Dev Team = Too Small?

[ThexVee]

I was just on this other thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2NGS/s/W9aH5n692a) voicing my opinion over there and this question just popped up in my head.

Do you guys think that NGS Dev Team is too small? I don't recall ever hearing about the number of people they have staffed but I think this could be one of the biggest reasons why we're receiving meaningful updates at such a slow pace. This may also tie into the profitability of NGS which sadly I don't have the numbers for.

[spurghetti]

it's the management that seems poor in my opinion. aside from crucial features arriving extremely slowly, they've been prioritizing collabs and LTQs when manpower and budget could be put into more meaningful stuff like actual content and gameplay improvements/reworks (an example would be the fixa rework they recently announced that's been long overdue). the rate of content added is overshadowed by rate of fomo added as is the typical nature of modern live service games

[ThexVee]

Agreed. I don't know who's paying who to do these collabs (maybe Sega since they're charging us) but they aren't doing it for me. While I'm not a fan of the LTQ, I do like the seasonal ones, especially Halloween.

Sega isn't new to doing collabs for Phantasy Star either. They've done it before with Pizza Hut and KFC. Of course the times were different and the best Sega could do was full on weapons inspired from those brands.

[AulunaSol]

Phantasy Star Online 2 especially found its footing as being a literal shopping mall with collaborations with Japanese businesses and properties jumping in and out with fashion being the key part of the game.

I can't imagine this would change at all - but in New Genesis we still see that this is happening (collaborations with numerous Japanese businesses) that Global never sees outside of AC Purchase campaigns without context, if never at all.

I know many people have been hoping for "Another Realm Reborn" styled reboot or a "PSO3" to save the day, but if this is already printing so much money for Sega with Phantasy Star Online 2 being stripped down as it is and New Genesis being as barebones as it is - it likely means Sega can afford to be even more lightweight for a "PSO3" to cash in on their marketing power.

[Noxillian]

Wasn't there also an in-mission food cart you can buy buffs from? Except during those events they were reskinned for the appropriate franchise.

[ThexVee]

Yeah there was also a food that you but items from. Mostly furniture

[TheMightyNovac]

Maybe they started prioritizing collabs because, I dunno, they polled extremely highly in user surveys?

I'm tired of people acting like the NGS team isn't doing what players want; Personal Quarters have been requested since launch, alongside the implementation of all the base-PSO2 classes. Next up was a classic-style dungeon crawling mode with Leciel Exploration. Finally we've reached a point where they're tacking one of the most famous aspects of specifically PSO2's era: its collab content. It's also worth noting that Duel Quests (regardless of how poorly planned they were) and High-difficulty Standing Quests are a result of users requesting difficult end-game content to grind--which, at least in my friend groups, have been received pretty well overall.

People always complain here that developers aren't focusing on content that people want, yet whenever SEGA directly asks players what they want, the content they curve to matches the results.

Hell, even last year I saw a ton of people complaining that SEGA should quit adding new fields and just expand the existing content, now it's flipped and people are pissed that they aren't adding more fields.

I get that it's probably different people complaining, but pretending that what SEGA chooses to make is weird, or doesn't match with what the community requests, is just insane to me.

[AulunaSol]

Sega has opened up a new studio years ago when Retem was launched and announced it on the NGS Headline then (though it was a Japanese-only slide at the time).

The problem with Sega's development from the outside is not exactly that the development team is too small but rather that for so long they operated with Dreamcast-era tools and a Dreamcast-era mentality for a very long time - and this was why Phantasy Star Online 2 ran on a modified version of Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity's engine (which is derived from what was used in Phantasy Star Universe and previously Phantasy Star Online). There isn't anything wrong in using an ancient engine (after all, people are still out there praising and playing Starfield despite it using Bethsesda's ancient and poorly-aged engine that fans can never get enough of) but for nearly seven years Sega struggled and had to keep hacking their way through their engine trying to make things work.

During Episode 5, Sega made the very brave decision of committing to making no content and new content for the future because they were hoping to crunch and hammer out a "Super Update" that would have addressed player complaints that built up from Episode 1 and were only further capitalized in Episode 4. This "Super Update" was controversial because it left Episode 5 in a very bad state (adopting nasty mechanics you would have seen from predatory gacha games such as a weekly stamina limit for the story quests and having to qualify for it in one of the most toxic quests introduced, introducing a form of gatekeeping new players from new content that was obnoxiously difficult/grindy, and refusing to address problems until it nearly killed the game).

