What would a modern PSOBB remaster look like?

Donnie said:
Hmm Ashenbub Texture Pack. Sounds interesting.

But I fully agree. Dont wish for a remaster. Play it here on Ephinea. It wont get better than this.
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I absolutely recommend Ashenbubs texture/graphics packs for both PSO and Final Fantasy XI.

I didn't think it would make much difference but I was wrong xD
 
People do not realize this, but the closest thing to a modern version of PSO's gameplay already exists.

It's called Elden Ring.

The thing about PSO (and the reason many of us can easily come back almost 20+ years later and still play) is that it's a complex game built around very simple mechanics.

PSO balances its combat around a very Oldschool-RPG-like system of "I hit them, they hit me" placed in an action game. Removing this aspect puts all the focus on dodging and i-frames instead of actual combat with the enemy. You can (and should) manually evade attacks, but the game isn't solely built around your ability to do so. You are intended to take damage if you engage, and this is how the whole game works.

Essentially, this forces a stat-check to occur when fighting enemies in PSO. When you engage an enemy, everything about your character is important. ATP, DEF, ATA, attack speed, weapon attribute. You also make multiple snap decisions based on what you're fighting. Do I go for normal attacks and ensure i'll take a hit afterwards? Do I go for Heavy attacks to try and get away without taking damage? Is the damage from a completed combo worth me taking the hit afterwards or do i stop short for safety? Single target and accurate, or AoE and inaccurate, multi hit, ect ect

Manuverability is also deliberately low for the sake of balance, characters slow down when close to enemies making it difficult to disengage. In PSO2 and NGE you always have better agility than your opponents. In PSO this is rarely the case so enemies more dangerous across the board even if all most of them do is literally run up to you and swing aggressively.

The reason PSO can get away with a rigid 3-hit combo system is because you are literally devising strategies and making snap adjustments constantly during even the most simplistic encounters. Risk-reward, resource management, positioning.

TL;DR It's basically the core concept that Elden Ring / Dark Souls is based around.
  • Make a character, choose a starting class based around power/speed/agility/magic/balance
  • You go into dungeons to find rare weapons
  • Massive amount of similar weapons that are given totally different uses by their special attacks (rare ones have unique specials)
  • Tons of builds and playstyles, and gear designed around them
  • Every enemy encounter is a stat check, you're gonna get hit
  • Manuverability is deliberately low
  • Positioning is important If you want to attack and not get hit
  • Resource management determines how far in any given area you can go.
  • You "find" magic spells, including clear improvements to previous ones that are easier/faster/stronger
  • Team up with friends to make life easier

Fromsoft games are very heavily built around the exact same concepts of PSO. It's a true modern action-gamey take on very old-school RPG systems.

Start game > get destroyed by everything > get stronger > win > roflstomp old enemies > go to new area > get destroyed by enemies > get stronger > win > roflstomp old enemies > go to new area > get destroyed by enemies > (repeat)

It's literally the first soulsborne. The new PSO games can't capture the magic because they aren't taking from these concepts. They're action-games that emulate the feel of PSO but take almost none of its core concepts. You aren't intended to take damage, or get stat-checked, or get stronger even really. You're intended to destroy everything in the vicinity, never get touched, and look cool doing it. Completely different genre.
 
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Visually, a remaster would look fine, if Sega wasn't handling it. Virtually every decision Sega has made with phantasy star in the last ten years has been questionable at best. I shudder to think what would happen to the private server community if Sega actually had a reason to 'defend' its IP in the event of it gaining some shred of relevance again.
 
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It would also run like absolute dogshit. Application looks like it's blackscreening every time you log on & will frequently crash upon attempting to execute complex commands such as changing lobby.
 
Don't forget the bots spamming on lobby "We sell meseta, pds and ubers cheap at wescamloserslikeyou247dootcom".
 
  • Mag Timers operate on hours instead of minutes -- cash shop items to reduce feeding times back to normal
  • All Class ability, gear, and outfit restrictions removed along with gender stat/technique/mat tables with no rebalancing in mind -- we're then told the game is better for it as the whole community is now playing 2 identical classes
  • 90% of the Quest menu removed and placed on seasonal rotation with massive buffs to rewards
  • Constant stream of "New Rares" that completely invalidate existing gear, inflate power creep to hilarious levels, and ruin the economy and early-game
  • No more item sharing
  • No more character roster sharing ("Bound" Items)
  • Cash shop subscription for inventory space
  • Big patch content is released and the servers are absoluetly showered with EXP/Drop Rates/Rares to skip players past the "old content" to play the new stuff
  • When the new players quit shortly after reaching new content because they skipped the whole experience, they respond by doubling down and doing it again until the game shuts down
  • Grinders now have a secondary RNG requirement for success/failure -- higher rates with cash shop
  • Tekkers now have a secondary RNG requirement for higher rates -- higher rates with cash shop
  • Make sure to complete your dailies!
 
