A Final Stand?

PK = player kill. It cannot be done without codes except on JPv1, and when you use codes to do it you just piss people off. PK is pointless because Sega created Battle mode. We already have a mode dedicated to PvP, so enough.

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Ives, I'm going to say that you have my support in this for the most part. I definitely think that adjusting the drop rates to be a tad more favourable is a good idea, and certainly trying to do something about the difficulty for higher level characters is as well. Although, I do think that things should be implemented gradually and specific ideas discussed before deciding on whether or not to go through with them.

aaron_yume wrote:This may stem from the fact that I enjoy the forest level more than any other. My order of level preference is Forest,Ruins,Mines and lastly Caves.

Forest is a fun area at first, but once none of the enemies can hurt you and you can kill all of them without any percents or bonuses it becomes really dull. :/ Very Hard and Ultimate Forest are similar in difficulty once you're maxed out except that it takes a few more attacks to kill the Ultimate enemies because of their HP/DFP.

aaron_yume wrote:I was thinking more along the lines of things like the IcePick,Red Handgun etc. Items that are needed to get off to a good start in Ultimate mode but if the v1 unique model rares were modified to become usefull in ULT then they could become made rarer so they become at least sought after to some degree.

The main trouble we have with modifying the Ver.1 rares is that they will then be able to rape Very Hard mode six ways from Sunday. As such, some of the best Ver.1 rares would have to be Ultimate mode drops. The only difference between these Ver.1 rares and Ver.2 rares would be their name colour. I imagine most of the currently common rares will stay the same, though Imperial Pick could be made rarer and a bit stronger since it has such a useful special but has weak base ATP. IMO the Red weapons should all be easy to find since they are only nine stars and essentially "basic" rares for Ver.2.

aaron_yume wrote:Okay you have me there but still we don't want them to become too easy to get either and as you stated earlier I think a lot of testing would be needed to find the right balance for this.

Of course we don't want rares dropping like hotcakes. I did a quick mod to one of the drop tables and managed to get multiple rares in a single run. I can't remember the exact statistics, but it was something on the order of 1x S-Red's Arms, 2x Parts of Baranz, 2x Handgun:GULD, 3x Heaven Punisher, 1x Twin Psychogun, 3x Red Slicer, and so forth. You get the idea. Obviously it's possible to go too far, but thankfully such mods prove that making rares drop is possible without modifying the exe. The right balance just needs to be achieved.

aaron_yume wrote:I get that but State/Maintenance just seems to me to be one of the best items in the game and it's classed as a common item where by other inferior slot items are classed as rares? This makes no sense to me!

Hence why Sega was lazy and removed it from Ver.3 and created the Cure units. If I had such an option, I would prefer to add the Cure units and require that users collect all of them and combine them to make a State/Maintenance. Unfortunately I can't, so I see little point in changing the frequency of State drops since people will have access to the original droprates to farm the units.

aaron_yume wrote:Maybe I'm going senile already or have I just played GC PSO too much now?. When I think back the chance of losing something while making people more cautious also had the benefit of that when you got a good set of friends together the trust in each other would be very high. Although at the same time you have the disadvantage of losing that rare that took you months to find which sucks really bad.

The penalty isn't dangerous when you're playing with friends, but it does suck when you're playing with strangers since most of them turn out to be dishonest. It's also annoying to constantly have to pick up and re-equip your weapon and sort your inventory. Overall, the penalty causes more harm than good, unfortunately.

aaron_yume wrote:Totally agree with you there unless the rare monster spawning rates were increased then a balance of some sort would have to be reached.

I would definitely prefer to increase the rare monster spawn rates, unfortunately that's probably buried in the exe somewhere and not going to happen. People's best bet for getting drops from rare enemies will continue to be piping them offline. xD

aaron_yume wrote:Yeah but also include the download quests on the game disc as well if possible. It's just a nice thought to know that if they were hardcoded onto the disc then no matter what happens in the future they'd still be playable/accessable offline.

