Level cap is really disappointing

[TLK777]

This is probably a weird thing, but I can't stand killing enemies and not getting exp for it when I assume the cap will be raised later. So while I was interested in doing endgame content, after seeing the level cap I literally lost all desire to play the game until they increase it. Because it feels like wasted time to do sidequests or kill enemies when the xp will just disappear. Anyone else feel this way?

[Velmoria]

Unfortunately, the actual game design seem meant for the players to against higher level enemy. You can literally see the tutorial that STR, VIT, DEX & AGI ATK, DEF, ACC & EVA are stats when against "stronger enemy".

The moment your level higher that your enemy:
- ATK buff won't increase damage anymore. ATK stats works like "DEF penetration" in this game.
- Your attack will always hit the enemy. I have tried hitting lv 45 enemy with 30-ish accuracy and never miss even once.

With that, increasing level cap = power creeping whole enemies.
I hope the next level cap progression is way slower, at least 5 times slower than current level cap.

Edit: fix some error

[Hops]

It seemed weird at first why endgame bosses were 30-50 levels higher, but now it makes so much sense. We pretty much delete everything with ease; the only thing that would stop the player from doing otherwise is a lack of ACC stat, making it nigh impossible to hit a given enemy.

[Entelechia]

like 80% or more of your stats come from equipment, level cap is only there to kneecap accuracy aka a way to force you to grind proficiency.

if you find enjoyment from getting exp instead of the battle itself, then sure go ahead and stop though.

[NightmareHollow]

The level cap is being increased in the future anyways.

A game where the enemies has to be significantly higher-levelled in order to maintain balance is bad balancing which is kind of bad game design. They should try to make the enemy tougher at the same level so that there's no level suppression further damaging the balance

[TLK777]

Well yeah they made it too easy to run away and heal and stall. So unless they basically one shot you you can't really lose. But this level 85 boss for legendaries one shots me unless a defensive skill is active(with white mist+5 and defensive passive enabled). Which just isnt fun

[Velmoria]

Originally posted by TLK777:

Well yeah they made it too easy to run away and heal and stall. So unless they basically one shot you you can't really lose. But this level 85 boss for legendaries one shots me unless a defensive skill is active(with white mist+5 and defensive passive enabled). Which just isnt fun

There are few bosses with best example is mantis, that require VIT build to survive it's damage and Spectral Armor buff to make counter attack skill viable to use.

For fragile build, having Godrobe Warrior buff & Emergency Escape is really noice. Double the fun when your partner has Born Leader Persona with similar buff loadout. Physical Double buffs is OP.

For mantis riled up attack, while you can step back a bit to avoid it's physical attack, you can also use Lv2 Wind element to get immunity from it's ranged slash.

[jduke367]

@TLK777 and @NightmareHollow "A game where the enemies has to be significantly higher-levelled in order to maintain balance is bad balancing which is kind of bad game design."This is just not true as I will discuss below. I know this was posted a long time ago, but seriously? You find no enjoyment in a game that has a level cap??? What RPG style game do you know that does NOT have a level cap? Pretty much every single RPG has a level cap. The game would become way to unbalanced if they didnt. Also its SAO they WILL increase the level cap, they always do in their games. Most of them they eventually increase to level 999. Also side quest exp is complete trash in the grand scheme of things. The exp you get from side quests is nothing compared to the amount of exp you need to gain to level up. There are other benefits to doing side quests aside from exp. You get shia from side quests (not much but still some), you get items, gear, and you also build renown and trust with each area giving you a discount at shops and crafting. Pretty much every game you eventually stop getting exp from killing mobs whether it be because reaching level cap or because you outleveled the monster. As for the bad balance and game design @NightmareHollow you realize that its 1 or 2 monsters or usually 3-4 lesser monsters that your fighting against your party of 4 people or up to 8 people if you have wayfarers. So the monsters need to be higher level in order to put up a fight. Poor game design would be to have a monster level 25 (same level as you) but have 20 million HP or 1 million attack or defense. If you have a monster the same level as the character then you would expect them to have the same or very similar stats as you which would make them no challenge to you at all. I mean I would much rather fight a mob thats 20-30 levels higher than me that poses a challenge vs a mob the same level as me that I can kill in one hit, or feels extremely overpowered because his health and damage are much higher than mine despite him being the same level as me. That right there would be very poor game design. And @TLK777 you say that running away and healing is to easy in this game, yeah on normal difficulty it is because they dont want to punish the casual or new players to their game. If you want more of a challenge then put the game on death game, or go into extreme raids and see how easy it is to run away and heal and stall... It becomes much harder.

