Sword Art Online - Q & A

[StellarCell]

Spoiler for amita:

I've read A Murder Case in the Area today and was a bit confused about transfer crystals, normally, they are used by players to teleport to areas right? So I was a bit confused about this quote

"THE MEMO…THE MEMO JUST WROTE THAT I WAS TO FOLLOW THE LEADER…THAT WHEN SHE MOVED INTO THE INN AND WENT OUT OF HER ROOM TO EAT, I WAS TO SECRETLY PUT THE TRANSFER CRYSTAL AT A SPOT INSIDE HER ROOM AND, AND PUT THE CRYSTAL INTO THE GUILD STORAGE. THAT, THAT'S ALL THAT WAS WRITTEN…I, I ONLY DID THIS! I DIDN'T TOUCH GRISELDA AT ALL! THA…THAT PERSON ACTUALLY STOLE THE RING AND KILLED HER…I, I DIDN'T THINK THIS WOULD HAPPEN AT ALL!"

I don't really get what he's trying to do here.

So they knew that Schmidt was part of it at the start?

[n120cky]

Egil said that Kirito ALWAYS in fight term with Asuna.
Could anybody tell me list of their encounter between after the first floor and before this murder case?

[StellarCell]

Originally Posted by n120cky

Egil said that Kirito ALWAYS in fight term with Asuna.
Could anybody tell me list of their encounter between after the first floor and before this murder case?

Spoiler for :

Their duel at ME1
2nd floor when Kirito was hiding himself because of <Beater>
3rd floor they meet as well

Basically there wasn't a long period of time that they don't meet.

Originally Posted by Clarste

Spoiler:

They meet up a few days later on the second floor. It's another sidestory called "Rondo of the Transient Sword" which isn't part of the volumes.

There's some confusion over exactly what's canon since the author is writing these early floor stories after the later floor stories and contradicting some of the details, but basically there's never any long period of time in which they're out of touch, so there isn't any kind of dramatic reunion if that's what you're expecting.

[n120cky]

Originally Posted by StellarCell

Spoiler for :

Their duel at ME1
2nd floor when Kirito was hiding himself because of <Beater>
3rd floor they meet as well

Basically there wasn't a long period of time that they don't meet.

Spoiler for :

So ME1 still doesn't know on what floor it's occurred?
and that's mean
2nd floor, 3rd floor, and then they meet again 56th floor.

If there is no encounter between those two at 3-56 it was a long period.

[Clarste]

You could probably think of them as classmates or coworkers. They "go to work" at the same place (the front lines) so naturally they meet each other a lot, and even have to work together sometimes. However, because it's so natural there's no special relationship implied by it.

[n120cky]

Originally Posted by Clarste

You could probably think of them as classmates or coworkers. They "go to work" at the same place (the front lines) so naturally they meet each other a lot, and even have to work together sometimes. However, because it's so natural there's no special relationship implied by it.

OK I got your point, then I think the author just to skip that front lines encounters, focus on the more global plot.

[styr]

Originally Posted by Raviel

Spoiler for spoilers to be sure:

So in theory it should be possible to disarm(no pun intended) someone or stop them from using sword skills by preventing the proper motion for happening?

Sorry, I can't help but theorycraft about how "real" the combat mechanics of SAO are

Spoiler for Discussion about weapon damage in SAO, minor Vol 1 LN/ep4 spoilers:

The only time someone's limb ever gets removed in such a way only happens in one scene in Vol 1. The arm also 'regrows' after a minute or two and the damage is not permanent. If I had to guess, limbs capable of being hacked off indicates that your HP is extremely low and represents the danger you are in. Perhaps when you reach a certain extremely low threshold your body in SAO reverts to "real-life physics" and you can receive these kind of gruesome attacks?

According to later volumes, like the Black Swordsmen and events in ep4, most weapon attacks do not affect bodies/limbs in such a realistic way. The weapon attack glide through your body and leaves a red 'damage trail' that is also visible in ep2 when Illfang the Kobold Lord attacks Diabel. If the attack is strong enough, like Illfang's was, it can apparently knock players around that eat a hit. Even Kirito got hit and flew back quite a bit. Perhaps it is a boss ability to be able to hit players hard enough to make them go airborne?

When Kirito got attacked by 7 players using 1h weapons, either due to his equipped skill levels, his player level or high HP, their weapons caused zero 'knockback' to Kirito like what happened to Diabel. It is hard to say though as we haven't seen Kirito fighting much. In ep4 he did whack those plants hard with barely a swing from his weapon..

Keep in mind that players feel no pain when taking damage, which can give you a false sense of security, especially at very low life. In reality if you were near death (say, under 10% hp by SAO's standards) you would likely be unconscious or have greatly reduced movement capabilities. Like most MMOs and unlike reality, SAO lets your character perform at peak efficiency regardless of how much HP you have. Probably so you can survive being ambushed... otherwise first strikes would decide the outcome of a fight very quickly if chopping of limbs was normally possible.

