Started playing it the day after it released on Steam. Made my character, played the intro level, and tried a couple of the tutorial quests meant to teach you how you play as different classes. Basically, maybe 15 to 20 minutes of actually getting to play the game. Then the message came up saying that emergency server maintenance was going to start and everybody was getting kicked offline. Haven't gotten the time to play again since. Ton of fun while I did get to play, though. I like the Bouncer class the most out of the ones I've tried so far. The jet-skate looking weapons are pretty easy to use, with air combat that feels slightly like Kingdom Hearts once you get a rhythm going, and if there's anything too dangerous, I can switch to a gun and focus on dodging while cherry-tapping the enemy on lock-on.
So I figured I would do an update since it seems its been a while despite all the new information that's come up. So let's see... Details on New Genesis Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis (NGS from here on out) has been announced to be not a new title but rather... a new expansion... sorta. Many people have guessed correctly that NGS is a similar situation to how Final Fantasy XIV was redone and rebranded itself as A Realm Reborn. However, what many people weren't expecting was that New Genesis would, in fact, be played from the existing PSO2 client with the original EPISODE 1-6 content still being playable. The way this would work, unlike past "EPISODE" expansions which added content on top of the currently existing game, modified the lobby, and simply altered the existing parameters and meta, New Genesis essentially acts as a self-contained new 'Mode' with its own progression, lobby, content and gameplay! Traversing through both 'modes' has been described as being similar to switching between blocks. Through various posts on the website and a recent livestream at the Tokyo Game show, more information had been revealed. Moving away from the classic "Lobby / Instanced Maps" route past games took, New Genesis is fully Open-World with one huge map to explore with even the 'lobby' itself just being a part of the map. That said, this huge map is divided into multiple smaller 'instanced' sectors so unless you are in a party there's no guarantee that you'll be playing with the same people as you move throughout the world. Sectors are represented by large holographic barriers in the map and an onscreen 'matchmaking' indicator. Combat areas have a player limit of eight characters in total with the lobby not really having a player count indicator, its theorized that it would be able to hold more people than the various 'action' areas. The following is a screenshot of the lobby: and as previously mentioned... there's no transition between the Lobby and the Map, its all part of the map. Now some other details revealed on the stream: We are now back to the original Hunter, Ranger and Force trio though with their gameplay being changed slightly, some people comparing them to the Scion classes. As a result, it's noted that though you'll be able to bring along weapons you obtain in PSO2, not all might be usable given that some of them (like Pets for Summoner) are for classes which aren't present in NGS. Perfect Attacks (Just Attacks for PSU / Fan Translation players) are no longer a game mechanic. Monomates aren't present. You recover health using a "Restaride" item which aren't sold in stores and instead recovered through the world. As opposed to legacy PSO2's Monomates which have an animation which needs to play; Restaride effects are instant similar to how Monomates functioned in PSO1 and PSU. Every fifth combo of a melee attack will be a strong attack that's as powerful as a Photon Art. Forces can Parry/Guard against attacks. A new mechanic will cause enemies to show a new weak point when they've taken enough elemental damage. As opposed to legacy PSO2 where you naturally had a fast running speed by simply moving in a direction, NGS now has dashing through a button press. You dash by holding down the dodge button. You can also glide through the air as depicted in the trailer but how this is triggered hasn't been explained. Emergency Codes (now renamed to "Emergency Trial) now behave more akin to FATE from Final Fantasy XIV; an icon will appear indicating that an Emergency Trial's happening in an area and you can join the Trial by traversing to that area. Legacy PSO2 So some short things over on Legacy PSO2: PSO2 Global is now available worldwide on both Steam and Microsoft Store except for Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Belgium, China, Korea and Japan. The Global version's equivalent of the Japanese "ARKS Station" livestreams had just happened a few days ago, now called "ARKS Hour". The stream features several of the GMs and members of the Community Team and on this first episode, they brought on Aaron Webber (RubyEclipse) as a guest. EPISODE 5 is now out on the Global servers, once again they plan to release the episode in chunks. At the rate things are going we might begin EPISODE 6 by late November / early December. As of the writing of this post, many will notice that the Player Shops do not work... this is an issue which apparently is also happening on the JP version (remember that the JP management team also manage the Global version). Player numbers have unfortunately dropped according to Steam's stats. In Japan, support for the Vita version has been dropped completely. The New Genesis update will be upgrading the game's graphics as well. As a result, it's been noted that the system requirements for PSO2 will increase when NGS releases. So far no details on the necessary specs have been released other than the fact that the game will be upgrading from DirectX9 to DirectX11.
I’ve been meaning to get into PSO2 for a while now. I know virtually nothing about it; would you guys recommend waiting for New Genesis or should I just start now, since the game is finally available in Europe?
