Hey, This isn't the place to complain about how PSO2 isn't coming to the west. We get it, it sucks. Please don't fill the thread with drive-by posts about it.
This thread was created on behalf of ChickenHunter though either him or myself can be contacted for any clarifications or update requests.
Before you go downloading the PS4 version, here's how to register. You'll need 45gb of free space. Here's how to download the PS4 version.
If you want to play the PC version using English patches, get the Tweaker tool which will install the English patches for you. It can also translate item names.
And if you want to play on the Vita, here's a guide for that too.
Or if you prefer a different, phone based experience, here's how to start that.
This thread was created on behalf of ChickenHunter though either him or myself can be contacted for any clarifications or update requests.
Before you go downloading the PS4 version, here's how to register. You'll need 45gb of free space. Here's how to download the PS4 version.
If you want to play the PC version using English patches, get the Tweaker tool which will install the English patches for you. It can also translate item names.
And if you want to play on the Vita, here's a guide for that too.
Or if you prefer a different, phone based experience, here's how to start that.
Phantasy Star Online 2 is an online action-rpg. You choose a class, select quests, take client orders, level up, start a rock collection, get those iconic PSO red boxes, and generally watch the numbers go up. Combat varies from class to class, going anywhere from hack-and-slashing to third person shooting, magic casting, John Woo simulating, Neopets, and now transforming into a final boss. There is also an extensive story mode that will take you to such exciting locales as a forest planet, a lava planet, Tokyo, a planet that looks like Feudal Japan, and a medieval fantasy world.
- Genre: Online RPG
- Developer & Publisher: Sega
- Pricing: Free-to-play with premium services.
- Release: 4th of July 2012 (Japan), Heat death of the universe (West)
- Platforms: PC, Mac, Vita, PS4, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Anime
- Official site: Link
- OS: Windows XP 32bit | Windows Vista or Windows 7 32bit or 64bit
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or above
- RAM: Windows XP:1.5GB+ | Vista or Windows 7:2GB+
- HDD: 45 gb
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT or similar or higher
- Direct X: Direct X 9.0c or higher
- Official benchmark and Character creator can be downloaded here. You can use the character you create here in the main game!
- Ship02 is the unofficial English community server. Some Era members are also on Ship01.
- There is no ongoing IP block on the Japanese version.
- It is NOT possible to buy the AC (in-game currency for paid content) directly using a non-Japanese credit card. It is, however, possible to purchase AC/iAC through the PSO2es smartphone app using your non-Japanese credit card. Otherwise, you'll have to buy WebMoney from a third party and use that. AC can be bought through the JP PSN Store as well.
- You can theoretically get banned for using the English patches (they're against the TOS), but it hasn't happened to anyone yet and likely won't.
- Everyone can make 3 characters for free. Each character only gets 1 [free] mag, so you could use the 3 characters to cover each damage type if you wanted to (more on this later).
- Maintenance occurs every Wednesdays at 11:00 ~ 17:00 JST, or Tuesdays at 10:00 PM ~ 4:00 AM Eastern, Other Time Zones
- The Nintendo Switch version streams the game to your console, similarly to PS Now. Your experience with latency may vary.
- Mags are back - they can be fed, evolved and help you during quests
- Party up with 3 friends, NPCs, or NPC versions of your friends
- Interrupt Events - short randomly generated mini-objectives that pop-up mid quest
- Challenge Quests. Special designed quests where you start at level 1 and work with 12 others to reach the end
- Interior home decorating courtesy of MyRoom
- Create or join a team with access to their very own team room
- A Casino! Gamble casino coins to get items
- A nice cafe to hang out in once you're bored of the main lobby
- Crafting system. Make weaker weapons stronger or customize attributes of your techs and PAs
- The ability to switch between the 8 classes for free, each with their own skill trees
- Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Super Hard, Extra Hard, and Ultimate Difficulties
- An ongoing Story mode with quests that lead to interesting and exclusive content
- Emergency quests which appear for a limited time
- Fishing and Mining because you need those in an MMO(?)