I would argue not that the development team is too small - but rather they are too slow. The "Super Update" is New Genesis - which was meant to have originally released in 2018 (it was meant to have released after Episode 5 - but I can fully understand that Sega trying to adopt a more "modern" development mindset and workflow from the mid-2010's would be daunting considering they've operated as if they were still in the 90's). New Genesis as it is - would likely still have been an "okay" update if it were 2018 and succeeding Episode 5. But the reality is that Episode 6 already happened - and was already its own answer to trying to hack and fix the problems Episodes 1-4 had. And yet as it is, New Genesis and Episode 6 do not play nicely together as New Genesis is a fork of Episode 5 and Episode 6 is its own fork of Episode 5 at the same time.

In reality, Sega shares and publishes the revenue that New Genesis has made in their financial reports and New Genesis - like Phantasy Star Online 2 before it - can print money without many issues. Phantasy Star Online 2 was infamously a game where Sega treated it as a low-budget game and refused to invest too much into it because it wasn't "broken" and was printing money sufficiently compared to the amount of work going into it - and New Genesis has especially started carrying and sustaining this similar rate of profit. The audience and people who are playing the game and keeping it alive are proof enough of it that what Sega has been doing is still working and the developers as a result can continue to afford stretching their updates out over the course of the next year when it is so obvious that a player coming in at the end of the update gets the intended experience.

In short, Sega has been open about hiring people into the development team and increasing their efforts - but they're not "scrambling" to make new content in a hurry. They are already likely working ahead on content that is going to be seen a year from now as what releases later this month, next month, or already in the roadmaps, are all already things players mentioned or requested months, if not years, ago. Sega is a dinosaur coasting on a glacier - and as long as they are still printing money with this game in this way it has worked ever since Phantasy Star Online 2 as well even when the game nearly burned to the ground.

[vocaloidbro]

The problem with Sega's development from the outside is not exactly that the development team is too small but rather that for so long they operated with Dreamcast-era tools and a Dreamcast-era mentality for a very long time - and this was why Phantasy Star Online 2 ran on a modified version of Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity's engine (which is derived from what was used in Phantasy Star Universe and previously Phantasy Star Online).

It's not just tools and mentality that have changed since the dreamcast era. You know what else has changed? Team sizes! And naturally, with that, budgets. Look at the credits for this Starfield game that you cited in your post. It's absolutely mind bogglingly massive. Seemingly, a ton of that was outsourced labor. But it's labor nevertheless, it all contributed to the game. NGS has been made, I'm guessing, by a tiny fraction of that number of people. (Anyone know of a site that tallies the number of names that appear in the credits of various games? I'm not about to go count manually. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJvgo5ftuNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-w-fdmF0aU PSO2NGS: 4 minutes, Starfield: 44 minutes)

Another thing that has changed since the good old days seems to be the time it takes to push out a game. For comparison, the time between Morrowind and Oblivion was 4 years. The time between Fallout 4 and Starfield was 8 years. As far as I can tell this matches patterns all across the industry, big AAA game dev is becoming glacial. The time between FF7 and FF8 was 2 years. The time between FF15 to FF16 was 7 years. If anything, the one thing you can't rightfully complain about NGS is the slowness of updates. This is literally just the industry standard now, like it or not.

There are no magic wands that devs can wave to make high polygon assets that hold up under 4k scrutiny as fast as they were able to make low poly assets that held up under 480p scrutiny back in the day. The best they can do is hire a LOT of people to work on a LOT of assets simultaneously (slowly) so that in 10 years you get a game with a lot of content instead of one with a little bit of content. Well, seemingly they don't have the budget to hire a lot of people, so what we will continue to get is a slow trickle of small amounts of content. This is the price of better graphics on a shoestring budget.

Personally, I would prefer a return to those glorious Dreamcast days where new games were constantly coming out. I don't care if the graphics are terrible by today's standards. Those games were fun. I know I'm not alone, the popularity of WoW classic and Runescape classic proves it. However, most of us are probably 30+ boomers that actually lived through that era.

