Seasons Feedback

Matt

Matt

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Hey guys.

The first Season is coming to a close, so we're interested in collecting feedback about it and seeing what players thought of it, the good and the bad.

It most likely goes without saying that another Season is most likely going to happen, as this is the most popular thing we've ever done, but we want to make sure future Seasons are more enjoyable for everyone involved.

This was our first shot at the Season, so naturally not everything was smooth sailing, but we'd like the next one to be.

Feel free to comment on anything you like, here is what has been gathered so far:

Length of Season: Almost unanimously, 3 months has been considered far too long for a PSO Seasons. There have been many suggestions ranging from 4 weeks to 8 weeks.

Meta Strategies: While there's always a meta, there were certain methods during this Season that were so much better than all the rest, many felt the Season was ruined as people rushed through the early game grind. The meta will differ each Season most likely, as Seasons will probably have small changes as to goals and what you have access to, but how much did this bother people?

In this particular Season, we mean Phantasmal World #3 and Maximum Attack Episode 4.

Shop Weapons: Killed early game progression. They're actually bugged and should not be giving specials and up to 50% so early. Should probably look at that before the next Season.

Achievements: A popular system, but certain achievements should probably be avoided for the next Season. Specifically, needing to go all the way to 200 was not too popular, and item drop achievements were not popular either, at least the very rare ones.
 
how about the obvious to kick things off: solo boosts promote solo play over group play, further providing less incentive for players to play in groups, and thus, seasons.
 
Overall I liked it a lot. But I simple love making new characters, being underleveled and underequipped, which is not the case for most players. You have already mentioned most of the flaws and how to fix/avoid them in the future, so here is just some random thoughts.

Matt said:
Hey guys.
Length of Season: Almost unanimously, 3 months has been considered far too long for a PSO Seasons. There have been many suggestions ranging from 4 weeks to 8 weeks.
Click to expand...

Yes, a season length of maybe 4-8 weeks would be best (6 imo), so people just have time to play one character. This will probably make it easier to find a better balance for achievement points in the future.
Also take note that leveling your first character is slow, but if you take the right preparations for more characters (e.g. mag feeding), every new character will be much faster. Shared bank was missing but you could still exchange items with the help of friends. So having time to only play one character will be a big plus.

Matt said:
Meta Strategies: While there's always a meta, there were certain methods during this Season that were so much better than all the rest, many felt the Season was ruined as people rushed through the early game grind. The meta will differ each Season most likely, as Seasons will probably have small changes as to goals and what you have access to, but how much did this bother people?

In this particular Season, we mean Phantasmal World #3 and Maximum Attack Episode 4.
Click to expand...
Matt said:
Achievements: A popular system, but certain achievements should probably be avoided for the next Season. Specifically, needing to go all the way to 200 was not too popular, and item drop achievements were not popular either, at least the very rare ones.
Click to expand...

While I didn't really do any PW3 box runs, I sure did some MA4 ABC runs for leveling. One of the "get to ult fast" reasons for me was based on the achievement points. If I would describe achievements mathematically in a curve it would start reeeeaaally slow for everything below 80 and then raising really fast at 80+. This was caused by the quest achievements.

What I would like to see in the future are stacking achievements for quests, where you get points for every difficulty level. E.g. normal 1, hard 1, vhard 2, ult 4. Skipping lower difficulties and only doing ult for example will automatically unlock the lower achievements. This will help with people joining late, so they don't have to get to ult first, to get some points. Because at a certain point there is simple not enough time to get to ult.

And yes, the optimal way to play was get to ult, get all quest achievements, get some other random achievements to get a multiple of 50 points total, make new character. I played 2 Forces this season:
https://ephinea.pioneer2.net/displa...=42000455&slot=11&submit=Display+Achievements
https://ephinea.pioneer2.net/displa...=42000455&slot=12&submit=Display+Achievements

As you can see I got a total of 1116 points, while others who just played one character spent way more time (item drop achievements) and couldn't even surpass 1000 points (946 max).

Matt said:
Shop Weapons: Killed early game progression. They're actually bugged and should not be giving specials and up to 50% so early. Should probably look at that before the next Season.
Click to expand...
I have mentioned this somewhere already but I'd really remove 50% from the shop and make it max 30% for all attributes. The problem with the shop is that once you get a nice 50% item, the market gets flooded. There are enough ways to get your 50 hit equip by doing restless lion or from the scavenger in event shops.

One last thing:
I didn't like the balance changes mid season.
#1 putting all quests into solo
#2 making NMU quests HBR and removing the timer (NMU3 was the best way to level in march) and you could easily farm these achievements in solo play
#3 exp share
But I guess with future seasons being shorter, this will be less of an issue.

