August 4th Announcements

[Anduril]

Regarding Expert mode, maybe Sega should require us to complete them using some stock characters and not our own. Just like the tutorials and battle arena are done. That way Expert mode cannot be "cheesed" by acquiring better gear or more stats.

I like this idea, and make it something like needing to complete stages using each different class (maybe even with no subclass), that way it shows you have an understanding of the game as a whole instead of just knowing how to exploit the best aspects of just one or two classes or weapons. Doing this could also lead to some improvement feedback for some of the less used classes.

Rare <class> mastery skills also seem to exist to penalize using off-class weapons, even though I am not aware of many 13s and 14s which can do that, so it's another skill that could be deleted entirely, and give players baseline 10% damage to cover up the loss, maybe as a title to accompany those titles that give 10% extra damage for registering weapons in our library.

They already have changed the Class Mastery skill to just be a 10% damage bonus for using any 10*+ or crafted weapon (with the exception of Tacts). The 10% bonus for using on-class weapons is the one from the Titles for collecting weapons.

[XrosBlader821]

I basically agree with Kondibon's argument that the game has too many variables and with too large effects. In fact, maybe Sega should copy their A-, B-, C- etc. Frame system from PSO2es and consolidate all effects into a few of those, so that not everything becomes multiplicative with each other and becomes a balancing nightmare. Also there is a lot of fluff in skill trees that serve no purpose other than have somewhere to put 99 points in. There is no need for X-atk 1, X-atk 2 and X-atk 3. Just let X-atk 1 go all the way up to /30. No need for <Element Mastery> 1 and 2. Just let 1 go up to 15. Rare <class> mastery skills also seem to exist to penalize using off-class weapons, even though I am not aware of many 13s and 14s which can do that, so it's another skill that could be deleted entirely, and give players baseline 10% damage to cover up the loss, maybe as a title to accompany those titles that give 10% extra damage for registering weapons in our library.

I don't think Rare mastery only applies to mainclass weapon but I agree that the Skill trees have to much clutte. It'll only get worse as time moves on. Stuff like War Attract and Photon Flare Rod SC should be located below the respective skills they're improving but instead the entire Tree is moved down a level and the new skills are plastered on top of it. So Sega probably won't change a thing until it becomes too obnoxious even for the most tolerant players.

[Saffran]

sega confirmed a long time ago you dont need to break Omega Hunar's sword for it to be added to the loot pool

I should be thankful for that, but it's frustrating to see such nonsense. Breaking the sword should be some obvious step helping you to get it. Upping the drop % maybe, or something really significant. Ah, well.

[Kondibon]

Regarding Expert mode, maybe Sega should require us to complete them using some stock characters and not our own. Just like the tutorials and battle arena are done. That way Expert mode cannot be "cheesed" by acquiring better gear or more stats.

That won't really solve the problem. In fact it might make it worse because then you wouldn't even know how to use your own character properly. People usually cheese the XQs by getting carried or abusing mechanics, not just stats. And it also wouldn't stop people from joining EQs with outright bad class combos.

If anything they need to have the expert requirements be per class combo, but that's a lot of titles, some class combos aren't suited to the XQ, and it doesn't stop people from being carried.

[Zorak000]

The time-sensitive nature of EQs compounding with how the Block system ties lobbies and instances together, limiting the people you can be matched with right as an EQ begins, is responsible for like 80% of this game's problems; and so far all they have done to address this is dance around the subject

Magatsu really helped bring these issues to light:
Magatsu impossible to clear without a ranger to apply weak bullet? There's no way to make sure there will in fact be one person that can use Weak Bullet in the MPA? clearly the answer is "nerf magatsu's HP and the effectiveness of Weak Bullet so it is no longer a requirement", as they cannot reserve a spot in the MPA for a WB user to join, as the EQ is on a timer and everybody wants to get as many clears of the quest done before it becomes unavailable, and it's entirely possible that there are no rangers in the block at all, or the ones that are could just be AFK, taking up block space.