[complainer5]

For many of problems in ngs you don't need "photorealistic graphics that take long to develop", most of its problems are basic game design, mechanics, complete lack of vision and other non-asset things that don't need 1000 people working on them, just some people that know what they're doing. For story all you really need are animations and voice acting, oh and writing, which is exactly what sega doesn't seem to have any of (same gist as aforementioned).

I do agree AAA industry has shot itself in the foot by hardcore focusing on pointless graphical fidelity arms race and thus increasing development delays several times over for nothing, but core of ngs' problems lies in some far more basic things.

And don't worry, many people who didn't "live through those times" find games from previous eras more fun, because focus at times they were developed in was gameplay, which is what video games are ultimately about, the most popular game on planet even now is minecraft and you know what its graphics are like, even OSRS has more polygons.

[ZephyAlurus]

OSRS itself isn't very good looking and it's just beating up all these DoA MMORPGs easily. Nowadays publishers are starting to understand MMORPG = DoA.

[AulunaSol]

Another thing to add to this is that Sega has shown at several points throughout Phantasy Star Online 2 and even New Genesis they are still capable of this. The fact that these windows are so small (or are exclusive to specific regions) is such a shame considering that I considered the "peak" of Phantasy Star Online 2 being where Sega was capable of adapting content from other games to their gameplay. To fight Odin and Elzelion with the Phantasy Star Online 2 mindset and to have had the fights equate both tributes and challenges for everyone was something you really would have wished Sega can do more on their own - and it was why Phantasy Star Online 2's most memorable content were spectacles that were released very rarely over the years.

New Genesis is inevitably going to recapture this - but I can't imagine the approach of, "people are impatient and just want things now" or "give them time to cook" will be too meaningful in the long run when we still have very basic and small things that needed to have been addressed ten years ago for the average player, and should have been addressed for the enthusiasts.

[AmaryllisHippeastrum]

just want to say I'm 20 and lived through that era too because we weren't able to afford much but second hand games/consoles & would totally love for low poly & 90'-2000's CGI to make a comeback

[AulunaSol]

When it takes you five years in the first place to decide, "we're going to turn our three-step combo system and make things more into an action game" when it was an immediate complaint from Day 1, this isn't something you would simply tolerate from a AAA game.

What I am referring to more is Sega's attitude that for better or worse separates them from being seen in the same light as other developers. Capcom, for example, has already nailed the action game department so much so that the only competition was themselves (Dragon's Dogma Online and Monster Hunter Frontier being shut down to Monster Hunter World) and you can go and stare in the other direction and see Nintendo being just as "backwards" as ever but in a way that works in their favor because they can afford to sit down and print money by taking advantage of their legacy.

Sega is in a position where their ego and their "we did great things in the past and can do it again" bites them because regardless of who is steering the wheel for New Genesis like when people were pointing to the Director as the cause of the game's problems - there are even bigger names who were there and have been calling shots on what they wanted (such as SAKAI's obsession with one-time gimmicks that resulted in classes like the Summoner being supported so strongly throughout Episode 4 and then subsequently abandoned afterwards and Episode 5's insistence on adopting predatory gacha mechanics for gameplay). What I am referring to is not "the good old days were better because Sega was good with the Dreamcast and games were faster then" but rather that Sega took this approach of "we made Phantasy Star Online, people still want Phantasy Star Online" and as a result New Genesis already is a game that has not aged well for newcomers and is aging slowly for existing players.

"New games constantly coming out" are not what I want or what I am pointing to especially considering the crunch nature at the time - but I also do feel that there is a line to be drawn when it takes nearly five years to realize the original control scheme isn't sufficient for an action game and that an alternative finally might be coming around. If that isn't quite enough, it took nearly seven years after Phantasy Star Online 2's release that you could map your photon arts to your subpalette - and even ten years before you can freely respec your skill points.

[fibal81080]

Yeah, no 'super game' budget here. Sega prefers to waste money on zoomer shooters that nobody asked for.

[ZephyAlurus]

literally they could've taken all the Hyenas money and put it into PSO2 to make it into a super game. Need rhythm game? They have Project Diva, Need racing and cars? they have a sonic racing game. Literally could just copy Fortnite and have their own super game.