ME1 took place on 56th floor, it lines up perfectly with the "meeting" at the start of ep5. Why they cut the last half of ME1.. ?? Sigh..

Spoiler for ME1 spoilers:

In terms of Kirito/Asuna, aside from a few side stories showing them hanging out on the first few floors, they don't get along much until around the 60th floor and above. In episode 5 they animated the first half of ME1 but totally cut out latter half which contains the duel between Kirito and Asuna. Perhaps they want to save it for a flashback.. who knows?

During the duel that happens in ME1, Kirito explicitly thinks this about Asuna: "She's just like me... the me from three months ago. I had those same eyes back then"

Agil/Egil mostly saw Kirito/Asuna interaction at the strategy meetings. Far from the timid yet strong-willed girl she was during Aria and the first floor meeting of ep2, Asuna was now very aggressive as a sub-leader of a pro guild and did not like "wasting time" in SAO. She wanted to progress, clear, progress some more, and clear. Nothing mattered but clearing, mapping for the next clear, and progressing some more. She was very driven to this goal during the beginning of ep5. That is why when she comes across Kirito taking a nap, she was at first pissed (although over a month had passed since that meeting). Thanks to them cutting out the last half of ME1, you also don't make the connection that occurs during these two scenes:

Spoiler for ME1, last page spoilers & context w/Ep 5:

Basically, on the last page of ME1, during the celebration of killing the 56 floor boss, Kirito is smiling, laughing, and holding up an imouto NPC that had helped them - Asuna on the other hand was a Grumpy McScrooge because of a certain reason. Asuna walked by and saw Kirito and realized at that moment that he did not just "progress" in the game like she did, but that he was "living" in SAO. That ties in directly with what Kirito said to Asuna on the grassy knoll during ep5 about living in Aincrad. Perhaps they modified the end of ME1 to coincide with the hill scene and added that quote?

[n120cky]

Is there any max number player/party that can enter Floor boss room?
What is the max number of player in a party?

[styr]

Originally Posted by n120cky

Is there any max number player/party that can enter Floor boss room?
What is the max number of player in a party?

Here's a quote from the Aria side story. It doesn't mention how many players can enter the boss room but I don't think there is a limit. It is hard to say how future floors boss fights look like, but 40+ people is apparently enough for the "easy" bosses. The harder bosses would require more players, I imagine.

Spoiler for Aria in the Starless Night quote:

With a freeze which remind me of elementary school gym classes, I hurriedly calculated in my head. In SAO, one party was 6 people, there are 44 people here so... 7 parties plus 2 people left over. If the aim was to be even, then four 6-person parties, and four 5-person parties might be best? But in that case, without the leader's order it's not that easy...

Right after thinking that line, he saw another solo player and decided to party with them. This took place in episode 2 immediately after Diabel had told the group to "make a party with friends or people near you!"

Regarding the strategy for the first boss fight, here is what Diabel planned for Illfang the Kobold Lord:

Spoiler for Aria spoilers, Diabel's boss fight strategy:

He checked over the seven 6 person party, and with the smallest number of switches, made seven parties with different purpose. Two heavy armor Tank parties. Three high movement and high attack Attacker parties. Two long weapon equipped Support parties.

The two tank parties will maintain and exchange being the boss' target. Two attacker parties concentrate on the boss, the other one kill the guards first. The support parties mostly using long weapons will use Delay skill as main, if possible interrupt the boss or guards' attacks.

Simple, but this way not many holes, I think it's a good tactic. While I was in admiration, the knight at last went to the good-for-nothing two person party (of course, that's me and the rapier user) front, after thinking for a while, he said refreshingly.

"You two, make sure none of the Kobold guards remain, please support the E group."

Put it another way, 'Don't interfere with the boss fight and stay quietly at the back', I felt that it could mean this. When I noticed the the rapier user «Asuna» beside me was going to give an unfriendly response, I stopped her with one hand and replied.

"Understood. That's an important role, leave it to us."

... cut to next section ...

The boss strategy conference was over after a short talk between group leaders assigned letters A to G, and setting up how to share boss drop col and items. The axe user giant Agil was Tank group B leader, and Kibaou who had burning enmity towards original beta testers is Attacker group E leader. Since group E is for killing guard Kobolds, the rapier user and I, the left over combination, will be helping Kibaou. To tell the truth, that is an opponent I didn't want to be too close to, but he did not know that I am original tester—supposedly. Just to add, the «Rat» was not in the raid. Of course, I did not mean to blame her. With that «Strategy Guide», her task is plenty completed.

