While GC is acceptable to upgrade your items and armors, find rare items that already exist in the game or completely new items that are more for looks than actual use, it poses a problem when you can use GC to find the best weapons in the game. Note that all those new best weapons are better by a significant amount. They’re no small upgrade. Getting them will definitely improve your character by a long shot.

Why is that a problem?

Well, ever thought of what you will do when your characters are completely maxed? You could continue to hunt for less interesting items (because you can’t trade GC items). You could TA all the high level missions (20 of them maybe). You could play with your friends and kill things without any goal. And… that’s about it.

PSU’s endgame is all about improving your characters. When you’ve done that, sure you can TA a few days, but that’s about it. And you just got all the best weapons handed to you in exchange for some real money! Better look for a new game to play when you reach this point. And just fire up PSU when there’s an update with all its great new (old) items and new (difficulty levels for existing) missions.

Thankfully they didn’t release the best Fighmaster or Gunmaster gear through GC at this point. There’s still hope. But if they do, it’ll be an interesting day in the world of PSU JP.

Masterforce is already even more screwed than the other types though. While no better rod has been released yet, they got their best wand released through GC: Motav Prophecy. And sorry for those who couldn’t get this, but the best TCSM was released as the kill-count reward of the Absolute Zero event: Okikudohg. Of course, many people couldn’t get one. Of course, it’s account bound.
]]> http://psujp.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/the-sad-state-of-gc/feed/ 5 maidenessen http://psujp.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/falclaw-trade/ http://psujp.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/falclaw-trade/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:22:55 +0000 maidenessen http://psujp.wordpress.com/?p=145 ]]> Just a quick note on Falclaw. Contrary to what was guessed in a previous article, it is possible to retrade an elemental Falclaw to get another chance at a high %. 50%s should be pretty rare though. As of today there’s only up to 43% in shops, which means it’s either very rare or very expensive (or both).

…

A single mission.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t want to make AZ sound terrible or disappointing, but being given a single mission (and a follow-up bonus mission) to run for the event’s six week duration leaves a familiarly bad taste.  Hmm… it’s the flavor of MAG!  D:

Before we get into the event mission, let’s do a refresher on how to use the Photon Reflector, a new tool (for online mode, at least) required for ice SEED purification.  First, the Reflector must be placed on your pallet.  Don’t worry, it won’t take up a weapon spot.  Just like the Photon Eraser before it, the Reflector only takes up a spot in your consumables pallet.  Next, you need to track down some ice SEED.   As you may or may not remember from previous purification missions such as Operation Firebreak, there are a few steps that must be done in order to purify the SEED contamination:  first purify the SEED zoma, next take out the blewme, and finally destroy the core.  SEED zoma are small, gray orbs that are encased in large ice formations.  Normally, there will be multiple zoma around a single core.  Now that you’ve found the zoma, you’ll need a power source for your Photon Reflector.  Luckily, wherever there are ice SEED zoma, there are photon spots.  Photon spots are naturally occurring wells of photon energy.  By standing on one of these with a Photon Reflector equipped, the Reflector can be used indefinitely.  If you step off of the spot, however, the Reflector will be inoperable.  So, while standing on a photon spot, maneuver yourself around to blast each zoma until its ice encasement melts away.  After each zoma is purified, you’ll hear the noise of the blewme shattering.  With its protective barrier gone, the SEED core can now be destroyed.  Success!

Moving on, Frozen Flowers is Absolute Zero’s main event mission.  Accessed from the GUARDIANS HQ on Clyez City 5F, you and your party are whisked away to the Mizuraki C.D. on Neudaiz, once a glorious autumnal scene, now a gray and frozen wilderness.  The first block is fairly straightforward.  Purify a few monsters, zap the SEED zoma with your Photon Reflectors and destroy the SEED cores to move on.  Block 2 (accessible only if you have two or more people in the party) throws a unique situation at you and your party.  Some of the SEED zoma are just out of reach of the Photon Reflector’s range.  It’s an easy solution, however, as all you have to do to fill the gap is chain together a stream of Reflectors.  One person stands on the photon spot (which likes to appear and disappear at set intervals, by the way) and shoots their Reflector at a second person who is within range of the zoma.  The second person then becomes charged and can use their Reflector just as if they were standing on the photon spot.  Following this, there is a room which requires at least three people to carry out the chain purification.  (I recommend having four people for this one, as getting all three lined up just right can be a bit hit-or-miss.  A fourth person leaves plenty of room for error.)

