What would you like to see in pso2?

[Seth Astra]

@Italia: Most of that stuff sounds good. My only big complaint is overly restricting weapons. Although specialization is important, I think that that's taking it a little too far. But I do think that sabers, handguns, and wands should be the only weapons that should be 100% usable by classes that don't specialize in that weapon type (although even then there'd be some top tier weps that are still exclusive to the class that specializes in them).

[Anon_Fire]

Bring some Reset Materials

[ChronoTrigga]

Enemies that are actually hard.
A Physics System.

[Mitz]

Maybe there should be a stronger AI system for determining who the monsters will attack. For example, a monster just did a big attack, attacking all party members and getting their health to 40%. Now the monsters will go after the party healer in an attempt to finish him/her off before the heal can be cast. Stuff like that to keep the game hard and dynamic.

[DuRaL]

Maybe there should be a stronger AI system for determining who the monsters will attack. For example, a monster just did a big attack, attacking all party members and getting their health to 40%. Now the monsters will go after the party healer in an attempt to finish him/her off before the heal can be cast. Stuff like that to keep the game hard and dynamic.

and frustrating for healers xD

[NoiseHERO]

I dunno if this has been said but...

I hope they keep the genius Ideas of I.D.'s so that people can have whatever name they want.

Also no super phantasy star zero plox, be original. we're not street fighter/megaman.

[Allison_W]

Maybe there should be a stronger AI system for determining who the monsters will attack. For example, a monster just did a big attack, attacking all party members and getting their health to 40%. Now the monsters will go after the party healer in an attempt to finish him/her off before the heal can be cast. Stuff like that to keep the game hard and dynamic.

They did say they've improved the AI, so hopefully.

[Kanju]

Make Forces not suck.

[Seth Astra]

@Kanju: But not as OP as in PSZ.

[Omega_Weltall]

"what i would like to see in PSonline 2".... Algol

[Nitro Vordex]

A Physics System.
Physics for what, exactly?

[Anon_Fire]

What I also liked in PSZ is that you knew how many materials you used and how many you can use

[Purple Lamplight]

I would like to see episodes 1-4 including episode 3. I would also want more weapons and more episodes.

[TsubasaJ]

Console versions natch.

PSP2 invations and upgrades to movement.
A wider selection of races or ways to customize your race/character much like how PSP2 handles the 4 classes builds.
More history from Coral and how Ragol changes their socity.
Some nod towards PSO3. Maybe NOT with using cards, but maybe item cards to handle inventory.

[Vashyron]

Physics for what, exactly?

I'd actually like to see at least Cloth Physics.

[Nitro Vordex]

Eh, that's not really much of a deal for me. It'd be good to have, though, just for aesthetic value.

[Kent]

Physics for what, exactly?
Half-Life 2 see-saw puzzles, obviously.

Things like cloth and foliage physics can go a long way toward adding some realism and added subtlety to characters and the environment, making everything a bit more immersive - and at the same time, it takes some work away from the animators, since they don't have to hand-animate every little movement of a coattail, skirt, lock, etc.

And of course the elephant in the room - it'd be a huge step up from the boned animations used for females in PSU, which just looked bad, assuming they keep it at least somewhat-tasteful.

[Mitz]

It would probably push the requirements a little though which I'm not sure would be one of their smartest moves. They lost a lot of their fanbase and having a game with ridiculous(Normal is ridiculous for casual people) requirements might set a lot of people off. I remember when PSU first came out, it was too intense for my PC to handle so I didn't bother for a year.

[OriginalB]

It would probably push the requirements a little though which I'm not sure would be one of their smartest moves. They lost a lot of their fanbase and having a game with ridiculous(Normal is ridiculous for casual people) requirements might set a lot of people off. I remember when PSU first came out, it was too intense for my PC to handle so I didn't bother for a year.

I'm gonna have to disagree. It's 2010, if you still have a pentium 3 and integrated graphics, its time for an upgrade.

[Zyrusticae]

Everquest 2 has (rudimentary) cloth physics, and it's running on 6 years old...

The reason PSU ran so poorly is NOT because of any great graphical prowess but simply because of awful, AWFUL optimization. You can't even enable anti-aliasing in the game without some roundabout workarounds.

I'm hoping the fact that PSO2 is PC-native fixes these annoying niggles.

[MadDogg]

*Copy and pasted from a post of mine on gamefaqs.

I'm hoping sega does the smart thing, and keep what is best from both series to make the perfect PSO game.

Here is the dream list of the stuff I want:

PSO's style lobbies, that simple way of setting of games was perfect, go do some levels, finish off the party with a mission, then remake game.....nice and quick.

PSO section ID system was hot, it just was broken in the past IMO, but if they balanced the drops out this could work.

PSO's extra attack button. This is one thing I want them to bring back, rares really felt like rares when you had something like a lavis cannon shooting waves.

PSO's style levels. Forest, Caves, Mines etc., that was perfect too IMO. This time with more space, we could have at least 12 to 16 levels from the get.

Now from PSU (phantasy star portable 2 mainly), I want PSO2 to keep:

PSU's combat. It never gets old, just attacking/blocking/countering/and rolling, keep it all please. That also goes from nanoblasts, SUVS, and mirage blasts.

PSU's difficulty (pre-expansion, a.k.a. need rangers for bees and jarbas and forces for labs), maaaan those missions before the the expansion nerf was nuts difficulty wise.......and I love punishment, I want the game to be as hard as possible. It gives forces and rangers a purpose, and all was good. Phantasy star portable 2 also has nice difficulty that I would want in PSO2.

And finally, keep PSU's race and job system (from portable 2). You got hunter/ranger/force/ and vanguard, with custom abilities and the ability to use whatever the hell job you want on whatever race. portable 2 did this part great.

If sega did all this, I swear to god PSO2 would be the perfect online rpg ever, I wouldn't even give a damn about diablo 3.

[Seth Astra]

@MadDogg: My only complaint with your list is that I'd much rather have PSZ's job system with 2 changes: 1. RAnewm/newearl 2. Allow the player to switch classes. Oh, and of course, better class balancing is a must... So I guess that's 3 things...

[Nitro Vordex]

I'm gonna have to disagree. It's 2010, if you still have a pentium 3 and integrated graphics, its time for an upgrade.
Except not everybody has infinite money and a need to upgrade their computer for one fucking game. If you'd like to buy me a new computer, I'd gladly oblige.

[Zyrusticae]

That excuse is getting old.

If you really think there's nothing else on the PC that could possibly ever even remotely interest you... Well, I don't even know what to say to that, really.

Because it's preposterous.

[Allison_W]

@MadDogg: My only complaint with your list is that I'd much rather have PSZ's job system with 2 changes: 1. RAnewm/newearl 2. Allow the player to switch classes. Oh, and of course, better class balancing is a must... So I guess that's 3 things...

I'd add "removing the genders-as-subclasses throwback" and "allowing forces to select specializations instead of having them assigned on the basis of race and gender," myself. Female forces having the best Resta totally read like "heal bitch = women's work."

[Seth Astra]

@Allison: Yeah, true. Forgot about the genders thing. I was thinking that the force tech bonuses could be implemented via an augmented version of PSP2's skill system. I have a rough idea in my head, but I need some time to work it out.

[MadDogg]

@MadDogg: My only complaint with your list is that I'd much rather have PSZ's job system with 2 changes: 1. RAnewm/newearl 2. Allow the player to switch classes. Oh, and of course, better class balancing is a must... So I guess that's 3 things...

Wait a sec, I'm confused (I've only ever played phantasy star zero for a whopping 20 minutes, so I don't know much about the way that game's job system worked). In phantasy star zero, when you picked a character, it was like PSO style right, with the humar/humarl/hunewmn/hunewearl/hucast/hucaseal? You said you wished they kept that same system, but to add to that you want to be able to switch jobs...so wouldn't that be the exact same thing as PSU's system of just picking a race and gender and switching to hunter/ranger/force/ or vangaurd whenever you wanted?

About PSU's male and female gender difference, was it even that major in the long run? I remember my newman female being stronger than my friend's newman male slightly with technics, but it was never major enough to completely remake your character IMO.

[ShinKai]

There are a few main things I'd like to see.

#1. Playtest. Honestly, I play a lot of recent ST games, and wonder how these even got out of testing. Some games are just genuinely not fun. Many Sega games I've played, this could seriously be avoided with playtesting. It makes me wonder if the creators even play their own games sometimes.

#2. I want them to stop focusing on the animations and more on the gameplay. PSU looked great, it had nice clean animations, some well made special attacks, etc. However those same great animations made the already lackluster gameplay nearly unbearable at times. Having smooth animations means there's that much more time you can't do anything to watch your character do some silly dancing motion before they perform their attack.

#3. I want to cancel. PSO gave me a taste of cancelling. It was a simple feature which gave the very basic gameplay some depth. You could essentially quick swap your weapons on the fly using a menu they implemented. While PSU revolved around switching weapons, the interface was too slow to me. I'd like to swap my weapons mid combo to change it, or cancel it all together. Anything to speed up combat, and add a layer of depth while keeping it simple for beginners.

#4. Class differences would be nice. PSO had a nice class system, as each class was pretty different from each other and playing one class wouldn't give you the experiences of the others allowing people to be much more specialized and promoting more teamwork. That said, ST should read a book on balance. Many games have that problem. Everyone wants a healer, and if you're not one, you're sol.

I dunno, I want the new PSO game to feel like the creators themselves had fun making it. Most ST games these days just go by some formula ST has concocted (which I assume they feel sells these games, I dunno?) or if I remember right, ideas from their fans they haphazardly implement without thinking what these ideas do to gameplay.

Honestly, the more I think of what I loved in PSO, the more and more I dread PSO2.

[Seth Astra]

Wait a sec, I'm confused (I've only ever played phantasy star zero for a whopping 20 minutes, so I don't know much about the way that game's job system worked). In phantasy star zero, when you picked a character, it was like PSO style right, with the humar/humarl/hunewmn/hunewearl/hucast/hucaseal? You said you wished they kept that same system, but to add to that you want to be able to switch jobs...so wouldn't that be the exact same thing as PSU's system of just picking a race and gender and switching to hunter/ranger/force/ or vangaurd whenever you wanted?
Basically, yeah. However, based on something Allison_W said earlier, PSO/Z did a better job with the, no pun inteded, job system, as far as stats went. Simply because each class had clearly defined stats in PSO/Z, while in PSU/P, they took your base stats, based on race, and then increased/decreased them by a certain percent. And I do want just 3 classes, HU/RA/FO. With these and the 3 races, you get a nice variety, without any one class really edging out another too much. Vanguard sort of stole the HUnewm/FOmar jack of all trades thing. But that's just all my 2 cents again.

Various other ideas:
Character Customization:

If you want to give you character facepaint, like the old PSO FOnewearls, make it a robust editor.
Separate shirts from jackets. Just another little detail if you want to further tweak your char's appearance.
Include different "styles" for the same piece of clothing. For example, for the braves coat: As in psu, fully buttoned down, and fully buttoned up. Small changes, but cool none the less. Others could be similar to the HUnewearl/FOnewearl outfits in PSO.
Combat:

Include the ability to attack right after exiting a roll.
For all the different "special" attacks (perfect attack, perfect counter, and the roll attack mentioned above), add a different animation for each. Make there more of an identifier than a little flash.

[Purple Lamplight]

I would like to see PSO episodes 1-4 including 3 in it. But also like episodes 5-6 would be pretty cool. I dont care if the graphics are good or not.

[bns1991]

Another thing that I would like to add would be the ability for mags to be able to transform into support characters, similar to the partner machinery on psu. Its a long shot, but that would be an interesting feature of the game if they added that.

[EJ]

something more fun than PSU?

Don't get me wrong PSU combat was fun but the level design, music, and enemies got boring and repetitive when you got to higher levels.

[sCI]

Did I already post in here?

[NegaTsukasa]

I'll jump on this bandwagon of bringing back mags and section Id's. I'd like to see them again.

oh yes, and photon chairs anyone? :D

[Sphereie]

-Red Boxes
-Mags
-Section IDs
-Addicting gameplay

[Malachite]

Photon chair racing minigame.

[MadDogg]

Basically, yeah. However, based on something Allison_W said earlier, PSO/Z did a better job with the, no pun inteded, job system, as far as stats went. Simply because each class had clearly defined stats in PSO/Z, while in PSU/P, they took your base stats, based on race, and then increased/decreased them by a certain percent. And I do want just 3 classes, HU/RA/FO. With these and the 3 races, you get a nice variety, without any one class really edging out another too much. Vanguard sort of stole the HUnewm/FOmar jack of all trades thing. But that's just all my 2 cents again.

Ahhhh, I see. Yeah, phantasy star zero's system does sound way better than the way portable 2 did it. The stat differences was minor enough where I was able to be a good enough ranger and a pretty good force despite being a beast, even though in the long run I preferred the way old school pso did the stats, ex. my hucast having butt accuracy for the trade off of having holy crap awesome atp, it made sense that way. I agree with everything else you said about the customization and combat too.

And yeah, I would love it if mags game back also. That was my little hussle back in the day, I memorized all the different mag and feeding charts by heart, my friends used to pay me in photon drops for raising mags with certain photon blasts, stats, and colors on it lol. And it didn't even feel like a job, I honestly had fun raising all those different mags and such.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

I'd like the lobby music to something relaxing. Like a Nujabes tune. While fighting something epic like a X-Ray Dog tune.

[Seth Astra]

@MadDogg: Here's how I imagine each race/class being (note: I'm using the masculine form of each class, but I do agree with the people who are for removing the gender differances.):

HUmar: Melee primarily, with techs and guns when necessary.
HUcast: Exceptional melee melee, and good ranged, with traps used stratigically in place of techs (but not as good).
HUnewm: Rogue type, with a melee/tech balance of about 60/40, and high EVP.

RAmar: Ranged primarily, with melee techs when necessary.
RAcast: Almost pure ranged, good melee, with traps used stratigically in place of techs (but not as good).
RAnewm: A guns/tech balance of about 60/40.

FOmar: Techs primarily, with acceptable melee.
FOnewm: Almost pure techs.
__Cast: Relies on stratigic usage of traps.

Yup, that's a cast exclusive trap based class. And yes, the racial patterns are pretty clearly defined. Although, note, that that's just a rough sketch, and is probably a bit off from ideal, but it communicates the point.

[sankosa]

I prefer equal chances for everyone to obtain special weapons, but the biggest thing is I want the art style back as well as having it on consoles (especially wii) or at least a mac version. I also greatly liked how the PSO episodes 1&2 weren't overly complicated. also, I really liked the shortcut item menu, which i have not seen in any of the really recent Phantasy Star games.

[Allison_W]

@MadDogg: Here's how I imagine each race/class being (note: I'm using the masculine form of each class, but I do agree with the people who are for removing the gender differances.):

HUmar: Melee primarily, with techs and guns when necessary.
HUcast: Exceptional melee melee, and good ranged, with traps used stratigically in place of techs (but not as good).
HUnewm: Rogue type, with a melee/tech balance of about 60/40, and high EVP.

RAmar: Ranged primarily, with melee techs when necessary.
RAcast: Almost pure ranged, good melee, with traps used stratigically in place of techs (but not as good).
RAnewm: A guns/tech balance of about 60/40.

FOmar: Techs primarily, with acceptable melee.
FOnewm: Almost pure techs.
__Cast: Relies on stratigic usage of traps.

Yup, that's a cast exclusive trap based class. And yes, the racial patterns are pretty clearly defined. Although, note, that that's just a rough sketch, and is probably a bit off from ideal, but it communicates the point.

I agree with the above.

I'd also like to add that I'm inclined to think that rangers should not have much poorer damage than hunters: their job is still to hurt things. (Equal "DPS," as it were, may or may not involve rangers having slightly less damage per hit, but fewer misses and less interruption due to counterattacks and dodging/blocking.) Where it really seems appropriate to have them pay for their range advantage is to give them a reason to need it: to make them much less durable than hunters rather than less damaging. I'd say that a human ranger shouldn't necessarily be more durable than a human force.

I'd also add that each class/race combo needs to perform in the "A range" for its specialty: no poorer than an A-, if one were to use letter grades. For instance, a newman hunter's overall melee performance, between damage and ability to avoid dying, really shouldn't be worse than an A-, where a CAST's should be A+, and a human's should be a straight A. For rangers, survivability is a lower concern, so their ranged damage should run the gamut from A+ (CASTs) to A- (newmans, and I'd suggest newman rangers pay for good techs out of further durability losses--a newman ranger, for instance, should not resort to melee when surrounded like a CAST or human ranger might; they should resort to techniques that can create an opening to escape). Forces get fuzzier: newman forces obviously need to perform at an A+ in technique damage, but humans don't necessarily need to perform at an A- in technique damage if they outperform newmans in support techniques (as in, A+ in support to a newman's, say, A- support) and survivability; I envision human forces being kind of Gandalf-like and leaning towards weapons for killing and techniques for things that can't be accomplished with weapons. Human forces that do focus on offensive techs should probably be offered strong point-blank AoEs and short-range cone-spread techniques that require them to get right up in the face of enemy swarms to tempt them to make the most of their comparative durability.

There are other variations and nuances possible: even in PSZ, newman hunters had a slight advantage where PAs were concerned due to their higher PP and natural PP regeneration. Perhaps newman hunters in PSO2 could have slightly improved dodge rolls and not just a higher EVP rate, for instance, or perhaps human forces could have a slightly faster casting time on point-blank techniques, or perhaps newman rangers could have slightly faster recovery time and slightly longer enemy stagger on point-blank techniques so that they can use them to escape incoming enemies.

[Seth Astra]

One thing that irks me is that the RAnewm will have to break from the traditional trends of race/class. Here's why:

A. Gun damage SHOULD be based primarily on ATA. That way RAs outperform HUs (unlike in PSZ)
B. RAnewms SHOULD have less gun damage than humans, to make up for their ranged attacks with techs.
C. Newmans normally have better ATA than humans.

Not really a problem, it just irks me.

@Allison_W: On rangers having equal DPS to a hunter, I disagree. I think that the trade off as is works well, in theory. Even if they had the same defense as a FO, the way I see it, they would still have an unfair advantage because of being able to just snipe at a distance for as long as they want (FOs would be limited by TP reserves).

In additon, I disagree when it comes to FOs. I'd like incorperating tech bonuses into a PSP2 like skill system, allowing the player to pick and choose. Again, just my oppinion, but I like the idea of giving classes as basic templates, then customizing them through abilites.

Also, here's some general outlines of class functions:

Hunter: Continuous melee damage, and keeping enemies away from the RAs and FOs.
Ranger: Provides ranged damage and status effects to keep some pressure off of the HUs.
Forces: Is capible of outdamaging the others in the short term using high powerd techs. However, their long term damage is weaker due to TP limitations.


