Good morning friends! I’ve been playing a non-casual amount of Phantasy Star Online 2 over the last few weeks. Most of my posts about the game thusfar have been largely explanatory, given that there are a truly nonsense number of systems to digest. At this current moment I am level 60 of 75 and the leveling process has slowed down significantly. Imagine a train pulling into the station, each time you tick past 10 levels you feel a noticeable slowdown in just how much momentum is happening. I expect the 60-75 grind to take as much time as the levels previously gained to be honest.
I’ve not really noticed this that much however because the game provides a bounty of large set piece content for you to participate in. Right now I am mostly focused on “very hard” content, though I could bump up and start doing “super hard” though I am not sure the added difficulty is worth it. Several times a night something happens call and Urgent Quest, and for a period of time you can participate with other players on the server in a group activity. These feel similar to the Alliance Raids you can participate in while playing Final Fantasy XIV.
My current favorite of these is Dark Falz Luther, which is a multi part event. The first phases involve 30 minutes of farming the oddly bong shaped creatures two images up which drop a ton of meseta and worth a sizeable amount of experience. Once that phase finishes you get to fight Luther itself in a big raid like encounter with mechanics that more or less need to be observed. This phase can be done only once per character and tends to drop some pretty significant rewards.
After which you end up with this cool screenshot moment of the entire team. I’ve been lucky enough to participate in this event each evening over the last several days, and in part this is probably why I have gained several levels in rapid sequence. I’ve not really encountered one of these urgent quests that was not worth my time either in loot or experience gained, and as a result I tend to look forward to them when they are announced by the ships public announcer. It also helps to make you feel like you are part of a larger community.
Another thing that I first thought was really weird, but I am now warming to significantly… is the fact that every so often there are “Live” vocaloid concerts in the shopping area. I am not going to go into what a vocaloid is, but SEGA appears to have a cross promotional relationship with the folks behind “Hatsune Miku” and “Megurine Luka”. There are item packs associated with both that can be gained through the in game loot boxes, and periodically a concert happens of a song called “Living Universe”.
I admit that at first I considered this a bit on the odd side, but players legitimately turn up for these and as a result they become yet another spontaneous occurrence of community in game. I tend to turn up if I am available because of the prevalence of folks firing off various symbol art. I am slowly curating a collection of these images, and I absolutely snagged “Meatwad” shown above. I don’t personally necessarily get the vocaloid thing, but I don’t really have to in order to understand that it is good to have these moments of spontaneous gathering in a game.
The game has this built in farming culture that I also find interesting. When something is going well people tend to stick around and ride the experience and loot until it stops being interesting. I was doing a mission the other day that no joke gained me half of a level at 57 and the entirity of 58 all while just sitting in the same place. We had a full compliment of twelve players and for some reason this beach decided to start paying out in droves as we went through the course of three different PSE bursts. No screenshot can do justice to just how fast we were killing things and how much loot was dropping. This is the closest I have ever seen to the fabled Destiny Loot cave.
Sure most of the loot that dropped was trash, and I only actually picked up any of the “red” items which denote the higher rarity items, but the experience was fun regardless. I have to say the longer I play Phantasy Star Online 2 the more I end up enjoying it. Sure it takes a long time to really begin to grasp all of the systems and how they intermingle, but eventually you read a point of equilibrium where you are doing interesting things every day. The longer I play however the more of the community aspect I am experiencing, and while it is not necessarily my traditional jam, I definitely appreciate it. A fancy horned lad pole dancing in the cafe if nothing else breaks up the monotony.
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