Seriously. After decades of playing MMOs:

• Why are there separate options to equip weapons, equip armor, and look at my inventory?

• Why do "client orders" come from the Daily Quest girl, plus others?

• Why do "client orders" automatically deposit your rewards, while the ones you get from Rebecca require you to go to ... you know what, I forgot again. Let me go through a hundred menus to figure it out.

• Why is it so hard to group with friends? Spent half and hour + googling to figure this out to join my spouse who is sitting 5 feet from me.

• Why, after hours, do I still not know how to drop a mission? Quest? Client order? What the hell is the difference? Spouse and I ended up logging out to reset everything.

• Why do I have to claim title awards from a special NPC?

• Why does the game not tell me I have to visit a particular NPC to access my skill tree?

• Why do I have to go to multiple consoles to either accept rewards and access my storage? And that one menu option I forget to access mission rewards.

• Why is it so hard to see a list of missions and client rewards I have? Why do I have to go two separate places when they serve the same function?

• Why the need for a bajillion different currencies? Cubes, SG, whatever the cash shop currency is, Photon whatsits, Rare Weapon Tokens ... couldn't this all be consolidated for sanity?

• Why do things tell you "Can be traded for many items" but not give you a clue as to where to trade them?

• Why does the party leader accept the quests for Rebecca, but party members each have to pick up their own client orders?

... Just a few samples of someone new to the game having the gameplay itself be tainted by a madcap implementation of information and menus. I even had to google how to buy a sub, and even then, per your own manual, still had to mess around ingame with my personal quarters to even get the option to buy a "Premium Set" (which does not imply subscription to me based on terminology, but whatever).

Do you not want money?

Does this setup, unless you've messed with it for hours and Forrest Gumped your way through the menus make sense?

I think not.

After a day or so all this becomes second nature.

You think it's rough for you I learned all this stuff playing on PS4 version in 2016 which is 100% Japanese text.

You'll learn the menus if you keep at it. Or not and quit choice is yours

Seldom seen

Someone's played Final Fantasy XI, EverQuest and Mabinogi. (Seldom = you've seen it at least once before.)

First of all,we are talking about an MMO released in 2012.

-Many MMORPGs have separate tabs for weapons and armors,so that's just a you issue.

-Client orders are from different NPCs because they each have their own personality(even if many are limited) and all have their uses and fields of specialty. Honestly it gives the world life in my opinion.

-I am not sure what you mean about this one since all client orders require you to report back to the actual NPCs.

-That is definitely a you issue sir. It took me 2 minutes to figure it out.

-Once again,a you issue. To drop a mission,you just go to the client order menu and select abandon,for any quests that you are physically doing like Sub Quests or Expeditions etc,you have portable teleporters and map teleporters allowing you to return to the Gateway ship,from where you can abandon the quests.

-That is usually how it goes though??? In Final Fantasy XIV that is litterally how it works and that is a more recent game than PSO2.

-That one I am not sure what to reply,I mean they are always close to each other anyway so it isn't a big issue IMO.

-Because missions(I assume you mean quests) and Client Orders are two different things.

-Its a free to play with microtransactions. I don't know what else you expected.

-That is litterally how most games function lol,you gotta work a little bit to reap the rewards. No need to hold the player's hands for everything.

-Because those are personal quests you chose to accept or not.

It sounds to me like you may be just not too used to MMORPGs as a whole,you'll get used to it. This is why MMORPGs aren't easy for newcomers.

@Morgothryuzaki said in Seldom seen a more un-user friendly experience.:

First of all,we are talking about an MMO released in 2012.

Yep, and at least a month before Guild Wars 2. Meaning PSO2 actually had a "Dynamic Event" system before GW2 did, which advertised heavily on the notion of dynamic events.

@coldreactive Precisely. Its a product of its time,and frankly I do enjoy the old school side of this. It feels like a time travel back to the old age of MMORPGs,I love it.

@Morgothryuzaki said in Seldom seen a more un-user friendly experience.:

First of all,we are talking about an MMO released in 2012.

-Many MMORPGs have separate tabs for weapons and armors,so that's just a you issue.

-Client orders are from different NPCs because they each have their own personality(even if many are limited) and all have their uses and fields of specialty. Honestly it gives the world life in my opinion.

-I am not sure what you mean about this one since all client orders require you to report back to the actual NPCs.

-That is definitely a you issue sir. It took me 2 minutes to figure it out.

-Once again,a you issue. To drop a mission,you just go to the client order menu and select abandon,for any quests that you are physically doing like Sub Quests or Expeditions etc,you have portable teleporters and map teleporters allowing you to return to the Gateway ship,from where you can abandon the quests.

