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[Hasemo]

Will try the same thing with the 2HS later after I get the axe to 500.

I don't know about the Axe, but with 2HS raising the mastery is so fast, that it almost feels broken.

If your avatar is a female character will it let you use the maid outfit and such, or are those exclusive to the heroines like it Hollow Fragment?

Looks like it's just a regular armor you buy from the shop.
I can check it on my copy later - I completely forgot to download that DLC.

Is there a way of displaying more than 2 palette bars at once? I looked through the options but didn't find anything.

 

[manzo]

I just finished RE:Hollow Fragment a few weeks back. 141 hours spent, fucking loved every second of it. Started in the middle of January, playing 1.5 hours - 45 min almost every evening, such is the life of a father of two small kids. Best 5 euros I've ever spent on a video game!

I'm now thinking that should I just plow through Lost Song for continuity. I know LS is totally different from HF, so I'm not ready to put the same amount of time to it. I assume just doing the main game is around 30 hours? Or should I just continue to Hollow Realization?

 

[Parakeetman]

I just finished RE:Hollow Fragment a few weeks back. 141 hours spent, fucking loved every second of it. Started in the middle of January, playing 1.5 hours - 45 min almost every evening, such is the life of a father of two small kids. Best 5 euros I've ever spent on a video game!

I'm now thinking that should I just plow through Lost Song for continuity. I know LS is totally different from HF, so I'm not ready to put the same amount of time to it. I assume just doing the main game is around 30 hours? Or should I just continue to Hollow Realization?

Nah you can really skip Lost Song since honestly the game is pretty bad gameplay wise outside of the flying.

Just wait for Hollow Realization you would enjoy it a lot more.

I don't know about the Axe, but with 2HS raising the mastery is so fast, that it almost feels broken.

Is there a way of displaying more than 2 palette bars at once? I looked through the options but didn't find anything.

Im either going to go back to leveling the Katana or 2HS next. As there are some skills I need from both of those trees. Have some decent ones stored up that have been upgraded a bit also.

Dont think so for displaying more as the game doesnt seem to have that many options to customize the UI.

 

[Hasemo]

Is there any trick to leveling up 1HS? The gains are so slow compared to 2H that I'm thinking about ignoring dual wielding completely.

 

[Parakeetman]

Is there any trick to leveling up 1HS? The gains are so slow compared to 2H that I'm thinking about ignoring dual wielding completely.

Outside of attack up speed buffs not really.

That and constantly attacking things way higher than you. Since while attacking low lv enemies it will go up and such, attacking things closer to your level or higher seems to make it go faster.

Its too bad the sword skills do not seem to raise it as otherwise you could just spam multi-attack skills to raise the chances of it going up. Then again HF was the same way so guess they just left it as is. But at least now you have a bit more options since you do not have to rely on the games autoattack which took longer.

In short just do whatever you can to raise your attack speed and or find ways to cancel animations to perform attacks again faster. As every standard attack landed on an enemy has the chance to raise the skill lv.

 

[Hasemo]

Outside of attack up speed buffs not really.

That and constantly attacking things way higher than you. Since while attacking low lv enemies it will go up and such, attacking things closer to your level or higher seems to make it go faster.

Its too bad the sword skills do not seem to raise it as otherwise you could just spam multi-attack skills to raise the chances of it going up. Then again HF was the same way so guess they just left it as is. But at least now you have a bit more options since you do not have to rely on the games autoattack which took longer.

In short just do whatever you can to raise your attack speed and or find ways to cancel animations to perform attacks again faster. As every standard attack landed on an enemy has the chance to raise the skill lv.

So just what I was afraid of, bummer. I got my 1HS skill to 200 in the Early Access, but where I am right now (second half? of the 4th area), only NMs are above me, so everything is dying extremely fast. Oh well, I'll just keep using that 1HS/shield combo I found when fighting everything other than NMs ~10 levels above me, I guess.
I still don't understand why the gains have been so much more consistent with the 2HS - maybe because you attack much slower the chance for a gain is higher, but they did a poor job of balancing it so in the end you master the weapon much faster? Getting 2HS to 1000 was a cakewalk. On the other hand, I did most of it while fighting strong monsters, so maybe that's the reason.

Tried some more multiplayer yesterday, even less rooms than before and only 1 with green ping. An interesting thing is that you can actually sort rooms by regions, so I assume the game has worldwide multiplayer in all versions.