Nonetheless it was great and I'm looking forward to future seasons. Imo 2 seasons per year would be best. Hopefully in a way that they don't overlap with other events. #1 between new years and easter, #2 between anniversary and halloween.

EDIT: Oh and for future seasons I'd remove account based level rewards. The reward shop should be more than enough.
 
I always thought it odd that you could mass purchase from the shop. This is especially a problem in a season scenario. 1 person finds 50 hit charge vulcs and now every single person has a pair, for cheap. Even if you made 50 hit super rare, it's only a matter of time before someone finds one and then buys 100 of them.

Limit shop to single purchases or max hit at 30 or so, as suggested. The former might encourage mass shop piping, which I don't think we want.
 
16085k said:
I didn't play, so I could be wrong, but it seems like after a few weeks it wasn't really that different than normal mode. I think it would be more interesting (and promote teaming with other people) if you made it so you can't trade at all.
Click to expand...
This is an idea we've had.

We've thought about making future Seasons have some sort of different thing going on, for example having a Season where it plays like Gamecube (so no Episode 4 and the vanilla drop tables from GC), or having a Season where nobody can trade with each other, and you gotta get by on what you can find only (would most likely be some changes to how SIDs work with this system).

I don't think each Season will be something set in stone and the same thing again and again.
 
With regard to meta strategies, I think PW3 is the only quest that needs changing, and by "changing" I mean "wiping the box room clean in Seasons only". It's a quest solely done to get stuff like 50h Hell Raygun super easily and then wipe out everything else; sure, there are other quests with boxes that this can be done in, but not nearly to the degree that PW3 allows.

About the MA4 problem, it'd be nice if there was some sort of "progression" system where unlocking the quests for an area meant you had to clear the last area the quest included. This means unlocking MA4 Ep4 would first require clearing all of Sub Desert, so people can't just start off with an easy quest that gives a ton of EXP if you spam the first room... though I guess you could just clear Desert once and then do it, so it doesn't change too much. I dunno, maybe I'll think of something else, or you guys will.

EDIT: Sodaboy confirms Ironman Season 2. Nice.
 
Wait! People have to stop doing that! Lol.

That was just my opinion! It doesn’t confirm anything!

I just said I think it’d be neat... it may or may not happen! Haha.
 
The meta was solo FO, playing with others was literally slower exp, and time waste.
Making it somehow more worthwhile to play with others during seasons would make things more interesting.

Also 4-6 weeks is a more reasonable time frame, most people quit playing within the first month of seasons anyway.
 
I came in at the tail end of the season, but I play a lot of PoE, so most of what I have to say is in comparison and contrast to that.

One thing that separates PSO and PoE is that PoE is a much quicker game. You can reach endgame very quickly, and have a character mostly completed in a week. PoE also has two kinds of builds, starter builds, and non-starter builds. After you get into maps and build a lot of currency you can then start a different character that uses up the currency you just built. PoE is also a game that is much more open to being played solo while PSO encourages group play almost all of the time. PoE also has a culture of seasonal play with normal mode being a dumping ground of all the OP shit people find in seasons/HC. On Ephinea people care about normal mode.

I feel like a season in PSO should be short lived, and provide better EXP and drops than normal instead of less. You can also try to emulate PoE 'races' where you can think of it like a season that lasts for a few hours, days, or a week with prizes for people on the leaderboard, or people that reach certain milestones/achievement levels.

Most importantly seasons should have a very noticeable gimmick that makes it feel different from normal play. PoE can describe what makes a season different with a single word: Invasion, Breach, Nemesis. You immediately notice the league mechanic when it appears.
 
What about a (short) hardcore season? I.e. every character that joins season is effectively rendered "hardcore" regardless of account status. Then when season is over they return to being normal if the account is normal or remain hardcore if the account is hardcore. Dunno if that would even be possible, or if anyone would even enjoy that. Pls no bully.
 
Length of Season: yes, IMO a bit too long, i personally got burned out fairly early. 4-8 weeks with achievement targets to match sound great.

Meta Strategies: it was discussed pre-seasons that there would be a method implemented to necessitate unlocking quests like PW3 and MA4. i like this idea, and i don't think this parameter should be ignored in future seasons. i remember you saying something like "...so you can't just jump into a new difficulty, queue up PW3 and win..." or something like that ;)

Shop Weapons: i actually wasn't offput by this at all; it actually provided a different meaning to "hunting" because instead of hunting ubers early on, people were lusting over 50h dim rifles. *EDIT* i think i understand the issue now. maybe removing the "mass-buy" options would mitigate this?

