I started PSO2 in April 2014, prior to the end of EP2. I felt that the game offered a lot of content, but that was 21 months after it's launch, so I imagine that it wasn't the case in July 2012.
So how was those first few months compared to launch of NGS and what we have in our current roadmap?
I don't even remember, episodes 1-3 are kind of a blur for me. I'm more or less waiting to see how they pace updates in general going forward before I really make any serious comparisons. NGS technically launched with more content than the original, And classes look like they'll be coming out faster, at least for now, but there's also a pretty big gap before it looks like we'll get any new areas since the regions are going to be coming out all at once, instead of like the original where they would just give a single area for a planet at a time.
I'm a bit disappointed in Gigantix, if only because they feel like something that should have been in the game from the start. I'm waiting to see what the heck "Defense quests" are and how they do triggers, but if the side content between major area releases ends up being either super niche or frustrating to engage with then I'd prefer them to focus on major updates instead.
3 classes, with a level cap of 40. Two difficulty levels, normal and hard.
Fields: Forest, Caverns, Desert and Tundra, both as free fields and with all their assorted basic quests. Fang banther/banshee wasn't in the game yet, good ol' rockbear was the forest field boss.
A single time attack quest - yes, just one. Naberius I, aka Naberius Advanced (Naberius Basic is Naberius II since it was introduced later).
Plot wise you had 4 matterboards which roughly correspond to the first three chapters of the game as we have them now, except IIRC helping Aki meet the dragons happened after you went with Fourier to the desert to find lilipans, not before. And obviously Quna wasn't in the game yet so you didn't get any of her cutscenes.
Don't remember what EQs were there, if any - but nothing too exciting since the content simply isn't there yet.
And yes Mags were from the game since release (since second beta in fact) so you could fuck up yours from day one.
EDIT: I forgot to mention but subclassing wasn't ingame either.
Looking at the current NGS roadmap, the old PSO2 progressed quite faster since by 2014 I believe the max level cap was already at 65. NGS does offer a lot more in terms of classes and battle action part is very good. However, I still can't get over the fact that they chose open world... It's just running around in circles killing bosses when they spawn like most other MMO's.. At least give us a good four player cocoon or tower.
To be fair, that's what a lot of PSO2 classic was too, except the maps were randomly generated hallways made from tilesets instead of feeling like actual places. I do want more instanced content, but I vastly prefer the current open world setup compared to what free fields were.Quote:
Originally Posted by classicburger
The game started off pretty barren,though some features like rooms were immediately available; there were also very few rares... but TehCubey covered most of it really... actually I don't even believe we had the Tundra at release. In terms of bosses we had Rockbear, Dark Ragne, Vol Dragon, Caterdran, Transmizer, and Gwanahda. I think that's it.
I don't think it's unfair to say that NGS fares a bit better - though it does recycle from pso2 quite a bit - ; it's mostly the roadmap that bums me out. And classes, well, someone's gotta say it... classes were more complex. We had ~twice the amount of photon arts/technics, as well as gears for physical weapons, among a few other things. NGS leans very hard into the more streamlined design of successor classes, which I personally think is unfortunate, but hey, I'm just one guy.
Anyway, PSO2 was pretty bad at release as well.
I think it was just the urban one that ended in Dark Ragne? Not sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by TehCubey
Tundra was released on the launch day together with the lvl 40 cap. You may be thinking about the open beta, which had its progress carry over into the full release.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
Tunnels was released 2 weeks after the initial release.
That's how I remember it as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezodagrom
You're probably right, my bad.Quote:
Tundra was released on the launch day together with the lvl 40 cap. You may be thinking about the open beta, which had its progress carry over into the full release.
Well, running around in circles killing bosses is already the gist of free fields and the majority of UQs. I'm sure Sega always wanted PSO2 to be open world from the way they tried to replicate the feeling of fighting in slightly different parts of the same locale with the procedurally generated tiles, it's just the only viable solution that would run on handheld hardware at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by classicburger
As someone who normally dislikes open world I actually appreciate not having to click through a ton of menus and load screens to get to where I want (then get interrupted by more obligatory load screens in the middle of it). The verticality is vastly improved and if you want the good old mob skipping and going straight for the boss you can also do it here with Veterans. It still feels like PSO2 but with even less wasted time and menu diving for me.
