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View Full Version : JP PSO2 Kabukimono Style AC Scratch (2016 June 08)



Anduril
Jun 8, 2016, 12:06 AM
http://i.imgur.com/2ZOblPD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WIJtbsk.png (http://pso2.jp/players/catalog/scratch/ac/20160608/)http://i.imgur.com/SggtcQs.png (http://pso2.jp/players/catalog/scratch/fun/)



Of all the stuff, I'm most interested in the inner wear with a choker.

Xaeris
Jun 8, 2016, 12:10 AM
And now, the catalog lists your % chance of drawing the item in question. Nice of them, though I suspect that's probably the result of some legislation or at least the bad press that Granblue Fantasy got after that one guy spent 6k trying to draw his waifu. And lol, those odds are absolutely terrible now that I can actually see them. .331% for new accessories, no wonder these damn things have always been pricey. And in contrast, nearly 10% chance of getting a (now useless) full protect.

sparab
Jun 8, 2016, 12:11 AM
Risk Reduction (Complete): 9.271% chance to get
NT Grind Success (100%): 3.973% chance to get

Love sega's sense of humor.

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 12:13 AM
Hahahahahaaa

Those are some super ugly outfits.
Finally, long gloves. Except they are also 0.3%, and will obviously be expensive as hell.
Separate sideburns is good, but not when they each only have an 0.3% chance of being drawn.

I'm pretty sure this is not going to be a popular scratch.
Expect prices to be insanely high for all those 0.3% items.

nguuuquaaa
Jun 8, 2016, 12:34 AM
Can't believe this is in FUN Scratch.

http://pso2.jp/players/catalog/image/item/img/14380.jpg

Enforcer MKV
Jun 8, 2016, 12:39 AM
Another set of Caseal parts with horrible looking feet that completely ruin it for me.

Some of those outfits look nice but the colors ruin it for me.

Some of those recolors are pretty slick lookin' though.

My god those cast parts. :heartcookie:

Tari
Jun 8, 2016, 12:47 AM
Only thing in this scratch that I really want is the new LA.
I would have wanted the マーシャルリリアン[Ba], or a recolor, but pink shoes just aren't my thing.

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 12:53 AM
I want the gloves to go with the Lady Tucker basewear.
Sweater around the neck might go well with some other basewear.
Those two will definitely be expensive as hell.

Other than that, everything else I want are revivals.
Kijika Hair, FUN Beret.

The new FUN eyelashes look like they might be good.

doomdragon83
Jun 8, 2016, 02:09 AM
[SPOILER-BOX]http://i.imgur.com/0P3FWHq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CH0o0Xu.jpg[/SPOILER-BOX]
I was just thinking that there were not enough red and blue outfits...


Hahahahahaaa

Those are some super ugly outfits.
Finally, long gloves. Except they are also 0.3%, and will obviously be expensive as hell.
I'm pretty sure this is not going to be a popular scratch.
Expect prices to be insanely high for all those 0.3% items.
I was gonna be hyped about the gloves but they aren't all black like the one that comes with the long socks.
Also, you're right, now that the rates are shown, I can imagine the prices flying up with the rates being the "justification". Glad I'm not getting anything from the scratch yet again.

SteveCZ
Jun 8, 2016, 02:28 AM
Nothing to get for me this time, just a few inner wears, maybe. And It's nice to see the percentage, finally, lol.

Meanwhile, this means more cash reserve!

Zangor17
Jun 8, 2016, 02:37 AM
interested to see how the % affects prices on my ship (Ship 08 ) I saved over 20 mill and i hope i can get the things i want out of this scratch.

KazukiQZ
Jun 8, 2016, 02:40 AM
[SPOILER-BOX]http://puu.sh/pfkfz/ba59768657.jpg[/SPOILER-BOX]

Still waiting for something to spend on (I despise layers) :3

Maybe next scratch with Sakura Wars collab. Yeah.

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 02:46 AM
http://mmoloda.com/pso2/image.php?id=84262

Mystery 4% missing.

Maninbluejumpsuit
Jun 8, 2016, 02:57 AM
I thought the female fighter basewear was showing off the innerwear in the trailers.

11/10 dissapointed

final_attack
Jun 8, 2016, 03:02 AM
http://mmoloda.com/pso2/image.php?id=84262

Mystery 4% missing.

"Bad luck, try again" ?

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 03:27 AM
Well, the neck jumper ribbon thing looks bleh ingame.
Still no gloves yet, so it's probably ultra rare. Edit: Yup, 20m. Shame, because they do match the Lady Tucker base perfectly.

Spent about 30k FUN trying to get one of the new eyelashes, didn't get a single one.
3/5 rarity my ass.

Then someone put it up for 1k on shop, bought it and it looks like ass.
Great.

doomdragon83
Jun 8, 2016, 03:56 AM
Spent about 30k FUN trying to get one of the new eyelashes, didn't get a single one.
3/5 rarity my ass.

Then someone put it up for 1k on shop, bought it and it looks like ass.
Great.

That's why I don't even do FUN scratch unless it's 1 time for bingo.
Can get what I want from FUN scratch through meseta and use my FUN points on 711 donuts and then on nothing when those donuts no longer usable.
I'll probably buy a bunch and stack them up before the expiration.

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 04:01 AM
How long can you stack them up to?

Madevil
Jun 8, 2016, 04:05 AM
damn... I just realized color change pass can't be used on outer wear...

Maninbluejumpsuit
Jun 8, 2016, 04:09 AM
damn... I just realized color change pass can't be used on outer wear...

Yes it can

isCasted
Jun 8, 2016, 04:22 AM
More so, if you use it on a Cast character, you can recolor both Outer and the character at once.

Madevil
Jun 8, 2016, 04:28 AM
my bad... I was looking at the wrong place
I though it could be changed from cast color setting or costume color setting, but it is actually a outer wear color setting option for it

Maninbluejumpsuit
Jun 8, 2016, 04:34 AM
Offtopic, but they seriously have a TD4 strategy session on the screens in the lobby.

I mean it beats the bunch of bullshit ads, but lol. It even brings up war cry.

Xaelouse
Jun 8, 2016, 05:55 AM
It even brings up volg/banish and Satcan can take out Exodus in one go.

Honestly it's much needed given the new PS4 players...

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 07:29 AM
You can probably tell that a multiplayer game has bad game design when they have to stream how to play videos in the lobby.

Xaeris
Jun 8, 2016, 01:00 PM
What? You've constantly demanded more tutorials from Sega and now that you have an in depth one for the most pratfall filled EQ in the game, you're giving them grief for it? And that's not even touching the bizarre logic that goes into concluding a game is designed poorly because some people are bad at it.

pkemr4
Jun 8, 2016, 03:35 PM
Offtopic, but they seriously have a TD4 strategy session on the screens in the lobby.

I mean it beats the bunch of bullshit ads, but lol. It even brings up war cry.

sega should just casualize the fuck out of TD3-4

doomdragon83
Jun 8, 2016, 05:14 PM
How long can you stack them up to?

Donuts or boosts in general? I'm not aware of a limit. The only thing about doing that is the character you got those boosts on shouldn't be wasting time on normal or idling around in order to make the most of those boosts. Don't load up a campship during an undesirable EQ as when the quest starts, your boost time gets used up, even if your in the lobby.

Maninbluejumpsuit
Jun 8, 2016, 06:24 PM
What? You've constantly demanded more tutorials from Sega and now that you have an in depth one for the most pratfall filled EQ in the game, you're giving them grief for it? And that's not even touching the bizarre logic that goes into concluding a game is designed poorly because some people are bad at it.

I'm not griefing them for it. I just find it quite funny, and unexpected that they resorted to making those monitors useful.

To be fair, I don't know of many games that just hand players somewhat thorough strats for their game. Most games I play give me the tools, the goal, what to expect, and have me figure out the rest. This is a bit hand-holdy, but yes I assume it's for new players who came in with the PS4 release.

Xaeris
Jun 8, 2016, 06:56 PM
That was addressed to Taiga, not you. Personally, I think the video is unnecessary, but I doubt it took a lot of resources to put together so it's not like it cost me any content. It's just weird to me that someone who thinks Sega is responsible for the player experience to the extent that poor performance in C-Mode is Sega's fault for not assigning roles via the interface would take exception to this. Honestly, that dude at Blizzard had it right when he said "you think you do, but you don't." Only mistake he made was saying it out loud.

sparab
Jun 8, 2016, 07:01 PM
That was addressed to Taiga, not you. Personally, I think the video is unnecessary, but I doubt it took a lot of resources to put together so it's not like it cost me any content. It's just weird to me that someone who thinks Sega is responsible for the player experience to the extent that poor performance in C-Mode is Sega's fault for not assigning roles via the interface would take exception to this. Honestly, that dude at Blizzard had it right when he said "you think you do, but you don't." Only mistake he made was saying it out loud.

The TD4 tutorial video is made by players for 2016 video contest. Sega has nothing to do with it.

Xaeris
Jun 8, 2016, 07:48 PM
So Sega just took a guide video that fans make for pretty much every online game and signal boosted it? lol, this is even more of a non issue than I thought.

That aside, these female voice tickets are legit. I don't watch much of the stuff that Watanabe voices, so I didn't know what to expect, but this one works very well for me. The male one is a little...angry for me, but it's not a shouta voice, so I'll give it the nod too.

