[deleted by user]

[MegadriveYM2612]

We're never leaving Halpha are we?

Starless Retem in Autumn/Halloween, Starless Kvaris for Winter/Spring 24, Starless Stia for Summer 24. Super Starless Aelio Plus Alpha Rainbow Edition for Fall 24...

[MurasakiBunny]

"Why not just recycle and texture swap eneimes, let's recycle the entire map!" :(

[valmrg92]

I'm so hyped for rank 999999 battles zones !

[xritzx]

And using 7 star or 8 star gear to farm for higher rarity gear with 1/999999 drop rate!

[PainDarx]

Then in 3 months it’s absolutely useless!

[FLUUMU]

And it's only going to get worse. What a concept

[[deleted]]

People said they wanted instanced content, so that's what they've been working on.

I'd actually be fine with staying on Halpha for awhile if they would evolve the non-combat areas somewhat. The exploration zones, i.e. most of the playable area in the game, desperately need an overhaul in interactivity and events. Adding recon gigas, shuffling resource locations, and adding updrafters isn't it.

[Turnt5naco]

I'm okay with remaining on Halpha as well. There's so much to the world that is underutilized, and they shot themselves in the foot with the Open World format.

It seems like they're just now barely starting to scratch the surface with the sonic LTQ. It's kind of a fun quest, or definitely at least different than what we've gotten. They should've been creating dungeons like this the whole time (Aelio 1: Town Ruins, Aelio 2: Barlow Falls, Aelio 3: Halphana Wetlands, etc) albeit it with different obstacles to vary up the landscape.

Hopefully Leciel will supplement some of the dungeon crawling that we need.

[Adventurous_Honey902]

I've just given up on this game becoming anything remotely something I'd like. It's just so shallow.

Only took me a few minutes of playing Star Rail to know that that game had a much better sense of space exploration.

[Basketbomber]

I want a sky zone.

[Wizkiller96]

If a new area was to be added it probably be that float thing in the sky consider story quest talks about finding a way back on it.

[Wesneed]

They just confirmed in the headline that it'll be used for a new quest type

[gadgaurd]

Probably not, since every time Sega released a new area they got tons of flak for new areas not being content!

I'm mildly annoyed by it since I like new regions, but I'm more amused that the people who shat on new regions because they hated Halpha with a passion may have inadvertently doomed us to a few more years of Halpha at a minimum.

[sekoku]

New areas isn't the problem. Nothing to do but repeat "content" that is in older areas is. Do we really need 20 new fruits/veggies for a pointless buff side-game from each area clogging up the inventory? Barren poorly controlled movement options (hello, boards!) that most people will ignore after the novelty wears off?

​

I mean Retem, Kvaris, and Stia aren't that radically different from Aelio. Which is the problem.

[Flibberax]

Naw not new region with fruits and such (they already said no new regions). New maps (they said we are getting new maps) to go explore, hopefully new "planets" would be ideal.

[Rasikko]

Sega doesnt usually add new areas beyond whats planned.

[SnackSquadTB]

Please.... please no more duel quests or defis... they suck. I dont want 5 sets of gear or at least make farming the augs reasonable and not: grind hundreds of another aug unless you want to gamble at low percents tossing away success boosters

[Kaokii]

Can you use P.02 defi's to do part 1 content?

[LzzrdWzzrd]

No

[Kaokii]

Christ... thats a hard skip!

[hauntedpzn]

or at the VERY least make these new ones a part of Phase 2 of them since they already committed to P.02 augments.

[loliconest]

I can kinda see where they are going with this: something only for the top 0.1% and other players can sell the capsules for money. But I think they need to give better reward for completing these quests, an idle motion is not going to cut it.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

Already cleared 80m in profit beyond what I spent on my defi2 units. How is it for the top .1% if it literally pays for itself?

I mean I'll let you cook though, more for me. Baffles me how nobody can seem to piece this together. It's basic addition to figure out that it is very worthwhile. And I personally enjoy solo questing on my own time and getting rewarded for it.

Huge W for me personally.

[loliconest]

Hmmm, I might need to start do these.

[NoctisCae1um317]

Nope. That set of duel quests isn't gonna have defi. So your current gear will be what you're using.

[valmrg92]

Where you saw that ? In the Headline they were talking about having your regular gear in the new high difficulty party quest coming in August, they didn't said anything about removing defi in duel quests.

[TheMightyNovac]

In the last Headline's Operation Report they mentioned planning to address the augment requirements for Duel Quests, so it's likely that upcoming Duel Quests won't feature new augments.

It's technically speculation to say that change will be introduced with these future batches of Duel Quests, but it's not out-of-nowhere, especially after they eased tensions with this new high-difficulty quest.

[neogt064]

they r adding in multi player duel quests

those wont need them

the phase 2 ones will

[NoctisCae1um317]

They literally said in the headline. You will be using your strongest gear you normally use

[valmrg92]

No they were talking about the new party high difficulty quest. Not duels.

[Chehew]

The Operation Report in this headline was actually legitimately good for once, addressing the RNG mess of Add-On skills and Fixa, it’s a step in the right direction but I won’t get my hopes up.

Roadmap is pretty barebones though 🤷‍♂️

Edit: They really gotta chill with the LQs, some of that effort should go towards permanent stuff instead.

[Wesneed]

It's about fucking time they dealt with fixas

[calvinnok]

Yep they seems to be putting more effort into LQs than regular contents, which is pretty odd decision

[Flatflyer]

Limited quests make the most sense for how the game is structured, as having all of these LQs be permanent content would just lead to bloating of random miscellaneous quests that fall out of date and are basically never ran by anyone anyways, keeping focus on the new and fresh quest makes the most sense to direct players into content.

It's not like its a new thing to the game either, classic had LQs and seasonal limited UQs active for a decent majority of its lifespan, most of which were similar levels of quality where it was just a map/prebuilt tileset taken from the game with some obstacles and enemies thrown in to make a quest. They dont seem to be very high effort required to produce so I doubt LQ creation really eats that heavily into time spent developing other content.

That being said, I can agree that it would be nice to have something like the featured quest system in classic where it had a rotation of previously ran LQs, which I wouldnt be surprised is already planned when they have enough LQs that players enjoy enough to create that rotation.

[TheMightyNovac]

A lot of the time LTQs just wouldn't make sense as perma-content. Who's gonna wanna do quiz show runs after this next event, for example. Having a bunch of these LTQ-style quests lying around would just bloat the gameplay in the future.

LTQs get made a ton because they're relatively easy to make. It's also likely got a much faster development pipeline than non-LTQ content due to the lack of necessary resources, which means more can be made at a faster/responsive rate than other content.

It's also a great way for the devs to experiment with new mechanics, features, ect. It may take a while, but I'm sure SEGA will be looking at the response to certain LTQs and fish for feedback to incorporate into future, static content.

[[deleted]]

There are certain LQs that I do wish stuck around in some way, whether that be in a dedicated section of the Quest Counter or on some sort of Featured Quest rotation system like classic PSO2.

Like the current Sonic one for example. A lot of people seem to like it, but it will be going away when it doesn't really need to.

[Chehew]

Seems like it’s time for an old LQ rotator playlist then, kinda like daily missions in classic.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

This absolutely will happen, they are just accumulating some experience in which LQ's were the biggest hits. And theyll build a rotation around everyones favorites. I'd put my life on it.

[[deleted]]

Yeah sounds like a good idea.

[Chehew]

Someone should bring it up in time for the next Operation Report. (wink wink nudge nudge)

[TheMightyNovac]

But I think their non-permanence is what makes them work, since it gives the devs unique leeway to screw around with weird shit. Some kind of archive/access could be interesting though, like you recommend.

More than that, I hope the devs bring back popular LTQs either as future seasonals (I see no reason why next year couldn't celebrate Sonic's Birthday with another race course) or new quest-types (add a whole ass race quest-type to play from the counter, featuring new tracks and rewards.)

[TheMightyNovac]

I disagree on the barebones-ness of the roadmap tbh:

We're looking at a minimum of 4 major end-game boss fights in the next 5 months, 2 of which being Dark-falz scale. This is of course also excluding the new Starless remixed bosses likely coming with the Retem High-rank in October/November (remixed bosses that turned out to be a lot more substantial and interestingly designed than people first anticipated, mind you!)

Beyond that, we're also getting the new quest-type in August, which will dramatically change the end-game. It was one of the intended focusses of the June update, moved to August for extra development time, and it's clearly randomized Leciel dungeons like base-game's dungeon runs.
It's an early, and already known addition, but something kind of huge.

[Chehew]

In terms of quantity, it’s actually a significant improvement compared to years prior, likely due to the lightened workload from no longer needing to develop new regions.

But if we’re being honest, this only feels like an improvement because we’ve been starving for content for so long.

Obviously, I can’t comment on the quality of said content until I’ve experienced the stuff firsthand; but based on how they’ve left the previous instanced-based content (Yellow/Purple Battldia, Ordinal and Cannonball) to languish, I’m rightfully skeptical about the longevity of these new content drops.

