Ade
;3
I'm not suggesting a new mechanic or any changes to game balance. I was informed by Matt on the #pso Discord that it's okay to post about this.

Anyway, here's how I feel about HBR:
I believe its original intent has been superseded. The intent of HBR was getting people to play "lesser played" content, but now those "lesser played" quests are quickly becoming the "only played" quests outside of TTF, RT, and sometimes POD. This means there's a huge chunk of quests that are deemed too strong for HBR, but are outside of the holy trinity of boss rush quests, that never get played. (ie. Road to Nowhere, Forsaken Friends, the full episode MAE quests, the XRD Series, MSB, and Tyrell's Ego, just to name a few.) A lot of great content is being completely ignored as of late, which means HBR is now doing the opposite of what it was supposed to do.
Many of us from the server, Matt included, had a very productive and civil discussion about this on Discord several weeks ago. Matt suggested boosting one or two quests each week to keep things fresh, and so that players don't feel locked into the same three to five quests for an entire month.
Another friend of mine, who prefers to remain anonymous, remarked that a player can grow to hate certain quests after a long and grindy HBR, which I hadn't really considered. However, this is very true! (I will hate Phantasmal World 3 until the end of time for precisely this reason.)
Furthermore, I especially dislike that certain quests are arbitrarily deemed "too powerful" for HBR even if they take way longer to clear. It's like their added length isn't even taken into consideration. (If you look at sheer "monsters killed per minute," some of these longer quests are way less offensive than New Mop Up Operation # 3, for example.)
Anyway, I hope something changes. HBR has really lost its luster for me. If I see a quest that I cannot stand and decide to skip HBR, as I have done for the last two months, it makes me feel excluded. I can either join open TTFs or make my own party and hope I get lucky, but that's about it. Not great.

Anyway, here's how I feel about HBR:
I believe its original intent has been superseded. The intent of HBR was getting people to play "lesser played" content, but now those "lesser played" quests are quickly becoming the "only played" quests outside of TTF, RT, and sometimes POD. This means there's a huge chunk of quests that are deemed too strong for HBR, but are outside of the holy trinity of boss rush quests, that never get played. (ie. Road to Nowhere, Forsaken Friends, the full episode MAE quests, the XRD Series, MSB, and Tyrell's Ego, just to name a few.) A lot of great content is being completely ignored as of late, which means HBR is now doing the opposite of what it was supposed to do.
Many of us from the server, Matt included, had a very productive and civil discussion about this on Discord several weeks ago. Matt suggested boosting one or two quests each week to keep things fresh, and so that players don't feel locked into the same three to five quests for an entire month.
Another friend of mine, who prefers to remain anonymous, remarked that a player can grow to hate certain quests after a long and grindy HBR, which I hadn't really considered. However, this is very true! (I will hate Phantasmal World 3 until the end of time for precisely this reason.)
Furthermore, I especially dislike that certain quests are arbitrarily deemed "too powerful" for HBR even if they take way longer to clear. It's like their added length isn't even taken into consideration. (If you look at sheer "monsters killed per minute," some of these longer quests are way less offensive than New Mop Up Operation # 3, for example.)
Anyway, I hope something changes. HBR has really lost its luster for me. If I see a quest that I cannot stand and decide to skip HBR, as I have done for the last two months, it makes me feel excluded. I can either join open TTFs or make my own party and hope I get lucky, but that's about it. Not great.
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