Hello, I am coming back and have a couple questions. Please help.

[kurokyosuke]

the secret to this is, let people access content the way they could in every other PSO/PSU game ever; whenever they wanted.

and just to preempt the "my immersion" poster, if your immersion has to come from making the game's marquee content a pain in the ass to access, your immersion shouldn't matter.

Here's the thing though: If EQs are available at all times, people are going to get tired of content far more easily, since people don't play this type of game for excessive repetition (i.e. running the same EQ a couple times a day vs. running the same LQ tens to hundreds of times a day). Add onto that the fact that PSO2 is significantly faster paced than PSO and PSU, burning out happens just as quickly.
And it's funny you should mention immersion, since having "scheduled" EQs completely ruins immersion to begin with.

you shouldn't have to either accept only 4-5 hours of sleep per night or a major rush to get to work on time to enjoy a video game and there's no way that's sustainable or healthy.

... which means you would have to rush to wash up, eat, then commute to work to be there by 8.

stressing your daily life to fit the schedule of some anime mmo is a sign of a problem, man. I say this as someone who likes said anime mmo.

if you're sacrificing a better morning day to day for EQs, get help.

While I agree with this, it doesn't mean your average Japanese PSO2 player is going to be stressing over getting EQs in. Based on general in-game activity, most players are on until around midnight JST, give or take an hour for dailies. There aren't too many people on for early morning EQs, meaning normal people tend to skip over that.
On a side note, gaming in Japan is very mobile, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine people getting in the afternoon EQs during a lunch break if they actually cared enough.

Going back to OP's original question, there are two main reasons people play PSO2: equipment and fashion. Most of the best equipment is gated behind EQs, so most people just wait for those. But as I mentioned, people will burn out quickly if you put good equipment in a quest that anyone can run at any time. A good example being the current Limited Time Quest; it gives fodder required for making ★15 weapons. I played the 2 LQs like crazy when they first came out last month, but now I don't have the motivation to even open up the game anymore (save for buying stuff from the current AC scratch because fashion).
You're definitely going to have to find an active group if you want to run content outside of EQs, but from personal experience, people have been gradually leaving PSO2 due to the direction the game has been going in. As Nightfall said, if you don't have the time to be waiting for EQs (or can't build your schedule around a few), then getting back into the game into the game will probably be difficult, if not pointless.

[Flatflyer]

honestly the main issue with EQs is just that they're too damn short to actually catch.

if sega would just extend the availability period to like 3 hours (or even 6 hours would be amazing) and made it so new EQs were just added onto the list every other hour or so, it'd be a lot better for people to catch them while they're going.

[NightfallG]

Here's the thing though: If EQs are available at all times, people are going to get tired of content far more easily, since people don't play this type of game for excessive repetition

are we even talking about the same game series, because these are loot grinders and have been since ver.1/ver.2 on Dreamcast. repetition is inherent with loot grinders. the reqs for 15* from zeig shows this better than anything in the most obnoxious way possible, since it ties back into the dumb as hell EQ system.

Add onto that the fact that PSO2 is significantly faster paced than PSO and PSU, burning out happens just as quickly.

again, are we even talking about the same game, or even the same genre at this point? Path of Exile, another lootgrinder, is even faster than PSO2 and it's able to keep people coming back again and again despite being the same gameplay loop and largely the same content with a slight gimmick every 3 months. people burn out on PSO2 because the only things worth doing are timelocked or RNG to access, and every other piece of content winds up taking a back seat to push the scheduled content.

tldr: the burnout has little to do with the grind or repetition, it has everything to do with there being no *worthwhile* content outside of EQs. get rid of the dumb system that was already compromised to begin with (remember, EQs used to be RNG based to make it more 'immersive') and just let people play your game.

[Dark Mits]

Are we even talking about the same game, or even the same genre at this point? Path of Exile, another lootgrinder, is even faster than PSO2...

Isn't Path of Exile an isometric Hack&Slash type of game (like Diablo) where you just hold left click? Or am I confusing it with some other game?

-=EDIT=-
It is an isometric hack&slash game. I searched for "quick gameplay"... it's outright ridiculous. There is not even skill involved, just the exact same ability used over and over.

[NightfallG]

It is an isometric hack&slash game. I searched for "quick gameplay"... it's outright ridiculous. There is not even skill involved, just the exact same ability used over and over.

the ironometer exploded. to me, there is no effective difference between TAJAing the same two PAs over and over for max damage and, say, DPSing down Shaper with Molten Strike. the only "skill" in either game is mechanical dodging which both games have (PoE has shitloads of oneshot kill situations that will destroy you if you don't get out of the way on anything but the tankiest, slowest builds).

the nebulous concept of how much skill the game takes isn't even the discussion anyway. it's "does accessibility lead to burnout" to which, if your gameplay loop is entertaining, the answer is no. both have loot grinds, both have repetition, both are all about the numbers going up. the minutiae doesn't change those three big points. the only thing to ask is, what is PSO2 doing to honestly mitigate burnout? scheduled EQs don't mitigate burnout, they just add friction to playing the fun, thoughtful parts of the game. you know, the ones that take some semblance of skill.

oh, and if we want to keep it purely in the realm of third-person action titles, MHW and Warframe exist. both have more or less 100% of their non-event based content available at any given time. they both have grinds less RNG intensive than PSO2, primarily due to the fact you can grind to your heart's content without sweating the clock. both have good player retention, despite not heavily gating access to stages/quests. they stand as even more proof of my point.

