Class Balance? [Archive]

desturel

Jun 2, 2010, 05:04 PM

I recall a player named Cherry (who was a bit of an ass), who had a really good grasp of the mechanics of the game back then. He was happy to fight Demons Above a level 60 ForteTecher...Bows were pretty good abck then. A 10/10 Ulteri with level 30 bullets?

10/10 Ulteri? Perhaps you have forgotten that weapons broke back then and the drop rate was abysmal. That and a 10 ground Alteric was the strongest bow, not Ulteri. The Alteric was cheaper to make and stronger (back when people left Kubara wood on the ground because it was "worthless").

Not only that, but handgun did better DPS than Longbow. The only times you would use a longbow over handgun were in the boss fight or for applying burn/virus. Everything else you were better off using a handgun until Cards were released.

On top of that longbows were (and still are) SLOW you were stationary long enough that it was dangerous to use a longbow except at the maximum effective range especially when fighting gohmon. Longbow was a necessity, but they weren't the best option you had as a force/fortetecher. Once cards were released they made bows even more obsolete unless you were fighting a boss. Tengogh and Olgohmon were much better to fight with a card/handgun then they were with a longbow. Since you couldn't carry a full set of techs, bow bullets, handgun bullets, and cards you had to pick in choose. (remember you couldn't remove and switch photon arts before AotI).

Rangers/Fortegunners had a much better time of it on Moatoob and Neudaiz. For Moatoob you could fight Drua Gohra with shotguns up close instead of sitting back and throwing foie/ensei sou and hoping they caught on fire. Once Grenades were release, it wasn't even a competition. Same for things like Gol Dova and Kog Nadd. Techers still had a strong advantage against things like Go Vahra (damdiga), Vanda (rabarta), Bees (any ground spell really since techs didn't miss and bees had wonderfully high evasion which forced non-techers to abandon mission if they got a well known "bee map"), and a few other creatures, but once a larger creature was on the screen, Gunners with their traps and status effects took control.

Since Plains Overlord didn't have any of that, it made techers look like they absolutely rules PSU. Even the Polavohra were techer friendly since they took full damage from techs, but half damage from melee and bullets. Lab Recovery was mostly techer friendly as well Badira, Volfu (outside of the fact that they could one hit KO a techer), Mizura, and Polavohra were easy pickings. Jarba were better for a gunner, but cards made it so you could easily strafe megid and dodge Dambarta even in the smaller room where the fortefighters went to die.

Compare that to the rest of the original PSU missions which were more gunner friendly, but no one choose to do them and you'll see why more people who never left Parum thought that "techers were the powerhouse back in the day". That wasn't the case. People just never went anywhere else.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 2, 2010, 05:56 PM

10/10 Ulteri? Perhaps you have forgotten that weapons broke back then and the drop rate was abysmal. That and a 10 ground Alteric was the strongest bow, not Ulteri. The Alteric was cheaper to make and stronger (back when people left Kubara wood on the ground because it was "worthless").

Very true, it was not until the cap hit 80 that 9* weapons began appearing fully ground (10/10). I recall that wealthy players back then had access to 10/10s.

Alteric was a good alternative though.

Not only that, but handgun did better DPS than Longbow. The only times you would use a longbow over handgun were in the boss fight or for applying burn/virus. Everything else you were better off using a handgun until Cards were released.

Not for a Fortetecher, and not for enemies like tengoh, or Onma. (EDIT 1: burn/virus Tengoh for DoT, and the other the range was more valuable)

On top of that longbows were (and still are) SLOW you were stationary long enough that it was dangerous to use a longbow except at the maximum effective range especially when fighting gohmon. Longbow was a necessity, but they weren't the best option you had as a force/fortetecher. Once cards were released they made bows even more obsolete unless you were fighting a boss. Tengogh and Olgohmon were much better to fight with a card/handgun then they were with a longbow.

Same point. DoT on a Tengoh was more important than damage. No fT I knew used handguns.

Since you couldn't carry a full set of techs, bow bullets, handgun bullets, and cards you had to pick in choose. (remember you couldn't remove and switch photon arts before AotI).

true. While i cannot remember when cards were release, I rememember everyone using them for a while. THere was a whole "guntechers are gross!" thread about them here.

Rangers/Fortegunners had a much better time of it on Moatoob and Neudaiz. For Moatoob you could fight Drua Gohra with shotguns up close instead of sitting back and throwing foie/ensei sou and hoping they caught on fire.

um, no one used shotguns back then. with bullets at 30, and damage element fairly low (it was later adjusted upwards), they were far inferior to crossbows. That being said, the issue was less Drua Gohra, and more shielded enemies and Bil de Vers. Gunners struggles with both, Techers only with Bils. Techers I knew used ranged barta, or fi they had balls Dambarta to freeze Drua. Shileded enemies were no match for barta, as MST did not scale that well.

Once Grenades were release, it wasn't even a competition. Same for things like Gol Dova and Kog Nadd. Techers still had a strong advantage against things like Go Vahra (damdiga), Vanda (rabarta), Bees (any ground spell really since techs didn't miss and bees had wonderfully high evasion which forced non-techers to abandon mission if they got a well known "bee map"), and a few other creatures, but once a larger creature was on the screen, Gunners with their traps and status effects took control.

Remind me - when were grenades released? I did notice Fortegunners rise in power at some point. Kog Nadd was VERY painful for fT. There were certain missions that stopped you cold. Then again, before killer shot, there were robot missions what were NO FUN for gunners.

Since Plains Overlord didn't have any of that, it made techers look like they absolutely rules PSU. Even the Polavohra were techer friendly since they took full damage from techs, but half damage from melee and bullets.

I remember plains overlord was easy for pretty much everyone - even Fortefighters (who were a mess for a long time).

Lab Recovery was mostly techer friendly as well Badira, Volfu (outside of the fact that they could one hit KO a techer), Mizura, and Polavohra were easy pickings. Jarba were better for a gunner, but cards made it so you could easily strafe megid and dodge Dambarta even in the smaller room where the fortefighters went to die.

Labs was certainly ALL gunners and techers.

Compare that to the rest of the original PSU missions which were more gunner friendly, but no one choose to do them and you'll see why more people who never left Parum thought that "techers were the powerhouse back in the day". That wasn't the case. People just never went anywhere else.

Moatoob was msotly left alone, that's for sure. But Neudiaz had people spamming it, if only for Cyral, neu ebon, A rank wand and rod boards, and of course Me/quick or better Har quick.

Look what I found!
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98830

ha ha ha! Demons above "S" - and charactes talking about havign 950 hp. good times.

EDIT 2: fortetechers using cards? It did happen Cards came out farily quickly, though
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98796&page=2

EDIT 3:
http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100411

A thread whining about Fortetechers running demon's above S solo. This meets my recollection

SStrikerR

Jun 2, 2010, 06:03 PM

Obviously you did not see where I said supp. update balances classes out.

Supplemental won't change that.

Obviously you can't read.

desturel

Jun 3, 2010, 05:12 PM

Alteric was a good alternative though.

Alteric was cheaper and stronger. It wasn't an alternative. It was the main choice.

Not for a Fortetecher, and not for enemies like tengoh, or Onma. (EDIT 1: burn/virus Tengoh for DoT, and the other the range was more valuable)

I mention that I used longbows for Burn/Virus. It's actually mentioned in the part you quoted.

ensei-sou (fire)
reisei-sou (ice)
insei-sou (dark)

Were the most important bow bullets. Once Desert Terror and Desert Goliath were added in you needed to start using Raisei-sou (lightning) and Jusei-sou (ground) because of the bosses, but before that point those two bow bullets were useless.

The strategy was to set a Tengohg on fire with the bow bullet then switch to Frozen Hit for damage, then switch back to Ensei-sou to apply burn again. It was the quickest way to kill Tengohg. The slower method, although much easier, was to use Insei-sou then switch to Frozen Hit. After soloing Demons Above for so long, I got use to killing Tengohg. Just sticking with Ensei-sou and Reisei-sou would take you longer than switching to Frozen Hit.

Same point. DoT on a Tengoh was more important than damage. No fT I knew used handguns.

No fortetecher you knew soloed Demons Above. I did for years. It was much faster to kill a tengohg with Ensei-sou / Frozen Hit than it was to attempt to kill them with Reisei-sou.

true. While i cannot remember when cards were release, I rememember everyone using them for a while. THere was a whole "guntechers are gross!" thread about them here.

7* weapons (cards, crossbow, grenades) were released around the same time as Unsafe Passage S rank. The only reason why I remember this was because the first time I went into Unsafe Passage S, I died 5 times in the first room then abandoned mission. Good old Sonic team back when no one knew what megid was, throwing in the trick "creatures change at level 50" curve ball. Too bad they didn't make them change again at level 100. It was during the level 60 level cap.

um, no one used shotguns back then. with bullets at 30, and damage element fairly low (it was later adjusted upwards), they were far inferior to crossbows.

You are thinking of a later period. When Moatoob was first release, Rifles, twin handguns and shotguns were still the main weapons for every ranger/gunner. Crossbows came out the same time as grenades so most fortegunners used Grenades on Drua Gohra while Guntechers used crossbows. In the time period I'm thinking of, you dropped a Burn Trap (not G since you could only carry 5 of those) into the pile of three Drua Gohra, then you either sat back with a rifle and dodged their foie or shot them with the shotgun. Crossbow and Grenade made it much easier.

That being said, the issue was less Drua Gohra, and more shielded enemies and Bil de Vers. Gunners struggles with both, Techers only with Bils. Techers I knew used ranged barta, or fi they had balls Dambarta to freeze Drua. Shileded enemies were no match for barta, as MST did not scale that well.

Dambarta also had the tendency of getting you booted from parties. One of the many reasons I soloed early on. "I can't see anything, stop using Dambarta!" If you were a techer you should know about this.

Bil de Vear were pretty easy for techers. zonde and foie worked wonders, however most of the time you were too busy trying to keep Bruce alive to add to the damage so you had to rely on the fortefighters who were mostly using Renkai Buyou-zan. Few people did System Defense and Desert Terror at the time because the maps were huge. The only other time you would run into Bils was in Tunnel Recapture, but the Drua Gohra was more time consuming for techers than the Bils.

Remind me - when were grenades released? I did notice Fortegunners rise in power at some point. Kog Nadd was VERY painful for fT. There were certain missions that stopped you cold. Then again, before killer shot, there were robot missions what were NO FUN for gunners.

The mission you are thinking of is Mine Defense. The end is nothing but Kog Nadd so it helped to have a fortefighter in the group with Tornado Break or Renkai while the techer healed and the gunner laid traps. Robot missions before killer shot were mostly skipped. The robot missions were Grove of Fanatics (not very techer friendly thanks to the boss and the Armed servants) and Endrum Remnants (Bees and Robots plus cast riflemen means it sucked for every class). After that when Train Rescue was released, it was even worse since the Rogue Jasse would all shot at one person at one, or you'd get ganged up on by Rogue Ogg. That's why everyone took Train Rescue C to get to Lab Recovery instead of any higher rank.

I remember plains overlord was easy for pretty much everyone - even Fortefighters (who were a mess for a long time).

Fortefighters were still the best boss killers. Tornado Break, Renkai, and Rising Crush were better than Reisei-sou or Frozen Shot for killing De Ragan. You just had to have a good healer around to keep you healed. Once axes were released Redda was also a good alternative and Double Sabers brought Gravity Dance and Spiral Dance to the group for Fighgunners.

Labs was certainly ALL gunners and techers.

Yup, who wants to get stuck next to a Jarba once it start Dambarta... then you had the asshole techers (me) who were using dambarta on the Jarba so you didn't know what you should be dodging and what you shouldn't be dodging. :)

Moatoob was msotly left alone, that's for sure. But Neudiaz had people spamming it, if only for Cyral, neu ebon, A rank wand and rod boards, and of course Me/quick or better Har quick.

Most people spammed Forested Island / Rainbow Beast. A few people did Mizuraki defense. Very few people did Grove of Fanatics or Demons Above as the boss battles were not worth the trouble as compared to fighting De Ragan.

darthplagis

Jun 3, 2010, 05:33 PM

ah reading this thread makes me remember why i love this game so much :)

i only got online during firebreak (just as the last phase was kicking in so i missed my frying pan due to nobody wanting noobs in the labs :(), but i remember the days of cursing people when the got majimra/phantom boards, and laughing at people for crying out to my CAST guntech for lvl 10 resta :)

curse all of you pre AOTI techers for dambarta spam on the jarbas in seabed :) didnt bother me, i had longbows so i never went near them :)

yeah i remember doing grove runs with dolls in the PM, just to try for the boss items... the degehana cannon, lol it was like the holy grail :)

SolomonGrundy

Jun 3, 2010, 06:54 PM

Alteric was cheaper and stronger. It wasn't an alternative. It was the main choice.

Well, certainly true until Ulteri was released. it was not long after that 10/10 Ulteri's appeared. They were both stronger (705 vs 667), had more PP (1617 vs 1274), and more accurate.

but we agree - Alteric was THE bow of choice for a good long time. If fact, I recall sellign 5/10 Alterics for amazing profit.

I mention that I used longbows for Burn/Virus. It's actually mentioned in the part you quoted.

ensei-sou (fire)
reisei-sou (ice)
insei-sou (dark)

Correct me if I am wrong, but for a while, dark bullets for bows were not released. YOu HAD to use fire.

