Whats new in PSO2?

[Kiyumi]

So I havent logged in for a while, I found completed 2nd Anniversary Xie client orders that I cant turn in so that must be when I last logged in. I found a ton of new client orders, Koffie talked to me, new NPCs, and a casino thing. And the makeover shop seems different? Oh and a "bouncer" class.

Could anyone be kind enough to give me a brief summary of whats going on to catch me up to speed? Thanks.

[Edit] Oh and I dont know what this "Arks Grand Prix Qualifiers" thing is ):

[DJcooltrainer]

Well, EP3 came out, and brought the new Bouncer class with it. It's a mixed S-atk/T-atk class, it's pretty fun right now but it lacks a good selection of PA's, in my opinion.

Don't worry about the Arks GP thing unless you live in Japan.

Ship 2 teamed with ship 4 for the ship competition this time, and won.

Uhhh. That's about it, really.

[LonelyGaruga]

So I havent logged in for a while, I found completed 2nd Anniversary Xie client orders that I cant turn in so that must be when I last logged in. I found a ton of new client orders, Koffie talked to me, new NPCs, and a casino thing. And the makeover shop seems different? Oh and a "bouncer" class.

Could anyone be kind enough to give me a brief summary of whats going on to catch me up to speed? Thanks.

[Edit] Oh and I dont know what this "Arks Grand Prix Qualifiers" thing is ):

Episode 3 came with a decently sized overhaul of the game.

-Both lobby areas were redesigned, casino added. Get a coin pass for logging on that can be exchanged at the casino for 100-500 coins (random, pretty much always 100 though). Coins can be used to play games to collect more coins or exchange them for prizes like XQ passes, grinders, or rare enemy triggers (special item used when starting a quest, makes a rare enemy spawn at the beginning of the quest at level 70).

-Rebalance, all skill trees were drastically adjusted and a free skill tree reset pass was given to all players. Skills like Just Reversal and Step Attack are already present without taking SP now. Normal attacks, PAs and techs were also heavily readjusted, with adjustments to animation speed, damage, PP cost, and so on.

-Bouncer class added, new class that specializes in S-ATK Dual Blades and T-ATK Jet Boots. Dual Blades do massive damage using their special gimmick, Photon Blades, while Jet Boots can trigger support techs with their PAs. Jet Boots can also use offensive techs as well. Their melee attacks normally run off T-ATK, but can switch to S-ATK with Jet Boots Strike. Has two stances, Elemental Stance that boosts damage for exploiting elemental weaknesses, and Break Stance that boosts damage toward breakable parts (and continues working after they're broken). Also has support skills like Critical Field, which generates a field that enhances critical hit rates, and Deband PP Restorate, which causes attacks to restore more PP with normal attacks while a player is affected by Deband. Since Bouncer can use techs, it enables tech usage when subclassed.

-Recommended quests, every day a different Exploration quest will be selected as one. Three Daily Orders corresponding to the quest will be available to select. Each Exploration quest has a x20 kill DO for the main enemy type in that quest, x3 of a particular enemy (usually the least common, like Garongo in Forest or Signo Beat in Tunnels), and x1 of the boss. Each DO rewards a 3% triboost effect that caps at 30% and diminishes by 3% every 24 hours (clearing one of these DOs resets the timer). DOs and COs in general gained a large increase in meseta rewards to encourage people to do them.

-Klotho's COs were adjusted so they can only be done once a week, but individually give larger payouts than before. He also does XQ and Grand Prix COs, GP ones are temporary though.

-ARKS Grand Prix is a tournament thing in Japan. Its only use for non-Japanese players is another quest to speed run and Klotho's COs. No drops or EXP from them, like the previous Grand Prix quests.

I think that's all that's necessary to know. There's another moderately sized update coming up, might want to check into that.

[mctastee]

Episode 3 came with a decently sized overhaul of the game.

-Both lobby areas were redesigned, casino added. Get a coin pass for logging on that can be exchanged at the casino for 100-500 coins (random, pretty much always 100 though). Coins can be used to play games to collect more coins or exchange them for prizes like XQ passes, grinders, or rare enemy triggers (special item used when starting a quest, makes a rare enemy spawn at the beginning of the quest at level 70).

-Rebalance, all skill trees were drastically adjusted and a free skill tree reset pass was given to all players. Skills like Just Reversal and Step Attack are already present without taking SP now. Normal attacks, PAs and techs were also heavily readjusted, with adjustments to animation speed, damage, PP cost, and so on.

-Bouncer class added, new class that specializes in S-ATK Dual Blades and T-ATK Jet Boots. Dual Blades do massive damage using their special gimmick, Photon Blades, while Jet Boots can trigger support techs with their PAs. Jet Boots can also use offensive techs as well. Their melee attacks normally run off T-ATK, but can switch to S-ATK with Jet Boots Strike. Has two stances, Elemental Stance that boosts damage for exploiting elemental weaknesses, and Break Stance that boosts damage toward breakable parts (and continues working after they're broken). Also has support skills like Critical Field, which generates a field that enhances critical hit rates, and Deband PP Restorate, which causes attacks to restore more PP with normal attacks while a player is affected by Deband. Since Bouncer can use techs, it enables tech usage when subclassed.

