Thinking of coming back after a long time

[GHNeko]

You've listed one of many things that could be improved in PSO2 to make the game a more enjoyable and interesting experience for all.

[Achelousaurus]

Late October we are getting a new EQ and new 13*.
We also get these for 100 new quest stones and 100 excubes and they come fully affixed at 60 element and +10.
Some think these have no potential but even then they are stronger than red weapons at potential 3.

Actually, we got more than just 1 pa since r2zero left.
We got a fire/dark and a light/ice compound tech.
We also got Tears Grid for Partizan that's neat and has overall good damage but is overall too long and costs too much to be truly useful.
We got End Attract for rifle that is Satellite Cannon levels of OP.
We got Fall Nocturne for dagger which is useless cause of the risk of touching ground and losing the 50% dmg boost from gear and wasting time to get it back.
And we get the even more useless Adapt Spin for wired lance that looks nice but just wastes a lot of pp for pitiful damage and a super situational repositioning.
Also Grim barrage for tmg which is dunno, I don't use tmgs much but it struck me as ok but nothing amazing.

Playing PSO2es is probably alwys worth it as long as Soul Receptor doesn't drop in the main game (seriously, WTF Sega?).
Making money...don't think anything has changed.
We finally can look for up to 4 affixes at once and can distinguish between subcategories of tickets, like hairstyles / lobby actions / accessories.

Iirc there was also an option for AC scratch to chose a category, allowing to only try for support items (or whatever you call them) for example, not getting any accessories or costumes but just grind risk reduction / atk boost / element change / etc. items.
I think that reduced their prices cause now people have a smaller pool of unwanted items which they can get instead of these.
On the other hand few people do scratch at the moment and costumes can easily be 7million (female anyway) or some shit.

Sorry to inform you, but you missed out on free passes. When we got 11* unit and 12* weapon passes we got an LQ where the new bronze/silver/gold badges dropped easily (first we gave them xie, now it got moved to the badge shop for super weak 13* weapons, awesome camos and a few other things).
There are titles for doing that LQ up to 30 times and you can get up to 3 12* passes from that but no clue if you can somehow still get the titles or if that train has left.

We got challenge mode 1 which is truly amazing and finally something really challenging and fun...but requires 12 skilled people which are hard to come by and few people do challenge mode these days.
And then we got cmode2 which is kinda ok, really damn easy in comparison and not nearly as fun.

Challenge miles from cmode can be used for a number of things (the shop is up there with rare stone / cube shop / etc) and also 13* weapons for which you need 540k miles (a lot of farming) to get a weapon with low atk for 13* and an 18% dmg boost for area bosses (not minibosses like Wolga).

Ult Lilipa is a hell lot more fun than Naberius and a very mangaeable clusterfuck and gives stones for Slave series 13* (so many 13* nowadays) which all have + 300atk at 50% + pp.
We also got a handful 13* from Kuronia stones, Katana and maybe knuckles too will reduce dmg by 5% in exchange for reducing pp cost by 30%.

Sword got even faster. Even without fury gear boost (which is now independent from stance) it charges fast and you need to use Crafted Twister Fall only once for full gear (if you get 5 points in Hunter Gear boost, not sure what it's like without).

Volg Raptor no longer works as massive multiplier with Chain Trigger but not sure how much exactly it was nerfed.
But Bellion showed that even now CT + Banish Arrow is op as fuck and can oneshot XH Luther. Even though that was supposed to have been nerfed a good while ago.

Not sure how long it's like this but Gunslash got a big boost and now it's of course still behind main weapons but not by that much, it can put out some very nice damage with the right use.

And not sure if you got to see Vinto Gigue, it's a JB pa that uses all gear for damage and after an initial bug it got fixed and now works with the applied jb element and not only the weapon element.
Apparenly it can deal some pretty massive damage with the right setup, 900k+ and all.

And not sure if you saw it already btu DS got a new pa called Hurricane Sender that is similar to Chaos Riser, it has less dmg but the zondeel effect is bit further away.
I don't see many people use it, I don't cause I don't use DS much but I'm pretty sure when used correctly it's quite useful.

[BlankM]

You've listed one of many things that could be improved in PSO2 to make the game a more enjoyable and interesting experience for all.

Hard to do that without feeling really arbitrary. In PSO1 we had more accurate attacks later in your combo. The closest thing we have is like TAJB from fighter.

You can ask for combos but how long before people just say "Well now everyone does the same combo." You'd need some kind of new fundamental mechanic or incentive. Like chaining x PA weakness gets progressively stronger, mobs gain resistance, actual need for CC, builds PB faster, active skills that make them superior etc.