[ForThatB]

Originally posted by jduke367:

@TLK777 and @NightmareHollow "A game where the enemies has to be significantly higher-levelled in order to maintain balance is bad balancing which is kind of bad game design."This is just not true as I will discuss below. I know this was posted a long time ago, but seriously? You find no enjoyment in a game that has a level cap??? What RPG style game do you know that does NOT have a level cap? Pretty much every single RPG has a level cap. The game would become way to unbalanced if they didnt. Also its SAO they WILL increase the level cap, they always do in their games. Most of them they eventually increase to level 999.

The level cap is not problem here. The problem all bosses are just health tank with similar generic set of attack animation. Even more so we don't even see any animation of mechanics because most fights even on extreme people mindbreak and down the boss go for the kill. Their current solution keep players from clearing too fast is increasing ACC requirement, making grinding for higher acc pieces. What we need actually boss with unique mechanics that require heavy executions of skills where making mistakes is fatal with no possible way hazard or down boss with belief moment for damage.

[jduke367]

Originally posted by ForBacon:

Originally posted by jduke367:

@TLK777 and @NightmareHollow "A game where the enemies has to be significantly higher-levelled in order to maintain balance is bad balancing which is kind of bad game design."This is just not true as I will discuss below. I know this was posted a long time ago, but seriously? You find no enjoyment in a game that has a level cap??? What RPG style game do you know that does NOT have a level cap? Pretty much every single RPG has a level cap. The game would become way to unbalanced if they didnt. Also its SAO they WILL increase the level cap, they always do in their games. Most of them they eventually increase to level 999.

The level cap is not problem here. The problem all bosses are just health tank with similar generic set of attack animation. Even more so we don't even see any animation of mechanics because most fights even on extreme people mindbreak and down the boss go for the kill. Their current solution keep players from clearing too fast is increasing ACC requirement, making grinding for higher acc pieces. What we need actually boss with unique mechanics that require heavy executions of skills where making mistakes is fatal with no possible way hazard or down boss with belief moment for damage.

While I agree with some of your statements, the problem with your proposed bosses is that casual players would have a very difficult time with a boss encounter like that, thus limiting your player base. You also can't blame the devs for "Even more so we don't even see any animation of mechanics because most fights even on extreme people mindbreak and down the boss go for the kill", because you are NOT FORCED to go in there and use mind break. That is the decision of the player fighting the boss. Much like dark souls, if you have someone new to that type of game that is very punishing then they will just quit playing the game. This game needs more people playing it and a larger community. If you make the boss encounters to difficult then a lot of casual players get turned off from games like that. I do, however, think this should be an option for Hard and Death game. I mean a lot of casual players havent even cleared extreme raids yet, and its not because they dont have high enough ACC. The problem there is these enemies have an extremely large health pool and in order to defeat them (especially in the 1 hour time limit) then you really have to know how to chain your attacks together, use proper buffs and debuffs, and have very good character builds. It's not JUST a matter of having high enough ACC. I mean, I have high enough ACC for extreme raids but I have only managed to clear the north extreme raid, and I did it with literally 53 seconds left on the timer. The last boss encounter took me soooo long to complete, not because I was missing attacks (I dont think I missed a single time) but because my skill level isnt as good as these guys that literally theorycraft builds in order to 1 down kill extreme raid bosses. So actually the boss encounters are difficult and they do have quiet a few attacks that they use. If you dont want to go in there and face roll these bosses then dont go in there and "mindbreak" the boss in order to down him quicker. The game dev's solution hasnt been "oh lets just raise the ACC requirement." That is just a natural part of the game mechanic. It wouldnt make any sense for a regular raid with a lvl 80 boss to require 200 ACC then the extreme raid with the same boss 50 levels higher to require the same amount of ACC to hit. That would just be kind of stupid. Just because there are some youtubers and players that can go in there and 1 down kill extreme raid bosses does not mean that everyone can do it. And these players actually have dedicated a lot of time and practice to be able to go in there and do that. Putting your suggested mechanics in there would not remedy any problems. It would just cause these same players to go in there and find a new strategy to 1 down kill. Honestly if the game on normal difficulty had your ideas of boss mechanics then it would lose a ton of players and I imagine only the hard core players would be left.