Hyuga and his clone.

As the mission continues, we head into Old Hakura Temple, once again contaminated by ice SEED.  At this point, you will not need your Photon Reflector anymore, as SEED cores are purified simply by defeating all of the enemies in a room.  With that said, there isn’t much to this area, except for a single puzzle room (accessible only if two or more players are in the party).  Upon entering and pressing the first switch you see, your entire party will turn invisible.  In this form, you can walk through the screen walls that form a sort of maze.  Another switch will revert everyone to their physical form, while a foot switch can be pressed to deactivate laser fences.  I could go into a whole explanation of how to solve the puzzle here, but it’s really a lot more fun doing it on your own.  Just take your time; it’s not as difficult as it might seem!

Once the previous block is cleared, we move into the second temple block.  In the mission’s base form, you simply collect your rewards from a set of clear boxes.  But once the 25 million kill milestone was reached, a new route was unlocked.  If you choose to take this new route, you’ll be transported to what is known as the temple depths.  Here, you will be placed in a dark room with a single switch in the middle and numerous (invisible!) enemies swarming toward you.  The switch can be pressed to make the enemies appear, but you may find that it’s not too difficult to follow the enemies on your mini map instead.  In this room’s initial form, clearing all of the enemies would let you proceed to a new set of clear boxes.  After the 50 million kill milestone was reached however, a second temple room was added.  Basically, it’s the same idea with different (and fewer) enemies.  Here you have a chance of facing one of three different spawns.  If you’re (un)lucky enough, you just might get the room filled with Gaozorans, Komazlis and Kagajibaris!

Currently there is at least one more secret panel to be unlocked through the event kill count at 70 million points.  It seems likely that this will add another dark room to the temple, but we’ll see for sure in a week or so once that milestone is reached!

You can watch a preview video of the base mission (without the extra dark rooms) on youtube.

That pretty much covers it for the the main event mission.  Overall, it’s an enjoyable run, but with it being the only mission the event has to offer (bonus mission excluded, of course, since you can’t get to it without running this one), it can get stale after a while.  Speaking of the bonus mission… well, I’ve gone on enough for now.  We can cover that one later.

When you’re changing servers you can’t transfer your characters or items to the new server. You have to level everything again. The worst thing is leveling bullets or TECHNICs again. A lot of players already sin to level them once. Oh yeah. By sinning I mean of course AFK leveling.

A problem with that is that SEGA removes the AFK leveling spots when they find out about them. They have removed the currently popular one (on the US servers) that is Endrum Remnants. But did they remove every single spot? Can you sin on the japanese server?

Yes we can.

]]> http://psujp.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/can-you-sin/feed/ 3 maidenessen Sinner. http://psujp.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/serafi-senba-and-armas-line/ http://psujp.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/serafi-senba-and-armas-line/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:41:40 +0000 maidenessen http://psujp.wordpress.com/?p=103 ]]> Those two armors are the best armors available in PSU at the moment. If you can equip it, Armas Line is better, otherwise use a Serafi. Serafi is especially important since you can usually equip it in /R, although you’ll have to boost your DFP a bit in some cases.

Serafi-senba‘s price starts at 4mil for a 14% ice. Not too good. But there seems to be a few 40% between 25 and 30mil. Above 40% costs more than 40mil however. There’s even a 46% available in shops. What about boards? They start at 7mil. Not really worth synthing anymore, better buy those 40%.

Armas Line starts at 40mil (!!) for a 20% dark. There isn’t many of them available so prices aren’t really consistent but getting 40% or better costs more than 60mil. A board costs 45mil. Definitely not worth synthing, better let the rich lucky people do it and buy from them.

You may have noticed an odd percent in there. 40% armors are obtainable by upgrading them through The Upgrade Device (previously covered). While upgrading Serafi-senba doesn’t look interesting, because other people will do it for you and sell the result for a nice price, it seems worth using on Armas Line. Buying the cheapest ones and upgrading them with your GC to 40% would cost an average of 5$ per armor.

Not sure what items I will talk about next time, so if you want to know something just leave a comment!

