The next "best" Weapon Series (2026) base should have 100% Critical Rate and only have Fixa Attack.

[red narwhal]

Reason: In addition to removing RNG from players DPS, it would also not make players need to prepare multiples of the exact same multiweapon to maximize DPS. It would also eliminate the need for awkward Abandac augment setups on Weapons and Units.

Why: It would be best if the 2026 next best weapon series was max Crit rate like Verschmelz.

Crits do nothing but add in RNG to player's DPS that wasn't present in PSO2c. It also means Time Attackers would not need to "crit fish" for the best times.

Having only one Fixa would be fine considering that obtaining an individual weapon and augmenting it with Radi, Larze, Ex combo, and whatever new BiS Augments get released is expensive as is. Fixas also do not add in true combat variation, and instead just make players switch weapons using the slow weapon palette UI (controller).

And of course it would make augments setups more flexible w/o needing to gear around Abandac.

Skills and Boosts that boost Crit Rates like Slayer's many skills and some Add-On Skills could simply be changed to a raw damage boost instead. The experience would be unchanged.

While PSO2c did add in Crit Damage boosters it also had many ways to max the crit rate too, so for the most part DPS RNG wasn't really much of a factor unlike NGS where Crits add in a raw 20% damage boost.

Note that this suggestion should only be implanted after the next "base" strongest Weapon, Armor, Radi/Larze successors are released (presumably in 2026) for the sake of respecting the current gear setups.

Additional Notes: While I couldn't fit this into the OP, the Future strongest Weapon Series should also use a fixed set of EX III augments to avoid needing to gear multiples of the same multiweapon. EX Augments mostly are just 1-3% damage boosts by utilizing a gimmick. Unique ones like Tri Shield and Fortitude could simply be class skills or the like. There are a few other examples that could be brought up, but this post is getting long as is.

[odd moon]

Lets neuter player gear customization choices for arbitrary rng fixing cause bad or whatever

[knotty spire]

Slayer in shambles with a crit weapon again

However, if you would propose a competition mode with fixed gear....
I can agree on that, like the arks friendship caravan.
Would be a fun concept if we get records based on fixed gear so only skill matters and not if you got your "fixa Abandac 5 leyend" for this competition

[red narwhal]

Honestly though, what is the "gear customization" actually amounting to?

It's really just paying big for small gains, and said gains getting overwritten when the next BiS Base releases. And I addressed Slayer in the pheedback.

[odd moon]

A lot
It’s amounting to a lot.
I know people that run multiple weapons with different fixa’s on the same weapon type for different situations. Like. The customization is there and people use them.

[sleek lodge]

then ur change doesnt fix ur suposed problem

and impressive how i can somehow facetank nukes from bosses while ppl on the same tier die when the same boss sneeze on them, despite gear cusmization being non-existent as u say

how am i doing this when everyone's builds suposedly has the same stats as mine instead of another idk +15% PB generation from Orgsys and way more PP... truly a mystery...

[red narwhal]

Blastor is just a PB stick. Wix/Unwix just lead to arbitrary weapon swapping that doesn't really need to be there. Termina encourages crit fishing, ect

[odd moon]

Termina only really works on slayer
Attack is a really good general potency boost fixa
Unwix is a joke and wix is a niche for ranger and force/techter
fatale is the worst fixa cause of the lack of an inherent potency boost and blastor has an very decent potency boost on top of pb boost so it is usable outside of pb.

[sleek lodge]

Blastor is meta(or at least PRETTY good) on Te since te PBs like crazy

but u still have the alternative of going for Wix for elemental weakness and whatnot

[red narwhal]

Not really. Te would still be better off using Aband/Wix when not using the PB.

