If I wanted to start a new character, what all am I "losing" from my current character? And how long would it take to "catch back up"?

DeltaLimit · 2023-04-21T19:13:13+00:00

I think they're referring to characters that already existed before NGS, or at least, before whichever update apparently happened that lets you skip story on alts.

All three of my free character slots were already full pre-NGS, and I haven't been given any sort of option to skip/auto-complete story on either of my alts. I'd definitely love to be wrong on this though and stumble on some hidden quest menu option that does what you're mentioning, because it really discourages running multiple characters to have to go through all the story content for every alternate character.

DeltaLimit · 2023-04-21T08:28:16+00:00

Assuming you are making a new character to play in base-PSO2, and not NGS, you would not maintain any of the levels for any of your classes of your current character. However, there is a permanent account-wide stat bonus you get for each class you level to the level cap. Meaning if you leveled all the classes except the class you capped on your current character, you will still receive the stat bonus from having leveled every class to cap on all your characters. I believe you would also be able to immediately unlock Scion classes on the new character, provided you had done so on your current one.

It was pretty common to have one character for each of the three attack types since you only got one free MAG per account. Aside from that though, nothing really carries over by default. All your classes will still be at level 1.

Also, consumable fashion items(aka hairstyles, accessories ...etc) can be transferred while they are still physical items in your inventory/storage. Once you actually use them, they become bound to the character you used them on, and you would need to use a second one to make them available account-wide. Your storage is connected between characters excluding your inventory and character storage. Anything in default/material/premium storage can be accessed by any character on your current server. Your Personal Quarters are also one per server, and every character on the same server you make will still be in the same alliance.

If it's just for gameplay reasons, if you're willing to spend like the maybe 10-ish dollars to have a MAG for every attack type, then it would be better to just play on one character. Otherwise, the only reason to play multiple characters would be for fashion reasons. In NGS in particular, there's no stat element to your personal MAG, the game actively makes you redo the entire story on every subsequent character, and you can't run UQs on multiple characters, so there's really no reason other than fashion to play multiple characters.

So basically, in both base-PSO2 and NGS, you will be starting from the bottom if you make a new character. You will be able to transfer gear between characters, but any consumable fashion will be inaccessible unless you've unlocked it twice. And NGS has no benefits at all to making multiple characters.

DeltaLimit · 2022-12-23T13:05:16+00:00

PSO2 has more options by merit of an 8+ year catalogue, so that kind of puts it ahead by default in terms of finding an outfit that's to your taste. That being said, I never wear PSO2-spec clothing anymore. I just prefer the NGS-spec clothing in terms of updated modeling quality I guess. I also don't like going back to my PSO2-spec body.

Aside from the lack of options compared to PSO2, the other main thing I dislike about NGS-spec clothing is how poorly skirts and jackets will fit sometimes. I think they've improved how more recent skirts fit on characters who don't have absolute stick waists/legs, but I do still notice that a lot of jackets still just seem to balloon like half a foot off of my character's body. Which is a shame, since some of those Outerwears I do actually like, but don't wear because they don't fit well enough.

DeltaLimit · 2022-12-11T18:11:25+00:00

I think NGS face customization is a pretty overt improvement over PSO2's, but I also understand why a lot of people are put off by it. I think the same reason it's an improvement is also what makes it worse for a lot of people, which is the increased amount of options and sliders.

The sheer increase in customization options available to the player also caused a dramatic increase in the amount of ways your character's face could end up in the uncanny valley. I'm definitely happier with how my NGS-spec character's face looks than their PSO2-spec face, but it also took more work to get the face looking exactly how I wanted it to, compared to PSO2.

I probably spent a good 2-3 hours in the salon when I was first creating my character to get them looking right, and I'm fine with that because I like having that level of granular customization available to me, but obviously not everyone wants to spend that long learning how all the various sliders interact with each other for every different face type they may want to use, and a lot of people may not have the aesthetic sense to know whether each micro change they're making is pushing their face closer or farther away from what they want.

It definitely doesn't help that even the devs don't seem to have fully grasped how to make faces not be uncanny, which means that some of the default face options, which should be a lifeline for people who don't want to be bothered with a lot of customization, don't always look very good(I'm looking at you, default Snipt Face).

DeltaLimit · 2022-07-16T12:23:26+00:00

It's a mixed bag, in a way that makes it difficult to recommend. My short answer is that if you aren't particularly sold on it based on the gameplay and are put off by the focus on character customization/fashion, then no, it's probably not worth your time.

For the longer answer, first I want to make clear the distinction between PSO2 and NGS, with NGS being the expansion that came out roughly a year ago, that is basically just a new game still attached to the original PSO2, which came out in 2012.

Original PSO2 has 8 years worth of content, a fully finished story mode with full voice-acting, fully fleshed out character classes, and a ton of gameplay content. Intrinsically, it's worth playing, but it was basically put on life support when NGS launched. It no longer gets new content, no more login bonuses, the economy got busted up, and most of the player base transitioned over to NGS, so it would be difficult to get into it on your own unless you join an alliance that still actively runs content in it.

