[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by aohige

Well.

In a REAL world, you can't trap your customers in the game and force them to play, so if you don't add new content within 2 year time frame, even if there were unfinished progress in the game, a lot of players will simply bore and leave.

Not to mention with no respawns and only one life to live, players go slower and are far more cautious than they would be in a normal setting.

If there were respawns in SAO, they probably would have beaten the game in less than a year.

Originally Posted by ronelm2000

I want to say yes, absolutely, but unfortunately I can't detail anything without the appropriate Cardinal-related spoilers... which are really not, actually. They just happen to be snuck in the later volumes of SAO.

Anyway, there are a couple of reasons why SAO is deemed with a very very high replay value.

(1) It's been said that there are an unlimited number of skills. And Kayaba's right! From <<Sewing>>, to <<Maces>>, to <<Cooking>>, to <<Woodcutting>>, to <<Musical Instruments>> ... to <<Stalking>>... I mean <<Tracking>>. Who knows if Cardinal's creating EVEN MORE skills out of nowhere.

(2) Cardinal is responsible for every NPC on SAO, and thus is able to coordinate with other NPCs and gives each player different kinds of routes of sorts in a campaign style mission. (This is theoretical, of course!) I wouldn't be surprised if quests there were voice-incurred... so to get to the Quest you're looking, you have to find the right words for it, not just say "No" to every scene in Dora the Explorer and still moving along fine without you.

(3) To explore upon each and every build in SAO will take 5 years minimum.

So far, we've seen the following builds:
(1) 1-H Curved Sword AGI / Samurai Build (but Klein is special so...)
Basically, with the use of a fast katana and light equipment, Klein is easily able to dodge while still hitting the opponent. However, parrying is obviously a no no.

(2) Leather-1-HSword AGI Build (Kirito's a good example)
There are two sub-types: the shield+sword and rapier. We all know Kirito doesn't belong in these categories, so assume Kirito doesn't have Dual Blades for now. Merely using leather equipment avoids any need of a <<Light Equipment Skill>> (which is usually required to equip the better light armor... I think?). However, we have no idea if there's a <<Leather Equipment Skill>>. However, I doubt it, simply because all leather suits are suited to be equippable by anyone, IMO.

A shield + sword build would be essentially the same, only having a Skill Slot for proably a <<One-Handed Shield>>. Allows for quick slash, defend, and parry. But, I bet they don't have the HP of a Tank.

(3) 2-HS STR Build
Super slow, yet super painful. Usually a tank as well, and equipped with lots of armor. If you use a 2-HS, then awesome, you have 1 large weapon to parry with as well.

(4) Paladin STR Build (think Heathcliff)
Like (3), but having a shield. They're the BOSS of Tanks, IMO. They probably equip heavy armor as well, enough to defend even without a shield, and STR, makes them a formidable opponent against bosses, suited for absorbing the dmg.

(5) Axe Balanced Build (I'm thinking Agil)
Using a 2-H Axe, you can still parry, although the length is... ugh. But, I think that Axe builds have more power control than 2-H users. Can easily switch to being a wood-cutter too.

(6) Light AGI Build (I'm thinking Scilica / Asuna)
Using a speed-based weapon such as Rapier or Dagger, it will be piece of cake to dodge anyyyything while still providing a decent attack. For daggers, however, parrying is out of the question, so they use Acrobatics instead.

Actually, a correction to Kirito's build and 2-H users:

Spoiler for Comparison to the novels:

Kirito actually is not a straight-up AGI build. According to the novels, he stacked his stats more on the STR side, with STR and AGI in a 2:1 ratio. Kirito's weapons stack STR and DUR, which add weight and attack power. Unlike Asuna, Kirito depends more on his Battle Healing skill since, while he can dodge a lot of attacks, he's not as fast as Asuna and can't dodge everything. He offsets this by forgoing metal armor entirely and using leather armor, which reduces his weight. He sacrifices the speed Asuna has for really hard-hitting attacks, a perfect solo build.

Asuna is an almost straight-up AGI build, and her weapons are largely Accuracy-based so she stacks criticals by attacking enemies' weak points. She's got a lightweight metal build, and almost everything is AGI based. This allows her to dodge or parry almost everything, but her attack power suffers as a result. She compensates by attacks very quickly and in rapid succession with her rapier, as we've seen many times.

2-H weapon users are NOT tanks in SAO, they are DPS. There has never been a group of 2-H users in the novels that were tasked with defending attacks from a boss. The tanks are solely the shield-users (that rotate for HoT pots), since 2-H weapons are slow and not good for "switching"... not to mention without shields they would be super squishy (and in SAO that would be suicidal). 2-H users are almost purely STR builds, because they need that stat to use their higher-tier weapons.

The other stuff is more-or-less right, but honestly the author never went into much detail on builds apart from Kirito and Asuna, so some of it is simply inference from what we know about Aincrad.