[总是积极思考]

The problems it's not level cap or only ACC offset that makes this game very boring and I have mentioned that a lot :

1. Existence of Tiger Resolve that exclusive to Dagger users only
   This skills makes alll of the enemies no matter their level (as you got the req acc) like a piece of paper.
   Look around YouTUbe and you will find people defeat extreme raid in even hard difficulty with 3 mins with this Tiger Resolve.
   
   
2. Broken Records since 1.09 update
   The AI characters has been revamped since that update to no longer heals using their equipped record unless set as Healer (exskill) which makes the game more static as the AI only can take one role while before with their records set properly they can be so dynamic based on what player set.
   
   
3. Sacred Arts that interrupting instead helping
   All secret arts that stun, freeze, dazzle is removing enemy hazard status which prevent enemy from being downed.
   Therefore these secret arts waste your effort hazarding enemy (using mb or filling hazard gauge) and since 1.09 AI characters use these arts more often.
   Considering Rakhsasa incarnation effect only applies on downed enemy then the main goal should be down the enemy not stun, freeze or dazzle it.

That point number 3 also explain why you should do MB to the Boss, it's because the rakhsasa incarnation that give 80% damage against downed enemy and the way to down enemy is hazard it and mb allowed you to instantly hazard enemy without need to fill the hazard gauge.

This combat system it's making 5 things essential in combat :

1. Mind Break --- Instantly hazard enemies
   
2. Galvanize - Allow you to use super art instantly
   
3. Tiger Resolve - 50% crit and 50% crit power - having 2 Tiger Resolve active means you have 100% crit (guaranteed crit) and 100% crit power
   
4. At Witt's End - This makes enemy risk 6.0 instead 6.0) combines with Tiger Resolve and Rakhsasa Incarnation effect it's makes your damaged really high and possible to wipe out enemy in few minutes.
   
5. Rakhsasa Incarnation - As mentioned above, 80% dmg vs downed enemy.

Therefore you can't blame people for using MB, as it's the only way to kill higher level enemies, what you must blame is the static combat mechanic this game used.
Please note that this also makes all skills within berserker and tanker skill tree are nothing but craps.

If you compared with it's predecessor (HF, HR, LS) you can't argue this game has the worst combat mechanic as difficulty only made of enemies with more HP and more ACC required to hit while it's predecessor has some mechanic you need to execute to win.
With this game as long you have Tiger Resoilve and enough acc every battle is easy peasy, you don't need to learn enemy pattern (like most other games) to defeat it as this game enemies has no pattern or guard mechanism......

[jduke367]

Originally posted by outoftheboxgaming:

The problems it's not level cap or only ACC offset that makes this game very boring and I have mentioned that a lot :

1. Existence of Tiger Resolve that exclusive to Dagger users only
   This skills makes alll of the enemies no matter their level (as you got the req acc) like a piece of paper.
   Look around YouTUbe and you will find people defeat extreme raid in even hard difficulty with 3 mins with this Tiger Resolve.
   
   
2. Broken Records since 1.09 update
   The AI characters has been revamped since that update to no longer heals using their equipped record unless set as Healer (exskill) which makes the game more static as the AI only can take one role while before with their records set properly they can be so dynamic based on what player set.
   
   
3. Sacred Arts that interrupting instead helping
   All secret arts that stun, freeze, dazzle is removing enemy hazard status which prevent enemy from being downed.
   Therefore these secret arts waste your effort hazarding enemy (using mb or filling hazard gauge) and since 1.09 AI characters use these arts more often.
   Considering Rakhsasa incarnation effect only applies on downed enemy then the main goal should be down the enemy not stun, freeze or dazzle it.

That point number 3 also explain why you should do MB to the Boss, it's because the rakhsasa incarnation that give 80% damage against downed enemy and the way to down enemy is hazard it and mb allowed you to instantly hazard enemy without need to fill the hazard gauge.

