Extra mode rare drops, compared to online

[MrPOW]

I've put about 25 hours into Extra mode and my character has maxed out at level 100. I also have both Ranger and Hunter classes maxed out at level 10 and am working on leveling the Force class. It saddens me to say so, but I'm just about bored with the game. I realize playing online is where it's at, but I have the PS2 version so I can't go online. Except for leveling my PM and figuring out to unlock Expert classes, the only thing left to is to hunt rares.

How do drops work online? I imagine the drops for a given mission on B-rank are better than the same mission on C-rank? In Extra mode you can't choose mission difficulty, so all the best drops come from the 3 or 4 hardest missions. The only rares I've found that aren't synthesis ingredients have been some s-rank daggers and an s-rank unit that I can't use. In doing the same few missions over and over I keep getting the same drops over and over. I find it hard to beleive that most of the online rare items could be in extra mode...there's not enough enemy types to drop very many different rares in just the hardest missions.

With missions only being around 10 minutes long I'm just getting really tired of doing the same few over and over. Especially that one in the desert when it's all frozen, which seems to be the best way to earn money. I've noticed that shops sell s-rank (rare?) weapons...about one of each type, but I've just about gotten all those bought up. Could these be replacements for drops? Or are these same weapons available to buy from shops online too? I guess I'm just kind of disappointed that the offline gameplay just doesnt seem to be lasting like PSO on GC did. That's what I was playing in anticipation of PSU, and what it looks like I'll have to go back to playing for at least another month and a half...

[GaijinPUnch]

How do drops work online?

Right now, they really don't. There are some 7-star items, but theyr'e not weapons, just elements. I mean, Scapedolls are an 8-star I think.

[Phalynx]

Do you have to do missions? Or can you just go through areas and dungeons like in PSO?

[Ryoga4523]

Why does this game seem less contact packed like PSO. I mean sure there was only 4 different area, but at least you can choose your difficulty level and expect certain "real" rares, not scape dolls... -_-!

[Tycho]

I can't really tell you much other than that real 'rares' are quite scarce online currently, but here's a question for you: do you have any clue if rare drops are tied to monsters or to the areas themselves, and if monsters could drop multiple kinds of rares? I'm quite interested to learn more about this.

[Mewn]

We already know of some obviously specific drops, such as Linear Line dropping from Boxes in Linear Line on C-Rank, and Rappies dropping Rappy Feather, but I get the feeling that many drops are global.

[Kamica]

On 2006-09-11 23:23, Ryoga4523 wrote:
Why does this game seem less contact packed like PSO. I mean sure there was only 4 different area, but at least you can choose your difficulty level and expect certain "real" rares, not scape dolls... -_-!



Nono getting a scepedoll is something to be happy about.

[princejake2]

25hrs and you hit 100 already? Good goddamn!

[Longhair-nyu]

yeah 25hrs should be easy possible, i've played extra mode about 4hrs and already have lv 20... it's a little to easy i think http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_frown.gif
Scapedolls are nothing really special, i found one every third run, and you don't really need them because PSU is really easy.

[MrPOW]

Yeah...its at least good to hear that its alot harder to level online. Its about as easy to level in Extra mode as it is in Story mode. In fact, instead of thinking of Extra mode as "Offline" mode as I orginally did, it's really more like a free story mode, with shorter areas and no cut-scenes.

Another thing that sucks is that unlike PSO where you would make at least one character of each of the 3 main classes in order to be able to use all of the weapon types in the game, I really don't see the point in making another character to level, because due to class-switching I can already use everything I find. I hope no one gets too disheartened about the game reading all this, because I guess I am complaining alot, however I do think Online will be awesome. I would say, however, that as offline only the game doesn't have a whole lot of staying power (compared to PSO at least).

As I continue to look for rares I'll post back what I find and where to maybe figure the system out a bit more. Of course Online and Extra mode might work completely different... The only rare weapon drop I've found was in the Hive, so I'm mainly just doing that over and over, and also that frozen desert level because you can make about 100k meseta each run.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MrPOW on 2006-09-12 06:00 ]</font>

[Kaply]

MrPOW hasn't gotten to the point where his PAs get filled, once you fill those up, then you start to understand that you do need some focus.

[AngelLight]

On 2006-09-12 06:36, Kaply wrote:
MrPOW hasn't gotten to the point where his PAs get filled, once you fill those up, then you start to understand that you do need some focus.


I assume you mean when PAs start having specialized crafting abilities correct?

[Kaply]

On 2006-09-12 06:40, AngelLight wrote:


On 2006-09-12 06:36, Kaply wrote:
MrPOW hasn't gotten to the point where his PAs get filled, once you fill those up, then you start to understand that you do need some focus.


I assume you mean when PAs start having specialized crafting abilities correct?