TaigaUC
Jun 8, 2016, 11:22 PM
@Xaeris
I'd like to emphasize that everything I wrote here isn't just my personal opinion, but also includes opinions from others I've talked to about this topic.
I'm the kind of person who doesn't feel confident enough to make bold statements based solely on my own experience.
Because, you know, I can be and have been wrong.

Look at other games. People learn the game as they go, they learn the classes as they go.
They don't get up to a point in the game where they suddenly need a tutorial video on how to play.
Do you seriously think people who have already cleared stuff like Tower Defense a ton of times up until now will bother to sit and watch a video on how to beat it?
Most will not bother.

That they're adding tutorials now still doesn't change the fact there's a ton of 75s who still don't know how to play properly.
There's no guarantee people will play or watch those tutorials, either.
The problem is most people think they know how to play, when they don't. So they're very likely not even going to look at the tutorials.

Most of these newbie players aren't familiar with games. They aren't familiar with looking stuff up.
SEGA has had to put those tutorial videos into the lobby because those people don't look things up.
But it still doesn't mean they will even watch them.
What SEGA should be doing is designing the game so that they don't need to look stuff up or do a tutorial after the fact.

It's ridiculous that they are adding the tutorials slowly after so many new players have joined and have probably already hit SH or XH.
They have crappy requirement orders like, "you must kill enemies to get items to unlock harder difficulties" but they don't make people do the tutorials.
So the tutorials aren't making as much of a difference as they could/should. Think about it.
Can you imagine how many people have started PSO2 on PS4, made it to level 70+ on a class or two, and then felt they needed to try the tutorials? Probably not many.

I'm sure most people just log in, decide to do an EQ or something for fun, like aiming for a goal, and then log out.
They don't actively aim to improve themselves as players.
Goals like getting better gear as drops are different from systems like grinding/affixing that require significant amounts of learning on the part of the player.
I've found that most people do not want to learn how to grind/affix or candy box, because IT IS A PAIN TO THEM.

This is something I talked about with a JP friend a few times:
In other games, when your gear sucks or you're not playing properly, you will just fail and cannot proceed.
When that happens, players naturally realize, "I need to get stronger". But that doesn't happen in PSO2.
The game goes in the direction of increasing difficulty, but it's not designed in a fashion that naturally nurtures most players to improve.

I'm sure you're aware of this as well, but there's an increasing amount of fighting and complaining amongst Japanese PSO2 players right now.
There are way more people running around with non-grinded gear, non-affixed gear. They think they have good enough gear, and go around telling newbies the same.

Some JP people are saying stuff like:
- grinding/affixing has no significant effect (bullshit, obviously)
- free players shouldn't have to perform at paid player levels (bullshit, I barely pay anything and I'm way stronger than them)
- PUGs are for people like us (ie. bad gear) to enjoy, stay in your organized runs and leave us alone (bullshit, the game isn't designed that way)

Does that sound to you like these people are going to look at tutorials and improve? I personally don't think so.
That is the kind of mentality SEGA has fostered. If the game was designed better, as I mentioned above, there would be far less people with this kind of attitude.

I guess you're one of those people who thinks humans can't be affected by environmental factors, that they're entirely self-driven and independent.
The fact is, people are often shaped by their environment. If you design a game that encourages bad behavior, people will behave badly. It's not rocket science.
So, in this regard, it IS SEGA'S FAULT for designing the game in this way.
If the problem was the people, other games would have the same problem, but there are plenty of other games that DO NOT have this problem.

The CORE problem is that people DO NOT REALIZE THEY ARE SUCKING. They DO NOT REALIZE they are NOT CONTRIBUTING MUCH AT ALL.
They also GET AWAY WITH SUCKING without needing to ever improve.
There's no point putting in how to stuff, if they already believe they are doing fine. They won't watch it, they won't try it.
It's not just in games. Most people will not seek to improve if they don't see a need to.

What SEGA should be doing FIRST, is conveying to those players that they are NOT UP TO SCRATCH, and NEED TO BE.
That is what other games have been doing for years.
Once they realize they are sucking, they will then look for ways to improve. Or probably quit, which SEGA doesn't want.
As I've said before, you can't appeal to both seasoned veterans and light users/casual games and expect to keep both happy. You can't have it both ways.

Oh, and about the guides I write... yes, I write them to help others, but also to gather facts and information, for reference.
I already know that not everyone will read them.
But I'm not the one that designed or manages PSO2, you know. I don't have a responsibility to make sure people are up to scratch.


Long story short: I am not just complaining for the sake of complaining.
I admit that I'm cynical and that my post about the videos was originally meant to be taken in a sort of ironic jest.
If the amount of people playing badly was far less significant, then fine, call me out on my being excessively negative.
But SEGA's current approach still isn't addressing the core problem. I don't think there's anything wrong with complaining/mocking that. It is a real issue.

sparab
Jun 8, 2016, 11:57 PM
casuals suck rant

If you have payed attention to the last live broadcast, ichitaro asked saiki what was his opinion on "lv75 players coming to XHEQ with lv1 sub class and +0 equipment".
Saiki responded "Players have different playstyle and you guys should support each other, instead of flaming".

Many JP has not taken his speech well and calls PSO2 is now officially a game of "support people with disability/liability".

TaigaUC
Jun 9, 2016, 12:03 AM
@sparab
I missed that. I wasn't paying attention to the entire broadcast.

And to be clear, I wasn't saying casuals suck, I'm saying SEGA essentially lets casuals get by without requiring them to improve themselves.
Of course that's going to create a huge gap.
Those people aren't going to watch or do tutorials because there isn't a need to.

That's why I personally find it hilariously sad that they are adding tutorials after the fact.

If they want to appeal to casuals that much, they should just remove all the extra stuff and design the game around the casuals.
The other path is to make the casuals learn and get up to scratch. As I said, you can't have it both ways.

Oh... there is one other solution.
If they made stuff like grinding/affixing/candy box more fun, to the point that people will think "I want to do this because it looks fun", then that would work too.

Again, to clarify:
I'm not saying casuals shouldn't be playing.
I'm saying SEGA has designed the game in such a way that it creates a huge problematic gap in playstyle/effectiveness.
I think that a well-designed game wouldn't even reach that kind of scenario to begin with.

EvilMag
Jun 9, 2016, 12:08 AM
Yeah SEGA needs to realize that going with the whole "minmaxers and casuals need to play together!" mentality is not helping and making the community really toxic in the end

sparab
Jun 9, 2016, 12:16 AM
SEGA essentially lets casuals get by without requiring them to improve themselves.[/B]
Of course that's going to create a huge gap.
Those people aren't going to watch or do tutorials because there isn't a need to.

Nowadays a new character needs to complete a tutorial quest to unlock anything beyond forest. I feel sega could also make a "grind a +30 weapon" CO to unlock XH content.
Of course it won't affect hardcore leech, but new players will at least have a chance to realize this game has a grinding system.
Or just start handing out +10 invade and +60 atk affixed *10 units to players when they reach 70.

With the addition of +3 cookies, candy box is quite fun to play around. Minus the fact I don't have any parfait beside blast and normal attack.

Enforcer MKV
Jun 9, 2016, 12:19 AM
Am I the only one who thinks that Sega just blatantly doesn't care at this point so long as people buy stuff? They just throw a bunch of different systems at the wall and move on to the next one a few months down the road.

TaigaUC
Jun 9, 2016, 12:23 AM
Here's a crappy example of if schools worked how PSO2 does:

Everyone passes if the class is above a set standard.
If you study well, you can get a high grade, but it doesn't mean anything.
Everyone gets the same treatment regardless.

As a result, the general quality of students is low.
A few hard workers are always carrying everyone else.
The others see no need to improve, because they know they will pass anyway.

The education board or whatever wants to raise the quality of students.
They start implementing stuff like guides and easier ways to learn.
But students don't bother with those, because the result will be the same even if they don't do anything.


Here's the same crappy example from a different angle:

The whole class fails unless everyone is up to scratch.
People help each other to ensure everyone is good enough.
Those with high grades will get special treatment for their excellence.

As a result, the general quality of students is much higher.
The few hard workers get rewarded for their extra effort.
The others improved as necessary, but don't go beyond that.

The education board wants to raise the quality of students.
They start implementing attractive incentives that encourage other students to improve.
As a result, the general standard rises.


I'm bad at analogies, but I thought these might be interesting parallels to consider.
Yes, I've heard that current school education has been leaning towards the former example.



@Sparab
I haven't tried the new character tutorial. I hope it's better than the old one was.
I tried to teach candy box to a few friends and nobody wanted to learn. I said it was easy a ton of times.
Seasoned knowledgeable long time gamer JP friend complains that candy box is a pain up the ass and they don't want to do it.
I personally don't really enjoy it either. Particularly, needing to exchange cubes is a pain up the ass.


@Enforcer
That's the impression I am getting too. When you see the new directors, they look drained and miserable.
They were probably forced by higher-ups to make the game a soulless microtransaction haven, and are getting flamed by the playerbase who think it's their fault.