PA count is a common complaint I've heard, but the truth is early PSO2 had this naive design where every little thing you do is a photon art. NGS turned many of these into non-PA inputs so the actual number of actions you can do is far more than what you could assign to the palette, and certainly more than what many PSO2 weapons had at launch. Also since the roadmap mentioned more actions with the level cap update it fortunately doesn't look like they're going with the successor route of giving each class a fixed set of crucial features at launch and never touching them again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
It is a somewhat surface level complaint for sure, though I don't necessarily agree with your rebuttal. The advantage of PAs is that they're largely unconditional. Sure you have a sprint and a fall attack in NGS. Gotta be sprinting or in the air, though. Sure you have two more combo attacks on some weapons. Gotta do the three previous ones first, though, or get a counter or something, speaking of which, most everyone has counters, but that's as conditional as it gets. Same for techs, we have meaningfully distinct charged and uncharged versions, which compensates for the lower number, but that is a condition to fulfill as well. The problem with all that is that you're left with limited player agency because so many options are restricted, and the unrestricted ones, the PAs, are few in numbers. It becomes less about choosing and more about... applying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dimate
To be fair, PSO2 started in the 2 buttons system, which I think I was one of the very few who appreciated it? And even I quickly moved on to 3 buttons when that was introduced. So restrictions were there as well, though completely different in nature. Also the balancing was terrible which led everyone to spam the same thing all day long anyway.
As for them improving on that in the future, one can only hope.
I personally feel like most of the individual weapons have more going on than they ever did in the original personally. I'm not really sure how things being conditional is bad for player agency though, especially with how easy most of the conditions are to fulfill.
There were so many redundant or weak PAs that were hyper specific in their usage. If anything I think having less PAs ADDS depth because you get to be more nuanced about how they're used.
Aslo, if charging a tech is a condition, then every tech in the original was conditional, there was only a handful you'd regularly use uncharged, and those were either with niche builds that became outdated, nerfed, or were support techs you only needed for yourself.
shift is the base button for guard and i don't have 5 button mouse so i hate 3 button at least let us change it to Ctrl button
i started in the beginning of EP2 right when it became F2P
the EQs were basically free fields with OP enemies and the funny part was people wasnt playing them as it should , everybody rushed to the second room and then start killing stuff until 3 to 5 mins remain.
the most wanted EQs back then was vardha and Elder .
hell i even made gameplay retrospects from EP1 to EP5 , not sure when to do EP6 retrospect BTW :/
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...OJ3Sheo2yYPumm
remember active subs and checkout other random and curious stuff
Right, but you wouldn't want to use a sprint or plunge attack outside of those specific situations anyway because it's not optimal. Many PAs can be used out of the blue, but there's almost always only one best thing to do for a given situation, and usually some action you need to take before using a PA to its fullest potential. What NGS did was just putting these actions where they're most sensibly used in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
The additional combo attacks are strong, so if they came as photon arts you bet they would still occur at the end of a long animation anyway. In their current state they're actually more flexible since there are multiple ways to reach them.
Also you CAN plunge attack on the ground by putting that action on any of your palettes. It's basically a zero cost PA.
I honestly can't agree with that first statement at all; the removal of gear on its own is a big deal as far as I'm concerned, and many new actions in NGS are common to all weapons. What I will say is that clearly, most of the gameplay variety potential of PSO2 was left untapped by players, which is likely how we got here. But I wouldn't say that's on the game... play. Monster design didn't help, among other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
Conditional is "bad"(in quotes because it's more a matter of preference) because it makes the game less about player agency and more about going through the motions, which are the same for everyone. You and I would not do a Sword 5 normal combos any differently from each other, but if each of these 5 actions were individual options, that'd obviously be a different story.
And indeed, I did not like techs in PSO2 much until the introduction of Phantom and its drastic casting time reduction skills. I'm not saying everything in PSO2 was perfect, and in fact I only compare the two because it's easy and convenient, not because I'm picking a side or something.
EDIT----------
Optimal has little to do with all this though. Player choice can and will be incorrect or suboptimal yet still satisfying, because there's not a huge red FAIL message on the screen whenever that happens(wait, is that why people disliked JAs? Uh.), and these are fast games. Again the balancing was so bad at first that it kinda was that obvious, but yeah. Most PAs can be used out of the blue if you choose to; it's also not as bad as you say, some of them are setup dependent but it's definitely not the majority. And arguably, yes, NGS does the optimization for you, I agree. I disagree that it's a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dimate
You're going to have a really hard time to make me agree that something like Sword 5 is even close to versatile, and hypotheticals can only accomplish so much. Didn't know about the plunge on palette thing though! That's neat, I'm likely using that from now on.
