If this was a single-player game where you could be done after 1 playthrough, or if you legit had no way to avoid the attack (like, say, Dark Falz's Grants in original PSO as FOnewearl), or if people couldn't heal/cure/revive for you pretty much infinitely (if they don't, it's either on you or them, not the game), or if your rank went down right after the first death instead of 5...

You're expected to run this quest at least 50 times, possibly way more. Making mistakes and learning as you go is a natural part of every game, despite what some new age YouTubers will tell you about "trial and error" being "unfair", because every mechanic in every game is learned through trial and error. The main problem is about punishment and, unless you are solo, death is just not a harsh punishment in this game. And in the solo mode you're expected to have gained experience with all the enemies in multiplayer modes already. And if multiplayer on the highest difficulty is too harsh for you to learn anything, lower the difficulty until you're comfortable with the quest.

Also, as people have said before, there's really enough time to cure yourself with an atomizer (even without the ring) and walk to the other side of the platform. If you're too worried still, get the ring and learn to spam movement PAs, because they trivialise the section completely.

I do agree, however, that the current balance with a ridiculous amount of crutches like 3-second long guard frames built into attacks, lifesteal, 1 HP survival skills and potentials, infinite PP sources and ease of affixing tons of HP and PP is fairly absurd, but a lot of it was added to cater to the casual crowd post-PS4 release in Japan (I include Hero and everything that came with it into that category), and one-shots and ridiculous amounts of mobs were one way to restore a semblance of a game when those things trivialized all of the old encounters

@Vashzaron Now that I check PSO2Global YouTube and Twitter, yeah, looks like they're using "online RPG" and "online action RPG" most of the time. They still called PSO, PSU and PSO2 at least in early days MMOs in Japan, but w/e. I think they made a mistake in one of the 2019 interviews or something, which is why I thought this is what they went for.

Anyway, the general public thinks PSO2 is an MMO. It's covered by MMO content creators (often with really dumb complaints), game journalism sites like IGN call it an MMORPG (yes, game journalism, but wider public still follows them). Some other online action RPGs like Path of Exile are also mistaken for MMOs, but PoE devs went out of their way to write this diary to explain what their game is actually about. It doesn't help that the game is always online (unlike its predecessors, as in PSO you could mainly play offline and take your character online sometimes, and PSU at least allowed to make a different character for offline mode).

Regardless, hack&slash is a very fitting label for the game and it communicates exactly what people should be expecting coming into it. Weight, precision, studying enemies and your own variety of tools (even if the game doesn't really punish you for not learning it all as fast as possible)

@Shirokami This makes me think, the whole schtick of marketing this game as an MMORPG is a massive mistake. In Japan it makes sense, since they have an escapist culture and stuff, but in the West the first thing that comes to an average person's mind when they hear "MMO" is this

As for the actual core MMO audience, it mostly comprises of two types of people: those who play MMOs while despising them simply because they're the closest thing to their perfect Ultima Online remake that'd take them back to the times before WoW ruined everything, and those who are extremely dependant on level bars, random drops and random people just existing around and being aware of their grind for their dopamine injections instead of actual gameplay.

These MMO fans only think in their MMO framework and a lot of them, looking at the PSO2 (and also NGS) footage on YouTube or playing it for 10 minutes, think it's a repetitive game that takes no skill, or that it's super clunky because you can't run around at full speed while swinging your sword, or that it's outdated because it's TAB TARGET like they've never heard of Legend of Zelda, or Dark Souls, or any console hack&slash game

You can't, you have to watch out for her very long tell when she summons a shield. When the shield is up, you just don't hit her, because that's what triggers the time stop

@Yui2387 said in I'm sick and tired of people "Waiting for NGS" and absolutely do nothing at all in PSO2.:

What did JP player do when the patch iteration was once in a year instead of a month?

Get good. Have fun with the game's core combat mechanics, learn new tricks, optimize their playstyles, seek to squeeze out extra seconds/minutes speedrunning various quests and bosses instead of standing back and spamming Million Storm/Rising Slash. Not because they had to, not because they were pressured by other people, not because it gave you more loot, not because of any extrinsic validation but because it's intrinsically fun. Gear grind was not the goal, but only an excuse. Even when you were done with your perfect setup, you'd still play, because all it'd mean is that you get even more opportunities for new strategies. Same applies to every balance patch. Every new piece of content would be an experience that stays fresh for a long while, because players have had a feel for it to stay fresh.

