[Fulgore_7575]

If you were making the next installment of the PSO series how would or could you make it better?

I think upping the amount of players per game to 8 would be pretty cool and could open up possible 4 vs 4 battles and we can have some real clan wars.

Two seperate servers. One with server stored characters, and the other open servers. Kind of like what Diablo II has going for it, Battle.net and open Battle.net.

What else can we tack onto this list...?

[Kent]

Let's see here:

• PSIV-style skills.
  
• Fully customizable controls. From the look of it, we might not be able to set the black and white buttons on the Xbox controller to do things, and I can think of a much better control scheme for PSO to fit the Xbox controller design perfectly.
  
• More in-depth battle system. Sure, the current one does need a bit of strategy to use effectively, but to be truthful, it is a little bland. Maybe jumping/jump attacks? I bet that'd be fun.
  
• More techniques. Like ones that induce status effects other than Shock and Freeze. Maybe ones that have a chance to paralyze, poison, confuse, or even take away a certain percent of an enemy's HP (not working on Bosses, of course), or maybe, even better, one that sucks HP/TP from an enemy to replenish your own (if enemies had TP that is). And techniques/skills that boost ATA, MST, EVP and/or Luck.
  
• Timed evasion/blocking. Hit abutton at the right time to do a manual block. More likely to evade than the current "automatic evasion," if timed correctly, but still factors your EVP in with the attacker's ATA.
  
• More weapon types/animations.
  
• Bigger combos for certain weapons, instead of a 3-part combo. Like fighting unarmed (or using gloves) would give you a 6- or 9-attack combo instead of a 3-attack one, to make it a feasable option, but only if used correctly. Or even better, longer combos depending on your character level.
  
• More character types (duh).

[Jizzah]

More shortcuts.

6 Slots doesn't do enough.

[Kayumi]

Jump attacks like the Delsaber's would rock. New techniques I've thought up include stuff like speed-up and slow-down techniques for enemies and allies. Maybe some earth-based attacks? Any addition to the technique repertoire, I think, would be a good one, just because we haven't seen any new ones since version one.

In improvements to the combat system, I don't know if I'd expect them to make it too much more complex simply because of the nature of the thing; they would almost have to completely redo it if they wanted to change it to allow certain types of thing. A manual block would be nice, though, and so would different animations for gun-weilding characters shooting at things on different elevations. (Ever take a Ranger into a two level room in the Seabed and shoot at a recobox? The angle the bullets come out at is ridiculous!)

In character creation, while Episode I and II added a fair bit more customization, it still didn't really give all that many options. You're still working with pallete-swapping the same outfits. Let's get some options on which body-type to use for each character--I mean, all FOnewearls have those stupid pants, no matter what. If they'd put in another body-type, like switching heads, and let us choose some color schemes for those, with varying levels of customization, well, that'd give us a way larger variety of looks for characters.

Of course, I think everyone'd like to see new character classes, too. There're still a few gaps, like the HUnewm and the HUmar, and if you're feeling like ignoring the rumors about that passsage in the Book of Hunters, the RAnew* classes, too. (I haven't seen the passage--or the book--myself, so I don't know how true it is.)

Level-wise...well, most people seem to have a sort of mediocre feeling towards the VR areas, and I know I was somewhat disappointed at the outer Island areas being so small...But the levels were still quite visually impressive, I thought. If the next episode has new levels of reasonable size with new enemies all the way through, then I don't think anyone will complain. Maybe a few new enemy attributes, perhaps, would be nice.

Oh. Then there's quests.

Give us some new offline quests packaged with all the episodes, or die. The Hunters Guild made SO much of the feel of PSO ep 1 for me, and it's absence so far in Episode II is really hitting hard. Hard enough that I rarely venture into the new areas at all, just because the old ones offer more to do. If Sonic Team is feeling REALLY generous, they'll release some sort of "build your own quest" type thing, to let fans make their own downloadable missions to share with other fans, but that's probably going to remain a fond imagining of mine, and never become reality. Still, considering the way PC gamers get to customize rampantly some of their online games, with the customization features being built in these days, can it really be too far off?