The game is no brainer and the first episodes are the best part of the story. I'd recommend finding people to play with you when you start, as there's stuff you can't do alone, or, well, you can but won't beat. As stated above, NGS plays apart, so there's no need to wait if you want to play the original campaign. Don't expect miracles, though: it's your standard F2P grindfest JRPG where microtransactions can make your progress quicker (plan your mag since the beginning or you'll have to buy a new one), but, fortunately, a character switch classes at any moment since not long after start, so you can try many things you may like with the same character (as long as you have time to level them up).
I'm with Xiao here, I'd recommend trying the original campaign first while system requirements are still low. PSO2's graphic engine was built with high end computers from 2012 in mind so low end computers today can still run it. While NGS is essentially a completely new game, it will also bring a graphical update to the original content as well and may make people unable to play it who could before.
Thanks to the adjustments made for the global client, my shitty computer can't run it but it could run the JP client when I left it (short after Ep. V release, can't remember the date). If I play NGS, it will mean I got a job to pay a new PC.
The fact that they only showed the three OG classes at TGS makes me wonder what will become of the other classes. Will they be there from the start or will they come out later like they did in original PSO2? Are they going to be revamped at all (Summoner could use it; raising and customizing pets is a colossal pain in the ass)? Not sure how I feel about the lack of a Gateway Ship between the lobby and world map. There's something about that tunnel loading screen that just makes me feel like I'm actually teleporting somewhere, you know? It couldn't hurt to try out now, but keep in mind that certain things are not going to carry over to NGS (character level, meseta, and a few other things I can't be bothered to check right now). If you're not too fond of having to start back at level 1 after getting all the way to the level cap I would wait. Also like Beamer said the system requirements for the original game will change when NGS comes out, and there's no telling what those will be right now. It'll likely be a while before they announce what those are, too, which sucks cause I'm already itching to build a new machine.
I kind of disagree with that. When it first came out in 2012, yes. But because the game is so old at this point when I started I felt it was the exact opposite of a f2p grindfest. You can get all the way up to level 15 in less than an hour, by yourself. Even the first 30 levels go by very quickly. Now I did pay money for the Sonic edition (not for the sonic stuff) to get the inventory expansion that it comes with, and that gave me access to a bunch of boosts, but I only had premium for the first 30 days and still felt like it wasn't grindy after that. The first time I felt like I had to grind was during Episode 4, which wasn't out until August, and that was only because one of the optional story mode scenes require you to be level 75 on two classes. I've been slowly working my way on that, I'm 71 + 75 now, but even then it wasn't so bad. Last week up until Episode 5's release yesterday they were giving you a Tokyo Gold bonus key for logging in every day and that quest gives you so much EXP that I was getting 1.5 levels out of that one quest each day. I think it does start to get grindy once your level is in the 70's, but at that point I'd expect it to take longer since you're closer to the cap. In short, I think it's fairly approachable for a Free to play game, especially if you're doing what I've been doing - I've only been playing it for the story. I'll do urgent quests and a few random ones each week, but when I'm not waiting for more story content I put the game down for a few days and come back to it. This is one of the most approachable MMO's for enjoying story content that I've played.
Alright, thanks for the tips, everyone! I guess I'll give the game a try now while waiting for New Genesis. It's been like 10 years since I played a mmorpg, It's gonna be weird jumping back into one now...but I'm sure it'll be a fun time.
I can "quote" my playtimes, and I'm usually the kind of people that levels up slowly, but not, sorry, my moments of real advance after level 40 were when some promo gave me the kind of stuff you usually pay for, and certain events where the whole game gets bonuses for some time. Oh, and abusing certain Emergency Quest available for a short time that later became an... event quest? (I can't remember the name) One of those that rotate weekly or monthly (seriously, I can't remember). There were also a myriad of classes to level up, but I only managed to max my main and sub (swapping them when the first one capped) after a year and a half, IIRC. Even half of that is too much, considering how many hours I spent playing. Of course, that was along time ago, so they have probably adjusted that. Oh, and then there's weapon grinding and all the crafting.
If you play like that, yes, I agree it would be quite the grind. But I think that would also be true for any MMO. For the last 10 years or so I've found myself just playing through long games once and only exploring side content if it's engaging. I do have every single sub-class above level 10, but that was just because I drained a bunch of the free EXP tickets they were giving out over time into those classes. In short, my time with PSO2 is going to be trying to do all of the story content and the bare minimum to see all of it. I've never joined an alliance and I usually play quests solo with NPCs. (Except the time I got yelled at by other people for doing an ultimate quest with NPCs. I won't do those with NPC's anymore) If you're trying to level multiple classes and do lots of crafting and item enhancements, I see that it will definitely get boring. I've been riding along nicely with story content and the bonuses they've been giving out. Some days I play less than 30 minutes. Today was actually a really good day for leveling, and anyone who is playing should take advantage of it. Because they had some bugs and an emergency server maintenance, they gave out apology items. I got 3 more "Tokyo Gold" keys and 2 "Magatsu Silver" keys, which got my sub-class up to level 76 so I finally have the two classes at 75 necessary for the Hero class but also the one Episode 4 cutscene that required that. I went from 71 to 76 just by using the 5 bonus keys they gave out today. I'm basically going with the flow of free leveling items and not much beyond that. I would say the way it's balanced it kind of rewards you for playing a little less but coming back more often. If you try to play more you'll basically get punished for it via more grind due to running out of enhancements. You also only get 1 extreme pass per day, and those are 'okay' on EXP.