[sleek lodge]

Unwix gets used on farming sticks and ppl harcore min-max against bosses that keep weakpoints hidden

yeah, but then everyone should have an Abanda, Wix, Unwix and Blastor stick

oh w8, Unwix would surpass abanda

14% against non-weakpoints

so 1 unwix, 1 wix, 1 blastor

[red narwhal]

Blastor is only "best" for pulling out when you PB compared to others. It is alright if you just have one weapon, but the system just encourages players to grind those 4 if they want to minmax. And don't forget that power creep and Radi/Larze prices are a factor

[sleek lodge]

do they?

idk, u see alot of ppl clearing the harder content no problem with just 1 general use stick

if u wanna do something absurd and go way off the curve, sure, but its not required

[red narwhal]

Only one weapon is honestly necessary for core content, that I'm not denying.

[sleek lodge]

and with each class having an advantage in certain situations, ppl'd still need multiples of each weapon for minmaxing

[red narwhal]

That's the other point... players need to gear multiple weapons to play different classes.

[sleek lodge]

like in any other game? like we've been doing the entire time? and so we can optimize our builds for that specific class?

and making all the weapons the same wouldnt fix the problem, we'd still need to build multiple weapons for multiple classes

unless u wanna propose a 20 weapon multi-weapon system

[red narwhal]

Needed to gear multiples of the same weapon type for the same class to max your damage before the next BiS Base is asking for too much.

[sleek lodge]

as we said b4

its not needed lol

[red narwhal]

I know that.

[sleek lodge]

then why r u still mad about it?

[odd moon]

Realistically
The general player base will build a low fixa weapon, occasionally a multi weapon with it. All these fancy whatnot doohickies and nitpicking with weapons are used by higher effort players and they are the minority when it comes to that.

[knotty spire]

Really, gear customization does a lot right now
At least ex augments.
Evade onslaught may be the best Potency one, but it's not for everybody

[odd moon]

A LOT of the playerbase will not cate much for if whether or not their fixa is meta and will probably run fatale or whatever they see first in general content
If they ever make gear outside of their handouts that is

[knotty spire]

And I still promote that players should pick ex they work well with like tri shield, over something they would die by using it improperly like hysterical/burn

[red narwhal]

Because the the different Fixas don't add much at all from a gameplay perspective.

[knotty spire]

Sure, the fixa system is underwhelming and has a bunch of issues.
But the power difference between fixas is minuscule. No one really needs to minmax them

You can do anything with a fatale weapon

[sleek lodge]

they'll buy a bis rifle, brag they overwrote Wix with termina cuz they dunno what they r doing and when u point out the massive loss in dmg compared to anything else they'll try to cope by saying the 5% crit-rate from slayer sub will make up for it

[red narwhal]

Never mind that it's a bit of a pain to grind fixa especially on stuff like Leyend

[odd moon]

A lot of players are also on paper dps players and dont actually know tf they’re doing lmao.

[sleek lodge]

i have the stuff to swap to abandac, but i still stick to Attack on most my weapons cuz falz it, we ball, i can get that 2% somewhere else

[red narwhal]

If it was just Attack by itself at least the loto would be eased.

Abanadac itself is another issue because of well, the S Augs.

[sleek lodge]

huh no

with 8 slots, EXs and majis we have more than enough augs to get full abandac without S augs

[knotty spire]

18/20 Abandac is also free

[sleek lodge]

should be 11% dmg on that one right?

[knotty spire]

So today is pretty much fixa attack at worst

Or a tiny bit better, but yeah

20/20 requires you to use 1 s augment I think

[red narwhal]

So if Halphinale, Gladia Soul, Gigas Maste, and GDK all get new versions in the coming months, there's no guarantee that they all get a Majis version.

[sleek lodge]

'sides abandac is only worth it over the rest at Lv5(?) 7-7

[red narwhal]

or replace a Radi/Larze Deft

Abandac 4 is pretty good too

[knotty spire]

That is true, Abandac has that issue. That's why I also don't promote people using Abandac lol

If you want to do it, go for it. For me is paying a lot

Of QoL that is

[sleek lodge]

most ppl stop at Lv3 at most, so abandac might aswell not exist for them

[obsidian sphinx]

if you look at it from the other (less problematic) perspective abandac is your reward for going cheap on the other stuff and mixing your radi/larze

[red narwhal]

And of course, it would be nice to be be able to partake in Arks Record w/o being constrained by Fixa swapping or Crit Fishing.

