Baldur

Baldur smiled softly as the plague doctor player, and Zandra seemed to come to an understanding. Zandra seemed to be on a quest lately to improve her perception in the eyes of everyone around them, existing and potential frontliners alike. He wasn't sure what her goal was since she had turned down Shield's request to join their potential guild, but Baldur was pleased one way or the other to see someone helping out the up-and-coming players as well. The Frontline was going to need fresh blood sooner rather than later, and the better they were all equipped, the better not just the frontline, but all players of Aincrad would be. "If you don't mind, Zandra, I'd like to come along as well. I'm going to need to farm some of these upgrades as well, but I'll help you push through as thanks." The Samurai turned and nodded to Emerath, who said he would also be coming along.

Hirru's words suddenly made sense to him. He had no memory of the outside world, this was just another world to him. There was some inconsistency, but if Baldur thought of him more like a role-player than his actions became a little more consistent. The man had no memories before fighting boars on the first floor. That probably meant he had some sort of trauma around that time. Not remembering anything before the outside world... perhaps he had lost someone important to him in those very first days, and that had caused Hirru to force those memories away to be able to cope. "Let me see if I can try to explain this. In the other world, we all decided to play a game, that basically puts us to sleep so that we can all share in the same dream together. A dream that Kayaba has made, and that we all experience and play in. In this dream, the people who are dreaming, the players, can die in the waking world, if we die here. But the AI, the NPCs, the yellow and red crystals over their heads. They aren't real. They aren't alive. Kayaba dreamed them up. Where as we can die, and never come back, where we die in the waking world... these AI cannot die. They can respawn, they were never born or had lives. They may have had backtories written, but they're just like actors on a stage."

I agree. A level cap AND a level floor is necessary, as is reworking the levels required for equipment tiers. As I suggested in the podcast, this gets new players in quickly, and makes the levels appropriate to the floor you're fighting on. Right now floor 21 drops tier 3 equipment, but you have to be level 50, and I don't think that makes floor 21 mobs loot mobs. The idea of having new players start at the lowest level of the previous tier is perfect, especially with the adjustment. So if we take: T1: 1-15 T2: 16-30 T3: 31-45 Then new players start at level 16, and you only need to be level 31 to become involved with the frontliners and have the highest quality gear. Not only does that help us get new players in, but it helps players make alts if they want. And the sting if you lose your character is less. Were Baldur to die, if I started at level 16, and only had to get back to 31 to be able to participate, you're much more likely to keep me around (and we could potentially make the game more deadly). The level cap is harder, because you want to compensate your high level players for what they lost. I had tried to come up with some ideas. #1 Any levels lost, could in turn be used to create a new alt with those levels. So if I was level 50, and the level cap was 40, then I could make a level 10 alt. Or in the example above, a level 26 alt (Starting level of 16 + 10 levels). #2 I could use some levels to increase my crafter rank. Maybe at a 2 to 1 conversion. #3 I could use some levels to buy rare equipment for my character. Maybe for every 5 levels I lose, I can "buy" a unique item, or eventually a demonic item for my character. I would just have to do a thread where I "earn" it as a drop reward. #4 keep some extra SP. You could have the option to maybe "buy" into your background that your character was a beta tester and came in with some bonus knowledge that reflected in them having more SP than normal players of your level. This would let these legacy characters be a bit more elite than anyone else of similar level. #5 unique skill hint - you could say that if you lose 10-15 levels that when unique skills come out, you will get a hint and a chance before anyone else does, to try and get one. So really, staff could come up with a menu, and let the players who are losing lots of stuff, figure out what they feel like would be worthwhile compensation.

You know, I never thought about using the need/greed/pass mechanic for SAO. I think that has promise. It would be good to have multiple drops per boss. I mean, players should AT LEAST get equivalent to what you get from a loot mob, which these bosses definitely are. I would get away from using standard thread rewards for boss threads as it can occasionally become really bloated, or on the flip side, be a stupidly small amount (both have happened). I think maybe staff could come up with teamwork related results, or like "achievements" that are partly random, and partly skill/coordination related. Like maybe if a player gets into the red, and their team heals them back up to 100%, maybe that team gets a bonus. Or maybe there's a different one for never letting anyone in your party drop below green. Maybe there could be a bonus for whichever team drops the boss's health bar, not just the last one. Then roll for each party on the standard loot table, and add these bonuses. That party gets that stuff. Then you have the last hit bonus, which could be a DPS oriented reward, since it's likely DPS are going to be the ones most likely to get this achievement. But have other rewards. You could give out perfect quality items with unique enhancements, or demonic tier items with just normal enhancements (have a 4 slot item of just standard enhancements is still a good drop, it doesn't -have- to have unique enhancements). So when the boss fight ends, you have a pool of items. The person who gets the last hit item can accept it, or pass on it. If he accepts it, he can't roll on anything else. Everyone who didn't get one of the items can then cast their name in for 1 of the options. So let's say, for example, you had 1 item for each player type, Tank, Support, DPS. The tanks all cast their ballot for the armor, the support all cast their ballot for the Support item, DPS for the DPS item. Whoever gets the highest (natural) roll, gets the item. You could also throw in a 4th, miscellaneous item like a trinket, and split who rolls for what even more. So everyone would walk away with some Col, and materials, and the teams could divvy up any unidentified items that dropped from the boss, and then everyone would roll on the really nice prizes at the end.

