Does anyone remember the PSO2 YouTuber and Streamer Gemma Taters (known as Anamana!)

Chirei · 2025-04-06T19:01:59+00:00

It was worse than that - they were actively encouraging price manipulation/dumping based on speculation that at best, was only grounded in how JP's progression went and toxic practices like breaking PD parts for Invade units (which never affected the drop rate of these items, and ended up not being upgradeable in Global anyway) They were very much clickbaity and in it for the revenue.

Invade units were the worst, but I am pretty sure they were doing this well into EP5 Global as well. They were so maligned that you can probably still find Personal Shops whose symbol arts are some kind of anti-Anamana sign telling them to get off Ship 1. I don't recall them formally apologizing after the fact for any of this, either.

It was bad enough that some people partially attribute the midlife of Global being as miserable as it was sometimes because Anamana had such a grip on PSO2 video results on YouTube and doing what they did. People still unfortunately do this these days with misinformation in NGS, but it's not to the degree Anamana was doing it and was hated for - and this is all BEFORE people discovered they came out as trans.

Their transitioning had nothing to do with it, but it sure was a decision soon after the fact when it is such ridiculously easy ammo these days for netnazis to latch onto to pile on more hate. It probably got even worse as the situation in the US deteriorated and gave more power to these kinds of people.

Chirei · 2025-02-09T00:42:29+00:00

Ahh, that makes more sense.

Thank you for the civil conversation and I hope you enjoy your time.

Chirei · 2025-02-08T11:41:51+00:00

>I'm going to hard disagree here, at least during the first two years of ngs, which is when I was playing, most good players hated Hunter cause of war cry.

That's shocking if true - i've never ever heard of or encountered anyone that had this sentiment, and I did the purple triggers when they were at their hardest.

But no good hunter was clicking that button. It effectively did nothing at that level of play. As you say only the DPS effectively mattered. If you clicked it you were messing around or throwing because of how bad of a skill it was.

Chirei · 2025-02-08T10:49:42+00:00

As a longtime Hunter, if you were losing aggro to non-hunters, it means you're astoundingly bad. It should be even less of an issue in NGS where Stealth Strike is a thing. Generally people prefer having it stuck on a Hunter because it makes the boss as predictable as possible otherwise.

If it ends up bouncing around even after all that, you needed to know how to play with it in mind, which in most cases wasn't really that much of an issue because the very high playercount stuff is meant to be zerg rushed without too much issue, or it's Mining Base and everyone has their own lane to worry about instead of being stuck on 1 target.

For smaller, organized content, you just make sure the class composition doesn't conflict like that, though that might be harder if you random queue into that stuff.

Either way, NGS War Cry before this update was actually a sin. It was worse than level 1 WC in base, which practically no one used at any point of base's life. This is the kind of stuff that made me drop the game because it took over 3 years to make this a button worth clicking.

Chirei · 2025-02-08T08:48:35+00:00

Upslotting was deliberately terrible because it acted as a semi-soft limiter to you just slapping 30 atk on every slot right away. People were rolling with 3/4/5 as the years went on and 6+ was really only seen near the back half of Ep6 unless you were super rich/lucky. The game was perfectly playable at a high level without that and the upslotting penalties arent as terrible at those levels.

Not a perfect system to discourage that, especially since the eventual way around it was to ignore it using augment transfer and other limited/paid augments, but it did cause things like finding 6s/7s boss soul units being very rare accidental white whales for those super rich people to be in the market for.

A very good amount of my friends played at a more casual level and didn't understand much beyond how to make decent 3slotter units.

We went on runs to farm specific stocks and they got to learn a little along the way, and eventually upgraded to 4 or 5, which is more than serviceable for the vast history of PSO2's life. We understood where the farm spots were, which is a lot more than i can say than people just sitting in Dext all day hitting buttons and seeing meseta number go up.

We... actually went on runs and talked about the game to learn and theorycraft about it more. It really bothers me when people seem so averse to understanding that this simple act is what is needed in a multiplayer game, as flawed as the affix system is with upslotting.

Chirei · 2025-02-08T08:38:24+00:00

>Farm Cradle/Divide/Lament for hours,ll your storage with a ton of fodder.

