I keep seeing all of these different topics about "Should PSO2 have this?", or "PSO2 better have fixed THIS!", etc.
How about if we flip it up a bit. Rather then looking at what PSO did *wrong* and we want fixed in PSO2. Instead lets see what made PSO special for you?
For me, the overall experience of the game was enjoyable. I started playing back on DC with the original. However, at the time I didn't understand the concept of "being legit" so I had duped/cheated items etc. Nonetheless, the game was a lot of fun... and MANY a hours went into playing it.
I quit for awhile and skipped v2 and didn't come back to the game until PSOGC. This is really where I had the most fun. To this day, I'd say PSOGC was the best game I have ever played. I'll explain why I say that:
1) The beginning of the game. PSO in itself was very simple to get into. You have a couple buttons to press, you have some enemies to kill. You press your couple buttons and stuff dies or you die. However, as you continue to play, you begin to learn how to properly time your attacks and when you to use weapons in different situations. As you progress you are able to begin developing your MAG, learning about the % of weapons, stats begin to make sense (mats, gear), etc. The game has a logical progression to it and is able to go from being extremely simple to actually having some decent depth to it.
2) Mags. Mags are by far one of the COOLEST features I have ever seen implemented into an RPG. You have a single piece of gear that you NEVER have to replace that grows with you based on how you want to level it. It changes at certain levels, gives you special abilities and learns different photon blasts. The sheer amount of MAGs was awesome and once you finished one you wanted to jump right into the next one so you could see something different. I've played a lot of different RPG/MMOs and as funny as it seems, this is still one of my favorite things in any game I've played. (Seriously, how many of you remember running MAG timers? I can remember plenty of times when I was doing something else, but every (3 1/2 minutes?) I'd pick up the controller and feed my mag.
3) Ability to solo/play in groups. I'm a long time WoW player now and the one thing that I truly hate about the game is the lack of legitimate soloable content. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, in WoW once you hit max level (85 now) there is essentially no good gear that you can get by playing by yourself. You either have to run 5-mans or raids, or if you like to PVP then you're BG grinding. The problem with this is that it completely eliminates any hopes of hopping onto the game for say 45 minutes and getting something done. (I literally spend 45 minutes just waiting to get into a group). In PSO you could play 100% by yourself if you wanted to and the only real disadvantage that you had was a smaller amount of mobs to kill in hopes of getting your rare.
At the same time, if you wanted to group, it was extremely easy to do that. You could hop into the lobby, see a list of active games and just hop in and start killing stuff. The best items in the game were not off bosses, so you were not compelled to stay to the end of the run, you could drop out at any time and not feel like you wasted your time. (Although you'd miss out on a good chunk of XP)
4) Leveling. I know, I know... you're thinking to yourself, "Leveling? Really dude?". Just hear me out for a second though. In most MODERN MMOs, the game essentially doesn't truly "begin" until you hit max level. The truly fun things to do and all the best gear can not be obtained or equipped until max level. What this does is turn leveling into a complete and utter pointless grind. It's not fun at any point and most people try to rush through it as fast as possible.
In PSO, there was really no *need* to get max level. It was cool and certainly a fun achievement, but you did not need to be max level to enjoy the game or the best items in the game. Once you reached "Ultimate" it where most people would say the game truly "begins". It's at that point that you can start finding the really good rares and equipped them. Weapons required a minimum stat and armor required a level. This concept made levels still relevant so you can equip the armor, but that sweet new weapon you got could be equipped almost immediately just by using a mag and shifting some of your slot items around. It was a really nice balance so that your sole purpose isn't to just grind out levels, but it also keeps your "hunts" enjoyable because you know you're always getting XP even if your rare doesn't drop.
5) Rares. This to most people is probably the single best part of the game. I don't think I can argue that point either. The sheer amount of rare items in the game is mind boggling. To add to that, the use of section IDs added some diversity to the runs (even though in the grand scheme of things you're still just killing the same old crap over and over again).
Every time I'd kill a group of mobs and see a red box on the ground, my heart would race a little bit. Everyone would do a mad scramble for the elusive red box just to see what it was. (Before drop charts this was even more exciting because you truly didn't know what you got until you tek'd it).
I could go on and on and on about the rares. Like I said before, this arguably was the best part of the game and definitely what made it so addicting.
6) Challenge Mode. Some of you may have not enjoyed Challenge mode, but I loved it. For two main reasons, which I'll explain in further detail.
a) It was actually challenging the first few times through. It allowed you take all of your knowledge of the game and put it to real use. Is this handgun better than this saber? Am I better off using a 2-hit combo or a 3? Should I hold off on using a monomate until I level, or should I use it now? The list goes on and on and on.
b) It allowed you to take a break from your rare hunting and obtain a guaranteed rare drop. For those of you that hunted items with drop rates of 1/1000+ you can appreciate what I'm talking about. It can get really disheartening killing the same thing 10,000 times and not getting your rare. So to be able to invest some time into Challenge mode and KNOW that you will get a good rare of your choice at the end was a nice perk.
c) For those that enjoyed C-Mode, you could spend untold amounts of time trying to better your overall times. I know players that didn't even really play the normal game, they invested most of their time in just playing C-Mode.
7) The community. This is a funny one, because prior to playing other games I really took this for granted. PSO truly had/has one of the best communities. People are generally helpful when asked for help. I can't even begin to count the amount of times that people would hop into a run and help me hunt a rare even though nothing in that level dropped anything of use for them.
People were/are also very nice in terms of allowing people to play their own way. For those of you again that haven't played WoW or any other MMO that requires a lot of group play, people become serious elitists. In PSO terms, unless you were running with nothing but Charge Mechs w/Hit and a Hell Laser w/Hit you would be scrutinized to the ends of the earth. So it's nice to be able to play with people that don't care if you pull out your old Soul Eater for giggles, or start rockin' your Sigh of a God. People played for fun and the content allowed that to a certain extent.
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I'm sure I can add much more, but it's late and I have work in the morning. So I'll leave it at that for now and hopefully see what others really enjoyed about PSO.
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