Thoughts on the state and direction of PSO2: New Genesis
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- A long rant and general thoughts about what I feel are some of the main problems with PSO2: NGS. This isn't entirely about the latest Headline, but that was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back and the final push for me to actually write, record, and edit this.
There's not a lot going on visually (just b-roll I recorded last night while ranting to friends on Twitch and a clip I stole from one of Thrift's videos (❤️)), so feel free to put it on in the background or whatever as you listen. I'm not in practice with editing videos and Sony Vegas was all I really knew or felt comfortable with.. diving into DaVinci Resolve today just for this proved a little frustrating so I really didn't spend a whole lot of time.
I didn't put much effort into breaking things into well defined bits, several things are brought up or referenced multiple times and topics bleed into one another. I do want to make it easy to refer back and discuss certain parts in case anyone actually wants to do that so here's probably too many timestamps.
01:02 How PSO2 became great
02:20 Is change necessary? Open world, comparison to GW2/FFXIV with world bosses and interesting, dynamic events
03:40 Instanced content into 'conversation' about loot distribution across content types
05:00 Some suggestions for moving loot around to bring value to existing content types and systems
06:55 Gearing/itemization is poor. Fixas suck, SGA's don't.
07:50 Crafted weapons and units
09:20 Multi-weapons, customize everything except how you approach combat
10:20 Class design and skills are boring
12:16 Anti-consumer changes from base game
13:20 PR blunder
14:30 "What kind of content do you even want? Players will never be happy"
15:50 Best thing about the game being playing other games
Twitch - twitch.tv/ballspocket
I stream somewhat often, usually base PSO2 and some other games like Noita recently.
Big shoutouts to my few regulars over there, super good vibes.
Music:
"Crossing3084"
"Day Dawns"
"Chaotic Bar"
"Healing" (ironic)
All from the original Phantasy Star Online OST.
Gwiz stopped by my stream, she apologized for sounding dismissive and it wasn't her intention. We had a short but good talk. I really appreciated it and I can understand why someone in a position like hers, where you may get bombarded by ultra-negativity constantly and also being live in front of hundreds could make for some imperfect comments. Big respect for that to be honest and I'd more carefully word that bit if I were to remake this video.
Dont remake this video. You are speaking the truth, finally. This game deserves any critique towards it, so please please please don't let your honest opinion be shafted by what a community manager says
After what happened between her and Rappyburst, and other people before and after that incident, I still don't really trust that GWiz actually means it when they apologize. After that I consider every apology they do as something that SEGA forced them to. They accused them of datamining for absolutely no reason, it's not like evidence was collected, Gwiz made an assumption based on nothing and it was incorrect, and then apologized for it in a single message on Twitter.
But Gwiz also basically admitted that money talks, and they say whatever SEGA tells them to because they're paid to do it on a recent Headline+ video. So it's honestly hard to tell when she's being honest about things.
I dunno... he contributed to some bad decisions in NGS, like unnecessary change in design in a lot of places, its pretty obvious community managers arent just spokesmen. Gwiz deserves the negativity, after calling people COMBAT BROS, he does not feel sorry the game is mostly barbie dress up compared to previous PSO titles. I wouldnt be surprised he's telling devs unnecessary feedback. Also he keeps ignoring when people ask about base PSO2 fixes, like lightning.
@@avendurree bro, no one that is not hurting someone else deserves negativity.,
@@GrayFoxRJ he's literally ruining the game, fk em
You can parry everything in this game.
Except the disappointment.
Uff
the developer admitted recently that they dont even play the game. that should tell you everything you need to know about SEGA
"Why arent you buying ac?"
i think it’s unfair to group all of Sega just cause of PSO2 devs lol. i personally like a lot of modern Sega published/developed games.
Don’t some devs just not play their games? I remember either Miyazaki or itsuno saying they dont
@@kleefirestari haven’t spent a dime on this game but I still play it
@@kleefirestardon't remind me of that survey
I wasn't around for the prime of PSO2, but the global version release year was the most fun I've had playing a game in years despite being a newbie. I'm still hopeful that NGS will recapture some of the magic at some point
Spoiler: it won't
If it hasn't now, it never will
It was the same in PSO2, the first years of the game, while not having much to do, was the greatest period of any game I have ever experienced. People simply hang around to wait for EQ in red cafe and talk about random crap with each other. And that was almost the experience of the first few months of NGS too, except after that everyone realized NGS isn't gearing up to be anything like PSO2 so everyone eventually quit.
It was the most stressful for me thanks to microsoft
You're bang on about the anti consumer practices with Tri-boosts. When we are in the city or during the count down before a quest or uq starts, those things should pause.
I legit regret all the time I've put into ngs... Sega what the actual fuck are you doing?
The open fields are fine but I really wish there were random dungeons that would appear and you had to go in and kill the boss. Once the boss is dead the dungeon collapses.
Yup the game really needs some honest to goodness dungeons. "August!!" they say. We'll see, or maybe we won't because so many are sick of the goalposts being pushed.
@@milkbucket5647 This was a great and well-worded video, but the only 2 things we're getting in August are going to be "Alliance Creative Space" and "Duel Quest 2.0" which is supposedly tuned to our normal gear but ehhh... I can already see it playing out like someone solo'ing purple triggers and fighting only the first boss, then calling it 'good enough' and they're 'done'.
Finally someone calling out the community managers. They can try to blame the JP devs about mistakes, but they themselves have blundered many times in the last two years.
Having played the JP version since 2013, it was a shot in the face when SEGA decided to pull the plug and release NGS instead of riding the success of the classic version. All the progression gone just like that.
I gave it a chance and what I was presented with was ultimately an alpha state of the game. I stopped and said to myself "enough is enough" during the whole Gigantix farm back in 2021. Its so dumb to camp in the open field for the entire day just for it to rain and kill the boss in every blocks available. This made me think through how the state of the game as a whole was so horrendous, and I had to get away from it ASAP and uninstalled the game.
From time to time I do miss the game though and would love to get back to the classic version, but I just can't now. And yet, till this day videos like these are still being made, which is really sad to see that the game isn't getting better with little to no improvements even after 2 years had passed since the day I quit.
I've talked with so many people on other games and sites that played base PSO2 or tried NGS when it came out, so many people want this game to be good, recognize it's got a great foundation... but it's probably the worst managed game I've ever experienced. It's seriously just baffling how you can go from the heights of Episode 6 to.. this.
the MAIN reason i even come back to NGS again and again is because I LOVE character creation and fashion. because most games nowadays are seemingly allergic to the idea PSO2/NGS (now with fuckin Cel-shading) is the only place I can get my fix
Classic is hyper dead and honestly it was a struggle to keep up in those final few months because pvp, challenge, and a number of other quests quickly dried up as people prep;are for NGS so I couldn't get the cool shit I wanted like the awsome achievement katana cosmetic
I'm still here cus I love my characters and hope that I can make them look nicer but because of monetization changes (and the market being shit) it's just pain now
@@_Sage967_ i agreed and i am refretted not playing PSO2 sooner when they still prosper
well for now ill try to cope with creating my own game, no matter if it will be borked or not at least i can create things that will supress my disapointment
It's so sad. I was throwing money at Sega hoping they would realize what a gem PSO2 classic really was, and my whole guild was doing the same. I will never understand why they shutdown the events on OG PSO2 upon release of NGS. If they hadn't done that, I honestly enjoyed the gameplay loop of the base game so much that I could still play it.
PSO, PSP2, PSO2, these games didn't reinvent the wheel. They had a system, a style, an approach that worked really well. Having played them all, even as far as to have played PSP2 and PSO2 on the JP versions for their lifespan, I can't help but feel absolutely separated from NGS. It no longer feels like I'm the demographic for PSO content and that's something I had to come to terms to during Retem.
