Quick side note: This guide was ultimately written under the assumption that you'll be playing legitimately and not cheating your eyeballs out. It also assumes that you're either a returning player or a brand new player to the platform of PSO GC. If you've played BB or Ver.2, you'll likely already know a fair bit of this information, but there are stark differences that will end up fundamentally changing how you play the game with the GC version of the game. Please be aware of that when reading this guide. That not all things are the same across all of the versions. I do not cover everything, I simply just give some quick tips to look over for new players when they think about getting started on our platform.




 




PSO GC starter tips and strategies:




1. Do research on your ID and class




PSO is a game that has a lot of fun and interesting dynamics. If you're either new to PSO or you're just starting out on GC, it doesn't hurt to do a little research on what kind of ID or character you might want. Some classes are better for hunting specific items than other classes with other ID's. You may want to do a little studying on which character class and ID you'll want to begin your journey through PSO. PSO GC doesn't have Episode 4 at our disposal, unlike BB, so you're down an episode with a lot less items and areas.




A pretty popular BB section ID to character loadout, that is still pretty relevent now in GC is a Ranger with a Skyly ID. Typically, you'd want to put Skyly onto a Hunter because the primary finds of Skyly are sword based. Melee weapons. But usually the enemies that you fight in order to get these powerful melee weapons are better handled by a Ranger. It's solely up to you which ID's you give your characters and there are no right or wrong answers, but it is definitely worth looking into prior to creation.




Class is also a bit of a factor. While players may have given you some ideas as to what classes are better or worse than the others, or maybe have painted pictures on which classes you should not make, no class is particularly incapable of being played. All classes in the game are capable of performing and performing well. There are obviously better or worse classes, but for the most part it matters a lot less on your class stats and a lot more on the equipment that you have and your personal skill with the game. Don't be afraid to make a class that is considered to be "bad" or "unpopular" by other people simply because you may not want to hear that you picked a "bad class". There are no bad classes, and all classes can be successful.




2. Mags are number 1 priority




A Mag is a robotic companion that hovers over your shoulder. It acts as a sort of pet that will allow you to feed it 3 times every 3 or so minutes. Feeding your Mag consistently and constantly is key to having a much easier time running through your areas. If you didn't already know, Mags offer statistics to your character that boost your effectiveness. Mags have 4 distinct stats that affect your character's performance. These are DEF (Defense or DFP), POW (Power or ATP), DEX (Dexterity or ATA), and finally, MIND (Magic or MST). The values for these stats vary. DEF gives you 1 point of DFPfor every 1 point of DEF on your Mag. For every point of POW and MIND on a Mag, you get 2 points of ATP and MST. For every 2 points of DEX on your Mag you get 1 point of ATA. Feeding your mag as constantly as you can is key to being more powerful early on. There are some focused Mag builds that are pretty basic, as well as a mag feeding chart and a list of all the possible mags to make in the key of this guide at the bottom.




3. Pick up everything to sell




This point goes hand in hand with 2. Picking up everything you can as early as you can and then selling everything you dont want or need allows you to stockpile up a mound of meseta (the in-game shop currency) early and quickly. The more meseta you have, the better your ability is to buy food for your Mag to feed. Mag feeding is relatively expensive meseta wise early on and does require you to be aware of your spending a little. But a general rule of thumb, even if you're not Mag feeding is to pick up everything off the ground of value to sell to the shops to generate meseta. Often times, a good way to do this in higher difficulties without cluttering your equipment menu is to pick up lots of armors. Armors in high level areas have lots of value without cluttering your menus when you try to swap weapons.




4. Save your materials




Materials are items in the game that grant additional stats to characters. There is a material for every major stat in the game, including HP and TP, and they are all capable of dropping in the game offline (except for TP materials). Online, TP materials are included in the drop tables. Not all materials are useful however, as some of the stats in the game, despite being in the game, are useless and don't have any value. Whenever you get a material, don't use it immediately. Put it away into your bank and save it until you either have a better idea as to what you want to do for your character or until you've decided that you're gonna want to use them on a different character. Materials are versatile and can be transfered among multiple characters. If you decide that you'd rather use a lot of the materials you gathered on one character over on another character, you can do that. If you do decide to use materials as soon as you find them, keep track of how many you use. Keeping a notepad or a tracker of your materials is key because you can only use so many. Material amounts will be listed at the end in the key.