[sleek lodge]

yeah, my AC augs r a mix of gua and sta, could throw in a ward if i wanted and thats 4 augs for max abandac cleared, counting a duo type on weapon

huh

u can

[red narwhal]

The way to do Abanadac is to pick one of melra/meltech/ratech for the units, then have the weapon contrast them.

[sleek lodge]

u can even make it to top100 on the board wat the fuwan

[odd moon]

What I was trying to say with my musings earlier is that talk about fixa meta’s are only really spoken for by players who fit the plays a higher level minority and it isnt a problem. Most of the people in that minority run their own builds or sets anyways and the build diversity shows through despite how, on paper, it looks like people just take the best thing possible.

[knotty spire]

Also, btw, both crits and potency floor existed in base... It was just disguised with the Dexterity stat...
But base has the same random variation in damage as NGS.
Techniques had a horrible dex correction value, for example, so that may even have been worse in PSO2c lol

[sleek lodge]

parfairt on armor, mix up deft and the other bonus stats, dual deft on weapon

[red narwhal]

It was bad on crafted weapons, but PSO2c didn't have too much damage variation, nor raw 20% on crits

[odd moon]

There is a weird narrow-mindedness when it comes to people complaining about samey meta’s when more often than not it is never actually the case and when you actually deep dive into it, builds for stuff
Yugioh decks
Pokemon teams
Fixa and ex augments
Are really diverse

[red narwhal]

And when crit damage S-Augs were added, there were still ways to max the crit rate

[obsidian sphinx]

ok but if I go and look at the worlds stats today and see incineroar at 60% presence I'll call some BS on that :P edit - looks like 55%ish

[red narwhal]

NGS isn't a turn based game, and the Ex Augs are kind of minor in overall gameplay influence.

[sleek lodge]

I've never seen someone beg so much for random crits to be removed that wasnt a black box concheror soldier main with their medic bf's healing gun so far up his rear health particles come out of his mouth after dying in the most casual ctf_2fort match in TF2 w8, every capture the flag 2fort match is casual, nobody gives a damn and just shoot each other for fun

[pseudo glen]

Whatever that means

[odd moon]

You say that as people aregue about what builds are best
Proving that once again
There is plenty of build diversity and no one singular empowered thing to use

[pseudo glen]

Oh

[knotty spire]

Again, for a special mode like a challenge contest, sure.
The general game is pretty fine with critical hits.
Sure arks records is a crit fishing fest but like, it's just arks records dude

[odd moon]

Lmao yeah.

[sleek lodge]

IF u even care

[calm mantle]

100% crit rate would need a large potency decrease paired with it

[sleek lodge]

and it only matters on shorter fights, over the course of a longer one, the spike from crits will get erased

[red narwhal]

The idea is that 100% crit would be saved for 14* or whatever the next big weapon series base is.

Implanting it now would be a really bad idea.

[sleek lodge]

and u talk so much about arks records as if u r desperately trying to get to top1, yet the ppl topping the boards r just vibing o -o

[pseudo glen]

This guy just really loves Versh

I can't hate him for that

[red narwhal]

I'm simply trying to promote fair competition.

[obsidian sphinx]

if it didn't apply to all weapons people would just keep using the old weapons and crit fishing with those, yeah

[sleek lodge]

Vershc is pog, for aesthetic
the katana deadass Zero's saber in MMZ

[red narwhal]

And a streamlined but still depthful gameplay experience

[sleek lodge]

we have that

[pseudo glen]

There's something nice about 100% crit rate

[knotty spire]

I want fair competition, in the sense I would like an ngs challenge mode >:C

[sleek lodge]

consistency

[pseudo glen]

But the fact that 100% crit rate comes with reduced dmg

Because you know what they pair 100% with

[red narwhal]

The newest weapon would have the crit damage as the older stuff

[obsidian sphinx]

fair is cool. Like I've argued before though it's fundamentally different from what ARKS Record offers which is a place to show off your shiny $300 sword or whatever

I would enjoy something more fair too

[sleek lodge]

I vote we get MH Hunting School style challenges instead of a 100% crit weapon, where everyone is given the same kit to win a fight

[knotty spire]

you know, that could be a fun mode too

[sleek lodge]

tbh, it'd be neat if each class had a few kits to choose from, cuz it's gonna suck to ditch my ability to facebash through attacks with my char's raw bulk to get hits in when i shouldnt, cuz the challenge forces me to play glass cannon like everyone else

[red narwhal]

Let's not forget that being a F2P game, your meseta reserves are kind of indirectly tied to your real money.