I'm not sure why you're stuck on gears. Most of them were non-mehcanics that you only interacted with if you messed up anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
Deciding to commit to the 5 hit normal sword combo over doing something else is in and of itself a choice. Like, I'm not sure what player agency you're talking about. If the idea of something being optimal isn't the issue it's not like you can't play partisan without trying to aim for counters, and it's not like you don't have the choice of whether to only do the first half of a PA or not. You have choices and agency, I don't understand why tying it to mechanics other than gears (which, again, most of which were non-mechanics), and PAs is taking player agency away, it just means you have to push a different combination of buttons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
Don't forget about the mag.
Everyone kept "playing" pso2 when it came out just to feed their mag (chat in lobby and wait for mag to get hungry). Testing and figuring out mag progression was a different fun in itself. Unfortunately it eventually lead to locking ur class as ppl find optimal way to use it.
pso2 also started with no just atk, i cant remember when they finally put it in though.
for techs, there were... 3 ele with base, gi, ra. which give us 9 offensive techs (resta, anti). U could buy the lv1 disk from shop, i think i remember that u cant buy them all at once as they rotate after u come back from quest.
i think 7* was the first rare grade? i cant remember if they appear on launch though. I was prbly just not lucky enough to get a rare drop. There was no weapon potential at this point neither. Max +10, thats it. Armor unit... i think everyone just use basic stuffs, I dont think rare armor was a thing till a few updates later. I am pretty sure there was no drop boosters, but i cant remember if premium had something. Pretty sure premium back then was super basic too.
Speaking of premium... My room. Player room was in on launch (no companion npc thing though). It honestly felt pretty awkward in ngs story that we walk to "player room" area, then just continue on with the story. It triggered my memory of pso2 story on launch, story lead us to player room, then show us player room tutorial (ngs just jump over it).
It had always been in the game for as long as I played. Maybe it wasn't in some pre-beta stuff, but it was definitely there since the beta.Quote:
Originally Posted by SolRiver
There was also grants and gi-grants from Marlu, though they were stuck at level 1 until light techs actually came out proper.Quote:
Originally Posted by SolRiver
Honestly I have more fun and feel there's more to do in NGS right now then there was in PSO2 not just on release, but until Falz Arms/Elder was released. And that was almost half a year after the game launched.
And I know some people go "but they should have learnt better by now!", acting as if 2012 is some ancient history. But by that time WoW was already on its what, 3rd expansion? Basics of modern MMO design were already established, if Sega does a dripfeed content update style it's not because they don't know any better, but on purpose.
Only the very first alpha didn't have just attack for ranged and tech weapons, the 2nd alpha added them for those, while melee weapons always had JA.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
Totally agree. Also, the best balance I've seen in mmos to date are on games who prioritized less options when it came to attack and movement control. This allows devs to to have a much more solid window of what you can and should do in different situations and not pso2's mess of "everyone should have movement PAs and around 10 PAs to choose from". Those who were around for early-ish time trials should remember that well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
Ranger and Force had just attacks since alpha 2. Hunter since the first one.Quote:
Originally Posted by SolRiver
Game was always F2P. It pretty much inherited it from late PSU:AotI.Quote:
Originally Posted by silo1991
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Content on release was already stated in this thread (up to Tundra, Ragne city EQ, 3 classes and our old awful grind system that made Dudu particularly "loved", btw, we didn't have the other grind npc back then).
It wasn't much but I see a few important differences if compared to NGS.
1 - We had very frequent updates on what was coming so there wasn't a case of pretty much nothing but a class to look forward to like we have now (mines 2 weeks after launch, floating continent not to far after it, among other stuff that was added like time trials).
2 - While the progression felt slower than NGS, thanks in part to having no daily quests which is a positive to me, it wasn't as repetitive thanks to the randomly generated maps from preset tiles and the more meaningful variety. You weren't seeing 80% of the enemy types in all areas.
3 - The matterboard, while disliked by a good number of players, ended up adding some replayability to maps. Whether it was good or not is a can of worms I would rather not delve too deep into, though I think it is hard to deny that the abridged Oracle storyline we got post ep3 is a mess without the matterboard linking our encounters, so if one was interested in the story it ended up as a timewaster of sorts instead of just a burden.
