I ended up using promotion exams to reset Laharl for more stats per level early on. Though I did learn about a downside to Etna mode a bit late in the playthough, I did make a decent recovery.

Short answer - No. Long Answer - I wouldn't generally recommend the government missions in Blue Burst PSO, especially not for solo play, unless you are looking to enjoy the story. They aren't great for leveling and most of the spawns are kind of bad (with very limited exceptions not worth doing in pre-Ultimate). Ephinea only allows multiplayer government mode quests, which also means drastically reduced clear time for solo play compared to doing anything else. If you are referring to any other version of PSO other than the one in the video, this would be the wrong place to comment. Outside of your first character, where the time you spend pre-Ultimate is more dependent on Mag feeding / access to trades, generally there are a lot better value quests you can play while leveling. This includes XP / hunts / utility. Most of these are covered in detail in the video as to why they are picked over other quests (ex. Side Stories are used to unlock monster part weapon upgrades with things you can collect while playing).

Hey there, thanks for the comment. Yuzo Koshiro is a very talented composer ---- you will end up hearing a lot more from him in future PSO streams regardless if we are doing a marathon of his songs or not. SOR1 + SOR2 have a ton of great songs, glad you like them.

@@feliciavale4279 Indeed. It has seen a lot of steady user growth over the past few years.

@@veghesther3204 I hate to break it to you, but Pip ended up better than a large majority of the 45 characters in this playthrough. He only really fell off on the final few stars where their stats finally started to pass his. The armor stealing was mostly pointless in the playthrough aside from two specific uses. Honestly would probably not bother stealing again, except for earth and wind specifically (and wind was only used due to new game+ developer ending). The normal gameplay is just way too easy to ever warrant using them over the other options.

@@hi14993 What key do you have bound to action pallette 2 / the middle button? Only Space and F11 by default open the chat inputs along the bottom of the screen, which doesn't naturally overlap with the default controls of the arrow keys. If you are seeing a big chat window a long the bottom vs the chat entry, that would still be a Function key (F10?)

@@NightfallGemini Hello there. It has been pretty steadily above 100 at most hours even outside the events (events having 2-3x this number so far). This year's events were big enough that they actually increased the amount of people allowed on each block which is a good sign for the game.

The game certainly came across as unfinished. I agree with most of what was said above --- the ship mechanics were awkward, drawn out, not much to do while on the high seas. Most of the game felt like there was supposed to be more, and there just wasn't. The maps in particular feel like they just ran out of time to adjust them as it is so plainly obvious that they are not working. The protag rune was probably one of the weakest protag runes in the series which was unfortunate. I did barely use it from what I recalled due to a combination of drawbacks and lack of reward for its spells. I wasn't too fond of Suikoden 2 to be honest, kind of glad to not have another game like that when I finally reached 5 and some of the spin-offs. I could personally do less with bad war games (almost all of them beat themselves), academy time wasters, constantly being locked out of locations / party swaps, and annoying sister characters.

Hey there. I am pretty sure it was from Tales of Destiny 2 / Eternia (Peruti's unforgettable theme was around ~44min)

@@ziggypigstervods Finally remembered. It's from an arcade game called Valkyrie no Densetsu by Namco.

Ha, updated the video credits.

@@coolcat33333 Hello there. This weekend is a lot of power leveling (including later tonight). If you are pretty close to VH and wanted a bump to Ultimate, happy to spend an hour or two helping with new characters.

The colors in mapitem.txt only apply to the map/radar. In game models are not updated.

@@ziggypigstervods OK thanks, no point of doing it since I don't watch the minimap but the field when I loot.

@@Diablange95 I would say it is highly recommended to do so if you join any quests as it would be considered extremely rude to face check every item in most public games (add-on for loot minimum recommended). But to each their own, it just means you take a lot longer doing unnecessary actions.

@@ziggypigstervods for now I play only solo I don't have friend, and the only drops that is important are the red and it's already shown on the minimap and have a distinct color on the field, and thanks to your video I have already installed the add on that show items on the ground, maybe I will try it later if I need it but for now it is pointless for me in solo.