For people asking about the maid armor - like I posted before, it's just an armor you can buy in a store, I believe multiple times, too. Haven't changed the gender of my character to female to see if I can wear it then.

 

[Parakeetman]

So just what I was afraid of, bummer. I got my 1HS skill to 200 in the Early Access, but where I am right now (second half? of the 4th area), only NMs are above me, so everything is dying extremely fast. Oh well, I'll just keep using that 1HS/shield combo I found when fighting everything other than NMs ~10 levels above me, I guess.
I still don't understand why the gains have been so much more consistent with the 2HS - maybe because you attack much slower the chance for a gain is higher, but they did a poor job of balancing it so in the end you master the weapon much faster? Getting 2HS to 1000 was a cakewalk. On the other hand, I did most of it while fighting strong monsters, so maybe that's the reason.

Tried some more multiplayer yesterday, even less rooms than before and only 1 with green ping. An interesting thing is that you can actually sort rooms by regions, so I assume the game has worldwide multiplayer in all versions.

For people asking about the maid armor - like I posted before, it's just an armor you can buy in a store, I believe multiple times, too. Haven't changed the gender of my character to female to see if I can wear it then.

Yeah they did the MMO formula again where stronger monsters = higher gain chance. Weaker stuff its a lot less with the 1HS type of weapons. At least thats what it seems like.

 

[desmax]

Hey, Hollow Fragment got an update (At least on PS4) that enables an option called "Upload Save Data"; in which you can use it in Hollow Realization for something.

I'd recommend people do that

 

[Parakeetman]

Hey, Hollow Fragment got an update (At least on PS4) that enables an option called "Upload Save Data"; in which you can use it in Hollow Realization for something.

I'd recommend people do that

The game has an option where it looks for save data from HF and LS. No idea what they do as this PS4 did not have my data from those games as was on the old system that died.

 

[desmax]

The game has an option where it looks for save data from HF and LS. No idea what they do as this PS4 did not have my data from those games as was on the old system that died.

Yeah. Seems like you can upload them to the cloud for usage in HR now.
Wonder if Lost Song will get patched. Don't have the game anymore

 

[Hasemo]

Transferring saves to HR gives you items.

I patched my copy of Re: HF and transferred the data. Honestly I didn't pay attention afterwards and probably sold the item I got already (if it's possible).

 

[Parakeetman]

Yeah. Seems like you can upload them to the cloud for usage in HR now.
Wonder if Lost Song will get patched. Don't have the game anymore

No idea since LS is a totally different dev than HF / HR

 

[rubes7844]

What a shame that the PS4 version is being hamstrung because of the vita. Should've left it behind.

 

[Parakeetman]

What a shame that the PS4 version is being hamstrung because of the vita. Should've left it behind.

Pretty much.

 

[Hasemo]

The sad part is that because of the scope of the game, the Vita version seems to be running worse than HF in more heated situations, so in the end no one aside from people getting money from the cross platform release wins.

Fingers crossed for a PS4 Pro patch, and I'm only half joking.

 

[Parakeetman]

The sad part is that because of the scope of the game, the Vita version seems to be running worse than HF in more heated situations, so in the end no one aside from people getting money from the cross platform release wins.

Fingers crossed for a PS4 Pro patch, and I'm only half joking.

Somehow I wonder if they will bother with a PS4 Pro patch till the team is done with the free content and DLC stuff first.

Especially seeing how this games code would be tied with a bunch of Vita related stuff too which might possibly mean more work than necessary if this was a PS4 only title.

HF in general never was anything impressive performance wise back on the Vita. And was proof that 60FPS doesnt solve anything as all it does for games which are not actually made for 60FPS is speed up animations making everything look unnatural.

Im not even sure what one would expect from a Pro patch as there are far more important issues that need to be addressed first than something as minor as a tiny performance boost. As Pro anything isnt going to fix the uninspired character facial models / hair / armor models / weird plastic looking armor, texture effect etc.

Though this game was most def made with the PS4 in mind first though and due to that its no wonder why the Vita freaks out. Then again most folks who played HF on the vita should not be surprised considering its not like HF had great performance either. Which to be fair we can imagine part of that too has to do with the games base code originating from the PSP Infinity Moment.

People have no idea of what real bad framerate is as thats Phantasy Star Nova with a particular boss as the shit turned into a literal slideshow. That seriously had to be single digit framerates with how bad it was. Normally something like that should fail in the TRC. Am sure they patched that by now.