Misc irrelivant idea: Give chars a small boost from leveling another type. HU would increase ATP, DFP, and HP, RA would increase ATA and EVP, and FO would increase MST and TP. Only a small boost, but something to benefit those who max out other classes.

[DuRaL]

they should make a difference between tech and photon arts..
chars should have HP, TP and PP, where HP are health (obviously), TP are only for techs and PP are for PAs..
techs shouldn't be linked to weapons, but used from a pallete/menu as it was in PSO. this way, even forces would be able to use a weapon with PAs, and still use techs. it'd also make classes like HUnewearl/RAmarl/FOmar very interesting to play imo

additionally to techs and PAs, they should also include the "special attack" from PSO, which is especially good on ranger weapons.. maybe they could limit them only to ranged weapons, so instead of PAs ranged weapons would have a special attack, since PAs aren't really needed on ranged weapons imo..
in my opinion, a ranger should do less damage than a hunter (not 0 damage, but less) and be more of a supporter who can stun/freeze/shock/poison/etc. enemies with special attacks

of course they'd have to balance it out a bit more than on PSO (charge takes only -200 meseta, which are worthless anyway, and does 1.5 damage?), but they'll have to do a better job on balancing on A LOT of aspects of the game anyway

well, that's just my idea on how they could mix the battle systems of PSO and PSU and get the (imo) best results


oh, one more thing.. imo they should go back to the timed combat with normal and hard attacks (and special for ranger, read above) of PSO.. it was a lot more fun and more... strategic? than the button-mashing-combat of PSU (especially on rangers)
i often hear ppl say that there's no big difference if you press A-A-A A-A-A A-A-A or A-X-X A-X-X, but that's not true. In PSO the first of the 3 attacks had a low chance of hitting, the 2nd semi and the 3rd a high chance, so a hard or special attack would usually not hit as the first shot of the combo. This system is very simple, but it adds a lot of depth to the combat compared to PSU, especially with the special attacks.
the combos were also important to cancel enemy attacks, especially in challenge mode. It really requires a lot of skill to cancel a sinow beat's attack with a saber for example, but with N-H N-H N-H-H combos you can kill them without getting hit (unless you miss)
on PSU you couldn't really do much about getting hit.. especially since they decided to let the server handle the damage-calculation, so the effects of your attacks always lagged behind...

also, the timed combat of PSU AotI, which was only for hunters, was rather lame, because it forced you to delay your attacks as long as possible, thus reduced a lot of dynamic..

[chrisy05]

@ DuRal: I also like the idea of keeping PAs and techs mutually separated. Someone mentioned earlier that PAs could be tied to specific button combinations. For instance, pressing 'up' and the attack button, simultaneously, could trigger some sort of energy thrust. Techs could still be mapped to a palette, as you (and many others) have suggested.

Though, I'm not sure how imputing button combinations on ranged weapons would work, so I also agree with your suggestion to simply give them a special attack.

Concerning normal and hard attacks: I would like to see those mapped to single button, and instead, the duration of the button press would determine whether an attack is normal or hard, as Kent suggested. Not only would it be more intuitive, but it would greatly assist in creating a wide variety of button combinations for PAs.

[Seth Astra]

they should make a difference between tech and photon arts..
chars should have HP, TP and PP, where HP are health (obviously), TP are only for techs and PP are for PAs..
techs shouldn't be linked to weapons, but used from a pallete/menu as it was in PSO. this way, even forces would be able to use a weapon with PAs, and still use techs. it'd also make classes like HUnewearl/RAmarl/FOmar very interesting to play imo

I thought about the TP and PP idea myself, but I don't really like splitting them, since it'd increase the ability to spam PAs/techs, since using one wouldn't limit your use of the other.

Here's my idea for the pallets:
Have 3 pallets:
1 for your dominant hand wep.
1 for your off hand wep.
1 of a traditional PSO style, for techs and items.

The weapon pallets will include a normal attack a heavy/special attack, as well as 2 PA slots (force weps can equip techs to these slots as well, instead of PAs).

The third pallet will be for items, techs (newmans and humans), and traps (for casts). Also, the 0-9 keys will also be used for items and techs.

Just an idea.

additionally to techs and PAs, they should also include the "special attack" from PSO, which is especially good on ranger weapons.. maybe they could limit them only to ranged weapons, so instead of PAs ranged weapons would have a special attack, since PAs aren't really needed on ranged weapons imo..
in my opinion, a ranger should do less damage than a hunter (not 0 damage, but less) and be more of a supporter who can stun/freeze/shock/poison/etc. enemies with special attacks

I agree with some, disagree with others:

Agree:
Rangers do less damage than hunters (since they have the benefit of being out of danger)
Rangers are primarily for support.
Disagree:
Not giving melee weps specials (this'd narrow down the variety in melee weps significantly.
Not giving ranged weapons PAs (this'd make them rather limited in attack options).
My solution would definitely include making (most) ranged weapons have a higher element proc rate for status effects. Also, since I thought a while back about how to rebalance bows, I came up with the idea of giving them a significantly higher status infliction rate than other weps, since it just seems to fit.

of course they'd have to balance it out a bit more than on PSO (charge takes only -200 meseta, which are worthless anyway, and does 1.5 damage?), but they'll have to do a better job on balancing on A LOT of aspects of the game anyway

I agree. Classes are pretty poorly balanced, with HUnewm or HUmar being inferior to HUcast, as long as theirs at least one FO in the party. Also, that charge element... Not as bad as PSZ's celeb. Why?


IIRC, specials in PSO had low ATA, right? Well, celeb affected every attack, and didn't decrease ATA.
For the same boost, it only used 70 mesta.

[Allison_W]

Miscellaneous stupid idea: I've advocated just ditching section IDs entirely for drop charts based on class in the past (a la PSP2), but I think I may have a better (or worse, I dunno) idea.

It's based on that "user-created story" claim in the PSO2 teaser. Perhaps the decisions we make in story missions (whether that's "single-player" or we're allowed to bring friends along for some of the story missions) could affect the game world in ways beyond a different ending cinematic, perhaps down to changing environments and ecosystems--and, potentially, hunting/questing opportunities and drop availability.

What I'm saying is, instead of section IDs, perhaps the story could have numerous potential outcomes that translate into particular exclusive opportunities, which other players could get in on by joining games you create (i.e. games set in the world your character shaped). Exactly what these opportunities consist of could vary beyond just a different drop chart.

[Seth Astra]

@Allison: I must say, that sounds freaking awesome. I'm not much for the class based drops, since then you may as well just give everyone the same drops, a la psz, since they'll be able to get the weps most important to their class, thus killing the point. However, I LOVE your idea.

[Allison_W]

It'd also be very difficult to pull off, as it'd require extra content to populate the differing outcomes (even if we assume only a relatively small portion of the game's overall content is exclusive to particular outcomes). Making extra areas isn't necessarily easy, and even altering existing areas to reflect how the player's actions affected them would increase the workload. Same with new or altered enemies. There are some developers that might be able to pull it off, but it'd probably be too ambitious for Sega.

That said, the concept is getting put on the map. Fable III is making an ambitious foray into such territory, but it'll be a while before I can say how well they pulled it off. Dare I say it'd also make for a strong argument against "MMO-izing" the PS series, as one of the biggest problems MMOs have is a complete lack of sense of purpose, and actually allowing the player to affect their environment is a way of making said player matter.

[MeruAmura]

1: MAGS!
2: HD Old School lvls.
3: Hunter: All race/sex
4: Ranger: All race/sex
5: Force: Humans/Newmans only. I mean FoCast WTF!
6: lvl200 again
7: Consoles -for the love of god Sega Dreamcast 2!-

[Vanzazikon]

5: Force: Humans/Newmans only. I mean FoCast WTF!
Racist.

[Kent]

Racist.
Nothing racist about it. Techniques don't make sense in the context of PSO if they're cast by a mindless robot.

[Allison_W]

I can't think of any reason to believe that PSO androids were mindless, and PSZ androids certainly weren't--they were every bit as "lifelike" as PSU androids were, minus humanoid faces and techniques.

[Akaimizu]

In some ways, that idea is pretty nifty, Allison. In some ways, that kind of stuff was already pulled off in the Elder Scrolls series. Not necessarily for drops, but for how you power-up and develop your character. In Elder Scroll, your decisions and preferred methods of combat (in action) dictated how well you powered up in certain areas. The idea that you become what you do. Most powerful in things you do most, decent at things you do a little less than that, and so on and so on.

Of course, you start your character with a certain stat and ability balance to indicate traits you might have been born to do better than others. Kind of like RL, in a way.

Still, I remember when playing Morrowind (my first foray into the Elder Scrolls games), that once I was level 5, I started to notice that I really was becoming the character I envisioned. (A magical Archer of Summoning) A class I figured the devs never even heard of, but it was amazing to see I was becoming just that. I was good at ranged attacks, athletics, enchanting objects, and summoning creatures. A quirky and unusual playstyle, but I was getting really good at it. What was nice was that it made a clear path for me. Keep doing what I do, and I can continue to grow in power as that combination. So in a way, everything started to support my class of choice.

Phantasy Star Portable 2, kind of brought this (custom class) aspect to Phantasy Star. It's not as developed as Elder Scrolls, in this aspect, as powering up is still more traditional in Phantasy Star. But it would be interesting to see how the *enforce power into chosen playtype as long as they remain consistent* evolves as an idea.

Fable did some of that, but more of that Balance between 3 classes idea. Will be interesting to see if Fable III enhances that idea further, and makes improvements.

And the PSO android thought is interesting. In PSO, they seemed a lot more android-like. Like mainly programs with little personality. It's also why I see PSO as being before the PSU story arc. The casts in PSO, were way less developed than in PSU. In PSU, they were emotional buckets filled with very advanced (human-like) behavior. Almost like Blade Runner. But in PSO, they acted much more like androids. The main difference was a couple of experiments by Montegue (sp?). He wanted to bring emotions to Casts. Casts like Eleanor. She was a start, as well as that other cast you run into, further in the Episode 1 and 2 story line. But even they were nothing in comparison to PSU casts. I saw the PSU casts as being the evolution of Montegue's work.

Mental/Spiritual energy is interesting as even if a machine seems smart, and has incredible AI, it still doesn't emanate that energy only a biological brain could do. I kind of figured that perhaps the followup to Montegue's work figured out something way more advanced that typical computer programming. Or perhaps a true secret of mental energy in science.

[Kent]

I can't think of any reason to believe that PSO androids were mindless
It was a joke. Zero MST = Zero Mental Strength = Zero Mind.

[Allison_W]

Oh. Well. To further miss the point, CASTs in PSZ have nonzero MST values. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Akaimazu, yes, PSO androids did seem very mechanical in many ways, but they weren't actually personless, as it were. They were a mixed bag, but many did show motivations beyond "this is my job." You might also remember from one of the sidequests that modern androids--presumably including player-character androids--are capable of genuine independent thought, decision-making, and motivation, unlike older models like Shino.

[Akaimizu]

Very true. Independent thought. But independent thought is still very much within the means of traditional AI programming. It's pretty much what AI programming leads to. However, that is still very much within the reach of a straight computer program. It's what we are capable of in RL. But that, in itself, doesn't include true emotions and feelings. A very important step in uncovering the secrets of the true biological mind. A typical machine can be independent, but still without those real feelings. Montegue's experiments were the first of its kind of bring a bit of that emotional stuff to casts. Lightly, at first. But there and beyond the general means of AI programming. Eleanor was the first of those examples you see in all of PSO. You can tell she generally cared about something almost like a supportive mother. However, it was limited. Her show of emotion was simple, and a bit one-dimensional.

In PSU, you see something even beyond that, the first moment you visit Green Green Farm. That cast was so full of emotion and so shockingly human-like, it was already a shock to my system coming from PSO. She was like eleanor squared. You saw general worry, love, overall need to protect a kid based on a compassionate side she had. The same compassionate side fueled by her knowledge of what has happened to the boy in the past and memories she had with her time with him. You saw general elation when she knew he was safe. She wasn't acting from any kind of orders. She was acting like some loving and protective big sister. Almost to the degree of a surrogate mother.

She was no longer what Casts used to be like. She was pretty much on the verge of being a synthetic human the likes of Blade Runner. That set the precedent for which we could expect from casts in PSU, going forward. Outside of just those emotions, the ability for casts to move in all the ways a human could, was another staple. Again, the Green Green farm was a good example. Before that, I've never seen casts move in such a way. No hinge restrictions, full body and balance-based movement in various positions and heights. Even hinting at a little degree of body language. It's almost similar to the shock of me seeing Mass Effect, for the first time. And seeing the first true examples of real-time 3D models actually talk and move with very impressive levels of body language while they talked. It was almost like seeing live actors on screen, doing it.

[Kent]

At the same time, Casts in PSU... just aren't as interesting, because they're attributed too much humanity (to the point of an organized coup of a planet's government, superiority complexes, etc.). I found the differences between what Casts were in PSO to add a lot more flavor to the setting. A similar thing happened with Newmans - in PSU, they might as well be pointy-eared humans.

[Akaimizu]

You have a point about the Newmans, and not just the ears. One of the things that really felt like a change for the Newmans was to pretty much base them off the Japanese. I mean, really base them off them. They humanized them so much they really could've come from earth with ear implants and you'd hardly know the difference.

Still, that didn't shock me as much, because I always assumed they could seem very human. I kind of got that impression from PSO a bit. But I think the separation felt a little more distinct by not mirroring too many aspects that were earth-borne. PSO still maintained the feeling that they were genetic experiments. Still PSU also seemed like a natural progression once Newmans established a big enough society from which they can develop culture. I would imagine Newmans to be very close to Humans indeed as they are technically *mostly human*.

[Mitz]

I think Casts in PSU were at a decent place. They were definitely smarter and more 'aware' of the world around them, yet they still viewed things in their overly logic manner. Cast NPCs in PSO were just annoying. They were either just following orders, or busy talking to MAGs.

[TheSeunger]

I don't think CASTs should be using Techniques at all. I mean, like HUcast, all they need is Traps and their superior strength. An additional help from a Force (Shifta on ally, Zalure on foes) would make everything a lot better for CAST races.

CASTs lack of Forces and Newmans lack of Rangers. Newman's use techniques whenever it's needed and CASTs can use Traps for every situation.

(Also, I think I'd like to see S-Red's Blades to have Shifta & Deband Lv20 at least. :3 )

[bns1991]

A FOcast would be an interesting idea, but it would defeat the purpose of them having traps. Traps compensate for the absence of techniques in CASTs. I think that they should add more to traps, other than damage, freeze, confuse, etc.(:ak::dark:)


Thanks again for everyone's input^^;

[Slyster]

I would like to see..

At least some cloth physics.

Body Armor showing up on your character.

An outfit paperdoll like that of LoTRO ( can show outfit or armor ).

A game world similar to PSO1. Missions would be quests you do while playing.

Larger game world and more critters to fight.

[Allison_W]

I don't think CASTs should be using Techniques at all. I mean, like HUcast, all they need is Traps and their superior strength. An additional help from a Force (Shifta on ally, Zalure on foes) would make everything a lot better for CAST races.

CASTs lack of Forces and Newmans lack of Rangers. Newman's use techniques whenever it's needed and CASTs can use Traps for every situation.

(Also, I think I'd like to see S-Red's Blades to have Shifta & Deband Lv20 at least. :3 )

We have no assurance that newmans will continue to lack rangers, especially since we know that newmans are perfectly capable of using ranged weapons, whereas CASTs not being able to use techniques neatly explains the lack of CAST forces. Of course, we technically don't know there won't be FOcasts, either, considering they could yet choose to go with the more humanlike CASTs of the PSUverse instead of the more mechanical CASTs of the PSOverse (consider also that even in the original Sega Genesis Phantasy Star series there were entries in which "cyborgs" could use techniques), but I'm just assuming we'll get the no-techniques CAST variety.

I'd say that the addition of newman rangers would make sense. We don't currently have a ranged/techs hybrid race-class combination now that mechanical sex differences have been reigned in and standardized (as of PSZ).

[ReijiGin]

This is kinda dumb but I want lots and lots and LOTS of character customization as far as appearance goes. PSO had a lot, I want even more! Having a really unique character in terms of abilities and appearance was a lot of why PSO appealed to me in the first place.

I would also love it if your character's gender didn't make a big influence on your stats-- I like to make tanks in MMOs but I also like to play as females, and in some games you just can't do that because the female characters automatically have crappier power/guard, which is silly. If we can have sentient computers and space travel and magic, I think we can have big beefy women :P

[Allison_W]

I would also love it if your character's gender didn't make a big influence on your stats-- I like to make tanks in MMOs but I also like to play as females, and in some games you just can't do that because the female characters automatically have crappier power/guard, which is silly. If we can have sentient computers and space travel and magic, I think we can have big beefy women :P

Agree, and on that note, muscle definition slider (that goes from "none" to "crazy ripped"--see Saints Row 2) totally required.

[Mike]

Do not want newman rangers.

[Allison_W]

So what do you propose to fill the ranged/techs hybrid slot, if newman rangers make you cry? (note: "female human rangers" is not a valid answer; sex should not determine role--frankly, it's bad design to have it affect stats at all)

[Mitz]

Though the design is 'different', in my opinion, it's not actually all that bad as long as the genders are divided by class and have their own uniqueness, strengths, weaknesses and specifics. PSO tried to touch up, but they went kind of overboard on certain parts and didn't at all graze others. For example, FOmarl weapon speeds and combo consistencies were horrible, just borderline bad. Yet it didn't excel over the other FOs by doing more damage. She healed at bigger ranges, but she didn't heal as much as a FOnewearl and when Glide Divine was released her range didn't mean jack. Increased Grants damage? How will that help when you use the spell for one, maybe two bosses. HUcaseal and RAcaseals(pains me to say so) suffer a same disadvantage, being completely and utterly overshadowed by their male counterparts. Yes, I know the dagger animation is completely badass, but 90% of your game time consists of using Mechguns anyway. In theory it looked good, males did more damage, had more HP and females had more defense/evasion(not talking about you, FOne). But it was flawed because Defensive Stats are worthless in group play, and of minimal use while soloing.

So for PSO2, if they want to make everyone unique and differ from each other, make their strengths useful and their weaknesses accounted for by a diverse but large portion of group play. However don't shackle solo capabilities either. It's a hard thing to balance and if Sonic Team wants to take it this way, they have a large task ahead of them. Now of course we could just ignore gender differences and prevent the whole dilemma altogether. In my opinion it was just a part of PSO and the atmosphere that represented it, but I don't want to see a good game ruined by poor classdesign. Welcome to the world of trade-offs.