You'll go from having the dynamic mastery system where you could select your own passives from an enormous pool in PSP2, to the S rank abilities /dual classing in PSO2, only to get to NGS for all the classes to feel the same.
What an absolute shame.
I went back and played psp2I after the release, and i have, without question, enjoyed that game loop far more than ngs, which is sad, because ngs has WAY more potential overall than infinity does.
@@vla1ne PSP2I was a great experience on the PSP, I was so looking forward to PSO2 but after all the hype, SEGA didn't localize it outside Japan, I even got a promo mousepad from a game convention that it was coming soon and waited years and years. That's when I fell off SEGA's Intellectual Properties in general. Sakura Wars, Valkyria Chronicles, Sonic, Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia, etc. they were all phenomenal then SEGA ran it into the ground or didn't support it well either through lack of localization or development. At least Capcom gets MonHon right, even if I was way more into PSO...
13:37 - Reminds me of how the community managers and mod team were openly hostile to Challenge Mission players during the period when SEGA announced they'd be changing the rewards to something significantly less valuable and not providing an equivalent source in NGS.
That aside, it was nice hearing an articulated take on the state of NGS. I especially agree with the point that even though PSO2 had to take its time to become something great, NGS didn't have to go through the same process, fall in the same pitfalls, and could've built off the aspects of the base game that players loved so much like divide quests. (Granted the only things that carried over well enough were the social elements and AC Scratch gambling which I guess makes sense from a business point of view since they're the part of the community most likely to spend real money on the outfits and it'll be enough to keep the game on life support).
I don't really think the game is on life support necessarily, I think plenty of people (for better or worse) keep the game afloat. As stated in the video, PSO2 in its lifetime has made Sega over a billion dollars, Sega upper management probably isn't really too concerned unfortunately.
But yeah it's just really frustrating that PSO2 got to such an incredible state by learning from mistakes... and now NGS is making so many of the same mistakes. Spending so much time developing and implementing trash content like cannonball quests or limited quests with unique mechanics that we'll see once and never again instead of things like just remaking Divide Quest.
This really damn good, straight to the point, good logic, great explaining. I don't disagree with anything you said.
I haven’t played NGS since the first month of its release. I played PSO1, PSO2, and PSU for many years though.
Yup I was on a PSOBB binge just last month and want to spend a bunch of time grinding on PSU Clementine in the nearish future. I play PSO2 at least a few days a week. Can't be bothered to even do my dailies on NGS the vast majority of the time.
I've been playing PSO since the Dreamcast days and I won't ever lift a finger to play NGS again. First month and that was it. I wish more people followed suit.
Finally a lucid and honest talk about this game state. It's not that we don't like it, but we simply want it to do better. Both toxic positivity or just roasting the game are just useless behavior. At the end of the day we all have a special relationship with the game and want it to be better and reach wider public.
I didn't put much effort into breaking things into well defined bits, several things are brought up or referenced multiple times and topics bleed into one another. I do want to make it easy to refer back and discuss certain parts in case anyone actually wants to do that so here's probably too many timestamps.
01:02 - How PSO2 became great
02:20 - Is change necessary? Open world, comparison to GW2/FFXIV with world bosses and interesting, dynamic events
03:40 - Instanced content into 'conversation' about loot distribution across content types
05:00 - Some suggestions for moving loot around to bring value to existing content types and systems
06:55 - Gearing/itemization is poor. Fixas suck, SGA's don't.
07:50 - Crafted weapons and units
09:20 - Multi-weapons, customize everything except how you approach combat
10:20 - Class design and skills are boring
12:16 - Anti-consumer changes from base game
13:20 - PR blunder
14:30 - "What kind of content do you even want? Players will never be happy"
15:50 - Best thing about the game being playing other games
@@user-o5w4p7 Good point, I'll do that so I can pin my other top level comment since it's something I've felt the need to repeat.
The parry based gameplay really gets stale after a while, it's not immersive like true dodge/position based gameplay and it makes me feel inadequate against tougher enemies cause either I have to parry the high damaging move and come out without a scratch and continue attacking immediately, or run away from the AOE and look like a coward costing efficiency in the run.
Yea, it is fun for a while but I get tired of it. I felt like parrying was the only thing I did when using Slayer in Ams Kavris Duel Quest. Got boring so fast.
Pretty much, I remember doing instanced content a while ago and anytime I'd fight a enemy one on one both me and the enemy are basically just standing while I push two buttons.
@@discardedbiscuit5449ayy lmao peak ngs gameplay. You are what? A force? You counter. A techter? You counter. You ranger? You counter they all play the same
Don't forget the stage tech is literally ALREADY IN NEW GENESIS for the instanced story quests. It DESTROYS MY MIND why they don't put in some quests there like you said. It is not a tech issue, it is a design issue.
Wow this is an amazing video and fully articulates the problem NGS. I see ngs as a shit way of mixing an rpg and a gotcha mobile game. You never have to prep. All I do is sell everything that's new immediately and buy them a week later for nothing. That's my loop.
This is a very well thought out video! You brought up such an hilarious point about how theres so much customization when it comes to the character but when it comes to combat theres virtually none and its so true and sad at the same time. It feels like they put zero thought into the combat.
On the combat side ive althought of a lot of different ways they can fix it. I think the most important and neccessary one is a full skill tree rework by making it an actual skill tree like Diablo. I think putting Photon Arts and Techs into the skill tree and then having branching paths that fundamentally change and enhance how PA's function would give an amazing sense of progression. With the skill tree now being free to change after the next update, it makes just so much sense for it to be changed. Branching the PA's and Tech skill trees into Damage, Mobility, and Support would not only make them feel personal, but would add so much depth and nuance to the combat.
Also removing the way skill points are obtained and putting them back into the leveling experience of each class would significantly increase the feeling of progression too. I hate how the current system feels where you already have everything from level 1 and now you have to slog your way through leveling fighting nothing but boring copy pasted reskins across all regions.
Another thing they need to rework is subclasses. Subclasses and Multiweapons by extension feel like garbage. They dont add literally anything to changing gameplay because theres no choice in them. I think there should be specialized skill trees specifically for subclasses that allow you to actually use the main functions of a class so that they actually feel impactful to someones playstyle.
The lack of having choice in combat is actually tragic when you look at how the rest of the game is structured where almost everything else about your character can be completely unique to anyone else. They need to let combat playstyles be like that too.
Sega trying to reinvent the wheel with NGS has been my issue since the beginning. Growing pains were bound to happen, but I definitely was hoping the experiences and successes they witnessed throughout PSO2's dev cycle would have given them better insight when going into tackling NGS. Nothing in NGS has topped Episode 6 in base game for me. Nothing. Episode 6 was definitely "the best of times" as far as I'm concerned. And I say this as someone who does enjoy NGS. For what it's worth tho, I do feel the game is a lot better now than it was on release. It's just not where I think it needs to be right now. Creative Space has been pretty dope at least, lol.
A lot of the harsh criticism is deserved, but as since-launch global player, I can say confidently that NGS has had content since early 2022 and DFI, despite the game lacking overall. Right now the games in a good place with cosmetics, combat, and now CS (although some PVE, or a new CS NPC economy a la Minecraft or something, and some crafting would be great so we have more to do after building is finished) but the biggest issue NGS has is there are no RP systems aside from salon and CS, including a lack of decent instanced content. The game feels stale and empty in this regard, despite some of the NPC getting short cutscenes, which is such a half measure. We should have random events and dungeons that only spawn locally or for a party within a certain proximity with a little cutscene and more importantly, a decent loot pool. These random events shouldn't only be for combat quests, but also crafting, minigames, etc., you know like actual good games! In other words, not only do we need a more complex and filled out main story, but we also need a bevy of side quests, with meaningful NPC reactions and chiefly, realistic rewards. The RNG shouldn't necessarily be tied up in the loot pool, but rather the random event itself, and not nearly as punishing as PSO's devs have historically had.
