Differences

This page documents the differences between Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe.

Accounts

A 'Hunters' License' is now called a Guardians' License. Each account can have up to four characters for Network Mode, and presumably also four for Extra Mode. Extra Mode character slots are not confirmed, however.

Characters

Race, Sex and Class

There are four races in PSU, three of them taken from PSO - Humans, Newmans, Casts and an all new race - Beasts. PSU also retains the three class types from PSO - Hunter, Ranger, and Force. Unlike PSO however, non-Force characters cannot use Techniques at all, and Casts are capable of being Forces.

Whereas in PSO only a number of combinations of race, sex and class were legal for playable characters, this system has been done away with in PSU. All of these can be chosen independently, and Character Classes can even be switched in the first city, at the costs of Meseta fees, and independent 'Class Levels' for each class, which are to be distinguished from the static Character Level, and can be increased by doing well in Missions. Supposedly, classes have been designed such that the game would reach a higher level of balance than PSO did.

The old terms for specific combinations of race, sex and class ('HUcast', 'RAmarl', 'FOnewearl') have not carried over to PSU officially. Therefore, 'official' race-sex extensions for male/female Beast characters do not exist. The old terms are still used occasionally, although they remain unofficial and thus colloquial in PSU terminology. Beasts have been dubbed 'furs/furls' (eg. HUfur = Hunter Male Beast and FOfurl = Force Female Beast) and 'beast/beasterls' by the community, but none of these names are official and many people would instead use a term like 'Female Beast Hunter' instead of 'HUfurl'.

Also, the Beast race has been added, which has access to a special racial ability called Nanoblast. Cast characters (formerly also known as 'androids' or 'humanoids') have been augmented with the ability to use abilities akin to the Photon Blast/Photon Mirage from PSO known as SUV Weapons.

Finally, 'Expert Classes' have been announced, eventually allowing for characters to combine benefits of two classes at the same time. Little information is known on how this will work, at the moment.

Character Customization

The character customization potential in PSU is a lot higher than that in PSO, though for all races but androids, the differences compared to each other are only few. Unlike in PSO, it is now also possible to add voices to one's character. For more in-depth information, please check Character Customization.

Online Locations

Ships -> Servers

What was known as a 'Ship' in PSO is now just known as a Server. These will have numbers rather than names, and upon log-in a player will be randomly sent to one of them, in order to better distribute activity across the different servers. To be able to see the characters of people on other servers again, characters can always switch among them using special warp blocks that can be found just about anywhere. Each Server, known as a Universe, is capable of holding 1,000 players at any one time.

Blocks -> Cities and Rest Points

The old Blocks do not exist anymore in PSU, but have been replaced by a somewhat similar system. There are a number of cities spread out over three planets (plus a space colony) that can be seen in the same way, though they are quite a bit bigger, and can contain a lot more players (if applicable, no limits known as of now). It's possible to travel (read: warp) among these cities using the transport facilities they have. It is to be noted that the terms 'Block' is still used in PSU, but now refers to a part of a mission.

Games -> Missions

While in PSO it was possible to make an instanced game and then load a quest from any lobby, in PSU you will actually have to travel to the location where a certain 'Mission' (the new equivalents of areas and quests) takes place. These are still instanced, but will be limited to six rather than four players at a time. It is possible to change the name, comment, password and item distribution settings of a Mission instance at any time. The latter is capable of having drops (separate for items above the 'rare threshold' of Star Rarity eight) be distributed randomly, making sure the 'get-whatever-you-can' strategy that was popular among the highly populated parts of PSO, where interpersonal trust was generally low, can be avoided. Whenever a rare item has been picked up, a message will pop up stating the details. The old difficulties (Normal, Hard, Very Hard and Ultimate) are now known as the 'Mission ranks' C, B, A and S. The level restrictions for each of these varies for each Mission.

Not all Missions will have bosses at the end, but those that do not will lead the players to certain 'rest points', areas similar to the cities but with only a vendor NPC at most. From here, new Missions would be accessible, which might have boss. From this perspective, the system is similar to how a player had to play through the 'Cave 1' and 'Cave 2' areas before being able to play Cave 3 and battle the boss. It is important to note that after having cleared Missions that do have bosses, the party will end up at the rest point again, allowing them to play the boss Mission again without having to replay the Missions before it. Also nice to note is that upon log-on in PSU, it is possible to start again at the location from which the character last quit or disconnected by other means. On a sidenote, there are also options to check out the equipment and statistics of characters in the same Mission or Party.

