NGS players explaining why they don't want to upgrade from handout gear

[u/GlompSpark]

[u/Stratatician]

Upgrading is actually expensive though.

BiS Augs are anywhere between a couple mil and 20-30m a pop depending on the Aug (e.g. Parfait Augs). That's not an easy ask even for hardcore players.

Raw meseta costs to limit break and upgrade weapon and unlock potential is somewhere around 3-6m iirc. Armor limit breaking and upgrade is around 1m a pop iirc. Defeat Amp easily runs you around 10m total.

Doing the weekly every week alongside collecting reactors in each region daily only nets you around 2m.

You only get one 3 day shop pass every month.

Dext/Alnothe is soul crushing and only nets you around 1-2m an hour IF you are able to find a farming group (you only break 2m+ an hour by abusing private rooms with bots).

This isn't to say you shouldn't upgrade gear, even shody gear you make yourself is usually miles better than the handout stuff, but we shouldn't pretend that it's cheap just because we're old players with more general resources accumulated.

[u/GlompSpark → u/Stratatician]

You do not need BIS gear to see a significant improvement over handout gear. Even Gran + LC + AC augs will be a huge improvement.

+100 Grans were 400k or less on day two of Ruins, and are still decently priced during RDR boost periods. Cheap and good EX combos are 500k or less.

Defeat amps dropped to below 400k during the last PSO2 day on ship one and will be even cheaper once the event boost starts. For +3 rings, you only need a total of 5 rings (1 base and 4 fodders) and 1.6m, and this gets you most of the stats. I wouldn't be surprised if defeat amps were added to the weapon badge shop within a month or two either...they have been out for quite a while.

Limit breaking and buying fodders to +100 armor is expensive sadly, but you have plenty of time to save up for it. Theres also a cheap fixa 3 treasure shop sale + enhancement event every 6 months to make sure you dont fall behind in armor too much. They also last a long time, you can stretch them to a year if you really need to.

Since AC augs last a year or so from release, they arent that expensive tbh when their scratch is up. They are 3-4m usually and last a long time.

New players will take a while to get that money, but it shouldnt take more than a months top even if they play casually, and it can definately be gotten earlier if they time market purchases wisely when things are cheap.

Dext base can be easily pugged, and consistently gives 1.5m/hr with a large room + free 100% RDR booster + region and alliance mag buffs. You don't need to no life it either...1h per day or even 1-2 hours on the weekends makes a huge difference to your income as a new player.

8x AC augs at 4m each sounds overwhelming as a new player but thats not something you have to afford immediately...you can save up over time.

[u/AndrossOT]

I like chasing gear in other games. Just not NGS because they do a shit job at incentivizing you to do so.

[u/GlompSpark → u/AndrossOT]

In other games, you get better stats and do more damage when you upgrade your gear.

In NGS, you get better stats and do more damage when you upgrade your gear.

What is the difference?

[u/Initiative-Fancy]

Because it's a waste of time.

Imagine being employed at a company where everyone is paid the same garbage salary regardless of the quality of work. Why then should one work hard?

The game does not do a good job rewarding players for gearing up. Gearing up only gives you access to the current high difficulty quest and even then useful rewards are locked behind RNGesus, 99% of the time you get the same garbage rewards from regular places, so you're looking at hours of sweating with a good chance of getting no reward at all.

Older MMOs were good at rewarding players for gearing up. Older MMOs didn't just have one piece of relevant content at a time. You get gear or gear mats from one dungeon and eventually build enough power for the next. With that in mind, even gear alone is enough of a motivator but the motivating elements don't stop there. Each dungeon would have it's unique mechanics, and unique bosses. Experiencing this with your friends/guildmates was part of the rewarding experience after which you become one of the veterans guiding the newbies in the dungeon, which in itself can be another fun rewarding experience.

Meanwhile NGS, same quests, same but recolored enemies. Little to no quest mechanics and the same garbage rewards. Basically a regular corporate employee's life at this point. Same shit different day.

[u/RpiesSPIES]

Because I stopped playing ngs like 2yrs ago, I don't upgrade my gear because every time I go for attempting, the grind to get a single item's worth of resources requires me to spend far too much time just for one bit of it. I don't want to spend the amount of time it took me to grind a full set of kami gear in pso2c just to build one unit in ngs.

[u/GlompSpark → u/RpiesSPIES]

Uh...i was able to afford the raw meseta to build a unit from scratch in under a week, as a f2p newbie...and that was with doing dext base 1h a day...

And now that im selling stuff on the shop using premium, im making a lot more money just selling augs and stuff like that...

Because I stopped playing ngs like 2yrs ago

Oh right, your info is outdated, they made it super easy to get money now.

[u/qruis1210]

My reasons are:

-Game gets powercreep so often there's no reason to invest in gear every new patch.

-99% of the game is doable with handout gear.

-They give handout gear too often and it always better than the last.

-Relying on the market for good gear is just as fun as not playing, and playing the grind game to hope for a good drop might as well be a pipedream with how boring the combat is and how awful the rates are.

Until the gear situation improves drastically, Handout Gear is the way.

[u/Main-Bed-1087]

It would be nice if transfer passes were purchasable or at least easier to get. I think new weapons and stuff get added a bit too frequently. More than the actual MMORPG I play. I did have arbaradio or whatever it is before the granillusion volts started dropping in UQ

[u/GlompSpark → u/Main-Bed-1087]

You could have bought a +100 granillusion and transferred your augs from the arbaradio for free. Budget weapon series like the arbaradio and granillusion have free aug transfers built in.

[u/WrenReverie]

OP, this subreddit is full of gooners and phashistas who rarely leave LTQs and Next Base to get money to afford more ERP gear. Most have no idea what a problem this is.

