Their recent descriptions were mostly Allrounder roles with some range and maneuver variations.Originally Posted by vantpers
They wouldn't want to group them by narrowed purposes like single or multi range, because endgame relies on you being able to do all of that at once, and classes quickly fall off the pop chart if they can't at least efficiently reach the enemy.
And if they will keep using skill trees only to dump step jumps and JA effects in there, thers not much hope for more.
That's the point, All Rounder is there precisely because they couldn't name any other real roles so they threw a meaningless word there with obvious secondary descriptors like "range". Just ask yourself what Hunter really does that Fighter or Gunner can't, same with Braver or Bouncer or even Hero.
Endgame was also fine when we had more pronounced single/multi target difference like Ra/Br in TD and even early EP3 Fi/Hu versus Fo/Te . The only problem is when Sega forces solo quests on players where classes can't support each other, and then does retarded balancing like in Gu's situation where they had to bring mobbing from meh to god tier for no reason. Sure to my classification a mobility stat would also be neede though.
Allrounder requirement became much more prominent with ult and post-ult enemies that aren't very forgiving to gunslash tier mechanics.
They're not forcing solo quests, they're supplying content to solo players.
So what you're having in the end is that somehow theres not many people that want to level up a raid mop which can't deal with new enemy, because the class somehow isn't suitable to killing flying targets or moving targets or something else.
Balance itself is a whole different topic, because for instance they could have just updated Gunner's PAs to a less clunky and faster shape instead of bundling sroll arts to 85 (for whatever reason), since a lot of them hardly made sense even during their release. Then theres 30 atk passive skills, we could go on forever really.
PS: can you name any "real" roles that won't turn automatching into a nightmare of people instaleaving the mpa if it doesnt have dedicated buffers, scaffolders and scuba divers? Looks like people already hated that dual ether EQ disfavored compound charging.
I think in ep2-3 they thought of Hunter as a party defense, given that his block protected those behind him, Fo as AoE, Te as buffs, Fi as a high risk, very high DPS, Ra as a turret and debuff dispenser, Gu as a boss fighter DPS that relied on Chain, Br as a class that could switch between high mobility mobbing with katana combat and boss fighting with bow.
Needless to say they failed on most of these class descriptions.
Hunter did f*ckall to increase party defense and back in the day it was an even bigger Subclass slut than it currently is, Fi was a bloody mess before Limit break and EP3 Skill Tree revamp hit it, the only debuff Ra ever did was Weak bullet. the other bullet types might have as well not existed (and they still kinda don't), Te Shifta/Deband wasn't even that good until EP3 hit, Hybrid Br still isn't as viable as Hybrid Bo is.
Except enemies shouldn't be forgiving. That's the point. Having just a tiny bit of inconvenience when not doing teamwork isn't anything bad.
Previously you couldn't become an expert where most people played without doing a solo quest. Now there is also the party method. On the other hand we have solo PD which due to the drops did force players to play solo, next solo quest incoming that are supposedly super hard, and obviously Endless that offers rewards for solo play only.
Well that's the point of playing in an MPA. Technically you're not supposed to deal with the big boss alone, and he has health that isn't balanced for a single player. There should exist universal classes that can deal with everything but they should be paying the DPS tax compared to specialist classes. The only bad thing is really doing single target/multi target distinctions while providing quests like raid bosses only, or featuring a few mobs at the beginning. I wouldn't mind Sega moving away from those but only in favour of other distinctions and trying not to make mobbing only classes.
Nobody leaves MPA if they don't have Techer to provide 10% damage and Deband Toughness so that's one. Same thing if Sega gave the ability to gather aggro of more annoying secondary damage sources like gunships or Apprentice's bugs, so a minor tank role that doesn't overwrite the ability to dodge shit, but merely gives attack opportunities. Couple that with classes that work bad when aggro'd by the boss and classes that get bonus damage when parrying attacks as another distinction. Same with putting status on things.
Hunter and defense has always been a funny thing. In the end Sega forgot to at least no give War Cry and Hunter's most powerful defensive skills to anyone who subs it. JG covering people behind you is super rare too. At least War Attract kinda lets you gather aggro much more easily on top of having the boss under jellen. Technically you could start tanking some bosses right now, but nobody will really notice given how almost every class doesn't mind getting hammered by the boss with all those defensive abilities and safety skills.
Last edited by vantpers; Nov 3, 2018 at 12:30 PM.
Yeah and Expert matching is so much fun now that any hack can get carried by their team into a matching type that was supposed to separate good players from bad ones by testing the individual in question.