[sleek lodge]

but hey, fair is fair, so it should be fine if u r forced to play with a very defensive build too when the challenge asks for it

[knotty spire]

or you kow, you have two or three classes you can pick.
As in this week is fighter, hunter or bouncer

[sleek lodge]

Rex, i turn every class into THE tank for the mpa. im not normal in the head

[red narwhal]

And having a bunch of "micro-variation" just creates decision paralysis and sometimes may result in players either just not playing NGS at all or just not being ambitious.

If I want to add variation to my gameplay, I'll simply play a different class.

[sleek lodge]

does it though? most ppl don't think twice about picking w/e sounds good to them

[knotty spire]

well yeah, but with fixed gear you can't do much.
But tbh, the handout gear is tank-oriented, so those records can have chunky gear anyway

epith erini is a defensive weapon

So, if they do it with fixed gear, they will probably use the free gear and have potencies like these

[sleek lodge]

it's weird how we have this split where some ppl want hardcore balancing as if this was a very competitive PvP only game and some ppl say "screw balancing!! give me one morbillion classes!!"

yet the ppl who knows this is a co-op game with some solo challenges for u to clear and u only need to min-max if u want... gets hated by both

[odd moon]

Hey did you guys know that Verschmelz is the worst in slot weapon for most if not every single weapon?

[sleek lodge]

even when it was relevant?

[knotty spire]

I'm personally fine with ngs' current approach of "you sacrifice a bit of damage for QoL" so you can strive the balance you want between top dps and utility

[knotty spire]

it was worse than tisah, even when it released... the thing is no one had a tisah lol

[obsidian sphinx]

yeah I'm quite ok with how it works right now. I personally will spend my speedrunning time on other games with less variance and less real money investment but they don't need to cater to me. I'll have more fun in the rest of the game with more variety

[sleek lodge]

but tisah was an unicorn drop, so it was fine i guess

[knotty spire]

when melek released it was outclassed too, so verch's lifespan wasn't very long either

[obsidian sphinx]

versch still bis for testing stuff though 😛

[sleek lodge]

oofts

reviewing my arks records run
will removing random crits make me stop crashing into the slowness mines?

[odd moon]

Just run duh
Who even needs a hoverboard? What is it, the future or something? Smh
Get your cardio in girl

[sleek lodge]

remove slowness mines from the game, im tired of redoing records to fish for a clean run

[frank quail]

I think this is a fair idea for something like a competitive game, but pso2 is an mmo with a very large emphasis on self-expression and many different things tie into it, fashion is probably the most important aspect of the game and it's based around customization, the multi-weapon system and tech arts customization (even though there is usually a 'correct' choice) does also offer more customization options and in general a lot of the game is based around being able to play in a way that more-or-less suits your own preferred playstyle. Removing customization especially when it comes to gameplay is really not productive in my opinion because it is a design that directly contrasts a lot of what makes pso2 good.

Imagine if ex augments were removed entirely and instead every weapon simply got a 6% potency increase and 40% dr as well as slight healing over time. According to your established points, this would be a 'good thing' because it makes it so multiple weapons with different ex combinations for different situations wouldn't be necessary, and also removes pesky rng from combat and gearing. However, this change would be terrible for almost everyone for lots of reasons that are really evident (every optimal playstyle becomes the exact same, gear drops become meaningless, one less thing to farm). In reality, who exactly benefits from the change that you're suggesting? There are probably fewer than 5 dozen people (and almost certainly under 1 or 2 hundred) who are invested in arks records to the point of crit fishing across both global and japanese servers and to everybody else the change has almost no upsides considering it makes the game less 'game-y'?