NPC Shops

Shops can now be found in cities (and restock NPCs at rest points), rather than in games. The inventories will be different for most shops, but unlike in PSO they will carry useful and cool items, and Meseta will be more scarce. These are different from the new Player Shops that are to be introduced in PSU.

There are a number of different shops, including Synthesis Shops that sell items for Item Synthesis, Weapons Shops that sell various weapons and Photon Arts, and Armor Shops.

My Room

New to PSU, each character will have an instance of a special area called 'My Room'. This room can be decorated by its owner, and can fulfill various other purposes. It is also the standard starting point of character upon logging in. As with other instanced areas (Missions), only six players can visit them at the same time. The most notable features of the My Room are that it houses an account-based storage place (allowing for items to be transferred to alternate characters without needing other players to hold them), a player's Partner Machinery, and, if applicable, the Player Shop. The My Room can also be locked with a password to prevent unwanted players from entering it. There will be an in-game log of people that entered one's My Room, by which the My Rooms of these players can be tracked.

Mags -> Partner Machinery

Partner Machinery (or 'PM' for short) is what replaces the old Mags. They have four stats that can be increased and can evolve like mags, but are apparently limited to one per account, and cannot be equiped. Their statistics will likely be of use after they evolve sufficiently in order to be able to participate in battle, as some sort of 'sidekick NPC'. They can also be used to craft new items in a process called Item Synthesis.

Players Shops

For a one-time fee, characters will be able to get their own shops in their My Room, to resell the items they do not need. The Partner Machinery will function as an NPC vendor, so that it does not matter whether the buyer and seller are actually online at the same time. It is possible to find other players' personal shops by searching by character/shop name, description keywords or inventory items.

Item Synthesis

A character's Partner Machinery is capable of synthesizing special 'Synthesis Boards' (also informally referred to as 'recipes') together with 'Synthesis Ingredients' into new items. Apparently a PM's statistics are able to influence the success rate and the crafting time at which this happens for certain items, so this system might be seen as to replace the old Section IDs. For some of the craftable items the ingredients used are variable, and changing these might influence the statistics of the resulting item, or even what item results from the process itself.

Communication

Teams and Parties

The 'Team system' from PSO:BB, which turned out to cause an increase in factionalism, has also been done away with. Parties can exist even outside of Games/Missions though, allowing for easy communication and staying together to start new Missions.

Regular Chat, Party Chat and Simple Mail

Regular chat in PSU will appear in chat balloons (not using the same color for each player), will be limited to a similar amount of letters, and will reach all players within the same instance, as in PSO. Party Chat is sort of the same as Team Chat from PSO:BB (meaning it's like an IRC channel for the people that are in it), and Simple Mail hasn't really changed at all other than the addition of a 'reply with quote' option. It is possible to use color tags in regular chat. Obscenity filters still exist, but do not filter regular words containing obscene words ('saturday'; 'basement'; 'shoes') anymore. It is notable that when multiple players in the same instance say the exact the thing using regular chat, the chat balloons will merge into a bigger one, with a bigger font. Chat shortcuts still exist, as before. Options for 'shout' and 'think' chat bubbles have been added.

Guild Cards -> Partner Cards

'Guild Cards' are now known as Partner Cards. Besides those of players, such cards of NPCs from the Story Mode (one per character, depending on character race) can be obtained, and presumably of one's Partner Machinery as well, in order to have them participate in Missions. Unlike in PSO, whether a player is online will be shown instantly in the Partner Card overview menu. The cards can now only be sorted through numbers ranging from 1 to 5. They cannot be used to track a player's location anymore, but it is still possible to trace this for members of the same party.

Lobby Animations

New versions of the old lobby animations are present. These can For more information, see Lobby Animations.

Symbol Chat -> Cut-In Chat

Cut-In Chat replaces the old Symbol Chat. The player can choose from a number of facial emotions and angles, append some text, and have both appear in the screen at the same time. Only two of these can be displayed simultaneously, to prevent potential spamming possibilities. For more information and screenshots, check Cut-In Chat (to be added?).

Word Select

Like in the US/International version of PSO:BB, Word Select does not exist in PSU, possibly because of the decision to have the Japanese servers be separate from the Western ones.

Offensive Users

It is possible to 'silence' offensive users, or to kick or ban people (and kick summoned NPCs) from one's games. Also, all private areas (meaning Missions and My Rooms) can be locked with passwords.

