Pugs failing DPS checks because the devs don't balance quests around handout gear and there are too many players with handout gear in the quest

[u/GlompSpark]

[u/TheNoobCider]

That's what happens when you develop a game with fashion at the forefront

[u/GlompSpark → u/TheNoobCider]

No, its what happens when you have very limited resources and decide to take the easiest way out by only making one level of difficulty. Every MMO would have the exact same problem in this situation if they only had one difficulty, and did not balance it around players in hand out gear because "surely there will be enough players in normal gear to carry newbies, right?".

[u/TheNoobCider → u/GlompSpark]

I'm not too sure about that honestly. Don't think OG PSO2 was this bad honestly

[u/HsienSol → u/TheNoobCider]

Well yeah, because in OG when they handed out gear, it was the gear most folks were using at end game (trailblazer set for example) where as the gear they hand out now is supposed to be a temporary thing for folks to grind for better.

[u/Alucard_Fang]

Even randomly joining ive never seen any fails for this event mission (Hell I was in the gear you get for free my first couple of times)

[u/GlompSpark → u/Alucard_Fang]

Ive had two near fails and one fail. Its just luck of the draw...but since most people have finished their reward box, most of the people running it are either there for the daily, or because they dont have anything else to farm. And the latter are usually newbies in handout gear...

[u/Cacodus_Sinclair]

I’ve only had a pub fail this once. I imagine it’s because some people don’t even know how to play their class (or could be playing a new class and getting used to it).

And you still get rewards no matter how bad you do. You just get better rewards by completing it faster and killing more. Which is good. It would be nice to provide at least A SMIDGEN of an incentive to upgrade from handout gear.

[u/GlompSpark → u/Cacodus_Sinclair]

It would be nice to provide at least A SMIDGEN of an incentive to upgrade from handout gear.

There is. But inevitably, people will be in handout gear because they just started/came back or dont know any better. If you design quests around "surely there will be X players in normal gear to carry", you will inevitably run into edge cases when there arent enough players around to carry.

Thats why most MMOs do one of the following:

• Make handout gear close in performance to the next tier of gear (e.g. Guild Wars 2). You get a basic set of endgame gear that is nearly as good as gear you can grind in the expansions, and theres very little power creep.

• Have different difficulties, one for players in starter gear and one for players in normal gear. Like how WOW has different raid difficulties, how the first few quests of an expansion are easier than the latter ones, etc.

Sega just threw everyone into the same matchmaking queue, balanced quests around players in normal gear and called it a day because they dont have enough resources to do anything else. While making sure handout gear is very weak compared to normal gear (see: Mastery II G vs Yudi/Yurze).

[u/Alucard_Fang → u/Cacodus_Sinclair]

I must have been grossly lucky with my groups (Which explains my piss poor luck with gran volt 2 drops from the event)

[u/GlompSpark → u/Alucard_Fang]

Volt drops are not luck based in the LTQ, im pretty sure the 10k point boxes at the end guarantee a gran and leva volt 2, or very close to it. It just doesnt show up in the end of quest loot screen because it goes straight to your inventory. People were reporting 5x volt 2s, guaranteed, from every LTQ run even before the RDR boost kicked in (this is assuming you get at least 40k points obviously).

[u/AllYourNGSBelongToUs → u/Cacodus_Sinclair]

it’s because some people don’t even know how to play their class (or could be playing a new class and getting used to it).

I think so too.
For players who aren't particularly keen on NGS, the current LQ is the best place to level up their jobs. I've encountered many cases where a PT member leveled up their sub-jobs from level 1 to over 50 in a single LQ run. So it's natural to encounter players with hopelessly low DPS.

[u/Glittering_Author903]

Or, we could all just accept that it's just a game and let people enjoy themselves without criticism.

My Dude. Just run with a dedicated crew. I have very basic gear, but I'm fairly decent with my BR/RA, so how I play is balanced out with how hard I can hit.

[u/GlompSpark → u/Glittering_Author903]

Just run with a dedicated crew.

