SWORD ART ONLINE Fractured Daydream

SWORD ART ONLINE Fractured Daydream

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bwebbuva Sep 5, 2024 @ 4:03pm
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A Beater's Guide to Fractured Daydream and the Open Network Test
Heya. I'm Bweb, someone who played the Closed Beta extensively and learned a lot about the game during my limited time with it. After finishing the beta, all I wanted to do was play more of the game, so hearing news of the Open Network Test on the 20th/21st of September got me hyped. I've been thinking a lot about this game over the past month, and with the network test fast approaching, I might as well share my thoughts on the game, along with giving a few tips to people who didn't get a chance to play the closed beta and want to make the most of their time with the Open Network Test.

Table of Contents:
1 - What is SAO Fractured Daydream? (Intended for those who have little to no experience with the game and/or have no idea what kind of game it is)

2a - 20-Player Mode Details - Co-Op Quest (Intended for those who haven't played the Closed Beta and haven't watched extensive YouTuber footage of the co-op quest)

2b - 20-Player Mode Details - Raid Quest (Intended for those who already know generally what's going on but want more details on how to face the tough raid bosses)

3 - Progression to the Full Game (Intended for those who want to learn more about how they can transfer Network Test progress to the full game, along with those who want to learn how out of combat progression works)

4 - Combat Tips (Intended for those who know how everything works more or less, but who want advice on how to best optimize their time with a character and learn all their ins and outs)

Skip to whichever chapter you want depending on your knowledge about and experience with the game. Or read it all. Up to you.

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1. What is SAO Fractured Daydream?

For those of you who haven't played the beta, you may have seen snippets of gameplay from content creators or bits of footage from the character trailers, but for those of you who don't know, the selling point of this game is 20-Player Missions. While there is a story mode and a "free quest" mode, our knowledge of how they will work is very limited, whereas us Beaters have already gotten hands on experience with the 20-Player modes. But before getting into the modes themselves, I'll let you know the general gameplay style and genre.

SAO Fractured Daydream is a 3rd-person action RPG that has pseudo rogue-like elements built into the game. What does "pseudo rogue-like" mean? Well, while you have traditional progression systems that you see in other games (loot drops, weapon upgrades, accessories, etc), one of the biggest differences you'll see with this game is the in-match Advance Level system. Every character starts each 20-Player mode at Level 1, where their damage is low and they don't have any skills. Defeating enemies grants you Advance EXP which can raise your Advance Level. After reaching levels 3, 6, and 10, you can unlock one of your three character skills, along with having your stats boosted substantially. The goal of the 20-Player modes isn't just to rush to the end to fight the boss, but to also do in-match grinding that can enhance your abilities when you end up fighting the boss directly. You can also loot specific in-match passives that are exclusive to that match in particular, such as a critical rate bonus or a max HP bonus.

Along with this pseudo rogue-like element is a rich character selection that allows you to choose between a wide variety of characters that serve different pre-determined roles. The Fighter class is what you'd expect: front line, melee DPS that focuses on being aggressive and dealing damage. The Rogue is an assassin type class that has more burst damage and tricky attacks/speedy combat, the Ranger is a ranged DPS that attacks from afar, etc. Each character you pick can change the combat pretty heavily, as a combo focused melee attacker like Kirito plays differently than a flying support fighter like Leafa or a sniper like Sinon.

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2a. 20-Player Mode Details - Co-Op Quest

Now that you more or less know the general details of the game and its genre, I'd like to clue you in on the specifics of how the Open Network Test gamemodes work. But before I do... the 20-Player quests are not necessarily made up of one massive 20-player party but instead are made up of 5 separate parties of 4 players each. It's semi competitive, as the highest scoring party of the 5 gets ranked as MVP, but the goal is still to work together to clear the mission.

First you have the Co-Op quest. This is a multi-layered mission mode that comes in three distinct "phases", so to speak. The first phase is the Individual Mission phase. Each of the 5 parties of 4 players each starts in their own Individual Mission, which they are assigned to randomly at the start. This can be anything from defeating a mini-boss to taking out enemy encampments, but this can change between different Individual Missions every time you queue up. This is where you start grabbing your first few levels as you rush to complete the Individual Mission to transition into the Area Mission phase.

