Why SAO is a Terrible Game, Too

Once again I'm dumping on the Sword Art Online Anime from a new angle - the shitty, nigh-unplayable nature of the in-series MMOs.
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In the depths of his Mother's Basement, Geoff Thew creates videos analyzing the storytelling techniques of anime and video games. He has been named the number one Worst KZbin Anime Reviewer by The Top Tens.

[@tavianroberts4423]

The least believable thing about SAO isn’t kirito’s Haremprotagonitis, or him somehow being really good at the game. It’s the fact that an online MMO that launched on new, experimental hardware, had zero glitches. You would think that after a year or so someone would find some kind of item duplication, integer overflow, or at least wall clipping, but no, it apparently works perfectly.

[@caav56]

SAOA take has it glitching out like no tomorrow, though (fucking Bethesda...).

[@literallyme6365]

It has death animation glitch thing where it allow people to pretend they get killed in the save zone. It’s kind of lazy writing and plot convenience for a group of people trying to use the glitch to make a murderer confessing their guilt by telling them the ghost of the dead will come hunt everyone down

[@frebu5379]

Zero glitches? We have no idea how many glitches the software/hardware had because their was no feedback loop from the developer indicating what was a bug and what was a feature. Without that feedback loop we don't know if crystals not working in certain areas or manipulating sleeping players hands to use their menu were bugs and we also don't know how many players were hard deleted because the software/hardware crashed. I would assume the game was full of bugs but people either didn't recognize them or found useful bugs and exploited them(which is the likely outcome)

[@neofromthewarnerbrothersic145]

@@frebu5379 I mean... true, we don't know what _might_ have been a glitch because they didn't explicitly say. But that's the whole problem. We can't assume any of those things were glitches, _because they didn't explicitly say._ We don't know if _any_ players were hard deleted (and therefore killed) because of hardware/software crashes, and we have no reason to assume that they were. If indeed they were, I think that would have been far too juicy to leave unsaid. The fact is that SAO is fiction, so they could have easily written some glitches into it. You can assume it's full of bugs if you want, but that's just your head canon working to improve the writing, because you probably actually play games. One of Geoff's points was that SAO's creator has apparently never (or rarely) played any games, and didn't do any research. If he had, I don't think he would have been able to resist exploring the concept of bugs within the narrative. Explicitly, not implicitly. That said, obviously the whole fact that players got trapped within the game is a glitch that the developers didn't plan for. But again, if SAO's creator had more knowledge and experience of games, he would have done a lot more to explore those possibilities. So I mean, yes, your head canon version is better. But that's just your head canon, and the show doesn't do a whole lot to support it. Don't give it more credit than it deserves.

[@williamethier6684]

Isn't a glitch the cause of the death in the real world?

[@TheNobody-ru5xg]

You may be beating a dead horse, but it's a very entertaining dead horse that spits out candy every time you hit it.

[@HassouTobi88]

It's a cancerous piñata

[@magicalgirl4]

Oh my god 😂

[@ronazdug]

The Nobody14200 hooray for the cancer piñata

[@Charcawl]

The Nobody14200 THIS COMMENT

[@dannylamb456]

Great, now I can't get that mental image out of my head.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

You know, the most absurd part of SAO is possibly that kirito is almost the only player who's a teen edge lord dressed all in black whilst all the other players are dressed like they're NPC's dressed in the colors of in-game factions. It is very rare in MMO's for guilds or player factions to have a consistently followed uniform. And the lone warrior dressed in black is common enough that they're a fairly common occurrence in player characters.

[@shcdemolisher]

Usually Anime protags are black haired and edgy in some form or another because the main audience is Japanese/Asian compared to Western/American. Otherwise if the character had a say in the outfit, he could go with anything else. Hell I would do a white version of the same outfit just to be different!

[@flallana18]

If I had to guess, the uniforms are likely some kind of layered armor (like in Monster Hunter) where it’s purely aesthetic and has no effect on the actual armor underneath. Either that, or the uniforms are just reskinned versions of some super common armor

[@DarthZ01]

like in sao alfheim abridged how the ENTIRE spriggin clan was literal kirito clones.

[@Meta-Drew]

In modern games if you dress like an NPC you stand out because everyone makes their shit as big and obnoxious as possible with microtransaction cosmetic items that look like unicorn poop

[@koteghe7600]

​@@flallana18It could be even better: they ARE the common armor, not even reskin they just found monsters that drop so much of them, they went with it

[@my_girl_seraphine5294]

To quote SAOA “Do you really think any of us would still be playing if we didn't have a gun to our heads? The crafting system is seizure inducing, and half the time our Teleport Crystals, one of our only lifelines, do nothing!”

[@princessthyemis]

I think you mean you're quoting the original series /lh 😂

[@LoudWaffle]

All this and you didn't mention that bosses stay dead? Game would literally be completed in a year and players at max level would have NOTHING to do, and 99% of players would never experience a boss fight ever. By far the worst game design decision in the entire series

[@michaelcastro4138]

Now that you mention it, I could imagine people doing nothing but using the fastest weapon / attack method available to get the last hit throughout the entire raid. I saw that in one particular MMORPG, and in that game the "last hit bonus" was a novelty skill where you could transform to a miniature version of the boss. Now imagine that same thing, but in a life-or-death game, with only one chance of obtaining this drop. Instead of a few players who like showing off in town trying it, there would be hundreds of thousands of leeches trying to get that last hit. This system literally rewards and encourages selfishness and trolling imo. 1/10 worst MMORPG, would not touch again with a 10-feet pole

[@noclue1924]

You know Kayaba never meant to continue the game right...? The bosses were just there for challenge, as it stood I don't think he ever wanted SAO to be a good game anyways. (Who the hell decides that making a quadruple layer drop down box is a good idea!?)

[@permanentcloak1283]

LoudWaffle yah, but they would have respawned in the beta, and I think that that was only for the death game

[@LoudWaffle]

Did you watch the video? It doesn't matter what Kayaba wanted, he was just one man out of literal hundreds if not thousands of people working on this game, amongst thousands and thousands of investors. Everything about the game aside from the fact that you can't log out and get killed when you die was intended to be in the game and supposedly people in-universe thought they were good design choices.

[@topherchris3k]

I am pretty sure he just turned off the ability for bosses to respawn. We don't exactly know what were the features that Kayaba left intact.

[@kingcrowbro2486]

See, now this? *This* is something I can get behind. Everyone shits on SAO for a being a bad anime, but no one ever talks about how piss poor the actual 'game' itself would be. Thank you MB, for breathing life into this Undead Horse and doing something interesting with this bad anime (even though I still lowkey like it). Keep being a baller.

[@LuckyBastard12345]

JGamer king I think Digibro talked about it a few times

[@nipun056]

discord.gg/ZdzFWcx

[@diegoantoniorosariopalomin4977]

Your Mom in both his sao diatribe and his review of sao 2

[@romulusnuma116]

We can't really say much about the game because they barely talk about it in the anime everything they show us is still shit tho

[@angelon3637]

When life gives you a beaten horse, you make lemonade. Pretty sure that's how it goes.

[@Apocralyph]

It just occured to me that Asuna maxed out her cooking skill by pointing her kitchen knife at meat 100000 times, inevitably creating some inedible garbage along the way.

[@glasshorse6893]

tbh how do you max out something so simple. like make it more interactive besides point at food to chop if you're gonna give it a dedicated skill

[@Hermititis]

@@glasshorse6893 , like a Cooking Mama minigame within the main game?

[@glasshorse6893]

@@Hermititis not gonna lie that sounds fun as hell

[@Hermititis]

@@glasshorse6893, as long as it's not "seizure-inducing", like the smithing/crafting minigame in SAO Abridged.

[@SpecialProjectY]

That's how you learn things, Ultima Online did that ages ago and it worked. Skyrim does that and people love it.

[@syncthedingus1306]

My question is: Why did none of the beta testers address any of the problems with the menu, dungeon design or combat system to the developers?! THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A BETA TEST!!

[@abloodraven3856]

Probably one of those modern 'Game's basically ready, this is totally not a demo guys' betas, let's be honest.

[@ironmaskend]

If I remember correctly the beta testers also never beat the first floor.

[@le_meme_man8983]

@@ironmaskend they did, kirito went to the 8th floor and the rest were probably atleast around 5th

[@Brawler_1337]

That sort of shit is not something that you address during beta testing stage. Beta testing is generally for tweaking numbers and applying polish. At the very latest, I’d expect things like UI design to be worked on during the alpha testing phase. The rest of those issues are deeply baked into the core of the game and ought to be addressed early on. If problems with dungeon design and the combat system AS A WHOLE made it into beta testing, they don’t have time to make new dungeon assets or overhaul the combat from the ground up. That would be grounds to either cancel the game or reboot development.

[@riomine1984]

well look at Battlefield 2042 that is a real game that has that problem

[@TheTrueChuster]

Reki Kawahara pulls a paper from its hat of Villains. He pulls "Rapey guy". "Again?" he asks with disdain. He drops the hat. The hat is full of papers that read "Rapey guy".

[@LordMoldyButt18]

TheTrueChuster lmao

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

Where did I originally hear this...

[@RoyalFusilier]

Digibro.

[@cummuncher4914]

as a victim of sexual harassment i laughed at this

[@professionalcasual5482]

TheTrueChuster why

[@NateLeonhart]

I have a problem with the lightsaber. Why does nobody use it or even buy it? It's a lightsaber. I don't think I need to explain why 90% of the players would have at least one, just for the sake of imitating Star Wars. This could've been easily fixed by having Sinon (is that her name) tell Kirito something like "You too, huh? Listen, everyone gets one, but it's useless. It's just junk that ends up gathering dust in the inventory".

[@justasentientmclarenp1879]

well maybe they didnt mention imitating Star Wars just because of copyright Disney gets extremely pissed when people use their stuff but I do think the writers could of just made up a different name and gotten away with it.

[@PeruvianPotato]

Because Disney loves to abuse copyright strikes

[@complex6753]

@@PeruvianPotato alright then, they can just say everyone goes for for the plasma blade because you know who tf doesn't want a plasma blade in their inventory.

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

"Or the RPers who would try to deflect bullets but that's just a rumor" This would mean that either people tried and failed meaning Kirito is such a epic gamer that he was the first to pull it off.

[@cameronroy2129]

@@WhyYouMadBoi you think that would be easily tested by players right? Hey dude but the blade out a little Ok *shoots* Oh cool it deflected Yeah but when am I ever gonna do that in actual combat, its a fucking bullet its way faster than a laser why do you think star wars used laser weapons?

[@paytonleet6411]

I like the thought that Kayaba saw the plummeting stock prices of SAO and was just like “fuck it. If you die in the game you die in real life.”

[@typacsk]

If Elon Musk owned a game publisher

[@arthurglenn5461]

"Kayaba, we are not gonna make our money back, and our net worth is falling to hell, What do we do" "Don't worry I have a plan what will distract people from this failur" "Really" "Really" "You are all now trapped in the game and if you die here you die in real life"

[@arsarma1808]

This is the plot of SAO Abridged.

