Official statement from SEGA on parsing tools

[TaigaUC]

Since there are so many people complaining about leeching, it astounds me that you don't all try to play with each other so you don't have to put up with this apparent "leeching epidemic".

Well, like I've said before, there are only so many good players out there. Even if people started forming multis, there will always be people left out.
I assume you need at least 10 people to do multis somewhat efficiently. Everyone lives in different places, plays at different times.
I have enough JP people on my friends list for multis, but they play with other people too.
Since episode 4, it's been much rarer to end up on the same block as friends. And there never are enough of us to make a full multi and meet up on a separate block.
Even when a few friends and I decide to play together, it is difficult to get into the same block. Sometimes, people get disconnected, and the blocks are all full.

Teams also have their own drama and problems. When you look for new people, you've no idea if they are nice people or good players until you play with them.
People also change. One person creating drama can alienate an entire team. I'd imagine that's why a lot of teams break up easily. People don't want to deal with that shit.
I'd imagine that when you start scheduling stuff and asking people to get up to scratch, there's a high probability of running into drama.

If you made a team with a minimum of 12 players, there is no guarantee that all of them would want to do any specific thing.
You'd need to get a ton of extras. Which would also mean that when people do want to do the same thing together, some people would always be left out.
It's essentially a choice between having not enough, or having too many. Very difficult to get exactly 12.

Also, like I've said before, it'd be nice if it was easier to form incomplete groups above a 4 player party and join random multis that way.
If you have anything between 5 and 11 people, you can't easily fill the remaining space with randoms because of timing, blocks, etc.
In the organized runs I initially did, a bunch of people came from somewhat large JP teams with maybe ~20 members.
But they often did not have enough people to fill a multi. That's why a bunch of us were pulled together. Clearly, teams are not a definite solution.
If you got a team with good players and are able to often easily match times and get into EQs together, you are very, very lucky.

I ignore most EQs nowadays. Sometimes I randomly decide to try an EQ for fun, just before it happens.
I'm sick of having to log in an hour or two beforehand just to get into a decent block and ensure I don't end up in an empty block.
I don't think forming a team is viable for me. I just want to pop in and play for a short time, and pop out. And I'm sure plenty of people are the same.
And no, I do not want to buy premium just so I can get into premium space once a day or two.
I'm also aware that even people with premium can't get into the blocks they want because the premium space fills up.


tl;dr - Depending on everyone's circumstances, it is not as easy to gather and organize a team as you make it sound. I can't even consistently gather a few people.
If it was that easy to create a team just to be able to pop in and out for decent quality EQs, I'm sure everyone would be doing it.

Note that this wouldn't be a problem if the game was designed around a max of 4 players instead of 12.

[Shiyo]

The block system is one of the worst systems I've ever seen in a video game. The fact nothings been changed since ep1 just shows its a cheap way to get people to buy premium.

I'm sure "I can never play with my friends for eqs" or "I can't ever get into a good block or any block for eqs" makes up the bulk of the reasons for the more casual players quitting.

[TaigaUC]

Oh yeah, and let's not forget when SEGA tried to market PSO2 with a soccer/football? themed commercial saying "play with 12 people!"
I recall that a lot of people were pissed off at that. I think that's symbolic of how difficult it is to jump in with 12 people.

You can't tell how strong a person is just from their gear.
A JP friend was telling me again yesterday that SEGA really needs to require people pass a test for XH.
A test that involves soloing enemies of equal level. if you can't do it, you can't enter XH.

There are a bunch of players who intentionally play on a lower difficulty because they know they can't handle XH.
That's how it should be, really. Many players who play on XH probably don't even do it for any particular reason other than "they can".

[Yden]

You shouldn't be allowed to join for EQ's if your gear is so bad you couldn't even solo equal level(to your level) monsters without dying. End of story.

This game is an action game so it's possible to solo anything in game without dying even with no gear. It may take a hell of a long time since your damage output would be horrible but shit gear doesn't automatically mean you'll die.

[Shiyo]

This game is an action game so it's possible to solo anything in game without dying even with no gear. It may take a hell of a long time since your damage output would be horrible but shit gear doesn't automatically mean you'll die.

I don't think you can solo things if you don't even have a weapon equipped as a non-tech user.

Either way, that isn't the point. The point is that some type of gear/ilvl/stat requirement needs to be in place for VH+ EQ's that require an amount of stats that would be needed to actually be capable of soloing enemies around the EQ's level +/- 10 or something.

Back in the day, it was annoying and people would post shaming people using no affixed/no grinded units and some horrible barely grinded weapons.That's bad, but maybe they're new, or don't know any better.It's not like the game teaches them to be better, so it sucked but at least they could try to contribute. Now? It's gotten so bad we're posting screenshots and shaming people using NO WEAPONS AT ALL. Literally straight up fucking leeching, even even trying to contribute in the fucking slightest. Why should they? Nothing bad will happen.

