New player needing some Q/A help!

[Jessimanjaro]

Hey guys,

I saw a thread for quick questions and answers but I feel like I need to start a new thread for this post, I have quite a few! I've been playing for a week, trying to figure out as much as I possibly can, but I've always been very avid about understanding the ins and outs of games that I play, and so for my first week everytime I saw something I didn't understand I wrote it down on a huge notepad! Everytime I figured out the answer to one of the questions, I crossed it off. These are the remaining questions, and I would really appreciate the support if anyone would like to answer any of them for me and help me out.

I have a deep love for this game, episode 1 and 2 on the dreamcast and gamecube were my favorite addictions when I was younger. Life happens, and so I was not keeping up with sega or the community since the servers were taken down, but now at 24 years old I've stumbled across this sequel and so far it's everything and more than I would have ever wanted!

I'm also looking for a team to work with if anyone has a great community that would take me in, I'm currently a level 32 human hunter playing on ship 2. My characters name is Jessimanjaro. Definitely interested in endgame activity and maximizing my character's potential.

So here we go! This is what's left on my 3 pages of questions from my notepad, I found most of the answers through trial and error and forum browsing, but these remain.

Thank you to anyone in advance! I really appreciate you taking your time to help a new player, and I will absolutely pass it forward.

1. What is the gauge above the shift weapon key in the middle? It refills with attacks and depletes with the use of photon art it seems like but I don't seem to notice anything different.

2. Are just attacks important? I seem to use a playstyle that just mainly kills with photon art and I use regular attacks to build pp. I saw some skills that boost just attacks, are they viable that way or are regular attacks just to refill pp?

3. Do mags evolve with just leveling or are devices required? I'm working off of pso1 knowledge with mags, mine is level 65 and it evolved once. I have two mag devices, one that says it produces monomates and another that will evolve it into puyo. Does the monomate one evolve my mag? Can I use both? Is Puyo something cool?

4. Do you get more or less exp when playing with party members?

5. I saw a large group of people in block one forming partys for an emergency quest with a health % and broadcast at the top of the screen. What exactly is this? Can someone give me a broad overview? It looked cool, when can I start participating and what would my role be as a hunter?

6. Crafting is horribly confusing. What can I craft? What should I craft? How do I craft? Is it important? Just a broad overview would be amazing.

7. What is the bingo panel that pops up every once in a while? I can't read Japanese so I usually have no idea what's going on with that.

8. How exactly does the matter board work and how important is it? In the beginning of the game in the forest missions and things I had cutscenes that filled out spots of the matterboard and I believe it opened up forest exploration. Since then I haven't seen any cutscenes, but I've been able to continue to open up new areas and arks quests just by completing them in order.

9. As a human hunter, I'm able to learn techniques, but I haven't figured out how to cast them. Is that just in case I want to play FO?

10. What are the crystals I keep picking up? I have 3 stacks of types, they drop pretty randomly and they are in my inventory by the quest items.

11. What on earth is FUN and what can I do with it?

12. What are support devices, food devices, stat devices?

13. What is an excube, how do I acquire them and what are they used to by? I have a couple from campaign rewards or something like that.

14. How do titles work? It's very much all in Japanese and I got a lot of items from it when I found the desk but I have no idea how I got those or what they do.

15. In terms of weapon stats, I'm primarily looking at S-atk. However, which does more damage to an enemy, a weapon with an S-atk of 150 or a weapon with an S-atk of 130 and a lightning bonus of 30? Assuming the enemy is neutral to lighting.

16. I keep receiving badges. How am I getting them and where can I exchange them and what for?

17. Do drops from enemies drop separately for all players? I don't think I've seen anyone else pick anything up. In case it's not separate though, what is drop etiquette? Are we still playing meseta jenka for rares? XD

18. How does your subclass level with your main class?I have fighter set as my sub and decided to work on it later, but it seems to be leveling with me. Does it get half exp or something? Also, as a subclass levels up do you receive more stats from it or is the main benefit the skill tree?

19. Is there a way to send items to your other characters on the ship?

20. What exactly is a PSE burst and how does it work? When I kill things fast it seems like I get bonuses for exp, meseta, and elemental damage. I've had a timer pop up for something that says PSE burst twice and I have no idea what it is or what to do. The tutorial for that was all in Japanese.

21. Is 75 the max level?

22. What exactly is endgame? Is it just character progression, getting the best gear or is there something to tackle together when you're geared to the teeth?

23. What exactly is premium? Better drop rates and stuff?

24. What is the point of my room?

25. Is there a reason to deposit meseta? I don't think I've lost any when I've died.

26. How can I reset my skill tree? It says I need a voucher, but it doesn't have the arks ash logo next to it so I'm being hopeful. I just recently realized you can scroll down on the tree and there's a whole second half. Fury stance would be kinda nice right now.