Since the download quests are tied to your serials, this wouldn't work. The only way we could do this would be to add a new section to the quest list offline, and it's highly unlikely that we can do this since the list is probably also hard coded in the exe. Ideally I agree that adding more offline quests would be good.

aaron_yume wrote:This year (well early next year) for sure I'm going to remember to snipe the domain from the old host before they renew it again. Currently they are holding it for ransom since the last few bills weren't paid and they want a minimum of a $1000 bid on the domain. Me and Nataku want to see it opened back up as an information only site but none of the other old administartors are interested. The only problem is none of us have a full backup of the site except perhaps the sites old/original owner who can only be found on FFXI these days of all places ¬_¬

Well I can provide information, I just suck at web development. I don't feel like learning enough HTML to make my site pretty. Tweeg might have some PSOQ backups, and the Internet Archive also has some from which you could rip the base HTML for a lot of pages.

@ Caboose

My first goal is an EUv2 disc, which I may get working this weekend if things go well. >_>

Flash T.H. wrote:@ Bob Dobbs

Don't you play Roblox? Your name is familiar to one in my friends list. Just curious, so off-topic I know.

No he does not. However, he does play Q3, UT, & PSO.

Shouldn't this be like... posted on schthack too??

I just registered here, so I'm a little behind on what you guys are talking about. I see everyones point of view based on their opinions. However, I do not feel the drop rates should be messed with. It would be interesting to make the game harder, because like previously stated, it gets boring after a while & becomes too easy, you can just play with your eyes shut. On the other hand, for those who are just starting because they couldn't play when the ships originally started or having trouble leveling up because they do not have the time to play, it's hard enough don't you think? I'll post more later, I have things to do. There's my rant.

Radkin wrote:I just registered here, so I'm a little behind on what you guys are talking about. I see everyones point of view based on their opinions. However, I do not feel the drop rates should be messed with. It would be interesting to make the game harder, because like previously stated, it gets boring after a while & becomes too easy, you can just play with your eyes shut. On the other hand, for those who are just starting because they couldn't play when the ships originally started or having trouble leveling up because they do not have the time to play, it's hard enough don't you think? I'll post more later, I have things to do. There's my rant.

You seem caught up on Dreamcast-Talk. I find it amusing how you are willing to bash me over there and then you come over here. Don't be two-faced.

As for drops, how many Sealed J-Swords have you found? Heaven Punishers? Lavis Blades? Do you know someone else who has found them? Do you even know of anyone who has ever found them? I don't, and I've been playing this game a long time. The drops for many items are just plain broken. Statistically impossible droprates are not fair, and if the new items in Ver.2 never drop then they might as well not even exist. I prefer to make them drop more frequently as it's a waste to have items that are unobtainable.

The drops for many items are just plain broken.

While most people are so worried about the drop rates increase, I would say that I understand them and partially agree with them. However, SEGA did fail when they established that "statistically impossible" drop table.

On the one hand, you might not be "legit" and play with your Sabers and Handguns, though on the other hand, you will have the chance of acquiring the other items SEGA made for us, without "cheating".

-Schtserv is a private server which is considered as "cheating" by a few hardcore fan? entities such as PSOW for instance, and so it has it's own rules. Those who don't agree with the owners should stop flaming but be proud to have still a server to play on.

I play legit for a long time so far, though I have very good memories of getting hacked items on the Deamcast, back in the days. Such thing would never have happened if we all had only the chance of playing PSO as SEGA provided us, with its almost impossible to get drops.

Btw, hey Aleron, here's a question.. Are you planning on just modifying PSO PC and V2 right? Will this affect negatively V1 gameplay in any way?

I don't think any of these changes would have an effect on Ver.1, except that if you were playing in a Ver.2 team you might find ??? items dropping since some of the Very Hard mode drops in Ver.2 don't exist in Ver.1, such as Hildebear's/Hildeblue's head.

Ah awright then =D
Thanks

I really hope there is something we can do to help bring back and keep people here. Even if it won't be that many people. Sadly, I need to buy a new DC VERY soon since mine can't boot GDs anymore, keeping me off of PSO for awhile. I'm hoping that, along with me, the selfboot PALv2 disc will help bring in at least some more people from the Dreamcast community. The future of v2 doesn't exactly look really populated, but I really think we have a good amount of control on what happens to it soon...

i think the increased drop rate idea is spot on, will revitalise the game totally, been playing PSO since 2001, about
time i had a chance of finding something decent

I 100% have your back with the droprates ives.
Uhm, if temple/spaceship arent full areas, could we still have quests in them?
and I wouldnt mind seeing more story-oriented quests to. I dont know how many people that play actually CARE about the story at all, but it might get some people interested to know more of the backstories of their favorite characters...

im down for better drop rates and upgrading ur shit wit %'s. and im also down for unlimited mat usage haha. and makin a higher difficulty, but if i may, i think u should make the rares in red boxes =p

Too bad that functionality doesn't exist in Ver.2? The red boxes are pretty, but the game is better off without them. You get surprised when you check the box, not the moment it drops.