The Area Mission is shared by all 5 parties but requires completion of the Individual Mission objective in order to access the area. In this Area Mission, you have a set of preset missions that the entire 20-Player Lobby has to clear as a team, such as defending a control tower or finding terminals scattered throughout an area. Enemies are tougher, but drop more experience, along with chests being scattered throughout containing powerful in-match passives. If you're especially observant, you might even score a lucky Golden Chest containing a Legendary Passive with immense power. I found one of these in the Closed Beta that granted 50% Critical Rate, so if you find one of these chests, let your team know using a ping so everyone can get the benefits.

Once the Area Missions are finished, the last phase is the Boss Battle. Your opponent in the Open Network Test will be Illfang, the Kobold Lord, the iconic boss that Kirito and the Assault Team fought on Floor 1 of Aincrad. Once you enter the boss area, your final goal is to defeat them as fast as possible to clear the mission. Once their HP reaches 0, you've successfully defeated the mission. Simple enough. There's a few extra mobs and a couple unique mechanics that Illfang has, but that's for you to discover on your own.

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2b. 20-Player Mode Details - Raid Quest

The other mode that you can play during the Open Network Test is the Raid Quest, where you immediately start in an arena with a mighty opponent. Your targets in the Network Test are the Skull Reaper, the Aincrad Floor 75 boss, and the Sword Golem, a mighty monster summoned by the Administrator in Alicization. Us Beaters only had an opportunity to fight the Skull Reaper, so I'll focus on that when drawing examples to explain how the mode works.

As opposed to the Co-Op quest, you immediately start with all 20 players ready to fight the boss in the arena. Even though you don't have areas to progress through, mobs will still spawn for the purpose of providing you Advance EXP to level up. Even in this scenario, you still need to fight lesser enemies to increase your strength, as the boss will move through distinct phases that all demand different levels of strength. Even if the boss seems like it has just a handful of health bars, it is set into three distinct phases, each of which need to be beaten in a set timer to avoid failing the mission.

Low-Level Phase: This is the start of the mission, where the boss deals relatively low damage and doesn't have the full extent of their moveset. This is intended for the start of a match, where you will start at Level 1 and need to fight enemies that are spawning out of portals for Advance EXP to increase your damage against the boss. Don't start attacking the boss until you're sufficiently leveled. You will get various mission objectives as the boss loses HP, such as "the highest combo #" or "highest damage in one hit" that can get you more loot, but they aren't important enough to worry about, especially if you're a character who doesn't do well at the specified objective.

Mid-Level Phase: After depleting the first two health bars, the boss will begin to deal much more damage as the next two health bars end up being a lot longer than the first two. The boss respawns enemy portals and generally spawns more enemies in total to provide you with more EXP, and this is where leveling turns from recommended to mandatory. If you don't defeat mobs to raise your Advance Level in this phase, your damage will be drastically lower than it should be. It's still not super tough, though, so you shouldn't be too worried as long as you're staying at a decent enough level.

End-Level Phase: This is where the boss unlocks all of their most dangerous attacks and spawns enemies constantly for the rest of the fight. This is the phase where the timer matters the most - the boss is tankiest in this phase and insufficient leveling or poor DPS management might lead to a situation where you run out of time. The first two phases were to get you warmed up to the boss, and here is where you show your prowess. It is far more punishing in this last phase as the boss ramps up the pain, and unless you make sure to give it your all alongside your team, victory isn't as certain as you think.

Tips for the Raid Quest: Shift Focus when needed. It'll take some time before you find out what levels are comfortable for each phase, but make sure you don't spend too much time fighting the boss or too much time grinding. A balance of the two will give you the best opportunity to succeed and score the MVP ranking for your party.

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3. Progression to the Full Game

This is going to be a mix of how the progression systems work alongside information on how save data transfer will work if you want to learn more about that.

Here's an important note: Advance Level is NOT your progression. It is purely on a match per match basis, almost like a MOBA where you have to level your character during the match itself. However, this is paired with an actual account level called Rank which determines the Rank of weapon drops from quests. A Rank 1 sword will do less damage than a Rank 20 sword, for example, but both ranks will start at Level 1 when entering a mission, even if the Rank 20 player with the Rank 20 sword is still stronger. This is why I call it a pseudo rogue-like, as it has hard and defined external loot based progression on top of in-combat leveling and passive looting.

