Your Final Thoughts on EP4's Map, Enemy and Raid Mechanics

[silo1991]

ok like i said before , for me this was the worst and slacker episode ever ,
first why our earth as a setting ,
2 tokyo and las vegas are really limited , no exploring no chance to choice if fight or run
3 the enemies are too sloth and they did a lot of recycle the normal phantoms are too meh for me ( yamato is the worst) , eesca darkers most of the are just reskins there is no difference of how to kill them or what you should watch out( and you know the phantoms was a lost cause when sega needed to create them) and the angels are the only ones who are acceptable but 3 minions seriously , no valkyries (archers) or death angels (equipped with scythes) and you guys have to admit the basic angel the one with daggers is a reskin of deue solda (winged darker)
4 raids : yamato is fun i can't deny it but the aesthetics of yamato , the amount of laziness is to damn HIGH, mother i liked the 1st and 3rd phase but my main problem is the 2nd one because is tedious and lazy as hell plus if your team don't deal enough damage in time is even more tedious , seriously when PD got a renovation i said my dear come to me im suffering (juan gabriel QUOTE) and deus esca there is a mix opinión i like the concept of him, is the most rescuable aesthetically in my opinion but the way of how was introduced was to forced , in the end sega didn't knew what to do with this mess

[[Ayumi]]

Flying mobs are one again as annoying to fight, but UFO takes it further by flying away every time you hit it.
Map designs are great, besides how spread out spawns are all the time. You have these mobs on this side of Vegas and you have One lonely mob on the other side of this tall building cuz that was where the spawn indicator was located.
Mother was just a "nuke her or waste time" EQ.
Deus shouldn't even be afraid of light but Sense of Eveeeel makes it so, excited for the next raid boss afraid of light again on EP5!
Deus was also quite buggy as how sometimes the dragon would wiggle itself out and making it unclimbable.
Only three es angel mobs but thats okay, theres enough annoying mobs in EP4.

WHEN you hit it? I've had times I've tried to Guilty or Dead Approach or other things to it and it fucking dashes away before the hit even connects. I hate those things.

[loafhero]

I can definitely say that Mother is the better raid boss than Deus and Yamato.

The reason I see why Mother's last phase seems to be generally liked is because of how aggressive she is in that phase and how often she changes up her movesets to keep things exciting. No more of that tedious rinse and repeat arms phase. She can actually destroy you if you're not paying full attention.

Deus Esca Zephyros suffers from being so sluggish and having mechanics where you have to wait for a few seconds before you can actually do anything to him. As a HU/Fi, I rarely ever have to move around much. I could arrogantly have my character facing away from Deus, and casually Just Guard its big ass sword and lousy punches. Deus is a raid boss that almost never punishes players for getting too cocky. I mean, if you look at this from a plot perspective, knowing how egotistical Deus's host was, all that flash but little substance fits Deus really well but in gameplay, all of that has made Deus fallen lower as a PSO2 raid boss.

Deus cutscene transitions also seem baffling considering that previous raid bosses have had smoother transitions whenever they change forms. Profound Darkness's final form, although took control of the camera away from you, had much smoother transitions.

I think what people prefer more with PSO2's raid bosses is speed.

[Hysteria1987]

There was so much I didn't like about Ep4 that I'm gonna gloss over most of it because I don't want to be that guy. Fortunately I don't have too much to say about maps, enemies or raids specifically :P

* Not keen on the areas, which were glorified boxes with other, smaller boxes in them that wouldn't let you escape until you tallied up enough numbers for some reason, or the fact that they couldn't bother to squeeze out some actual quests for Vegas.
* Ironically enough, I can't say I liked that the Ult Amd quest wasn't a free-roaming kill X points type like the other two. To me at least, when Ult Lillipa was released was the most fun time in the game. That said, the aesthetic of Ult Amd is real nice.
* A huge deal of the EQs now are just big bosses over and over again. I want to see more mob-based stuff - VRTD is nice though criminally underscheduled, and I'm glad we got Rainy (though I don't like that it's a corridor- but here's not the space for that...).
* They brought back toy darkers, this time in phantom form (((( The rest of the phantom darkers are pretty sweet though.