Triste
Jun 9, 2016, 12:26 AM
Am I the only one who thinks that Sega just blatantly doesn't care at this point so long as people buy stuff? They just throw a bunch of different systems at the wall and move on to the next one a few months down the road.

I think it's the opposite - they do care, but nothing they've come up with has been able to satisfy the hardcore or more casual players. Systems appear to get dropped because they aren't really working, like, say, Ultimate. That particular example has its fair share of problems that they could have addressed, like providing a more interesting challenge instead of just adding a few extra zeros to enemy health values, but there wasn't really enough incentive for players to visit Ultimate anyways. So, they cut their losses and dumped the compound techs into the Photon Exchange Shop. They move on because PSO2 keeps shifting priorities and people in charge, which is why there are so many systems that feel more like incomplete thoughts than fleshed-out, essential parts of the game.

TaigaUC
Jun 9, 2016, 12:29 AM
I find it difficult to think that they care after knowing that they had Star Gems planned all along before episode 4 and Gathering were implemented.
That and stuff like seeing how dumbed down PD, TD4 and Yamato have been... doesn't bode well.
There's also the intended scarcity of layerwear, the Star Gem Scratch where they didn't even consider the possibility of recycling. The list goes on.

A while back, they said PSO2's team was initially small with a tiny budget, but PSO2's popularity allowed them to secure a larger space to ensure better quality.
But the game seems to be going in the opposite direction now.
I don't know if it's because the game or SEGA are dying (which seems unlikely, what with the influx of PS4 players) or because the higher ups are greedy as hell.

I didn't think they dropped Ultimate because it failed. Maybe.
But SEGA has been constantly adding "new" systems that are essentially the same thing as old systems, but slightly different.
I think they are just desperate to appear as if the game has fresh new content, to keep people playing and attract old players to come back.

sparab
Jun 9, 2016, 12:35 AM
I tried to teach candy box to a few friends and nobody wanted to learn. I said it was easy a ton of times.
Seasoned knowledgeable long time gamer JP friend complains that candy box is a pain up the ass and they don't want to do it.
I personally don't really enjoy it either. Particularly, needing to exchange cubes is a pain up the ass.

I feel candy box is much easier to learn than the affix system if I don't have previous knowledge.
But of course it has moronic unrefined UI just like any other content, and make a 3 layer pancake takes longer time than TD4.

TaigaUC
Jun 9, 2016, 12:37 AM
Oh yeah, and the pancakes are the worst.

The thing with candy box is, again, most people don't see a need.
I bet that if you looked at stats for Summoners, most people probably just have the starter pancake on one pet, or something like that.

And before anyone takes it the wrong way, I am not saying people are "dumb".
I'm saying people don't see a need. They don't know how element works, because it's so damn vague. Even I still don't clearly know how it works.
They don't know how stuff affects damage or whatever, so they don't have any idea how strong their overall effectiveness is.

They are probably thinking, they clear EQs and multis easily anyway, so... no need. If there was a need, the game would have made it more obvious to them.

That's why it's a DESIGN issue.

Tenlade
Jun 9, 2016, 12:52 AM
Yeah SEGA needs to realize that going with the whole "minmaxers and casuals need to play together!" mentality is not helping and making the community really toxic in the end
problem is the EQ format doesnt allow it. Anyone can join at any skill level, can't lock it behind tutorials or anything, best sega can hope for is making them braindead/impossible to lose or hope they stare at a tutorial video in the lobby.

Eq format is basically the best/worst thing in this game (worst for player end, good for Sega at getting players to log in reguarly)

EvilMag
Jun 9, 2016, 01:00 AM
problem is the EQ format doesnt allow it. Anyone can join at any skill level, can't lock it behind tutorials or anything, best sega can hope for is making them braindead/impossible to lose or hope they stare at a tutorial video in the lobby.

Eq format is basically the best/worst thing in this game (worst for player end, good for Sega at getting players to log in reguarly)
The only way around that is stop making end game content EQs. Then again they should stop making the game so EQ centered.

Xaeris
Jun 9, 2016, 01:08 AM
Look at other games. People learn the game as they go, they learn the classes as they go.

No they don't. If we visit any online RPG's forum right now, we're guaranteed to find posts complaining about people that don't know how to play their character at endgame. WoW, FFXIV, Blade and Soul; this isn't even unique to RPGs: Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, DOTA, plus innumerable more games. You're using other games (without actually naming any I might add) as examples for contrast, and I'm thoroughly mystified as to why because there is virtually no game on the market that doesn't have some population of players of poor skill. No game has mastered the responsibility that you assert they have. You say that a well designed game doesn't have massive skill stratification and I have to ask, "what do you think is a well designed game?" I'll have to ask that because any online RPG that could be considered a financial and/or critical success has that exact problem to some extent. Perhaps you have some niche browser game in mind?

I agree with you on one point: I don't think these tutorials will be effective. I've said as much on a few of the the occasions which you've demanded them. The thing we disagree on is whether or not that fact is Sega's fault. And no, it's not their fault. I can say that so resolutely not because I've immersed myself in the echochamber of my superior Nippon nakama, but because I've observed empirical evidence that attests to such. I was there when Final Fantasy XI (XI, not XIV) implemented its mentor system that was intended to put newbies in contact with experienced veterans. I was there when World of Warcraft implemented its dungeon journal that provided detailed information on bosses' attacks and suggested countermeasues. I was there when Champions Online implemented the Powerhouse, an area in which players could experiment with various combinations of abilities at no cost to them. I was there when Eve...umm...moving on. I was there when Yoshi P (Final Fantasy XIV) decided that players can't handle choices and opted to strip skill customization and variety in itemization down to the bare necessities.

I was there for all of these things, and many more. I was also there to watch them all fail to do the thing that you think they were supposed to do. They failed for one simple reason. It's elementary really, a child could grasp it: you can't make good players out of people who don't care. That's all it is. No matter how much guidance or nurturing a game provides, no matter juicy the carrot or how sharp the stick, bads are gonna be bad. Fish swim, birds go tweet, and bads are bad, those are the rules of nature and you would have better luck turning lead into gold than you would overturning that. In any game where performance is of any consequence whatsoever, there's going to be a point where extrinsic factors are insufficient and any further progress is going to have to come from something intrinsic, i.e, a player is only going to get better because they want to. Some players decide yes, they're willing to take whatever measures necessary to take their play to the next level, whether that's investing resources or doing outside research. Some players will decide no, they won't derive enjoyment from that. And that's where the gap opens up. There is jack all a developer can do to keep this gap from opening. Perhaps they can shrink it, or move it, or even widen it so that players on opposite ends don't affect each other (those are all abstractions for actual measures games have taken), but that gap is opening.

So ultimately, I say it's not Sega's fault because what you expect them to do is literally impossible by the very nature of the kind of game we're playing. If by chance you do have some ideas on how to design an online RPG that cultivates its players so that every single one of them is skilled and knowledgeable by the endgame, you should get a patent on them ASAP.

TaigaUC
Jun 9, 2016, 01:08 AM
One last thing I wanted to say (because I kinda wasted too much time on this already).

In general, I think that it's not possible to truly solve a problem unless you know what's really causing it and address the problem at its root.
I personally don't like to settle for things like, temporary workarounds that are akin to trimming the ends off bushes growing wild.

Making optional tutorial videos/modes doesn't really address the problem of people seeing no reason to improve, and no reason to stop relying on others.
I don't know if SEGA is aware of that being the true problem. However, I am sure that their priorities lie in the game's profitability.
If they are aware of the problem, they likely don't want to fix it because it'd mess with their profits in the short term.
They're tiptoeing around the core issue in the hopes that they'll drive people away in the long term instead of short.


@Xaeris
Yes, you're right in that there are still poor players in other games. But they usually don't have access to or won't do the stuff that they instantly fail at.
They usually realize they're not strong enough, go off and get a bit stronger, and come back and try again. PSO2 doesn't really have that part.

My experience with World of Warcraft was that, people sucked, and they wanted to improve, but weren't able to because of the loot being random.
That led to the whole thing with guilds separating because the people who won the good gear early left their guilds to progress with others who also got lucky with good drops.
So, accessibility is an issue as well. That's also a game design problem.

In a game like Dark Souls, people die, but they have fairly easy ways to improve their stats to make the game easier.
Of course, there's still the issue of accessibility. If they die so much that they can't gain enough souls to improve, and can't progress to get upgrades, then they will quit.
It's very much a tightrope balancing act.


Edit: Took me a while to formulate a proper response, posting it as a separate post.

TaigaUC
Jun 9, 2016, 02:38 AM
@Xaeris
I understand where you're coming from now. You're saying tutorials wouldn't change much anyway, so I shouldn't have called for them to begin with.
I think tutorials are effective at certain points, but not in the way SEGA is doing them now. I also think practical tutorials are better than text tutorials.
PSO2 mostly uses the latter, so that's one place they could improve. Optional tutorials are also are much less effective than compulsory tutorials.
There's also the issue with how PSO2 spams tutorials that people have already seen, but that's another topic.

You're also saying that, regardless of how a developer designs a game, there will always be people who won't improve, for whatever reason.
I'm not disputing that. I just think that a game can be designed in a way that better closes the gap between strong and weak players.
I also don't like that they are using strong players to keep the weak players playing, instead of trying to close the gap they created.