You can gain Class-specific accessories (fighter rings, mage necklaces, etc.) and Character-specific weapons (dual swords for Kirito, snipers for Sinon, claws for Argo, etc.). You will gain gear specific to the character you're playing, along with random gear for all other characters and classes when completing missions. Gear can come in different rarities independent of their ranks: common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary. Gear rarity matters not for the raw stats of an item but instead for the passives that come with it. For example, you can get a Rare Dual Sword for Kirito that comes with "DMG at Max HP Up Lv. 4" and "Melee DMG Up Lv. 2". Those passives come with pre-determined levels that impact their potency: a Melee DMG Up Lv. 5 is stronger than the Lv. 2 that I mentioned earlier. Legendary gear also comes with special character or class specific passives. Going back to Kirito, a Legendary Dual Sword might come with three normal passives of various levels, along with "Horizontal Square: Stunner". This directly affects the functionality of one of Kirito's skills, Horizontal Square, and gives it a special property, the ability to stun weaker enemies with a paralysis effect. Each character weapon has their own set of potential legendary passives, allowing you to fine tune your character to change up how they play with them depending on which passive you have.

Now to talk about how the progression to the full game will work. All 21 character weapons will be dropped in the Open Network Test, even though only 9 of them will be playable. For the weapons and items dropped in the Network Test, you'll be able to transfer them to the full game should you choose the Save Data transfer option in the full game. However, if you play the beta but want to start from square one with the full game, you can choose to not transfer your save data. It's up to you to determine whether or not you want a head start, and depending on how much you play the network test, you might get a little boost or a massive jump. Note: ONLY weapons and accessories with stats will transfer. All other progression, such as rank, will not apply.

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4. Combat Tips

Here's the juicy stuff. This will be the last section, and the one for all of you who want to learn the game and top score in your lobbies.

First: I've reinforced this a lot already, but LEVEL YOUR ADVANCE LEVEL. You could be the best player in the world but Average Joe who's an ALv. 25 will outDPS you if you're at ALv. 5. Focus your early game on gaining levels so you can start using your skills and dealing good damage.

Second: Test out EVERYTHING your character can do. At first a character like Kirito seems simple: mash light attack to defeat everything. But he's got a lot more he can do. He can change his combo string with heavy attacks, dealing more damage and having different benefits depending on what combo you go for. Additionally, he has air attacks as well as distinct air combos, including a downward spinning attack that returns you to the ground and does big damage. Lastly, and this is the biggest one personally, test out your charged attacks. Holding down Light or Heavy launches a special unique attack that changes based on your character. For Kirito, his Light Charged is Snake Bite, a quick double slash that does big damage, and his Heavy Charged is Sonic Leap, a fast gap closing strike that gets you towards your enemy at sonic speed and slashes them for good damage. A Kirito that knows where to squeeze in Snake Bites for bonus damage and uses Sonic Leap to close distance instead of running will perform a lot better than a Kirito who just keeps mashing light attack.

Third: Watch your health. Enemy attacks can deal big damage at the later stages of a mission, and going down can be devastating, as you lose the opportunity to deal damage and contribute to the Total Downs of the lobby. Too many downs and your lobby may lose out on a crucial S-rank clear and, by extension, valuable loot. You can guard to reduce damage and dodge to avoid damage. Timing the guard perfectly with an enemy strike triggers a Perfect Guard, staggering weaker enemies for a well timed counterattack, whereas a well timed dodge triggers a Perfect Dodge, which partially recovers HP alongside avoiding the attack. Avoiding damage whenever possible is important, because you only have a limited number of healing crystals to heal back lost HP. If you run out, you're in trouble.

And finally, have fun. This Network Test isn't that serious, so just go out and play everyone who looks interesting and try out all the modes. See what you can find. This is your chance to figure out whether this game works for you or not. Fractured Daydream is a game I wasn't sold on until I became a Beater in the Closed Beta, so I suspect some of you who might be on the fence will be convinced once you try the Network Test. Keep an eye on Steam before the Network Test drops and mark your calendars for September 20th/21st depending on your timezone. Hope to see you on the battlefield, and have a great time.