[@elementalsgami1]

My favorite thing SAOA did with ALO (other than making it actually broken) is that the stupid 9 Race System is ENTIRELY made up by the players. There is literally no actual reason you can't just play with your friends if you're not privy to the roleplaying shtick.

[@thelegolistme3250]

My favourite thing will forever be the quote on quote "race war"

[@darkgachamaker573]

The diffrent races exist but the war reason is different and yeah you can play with your friends if you dint care about the rp stuff

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

@@thelegolistme3250 loved the foreshadowing in episode 5

[@louisduarte8763]

"Yeah, their break-up is the founding cornerstone of all our lore."

[@my_girl_seraphine5294]

They also torched the incest which was nice

[@Roxas80]

Once people found out that the system can actually kill you the nervegear would have died. No real developer would ever touch it, no retailers would stock it, and no government would ever allow it to be sold in their country. Not to mention the amount of lawsuits and negative press nervegear would have gotten.

[@evanrodgers3190]

It did die from the incident

[@PhilipXander]

Terumi Infact that's what happened and why it was replaced with the Amusphere...

[@Zezlemetkun]

I think even if there was a 1 in billion chance of a nerve gear ever killing a person that lawyers would have probably hidden it away in the user agreement in small text before they let a company produce and sell it

[@Roxas80]

Zezlemet Eula for software are hit and miss. Sometimes they are enforced and other times they are given no power. However on the case of thousands of people dying because of regular use of their product, im pretty sure that courts would have torn up the Eula and then proceeded to tear nervegear's lawyers a new one if they tried that as a defence.

[@Megapikacch]

Terumi I just wanna say that it was already covered in the vid.

[@AlienBmxican]

So the joke strategy in sao abridged of "hit it till it dies" suddenly makes more sense

[@justasentientmclarenp1879]

and so does the joke of Asuna not figuring out the menu

[@justasentientmclarenp1879]

and also the joke of alfheim online being in the bargain bin

[@Santo0315]

@@justasentientmclarenp1879 also reusing assets :v

[@christiancrusader9374]

So basically SWE did some research and snuck it in, and it went over most people's heads.

[@Matthew0640]

yo i got 666th like noice

[@silverloony1170]

There's also the fact that Kayaba didn't just ruin the lives of those 10,000 players. The careers of everybody who had any part whatsoever in creating both the Nerve Gear and SAO would be ruined. The companies involved would be ruined. The Nerve Gear would be dead, and the future of VRMMOs would be dead. This would also deal a huge blow to the video game industry as a whole. The psychological trauma inflicted not just on the survivors, but on the families of both the survivors and the deceased would've caused even more strife and nobody anywhere would've touched ALO and GGO with a ten-foot pole. On a human level, none of the surviving players (aside from players like Laughing Coffin members) would *ever* go near the Nerve Gear again.

[@FreedomFighterAsuka]

People still using Amushpere or whatever tf its name was after the SAO incident like it was perfectly normal made no goddamn sense. The only way this inconsistency could be resolved is by stating that NerveGear was just one of many full-dive VR gear available in the market that existed for some time and SAO itself was a niche game for a niche device. But I'm pretty sure this would contradict one or two existing plotpoints in the horribly written mess called SAO.

[@Stinkoman87]

I'm sorta doing a re-write of the GGO arc, and I made this the motivation for Death Gun. The conspiracy is two people that lost family to SAO, plus the third, the former laughing Coffin member, blames the game itself for his action. Together they're trying to remind everyone how dangerous fulldive is.

[@brownwolf5766]

@@FreedomFighterAsuka Yes and no. Don't forget that full dive is an incredible experience. A lot of people would risk it, tell their friends and nobody would care about SAO anymore. It's always like that. The benefits outweigh the risks. The developers of the amusphere claimed that it's not possible to kill people and before it was released it was probably thoroughly examined. SAO was made by a crazy dude and it wasn't some kind of glitch. Like terrorists won't stop people from using airplanes, one maniac won't bring down VRMMORPGS.

[@xrefed]

@@brownwolf5766 one maniac that kills people would halt vrmmorpgs.

[@theonesithtorulethemall]

This wuld atleast kill the full dive industry

[@MEEEPMEEEPMEEEPMEEEP]

SAO's menus look like the vanilla Skyrim inventory and there's a reason why SkyUI is the most downloaded mod ever

[@victorvirgili4447]

Why is moving the filtering options and making the icons smaller so useful?

[@MEEEPMEEEPMEEEPMEEEP]

@@victorvirgili4447 ah yes of course, the only two important things SkyUI does nevermind those other trivial things like: Configurable layout, a larger list so more items are visible, Configurable stat columns in the overview so the stats of all items are readily available, sorting options, a search bar, categories for the quick select menu, quick select item sets yeah, can't see why people would want those

[@kzizzles8329]

@@MEEEPMEEEPMEEEPMEEEP I've used SkyUI so consistently for such a long time that I had to google what vanilla Skyrim's original user interface looked liked and damn it's a mess. Absolutely no way I'd play a game like that if I didn't have to

[@uchophamxuan6515]

​@@kzizzles8329yeah, imagine if u want to find your smithing+ Alchemy set or Alteration+Restoration set in Vanilla with other armor or gauntlets; it is a pain really

[@shinigamileo8250]

Well, SAO was developped by Bethesda. And ALO by Ubisoft. I wonder if GGO is Activision's 🤔

[@TheLastVoodooMan]

Why did noone notice you can kill people in SAO? Better question: Why did noone at the patent office notice that the VR gear can fry your brain?

[@ARandomGuy24]

The author acknowledged it as a plot hole.

[@TheLastVoodooMan]

I see, well that's something

[@carso1500]

ARandomGuy yeah, putting a microwave in a entretaining device is not a good idea

[@Fion355]

Well...killing inside the game wouldn be a problem. Just PvP. The problem is the "dying for real" thing. THAT was something nobody besides Kayaba knew. Second one is...true.

[@Tinkatube]

I mean, why didn't anyone notice the Galaxy Note 7 could explode while charging?

[@Nacknone4]

A teenage gamer's "reflexes" allows him to pull some matrix shit and literally cut bullets

[@ussinussinongawd516]

Lol pog fortnite try hard 14 year old pulls of bullet cut KEKW

[@burnttoast7497]

you forget, it takes your brains signals of movement, so in short, its all a combination of his real reflexes, and the skills he acquired from Alfheim online and sword art online. watch the show, its all explained in there

[@SevereMENT]

@@burnttoast7497 So it`s makes no sense, since it`s different games with different mechanics. I doubt lightsabers feels like actual sword. I doubt he learned how to reflect bullets in SAO or ALO, games with no guns. And if it`s uses real reflexes, how he became best player? Dude quit his sword practice, and in SAO he not even using katana, both of his swords are more western-like. In reality Kirito would suck in any of games in the show.

[@kodymcbride6901]

@@SevereMENT To add on to the plasma sword not feeling the same, wouldn't it not weigh nearly as much as the swords he used to?

[@GeorgeDCowley]

@@kodymcbride6901 And would be balanced completely differently.

[@SitaraAleu]

Something else occurred to me. It wouldn’t take long for people in the real world to realize that their kids and family members weren’t coming out of the game . Naturally, their first reactions would be to rip the helmets off. WAAAAAAY more people should’ve died from this because there’s no way the news would reach everyone that fast, especially if people are too panicked about their loved ones. I think only a few dozen died from having their helmets pulled off, correct me If I’m wrong, but it should’ve been into the hundreds or even thousands. Not everyone watches the news, not everyone pays attention to current events.

[@shcdemolisher]

Oh yeah!! For sure! Plus the company that makes or has the servers being looted by angry families and law enforcement shutting them down for inhumane tech like that! Seriously! No major country would allow that stuff because the lawyers would easily see the faults with it 100 miles away!

[@rotothedragonlord7198]

It really doesn't even make sense that it kills you. If it was a brain shock thing where ripping it off can kill you, that would never ever pass a safety test. The only possible way where it COULD kill you despite how fast you rip it off would be the damn thing exploding like a bomb. And even then like there would be some way to disarm it. It's just dumb anime logic excuses.

[@weberman173]

iirc the login button WORKED at the start, and was only disabled after a while probably around the same time Kayaba announced it to the world, there are a few hundred some people that DID ignore the warning, and became the "this is actually happening" thing.(213 to be exact). A not insignificant ammount of people who played SAO are also unlikely to be children, many likely lived alone or rarely leave their rooms to begin with given teh demographic so it would have taken longer for anyone to notice something is wrong And he did adress the company. The company folded, completly, its assets where sold, and the SAO server was put under new supervision to keep it running, because its essentialy a black box from the outside, the goverment had acess to limited logs so they knew the players made progress, they knew levels and Avatar Names of every player, iirc they even knew who killed whom etc(but they didnt release them to the public because they didnt want players, after they wake up, sueing each other because thats a mess noone in the goverment wanted to have to deal with. so Argus was the sole responsible party for any death in the game as far as legal responsibilite was concerned, now you cant have thousands of people who are now misadjsuted to real society, and potentialy murderd someone run around normally. so at least for the underage crowd the "returnee school" was formed, officaly to help, more honestly to confine them, with forced counceling seassons regularly etc) its also involving 10k people, this would probably be blasted as an emergency alert to anyone who has a fucking phone as if it was a Earthquake. This was also written in 2002, a lot more people watched the news back then regularly.

[@Supersleepyhexie]

Honestly maybe but I’m not so sure. Think about it if your loved one was in a full dive game for too long would you react that way? Like after a day of so definitely panic but In no way would your first instinct tell you to remove them from a world connected to their brain by force. If you didn’t know how it worked I doubt you would be so quick to even touch it fearing you could hurt them but if you did you would know how insanely damaging that would be to the human brain to be pulled from one world into another in a matter of a second

[@SitaraAleu]

@@Supersleepyhexie Yes, I would. My first thought wouldnt be “Oh shit my brother has been taken captive by a delusional CEO psychopath!” It would be “Oh shit, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you answering me? I’ve got to get you to the hospital!!” It’s a video game. It doesn’t connect to any major body part, it’s a helmet. It’s not plugged into the brain stem, it’s sitting on the head. And no, I wouldn’t assume removing the helmet would kill them because again, it’s a video game. You’re thinking of this with the knowledge we the viewers have, but which the friends and families would not have had hours after it happened.

[@silentobserver4165]

This one part of SAO stuck in my head how Kirito judges a sword NOT BY ITS STATS but by how HEAVY it is, with heavier better. If I was choosing a sword and was focused on speed like he supposedly is I wouldn't be happy about a sword weighing me down.

[@burnttoast7497]

you have a good point, but remember, his skills in game allow him to move quickly while using heavier swords

[@luqmanazli4450]

But that will put him in disadvantage. A heavy sword can be weaker than a short sword. What matters in game is dmg not how heavy it is

[@esda2345i6oo]

@@luqmanazli4450 personally i could see that concept working if he was looking for how well he can use the bade. but judging a blade based on the weight is just fucking stupid since ur trying to slice ur opponent, not give him a fucking concussion.

[@achmodinivswe9500]

I don’t remember the details of the scene but isn’t it that he was looking for balance?