If you let people just walk all over you, and let them do whatever they want, they will do it. It's basic human nature - in this situation, Sega are letting people get away with leeching their classes they don't want to play, or just want to get exp on, or whatever it is. Since sega never enforced some type of ilvl/gear requirement or required you to actually contribute, people kept trying to get away with more and more gimpness and leeching, until we're at this point:

People coming up without a weapon equipped, random trash units they got from another EQ with no affixes, and sitting in the back leeching experience.

That''s completely inexcusable and unacceptable. Such behavior needs to be PUNISHED.

[TaigaUC]

You can, it will just take forever. Of course, if there's a timer, then you won't be able to clear in time.

[toragyo]

All I know is something needs to be done ASAP about leeching. There needs to be some set requirement to join any EQ in the game now VH and above - I'm talking at least having a fucking weapon equipped and units not +0 with stock affixes.

Every single EQ MPA I join now, i inspect everyone. 9/12 of the players generally have stock affixed +0 units, and over 4/12 of the people DON'T EVEN HAVE A DAMN WEAPON EQUIPPED. The people who do? They aren't any better, they're using +0 9 stars with 300 sattk and garbage like that in fucking SH.

When I played in ep1 and 2, I rarely, if ever, saw leeching this bad. Now it's a fucking epidemic that's taken over the entire damn game. Back then you generally saw people with at least a single affix on their units, grinded to +10, at least a red/blue(or 6 star waaaay back) with 50 element grinded to at least +10. Now? People don't give a flying fuck at all.

What happened to this games player base?

The screenshot in my post is a VH PD. The vast majority of the MPA was using garbage like this(8/12) and 4/12 of them didn't even have fucking weapons equipped.

Nothing happened to the playerbase. It is purely because of this:
http://pso2.jp/players/event/4th_aor...age/img_02.png
The vast majority of the playerbase below XH are going to be new players. New players are not going to know what is wrong or right in terms of gearing up, class combos etc. unless they read up on various wikis and websites simply because SEGA does not explain a lot of things properly (affixing is the biggest one). Yes, leechers aren't gonna give a shit but this has always happened.

You mentioned those 6* weapons from Ep1 (red/blue weapons as well) but they were actually a bad thing because of the 90% minimum damage variance that rare weapons have and those sub-7* weapons don't have which most people didn't have the DEX to counter the variance. Did anyone know any better back then? No, they didn't. I certainly didn't because I was also one of those people with a 6* weapon fully done. Nobody gave me shit about that because nobody knew that was a thing until later. It's unfair to denounce people who might not know any better.

You also have to compare leveling speed now compared to back then. Before, it took much longer to level and classes were much weaker overall so you would be more inclined to upgrade your weapon. An average player would have more time and opportunities to actually try and look on how to upgrade their stuff. For comparison, this 'realization' about gear upgrades usually hits players that do care at SH because it's such a huge jump compared to VH.

Seems like your issue is also because you're on Ship2. I'm not saying it doesn't happen on other ships but it is definitely more widespread on Ship2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2xQu-kcMGI
This guy was in one of my pub MPAs for example (Ship4). I can probably count the amount of people like him that have been in my pubs on one hand (from Ep1-Ep4).

Your attitude sounds incredibly bad as well, why not ask them about their gear? They might want the help or they might not, it is definitely not going to hurt to ask. If you tried that in the same sort of tone as all your posts however, I personally would brush off any help that might have been given simply because it is done in a overly hostile way. I see the Japanese players ask if people want help somewhat commonly on Twitter and yes, there have been people that have replied with something along the lines of "go fuck yourself".

And as Z-0 said before, just make your own groups. It's not a hard thing to do.

[Shiyo]

"Your attitude is bad".

There's no "Bad" attitude when it comes to people showing up NOT EVEN HAVING A FUCKING WEAPON EQUIPPED.

Do you not understand these people are fully aware of their leeching and are intentionally doing it? They know damn well that nothing is going to happen to them, so they just do whatever they want. There's no helping these people. They know exactly what they're doing and I know their exact intentions - to leech as much experience as they possibly can with as little effort required.

Yet, you have the audacity to say MY attitude sounds "incredibly bad"? pfft.

[RibbonSoft]

"Your attitude is bad".

There's no "Bad" attitude when it comes to people showing up NOT EVEN HAVING A FUCKING WEAPON EQUIPPED.

Do you not understand these people are fully aware of their leeching and are intentionally doing it? They no damn well that nothing is going to happen to them, so they just do whatever they want. There's no helping these people. They know exactly what they're doing and I know their exact intentions - to leech as much experience as they possibly can with as little effort required.

Yet, you have the audacity to say MY attitude sounds "incredibly bad"? pfft.

Ever stop to think that maybe they don't have their weapon equipped because they know morons like you are checking their gear? It isn't your business to know what gear someone is using so some people do not equip their weapon or their real units until the EQ actually starts. Just food for thought...

[Shiyo]

Ever stop to think that maybe they don't have their weapon equipped because they know morons like you are checking their gear? It isn't your business to know what gear someone is using so some people do not equip their weapon or their real units until the EQ actually starts. Just food for thought...

Yeah that's clearly what everyone is doing!
..and >>I'M<< the moron.

I'm speechless.

Also, I inspect some of them mid fighting and they still don't have weapons on.