Ideas for Ultimate+

[Ade]

Hi all,

I know that the implementation of a new difficulty has concerned some of the developers / admins, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some ideas down on paper to see what you think. I can't take credit for all of these myself. I've kicked around a lot of ideas with friends.

Now, the case for a new difficulty setting can be made by emphasizing the importance of keeping the game fresh and relevant for the majority of the server's population that have leveled characters reasonably high.

1. Level requirement: 170. We were initially kicking around 180 as the number, but decided that might be a bit too high, and most characters can handle the entirety of Ultimate by 170. Yes, there's more power to gain, but the difference in performance between a 170 and a 200 isn't tremendous. Also, Lv. 170 is well below the "halfway" mark to Lv. 200, so there would be plenty of time to enjoy Ult+. Arguing that this will "exclude" people is invalid: Even with normal, 1x EXP, a person can reach Lv. 170 easily. If you still think this is too high, then 160 might be acceptable, but it shouldn't go any lower than that.

2. Rare drops and rates: Every monster will have the same drop as it did on Ultimate (hopefully someday Temple and Spaceship can be improved because there's really no reason to hunt there, but that's another topic). Any drops that are rarity 1/28,807 (or whatever the rate for Purplenum Lavis Cannon is) or easier will not be improved, and any drops that are over 1/28,807 will be normalized to 1/28,807. There's no point in anything being 1/300,000 when it can be hunted on another ID at a much easier rate. Rare enemy drop rates will not change. Rare enemy appearance rate will improve SLIGHTLY. (See next paragraph.)

3. Rare enemy appearance rate: Improved to 1/450. This makes it a little bit better without being broken. Kondrieu will be 1/8 instead of 1/10.

4. Hit % chance: Will be increased from 5% to 10%. (If this is too high, at least consider 8%.) This will be the primary motivating factor in Ult+.

5. Enemy difficulty: This will be much like Sega did with Super Hard mode in PSO2. Basically, consider the difficulty of Ultimate Ruins, Seabed, and Desert. Now, increase the power of everything by about 40% and make all of the enemies in the preceding areas that powerful, as well. This will "normalize" the difficulty so that enemies in Ult+ Forest are just as dangerous as Ult+ Seabed, at least in terms of stats.

All "grunts" will be given the same speed as Ultimate Merlan, which is oddly the fastest grunt in the game (or so I'm told). Nothing will be made faster than this because manual evasion will become unbearable for Hunters, and we'll be basically playing Schtserv Crack Mode. Non-grunt movement speed will not change.

Set damage attacks will not change because the ability for certain classes to survive would be power-creeped out.

Core enemy stats like ATP, MST, and DFP can be increased because Lv. 30 S/D currently crushes everything in Ult. No change in enemy EVP because the game already relies too heavily on ATA. No change in LCK because enemies already crit way more often than players. Also, no change in enemy tech resistance because techs don't benefit from Shifta, and tech damage would be power-creeped into irrelevance.

Before any objections are made, bear in mind that Ult+ is intended for party play with Combo S/D. It's not supposed to be easy.

6. Experience points: All EXP will increase by 20%. The enemies will take longer to kill, so this shouldn't make reaching Lv. 200 any easier than it already is. (The difficulty increases more than the EXP because we don't want EXP to be the primary motivating factor.)

7. Box drops and maximum possible %s: Hit % is being increased to 10% (or 8% hopefully at least), and the actual AMOUNT of % that can occur will be normalized so that everything is treated like Ult. Ruins 3. (There's no point in items having low %s in Forest if Forest is just as hard as Ruins.) Currently, it's a shame that you basically have to go to Ruins or Seabed to hunt for high % non-rare gear, and this will eliminate that and increase the enjoyment of the game.

Side note: If you guys were considering a large update, it might be a good idea to pair Ult+ with the "beyond Lv. 200 bonuses" to REALLY spark player interest

That's it. What do you think?