This combat system it's making 5 things essential in combat :

1. Mind Break --- Instantly hazard enemies
   
2. Galvanize - Allow you to use super art instantly
   
3. Tiger Resolve - 50% crit and 50% crit power - having 2 Tiger Resolve active means you have 100% crit (guaranteed crit) and 100% crit power
   
4. At Witt's End - This makes enemy risk 6.0 instead 6.0) combines with Tiger Resolve and Rakhsasa Incarnation effect it's makes your damaged really high and possible to wipe out enemy in few minutes.
   
5. Rakhsasa Incarnation - As mentioned above, 80% dmg vs downed enemy.

Therefore you can't blame people for using MB, as it's the only way to kill higher level enemies, what you must blame is the static combat mechanic this game used.
Please note that this also makes all skills within berserker and tanker skill tree are nothing but craps.

If you compared with it's predecessor (HF, HR, LS) you can't argue this game has the worst combat mechanic as difficulty only made of enemies with more HP and more ACC required to hit while it's predecessor has some mechanic you need to execute to win.
With this game as long you have Tiger Resoilve and enough acc every battle is easy peasy, you don't need to learn enemy pattern (like most other games) to defeat it as this game enemies has no pattern or guard mechanism......

I don't know if your argument was siding with me or against me, or maybe neither, I dont know. But the game does not force you to use Mind Break. Enemies/Bosses CAN be beaten on higher difficulty and in extreme raid without the use of mind break. It's kind of stupid to say that Tiger's resolve shouldn't make the enemy like paper. First of all, its very reasonable for tiger's resolve to be exclusive to dagger. In a large majority of RPG's and even in DnD, crit builds tend to lean more toward dagger weapon types. Also, Like in DnD, when you roll a natural 20 you are guaranteed to HIT and CRIT a monster, that is part of the benefits of getting a crit hit, dealing more damage and bypassing their defenses. Violet Flash incarnation makes it where you can hazard enemies pretty fast without having to use mind break. Also Tank and Defender is not a pointless exSkill. You can build a dedicated tank that is very difficult to kill. With a dedicated tank and healer then you can beat bosses on higher level difficulty without using Mind break, tiger resolve, at witt's end, or violet flash, it will just be a much longer fight without all these. You actually CAN keep your AI's from using sacred arts, just find out what records they are using and go into those records and grey out those sacred arts that they are set to cast. Same thing for healing. An AI DOESN'T have to have healer ex Skill equipped in order for them to cast heals. You just have to make sure that it is a skill set up in one of the records. I have my dedicated tanks/defenders set to heal even when they dont have healer ex Skill equipped. So actually the records CAN make AI characters very dynamic if you have them set up properly. This game DOES have enemy mechanics and guard patterns. Enemies can shield themselves, some enemies can also make themselves completely invulnerable to damage and the only way to break that shield besides letting it wear off itself is to chain x2 with AI characters in order to break it early. Enemies can also buff themselves, have a railed up mechanic, and some bosses even have a pretty much instant wipe mechanic. Now I agree that the combat in this game isn't the BEST in all SAO games ever created, but to sit here and say that HF and LS had a better combat system just blows my mind. I havent played LS too much so I cant speak for it to in depth, but how can you say that HF had better combat mechanic than this? I mean in HF your basic attacks were just auto attacks and wouldn't change until you burst, or used a sword skill so how was that system better than SAO AL? I mean at least AL forces you to give the game user input to do attacks. I do think that HR had the best combat system in any SAO game so far, but AL is my second pick.

On a side note, isnt that pretty much what every other SAO has done to make enemies more difficult? Making them have more HP and harder to hit? This isn't exclusive to just AL. And same thing for enemy/boss mechanics, AL pretty much follows the mechanics for enemies/bosses as the other games. What did any of the previous games do different as far as boss mechanics go? Now I havent played EVERY SAO game but I have played and beat HF and HR, and I have played LS and FB some.

[ForThatB]

Originally posted by jduke367:

On a side note, isnt that pretty much what every other SAO has done to make enemies more difficult? Making them have more HP and harder to hit? This isn't exclusive to just AL. And same thing for enemy/boss mechanics, AL pretty much follows the mechanics for enemies/bosses as the other games. What did any of the previous games do different as far as boss mechanics go? Now I havent played EVERY SAO game but I have played and beat HF and HR, and I have played LS and FB some.

