Baldur

Thanks for the clarity! Keep up the good work.

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The fun thing about the setting in SAO-RPG is that it is indeed so amorphous. There was no Custom Skill or Custom Sword Art system in the show or novels, but that does not mean it violates the setting. It only means that the writers did not implement such a system within said setting. Something comparable would be saying that having no Kirito or Klein violates the setting. Or that having power players like Macradon or Calrex violates the setting. Or that having a weapon such as Ominaru in existence violates the setting. None of these, of course, actually do violate the setting - they're just different from the original story. But we expect and promote this, as this is an AU in comparison to the original Aincrad. 

Virtually nothing (within reason) can actually violate the setting of of SAO. Cardinal is an ever changing entity that can create and update an ever changing world. It's how things like the 3.0 update can be justified in character. This, too, can be justified as a Cardinal-issued content patch. The history of war is one of improvisation and adaptability. People would develop and learn new skills and techniques to improve their chance of survivability. Being that that is the case, I consider it within reason that Cardinal may issue an update that adds a feature to coincide with this history. 

I agree with you on parts of this, and disagree with you on parts of it, but it's mostly pedantic and not really in the scope of this discussion. I understand your point.

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I can see why you may not trust the average player to determine what is balanced against the system as a whole. That's why the entirety of staff will be involved in discussions pertaining to Custom Skills or Sword Arts, with the Systems team leading the conversations and bringing possible abuse or loopholes to light (as we have arguably the most in-depth grasp of the system holistically). I also see how power creep could be a concern, which is why I made it clear that we reserve the right to make adjustments, implement additional restrictions or addendums, or otherwise change whatever needs to be changed to prevent the abuse of loopholes or the presentation of power creep. Oscar and I have already talked about coordinating regular audits of the Custom Skills and Sword Arts once they are implemented to ensure that nothing has been overlooked. 

This is why I trust you to balance this. However, I've been around to see some pretty amazing staff abuse in the past. Had I some hope that you guys would still be the staff leads in a year, or 2 years, then my opinion on this point might change. It's a scar that comes from having been through some bad staff, and I realize it's not fair to lay it on you, but it is part of the perspective I have having seen things like the old unique weapon roll out.

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When it comes to keeping things impartial and objective, I think you might be underestimating current staff's capacity to maintain a fair and balanced system in regard to this proposal, as well as our capacity to ensure that future generations of staff will follow suit. As the site matures, I think it is safe to say that the process of staff work, the enforcement of rules, and overall transparency of staff has improved in a way that makes it more fair, honest, and with the interests of the players in mind. This is because each generation of staff learns from the successes and mistakes of the previous generation, and builds upon it in a cycle of continual improvement. 

I agree with this mostly. That's certainly the current trend. I hope it continues, because I would love to be wrong. The tempo is set by the Admin and the GM team, which has historically taken some wide swings in the past. I hope those days are behind us, but I'm afraid you're just gonna have to chalk me off to jaded.

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After all, we could have just implemented this proposal whether the community wanted it or not, as previous generations of staff may have done. But we chose instead to bring it out into the open and ask for feedback. That, to me, is nothing less than a demonstration of our commitment to remain transparent, objective, and keep the interests of the community as a whole our focus. 

Agreed. But I can only offer my opinion based on my experience here. As I mentioned before. It's a cool system. I'm obviously completely in the minority here. My arguments are mostly pedantic, or only important to me. I do love the examples people came up with of Baldur teaching his students some secret skill he created. The idea of that appeals to me, but the system itself doesn't.

I do wish there was a way to incorporate something like player skill into the mix, rather than something of the system. I know that's splitting hairs, but all of this is just my opinion/feeling about the system. That's also not a conversation for here and now.

I think I picked up in chat that the benchmark level being discussed was Paragon level 75, which would be equivalent of someone being level 375? I feel like that must be a typo, but it doesn't really bear into my decision.

I don't like the idea of custom skills or sword arts. For me, it goes against the setting. If we wanted to have player submitted skills that were added to the complete list, that might be one thing, as long as anyone could take them.

I also don't like the idea of power creep. Custom Sword Arts and Skills are going to be hugely dependent on who the player is, who staff currently is, what's come before them. The first player to get one might choose something entirely reasonable, but the second person might get away with something much more powerful than the first, simply because it's different. It is easier to balance certain things (like sword arts) than it is to balance something that has a "soft" function. If a different team of staff take over by the time someone reaches Paragon level 75, then the first person to get one might have an entirely different philosophy of balance to deal with. Each one being close but slightly more powerful than the last, until the first person's custom skill isn't even really that good.

By and large, I don't trust the average player to be able to determine the balance of a skill or sword art against the system holistically. While I trust our current staff group, it may be a long time before someone actually achieves one of these.

It's really hard to perceive how these will actually end up working, considering how nebulously into the future they are. We may have 4.0 by the time someone hits the benchmark level.

I do want to end this with the caveat that I think it's a cool system. It definitely has the potential to insert some interesting things into RP, but for me, setting and balance come first. If this system was implemented, would I use it? Yes. I'd be foolish not to. Would I like to see this system implemented? Not particularly. I think, in the long term, it's too nebulous and prone to abuse if certain "in" people are able to justify/balance their custom skill/sword art, and other people aren't. I don't think the current staff runs into that problem, but we have had staff in the past and probably in the future that may not be so objective.

I like the idea of having different sword arts for 1 hand, reflecting that they're faster, and for 2 hand, reflecting that they're slower, but hit harder. I also am down with different weapons reflecting that differently. Such as perhaps a Katana being a faster two handed weapon than a 2 hand axe, but the axe hits harder.

I also think you can kinda simplify things by saying that Rank 5 attacks have a 3 round cooldown, rank 4 attacks have a 2 round cooldown, etc... as a base and then if it's a particularly stronger attack, you can bump it up a round.

When Tak and I made ours, we basically worked from the idea that Rank 5 2 hand weapons skills had a 3 round cooldown, and Rank 5 one hand weapon skills had a 2 round cooldown, and this meant that 2 hand weapons got their best moves back faster, and made them burstier, but 2 hand weapons hit harder. It gave the combat an ebb and flow. It also gives you a reason to have multiple arts of the same damage. Like if you had 3 round coolodowns, you could have (2) x13 sword arts. That would make that weapon more sustainable, while another could have a single x15, but then the next highest is a x12, which would make it burstier.

You could also give weapons unique effects on critical hits, if you want to make them differentiated, but not dig into cooldowns too much.

The cooldowns shouldn't prevent you from using ANY sword art, just THAT sword art (or any sword art of rank 5 if you wanted).

Anyways, I'm rambling, so I'll stop there. There is one thing to call out though.

Having x1 and x2 and x3 sword arts at the low levels is kinda self defeating. If you're starting out, and you have 3 damage, and you're doing x2 sword arts, and it's eating up 100% of your energy to do so, then we've done something wrong. Drop the energy system in favor of cooldowns, and give new players several sword arts, and make them useful at later levels. If you have a x5 rank 2 sword art, and cool downs, then that sword art may be useful even if you have all 5 ranks. And that low level player is still only going to be doing 15 damage.

Their base damage is so low, you don't ALSO have to couple it with low multipliers. What's the max unbuff damage for a tier 1? Like 10? That's still only 50 damage before mitigation.

Don't forget to look at the system from the perspective of someone who's only got basic equipment and access to the first rank or 2 of sword arts. If we don't make the game fun for new players, they're not gonna stick around to be older ones.