They really need to split lobby instances from quest instances, and make quests and lobbies run on seperate machines. this block system only worked in PSO1 and PSU because quest instances were single-party only, which was a much more controllable environment. as well as that those games didn't have extremely time-sensitive content like EQs.

EQ triggers would have been one way to step in the right direction, but most of them costing SG just feels kinda scummy to me. The free/main match system from Buster Quests would have also been amazing for this, if they gave the "EQ version" a quest select for main match mode, and free match would toss you into some random person's quest and you still get a reward to exchange for something later, which is kinda what games like XIV do already, but due to the unpopularity of Buster Quests, I fear that this system will be completely forgotten after ep5 ends.

[Kondibon]

The time-sensitive nature of EQs compounding with how the Block system ties lobbies and instances together, limiting the people you can be matched with right as an EQ begins, is responsible for like 80% of this game's problems; and so far all they have done to address this is dance around the subject

Magatsu really helped bring these issues to light:
Magatsu impossible to clear without a ranger to apply weak bullet? There's no way to make sure there will in fact be one person that can use Weak Bullet in the MPA? clearly the answer is "nerf magatsu's HP and the effectiveness of Weak Bullet so it is no longer a requirement", as they cannot reserve a spot in the MPA for a WB user to join, as the EQ is on a timer and everybody wants to get as many clears of the quest done before it becomes unavailable, and it's entirely possible that there are no rangers in the block at all, or the ones that are could just be AFK, taking up block space.

They really need to split lobby instances from quest instances, and make quests and lobbies run on seperate machines. this block system only worked in PSO1 and PSU because quest instances were single-party only, which was a much more controllable environment. as well as that those games didn't have extremely time-sensitive content like EQs.

EQ triggers would have been one way to step in the right direction, but most of them costing SG just feels kinda scummy to me. The free/main match system from Buster Quests would have also been amazing for this, if they gave the "EQ version" a quest select for main match mode, and free match would toss you into some random person's quest and you still get a reward to exchange for something later, which is kinda what games like XIV do already, but due to the unpopularity of Buster Quests, I fear that this system will be completely forgotten after ep5 ends.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say about the blocks. It sounds like you're just describing the things they already have in place for joining parties on other blocks and multiblock matching. If anything the UI needs to make things more visible and organized, but the infrastructure is already there.

[XrosBlader821]

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say about the blocks. It sounds like you're just describing the things they already have in place for joining parties on other blocks and multiblock matching. If anything the UI needs to make things more visible and organized, but the infrastructure is already there.

That's not what he's saying tho. He's saying that the Quests themselves shouldn't be tied to blocks. For example if i'm in Block 20 and enter the quest I'll get matched with people from B10 and B11 even though these blocks are filled to the brim, which is currently not possible. Even if you go run BQ, which multi-match exclusive, you can open up the Team tab and see in which block you currently are in. The system Zorak suggested would have people start the quest from whatever block they like, be matched with everyone who selected the quest on the same difficulty (not just the same block or what ever Block multi-matching decided for you) and return to the block you started the quest from after you're done. Sega said they'd like to turn Multiblock matching into what Zorak described but i'd take a long time (obviously) since implementing a feature like that requires a lot of changes on Sega's backend. It wouldn't surprise me if a feature like that would be in place from the beginning for whatever comes after PSO2.

[Dark Mits]

Magatsu really helped bring these issues to light:
Magatsu impossible to clear without a ranger to apply weak bullet? There's no way to make sure there will in fact be one person that can use Weak Bullet in the MPA? clearly the answer is "nerf magatsu's HP and the effectiveness of Weak Bullet so it is no longer a requirement", as they cannot reserve a spot in the MPA for a WB user to join, as the EQ is on a timer and everybody wants to get as many clears of the quest done before it becomes unavailable, and it's entirely possible that there are no rangers in the block at all, or the ones that are could just be AFK, taking up block space.

This was more of an issue with WB than with the EQ system however. If having one class is the absolute only factor in determining whether a run takes 5mins or 20mins regardless of the skills of players in the group, then that means that the utility of that class needs to be reevaluated in comparison to the rest.