@@Diablange95 Hello, I covered this pretty extensively here in a separate video. It sounds like you are where most people are with their first character, and there are a lot of upgrades to aim for. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnTWp6VjbbuchJosi=cVYMERQ1BRO__kO_

@@ziggypigstervods thanks, I see it but didn't have time to watch it actually, it's my first character that was this high in pso1 but I already played psp2. For my gear here it is : Character Slot 0 (Diablange) LV58 Whitill RAmar (17/30): 1: Varista [0/0/30/0|0] 2: Berdys +7 [0/30/5/20|0] 3: M&A60 Vise [0/0/25/0|0] 4: [E] Cannon +5 [15/0/20/25|0] 5: Double Saber [25/0/0/0|0] 6: [E] General Armor (Slots: 4) (DFP+0 EVP+1) 7: [E] Secret Gear (DFP+9 EVP+0) 8: [E] General/Power 9: [E] General/Power 10: [E] Ogre/Power 11: [E] Ogre/Power 12: [E] Madhu (Level: 131 Synchro: 120% IQ: 200) (DEF: 22 POW: 63.02 DEX: 24.42 MIND: 22.32) (Blasts: Mylla&Youlla, Estlla, Golla) (Color: Black) And notable in bank : 147: Monogrinder x16 148: Digrinder x10 149: Trigrinder x6 150: Power Material x10 151: Mind Material x2 152: Evade Material x9 153: HP Material x6 154: Def Material x16 155: Luck Material x3 156: Grass Assassin's Arms 157: Gobooma's Right Arm 158: Amplifier of Barta 159: Photon Drop x5 160: Photon Ticket x4 161: Anniv. Bronze Badge x15 What should I aim for to improve myself ?

@@ziggypigstervods I also have some mag in bank in case I need a fresh one.

@@Diablange95 You had time to type up that large response and expect me to analyze your equipment instead of just spending 10 minutes skimming a document or video covering the same topic? No thanks, not touching this one.

@@ziggypigstervods actually I am in the document right now (in the pauper mag guide linked in ur Google doc to be precised), I just said I didn't have time to watch it before (4h vids that I need to translate and watch carefully), and for the long response I just copy and paste my stuff from the éphinea view character data section it takes me less than 1 minute to do it. It's just that I'm not a native English, I'm French and sometimes it can take a while before digesting all the information I can read all over places to finish by being confuse about what to do so I have expected that an expert eyes on my stuff will help me. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I'm not sure to be honest.

I should add I'm on a PS4 (14 button) controller and this crash happens when I try to run buttons 15/16. The error message reads: 'The Direct3D device has been lost and cannot be restored. Rendering the game is no longer possible. Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst will now close'

Are you playing the above on fullscreen? I typically only see that issue for fullscreen instead of using virtual fullscreen.

@@ziggypigstervods I am on virtual fullscreen yes. But actually I have since just settled into a config I'm pretty comfy with anyway and haven't given it another thought

@@Terashi Ephinea had a recent patch to effectively eliminate almost all damage cancelling. Things like mech guns overriding + offensive spell spam should have limited to no impact in most scenarios the issue would occur before. Boss fights in particular are now much easier due to this, due to sustained focus fire from all characters not getting cancelled constantly.

Thank goodness! Now if only MST were used in damage calculation for techs. xD I feel like weapons can do way more damage than techs, especially at high levels.

@@Terashi MST is used in damage calculation for techs. The issue is that enemy resistance is fairly high in multiplayer Ultimate. Single player they are mostly fine aside from Episode 2. They are my preferred class for N-VH due to their potential one shot of huge rooms for power leveling.

@@GiggaGMikeE I would still only recommend the HuCast over the other Hunter options, in particular if the version of PSO you are playing is lacking a lot of the nice QOL female options / E4 items (Last Swan, Adept, V502, etc.). HuCaseal will always be able to brute force clear due to traps, but can be a tough solo clear character if you are looking for end game ultimate areas for item grinds. She will struggle to do serious damage to bosses due to lack of Zalure and Shifta, which can feel bad compared to playing any other class. Some of this can be compensated by playing Challenge Mode (which may or may not be an option for you). A lot of her strengths come from being able to land specials consistently, allowing for easy Hell clears while still being able to use weapons like Dark Flow for early one shots. Most of those don't exist in GameCube. She normally benefits being able to use near 0'd end game items (including challenge mode weapons) and still hit accurately compared to other characters. I like to view her as a stepping stone character in some regards to just playing a HuCast with better Hit%. You will find she may do fine on early to mid ultimate but lack the power to do anything significantly hard, like Tower, due to lack of raw ATP. HuNeweral is not a great starting character and honestly pretty lackluster even with end game gear. She has notoriously bad ATA growths and needs so many items to just function. Normal to Ultimate feels bad due to being a generalist with a more restrictive weapon set. For example - She will be below or barely matching HuCast in accuracy with none of his ATP and no traps to freeze and offset bad base accuracy issues. She has a little less of a difficulty jump compared to some of the other Hunters entering Ultimate due to having access to Debuffs. So it is slightly easier to not get overwhelmed with bad gear as you climb for the first time beyond Forest. But frankly she is still just kind of bad at those early clears compared to characters with Traps / raw ATP / Rangers / even Forces in early E1 once you get any items on those characters. If you are dead set on playing a female character that can solo on their own, RaMarl will be one of the strongest low item starts. Much higher ATA than HuNeweral, better weapon options, same ability to Debuffs / Buff. Weapons like Frozen Shooter trivialize early Ultimate clears and end up being useful in nearly every area for enemy lockdown.