Fun fact: originally story quests adjusted to your character's level, but ep.4 onwards they got a set and very high level requirement. Out of curiosity, I decided to log in and check: between updating and attending a lot of stuff derived from those updates I missed, instead of checking my levels in a few minutes I sort of ended up tidying up my character's situation even if I didn't really want to play or make any progress, because I felt so lot I needed to put some order and get what was happening. I left later than I remembered, it was already summer of 2017 and I thought I hadn't entered there since a year before that. I only leveled up the alternate classes to either test them or because I hit what was the max level at that time (75 then with the hero class just added). Level 75 Hunter and Braver (my main set), leveled the rest up to level 45 because that was the easy part, and I was leveling up Summoner at the moment because I had to choose something and pets were the worst "equipment" I had. Requirements for Hero class at the time involved things I couldn't achieve, so now the 4 special classes are unlocked and at level 1. Dealing with equipment is more a matter of character proficiency than levels themselves, I avoided equipment grinding as much as I could, but my character proficiency ended up being not enough if I didn't try to get that extra bonus. I always played solo except on a couple of rare occasions, and I'm not skilled enough to handle harder quests (not referring to difficulty setting here, it's about Ultimate mode and the like). Even story quest became quite hard on episode 4 onwards, and it's hard to level up if you don't play quests to get exp rewards, so, essentially, what you said, I played to try and get bonus quest keys, then played those with all the highest buffs I could to grind, but that's boring, it's no freedom. While PSO2 can be more welcoming in grindfest terms, I played the same way things like Guild Wars 1 and 2, and that was a lot more manageable: you could have your character maxed and focus on other goals after that, but GW2 got a lot of that grindfest too. Vanilla PSO1 started at a very manageable rate, but it took me aeons to get to level 120+, something I needed just to beat Ultimate Olga Flow on my own (GameCube version), so I just stopped playing after that because why bother to go beyond that point. I've played Blue Burst on private servers but I usually get bored before really trying to beat anything relevant (I don't think I've reached level 100 in any of those servers). In short: leveling up is not a very fun game, is the action thing, and that's where I suck at, so PSO2 discourages me to fully experience it in both ways. I played a lot because I stuck to what I could handle and the story was great, but ep.4 was worse and ep.5 even forced me to play some other genre and setting, so I got down the bus with enough hundreds of gameplay hours to support my decision. Now, I don't want to discourage anyone from playing it, I just don't like the eternally leveling up approach the japanese have with RPGs (I think the same about leveling and breeding in Pokémon). Sorry about the rant textwall.
That's how I've been doing it. Got the Braver class (my main) from 80 to 90 and Hunter (sub for my main) to 86 using just keys. Hated to use the gold ones since some of those weren't set to expire for another month but probably best to get mains leveled as high as possible for now. All of my other classes are 77-80 except for Hero which just dropped this week. Not sure how hard I'm going to push to level that to 75 for the class boost since I'm not sure how I feel about it. Best thing about that class is that it actually makes using swords fun, but it's kind of a pain to use the PA's for it since some of them will switch to the other weapons if you hold it down for too long. I guess it's one of those strategic things a player has to learn to use properly.
Played a solid 180 hours of PSO2 since it arrived on steam then about a week ago I got stuck doing work stuff and now I'm afraid to go back. Shit's addictive! Edit: Except the story. Dear god, the story.