For FB, there was a lot of depth in the game before heroic and the infinite dungeon was released. Before Long Stroke Z and Gigas Cedar G4, between first 4 DLCs time be the focus. For extreme mode on FB, the game was a challenge because enemies ai headshot will kill you if you weren't careful and required to aim for some bosses' weak point. There a lot of amazing weapons in each DLCs, but they weren't BS. Some people had sniper build with explosive shots combo aim under the tank boss, but others had grenade bomb dual for lazy easy to use. I remember farming for Grim Reaper sniper, those little mobs killed me on extreme with one head shot. So trash pack in a room had challenges back then as well. When alpha inv was released, Long stroke Z was topping the charts. I remember pain having to learn how kill Asuna clones on inv dungeons all i had is Blue Rose Rifle. When infinite dungeon was released Gigas Cedar G4 for crit damage was op. This was at the end of the game DLC cycle, so it was acceptable to add BS weapons for fun. Pre-Gigas Cedar G4 and z sword, enemies didn't had much HP more so you hit weak spot to get dmg done. That mean turn off auto aim and such.

[Mr.Hmm]

The level cap does not make any sense cause if you raise the difficulty from normal to hard all the enemies in the game (those in extreme raids too) get their levels raised by i dont know 30-40 levels? i have not fully checked.

I think the devs need to rebalance things...

[Lyncher]

Originally posted by jduke367:

I don't know if your argument was siding with me or against me, or maybe neither, I dont know. But the game does not force you to use Mind Break. Enemies/Bosses CAN be beaten on higher difficulty and in extreme raid without the use of mind break. It's kind of stupid to say that Tiger's resolve shouldn't make the enemy like paper. First of all, its very reasonable for tiger's resolve to be exclusive to dagger. In a large majority of RPG's and even in DnD, crit builds tend to lean more toward dagger weapon types. Also, Like in DnD, when you roll a natural 20 you are guaranteed to HIT and CRIT a monster, that is part of the benefits of getting a crit hit, dealing more damage and bypassing their defenses. Violet Flash incarnation makes it where you can hazard enemies pretty fast without having to use mind break. Also Tank and Defender is not a pointless exSkill. You can build a dedicated tank that is very difficult to kill. With a dedicated tank and healer then you can beat bosses on higher level difficulty without using Mind break, tiger resolve, at witt's end, or violet flash, it will just be a much longer fight without all these. You actually CAN keep your AI's from using sacred arts, just find out what records they are using and go into those records and grey out those sacred arts that they are set to cast. Same thing for healing. An AI DOESN'T have to have healer ex Skill equipped in order for them to cast heals. You just have to make sure that it is a skill set up in one of the records. I have my dedicated tanks/defenders set to heal even when they dont have healer ex Skill equipped. So actually the records CAN make AI characters very dynamic if you have them set up properly. This game DOES have enemy mechanics and guard patterns. Enemies can shield themselves, some enemies can also make themselves completely invulnerable to damage and the only way to break that shield besides letting it wear off itself is to chain x2 with AI characters in order to break it early. Enemies can also buff themselves, have a railed up mechanic, and some bosses even have a pretty much instant wipe mechanic. Now I agree that the combat in this game isn't the BEST in all SAO games ever created, but to sit here and say that HF and LS had a better combat system just blows my mind. I havent played LS too much so I cant speak for it to in depth, but how can you say that HF had better combat mechanic than this? I mean in HF your basic attacks were just auto attacks and wouldn't change until you burst, or used a sword skill so how was that system better than SAO AL? I mean at least AL forces you to give the game user input to do attacks. I do think that HR had the best combat system in any SAO game so far, but AL is my second pick.

Holy wall of text Batman! Enter key does exist you know.

When it comes to endgame there is no depth in AL and the skill ceiling is very low here. There are skills that exist like curse of the weak or mindbreak for examples that can completely trivialise all bosses if you meet acc and dps needs. Everyone that makes it to the current very end (east ex raid) is using the same 10-15% of skills, same few weapon choices, same setups etc because everything else is weak by comparison.