-Recommended quests, every day a different Exploration quest will be selected as one. Three Daily Orders corresponding to the quest will be available to select. Each Exploration quest has a x20 kill DO for the main enemy type in that quest, x3 of a particular enemy (usually the least common, like Garongo in Forest or Signo Beat in Tunnels), and x1 of the boss. Each DO rewards a 3% triboost effect that caps at 30% and diminishes by 3% every 24 hours (clearing one of these DOs resets the timer). DOs and COs in general gained a large increase in meseta rewards to encourage people to do them.

-Klotho's COs were adjusted so they can only be done once a week, but individually give larger payouts than before. He also does XQ and Grand Prix COs, GP ones are temporary though.

-ARKS Grand Prix is a tournament thing in Japan. Its only use for non-Japanese players is another quest to speed run and Klotho's COs. No drops or EXP from them, like the previous Grand Prix quests.

I think that's all that's necessary to know. There's another moderately sized update coming up, might want to check into that.

All of this stuff kinda makes me wanna come back now.

[gigawuts]

Garuga mentioned the dailies having increased payout, but to elaborate there are usually 3-4 noteworthy daily orders on any given day (sometimes just 1, sometimes all of them). These orders typically pay out just a bit over 100k, but the Very Hard Bal Rodos daily order pays out a whopping 250k. Sometimes they'll pay 118, sometimes 130, sometimes 97. Generally, VH DOs aren't much less than SH DOs. Even the 30x Hard mode Udans daily order will pay out ~40k, making it nice to pick up and clear while you go about your normal routine.

For most of us this has replaced the TAs in terms of stuff to just chill out and lazily do each day. Sometimes we just grab the good DOs for the day then log - more often than not, a boss has its free field added later (i.e. Biol Meduna's order is up, then VH or SH seabed free field is up the next day).

It's a nice change of scenery each day, if you want to do that stuff.

The daily time attack orders also had their payouts increased a bit I believe, and holding on to them until you do your weekly(ish) TA run means a TA set can pay out as much as 2m if the last week had a decent selection of daily TA orders.

[Kiyumi]

omg thanks so much for explaining, I wasnt expecting so much help haha.

Okay so it seems like TAs are once a week now instead of daily, thats great because it really made the game stale. And moneymaking has been replaced with 3 daily COs that are random every day? Okay Ill go do that, and I can skip the grand prix thing.

Bouncer is kinda like Braver, with a choice between a support Tatk build or a Satk dual blader. Ill go look up some gameplay videos for that right now.

Just to confirm, I get a casino pass for free every day? And I should just use it immediately?

Thanks again, this was really helpful.

[LonelyGaruga]

Oh, when I said three DOs, what I meant is that out of all the DOs available each day, three of them correspond to the recommended quest of the day. There's like...I dunno, 20 DOs in addition to those? I don't know because I always have my CO list filled with them so I can't check without losing out on some nice DOs. But anyway, point is, there are a lot more than just three each day, it's just that only three of them correspond to the recommended quest of the day, and those three give a stacking 3% triboost effect per DO. You can easily fill out the rest of your CO list with DOs alone.

Generally speaking, yes, Bouncer is like Braver, but unlike Braver, it can make Jet Boots utilize S-ATK instead of T-ATK, so you have the option of using both weapons competently if you wanted to. There's the issue of SP distribution, and your tech damage won't be as good as going pure T-ATK, but it's still viable.

And yeah, each day you log on, you get a free casino pass. It'll pop up in your inventory automatically, no need to talk to an NPC or dealing with cooldowns. There's nothing to gain or lose by using it immediately or waiting on it as far as I'm aware. The casino does have an option to use 5 passes at once, but whether it's simplifying the process or there's some hidden bonus to it, I dunno. Pretty sure it's just to make it easier when you have a bunch of passes stocked up.

Forgot to add, the casino has a sticker of a Lilipan, and if you locate it, you get a title that gives you a Lilipan themed Rod camo. Its location is different depending on the block according to the swiki, and it gets randomized after each maintenance. For the actual mechanics about the casino games, there should be guides, so you can check those out for a more thorough explanation on them.

[AlVaRo0515]

In content? Nothing LOL (pls, its segac)

Although, if you're playing Phasion Star online 2, or Phantasy Shop online 2, then you have a lot new content!

[Z-0]

All of this stuff kinda makes me wanna come back now.

The game is exactly the same as Episode 2. There's nothing new to do, or anything better to do, either. It is still all about doing some daily chores (although the timing schedule is much nicer now, because of how DOs work), then waiting for some good EQs to pop up, while possibly running some AQs during the downtime to make some meseta.

If you're expecting to come back to PSO2 after Episode 3 and expecting it to fix all your problems, don't. Nothing is different, it's still exactly the same with a fresh coat of paint.

[Selphea]

The game is exactly the same as Episode 2. There's nothing new to do, or anything better to do, either. It is still all about doing some daily chores (although the timing schedule is much nicer now, because of how DOs work), then waiting for some good EQs to pop up, while possibly running some AQs during the downtime to make some meseta.

If you're expecting to come back to PSO2 after Episode 3 and expecting it to fix all your problems, don't. Nothing is different, it's still exactly the same with a fresh coat of paint.

Phantasy Star Online has its roots in Diablo, and the Diablo series isn't exactly known for churning out new content.

New content for this kind of game would be more like skill revisions/rebalancing, new loot, new potentials etc which PSO2 does deliver on quite regularly.