 

[Frozenprince]

Dammit Parakeet...

Not getting anymore Log Horizon hurts, man.

On Topic - I'm really excited for this game, two weeks out!

I would love a Log Horizon game /aside

 

[Parakeetman]

I would love a Log Horizon game /aside

With the legal mess that the creator of the series set aside, pretty much Aquaria would be the only company Id trust to do it correctly. Since they are one of the few companies that have been able to actually recreate the pseudo mmo system with its combat in Hollow Fragment. Which fits with Log Horizon since that series also is very skill heavy, though instead of weapons the skill trees would be determined by the job and sub-jobs of the characters instead. As Log Horizon really was a good setting to be turned into a game. Though unless its a dev like Aquaria I was always worried it would be some garbage throwaway ADV game instead, like most "Anime" game projects.

Still though its too bad about what happened since makes it a lot harder for companies to want to touch the series itself due to the legal issues involved with the creator. So dont really see anything happening anytime soon. The spinoff manga stuff still sort of seems alive, not sure about the light novel mainline series am not sure of since I dont follow the LN scene.

 

[Hasemo]

Somehow I wonder if they will bother with a PS4 Pro patch till the team is done with the free content and DLC stuff first.

Especially seeing how this games code would be tied with a bunch of Vita related stuff too which might possibly mean more work than necessary if this was a PS4 only title.

HF in general never was anything impressive performance wise back on the Vita. And was proof that 60FPS doesnt solve anything as all it does for games which are not actually made for 60FPS is speed up animations making everything look unnatural.

Im not even sure what one would expect from a Pro patch as there are far more important issues that need to be addressed first than something as minor as a tiny performance boost. As Pro anything isnt going to fix the uninspired character facial models / hair / armor models / weird plastic looking armor, texture effect etc.

Though this game was most def made with the PS4 in mind first though and due to that its no wonder why the Vita freaks out. Then again most folks who played HF on the vita should not be surprised considering its not like HF had great performance either. Which to be fair we can imagine part of that too has to do with the games base code originating from the PSP Infinity Moment.

People have no idea of what real bad framerate is as thats Phantasy Star Nova with a particular boss as the shit turned into a literal slideshow. That seriously had to be single digit framerates with how bad it was. Normally something like that should fail in the TRC. Am sure they patched that by now.

Oh I'm not expecting any kind of a PS4 Pro patch from them, hence saying I'm joking (the half joking part is because I'd be happy if there was one).

The game would be just fine and 60 fps in the first field feels really good, but the drops in later areas make those less enjoyable to explore.

I remember PS Nova having big framerate problems (cleared the whole thing right after the release iirc), but at least those happened during huge boss fights with explosions and particles effects on the screen. I think all performance problems with HR happened during exploration, sometimes in weird locations (being close to a wall etc.), so at least it doesn't affect the combat, but it makes them even weirder.

 

[Frozenprince]

With the legal mess that the creator of the series set aside, pretty much Aquaria would be the only company Id trust to do it correctly. Since they are one of the few companies that have been able to actually recreate the pseudo mmo system with its combat in Hollow Fragment. Which fits with Log Horizon since that series also is very skill heavy, though instead of weapons the skill trees would be determined by the job and sub-jobs of the characters instead. As Log Horizon really was a good setting to be turned into a game. Though unless its a dev like Aquaria I was always worried it would be some garbage throwaway ADV game instead, like most "Anime" game projects.

Still though its too bad about what happened since makes it a lot harder for companies to want to touch the series itself due to the legal issues involved with the creator. So dont really see anything happening anytime soon. The spinoff manga stuff still sort of seems alive, not sure about the light novel mainline series am not sure of since I dont follow the LN scene.

As far as i know Yen Press hasn't stopped carrying the books so, it's not totally dead.

 

[perorist]

Didn't manage to play too much over the weekend due to being busy, but after hearing about weapon mastery balance issues and such, I'm considering just waiting for the 20 hr content patch that will also include changes/fixes based on player feedback that's supposed to drop before the end of the year before continuing.

 

[Parakeetman]

Didn't manage to play too much over the weekend due to being busy, but after hearing about weapon mastery balance issues and such, I'm considering just waiting for the 20 hr content patch that will also include changes/fixes based on player feedback that's supposed to drop before the end of the year before continuing.

Nah weapon mastery is a lot faster in this game than hollow fragment thats for sure. I doubt they would raise it any more or else you will be maxing out everything before progressing far into the game.

