Hacking Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity - English Translation

[Shizuru]

Made this account just for say many thanks for you guys, i play this game time to time for years and was ever a big upset Sega never localized the game, i know must be many work for all the people involved
but i can say it's really good work and i really hyped to see this project complete.

 

[Mage-Andrey]

Metastase, if you're that much concerned about missing - simply play a female cast, best ACC in the game. Of course, you'll be limited to Hunter and Ranger as a cast (since those are 2 jobs cast supremacy excels at). Another choice is Dewman, but they are paper thin. Never understood the reason for this imbalance, are the infinity blasts so good? hp, def, eva, men and even sta are all crap, atk, tec and acc are second best hovewer. Overall i expected more from the SEED-humans =(

Another option is to play Force, since techs don't miss.

Fefo, you're sure lvl 50 rebirths don't add +1 max type EACH time? Have you tested it?

 

[Weyu]

How tight is the highest difficulty in Infinity balanced? Do I REALLY need those Rebirth stats at all? Apparently PP was fixed and the general difficulty lowered, so going Focaseal again might be a good idea in order to have lower TEC and EVA on purpose once more (EVA invincibility and OHKO everything = boring). I'm considering upgrading only ACC and PP via Rebirth if the other stats upgrades end up breaking the game.

PSP2i isn't easier, it's harder in most regards. Reason being that a lot of the cheese was weakened (EVA near-invincibility, traps, etc.) and some of the new foes are quite tough.

 

[Shizuru]

Metastase, if you're that much concerned about missing - simply play a female cast, best ACC in the game. Of course, you'll be limited to Hunter and Ranger as a cast (since those are 2 jobs cast supremacy excels at). Another choice is Dewman, but they are paper thin. Never understood the reason for this imbalance, are the infinity blasts so good? hp, def, eva, men and even sta are all crap, atk, tec and acc are second best hovewer. Overall i expected more from the SEED-humans =(

Another option is to play Force, since techs don't miss.

Fefo, you're sure lvl 50 rebirths don't add +1 max type EACH time? Have you tested it?

I think Metastase are indeed too much concerned about missing hits, i done some missions on Infinity Rank hunting Glorious Wings and Dios Despertar and i play as Human Hunter and i still managed to hit
then just fine with Twin Sabers which have ACC similar to Slicers for example, and you can also Extend weapons for increase both their Damage and ACC so i think he will do just fine, and as you i also
expected more from SEED-Humans, i don't understand the balance Sega used on then

About rebirth i used this link for a more detailed explanation: http://www.bumped.org/psublog/rebirth-system-in-phantasy-star-portable-2-infinity/

 

[Fefo]

No, but I read it somewhere. It would be far more convenient, but that's the best guess until someone can confirm.

Meta said s/he rocked a FOcaseal on PSP2 of all things, so it should be fine anyway . Maybe those new foes might spice things up.

Dewmans were meant to be glass cannons, but there was an overemphasis on "glass" to my liking. Terrible PP regen, too flimsy and only while I saw Infinity Blasts on videos only, they look cool but mediocre.

 

[Weyu]

50-99 +1
100-139 +5
140-169 +10
170-199 +15
200 +20

That's how many max type levels each level bracket adds per rebirth.
So if you rebirth at 200 you instantly get the +20 added to your max of 30, for a total of level 50.

You also get +4 ability slots on your first rebirth regardless of what level you are.

 

[Shizuru]

50-99 +1
100-139 +5
140-169 +10
170-199 +15
200 +20

That's how many max type levels each level bracket adds per rebirth.
So if you rebirth at 200 you instantly get the +20 added to your max of 30, for a total of level 50.

You also get +4 ability slots on your first rebirth regardless of what level you are.

Where you get these numbers? i really struggled for get information about the rebirth system and your numbers are
the ones make more sense for me.

 

[Mage-Andrey]

Well in psp2 casts had the best pp regen, so it was somewhat viable, if somewhat weak. In Ifinity, with tech costs lowered down, all races receivig pp regen boost if i'm not mistaken (maybe surgeon Weyu can provide some numerical data here as well) - newmans became force kings.

Now, to be glass cannon your damage output must be highest among the other races, and they only are second, so, the only way for them to be damage kings is with the use of Infinity Blasts, and only if they provide the biggest damage output of all the Photon Blasts. Imo - Nanoblast is the best Photon Blast, since it gives you invulnerability for you to go on a rampage and direct damage. Other than that - they seem more like a 'challenge' race for advanced players.

