Share your PSO knowledge

PlumpRappy

PlumpRappy

Member
There are many people here that have played since the day this game was released, nearly 20 years have passed since then and many things have changed, one unfortunate source of information was lost when scht died, as the site blocked bots nothing was archived.

I have been taking a painful trip down nostalgia lane and looking at early BBS boards and other such sites and thought it would be nice if there was a thread where the community shares its wealth of knowledge and experience and posts something you think others probably didn't know.

anything from any version is welcome!

Did you know?

  • Barbarous Wolf will casting Jellen and Zalure on itself if you kill the leader of the pack
  • The designers names are on the monitors of Gol Dragon boss fight
  • There was originally 18 playable characters but was cut to 9
  • v1 Spread needle has RIFLE range and was usable by Hunters
  • Yuji Naka the producer has his own business card as a game item


There were many rumours back in the day, please share your favourites!

watashiwa writes "Apparently, Sega could be out patrolling your PSO games. A friend of mine mentioned to me earlier that during one of his games, a translucent (see-through) white HUmar was seen on Pioneer 2 as well as Ragol with them. This was in addition to him being in a full game. So therefore, number of players is 5. (If we're counting the HUmar as a player.) The HUmar didn't say anything, but just walked around and came and went. This is important news. If true (and I don't see why my friend would lie to me, never has before and has always been trustworthy), this could mean Sega is trying to catch cheaters in the act.
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Im sure soda can have closure and confirm its not possible to have 5 connections in a game now
http://web.archive.org/web/20010413062449/http://tomeeboy.com/pso/


If you name your character shooter you will get +10 atk on your base stats, this can be confirmed by the sound
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(obviously this is due to the hooter word filter)
http://www.interq.or.jp/snake/minaha/pso-jouhou.htm



Please share your tips and tricks that you wish people knew, or hidden secrets and knowledge only you know!!
 
I want to talk about Ophelie Seize.

The name is in French, seize means 16, Ophelie is a female name. The meaning of Ophelie Seize confused me for a long time. I thought it means something like a 16 years old girl. However it makes no sense. But I think I have figured it out.

Ophelie (in English, Ophelia) is a hurricane name. Many hurricanes have female name as their name, like Erin, Wendy, etc... Ophelia is one of them. Ophelie Seize means a level 16 hurricane, a nearly strongest level. I think this makes sense, and be more related to Mille Marteaux (one thousand hammaring).
 
The one thing I know which I never see others discuss or use is juggling Nano Dragons. I don't know if it's just so easy to do that everyone knows about it, nobody knows about it, or if it only works on lower difficulties and other people only care about Ultimate. The simple way to trigger this is in Caves 2 and 3 when a Nano Dragon would be flying in; just shoot it once before it can land and it will start to go back up. Before it reaches the apex, shoot it again and it will try to go back down. Repeat. You can also add another hit during the reaction animation, and it's possible to attack a grounded Nano Dragon from near the edge of handgun range (easier with a rifle) to get them to start flying.
 
Stand Back Up Fast Sooner Than Later After Ending A Combo With Lag

Stand Back Up Fast Sooner Than Later After Ending A Combo With Lag

Some combos can help out, but Mechguns are the easiest to lag after the last bullet is shot.

Stand Back Up Fast Sooner Than Later With Lobby Actions, Alt Emotes

  • Media owner brionac
  • Date added
Video Title: Phantasy Star Online BB, Alt To Get Up - YouTube

BB exclusive to get up fast...

Thanks @Eistee, @cameron-, and @Bagarozy for the tips.
 
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realnabarl said:
I want to talk about Ophelie Seize.
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There seems to be a French theme with several items in ep4, Lame D'Argent, Le Cogneur, MM, even the boss is called Saint Million, I didn't even think about it until you mentioned it!

Aleron Ives said:
This is a common misconception.
Needles actually have less than Handgun range on V1/2. They're still horribly broken, though.
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This is why I wanted a thread like this for learning and sharing! Is there a resource for the v1/2 stats and properties?

Folestet said:
The one thing I know which I never see others discuss or use is juggling Nano Dragons.
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Ah! Yeah this happens sometimes but I never knew why! It seems to get stuck in a loop of actions overwriting actions

brionac said:
Stand Back Up Fast Sooner Than Later With Lobby Actions, Alt Emotes by brionac
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wow nice! Speedrunners will need this when times get optimised in 100 years

cameron- said:
pausing in between combo attacks will make your character re-aim at your original target.
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What is the range limitation on this on this? Like left to right or up to down...
Thanks for sharing everyone!
 
I dont think there is a range limitation. this is what happens when you see your character pivot 180 in the middle of a combat on enemies like zu's, olga2, etc.
 
Some things which I just thought about, more might follow.

