onto that.

Some people simply just love improving themselves further.

[Sp-24]

Improving yourself has nothing to do with the point of the thread, though.

com·pet·i·tive
adjective
1. of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition:
This is the issue here. People don't just want to improve themselves, but to pretend that it actually means something in front of others.

[.Jack]

2s minimum +60 atk is a reasonable expectation for people who are actually interested in getting better at the game, but not everyone has that mindset, and therefore you can't expect that of every single person who logs into pso2.

^This most definitely. It really doesn't matter if you're a free user or a premium user this is very easy to obtain.

There are people with 2s equips that will outperform ppl with 5s+ gear easily at pretty much every situation depending on their play style, that's where differentiation comes in to play.

[Dinosaur]

competition is limited to counting your affixes and measuring attack mods

time attacks...?

[milranduil]

Uhh... huh? I am not sure what you are referring to. You totally lost me now.

I'll make it simple. Who is being the angry name calling jerk here?

There are good and bad people on both sides of the spectrum. There are competitive players who are friendly, understanding, and welcoming people with good insight into competitive play, and there are asshats who feel it is the "only way to play". Just like there are casual players who are there for fun, but can understand the competitive angle, and casual players who feel that competitive players are overhyped on something that should not be. The thing is, there is a massive influx of players of the more "dickheaded" persuasion.

I know there are people who play competitively here, but can understand and respect those who play just for fun. Same with people who play casually, but can respect those who play competitively. It's just the assholes seem to take center-stage most of the time.

It's the same thing when playing Pokemon. There are those who play the games just for fun, and those who play to breed particular aspects onto a pokemon and train it to be a war machine.

There needs to be an understanding and mutual view from the community. I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

Tolerance. It really is that simple (and not just regarding pso2). Thank you for being a level-headed human being.

[SolRiver]

Improving yourself has nothing to do with the point of the thread, though.

It has everything to do with what I quoted as it offer another different look, though.

[SolRiver]

I'll make it simple. Who is being the angry name calling jerk here?


Hmm... I think you are trying to label me as one? But I am having difficult time figuring out how you reach that point.

It is okay if you think I am stupid, take me step by step, it would help.

[AlVaRo0515]

^This most definitely. It really doesn't matter if you're a free user or a premium user this is very easy to obtain.

There are people with 2s equips that will outperform ppl with 5s+ gear easily at pretty much every situation depending on their play style, that's where differentiation comes in to play.

^this.

Yes, having at least 2s gear and a decent latent weapon is very helpful for yourself and the party, but at the end of the day, what matters is if you know to play your class efffectively.

Its not the gear that makes a player, its his ambition to better himself at his skill towards the game.

[Chdata]

There are people who have fun being casual, and who get annoyed by being told they're bad / not helping / leeching / shouldn't play the way they want to.

There are people who have fun being efficient, and who get annoyed by players who aren't contributing, are so weak they can only leach, things taking longer than they should, things failing more than they should.

There are people who don't understand the difference between the two. There are casuals who will complain you're being a rude prick for asking them to play a certain way. There are tryhards who will complain you're being a rude prick for playing a class combination that isn't blatant leeching.

The only group of players SEGA has to care about is the one that produces the most money for them as a business. AFAIK, good players are unfortunately a minority. Look at games like Strike Vector. It's a great game, but you have to be inherently skilled to play it, thus it didn't sell well and has mostly empty servers.


^this.

Yes, having at least 2s gear and a decent latent weapon is very helpful for yourself and the party, but at the end of the day, what matters is if you know to play your class efffectively.

Its not the gear that makes a player, its his ambition to better himself at his skill towards the game.

As much as I like to advocate skill is really important, I still get depressed when I see that despite my optimized builds and +60 weapons/units, I hit like half the damage of people with +100 or +85 affixes. The missing 160 atk points means a lot. There are all sorts of things you can't do when you can't one shot certain things.

Put it into perspective.

When you level up, you gain like 5 atk points in your main damage type, correct? At least at higher levels like 60+.

Having a mag with 100 atk is like being 25 levels higher than you really are. This is the easiest example to understand, because mags literally help you equip strong weapons before you normally would be able to.

Having 60 atk affixed on your weapon is like being 12 levels higher. Having 60 atk set bonus on your units with 60 on each is like being 48 levels higher.

Having 100 weapon + 300 units + 60 set bonus is like being 92 levels higher.

Why would efficient players want someone who's 70/70 (random trash units / weapon) in their party, when they're all 162/162 tier (100 atk units). At the very least, it helps a lot to be 130/130 (60 atk units/weapon).

Likewise, knowing how to play your class is important too. Who cares if you're a RaHu with 50m cost 5slot units, if you aim your weak bullets on a boss's arm?

Meanwhile people like me and some of my friends are killing waves of goldrahda in TD1 with crafted katanas.

[relentless]

Its not the gear that makes a player, its his ambition to better himself at his skill towards the game.

It's both.

[SolRiver]

Look at games like Strike Vector. It's a great game, but you have to be inherently skilled to play it, thus it didn't sell well and has mostly empty servers.

I am guilty of quitting strike vector.

I couldn't find skilled players often enough. Bored to death watching people suicide. ^^; (come on, it is not that hard! No game gave me more frustration winning by doing nearly nothing than that game)

[milranduil]

What? I find that hard to believe

So you are saying non-crappy people become angry defensive name calling jerk as soon as you tell them that you are competitive?

Could be effective troll move if that is true. I should take note for future reference.

Hmm... I think you are trying to label me as one? But I am having difficult time figuring out how you reach that point.

It is okay if you think I am stupid, take me step by step, it would help.

This is all I was referring to. You conjured up this phrase, so obviously you meant -something- by it. What that is is now lost to me.

[SolRiver]

This is all I was referring to. You conjured up this phrase, so obviously you meant -something- by it. What that is is now lost to me.

Well I think there are some misunderstanding going on, but it doesn't look like either of us have enough energy to waste explaining it all over again (I certainly don't), I say we should just move on.

[jiasu73]

Being a tryhard in a dressup simulator is bad by default.

Also, do note that, unlike LoL and Smash, PSO2 offers zero PvP options now that Panic is gone, so competition is limited to counting your affixes and measuring attack mods, and then declaring yourself the very best in general chat or on the forum (or calling those whom you outcompetitive'd "lazy").

And you'd think that a post defending competitive play would at least mention the competitive PSO2 community itself, instead of focusing on trying to stigmatize terms like "tryhard" and my favorite "no life loser". After all, it's not concepts that make people dislike something, but their real experience with the thing.

Hello there! The competitive community in PSO2 mainly consists of time attack! Although the western community for it is very small the jp side does have a considerable amount of people. People who take part in it just like to think up the best strategy they can and compare times with their peers or beat their own personal records. I find it fun cooperating with my team and developing strategies in order to try to get a new record. I think most of the people who get into the scene think the same as well although there will always be those bad seeds everywhere you go. All in good fun though :)

[Chdata]

IMO, calling anything other than Interrupt Rankings "competitive" is a misnomer.

PvM in itself is not competitive, unless you're saying you're competing against AI.

You're looking at efficient play, rather than competitive. Being able to kill the most things, in the fastest possible way. You aren't competing against anyone in SHAQS, Tower Defense, XQs, and other EQs. Looking at it as a competition, imo, only insinuates fighting and secrecy.

The only thing I see as understandable for keeping secret, is TA strategies, for the people who really care about those 100% grind protects or whatever you get. And prestige.

[milranduil]

IMO, calling anything other than Interrupt Rankings "competitive" is a misnomer.

PvM in itself is not competitive, unless you're saying you're competing against AI.

You're looking at efficient play, rather than competitive. Being able to kill the most things, in the fastest possible way. You aren't competing against anyone in SHAQS, Tower Defense, XQs, and other EQs. Looking at it as a competition, imo, only insinuates fighting and secrecy.

The only thing I see as understandable for keeping secret, is TA strategies, for the people who really care about those 100% grind protects or whatever you get. And prestige.

It was clearly stated that what's being referred to is time attack. I really don't see what the issue here is... who cares if its during Interrupt Ranking or not? If an individual/party/team records a new best time for a TA, people will care about it equally regardless of whether it occurred during IR or not.

[Chdata]

Eh, his OP didn't say that explicitly, unless my eyes are too tired.

And yeah, that's known as prestige, which I understand too.

[AlaskanKactus]

The thing I don't understand about some competitive people are the ones who can't turn it off. Meaning, they play competitively at all moments in the game. I can understand competitive play during TA rushes, Elder EXP farming, XQ farming, and IRs but during social hunts and casual TAs? Really?

I don't get it.

[milranduil]

The thing I don't understand about some competitive people are the ones who can't turn it off. Meaning, they play competitively at all moments in the game. I can understand competitive play during TA rushes, Elder EXP farming, XQ farming, and IRs but during social hunts and casual TAs? Really?

I don't get it.

Keep in mind there is a difference between playing "competitively" and simply playing efficiently. A subtle, but distinct difference. For example, I always, always, always at least triple dash if I have the energy for it (once in a blue moon, I just hit auto walk because I'm tired and it's midnight or something) because I am interested in being efficient regardless of what I'm doing. That's just my personal preference.

[Radical Dreamer]

Since my post is in the OP, I guess I'm obligated to clarify what I said. I didn't mean to offend anyone with what I said, by the way; I was just kind of miffed by the fact that there are certain people on this board (I won't say who) who constantly bash players who don't play the game as "competitively" as they do. Now, players who purposely keep their crappy equipment on and expect everyone else to carry them to victory, that's another story...

If you want to get really technical, I suppose you could say that PSO2 is a competitive like just about every multiplayer game out there. But, see, when I think of competitive games, I think of two things: Choices and balance. Unfortunately, PSO2 has neither right now.

Did you want to do anything resembling decent damage without S Rolling as a Gunner? Sorry, you're screwed. How about not running out of PP as a casting FO without dipping into the Fire skill tree and getting Charge PP Revivial? Nope, no can do. Thinking about using traps as a Ranger? Pffffttttt, ok. The game gives you so many choices, but only a tiny handful are really even close to being efficient. When people are only using the same tried-and-true methods that haven't evolved in years and aren't coming up with innovative ways to radically change the way we play the game, there isn't any competition. That's just boring, unchallenging repetition.

Now, when I said that the game doesn't require a lot of skill, I mean that the game doesn't require a lot of skill to be successful. Success, in this cause, refers to the amount of rares and other equipment you have.

It doesn't matter what you do; you could be the most skilled player in PSO2 that knows enemy spawns like the back of your hand, how to dodge through boss attacks like nobody's business, and just which Soul will give you the best chance at affixing that Power IV onto your Sword, and you know what? If the RNG dice roll against you, you still get nothing. All that skill, knowledge, and time you spent on the game? Doesn't mean a damn thing. I've seen it happen, it isn't pretty, and it sure as hell isn't fair. Meanwhile, a random casual will find exactly the rare you want on his first run, grind it to +10, and 5 slot it with no extra effort on his part because the RNG gods smiled down on him. Competitive games should reward players for skill, not dumb luck, but PSO2 doesn't do such a thing. Sure, you could argue that there are certain things you could do to raise your chances, but in the end it's still up to a roll of the dice, and the dice are always against you.

However, despite everything I've said about it, I still find PSO2 to be a good enough timesink that lets me hang out with my friends and go (hopelessly one-sided) rare hunting. The game doesn't need to be perfect and competitive to be fun.

Competitive and skill necessary, though? No, and if there are players that are really serious about making PSO2 into a competitive game that rewards real skill, they'll stop accepting the unbalanced mess of a game they have now and actively petition Sega to DO something about it. That's their duty as gamers, and there ain't one sad thing about that.

Also, about the Super Smash Brothers thing...

As far as I know, the first Super Smash Brothers wasn't really considered a serious game by most folks. It wasn't until Super Smash Brothers Melee, which was purposely designed by Sakai and his team to be a more competitive fighting game, that gamers started to consider the series as something akin to Street Fighter.

Then Sakai got cold feet, made Brawl more casual like the first one, and consequently split the fanbase down the middle.

Whoops.

But hey, at least people who aren't happy with Sakai's casual Brawl can mod it to make it more competitive again. PSO2, though?... Yeah, not going to happen.

[Chdata]

Keep in mind there is a difference between playing "competitively" and simply playing efficiently. A subtle, but distinct difference. For example, I always, always, always at least triple dash if I have the energy for it (once in a blue moon, I just hit auto walk because I'm tired and it's midnight or something) because I am interested in being efficient regardless of what I'm doing. That's just my personal preference.

What's your setup for performing triple dashes?

I never get tired of being able to quad, it's just like typing to me.

I have dash set to my 4th mouse button though.

[milranduil]

Since my post is in the OP, I guess I'm obligated to clarify what I said. I didn't mean to offend anyone with what I said, by the way; I was just kind of miffed by the fact that there are certain people on this board (I won't say who) who constantly bash players who don't play the game as "competitively" as they do. Now, players who purposely keep their crappy equipment on and expect everyone else to carry them to victory, that's another story...

If you want to get really technical, I suppose you could say that PSO2 is a competitive like just about every multiplayer game out there. But, see, when I think of competitive games, I think of two things: Choices and balance. Unfortunately, PSO2 has neither right now.

Did you want to do anything resembling decent damage without S Rolling as a Gunner? Sorry, you're screwed. How about not running out of PP as a casting FO without dipping into the Fire skill tree and getting Charge PP Revivial? Nope, no can do. Thinking about using traps as a Ranger? Pffffttttt, ok. The game gives you so many choices, but only a tiny handful are really even close to being efficient. When people are only using the same tried-and-true methods that haven't evolved in years and aren't coming up with innovative ways to radically change the way we play the game, there isn't any competition. That's just boring, unchallenging repetition.

Now, when I said that the game doesn't require a lot of skill, I mean that the game doesn't require a lot of skill to be successful. Success, in this cause, refers to the amount of rares and other equipment you have.

It doesn't matter what you do; you could be the most skilled player in PSO2 that knows enemy spawns like the back of your hand, how to dodge through boss attacks like nobody's business, and just which Soul will give you the best chance at affixing that Power IV onto your Sword, and you know what? If the RNG dice roll against you, you still get nothing. All that skill, knowledge, and time you spent on the game? Doesn't mean a damn thing. I've seen it happen, it isn't pretty, and it sure as hell isn't fair. Meanwhile, a random casual will find exactly the rare you want on his first run, grind it to +10, and 5 slot it with no extra effort on his part because the RNG gods smiled down on him. Competitive games should reward players for skill, not dumb luck, but PSO2 doesn't do such a thing. Sure, you could argue that there are certain things you could do to raise your chances, but in the end it's still up to a roll of the dice, and the dice are always against you.