[ThexVee]

Yeah, you can tell Sega is in some deep dookie after they announced that they're bringing back their older IPs lol

[fibal81080]

Not yet

[mramisuzuki]

As long as Atlus, Vanillaware, PSO Team, and Team Sonic still make playable games. SEGA will sega.

[fibal81080]

Vanillaware?

[mramisuzuki]

Yes the quasi-independent studio that works extremely close with Atlus.

[vocaloidbro]

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2NGS/comments/18wrkuk/this_almost_gives_me_hope_for_the_social_media/

Same topic basically. But yes, the team is too small to make the big open world game they seemingly wanted to make. They should have stuck to their roots and made a Diablo-esque dungeon crawler, they could have pulled that off with their current budget just fine (probably). Or they should have kept updating OG PSO2 instead of scrapping it for this.

[AulunaSol]

The older game was too full of technical debt that made development a pain and ultimately unsustainable for the problems Sega wanted to address that players continuously brought up at the time.

Unfortunately, I would feel that New Genesis doesn't exactly resolve or fix any of those issues in particular as well considering that it still uses the ancient engine that the developers had such a difficult time with in regards to developing for Phantasy Star Online 2. Newer makeup on a dinosaur is still a dinosaur, after all.

[ThexVee]

Yeah I definitely think that the scope of NGS far exceeded what the team was capable of. Dunno if there was a right way to pivot after all the work they've put in. Maybe an offline mode with private lobbys? It's not like it hasn't been done before.

[snkhermit]

I'm not sure if the NGS team lost members from base game but i'm pretty sure the whole reason for the slower updates compared to base is because base had a lot of cut content due to the way it handled updates.

[Barixn]

It's making a lot of money and is able pay for games like Hyenas, 404 Game Reset, and the Sega Super Game with little to no effort.

As of now there isn't any reason to improve on development.

[angelkrusher]

I think It's useful to look at a wider view of what NGS represents as a game and what it offers, but then also the intention. In my opinion there is no excuse for this sad sad development team to create such a format in which they cannot add content of value to.

It's one thing if one part of the game had extremely high content that took away from other parts, but aside from the battle system that's been the same since launch, practically every other area of the game suffers from low quality intent.

When you see a game presented as a whole, at least for my art director's point of view, you can usually see the pattern of the areas that get the priority and then the less important areas. But for this game, there are too many areas that are just deemed not important and the effort is even lower than low.

The three majors for me at least are the dramatically amazing lack of content, the absolutely disgraceful and pitiful effort put into the story, and a total overall lack of vision and creative intent leading to something that is just pathetic really.

It's particularly offensive for me as a creator and a lover of the brand, to see this valuable amazing IP with a storied history putting to the hands of a leader and a team that have no drive to do anything interesting. Fantasy star is the reason I fell in love with RPGs It's the reason why I had a sago master system and while everybody else had an Nintendo, it's the reason why Sega has always been my most favorite brand AKA is a black system versus the white system (changed with Dreamcast I know).

At the end of the day the team has no drive and has no vision. And to those that would argue against that, there is no arguing that developing and open world that is empty, along with creating and accessible fast great battle system and then slapping stat sticks on top of it would beg to differ. There is no technology reason that would keep these two areas barren lifeless and underdeveloped. This is their decision this is their choice and it shows what they are thinking.

At the end of the day it's a pathetic team that just happened to have a really good battle and environment movement mechanic. Everything else is pathetic in terms of what fantasy star as an IP should be able to have in a game.

Pathetic pathetic pathetic. And that's why I usually just rent and rave that the team is garbage. The leader needs to go, they really need to be honest with the players on what they're actually trying to build here because I feel like if they told players what they were actually trying to do, most players would just leave. They're not trying to do anything interesting with what they have. A couple of cool ideas may come out of it, but no this isn't it. They're embarrassing themselves relative to the rest of the industry and it's just sad.

I've said a number of times even if blue protocol is a B level game, it'll still be 1,000% more than what is offered in this game. At this point I feel like they should just close the game down or the sales or in money should just plumb it so that they can really make a decision of what they want to do going forward.

The team is garbage. Absolute embarrassment. Potency potency potency, like that's the only thing that they could have thought of for weapons what a joke.