That said, Deus Esca has a nice and different aesthetic, and Mother was a nice fight. I'd like to get away from Earth in the next episode and get back to a proper space adventure though.

[Suirano]

Episode 4 was so many mixed feelings.

Maps:
Tokyo was alright but as said before the fact you had to do it multiple times for enemy kills and how the spawns worked kind of sucked. When they lowered the points to 500, I would clear it extremely fast and not even notice I was already close to finishing. I liked that Train Ghidoran had a guaranteed spawn that could easily be handled.

Vegas was the opposite. I really did not care about Las Vegas. The mobs were just odd and annoying, especially the UFOs and the Bikers. Finding Illusia was non-existent minus Solo XQ or RQ and even in RQ, I did plenty of runs where she didn't spawn at all and instead that stupid big UFO kept showing up. I am annoyed Moonbase or Yggdrasil wasn't a free field.

Enemies: Tokyo enemies were alright. Vegas enemies were annoying, ESCA-Darkers were kind of neat I guess. I like Ragnus' design overall even if it enjoys humping towers to death. Angels were underused and I wish they came a bit more.

Raid bosses: I have only viewed Yamato as a grind and nothing more. I guess I am in the minority that didn't really care for the EQ. I would do it randomly out of boredom but it was just eh overall.

Mother to me was the best raid boss of Ep. 4. The rideroid phase is dumb and I don't care for it but I enjoyed the fight. The arms phase goes on for way too long if your MPA isn't a high damage one. The combo attacks of the arms is alright. However, I really loved the final phase because she is so aggressive and you can die at any moment with how hard she hits just keeping up that intensity.

Dues was underwhelming. Even before the nerf was very underwhelming. My favorite bit of the fight is probably Dues Anges more than anything. The abrupt cutscenes are just ridiculous. Dues looks pretty cool but beyond that was just not interesting. It was very flashy to just be flashy and his theme is just not interesting. Was a perfect design to use IDOLA the Fanatic Viper. I have no idea why they didn't.

Although not a raid boss or field boss, the Phaleg fight was fun and a bit different with timing your moves. I liked it.

Overall, Episode 4 was just average. Some good, some bad but nothing really extravagant.

[chaoko99]

Phantom God: First time it was amazing.... after that if it wasn't for the collection sheets I would probably skip it every so often.
UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES ARE FUCKING DISGUSTING IN ANY BOSS FIGHT I don't need every fucking form to have some "epic" cutscene that just takes up time off my tickets and just bore me to death after seeing the Hydras climb out of the puddle and then start clip-helling themselves. Really dumb fight because of that. Without all of those cutscenes it would've been really nice.

Rider Machine things I don't give a fuck about to know the name of: Annoying to turn (don't care if I can "alright" with dashing and then turning while pressing X.... or the 180 only turn which is helpful at only certain occasions.) then the slow moving from going up or down and everything else.

It does the cutscenes due to a purely technical issue: The engine doesn't let you swap skyboxes cleanly without a loading screen.

Also if you press space and W/S, you can quick dodge up and down.

also turn on automode. It is the superior experience.

[Zulastar]

I wish Las Vegas Free's designer to die with a brain cancer. 10 maps withowt Illusia... I HATE RANDOM SPAWNS!

[Kondibon]

I wish Las Vegas Free's designer to die with a brain cancer.

[MightyHarken]

I enjoyed some mechanics. I wish we can see another large boss fight like Yamato, but in space, and instead of being a fucking ship, how about a darker worm in space, and manning photon cannons and shit from a ship. I want another accesory slot please

[Mattykins]

I do miss the old Free Field mechanic. I was hoping this episode would right some of Ep 3's wrongs, but alas, it made it worse.

Also, as annoying as the field is and stuff, I don't hate Las Vegas mobs aesthetic all that much. The goofy caricatures of Americana gives me Earthbound vibes, and I'm okay with that. The UFOs can do less zipping around tho :c

Kinda holding out in vain for AQs past Ep 2, and for Sega not to ruin them with mpa bullshit. So sick of 12-man quests being the only way to get anything done :c