However, despite everything I've said about it, I still find PSO2 to be a good enough timesink that lets me hang out with my friends and go (hopelessly one-sided) rare hunting. The game doesn't need to be perfect and competitive to be fun.

Competitive and skill necessary, though? No, and if there are players that are really serious about making PSO2 into a competitive game that rewards real skill, they'll stop accepting the unbalanced mess of a game they have now and actively petition Sega to DO something about it. That's their duty as gamers, and there ain't one sad thing about that.

Also, about the Super Smash Brothers thing...

As far as I know, the first Super Smash Brothers wasn't really considered a serious game by most folks. It wasn't until Super Smash Brothers Melee, which was purposely designed by Sakai and his team to be a more competitive fighting game, that gamers started to consider the series as something akin to Street Fighter.

Then Sakai got cold feet, made Brawl more casual like the first one, and consequently split the fanbase down the middle.

Whoops.

But hey, at least people who aren't happy with Sakai's casual Brawl can mod it to make it more competitive again. PSO2, though?... Yeah, not going to happen.

One's own success is subjective to that person's definition of success when it comes to something as open-ended as pso2 due to the fact that there isn't any sort of official ranking ladder of the sort like in LoL, for example. When the last 10% affix boost occurred, most people who attempted 5s had few to no failed 90%s. I failed 4 out of my 7 attempted 90%s, 3 of which were in a row, but I persevered and still ended up completing my 5s unit set. Now, let's take 1 person who made 3 5s units and failed no 90s and then me who failed 4 times before achieving 3 5s units. Who is more successful? Me for persevering, or them for not failing? Are we equally successful simply because of the outcome? It depends entirely on your perspective. There is no such thing as objective success in pso2; it's all subjective and relative. Whether you complete a TA in 5min or have some super 8s weapon, at the end of the day, it's all a pixelated game.


What's your setup for performing triple dashes?

I never get tired of being able to quad, it's just like typing to me.

I have dash set to my 4th mouse button though.

I play on KB, so triple is (holding down W the entire time): shift alt shift space shift left-click.

[Sp-24]

The problem with being efficient is that you are required to play a shitty lottery to have a decent equipment. There is no choice at all, first, you must win a raffle and get a good weapon to drop, then you must grind it, then you must grind it more for the latent, then you must affix it. Some people can't even pass the very first step - I'm speaking from my luck with Elysion after every single person on the ship got one. Of course, you can circumvent that with a premium set. But then come the skill trees, which are easy to set up for classes like Hunter, but not so much for Forces, who literally require buying multiple trees to be efficient in different situations. Then, what does it mean, you need to pay to win? And then you wonder why people hate efficiency advocates. Not because they chose to go through all that, by the way, but because they then cry on the forums that casual leeches decided not to.

I mean, the fact that boost weeks were even mentioned goes to show how awful weapon upgrade system is, yet people who try to force it onto others still expect to be taken seriously.

[Kumichan]

The majority of people bitching about shitty parties on the threads that pop in once in a while are casual leeches themselves though. Some of the most ardent anti-elitism folks don't think twice about trashing B20 casuals.

[infiniteeverlasting]

It can happen and it MUST happen. If you don't have a 10* and you're playing on SH, then you are just LAZY. You're telling me that you have not gotten ONE 10* for your class on TD1, TD2, ITDR2, or any of the other, older seasonal EQs (Easter, White Day, etc)? These quests drop 10*s like CRAZY. If you can't be arsed to run a few EQs, where you will no doubt get a truckload of 10*s, how the hell can you be at a level required to join SH quests?

This was the case for all freemium braver's pre hatou stage. Tell me anyone could solo hunt for any agito/whatever the few 10 star katanas they had at the time.

[infiniteeverlasting]

What? I find that hard to believe

So you are saying non-crappy people become angry defensive name calling jerk as soon as you tell them that you are competitive?

Could be effective troll move if that is true. I should take note for future reference.

Well, here, tell me it is okay to completely shit on casual players in this game. Calling them names and telling them that they shouldn't even deserve to play.
It's like saying that only the nba and high school varsity basketball teams in the world are allowed to play basketball, all rec players are not allowed to play. This is a competitive elitist game so no one who can't play up to at least hs varsity level should not even play.

[Chdata]

Ugh. I feel like I'm looking at a community of atheists vs theists.

[SakoHaruo]

Let me know when someone is sponsored by RedBull for penta dashing in TAs.

#esports

[SolRiver]

Ugh. I feel like I'm looking at a community of atheists vs theists.

It follow normal argument format of human language method.

We can argue about loli vs big boobs into the same format as well.

Anything works.

It is like art of war, but for argument. You better get used to it :lol:

[Chdata]

Erm, I'm used to it. I actually frequent a SRPP debate forum.

It's just kinda silly to see the parallel between the type of casuals who get offended easily and the type of tryhards that are provocative in their speech. (Theists vs Atheists).

[Z-0]

I'm not sure what the argument in this thread is, but:

Being as efficient as possible in this game is not using the same "tried-and-true" methods that are suggested all over this forum. This is especially true in the only game mode which could be considered "competitive": Time Attack.

It's about being creative and finding out what works faster than something else. People don't take RaBr for every TA for no reason, nor is HuTe (or TeHu) in Lilipa TA just to leech. Watching any video of someone trying to complete a TA (or TD) as fast as possible is entertaining, IMO, because I'm always thinking "wow, why didn't I think of that?" or "that's a good strategy", because these sorts of players are trying to do something different.

People "rag" on these efficient players, because apparently they're just being boring and doing the same thing over again and not even trying to do anything different / "have fun" (lol), but the real efficient players are the ones trying to be the most creative.

Also, I'd like to say that people "tryhard" because it's enjoyable, not because they hate fun. The one thing I hate seeing more than anything else are people who act entitled by saying "I play for fun, not efficiency", as if wanting to "tryhard" is some mental disorder. Stop that.

[infiniteeverlasting]

I'm not sure what the argument in this thread is, but:

Being as efficient as possible in this game is not using the same "tried-and-true" methods that are suggested all over this forum. This is especially true in the only game mode which could be considered "competitive": Time Attack.

It's about being creative and finding out what works faster than something else. People don't take RaBr for every TA for no reason, nor is HuTe (or TeHu) in Lilipa TA just to leech. Watching any video of someone trying to complete a TA (or TD) as fast as possible is entertaining, IMO, because I'm always thinking "wow, why didn't I think of that?" or "that's a good strategy", because these sorts of players are trying to do something different.

People "rag" on these efficient players, because apparently they're just being boring and doing the same thing over again and not even trying to do anything different / "have fun" (lol), but the real efficient players are the ones trying to be the most creative.

Also, I'd like to say that people "tryhard" because it's enjoyable, not because they hate fun. The one thing I hate seeing more than anything else are people who act entitled by saying "I play for fun, not efficiency", as if wanting to "tryhard" is some mental disorder. Stop that.

No one here is trashing pro "try hard" players. The only thing that's going on here is the defense of players who play the game casually. Don't they have the right to play a game the way they want to play it as well?

[Kumichan]

The right to leach?

Leaching isn't tolerated in other games why would pso2 be any different?

[infiniteeverlasting]

The right to leach?

Leaching isn't tolerated in other games why would pso2 be any different?

Well leaching is bad, but only in things like TD and loser df. Half my team members play pso2 mainly for the aesthetic and costuming, I learned to respect their views, because league of legends is "leagues" more serious/intense than pso2 for them, pso2 is the game they use to cool off with. But they still know not to participate in loser and TD when they're not ready.

in the end pso2 isn't even meant for super serious play. They have very few ways of gauging "skill" besides a meager TA ranking system, but how much of that is luck when the times come down to the very last millisecond.

[Chdata]

Technically a WB and AFK RA is still leeching because you're depriving people of at least 100k damage bursts.

[Sp-24]

The right to leach?

Leaching isn't tolerated in other games why would pso2 be any different?Define "leaching"? Because maximizing your power is encouraged in many other games, and PSO2 is very different from them - here, even trying visiting Doodoo leads to you swearing it off forever, crafting exists, and bosses don't exactly pose much threat. And when they do, there's always somebody in full 11☆ gear with +400 attack in affixes alone ready to carry you.

[Rehal]

Define "leaching"? Because maximizing your power is encouraged in many other games, and PSO2 is very different from them - here, even trying visiting Doodoo leads to you swearing it off forever, crafting exists, and bosses don't exactly pose much threat. And when they do, there's always somebody in full 11☆ gear with +400 attack in affixes alone ready to carry you.

Playing with +0 8* unextended weapon in SH difficulty, especially TD.
Even better when 4 of them grouped together in a pt to meet up with another group of their kins in a random TD mpa.

[Chdata]

Erm no, it actually is pretty annoying that people don't at least try to better themselves for things like Tower Defense.

Because I can literally only carry one section of the map, not all of it.

[Vampy]

I'm not sure what the argument in this thread is, but:

Being as efficient as possible in this game is not using the same "tried-and-true" methods that are suggested all over this forum. This is especially true in the only game mode which could be considered "competitive": Time Attack.

It's about being creative and finding out what works faster than something else. People don't take RaBr for every TA for no reason, nor is HuTe (or TeHu) in Lilipa TA just to leech. Watching any video of someone trying to complete a TA (or TD) as fast as possible is entertaining, IMO, because I'm always thinking "wow, why didn't I think of that?" or "that's a good strategy", because these sorts of players are trying to do something different.

People "rag" on these efficient players, because apparently they're just being boring and doing the same thing over again and not even trying to do anything different / "have fun" (lol), but the real efficient players are the ones trying to be the most creative.

Also, I'd like to say that people "tryhard" because it's enjoyable, not because they hate fun. The one thing I hate seeing more than anything else are people who act entitled by saying "I play for fun, not efficiency", as if wanting to "tryhard" is some mental disorder. Stop that.

This is how I am in monster hunter it's not competitive by any means at least in the normal sense but seeing others videos seeing how they handled a certain situation differently is always intriguing. I'm far from the best player but I learned to make sets that fit my needs better and can keep up with the best of them if I really put my mind in to it. Pso2 I could never get in to it as a game in general it feels uncomfortable to play at times because there is no way to experiment without AC or deleting my character after testing a build to try another one.

[Z-0]

No one here is trashing pro "try hard" players. The only thing that's going on here is the defense of players who play the game casually. Don't they have the right to play a game the way they want to play it as well?
Nobody has a problem with that, though. We just believe that no matter what you're doing, you should be trying to contribute in a group situation the best you can. So if it feels like you're leeching (much like Rehal's example), people will get very slightly annoyed.

In PUGs, providing you're contributing in a way that doesn't negatively affect players (eg: stealing aggro from someone who is obviously trying to KC a mob, or detonating Zondeels), nobody gives a damn.

This is mostly prevalent in TD -- I like TD because it does reward you for doing better, but the mentality of "you don't really need to do anything when there's 12 people" from the rest of the game is leaking into it.

[Limbo_lag]

As long as I can get 3 TD runs done, as well as decent falzes, I don't really care what people use.

It can get frustrating when you are the only one out of 12 in the whole MPA doing any substantial damage, especially during TD. Theres only so much one player can do.

I wouldn't entirely blame the players for their gear though. Its just bad design that you need a decently high level of gear to be effective on these EQs, and it just so happens the grinding/affixing system is terrible, not to mention the terrible drop rates of good rares. I can totally understand that many people dont have the tolerance to grind/affix stuff. That being said, +7-8 should be sufficient for most 10-11*s, and isnt too difficult to do. We also have weapon extension for low * stuff, which are really easy to +10.

[Chdata]

Yeah, a PUB TD with only 8 players is actually very likely to do poorly. It's one of the few things where you need all 12 people to be doing well.

or at least 10.

Technically, in reality that might be "two parties of people who can carry, spread evenly across the map".

How do people stand knowing that they're part of why a tower actually died in TD? That's a whole 15-45 minutes of time wasted.

[Limbo_lag]

They also really need to implement other player signatures on the "overview" minimap.

[XPKun]

The majority of people bitching about shitty parties on the threads that pop in once in a while are casual leeches themselves though. Some of the most ardent anti-elitism folks don't think twice about trashing B20 casuals.

I wouldn't exactly outright call them leeches myself but it is kinda ironic. Some of the people here who are advocates of "play the way you want / play for fun" movement are often among the first ones to complain about other people doing just that. :-?

[GoldenFalcon]

Why is this a thread about casuals who don't care about being dead weight?

The competitive nature of this game is entirely opt-in, and there are ways that Sega gives benefits to those competitive players (Interrupt Ranking for the Time Attack quests)

I myself don't play to get the lowest time, so I don't mind people who do or don't

[Kumichan]

Like that dude, one of the strongest supporters of play the way you want and very outspoken against elitism, an elitism himself bitching about both those above and bellow him. His standards just happen to be higher than b20, but lower than the hardcore elite. No wonder he is the laughing stock of psow.

[Vampy]

I wouldn't exactly outright call them leeches myself but it is kinda ironic. Some of the people here who are advocates of "play the way you want / play for fun" movement are often among the first ones to complain about other people doing just that. :-?

Hmm not sure how to word this properly but I'll try.

A big issue seems to be a lot of players want to say play your way have fun, but also are hypocritical when it comes to what others use they want to at least set a minimum standard you can play however you want but it better not harm the party as a whole.

Like every player should at least have x soul + x attack affixed and not just waste their money on costumes when a lot are guilty of this when they could maybe not easily, but they can certainly save up the money to grind and affix a better set.

I stopped caring after a while I don't expect anything from any other player this game has gotten painful to play at times. A lot of it is the hateful comments the community makes but a lot is also sega's lack of effort in truly balancing the game they will just bleed money from us and hope the next shiny costume will keep us busy enough not to notice the flaws.

Now for competitive play this game has room for it maybe not officially but the game provides so many options for this with time attacks experimenting with builds and all the major issue ia that a lot of it is behind a pay wall and some skills you are forced in to getting no matter what but they give us the options for hybrid builds and all maybe not the most fleshed out way but it works.

[BlankM]

Since my post is in the OP, I guess I'm obligated to clarify what I said. I didn't mean to offend anyone with what I said, by the way; I was just kind of miffed by the fact that there are certain people on this board (I won't say who) who constantly bash players who don't play the game as "competitively" as they do. Now, players who purposely keep their crappy equipment on and expect everyone else to carry them to victory, that's another story...

