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Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization |OT| - Just living in the Database Wow Wow

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Iirc I got 1 crash during my 50+ hours with the game. To be honest, hearing about all the Pro problems with different games, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason.
 

Abdiel

Member
Iirc I got 1 crash during my 50+ hours with the game. To be honest, hearing about all the Pro problems with different games, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason.

I'm playing on the Pro as well, and I haven't had any crashes in the 8-10 hours I've been playing so far. Not even a hiccup yet.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
So SSCs changed my life. I didn't realize you could combo Sword Skills like that.

E: Any reason I should save the lower star variants of items I find? Like if I find a 5* sword in a chest, are the 1-4* versions OK to dump?
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
So SSCs changed my life. I didn't realize you could combo Sword Skills like that.

E: Any reason I should save the lower star variants of items I find? Like if I find a 5* sword in a chest, are the 1-4* versions OK to dump?

Just trash them. Since its so easy to get more once you are familiar enough with the game. Go collect your pennies for selling them to the vendor lol

Yes OSSs basically break the game once you master it. The vid in the OP is a clear example of that.

JP Player Breaking the game with 2HS OSS (Original Sword Skill) Combo

Question does the Western version still have that fucking stupid "Successfully" displayed when you complete quests and objectives?
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
Just trash them. Since its so easy to get more once you are familiar enough with the game. Go collect your pennies for selling them to the vendor lol

Yes SSCs basically break the game once you master it. The vid in the OP is a clear example of that.

JP Player Breaking the game with 2HS OSS (Original Sword Skill) Combo

Question does the Western version still have that fucking stupid "Successfully" displayed when you complete quests and objectives?

Man, 200%+ is just silly damage. I need to get more SP and SP regen. I'm working on leveling Rapier for Quick Skill. At that point, I'm going to go back to 1h Sword to start working on unlocking Dual Wield. I also dropped Healer EX for Attacker EX because Hyper Armor seems broken as shit.

E: Also, when will I find armor better than the Maid outfit? Everything I've found up to now has paled in comparison.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Good to know you can chain the same 2 (3?) skills over and over for OSS. I was meaning to try it when I was playing but completely forgot.

I'm kind of excited for that dungeon update coming out tomorrow (if nothing changed) for the Japanese version. I wonder how fun it will be.

Edit:
Oh, the 1.04 update is out on Thursday (11.17), not Wednesday.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I posted this on GameFAQs, but I'm hoping someone here can help.

I've been tinkering with a bunch of various skills, but I'm finding that some skill descriptions give me almost no help in terms of understanding what they actually do.

Skill Descriptions

  • Overdrive Rapier: Skill Duration Up +100% / 2min. - I tried casting this followed by random buffs and saw no benefit. What is Skill Duration Up?
  • Shooting Star Rapier: (Mob) Bind -100% - What does Bind -100% even mean? I'm assuming it's like rooting them in place? So does -100% mean root where something like -50% would be slowed? But I thought there was a Slow debuff?
  • Zekku Katana: (Mob) Bleed Lv1 -15 - Is there information on what each level of status effect does? It's clear that Level 1 is not as good as Level 2, but by how much? Also, what is the -15 in this case? It shows up on other skills as -90 or something similar, but that doesn't mean anything to me.
  • Deadly Sins (Mob) Attack Down -105% - Maybe this goes back to me not quite knowing what each + or - is supposed to actually represent. That would make me think the enemy actually has negative attack for a 420 seconds.
  • Variable Hero Attacker EX: SSC Unlocked +16 - Not a clue what this means.

SSC and OSS
So my first question is how do you continue to chain SSC? I was trying to chain 1H Sword Horizontal Arc with Slant, and it worked twice. Arc -> Slant -> Arc. But after that, there was no blue cross to indicate a new SSC was available. Is there a limit to how many chains you can make?

Also, what is OSS? I see people talking about it but I'm not sure what that means.

E: I can't believe I've already put 20 hours into this game. Turning into one of my favorite games in a long ass time.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I posted this on GameFAQs, but I'm hoping someone here can help.

I've been tinkering with a bunch of various skills, but I'm finding that some skill descriptions give me almost no help in terms of understanding what they actually do.

