Update: New Title Requirement for Pro Blocks (3/22)

[Zephyrion]

An interesting thing is how grinding systems have changed in the last five years in online games. Five years ago, everything was grinded in Pay-2-Win fashion. Even Phantasy Star Universe with Guardians Cash had a P2W grinding system. Then as time went on, business models started to blend and the grinding systems changed:

F2P: The extremely oppressive cash shops that were P2W started being toned down in favor of introducing subscription services with perks for convenience. A player went from having to P2W a weapon all the way, to convenience throwing players into cash shops.

B2P: These games learned to strike a balance between the difficulty in searching for a weapon, and the difficulty in grinding the weapon. They offer subscription services with perks for convenience.

P2P: These games extremely toned down their grinding systems and instead made the grind as a quest-based element. The hardest part of the grind was in obtaining the weapon, usually through a raid with high difficulty.

If I have to speak on opinion on the best, average, and worse system, I would say

Best System: SBx. I mean wow....! ...I'm in love!
Average System: BDO (Really the average stereotypical sandbox system + failstacking)
Worse System: PSO-2. (In most MMORPGs we grind to win, while in PSO-2 we win to grind)

I've grinded, Max Element and fully affixed 50+ weapons for the endgame in PSO-2.
More weapons than all my characters combined in the last six MMORPGs I've played.
...and this number does not even come close to the players who have no-lifed this game since 2012!

Let's be honest for a moment though, every PSO out there has ALWAYS been a grindfest, and for some like me it's actually one of the selling points of the franchise. Most of the people who were attracted to the first PSO and stayed despite the horrendous exp and equipment RNGing, not to mention all the raising item stats and obscure naming affectin drops system actually aren't too repelled by that. same goes for PSU weapon system (weapons that break, seriously ?). You might argue that they are older MMO models, but even then, PSO always put the grindfest to some serious extremes, and most of the people that actually don't enjoy that don't stay on the game in the first place.

The difficulty issue is a real problem though, Previous games always gave you hurdles that were big enough to warrant the grindfest, but it's not really the case at the moment

[Vatallus]

Off-Topic

Spoiler!

Lol, Ace Online/Air Rivals/Space Cowboys/Whateverthehelltheycalledthemselves had a grinding system that literally destroyed your item if the grind failed. Or you could give them $$$ to keep the item safe but it would lose grind enchants upon failing. Back down to either 5 or 10 depending on how much $$$ you were willing to give them. So whoever had the most money to waste generally had the best gear for PvP combat.

The NA version of the game had the rates % based like this from 1 to 15.
100/100/100/100/100/90/80/70/60/50/30/20/10/5/1. With protection for enchant 10+ being nearly $10 a shot and most whales having enchant 12 or 13 gear. In a game where player skill could be negated by armor with extremely high evasion stat or defense stat.

Don't even get me started on the leveling system.


I'll stick with what PSO2 has.

Anyway back on topic:

What I'm trying to say is this new requirement is saying that a Bouncer who has a Philodimos+35 is more qualified than a Bouncer with a Austere+40, and that is a problem. Just one example of why I am saying this requirement literally makes no sense. No it won't be hard to get a +35. Most serious players have probably already got Gix or Astra+35 for their respective class if they weren't still using Austere. I'm just saying the requirement means a person using the most shitty 13* NT they can is still more "qualified" to be in the Expect blocks than someone with Austere+40 and 60 element.

[Shinamori]

An interesting thing is how grinding systems have changed in the last five years in online games. Five years ago, everything was grinded in Pay-2-Win fashion. Even Phantasy Star Universe with Guardians Cash had a P2W grinding system. Then as time went on, business models started to blend and the grinding systems changed:

F2P: The extremely oppressive cash shops that were P2W started being toned down in favor of introducing subscription services with perks for convenience. A player went from having to P2W a weapon all the way, to convenience throwing players into cash shops.

B2P: These games learned to strike a balance between the difficulty in searching for a weapon, and the difficulty in grinding the weapon. They offer subscription services with perks for convenience.

P2P: These games extremely toned down their grinding systems and instead made the grind as a quest-based element. The hardest part of the grind was in obtaining the weapon, usually through a raid with high difficulty.

If I have to speak on opinion on the best, average, and worse system, I would say

Best System: SBx. I mean wow....! ...I'm in love!
Average System: BDO (Really the average stereotypical sandbox system + failstacking)
Worse System: PSO-2. (In most MMORPGs we grind to win, while in PSO-2 we win to grind)

I've grinded, Max Element and fully affixed 50+ weapons for the endgame in PSO-2.
More weapons than all my characters combined in the last six MMORPGs I've played.
...and this number does not even come close to the players who have no-lifed this game since 2012!

What's "SBx"?

[Alenoir]

I don't know your experience, but PSO2's grinding system is way too lenient in just about any ways possible. Failing a grind? Instead of losing potential max levels, durabilities, or flat out have the weapon destroyed, you just lost the common in-game currency, common grinding material, and maybe a grind or two on the weapon. Then we get to NT, which... what fail? It's just flat increases for NTs.

[Flaoc]

I don't know your experience, but PSO2's grinding system is way too lenient in just about any ways possible. Failing a grind? Instead of losing potential max levels, durabilities, or flat out have the weapon destroyed, you just lost the common in-game currency, common grinding material, and maybe a grind or two on the weapon. Then we get to NT, which... what fail? It's just flat increases for NTs.

i do not see the issue here.. grinding sucks and the thing lost is actually still pretty valuable since lambdas, while more common than they used to be, still are not handed out enough

[Kondibon]

i do not see the issue here.. grinding sucks and the thing lost is actually still pretty valuable since lambdas, while more common than they used to be, still are not handed out enough

The issue here is that Alenoir used to walk to school in 3 feet of snow up a hill both ways.

[Morgan Fumi]

God, I hate the mentality of "moar RNG = moar difficult/skill"

If you can do it 100 times, you've already proven you can do it a 1000 times. Adding more RNG elements beyond whats traditional just to set the player back is just adding more bullshit.

[Shadowstarkirby]

I don't know your experience, but PSO2's grinding system is way too lenient in just about any ways possible. Failing a grind? Instead of losing potential max levels, durabilities, or flat out have the weapon destroyed, you just lost the common in-game currency, common grinding material, and maybe a grind or two on the weapon. Then we get to NT, which... what fail? It's just flat increases for NTs.

Huh??? Are you saying that you'd like to spend weeks to months making very costly 13*s then having your millions of meseta, lambdas, and the weapon itself flushed down the drain because RNG decides to boom your weapon trying to max it's potential? Who the hell wants that?

PSO2's NT grinding isn't "too lenient", it's just fine. You're spending a significant amount of meseta to max a 13*, the same meseta that can be used to fashion up, which has gotten increasingly expensive with the introduction of layer wear. Lambdas are very valuable still, seeing as there's a tradeoff between meseta and lambdas consumed depending on the fodder method you use. Hell, even OT grinding was leagues better above the enhancement systems I've experienced in other MMOs, and people hated OT. While it did piss me off sometimes, it certainly wasn't a system that undermined your months of work completely.

Collection Files have made it too easy too get top tier weapons if anything, so much so that a maxed 13* is now considered the baseline of what an XH player should have now, but NT grinding is a non-issue.

[Zulastar]

New Title Requirement make equal EXPERT me, who clear Solo EX2 5 times every week and some nub, who just grind his 1st 13* and clear it once, dying 5 times in process... nuff said

[SteveCZ]

It's all about the wasted money folks (and resources), money $_$.