Achievements: i think some of the achievements in other arenas i've enjoyed getting were situational ones. these could be really creative, like "kill x enemies with a single attack" or even time-attack goals like "clear LHS within this timeframe." granted, actually programming and granting those achievements may be difficult, but just as an idea.

i thought seasons was definitely a solid move (not that anyone is disputing this). i had fun while i could, but i quickly realized that, as someone who has a full-time job and is seeking career advancement, there wasn't really any room for me to be super successful here without shirking my responsibilities. not that i'm asking things to be nerfed so that i can win everything, but i think if the season length is scaled down, some of the achievements/etc could be scaled to match.

***the other thing i didn't really like was the nerf of HC exp/drops. not only does it not offer us anything in the way of incentive (i mean we're gonna play it anyway) but it also missed an opportunity to get new players into the pool by not offering them anything for it. i think most will still opt for NM to have their items carry over to their NM accounts, but perhaps a few people would have joined us on the dark side if the perks remained in place.

top notch work as always guys, we appreciate what you do here :3
 
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  1. Shorter season (4-8 weeks)
  2. Nerf Forces, by this I mean, make merges and good force gear harder to obtain or as reason mentioned, make it worthwhile to play with others.
  3. Change up the achievements??? This one may be a bit tricky as there isn't much to do in this game to begin with. lol
  4. NO TRADING WHATSOEVER. I don't need to go into detail on this one at all.
That's just my opinions though. I'm looking forward to the next seasons nonetheless.

Edit 1: I think a seasons with just episode 2 would be really interesting and fun. Episode 2 being my least played area would welcome this change for me. Plus FOs can't absolutely demolish the others in leveling in episode 2.
 
What about shortening mag feed time, since that's a huge impediment to progress? That way you are limited by your cash and not your clock.
And maybe removing most of the quests involving exp rushes.
What about the level lock so you can't play caves until you beat forest, and you can't do ruins till you unlock the pillars? I don't know if that works in multi mode... but in my head I was expecting the solo offline grind format from Gamecube where I would still have to beat falz in a full ruins playthrough to unlock Hard mode.

Seasons was fun, I just got outpaced so face that I went back to Normal mode pretty quickly
 
Matt said:
Hey guys.

The first Season is coming to a close, so we're interested in collecting feedback about it and seeing what players thought of it, the good and the bad.

It most likely goes without saying that another Season is most likely going to happen, as this is the most popular thing we've ever done, but we want to make sure future Seasons are more enjoyable for everyone involved.

This was our first shot at the Season, so naturally not everything was smooth sailing, but we'd like the next one to be.

Feel free to comment on anything you like, here is what has been gathered so far:

Length of Season: Almost unanimously, 3 months has been considered far too long for a PSO Seasons. There have been many suggestions ranging from 4 weeks to 8 weeks.

Meta Strategies: While there's always a meta, there were certain methods during this Season that were so much better than all the rest, many felt the Season was ruined as people rushed through the early game grind. The meta will differ each Season most likely, as Seasons will probably have small changes as to goals and what you have access to, but how much did this bother people?

In this particular Season, we mean Phantasmal World #3 and Maximum Attack Episode 4.

Shop Weapons: Killed early game progression. They're actually bugged and should not be giving specials and up to 50% so early. Should probably look at that before the next Season.

Achievements: A popular system, but certain achievements should probably be avoided for the next Season. Specifically, needing to go all the way to 200 was not too popular, and item drop achievements were not popular either, at least the very rare ones.
Click to expand...

Hi there, LOVED seasons, got my highest level character through seasons (120ish), even since GC i'd play but quit shortly after ultimate.

LOVED: playing with other people at low levels, the first 2 weeks were awesome, seeing ALL the quests I hadn't been able to get groups for in the past. (Thanks achievements).

LOVED LOVED LOVED achievements, great idea about taking away rare weapon drop achievements.

Issues: none that were the fault of any designer or planner or admin. I felt it was difficult to finish certain achievements due to needing a full group, but now that I can solo some multiplayer quests, that may change. I feel that with my pace, I was stuck between two waves of players. I couldn't keep up with the really early veteran players that knew where to grind and play (I went through solo quest mode for soul eater first, which helped my hucast solo through hard mode, so the plan worked, but it left me behind a little in levels).

The players that knew the meta didn't bother me, in fact many helped me with quests later on. Outside of eliminating the PW3 meseta grind, I'd leave everything else.

so maybe 6-8 weeks to 150 with a bunch of quest achievements? I can't wait to see the next season!!! ETA on start date?


Also, my hucast greatly benefited from getting a mech gun with hit out of the shop. so I really thought the shop items helped balance out the advantages that forces had.



Again, this is one of the best experiences I had in terms of online gaming. It was fantastic. Keep up the great work!!!
 
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