Over the weekend, I hit level 20 on my Techer main class. This is currently where the max level stands in New Genesis. Getting there didn’t take all that long, just over 3 weeks of pretty casual play. There were some days where I spent hours killing mobs and doing quests but the majority of my play time has been to log in, do the dailies/weeklies, and then log off. The hardest parts of the whole leveling experience was finding/upgrading gear to hit the required Battle Power to move the story along and unlock new zones.

Now that I’m here at level 20 there isn’t a whole lot I want to do on this character. That isn’t to say that there isn’t anything else I could be doing.

I could get my sub class up to level 20 but I’m not sure how this would benefit my character. Skill points are acquired by doing instanced Cocoons instead of leveling up. I’ve done all the Cocoons already so my main class and my sub class have all the skill points they need. I think hitting 20 on my sub class would boost the damage of my secondary weapon, the Rod. I hardly use the rod since I can cast just find with the wand and still dish out melee damage without having to weapon swap.

I could go out and look for rare weapon and armor drops. The problem with this is that my gear is just fine at the moment. All of the 4 star weapons and armor can be bought off the market for dirt cheap. We’re talking like 1,000 Metesa cheap. The 4 star armor is a bit more expensive but not by much. The rarity comes in the form of Fixa attributes which add additional stats to a weapon or armor. For now, these stats seem pretty minimal and since I’m not much of a min-maxer I’m not too motivated to go out and look for these right now.

I could go and hunt Gigantix but that seems like more of a hassle than it’s worth. Gigantixs are a special type of boss that spawns in the exploration zones when it rains. To actually do any damage to them you need to be level 20 but the game doesn’t actually tell you that. They also scale off of player proximity so what happens is you have characters of all levels running to these things which jacks up their power and makes them really hard to kill. It’s essentially a public DPS check on a really short timer. From what I’ve seen, people who are actively hunting these things are also not very pleasant….

I was thinking about just switching my main class to Force to try that out but the skill system doesn’t quite let you do that. Switching Force from a sub class to main class doesn’t reset the skill points I already invested in the tree. So skills that were good for the sub class would leave the main class lacking. Of course, I could buy a second skill tree for $5 but I’m not inclined to do that right now. I’d rather make a second character while I have the slots.

And that’s exactly what I’ve decided to do next. I’m curious how long it will take this time around to get another character to level 20. Since I can share metesa, gear, and upgrade materials between characters it should be much easier to pass the Battle Power restrictions and open up new zones. This does mean I’ll need to do the cacoons again, get all of the fast travel points again, and do the main quest again but I don’t think that will be too bad.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my time in Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis this week. Sure, it has it’s issues, lag being the main one, but I’ve played Trove long enough that lag doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. I’ve been eagerly awaiting it’s release since I played the beta and I’ve logged on every day since it’s been out. Something I can’t say often about any game. What makes things even better is that the squad has started playing as well!

After the beta I was torn between a few main classes to play: Fighter, Techer, or Force. I ended up going with Techer as my main class as it has a mix of support, melee, and ranged techniques. I haven’t felt the need to re-roll which is a good sign that I’m enjoying the class. The main mechanic of the class revolves around matching elemental attacks to the enemies weaknesses and throwing out a damage boost/incoming damage reduction buff. I chose Force as my sub class which gave me access to some close range AoE spells and a skill tree to keep my PP (mana) up. So far, I’m really enjoying the playstyle.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism that there isn’t enough content right now which I personally find is a non issue. Jumping in to the original PSO2 last year was a nightmare of menus, systems within systems, and really weird controls. There was a ton of content but so much that I didn’t want to sift through it all. I bounced pretty hard after a week or so. In New Genesis, there’s a lot less going on all the time and I can actually sit down and learn the few systems that are in place. The skill tree isn’t huge and for the most part I understand what each one does and how it would impact my character. The weapon upgrade system has some quirks but is understandable overall. The map is on the small side but the zones are varied enough that I don’t feel like I’m seeing the same things as I go through it.

I’m about 10 hours in and feel like I have a good thing going with this game.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s issues. The lag is the biggest one hands down. Those first few days I couldn’t even follow the people I was playing with around because they’d be rubberbanding all over the place. Menus would take a long time to load. Sometimes, enemies will just stand there and not take any damage until things catch up and they’re just dead. It’s gotten better over the last week but it’s still there.

The other issue I’ve run in to is materials not respawning when the daily quests reset. If you collect too many materials in a zone and tomorrows daily quest happens to be getting those materials in said zone, you’re out of luck. It seems like materials are on a 24 hour timer from when you collect them rather than with the daily reset. This has lead me to not collect resources out in the world until I get the daily quest to do so. I’m hoping this get’s resolved because it’s terrible system when you need those resources to upgrade things.

I’ve also seen reports that there’s a bug that takes large amounts of currency when you teleport with the quick travel system. I personally haven’t experienced it but there’s enough posts on the subreddit about it that I’m constantly checking my in game wallet. The game is a week old though so hopefully all the issues will be ironed out in time.

Overall, I really like this game and hope to be here for a while. Plus it looks gorgeous!