Once Desert Terror and Desert Goliath were added in you needed to start using Raisei-sou (lightning) and Jusei-sou (ground) because of the bosses, but before that point those two bow bullets were useless.

I don't remember anyone doing Desert Terror, only Desert Goliath. fT could survice the non robot enemies there, and rather than use a bow on the boss, they used Diga on the base. But mostly did not fight him at all until later, when levels were higher. He was just too deadly.

The strategy was to set a Tengohg on fire with the bow bullet then switch to Frozen Hit for damage, then switch back to Ensei-sou to apply burn again. It was the quickest way to kill Tengohg. The slower method, although much easier, was to use Insei-sou then switch to Frozen Hit. After soloing Demons Above for so long, I got use to killing Tengohg. Just sticking with Ensei-sou and Reisei-sou would take you longer than switching to Frozen Hit.

I was just saying that no force I know of used pistols. the old threads I linked to actually showed 1 or two fTs with pistols, but most of em said they did not use 'em.

No fortetecher you knew soloed Demons Above. I did for years. It was much faster to kill a tengohg with Ensei-sou / Frozen Hit than it was to attempt to kill them with Reisei-sou.

no fT I ran with personally? Or no fT I know of? For sure I knew fTs who solo'd demon's above, I just didn't have the levels or gear to run with them. they had 10/10 6* tenora wands, neutral yohemi armor, and the right untils.

7* weapons (cards, crossbow, grenades) were released around the same time as Unsafe Passage S rank. The only reason why I remember this was because the first time I went into Unsafe Passage S, I died 5 times in the first room then abandoned mission. Good old Sonic team back when no one knew what megid was, throwing in the trick "creatures change at level 50" curve ball. Too bad they didn't make them change again at level 100. It was during the level 60 level cap.

RIGHT! I recall being the first one in my techer party to figure out that if you jellen'd the deljabans, you could pop 0's for the megids, protecting you from its SE.

You are thinking of a later period. When Moatoob was first release, Rifles, twin handguns and shotguns were still the main weapons for every ranger/gunner.

You HAVE to be right here. without xbow, shotgun is the only choice. I think I must have started my gunner later. Is that where the habit of rangers using rifles for everything started?

Crossbows came out the same time as grenades so most fortegunners used Grenades on Drua Gohra while Guntechers used crossbows. In the time period I'm thinking of, you dropped a Burn Trap (not G since you could only carry 5 of those) into the pile of three Drua Gohra, then you either sat back with a rifle and dodged their foie or shot them with the shotgun. Crossbow and Grenade made it much easier.

All the gunners I ran with used Xbows. Grenades were great and knocked over the Drua Gohra, but xbows were mobile. Ice Xbow could be used on two enemies (Drua and Vandas), Fire Xbow on Jisharga and Naval. I think stamina was such that large enmies could not be burned with X bow, or not without a LOT of shots

Dambarta also had the tendency of getting you booted from parties. One of the many reasons I soloed early on. "I can't see anything, stop using Dambarta!" If you were a techer you should know about this.

ha ha ha! right! DUMBarta. I ran into it, but I was Wartecher at the time, so had no worries.

Bil de Vear were pretty easy for techers. zonde and foie worked wonders, however most of the time you were too busy trying to keep Bruce alive to add to the damage so you had to rely on the fortefighters who were mostly using Renkai Buyou-zan.

Wow, really? I always struggeld. Stun was the killer. Or Zalure ->Stun

Few people did System Defense and Desert Terror at the time because the maps were huge. The only other time you would run into Bils was in Tunnel Recapture, but the Drua Gohra was more time consuming for techers than the Bils.

yes, for sure. Those maps were a MAJOR pain.

The mission you are thinking of is Mine Defense. The end is nothing but Kog Nadd so it helped to have a fortefighter in the group with Tornado Break or Renkai while the techer healed and the gunner laid traps.

This one I know well. All the beasts nanoblasted (Blue), unless the techers were VERY co-op minded, and the end of mine defense. I think gunners laid regular virus traps since the kogg Nads Bottlenecked in the valey near the end.

Robot missions before killer shot were mostly skipped. The robot missions were Grove of Fanatics (not very techer friendly thanks to the boss and the Armed servants)

There was a time when grove got spammed though, and spammed by techers. Can't recall when this was, though, or what they were after.

and Endrum Remnants (Bees and Robots plus cast riflemen means it sucked for every class).

This was when the rare grinning beta dropped something great? so if you could convince a crew to run here, you rare hunted the Beta's

After that when Train Rescue was released, it was even worse since the Rogue Jasse would all shot at one person at one, or you'd get ganged up on by Rogue Ogg. That's why everyone took Train Rescue C to get to Lab Recovery instead of any higher rank.

Trian rescue got popular WAY later, when the rare crossbow was released. BUT....by then ppl had given up on guntechers, right?

Fortefighters were still the best boss killers. Tornado Break, Renkai, and Rising Crush were better than Reisei-sou or Frozen Shot for killing De Ragan.

This was the nanoblast thing again. My experience was with fF's using Dus Duggas, hoping to get that last combo off. I remember twin daggers did not quite have the atp to pop damage numers that were acceptable. From the beginning , spears were leaned on.

You just had to have a good healer around to keep you healed. Once axes were released Redda was also a good alternative and Double Sabers brought Gravity Dance and Spiral Dance to the group for Fighgunners.

Redda/axes were good for casts. I remember being deeply unhappy that my level 60 beast could not connect with an axe. I had redda at 21, and drew zeros even at Olakas. Man I hated my fF back then.

Yup, who wants to get stuck next to a Jarba once it start Dambarta... then you had the asshole techers (me) who were using dambarta on the Jarba so you didn't know what you should be dodging and what you shouldn't be dodging. :)

ha ha ha. MEAN! I was playing a beast fortefighter in the heavy labs era, and I would literally ping ping ping with my 6* GRM pistol with level 10 ice bullets. Damage and fire rate were near usless. Soemtimes I would get annoyed and just stand around.

Most people spammed Forested Island / Rainbow Beast. A few people did Mizuraki defense. Very few people did Grove of Fanatics or Demons Above as the boss battles were not worth the trouble as compared to fighting De Ragan.

The good force stuff was on Demons Above (A rank drops). That's why people did it. rainbow beast too, IIRC. I had forgetten about desert Goliath - but I do recall that once the elites could live through it, this was the mission they ran.

Are you thinking of moonlight beasts? i remember that mission was NOT worth the long blocks with sworded gohmons (they were way more common on Moolight beasts than in demons above)

De Regan was run for Solid Power / S, and Sleeping warriors for Hard Power Charge. I think gunners also liked de regan for Phantom line boards. (this was before the phantom was released though...hmmm...maybe my memory is off here).

Hiero_Glyph

Jun 3, 2010, 08:19 PM

Balance in PSU? Maybe when Japan's servers get this in a few years we will get it a few years later.

Seriously though, the game has never been balanced and given the upcoming enhancements from the Supplemental Update the game will be stuck on easy mode for a very, very long time. If you want balance you would be better off playing a game where balance changes take priority because our balance changes count as content. How long has Paradi been overpowered? How long have Nanoblasts been underpowered? Yes, these things have been fixed in Japan already (over a year ago in some cases) yet we are still waiting for these adjustments.

PSU will never be balanced. The Supplemental Update will help makes the weaker classes/races slightly more competitive but the game is beyond broken at this point. Heck, all of our fixes are coming from a server that is around 12 months ahead of us in content from a team that has no idea how we play the game and what needs to be changed. We simply get the exact same changes that Japan's servers got months ago (then Edward tries to make it sound exciting).

The biggest update for PSU will be the GUARDIAN's Advanced Missions due to making low requirement items worth more again. The best part of PSU is the in-game market after all and look how long we have been waiting for Gold Bars. Nope, PSU will never be balanced at least not on the non-Japanese servers.

darthplagis

Jun 3, 2010, 09:12 PM

the SE on large enemies was a late update in vanilla PSU or an early one in AOTI, i remember being overjoyed that my FG could 'potentially' burn a jarba :)

but arrrgggh endrum remnants, i ran that so many times trying for a muzzle fever when they were released, capped out my killer shot on guntech trying too but still no board off them :( a few times i was helped by gunners wanting a blackbull off the red betas :)

hiero glyph, there was a time when the classes did actually have a use, granted guntecher and wartech seemed lacking in some aspects and still do for now.
but the roles were clear,
fortetechers were either damage or heals, fortefighters were basically the main line with fighgunners covering their backs and maybe a wartech adding heals and buffs when techer was busy due to them being in combat with the fighters.

gunners as usuall stayed back and popped off the big guys or the heavy mobs with SE then when the tenora handbags (grenades) were released they stuttered big monsters and raped dragons, guntechers used the bow to get fast sticking SE on big guys and xbows on groups later adding debuffs with PA frag shots.

protranser until AOTI was basically locked in a box in a rubber suit with a bit in his/her mouth, unable to do much other than cost people an S rank LOL

it was AOTI bringing easy mode to PSU that ruined the balance of the game, i remember struggling to pay for charges on my rods :) and they were A ranks LOL.
the increase in the drop rate for boards killed the S ranks, making them way too easy to get way too quickly. then with the master classes people are just all too happy to sit in the 'BIG NUMBARRRS!!!!' crowd so the balance has been completley lost as most players are one of the three master classes....... which in itself is not a problem, but it is the opinion of 'some' players is that if you are not a master class then you are weaker.
that is ruining the balance, hence why sega is buffing certain classes to make them more appealing, and actually be using more than 3 weapons on a pallet.

i have to strongly disagree that the market is the strongest part of PSU, the market (player shops, and player greed) is what fuelled the decline of the social aspect of the game. now all people care about is how much can i sell this drop for and if i see it I WILL BOOT YOU TO GET IT.

the sad part of the western PSU is that GC will not come, which probably means the legacy of light drops will either not appear here or they will not be account bound as in japan........ again fuelling the damn player shops and the same group of people that do nothing but run a shop. i have said it before and will say it again PSU is a game where you kill monsters, monopoly is a game where you make money.......

Africa

Jun 4, 2010, 01:54 AM

Well, certainly true until Ulteri was released. it was not long after that 10/10 Ulteri's appeared. They were both stronger (705 vs 667), had more PP (1617 vs 1274), and more accurate.

but we agree - Alteric was THE bow of choice for a good long time. If fact, I recall sellign 5/10 Alterics for amazing profit.

There was a time when grove got spammed though, and spammed by techers. Can't recall when this was, though, or what they were after.

Alterics are what ppl used to run grove for(A-run) and later d-cannons(S-run).it was annoying back in the day but highly possible to solo him as a ft. If I recall hikuari boards dropped before they released the advanced classes.Most ppl avoided grove when d-cannons started dropping but that wasn't long after we got demons above "S" and I recall soloing grove "S" on a constant basis by the level 70 cap.

Hiero_Glyph

Jun 4, 2010, 02:16 AM

i have said it before and will say it again PSU is a game where you kill monsters, monopoly is a game where you make money.......

Killing the exact same monsters without any real challenge is not what keeps the community interested. Again the market is the only real thing keeping the game alive at this point. Even the events are based around increased drop rates and new items. Without the market to sustain players' activities PSU is nothing more than an overpriced Monster Hunter for the PlayStation 2.

Pirrip

Jun 4, 2010, 02:49 AM

Is there still a significant speed difference in attack or casting animation between acro classes and the others--or was that ever fixed? Was that something done on purpose (I'm assuming so)

desturel

Jun 4, 2010, 10:56 AM

Well, certainly true until Ulteri was released. it was not long after that 10/10 Ulteri's appeared. They were both stronger (705 vs 667), had more PP (1617 vs 1274), and more accurate.

The trouble was you couldn't buy 9* boards until the expansion. Ulteri drop rates were horrible and when grinds failed you lost the weapon. 10 ground ulteri were not popular until the expansion. Alterics were the weapon of choice because. You keep on listing 5/10 and 10/10 which makes me believe you are talking post expansion when broken items just lost max grind ability and 9* weapon boards were available in shop. A unground ulteri cost about 1~2 mil back in the day. A ten ground Alteric cost about five mil. A ten ground Ulteri was put in shops for display at all 9s (back before people had multiple stacks to spend).

This is the same reason the W'gacros was more common than the majimra for a long time. The lidra majimra were at least easier to get thanks to Eastern Peril and Holy Grounds so they were more common than Ulteri which you could only get from Grove of Fanatics and Rainbow Beast.

Correct me if I am wrong, but for a while, dark bullets for bows were not released. YOu HAD to use fire.

Dark and light element bullets were released at about the same time as 9* weapons were released in the synth shops IIRC. This was also around the time that buffs and debuffs were released (shift, zodial, etc)

I don't remember anyone doing Desert Terror, only Desert Goliath. fT could survice the non robot enemies there, and rather than use a bow on the boss, they used Diga on the base. But mostly did not fight him at all until later, when levels were higher. He was just too deadly.