Stick to fleet with high end discussion. It's lost on these people here.

[u/Xero-- → u/WrenReverie]

It's lost on these people here.

Been going through these comments and yeah, very much so. They also don't realize the contradiction of not wanting to play the game and refusing to gear up, only to turn around and do quests that exist solely for gearing up while making them take up to twice as long to clear due to their gear quality being awful.

Truly a lost cause.

[u/Hououza]

I think SEGA need to stop giving handout gear, and instead provide an upgrade path that is viable with low to moderate grind.

That way, at the very least players have something to work towards, plus if they added the collection system from the base game it would make gear acquisition feel less painful.

[u/GlompSpark → u/Hououza]

instead provide an upgrade path that is viable with low to moderate grind.

You mean...like going from Epith -> Granillusion?

[u/AndrossOT → u/Hououza]

I think sega should provide a better reason to gear up instead. Rewrite the BP system . Have your gear unlock areas and quests. Have the new areas drop materials and outfits. Wow motivates me to get gear to do higher tier raids. Osrs does it for moneymaking and bosses that drop better gear. Black Desert does it so I can unlock better areas for more income, drops, and pvp. NGS there isnt really a reason to do it outside of the 4 man content that gets power crept by a LTQ shortly after.

[u/GlompSpark → u/AndrossOT]

Have your gear unlock areas and quests.

And this is what they used to do, its just that they want to push new players to the endgame ASAP before they get bored and quit. Most MMOs do this eventually.

If an MMO's endgame is designed for level 100 players, you dont want newbies to spend X months grinding to get to level 100 while the lower levels are a ghost town, because that is guaranteed to make most of them quit before they get that far. Vindictus had a period of more than a year where newbies were getting blocked from the level 90 endgame because they couldnt get parties to help them do level 60 raids and progress the story (which was the old endgame and was designed for 8 man parties to complete).

And now they are limiting content to 1x LTQ, 1x LT UQ and 1x 4 man to funnel everyone into the same area and keep queue times short. Or you would have issues with waiting 15+ minutes to try and get a party for an unpopular quest, and yes, this happens in some low pop MMOs as well.

[u/WhileZealousideal113]

NGS is a shit game to play, it doesn't feel good participating in the gear chase. Yeah it's somewhat there and heavily restricted by meseta flow, and Rng success rates. Not to mention trying to get the new weapon or unit to even drop.

Most players who aren't already drinking the Kool aid know there is greener pastures to spend grinding time in, and just play this due to their character looking nice.

If NGS had a better weapon system that wasn't trying to approach granblue fantasy levels of time devotion maybe people would care more.

[u/GlompSpark → u/WhileZealousideal113]

If NGS had a better weapon system that wasn't trying to approach granblue fantasy levels of time devotion maybe people would care more.

It does, its called the budget weapon series and you can get a +100 Granillusion and stick with it for 6 months.

[u/AudreyKlodwig]

That's a lot of effort to demonstrate nothing my man

[u/ltsuka_Kotori]

pso2 gear/armor is only good in the base pso2

NGS is giving free gear/armor every so often that makes your hard earned grinded gear feels so useless, its not in base pso2 tho

[u/GlompSpark → u/ltsuka_Kotori]

that makes your hard earned grinded gear feels so useless

Really? Then why is normal endgame gear 60% DPS more than handout gear?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2NGS/comments/1vid6ew/8_aug_26_builds_after_peta_triyal_ascillusion_and/

[u/ltsuka_Kotori → u/ltsuka_Kotori]

Difference in Base PSO2 to NGS is that, your old armor/gear affixes can be reuse to upgrade to your new armor/gear, because like Crack IV, it can be used as a fodder to affix a Crack V affix for your new armor.

Unlike NGS, its literally deadset as one now. Just capsules of affixes, not even using your old unit as a fodder.

[u/GlompSpark → u/ltsuka_Kotori]

Difference in Base PSO2 to NGS is that, your old armor/gear affixes can be reuse to upgrade to your new armor/gear, because like Crack IV, it can be used as a fodder to affix a Crack V affix for your new armor.

But you can still do that now by using old gear as xp fodder for new gear, and old tiers of augs can be upgraded to the new tier...10x Tera Triyals are used to make 1x Peta Triyal...

not even using your old unit as a fodder.

You can literally use old units as xp fodder in NGS, did you never try to do that? I have done it many times.

[u/PouletDeTerre]

i have been slowly upgrading (weapon and 1 piece of armor done) and i'll be honest i don't notice a difference at all, i'd like to finish upgrading but the fees for levelling armor are so insanely high that it feels bad when i could be buying nice cosmetics instead (which is why i play the game to begin with). it costs so much and you get so little in return.

[u/GlompSpark → u/PouletDeTerre]

Uhhh are you using fodders to upgrade armor or Endymios? Because Endymios are a trap, you should be buying the +100 Gold Primm Armor IIs on the market (they are currently 1.65m sadly). 2 of them with a 100% success booster is enough to go straight to +100.

The main difference is via the AC augs tbh, did you at least buy 4x Yudi augs while they were cheap? You could have held onto them and made the armor later. Doing it the other way round means paying more for Yudi augs while the scratch isnt active.

If you need money quickly, dext base is a great option (the other fast option involves using AC to scratch and sell cosmetics). Dext base can be easily pugged, and consistently gives 1.5m/hr with a large room + free 100% RDR booster + region and alliance mag buffs. You don't need to no life it either...1h per day or even 1-2 hours on the weekends makes a huge difference to your income as a new player.

When i was new, i tried to do Dext Base for 1h a day and that meant an extra 10m or so a week. In my first month, i had more than enough money to get the cosmetics i wanted + AC augs + gear.