PSP2i isn't easier, it's harder in most regards. Reason being that a lot of the cheese was weakened (EVA near-invincibility, traps, etc.) and some of the new foes are quite tough.

Hah. it's easier in most regards. Maybe it's because i played force in psp2, but i only noticed eva when using dagger (hidden eva boost from rarity). PP was gone after few casts, etc. Cast ranger was easiest for me to play in psp2, laser cannon burned through most of story content. Aside from that - in infinity you get more ability customize, there is an ability for VAN to get back part of lost trap power, and with rebirths, fusion, inf. weapon extend you get crapload of power, not to mention new techs useful even for melee classes, like Foverse. More shield damage, perks for perfect blocking that extend window for pb, heal you and restore pp. I consider Eva reliance a thing of psp1, since psp2 introduced dodging and blocking.

I haven't been playing Infinity much, since it's still in japanese, but i got to level 70+ on Newman Force, and it was a breeze compared to vanilla psp2. Played a bit with cast ranger - don't run out of PP as fast as in psp2 as well, i think charge shots cost less as well.

UPD: http://www.bumped.org/psublog/psp2i-demo-photon-art-balance-and-weapon-changes/ Some info on balance changes, and it seems that Duman Infinity Blasts do gain power as they increase type levels.

 

[Fefo]

So it's possible to farm Lv50 rebirths and max everything? No less insane, but yet more efficient.

Type Levels? Odd choice. IBs provide invincibility too? If not sleep is a liability. If you, say, launch a enemy while proc'ing sleep (Gudda Skela Bogga Ranpa), your next hit will awaken them on a reset stance, ready to smack you. Aside from that maybe if the damage is on par a more spamable blast might be good.

CASTs were pretty much the best on PSP2. Best PP and ACC, great HP and ATK, all making excellent hunters and rangers, since forces were crap. No need for EVA as an skilled player could be technically invincible. Add what Andrey said on Infinity and even with RNGod trolling you your endgame will not be that bleak.

---

Forgot to add: are Nanoblasts really worth? I always found their damage burst inferior to what you can do normally.

 

[Mage-Andrey]

Just to be clear - Nanoblast is a Beast Photon Blast. In infinity all types of Nano's got invulnerability, so, you get a free time to punish your enemies (best used on bosses). Difference between all the other invulnerability based photon blasts is that you can direct your punishment, whereas you can miss mushroom drop MB or Melee SUVs if the boss is moving around too much.
Duman IB doesn't give you invulnerability, but from type lvl 11 you get life drain to compensate, and if it lasts long enough - can be the most damaging Photon Blast of them all.
Here's IB showcase made by some youtuber. Type lvls = 20. Shape of IB changes based on active type.

Oh and, while it may be faster to farm lvl 50 rebirths to max type cap, i think it is slow for max stat point farming, since it takes... 600+ lvl 50 rebirths?
Best route imo is to rebirth at 50 asap to unlock +4 ability customize points, then grind lvl 200 rebirths.

 

[Fefo]

Yes, lack of invincibility was my reason for it to suck: no healing for a while, have fun staying alive. With that fixed I agree with the mobility point, I prefer effect MBs/SUVs for that.

Whelp, what I said for IBs is even truer: unless it can dish some severe pain , it's all or nothing mode. HP regen is moot when you can be 1-shot, sleep will kill you and stationary charges WILL be punished. Hella cool tho, Braver's IB all day, risk be damned. Is the damage on video any good? Can you guard/parry?

616, months of fun: https://sites.google.com/site/psp2iwiki/stats , down there.
Like I said, it's more efficient: less than half experience needed. And from 1 to 50 some so-so Lv20 weapons are more than enough. It's still madness, and after you finish such insanity I can't see the fun in completely crushing anything until endgame. Maybe some of those random missions can streamline things with exp buffs and whatnot, but still days of fun.

I'll conveniently forget about rebirths and go on until I get bored.

 

[Weyu]

Where you get these numbers? i really struggled for get information about the rebirth system and your numbers are
the ones make more sense for me.

It's in both the wikis, think I linked them a while ago.
I was thinking of making a short 1> min video to show how rebirth works in the game, but decided to leave it until the next version which already has some text fixes in the works.

