Make no mistake, PSO2 is a far better game than NGS will ever be if the latter stays in its current lack of direction. However, the train for the original has long-passed and Sega is bent on slowly making it irrelevant with only doing the bare minimum for 'maintenance mode'.

The unfortunate truth of the original PSO2 is that it became increasingly reliant on a lot on scheduled urgent quests as part of gear progression - even if deterministic in nature, and active campaigns for levelling and catch up were also common. All that's left are random urgents and one day each month for assorted boosts (with one of its best things also removed). Without these, starting fresh will take noticeably longer and gearing up to the actual relevant content will be overall slower, not to mention the game having only but a handful of strayabouts sticking around as far as a community is concerned.

Even when it comes to cross-game affairs for obtaining fashion items and the freemium 'SG' currency, this has been left in a relatively sour state. Prior to the launch of NGS, with just one dopamine-laced quest Sega brought hyperinflation into PSO2's economy which despite the quest's benefits for augmenting gear, has been an overall net negative by making everything expensive. Several repeatable weekly activities with good incentives were replaced for far less useful ones, cutting people out of another reason to play PSO2 regularly even if just for those. Newcomers are left with one-time SG rewards that will dry up eventually.

It should be noted that it is also now completely impossible to make best-in-slot gear in the global version of PSO2, unless you were hoarding up the now-unavailable mission badges in the hundreds since 2020. It's only still possible in Japan due to a companion mobile game the west never got. Granted, min-maxing is a very expensive affair in this game with strongly diminishing returns at a given point, but if you were to get really stuck into PSO2, reaching the absolute zenith isn't happening. In this same line of thought, Global only ever ran one quest that dropped a certain weapon popular for Endless runs only for a limited time back in early 2020, making it incredibly rare on these servers partly due to neglect. Essentially, fashion isn't the only thing that was subject to FOMO.

The only amenities PSO2 has received since NGS took front and center were some additional weapon camos in one badge exchange when the game launched on another console, and yet it's still missing a significant amount of pre-NGS ones only Japan has. For some reason, more functionally irrelevant content has been shoved into the random urgent rotation since.

Ultimately, Sega is trying its best to make you not play PSO2, with a lackluster 'maintenance mode' until it inevitably gets EoL'd, what with plenty of finer elements overlooked that could've been resolved with ease, yet haven't. The meat and bones are still there, but getting up to speed is a lot more dry than it was in its heyday, as you try to figure out your way through a game that was more dependent on a schedule and wider community.

All of this, by the way - was just to make way for another game that somehow still struggles to get on its feet today, more than two years since it launched. At least most of PSO2 generally knew what it wanted to be.

Make no mistake, PSO2 is a far better game than NGS will ever be if the latter stays in its current lack of direction. However, the train for the original has long-passed and Sega is bent on slowly making it irrelevant with only doing the bare minimum for 'maintenance mode'. The unfortunate truth of the original PSO2 is that it became increasingly reliant on a lot on scheduled urgent quests as part of gear progression - even if deterministic in nature, and active campaigns for levelling and catch up were also common. All that's left are random urgents and one day each month for assorted boosts (with one of its best things also removed). Without these, starting fresh will take noticeably longer and gearing up to the actual relevant content will be overall slower, not to mention the game having only but a handful of strayabouts sticking around as far as a community is concerned. Even when it comes to cross-game affairs for obtaining fashion items and the freemium 'SG' currency, this has been left in a relatively sour state. Prior to the launch of NGS, with just one dopamine-laced quest Sega brought hyperinflation into PSO2's economy which despite the quest's benefits for augmenting gear, has been an overall net negative by making everything expensive. Several repeatable weekly activities with good incentives were replaced for far less useful ones, cutting people out of another reason to play PSO2 regularly even if just for those. Newcomers are left with one-time SG rewards that will dry up eventually. It should be noted that it is also now completely [b]impossible[/b] to make best-in-slot gear in the global version of PSO2, unless you were hoarding up the now-unavailable mission badges in the hundreds since 2020. It's only still possible in Japan due to a companion mobile game the west never got. Granted, min-maxing is a very expensive affair in this game with strongly diminishing returns at a given point, but if you were to get [i]really[/i] stuck into PSO2, reaching the absolute zenith isn't happening. In this same line of thought, Global only ever ran one quest that dropped a certain weapon popular for Endless runs only for a limited time back in early 2020, making it incredibly rare on these servers partly due to neglect. Essentially, fashion isn't the only thing that was subject to FOMO. The only amenities PSO2 has received since NGS took front and center were some additional weapon camos in one badge exchange when the game launched on another console, and yet it's still missing a significant amount of pre-NGS ones only Japan has. For some reason, more functionally irrelevant content has been shoved into the random urgent rotation since. Ultimately, Sega is trying its best to make you not play PSO2, with a lackluster 'maintenance mode' until it inevitably gets EoL'd, what with plenty of finer elements overlooked that could've been resolved with ease, yet haven't. The meat and bones are still there, but getting up to speed is a lot more dry than it was in its heyday, as you try to figure out your way through a game that was more dependent on a schedule and wider community. All of this, by the way - was just to make way for another game that somehow still struggles to get on its feet today, more than two years since it launched. At least most of PSO2 generally knew what it wanted to be.