​@ziggypigstervods 1st Amazing video and thanks alot for responding. Based on what you said I think I'll start with a Skyly Hucast and maybe have either a ramarl or fomarl as a secondary character. Thanks again.

Hello there. I am currently on break, but will be picking it back up closer to August.

Thanks!

Hello there, Ultima is a different server for PSO. Good luck with the hunts!

For mind Mags I tend to go for the simpler Rappy Mag for a cleaner 15 Def 185 split. Faster level up, slightly more MST. There are some advantages to have a mind mag with blasts, but typically that does not become applicable when used for leveling. If I am in a more serious area, I tend to prefer the extra DEX on an average mag since it is expected for the Force to land special attacks. So I tend to hold something like a 5 DEF / 45 DEX / 150 Mind for general purposes (typically MST caps out by then).

@@ziggypigstervods Thanks. I have played the game more since my comment and realize you are right. The MST will cap and also its pretty annoying having to swap over my mag to another char to get its sync back up after a death. I think a full mind mag would probably only be useful for learning higher ranks of abilities but I don't know yet. Cheers.

There's usually 180+ people online. I've seen it as high as 250 on weekends

I still have at least one Force left to level up via the Halloween cookie method, but MAE-4B is really solid for doing Ignition Cloak hunts while power leveling others. Good luck with the hunts!

On ephinea, every day there's a tiny random boost that varies based on class, race, and gender of your character. Otherwise the class only affects how well you can do something, and doesn't affect _what_ drops

Aside from the Fortune bonuses mentioned by Murphy, certain characters are better at clearing specific areas over others. You don't really want to be doing repeated runs with classes that don't match the hunts. Example: I often mention this in context with wanting a FONewman, who clears episode 4 easily on all difficulties. Bluefull FoNewman can hard carry a Very Hard party by himself while providing end game drops. This is not doable on a large majority of classes. Alternatively, it is so much easier to have a FoNewman for relevant Ultimate ID runs (Red, Green, Purple PoD, potentially Skyly Surface, Viridian Events) to allow for fast solo clears solo or party clears. Example: Ranger is vastly preferred in Episode 2. Due to the high reliance of Hell + Evasion of enemies, it is much easier to solo and multiplayer with a Ranger than other classes. It is common on the stream to use RaMarl over a Force even in multiplayer due to the importance of accuracy for Hell (Whitill / Pinkal Temple, Oran Spaceship). Alternatively, you will get way more out of Frozen shooter in Tower and level 20 Debuffs than a solo Force (Whitill, Purplenum). They are also the preferred boss choice with minimal gear requires of just needing an all 0'd Heaven/Striker + Cannon Rouge for boss clears (Yellowboze, Bluefull). Example: Casts can't pop boxes quickly. Doing PW3 Box hunts with them is inefficient, especially without twin blaze, over a character that can always land Hell + has a RaFoie.

@@ziggypigstervods wow thanks for the detailed response! makes sense.

Halloween Cookies let you do Halloween Quests, which have 300% experience, 150% Rare Item Drop Rate, 150% Drop Anything Rate, and 200% Rare Enemy rate, all in a high-monster-density single-room quest.

@@murphy54000can I join the on a run?

@@Vincethegoat9 I usually try to get a cookie quest at least once with new players on stream. Fortunately, there is also the October event later this year for everyone to start collecting them again.

Dual bird is definitely disappointing.

Attacking Olga Flow immediately results in a high damage counter attack that can often party wipe the group. By pausing, it causes the boss to skip this and take much more time before attacking, leading to nearly instant defeat for the boss at higher levels.

@@ziggypigstervods Ahh that's great. I will try this when I solo him next time. I usually just start attacking immediately haha.

I am playing on this server - ephinea.pioneer2.net/

I believe this was the same week of all bomberman soundtracks, but don't recall which one specifically.

Good to know, thanks.