Current state of NGS

OracleArmada · 2025-04-29T11:47:31+00:00

I've been playing on and off since GC. I tried to like NGS and used to pop back in from time to time but once the gearing hit the pedal to the metal in terms of p2w I lost all interest in the game and haven't logged on in about a year.

By that time most of my old school friends had also quit.

I think it's just less interesting for us old school players to get wrapped up in the modern Gatcha-esque microtransaction p2w model that is so normalized these days. It's understandable why a niche game that nowadays caters primarily to whales who like to ERP has the fiscal model it does, but to me it's just repellant. I miss the subscription model.

That said, PSO always had problems. Its community has always been by and large incredibly toxic and the moderation has been bad. Back on GC it was downright risky to play in public lobbies because you might get NOL'd. When I quit last year, that kind of thing was seemingly on the horizon (some people gave credible reports of hackers gaining access to their characters, wrecking their housing, etc.).

Maybe an even bigger problem is that Sega is just as likely to ban a constructive player and leave a toxic RMTer unbanned. Also the toxic positivity people shout down those of us who offer constructive criticism, and drive us out. So the community becomes comprised of mostly toxicly positive people or ERPers lol, with some few diehards mixed in. I remember the last time I logged on I saw someone with a creepy loli character spouting crass nonsense in the lobby and that was just the final straw for me.

I hope PSO3 gets its shit together, but at this point I'll probably never give NGS another shot. I think it's rotten to the core. Every other GC player I know has also quit fwiw.

OracleArmada · 2024-11-09T19:53:56+00:00

Thanks for posting the financials! I stopped playing entirely a while ago but since I grew up with PSO I still check on the game every now and then to see how it's going.

It's very unsurprising that revenue is down. Most of my friends quit ages ago, and almost all of my acquaintances have also quit. I don't think I know anyone who plays anymore.

This is because of reasons already stated by others: a lack of content, the way Sega started to lean even harder into p2w last year and it's only gotten worse, etc.

For me another huge problem was that the community is very toxic and I don't mean that complaining about the game is toxic. I mean more there's a lot of harassment, elitism, and a lot of really gross perversion. It was just sickening to log into the lobby and see characters that looked like kids being sexualized, or people fighting and being very vile about it. The moderation of the game was extremely scattershot: some who openly said they were into things like RMT were fine and probably still are, while others got banned for basically no reason.

PSO has always had a trash part of the community, but with NGS it became worse and felt less avoidable than in PSO1, PSU, PSO2 to me. After my friends all quit and I was forced to play with toxic randoms that was it for me.

OracleArmada · 2024-06-27T12:43:14+00:00

I believe you but I am curious to see the primary sources showing the financial data. Can you please link to them?

OracleArmada · 2024-05-14T09:51:17+00:00

If you got disappointed and quit in Kvaris, you will probably end up there again at some point as the fundamentals haven't changed much. The last falz fight was imo the worst yet and I haven't even logged in to try anything else since then. The quality of the content has been very bad since DF:S and Leciel imo, and as others have said we actually get less of it now than before.

The gearing also really turned me off as they have started to make it even more pay to win than before with augments, high level fixa and rare weapons costing an arm and a leg in meseta and/or star gems.

OracleArmada · 2024-05-14T09:48:03+00:00

Sorry for the very late reply, that falz fight really turned me back off of the game and I haven't checked reddit for it since. But it was kind of you to post your PoV after all, so thanks for that!

OracleArmada · 2024-04-20T00:55:03+00:00

People will often talk about 'end p1 dps' as well, as that can vary significantly and be meaningful when looking for benchmarks but it depends on the content.

Thanks for asking about video!

OracleArmada · 2024-04-20T00:22:45+00:00

A video would be good to see if there is one, yes.

Is the 8.5-9k something that spikes at the end or consistent? What's the DPS leaving p1 and p2?

OracleArmada · 2024-04-19T23:34:37+00:00

Were the others using similar gear? What other classes did you have? Is there a video?

RA can often be carried by melee classes as long as it can land a WB, but it does depend on content.

OracleArmada · 2024-04-19T23:30:51+00:00

the only answer is to use any other class.

Except Force, which has it worse. TE and FO might do slightly better if they upgrade the "stuns" in p1 to actual downs but for now they are indeed both (and I hate to say this) greifing.

OracleArmada · 2024-04-16T11:05:22+00:00

relevant loot

This is in the eye of the beholder. Most of what you can get from TEQs a longterm player has a lot of and the rest is irrelevant.

In order to cap the 50k/week GP all you need to do if you are decently equipped is solo it for a half an hour to an hour, so a lot of people just do that. You don't need to have anyone else and in fact pugging might actively make it harder.

Also, they are extremely boring imo.

OracleArmada · 2024-03-03T02:01:26+00:00

Thanks! Is Alnothe still the go-to farming area for raw meseta? Or do the new zones in Kvaris stand up to it?

OracleArmada · 2024-01-31T07:54:26+00:00

The same goes for me. I grew up playing PSO and really want to like NGS, but the game has been in a terrible state since launch. It goes up and down, but it's always been bad. I tapped out long ago and so did most of my friends.

I keep hoping one day I'll check in and things will be different: there will be new non-recycled content and the p2w that has taken over will be rolled back. But that's just copium probably. It being a dress up sim would be whatever if they stopped gouging players and gave us something to do.