[Allison_W]

Gendered stats, part of a game's atmosphere? Sure you aren't just smelling methane instead? Because that is really shitty.

Also gendered stats aren't worth taking the time to balance when they can simply be left out without any problems. It's better to just eliminate them entirely and invest the time somewhere else.

[Mitz]

Yeah, it's either some extra diversity or 'invest the time somewhere else'(being lazy). I'll expect them to be lazy, so your wish will be granted either way. I myself am not too bothered with what direction they will go, I just don't want them to screw up.

[Seth Astra]

The way I see it, the gender difference in stats is just... Stupid... They can either:

A. Make it insignificant, like PSZ
or
B. Do something that could better be done another way

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Hi guys, just me popping in again to say that stats should be the same regardless of sex AND race.


And trap use should be based on class, not race. Nothing should be based on race other than your looks.

[Kent]

(note: "female human rangers" is not a valid answer; sex should not determine role--frankly, it's bad design to have it affect stats at all)
I realize we've been over this before, but you have to understand that doing something like this is not necessarily "bad design" just because you're pining for absolute blind gender-equality.

There's nothing inherently wrong with statistical and/or ability gender-equality in a game like this, but there's also nothing inherently wrong with making characters of the same race/class different when gender is taken into consideration... Under the condition that it does actually serve to enhance the gameplay in some manner:

It did in PSO; it allowed for an additional layer of real depth to the existing class/race structure of character selection - e.g. playing a male or female Force had effective structures for "sub-classes," playing styles between male and female Human Rangers were substantially-different (though, not so much for male/female Casts for Hunters and Rangers).

It did not in PSU; There were statistical differences between male and female characters in an already-wildly-unbalanced and poorly-designed game. In this case, all it actually did was give min/maxing elitists another parameter to consider in making their character "perfect." Being that some stats are just plain unusable by a majority of the game's types (TP for anything that's not part Force) and the fact that there's just too much of a difference between a hybrid and a pure type, this only really served to detract from the gameplay.

So yes, in PSU gender-based character performance differences did not enhance gameplay (I would chalk it up to the plethora of poor design choices throughout the game). In PSO however, it did actually serve a purpose, and directly enhanced the gameplay with it. It wasn't perfect execution obviously, because there was a rather distinct favor played to female characters when it comes to more readily-available good weapons and the like.

[Allison_W]

some people don't like to be shoveled into different roles based on gender, thanks

Splitting up RAmar/RAmarl playstyles could be done by allocating the former to human rangers and the latter to newman rangers (yes, I know PSO did not have newman rangers; that does not mean PSO2 couldn't/shouldn't), and fleshy hunters were already divided by race and not just gender, meaning HUmars and HUmarls could share stats and HUnewearls and HUnewms could share stats without losing playstyles. As for forces, the differences there would have been better handled by allowing the player to choose their technique specialties separately from sex.

[Seth Astra]

@Allison: I agree. I don't like the concept of not being able to adopt a certain playstyle based only on choice of gender.

[Allison_W]

@Allison: I agree. I don't like the concept of not being able to adopt a certain playstyle based only on choice of gender.

Indeed, many people find themselves placed under that pressure enough in real life, and don't need it forced on them in a game played to get away from real life.

[Anon_Fire]

- PSOBB Team System
- Item Synthesis function streamlined
- Exchange weapons for team points
- Worldwide servers
- Boost monsters (from PSPo2)
- Rare quests (appear randomly) with 300% EXP and 250% Drop Rate
- Mouse support
- Heal Traps and Slow Traps for CASTs
- New 5 Slot Armor
- Partner Characters

[Norco]

When I think of PSO2, there is a few things that come to mind for me.
- Fast menu to select any weapon or technic that you have while moving
- Being able to target and strife
- Photon Arts that isn't spammed, normal attacks should be more useful
- Being able to cast technics with any weapon(One of the reasons I didn't like PSU was because you couldn't do this)
- Mags of course, got to love those
- Dark storyline, this is one thing that made the PSO story intressting to follow
- Better cutscenes, because seriously. Between PS4 and PSO or PSU and PSO cutscenese... I'd pick PS4 or PSU cutscense over the cutscenes in PSO
- HUnewm and HUmarl should exsist, just like in PSZ
- That acrobatic thing from PSZ and PSP2
- Several towns, just one town is boring. This was a big plus for me in PSU.
- Way more areas then just Forest, Caves, Mines, Ruins, Seabed, ect.
- Old weapons such as Double Cannon, Red Sword, ect.

If they can pull all this off I can see this game being superior to PSO. But then again that's wishful thinking.

[Mitz]

- PSOBB Team System
- Item Synthesis function streamlined
- Exchange weapons for team points
- Worldwide servers
- Boost monsters (from PSPo2)
- Rare quests (appear randomly) with 300% EXP and 250% Drop Rate
- Mouse support
- Heal Traps and Slow Traps for CASTs
- New 5 Slot Armor
- Partner Characters

That sounds more like an update than an entire new game. Rare quests would be awful though, though. You'd spend all your time trying to get those instead of playing the game. The game doesn't even necessarily need to have quests.

[TheSeunger]

Maybe a message that would say, "Oh look, [HUNTER]! There's a special quest that was submitted to the Hunter's Guild! This is a once-of-a-life-time quest so you better give it all you got!"

That would be certainly interesting but I'm guessing this is only for Online playing.

[Keyblade59]

This bought a big smile to my face when I saw it, and hopefully will make me forget about my first PSO corruption on my characters a few months ago and I was playing since 05 or 06

Well that was off topic, but back to my point

Hopefully PSO2 won't be that far different in timeline wise, and all I desire is ALMOST everything to be the same except:

Fix out bugs and corruption (obviously)
More character choices
More customization
More weapons, armour etc
Little more plot
A guidance system (to know where to go, which is a common problem amoung most PS games)
No stuff that is mentioned but isn't ever going to be released without hacking
lots more rare enemies
Different attack animations for certain weapons

That's about it.

EDIT: Oh yes, a pause button?

[Radori Nighthawk]

For it to be ported on a console. 360 would be best due to the online community.
Keep every weapon from PSO. MAGS as well. Add new ones of course. :P
Even higher level cap. (Unlikely but cool, right) Level up at the same rate to ensure replay value.
Allow HUmarl and HUnewm to be playable.
For it to be AT LEAST as good as PSO.

Thank you SEGA for bringing PSO back to life.

[Anon_Fire]

Manually block with Shields

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

EDIT: Oh yes, a pause button?A pause button. In an online game. Think about that for a minute.

[Allison_W]

A pause button. In an online game. Think about that for a minute.

It's worth noting that Starcraft was pausable. I would say that at the very least you should be able to pause when you're in a solo game (assuming the inclusion of "One Person" mode a la PSOBB; I am admittedly fond of it) or playing in offline mode (assuming that PSO2 has an offline mode), or possibly in the sense of party leaders being able to decide whether a game they create will or will not allow for pausing (this parameter should be one of the ones displayed on the list of available parties).

[Mitz]

The first time my got game got paused in Starcraft II, I got extremely pissed. I doubt it will work, and I wouldn't like to see it.

[Kent]

Maybe a message that would say, "Oh look, [HUNTER]! There's a special quest that was submitted to the Hunter's Guild! This is a once-of-a-life-time quest so you better give it all you got!"

That would be certainly interesting but I'm guessing this is only for Online playing.
"Greetings, Hunter! There are new quests available at the Pioneer 2 Hunter's Guild!"
[spoiler-box]http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/10/500x_adpb.jpg[/spoiler-box]

Though I'd say it's largely unnecessary for how PSO actually is, the design for how quests are unlocked might be different in PSO2.

I think it'd be pretty interesting if there were a ton of quests you could actually undertake, but you had to unlock access to them through some means. For example, if you were to fell a certain number of Rappies on one character, you might get access to a quest like The Fake in Yellow (i.e. you know how Rappies work, so picking out the fake one should be easier for you). Naturally, there are plenty of progression ramifications for just laying out everything the player can do right from the get-go (like going into Hard mode at level 1), so a system of unlocking these sorts of things actually makes sense - but it'd also be nice to see most or all of these quests actually able to be undertaken by multiple players. After all, PSO was primarily a multiplayer game, so having the majority of available quests be playable by multiple people would be ideal.

Of course, having quests being the only means of playing the game (like in PSU) is a bad thing - quests should be designed as an alternative to actually delving into the full breadth of a dungeon - they might be shorter with very specific goals, or they might be a far greater challenge with some pretty hefty rewards to them... But they should always be really an option, rather than the main mode of actually doing anything. We don't want more TTF spamming, do we?

And on that note: I'd also like to see the areas themselves be much larger, and have many more levels to them. After all, PSO was a dungeon-crawler at heart, and that's one of the big things people actually enjoyed about it. I think it'd be very interesting to see something along the lines of... Maybe there are only four "areas," like in Episode 1, but each one has many more actual levels in it - the Forest might have upwards of 20 levels, for instance, but you need only clear the first two to get to the first boss, clearing it giving you access to another area such as the Caves. Naturally, as you go farther, scenery and enemies would gradually get different, yet similar enough to be considered part of the same area. Naturally, as with most dungeon-crawlers, you'd see things like checkpoints at regular intervals (typically, every 5th floor has a checkpoint) that allow you to return to that floor, should you quit out.

Naturally, such a thing would have to be adapted into the gameplay flow of the game, because retrofitting things from other games onto another doesn't always work out so well - but still, I think it could be made to work out pretty well - especially if the dungeon floors themselves get the same hand-made treatment they did originally in PSO, rather than purely random-generation.

[ReijiGin]

I don't care about pausing in online mode (I mean, that's not something I've come to expect) but I would LOVE to be able to pause in offline mode. It doesn't make sense to not have a pause there, really.

What more, there needs to actually BE an offline mode!

[AnnabellaRenee87]

Section IDs: They should just make them like factions, like a league or something to that nature. Like you would have to earn your way in to that league or section ID and you would base them off what kind of character you are wanting to be.

Music: The Music in PSU is what makes me secretly hate PSU. If i want to fall asleep I listen to PSU's music and BAM I am asleep, I love voice chat on the Xbox 360 version because people can keep me awake, on the other hand. PSO's music made me feel that I was being drawn in to the game and that what I did in this world made a difference, IDK maybe I am making too much out of it. But the Music team this time around needs to go back and listen to what they did 10 years ago. I know its the same team but maybe everyone has quit and we are listening to new people trying to feel big shoes.

Combined Servers: I hate when people told me they was on another server/ship/universe, I even hate this in WOW, well at least in PSO/U you don't have to make a new character to play on another server. But have one server that everyone can play on, have real Cites that people can explore and have real forest and fields that everyone can go. I really want to go in to this with more detail, Lets use the Earth as an example, there is obviously enough room to take 1,000,000 players and have them all explore the same planet and not have places over populated at the "next big quest mission start area", I would think a place of that magnitude would be a wonderful place to explore and if there was cities "large cites" people would be able to walk around with little crowds in the way and not have to walk in a room and have the game almost crash because it has to load 500 peoples character models. Now events, I understand people are going to want to gather during an event, so I can see everyone running to one City.
(wow that's a whole bunch of garbled sentences.)

Console Support/cross platform: I would say the PS3 and Xbox 360 would be where they should be as well as the PC, if you look at my signature you know I will NOT have any problems playing this game. the Wii on the other hand, comon, lets leave the pathetic 480i/p resolution behind and grow up its 2010, we have 1080p (1920x1080) now games at the 480 range would just look like something from the early 2000's and have dated graphics. Also this should be a Digitally Distributed game. No running to Game Stop trying to find a Disk, this is why we cant have all the content updates everyone wants, "This is why we can't have nice things".

I think I am asking for too much from just the three things I have listed but IDK, the only things left I would think would be nice is more realistic graphics and a game world time, like the planet I was referring to earlier would have day and night cycles that was for that planet only it would be kinda cool.

Maybe I am just wanting a PSO that is more of a living breathing world that is just PSO themed, IDK what do you guys think before I start typing another paragraph of thrown together sentences.

[athena44]

to neo: i can agree with points 1 and 3 that you made.. but what you were saying about the world servers.. ugh...

the way you described that sounded a awful lot like every other generic mmo out there.. large cities and then a bunch of baron unused wasted bandwidth of landscape.. i think that would be a horrible idea.. the whole basis of why the first pso was so great was the lobby system. and then going from the pioneer down to the surface to do your 'planet exploring'.. it sounds like your wanting PSO2 to become a wow clone.. and i just cant agree to that.

now having a bigger lobby section on the other hand is a solid idea.. a slightly bigger place to chill and meet people to go down to the surface with is a good idea. (admittedly most of those sleepless nights on pso were in the lobbys just chatting) so your on the right page...kinda.. but turning a lobby into a open world just has 'bad idea' written all over it.

i dunno, maybe i'm a purist.. but i'm kinda afraid of PSO2, it might be everything we ever wanted it to be... or it might be a slap in the face... i'm tentative to say the least..


on a side note.. anyone know if they are bringing back the old school techs? as in Barta / Gibarta / Rabarta for ex? i wonder if they are sticking with the hexagonal design, thats a style that i totally digg'd on from the og PSO. (click sig to see how much i digg'd it, lol)

[Mitz]

What's wrong with having taking a 'wow clone' stance on things? Obviously it worked for them. PSO really only has one point that makes them stand out over other ORPG's and that's the extensive character customization. Section IDs, tons of physical properties can be altered, precise coloring of hair, etc. PSU improved on this by a lot with clothes and more options, I'm hoping PSO2 will do the same.

Also to the server issue, hate it all your want. It's a server issue, not a game issue. But they could definitely upgrade their servers for bigger capacity yes.

[Allison_W]

What's wrong with having taking a 'wow clone' stance on things? Obviously it worked for them.

WoW makes me come down with extreme fits of narcolepsy, and if I wanted to play WoW, I would.

[athena44]

to rizeru: i agree, on the server issue being a server issue. that's not really a game development thing they can do.. its pretty much based on the hardware, and working 'with' the system.

but to say that a open world 'worked for them', yea, it sure did, but you really want to see this beloved franchise turn into that? i can name literately off the top of my head a dozen open world free mmorpgs that take the wow formula and cash shop idea.. would you want to just lump PSO2 in with the mass majority of shittyly made rpgs? i mean if that's what the majority of pso players want, then i sure do hope they go that route to cater to the masses.. it just seems blasphemous of sega to turn a great social orpg into just another mmorpg w/ cash shop.. what would be the point. =/

something about turning pso into a standard issue mmorpg with a space theme just doesn't seem right. id vomit if that happens.

i played wow.. sadly, i did.. bought it when it first came out, was one of the first day subscribers.. quit after a year.. it just was lame. and i cant say that i know one decent wow player to date. (ex: my neighbor plays wow religiously, been on unemployment for over a year, the only time i see him is when he opens the door for pizza delivery or coming back with mcdonalds... the dude sleeps all day to go raiding at night with his clan or whatever) that's exactly the type of person i DON'T want in the phantasy star world. it just isnt right.. i think i just have a close attachment to the original, its been with me for so many years, i feel like its connected to my growing up and the idea of turning it into a open world mmorpg will turn me away forever..

im sure your saying "well good, this guy means nothing anyway" your probably right, one voice is obviously not going to change anyone's opinion. but this my friend is my opinion, and everyone has a right to put their mind down on paper (in this case forums)

i sincerely hope they take cue's from the original pso and make a true sequel.. not some western mmorpg sinkhole of a game. just this humble pso fans opinion..

(ps to rizeru, and others: nothing here is directed personally, its directed at the concept of open world mmorpg and pso being pushed together, it just rubs me the wrong way, obviously. so please take no personal offense to my post.. unless your as fat and lazy as my neighbor.. in that case get a damn job and exercise dammit!!!)

[Mitz]

I'm not fat or unemployed, but I do raid day and night with my 'clan'. But I'm not offended, it's your opinion and I won't judge you for thinking like that. I never said that PSO should go the WoW way with an open world, because I think it's contradictory to the franchise so far. It wouldn't work and I doubt it would be accepted, but there is room for improvement in the current system which I think isn't really optimal. 6 players tops just doesn't feel very 'immersive'. And I agree that lobbies are usually the place where you feel immersed in the game, but I'd like to be immersed throughout quests as well. I'm not sure how they would make that work though, I'm just stating my wishes.

[Zyrusticae]

I don't understand. How is 6 not "immersive"?

It's a BIG world out there. If the world population were a mere 5,000 chances are very high they'd be small parties or tribes and they are likely to never, ever see one another. Ever.

Realistically, the instancing is MORE immersive than the "everything is crowded and likes to stand within 5m of another critter" of WoW and the likes.

[Seth Astra]

On party size, I'd like missions for different party sizes. Some for the traditional 4 man group, some for groups of 8-12, even some for 30+ man parties. This is just a general idea, but what do you think?

[Allison_W]

On party size, I'd like missions for different party sizes. Some for the traditional 4 man group, some for groups of 8-12, even some for 30+ man parties. This is just a general idea, but what do you think?

For all that I do agree with you on some matters, on this one, I think "thirty-player clusterfuck."

[Norco]

I can imagin a party of 10 but higher then that.. nah

[MAXrobo]

PSU can hardly keep up with 6 people without slowdown. More than 10 would be a disaster. especially if they where all force.

[Msr. Bojangles]

PSU can hardly keep up with 6 people without slowdown. More than 10 would be a disaster. especially if they where all force.


Holy Gi/Ra/Damu/Nos-Foie/Barta/Zonde/Megid/Grants/Diga spam, Batman!


On topic, I think PSO2 would benefit from taking some of the best of the current systems we have, like so many others do. Save for voices. They can get rid of the voices. And I'd like the job types to be fixed again. What's the point of alts if you can just play one character and be it all? :P

Some mission variety would also go a long way. More vehicle-based missions? Yes please. Perhaps more mini-games, which could open up new event variety. Oh, and no more item synths. Seriously annoying when I have to not only get a rare synthesis board that drops at 2% or is sold for 30 mil meseta, but also the 15 or so rare materials that drop at a similiar rate and sell for 4 mil apiece.

Also, more enemy part weapons. Because I love them to death.

[MAXrobo]

Holy Gi/Ra/Damu/Nos-Foie/Barta/Zonde/Megid/Grants/Diga spam, Batman!


On topic, I think PSO2 would benefit from taking some of the best of the current systems we have, like so many others do. Save for voices. They can get rid of the voices. And I'd like the job types to be fixed again. What's the point of alts if you can just play one character and be it all? :P

Some mission variety would also go a long way. More vehicle-based missions? Yes please. Perhaps more mini-games, which could open up new event variety. Oh, and no more item synths. Seriously annoying when I have to not only get a rare synthesis board that drops at 2% or is sold for 30 mil meseta, but also the 15 or so rare materials that drop at a similiar rate and sell for 4 mil apiece.