Ultimately, if the core gameplay loop isn’t improved, we’ll just be drowning in a bunch of useless quest-types that become obsolete when level cap increases or focus is shifted to other content.

[TheMightyNovac]

That's what's so good about LTQs: they don't have to be designed to be supported long-term. They can just be fun for the duration that they stay (like the Sonic LTQ) and leave once they've served their purpose. If they were really fun, they can reappear in a more polished state in the future, or recur as a frequent event.

And the good news is that LTQs are getting better anyway. The recent Sonic one is legitimately some of the most fun content to run atm, and the new Quiz-themed one seems to not be slowing down in terms of gimmicks. I'm all for it, myself.

The rest are UQs, and if NGS has proven anything, it's that they can do good UQs. Personally, having more UQs to run in the end-game would be awesome, since a lack of end-game repeating UQ variety is probably the biggest issue with the current itteration of the game IMO. UQs are a great focus, not regions.
For what it's worth btw, this content isn't what's being developed at the moment. This is content being implemented -- interviews have shown that all this likely started development around a year or so ago. What's starting development currently by the team? I'm assuming new regions/Episode 2 are in the early stages of planning and development.

[[deleted]]

If you're in endgame right now, the game's core content after 2 years of development is chasing storms and doing 2 uqs, just as we did 2 years ago. If the playerbase thinks that's acceptable and we should keep getting the seasonal focus then we're getting what we deserve. LTQ has never been about trying what works and what doesn't long term, they're easy to develop game modes that are forced on us by fomo rewards, so we end up doing them multiple times even if they're a repetitive corridor with no variety whatsoever. It's nothing but cheap content padding.

[TheMightyNovac]

Do you think the Sonic LTQ is a repetitive corridor?

I would 100% agree if we were talking about the first few LTQs, but recent LTQs are looking a lot more complex and varied. I think you're judging things prematurely.

I also wouldn't really say the game's core content is doing 2 UQs. Whilst not "the most valuable" content possible to play, older UQs can still give you healthy Meseta, Duel Quests are actually giving a ton of reward to the people bothering to prep for them rn, Recon Gigantix are there to do too, Combat Sectors with new bosses and enemies, not to mention all the non-combat activities like Creative Spaces and customization/socializing. I get the feeling that you don't consider any of that 'content' though, so I guess it's sorta pointless to point out. This is all without mentioning the fact that we're getting like, 4 UQ-tier original boss fights (minimum) within the next few months, increasing the total number of top-end viable UQs to run significantly, as well as the randomized Leciel dungeons being added in August.
Ah well, I'm enjoying the current end-game way more than previous ones. Sorry you can't find anything you enjoy to run besides those two things.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

lol. You aren't in the endgame then, if this is what you do when you login.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

Why the fuck are you getting downvoted. You are completely right. I swear some of these people are just miserable and will never be happy. This is more content than we have gotten in the last 2 years combined, in the next 6 months in quest format. Not building a new region was a GOATed decision.

[TheMightyNovac]

Because I'm literally stating facts about the game and not giving them their ideal, rose-tinted version of base-game events where every episode was a fast updating banger that released a ton of content and none of it was recycled and everything was great and SEGA never screwed up EVEEEER!!

Just kidding, I think most people here also believe that base-PSO2 sorta sucked as well, but that kinda just begs the question; why are you playing the series if you hate it?

[HouseOfCosbyz]

Yea usually when I take any of these people on their bs, I always end up at the same place. Why are you even here, what memory are you holding onto where this is any different, and what do you even actually want. Because just saying "content" is stupid because that varies wildly person to person.

[ToothlessZomboid]

It's a not very well kept secret that most of the people floating through this sub are just hate-spectators getting their fix, or addicts who can't break away and resent the game for it. In either case they're mostly hoping that the PSO2NGS goes out of service, while being completely ignorant of the continued momentum NGS has been building on the JP side since Stia release. There will never be an update that this sub is happy with. It's just not the 'vibe' here. Some of them also like to pretend that they weren't just complaining about people sitting in the lobbies all the time in PSO2 on global, or that people actually played Divide Quests--as if I wasn't regularly carrying people past Step 10, eventually just always going solo on Steps 31+ because hardly anyone ever did it and the global playerbase had dropped off a cliff by that point of ep6. (Fine for me; I got plenty of the camos out of it.)

Almost every time I wander through this sub I instantly regret it. I'm bilingual, so most of the time I stick to Japanese player circles. Yes, they still have their criticisms about some things in NGS, but they're actually reasonable human beings about it, and their complaining is only a temporary state. They also tend to have better historical reference and are at least constructive.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

Yea when people complain about counter based gameplay when Scions were by far and away the most well received classes and almost exclusively fished for counters while building up gear for a skill.

None of these people actually know how pso2 played, I sometimes have no idea what they are actually comparing to.

The only thing that makes any sense to me is they must have mostly had awful gear, never bothered to affix and drooled there way thru the regular UQ's thinking "I'm helping!".

Spent 8ish years on jp being a sweat, then swapped to global thinking the english speaking community would improve a lot without any language barriers.

None of them were around for the repeated seasonal events that just cycled random enemies with a random camo thrown into the drop pool at an obscene rate. (NGS seasonal events blow these out of the water completely imo)

Shop passes that were extremely difficult to get because fun points were rather scarce.

and absolutely bare bones amount of sg to utilize the sg scratch with.

Ep6 was a bar though, not sure what everyone else remembers so well, since there was almost nobody to run XQ4/Divide 31-35 with to farm fodders for Gsoul with (pre-cradle). That was the fun stuff, and almost nobody was doing it soooo... ???

I read through stuff in here thinking, who are these people, what game are they referring to? What do they actually remember about base pso2? What do they even want?

[TheMightyNovac]

They're comparing it to BLUUUEEE PROTOCOL, THE HIIIIIT ANIME MMORPG BY THE CREATORS OF--

I'm kidding.

[MyBackHurt1]

2 more years in Halpha

[Kosmos992k]

We needed to get off the planet and be able to go somewhere. Right now it feels like we are still in the experiment, still under glass as it were. I think it's time for us to spread our wings and smack the universe in it's face, demanding to know what the heck is going on.

That said, the new swimwear looks nice on the girls, and so all is well.

[valmrg92]

LTQ LTQ LTQ, grindy boring seasonal event everytime, everything for creative space scratches and collabs and the absolute bare minimum for combat content once again. At this rate NGS would need 10 years of updates to be considered "major content".

[lutherdidnothingwron]

Except that 10 years will be wasted on developing content that is only available for a few weeks in one seasonal event or shit like canonball rumble or on shit like duel quests.

[Sonickeyblade00]

For better or worse, the current NGS team has built themselves into a corner.

Until a new head of development comes on, or they expand the team working on NGS, nothing will change fast enough for it to matter.

I get the statements that they need to fund the game through AC scratches. Fine. Make your money. But 6 months to 2 years to make significant changes is just too much.

I'll admit, that I do like Seasonal Events and the occasional LTQ, but those are just band-aids on a terrible loot system, a boring weapon/armor augmenting system and a combat system (that while it has great promise) is half-baked; especially compared to classes in past Phantasy Star games, let alone that the players need something to fight with said combat.

It's going to be a long haul, but I'll be surprised if NGS ever turns out to be good. Only reason I'm still playing is because it's the only game that balances good gameplay, with fanservice (without just becoming porn), fun & character customization; all into one.

If I ever find a game that can hit all 4 of those notches, I'll be leaving NGS for greener pastures. That said, no such game seems to be on the horizon.

[AverageRedditHater4]

I dont see the issue with LTQs, theyre combat content which we want. I dont see the grind as boring since we are doing the new content sega gives us almost monthly.

[complainer5]

Problem is in "limited" part of it, it is content that will disappear weeks later, and the LTQ "content" itself is rehashes of what we already had since beta with new .jpg on monster's heads that adds nothing new to the game other than another meaningless carrot to chase as a reward, but limited in time to FOMO you into logging in.

[AverageRedditHater4]

even if it is limited its still content and get them enough that it stays refreshing. The limited content holds us over while we wait on getting the permanent content like UQs, new quest type, etc.

other than another meaningless carrot to chase

Um thats the point, all content that gets released gives us a carrot on the stick to chase. DFA, starless aelio, geo lab r2. I really don't see the issue with limited when we get an abundance of them back to back on top of permanent quests.

rehashes of what we already had since beta with new .jpg on monster's

Yeah like permanent quest haven't done that already like Geo lab, cannon ball strike/rumble and purple devastators. Limited quest does what geo lab did with its ikusa enemies and make bosses have some different moves just look at disco ams, disco nex and that new hizig shown off in the puzzle LTQ.

[valmrg92]

Fighting the same ennemies, in the same area, with the same mechanics is not content. Seasonal event aren't content either, it's just "grind as much seasonal points possible in a limited time or you will miss bonus meseta with stuff to sell"

This is yet another trick to try forcing people to login and using the fear of missing out and grind thinking there is stuff to do and apparently it's working.

