Some tips for newbies

[Lolitron]

We all know how valuable your time is, and some simple tips and tricks can save you some serious time in this game. Most of the veterans know these tips/tricks so to you veterans, feel free to add stuff that you think saves you time.

This is NOT a "how-to-play-so-and-so-class-race-gender-whatever" guide or anything like that. This is a general tips/tricks topic that many people overlook.

1. Know your common box. Withdrawing stuff from your common box with hundreds of items is a pain! However, there are some shortcuts you can use. If you have 300 weapons, and 100 armors (and units), upon opening your inventory you can push right, up, left, and you'll be at weapon #100. This saves you the time of scrolling through 100 weapons to get to weapon #100.

2. During your 1st play through story mode, there is little reason to not play a few extra open missions. However I recommend playing ones you haven't done because this unlocks other missions. At the beginning, avoid spamming the same open mission unless you're targeting a specific weapon/PA (like Dus Skadd in Mine Defense). Eventually you'll want to do all the open missions to unlock all the missions, so may as well get started early while the exp is still good. You'll also be getting a fairly balanced intake of Magashi stones which is ideal.

3. Focus on clearing story mode quickly. You level fast at a low level and you get it out of the way. Story mode is basically a necessity to unlock all the open missions as well as much more.

4. At the beginning, do not get emotionally attached to your favorite weapon. You'll be constantly getting better gear, and it is often more frustrating using weak weapons that you like instead of just using a good weapon for now. Level up quickly so you can hunt you favorite weapon type. Usually, your strongest weapon is the highest star twin saber/double saber/saber/claw/twin claw/spear/knuckles/twin daggers/dagger.

5. Check here for item exchanges:
http://psp2.psupedia.info/Item_exchange_missions
Often you can upgrade your gear easily by using these missions.

6. Only do missions with monsters within 30 levels of you. You get less EXP from monsters over 30 levels from you (and you may find it difficult to kill them).

7. If you need scapes, be sure to use your extra weapon badges and trade them in for scapes at:
http://psp2.psupedia.info/The_Secret_Society

8. Early in the game, you can use PA frags to get lvl 11+ PA's. This includes some incredibly useful ones like Blade Destruction, Dus Skadd, and Bogga Rampa. Don't be stingy with your PA frags since you'll have tons later.
http://psp2.psupedia.info/The_Secret_Society

9. Power level to 100. At level 100 you can do most of the missions you want and you can start getting some really good gear (gear that you won't replace for a long, long time, or EVER).

If you think of any simple tips to save time you can post them here. There are more that I'm overlooking so I may add more later.

[Witchblade56]

Thanks for the tip Loli. I just unlocked secret society trade mission and got jellen and zalure. I'm lookking to get the others. I fell in love with dus skadd lol.

[WHlTEKNIGHT]

higher % on low rank weapon is much better than low % on higher rank weapons.
Just because a weapon is of higher rank doesn't automatically mean its better.

[Dragwind]

Some very good tips, I recommend them myself.

[Ceresa]

higher % on low rank weapon is much better than low % on higher rank weapons.
Just because a weapon is of higher rank doesn't automatically mean its better.

This is incorrect. First, % only applies to weapon stats. Second, using the correct % gets you a free hidden 30% bonus. Even a 60% 6 star can barely hold up damage wise against a simple 10-20% 7star, and it loses precious accuracy which matters quite a bit when you're constantly fighting stuff up to 30 levels ahead of you.

[Lolitron]

Thank you for explaining Ceresa.

@Whiteknight: The formula is drastically different from PSU's. %'s are much less a factor in damage in PSPo2. Higher *'s within a rank of weapon (such as 7*-8*, both are A-rank weapons) may not matter a whole lot but from 9*-10*, or any rank change, there's a huge difference.

[Kurosu]

Some things I thought of.

Some general things:

1) You can skip story dialogue and cutscenes by holding start for a few seconds, this saves a lot of time when rerunning those missions.
It will just skip to the point of a dialogue option if there is one, so you won't miss those either.

2) Some missions always have a Scape Doll in a chest in fixed positions (like Ancient Invader floor 1), so just get them there if you need them instead of wasting badges or grinding for them.