Not to mention it's annoying when everyone scours to the Red Box, especially if a teammate is in trouble. Then they let them die >_>.

sosickwitdit wrote:and upgrading ur shit wit %'s.

Red boxes and adding percents? GTFO and play your xbawkx. xD

what can i say, xbox is the shit, but anyway, u should at least make the rares more rare than a yellow name, or make em flashy or sumthin, itd prolly attract more playas

haha and maybe an interest when u put money in the bank, jk

Yeah, I know. I have two 360's. xD I hardly play it though... both of them. And interest? C'mon sos, money is easy enough to get in V2 anyways.

Wing wrote:Yeah, I know. I have two 360's. xD I hardly play it though... both of them. And interest? C'mon sos, money is easy enough to get in V2 anyways.

I'm pretty sure that'd also require hacking the actual PSO files, which is far from easy. You can always sift through the two (?) gigabyte file with a hexediter if you want though.

Long story short, that'd be tough, if not impossible to code. To my knowledge. Ives and Lee have a good understanding of the coding , so they might say otherwise. I don't think that's gonna happen though. Far too many other things to work on.

Same with new/different graphics rares. Graphically editing the current ones would be a bit of work but wouldn't be as hard as creating, designing, and balancing a whole new weapon from scratch.

EDIT: I quoted the wrong person. Whoops. >_> Too lazy to change it now, as I don't think anyone noticed. ._.

The problem with the 5th difficulty; i have a solution.

I notice that in the offline mode (when enemies are easier and lesser in number) the early difficulties are a little... too easy. I know that sound silly, but just hear me out.

Normal mode is fine as it is, it should not change, it is perfect for getting beginners into the game.

Hard mode is difficult to start off with, but if you are capable of beating Dark Falz on normal mode you should be able to handle it easily enough. But the later parts of hard mode i find are unbalanced. Dark Falz on hard mode is very difficult compared to the standard of enemies. This is understandeable, as on hard mode he has a third form. But what i find is, by the time you manage to beat Dark Falz in offline mode, you are nearing level 60, nearly 20 levels over the requirement for very hard mode. And you find that the Forest monsters on Vhard are actually easier to fight than the ruins monsters on hard mode.

So, from that i have deduced that very hard mode should be made more difficult, and the level requirement to be raised to around level 60, but do the same as what you are doing with ultimate, and strengthen the enemies. And maybe make the lower limit cap on Ultimate level 100 or 120.

This means that level 80s would not be stuck between difficulties (as i am at the moment). I can absolutely demolish very hard ruins without needing healing items (my trusty crush bullet with 45% dark attribute at my side, special attack steals hp <3). But i struggle greatly on Ultimate forest, i can just about handle it, but gaining xp is definetly more efficient on vhard, but it is an eternal bore. No prospects of decent rare drops, just basically repeats of what i have had before, and everlasting searches for high %s that will be outmatched by a 0% red handgun. If rare drops only on very hard and ultimate were more obtainable (especially on rare enemies, which arer hard enough to find as it is), and the enemies on both strengthened, and the level requirement for both raised (multiplied by 1.5, so lvl 60 for vhard and level 120 for ult).

I think that would be a solution to the problem. It would mean very hard has more playability. I didn't beat Dark Falz on hard until level 64. I beat Dark Falz on Very hard at level 75 approx. Very hard is just too short, and doesn't bridge the gap between Hard and ultimate. Ultimate should be strengthened by all means, but that would only widen the gap. So Very hard, particularly the ruins, would have to be strengthened too, as well as drop rates lowered so its not just an endless grind towards ultimate mode.

I like the idea of improving %s on weapons as quest rewards, but i'm assuming it should be quite time consuming to do this? As even low % rare drops would suddenly become more useful, so i'm thinking 50+ hours of quest gameplay to be able to max one weapons stats.