 

[Mille Marteaux]

Okay so I've had a lot of reservations with it because I don't want to create a further divide in the community than we already have (god forbid lower level players even get to level with higher level ones helping anymore outside of TTF spam) so I've been kind of wanting to shelf it, but this one thing in particular:

Before any objections are made, bear in mind that Ult+ is intended for party play with Combo S/D. It's not supposed to be easy.

is very, horribly, terribly wrong. If anything I'd rather see PB just not build in this mode so that we can normalize numbers around lv15/20/30 buffs and debuffs then work from there, as it would make the core experience more engaging not having to sit around in the first room of Forest and build PB for it to be playable.

Speaking as a designer, there are far more interesting things that we could do, but we currently cannot do them very easily and this is something that requires very delicate precision to pull off. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into something like this, from simple number crunching to repeated testing to make sure it isn't unplayable or un-fun. If we're going to do this, I want to do it right, and considering how impossibly high my standards are, we're going to have to crunch it for a while.

 

[Ade]

It wouldn't be necessary to build PB. You could still move forward with Lv. 15 / 20 / 30 buffs, it would just be harder. That's the point. If you take away PB building, you're taking away the part of the game where people have the most fun. That would be a huge mistake.

I understand this could take a long time to implement, but I really hope you don't shelf this idea permanently. If you did a poll, I'll bet most people would want this. I could help test. In fact...

Some of us EXTREMELY HIGHLY EXPERIENCED players (who have been kept on the fringe because we're opinionated), such as Girth and myself, would be very valuable resources for testing this. I have 10, that's TEN, Lv. 200 characters lifetime, and over a BILLION total EXP gained on PSO because of other characters that were Lv. 180+. I know the game inside and out. I would love to help, but nobody seems interested in letting me lend a hand.

I think it would be a good idea to at least try this with one area (ie. Forest) and test it. That wouldn't take very long, would it?

At least do a poll someday...

 

[Mille Marteaux]

Yes, we are aware that you are skilled. However, you think that you "deserve" a position in the team just due to the fact you're so skilled. Your egotistical natures are exactly why we hesitate to reach out to people like you and Girth.

Our team operates on heavy discussion. We don't need crusty old veterans telling us that their opinions mean more than ours just because they have more hours spent playing a game that is legally old enough to have sex in most of the modern world.

 

[Ade]

I don't have an egotistical nature, and I don't appreciate that. I've changed a lot over the years. You're not the same person you were 10 years ago, and neither am I.

If you give me a chance, I'll play nice. But you also shouldn't devalue our experience, which is exactly what you're doing right now.

I only played the "experience" card in my last post because I feel like that's being disregarded, and I'm being treated like someone who just started playing.

Edit: I should not have said I don't have an egotistical nature. I am not perfect, but I've tried very hard to improve over the years. If you're going to continue to penalize me for things I've already paid for, then you're being unfair.

 

[Ade]

We'll put a pin in this per our discussion on Teamspeak, but I hope to be able to help later.

 

[Mome Chomsky]

I'm curious if this has been considered at all? I think a fifth difficulty could be interesting if done well. Not like schthack's crack mode/lunatic mode, not based around 4 way PB, but a reasonable increase in enemy stats and standardization of stats across different areas.

 

[GHOSTS]

I don't really see the point in a making a new difficulty. PSO is based on gear, and with the right gear, you can trump anything. You can turn the most difficult Tower quests into a cakewalk with the right gear. Large enemy spam quests like LSH fold once they encounter a level 180+ Ranger with a Charge Arms/Baranz Launcher, HUcast with a powerful Sword, or a FOmarl with a hit SoF. Improving enemy stats is just rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

The game is fundamentally built to tilt towards the player once you get around level 150 because your stats and weapons start to greatly outpace the enemies' stats. For a proper rebalance and new difficulty, you'd have to hit the player with the nerf bat pretty hard, and that's way beyond the scope of this server.

Here's how I could see a new difficulty practically turning out.

1. Enemy EVP turns it into "Casts and Rangers only mode, with special guest Hit % weapons".

2. Changes are hardly noticed because enemies are still quickly demolished, even without 81 S/D.

3. Go full "Final Destination, Fox only" and restrict the usage of things like DF, Charge Vulcans, S/D, and Froozer, which would go over like a lead balloon in the community.