Skill Descriptions

  • Overdrive Rapier: Skill Duration Up +100% / 2min. - I tried casting this followed by random buffs and saw no benefit. What is Skill Duration Up?
  • Shooting Star Rapier: (Mob) Bind -100% - What does Bind -100% even mean? I'm assuming it's like rooting them in place? So does -100% mean root where something like -50% would be slowed? But I thought there was a Slow debuff?
  • Zekku Katana: (Mob) Bleed Lv1 -15 - Is there information on what each level of status effect does? It's clear that Level 1 is not as good as Level 2, but by how much? Also, what is the -15 in this case? It shows up on other skills as -90 or something similar, but that doesn't mean anything to me.
  • Deadly Sins (Mob) Attack Down -105% - Maybe this goes back to me not quite knowing what each + or - is supposed to actually represent. That would make me think the enemy actually has negative attack for a 420 seconds.
  • Variable Hero Attacker EX: SSC Unlocked +16 - Not a clue what this means.

SSC and OSS
So my first question is how do you continue to chain SSC? I was trying to chain 1H Sword Horizontal Arc with Slant, and it worked twice. Arc -> Slant -> Arc. But after that, there was no blue cross to indicate a new SSC was available. Is there a limit to how many chains you can make?

Also, what is OSS? I see people talking about it but I'm not sure what that means.

E: I can't believe I've already put 20 hours into this game. Turning into one of my favorite games in a long ass time.

Sword Skill Combos are basically when you and your friends or AI partners do sword skills that cause an additional effect with high amounts of damage usually included.

Original Sword Skill is chaining together sword skills. What you are talking about is OSS.

As SSCs are done with other characters.

Until you master a weapon you are only able to do up to 3 links with an OSS. Skills that have OSS+ are the ones that allow for further linking?
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
Sword Skill Combos are basically when you and your friends or AI partners do sword skills that cause an additional effect with high amounts of damage usually included.

Original Sword Skill is chaining together sword skills. What you are talking about is OSS.

As SSCs are done with other characters.

Until you master a weapon you are only able to do up to 3 links with an OSS. Skills that have OSS+ are the ones that allow for further linking?

I don't think you're right regarding SSC and OSS. My log says 3-hit SSC +xx% damage when I hit a skill at the right moment. Is OSS when I chain with party members then??
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I don't think you're right regarding SSC and OSS. My log says 3-hit SSC +xx% damage when I hit a skill at the right moment. Is OSS when I chain with party members then??

In the JP version the OSS stuff is when you chain together up to 3 Sword Skills as mentioned.

Hmm wait yeah the Skill Chain stuff is the effect / extra damage that goes off with Sword Skills comboed together with other characters. Sorry for the confusion with that.

Ah what that message is then is just feedback from you doing the successful Original Sword Skill then. Watched the JP footage and saw what you are talking about. Ok yeah so its basically the damage output info that you are getting for successfully performing OSS which was the example that you gave us in your previous post.
 

hotsoup

Member
OSS (Original Sword Skill) and SSC (Sword Skill Connect) means exactly the same thing, which is the chaining of sword skills consecutively. People just use the OSS term for this game instead of SSC as they are used to OSS from previous games.

Variable Hero gives SSC +16 which I guess allows you to do 19 (default 3 +16 from Variable Hero) chain sword skills. I only did 10-15 chains max with it so far and hence unable to verify whether is it really 19. Don't forget you need to activate the "SS cost -100%" skills to do this.
 
Please tell me 6 is the max affinity level. I got Asuna to level 5 thinking it was going to be the max but then I see the bar is still there :(. I was planning on dropping her from the party once she hit the max affinity level but that clearly won't be happening for a while.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
OSS (Original Sword Skill) and SSC (Sword Skill Connect) means exactly the same thing, which is the chaining of sword skills consecutively. People just use the OSS term for this game instead of SSC as they are used to OSS from previous games.

Variable Hero gives SSC +16 which I guess allows you to do 19 (default 3 +16 from Variable Hero) chain sword skills. I only did 10-15 chains max with it so far and hence unable to verify whether is it really 19. Don't forget you need to activate the "SS cost -100%" skills to do this.

The OSS and SSC thing is annoying. Why did they change the name of it?

Also, someone on GameFAQs suggested that Overdrive doubles the length of a buff if the buff is activated after Overdrive. However, when I did this, the Buff List didn't show anything of this sorts. Is it a bug?

And if that's how Overdrive works, does that mean I can activate Hyper Armor or Quick Skill for double invul or SS cost 0 time?