[@velvetsparrow]

He hands the Elucidator to Lisbeth and she nearly falls over because of how heavy it is. I’m assuming weight is tied to how high the strength stat required to use the weapon is, so technically, a heavy weapon of any type is superior to a lighter weapon of the same type

[@TheNukaColaMan10]

"And there is a live action North American SAO in the works" *Spits Nuka-Cola* EXCUSE ME?! WHAT THE FUCK?!

[@NinjaTyler]

The Nuka-Cola Man the game of thrones crew should do it lol

[@ShadowWolfRising]

It's true...........what's probably even sadder is i'm willing to bet money it will be better than the actual anime, even with minimal effort put in.

[@dracocrusher]

Hang on, don't go crazy just yet. They COULD fix it. We've seen with SAO Abridged that it can be done. I don't know if they're going to be able to fix it, but it's a possibility that we MIGHT not get something 100% shit.

[@oriongold395]

It's going to be written by the people behind Terminator: Genisys. Don't expect much.

[@ShadowWolfRising]

Jeremiah Banaag i expect more than the anime at least.

[@mouse1454]

When you did more research on the gaming industry for this video than the creators of SAO

[@toxicplayer653]

He did little research, period.

[@ska4666]

Yeah this guy is stupid.. He is comparing an Anime series set in Future, which uses Game as a New World, and Compare it with Todays MMORPGs..😒 *That's why some sick gamers shouldnt put their Heads into Anime..*

[@Abyzz_Knight]

@@ska4666 so letting weak enemies wail on you for hours on end to improve your survivability is suddenly fun because the game is a "New World"? Getting repeatedly killed by a high level player is suddenly fun because the game is a "New World"? Constantly worrying about your health bar which you can't see most of the time and can only be recovered with potions which can only be accessed by going through multiple drop down menus is suddenly fun because the game is a "New World"?

[@alexptjp9569]

@@toxicplayer653 Give the man a break. He started writing SAO in 2002, World of Warcraft wasn't even out yet. There were little games to compare it to. The only true MMORPG at that time was Everquest.

[@toxicplayer653]

Alex PTJP No, you’re wrong. There was a fuck ton of MMO’s and similar games around at the time. You just can’t do basic research

[@TARINunit9]

36:35 "And GGO actually does try to pay you to play it, which opens up a whole new range of questions" Oh God... that line is so ominous now, GGO was an NFT pay-to-earn game. That is bone-chilling

[@Stinkoman87]

And with how bad even Axie Infinity is doing, we can now say for a fact that this business model doesn't work.

[@kiricappuchin]

If Aniplex actually tries to make a paytoearn NFT game I’d probably cry

[@Estarile]

Actually, Asuna looking just like herself makes perfect sense. Her captor is the guy running the game. Like he can't override the character creation and customize her avatar.

[@RGC_animation]

And every main character getting favourable looks is just every single anime, even TV shows and movies in general.

[@fulana_de_tal]

I think the in lore explanation for the main characters looking like themselves was that the previous sao players that are trapped in alfheim online like asuna (almost 1000 people if i remember it right) had a "malfunction" in their accounts that made it so they were exported to the alfheim server when sao crashed, kirito and the other ex sao players also found a way to export their accounts, so their avatars are kind of still the same, but adjusted to the new game

[@blobbo5995]

“Take hits to gain hp and regen” *stabs myself infinite times*

[@Ramsey276one]

Final Fantasy 2 Friendship is Masochistic XD

[@SoybeanInTheMilk]

*immortal* ✨✨

[@javianbrown8627]

oddly enough that's kinda how stats work in Danmachi but that wasn't made to be a game and it works in the world of Orario. Games should be made with balance in mind though so no player has an advantage over the others. That's why pay to win games suck

[@janheinzel9013]

@@javianbrown8627 Imagine how funny a spin off of SAO that has some rich guy buy it and buy everything in the game would be. Just like a single episode where he just buys it all, no matter if it's a visual or stat thing

[@JaniHorvat1]

Abbadon in Dota 2 when his ultimate activates. For about 5 seconds.

[@Leo122188]

Hey! Sensibility is a perfectly valid stat! The more point you put into it, the more you realize you shouldn't have put points into it. It's important character building information.

[@arcticlaw9198]

This comment made my day

[@trumbitis7980]

I wish i was sensible enough to realize that

[@EmberTheShark]

Alot of Games have something Like that, its called a noob Trap

[@evennot]

Sensibility might be a thing that allows more information to propagate into your neural interface. Basically, reality resolution (but in more ways than visual). It's a killer feature to have. Judging real VR by the standards of modern MMOs is a strange idea. It's like comparing modern AAA games to pacman arcade machines. Controls are vastly expanded, visuals are on a different level, completely new features in terms of media and gameplay, playing cycle is radically different, etc

[@Animefan-1]

XD

[@waluigiisthebest2802]

35:53 this doesn’t just make experienced players gravitate towards the weapons. For example, in Tf2 the sniper is considered to be a very powerful class, but is infamous for having a lot of people who can’t aim and have zero situational awareness play him. So logically, in gun gale online we would see tons of dumb gibus snipers everywhere, trying to be like those pros and get those sick headshots.

[@InsufficientGravitas]

And in to Titanfall 2 there are weapons that one shot kill, but are notoriously hard to use (I mean the kraiber is a slow reload sniper with projectile bullets, and the only upside is that it kills in one shot). And they are popular because they are useless if you don't know how to use them.

[@Cracker_Smacker]

Can't blame him if he want to use those sword I mean melee in most FPS 1 shot people and don't require aiming

[@victorvirgili4447]

@@Cracker_Smacker ‘don’t require aiming’ Man if you saw how weird Energy Assault’s knife hit box is you would NOT be saying that

[@YataTheFifteenth]

​@@Cracker_Smacker counterpoint: you gotta be up close. _deathly_ close. unless you're using hacks, are absolutely fucking sneaky, or playing against 6 year olds with brain damage that could barely even move a finger, that's realistically not gonna happen _in VR_ also don't require aiming my ass, backstabs are literally the spy schtick in tf2.

[@Cracker_Smacker]

@@YataTheFifteenth counter point TF2 hit reg doesn't work and most FPS use the auto lock system to assist melee or have the entire screen as a hit box for knife swipe

[@Flemmli1]

Sure like to think SAO would have worked better if the story took place during the games beta test or some such. Basically, the technology is still new and so is the game. Our characters are selected to help test it and then something goes wrong, they can't just be freed from the technology(So one fodder character dies at the start) and the rest of the characters try to find a way out, both the ones in the game and those outside of it. Some characters may face death from their families deciding to pull the plug due to the uncertainty and thus there's a lot of tension with a better set up.

[@flatline-timer]

it would make sense for the numbers to be small as well

[@oswaldfriedman7116]

AND we wouldn’t have to worry about that “beater” BS that never goes anywhere

[@shcdemolisher]

And of course with totally different tech that wouldn’t be a PR lawsuit nightmare for the dev company to be shut down for making stuff like that. Seriously!

[@FireFog44]

But wouldn't that conflict with Kayaba's super compelling reason for turning SAO into a death game in the first place? What was that reason again? I forgot...

[@Xecroy]

SAO CEO: We need to launch the game before people realize it's hot garbage. SAO Dev: But it's not complete. We haven't even added in the coding for voice inventory activation. It's just a bare bones mess of drop downs. SAO CEO: Just launch it and we can patch it in later. And make sure exp gets divided into the entire party, that'll buy us some time until we make the first DLC.

[@justasentientmclarenp1879]

SAO Dev : the game is nerve gear is killing people and not letting people log out SAO CEO : it’s fine our game is shot well just log in and act like it’s some master plan and go from there

[@beastunleashed657]

@@justasentientmclarenp1879 That's what happened in SAO Abridged lol, where the game was actually shit. In OG, game was pretty good actually.

[@gryffin533]

Cyberpunk2077

[@robertwesley7332]

@@beastunleashed657 how is SAO gangster?

[@beastunleashed657]

@@robertwesley7332 uh, what?

[@jackjohnson6368]

The reason nobody uses snipers and swords in Gun Gale Online is because you have to dump all your stats in Sensibility

[@magnedeusfenrir9582]

Not only does that not make any sense, that completely defeats the purpose of players that wanna use bigger guns. On the wiki it explains what all but the sen and luck stats do, which is incredibly poor writing. Why should someone dump all of their points into a single stat, when there is no explanation of what that stat does?

[@Eg-ej6nx]

@@magnedeusfenrir9582 I think it was a joke about how only someone with enough sensibility (i.e Commen sense) could use the two most broken weapons in gun gale.

[@07Pierrot]

@@magnedeusfenrir9582 it was a joke bro

[@beastunleashed657]

@@magnedeusfenrir9582 the Sen (int) and luck stats do have uses actually. Levelling up int allows you to unlock more battle skills and increases crit rate. While luck increases crit and also drop rate.

[@MasterGaming-ve4gz]

@hasnu alam damn your that butthurt over an anime ? Lol go back to watching one piece and all those other fantastic anime shows while me and the rest will be here enjoying ourselves and watching sao .

[@kylebear8101]

I have soooo many questions about the game. Do you really need to sleep? Your body is basically in stasis (and probably atrophied). Does the food satiate real hunger or are people just dying of malnutrition irl? Why did the angry guy who denounced the beta testers say they took up all the easy quests? Aren’t quests universal? And the creatures around a town can be hunted to extinction?? Other mmos have them ersparen tho! How much do you need to know to work skills like smithing? Since it’s vr that uses your neurons, wouldn’t you need some previous knowledge? Why isn’t there classes, but you can still be a beast tamer? Or a job system but you can still be a smithy? THESE AREN’T QUESTIONS I SHOULD HAVE TO ASK ABOUT AN MMO

[@cybergrape2077]

A lot of these things have to be inferred (which is dumb). 1. Sleep is necessary both irl and in game. Though the UI doesn't show it, player characters can obviously get tired, so some form of stamina/exhaustion does exist (maybe this is where the info in sent straight to the brain instead of displayed on screen?). At any rate, sleep in game would be necessary to prevent irl brain damage from overuse, as the brain is fully active while in the game. 2. Food does not satiate real hunger, but probably functions in game similarly to how I described stamina to function. People actually did have problems irl; there was a scene near the end of the first arc where Asuna mentions that there was an incident a few weeks after the game's launch in which people went "offline" because of problems irl and their physical bodies being moved to hospitals, something that creates a whole new set of problems lol. 3. The show isn't clear about this. In the first episode people say that monsters and quests are limited, but a few episodes later there is talk of a faction that has monopolized certain low level monster spawn zones. The same goes for quests, though the contradiction happens much sooner when Kirito tells Asuna about the quest to get a pot of cream. 4. You don't need prior knowledge, seeing as most crafting skills are simplified down to hitting the material with a specific tool. I imagine crafting ability are like combat ability, somewhat based on irl ability but mostly augmented for the better by the relevant skills. 5. I legitimately can't think of a reason for this. Maybe the writer wanted to add classes but decided against it midseries? I can, however, imagine that jobs are mostly so players who are too afraid to kill things can feel productive since they can't leave the game. tldr: UI is incomplete, some things are answered in the show, internal_consistency.exe not found

[@frebu5379]

5- They were likely using the system from FFXI(equipment based classes) as the basis prior to that games release(both SAO and FFXI came out in 2002 so some information about the system would have existed).