So I wouldnt worry about it too much. That and if you are not one that makes use of every single skill available even more so it should not be that much of an issue.

As honestly from the way I see it, its really a non issue.

Since even at the start of the game if you take the time out to do it its not that bad getting weapons to 500. Not the most exciting thing to do but its highly possible. Which when done you can unlock the final move for said weapon thats if you choose to go down the weapon skill path instead of picking up the other active skills and such. Maxing things out is more to get all the possible skill points to spend and such is the basics of it.

 

[Hasemo]

Didn't manage to play too much over the weekend due to being busy, but after hearing about weapon mastery balance issues and such, I'm considering just waiting for the 20 hr content patch that will also include changes/fixes based on player feedback that's supposed to drop before the end of the year before continuing.

It felt just fine in the Early Access version, where I got Scimitar and 1HS to 200, which was the maximum for that version. It only started bothering me when 2HS turned out to be much faster, but that's pretty much it. Like Parakeetman said, don't worry about it.

Currently I'm in the 4th area (I think there are 5 total?) with 30+ hours played and haven't came across any stuff that seriously bothered me, aside from things which are going to be fixed in the 11.16 patch (NPC AI, weird flow of conversations with NPCs).

Edit:
I just remembered that there's a really weird way to move a bit faster on the field (aside from using movement+ skills/potions). With your weapon sheathed, when running, jump and press triangle. The kunai throwing animation moves you forward in the air. Pro strats right there, lol.

 

[Parakeetman]

It really is too bad that they did not add more weapon types. Unless the bow class is hidden along with claws. Though dont have much hopes for that. Since with how the party makeup is larger than HF having a ranged support character would have been nice. Even a weapon type like a wand or staff that would have allowed for magic use.

Though seeing as how the games setting is supposed to basically be the world of SAO explains why all of the weapon types and skills are mostly the same.

Something fresh I imagine folks would have appreciated as we already had all of these weapon types in HF.

 

[Hasemo]

Did some more story today, destroying all NMs along the way. At this point even those 10+ levels above me are not a problem, and that is while using the throwaway 1HS/Shield which I use for leveling up the weapon to get dual wielding. Can't really complain, since HNMs are still there if I'm looking for a challenge. Too bad those sometimes hit like a truck without much of a tell, depending on the monster type. At least I can survive 1-3 hits at this point.

Got myself some neat shoes from Episode Execution today. I hate equipment with -HP, but since the stat gains are really good, I'll roll with them for a while.

Edit:
I was thinking about the ways of getting equipment pieces of certain rarity recently. Since the game isn't a full on loot game like Diablo, you get a certain type of items from certain sources, so the information might be useful to people.
Correct me if I'm wrong, since I might be misremembering some things.

Rarity levels: White, Purple, Blue, Green.
For some reason the designers decide to not use the good old WoW order, so it might be confusing to some.

Weapons:
White - you buy them from the store in town.
Purple - you can get them from red chests protected by NMs. I can't remember if they drop from Blue chests protected by regular monsters.
Blue - haven't seen a blue weapon yet.
Green - drop from HNMs. Only defeated the first one so far, but I assume it's the same for others.

Armor, accessories:
White - you buy them from the store in town.
Purple - blue chests protected by regular monsters, red chest appearing after some Episode Fragments.
Blue - raid boss rewards, Episode Execution silver chests.
Green - so far the only one I've seen was the DLC maid outfit and it can be purchased from the store.

If there are any corrections or additional information regarding the above, like information about Blue Weapons or corrections regarding Episode Fragment/Blue Chest contents (I don't think I've seen a weapon in those, but I might be wrong), let me know and I'll update the list.

 

[aitakute]

What the heck?

 

[Abdiel]

What the heck?

Oh no. Why. Why.

Please tell me they didn't deliberately invoke that.

The series had quietly buried it...

 

[StrikeZero]

What the heck?

What's the link to that contest? I want to win.

 

[Hasemo]

Unrelated to the above...

Patch 1.03 fixing weird pacing in NPC conversations and improving NPC AI was supposed to come out on November 16th, but for some reason it came out today. It doesn't contain the extra dungeon - that one is going to come in patch 1.04, planned for November 17th.