EDIT:

But with my naiveity on editing codes and files etc. i have no idea how hard or how long it would take to implement what i said. I am presuming changing the level requirements would be quite easy, but changing the difficulty and drop rates of vhard monsters/items would just make it twice as much work.

You've only tested this with a RAcast on V2, right? Hard mode Falz doesn't take quite as long for others. I'm assuming you ran out of mates... a lot. xD

Falz is a bitch, well bosses in general, but more so Falz for casts, because they don't have resta. Vhard Falz is the one that takes a little longer to an extent. However I've seen people beat him online even around the 60's. This is usually do to good dark percents to mechguns and plenty of light resistance. Casts are harder to use solo, especially the ranger classes.

To be honest, you're using one of the hardest characters in the game, lol. He has it hard in ultimate for a long time to come. It becomes quite hard without at least someone who has level 15 Shifta and Deband. Even finding the right percents will take awhile, and after that, it's still not quite as easy as the fleshbags have it. Ives uses his RAcast in ultimate, but even around the 140's, he usually uses him in a team. Casts have it hard solo, especially rangers as I stated above, simply because they can't use many good enough weapons. While they do have fairly good ATP, and good ending stats, because they are rangers, they can't use a lot of weapons that would help them more.

Probably why SEGA let them use partisans in V3.

All casts have pretty good stat potentials, simply because they are casts so they are stronger of course, and because SEGA wanted to balance them a bit more. They don't get techs anyways.

Casts are a bit of a challenge in ultimate, I can't stand not having techs... Even with the physically weakest character in the game (a FOnewearl), I still outclass a lot of folk because of high level techs and impressive gear.

Ah the RAcast...definitely a bitch to use in ultimate, i used to use them a lot but at the same time they really are a pain to use unless you have some really freaking good percents on weapons and even then they are hard to use, traps are essential in a party especially damage because they can tag large groups at once but freeze are by far my favorite

Btw what got you killed on Dark Falz, did you die on the final form? on the swipe? Grants? I usually have to equip some light resistant gear (ELT in your resists) in order to survive, I can usually beat falz near the early 40s with a racast provided i have some good gear and a gun with dark percents, in any case RAcast is fun but challenging to use, so good luck if you choose to continue with that character

The problem with Falz is that he is a test of HP, nothing more. As long as you have the minimum HP required to survive the swipe, he's a piece of cake to defeat. If your HP is below that magic number, you'll get raped six ways from Sunday unless you have an assload of Scape Dolls and a Mag that is good at making you invincible. Falz is in no way fair or a good judge of any difficulty level.

If anything, Very Hard mode lasts too long, not too short of a time. Levels 70 - 80 are the most boring in the game, seeing as you level like a snail and the enemies are downright boring to kill. If the enemies were harder, it would be very difficult for level 40 players to do Very Hard, which makes it not such a great idea to change them.

As for weapon pecents, you will not be able to have maximum percents (60%). 60 is cheap, so the limit will be capped at 30% (20 for Mechguns). However, you will not be able to add percents, you can only replace them. As such, if you find a weapon with say 45% Dark and you also want to have Hit, you must make a choice. Do you sacrifice the 45% Dark and downgrade it to 30% for the benefit of 30% Hit (and 30% on another stat, if you want it), or do you forego having Hit and enjoy the extra Dark? The choice is yours...

As for RAcast, he's not at all difficult to use in Very Hard mode; all classes are easy to use in Very Hard because it's not very hard. (lolwut?) Droids are simply difficult to use in Ultimate mode because of their lack of Shifta and Zalure, both of which are needed to penetrate the obscene DFP of the Ultimate mode enemies. It doesn't have much to do with their selection of weapons, seeing as how Hunters have a pretty bad selection of weapons as well due to the shitty droprates. However, a RAcast can solo Forest and Cave with ease even without Shifta once his stats are maxed. The enemies there have no DFP compared to the Mine or Ruins.

