Revisiting The Phantasy Star Series! (Part 1): Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst

Interview with Ephinea Admin Matt

-Ephinea has a lot of unique features, could you tell us about some of the best features?

If I had to pick a "best" feature for Ephinea, it would be the PSO2 Drop System (or an individual drop system). Sodaboy created this system for Ephinea back in 2015, and we believe it was most likely the feature that made Ephinea stand out amongst the other PSOBB servers at the time. In fact, due to its success, all other popular PSOBB servers have implemented this feature themselves.

I'm sure we all remember playing PSO back in the "good old days", yet if you wanted items, you had to watch out for "ninjas", play by the honour system, or just simply solo if you're after something extremely rare. On Ephinea all these worries are gone, as each player gets their own drops after killing enemies, meaning playing with others doesn't hamper your chances at getting something that has already dropped, and you can hunt in groups without concern, which is always more enjoyable than sticking to yourself all the time. It's a multiplayer game, after all!

Of course, we have various other features too, such as a shared experience system, meaning you no longer have to waste time tagging enemies and can play to your class' strengths, and the Hunters Boost Road which promotes the playing of older, less played quests amongst the titans such as Towards the Future and Maximum Attack 4, promoting some variety in play.

A notable mention is all the "quality of life" features that Ephinea has implemented as well, such as 32 character slots, the ability to have a section ID irrespective of character name, the ability to stack items such as materials and grinders, and it's these modern changes that really help bring the experience together, and could be argued to be just as important as major features such as the individual drop system.

-The Individual drop system is quite important. Were there any adjustments made to the drop rates now that everyone has their own drop pool?

Originally due to balance concerns, we ended up making it so that the individual drop system would lower the drop rates of all items dropped in the party. I can't remember off the top of my head, but it was something like this:

• 1P: 100%
• 2P: 81%
• 3P: 63%
• 4P: 54%

However, after observing how players reacted to this, we ended up just bringing the rates up to a flat 100% rate for any number of players, as essentially what this system did was tell people they're being punished for playing with others. While it could be argued your overall time/drop ratio was higher with more people, this isn't how it felt to players: What they saw is that having more people in your party meant that you are less likely to get what you want.

I think it makes more sense for no reduction in drop rates with more players, as if you think about other games, you tend to get bonuses for playing with other people, so why should you have a penalty for doing the same thing on PSO? In terms of the overall economy, people could just do 4 solo games and have 100% drop rate to themselves, but you want people to be playing together, there shouldn't be incentives for playing alone (but saying that, there shouldn't be penalties for playing alone either — it's perfectly valid to want to just do some things by yourself!)

While the system still improved the situation of people soloing all the time for hunts, it wasn't perfect, and after we raised everything to 100% drop rates, now you have a choice if you want to hunt in a group or alone — there's no perceived losses for running with groups anymore.

-Indeed, penalizing for playing together is never any fun. Regarding Game Balance side of things, how close is Ephinea to the Official PSOBB in terms of class and weapon balance?

Almost 1:1, we wanted PSOBB Ephinea to be a place where you log in and it's like you're back on the official PSO.

There have been some minor changes though, which include:

• Ability to use Clio on HUnewearl (we felt like this was a SEGA mistake to not let her do it, just felt right!)
• Ability to obtain Rambing May and Girasole with Hit, along with some handful of SEGA event items.
• Some repurposed TypeMs to make them identical to the popular Charge weapons — these are just for the recoloured aesthetic!

There are no plans to make anymore changes, Ephinea is here for fans of PSO how it was, and we don't plan to extend the game per se. The game can be played infinitely without any extras really, considering the brutal Hit % system! There's always some piece of gear you can improve…

-It's nice to know fans of the game from 20 years ago can still play the same game, and new players can play it how it was. Going back to drop rates, there is an account type called Hardcore that boosts the drop rates. Can you tell us about it and where the idea came from?

Hardcode Mode was a mode that Sodaboy added — I'd have to ask him myself, but if I had to guess, the inspiration for the mode is from Diablo 3, as Soda is a pretty big fan of that game (and honestly, so am I! Been a while since I played though, Monk is the best class)

Hardcore Mode permanently kills your character if you are to die without a Scape Doll — this includes your inventory and character bank too, so if you're not careful, you could easily lose your hard-earned items. Anything in your Shared Storage is safe though, so you have somewhere to keep items you don't want to lose when not in use. Of course, there are incentives to playing Hardcore Mode, namely +100% EXP and +30% Rare Drop Rate; if you take risks, you deserve the rewards!

Due to this, Hardcore Mode players are unable to trade with Normal Mode players though, but you can still play with them providing that you have the individual drop system turned on.

-If I remember correctly, it announces your death to the server. Is that still present?

It sure is! Of course, it only does this if your character is at least level 20, as we wouldn't want people just remaking characters constantly for the announcements.

The banner will mention who died, their level and class, what killed them, along with whatever their last chat message was. Sometimes there's some great banners, such as level 200 players dying with messages such as "I have a Scape Doll, it'll be fine!" — not so sure it was fine!

-You guys recently just finished your Halloween Event, and held an anniversary event a little bit ago. I imagine you're preparing for a Christmas Event in December. How long does it usually take to create an event?

Depends on the scope of the event really. Officially, we consider ourselves to have 3 major events (Easter, Anniversary and Christmas), and 3 minor events (Valentine's, Summer and Halloween).

Each event is designed to be different to one another, so events feel unique and have their own feel, rather than each event being the same by either being extra items or boosted rates (although these things certainly do feature in the events, we like to be a little more creative with how they're handed out!).

I'd say that for each event, it perhaps took us a few days of discussion to come up with how they should work, then some days work from our talented developers, Sodaboy and tofuman, but now events don't take particularly long to prepare as we simply just use the previous year's base and add/change some items or rates depending on feedback. Generally now, it's just a case of changing the rewards, as we are pretty happy with our event schedule and mechanics, and don't feel they need any major changes anymore.

We are in the middle of preparing for Christmas 2020 of course as you say, so we hope that Ephinea players new and old are looking forward to that!

-PSO's 20th Anniversary hits quite close to Christmas on December 21st. Do you have any special plans for it?

Actually, I haven't even thought about it, in fact, it's only because you told me now that I know the 20th anniversary in December!

I suppose I will have to bring it up with the other staff members and see what they think, but I think it would be very nice to do something for the 20th Anniversary!

-Perhaps a Special Boost Day! Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers?

Honestly, I think it's quite amazing that people still love and play PSOBB to this day — not that I blame them! I find it quite touching that people are still interested, and I'd definitely advise anyone reading this to give PSO1 a whirl and check out Phantasy Star's first foray into the online world! Naturally, I would recommend you give it a try at the Ephinea PSOBB Server, which you can play at https://ephinea.pioneer2.net/, and we would love to see you there!

-Thank you for your time to do this interview.