For drop sharing, col will be automatically divided evenly between the 44 raid members, items will belong to the person who gets it, that kind of simple rule was used. In recent MMO, normally a system whereas a person who wants an item will dice roll for it, but somehow SAO used the previous era's method like randomly dropping the item in a player's storage, without anyone else knowing too. That means if a «Boss drop item will be dice roll» kind of rule was set, then the person with the actual item have to report it. I have experienced this many times in beta test, that is a big test of willpower. In actuality, after a boss fight no one will say anything (that is someone kept the drop), there were many very awkward raid disbands.

Diabel, probably to prevent that kind of development, used the «Drop to person» rule. That is a very observant knight. <--// Basically, if it drops for you, you keep it.

[Clarste]

I can't remember where it was mentioned, but I think they might only allow 48 people (as in, that's a full raid). Either way, they never seem to try just sending everyone in at once, and based on game mechanics that probably wouldn't be very helpful anyway.

[shinobu-chan]

Can someone answer my questions about A Murder Case in the Area?

Spoiler for :

Did Caynz and Yoruko knew that Schmidt was a part of the murder?
As far as I can recall, Schmidt didn't know where Yoruko was and the one who led him there was Kirito and Asuna, their real intent was to show that Yoruko died so they can feint death and show up as Grimlock and Griselda to ask him questions, which leads to my first question, did they knew that Schmidt was part of the murder since they planned it for him?, or are they trying to bait the other 3 members as well?


The memo, I didn't quite get what that was about + the method of transferring crystal, Also since Grimlock is married to Griselda, he could've just asked someone to kill her when she is outside, then having shared inventories, the ring would go back to him and would look like nothing ever happened. So I wonder why did he wanted to involve Schmidt in this?

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Clarste

I can't remember where it was mentioned, but I think they might only allow 48 people (as in, that's a full raid). Either way, they never seem to try just sending everyone in at once, and based on game mechanics that probably wouldn't be very helpful anyway.

That's the max size for a raid group, but you can put more than one group in a boss chamber.

Spoiler for Quote from Aria:

44 people.

That was the total number of players gathered at Tolbana's fountain clearing.

Compared to my predictions—that was, my expectations, all I could say was this was far too low. In SAO, the maximum size of a party was 6 people, and eight times that, for a total of 48 people made up a raid group. In order to have zero deaths while killing a floor boss, it would be difficult without at least two raid groups to switch between while fighting, but these numbers could not even fill up one raid party.

[styr]

Originally Posted by shinobu-chan

Can someone answer my questions about A Murder Case in the Area?

Spoiler for :

Did Caynz and Yoruko knew that Schmidt was a part of the murder?
As far as I can recall, Schmidt didn't know where Yoruko was and the one who led him there was Kirito and Asuna, their real intent was to show that Yoruko died so they can feint death and show up as Grimlock and Griselda to ask him questions, which leads to my first question, did they knew that Schmidt was part of the murder since they planned it for him?, or are they trying to bait the other 3 members as well?


The memo, I didn't quite get what that was about + the method of transferring crystal, Also since Grimlock is married to Griselda, he could've just asked someone to kill her when she is outside, then having shared inventories, the ring would go back to him and would look like nothing ever happened. So I wonder why did he wanted to involve Schmidt in this?

Spoiler for **Murder Case BIG SPOILERS**:

They [Kaynz and Yoruko] fabricated the entire "murder in the safe area" to draw out Griselda's murderer - or those involved in it somehow.

Grimlock was married to Griselda so he went inside her room (shared access to everything via marriage) and put some thingy in her room or whatever. That's all the memo had him do. I believe this let a third party port into her room at night and activate a duel. I also believe Griselda died from Sleep PK. They mention it in ep5 that the time Griselda was murdered sleep-pk was still relatively unknown, I'm not sure if Grimrock knew about sleep-pk or not. Can't remember. Griselda wouldn't be going outside the city when she was going to sell the ring, only porting between levels, so the theft had to be done "inside the safe area."

[Divini]

Originally Posted by shinobu-chan

Can someone answer my questions about A Murder Case in the Area?

Spoiler for :

Did Caynz and Yoruko knew that Schmidt was a part of the murder?
As far as I can recall, Schmidt didn't know where Yoruko was and the one who led him there was Kirito and Asuna, their real intent was to show that Yoruko died so they can feint death and show up as Grimlock and Griselda to ask him questions, which leads to my first question, did they knew that Schmidt was part of the murder since they planned it for him?, or are they trying to bait the other 3 members as well?


The memo, I didn't quite get what that was about + the method of transferring crystal, Also since Grimlock is married to Griselda, he could've just asked someone to kill her when she is outside, then having shared inventories, the ring would go back to him and would look like nothing ever happened. So I wonder why did he wanted to involve Schmidt in this?

Spoiler:

Cainz and Yoruko didn't know, but they suspected Schmidt the most because he's the one on the front lines with high end gear, while everyone else in the guild either retired or were geared normally. It's possible they drew up the plan to lure just him, or all 3, but they definitely executed the second part of Yoruko faking death once they saw how nervous Schimdt was in the inn.