PSO2 continues to raise the game's difficulty as part of its natural progression.
At the same time, most of its target playerbase have no interest in improving, or beating higher difficulties.
It then tries to throw everyone together, which of course causes problems.
I personally think it's a problem to aim at such a wide demographic.
It's not very realistic to try and simultaneously cater to completely different audiences. I'm certain they will eventually lose both.

PSO2 keeps adding (very similar) progression/upgrade systems that widen the gap:
Rings, Crafting, Customizations, Disk levels, Grinding, NT Grinding, Affixing, Candy Box, Skill Trees, Personalities, etc.

Layers and layers of upgrades, with often vague effect descriptions, that may or may not affect some things that the description seems to cover.
Some skills/upgrades/attacks are good, others are bad. There are too many options, and too many pitfalls.
Most people don't have the time or interest to learn these differences.
Many upgrades require activities that people do not enjoy: learning complex systems/details, farming, grinding, being punished by random luck, etc.

It's often difficult to clearly see the results of these upgrades, to the point that some people believe they have no real purpose.
Some of those upgrades also rely heavily on random luck, time invested into the game, and money.
Even if a person wants to improve, they are likely to run into at least one of those roadblocks. Thus, accessibility issues.

Maybe I've implied otherwise, but I don't really expect players to "gitgud".
There will always be people who suck, and people who don't want to improve.
But why do they not want to improve? Is it because it's not fun? Because it's a pain? Because they see no need to?
Is it because the game has systems in place to prevent them from doing so?
I believe that reasons like these are game design issues that can be fixed, to some degree.

When I say "good game design", I'm thinking of a game that, if it does rely on progression, it should also let people progress in a sufficiently accessible and enjoyable manner.
You know, without requiring people to jump through a bunch of hoops that they don't want to.
But you're right, I can't think of any MMOs that didn't have stupid problems. It's mostly "they did a few things right, and screwed up badly elsewhere".
I honestly don't understand why game developers don't learn from good design examples.

On a side note (and this is not entirely relevant), I personally don't like progression.
I like games that rely more on the player's skill, and players improving their skill, instead of their virtual strength in-game.
But that's just me. I don't expect everyone to be like that.
There's also nothing wrong with having both, but I personally hate when it doesn't matter how good a player I am as long as my in-game character is doomed to suck.

I think PSO2's design has many unnecessary things that discourage or block people from improving. That's why it's "bad game design".
I didn't try most of those other games you listed, so I apologize for being too general in referring to "other games".
You're absolutely correct that other games fail in various, similar ways. No game is perfect, of course.
But I do think PSO2 is more unique in that it's very easy to progress by relying on other players, without improving one's self.

The game that I often hear did things well was Ultima Online. I haven't played that myself, either.
But I also get the impression that older games often did some things better (and some things worse).


I understand it's easy to criticize and point out flaws, but not as easy to come up with solutions.
This is in no way a thorough list, but here are a few problems and solutions that I can think of, off the top of my head:

Combine all the systems that are similar. Streamline them, make them more intuitive and easily accessible.
Currently, there are too many complex systems that require a lot of extra learning and aren't fun to most people.
It's good that they introduced the NT system, which removes the unnecessary punishments. Those obviously drove a lot of people away.
But at the same time, it's ridiculous that they didn't retroactively apply the system to old weapons.
As a result, they ended up makings things even more complex and confusing.

I know veterans have gotten used to affixing, but I still think it's too complex. I have to constantly look up info and use external tools like simulators.
Not to mention how huge a pain it is to plan ahead and get the right fodder.
There's no way casual gamers are going to bother with that. Even I don't want to.
Look at how a game like Dark Souls handles upgrading. It lists most of the effects (although somewhat clunkily) but all you have to do is select the item, upgrade, and bam.

Then you have stuff like Summoner setup requiring items that most people aren't going to have when they setup their pets.
I'd bet a lot of people never go back to the candy box after they've obtained the EXPcubes to fix it up.
Because by that point they've already been playing Summoner so long and never saw any reason to redo the candy box.
They also made it a pain to redo the candy box. Real smart. Not.


Make good gear more accessible (which SEGA has actually somewhat accomplished)
Collect file is a step in the right direction. It lets people obtain stuff as long as they play.
Its restrictions are a pain up the ass, though. Star Gems to reset timer, etc. They also mostly require doing the same thing over and over. That's not good.
And to be honest, even I couldn't be bothered learning how the Collection File worked at first.
When I tried to teach other friends about it, they also couldn't be bothered learning it either.
So there's still some room for improvement there.

Then there's doing the same file over and over to max element. How many people know that 50-60 element is important? Not many, I bet.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people only do the file for a weapon once, and then never again.
Again, that goes back to how confusingly vague the attributes/systems are.
People who don't know how important it is won't see any reason to do the files over and over.
They could fix this by maxing element off the bat, or by making it much more obvious that element makes a huge difference.


Reduce reliance on random luck. Apply the collect file progress system to everything.
The file progress system (originally used in the improved Matterboard drop system) is a good thing.
It ensures that, even if you don't get lucky, you can still get what you want, eventually.
It also ensures that people will automatically get stronger without needing to go out of their way to do so.
In the case of PAs, imagine if PAs levelled up when used often, on top of still being able to level them via Disks.
That would solve the problem with people getting stuck at low level Disks forever (like me).


Have a compulsory practical tutorial for all major game systems, that only appears once per account, and does not cost the player anything to do.
As far as I know, there is no practical tutorial to clearly understand how NT upgrading (or affixing) works.
Just a bunch of text screens that require people to read, learn and remember.
It's way easier to remember stuff if you're doing it, not reading about it.
And most people aren't going to experiment with upgrading if they have to take risks and use their own materials.
PSO2ES gives people free chips to experiment on, in a compulsory tutorial.
Just having a compulsory tutorial also hammers into people that "it is necessary, otherwise they wouldn't have made it a compulsory tutorial".
PSO2 has so many optional systems that it doesn't bother explaining. Of course people are going to think they don't make any difference.


Ramp up the difficulties better.
Forgot to add this. The game is super cake up until SH, and then suddenly it's much harder.
That, and the game also seems like it's super cake through to XH if you only play in multis. Reviving is rarely a problem when the multi has 60 Moons.
I'd like to say they should have separate difficulty levels to suit individual player's tastes, and not as part of natural progression.
But then finding groups would become a much bigger problem.
They shot themselves in the foot by designing around 12 people multis, and stuff like EQs and the block system make it much harder to group up.
Imagine if people were able to freely find 4 person groups for a preferred difficulty, to play whatever content they like, whenever they like.
You know, like other games usually have. Although, to be honest, PUGs were often hit and miss in other games, too. For different reasons.


Allow people to see their personal effectiveness in comparison to the multi.
Said this before, forgot to list it. This would let people know that they aren't doing so great.
Before anyone complains, yes I know this would lead to people boasting about their strength.
But I think that would depend on how it's implemented. The goal is to let people gauge their own strength.
I'm sure there are ways of doing just that.


Anyway, I think you know what I'm getting at. I know I'm not very concise.
Just with these examples, you can see that there are many ways SEGA could improve the design and reduce the gap between players.
There are a lot of ways people could improve (regardless of if they want to or not), but can't because the game literally blocks or discourages them from doing so.
Players can't fix those issues. SEGA is the only one that can fix those issues via improving their game design.
Obviously, the above solutions won't solve everything, but I'm sure it'd make a big difference compared to how the game is right now.


One more thing. I don't always play with "superior Japanese friends". When I organized runs, only around 3 JP friends were exceptionally strong.
As I've said before, I usually play alone or with one non-Japanese friend.
I also sometimes play with Japanese female friends who aren't strong players at all.
I'm not against casual players playing the game. I just think the game is super vague about where people are falling short, even if they want to improve.
As I said before, lots of pitfalls. People think stats > multipliers, people think stances don't do anything, etc. And people can't afford time or money to experiment.
Even I often can't tell if I'm contributing well or not. I always thought I wasn't, until I checked damage meters.
It's super easy to not know that you're actually not doing much damage.

Keilyn
Jun 9, 2016, 05:18 AM
I find it difficult to think that they care after knowing that they had Star Gems planned all along before episode 4 and Gathering were implemented.
That and stuff like seeing how dumbed down PD, TD4 and Yamato have been... doesn't bode well.
There's also the intended scarcity of layerwear, the Star Gem Scratch where they didn't even consider the possibility of recycling. The list goes on.

A while back, they said PSO2's team was initially small with a tiny budget, but PSO2's popularity allowed them to secure a larger space to ensure better quality.
But the game seems to be going in the opposite direction now.
I don't know if it's because the game or SEGA are dying (which seems unlikely, what with the influx of PS4 players) or because the higher ups are greedy as hell.

I didn't think they dropped Ultimate because it failed. Maybe.
But SEGA has been constantly adding "new" systems that are essentially the same thing as old systems, but slightly different.
I think they are just desperate to appear as if the game has fresh new content, to keep people playing and attract old players to come back.