Also, more enemy part weapons. Because I love them to death.

Actually i enjoyed jumping classes in PSU. And if they bring back section ids there would still be reason to make other characters so you could get the rares. Also if i make a RAcast but want to play a force after a while, i could change classes but wouldnt be very good. So to play a good force id still need to make a new character.

And i totaly agree that they need more enemy part weapons. I always loved killing a booma with his own hand ;D

[Seth Astra]

I think his point was classes filled each roll, rather than certain race/class combos filling certain rolls

[Msr. Bojangles]

I think his point was classes filled each roll, rather than certain race/class combos filling certain rolls


This is precisely my point, good sir. As charming as the idea is of being able to change 'classes' on almost a whim is, it became rather stale since the only real difference betwixt classes when played by different races was stats. PSO, however, generally had many subtle differences between each.

(...Plus Casts using psychic/mental powers is just a bit too far out for me, considering their lack of a nervous system.)

[Allison_W]

(...Plus Casts using psychic/mental powers is just a bit too far out for me, considering their lack of a nervous system.)

I took PSU's CASTs being able to use techniques, albeit poorly, as an implication that they had an ethereal soul (ignoring the fact that a brain makes that extraneous as it is), or at least that they had a synthetic nervous system/mind that was similar enough to that of organics to be able to use techniques.

That, and well, a robot would kind of have a nervous system. Not the same as an organic one, obviously, but its network of internal wiring, sensors, and processors fills more or less the same role.

[Msr. Bojangles]

I took PSU's CASTs being able to use techniques, albeit poorly, as an implication that they had an ethereal soul (ignoring the fact that a brain makes that extraneous as it is), or at least that they had a synthetic nervous system/mind that was similar enough to that of organics to be able to use techniques.

That, and well, a robot would kind of have a nervous system. Not the same as an organic one, obviously, but its network of internal wiring, sensors, and processors fills more or less the same role.

Hmm... Good point. Quite a good point. Albeit, a 'soul', even a faux one, is something a bit hard to put in machinery. ...Of course, I'm questioning the logic of a game where there's a subrace within a race that for some unexplained reason remains with the physical body of a prepubescent. (I won't even get into the 'skills' like Tornado Dance and 'that-one-spear-skill-whose-name-eludes-me'.)

EDIT TO REMAIN ON TOPIC: Sooo... More enemy part weapons. If PSO enemies return in PSO2, who wants to see Dimenian sabers? ...Or a Launcher made of Ob/Nar Lilies that shoots Megid. Just because that would be something that would let a Ranger give those things a taste of their own medicine.

[Allison_W]

Hmm... Good point. Quite a good point. Albeit, a 'soul', even a faux one, is something a bit hard to put in machinery.

Same way it gets put in people, I imagine. That said, I don't buy the ethereal souls concept overall, so a synthetic intelligence having a soul makes no less sense to me than an organic intelligence having one--I find them both equally nonsensical in a real-world context, and find them to weigh about equally on suspension of disbelief in a fictional-world context.


...Of course, I'm questioning the logic of a game where there's a subrace within a race that for some unexplained reason remains with the physical body of a prepubescent.

It's probably like how dogs have major size variations between breeds, and how neoteny, a biological phenomenon resulting in a sexually mature but seemingly juvenile or larval specimen, has been observed in many creatures, particularly domesticated animals (the dogs are again an example, but they aren't the only ones). Consider that it's the race that's been loaded up with traits of nonhuman animals that has small breed variations--and consider also that neoteny is even observed in modern humans (see: sparse body hair, jaws that have shrunken until all our teeth don't fit in them, retention of the ability to digest milk post-infancy, etc.). Suffice it to say that if I can suspend disbelief on the whole ethereal souls and magical-psionic-yada-yada techniques things, small beasts are a completely trivial pill to swallow.


EDIT TO REMAIN ON TOPIC: Sooo... More enemy part weapons. If PSO enemies return in PSO2, who wants to see Dimenian sabers? ...Or a Launcher made of Ob/Nar Lilies that shoots Megid. Just because that would be something that would let a Ranger give those things a taste of their own medicine.

The Ob-/Mil Lily cannon is clever and I like it.

[Msr. Bojangles]

Same way it gets put in people, I imagine. That said, I don't buy the ethereal souls concept overall, so a synthetic intelligence having a soul makes no less sense to me than an organic intelligence having one--I find them both equally nonsensical in a real-world context, and find them to weigh about equally on suspension of disbelief in a fictional-world context.

Ah, interesting.



It's probably like how dogs have major size variations between breeds, and how neoteny, a biological phenomenon resulting in a sexually mature but seemingly juvenile or larval specimen, has been observed in many creatures, particularly domesticated animals (the dogs are again an example, but they aren't the only ones). Consider that it's the race that's been loaded up with traits of nonhuman animals that has small breed variations--and consider also that neoteny is even observed in modern humans (see: sparse body hair, jaws that have shrunken until all our teeth don't fit in them, retention of the ability to digest milk post-infancy, etc.). Suffice it to say that if I can suspend disbelief on the whole ethereal souls and magical-psionic-yada-yada techniques things, small beasts are a completely trivial pill to swallow.

Ah. Well, I learned something today. Thanks for the sharing of knowledge.



The Ob-/Mil Lily cannon is clever and I like it.

Why, thank you. I appreciate it. I thought it was clever, as well. XD

[Kent]

Sooo... More enemy part weapons. If PSO enemies return in PSO2, who wants to see Dimenian sabers? ...Or a Launcher made of Ob/Nar Lilies that shoots Megid. Just because that would be something that would let a Ranger give those things a taste of their own medicine.
I think it's probably for the best if this is the extent of crafting in a new PSO game - simply because part of the reason that players are driven forward is finding all kinds of crazy new loot rather than finding a bunch of parts from which to make it - but finding a single rare item that can be directly converted into a new weapon alone ends up not detracting from that loot-hunting experience that is core to the game, while at the same time, adding a bit of flavor to the overall experience.

[Seth Astra]

@Kent: I agree, although I'd also like to see the ability to combine some items, like with the syncesta stones and lavis weps, or how sange and yasha needed you to find both and use one on the other.

[Msr. Bojangles]

I think it's probably for the best if this is the extent of crafting in a new PSO game - simply because part of the reason that players are driven forward is finding all kinds of crazy new loot rather than finding a bunch of parts from which to make it - but finding a single rare item that can be directly converted into a new weapon alone ends up not detracting from that loot-hunting experience that is core to the game, while at the same time, adding a bit of flavor to the overall experience.

Yes. *nods sagely* If it's something like 'find a rare enemy part drop and then take it to *insert NPC name here* or use it on a certain weapon and then receive said enemy part weapon', then I'll be completely behind it. I dislike how so many MMOs require such rare items for item crafting, and then despite all your work and time, making it close to a 40% success rate so that there's a high chance of you having to go back to hunting all of those rare and expensive items all over again.

EDIT: (And before anyone asks... Yes. This has happened to me. Many, many, many times before.)

[Eulogy21]

That was one thing I'm glad they changed from PSU to PSP, being able to find all the weapons as drops again. The failing rare synths were too much. They took the fun out of the game, at least for me.

[Immovable One]

Here's what I want for PSO2 (though I doubt it will happen)

Classes
- Hunters should be melee dps and tank. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Rangers should be range dps and crowd control. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Force should be elemental dps and support. Nothing more, nothing less. And since this means they can only equip rods, allow them to select customizable skill palettes in place of selectable weapons.
- No 4th class.
- This pretty much solves the frequently asked questions of "why play as [class]?"

Races
- difference in stats with Humans being balanced, Beast being strength, Cast being Accuracy, and Newmans being Intelligence.
- stat bonuses on race specific clothing and gear
- have a different Photon Blast move for Humans and Newmans.
- How about a faction system, separating each race into two factions. With Humans being split into military and space pirates, Casts being half-organic cyborgs and fully mechanical robots, Beast being cowboys and indians-ish, and Newmans being medieval mages vs weaboo it's-like-I'm-really-Japanese?

Weapons and Equipment
- changeable weapon elements instead of randomly and permanently giving them an element
- gun sabers AND gun swords, with the R modifier button switching their functionality.
- R button switches ranger to third person shooting mode.
- knuckles + boot combo
- I want the Twin Slicers back :3
- just plagiarize Monster Hunter's synthesis system.
- some shields should have effects such as AOE reflect damage, elemental damage, or status effect.
- Allow us to reskin weapons.

SUV
- give each SUV a unique function that suits different play-styles as opposed to making one overpowered (*cough*Paradi*cough*) and render the rest obsolete.

Photon Arts
- Hunter PA is customizable in a sort of move tree structure, with skills triggered ala Devil May Cry/Bayonetta combo system.
- PAs are scalable, with the PA discs deciding their level cap.
- additional effect when certain condition are met in battle such as a Ranger freezing a mob, Force casting a fire buff on the Hunter which then hits that mob - leading to an effect similar to Phantasy Star IV combination attacks. This rewards team play.
- Have rangers just hold the shoot button for Charge Shot I and have the other button function as their Charge Shot II PA.
- Also give rangers a PA that allows them to shoot while dodging at the cost of their stamina gauge.
- Add a grapple PA to knuckles.

Shops
- Gives us an Aion style broker rather than the player shops. This encourages players to gather around the shops, giving a sense of population.
- Same with Synthesis.

Drops
- Increase item drop rates to prevent people selling items for billions of meseta.
- Have some equipment bind on equip or pick up. This supports the increased drop rates feature, and encourages players to grind for some items themselves, rather than waiting for somebody to sell the item in the broker (or worse, offer it for trade for billions of meseta). However, allow these items to be tradeable for a short period incase they were picked up by mistake.
- As convenient as it is for players to each have their own drops in PSP2, we all get into a situation where an item that we don't need drops. If we're going to return to the old item drop structure, equally divide the meseta to all party members, and allow us to roll/pass on gear/rares. This allows us to see the ninjas that we should block/report.

Other
- Buffs (drop rate and/or exp) based on amount of time player in offline.
- More Phantasy Star franchise related references rather than Sonic and Nights.
- Classic Tune remixes ala Tricktrack from PSO
- Bring back situational music
- Air Castle as an Event Dungeon
- 30 man raid dungeons
- PvPvE dungeons
- Guilds + benefits
- increased EXP when playing with human players (as opposed to AI).
- being able to summon your alts as party members (with their level capped to yours though this does not affect their gear).
- and yes, bring back those freakin' mags. And allow us to change their colors.
- Because of the stamina system introduced in PSP2, it seems having 6 weapon sets at a time is not as useful. And since each class has 2-3 functions, why not only allow us to equip 2-3 weapon sets? This forces players to really have a unique play style.
- Cel shaded graphics please ala Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit or Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

[LeonAlabard]

Classes
- Hunters should be melee dps and tank. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Rangers should be range dps and crowd control. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Force should be elemental dps and support. Nothing more, nothing less. And since this means they can only equip rods, allow them to select customizable skill palettes in place of selectable weapons.
- No 4th class.
- This pretty much solves the frequently asked questions of "why play as [class]?"

Races
- difference in stats with Humans being balanced, Beast being strength, Cast being Accuracy, and Newmans being Intelligence.
[...]
I dont really like the idea of everything being so black and white, so limited. I really like to try some unusual playstyles, like battle mages and magick fencers (FOmar FTW), and being able to change my playstyle wherever I want, just by changing my equips and my strategy.
Basically, I love versatility.

Also, Newmans must have the best EVP, beucause I love EVP and Newmans. (HUnewn FTW).


- just plagiarize Monster Hunter's synthesis system.
I hate all these "craft thing systems", no matter how cool and balanced it can be. I just prefer the simple "kill the run the same mission over and over, them get item" than "kill the same monster over and over, get ONE material, go to another monster, risen and repeat. The fail on the crafting process".


- Hunter PA is customizable in a sort of move tree structure, with skills triggered ala Devil May Cry/Bayonetta combo system.
Too much love for hunters, what about the other classes? I prefer the old PA discs with fixed levels on them. But, I admit, it would be really cool.


...

Now, the rest of your ideias are nice, I would like to see them on PSO2 too.

[Jinketsu]

Some more spells for Forces, or abilities for Hunters and Rangers would be nice. I liked PSU's class system - that is to say, I liked how each class had an upgraded version of itself. I wasn't too fond of the idea of hybrid classes.

I also liked PSU's ability to - as goofy as this sounds - wear whatever you wanted as clothing, being able to change if you felt like it.

PSU's tech system was nice, and gave Casts the option to use spells and such, though I think I'd like to see continued limitations on certain races like PSO's had.

It would also be cool to gain access to various parts of Pioneer 2 as you progress for things like new areas, higher level shops, and whatnot. Assuming of course that Pioneer 2 is still in space outside Ragol.

I dunno. Speculation is great, but I'd like to see a few confirmed facts. Even some screenshots with updated HD Boomas would be awesome. Haha.

[Allison_W]

Here's one:

Don't turn PSO2 into another fucking me-too MMO. We have too many of those.

Also, none of that black-and-white class business. The original Diablo-style class system was one of PSO's strengths: playstyle flexibility is half the fun.

Now, for something completely different.

I was considering Diablo III's (note: Diablo III is an example of a game in the same genre as the PSO series; WoW and Aion are not) crafting system recently--specifically, how it didn't seem to be being implemented like PSU's crafting, but rather, like a way for players to get more predictable lewts when they really needed a particular kind of item. In particular, the kind of item is predictable, as are some of its properties, but it then has other properties that are randomized. I translated this into PSO terms, and what occurred to me is, perhaps instead of having to craft rare items, you can craft common/uncommon ones and, depending upon what materials you use, control one of its properties. For instance, you'd find a Last Survivor the traditional way and wouldn't have to craft it (nor could you), but you could craft a Calibur and control some of its properties--like guaranteeing that it will have a special ability in a certain category (though what level would be random), or guaranteeing that it will have a specific enemy-type attribute (though how high would be random), or guaranteeing that it will have Hit (though how high much would be random, and this one would probably require rarer ingredients due to the value of Hit), but not several of the above. The rest of its traits would be random, so while you could guarantee a particular kind of needful thing, there would still be surprises involved.

[LeonAlabard]

Assuming of course that Pioneer 2 is still in space outside Ragol.

Didn't the Pioneer 2 landed on Ragol on the end of Episode III: Card Revolution?

[Seth Astra]

Darn it, there is some stuff I really want to reply to, and a long idea I want to mention, but this smartphone is a pain to type long posts in. Basically, I was thinking of a subclass system. I will describe it when I get my comp back, or someone misunderstands it.

[8BitGinno]

Assuming the system will be similar to PSU and such, I'd like to see rare PAs, MySynth Partner Machines, room themes, and such. It's a nice idea that expands on hunting for rares, not just weapons or armors.

Also, I wish for all the customization we could ever want. Any accessory with any hair, at any color. Any weapon on either hand, not predesignated. Player rooms with multiple floors and no grid placement system, being able to place anything anywhere.

One can dream, can't they?

[Jinketsu]

Didn't the Pioneer 2 landed on Ragol on the end of Episode III: Card Revolution?

I'm not sure.. I never finished EpIII and never had a chance with EpIV (though I'm playing through a private server now to say I have)

<quick wiki> yes. The end of Episode III has Pioneer 2 landing on Ragol to start colonization. Well, hopefully the different areas of the land don't end up like PSU's planetary system. It wasn't as convenient as it seemed it was supposed to be.

Though I would like to see something like it. The farther you get in the story, the more that opens up, etc.

[Mitz]

Assuming the system will be similar to PSU and such, I'd like to see rare PAs, MySynth Partner Machines, room themes, and such. It's a nice idea that expands on hunting for rares, not just weapons or armors.

Also, I wish for all the customization we could ever want. Any accessory with any hair, at any color. Any weapon on either hand, not predesignated. Player rooms with multiple floors and no grid placement system, being able to place anything anywhere.

One can dream, can't they?

Customization is the current Phantasy Star series' biggest strength, I'm fairly hopeful they'll include a ton of customization. It was good in PSO and even better in PSU. I hope they involve the community in this as well. Having contest for the best looking room, best RP character, etc. keeps people involved and active. It also gives a sense of population.

I hope they add something like achievements. More stuff to do before and once you hit max level. You can add rewards for extra customization.

[Jinketsu]

Darn it, there is some stuff I really want to reply to, and a long idea I want to mention, but this smartphone is a pain to type long posts in. Basically, I was thinking of a subclass system. I will describe it when I get my comp back, or someone misunderstands it.

Final Fantasy XI had a subclass system that worked really really well, but I'm not sure it will work as well across other games.

[Seth Astra]

Final Fantasy XI had a subclass system that worked really really well, but I'm not sure it will work as well across other games.
Not what I was thinking. I was imagining each race/class combo having 2-4 subclasses. Each provides stat boosts, allowing the player to further refine their playstyle. Example for HUnewm :
Wartecher: Highest MST and TP boost of HUnewm subclasses, and strongest techs of any hunter. Balance of magic and melee attacks.
Fortefighter: Highest ATP/HP/DFP boost for HUnewm. Most melee oriented HUnewm.
Acrofighter: Best EVP in game.

Yeah, stealing names from PSU here.

[Allison_W]

So out of curiosity, what would be the draw of playing a Fortefigher HUnewm as opposed to a Fortefighter HUcast?

[Seth Astra]

There really wouldn't be, assuming you only melee. However, note that a HUnewm is still a HUnewm. Fortefighter HUnewms just allow them to specialize in melee, over EVP or MST. Make sense?

[Allison_W]

There really wouldn't be, assuming you only melee. However, note that a HUnewm is still a HUnewm. Fortefighter HUnewms just allow them to specialize in melee, over EVP or MST. Make sense?

Not a whole helluva lot. We already know that raw melee ability can't vary too much between any given race choice for the hunter class if any semblance of balance is to be maintained--as I've suggested before, perhaps an A+ to A- range. Maybe a choice between Acrofighter and Wartecher for HUnewms--though that might be just as doable by balancing stats so that it's equally viable for HUnewms to invest in EVP or MST, which in turn suggests some mechanic to keep them from just dumping everything into ATP like most do in PSZ--but trying to divide HUnewms between "specializes in ATP" and "doesn't specialize in ATP" is dangerous hair-splitting.