For the murder, first of all she was only going to teleport in safe areas with the ring, so he needed the teleport to get her out of the safe zone.

Second, he got Schimdt to do the actual deed to make the feeling of blame rest with him. With all that money he got and what he would do with it, it would firstly make any avengers go off-trail and focus on him. Then when they confronted each other, the hired Laughing Skull that showed up would kill them off.

I'm guessing he had the foresight to know they would all meet at Griselda's grave. The guy even had a near-perfect ablibi if things went wrong.

[NoemiChan]

Question: Can a player do damage even without a sword at hand? High level players are expected to have high strength stats so even punching a low level those defense stats will definitely kill that player.. ??

eg. A level 78 player punches a level 1 player...

[Divini]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Question: Can a player do damage even without a sword at hand? High level players are expected to have high strength so even punching a low level will definitely kill that player.. ??

eg. A level 78 player punches a level 1 play...

There's a <Hand-to-Hand Combat> skill, so yes.

[styr]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

Question: Can a player do damage even without a sword at hand? High level players are expected to have high strength stats so even punching a low level those defense stats will definitely kill that player.. ??

eg. A level 78 player punches a level 1 player...

Spoiler for ME2, ME7 spoilers:

Kirito, at one time, learned of the "hand-to-hand" combat skill from a NPC on the 2nd floor shortly after beating Illfang. He had heard about this from Argo who eventually led the way to the trainer/NPC, in return for what he had done earlier by taking the heat off beta testers. Kirito learned the skill and kept it for most of the game. This info is from the continuation to Aria in the Starless Night, ME7.

I believe this skill is the only way to do damage with your fists, which is why the knowledge of this skill was very sought afte;. Argo is harassed because she refuses to sell the info about the NPC location. Kirito uses the skill very rarely, and only once in Vol 1. I think he did use it once in front of Asuna, either in a side-story or one of the ME's, but can't remember now. It wasn't very important either way, just Kirito showing off.

In ME2, which showed Kirito's end-game skills when he cleared the game, no longer included the hand-to-hand combat skill. I can't remember or not if he dropped it for fishing, which is possible.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by styr

Spoiler for ME2, ME7 spoilers:

Kirito, at one time, learned of the "hand-to-hand" combat skill from a NPC on the 2nd floor shortly after beating Illfang. He had heard about this from Argo who eventually led the way to the trainer/NPC, in return for what he had done earlier by taking the heat off beta testers. Kirito learned the skill and kept it for most of the game. This info is from the continuation to Aria in the Starless Night, ME7.

I believe this skill is the only way to do damage with your fists, which is why the knowledge of this skill was very sought afte;. Argo is harassed because she refuses to sell the info about the NPC location. Kirito uses the skill very rarely, and only once in Vol 1. I think he did use it once in front of Asuna, either in a side-story or one of the ME's, but can't remember now. It wasn't very important either way, just Kirito showing off.

In ME2, which showed Kirito's end-game skills when he cleared the game, no longer included the hand-to-hand combat skill. I can't remember or not if he dropped it for fishing, which is possible.

Spoiler:

ME2 is "Early Character Designs", so if they contradict the story I'd say the story takes precedence. There's a scene where it shows that he uses Unarmed Combat as part of his fighting style, so I doubt he'd drop it quite so easily. It also says he replaced "2H Sword" with Fishing, so yeah.

[styr]

Originally Posted by Clarste

Spoiler:

ME2 is "Early Character Designs", so if they contradict the story I'd say the story takes precedence. There's a scene where it shows that he uses Unarmed Combat as part of his fighting style, so I doubt he'd drop it quite so easily. It also says he replaced "2H Sword" with Fishing, so yeah.

Spoiler for :

I just looked it up myself and you're right about the 2H sword bit being what he drops for fishing. Interesting, though... I wonder what skill was 'added' in ME2 that 'replaced' hand-to-hand combat.

Extended weight limit, maybe? That seems like the only non-essential skill he had that could be dropped. Even though Kirito clearly uses blade throwing in the story, I thought the skill was pretty useless myself - it being the only range weapon was hogwash, also imo.

Seriously though.. wtf, no throwable javelins or axes?? Every skill listed on Kirito's ME2 page looked essential though, especially hiding/searching/tracking/sprint+whatever combat skills you need. I wouldn't want to drop any of the skills he has except for weight limit and possibly blade throwing.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by StellarCell

Spoiler for amita:

I've read A Murder Case in the Area today and was a bit confused about transfer crystals, normally, they are used by players to teleport to areas right?

Spoiler for The Black Swordsman, on crystals:

There are several kinds. Including one you can use to make a teleport corridor between the crystal and a point you can set in advance.