 

[Vhaman]

The topics a year and a half old, I think is safe to say the decision against a new difficulty was made long ago. The effort required would be far better spent elsewhere.

 

[Ade]

It could still happen. The server is much more geared / leveled up than when this topic was made, and it's more ready as a whole. Perhaps it's time to revisit this in one way or another.

I think the main concern about "new people having nobody to play with" is no longer legitimate. The server has grown quite a bit, and there's plenty of people at all stages of the game. The "core" population of the server has decent gear and enough high level characters to support this idea now. Also, plenty of people enjoy teaching themselves the mechanics of the game and aren't in a hurry to level up their very first character. (And a lot of them are better players in the long run.)

Please know that I didn't bump this topic. I just saw that someone had bumped it and wanted to remind everyone that conditions DO change over time.

@GHOSTS I already said in my original topic that there should be no increase in EVP because the game already relies too heavily on the ATA stat. Also, enemy walking speed for grunts would be boosted only to the speed of the current fastest grunt (Ult Ruins Merlan), so that we don't ever have a "crack mode" manual evasion nightmare. All of this was addressed in the original post.

 

[Chronos Notashi]

I get the feeling they're still not planning to add a new difficulty. Partially because it would require a LOT of testing to make sure it's not insanely broken to the point where you need level 200 and "meta" equipment/PB chains to have even a snowball's chance in hell of clearing Ep 2/4 (and I doubt it would even be worth the effort by the time everything's said and done, since it would STILL only be the seasoned veterans playing it regularly). And partially because...well, I'm pretty sure we've seen one or two servers that tried to make the game more difficult in some way (iirc, Ultima increased Ultimate stats and had one or two other related changes), and we all know how well those went over with regular and "classic vanilla" players (especially in Ultima's case with the donator's perks implemented specifically for their version of Ultimate+).

And honestly, if was a matter of whether or not there were enough geared players to pull it off, we would have at the very least had an announcement or rumor that would suggest that it was coming. But considering that Matt and Sodaboy introduced PSO Seasons instead to give new/veteran players more incentive to play, there's likely even LESS of a chance of an "Ultimate+" difficulty being implemented. It's just far too narrow-minded and only really favors veterans and tryhards*, whereas Seasons is a fresh challenge for everyone in general since both new and veteran players start fresh (can't use rares borrowed/traded from already-established Ultimate characters). And considering that Seasons was very well liked by the majority of both parts of the community (despite the first one being a little too long for everyone's taste), it's safe to say that the effort put towards it was effort well spent.


*I've used this a few times already, and I just want to get it out of the way that I don't mean this offensively. I just use the word to refer to those who put as much effort as possible into accomplishing their main goal (ex: "mastering" endgame content, winning a PvP match without holding back (i.e. curbstomping the entire enemy team), etc).

 

[GHOSTS]

I just don't see how a new difficulty would actually make the game better at this point. Without new weapons, all it would do is make people converge even closer around a single meta build for each class and would encourage discrimination against weaker classes like RAcaseal because the lower DPS would legit make things more difficult instead of merely making it slower as it is now. I could very well see people in Ult+ games practically requiring classic TA metas like 3 HUcasts + 1 FO (FO depends on episode) or 2 HUcast + 1 RAcast + 1 FO for team comp instead of the usual "whatever" that happens in most current Ult games, which takes away a lot of fun of the game if you're going to turn its class diversity into "Stompy Robots and their mage buff slave kill everyone".

 

[Ade]

I just don't see how a new difficulty would actually make the game better at this point. Without new weapons, all it would do is make people converge even closer around a single meta build for each class and would encourage discrimination against weaker classes like RAcaseal because the lower DPS would legit make things more difficult instead of merely making it slower as it is now. I could very well see people in Ult+ games practically requiring classic TA metas like 3 HUcasts + 1 FO (FO depends on episode) or 2 HUcast + 1 RAcast + 1 FO for team comp instead of the usual "whatever" that happens in most current Ult games, which takes away a lot of fun of the game if you're going to turn its class diversity into "Stompy Robots and their mage buff slave kill everyone".