Anyhow I have stuck and will stick by NGS' side for the duration, because I am heavy into phash and I really enjoy the new CS system, and this form of expression has been good for my mental health. The V.2 update was terrible messaging overall, but a good addition in a game that is now so much about self-expression, and little else lol. It should've just been called the CS update as the game is not where a lot of us wanted it to be with a title like V.2. In my experience, NGS' goods outweigh the bads, but if it isn't able to live up to magic of the artstyle and feel of games like the OG PSO, then I fear PSO will never succeed like many of us fans hope it will. IMO a patient implementation of classic time-honoured RP mechanics would be a great solution for this current predicament, but after two years of NGS' evolution, we haven't seen anything remotely along those lines, except a whole a bunch of rather meaningless cutscenes. C'mon, SEGA, put you back into it!
There's a difference between complaints from brand new players and from people that have been playing a franchise for years. I started on the GameCube way back in the day. Ngs is by far the worst game of the series. But I'm holding on cause I desperately want it to be good even though there's no inclination for that to change
You shouldn't keep playing it if you dont find enjoyment on it, the best way to give a message to SEGA is showing lower player numbers, but that's the lesser problem, remember, games should be fun, dont waste your life waiting for something it isnt coming.
NGS would be solid if there was a point to open world + having gates for missions like PSO2 and PSU. Even PSO1 had a quest / mission counter.
Central city?
Yeah if they would add some interesting things out in the fields like event chains and world bosses it would be a massive step to making NGS a good game.
@@daruthebeast I’m talking about mission gates where you walk into them and can select independent quests. They’d be unrelated to the open world map as they would be different smaller areas to explore. You could access them from areas on the world map or central city, etc.
If you’re not familiar with PSU go watch some videos on it and how their mission gate systems work. PSO2 had a single gate which worked too. In some ways the PSO2 gate was inferior to PSU’s but PSU’s gate system was more spread apart since you had a bunch of different planets with different areas. It gave us more variety.
Since NGS is already open world all they would have to do is add the mission gates to specific areas on the map and it would be fine. Then you could do missions in smaller environments. It would be kinda similar to PSU in that regard.
you made good points there, watched this video from tepri's stream. especially on the kvaris boxes part hate those times when sega released it
I'm holding on hope for PSO3 where they get things together again. I have so little hope for NGS to get any better. It seems too faulty by design to be fixed up without a massive revamp which at that point they are just better off creating a new game. They are far too focused on milking the players of money that the actual experience seems like an afterthought. I mean all the character customization is nice, until you realize the only reason that likely exists is to add more ways to monetize the players.
Pso3 coming June 3045
You won't be alive for PSO3 ... PSO2 was out for like 20 years.
@@Nimoot 11 years or so.
I just feel like Nee Genesis was that PSO3 you were talking about IMO but if not then let's see and wait for that lol I mean you can though and I hope it goes well for you I don't know if I'll even be alone when that comes out kick some butt for me 💯💯✊✊✊✌️✌️✌️
Honestly when I play this game I couldn't give a crap about gear. It seems not only confusing but also unfun to grind for it, I rely on the seasonal event to get stuff I need. My biggest gripe is, I wish they had done more with the overworld. Like farming and crafting and re-introduce player trading. The trania/cocoons are visually lazy. If they actually looked like interesting environments I would look forward to play them. I actually was missing up to 10 skill points because I didn't give a damn about doing towers and cocoons and had to force myself to do them to get all my skill points lol.
Yeah, the whole gearing and scaling in ngs feels so shit, Im using a level 60 weapon hitting some shit mobs and somehow I still only dead 150 dmg.. the fuck
After playing Diablo 4 these past few days (and even the betas in March), I'm constantly finding myself saying "man I wish NGS had this!" I think that a lot of what's wrong with NGS are symptoms of issues within the company like corporate meddling and poor communication. They must keep their PR crew on a pretty short leash, so I don't really fault GWiz for that. That plus I feel like they're in their own little bubble, not seeing what their competitors are doing. You do point out a very interesting irony about customization though. That all being said, I still enjoy the game for what it is, and enjoy making videos about it, so I'm not ready to pivot away from it altogether.
Yeah that's been my experience with Guild Wars 2 the last few months. PSO2 attracted a very diverse audience, and I think you're right that there are a lot of internal issues making it hard to please and set expectations for all the different types of players they have/had. There's an interview from yesterday with Yuya Kimura and one of my takeaways was that the team seems really really understaffed and lacking in resources, they just aren't able to deliver the content and updates even they want, let alone what all the different types of fans want. There are definitive design decisions that I do take issue with but I think a lot of grievances come down to the 'fact' that they just don't have the capability to pump out content and changes like they should. Who knows if it's because the salaries are too low to attract the proper talent, if Sega just doesn't budget for a large enough team, if it's just too hard to find the right talent domestically, or any number of other reasons.
I posted a few places elsewhere including a separate comment here... GWiz stopped by my stream briefly just an hour or two after I posted this video, she obviously has a really good pulse on the community and cares a lot about the game. In hindsight I wish I worded that bit a little differently, which there's definitely some (read: a lot of) irony in. I wasn't lying when I said I had respect for her and its only grown after having the chance to chat a little directly.
I don't think anythings enough to peel me away from base PSO2 and luster ("my beloved" lol). I'll still keep up with NGS and I still love all the friends I made in the game and community and wish to continue spending time with them. This isn't some "taking my ball and going home" act, just venting my frustrations and most importantly trying to be some signal in the shitty noise in the community, trying to express feelings better and having some real conversations.
Thanks for your time and thoughts Zeo, much love.
i also muttered that "man I wish NGS had this!" word whenever i play PSU,PSPo2 infinity, Tower OF Fantasy and FFXIV
The funny thing is the OG PSO on Dreamcast was alot like Diablo
Yup!
I don't believe anything the pso2ngs devs say. I'm someone who plays the game on and off pretty often. I hop in see what's up play for a few days for a bit and go about my life. That's pretty much my relationship with the game at this point in time. I have no real reason to continue playing when I have so many other games to play. Tbh it really breaks my heart to see the game like this after coming off of base pso2. Everyone says that the game has potential and it really does, but the dev are focusing on the wrong things and taking too long to address core issues with the game. Like how are you gonna tell me the same people who worked on base pso2 are working on ngs like impossible. Like how do you work on base pso2 and yet still launch ngs like the way it did. Not only that, 2 years later it is still in an incomplete state literally impossible. I don't believe these are the same people who worked on base pso2. Hopefully, in the next 4-5 years are core problems will finally get ironed out. The more I think about it, we really need to have the final fantasy 14 reset lol. We have the perfect setup for it to happen with how the story is right now in ngs and just fix all the problems with the game.
The problem I have with NGS is that it doesn't really have any of the things that make me love PSO as a franchise.
No perfect attacks, the only "dungeons" are in stock stage builder-esque areas, all the enemy designs are the same, the world doesnt have the combined feel of sci-fi and runic fantasy, the music doesnt carry the style of PSO, MAGs are now worthless, and a lot of other things.
This is only comparing to PSO in general; even in its own right, NGS' open world design is extremely boring and there's very little actually interesting or unique content to play.
Tl;dr NGS ignores most of the things that made me love PSO1 and 2, and everything it adds is either forgettable or an actual detriment.
NGS combat really is so watered down it's frustrating. Especially coming off of scion classes and *especially* Luster. It's not even that every class needs to be some crazy complicated shit but their only real attempt (Slayer) is *such* a miss in my opinion.
And yeah the whole MAG thing has crossed my mind a lot lately... why are they *so* useless and lifeless in this game??
