No Jasons here, just new info. The biggest part of today's blog is a list info and changes between the first alpha and the upcoming second alpha. A lot of the changes are things that were listed in the first alpha report several months ago.
Character Creation
- New parts, clothing, and accesories
- Casts can have morphable, human-like faces
- Eyebrow color can be changed
- The minimum and maximum heights for characters has been tweaked
- Can choose between hovering and running for Cast movement
- Ability to choose two skin patterns at once
- Redo and Undo functions have been added to the creator
- The ability to test various facial expressions has been added to the creator
- Parts/clothing no longer function as armor
- Units are now hidable via the item pack
Skill Tree
- New, easy to understand interface
- Now possible to level a using all points possible at once
- Added new skills like "Just Counter" and "Just Reversal"
Player Combat
- Ranged and tech attacks get just attacks
- Hold button to continuously attack
- Invincible frames for hunter's and ranger's dodges have been decreased
- It takes less time to change from walking to running
- You will now walk when you have your weapon sheathed and are moving by pressing the analoge stick of a game pad slighty
- Guarding cancels attacks faster than dodging
- You can move normally, but not run, while charging techs
- Techs on the sub-pallete are now chargable
- Non-charged techs are more powerful than before
- Certain techs do different things when charged up
- You can change the default rod action from melee to tech and back again
- Charged resta heals over a larger area
- Add the ability to charge the Nova Strike PA for swords
- Using mates when your HP is full won't use up items
- For swords and wired lances, changing weapons or areas will no longer reset your gear (Not sure what this means)
- Bullets have a wider spread in normal attack mode and less spread in 3rd person shooter mode
- You can now remotely detonate traps
- Can no longer lock on to other players
- Follow-run changed
- Blur can be turned off or on in the options
Enemy Combat
- The Caterdoran will appear in some volcanic area missions
- You can cause all but large enemies to stutter mid-attack with a just attack
- Enemies of the same type will have stats depending on their size (big rappies stronger than small rappies)
- Enemies of different types will attack each other (rappy vs booma)
- When boss monsters appear in a multi-party area, there is a chance that the boss could have a special title in it's name that denotes a stat change or a chance that something could happen to the surrounding enemies
Quest System
- You can choose to create a new party when selecting a new quest from the quest counter
- You can change the party settings when you choose to start a new quest and create a party
- More info has been added to the list of displayed parties when you choose to enter an already existing party
- You can choose to have other player's HP bars displayed over their heads
- Shops and a quest counter have been added to the camp ship
- Free fields can be accepted by simply going straight to the camp ship (think of free fields as just not really having a quest but exploring areas)
- Free fields and certain Arks quests will have a boss area at the end of the mission (boss monsters may appear outside of this area though)
- You can teleport to an area you've already been to from the camp ship (ie going back to Forest 2)
- The telepool (I'm serious) in the camp ship will now change based on if and where a telepipe is placed
- Item, weapon, and meseta drop icons have been changed
Interupt Events
- The suddenly occuring events that make up a part of Interupt Events are now called "Emergency Trials"
- Depending on the circumstances, emergency trials can occur free fields
- After receiving a reward item from an emergency trial, it will be sent to your storage if your item pack is full. If your storage is full, the item will be sent to a 30 item limit temporary storage. Items stored here will be overwritten in oldest-to-newest order if full
PSEs
- The rate at which photon sensitive events occur and continue has been balanced
User Interface
- The UI is easier on the eyes and easier to control with a game pad
- You will chose on first login which control method you will mostly be using and the game will automatically change some settings to match that
- You can change the key settings in-game now
- The main menu has been iconized and menus layered
- There is a quick menu for game pad users for things like emotes
- A new button setting allows for you to jump to any page on the item description
- Icons are easier to understand
- Locked items in the equipment menu stand out more
- Useable Items now display the total number held on top of their icon
- An "Equip" menu now exists to make it easier to equip items
- "Enchants" are now "Special Abilities"
- You can buy or sell from storage
- You can move multiple items at a single time while using storage
- You can store meseta in storage
- HP and PP meter visuals are larger
- Quest targets and emergency trial targets are now listed on-screen
- The mini-map now remembers if it was set to full or local on moving between areas
- The mini-map is larger
- Party members now always appear on the mini-map if in the same area
- Lock on markers are easier to see
- Status indicators like AFK or LFG have been added
- UI scaling
- New loading screen
- In-game screenshot function
Communication
- Game pad users can now just type on the keyboard to chat instead of pressing C
- Added ability to transport to the block a player on your friend list is in
- Lobby actions can be performed with alt + alphabet keys
- Shift-enter while chatting brings up the cut-in chat preview while control-enter brings up the emoticon and word bubble preview
- The chat log and chat channel are now seperate (ie party chat while view public log)
- Search for players with the visiphone
In addition to these changes, the second alpha will also see the implimentation of the "My Room," "Item Lab," and "My Shop" features. The "My Room" found in PSO2 is different than that of PSU. Only one room per account will exist on a ship (PSO2's version of entrances, I suppose) and all characters registered to that ship will share that room. The functions of the My Room feature will be limited in the alpha. There are a few reform tickets and decorative items to by. During the alpha, reform tickets will not be used up when used. The only action available for decorations will be to sit down for the alpha.
The Item Lab, where you can grind weapons, improve elemental attributes and add special abilities will be fully available in the alpha. The price and results found in the alpha may vary from later versions due to balancing.
The My Shop function will be fully available in the alpha but the trading function will not be implemented in the alpha test.
Additionally, there are some pictures of the new -mate animation. The animation has been changed from an injection to a potion.
Finally, if you're wanting to sign up for the alpha, you only have a few days left! When you do sign up, make sure you not only sign up for a Sega ID but for the alpha test as well!
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