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.