As for the changes, it's hard to tell, but if the NPC dialogue pacing is better, it's not by much. Still feels weird and has the awkward pause. My NPC also kept dodging back into AoE, so not much has changed in the AI department.
A weird bug happened to me after the patch, luckily only once - 2 lines of the log stayed displayed on the screen even when the log itself wasn't shown. They disappeared during a visual novel cutscene, but were back right after. Even warping to the city where the long isn't displayed didn't help. Luckily, restarting the game did.

I was able to down another level 100+ HNM, this time a hammer wielding lv 104 enemy. Sadly, all I got from it was another green Scimitar. Give me a 2HS, damn it!

Had 2 battles against very "hard" (as in high defense) NMs, one level 80, one 56 (I'm currently 46) and uh, the game's hit detection is sometimes a bit wonky. The enemy shoots a laser in front of it, and I get hit despite staying beside it, outside of the aoe zone. Oh well, I was able to defeat both of them, so all's good.

Edit:
After defeating 2 more HNMs I got a green spear (yawn) and finally a decent 2HS!

Despite the -STR, it's much stronger than my previous one and I have 66k HP with buffs on. I think I overdid it with the level/equipment, because the 4th area raid boss died in about 3 short combos...

 

[Hasemo]

Finished the story and all character sidequests (those with non-hidden trophies at least).
Took me about 51 hours and in the end I was level 54. By the way, that's way too high. Bosses were dying in a few OSS, without really being able to damage me.

There doesn't seem to be any post game exclusive content, I guess all that's left is grinding - weapon masteries, multiplayer and hunting HNMs for weapons etc. waiting for the new dungeon to be added on November 17th.

All in all, I enjoyed the game, but at some point I realized it's because it's mostly because I like soloing in MMOs. If you look at most elements of the game, they're mediocre. It's not a looker, the story is good only if you consider SAO story good. I don't and aside from the interesting premise, it failed to make me care about the characters or the world, which made the later part of the game fall flat narration wise. Character sidequests were pure fanservice, but I guess I shouldn't be complaining about it, since that's what "character games" are.

Gameplay was okay, although it felt a bit clunky. I hope some of the junk will be polished through continuous updates.

All this said, the game felt better than the sum of it parts and I'm glad I gave it a shot after being disappointed in Hollow Fragment and Lost Song. If you liked those, you'll probably be in love with HR, ha ha.

I haven't tried any multiplayer, since joining random people seems to be hard, because of the small number of players, but I'll probably check it out later, if only to get to level 70 faster than by defeating HNM adds and doing Episodes.
I also barely did anything to raise affection with NPCs, so I can't really say anything about that part.

My equipment when I finished the story:

Edit:
Tried the multiplayer mode, both with others and alone.
As someone mentioned earlier, the multiplayer part of the game is just running around maps with other players, defeating enemies and grabbing loot. Locations/warp points are the same as in single player, but I guess some NMs etc. are harder.
I think all or most rooms I saw had passwords, so I decided to make my own. 3 other players joined quite quickly, but in the end we weren't able to go on a quest, so 2 of them left and I started with 1 other person. The other player was quite laggy, especially while running, but since I was the host (or at least I think that is the reason), monsters behaved normally. Or maybe monster attacks are all done client side? Who knows.
Anyway, it's nothing to write home about, a lv 120 HNM bested us, but the whole experience wasn't that much better than playing alone. I guess with a group of friends and voice chat it might be fun, but to be honest I'm already kind of tired of all those maps, so running through them again doesn't sound that appealing.

After the above, I tried some multiplayer alone, first on the HARD (recommended for players around lv 50) and then on the DEATH GAME difficulty (~70 lv). I have to say, that being able to do this any time makes getting to the maximum character level extremely easy. Level 70 monsters can be defeated with 0 problem even around level 30-40 if you have decent equipment and since they give a few hundred xp per kill, if I'm ever bored I guess I'll spend an hour or two and jump to lv 70.
I honestly don't recommend it if you haven't finished the story yet, since going through areas while one-two hit killing everything is very boring, especially given the size of the locations and the amount of backtracking.

 

[metalmachine]

I'm completely new to the anime and game series. My brother told me about the plot of the anime and it sounds pretty awesome. I'd like to catch up a bit before playing Hollow Realization so I'm looking for a recommendation for a site that I can read the story of Hollow Fragment. I don't have the time to play the previous games or watch a ton of anime in a short time frame.

