jdhenry124

Gee I wonder why Ultima has a hard time keeping new players around with the "Ultima is dead and we all know it" posts every other week.

Ultima started dying when they banned terror. his kind demeanor and razor sharp wit are sorely missed. Bring him back! in fact, give him Sabers old GM position! he can't be any more of an asshole than Wilson was

https://www.phantasystaronline.net/forum/index.php?/account-management/account-recovery/

Don't spend DTs on items from the donation list, they are overpriced to discourage players from using it and to encourage players to buy items from other players who farmed them in game instead. If you're looking for something specific make a post about it on forums and people will make you offers. You will save a lot of money and will usually get items with better stats

Turtle! Did I win this time?

Turtle

A few things: 1. A demons type/shot is absolutely not essential. It's very situational and rarely used. There are other demons weapons that are better in most situations, or you can get a Demons s-rank needle and it serves the same function. 2. There is a period for new players when DTs are hard to come by, but once you become established on the server and have a few events under your belt, you accumulate the fairly quickly. So much so that there are people who have never spent a single dollar on the server who have hundreds of DT with nothing to spend them on. 3. There's is usually opportunities to add hit without DTs sometime throughout the year. There's a hit event on right now for example. Christmas event had a system in place to add hit, and that was less than 6 months ago. 4. The main problem with many new players is they are ridiculously impatient. About everything. Happy hours, getting a specific drop, when events will be turned on, getting 80 hit weapons, when green names will be turned on, raising mags, etc, etc. Players who are so eager to get to the endgame that they ruin the fun for themselves. Don't do this. Part of the fun of PSO is the struggle, and I promise you no one mind that you are using a demons raygun instead of a Type/shot, we just want to have fun. As far as the original post goes I don't have anything to add. Matt brought up many things that I agree with and have suggested elsewhere, with no response. I think having players earn increased drop rates or green names or 5x exp through meeting certain requirements either individually or as a community would be a massive improvement than the current system. I don't agree with getting rid of the event cycles for the reasons Shiida articulated better than I could. My post wasn't about those things, it was about adding something for players and the community to do between events, and I'm open to feedback. If DMS is too busted because Hunters can use it, then make it Ranger only so it's a marginal improvement and change the colors slightly so it becomes a prestige item. Nerf the range of stars needle and lock it to rangers, and so on. New players might get frustrated seeing these items and finding out how hard they are to obtain, but this already happens if they run with a GM using their GM account. Even if the items that are added that are nothing more than a way for veterans to show off, that would still be a positive. How many people hunt the D-photon core? And that mag is ass. Again my post wasn't so much about getting new players to stick around, but keeping the veteran players active when they usually aren't, which I think would lead to more new players sticking around. Because what keeps people playing on Ultima is the people.

I feel like there's some real cognitive dissonance going on here. You selectively interpret my criticizism of your reply to ONLY being about your opposition to my proposed system, and then spend the rest of the post shitting on numerous things that make Ultima unique, such as the quests, the DT System, the unlocked DM stats. In other posts you've bashed the chatbox, the casual playstyle of others, the quests people choose to run, etc. And you've attributed all of these things to the "fall of Ultima." And the only time of the year when Ultimas numbers are comparable to Ephinea is during anniversary and Christmas Event, when the two most OP drops are available, both of which break the game. The system I'm suggesting would require much more effort and investment (something equivalent to 15 PGFs) to acquire. But youre reaction to this is that it will lead to everyone having them, that they'll be everywhere, and ruin gameplay. This is irrelevant. Even without those quests I've made more than the "grand total" number of PDs you posted above in raising and selling mags, grinding and selling mats, items, and event drops. If anything the PD quests are less time efficient than many other methods of making money..the PD quests are just something you can do when you are burnt out of, or can't do the other options. In the past 5 years because you have had all you needed in the game for that long. The only reason you're still here is because you like TAing. Many of us don't, so maybe let's do something to help those peoy stick around. And if I'm missing a max items I can make it or buy it in a couple minutes because I have an assload of PDs and DTs. Like a lot of people I'm finished with the game, and there's nothing for me to do apart from the arbitrary goals I set for myself that won't lead to any send of progression. The fun part is the hunt to get the weapon. Same as everything about PSO. The reason I'm suggesting this is to add to the longevity of the game, not because I want the game to be easier than it already is. In my opinion, there are already many weapons that break the game and make it too easy, but that's part of the charm of PSO. It let's you break the game and become an unstoppable killing machine. There's no content that is too difficult for a RAcast with a DM that a HUcast with a DM would make easy. It's just a way to reward the player for the massive commitment they made to the game. Honestly I think there's more variety in class choices than you're presenting here. I find that most people play as the class they like the aesthetic of the most. I have the most hours logged on FOmar by far, and that class is in no way the most efficient, isn't just the one I enjoy using. I'm not against this, I think it's a good idea and we should do it. But it's not what my post is about. How long has Ultima had combo unlocked dark weapons? How long has it had custom weapons? The periods when Ultima actually has respectable numbers is when the stupid OP items are available, even those once players get them they render much of the content of the game a pushover. Because people enjoy the hunt. That's not the reason DTs aren't going away. You and I both know this. I already addressed why I chose these weapons specifically and why this should not be a concern in the original post.