27. What can arks cash get you? Is there a shop to browse? Is it mostly cosmetic or are there helpful items too?

28. Should I be saving things with rare drop %+ for end game or later in the game? Like tri boosts.

29. What exactly is the meseta economy like? Costumes seem to cost millions, while a rare wired lance weapon that was way better than anything I was using x3 was only 3000 meseta and I have about a mil. I'm just confused haha.

30. Is there anything in specific I should be using photon drops for?

31. Are the npc players worth bringing on missions? I always bring echo since she casts shifta and deband. They have faces next to them, do they get better when they like you more? How do I make them like me more?

32. The 3 armor pieces you equip, I don't quite understand what to be looking for. I believe the purple square icon with added stats is referred to as potential? I found something called vol soul which seems to add the most S-atk so I went to the visiphone shops and bought a set of three that had vol soul on it (all matching blue spikes of course). Are these kinda just fashion > function? Is there something specific I should be looking for as a hunter? Gameplan right now is to go back after like 15 levels and buy 3 more with vol soul that have higher defense.



I know that's a lot of questions but any help is super appreciated! Message me if you see me in game, I could use some friends =)

(ps, how do I whisper? lol)

[Anduril]

1. Weapon Gauge. Depending on what weapon you are using, they have different effects.

2. Just attacks give a significant boost in attack, especially if you have skills that boost them. There is never a reason not to Just Attack, especially if you normal attack, then JA into a PA.

3. Mags evolve at 30 and 100. The monomate one is a trigger action; you should already have two on your mag, one being HP Restore A, as well as some blank slots for them. The puyo one is just a reskin for the mag; it can be used at lv100.

4. The more people in your party, the more EXP. NPC partners give boosted EXP, but not as much as actual players.

5. Magatsu and Luther EQs have that counter. For Magatsu, the final percentage will be the post EQ boost you get; for Luther, the percentage is the defeat percent of his minions: any percentage after 100% will be a drop boost for Luther himself. You can play these missions on whatever level you are, just make sure you are in a block for that mission level.

6. Crafting is done from the MyRoom panel in your room. For lower level gear and certain builds, crafting can be quite good. Basically, Crafting will override the stats of a weapon to a standard and can raise the stats to a much higher level for certain weapons. The one draw back comes from crafting 7*+ weapons: 7* weapons have a hidden DEX bonus that reduces their damage variance, with the exception of Red and Blue Weapons, but when you craft them that hidden bonus is lost, meaning a greater damage variance. Affixing your weapons and units can help reduce this variance, as well as using higher level craft recipes that use Silva-class materials. Crafting weapons can also give them multi-class usage (ie. you can craft a Bow that can be used by Hunter). Uses PA Fragments, Rubinad-line, and -nia/-dest/-grimo materials.
Unit affixing is different: a lot of units have natural bonuses; crafting strips them and adds different ones. Doing this to some units is really good, combined with their Set bonuses, but other units are better off uncrafted. Uses PA Fragments, Neogit-line, and -rias/-arms/-legs materials for standard crafting, and ExCubes for special recpies.
Timed Unit Abilities are basically boosts that you give units that apply under certain circumstances; the only draw back is that using them account locks the units. Uses the same mats from Unit crafting in addition to Planet Crystals and Photon Drops.
Materials can be obtained by desynthesizing 7*+ weapons and units, and lv11+ PA discs.

7. The Bingo cards are part of the current Vita Anniversary event. That link and this one have translations for the Bingo cards.

8. The Matterboards are how you progress through the story. Completing the nodes will advance the story and unlock the actual story missions. Each node is one of two things: watch the event or collect the item from a specific enemy.

9. Techs can only be used by Force, Techer, and Bouncer, but through the subclass system, you can main Hunter and subclass as one of the aforementioned classes and cast techs.

10. Those Crystals are used for Unit Timed effects, part of crafting.

11. FUN is a currency that you can either spend at the FUN shop or use in the FUN scratch.

12. Those are mag devices that do various things including adding new trigger actions, changing your mag's attack, changing your Photon Blast, and raising your mag's level without maxing its hunger bar.

13. ExCubes can be used at the ExCube Shop for various exchanges like 1000 FUN tickets, new mag PBs, and Luck Rise affixed units. You can get them from trading 10* and 11* weapons at the Recycle shop and by gaining EXP after hitting lv.75.

14. Titles are gained from doing various things including getting NPC partners, using chat, crafting, and grinding items amongst other things. They are basically like achievements/trophies.