As far as multiplayer goes...I'd like to actually be able to have some sort of map or radar in the offline multiplayer mode. It would make life a lot easier if we didn't have to guess where the enemies are, or which doors we've already been through. For online play...let's get some affordable HLs, please? I'm not incredibly worried about online play for myself, to be honest, because I know from experience that I can have plenty of fun playing it offline, alone or with friends, but for me to even have the option of going online would be ludicrously expensive (for an out-of-work college student in Canada, $8.95 US is a lot of money per month to spend on a game that can be enjoyed offline, making it all that much less likely that I'll bother)

How can they honestly justify that kind of cost? They're not offering all that much, really, except for the fact that they're the only way to play online. It's not like it's massively multiplayer--four members to a team doesn't really give a whole lot of space for randomly encountering other players within the world. And the world itself isn't even persistent. There's no houses, no hundreds of respawning enemies, no real piles of NPCs...all they're offering is a connection service and some download quests. And really, if they had done what they SHOULD have, and included some quests WITH episode II, they wouldn't even have that kind of hold over us. So the HL fees, I figure, should be reduced to a level where it'll be feasible for less financially endowed players to play, or even removed entirely.

(I mean, seriously. For the price of a few short months of HL fees, I could buy an entirely new game!)

Anyway, that's all I can remember of what I've been thinking should be in the next version.

[Johan]

You can get a map in offline multiplayer; just hit Y. Since there's no chat window in multi offline, this is mapped to turning on the map instead. (It will appear in the center of the screen.)

[BurnPilot]

More customization options for your character, along with inlcuding characters such as the female human hunter and male newman hunter. Basically up all the classes to include all possible character types.

Have character models change some by the type of armor you're wearing.

Maybe some type of lock on system with the r or z button so you lock onto the closest creature in your line of site and can tap again for next closest. It would be similar to what Zelda for the N64 had and might allow you to move side to side in a sort of strafing motion so you could stay focused on important enemies.

Change c-stick to a camera stick so you can rotate your view if necessary and don't have to depend on standard camera.

Dang time for work. Maybe I will post more in the morning.

[DirewolfX]

I'd like to see more specialization of the classes. Giving the FOs specializations in the various magic was a step in the right direction. Perhaps they could expand on this even further with the new spells (different max Tech levels for the various FOs, unique Techs which only one class can use, etc.). And also expanding it to the HU and RA classes with stuff like weapon specialization (higher effectiveness with certain weapons, better animations, etc.).

And if they add more class types, like the HUnewm and the HUmarl, it will create an imbalance in the classes (you can't have FOcast and FOcaseal for obvious reasons), so they'd probably need to add another race which aren't HUs (since newman don't seem to be RAs)... Catgirls anyone? ^_^

And, of course, I wouldn't mind seeing more buttons to customize and a lock-on function.

[Ruby-chan]

- Decent service in the states that doesn't suck. I'm still waiting...

[IceBurner]

PSO could stand to learn a bit from Vagrant Story on shortcut menus and beauty appreciation.

Vagrant Story has many more skills and "tool" items than PSO, but PSO could greatly benefit from a VS-style shortcut menu. Instead having six command buttons, you would have four (one for each digital button). Holding R would do nothing alone, but holding R and pushing any of the digital buttons would pop up a specific menu directly (items, techs/traps, weapons, chat).

I know you can't ever pause PSO, but something like VS's first-person view (you could hit start then look around, but not move) would be nice so you could really appreciate the details. I want to look all around PSO's environments, I find them beautiful and interesting. The limited amount of "free" camera control you get using a 2nd controller is not cutting it. I wouldn't mind at all if the next PSO ripped off VS's entire camera style; it provides a clear & dramatic view, never runs into perspective problems, and you directly control where the camera faces with simple 45 degree rotations. You don't often get to see the ceiling or sky unless you look around in 1st person but that's a small sacrifice for a good camera system.

Add a blinking red dot to fellow party members' status bars when their PB gauge is full. While you're at it, make your OWN PB gauge blink so you remember when it's full and don't waste it when you mean to hit another command.

Increased variation in character appearance is always welcome, but I'm assuming this will be a given (well, depending upon how much overall effort Sonic Team puts into the next iteration). I'd specifically like the ability to choose up to 3 accessories (gloves, hats, earrings, spikes, pads, glasses, etc.) and slight variations in main model shape (different boots, shirt/jacket style, pants/leggings.)

I'm still not 100% sure this isn't part of PSO now, but if not, I'd also like parametric animation system. For the layman, this means they could "blend" animations. Your character could perform 75% of a running animation at the same time they perform 25% of a "I've been hit" animation, resulting in a fairly unique stumble each time, rather than all "canned" animations.

[Ian D]

I just hope ST actually makes a true sequel instead of a pile of new versions.