And some things to improve on your game play:

3) Use Just Attack when possible, this will make the hits do a bit more damage, and extra free damage is always good.
Of course this is not always possible, sometimes you have to attack fast or dodge or something, but a good time to use it is during a monster's recovery from an attack.
You do this by attacking and following up with other attacks by hitting the attack button at the right time (usually on the recovery period of your swing), if you did it properly there will be a special sound and a yellow flash, you can see NPCs do this too.
This works for both normal attacks and PAs.

4) Many normal attacks have a long recovery time after you've used them (such as the last 3 hits on the Twin Saber attack), you can cancel this time by pressing block after the last attacks have landed.

5) You can pick stuff up by holding the button and moving close to it, which is useful when there are several items on the floor. This way you also don't accidentally end up rolling.

6) Carry a rod, no matter what class you are. You can use this to heal fast or to buff. I put a low level Resta on mine (lvl 10> casts faster than higher levels, but doesn't heal allies).
The other skills I have on it are Shifta/Deband on the R button switch, and Zalure on the last slot.
Zalure is pretty useful since some monsters like the wolves or Darvaguine cast Deband, which can make them nearly impossible to hit unless you attack them from behind. Stripping this buff away makes them die much faster.

7. Manage your equipment palettes in an easy to access way.
For example, the rod mentioned in the previous tip, put it near the center of your weapon palette so you can access it fast no matter what weapon you're using.
It's a good idea to put the two weapons you use the most closest to the rod.

For armours the same thing. For example, in the Magashi mission you're mostly fighting Dark and Ground types, so it's smart to have these line shields together to switch between them fast.
For your consumables palette, I usually use -mate / trap / -mate / -trap / etc, so you don't need to scroll 2-3 times to get to your -mates while you're at critical HP.

All I can think of right now, will add more if things come to mind.

[Less]

We all know how valuable your time is, and some simple tips and tricks can save you some serious time in this game. Most of the veterans know these tips/tricks so to you veterans, feel free to add stuff that you think saves you time.

This is NOT a "how-to-play-so-and-so-class-race-gender-whatever" guide or anything like that. This is a general tips/tricks topic that many people overlook.

1. Know your common box. Withdrawing stuff from your common box with hundreds of items is a pain! However, there are some shortcuts you can use. If you have 300 weapons, and 100 armors (and units), upon opening your inventory you can push right, up, left, and you'll be at weapon #100. This saves you the time of scrolling through 100 weapons to get to weapon #100.

2. During your 1st play through story mode, there is little reason to not play a few extra open missions. However I recommend playing ones you haven't done because this unlocks other missions. At the beginning, avoid spamming the same open mission unless you're targeting a specific weapon/PA (like Dus Skadd in Mine Defense). Eventually you'll want to do all the open missions to unlock all the missions, so may as well get started early while the exp is still good. You'll also be getting a fairly balanced intake of Magashi stones which is ideal.

3. Focus on clearing story mode quickly. You level fast at a low level and you get it out of the way. Story mode is basically a necessity to unlock all the open missions as well as much more.

4. At the beginning, do not get emotionally attached to your favorite weapon. You'll be constantly getting better gear, and it is often more frustrating using weak weapons that you like instead of just using a good weapon for now. Level up quickly so you can hunt you favorite weapon type. Usually, your strongest weapon is the highest star twin saber/double saber/saber/claw/twin claw/spear/knuckles/twin daggers/dagger.

5. Check here for item exchanges:
http://psp2.psupedia.info/Item_exchange_missions
Often you can upgrade your gear easily by using these missions.

6. Only do missions with monsters within 30 levels of you. You get less EXP from monsters over 30 levels from you (and you may find it difficult to kill them).

7. If you need scapes, be sure to use your extra weapon badges and trade them in for scapes at:
http://psp2.psupedia.info/The_Secret_Society

8. Early in the game, you can use PA frags to get lvl 11+ PA's. This includes some incredibly useful ones like Blade Destruction, Dus Skadd, and Bogga Rampa. Don't be stingy with your PA frags since you'll have tons later.
http://psp2.psupedia.info/The_Secret_Society

9. Power level to 100. At level 100 you can do most of the missions you want and you can start getting some really good gear (gear that you won't replace for a long, long time, or EVER).

