Since the release of the last major update over the past 3 months, Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis received a total of 20 small updates, and each of them brought new content, mechanics, and various changes. In this article, having analyzed in detail the most interesting features of the updates, we will see what’s new in the game. It should be noted right away that we will not take into account various temporary activities, events and gacha banners.
End of the first episode
The final 5th part of the first story episode was added to the game, so if you wish, you can now go through it from beginning to end. During the passage of the final part, the player will have to fight a very simplified version of the Urgent boss Dark Falz Aegis, visit the mysterious floating island of Leciel, meet with a mysterious organization, go into space, fight the final boss of the episode and finally destroy the next insidious plans of the villains.
New content
Neusen Plant
A special combat sector that the player initially enters through a teleport in the center of the volcano in the Stia region. In the sector, in addition to various existing combat mechanics and opponents, the developers have pushed several new features:
- In trials and PSE-bursits, you can stumble upon a new boss Quartz Skodin – a kind of wyvern version. It has a chance to drop the Curio Dragon Slayer weapon skin.
- After each PSE burst, players will receive various buffs, special devices change, and the vulnerability of opponents changes.
- New Special Devices:
- Decoy is a device that floats in a beam of yellow light. After setting the agrit of nearby enemies (alas, does not work on bosses) and then, after a short period of time, it explodes, causing 10+ thousand damage.
- Skychaegers are round platforms placed in the air. Jumping onto such a platform, the character receives a buff that adds an AOE explosion to the next hit in the fall, dealing 10+ thousand damage. Unfortunately, if the character touches the ground, the effect wears off.
- Plasma trap – launches an energy ball at the enemy after the character successfully dodges damage with a jerk.
The Battle of Halphia Lake
A rather interesting and moderately difficult Urgent quest, in which a group of 8 players with a minimum equipment level of 3119 will have to fight a huge boss named Dark Falz Aegis. As a reward for successful completion, players with a certain chance can receive:
- 6-8-star weapons of the Sechetyl, Rugged, Effulgent, Gunblaze, Neos Astraean series (the top one).
- 7-star armor series Efitus: Sheza, Efitus: Belta, Efitus: Arga, Eptize: Vio, Eptize: Vida, Ajax.
- Various augmentations 2-4 levels.
- Resource for improving the potential of “Arms Refiner”.
- A weapon skin, two cosmetic items, a dash animation, and a hover animation.
The battle itself takes place in 2 stages, and to go to the second one, you will have to lower the boss’s HP to zero.
- First in the real world. Players have to earn points, destroy ordinary opponents, dodge various attacks and damage the boss by destroying its parts. To simplify the last task, the earned points can be spent on summoning a heavy cannon.
- The second is in a special dimension. Players will have to dodge various, sometimes extremely deadly attacks, deal damage to the boss and perform a number of simple mechanics.
Miscellaneous:
- In the Aelio region, NPC Crestor has new Trigger quests – Drill: Nils Vera (requires 2972 BP), Drill: Doldoris Vera (requires 2972 BP), Drill: The Battle of Halphia Lake (requires 3119 BP).
- The Geometric Labyrinth activity has a second rank, or, more simply, a higher difficulty, requiring a minimum of 2878 BP and a character level 65 from the player.
- There are new side quests in the Stia region.
- NPC Ronaldine has several new repeatable quests, all related to the Stia region.
- There are four new race tracks located in North Aelio, North Retem, Mediola Outer Area 2 and Halphia Lake.
Equipment
- 7- and 8-star weapons can now be enchanted up to +60. This will require Arms Refiner and Arms Refiner II, the second resource drops in the Neusen Plant. Also, the level of potential can be pumped up to level 5.
- Added an 8-star armor called Ajax , you can get it from “The Battle of Halphia Lake” or for a small amount on the auction.
- The maximum defense value is 102.
- HP + 30, PP +5.
- Damage +3.5%.
- Damage Resistance +1%.
- Added a new series of 8-star weapons called Trunkul. Due to the fact that this is an event weapon, it can only be obtained through an auction, for a very small amount.
- Max damage is 726.
- The potential is called “Solidified Unit” and at the maximum level 5 provides + 31% damage, when dealing critical damage, damage resistance increases by + 0.5% (up to + 25%).
- Added a new series of 8-star weapons called Neos Justitean , you can get it from rank 2 of the Geometric Labyrinth activity or for a small amount on the auction.
- Max damage is 671.
- The element is light.
- The potential is called “Circulating Spring Unit” and at max level 5 provides +33% damage, +25% photon blast damage (ults), after using the ult for 90 seconds, PP consumption is reduced by 15%.
- Added a new series of 8-star weapons called Neos Astraean , you can get it in The Battle of Halphia Lake activity or by exchanging for the Aegis Integra resource (in theory, it drops out of “The Battle of Halphia Lake”).
- Max damage is 761.