[Seth Astra]

Not a whole helluva lot. We already know that raw melee ability can't vary too much between any given race choice for the hunter class if any semblance of balance is to be maintained--as I've suggested before, perhaps an A+ to A- range. Maybe a choice between Acrofighter and Wartecher for HUnewms--though that might be just as doable by balancing stats so that it's equally viable for HUnewms to invest in EVP or MST, which in turn suggests some mechanic to keep them from just dumping everything into ATP like most do in PSZ--but trying to divide HUnewms between "specializes in ATP" and "doesn't specialize in ATP" is dangerous hair-splitting.

Yeah... true... You know what I think? Phantasy Star will never be balanced. It is impossible.

[Kamen Rider Sting]

Well it looks that way, I guess thats the hardest task for the people at SEGA to do with PS games. Whenever they try to balance things out, there appears to be more cons than pros. Still, dosen't stop the players from playing. I wanna see leveling MAG's in this PSO, but I was thinking more the lines of MAG's actually leveling and customise stats and looks to your liking as it levels.

The PSO MAG and PSU PM more so did cost an arm and a leg to get your favored stats just right. I remember me old BB Main(See signature.) being in the Viridia mob and I made a couple of POW +200 Nidra's for friends, thanks to that MAG Feeder tool. Very helpful, though will that system return in PSO2 I wonder?

I'd love to have the old school PSO stuff but new ways of doing it, people are requesting a lot of PSP2 data to return. I am too, still somewhere out the someone has a keen idea for the ultimate PS game. But that someone ain't me.

[Mitz]

Yeah... true... You know what I think? Phantasy Star will never be balanced. It is impossible.

With that kind of attitude, you may want to give up on PSO altogether. And it's impossible for any game, but striving for it usually works in a very favorable way.

[Zekester]

Individual monster rare drops again. I hate spamming missions in PSU for the rares only to be in boss boxes/end boxes.

No more synthesis, that shit was annoying. I waste time to get the board and materials for it to only fail? Gay.

I'll admit I liked your PM to fight and follow you, but I love Mags.

Updated graphics (obviously) same levels with same music, because it gives you the old nostalgic feeling we've come to love for years.

CHALLENGE MODE.

[akiraomega]

I just hope none of the drama comes back. I'm a player from GC all the way to BB then to PSU PC all of which were full of drama within the community. Don't know if anyone remembers jeM, enforcers, or Crescents but I dont want any of that bull to come back.

[Mitz]

Don't forget ca/LEGIT. The most ironic guildname ever.

[akiraomega]

Don't forget ca/LEGIT. The most ironic guildname ever.

I remember those guys lol. So much guild drama on POSBB

[8BitGinno]

2 words: User-generated content.

Oh man.. I salivate at the thought of the possibilities. :yes:

[Msr. Bojangles]

2 words: User-generated content.

Oh man.. I salivate at the thought of the possibilities. :yes:

While that is technically three words, I still agree wholeheartedly.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

I just hope none of the drama comes back. I'm a player from GC all the way to BB then to PSU PC all of which were full of drama within the community. Don't know if anyone remembers jeM, enforcers, or Crescents but I dont want any of that bull to come back.What no are you crazy?

The team drama was one of the best things about PSOBB. In fact, the lack of drama really made PSU a much more boring experience overall.

[Dongra]

The drama can be fun for a while but too much of it can kill the game for many players.

[Lunariancrystal]

Make it exactly the same as PSO. Instanced zones...no 'BATTLE technique' bullshit like in PSU. Just the same ol' slash > slash > slash routine. Make red boxes look like the same old red boxes. Hell...Keep the art style the same as PSO even if that means using the SAME interface.

PSU is a great example of how change can destroy a game.

Just...keep...the game...the same... with tons of new levels, and tons of new rare weapons.

[Allison_W]

Make it exactly the same as PSO. Instanced zones...no 'BATTLE technique' bullshit like in PSU. Just the same ol' slash > slash > slash routine. Make red boxes look like the same old red boxes. Hell...Keep the art style the same as PSO even if that means using the SAME interface.

PSU is a great example of how change can destroy a game.

Just...keep...the game...the same... with tons of new levels, and tons of new rare weapons.

No, PSU is an example of how changing the wrong things can destroy a game (and even then, its biggest sin was far and away the content drip-feed; it made a lot of design decisions that ultimately dragged it down in the end, but the drip-feed was the real rope about its neck). Just re-releasing PSOBB with new levels and new weapons would please a few die-hard fans who grew up playing PSO, but it won't bring anyone new to the franchise, it would get awful critical reviews, and it would probably fail to please even people who liked PSO but expected to see an actual new game that keeps things that were fun about PSO while offering fresh features to sink one's teeth into. In short, it simply wouldn't be a good idea.

Simply put, there are more lessons to be learned from PSU other than "Don't do that again" (though that's definitely one of them), and not using those lessons would be a terrible failure unto itself. PSU introduced both the upsides of PAs and the problem of making them overly abusable: regular attacks never get used, and spamming one PA over and over again is no better than spamming the same regular attack pattern over and over again. PSZ, I think, did better where PAs were concerned, despite many of the individual PAs not being that great: most of them tended to be somewhat situational, and supplemented regular light and heavy attacks without replacing them entirely.

I don't expect the art style to be exactly the same as PSO's--if nothing else, it will be considerably more detailed, but I would rather that it be much more inspired by PSO and PSZ than PSU, which had some really bad designs. (Seriously, let's have less of the Preschool Sluts collection and pop-star frippery and more "I'm a badass science-fantasy mercenary" or "I am a wizard IN SPACE" clothes, please.)

PSO was revolutionary in its time, but is nonetheless a ten-year-old game. Many advances in technology and design have been made since then. Just making a PSO rehash with tech and design features that would have been outdated five years ago would be a disservice; the game should be a strong spiritual successor that inspires feelings of warm familiarity in those of us who've played PSO, but is nonetheless far more than just retreading the same ground. It should be less "How can we make this exactly like a ten-year-old game?" and more "What would PSO be like if it were made today, with everything that has been learned in the past ten years taken into account?"

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Make it exactly the same as PSO. Instanced zones...no 'BATTLE technique' bullshit like in PSU. Just the same ol' slash > slash > slash routine. Make red boxes look like the same old red boxes. Hell...Keep the art style the same as PSO even if that means using the SAME interface.

PSU is a great example of how change can destroy a game.

Just...keep...the game...the same... with tons of new levels, and tons of new rare weapons.You're funny.

[Anon_Fire]

No, PSU is an example of how changing the wrong things can destroy a game (and even then, its biggest sin was far and away the content drip-feed; it made a lot of design decisions that ultimately dragged it down in the end, but the drip-feed was the real rope about its neck). Just re-releasing PSOBB with new levels and new weapons would please a few die-hard fans who grew up playing PSO, but it won't bring anyone new to the franchise, it would get awful critical reviews, and it would probably fail to please even people who liked PSO but expected to see an actual new game that keeps things that were fun about PSO while offering fresh features to sink one's teeth into. In short, it simply wouldn't be a good idea.

Simply put, there are more lessons to be learned from PSU other than "Don't do that again" (though that's definitely one of them), and not using those lessons would be a terrible failure unto itself. PSU introduced both the upsides of PAs and the problem of making them overly abusable: regular attacks never get used, and spamming one PA over and over again is no better than spamming the same regular attack pattern over and over again. PSZ, I think, did better where PAs were concerned, despite many of the individual PAs not being that great: most of them tended to be somewhat situational, and supplemented regular light and heavy attacks without replacing them entirely.

I don't expect the art style to be exactly the same as PSO's--if nothing else, it will be considerably more detailed, but I would rather that it be much more inspired by PSO and PSZ than PSU, which had some really bad designs. (Seriously, let's have less of the Preschool Sluts collection and pop-star frippery and more "I'm a badass science-fantasy mercenary" or "I am a wizard IN SPACE" clothes, please.)

PSO was revolutionary in its time, but is nonetheless a ten-year-old game. Many advances in technology and design have been made since then. Just making a PSO rehash with tech and design features that would have been outdated five years ago would be a disservice; the game should be a strong spiritual successor that inspires feelings of warm familiarity in those of us who've played PSO, but is nonetheless far more than just retreading the same ground. It should be less "How can we make this exactly like a ten-year-old game?" and more "What would PSO be like if it were made today, with everything that has been learned in the past ten years taken into account?"

I agree. PSOBB was alright during it's time, PSU did introduce some nice features, but some were not what I expected. It's time for something new and interesting, and not rehashing some old stuff.

And yeah, spamming the same PA's can get a little boring and I felt that PSPo2 sort of fixed that so you have to get a high chain and then use your PA.

[RemiusTA]

Here's what I want for PSO2 (though I doubt it will happen)

Classes
- Hunters should be melee dps and tank. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Rangers should be range dps and crowd control. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Force should be elemental dps and support. Nothing more, nothing less. And since this means they can only equip rods, allow them to select customizable skill palettes in place of selectable weapons.
- No 4th class.
- This pretty much solves the frequently asked questions of "why play as [class]?"


I'd personally lothe this old cookie-cutter MMORPG thing that everyone runs for. It completely takes the fun out of the game. Everyone should be able to do decent damage in their own regards -- thats what made PSO fun.
-Hunters had an arsenal of weapons that did high damage. In terms of targets and crowd control, the weapons were catered for different situations and ranges in mind. (Slicer, Sword, Partisan, ect) and then ones for single targets as well. Well rounded, right?

Rangers had an arsenal of weapons that did damage from meh to decent, but had very good accuracy. This means they were able to utulize the Extra Attack system on the weapons they acquired to the fullest. From instant kills to elemental damage to status effects, each weapon appraisal gave them a new purpose.

Forces did rape ass damage (for the most of the game) at the cost of being highly expensive to use. Pretty much it. They had a technic for most situations, and were fast and pretty damn versatile.


Where your class lacked, PSO gave you MAGs and Extra Attacks for your weapons. There's no need to give everyone black-and-white roles. Everyone should be able to feel like a fucking God near Endgame, and i think PSO did a decent job at that.




Weapons and Equipment
- changeable weapon elements instead of randomly and permanently giving them an element
- gun sabers AND gun swords, with the R modifier button switching their functionality.
- R button switches ranger to third person shooting mode.
- knuckles + boot combo
- I want the Twin Slicers back :3
- just plagiarize Monster Hunter's synthesis system.
- some shields should have effects such as AOE reflect damage, elemental damage, or status effect.
- Allow us to reskin weapons.
Please god dont take Monster Hunter's shitty ass synthesis system, i cant STAND that garbage. It takes forever to get anything done, and encourages more grinding than it should. Synthesis Systems in MMO's are the easiest way to turn your game into a grindfest. Synthesis should simply replace the Tekker System from PSO. You should be able to mix and match things to create a different attribute on your weapon, changing its affinities, grinding it, and giving it extra abilities. You shouldn't have to find MULTIPLE rare drops just to attempt to make another.

PSO's system of secretly combining your weapons through your inventory or through a quest was way better and felt more RPG'ish than the grind-induced Synthesis Fail/Succeed system. That said, for PSO2, the thing i want to see gone the MOST is the Elemental system for weapons. The thing i want to see RETURN the most is unaided Technic casting/Unarmed combat.

Why get rid of the elemental shit? It really kind of takes the fun away from getting a rare in the first place. Besides, "Elemental Roulettes" are the Forces' little game -- Enemy Class (Native, A-Beast, D-Cell, Machine, Ect) should be for everything else. Elemental Damage completely overwrote everything in PSU, and it further increased that whole grindy "FAIL/SUCCEED" bullshit factor put on everything in the game.

***(BTW, putting a Fail/Succeed rate on everything basically is just a way of taking a little bit of content and stretching it out more than it can be stretched. Instead of creating more Rare Weapons, they just put a few in there and make their usefulness Variable instead of concrete. Thats MY beef with it, anyway.)

Why Unaided Technics? Because 1) It looked cooler, and 2) it made your characters feel SOOOOOOOOooooo much better rounded. Being able to just quicklist --> Technic in PSO was so much better than having to completely switch your weapon. I really feel PSU dropped the ball on technics in general. Instead of allowing all Humans/Newmans the ability to cast technics, and simply putting a limit on their evolution, they just SEVERELY decreased the amount of evolution the technics go through and made it entirely weapon based. One other thing that really, REALLY needs to make a return in Phantasy Star (mostly thanks to the inclusion of even more races) are race-specific animations. You know, how the Humar's dagger animation was different from the Hunewearls, which was different from the Hucaseals. PSU did Sex specific animation changes, but no Racial ones, which made NO fucking sense whatsoever.

It's such a big deal because something so simple like that would really help the racial balances. Give Newmans better (as in, faster and possibly more flashy) casting animations for technics, as well as more agile animations for smaller weapons. Give beasts better (as in, faster and less delayed) swinging animations for Swords and Axes, and all the heavy weapons. Afterall, since they're naturally stronger they shouldn't have to struggle, right? I guess casts should have less recoil and more "i dont have to try" animations with their guns (such as single-handed, no-scoping rifle animations). Humans should just be balanced with every weapon type in form. Add this ontop of other little tweakings (animation speed increases, stat increases) for your character class, and you have a game where every Sex/Race/Class combination feels truely specific.


Overall, it's pretty obvious to tell that aside from the Photon Arts, the animations in PSU were of far less quality. They tried to automate way too much.


I really, really, really wish i was in charge of designing this game.






Edit: Oh yeah, and bring the "customization" and Quicklist back. It was better than the Action Pallete in the sense you had instant access to everything in your inventory. Im sure Action Pallete was brought about thanks to Photon Arts and the new "binding" system, but it ultimately hinders your abilities alot more than PSO's system.

[Allison_W]

[ . . . ] and you have a game where every Sex/Race/Class combination feels truely specific.

I agree with most of what you wrote in your post, but I disagree with a third of this statement. I've mentioned it many times and stated my reasons, but I'm strongly against gender-based abilities and especially gender-based roles (all the female forces and none of the male ones getting better Resta, for instance, smacks of saying that being the heal bitch is women's work).

[Immovable One]

Notice how on each class, I mentioned dps (Hunter=melee, Ranger=ranged, Force=elemental), followed by a class-specific function (Hunter=tank, Ranger=CC, Force=support/buff/heal).

What I'm trying to say was while each class can stand on their own (hence the dps), they should have a specific and focused function that will make them each play uniquely from one another (whether in solo or party play - ESPECIALLY on party play).

I am not saying to rip off MMO stuff (the terms dps, cc, support/buff/heal, are not copyrighted and owned by MMORPG company), but I'm addressing the problem caused by the freedom we were given in PSP2 - in that because we can have every class use every gear, the only difference between classes are stats, and if that's the case, why have different classes to begin with?

"Look at me! I'm a gun-using Hunter!"
"Look at me! I'm a magic-casting Ranger!"
"Look at me! I'm a melee Force!"

Sure, I dig flexibility, but if we are given THIS MUCH freedom, why not just ditch the classes and make us pick our starting weapons when we make a character? Like we level stats from the categories of melee, range, and tech, and by end-game we are a "God" (quote, unquote) that can handle all weapons and associated skills?

Oh, and for synthing (hated it myself, but it's been an announced PSO2 feature unfortunately), ditch the failure rate - it's hard enough to gather the materials.

Oh and Sega, make this Buy-To-Play. As in make us buy a copy of the game, and let us play it for free with microtransactions - because it WORKED in PSP2 (the Japanese version at least). Oh and yeah - international servers.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Just do it this way. When you make your character, you pick your sex and race. These have absolutely no bearing on anything other than the way your character looks.

For classes, have melee, ranged, techs, and one hybrid. That's it, four very basic classes. The class is what is responsible for your stat distribution. Also, be able to switch classes at any point as in PSU.

Then, have everything else be customizable. Want more weapons? Earn them. Want a specific attack animation? Go unlock it and select it. Want to be able to use support techs on your melee character? You get the idea. Virtually everything would be customizable.

Create a system like this and balance it properly, and it would work amazingly well. Sure, there would be much less reason to have multiple characters, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Seth Astra]

@Ffuzzy: Although I disagree with you on the matter of racial stat differences, I must say, if it is done your way, I would like to see PSU style class system. It gives the same flexibility of a race/class system, but without the problems you see with that system.

[RemiusTA]

I agree with most of what you wrote in your post, but I disagree with a third of this statement. I've mentioned it many times and stated my reasons, but I'm strongly against gender-based abilities and especially gender-based roles (all the female forces and none of the male ones getting better Resta, for instance, smacks of saying that being the heal bitch is women's work).

It was only granted they even decide to have sexual stat differences. Im just saying as long as you do it, make sure to do it right. I really dont care either way, but i do actually perfer the stats to be equal among the sexes.

[Rei-San]

I have a few ideas that I hope that they use. Let me know what you guys like.

*Ahem* *Pulls out a list that drops to the floor*

Let's see:





Revamp the weapon classes:

Personally I want to see the return of all known weapon class in the Phantasy star series to date, plus some brand new ones. This means that I want the Katana class to come back as a separate class from the Saber class as well as Dual Mechguns. I want the Gun-slash to come back, and I want the shield class to stay a weapon class rather than an equipment like it was in PSO. As far as new weapons go, I was thinking maybe Twin Slicers, Spell books for forces, and maybe Nunckuck/tonfas as a rare class. If the Dual Mechgun can't come back, them make a two handed Assault Rifle class. Also, players should go back to fighting while unequipped, or make the fist class more lively. Punches AND KICKS. and some of them can make you looked unarmed, but it's just invisible boxing gloves. Bring back Partisans and replace them with spears, ore keep both of them and make the Partisan a "Scythe" class. I don't care.




Re balance the Force Class and magic system


Everyone says that the force classes sucks now. At first I thought it was because they didn't know how to use them properly and were just rage quitting, but know I think I get how they feel. I'll admit that they aren't as FUN as they use to be in PSO, but they could try to go back to that feel.

First off, Tech should no longer be bound to a force weapon, they should be able to be used freely like in PSO and the wands should only serve to AMPLIFY the techs. Also I think that Casts should go back to not being able to use techs at all and stick with swords and guns, the fact that they couldn't use magic made sense. Magic should draw from the essance of all living creatures, Casts aren't alive. They have living AI, but they are sentient rocks.

Second, The force weapon system needs to be tweaked a bit. I would like to see the Bow and Cards be a force exclusive or centered weapon to help them in a jam that their magic can't. I would also like to see the cards go back to the way they worked in PSO and be bad ass magical throwing cards instead of some stupid stick that made cards float into the air and gently fall on the enemy.

Last, Techs should go back to using TP not PP. TP should consumed when Spells are used and can be brought back with Monofuilds.




