Answers to common questions you may have.
This post aims to preemptively answer any questions you may have about Accel World vs Sword Art Online. Before asking a question, please check if this page if it has been answered before. New questions will be added to at the bottom of this page.
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Let’s do our best.
Side EP Mini-Guide
A lot of people have been asking about this. Many of the people having trouble with this are tricking themselves into thinking the appearance requirements need like Golden Handshakes and stuff. This is not true, you just need to have cleared Story Mode. Once you do this, these events will appear in town and will be able to be triggered by Kirito/Silver Crow.
EMBLEM/MYSTIFICATION:
This is the AW chain of Side EPs. There are 5 in total and all 5 are triggered by Silver Crow talking to another AW character in town. The only prerequisites to triggering these Side EPs is to having completed story mode and also having completed the preceding Side EP in the sequence.
- Cyan Pile – Standing next to the teleporter in town [Explore a Dungeon]
- Lime Bell – In Dicey Cafe [Collect some mushrooms]
- Scarlet Rain – Standing next to the Quest Board in town [Kill all monsters]
- Black Lotus – Somewhere in town [Make your way to the special room inside the hospital]
- Sky Raker – Near Arena Entrance in town [Fight some kings]
PIXIE/NAVIGATION:
This is the SAO chain of Side EPs. There are 5 in total and all 5 are triggered by Kirito talking to another SAO character in town. The only prerequisites to triggering these Side EPs is to having completed story mode and also having completed the preceding Side EP in the sequence.
- Klein – Near vending machine next to Blacksmith Space in town [Explore a Dungeon]
- Leafa – in Dicey Cafe [This event needs you to collect bee hives from nearby trees]
- Sinon – Standing in front of Dicey Cafe [Explore a Dungeon]
- Asuna – Relaxing by the fountain in town [Chase a fairy for a bit]
- Yui – Also by the fountain? [Make your way through Babel Tower again]
Take note that I am writing this from memory. The events themselves aren’t very difficult. So I will not be writing an in depth guide for them because they’re seriously not that hard to clear these events.
FAQ
“I am stuck on X in story mode! I am following your guide but I am still stuck!”
How did you get stuck following my guide? www
If you get stuck, look at which EP you’re on (in the pause menu). Then look at my story guide again from the start of that EP and recall the events you did and the order in which you did them. Now proceed from there.
“How do I unlock the remaining Kings?”
Clear the endgame “Mystification” chain of side EPs. there are 5 of them starting with the one triggered by Cyan Pile standing in front of the Teleport Gate. Once you clear all 5, go buy the Kings in the BP shop.
“How do I unlock Nitride Unica?”
Clear the endgame Side EP that’s triggered by talking to Black Lotus in the Dicey Cafe.
“How do I unlock those Accel Assault version of Chi-chan and KYH?”
Clear the endgame Fountain Event triggered by Silver Crow (Could be Kirito). You will get a message saying something about “an alternate accelerated world”. When you have this message, go to the fountain in town with Kirito/Crow and select to talk to the sender of the message.
“How do I unlock this OSS for my character?”
If a skill’s unlock requirements are “???” in the skills menu, it means it is unlocked through a Golden Handshake (affinity) event. To get the Golden Handshake to appear on your character, take them on 10 easy Extra Quests. Once they have the Handshake, play as that character and go to the Arena in town. From there, you will be able to trigger a special duel with another character in the game and unlock the “???” skill.
“How do I unlock all the CG?”
CGs come from Story Mode, the 2 numbered chain of Side Episodes and fountain events. Story Mode & Side EPs are easy to unlock; just clear all the open events once you beat story mode.
For the fountain events, you need to obtain the Golden Handshake (affinity) on all main characters. “Main Characters” are all the characters in the game that form the team driving in the story. In other words, all of the characters that aren’t villains in story mode.
To get the Golden Handshake to appear on your character, take them on 10 easy Extra Quests. Once you have that Golden Handshake, you should receive a message from that character. Now you must go to the fountain in town as the recipient of that message to trigger the event. Note that not all fountain events have CG.
“Are you going to be doing a guide for Side Episodes?”
No. They’re all straightforward. The more complicated once are just wandering a dungeon for a bit or collecting honey from nearby trees. But that’s still straightforward.
If you are talking about Hexe, Amelia, Santa or Kumahachi’s quests, those aren’t Side Episodes. Those are Friend Quests and I have already made a guide on how to complete all Friend Quests.
“How do I unlock that one Extra Quest?”
All Extra Quests are unlocked by 2 things. The first being your progress in Story Mode so make sure you clear story before you tackle Extra Quests. The second thing that unlocks Extra Quests is other Extra Quests.
Clear all open Extra Quests to unlock more. The more you clear, the harder they become.
**The Melancolia Extra Quest that drops R10 1Hand Sword is unlocked by clearing Hexe’s chain of Friend Quests.
“Where do I find this material?”
I already have a Material List for every material in the game. I know that the names are in Japanese, but that shouldn’t matter. Just look for what you are trying to use the material for.
Example “I wana upgrade AW Attack Unit Rank 9 to 10” would be 巨神の心臓 (High God’s Heart) which is dropped from Melancolia or Verdraegnung.
“Where do I find this weapon?”
“I saw that you say something about Rank 12 weapons in your Database. How do I get Rank 11 and 12 weapons?”
Rank 11 & 12 weapons were added in version 2.00. Until the English version is on version 2.00, the max rank of weapon will be Rank 10.
“How do I clear this Challenge Quest?”
I’ve added a Guide on clearing Challenge Quests. Go take a look.
Take Note: no reward from Find Quests are unique. In other words, all the rewards for those Find quests can be obtained somewhere else in the game (and a lot easier).
“Will you do a trophy guide?”