If you want to get really technical, I suppose you could say that PSO2 is a competitive like just about every multiplayer game out there. But, see, when I think of competitive games, I think of two things: Choices and balance. Unfortunately, PSO2 has neither right now.

Did you want to do anything resembling decent damage without S Rolling as a Gunner? Sorry, you're screwed. How about not running out of PP as a casting FO without dipping into the Fire skill tree and getting Charge PP Revivial? Nope, no can do. Thinking about using traps as a Ranger? Pffffttttt, ok. The game gives you so many choices, but only a tiny handful are really even close to being efficient. When people are only using the same tried-and-true methods that haven't evolved in years and aren't coming up with innovative ways to radically change the way we play the game, there isn't any competition. That's just boring, unchallenging repetition.

Now, when I said that the game doesn't require a lot of skill, I mean that the game doesn't require a lot of skill to be successful. Success, in this cause, refers to the amount of rares and other equipment you have.

It doesn't matter what you do; you could be the most skilled player in PSO2 that knows enemy spawns like the back of your hand, how to dodge through boss attacks like nobody's business, and just which Soul will give you the best chance at affixing that Power IV onto your Sword, and you know what? If the RNG dice roll against you, you still get nothing. All that skill, knowledge, and time you spent on the game? Doesn't mean a damn thing. I've seen it happen, it isn't pretty, and it sure as hell isn't fair. Meanwhile, a random casual will find exactly the rare you want on his first run, grind it to +10, and 5 slot it with no extra effort on his part because the RNG gods smiled down on him. Competitive games should reward players for skill, not dumb luck, but PSO2 doesn't do such a thing. Sure, you could argue that there are certain things you could do to raise your chances, but in the end it's still up to a roll of the dice, and the dice are always against you.

However, despite everything I've said about it, I still find PSO2 to be a good enough timesink that lets me hang out with my friends and go (hopelessly one-sided) rare hunting. The game doesn't need to be perfect and competitive to be fun.

Competitive and skill necessary, though? No, and if there are players that are really serious about making PSO2 into a competitive game that rewards real skill, they'll stop accepting the unbalanced mess of a game they have now and actively petition Sega to DO something about it. That's their duty as gamers, and there ain't one sad thing about that.

Also, about the Super Smash Brothers thing...

As far as I know, the first Super Smash Brothers wasn't really considered a serious game by most folks. It wasn't until Super Smash Brothers Melee, which was purposely designed by Sakai and his team to be a more competitive fighting game, that gamers started to consider the series as something akin to Street Fighter.

Then Sakai got cold feet, made Brawl more casual like the first one, and consequently split the fanbase down the middle.

Whoops.

But hey, at least people who aren't happy with Sakai's casual Brawl can mod it to make it more competitive again. PSO2, though?... Yeah, not going to happen.

Just because a game gives you false choices doesn't mean its uncompetitive. In fact most if not all games are like this. Do you think every build in League of Legends is viable? Definitely not, in fact a ton of games are probably won at champion select alone. Please point me to the massive amount of competitive games that are balanced because some of the best ones usually aren't and actually contain massive amounts of power creep, not unlike PSO2.

One of my main issues is that people tend to argue about how the gameplay is "unbalanced" or "uninteresting" yet they ignore what depth it does have. In truth, these people generally just mean "I want to be efficient, by using my gimmick builds." There, doesn't it feel bad to be inefficient? To know that the way you want to play is considered unviable? Yes, yes it does. Hence people try to play efficiently.

You can complain about it because nobody wants to feel like what they like is useless, but thats just the nature of the game. Before we can objectively look at balance and variety your criteria needs to be defined beforehand, and not just "I can't play tank without people telling me its bad." Not being able to use specific builds does not make a game unbalanced. It means there are false options.

As for your comment on "boring, unchallenging" competition. I would first examine how people currently play the game. Most people are on here complaining about shunka and ilmegid all the time. Yet when you look at the game at a high level they're rarely used. Not in TD, not in TA etc. Look at some TA videos and you'll find that most of them have all 6 pallettes filled, and sometimes end up needing more. They all have a use, and even underplayed classes like Te/Hu do interesting things in solo TA. The metagame actually does change quite often as new content comes out forcing people to rethink strategies, even if just slightly. They aren't just using "The same tried-and-true methods" and the most optimal solutions are always still being looked for.

Honestly the argument for RNG is kind of overdone. This game has a legitimate currency system so anything you could want aside from 50 element 12*s are obtainable over time so long as you put forth the effort.

The first smash brothers was arguably more broken than Melee btw so it was pretty serious. People to this day still netplay it.


Being a tryhard in a dressup simulator is bad by default.

Also, do note that, unlike LoL and Smash, PSO2 offers zero PvP options now that Panic is gone, so competition is limited to counting your affixes and measuring attack mods, and then declaring yourself the very best in general chat or on the forum (or calling those whom you outcompetitive'd "lazy").

And you'd think that a post defending competitive play would at least mention the competitive PSO2 community itself, instead of focusing on trying to stigmatize terms like "tryhard" and my favorite "no life loser". After all, it's not concepts that make people dislike something, but their real experience with the thing.

PSO2 is an instanced action game. Everything that happens outside of that instance I am judging separately. Because thats not the subject at hand. Sure it matters, but as I said above its pretty overstated.

Though there are people who advocate upgrading gear in the game I'm personally not one of them. One of my friends is a swell guy who hardly even 2 slots his gear. He doesn't play for gear, and he believes the general game needn't be easier than it is. People who play with him might not appreciate it but nothing in the game forces you to play to a certain standard, and the game gives you options to play in restricted parties and mpas. Don't hate the player, hate the game. If SEGA didn't want people to experience this they'd have things like minimum attack entries or grief reporting/matchmaking systems but they don't.


The problem with being efficient is that you are required to play a shitty lottery to have a decent equipment. There is no choice at all, first, you must win a raffle and get a good weapon to drop, then you must grind it, then you must grind it more for the latent, then you must affix it. Some people can't even pass the very first step - I'm speaking from my luck with Elysion after every single person on the ship got one. Of course, you can circumvent that with a premium set. But then come the skill trees, which are easy to set up for classes like Hunter, but not so much for Forces, who literally require buying multiple trees to be efficient in different situations. Then, what does it mean, you need to pay to win? And then you wonder why people hate efficiency advocates. Not because they chose to go through all that, by the way, but because they then cry on the forums that casual leeches decided not to.

I mean, the fact that boost weeks were even mentioned goes to show how awful weapon upgrade system is, yet people who try to force it onto others still expect to be taken seriously.

Compared to other MMOs this game is a lot less pay to win than other games. But your point is somewhat valid. All video games have a barrier to entry but I don't think that defines them as pay to win. Though maybe you could if you had lots and lots of money... Example if you wanted to play a fighting game you might believe you need an arcade stick(You don't but lets just say you did). If you want to play PSO2 competitively, you might need a better computer.

In that aspect you must always have some sort of initial investment to practice/play most games competitively. Though you're right, not everyone should be expected to do so.

[Kanade]

no problem with ppl wanting to play with their peers (elitist want elite player, casual want casual etc) and its an online game, will always be a few rude people ~ in fact of people posting about elitists being rude are just as rude to randoms in threads like "dumbest thing you see in eq" just play~

[infiniteeverlasting]

no problem with ppl wanting to play with their peers (elitist want elite player, casual want casual etc) and its an online game, will always be a few rude people ~ in fact of people posting about elitists being rude are just as rude to randoms in threads like "dumbest thing you see in eq" just play~

Now please elaborate on how calling out someone being rude is rude. Then you're also rude by definition.

[Z-0]

That's not what she said. Read again.

[Kanade]

Now please elaborate on how calling out someone being rude is rude. Then you're also rude by definition.

uhm ok i don't know where you got that from so...

for example a big debate is spawn kill vs tower kill in TD1

most people here see spawn killers as rude and slow down the run

whats to say the spawn killer don't think the tower campers as rude for not doing spawn kills and speeding up the quest is what i mean

everyone just looks at it from 1 side and get overworked over it... if u get into a mpa and u don't like their play style that's just bad luck but to complain about people being rude to you while you're rude to others in the same way is kinda lame that's all!

and yeah i am rude, when i play 20 min falz loser quest... or 4 tower dead in td2 quest i n see bad play i complain about bad players but i don't complain when others say the same to me cuz i do the same lol

[wohdin]

People can play this game competitively if they want. That is a perfectly valid way to play this game.

I will not be playing it competitively, because I find the game fun as it is, without breaking out the metagame. But I am not going to belittle people who want to treat the game as a competitive game. I have, however, on multiple occasions (not within this game, but in communities for other games) been personally attacked for my own desire to NOT play a game as "competitive", from people who are competitive die-hards. I have actually not seen nearly as much vitriol going in the other direction.

In my own personal anecdotal experience, outside of PSO2, many competitive players are pricks to non-competitive players for not playing the game "correctly", not the other way around. So I don't really know why this thread even exists. But if you really think we're bashing competitive players for not playing this game as a waifu simulator, lolk go ahead. I'll just be over here having fun.

And if non-competitive players of PSO2 in fact are bashing the ones who want to play this game competitively, then, um, get your damn priorities straight. That shit's best left in the LoLverse.

[Naizuya Tatzubani]

Golly Gee, I sure wish I had premium so I too could walk around with the best of the best equipament and lodsa money to upgrade said stuff.

But I don't. So I just stick with what's given to me and I upgrade when I can. Finding the 10star units I want is a pain without it. I think shelling out for at least one month of premium won't be so bad in the long run. R-right?

[btw-Niji]

i hate it when people use "no premium" as an excuse for playing bad/poor equips.

i've met some players who are very good at the game and they've never had premium ever... just used shitty crafted weps.

[Sp-24]

just used shitty crafted weps.
Kicked from party for inefficiency.

[angrysquid]

I use crafted sadinian launcher for Sanc TA , pls don't kick

[Z-0]

I use crafted sadinian launcher for Sanc TA , pls don't kick
Blacklisted.

[angrysquid]

Hater

[SakoHaruo]

I'd kick someone from my random TA party for walking way before gear. If you can dash and hit stuff the world is in great shape. I've never had to that though since JP players actually take the time to read my party description before joining.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of 'No Gaijins' and ' Japanese Only' lately. The fuck did you do, B20? :/

[LordKaiser]

Well yesterday I ruined 1 TD2 run because I needed to afk because I needed to go to the bathroom so when I returned the 1rst wave was about to end and one of the walls was weak so I apologize. Wall broke when I reached to the other side and from 12/12 people it was just 8/12. The point is that RL interferes with the game so I apologize if I'm on your black lists.

I have 2 set of units one are Luther's units with 2 abilities each (Quartz Soul+Spirita IV*2 and Vol Soul+Stamina IV) the other set are the ones of the huge battleship with random abilities.

I will play TD1 and TD2 with my Lv.53 Hu with the six slot units that have randoms abilities on them you people like it or not. Since I have my Br sub at Lv.70 I can kill infections with my Luther's pyroxene katana with 3 Hatou's and collect all your precious crystals. When the Dichadas and Predichadas teleport I will kill them with the inefficient Fodou+Shunka combination.

Do I count as a leech?

[BlankM]

People can play this game competitively if they want. That is a perfectly valid way to play this game.

I will not be playing it competitively, because I find the game fun as it is, without breaking out the metagame. But I am not going to belittle people who want to treat the game as a competitive game. I have, however, on multiple occasions (not within this game, but in communities for other games) been personally attacked for my own desire to NOT play a game as "competitive", from people who are competitive die-hards. I have actually not seen nearly as much vitriol going in the other direction.

In my own personal anecdotal experience, outside of PSO2, many competitive players are pricks to non-competitive players for not playing the game "correctly", not the other way around. So I don't really know why this thread even exists. But if you really think we're bashing competitive players for not playing this game as a waifu simulator, lolk go ahead. I'll just be over here having fun.

And if non-competitive players of PSO2 in fact are bashing the ones who want to play this game competitively, then, um, get your damn priorities straight. That shit's best left in the LoLverse.

The fact that people don't think this thread needs to exist is why I posted it. I see far too much of this same opinion that I felt arguments addressing it weren't expressed enough/properly. Also why does any thread on PSO-W exist? Considering most of them devolve into passive-aggressive jabs at other players with nothing being examined constructively anyways. I'm simply stating something I felt was worth being stated given what I've been reading on pso-w since I started playing the game.


Golly Gee, I sure wish I had premium so I too could walk around with the best of the best equipament and lodsa money to upgrade said stuff.

But I don't. So I just stick with what's given to me and I upgrade when I can. Finding the 10star units I want is a pain without it. I think shelling out for at least one month of premium won't be so bad in the long run. R-right?

Well you're in luck considering most the best units are either 9* or 11*. So thats part of the equation gone right there.

As for weapons you've got crafted 9*s or the 10*s that drop from EQs. Knowing which PAs to use tends to be more important. Also spellstone shop and 11* weapons are quite good to the point of being the best/close to the best in some situations/areas. Totally obtainable without premium.

Besides that, most people should know by now that free to play games aren't actually free. But I know of good players who refuse to buy AC and it works for them so more power to them.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Well yesterday I ruined 1 TD2 run because I needed to afk because I needed to go to the bathroom so when I returned the 1rst wave was about to end and one of the walls was weak so I apologize. Wall broke when I reached to the other side and from 12/12 people it was just 8/12. The point is that RL interferes with the game so I apologize if I'm on your black lists.

I have 2 set of units one are Luther's units with 2 abilities each (Quartz Soul+Spirita IV*2 and Vol Soul+Stamina IV) the other set are the ones of the huge battleship with random abilities.

I will play TD1 and TD2 with my Lv.53 Hu with the six slot units that have randoms abilities on them you people like it or not. Since I have my Br sub at Lv.70 I can kill infections with my Luther's pyroxene katana with 3 Hatou's and collect all your precious crystals. When the Dichadas and Predichadas teleport I will kill them with the inefficient Fodou+Shunka combination.

Do I count as a leech?

No you're not leeching

And it's just a game goddamnit, who the hell cares? If the game allows leeching it's the game's flaw in not knowing how to properly seperation the "pro" players and the "casuals".

[Shadowth117]

No you're not leeching

And it's just a game goddamnit, who the hell cares? If the game allows leeching it's the game's flaw in not knowing how to properly seperation the "pro" players and the "casuals".