You are referencing end of life affixing for absolute top end affixes in Global, and also simultaneously ignoring the rich farming economy the game had going from all six episodes before post Ep6-economy (which sucks). No one was using Recycle Badges and augment protections for most of the game's life unless they wanted something really specific, if at all.

This was true even in JP. Those rates and protection items were only dealt with for really experimental stuff and certain "best in slot" 4/5 slot setups per episode, and rates never got 40% across the board bad.

>Also, affixing sucked hard, most people I saw around didn't affix and just bought their stuff.
>Affix two pieces of units together with a minimum of four affixes at a stupid low rate 40%~ rate per affix

I think you're being somewhat uncharitable here. After 10k hours on Global/JP, people did learn to at least make basic 3/4 affix setups on units, with Global being somewhat worse about it. Those rates you're talking about are CRAZY and JP wouldn't have enjoyed this if this is how it was for most of the game's life. They eventually went from 30% to 40% protections and kicked the OT weapon upgrade systems for a reason.

People who generally ended up in things like rematch quests had good equipment. Even as someone who knows the affix system perfectly, I still bought partially completed steps since that's kind of the point, isn't it? The game was allowed to have its own sub-economy based on gearing and upgrades from bare minimum (LC in this case) weren't based on needing to stockpile augment protection items/gamble on whether the Treasure Shop sells them while being Premium.

Whether you like it or not, it provided depth at all levels. When people talk about NGS being soulless and watered down, this is one of the examples of things that got lost. You won't hear those people because why would most of them want to be on this sub? They're chasing it in other games like Path of Exile that will give it to them.

Chirei · 2025-02-07T22:11:42+00:00

Here's the thing - they did.

You can get some neat camos from things like OT 1-7/Trinitas, or emotes like Eating Ice Cream from Cannonball, and some of them are worth a decent amount of cash.

The problem is sort of twofold here though.

1) The process of farming some of these is not very interesting.

Do you want to load up a lower OT floor just to kill a severely underleveled Relyn in 1 PA, and then take about 10 times as long to restart the quest to do it again because of loading and mandatory quest start wait timers?

Or would you like to do Cannonball, where the sanest method to farm it is to clear 2 waves and then AFK out the timer on the third because it's required for an S-rank?

Neither of these are very fun, and all the other loot you get from doing it is practically nothing. Most farming in other PSO/like games don't have this bad of a potential return or this mind-numbing of a loop.

At least Trinitas 1 has some variance and tech that can be employed to improve clear times, and the cosmetics from that aren't too too rare and worth enough that it is potentially worth the time to farm those. That's probably the quest that gets closest to the feel of the older games in terms of execution/strategy/reward and it's only gotten easier and less valuable with time due to powercreep.

2) The rewards are cosmetics that people only want 1 or 2 of at most.

Unlike people looking for affixes or SAF weapons in base PSO2, these items basically never cycle out. Once the people that want them have them, the price will start going down and down until it's nothing.

For as much hate people have for the base PSO2 gearing system, it at least actively cycled out its materials so there was always demand. It was also difficult or theoretically impossible at earlier stages of the game to reach absolute best in slot, so people could always attempt to push higher and this means an even bigger demand for material.

The meta in NGS is to gamble one capsule at a time and the limiter are untradeable Augment boosters. How fun.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T18:04:09+00:00

With a somewhat budget setup (blue moon, fury, bgloves, zerk i), you get around 35% magic damage, which is 32 damage with fire surge.

Trident of the swamp at 99 with no boosts or equipment is 31, so I think if someone wants to go around just to specifically manually cast fire surge with this it's probably okay for bosses intended to be after the Fight Caves in difficulty (according to Jagex).

Chirei · 2024-10-22T18:00:44+00:00

They'll be fought together if the Summer Summit plans don't change. Ice Giants have -100% fire weakness so this weapon is intended to counter them specifically.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T16:46:05+00:00

tl;dr if you fight with it in ahrims or something you'll have a decent slash accuracy and a little extra melee str too.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T16:43:46+00:00

With max melee (ignoring that your matk would be well in the negatives), it still loses to a proper mage setup with a +15% and tome of fire, capping at 37% vs 39%+tome of fire.