Baldur looked impressed at the loadout Shield revealed. He knew by reputation that the man had been meticulously and methodically working through equipment to try and get equipment with the right unique enhancements for Beat and himself, but he had never seen personally and in detail hope well the team had been able to make them fit together. Beat was likely as stacked when it came to gear, as Baldur had seen what the man was able to do with a critical hit. Beat and Macradon were able to leap far ahead of Baldur when they crit, but Baldur could even out a little more when damage needed to be consistent. "That is truly impressive my friend. Your patience from the first time you came to me to get an item identified is impressive." Baldur then turned to listento Hirru make his apology. The confusion in his friends eyes was earnest but strange to Baldur. He knew the man had issues sometimes, Baldur had always attributed it to some kind of PTSD but he had never considered that the man wouldn't know what AI was. Shield tried to discuss what it was, but it took Baldur a minute to get over his shock. "It means they're not real. They're lines of programming code in this video game we're trapped in." Baldur wasn't sure how to proceed. How much didn't he know? What did he remember? "What do you remember of how this whole ordeal started?"

Baldur walked over again to @Sunova and @tricolor_mina when they were reunited with the tank that Sun had pointed out to him, @Hazado. The Samurai let them have a moment before he encroached on their private moment as well. He eventually cleared his throat and gave the group a bow again in greeting. It was not a deep one, but a show of respect for the small party of players none-the-less. "Sunova-chan was very worried about you." He gave the three of them a slight smile, "I did not get to see much of the fight, but I want you to have this, Sir Tank." Baldur couldn't remember what the boy's name was, but Sunova had been his healer, and had fought tooth and nail as hard as she could to keep them all alive. "Take my advice with a grain of salt, but I want you to have this." Baldur pulled out his last remaining healing crystal and held it out to Haz. "This is my last healing crystal. It will heal the entire party. I'm not a support, but I always carry as many of them as I can. There's a special bond between a tank and his healer, but there's also a bond between a party that fights life and death together. That's why I always carry a stack of these around with me. If everyone in a party did that, you can heal and tank and attack without wasting actions fumbling around in your inventory for a potion. Everyone should carry some, even if you can't get a lot. It's been the difference between life and death before. So please, take this one, and look out for one another." Baldur gave Haz a warm, friendly smile. -1 perfect AoE healing crystal given to Haz

Baldur whistled when Shield showed the new item he got. The armor was impressive, and Baldur tapped the air near the armor, so he could use his ability as a merchant to investigate the item and see what it's stats were. They were nice, including a good unique enhancement, but it was an odd split. It would depend on what Shield said and his ability to make the rest of his armor match this piece. "Interesting. From what I've been able to understand of your build Shield, this armor should work pretty well for you, assuming you haven't hit the mitigation max elsewhere than these pants. But then, with your identification empire, you should be able to find something that works for you." Baldur gave a slight laugh, then gestured towards one of the bridges. "Alright, let's eat up everyone so we can get this scouting mission on the bridge!"

Baldur nodded at the direction that Shield wanted to go. He was that least prepared to be scouting ever since he dropped his <<searching>> skill, but he could be another set of eyes and help out with whatever they encountered while trying to scout the floor. In spite of how the boss fight had gone, Baldur felt much better about things. They had overwhelmed the boss with preparation and the system just wasn't able to keep up with them. Perhap that strategy wouldn't last long, but if they could get more of the front line to show up prepared, then there was a chance that they could advance not just faster, but safer. Finally, Beat showed up, and the DPS player appeared to be happy to see him. Baldur gave a smile as the buffs from the raid slowly dropped off from the samurai, and was anxious to replace them with new ones. This feast was a great tool to use for the raids going forward.If anything, it could give them and their perspective guild an advantage. "Good to see you Beat. Thanks for preparing this for us." Baldur could see that Beat was still annoyed at Hirru, and Baldur was too, but their conversation in the boss room after the fight had tempered Baldur's ire and given him a new direction to try and repair what had been damaged with the Jade Hunter. Hirru was going to try as well, but that was part of why they were all here trying to do this together. Teambuilding. Understanding. Hirru and Baldur had been through too much for him to write the man off without a shot at redemption. "Man that looks delicious! I can't wait!" Baldur reached down and took a piece of the food.