PA/Extra Attack System

I won't lie when I say I want the PA system to come back, but I wanted to be done differently. Weapons can have a simple attack as well as a Unique attack Like In PSO. You could buy pre existing PA in disk (And lvl them up by disks as well, seriously that PA spamming to lvl was a fucking nightmare) or certain weapons can have their own exclusive PA. Like the Lavis series can go back to firing lasers despite being bladed weapons, or the Soul Banisher can fire a fixed lvl Megid or having it's own Incap attack, or the Heaven Punisher could make a hail of light fall on surrounding enemies. I liked this feature because It gave rare weapons a more unique feel to them besides appearance. Yes my weapon is shiny, yes this weapon is as big as me while the rest of it's class fits in the palm of my hand, yes this weapon comes from another Sega game, but what can it do other than look good? I works the same as the other equipment I can buy from the store.

And I wanted this to apply to all weapon classes. Guns could have their charge shots like in PSP2 with the ability to perform PA's like in PSZ, or have their own exclusive PA and fire a unique bullet. Force weapons can have this feature to. You can melee or fire their own unique spell.

And those Extra attacks that merely inflicted a random status alignment should just be like it is with PSP2's Weapon extent. Stag Cutlery for example should be able to confuse an enemy by just a normal hit alone.




Race and Class changes

I really hope the Beasts And Dumans Come back. The beasts didn't come back in PSZ and that broke my heart. :( Anyway each race should stand out a lot more ability wise.

Humans can be the jack-of-all-trade race that doesn't excel in other stats.

Neumans can be magic centered. They could have Very High MST and TP that restores itself overtime. Making them more magic centered.

Casts could be that race with the High ATA and specialized in traps. And they can't use techs making a Force Cast impossible.

Beasts can be the tanks with High DEF and ATP, but poor in MST and EVP. I also wanted the ability to make beasts ether mostly human like or mostly animal like (Human or Anthro). They had beast like races like this in .Hack//GU and I thought it was awesome. :)

Dewmans can be the Magic Swordsman with High MST and ATP but crappy DEF making them the "Glass Cannons" They are supposed to be.

Hunters, Rangers, and Force should be the only classes in the game. NO BRAVER/VANGUARD CLASS! And I think you should pick one class and stay that one class forever, no changing. This will stop players from grinding their characters to stats they weren't meant to excel in. You have plenty of character slots to experiment with. (Hopefully 6 or 8)




Bring back My Room

But make it bigger. :) and maybe more ways to decorate it. Shit, make a "My Base" for your Guild.




Make it an even more action oriented RPG

After Playing games like the Tales series and Kingdom Hearts, I always wished that Phantasy Star was that Kind of game. I wanted a lot more running and jumping around, And I wanted a more advanced enemy AI. They would attack and maneuver in a way that you can't simply run at them, there would be a certain flaw that you had to exploit and against groups you would have to coordinate among your team to take them down, Especially Bosses. Also something like Kingdom Hearts' Reaction Ability would be cool, so you can actually have better interactions with the enemy and environment. Also a combo system like in these games would be awesome. But you might have to actually play KH and the Tales games to understand what I want in. Basicly I want a fighting game like system in PSO2, so that way fights can be a bit more exciting. The same "attack until the enemy dies" thing gets kinda boring for me, and fights don't last too long if the player and his/her party is severely over-leveled. I like fights that keep me on edge and forces me to think. Do you know how many times Sephiroth Killed me in KH despite me being capped at lvl 100? And I was playing on normal mode, too. >.>




Branch out in game Lobbies

I liked the way you could run around in PSU. In that game, you had a lot of places and planets to run around in before missions, In PSO you were basically stuck on a ship. I don't mind walking around Pioneer 2 again, that could be the Hunter's Guild HQ, but it would nice if people finally colonized Ragol and there are small cities that you can run around in. A big metropolis (Parum), a dessert area (Moatoob), or a country to the far east (Neudaiz). And of coarse there could be a beach area and other things.




Composers need to go back to their roots

I'm a man who appreciates good music in games. A whole lot. And the soundtrack in PSU is crap compared to the masterpiece that was PSO. At first I thought that Sega was stupid for not using the original music team, but then I found out it was more or less the exact same people... Huh.

I liked the orchestrated feel that PSO had instead of the...... Techo shit or whatever the hell was in PSU. Ohtori Castle in PSP2 was my favorite song in the game because It kinda had that PSO charm to it.

And also have a changing battle themes again. A nice, soft melody when you walk around and it changes to battle music when you actually fight. And just for the hell of it, throw in a Rare enemy theme. :)




Bring Mags back

Remove the TSCM and RSCM as weapons and go back to having mags. I guess they can function as PMs at higher lvls and fight alongside you, but give them the basic Mag functions as before: You fed them, and depending on what you feef them, they increased YOUR stats accordingly. They can give you your different racial abilities (Yes Racial) based on what type of Mag they are.





More multiplay options

Normal MMO play is fun in all, but guess what? Challenge Mode was even more fun, PvP would be fun to have back, The "soccer" lobby was amusing, And.... Well, I would like to see vehicles in the game... for any reason. The racing in PSU was fun... for a while, but If you made it a sega all star racing sort of thing, well... Hehehe. :D And minigames.

Also making a card battle system like Episode 3 in PSO2 as a hidden minigame for the lobbies would be kinda cool. As you play PSO2 to you find cards to collect and use in these battle.....



..... .....




..... Good idea right? :)



Bring Section IDs back

This will encourage trading and selling among the community, and make section ID's pre-selectable instead of assigning by names. Some people may not want to give their characters a certain names just so they can have a certain items, instead of grinding, farming, and working their ass off to make a deal with another player that may rip them off.




Let us express our individuality

In PSO and PSZ, we choose a class and then out outfits are nothing more than a pallet swap of the default classes clothes. Please don't do that anymore. :( I liked walking around in different clothes that littered the stores and wearing goofy, cute or badeass outfits. Bring the PSU clothing system back. Also as an added bonus, give us the abilities to tweak and design our clothes. Remember in PSU v.1 the description of Ethan Waber's clothes said that it was a modified version of the Braves Jacket? Let's modify out clothes, remove sleeves, add ornaments, you name it. This would probably make stuff like Akira's fashion contests a whole lot more interesting than it already is. ;)




Make this game with the "Headgehog Engine"

Please god. For the love of GOD Sega! I want this game to look gorgeous, and you can do it with you new engine. :D




Constantly regenerating stages

Every time you go onto the field, it's terrain and overall layout changes. PSU kinda already does this, But it just seems like when you go into a mission, the map is just one of many pre-made maps for that stage (White Beast is a good example). I want to be surprised every time I go in. I don't mind getting lost either, It means I'm experimenting something new. :D




The ability to sheath your weapon

Like in Monster Hunter and in the Zelda games, I want to see your main weapon on you at all times. When you are walking around in the field (or lobbies) and not fighting anyone you put you weapon away in a sheath. Swords go in a sheath, guns in a holster, rods on your back, ect. You pull it out the moment you enter combat or when you press the attack button when you want to just show off your weapon.




Record Videos

In PSO, you could take screenshots. Let's make things more interesting shall we? Give us the ability to record runs or save them to our rooms to watch them later, or save them into a directory under My Computer/Program Files/PSO2/Videos under a set format. (for those of us who can't use Fraps or don't feel like pulling it up).




Tekker/Suthing system

The Tekker system was interesting, but please for the love of god, DON'T bring back PSU's Item synth. :( I hate the fact that I spend Hours, days, weeks, months, MANY YEARS looking for a rare item only to find out it's a recipe that I have to make myself. I go out to find the ingredients that would take me just as long to gather as the weapon I was looking for in the first place, only to wait a few days and praying to god that it works. Cause if it doesn't, I'm given some doll or worse, and the recipe breaks meaning that I would have to search for said weapon all over again! :x :x :x

I suggest using the Tekker System again. When you find a Rare Item, it is unknown and can't be used until you go to the Tekker. Once he tells you what it is and gives you your stats, you are free to use it. Also you can take weapons to him to upgrade like Grinding in PSU... Well PSP2. Once it's maxed out you could give it an Extend Code to give it any effect you like, thus giving it the Prefix representing your effect (Drain, Heart, Soul) or element (Ice, Frost, Blizzard). Yeah stop the random element bull crap for weapons, Armour and enemies can have elements, but go back tho the whole weapon effects thing that decided how it inflicted damage.




More expressive character animation

Seriously, The character animations in PSU looks either stiff or off as hell. I mostly mean the lobby animations, but I also mean battle animations as well. In PSO when my HUmar wielded a Double Saber, I fell like he wanted to slice his enemies' limbs off and looked stylish while doing it, now in PSU he looks like he's twirling a baton. >.> Also each race/class should have their own unique animations like in PSO. My characters each swung a saber quite differently.




All old PSO weapons make a return plus new ones

I can exaggerated this anymore than I should. I want to see them all again. I mean it. ALL. OF. IT. Go to PSO-World's PSO Item database and just scroll through the lists. Take your time, there's a lot of items. And that's why I loved it. So many weapons, so much variety, and most of them I grew up knowing, loving, and using. It would mean a lot to me if they all came back. :)




More Collab Items

They made me smile. :) And what ever helps keep the game free or reduce the monthly fee.





Remake or bring back old Stages and Monsters.

This IS Ragol right? Bring the old Stages back but remade, and give them that same feel and change of environment. Forest had Day, Twilight, and a change in weather. Bring old enemies and bosses back but with a different fighting style.

And of coarse make some new stages and enemies, this is a new game. Make an Episode 5. :D





And last but not least, This is important to everyone here, but Sega:



[spoiler-box]

KEEP YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY TOGETHER!!!!

This should matter to people more than some "what ifs". :wacko:

IMO, and this is probably fact, but the reason why PSO/PSU died internationally is because Sega can't keep their shit together. SoJ always cracked down on hackers and cheaters, but SoA/E were always a bit slow on the banning, and when they did get to it, they left the damn keys in the lock. :x or the Hackers did irreplaceable damage to the community. Also the online community got boring as hell cause we weren't getting the event's and updates that japan were getting. When they did throw us a bone, that's all we got, the bone. Japan took all the good meat, ad we are left with the same GRM missions that dropped those hard to find items, thus ruining the economy.


So, crack down on cheaters, and give us new stuff every once in a while. I guarantee the game will live longer.[/spoiler-box]







That's all I can think of right now, let me know that you think of my ideas, I'll put up some more if I can think of any.



... Wow, I put alot of thought into this, it's late. I'm going to bed...

[Anon_Fire]

And if you really want hackers/cheaters/item dupers banned, SEGA should ban not only their accounts but block their IP addresses too.

[Tails_night]

more scythes or even scythe becoming a weapon type of its own. I hope we get mopre mags, like darker ones too, maybe even the chao one back lol.

[Zyrusticae]

And if you really want hackers/cheaters/item dupers banned, SEGA should ban not only their accounts but block their IP addresses too.
IP banning is completely useless. Dynamic IP addresses an' all.

[MAXrobo]

Also I think that Casts should go back to not being able to use techs at all and stick with swords and guns, the fact that they couldn't use magic made sense. Magic should draw from the essance of all living creatures, Casts aren't alive. They have living AI, but they are sentient rocks.


sentient rocks, ouch, that hurts man :-(

but i agree.

also for photon arts, i think they should do something similar to the special attacks in PSO. have a slot you can put on your pallet for PAs but make them free to use (not cost TP/PP). and balance them so that they dont over power standerd light and heavy attacks, they just do something different. like mech guns having a wide spray, or a weak saber attack that launches enemys.
also have them found and leveled in disk that drop like PSO techs

[Wayu]

I'd like to see the MAGs back. Not too sure about the Section ID...

The same team that did PSO's enemy/boss/music/level designs. Actually, PSO with better graphics but with PSPo2's movement speed more movement options such as rolling. The one thing I don't want back from PSO is the limited character creation. In that aspect, PSU/PSP's freedom in creation is much preferred.

Still mulling over whether or not the old weapon system was good or not. I think I like PSPo2's system better...

-Wayu

[Seth Astra]

Just something that jumpped to mind: I want to see Sega unafraid to rebalance things as much as needed in the beginning. Chances are, they won't balance it right on the first attempt. I want them to be willing to constantly rebalance, even if it means changing the fundimentals of the game.

[Jinketsu]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but I'd like to see some areas revisited and expanded. It'd be nice to go through the forest, and actually have a deeper, bigger area of trees to traverse through - and also see what's happened to Pioneer 1's HQ and all the other areas after so much time... assuming PSO2 will be set far into the future of PSO.

Speaking of assuming, has there been any official information about the game, other than its announcement and the 'now hiring' sign on the development doors?

[Demon-]

races balanced
classes balanced
missions balanced
cmode
bring back teams
storage transfer for all chars on account
dodge/roll button (like PSZ)
chat system from PSU
player room/shop
better weapon grinding system
skill attacks (just dont have them attached to the weapons like PSZ)
gun skills (sort of like in PSZ just alot better)
more character customizing
more chothing options

That's all I can think of at the momment.

[Drawers]

I would like to see the same music director come back, yeah he sucked in PSU, but he also wasn't given any kind of idea on what he should go for with PSU's soundtrack. Hopefully everything will be perfectly meditated, and not rushed. PSU vanilla and AotI, even when combined, were only of a beta value. I just hope they do not rush this, that's the main thing they should not do.

I want to see an amazing title screen with amazing music, and an amazing intro. I will never forgive ST for ruining a game title that should've belonged in the Hall of Fame, therefore I don't think they'll ever be capable of doing anything close to PSO again, but I hope they try their hardest.

I hope this game has all the caseal outfits and hair styles to the last detail, or I think I'll freakin' burst into tears. I hope it's nothing like PSU/PSP/PSP2/PSPI and everything like PSO just upgraded with tons of tite stuff. This means no launching enemies, free battle mode (no rules), I hope it has the same expirience requirement for level 200. I hope this game has auto-run and lock on mode, and the character to only go into a ready stance when locked onto an enemy and not from just approaching them.

I also want to see super large stages, that aren't in blocks and where I can look over the horizon and see Zonde lv.30 lightning bolts and a J-sword explosion in next gen greatness and no flat, spaced out areas. More slopes, obstacles, switches, traps, monuments, and NO KEYS.

I want to see enemies with their own intros and detailed characteristics like Nanodragon capitalizing off his kills, or wolves attacking in packs and howling their sorrow when their leader is defeated.

I hope they don't add anymore classes outside of Hunter, Force and Ranger. New character types? Great! New class types, eh... it was super lame in PSU and it just wouldn't work in PSO imo. Nanoblast and Beasts in general are comepletely lame/stupid, and Dumans... Well they seem overpowered to me. Maybe something more on the lines of being pure D-cells in forms, that would be awesome imo. Like HUdel, RAdel, and FOdel but there would have to be some stupid reason why they are working on our side which blows.

PHOTON BLASTS, and new ones at that!

Enemy projectiles, and how they could hit anything. Like for example, Dark Gunners could hit other surrounding Dimenians and other teammates, Belras destroying anything their path with their rocket fists, and Baranz's missiles colliding into itself if you ran around it in circles.

Mags, mags, and more mags. This includes all the holiday rappy mags.

I hope they don't use that light bright effect from PSU, and just make the photon light of weapons that are photon light oriented (this means real weapons should not have photon light) have PSO's convient brightness, where it's not super bright and you can see the weapon under the light.

I'd like to see a sneak feature (like Halo when you're croutching you can slowly move around and you disappear off the map).

If they do a first person view for Rangers, I'd like to see it as a RE4 view and not directly from the character's point of view. And I'd like to see the character actually motion with the direction of the cursor and not stand there aiming the gun straight forward while bullets fly into multiple directions.

I'd like to see normal bullets look like Star Wars bullets. Like the Laser Gun from Powerstone 2. The normal bullets and even special weapon bullets were too bland and boring in PSU imo.

No weapon brands, PSU didn't do it right, and it sucked.

I have more but I'm going to stop right here and say just please, no Jaggos. Just... no.

[Ryoten]

Alright, majority of the things that I want in PSO2 has been said but let me add on to the list:

Customizable weapons: To be able to add like decals or a glow/aura affect to your weapon when you go out missions. For example, having a Sange with a black aura with symbols on it.

Customizable clothes: Everyone want to be different from one another in some way so let try out making/editing clothes.

Bring the slots system back: Got alittle pissed at PSU add on system. Can we just PLEASE have the slots system brought back to PSO2?

Rooms & shops: Lets try to keep these in PSO2 but add something to it. If anyone buys something from any players' room will have the person's logo or such on it. I.E, if the person makes cool, useful, & great items, people will go there. *may be a horrible idea but just throwing it out there*

Old levels & bosses: A must have for PSO2. HD & revamp maps & bosses from PSO 1-4. *I still waiting to have a boss fight with Pollex & Castor. Hell maybe the Leucon Knight as well*

Music: I know for some of you guys *including myself* have found themselves drifting off to sleep when either playing PSO or PSU. Gotta have something intense when we're in the heat of battle & something calm when you're relaxing.

Finishers: For when you knock your enemies to the ground. Instead of them disappearing after the final shot or slash or whatever, just end them like anyone else would.

Thats just a few things that I see that needs to be implied in PSO2. But when the final release comes, I'll get it anyways. lol

[Dongra]

Finishers: For when you knock your enemies to the ground. Instead of them disappearing after the final shot or slash or whatever, just end them like anyone else would.l I don't know what you mean by this.

[Allison_W]

I don't know what you mean by this.

He wants to see some Fatalities.

[Dongra]

Oh. I don't really see that fitting into PSO that well.

[Rei-San]

In all honesty it depends on how it's done. This traces back to my "Reaction Command" thing I wanted.

[Kent]

Oh. I don't really see that fitting into PSO that well.
As a game mechanic itself, I could see it fitting into a PSO game - particularly after seeing it pulled off in a game like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

My only concern would be how it fits into the game on a thematic level - it's not really a game or series known for any sort of brutality, really.

[bns1991]

I would like to see more traps. The ones on the original PSO were fun and effective, but they could add more status effects to what they already have.

[The Necris Process]

I'd like to see an option for 2 or 3 PAs on one weapon. This could probably introduce some crazy balance issues, but it would bring the combat a bit more flash and style....like say you could do a normal combo with a sword, activate that Tornado spinning slash PA, but only the first part....then another button combination could make your character immediately go into "Grand Crusher" PA as a finisher. Of course I love fast-paced over-the-top action games, so I'm *slightly* biased on this issue. (*so of course.... I obviously couldn't tolerate it if they went back to those slow, boring ol' 3-hit PSO combos, even though this is apparently a direct sequel to PSO.)

Magic/Tech--- give me a spell that summons the soul of previously killed enemies as a new partner for a certain amount of time. Overall, I'd be happy with techniques being more powerful and thus.... actually worth the time.