I think anytime someone makes a suggestion for the server your response and analysis suffers from an inability to comprehend that people play this game for different reasons than you. People play on Ultima for different reasons than they play on ephinea or GameCube, and rather than purging the server of everything that makes it unique and alienate the people that enjoy playing here in an attempt to be like other servers, maybe we should actually build on those reason and the community that's already here. The most populated place right now can't compare with the numbers Ultima was putting up a couple years ago. So why is it that you are being so selective with your evidence? I have no motivation to play right now because I have everything in the game that I could possibly need, and hundreds of DTs on top of that. Other players have stated the exact same reason for not being as active. I would love to have a reason to play, but I don't. I think you underestimate how much grinding players are willing to do. I grinded an average of 4 spheres a week for more than 6 months. That's not counting the amount of PDs I gained from trading item drops with other players. I wouldn't even bother with all of those items, but if I did that grand total doesn't phase me. The argument that DTs "mitigate ALL" pds is so silly. Who the hell donates that much that they never need PDs? By your own calculation, someone would need to donate around 700 dollars to completely avoid PDs. And even if someone did that, who the hell cares? Those players are not going to stick to any game they play regardless, so let them have their fun. PDs are not the same thing as what I'm suggesting, and your misinterpreting my use of the word "currency" because there is no other word for what I'm suggesting. It's similar to hunting crafting materials in other RPGs, but since I'm trying to simplify it as much as possible, let's just call it this. You're suggesting that we shouldn't add anything new because after several years players will have completed that too? You're flippantly dismissing an added 2 years of lifespan to players who want to hunt things These are things I already addressed in the original post. There's a reason I suggested this system instead of just adding the weapons as a drop. And I must AGAIN point out to you that "fun" is subjective. And insistence that every single player adhere to your definition of fun is childish. You simultaneously argue that DMs take the fun out of the game because it's so game breaking, while also arguing that SS and DF are much better weapons. The only real problem with these weapons being implemented is it affects TA, something that is more or less dead on this server, and which is mostly done on the test server, where these weapons already exist. Just going to point out that you already think entire classes are worthless when compared to HUcast. Your brain immediately thinks about using DMS on HUcast, while I think about using it on a FO, or any of the other weapons on classes that don't normally have access to those types of weapons. Your brain is so hardwired to TA that you are only thinking about what's optimal, when most people just play the game to dick around and have fun This is cool, and a great idea that we should implement, but it's not what my post is about. My post is the exact opposite of "reinventing the wheel." Its using the wheels we have lying around and aren't using. You're suggesting that we reinvent Ultima to be more like a server that already exists and that we can all play on anytime we want. Why would I be playing here instead of Ephinea if I wanted Ultima to be like Ephinea? If anything the history of private PSO servers proves the exact opposite. Ephinea will never have the numbers that Schthack and Ultima had in their prime, you are operating by a recency bias and selective evidence. Even if this were the solution, it's never going to happen, so to suggest this as an alternative to proposals to improve the server is defeatist and pointless.

