Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus

[tetsaru arigashi]

Seeing how it's been nearly a year since there was any discussion about this game, I figured I'd start a new thread concerning the expansion, Ambition of the Illuminus, and the state of the game now that it has had time to "mature," lol.  Does anyone still play the game, and if so, what are your opinions about it?

My personal opinions:

The Good:  I'm glad to see that Sonic Team is listening to its playerbase.  Classes are a bit more specialized now, and the combat systems have been tweaked for the better, imo.  Drop rates are a bit better now, and meseta is much more plentiful.  Anti-hacking/scamming efforts also appear to be in full force.  Also, plenty of new items to search for.  :3

The Bad:  The game is currently at an extremely easy difficulty level.  The main problem is that, post AoI missions do not yet have S2 difficulties.  Pre-AoI missions still seem to have horrible drop rates.  Events tend to make items that were once difficult to find almost too common.  Sonic Team still seems to, every once in a while, royally screw up something important (when the Christmas lobbies were added last year, a debugging mission was accidentally left open to the players to access, allowing people to create tons of rare enemy spawns; a server rollback was later performed... -_-).

So yeah, if anyone still has interest in this series, feel free to ask me anything, as I still play regularly.  :3

[Hyperguy]

Did they add any new classes beyond the original nine?

[Nitorin]

Nope Anyway me,I still hang on PSO _shy_

[tetsaru arigashi]

Actually, they have.  Acrofighter (AF) and Acrotecher (AT) are the two newest classes, and I guess Hyperguy wasn't around when Protranser (PT) came out, which was quite a while back...  =/

Anyway, the Acro classes have faster attacking/casting speeds and specialize in one-handed weapons, notably the new Madoogs and Shadoogs, which resemble the Mags from PSO, as well as the new slicers and whips.  I haven't tried out AF yet, but I'm loving AT, especially with my Har/Quick equipped.  Compared to Fortetecher (FT), AT's have access to higher-level support techs and have faster, weaker techs, while FT's have access to higher-level attack techs and slower, stronger techs.  Since AT's can't use rods, Sonic Team actually had to give FT's a 20% buff to rod weapons simply because AT's were outdamaging them through sheer speed alone... O_o;

Protranser is sort of the "Red Mage" type of job that dabbles in a little bit of everything, but uses melee and ranged attacks (no techs), and specializes in traps.  It's one of the most difficult jobs to level, simply due to their low stats, but PT's have become more popular now since they have exclusive access to the new EX traps, as well as all S-rank weapons (pre-AoI, it was all A-rank).  There's also mention that PT's can also see hidden traps, similar to how CASTs could in PSO, but there still aren't that many missions that have them...

Here's a link to a link to all the class updates as of the AoI expansion:  http://phantasystaruniverse.com/game_guardiantypes.php

As far as the old PSO content returning, I've heard that Japan has recently had an event called "Max Attack," which featured retro-style missions and items; no word yet when the US is getting it, though.  There are still a few old school elements to enjoy, though: Boomas and Grass Assassins make appearances on some of the new missions, and weapons like the Durandal Replica, Varista, and Nei's Claw are available now.