[@bloodlily1203]

I still think ALO's faction system could have been so easily fixed if the game kept the nine races, but then made it so you had three factions and three races per faction, each one having DPS/Tank/Support and had bonuses to certain kinds of magic/skills instead of it being restricted. You could even throw in lore about how each of the races used to be divided up but then banded together and have their own rivalries. It wold be so easy to do I'm writing thee lore for it in my head!

[@TheNephilimofEmpireCity]

So you mean ESO (Elder Scrolls Online)

[@Hermititis]

@@TheNephilimofEmpireCity , didn't WOW do the same (Horde vs Alliance, but diff races & classes in each)?

[@NaviciaAbbot]

Sorta like any online game since Final Fantasy XI?

[@RGC_animation]

I think they had lores in the game, just that like with any other MMO, nobody fucking cares about the lore.

[@MarioSantos-zx4bj]

in SAO you can just grind ten hours and you probably coulkd win against the whole 9,999 other starting players

[@Feten56709]

Yeah and hmm... also it's... Kiritod

[@MarioSantos-zx4bj]

@@Feten56709 just get together your power of friendship and sensei teaching flashbacks and you’re unbeatable

[@Feten56709]

@@MarioSantos-zx4bj oof And with that why do people make a party in the first place?

[@beastunleashed657]

Except PKing is taboo and you will become an orange player, for which there are so many disadvantages, that the game would become legit unplayable. Seriously, you can't even enter towns, and will have to camp in forests.

[@beastunleashed657]

@@Feten56709 Cause it's easier with a party, and added safety.

[@BrBetim]

Just make a "Why SAO is a failure of a creation" already

[@180223]

"Why SAO is humanity's greatest failure'

[@sarthakverma1030]

『B E T I M』 "Why Sao won't be played by pewdiepie"

[@FLFL-Cookays]

SAO is the biggest disappointment since my son. And whilst my son eventually hung himself in a gas station bathroom, the unfortunate reality is that SAO will be with us forever.

[@eustaquioolimpico5645]

Sir Cookays Well that was dark

[@BT405]

Digi did that already

[@thejuni1988]

Maybe that the reason that Akihiko Kayaba, didn't want anybody to log off. And kill any player that die, so they don't go and tell what a terrible game he made.

[@ZephLodwick]

(spoilers for the abridged series, which you should watch because it's better than the original) That's why Kayaba does the death game thing. He wanted to distract from how terrible his game is.

[@shcdemolisher]

I still feel that the critics or hell the sheer thousands of people wanting justice for the deaths of their family members because of his game would easily say other wise!

[@Aaa-vp6ug]

@@ZephLodwick honestly that would make everyone involved feel even worse. Would you rather die to being stabbed or trigger the surprise “HAHA-you-dead-now-in-the-worst-way-possible” response accidentally, while getting stabbed.

[@minttshake]

I guarantee that if an sao game really came out, it would sell out in around 24 hours, get put on the resale market for hundreds of dollars, and then instantly die within the week as the players find out that the game sucks.

[@RGC_animation]

Pokemon would like to disagree (mainly because the only real problem with the new Pokemon game is the performance issues, but still)

[@shcdemolisher]

Yeah it would be generic and boring. Even without the crazy hold your body hostage tech.

[@Pablo_Martin_aa]

Pokemon

[@anusaukko6792]

Wouldn't matter how bad the game is, the single fact that it is indistinguishable to real life would make it sell like hotcakes considering the staggering amount of people irl who dislike/hate reality.

[@IceBlueLugia]

Honestly don’t agree, the fact that it could literally replace your real life with how similar it looks and feels would be enough for most people

[@KrillixKai]

Hey!... I like SAO... Not because it's a steamy shit pile excuse of an anime (and game). But because, if not for SAO's existence, there would not be SAO Abridged. Which is hilarious and way better than the actual anime.

[@KrillixKai]

No, seriously. It's the worst anime I've seen as of late, It's bad. If you like Sword Art Online, you really need to reconsider whatever the hell it is you find entertaining in anime. It is garbage. But not the Abridged version... It is amazing...

[@THORTON666]

what this person says is true

[@RandominityFTW]

Greatest argument for SAO I've ever seen.

[@youinanalternateuniverse6124]

Krillix Kai True.

[@LiMeYMoZ]

You like IBO that is what is wrong with you. I bet you like Gundam SEED Destiny too.

[@splitatorium]

Kirito: "I'm the black swordsman" Afro Samurai: "Dafuq this kid smoking?"

[@nexxt359]

Dairokuten Maou Guts would like a word with you

[@obarich]

numaTruehome 100 Youre fucking gay

[@abednegomanurung3995]

This really makes me laugh

[@beastunleashed657]

Dude, Kirito himself HATES the nickname. He wanted to move past it. So much so that he can't even dual wield in the beginning of Alicization. He only gets motivated to do so after Eugeo dies.

[@beastunleashed657]

@@nexxt359 why can't two people have the same nickname tho?

[@anna48792]

going back to the story, the fact that there are no healers is a major missed oppurtunity. you could have had some kind of side story where a healer feels like they failed their party and they all died, which could have been really interesting, but everyone just heals themselves.

[@l.c.7168]

To be fair, luck as a stat in a shooter might be used to minimize the chance of your gun jamming.

[@CrazyHand7894]

Except that could only lead to people playing it safe and campy for fear that their gun might stop working in the middle of a tense situation. This would lead to rather boring games, since noone would dare to take risks.

[@JohnDoe-lt5is]

That would make sense if GGO was trying to be an ultra realistic shooter which they weren’t trying to be with the aim system, light sabers, and laser beam weapons. I’m not a gun expert but I know gun jams happen rarely so specing into luck would be a waste if it only affected jamming

[@slayeroffurries1115]

Or it would increase critical hit chance and dodge chance, what would make it an incredibly OP stat

[@mattpace1026]

Any FPS where your gun jamming is even a possibility would be dead in two weeks or less. Very few people would ever be willing to deal with that bs.

[@pastamarter6084]

@@mattpace1026 Thats just plain wrong, see for example Escape from Tarkov or for a more arcady game Synthetik. But I do agree that it shouldnt realy scale of luck, as that removes any kind of skill or planning from the jamming mechanic.

[@joranvandenberg2115]

Boss strategy in sao: We should group up and... ..HIT IT 'TILL IT DIES -something witty entertainment

[@burnttoast7497]

remember, they flank it and switch out too.

[@hallowe3912]

Not sure if there was bows in the first season or not but like I remember there being bows in the one where the blue haired girl had a gun and then she wanted a bow because it was like a gun. No sweetie, no.

[@jotheunissen9274]

Some of them were playing Bejewelled for some reason That also raises the question on how they were able to play another independant game, not a minigame, inside SAO

[@caav56]

@@jotheunissen9274 In-game browser, maybe?

[@fyrentenimar]

@@caav56 Kayaba certainly still had access to *his* browser, so maybe.

[@pokekid9000]

Remember guys Sonic '06 was more successful at launch than sao the game in the show Just think about that xD

[@Brandonious15987]

Bryan Plus it didn't kill people.

[@alexanderpape7024]

Sonic 06 is also a platinum seller. What's your point?

[@WeirdVoyager]

The argument that SAO would be a failure because it only sold 10,000 copies ignores the fact that it was a limited release. They only printed 10,000 copies, and they even gave out 1,000 of those copies to players from the beta. They're releasing the first "actual" VR game to a limited test audience. The hype generated from people watching such a small audience play the biggest game release in history would be the most hyped release since No Man's Sky. Think I'm full of shit? Look at E3. A couple thousand people, made up of famous gamers and gaming press, get early access to the biggest releases of the upcoming year. E3 can make or break a game. It can cause people to buy a shit game based on the hype of trailers and carefully curated footage seen at these events. Boy, I wonder if the next point was any better. Oh, he's mad that your party members life meter is located in the top left hand corner of the screen. I wonder how many thousands of games do that exact same thing? I wonder if the most successful MMO of all time does that **exact same thing**

[@rizzcs6018]

ET on the atati sold more.

[@HemiLeo_]

Bryan ... I wonder which one loads faster XD

[@RGC_animation]

I mean that scene where bunch of players that have slightly lower levels than Kirito trying to slash him and Kirito somehow healing faster than all of their damage combined says it all basically.

[@spartin1173]

Also they were barely doing damage besides that even before the heal every few seconds they were getting maybe 5-10% down before he snapped back to full so his defense had to be almost as crazy

[@brahimdiop5506]

32:55 worst part is that Luck can be a great stat to have in an RPG. Ain't nothing quite as great as getting kicked out of casinos for winning too much in New Vegas

[@takedown205productions6]

The best example of this is Kazuma, from Konosuba. From legendary swords, to the panties of women around him, he basically steals whatever he wants because his luck is completely maxed out. ... The dude is so lucky, that he can only lose in a game of Rock Paper Scissors, against the goddess of luck herself. The only other instances where he loses his luck, occur whenever Aqua is around.

[@jayb67]

Lets not forget the time where Yui, an AI made to assist players was banned from the server before the game was launched. No programmer would ever let an AI such as Yui - with extremely complex coding just be banned from the server. It's a waste time, effort, and energy. That's like working hard to earn enough money to buying a diamond ring, then taking that ring and throwing it into the ocean.

[@Talessaga2]

I could be wrong but i think Yui wasn't banned by the programmer but by the AI that handles the game? But your point stand stills, is pretty dumb.

[@ghxsthn9865]

Talessaga2 thank you finally someone agrees

[@MEEEPMEEEPMEEEPMEEEP]

Yui was programmed to emulate and understand emotion so that she could assist players who suffered emotional trauma. A normal video game wouldn't need that. At all. Literally the only reasons you'd need a psychotherapy AI would be if a) the game is not only incredibly traumatizing, but also cuts you off from real life psychotherapy. Both things that video games should never ever do. b) the game is targeted towards people with mental illnesses and designed to help them cope. I think we all agree that SAO doesn't fit that category. So now we have the only possible situation where Yui would be useful... and she's disabled.

[@ericjang63]

Why did I thought of Titanic?

[@totallynameless8861]

A role playing game specifically designed to help people with mental illnesses actually sounds like a good idea. Can someone get on that? I know role playing in general can help, but something tailored to that audience would be a really good idea I think.

[@gabrielaubry1334]

Heathcliff - "...At least we get to do it playing an awesome game!" Nameless Soldier 13 - "Pfft. 'Awesome'? You're kidding, right?" Heathcliff - "Huh?" Mobster - "Come on, sir. Do you really think any of us would still be playing if we didn't have a gun to our heads? Ya gotta admit, this game is kind of a hot mess?" Heathcliff - "'Hot mess'? Really..? That seems a bit harsh." Schmitt - "Well, how else would you describe a game where players can just kidnap NPCs, the crafting system is seizure inducing, and half the time our teleport crystals, one of our ONLY lifelines, DO NOTHING!" Klein - "Yeah. Nothing, if you're lucky. Yeesh..."

[@Gaius453]

SAO Abridged.

