Returned to PSO2... and WTF?!?!

[TheszNuts]

Ain't no one got the time to take a month to get to 55 like how it was when 55 was the level cap, all the changes made it accessible for everyone to stay interested.

[Ezodagrom]

Well, your opinion would be in the minority.
The game is doing better then ever with the current content, and method.
And not alot of other MMORPG does what you want, since it doesn't make it "fun"
so why should the PSO2 team, do something that the majority of player and current new player aren't interested, why should they cater to a known minority?

I just don't get it. Are newbies there really okay with the current very fragile enemies? Is it really that fun getting everything handed to them so easily?

There's just no learning class mechanics and enemies/bosses patterns with how weak they are in lower difficulties. PAs in general received huge buffs at lower levels at the start of ep3 and recently they also added NT weapons which are stronger than the originals, all these buffs for players in content that was designed for how the game was on ep1, so the result is the currently really poor balance between players (too strong) and enemies (too weak).
Also, how is the gap from SH to XH/Ult fine? Wouldn't the game actually be more fun for newbies with a more consistant growth in difficulty from N to XH?

Not saying that enemies should be HP sponges, but the current state is the complete opposite, and I don't get it how anyone can find the current lower difficulties fun, a game that brags about being an "action" rpg with enemies that almost don't fight back.

[isCasted]

I just don't get it. Are newbies there really okay with the current very fragile enemies? Is it really that fun getting everything handed to them so easily?

Making things as easy as possible (at the very start, at least) is a norm for gaming nowadays. A lot of typical gamers, while may not approve it, are used to it. The gaming industry is growing rapidly, so games are being made accessible for people with no prior experience in gaming. In case of PSO2, however, it really feels like overkill. Still, when you are new to the game you are mostly overwhelmed by a whole new world, and PSO2 does a decent job at it.

There's just no learning class mechanics and enemies/bosses patterns with how weak they are in lower difficulties.

I'd argue that Normal should let players adjust to control scheme, Hard - to learning gear and progression-related intricacies and whatnot, and then VH to make players actually care about enemies (also, difficulties should be renamed to Basic, Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard). The problem is that these things are never enforced, and big chunks of important information can be skipped entirely thanks to EQs and 15k EXP tickets. I've seen quite a few newbies reach VH without a subclass and any later zones in the game unlocked. But there also are people who get bored of doing same shit over and over until VH. There's just too many random factors in players' progression. In order to address this issue a massive rebalance is necessary, but it's seem to be too much work for SEGA at this point.

[Keilyn]

Reading this thread reminded me of why I love my fiancee so much as far as gaming goes...

While we are both emotional, and my words are more logical; her actions are far more natural and logical, which sometimes have me ask "what am I doing here?"

She plays PvE games for the story, but if she reaches the end of a game without the story leading up to it, she is able to do what I am not able to do... and its to actually walk away as i tend to come back for more. "PvE is really about story and development. Getting to know those characters, even if its own our personal avatar" and yet "I am my characters, and my characters are me" is the feeling that PSO-2 tries to convey in how deep the player-character goes in customization and creation... even the player-rooms have a focus to develop the personality of the character, or they would need to even exist.

However, in the end even online.. the game is still PvE.
and that is what people forget.

Her time in PSO-2 was the shortest.
She logged in and started doing matterboard... and said "oh a character-based plot from the start... which means over half of this game's story is going to be filler" and all of a sudden, EQ starts... oh my... its Falz! and so she does the EQ and sees the "Congratulations" which reminded her of PSO's "You are the Hero" and she asked "What just happened" and someone told her "We Won the game"

So her session ends and she asks me "Should I continue playing this game?I beat it already? Falz. Falz is dead... He was killed in Normal Mode...and the ending was a Movie + a "Congratulations" screen. The game is over, but I had fun. So she logs off. I ask her "what about the matterboard" and she says "What about the matterboard!? if a game is going to give me the final battle and reveal the final villain, without forcing me to actually go through the story, that's on the developer for being stupid. She uninstalled the game saying "I can picture the toughest difficulty, players win the game to get better gear even though they fail to realize that they do not need better gear because they already won the game and this is PvE, not PvP."

The cold hard truth is that she was right, and she did what I was not able to do...
Which was to realize and know the truth, act on it... and walk away.
of course I like this game and I play more for my character and myself than the story to the game.

Phantasy Star games have always been a double-edged sword to me. I can love them as much as I want, but I know deep down that its structure really is one that focuses on the player-character itself and not truly on the story, which is exactly why its like losing a war before it even begins because it means the story itself will be the casualty.