Couldn’t agree more!!!!
I have no clue why they couldn’t just update the other classes to be on Scion level, I want to see all classes close to equal (equal is ideal, but perfect balance from any devs is a pipe dream)
What’s more dissatisfying and disappointing though, is that they took the time to make the Scion classes, got a ton of extra fan base from them, and didn’t include them in the NGS classes, except for kinda Luster.
Like myself, I am a phantom main. So I have literally no place in NGS, even if it had any content worth doing in the first place.
I know many other friends who main other scion classes, and also summoners, who have totally quit the game because they feel truly exiled by NGS.
@@abyssphantom6786 IMO slayer is hugely disappointing and doesn't compare to luster at all. Relentless Blade feels like shit to use but is pretty much mandatory, Slug Shot feels like shit and is better off left unspecced to make Relentless Blade slightly less shit and clunky. They clearly were inspired by luster for the class, but clearly had no idea what made luster any good at all.
@@milkbucket5647 dw bro, I've been calling Scions in 2024 since 2021. Mark my words, we're getting our babies back!
@@abyssphantom6786 I'm personally a rocket launcher affictionado in base, but all the classes were fun to me except maybe summoner.
Props for this. And using the Hunters Guild music from Pso and that original HUD. You really speak the points I had about NGS
I honestly thought "Ugh! this is just another rant video"... But hey! these are words coming from someone who truly loved the franchise... Thank you! Not many can say these the way you did... Now I know why I always felt something is always missing but couldn't tell... It seems that I've been longing for the golden ages of PSO2 Global just before NGS was launched... I sure hope SEGA sees this and reflect with it... Pessimistic as I may have been, I still want to remain hopeful for a better future for NGS... Again, thank you!
You make fair points. I haven't played NGS seriously since last year and only really put like 100 hours compared to the 1800+ hours in base game, but the main points I hated about NGS is its water down combat, open world design, and quest structure.
Combat relies too heavily on counters and holding down whatever PA has the highest DPS for your weapon. I absolutely hate what they did to Fighter. I loved base PSO2's knuckle combo/PA canceling heavy playstyle. Tons of PAs with different utility on just a single weapon. Now it's just hold down the DPS PA and let counters do all the work. Counters for knuckles did exist, but they were a niche option only good against Masquerade and enemies from far range. They weren't NGS's most optimal way to deal damage nor were counters the main selling point for the weapon and class. You used to be in Overload more times than not, and it always felt exhilarating and powerful. But in NGS, Overload is just a thing you activate when the boss is down as its cooldown is long and its duration is too short.
Open world honestly doesn't work for this series. The environments feels too flat and the long distance traveling is a pain. I hated having to run 100-200 meters to the next group of enemies. Everything is just too far apart! I also believe this hurts the quest structure a lot since the setting is all the same. For instance, Pettas Vera's setting is just so boring and doesn't really feel like an area where a big boss should be at. Instances in base allowed the devs to do much more with the areas and enemies were never too far apart. The action was quick and fast-pace.
Quest structure was horrible when I was playing. Not sure if they fixed it, but no schedule urgents made the game felt like you just have to be lucky for one to show up or AFK for one to show up. Sure, you could do other things in meanwhile, but if you needed something from the urgent then tough luck. Hardly any interesting urgents aside from go fight the same field boss you encounter in PSE bursts. There's no fun seasonal urgents like they had in PSO2. There isn't even an interesting unique area where these urgents takes place (except for Dark Falz of course).
On a small side note, I hate the augment system in NGS and prefer base much more. You can't reuse augmented weapons for future augmenting. Upgrading a capsule's tier feels like a huge waste of time since you need 10 of the lower tier plus more just to make 1 out of the 40 capsules you need just to have all your units and 1 weapon have that ONE augment. Drop rates for high tier augments feels almost as bad as farming for Veteran's Resolve in base before Risk Realm was a thing. The only good thing I can say about NGS augment is no down slotting, easier up slotting, and reaugmenting the same weapon keeps your augments.
The lack of UQ schedules is frustrating, especially because the stated intention of that they were making things so gear progression etc relied less on the UQ's... but then they've gone back and made UQ's mandatory for gear progression multiple times.
I really do agree that base PSO2's augmenting system was better in a lot of ways.. its only real crimes are that downslotting is a thing at all and that upslotting sucked so much. Even now that I'm done augmenting my gear I still check and am happy to see when Shiva sprinkles some Crack V on a high slot count unit for me.
Oh yeah seperate comment to say great work on the video bro, I've been with PSO since about 2003 and it's nice seeing people who haven't just given up after NGS.
Not quite given up but man....
@@milkbucket5647 If you want a nice breath of fresh air, PSO1 has community servers on Ephinea and Ultima that are still decently alive
@@scrubscrub4492 I was actually playing a bunch on Ephinea last month, will probably continue soon. PSU on Clementine is also on my mind.
Sega pls watch this. This man is fixing the hell out of your game
"Sega hire this man!" I'd do it for just 14 grams of hash per month.
I think the problem is, if I recall correctly, PSO2:NGS started development when PSO2 was in EP5, its darkest era. The content drought in EP5 is roughly similar to what NGS is experiencing now. All the great content the PSO2 base had that you cited was all EP6 content, when SEGA knew the game was gonna be put in maintenance mode for the foreseeable future. The theory goes that EP6 content was only great because they knew that episode would be the swansong of the series, so the remaining team went all out and made PSO2 a good game. So when the old EP5 team took over once more, it would obviously be a downgrade from the heights of EP6.
I played back when the level cap was 20, and burnt out really hard after doing everything there was to do and succumbing to the grind.
It's a real shame, I was so excited for PSO2 to come to the west after playing for thousands of hours on JP servers, I was hype to do it all over again, but we got barely a year of PSO2 before it took a back seat to NGS. I would be quite happy if they abandoned NGS and just went back to supporting PSO2.
It really sucks that they took a 20+ year formula that only one other franchise even kind of had, where they iterated in design from PSO, to PSU, to PSP2, to PSO2, and just... threw it away. Just completely threw it out.
The whole franchise was a science fantasy with a lobby-based instanced mission structure. That's why people liked it!
I don't think it's hopeless. PSO2 had to go through the tragedy that was episode 5 before it did a 180 and became the game so many people love. But the groups of players I know in game are dying out, and none are really looking forward to waiting 2 more months for a gameplay loop to spring up. idk if the game will ever recover the ones it's lost.
Honestly I had been saying already around the launch of NGS that it probably will be a great game eventually, just take at least 2-3+ years to get there. We'll see. As I said, I really doubt the game will "fail" or "die" more than it has, plenty of people are still paying the bills. It's just astonishing how slowly changes and content are implemented, reading that Yuya Kimura interview from Friday was... enlightening....
@@milkbucket5647 Tell me about it x.x. I'd like to know what happened to Yuya; Does he actually make decisions, or is he just a piggy bank for the project? It's hard to believe the guy who directed something as amazing as psp2i is responsible for the hot mess we have now.
I love the back ground game play you chose, we use to fight UFO's Sphynx, clowns, aliens, gundams. Now we just figt dolls.... UQ's felt like a adventure, felt like being Iseka'd now it's just kill enemies, and fight boss, in the same old Environment . it's boring and lazy, and anyone who defends it has been put into infinite Tsukoyomi. Great video.
I love it when I hear that classic pso2 ep I&II music
PSO had such an immaculate atmosphere.
I miss watching and studying Endless runs from my favorite players. Now everyone quit and rightfully so
Me too but I've been working through Rondo with only some advice of the few viewers I have on twitch and a little bit of watching VODs. It's been a blast, close to Eternal Loner but I'm hoping to push a good bit past that on Luster before trying some other classes.
