Just want to throw this out there:

All the animosity directed at NGS?

I love it, it's beautiful. Keep it up.

KTHXBAI!

@Cult0fpersnality

"This game feels deader than dead. There’s obviously a lack of content and I don’t see august 4th with one new class and defense missions as something that will hold my interest for yet another 2 weeks until we get even more slow drip of content."

Can you really call a class that exists in the main portion of PSO2 new content? It was already there, now it's not.

"It sucks. I want to play it but I can only farm materials and gigantics and the same 2 UQs so much when there isn’t a single relevant item to farm or new areas to explore. I’m really dying for something new here or even a brand new game to peak interest to be that “go to” game but it just isn’t happening right now."

Have you tried modding? As in modding an older game that you enjoyed and turning it into something else? Example, Fallout New Vegas now has drivable, fully functional cars thanks to modders.

@El-Zenchi

"FFXIV - NGS is now pay to play, 12 dollars a month for a single character and access to nothing, or 15 dollars a month to play like a premium does right now. Now going to Salon and changing body tipes costs $10 per change."

Well, FFXIV is now free to Heavensward. That's like... 300 ish hours of free content..?

"World of Warcraft - People now decides what BP you need for content (Which is way higher than what you really need) PLUS! We now sell gear that drops in said content for money. So if you want to play, you better make your own group or pay for that gear so you're allowed to join!"

WoW is dying, and FF14 killed it.

"Black Desert - This is going to be long."

Your forgetting the whole forced into PVP "thing." Oh and fishing. BDO is probably the best fishing mmo I've ever played.

"Genshin Impact"

Not an mmo. Genshin is a single player slot machine game that has optional co-op. MMOs have hundreds of thousands of people playing a game at once, all in/at/around the same areas, doing similar or related tasks.

I get that you're lonely as you try to defend this piece of misery that is NGS, but you could definitely come up with better arguments than this. I'm personally reveling in all the backlash and barren areas in NGS now that it's released, and has only been out for a month. I tried to warn people against the hype train, but then watched my entire alliance get smashed to pieces when it came out because SOOOOO many people were disappointed. It was glorious.

Survival options? Maybe a billboard for player driven/created quests?

Just throwing this out there, but, as soon as NGS is "On par" with pso2 it will be ready to be played. When it expands beyond Luster, it will have "done the job." I personally don't see that happening.

@RainGnyu From what I've played seen and witnessed with NGS, the content in NGS is more open-world, with the emergency codes happening in a larger open area. If you've played games like FF14, then you can relate the majority of the content available in the betas to FATEs. There is also the COCCOONs, which are smaller single player/small party experiences and dungeon like with environmental, non-linear traversal, and traditional enemy threats.

@coffy102-0 said in When can global expect expert matching?:

I'm sick of failing this new UQ b/c people don't know what to do or they are trying to level new classes in UH and failing the emergency trials left and right.

I know its a casual game but its not fun when your failing parts of the UQ and end up getting a C rank at the end. I would gladly offer my assistance to anyone who wants it.

We can we expect expert player matching? we have the solo trigger and the extreme quest

Your first and third sentences are contradictions of one another.

Don't expect expert match making, people still can't beat Phaleg in global.

One last tip:

If you should find yourself in the position to spend real money on the game, don't spend it on fashion, or scratch tickets. Fashion is a good way to make large amounts of money quickly, but it is not sustainable. If you are to spend money, spend it on premium, or characters . Premium gives you access to all the premium things, and characters give you.. well... a whole new character. This includes their inventory, their own private storage and their access to daily and weekly quests.

@contactammerman said in Anyone else feel like you're just falling in the right direction?:

I'm pretty far into this game (Lvl 97 Hero), and I don't feel like I'm anywhere close to having a strong grasp on goals I should have, crafting, augmenting, like 80% of the sub quests and much more. I feel like I'm not getting even half of the experience of the game I should have. I feel like I'm just tripping kinda in the right direction with little guidance on how or what I'm doing. The content in this game is really overwhelming. Is there any resource that if dumbed down but not "for beginners"? Youtube content seems to be for square one or the well versed... I need something like, you've played this game a bunch and are just dumb, let me help you understand where to go.

This is going to be... very, very long but I hope it helps.

All games, heck, all things can feel like this over time. I'm going to give an abridged idea of things you'll need for end game weapons and units. Note interlaced with this there will also be menu commands and quick locations for things. If you don't already know these things, please read. In a very very short time here, every weapon and unit is going to be outclassed by the release of two weapon series (one which is used to make the other) and the first one is incredibly easy to make:

Ayer Weapon of your choice you will need 100 of either Plamnia Plamdest or Plamgrimo

You get these from desynthesizing/dismantling (this is done in your personal quarters on a crafting console if you possess one, or at your personal quarters menu under crafting to the right of the door as you come in> DIY Crafting >Item Dismantling)14-15 star drops that you find pretty much anywhere. Alternatively, if you have access to the personal shop, you can buy them there in the quantities that you will need

Next you will need 50 Emerards Much the same as with getting Plam stuff, you'll need to dismantle weapons for this as well. Specifically 13-14 star weapons. Also as above, you can buy these off the player shop.

Next you'll need 20 (primordial) Darkstone Diemos. You can only acquire these on the mission pass currently as the UQ that they come from is unavailable.