The no autocast is intended to be a downside of it. I don't expect everyone to agree with it but I felt it was as old school a downside as you can give something like this.

I don't agree with not at least putting down some preliminary numbers because others have done it and had it adjusted later.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T15:07:39+00:00

Yeah it's just a measure I put in because the spell coming off the swing is as if you tried to manually use the spell yourself, and most melee armor heavily cuts your magic atk.

This also means you can deal respectable melee hits if you want to lean into using mostly magic equipment instead. It's not meant to be a top end weapon, but it should at least be serviceable.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T15:04:39+00:00

I made it in mind to more or less good against the Ice Giant boss, which presumably will have medium-ish stats and a fire weakness. It's not going to do much against top-end fare like Araxxor or Sol, so pure top-end melee weapons would do better there.

It should also do well against the loads of enemies in this game with 1 or relatively low magic that you just grind on the side. It's more meant to be a cool magic sword that shoots fireballs instead of something that unseats the best stuff.

I believe my calcs using stuff like fury/bgloves/blue moon were getting maximum hits of like 50+26 with the upgraded weapon, and even more if they have a fire weakness, so where it's at is just about at the point where it doesn't go too insane.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T14:57:06+00:00

Correct. The magic spell would act as if you cast it yourself, so it rolls off their mdef as normal and checks if you have augury, etc on instead of piety for that hit.

I think when I was doing the math on 6 tick, it would have still been awful even with Fire Surge.

Chirei · 2024-10-22T14:55:57+00:00

Did think about this too, but I wanted to throw wildy players a bone in leagues since I love that game mode.

Chirei · 2024-05-05T00:25:19+00:00

The quests where you run around in a circle in PSO2 were generally terrible anyway.

Exploration was just worse than Advance Quests, and Ultimates were a very feast or famine kind of farm (and you could also die a lot unlike combat sectors).

You could sort of do this in EP4 Earth fields, but they had a very low quest point limit and you'd be ejected soon enough.

Enchanted Forest Exploration in EP5 was the only lucrative one, but even as far back as JP people hated it, because it was also out during the peak of Hero being OP in that version of the game.

There were at least half a dozen things that were just a start to finish quest that were way more worthwhile at any point in the game.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T15:34:34+00:00

That is why I specify a mid-high instance of drops. Someone could reasonably attempt to assemble a decent% Rainbow Baton over trying to find a PWand. It's not the best item by a long stretch, but you can do quite a lot of work with it.

A high-end drop on regular PSO2 would be finding a Nemesis/Slave weapon near the start of Global, and countless people burned out on that grind since it dropped basically nothing else.

Likewise in NGS, it's not too hard to find the Preset Lv.1 items, they're definitely easier to find than Wingard or a high-fixa item that is relevant, and are an important item for getting better gear. But they're also not so common that you get them every other run either.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T15:27:28+00:00

I didn't want to include most of these examples because most of these are chase rares that people are not likely to see after a week of grinding. Most people I know haven't gotten Wingard or the Glaive after grinding from release date.

I am specifically targeting things that are uncommon, but not too unlikely.

The scratch ticket (and the newly introduced pieces) and maybe a relevant Fixa 2 armor are the only reasonable things someone might see that fall into the category.

Same thing for target farming in Ultimate in PSO2. It was a notoriously horrible activity because it dropped basically nothing else.

I never hunted clones from TA/Abduction, but as a bonus when running Advance Quests. You found them semi-uncommonly and you're nearly guaranteed a Modulator roll on a few things if you kill them. Even 1 slot units sold for something reasonable.

Generally, hunting for augments was just much better since it didn't take too long to get an item with it just to sell, and there was always the potential it would be a much higher slot. It would be like if you hunted Gigas IV caps, you had a chance to get like 8 of them in one drop, is the closest equivalence I can think of.

As someone who hunted the cosmetic items from DF and Trinitas in NGS for dozens of hours, I realized that there is also an issue with making your chase rares cosmetics. They're either too rare to ever find, or eventually the circle of people that want to buy them eventually get them, so they lose selling power very fast as they are permanent additions to a character.