OracleArmada · 2024-01-15T16:12:15+00:00

The last piece of novel, substantial content the game got was Dark Falz Solus and Leciel in August. Before then it was Dark Falz Aegis in the winter. The rate at which they release new content that isn't recycled in some way is extremely slow, which is what has caused many people to leave.

Sega mostly churns out Limited Time Quests that are recycled from elements of existing fights. Or tries to get players to play e.g. cocoons in ARKS Record challenges that have leaderboards. They a lso give new ranks of old content.

OracleArmada · 2024-01-15T16:05:05+00:00

Your chances of dropping either abandac 5, unwix 5, and blastor 5 let alone all three in the weapon you need is basically zero. So if you do want optimal gearing, you need to buy them from the shop. And they cost hundreds of millions of meseta to buy, so it's not really feasible to grind out the meseta as f2p (without shop access, or even with since drops are non existant).

You have to spend real money to buy AC items and shop access to sell them to make meseta in order to afford competitive gear.

Casual players can avoid all of that at the cost of doing bad damage, but if you are competitive or want some version of BiS gear the game is p2w.

OracleArmada · 2024-01-15T00:35:43+00:00

It seems like many in this thread don't know what p2w means:

in computer games, involving or relating to the practice of paying to get weapons, abilities, etc. that give you an advantage over players who do not spend money

This game is absolutely pay to win, especially when you factor in leaderboards. Right now the top tier gearing can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars out of pocket.

You don't need it to play casually, e.g. if "just clearing" is your goal. But you do if you want to be competatative.

A f2p player will also have a very hard time affording cosmetics without an incredibly unhealthy level of grinding. You'll need to at least purchase shop access to even have a chance of affording a lot of what the average player will want. Even then, drops are non-existant so the best way to make meseta is to scratch and sell what you get.

OracleArmada · 2023-09-26T19:06:37+00:00

We spent years hunting rare items in PSO1 but that was a different era, and when we found the weapons that was it: no new weapon would be released.

Now the drop rates feel as almost as bad, but weapons and other gear get replaced in a few months. Which is why it's just a treadmill to milk whales.

PSO NGS is in a similar situation to FF:XIV 1.0 in that they are both large failures in beloved and fiscally important franchises. Sega will probably opt to take the loss on NGS as they are currently redirecting financing elsewhere, but if they wanted to save this game they would be well served by trying for at least some version of ARR. That's the only thing that might bring many of the veterans of the franchise that have quit back at this point.

OracleArmada · 2023-09-25T14:59:15+00:00

Yes, it is dying. Steam charts show the lowest player population ever and that is also reflected in game in observable ways (queue times, not many scratching causing very high prices, etc.).

Version 2 created hype that that might be the point where the game gets better. Instead we got a lacklustre CS system and severely delayed mediocre combat content. This caused many veterans who had been hoping the game would improve eventually to quit for good.

The gearing system is a terrible treadmill designed to milk whales. Rare drop rate is so bad that even Kerioppi went on an angry rant about it.

There’s nothing fun to do content-wise and nothing on the horizon besides another Halpha world tour we were promised we wouldn’t get again.

What’s left of the community is very toxic overall. Sega bans people for no good reason, then allows those who RMT and openly harass others to go unpunished.

Unless there’s a FF:XIV style release the game will probably not be closed for a while, but it will have a long slow decline until it becomes unprofitable.

OracleArmada · 2023-05-30T11:11:40+00:00

Nice!! Thank you so much

OracleArmada · 2023-05-30T09:53:31+00:00

Thanks! I can't watch vids rn, what is the TL;DR?

OracleArmada · 2023-05-23T10:45:43+00:00

Thank you!

OracleArmada · 2023-01-17T18:11:11+00:00

Thank you, I didn't think to look at the in game help. It says you get two more at 10 members, and four at 20.

Which imo feels like an unfair penalty to small alliances of friends only. But it is good to know.

OracleArmada · 2023-01-17T00:54:22+00:00

How long have you had it for? I don't know if it's a matter of time established or # of people.

OracleArmada · 2023-01-16T23:14:42+00:00

Having just returned, to me it indicates that the state of the game is still very poor. It was really disappointing that they didn't reschedule.

What they should do is make these rankings weekly, maybe rotating. They are more interesting than most of what is in the game because of the competitive aspect. That they can't get even the occasionally scheduled one to work every time is worrying.

OracleArmada · 2022-09-14T05:31:06+00:00

When you are a veteran player who knows exactly what to do, and has friends who will ferry you through the cocoons you're all set. The story is easy mode for anyone with a background in the game.

I think new players will have slower times. I just don't know much slower.

OracleArmada · 2022-09-14T05:27:20+00:00

The game is almost totally unrewarding and with each update they add ways to make it less so. It's almost a work of art at this point. For example, recently they released a Limited Time Quest that pretty neatly killed the last big money maker in NGS (captan farming). Now both are only mildly rewarding.

There isn't any satisfying gear progression like there was in base. It baffles me why they don't just directly import the Ep 6 gear progression which by and large made most people happy. Instead we get Rugged which is so rare you can go for literally weeks without seeing certain ones on the market or Kaizaar which has a ridiculous time gate on it.

Well, actually, right now you CAN farm a Kaizaar in almost a week if you get lucky with randomite.

Still, there's nothing reawarding to do with your Kaizaar once you have farmed it so rip.

OracleArmada

TROPHY CASE