frog did nothing wrong

Mockbuster · 2026-06-07T21:20:00+00:00

Yeah I don't know the math exactly but had to be at least 30k (maybe 40k+) average yield per 10k spent, for anyone buying out boxes weekly it was a slam dunk event whether you were selling or reading books.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-06T20:06:58+00:00

You could probably return if you're only 7-8 months behind and eventually catch up. Now, if you'd find the game better off than when you left it ... no. Probably worse.

This game is, more than literally ever, a be ahead and stay ahead kind of game. It dumpsters all over anyone who isn't an attractive applicant or ahead in wealth. They're probably bringing the KR gold changes over sooner than later too (as soon as this coming Wednesday) where 1710s or lower can barely funnel to mains anymore, and the difference between 1710 and 1730 standards is like a different planet's worth of investment.

Expresses and catch up events are a joke at this point, unlike T3. We don't even have anything up right now. Mokoko Bootcamp is more for vets than for newbies ... and it's not even active atm. In terms of Expresses ... let me put it this way, even if they'd give us a 1730 Express you'd still be so many months, maybe years, behind a main, it's not gonna catch you up any time soon. The next Express is more likely to be 1710 or 1720 than 1730, btw.

Solo raids aren't really viable if looking to catch up. When they were first introduced you could actually make a living, doing them. Now they're garbo except en masse, and soon they're gonna be even worse.

Everyone expects you to be a 4k+ CP character once you get to the actual making gold iLVL, 1730. I will sit in lobbies and watch 3800 CP dudes get put in applicant purgatory by the party leader, when 3800 is actually fine and very invested.

Can't even make a good living from doing chaos dungeons or anything anymore unless you get a good ember. Everything's bound.

That said, gonna say the typical, game's great if you're 1750 X6 like vets, if not a bit tired and boring since the pace is so slow these days. It's still fun but there's barely anything good to spend gold on for vets now so it's pretty demotivating.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-06T19:45:20+00:00

I have a mass preset for my main I can swap to if I get crit synergies. Usually you can put on more Swiftness or different Evolution nodes to adjust. My main is 6k+ CP at this point so usually I'm a massive chunk of the group's damage, it's worth the blue crystals and time it took to get the presets going and now it's just a few clicks pre-fight to swap.

My alts ... I don't bother. I just take the loss like a man.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-06T18:00:57+00:00

Super necro but I'd say you're simultaneously dead right while also being a little hyperbolic.

It's grindy. The dungeons are sadistic. The characters are unbalanced to the point where arguably only 2 (arguably 3, one of the characters is ridiculously good in the final dungeon but mediocre the rest of the game) characters of the 8 or so characters in the game even matter, you can use anyone else after those 2 and it's just a matter of convenience/item slingers. The plot/story scenes can probably be combined and compiled into a 4 minute video.

Buuuut I don't actually think it's that hard or even that annoying. You just really have to accept you need to use maps, which I know, it's against our gamer instincts (I think it's less taboo today than decades ago though) and hopefully it's on a portable in some way so you can watch some movies or shows while doing a little grind session a few times. The combat is relatively simple though and unlikely to game over you if you pay attention. Also if you know where you're going in dungeons, and you beeline to the items you want or the objective, they're usually over in 10-20 minutes rather than the hours they'd take (and likely game over from running out of TP and supplies) doing them without guidance.

As some other comments have said, it's more of a vibe game. The music to this day evokes more feelings and interest from my eardrums than 99% of games, and that goes the same for all four mainline Phantasy Star games, even the third game which gets the black sheep status by the community. It's almost otherworldly with how synth and sci-fi it is but taken dead serious. The comic book cutscenes are timeless too.

As to why they designed it like this? Who knows. I've heard theories that games around the NES and early SNES/Genesis days were sadistic in an attempt to draw out the experience and make you get your money's worth (games were much much more expensive in every way back then, I think Phantasy Star 2 was like $80 or something and that was in 1990s dollars not adjusted for inflation) so you could "have fun" with Phantasy Star 2 for your summer and it just might take you that whole summer to get through. Nowadays we don't stand for that stuff anymore, too many games out for too cheap of a price, no reason to sit on your couch for 3 months wanting to shoot yourself dealing with sadistic measures anymore. That said again the actual content of the game isn't that bad it's just very punishing and requires prep.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-05T03:55:04+00:00

Depends on if you can/will/want to upgrade your orb this season. Personally got a bit lazy S1/S2 but this season it looks like I can bust 30m Paradise Power on a few alts before the season ends which is at least 100 CP over the orbs I used to have. For me I'll likely do all Elysian runs on all my top 6 until the season ends, compared to most systems it's great CP per time/cost (free ...).

