I used to play PSO V2 regularly until my game broke, and while considering returning to the game I am considering downgrading to V1 to save money and because it’s more common on eBay than the upgraded version I still have.
I think my V2 disc is too broken to work because when I played it often, the game would crash and freeze and disconnect often and the gimmick is the extra content I used to play although everyone seems to play V2 more because of it.
I don’t know if V1 is worse than V2 and I have to save my money by not splurging on another copy of V2 nor if playing V1 will work completely fine.
Thoughts?
Assuming it's nothing to do with your Dreamcast's laser (in which case you might need to adjust it to get it going, but realistically replace it altogether), have you looked into getting the disc itself resurfaced?
If this hasn't been done before, this would likely be the first thing to attempt before considering getting a new copy tbh. Many local game shops still have the machines for it and can do that for very little money.