E: I suspect yes. Someone did a video in reply to my post:

Post in my thread

E2: And reading more threads on that board, it seems like the translation and skill description for some things are all kinds of fucked up. Skills aren't exactly what they say they are, or they're significantly weaker than the description leads them on to be. Also apparently Bleed is hot garbage. So I'm wondering if any status effects are worth their weight.
 

Ryuukan

Member
all this ambiguous skill acronym stuff is part of what scared me off from playing the original vita game even tho I bought it at launch

with this game, I just make sure my equipment is decent and spam horizontal arc/slant when I have the SP

I'm about halfway through the second area and have only unlocked slant on the skill tree

game is a lot more relaxing this way
 

hotsoup

Member
The OSS and SSC thing is annoying. Why did they change the name of it?

Also, someone on GameFAQs suggested that Overdrive doubles the length of a buff if the buff is activated after Overdrive. However, when I did this, the Buff List didn't show anything of this sorts. Is it a bug?

And if that's how Overdrive works, does that mean I can activate Hyper Armor or Quick Skill for double invul or SS cost 0 time?

E: I suspect yes. Someone did a video in reply to my post:

Post in my thread

E2: And reading more threads on that board, it seems like the translation and skill description for some things are all kinds of fucked up. Skills aren't exactly what they say they are, or they're significantly weaker than the description leads them on to be. Also apparently Bleed is hot garbage. So I'm wondering if any status effects are worth their weight.

Guess they changed the name because it is supposed to be a "new" game i.e. Sword Art: Origin.

Overdrive does in fact doubles the duration of your buffs. You can also stack Effect booster (from Buffer Ex) with it to further extend the duration to 3 times the normal duration. The hassle is to you have to switch Ex skills. The best status ailment to inflict on NMs is Numb (paralyze) hands down.

Tested Variable Hero earlier, it does add 16 more chains to max SSC chains, so 3+16=19 chains with just Variable Hero which I guess can further increased with Mastery skills and Combo Flick.
 
Holy shit, just finished the second raid boss and man that one was both pretty awesome and really fucking annoying at the same time. The other raid teams they gave you for this fight were way too under leveled (all of the were 13-15 and my team was all 22),and the floating phantom arms were basically impossible to hit aside from jumping at them, which meant I had to manage those all on my own since the AI never does jumping attacks. Also I either read the text wrong or before the fight the game suggests to beat the main body arms first, which is completely pointless because it's taking out the phantom arms that let you get to the boss's weak spot and you an just safely ignore the main arms.

I really thought I was fucked right off the bat, because all three of the AI teams were wiped out almost immediately, literally with just two attacks in the first 20 seconds. Managed to pull it off with just my team there fortunately, even if the other teams probably would haven't amounted to much help beyond aggroing the enemy for me at times.

Some poor design choices with that fight but damn if it didn't make me feel awesome for mostly managing it all on my own lol.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
I found the first raid battle be the best of the bunch, mostly because the "gimmicks" were simple enough that they worked with the raid party.

All the later ones were basically you and your party doing all the work and the gimmicks weren't that great (3rd was the most annoying). None of them were hard, but at the point where I got to the 4th one, the boss died in less than a minute, I don't even remember how it looked like.

In the end I feel that they could've been so much more.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I've only done the first raid boss. I think it was a neat concept, but I'm worried about the future ones. I'm still having a ton of fun with the game, though. I have SO many side quests to do, so I'll be busy with this game for ages.

When do you start unlocking additional blacksmiths?
 
I haven't watched SAO since the elf arc. Neither have I played any of the previous games. How lost would I be? Should I at least catch up on the anime?

How much fanservice is in this? Need more waifu games.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I haven't watched SAO since the elf arc. Neither have I played any of the previous games. How lost would I be? Should I at least catch up on the anime?

How much fanservice is in this? Need more waifu games.

It has the usual type of fanservice stuff for SAO.

The previous game "Hollow Fragment" actually basically ignores the ALfheim Online arc then goes into the Lost Song storyline.

Since you know who the general majority of the characters from the anime are, you would mainly be lost with the characters who were introduced from Hollow Fragment (including events related to that) and Lost Song. Plus if you did not watch the Gun Gale Online arc you will not be as familiar with who Shinon is in general, although the story is a little different for the games with her.
 
It has the usual type of fanservice stuff for SAO.

The previous game "Hollow Fragment" actually basically ignores the ALfheim Online arc then goes into the Lost Song storyline.