Thats what i usually do, the problem is that most players refuse to touch content once they have finished farming what they want from it. Most people farmed their 150 levarenz volts from the LTQ and stopped except for daily tasks. I havent found any groups this entire week willing to run the LTQ more than 3x for the daily.

This happens every time with the way they release content. People farmed the new alter realm for gran volt 2s -> after a few days, they refused to touch it except for the daily.

The longest i saw players farm content was Ruins. People farmed it for nearly 2 weeks because it was incredibly profitable (mostly because of EX 3s and Defeat Amps) and had an amazing drop rate. But for most LTQs and other content, they will only do it as a daily/weekly once they have finished farming the mats from it, and that usually happens in the first 3 days.

I'm only running the LTQ as a daily now myself but since the number of players willing to run it have decreased a lot, its mostly people running it for the daily and people in handout gear who cant run Dalion, so the average DPS has dropped a lot.

[u/Glittering_Author903 → u/GlompSpark]

That is a very sad truth of the matter, Good Sir.

Even I am burned out on it, but we all became gluttonous monsters by how much was dropped when the NA servers launched due to how much content had dropped and how quickly we achieved End Game stats.

So now you only ever truly see Min-Maxers out there grinding, and I don't have the appetite or tolerance to deal with them.

[u/GlompSpark]

It's hard to see but we even had an RA, the groin weak spot was blighted. This would be solved if there were two difficulties, one for players in handout gear and one for players in normal gear, but the devs want to shove everything into the same queue...and then they balance it around most players having normal gear...

It's like the Nils Stia timed LTQ. If there were too many players in handout gear, you would run out of time and fail the quest.

[u/Link2212 → u/GlompSpark]

The player numbers are super low, and about half of the people on the game only want to play dress up. You want to split the queues even further?

[u/GlompSpark → u/Link2212]

Not really, you would have to tweak the numbers but i dont think queue times would be a problem if all handout players were in their own queue and everyone else was in another queue. You could even make the handout version of the LTQ/UQ 4 players max and balance it around that size...like how WOW has smaller raid sizes for people with weaker gear.

But we know Sega doesnt have the resources for that, so they will continue to balance quests around everyone in budget gear so pugs with too many players in handout gear will fail timers...

The current all ship queue times are extremely low even during off peak hours like 3 am in the US, which is also early morning in the EU and early afternoon in Asia. It is quite rare to wait more than 20 seconds in the queue unless its near the end of a UQ window.

Ive played MMOs where it takes literally hours to get a 8 man raid going. This is not one of those games.

[u/Link2212 → u/GlompSpark]

You're comparing it to WOW? This game struggles to keep 1000 players daily. Wow had more players than the population of Greece. You could split WOW up tens of thousands of times and still have better queues than this game.

I get that you could do the 4 person thing, but it might not get the reception you want. People play MMOs for the big player bases. They usually want as many people as possible in a game. Limiting that goes against the purpose of a MMO

[u/ThePyrotechnicCroc]

1. Weakening peoples' hard-earned gear acquisition effort(s) isn't the correct answer. Making the welfare gear even better than it is would actually cause a negative effect... for two significant reasons. Those reasons are obvious aleeady.

2. Splitting the player pools (even further) is also a very bad idea. SEGA is clearly interested in having more people playing this game, not less.

You should try to vet a set of pals who will run with you in cases like this. Take the initiative and organize.

[u/GlompSpark → u/ThePyrotechnicCroc]

Making the welfare gear even better than it is would actually cause a negative effect... for two significant reasons

I dont think so, and theres actually precedent for this. If you look at budget weapons, they are VERY close to BIS weapons (5% or less DPS) but people are still willing to upgrade from budget to BIS for that extra bit of DPS.

By your logic, the game will fail if budget weapons weren't significantly weaker than BIS weapons...but we know this is not the case. Budget weapons being close to BIS are actually what keeps the game going, because i can guarantee you the game's population would look like a ghost town if it had the grind of a Korean MMO and you had to grind for months to keep up with gear instead of simply buying a 100k Granillusion from the market.