I really think PSO2 combat peaked at Luster, I don't know where the development resources were refocused, but if they ever manage to bring combat to that level, I would be extremely surprised
The amount of control and the number of options you have at any given time on Luster is truly fucking incredible. It's so stylish and agile, so much great feedback and power to the feeling of moves. It's really hard to believe anyone that worked on that went on to do anything with NGS.
@@milkbucket5647 Best/most fleshed out class Sega ever made (.) This msg brought to you by Luster gang.
thank you for making this video. you genuinely voiced so many issues that have personally bugged me about this game very succinctly!!
I really appreciate you and everyone else taking the time to listen. One of the big reasons for doing this was because I know a lot of people are disappointed and frustrated with the game but don't have the time, words or platform to really explain in detail what they feel is wrong. I don't think I speak for everyone, at all, but as I've said a few places in the comments and elsewhere I wanted to try to be a little signal in all the noise (lots of people just flinging shit) and get some real conversation going. I'm pretty blown away by the response and reach this video has gotten, I expected maybe a few dozen views and dismissive comments but it seems this resonated really well with a lot of people.
When I joined FF in Heavensward the game was starting to get itself together more and more. Extreme trials and savage raids were starting to look good around then, and the game felt playable. I have continuously played since then and the formula has not changed much, but content has steadily been added and it's in a tremendous place as a MMO now.
To anyone reading, take this with a pinch of salt. I am a FF veteran - this is my first foray into PSO anything:
I recently started playing NGS and feel similarly to some of your commentary about the state of the game. NGS appears to have the right MMO framework, but feels like it's missing something. Since I'm only level 40 right now, I can't properly judge its issues (one indisputable problem is the personal shop, though) and I'm glad to hear your opinion as a series veteran. The general lack of youtube videos and small player base for NGS is beginning to feel a bit telling.
I hope they meet your expectations for improvement because I won't hesitate to drop this game if it's in a noticeably permanent slump by the time I'm max level and starting to gear prog.
On the note of community managers/devs being hostile toward player negativity & input: They are people too, and they make mistakes. The difference is they are being paid to avoid exactly what they are doing when they make commentary as you described. It is another red flag, in the end.
I've always been interested in trying PSO2, and I waited the longest time for it to be officially released overseas, but seeing all the controversy around NGS makes me want to keep my distance. Even if NGS isn't losing current players, I think they underestimate how many potential players will avoid the game due to its bad reputation.
At this point, you're better off looking into other games like Guild Wars 2 or other RPG games. Alot of aspects in this don't really respect your time, from the grinding to the RNG of augments and mediocre rewards. Most of the playerbase spends their times in the lobby because there is nothing much to be done after you do the initial level ups. Any future content that they add already replaces the current weapon/gear you're building for so long so it tosses your time out of the window. Gwiz does explain reskins, and previous games had them, but not the SUPER consistent reskins that NGS has. NGS is in some serious trouble, but unfortunately according to the dev team, that may not be sorted out for another half a year since thats how long their content takes to be implemented. Take care out there.
I'm sorry you missed PSO2 in its heyday, especially the last year or so with Episode 6 was an absolute blast. It's really a shame it has come to this.
Honestly as someone who played this from CBT , this game feels the same now almost 4 years later as it did on cbt. I fortunately saw the trap early on that many MMOs employ after which the first month or two of updates were only scratch tickets and dipped before investing anymore of my time on it. It's amazing to see a company snatch a games death from the wide open maw of success ; The game needed so little to just be successful that i have to assume that there is sabotage ongoing in the HQ to keep this game from being what is practically a 4 year long beta test.
NGS should honestly just rebrand as an Hgame since thats all i can imagine its used for. Stories not compelling, bis is a matter of currency , long grinds or waiting for events. Combats very fun but that only carries it for about a day after youve killed the same looking model of enemy for the 500th time with no measure as to if you did exceptionally well or not. Housing is a step up but at this point, i genuinely cant imagine what would redeem this game at this stage in its death. Maybe Destiny style raids or something but those would just be reskins of old enemies with uncompelling stories if the rest of the game is anything to go on.
It would be great if they updated base’s graphics and combined the games into one. All that content already made just sitting there.
Funny thing is the update to the graphics engine that base game was a part of made base game look substantially worse.
Pso2 graphics did change, it was one reason I had to upgrade my PC.
I love pso2.
equipping one weapon and using its active skill buff then swapping to another weapon is absolutely a thing in base pso2
Your analogy in this video is perfect, you brought up all the major issues in 1 video and i hope sega makes ngs better.
At the moment all i do is lobby grind or making my creative space but thats only gonna keep me playing for so long.
I miss PSO2 :/ I had so much fun with it up until they released Ep4. I love summoner, but gosh, was Ep4 a step backwards story-wise. I had trouble caring after that. Came back for NGS and the global release and was quite disappointed to see an awfully toxic community and some tweaks to the cash shop that I couldn't care about. The community is what killed it for me, though. Most of the international guilds in JP ship 6 were so chill and fun to hang out with, whereas in the global release people were gathering up in the lobby to harass everyone around them with idiocy and racial slurs. The people playing NGS seemed a little more chill, but the game itself was a tough sell content-wise. Maybe I'll give it another shot one of these days. Hopefully, the community's gotten better since release.
I found PSO2 during a long and cold Covid lockdown. It was an amazing game and NGS was my most anticipated game for 21. I’ve tried so many times to get into it but it’s so awful. Dead and with sad afk lobby grinders. I’m a lifelong Sega fan but I’ll never forgive them for taking away I something I really loved.
I was on the fence about playing PSO 2 NGS and this video (among other things) sealed the deal. Thanks for warning me it's a bad idea to sink time into this game.
All they have to do is implement a new casino with much more games. Better yet, with this new flexible housing system they could allow us to make our own casinos. I loved just chilling at tables playing black nyack with people.
Sega doesn't care about it's player base, they just care about your money. thats the reality
Im going to make this brief. This game will never be better than it is now. Big companies like Sega want to do the bare minimum and just sell scratch tickets and BP. Just look at blizzard. Mobiles games put more effort into their game than NGS does. The loyal player base doesn't do the game any favors either, gorging themselves on scratch tickets and using the played out narrative of outfits being content. NGS could have been a great genre defining game, instead its a shell of a game that just wants you to shut up and buy things.
TLDR $ega dont care buy power and `scratch tickets or stfu.
The age of "minimum viable products".
Love this. We need thousands more of these types of videos for SEGA to finally wake tf up.
They wont ever wake up. You are the one that needs to wake up. Sega isnt going to change...dont be a sheep getting fleeced on false hope.
A year on from this video, I see a lot of vets holding on, but reaching their absolute limit. There's just nothing left to do for a lot of people, even hardcore fans.
this is spot on, damn. i really don't know what else to say lol other than i agree with everything you've said ...
also watching you do yamato, tokyo marathon, spaceship quests in the background made me really miss those quests and just wish they'd implement something as good in ngs. i think dark falz aegis is the only good quest in ngs atm, everything else is kinda mid, and i'm not just talking about eqs, i mean every quest in general which is sad. ah well, i'll keep playing while i'm having fun and take another two year break once i get bored lol
Honestly even with Scratch I feel they're lacking first of all, where the voice? NGS voice ticket is basically zero beside few in SG voice and no the voice scratch they have 1 year ago is not NGS voice it is base voice, also we need more collaboration with popular title.
They honestly need to change or else this game will sink in the competition.