No, there's a limit of 36 PAs per character. That includes skills, bullets and techs. I believe someone mentioned there's 30+ techs, which means you can only get a few more PAs to round out a character. Thus they would have a lackluster Ranger if they decided to pick up bullets because there's about 6 bullets per weapon available.

[AwakenSardis]

On 2006-09-12 06:40, AngelLight wrote:


On 2006-09-12 06:36, Kaply wrote:
MrPOW hasn't gotten to the point where his PAs get filled, once you fill those up, then you start to understand that you do need some focus.


I assume you mean when PAs start having specialized crafting abilities correct?



PA = photon art= special attack

PM= partner machine = specialized crafting

[SeraphZero]

I have to admit that so far playing extra, there's just not the same ammount of sticking power as say PSO-GC, like MrPOW has stated. It's pretty unfortunate as i clocked hundreds of hours playing offline solo or alongside my brother in the old PSO, but anyone looking for the same kind of fix may be disappointed.

Of course, i know that online will be completely different, and require alot more work, as well as access to the proper mission structures, extended story and real rares.

I've found a few rares offline in extra mode in a number of places other than the HIVE, but the drops aren't incredibly varied.

This mode however is perfect practice to get used to the game areas, concepts and enemies... so i'm pretty much using it to test out the different classes and technics in prep for the US release when i'll start playing online. But even for that purpose it's still relatively stripped down, as playing as hunter i only have access to one photon art for each weapon. And no ammount of s-ranking has yielded any other discs. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime2.gif

But hey it's still 'some' good fun... at least i'm enjoying it. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime1.gif But online is def where it'll be at!

[Rubesahl]

I think its still early to call on PSU's online content amount since the game is actually in Beta O_o ST has [or so they said] planned VERY frequent updates to online quests that continue the story. So until the official service starts, we won't really know.

Here's a thought, if JP PSU launches per se in October [as in the beta ends and official service begins] then the excuse about JP and NA version not having the same content would go down the drain http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif and they'll probably still separate them http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif Annoying I know lol I'm enjoying PSU online right now but I'm definitely getting the NA version http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif I have to admit I'll miss the JPN XD I've had a lot of fun playing with them http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Nika]

s-rank unit that I can't use
S-rank unit, every character can use. However, you need to buy S-rank armor comtain S-rank extra slot.
About rare item ,there are some more,but not S-rank and not very good. However, it's not sell on the shop and very rare. Did you get that all?
Compare to PSO, yes, in PSO there is a lot more rare to find, but that is on the VH/Ultimate mode. wait for extra patch ,I think they will add a lot more rare.
[PS: you didn't mention S-rank big sword, did you get that? that is the best S-rank one and not in the shop)




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nika on 2006-09-12 07:40 ]</font>

[Valkayree]

I'm just kind of disappointed that the offline gameplay just doesnt seem to be lasting like PSO on GC did. That's what I was playing in anticipation of PSU, and what it looks like I'll have to go back to playing for at least another month and a half...



That's because they force you into missions rather than letting you go freeform like PSO with Forest>Caves>Mines>Ruins or Temple>Spaceship>Gal Griffon Triple Area>Seabeds. You could start at the harder areas like ruins online if you had beat them already, and the same goes for offline playing multiplayer. Online you could do the same freeform, or start challenge mode, or do missions, etc. They actually did offline multiplayer on PSO close to perfect, except for the vulnerabilities within the game allowing for duping, etc, which makes me think that is the reason why offline may be a little rough at the moment. Hopefully a few more missions will be available for download, on wait you can't go online. That sucks.

[MrPOW]

S-rank unit, every character can use. However, you need to buy S-rank armor comtain S-rank extra slot.


I knew that. The armor I have is pretty good armor and has slots for every type of unit except the type of the s-rank I found.



Hopefully a few more missions will be available for download, on wait you can't go online. That sucks.


Yeah I just can't go online because the servers won't let you connect from a US PS2. When the game comes out here it won't matter though because I doubt I'll even touch extra mode.

I didnt know about the 36 PA limit. I'm glad I found out now, I havent bought any techs just yet. This makes me wonder about unlocking expert classes... I was intially going to max out each of the 3 main classes and then check to see if the option to pick an expert class would be available. However, I can't really afford to buy many techs and still be a good ranger, which is what my character was primarily made to be...which will make maxing out the force class difficult.

[Sexy_Raine]

Is leveling up that easy? I hope not. I hope there's a way to choose a harder difficulty, or least add one.

[Itsuki]

It might actually force the FOs to specialize. Perhaps get Ras of a couple elements, Gis of a few different ones. Perhaps have some FO go "full support" and get very few attack spells outside of the support ones. I actually hope they eventually add an NPC to remove techs. Making it so that if you re-bought them and re-learned them then they would go back down to level 1, or perhaps in some other way make it so that you don't want to do it often. I imagine online, just like offline, there are "rare" PAs. If you are aleady maxed out and then they add some new rare PA or a new PA gets unlocked, doesn't that make you a bit screwed?