[@irishmusicc]

SAO Abridged is the real anime in my opinion

[@dolphinpower1107]

Yeah got to love the true version of SAO

[@johnniefinney3266]

You just described Minecraft not exactly but glitchy ender pearls you can kidnap NPCs etc

[@johnniefinney3266]

@Eric Lee what do you mean um no

[@alexanderleonardi3625]

As a Second Life LARPer, I can confirm that SAO is worse than THAT, and we actually have scripts that can make it VR, and those scripts were written by teenagers. And Reki's game still looks more like it was written by a teenager than the LARP written by actual teenagers. And our LARP is from the early 2000s. And the VR part has a budget of 18 dollars. 3 dollars if you make your own google carboard set out of those free boxes you can get from the post office. Those 3 dollars are for the script. And if you know how to program things to work with it, it's FREE. Hell, you could GET money from it. SAO is literally objectively worse than Second Life games written by teenagers and that is absolutely depressing.

[@prozorozo]

What the heck is LARP

[@alexanderleonardi3625]

@@prozorozo imagine dnd but theatre

[@Hermititis]

@@prozorozo "Live Action Role Play". Think SCA or a Renaissance Fair.

[@americankid7782]

Fun thing is that SAO was actually written by a Teenager. Reki was only 13-14 when he first wrote SAO in its original form.

[@BknMoonStudios]

@@americankid7782 ...That explains so much...

[@uyeah1234]

Imagine if in Dark Souls, there was no quick select bar. Every time you needed to estus you have to open your inventory, scroll to the item, click it, press use, and move again. Jesus SAO get's worse the more you look at it

[@weberman173]

SAO.. has a quick select.. you can store items in pouches on your Character. the only time that wasnt done was when the KoB shit happend and in that situation the Leader put the items into the inventory proper instead of the Pouch. Like, SAO has problems design wise, but the game litteraly has physical pouches that are used for exactly that

[@ReinzTheKing]

​@@weberman173 I dunno man, maybe some search feature could be help?

[@PhileasLiebmann]

Y'know, the idea of SAO the game being an absolute disaster would actually have made for a very interesting backdrop for Kayaba and his motivations. A struggling video game creator who had his vision for an immersive fantasy world creatively and commercially butchered by corporate meddling and wanted nothing more than to show people the world he created. Combine that with Something Witty Entertainment's Abridged series' take on the matter of the whole murder mystery thing, as a desperate last move by a man plagued by preexisting psychoses, inhumane working conditions and maybe drug abuse, and you would have had a genuinely sympathetic villain, who in his delusional state only wanted people to experience the game he poured years of his life into and which he knew wouldn't be received well if people didn't stick around to experience it. So he locks the log out button, sets up the death-by-Nervegear contingency and makes his speech to the players, realising what he's done far too late Kayaba sees no way back, so he panics, keeps tweaking and expanding the game from behind the scenes with more psychosis-fuelled bad ideas and takes on the Heathcliff persona to fulfil his own age-old dream of playing the noble master of an order of knights in his own fantasy land, which over time develops into a straight up dissociative identity disorder. THAT would've been a good villain and you wouldn't even have had to change any of the main story beats of the series! And it even would've had something meaningful to say about an important issue of the contemporary gaming industry.

[@esje4438]

This is beautiful.

[@buzzblade100]

So I’m sorry, can we just like, send you money to rewrite the series, because this is orders and magnitudes better then what they pulled.

[@YaBoiDoi]

Dude. You just fixed sao. I'm not kidding. You literally just gave one of saos biggest problems a solution. The best I could figure out would be that kayaba is just a guy that's wacko.

[@le_meme_man8983]

I- I don't have words to describe how beautiful and great this is

[@YaBoiDoi]

@@le_meme_man8983 exactly. He knew how to combine a comedy and a real reason in a way. Amazing

[@turdbergler657]

you wander into what seems like a normal treasure room with zero signposting as to potential danger. any dark souls player: something's wrong I can feel it

[@abyssGazerTV]

Dark Souls 2 had a lot of empty bonfire rooms that connect with nothing but I get your point.

[@mxbones9245]

DM: there’s a door on the left hand side of the corridor, when checked it reveals it’s unlocked. Dnd players: I INSIGHT CHECK THE DOOR. DM: ….. the door, is a door. Players: *convince one party member to open the door and potentially die instead of just checking for traps* Door opener: OOo a treasure chest! Let’s open it!

[@DronesOverTheMoon]

If i went to a game like this wi would probably destroy all chests cuz i cant know if it is or it is not a mimic

[@godspeedhero3671]

@@abyssGazerTV To be fair DS2 was the red-headed step child of the series.

[@glasshorse6893]

lol yeah. you should check rooms before running in, cause the devs are *expecting* you to not think and run for the goods only for the goods to be a mimic or something

[@harryvpn1462]

One thing that always bothered me is kirito using floor 1 gear and is still outmatching everyone in the game

[@TheHappyZappy]

Because he decided to be a lonely loner and he’s cooler than all those LOSERS who go in parties and he’s the only one who doesn’t have friends to play with and no one else realized that playing alone was significantly more beneficial because they’re all crybabies who are scared of death and Kirito is cool and edgy and doesn’t need anybody the only thing he needs is his sigma male grindset I guess BETAS like you wouldn’t understand

[@narcisoferreira9976]

It might be an ESO situation where you can makr gear look like whatever gear you want, his gear might be level 80 but he liked the look of the floor 1 gear so he choose to make it look like that, this of course implies that the writter took the time to think this through which we know would never happen

[@surmonmonful]

@@digittoll7591 That's called a transmog system and I agree. It's honestly crazy most games don't have this by default.

[@Vanilla-Suite]

That's because SAO the anime mixes progressive's first novel where the coat is a boss drop with the rest of the aincrad novel where Kirito says he got the coat from a player shop on another floor. The Elucidator and Dark Repulsor are also both high level equipment

[@Taenarius]

I actually think it's that the system has cosmetic gear slots. Many games use that kind of system, and there's very clearly at least a robust dye system based on what we see of holy guild Kirito. I don't think it's too unreasonable that he slotted his starter coat into a cosmetic slot once he got an upgrade, given that he clearly has a preferred character outfit and that coat suited it.

[@NXTangl]

Hey, it just now occurs to me: No Game No Life actually understands what it takes to be a pro gamer. In their VR Shooter arc, the antagonist is basically the perfect fast twitch gamer. The protagonists beat her essentially by: - reading her movements - manipulating the attention of her coach, who is screenpeeking and feeding her information, to make her movements more predictable. - using the silly eroge destructible clothing mechanic to fake getting hit twice, which leads to: - using the deception to fake a vulnerable state to bait out an overcommitment, - using psychology and empathy to ensure that she'll focus mainly on themselves, and, - exploiting NPC pathing and the rules of the Isekai itself to set up the most inept player on their team to deliver the final KO. In short: she was faster, but they were using unknown strats and had much better global awareness and were controlling the fight through bait and conditioning the whole way through.

[@loturzelrestaurant]

OH, IF THERE WAS ONLY SOLUTIONS TO BIG ISSUES Like Homeless People and No-Knock-Raids or Drug-Overusage or Such-and-Such. Oh, if KZbinr Some More News only had come up with really good Solutions. Oh, wait, he did, actually.

[@NXTangl]

@@loturzelrestaurant ???????

[@dah3071]

technically there is a long range mechanic in the game, remember kirito used a throwing dagger to kill that rabbit, that or the writer couldn't be assed and just had him throw a knife and said fuck it in regards to consistency

[@EatAnOctorok]

No, Progressive 1 has an arc centered around someone who attempted to make a build for the Blade Throwing skill, but it wasn’t practical for longterm combat. There is only one weapon reliable for it, but that weapon, a returning Chakram, also requires the Martial Arts skill. Far from practical for hardcore players considering the intervals at which you gain skill slots (3rd at Level 6, 4th at 12, 5th at 20, and then you keep getting one every 10 from then), but very helpful for the character in question.

[@psinjo]

considering that it's not used anywhere else in combat, lets give the writer a tiny benefit of the doubt and say 'it's a hunting skill' that kirito obviously grinded offscreen.

[@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick]

Tiny rabbit-killing daggers does not long-range weaponry make.

[@timurtheterrible4062]

Rock OP pls nerf

[@siliconhawk9293]

man every comment on any SAO video is just pure bliss to read. i love this

[@RobinBodicoat]

Anime Logic: When you're sad you lose your eyes.

[@Whatingodsname]

Anime logic: they can swallow a whole plate of food without chewing

[@iLuvBvnny]

Asuna cries so easy in the game more than anyone else, it’s annoying and not normal

[@g_g...]

Anime logic: they can have over a million flashbacks with extraordinary details and a big amount of time before even punching the enemy during battle

[@mrboerger1620]

Anime logic there's always a huge power creep

[@g_g...]

@Just Monika well that includes almost every movie... i mean even aliens talk english in hollywood.

[@MrVaern]

I think I'd give Alfheim a pass for Asuna's avatar in particular looking exactly like her. It may be reasonable to assume that her user and character data - including major features of her appearance - were ripped straight from SAO's database to ALO's when she was taken hostage after SAO's shutdown. Besides, even if her appearance had been randomized... well, she was being held hostage by a rich asshole with admin privileges who was creeping on her in the real world. It's reasonable to think he might have customized it himself, whether via paying for it out of pocket or by simply using an admin console to do the job for free. There's a few ways it could have been explained away. Compared to everyone else lucking out on their characters' appearances, Asuna's case shouldn't actually be surprising at all.

[@RGC_animation]

Also every main character getting favorable looks is just every anime, movies and TV show in general anyway.

[@apexyl5135]

The funniest thing is that even before Something Witty was mentioned, I had watched the abridged series, showed it to my sister (who doesn’t like anime and even she loved the abridged version), and realized that the abridged series actually has a better storyline and better characters than the actual anime.

[@momogasi7930]

I think Overlord’s Yggdrasil handles the “shitty video game” really well, it’s basically broken, abusable and easy to exploit.. for EVERYONE, it’s a shitty game, but it genuinely seems fun, and it seems that everyone playing knew and wanted to play a broken and fun game, SAO on the other hand... no

[@provoidcloak]

It’s not a broken game, it’s meant to be explored, and as such death isn’t that big of a knock back. It’s not easy to exploite either, that’s why information is so valuable

[@shadowfire04]

i would argue that yggdrasil wasn't meant to be exploited, it was just that ainz's guild was a bunch of whales who probably spent hundreds to thousands of dollars buying shit so they could level up. at the end, ainz is the only one still playing, and thus he gets all the money and power that the 40-some other members of his guild left behind. the game itself is balanced fine, it's just real world money.

[@provoidcloak]

Yuan Yuan well levelling up wasn’t supposed to be difficult either. Ains just spent a bunch of time farming, and they got lucky beating Nazarick first try, which made them OP

[@shadowfire04]

@@provoidcloak true but they did undoubtedly buy stuff. and there were almost certainly one or two whales, if not more, in the guild. (side note if you don't know: a whale in gacha games and mmorpgs is someone who spends hundreds to thousands of $$/otherwise in irl money to buy stuff and quickly level up in game. theyre typically super op.)