Good work was done with NGS map terrain modeling and it is interesting to traverse on them but I don't think that they're currently large enough compared to how fast we move (size in absolute terms is meaningless alone, its relation to overall travel speed is what makes a world feel large or small) and I don't think it is particularly good content in terms of holding interest for too long by itself. I do think that what compares most negatively with regular PSO2 is how little we have in terms of what to expect to be added to the game in the short and mid term. I don't remember such voids being around during its time as we had somewhat constant previews of new content since cbt in it.
during EP1 you had to pay for play, well thats what i remember back in 2012Quote:
Originally Posted by SuKKrl
PSO2 from the start was always F2P, at no point did they require you to pay to play and the devs specifically said during an interview around the games release that the plan had intended the F2P format since they started making the game. This is around the same time where the trend of F2P games were releasing. You're remembering wrongQuote:
Originally Posted by silo1991
There were plenty of players in the group I was in at launch that weren't paying. To go even further, game had premium since beta (so no sub, only premium), and a lot of foreign daily players couldn't spend in it even if they wanted to due to the payment system not working properly with a lot of cards for a lot of countries (Amex was the overall safe bet until it was axed and the other option was marked-up prepaid webmoney cards).Quote:
Originally Posted by silo1991
Also, as ArcaneTechs mentioned, devs did announce it was f2p before launch and mentioned other games that were out at the time and PSU's late model as the reason for that.
I'm having a hard time picturing this scenario to be satisfying in any way. Pounding the ground for flavor when the enemy is not there, using slow attacks against a fast enemy, seeing the wrong numbers pop up because the damage notation for that PA is straight up inferior. At this point you're just pushing random lit up buttons looking for ... satisfaction, or perhaps variety. If PSO2 was a game where there are many interchangeable, equally potent attacks, you'd be right, but very few weapons had that luxury (and most of them were successors). The huge red FAIL message is real, because every Hatred pug that times out at Elementless Sodam surely has a few persons thinking they would be fine doing whatever. This person barely made floor 100 with 15 seconds to spare, I don't think they would have time to appreciate the satisfaction of not doing Vinto. And people frequently express disdain toward players who only show up to have their own fun with Million Storm and Shift Kugel as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
I can only hope some Rangers DO find it satisfying to put Weak Bullet on enemies, at least. The amount of NGS Rangers who announce their presence halfway into the fight is a little disconcerting.
NGS does the optimization for you, but only for the plunge and dash attacks. Accel Drive, a gap closer that needs to be primed using another PA, is not as "optimized" as something like Raging Waltz which can be used whenever. Deadly Circle and Spiral Drive became trickier to use because they either have a long windup during which the target can back away, or no longer come with Quick Take, and require you to maintain and look out for a dim particle effect around your character. I'm sure a person who appreciates depth would notice these are less autopilot friendly than before where you just needed to tap a button or always have the nuke ready to use after landing a couple PAs.
Don't get me wrong, I also don't want a repeat of the game design where you have too few things to do, and even fewer right things to do, so that people end up just spamming the bestest thing all the time anyway. That's why it's necessary to alleviate some moves from being plain photon arts. Weapons now have room for bigger movesets while using the same number of buttons as before. It didn't fix the issue for every weapon - some of them still look downright idiotic - but it's as much of an important set up for what's to come as the jump from 2 button to 3 button.
Using two different PAs puts you at one attack away from the 5th hit, using two similar PAs puts you at two. If you're already in the middle of a normal combo (because of PP problems, etc.) you might as well get the whole thing out, but this is the less likely scenario. Using two PAs to skip to the big normal hit is just what many classes did in PSO2 in the first place, they just improved the reward here.Quote:
You're going to have a really hard time to make me agree that something like Sword 5 is even close to versatile
Great reading in general. In short, OG PSO2 had more in the beginning, but NGS has the better gameplay.
So far, the things I don't like about NGS:
-It's a bit soulless. What they are offering is very generic and repetitive. Hell, it's Sonic's 30th bday and only the OG PSO2 has a lobby for it.
-No My Room. At the minimum, they should have made a copy of you current layout of OG PSO2 in NGS
-They want to control the price of some of the AC stuff you win. On the Global version, I'm stuck with an item that can't be sold under 500K because there's like 250+ of them up for sale!! If this was OG PSO2, I would drop the price to 300K or something.