Surprisingly couldn't find much online or in the Wikia for the full story of Hollow Fragment.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Parakeetman]

I'm completely new to the anime and game series. My brother told me about the plot of the anime and it sounds pretty awesome. I'd like to catch up a bit before playing Hollow Realization so I'm looking for a recommendation for a site that I can read the story of Hollow Fragment. I don't have the time to play the previous games or watch a ton of anime in a short time frame.

Surprisingly couldn't find much online or in the Wikia for the full story of Hollow Fragment.

Any help would be appreciated.

Yeah just did a quick search too and there does not seem to be any real summary of the game and events outside of what you already seemed to have found with the SAO Wiki.

 

[Doombear]

I'm completely new to the anime and game series. My brother told me about the plot of the anime and it sounds pretty awesome. I'd like to catch up a bit before playing Hollow Realization so I'm looking for a recommendation for a site that I can read the story of Hollow Fragment. I don't have the time to play the previous games or watch a ton of anime in a short time frame.

Surprisingly couldn't find much online or in the Wikia for the full story of Hollow Fragment.

Any help would be appreciated.

I think that tvtropes.org has recaps of all the anime episodes, Seasons One and Two. If anything, knowing a bit more about the actual characters may be more useful. I couldn't find much of a recap from Hollow Fragment, but from what I remember from playing it it lined up with season 1, around episode 10 I think? Then it goes from there for the floor clearing bits. The Hollow area is something different. There are a few odd things like characters from Season 2 showing up in Hollow Fragment before they were around in the series.

I think if I were you, I'd check out these places and read up on the story and characters. Show spoilers... obviously.

tvtropes.org SAO Recap

SAO Wikia - Hollow Fragment

and even

SAO Infinity Moment (the game prior to Hollow Fragment)

Hasemo, thanks again for your impressions. I am pretty excited for this game having enjoyed Hollow Fragment for a good chunk of time. I too have always enjoyed soloing in MMOs. BST 1-73ish solo in FFXI and those are some of the best memories I have gaming-wise. =P I hope that the junkier aspects don't trip me up. Thanks again, especially for the update on multiplayer as it has been very difficult to really find out what that entails exactly and I have a couple friends that will be picking this up due to my pestering them about it.

 

[Parakeetman]

I think that tvtropes.org has recaps of all the anime episodes, Seasons One and Two. If anything, knowing a bit more about the actual characters may be more useful. I couldn't find much of a recap from Hollow Fragment, but from what I remember from playing it it lined up with season 1, around episode 10 I think? Then it goes from there for the floor clearing bits. The Hollow area is something different. There are a few odd things like characters from Season 2 showing up in Hollow Fragment before they were around in the series.

I think if I were you, I'd check out these places and read up on the story and characters. Show spoilers... obviously.

tvtropes.org SAO Recap

SAO Wikia - Hollow Fragment

and even

SAO Infinity Moment (the game prior to Hollow Fragment)

Hasemo, thanks again for your impressions. I am pretty excited for this game having enjoyed Hollow Fragment for a good chunk of time. I too have always enjoyed soloing in MMOs. BST 1-73ish solo in FFXI and those are some of the best memories I have gaming-wise. =P I hope that the junkier aspects don't trip me up. Thanks again, especially for the update on multiplayer as it has been very difficult to really find out what that entails exactly and I have a couple friends that will be picking this up due to my pestering them about it.

Oh I see you played as the class that nobody wanted to party with in FFXI no wonder why you had to solo lol. A good friend from a guild I was in did the exact same thing. Even in Japan it was a running joke with the BST class. I was a Thief / Ninja hybrid so I pretty much couldnt really solo even if I wanted to back in the old days of the game. Believe me I tried and it ended poorly. D:

Nah with this game even if your AI friends drop dead the only real bad thing that happens is you just lose distractions for the enemy to target so it becomes all on you lol
Oh yeah that and the fact that if you die when your AI partners are dead too thats a trip back to town.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

So the online multiplayer isnt necessary for completing and understanding the game or its story?

 

[Parakeetman]

So the online multiplayer isnt necessary for completing and understanding the game or its story?

The game is mainly a single player experience. Online is just for coop basically.

 

[manzo]

What the heck?

Ahahahaha you have got to be kidding me!

Nah you can really skip Lost Song since honestly the game is pretty bad gameplay wise outside of the flying.

Just wait for Hollow Realization you would enjoy it a lot more.

Check, thanks.

 

[NeOak]

So uh, saw the preorder bonus with the maid outfit and uh... the other outfit.

Any chance that will be included in the season pass or it will be forever a preorder bonus?