[Ezodagrom]

Making things as easy as possible (at the very start, at least) is a norm for gaming nowadays. A lot of typical gamers, while may not approve it, are used to it. The gaming industry is growing rapidly, so games are being made accessible for people with no prior experience in gaming. In case of PSO2, however, it really feels like overkill. Still, when you are new to the game you are mostly overwhelmed by a whole new world, and PSO2 does a decent job at it.

I'd argue that Normal should let players adjust to control scheme, Hard - to learning gear and progression-related intricacies and whatnot, and then VH to make players actually care about enemies (also, difficulties should be renamed to Basic, Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard). The problem is that these things are never enforced, and big chunks of important information can be skipped entirely thanks to EQs and 15k EXP tickets. I've seen quite a few newbies reach VH without a subclass and any later zones in the game unlocked. But there also are people who get bored of doing same shit over and over until VH. There's just too many random factors in players' progression.

As I said, I'm not saying that enemies should be HP sponges, if they were to ever buff to enemies from N to SH, IMO it'd be fine if a possible rebalanced normal mode would still be easier than normal mode at launch, but as it is now it's just far too easy.

I used a secondary account (which doesn't have the lvl 75 title stats boosts to mess up the results), and rushed through a few of the early quests, a lvl 2~3 HU can defeat lvl 7 enemies with a single use of lvl 1 ein raketen (beginner gunslash PA) and the beginner 1* gunslash, without JA'ing (no mag and no units). That's the current state of the game for a newbie...

In order to address this issue a massive rebalance is necessary, but it's seem to be too much work for SEGA at this point.

Indeed... Ever since Tokyo was added, I think that existing arks quests could really use some streamlining, to get rid of some of the clutter.
I think that it would be nice that when/if they ever add XH to previous areas, they changed older areas arks quests to be a bit more like Tokyo (though this would mean having to change alot of existing COs, so I guess that's too much effort).

Spoiler-boxed what for me would be the ideal arks quest/free field setup for every area, just pointless ideas that are never gonna happen, but, may as well post anyway? ._.

Spoiler!

- Single party points based (200 points) arks quest, to introduce the area.

- Single party arks quest with a set map, set spawns, set emergency codes, a bit like tokyo's train ghidoran quest, but alot longer (ideally something that would take an average new player about 15~25 minutes to solo, more than that would be too long I guess...). Having set spawns and codes would serve as a way to introduce those to the player.

For me something like this would be nice as a 3 parts quest, part 1 would start with the area's weaker enemies and introduce stronger ones later on. Part 2 would add darkers into the mix (in the case of ruins, since it already starts with darkers, could introduce krabahda and cyclonehda here) and area specific emergency codes.
At the end of part 2 would be a fight with the area's miniboss and part 3 would be the area's boss (though forest and desert could be a problem, I think ragne could work well as the desert boss, and maybe fang banshee alone for forest, since banther would be way too much for such an early quest).

- And lastly the 1000 points free field, one part multi party area with random spawns and gathering points.

[TehCubey]

I remember the good old days, before Braver, when Fury Stance gave a static s-atk bonus instead of a percentile increase.

What, did I say good? Ha ha hell no. It was horrible. I don't know how people can look at butting your head against a stone wall repeatedly with nostalgia, but that's how playing a melee class felt like back then.

Harder difficulty supposedly makes you learn the ropes of the game, but back then I didn't learn shit. I wanted to get better but I couldn't because the game didn't let me. It didn't help that the pso-w community was if anything else even worse than it is now, full of self-absorbed people lost in their own achievements and very few actually willing to help a noob out.

Timeskip to present day and you know what? Maybe the game is too easy nowadays. Maybe it's trivial at difficulties below SH. But that doesn't matter because people who still want to learn the game, to get better - they will get better. In the end it's a matter of personal motivation first and foremost. People who don't give a damn about improvement, good builds or whatever can't be forced to get better nowadays, but they couldn't in the past either.

And as long as EQs exist, level is meaningless in terms of achievement because you can just leech off your MPA. It's true now, it was true 3 years ago.

[Ziel]

Well yes you can buy sat can lv 1 as soon as you start the game, you can cheese the game with it? only in normal, once difficulty starts ramping up you cannot one shot everything with it, once bosses get to their faster movesets you will be lucky to pull it without massive hunter, and thats whitout counting the setups you have to get to actually one-shot bosses attack-wise, just wait until SH Dragon EX or Quartz, you will not one shot everything in the game with a level 1 sat cannon, it is op in the start of the game but it will soon fall to the "impractical but awesome" category if you depend too much on it.