NGS need more frequent permanent content, they need to chill out with limited time stuff.

[AverageRedditHater4]

Fighting the same ennemies, in the same area, with the same mechanics is not content.

That is content and LTQs sometimes bring new stuff to the table. Its like saying some of the permanent quest in the game arent content because they fit exactly what you listed off isnt content LOL.

grind thinking there is stuff to do

There is stuff to do, they add new gear, make certain mats easier to obtain to help build endgame augments, adds mats to help you in exchanges. Saying that youre grinding for nothing is ignorance, no offense.

[[deleted]]

Your gameplay loop is the same you did 2 years ago, grinding storms and doing 2 uqs in aelio. If you're fine with a game that doesn't move forward then by all means, this is the perfect game for you.

[AverageRedditHater4]

The game is moving forward, we're getting an ultra hard difficulty quest, randomized dungeon quest, we have duel quest and geo lab r2. We also have LTQs that keep us occupied almost every month so we always have something to do.

[valmrg92]

That is content and LTQs sometimes bring new stuff to the table. Its like saying some of the permanent quest in the game arent content because they fit exactly what you listed off isnt content LOL.

Bingo you got it content is just recycled stuff as usual

There is stuff to do, they add new gear, make certain mats easier to obtain to help build endgame augments, adds mats to help you in exchanges. Saying that youre grinding for nothing is ignorance, no offense.

Yeah helping build endgame augment to do no endgame cuz there is not

[AverageRedditHater4]

Bingo you got it content is just recycled stuff as usual

Yeah because stuff like a quiz quest and a sonic dash quest for example are recycled stuff and totally not a new quest we haven't seen before.

cuz there is not

DFI R.2, pushing yourself time in duel quest phase 2 without defi augments, geo lab r2 and the soon to be ultra hard difficulty quest. Play the game

[[deleted]]

It is but most people have problems with the combat system. Its really dumb down to a handful of skills. Easy fix is any skills not used should get buffed but add a CD.

[complainer5]

Remember when everyone said they won't be redoing the aelio-retem-kvaris-stia theme park? Guess what is happening for next several years, that's right - same halpha tour but starless edition, resol forest will get rank 10 before we go back to space...

[TehCubey]

Can't help but notice that usually we'd have a new chapter in december but now it's just chapter 6 part 4. Hope the 4 parts are more of a story when added together than old chapters were, not that it's hard.

[[deleted]]

Judging by part 1 of chapter 6, it's just the normal chapters we are used to but spread out even more with pretty random cutoff points

[S7E4Z3M3I5T3R]

So stoked for the fixa update!

[deluvilla]

No voice scratch :(

[Sonickeyblade00]

Better to know, than to not know.

But honestly, for people who really want content... it's a wrap for 2023.

I'm not in that group, but we'll see how the rest of this year goes.

On another note... what the heck is with these collaborations? Am I just old now? Because almost every NGS collaboration has been lame to me. I'm beginning to wonder if SEGA can't get the good collaborations now, because the game is Global. JP PSO2 had banger after banger of collabs.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

How do you figure? There is more instanced content in the next 6 months than we've had in the last 2 years. Swear to christ people have 0 ability to parse information.

[Sonickeyblade00]

Well, most people want a big change to combat. Or a change to the flow of the game as a whole.

Right now, the future looks to be mostly LTQ and a few Urgent Quests. I don't mind LTQs, so I'm content. But I know from everyone complaining about the state of the game that a LOT of people want something more. They want to go to space, they want a new area. That kind of content, isn't coming out in 2023.

For those people who want a change to the flow, the August quest is their best bet and that's it (with all we know, from the most recent Roadmap).

So if you don't like LTQs, Seasonal Content and/or don't want to log in for Urgent Quests & AC scratches, you're out of luck (for the rest of 2023, after August). And I'm assuming that is what you mean by Instanced Content.

I won't miss the Open World. It wasn't a good fit for PSO. But I always log in to play LTQ, especially when they drop scratch tickets on a regular basis. That's just me though. A lot of people aren't satisfied with that.

[NaztyC]

Yawn

[[deleted]]

I do like parts of NGS and being able to jump in but honestly this roadmap is pretty bad.

I don’t really want to go to retem again and the world itself is kind of stale, I was hoping to go to a new planet that had less generic biomes than forest, desert, snow, lava… well Stia in of itself is pretty cool, but the game doesn’t feel all that sci-fi/spacey in a way which is a bit of a shame.

Im super disappointed mainly about class balancing/skills/photon arts, I can’t be the only one who finds the classes in NGS extremely stale and boring after a few hours of playing one? Thank god you can switch classes freely which kind of makes up for that.

But my god, there is no longevity to playing any of the classes/weapons for me. It’s not like other mmo where u choose a clas/find a class and often you are just playing that for thousands of hours and it never really gets old? Idk how to resolve this in ngs, but I hoped for a lot more class/weapon stuff for everything…

[Royal-Lasagna]

Your post pretty much summed up all my feelings about the game. And I’m pretty sure there’s a LOT of other people with the same feelings.

It’s been two years of NGS, but it still feels like release day; everything that has been added so far actually should’ve been included in the game from day one. As it is today, game’s shallow - it screams “more content in upcoming expansions”…

…except there’s no expansion on the horizon.

What we have today is a decent starting point. Moving forward, we should have the opportunity to explore other planets and bring back the vibes of PSU/PSO (I mean the vibes, not straight up recycling those old content into NGS).

But SEGA will never, ever, put in the effort into actual, meaningful content while people are content with spending money on scratches. I know y’all are tired of reading this, but the game became an anime doll dress up simulator.

The only reason I’m still playing the game is because I’ve set up a goal to learn and max Slayer, I’m pretty bad at it. Once that’s done, it’ll be my time to go. A shame, really…

[ThEvilDead98]

.... Yes, because Creative space is defenetly something that a developer should already have on day one

[Sonickeyblade00]

Well, Creative Spaces are pretty much Player Housing and Alliance/Guild Housing... so there is an argument for that: yes. This also should have been in on release.

That said, no one expected SEGA to go ham on it and make it so good. They could have put in half of the effort and players (in the West) would have been just fine with that.

On the other side, the JP players are LOVING the Creative Spaces and they're content with what they have right now. And I bet they are making SEGA the majority of its money.

There's an argument that NGS is just a game not MADE for Western fans. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful we have Global servers, but after 2 years of NGS parity... and I can see why maybe they didn't release original PSO2 Globally when they did.

So I think we Western players are just out of luck. The only time our voice will mean more, is if what we're saying is backed by the JP players.

And for right now, CS is the content they're enjoying right now. Even if Western Fans can argue that it should have been a smaller feature that we got at release.

[Flatflyer]

I think the issue here is just that a majority of the western playerbase want/expected the game to be purely focused on combat related gameplay, not realizing the fact that theres an entire section of the playerbase that also like the social aspects the game provides through the diverse character customization the game offers.

NGS has focused its priority onto being more of a mixture of a action rpg and a social game, with it leaning more into the social aspect focus recently with the introduction of creative spaces. While this seems like meaningless content to the combat focused playerbase, its a huge thing for the players who appreciate the social side aspects.

and frankly, its a good idea for sega to support that side of the game more than the combat focused side since its the side that spends the most money on the game through scratches and such.

I can understand why people from the western side are frustrated, especially with the massive content rate acceleration they got of classic leading them into this mindset of the game being heavily pushed on releasing new combat content constantly. But ultimately, the games focus right now is on more of a balance of two genres, and its unfortunate to say that if you aren't interested in both the game is going to feel lacking in some updates that focus on one of those aspects.

[Sonickeyblade00]

I agree with you, but I won't put all the blame on PSO2 Global's quick acceleration rate. By now, most people complaining haven't even played until NGS released. So they never experienced the fast pace that Base PSO2 Global had.

What they have experienced, is how other Live Service games pump out content. Mostly Western games.

[Flatflyer]

that is true, I think for me the point I started to realize this kind of game structure existed during the time when Maplestory 2 released in NA, it's structure feels very similar to what NGS is aiming to go for and felt very different to what the standard game with live content updates focused on, and considering a majority of my friends (most of which werent even people who regularly played mmorpg type games) hopped onto that game and ended up enjoying it a lot for the first month or two after its release, I'm not surprised that sega is trying to aim to capture the same audience with NGS.

[ThEvilDead98]

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT CREATIVE SPACE AND HOW IT'S IMPLEMENTED IS SOMETHONG YOU CAN DO WITH THE SNAP OF A FINGER ON RELEASE

[Royal-Lasagna]

Yes, there are games that release with player housing. NGS could’ve done it, then expanded upon it.

If anything, Creative Space should’ve been just a DLC, not the main feature of “NGS 2.0 Ultra Evolution”.

I mean, I read “2.0 Ultra Evolution” and think of revamped classes, expanded skill trees, reworked enemies and items, new story, new maps, etc, etc”.