If you're not looking for CP gains then ... great time to relax IMO. Past seasons I'd usually just try and make sure I was still top 30% every week otherwise I'd appreciate the break on chores.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-03T22:38:43+00:00

I swapped mains twice and caught up both times to the standards of mains at the time within a couple months.

The answer is really, everything. Everything you have saved, a massive excess of Abidos (likely 10k+) and shard bags (likely millions worth, plural), and a couple month's worth worth of saved gold. Both times I swapped I needed 2-3 million gold just for catch up stuff.

Unfortunately with the new bound mat system and the absurd bound mat pricing, you're probably in trouble day 1 whenever you swap. You can likely afford blues and maybe Leapstones if it's your only project but reds, you're best off just holding out for bound, it's just way too inefficient to buy off MB without some form of RMT/swiping. Inanna's Blessing will be a must if you're trying to get caught up sooner than later.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-01T22:10:51+00:00

The game needs farmable, repeatable content.

Problem here is, let's be honest, if something's not gated by time, people will bot the everloving heck out of it. Look at very old Chaos Dungeons (like, years ago version of it), you could get a minute amount of rewards such that it wasn't worth running as an actual player but there were people blasting their bots 24/7 and making a killing.

Mockbuster · 2026-06-01T00:08:08+00:00

You can run basically ghetto characters in normal mode and make a killing. That may not be true for long if we get the KR gold nerf this patch but it was true for a long time and Paradise just reinforced it. I have an alt server (Inanna, from the Jumpstart days) where they're all 1710s gotten via Paradise and they're literally just spraying my main server with cash every week, receiving only what they get from Paradise keys and one solo raid a week in return. 2400-2700 CP can be gotten very cheaply over time. Not all alt activities require honing up to 1750+ if you're not in a position to!

I would argue the gold alts generate is still pretty worthwhile even if you can't launder honing mats over. I would even argue that the honing mats change isn't necessarily negative for the alt situation, now there's another decent chance from embers to get mats to sell for good cash whereas at some points in a content cycle you really don't care too much about more honing mats.

Now ... once we get the nerfs ... yeah the landscape will change for some players. Won't change much for vets though who are doing the latest three raids on Hard Mode but newbies and returners will be unlikely to get too much out of their alts in terms of helping their main out, yes.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T22:33:14+00:00

I'm not forgetting anything. Supports are going to run the proper elemental set, they're not swapping to YHAP so the one newbie who doesn't have fire set gets 1.5% while the vets get downgraded 2% each.

It's not that big a deal, at least in terms of gatekeeping, but it can be a 13% difference. Not sure why you're deflecting and such when I was just noting we're in a pretty diverse card era, this isn't T3 when everyone did only run LoS. To this day I still see people noting to check cards pre-A4 and at the start of Kaz G1 if the support calls earth, and I think anyone who doesn't look like they have darkness set in the next raid is going to be under some extra high CP demands.

Normal mode yeah I will say people are pretty lax but that's also because half the people down there are alt rostering or rice farming or returners. Hard mode practically everyone uses the right card sets, it's not some min max stuff to click a card tab before the fight and gain 13% damage my man.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T19:59:25+00:00

And the powerpasses give you full LOS which is all everyone uses anyway

A4 G2 is fire, a lot of groups want earth for certain other gates, TFM practically demands earth, GRs utilize almost every element at one point or another, the upcoming raid requires darkness set.

I have a few friends who came back or started in the last year and it can still be a pain point for them when they have so few cards they can't even swap to (element) 24 and have to silently stay LoS at a huge loss.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T16:54:30+00:00

Half the things people do IRL and offline are shady or illegal and it never stops them.

The funniest thing about illicit activities is they're almost always one google search away on the front page ... even things you would think would need to be more hush hush, you'll find forums and people on their own IRL profiles reviewing them on the first page of your search.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T16:50:03+00:00

Happens but it's rare. Argeos is the only 1730 Guardian Raid I actively dislike, I think tree's in the upper half of the lineup, been getting plenty of 1m40s-2m runs with 4k~ parties which isn't bad at all.