[TehCubey]

EQs work. PSO2 already tried to replace them with a quest you can run at any time. It was called Buster Quest and it sucked, causing a huge popularity drop after ep 4's buildup.

[Dark Mits]

first part of the post

I don't disagree at all with that, in fact I agree.

What is PSO2 doing to honestly mitigate burnout? scheduled EQs don't mitigate burnout, they just add friction to playing the fun, thoughtful parts of the game. you know, the ones that take some semblance of skill.

PSO2 has new content every 2 weeks, even if that content is recycled from previous years with just higher level enemies. Also, we are currently in the "slow" season because we're in-between 2 episodes, which exist even in other more well known games like WoW, which has had 14-month content gaps before the release of its 2 last expansions.

I don't know how other games handle it, but at least PSO2 has different daily tasks for players on rotation, even if they are old content. So yeah, I am doing trivial no-challenge content, but at least it's on a different environment, maps and enemies spawns are randomly generated, and EC codes are different every time, which give a sense of experiencing it in a slightly different way. Not only that, but every week there are campaigns that most of the time have some new component in them (for example sometimes we have to complete Extreme Quest, sometimes Advance Quest, sometimes Riding Quest; now we have to complete the Seasonal and Persona).

As for burnout, no game can actually do anything about it. When you get burnt out, you do something else, and then if you get bored you return and see if your interest is reignited.

Note that I am not trying to advertise PSO2 here or white-knight it. There are many stuff with this game that I have issues with. It's just my observation that compared to all other online MMOs that I've played, PSO2 has the least static content, and tries the most to not invalidate older content.

Regarding the EQ system and why it is limited

Because if there was no way to "timegate" content and runs, the hardcore base would finish their gear upgrades on the same day any content would be released. In the case where we have free access to content that gives Best-In-Slot, we have quite abysmal RNG, just like we do now with Chaotic City. Same happened with Enchanted Forest when it was hot content for Jutus, and with UQs when they were dropping Nemesis-NT and Slave-NT.

Yes, EQ is a bad system if the events always happen on times that do not fit one's schedule. But that's why they repeat it so many times, so that you have many chances to complete what you're after. You don't have to no-life to get things done even with this limiting EQ system. As I mentioned in my previous post, you are bound to get some runs per week regardless of what timezone you are in, and what time you can play due to other activities. Besides, the 50 runs required for Lightstream are supposed to last us till May or June, when I believe EP6's first 12man raid will be implemented. And in the case that due to real-life obligations you don't manage to complete those 50 runs, no big deal. You'll get EP6 equipment which will be equivalent or better than the current gear.

[ArcaneTechs]

ah yes the PSU formula where people playing all the way to the newest rest area, a majority that didnt farm specific quests and all flocked right back to White Beast and the 4th complaining about nothing to do, stuff is boring etc nah no thanks i dont want PSU's method back (only if every quest was i supposed balanced properly in terms of drops and exp). Even when they did Guardians Boost Road to get people to play through the original path or through selected it wasnt a big motivator to get people off of White Beast spam.

Im not too particularly fond of time gated stuff because some of the time gated EQs i find fun but only able to run once or the 30min duration kinda irks me a bit. I mean i was fine with the 1hr EQs we had in the past but I guess that was too much in terms of new gear dropping too fast and the playerbase dropping said content then complaining about nothing to do again, a vicious cycle in MMOs

[Imjake]

Well, this devolved quickly.
First of all, thank you to those with IQs above 70 that actually answered my questions.

Secondly, Ive played this game since 2012. So let's stop with this pretending Im a noob trying to understand this game.

I asked a simple question about whether or i not i missed something in regards to playing with others. It's obvious now that I did not and it is what it is.

I see people who dont understand timezones, that's for sure

Regardless, Ive spent an assload of time and money on this game and was hoping there was a way to still play.

[ArcaneTechs]

Well, this devolved quickly.
First of all, thank you to those with IQs above 70 that actually answered my questions.

Secondly, Ive played this game since 2012. So let's stop with this pretending Im a noob trying to understand this game.

I asked a simple question about whether or i not i missed something in regards to playing with others. It's obvious now that I did not and it is what it is.

I see people who dont understand timezones, that's for sure

Regardless, Ive spent an assload of time and money on this game and was hoping there was a way to still play.

some of us understand the time zone problem and with the scheduled EQs being centered around JP times theres nothing you can do, you either play conveniently timed EQs in your Time Zone or you dont play any at all, ya it kinda sucks its this way. I mean people argued about it in the past, no ones happy in the end really