-We're sharing the Chat Shortcuts and Fashion with both games, this should be separate.
-Wish we could have more preferences in our storage like: The default box when you open and being able to hide things you can't use from the other game.
-We're able to see people chatting from miles away, this was not a problem in OG PSO2
-Speaking of which, the Global version has a serious bot spam issue. They should prevent people from sending public chats until they complete certain tasks in the game to keep these parasites out!
I'd only put T.machineguns gear under that category. Arguably Knuckles as well, though it being unusable in the air was an additional thing to play around. And I'm stuck on them because they made melee more involved and individual weapons more unique. Granted Hunter gear boost simplified things quite a bit, though it wasn't around from the start.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
Since I've been on the defense for a minute, tell me, would you be strictly against the idea of gears in NGS at the moment?
I don't really see what's so complicated about it. On one side, if you only have to take decisions every 3 seconds as opposed to every 1, there's less player agency. On the other, if everything is tied to a path or a stance of some kind, there's less flexibility, and thus ultimately less player agency. Which doesn't meant there's none. I'm saying there's less.Quote:
Deciding to commit to the 5 hit normal sword combo over doing something else is in and of itself a choice. Like, I'm not sure what player agency you're talking about. If the idea of something being optimal isn't the issue it's not like you can't play partisan without trying to aim for counters, and it's not like you don't have the choice of whether to only do the first half of a PA or not. You have choices and agency, I don't understand why tying it to mechanics other than gears (which, again, most of which were non-mechanics), and PAs is taking player agency away, it just means you have to push a different combination of buttons.
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Now you're jumping to the extreme opposite for no reason, bad pugs are primarily a result of gear, which I never spoke of; equipment is cold hard numbers, there's very little meaningful player choice there, in either PSO2 or NGS. But that's neither here nor there, you're not really addressing the heart of my argument here. I will say that post-rebalancing(in 2016 I believe?), most PAs were viable to an extent(one merely needs to look at dps charts on the swiki to see that). Before that, it was a mess, no denying it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dimate
Well optimization is obviously distinct from one game to the other. The point was, you will use Accel Drive optimally more often than Raging Waltz back in PSO2, simply because there's less room for player input and thus mistakes. You're overselling Deadly circle and something tells me the hitbox is quite a bit wider(especially vs PSO2's uncharged), and Quick take I have nothing against(though come on, bringing up gap closing, when NGS has superdash? Really?), I wish there was more stuff like it. Double Saber is probably the most fun melee weapon in NGS currently, in my opinion.Quote:
NGS does the optimization for you, but only for the plunge and dash attacks. Accel Drive, a gap closer that needs to be primed using another PA, is not as "optimized" as something like Raging Waltz which can be used whenever. Deadly Circle and Spiral Drive became trickier to use because they either have a long windup during which the target can back away, or no longer come with Quick Take, and require you to maintain and look out for a dim particle effect around your character. I'm sure a person who appreciates depth would notice these are less autopilot friendly than before where you just needed to tap a button or always have the nuke ready to use after landing a couple PAs.
I don't necessarily disagree that introducing other direct sources of damage than our PP bar is bad, but not just any replacement will work, and I don't like what they picked.Quote:
Don't get me wrong, I also don't want a repeat of the game design where you have too few things to do, and even fewer right things to do, so that people end up just spamming the bestest thing all the time anyway. That's why it's necessary to alleviate some moves from being plain photon arts. Weapons now have room for bigger movesets while using the same number of buttons as before. It didn't fix the issue for every weapon - some of them still look downright idiotic - but it's as much of an important set up for what's to come as the jump from 2 button to 3 button.
Using two different PAs puts you at one attack away from the 5th hit, using two similar PAs puts you at two. If you're already in the middle of a normal combo (because of PP problems, etc.) you might as well get the whole thing out, but this is the less likely scenario. Using two PAs to skip to the big normal hit is just what many classes did in PSO2 in the first place, they just improved the reward here.
And yes, the Arts skip talents are welcomed, but they're still really not that dynamic, especially with how few PAs we have, and a bit specific when so many weapons don't get a fifth normal, sometimes not even a fourth. Regardless, it's still restrictive design. You actually put it into words quite well, indirectly; in many places, they took what "everyone was doing" and made it "the one thing everyone can do". Yeah well that sucks. Maybe you lost nothing in the transition, but I didn't.