If you think of any simple tips to save time you can post them here. There are more that I'm overlooking so I may add more later.

tyvm loli this ish verry useful :-P i really need it xD

[SubstanceD]

2. During your 1st play through story mode, there is little reason to not play a few extra open missions. However I recommend playing ones you haven't done because this unlocks other missions. At the beginning, avoid spamming the same open mission unless you're targeting a specific weapon/PA (like Dus Skadd in Mine Defense). Eventually you'll want to do all the open missions to unlock all the missions, so may as well get started early while the exp is still good. You'll also be getting a fairly balanced intake of Magashi stones which is ideal.

3. Focus on clearing story mode quickly. You level fast at a low level and you get it out of the way. Story mode is basically a necessity to unlock all the open missions as well as much more.

4. At the beginning, do not get emotionally attached to your favorite weapon. You'll be constantly getting better gear, and it is often more frustrating using weak weapons that you like instead of just using a good weapon for now. Level up quickly so you can hunt you favorite weapon type. Usually, your strongest weapon is the highest star twin saber/double saber/saber/claw/twin claw/spear/knuckles/twin daggers/dagger.

5. Check here for item exchanges:
http://psp2.psupedia.info/Item_exchange_missions
Often you can upgrade your gear easily by using these missions.

6. Only do missions with monsters within 30 levels of you. You get less EXP from monsters over 30 levels from you (and you may find it difficult to kill them).

7. If you need scapes, be sure to use your extra weapon badges and trade them in for scapes at:
http://psp2.psupedia.info/The_Secret_Society

8. Early in the game, you can use PA frags to get lvl 11+ PA's. This includes some incredibly useful ones like Blade Destruction, Dus Skadd, and Bogga Rampa. Don't be stingy with your PA frags since you'll have tons later.
http://psp2.psupedia.info/The_Secret_Society

9. Power level to 100. At level 100 you can do most of the missions you want and you can start getting some really good gear (gear that you won't replace for a long, long time, or EVER).

If you think of any simple tips to save time you can post them here. There are more that I'm overlooking so I may add more later.


Thanks for the tips. Not really a noob to the world of PSO/PSU but I can tell right away that PSP2 to is very different beast to it's predessors. I just wanted to clear Storymode as quickly as possible with as little fuss as possible but I was not expecting the the difficulty of the story missions to scale to my level. I wasn't sure if it was in my best interest to complete all of the story missions immediatly or to look for better loot to make the missions easier.

[Kamen Rider Sting]

Nicely laid out guide, very kind of you to offer entry level players a few pointers from your past experiences.

[Kurosu]

Bringing this thread up, since it has useful information.

Some useful links:

Question thread (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173963)
Post any short or easy questions you have that don't really warrant making a new thread for, to avoid clutter

Wiki for PSP2 (http://psp2.psupedia.info/Main_Page)
Pretty much any basic question you want answered can be found in here.
Since so many people are asking the same few questions that are easily looked up, I can only assume they are either lazy / lack initiative or simply don't know this website, so here it is.
So please look here before starting a "Where can I find X ..?" or story ending question thread.

Stuff about Japanese DLC on the US version (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181966)
I don't need this myself, but I'm sure it's a wealth of information.

Final boss guide (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181738)

Search function (http://www.pso-world.com/forums/search.php)
Any question you might want to ask has a high probability of having already been answered, so the search function is your friend. It's a goldmine of information, and you also don't have to wait for someone to log on to answer your new question.



Between these links, you can find almost anything with some effort.

[Mr Fwibbles]

Don't worry about looting when playing in multiplayer or online modes. Each player sees item drops independently, so you can pick up whatever you like. On a related note, don't exit a mission before people have had ample chance to pick up their items from the mission clear boxes. Just because you don't see anything there, that doesn't mean the other players didn't get anything from that box.

When they become available somewhere around chapter 4 or 5, take client requests from the NPCs in the cafe. You can then fill the requirements of the client requests (or at least work towards them) while running the forced open/free missions during story mode.

[FarenKar]

I've never been one to listen to tips, personally, but I'm gonna start. Bum rushed my way through PsP1 the hard trial-and-error way, and never breached the 100lvl marker.

Now, I've bummed my way up to lvl 64 or so, and am starting to look for ways to actually get further now without grinding low rank mobs endlessly... XP

So, thanks for the tips; I'm gonna start trying to implement them before too long.

[Ravenbryt]

For story missions, I'm normally a level or five above the requirements. So the monsters will be at their cap and I will grind them to dust. Hahahaha. I love feeling like a god on these games

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

Thanks for the tips Loli. Helped a bunch. Also whats your take on Code Extending the Password Weapons??