- An absurd amount of character customization and cosmetic items
All paid content is bought with Arks Cash (1 AC = 1 yen), which is an in-game currency bought with real money. AC can be bought through the PSO2 website (only with a Japanese credit card), or exchanged for with WebMoney. It is possible to purchase AC/iAC through the PSO2es smartphone app using your non-Japanese credit card. Otherwise, you'll have to buy WebMoney from a third party and use that. AC can be bought through the JP PSN Store as well.
Aside from the premium set subscription, you can purchase things like new skill trees, new mags, more crafting slots, cosmetic scratch tickets, and so on.
Aside from the premium set subscription, you can purchase things like new skill trees, new mags, more crafting slots, cosmetic scratch tickets, and so on.
There are 10 classes available all from the start for all characters. Switching between classes can be done at any time, for free, in the Arks Lobby. Each class has its own skill tree. Once you unlock subclasses, you can use skills from the subclass in addition to your main class. However you can not equip the weapons from your subclass or use its PAs unless the specific weapon can be equipped by multiple classes. Setting your subclass to a class that can use Techs like Force, Techer, Bouncer, or Summoner will let you cast techs as your main class even without the use of a tech weapon. You can change your subclass at will as well so there is room for experimentation. Warning: Certain class combos will obviously be better/more effective than others.
- Hunter - Uses Swords, Partisans, and Wired Lances. Bulkier melee fighters with a strong set of skills that can either increase damage, decrease damage taken, or improve survivability.
- Fighter - Uses Double Sabers, Knuckles, and Twin Daggers. Close-range Melee fighters with skills focused on increasing damage as much as possible.
- Ranger - Uses Rifles and Launchers. Long-range class capable of doing high amounts of damage and providing support to the whole party.
- Gunner - Uses Twin machine guns and Rifles. Close-ranged class focused on doing stylish flips and gun combos.
- Force - Uses Rods and Talis. Magic class focused on casting magic and with skills to boost damage.
- Techer - Uses Wands and Talis. Magic class centered around supporting the party and whacking things with wands.
- Braver - Uses Katanas and Bows. Close to medium range class providing options for both melee and ranged combat. Can excel at mobbing or bossing when set up properly.
- Bouncer - Uses Dual Blades and Jetboots. A hybrid of melee and magic with good single target damage and capable of offering support to the party.
- Summoner - Uses Pets. A class that uses pets as its offense. Can be very strong if in the right hands.
- Hero - Uses Swords, Twin machine guns, and Talis. The first "advanced" class, requiring a class of each of the 3 damage types to be at level 75 to unlock. Subclasses cannot be played in conjunction with this class. So strong that there's no reason to use any of the other classes outside of certain scenarios.
- Humans - Not actually the jack of all trades they are advertised to be. Males are better at melee, females are better at magic.
- Newmans - The space elves. More magic oriented. Best at magic.
- Casts - Robot/cyborgs. Bulkiest class. Good for ranged and melee. Not good at magic.
- Dewmans - Pale skin, heterochromatic eyes, and horns. Good/best at all damage types. Lower HP (not by a lot, doesn't actually matter).
Stat differences are largely negligible. Any race/gender can equip any gear with no difficulty. The stat differences only matter in min/max scenarios.
- The early game is very simple really. You get to make three characters for free. Most people either have one character do every class or have one character do ranged and melee classes and have their second character be a female Newman who focuses on magic classes.
- As soon as you can, do the first story mission of EP4 to unlock the Tokyo area quests. Once you've finished all the Tokyo quests you unlock daily client orders and recommended quests. Recommended quests refresh every day and give you items for clearing them with A-rank or higher. This is important because they are the only source for keys to Bonus Quests which are easy quests that have high exp payouts.
- Once you obtain your mag, pick a class or at least a damage type (striking, ranged, tech) to main and then level up your mag to be (best case scenario) entirely that attack stat.
- Do Koffie's unlock Client Orders until you've run out of them. You should be well into your 20 or 30's on two classes if you distribute the exp well.
- If Emergency Quests are available, go to the level/difficulty appropriate block and do them. They're the best way to get exp. If you can manage to get into a party you'll get boosted exp gain based on how many people are in the party.
