Are we grinding for the sake of faster grinding?

[Keilyn]

I spend my time solo-running level 80 SHAQs just because its the only thing that feels fun outside of fashion wars and photoshoots....or even room remodeling.

The game is really straight-forward and to me the highest level of complexity this game has to offer is simply in the Affix-path one takes to raise slots ad get the affixes one wants. Its not like a certain other game I will not mention in this forum where to actually fight and win I have to actually have eight to thirty-players in voice chat servers actually coordinating together to actually win some crazy content..

its PSO, where almost everything can be soloed...

Though people grind in this game to get the three major currencies (Stones, Excubes, Meseta) in this game, and while I don't consider this at all to be MMO, I prefer CORPG, but even so...if you want to have fun outside of just running the maps, one has to actually make the events themselves in their teams which are pretty much SOCIAL CLUBS.

[the_importer_]

Here's a crazy idea, why not play what the game has to offer. Cap all of your classes

and try to get one of these next to every quest in every difficulty and every COs:

[[Ayumi]]

Here's a crazy idea, why not play what the game has to offer. Cap all of your classes

and try to get one of these next to every quest in every difficulty and every COs:

That's what I do on my main.

[Ordy]

Still, the grind in PSO2 is nothing compared to some other games. Lineage II uugggghhhhh

> Spend the night leveling for 6 hours
> +0.05% /o/~~yay
> PK'ed
> -2.00%

fun time.

[SilkaN]

You are obviously grinding to make next month's grinding easier, since your PAs now do 50 more damage per hit.

[Zysets]

There's always the possibility of helping other people out get to end game, and by that I don't mean carrying leechers. Basically teaching those who shows interest in PSO2.

I had two friends get into the game recently, and that's what I've been doing. It definitely brings more life into the game, because not only do you have a reason to play (helping someone out), you also feel all the excitement of hitting certain milestones again, but through the other person.

I was so genuinely excited for one of my friends when they hit 70, it's worth it to at least try to help new players.

[Keilyn]

PSO2 was the first Online Game I played where in order to compete with others my schedule had to conform to that of the game to get the things needed. The game starts out theme-park based as players unlock the content and complete the COs at content level and also advance through the difficulty. However, the game becomes a sandbox game by endgame, with a pretty bleak outlook.

Truth is that I recently reawakened to PvP and true MMORPGs out there...the good ones... and found myself after returning to Small and Large Scale PvP that good or bad, that is where my heart lies. It lies in commanding groups, both large and small vs what seems the seemingly impossible at times. Sitting down with other players I am facing against and knowing we all have the same complaints, the same problems....and our own subculture to defend in PvP based gaming.

The idea that I can get Ganked out of a Spawnzone, but I can return the favor by turning cannons 180 degrees and Blasting everything to pieces as they leave their zones. Just to get a message from the player from the other player by whisper chat saying "You asshole!!! at least we are even" and replying "Im surprised they didnt patch this thing yet... how was hell?" ....has always been priceless...

Just to find that 10 minutes later we kill each other in the middle of the zone and we both are like "if we are both dead, does this mean our subcommanders are doing their best?" and just laugh at the horrible inefficiency. in fact at times we would go to each other's Teamspeak or Mumble to just chat and just stare in awe at the BS.

Six hours later....and 19 sieges I defended against, our victorious few insulted the enemy server, and managed to win their praise in forumboards, while the enemy commander who was in my Teamspeak server kept on giving me the play by play of people who were doing stupid shit on his side... and im like "FUCK, thanks for at least staying on... I probably would have gone 2 hours into it if I was bored as a fuck."

There is just something crazy about PvP as a subculture that I've always loved.....

I thought by staying in PvE-only games I wouldn't have to deal with players who act as though they were entitled to crap, and I found that I dealt with more saturation of people throwing youtube videos of the same thing..... Time Attackers and Super Powerful players justifying how strong they are from destroying the weak and beating a map faster than everyone else. In my opinion I guess those are just people glorifying how great they are that they can't cut it in a real game against other human players.

Its true that some of us have SCREAMED at our MONITORS and lost our minds in PvP when things go bad for us on those BAD days where we seem to get our ass kicked literally everywhere... but for the good days where we manage to do the near-impossible, there is just nothing better when the smoke clears and we see our characters are alive and we survived through all the hell from each playing our part.

Given the choice to deal with the GRIND that PSO2 has at ENDGAME (while the game is awesome in climbing from 1 to 69), or playing a game that has PvP on all levels in many forms.... and far greater sandbox elements or not...under multiple games where a change of scenery or environment is better....... I rather forget about the lousy pussification of what SEGA calls an Endgame and simply play PSO2 as a secondary or tertiary game.

[Macman]

If we had meaningful long-term goals it might change but there's no point hunting something that'll be obsolete in a month or two. Might be another reason people pile money into cosmetics...

I don't get it. The Austere series has been best-of-the-best for nearly half a year now and people are still complaining about this.

Are you all going to cower in your fear of having a new goal to achieve until Eternal Psycho Drives are hovering just out of your reach?

[Z-0]

Proper endgame goals take longer than half a year, and something being the best for 6 months is not a long time in the grand scheme of things.

Furthermore with the horrible time-gating of Austere, you can't even get all the Austeres you might want before it finally gets outclassed. Without missing a single PD, it can take you like 8 weeks just to get the 200 Cailgula for 1 Austere weapon, and grinding for badges for Caligula takes absolutely forever.

Things might last a while now, but they take far too long to get unless you literally give up your life to the game. It's still a huge issue.

I'd like to get full sets of things, upgrade them to their absolute max, but getting the meseta and stones for that sort of thing would probably take years, not months, so your progress towards those sorts of goals would get ripped out under your feet after a while. I don't like the goalposts changing, I'd actually rather PSO2 stop updating. It would be more fun then.

At first I thought the constant updates on a video game were a good thing, but now I'm not so sure. I'd rather be given a complete, full game that lasts for thousands of hours (i.e. PSO1), and the updates are just extra content that doesn't change the goalposts and just adds simple conveniences and small improvements, rather than power creep.

[Macman]

8 months? I got my first austere after 3 weeks. Granted that was when PD was new and scheduled a ton and I didn't miss any. You were more timegated by Neros than Calligulas back then...

Multi-shippers were getting theirs first within the first week.