- Attack canceling is a great and very underused mechanic in the game. By attacking and switching to your back palette (there are other ways but this one is the easiest), the attack animation still plays, but no hitbox / projectile actually appears. However, the game still calculates the new accuracy value, which means that you can still use this kind of attack to accuracy-glitch. This is really nice in several situations (it helps avoiding DMC too), but here is an easy-to-understand example: Merillias. If your Hell Slicer S1 doesn't kill it, and your N2 hits, the enemy can flee out of range, wasting time. By cancelling N2, this cannot happen. This is especially important for low ATA classes that do not get 100% accuracy on S3. A similar thing applies to Sinow Zoas which will often teleport away if N1 of a Hell Needle or a similar weapon hits them.

- ES Cards are the only Cards that can be accuracy-glitched. This makes them an extremy nice weapon with several specials, notably Hell and Demon's. They are also one of the few items in the game that can hit an enemy on the very first frame. Oh, and they have unlimited vertical range and basically ignore manial evasion, too. Fun appliactions of Demon's Cards: Priming and hitting S3 on an opening Epsilon or a Gibbles, frame 1 Demon's on Del Lily, stopping a rushing enemy (Zu, Dorphon, Delbiter).

- V801 breaks FOmar's Rod casting animation. With it, the sound of techs is focused on your right ear / speaker. This is very noticable with Razonde (and some people find it pretty annoying). The reason for this is that the last part of the tech casting animation is skipped, which includes the FOmar putting the Rod in front of him.

- "Ryuker" is apparently a Japanese-ification of the German word "Rückkehr", which means "return".
 
Eistee said:
- Attack canceling is a great and very underused mechanic in the game. By attacking and switching to your back palette (there are other ways but this one is the easiest), the attack animation still plays, but no hitbox / projectile actually appears. However, the game still calculates the new accuracy value, which means that you can still use this kind of attack to accuracy-glitch. This is really nice in several situations (it helps avoiding DMC too), but here is an easy-to-understand example: Merillias. If your Hell Slicer S1 doesn't kill it, and your N2 hits, the enemy can flee out of range, wasting time. By cancelling N2, this cannot happen. This is especially important for low ATA classes that do not get 100% accuracy on S3. A similar thing applies to Sinow Zoas which will often teleport away if N1 of a Hell Needle or a similar weapon hits them.
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PinkKittyRose also demonstrated how attack cancelling can be used to split slimes consistently in a (sadly) discontinued series of videos about PSO on YouTube, as well as that traps can hit slimes while they are moving. Those were not recorded while using Ephinea, but her infrequent PSO Twitch streams currently are, which was how I heard about this community.
 
I was in a party with a RAcast and I was grateful for the destruction of the traps my human character could not perceive, though I found it odd to pause to shoot each of them in a hallway in Mines. So, while I imagine it is a very common practice, here it is written explicitly. If you have a menu open it will prevent your character from slowing down when you're in close range of something hostile. This allows a player to quickly run away from enemies and to run through some sets of traps, such as in otherwise empty hallways. The effect is easy to achieve with the main menu, the shortcut menu or word select (I believe it also works with the on-screen keyboard on console versions) since they are usually a button press away.
 
Most people would avoid making a Dark Meteor at any cost and you can't really blame them.

However, there is a good use case for it in TTF. When you see someone go for the Dubchic switch with Cannon Rouge, they have to get to a certain point across the room so the bullet doesn't hit the wall instead of the switch. With Dark Meteor, you can use it's special to shoot through the wall, so the switch can be hit right after passing the Baranz.

Bonus trivia, the switch I'm referring to above is labelled as "zombie switch" in the games files.

I will try to think of some other oddities I have seen in the game files. Cool thread. :)
 
If u play offline
After u turn on all the 3 ruinic stones
You enter an area unknown from the mines to the caves..of the ruins. It's one of a kind.

Old pictures of V2 beta depicted unusual Temple shots from magazines and online webs which made it look alot wider spread than before.
 
-During very early development the game was called Third World. Development for PSO started after they finished Sonic Adventure. (this was from an old interview I cannot find at the moment)

-There was going to be a weird bird/alien race (pictured in Book of Hunters)

-Wren from PS III was going to be in the game (concept art in Book of Hunters)

-There was an Atari-like symbol on Pioneer 2 in the Dreamcast versions. It was replaced in the Gamecube version.

-Pioneer 2 looked VERY different in the early betas. There was also smoke coming out of residential areas in early betas which was removed in final. The dragon busted through a wall instead of flying down.

-The PSO font throughout caves 3 reads "Danger" "Up" "Caution" "No Trespassing". The words are backwards though.

-It is thought that PSO story was going to connect to one of the PS III endings at one point but the idea was scrapped due to development time.

-There is an image in the Book of Hunters of what the actual ruins space ship looks like.

-VR Temple and Spaceship use remix tracks from the older Phantasy Star games.

-Elly says that the VR temple was a recreation of temples on their own home world of Coral. The temple contains arches in the background which are flat images of Arch of Constantine from Rome. So maybe Coral = Earth? It is called Earth in PSZ after all.

-When you speed up or slow down Olga Flow's voice in the intro to his fight he appears to be saying something in another language first (Japanese?) then in English he appears to say "You killed my goddess!" (refering to Dark Falz?)

-This is a mystery to me I have yet to figure out. There are difficult to read messages hidden very well in PSO font in textures throughout the Gamecube version. One is on the ground tiles in CCA. Another in Hexagon shapes in VR Spaceship (outside player's view).