Desert Terror was a loooooong mission which is why people didn't do it. Dimma was easier than Omna, but people didn't want to spend the extra time to get to him. Also you couldn't do Desert Goliath as a fortetecher without a bow. Once you knocked the bottom off with Diga, you had to hit the arm with the bow. Har / Quick and Me / Quick weren't common until 1up cup so casting Diga at Goliath's arms was a quick and easy way to die. :)

I remember running Desert Goliath as a duo with a friend one day. He had nightmares of the beepbeepbeep sound the Grinna Bete C's made when they started shooting their machine guns. This was right after Giresta was released and it took an hour to cast it without a quick unit. I was so happy when they made Giresta faster in the expansion. It was almost unusable before that.

I was just saying that no force I know of used pistols. the old threads I linked to actually showed 1 or two fTs with pistols, but most of em said they did not use 'em.

Most of the techer I know used handguns until the got a couple of good cards. A few exclusively used longbow, but they only ran in groups. You didn't really need the mobility of handguns if you had a good group with you. Again, once cards were released, they started using cards with their bows or cards exclusively.

RIGHT! I recall being the first one in my techer party to figure out that if you jellen'd the deljabans, you could pop 0's for the megids, protecting you from its SE.

Ah, back with a 50% C rank armor was better than a 20% A rank armor. I remember rocking my 50% B and C rank armors until I finally got a har / quick. Then I had to get A rank armor, but none of them made it to 50% so I was taking more damage, but casting faster.

You HAVE to be right here. without xbow, shotgun is the only choice. I think I must have started my gunner later. Is that where the habit of rangers using rifles for everything started?

Yeah, a good amount of rangers just used Rifle and twin handguns.

All the gunners I ran with used Xbows. Grenades were great and knocked over the Drua Gohra, but xbows were mobile. Ice Xbow could be used on two enemies (Drua and Vandas), Fire Xbow on Jisharga and Naval. I think stamina was such that large enmies could not be burned with X bow, or not without a LOT of shots

I can't remember if crossbows were level 2 burn or level 3 burn before the expansion. I remember most bullets got buffs after the expansion... well most non-techer bullets. Rifles got a serious buff but longbows stayed the same.

ha ha ha! right! DUMBarta. I ran into it, but I was Wartecher at the time, so had no worries.

well, no one complained about level 11 dambarta, but level 21 dambarta got you kicked from parties even if you were the person doing the most damage.

Wow, really? I always struggeld. Stun was the killer. Or Zalure ->Stun

The Bil's only swing with their right arm. While some creatures like Goshin and Go Vahra had huge hit box that would tag you even when the creature was a mile away, Bils didn't have the problem so if you stayed to the right (on their left side) you could avoid most of their punches. The biggest problem was the jump back swing punch, but they didn't do it as often back before the expansion as they do now. That was part of the whole AI change for creatures.

This one I know well. All the beasts nanoblasted (Blue), unless the techers were VERY co-op minded, and the end of mine defense. I think gunners laid regular virus traps since the kogg Nads Bottlenecked in the valey near the end.

The people I ran with were of the "Red or nothing" mindset for nanoblasts, so i was a heal factory. My Jellen got to level 30 pretty quick though since I used that for tagging.

There was a time when grove got spammed though, and spammed by techers. Can't recall when this was, though, or what they were after.

Grove of Fanatics S2 when Rikauteri was released. I remember getting three Needle Cannon boards before finally getting a Rikauteri. It took three months of spamming Grove exclusively to get it too. But that was after killer shot so you could have done the mission as a fortegunner quicker. Just carry about 15 Brahoh, a crossbow or two and a dark spear with level 10 Dus Daggas for Degahna.

This was when the rare grinning beta dropped something great? so if you could convince a crew to run here, you rare hunted the Beta's

Grinna Bete S statue use to sell for a million until Episode 2 chapter 10 came out. They also dropped Phantom. They started dropping Blackbull once Desert Goliath S2 was released. Previously the only way to get Blackbull was from Desert Goliath S, Stolen Weapon S2, True Darkness S and Seed Awakened S. Of course that was before the map nerf where the took a good amount of the Grinna Bete out of Desert Goliath, took the Tengohgs out of Demons Above, took the Kamatoze out of Moonlight Beast, made the Desert Maps shorter, put a teleport into Tunnel Recapture etc.

Trian rescue got popular WAY later, when the rare crossbow was released. BUT....by then ppl had given up on guntechers, right?

I don't even remember it being that popular when Musrana was released. That's why Tuma was cheaper and more common than Musrana until Lonely Lab was released. Train Rescue S2 was released about three weeks before True Darkness so why run Train Rescue S2 for a Musrana when you could run True Darkness instead?

Train Rescue S2 was released at a bad time. Her Secret Mission was the money run. Plains Overlord S2 and Sleeping Warriors S2 were the easy rare item missions. Grove of Fanatics, Desert Goliath, Demons Above, and Moonlight Beast were around for people who wanted to hunt for the "rare" rare items. Then Train Rescue, Endrum, Dual Sentinal, and Cost of Research came out, but people never really flocked to those S2 missions. Maybe cost of Research for easier Ortapolymer and Resin, but that was about it.

This was the nanoblast thing again. My experience was with fF's using Dus Duggas, hoping to get that last combo off. I remember twin daggers did not quite have the atp to pop damage numers that were acceptable. From the beginning , spears were leaned on.

Renkai was really popular back in the day. Daggas was strong, but only hit in a straight line. Dus Robaddo wasn't as powerful as it is currently. So your main choices were Renkai and Tornado Break for hitting stuff surrounding you.

Redda/axes were good for casts. I remember being deeply unhappy that my level 60 beast could not connect with an axe. I had redda at 21, and drew zeros even at Olakas. Man I hated my fF back then.

That was back before the first hit of the axe knocked things over too, but Beast fFs were really happy when they hit with golf swing thanks to the big numbers. Most beast fFs I knew loved the axe and redda.

ha ha ha. MEAN! I was playing a beast fortefighter in the heavy labs era, and I would literally ping ping ping with my 6* GRM pistol with level 10 ice bullets. Damage and fire rate were near usless. Soemtimes I would get annoyed and just stand around.

The good force stuff was on Demons Above (A rank drops). That's why people did it. rainbow beast too, IIRC. I had forgetten about desert Goliath - but I do recall that once the elites could live through it, this was the mission they ran.

Are you thinking of moonlight beasts? i remember that mission was NOT worth the long blocks with sworded gohmons (they were way more common on Moolight beasts than in demons above)

Nope, I'm talking about Demons Above and Rainbow Beast. Again, I'm talking about the period when the game first came out. You are thinking of a later time period. This was back before Moonlight Beast was released and before Moatoob was released. I guess I should have been more clear about the time period.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 4, 2010, 01:08 PM

The trouble was you couldn't buy 9* boards until the expansion. Ulteri drop rates were horrible and when grinds failed you lost the weapon. 10 ground ulteri were not popular until the expansion.

This was without a doubt pre-expansion. It was the first firebreak, and the level cap was 70 or 80. I remember chatting with two guys in the mission about it.

http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114563&highlight=firebreak&page=3

Alterics were the weapon of choice because. You keep on listing 5/10 and 10/10 which makes me believe you are talking post expansion when broken items just lost max grind ability and 9* weapon boards were available in shop. A unground ulteri cost about 1~2 mil back in the day. A ten ground Alteric cost about five mil. A ten ground Ulteri was put in shops for display at all 9s (back before people had multiple stacks to spend).

I guess, when I say 10/10 because it is habit now. So, it my play circle, there were (I think) two 10/10 ulteri's. I certainly used Alteric, but I was the ghetto member of the group - we were about 10-15 players.

This is the same reason the W'gacros was more common than the majimra for a long time. The lidra majimra were at least easier to get thanks to Eastern Peril and Holy Grounds so they were more common than Ulteri which you could only get from Grove of Fanatics and Rainbow Beast.

ok, so there was definitely a time when w'gacros was the way to go. This was when the cap was 60. when Eastern Peril started to be run in eanest heavily grinded A ranks (lidra's) appeared. The cap was 80, I believe. A lot happened in that 60->80 time period, and it is somewhat fuzzy to me.

Dark and light element bullets were released at about the same time as 9* weapons were released in the synth shops IIRC. This was also around the time that buffs and debuffs were released (shift, zodial, etc)

Nope, that can't be right. Light bullets were fully levels for the folks I know during the event that JUST precedded the explansion. The name escapes me. But I remember vividly wearing old-school elemental armor. (the good kind).

Desert Terror was a loooooong mission which is why people didn't do it. Dimma was easier than Omna, but people didn't want to spend the extra time to get to him. Also you couldn't do Desert Goliath as a fortetecher without a bow. Once you knocked the bottom off with Diga, you had to hit the arm with the bow. Har / Quick and Me / Quick weren't common until 1up cup so casting Diga at Goliath's arms was a quick and easy way to die. :)

so funny - getting caught with many of Maggas' attacks were quick and easy way to die. Stun, DFP down, and heavy damage. ugh.

and Yeah dangerous, but bullets drew aggro, so while the gunners where pew, pew, pew with twin handguns (or rifles), the fT's snuck up and dropped a 1.5K or 2K diga on the arm. especially if they could get the right positioning when the Maggas did his blue energy ball attack which had a long enough cooldown. Again, I was playing wartecher, so maybe my HP allowed me some luxuries, but I saw enough fTs rolling the dice, once they had good % armor.

I remember running Desert Goliath as a duo with a friend one day. He had nightmares of the beepbeepbeep sound the Grinna Bete C's made when they started shooting their machine guns. This was right after Giresta was released and it took an hour to cast it without a quick unit. I was so happy when they made Giresta faster in the expansion. It was almost unusable before that.

I definitely remember giresta suckage.

Most of the techer I know used handguns until the got a couple of good cards. A few exclusively used longbow, but they only ran in groups. You didn't really need the mobility of handguns if you had a good group with you. Again, once cards were released, they started using cards with their bows or cards exclusively.

So there must have been a time period, either right before I started playing, or before I found my regular "crew" that was heavy handgun. That's my only thing I can think of. The ATP and armor bypass of bows (even given the fire rate, and immobility) was too good to pass up.

Ah, back with a 50% C rank armor was better than a 20% A rank armor. I remember rocking my 50% B and C rank armors until I finally got a har / quick. Then I had to get A rank armor, but none of them made it to 50% so I was taking more damage, but casting faster.

ha ha - you know I still use the me/quick to this day for that reason. I never had good A rank armor until WAY late, and now it is like - does it really help me all that much to switch?

I lucked out with an early 38% dark 2* armor. Every character I leveled wore that armor for like, the first 20 levels, and stayed in unsafe passage. I remember after some event I finally had enough ortacarbon/boards to mass synth ageha senba. I was selling the 20-ish% ones for enough to finance more ortacarbon buys

I can't remember if crossbows were level 2 burn or level 3 burn before the expansion. I remember most bullets got buffs after the expansion... well most non-techer bullets. Rifles got a serious buff but longbows stayed the same.

it was level 3 SE, but enemies had crazy high stamina - or stamina operated differently. applying burn without a rifle on large enemies was nigh impossible.

The Bil's only swing with their right arm. While some creatures like Goshin and Go Vahra had huge hit box that would tag you even when the creature was a mile away, Bils didn't have the problem so if you stayed to the right (on their left side) you could avoid most of their punches.
The biggest problem was the jump back swing punch, but they didn't do it as often back before the expansion as they do now. That was part of the whole AI change for creatures.

dang! look at you all strategy and such! My weakness is showing - I was a moatoob avoider as a result of that jump back and swing punch. Or at least a Dimma avoider.

The people I ran with were of the "Red or nothing" mindset for nanoblasts, so i was a heal factory. My Jellen got to level 30 pretty quick though since I used that for tagging.

Yeah, I caught plenty of flack for being blue until I switched to red. But this was back when nanoblasting removed your buffs. I wasn't willing to risk it. scapes were too pricy ;-)

Grove of Fanatics S2 when Rikauteri was released. I remember getting three Needle Cannon boards before finally getting a Rikauteri. It took three months of spamming Grove exclusively to get it too. But that was after killer shot so you could have done the mission as a fortegunner quicker. Just carry about 15 Brahoh, a crossbow or two and a dark spear with level 10 Dus Daggas for Degahna.

maybe folks wanted tha boss's cannon? It seems that this was prior to killer shot, which admittedly, was (yet another) fortegunner tide turner.

Grinna Bete S statue use to sell for a million until Episode 2 chapter 10 came out. They also dropped Phantom. They started dropping Blackbull once Desert Goliath S2 was released.

no no, you had it right. it was for the pahntom. Phatom line was released, and the rifle jockeys all bum rushed to get phantoms for "the combo"

Previously the only way to get Blackbull was from Desert Goliath S, Stolen Weapon S2, True Darkness S and Seed Awakened S. Of course that was before the map nerf where the took a good amount of the Grinna Bete out of Desert Goliath, took the Tengohgs out of Demons Above, took the Kamatoze out of Moonlight Beast, made the Desert Maps shorter, put a teleport into Tunnel Recapture etc.

yeah, the ginna beta waves in deset goliath were nothing short of endless. I was kinda sad they too kamatoze out of moonlight beast. I had spun up a number of weapons, and armor to deal with kamatoze, and then he was...gone.

I don't even remember it being that popular when Musrana was released. That's why Tuma was cheaper and more common than Musrana until Lonely Lab was released. Train Rescue S2 was released about three weeks before True Darkness so why run Train Rescue S2 for a Musrana when you could run True Darkness instead?