When it comes to records either many do not function properly (like healing ones) or the conditions to use them are too rare or circumstantial in most realistic scenarios. A far better way to run them would of been something similar to how ff 12 or dragon age origins setup their ai systems where you actually always get the results you want instead of a gamble will ai actually do it or not. Also even if you set no sacred arts in records every ex an ai is set to casts a specific sacred art type anyway like buffer will randomly cast wind arts or attacker will randomly cast fire for examples.

Again the big problem is the skill ceiling is to low for the game so all that ends up happening is Aquria just gate bosses behind more levels so you require more acc + dps to deal with them. Actual player skill is much less relevant than strong equipment/correct setups. There is almost no diversity when it comes down to setups for hardest endgame bosses which makes it even more mundane. Every boss fight plays out the same, just keep bosses locked down then use everything you setup available for full dps mode.

Tanks and healers are pretty much useless in this game when bosses don't even get to attack which is pretty easy to achieve with correct skill usage atm.

When it comes to mechanics you mentioned I am afraid they are also completely trivialised by certain skills. Why bother using a formation break when you can just curse of the weak and interrupt it with non formation break sword skill regardless? Why bother with violet flash (giving up your incarnation slot and 75% of your arts gauge) or other hazard building things when mind break completely fills the hazard bar instantly?

AL is the worst SAO game to date. Worst story (even more than FB), low skill ceiling combat that becomes very mundane when reached, broken/poorly designed systems like recording, poor optimisation and no real diversity because balance is completely out of whack.

Aquria's solution to everything is always more grinding and add more levels rather than fixing what is fundamentally wrong with the game.

If it doesn't change then only people that will play more than a few hours/days per update after finishing story are the true ultimate SAO fanboys that will play any game with SAO in the title name regardless of how good or bad it is.

[jduke367]

Originally posted by Lyncher:

Originally posted by jduke367:

I don't know if your argument was siding with me or against me, or maybe neither, I dont know. But the game does not force you to use Mind Break. Enemies/Bosses CAN be beaten on higher difficulty and in extreme raid without the use of mind break. It's kind of stupid to say that Tiger's resolve shouldn't make the enemy like paper. First of all, its very reasonable for tiger's resolve to be exclusive to dagger. In a large majority of RPG's and even in DnD, crit builds tend to lean more toward dagger weapon types. Also, Like in DnD, when you roll a natural 20 you are guaranteed to HIT and CRIT a monster, that is part of the benefits of getting a crit hit, dealing more damage and bypassing their defenses. Violet Flash incarnation makes it where you can hazard enemies pretty fast without having to use mind break. Also Tank and Defender is not a pointless exSkill. You can build a dedicated tank that is very difficult to kill. With a dedicated tank and healer then you can beat bosses on higher level difficulty without using Mind break, tiger resolve, at witt's end, or violet flash, it will just be a much longer fight without all these. You actually CAN keep your AI's from using sacred arts, just find out what records they are using and go into those records and grey out those sacred arts that they are set to cast. Same thing for healing. An AI DOESN'T have to have healer ex Skill equipped in order for them to cast heals. You just have to make sure that it is a skill set up in one of the records. I have my dedicated tanks/defenders set to heal even when they dont have healer ex Skill equipped. So actually the records CAN make AI characters very dynamic if you have them set up properly. This game DOES have enemy mechanics and guard patterns. Enemies can shield themselves, some enemies can also make themselves completely invulnerable to damage and the only way to break that shield besides letting it wear off itself is to chain x2 with AI characters in order to break it early. Enemies can also buff themselves, have a railed up mechanic, and some bosses even have a pretty much instant wipe mechanic. Now I agree that the combat in this game isn't the BEST in all SAO games ever created, but to sit here and say that HF and LS had a better combat system just blows my mind. I havent played LS too much so I cant speak for it to in depth, but how can you say that HF had better combat mechanic than this? I mean in HF your basic attacks were just auto attacks and wouldn't change until you burst, or used a sword skill so how was that system better than SAO AL? I mean at least AL forces you to give the game user input to do attacks. I do think that HR had the best combat system in any SAO game so far, but AL is my second pick.

Holy wall of text Batman! Enter key does exist you know.