Also i have strong personal issue with your point about skills that increase crit rate being able to be changed without impacting the experience. critting is fun! missing crits is sad but dealing 500k with an overdrive end is only fun because it could have missed and dealt much less.

[odd moon]

Dude I love overdrive gambling
It’s either 60k or 400k no inbetween

[knotty spire]

Every time I press this button all the adrenaline stacks up, it's either 800k or 500k... who knows?
LET'S GO GAMBLING

[sleek lodge]

i love me some crit hydras on breaks
"1 200 000+ DMG"
Me: neuron activation WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 🐵

[indigo agate]

I'm actually a fan of the verschmel series when it came out. To be able to see stable damage numbers at all times. So I can go play with other damage factors or rotations. See If other ideas are an actual increase or not.

It would be nice to always have a weapon type like this ALONG with other weapon series at the same time, going forward.

(I also hate gambling. I just wanna know if I'm getting better vs just getting lucky)

[sleek lodge]

we could improve the training room to let us plan our build while in there, by switching between every avaiable piece of gear(augs, weapons, armors, add-ons) and toggle certain buffs/passives on and off freely

not every one we have, everything currently obtainable

[obsidian sphinx]

I liked versch too, it’s just always going to be hard to keep a weapon like that relevant without tweaking the numbers whenever floor changes, or some new source of crit comes out, or for classes that benefit a lot from slayer addon like Fo/fi, etc

they even had to change it when it was relevant and they buffed termina, one of the very few times they’ve changed a potential

[knotty spire]

it was also the time when everybody had no floor and slayer was going rampant, so verzchmelz acted as an equalizer

it had a reason at the time, right now it really doesn't

We still need to learn more about ex styles and skill rings, which may change how we see crits or floor again tbh

[red narwhal]

Ex Augs didn’t really help NGS much at all. They debuted in a way that made players have to reaugment Wingard. And there was some confusion to the way Ex Augs were added which led to some mid-affixes,

And of course there’s the ex aug checking which I hate and is an annoying repeat of affix fodder checking from PSO2c.

2024 in general was kind of a poor NGS year imo

[odd moon]

Ex augments on the contrary helped ngs
Soooo much
EVERYONE was excited when we were told augments dropped on gear again and determine parts of your build’s individuality still.

Ex augments is literally one of the best things to happen to ngs

The worst part about pso2’s augmenting was not the augments themselves but how punishing it was to fail the augments.
You fail an augment and you’re not only set back hours upon weeks of grinding on one unlucky failure, but you also lose a slot on your gear and
Depending on your augmenting situation, you more than likely had to restart from pure scratch again if you did fail an augment.

I willl personally argue that pso2’s augmenting system is actually really good and one of the best, if they were to change how down-slotting wasted your time by removing it, and bumping augment drop rates/ augment success rates across the board so you can actually engage with the system instead pf whatever the pso2 live-service mess gave us.

[red narwhal]

At best, Ex Augs made getting a base aug setup on weapons easier.

And imo PSO2c augmenting was terrible. You could even lose AC Augs from upslotting! And they didn’t “stick around” if you tried to reaffix it

[odd moon]

Again
The base affix systems in pso2 is not at fault for that kind of stuff when they could have very well let the augment stay around and simply chose not to.

The actual base augmenting system was actually really cool. what surrounded it was not

As much as I think the augmenting system in ngs is boring as all hell
it does remedy a lot of the mistakes they made with the one in pso2.
one day
I hope to see them rerelease pso2 as its own thing instead of ending its service. As a game you can play by yourself. Crack dream though, we all know that once ngs ends service, pso2 dies forever as well.