Oh, easy - you could solo it. and get this. I remember the strategy was to bank all yoru scape dolls and plan on dying a lot. if you could corner and kill 1 or 2 of the handgun jockeys before they took you out, you were doing well.

Train Rescue S2 was released at a bad time. Her Secret Mission was the money run. Plains Overlord S2 and Sleeping Warriors S2 were the easy rare item missions.

Her secret mission's rise I remember well - I jsut don't remember the level cap then. 90? 100?

Grove of Fanatics, Desert Goliath, Demons Above, and Moonlight Beast were around for people who wanted to hunt for the "rare" rare items. Then Train Rescue, Endrum, Dual Sentinal, and Cost of Research came out, but people never really flocked to those S2 missions. Maybe cost of Research for easier Ortapolymer and Resin, but that was about it.

there was something in Dual sentinel that you could nto get anywhere else, but god help me if I can remember it. We ran it a 20 or so times, but of course it never dropped.

Renkai was really popular back in the day. Daggas was strong, but only hit in a straight line. Dus Robaddo wasn't as powerful as it is currently. So your main choices were Renkai and Tornado Break for hitting stuff surrounding you.

renkai was more than popular, it was like used to exclusion (worse than majarra), the only reason you switched to Daggas was for bosses (they ahd much higher DFP - don't forget, Spears had very good ATP compared with character ATP back then).

That was back before the first hit of the axe knocked things over too, but Beast fFs were really happy when they hit with golf swing thanks to the big numbers. Most beast fFs I knew loved the axe and redda.

I'm a little uptight about 0's on a slow weapon, what can I say?

Nope, I'm talking about Demons Above and Rainbow Beat. Again, I'm talking about the period when the game first came out. You are thinking of a later time period. This was back before Moonlight Beast was released and before Moatoob was released. I guess I should have been more clear about the time period.

yeah, maybe pre-moatoob no one ran demon's above. but once you could get A rank weapons from level 60 enemies, and me/quick or har/quick (not to mention high end rods and wands it was a fT haven

desturel

Jun 4, 2010, 01:19 PM

Is there still a significant speed difference in attack or casting animation between acro classes and the others--or was that ever fixed? Was that something done on purpose (I'm assuming so)

Acro and Master classes get a speed boost. It's intentional that Acrotecher and Masterforce cast faster.

darthplagis

Jun 4, 2010, 05:54 PM

Killing the exact same monsters without any real challenge is not what keeps the community interested. Again the market is the only real thing keeping the game alive at this point. Even the events are based around increased drop rates and new items. Without the market to sustain players' activities PSU is nothing more than an overpriced Monster Hunter for the PlayStation 2.

while i agree that tedium in monsters and drops are strong in this game, not meaning to sound like i am having a go at you but this is where our opinions differ.....

PSU and PSO even to me is not about how hard it is or about how much money i make, money to me pays for clothes and recharges when i am feeling lazy or on a gunner or techer (melee recharge for free :P and charges cost nothing on AMF metro), i like to run a mission and see what i find, if its anything good then cool, if i get a rare spawn even better, if i am spamming and resetting for a rare spawn and the damn things dont show after 200 resets then fine..... i will be pissed but fine none the less as i leveled my PA's and had fun chatting whith friends and laughing over silly mistakes (like being killed by a lapucha for example, a certain friend of mine will never live that one down :P).

the player market to me is a sideline for when you are bored and have too much crap in your PM (someone will by my 200th stack of junanline sometime :)). or its an event and all of the drops sell at a stupid price. (yay for my 50mil from a rabbit wand :))

i think the worst thing sega did with AOTI was increase the rare drops too much, and segas persistence with events having CRAZY high drop rates, is actually hurting the market.

S ranks should be rare, common place but still rare (if that makes sense).

also PSU is an action RPG, and all games with any aspect of RPG has repetative grind of monsters, thats how it has been since the days of yore (D&D book version, you still had to kill millions of goblins/trogs/kobolds).

i think that if sega implemented a planet run bonus, like a GBR, but chained as you did certain missions in a chain like you HAD to do back in the day to get around (there was a thread about this last week). the community would start running more variety of missions. i personally run random missions still even now, i will just get a few friends and do a moatoob run, starting at valley of carnage and ending up where ever we end up, be it the casino or the oasis :) even if the highest is usually S2 its still fun and does keep you on your toes at times.

unicorn

Jun 7, 2010, 01:46 AM

PSU always had unbalance issues.

Vanilla PSU: Fortegunners and Fortetechers lead the pack. Fortegunner because of SEs and range, and any smart Fortetecher was primarily support. Fighgunner was really the best fighter to play as. Fortefighter was strong, but only really good for bosses. Guntecher was always called a "gimp" since it was weak and had lvl 10 support (but I still rocked GT!!!). Wartecher could easily replace Fortetecher in a party and was generally preferred, since it was more of a nurse. Protranser was rare and really weak, but I liked it back then.

As soon as AoTI came out, ST decided just to break Fighters like they did in PSO. Acrotecher made all the other techers useless for the most part. Fortefighter was the top pick for any mission.

And here we are now. Fighmaster replaces all fighters, Gunmaster is the best type, and Masterforce is eating their dust. Acrotecher still replaces all techers, and no one knows Protranser exists.

Really, it sucks that ST can't get it right. I feel that the types get their feet wet in areas other types are supposed to excel. For example, when AoTI was released, fighters replaced gunners because of slicers (until they were balanced). Fighters and Gunners in the 360 version trample over Masterforce because they do range AND AoE damage.

I really think each type should have a specific role. For example: Fighters should be boss killers and be tanks, Gunners should be range and dps, and Attack techers should be absolute best AoE and high lvl SEs. Sadly, you have Gunners who can kill bosses, still provide high SE, range, and reliable DPS. Fighters also do AoE (Majarra, Robado, Tornado Break, Jabroga, etc), still kill bosses, have the best defensive stats, etc. What do techers have? Not much (until supplemental). The hybrid types should also be MUCH more needed than the more specialized types (like in every other MMO).

Thankfully the supplemental update does balance out types more, but people are still going to mainly play Fighmaster, Gunmaster and Masterforce. Occasionally Acrotecher and Protranser.

And while we're on the subject of Class Balance, races should be balance to. If Newmans and Humans are NOT going to be given any racial ability, atleast make them have exclusive melee/range weapons that have a shitload of ATP to bump them to CAST/Beast level sometimes. Beast/CASTs racial abilities should use TP for techer jobs (since ATP is too low for it to do any damage) and they should have weapons that have high TP that lets em be a little behind Newman/Human.

I'm not saying everyone should be on an even playing field, but choosing your character race should involve more tactic than the easy "Uhh.. i think casts R gewd 4 eerythin and newman ist best magic person".

I like how PSP2 does it. For example, Newmans have the highest TP and MST, being the best with techs. Beast/CAST are only slightly behind Newmans in tech, trading it for more defensive stats and weapon damage. Humans are the most versatile and can go anyway. And they all can play any type successfully, unlike in PSU were a certain type blatantly favors a specific race and any 'tard can play it without any thought behind their decision.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 7, 2010, 12:20 PM

@super_luu: I hate to say this, but the balance very early in the game was the best.

Rangers for DoT on mini bosses, and to help take down flying bosses like Onma.

Fighter types soaking up damage from trash mobs (others are damaging the mobs, but fighters are making sure a sworded go varha does not 1-hit the Fortetecher). Fighter types also dealing heavy damage on bosses.

Force types for buffs, healing, some DoT, supplemental damage (especially vs melee and gun resistant enemies, or enemies that are hard hit (golormo's), or that you would not want to melee. Or are bullet resistant.

Some of the mistakes (IMO) that Sega made:
Too many enemies inflicted SEs - it made the fighter types less happy to engage, and made the fTs have to babysit too much. Why do olaka inflict poison? Why do pannons have 50 different attack forms

SE nerf was a mistake

Releasing units like Solid Power / S - this is part of what makes gunners so gross. Give gunners higher atp, increasing bullet elements (shotguns, I'm looking at you here), and gunners can inflict such significant damage that SE becomes irrelevant.

No great way to "tank" - Sure Foretighters do the best job of ignoring damage, but so do all the other jobs, thanks to the armors not favoring higher DFP in any meaningful way. Any enemy that is a threat to a 2000 HP Fortetecher is also a threat to a 4000 HP fortefighter.

Fighmaster, Gunmaster, and Masterforce - all end up replacing Forte-types. Mistake. I would be ok with this if there were significant drawbacks, but there do not seem to be.

A lack of understanding on what the role of Hybrid types should be. Some are/were some too strong (Figunner), others too weak: Wartecher, ProTranser, Guntecher.

Not making debuffs matter more.

Creating more missions where all three types are required to for a party to shine. I point to Demons Above, Rainbow Beast and Eastern Peril as good examples. I point to Labs (especially once they nerfed bees), as the worst example. (fortefighers and fortetechers far less usefull).

unicorn

Jun 7, 2010, 01:06 PM

I never understood why debuffs have the same percentages as buffs, that limits their usage.

Buffs and debuffs:
1-10 : 11%
11-20 : 15%
21-30 : 19%
31-40 : 23%
41-50 : 27%

I honestly think debuffs should ALWAYS be higher, since they are supposed to be used less. Would be nice if they were along the lines of:

1-10: 21%
11-20 : 25%
21-30 : 29%
31-40 : 33%
41-40 : 36%

Since right now, no one uses them outside of AT and thats only during harder missions. In PSO debuffs were awesome.

Also, support leveling was always stupid. There should be some sort of difference from 11-20, etc. I think every level should have a longer time period than the previous.

Example: the caps are ( lvl 10 = 30 seconds, lvl 20 = 60 seconds, lvl 30 = 90 seconds, lvl 40 = 120 seconds, and lvl 50 = 150 seconds).

But I *think* it should be:
1 = 10 sec
2 = 12 sec
3 = 14 sec
4 = 16 sec
5 = 18 sec
6 = 20 sec
7 = 22 sec
8 = 24 sec
9 = 26 sec
--10 = 30 seconds--
11 = 33
12 = 36
13 = 39
.........
---20 = 60---

So when you reach a cap, the time limit goes up by a lot

SolomonGrundy

Jun 7, 2010, 01:06 PM

SolomonGrundy

Jun 7, 2010, 01:11 PM

I never understood why debuffs have the same percentages as buffs, that limits their usage.

Buffs and debuffs:
1-10 : 11%
11-20 : 15%
21-30 : 19%
31-40 : 23%
41-50 : 27%

I honestly think debuffs should ALWAYS be higher, since they are supposed to be used less. Would be nice if they were along the lines of:

1-10: 21%
11-20 : 25%
21-30 : 29%
31-40 : 36%
41-40 : 39%

Since right now, no one uses them outside of AT and thats only during harder missions. In PSO debuffs were awesome.

Totally agree. although i think the percentage system should reward 41+ more than 3%

and making enemies where certain debuffs would shine. Like super high DFP enemies, than cannot be virused or burned. Or super high ATP enemies that could 1 hit players unless jellened.

darthplagis

Jun 7, 2010, 01:51 PM

@darth: I rather like the shopping synthing element of the game. I do think that there always needs to be ways of bleeding meseta OUT of the economy, and SEGA kinda screwed that part of it up.

It's ok if some things become more rare, and other things less rare, that's all a part of the game, and keeps players who have cornered the market on certain items from becoming too powerful/wealthy.

yeah i dont disagree, the shop was a 'good' idea. but its a certain group of people that changed the game from being a monster kill, item hunt game into a make money, spam lobby, "oh i have to do WB i need more hizeri minds, and oh BTW boss room i dont need the help nao bi.... xplayers has been removed from the party"

the dependance on the player shop to some people, changed the gaming experience, and drew all the fun from the game turning friends into potentaial item thieves :(

i think debuffs need rebalancing too, as an AF and a FiG, i use kubara mags to keep the debuffs going while i chop up the monsters, it actually freaks out people on a regular basis when i actually play in groups "eh? where is the acrotecher?...... who is doing the debuffs?" LOL

i am hoping the rebalance with the sup update will bring the game closer to its pre AOTI days, and show the depandance on master clasess is wrong... but looking at the GAS charts most stuff seems aimed at them :(

darkante

Jun 7, 2010, 02:07 PM

I think having the master classes from the start is a bad idea, no matter how you look at it.
They just make every other class look inferior.

I´m not a number cruncher myself, and it´s not so fun just to watch someone speed and kill everything before you even get there.
It´s great help sure, but it ain´t fun if you don´t felt needed personally. Uhh...

Also, debuffs really an big upgrade...it should be noticeable.

darthplagis

Jun 7, 2010, 02:19 PM

SolomonGrundy

Jun 7, 2010, 02:49 PM

thing is master classes 'should' be a niche, rather than the standard.

people used to play a class for the weapon and tactics options..... now it seems its power power power.

i have a master force, mainly because i am a bad techer, i am the first to admit it. i hate to heal and i DONT buff :) so once MF was announced i made a newman and went MF...... though i may end up making her a forte with boosted attack techs so i have a bow too :) and A rank rods

That's it, exactly. When MFs had horrible stats, it seemed to have it's place. Amazing tech damage, but a glass cannon. Gunmaster was silly broken from the get go, as was Fighmaster - they literally picked the most broken melee weapons in the game (axe -jabroken, spear - spamjarra, double saber - tornadoSPAM - with increased accuracy no less!).