-That is usually how it goes though??? In Final Fantasy XIV that is litterally how it works and that is a more recent game than PSO2.

-That one I am not sure what to reply,I mean they are always close to each other anyway so it isn't a big issue IMO.

-Because missions(I assume you mean quests) and Client Orders are two different things.

-Its a free to play with microtransactions. I don't know what else you expected.

-That is litterally how most games function lol,you gotta work a little bit to reap the rewards. No need to hold the player's hands for everything.

-Because those are personal quests you chose to accept or not.

> It sounds to me like you may be just not too used to MMORPGs as a whole,you'll get used to it. This is why MMORPGs aren't easy for newcomers.

As I said before, I've played several MMOs for well over a decade.

None of this makes it intuitive design. You're mentioning menus that are put together willy nilly -- you have to know where they are, buried under other unintuitively-translated menus -- and what they contain, before you know where to go.

There are simple functionalities I have come to expect.

• I should be able to go to my friends list and via click or right-click, easily invite them to a party.

• I should be able to open my inventory, see a paperdoll that shows what I have equipped, and see what else I have in my inventory at the same time without extra clicking to equip or unequip.

• I should be able to pull up all quest-type info -- be it "client orders" or "missions" or whatever unnecessary breakdown PSO2 implements -- in one menu, and drop quests with a click/right-click.

• I should be able to access my class skills via a hotkey -- or at least be told where the hell to go to access them, since I have to visit an NPC.

• I should get "client order" and "mission" and "title" quest rewards automatically, because ultimately they serve the same purpose and there's no reason to split them up like that for user experience. I see absolutely no reason why missions and client orders are split up. How are they different? Go to X place (which half the time you have to google the "eliminate X" or however kill all the things is worded, because it doesn't tell you where they spawn if you don't already know) different from Kill X and loot it, or Go to X place and harvest the things? Seriously, tell me how.

All of what you're mentioning is, again, reliant on already knowing the arcane menu structure. I could go line by line again, but I've made my point. Blindly defending poor design and lack of user-friendly menus is not constructive. You can like the game overall, but there are things that could be FAR better.

I never had to google had to join a friend's party in any other game. Etc.

'blindly defending'.

Or maybe I do not find an actual issue with the personal issues you're having? Once again this was made in 2012,we are playing the same game that Japan has,just behind them in term of content. That's it. So they would have to close the game entirely to rework it all.

Also keep in mind that just because you have personal issues,doesn't make it a FACT. You had to google how to join a friend's party? I really fail to see how personally. It took me 2 minutes to go into friend list and select invite. It doesn't exactly take a college degree to see the Block message on the right side of the screen and put 1 and 1 together.

Also,I am all for pointing out a game's flaws. However,this is a product made and designed in 2012. It still runs like it did in 2012 and as such I will judge it as a 2012 product. Its really not as bad as you make it out to be. I had no issues at all going through any menus,I find no issues whatsoever in putting in the work either.

What does time it came out have to do with sensible menus and intuitive design?

Sounds totally like a YOU problem, mate.

Good practice conventions are considered good practice for a reason. The fact someone defending the system used the phrase "putting in the work" to understand basic conventions says more than I ever could.

Menus and basic systems aren't meant to be "work." Sure, you can overlook them if the rest seems worth it, but they are not what they should be if they have to be "work."

@Rusey21 said in Seldom seen a more un-user friendly experience.:

Good practice conventions are considered good practice for a reason. The fact someone defending the system used the phrase "putting in the work" to understand basic conventions says more than I ever could.

Menus and basic systems aren't meant to be "work." Sure, you can overlook them if the rest seems worth it, but they are not what they should be if they have to be "work."

Menus are fine, I haven't met a single issue with them. Actually, they're very practical and helpful.

As I said, it's a YOU problem.

Go back to fornite?

Age of Conan. Guild Wars. Guild Wars 2. ESO. SWTOR.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some. I've never played "fornight" or Fortnite either.

Resorting to disparaging personal attacks is neither constructive, nor mature. Taking constructive criticism as a personal affront isn't, either. I'm happy you found them easy to navigate. Neither I nor my MMO crew did, at all, based on what we played before. I'm trying to point out specifics that I found particularly unhelpful and time-wastey. There's a lot to like about this game in terms of its understandably dated graphics, its character creation, its social systems in the sense of "just random fun" and the rules of cool factor for flashy combat.

But lord have mercy, just let me play with my friends in a party via right-click, and make my inventory work like every other western MMO at least (since it's now ported for this audience).

That's all I'm saying.

What does it have to do? Because you are putting modern expectations on an product designed in an entirely different time for the genre. I am sorry mate,but you need to drop it. We explained why it is the way it is,you cannot expect something to be entirely remade just because YOU don't like it.