I think they won't even put some money to hire a VC to do voices anymore
Honestly, as soon as I heard that the new genesis was replacing the old game entirely, I just didn't want to continue playing, especially since I was a ranger that liked using the cannons and assault rifles. But once they removed the perfect attack timing that's been in the phantasy star games for who knows how long now, I just dropped the game like a rock. Making my CAST waifu look nice wasn't worth the pain it took to get that stuff, normally.
probably sanest critique I've heard in a long time and I couldn't agree more.
to be even more fair, the only thing you not talking about is PQ/creative space, which I personally don't care about, but know that a lot people ask for content focused beyond just combat and item progression. I think Sega put a lot of effort into it, making it something new (and more powerful tool than just "player housing") rather than just copy pasta old PQ system. It just depends on how accessible (or rather expensive) they make furniture and items for it. But looking at combat and progression content - it's just sad...
Yeah I have no real interest in them but Creative Spaces do look like a banger way to do player housing, especially as more build parts and such trickle into the game... but that's the sort of thing you use to KEEP players in the game AFTER they're done grinding for the day. If there's nothing to the actual game, why wouldn't people just go play some other game with a focus on creative stuff or another MMO/live service game that also has decent creative features.
@@milkbucket5647 Exactly. 👌
Man I miss playing pso for the gamecube I hope they remake the pso 1 & 2 it was the best one I've ever played the music here I'm this pso2 makes me feel nostalgia.😊
After I heard about who the director was for NGS, I kind of lost hope. More so when after a year at launch, it's still somewhat barren.
SEGA should've done what they could to get annother director or try to grab that director who did PSO2 episode 6. The current one was running the base PSO2 game to the ground until the episode 6 director took over. why SEGA put that director who ran the base PSO2 to the ground before baffles me.
Firstly, I quite like this video! It's critical without being offensive or inflammatory in pointless ways unlike a certain other person's critiques. It could maybe do with the points being a bit more structured and focused, but if you say this isn't normally the sort of thing you do, it's pretty good still!
Regarding boosters, I feel like it's a misguided attempt to address (oh boy there's quite a few things that are "misguided attempts to address" issues, huh) what ended up happening with them in Classic, in that eventually they became so ubiquitous and spammed, you ALWAYS had them, so they became meaningless - you always had a 250% RDR boost active basically. I'm not *against* them changing how boosters work so they're more something you use for occasional boosts as opposed to feeling like the baseline but... the change given, making them real time as opposed to in-game time wasn't great, and is as you say, pretty anti-consumer. I feel like they just looked at how warframe does boosters and just went "lets do that", without considering that particularly RDR boosts feel much less impactful than boosters in Warframe do. I'm not sure there's an answer to making boosts more meaningful without overhauling how they work again though...
Regarding the "players will never be satisfied" thing... I feel like there's some truth to this honestly. Like, I feel like we've hit the point (quite some time ago honestly, within the first year of NGS) where the "there's no content" thing became a meme-bandwagon. It feels like there's a loud group of people (maybe the majority, maybe the minority, I don't know, I just know they exist) who will never be satsified with anything NGS does - every step in the right direction is insignificant, every mediocrity is a demonstration of laziness, every bit of content added is so insignificant as to be no content at all. It feels like to them, NGS's problem is it's NGS and not Classic, and it'll never be fixed until it goes back to being Classic - there's nothing SEGA could ever do to NGS to make it a good game, unless they turn it back into Classic. Even the good parts of updates get relentlessly dunked on, somehow used as ammunition to criticise the game even MORE, most of the time. SEGA needs to get their butts in gear and both listen to the community more and DO more, but I feel like large segments of the community at both ends (both hardcore SEGA apologists and those that criticise everything SEGA does with the game) really need to check themselves a bit...
The update name... yeah. That's another whoopsie on SEGA's part. It sure is an "Ultra Evolution"... of the game's social features. Creative Spaces are a *huge* deal alone, something that challenges, maybe even topples, the absurd creative possibility of Warframe's Dojos... I feel like the update might have better been titled as "Creative Evolution" or "Social Evolution", because the non-social stuff is pretty iterative and more of the same as we've been getting - steps forward along the path the game has been following, not an evolutionary step up.
Regarding the "Best thing about the game being playing other games"... Well, I think PSO2 has always been a pretty casual-targeted game, and they leaned into it harder with NGS. I don't think this is a problem necessarily. I greatly enjoy NGS as it is, and I hop between other games and come back to it all the time. I think this is partially how SEGA intends it to be played, it's supposed to be casual and not a no-lifey sort of game, and I appreciate how it doesn't seem to aim to consume all of my time. I do think NGS could stand to have a bit more challening content for hardcore players but... honestly like, I'm in no hurry to go back to the times of running JPEP3 Ult Naberius for Ares weapons, or farming EP5 Enchanted Forest for hours a day trying to get dupe Jutus Gunslashes to make a Lumiere
I think selling 1-hour long boosters instead of 24-hours is a good enough solution personally.
I do get it, there definitely are plenty of people who *will* never be satisfied. Thing is, I've seen this from a perspective somewhat like yours in Path of Exile... there are *always* people shitting on the game, crying "no fun allowed", attacking the developers, etc. The difference there is that the developers literally write essays on their design philosophies, detail extensively the *reasons* for changes and game systems, and the lead designer / founder of the game regularly engages with the community. *And* they consistently deliver huge updates to the game, thoughtful balance patches, and things to directly engage the community with. The level of transparency with NGS leaves a lot to be desired, to say the absolute least. One of the main reasons I made this video was to try to be some signal in the noise, try to put into real words what other people are screeching about and list some reasons why so many of my friends and people I've come across on other sites and other games dropped the game completely after the move from base game to NGS and don't expect to come back. This game could be massive and I personally don't think it would even takes some monumental "A Realm Reborn" like effort to achieve. I think a ton of those 60k peak Steam players would have stuck with the game if it had a bit more to do with better update pacing and quality, and the game didn't have so many of the glaring issues it did at launch. The game's reputation was completely shattered and the first impressions that possibly multiple hundreds of thousands of people got of the game (by stream impressions and non-concurrent user counts across multiple platforms) was that of an absolutely broken mess. The game just doesn't have to be *this* niche.
Naming the June update something like that would have helped, sure.. but there's still some minimum expectations for the biyearly update that we're, in my opinion, falling short of. I do think Creative Spaces are absolutely nuts, the degree of freedom offered and the potential for what people can make is insane. And it perfectly capitalizes on the strongest aspect of the game; creative freedom. User-generated content is a big fad in the industry and it really does make sense from a business standpoint to push in this direction. There's absolutely a ton of work and passion going into that system.. I think I speak for many though that I hope once that's on its feet they can move some of that work and passion into other aspects of the game (of course while maintaining and growing Spaces).
PSO2 has always been a casual focused game, sure... but it had so much depth for those that wished to engage with it further. JP even had expert matching and blocks specifically to facilitate a community for it. There was black fellwyrm, time attack quests like dark vestiges, endless quests, soloing divide quest 31-35, depth 999 masquerader, depth 100 sodam, twisted with hatred, etc. And while all of this was there for people to chew on if they so choosed, the entirety of the main content and all the unique bosses and quests were able to be completed by people who simply grabbed a collection folder weapon, novel units, and queued up for an UH MPA. Not to "dunk" but I do think it's funny you bring up *episode 3* and even 5 things when right in the beginning of the video I mention how the game made mistakes and iterated on their problems and designs. They learned their lessons from those things and the game ended up in a much better state, for everyone.
also can we aknowledge the issue, while transient, of the fashion dichotomy between male a female fashion!?
look, obviously an anime esk game will have more people playing girls and more of a dynamic scene around girls but for christ sake the female outfits have what feels like double the outerwear in comparison to men, their outfits are far more dynamic, female casts actually get to look like their flesh counterparts AND get parts that go hard in the mech direction.
i have 8 characters and only 2.5 of them are Male and because burned out on leveling (and NGS shitty ticket change from classic) i only focus on my main guys fashion. when simple boxers cost millions of dollars because of how rare it is for the male characters to get ANYTHING, there's a problem. like seriously most scratches have like 2-3 DIFFERENT outfit for women and then 1 outfit with a dosen variations for men if it isn't just a setwear or basewear with NOTHING ELSE
Yeah as a T1 enjoyer it's really rough. A lot what we do get is ugly or meme worthy. Insult to injury is not getting some of the good (non-collab even!) T1 fashion JP had. I do like the look I ended up with (back in Retem..) but I don't expect to find anything else I'd want to change to in a long, long time.