PSO2 has always been and always will be an Action game first and RPG second. The difference between the classes has always been only on a playstyle basis and not on a class synergy basis.
People did leave when there was no Ranger back when Weak bullet gave 255% Damage and not 20% when dealing with Magatsu. You see Magatsu's HP were balanced with Weak Bullet in mind so once you lack a Weak bullet in your MPA the fight will drag on forever. Same thing can be applied to what you suggested. If you make enemy attacks too reliant on people taking aggro for them then the players will have a miserable time dealing with the enemy once that certain class is missing. Thats why enemy patterns need to be designed around every class in a vacuum.
Problem was, even the solo version was prone to what players considered cheese. Hero floating in the air and doing Srank with 0 risk or similar. Ironically people wouldn't consider for example some guy running stage 4 entirely on corner whack unga bunga with halfline cheese, even though it IS pretty cheesy all things considering. It's just that it's a tactic that can be used in real applications in MPA content. Following this line of thought we can sure argue whether doing solo content is always a good test of MPA prowess or even fair with class imbalance. But we're not even supposed to go on about that, as in the end the game does head to solo content focus.
Class playstyles also suffer from general all roundeness. We've been eliminating slowness from the classes since some time, you can't really play real MH-style Greatsword here. Almost everyone needs to have some brainless AoE spam to compete in mobbing so the playstyles converge here too. Even in regards to the newest Sword Hunter buffs many people complain that they buffed mostly Ignite Parrying and the class just needs a simple press button to unload tons of DPS ability. Look at Fighter, if anything the supposedly high risk class has just been getting tons of safety buffs with Deadly Circle craft, Slow Fighter action, Gear Experience for aggressive enemies or LBI stacked with Iron Will. Synergy is needed because actual playstyle differences will result in different strengths and weaknesses. A perfectly high risk/high reward class would struggle with high intensity mobbing versus aggressive enemies for example, which would facilitate a small bit of synergy with a class that can allow itself to get hit plenty or has easier time not getting hit and some aggro skills. But because we consider Fighter alone versus everything we need to dial down on the high risk part (not high reward tho).
Yeah WB was too powerful and I've been saying it too, it was also boring. Techer is too similarly a mostly passive buff to party DPS yet it's not a big deal because the percentages are more balanced. The problem is obviously just balancing the things so it's not too hard, and not too easy. No class is meant to just die when the boss looks at it, but it's at least supposed to severely limit its damage and get in considerable danger. No "tank"? Sure you will have kinda bad time with the boss switching aggro too much and limit everyone's DPS but it won't be bad enough to force you to abandon. Then just make sure that the same role can be fulfilled by a few classes and not only one slice of player population.
Pronounced roles in mmorpgs exist because its their mainstay gameplay mechanic. In pso2 theres an action element that absolutely decides whether you will die in two hits or snap new boss so hard that they'll have to patch it next week. Pso2 has class roles too, its just they don't have to be cripples while at that and dont have to bench this quest because they're "not needed". It also helps that 99% of PSO2 gameplay is about reaching the enemy and ripping its head off, so it will also narrow down the options.
The point of MPA is actually just playing together with other players. Enemies being tougher and in bigger numbers is just an accomodation to mpa size. Theres no rule that mpa is exclusively assembled to give players better opportunity to reach a flock of birds that they couldnt finish off on their own.
Nobody leaves MPA because they're punished for leaving. Forget ranger, players left magatsu for knees broken on right turn, because it was already clear that it will be lost. At the same time, 4 prepared gunners could instakill the same boss.
Its not just about gunner's role, right? Cause the potential full mpa of ep3 might contain 6-8 gunners that will also horribly fail the quest after using up all the stage gimmicks, even though they would know about chain trigger and even use it. What is going on in there?
People also did mass quit Falz Loser if it slogs a little bit. Forget about timeout, overmiraging or early clock break, they quit it because it TOOK LONGER. Again, simple rules, no special classes needed, but quest was a gamble every time.
I'm trying to say that skill variance is much more important here than class archetypes. Supports would only feel worse in situation where they need to efficiently back up "damage dealers" and tanks that attack and evade worse than supports themselves.
You want to saturate this mess with some more necessary actions being done at obscenely varying quality or what, I dont exactly get it. I dont understand what you want to introduce.
Last edited by Golgotha; Nov 3, 2018 at 08:27 PM.
If i had one suggestion it would be to scrap the cancerous affixing system. But were too far late into the game for something like that.
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