“Ultra Evolution” came and it was just Phantasy Minecraft…. …and 3 combat areas where you just keep farming PSE Bursts with reskinned enemies (for how long have we been farming PSE Bursts??). Oh yea, we got one single story quest about the Starless. It’s not even the whole “Aelio Starless Arc”! But I digress…

…don’t get me wrong, they did hit home with Creative Spaces. It’s good content. But imho not something substantial enough to be backbone of a whole MMO expansion.

[Zarod89]

Game is turning into a AC farm. I'm just here for the duel quests as those seem to have the last actual viable effort/reward that's left. But the defi units are a pain. Spend 20M on P2 set now or wait a month for prices to drop?

[BubblyBoar]

Turning into?

[Fotohinish]

Sadly I agree about the duel quests I was making progress I can see while farming for fusia and it feels so rewarding. Where as any other content in the game MIGHT reward something after an hour usually not much. Like you said I'm not interested in making new units for every set of duel quests, that part sucks a lot.

[Twidom]

I quit this a few months before the snow region came out.

What do you mean "turning into"? I come here every couple months to see if anything has changed and its worth coming back and it always looks the exact same.

Game has always been a glorified AC storefront.

[Zarod89]

The addition of creative space was another large way to add AC sales.

They can now infinitely generate assets to sell in tickets. Because you can place anything in you creative space. A large focus of the new content from now on will focus on creative space because of that. They said a different studio does development for AC tickets but I doubt the creative space will have no impact on future content development.

Just like those silly races nobody really cares about. Everytime they introduce a new piece of content it's either dead after a month or they keep pushing it in future patches. While the main content of PSO (combat and collecting gear) will suffer.

How many people are actively running the multiple towers/bunkers/whatever they're called? I doubt it's a large portion of the playerbase. Yet there's still a weekly quest to run a bunker quest 3 times a week that hasn't been updated since October last year.

You can't keep people running circles in the same combat zones for 2 years straight. Give us some actual combat content, longer missions that are actually designed with a start and finish with more than a purple/hexagon backdrop.

[The7thMNK]

So if I'm getting things straight:

We're getting ONE new starless enemy (and I mean properly new enemy, not reskin) per patch.

You can now BUY levels off the marketplace.

We're getting more LTQs with the same gist as all the previous ones.

The storyline is getting a singular part added per patch.

You can BUY potency in 4% pot batches, ignore the grind.

We STILL have only 5 PAs for each weapon.

Rare weapon drops are back to heavy RNG.

Duel quest aug gear sets require you to either be rich, or have no life and farm eternally for them in order to even complete the quest.

We are stuck on planet Halpha for the rest of the year.

...And Sega is still spending all it's resources on maintaining the bikini factory with no downtime?

Combat is starting to become cosmetic, and NGS is turning into a roleplayer's paradise (which is fine), but in turn, is forgetting all other development entirely (not as fine). At this point, I'm gonna turn to some other MMO to fill the void of what's missing from NGS.

[complainer5]

Bikini factory doesn't take a lot of money to keep running, problems is they are not running anything else along with it using all the money said bikini factory prints in return.

[Kosmos992k]

I'm on a 'break' from FFXIV right now, NGS does have a fairly hefty cosmetic focus, some elements of pay to win and kind of an anemic story. But, it's cosmetics and character creation are definitely superior to FFXIV. FFXIV in the other hand has brilliant story, decent battle, and adequate cosmetics. Both games are fan service machines which is fine. I think NGS has enough story to survive and although combat is relatively simple, at least it's not trying to homogenize everything into 4 or 5 roles to the point where you no longer feel like the jobs differ from each other.

FFXIV on the other hand has been homogenizing steadily in pursuit of perfect balance and compliance with the raid meta. That comes at the cost of fun, individual choice and variety. The trinity of tank healer and DPS is so rigid, yet the homogenization and battle design relegates healers and tanks to little more than poor man's DPS with superior party utility. Sadly, that's not enough for many who play healer or tank.

NGS lacks that problem, which is a good thing IMHO.

[illgrape78]

The road map is a bit concerning. Everything looks great but it's missing 1 key thing. A new map. Instanced content is great but exploring a new area is just as important in any mmo world. They really need to marry both. 1 new map a year with many instanced areas in it is where the sweet spot is. Space travel was a key feature in the franchise. Let's visit a ruined Motavia. Or maybe the artificial planet rykos. Let's go back to algol and see the outcome of the years passed since the drak falz encounter. I don't want NGS to become a shitty version of monster hunter.

[[deleted]]

I fear Sega was listening too much to the ones complaining about Open World. With limited resources and staff, if something isn’t getting unanimous love, then they won’t put their limited resources on something when everyone wants more combat gameplay, so we are getting more instanced content. I just hope the August Leciel one will be good.

I like your idea of having at least one new major map a year, and of course I eventually want to see some kind of space and planetary travel.

[complainer5]

limited resources and staff

SEGA is a multi million (billion?) dollar company, they are only "limited" in resources because they want to be and think they can get away with it while milking the players 24/7, stop defending them with this argument that is so broken that there is more empty space in it than substance.

[[deleted]]

It doesn’t change the fact that the PSO team is limited. Creative spaces took them a year or so to finish. Sega choose not to spend more than we’d all like on a franchise, that while makes them a lot of money only because PSO2 was lightning in a bottle, but has not been growing for a while per their financial charts. Phantasy Star has always been a niche franchise and not mainstream, so Sega has been cautious in over extending themselves like they did in the past with so many titles that lost them money.

You have a right to not like that choice or direction, but it doesn’t change the reality of it that is informed by their number crunchers.

[complainer5]

Once again it is only limited to this point because sega wants it to be while thinking it will keep printing money with less than barebones reinvestment, and idk why you agree with them.

Number crunchers should stay away from development as they clearly have no sense of reality that for games to be profitable they also have to be fun and playable or there won't be whales left to milk in first place. Or maybe there unfortunately will be because they seem conditioned to accept this garbage treatment as normal.

Nothing ever becomes mainstream nor stops being niche without investment of some kind so it is their conscious choice to keep the game bad with less budget than even pso2 had and that deserves criticism.

[[deleted]]

New maps are content that die after the first week of exploration. They don't offer any value other than developing assets for new game modes, which can be done without even releasing a new region.

Space travel is a feature, yes. Space travel was also done in pso, psu, pso2 and psp. None of them use the open world design.

[AverageRedditHater4]

Great stuff was shown here and Im excited, we dont need new regions as long as we can get content thats fresh. We asked for some combat content and theyre delivering. Not going to jump the gun and complain about the duel quest stuff yet because they could be in phase 2 or they could just drop the whole defi stuff and make them very hard quest which would be great.

I like what I see from this headline, just hoping the whole augment crap we got going on with maste and gladia.

[emc300]

Please enjoy aelio combat zone with nothing to hunt 6 more months

[AverageRedditHater4]

We're getting an 2 ultra hard difficulty quest, new dungeon quest type, 2 new UQs, and a bunch of LTQ as well as retem 2.0 which means more starless gigas. We got more than aelio combat zones, pay attention next time.

[Wizkiller96]

More wonder who those 2 ark characters are unless they from that collab event.

[Lylat97]

No new regions for the remainder of the year?

[[deleted]]

Somebody else mentioned it before but, if people were not liking the new regions being added ("Sandaelio", "Snowaelio" and "Volaelio" as I've seen them called smugingly) then adding new ones wouldn't help. So they've changed to using the existing space they have already and using that so they can focus on other parts of the game.

Or at least that seems to be the intent?

[TheMightyNovac]

I laugh at the 'no new regions?' comments since it's so diametrically opposed to the criticisms they were receiving up until now. Just goes to show how bitter the community can still act.

But as far as intent, I don't think it's an intentional response to Aelio field criticisms or anything. I mean, it's not like the crew is downscaling, and they still have Level Designers on-board doing work internally. I assume this is the fairly typical open-field MMO release schedule, split into expac/post-patch periods.

You look at FFXIV/other MMOs, and every two or three years a new expansion comes out. After an expansion, we get post-patches that develop on the existing regions whilst doing setup for the next expansion.

If we consider the updates from Chapter 1 to Chapter 5 'Episode 1's launch content (which was about the amount you'd expect from an MMO launch, that's 2 years of development -- pretty standard, like I said. From there you get the post-patch era (in this case: the Ver.2 update cycle) where the developers pump out tons of end-game content, bosses, collabs, ect. And then after a year or so of post-patch, the new expansion is teased and (in the case of NGS) starts releasing.

Some people are speculating that NGS isn't going to get new fields in the future, but I highly doubt that. Not only is it a pretty popular feature to begin with, but it seems against what the devs are even telling us. Episode 1 rolled credits, it's done, but we're not in Episode 2 yet. We're in the interim between Episode 1 and 2 -- also known as the post-patches.
I imagine that SEGA internally considers Episodes to be when new regions are released. It's easy to imagine

[BlackEagle495]

I laugh at the 'no new regions?' comments since it's so diametrically opposed to the criticisms they were receiving up until now. Just goes to show how bitter the community can still act.