Im glad i decided to quit since Kavaris (but honestly i should have done since Retem), i keep watching some community videos so i can keep up with the evolution of NGS but looks like the developers just keep making mistakes so i dont think im ever going to get back. At this rate im almost sure they are using NGS as make your dream character simulator, because on the gameplay aspect everything still is a mess.
When Sega managed to disappoint the chillest dude, milkbucket, you know they did something wrong. Just sad that what we're getting is literally the best that it's ever gonna be. I've read all the interviews up until this point and there's no plans (at least within the coming year or two) to add anything substantial to the game. Coupled with their slow rate of development, it's hard to look forward to something/anything. Unless you live & breathe by scratch tickets, lol.
That's a sign right there that this game is headed straight to the graveyard at this point. It's probably for the best honestly. I just wish Sega would quit stringing the devs and community along as nobody's going to wait that long for an update and holiday stuff isn't cutting it either. Look at all of the games coming in the next few weeks/months. Nobody's waiting around for them to get their thumbs out of their asses to do something.
16:07 - 17:01 That's basically my feelings on the matter. It's truly a shame given how much I absolutely fell head over heels for PSO2 base game...
wow our outfits are almost the same, just slightly different colors. that's wild man, considering how many options there are.
This game should’ve have gave you the ability to be a part of a faction between the 4 regions..thus promoting pvp content. Also each alliance would have a base that can be modified using the personal base mechanics. Essentially the game would be anime minecraft mixed with warring factions. This will bring so many people back to actually wanna play the game instead of just collecting the newest ac items for drip. I’m guilty of the last part😅
I really loved the OG PSO2 (and the entire Phantasy Star series, even the master system game) and the release of New Genesis was one of the saddest events in my gaming life. At this point I just gave up on the franchise
You can change the combat settings in GW2 to action combat if you're not a fan of tab target
If SEGA Was smart, they would go big brain and listen to the community, take this beautiful graphics and remaster episode 1/2 / blue burst and give us what we really came for.
They are just interested in monetization.
New Genesis of monetizing boosters and shop passes. Ultra Evolution of monetizing stamps and private quarters.
All the scions in base game fished for counters in melee as well as quite a few other classes minus.. ranger? (unless you were bad), counter based gameplay is the highest form of skill expression tbh. Anything else is hitting the highest damage button under no threat. What's wrong with that?
Also the playerbase does know what they want, but there are 2 completely different types of players in this game because SEGA has been attracting the wrong crowd...
People who want to live some bizarre second life in this game, and slide into eachother's DM's and farm the lobby. ( These people keep the game alive, most likely )
And people who just want some good gameplay while looking good doing it. ( SEGA lost the good graces of these people already )
This is why we got such an overbuilt way too refined PQ system coming, because while everyone pretends like nobody asked. People were absolutely crazy about PQ coming back in the first year, and swore up and down this would somehow, save the game. (please refer to the first group of people mentioned).
The second group of people, AKA "COMBAT BROS" don't give a rats ass.
Also, our community manager is also well known to be part of the first group. Huge shock, I know.
I find it hilarious the Community Manager called people playing an Action RPG “Action Bros”
Scion classes had way, way more depth than you're giving them credit for.
@@milkbucket5647 I mean, Hero was starfire squall counter spam + talis front flips + 3rd attack. And Ph was ilgrants + step counter + mark, Or keeping bits up on rifle and step counter spam + mark (katana was worse than either so who cares about that). Et was for people who couldnt dodge, and Lu was a ridiculously overloaded kit where it didnt matter what you did, so many s and insane synergy with lifesteal, and no damage resistance buildup on masq, which was the entire mechanic that made masq difficult at floors past 600
@@milkbucket5647 no it's true, Scion classes were great, but the counter combat isn't that bad either, the issue is, once the bar has been set, anything less is a disappointment. Miss my Ph!
My god, i have 400h in ngs and i'm baffled at how deep your understanding of the game goes. My knowledge of it is only shallow in comparison. Great video. Since i didnt play a lot of pso2 i have no way to know what made it succeed where new genesis isnt succeeding.
Some things i noticed though are:
I never feel the need or will to grind a top equipment like with lvl 4 or 5 skill or those ones that must be bought with a +50 enhanced non top tier equip. Sorry i can never memorize the name of equips or mechanics in this game, they are too random. I never feel the need because this minmaxed equips are hundreds of times more time expensive to get than a normal second grade gear that has like 20 attack less and some 5% less potency than the top minmaxed one. Also i never need this top equips to beat the top challenges of the games. Second grade gear is more than enough.
NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY COOP ON MAIN QUESTS IS A SIN AND MUST BE PURGED. Seriosly, it's trials of mana all over again. Why can i play with 4 master chiefs in story while a multiplayer action rpg cant have freaking multiplayer. It drives me nuts.
I didnt knew boosters worked so well in base pso2. I dont even bother using them in ngs since i wont be using 10% of it's time.
@@DPedroBoh NGS simplify lot of things like augmenting, the way you levelling. it's good, but they make lot of things feel too samey and monotone. Combat for each class are too similiar, (ranger, hunter, fighter, or force all play parry) and the enemies design also too samey, not diverse enough. All region also all samey in what you are doing. Just farm materials and kill boss and monsters, nothing that really worth to see. No story either
I loved Phantasy Star 4 as a kid, replaying it as an adult I honestly hold it in regard above SNES titans like Chrono Trigger. I never got to play Pso1, but when Pso2 was coming to NA (2013? 2014?) and I really was getting into MMOs, I went nuts. I was so excited. And then.... nothing. Silence. It wasn't for YEARS until the announcement of NGS that we got base Pso2 in the west.
I will never forget the friends I made, the way summoner incorporated monster raising game elements. I did research and practiced hard, getting my ass kicked by Masq and VR quests. People would always say Summoner was bad in the lobby, but my friends would tell them to just watch. People were blown away by the numbers I was pulling with Synchro/Vulcan and tricks like pulling out Aero when bosses were downed. While I'm sure optimized hero classes played by someone who knows what they are doing are still better, it felt good to perform as well as I did on a class everyone assumed the worst of. I also will never forget how awful sweetbox farming was.... but that's besides the point. Base Pso2 was one of the greatest MMO experiences I ever had in my life. I think the only competition was release Rift, which was my first MMO. If I am praising it that much, even with nostalgia and the child like wonder of experiencing my first MMO, you know they did something right.
I tried to get into NGS not once, not twice, but THREE times. And every time I was left disappointed. I just cannot bring myself to play it. I want to love the franchises, but Sega just doesn't give it the love and care it deserves. I wish it was good, I really do, but it really just seems like they threw random things at the wall to see what sticks. Also still dislike the gatcha, but that was in base pso2 so yeah...
State OF THE STATE! Then you can do like Suikoden 2 and FORM AN STATE !!!
I used to be proud that a PSO2 premium cost the same as a FF14 sub, for a game that was already incredible while playing for free. Now, not so much.
I don't think the devs are 'lazy'. I think it's a combo of rushing this game out too early and poor direction. If I had to speculate, they could probably use more people working on NGS too. I doubt the people programming, making art assets, managing the community, etc. are responsible for tanking this game. An individual worker can only do so much. I'm guessing Phantasy Star is not a big priority for SEGA especially outside JP which I've never understood.