As I've already said in the gaming subforum as a reply to Mecha Sally, after I logged in my japanese account just to check something out, I ended up playing again for two weeks, which is the reason why I haven't been around here last fortnight. I remembered all I loved from playing this game, and fortunately, I finally remembered why I stopped playing it for my own behalf. Prior to this 3 year gap of not touching it, I had 1k hours of total playtime, and I've added 60 or 70 more in this return period. A good chunk chunk of it was playing the last two episodes of the story, but swinging around my partisan against mobs and casting arrow showers on some bosses and other flying enemies with my bow were really nice things to do again. While I won't spoil the fun, now that I've finished the story it's evident why New Genesis will be a separate thing. Even if placed in the same timeline as the PSO2 we already have, there's no place for extending the story beyond properly; the plot has to be entirely new. Also, now that I've played it, while I still think the second half of episodes is padding, is actually good quality padding: it seems to me like most of the whole thing was planned since the beginning but needed to be altered or repurposed when making it real, so the sensation of padding comes more from how it was arranged than how they tried to add something where there was no need to. I won't point out stuff, but I'd say the anime was the main cause of this, along with everything that came with it (and I'll say nothing more, but it's hard to bite my tongue). Also, references to classic games happen here (you'd probably seen the ones on the first part of ep. 5), but the implications of such references is something I'd really discuss because I thought it would never be possible to put every Phantasy Star series and title on the same timeline and continuity and now I'm wanting a wiki for those games in the same style and quality Sonic Retro got to try to put pieces together. It's probably unintentional on Sega's part, but it would be really cool to see the bigger picture. Here ends my Phantasy Star fanboy speech, hope you liked it.
Phantasy Star Retro? Phantasy Star Hub? anyone? Joke aside, that doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. I'm a bit of a newcomer to the franchise (having gotten started in 2015 with Phantasy Star Portable 2) and I'll admit that information on the franchise, in general, is very disorganized compared to loads of other RPG franchises and even other Sega franchises; its quite rare to find fully detailed plot summaries, explanation of game mechanics or even documentation on the games' development and history (like the franchise's history with server mismanagement). I had, whenever I can, tried my best to put as much information as I could dig up or which hasn't been documented over on the Sega/Sonic Retro wiki though having a centralized Sonic Retro-styled wiki of its own would be a cool thing. About the only issue, I imagine is the fact that each game is quite large; just the amount of content present in PSO2 is big as is, imagine throwing in PSU and PSO1... not to mention the Classic series.
Phantasy Star Cave is the only site I know of for the classic games while Universe had a wiki of it's own (I was very chatty with most of the people that ran it at the time). For Phantasy Star Online...I dunno, PSO World? Never really went there.
There aren't that many games (well, many series in fact), but each one has tons of content. And PSO2, as it is, is probably as big as all the previous content that came before it, though PSU/PSP series makes me doubt about it since I don't know very much about it. Question here is keeping up with the details, which are the hardest part because they sneak stuff everywhere. And then there's the war about western canon vs. japanese canon when talking about the classic series. Oh, and most wikis are shitty. The current PSO2 JP wiki made in english by fans is lackluster as hell, and they often tell you to check out the official JP wiki for the real thing, which is obviously in japanese so I at least find it the opposite of useful (plus that JP wiki looks horrible). Just for you to know, the guy in PSO2 ep.5 called Varuna has LaShiek as his surname, the same the evil ruler from the first Phantasy Star game had (Lassic in the english translation of the 8-bit game), reference that came back on the final part of Phantasy Star III as Lashute (not sure if the japanese version had this name change or it was again a western thing). While it's mostly fanservice and nostalgia pandering, after playing the whole story it makes me wonder if that's the only tie to the classic series that PSO2 character has.
For anyone interested, closed betas for New Genesis on japanese servers start mid-January and the graphics engine upgrade will happen for the whole PSO2 at mid-February. This last one is interesting for everyone because it probably won't take long for the international release to get the upgrade too, and the first one is interesting because we have new footage of the game showing features and NG looks like a lot more up-to-date game, with no loading screens between city and the explorable area. Oh, and, well, we can see Boom Sonic the Arkz in motion, Sonic looks more fun on a non-Sonic game. The new story is a no-brainer: one thousand years after vanilla PSO2, there's a planet called Halpha which is home of the Arkz and it's being attacked from a new enemy fully unknown to them (no idea on who are they, no idea on where they came, etc.) except for a the (lame) name of "the DOLLS" (yes, with caps). The planet seems to have fauna from Naberius and looks similar to it near the Central City, though there's some sort of dragonkin and other creatures, including an area where these dolls appear. Other features previously announced include regional mags that provide boost to specific areas and the ability to combine weapons from both main and sub-class. Here are the available vids, they're a bit too long so you might want to skip some chunks: Messing with character creation: Around the town: Swimming, the ultimate Arkz skill: Instanced tutorial: Explorable area, let's call it Green Hill:
I signed up for the JP closed beta lottery. Will be very surprised if I get in, and even more surprised if I can run it. The system requirements are awfully high but they said those might change so I figured I would give it a shot and see what happens. Not looking forward to having to download the game again though... One thing that makes NGS more appealing already is that the affixing system seems to have been simplified a bit. That will be a huge relief because affixing in regular PSO2 is complicated and makes my brain hurt. I get how it works but I hate how you have to affix like four or five different items in order to affix one item. In NGS it seems you just get multiples of a certain "affix ability" item, and then just use those to affix the ability. The more you have, the higher the success rate.