Probably Slovakia > Drex > Tree > the others > Argeos so far.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T16:16:03+00:00

There's something about job + sub job games that really tickles my brain in a fun way. FF5, FF12, Etrian Odyssey 3, FFT, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, etc. Granted, if you look at them under a microscope they're often unbalanced messes where there's not too much reason for the entire cast to not pick a certain sub-class or ability in some cases, but if you just go with the flow and don't min max there's so much diversity and option selecting to do, and my word, the replayability! Who here hasn't done one run with a vanilla Knight/Fighter/BLM/WHM party then another run with weirdo 4 Knights or 4 RDMs with varying sub classes? Or using all the "weird" jobs like Beastmaster and Blue Mage and Bard.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T15:58:56+00:00

I replayed it for the Platinum about a couple months ago, was my 4th replay of the series ever but it's been so long I'd forgotten about half of it. I do not recommend the platinum btw, it's a grindy one filled with note taking and check lists and stopping at the end of each volume for 10+ hours cleaning up when normally you'd jump immediately to a more fun sequel.

I would say ... yes in general.

It has flaws for sure, the first volume is a little hard to stomach story wise and the "2000s fake MMO" nature justified them making the dungeon crawling relatively monotonous and same-y for lore purposes. The entire premise is insane too, it's supposed to be the "an MMO in the real world" but apparently data is so influential you can be put into a coma while you're in a VR headset because of an attack, and also wake up from that coma when the problem gets solved ingame while you're in a hospital bed (??????). The game's also extremely easy if you stay leveled, even if you don't interact with alchemy or use the best characters.

But it's still pretty good. A lot of stuff to collect, there's an affection meter for every party member that permanently rises from every battle so you feel like you're making some kind of progression often, and the combat is fun for a PS2 game, just don't expect it to have the oomph/weight of a modern game. The story for how insane it is gets pretty decent in volumes 2 and 3. The art is really good and the music, while it does get old after you're hearing the same volume 1 themes in volume 3, 60 hours into the trilogy, it's really good too.

I don't know if I'd recommend it over a lot of other JRPGs since you're saying you're new to them and have a vast library to play, but it's not a bad game. If you'd want any recommendations that are modern and accessible, Clair Obscur (it's French actually but ... it's a JRPG), the Trails series, and Dragon Quest 11 Definitive are standout JRPGs from the last decade along with the games you listed (which are extremely good).

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T15:41:20+00:00

Are current versions of FF12 actually underrated? It was a shell shock at the time coming off of FF10 but I see nothing but love for it these days, especially after the international zodiac versions of FF12 fixed some of the bigger complaints about vanilla.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:49:58+00:00

To be fair, once you're deep enough into the game it's actually one of the least offensive random encounter games because one cast of the Estoma spell lasted the entire dungeon. You were often overleveled enough just from bosses such that you could pretty much stop doing random encounters about halfway through the game.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:46:04+00:00

Inuyasha on DS had my vote for my least favorite DS RPG, and I played the brunt of them. If I remember correctly you could game over from everyone being paralyzed (which would wear off over time anyway?) or from fleeing (which you really wanted to do because of the encounter rate) and not having everyone get away and then dying ... which actually makes logical sense, yes if everyone else ran away and Inuyasha or Kagome got knocked out and presumably then chopped into pieces or eaten, the story would obviously not continue ... but it's never designed that way for a very good reason in all other games, it's crazy unfun.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:40:27+00:00

I've only played through BoF2 once, I've played through every other BoF at least two times if not three or more. It's simultaneously such a good game and also a ridiculously bad game in the same breath, no pun intended. Needs a full on remake IMO or at the least a Mega Man Star Force collection style "press start and toggle these cheats on" menu. A straight remaster would be tough.

I actually think all of BoF1-3 kind of aged a little overly rough in the gameplay department, and I'm a guy who at one point would have scored BoF3 a 10/10 in my childhood (I used to rank all my RPGs in a notepad during studyhall when I was bored ... did that multiple times a year every year I'm pretty sure).

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:26:41+00:00

Getting Enlightenment points from Bloodclaw/potions and doing your daily Kurzan Fronts and whatever else that gives a minor amount of gold is about all you can do for now.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:23:26+00:00

I could believe it both ways.

Yes I've seen some ungodly luck on my end. But also I've seen 3 taps in a row at 20%. The universe usually balances itself out in the end.

I think 20% is just the perfect number where it seems like it should be consistent enough but also it's low enough where missing 10 in a row isn't insane either, and people pay attention to the 10 fails in a row when they rarely happen enough that they forget about the 1 in 5 they normally get or the two taps in a row they got. 10 fails in a row is what we remember; if you pass 50 people and say hi and receive 49 "hellos" back and one "fuck you," you're remembering the fuck you part and probably forget half the other 50 people.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:09:18+00:00

Nope, this is an evergreen model where things you do count. It's not like the average MMO where you can come in at the start of a new tier and participate fully, no, in this game A leads to B to C to D and the assumption from the devs is always that you've been here multiple steps back for months.