[@provoidcloak]

Yuan Yuan I’m pretty sure they were all people who didn’t finish high school, it’s not like they’d have spent that much more than anyone else

[@Enderlinkpawnu]

24:54 MB: try to detatch yourself from the “emotional” scene Me in my head: *WE MUST SAVE MY FAMILY*

[@SamanthaLaurier]

The bandits are coming!

[@twinodoom]

GARY!

[@SamanthaLaurier]

@@twinodoom How you doing buddy? It's been a while, hasn't it, Gary?

[@krugerofcause9048]

@@SamanthaLaurier WE MUST SAVE MY FAMILY

[@InsufficientGravitas]

@@krugerofcause9048 We must save m- *Incoherent rage screams* Wow, this is actually kind of uncomfortable.

[@Masque1419]

I love the comparison to Andy Weir and The Martian, because Andy Weir is a fucking NASA computer scientist, and it is very very apparent when you read his books that he knows what he’s writing about.

[@grimm_bot]

I think I'd be out by the moment I couldn't customize my own character. Thousands of cozy-MMO Animal Crossing fans would be safe from the massacre, and thank god.

[@Necroxion]

I wanna point out one error here: they show a map of one of the dungeons stated to be made by the players beforehand ...meaning this game wasn't procedurally generated at all and that an entire fucking dev team went out of their goddamn way to hand craft the blandest hallways they could think of! (see Warframe for an example of procedurally generated dungeons)

[@soggyramen6031]

Holy shit

[@SamanthaLaurier]

I love Warframe

[@clokie6671]

Wait Warframe is procedurally generated?

[@SamanthaLaurier]

@@clokie6671 Yeah

[@clokie6671]

@@SamanthaLaurier wow I'm dumb i never realized

[@itecnus3490]

Shit, roblox has more players than that

[@TheCaptainCyber]

roblox = shit

[@marvinragen]

roblox = shit Minecraft = shit

[@thatoneguy2274]

sigh.... opinions m8's.... its not roblox = shit, minecraft = shit. what you should say is "i dont find roblox and minecraft good games"

[@LoydAvenheart]

Shit = Shit

[@TheCaptainCyber]

Still Sao would make a better game then roblox

[@beepboop7748]

Is no one going to question the fact that it took them a month to beat SAO's first floor? Like, if every floor was that hard it'd take them 100 months, except it gets harder and harder, and supposedly Gleam Eyes slaughtered an entire army with easy. I mean it was a small group, but more than a party. 100+ months, that's more than 8 years.

[@GeorgeDCowley]

The floor 25, 50, 75 and 100 bosses are abnormally strong.

[@beepboop7748]

@@GeorgeDCowley yeah, but bosses will still get stronger right?

[@RGC_animation]

That is a storytelling issue not a game design issue

[@weberman173]

The first floor is realisticly one of the harderst, you have very limited ammount of resources and loot, mob locations are limited as well, and game knowledge to go around is concnetrated but not yet tested. You also need to convince people to actually go out and grind in sufficent numbers to form a raid. After floor 1, you almost double the ammount of resources, grind spots, Equipment drops and stuff to go around. as well as the moral boost of having defeated the first boss

[@TheRealBitterbub]

So, just a thought on the 10,000 / 50,000 sales numbers. What if Kawahara only thought to include sales for the amount sold in Japan? I might just be misremembering, but I don't think they actually said the stated sales were worldwide. And just for the record I think SAO is an absolute disaster, but just thought I'd give my two cents.

[@godspeedhero3671]

That $8000 SAO Nerve Gear Collector's Edition Bundle though. 😂

[@RGC_animation]

So only Japanese people that bought SAO would die IRL if they die in-game? That seems very unfair.

[@Vanilla-Suite]

Kirito notes that Asuna might be in a completely different part of Japan specifically which implies it was a limited release in Japan only. Kayaba also probably didn't care enough to release his death game worldwide since that wasn't necessary

[@Ukiby3000]

When your mainstream console sells less than the Virtual Boy, that's a seeeeeerious problem.

[@itchyrock]

All hail the virtual boy

[@bearandthebull2372]

Wait how much did the vr console in the show actually sell?

[@itchyrock]

@@bearandthebull2372 idk

[@robertbernard7844]

When your mainstream game console sells less that a Soulja Boy, you might as well give up the console market altogether.

[@omnical6135]

@@bearandthebull2372 there are 10,000 players at launch, the game takes place at launch so at the time of the show it sold 10 thousand copies if you know anything about games you know these are terrible launch numbers

[@verpaule]

He's right on many point, and i hate SAO too with a passion. But let's be honest, if that game existed... Most likely everyone would just run/fly around and do some roleplay or what ever. I mean, it's just like real life, but better... So i would see the appeal of calm and social players "Casual" way more then the hardcore one. Why wouldnt my grandpa want to play a game that makes him move around ? That would drastically change everything.

[@baksban74]

alo is sims if i understand correctly=D

[@ShamblesTCG]

It's like he says. People would try it and delete it after a month tops. It looks cool, but playing something like this would be horrible

[@andregon4366]

Speak for yourself. I don't care about gimmicks, I care about gameplay. (which SAO fails at delivering) But I'm someone that seeks quality in videogames, unlike the dumb average consumer that only cares about how shinny it looks and is the first to jump off the wagon the moment someone advertises something shinnier.

[@TheGreatMunky]

GamerChannelOne Yeah, playing a game that is a complete reality change and the first true virtual reality would be absolutely terrible. Who would want to walk around in a photorealistic fantasy world that looks and feel real? *sarcasm*

[@ShamblesTCG]

TheGreatMunky Like I said, it would be interesting at first, but after a while, it would get boring and repetitive. Look at Pokemon Go, or the Wii, it's pretty much the same shit. It's interesting at first, because it's a cool new thing, but after a while, it gets boring, due to lack of actual diversity. Heck I'd probably play it as well, but a cool gimmick can only last so far, before it gets boring as well

[@ahlalkubur]

What I realised after all of this time is, what I love from SAO is the character designs (courtesy of Abec, the character designer and LN illustrator). Though it is indeed different than the game design it should be (should be A-1 Picture responsibility), Abec's designs are SSS tier. People can shit the SAO plot as much as they want. But if they shit Abec's character designs for SAO, I would beg to differ..

[@mattpace1026]

You must have some real bland taste if you think these incredibly generic designs are good.

[@ahlalkubur]

@@mattpace1026 Welp, if the scope is limited to LN, then I do think that Abec's character design are really good in the LN world (exception to Kirito's face, it's bland as f*ck. I mean look at the other characters tho) But if the scope is for the Anime, Manga, and LN as a whole. Indeed there are many above it of course. But still, even in that scope I still think SAO's character designs are good enough.

[@mattpace1026]

@@ahlalkubur Okay, I apologize for my rudeness. You're far more self-aware than I thought you were. Though, it might be wise to be a bit more clear about which characters you're talking about in the future, because it would prevent a lot of confusion.

[@ReinzTheKing]

​@@ahlalkubur Well, abec also do Yuuki Yuuna illustrations

[@tlozfreak888]

You said SAO has problems with character development, but how can it have problems with something it doesn't have?

[@Apostle_47]

You sir have officially gained my respect

[@HECKproductions]

when they explained that in MMOs the resouces are limited so the staring area will soon be sucked dry i was like wat did these people every play any game in their lives?? and then every aspect of the game started to contradict every other one

[@demonvictim]

Its actually understandable that the beginning area is packed. If the players are higher then the respawns rate and monster count then resource would be finite

[@ltchugacast131]

Sonny J this only applies to launch night and free weekend rush. If they really wanted to be realistic some people would have died or even escaped the death game because the servers couldn’t handle so many people on a single instance grinding mobs faster than they can be spawned.

[@demonvictim]

@@ltchugacast131 ya and kirito made that point that he had to get out of tge spawn area asap since this was exactly launch night and everyone was concentrated in 1 city. Everything post launch is spread out but entry levels wouldve been extended by 5 times since there was a group for 1 monster.

[@DrLennieSmall]

Runescape had a resource system that simulated a food chain that ended up with some ig resource issues when players killed not just the predators but the herbivores as well as gold farmers. If the respawn rate was below replacement rate I could buy it. Iirc they say nothing respawns but either that was a beta thing to stop power gamers with betas getting ahead, and the "real" release would likely have had a rs type system.

[@megalomaniacv3706]

That was the case when Runescape was popular and SAO was first written, it's an old school MMO thing

[@Hobobatman1000]

When I watched SAO Abridged, I read(through the comments) that the main protagonists actually did have sexual intercourse in the manga; said ability would place the _game_ under the adults only rating which would kill the sales if only selling 10,000 copies wasn't enough already. It's why GTA: San Andreas had the feature hidden before its actual release.

[@chowellith]

Hobobatman1000 The sex thing was a secret system that noone was supposed to know about but Asuna knew about it for...some reason. Basically the idea was that the sex routines were supposed to be well hidden enough that players wouldn't find them, and then those routines would be sold off to third party developers later so they can make...other Vr "experiences." Basically...FUCKING DUMB.

[@chowellith]

Hobobatman1000 The sex thing was a secret system that noone was supposed to know about but Asuna knew about it for...some reason. Basically the idea was that the sex routines were supposed to be well hidden enough that players wouldn't find them, and then those routines would be sold off to third party developers later so they can make...other Vr "experiences." Basically...FUCKING DUMB.

[@Hobobatman1000]

Since Kirito just pulls the "master hacker" trait out of his ass I would imagine he would've found it first if it was hidden in the game's code. Realistically, if the developer already made a functional sexual experience they could've just made a separate game for that and dominated the market instead of giving an already finished product away to third party developers.

[@andregon4366]

Make a separate game? How about having it as part of the game? Like giving access to exclusive buffs? I can see it working in current games (let alone VR games with sensoring features). It would be quite funny to check if everyone in game had sex before starting the raid. Or having sex based class roles, acting like pre-raid supporters.

[@ikagura]

the hell it would be

[@jedlmastermoon]

Something else. SAO has this cursor system, where if you attack random players, you become an "Orange" player and have your cursor turned Orange. This makes you a big target (not that bad) and makes it essentially impossible to enter main towns as these invincible guards would instantly stop you (really bad). You can restore your cursor to Green if you do this quest, but if you kill more than 5 players, it becomes impossible to do the said quest, and you become a "Red" player (nickname for Orange players that kill people). Now, this may seem like it makes sense since killing people in this game is the equivalent of murdering someone, but imagine what it would be like if it was a normal game. If you can't kill anyone above 5 players, that would make the game VERY dull, and a lot of people would quit.

[@majorblitz3846]

So The Division dark zone PvP system but very bad.

[@Zulantie]

I know this was 6 months ago, but it was never designed to be a "Normal" game in the first place

[@jedlmastermoon]

@@Zulantie Well, I doubt the other developers knew that the game they were making killed people.

[@jubeat4451]

This could easily be solved if SAO had PVP only zones. In the webtoon Hardcore Leveling Warrior (although the game in it definitely isn't perfect either) players only gain "Red" status if they repeatedly kill players outside of PVP zones. and at that point your character is treated as an outlaw/murderer. There's no punishment for killing in PVP zones since everyone in there knew what they were getting into. And everyone who just wants to do raids with their friends mostly gets ignored. Although at the end of the day all this is easy suggestions that SAO didn't do...