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Just a nod but, NGS having the Sonic problem(I mean, one of them) is... really weird.Quote:
Originally Posted by SuKKrl
Well no wonder I saw like 3 pages of an item for 500k thinking that people were greedy and not wanting to lower the price. I think this is the scummiest stuff they have done since I started playing PSO2 /:Quote:
Originally Posted by the_importer_
No, but my point was kind of that those mechanics either got rolled into other aspects of the gameplay, or replaced with something more engaging. For a lot of the weapons, the gear was basically a binary, or was maintained by doing what you were doing anyway. I do think they need to add UI elements for a lot of stuff in NGS though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
Sword gear you either had it at max or sword was just bad, and you just maintained it by hitting things, which is what you wanted to be doing anyway.
Partisan gear added the aspect of needing to specifically wait out flourishes for it or hold the guard, but what it actually did was kinda boring to be tied to a resource, since, for most of the game it was just an AoE increase to your PAs.
WL Gear just meant you had to work a non-grab PAs into your rotation every once in a while, I really prefer the current implementation of using the PAs and weapon action to react to what's happening instead.
Knuckle gear was basically always on, even before the skill that doubled its gear gain. You didn't interact with it, it just made you attack faster for attacking... which is what you wanted to be doing. It didn't even take long to build.
Dagger gear were basically a damage bonus for being in the air, which, honestly doesn't even need to be a gear, but you wouldn't really notice it when it was there in terms of how you played other than brief moment you would build it up. Once it was up you didn't need to do anything to maintain it other than what the weapons were designed to encourage you to do already, stay in the air.
DS Gear was just a mess in general, needing to stop what you were doing constantly to maintain the tornado. They added some PAs that interacted with it, and the ring later that made it automatic, but it was more tedious than engaging in its original implementation. DS in NGS skips to the automatic tornado part and instead makes it something you build up to use for a pay out at your own leasure. It's functionally a gear in every way except the UI (which I do think is the biggest problem with them dropping gears as a concept entirely)
TMG Gear was another just doing more damage for doing damage. It had the gimmick of getting hit lowering it, and getting knocked down emptying it, but other classes had gimmicks like that too without it being tied to a weapon gear. Also, you know, not wanting to get hit being a universal thing. Again, the UI is the only thing important to it being a gear. Gunner in NGS maintains the desire to constantly be attacking by rewarding you for upkeeping chain for the attack speed buff. I have other issues with gunner though.
Wand gear was DoA. Granted Te was kind of a design mess from the start. It feels like it has a much more defined roll in NGS being a class that can buff people with the ability to build physical and elemental downs with the same weapon. But that's kinda beside the point.
Katana gear was good, since you actually interacted with it, but since we haven't seen braver yet, there's no reason it couldn't have a similar "build up to super mode" mechanic, they don't need to call it a gear.
Dual Blade Gear was one you used but it was basically just a currency for your rotation, you didn't really need to do anything complicated to maintain or use it.
JB gear was another good one, at least once Vinto came out and gave you a way to interact with it besides building it up. The current NGS DS is basically an elaboration on that to be honest.
Hero and phantom gears were basically just build ups to super modes with finishers, so I assume you wouldn't be counting them for this. I do wish we got something in that vein from from the talis and rifle skills though, they feel a little flaccid for how long they take to build up.
ET DS gear had a lot going on, but it seems like the general idea, minus the DR on getting hit, is built into what the current DS is anyway.
ET Wand and soaring blades were more super moves, which I like the idea of, but they didn't feel very gear like either.
Luster gear was also basically just a super move, however I do think something like voltage would be cool in NGS. Something like chain but instead of using it for burst you try to maintain it for as long as possible.
EDIT: Wait, no I'm dumb, Luster gear was actually one of my favorites because it was used for so many different things. There was actually something of a consideration about how and when you would use it sometimes. I forgot luster time was just an active skill, not tied to the gear.
