every couple of years i will play the schthack server, and the game is still fucking great. why no HD remake??
>>336177898
...
>>336177898
Because Sega of Japan is fully content Milking pso2 to care, and even if they were to release it with the west in mind mostly that would only make there hole even deeper than it already is here now because of how they still haven't gotten back to us about localizing. Fuck I'm tired /Pso2g/ let's have a thread here.
>>336177898
>Schthack server
Anon... I have some bad news...
>>336181327
What happened ?
>>336181407
Server crashed and burned a few months back. I think they brought the ships back online but everyone has to start from scratch.
I play on Ephinea now.
>>336177898
Game's fucking terrible, only great because you share pain with others but that's it, you are wearing thick nostalgia goggles. Now let's wait for butthurt posters to come here and post about their new private server.
>>336177898
How are the servers for this game even running if the game is so old?
I wish the west could get more phantasy star in general. it baffles the fuck outta me how they keep fucking up a good idea
>>336182759
This
Works great
>>336181714
Ah, that'd explain why I couldn't log in when I thought I'd come back the other week. Oh well. Rip my level 110 with the orange Sato mag and Black King Bar..
>>336180850
I actually (re)tried the JP version recently with the tweakers most recent english patches.
It still suffers from the problems that plagued it when I played it early on.
>fighting feels cheesey
Supposedly the game gets harder later on but I'm used to PSO where you couldn't fuck around. You actually had tense encounters until you leveled up a little. When you did level up it was satisfying because you could see significant change over time.
In PSO2 I don't feel an intimate connection with my weapons like I did in PSO. I'm level 25 now and I don't feel any more or less powerful than when I started playing. I'm an ambiguous level of badass where I run around and kill things. You could argue it was to appeal to more casual players but I just feel an absence of challenge.
>Populated by weaboo permavirgins
I'll go ahead and say I'm a gigantic faggot. I like weaboo shit and I understand the aesthetic PSO2 is going for and I understand the kind of people this aesthetic attracts. I shit talk the community a lot because they are shit. At the same time it's a case of "it takes one to know one" so I know what kind of degenerate shit this game's demographic is.
If there's any criticism of the game, Sega, the translation, or the community around it, it really ticks these peoples' autism and you'll be shouted down as the heretic you are. It's not their fault of course. They are deep off the weeb end.
con't
>>336177898
>schthack
>Not the superior sylverant server by bluecrab
You may as well support actual developers and not fucking jews.
>>336184306
>it's all about the gameplay
A good chunk of the game is translated but if you don't dabble in moon runes you're going to hit chunks of the game that will remain unexplained unless you read story guides and such. I guess I'm a lazy nigger but the presentation is jaunting and it keeps me from fully enjoying the experience. I can play the game well enough and kill things but as previously mentioned the gameplay doesn't compel me to play...and neither does the community.
Contrary to what some might argue, it does take a degree of dedication to really get something out of this game. That's not a bad thing but it will definitely alienate newcomers. The community prefers it that way.
As someone who did enjoy PSO quite a bit, I will say this game captures some of what made PSO great. I think it would have been better if it was buy to play with a few extra character slots and inventory space...although I think now they've given some of that extra stuff out over to the free version.
I don't think I'll go back to PSO since I've dumped an egregious amount of time into that game as it is. I'd probably play PSP2 over an evolve network before I really dedicate time to PSO or PSO2 again.
>>336183382
Fans of the game run their own servers.
Take for instance Ultima Server
http://phantasystaronline.net/events.php
You download the game from their site and it's ready to connect. The launcher and in-game lobbies display their custom banners/news feed/blog/special events/holiday events and stuff.
>>336183382
Fags set-up their own servers. Recreated sega servers or private construction.
There's a handful of them with varying recreation.
Ephinea is the only good server out there.
Schthack is full of hackers.
Ultima indirectly forces you to purchase gears with real money since they modified enemy stays in Ultimate WAAAY higher.
Ephinea keeps items and enemies orginal with lots of slice of life features that are optional for that who want a pure classic experience.