My backlog is so big that if I buy the game now, I won't be able to get it to it for at least a year (still have to finish HF on Vita, PS4 and LS on PS4 D: ).

So i'll probably pick up this in a sale D:

 

[dragonflys545]

Does this game have a big learning curve? I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicle X and it's way too much stuff to figure out for the amount of time I have playing video games.

 

[Doombear]

Oh I see you played as the class that nobody wanted to party with in FFXI no wonder why you had to solo lol.

Haha! I didn't know! I just thought it sounded fun, so I started there. Galka to boot. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ I had clearly had no idea that I was dooming myself in several different ways from the outset as far as grouping went =)

That said, it was a blast... for years. We even had an all BST + SMN Linkshell that made it to gods. Good shit. I did group for WHM sub leveling though, those are the nightmare times. Oh Dunes, you are not missed. I digress...

Good to know about AI deaths. I want the game to be challenging. Needing to watch timers, position for AoEs etc. Sounds like Legendary farming and skilling is going to be a grind, but oh well. Part of the fun sometimes. I'm excited for next week! I never played RE: HF, only the original, so even knowing this isn't going to blow me away graphically, I am still excited to play it on PS4 over the Vita. Happy they are already patching things there though too, as I am not entirely ruling out buying both if I like the game.

 

[Parakeetman]

So uh, saw the preorder bonus with the maid outfit and uh... the other outfit.

Any chance that will be included in the season pass or it will be forever a preorder bonus?

My backlog is so big that if I buy the game now, I won't be able to get it to it for at least a year (still have to finish HF on Vita, PS4 and LS on PS4 D: ).

So i'll probably pick up this in a sale D:

Am not sure on that actually. If BanNams US Twitter account answers questions by users often you might want to check with them on that. As I personally have no way of confirming anything unfortunately. Good question though.

Does this game have a big learning curve? I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicle X and it's way too much stuff to figure out for the amount of time I have playing video games.

Yeah this game there is a bit more of a learning curve in the sense that there are more skills to use. So a bit of reading is required to look through the different weapon skill trees and figure out what you want to level up to obtain what skills that will match with your playstyle.

Its even more overwhelming if one is not as familiar with basic ideas behind MMORPG type of combat. As the game uses things like hate management, DPS, etc. Granted combat is action based, you will have to be dealing with using a lot of different skills as well to make the most of your experience.

Lot more skills than Xenoblade but if you can play Xenoblade you should be able to still play this hopefully. One other thing is this game does not really have a tutorial either unfortunately so its going to be a bit of a meat grinder for new players to the series until they get used to how the various mechanics work.

Haha! I didn't know! I just thought it sounded fun, so I started there. Galka to boot. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ I had clearly had no idea that I was dooming myself in several different ways from the outset as far as grouping went =)

That said, it was a blast... for years. We even had an all BST + SMN Linkshell that made it to gods. Good shit. I did group for WHM sub leveling though, those are the nightmare times. Oh Dunes, you are not missed. I digress...

Good to know about AI deaths. I want the game to be challenging. Needing to watch timers, position for AoEs etc. Sounds like Legendary farming and skilling is going to be a grind, but oh well. Part of the fun sometimes. I'm excited for next week! I never played RE: HF, only the original, so even knowing this isn't going to blow me away graphically, I am still excited to play it on PS4 over the Vita. Happy they are already patching things there though too, as I am not entirely ruling out buying both if I like the game.

I think the most interesting character we ever ran into on occasion was a Galka Bard. Just looked so odd when he would sing lol was hilarious too that the SE for the voice when singing was all deep. Not sure if this was just the default for male characters but highly amusing none the less.

Oh yeah the game can be challenging and as usual they do give you the tools to take down higher level monsters if you are willing to put the time in chipping away at them. At the same time too you can get kinda screwed with dealing out 0 damage if your damage output drops too low due to debuffs causing the monsters def to basically negate any attacks lol. Since a lot of debuffs last a while in this game kinda sucks when that happens. With buffs and debuffs in this game, it treats them as separate skills just a single stats buff / debuff. Which means like for the example I gave at the start of this paragraph is the reason why you can get stuck with more than 1 attack down debuff making you deal out hilariously low damage. On the up side also means that you can stack buffs too.

Yeah with the patches and game balance based off of feedback that the devs do, can expect things to improve over time. Plus besides the paid DLC, the large free content update should be worth looking forward to also. As hopefully they will do a good job with it similar to the one they did for Hollow Fragment.

