32 player bosses

[mother clusterfck]

Just what the actual f### is Sega thinking?

If it's one thing Sega should understand is that people slack off whenever possible. It's not like 32 player bosses are working properly in other mmorpgs (tbh the point of correctly calling any PS game an mmorpg is extreme cringe) and PSO2 has a long history of leeching and afking to the point where Sega made good endgame gear extremely easy to get just to avoid people ruining all eqs.

I first thought all areas would be limited to 8 players in NGS which is a great number but nah, monkey see, monkey do.

Sega has been eyeballing generic fantasy mmorpgs so much they forget the point that just being one won't cut it, you have to be a good online rpg or you not last long.

TBH based on PSO2 main, those 32 man exploration area bosses will be a nightmare, basically trying to finish TD 4 with half the mp afk or using 3* equipment in UH.

[Kondibon]

Only specific areas have 32 players, EQs and battle areas are still 8 person only. Based on what I've seen I doubt the bosses that show up in the 32 person areas are even going to be special beyond having more hp, and maybe doing more damage. Basically, I'm pretty sure they're meant to be casual content, not something that requires a full 32 man mpa to be on point and playing their best.

[Dark Mits]

You are approaching this the wrong way. You should compare it to the current situation of random boss encounters in UQ and UH Free Fields (hell, even regular Free Fields as low as Normal Naberius) which allow 12 people to fight at the same time, when the final bosses of those areas are balanced for solo or duo parties. The only cases I know where the random bosses in Free Fields are harder/lengthier than the version at the end:
- Chrome Dragon family (especially Apostolo)
- Dark Falzes
- Regius / Maria / Huey emergency code that spawns an infected rare variant with lots of extra enemies (which can Change Over into another copy).
- Exception codes in UQ Free Fields.
- Emergency codes that are not "kill directly", like Rescue the Lillipan, Follow the Lillipan, Capture enemy, Quick (in Quarry), etc.

32 people will make the bosses go down faster, but they will not be required. In fact, I would not be surprised if we reach a point where we give feedback that these bosses will need extra HP because they get defeated before they are even reached.

[mother clusterfck]

The point is Sega has been introducing common mmorpg elements since gathering in ep 4 and with NGS they added an addon modeled much more closely on common mmorpg elements.

Field bosses balanced around 20+ players are another of those common mmorpg elements and those tend to be bs even in games where leeching and afking is not as much of an issue as in pso2.

Of course eventually such bosses can become too weak but that is irrelevant because not only is that part of the online rpg but it doesn't mean anything for the time where the boss is too hard for the amount of players properly fighting it.

And the difficulty is not the problem, it's locking content behind the requirement of finding a large group of halfway decent players. Even now it can be hard to find a random group able to at all beat EQs like TDVR or Perpetual Madness and not just fail the quest.

More content locked behind the requirement to belong to a good team of large enough size for lots of people to be online at the same time (especially since it's not just 12 but 32 people now) is a problem.

Like, when UQ was new people talked about how I shouldn't be so pessimistic and how things would work out and lo and behold, before long people did UQ expert runs with crap gear because they could get away with it. It is inevitable in PSO2 and NGS is an addon to PSO2, at least most people playing PSO2 will also play NGS for a good while when it launches.

[Ezodagrom]

From what I've seen from closed beta videos, most things in the exploration area are doable with small groups, it's being said that enemy density is lower than the 8 player combat areas even, since the exploration areas are meant for more than just fighting.

Only special bosses (gigantix) which appear only during certain conditions (such as during a thunderstorm) are meant for larger groups of players.

Personally I'm fine with this, having exploration areas being mostly casual areas where players may be spread out throughout the whole area, but have special occasions where players have to group up to tackle a more difficult boss.

[Kondibon]

Like, when UQ was new people talked about how I shouldn't be so pessimistic and how things would work out and lo and behold, before long people did UQ expert runs with crap gear because they could get away with it. It is inevitable in PSO2 and NGS is an addon to PSO2, at least most people playing PSO2 will also play NGS for a good while when it launches.That's going to happen in ANY group content though, the number of players doesn't matter.

There was only one gigantix I saw people actually struggle with, and it was the one that was level 20, so most players were below the threshold to even damage it. Most level appropriate interactions with the others I saw had less than 15 people and still managed.

EDIT: As for "locking content behind it" I already said they're just the same bosses but stronger. You wouldn't be missing out on any "content". They might have some unique drops or something, but if you're REALLY after that, then you and a few friends can probably carry the fights. I really don't think they're going to be that important though.