Well I just straight up disagree with that. All that means is the pacing is slower, which was a stated goal the devs have had from the start. Making decisions less often doesn't mean you're decisions are less impactful or meaningful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
I guess the thing is, I don't see how there's less flexibility when a lot of the things we're doing in NGS weren't even options in the original, especially if we're comparing them at launch. I guess if your point is just "there were more options, and more options = more player agency". But to me having more options is meaningless and shallow if those options aren't actually meaningful in and of themselves. I'm not saying I want less stuff, just that I don't want them giving us more for the sake of "variety", that could have just been tied to other mechanics or implemented into the gameplay styles of the classes and weapons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclon
The fact that not charging PAs and techs or only using the first half of PAs is even a valid strategic option is a step up from the "either you do the whole thing/charge it fully or it's not even worth doing" that a lot of stuff had. There was a lot of choices that didn't matter because one of the options was the right one and the other was just bad and added nothing. Outside of a few specific cases, I feel like every PA, Tech, and Skill in NGS has a use case, and I REALLY prefer that, especially as a baseline. I would rather them build up on a good baseline, and I feel NGS has a stronger baseline than the original PSO2 did.
The way subclasses and multi-weapons work also opens up a lot of options. Obviously there'll probably be meta stuff, but it feels a lot less strict in terms of doing weird combinations.
I'm not... going to address these one by one, this is not a rabbit hole we should get into imo. All I can say is that I disagree to some extent, in one way or another, with almost all of these. I don't really think there's anything in NGS that properly replaces those either, outside of Double Saber since it essentially still has its gear. Most weapons are exclusively about damage and PP management, with a few counters thrown in here and there. I disagree that this was the case in PSO2. I don't care for it to be named "gear", this is not the point. I want there to be more to the weapons, both in terms of how many things they can do, and how distinct they are from one another. I believe this was the point of the system, regardless on our disagreements on its success.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
True, but I think both games are relatively equal in terms of how meaningful individual decisions are, tbh. Which just leaves me with NGS having less of them.Quote:
Well I just straight up disagree with that. All that means is the pacing is slower, which was a stated goal the devs have had from the start. Making decisions less often doesn't mean you're decisions are less impactful or meaningful.
Options for options' sake is relatively pointless, yes, I don't think that's what OG PSO2 did though. The PA mechanical variety was honestly quite praiseworthy, to the point where you could probably delete half of them at random and still build something functional and interesting with whatever remained. Yes, they were originally very poorly balanced. But calling them shallow is honestly unfair, because it's not something they half-assed, and even from one weapon to every other, there were surprisingly few repeats considering the quantity.Quote:
I guess the thing is, I don't see how there's less flexibility when a lot of the things we're doing in NGS weren't even options in the original, especially if we're comparing them at launch. I guess if your point is just "there were more options, and more options = more player agency". But to me having more options is meaningless and shallow if those options aren't actually meaningful in and of themselves. I'm not saying I want less stuff, just that I don't want them giving us more for the sake of "variety", that could have just been tied to other mechanics or implemented into the gameplay styles of the classes and weapons.
The fact that not charging PAs and techs or only using the first half of PAs is even a valid strategic option is a step up from the "either you do the whole thing/charge it fully or it's not even worth doing" that a lot of stuff had. There was a lot of choices that didn't matter because one of the options was the right one and the other was just bad and added nothing. Outside of a few specific cases, I feel like every PA, Tech, and Skill in NGS has a use case, and I REALLY prefer that, especially as a baseline. I would rather them build up on a good baseline, and I feel NGS has a stronger baseline than the original PSO2 did.
The way subclasses and multi-weapons work also opens up a lot of options. Obviously there'll probably be meta stuff, but it feels a lot less strict in terms of doing weird combinations.
I will agree that PSO2 at release, even without the balancing taken into account, had more worthless options than NGS does(mostly because of uncharged versions, but the point still stands). But it must be said that when you have very few of said options, meaningfulness isn't an accomplishment, it's a given. And I don't even think we should jump the gun on that one, as some tools in NGS do feel quite dominant to me, and others much less so.
My above point did imply some trimming of the fat in PSO2's case, but with it done, you're still left with a pretty large amount of, well, meaningful options, and unlike ~half of NGS', they could be used successfully in many situations.
There is more variety in class building in NGS at the moment, that much is true. If the past is anything to go by this won't stop people from all playing the same thing regardless nor someone to tell me it was "all worthless anyway" when I lament that it's gone in the next entry within the coming decade... but hey!
Well I thought there might have just been some sort of misunderstanding, but I guess we just disagree.
i'm burnt out after 2 weeks in NG
there's nothing worth doing in the game anymore, this feels like an alpha test game
Besides doing the Gigantix tasks, only thing left is to cap all the classes to Lv20.Quote:
Originally Posted by sol_trigger
Yes it does feel like there is nothing to do which is true and this is the main problem I have with the open world we have right now. The usual scenario being I log in and ask myself am I going to the same map rotation of hunting the veteran bosses or just run around in circles in a leveling area and maybe get some excubes in?