 

[chrono01]

So uh, saw the preorder bonus with the maid outfit and uh... the other outfit.

Any chance that will be included in the season pass or it will be forever a preorder bonus?

My backlog is so big that if I buy the game now, I won't be able to get it to it for at least a year (still have to finish HF on Vita, PS4 and LS on PS4 D: ).

So i'll probably pick up this in a sale D:

I'd like to know this too. I really like that DLC, but my backlog is pretty large right now, and I have FFXV coming up later this month. :/

 

[Hasemo]

Nah with this game even if your AI friends drop dead the only real bad thing that happens is you just lose distractions for the enemy to target so it becomes all on you lol
Oh yeah that and the fact that if you die when your AI partners are dead too thats a trip back to town.

The worst thing about your partner NPCs dying is losing access to party wide combo sword skills (L1+Triangle). They are so stupidly powerful, that fights with even with very strong NMs fights can end in 2-3 of those. So if you're left alone, the fights just become longer and more tedious (since the difficulty doesn't really change if you're fighting something which hits like a truck anyway).
That said, from one point, especially when fighting lv 80 NMs and all those HNMs, I stopped resurrecting my party members at all. The chance for a combo to work was really low anyway, since my party would die of the AI stupidity, and aside from a few monsters with high DEF, my damage alone was enough for the fights to take no longer than 5-10 min.

 

[Parakeetman]

I'd like to know this too. I really like that DLC, but my backlog is pretty large right now, and I have FFXV coming up later this month. :/

Yeah as mentioned best bet will be for you guys to bug Bandai Namco or whatever twitter SAO:HR is using in the West with that question for an answer. No way to tell otherwise right now. D:

The worst thing about your partner NPCs dying is losing access to party wide combo sword skills (L1+Triangle). They are so stupidly powerful, that fights with even with very strong NMs fights can end in 2-3 of those. So if you're left alone, the fights just become longer and more tedious (since the difficulty doesn't really change if you're fighting something which hits like a truck anyway).
That said, from one point, especially when fighting lv 80 NMs and all those HNMs, I stopped resurrecting my party members at all. The chance for a combo to work was really low anyway, since my party would die of the AI stupidity, and aside from a few monsters with high DEF, my damage alone was enough for the fights to take no longer than 5-10 min.

Considering with the Risk system gone and being replaced with that damage multiplier bar thing that personally I dont like as much yeah you lose out on that extra damage from the chain combos + damage multiplier. Then again you are more likely to get hit or killed if you are having to constantly rez the AI that might not even stay alive for a minute after being picked up again. So if its an enemy where they are constantly dying its a waste of time for the most part. The AIs buffering is too stupid to work correctly right after they have been rezzed anyways due to the dumbass "shaking it off" animation they all go through right after getting up.

 

[Hasemo]

yeah you lose out on that extra damage from the chain combos + damage multiplier.

Wait, am I misunderstanding something? I was sure that the damage multiplayer is something which only our attacks raise or at least that you're the only one that can keep it from disappearing when playing with NPCs. Like even if the NPCs keep attacking, if you don't get hits in it will reset to 1 again.

Also, I didn't mind the "shake off animation" too much, because it felt like it had long enough invincibility frames that NPCs wouldn't die until they could dodge. The fact that they don't always react to the dodge command fast enough is another story...

 

[Parakeetman]

Wait, am I misunderstanding something? I was sure that the damage multiplayer is something which only our attacks raise or at least that you're the only one that can keep it from disappearing when playing with NPCs. Like even if the NPCs keep attacking, if you don't get hits in it will reset to 1 again.

Also, I didn't mind the "shake off animation" too much, because it felt like it had long enough invincibility frames that NPCs wouldn't die until they could dodge. The fact that they don't always react to the dodge command fast enough is another story...

Its fucking useless the shake off animation as it fucks up the timing of getting them to move the hell out of the way and wastes time in general and raises the chance of being hit by another attack right after said animation wears off. As stated the AIs buffering is garbage so on occasions they will not even respond to the dodge command inputted after the effect wears off.

 

[tiny raptor]

No tutorial?

 

[Parakeetman]

No tutorial?

School of hard knocks son. Best education ever lol

 

[Dedication Through Light]

I dont remember Kirito ever mentioning SAO had a tutorial.

 

[tiny raptor]

I dont remember Kirito ever mentioning SAO had a tutorial.

It's a video game, dude.