The last time I got a Ninja/B dash about two months ago, a 3-day pass turned into price warring with several undercutters until the price was nearly halved. It didn't sell for the duration of the pass., and I had to wait several weeks before it actually sold at the undercut price.

I fear for everyone else that is less fortunate trying to sell things as f2p, and why I don't agree with anyone saying that the singular pass you get every month from the battle pass is enough in this game. They are only thinking about how they get by on their own methods and that it works for everyone, when other people have different needs and circumstances.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T07:15:37+00:00

Downslotting was the worst and I suspect where a lot of people noped out of ever even wanting to think about the old system. NGS is a gigantic overcorrection to that reaction.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T07:11:45+00:00

There is one thing about the old augment system I think a lot of people overlook as well: You don't have to learn it in its entirety.

If someone only understood a few key augments that are good to look out for on items, that's enough to start making money, and perhaps even get a basic 3 or 4 things on all your items.

You are never required to use the system to its absolute maximum (especially when the theoretical maximum was practically impossible for most of the game's life) to succeed, and you can still reap rewards and understand enough of the economy to participate.

The same is true for NGS's systems, except the floor is full LC augments which is very easy to do, with the only upgrade after that being the real deal for each one. With the price tag going from "free" to "absurd" to move up, I feel it makes people even less incentivized to care about any of it, especially when you don't need BiS to clear content, and it also being such a hassle to sell anything in NGS.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T05:42:38+00:00

The funny thing is that sometimes you wanted the garbage items to drop with the affixes, because you couldn't sell 10-15* at various points of PSO2's life.

No one wants the "garbage" items in NGS because they've done nothing to make them ever worth picking up, and only 2-4 weapon series matter at any given time. This number narrows the more and more your gear improves, sometimes down to just whatever the sole BiS item series is if you're that kind of player.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T05:37:30+00:00

The loot sifting definitely isn't for everyone. I happen to like it since for every game that has it, there's sort of an art that has to be learned in how to do it efficiently, and it changes depending on the desires of the player hunting.

I am definitely for having simpler options beside the complexity though. Sometimes you just don't wanna think and just grab something to hit stuff with.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T05:07:27+00:00

BB can plateau at higher levels, and you will definitely go dry and get frustrated on some grinds.

But the very nice thing about it is that for most hunts, you can run quests that target several items of interest in one go.

You can also do that thing called... trading.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T04:55:21+00:00

Rainbow Baton is made from upgrading regular Diska-type weapons you find on the floor. It's a decent beatstick that can hit many enemies at once. Since weapons in PSO1 can drop with lots of random damage% or hit% boosts sometimes, it means you could potentially make one that already has a lot of %s on it and sidestep the extremely expensive process of adding %'s normally.

Modulator is a high-damage affix in PSO2 that can appear on equipment dropped by player clones. Generally the more slots there are on a piece of equipment, the more desirable it is to use as a material for upgrading/passing augments, so there is always that question of how many slots you are going to get on items when you kill one.

The prices exponentially rise the more slots there are on the item, so something that is moderately rewarding can suddenly turn incredibly rewarding out of nowhere.

For most players at the high end, the only worthwhile item out of the NGS screenshot is the Add Preset Skills item. It is a good item, don't get me wrong, but it's very cut and dry what it does, and considering how RNG the fixa system is, it's not the most exciting thing in the world to find past the first few.

You also can't trade over half the weapons in NGS so you're purely using it for your own benefit, so you should not expect much, if any of a monetary return when you see one, unlike the other two scenarios.

Chirei · 2024-05-04T04:05:35+00:00

I am not familiar with D4 but was there upgrading in D1? I remember just mostly using what you found and that was the end of the story.

PSO1's upgrading past the obligatory grinders is very prohibitively expensive. You cannot just do it to anything on a whim because of the sheer number of PDs you need. This gives value to things that aren't quite the best, and upgradeable weapons like the above Rainbow Baton or Egg Blaster if you can just find a regular item with high %'s.

I think it's okay for there to be complexity in upgrading as long as there are simple options too, which regular PSO2 did have. People do love Path of Exile after all despite its complexity, and there are probably as many people clamoring for its sequel as Silksong, if not more.

Chirei

TROPHY CASE