Article: Phantasy Star Online 2 (JP) - Upcoming Improvements Based on Player Demands

[Tomeeboy]

On the official Japanese players site today, PSO2 producer Satoshi Sakai released a detailed list of player feedback and demands, along with details on how they will be addressing each one. In addition, an approximate release date was given for each improvement. Throughout November and December, players can expect to see a number of welcome changes to the game. Here's is a summary of what was posted (organized by month), translations courtesy of PSOW member Z-0:


Early November:

[*][Considering] Further reduction of experience required from level 41+.[*]Reduction of items required for level cap client orders.[*]Increase in the spawn rate of rare bosses.[*]Increase in drop rate of 7 to 9 star items (they believe 10 star items will also be easier to obtain, as a result of the increased rare boss spawns).[*]Overall improvement of Techers.[*][Possible] Increase in performance for the following 10-star rare items:

[*]Berkverger[*]Noise Blower[*]Vardha Cannon[*]Umblla Stick[*]Vardha Beat[*]Magical Wand

[*]New option to hide Team Chat Balloons

December:

[*]Guaranteed drop of rare matter boards after killing a set number of enemies.[*]Premium Set improvements, including:

[*]Extra FUN gained[*]Maximum number of COs held raised to 40[*]Increased number of Symbol Arts held*[*]Addition of a premium-exclusive drink to the medical center*
(*exact release date not yet finalized)

[*]New checkbox option to block NPCs from MPAs (automatically applied to anyone joining the room).[*]New matchmaking option to "Find Party in Another Block" for chosen quest.[*]Players removed from friends list will no longer have the Friend Partner option.[*]Options added to stop unwanted auto-following by players.[*]Time Attack Quests and client orders will be adjusted to support solo completion.[*]New feature allowing advanced downloading of large game updates, as well as ability to play while downloading.

There was also one demand in the list that the development team was not able to meet, which involved partial match searches in My Shop. Due to the load this would cause on the servers, there was no way for this to be implemented at this time. Instead, they will be focusing on reducing the load caused by My Shop searches by implementing convenience features that should help reduce the number of searches required. One such feature, which is targeted for a December release, will allow players to check the market price on items when viewing them in shops.

For more details and the rapidly-growing discussion on these changes, head on over to this thread in our forums!

[Aewyn]

Sounds mostly good. Techers are already pretty powerful up front, but I suppose they do lack the active skill capabilities of the other classes so it makes some sense.
Heh, I actually added that partial shop search to my list of requests back when they did the surveys. I'm sure I couldn't have been the only one to put that on there (in Japanese, of course).

[Scyris]

I think they need to allow 10* and up items to be trade/sellable, its pretty stupid to make them no-trade, not everyone has the time to grind for weeks to get 1 drop.

[Aewyn]

One could argue that those people then would not necessarily need a 10*.

[Macman]

About freakin' time they decide to throw in a option to block NPCs.

[Cardinalgate]

"New checkbox option to block NPCs from MPAs (automatically applied to anyone joining the room)."
YES YES YES bout darn time