The next component for the weapon is the luminfragment Emel (Luminmech Emer Fragment). You'll need about 200 of these if you don't already have them from last month's mission pass. You can acquire these in the Divide quest (quest counter > Sub Quests > Divide Quest), and they can be run solo. Note this will be a challenge.

The last two things you'll need are 200 excubes and 30 ultimate boosters Excubes are gained by trading in 10-12 star weapons to the swap shop (start button/esc shopping cart> Swap shop). the 30 ultimate boosters, provided that you're doing Divide quests, you can turn in the divide medals that you earn at "Medal Barterer Anatoliya" (shopping plaza on the second floor, opposite side of the horseshoe from the salon). Additionally, here you can also trade in your divide medals for luminfragment emel.

Now, you might be asking "Why is any of this important?"

All these ingredients make an Ayer Series Weapon.

You might be asking now, "What's an Ayer Series Weapon?"

My response to you is, Here, look it up yourself: https://pso2.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Main_Page

Joking aside, my answer is: It's the weapon you'll need to trade in to Zieg to make your final weapon: Lightweaver Cras. The Ayer is also the 3rd best weapon in JP, stat wise

Here are several links that will assist you in determining gear, specing your skill tree, and general help info that you can use to gleam valuable info

https://pso2.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Main_Page

This is the link to the Japanese site. Don't worry it's still in english, you'll just need to tilt your head sideways at the translations from JP to Global (Example: Rivalate in global is the Liberate in JP)

There is also an english site... though you'll be hard pressed to find most of the info that you'll need here. https://pso2na.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Main_Page

I call this the "PSO2 CALCULATOR"

https://arks-layer.com/skillsim/

If you haven't used this yet, it's ostensibly a spreadsheet that you can use to plan out your character's skill points, and stats based upon your mag's stats and race/sex.

Zieg exchange stuff page!

https://pso2.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Zieg's_Exchanges

here you can see all the recipies for crafting. It's from the JP side of things so the translations aren't the same, but you can compare and contrast pictures, of stuff or use this one for simplicity: https://pso2na.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Zig_Permit_Exchange_Shop

The only tips I can give for affixing, are to enhance your gear, and upslot your weapon/armor with the amount of slots you want first, then hone the weapon's affixes later as you will not suffer the decrease in percentile while at max slots. Focus on whatever you use as a primary weapon attack stat (Melee for hunter/fighter/katana braver, soaring blades bouncer, RNG for Gunner, ranger or bow braver and Tech for Jet boots bouncer, techer force or summoner that doesn't use pet Switch Strike/shot) For scions (phantom, etoile, luster, and Hero) you might want to look into affixes that give bonuses to all attack stats, which are.. expensive.

This last one is... complex...

This is a link to an affixing calculator:

http://arks-layer.com/abilitysim/jp/

but I recommend playing with it and maybe watching some tutorials on youtube (This one is.. ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0GgX8eToWY)

Youtubers to watch for tips and tricks

Blac To Basics https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbZ_Vz4wQobZg02jXPs1a8A

He promotes himself as being "Uncomplicated, To The Point, and Unopinionated" and it's true. He has writeups for all kinds of things from class reviews and how to play them to how to set up chat commands that will let you change gear on the fly.

Azelyra https://www.youtube.com/user/Azelyra

Azelyra is a cultural pso2 JP youtuber who releases info on classes but also game play footage for Urgent Quests, and what you should expect in general from these types of missions in game.

anamana https://www.youtube.com/c/AnamanaAU/videos

Most of the time when I recommend people to him, they come back with more questions.

The last thing I can recommend is learn to make meseta. There are a lot of ways to do it, but none of them are quick.

The most chill way to do it is talk to Yerkes in Franca's Cafe once a week, and he will ask you for 6 items (navershroom, Amduskian Dragonscale, Lilipan Vest, Wopal Shell, Harukotan Fragment, and Empty bottles). These are aquired from exploration missions, such as Forest exploration, Volcano, Desert, Coast, Daybreak Province, and Tokyo. Note: you do not need to complete these missions to collect materials from these missions. Simply go to one, fish until you wrack up a fever, and then mine until you're out of stamina. This will net you about 1.6 mil per week, per character.

Another way to net funds, if you're a premium user, or have access to the player shop otherwise, is through crafting. By doing daily crafting (personal quarters menu to the right of the door as you come in, crafting > daily crafting) you can earn things like PA fragments for melee ranged or tech, and then sell these on the player shop for about 10k per pa tech fragment. This doesn't seem like a whole lot, but considering that you got them for free, with next to no effort, they're worth selling.

Suppress Bar Lodos. Bar lodos is a great punching bag for newly arrived players, and if you take the quest given out every so often by the Daily Order Officer, you can easily net 250k per character you fight Bar Lodos with.

You get three free characters to play the game with, and you can do all of these things on each of them, meaning you can net 250k, 1.6mil and about 100k (1,950,000) per week, per character (5,850,000 total if you do it on all three).

My last bit of advice would be to get an auxiliary. You get one for free from Cofy, and you can have them do just about any gathering quest for you while you're away. This means that if you get one of those daily quests that say "Procure at least One of _________" you can have your aux do that. Additionally, they can do the quests from Franca. As you turn in more quests with Franca, she will give you gifts, and eventually "Miracle Rations" which is a 10 minute boost of +30 to all attack stats. These can also be really handy for dealing with the daily arks missions.