Phantasy Star Online 2 - New Genesis 2021

[6souls]

https://twitter.com/Sneakyone75/stat...27118032678915

[Cantih]

Keming is important.

[Bombur]

The first CBT for New Genesis in the west will start on May 14th and go on until May 16th 7pm PT.


The beta will only be available through the Windows 10 PC version of the MMO and not Steam or Epic. Those interested can start registering via the Xbox Insider Hub on PC.


https://pso2.com/news/announcements/pso2ngscbtdate

[Scythiroth]

Microsoft Store. Hoping it isn't a repeat of original PSO2 launch here.

[Bombur]

Sega had a live stream last night. Lots of new info. But the best news is New Genesis will be a world wide launch in June 2021.

[Kachiko]

Wait, so the JP version gets both the male and female Aeilo Town options in their starter pack, but for the Global version, you have to pick the male or the female version, pay a bit extra if you chose the female one, and pay double to get both? Da fuck is that?

*edit*
Never mind, I see what they did. NA doesn't have the same Starter Package release option, only JP, and you can get everything in it if you purchase either of the Swimsuite DLC options, which are the same male & female options for both platforms. Still a bit wonkey, but, whatever.

[Takiwaki]

So this launches on the 9th.. too many games that week.

[Bombur]

The voice overs are funny...lol

[Celeras]

Anyone trying this tomorrow? I don't know many people who are interested. I tried the base game when it launched here and enjoyed it for a short while, but it was way too overwhelming with all the bloat tacked on rapid-fire. Fun to actually play, but it was system overload and felt like nothing mattered.

Looking forward to a similar experience "from the beginning" without all that BS.

[RalphTheDwarf]

I played the beta and looking forward to tomorrow. I spent a bit of time before maintenance cleaning out inventory from base pso2 and making sure I have some weapons ready, though not expecting much out of them other than a glorified starting weapon.

[Scythiroth]

I'm giving this a shot at some point, probably not at launch, just busy with other stuff at the moment.

[AoE]

I picked it up and played for a couple of hours. I'm on Ship 2 which is the one that's clogged right now. However, if you're trying to get in and spam it, it won't take long before the servers will let you in. Wanna put more time in but I got other stuff I gotta take care of.

[Bombur]

It's probably best to wait a few days. There are only 4 servers, and they are all jammed to the limit. Also no login que. I noticed that the servers are very laggy at the moment.

[Karbuncle]

I logged in to Server #4 which was "Normal" congestion and played for a bit, seemed fine but I was distracted IRL so I didnt get to play very long. I'm going to give it another shot ASAP though.

[RalphTheDwarf]

The lag boss, the lag. Mildly amused/annoyed at having to do character creation and tutorial on alts just to log them into base game again. I thought it was going to end up being 2 separate clients but they seem more integrated than that. And I hate being punished for not cleaning up my inventory nightmare before the update.

[Celeras]

The lag was definitely bad at times, but everything else seems to be much better in regards to what I commented on earlier. I liked GW2 and it seems like they borrowed alot with their open(ish) world.

Should be fun. But if the lag goes past day 1 craziness I'll probably give it a week or two before trying again.

[Karbuncle]

Playing today I definitely experience some real extreme lag from time to time, talking solid 10-15 seconds of Frozen enemies/Allies then it all catching up.

[AoE]

The movement and combat in this game is phenomenal imo and I really hope they sort out their networking issues soon. I really believe making it open-world was the right move for this series.

[Karbuncle]

For those wondering, it really is PSO2 x Breath Of The Wild/Genshin Impact. The open world is a bit more threatening than Genshin though, as I've seen a few big ass level 15 boss enemies just walking around areas I've visited, and the level cap is 20 right now.

So far, Either I haven't found it yet (I'm level 13) OR I don't think there are ways to find/get/learn new skills like in PSO2 Classic, each weapon has 3 Skills tied to it, and 1 Weapon Ability (varies by weapon, but stuff like Guarding for swords), and... thats it. Most classes unlock a class ability like Ranger unlocking Blight Rounds which cause enemies to take more damage, and a shotgun-blast like ability. Hunter class unlocks a Sentinel like ability that massively reduces the damage they take, plus an AoE Taunt, stuff like that. From what I gather looking at the map, theres a better than good chance if you unlock all your skill points you can probably fully unlock or nearly fully unlock every jobs current Skill board, I know I'm already very close.