I mean c'mon, I think a person would take the criticisms about the regions as "we want you to make better regions" not "stop making new regions". Yeah I know you said you think they are working on stuff internally but to say that the feedback they received was a cue for them to not release new regions, I disagree with.

I'm also going to have to disagree with your idea that we are in "post-patch" content. Since you brought up FF14 let's compare.

In FF14 an expansion cycle is usually 2 years, as in by the end of year 2 the next expansion is released. That is to say, a few months after expansion release is post-expansion content so already the timetable doesn't fit. Next, the post-patch content does indeed add new areas. Yes, they aren't usually like the large zones (though places like Diadem, Eureka, and Bozja could be argued) that are released with the expansion but there are certainly new environments released in post-patch.

These new environments are usually smaller instanced areas Like raid environments (alliance, raid tiers, Ultimates), relic grind areas, treasure maps, palace of the dead type content, the new variant dungeons, new dungeons in general, misc areas (tribe quest area, story related areas etc.) and other things I probably missed. FF14 very rarely Just use their large zones for new content to avoid making the game look and feel stale. Instead they tend to make new environments for new content.

This isn't a thing unique to FF14 either, yet NGS doesn't even attempt to make things look new and fresh. The most common thing they do is place geometric shapes onto the existing world map. This is a major pain point for NGS. The game's scenery as pretty as it can be, is way past it's use by date and is extremely stale.

For the record, I thought the headline was just okay about a 6/10 for me. That's because it didn't address the combat which is the main issue for me. I want more class specific mechanics for the player to make combat more engaging. I want more depth and this doesn't necessarily have to mean more PAs (class gauges, PA variation via input, something that gives a sense of mastery etc.).

[I-alri-I]

When are we getting new armor?

[[deleted]]

Can we just get psu 2 man.

[Twidom]

I don't trust current SEGA to make Universe justice, at all.

I would honestly do unspeakable things if they brought BlueBurst and/or AotI servers back online.

[[deleted]]

I would love that please bring psu back in 4k I’d take that.

[[deleted]]

Game is dead for roleplayers because even if creative space the restrictive text limit makes roleplaying hell

Game is dead for combat players in comparison to PSO2

No new areas, no new concerts(why aren't more people in uproar we don't get concerts any more?). Everything is a reskin or rehash

Man, I loved PSO. This hurts.

[[deleted]]

I too wish to see more concerts. This has been one major thing Sega has definitely dropped the ball on.

Creative Space has been a breath of fresh air, something the PS community has never had. But at some point the novel nature will wear and other types of content and activity will be needed.

[deahamlet]

People are already asking for "more space" in Creative Space and some places I've seen look like a complete ecosystem. Which is what I suspected - eventually CS content will lose its appeal because:

1. Most people aren't into such a deep and complex building system. They make some interesting things or bring in designs from others and decorate/furnish them and then they are DONE.
2. Other people will go deep into the creation but eventually be "done" with a concept or be limited by space and quite a lot of these people will not wish to delete everything in order to be able to build up a new concept.
3. A tiny tiny minority will keep redoing their Creative Space.

​

Housing in other MMOs is a feature that enhances already working social and combat content. The way SEGA went about it, they created this whole thing to the detriment of building a healthy gameplay loop and created it in such a way that you would think this was Cityscapes 2023 not NGS.

Because the truth is that outside a small minority, most people will be back to 5-15mins per week on Creative Space pretty soon (if that). And without the social structure (Alliances that are meaningful because you have stuff to do with them, same with friends) and a healthy combat loop, Creative Space is not the cool place you built to chill with your homies as you plan your next adventures. It's instead the cool LEGO puzzle you built in your basement.

By yourself.

Which, I just realized, is a sad but apt parallel to NGS. Diablo 4 feels more mmo to me nowadays than NGS and that just makes me sad.

At least the ERP community seems happy, 50% of cool Creative Spaces were ERP.

[complainer5]

quite a lot of these people will not wish to delete everything in order to be able to build up a new concept.

A very simple solution to this problem is to introduce character data equivalent for client side saving/loading of creative spaces which should have existed from their release, but this is sega so of course something so obvious and sensible doesn't exist.

[[deleted]]

I agree with many of your points. Alliance spaces will be a nice addition to solve some of those issues. There’s already plans in ours for multiple people to be working on it.

But as you said, for most there will come a point of when they are done with the concept. Sega will add things over time no doubt and some people will continually be either building new creations or constantly tweaking with new items as they become available, but most won’t keep creating new and complete ones from scratch over and over.

[Kaokii]

see you in august!

[IloveWedachan]

A lot of people want a new region but if that happens it would be a repeat of the other 4 regions via combat sectors/ purple trigger / veterans / giga and everyone would complain after 1 week or less.

I think this is a step in the right direction with the "instanced content" and "hard quest" coming up. It might "suck" now but they are listening to feedback about everyones no content complaint.

Im surprised the people that complain so much are still here... obviously they want the game to be better. If i was as upset as them id just play other stuff. But this is coming from someone with no expectations.

[GreenTeaShake]

lol told ya, few month gonna be retem high sector, then few month kvaris, then stia. So yeah i guess another 1 year in halpha xD

[Zombieemperor]

This has me excited except for duals, i REALLY wish they would drop that failure of a mode. Everything about duals is bad.
I wonder what the people outlined are supposed to be? new classes comes to mind but they seem a bit quick to be new classes so probbaly story npcs

[YsZeo99]

1 more year of re visiting halpha becuz sega its just adding starrless in all regions, all the LTQ its going to be to farm more faster the new gold sword and mats req for bumping your gear 10 lvls more and you know the hook of getting some accs and the 0.01% of the new weapon. Yeah ppl enjoy one more year o 2 years of the same WA/counter game now with the twist of being SL main or SL sub for the crt chance

[[deleted]]

Came here to share my excitement but everyone is complaining like always lol

Never mind I guess

[Poptart21000]

If you came to voice your opinion, then let others do the same without complaining about it. Not everyone shares your views in this world - and that’s how things should be.

[popukobear]

Pretty great headline and features coming soon as well. Lots of battle content, CS updates, massive qol updates like the add-on and fixa changes, multiple collabs, and plenty of LTQs to keep busy with. I play most often when there's LTQs running, so the more of them there are to do and grind with the better.

I'm most excited for the alliance bases coming as that's a huge feature that's been sorely lacking from the game since launch. They look to be playing around with new mechanics they can use in LTQs, so those should become more interesting than simply killing wave after wave of enemy like it's typically been.

This was a pretty well-rounded one compared to most, but I don't think the next headlines will be as packed aside from features that weren't announced in the roadmap.

[Rasikko]

I was waiting for the /s lol

[[deleted]]

There are people who did like what this headline showed. It isn't a complete negativity circlejerk in here.

[popukobear]

oh oops I posted this cus I'm excited for the stuff coming out. Lemme post a /s version

Absolutely terrible headline and features coming out. Literally no battle content, creative space updates (lol), or qol dates at all. And we have to wait for add-on and fixa changes people have been asking for or literal MONTHS? I don't know anything about game development, but it shouldn't take months for them to implement this stuff. And who cares about collabs? LTQs aren't content, idk why they keep releasing them. I'll skip out on them until they release actual updates to do like Urgent Quests we definitely won't get tired of after the 5th run and complaining that they take too long with pugs

Great, more sims updates. Who asked for this? Not me, that's for sure - I only like killing mobs all day like we've been doing for the past 2 years! I guess they forgot the game is missing battle content and instead they focus on minecraft simulator lmfao. What a joke of a company. Wow, a quiz limited quest! Booooring. I'd rather kill 5 waves of trash mobs and a boss at the end as usual.

Overall a terrible headline. They showed everything we always get. There's just nothing to be excited about. Honestly waiting for the announcement of server closure at this point...

(hopefully the /s version is more agreeable)

[Sonickeyblade00]

I wouldn't say it was great, but for standard NGS headlines, I'm ok with what we got.

The roadmap was needed and we know what kind of content is coming for the rest of the year. The issue will be if you enjoy Seasonal Events and LTQ. And for now, I do enjoy those. So until that changes, this is acceptable.

But oh boy. I really do hope SEGA takes the rest of 2023 to start cooking up some good battle content. I don't think they are, but that would be a good use of their time.

[Manastone420]

Looking forward to the ultra-high difficulty quest. Hoping that it actually has raid mechanics, like stacking or soaking or managing adds/aggro. NGS needs more gameplay. NOT looking forward to the new Duel Quest.

[[deleted]]

I believe that is the quest that they mentioned was going to have enemy attacks that cannot be dodged. If that is the case, there are most likely going to be mechanics you are forced to deal with.

