How would you rate Episode 3?

[Flaoc]

I think EP4 will fix this a bit because there is no Boss area on Free map making it a grind only map like the UQ, there will be stones and the weapons are very powerful 13*, and of course people will be leveling up summoner.
So for a while mate we will be playing like the old times on free map.



I was being sarcastic about the passes.

oh fair enough

[SteveCZ]

10/10
10/10
10/10
I enjoyed it. Nice trees. 13*s. Still fun UQs. Escalated EQs. Nerfed WBs. Exciting Solo XQ. Far balanced tree compare to Eps 1 and 2. Exciting hidden potents. Controversial 7* reds. Fun mid 2015 LQ. Hopelessly no 35/3 R-ATK soul the entire episode, sick Soul Catalyst/Astral Soul, etc.
10/10
10/10
10/10

[TaigaUC]

Ep 3 started out well (rebalancing, etc), and then they relied way too heavily on farming 13 star related stuff.
Ultimate is still insanely boring to me. XH is just SH with more HP and a few new drops. Super dripfeed.
I'd like to see more new, interesting bosses. Ultimate bosses are mostly stronger or different versions of old bosses.

I hate that they're trying to focus on main class. Makes the game lose a lot of depth.
I'd hoped they would try to create more incentive to mess around with class combinations, not remove incentive.

Challenge Quest and solo Extreme are steps in the right direction, but they both have issues.
Also doesn't help that it's been, what, a year and we've only seen two CQs and one new XQ?
Not to mention only two Ultimate quests. Ultra dripfeed.
Lacking Time Attacks too. I don't remember when we got the Ocean TA.
Ocean TA = too many boring switches and buttons. Harukotan TA = no EXP/items, reduced incentive. Very short/simple, but not sure if that's good or bad.

I was never a fan of the whole Harukotan planet Japan thing, but other people seem to like it.
I still haven't gone through the story myself, but it seemed... okay?

Casino... I like Black Nyack. That's about it. I wish they'd add a lot more minigames.

I kinda like Magatsu, but I know people who think it's super boring. I enjoy beating him efficiently, without getting knocked off his platforms.
PD and TD4 ended up being disappointing compared to what I'd imagined.
Not a fan of PD's goalposts to next phase setup, too many mini cutscenes.
TD4 music isn't as good as TD3, and something about the way it's setup isn't as fun as TD3 to me.

PA customization was very disappointing. Moreso because they seem to have completely forgotten about it since.
I expected a customization per PA, not one per weapon per year.
And they're not very exciting customizations, either. The whole +10 PP by default and then hope for random luck -10 PP thing is bullshit.
PA customizations very much feel like SEGA's way of rebalancing PAs, and making us work for the fixes. I hate that.
I still don't like Crafting in general. It's just a pain up the ass and not worth the time or effort.

Scratches were okay, I guess. Nearly every scratch was plagued by terrible colors, and none of the colors I'd hoped for.
Most of the stuff I care about is so old or obscure that there'll never be scratches for those things.
The game is still very lacking in simple garments that I want.
They always try to slap some weird shit on, and it ends up ruining the whole outfit or body paint or hairstyle or whatever.


So... I dunno. Not great. I know I'm not the only one who isn't happy with PSO2 because several JP friends have complained to me about various issues.
I don't like scoring stuff because a single number or letter is oversimplification and lacking definition/meaning.
If I really had to score it, then... maybe a 2 or 3 out of 10? I dunno. Watch people RAGE at me for "giving it a low score".
I can't give it a high score because I don't feel it has enough good things to merit a high score. I played better games than PSO2 over the past year.
PSO2 hasn't been "awful" enough to drive me away, but most of episode 3 was so boring to me that I didn't feel like playing much.
I think I mostly logged on for some EQs, or to level my characters to 75 in the classes I wanted them maxed out at.

If anyone asks me, "how would you improve PSO2", I'd say we need lots more interesting quest modes that don't revolve around farming/grinding for some reward.
Adding quest modes probably takes the least amount of work. They could very much use existing assets.
And they should not have some stupid system to restrict people from doing stuff.
I'd be doing the solo XQ all day if it wasn't for the ridiculous cost and 5 per week limit.
The fact that there are so many time-based restrictions heavily implies that the game is lacking in content, and they are trying to stretch things out.
A good game shouldn't need to do anything like that.

I think they won't add more quest modes, though, because they always seem to try and herd the playerbase into whatever the current new thing is.
They don't want people splitting up. That'd create issues with filling multis, and the block system would exacerbate that.

Another significant issue is the progression. The gap between bad players and good players has been steadily widening.
Not sure what to do about that, but at the very least they should make decent gear more accessible and remove confusion around old outdated rubbish.
A lot of people are wearing garbage gear because they think it's good. The game needs to tell them that they are sucking.
They should also add some single player tutorials for stuff like AIS, so that people can learn how to play properly.

[Numie]

Ep3 got me back into the game so there's that.

My only negative besides the huge Stone/EQ focus, really, is that they introduced Custom PAs and then "lol whoops that's all you're getting"

They could even recycle the GAs from Nova and I wouldn't mind, just give us something.