As far as MMOs go, PSO has comparable short lifespan. This is commonly cited as by veteran players as the reason they no longer play, or no longer play as frequently as they once did. And while there are some that suggest that "time-attack is the real endgame," for many, if not most, speedruning PSO is just not appealing. So what can we do to keep players playing after they've checked all the boxes of a couple dark weapons, cent/battles, and lvl 200 characters? The problem is not just the lack of things to hunt for veterans, but also the massive investment required to model, test, and implement new items for the community. So here's what I propose: Every other MMO that I've played has an endgame currency that is used to purchase/craft/build best-in-slot equips. These usually require massive time investments, but in exchange you are granted very exclusive weapons or armor that make you an overpowered freak. Ultima would immensely benefit from a similar system, and would require very little effort to implement. The system would be to add a drop called "Ultima Photon" which would ONLY drop between events, not during. This is to address the ghost town the server becomes between events, and to also keep event drops the main focus of events. After every event the item would be added to the drop table *under a random enemy and section IDs*, different after each event. The purpose of it being random is to promote community cooperation and coordinating. Very simply, it would bring the community together in a way that the events have less and less recently since the drops are mostly unchanged year over year. This would be a very difficult drop, something around the rate of an STA. These Ultima Drops would be the currency uses to to exchange for those god-tier I detailed above. There are weapons already designed and implemented in the game that the community has no access to. I'm referring to the weapons made a decade ago given to specific members of the community that donated in a time of need a very long time ago. Here's how it would work: once players acquire a certain amount of Ultima Photons, they can exchange them either through Gallons shop (if it can be implemented) or through a GM, and can acquire one of the following items based on how many Ultima Photons they have. The prices listed are a rough suggestion Adding charge to an S-rank weapon - 1 Photon Rainbow Petrik - 5 Photons Frosty icicle shooter - 5 Photons Den's hand cannon - 8 Photons Combat Cannon - 10 Photons S.T.A.R.S. spread - 12 Photons Dark meteor storm - 15 Photons The weapon would be redeemed with the same stats as any weapon purchased with DTs, no hit and 50% enemy% to be placed wherever the player wants. Now to address some concerns: 1. This would be unfair to the players that donated all those years ago to get these exclusive weapons - The majority of the players with these weapons are no longer here, and they haven't been for years. I think a decade+ of exclusivity is reasonable, and to continue to prohibit current players, who currently support and maintain the server and community, from any means of acquiring these items makes no sense. And actively hurts the community. 2. These weapons would break the game and make it too easy - These weapons would take an extremely long time and investment to acquire, so much so that to the people that are acquiring these weapons, PSO would already have lost any challenge whatsoever. So allow them to enjoy all the the server has to offer 3. This would require even more work and redeems from the GMs - The system is intentionally designed to make it very difficult to acquire these weapons. Redeems for these weapons would be rare, by intention, and hopefully they can be done through the gallons shop systems so GMs would have no added work 4. There are players that would get 10 of these Ultima Photons in a week and it would ruin the economy. - There are several things that would prevent this. What drops these Photons would be a secret until the community discovered it on their own, this could take a significant amount of time depending on RNG as well as the mob, and the quests the community is running between events. Secondly, the break between events is not very long. The longest period between events is before and after summer event, and not surprisingly, it's also the lowest population point for the server throughout the year. Players would have a very short period to farm these drops. And lastly, the drops would be somewhere around 1/300 on bosses or 1/2000 on mini-bosses. I'm giving rough estimates of course but the point is that this is a process that will take veteran players years to finish. 5. New players would get discouraged seeing these items and then finding out how difficult they are to acquire - the emotional overreaction of new players should not dictate how the server operates, and the increased number of active players and community cooperation would be a net positive that would keep way more players around. People hang around Ultima because of the people, and if we can increase the number of people that new players interact with, they are more likely to stick around. 6. If these weapons were added they would invalidate other weapons - Shut up nerd. One final addition that I think would really make these weapons special is if once the weapon is acquired, the name of the owner can be added to the wiki for said item. Kind of like a hall of Fame. If we are serious about maintaining Ultima for another 11 years, and fixing the population drought, we need to actually give players a reason to stick around. I know for me personally, this would keep me playing for years.

Don't do it! She's trying to boost her rep numbers!

DMC is in every version of PSO. It's cause the game was made in the era of dial up internet. It's just part of the game

Please for the love of God put this in Ultima