PSO2’s First Event: Border Breaking Clumsiness

Events. Historically some of the most bug-ridden times in previous Phantasy Star days. Well in the Phantasy Star Universe days at least, I can’t comment on Phantasy Star Online. For the first event, players found themselves unable to complete the reverse-side of their Bingo Cards as particular nodes wouldn’t trigger when their conditions were satisfied. It has since been fixed, but thankfully Sega isn’t leaving it at that as they will be delivering compensation for it, including:

• 50 x Advanced Capsule a
• 4 x Extreme Passes

Effectively to cover the broken nodes. Exactly what the qualifying conditions are I’ve got to be honest and say I’m not sure. It could be you had to have unlocked the reverse side of the card before the emergency maintenance on the 21st or have to complete a node post it. Hopefully it’s the former or at least close enough to it. Update: You have to have unlocked the reverse side of the card before the emergency maintenance took place. Thanks, Espiokaos!

If you quality you should receive those items post regular maintenance on the 26th of June.

You will only receive this compensation once per account, even if you satisfy the condition on more than one character. 

As a general apology for having to perform an emergency maintenance, everybody will be given the following items:

• 1 x Tri-boost 100%

This should also be distributed post the regular maintenance on the 26th of June

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Episode 2 is Coming!

Kind of. The total size of the update that will bring us all to the next Episode weighs in at a whopping 5GB. PSO2 has had the pre-download system for a while now and they plan to use that system again for it, they just haven’t said when it is these patches will be available. Shouldn’t imagine it will be that long away though, as we’re now 22 days away as of this post from Episode 2 going live, after all.

Early patches are of course a data miner’s delight, so I’m sure some tidbits are set to be released.

Realy, Episode 2 isn’t as big a patch as I’d expect for something akin to an expansion. I mean yeah, it has only been a year since the game came out but the update itself is barely more than a regular content update. It adds a new race, new class and a new field as well as a bunch of photon arts and weapons and that’s all fine. I’m looking forward to that. I’m just saying that it seems a little lacking for something of its nature.

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I Guess I Better Talk About The Event Or Something

The latest reward unlocked is Rare Drop Boost +100%. It’s the one I’ve personally been waiting for, as it means I get to stack rare boost items up from the event and use up the Extreme Quest passes I’ve been saving. Of course the reward that most people would like are the two at the end, which boost item grind and ability transfer success rates.

However, due to the way the Bingo Cards turned out to be, the point growth has significantly slowed down. I was expecting randomly generated cards with various objectives for you to fill and the more Bingos you got the more points you contributed. Instead we all got the same card, which is like we all effectively got Matter Boards. Only one card at that, so as soon as both sides of it are filled out you can’t contribute any more points towards the total. This is why the total has slowed down in growth so much.

Still, there is yet hope. Tonight’s maintenance is set to add a new Limited Time Quest (among other things), namely “Arks Ship Fire Swirl”. With it, you’ll also be gaining a new Bingo Card. Will it be enough to slightly tame Dudu? That has yet to be seen..

As for the event quest itself, I like it! The best part about it for me is the comparitive ridiculousness of some the spawns that can happen, as pictured above. It’s made even better by the number of combinations of enemies that can be encountered, thanks to the quest’s spawn list including nearly every enemy in the game. I never thought I’d see a pair of De Malmoths spawn along with two Tranmizers and a Vol Dragon for example…

It’s not perfect of course. Persona seems to spawn a disproportionate amount compared to other bosses for one thing, who has a nasty habit of killing players after he’s been defeated. The number of times he spawns vs the number of Coated Edge D’s that have dropped is kind of depressing a ratio at that.

Another aspect of it is that hardly anyone actually bothers killing Cougar. This means the supply of its Weapon Camos (skins) is extremely low in general. Never mind the Sword Weapon Camo, “SW Teardowner“, which can only be dropped by the rare variant of the boss. Persona and Cougar can actually spawn just about anywhere it seems, but only one of these two has a chance of being a permanent addition to the game. If Cougar is gone at the end of this event, then the supply of the Weapon Camo items is likely to be extremely thin forever. Mind, given his appearance rates in the quest logs it’d likely be that way even if it was a permanent addition to the game.