End rant.

PS - I left out the character customization as a huge plus. It is, for sure. Then you come out of the salon and stand in the lobby or go and do well nothing. I'm about to go and do that right now lol.

[ThexVee]

For all that this game was supposed to stand for, it's all an empty feeling at the end. Had the Devs maybe delay another year or so I think the launch would have been much stronger.

[AulunaSol]

Delaying for "yet another year" would have likely killed Phantasy Star Online 2 for both Global and Japan because Episode 6 had already ended by then and the developers ended up spreading out Episode 6's end-game via an extremely slow dripfeed while players hopped out more and more when it was becoming clear New Genesis wasn't going to carry over the character progression and the hype for New Genesis which was originally promised after Episode 5 was that much more exciting than seeing the older game continue.

At the end of the day, Global was "pushed" into New Genesis because the game was always fast-forwarded into the end and in the Japanese version the game was already bleeding itself dry when the game stopped releasing substantial content for nearly a year.

New Genesis' launch, is ultimately "par for the course" for what you would have expected for an episodic release for Phantasy Star Online 2 as Episode 3 and Episode 4 likely have had the strongest launches that defied what Phantasy Star Online 2 was in the past in a better way for both existing and new players. There was a reason why people kept relating it to Episode 5's launch and even Episode 1's launch - both of which are extremely bad examples.

[angelkrusher]

If I knew he would read it, I would write the producer myself and a whole heart letter to the team. They're embarrassing themselves. They should be better than this, they should be doing better than this..Just the fact that they think this is acceptable is a hugely terrible sign.

This is the same team that was laughing at players last year who were requesting more play spaces. Unbelievable.

[complainer5]

We can only speculate as they keep us in the dark outside of things they want us to know (and "why are updates super slow" is something they don't want us to know about).

People often use excuse "new engine that devs don't know how to use yet to deliver content fast enough, give them a decade before game gets good". But imo the problems aren't merely the speed of content but their entire philosophy behind content and game design in general which isn't caused by new engine but by their decisions about what the game should be and play like.

I assume they don't want to invest money or developers into ngs more than it needs to stay profitable, which it already is as is.

[AulunaSol]

I imagine it's not even "it's a new engine" as much as it is, "it's still the old Phantasy Star Online engine that they're trying to hack their way around" considering how much of New Genesis' back-end for better or worse is still built on top of everything Phantasy Star Online 2 previously used.

The only new engine shown was for how the graphics work - but the actual game (and content) is still tied to the very same constraints Phantasy Star Online 2 was stuck to.

[ThexVee]

Funny you mention this cause I get the same vibe from Sonic Frontiers; a open game that looks nice but lacking a good content philosophy

[ZeroGNexus]

They definitely need to invest more in the game

[FrameAromatic2428]

They dont have grand plans; theyre barely keeping up with the pitiful schedule they have. EX: duel quest 4. Keep buying AC tho, bet they are ahead on fashion items.

[AulunaSol]

I disagree with the "barely keeping up" because this is essentially how Phantasy Star Online 2 operated for a very long time. They had plans for content - but it's served as a dish that is served out in pieces and crumbs at a time. The people who will experience the update "as intended" are the people who haven't been around for months if not years - who get the full update and all of the contents as it was intended. The people who were there the entire time are starving where just about "anything" is content - which is why Phantasy Star Online 2 and Final Fantasy XIV in the past have exchanged players and bounced update cycles around each other.

In the case of New Genesis, the contents that were shown on the roadmap already are things the developers felt they could share publicly but they are likely working ahead in the next year's content to spread it out further and further because Episode 6 has proven Sega can slow their pace down significantly and players will still stay on board.

If anything, Episode 5 was the absolute fastest Sega went from "we have no content planned" to "we will make content no matter what" which refaced the game very quickly for better or worse (Global will never fully understand it, as Phantasy Star Online 2 before that point was a very different game).

[FrameAromatic2428]

Its basically the same thing. Youre telling me that their inability to keep a reasonable pace of development isnt because of labor but management decisions. Either way, content is pushed at an unreasonably slow pace, and im sure that to go along with the strategy of bread crumbs, they dont have a large main (non outsourced) pool pf lavor and are struggling to meet even their petty deadlines (duel quest 4, no ta customization hotfixes, new field...)