Can't think of a good way to fix Gunmaster. that class is just to broken. Heck, it could have access to just two weapons (rifle and shotgun), and STILL be broken. BLAH.

milranduil

Jun 7, 2010, 09:20 PM

Fortegunner is as broken or more broken than GM with supplemental. Nade+Saber+dagger in addition to GM weapons make it a ridiculous class.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 8, 2010, 01:13 AM

Fortegunner shotguns are not even close compared with a Gun master.

I guess that Fortegunners using majarra is kinda gross but Sabers? Really? daggers? really?

darthplagis

Jun 8, 2010, 06:41 AM

u gotta have something to pop boxes with :)

Max B

Jun 8, 2010, 08:07 AM

Fortegunner shotguns are not even close compared with a Gun master.

I guess that Fortegunners using majarra is kinda gross but Sabers? Really? daggers? really?

Sabers and dagers are insanely good.

desturel

Jun 8, 2010, 10:03 AM

Sabers and dagers are insanely good.

Rising Strike and Hikai have always been good. I'm not sure I would qualify Gravity Strike, Spinning Strike, Buten, or Shunbu as "insanely good" however.

Buten is functional in most situations and easy to move through groups with, but too low damage when compared to Hikai.

Shunbu has too small of an effective range meaning it's outclassed by Rising Strike in almost every situation. It is quicker at knocking things over, but the second part whiffs far too often.

Spinning Strike is good on wizards (Komazli more so than the others) and large single target creatures (like Bil).

Gravity Strike needs a major damage boost before it becomes useful again.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 8, 2010, 12:20 PM

Sabers and dagers are insanely good.

Every class in the game has access to sabers except MF, GM, and (arguably) fT - so saying it's a huge advantage for Fortegunners is kinda...odd. (Add Protransers to the list if we inlcude those that can't user daggers).

And if they are so insanely good, why don't I seem them in use for Time Attack runs? It's always SPAMjarra and ja-Broken?

@ desturel: I agree that rising strike is insanely good. Hikai always annoyed me, both others seem to like it. I prefer buten as it ends up being easier to control = more hits.

I like Shunbu - it's cheap, damage is decent, and it is fast to excecute, which does make it quite good for fortegunner/guntecher - who mostly use guns, but need a mele weapon every now and again. Spinning Strike is great - but I keep that for Acrotecher, who I find needs the damage more than Fortegunner, who can drop an DoT SE and use rifels for perma stun.

Gravity strike is...for Protransers who would rather melee a weak mob? I really struggled to find a niche for this PA.

milranduil

Jun 8, 2010, 02:01 PM

Fortegunner shotguns are not even close compared with a Gun master.

I guess that Fortegunners using majarra is kinda gross but Sabers? Really? daggers? really?

Fortegunner slightly exceeds Gunmaster in shotgun damage with supplemental. Hikai Shuha-zan hits for about 2800 with my brand new 50% 10/10 blumiers. Spinning strike hits 5k followed by 7k on my new 40% 10/10 Sevacucs. And I hit for 3k and 6k on Majarra using Demonic Fork. Is not all of the above not lolgross?

SolomonGrundy

Jun 8, 2010, 02:19 PM

Fortegunner slightly exceeds Gunmaster in shotgun damage with supplemental. Hikai Shuha-zan hits for about 2800 with my brand new 50% 10/10 blumiers. Spinning strike hits 5k followed by 7k on my new 40% 10/10 Sevacucs. And I hit for 3k and 6k on Majarra using Demonic Fork. Is not all of the above not lolgross?

Can you explain how ForteGunner exceeds gunmaster using shotguns with the supplemental? Supplemental does not change the firing rate...so...

Your 50% 10/10 is lovely, my point is that most other jobs have access to this same weapon/ skill. Spinning Strike too.

How is this any grosser than what every other job can do? So Figunner is now LOL gross?

milranduil

Jun 8, 2010, 03:09 PM

SolomonGrundy

Jun 8, 2010, 04:32 PM

No, because they don't the array of weapons that Fortegunner has at their disposal. Also, Fortegunner does more with shotgun due to 200-250 more ATP than Gunmaster, and the fact that you can get Shotgun PALV+ getting your extra 7% att. from 40-42 and 7% elemental.

hmmm. looking at the math...
GM already have the elemental bonus, and the 7% attack.
ATP: 1960 ATP vs 2288 ATP = is about a 16% advantage. (Level 180 male cast GM vs fG)

Assume the GM fire rate is only 10% faster (I think it is more, but let's say 10%).

GM can have bullets at Level 50 (+1% damage per level), and can buy up damage directly (shotgun damage+) = +1%/2AP, the advantage should still be with GM.

but even if the bullets did less damage overall, id' still rather have the speed. I'll be using xbows as a Fortegunner for this reason, and buying THOSE up.

unicorn

Jun 8, 2010, 04:40 PM

hmmm. looking at the math...
GM already have the elemental bonus, and the 7% attack.
ATP: 1960 ATP vs 2288 ATP = is about a 16% advantage. (Level 180 male cast GM vs fG)

Assume the GM fire rate is only 10% faster (I think it is more, but let's say 10%).

GM can have bullets at Level 50 (+1% damage per level), and can buy up damage directly (shotgun damage+) = +1%/2AP, the advantage should still be with GM.

but even if the bullets did less damage overall, id' still rather have the speed. I'll be using xbows as a Fortegunner for this reason, and buying THOSE up.

Fortegunner is better. Trust Bobby.

Trust anyone else who plays FG on JP version.

Hiero_Glyph

Jun 8, 2010, 05:13 PM

Fortegunner is better. Trust Bobby.

Trust anyone else who plays FG on JP version.

It's like apples versus oranges; one is talking about damage the other DPS. Gunmaster still has a higher DPS (with guns) than Fortegunner in all situations except multi-hitbox enemies and the FG only wins in that one example due to the Grenade Launcher. Anyway, a FG hits higher numbers per shot, but a GM can fire more shots per minute. Over time the GM does more damage and can fill up their SUV meter much faster; trust has no place in a topic about DPS.

unicorn

Jun 8, 2010, 09:12 PM

It's like apples versus oranges; one is talking about damage the other DPS. Gunmaster still has a higher DPS (with guns) than Fortegunner in all situations except multi-hitbox enemies and the FG only wins in that one example due to the Grenade Launcher. Anyway, a FG hits higher numbers per shot, but a GM can fire more shots per minute. Over time the GM does more damage and can fill up their SUV meter much faster; trust has no place in a topic about DPS.

Doesnt matter, Fortegunner is still beating missions faster than Gunmaster in JP. Everything dies too quick for DPS to matter. Its just "D" at this point, no more "PS".

SolomonGrundy

Jun 8, 2010, 10:09 PM

Hiero_Glyph

Jun 9, 2010, 12:53 AM

Doesnt matter, Fortegunner is still beating missions faster than Gunmaster in JP. Everything dies too quick for DPS to matter. Its just "D" at this point, no more "PS".

well if that is the case (fG finishishes missions faster), then GM must have lower DPS...right?

I think that these two comments explain everything. GM is the higher DPS type but the monsters are so pathetic that the FG's added damage can kill most enemies faster since they are all so weak. All these added abilities do is make the player so overpowered that the class with the highest ATP wins. Once anew event with some difficult missions is released then everyone will go back to Gunmaster.

unicorn

Jun 9, 2010, 01:19 AM

I think that these two comments explain everything. GM is the higher DPS type but the monsters are so pathetic that the FG's added damage can kill most enemies faster since they are all so weak. All these added abilities do is make the player so overpowered that the class with the highest ATP wins. Once anew event with some difficult missions is released then everyone will go back to Gunmaster.

Doubtful. Since they just keep releasing even more waves of GAS that lets you further increase your stats.

Just play JP and see for yourself, you only have the US/PC/360 servers to judge by.

darthplagis

Jun 9, 2010, 03:49 AM

so it looks like sega got it right with the rebalance, masterclasses are no longer the 1st choice..... i feel happy :)

desturel

Jun 9, 2010, 11:23 AM

so it looks like sega got it right with the rebalance, masterclasses are no longer the 1st choice..... i feel happy :)

Not true. Fighmaster is still stronger than Fortefighter. Masterforce blows Foretecher away easily. The only reason Fortegunner gains a situational advantage over Gunmaster is because melee outclasses bullets in many situations thanks to just attack.

darthplagis

Jun 9, 2010, 12:03 PM

true, melee was always nice on forte gunner :)

ah well i was just hoping sega had done something to move the masses away from the master class sheepery.

FOnewearl-Lina

Jun 9, 2010, 12:14 PM

Grenades sucked... and then came Dark Meteor!
Dark Meteor can hit Onma/Dima in midair, Mother Brain on the head, and the Dragon in the wings.

Fortegunner WINS!

SolomonGrundy

Jun 9, 2010, 12:42 PM

fortetecherr have skills... maybe sega is thinking that fTs will buy up whip and ATP?

it's madness, but...I'm trying to think of why fTs got so badly burned.

I think fF could still have a place if they beefed up fF DFP even more, and lowered FM DFP. I'd lvoe to may an invulnerable tank

Akaimizu

Jun 19, 2010, 01:22 AM

Good points, all around. Of course, one of my thoughts about bad balancing was when they started retooling the game way too much towards direct DPS. This caused two things to happen, and was responsible for some of the major fundamental balance problems, in the first place.

First, it caused nearly the entire community to scoff at any *support-based* classes, because due to everything being DPS and self-boosting items, people felt that buffers/debuffers/healer types had no real reason to be there unless they can keep up with the damage. It all went down to the best defense is the best offense, so defense and/or alternate types of help is not needed.

Second, it made DOT status effects get cast in the same boat. While some classes like Wartecher and Guntecher got cast into the *nobody ever plays them* slot, I do remember days as a Guntecher, where I could still be the hero because I could land a good burn or infect status effect, shortening the fight against bigger mobs. Eventually, that was taken away because first you'd have to *land the status effect*, then you need enough time for the ticks of damage to happen. Later, you're lucky to get two status effect ticks of damage off before all the juicy direct damage just plain killed them. Things also, as they progressed, went more and more against the usable idea of aggro control, as a combat tactic.

The two above factors were made worse since SEGA still kept the mantra that those with healing and buffs should take a DPS hit due to balancing. That makes perfect sense, in the old paradigm. But when the paradigm shifts, that factor gets outdated. Then again, they were confused about a lot of things. As the slew of changes came in, the best Guntecher tools were NEVER the tools SEGA promoted for the class. Then again, these are the same people who gave them level 10 support techs, in the first place, and labelled the class specifically as a great support class right in their description. So, they have a wee problem with mislabeling things.

Of course, maybe part of it was the fact that Hunter types were in large abundance, and they cried the loudest. Which lead to stuff like Just attack and everything. Case in point, to a degree, setting up Hunters as a class that could be way strong and independent on quickly soloing many areas (don't forget the enemy evade nerf as well, so that they could kill anything that used to slow them down, before) played at odd ends with the balance of gunners and support classes. Then to fix that, what do they do? Start turning gunners into straight direct DPS machines. Ok, so you balance them to this new direct DPS mechanic, but do they really play like the damage support role they used to? Not really. Well, they still had a few boss aiding tricks up their sleeves, for certain bosses like clipping wings or special hit location effects.

But that still fed into the idea that *who needs support techs*?

My still greatest moment, still had to be during the early days. Supporting an entire group of cast hunters in a full party, with level 10 techs, on Crimson Beast runs, laying strong status effects, keeping them healed and buffed through the entire level. I was literally working my butt off, those days, just trying to prove that Guntechers can be useful. And by gum, I was going to play the class as Sega described them to be. I picked it based on their words about the class. I spent loads of time, optimizing my pallette for the most optimal speeds for versatility and the ability to change my Role of Engagement as quickly as possible. Making adjustments to it for months. My fingers literally flew, while playing a level, in a fashion you'd normally only see on a Magical Drop player at the highest levels of play. So when all of those guys starting literally giving me kudos and throwing their partner card invites at me, I had to smile. It was all worth the blood sweat and tears. That's a memory I could take to the grave. Perhaps one reason why I could never give up the class. Versatility will always be better than straight power in my gaming experience. Sure, I don't mind times relaxing and doing the big damage, but I wouldn't go back to my hybrid if that's all I cared about. So obviously, the only reason I go back, is that I have more fun there.

Why I still breathe a good sigh of satisfaction when I whip out the Twin Handguns, for some good mid-range mobile work and hopeful aggro control; and a wand for some good support teching. It serves as a big FU to the notion of always trying to cater to the big direct DPS (let's all turn this into FFXI elite mentality), and a reminder that I play this game to have fun with my variety of personal tactical choices. Playing to my comfort zone.

I used to have plenty of arguments against folks, for this. Including hrith, back in the day. Some would hate me for this opinion, but I don't exactly feel great about people telling me NOT to have fun in this game. I don't play with them, and with that attitude, I wouldn't.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 22, 2010, 05:04 AM

Who could forget Hrith?

