The players that created the Arks Layer fan launcher that is allowed people to play the JP version, for pso2 sales the previous 8 decades, have now added support for updating/patching the NA PSO2 through their launcher. Currently, it still requires the first 11gb download from the Windows Store, but they are working to determine if they can skip the Windows Store entirely.So, it appears using a workaround to bypass the NA launcher, and just launching Phantasy Star Online 2 standalone, makes the horrendous lobby lag vanish almost entirely. This will, but make you unable to spot the standard way, so you're going to need to use the aforementioned Arks Layer launcher rather to patch Phantasy Star Online 2 (that is probably the safer bet at this point anyway).

This is like a night and day difference of 60+ FPS with practically no stutter. This appears to confirm that it's not Phantasy Star Online 2 causing the lobby lag, which something's seriously wrong with SEGA's launcher for the NA version.According to a single user, there is an -optimize flag that the launcher passes to pso2.exe that's destroying I/O functionality and causing the massive framework drops in the lobbies. Will update again when more info is available. SEGA stated they won't have any information/fixes about the rest of the stuff until June 10th at the earliest. Meanwhile, Arks Layer has fixed lots of the install issues and is going to attempt and upgrade their launcher with a solution ASAP. Pays to be agile in circumstances such as this.

I am frankly baffled because this NA launch is simply occurring 8 decades later because of somebody at Microsoft clearly using a soft spot for PSO, but yet they do not seem to have completed any QA at all to be certain that Phantasy Star Online 2 actually installs/launches correctly for the majority of users. It is like they put all their enthusiasm into announcing Phantasy Star Online 2 and none into ensuring it really works. The Japanese version for years and I've played, and installing/uninstalling/translating throughout the Arks Layer launcher is painless, automatic and idiot-proof this stage. There's no reason why it should be like this for a formal launch.

More perplexing yet is the reason why they decided to use the old Microsoft Store instead of the brand new Xbox service they've been pushing so hard on Windows 10 (which in my experience will be 100x better). I ran to no install issues but getting it to work in my sister's PC has been a complete nightmare. The shitty thing is that Phantasy Star Online 2 itself is a whole lot of fun even if the graphics are dated. It's a super coop action combat game with a great deal of content and charm. At its best, a nearly pitched Hunter-ish vibe is given off by the boss fights.

The base battle is so much pleasure if you enjoy action games such as DMC or Monster Hunter, and with no abortion which was Phantasy Star Universe, PSO2 is really an amazing, well-crafted game using a ton of things to do. They have dropped with a botched install process however. I envision a good deal of potential players will throw their hands up and cheap Phantasy Star Online 2 Meseta not bother with all the troubleshooting. And of course there has been nearly 0 advertising since the large preliminary announcement, which is odd. I don't know if this is Sega's fault or Microsoft's, but someone's been totally asleep at the wheel here.