If everything in the game was powered up 30 to 40 percent, every class in the game would still have the ability to crush everything in a party setting with buffs. On the concern about "meta" play, I would argue that most players stay away from completely useless items as it is. Sure, there might be some variance in what is "optimal" (ie. someone might prefer Red Sword over Zanba), but either of those items would be viable in Ult+

(Also, since none of the drops would change, nobody would be forced to play that difficulty. The main draw would be an increased chance for hit %)

I understand that this will either A. Never happen, or B. Take a very long time to happen, but veteran players could really use some love.

Again please remember that I didn't bump this topic. I'm just interacting with those who are posting in it. I wouldn't want any of the devs to undertake this unless THEY wanted to see / enjoy it. (But I would be happy to help test / consult!)

 

[GHOSTS]

But if it's not really going to change anything in terms of gameplay, then what's the point of adding it in the first place? The incentives to play Ult+ seem very minimal ATM; enemies now take an extra second to die (or will require meta team comps to deal with depending on how it's handled) and your odds of getting hit % weapons are a little better.

As I said before, a genuine difficulty change would require nerfing every class badly because their growth and weapon choices can easily outclass enemies once you reach a certain point. You'd have to do a serious rework of the game from the ground up to make a fair but quite difficult Ultimate. Just jacking up enemy stats will either change nothing practically or turn it into a hardcore metafest. And I don't think people really want to go back to the V2 days of things like Canadines having over 1,500 DFP or experience whatever utterly bonkers stats enemies like the Sinow Zoa would get if they were V2ified or even got a flat boost.

 

[Ade]

But if it's not really going to change anything in terms of gameplay, then what's the point of adding it in the first place? The incentives to play Ult+ seem very minimal ATM; enemies now take an extra second to die (or will require meta team comps to deal with depending on how it's handled) and your odds of getting hit % weapons are a little better.

As I said before, a genuine difficulty change would require nerfing every class badly because their growth and weapon choices can easily outclass enemies once you reach a certain point. You'd have to do a serious rework of the game from the ground up to make a fair but quite difficult Ultimate. Just jacking up enemy stats will either change nothing practically or turn it into a hardcore metafest. And I don't think people really want to go back to the V2 days of things like Canadines having over 1,500 DFP or experience whatever utterly bonkers stats enemies like the Sinow Zoa would get if they were V2ified or even got a flat boost.

You're bouncing around here saying that 30% to 40% isn't enough but you don't want it to be too insane. It would take some testing to make it worthwhile. So what if people eventually learn to dominate the new difficulty, as well? At least the journey would be fun...

PSO is already mostly a "meta fest," what with all of the build guides and class tiers readily available. Adding a new difficultly would not bring this about. It's already the case. It would be a nice reward for those who learned the game proficiently. -_-;

 

[Aleron Ives]

I don't think people really want to go back to the V2 days of things like Canadines having over 1,500 DFP or experience whatever utterly bonkers stats enemies like the Sinow Zoa would get if they were V2ified or even got a flat boost.

You can't do that without changing weapon statistics, anyway, because V3 weapons are too weak to damage V2 enemies and don't have enough ATA to even hit them in the first place, as V2 creates a strict line between normal and rare weapon stats and requires you to use rare weapons to get anywhere in Ultimate. While V2 enemy stats are an extreme example, your argument of weapons outclassing enemies no longer applies if the enemies are sufficiently buffed.

Even if V2 stats are too high for V3 gameplay, enemy DFP is a crucial factor in making another difficulty for V3 and V4, because the reason V3 Ultimate is so easy is that you can CK most enemies if you use the right equipment, and as a result, it doesn't really matter how much ATP the enemies have, because they never get a chance to hit you in the first place. If you want Ultimate to be harder, the enemies need to survive long enough to be able to attack you, and with the game's HP limitations, increasing DFP is the only way to achieve it.

Of course, one could argue that thanks to BB items such as V501 that this would only encourage people to spam Arrest even more than they already do so as to ensure that the enemies would never be able to hit you while you whittle down their HP, but fixing BB's broken items is a separate can of worms.