PSO-2 has survived for four years.
Even so, SEGA gambled by releasing the game with Tier 6 graphics to the Playstation 4. Remember that? Everyone likes the Tier 6 graphics. Then SEGA took their systems and matched them up to the dungeon crawling elements of the game and in doing so improved the Economy and made SHAQ more useful. A few weeks ago I could only find parties for EQs. Now I find a lot more different types of parties out there for various things.... So basically the game is not about ONLY going through EQs anymore while sitting around and doing nothing outside of EQs....

Players have far more options now than they did before...
and thanks to Collection Sheets and adding 13* to other areas like SHAQ w/ High Risk, they started balancing out the playing field..

I play four MMORPGs and PSO2.
Do you know that in each of the MMORPGs I have at least three characters at level cap with either second best or best gear in slot? However, due to the way PSO-2 had been along with all of the RNG involved with the game, It has taken me longer to actually work with my characters in terms of time spent than the four MMORPGs combined?

In most MMORPGs my character only needs two to four types of weapons. I usually have a High Power Weapon, a secondary weapon, a Utility Weapon, and usually a Shifting Weapon along with the armor. Once I get the weapon, I can grind it up and I don't have to collect 2 - 3 of the weapon to get to 60%, and I don't have to "affix" the weapon in the way its handled in PSO-2. Two Weapons and im usually fully functional.....then those games become more about playerskill and not pure stats in the toughest of areas.

When I get something in a cash shop, I get it, I buy it... Its mine.
I don't deal with RNG my chances to get something just so I can fail to get it, while the developer has my money and I am forced to part with it by putting it in the playershop. Yeah, GG....

Amazing how in Online Games that can happen, but when the Chinese attempted to do the same scam outside of a video game, the United States Department of Justice along with the United Nations got on their case and shut down their operation on a global level....

I am happy that SEGA is actually making changes to an aging game that originally was meant to appeal to people who got lucky in the RNG and played 8 - 16 hours a day....

I mean shit...
Once SBx and WoL come out...
its either SEGA makes a Phantasy Star Online 3 or Phantasy Star Universe 2 with some amazing VR feature the world has not seen before, or get their ass kicked. :)

isCasted
Jun 9, 2016, 06:26 AM
Even so, SEGA gambled by releasing the game with Tier 6 graphics to the Playstation 4. Remember that? Everyone likes the Tier 6 graphics.
I know I'm the weird one here, but I despise Tier 6 graphics. Everything looks so plastic, and new shaders make color scheme look like an upgrade from tier 1 than tier 5 (no matter whether you turn Color Tone Curve on or off). I presume it was done deliberately to make it look familliar to PS Vita players, but it alienates me in how much less vibrant areas like Seabed and Falz boss rooms have become. Also, a ton of bright ligths everywhere. And they still haven't added polygons to areas or fixed broken My Room lighting.
HQ character models and shading are cool, but it should not be restricted like this.

Then SEGA took their systems and matched them up to the dungeon crawling elements of the game and in doing so improved the Economy and made SHAQ more useful. A few weeks ago I could only find parties for EQs. Now I find a lot more different types of parties out there for various things.... So basically the game is not about ONLY going through EQs anymore while sitting around and doing nothing outside of EQs....
I rarely see open parties for anything other than EQs, LQ (even LQs lose their appeal eventually. They end up gathering, like, 2-3 MPAs in Premium blocks on the whole Ship 2) or TA. People running stuff for Revolucio sheets are usually doing it solo.

Players have far more options now than they did before...
and thanks to Collection Sheets and adding 13* to other areas like SHAQ w/ High Risk, they started balancing out the playing field.
...except they are tying new collection sheets to EQs, effectively elliminating half of their appeal. Nobody runs SHAQ for a chance of Revolucio drop either, because even if you want one you'd rather do sheets.

its either SEGA makes a Phantasy Star Online 3 or Phantasy Star Universe 2 with some amazing VR feature the world has not seen before, or get their ass kicked. :)
Given SEGA's track record, they've reached the point of serious masochism. Hedgehog Engine was their biggest innovation in years, and it still hasn't been distributed or used to its full potential outside of Sonic Unleashed.

PSO2, as engaging as it is, is FUBAR. Extra shaders don't fix level geometry flaws, block system still doesn't allow proper socialization (despite game's focus on socialization!), more and more currencies are constantly getting introduced, old-style grinding and crafting are still overcomplicating things, old-style controls are still the only option on Vita, multiple costume systems with different coloring rules are still annoying etc. The list goes on, and on...

Sure, devs are learning, but too many mistakes were made in the past. Accumulated knowledge should be used to make a new, better game, but it's just not happening anytime soon.

Yamishi
Jun 9, 2016, 03:52 PM
I don't want to derail the conversation or anything, but damn that's nice male CAST parts.

I've been waiting for nice, bulky robot bits.

redroses
Jun 10, 2016, 03:41 AM
I have to agree strongly with TaigaUC.

Of course there are people that will always be bad, either because they just aren't good at playing or just don't care.
And SEGA makes it very easy to not want to care or bother to get better.

It's easy to get carried in this game, thanks to 12 player parties and characters in general being easily overpowered compared to enemies. Even if a boss is strong, dying isn't a problem with half dolls and all the moons.
Besides that, it's way too time confusing, complicated and just overall boring to upgrade your equipment. And instead of making it easier and more linear, SEGA just makes it more and more confusing, by always adding more mechanics. There are so many things that hold you back from becoming stronger, that even if you don't play good you could at least hit hard.

This becomes especially tiresome and overwhelming if you don't constantly keep up with the game. You come into this game, and you don't even know where to begin to upgrade your equipment. Where do the best weapons currently drop? Do they even drop, or must you farm stones for them? Where do the stones drop and how long until you have enough stones? If you finally have the stones, you have to upgrade the weapon with grinding, affixing and bringing the element up t max, which means even more farming. Besides that, you also want your PA to be max level, but sadly PA drops aren't global, so you have to farm for that separate again.

And all this is just for one weapon type, combine this with needing a rainbow set for some classes, or classes that use multiple weapon, of course barely anyone wants to bother.

Above all, this is just for weapons! Now you have to still worry about your armor, PA crafts, rings and skilltree and make sure your sub class is leveled (don't even get me started on summoner and how much freaking candy you have to farm for all your pets).

And when all is said and done, it's also all only for shaving off a couple seconds in EQs. So, it's understandable, that there are many players that just can't be bothered with all these systems, because it's not truly needed and the reward for all that time and effort is just not worth it.

Xiriko
Jun 10, 2016, 06:59 AM
I just want to mention one thing that's already been said but don't think it's been emphasized enough: this whole game's full on dependency on RNG.

I've been a non Premium player ever since I started playing by choice, I don't really have a need for Premium as I can make all my money in game and know how to play the market whenever I want to make a quick buck. The problem is a lot of new (heck, even old) players don't know how to do it. I'm not gonna stretch this up as it's already been discussed and it's more than obvious.

The bigger problem I would say in someone getting stronger would have to be the RNG implied too, a couple of weeks I was trying to improve my Saiki set by simply adding a Flict Arma to it and I managed to get the chances to 90s %, Apprentice Soul failed here and I snapped thinking over the money I just had lost over a 90%+ chance. This by itself can make ANY player quit the game for a few weeks if they don't know how to pull off some quick buck or if they just drained their funds.

In case a lot of people use AC here, as a lot of people who do tend to lose track on how much income is needed to sustain proper affixing/grinding with in game money, buying the affix with the proper number of slots cost x amount of money, then you need to buy multiples to increase the chance. Even if you do play all your cards right there's always gonna be that one affix that just isn't possible to go over 90% without boost week. The chance is slim but it WILL fail sometimes so that's one way for a player to straight out hate the affixing mechanic in the game.

This is really just my 2 cents on an already old topic and it still hits the same point that was discussed previously: a lot of people still don't want to learn how these mechanics work. But even with trial and error there's a lot of in game money involved being wasted and in the end people just would rather play something else instead of somethin like PSO2 that is just obsessed with the RNG aspect.

I mean there's RNG on weapon grinding, affixing, drops (don't get me started on Saiki drops), etc etc. It's endless.

Honestly the best content I've seen SEGA pulling off these past few months was the Weapon Sheets and the NT Grinding mechanic.

TaigaUC
Jun 10, 2016, 07:05 AM
Yeah, a few of my friends (both JP and not) quit/want to quit because they can't be bothered keeping up with the latest updates.
They feel like too many complex things were added. They don't want to learn the new systems and upgrade their gear again.
I'm sure they're not the only ones.

I mean, I understand that those systems are part of the game.
But I think that most of the players SEGA aims the game towards, don't actually find those systems fun.
I think most people just want to log in, wear nice clothes, run a few battles with friends, and then log out.
If something's too complicated, or too separated from what they want to do, they won't bother with it.

As I've said, unlike PSO2ES, PSO2 does not require players do most tutorials, upgrade stuff, or anything. It's all side stuff.
Of course people are going to think that stuff isn't important. Especially if they keep winning anyway.
On a related note, I know several Japanese players who played for over a year and didn't even know the Recycle Shop existed.

I don't remember previous MMOs I've played as having similar issues. They had plenty of other stupid issues, though.
Vindictus' crafting was nice at the start, and then it started requiring ridiculously rare materials and weapons often fell apart from failures.
I quit when they decided to make each battle reduce equipment durability by a significant amount, which always cost a fortune in repairs.