[@godspeedhero3671]

How is that different from reputation system on WoW? Shoutout to my fellow Bloodsail Admirals.

[@strawhatsteve2198]

I've never seen anyone else point this out but the show would sometimes show the rewards screen after a battle and he was getting around the same amount of col and xp for defeating the starting town boars as for being in the party that beat the first floor's boss as for soloing the Gleam Eyes. I guess that's one way to prevent the player from making exponentially more money the higher level they are, basically making anything low level players do a total waste of time. Just never raise the rewards for beating higher level monsters.

[@weberman173]

it may be proportionally, so that you always need "X" ammount of XP to level up, an enemy at your level gives you Y XP, an enemy 1 level below you gives you Z XP, where Z may be something as simple as "level up cost/4" would not be the first time such a system existed in a game that and the anime likely didnt bother with specific numbers

[@monus782]

Y'know, the game failing astronomically would definitely have helped the story as background and setting, it definitely would have given the main villain some motive to do what he did, instead of just nothing. Heck, Kirito essentially became a master in one of the worst games in history, and I would love the Abridged writers to use that fact for others to make fun of him. As a matter of fact, I think that'll be my headcannon from now on.

[@crazycreaturestudios]

i like the idea of using the games failure as a motive for the villain to trap everyone inside. it would be much more interesting and potentially more relatable. definitely more interesting than "hey why'd you trap 10,000 people in this game?" "pfft, i dunno"

[@beastunleashed657]

@@crazycreaturestudios please fucking stop mate. Kayaba literally said "I was longing to create that castle, which surpassed the laws and boundaries of reality." How fucking blind are you to not see that?

[@beastunleashed657]

Why the hell would SAO fail? The first full dive VRMMO, and you say you wouldn't play it? Mate, if anything Covid-19 has taught me, then it's the fact that something like full dive would be a life saver during this situation.

[@beastunleashed657]

@@crazycreaturestudios He CLEARLY fucking remembered. If you didn't notice that, you're a fucking moron. It's not the anime's fault, it's yours!

[@danielchen1047]

@@beastunleashed657 But in the anime, Kayaba literally says, and I am directly quoting the anime, "For a long time, I've forgotten. I wonder why." KAYABA LITERALLY DOES NOT REMEMBER WHY HE MURDERED OVER 4000 PEOPLE!

[@dyingearth]

On the other hand, Log Horizon's writer clearly spend a lot of time on MMO before writing the novels.

[@PyraJord]

BigFire And ended up tax evading and now the franchise suffers from it...

[@Shinigami528]

BigFire And on tax evasion.

[@nipun056]

discord.gg/ZdzFWcx

[@nipun056]

discord.gg/ZdzFWcx

[@xeno4445]

log horizon is actually based of a MMO he played

[@panzershock441]

I think my favourite part of GGO is that actually using your gun's sights bypasses the laser beams and that aiming a gun yourself apparently requires military training instead of a google search. Aiming makes you an OP supersoldier.

[@ieuansmith518]

Now I’m just curious what a good “you die in the game MMO” story looks like.

[@ieuansmith518]

Just remember konosuba.

[@oswaldfriedman7116]

The Matrix

[@ieuansmith518]

@@oswaldfriedman7116 that too.

[@uchophamxuan6515]

Log Horizon gives a good glance about mmo but not the death part

[@usamimi-no-majo]

I would pay to be trapped in FFXIV. That'd be fun, at least. Edit: Oh wait, never mind. I'm already trapped. Send help/donuts.

[@Lisiyabai]

imagine being a gatherer or any crafter class in FFXIV, that would be nuts

[@KregoryHaus]

I could never get into ffxiv, I hear the late game is amazing but the combat early on always burns me out.

[@usamimi-no-majo]

Davoodles It's worth it when you get past the early game. Or at least I think it is.

[@Lisiyabai]

for me ffxiv was amazing,but I quit because I wanted to play pvp, and damn those queue times 1 hour and a half waiting to get in a match

[@usamimi-no-majo]

Andy Alex Fishing wouldn't be bad. Besides, if you were trapped in FFXIV, you'd be able to switch classes freely(unless some psycho was smart enough to program that out). I'd just stay as an AST, though.

[@restingsadface]

The add before this video was for a SAO mobile game... Talk about irony

[@CountChrisdo]

same for me

[@theshinypeliper8813]

Jinx. Was.Here. Same

[@dan-rm9yu]

Me Aswell

[@joeyopenshaw]

It's not Irony, KZbin detects the tags of the videos you watch (probably lots of Anime) and gives you ads based on them.

[@AtOutoftheBlue]

Jinx. Was.Here. Same

[@JamieSmith-ir7yq]

As a support player I can confirm I would drop a game like this like a hot potato

[@siliconhawk9293]

as a player who just plays games for fun i will tell you this. GRINDING GAMES ARE THE WORST MF. and if they have bad mechanics its just adding salt to the injury ffs. like what you want me to level up my skills by overusing them are you for real. you want me to be a tank by literally being on death door in a place where i can die wtf. what kind of sadist made this game. and i swear to god i didnt knew how bad the skill and mechanics of the game was coz i was too annoyed by it to put any more time researching about it. i was like its over so anyways lets watch some new trash.

[@etheron1235]

As a mage player, only fighting in close range is not always a viable in any Rpg games

[@spartin1173]

Also even as close range DPS every fucking boss we saw was like 10 times your size and if you weren’t clearly defense based it instantly ragdolled you so even people who enjoy that kind of role would hate it because the entire game would be them getting thrown across the room and having to sprint back, like ok maybe it would’ve worked being all about sword play of the bosses were gonna be like human ish size and it could be all about like epic duels to get to the top but without absolutely ridiculous dodges and acrobatics out the ass you’re not doing reasonable damage because the boss has insane reach so in the end without range damage every boss fight is going to suck and everyone involved will be miserable or dead the entire fight

[@noraarcadia635]

I just realized something. That world seed thing that Kayaba released that allowed anyone to make an SAO-esque full dive game... how the hell did the copyrights on that look. And how were characters compatible between games. Like how did Kirito's speed levels transfer between ALO and GGO

[@mello6898]

If sao was to come out today the game itself would fail faster then lawbreakers did

[@letiwijaya1280]

That's just sad but how about that card game valve made

[@dragknbkrn2891]

Mello I know this is kinda a joke but if it really did, without a doubt it would be one of the if not the largest game in the world

[@6ixlxrd]

@@dragknbkrn2891 I definitely wouldn't mind being stuck in a game and actually GRINDING for my levels, instead of being OP from the start like every Isekai protagonist.

[@The_Ajna]

Rip lawbreakers

[@clocked0]

Nah, it would fail FASTER THAN BATTLEBORN! That game flopped faster than you can say flop, lawbreakers at least lived on for a little bit before people finally left

[@aria5614]

It occurred to me while listening to this that Reki Kowahowa based the menu system and the fighting system off of Pokemon. Speed is all important. What gives you an edge in a pokemon battle? Speed. Nice, minimalistic menus. If you want to use a potion during a battle you go to bag, item teir, and pick the potion. Problem is except for certain areas like the Festival plaza Pokemon is not an MMO. And you can take your sweet time in battles. That is absolutely not the case in SAO.

[@justasentientmclarenp1879]

Kowahowa logic : don’t play MMO’s and do no research at all and create a novel based on a MMO

[@beastunleashed657]

@@justasentientmclarenp1879 Reki Kawahara based SAO off of old MMOs like Ultima Online, Everquest and Ragnarok online. Those games are actually quite similar to SAO. Maybe you should've done some research.

[@beastunleashed657]

Dude the interface is more like a Dark Souls than anything. Dark Souls is an RPG action adventure with the closest battle system to SAO. You need good reaction time for Dark Souls. Speed and reaction time give you an edge in this game. Since the battles in SAO aren't like real MMOs and more like Dark Souls dodging is important so speed and reaction time are important.

[@FirstDayson]

@@beastunleashed657 aight kid, first: I played each of those three mmos and they're only similar to SAO in the mmo tag. Nothing else what so ever. Hell, EQ2 is closer to SAO but still a farcry from how horrible SAO would be. Second, dark souls isn't about reflexes. Learn combat animations, learn enemy animations, learn map item placement, and learn boss attacks. Like the video said games are vastly more than just reflexes.

[@javianbrown8627]

Pokemon is turn based though so it works for that but SAO is real time. Then again with al the luck factors I don't think pokemon is balanced either and the numbers don't always make sense in that game

[@oswaldfriedman7116]

It could’ve made sense if the development team all knew about the game’s “glitch” and they were some kind of cult that desired to be gods and create their own world using technology. Perhaps they even desire the surviving players as recruits in an elaborate test of worthiness to adapt to their new world

[@billcipher3180]

don't forget Spriggans could turn into any boss they've previously defeated even if the boss isn't in the game anymore(or if the boss hasn't been added into the game yet) which is awesome even if their stats don't change when they transform no one would play as anything other than the Spriggan now imagine if they could turn into a boss with some crazy special ability like an op debuff would they be able to use that ability?

[@harrilappi6090]

"Plays Runescape" "Boss Shows Up" "You have to fight it by playing candy crush"

[@player1denyo869]

Harri Lappi hahahahahahaha

[@silviagutierrez9839]

Dayum. There's actually a MMORPG I can be good at

[@dessnom4333]

My dad: it's Showtime

[@otherevan296]

My mom: My entire life has led up to this point

[@drewforchic9083]

Another thing you didn't mention: early on in SAO (episode 1 or 2), they mention that quests and monsters can only be completed/killed a limited number of times by anyone before disappearing for everyone, which means you can't even grind. That's why Kirito runs away from the starting area on his own, to have more access to XP since all the other players will use up what's available. This kills the entire MMO. How can you have an MMO without the ability to grind and have other players take the content first? If you're not one of the few players to kill all the starting level monsters, you can't even progress. They also seem to imply that bosses don't respawn either, so if you're not on the raid that kills them, you just don't get to fight them. This stuff is obviously to make the game harder and force those trapped in it to actually face the risk of dying, so they can't just grind lower level enemies to overlevel themselves enough to beat the game, but since we're discussing it as if it were a normal game, it's broken.

[@captianbacon]

U just have them only so maney be4 a cool down depending on the quest

[@freyathedragon899]

I’m not sure how SOA works, cuz I haven’t watched the show or read any of the content, but wouldn’t a pretty easy way to get around the whole ‘run out of monsters so you can’t progress’ thing be to hunker down in one of the lower levels and set up a sort of new life? Like start a shop and a home and just wait out the storm until the people who are determined to get out of there win the game? I don’t know if that’s how the game works, but that’s what I’d try to do.

[@captianbacon]

Lord Fadora kinda conquered floors do have lower spawns except in certain areas and the the dungeons (so ppl who can wether the storm)

[@freyathedragon899]

Okay, I see. So people could team up, conquer a floor, and then establish a sort of small society in order to help those who can’t fight as well?

[@captianbacon]

And the ppl who aren't brave/ confident enough and grind on weak things

[@rango962]

It think a "you use it a lot and it gets stronger" when it is a passive leveling that isn't the whole system. Like skyrim.