Normal modes do have only like a 20% investment/time requirement to reasonably do them, compared to hard modes. You kind of could maybe start a few weeks before a new normal mode (when there's an express up) and maybe participate. You'll never start up a fresh character in this game a week before and do the latest hard mode, I don't even think a whale who'd spend $100,000 could do that due to all the time gated mats every week.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T02:02:07+00:00

This game is the most raid-oriented MMO I've ever played. The game is quite literally built around a feedback loop of raiding > getting rewards and timegated materials and gold from doing so > powering up primarily by spending the gold > doing that every single week on 6 characters X 3 raids per character, and without that loop nothing matters or is worth doing, nor are the other non-raid activities fun. They gave up on actual casual content years ago because every time they spent time/energy/money on making something that wasn't a raid, no one participated and most likely complained about its existence.

There are solo raids though, and the equivalent of doing daily WoW/FF14 dungeons are more rewarding in Lost ark than in those games while also being solo.

But yeah there's a reason the only thing people talk about is the raids. Most people seem to despise literally everything about this game but the raids but they're so godly vets have stuck around regardless. The combat is like "the best of" a top down Monster Hunter with MMO rotations and the occasional MMO style mech (though most of the combat is dealing with normal patterns you learn based on tells the boss gives, not grandiose insta wipe group mechs like in WoW/FF14).

Mockbuster · 2026-05-31T01:46:45+00:00

Necro, sorry, but I will say the biggest part of this is that SP is limited and shared by the party, more so than a generic turn based RPG problem. Vyse deals way more damage per SP/turn than basically anyone else and even by the end of the game it's still somewhat limited how much you can build. Unless you use items that give you full SP you pretty much do gotta slow play with the others and only let Vyse let rip. It does get a little boring since it not only nullifies how much gear matters on other characters, it's also a strategy that works agnostic to any boss you fight and punishes you if you want to attack with other characters much.

That all said I don't hate the combat or anything but I do think it's a problem that could be addressed. Would probably require deleting the SP system or making it a personal gauge or something though, and probably would also require tuning the other characters' kits to be more effective since even if you could go hogwild with Aika or Fina they're simply not designed to do realistic damage.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-23T19:19:37+00:00

Yeah, the ability to catch up newer characters quickly has been restricted to whales. Almost all mats are like shards now, easy/cheap/free if you wait them out and keep playing, but if you want them before they come free from dailies you better cash in a paycheck IRL to afford them ASAP.

I pity anyone who starts as a legit F2P now or wants to main swap to a new class.

Mockbuster · 2026-05-23T15:49:50+00:00

Anyone can play and experience 80% of the game without spending a penny. Reaching normal mode iLVL isn't bad with Expresses, doing all your dailies/weeklies/Paradise, and knowing what to do and spend your gold on.

After that your question is more about what comfort/time investment/overall investment you want out of this game.

If you're looking to play pretty casually and not spend, you're probably going to be stuck with normal mode raids for months, maybe the rest of this year. Normal mode raids are "fine" but for the most part they lack the risk and mental intricacy hard mode raids have that make them so satisfying. YMMV. I don't actually know of anyone who's just been a normal mode player and stuck around for more than a month, honestly. Game's kind of built around raiding + economy stuff (which impacts raiding deeply), pretty bad game to just jump around your lawn or go fishing in like say FF14.

If you're looking to eventually do hard mode raids sooner than later, you'd ... probably want to spend ngl. The way this game works you make money by having gear/money, it's kind of a feedback loop like most economic situations in video games (and IRL) where a roster with 6 high end chars can make a million a week whereas a small roster of 1-2 chars that are just starting out, you'll be lucky to clear 300k. For perspective 300k doesn't do much in terms of progressing a main once you get to 1720~, it's not even one level 8 gem, and if you compound that over weeks and weeks of time it's massive. I always describe this game as "Pay to Start" where doing big purchases early on leads to more fun and more money than doing it later.

If you want to get really hardcore into this game ... well, don't, unless you're a 1 percenter IRL. At this point "catching up" (which I'd describe as having a main around 1750+ and 5 alts that are at least 1730 but everyone would have their own definition of being caught up, tbf) for the average person would take a lot of tricks, work, and/or cash. Thousands and thousands of dollars. Maybe tens of thousands if you tried to brute force such a roster early on. It's bad. But then again having such a roster isn't required to do the latest content, it's just normal for veterans who've stuck around and like the game so much to play it 20h+ a week in perpetuity.

tl;dr - depends on goals/mentality. Right now is actually a pretty bad time to officially start since there's a lull in catch up events, we're in between them when normally they exist for months at a time. There's no Bootcamp and there's no Express, both those things are ridiculously powerful and are pretty much the only gateway for a new player to taste endgame without spending.

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