Why yes, the game is ez and everything non-tokyo (except crows and bears) i one shot with extreme prejudice in XH but it took me months of grinding and affixing (and a carpton of money) to get to this (unless you cheese with those "one shot banish chain videos" those are niche builds made ONLY for that, its not viable to compare to those videos).

And dear photons im grateful for the stones and collect files, you dont know the pain of 300 anga farms whitout a single anga weapon drop that fits your class (plus the "sekrit lock´d mpa" that came after, which made even the farming more exclusive) if it werent for them, a lot of us wouldnt have endgame weapons yet.

Also its SEGA´s fault the powercreep got to this, do you expect people to grind a month for lv 60 when ALL the content they pull is 13✪? Do i need to remind you you need Three copies of the same weapon with the same element to max it since element is a % damage bonus? If you add the same weapon with different element it only adds up +10 so its FOUR (assuming base weapon is 20 ele).

Also if they do grind for a month to level up, do you expect them to grind for months to get endgame gear? i grinded anga before actually quitting the game at 300 hunts (and theres people who did more than 800 runs, with no viable weapon drop) with no progression until TD4 came up, let me tell you its bs and i rather everyone be handed options on what to grind and where so we all get even fields with XH gear and get austere for the "ultimate grind weapon" than have XH td4s/magatsu/PD with people running up non full element pot 1 bio weapons.

You do not want the old grindfest.

[MightyHarken]

Well yes you can buy sat can lv 1 as soon as you start the game, you can cheese the game with it? only in normal, once difficulty starts ramping up you cannot one shot everything with it, once bosses get to their faster movesets you will be lucky to pull it without massive hunter, and thats whitout counting the setups you have to get to actually one-shot bosses attack-wise, just wait until SH Dragon EX or Quartz, you will not one shot everything in the game with a level 1 sat cannon, it is op in the start of the game but it will soon fall to the "impractical but awesome" category if you depend too much on it.

Why yes, the game is ez and everything non-tokyo (except crows and bears) i one shot with extreme prejudice in XH but it took me months of grinding and affixing (and a carpton of money) to get to this (unless you cheese with those "one shot banish chain videos" those are niche builds made ONLY for that, its not viable to compare to those videos).

And dear photons im grateful for the stones and collect files, you dont know the pain of 300 anga farms whitout a single anga weapon drop that fits your class (plus the "sekrit lock´d mpa" that came after, which made even the farming more exclusive) if it werent for them, a lot of us wouldnt have endgame weapons yet.

Also its SEGA´s fault the powercreep got to this, do you expect people to grind a month for lv 60 when ALL the content they pull is 13✪? Do i need to remind you you need Three copies of the same weapon with the same element to max it since element is a % damage bonus? If you add the same weapon with different element it only adds up +10 so its FOUR (assuming base weapon is 20 ele).

Also if they do grind for a month to level up, do you expect them to grind for months to get endgame gear? i grinded anga before actually quitting the game at 300 hunts (and theres people who did more than 800 runs, with no viable weapon drop) with no progression until TD4 came up, let me tell you its bs and i rather everyone be handed options on what to grind and where so we all get even fields with XH gear and get austere for the "ultimate grind weapon" than have XH td4s/magatsu/PD with people running up non full element pot 1 bio weapons.

You do not want the old grindfest.

Everything Ziel said. The only thing this game needs to be Top tier for me, is adding ultimate mode to all planets and get rid of the UQ system. after that, just keep adding new interesting planets with interesting mechanics and that's it.

[ohmy]

As with all online rpgs, the later the endgame, the easier the content before it.
So obviously when XH is 2 years old we are at around the same point as the last days of SH being the highest difficulty. Only when a new difficulty is actually new it's any sort of challenge, after a while power creep makes sure people catch up and it's easy again.

I also remember ep 1, but definitely not fondly.
The game has improved a LOT since then. Not saying Sega didn't introduce a a lot of new problems but it's a lot more fun than it used to be back then.

[Lumir]

I do enjoy the game still.

Im not upset with the grindfest missing, I just cant agree with how easy i am able to blast right through all this early game content. Just hit snow area and same stuff happening here. Just run to the specific area, kill said mob, if its a boss WB and PA it.

As for those saying... "With the amount of content its to be expected" Just slap yourself. PSO has always been about recycling content using higher difficulties, its not a increase in content, rather a reuse of old content with "new numbers" and a few extra items... ill leave it at that.