I hate to admit it, but I do have to agree here to an extent. If the game isn't going to punish you for being bad, then well.... it doesn't really fall to anyone else. So ultimately you can blame SEGA for that. *shrugs*

[gigawuts]

Also, I'm seeing a lot of 'No Gaijins' and ' Japanese Only' lately. The fuck did you do, B20? :/

I don't know if it ever stopped, but this was a BIG thing when the game launched. People would even be kicked from parties that didn't specify JP players only at the time, for the crime of having a name that even looked like it was a gaijin. Some could even speak japanese and they'd still get the boot before they could say more than よろしく.

edit:

I hate to admit it, but I do have to agree here to an extent. If the game isn't going to punish you for being bad, then well.... it doesn't really fall to anyone else. So ultimately you can blame SEGA for that. *shrugs*

And this is the difference between not wanting to be around +0 7* users and still not being an elitist.

There's a difference between dealing 50% more damage so you need fewer attacks and can suddenly 1shot things, and dealing 6% more damage to things you're already oneshotting.

The game only really demands a certain level of performance. Everything on top of that is diamonds on your fingers.

[BlankM]

Addressed here:


nothing in the game forces you to play to a certain standard, and the game gives you options to play in restricted parties and mpas. Don't hate the player, hate the game. If SEGA didn't want people to experience this they'd have things like minimum attack entries or grief reporting/matchmaking systems but they don't.

However I do think people are just pointing out its best practice to contribute in a game that is multiplayer. And if you don't contribute, to be willing to learn how to.

[gigawuts]

I measure it by a level of effort exerted.

A +0 unextended 7* can be improved by merely extending it for less than the cost of most costumes, and if you need to use that specific weapon because of its looks then grinding 7*s isn't that bad either.

A +10 5slotted best in slot 11*, not so much.

If you can't or won't draw a distinction between those two things, well, that's unfortunate I guess.

Next up: Obama is literally Hitler because Benghazi.

[Gama]

we need battle mode.

so the eficiency nuts can do tournaments and eventually crown the "best" player.

and end all the drama about this.

the flame wars will end cuz they'll be to busy killing eachother.

[gigawuts]

God no, the forum wars will just be beginning - but at least they'll be about something of some measurable substance, and mostly in their own subforum.

What people argue about regarding this game right now is just silly.

I'd like a competitive mode; I probably wouldn't play it much if at all, but I'd like to have it.

[Sp-24]

Also, I'm seeing a lot of 'No Gaijins' and ' Japanese Only' lately. The fuck did you do, B20? :/
Did a search out of curiosity. Didn't find any anti-gaijin movements like in SSMO, but it looks like japanese players don't like being unable to communicate with other party members.

Found an especially interesting result on japanese yahoo, where it seems that a gaijin randomly joined a japanese player who was about to drop the VHAQ because Luther was going to be announced shortly. He couldn't inform the guy, and just dropped it, which apparently led to some angry whispers. The post ended with, and I quote (to the extent of my translation ability): "I don't want to learn english just for an online game" and "I personally don't like foreigners (they are scary)". The former is the most amusing, since I'm pretty sure that's the exact same excuse that people use to get a translation patch.

[Vintasticvin]

[QUOTE=gigawuts;3146266
I'd like a competitive mode; I probably wouldn't play it much if at all, but I'd like to have it.[/QUOTE]

Good ol Challenge Mode?

[Miyuki_Kamiko]

just implement challenge mode where your dropped to level 1 and have set PAS and gear and no talent tree for that specific quest then everybody would be equal and they would all have to rely on there own skill

that would A prove how good people can actually play the game based on true skill not gear
B make alot of people rage because they would complain it's to hard or not fair just like PSO1 but in reality it's extremely fair
C make the reward for completing all of challenge mode a 13* wep for your class

[Chdata]

Watching any video of someone trying to complete a TA (or TD) as fast as possible is entertaining, IMO, because I'm always thinking "wow, why didn't I think of that?" or "that's a good strategy", because these sorts of players are trying to do something different.

People "rag" on these efficient players, because apparently they're just being boring and doing the same thing over again and not even trying to do anything different / "have fun" (lol), but the real efficient players are the ones trying to be the most creative.

Also, I'd like to say that people "tryhard" because it's enjoyable, not because they hate fun. The one thing I hate seeing more than anything else are people who act entitled by saying "I play for fun, not efficiency", as if wanting to "tryhard" is some mental disorder. Stop that.


To build on this, I'm a kind of an in-between tryhard-casual.

I consider myself casual because it requires minimal effort from me to do things that others would look at as being tryhard.

I consider myself casual because I don't have fun repeating time attacks for the fastest time (in any game whatsoever). At the most, I learn small time saving tricks like good times to use combat finish or hitting off screen buttons in TA, but I don't care about every 10 seconds saved because it's insignificant.

I consider myself tryhard because I always quad, always try to kill enemies in a way I think is most optimal based on party composition and other factors, and I do other tryhardy playstyle type things.

I consider myself tryhard because I like killing things faster, and hitting higher numbers.

I consider myself tryhard because I like S-ranked Tower Defences.

I enjoy seeing TA gameplay videos and learning new tricks, though I don't care as much about comparing TA strategies as the TA community.

I experience enjoyment just from the act of performing quad dashes now that I've learned it, or from learning how to zondeel for TD and seeing huge groups of enemies die fast or seeing my side of the wall in TD2 never break while the other one does (wow I hate that), and just using high damage/dps PAs.

I kind of find it a little flawed to see people claim it's fun to use class combinations that don't synergize well, mostly because, whatever PA, tech, or skill you are using, you could at least be using the same exact PAs, techs, and skills as another class combination. It may be fun to have access to different things at once, or have both PAs and techs at the same time, but you can literally still experience the same gameplay from the same attacks with more optimize class combinations that will do 2x the damage with each.

Of course... I really hate that that applies to FO and you can't use any tech you want without missing out on 44% damage and thus it not being viable to use techs at all if you're not specced in.


just implement challenge mode where your dropped to level 1 and have set PAS and gear and no talent tree for that specific quest then everybody would be equal and they would all have to rely on there own skill

that would A prove how good people can actually play the game based on true skill not gear
B make alot of people rage because they would complain it's to hard or not fair just like PSO1 but in reality it's extremely fair
C make the reward for completing all of challenge mode a 13* wep for your class

They could make a sort of party/team PvP minigame that isn't direct fighting. For example, look at Spiral Knight's Lockdown. People are equalized gear wise, although some things can be a little different - such as a bomb with only a single large AoE vs a bomb with multiple smaller AoEs.

I think the best type of "PvP" for PSO2 would be something like, a literal 2v2 / 4v4 / 6v6 Time Attack quest.

Basically, something like Amduscia TA after the 4 buttons, but people are competing to speed through one of two lanes in an area side by side.

You could go deeper and add a way for people to directly detriment the other side's time. Of course, that could either become competitive or become "wow, that guy's a dick for actually doing that instead of both sides agreeing to not do this just to get the fastest uninterrupted time". Or you could make it like Touhou's PoFV which had multiplayer danmaku, and your goal was basically to increase the amount of danmaku on the enemy's side of the screen, until they die. Or in PSO2's case, somehow you spawn more mobs on your enemy's side.

[Vintasticvin]

just implement challenge mode where your dropped to level 1 and have set PAS and gear and no talent tree for that specific quest then everybody would be equal and they would all have to rely on there own skill

that would A prove how good people can actually play the game based on true skill not gear
B make alot of people rage because they would complain it's to hard or not fair just like PSO1 but in reality it's extremely fair
C make the reward for completing all of challenge mode a 13* wep for your class

YEEEEEEEESSSS this guy/gal knows whats up!

[gigawuts]

To build on this, I'm a kind of an in-between tryhard-casual.

I consider myself casual because it requires minimal effort from me to do things that others would look at as being tryhard.

I consider myself casual because I don't have fun repeating time attacks for the fastest time (in any game whatsoever). At the most, I learn small time saving tricks like good times to use combat finish or hitting off screen buttons in TA, but I don't care about every 10 seconds saved because it's insignificant.

I consider myself tryhard because I always quad, always try to kill enemies in a way I think is most optimal based on party composition and other factors, and I do other tryhardy playstyle type things.

I consider myself tryhard because I like killing things faster, and hitting higher numbers.

I consider myself tryhard because I like S-ranked Tower Defences.

I enjoy seeing TA gameplay videos and learning new tricks, though I don't care as much about comparing TA strategies as the TA community.

I experience enjoyment just from the act of performing quad dashes now that I've learned it, or from learning how to zondeel for TD and seeing huge groups of enemies die fast or seeing my side of the wall in TD2 never break while the other one does (wow I hate that), and just using high damage/dps PAs.

I kind of find it a little flawed to see people claim it's fun to use class combinations that don't synergize well, mostly because, whatever PA, tech, or skill you are using, you could at least be using the same exact PAs, techs, and skills as another class combination. It may be fun to have access to different things at once, or have both PAs and techs at the same time, but you can literally still experience the same gameplay from the same attacks with more optimize class combinations that will do 2x the damage with each.

Of course... I really hate that that applies to FO and you can't use any tech you want without missing out on 44% damage and thus it not being viable to use techs at all if you're not specced in.

I fit in a lot of the same categories.

The term I use is "trysoft." I approach things in PSO2 (all games these days, really) pretty casually, but that doesn't mean I don't try at all, nor does it mean I don't care about performing moderately well.

When it comes time for me to try hard PSO2 is just not the game I reach for.

[Chdata]

Probably one of the reasons I really don't care about competitive TA, is how stiff PSO2's physics are.

Every attack animation roots you to the floor or in the air. It's like playing Megaman Legends 1. Whenever you fire the mega buster, you are forced into standing snipe like you're using a launcher. If you want to dodge and shoot, it's more like, move, stop and shoot, move, stop and shoot.

Gladly they fixed that in Legends 2.

Anyway, there are few things where you can actually move around fluidly while attacking, which is something I enjoy from FPS shooters. But even for the things that let you move fluidly, many of them encourage that you do not do so.

Rifles -> Most of the PAs will let you WASD freely. Sat cannon, nope.

Of course, impact slider is a different case, because it acts as a gap closer. These are "ok" to me. Assault buster, asigiri dash, shunka, il zonde, etc.

Throwing a talis -> Why the hell can you not side step while doing this. You get stopped just for throwing one.

Launcher -> Not only does it root you down (which is ok for standing snipe), but your mouse sensitivity is constricted. My god.

Speaking of that, throwing a talis also constricts your sensitivity, even though in autoaim mode, you can instantly throw it in any direction without facing in that direction.

Twin machine guns -> The only PA facilitating free movement is infinity fire, however, I don't feel as bad about this classes PAs that much.

There's also various stupid things like, you can't JA il zonde if you are holding WASD when it ends, it's annoying to JA launchers because somehow the reloading animations desynch in some annoying way if I'm not paying perfect attention, it's annoying and hard to JA rodeo dive.

__________________________________________________ _______

Anyway, to build further on the "trysoft" thing.

I don't see why trysoft isn't considered the minimum for what players should aspire to be, while those TAers are tryhards doing their own thing.

Though it's a bit hard for me to make a distinction for that as I already consider all the effort I put in to be easy for me, when in reality I think I pay more attention to the game than necessary and than any average casual.

At least I have games like TF2 to facilitate tryhardedness.

[Chdata]

Don't worry guys, I get excitement from lolis, writing for/while loops, and pressing key combinations that make my character do cool looking speed dashing.

[Miyuki_Kamiko]

PVP would only work if they had a capture the flag mode because gunner is seriously broken with it's flips invincibility frames but even in capture the flag mode people would still main gunner due to the advantages gunner has over every class sure braver has katana combat but a gunner could dodge it all day long

PSO2 is way to broken for PVP

challenge mode if they added time rankings to it like how i explained it would A eliminate all dash exploits because you wouldn't be able to use all class weapons and B you wouldn't have dash attack because you have no talents so it would be Fair for Vita players

im all for having Fair competition not broken and exploited competition i know that would tick alot of the exploiters off but it would be Fair where the only thing you can blame is yourself for failing

alot of people are scared to challenge themselves that's why they look for the exploits and use them
but when you take away the exploits and put everything on a fair level people whine it's to hard it's BS it's cheap and it goes on and on

[Gardios]

Of course it'd be broken, it wasn't designed with PvP in mind after all.

[Sanguine2009]

they should make a mech based pvp mode because they have no hope of balancing the classes for pvp considering they cant even balance for pve

[Gardios]

B-but Border Break

[BlankM]

PVP would only work if they had a capture the flag mode because gunner is seriously broken with it's flips invincibility frames but even in capture the flag mode people would still main gunner due to the advantages gunner has over every class sure braver has katana combat but a gunner could dodge it all day long

PSO2 is way to broken for PVP

challenge mode if they added time rankings to it like how i explained it would A eliminate all dash exploits because you wouldn't be able to use all class weapons and B you wouldn't have dash attack because you have no talents so it would be Fair for Vita players

im all for having Fair competition not broken and exploited competition i know that would tick alot of the exploiters off but it would be Fair where the only thing you can blame is yourself for failing

alot of people are scared to challenge themselves that's why they look for the exploits and use them
but when you take away the exploits and put everything on a fair level people whine it's to hard it's BS it's cheap and it goes on and on

So there is some kind of honor system in place where not using exploits that everyone has access to somehow makes things more fair? It's not challenging to use exploits and if you lose to an exploiter its not your fault apparently.

[Bellion]

-snip-

Some people multi-step(dash, I just don't like calling it dashing for whatever reason) because they find it fun to do, but whatever you say. No one is scared to actually play without doing it, but it's boring to walk through a long area when you can be doing something like multi-stepping. Sure, it might tick people off because walking is pretty damn slow in this game with the wonderful random RNG one-way curving maps. I personally don't mind if they decided to make an actual option for sprinting, but SEGA.

A lot of people don't challenge themselves because there aren't any challenges at all in this game besides your own personal challenges. I don't get how multi-stepping as an exploit means someone is afraid of challenging themselves when it seems to be the opposite for quite a bit of people that bother to do it( TA for times). Unless, there is some other exploit I'm not aware of.

With the combat being clientsided, gunner flips would be useless. If player A lands a hit on player B from player A's perspective, it's game over even if player B flipped at the correct moment from his/her perspective.
Braver's Combat Escape would easily have the upper hand assuming the player isn't knocked out of it. You already know this game is too broken for PVP anyway, so yep.

[BlankM]

PvP discussions happen here all the time but they're way too hypothetical imo. We have no idea whether basic game mechanics would even work the same in PvP.

Implying that using dash exploits is "cowardly" is also irrational. I'm all for a more even playing field. Playing on a less powerful computer really slows down weapon switch dashing. But I don't think exploit users are any less skilled or "afraid of challenge" whatsoever. After all, choosing not to use an exploit is simply your choice. Making excuses about it just brings up abstract, circular logic that could go on forever.

