Poll of the Day > PSO2 Steam release: August 5th

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1056640/Phantasy_Star_Online_2/

Did any of you guys end up playing? I thought wolfy created a thread a while ago. I might be able to play after all.

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i still play and have multiple classes at level cap

give me fuckin episode 4 already so i can craft my techs and force can not suck booty, sega

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I played for a month or so but eventually got bored with it. Have not logged on in a month or so now. They are constantly adding new content I think, but I doubt it would have mattered that much to me. It didn't have the magic of the original at all, and actually was too easy (even the hardest bosses etc). The original actually required skill to play, this one mostly just required me to dodge every so often (if even that), and to redo the same quests over and over (which the first was like as well, but at least I had to dodge more, know patterns etc and just wasn't super over powered.).

I played the first thousands of hours, but this one didn't last me more than a month really before I just got tired of it, and I actually played 3 characters (so tried hunter/ranger/tech). I enjoyed Tech the most, but it also was super easy/cake to play.

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the game is still in a very weird state where we are INCREDIBLY powercreeping all content that gets thrown our way

in a month or two we should have a more appropriate power level compared to the content we're facing, but right out the gate they threw episode 5 (iirc?) weapons at us in an episode 3 world, while also not even giving us the rebalanced harder versions of boss fights like Profound Darkness that make them actually engaging

the game never gets SUPER HARDCORE hard, but barely clearing by the skin of our teeth is common for new stuff in jp pso2. as of now, the only content in the game like that is magatsu phase 2, and- surprise- that's also the only content in the game where gear doesn't matter atm

i'm mostly looking forward to next week as being when classes cease feeling incomplete. tech/pa customization is vital for some classes, like force (the resident magic/caster class), which is my main

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It's nice we're getting this now and not like a year later.



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Cool...1st Sw:TOR now this game...running outta SSD HD space...wtf

That was a short year. Guess the Windows Store shenanigans were bad enough for Sega to get out of their exclusivity obligations early. I'm glad, because I'm at the point where I'm strongly considering throwing a bit of money at it (mostly to get a fourth character so I can have one with a Dex mag), but Microsoft's colossal failure to make the store work properly means I'm hesitant to give them the only sort of validation that matters (money) for the job they've done. Presuming Steam can manage to install the game without forgetting to give itself access permissions to the folder, I'm much more willing to give them money (thereby letting Sega get the share they deserve).

agesboy posted...

the game never gets SUPER HARDCORE hard, but barely clearing by the skin of our teeth is common for new stuff in jp pso2. as of now, the only content in the game like that is magatsu phase 2, and- surprise- that's also the only content in the game where gear doesn't matter atm

There's also the last episode 3 quest, which is actually much harder now than it's supposed to be because the quest is scaled to level 80 and that imposes an automatic 33% (iirc) damage penalty on our level 75 characters. That's another AIS-based one, but with limited deployments, so gear still matters to some extent. That's also a quest I'd be willing to wager most haven't even seen because of how bothersome trudging through the story is, and the only reward for beating it on hardcore is a bit of SG, so there isn't much incentive to figure out a strategy.

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Looking forward to it.

I haven't actually gotten that far in story mode yet, but that solo instance should be what the current newest UQ is (the fourth base defense mission vs apprentice in a descending mine shaft). I have heard from my friends that it is stupidly hard, though.

You don't gotta do ep3 to start ep4 though so I'm in no rush!

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I haven't done the newest UQ yet, but I'm pretty sure they're the same. The defense angle of it doesn't seem to be anywhere close to as hard as the sheer amount of damage you have to put out in order to clear it in 15 minutes, and with only 3 AIS activations to work with. I'm not sure it's possible to do without using a burn weapon to force the boss to expose its weakest point, activating AIS and lasering it, then deactivating the AIS so you can do it again right away. The AIS' damage is still necessary, though, so it boils down to killing enough of the trash on foot to not have to worry about them killing the AIS, which is a very real problem because that's the only target they have.

Again, though, that's extremely optional, especially if it doesn't need to be completed to unlock episode 4. I'll probably wait until level 80 so I can do it without the level handicap. Why they decided to have that be the only story quest to do level scaling like that, I'm not sure, especially where it's content from a version of the game where the cap was 80, but whatever. It does mean the game has another solid challenge in it, I guess.

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adjl posted...

Why they decided to have that be the only story quest to do level scaling like that, I'm not sure, especially where it's content from a version of the game where the cap was 80, but whatever.

this is also the reason why

it's definitely not intentional and they're trying to release a lot of stuff earlier/later than the jp schedule and things get fucky

like summoner itself isn't supposed to exist until episode 4, which is why getting eggs right now feels really weird and restrictive

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Really, a lot of the game feels weird and restrictive, but I guess a lot of that just comes from knowing that something better is coming/is already in the JP version. It'd be nice if they took a more QoL-focused approach to deciding which features to include in the first wave (like not making Rangers wait for PA crafting to get access to their only worthwhile travel PA's, or tweaking material requirements for build-defining rings like the DS whirlwind one), but it's not like there's a dearth of stuff to do now that isn't held back by that, so meh.