In various games, I remember groups immediately falling apart because people didn't want to work together.
There were people ignoring decided roles, ignoring what other people needed or wanted. The tank'd try to do DPS, or the DPS didn't watch their aggro. Stuff like that.
People still bitched about what other people did. They assumed some builds were ineffective, when they were actually effective... just not popular.

One thing that I do remember, is that whenever I play a new game, I'm always surprised by stuff that's improved over other games.
And then after I play for a while, I'm always disappointed by all the other stuff they've somehow managed to screw up.
It always feels like games take a few steps forward and many steps back.

Something SEGA keeps doing that I don't recall being as much of an issue elsewhere, is creating pitfalls.
As I've said before, I suspect they do this to get people to pay real money for fixing mistakes.
They add stuff that looks attractive and strong, and then you find out it's trash, and you wasted your time and money.
Most people probably don't want to spend time doing research to make sure they're not screwing themselves over.

It's not even just the stuff that's become obsolete. There is way too much useless trash that serves no real purpose other than to confuse people.
If I recall correctly, in other games, it's more obvious that equipment is good and not trash. It's usually more obvious that you need better gear, too.
In PSO2, you can't easily judge effectiveness by rarity, grind level, affixes, latent, or anything. Everything requires rigorous testing and research.
And the more stuff they add, the wider the gap gets. They don't seem to have realized this yet. Or they have, and don't care.
Because they want the strong players to pick up everyone else's slack.

I can imagine that in another year or two, they will probably do something like, adding "SNT" Weapons, which will use another new grinding system.
Then we'll have three grinding systems, and 3 types of the same weapons.
Or they will add Bracelets, which will be like the Ring system, but completely independent and requiring learning some new crap.

Anyway, I'm just rambling on again.
To counter my negativity, I was thinking I should list some positive stuff I like about PSO2 that other games rarely or never have:
- You can name your character whatever the hell you want. Unlike other games, every name isn't $!@&#$ taken. You don't have to pay to reserve names, either.
- You can get nice outfits fairly easily without needing to pay through the nose, or spend the rest of your life grinding.
- Lots of character customization. I particularly hate games where I can't adjust height/proportion. It's nice to have voice pitch variation that doesn't go all warbly.
- It's a true action game, unlike those other "true action games" that are essentially classic MMOs with a crosshair.
- I used to really like the huge, weighty bosses at the start of PSO2 (eg. Ragne), but a lot of the recent bosses don't really have that feel.

And that's all I can think of right now.

Achelousaurus
Jun 10, 2016, 11:22 AM
TBH the game not holding your hand till endgame is good. A game where guides are not important at endgame can only be simple and boring.
And how the fuck does anyone not know about the recycle shop for a year? He never had a proper look around the lobby? This isn't even some actual mmo with the shop tucked away in this one small city in the corner, it's pure instance and a single lobby with the same layout wherever you go.

Also, it's an online rpg, the entire purpose is to get stronger gear to kill stronger enemies.

The game holds your hand enough imo, especially now with the training quests. Everything else is more advance and if you can't be assed to spend the literally 5 minutes required to read up on the basics it's your own fault and problem. Cause if you don't care enough to look up something you don't know, don't blame the game if you suck at it. The majority of obscure mechanics and strats are advanced stuff that doesn't make a huge difference, you will not be unable to beat a boss if you don't use the perfect TAJA combination with the proper status applied on the boss, it will just take a bit longer.

If the game was so easy that guides wouldn't be important, it would have to be so simple that it would get boring real fast.
If you are worried to screw yourself over with a class build, spend the 3 minutes to google one. Problem solved.
The only real problem is that Sega forces good players to carry bad ones all the time for almost all the good content, so the people that can't be assed to take 3 minutes out of their busy afk and lobby chat schedule to check for a good build are clashing with everyone that does make an effort and gets pissed by those people dragging him down.
Few people would care about casuals being casual if they didn't have to carry them and miss out on good results all the time.

As for the new system, how the fuck can anyone get confused by it? You select a couple of weapons and the level of the weapon you grind rises. That's it. At lvl 10/20/30 you unlock the potential and the game tells you go grab some spheres to do it. Collection Sheets are super easy, too. You get progress bars and numbers and example enemies that drop the required weapons.
And again, if you can't tell you can always spend the 5 minutes to check the guides which are easy to find.

Ok, all that aside, Sega is still beyond retarded. I can't fucking believe it. I looked at the frequency bonus of this Scratch. For 5 you get a decent unique item as a nice incentive. For 15 you get a frigging Lucky Rise 1 crepe. And for 25 you get a 40% affix booster.
Pretty sure everyone scratched 25 times for that mini toro suit, it's a unique and fun costume. But there is no point whatsoever to scratch at all for a shitty 100 cube item you can get normally by doing 2-3 eqs. Or bingo.

PS: the rng is, kinda sorta ok. Could be worse at least. I hate stuff like Soul Catalyst or Returner 5 with the retarded 10% base success rate but aside from that it's alright now, with the new grinding system. And even for the old grinding system the success rates are decent now.
We don't lose our gear from trying to upgrade it and the only thing we lose when affixing fails is fodder. And if you spend more meseta you can get most stuff to 100%, too.

Remz69
Jun 10, 2016, 11:56 AM
why do we need so many walls of text to convey the simple reality that bad players are so because they don't care at all, have their brains turned off whilst playing and the game allows to get away with it

it's already been said, and there really isn't much more to it

isCasted
Jun 10, 2016, 01:21 PM
TBH the game not holding your hand till endgame is good. A game where guides are not important at endgame can only be simple and boring.
If the game was so easy that guides wouldn't be important, it would have to be so simple that it would get boring real fast.

Games can provide good challenge and variety without overcomplicated mechanics that you have to google to even understand. People usually might need guides to particular enemies or whatever in such games, but not about basic stuff. Whenever there are some complications, such games convey them in simple terms. Ultimately, game tells you to do things, you do them and it works, and it still can be fun.

What about PSO2? Let's see... Can a new player tell what DEX does? There aren't any "misses" (thankfully, btw), so how can you see what it does? How can you tell that 7+* weapons make DEX useless? How can you tell that crafting 7+* weapons makes it important again?
What about damage types? There are striking attacks on ranged weapons that use S-ATK, striking attacks on ranged weapons that use R-ATK, striking attacks on tech weapons that use either S or T-ATK... Which multipliers affect what?
I still have no idea which stat and damage type is Rod Shoot, I heard it's S-ATK to tech damage? What I definitely know is that it makes headshot sound like ranged attacks, but doesn't get 2x multiplier for it...? Same applies to Talis.
Element Conversion doesn't work with Jet Boots Gear.
What works for pets and what doesn't? Somehow affixes and mag work, but not weapon or PP Slayer?
Finally, the biggest offender... How can you tell which multipliers affect Zanverse? Seriously... It's not affected by anything on Force tree, but Perfect Keeper and High Time affect it somehow? What kind of weed did they smoke?


PS: the rng is, kinda sorta ok. Could be worse at least. I hate stuff like Soul Catalyst or Returner 5 with the retarded 10% base success rate but aside from that it's alright now, with the new grinding system. And even for the old grinding system the success rates are decent now.
We don't lose our gear from trying to upgrade it and the only thing we lose when affixing fails is fodder. And if you spend more meseta you can get most stuff to 100%, too.

*the only thing we lose is fodder* is a massive issue, because affixing cost grows exponentially for every slot. When you upslot things, not only you have more chance to fail in account of higher slot count, but every slot gets bigger penalty too, so making high-slot items from low-slot ones is pain in the ass. If you want one extra affix, cost gets multiple times higher even if it's a "dummy" affix that costs virtually nothing (say, Fever). Want something actually useful? Prepare you anus.

NT grinding is miles better than RNG (and yes, even old system is better than breaking your weapon entirely). But it's not entirely flawless either.
"Grinded chip gives more EXP than ungrinded one" as it is in PSO2es sounds like a cool concept on paper. However, there's no point in grinding a chip for sake of making it a fodder for another chip - a lot of EXP and money are lost this way. And then there are Rappy chips. System is deep, but pointless, because the dumbest way to do it is the best one.
NT grinding derives from that system with exact same flaws, except now your Rappy chips are Emper Embrace weapons... which, unlike Rappy chips, you can buy for Meseta. At least you had to do specific quests, or no Rappy chips for you.
The only piece of "depth" NT grinding has is a choice between "many Lambda, little Meseta" and "many Meseta, little Lambda" when grinding 13*. It only is a thing for 13* because they use a different type of Grinders. Given that you can now grind 13* with 5 Lambdas instead of 350 if you wish so, Lambdas are far easier to stack too, so they are slowly approaching state of regular Grinders. Regular Grinders could be removed from the game altogether, as their supply is simply infinite.

Achelousaurus
Jun 10, 2016, 02:11 PM
You kinda missed the point. As I said, the obscure mechanics are not nearly that important. If you get a normal weapon dex makes almost no different unless it's required to equip the weapon. And even when you craft we currently have dex so high that if you craft with silva or gold mats your min damage will be 80% or more and again it won't make much of a difference.

It's not like JA is an obscure mechanic. And stuff like element conversion not working with JB gear is something you'll notice within 1 minute of experimenting. Again, if you actually give even the slightest fuck about the game you'll quickly find out all the major mechanics and the obscure stuff you don't know doesn't make a huge difference.