>>336184379
Legitimately curious here. What makes this server better than Schthack? I lost my lv. 178 character so I'm not exactly married to Schthack anymore.
>>336185545
First is that Sylverant is operated and created by one guy, BlueCrab. He's not after money, only takes meme coins as donations and offers no incentives, and makes continual improvements beyond running the server in the year 2016.
The server supports pretty much every version of PSO, from all the Japanese releases, to US Version 2 (It's probably the only private server that does), PSO I+II on GC, and Blue Burst on PC. It also has experimental support for letting GC players play with Dreamcast players.
If you've got a dreamcast or gamecube with BB adapter, give it a shot.
>>336185482
>slice of life features
I think you mean quality of life features
>>336184306
>>336184604
You won't feel that intimacy or need to care about you gear until you reach very hard and that's were the real problem comes onto play. The more you play the more the game gets harder to appreciate cool things like the setting and story and not see as just a theme park attraction pretty much because the need to use real money starts nag at you to appoint you either cave in, keep going with out paying, or give up all together. And like you said with the community they are terrible because majority literally think they japs themselves to large extreme.
>>336187641
If you want to support the game you have a few options. The Guy who runs the tweaker has a way to pay for premium credits through his utility (as I understand). A portion of your purchase goes to him which I think is fine since he did make the tweaker that you the player are using to actually have a semi- decent grasp on what's happening in the game.
The other way involves...I'll be honest but I don't know if it in depth. Basically you pay a third party provider and they devi out the credits to you and take a cut themselves. Either way you're not getting a direct connection to company.
At any point either of the above mentioned entities could say "uuhh fuck off. we're done" and hopefully they don't commit fraud. Again this is on the far end of this scale but it's still possible. I guess the word I'm looking for is "accountability".
I also like the word "accessibility" and I use that more for the game itself but it also applies to customer service.
If you have a technical problem with the game or have to report an error that affects just you, you better hope someone on the internet has had the same problem before or you're fucked. Supposedly Sega customer support has helped some english speakers but I've not seen any proof.
The other end of it is...I don't want to support Sega. If they don't want to release their game in the states they're telling me as a consumer that they don't want my money. I won't give it to them then.
God damn, I would dig out my old Gamecube and PSO Ep1&2 disc and play it offline, off and on, throughout the years.
>>336184306
To elaborate one your points:
For combat, I think the main issue is that everything moves too much and too fast. In the original PSO, your movement speed was restricted, your attacks had long animations, and the rooms were much smaller. In PSO2, combat is more twitch-based and the maps are huge, favoring classes travel quickly and/or have long range.
Photon Arts helps put everyone on a similar gameplay level, and diversifies your moveset somewhat, but the balance is questionable.
For environment, the randomized maps of PSO2 don't add any variety. The grid-cell system doesn't have as many room types as PSO1 did, resulting in lots of repetition. There's no dungeon elements to PSO2's maps to make each room feel like its own challenge, and there are no real set pieces to let you identify where you are (rainbow waterfall, anyone?)
I get the feeling the Summoner class was specifically designed to nickel and dime you for RMT boosts.
For story, PSO1 actually seemed to have it well-integrated via the message-pods, plus it had its own subplots playing out in the quests. What made it good was that they were ALL AVAILABLE MULTIPLAYER. Having to solo the entire campaign in PSO2 is a fucking slog of "please look at all these anime waifus and husbandos doing cool shit without you". Literally so in Ep4.
I love the original setting, I think that sci-fi in general rarely gets a fair shake. It's what drew me to PSO in the first place. But the game around it is so frustratingly obtuse.
>>336180850
How is pso2?
No more regional lock yet?
By the time it came out I was distracted with many other games....
>>336189026
Pretty much this even if you play it with patches and translation, you feel welcomed to play it as a foreigner
>>336190730
PSO2 is regional locked from SEA only, since they have a separate instance of PSO2 being operated there.
Nominally, the terms of service say you shouldn't be playing from the Americas, but they largely turn a blind eye toward it. It's actually pretty welcoming if you're civil.
Is PSO2's combat still not quite what it should feel like?