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too little too late. waiting on Genesis now. the current pso2 economy is broken. you can just buy 13 star rares from personal shops. i dont like how they handle rare items/loot

teddy241 posted...

you can just buy 13 star rares from personal shops

13* aren't that great starting from episode 4 onwards, none of the weapons we have now have SSA slots which is a gigantic meta changer allowing super easy 8-affix weapons

with nemesis/slave drop rates it would be downright cruel to make them untradable, considering their time in the spotlight as best weapon in the game lasts like a month

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Even without considering Nemesis/Slave tradability, they're really not trying to make high-end gear hard to come by. Being able to trade Glory Badge 2020's 1:1 for Rising Weapon 2 Badges meant Ray weapons/units are really easy to get now, plus RW2 badges were dropping like candy in the most recent Boost Rally. They've also got Revolsio weapons easily available through challenge quests, if those are better than Ray ones for your weapon of choice. Really, Episode 1-3's experience is being deliberately accelerated so that people can actually see the content before newer stuff comes out. They're cramming 8 years of content into ~6 months, so it's bound to go a little faster than might normally seem reasonable.

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starting with 14* weapons, high-end weapons get a lot more unique/rarer with unique flairs. their upgrade line still continues to this day in jp too, so it's a very long-term grinding project to maintain multiple

so basically, we're about to take our first step off the starting line for na pso2 regarding gearing

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Any news on other consoles yet?
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agesboy posted...

starting with 14* weapons, high-end weapons get a lot more unique/rarer with unique flairs.

That's the impression I've had, looking at class guides that discuss gearing. High-end gear choices seem to depend more on the utility offered by their potentials than on raw attack stats, such that there's a lot of personal/situational preference involved. Atlas Ex/Lightstream seems to still be a clear winner for most classes, much as Slave/Nemesis are right now, but the path to get there is long enough that there'll be other choices to make along the way, and even then SSA's and regular augments still make for a lot of customization and gear progression that lasts for a solid while after getting the weapon itself.

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it's out now and works if you already played windows store with tweaker you dont have to reinstall

https://na.arks-layer.com/ms_store_to_steam.html

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And it doesn't work on Linux.
How am I not surprised?

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considering microsoft is backing sega for na pso2, you shouldn't be surprised at all!

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Judgmenl posted...

And it doesn't work on Linux.
How am I not surprised?

Perhaps because the system requirements say "Windows 10"?

agesboy posted...

considering microsoft is backing sega for na pso2, you shouldn't be surprised at all!

It's an issue with the intrusive drm that they use not Microsoft. The game has steam integration apparently.

_AdjI_ posted...

Perhaps because the system requirements say "Windows 10"?

Going to stand on my usual soapbox on this topic:


Anything that's not "Borked" generally works fine.

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Judgmenl posted...

And it doesn't work on Linux.
How am I not surprised?

It doesn't work on a Linux system... I know this.

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Judgmenl posted...

Anything that's not "Borked" generally works fine.

So ~7% of the top 1000 games won't work? ~1 in 19? That's a decent success rate, but it's far from a guarantee, and being surprised when something doesn't isn't overly reasonable. I'm sure you can easily name 18 other games you've been able to make work to help you feel more like your personal experience aligns with those odds.

Judgmenl posted...

It's an issue with the intrusive drm that they use not Microsoft. The game has steam integration apparently.

It's not particularly intrusive. It takes a few extra seconds to load when the game starts up, but otherwise it just chills in the background. It's not a resource hog, it's not an extra login... The only problem it seems to introduce is that it interferes with running the game in an operating system in which the game isn't designed to run, which really isn't a surprising enough outcome to call it "intrusive."

Don't get me wrong, technically speaking, the game's NA launch has been an utter disaster, and Microsoft's insistence on making it a MS store exclusive has been a big part of that (hence "it'll come out on Steam in a year" has turned into "it's two months later here's the Steam launch"). The fact that it doesn't work on an OS it doesn't claim to work on, however, is not a failure, because that's not something they ever tried to do.

The ProtonDB page finally got updated
https://www.protondb.com/app/1056640
=/

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Started an account yesterday on ship 4. Not sure if I should start over and pick one of the original ships.

Maybe the people that really cared about the ENG version probably played it months earlier?

NeoSioType posted...

Maybe the people that really cared about the ENG version probably played it months earlier?

The NA PC launch was only in late May (25th or so), with Xbone launching a little over a month before that, so it hasn't really been that long, and a whole lot of people have been holding out for the Steam release after all of the issues the Windows Store launch has had. I doubt you'll have that much trouble finding people to play with on Ship 4, but if it does seem to be consistently underpopulated, restarting might be worthwhile. Personally, I'm on Ship 3, but you can find other PotD'ers on any of the original three ships.