And you also missed the point on fun. Chess rules are real simple. Yet it's incredibly complex. The point isn't that mechanics need to be complicated or unintuitive for a game to be fun, but the game shouldn't be so simple that guides are not important for high level play.

As for fodder, it's a gold sink so what do you expect? The entire point of an online game is keep people grinding. Give them a reason to play (getting stronger) which then gives them a reason to spend money (usually gear related) and then give them chores to do so they can make more money to improve gear to get stronger (tacos, etc.). That's what online rpgs are about. If you don't like the 94% from upslotting Flict, then don't. Then spend more money so you don't need to upslot and can get 100% on everything.

I plan on getting Austere rod soon and I'll 6s without upslotting cause the success rate is too low. And if you don't have the money, too bad for you. Cause what you are missing out when you don't do high end affixing is not a big chunk of damage, but a small, barely noticeable percentage. The amount of money needed for decent gear is really low.
And getting the best gear, best build, etc. only when you make an effort and check guides is common sense. If not, you'd we'd get every little thing shoved up our asses and it would be boring.

A game that is too easy, is not going to be fun. I'm not saying PSO2 is by any stretch of the imagination balanced or free of problems, but complaining about the things it does right or at least it doesn't do horribly bad just makes no sense.
There are more than enough problems worth complaining about.

Zyrusticae
Jun 10, 2016, 03:08 PM
Just going to throw in my 2c that the affix system is pure fucking evil and is the reason I still have default affixes on my Ideal set and why I will probably never affix my 13*s.

It's too much work for something that I only play for my own amusement. Needing spreadsheets and crap to figure this stuff out is BS. They should have replaced it with something similar to the Candy system a LONG time ago.

TaigaUC
Jun 10, 2016, 09:43 PM
As I've said a billion times, not all bad players are bad because they don't care.
There are plenty of people who want to get stronger but cannot or don't want to go through hell to do so.
The game design defines how accessible it is to get stronger.
When a game keeps overcomplicating and blocking people, of course they won't/can't improve.

And you should think to yourself, why don't such players care?
Because they keep winning anyway, there is no need to improve, and improving is a pain up the ass.
Those are also game design issues.
If you make a system complicated, complex, boring or frustrating, don't expect most newbies to use it.

I don't see why these points so difficult for people to grasp.
I know I've already repeated the same points too many times.
I don't think there's much else that I haven't already said.

There will always be bad players.
But do you really think that there'd be so many bad players, if getting stronger was more accessible and comprehensive??
I rest my case.


Back on topic, this scratch sure is boring.
I'm hearing from JP friends that people aren't buying it because they can see the scratch rates are bullshit.

Keilyn
Jun 10, 2016, 11:23 PM
Thank you to those who finally chose to do the right thing and write complete ideas, rebuttals, and arguments. I have enjoyed reading them. Due to finding out how to make fodder as well as affixing for cheap....I fell in love with the math and computation behind affixing. I am an applied math teacher who managed to get breaking news a few days ago. The Section I ran in Applied Mathematics had the highest Growth Rates for all the students in the entire state, and placed on the top one-hundred in the nation as well as far as Growth Scores are concerned. I was surprised and it made me really happy.

I mentioned once that in order to leave a legacy behind, one has to learn to write and express ideas.
For every problem that has a solution, one has to document that solution or the solution will die out after its carried out.

I am happy that more and more people in this forum are starting to write complete ideas and lose the fear over being attacked or declared as "wall of text" posters. I know people have the fear of being labeled here because if in the schools I worked with, a lot of people stated that their fear online was to fall out of context with the community and subculture they are part of by being away from the norm or irregular to them; similarities would exist here as well. I was asked to give them a sign that people can be different. I told them "look around.... what do you see? we see Black, White, Hispanics, Latinos, Asians....all sitting together side by side, all learning and sharing ideas side by side.... Its a rare thing and this does not happen in many places around the world.... You are different from just being in the same room and learning to accept and tolerate each other. Trust me on this....... to truly be American means being a person of two cultures....and holding on to them both!"

I know I am off-topic here
I am sorry..
,but I am happy that some people here have chosen to break the silence and at least be themselves... ^_^

~Keilyn

Enforcer MKV
Jun 11, 2016, 12:33 AM
Huh, actual discussion. That's....actually really nice to see.

Also; Agreeing with Zyru that affixing is evil incarnate.



Back on topic, this scratch sure is boring.
I'm hearing from JP friends that people aren't buying it because they can see the scratch rates are bullshit.

Why did Sega add the rates to this scratch, anyway? Is it due to the Japanese government cracking down on this type of thing?

The only reason I can see Sega putting those rates there for everyone to see is because they were forced to do so.

pkemr4
Jun 11, 2016, 12:41 AM
affixing would be less of a headache if shit like modulator was easier to obtain.

Xaeris
Jun 11, 2016, 12:42 AM
Again, your lack of experience in the genre is nakedly apparent. Developers have tried capitalizing on what you're suggesting, that the average performance of the playerbase would rise if the game mechanics were made idiotproof streamlined. The results were utter failure, and worse, they came at the expense of the players who enjoy a deeper game. I'm actually going to go in depth on this point because it's important that we all understand that streamlining idiotproofing a game is not a solution that helps anyone.

The first example we're going to discuss is Final Fantasy XIV. I touched on it earlier and now I'll be more specific. In FFXIV, the player's choices in growing their character's strength are extremely limited. The difference in racial stats aren't even worth mentioning. There's no skill tree or talent system: every level 60 black mage will possess the same core skills as any other level 60 black mage in all the worlds. Now, there is the opportunity to add to a character's skill repertoire by adding skills from other classes, but only select abilities are available, many of which are garbage in PvE play if not garbage altogether. The result there is that every level 60 black mage uses the same exact cross class skills: Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, Virus, Physick and Eye for an Eye. The funny thing? Black Mage only has six cross class skills available to it to begin with and the remaining choice is obviously a terrible one to anyone who can read tooltips, so it's just short of impossible for the player to choose the wrong cross class skills. That's how completely and utterly idiotproof character progression is in FFXIV.

Moreover, the itemization is similarly simple. No enchants, no potentials, no set bonuses, no affixes; any piece of gear that drops or the player obtains is absolutely ready to wear right away. Plus, at any given item level, there's rarely more than two options, which are always going to be identical in terms of the biggest factor on the gear, the primary stats. So again, the player has to go out of their way to equip themselves poorly. And on top of that, even the actual gameplay doesn't conspire to confuse the player. Most of the tooltips are clear and will reveal their class' proper rotation (which is the exact same for every member of that class, so again, no real way to cock it up) with the aid of five minutes' worth of critical thinking and fifth grade arithmetic.

In short, the game makes itself very easy to understand and play, not requiring external research or intensive preparation to play anything but top 1% of the content. By your reasoning, the game should be teeming and flourishing with high performing players. In reality, it wouldn't take me even three minutes on the FFXIV subreddit to find a thread bitching about bad players in Mhach, a pickup raid with no significant barrier to entry, right now.

Now let's talk about a game you're more familiar with, World of Warcraft. There are so many lessons WoW has to teach us about game design through its mistakes, but I'd like to keep the focus narrow so I'm just going to talk about one thing: Looking For Raid. I'm sure you already know, but for the people playing along at home, raiding in WoW is divided into four tiers of difficulty: Looking For Raid, Flex, Heroic and Mythic. LFR is the easiest difficulty and available to anyone who can find the button on their UI. While WoW is a game that asks the player to make many choices (though not as many as it used to) in regards to skills, equipment, and rotation, the bar in LFR is set extremely low. A player can make bunches of poor choices and still be capable of pulling their share of the load in LFR. It's unique from the other modes in that bosses are stripped of many of their most devastating and difficult to counteract abilities, and the abilities they are left with are nerfed to the point that failing to respond appropriately is not really an issue. And if that's not enough, a wipe quite literally makes the raid stronger through the Determination buff.

Basically, it's content that makes itself very welcoming and accessible. So welcoming and accessible that runs nearly always end in success. However, many of those runs end in success not because the raid was filled with players whose skills were facilitated by the content making itself easy to play, but because a handful of very skilled players dragged a bunch of dead bodies across the finish line. Not unlike EQs, come to think of it.

Now, I'll bring this home because I've spoken at length about games that aren't PSO2 on a PSO2 forum. My purpose in raising these examples is to demonstrate that yes, there absolutely would be so many bad players if getting stronger was more accessible and comprehensive. It may be counterintutitive to you, but that's reality as I've so demonstrated. Real talk: PSO2 is not a hard game. Oh sure, playing it at the MLG, "run Demise four times in the same hour," level is hard. But playing it at the intended level (as inferred from the fact that we're capped to two runs under normal circumstances) is not demanding at all. A failure to play it at that level is not a problem with affixes. It's not a problem with rings. It's not a problem with PA/technique crafts. Hell, it's not even a problem with skill trees unless they're really screwed up. No, screwing up at that level is a problem with something much more fundamental; a failure to just attack consistently, use of the wrong element, use of hideously outdated equipment, etc.