The fact that you're restricted to 2 sets of 1-2-3 combos is pretty silly when there are so many different weapon skills that you can use. It really put me off.
>>336190973
SEA = Asia?
Why would they have a special version?
Is pso2 doing well? Lotta players?
>>336191280
You can have up to six weapon palettes. Good luck swapping between them on the fly, though.
But yeah, that was a big mistake on their end, and it makes certain optimal sets more valuable than other possible combinations (if you're not just spamming your one godskill anyways)
>>336191573
Thanks, I haven't been keeping myself updated.
When PSO2 was announced I was excited up to the point I realized that combat was like this. It's got so much potential and it wouldn't take SEGA much to realize it, so I've always hoped that one day they'd just do it.
Looks like they haven't.
>>336191328
I'm guessing laws about money and internet business and stuff. Also the SEA market apparently operates with a different mindset such that their English(!) localization of PSO2 renamed all the classes to super generic titles like FOrce -> Wizard.
>>336191893
That's not SEA, that's just their publisher being retarded. SEGA is pretty third-rate at doing this kind of thing.
>>336191810
Look at any recent Sega product and you can tell that no one in their dev teams is any good at making games.
>>336190350
>I get the feeling the Summoner class was specifically designed to nickel and dime you for RMT boosts.
Summoner is annoying in general. Only good pets are Torim and Malon and you're fucked if you don't have good backup during a long EQ like Mining Base or PD
>>336177898
I wish Sega made good upgraded ports of their classic Dreamcast games instead of giving it to the China team
Played one of the servers and it seemed like there was little to do except grind quests until you were levelled and geared enough to clear them.
Infinity is infinitely superior, and so was PSO2 until Episode 4 ruined everything.
>>336190730
The IP ban seems to be lifted, but episode is really tearing every pso2 wad built upon, it's all up to Yamato to save the game
>>336192761
Infinity was good. PSO2 was too much like PSU in my opinion. Most weapon and armor upgrades were linear stat increases.
Special weapon effects are part of what made PSO so interesting. There were a lot of useful weapons worth farming for.
>>336192920
>it's all up to Yamato to save the game
I don't think that's going to happen. If anything it will just be a grind for collect file weapons that are around Austere level.
But there's always hope, maybe once they conclude the Phantom stuff they'll reveal it was all a big joke and go back to good stuff
As someone who maxed out characters in both PSO, PSO:BB, and PSO2 (Well, maxed out from when I last played it about 2 years ago anyway), I can say that I think PSO1 was a better game.
PSO2 suffers from the same pitfalls that made me hate PSU and PSP/PSP2. That being, I never really feel progression. Going from a tier 1 to a tier 2 weapon in PSO felt like a major upgrade. Each weapon felt unique. Just about every weapon has a similar set of arts to use in the other games.
That said, PSO1 suffered heavily from glaring balance issues. Namely that Forces become completely useless in Ultimate and certain techs and weapons are just beyond pointless to use.
Grants - Why would I use this when Foie typically often does the same damage and casts twice as fast at a fraction of the TP cost.
Swords - Partisans have more reach and swing faster.
Shots - With the exception of the Spread Needle, these fired too slow, did too little damage, and had too little accuracy.
Daggers - The only ones I'd ever see was that one that casts shifta/deband, and people would switch to a real weapon after applying the buff.
At this point I don't even want a localization of PSO2, because you know damn well they'll release it with vanilla content and gate the releases, so that the US server will always be 3-4 years behind the JP server. The only way it would work is if they released it fully caught up in content with JP servers.
>>336193097
>If anything it will just be a grind for collect file weapons that are around Austere level.
The Yamato 13 stars doesn't seem as consistent compared to other 13's because it's reliant on kills during a quest like how Ideal is more reliant on bosses. Hopefully it has a duo potential and that the Seiga and AIS 13's have better potentials.
>>336193390
>At this point I don't even want a localization of PSO2,
Never understood why people whine about it so much, you've literally been able to play it in English on a mostly English server for years.
>>336193390
Support Forces were still extremely good in Ultimate, but you were relegated to buff/debuff/heal duty.