Megid also needs to go back to the threat it once was. Since the PSP games, there is no reason to fear it, and that's quite disappointing. "Infection" status? haha, please...that status by itself doesn't even damage the character. Oooooh so scary. Get out of here with that.

Better character customization of course--- let me have full color control on all articles of clothing, along with skin and hair color. More freedom to mix and match things would also be nice. (*I hate it when a game's custom character mode simply won't allow certain shirts or jackets to go with certain pants. I don't care about the polygons clipping into each other or whatever. Customization and creative freedom is more important, at least to me.) On full skin-color control.... I also would like access to the whole spectrum of colors as well, not just normal human skin tones. Let me make a dude with orange skin and purple hair if I want. We also need a "bald" option in the hairstyle section for a change.... I think there has only been one bald character in any of the modern era of Phantasy Star games, and we still can't get that as an option....that makes no sense to me, and it's annoying.

[zandra117]

I would like the option of voice chat. PSOX was awesome for this, even though it had like a 5 second lag (lol psox cmode traps). As for annoying players, there was always a mute option.

[Kent]

Voice chat did indeed make things go a lot smoother (like it does in most games - which is the reason Xbox Live has this as its primary mode of communication). Though, I never really had any lag when I played PSOX... I actually got my S-rank weapon on my first time playing through Challenge Mode. :wacko:

[Chaobo99]

Voice chat did indeed make things go a lot smoother (like it does in most games - which is the reason Xbox Live has this as its primary mode of communication).

*plays Call Of Duty/Halo while communicating with keyboard* lol

Anyways, ya I wouldn't mind in-game voice chat.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Voice chat is stupid. Just use ventrillo or whatever, no reason to have it in the game, that's what a keyboard is for.

[Chaobo99]

Heh complain about more features is always nice. Then again, sometimes I prefer the Keyboard, however voice chat often forces talking. I met a lot of great people bcause of it so I don't care though.

[AlexCraig]

Here's one I'm sure all of us can agree on:

All content already in the game and unlocked.

[Pballer42]

That would be nice right lol

[Chaobo99]

All content already in the game and unlocked.. and new downloadable content updated frequently.

[Kent]

Voice chat is stupid. Just use ventrillo or whatever, no reason to have it in the game, that's what a keyboard is for.
...Because Ventrilo isn't voice chat.

There's actually plenty of reason to have it in the game, rather than forcibly ensuring people use a third-party program to do it. The most obvious is a logicstical issue: If voice chat is built into the game, you no longer have to tell people with whom you want to communicate that they need X program, and they need to connect to xx.xx.xx.xxx server, join Y chatroom, which has Z password. Instead, they join the party, and they can communicate.

This is particularly important because, let's face it, this is most likely going to be a game like what PSO was. PSO was best played with a controller, by all accounts. Having to use a keyboard as a device that requires your hands for communication, means you have to find a place to stop in order to say anything - it's the same problem every PC game ever has been seeing for years (just because people deal with it, doesn't mean it isn't still an issue).

Not to mention, hell, it's a game that (as far as we know) is being developed in Japan. It doesn't matter if it's for PCs - it's going to be designed around a controller as the main mode of input.

In a realistic sense, there's significantly more reason for including voice chat than there is against it.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

You see, my problem with voice chat built into a game is that I never under any circumstances ever want to hear someone's voice on the Internet unless I am very familiar with said individual.

[Ceresa]

Having to make the sacrifice of not playing the game for a few seconds in order to type instead of some push to talk gives incentive to not babble about inane shit all day while I'm trying to listen to Miku. Quite excellent. I hate voice chat too.

Not like PSO or PSU or PSP2 is hard enough to require some constant realtime communicaton. Run the mission once doing whatever to familiarize, and as long as your party isn't completely retarded, typing a brief do X before the next run will suffice on optimizing it.

WoW implemented voice chat too, and people shunned it and continue to use vent. Even if sega nailed it on PSO2 you'd still get people whining to get on their vent server, so whatever, just let vent handle it all.

[Dongra]

Ever heard of a mute function? Just because someone is anti-social doesn't mean there is a real reason that voice chat shouldn't be implemented into the game.

[Ceresa]

Why should I have to mute every random dipshit that talks about pointless crap I've no interest in?

Seems to me if you actually enjoyed talking to people you'd use ventrilo anyways so you can talk without having a specific fucking game loaded.

[Dongra]

Why should we have to use a third party program to chat with other players? You do realize that if someone wants to talk about crap you have no interest in, they will just type it out. The only difference is that you won't hear their voice.

[Ceresa]

Not hearing the voice is pretty crucial, I don't want to hear it over whatever I'm listening too.

Why are you so insistent on a built in inferior voice chat platform that inconveniences people that don't like voice chat?

A. You like voice chat, you use vent, and I don't have to mute anyone.
B. You like voice chat, and use some in game one, you're cut off from people that just got home and might want to play in a few mins but haven't logged in yet and so on. Oops randomly disconnected from game but not internet, can't tell them that ingame! And I have to mute everyone.

Well it's your right to settle for inferior shit, seems to be a common trend amongst PS players.

[Darki]

I agree with the no voice chat thing too. In my case the idea is more general: if we're talking about an international server, I don't need (and I mean it) to listen to whatever crap people talk in a party in english, german, italian, french or brazilian for example, when I'm spanish and I won't get a shit of what people say because 1) is not my mother language and I can't understand them talking at fast speed and 2) the quality of the mics will make it even BETTER. If it's already difficult to understand some weirdos typing, I can't lol enough about how would it be with a mic.

Ventrilo is just fine. Create a damn room with your friends and you can talk with them even if you're in your room faping over your Maya poster while they're in mission.

[Roger Triton]

SEGA should look at FF14 and W.o.W. to make a decision if it's worth the dev costs to put it in vs. not putting it in.

I also wanted to say that Japanese people are quite different than Americans or Europeans. ^^; You just wouldn't hear the outright stupid comments that are made in Western online games on Japanese games. I get this info from seeing what people are saying in other forums, and youtube. Google on 'annnoying noobs chat MMORPG' or something like that. There is a youtube page for the worst people ever on W.o.W. something like 100 videos so far.

Oh i found the Wow page (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/voicechat.html) that talks about voice chat. Yeah they're not oblivious to the fact that lots of kids play Wow who are annoying little *******s.

[SPOILER-BOX]This is useful if you want a bit more control over who is talking, or if you have a player who doesn't respect your channel's etiquette. As a party/raid leader or the creator of a channel, you have several different moderation options you can access by right-clicking on a player's name in the players list on the right side of your chat interface.
Whisper: Opens up a text prompt where you can type a message that only this player will be able to see.
Invite: Sends a group invitation to the selected player. If you're in a public channel such as general chat or trade or a custom channel, you can use this to quickly invite your friends to form a group with you.
Target: Makes the selected player your current target for targeted spells and abilities.
Make Moderator: Gives the selected player moderation privileges in this channel.
Remove Moderator: Takes moderation privileges away from the selected player.
Mute: This option will add the selected player to your "Muted" list. You can't hear muted players in voice chat, but you can still read their texts in regular chat. Players on your "Ignore" list will be filtered out in both text and voice chat.

To see your "Muted" list, select your "Friends" tab. Your "Muted" list is next to the "Ignore" list. You can unmute players by selecting their name in the list and clicking the "Unmute" button.
Silence in Channel: Prevents the selected player from using voice chat in this channel. Silencing is different from muting in that muting only affects what you hear, while silencing filters the player out for everyone in the channel.[/SPOILER-BOX]

[Darki]

I don't really like voicechat in games. I usually play at night, or listening to music, or with my girlfriend with two computers, in general I tend to play in a way voice chat would be a bother to me or my surroundings.

WoW's voice chat doesn't look bad, it seems to be fully integrated in the party mechanics and I wouldn't care if that was the case in PSO2, but my problem is the... "discrimination"? that players who don't use the chat get in many cases. That's why I prefer Ventrilo or a third party chat sistem: it's a way to chat with your friends without the "obligation" to chat in the game because the game has its own chat.

[Lance813]

If they could implement voice chat on the console versions of the game well I could enjoy it.

For that to happen it would have to be:

A. Something you set up from your friends list.
B. Something that would be completely secondary to game-play. (i.e its not implemented unless you choose to talk to your party members or friends.)
C. Set up with the Mail system in PSO. Leaving voice mail for offline/aka friends.

It could be a good thing if they don't let everyone talk at once and code it into the game well enough...

[r00tabaga]

It's amazing that no leaks of footage or screenshots are out there anywhere! I here that December we will have the Beta right??? Nothing 'til then???

[MAXrobo]

that sucks. but i guess its better then what i thought. I heard there wasn't going to be any information untill a month or so into 2011.

[Googlebonker]

What do I want to see in PSO2? Easy!
RHONDA!!!!!!!! :D

[ANIMEniac]

hope my subtitle does not give me away too badly, but i would LOVE to see Ill Gils return. in my opinion they were the MOST bad ass enemies that you could come across shy of a boss, and even then they were scarier to fight than most the bosses at lvl 180+

[Kurono]

Personally I would love to see some underwater exploration like in Subs or something. Like *Land area, then water area, back to land area again, boss*

Also would love larger areas with more routes to the end/bosses, with some weaker enemys and stronger enemys populating each area. So if you're overleveled wanting a challenge you go via the stronger route, if you're weak, the weaker route.

Would love weapon crafting, or to some degree some customisation to your weapons, like if you have a Staff weapon, a different shaped blade, you know the ability to customise small things. And have it visable.

Also about Voice chat, should be an option if you want it on or off, especially if you're playing late at night and don't want to wake anyone lol

[Allison_W]

As someone who hates my own voice with a passion, voice chat is overdue. Of course it should be optional, but in a game where real-time communication is as important as it is, it needs to be there.

[coreyblueexclusive]

I agree

[r00tabaga]

I agree +1

[Dongra]

Am I the only person who would like more character slots in an account? I mean if I'm paying for the game every month then I would like to be able to make more than four characters.

[Seth Astra]

@Dongra: IMO, can't have too many char slots. Too many builds I want to try, not enough character slots.

[GCoffee]

Sil'fer.

[ANIMEniac]

Am I the only person who would like more character slots in an account? I mean if I'm paying for the game every month then I would like to be able to make more than four characters.

on PSO xbox you could literally make 48 characters. though that turned out to be my downfall because i know i had at least 10 100+ characters with my main only getting to 190. I think 1 for each possible class would be good though. for on PSU was ok for me cause i just made one of each race then i could do as i pleased with their job classes. on PSO i was content with 12 (one for each) until i found out how to get more.. then i went overboard @_@



As someone who hates my own voice with a passion, voice chat is overdue. Of course it should be optional, but in a game where real-time communication is as important as it is, it needs to be there.

what version did you play? i played PSOX and 360 PSU, so i am not used to phantasy star W/O voice chat options

[Googlebonker]

I want to see great graphics that don`t remind me how badly animated De Ragan and De Ragnus movements were. And how about that FPS, SEGA, come on! I`m not even an FPS fan, but it might draw quite a few more people if they`ll do it.

[Chaobo99]

I want to see more and more incoming content. Once all the content has been added and used up, make worthy expansions, I don't mind paying for them, so long as the add-ons are neat and worth while.
Since Phantasy Star Online is the thing of the past(sadly), I'm hoping the title "Phantasy Star Online 2" implies expansions/downloads such as "Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode II" and more...

[Robocop II]

Personally I would like some sort of unlockable extra story after playing through the game a few times and I have reached a high level such as, oh say LVL 90-110 or something. What I mean is kinda like Ultimate mode but instead make that unlockable, planet Ragol years later since the incident. re-explore the Forest, Caves, Jungle, or the Seabed or something. Explore other parts of Pioneer 1's top secret labs or something. Hell even just entirely new areas of Ragol would be awesome. I just think that would be completely awesome as an unlockable, and a very rewarding unlockable for going through the game leveling and questing.

[Robocop II]

Oh!!! and the Sange and Yasha weapons, hehe

[Skye-Fox713]

For me the biggest things I would like to see in PSO2 would be

Would like to see the Beast race as a playable race.

Return of PSO Mags with new ones as well with the old ones

Return of Section ID's, I realy liked being a Skyle as a Ranger

Elements of the smother Combat system of PSU with the ability to do dodge rolls like the monster hunter series.

A return and/or homage to many of the weapons in PSO, per-say new basic weapons would be cool, but also being able to find weapons like the DB's saber and Justy ST-23, etc.

Not exact copys but homages to the old areas of PSO ep. 1&2, and area references to some of the best areas of PSU.

A Locked yet Flexible class system.

ex

[SPOILER-BOX]At character creation you would chose what race you want to be and each race would have minority adjusted starting stats to "suggest" what class that they would be best suited for.

Race choice
Human - Balance
Numan - Force proffered
Cast - Ranger proffered
Beast - hunter proffered

Then at the end of the character creation you would chose a hunter archetype and this would lock you into that class type but still give you the flexibility of choosing your favorite race, Based on the choice here the class type would give you bonus stats in the correct areas for that type.

First Class choice
Hunter
Ranger
Force

Then as you level up your character at a certain level you could chose an archetype specialization depending on how you chose your first class. (using PSU classes as an example)

Archetypes

Hunter - Fortehunter, Wartecher, Acrofighter, Fighgunner, Protranser, Fighmaster

Ranger - Fortegunner, Guntecher, Fighgunner, Protranser, Gunmaster

Force - Fortetecher, Wartecher, Guntecher, Acrotecher, Protranser, MasterForce



For example I could go Ranger -> Guntecher which would improve my tech abilities some, but would further improve my Ranger abilities because I chose Ranger for my first type.

Now for the opposite way if I went with Force -> Guntecher it would improve my abilities to use guns more efficiently but it would further improve my Teching abilities because of the Force class as my first choice

Or some one who wants a beast with high Tech abilities but still wants to be primarily melee, they could start out as a Force then chose the Wartecher archetype.

That way it is a slight throw back to the old PSO class system but giving it the flexibility of the PSU class system.[/SPOILER-BOX]

[bns1991]

I would like to see aspects of episode 3 implemented into the game. Sometimes it feels as though episode 3 is not as appreciated as the other games since it was different, but I loved it.

[Skye-Fox713]

I would like to see aspects of episode 3 implemented into the game. Sometimes it feels as though episode 3 is not as appreciated as the other games since it was different, but I loved it.

Yie, I do have to agree with you. I played through Ep.3 once just to say I did and see how it was and I really liked the story and it had the same weight, and mood that I got from Ep.1&2.

If I recall I think the one map I would like to see from ep.3 would be the platform transport level that takes place on the ep.2 islands I forgot the exact name for it.

was looking through the list I think it might have been Mortis Fons aka "windmill" map.

[Chaobo99]

Tower of Caelum? That has my favorite CARD song.

[Darki]

I would like a lot of things... But I won’t see many actually implemented, of course.

First, I would like the game to have completely separated the source of every type of damage and their defenses. This is something that causes endless balancing problems between races and types, and I believe is something not that difficult to fix, damnit.

So, as it is now, ATP increases melee damage, and DFP reduces it. TP increases TECH damage and MST reduces it. But then, ranged damage should have the same treatment: get it increased by ATA and reduced by EVP. The ATA part has been talked many times so it doesn’t need explanation, but I’d take the idea further and give it its own defensive stat too, in this case, use EVP. The concept is not too difficult to understand, in the same way that aiming well (ATA) would influence the damage of a shot, the ability of the target to “dodge” (EVP) the shot should reduce it. I don’t wanna enter into concept discussions about “lolz dodging bullets”, I see it as valid as enduring a slice of a 20kg 2m long sword with only your “defense”, duh.

Another thing I would like to see would be to make evasion, dodging and blocking a bit more active, as we’re talking here about an Action-RPG. One of the biggest pains in the ass in PSU is blocking attacks mid-combo. Instead of that, we could have a function to activate the blocking, some sort of the actual Exact Counter, but inverted: monster attacks, you push the button to block that attack. To make balanced, the actual blocking rate could be modified by EVP, so there’s a chance that a monster hits you no matter what and you don’t become invincible just by smashing the blocking button (it could use PP, too, unless “exacting” it, maybe, like the shields from PSPo2). With this, in the case you’re in the middle of a combo, you could decide to block (combo or attack would be interrupted) or to take the damage and continue the combo (but there would always be the possibility of the monster hitting you hard enough to make you flinch or fly away and get it cancelled anyways). If you don’t block, they you’ll always get hit, and the damage will be reduced by your defensive stats, so the only way to get zeroes would be to get a high defense or to block manually. This could be valid on monsters: just make them to “block” and not to “dodge”, it would make more sense that way.

Third, I'd like back the Hybrid classes, and the possibility to change classes. I don't like having fixed classes and races, I like to choose what I play.

Fourth: make TECHs to hit multiple hitboxes, plz. Never understood why a 7cm dagger can hit a boss in 4 places per swing, but a freaking explosion of fire the size of a truck can't. It's really unfair that you can use any weapon fairly good for hitting a multi-hitbox monster, but you can only use 2~3 TECHs for the same thing.

[gratefulgriz]

MAGS!!!

[MAXrobo]

i agree that there should be some aspects of episode 3. i just started playing it again after many years, and im realizing just how much fun it really is. i dont want PSO2 to be a turnbased game by any means, but maybe have some of the maps and music implemented somehow. i would really enjoy that.

[Chaobo99]

i agree that there should be some aspects of episode 3. i just started playing it again after many years, and im realizing just how much fun it really is. i dont want PSO2 to be a turnbased game by any means, but maybe have some of the maps and music implemented somehow. i would really enjoy that.

Or just make collecting/buying cards a side hobby. Maybe you and your friends can hit up a terminal in the lobby to initial a CARD challenge when you're done grinding for the day. And it would be cool to use your own character as the avatar you play as in the CARD match.

[Darki]

A "game" inside the game? That's a pretty cool idea, but sadly that looks too complex for SEGAC simple tiny brains. :(

[Wayu]

@Darki: Play PSPo2. You'll find that a lot of the things you mentioned in the Wall 'o Text pops up in there.

-Wayu

[Darki]

I know that many of those things are in PSPo2 but anyways I won't really play it because I don't own a PSP and I don't really wanna buy one (I'm a Nintento boy, lol, and also I wouldn't huy it just for one game...)

If there was an emulator or something, but I guess I can't talk about that here.

[Allison_W]

on PSO xbox you could literally make 48 characters. though that turned out to be my downfall because i know i had at least 10 100+ characters with my main only getting to 190. I think 1 for each possible class would be good though. for on PSU was ok for me cause i just made one of each race then i could do as i pleased with their job classes. on PSO i was content with 12 (one for each) until i found out how to get more.. then i went overboard @_@




what version did you play? i played PSOX and 360 PSU, so i am not used to phantasy star W/O voice chat options

PSOBB and PSU PC.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

I'd like to see some holiday dungeons. Like for Halloween maybe a Haunted House with a cemetary, a snowfield for Christmas, etc, etc. It would be cool.

