Sword Art Online

[David75]

Nice ideas.
It might also lead us to other ways of beating the game.
After all, all players think it's all about fighting skills and coop.
But maybe there's more than that, like checking for the ecosystem?
That huge monster fish was hard to beat in that lake, but once outside it became easier to target and kill.

As of yet, bosses are always locked in their room, their own territory they fully master. What if there's another truth than this one?
Like soyu? Nobody thought it was possible or even thought of trying to create the flavor before Asuna decided she'd just master all cooking skills.

I do not say that cooking of fishing skills will help you beat the game, just it might give more material for thought and creativity.
At times, you get solutions for problems after thinkg about totally unrelated ideas. A reason for that could be it's good to lower stress levels and you have a clearer and fresher mind when you do easy/passionate things. In short take a full break.

[KrayZ33]

woah that boss scared the shit out of me, it sure feels different when you know a "wipe" has serious consequences and you have no knowledge about his abilities or phases whatsoever.



being a tank right there in that kind of a situation must feel awesome... or very frightening


I liked this episode very much overall, the only thing that bothered me were those (what looked like) low-level dudes among the raid.... they had their start equipment on, wth?

[Hitokiri]

I'm digging the design of the boss. Head looks like it's from the Alien movies.

woah that boss scared the shit out of me, it sure feels different when you know a "wipe" has serious consequences and you have no knowledge about his abilities or phases whatsoever.



being a tank right there in that kind of a situation must feel awesome... or very frightening


I liked this episode very much overall, the only thing that bothered me were those (what looked like) low-level dudes among the raid.... they had their start equipment on, wth?

If the recon team got wiped out, I hardly think Heathcliff would ask newbies to attend. Maybe the director wanted it to be clear that those guys were just extras and to only focus on the ones with names or look like they work for the Red Cross?

[KrayZ33]

Maybe the director wanted it to be clear that those guys were just extras and to only focus on the ones with names

Its like cancer going through the anime/movie industry, I hate that.
Gundam Unicorn is one of the few animes that allowed "grunts" or no names to do some awesome stuff.


they should be around lvl 90 too, they probably fought several boss-monsters already and all they can do is die a meaningless death

[David75]

Why would those grunts be level 90 when they die so easily against a boss on the 75th level?
Shouldn't we assume the floor where the boss is, also represents a fighting level? Then players would be evaluated on the same scale: able to kill a boss who is on the 75th floor->Level 75.
But it sure doesn't work that way, as the underground monster yui defeated in the town of the beginnings seemed to be incredibly strong.

[Inazuma]

Powerleveling - Critical hits - Greedy players - Heroes wanabee - Suicidal players ... You name it. I've read past arguments on both sides and my two cents is as follows : The SAO world is going to bad and beyond, collapsing upon itself, things don't make sense, and everything is unfair.
Maybe thats the point of this social experiment - through a proxy, realize that no matter how many rules and convention exists nothing will feel right in a system. Be it the SAO's Cardinal or reality's society

[MFauli]

Powerleveling - Critical hits - Greedy players - Heroes wanabee - Suicidal players ... You name it. I've read past arguments on both sides and my two cents is as follows : The SAO world is going to bad and beyond, collapsing upon itself, things don't make sense, and everything is unfair.
Maybe thats the point of this social experiment - through a proxy, realize that no matter how many rules and convention exists nothing will feel right in a system. Be it the SAO's Cardinal or reality's society

I´d like to agree.
Past battle situations were arguably fair. This latest boss battle isn´t.
One-hit KOs in a MMORPG. Seriously, anybody who´s ever played one KNOWS that a mechanic like that would not work. It´d ruin the game. And that´s just in game situation. Try imagining it in a life-death situation. Yeah, fuck.

[Y]

One-hit KOs in a MMORPG. Seriously, anybody who´s ever played one KNOWS that a mechanic like that would not work. It´d ruin the game. And that´s just in game situation.

Just about any MMO raid boss has a mechanic that if your raid fucks up results in instant death.

[Ryllharu]

I´d like to agree.
One-hit KOs in a MMORPG. Seriously, anybody who´s ever played one KNOWS that a mechanic like that would not work. It´d ruin the game.

I guess the dozens of MMOs launched in the past ten years that were successful for many years on their own were "ruined" from the start. I'm not even talking about special bosses or events. Regular quest/mission bosses easily one-shot any non-tank. Even the MMOs that don't have classes have on occasion some obviously telegraphed move that if hit with, results in a one-shot.

There's obviously some trick to this bone-centipede. They just haven't figured it out yet, since they're not doing any damage to it.

Not to mention that this isn't even the first time we've see this. Remember the Floor 1 boss? If you didn't learn to parry attacks due to that particular weapon's fighting style, you died. Oh wait, here they just have to learn to parry as teams or parry with a shield like Heathcliff is doing.

The only thing they haven't found is where to hit the weakpoint for massive damage.

[KrayZ33]

Why would those grunts be level 90 when they die so easily against a boss on the 75th level?
Shouldn't we assume the floor where the boss is, also represents a fighting level? Then players would be evaluated on the same scale: able to kill a boss who is on the 75th floor->Level 75.
But it sure doesn't work that way, as the underground monster yui defeated in the town of the beginnings seemed to be incredibly strong.

because they are frontliners, they should have some experience fighting boss monsters at least

[Kraco]

I don't really feel like defending the mine stompers dying in great numbers, but who knows, for most of them this might be the first boss fight that began and largely continued in a totally chaotic manner. It was also evident the switch method was of limited use in this case as the enemy one hit killed if they didn't parry successfully. So, it's no use fighting in waves with one portion of the soldiers taking a break when their HP gets too low, while fresh troops keep the enemy busy. This boss ran here and there, killing the players left and right, without allowing them to use any battle formations. Until the mofo guild leader showed it was possible to parry.

