Mission difficulty

[panzer_unit]

I just hit S-rank missions last night... lv55 rank 2 Protranser, bringing Nav along for a meatshield. We beat through Endrum Remnants S no problem until we hit the Grinna Bete S' at the end.

JUMPED UP JESUS CHRIST

For starters the machinegun unit could kill me dead from a single volley if it got lucky. That's no problem because all it takes is a grenade launcher and I can keep it stumbling around so it doesn't attack. Right? Except for having to run back to the photon recharger ten times for enough ammo to kill it. The other two eventually knocked off my last scape and did me in.

Seriously, WTF. I went from doing fine despite using skills in the single-digits (my diga techs on the robots' faces) to Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. I guess those guys will gives me something to come back for at high level/rank with decent skills and all, but I'm gonna feel bad for all the little people I have to step on along the way.

Are there S2 missions that don't show until you're level 85+ or finish the story or something? Those would probably be Serious Business for high-level characters.

[KiteWolfwood]

I just hit level 40 last night and decided to try a S rank mission to test my skills a little. Went into Plant Recovery S completely solo. The baddies were a little more challenging but nothing I couldn't handle.

I get to the last room with the SEED-Vitace and take him out and start thinking how if this is S rank it is kinda disappointing. Then another Vitace appears, and then another, and another, and then three at a time.

Talk about adrenaline pumping. I was just running for my life dodging fire balls an tentacles. Fire balls weren't a problem but those tentacles. Get one set to knock you down and two more sets appears to attempt to turn this game into a hentai.

I am not sure how long it took me to finally take them all down but when I did I got a nice little treat of three rappies to congratulate me on my victory and give me a rappy mode(which I now proudly wear to commemorate my victory).

[Akaimizu]

Yeah. Even without the Download Content, the end game stuff is pretty.....well.....exciting. Funny enough, my only true issue with the idea of no DLC is that one dungeon. I just loved how you had those mid-mission timed challenges in there. It was just a nice arrangement that even PSU never had. Outside of that, the other missions kind of paled in comparison.

[panzer_unit]

Part of the problem is probably the feeling of invincibility after doing any story mission. Seriously it's hot and cold running weaksauce right there. And soo, on a break between saving the world, my human PT-to-be King packs up for Caves of Ice A to get his rank two in Force:

I level up Gifoie like all sorts of awesome blowing up the navals that run screaming at me. Yeah they hit hard enough to knock me down and interrupt my spells but I'm a rank 1 force and suck it up. I can level resta if I get hurt, which is good.

Icy vandas, not such a big deal. They do like 30 with their bartaaaaaaaaaa.

Bil De Vears, these ones aren't so bad.

OMG WHAT ARE THOSE HORRIBLE FIRE THINGS AT THE END? I try techs, I try shooting a machinegun, no no no... eventually after running through most of my Trimate supply and a boatload of photon charges I've managed to Tornado Dance the pair of them to submission with my 46% ice Pretty Baton I found in the demo. Timed right it knocks 'em over and does some pathetic but better-than-0-while-getting-run-over amount of damage. I'm still thanking my lucky stars for that thing and for going to the trouble of leveling Hunter to 10!

While things like this were sort of cake online, so far missions that end in a couple minibosses in PS:P always seem more dangerous than any of the big brand-name guys. They're absurdly tough hitpoint-wise and have incredibly painful attacks that come out of the blue unlike the big single bosses telegraphing everything so it's easily avoidable. Sure they let you knock 'em over and stuff but the moment you think you have one major threat under control the other one comes flying by to the tune of 80% of your hitpoints.

[Akaimizu]

Yeah. It can be weird that way. PSU also has its share of *strange* stuff.

Like how Hive monsters, in higher ranks (in Guardians Colony) give players about 3X the challenge to solo of any other general monster population in the entire game, even if the monsters are 20+ levels lower than the mobs you deal with. Partially because of some strangely high resistances and stamina to most stuff. Wizards there take more to take down than if you simply stepped down to the planets and fight them. You got other SEED that seem to take a hundred shots to take status effect in comparison to the (quick status effect) of other areas. And a lot more aspects of a mob resisting even being pegged by an array of 31-50 level rifle bullets to get their big moves off.

And while a larger group has enough members to beat them down, you don't get as much ability to deal with the swarm as a solo as you could almost anywhere else.

Of course, it's doable in solo, and without a ton of effort. However, in the comparison of effort needed, it's definitely a lot more than other areas. So yeah, one can say, it has questionable balance when it comes to difficulty and monster level indicators.

Back to PSP.

I probably should've warned you about some of those mid-boss mobs. You may not have seen the end of them yet, but I do agree. Some of those guys can be a case for using some good space dolls. There are mid-boss mobs strong enough to nearly 1-hit kill certain race/class combos, even when they are pretty high level. If there's one nice consolation about them, at least this has a single player mode accessible with this content in which you don't have to worry about wierd server mistiming and teleporting beasts causing deaths. Like being hit twice in quick succession by the same exact beast after a teleport-mob server update.

On the other hand, it is often those guys, in certain setups, that is a great cause of fun for even a high level master class. I've had some real fun using a human Gunmaster and trying to do my thing and dodge some perilous attacks.

But yeah. Story Missions are generally weak. You do those just to do the story and perhaps open up some more free-missions. The Free Missions are really where the *Real* game is at. Now I won't go saying this game is perfect. There are some little issues here and there, but quite tolerable to me. However, I do enjoy how this game was tooled, out of the box.

[Arika]

the problem is that US version doesn't has DLC, I wonder if you will see monster lv 120+ like the JP did or not.