[sleek lodge]

careful though, afaik X Dive fans got monkey paw'd hard after asking for an offline version of it

[rain beacon]

Plot twist next BiS weapon will be Epith Erini III

[sudden fox]

Good heavens what did I just read

I’d argue / debate / put my opinion in on this but ik the original post won’t change so, everyone fighting for this to change or be rephrased, I wish you luck

[river flame]

now being entirely fair here, ngs' gear customization kinda sucks, like a lot. EX augments are the only real bearing you have on customization that will change your playstyle more or less, weapons with interesting potentials that make players think about anything beyond their usual gameplan are all stupid rare drops that are outdated and outclassed by new generic weapon with potential that just makes all numbers go up passively by the time they become common enough, and fixas are just different flavours of "damage go up" that are more or less effective.

This alongside augs being "BiS or BiS lite and nothing inbetween" makes for a super, super stale gearing environment imo lol

...Getting back to the actual topic though, F no. Restricting options even further when variance and crit are still technically avenues that could be leveraged to make unique things just serves to make weapons into stat sticks even further

We need a more diverse environment when it comes to our gear, not ffxiv thank you very much

[red narwhal]

It’s important to remember though that NGS is an ongoing game, so having to make multiples of the exact same multiweapon to be “complete” isn’t really a good thing when a new weapon series can suddenly overtake whatever you’re using atm.
Let’s not forget how awful Larze and Radi prices are atm.
I could probably justify Ex Augs more if NGS was a finished game, the game only let you bring exactly one weapon out to the field/quests, or allow for “Ex Augs load outs” but atm Ex Augs and different Fixas feel like they just serve to make players pay more Meseta for small gains. And of course you’re probably paying real money for the Shop Access/ect to make Meseta…
And I do not see the appeal of crits at all. They just make you annoyed/disappointed when they don’t land.

[rain beacon]

I do not agree. I think current upgrade path is nice. Different standard weapons fulfill different roles and match different playstyles and do not have very significant power difference ||other than Epith Erini||.

[dense niche]

I think removing Weapon customization options is the last thing the game needs right now. Quite the opposite, we need more of them not less.

If i wanted to play a game with FFXIV's dogwater gearing system I'd play FFXIV

[pseudo glen]

I love this hate that FF14 is getting

Feels good to see it

[obsidian sphinx]

it always gets vehement reactions in pso2 communities cause this game is a haven for people who reject popular games for whatever reason

[pseudo glen]

Oh c'mon

I just know that I played FF14

And get bored with it

[obsidian sphinx]

not saying it's right or wrong - you feel how you feel. The gearing is very comparable though right now outside of ex augs. A bunch of stat sticks that you are guaranteed to get if you exist in X content for Y amount of time that mostly adjust your math

[pseudo glen]

Yeah

[dense niche]

I mean if you boil it down to just that then every game ever has the same gearing system

NGS gearing system isnt fantastic but at least the stats dont require reverse engineering and each wwapon has different potentials

FFXIV is literally just stats

[frank quail]

this is a bit of a misrepresentative statement, there is nothing that you "have" to do, making multiple weapons will make you much more competitive in ta content like solo mts or arks record but in the beginning those things are already highly optional and very niche, nobody has ever been forced to make multiple different copies of the same weapon using different fixa or ex just to clear content. making multiple copies of expensive equipment (or even obtaining it in the first place) has always been a trade-off along the lines of 'do i want to spend more money now for the best performance or save for other things?', having things to work towards is part of what makes a game a game and your suggestion is essentially 'delete every weapon from the game, make everything identical aside from arbitrary number increases' which is extremely reductive, please remember that there is an entire game surrounding the ngs combat system rather than just being a series of combat missions with nothing connecting them (although even single-player action games will have some sort of interesting gearing system that may or may not incentivize building duplicates of the same weapon or weapon type)

about your point with ex, not only does it simplify and misrepresent the effect of ex augments, it is also quite wrong in some aspects? ex augments have a very very large impact on playstyle, of course in a perfect world where everybody plays perfectly then nobody would use anything else besides avoid onslaught comboes but in practice comboes like pain rouse/keep balance/ shortage hp enable playstyles that are unique and have little overlap with something like onslaught. there is a huge difference between somebody who uses an ex augment setup that fits them well compared to somebody who just uses random things just because, it's not that buying good ex is 'paying more meseta for small gains' but much closer to spending more to supplement a playstyle which enhances player expression.