It is pretty rough as there is nothing to aim for specifically, where as the old PSO2 had rare drops from bosses that you can hunt on demand without any contenders for spawns. Maybe this can get fixed if they decide to implement private rooms or something but that will still be a lot of running to cover ground between spawn points.
I have also seen 32 player afk fields waiting for gigantix and it's not a very good sight.
I think the thing that makes it feel a lot more empty is how they're going about rarity and unique drops. Nothing truly feels rare so there's no real satisfaction from putting in hours in farming something. Right now you can farm Gigantix, get a stragga drop, and be one of thousands of others using the weapons. While on PSO2 people would farm Quartz endlessly for a dragon slayer and you'd know when you encountered someone with one they were really lucky, spend a ton of time farming, or just saved enough for one.
It kinda seems like atm they don't really want anything to really seem rare, they could have given all the bosses some seemingly impossible drop that are unique to said enemy and given players something to actually sink their time into. Gigantix could have had actual rare drops but, you can get all their drops pretty cheap from other players which kinda shows how commonly they drop.They'd probably eventually give things actual valuable drops, just kinda sucks how easily obtainable every goal you may set is right now. The Finds/Accomplishment thread is empty with 0 replies probably because of how getting drops and reaching all 20s seems unrewarding/unworthy of celebrating.
I forgot there was a finds/accomplishments thread tbh, I usually don't post in those or even look at them, but I actually have something for that now. :wacko:Quote:
Originally Posted by エリュシオン
I felt like since it was one of the earliest threads that may have been why no one was posting there, which is why I also said "probably" while talking about the thread earlier. I still stand by things not feeling as rewarding or worthy of posting because of how easy it is to obtain goals right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
I mean, I wasn't disagreeing with you, just amused that I forgot there was a thread for it when I actually had something to post there for once. Honestly, I feel like Techs got a bit too overzealous with making threads for unreleased content. A lot of them are buried on the second page already, and won't have any activity until the stuff related to them drops. But it's not like anyone else is taking initiative so eh.Quote:
Originally Posted by エリュシオン
Uh huh?Quote:
Originally Posted by sol_trigger
I think we do agree on a bunch of things, but yeah. Though I'd be curious to see more opinion pieces on the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
I didn't say you were, just meant regardless if the thread was alive or not my views wouldn't have changed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kondibon
Fixa is what makes drops really rare and unique. Stragga is dime a dozen, stragga with a level 3+ fixa is rare and expensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by エリュシオン
They probably just wanted to get this out in time for the 9th Anniversary shenanigans, content or no (with one month of live beta test).
Was the 50% daily triboost a thing since day 1 or did it come later on?
Daily Orders were implemented on 2012/9/12 but Daily Boosts weren't implemented until 2014/08/27, the initial cap was 30%.Quote:
Originally Posted by the_importer_
Really, we didn't get those until EP3?! My memory must have playing tricks on me then.Quote:
Originally Posted by FOnewearl-Lina
https://pso2.jp/players/update/20140827/10/Quote:
Originally Posted by the_importer_
Time to upgrade your RAM!
Edit: To be clear, we are talking about the Triboots dailies, the first attempt at dailies were introduced a couple of months after launch but back then Time Attack was the way to earn meseta.
Yeah, I still remember when people actually cared about TT. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by FOnewearl-Lina
I do remember clearly that at least early ep3 still had an economy that wasn't based on running dailies with alts and rampant inflation. There are a lot of decisions I don't agree regarding the second half of the game's life, but I still think that one takes the prize for being the most stupid of them.
I've played since fi/gu/te release and gear NEVER felt rewarding or interesting. Actually, I never got a single usable upgrade drop my entire time playing. Generally player shops, currency, or collection files/ zieg.
NGS doesn't have to try very hard to actually drop usable items and be better than pso.
EP1-5 had nothing to do besides EQ's and extremes(once per day......that's worse than genshin impacts resin system), TA's and AQ's when they were first added but they got power crept out pretty fast ;/
Divides the only real content PSO2 ever got and NGS is looking to follow ep1-5s foootsteps. It's like they didn't learn a single thing from pso2.