"We're all alive and fine." Baldur said the words to @Sunova as much as @tricolor_mina, tapping the young katana user's shoulder to show her that Mina had appeared with them as well. "It is just as we said, no one is going to die in this event. It seems this was meant more to dishearten us, than to kill us. I don't really understand what the end game was here, but we should be thankful that we're all walking about of here alive, even if we are a little more scared." Baldur tried to give them a brave smile, and then walked over to stand with Shield and watch for more of the new players who may be coming through. This boss was doing more damage to their morale than anything else. He didn't know what kayaba was doing. This was so... out of character, for the mastermind, and for the world he was working so hard to build. Perhaps this was something another designer had slipped in without him knowing about it. Whatever the reason, it was bizarre. When he was standing beside Shield again, Baldur smirked at him, "I actually don't do the whole bushido thing. My ethics are much more Kantian. Though I did have some sort of a Code of Chivalry when I was growing up."

"It's okay Shield, once Beat gets here at least we'll have a spear fisherman." Baldur laughed, trying to lighten the mood that Shield had ramped up when talking about people getting dragged over the edge. "Can anyone here not swim?" The samurai looked around the floor. He had an excellent range of vision because of how little interruptions there were, but this was the first time he had ever taken the stairs between floors. And rather than ending up in the starting settlement, they ended up coming out of a door in the ground in some random spot on the floor. Someone would need to go and open up the teleport plaza to allow other players to enter, otherwise they would have to wait the couple hours before it turned on automatically. "Well, we can see where the <<Towers of Heaven>> are pretty easily on this floor. So we should just pick one and start working in that direction. Like you said Shield, our biggest challenge is hitting dead ends on the bridges between islands and our destination. However, working in a consistent direction will help us keep from wandering in circles trying to get somewhere nebulous."

Baldur watched as she wandered off, leaving him to the strange compartment with a mirror in it. Baldur stepped up, unsure of what she had seen in the mirror. Perhaps a clue? But when his steel blue eyes glanced down at the mirror, blue green ones stared back at him. A man with less years on his face than Baldur had; short, sandy blond hair in lieu of Baldurs dark brown, almost black hair. It too him longer than he had expected, to recognize the face as his own. The face itself wasn't terribly different, but it was foreign. The duality and contradiction of that rattled Baldur's head more than he could realize. "What... what is this thing?" He reached in, trying to pull the mirror from where it was held, and after a little bit of nudging, the mirror came free. "What did you see in this?" Baldur asked as he tried to aim his view, and the mirror, towards Teion, wondering if it would show him what she looked like. Instead, it revealed to him a completely different room surrounding them, but only in view of the mirror. Instead of faded stone, weathered carvings, and smoke filled darkness, Baldur saw a room aglow with light, wild fanciful paintings from floor to ceiling, and including the floor and ceiling. It was as if looking at the room in its prime, rather than thousands of years later. "Woah... Teion.. did you see this?!" Searching Roll: 110366 LD: 1

Baldur paused for a moment and tried to remember, "Well, I've got a dimensional backpack already. So I typically carry a teleport crystal, extra safeguards, antidotes, group heal crystals, and healing potions, as a minimum." Just then, Baldur realized he hadn't dodged in time for the fireball, and the fire enveloped him. He felt the flush of heat on his skin, but the sting of pain and burns wasn't there. He was unconcerned. They were far from needing to heal, and even then, the Drakes couldn't survive long enough to be a threat to Shield and he. If they needed, they could finish off the ones they were fighting and back off to heal and recoup energy. "I would like to carry around an accuracy debuff song, and a evasion debuff song. They have the ability to turn the tide. It doesn't seem like a big amount, but it can be the difference." Baldur's sword art cleaved through another drake without really even absorbing much of Baldur's attention. "I figure, if we're going to try and organize the frontline and turn it into something that is looking to professional move this forward and save lives, then we need to wash our cottage cheese." @Shield

