Main Quests, Story Quests, Sub Quests, Expeditions, Recommended Quests, Bonus Quests…What the heck? What am I supposed to do??
It’s important to know that the explorations system used to be very elaborate, and it is now somewhat obsolete. The layout of all these quests is confusing because we don’t know how it looked before, and it’s no longer giving us the explanation about why it’s like this.
What’s up with the storyline?
Like the Expeditions, The Story Quests system is now confusing. That’s because, way before you or I played PSO2, the Story Quests were not available at the Quest Counter; you had to find a certain icon in the wilds of Explorations to piece everything together.
If you’re confused about the quests, know that it wasn’t much better before, AND it was a big hassle to find each specific spot for these short cutscenes. When you go through the Story Quests, just keep in mind the context that you’ve been running around doing stuff and happened to run into this cutscene.
Episode 1, 2 and 3 especially, are very much all over the place. While they are not all that interesting, you’ll probably want to go through all the stories and cutscenes, as you’ll get a lot of SG rewards scattered across them. Besides, your ARKS Missions will also require you to play through the story for more rewards.
ACCEPTING EXPLORATION QUESTS THE RIGHT WAY
While you can go on explorations through the gateway menu, you should go and talk to your new bestie the Quest Counter Clerk, Rebecca. If you don’t have a specific place in mind (or even if you do!) check out the “recommended quests” for the day.
If the exploration you want is there, you can select it and she will show you any Client Order that can be accepted and completed in that specific area, which is pretty neat. The recommended quests change daily. They also all have a first-clear bonus!
Arks Explorations that are not in the daily Recommended section only exist for you to complete client orders and unlock story chapters. As previously mentioned, it used to be a more elaborate system and the game revolved around these explorations, but it has become obsolete over time. In general, you’ll get more out of your playtime by going into the Recommended section and do whatever’s in there.
Arks Missions, Dailies and Weeklies will also be a focus for you. Dailies and Weeklies will net you quite a bit of Meseta, if you pay attention to them. ARKS “Main Missions” will also walk you through a lot of stuff so you know where things are, and how things work.
A little more info on Recommended Quests
In your recommended quests, or any other quests in this menu, there are quite a few icons to look at.
First, the white icon indicates the monster level.
Towards the middle, there may be a box icon. That means you’ll get a reward box at the end.
On the right-hand side, boosts and other info. On the top-right of that small box, the green icon indicates whether harvesting/fishing is available for the mission.
You can also see the zone in the second window (the title doesn’t always make it obvious!) and, a bit lower, conditions for acceptance, which almost always revolves around your main class level. In the restriction section, this mission has a 20-minute time-limit; we will have a timer once we’re in the mission to tell us how much time we have left to complete it.
Just because it’s there…
Just because an expedition is in “recommended expeditions” doesn’t mean you’re ready for it. Or rather, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to solo it.
Some expeditions do not support NPC avatars of any kind when you get into the Gateway ship. What’s less obvious is that you shouldn’t just go in anyway. In these missions, the Gateway ship portal will bring you to a small area with a teleporter and no enemies. It acts as a “waiting for group” match-making, and more people will show up. Don’t click on the teleporter until there’s at least a few people, or you’ll be stuck like me spending 40-something minutes soloing stuff I really shouldn’t have had to solo.
If the title sound like a boss fight, don’t do it!
Not yet, anyway. If a recommended quests isn’t named “Suppress ______” or “_______ Exploration,” but instead has a pretty elaborate name that sounds a bit too fancy, chances are that you won’t have access to NPC player avatars, and that you’ll be stuck waiting for other people (which may be a long wait) or just stuck alone. Fancy-named quests with a time limit are especially difficult to do alone.
The Gateway Ship
The Gateway ship may seem straightforward, but I took way longer than necessary to figure out a few things.
First, you have a watered-down quest counter terminal on the left, when facing the exit back to the ARKS Ship Gate Area. I use it sometimes when I come back from my original quest, but I still want to do more exploration. It may have been more useful before they changed the quest system gameplay.
Second, you can buy drinks(right side of the ARKS Ship Gate Area exit) at the Medical Terminal. These drinks are similar to PSO2:NGS Quick Food. There are also prepared meals, but most are focused towards gathering rather than boosting your combat stats. If you’re lacking in PP, or if you lose HP faster than you’d like, you can use a drink to make up for that.
Any drink has a chance to produce a second effect, like boosting Meseta earned or rare drop rates.
Vendor and storage
To the left, when facing the gateway exit into the exploration zone, you have a vendor terminal, or “Shop Menu.” You can buy things you may need like healing items, and you can clear out your inventory between expeditions as needed.
On the right, there’s a storage terminal, with all the same functions as any other storage terminals.
NPC Avatars
This is one of the things I had missed for a shamefully long time! You can play solo, but you don’t need to go in alone. This terminal will let you invite NPCs into your party to help!
You can choose NPCs you get through the story, OR you can go into the “free” tab. Why is it called free? I don’t know, I haven’t found any “paid” NPCs anywhere, but still. The “free” tab will show you NPC versions of other players, and you can get “FUN” currency by using them in your party. You’ll also be able to send a friend invite at the end of your exploration, if you like the character and want to use it again.
Note that you can select a character and click “ View Stats” for more information. I mainly use that to see what the character looks like. I don’t really care what it looks like, but I have trouble when characters are taking a lot of space, and I can’t see my own character anymore! That’s something I like to keep in mind when choosing NPC player avatars in my party
* Player avatars in your party can give you more FUN points if you stay in exploration with them longer. So far, the max I got was 20 pts per player avatar x3 avatars in party = 60 points. The minimum amount is 5 points per avatar.
Bonus Loot boxes
Bonus loot box can appear once you’ve completed a recommended exploration, and you’re back in the Gateway Ship. There can be a lot of different things in that box, including bonus keys!
Speaking of Bonus Keys
Bonus Keys expire, in most cases, after one week. To the exact minute of acquisition, even! Be mindful of that. I try to do the Bonus Keys right after I acquire them so I don’t have to worry about it.
Leveling tips
Recommended explorations reward a lot more EXP than anything else. You should also make use of your EXP Boost items and Triboosts, which are stackable bonuses.