Offensive spells fell off extremely hard around VH though.
>>336193871
It's because of the way physical and magical damage were handled and how they scaled it. Physical defense was linear, where magic resist was percentage.
As an example, it'd be like this:
Hunter hits for 100 damage.
Force hits for 100 damage.
Mob has 80 defense and 25% resist.
Hunter hits for 20 damage.
Force hits for 75 damage.
Both players level up a bunch and fight the same mob.
Now hunter does 1000 damage.
Force does 1000 damage.
Mob takes 920 damage from the Hunter.
Mob takes 750 damage from the Force.
The result is that when you first get into a new tier, like going from Normal to Hard or VHard to Ultimate, forces start out doing ok by comparison, since they never hit for zero or miss like a hunter or ranger can, but they rapidly get left behind, because once you clear the defense wall of a mob, every point of attack is an additional point of damage dealt for them, whereas a force will always have every point of tech power reduced by a percentage (which was asininely high in Ultimate).
>>336194705
Why they did this was always a mystery to me. It resulted in my FOnewearl using a pair of mechguns as her main source of damage in VH even in PSOv1.
>>336194851
>Entire web page dedicated to hating mechguns
http://nomadpso.awardspace.com/article_chargevulc.htm
The game's balance was hilariously bad in some aspects.
>>336193590
Because as English players, our means to for playing the games aren't guaranteed and we don't have a say in much matters nor do we have any support for problems like an anon said it's uncertain if Sega bothers helping English speakers with what ever problems they are having. Pretty much people who want localizing, want to be treated as welcomed customers without having jump through so much hoops.
PSO god here, Forces have a place in doing group damage in Ult but the fact that you're playing online kills this because of damage cancel. they're also still able to put up respectable demons on most enemies
i mean really in bb hucast is the end all class and thats it (sd is nice but jz can be harmful thanks to dmc too - generally only useful against certain enemies)
>>336195059
Do you know, I do believe those were the mechguns I used? What a coincidence.
>>336195059
The only aspect that really matters for PSO is that all classes can kill shit quickly.
>>336195059
I remember back on the original Dreamcast version, how people would be highly critical of me using a Charge Assault instead of a Vulcan.
Little known fact: In the original release, due to scaling on base mechgun damage and grinder caps, the tier 2 Assault had higher base damage than a Vulcan. People would argue with me all the time asking why I was dragging down the group using shit weapons, while I was outdamaging all of them.
I'm not sure anything compares to the satisfying feel of knocking an enemy back across the room with heavy mechgun shots. All of the PS games since have failed to make the mechgun feel as fun as it did back then.
Honestly at this point, some developer should attempt to clone the very first PSO in a modern engine, like UE4. The focus should be getting the original "PSO" feeling back, if that makes any sense.
Once that is achieved then slowly enhance the clone to address all the weird and broken things in PSO. Maybe improve the combat a little, and you'd have a pretty solid game right there.
>>336196018
TO KICKSTARTER!
>>336195973
they are missing nearly 10 ATA compared to Vulcans and the chances of finding assaults with a hit bonus is basically zero. against many episode 2 enemies that is a significant issue
>>336197502
Good thing I said it was the original release. Mechguns were adjusted for episode 2.
Accuracy was a non-issue in vanilla VHard.
>>336184306
>fighting feels cheesey
This so much. I didn't know how to describe it but that literally hits the nail on the head. All the fighting in PSO2 seems to boil down to spamming flashy photon art attacks and after awhile it stops feeling like your attacking at all.
Every enemy save for bosses are canonfoder fluff it all starts becoming hollow and boring.
>>336197946
If your playing in groups because melee gets shat on by techs users and summoners, all thanks to ep4
I'm installing Ephinea now. I've got the PSO itch back. Thanks, anons.
Why are mags so awful?
I'm glad those fucking things were removed in PSP1/2.
>>336190730
The japanese version has no IP lock (No region lock).
