The JP version and I played with with for close to 90 hours
The JP version and I played with with for close to 90 hours and PSO2 Meseta couldn't see the allure. You spend most of your time oneshotting mobs that are braindead-easy in free fields. You then sit around waiting for emergency quests to spawn which are again braindead easy because everybody's equipment is indeed absurdly strong you'll barely be able to hit anything. They rush through at lightspeed, melting anything in their own way. SEGA added some EQs where you're forced to pilot a mecha that doesn't really do a lot of damage just so new Phantasy Star Online 2 gamers could get a chance at hitting things. There are so many different types of quests with obscure names such as buster quests, featured quests and you'll need to spend ages on wikis trying to determine which of them are worth doing. Most of them are incredibly dull, the only ones worth doing would be the ones with actual rewards.
Needing to find skills to be learnt by discs is a dumb mechanic imo and the hotbar system is terrible. I really don't get why I can not simply have hotbars rather than having to scroll through subpalettes and palettes and shit, onscreen. It's a UI nightmare which does not appeal to anybody. The system stinks. The celebration UI is minuscule and much can't be customized by you. Can't put over buffs icons to inform what they do. No penalty for dying since you can just respawn like nothing happened. Because the material you conduct is so easy that you have to say anything, most conversation occurs in the lobby.
The gearing system is convoluted and you'll again need to spend ages sifting via wikis and youtube videos to comprehend it. The simple fact that there are new-type and old-type weapons with two different strategies to improve (mill ) them is absurd. Caps and affixes are unintuitive unless you've got a guide. Collection files are pretty boring since they just boil down to"spam more EQs" which is probably what you're doing. Every time you kill a boss that they burst like a pinata and drop a ton of shit. As a beginner it's hard to know what's not and what's worth picking up. Most of the weapon drops you see are horribly obsolete. I guess you can vendor them to an NPC?
Flat cap unlock quests are really bothersome. Do I have to have a 13* +35 weapon to level Lv75 that is past? It is only a hurdle thrown into slow your own progress. Who finds these fun? Most quests (client orders) are just kill or fetch quests. There are so many, but all of them are amazingly dull. Some client orders are extremely annoying to perform. The daily ones especially. Most of them ask you to kill x enemy but all you know is that free field that enemy is located in. Which means you have to cheap Phantasy Star Online 2 Meseta run around for ages at a large shitty map trying to find the mob you're supposed to kill, since the wiki does not tell you exactly where they spawn. It is nothing like the dinosaurs are even remotely hard so it just becomes a chore to kill.