- You should be able to buy low end rare weapons from the player shops for 1,000 meseta to help you along your way.
- In the Arks lobby there's a guy in a red hat called Klotho. He has client orders for time attack quests that will be your main/most consistent money source for a long time. The earlier you start working on those the less you have to worry about money (you will never not worry about money, especially in this economy).
- If you haven't been grinding or affixing your weapons and units by the time you reach VH or SH definitely start doing so. The quality of your gear really starts to matter here.
- When you start you can largely ignore focusing on the crafting system as its a huge money sink. The system lets you request for other players to do crafts for you. Once you reach the endless grind for 13* you'll want to start doing Zieg's Client Orders since he's one of the only sources of grinders for 13*.
- What you're doing at level 1 will actually not be all that different from what you can do at level 75
- Challenge Mode is mostly separate from the rest of the game. The best rewards you can get out of it are photon boosters (used to unlock special weapon latent abilities), lambda grinders (used for grinding 13*), and the Ideal 13* weapons (best for bossing weapons like rifle).
- Death is meaningless, don't worry about it.
- Maximizing damage and learning to dodge attacks well is a good thing.
Q: Is this out in West? When is it coming?
A: It's not. It won't be coming anytime soon.
Q: Is it pay-2-win?
A: Depends on how you see it. Having premium will allow you to expedite grindier sections by being able to buy 10, 11, and 12 star weapons and units. Aside from that you can rack up a ton of meseta by AC Scratching and selling what you get. Though free players can buy any AC Scratch item from player shops so you won't be locked out of aesthetics or special scratch items. However, the AC Scratches now have exclusive rewards for buying certain numbers of AC Scratches. Additionally, you can buy Star Gems which are used in their own exclusive scratch ticket, can be used to buy rare enemy and EQ summon items, and get some useful affix items. You could effectively whale your way into riches/power, though it's not recommended.
Q: Can PS4, Vita, Switch and PC players play together? How about PSO2es?
A: Yes. There are version exclusive server lobby blocks and shared blocks. PSO2es can not play with other versions as it is effectively a different game.
Q: Why can't I do daily orders?
A: You need to clear Tokyo Free Field Exploration. To unlock the Tokyo area you need to do the 1st Ep4 story mission. To do so go to the Bridge, open the story panel and go through all the cutscenes until you finish the first story mission. After that you unlock the Tokyo Arks Quests, which lead to the Free Field. Once all that is done you'll be notified daily orders and recommended quests are unlocked.
Q: I just started, any gear I should be on the look out for?
A: Get a set of the Saiki units, affix them to fit your needs. Then pick a weapon from the collection file and work towards that.
Q: What should I do with my mag?
A: It's best to pick one attack type and max it out. Leveling up def stats is unnecessary as armors and dodging cover it better. Dex/ability, the stat which decreases your damage variance, is effectively a dump stat so it's better not leveled. To try and min/max your mag you want to feed your mag weapons of the matching attack type to increase the mag's corresponding attack stat. Feeding mags weapons also increases their dex/ability stat, you'll want to lower it before it levels so feed the mag mono/di/tri-mates or 4/5/6 star furniture for S/R/T-atk mags respectively.
Three characters means 3 free mags. You could have one character cover each type of atk and its associated classes. Even if a mag solely has points in one type of attack, you can still do decent damage with the other types of atk through smart skill tree set-ups.
Q: What are some good class/subclass combos?
A: Hu/Fi, Hu/Br, Hu/Bo. Fi/Hu, Fi/Bo. Ra/Hu, Ra/Br, Ra/Gu. Gu/Ra, Gu/Hu. Fo/Te, Fo/Br. Te/Fo, Te/Br, Te/Hu. Br/Hu. Bo/Hu. Su/Gu, Su/Te. Hero does not use a subclass because it is broken all by itself.
Q: What should I do with my skill tree?
A: To avoid bloating the OP, please refer to this link. If you want a specific skill tree layout, ask in the thread or send me a PM.
Here is the skill tree for Heroes.
Q: Where do I find X mining/fishing material?
A: Please refer to this document.
Q: I hear there's an anime. Should I watch it?