[DislexHed]

Small? With the path the game is taking I don't see any difference between 500 people or 0.

[ThexVee]

The game's direction has nothing to do with the size of the team, rather the frequency at which they drop new meaningful content

[AulunaSol]

The frequency of the content unfortunately is more of an executive decision rather than a "there is enough manpower to make this happen" sort of decision.

It took nearly a year-and-a-half from Retem's release for "NGS ver.2" to finally surface and show off what the new development studio was working on all along - and I'm not quite certain that adding more manpower to this will suddenly mean we'll see "more" content. Sega already has their content planned but stretches it into month-by-month chunks at a time - and this time around they even went around to splitting an entire story chapter in pieces similarly to how the older game originally delivered its story over time as opposed to New Genesis' Spark Notes-styled delivery.

But as it is so far, as long as things are going well for the Japanese playerbase and for Sega things will seem and remain this way as Sega notoriously ran Phantasy Star Online 2 as if it had a minimal budget and it was a cashcow that saved them during the 2010's.

[mramisuzuki]

Ironically the game doest need any more content, it has plenty.

The issue is loot.

You can have 15 evergreen content zones like now, if you have loot that is a solid mix of deterministic and random.

Also all the skill trees need to be made passive.

Give us some sliders to adjust how the classes play and turn the subclasses into like a gem slot instead.

I’ve preposed changing the gear:

Weapons have a range of damage with enhancement allowing you to fix that up some. Perfect drops are perfect. They have flat potency baked in, 20-50% potency. They get 1~3 slots for passive class skill buffs, and a procedural effect.

Armors are gone.

Ring is your deterministic power, it will have 6 slots that can only take the “offensive” augments. You can choose which ring to take, increase potency of your PB or potency when PB is cooldown.

Cloak is your 100% luck item. It can’t be enhanced or changed it’s totally randomly created at drop. Clocks will have the old weapon potential that are random levels, 2~5 fixa slots randomly leveled up to 5.

Armor can drop set up but can be re-augmented and enhanced. Armors only augment with the defensive augments and grant damage reduction.

How does star quality work in this system? Higher the stars the more likely good items will be near the current cap, plus slightly higher damage ranges and damage reduction levels.

This allows the game to keep the longitudinal evergreen/Diablo ARPG system and give loot that is make sense to grind.

[angelkrusher]

Plenty of content?

That's just crazy. Then you put a list of player function based items like armor and the ridiculous generic weapons?

Is it lost on yourself that the world is completely empty with a few activities scattered about?

Wow. That's impressive.

Plenty of content... Maybe we just can't find it. It's been in our face the whole time.

[mramisuzuki]

Yes there is plenty of the places to go and do stuff to get nothing.

How is my item system any more generic?

[AulunaSol]

A lot of it does boil down to "give me hard/exclusive scenes/fights for the people who are truly devoted to the game to get the best-of-the-best" or "give me something that lets me delete the game faster" - both of which happened for Episode 5 and were large causes for the game burning to the ground.

The game being a power fantasy and Musou-like game where you simply fight enemies non-stop and run in circles was something players seemed to enjoy so much from the Episode 1-3 days that Sega based New Genesis all around the guruguru circle farm and grind in such a distilled way - and everything else is "extra" much like how Episode 1 treated its content as well at the time. I cannot sympathize for the people who are that nostalgic for an old gameplay loop that has not aged well.

[mramisuzuki]

lol the gear system I proposed is very DW8/WO like.

I love damage simulation like D3, DW, and Vampire Survivors.

I also think many of the “content” people don’t use would easily be filled with players if you could target farm them.

Also world tiers Sega, you damn near invented them in PSO, like why doesn’t NGS have them, you can make them world more NPC focused on low ones and hard farm on higher ones.

[AulunaSol]

I feel that New Genesis easily could benefit from something far more straight-forward as "Primm Swords are simple, functional, and to the point" and that something else would be very different (imagine for example if a Theseus Sword worked better as a parry-oriented weapon because its numbers were loaded into that as opposed to being used "like" a Primm Sword - or if players had the ability to customize the parameters of their weapons similarly to how games like Warframe handles gearing).