Yeah, DoTs nerf, and support nerf defeintely hurt (I remember when the machine gun bullet that launched was a god send for controlling buffed bill de vears.

The only problem with the old system was that Fortefighter sucked. Not because they dealt poor damage, but becasue they could not tank very well, and too many enemies were designed to beat melee. Jarba, Tengoh, Onma, Dimma, Gaozoran, Vanda (fire breath sucked). Staunch armor/defense could ahev beat that, but SEGA went a different way.

I do miss those days of support that mattered. It is a different game now, for sure. Better? I don't know.

The other thing which really messes with things is the PA level evolution. Having a class with level 10 and other classes with 20/30 is a much different thing than giving some classes level 30 and others level 40/50. In some ways 10/20/30 was more limiting, but in other ways it really did ehlp definie roles.

Consider now that a fortegunner can run majarra at 21+ with GAS, or a fortegunner can get 21+ bullets for handgun. Those are both wacky.

PS: Hi! You still play?

Akaimizu

Jun 22, 2010, 05:29 AM

I still have my characters in PSU. Haven't played in earnest for a while, but am gearing to get back to it. At least on nights I'm not busy and such.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 22, 2010, 07:12 AM

;-)
me too. I'm hoping for the update this Thursday. I have next week off so I could really do some damage.

I think I still have your card. I'll ping you if I see you online (llama smash is my main)

rayner

Jun 24, 2010, 08:47 AM

Guntecher appealed to me in the beginning because if your PM died you lost that S rank, and Guntechers healed. I stuck with the class ever since and my human male is still my main character. Over the course of time they began to get slightly better... lv 30 Support techs, lv 30 Attack techs and the use of S-Rank R-Mags + Wands are unique to the class. They are the utility class and I enjoy playing them with friends, the whole DPS mentality is absurd in this game when everything dies so quickly and meseta is abundant and player shops exist.

After playing Monster Hunter... PSU is easy mode extreme.

xmoonprismpowerx

Jun 24, 2010, 09:11 AM

If you want to see some unbalanced play... start at level one, with no meseta, no weapons switched over, no rides to white beast, etc. and join a party where people are starting from level 1 with all their grinded up, nice things. Then they run off with their 130 pal and leave you in the dust. XD

SolomonGrundy

Jun 24, 2010, 10:12 AM

xmoonprismpowerx

Jun 24, 2010, 10:16 AM

what would the point in that be?

It's just what happens whenever I delete my characters and decide to tough it out on my own XD No point to it. Just unbalanced.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 24, 2010, 04:48 PM

Class balance. Level 80 Cast guntechers could not equip A rank wands = poor balance.

Akaimizu

Jun 24, 2010, 07:22 PM

They still had SUVs. If that wasn't a balancer for later A rank wand access, I don't know what is. I know other races that would easily trade ya for it.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 25, 2010, 05:21 AM

A cast of any job has access to SUV - and I agree they are powerful. I recall distincly that Cast resta was in the 200-300 range unless you had a great (10/10) B rank wand. That wand was a W'gacros, and it was = to a Lidra.

But ...unless you were swimming in meseta like we are today, mass synthing W'gacros was not an options. Just buying the boards would bankrupt you. I spend a lot of meseta getting one to 5. I broke 12 getting there.

Akaimizu

Jun 25, 2010, 10:32 AM

Back then, everybody was going broke. Heck, just maintaining and improving my guns kept my money low. Not helped because often the meseta made from a mission barely covered the costs of Weapon Recharges, at the time. Unless you were real lucky with drops, it wasn't easy to make the money. Eventually, things changed, and along with some cost adjustments, more folks ready to part money for somewhat common drops arrived.

desturel

Jun 28, 2010, 08:12 AM

But ...unless you were swimming in meseta like we are today, mass synthing W'gacros was not an options. Just buying the boards would bankrupt you. I spend a lot of meseta getting one to 5. I broke 12 getting there.

That was the point I was trying to make about the Ulteri vs. the Alteric. It was expensive and when weapons broke they were gone. An Ulteri with 10 grinds was more rare than a Lidra with 10 grinds.

SolomonGrundy

Jun 29, 2010, 04:48 AM

That was the point I was trying to make about the Ulteri vs. the Alteric. It was expensive and when weapons broke they were gone. An Ulteri with 10 grinds was more rare than a Lidra with 10 grinds.

Oh we ended up agreeing. But by the time there were Lidra's with 10 grinds, there were Ulteri's with 10. it just came later...but not as late as you might think.

Theory was mass synthing Halrods (9* rods) for profit preeeeety eary...if he swings by this thread he can confirm

unicorn

Jul 2, 2010, 03:09 AM

Akaimizu

Jul 2, 2010, 07:45 AM

What surprises me in PSP2, is why they haven't beefed up forces since they clearly have the ability to make balance adjustments in PSP2. Though, it's nice that they really helped the Racial balances given that Race is about the only thing you can't adjust, about your character, in these games. However, I've never seen ST ever make a character that isn't very strong at their end game. Considering the talk people give Forces in PSP2, you'd think they don't have an endgame. Then again, I've heard the same talk about other configs in PSU and all of them have a strong endgame.

Hiero_Glyph

Jul 2, 2010, 10:01 AM

What needs to be balanced is

CASTs/Beasts in Force jobs.

Human/Newmans in melee jobs.

Just give us PSP2s balances and we're good (only racial balances, Forces suuuck in psp2).

Even with GAS, everyone still uses either CAST for everything, and Newman for MF.
Human makes a good AF/AT though. Thats it.

Huh? Balance is not about making every race good at everything, it is about making every strength have a weakness. If SEGA wanted to make CASTs and Beasts strong at techer jobs or Human and Newmans good at melee jobs then why do all the Crea weapons suck (exception being Crea Doubles of course as they are not race restricted)? Even FFXI has race specific gear that allows players to offset their race's weaknesses and that game is 4 years older than PSU. SEGA/Sonic Team just can't balance a game worth a darn.

The point of balance is to allow certain races to be better at certain things than other races but to offset this strength with a restriction of some kind. Balance is not about making everyone good at everything, as you suggested. GAS is not about balance either as it allows players to increase their strengths, not offset their weaknesses. A CAST will still have very little TP compared to a Newman even with GAS.

PSU has been neglected for too long to become balanced at this point. Techers were overpowered and are now underpowered, Gunners were just right then overpowered, and Fighters were underpowered and are now blatantly overpowered. They honestly have had years to fix these issues but don't seem to care. Heck, even when 'balance' changes are released they are treated as content and we have to wait over a year to get them on the 360 servers. Pathetic, truly.

unicorn

Jul 2, 2010, 03:56 PM

Huh? Balance is not about making every race good at everything, it is about making every strength have a weakness. If SEGA wanted to make CASTs and Beasts strong at techer jobs or Human and Newmans good at melee jobs then why do all the Crea weapons suck (exception being Crea Doubles of course as they are not race restricted)? Even FFXI has race specific gear that allows players to offset their race's weaknesses and that game is 4 years older than PSU. SEGA/Sonic Team just can't balance a game worth a darn.

The point of balance is to allow certain races to be better at certain things than other races but to offset this strength with a restriction of some kind. Balance is not about making everyone good at everything, as you suggested. GAS is not about balance either as it allows players to increase their strengths, not offset their weaknesses. A CAST will still have very little TP compared to a Newman even with GAS.

PSU has been neglected for too long to become balanced at this point. Techers were overpowered and are now underpowered, Gunners were just right then overpowered, and Fighters were underpowered and are now blatantly overpowered. They honestly have had years to fix these issues but don't seem to care. Heck, even when 'balance' changes are released they are treated as content and we have to wait over a year to get them on the 360 servers. Pathetic, truly.

I wasnt saying every race should be the same for every job. Then whats the point of having races? What I meant was that PSU's racial balancing sucks so bad, since racial gaps get larger with levels. This is is because PSU uses percent mods, whereas FFXI uses a stat point system (I believe PSP2 also uses a stat point system).

I bring this up because at this point, being a Newman FM or a CAST MF aren't even considerable options. Can you play them? Yes. Are the longterm effects worth it? No.

Alpal

Jul 4, 2010, 09:21 PM

SolomonGrundy

Jul 6, 2010, 12:27 PM

CAST acrotecher is an awesome class/race combo.

Don't be silly. the original poster meant CASTs using techs for damage, which CAST ATs do NOT.

Anyway.

Examples of poor balance:
High DFP not working (even with good armor) - see MST for details of how to make this work

ProTransers: this job, although fun, and helpful in a party, never really got off the ground.

Humans: below average stats in everything. it is only with GAS that they will shine for AT and AF. And still everyone will play newman, CAST, BEAST

Hiero_Glyph

Jul 6, 2010, 01:45 PM

Don't be silly. the original poster meant CASTs using techs for damage, which CAST ATs do NOT.

Anyway.

Examples of poor balance:
High DFP not working (even with good armor) - see MST for details of how to make this work

ProTransers: this job, although fun, and helpful in a party, never really got off the ground.

Humans: below average stats in everything. it is only with GAS that they will shine for AT and AF. And still everyone will play newman, CAST, BEAST

To be honest the biggest problem with ATs is that you don't need a nurse in PSU since the game is so easy already. If you want to be healed you just go shopping at your favorite NPC and load up on cheap healing items. The same applies for buff items.

Now add to that the crappy hit detection and SEGA's idea of difficulty being an enemy that can one-shot you and half the time you are lucky to avoid the attack that can kill you in the first place. Balance in PSU, yeah right. Perhaps if the enemy's were balanced then it would be easier to make the classes balanced as well.

PSU needs so much work the idea of balance is simply daunting. The fact that the 360 servers are so far behind Japan's servers means that we will be lucky to get the Supplemental Update, including its balance fixes, in July (16 months after Japan got it). PSU is like a comedy of errors at this point, sure it can be fun watching the chaos but when you stop and take a look you will realize just how many things have gone horribly wrong.

SolomonGrundy

Jul 6, 2010, 03:19 PM

To be honest the biggest problem with ATs is that you don't need a nurse in PSU since the game is so easy already. If you want to be healed you just go shopping at your favorite NPC and load up on cheap healing items. The same applies for buff items.

Now add to that the crappy hit detection and SEGA's idea of difficulty being an enemy that can one-shot you and half the time you are lucky to avoid the attack that can kill you in the first place. Balance in PSU, yeah right. Perhaps if the enemy's were balanced then it would be easier to make the classes balanced as well.

it used to be more balanced. Jarba's are a good example. If a mission had them you NEEDED gunners. There was no cure/freeze, and the dambarta killed you in a hurry. Forces took way too long to kill jarba's. Enemies like that promoted teamwork.

Kog nad/bill de vear was supposed to be that way for fortefighter, and robots for techers.

But that was all enemy balance, and we were talking class balance.

I find ATs to be very useful. I was spamming SEED express solo, and AT was the class that had it easiest. High MST makes the low grade megid do zero damage. a cure freeze makes pannons a non factor. When it comes to the boss, a mid percent (30%?) Orpa-senba dulls enough of the damage, and a combo of diga, and a 50% TCSM makes the arms go dead in a hurry. After that a whip takes out the body.

By contrast, my fortegunner and fortefighter take way too long to kill the arms. And in the case of the fortefighter, the megids makes running the dark portion of the mission MUCH less fun.

I think GAS will improve the job further.
21+ bullets (I will go twin pistols for Onma, Dimma, etc...)
21+ whips
31+techs (ra-techs with 4 targets!)
left hand, right hand damage improvements
10/10 pushans = crazy delicious (not that I have one)

milranduil

Jul 6, 2010, 04:34 PM

How are you having difficulty with Mother Brain as fortefighter? Jabroga kills an arm in under 30 seconds (and I should note you only need to kill her right arm, you can leave the left arm).

SolomonGrundy

Jul 6, 2010, 05:07 PM

Hiero_Glyph

Jul 6, 2010, 06:22 PM

it used to be more balanced. Jarba's are a good example. If a mission had them you NEEDED gunners. There was no cure/freeze, and the dambarta killed you in a hurry. Forces took way too long to kill jarba's. Enemies like that promoted teamwork.

Kog nad/bill de vear was supposed to be that way for fortefighter, and robots for techers.

But that was all enemy balance, and we were talking class balance.

I find ATs to be very useful. I was spamming SEED express solo, and AT was the class that had it easiest. High MST makes the low grade megid do zero damage. a cure freeze makes pannons a non factor. When it comes to the boss, a mid percent (30%?) Orpa-senba dulls enough of the damage, and a combo of diga, and a 50% TCSM makes the arms go dead in a hurry. After that a whip takes out the body.

By contrast, my fortegunner and fortefighter take way too long to kill the arms. And in the case of the fortefighter, the megids makes running the dark portion of the mission MUCH less fun.

I think GAS will improve the job further.
21+ bullets (I will go twin pistols for Onma, Dimma, etc...)
21+ whips
31+techs (ra-techs with 4 targets!)
left hand, right hand damage improvements
10/10 pushans = crazy delicious (not that I have one)

Please note the bolded comment. As PSU is 100% PvE combat the only way to balance a class is by using their ability to combat the various enemy types. If the enemies are not balanced then we have an even bigger problem than just balancing the classes. I'm not saying that the classes are balanced, but without PvP combat the only way to determine how balanced a class is versus another one is by comparing their abilties against various enemy types.

