like is there a time where the game's difficulty weeds out the less skilled/geared and only the players that apply themselves a bit more get the good stuff? for instance in theme park MMORPGS u have raids and heroic mode etc that require more then complacency
It goes from "pfft this is easy" to "....wait... how did I die" pretty quickly.
Part of the reason the transition can feel rough is because western gaming culture loves to get to the "end game" very quickly, but if you don't take the time to get properly in between, ya gonna die.
Ya gonna die bad.
I will say that once Episode 5 comes out, there's a solo boss that comes out at the end that absolutely wipes the floor with you with how difficult it is until you memorize all of its' attack patterns- heck, even at the end of Episode 4 there's a solo boss like that too but power creep did make the boss a bit easier over time! There are also eventually going to be solo triggers for 2 different EQs that can be quite challenging depending on how well you're geared! Oh man... and then there's Anga and the other Ultimate field bosses, I don't know when Anga will be available to fight but that one's going to throw people for a loop!
There are also a couple of extreme quests that came out over time that are also solo content, except one can be done with a group of 4, that are more difficult than your average quests and involve doing very specific things within a stage of a quest (such as don't take damage, defeat the enemy that has a status effect under a time limit, break so many enemy parts before all the enemies are dead, etc) to succeed at that particular stage that were used as requirements to unlock expert mode due to their difficulty (at the time that they were used for that requirement)
There are a couple of quests that can be challenging indeed, off the top of my head I can name a couple. (These are the PSO2JP names of the quests, no idea how they are going to be named in PSO2NA yet.)
Area Survey: Remnants of the Other Worlds, Is a ladder type quest where your goal is to reach floor 999 and defeat its boss. You start at floor 1 and you work your way up to floor 999. Each floor only consist of just 1 enemy, a boss type. And it's the same boss for each floor, once you kill it you move up a floor. (The boss gets stronger a bit with each floor.) Now in general it's not difficult to work your way up to floor 999. It's just rather boring and time consuming. (It takes around 5-6 minutes to clear a floor, that times 999 floors ≈ 80-100 hours of grinding.) The only thing which makes this quest difficult is the boss on floor 999. Basically still being the same boss from floor 1 to 998, (aside from some changes I don't wanna spoil.) the boss is extremely powerful on floor 999, each hit is more or less one hit kill. There are some cheesing strategies to take him down but other than that, expect a difficult fight. (Not to forget, the use of Scape- and Halfdolls is forbidden.)
Solo T: Profound Darkness (Endless Darkness), Is a Solo Urgent Quest Trigger. On the highest difficulty (Ultra Hard) it can be a bit challenging for certain classes. There are several titles you can earn by completing it with each class even though you can earn them on a lower difficulty as well. (Extra Hard) Which I managed to do. But for the fun of it I am also trying to clear it with a S-Rank on Ultra Hard with each class, I am 2 classes shy of it. Now you won't get any special reward for doing it but I made it my personal challenge. You also get a single title for S-ranking it once.
Solo T: Earth Destroyers (Destroyers of Light), Also a Solo Urgent Quest Trigger. Not as challenging as Profound Darkness Solo trigger on either of the difficulties. But I can imagine some people might find it difficult to S-Rank it on Ultra Hard.
Endless: Eternal Rondo (And Endless: Memories Beyond), Now depending on what you're trying to achieve in these Endless Quests. It can be the most difficult thing to do as of right now in PSO2. The quests themselves aren't particularly difficult but there is a title you can get for gathering 140 million points during a single run, which is rather challenging to achieve. My Highscore sits at 69 million so far. (Have yet to do a run since the 95 level cap though.) I don't really attend to these quests often cause they're just not my cup of tea and arranging a party can be difficult cause you need some extremely skilled players to get a good score. (Well you could try a solo run as well.) Unless you cheese your way with a party full of Gunner/Fighter class, but meh that's no fun at all.
I might have forgotten some other quests people might find difficult.
im happy to hear that it will be challenging, i didnt play alot of the JP version, infact when i did... it was really early in the game's release where alot of the jobs werent even released yet but it felt alot more challenging then the CBT (not that im complaining, i still had a blast) i recall in my other thread Erinxh mentioning that they nerfed alot of content for the sake of making the game easier
im more of a vet toward the original PSO (DC/GC/PSOBB/even XBOX) and PSU on Xbox, they were all very much challenging from start to finish in their own ways
@John-Paul-RAGE said in Does the game get challenging content-wise?:
It goes from "pfft this is easy" to "....wait... how did I die" pretty quickly.
Part of the reason the transition can feel rough is because western gaming culture loves to get to the "end game" very quickly, but if you don't take the time to get properly in between, ya gonna die.
Ya gonna die bad.
glad to hear it, while i have played alot of mmorpgs from the west aswell, i am proud to not categorize myself in the group that prefers the quick rush to endgame, infact my favorite experience is "Classic" Final Fantasy XI where the grind to level cap was a very long and drawn out group centric experience.
I cant wait to die alot xD i prefer learning from my mistakes then being complacent.
@Claude said in Does the game get challenging content-wise?:
im happy to hear that it will be challenging, i didnt play alot of the JP version, infact when i did... it was really early in the game's release where alot of the jobs werent even released yet but it felt alot more challenging then the CBT (not that im complaining, i still had a blast) i recall in my other thread Erinxh mentioning that they nerfed alot of content for the sake of making the game easier
im more of a vet toward the original PSO (DC/GC/PSOBB/even XBOX) and PSU on Xbox, they were all very much challenging from start to finish in their own ways
It's mostly because we as players got powercreeped quite a lot over the years due all kinds of updates (yes, we also have been nerfed from time to time, but the powercreep update thereafter always tends to 'outdo' the nerfs. In most cases.) and old content not scaling with us, making like 85% (maybe even more) of the game's content quite a breeze. Most of the time it's the newly released content that manages to keep us challenged, for a couple weeks until we get powercreeped again and the cycle repeats.
We do have to see what Sega has planned for us after we're getting the level 100 cap. I've heard that they haven't planned/coded anything further than that yet. We'll see. (Maybe this cycle ends, maybe not. Who knows.)
@coldreactive said in Does the game get challenging content-wise?:
Try being a force main.
As someones who is new to the game and a lover of tech users.. this makes me nervous I will be forced into a melee class to clear content >.<
@John-Paul-RAGE said in Does the game get challenging content-wise?:
It goes from "pfft this is easy" to "....wait... how did I die" pretty quickly.
Part of the reason the transition can feel rough is because western gaming culture loves to get to the "end game" very quickly, but if you don't take the time to get properly in between, ya gonna die.
Ya gonna die bad.
The main reason for the rough transition is because all classes were buffed alot throughout the years while the lower level content was barely changed. There was a buff to enemies HP in the lower level content, but it wasn't nearly enough.
The first signs of increased difficulty come in quests with lvl 61+ enemies, which get a boost to movement speed, but the real jumps come after lvl 75, where enemies get faster patterns/less delay between attacks and huge buffs in HP.
they've been settling on putting the difficulty in single-party / 4 player or solo content, most 12 and a decent chunk of 8 player content seems to be adjusted to for a wave of rowdy ARKS to stampede through a map these days.
basically, they don't want challenging content to block direct player progression; but the challenging content that is there is more for either bragging rights, or for a slow grind to farm up materials to fine-tune your existing gear and push them above and beyond what's expected of an ARKS