[Z-0]

I feel like a "sprinting" button would take away the magic of what makes stepping fun: Pressing buttons, and also thinking about what dash sequence you should be using, because doing a full dash sequence isn't always the best thing to do.

Just me, though. It's hard to really know what I mean unless you regularly step yourself, though.

[Chdata]

PSOW reminds me of http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=TF44JBEC7Ps&p=n

Though, gladly not as much... in the one thread that was purposefully made for argument.

Also what z-0 means by 'different dash sequences': Sometimes it's better to do a 1, 2 or 3 step instead of quad when you need to jump over things, so you aren't dashing in to walls.

Or if you're dashing on a stairlike downwards area, iirc you can't chain dash in midair and need to return to the ground to chain dashes together again.

Unless he meant something else.

For people who think dashing is immoral or something weird like that: It's a problem on the technical side for SEGA that they can and would have removed if they thought it was unfair enough to actually remove. Just look at games like TF2 that finally got around to patching controller exploits that gave you free mouse sensitivity where it should be restricted. Then look at games like Microvolts where you can dispense rockets and grenades faster by quickly switching back and forth between weapons, though it can be looked at as an exploit, it became a fun and unique game mechanic used my a majority of the higher skilled playerbase.

At the very least, they should add an option to not count keyboard shortcut activated lobby actions towards chatlogs. My precious megabytes </3

I think a sprinting button would be silly because the autorun animation is already sprinting. How are you going to animate that? It doesn't make much sense game developer-wise. Unless we get a class that can dash across the map infinitely at asigiri speed while semi-invisible.

[BlankM]

To understand teh intricacies of dushing we moost look into teh minds of MLGPRO TA plyers.

[SPOILER-BOX]
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave
/la wave[/SPOILER-BOX]

On that note I think its pretty cool that its actually kind of intuitive for mouse and keyboard users.

[Miyuki_Kamiko]

the reason why multi stepping is an exploit is Not Everyone is able to do it i would have no problem with it IF all players could do it but PSO2 isn't just PC it's also on Vita on the same servers which is not Fair to a Vita player that you can get from point A to point B in half the time due to something they can't do and you can

IF it was available for everyone it wouldn't be an exploit
so if Vita players wanted to compete in TA records they will never win due to people who enjoy a movement speed exploit

[Chdata]

Vita player's can't do it? Aren't there controller macros for that.

You know what's not fair? PC users can't get Kuro and Shiro, those two cat mags / friend partners.

;_;

[GoldenFalcon]

I think a sprinting button would be silly because the autorun animation is already sprinting. How are you going to animate that? It doesn't make much sense game developer-wise. Unless we get a class that can dash across the map infinitely at asigiri speed while semi-invisible.

ninja running

it could even be called that

[BlankM]

Vita has its own blocks for TA too, it just happens to share some of the same blocks. If the vita community was dedicated enough they could have a Vita-only TA records if they really wished.

Though to be honest this is flawed because:

1) People have probably found at least some ways to multi-step on Vita already. Quad, LA, and weapon switch triple aren't the only things you can do!

2) It doesn't have enough of such dedicated players. For intents and purposes other than portability, the vita version is inferior.

Also I define an exploit as something designed to make use of unintentional programming flaws. It has nothing to do with whether everyone can do it or not.

[GoldenFalcon]

You know what's not fair? PC users can't get Kuro and Toro, those two cat mags / friend partners.

fixed

[Chdata]

（´・ω・｀）

[GHNeko]

（´・ω・｀）


Help! The PSO2 community won't accept that PSO2 (is/isn't) competitive!

[Chdata]

Help! The PSO2 community won't accept that PSO2 (is/isn't) competitive!

(`･ω･´)

(argumentative face)

I concur

{B]

[GoldenFalcon]

Oh, right

to dash down stairs, you just use rodeo drive

[Radical Dreamer]

Just because a game gives you false choices doesn't mean its uncompetitive. In fact most if not all games are like this. Do you think every build in League of Legends is viable? Definitely not, in fact a ton of games are probably won at champion select alone. Please point me to the massive amount of competitive games that are balanced because some of the best ones usually aren't and actually contain massive amounts of power creep, not unlike PSO2.

One of my main issues is that people tend to argue about how the gameplay is "unbalanced" or "uninteresting" yet they ignore what depth it does have. In truth, these people generally just mean "I want to be efficient, by using my gimmick builds." There, doesn't it feel bad to be inefficient? To know that the way you want to play is considered unviable? Yes, yes it does. Hence people try to play efficiently.

You can complain about it because nobody wants to feel like what they like is useless, but thats just the nature of the game. Before we can objectively look at balance and variety your criteria needs to be defined beforehand, and not just "I can't play tank without people telling me its bad." Not being able to use specific builds does not make a game unbalanced. It means there are false options.

Of course I don’t expect all competitive games to make everything I do a viable strategy. That’s just unrealistic. I’m not talking about super gimmicky builds that have you do something stupid like invest all your skill points into S-ATK Ups, though; I’m talking about entire sides of skill trees and PAs/Techs that’ve been left to gather dust because Sega is simply too lazy to bring them up to par. I mean, since when was it gimmicky to want to play as a tank/support in an MMORPG? When did it become gimmicky to want to use more than just two or three select PAs for my weapon of choice?

Also, those other competitive games I mentioned? They typically do something to address those false choices and balance issues with things like regular patches and actual game testing, something Sega has failed to do with PSO2 since the beginning. When was the last time Sega did something with the classes that didn’t involve really ham-fisted/so minuscule it isn’t even noticeable number switching or adding superfluous skills that did nothing to address that class’s main issues?


As for your comment on "boring, unchallenging" competition. I would first examine how people currently play the game. Most people are on here complaining about shunka and ilmegid all the time. Yet when you look at the game at a high level they're rarely used. Not in TD, not in TA etc. Look at some TA videos and you'll find that most of them have all 6 pallettes filled, and sometimes end up needing more. They all have a use, and even underplayed classes like Te/Hu do interesting things in solo TA. The metagame actually does change quite often as new content comes out forcing people to rethink strategies, even if just slightly. They aren't just using "The same tried-and-true methods" and the most optimal solutions are always still being looked for.

Yeah, I have seen some TA videos, and most of them seem to revolve around being a quad-dashing death machine that tries to one-shot mobs. The PAs/Techs used may change and players will inevitably find some shortcuts that save them a few seconds, but the underlying strategy is always the same: Focus on damage and blitz everything. Sure, you could say the whole point of Time Attack are to go fast and kill fast, but that’s my point: If PSO2 wants to be truly competitive, it needs to offer us something that tests more than just our ability to murder everything in sight. Luckily, some of the posters in this thread have come up with far more interesting ways for players to test their prowess.


Honestly the argument for RNG is kind of overdone. This game has a legitimate currency system so anything you could want aside from 50 element 12*s are obtainable over time so long as you put forth the effort.

Legitimate currency system? I’m not sure what you mean by that, unless you’re referring to premium passes. I thought players were generally against the idea of “pay2win” kind of things?

Anyway, that’s not my point. What I’m saying is that the players with the most amount of skill should be rewarded, not those with the most amount of luck. If PSO2 were truly competitive, only those who’ve proven their worth by doing (insert random challenge here that requires a great amount of skill to pass) deserves to use (insert useful item here that isn’t a useless cosmetic here). As it is now, pretty much anyone can get the best rares in the game by just sitting around and letting other far more skilled players do all the work for them.

[XrosBlader821]

It can happen and it MUST happen. If you don't have a 10* and you're playing on SH, then you are just LAZY. You're telling me that you have not gotten ONE 10* for your class on TD1, TD2, ITDR2, or any of the other, older seasonal EQs (Easter, White Day, etc)? These quests drop 10*s like CRAZY. If you can't be arsed to run a few EQs, where you will no doubt get a truckload of 10*s, how the hell can you be at a level required to join SH quests?
With my luck, yes I don't have any 10* T.Dagger & Double Saber for my Fighter that I would consider worth putting lots of money into to be slightly more efficient.
Which is why I'm getting Premium once I get enough Luther Stones to buy 11* weapons and exchange for a trade pass.

[Friyn]

With my luck, yes I don't have any 10* T.Dagger & Double Saber for my Fighter that I would consider worth putting lots of money into to be slightly more efficient.
Which is why I'm getting Premium once I get enough Luther Stones to buy 11* weapons and exchange for a trade pass.

Luther weapons cannot be exchanged for a pass.

[GoldenFalcon]

Run the forest EQ and get an 11*, before it's gone

which is.. in 3 hours?

[Z-0]

About Vita:

Vita will NEVER be on fair grounds as PC, because the load times are about 10 times as longer, and EVERYTHING lags you. Not even joking.
Also server is already down for maint.

[Chdata]

As for your comment on "boring, unchallenging" competition. I would first examine how people currently play the game. Most people are on here complaining about shunka and ilmegid all the time. Yet when you look at the game at a high level they're rarely used. Not in TD, not in TA etc. Look at some TA videos and you'll find that most of them have all 6 pallettes filled, and sometimes end up needing more. They all have a use, and even underplayed classes like Te/Hu do interesting things in solo TA.

I made that Il Megid thread advocating Il Megid for SHAQ / PSE burst mobbing only. It really is probably more optimal for clearing random spawns of mobs than anything else. Sure you could il foie a bunch of mobs in one spot, but Il Megid could get those, then move on to another spot before you start aiming there.

And you can PSE burst almost anywhere without having to worry about platforms / walls / corners.

And for a trysoft like me, the time you spend in PSE Bursts is 70% of the game (the rest is EQs and 5% TA). I mean, 30 minute PSE burst followed by a 15 or 30 again if you're lucky, that's available at any time regardless of emergency or client order.

Of course, PSE mobbing has nothing to do with preset spawns like in TD and TA. I've started constantly spamming zondeel instead of constantly top scoring with il megid for TD2 just because it really helps keeps walls alive. (Actually, il megid did that too, but I enjoy damaging tons of enemies at once just as much as I do seeing a ton of enemies in my zondeel die, or enemies being pulled off of the wall).

[GoldenFalcon]

Also server is already down for maint.

whamo

[Z-0]

-snip-
My team and I bought into the Ilmegid hype the other day.

The verdict was that it's far from being the most efficient thing at all. It's not bad, but it's not efficient either. Properly spacing TB Zondeels and having friends attack them is much better. You should only be using Ilmegid in Continent/Sanctum, where you will one shot.

[Chdata]

TBH I'm working on training my RA for nifta bursts, it's still possible. (Friend timed out of an AQ...)

Also you can one shot outside of amduscia, though I'm not sure about boosted lv.70 mobs.

[Z-0]

Definitely not for level 70 mobs, which is what I'm talking about. No point balancing over free field or anything, IMO.

[GoldenFalcon]

TBH I'm working on training my RA for nifta bursts, it's still possible.

With absolutely no bonus T-atk

I wonder if anyone has actually pulled it off

[Chdata]

Yes it is lol. (see edit)

Anyway yeah, I can understand that zondeel and being able to one hit many things at once is better than one hitting things in a row. But I dunno how to spot efficient locations in AQs to be zondeeling and especially don't know when the party should relocate in the middle of a pse burst. Especially cause I always worry about how farther away mobs will affect the burst without being killed. Not to mention, probably won't find many efficient zondeelers in pubs.

[Friyn]

My team and I bought into the Ilmegid hype the other day.

The verdict was that it's far from being the most efficient thing at all. It's not bad, but it's not efficient either. Properly spacing TB Zondeels and having friends attack them is much better. You should only be using Ilmegid in Continent/Sanctum, where you will one shot.

Off-topic.

Hey Matt, I'd kill for a list of songs you used on your latest quad dip TD1 video. Which by the way finally encouraged me to level and gear up Fire Fo/Te for TD purposes.

With love
Me

[Z-0]

Of course, the point is to Cluster and have Nifta bring enemies to you so you can rip through them.

However, it's harder if you don't live in Japan because enemies spawn much slower. It's why Ruins Nifta bursts were pretty much impossible to do outside Japan if you got cyclops at all.

[Chdata]

wat is cyclops

[Dinosaur]

just show your gear when you TA

some mode that puts everyone on equal ground in terms of level and gear isnt going to magically make shitty people good or make strong players bad

[Chdata]

But it will make people like me who are generally skilled but too poor to buy gear equal with good players who had expensive gear.

And my lack of gear literally means I do half their damage despite my skill.

[GoldenFalcon]

wat is cyclops

cyclo-neda

[Z-0]

music plz

In order:
Sepia - Shiki
Undo - Floor on the Intelligence
Untouchable - Floor on the Intelligence
littlestar feat. May J - Floor on the Intelligence (extended version)
Pure Ruby - Shiki
Yowamushi na Honoo - Dirty Old Men
Fade - Floor on the Intelligence
Memory feat. Mika Nakashima - Daishi Dance

I should probably add it to the video description.

[Friyn]

Thank you very much!

[XrosBlader821]

Luther weapons cannot be exchanged for a pass.

Uhm do you mean the 12* luther weapons or the rare stone weapons? it would be retarded if the rare stone weapons wouldn't be tradeable since that's what I want to buy premium for. Also another reason why I'm still running around with crappy 9* weapons.

[Z-0]

All trade-ins cannot be traded for a pass. This includes the Syncesta weapons, and XQ weapons.

[Friyn]

Uhm do you mean the 12* luther weapons or the rare stone weapons? it would be retarded if the rare stone weapons wouldn't be tradeable since that's what I want to buy premium for. Also another reason why I'm still running around with crappy 9* weapons.

Ah, I should've been more clear with my post, meant Luther stone weapons. Matt already cleared it for me though.

I wouldn't really worry about it. 11*s are very easy to come by nowadays. Pretty much every seasonal Emergency Quest rains you with them, Advance Quests also have rather high drop rate for them. Forest is a very good source for 11* passes.

[XrosBlader821]

for a rain of 11* I never got one after approximately 500 Hours of gameplay and 2 Classes up to lvl 60.
My luck is bad with drop rates. Already was in Monster hunter.

[BlankM]

Of course I don’t expect all competitive games to make everything I do a viable strategy. That’s just unrealistic. I’m not talking about super gimmicky builds that have you do something stupid like invest all your skill points into S-ATK Ups, though; I’m talking about entire sides of skill trees and PAs/Techs that’ve been left to gather dust because Sega is simply too lazy to bring them up to par. I mean, since when was it gimmicky to want to play as a tank/support in an MMORPG? When did it become gimmicky to want to use more than just two or three select PAs for my weapon of choice?