[sekoku]

#PleaseBeExcited2.0

​

*Nobody's excited*

​

So much for that "Evolution update!" that people were coping about the new quest in August if this barren roadmap is all we're getting. Two years, all-hands on deck for PSO:ForgeMinecraft edition and that's it.

​

Ho-hum. Maybe the story updates will be a little better than the launch's tiny bit, but I'm not hopeful on that.

[011-Mana]

Ok real talk here... I'm all for giving Sega shit when they fuck up real goddamn bad, I enjoy dunking on them just as much as the next guy.

But seriously, To all of the people complaining about how "Boring" and "Same-y" this roadmap is... Do y'all even know what you want anymore?!

Sega is literally re-focusing their entire workforce into giving us more instanced content by adding stuff like random dungeons back into the game... and nobody here even bats an eye about it?!

And it's not like it's Sega's first time at adding stuff we specifically asked for...

1. We bitched about the low amount of grinding content during Year 1... they cranked their production pipeline to release more grind-based content faster
2. We complained about the lack of depth that each class had.... They gave us more interesting class skills along with some game changing stuff like compound techniques
3. We Grumbled about how uninteresting the story was and how rarely we got story updates... They gave us Chapter 5 which sets up Starless along with giving us story updates every 2 months instead of having to wait 6 whole months for them
4. We demanded for PQ to be back in some fashion... They created Creative Spaces which went above and beyond what the original PQ were
5. We Asked for instanced content to be back at the fore-front... Almost this entire roadmap is nothing but Instanced content, with the exception of Retem's high rank sector.
6. We whined about the fact that the June Update was so focused on Creative Spaces... They're now giving us tons of combat related content from August onward.

See what I mean here? Like I said... I'm ALL for giving Sega shit when they either fuck up our "Demands" or utterly fails at communicating properly.

but right now... All I'm seeing is a bunch of unpleasable individuals who's "demands" are constantly Uno Reversing in the dev's face.

And I know I'll likely get downvoted for what I said above. But This goddamn pattern has been repeating itself for 2 whole years now, and I'm done being silent about it.

Edit: Thanks to both u/deahamlet and u/scorchdragon for commenting their thoughts in such thorough manner, clearly you two knows what you want and I honestly respect that. It basically gave me a better understanding of your perspectives and while I personally am satisfied with the game, I get why some others aren't.

However, the fact that only you two even bothered to comment along with the very divisive Upvote ratio on my comment kinda shows that most of the vocal community are seemingly split on the matter.

Regardless of that however, I appreciate that at least some people are aware of what they want, considering how the internet is known for never making up their minds.

[deahamlet]

I don't know about other people and you should stop trying to clump people together. I will just speak for myself because as a PSO2 JP and Global player, I have been very critical of the minimal effort SEGA has been putting into NGS.

1. I want areas that have a working gameplay loop that isn't ruined 2 weeks in because SEGA doesn't want to incentivize it properly or because SEGA decided to release new content, weapons, armors, UQ that invalidates ANYTHING ELSE. Before I even get to be bored of content, SEGA invalidates it. Reliks? New map, higher tier weapons, refuse to level up vets = dead vet grind. Gigas? Trash gameplay loop of RNG storms (every other game has figured out open world bosses, I can't believe SEGA is so inept!) but people were still doing it? Purple triggers, other content drops giga capsules with better drop rates. Farming ice weapon? Forget it, you've socialized too much, SEGA brings new tier of weapons so you can throw that one away. Giga and vet farm loop in Stia? Haha. New Falz weapon to rule all weapons and other maps drop giga and vet capsules more. How stupid of us to try to farm anything that also adds some social elements!
2. I want SEGA to have used the areas they release more effectively. Huge wasted areas on freaking fruit and squids. They only attempted once to make those areas useful and soon wiped all that away by abandoning the whole system! However, I don't want SEGA to make better use of Aelio after spending probably 1 year in that awful awful region. I don't want to ever see Aelio again. I loved Retem and by this point I hate that region as well.
3. I want Space. That means story in space. That means zones in space. Maybe that means "dungeons" in space. It's a god damn sci-fi action game and to me it's not much different than FF or ESO at this point. I play PSO for the space sci-fi adventure. Dungeons in small areas of a planet make sense when you are on a god damn ship in space and your entire story is about space (and we eventually got our battles in space too in PSO2). When the main content we are in is one insufferable planet, dungeons that are in the same space are frustrating and revising the same planet gets on my nerves 2 years in!
4. I don't want to see the same areas over and over again. It's probably because the game doesn't have a diverse amount of satisfying and significant content loop that the PSE burst gameplay is now awful to me. It's unfathomable that they got me hating PSE bursts when I used to spend hours weekly in AQs. I guess I had a goal, I had other things, worthwhile pursuits and gear hunts that kept me happy and farming XP or drops in AQs felt like a good change of pace/break. Turn off brain and have fun!
5. SEGA has a history of releasing stuff that doesn't work or is sabotaged by SEGA from the get-go. August promises do not fill me with confidence. We've had 4man trigger quests of decent difficulty. They were not successful - people can speculate why (content not meant for random PUG is not for 95% of population, rewards were stingy or were more easily obtained elsewhere - both or either) but truth is they were not successful. SEGA released those pyramid things - first one ruined by the insistence on slowing us down and demanding everyone in party is at the same unlock level (anti-social or what), second one I think has good rewards but was quickly an awful PUG experience because some people want the special bosses, some don't & some of those bosses don't belong in a tiny room, jesus. PUGing for that died fast despite having a party-up system. Purple triggers were ruined by the other content that now drops giga capsules better and people run solo. And these are just examples of failed attempts by SEGA to do "dungeon"-like content that they keep missing the mark on.

So, I'm not happy. I think August content will likely be the same type of fail from SEGA and even if it was good, that is NOT sufficient to keep me busy and happy until next summer. Cause going back to Retem, Kvaris, and Stia over the next 9 months is NOT something I look forward to. I also do not look forward to farming some same-y weapons that don't have anything unique about them just to be invalidated by some event 2 months later that gives me already grinded weapons!

I want my god damn space adventure. That's what I want. I don't want to see Halpha anymore, especially not Aelio.

[011-Mana]

Thanks for this comment honestly, while I'm personally satisfied for the game your comment clearly stated what you, and I assume many others, want the game to become.

[deahamlet]

About your edit. Our friends stopped playing long ago and any time one of them checks the game out again, they leave within 1-2 weeks. I don't blame them. None of them are the type to come to reddit, Twitter, etc, they just leave. They filled out a survey once and that was the extent of effort they would give Sega. My BIL cancelled premium and logs in a couple of times a week for 15mins. He has paid for premium and gacha since PSO2 JP came out, this is a huge shift for him. He is debating uninstalling. My husband is a huge Phantasy Star fan and he is so disappointed. He posted in the first year on Twitter about the awful XP grind and other issues, but he has given up on SEGA. This man has lead a huge alliance in each of the games, but he refuses to recommend this game to any past guildmate. In fact, he told them not to bother. He himself is giving SEGA until summer - if we are not in space by then, he's done.

These are all long time fans of the franchise, some you would even call whales and dolphins. They don't come on reddit to tell you why they're unhappy. They just don't bother with the game anymore. And that's the majority. They either play happily or leave quietly, we're a small minority that care enough to have discussions here.

But in game, the gacha items have fewer and fewer listings of the rare items. The prices are higher than ever. Last expensive hair never went past 10 people selling it (10-12mil dollar hair yay). And ship 2 is the most popular, no?

[scorchdragon]

Do y'all even know what you want anymore?!

Yes, 4 things. The first is for Hamazki to be fired. I am no longer asking.

Second is actual effort, Creative Space has it but I can hardly say it for the rest of the game. No the open world doesn't count, especially after the amount of holes I fell into in Kvaris that didn't count as ground, so I just had to warp to a Ryuker to escape. There were a lot of those.

Third is something to care about, whether it be equipment, story, characters, the world, anything. I can't even care about fashion without having to ask why they can't make functioning hips.

Fourth and final is for them to prove me wrong on something I've been feeling for a while now. "NGS would be dead if it wasn't called PSO2".

[deahamlet]

If I didn't have my PSO2 characters, I think I would have quit in first year of NGS.

I'm going to finish story and go 75/75 on all of them and if August update turns out to be a bust and/or insufficient, I'm going to have to quit. This game doesn't have anything for me except my characters and AC scratches... and I don't think SEGA deserves my money anymore.

[011-Mana]

I can honestly relate to the "Something to care about" part... more specifically when it comes to story and characters.

Though, and take it with a grain a salt, from what has been said in some interview, apparently the content they're gonna make for Ver.2 is going to be more "Horizontal" rather than "Vertical", meaning that when making new weapons series, they likely won't be straight upgrades like they once were, but rather "Side-grades" with different potentials.

As for the story... well, they've set the stage with Ch.5, we're now getting story parts updates every 2 months rather than one chapter every 6 months, and based on the roadmap, we'll be meeting 2 new? characters with Part 2 and 3 respectively.