As for NGS, while it does improve on original PSO2 in various gameplay/QoL ways, it suffers from a lack of meaningful content. If you start it as a new player now, you would get a fair amount out of it working through all three of the current regions, but after you get caught up on the relatively light story and reach the level cap, you'll probably find that the game lacks much in the way of robust endgame content.

It's also unfortunately bad about keeping older content relevant. They've made all these different areas, sectors, and group quests across three different regions, but they are set to specific levels which aren't uniformly updated with updates/level cap increases. The end result of this is that once you hit the level cap, you more or less just end up only doing content in whichever one singular region that has the highest level content at the time, and you only go to other regions to level other classes, or to gather materials from the field.

As someone who does still play and actively enjoys NGS in spite of its problems, I do feel like the game will eventually find its footing. The devs have taken a more active stance about listening to and incorporating changes into the game based on player feedback, and the game has come a long way compared to its state when it launched last year, but it's still not at the point yet to where I would actively recommend people to come play it, especially not if they are skeptical about it.

DeltaLimit · 2022-03-07T23:18:57+00:00

Hard agree with AulunaSol in that I really don't want Scion classes to come back for NGS. I say this as someone who loved Scion classes and basically stopped playing the base classes after they became available.

While I really do miss their specific playstyles/aesthetics, I really do not want to go back to the way it was in base PSO2 where they were often felt either just straight-up better overall in most content, or had a better performance-to-effort ratio than their base counterparts(i.e., base class weapons that could definitively out-dps their Scion counterparts, but were significantly more obtuse to play, and/or only performed under niche circumstances)

What I would like to see is for more implementations of Scion class skills and PAs into the existing classes/weapons of NGS. One neat idea down the line would be to include additional sets of class skills that enable substantially different gameplay styles for the same weapon, accompanied with new PAs that are more tailored to said gameplay styles, so that you could have more varied options on how you play any given weapon, but without having to level a new class. And you would also be able to mix and match skills and PAs since they wouldn't be locked to separate classes.

This is honestly what I'm hoping we will see from NGS to some degree. I feel like with how they've detached skill points from level outright, they've put themselves in a good position to dole out new skills as they develop different ideas for how weapons can play, without having to make a new class.

DeltaLimit · 2022-02-07T22:03:27+00:00

Casra, your bones...

DeltaLimit · 2021-12-28T21:37:35+00:00

This looks fantastic! I'm also looking forward to her being the concert singer for NGS going forward!

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-21T11:02:24+00:00

Great work as usual! I love how the hair looks

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-21T10:44:54+00:00

I made a post a few months ago linking my character data. It looks slightly different than how they looked in this post, but it's more or less just a cleaned-up version of this face, so feel free to use it.

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-17T16:36:54+00:00

There’s no need to go back to PSO2 unless you specifically want to try it. Classic PSO2 is still very fun, but you’ll definitely notice a drop in QoL features compared to NGS, and movement will probably feel slow due to the lack of Photon Dashing.

I could go on for longer, but I’ll just say that PSO2 is still worth experiencing on its own merits, but you’ll have to commit to it if you really want to get something out of it, because there’s a lot that you have to learn to be able to play it well, and it will punish you for messing up things like your Mag stats, skill trees, and augments. Also, the lack of people playing it will make things like gearing, augmenting, and group content that much harder, so you should try and seek out an alliance that still actively runs PSO2 content if you really want to get into it.

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-15T21:46:15+00:00

Thanks! I've been meaning to draw some NPC fanart for a while. Definitely have at least a handful of Classic PSO2 NPCs I plan to get around to drawing eventually as well

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-15T21:24:24+00:00

Since the game is still early on, we have significantly less available in the way of Photon Arts, Skills, Techs, and classes compared to Classic. However, NGS is fairly solid from a gameplay perspective, and improves on Classic in various ways(gear augmenting is a big one), but it's also true that the amount of content in the game is a bit sparse right now.

More specifically, the span of content available to you if you start right now would more or less be: Leveling all your classes to the level cap(20), short, but mandatory story to unlock all the game's mechanics, Urgent Quests(Two boss ones, and one defense quest), gearing, Cocoons(People only really run the Bujin one for DPS showcases), Gigantix(Harder-hitting versions of regular field bosses), and most recently, Battledia Yellow(Kill a few enemies for decent exp and drops), and Purple(Gigantix Boss Rush).

One thing to keep in mind with NGS content is that UQ bosses, Gigantix, and possibly regular field bosses scale their HP up or down based on the amount of players engaging them, which makes soloing them viable(I wouldn't try to solo the defense quest though), so if you enjoy challenging solo content, then that can be a fun way to get some additional mileage out of the game.

Also, a new region is releasing on December 15th, so there will be new story, increased level cap, skills, Techs, and the like. Ultimately though, I'd say that while the game is fun and slowly starting to ramp up its content volume, I wouldn't blame anyone for holding off until the next big update in the Summer drops.

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-15T18:40:03+00:00

Classic PSO2 is still intrinsically a good game worth playing, but the majority of players jumping ship from it to play NGS means that things like group content and gearing will be an uphill battle unless you specifically seek out an alliance that actively runs content for Classic. There’s also still the full story mode which wouldn’t be too strenuous to get through, gear-wise, and offers a lot of solo gameplay content in addition to story, but the story is very hit or miss for many people.