[shinta|hikari]

I think the reason why the others are dying is because they suck, not because they have a low level. It seems reasonable to assume that taking a solid hit would result in death, but the main characters are not getting hit like that. It is all because they know how to dodge and not just stand around in panic. I think reflexes and coordination play a big part here, much like a fighting game. If the game allowed for easy automatic dodges then everyone would be avoiding those blades.

[KrayZ33]

One-hit KOs in a MMORPG. Seriously, anybody who´s ever played one KNOWS that a mechanic like that would not work. It´d ruin the game. And that´s just in game situation. Try imagining it in a life-death situation. Yeah, fuck.

back then, when I played WoW, every boss would 1 hit me.
in GW2 there are several boss abilities which will one hit you too if they managed to hit

it doesn't destroy the game as long as you have mechanics which allow you to bypass the 1-shot kills
dodgerolls, active parry/blocking etc.

[David75]

[HorribleSubs] Sword Art Online - 14 [1080p].mkv



--------------------------
Felt like a last ep, but isn't?
gosh...

[Ryllharu]

If there was ever any doubt that Kirito was the worst kind of Wesley Crusher/Gary Sue, it should be removed with this episode.

- Arbitrarily deciding that something was off and "Heathcliff" was worth attacking. No build up at all, no comparison of his barely lost life to Kirito or Asuna's own, etc.
- Kayaba/Heathcliff actually uttering a line to the effect of, "Yes, Kirito, you are so wonderful and powerfully amazing that I actually had to cheat against you. There is no one else in the world nearly so intelligent, skilled and powerful such that I would have to do this against anyone else, with the exception of a super powerful boss. I always knew only you would be the one to stand up against me at the end, because I would only give such an amazing ability to the best player in the game. But wait, you're even better than I thought!" Ugh...really?! It only gets worse from there.

Honestly, you have got to be fucking kidding me. I can't believe that they actually stooped this low. Kirito is more of a Wesley Crusher than Wesley Crusher himself.

The only way they could possibly make it worse is if he stole Asuna, locked her in a castle, and dared Kirito to save her, because only Kirito could possibly have such a perfect wife/girlfriend to the point that everyone else would want her, wishing they could be Kirito. Oh, but they let her play the noble sacrifice card instead, because every woman would die for her man.

- But I guess we're supposed to ignore the fact that Asuna's rapier was left behind as "loot" despite the fact that that has never happened ever before in the series, all the deceased player's equipment gets destroyed along with them in every prior instance we have witnessed.

And no, Klein did not use the resurrection stone on Kirito or Asuna, Kirito's Gary Sue power allowed him to insta-hack the game, and create a phantom that could kill Kayaba. Completely ignoring the fact they spent a good chunk of an early episode creating the possibility that either of the two could be rezzed at a critical moment (i.e. right then).


The only silver lining to this entire episode was that they at least gave them severe muscle atrophy.

[Archangel]

- But I guess we're supposed to ignore the fact that Asuna's rapier was left behind as "loot" despite the fact that that has never happened ever before in the series, all the deceased player's equipment gets destroyed along with them in every prior instance we have witnessed.

They were married. Be more concise with your criticism, you go off on tangents.

Like this:

- This was a shit episode, SAO is a shit series and you're all shit for enjoying it.

[Ryllharu]

Did they ever explain the benefits of being married in game? I don't remember it being in the anime, but I know some novel reader mentioned it elsewhere (not gotwoot).

If it is something like shared inventory, that it quite a big deal to not mention it.

(If it was in the anime, someone give me a timestamp.)

[fireheart]

(If it was in the anime, someone give me a timestamp.)

Episode 6, around 14:50

Was hoping that the end would reedem the show or at least go out with a bang or something. No real continuation on the boss fight was disappointing. And I still don't get why he locked them all up in this life or death game, did anyone get anything useful out of his speech other than he's been dreaming of that world forever? That doesn't explain anything really.

[Lucifus]

Seriously disappointing wrap-up. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief from the start of the episode enough to enjoy it. Why do producers insist on asking the audience to just shallow their flat-bread sandwich? Is it too much to ask to remove the filler and spend a little time animating a non-cop out ending?

Why the f*ck are we asked to believe Asuna was magically able to undo the GM's absolute paralysis and get one-shotted throwing her body in front of Kiritos.....and so much more.

And Akihito (or whatever the designers name is); what the hell was is purpose in executing all this.


Then Kirito's return; tell me, why are you even able to lift your goddamn arm with your muscles atrophied over a period of two years, much less pull off getting up and walking down that damn corridor.

./sigh

Rant end.

[glitch]

15 "Return" "Kikan" (帰還) October 13, 2012
16 "The Country of Fairies" "Yōsei-tachi no Kuni" (妖精たちの国) October 20, 2012
17 "The Captive Queen" "Toraware no Joō" (囚われの女王) October 27, 2012

There'll be 25 episodes total.

...as for what just happen... wtf? This easely the worst put to getter anime I've ever seen.