The 2nd issue is allowing multiple runs per session. It is the reason why people refuse to even ask others if they finished picking up their rewards, but outright restart the run just to save 10 seconds. This has led to the secondary issue of players distrusting others and refusing to join someone else's group despite the extra Triboost incentive. It is also the reason why Sega is reluctant to make EQs that require more than 10mins for Expert groups. I guess everyone here has listened to others complain that The Undeground Nightmare is badly designed because you have to wait for the tank and because it doesn't go to the boss immediately.

The 3rd issue is the player mentality of "If I don't reach the theoretical max number of runs, then the whole effort was a critical failure". This is not something that Sega is responsible for or even able to fix; it's just the player mentality that permeates online gaming in 2010s. But Sega could reduce the maximum number of runs to 1 or 2 for every EQ, and adjust duration and rewards to their desired numbers. Imagine if a single Magatsu run dropped 100 excube-able items. Players wouldn't need to act so selfishly in such case.

They really need to split lobby instances from quest instances, and make quests and lobbies run on seperate machines. this block system only worked in PSO1 and PSU because quest instances were single-party only, which was a much more controllable environment. as well as that those games didn't have extremely time-sensitive content like EQs.

They just needed to allow 12man groups, and not limit it to 4man. This whole situation of requiring 3 groups and passwords to start a closed run is a very inelegant solution to a problem that didn't exist but Sega created themselves.

[Jene-chan]

The game was originally designed around the following tenents:

Emergency Quests - Time-limited content with higher potential for rewards but not available at all times.
Free Fields - Free content available at any time but has proportionately lower drop rates to account for the fact that it can be played at any time.
Block System - Solution to both server/instance congestion but also served as a way to give each black (or "channel" in this context) a purpose, such as a Time Attack block or an Extra Hard block.

Over time, people started to realize that Free Fields weren't really engaging at all and doing things like trying for Quartz Dragon katana or other things that could be done in a Free Field were not worth the effort. I believe it was around Episode 2 that everyone joked about PSO2 being a Time Attack/Emergency Quest simulator (e.g. log on, do your daily Time Attack COs, do an EQ or two then stop playing because there's nothing else to do). Ever since then, they've been trying a lot of different things to give incentive to players to play outside of only EQs with some success, but the success lately is only temporary because they can't keep content relevant outside of when it's released.

There are too many recent examples - Ultimate Quest, Challenge Mode, Riding Quest, Extreme Quest, Buster Quest and maybe even Endless Quest depending on what other content comes into the game soon and if they will continue to add to Endless Quest. Honestly it's pretty telling that their big announcements about EP5 were no Free Fields and them supporting Buster Quest as the new mode to do and they've abandoned both of those goals by adding Free Forest and essentially abandoning Buster Quest as a mode outside of small updates. This may be due to them course correcting due to the backlash over EP5 but regardless they had to walk back most of what they set out to do.

I know it's nothing new to be pessimistic about the PSO2 devs these days, but I honestly don't really feel they learned the lesson from their recent failures but only time will tell on that.

[Kondibon]

That's not what he's saying tho. He's saying that the Quests themselves shouldn't be tied to blocks. For example if i'm in Block 20 and enter the quest I'll get matched with people from B10 and B11 even though these blocks are filled to the brim, which is currently not possible. Even if you go run BQ, which multi-match exclusive, you can open up the Team tab and see in which block you currently are in. The system Zorak suggested would have people start the quest from whatever block they like, be matched with everyone who selected the quest on the same difficulty (not just the same block or what ever Block multi-matching decided for you) and return to the block you started the quest from after you're done. Sega said they'd like to turn Multiblock matching into what Zorak described but i'd take a long time (obviously) since implementing a feature like that requires a lot of changes on Sega's backend. It wouldn't surprise me if a feature like that would be in place from the beginning for whatever comes after PSO2.

Yeah, but I'm saying the system is already there and works, unless I just don't know how multi-block matching works. I thought everyone who did it was joining a sort of "shared" block, not going to other existing blocks.