It's a shame because a lot of those PSO2 JP weapon switch combo vids are really cool/creative.

[TwistedShaerk]

Challenge miles from cmode can be used for a number of things (the shop is up there with rare stone / cube shop / etc) and also 13* weapons for which you need 540k miles (a lot of farming) to get a weapon with low atk for 13* and an 18% dmg boost for area bosses (not minibosses like Wolga).

I thought within the first week of Ideals existing people disproved the rumor that they didn't work on minibosses.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

I thought within the first week of Ideals existing people disproved the rumor that they didn't work on minibosses.

That we did. They work on minibosses, and bosses.

[LunaSolstice]

lol why do I feel like one of the few people who like making combos?

I prefer flashy stuff so if I was using the same PA/tech on all my weapon palettes then I'd be bored of this game lol

I like to make a combo from every PA that a weapon has,only exception is AR since I only pull that out for WB,Satellite Cannon and End attract,but they aren't the only PAs on the weapon palette still lol

Example:

Guren+Guren+Guren=Bored.

Also PP efficiency means nothing when every class can use Queen Vera.

[TaigaUC]

The thing with PSO2's "combos" is they don't feel like combos to me.
This is coming from someone who has played (and de/reconstructed) all kinds of fighters for decades.
PSO2's combos are basically special attacks (Photon Arts) strung together in random fashion.
Many of the PAs don't flow well as part of a combo, both in mechanics and appearance.
And most of them don't feel like they were designed with the combo system in mind.

My impression of combos is more along the lines of: closing distance -> multiple hits to stun/debilitate enemy -> finisher.
Combos in fighters usually scale upwards in terms of flashiness/strength. In fighters with super cancels, you'd end the special attack finisher with a super attack.
That also feels much more satisfying than cycling 3 special attacks over and over.
There's also that strange feeling of lacking control when, in the middle of a combo, you're unable to bust out the exact special attack you want, when you want. Gotta cycle through first.
As a suggestion, SEGA could add a "finisher" system that changes PAs into "finishers" when placed in the final slot.
I'm sure that would make things much more interesting.

@r2zero
I don't think PSO2 has changed that much since Ultimate Naberius was released.
The game currently still focuses heavily on farming and grinding 13 stars.
But we'll be getting a lot of new content soon, including graphical upgrades and Episode 4, which, according to the data, seems to come with a new pet class.
You may want to start preparing for that.

[wefwq]

If you're looking for "exciting" thing to do, there's nothing new right now.
Your best bet to make a comeback probably when they add new falz EQ.

How big is the gap between Free and Premium Users?I remember it getting smaller by the time I left. How good are crafted weapons/units now?

Literally just pay for convenient feature, but is not a must.
You can shell out few bucks for it, mainly to make your progress easier (shop usage when premium are active, grants you access to "premium space", trade with other premium player, etc.)

Crafted weapon are now pretty good, that if you picked the "right" weapon to craft, pretty much the same rule apply to unit.

Any major melee class changes/balances since then?

Not much changed, they definitelly tweak some stuff but those barely change anything worth mentioning.

How worth it is it to play PSO2es alongside?

You can get special affix dropping from mob over there, and that's it.
Well, you can say that you can also see your character on the go, if you like your character so much.
It also a pretty decent smartphone games, if you don't have anything to do and just want to play a little bit on bus ride.

How easy is it to make money now?

Still pretty much the same.
TACO and XQCO every week, and randomized daily DO.
You can make more money if you have some stuff to sell and get your player shop active (using premium feature, or using shop pass from AC shop or FUN scratch).

[infiniteeverlasting]

i dont think he's saying that he cant do combos

i think he's saying that comboing doesnt matter because "everything is broken."

like "why do you need to do tsukimi > gekka when you can just sakura endo x2" type thing lol.

and he's kinda right. there is very little need to do slick combos when you can BHS x3 or Twister Fall Type-0 x3 or Sat Aim x99.

Really the closest things to combos that are regularly done is Zondeel > Something Else

this is what i meant exactly^

CD's will also fix the power creep we are experiencing.

[TaigaUC]

Grim Barrage -> Satellite Aim is actually a pretty cool looking combo.
Of course, it's only something you use when moving between enemies.

re:PSO2ES
You can also get some PSO2ES exclusive weapons that sell for 100k-1m sometimes.
In some cases, levelling is also easier/faster.
When there are no boosts or EQs in PSO2, you can do PSO2ES EQ or story missions for 10k-20k EXP per run.