"Oh, you're a dancer? Then yes, you should be able to grasp the footwork quickly. I can show you what I mean, but the way sword arts work, and if you're a classical dancer, then the premotions should be something very easy for you to grasp, as they're almost like dance poses." Baldur was not a dancer, but from what he knew of dance, and what he knew of the sword art system, they were very easy to conflate. "Fighting with sword arts is very counterintuitive to fighting with a sword in the real world. Some of the principles and skills learned in one can be useful for the others, but mastering edge alignment isn't a thing in SAO, which is perhaps the most annoying thing about sword fighting in the real world." Baldur said with laughter touching his eyes. "It is nice to meet you, Sunova." Baldur gave her a warm, welcoming smile that emphasized the truth of the welcome. Baldur walked over to the window with Sunova, and peered through, watching the lowbies fight for their life. He felt for her. He had been in her shoes just a moment ago, but now he had the clarity of hindsight. He watched as she pointed out Hazado, her tank, and he understood a bit more of the feelings that plagued the girl. "There is a sacred bond between a tank and his healer. You did well keeping him up. Now that our cards have been played, we just have to have faith that he will know what to do." Just as Baldur finished trying to ease her worry, the inky darkness of the demon inside blacked out the windows, and Baldur could see the fear and anxiety in her reflection in the window. Then the girl collapsed to her knees, unable to bear the weight of what she could no longer do to help the fight. Baldur turned to look at the priests, as if to ask them if there was nothing more they could do, but a certainty fell upon Baldur's shoulders. Anyone more who died would end up here like Sunova, just like Beat, and Seul, and Hestia, and Morgenstern. This was an event on rails. It was meant to throw them up against something difficult, that pushed them to the limit, but not let them suffer the consequences. There was still uncertainty, but not for Baldur any longer. "They will be fine, Sunova-chan. They will come through." @Sunova

Once the lights were on and Teion seemed to collect herself, Baldur kept an eye on her. She seemed more shaken than the situation warranted, but he wanted to make sure she was actually okay before he started to search the room they were in in ernest. Once she had distracted herself with the search, however, she seemed more at ease, and Baldur turned his attention to trying to make out what the purpose was of this maze like room. The symbols felt so familiar, as if he should be able to understand them, but they were just weathered and indistinct enough to not be legible. "It does look like an underground dungeon, but it seems rather... quiet... doesn't it?" Normally it didn't take long in a dungeon before you found yourself neck deep in mobs to fight. "I haven't found anything useful yet either..." Baldur lingered off as he found a section of wall that seemed to be a bit more legible. It was a fresco, or what was left of one, and it seemed to show a set of what looked like mirrors and fanciful scenes played out, but it didn't make any sense, and there wasn't enough detail for Baldur to even tell if he was right. Were they portals to other parts of the tower? That was when he heard Teion call out for help, and Baldur immediately dropped what he was doing and ran over to her. When he caught up to her, she had found a niche in one of the columns that help something he couldn't quite make out, but she appeared fine. Just concerned and playing with her hair. He wasn't sure if that was something she did normally, but it seemed very girly for this great axe wielding warrior woman. "What's up? What did you find?" Baldur walked up next to her and glanced at the mirror, but from where he stood, he could not see his own reflection. Search Roll: 110365 LD: 14

Baldur smirked when Shield brought up stunning the enemy and losing out on his thorns damage. He had forgotten the tank didn't like stuns, though they had been a weapon of choice for Baldur as a DPS who mostly ran with DPS. If he couldn't one shot something, he could generally 2 shot something. "You're probably right. I wouldn't want you to fall asleep during a boss fight!" The laughed sparkled in his eyes, mostly because the last few fights had been easy. "The extra pocket space is to carry around performer debuffs, both in case Itzal isn't there... and in cases where the enemy may have a high evasion, or an on hit effect. I did a quest with Hestia and Calrex, where the mobs applied paralysis, and Cal kept getting chain paralyzed. They were also high evasion mobs. I know that situations is isolated, but I prefer to have options on hand. Same with the swords. When I'm not using Muramasa, I tend to carry around both a bleed and a paralysis sword, depending on the situation calls for. But I was thinking in boss fights more about Bialas. If I had been using my bleed sword, I could have been in a bad situation. The extra slots would let me keep a secondary weapon, just in case. Or also, more healing crystals." Baldur watched as the last drakling tried to kill itself on Shield's defenses, but it survived with just a few HP. So Baldur walked up, and with a quick pair of slashes, ended the drake's life without pausing in his speech. "I like the idea of bullrush because I can often prevent something, like these fireballs, from taking effect in the initial turn, and then finish them off in a second without anyone being hurt, rather than having to downgrade my attack to a lower damage for stun. Or use an AoE stun. Progressing my familiar mastery just feels like a waste." @Shield