Managing balance in a game is very difficult when things change, but given how lacking the 360 servers are regarding updates you would think that the years since the last balance fix would have given them enough time to adjust things properly. How long have Nanoblasts and SUVs been in need of adjustments? The best part is that balance adjustments involve editing numeric values which do not need translating. Why are they taking forever to be released here? Because SEGA does not care about the 360 servers, period.

SolomonGrundy

Jul 6, 2010, 07:18 PM

Please note the bolded comment. As PSU is 100% PvE combat the only way to balance a class is by using their ability to combat the various enemy types. If the enemies are not balanced then we have an even bigger problem than just balancing the classes. I'm not saying that the classes are balanced, but without PvP combat the only way to determine how balanced a class is versus another one is by comparing their abilties against various enemy types.

Not true. If all PAs, bullets, and techs did the same DPS, or DPS combines with DoT, then enemy balance would not matter - it would simply be a matter of preference. In fact there are some games like that.

PSU is not one of them.

AND, the PvE means that there should be some emphasis on teamwork. Nowadays little is needed (or wanted!). In other words, if all PAs were equal, but weak, and teaming up would make them stronger, there would be (more) balance.

This is only true in a very limited extent in PSU

...

I should add: we should not compare level 150+ characters to the general PSU gaming experience. For a casual CRPG gamer 150 is not likely. I was playing 40 hours a week for 6 months to get to level 130 (the cap). A more realistic rate of playing: 15 hours a week, would put me somewhere in the 130s now (2 years total playtime).

milranduil

Jul 6, 2010, 09:05 PM

1. I don't have jabroga. I made a choice not to use that or majarra. Maybe stupid, but even still I would think she would knock a fF out of it often enough

2. interesting. You only have to kill the right arm. I did not know this.

3. So you wait for the arm to hit the center plate, then take it down?

4. STILL kinda prefer AT, who invalidates most of the enemy attacks leading up to MB

You do a majority of the necessary damage to kill the arm with Jabroga, while it is up yes. It's quite easy to time Jabroga right to land it before it starts moving down the platform again, even for a fF. You can do additional damage when it's off to the side with Majarra. Most spears can hit it, but Gekitsnata has the easiest time with it (or Black Requiem for those on the JP side).

Not true. If all PAs, bullets, and techs did the same DPS, or DPS combines with DoT, then enemy balance would not matter - it would simply be a matter of preference. In fact there are some games like that.

PSU is not one of them.

AND, the PvE means that there should be some emphasis on teamwork. Nowadays little is needed (or wanted!). In other words, if all PAs were equal, but weak, and teaming up would make them stronger, there would be (more) balance.

This is only true in a very limited extent in PSU

...

I should add: we should not compare level 150+ characters to the general PSU gaming experience. For a casual CRPG gamer 150 is not likely. I was playing 40 hours a week for 6 months to get to level 130 (the cap). A more realistic rate of playing: 15 hours a week, would put me somewhere in the 130s now (2 years total playtime).

What are you trying to hit level cap by playing C rank missions? Sure you don't level very fast, but even with 1-2 hours, you can get up a level even at 170+ soloing. In parties, it's a bit faster. Leveling is slow, but the rate you're suggesting, I don't see how it's possible to level that slow, especially over the course of 2 years. Don't even get me started on event experience...

SolomonGrundy

Jul 6, 2010, 09:46 PM

What are you trying to hit level cap by playing C rank missions? Sure you don't level very fast, but even with 1-2 hours, you can get up a level even at 170+ soloing. In parties, it's a bit faster. Leveling is slow, but the rate you're suggesting, I don't see how it's possible to level that slow, especially over the course of 2 years. Don't even get me started on event experience...

Just played for 40 minutes with a partner, doing white beast S2 with a level 130 fF. I made about 15% of a bar. And that's with the great sh*t I have now (50% armors and such) in one of the best places there is for XP.

the whole time was not mission running, that took perhaps 32-33 mins, with 8mins of filibustering on the pros and cons of "set random" and refilling healing items, etc.

And yes, event leveling is faster, but I also don't think a casual player will play this game every week for 15 hours.

I can only relate my experience, and what level I am at right now. Been playing for about a month, casually, and went from 125 for 130. (about 1 level a week). to get to 150 = 150 weeks = 3 years.

milranduil

Jul 6, 2010, 10:03 PM

Just played for 40 minutes with a partner, doing white beast S2 with a level 130 fF. I made about 15% of a bar. And that's with the great sh*t I have now (50% armors and such) in one of the best places there is for XP.

the whole time was not mission running, that took perhaps 32-33 mins, with 8mins of filibustering on the pros and cons of "set random" and refilling healing items, etc.

And yes, event leveling is faster, but I also don't think a casual player will play this game every week for 15 hours.

I can only relate my experience, and what level I am at right now. Been playing for about a month, casually, and went from 125 for 130. (about 1 level a week). to get to 150 = 150 weeks = 3 years.

Idk if you're just not tagging or what, but that's absurdly slow. Innocent girl is 77k experience and I know that 169-170 is roughly 1 million EXP. That means about 15 runs should level you. Each run takes average 7 minutes let's say for anyone who knows what they're doing. That's 105 minutes of play time. Now add 15 minutes for restocking and any other mailing etc. or random activities during or between runs. That's 2 hours for lvl 169-170. 130-131 is like half that exp, so you should be able to level in about an hour of IG. 40min for 15% of your EXP bar? loooooool

Hiero_Glyph

Jul 6, 2010, 10:13 PM

Not true. If all PAs, bullets, and techs did the same DPS, or DPS combines with DoT, then enemy balance would not matter - it would simply be a matter of preference. In fact there are some games like that.

PSU is not one of them.

So if PSU is not one of those games then you are agreeing with my statement?

AND, the PvE means that there should be some emphasis on teamwork. Nowadays little is needed (or wanted!). In other words, if all PAs were equal, but weak, and teaming up would make them stronger, there would be (more) balance.

This is only true in a very limited extent in PSU

I'm not even sure what you are trying to say any longer as you keep giving the example of all PAs being the same but then excluding PSU from this example. Care to elaborate?

SolomonGrundy

Jul 7, 2010, 10:55 AM

So if PSU is not one of those games then you are agreeing with my statement?

I'm not even sure what you are trying to say any longer as you keep giving the example of all PAs being the same but then excluding PSU from this example. Care to elaborate?

I'm saying it is possible for PSU to mave made balance NOT about enemies, but that is not what happened. The second part is about class IMBALANCE being ok as long as their was a need for working as a group/team. Since that is now out the window (most missions can be done solo, more class balance would be handy...

Idk if you're just not tagging or what, but that's absurdly slow. Innocent girl is 77k experience and I know that 169-170 is roughly 1 million EXP. That means about 15 runs should level you. Each run takes average 7 minutes let's say for anyone who knows what they're doing. That's 105 minutes of play time. Now add 15 minutes for restocking and any other mailing etc. or random activities during or between runs. That's 2 hours for lvl 169-170. 130-131 is like half that exp, so you should be able to level in about an hour of IG. 40min for 15% of your EXP bar? loooooool

Let's talk WB, since Innocent Girl would take some doing to get to know, which is bound to slow one down.
S2 has enemies that are level 160. At 130, they still knock me around good bit. My weapons are all in the 30% range or higher, and the armor is a 50% delette line, with a sleep resist (with a neutral S rank for the boss). All PAs are 31+

It just takes a while to slog through, even with a level 35 Acrotecher to buff.
I'm sure with all 50% weapons it would go faster, but I don't have them.

Sakura blast S2 takes less time, perhaps...25 or 26 minutes? 50% sori-senba and assorted fire/lightning A/S ranks. This was solo

I ran Lightning beasts S2, but I need a better ground Axe. Still it's in the same range - 25ish mins solo.

desturel

Jul 7, 2010, 01:51 PM

Let's talk WB, since Innocent Girl would take some doing to get to know, which is bound to slow one down.
S2 has enemies that are level 160. At 130, they still knock me around good bit. My weapons are all in the 30% range or higher, and the armor is a 50% delette line, with a sleep resist (with a neutral S rank for the boss). All PAs are 31+

It just takes a while to slog through, even with a level 35 Acrotecher to buff.
I'm sure with all 50% weapons it would go faster, but I don't have them.

Sakura blast S2 takes less time, perhaps...25 or 26 minutes? 50% sori-senba and assorted fire/lightning A/S ranks. This was solo

I ran Lightning beasts S2, but I need a better ground Axe. Still it's in the same range - 25ish mins solo.

To give you an idea, I'll post what my times are when running solo.

Keep in mind I pick up pretty much everything that drops in a mission while many people just skip over drops and boxes to get a quicker time. I also skip enemies when possible, while I'll pick up whatever drops, I feel no need to kill everything since normally the end bosses are worth more EXP so the quicker I get to them the more EXP I get. I get the feeling from looking at your times that you tend to try to kill everything in a mission which would account for your times.

White Beast takes me 12~15 minutes as a Cast Fighmaster 20~25 minutes as a Neuman Masterforce

Seed Express takes me 18~20 minutes as a Neuman Masterforce.

Sakura Blast takes me 15~18 minutes as a Neuman Masterforce (you can skip alot in Sakura Blast killing everything may take an extra 5~10 minutes since you have to backtrack a lot when you kill creatures in side paths).

Magashi Plan is a consistant 25 minutes as a Neuman and Human Acrofighter, Beast Gunmaster. Cast Fighmaster I can get it down to 20 minutes, but normally it's in that 23 minute range.

Seed Awakened S3 takes about 40 minutes as a Cast Fighmaster or Beast Gunmaster. About an hour as a Neuman or Human Acrofighter.

MAG' took a bit less than two hours as a Neuman Acrotecher the one time I did it. I'm sure I could do it a bit quicker now, but I have no desire to try it.

Duel in the Runs in 8 minutes as a Fighmaster or Gunmaster.
Forest infiltration is 8 mins as a Fighmaster.
Easter Peril is 8 minutes as Gunmaster.

FYI, all of my Photon arts are maxed. I do have a second copy of some things like Megid, Jabroga, Dambarta, etc, but I rarely use them if I'm trying to finish quickly.

One mission I am curious about and should probably try out is Citadel of Sand. It's a pain in the butt to do as a Masterforce, so I'll have to try it as Acrofighter or Gunmaster. Fighmaster wastes too much time fighting the Ryutgass at the end to get a consistent time IMO (although Freeze trap does help a bit.)

Hiero_Glyph

Jul 7, 2010, 02:37 PM

I'm saying it is possible for PSU to mave made balance NOT about enemies, but that is not what happened. The second part is about class IMBALANCE being ok as long as their was a need for working as a group/team. Since that is now out the window (most missions can be done solo, more class balance would be handy...

I guess I'm just not understanding what you are saying then. Sure PSU could have made balance not about the enemies but the game is about fighting enemies. As a result balance against enemies is all that matters.

What this means is that some missions should be better for fighters, others for gunners and some for techers, etc. Instead PSU is mostly about fighters with a few gunner specific missions and almost none in favor of techers. The reason for this is due to the enemies contained within each mission and any mission specific switches and/or mini/boss hitboxes. This is the only way to balance PSU as it exists and updating stats and PAs will not provide proper balance, it will just make certain classes and abilities more easily exploited.

If you will note SEGA/ST has started to update enemy statistics on Japan's servers. Why would they need to do this if the class/PA adjustments provided proper balance?

milranduil

Jul 7, 2010, 03:28 PM

How does it take you guys so long to solo?...I'll post some of my US times as different classes. Granted I had pretty good equips, but that doesn't make much difference for Gunmaster or Masterforce since there was no GASing.

White Beast - Fighmaster 7-9 minutes Gunmaster 9-11 minutes Masterforce 12-14 minutes
SEED Express Fighmaster 9-11 minutes Gunmaster 10-12 minutes Masterforce 12-13 minutes
Sakura Blast Fighmaster 6-8 minutes Gunmaster 8-10 minutes Masterforce 9-11 minutes
lol Magashi Plan is bad EXP vs. time, never did it after a few runs
I'm assuming you meant SEED Awakened S3 - Fighmaster/Gunmaster 24-26 minutes
lol MAG'
Duel in the Ruins - Fighmaster 2-3 minutes Gunmaster 4-5 minutes (pointless with MF til after supplemental, which is then 3 minutes)
Forest Infiltration - Fighmaster 3-5 minutes Gunmaster 5-7 minutes Masterforce 5-7 minutes
Eastern Peril - Fighmaster 3-5 minutes Gunmaster 5-6 minutes
Lightning Beasts - 8-10 minutes Gunmaster 11-13 minutes Masterforce 13-15 minutes
Innocent Girl Fighmaster 5-6 minutes Gunmaster 6-7 minutes

Innocent Girl A enemies have double EXP and 1/5 HP...seems pretty obvious to do that for EXP considering even with 20% weapons you should kill anything in less than 5 hits...

SolomonGrundy

Jul 7, 2010, 03:54 PM

what level were you guys when you got these times? I get that at level 150 or 160 you could speed things up (30 levels makes a BIG difference), but what about level 130?