On the positive, With Main Job/Sub Job, you get access to about 6 different weapons, and theres something called "Weapon Fusion" in this game where you can combine 2 weapons into 1 weapon for purposes of slot/skills and have to swap pallets a lot less often, plus it allows for some nice chaining combos and potential, really feels nice to beat the shit out of something with a Sword and if it moves back/flies away just start unloading on it with a rifle or rocket launcher instead while closing the gap. So yah, the combat I find to be super fun and really fluid, my only complaint being the Lock-On system is more of a hassle than it should be on tall enemies or enemies that are flying, because the camera doesn't help in the matter, its hard to explain why I hate it but if you ever target a body part on a flying Boss or one of those really tall bosses and then just do Spinnycircles trying to strafe or dodge back, you'll understand what I mean.

Overall, the core of PSO2 is there in the weapon upgrading and such, the level cap, and augmenting, and so forth are all there mostly 1:1 from PSO2 Classic. There are "Farming" zones in the open world, two I've unlocked are a MountSomething and an Abandoned Laboratory, these areas are where you go to farm items and exp, and where PSE Bursts/Climax's can happen, they exist on the open world but the open world has little "barriers" you cross that denote where each zone line is, no loading times or anything, just a visual aid to represent you're crossing into a new section of the map. Daily/Weekly missions for chunks of exp and money still exist too.

As for the Map itself, its beautiful, lots of places to climb and just glide from one end to the other. Dotted across the map are two types of "Shrines" ala BOTW, one called a "Tower", which seem to be always level 15 and award about 4 skill points, and I had a blast duoing them with a friend because well, we were really underleveled and it was challenging but still absolutely Five-star-able. There are also smaller 'Shrines', which vary in level but also usually offer 1 skill point as a reward give or take, and aren't always as challenging as the Towers, and usually are shorter. They aren't just combat Shrines either, so far I've only found two different types but one of them challenged by ability to perfectly time a wall jump and a double jump + Glide to get to one of the orbs you need to collect to five-star/perfect the run.

Overall, its a fun experience, the movement and gliding is enjoyable, the content itself feels more like Genshin Impact in terms of what you're doing in the map, the story isn't really memorable but again, Level 13, they've got a lot of room to grow. I don't think the map is fully unlocked at all, this is a hunch as I'm only level 13, but there are places currently behind Blue barrier/walls on the outskirts of the map I think is currently explorable that denotes future unlockable areas (You can fully see the areas, mind you, its like the Ice mountain in Genshin, it was always there, but you couldnt go to it). Currently places that are off-limits to you but unlocked through Story missions have had Red-barriers denoting you can't pass, so my logic is the Blue ones that seem to circle my current playable area are just 'future content'.

Lastly... Lag/Latency. It was better yesterday than my second day for sure, still got spots of it and when you're in an 8-man farming party in the Exp zones it can be at its worse, but yesterday it felt like the worst lag I had was maybe 1-2 seconds of delay when it came to my damage numbers popping up (enemies kept moving though!) very occasionally? It was definitely better than 10 full seconds of frozen enemies and allies. they've still got work to do until this is acceptable but for most of your general play you'll probably not experience too much lag... YMMV.

[Celeras]

I tried again today and it looks like enough people quit that the lag was much better.

Super fun to play, but I'm a bit disappointed with the content. I commented earlier that the original launch was system overload with all the bloat, this seems to be the opposite. Story stuff is already done and there is literally nothing to do once you're done exploring. Grind everything to level 20? I guess... but you pretty much go 1-10 just from finishing a single UQ (no exaggeration, the EXP reward from one quest takes you to level 10 instantly) and the rest is just PSE spam. I'm kind of bored already and feel like that's a pretty damning thing to say as a former XI player.