larze and defi (i assume you mean radi? defi is free from the seasonal store) are arguably cheaper relative in terms of a 'realistically obtainable balance' compared to a lot of the previous ac capsules in the past. some variants are naturally more expensive than others but they (referring to the stat modifier) aren't mandatory by any means and there are more ways to make money compared to before. 3 day shop passes are free from mission pass and treasure scratches which lets players sell expensive ex combinations or other high-value items, there's the option to farm dext if you really want to and now rappies are also an option whenever there's an event featuring them. they are also nowhere near mandatory for most players, of course their impact is not-insignificant but it isn't to the point where they will be the difference between a clear and a timeout in average content (not things like mts solo) as long as player skill is sufficient.

i suppose the issue of crits is just a difference in perspective as there are people who like it but also people who don't enjoy it very much and one side is not necessarily any more correct than the other, although the way that you've worded your feedback comes across almost like 'this thing annoys me and it should be removed, i don't care if other people enjoy it.' rather than something like 'i think the game would be better if this thing was removed'

[obsidian sphinx]

crits is definitely perspective and there isn't a right answer there.

In my view crits don't serve a purpose in an action game - we don't have to simulate variance because we interact with the enemy differently depending on how it moves, how well we hit its weak points, etc. It just adds an extra layer that we have to perform well, but also high roll at the crit casino in a game where many of us are running around with 15%. It's absolutely not as bad as it was when floor was like 57%, addons weren't released yet and enemy defense was increasing with level though

I definitely understand people who perceive this as more of a traditional rpg and expect to roll their 20 every once in a while and see cool stuff

[odd moon]

Oh yeah. I mentioned it while talking about pso2 augmenting but ngs’s augmenting falls flat while looking cool on paper. The ex system is also a little iffy as there is no way to focus farm them outside of certain combo’s in certain events. Ngs’s augmenting and gearing is pretty boring all things considered, which is why we shouldnt make it more boring lmao 💀

I think that
At any rate
The method of acquiring gear could be a bit more fun.
Cause at the end of the day all gear in every game is realistically “number go up” in different flavors

[river flame]

on the topic of crit, OP's stance is one I would've agreed with a couple years back when the 50% variance meta started and crits were the sole lifeline that held damage together, nowadays though, it really isn't a problem anymore when our variance is back to pre kvaris levels, furthermore, fatale has been buffed significantly to the point where if you REALLY want reliable crits, you can use it now, yet options like attack can outperform it on average simply because our variance is that much higher now

as for EX augments, they're good in the state they're in, they drop in sufficient quantities that you can always get an EX combo that suits your needs as a player (and often you can buy them for very reasonable prices, not everyone needs the latest evade onslaught combo that is expensive because it just came out and the supply is low) whether you're looking at a glass cannon build or something more defensive. Right now, they're the much needed variety we need in builds and I hope skill rings will continue and expand our options

[red narwhal]

I never said that multiples of the same weapon were needed for the core content. Just for minmaxing, which honestly should be reasonably reachable until the next wave of weapons releases.

Provoke/Maint/ShortHP just means your just play with 48% HP with extra resist, so basically just like having lower bulk for a small damage boost. Gameplay wise you’re just being more careful though, and it won’t benefits from max HP LC boosts. Ditto with Evadeon for having to dodge everything. A lot of the Ex Augs are just committing to a gimmick for a small damage boost.

Tri Shield is the one that’s interesting since it stores Rod but I feel that could just go on the Force tree imo.

RNG Crits imo have always been a bad gimmick even in turn based RPGs. I really do not like them here especially when they were either superficial or mostly guaranteed in PSO2c.