It's not Sega's responsibility to address these things. And frankly, I don't want them to make it their responsibility. Because you know what happens when they account for the fact that some portion of the playerbase may possess skills that aren't up to code? Yamato. Yamato is what happens.

Xaeris
Jun 11, 2016, 12:49 AM
Huh, actual discussion. That's....actually really nice to see.

Also; Agreeing with Zyru that affixing is evil incarnate.



Why did Sega add the rates to this scratch, anyway? Is it due to the Japanese government cracking down on this type of thing?

The only reason I can see Sega putting those rates there for everyone to see is because they were forced to do so.

There was lot of publicity in Japan earlier in the year about a guy who spent over 6k USD trying to get a particular waifu from the scratch equivalent in Granblue Fantasy. I imagine that this is Sega getting in front of the bus.

Keilyn
Jun 11, 2016, 01:41 AM
@Xaeris

In formal rules of argument and debate..
One is allowed to draw comparisons to prove a case. You are doing fine.

I loves FF XIV and wonder if you played. I was a white mage TAer and a crafter, One thing I hated about FF XIV was what you said... Endgame was all about BiS or Second Best in Slot for Ultility Builds. The difference between FF XIV and PSO-2 as far as why I play PSO-2 more than FF XIV, even though I like the Quality of FF XIV better is simply because PSO2 allows me to make the choice on how I want to play the game. This was the exact same thing that Arenanet promised with Guild Wars 2 in their release manifesto to end the Holy Trinity and allow players to play how they wanted and to live through their story. What players got were classes that were nerfed to the point each class can only play the way Arenanet intended you to play. The holy trinity was changed from Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer to having Five Damage Dealers all wearing Berserkers, Rampagers, or Knights Gear in practically every Time Attacked run in that game.

Regardless what people think of me...
I like what PSO-2 does even with all its problems what other games could not do....
Allow me to play the way I want to play, make my choices... live with the benefits and live with the consequences.

... I see two types of players in most games...

Players who wish to destroy the game as fast as possible and as hard as possible.
Players who want to explore the game for what its worth regardless their power levels...

Many fall in between these two, including myself.
But since I was in the first category in most other games, Phantasy Star games allowed me to become a better person by delving into the second category as well as the first guild wars....I love games that allow me to explore a bit. I remember having a scrap book of over 100 Elementalist Builds in the Original Guild Wars.....now that was priceless!

TaigaUC
Jun 16, 2016, 06:17 AM
Someone gave me a heads up to check this topic, but I don't want to waste time arguing. Also not feeling well.
I will just say a few things.

Just because I haven't played the same games doesn't mean I haven't played other games.
And this isn't about me. I am not just coming here and bitching from my personal perspective.
I've taken the complaints and concerns of veteran, casual and even non-gamers from various wakes of life and expressed them.
I could easily resort to name-calling and character assassination, but I won't. Because it's not about you or me. And it's not productive to do so.

I don't have anything more to say than what I've already pointed out.
So I am going to just list some of our points again. I say "our" because the people I've talked to agreed on these things.
- There is such a thing as bad game design.
- There will be people who suck regardless.
- It is not realistic to expect every player to already have past gaming experience. Moreso if you are marketing to non-gamers.
- It is not realistic to cater to complete opposites of audiences (ie. non-gamers and serious gamers) and sufficiently keep both happy for lengthy periods.
- It is not realistic to expect non-gamers to go out of their way to learn overcomplicated and complex systems that they have no interest or need for.
- It is bad game design to balance a game's difficulty around systems that most players aren't even aware exist, or do not believe are in any way necessary.
- There is such a thing as intuitivity. We are all humans, so we share certain expectations and behaviors.
- Game design encourages or discourages certain behaviors. It guides players, and teaches them how to play, what's expected of them, and what to expect.
- Players will not behave a specific way if you have not adequately and intuitively designed your game to steer players in the desired direction.
- People will not only play within invisible boundaries intended by the designers. As such, is it ridiculous to blame only the player for not playing the game as intended.

I don't see why these points are even disputable.
When you bring up other games failing to fix issues, this is what comes to my mind:
They designed their game in such a way as to create those situations to begin with. People can only act within the context provided to them.
Not all game design flaws are fixable. Especially if they have decided to stick with certain self-inflicted contraints. These limit their solution options.
Designers will choose whatever path is best suited to their interests, which may not always be a viable solution.
So there's no point telling me that you played this or that game that had an issue and their fixes failed.

PSO2's constraints consist of intentional dripfeeding, pitfalls to trick people into paying, adding "new" near-identical systems to perpetuate the illusion of new content, etc.
As I said before, PSO2 has issues with accessibility, confusion, overcomplexity, intuitivity, vagueness, etc.
These all discourage and limit players from being better at the game than they could be.
If I recall correctly, 4gamer reviews are also peppered with such complaints. I'm not just making shit up or using only my own experiences.
I've already told you I know people who've played tons of other much more difficult games, but gave up on PSO2 because it's too much of a pain to deal with.

The fact that skilled veteran gamers gave up on dealing with PSO2's issues proves that the issue isn't solely that "players suck" and "they don't care to improve".
It's that SEGA makes it unnecessarily difficult for people to improve and understand the game's systems... via BAD GAME DESIGN.
A game can be complex, but designed in such a way that most people can learn it easily. PSO2 fails at this. Because it has bad game design.
If veteran gamers don't want to deal with the bad design, how do you think casual and non-gamers feel about it?

PSO2 often throws people right into battle without explaining anything.
It took forever for most people to understand how sockets get infected and form into towers. That is just one example.
If you aren't witnessing the effects firsthand, you won't know it's important or not. I've made this mistake myself.
Sure, if you go out of your way to do research, you can become more knowledgeable. But you can't expect non or casual gamers to do this.
You could easily solve that by forcing all players to play a short tutorial that shows them what they need to know. That would greatly improve their effectiveness.

Yes, there are explanation windows. But I know a lot of people do not read them.
Why? Because it's not fun to read walls of text when you just want to jump into a game and have fun. Especially not right before an EQ, or in the middle of battle.
Also, if you need to explain too many things to players at once, then that is also bad game design. You need to introduce things one a time, more slowly.
Nobody wants to suddenly have to learn 101 things just to enjoy every small bit of new content. They JUST WANT TO PLAY THE GAME.

PSO2 also misleads players by breaking its own precedents. They lead players to form expectations, and then betray them.
Falz Loser behaves a certain way until level 70, and then suddenly requires a different strategy. Loser is the only boss that behaves like this.
How can you say it's entirely the players' fault for expecting Loser to behave the same as before?
Sure, they can see the core being blocked, but it doesn't mean they will know what to attack instead. There are too many targets for them to decide.

SEGA's general behavior very much betrays the fact that they have no real long term plan for PSO2.
They just add stuff as it goes along. That's why so many things in the game feel so utterly detached from each other.
I'm not the only one who has noticed or said this. 4gamer reviews and other people I know have also said this.
So it's not really surprising that PSO2 suffers from bad game design.

If SEGA had made class tutorials compulsory, and a practical grinding/affixing tutorial compulsory, I am absolutely certain that the overall quality of players would be much higher.
As it is now, it is too late to fix the problem. At the very least, the tutorials should have been place in before the influx of PS4 users.
But they were too busy finalizing Star Gems.
That is why I laugh at their "after the fact" tutorials that probably nobody is doing or watching.
I told you what the non-gamer players have been saying. They believe the equipment and upgrades are not important at all. The game design led them to believe that.
They are not going to watch a tutorial for something they've already won at many times.

Game designers create a context for players to play within.
It's their responsibilty to guide players to some degree. But you cannot expect players to behave a certain way, especially if you do nothing to direct them.
It is not the player's responsibility to read the minds of the game designer and behave as intended.

Not going to say anymore. I know I'm already just repeating myself.
If I'm still not getting my points across, then maybe I'm not concise enough to do so.


Edit:
One more thing I keep forgetting to say:
PSO2 wasn't as convoluted at the beginning. It was still vague, etc. But there were less systems.
The gameplay was more straightforward. No learning how to deal with infected sockets, Exoda AIS, etc.
Most of us started playing back then.

But think of all the casual players who joined at the start of episode 4.
There are now waaaaaaay too many things for them to take in and learn.
They aren't being introduced to these elements one at a time like we were.
It's full-on, all at once. That is also an issue.
Arks Road is probably the closest thing to directing players, but I wonder how many people bother with that?
I bet most people just jump right into the game and rarely go back. Especially because they are getting by and winning anyway.

I severely doubt most people want to spend more than a few moments on any tutorial. You have to make it fast and simple.
If the systems require too much explaining, then you have too many systems and ought to streamline them. Just don't go too far with the simplifying.


Edit2:
A friend is telling me that they have some friends who come back to the game and were overwhelmed by all the changes.
They were following guides online and had no idea they were horribly outdated and completely irrelevant.
They also kept newly discovering stuff that used to matter years ago. One of them didn't realize there was a new graphics setting for 2 months.
Not realizing stuff is even in the game seems to be a very widespread issue. As I said before, I know two Japanese casual players who didn't know there was a Recycle Shop.
To some degree, better game design could easily resolve some of these kinds of issues.
Or, you know, stop trying to court players who obviously won't be able to keep up.
Or at least do a better job of accommodating and helping them integrate with veteran players.