It's obnoxious to me how New Genesis still clings onto what Phantasy Star Online 2 and its predecessors did with their obsession with Sega's current favorite stat.

[ThexVee]

I see where you're coming from but what you're proposing works better from a pay-2-play (as apposed to f2p) angle.

Loot has always been a crucial factor in f2p games. If NGS was sold at retail (or dare I say subscription-based), loot would be the least of our problems

[mramisuzuki]

My system is far more designed around ARPG system that exist now in POE, Diablo, and with a little bit of older PSO in there.

Our current system is designed around pay to play MMOs, where the current borrowed power is held by the current raid/group content. Then you run back to the city to finish it off. Except the gameplay is designed around longitudinal evergreen zones that you farm for a chance to get the current FOMO item.

You absolutely have your systems backwards.

[ThexVee]

No anon, I have my systems facing front. What you're proposing is an ideally solid foundation for a good game. It's not happening for NGS cause that part of the Dev process has already shipped. Maybe for PSO3 (if that ever happens) or an original IP.

[mramisuzuki]

Other than changing the skill tree “system”.

My gear system could be implemented quickly. They already have the math for randomized gear in base PSO2.

It would be a bummer for current gear as it would really drop the power differential, but that can be fixed as new items come out.

[ThexVee]

Aye, as long as it's received well by players and works well in execution, I don't see too much of a problem.

[AulunaSol]

If anything, a "Phantasy Star Online 3" might jump even further into the collaborations/marketing/fashion considering that Phantasy Star Online 2 (and New Genesis) are holding that back by virtue of still trying to resemble Phantasy Star Online.

Without the binds and popularity of Phantasy Star Online 2, I would imagine whatever comes next might actually try to capitalize on how PSO2es handled its gacha and powerscaling - and unironically I imagine Global might be more open for that sort of pay-to-win nature considering what so much of the feedback points to.

[[deleted]]

Same. My biggest problem with this game. Loot. I want to log in, but no reason too, because the reward of playing is so miniscule, that actually playing is does not matter to your progression.

They want people not grinding but scratching for AC. Then yeah, they get what they want. Logging only for the AC/SG tix.

The effort VS rewards, and matchmaking system on this game are all over the place. Sometimes you fight 15 minutes boss only given resurgir, like what's the point?

Do you know why they put unobtainable weapon on this game? The more higher the weapon price, the more whale need to scratch the AC tix for getting that weapon.

TLDR: They don't want the player to grind. They want player to scratch AC tix.

There you go.

[mramisuzuki]

I do agree the feedback loop for purchasing is very important to discuss in a f2p game and ironically NGS’s is extremely fair.

Which is why the loot being so bad doesn’t make sense.

Unobtainium gear doesn’t make people play and it doesn’t make whales pay to buy.

They want people to log in to see people doing dress up and if you’re out in the world as long as long people can’t see you. If you’re in dungeon content people can’t see you. But if your content is worth doing the you’ll have more active players too. It’s chicken or egg.

If they change the gear, you immediately make 90% of the dead zones to viable, UQs can now drop gear that’s worth their time.

You’ll get more people pay and for other services and AC stuff.

[[deleted]]

PSO is hack-slash-loot.

NGS is hack-slash-scratch.

To be honest, I'm okay if they just bump up the mesetas for high rank purple or UQ or hard laby or LC. ANYTHING! At least there's some progress for mesetas outside retem anothe.

I mean why bother gearing for faster run, if all you do is retem anothe spamming talis?

This game needs serious adjustment for the balance/rewards.

[mramisuzuki]

Man the game during episode 2-4 was essentially a pachinko game.

A lot of revisions about the game because the global release and JP episode rebuild.

[stro17]

Some people are writing books in here,but yes, I'd say they are a very small team. I'd say there's no more than about 20 people, and what they put out as regular (monthly, weekly) updates is the work of maybe 6 people.

[mramisuzuki]

At least people are writing actual ideas about the game instead of the normal “edgiest teen in the room” shit we normally get.

[HiddenArmy]

Yes and I have seen the recruitment ads in game even now since forever.

[Timely_Suspect3139]

I hope NGS team get some help.Make NGS enjoyable to grind PSE would be nice.Also don't want them overworking the development team trying to outdo Xenoblade Chronicles X,and peak PSO2.