[ArcaneTechs]

Bro you really come off like if you were playing WoW that has like twice as many ppl doing raids would be a massive turnoff for you. Pro tip, any game has lazy shitters, literally the norm

In my shitty opinion, Phantash Star is usually behind other MMOs when it comes to those types of game scenarios. Frankly annoying everyone seems to be doing breath of the wild as a format despite open world already exisiting prior

[Dark Mits]

Field bosses balanced around 20+ players...Did they mention that the bosses will be balanced around having 20 people whacking them? All I understood is that the bosses will be your regular run-of-the-mill boss that can be even soloed but take time, and it just allows up to 32 people to get loot from them. Remember that "early" in PSO2's life the Dark Agranis and Dark Falzes that spawned in Free Fields were perfectably soloable, they just took time. It was up to you as a player to decide if the reward is good enough to try to solo, or to run to the end of the field, or to even summon friends with Telepipes.


...and those tend to be bs even in games where leeching and afking is not as much of an issue as in pso2.Why are they bs? They are just another content. If you feel that the reward/effort ratio is not worth it, then you can simply skip them.
Also PSO2 has issues with leeching, and at a worse scale than other online games? This is entirely contradictory to my experiences.


And the difficulty is not the problem, it's locking content behind the requirement of finding a large group of halfway decent players. Even now it can be hard to find a random group able to at all beat EQs like TDVR or Perpetual Madness and not just fail the quest.Then form a premade group with people that you know to be good. The issues of random matchmaking being... random... is what everyone has been complaining about since time immemorial in online gaming. And the answer is always the same: Play with friends or form your own group with your own requirements.



More content locked behind the requirement to belong to a good team of large enough size for lots of people to be online at the same time (especially since it's not just 12 but 32 people now) is a problem.No need to exaggerate:
a) These bosses in 32man fields will not require 32 world-1st class performers to take down. Once the levelling and gearing up phase ends, these bosses will be soloable/duoable in a timeframe less than 1 minute.
b) During the first months the game will be full of players. Do you not remember the population spikes at the start of every episode? Not only will you not have any issues finding people for bosses, but you will actually shift the complaint to someting like the fields being full and you cannot join your friends who are in an instance with a boss.
c) The free field bosses in PSO2 were definitely not balanced for 12 people, but closer to groups of 2-4. Even the current UH Free Field Emergency codes do not need a second player, but it helps doing them in half the time.


Like, when UQ was new people talked about how I shouldn't be so pessimistic and how things would work out and lo and behold, before long people did UQ expert runs with crap gear because they could get away with it. It is inevitable in PSO2 and NGS is an addon to PSO2, at least most people playing PSO2 will also play NGS for a good while when it launches.As mentioned earlier, if you want to avoid people who do not meet your standards, then create your own groups or join existing groups with similar mindset.

[Kondibon]

Did they mention that the bosses will be balanced around having 20 people whacking them? All I understood is that the bosses will be your regular run-of-the-mill boss that can be even soloed but take time, and it just allows up to 32 people to get loot from them. Remember that "early" in PSO2's life the Dark Agranis and Dark Falzes that spawned in Free Fields were perfectably soloable, they just took time. It was up to you as a player to decide if the reward is good enough to try to solo, or to run to the end of the field, or to even summon friends with Telepipes.

It's worth mentioning that the bosses being talked about are the gigantix, which are definitely balanced as group content. They also de-spawn after a certain amount of time so just trying to win through attrition won't work if you can't kill them fast enough.


No need to exaggerate:
a) These bosses in 32man fields will not require 32 world-1st class performers to take down. Once the levelling and gearing up phase ends, these bosses will be soloable/duoable in a timeframe less than 1 minute.???? Well, first of all once people are leveled and geared they won't have a reason to fight them, the problem would be for people trying to get caught up. Second of all, I'm pretty sure saying they could be soloed in less than 1 minute would count as an exaggeration. To clarify again, this is in the context of gigantix, not the normal bosses.

I agree that they're unlikely to require a full group of great players, considering people in the beta were beating them easily, despite things like, on average, every force I saw playing the class wrong, and still assuming you always charge techs for dps, but that doesn't mean they're not meant to be hp sponges.


c) The free field bosses in PSO2 were definitely not balanced for 12 people, but closer to groups of 2-4. Even the current UH Free Field Emergency codes do not need a second player, but it helps doing them in half the time.
They were for pretty much everything xh and higher though, so it's not like there's no precedent for it. Saying "Well you could beat it even though it would take half an hour" isn't what people mean when they talk about something being balanced for something, because that's not likely how long they intend the fights to take.