[obsidian sphinx]

committing to a gimmick can be fun though - that's why I enjoy ranger and gunner. Yes, some of the more popular combos like the evade ones and maintain/shortage mostly play out like normal gameplay (which is imo a failure of these particular augments and not the system), but you are choosing to distinguish how you play from other players and that's a good thing

one of the past criticisms of gunblaze for example was the "riskier" options were quickly outclassed by new weapons. EX augments allow people to take on those playstyles and get rewards for them regardless of what the weapon of the month is

[sly portal]

comedy, this whole conversation

[left hill]

I think the solution to the problem of their being too many Preset Skills for niche purposes is to have SEGA introduce a new AC Support Scratch featuring Preset Skill Slot Expansion Devices that allow players to add additional Preset Skill slots to both weapons and units.

This would ensure even less desirable Preset Skills are valuable because you would ideally collect a maximum level Preset Skill of each type (since we all know that you cannot have duplicate augments on a piece of gear, this would similarly translate to not having duplicate Preset Skills on a piece of gear).

Now, you never need to choose between Wix, Unwix, Fatale, Termina, Attack, Blastor, or Abundac on a weapon - just acquire 6 Preset Skill Slot Expansion Devices from the new AC Support Scratch and use them on your weapon to be able to have all 7 currently existing Preset Skills active on once for your weapon (or all 6 currently existing Preset Skills on each of your units).

Now, there is no such thing as a bad Preset Skill because you'd want to acquire them all for maximum power!

||\s but if this really happens, its not my fault||

[rain beacon]

I think they just want those players to chase extra weapons instead, so they need to pay for 2 extra AC capsules + cost for Fixa enhance and augmenting (+40% boosters generally requires a 10-pull on a banner, mostly AC).

[rain beacon]

That is why I enjoy building wix for bossing and Unwix for mobbing (blight round CD is way too long for mobbing purposes), it is pretty fun ||until the main dps always decided to turn the boss away from you.||

[red narwhal]

Gameplay wise it’s just extra weapon swapping to something that plays exactly the same, except it does more damage to X

[odd moon]

That's generally how video games work.

[knotty spire]

Yes, PSO always worked like that.
Base was the exact same, instead it was rainbow element gimmick.
It was so expensive no one cared, which is the exact same situation on ngs

And PSU had elemental weapons too, so you weren't safe from it.
PSO was worse, since it had enemy type % modifiyers.
"oh, you like this excalibur a lot, too bad it's 0% on all enemy types, keep using your old 5* weapon that has 80% against natives instead"

Most players don't care, they either use blastor, attack or fatale and calls it a day, and the game is balanced around that.
Minmaxing takes a bunch of effort, and using many different weapons, but it doesn't expect you to do it on any piece of content

[red narwhal]

Getting a single strong weapon to fixa 5 takes a lot of resources itself

The newer fixas annoy me because they were something added in later. At least they got it right with Orgsys

In PSO2c you generally just made your weapon light. Only the Tech classes and Luster wanted other elements, and Luster I think is just Fire/Dark 90% of the time

[knotty spire]

the "you generally just made your weapon light" is the misconception.
For general purpose, light only works in PSO2c.
But that's like using fixa attack or abandac. You do a general purpose weapon that works well most of the time, but it's almost never the optimal choice.
If you wanted to go top in time attack quests (basically, PSO2c's arks records) you needed more than light.
Wix/Unwix/Abandac have had some controversies (which one is based on the meta) Blastor really hasn't

But really all of the problematic fixas has been somewhat resolved or toned down.
Wix may be one that's a bit strong, but it also assumes some things that doesn't always apply

[red narwhal]

Luster did remove the element damage, but overall weapon element just wasn’t a good mechanic.
Weapon % in PSO1 would have been okay though if it they didn’t have a 3 %s cap (2 for excal/tjs), and you could somehow boost Hit. Hit% would have been pretty bad if PSOGC/BB was an “ongoing” game. It really works because they’re “finished”

[sudden fox]

Yooo 200th comment lets go

[red narwhal]

Point is, the different weapons don’t really have a lot of true variation gameplay wise outside maybe Tri Shield and Evade Onslaught. It’s just general damage boosts being placed differently, and I personally don’t find gimmicks like Burn/Hyst, Maint/Short, Turnover/Evade, etc to actually be engaging. And they have odd weak points as well, like Maint/Short not benefitting from LC Max HP buff.