[@MarkSoupial]

To be fair, being trapped in a TERRIBLE game COULD be more interesting than being trapped in a good one, with a good writer.

[@DamnDaimen]

I spent about 5 minutes thinking about how to fix that trap room. Here is my solution: Open chest - spawns a "safe zone" a timer, door out of trap room is locked. A reusable, unlootable, and much larger teleport crystal spawns over the chest. Contents of chest cannot be looted or exanimed until the timer expires. Area outside of safe zone is no-crystals area. As timer progresses, safe zone shrinks. Its disappearance co-incides with the timer. So when the timer hits zero, the chest becomes lootable. The spawned teleport crystal is immune to the no crystal effect. Enemies spawn like in the show. Once the chest becomes lootable, it can be looted 1x by each person, so everyone gets the reward if they stay the duration. In other words, it's a game of chicken. Can you last long enough for the chest to become lootable, then escape, or do you chicken out early? That.....took me 5 minutes to think up. If the writers of this show used that scenario, and had the black cats die because they got greedy and tried to take up a challenge they were not ready for, it would have made a dull scene much more relatable than a cheap trap like in the original show. HELL, lets take it a step farther, lets say that kirito's primary sword was the loot he got for surviving. Would add so much to the show. Instead of.....this.

[@alexandresobreiramartins9461]

The thing is the only reason for those areas to exist was to kill off Kirito's first party. They didn't think of making it better because that was the only function those dungeons served. Kirito's first love interest had to die to make room for Asuna. That's it. And that's an indicator of how bad this show is overall.

[@watcherofmemelords7967]

@@alexandresobreiramartins9461 still it's fun to fix other people's junk, like the skill system, honestly I'd do something like in elder scrolls where when you level up you can assign a single perk to a skill that you meet the requirements for like say your smithing is at 50 and you level up then you have met the requirements to take the apprentice Smith perk which allows you to craft rarer items.

[@reality5205]

@@watcherofmemelords7967 Don't blame the Anime, blame the manga and LightNovels. Just sayin

[@beastunleashed657]

That zone was probably made by the devs when it was not supposed to be a death game. It was a trap room like those in Dark Souls, where it just exists took make your life a nightmare. Now only Kayaba knew about the death game factor, so he couldn't do anything about it. The mechanic you came up with is pretty cool, but I don't really think it would've served its purpose.

[@beastunleashed657]

@@alexandresobreiramartins9461 speak for yourself that stuff horrified me. Also making room for Asuna? He met Asuna before Sachi. And I don't really think they were in love, the entire guild was very protective of Sachi to begin with.

[@weaponizedpizza8825]

If GGO was accurate Kirito would have been killed as soon as he got out into the world, because someone would minmax dexterity, and make stupidly OP traps like Legendary Master-crafted Immolating Range +75 Cluster Shredder mines that are powerful enough to cut buildings in half, and then place these traps around the starting area. Because let's be honest, people absolutely would.

[@aidantruax9716]

Weaponized Pizza lmao true. It was nowhere near a true MMORPG

[@JuneEclipse]

Weaponized Pizza would it be within the "realm of possibility" for people to be making legendary traps at launch? Nada

[@weaponizedpizza8825]

Actually Kirito joined 8 months after launch, which is enough time for someone to grind up to a competitive level. I kinda want to see what happens if you minmax into luck. It'd be hilarious to see someone kill themselves on shooting a completely immobile target because he has that much luck.

[@Despair1]

Aidan Truax GGO would've been a decent MMORPG, but they made the players look like idiots. 8 months of grinding and a random dude with a light saber can kill everyone.

[@richie_23]

honestly he would just be ambushed by those no scopers and quickscopers, and good lords bless that idiot with luck if they got an MG trap just for him

[@mariomaster4568]

Another thing you forget to mention is that due to there being glitches of fake deaths, someone could theoretically make themselves invincible by abusing that glitch. Oh and one more thing, because there is friendly fire, you can accidentally be killed by your own teamate, on accident, while your training IN THE DEATH GAME!

[@xtrafries123]

It's pretty funny if you think about how Player Killers in SAO use other players as a source of EXP... Forgetting the fact that Players are a finite resource because they can't respawn at all. Unless they're actually downright insane, they are literally endangering their already miniscule source of EXP.

[@LordMoldyButt18]

SAO Abridged > SAO

[@Michirin9801]

Slayers > Konosuba > SAO

[@ChromedioxidVS]

Log Horizon was a good anime anyways. I really enjoyed but the best thing about it was that it wasnt splitted into 2 arc where you are thrown into a new world with elves and shit.

[@kizuuwu7563]

Everything > SAO.

[@otisbannister5829]

TheRunningSnail18 true but sao is still auwesome

[@CrusesFear]

It's pretty funny when you realize that SAO Abridged actually solves tons of the problems of logic that SAO had xD

[@harald921]

"Having the menu being thought controlled would be infinitely more straightforward and easier to program!" As a programmer, this sentance made me groan in pain. I don't even know where to start. It's like saying creating a hyperspeed spaceship drive would be infinitely easier to create than a bicycle. Edit: Read my comment further down where I explain exactly what I mean, also sorry for sounding a bit smartassy in this comment.

[@mothersbasement]

+Harald Kanin so the entire game program is already reading the user's mind all the time for all game inputs. The hyperspeed spaceship has already been created and runs everything else. as a menu programmer, would you rather do it this way 1. Detect thought input 2. Manipulate menu Interface based on thought input Or this way 1. Detect thought input 2. Manipulate 3d model of arm based on thought input 3. Detect gesture inputs of 3D arm model 4. Program 3D menu interface to respond to these gestures and accept inputs via 3D collision data It's like the difference between putting a menu in super Mario that you control directly with the buttons and turning the menu into a series of platforms that you have to jump across in order to select things. It's needless overcomplication. To use your analogy, it's like taking your hyperspeed spaceship and trying to make it look and behave like a bicycle for no reason.

[@harald921]

Mother's Basement Alright, let me put it like this - creating a game like SAO would be physically and technologically impossible for a multitude of reasons. But if we ignore that fact, it would still be a pain beyond anything ever seen before to connect the "input" from the player to different actions, not to mention that the system in which this is done is not re-usable. Hang with me and I will explain. The system of "User Thought -> Movement" is already implemented. A user can modify the data which holds the rotation and position of the different joints of the users game character, via thought. Now that _that_ system is all implemented and done, lets tackle the UI system. What would be easier to implement - creating an entirely new system for getting input from thoughts (which just like the previous task, would require more work than mankind has put into every single action since forever to implement), or since that system is already implemented, process the data of the characters model, or more specifically - the data which the characters model uses. This means that we cut off a _huge_ amount of data being processed. All this being said, I do agree with the fact the UI is a disaster from a design perspective with all the drop down menues and such, I just screamed a little bit internally from the statement that the task which would make every human achievement seem bland in comparison would be easier to implement than something a half assed programmer could do in a couple of weeks.

[@angeldude101]

Wouldn't the first step be converting the brain signals into raw numbers? Those numbers are then used to control the 3D model, but can also be used to directly access options. When designing a controller, you don't test the joystick by having it move an avatar across the screen, you test it by printing out the raw values for the input: the X and Y coordinates of the stick. Only once those number match what you expect, then you try to move a cursor or avatar.

[@MrKelsomatic]

+Herald Kanin I was sort of annoyed at the initial comment, but your thought process is very reasonable and convincing. Especially since you made it clear you can agree the UI system is straight garbage town.

[@MrKelsomatic]

+angeldude101 In a way you're right, and this is sort of what I thought at first. Logically both brain signals for movement and brain signals for thoughts could be translated to raw data, the important thing to consider is the *amount* of raw data each would produce. A quick way to sum this up: Compare the brain capacity of an ant to a human being. Both can articulate their bodies to perform complex physical tasks, but the ant is a trillion lightyears away from sentient thought. Yes both can be converted to raw numbers, but the process of intercepting, translating, and interpreting these signals into discrete menu actions would be INCREDIBLY difficult and require and INCREDIBLE amount of processing power and time spent programming and developing the system/hardware. Hope this helps.

[@yasgamer]

"Chugging potion after potion just to stay alive" I did not want to be called out on my Monster Hunter playstyle.

[@nikodokars8315]

Wait, you manage to stay alive?!

[@BingQilin]

Me spamming revives during my first fight against Necrozma

[@NotRay1995]

The fact that the nervegear could sell less than the virtual boy is insane

[@redhawkfour]

“A level 1000 player could run around the starting area, killing noobs with no repercussions” Sounds like Elite Dangerous to me

[@lulu111_the_cool]

Not anymore

[@kiricappuchin]

Roblox Simulator games

[@NaviciaAbbot]

Last I played iRO, this was a thing.

[@Lokolopes7]

"Knowing where everything is in he map and where your oponents are going is more important than headshot accuracy" This is so true, you can check the story of Scream, a professional CSGO player who is meme for being so good at hitting one taps, but can't line up a smoke or molotov. And believe me his one taps are sick.

[@victorvirgili4447]

As a single-shot weapon fan, I can confirm, gamesense is THE most important thing in shooters. You don’t need good aim if you have all the time in the world to line up a shot on an unmoving target.

[@scarfie5877]

7:03 Me buying physical copies in 2022 be like:

[@indecisive_v]

sometimes i think back to a point made in this video about how the ui is designed- if you're in a tight spot during a fight and need to bring out a potion, you gotta open up and scroll through each painfully small dropdown menu until you find what you're looking for, and by then you're probably already dead. around the time i first saw this video, this point actually held up in sao: integral factor, funny enough! and i'm speaking from experience. i still vividly remember trying to clear one of the floor bosses and my health was dropping, so i opened up the menu to grab a potion (or several). now, quick note, the part about the drop down item list menu being really small and only showing like 4 items at once doesn't apply in sao:if. it's got a grid view with pages instead, so at the very least, i didn't have to deal with that half of the hassle. but the rest holds up- i was dead before i could turn one or two pages over :') didn't go back to that fight for a looong while i was grateful to learn later on that an update added a little shortcut button for consumable items. *nice little edit from more integral factor experience:* there's a bit in the story where the player and koharu (default name of the partner character) discover a hot spring on a late-game floor, but it doesn't open up until a quest is completed. koharu goes "oh ok then we can just complete it, we're good at the game" but turns out the quest has been taken by someone else... days ago. and _nobody else_ can take the quest. and the person who took it is clearly having a hard time since they've been at it for, like, 4 days. why? why make everyone have to bank on a single player finishing a quest to let _everyone_ access a nice little side feature? after the quest is completed (you and some others help the struggling player complete it), koharu and argo point out that anyone can walk in. at any time. with no repercussions. i don't know what happens if the player character is female, but if you're male they tell you to stay outside and stand guard. reminder: sao is a video game. why not just make it so you can't see/hear/feel players of the opposite sex in the hot spring? that way the boys can have their relaxing hot spring time and the girls can have theirs simultaneously, and neither are disturbing each other. and/or maybe make it so you have to give permission? update: nothing seems to change based on gender, if your character is a girl ig you still get left out of the "steamy girl talk". however you still get to marry koharu so if you're wlw you stay winning