My findings on game systems without explanations.

[Kessaran]

It's gonna be a decent list, but here's my findings from the systems that weren't really explained well.

1st, Difficulty: In Kirito's Tent there is an option to change difficulty. Rather than just increasing monster stats and making the game more difficult, it also increases their respective levels. For example, the Savage of Nature seal quest in Duesoldort Desert on Normal is level 50. On Hard, he is level 71, Death Game seems to push it even further with a level 101 boss. He hits harder, your attacks can MISS entirely which requires higher accuracy, and you are much less likely to evade comparatively.

2, Raids: Even post-credit gameplay still has no indication of raids, but I would assume they are probably tied to the Divine Beasts and farming Legendary gear. No confirmation on this, and I assume it will be made more clear/possibly released? around the same time as the SAO Store and the daily boxes.

3, Skill Points: There are a metric ♥♥♥♥ load of these. They drop randomly from monsters, and can also drop from monster parts (arms/legs/tails etc.). The chance seems random, but they do appear farmable from boss monsters specifically (boss I used to describe difficulty is a great example and not too difficult)

4, Service Quests: As far as I've been able to tell, even the later stage service quests don't give anything but materials and the occasional item, none of which are anything crazy special. Having unlocked a ton more with post-credit save data I will probably start tackling these to verify this but quest log doesn't show anything really worthwhile so far.

5, Multiplayer: First off let me pretense this that my experience is limited because around 95% of the time I tried to get people, it came back with an Easy Anti Cheat verification failure, which means people trying to play online with it disabled. The limited experience I do have is very straightforward. You pick a quest and find people for it, clear it, move on. In the case of story quests you CAN do them as a group (minus the fights where you have to fight as only Kirito) and it WILL progress the story for EVERYONE in the party. There are certain quests that it does notify you in-game if you cannot find a group/must disband the party to continue.

6, Materials: Specifically materials for upgrading/crafting. The easiest way to get tier 1-3 materials is buying them from the vendors. Shia can be farmed easily by doing the Divine Beast Seal quests or random service quests you find along the way. Having primarily done only the story my Shia was very limited, but I was able to upgrade both weapons to +2/3 and my armor to +3 easily around chapter 5. Higher tier materials will need to be farmed but the map will tell you what materials/beasts are in that area.

This is already a lot and I can't really think of anything else off the top of my head. If you guys have questions feel free to ask.

[Karnage]

Keep in mind that you don't need to pick a quest to play multiplayer. That's just used to tell people what you want to do. You can just recruit without an associated quest to play whatever.

[Scourge]

7, Forging/Finding Weapons: Golden Treasure chests seem locked with their stats, but all the other weapons/items/equipment you find/forge or however else get are randomized in their stats and can wary.
When forging a weapon you can see that it has the potential to get 2 extra skills, but often enough they do not appear. Same with monster drops. If they drop a weapon the stats on it can and will wary.

[jared.bur123]

I have one notable thing to add to point 2. Not sure if it's the only useful service quest, but I'd assume there are a few more. There's a ring you can get in chapter 2 for finding 30 purple crystals for a rich guy in town. The ring is nothing special stat wise, but it has an active skill which increases all exp gained by 40% for your entire party, for 180 seconds, with a 180 second cooldown. Effectively a 40% exp increase for the entire game, if you remember to use it. You can even throw it on a partner, and just swap to them to use it when it wears off.

[Mr.Hmm]

Crafting weapons by yourself instead of using the NPC once you have the recipe and have high enough Blacksmith level will increase the chances of the weapon having better stats.

[Kessaran]

Thanks for the tips guys, let's keep it going!

I have found that the robed female statues are the ones that grant the sacred art level ups.

[Kessaran]

Originally posted by Ambrosius:

What about weapon bonding, the in game hint only mentions that as you progress it "levels up", but other than that there is no other indication but the bond exp bar at the bottom of weapon infobox. I'm pretty
sure mines maxxed out for the Night Sky Sword but nothing of note happened.

I discussed that in my Q&A thread. I've got 6 weapons fully bonded but noticed no discernable difference so we believe it's a bug or maybe a feature unreleased. Might have something to do with the Ascendence points I earned.

[Kessaran]

Originally posted by Ambrosius:

Also should add you also get skill points from ranking up in weapon profiency as well. Best method afaik so far is to find find an enemy slightly more leveled then you and gimp yourself of passives and only use basic attacks to basically autopilot grind.

Was not aware of that, it must be a lower rate or every few levels. I definitely haven't gotten ~2k skill points.

[Kessaran]

Originally posted by Ambrosius:

Originally posted by Kessaran:

I discussed that in my Q&A thread. I've got 6 weapons fully bonded but noticed no discernable difference so we believe it's a bug or maybe a feature unreleased. Might have something to do with the Ascendence points I earned.

Interesting, I feel like it's a bug considering the fact that PC players can't even customize/create codes (tactics) in the records menu but console players can. Has anyone in your Q&A thread mentioned they are a console player?

They have pointed out the tactics bug, but not even they were able to figure out what the Ascendance points were or what bonding did.

[Kessaran]

Originally posted by Ambrosius:

Originally posted by Kessaran:

Was not aware of that, it must be a lower rate or every few levels. I definitely haven't gotten ~2k skill points.

Yeah the rate is abysmal, I went and autopiloted for an hour and got about 8 skill points? One or two may be from accidental kills instwad of resetting fight. But yeah you do get to grind wep prof and earn points if you want to turn off your brain and don't want to keep running around doing statue repeatables.

Oof, I haven't done around 95% of the statues. So boring when the time to kill in this game is SO long. I don't really grind, I just do the seals and do service quests on the way.

[Scourge]

Originally posted by Kessaran:

Originally posted by Ambrosius:

Yeah the rate is abysmal, I went and autopiloted for an hour and got about 8 skill points? One or two may be from accidental kills instwad of resetting fight. But yeah you do get to grind wep prof and earn points if you want to turn off your brain and don't want to keep running around doing statue repeatables.

Oof, I haven't done around 95% of the statues. So boring when the time to kill in this game is SO long. I don't really grind, I just do the seals and do service quests on the way.

Most of the statues give new quests each day, so... the rewards aren't even that good.

[Scourge]

Also something I just found out, pressing right/left on your controller will enable minimap and combat log respectively.

[Kessaran]

Originally posted by Scourge:

Also something I just found out, pressing right/left on your controller will enable minimap and combat log respectively.

That's displayed in the top right corner of the screen when you aren't in combat, at least on Keyboard.

[Gojira]

Originally posted by jared.bur123:

I have one notable thing to add to point 2. Not sure if it's the only useful service quest, but I'd assume there are a few more. There's a ring you can get in chapter 2 for finding 30 purple crystals for a rich guy in town. The ring is nothing special stat wise, but it has an active skill which increases all exp gained by 40% for your entire party, for 180 seconds, with a 180 second cooldown. Effectively a 40% exp increase for the entire game, if you remember to use it. You can even throw it on a partner, and just swap to them to use it when it wears off.

sounds great for levelling, where to find thd npc?