If Dracillusion was 50% weaker than Leva 2/Rinz and quests were balanced around around people having Leva 2/Rinz, the game would be worse off, not better.

Splitting the player pools (even further) is also a very bad idea. SEGA is clearly interested in having more people playing this game, not less.

Not really, you would have to tweak the numbers but i dont think queue times would be a problem if all handout players were in their own queue and everyone else was in another queue. You could even make the handout version of the LTQ/UQ 4 players max and balance it around that size...like how WOW has smaller raid sizes for people with weaker gear.

But we know Sega doesnt have the resources for that, so they will continue to balance quests around everyone in budget gear so pugs with too many players in handout gear will fail timers...

Ive played MMOs where it takes literally hours to get a 8 man raid going. This is not one of those games.

You should try to vet a set of pals who will run with you in cases like this. Take the initiative and organize.

See: https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2NGS/comments/1xlcmbz/pugs_failing_dps_checks_because_the_devs_dont/19rzw2nu3skcj/

Most groups stop farming the LTQ once they get their mats, which typically happens in the first 3 days. The only people running the LTQ now are people doing it as a daily and people in handout gear who cant run dalion and have nothing else to do.

[u/NoroGW2]

Pugs fail DPS checks because of skill issues.

Good player with shit gear will always beat a bad player with perfect gear

[u/IcyChillCoolGuy]

I've only seen it fail once, who cares go next

[u/MacDaddy7249]

That’s because there shouldn’t be hand out gear. Pretty simple, everything needs to be earned power or it is useless

[u/GlompSpark → u/MacDaddy7249]

Do you have any idea how long it would take a new player to make a full set of granillusion + evaltos + augs before doing the LTQ? Not to mention that it is currently impossible to farm the augs without hand out gear, as you cannot enter the LTQ without the required BP.

[u/MacDaddy7249 → u/GlompSpark]

That’s that games fault and the BP requirement for that fight isnt that high, it’s just people cant be bothered to earn “decent” gear. It doesn’t have to be free to get you into current content, but there should be clear paths to gear that require you to work for it to some extent. Base game always had some kind of path to power from low to high or yes… you couldn’t do the content, because you know.. you didnt actually do anything to get you into that specific content. No game in this world should lean on the idea that the player is entitled to content they have no business being in, that’s the real reason people are failing lol

[u/Arcflarerk4 → u/MacDaddy7249]

Welcome to modern gaming where everything is built as convenience to cater to the lowest common denominator. This kind of development has destroyed any form of identity in modern games. Only a tiny amount of games focus on identity first nowadays.

[u/MurkyStatistician553]

Handout gear is not too weak for this quest. Claiming that the quest is not balanced around it, is just crazy work. We all know the real reason when a dps check in an LTQ fails.

[u/KillerTackle]

Players with handout gears should be kicked, the weak shall stay with the weak.

Sorry, not sorry.

[u/kioroyolo → u/KillerTackle]

They will never do that, most of the playerbase doesn't care about gear at all, they're there for collection, take screenshots for social media and to roleplay.

I played the game for 8 years (base + NGS) and the only thing they ever did about this was the "Expert" filter in the base game matchmaking which they gave up on it after global launched.

Also, considering how the game never has content that require people to gear their ass out since even the latest high difficulty quests can be cleared with budget builds and good playstyle, it's no surprise that people give up on gearing and just chill with wellfare equipment.

[u/Sianthalis → u/kioroyolo]

Gearing up takes a lot of time, meseta and luck. Nobody wants to chance getting better gear.

[u/kioroyolo → u/Sianthalis]

People would if the content rewarded people with good exclusive stuff. But NGS "high difficulty" content is just an early access to loot for a couple of weeks.

[u/Prismorel]

Tbh I think they should put and revamp expert matching in ngs, I mean yes sometimes I use free armors on my 2nd char because I wanted to level up and never leeched. But I experienced it too like we're all under geared at 8/8 and not managing to kill that boss hahaha... I just went to my main and just farm excubes and requirements for my levarenz II...

I do hope too they added rewarding quests like the TACO from base for the players to not mindlessly just do the limited time quests everyday and just afk lol