5. Ultimate mode is hard early. Be prepared to suck




People often don't even consider the parts of the game prior to Ultimate to be the actual game. It's widely considered the beginning of the game's true experience when you hit Ultimate mode and that everything prior to it is just preperation for the challenges you'll face. There's almost no real way that you can prepare yourself for Ultimate mode enough to make your experience in the beginning stages be any easier or better. There's only so much that you can do and when you've done it all and you still have a rough time, you'll at least know that it's all part of the experience. You'll die, a lot. You'll not do a lot of damage. You'll get facerolled often. But you have to understand that it was like this for everyone. Even established players that just start new characters will have a rough time on those characters. You'll have enough of a rough time that you'll start to think that it must be your character, or maybe it's your weapons or your materials that you used. Maybe if you swapped to a different character and tried them it would be better? Wrong. It's hard for everybody. Every character, no matter how strong or weak, will struggle early on in Ultimate. Just stay strong, fight through it, and you'll be out of those beginner stages in no time. It really is a small part of something much much bigger...and the rewards you reap from it are definitely worth the hardship. I promise you.






KEY:

1.

Character Classes: http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?section=Character&op=viewtopsection

Section ID's: http://www.pso-world.com/item_findings.php

Section ID calculator: http://www.pso-world.com/secid_BB.php (Note: Hit the checkbox so the calculator can match you for PSO GC)




2.

Mag Gallery & Raising guides: http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?section=Mags&op=viewtopsection

Photon Blast chaining guide: http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=877




4.

Character stat calculator (works with your mag stats): http://www.pso-world.com/statcalc.php

Character stat maxes: http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=343 (HP is missing, just add 250 HP to all the base amounts)

Maximum Material amounts:




Humans:

250 of any material

125 HP

125 TP




Newman: 

150 of any material

125 HP

125 TP




Android:

150 of any material

125 HP

125 TP




Mag:

195 Remaining levels (Mag starts with 5 DEF on a new character, only time it doesn't is with special mags that don't start with 5 DEF)

POW = POW level x 2 = ATP. Ex. 133 POW = 266 ATP.

DEF = DEF level x 1 = DFP. Ex. 65 DEF = 65 DFP.

DEX = DEX level / 2 = ATA. Ex. 70 DEX = 35 ATA.

MIND = MIND level x 2 = MST. Ex. 110 MIND = 220 MST.




Extra: These guides are not 100% the only thing to do. The best thing you can do is go to the official PSO GC discord and start talking about the game to us. There are lots of knowledgeable players about an all manner of topics ranging from section ID's, best starter classes, and monster stats, to even setting up your PSO GC experience on dolphin or using devolution. We all play on various platforms and all are willing to give you the tools and information you need to succeed. We welcome any player from any walk of life and any player from any kind of version you played into the discord, but please remember that if you come into the discord server that you are going to be talking about PSO on the Gamecube platform (Episode 1 & 2 and + version as well). We don't do any other version of PSO. Discord link will be below. Thank you for reading. Happy hunting!




Written by:

EFR

Edited by:

EFR

Guides:

PSO-world

Schthack official wiki

EFR




Discord link:
https://discord.gg/ZD5CuvF

I made a small edit, Newman only get 150 materials, not 200.

4 minutes ago, Kayak said:




I made a small edit, Newman only get 150 materials, not 200.

Oh thanks. That was definitely a typo.

Thanks for posting this guide. Although I am not new to the world of PSO, I do find it useful. Especially the mats section. In the past I would just use mats as I received them but that is counter intuitive for trying to maximize my FOnewm to having close to maximum stats(All Yellow Numbers). I've read several articles online that mentioned the FOnewm character in general won't be able to obtain max stats in general but I have a few guides that I am referencing to get the most out of my character based on mat usage.