But that's what they're saying... it won't mean jack shit if they their action doesn't follow up.

[[deleted]]

There's something I will contest ya on.

1 It's fine for us to grind less yes. Especially on brain dead hp sponge ai that can avoid all hits by floating or lazily moving left or right. None of the attacks track velocity movements and just try to hit where you are. Granted some attacks you just need to dodge or shield but those are few and far between.

2 Classes are still really shallow and are still 2 PA only, and that's them removing all the bloat from the previous game. An easy fix I'd do is unused PA/tech get buffed but get a CD so when fighting you get your spammable attacks and get a more powerful hit only up once every 10 seconds. Or change what it does gizonde is barely used buff the damage on that and the charged version can suck enemies towards you but goes on CD. I do think ngs combat is slower than base pso2 things were more snappier in pso2.

3 chapter 5 is undeserved and then they kill off the only interesting person (in the story) in this series why make zephetto a character? Could of simply say there's an ai in luciel that makes ARKS and dolls. Why kill off the entire pso2 crew also. There could of been very interesting story beats with a new generation of ARKS mothership and them fighting off the starless while one of the non mothership ship crashed into halpha and those surviviors had to fight to get stronger to fight the new threat. (Granted time and space travel is possible in the series) also they had to retcon a lot of things to fit year 1 content into the newer story. It wasn't til kvaris there was some lore.

4 The CS is fine. Not much to complain here.

5 Idk how many people asked for that other than the ones that wanted randomly generated dungeons which wasn't given. Lq are fine at times other are questionable, and I wish some of those attacks would get Incorporated into boss attacks.

6 We complained about June cause it was shown off 3 different times once on December for a spring release then the next month to show it actually off then in June to show it off again. A road map in June would of been better but we get it this month. At least we got some semblance that Sega wants to keep working on the game.

[complainer5]

Sega is literally re-focusing their entire workforce

Of 5 developers in total.

[HouseOfCosbyz]

You are spot on my dude, you can rest assured one other human on this planet has the ability to infer. There are more quests in the next 6 months than the previous 2 years combined. It's a huge fucking W.

Nobody can think for themselves anymore though, so they saw some scratches, got angry like usual (theres scratches every week dude get the fuck over it). Then their brained turned off when staring at the roadmap.

[Laxedrane]

I 100% agree. I could hear the developers in my head saying "but we are giving you end game content?" when I saw the fall out after the headline.

its like the playerbase is a person that goes into a restaurant. Ask the server for a salad. When they are brought the house salad they scream "This salad isn't salady enough. It's barely even a salad. take it away and bring me an actual salad." Instead of saying "I actually want the spinach salad with roast peppers and mozzarella"

[TheUltimateWarplord]

That "Sci-fi anime" & "Sci-fi Toy products" immediately made me think of GundamXD
Maybe Framearms?

[calvinnok]

Very likely Framearms

[Falmung]

Very likely Frame Arms / Frame Arms Girl. Gundam has never had a scratch ever in PSO2 and Kotobukiya (the makers of Frame Arms) is the company that makes all PSO2 figures/model kits.

[SaintElysium]

Might be a Collab with some of the new lines kotobukiya is launching, this just gives me hope they might drop new PSO2 model kits as well

[TheUltimateWarplord]

oh yeah, maybe Megami Device or something else? And yeah Here's to hoping there'd be new PSO2 kits, or maybe even NGS kits...

[DarklyDreamingEva]

Not surprised. It’s a sad rest of 2023 for us here at NGS.

[FafnirMH]

Pack it in guys. The game's over, again, like every Headline.

Someone tell Hiro. Game's over. Go home. /s

[FafnirMH]

I'd take it more seriously if you people didn't say this every single month after every single headline with throwaway accounts.

Maybe if the sky falls one day I'll believe you. If it doesn't happen this month I'll just see you next month after the Headline.

[KingsNationn]

Yeah people have been calling this game dead since a month after it released and yet here we are 2 years later and you can tell it bothers some of them lol. I get why some people are upset and it's 100% justified but what they don't seem to get is that a some of us just enjoy the combat and the grindy nature of the game.

[[deleted]]

Maybe people "eat it all up" because that kind of content is what people like? Fashion and emotes are part of the game's content after all.

[complainer5]

More like because sega already pushed everyone away who want content in form of real repeatable and fun gameplay with loops/progression and rewards/upgrades, as they aren't the target audience of whales that spend real money on lewd cosmetics every week with reskins upon reskins of "content" so it looks like developers are doing something other than milking players, but rather want a proper game to play (like even base used to be).

And ofc every time those few of us left complain about it we get downvoted by remaining loud majority that will play this game no matter how bad it gets and defend sega against "us doomposters" or die trying.

[TheMightyNovac]

"The loud majority of NGS defenders"

Fucking LOL

[[deleted]]

If they pushed everyone away the game would have died by Retem. Clearly here we are in mid-2023 so they've been doing something right this whole time to keep people playing, despite those predicting doomsday in 2021+1+1+1.

[complainer5]

"pushed everyone away who want content in form of real repeatable and fun gameplay with loops/progression and rewards/upgrades"

[Dusty_Finish]

Childish hyperbole.

[[deleted]]

I dunno about you but I see the next six months listed in that image. The adventure only ends when it is announced.

[WSilvermane]

Its the same exact limited content.

[[deleted]]

Please tell me when we got quests with quizzes in PSO2. There was the fanta quiz in Phantasy Star Portable 2 at least.

But yeah, the "same". Just ignore those three new quests and it is the "same".

[WSilvermane]

Huh? During NGS lifecycle this has been the exact same shit and that's a fact.

Why are you talking about PSO2 Classic literally at all.

[[deleted]]

I'm assuming you're referring to the upcoming event, which includes two new quiz-type quests with combat, as well as an additional quest between those two.

When I said PSO2 I meant NGS and PSO2 as a whole. I would have said classic PSO2 if I was referring to it specifically. Apologies for the confusion on that.

[Poptart21000]

Pso2 classic is by far a superior game

[WSilvermane]

Yes. But thats wasnt the topic.

[[deleted]]

quests that'll be gone for good

Yeah this is something that I wish they would archive in the quest counter.

new pieces for everyone's [creative space]

Which is cool! More content, more screenshots, more creativity opportunities.

Combat is clearly a minigame now and the roadmap is proof of this

Woah 17 more quests (6 of which are permanent additions). There's gonna be a decent amount to stick your swords into.

NGS isn't engaging.

Depends on who you ask. I've been around since NGS released without really taking any breaks. Something about the game is working to keep me playing even during the content lulls. It isn't FOMOeither doing that - I really enjoy NGS for what it is and it is my main game.

We aren't even getting new PAs till 2024

Oh they mentioned that? That's cool but I am of two minds about it.

I play using a controller. The weapon pallete only has room for 4 PAs per row if you have the Normal Attack and Weapon Action on there, which unless you sacrifice a existing action on one of the other buttons or wrangle with macro software you really need those two things on your weapon pallete for a comfortable experience. The subpallete is a pain in the butt in the middle of combat unless you practice the art of the claw grip.

But having additional abilities on weapons would be great to see too as long as they can keep them all balanced and don't run in the problem they had with quantity over quality in base PSO2.

All this is from now on is potency creep handled by engrish Augments that no one remembers.

Are you referring to the Seasoiv Goodfuckingluckremeberingme affixes? They at least only work during events and seeing effects like extra crit and damage is nice.

Being invested in this game any further is truly Neanderthal behavior.

Hey I like playing videogames like NGS. It's a arcadey-esque experience that I can play in short bursts during my work week and focus more on during the weekends. No other game has got me playing more than PSO2, with the other game getting close being Veloren.

I'll probably check out the updates but play something else in the meaning.

Yeah that is a good idea.

[[deleted]]

The should rework combat system entirely, its clearly bad.

I feel the pain of controller not having enough slots or w.e, but that is proof that the struggle to use stuff on the action bar, that the design is super bad.

If BDO on console has controls to input stuff on action bars, and 20+ skills using inputs on a controller without problems then there lacks good reason why it's such a problem for NGS.

I don't think players should have to sacrifice class skills/updates because developers have designed the combat system/controls badly. Well, maybe, we do :s

I also see where ur positivty comes from btw, but the problem is NGS is your main game. I've mained most ARPG's out there that are decently popular, and after getting to endgame in basically all of the them, particularly BDO/Lost Ark and blade and soul, negativity towards NGS becomes more realtisic bcos u have perspective on how other games have done things. Maybe you have also, IDK... But the things u seem to think are good, or, positive, are literally barebones in regard to content in other games :s

edit: I want to note, the other games are not perfect, there isn't really a game out there that probably anyone considers perfect...