Well in psp2 casts had the best pp regen, so it was somewhat viable, if somewhat weak. In Ifinity, with tech costs lowered down, all races receivig pp regen boost if i'm not mistaken (maybe surgeon Weyu can provide some numerical data here as well) - newmans became force kings.

Now, to be glass cannon your damage output must be highest among the other races, and they only are second, so, the only way for them to be damage kings is with the use of Infinity Blasts, and only if they provide the biggest damage output of all the Photon Blasts. Imo - Nanoblast is the best Photon Blast, since it gives you invulnerability for you to go on a rampage and direct damage. Other than that - they seem more like a 'challenge' race for advanced players.


Hah. it's easier in most regards. Maybe it's because i played force in psp2, but i only noticed eva when using dagger (hidden eva boost from rarity). PP was gone after few casts, etc. Cast ranger was easiest for me to play in psp2, laser cannon burned through most of story content. Aside from that - in infinity you get more ability customize, there is an ability for VAN to get back part of lost trap power, and with rebirths, fusion, inf. weapon extend you get crapload of power, not to mention new techs useful even for melee classes, like Foverse. More shield damage, perks for perfect blocking that extend window for pb, heal you and restore pp. I consider Eva reliance a thing of psp1, since psp2 introduced dodging and blocking.

I haven't been playing Infinity much, since it's still in japanese, but i got to level 70+ on Newman Force, and it was a breeze compared to vanilla psp2. Played a bit with cast ranger - don't run out of PP as fast as in psp2 as well, i think charge shots cost less as well.

UPD: http://www.bumped.org/psublog/psp2i-demo-photon-art-balance-and-weapon-changes/ Some info on balance changes, and it seems that Duman Infinity Blasts do gain power as they increase type levels.

As for Dewmans, I've never really had a high level one so I don't have personal experience with them. I was planning to play through the game as one just to see what it was like, but got busy with other stuff. Might still do it later though.
Their stats are definitely lousy— they are above average in all three offensive stats (ATK, ACC & TEC) but not as good as the classes which excel in those. So theoretically they could be quite versatile in all three fighting styles. But their lousy PP regen and max hampers that.
They were lauded as an "experts'" class, but from the PoV of a min-maxer, their defensive stats are just unattractive.

As for PP regen, there aren't actual numbers out there as far as I know regarding regen/sec, but there are these numbers from some test someone did about how much you get back on a P. Block or similar:

Hu 43 47 (M / F)
Ne 63 69
Ca 49 53
Be 40 45
De 35 39

So Dewmans are about as bad as Beasts and almost get half the regen Newmans do.
And in infinity, the regen rate isn't based on your max PP anymore, but it has a fixed rate.


As for difficulty, I mostly meant the end game (infinity rank missions, MAX ATK ∞ missions, etc.). I have a decked out Beast Hunter that pretty much has full rebirths in the important stats, but she still dies in a couple hits even with the best armor in the game.
So the end game is definitely designed around the fact that you've got some rebirths under your belt and adequate equipment in order to tackle it with reasonable effort. It's not as if you'd be untouchable with rebirths.
Of course you could do it without rebirths too, that's the fun part of this game. Stuff would just take forever and you die in 1-2 hits instead of 3-5 so you'd need to be a god at this game.

 

[Fefo]

After seeing Weyu's data I got curious and did some testing. Here's the TL;DR:

PP regen: NF>NM>CF>CM>HF>BF>HM>BM>DF>DM

Pretty simple methodology, probably the same behind his data: I recorded a video of each char using a PA, Infinity Storm (70PP), and watched how many frames were spent from when your PP bar depletes to when it fills totally. Then I multiplied the frame value by 33, the rounded value of miliseconds needed to display each frame at 30FPS. Inaccuracies should be expected due to my tools but they shoudn't go for as much as 0,1s.

HM - 200PP 242f 7,986s
HF - 220PP 220f 7,260s
NM - 230PP 165f 5,445s
NF - 250PP 151f 4,983s
CM - 160PP 211f 6,963s
CF - 170PP 198f 6,534s
BM - 180PP 255f 8,415s
BF - 200PP 232f 7,656s
DM - 170PP 297f 9,801s
DF - 190PP 266f 8,778s

These values probably match Weyu's, but at least they are more edible. If you want some meaningful numbers math shall help you:
( time of your race x value you want ) / 70

( 7,260 x 80) / 70 = ~8,2 seconds to regen from a Blade Destruction first combo, if they still cost 80PP.