I always was of the opinion that this game would be too niche for modern Western audiences because they can't commit to their entertainment. It doesn't help that EP5-6 player balance is at its most casual with lots of low-skill crutches (multiple-second long block and iframes, animation cancelling into overpowered counters etc), inflated PP pools and way, way stronger normal attacks, so it's easier than ever to play on autopilot and then complain that there's nothing to do

Posting screenshots of your gear and skill tree would be a good start

@RainGnyu said in Our power is never going to be enough!:

How do you gitgud?

You're not going to get a satisfying answer to this question just by asking it like this, because in order to get good you first need to understand what exactly you're bad at. Different people will understand different aspects of the game differently, they have different gaming backgrounds, differently developed reflexes, they pay different amounts of attention to different things.

If at this point you can't take some specific parts of the game (whether it's some boss fight, a class weapon, or even a particular repeated occurence that leads to your failure) and ask yourself "What am I doing wrong there", a good start would be to record yourself playing different kinds of content. You might be able to figure something out on your own, but it's better if you have other people look at it.

I've seen people do some really bizarre mistakes, like holding technique charges for 4-5 seconds, saying that they couldn't memorize the timing, even though at that point they could just react to very clear visual and sound cues. I myself for the longest time preferred staring at my character to hit JAs instead of memorizing the timings so that I can pay attention to mobs that are trying to kill me. Managing attention overall is a very important skill (in life in general, even); in modern world people have their attention directed on autopilot to whatever may provide an immediate dopamine fix. Modern games in their rush to provide satisfaction as quickly as possible end up encouraging tunnel vision, and quite a few complaints about combat I've seen on this forum (like animation locks or enemies not having health bars) are often a result of people not being used to thinking ahead of what's right before them in any given moment

@Mattwo7 First of all, you've never actually stated that you even agree with an idea of automatic group forming (as opposed to "matchmaking"), so telling me that I'm behind the conversation on this is disingenuous. The OP does not in any way mention anything more complex than just grouping people together, and you went on to disagree with it on that premise right from the start and have never given any ground on it - because of this my concern is still valid.

Second of all, fundamentally, "matchmaking" is just that - automatically grouping people together with a queue-like system. Skill-based matchmaking you see in PvP games or role-based matchmaking you see in your average MMO are simply modifications of that basic principle. PSO2 doesn't need those particular modifications, but a simple queue system would still be beneficial even for regular quests (let alone Trigger Quests), as with current system there are too many cases where multiple non-filled instances would exist across different blocks (or, sometimes, even in the same block), and people would either wait excessive amounts of time or give up on the quest entirely, because the alternative would be to check the quest counter constantly and rally multiple parties to move blocks, taking even more risks to end up without a group in the chaos of people constantly leaving and joining across all the blocks

@Mattwo7 These are some serious mental gymnastics you're resorting to to justify not including such an obvious QoL feature.

First of all, Trigger Quests as a category will always be relevant, because new ones get added almost every new Urgent, and, as such, will always have relevant rewards, even if individual quests get outdated.

Second of all, the fact that you can't even browse Trigger Quest parties in other blocks than the one you're in is a massive hindrance to forming groups. You've acknowledged yourself that Trigger Quests can be activated at any given time, so why wouldn't you want more people to see them when they are active to increase the chances of the group filling up?

And the third point, the one that OP highlighted very clearly, a Trigger Quest that wasn't started is a trigger wasted. Triggers are scarce, so it's only natural that you'd want to keep the trigger if you don't actually end up using it for its one and only, very intended purpose - actually running the quest. If, as you've said, "there'd be no guarantee other people would be doing them or if there'd be enough people in general", why not have this extra security?

This suggestion is nothing but positive, and implementing it wouldn't be that hard: consume trigger only when the quest has actually started, and add a "Browse all Trigger Quest parties" menu at a quest counter