I liked it.

[Hysteria1987]

If I really had to score it, then... maybe a 2 or 3 out of 10? I dunno. Watch people RAGE at me for "giving it a low score".

RAAR SEE MY RAGE

I won't say I agree 100% (not too far off though), but I'd definitely say that's a fair assessment, well written

I haven't played with sound on in months due to the fact that I am remarkably lazy (incidentally I can tolerate Quna concerts much better now) so I can't comment on TD3 v TD4, and I plain don't like fighting Magatsu because uuurgh. I don't mind paying passes for EQs, but I really don't like being limited to EQs for my stone grind game, so I can relate to that.

The only thing I'd disagree on is UQs, personally I find them one of the more fun things in this game, but that's just me. I've been lucky enough to do a lot of Anga hunts with my team lately- I prefer Lillipa but I won't turn Naberius down.

I do enjoy the game for what it is, but there's definitely spots I'd change too.

[SlN]

I give it a solid 3

[labyrinth]

not really a big fan of shironia, personally that was much worse than the earth concept

[isCasted]

As much as I despise XH/Ultimate update and everything related to it, EP3 is still the best. It actually aimed for some balance, you know.

Even if it took them long, Gu is actually playable, good and fun now. The overall pacing of the game is much faster, it's more action-centered than ever. Music in new quests is superb. Affixing and grinding became slightly less of bullshit (even though the standard was raised massively).

[Ezodagrom]

If anyone asks me, "how would you improve PSO2", I'd say we need lots more interesting quest modes that don't revolve around farming/grinding for some reward.
Adding quest modes probably takes the least amount of work. They could very much use existing assets.
And they should not have some stupid system to restrict people from doing stuff.
I'd be doing the solo XQ all day if it wasn't for the ridiculous cost and 5 per week limit.
The fact that there are so many time-based restrictions heavily implies that the game is lacking in content, and they are trying to stretch things out.
A good game shouldn't need to do anything like that.

This, so much this.

Another significant issue is the progression. The gap between bad players and good players has been steadily widening.
Not sure what to do about that, but at the very least they should make decent gear more accessible and remove confusion around old outdated rubbish.
A lot of people are wearing garbage gear because they think it's good. The game needs to tell them that they are sucking.
They should also add some single player tutorials for stuff like AIS, so that people can learn how to play properly.

In my opinion, other than having better means of teaching people how to affix, there's a few things I can think of that could somewhat improve how newer players handle the game.

First, enemies from N to SH need to be stronger and alot more durable.
I made a new character during Ep3 (it was before the lvl 75 class titles were introduced, I didn't get the stat bonuses for that until I reached SH with that char), even when restricting myself when it comes to equipment, using only equipment that I found and not grind it and affix it at all, enemies are just so laughably fragile, no wonder newer players don't know how to play.

Equipment wise, I would remove the premium restriction for 10* and 11* weapon trading passes and 10* unit trading passes, this restriction makes no sense for outdated equipment.

And a nitpick of mine, while it wouldn't affect player performance in the long run, it's still pretty laughable the game working like this, being able to reach lvl 9+ only from Koffie's first area progression client order... I would heavily nerf exp payout for client orders when below lvl 20, as they are now it's just too much.

[Cyber Meteor]

The most memorable thing of EP3 imo : Guar Zigmorde got her curse of death removed the day after being implemented due to causing 630 to every players in the block when she succeeded to kill a player with it , then we had to wait Kuron EQ got removed to get it back (if you couldn't tell, i really like that "curse of death" idea, even if you break it too easily). I put it above Magatsu's fiasco where they banned ppl, because that was just hilarious rather than "facepalming".

Talking about Maggy, i prefered the 73 Mil HP version since you actually got to go through a good part of the EQ, but indeed, rewards were not satisfying. However, with the new version, now we got more "appropriated" rewards, but since they scaled down HP a lot, you don't get to experience the full EQ. At least AIS part definitly made up for that, this part is really good.

13* came too early indeed, and i saw a lot of ppl explained well the problem with Anga farming. However UQ in itself aren't that bad and they at least got it pretty right with Lillipa except on 2 things : 1 stone per S-rank and 250 stones to get a 15 elem 13* (and we didn't have Hans CO back then). But whether you were Anga farming or just playing Lillipa UQ like normal, you would get the same amount of Anga for the same amount of hours played, so all good.

Rebalancing : Almost Perfect! (still that WB dependancy to resolve though) it indeed got 1 year to fix Kreisenchlag and Gunner but now it's done, well done! .

AQs : adding lvl 80 ennemies while using SH caps is cool, rising risk before starting the quest too. But still no Shironia, Facility, Darker den, Mothership AQs? hell no

Story : When i looked at 2-6, it looked promising about Profound Darkness, then i had to wait for 3-5 to get intersted in that, as such i was more interested in side-stories : Sukunahime, Eucreta/Afin, Saga/Katori (for the lols)

I would give 7/10, there are others things i don't like, or would like, but that didn't have a real impact on my opinion on this game so.......