When it comes to endgame there is no depth in AL and the skill ceiling is very low here. There are skills that exist like curse of the weak or mindbreak for examples that can completely trivialise all bosses if you meet acc and dps needs. Everyone that makes it to the current very end (east ex raid) is using the same 10-15% of skills, same weapon choices, same setups etc because everything else is weak by comparison.

When it comes to records either many do not function properly (like healing ones) or the conditions to use them are too rare in most realistic scenarios. A far better way to run them would of been something similar to how ff 12 or dragon age origins setup their ai systems where you actually always get the results you want instead of a gamble will ai actually do it or not. Also even if you set no sacred arts in records every ex an ai is set to casts a specific sacred art type anyway like buffer will randomly cast wind arts or attacker will randomly cast fire for examples.

Again the big problem is the skill ceiling is to low for the game so all that ends up happening is Aquria just gate bosses behind more levels so you require more acc + dps to deal with them. Actual player skill is much less relevant than strong equipment/correct setups. There is almost no diversity when it comes down to setups for hardest endgame bosses which makes it even more mundane. Every boss fight plays out the same, just keep bosses locked down then use everything you setup available for full dps mode.

Tanks and healers are pretty much useless in this game when bosses don't even get to attack which is pretty easy to achieve with correct skill usage atm.

When it comes to mechanics you mentioned I am afraid they are also completely trivialised by certain skills. Why bother using a formation break when you can just curse of the weak and interrupt it with non formation break sword skill regardless? Why bother with violet flash (giving up your incarnation slot and 75% of your arts gauge) or other hazard building things when mind break completely fills the hazard bar instantly?

AL is the worst SAO game to date. Worst story (even more than FB), low skill ceiling combat that becomes very mundane when reached, broken systems like recording, poor optimisation and no real diversity because balance is completely out of whack.

Aquria's solution to everything is always more grinding and add more levels rather than fixing what is fundamentally wrong with the game.

If it doesn't change then only people that will play more than a few hours/days per update after finishing story are the true ultimate SAO fanboys that will play any game with SAO in the title name regardless of how good or bad it is.

Perhaps I didn't want to use the enter button... Also Even with enter, its still a wall of text... Your post (Enter)
Still a Wall of Text (Enter)
Just a different format (Enter)

You say that tanks and healers are pretty much useless in this game. That is not true. They can be useless depending on how you play. To finish your statement, "Tanks and healers are pretty much useless in this game when bosses don't even get to attack which is pretty easy to achieve with correct skill usage atm." Well here is an idea... Don't use the builds and skills that every youtuber posting guides on this game uses. There isn't a "Right" way to play this game. Those skill's don't HAVE to be used. If you want to experience the boss mechanics, break formations, utilize tanks and healers, then DON'T use the skills to insta down them. Create your own build and perfect and master that. Using these skills that make these encounters trivial is not the only way to play. And its not like those builds and ways to play were discovered overnight. These people had to put countless of hours in to the game to figure out these builds and the best way to 1 down kill bosses. This game has a pretty steep learning curve for new players. Just because it seems "easy" to you now as long as you make sure you have enough ACC and DPS to kill death game extreme raid bosses doesn't mean that its actually easy. That just means you know more about the game now. You tell a new player to go and do that and it wont happen. As for "why use violet flash and giving up an incarnation slot and -75% of arts gauge." Well first of all I would be giving up a buff slot by selecting mind break, secondly with violet flash you dont lose 75% of your arts gauge if you use custom equipment and you use the attacks just right, and thirdly what if mind break is on cool down, its kind of hard to use when its on cool down where as with violet flash there is no cool down associated with it. Also how are you going to complain about the game having skills like mind break, making the game essentially to easy, then telling me why would I use violet flash when I could just use mind break?? That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

"If it doesn't change then only people that will play more than a few hours/days per update after finishing story are the true ultimate SAO fanboys that will play any game with SAO in the title name regardless of how good or bad it is." I tend to disagree with this statement. If you make a game that is overly complicated and hard to get a handle on then people will be turned off by it. Does the game need balance and some adjustments? Sure, of course it does, what game doesn't. Is the answer to make boss fights much more complicated and make grinding for level and gear pointless? I really dont think so. Most of what keeps people coming back to a lot of games is grinding for levels and gear. If you don't have some type of grind system in a game then whats the point of coming back once you beat the main story?