Weapon grinding

To get to +8 then costs a whopping 720GC, or around about $7.20 (£4.30). Paying for guaranteed grinds may sound like a pretty sweet deal, I mean otherwise say for Srank weapons you’re going to have to hunt down Grinder Base S (or just buy a load for ~30k meseta each), synth and pray a few come out +10. Then pray the weapon doesnt break on the way to x/10, which if your luck is anything like mine is pretty much guarenteed. In the end you may end up with a 5/5 or worse. So if your luck is like mine, you may consider upgrading your very best Srank weapons this way, but only those who are the most brave and those with the greatest confidence in their luck should try to then use grinders to take it to +10, because if it breaks you may end up paying your way back to where you were. However, even for many Sranks this isn’t really worth it unless you are really willing to pay extortionate amounts for minimal extra damage. With the possible exception of a 50% Agito Repca, I can’t see myself using this on any weapons.

Weapon Repairs

Related to the above I’m sure. I will laugh heartily at anyone who pays $6 (£3.60) to un-break their 9/9 weapon only to have it then break back to 0/9. This picture from the JP uploader neatly summarises the financial minefield this could become: http://www.psuxxx.info/uploader/src/up2098.jpg

Attribute Modifications

At first I was bewildered as to why anyone would want to pay $1 (60p) to remove the element on a weapon and make it neutral, then maidenessen pointed out that you could use to to have multiple attempts at getting a decent element Falclaw. That essentially turns that option into a gamble of sorts. As for that atrocious fee for adding a chosen 10% element, it is utterly laughable. Change Element is expensive enough, but at least I could use that on a weapon that dropped at a high %, but not with an element I desire. Of course I could also just sell it in the player shops!

Attribute Percent Modifications

I misread this at first. I first read it as 5-40gc for +10%, which you know seemed pretty reasonable. I’ll pay 40cents or 30p to turn my 36% into a 46%, sure, why not? In the position I’m in on JP it’d take a good while before I’d find make or buy a weapon like that, surely? And then I stopped being quite so dumb. That’s 5-40GC for each single increment! To take a weapon from 1% to 40% would cost you 750GC. Now you’re hardly ever going to see a weapon at 1%, in fact since aoti it’s quite unlucky to synth anything below 20% for that matter. Elements also make the biggest difference in damage, so its not so bad. That said, even though it’s the better of the deals listed so far you could still luck out and get something above 40%, plus numerous 40%ers arent too expensive either on the japanese server anyway.

I have to wonder what it is Sonic Team wants to do with Guardians Cash. These tweaks really don’t give any significant advantage over non-paying customers (in fact if anything lucky non-paying customers get a significant advantage instead) and many of them act as a means to gamble depending on how you approach them, expensive gambling at that. You’d think that in order to justify these high prices you could take your weapons to the max, 10/10, 50%ers, all that junk. I suppose the potential to ruin the economy with guarenteed top-end weapons may have put them off that thought, and frankly I doubt the JP community would have liked that idea much anyway. About the only use I can currently think for this is to boost weapons to 40% which a) don’t have a board drop and b) don’t drop with an elemental percentage higher than 30% or so. For example: Mugunburga. 40% mugunburga does sound might sexy to me. Does it sound ~$5 sexy? I’d need to be feeling a might frivilous and have a significantly better disposable income than I currently have but that not totally in the realms of insanity, unlike the rest of the offers listed here. Of course I could spend the money making a really awesome Mugunburga to sell in shops for some legit RMTing, too. Ho hum. So in conclusion far too expensive once again and only barely useful for a very limited selection of equipment.

As for the reaction so far from the Japanese community, it’s been about as positive as their opinions of the Guardians Cash exclusive missions when they came out, complete.with numerous quitting pics being added to the JP Uploader. It remains to be seen what actual harm this update will cause to the server population as a whole, though. I expect we’re in for a few star-counting images over the next week or two.

From my personal experience with them, fairly well.  Pretty much any time I stop by the Resident Security Department (this is the lobby where you access GAMs), I see a few parties either in the lobby or mid-mission at the counter.  “A few” might not sound promising, but keep in mind that the time I usually play equates to morning and mid-day for Japan, so you definitely aren’t going to see the population at its best then.  Anyway, something must have been done right to be keeping the community’s attention like it is.  Let’s take a look at a few possible reasons.