[Akaimizu]

Added. It would be great to see seasonal themed actual fighting missions and not just some lobby decorations.

This would be not only a nice idea, but an idea I've seen very few MMO-like games ever do. In fact, most of the 3d ones don't do that. They just decorate the lobbies. Though I have to admit, Guild Wars was the funniest.

Why? Because ever since the 2nd expansion, they had areas and lands based off of Africa. Yep. That Africa. Now, get this. The instanced lands, outside of the towns down there, were just as normal. With places based off of things like the serengeti, the egyptian sands, Sahara, and the like. However, it was snow and frosty in the towns those lands surrounded. So I always had to question why we got all this snowfall in Africa and just in the towns???

Believe me, I really wish Torchlight did that, especially with the Steam distribution model. They really could do that, very well, and probably faster than they do with all the seasonal updates in Apple's App Store software. I know they're working on Torchlight 2, maybe I should submit a suggestion for that. Stuff like that would be an incredible draw to get an audience and keep it.

It's been a while since I played WoW, but I kind of remember them doing those things in that game. Seasonal special missions and the like.

Outside of that, I've only seen some of those flash-based games, like Dragon Fable do actual seasonal-based missions and the like.

This would add in some pretty nifty limited-time only kind of missions in which they could go like crazy in adding the actual theme to it.

Oh. I forgot. The PC version of Sacred 2 also did that seasonal mission thing, but only once. They did it for Christmas on the year it came out. The mission was technically gone after the season was over. The Console ports didn't make it out on time to include such a mission, but had a lot of the patches in by default. Alas, the company overspent and took too much time in making such a valiant effort and pretty much went backrupt not too much longer after the 360 port was out. I believe the Sacred 2 360 bug fix patches were the last things to happen with that game.

[Darki]

I would like thet they made a way for monsters to be difficult and/or though without needing to kick you out/down ALL the fucking time. Just had a mission where a group of Svaltus decided to literally play football with me over all the floor. Almost all "big" monsters all they do is kick you away with all the attacks they have. it's DAMN annoying, I understand them to have one or two attacks like that, but not ALL. It's as boring as a fightn00b spamming TD all the time.

[Shadownami92]

I would like to see some more conflicts dealing with Black Paper :D

That and possibly another Kireek type character, (a D-Cell Infected version of Kireek's sparring partner he once mentioned?). Either that or another executioner for Black Paper.

I would like to see some well made environments. PSU/PSP and PSZ games lacked that wow factor that each of the PSO levels had. I think almost each level had at least 1 memorable room that was nice to look at for a little bit to gather it all in.

Overall though I just want the feeling that PSO gave. It was much less fighting through a game and much more fighting through and exploring a world. Also I personally prefer having no hybrid classes. If you wanted to play a certain way you could just raise different mags to alter your stats the way you wanted, and through the many weapons it wasn't hard to find one you could enjoy using, no matter what your play style.

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

maybe a little bit of a puzzle aspect to the bosses ro something that makes them mmore evenly powered againt a wide range of lvls so they dont become too easy the second you outlevel them

[Chhipz]

I hope they add more depth to the battle mechanics, such as dodge/strafe, cancels, etc.

Make the camera stay locked-on to targets so you don't have to keep adjusting the camera.

More room in your quick-action sets (4 as opposed to 3 per set), or add 1 more quick-action set.

Or even make the menu more easily navigable.

[Anon_Fire]

Status Ailments:


Shock: Unable to Attack or use Techniques
Paralyze: Unable to Attack or use Techniques (Ineffective against CASTs)
Freeze: Unable to move
Burn: Deals damage overtime (Ineffective against CASTs)
Slow: Lowers Movement and Attack Speed
Poison: Deals a certain % of damage overtime (Ineffective against CASTs)
Infection: Lowers Stamina
Confusion: Randomizes Movement

[Shark11]

Mainly I would like them to try to incorporate as many ways to keep the game fresh as possible.

Some suggestions would be;

Dungeon/Field changes.
-A very high number fields open to everyone as soon as they join the game, level 1.
-A new field + new difficulty options opens up every 10 levels.
-Randomly generated maps, same setting. Forest for example but the level lay out changes every time you enter.
-Enemy spawns, spawn points also randomly generated.
-Rare areas, secret rooms and even events that start mid field.
-Weather effects, sun, rain, wind, stormy, snow etc etc.
-Seasonal changes in fields as well as in 'city' areas.
-Selectable music tracks, because after a while the same music starts to grate.

Challenge mode
- Bring back challenge mode.
- Multiple types of challenges
- Maze style challenges; escape the maze in (time limit)
- Trap challenges, Lots of sneeky traps and buttons to trick and confuse you!
- The ones I remember from PSO where you have a certain amount of moves to get the prize
- Boss rush, kill all bosses
- Complete field in (strict time limit)
- Kill boss under certain conditions i.e. no heals, no revive, only using melee weapons.

Battle Mode return!
- A return of battle mode.
-Multiple rule sets such as
-Death match
-Team Death Match
-Capture check points
-Collect money around the map
-Be the first person/team/guild to find the exit of a maze
-Capture the fort/flag
-Competing teams trying to set amounts of enemies the quickest
-Races, I would like to see a return of a more fleshed out hover board racing from PSU

Also optional settings for battle mode to make it fair like,
-Fixed levels... everyone is level 1, level 10 or so on. (Just for this match)
-Classes on or off. When off anyone can use the weapons they find in the map to the same effect no matter what class they are.
-Start with your own weapons, or start with none and have to find them in levels.

Bring back the guilds from PSOBB;
-Officially recognized guilds
-Guild points for wins and losses
-Guild achievements for bragging rights
-Guild bases that can be bought, like 'My Room' but bigger/better
-Guild ranking system... Leader boards showing them in the cities.

Keeping 'end game' fun.
- When you reach max level new 'achievements' can be obtained by completely each level on an ultimate difficulty
- New Items/Clothes can be obtained that only max level players can wear
-Lots of end game weapons
-New enemies that only appear if a max level player is in your party
-New battle modes, challenge modes and event stories
-Some kind of boost to your guild if you have max level players in it.

OK... im done.

[Darki]

I'd like to see less PSO fanboyism nostalgia drama.

[Anon_Fire]

There needs to be a difficulty level higher than Ultimate

[TheBlackMage]

Necro posts are like zombies they live long after they were supposed to die.

Might as well feed it I suppose.
I'd like to see a lot of the old PSO rares and at the same time new rares that are as intriguing as the old ones.

[Chaobo99]

There needs to be a difficulty level higher than Ultimate

Yes please. Or at least a good Challenge Mode. It was hard with randoms from time to time.. But never failed it with friends >.>

[Puppet_Papaya]

I just thought of this today; I want to see the full-body mags that appear in the original PSO concept artwork. Also, maybe a return of the SonicTeam's A-Life system?
ALSO, a snow level. I always wanted a snow level in PSO even though it's a total video game cliche. I love snow and PSZ's snow level (and PSZ as a whole) is such a tease!

[Zarode]

PSP2 has a really good snow level, also.

[Wayu]

There needs to be a difficulty level higher than Ultimate

Infinity?

-Wayu

[Forever Zero]

I'd like to see the guys who did the soundtrack for PSO EP 3 C.A.R.D do the music for this game! :D

[Chaobo99]

I'd like to see the guys who did the soundtrack for PSO EP 3 C.A.R.D do the music for this game! :D

win. Tower of Caelum is still one of my favorite pieces of music in any game.

[Tetsaru]

I'd like to see the guys who did the soundtrack for PSO EP 3 C.A.R.D do the music for this game! :D

This! Episode 3 had most of my favorite music out of the series. :D

[Darki]

I would like to see an "expanded" version of PSU/PSO palette.

I remember that back then when I played PSO, you could pop the palette and you had the three menus with ALL you could carry. This was a good thing, because the only limit in your weapons was actually the inventory limit, and then, they didn't carry that to PSU. My guess is because of PSU more "complex" palette weapon system, as you could equip two weapons at the same time, but I never understood why the six slot limits, because you could switch them in the menu anytime, only slowing you a bit down. If you could carry ONLY thw equipped weapons and nothing more I'd understand, but that wouldn't work in PSU due to weapons dropping full ingame (if you had to "identify" them like in PSO, that would be a solution).

For PSO2, they could try to come to a middle-term. Instead of a slotted palette, we would have back PSO "all-weps-u-can-carry" palette, but in case of single handed weapons, we would have to group them in pairs to have two at the same time. If you didn't pair them, you'd equip only the selected one, in one hand.

For example, let's say you have a Sword, a Handgun, a Crossbow, a Saber and a Slicer, being the last four single-handed. Then you pair the Handgun with the Saber and leave the Slicer and the Crossbow "single". when you open the weapon palette, you will have four options: Sword, Saber+ Handgun, Crossbow and Slicer. When you switch from Sword to the Saber/Handgun combo, both will appear in your hands, ut if you switch to Crossbow and then Slicer, they will come one by one, leaving the other hand empty.

Apart from that, I'd like to see a palette for armors & units. Something I didn't like in PSU was that to switch between Resists I had to go menu.

[Kurono]

Always thought respawning enemies would be kinda cool. Improve their A.I a little and make them smarter.
Meaning, imagine thinking you cleared a room, only for an enemy to appear from behind and knock you around a little.

Would beat the generic kill everything in each area and move on dynamic, and make each area more tense/dangerous and unpredictable.

[FOkyasuta]

Would beat the generic kill everything in each area and move on dynamic, and make each area more tense/dangerous and unpredictable.

Meaning, more fun and LOLing at rage quitters.

[Darki]

There could be missions where there would be -Literally- SWARMS of monsters. One of my favorite type of games are those where you have areas where you can't even count them (take Prototype, or Chaos Legion as a fast example). Imagine a mission where your goal is to kill a certain creature under a short contdown, but that creature is in a plain where there will pop out more than 50 monsters at the same time and you have to "swim" your way in that sea of monsters to find the correct one.



Meaning, more fun and LOLing at rage quitters.

There are two types of difficult monsters. One is HARD monsters, monsters with a good IA and health and stats that are very difficult to kill but and pose a good fight by using "proper" skills, and then there are ANNOYING monsters, like those who "cheat" by stun-locking you, blowing you away with EVERY attack and using some sort of unavoidable tricks that keep you away from attacking them well.

In PSU at least, I've seen MANY of the second class, nut not so many of the first. That would be good, I guess. If I see a monster that blocks me all the time and gets me off guard because it's a good programmed AI, I'll love it, but if the monster is a cheapo crocodile that EVERYTIME I try to get a bit closer it pushes me 3m away with a kick with an unreasonably ubber-fast twist of it's body, that's a bit boring.

[Dongra]

there are ANNOYING monsters, like those who "cheat" by stun-locking you, blowing you away with EVERY attack and using some sort of unavoidable tricks that keep you away from attacking them well.
I think a prime example of fake difficulty is the Mericoral family in PSO. They aren't that hard to kill but they are cheap since they have a one hit kill attack that is not based on a resistance stat.

[FOkyasuta]

In PSU at least, I've seen MANY of the second class, nut not so many of the first. That would be good, I guess. If I see a monster that blocks me all the time and gets me off guard because it's a good programmed AI, I'll love it, but if the monster is a cheapo crocodile that EVERYTIME I try to get a bit closer it pushes me 3m away with a kick with an unreasonably ubber-fast twist of it's body, that's a bit boring.

Ah yea. Forgot about that...

[Darki]

Maybe is some problem I have but I really, REALLY hate monsters knocking me away. Specially when you can't avoid it in any way, because there's no way to block or reduce the chance of that (except a GAS, and you could use those points better, or nullifying completely the damage, which is not possible with higher level monsters).

I wouldn't mind monsters throwing me away if I could avoid it somehow and the fact that I got kiked away was because a mistake I did, but some monsters are really cheap with that, like Ubakaradas in PSU.

[Kurono]

Another thing Il'd love to see is the ability to challenge people to 1 on 1 if not 2 on 2, etc battles even in visual lobbys.

Meaning Player A asks Player B via a menu for a duel. If Player B accepts both players get transported to a randomised arena and battle.

Also it'd be a great way to build up a battle system ranking for the amount of duels people have won on a worldwide basis. Well I guess in this case as US/EU will likely share servers, a Europe/America basis. lol

Would be kinda cool imo.

[Darki]

The problem of this would be balance. PS games are usually balanced to monster kills, not to 1vs1 PvP, and many things that would seem like "normal" and balanced for PvM would be really broken on PvP.

[dreamchild716]

Hmm what i can see ppl want so much of psu in pso2 which i dont think its a good idea at all pso was great because of the limitations as its been said more than a few times here its better for ppl to pic a type and have it be yours to deal with if u dont like it play another on a different char or delete and start a different...thats also why its important to go back to pso style of gender and race based stats and types everyone plays differently i personally didnt mind cast forces and i looked at them as a more pure support type tank healer and if its done with a pso style it would force u to take that responsibilty u run around heal debuff buff res and u probably get a limit on what spells u can do range and bonus so i dont see a problem at all it was like the ppl on psobb always running around with a FOmar and an Excalibur they didnt heal as much as u think they would and buff wen they felt like it but if u give ppl a class where thats wat youre there for i think ppl would respect you for doing your job ... and i know ppl are saying do both but its like telling a FOnewmn to wear resta merge just so he can heal u i dont think n e one went FOnewmn to heal ppl they did it to nuke but yeah...to back up how different races and types could play different is give each particular type a perk using a new technology like Dcells be part of the games back story make it a few hundred years after eps 1-4 and for everyone mentioning the Dhumans or Dels whatever it plays perfectly into it....back to my point...Now that we have this technolgy theres reason to give a new meter to everyone DP that would control the type skills Hunters get some type of closing distance or gaining distance skill...

HUmar and HUmarl - dashing able to dash forward backward left and right closing distance and gaining different position on enemies
HUnewmn and HUnewrl - evading able to quickly move from the front to the rear of an enemy
HUcast and HUcaseal - sprinting able to sprint and attack to maximize attacks or distance from foes (or a shoulder charge something to those lines)
HUdel and HUderl - leaping able to close distance on enemies by leaping (delsaber like)

Rangers get jetpacks making them the general type for being able to take out aerial enemies with ease keep in minde they are only going as high as the enemes did in psu making them equal height for normal attacks..it would break down in this way ...

RAmar and RAmarl - medium length of jetpack can also be used to bomb down on enemies with mid lvl RA type spells like a granade
RAnewmn and RAnewrl - next to longest length of jetpack RA spells would work well with this type as an advantage to being this race
RAcast and RAcaseal - lowest length of jetpack
RAdel and RAderl - highest length of jetpack

and last but not least forces can levitate this is similar to the way sora does in KH2 wisdom form it would work out for my balance and reason for playing certain class types in different ways...

FOmar and FOmarl - medium length of levitation medium movement (balaced healing and support very versitlie the way i see it ).
FOnewmn and FOnewrl - lowest length of levitation lowest movement (since they have such high offensive magic power i thought they shouldnt move too fast and even the animations wouldnt be cut out for moving while nuking so they can do this to get out of a mob and it would make better use of all spells if u want to use this and fight)
FOcast and FOcaseal - low length of levitation fastest movement (this is where i come to support why this would be fun to play yes this would be a medic class none the less notice how they move the fastest while levitating ppl slide in for a heal or res also they have the highest defense of the forces and being a force gives them some MST they wouldnt have but not too much seeing how they regen HP and since a cast yea i remember so many FOmars and FOmarls using Holy Ray this wouldnt be bad to say ok yes a cast that does this well obviously but again i dont say this for any personal gain i jus say it would be fun to have casts be able to be played with support in mind and not dominate it was how i played psu with my cast from the start and ppl enjoyed that i took it seriously this would make sense for a cast in a PSO game too since casts dont get poison or paralyze dont u think...im just sayin
FOdel and FOderl - longest length of levitation slower movement this would be a debuff class and if they go psu stats style with the elements make the dels have a status bonus its a toss up either way how they would do it but yeah i would give them techs under humans and above casts give them a single attack spells bonus like a dps style play this moving and blasting foie barta zonde etc. hope that tells why i think all types and classes can be useful in different ways

I hope the races are balaced in stats the way they were in pso games and i want Mats and Mags to return make sure to have proper caps too
id give each type an advantage too yes even humans
id give humans a PP regen bonus hoping the meter is Psp2 style so if there are PAs then u cant just uber spam them and no PP restoring items just use ur meter and however ur class works so yeah Humans use more PAs than others well it restores so u can but yeah

give Newamns their TP regen

give Casts their HP regen

and give Dels a decent base Critical Rate and as u can see from my perks they Use DP the longest but yeah these are some things i think would give the game some great new elements and still leave room for whatever sega would choose to add

[Darki]

God, pal, use full stops sometimes, I can't read half before words start to dance in my screen @_@

[dreamchild716]

Heh sorry , i was a bit tired last night =3

[Laga]

jump button:D

[FOkyasuta]

SPECIAL WEAPON

[Seth Astra]

@Laga: I don't see that working in Phantasy Star. If you have any ideas on how it could be intigrated into the combat system without fudamentally breaking it, though, I'd like to hear it.

@HU: Yes.

[Laga]

@Seth Astra: I know what you mean, but I just like jumping

[Seth Astra]

Works for me, lol. TBH, I would like jumping too, but only if they could implement it while still having it feel like Phantasy Star.

[NoiseHERO]

Jumping would be cool...but it depends on the gameplay... If we end up having a real technical gameplay system we'd probably be jumping like in zelda or shadow of the colossus. and using it for climbing or taking alternate routes...then we may as well add crawling and climbing.

But if we're sticking to fast pace hack n slash, then we'd probably be jumping like Sora or Dante. and jumping would just be used to platform sometimes and chase airborne enemies.

Though jumping while fighting just for looks...would seem a little out of place for PS, or for traveling would probably bring annoying fights. though I wouldn't mind and it would offer a little more freedom and versatility.. It really still depends how far they'd go for those things in an online game.

[Jepp027]

The best part about PSO was, once the game began. You met the Principal, he was like, "Hey, Im the Principal, nice to meet you. Now go kill us some Boomas son".

Bam you went and killed Boomas, I hope that carries over to PSO2.

[Aerilas]

@ OP.

Simple, VERY simple. Just one thing:

CHALLENGE MODE.

[Arkios]

@ OP.

Simple, VERY simple. Just one thing:

CHALLENGE MODE.

Seconded. This, 1,000,000 times this!