Also, those other competitive games I mentioned? They typically do something to address those false choices and balance issues with things like regular patches and actual game testing, something Sega has failed to do with PSO2 since the beginning. When was the last time Sega did something with the classes that didn’t involve really ham-fisted/so minuscule it isn’t even noticeable number switching or adding superfluous skills that did nothing to address that class’s main issues?

This is not your average mmorpg, its an instanced action game. Compare this game to other Phantasy Star Online games and you'll see it takes hints from past entries. The AI walks towards you mindlessly, you melt rooms of pre-set spawns etc.

Even if they did balance properly, there would still most likely be something thats most efficient. If its situational then that just makes you have to buy more skill trees. Then people would complain about that too. If anything people should be happy that besides Fo you can pick one side of the tree and generally do pretty damn well.



Yeah, I have seen some TA videos, and most of them seem to revolve around being a quad-dashing death machine that tries to one-shot mobs. The PAs/Techs used may change and players will inevitably find some shortcuts that save them a few seconds, but the underlying strategy is always the same: Focus on damage and blitz everything. Sure, you could say the whole point of Time Attack are to go fast and kill fast, but that’s my point: If PSO2 wants to be truly competitive, it needs to offer us something that tests more than just our ability to murder everything in sight. Luckily, some of the posters in this thread have come up with far more interesting ways for players to test their prowess.

This is giant oversimplification and honestly I haven't seen anything more interesting than our current game posted in this thread. In fact I find PSO-worlds video game design ideas to be mediocre. Please elaborate how a battle mode or capture the flag would be in any way interesting or more competitive. Or how it would be more skillful to improvise against random enemies, or how enemies that fight back wouldn't inevitably just have their patterns learned to the point of easy murder anyways. Why not just go play Dragon's Nest or some other game with pvp modes like that? Challenge mode? That's just TA with gear(and fun) restrictions.

If you want interesting game ideas how about Xtreme Quests tower runs where your party is pit against other parties in clearing specific objectives, and trading objectives influences the other parties hazards in different ways. Adding to strategy while being totally more fair than direct combat. How about team time attacks/quests where you're only allowed to bring a few weapons, with a system that lets team members loan equipment. You're value to the team might depend on how well you can play other classes and effectively co-operate and manage limited equipment. This solves the problem with people wanting more improvisation without adding artificial difficulty like monsters with absurd amounts of health or one-shot attacks that people will just learn to dodge anyways.

I just don't think you're looking at the right series if you think TA is the most "uninteresting" aspect. TA in every phantasy star game has been similar to what it is now. Set room, set spawns, and collecting lots of gear. Thats the epitome of the online series.


Legitimate currency system? I’m not sure what you mean by that, unless you’re referring to premium passes. I thought players were generally against the idea of “pay2win” kind of things?

Anyway, that’s not my point. What I’m saying is that the players with the most amount of skill should be rewarded, not those with the most amount of luck. If PSO2 were truly competitive, only those who’ve proven their worth by doing (insert random challenge here that requires a great amount of skill to pass) deserves to use (insert useful item here that isn’t a useless cosmetic here). As it is now, pretty much anyone can get the best rares in the game by just sitting around and letting other far more skilled players do all the work for them.

Unlike PSOBB meseta has worth. It doesn't have any worth in PSOBB so your claim would actually be valid as the only way to get rares you wanted was to hunt and pray, or find something of equal value.

You're establishing too much criteria again as I've been pointing out. "This game must reward what I think it should or else it isn't competitive." That's not what makes the game competitive. Also skilled players can't make excuses. They can learn money making strats or grind TA and eventually get most if not everything required to compete. Yes you can sit around and randomly get lucky but good players are trying x% harder to get that luck and honestly will probably be more successful for it.

[Miyuki_Kamiko]

Vita player's can't do it? Aren't there controller macros for that.

You know what's not fair? PC users can't get Kuro and Shiro, those two cat mags / friend partners.

;_;

are you serious cause sony is the reason pc players dont have toro or kuro they are characters designed by sony and sony made a deal with sega the vita gets toro and kuro in pso2 exchange for soul sacrifice getting PSO2 costumes

we all know sony does not want to give sega full rights over there own jp mascots
and yes it's purely stupid that it's for vita only and not pc but what you see is the politics of licensing issues

[Chdata]

It was a joke because there are things both sides can't get.

Not to mention, z-0 already kinda invalidated your argument.

[Kikikiki]

I think a sprinting button would be silly because the autorun animation is already sprinting. How are you going to animate that? It doesn't make much sense game developer-wise. Unless we get a class that can dash across the map infinitely at asigiri speed while semi-invisible.

In a simple way, you can just make the current "running" animation even faster, with some leaning towards the ground. Or the ninja (?) running animation.

I'd like something like a sprinting button and a measurement meter that counts your running time, so we have a startup time, and if you run for, say, over 10 seconds, you will have that kinda sudden stop where you still slides away for a few meters like in the action movies. You know, like the animation when you stop auto-running, but much more dramatic. That will also stop people from abusing sprinting so much, like in TAs for example, because you're literally wasting your time if you sprint while the enemies are just a couple steps away. You could quad dash then to save your 10 seconds.

[RedRaz0r]

Everyone is WAY overthinking this. Basically, just have fun. That's what video games are for, right? In game, do what feels fun to you. If that's being competitive then go for it. Just don't force your idea of fun on other people. That's when you become a douche. Its just like religion; believe whatever you want to believe, but come knocking on my door preaching it to me, and now I don't like you.

Tldr: 90% of elitists on psow are Jehovah's Witnesses

[MidCap]

I used to be competitive in gaming, and I was a huge jerk.

With PSO2, I don't have the time to be "competitive," so I strive to be competent. I usually stay about 90 to 95 percent as powerful as the people who put 4x more time into the game, so I guess I'm happy with that.

In my experience: If you play video games competitively, there is a 100% chance that you will eventually become an elitist douche.

It may not happen today, and it may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen eventually. The transition will be slow, and you won't even notice it.

If you find yourself making disparaging remarks about others over a video game and you don't think you've turned into a douche, please read my post over and over again until you agree with me.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Don't even say that you're the exception! You WILL become a douche. You've been warned.

[infiniteeverlasting]

I used to be competitive in gaming, and I was a huge jerk.

With PSO2, I don't have the time to be "competitive," so I strive to be competent. I usually stay about 90 to 95 percent as powerful as the people who put 4x more time into the game, so I guess I'm happy with that.

In my experience: If you play video games competitively, there is a 100% chance that you will eventually become an elitist douche.

It may not happen today, and it may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen eventually. The transition will be slow, and you won't even notice it.

If you find yourself making disparaging remarks about others over a video game and you don't think you've turned into a douche, please read my post over and over again until you agree with me.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Don't even say that you're the exception! You WILL become a douche. You've been warned.

Truth^
Definitely went thru this for a period until I found out that putting more than needed effort in a game (ITS A FUCKING VIDEO GAME) and complaining about a game (ITS A FUCKING VIDEO GAME) is just plain stupid.

[MidCap]

Z-0 said earlier:


Also, I'd like to say that people "tryhard" because it's enjoyable, not because they hate fun. The one thing I hate seeing more than anything else are people who act entitled by saying "I play for fun, not efficiency", as if wanting to "tryhard" is some mental disorder. Stop that.


If we assume general principles regarding economics and moral obligations to be true, it IS a mental disorder to waste one's potential of self-improvement on a video game to the extreme you're suggesting.

I made vast improvements in my real life when I started playing "for fun."

[infiniteeverlasting]

Z-0 said earlier:



If we assume general principles regarding economics and moral obligations to be true, it IS a mental disorder to waste one's potential of self-improvement on a video game to the extreme you're suggesting.

I made vast improvements in my real life when I started playing "for fun."

Good article to support your arguments

http://gamechurch.com/elitism-the-selfish-destructive-heart-of-gaming-culture/

[BlankM]

In my opinion, making generalizations on someone's character based on their video game preferences 100% makes you obnoxious.

I made vast improvements to my life when I started playing games competitively, because I made a lot of friends and had to learn tolerance of a vast diversity of people.

Despite people's claims they are still on a message board for a video game. Its safe to say video games make up a significant portion of people's lives nowadays. Who are you to judge how one's potential is "wasted." That's extremely bigoted.

[milranduil]

Z-0 said earlier:



If we assume general principles regarding economics and moral obligations to be true, it IS a mental disorder to waste one's potential of self-improvement on a video game to the extreme you're suggesting.

I made vast improvements in my real life when I started playing "for fun."

Cool. I actually made vast improvements in my real life when I started giving a fuck when playing (any video game). What's your point?

Edit: ninja'd

[infiniteeverlasting]

In my opinion, making generalizations on someone's character based on their video game preferences 100% makes you obnoxious.

I made vast improvements to my life when I started playing games competitively, because I made a lot of friends and had to learn tolerance of a vast diversity of people.

Despite people's claims they are still on a message board for a video game. Its safe to say video games make up a significant portion of people's lives nowadays. Who are you to judge how one's potential is "wasted." That's extremely bigoted.

"Learn tolerance of a vast diversity of people"
Lmfao, I may be wrong, but are you one of those who trash b20'ians instead of helping them learn?

[Kamekur]

Z-0 said earlier:



If we assume general principles regarding economics and moral obligations to be true, it IS a mental disorder to waste one's potential of self-improvement on a video game to the extreme you're suggesting.

I made vast improvements in my real life when I started playing "for fun."

Wanting to play efficiently because you find that fun isn't necessarily a mental disorder. Doing that doesn't automatically cancel out your real life stuff. They're two different things, so please don't use your life experience as an argument, that's just biased. Learn to manage both, make the most of your time.

[Z-0]

Please people, learn what the fuck elitism actually is before commenting on elitism.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Wanting to play efficiently because you find that fun isn't necessarily a mental disorder. Doing that doesn't automatically cancel out your real life stuff. They're two different things, so please don't use your life experience as an argument, that's just biased. Learn to manage both.

When did a dress up game become a sport? Man I even laugh at pro league players.
People here are talking about games as if it improves some portion of your life or is as legit as pro sports are. It's entertainment, that's it.

Edit: @Z-O please explain what is "elitism" under your definition. I'm ready to get flamed by you any day, if you're going to insult me for my "incompetence to understand" or "my stupidity/bigotry". In the end it always comes down to personal insults when we talk about serious things, so if you even care to respond, then leave that stuff out and only answer the question.

[BlankM]

"Learn tolerance of a vast diversity of people"
Lmfao, I may be wrong, but are you one of those who trash b20'ians instead of helping them learn?

Yes you are wrong. Again making generalizations and contributing absolutely nothing.

Honestly all you're doing is acting like the opposite end of the spectrum. Making fun of people for playing a game how they want to play it. "Laugh at pro league players?" Okay. Thanks for showing you have a high-school level concept of understanding on this topic.

Please stop using anecdotal evidence as if everyone's experience is the same.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Yes you are wrong. Again making generalizations and contributing absolutely nothing.

Honestly all you're doing is acting like the opposite end of the spectrum. Making fun of people for playing a game how they want to play it. "Laugh at pro league players?" Okay. Thanks for showing you have a high-school level concept of understanding on this topic.

Please stop using anecdotal evidence as if everyone's experience is the same.

Oh so your evidence is not anecdotal either I see, you're a "pro video game researcher" who studies the interesting videograme culture and how it improves the lives/health of people all around the world. Please.

Everyone here is using anecdotal evidence, if youre going to pick on me doing that then please provide a "scholarly" article/study supporting your argument. Then put it in mla format and give me a list of citations thank you.

[Z-0]

Edit: @Z-O please explain what is "elitism" under your definition. I'm ready to get flamed by you any day, if you're going to insult me for my "incompetence to understand" or "my stupidity/bigotry". In the end it always comes down to personal insults when we talk about serious things, so if you even care to respond, then leave that stuff out and only answer the question.
Your "incompetence to understand" and your "stupidity/bigotry" and "irrationality" is why you will never be taken seriously.

Number 1: Elitism is not taking a game "seriously". It is not "tryharding". Elitism is the belief that something must be led by "elites", and things must be done according to how they do things. That is not what we are discussing here. We are discussing the irrationality towards people who play "for fun" who seem to have a problem with people who are "elitists" (which, they aren't).

Number 2: Your article was irrelevant. All it pretty much said was "respect how others play video games", which is what we are trying to address here.

Number 3: You're an idiot, I'm pretty sure everybody agrees. You may be a teenager, but that doesn't give you any right to be a bigot. You are 10x worse than all these "pro" players you claim are so stupid.

Instead of going on the defensive and trying to make yourself seem above these sorts of people, why not try accepting that they are your equals? We're all gamers at the end of the day, regardless of what we do.

[BlankM]

Oh so your evidence is not anecdotal either I see, you're a "pro video game researcher" who studies the interesting video culture and how it improves the lives/health of people all around the world. Please.

You're using your evidence as if there is no alternative possibilities. You're also projecting your stigma on to everyone you see simply to bash other people.

It's actually completely immature. Maybe when you can discuss the topic without bias and stereotyping you can get back to me. I have seen 0 evidence of me bashing anyone else's playstyle so if you can't afford me the same respect I'm going to ignore you.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Your "incompetence to understand" and your "stupidity/bigotry" and "irrationality" is why you will never be taken seriously.

Number 1: Elitism is not taking a game "seriously". It is not "tryharding". Elitism is the belief that something must be led by "elites", and things must be done according to how they do things. That is not what we are discussing here. We are discussing the irrationality towards people who play "for fun" who seem to have a problem with people who are "elitists" (which, they aren't).

Number 2: Your article was irrelevant. All it pretty much said was "respect how others play video games", which is what we are trying to address here.

Number 3: You're an idiot, I'm pretty sure everybody agrees. You may be a teenager, but that doesn't give you any right to be a bigot. You are 10x worse than all these "pro" players you claim are so stupid.

Instead of going on the defensive and trying to make yourself seem above these sorts of people, why not try accepting that they are your equals? We're all gamers at the end of the day, regardless of what we do.

When did I look down on you guys, you here are making assumptions, so the rest of your argument is auto flawed.

Edit: all I believe is that no one here has the right to even complain about bad players. It's a game, you play your way, that's fine, but don't expect everyone to be "competent" In a video game, they don't need to be.

[Remz69]

When did I look down on you guys, you here are making assumptions, so the rest of your argument is auto flawed.

assumptions .................... i don't even

[milranduil]

When did a dress up game become a sport? Man I even laugh at pro league players.
People here are talking about games as if it improves some portion of your life or is as legit as pro sports are. It's entertainment, that's it.