TL;DR2: Dewmans suck :X

 

[Laskeri]

TL;DR2: Dewmans suck :X

Yeah. Even with the PP up abilities increasing their PP regen I can't see why anyone would want to play them (on top of the eyepatches being mandatory, seriously?). There are other abilities to mitigate a bit it such as PP Guard Save + Just Guard PP Drain but that's tempting fate given their weak defensive stats. And any other race would be able to make better use of those abilities as far as I know.

 

[Fefo]

Heh, increasing PP does nothing to regen speed. More tests:

HuFe with:
PP Boost = 220f
PP Hi-Boost = 220f
PP Restore Rate = 199f
5PP Rebirth = 220f
50PP Rebirth = 220f

DewM with:
PP Restore Rate = 270f
Restore + 50PP = 270f

No changes with anything but PP Restore Rate, funnily the one I cast aside before. I didn't combined max rebirth with boosts because it seemed pointless, and can safely assume that PP Restore Rate reduce PP regen time by 10%, just like HP Restore Rate.

With it you can even things up a bit, but Dewmans are still underwhelming on several factors. Who knows what Sega tried to do.

 

[Weyu]

Neat, you should save that info if an English wiki ever gets off the ground. I don't think it's been measured before.
And yep, only PP regen improving abilities can raise the regen speed, other factors such as max PP don't affect it anymore as it did in PSP2.

 

[Laskeri]

And yep, only PP regen improving abilities can raise the regen speed, other factors such as max PP don't affect it anymore as it did in PSP2.

Ah ok, I wasn't aware of that change.

 

[ArtyMarty]

Can someone explain the actual extent of the evasion nerfs? Is evasion useless, half as effective, slightly less effective..?

If there's been any math exposed I'd definitely like to know it, like if the change was just a big fixed addition to hit rate, or some multiplicative function, etc. I don't know if I liked Evasion being invincibility at high levels but I liked that it was something you could specialize in, you know?

 

[Weyu]

Anyone know Spanish here? Could potentially use some quick help with a word. PM me if you do, thanks.

 

[metastase]

Aha! So my suspicions are correct so far. Thx for the confirmation Fefo. So it turns out Fonewhearl is my only choice after all.


Browsing those blog links made me realize yet another thing that changes everything to me: apparently Infinity destroyed my playstyle by nerfing Damgrants by around 30%. I THINK I can still fix it, all I need is to pull a 30% dmg boost out of my ass. lol Can anyone give me Damgrants Lvl 30 data from Infinity? I'm assuming by Lv.30 it reaches at least 80% TEC, so maybe I only need to create +20% out of thin air.

Despite that huge damage nerf, Damgrants PP cost was also cut by about 40~50% (dunno about lvl 30). That means I can afford Wands that increase PP cost. Does anybody know some wiki or place where I can see Wands extended data? Specifically, my hope is if 1 of these Wands can empow Light after extension:

- Divine Staff Uzume
- Evil Curst
- Motav Prophecy (can't empow light on PSPo2)
- Any Tenora Works Wand, none of which can empow light in PSPo2*

*I'm assuming the ability Tenora Freak works with Wands, at which point I can generate a clean +20% boost with Tenora Wands IF any of them is changed and allows empow Light now.

If none of these Wands can empow Light, all I have is +409 Tec from switching my Focaseal to Foneweharl. From my experience I need at least about +200 TEC to see any improvements in PSPo2 and that was with a 100% TEC mod, so I'm assuming this 400 TEC upgrade will amount to something closer to 10% DMG increase, 15% at best.

If I attempt to use Attribute Boost and Technic Advance+ for a total of +9% DMG, my build is also screwed due to a lack of customization slots.

I'm not accounting Light Advance because I use it on vanilla (so there's no relative bonus from the switch). And I'm assuming that +500 TEC from Rebirth makes things even considering there's a new Infinity difficulty now.

@Shizuru

My best Mechgun has 185 ACC on vanilla. Even as a Focaseal, I still see lots of 0's against enemies only about 15 lvls higher than me, and that's with +70 to 95 ACC from equipment/abilities. So the only actual difference is that Infinity adds around +10% ACC mod to Forces. I'm hoping that +200 ACC from Rebirth is enough to deal with this even though I'll have to play as Newman this time around.