Don't forget a cool Technique customization system that has the stats randomized, and you're only allowed 3 attempts every 6 hours with cooldowns being removable through cash shop items.
And rolling for the best augmented stats on Techniques requires leveling up a crafting skill which can take weeks along with millions of meseta.
Oh, and give the players an illusion of choice with what Technique parameters they change, even though there's only ever one optimal one for doing damage so the noobs can get knowledge checked.

Then make an expansion a few years down the line that totally invalidates the entire system.
 
SirLagsAlot said:
Ep 3 as a form of pvp (and a way to turn weaps into cards or viceversa)

Remove section id system (segas desperate attempt to create more content where there was none

Some sort of reward for hitting level 200: level 80 exp token (normal-VH are essentially a waste of time)

Mob centric quests (heard rumors the chinese server has something like this)

No rares are reduced (wasnt this a bug/oversight?)

Replacing shit drops with PD in ult (like PC in ep 4)

All classes except hucast +100 ATP

Most weapons buffed (make it so theres reason to use stuff other than excal, df, and hs which were added very late into BB’s life and clearly never balanced)

Have a merge that just boosts all techs (FO are basically useless as it is using most techs maybe mainly boost Simple techs to reduce DMC overall

Add a system where: killing a monster awards a monster part and after xParts you can just trade it for the weap. No more farming 20k spawns to just get nothing while you watch 9 other people get the item you so desperately want

Make it so DP on HP just always does DP or has a selection to switch between its two modes (no more waiting for even beats)

Auction house/Grand Exchange system

Nerf DF or simply make it only work at full HP instead. (The way it works now stifles regular RPG gameplay, “NOOo dont heal me bro”)

Seperate normal, hard, and very hard into their own gameplay modes with improved drop charts and weapons/mags bans for balancing, or something like the mag level staggering you suggested (or something like 1 mag level per your level). With level caps of 20, 40, and 80 respectively

Prestige system, start over at level 200 for a slight boost to RDR or PD drop rate (like %1, maxes at %10)

Make galatines mechanics buffed, add an additional beat windows that provides its max stats. This way north american players can use it at times other that 4 am

Episode 5/6 etc. Episode 2 literally just copy pasted a bunch of monsters. Episode 4 as well with things like asstark just reusing animations from hildelt and some increases to animation speeds etc. Following this format you could easily make a brand new episode by either importing or heavily modifying existing assets and importing or heavily modifying new models for them.

Add the “Forbidden classes”: HUmarl, HUnewm, RAnewm, RAnewearal

With monthly fees being unpopular these days and the current PSO titles being f2p then it could be assumed they would go the MTX route to keep it f2p. Here are things they could add with micro transactions without breaking things too much and making it too p2w:
Donaters status/battle pass: Increases DAR, RMR, RDR and PD rate by %5 each, allows access to donaters only worlds, allows access to new weapons/quests/episodes early, exclusive donaters only quests/leaderboards. Allows more selling slots in the grand exchange. Donaters status is tradeable so f2p players could still obtain them. Adds a “battle pass” kind of system where completing different challenges and just generally playing and progressing makes you progress and earn rewards all culminating to one “uber” kind of reward if you play alot (exclusive skin to the system)
Skins: as you mentioned. weapons and player and frame/barrier particles. NPC or sonic character skins as well.
Pay to save time features: tickets that increase exp, RDR, RMR etc by %200 respectively. Affects the entire party, lasts for 100 beats. Game would also randomly award f2p with them (event drops etc) and also tradeable.

Make hit rates more forgiving while still within uber-challenging levels to find higher hits (something like 2x current rates)

Allow players to un-sphere weapons and revert to PDs/Hoards with a slight fee

Add a few extra selections to sranks, namely charge

Episode 4 challenge mode

Add a way to load in NPC characters like some quests already do and PSO2 had a system for. They could remain with shit levels/stats/AI/weapons as to still reward playing with real players who had better gear/skill.

PSO can already by played online on Sylverant on the Flycast Retroarch core on android. Higher end phones can run the GCN version at full speed. Theoretically BB could somehow be made to run on these platforms. (Which would be easier to do if you were SEGA and had access to the source code) (PSOBB mobile = gg no re real life tho lol)

“Dailies” quest system: Every day offer random criteria to earn random rewards like PDs, boosts etc. Example daily: Kill 200 Hildelt - Reward 1 pd, Kill 3 dark falz - reward 1 pd, kill 1 Hildetorr - reward 1 pd. Complete all for a boost of %5 to RDR for the rest of the day
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lol id love to see the forbidden classes
 
Remiusta said:
People do not realize this, but the closest thing to a modern version of PSO's gameplay already exists.