If there's anything else you want me to talk about, like mini-character guides or details, let me know and I'll make them when I have time. Have a good one.

- Bweb
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
bwebbuva Sep 7, 2024 @ 5:02pm 
Thinking of making a mini-character guide for Leafa or Kirito before the network test. If anyone has any preference, lemme know.
bwebbuva Sep 15, 2024 @ 12:35pm 
Network Test starts in about 5 days; hope you all are ready.
Dragotech Sep 17, 2024 @ 12:35am 
May I ask about character customizations? I know we won't have our own chara ters, but rather play as the cast. However, I heard we would be able to customize them. Do you have any information on that? Thanks in advance.
Originally posted by Dragotech:
May I ask about character customizations? I know we won't have our own chara ters, but rather play as the cast. However, I heard we would be able to customize them. Do you have any information on that? Thanks in advance.
There isn't anything Concrete yet

However Looking through the bits and pieces they've released to Japanese
players as well as Screenshots and Special offer posts

I'm going to assume that We'll have a decent level of Customization over characters
Probably Hair/eye color
Maybe Hairstyles, faces
Extremely Unlikely Gender Options Height options

My circumstantial evidence
1. Includes Yuna having two different outfit sets that also have different hair colors

2. Demon King Kirito outfit Showing him having Red eyes on the banner
However screenshots of other characters wearing it not having red eyes including Kirito

3. ReNoa Skins existing but them also confirming all 21 initial characters(and2DLC) which she is not

The only thing that actively works counter to character customization in any way
is them specifically mentioning that Agile is unable to wear the Demon King Kirito outfit
due to his Large male bodytype which other male characters don't have
It kinda carries the implication that Character Height and Gender probably won't be editable

However I'd argue Coloring is Very likely
while ReNoa's stuff makes me believe Hairstyles and Faces are possible
unless they use her as a full body suit kinda thing or something (which isn't impossible)
Dragotech Sep 17, 2024 @ 9:55pm 
Originally posted by Thine Very Own, Nemesis~:
Originally posted by Dragotech:
May I ask about character customizations? I know we won't have our own chara ters, but rather play as the cast. However, I heard we would be able to customize them. Do you have any information on that? Thanks in advance.
There isn't anything Concrete yet

However Looking through the bits and pieces they've released to Japanese
players as well as Screenshots and Special offer posts

I'm going to assume that We'll have a decent level of Customization over characters
Probably Hair/eye color
Maybe Hairstyles, faces
Extremely Unlikely Gender Options Height options

My circumstantial evidence
1. Includes Yuna having two different outfit sets that also have different hair colors

2. Demon King Kirito outfit Showing him having Red eyes on the banner
However screenshots of other characters wearing it not having red eyes including Kirito

3. ReNoa Skins existing but them also confirming all 21 initial characters(and2DLC) which she is not

The only thing that actively works counter to character customization in any way
is them specifically mentioning that Agile is unable to wear the Demon King Kirito outfit
due to his Large male bodytype which other male characters don't have
It kinda carries the implication that Character Height and Gender probably won't be editable

However I'd argue Coloring is Very likely
while ReNoa's stuff makes me believe Hairstyles and Faces are possible
unless they use her as a full body suit kinda thing or something (which isn't impossible)

Thanks for the information. Hipefully we have a wide rnage of options in the game. MOBAs usually have tons of skins for characters and I expected Fractured Daydream to do something like that, but where you can customize the appereance of the characters, but it would be fantastic if more things aside from the outfits could be customized, like hair, eyes and more. As far as I know there is only one slot for clothing and two slots for accessories. Hopefully it is just a beta thing and the full release has more.
legitim8 Oct 1, 2024 @ 9:14pm 
Is there anyway to go through story mode with any characters after you beat story mode one time? And can story mode be completed with friends? Or is the multiplayer (co-op) mode only way to play with friends?
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Date Posted: Sep 5, 2024 @ 4:03pm
Posts: 6