- The potential is called “Flowing Spring Unit” and at max level 5 provides +34% damage, and the rest of the effects are the same as the Neos Justitean series.
New class
Slayer – 10 in a row, so to speak, the most recent class, using a rather peculiar weapon called the Gunblade in combat at close and long range (looks exactly the same as it sounds). The class’s unique mechanics revolve around building focus energy (which you gain by dealing damage) and filling a meter divided into 5 bars. Each bar filled increases damage, speeds up PP regeneration in combat, and reduces PP consumption by 1%.
Almost all slayer abilities have two activation modes – normal and special, and the latter in most cases is tied to the use of movement direction buttons (hereinafter simply WASD). Below we will briefly analyze each ability and activation methods.
- Normal attack – a single shot that deals damage in a line in front of the character. By holding the button for a certain amount of time, you charge the weapon, changing the ability. There are 2 levels of charging, each accompanied by a bright flash.
- The first – by releasing the button, the character will release a hail of bullets, causing damage in front of him.
- The second – by releasing the button, the character will release a huge energy projectile, causing damage in front of him.
- Weapon action – a weapon strike that deals melee damage.
- Pressing the button 3 times in quick succession will land 3 hits in a series of sorts.
- If the ability is used right before the opponent’s strike, you will reflect it.
- Shifting spica – a circular strike around the character, accompanied by a shot in front of the character.
- WASD: The character makes a short dash forward followed by a shot in front of the character.
- Flowing sirius – the character makes a short dash forward and then 3 quick sweeping blows in front of him. If you hold the button, 2 more hits are added, accompanied by a shot along the line in front of you.
- WASD: The character deals AOE damage around him, teleports a short distance in the direction of movement and deals damage in front of him.
- Reaping regulus – the character simultaneously jumps back and throws an energy ball in front of him, which immediately explodes, dealing AOE damage in a fairly large spherical area.
- WASD: the character makes a short teleport in the direction of movement and then throws the energy ball mentioned above at a fairly decent distance.
- Waving rigel – the character hits the ground, dealing AOE damage at a fairly decent distance around him. When using the ability in the air, the character instantly falls to the ground.
- WASD: The character performs 3 consecutive hits, simultaneously dealing AOE damage at a fairly decent distance around him and rises into the air.
As for passives, the following 3 options are especially worth highlighting (all effects correspond to the maximum level of pumping):
- Critical up – Increases critical chance by 5%, if Slayer is selected as a subclass, then by 3%.
- Gallant attack critical up – when dealing damage to the boss, the critical chance is increased by 5%, if Slayer is selected as a subclass, then by 2%.
- Critical hit PP gain – when dealing critical damage, the character receives 4 PP, if Slayer is selected as a subclass, then by 2%.
Improvements and changes
The list of interesting and useful improvements and changes in my opinion:
- Several changes have been made to the Geometric Labyrinth activity:
- Made a number of fixes.
- Added the ability to join groups.
- Added various new difficulty settings.
- Changed and improved the rewards of daily, weekly tasks. For example, for daily tasks you will receive much more money.
- Changed the tasks for the NPC Leah May, significantly increases the amount of experience they provide as a reward. For example, the quest for PSE bursts now gives 100,000 experience instead of 25,000,
- A new icon has been added to the main interface under the mini-map, displaying the current weather and a timer for when it will change. Of course, it is only needed to determine the time when a special type of opponent will appear – Gigantix.
- A new item “Change motions” has been added to the character appearance settings menu, which allows you to change the idle animation, movement, jump, landing, dash, gliding, swimming on the fly.
- Added the ability to view emotes and the “Wanted List” feature to the gacha item preview system. You can add up to 30 items to the latter, so that you can then find them at the auction in a few clicks.
- You can now bind a specific set of character appearances to saved equipment sets.
- A hint was added to the description of items like “music discs” whether the player has this music or not.
- The function of automatic switching of fixation on the target was added to the settings. If activated, after the death of the target, the focus switches to the nearest enemy. In the case of bosses that have weak points, the focus switches after they are destroyed.
- Added the option to change the display of critical damage in the settings. There are 2 options to choose from, and one of them briefly makes the damage numbers standard yellow.
- Added a search function for alliances (guilds) that are currently recruiting members.
- Added display of additional information to the “Stat Information” menu interface:
- Current experience bonuses, mesets, rare item drop chance.
- Damage Adjustment (Damage Adj.) and Damage Resist.
- The bosses of the Trainia, Ordinal Tower, and purple Battledia activities have been given a HP bar.
- After using restasigne, reversasigne, a cooldown timer now appears on their icons.
- Dead players are now automatically brought back to life after completing an activity.
- A new section “Mission Pass Storage” has been added to the inventory, items from the battle pass are automatically placed there. To activate the section, you need a special ticket, which you receive when you reach rank 6 of the regular Battle Pass reward strip (the ticket is valid for 30 days).