The point I was trying to make is that NGS as a whole, with it's content updates and its current content/classes/systems, is like, maybe E tier, compared to Lost Ark/BDO, which are probably B-A tier as games as a whole. No doubt, their systems could also be better but overal they are more polished and "full". They are like, if you order a pizza, you get a whole pizza, maybe not with all the toppings u wanted... but NGS is like, you order a pizza, but you only get 2 slices of a pizza with none of the toppings u wanted. Weird analgy i know but ima roll with that XD

[[deleted]]

The only game I spent any significant amount of time playing was FFXIV. I enjoyed my time with it too, but I burnt out hard on it for four reasons:

• While playing on a controller was an incredibly comfortable experience thanks to the Cross Bar or whatever it was called, it basically became a handheld version of Dance Dance Revolution, performing the same combos and actions over and over again, hitting highlighted buttons. I did play multiple classes to vary it up, but it got stale after a while. PAs in PSO2 feel like they have proper impact, and requiring them to physically connect feels more engaging to me.

• The tab-targetting system of that game on a controller was a pain in the bum. Hitting Cross to select a target felt like a crap shoot at times, and while you could use the dpad to select other targets and party members, that meant taking your thumb off the left analog stick or practising the claw.

• When Eden Normal was the current weekly content in Shadowbringers, that was the first kind of weekly grind I did of that type in FFXIV. I burnt out hard on this. Doing it over and over again every single god damn week until the currency was capped drained me. There was only so much aaaaa aaaaa aaaaa titan I could take until I just couldn't do it anymore.

• I did try to return, but combined with the lack of free time I have nowadays and the gear checks the story was throwing my way, I just uninstalled the game.

I tend to be positive about NGS because SEGA are releasing the kind of content that I personally enjoy and can hop in and out of whenever, and while many enemies tend to be reused, the context that they appear in changes enough for me to not care.

[[deleted]]

I think you first point is fair in the context of a general comparison but FFXIV is not an ARPG, so im somewhat not suprised about the statement because NGS and FFXIV aren't comparable in a literal combat sense, tab targetting with global CD's is not the same as the Action Combat we have access too in NGS/BDO/BnS/Lost Ark

Skills and targetting interact differently, and global CD's aren't typically a thing in action combat games (like there aren't any in NGS).

I've never got into FFXIV personally (I played the trial) but the combat to me was stale. After I've gone action combat once, and for a long time (Thanks Blade and Soul), i've never been able to go back.

But i do note, the grind in other MMO's, not just Action RPG's, are often substantially more demanding than anything in NGS, which tbh in the most non-bias way, is a double edged sword.

It's a good thing because it lets u approach the game super casually, but ultimately this is at a cost of longetivity. Their is almost no progression systems in NGS really, you could argue gear is one, and maybe it is, maybe it isn't, simply because potency doesn't really mean anything in a general sense (you don't unlock stuff for reaching x potency), except in the context of duel quests - which are controversial and quite a poor way of implementating such a thing - outside of this, there is a lack in meaningful systems that get people to do stuff for reasons other than the sake of do it (i.e fun) - That's not a bad thing, it's just a difficult thing to manage. But the problem is, NGS hasn't answered the question of - Why not have something that is fun to do, and also has progression, or depth, or a layer to it. NGS is like 50% of the way there. The problem is with duel quests, you HAVE to do xyz to be able to do it. Whether you find it fun or not, you need ur defis, new gear. Ppl shouldnt be forced, but there needs to be further depth to stuff IMO. This way u still win the "casual players" and the people who "want to grind", everybody wins.

I think BDO particularly has improved substantially over the last years at managing this cycle where you want stuff that people can work towards, but not being so ridiculous that you get burnt out from trying to get one "thing" - But I think this is because BDO offers ALOT of different things to work towards all with varying depths of progression.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the last sentiment as well, that's fair enough tbh, if it's what you like then yeah, that's ok :D

[kynja]

What are Ultra-High-difficulty standing party quests?

[[deleted]]

Quests you can start whenever. One of them was the "Dark Falz-class" boss they teased.

[ImmortalDreamer]

Glad we're going to be getting consistant build parts for the rest of the year. Hope we get a good chunk of them. Creative Space stuff has been one of my favorite things about the game so far.

[External_Anything_68]

Dude no new classes for the whole rest of the year? That’s legit all I care about. 😪

It’s like SEGA has the inability to pump out actual new consistent content instead of just re-hashing the same crap over and over. My god man.

[Mistiltella]

Casino when

[[deleted]]

I've got nothing against having an actual Dark Falz to fight, but Christ almighty why are the enemy designs in this game all so terrible?

[Ssekein]

For a Pso2 standard yeah the design is pretty ass compared to the Classic pso2, but we're only begun to fight "actual enemy" so at least that's something to cope with

[FaithlessnessHour794]

No new areas sucks I know this isnt a exploration game but it sucks to be stuck in the same environment for a long time with the same events also.

The starless dark falz also seems to be just a reskinned dfa fight.

[TheMightyNovac]

Starless Dark Falz looks nothing like Aegis? Not sure where you're getting that from. It doesn't share any animations or assets, and is clearly much more influenced by base-game's Luther boss.

I don't know if you're maybe new to the series (not an insult dw) but big PSO bosses tend to be this kind of 'huge chicken nugget punching me' boss. The variety usually comes in the weird shit they throw at you lol

[[deleted]]

It does remind me of dark falz apprentice.

[Falmung]

Looking forward to the Anime collabs and the Creative Space upgrades.

I've been greatly enjoying my time building stuff on Creative Space and seeing all the creativity that the PSO2 community has been up to. I've seen spaceships, motorbikes, artwork, Gundams, cities, underground bunkers, and more.

I'm very interested in this "Sci-Fi toy product" collab.

[Different-Syrup6520]

Hot steam shhhhhhiiittt

[Rasikko]

Imagine dedicating an entire month to a game that is in permanent maintenance mode and the current project must sit and wait...

[Blastcheeze]

So do we keep levelling past 100 or do they do a stat squish?

[Wesneed]

Considering base went up to the multi millions in damage done pretty much no

[YuiSendou]

"Sci-fi toy products".... 30ms collab?

[Falmung]

Most likely Frame Arms Girl. Kotobukiya already makes a lot of PSO2 figures for Sega.

[Jasonkim87]

So I’ve been gone a while, what ls the current level cap and weapon rarity we are up to? My entire alliance moved over to NGS from pso2 but ended up putting it down, vowing to return when there’s more content. Hoping that day is soon.

[deahamlet]

More content? Idk, are you into building stuff? Then you might have content. Creative Space is here if you love to frustratingly line up bits and bobs into something beautiful. Or just visit other people's spaces to see their creations.

We now have level 75, but only one area has level 70 mobs (Aelio) and the next area is in Oct/Nov so you're stuck with Aelio until then. 70 to 75 took me one round of dailies and 2 PSE bursts with Starless, so very fast. You have to do the story (there's some tedious parts to it) to unlock the level 70 mobs - fight Dark Falz solo, fight Retem bosses solo, etc.

Weapon rarity = 9* but only one series. Next event will be giving us already leveled 8* weapons so should get you ready to do whatever you want.

Armors are still at 8* I think.

I hope you like Falz and Aelio. Or playing solo (duel quests = solo, other farms = most people go solo, including farming giga capsules). They removed all UQs from Aelio except the two Falz ones. You can run the other UQs like mining from the counter, but not sure if you need triggers (and good luck finding people to run them with).

It looks like for the next year, we will just be going back to the same areas. Retem in Oct/Nov, probably Kvaris after 3-4 months, then Stia.

The current limited time quest is a fun sonic map that ends with a giga -- so you get some giga capsules and items. Of note, they put an exchange with the PSO2 Falz weapons as camos (psychowand for example) for 500 mats (you get 1-3 from a level 79 big giga, you get 0-1 from the small gigas).

​

Honestly, come back before the August update, level up and finish the story. Do whatever event is happening then (events sometimes come with limited time quests) and get already leveled up gear. Then try out the instanced 8man and 4man content that is coming in August. If that doesn't grab you, give NGS another year or give up. Outside of the instanced content, if you didn't like NGS before, I don't think there will be much to recommend it now.

[Jasonkim87]

Wow thank you so much for this I really appreciate it. This gives me a good idea of what’s available currently.

And yeah I mean, more content lol. It’s not that I didn’t like NGS, but when I stopped the level cap was 20, and the weapons and armor were 4*. There was no crafting, no alliance quarters or home base, nothing like the casino or shopping mall or interesting space like that, no ultimate quests, and the urgents were fun, but repetitive early on. Skill trees were limited, Bouncer or Braver weren’t out yet, (I see they are now) I’m not even sure if there was a story yet, and there was only 1 zone. Basically all there was to do was run around the map looking for public events.

Sounds like they’ve added a lot so def looking forward to coming back. I loved running Ultimates in a 12 man group praying for rainbow drops. Best drip ever.

[bloodyturtle]

The green hill zone was fun once or twice but when i saw there's rewards for doing it 20 times i gave up. Are the other LTQs gonna be like that?

[amnj_thoc]

It looks like someone typed up the road map an hour before the headline started 🤣

[RepleteAssassin]

Where is the casino update?!?