It's called Elden Ring.

The thing about PSO (and the reason many of us can easily come back almost 20+ years later and still play) is that it's a complex game built around very simple mechanics.

PSO balances its combat around a very Oldschool-RPG-like system of "I hit them, they hit me" placed in an action game. Removing this aspect puts all the focus on dodging and i-frames instead of actual combat with the enemy. You can (and should) manually evade attacks, but the game isn't solely built around your ability to do so. You are intended to take damage if you engage, and this is how the whole game works.

Essentially, this forces a stat-check to occur when fighting enemies in PSO. When you engage an enemy, everything about your character is important. ATP, DEF, ATA, attack speed, weapon attribute. You also make multiple snap decisions based on what you're fighting. Do I go for normal attacks and ensure i'll take a hit afterwards? Do I go for Heavy attacks to try and get away without taking damage? Is the damage from a completed combo worth me taking the hit afterwards or do i stop short for safety? Single target and accurate, or AoE and inaccurate, multi hit, ect ect

Manuverability is also deliberately low for the sake of balance, characters slow down when close to enemies making it difficult to disengage. In PSO2 and NGE you always have better agility than your opponents. In PSO this is rarely the case so enemies more dangerous across the board even if all most of them do is literally run up to you and swing aggressively.

The reason PSO can get away with a rigid 3-hit combo system is because you are literally devising strategies and making snap adjustments constantly during even the most simplistic encounters. Risk-reward, resource management, positioning.

TL;DR It's basically the core concept that Elden Ring / Dark Souls is based around.
  • Make a character, choose a starting class based around power/speed/agility/magic/balance
  • You go into dungeons to find rare weapons
  • Massive amount of similar weapons that are given totally different uses by their special attacks (rare ones have unique specials)
  • Tons of builds and playstyles, and gear designed around them
  • Every enemy encounter is a stat check, you're gonna get hit
  • Manuverability is deliberately low
  • Positioning is important If you want to attack and not get hit
  • Resource management determines how far in any given area you can go.
  • You "find" magic spells, including clear improvements to previous ones that are easier/faster/stronger
  • Team up with friends to make life easier

Fromsoft games are very heavily built around the exact same concepts of PSO. It's a true modern action-gamey take on very old-school RPG systems.

Start game > get destroyed by everything > get stronger > win > roflstomp old enemies > go to new area > get destroyed by enemies > get stronger > win > roflstomp old enemies > go to new area > get destroyed by enemies > (repeat)

It's literally the first soulsborne. The new PSO games can't capture the magic because they aren't taking from these concepts. They're action-games that emulate the feel of PSO but take almost none of its core concepts. You aren't intended to take damage, or get stat-checked, or get stronger even really. You're intended to destroy everything in the vicinity, never get touched, and look cool doing it. Completely different genre.
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Id love to see a souls/elden ring game that isnt so dark fantasy. More normal fantasy or maybe scifi/fantasy like pso.
 
I was just thinking to myself today how wou.ld a potential HUmarl or RAnewm differentiate themselves? Just moving some stat parameters around would be boring.
 
Funny, I just had a dream tonight where I was walking through a store and there was a whole pile of DVD style game cases of some sort of PSO remake sitting on a counter. Dreams are fuzzy so all I know is it was the idea of a PSO remake or something. All but one of the cases were Playstation something. The odd one had a GameCube feel. Amusing the "Playstation" took over in the dream considering I owned a GameCube and not a PS2.

As for the topic:

- Re-imagine classic stages with modern visuals.
- Add more randomized layouts to the stages.
- Modern degrees of movement when moving your character with the analog stick.
- Ephenia style quality of life changes.
- More, maybe? Don't want the game changed too, too much.
 
I dislike the realism of recent games. What’s the point in playing a video game if it resembles RL?

The latest I would’ve accepted PSO being made or remastered would’ve been like 2004 and even that would’ve probably been worse than PSO’s 2000 look.
 
"We removed a glitch were a character's accuracy was calculated incorrectly by performing certain combos on several ranged weapons."
 
Honestly there really isn't much I would change, the game is so good as it is here at ephinea. I think the one change I would make would be to remove the 50h charge / beserk specials from the shop, because they out-class so much of the higher level gear that was supposed to all be part of the fun of grinding and hunting better gear.
 
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