Gameplay and Miscellaneous

Controls

The controls are very similar to those of PSO, and will not take much time getting used to. The moving animations are smoother and faster, but the 'auto run/walk' function from PSO:BB does not exist anymore. Some ranged weapons can now be aimed/fired from first-person view though, and some also support being used while moving around. A targetting system has been implemented reminiscent to that of the The Legend of Zelda series, allowing for sidestepping (but no jumping or rolling and no backflips). New is the ability to wield two weapons at a time (some weapons use up both hands, some use the left hand, some the right), allowing for more diversity in ones attacks. PSU also supports controller vibration.

Special Attacks and Techniques -> Photon Arts

Special attacks (or 'Extra Attacks') and Techniques still exist in PSU, but they are now part of a system called Photon Arts (also known as 'PAs'). These rely on a weapon stat called 'Photon Points' (PP), replacing the old Technique Points (TP). There are three sub-types, one native to each of the three main classes: Skills (Hunters), Bullets (Rangers) and Techniques (Forces). Out of these, only Techniques are exclusive to a single class. A character can only know twenty (20) PAs at a time. They each have an independent level, that can be increased by just using the PA in question a lot (not on thin air). PAs can be applied to weapons (they can be assigned to different pallet buttons this way), but the details regarding their usage is mostly unique for each sub-type. For more information, please consult their respective pages.

Challenge Mode and Battle Mode

Challenge Mode and Battle Mode are currently absent in PSU, but may be added later on.

Death Penalties

Characters will not receive direct penalties for dying in battle. Instead, this will influence one's ratings obtained at the end of a Mission, which would decide the reward (in Meseta and EXP for class levels).

Telepipes and Ryuker -> Block Warps

It is not possible to allow for characters to warp to just about any place anymore. Instead, Missions have been split up into a few 'Blocks', at the start of each of which there is a Warp Crystal to the other ones the party has already reached.

Soloing

Though characters are restricted to the limits of a single class until they can use Expert Classes, there are still plenty of options to play Missions solo. Players can call in the help of an NPC from Story Mode that has the same class as themselves, as well as of their Partner Machinery (if it is battle-usable yet). Besides that, the stacking limit for some important healing items has been increased (x20 for the old Mates -- Fluids have been replaced), and the game has items that can increase one's stats (similarly to Shifta and Deband from PSO, which also still exist).

Stats

The old Luck (LCK) stat has been replaced by a new stat called Endurance(?) (END?). Whereas Luck determined the critical hit rate in PSO, Endurance seems to influence the PP generation rate in PSU. There is also a new stat similar to the old DFP that determines 'magical defense'. The old resistances have been replaced with the Shield Line System.

New Item Types

PSU has a number of new sub-types of Items, and of Weapons specifically, while some old ones have been removed. Please consult their respective pages for more information.

Grinding

The grinding system has been altered, and is now useful even for Force Weapons. The maximum grind value is now +10 for all items, but each step up will significantly increase its attacking power (a similar magical stat for Force Weapons), as well as its PP. On the down-side, Grinders are now harder to come by, and attempting to grind an item might break it, rendering it useless. For more information, see Grinding.

Offline Modes

There are two modes accessible offline. On one hand there is the Story Mode, featuring Ethan Waber, which is supposed to offer about 50 hours of gameplay. On the other hand, there is Extra Mode, which is mainly different from the former in that it allows players to use their own characters instead (though these are separate from those from the online Network Mode). In short, Extra Mode is mainly aimed at console players that do not have online access.

Vehicles

A number of vehicles can be used both online and offline in certain places, including tanks and ridable dinosaurs. For more information, see Vehicles.

Content Updates

Completely unlike PSO, PSU will supposedly even get new content additions regularly. It has been hinted that there will be an automatic delay on content updates based on the release date for JP PSU compared to US. For example, if, two months after the release of JP PSU, a new quest is released, it will be released two months after the release of US PSU on that version.

Monsters

Monsters have a somewhat better AI in PSU than they had before. There are also special 'leader' versions of monsters (that have the same name as their regular counterparts), that can support and lead their subordinates. Rare enemies also make an appearance. PSU features nine bosses, whose battles are more epic than before, featuring huge arenas. Bosses generally have weak points, and have the ability to strengthen themselves. All monsters have one element associated with them, replacing the old attributes (Native, A. Beast, Machine, Dark). These can be used to find out what they might be weak to. There are six elements, with Fire, Ice, Thunder, Light and Dark returning from PSO and a new element - Earth.