Balance adjustments, i

[Cyclon]

at it's roots, pso1 was designed as a Diablo clone, and most of that still holds true today

Officially so?

[isCasted]

snip

Gee, you finally realised that PSO2 is a unique game with its own priorities and not a copycat of literally every other MMO ever? Sure, it has plenty of flaws, but people keep playing precisely because it fills an otherwise empty niche, not because it's "free" (and most of those flaws appeared because the niche wasn't actually explored properly until PSO2). Ever since PSO1 Phantasy Stars have consistently increased player's control over battles. There weren't even any cooldown-based skills up until PSO2, and in most of other """skill-based""" """action""" RPGs it's just stat crunching and cooldown management. Even then, in PSO2 cooldown-based skills are a temporary utility and not the direct way of fighting.

There's this thing in games called "depth". Skill discrepancy between players is caused by that. PSO2 doesn't need to have 40 classes, a player can be satisfied with one class for years because the player himself can change the way he plays. He can improve his playstyle by testing different PA combos against different enemies and seeing which ones are more effective. Occasional balance changes, new enemy types, new weapons and armor affect that process too, and that's how the RPG part of the game enhances the action experience.

Things like, say, sub-10-minute solo Amduscia UQ runs are not unbalanced. In most other MMORPGs such things are either completely impossible or just unimpressive because it's all about getting your gear, which is all about time and luck. In PSO2 it's not enough, you have to plan all of your shit to a tee execute it, knowing full well your own capabilities, and then put effort into execution by paying attention at everything in every single moment. SEGA may have not realized the full potential of the game yet (though, I'm sure they're getting there... Slowly, but surely), but that's just the nature of pioneering in new directions.

[MightyHarken]

I played Diablo and honestly. I don´t find how it even resembles one bit PSO1. For me PSO1 holds itself as one of the best arpgs I´ve played. I do wish there was an implementation of many mechanics from pso1 into pso2. Like how everything raped you in pso1 at the beginning of the game. and raped you again when you reached ultimate.

PSO2 went the wrong way by replacing ultimate mode with ultimate quests. Since ultimate mode would have enhanced the solo experience of doing daily orders or just runs for fun. Instead of running in circles in one area with the aid of 11 other players. Now it feels good to solo UQ, but it also feels like you´re just killing time.

[Altiea]

I played Diablo and honestly. I don´t find how it even resembles one bit PSO1. For me PSO1 holds itself as one of the best arpgs I´ve played. I do wish there was an implementation of many mechanics from pso1 into pso2. Like how everything raped you in pso1 at the beginning of the game. and raped you again when you reached ultimate.

PSO2 went the wrong way by replacing ultimate mode with ultimate quests. Since ultimate mode would have enhanced the solo experience of doing daily orders or just runs for fun. Instead of running in circles in one area with the aid of 11 other players. Now it feels good to solo UQ, but it also feels like you´re just killing time.

I mean, there's Phantasy Star Nova and the Lv. 101+ post game, which essentially boiled down to combating mooks with like, 3,000,000+ hit points and insane stats that can two-shot you and fighting bosses that have like, almost literally 100,000,000 HP.

[MightyHarken]

Sounds good. Too bad this game never got ported to the west. And Im not gonna bother with it in japanese, lol. PSO2 is enough jp struggle.

[Zorak000]

Yeah I think the story was that Isao Okawa felt online gaming was the future, so he got sonic team to start work on an online multiplayer game. they looked around the industry at the time and liked what they saw from diablo, so they based a chunk of the core gameplay off of that, but went for a sci-fi setting; then a young Dragon Sakai wanted to put a dragon in it, then somebody else was all "didnt we have an IP that did sci-fi / fantasy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanta...ne#Development at least that's what I can gather from here

Okawa personally paid for a year of 2001 Japanese Internet bills for everybody who bought the game; so it's super messed up that he died like three months after PSO came out, wonder where these games would be if he was still around

[Altiea]

Sounds good. Too bad this game never got ported to the west. And Im not gonna bother with it in japanese, lol. PSO2 is enough jp struggle.

There's an English patch for Nova.

[ZerotakerZX]

There's an English patch for Nova.

how complete is it currently, do you know? i kinda finished the game, but missed most of the story

[Altiea]

how complete is it currently, do you know? i kinda finished the game, but missed most of the story

I don't know the status on the patch, since I don't use it, but the ARKS Layer site for the patch has some screenshots showing it off.

[Cyclon]

Yeah I think the story was that Isao Okawa felt online gaming was the future, so he got sonic team to start work on an online multiplayer game. they looked around the industry at the time and liked what they saw from diablo, so they based a chunk of the core gameplay off of that, but went for a sci-fi setting; then a young Dragon Sakai wanted to put a dragon in it, then somebody else was all "didnt we have an IP that did sci-fi / fantasy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanta...ne#Development at least that's what I can gather from here

Okawa personally paid for a year of 2001 Japanese Internet bills for everybody who bought the game; so it's super messed up that he died like three months after PSO came out, wonder where these games would be if he was still around

I think I had heard the inspiration story before. And it's true that superficially, the games are similar with their random loot based progression and successive areas with stronger and stronger enemies culminating into a boss battle(though old school dungeon crawlers did it first, or other video games in general really). You could say the central hub with everything you need including quests, optional or not, and classes based character creation hail from there too, I suppose, but even that is fairly common in dungeon crawlers.
You speak of core gameplay though, and I think it's fair to affirm that's where the two differ most, as they play nothing alike. Which I'd say weighs the most when you're considering what's a clone of what. Not like it really matters though.

Okawa seemed like a peculiar man. The amount of money he reportedly just threw at Sega and the Dreamcast is surprising to say the least. From my understanding, most people at least keep it in the family; then again, maybe he had none left.