What do you want EP6 to get right?

[Kilich]

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.

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.

Yes, I think that enemies should be punishing, but for that they need to be slower and more complex with telegraphed attacks. But for slower mobs to pose a challenge, the players also need to be slower and that was made impossible with Hero that pulled other classes to its level and the multitude of safety skills and potentials.

Also, yes, that class role vision has failed, but at least its still a vision. One they could potentially return to, even if they'll need to hammer down some nails like Hero and Gu/Fi and skills that really should be main class only.

[vantpers]

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.

The action element and skill variance has been slowly disappearing from PSO2. Lots of best clears of your random TA-like are concentrated mainly on removing the need to dodge and then just putting yourself in the right place for maximum AoE and just the AI, to simplify. Similarly several classes reach their peak DPS by just concentrating on attacking with 0 thought in defense.

More importantly slight roles PSO2 from time to time had resulted from actual pronounced class differences and were conductive to action combat, more so that letting every player also tank (as in take a whole lot of red numbers to the face, not gather aggro and hold it) damage without losing DPS. Classes had different AoE capabilities that weren't as spammy, different mobility and different ability to dodge enemies and keep attacking. Sega is currently trying too much to homogenize everything which results in even harsher class balance feedback because OP classes overwrite the usefulness of nearly everything, instead of you still having some leeway cause other class is made for something else.

[XrosBlader821]

The action element and skill variance has been slowly disappearing from PSO2. Lots of best clears of your random TA-like are concentrated mainly on removing the need to dodge and then just putting yourself in the right place for maximum AoE and just the AI, to simplify. Similarly several classes reach their peak DPS by just concentrating on attacking with 0 thought in defense.

What you're describing right here is a Subclass system issue. Yes, everyone who uses Hunter as a Subclass doesn't give a rats ass about incoming damage thanks to Iron Will and Automate, sometimes even Massive Hunter but you cannot say the same about classes like Te/Fi, Te/Br, Bo/Fi, Fi/Br, Fo/Te and classes like Gu/Fi and Hr are heavily incentivised to dodge incoming attacks, dodge being a defensive maneuver. And this Issue was present since the moment the Subclass system originally came out so lets not pretend like that's something new.

[ZerotakerZX]

Cun content, what content got cut?

[vantpers]

What you're describing right here is a Subclass system issue. Yes, everyone who uses Hunter as a Subclass doesn't give a rats ass about incoming damage thanks to Iron Will and Automate, sometimes even Massive Hunter but you cannot say the same about classes like Te/Fi, Te/Br, Bo/Fi, Fi/Br, Fo/Te and classes like Gu/Fi and Hr are heavily incentivised to dodge incoming attacks, dodge being a defensive maneuver. And this Issue was present since the moment the Subclass system originally came out so lets not pretend like that's something new.

It's not system issue, it's Hunter's tree issue where a couple of bad decisions from EP3 made Automated Halfline and Iron Will too easily available due do skill tree repositioning and lots more of available SP without being able to use those SP to spec into other viable playstyles, therefore facing relative damage penalty for using those skills. Te/Fi, Te/Br, Fi/Br, Bo/Fi all have problems of not being meta overall, partially due to their downfall in not being braindead. Fo/Te still has the access to lol instant restas and being able to make up HP difference with units, on top of being given plenty of powerful defensive tools, and lower risk playstyle. Gu/Fi is a lol, it doesn't have to dodge. You're pressing the dodge button but you're smashing it to do damage, which is equivalent of saying that dashing around with step is dodging. High altitude, passively being covered in iframes and movement when doing most of its damage, and high affinity with lifeleech make the point moot, cause in the end Gu/Fi taking on a room of aggressive mobs is about as cheesy as Hu/Fi. Hero technically is the class to finally solve the problems with Hunter sub, too bad it's also easy to play with low risk moves like main single target DPS being a range attack with a bit of iframes on the beginning and a whole lot of movement to either side.

[Kilich]

Are there any statistics for console and pc player %? Maybe the trend that started with Hero is due to pso2 having mostly console players.

[Tunga]

Are there any statistics for console and pc player %? Maybe the trend that started with Hero is due to pso2 having mostly console players.

This game started on PC for years before going to ps4 (ps4 jpn version only) i doubt console players had any effect on hero.

[Dark Mits]

Yes, I think that enemies should be punishing, but for that they need to be slower and more complex with telegraphed attacks. But for slower mobs to pose a challenge, the players also need to be slower and that was made impossible with Hero that pulled other classes to its level and the multitude of safety skills and potentials.

Slowing down the game isn't necessary. Enemies are already punishing. The issue is that we have ways to recover from their punishment that are exceedingly overpowered. As I have said multiple times when this discussion comes up, if you can recover back to full hp either passively or actively with minimal effort (or even no effort at all), then anything that isn't a direct instant-kill is as if it didn't happen.

Those Minotaurs in Enchanted Forest charge you for about 15% of your max health (depending on class/subclass and equipment of course). That 15% would build to something threatening if you didn't passively recover it entirely through just attacking (lifesteal is op when it ticks 30 per attack multiple times per second), or from a single non-charged Resta tick, or even from 2-3 attacks after casting Megiverse; because it would pile up and require you to start avoiding attacks.

Why was Phaleg a challenge? Because of the healing debuff, not because of her damage or the time limit. You couldn't treat Phaleg like your average boss where you say "Hit me, I will recuperate anyway". You had to avoid her damage not because it would instantly kill you but because it would kill you through attrition. But players didn't like that, so Sega had to remove the notion that the HP bar should be an HP bar, and instead made it an on/off switch.

[Kilich]

Healing is a safety skill, yes. But I do think that slowing the game is needed, both to create mobs with more complex attacks/defenses that you can counter with movement, or by breaking their parts and giving players more breathing room and playstyles that benefit from teamwork.
Maybe its just me, but the current game is about dashing between spawns, that grew much more aggresive and often have quick knockdown and ranged attacks, that get insta-nuked and spending time in i-frames as you deplete hp of the damage sponges that mini-bosses and bosses have turned into.
And I miss ep 1-3 times where being fast and mobile was either skill, or a drawback.
Also, didn't limit break back then reduce your hp to 1?

[vantpers]

LB was introduced in EP3. It was more dangerous back then because you had relatively less hp. Enchanted Forest mobs still hit for often way less damage than Ultimate Naberius mobs (EP5 vs EP3 content). Sure they are more aggressive, but we also had big progress in our defences. Even more SP for your Hunter tree to take whatever you need from it, units went from PP crafted Saiki making lots of people glass for that PP to crazy 7s affixed Izane that makes you tanky and with more than enough PP/Attack. Then we even got Rappy Shine.