There is a small team of translators that translate a good part of the game so you can enjoy the game and know the early story and know what the point of every quest is. The team also handles in game purchases for premium items if you don't want to convert your money into yen and navigate a Japanese website.
they unfortunately don't translate everything, included the story, so anything past the tutorial has little context. another problem is one part of the translation (Namely, Items) can make a false positive on the cheat detector. They disable that part of the translation and they let you turn it on at anytime, but It can happen. I have almost 500 hours into the game and have used the item translation the entire time, and never got banned if that's any indicator.
>>336202021
Mags are an interesting implementation of stat allocation, but the inability to swap them out in PSO2 is a major drag. May as well not have them at all.
>>336186505
>tfw no Dreamcast BBA
I really wanna play my Dreamcast online.
>>336180850
I cant stand PSO2 at all. Im just glad theres PSO private servers and someone is making a PSU private server. I still had unfinished business on PSU that I never got to take care of and its going to be great playing it, hunting, grinding, and getting rare missions again
>>336202021
They probably seemed like an interesting piece of equipment with its own quirk to developers. But in reality, they were a noob trap, and you needed a giant spreadsheet that accounted for every evolution so that you wouldn't feed your mag for defense, or for some other stat over your cap.
At least getting a new one was easy. Can't say the same for materials.
When is the new eq coming out?
>>336205625
it was cancelled
>>336205625
Presumably May 18, if they don't hurry things up to make PS4 players think the game is updated often.
>>336195320
>pso god here
>deband is useful
lol
>>336206000
They are called nurses for a reason.
>>336206109
shifta and zalure is all thats needed. having to much defense from deband can get you killed from things that hit a lot. and if someone has a dark flow, then even resta is off the table because theres always some butthurt faggot that cries when he cant use its special.
>>336191573
>You can have up to six weapon palettes. Good luck swapping between them on the fly, though.
You can bind these to the numpad. 1-6 to change your weapon pallettes, 7-8 to change your main palletes.
It would be nice if you could bind then to whatever you want (like the num row), but I have adapted.
Its so funny and easy to spot pso2 babbies who have never played a ps game and cry for it to be english. anyone who actually cares about the series is playing on the jap server and has been for years.
>>336191280
They are fixing the 1-2-3 combo at last, but you will still have 6 weapon palettes, which means instant access to about 55% of the skills Hunter or Fighter has (instead of the previous 10%).
Gunners are ejaculating themselves over this news, though.
>>336207241
This is great news. I'll give it another go once that's live.
>>336207241
>Gunners
HALLELUJAH
>>336207241
I dont play as much, can you break this down even more? I dont get it. Whats wrong with the current system?
>>336203661
You can, though.
>>336208369
For Jew dollars
>>336207883
If you aren't Ranger of Force, you may have noticed that your weapons act in a forced "combo". And over time, you might also notice that while a lot of PAs have good synergy with one another, literally not one of them works in a way that would make you want to repeat them in a three hit cycle. The Chase Banish combo may be one exception, but ironically, it's for a bow.
What it practically means is that each of your weapon palettes has one PA each, since most players just fill the whole combo string with the same attack. And so, even though Hunter has had 18 different PAs since the game started and currently has over 30 (40 if you count Gunslash), you can only use 6 of them without going to the menu and changing your weapon palette. It's very restrictive even if you use a single weapon, and even worse for classes with multiple melee weapons, like Hunter or Fighter, or for classes that require multiclass weapons or utility PAs to even function (Gunner).
>>336207883
Repeating combos. Some folks only use in type of weapon and it's not enough to being only able to use 3 of you many skills, unless your a bouncer who Sega refuses to give more jet boots PAs. But before you couldn't get all flashy with the cool down weapon pallete switching in place, but I think now you can bypass is as long as you combo variations come the exact same weapon so you could do one string then switch to another string on the fly
>>336208520
Eh, considering you don't have to buy the game or pay subscription that's not really a problem. Buying one mag is 300 yen. There's so little worth buying. One maybe two mags, inventory unlocks and that's it. You'll spend less than 50 dollarydoos getting the most out of PSO2 forever (premium poofters are just suckers), that makes it the cheapest Phantasy Star game.