Since you know who the general majority of the characters from the anime are, you would mainly be lost with the characters who were introduced from Hollow Fragment (including events related to that) and Lost Song. Plus if you did not watch the Gun Gale Online arc you will not be as familiar with who Shinon is in general, although the story is a little different for the games with her.
Looks like I'll be doing some catching up on the amime to get a general feeling for some of the characters then! Thanks. Might also pick up HF as I see it's only $20-30 in most stores now.
 

NeOak

Member
I think they will eventually sell the Preorder outfit as a separate DLC.

This is the description I get when I go to redeem the code I was given

eNBFKQU.png


I assume all preorder codes give this, but the wording is what makes me think that.
 
So is there a way to give the costumes to the other characters? It shows in the shop who can equip them but when I talk to them and say give present I'm only able to give a weapon to them.
 

NeOak

Member
So is there a way to give the costumes to the other characters? It shows in the shop who can equip them but when I talk to them and say give present I'm only able to give a weapon to them.

You need to grind the relationship to lv 5 I think.
 

ryousuke

Member
The event list is telling me to check for new finds in Fuldum Trail but there's nothing there

I was stuck with that too, you have to go to Fuldum Trail, alone.


Anyone know how to damage the Undying Wargolem in Castle Arktarium 1F ? I can beat all the golems around him, but can't damage the Wargolem at all.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
PSA

Turn off auto-updates on your PS4 (or at least disable them for SAO).

1.04 will basically break the game balance. If you can read Japanese, you'll have a better idea here: http://ha-navi.com/sao-v04 I did Google Translate on it and, based off forum comments, this is my takeaway:

  • HUGE drop in damage to enemies
  • Status effects have been greatly reduced against enemies
  • Your buffs ALSO buff nearby enemies
  • SSC/OSS timing adjusted and chain damage has been greatly reduced
There's a bunch more, but that's the blunt of it. There's a video of a guy doing a 21-hit SSC and taking off a fraction of an HNM's health. Yay.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
PSA

Turn off auto-updates on your PS4 (or at least disable them for SAO).

1.04 will basically break the game balance. If you can read Japanese, you'll have a better idea here: http://ha-navi.com/sao-v04 I did Google Translate on it and, based off forum comments, this is my takeaway:

  • HUGE drop in damage to enemies
  • Status effects have been greatly reduced against enemies
  • Your buffs ALSO buff nearby enemies
  • SSC/OSS timing adjusted and chain damage has been greatly reduced
There's a bunch more, but that's the blunt of it. There's a video of a guy doing a 21-hit SSC and taking off a fraction of an HNM's health. Yay.

Thats pretty fucking stupid if so. Main reason being is that Status effects were already shit in comparison to Hollow Fragment. Buffs buffing near by enemies makes zero sense. Also the messing with the OSS is even worse considering how worthless your AI partners are.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
Thats pretty fucking stupid if so. Main reason being is that Status effects were already shit in comparison to Hollow Fragment. Buffs buffing near by enemies makes zero sense. Also the messing with the OSS is even worse considering how worthless your AI partners are.

Here's an excerpt of someone with the JP version:

I have the JP version and just installed the new patch... the "game balance" adjustments are looking pretty terrible to me :(

I am level 55 and level 1 and 2 monsters in the very first map suddenly have about 4000 HP, so farming materials from low-level monsters just got a lot more painful. A lot of monsters that I could kill in 1 hit unbuffed now take 3 to 4 hits to kill (I'm using Sacred Rain, the HNM 1-hand sword drop). I also did the first hollow mission on that map which used to give you like 5-7 of one of the weapon upgrade ores, and now I only got 1 ore.

I also went to try to solo the HNM that drops Sacred Rain again and found it suddenly had like 10x the HP. I'm using the same skill setup described in http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/181869-sword-art-online-hollow-realization/74555632 and had been soloing HNMs without any issues; most would die before I could even get my OSS count up to 21. Now I just got to 21 hits and I only took out about 1/4 of its HP and ran away since I wouldn't be able to kill it before my quick skill wore off.

My advise to anyone who hasn't installed this patch and isn't fully in the end-game phase yet is to wait until you get to that part, cuz now everything seems to have gotten a ton harder for where I am at. I'm still only on the 4th desert field in the story, so I'm not sure how the end-game things changed but I am not liking this patch at all for where I am at :(
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
I've only played for 20 minutes and were running around low level areas, but NPCs seem to be smarter now, actually dodging attacks on their own. Will see how they fare in real fights though.
QoL improvements are cool, like talking to NPCs is no longer awkward (they sped it up significantly).
Sheathing and unsheathing weapon animations are so much faster that they barely count as animatiobs now, lol.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Here's an excerpt of someone with the JP version:

Am actually reading the page. Seems like the damage decrease is both ways to the player and monsters. Cant copy the text off the HP atm though looks as if they made it so through standard methods it cant be copied. But anyways still reading through the rest of the stuff on that list.

