The Mog Blog

One mechanic that I still cannot figure out for the living crap of me in Phantasy Star Online 2 is PSE Burst. PSE (or Photon Sensitive Effect) is a passive buff that increases as you and others kill monsters around the area. PSE comes in a form of levels, going from 0 to 8. As monsters are killed, the levels build up until it hits 8, which then starts a PSE Burst. It is not quite as simple as that, but that’s the general flow of it.

There’s three different types of PSE effects in play which includes one that boosts up item drop rate, meseta % increase, and EXP gain. While in PSE Burst, it seems that the values are doubled for whatever effect is maxed out. Enemy spawn rate also seems to increase to some insane levels if there’s a lot of players gathered together. I’ve been involved in quite a bit of PSE Burst moments as these are fairly rare to run into at times and requires a multi-party group that can kill fast. You have only one minute to take advantage of this buff, but it can be extended by small time extensions and even a “ONE MORE” random draw that will give you another minute.

What really turns this into complete madness is PSE Cross Burst, which happens when more than one PSE hits level 8. This extends your current PSE Burst time by another minute and the same rules apply.

Just a few minutes before PSO2 went under maintenance today, I was in a City Rescue quest where everyone was frantically trying to get their grinding in before the servers go down. We started up a PSE Burst and then it ended going into a PSE Cross Burst that lasted for at least 6 minutes. The aftermath was…

I think I made some good meseta today!

PSO2 in English

I did write up a small bit about my opinions on the matter in a news post that announces that PSO2 will be coming to NA and EU. I think what really concerns me most, and it’s something that should not be acceptable to today’s standards, is to have separated servers with a gap in content releases. From what I hear, PSU was ridiculous in this regard, having months separated between content updates. I don’t see any reason other than localization and putting in fancy text to have such a delay. This just means that the product is just an afterthought for western audiences.

I want to play what’s recent, and it’s a great thing that SEGA is finally catching up with bringing over great games such as Jet Set Radio HD, NIGHTs HD, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, and so on.

To me, if SEGA does not pull through with ensuring that the NA/EU servers are in sync with the JP servers, or even just start off with global servers, it would just be a terrible missed opportunity. I don’t want to speak too negatively here, but SEGA does have a pretty bad track record when it comes to Western releases of their Phantasy Star titles that are online.

PSO2 is a fantastic game. For the love of the Rappy God, don’t screw this up SEGA.