A: Yes, there is an anime. It stars generic protagonist man who starts playing the video game PSO2 (Yes, PSO2 is a video game played by near-future Japanese people) to help the Student Council of Seiga Academy decide whether or not to ban the playing of PSO2 on campus, only to discover that the video game may not just be a video game!!! Its terrible but it is also canon to Ep4. Don't watch it unless you enjoy watching marketing trainwrecks.
A: It's not. It won't be coming anytime soon.
Q: Is it pay-2-win?
A: Depends on how you see it. Having premium will allow you to expedite grindier sections by being able to buy 10, 11, and 12 star weapons and units. Aside from that you can rack up a ton of meseta by AC Scratching and selling what you get. Though free players can buy any AC Scratch item from player shops so you won't be locked out of aesthetics or special scratch items. However, the AC Scratches now have exclusive rewards for buying certain numbers of AC Scratches. Additionally, you can buy Star Gems which are used in their own exclusive scratch ticket, can be used to buy rare enemy and EQ summon items, and get some useful affix items. You could effectively whale your way into riches/power, though it's not recommended.
Q: Can PS4, Vita, Switch and PC players play together? How about PSO2es?
A: Yes. There are version exclusive server lobby blocks and shared blocks. PSO2es can not play with other versions as it is effectively a different game.
Q: Why can't I do daily orders?
A: You need to clear Tokyo Free Field Exploration. To unlock the Tokyo area you need to do the 1st Ep4 story mission. To do so go to the Bridge, open the story panel and go through all the cutscenes until you finish the first story mission. After that you unlock the Tokyo Arks Quests, which lead to the Free Field. Once all that is done you'll be notified daily orders and recommended quests are unlocked.
Q: I just started, any gear I should be on the look out for?
A: Get a set of the Saiki units, affix them to fit your needs. Then pick a weapon from the collection file and work towards that.
Q: What should I do with my mag?
A: It's best to pick one attack type and max it out. Leveling up def stats is unnecessary as armors and dodging cover it better. Dex/ability, the stat which decreases your damage variance, is effectively a dump stat so it's better not leveled. To try and min/max your mag you want to feed your mag weapons of the matching attack type to increase the mag's corresponding attack stat. Feeding mags weapons also increases their dex/ability stat, you'll want to lower it before it levels so feed the mag mono/di/tri-mates or 4/5/6 star furniture for S/R/T-atk mags respectively.
Three characters means 3 free mags. You could have one character cover each type of atk and its associated classes. Even if a mag solely has points in one type of attack, you can still do decent damage with the other types of atk through smart skill tree set-ups.
Q: What are some good class/subclass combos?
A: Hu/Fi, Hu/Br, Hu/Bo. Fi/Hu, Fi/Bo. Ra/Hu, Ra/Br, Ra/Gu. Gu/Ra, Gu/Hu. Fo/Te, Fo/Br. Te/Fo, Te/Br, Te/Hu. Br/Hu. Bo/Hu. Su/Gu, Su/Te. Hero does not use a subclass because it is broken all by itself.
Q: What should I do with my skill tree?
A: To avoid bloating the OP, please refer to this link. If you want a specific skill tree layout, ask in the thread or send me a PM.
Here is the skill tree for Heroes.
Q: Where do I find X mining/fishing material?
A: Please refer to this document.
Q: I hear there's an anime. Should I watch it?
A: Yes, there is an anime. It stars generic protagonist man who starts playing the video game PSO2 (Yes, PSO2 is a video game played by near-future Japanese people) to help the Student Council of Seiga Academy decide whether or not to ban the playing of PSO2 on campus, only to discover that the video game may not just be a video game!!! Its terrible but it is also canon to Ep4. Don't watch it unless you enjoy watching marketing trainwrecks.
- Registration guide
- Chrome extension very useful for the registration
- PC Game Client download
- English patch
- Bumped.org, the best source of PSO2 related news
- Guides for purchasing AC through WebMoney -> 1, 2 (use them together)
- English language wiki with item/quest translations.
- Japanese wiki with the most up to date info
- Huge Mag guide
- Bot tweeting Emergency Quest notifications
- Guide section on bumped.org with various guides
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