Edit: @Z-O please explain what is "elitism" under your definition. I'm ready to get flamed by you any day, if you're going to insult me for my "incompetence to understand" or "my stupidity/bigotry". In the end it always comes down to personal insults when we talk about serious things, so if you even care to respond, then leave that stuff out and only answer the question.

Laughing at pro league players even though they are watched by millions of people. You, sir, are jealous.

[infiniteeverlasting]

assumptions .................... i don't even

Point out please. Otherwise you're just internet flaming for the fun of it.

[Xaeris]

Frankly, I'm not sure why this thread's premise, that there's a significant amount of bashing of competitive players, was so readily accepted. On one hand, the Time Attack records thread is as clean and devoid of haters as can be. On the other, there's a thread 40+ pages deep on the front page devoted to publicly mocking the unskilled. You're not suffering from all that much persecution, I think.

[BlankM]

Point out please. Otherwise you're just internet flaming for the fun of it.

And you're internet flaming for an even worst cause.

You agree'd to a post that was a complete generalization, then proceeded to demean people for even implying competitive video games can improve a portion of one's life, then projected everyone else as your negative stereotype while simultaneously acting like a haughty internet troll thats better than everybody.

Sorry but you have no horse in this race.


Frankly, I'm not sure why this thread's premise, that there's a significant amount of bashing of competitive players, was so readily accepted. On one hand, the Time Attack records thread is as clean and devoid of haters as can be. On the other, there's a thread 40+ pages deep on the front page devoted to publicly mocking the unskilled. You're not suffering from all that much persecution, I think.

That's because the people who persecute are

1) Ignoring the TA thread.

2) Guilty themselves of the traits they persecute for.

3) Getting posts deleted for swearing or personal attacks. Because this topic genuinely gets that bad.

[Sp-24]

On the internet, "anecdotal evidence" is evidence one disagrees with.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Laughing at pro league players even though they are watched by millions of people. You, sir, are jealous.

Yes I'm jelly,
League is popular but pso2 is not, that makes me jelly, this is a known fact. I'm trying to make a point here that there is no point in being competitive in a game that has no real competitions except for costuming competitions like pso2, league actually has a complicated strategic gameplay akin to almost the level of chess. Which is why they have legit huge tournaments.

In fact the student council at my Highschool hosts huge league tournaments to raise money, and believe it or not, it drags in more money for them than any other school event that ever existed. Pso2 could never do that.

[BlankM]

Yes I'm jelly,
League is popular but pso2 is not, that makes me jelly, this is a known fact. I'm trying to make a point here that there is no point in being competitive in a game that has no real competitions except for costuming competitions like pso2, league actually has a complicated strategic gameplay akin to almost the level of chess. Which is why they have legit huge tournaments.

In fact the student council at my Highschool hosts huge league tournaments to raise money, and believe it or not, it drags in more money for them than any other school event that ever existed. Pso2 could never do that.

You make this claim as if money is the only thing worth playing a game competitively for. So you're pretty much guilty of what you're criticizing.

Comparing any video game with chess is stupid btw and I hate when people do it. You probably hardly understand either of the games when you make such a terribly analogy. League has legit tournaments because of its massive popularity and the willingness of its developers to back them and turn its players into divas.

Need I remind you League of Legends started as a simple map mod? It's only when people band together in discovering a game's depth does it become successful competitively. Thats why speedruns raise thousands of dollars just playing games that AREN'T PvP-based or games you wouldn't think are competitive at all.

Honestly your whole argument is just shallow.

[HIT0SHI]

http://i.imgur.com/AUrUq5N.jpg

[Xaeris]

And you're internet flaming for an even worst cause.

That's because the people who persecute are

1) Ignoring the TA thread.

2) Guilty themselves of the traits they persecute for.

3) Getting posts deleted.

Try to understand my skepticism here. You're telling me that, one, these haters ignore the biggest potential target for their aggression and, two, on this site with hilariously lax moderation (just look at this thread for evidence), they all get promptly censored to the point that they're not visible. You can get how I'm incredulous here, right? If you want to direct me to a concentration of "competitive play" hate that's equivalent to the "dumbest thing you've seen in an EQ" thread, by all means, please, I'm happy to reconsider in the face of evidence. But short of that, this thread just seems like it's tilting at windmills to me.

[BlankM]

Try to understand my skepticism here. You're telling me that, one, these haters ignore the biggest potential target for their aggression and, two, on this site with hilariously lax moderation (just look at this thread for evidence), they all get promptly censored to the point that they're not visible. You can get how I'm incredulous here, right? If you want to direct me to a concentration of "competitive play" hate that's equivalent to the "dumbest thing you've seen in an EQ" thread, by all means, please, I'm happy to reconsider in the face of evidence. But short of that, this thread just seems like it's tilting at windmills to me.

For the first point, yes. Why post in a thread that won't get you positive re-enforcement?

As for your second point, the lax moderation is actually a testament to how bad these posts have to get before being modded. I see some pretty bad stuff on here. Though honestly, I would've posted this in another thread but it was locked. So I made a new thread for convenience and lo and behold many people came who the topic actually addresses.

If you think its tilting at windmills thats fine. I understand your skepticism because when you don't participate in the debates and just observe it becomes quite petty.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Man are some people nasty on the forums... I just noticed the fact that people are flaming each other over the internet... The internet... I'm pretty new to the experience of getting insulted by Someone who knows nothing about me and I knowing nothing about. The only thing I actually know is that they disagree with my opinions and believe I'm stupid for it.
Interesting.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the people you argue with on the internet were teleported to your place... Hmmm not a good scene.

[BlankM]

Man are some people nasty on the forums... I just noticed the fact that people are flaming each other over the internet... The internet... I'm pretty new to the experience of getting insulted by Someone who knows nothing about me and I knowing nothing about. The only thing I actually know is that they disagree with my opinions and believe I'm stupid for it.
Interesting.

Maybe you should leave it.

The internet works because all I'm judging are your words, words that you have near-infinite time to put thoughts into, and I still found illogical. You can go back to real-life and suffer zero consequence.

That's the beauty of internet arguments.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Maybe you should leave it.

The internet works because all I'm judging are your words, words that you have near-infinite time to put thoughts into, and I still found illogical. You can go back to real-life and suffer zero consequence.

That's the beauty of internet arguments.

Nah, there is no beauty in watching two internet apes fight over difference in opinions. None. Doesnt matter if it's on the internet or not. It's ugly.

Yes, I should leave it, but fortunately not every part of the internet is prone to arguments. Just certain places on the internet, forums are infamous in this category.

Forums is a remnant of the old internet where your identity is hidden, so you can basically say lots of complete shit without being killed for it in real life, which also means you can argue the fuck out of everything because there are no repercussions.

Huge majority of the teen population right now don't participate in any type of Internet forums because there is fb, and arguing and trashing people there has consequences irl. The only reason ive decided to participate I forums is for the plethora of tutorials, and of course more players to converse with about pso2, otherwise I'd never bother joining :/

But I digress.

[pkemr4]

oh god theres 17 pages of this shit? can someone give me the TL;DR version of all of this?

[btw-Niji]

oh god theres 17 pages of this shit? can someone give me the TL;DR version of all of this?
yeah

tl;dr version: go away

[MidCap]

The reason competitive gamers turn into such jerks (paid and unpaid alike), is that the expectations of sportsmanship, which had much more time to evolve in real athletics, are not present in gaming.

I am certain that 100% of atheltes would also be elitist jerks if these expectations didn't exist.

I don't give any competitive gamer (or athlete) the intellectual credit to devise these notions on their own. People who focus narrowly on one thing usually lack introspection.

Most CEOs are sociopaths, as are most people who excel at any one activity. It's an imbalance in personal character that has been proven throughout the ages.

[BlankM]

Nah, there is no beauty in watching two internet apes fight over difference in opinions. None. Doesnt matter if it's on the internet or not. It's ugly.

Yes, I should leave it, but fortunately not every part of the internet is prone to arguments. Just certain places on the internet, forums are infamous in this category.

Forums is a remnant of the old internet where your identity is hidden, so you can basically say lots of complete shit without being killed for it in real life, which also means you can argue the fuck out of everything because there are no repercussions.

Huge majority of the teen population right now don't participate in any type of Internet forums because there is fb, and arguing and trashing people there has consequences irl. The only reason ive decided to participate I forums is for the plethora of tutorials, and of course more players to converse with about pso2, otherwise I'd never bother joining :/

But I digress.

I disagree. Everybody on the internet is a real human being behind the computer. They don't become less of one by participating in an internet argument.

When I was a teenager I didn't post on forums either. Because I was too busy observing. Learning their netiquette, amused at how concisely they were able to express their opinions.

When you look at words alone its easier to be critical and get more value out of their meaning. They're a terrible thing to mis-use. Seeing as you're still in high-school you still have time to at least learn this. You will thank internet-senpai later.


The reason competitive gamers turn into such jerks (paid and unpaid alike), is that the expectations of sportsmanship, which had much more time to evolve in real athletics, are not present in gaming.

I am certain that 100% of atheltes would also be elitist jerks if these expectations didn't exist.

I don't give any competitive gamer (or athlete) the intellectual credit to devise these notions on their own. People who focus narrowly on one thing usually lack introspection.

Most CEOs are sociopaths, as are most people who excel at any one activity. It's an imbalance in personal character that has been proven throughout the ages.

Completely untrue. People lose sponsors or get banned from tourneys all the time from lack of sportsmanship.

[infiniteeverlasting]

The reason competitive gamers turn into such jerks (paid and unpaid alike), is that the expectations of sportsmanship, which had much more time to evolve in real athletics, are not present in gaming.

I am certain that 100% of atheltes would also be elitist jerks if these expectations didn't exist.

I don't give any competitive gamer (or athlete) the intellectual credit to devise these notions on their own. People who focus narrowly on one thing usually lack introspection.

Why did you come back??? You know they're just going to flame you for disagreeing with them.

well, by saying this now they're probably not going to flame you and keep things civil and polite.

[pkemr4]

yeah

tl;dr version: go away

so nothing worth my reading time here? ok then.

[btw-Niji]

so nothing worth my reading time here? ok then.
go back to 4chan

[Chdata]

Yes I'm jelly,I'm trying to make a point here that there is no point in being competitive in a game that has no real competitions

Your point is moot because you are trying to impose that there is an absolute standard for a preference that is subjectively up to anyone's opinion.

A counterexample to your statement that there is no point in being competitive about TA, is the mere fact that there are people who enjoy doing this.

Are you saying that it is pointless for someone to do something that they are able to enjoy?


Nah, there is no beauty in watching two internet apes fight over difference in opinions. None. Doesnt matter if it's on the internet or not. It's ugly.

Again, you are trying to oppose your own opinionated view on others.

I for one find the stupidity and lack of logic present in some online debates to be fucking hilarious.


Number 3: You're an idiot, I'm pretty sure everybody agrees. You may be a teenager, but that doesn't give you any right to be a bigot. You are 10x worse than all these "pro" players you claim are so stupid.

As stupid as some of his arguments are, it doesn't make you the better person to continue flaming people as if that were a way to help disprove their arguments.

The fact that people return fire like this, get defensive, or just don't care about whether or not the other person is offended, is why this forum is so droll in terms of debate.

Of course, I blame people who are provocative and defensive just as much.

Nobody likes a guy who spends all his free time swearing at kids on the internet.

Nobody likes an overly sensitive overly protected sheep who responds with extreme animosity to people that give the slightest hint of offense towards them. (These tend to annoy me more because I usually care less about being insulted myself and eyeroll more at people who start to freak out just because someone disagrees with them).

[MidCap]

For the record: I'm only arguing that competitive people are douchebags by nature. Or that they eventually become that way. It's all about the imbalance they develop in personal character. I have yet to meet someone who was able to overcome it.

[Chdata]

I'm competitive in TF2 and the only way I feel like a douchebag is from the mere fact that when I'm doing well, the other team is having a very shitty time.

Actually, for the servers I host, I used to just purposefully go easy on people so they wouldn't disconnect because that hurts my community.

Of course, PSO2 is different. After getting a taste of what it's like to use "strong" gear/weapons/class combinations in PSO2, it makes you feel like people not even bothering to use even minimally good gear, are truly just blatant leeches in comparison.

Of course, many people are probably simply ignorant/uninformed/don't realize how big of a difference certain things make. But when you compare the percent of EN players who are like this out of the english community, and the percent of JP players who are like this out of their community, something is wrong when the EN percentage of leech-tier casuals is near 70-90% of our population and JP leech-tier casuals is like 20-40% of their population.

Of course, there are many excuses for that. PSO2 is a Japanese game, in completely Japanese text. Even with translations, not all material is covered. But more importantly, the JP have a bigger community that is able to record more data about the game, in their language. English community is too small, not enough people who work on EN translated wikis or databases. Just look at Cirnopedia for example. It's under-maintained. The EN pso2 wiki doesn't even have a page for TD2 yet. Our community is small and doesn't have those people that record useful information. All we have is tons of random stuff scattered and buried in this forum.

It's understandable that anyone would hate having to party with someone who doesn't contribute at all, but it's even worse when you are the only one doing work. It gets annoying, I literally have to avoid B20 for anything outside of TACOs (which I know enough about to carry and don't mind if it feels like I'm soloing them).

It's sad, but maybe a lot of the EN community needs to realize that they are a huge source of problem for SHIP02. I don't know how anyone can be aware of just how bad EN players are on average, yet very few of them actually try to break out of being the leech type of person and evolving in to someone who can actually improve the gaming experience of their fellow players instead of ignoring them.

Like, when you go into an EN MPA and lose in TD and waste 45 minutes to get little or no rares, compared to possibly getting a 6-20m 11* rare and 30 or more excubes, how can you not get frustrated by that and want to improve so that happens to you less often? I see TA videos or even general gameplay videos of people who hit twice my damage with stuff despite my relatively OKish gear, and that always annoys me into wanting to get the same better gear. I've met one guy so far other than me who actually cared about the fact that he was doing much lower damage than what's expected and asked why he's doing so drastically low and how to improve.

Of course, SEGA is largely to blame for allowing level 50 players into SH EQs.

[milranduil]

The reason competitive gamers turn into such jerks (paid and unpaid alike), is that the expectations of sportsmanship, which had much more time to evolve in real athletics, are not present in gaming.

I am certain that 100% of atheltes would also be elitist jerks if these expectations didn't exist.

I don't give any competitive gamer (or athlete) the intellectual credit to devise these notions on their own. People who focus narrowly on one thing usually lack introspection.

Most CEOs are sociopaths, as are most people who excel at any one activity. It's an imbalance in personal character that has been proven throughout the ages.