15. Elemental percentage always gives a damage boost regardless of elemental weakness.

16. Badge shop.

17. Drops are unique for each person. Pick up whatever you want.

18. Subclasses gain 10% EXP and level up to lv55, after which you have to main them to get to lv75. You get 20% of the subclass' stats added to your main class up to the level of your main class. (If your subclass is 50, but your main is 40, you only get the equivalent 20% stats of the subclass at 40 not at 50.)

19. Storage is shared between all you characters on the same ship.

20. PSE Bursts increase the spawn of enemies for the duration of the burst. In MPAs this is a great way to get EXP and drops.

21. Yes.

22. Mostly just gear hunting, but thee is also the Ultimate Naberius Quest, but even then, it's mostly a hunt for 13* weapons from Anga.

23. Premium is basically like a subscription. It gets you certain perks like increased storage, access to VIP space in blocks, more FUN, double Client Order slots, double log-in stamps, access to setting up a MyShop, amongst other things.

24. With MyRoom you can place items to boost crafting and also place your Support Partner.

25. No reason except if you want to share it between your characters.

26. SEGA will occasionally give out All Tree Resets, but only when they do major skill changes. Otherwise, you need to buy skill resets or new trees with AC.

27. AC can get you various things. This page has a list of things you can get with AC, expanded Inventory being one of the most useful.

28. It's up to you, but until late game drops don't matter much since you'll most likely be cycling through gear rather quickly until you hit SH.

29. Cosmetic stuff tends to be expensive because it has limited release, while weapons are always available and drop rates make some items super common.

30. EXP+75% booster are good to trade for, and you also need Photon Crystals to unlock weapon potentials.

31. Like I said, more characters in your party give more EXP. Some NPCs will give you new COs when they are happier with you and partner NPC will give you presents at higher happiness.

32. Units are the replacement of armor. What you are calling potentials are affixes. Matching sets of units give stat bonuses, so you should look for sets that give you what you are looking for. There are also some craft recipes for units that give good boosts (+100HP, +10PP, +4% resistance). If you look around, you can find out more info on affixing your gear.



And here are a few sites that can help you out:

PSUblog has lots of guides that are mostly updated
Cirnopedia is an English database for the game, but it isn't always up to date.
The JP wiki is always up to date, but unless you read Japanese, you are at the mercy of Google Translate.
Skill Tree Simulator
Damage Simulator
Affix Simulator

Feel free to PM me for any more questions/clarification, or use the Quick Question thread.

[Jessimanjaro]

Thank you so so much. That helps a lot! Really appreciate you taking the time to answer all those, I'll definitely be quick to help a new person down the road. You are a champion!

[Kiyumi]

omg Anduril leave some of the questions for me

I guess I can give a tip that I wish I knew when I was new. Youll want to feed your mag Satk weapons, and then feed it 4* room goods to -Dex. Ideal mags are all of 1 stat (ie lvl 190 mag should be 190 Satk, lvl 0 everything else) You can buy room goods from the My Room shop attendant near Franka.

I like helping new players too. Theres plenty of us, dont hesitate to ask! Welcome to both PSO2 and PSOworld.

[Jessimanjaro]

omg Anduril leave some of the questions for me

I guess I can give a tip that I wish I knew when I was new. Youll want to feed your mag Satk weapons, and then feed it 4* room goods to -Dex. Ideal mags are all of 1 stat (ie lvl 190 mag should be 190 Satk, lvl 0 everything else) You can buy room goods from the My Room shop attendant near Franka.

I like helping new players too. Theres plenty of us, dont hesitate to ask! Welcome to both PSO2 and PSOworld.

Thank you for the tip! Messed that one up already, my mag has some DEX on it. How would I go about acquiring a second mag?

[Kiyumi]

Unfortunately the only way is to spend real money. Youre only level 32, so its probably better to start over if you really care about minmaxing and want a fresh mag. However players like me who have messed up their mags can still do fine, although Im down about -80 Satk from my endgame build because of bad mag. If I was you I would restart though, levels are easy to get especially for new characters.

[Searaphim]

Keep in mind that dex is always useful when lvling multiple classes as it gives stats to equip many weapons like the multi-class weapons. So if you ever intend on spending a bit of money in the game then you should stick to your current mag. Dex in itself really isn't that bad if you only spent some points on it. It's even a bit useful because it lowers the min-max damage variation towards max damage (more dps). So yeah, if you compare that to spending points in def (very useless) then it's really not a big deal.

[Jessimanjaro]

I like both perspectives =) I think I'll spend some money for the game, I'm always down to support! Thanks guys!!