-Falz grave has a more clear texture on Dreamcast (with VGA). I can only make out one line that looks like it says "This game is PSO".

-You used to be able to clip through laser fences, closed doors, behind mountains at Falz grave, etc. on ver 1.

-if someone sent you a mail with just the letter i repeating itself it could FSOD you in ver 1. (not sure if they fixed it in ver 2).

-In ver 1 you could PK/hit the NPCs in quests. You had to map Grants and Resta then switch real quick between them while casting.

-Back when Gamecube PSO first launched in Japan there was some sort of dupe glitch discovered within a few months. There was a recall on the game. They released a new version with the glitch patched out. The Japanese servers were split in two and could not interact. The dupe glitch servers, and the "clean" servers.

-It appears Sonic Team was unable to ban users on it's own game or boot them off servers. (correct me if I am wrong about this). I was once in an Episode 3 JP lobby with an actual Sonic Team member present. Some sort of card tournament was beginning. Some clown was yelling out racist comments, clipping through counters, making huge chat bubbles, etc. Sonic Team asked him numerous times in broken English to please stop. Unable to get him to stop, Sonic Team just switched lobbies instead.
 
Mega Drive said:
-During very early development the game was called Third World. (this was from an old interview I cannot find at the moment)

-It appears Sonic Team was unable to ban users on it's own game or boot them off servers. (correct me if I am wrong about this). I was once in an Episode 3 JP lobby with an actual Sonic Team member present. Some sort of card tournament was beginning. Some clown was yelling out racist comments, clipping through counters, making huge chat bubbles, etc. Sonic Team asked him numerous times in broken English to please stop. Unable to get him to stop, Sonic Team just switched lobbies instead.
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Sakai mentioned the 3rd World title in PSO2放送局♯36, along with how v2 was meant to be PSO2 but they didnt have time to make it a full 2nd game and knocked it out in 3 months, Episode 1&2 was going to be PSO2 and also PSU was originally PSO2, they got there in the end it seems in 2012 though

Speaking of which, this is Akio Setsumasa, he was the lead server programmer for PSO, this is the man the players caused a lot of problems for, he probably had to apologise alot to his superiors and try to explain the situation, kept him in a job till now though.

Ko6ST8p.jpg
 
Mega Drive said:
-There was an Atari-like symbol on Pioneer 2 in the Dreamcast versions. It was replaced in the Gamecube version.
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JP GC still has it. Most likely Nintendo of America forced Sega to change it.

Mega Drive said:
-if someone sent you a mail with just the letter i repeating itself it could FSOD you in ver 1.
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Usually, lowercase letter L is used. You can FSOD yourself by writing a Simple Mail or Guild Card comment with the field full of l's. It's fixed in Ver.2.

Mega Drive said:
-In ver 1 you could PK/hit the NPCs in quests. You had to map Grants and Resta then switch real quick between them while casting.
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This still works in Ver.2, but the Quick Menu is used instead. The bug is a critical part of the Ver.2 meta, because using it on other players boosts their PB without dealing damage. You can do a four person PB combo any time you want by simply boosting your teammates to 100 with Grants. Unfortunately, PB combos are very unreliable on Ver.2, and one person will often fail to see the other players' PBs. It's the price you pay for unlimited combo opportunities.

Mega Drive said:
-Back when Gamecube PSO first launched in Japan there was some sort of dupe glitch discovered within a few months. There was a recall on the game.
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...and then shop dupe was discovered, and Sega realised it had wasted a fuckton of time and money for no reason. :^)

Mega Drive said:
-It appears Sonic Team was unable to ban users on it's own game or boot them off servers.
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The server would automatically ban you if you logged on with banned items, but I never saw a GM on Dreamcast.
 
In my work to better understand how weapon groups work, there are internal stats such as horizontal range and horizontal angle, vertical range and vertical angle. Targets, and sound groups with models. Just as importantly, what type of animation attack you have. The animation attack is important because it's from what I can see or tell the way that SEGA made the Type weapons.

It's interesting, you can't just change one weapon's h-range in a group because changing h-range at all within a set group makes all of them change. Groups have set stats that need to be there, but are changeable. You change one, you change them all within that group.

Mags have an interesting side effect of moving down one slot on the unitxt file whenever an item is either added, removed, or edited. Mag names in the unitxt moving down one slot for every change is interesting, all you really have to do is realign them. Pretty simple.

Eventually, if you make enough changes though, Mags can go so far down the unitxt file in names and classifications that they eventually start to lose their models.

The effects of V502, V101, V501, and V801 are actually hard coded effects that are selectable when you create a new unit.

As far as I can tell, the HP/TP regeneration units have hard coded amounts of TP/HP they regenerate every time frame, but the amount of time inbetween the regeneration is what can be changed. Theoretically, you could take the strongest variant and change the time variable to 1 which makes it regenerate the HP/TP it has assigned to it every second, which would make units that acts as a soft immunity or as infinite TP.

That's all I got for now, lol.
 
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