Sweeping generalization fallacy ad nausem. Move along.

[Skyly HUmar]

Honestly until I played pso2 I had no idea that there was a whole casual vs non casual stance in games, and I feel like I still don't quite understand what it all means.

I am one hell of a competitive person, and I always try to be an elitist (without looking down at others, by elitist I mean i always try to have the best gear/afixes/efficient play style. I have nothing against casuals and i love playing with anyone as long as they are friendly.) as long as it allows for fun anyway.

What I don't understand is why these two types of players can't stand each other, I mean sure the more hardcore playerbase may not like being slowed down by the less competitive players, but isn't that why passwords exist? And why do casual players hate the tryhards if they (i assume) never try to play with anyone outside the friend list?

To me it seems like a bunch of pointless hate that can be avoided with a bit of communication. Can someone explain it to me? I think I am missing something here.

[MidCap]

We assess the world through generalizations. My experience is not atypical. You are the one who needs to move along.

[Chdata]

Comparing any video game with chess is stupid btw and I hate when people do it. You probably hardly understand either of the games when you make such a terribly analogy.

You probably hardly understand the scientific fact that, as you may be familiar with in No Game No Life recently, any video game is comparable to chess as chess is comparable to Tic-Tac-Toe.

Tic-Tac-Toe is a game that has been solved for wins or ties. It was easy to solve because there is very little entropy. 3x3 board with only two different "pawns" and simple rules.

The only problem is that solving for a guaranteed perfect-play win in chess, is an EXPTIME-complete problem, meaning that even if we made an efficient program to solve this, it would take an immense amount of time, data, and processing. Some time ago I looked at some calculations and it came out to like, more than ten thousands years of computing.

More details: [spoiler-box]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number

"However, even at this figure there will be 10^120 variations to be calculated from the initial position. A machine operating at the rate of one variation per micro-second would require over 10^90 years to calculate the first move"[/spoiler-box]
And that's only with the entropy of 6 different types of pieces, 32 pieces in all, on a 8x8 square.

A video game has an immensely larger amount of entropy. Most video games do. Some mobas have over 50 different characters, and instead of a 8x8 square to move on, you have complete free roam over a relatively open space (rather, you'd be looking at x/y coordinates). There are also many different rules involved.

The only difference is that many games have far too much entropy to solve, or even come close to solving at all. Which I agree, one is ignorant to think s/he can come up with some master strategy. With a supercomputer, you literally probably cannot do so even in a million years. You literally probably cannot do so, due to the lack of availability of atoms in the universe to be allocated for the purposes of data storage and processing.

[Skye-Fox713]

I don't mind competitive play at all and it's nice when I can get my TACO's done quickly. Although there is a grey area somewhere between the people who know how to dash to move faster and the competitive people who can dash through a whole TA and stuff just dies as they dash through enemies. Its somewhere in that grey area where I start feeling useless to the group doing the TA similar to how some snakes that still have left over bone structure for legs that they evolved to no longer need.

[Skyly HUmar]

I don't mind competitive play at all and it's nice when I can get my TACO's done quickly. Although there is a grey area somewhere between the people who know how to dash to move faster and the competitive people who can dash through a whole TA and stuff just dies as they dash through enemies. Its somewhere in that grey area where I start feeling useless to the group doing the TA similar to how some snakes that still have left over bone structure for legs that they evolved to no longer need.

Don't feel that way lol. If they are playing with you it means they don't mind. The important part about playing the game is having fun and going at your pace.

There was one time where i got really annoyed at a casual player though, but only because he said and i quote: "I only do time attack to buy outfits." And there's nothing wrong with that, but it was a SH TA run and he was using uncrafted, ungrinded unafixed 3* gear.

I understand that people play the game casually and for different reasons, I don't mind if they lag behind me because I did play trying hard and I expected to be a pace or two ahead of the average player. But when someone is literally doing nothing and openly admitting to just having you carry them, that's kind of a dick move imo.

[RedRaz0r]

This thread is disgusting and reminds me of something that I almost forgot: this community is worse that LoL's and I hate about 95% of you. I almost hope the Phantasy Star series completely dies out so I don't have to deal with so many stuck up wannabe weeaboos ever again.

[Chdata]

This community is bad because of all of the people who randomly flame people for no good reason.

[Radical Dreamer]

This is not your average mmorpg, its an instanced action game. Compare this game to other Phantasy Star Online games and you'll see it takes hints from past entries. The AI walks towards you mindlessly, you melt rooms of pre-set spawns etc.

Ok, PSO2 is an instanced action game. I still want to play as a tank/support/debuffer. It's not like I'm making up these roles off the top of my head; they're outlined clear as day in the class skill trees, and they take up substantial amounts of space. Are you asking me to just ignore them? Because that'd mean you're doing exactly what you accused me of several posts before: Ignoring the game's depth.

I can see the depth just fine, I just can't see it in the way the game is being handled now.


Even if they did balance properly, there would still most likely be something thats most efficient. If its situational then that just makes you have to buy more skill trees. Then people would complain about that too. If anything people should be happy that besides Fo you can pick one side of the tree and generally do pretty damn well.

In all honesty, that's a terrible attitude to have about anything in general. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it shouldn't strive to be perfect. Hell, none of the competitive games I listed before are, and will probably never be, perfect, but both the gamers and the developers are working hard to do so anyway. That's why those games are so respected amongst the competitive gaming community: Because both sides of the equation care.

Sega, on the other hand, doesn't care unless their profits are on the line. Players should be expecting far more out of them, and you should too.


This is giant oversimplification and honestly I haven't seen anything more interesting than our current game posted in this thread. In fact I find PSO-worlds video game design ideas to be mediocre. Please elaborate how a battle mode or capture the flag would be in any way interesting or more competitive. Or how it would be more skillful to improvise against random enemies, or how enemies that fight back wouldn't inevitably just have their patterns learned to the point of easy murder anyways. Why not just go play Dragon's Nest or some other game with pvp modes like that? Challenge mode? That's just TA with gear(and fun) restrictions.

If you want interesting game ideas how about Xtreme Quests tower runs where your party is pit against other parties in clearing specific objectives, and trading objectives influences the other parties hazards in different ways. Adding to strategy while being totally more fair than direct combat. How about team time attacks/quests where you're only allowed to bring a few weapons, with a system that lets team members loan equipment. You're value to the team might depend on how well you can play other classes and effectively co-operate and manage limited equipment. This solves the problem with people wanting more improvisation without adding artificial difficulty like monsters with absurd amounts of health or one-shot attacks that people will just learn to dodge anyways.

I just don't think you're looking at the right series if you think TA is the most "uninteresting" aspect. TA in every phantasy star game has been similar to what it is now. Set room, set spawns, and collecting lots of gear. Thats the epitome of the online series.

TAs weren't interesting then, and they aren't interesting now. The only difference is that PSO2's TAs are one of just two ways to earn meseta quickly, so people are more or less forced to do them if they want to have any reasonable amount of meseta. You could say that TAs appeal to a niche set of players, but they're just that: a niche. If PSO2 really wants to evolve into a competitive game, it needs to expand beyond just this niche group and find ways to attract players who aren't interested in running obstacle courses.

And yes, pvp game modes like those you listed would make the game much more interesting and/or competitive because they:

a.) Force players to rely on something else besides rote memorization of enemy spawn points and little map quirks.
b.) Pit players against something that are smart, unpredictable, and have access to every trick that you have.

Are those just two things? Yes, but they're very big two things. There's a reason (or two) why most of the popular/thriving competitive games on the market are PvP.

Also, your game mode sounds good. PSO2 definitely needs more stuff like that.


Unlike PSOBB meseta has worth. It doesn't have any worth in PSOBB so your claim would actually be valid as the only way to get rares you wanted was to hunt and pray, or find something of equal value.

Again, that's if you have a premium pass. If you don't, then the most you're doing with that meseta is buying affix fodder, and we all know how "fair" affixing is.


You're establishing too much criteria again as I've been pointing out. "This game must reward what I think it should or else it isn't competitive." That's not what makes the game competitive. Also skilled players can't make excuses. They can learn money making strats or grind TA and eventually get most if not everything required to compete. Yes you can sit around and randomly get lucky but good players are trying x% harder to get that luck and honestly will probably be more successful for it.

Probably isn't good enough for competitive games. If you're the best, you deserve the best. No exceptions. If you place first in a triathlon, you don't probably get a gold medal. You get the gold model.

And before you bring up things like charity speedruns as competitions that don't reward you anything... Well, I'm going to be frank with you. I don't consider them as competitions. In the most literal sense they are, sure, but players in those competitions aren't seriously trying to prove how superior they are to their fellow gamers. They're just doing it because they want to contribute to a good cause. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but I wouldn't call those kind of good-will events actual competitions.

Now, am I establishing too much criteria for what a game needs to be comeptitive? Maybe, but I'm not the one making them; other competitive games in the market are. There's a standard that games need to live up to nowadays in order to be seriously considered as competitive, and PSO2 just doesn't have what it takes. Yet.

[Chdata]

Ok, PSO2 is an instanced action game. I still want to play as a tank/support/debuffer. It's not like I'm making up these roles off the top of my head; they're outlined clear as day in the class skill trees, and they take up substantial amounts of space. Are you asking me to just ignore them? Because that'd mean you're doing exactly what you accused me of several posts before: Ignoring the game's depth.

You're ignoring the game's true depth if you're ignoring the fact that a lot of the "roles" SEGA put into the game, are substantially weak or pointless.

[ChinaSue]

And before you bring up things like charity speedruns as competitions that don't reward you anything... Well, I'm going to be frank with you. I don't consider them as competitions. In the most literal sense they are, sure, but players in those competitions aren't seriously trying to prove how superior they are to their fellow gamers. They're just doing it because they want to contribute to a good cause. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but I wouldn't call those kind of good-will events actual competitions.

It sounds like you are assuming people don't speedrun outside of those charity events when they actually do. They even keep records to show who is the best at each game.

[Radical Dreamer]

You're ignoring the game's true depth if you're ignoring the fact that a lot of the "roles" SEGA put into the game, are substantially weak or pointless.

Exactly. Either make these roles viable or don't bother putting them in at all, Sega. Leaving them there and doing nothing with them is lazy game design, pure and simple, and the players who selectively ignore flaws like these are only hurting the game in the long run.


It sounds like you are assuming people don't speedrun outside of those charity events when they actually do. They even keep records to show who is the best at each game.

If it sounds like that, I apologize. I realize gamers regularly do speedruns outside those kind of events. I'm just saying that people who do speedruns in those events are doing it moreso out of charity than competition, if you get what I'm saying.

[gigawuts]

This thread is disgusting and reminds me of something that I almost forgot: this community is worse that LoL's and I hate about 95% of you. I almost hope the Phantasy Star series completely dies out so I don't have to deal with so many stuck up wannabe weeaboos ever again.

http://puu.sh/9pw46/ec07564aae.png

[BIG OLAF]

This community is bad because of all of the people who randomly flame people for no good reason.

I agree. It used to be such an awesome place back when the PSO2 Beta was just kicking into gear. Everyone got along, played together, and had a great time.

But, as time went on, this place just grew more and more bitter as people began to just push on each other out of nowhere for no reason whatsoever, and now here we are. Basically a cesspool now. The little "subcultures" and "cliques" that have formed around here are more than partially to blame.

I'm not exactly an angel a lot of the time myself (and I try to be, but it's not so easy) but I just tend to push at those whom have pushed at me in the past. But, everything would clear up with a simple apology, as I would return it and bury the hatchet just as quick. But, no one does that (apologize) anymore.

[KuroKanden]

as of pso2's present state i don't think its all that hard to obtain adaquate/acceptable gear for people whom are starting out fresh.

nowadays you can easily get one of those pseudo 10* unit sets (blitz/gwanman/midia, etc) and that doesn't require you to be premium. affixing the set with both soul / III should cost you no less than ~400k, that little investment would drastically improve your performance. when I inititally started pso2 I was non-premium for a year or so , I still atleast managed to get my hands on "decent" gear during my first month of two of playing.

that being said i know that not everyone has the incentive to do some minor researches beforehand when they're starting anew. Surely I can understand that, but if you're 60/60 (back in the days) and kicking with random 0 slot units + 8* weapon, I seriously do question what you've been doing all this time..

[Skye-Fox713]

There was one time where i got really annoyed at a casual player though, but only because he said and i quote: "I only do time attack to buy outfits." And there's nothing wrong with that, but it was a SH TA run and he was using uncrafted, ungrinded unafixed 3* gear.



Yeah, that is understandable about the gear. It is not that difficult to get reasonable gear with all the 9* weapon and armor out there including the Rare stone shop AQ weapons. It's really not all that hard to get reasonable gear.

[BlankM]

I agree. It used to be such an awesome place back when the PSO2 Beta was just kicking into gear. Everyone got along, played together, and had a great time.

But, as time went on, this place just grew more and more bitter as people began to just push on each other out of nowhere for no reason whatsoever, and now here we are. Basically a cesspool now. The little "subcultures" and "cliques" that have formed around here are more than partially to blame.

I'm not exactly an angel a lot of the time myself (and I try to be, but it's not so easy) but I just tend to push at those whom have pushed at me in the past. But, everything would clear up with a simple apology, as I would return it and bury the hatchet just as quick. But, no one does that (apologize) anymore.

This is more self-awareness than I've seen from you in the past. Tolerance must be given by both parties but segregation just tends to be easier. Though I never felt you were unreasonable so I was hoping you might post. I appreciate it.

Anyways I think most things that needed to be said have been said and now it will just end up arguing in circles with people making nasty generalizations.

Everyone can just go back to playing the game now and not really effecting each other in any way at all since its like near impossible to grief.

[infiniteeverlasting]

Everyone can just go back to playing the game now and not really effecting each other in any way at all since its like near impossible to grief.

speaking about griefing each other... i remember when my school had a minecraft server with everybody on it... bahahaha oh man, some kids got sent to the principals office for having a fist fight over what? over minecraft. yes. true story. boy do games get intense.

[Walkure]

Do you guys every, you know, get bored of arguing the same idea back and forth?

I don't think this topic has changed in concept since last year.

[Skyly HUmar]

Yeah, that is understandable about the gear. It is not that difficult to get reasonable gear with all the 9* weapon and armor out there including the Rare stone shop AQ weapons. It's really not all that hard to get reasonable gear.

I don't mean that lol. I would tolerate anyone with any gear. The thing is that the guy was pretty much saying "I have no interest in helping any of you at all, you guys do all the work." If it was not for that bit i would not have cared even if he was using 1* gear.

[AlexCraig]

Locked per OP request