Photon Arts: This Game's Only Weakness

[pinkace]

Dammit.... I loved leveling up my PA's. I would show up with a high level PA and it would MEAN something, that I earned it, that I deserved it.

I keep forgetting that when playing this game it doesn't matter if you land a critical PA combo, it won't level up, won't make a difference.


it just.... sucks.

[Rehks]

I agree.I use to just spam PA's just to level them up. But since they took out the level up portion. Its now mostly based on luck to get the one you want. Sadface );

[Linka]

honestly, the new system is weird, yes, but it's not without advantages. first of all, because of the system, two-handed weapon PAs start with the first two stages available. second, you don't have to start with a level 1 PA that you need. well, except Infinite Storm, or whatever ones you end up with at the start. but then again, finish chapter one and afterwards you can just buy better versions!

however, the whole 'disk level system' can feel abit double-edged later on. for example, level 200 and still trying to get those last few level 30 disks you need to maximize your weapons' potential damage. feels almost the same for me with Linka at 76. just annoyed that i'd have to do missions i wouldn't normally run, or can't run yet safely due to enemy level, just to get stronger PAs. but the system is so much a virtue early on, as it doesnt feel as annoying earlier on. tho Force users probably hate it even more than others later on.

overall though, its a nice change of pace. its double-edged, but at least in some peoples' minds they feel they just got one less thing to grind levels on now.

[Geiz]

Leveling them sort of made more sense, but the bullets especially I found super quick to level. Having to find them hits my tech user hardest so I usually use my higher level character to find them.

[BIG OLAF]

I thought it was a lot nicer not having to worry about leveling PAs on your own. Having "low level" PAs never hindered me, and gave me some extra things to look out for when doing missions. Sometimes I would do an entire mission just to find a certain level PA disk (because some of them are kind of hard to find, such as Renzan Seidan-ga).

Honestly, I hope they keep that style of "PA finding", instead of "PA leveling" for PSO2.

[Akaimizu]

Actually, it's a little more like PSO, in that regard. I actually found I like this better. Levelling the stuff manually was tedious and often kept you avoiding the right-tech for the right-time aspect because you needed to level something up. The problem with it before was just the whole balance of it all. If you didn't tirelessly just go somewhere to spam your PAs, you often were faced with a very imbalanced collection of creatures of certain elements. So basically, you could play 1000 hours or so, and without the spamming, you'd have these certain things raised through the roof and then all these other *way less used* PAs at seriously low leves.

With this system, it actually does come to you, and still at a fairly appropriate time. Not to mention, you get everything leveled without the tedium. That is, you get your spead of arts levelled before you know it. As long as you're levelling and continuing to do stronger missions, you'll get them all. Maybe some PAs come a bit later over others, but it works out. This time, you can simply concentrate on taking monsters down in the best or coolest way you know how. (And all the other complexities this game introduces now)

[Mracless]

I concur with BIG OLAF. Keep PA finding. Levelling them up is so bloody boring.

Character level and type level are enough to grind for.
There are far too many PAs to level up.

Unless you're an ass, you can't level up low level PAs in random parties or else you're a hinderance to the team, so you have to level them up when you're alone or with friends that don't mind.
Having lots of high level PAs in PSU doesn't show that you're skilled. It just shows that you gave up a lot of your life.

I think that finding high level PAs is quite a treat, just like finding rare weapons you want.

Anyway, that's just how I feel.

[RemiusTA]

Dammit.... I loved leveling up my PA's. I would show up with a high level PA and it would MEAN something, that I earned it, that I deserved it.

I keep forgetting that when playing this game it doesn't matter if you land a critical PA combo, it won't level up, won't make a difference.


it just.... sucks.

Leveling method for photon arts was a huge drag for this game, honestly. They switched to the PSO method of upgrading the moves, but in truth they executed it kind of poorly.

IMO, going into a mission and spamming a single move was extremely drab, especially since i mained a Fortetecher and leveling the skills was ABSOLUTE hell and actually accounted for a decent fraction of my overall play time. They NEED to do away with all the grinding aspects of this game. It's really not good for MMOs, and there are tons of ways you can go about leveling skills other than spamming them in a group of enemies.

I refuse to ever play a game again where i have to do the equilivent of spamming Seed Express / Sleeping Warriors A while using a single spell for hours on end, just for the technique to useful at the very minimum.


Most of PSU's issues with photon art leveling is that they broke the entire combo up into 3 button presses. If each, or ever other, hit in the combo was a result of the level of the technique, then they could have broken it up into less than a 10 level gap before the gain was useful. If I was rewarded every, oh, 3 or 4 levels instead of every 10, then perhaps the PAEXP method wouldn't have been so boring. But sitting in a spam party to level my buffs to 50 when they only increase in usefulness 4 times is a COMPLETE waste of time.

[redroses]

I wonder why they just don't mix both styles together.
Like that, you can have the option to level your photon arts if there is nothing else to do, or they level up by themselves while playing, or you have the chance to find discs.
This way you can benefit from both.

[RemiusTA]

Well, the way Forces worked in PSO, finding a higher leveled spell was pretty much the equivalent of tekking a rare weapon, since 4 or 5 levels was a decent increase in both power and technique.

I think that idea would work too, but only if there was a cap that you could spam to before having to find the disk to jump over the limit. Otherwise everyone would be tempted to just spam PA's again, which is very annoying.