It really comes to the director, the management that pushes resources to the Phantasy Star Online team, and Sega overall for allowing what is a popular franchise in Sega's belt to be handled this way. I take it that they've put NGS in the backburner because Sega is booming from everything on the Sonic side with Sonic Frontiers and their latest Sonic movies. It's just sad to see that what was once a company that was holding up some grounds to Nintendo back in the day to only be recessed back to putting out games like NGS which is more of a money grab than nostalgia if anything.
Very true. Should have make it clear I do not blame the developers themselves, moreso the ones in charge of the Direction of the game, Production decisions, and Sega management for hamstringing the team and not setting higher standards.
i havent touch the creative spaces cos i couldnt careless about it in fact i need to log into get my daily items and then leave cos yeah thats all there is collect free stuff and leave
So checked out you don't even realize Creative Spaces don't launch until Wednesday. Not a dig at you or anything, just think it's funny and I don't blame anyone that isn't keeping up with things anymore!
Played the game from december-april and put in 700-ish hours. I had fun, right up until I beat the main story. Then there wasn't shit to do. Just playing a sub par game for cosmetics to show off in a sub par game
Good video. Epitomizes everything that pso2 is and needs to be.
I'm glad that you said that but I just feel like that after everyone's complained about the game but still play it just mind boggles me.
This might not entirely be relevant but the combat footage you showed of Base PSO2 during the latter half of the video is ends up being one of the best arguments against the changes they made in NGS. Almost makes me want to go play the base game again.
Sega is trying to make NGS anything but a goddamn Phantasy Star game. I used to peer out the window of my penthouse in Eorza to see the dumpster fire but it's not even worth the glance anymore.
Spends one month grinding for weapon in kvaris to deal 1k damage. Sounds very nice :d
i am convinced the game is still in early development stages, but being released in a way that is "playable". Im guessing there will be a ff14 realm reborn treatment, where when they actually finish the game they will wipe everything and we will then actually play the game.
that being said, its a far shot from PSO2. Blue protocol game system is essentially the same as pso2. I cant wait to play pso2 again, by playing blue protocol
Its best to let it all out, than in. Everyone feel the disappointment from sega time and time again. Many of us love and care about the game very much and we just want it be the best it can be, but sega keeps dropping the ball. NGS has so much going for it, sega just won't unlock the potential for it.
Well said.
Great thoughts.
I don't like open world mmo games but PSO2 caught my attention because of the random dungeons and player central hub. NGS was just a turn off because it's everything i dont want in an mmo
I just want Nadereh and Manon & Aina scale figure....
My issues with the game is end game setup requires way too much of your time just to be a small percentage stronger than the average build and Arts and Techs are only level 1? when will we get level 2 or the Ratechs? I do like NGS but most things in the game is not worth your time. Honestly the original PSO Episode 1 & 2 is way better than NGS v2.
I've been really enjoying episodes 1 & 2 on dolphin
well.... pretty sure most people who came from base shares the sentiment. Those of us who stayed at least. Cause we all know that quite a bit of people simply left after NGS.
Base pso2 ep 5 was the golden age of pso2. NGS is kind of the Neolithic period, nearly every lesson Sega learned in base pso2, has been thrown away.
Galera, comecei a jogar com meu irmão, porem eu jogo no PC e meu irmão no PS5, selecionamos o mesmo servidor mas a gente n se encotra no game! sabem dizer se são servidores diferentes?
PSO2 NGS is my second MMORPG, my first one was TERA when it came out on the PS4. Now, I've reached level 75 as a force and I don't really keep up with the headlines. As a player who keeps their wallet closed, the game has turned into a dress up game with extra steps, and I can't help but to feel a bit disappointed by that. Sure, I still have little to no idea what I'm actually doing in the game, but I wish there was more incentive to complete more content. Otherwise I'm just strolling around halpha and grinding mesesta to buy outfits from the player shop (and those prices are just... fantastic).
I left the game awhile ago around the time they opened the deserts. Sorry to hear it hasn't gotten better.
devs, community manages, everyone involved with NGS creation and push deserves the hate they get. It's really simple, had you made a good game then you wouldn't get the hate. PSO2 episode 6 was ina decent state, it needed a bit more but it was overall good. NGS was never asked for. And they did the same thing that division2 and Desitny2 did, restart and ignore everthing good they had learned over PSO2 timeframe.
I'll say it again, they deserve the hate. They need to face up to it and make massive amends. The incompatance and greed is astrounding and the only way for them to understand this is to feed as much hate to them as possible. Being nice has not worked.
12:20 - To be fair, in base PSO2 JP Server - the active boosters you use were somewhat anti-consumer as well on the early years of its service. Global Server didn't experience this but the boosters timer will become active while waiting in the portal for players to come in. Players would literary wait inside the CAMPSHIP so the boosters wouldn't expire.
You might think that isn't a big deal at that time, but remember this - matchmaking wasn't a thing back then (it only became a thing after "REBORN:Episode 4" came out so before that - the amount of waiting time was insane that you need to make sure you are on the "right block" (yes, no matchmaking means no go to a block where players are in queue as well).
Not to mention that it was only recently on the Episode 4 as well when SEGA implemented a pause/increase of timer to expiration to Player Shop/Player Room/Premium, etc. So before that - if your remaining time was only 12 hours left and there was an extended maintenance that goes up to 12 hours... say bye bye!
So its not like from the very start SEGA made the best choices, most of the veteran players have been warning people about it only for people to turn a blind eye cause the current service was already great.
The biggest take away from all of this was the fact that SEGA replaced PSO2 Livestream (aka PSO2 Station on later years) with NGS Headline, no offense to Hiro Arai he might have worked better as a live translator for the devs on a livestream than actually hosting everything leaving blanks for only confusion to draw in.
IMO - removing the livestream to have direct contact to the community was the biggest mistake SEGA has ever done which killed any potential to start from scratch with NGS. I'll be blunt, but SEGA made an illusion on talking to a player feedback that never existed in NGS Headline, everytime I watch a global server premiere of NGS Headline and when it comes to the Player Feedback segment all I can see was "WHO THE F ASKED THIS QUESTION?!".
Whereas in Japanese Premiere of NGS Headline, its either "Ouuuuuuu!" or "888888888" - yeah let's get the priorities straight.
And as I've said with Matchmaking wasn't a thing until Episode 4 in Base PSO2 in JP Server - just like Keroppi said on his last video (valid rant) the development team from the Phantasy Star Crew is SLOW. Its always been like that they literary wanted to release fast "content" and called it "new" in EPISODE 5 with the Buster Quests and not even releasing a "Free Field" quest which later became LQ's Enchanted Forest (yes the area used to be just an LQ content) - seeing the resemblance with NGS yet?
I was let down by this game within it's first week and it never improved for me. I played PSO2 since it's crusty beta in 2011. Back when you had to manually import the translation patch into your folder each update. Back when they said the game would be released globally in 2012. It had it's lows but, the lows in base are NGS's highs.
Some of this would be forgivable if this wasn't a tacked on parasite to the original with TEN *years* of precedent. And if the merger wasn't a pain in the ass endeavor of breaking features and fan patches only to leave the original game on life support.
I'm of the mindset that the switch to open world was 100% not the move. It has potential in a perfect world, but if they haven't at least *shown* promising use of these big, empty, sterile, boring areas, they aren't going to. We are back to circling Aelio 2 years later to kill the same enemies to get the same event points for the same capsules. I'm so beyond tired of bloated open worlds that promise "adventure" and then give you the most padded, time wasting, nothing experience.
But you can build houses now. So on top of the game being a Barbie dress up sim with limp JRPG elements sprinkled on, now you got the playhouse to complete the package. Terrific.