I'll give innocent girl another try. I recall not getting very far Killed by those beams in block 1.

milranduil

Jul 7, 2010, 04:14 PM

Most of those are 150-160. And no, 20-30 levels doesn't really make much difference. You should still be able to complete the missions within 5-6 minutes of those times if you know what you're doing.

Beams? What are you talking about?

desturel

Jul 7, 2010, 05:20 PM

what level were you guys when you got these times? I get that at level 150 or 160 you could speed things up (30 levels makes a BIG difference), but what about level 130?

Most of those times are from the 170 level cap.

The biggest time saves you'll run into are:

1) Skip things you don't have to kill. Honestly this is the biggest way to save time. In the one Seed Express map that gives you the short path, you can make it to block two in 3 minutes as a masterforce. Should be quicker as GM or FM especially considering tech lag (Gidiga, rafoie, gifoie, etc all cause excruciating lag as a masterforce on Seed Express which slows down the time)

2) This builds off of part 1. Don't play a Masterforce... seriously. Lag sucks enough when it's map specific lag, but throwing tech lag on top of it kills any sort of run time. Unfortunately I main a techer (my cast fighmaster is still level 170 since I haven't used him that often since the cap update).

3) If you do play a cast, learn when to SUV. Some people pop off their SUV as soon as they get it. Other people I see use their SUV as soon as they see a large creature. While it would be okay to use on a large creature if you were using something other than Paradi, Paradi is a room clearer, don't waste the efforts on a single creature. Using an SUV strategically speeds up your time. It's the single strongest art in the game, so be smart when you use it. Of course this is more of a factor of knowing the stage well enough to know when you can use Paradi most efficiently.

4) If that shiny object is out of reach, don't worry about it. It's probably not worth much anyway. Of course I don't listen to that, I always check to make sure I've picked everything up before I move on. I even take the time to put on a freeze resist and fly through the back wall on the last block of White Beast every time. :) So I'm not very good at following this myself. I guess the main exception would be to always know your area drops. You don't want to skip an Agito Repca because you were in a hurry right. For the most part, the best stuff in the mission is in the boss boxes so everything else just slows you down from getting more boss boxes.

5) Avoid maps with significant lag. Sakura Blast has horrible lag in the last room and because of the size of the map, you spend most of your time running around just to position yourself in a spot that doesn't cause lag. That adds to your time. It's not as big of a problem for Gunmasters, but it sucks for fighters and it really sucks for Masterforce with the tech lag on top of slowdown.

6) Use traps if you can. FM and GM can both use traps, so use them. Sleep traps+Jabroga or burn/virus and shotgun will cut down your time. Make use of them. Keeping enemies in one spot unmoving helps.

desturel

Jul 7, 2010, 05:32 PM

How does it take you guys so long to solo?

Various reasons. :)

My big problem with Seed Awakened is that I'm too cheap to buy photon charges, so I'll do normal attacks to recharge weapons. :) That and I do get frozen by Gaozoran from time to time thanks to using Vijeri Resist for most of the run. If I really tried I should be able to cut the time down to 25~30 minutes or so, but there's still the fact that I go back and check for dropped items here and there. As for masterforce my major problem is that there is nothing good to kill a Gaozoran or a Seed Vitance. The Vitance is less of a problem once GAS comes out, but Gaozoran are still going to be a PITA.

The 8 minutes on DITR, FI and EP is because I break the trees and open all of the boxes. As a masterforce, I have no good way to kill the any boss besides Degahna and Motherbrain, so that's also a factor.

lol Magashi Plan is bad EXP vs. time

It's a good money run. Since very few people do it, I can make quick cash off of most of the things that drop in there. LKK, Cati/Stamina, Asura-hikec, Melan Knuckles etc. Once GAS comes out I'll worry more abuot the EXP vs. time factor. Right now when I go in there, it's for the purpose of getting money.

lol MAG'

Only did it once. I'm sure I could do it a lot quicker than I did, but I have no desire to do so. The item drops aren't as good as Magashi Plan and the enemies have full health. That has to be the worst mission on the US servers currently.

Beams? What are you talking about?

I believe he's taking about the 50% HP lasers in Block 2 of IG. You can disable the laser turrets pretty easily once you know the map, but many people don't know the maps.

SolomonGrundy

Jul 8, 2010, 02:55 AM

update. I took the time to learn Innocent Girl.

It's good XP...damn good, and very Fortefighter friendly. And the sheer amount of nanopolymer is nice.

But still, in about 6 hours, I gained 3 levels. (130->133). But I maintain that a casual player aint making 150 anytime fast. And by fast I mean ever, because it does take a lot of patience to do that run for 6 hours straight with minimum breaks.

Note: it took me about 4 tries to get it right. mostly dying in the last block, but I also realized that you wear fire armor, not dark, in the VR hive...the only thing that will kill you in "1 hit" is the double fireball. Everything else you can jsut pop a trimate if things get dicey.

I'll answer page 9 questions tomorrow.

milranduil

Jul 8, 2010, 03:40 AM

Well at least you're on the right track now lol.

Honestly this is the biggest way to save time. In the one Seed Express map that gives you the short path, you can make it to block two in 3 minutes as a masterforce.

You can get to b2 in 2 minutes using just Damdiga, Dambarta, and Zonde.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbaBr-MqCk

Lolitron

Jul 8, 2010, 08:19 AM

Adios is being too nice to you nubz.

A terrible habit when speed running/TA'ing is to follow a "general" strategy like "always jab 3+ enemies, always majarra 2- enemies, always shotgun 2- enemies, always SUV spawn with melee resistant stuff, always wear correct elemental armor, always do this that blah blah blah".

Those strategies are simply one way to look at a situation, but when it comes down to it, barring A-rank and lower missions where you can TD and Shotgun down everything faster than you could do it with anything else, you're going to have to come up with something different for every freaking spawn of enemies in every freaking mission.

Keep this in mind, stop trying the same stuff that's not working, stop blaming slowdown and lag, and maybe you guys will come within 5 minutes of a good time. Finally, use youtube and nicodouga, there are tons of TA'ing videos. Although you guys will probably watch them and not see what you're doing wrong.

Half the times that Adios posted on the previous page are far from the best times. Keep that in mind and understand that you guys need a lot of work if you actually care about your times.

SolomonGrundy

Jul 8, 2010, 12:14 PM

I guess I'm just not understanding what you are saying then. Sure PSU could have made balance not about the enemies but the game is about fighting enemies. As a result balance against enemies is all that matters.

What this means is that some missions should be better for fighters, others for gunners and some for techers, etc. Instead PSU is mostly about fighters with a few gunner specific missions and almost none in favor of techers. The reason for this is due to the enemies contained within each mission and any mission specific switches and/or mini/boss hitboxes. This is the only way to balance PSU as it exists and updating stats and PAs will not provide proper balance, it will just make certain classes and abilities more easily exploited.

If you will note SEGA/ST has started to update enemy statistics on Japan's servers. Why would they need to do this if the class/PA adjustments provided proper balance?

Right...I was saying that PSU could have been designed so that enemy type did not matter. I USED to be designed so that there was class imbalance, but you needed teamwork to get any kind of respectable times in missions. For a while there were certain missions that favored certain types (even post AotI, when the level cap was still low), but, with time, and the wider availability of 50% weapons, Psycho wands, shotgun element adjustments, etc...this really does not exist either.

So the ONLY thing that ends up mattering, is class balance - that is: how fast can you complete runs with one class vs another

You can get to b2 in 2 minutes using just Damdiga, Dambarta, and Zonde.

YouTube- 170 20 FNewman Masterforce SEED Express S2 12 58 Part 1.wmv (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbaBr-MqCk)

that video was made with a level 170 character. Id' like to see one with a level 130s or 140s character. there is a huge difference in 30 levels, not matter what job you are.
:-/

Adios is being too nice to you nubz.

as opposed to your comments which are...what exactly?

Lolitron

Jul 8, 2010, 01:23 PM

as opposed to your comments which are...what exactly?

Candid advice.

that video was made with a level 170 character. Id' like to see one with a level 130s or 140s character. there is a huge difference in 30 levels, not matter what job you are.
:-/

Level does not make as big of a difference as you believe. I'm willing to bet that a level 100 MF can do SE in 20 minutes easy. Stop making excuses and learn something about the game. Adios's earlier post of 20-30 levels will not make THAT big of a difference is correct. Forest Infiltration for example is soloable in 4-5 minutes as a lvl 100 Fighmaster, hardly any longer than the 3-4 minutes of a capped fighmaster.

Just accept the fact that right now you suck. However, don't let that stop you from getting better, unless you don't care about getting better, then that's a different issue. I suck at the games I play (SSFIV, SC2, well I'm pretty good at PSPo2) but have gotten many times better just because I care and am not closed minded towards new approaches, new play styles, and advice. I also accept the fact that I suck and I have the drive to improve.

Have you tried doing what the MF did in the video Adios posted? That should be your 1st approach towards improving your game. Next would be to understand why the MF did as he did but really this will only come from your own trial and error. I haven't played PSU in ages but I can still analyze that video and break down pretty much everything he did and why.

milranduil

Jul 8, 2010, 02:47 PM

Half the times that Adios posted on the previous page are far from the best times.

I wouldn't say that >_> Most of those are times that Rau and I got TAing those missions which either match 360 times or beat them.

that video was made with a level 170 character. Id' like to see one with a level 130s or 140s character. there is a huge difference in 30 levels, not matter what job you are.
:-/

This was more aimed at destruel specifically since he was talking about SE as a Masterforce.

Next would be to understand why the MF did as he did but really this will only come from your own trial and error.

This right here is exactly what improving times is about. It took me a long time to figure out a good method on how to take on the SEED Ardites as MF without having to run in circles half the time. That's where Lumira/Spread+Zonde came in. And it works much better then Gifoie run gifoie run gifoie run, etc. Obviously I can Regrants now on JP servers since it's much more balanced in stealing HP. It's little things like that that make the difference.

desturel

Jul 8, 2010, 04:00 PM

Keep this in mind, stop trying the same stuff that's not working, stop blaming slowdown and lag, and maybe you guys will come within 5 minutes of a good time. Finally, use youtube and nicodouga, there are tons of TA'ing videos. Although you guys will probably watch them and not see what you're doing wrong.

1) Do you play on the 360? Lag is a real thing. Why do you think the PC/PS2 servers won the time attack during MAG+.

2) I know why my times are slow. I'm not trying to speed attack anything. I've giving pointers. Should I care to, I could come within a few minutes of any time posted here by Adios. I don't care to.

3) Knowing the pattern of enemies, where the spawn and what kills them the quickest is VITAL to time attacking. Believe it or not, that is called strategy. You saying that strategy doesn't matter is false.

This right here is exactly what improving times is about. It took me a long time to figure out a good method on how to take on the SEED Ardites as MF without having to run in circles half the time. That's where Lumira/Spread+Zonde came in. And it works much better then Gifoie run gifoie run gifoie run, etc. Obviously I can Regrants now on JP servers since it's much more balanced in stealing HP. It's little things like that that make the difference.

Funny enough I use Har/Smart+Zonde instead Lumira/Spread. It's a waste of time to run around. Looking at your video, you use the same strategy as I do, however dambarta=lag. I just use damdiga, even on bel pannon. It's more practical unless you want to slow yourself down.

Until you guys play on the 360, I'd like for you to stop guessing at what causes and doesn't cause slowdown since you don't know.

milranduil

Jul 8, 2010, 04:48 PM

Where did I say anything about slowdown >_>?

SolomonGrundy

Jul 8, 2010, 04:56 PM

Candid advice.

Level does not make as big of a difference as you believe. I'm willing to bet that a level 100 MF can do SE in 20 minutes easy. Stop making excuses and learn something about the game. Adios's earlier post of 20-30 levels will not make THAT big of a difference is correct. Forest Infiltration for example is soloable in 4-5 minutes as a lvl 100 Fighmaster, hardly any longer than the 3-4 minutes of a capped fighmaster.

Just accept the fact that right now you suck. However, don't let that stop you from getting better, unless you don't care about getting better, then that's a different issue. I suck at the games I play (SSFIV, SC2, well I'm pretty good at PSPo2) but have gotten many times better just because I care and am not closed minded towards new approaches, new play styles, and advice. I also accept the fact that I suck and I have the drive to improve.

Have you tried doing what the MF did in the video Adios posted? That should be your 1st approach towards improving your game. Next would be to understand why the MF did as he did but really this will only come from your own trial and error. I haven't played PSU in ages but I can still analyze that video and break down pretty much everything he did and why.

You are a condescending. I say this not to insult you, but because this is your tone. You remind me a bit of cherry, as it turns out.

* I know, very well, how to play the game. You make some very very poor assumptions in your post, however, and I wish to correct you on a few.

* I have noticed what a difference FIVE levels makes, let alone 30.

* Having played the game since before AotI, and read this site, psupedia, and Amesani site, I say I have both knowledge, and in game experience.

* I'm still willing to learn: note my earlier comments to adios in the thread regarding mother brain, and only having to knock out one arm.

* Not everyone wants to play a GM, FM, and MF. In fact I play a fortefighter, acrotecher, and fortegunner/gunmaster.

* The video...not that much to learn there. I prefer damfoie to damdiga (SE vs higher damage), and as an AT I use whips for the pannons, and the multi hit box enemies. Oh - and I do stop to pick up stuff.