[Kazzi]

I'll admit this is the one thing I really disliked about NG in general. The issue being that once players level up and move on from that area, it'll be nigh impossible for those joining later to even scratch these bosses. Not so bad in the newbie areas but in the middle level range ones it's going to be an ass to try and clear any orders involving them.

The only reason we managed to take any of them down was because everyone got locked out of the EQ by a bug, so they all just decided to travel as a mass group around the map to kill them all. But we did have two despawn in the middle of being smacked which was nothing but frustrating. A third despawned because it was on the edge of the map and got dragged over the line and just vanished.

On top of that, traveling in a massive group to kill these sounds like a great idea on paper, but what it did was trigger multiple PSE Bursts that spawned 2 more on top of the one being killed, resulting in a full wipe. Cue hilarious Japanese screaming wwwww but not fun for the level 10 players who happened to walk into the area at the wrong time.

[mother clusterfck]

No.
You know PSO2, you know how sometimes the only option to get a good xyz with a massive amount of farming / hunting is a single quest / boss. No streth at all to think sometimes 32 man bosses will be that one boss that can drop good current gear at a good rate and all other options are settling for mediocre gear or going for far lower drop rates.

But occasionally it will be unique drops, too like Serpen Plenzer, changing Vinto from mediocre to being a MASSIVE dps boost since originally the tiny range makes you miss more often than not.

Or, it could easily be a Magatsu pinata, dropping the same stuff as elsewhere but 5 times more of it.

Point is there is no real reason to believe it will be very different from PSO2 balance. NGS beta stuff doesn't matter because not only will Sega change the balance for release, but during closed beta everyone has very high motivation since they got lucky to get into the beta, unlike during regular play.

Most PSO2 quests are balanced for 10-12 decent players. You can beat them with fewer players but the fewer the people, the more skilled everyone has to be.
Considering 32 people as intended number and even considering 75% of 32, 24 players as the minimum you can beat such a boss with the average randoms it's still a lot of people needing to be online at the same time, in the same area.

You know PSO2 and you know how most people are not very good. It's fine for most eqs when they are full but not when they are lacking several players. Seasonal eqs are super easy but boss eqs require either a decent number of players or really skilled players.

32 player bosses is a pipe dream that might be feasible at a time when motivation is high in the first 1-2 month after release or a couple of weeks after a major content update but during regular play it will be hard to gather even half the group.

Just because the boss needs more players does not magically mean people are easier to get together.
Unless you are in huge, active team or a pretty big team of skilled players, getting the numbers is extremely hard.

And well, that's just getting the numbers. As mentioned before, PSO2 is still fundamentally a game where people slack off frequently if they can get away with it.
Sega will not start NGS by making it as easy to get good gear as it has been in PSO2 the last couple of years, so people will inevitably have proportionally worse gear than currently in PSO2 endgame and more will slack off because there is no way whatsoever for anyone to focus on such a boss while still checking if everyone else is making a decent effort or not.

The number of intended players always matters A LOT. It's always far easier to make up for fewer missing players or players that need carrying than to make up for more of them.

[otakun]

Imagine complaining about issues with a game before it's even out. Now, I'm not one for defending games and all especially betas as most people will use the whole "it's a beta things will get better before release" excuse but this, to me, felt more like a glorified demo than an actual beta. At least wait till we see everything before calling for doom and gloom.

[Ezodagrom]

I'll admit this is the one thing I really disliked about NG in general. The issue being that once players level up and move on from that area, it'll be nigh impossible for those joining later to even scratch these bosses. Not so bad in the newbie areas but in the middle level range ones it's going to be an ass to try and clear any orders involving them.

The only reason we managed to take any of them down was because everyone got locked out of the EQ by a bug, so they all just decided to travel as a mass group around the map to kill them all. But we did have two despawn in the middle of being smacked which was nothing but frustrating. A third despawned because it was on the edge of the map and got dragged over the line and just vanished.

On top of that, traveling in a massive group to kill these sounds like a great idea on paper, but what it did was trigger multiple PSE Bursts that spawned 2 more on top of the one being killed, resulting in a full wipe. Cue hilarious Japanese screaming wwwww but not fun for the level 10 players who happened to walk into the area at the wrong time.
While I'm not 100% sure, seems like there is HP scaling depending on how many players are in the instance to the point where even the urgent quest boss is soloable.

I didn't try to solo the urgent quest, but I didn't have much problems soloing Veteran tier bosses (that is, the dread bosses) while being around their level (around lvl 10).

No idea about the gigantix (Hopeless) bosses though, but even if these may end up not having HP scaling, I think they're pretty much just an extra, not a must fight kind of boss.