Ah heres where i may be wrong, but i have been on GC v3, at around this sort of level, but with a RAmar instead. Weaker atp, defence and hp, but you can use techs, but v3 doesn't allow RAmars to use jellen/zalure (or HUmars shifta/deband etc.). And i actually struggled more, it was the same story really, i could manage forest, i just tended to take my time on it. The boss isn't too difficult if you keep out of harms way, but as soon as you get to caves you're screwed because even with my most powerful weapon with around 30% damage can't hit. But again it has been a while since i played the GC version, and i don't know if the enemies were stronger/weaker, but i do know that it was a struggle even with shifta (i also noticed that my character was hitting less than HUcasts 5 levels below me, even with shifta, so i guess it may be down to Ranger's general weakness in attack)

(yes i know HUmars and RAmars can use all techs on V2, so that argument is flawed)

I did have to equip light resists for Dark Falz on hard, that was really the only way i managed to beat it. But on vhard it was a piece of cake, probably down to finding so many common rares (varistas, vises, justices, visks etc.) that you were bound to get 35%+ against dark. As far as i am aware my light resistance when i did it on vhard was only around 28, compared to around 35 i did it on hard mode. But it still didn't manage to 1hit me with Grants. (EDIT: I found my problem on my first few tries of hard mode, i actually ran out of scape dolls, even with plenty of mates/star atomizers to spare. on vhard it was just a breeze, a lot easier than it should have been)

Anyways i am slowly levelling a secondary HUmar character, so when i eventually get to around level 80 i will see why RAcasts suck so much on ult, although that will take a while... only time will tell. Anyway, you guys have more experience at this game than me, but i just wanted to point out the large gap between vhard and ult, and strengthening the monsters on vhard modes (aswell as increasing the exp yield) by as much as about say 25%, it would mean vhard ruins would be a viable alternative to ult forest for players around my level of any class. It isn't needed much now, but if you strengthen Forest and caves on ult, you should strengthen caves and ruins on vhard to balance the difficulties, otherwise level 80-100 is going to be a lot tougher, even with slightly better weapons. And if those better weapons are available for drops on vhard (strengthened common rares?) then vhard ruins will become even easier, so i think the monsters on that difficulty should be strengthened to some degree.

I have a hard time on ult forest because my +50% nature crush bullet doesn't help at all, it does 0 damage with normal hits, and the special attack rarely hits (so i guess that justifies what you said about leaving EVP the same). But increasing the DFP and not the EVP works in favour of Hunters i imagine, Rangers extra ATA means nothing if they can't do damage to the enemies. It forces us to work in groups with people casting shifta/zalure constantly, which in a way is good, but the proposed changes would make ultimate impossible on single players until around level 100-110 for rangers, and so i think instead of filling the gap with a 5th difficulty, vhard should be extended to bridge that gap.

The real problem is that there is no ideal solution. One thing to remember is that you're in no way forced to apply my patch for better drops, harder monsters, and stronger weapons. If you can't handle Ludicrous mode, then don't play it until you're ready. I think players will be able to handle it, since they'll have the opportunity to acquire a selection of weapons that should help them survive Forest and Cave until they can get some of the weaponry from Ultimate mode.

To help droids survive, I'm going to enable S-Red's Blade for use by Rangers, so they will have the ability to cast Shifta and Deband, albeit weak. I'll also enable Prophets of Motav for all classes, which will then give droids the ability to cast Jellen and Zalure, albeit also weak. Even so, it should offer great help combined with the ability to add percents to weapons. There's always offline mode for wanting to solo; online should be difficult enough to benefit from having a team.

While I could change Very Hard mode, I'm not going to attempt to rebalance the entire game and level flow. Such drastic changes would be warranted if we could add new difficulty levels or Episode II, but we can't do either.

Bad drop rates? lol. The rates are bad, but hunters still have it easier because they can use partisan weapons (lol Imperial Picks drop like dead flies). The post I made about weapon use was more directed at hunters being able to use the Pick and Plantain Huge Fan, when Rangers cannot, rather than the whole drop list as a whole. My buddy Nash who's a ranger, still has it bad in ultimate because he can't do shit. Sure he has the whole red handgun going for him, but when it comes to hitting multiple enemies, rangers get screwed. They could find shotguns with decent percents, but shotguns still pale in comparison to partisans. Not to mention Ranger stat growth isn't the best. Yeah, when they're maxed, they're O.K. for the first two areas, but that'll take Seismica awhile, lol.