The thing is people are going to have to update anyways to obtain the other content which will be released eventually so pretty much there will be no avoiding 1.04. Mine already got auto updated though, so there is no putting the horse back in the barn at this point for me.

Really dumb that they are messing with the game balance this early already in a way that seems to be non issues for the most part. As things were already toned down from Hollow Fragment as is.

The most mind boggling fucking idiotic one is the Buffs also effect enemies. Why would you try to recreate the MMO experience by doing something that does not happen in MMOs in general. Even their previous game. Someone on the team is a dumbass thats for sure as it makes zero sense to do that. Next thing is them adding delays to the buffs and whatnots, since it was a complaint in Hollow Fragment which is why they had removed it with the large content update among other things.

Other stuff that "might" be useful is how it says enemies were weakened, and NPCs were made to have better defense.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Okay, I ran into a random lv 99 HNM, which before patch 1.03 would probably kill all my party and make me retreat a few times to recover my HP between sword skills.

Did it take me longer to kill because of the lower skill damage? I believe so.
On the other hand, none of my NPC party members were even close to dying. The AI is definitely much, much better - they actively dodge and heal.
I believe that the HP/damage change really does affect both players and monsters, since the damage I received hasn't been that significant too.

Aside from buffs working on enemies, which really is a really crazy decision, I think I like this balance more. Sure, you're no longer a 1 person army, if you master long OSS chaining, but on the other hand it makes the game feel more MMO-like, with the party play being important (chaining sword skills).

Anyway, I uploaded the video from the whole fight if anyone wants to see much smarter NPCs (haven't played the game in a while, so forgive my rustiness).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9qeRvmQnsg&feature=youtu.be
 
So basically my favorite skill that lowers my defense but lowers the enemies def and raises their atk will now double defense down and raise my atk? Awesome.
 

deanote666

Member
The grind was worse

The grind in this is worse IMO. You have to move around and sleep twice to reset the heart points. And you only get 5 heart areas between the 2 sleep cycles.

There's a trophy for getting 100 people to level 3 too I think...

I would've already had 1 maxed out by now in HF and am only half way through level 4 on one that started at level 3...
 

Doombear

Member
PSA

Turn off auto-updates on your PS4 (or at least disable them for SAO).

Well this sucks. I am taking my time with the game, only level 21 or so at the moment and I don't want to rush to the end to mitigate the damage this patch would do.

Question, I don't see where I would disable auto updates on a per game basis, only across the board via System > Automatic Downloads > Application Update Files. Is there somewhere I can disable this just for SAO?
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I don't think you can adjust per game. For now, I just turned off Automatic Application Updates. I want to hit end-game before this update hits because I don't want to have to grind forever +1 once it hits stateside.
 

Doombear

Member
How do you guys think this compares to Hollow Fragment? Worth it?

As someone who put many hours into Hollow Fragment on Vita, I say it is definitely worth it. I'm enjoying it. I appreciate the story as well as a fan of the series. I never really gave much time to Lost Song though, as it was too much a departure from HF. This, I like quite a bit.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
As someone who like the idea behind HF, but hated the performance and large parts if the execution, I really enjoyed HR.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
How do you guys think this compares to Hollow Fragment? Worth it?

If you like action RPGs and are familiar to the Hollow Fragment system in general with how there are a massive number of skills to use and other game mechanics you should have a good time with this title.

Well this sucks. I am taking my time with the game, only level 21 or so at the moment and I don't want to rush to the end to mitigate the damage this patch would do.

Question, I don't see where I would disable auto updates on a per game basis, only across the board via System > Automatic Downloads > Application Update Files. Is there somewhere I can disable this just for SAO?

Yeah the auto update for applications is either all or none. Do wish that it worked like steam with how you can pick and choose what to and not auto update.

Id like to imagine if they get enough complaints so that it potentially will effect sales or mess with their ratings on online retailers then they will start to revert other stuff that was considered stupid by the internet. Or at least we can "hope" for that to happen...
 
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