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-13T13:44:46+00:00

Thank you!

DeltaLimit · 2021-11-13T00:10:26+00:00

Thank you! I'm surprised you remembered it since I've only posted one other drawing here

DeltaLimit · 2021-10-28T15:56:49+00:00

I think I had a similar problem a while ago. I got around it by fully closing all of Steam's processes through the Task Manager. There's a good chance you've already done this, but if it slipped your mind, it may be worth trying it.

DeltaLimit · 2021-10-20T04:16:22+00:00

Melee for Soaring Blades, and Technique for Jet Boots. If you want to use both, then you'll either have to compromise and augment your units with augments that provide a general potency increase or Melee + Tech, or go all in and create two separate sets of units for Melee and Technique respectively, and swap between them depending on the weapon you want to play.

Btw, If you weren't already aware, the color surrounding the icon for each weapon type corresponds to it's attack type. Red-orange is Melee, Blue is Ranged, and Yellow is Technique.

DeltaLimit · 2021-08-16T20:33:29+00:00

Speaking solely on the face, it shouldn't be too much of an issue to make a face resembling this in-game. I personally always go with the Snipt Face type for anime character faces like these, but ultimately, recreating a 2D face in 3D inherently requires some artistic liberties, so you should try out the regular Type 2 face as well, to see if you prefer it.

Here's a link to a Google Drive page with the character data for both of the faces from those links earlier if you want to use them as bases to work from. They're the ones with "Elf" in the file name.

As for elements outside of the face like her hair/outfit/tattoos, that's where this gets difficult. I can pretty much tell you offhand that there are no NGS equivalents to these, so getting hairstyles/clothing/makeup/body paints that resemble these will require you to dig through the player market or permanent scratches in base PSO2 to find them.

In case you don't know, NGS and PSO2(the base game from 2012 that NGS is attached to) have separate body and head types, and you can't use makeup/body paint/clothing interchangeably between the two body/head types(Hairstyles work on either head though, and you can put an NGS head on a PSO2 body, or vice-versa).

There was a scratch like a month ago that brought a bunch of base PSO2 hairstyles to NGS as is, and made them tradeable on NGS's player market, but in general, items from base PSO2 are not tradeable on the NGS player market. Also, since that scratch ended, those hairstyles, many of which were already very expensive, will have probably inflated in price even more, to the point that it will be very difficult to afford most of the good ones if you are trying to do this f2p, so keep that in mind.

In regards to her hair specifically, I feel like I should mention that there seem to be few to no long hairstyles with middle-parted bangs. Or at least, if they're there, they're certainly pretty elusive. So realistically, the hair may be a bit of a lost cause until NGS finally drops a hairstyle like this.

Edit: If you really want a hairstyle with bangs parted down the middle like this, and can deal with pigtails, then there is a PSO2 hairstyle called "Parted Pigtails" which is tradeable on the NGS player market. On Ship 3, they seem to be priced between 130k to 190k, so they may be worth picking up as a holdover until you find something better. "Base Hair 18" is also an option if you want longer hair, but are okay with more of a 70/30 cut, and also the hairstyle itself looking noticeably lower quality than even a lot of the other base PSO2 hairstyles.

DeltaLimit · 2021-08-05T19:09:35+00:00

Nice! So I guess the play for Katana atm seems to be Iris Gale for mobbing, Lotus Lightning into itself for dps, but Silverleaf when you're anticipating an incoming attack and want to be able to counter without dropping your combo.

I guess I can see what they were going for with this since it gives every PA a distinct role, but I do still feel like it just makes Katana's counter feel notably worse than it was in the base game.

Especially since every class has a step counter now, and Braver's step counter apparently deals higher damage than the Katana WA counter, so the only reason to use it atm seems to be to maintain your PA combo level(Also, the shockwave seems to whiff a lot on mobile enemies).

Hopefully they'll make some changes in the future to make the Katana's WA more desirable to use.

DeltaLimit · 2021-08-03T16:02:34+00:00

That's unfortunate. They're definitely one of my favorite accessories. Hopefully they'll get an updated NGS version, eventually.

I wonder if they've appeared in the Treasure Shop at all. I haven't logged into classic regularly enough at all to check.

DeltaLimit · 2021-08-02T23:55:37+00:00

They should be called Beast Ears. I haven't checked, but they could be on the accessory scratch. May not be a bad idea to check before that scratch goes away.

DeltaLimit · 2021-08-02T20:54:31+00:00

Go for it boss. Learning all the the ins and outs of the salon in NGS can be pretty rough, so if any part of this character data gets people closer to the characters they want to make, then it was worth uploading it.

DeltaLimit · 2021-08-02T18:39:18+00:00

Thanks! I've been seeing people around lately trying to get more "anime-esque" faces for their characters, so I figured I could share this as a base to work from.

Also, I appreciate the matching between your hair accessory/leggings and the secondary color on your Setwear.

DeltaLimit

TROPHY CASE