• Challenge – When you take on an advanced mission, your character gets cut down to LV20 (though your type level remains intact).  And on top of that, numerous other restrictions are put in place, such as no recovery items/TECHNICs, no units and no EX traps.  Though this can offer a decent challenge upon initial release or to the unsuspecting player, when taken on by a party that knows the mission well enough, it doesn’t seem to be a major issue blowing right through.
• New items – Not counting the various exchange missions that were released in conjunction with the advanced missions, GAMs themselves offer many new weapons as drop items.  These include the beef-themed weapons as well as many other formerly PSP-exclusive weapons.
• AMP – GAMs are the only way players can accumulate AMP (advanced mission points).  What good is AMP, then? you may be asking.  In short:  new items.  The particular draw here is from numerous S-grade SUVs and (in my case) the final two TECHNICs, Dizas and Rentis.
• AEXP – Advanced EXP.  If you haven’t capped your character yet, GAMs are the only place you can earn AEXP.  What’s it do?  Lets you upgrade your character!  Numerous customization options have been made available, letting you add to your character’s base stats, increase certain photon art caps and much more.
• Secret actions – This might be a bit of a stretch, but one of the nice things about GAMs is that some of them move just a step or two beyond the standard run-and-gun missions by adding “secret actions.”  These actions can range from not breaking any boxes throughout the mission to completing the mission as a party of Fortetechers.  One of the more interesting secrets, though, is from the most recent release, Sacred Stream/R.  Here you have to track down and destroy ten sealed stones to unlock a boss battle with completly unique drops compared to what you’d find at the end of the mission otherwise.

I suppose it wouldn’t be appropriate to pinpoint a single reason behind the apparent success of GAMs.  Everyone has their own tastes, so it might as well be a combination of all of the above.  With that in mind, I imagine that as long as the developers continue to improve upon the previous GAMs as well as offer even more unique and useful rewards from them, the popularity of the mission type will remain steady.

Does it?

Shortly after the nerf, a few more SUV got released. One of those is the 13* SUV Grom Burst, a proud successor to Paradi Cataract’s awesomeness.

Let’s take a look at its features:

• Fast
• 13 hits per enemies
• Better damage per hit than Paradi Cataract
• Good range
• Each hit knockdowns and shock enemies

If that’s not enough to convince you, take a look at the following pictures:

Grom Burst blows.

Overview of Grom Burst's range on the map.

Click on the images for a better view. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

The luck page is used by most english websites to predict tomorrow’s luck. It is updated everyday a little after 3PM GMT.

The uploader can be used to get an early glimpse of what’s coming in the future updates. People usually post pictures of population counts, new contents, new items, grinds, TA times, pictures of panties… pretty much everything. If you don’t fear spoilers it’s quite a nice preview.

The map collection is an effort to provide maps for every missions in the game, including event missions. Not all missions are featured, but there’s still quite a bunch available. It’s particularly useful for missions where you can get lost or have to collect a certain number of items, like Episode 3 Chapter 6. Unfortunately its development has stopped last october.

If you use another japanese resource that you feel english players should know about, feel free to post it in the comments!

The elusive Love Inferno has been released in Train Rescue S3 about 2 months ago. It drops made. Not often though. It’s very rare and it’s also more or less the only interesting item from that mission. Despite having GBR, its price didn’t drop much. Before that mission’s release it would cost about 50mil to get a broken Love Inferno; now it’s about 28mil. A 0/10 Love Inferno is available starting at 32.8mil. A 9/9 costs 70mil. There is only 29 different Love Inferno available in player shops.

Lumirus / Kaos Knight usually goes from 25mil to 30mil, with a few at higher prices. I could buy mine for 27mil. Not too cheap, but not too expensive either, and considering how useful it is you definitely can sacrifice some meseta to get one.

Vijeri / Resist (Pijeri / Resist in japanese) is a lot more expensive. There is currently only 3 in shops, starting at 85mil. Is it still worth buying at this price instead of hunting it? Probably yes. That hunt is a completely boring waste of time, as you barely get any EXP, meseta or items. Better buy one, go play SEED Express for a few days, sell the loot and you’re back to where you were before. Oh, sorry, while I was writing this I went and bought it. Vijeri / Resist is now starting at 95mil.

Let’s look at armors next time.