Hmm. Thinking about it. But I think I’m too tired to keep making guides man.
“What are those colored chests I see? When I try to open them thy say ‘find more orbs of pure color.’ What the hell?”
Ah. Those are special chests that you open using the Colored Orbs obtained in Story Mode. They do not drive Story progress but instead have some so-so loot inside.
Because you need various orbs to open them, it makes sense to try to go for them once you’ve cleared story mode. But I would recommend against this. None of them have anything special inside. All the loot obtained from these chests can be found elsewhere in the game.
The only exception to this is the Vampire Ring which is only found in the colored chest in Welgunde: AW Purgatory Stage.
“Can I play Dungeons online?’
Unfortunately not. But you can do high difficulty Sudden Quests online (with up to 16 players). These can be found on the map if you use Searcher (on Kirito, Liz, Phillia, Rain, Scarlet Rain).
The new Infinite Dungeon that is added in version 2.00 [English version doesn’t have this yet] will be able to be played by 16 players at a time.
“Is it possible to miss Side EPs?”
No. You can focus on story and come back to those in Endgame.
“How do I see my Weapon Proficiency?”
On SAO Characters Pause Menu > Member > Character Name > Skill > Passive Skills
The bottom 3 Passive Skills show your Weapon Proficiency as a percentage.
“I have a vita version related question”
I can’t help you. I bought the Strategy Guide instead of a vita version.
“Okay. I am a good level and I bought all the Kings now. Is BP useless?”
Not really. You can use it to buy materials that can save you some farming.
But wait til you see how much levels cost passed 1050 ww.
“This game is too hard”
Go play easy mode and make sure to use your characters buff skills.
“What the hell? Why can’t I upgrade this Rank 10 weapon?”
You need to level up your blacksmith to do it. That means you have to go and upgrade rank 1 weapons first and slowly increase your Blacksmith to level 10.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to do this. You can use store bought weapons and material but the process is still slow.
But never give up.
“Hey. I have an idea. Why don’t you do a guide/video on this?”
No. Don’t tell me what to do.
“What’s up with the DLC? I know JP got some stuff but there’s no word on any English DLC.“
I think the English DLC will be exactly the same as JP with a season pass and everything. The only difference is that the Bath Towel, Swimsuit and School Uniform costumes will be part of the season pass.
(In JP, the Bath Towel and Swimsuit costumes were Dengekiya preorder incentives ONLY and the School Uniform was packages with the Strategy Guide)
“When will version 2.00 came to English?”
I have no idea. My guess is that they’ll probably wait until all the DLC is released in JP and then start translating and bring it across. If HR was anything to go by, I guess 2 months. So maybe September?
“What’s your PSN? I say I want to play together but I secretly have ulterior motives of asking you non-stop questions without caring about your feelings.”
For starters, I am on the JP version which is 2.00 right now which can’t play with English players on version 1.10. Also I won’t answer questions that have been answered here or somewhere else on this site.
As for my PSN, you’ll probably see me in a room one day. I’ll probably end up being practically wallpaper in online rooms in the future.
“I am deeply thankful for the amount of time you’ve put into this site. Is there any way I can thank you?”
Unfortunately for you, I am immune to “Thanks” because people just use that as an opener to basically turn me into an information slave.
You can repay me by becoming an extremely good player.
“So what other things do you have planned for this site? Or is this it?”
I still have to update every name for Quests, Equipment, Skills to match the localized version. Aside from this, I have to evaluate the new characters and the new Dungeon as well as update this site to match all the new changes in the 2.00.
I am also planning on doing a small “Tips for Infinite Dungeon” and a few other things that will take shape when the time comes.
For now though, there will be no new updates.
“Hold on a second. In your Chara Guides, There are Passives Skills listed that I don’t have even though I am a max level character. Did you make those up?”
The last few passive skills are unlocked at level 1050, 1100 and 1200. Since the current level cap is 1050 in the English version, there will be some Passive Skills listed that aren’t in the game yet. Have patience.
Edit: I’ve added the level requirements for the last 4 passives.
“Are there any bonus costumes to unlock? I’ve already cleared story and beaten all Side EPs”
No. Most of the costumes are DLC. I have absolutely no idea when the English version will get the DLC.
Also, AW characters do not get multiple costumes.
“I am having trouble navigating your site because all the names are in Japanese. Can’t you hurry up with those translations?”
Pestering me about translations makes me not want to do them.
In any case, the names of stuff isn’t actually that important since the core information is intact. For example you could just look through the weapon list and see “Oh. Skoell Drops a R10 2Hand Sword There’s a 4 Star Extra Quest and a Sudden Quest”
“Oi Oi. You have a Sudden Quest listed in the AW Corroded Forrest Area but there is nothing there. I am I doing something wrong or did you make a mistake?”
Certain Sudden Quests were added in updates. I don’t know exactly what version you guys have now but I think its equivalent to JP 1.10. If you are sure that a Sudden Quest isn’t appearing, check my section on Update Notes to see if it was added in a later version.
“I have a question about the Passive Skills Bug.”
There’s a whole section dedicated to FAQs in the Passive Skills Bug page.
“Okay. But how do I farm Sudden Quests? When I clear them online they don’t appear again for like an hour”
I can’t believe no one has asked that yet! That’s an incredible question!
When you clear Sudden Quests online, there is a 50min cooldown before it appears again. That’s downright too long to wait for a quest to appear so to farm Sudden Quests online, you need one person doing the role of the “Resetter”.
The Resetter is the person who will trick the game into making the Sudden Quest spawn again. To do this, the Resetter must be the first person in the Sudden Quest area. Once you have beat the Sudden Quest and checked any potential weapon drops, the Resetter must then close their game application (While still online).
When you close your game, you lose all progress since you last saved. Since you can only save offline, this means that you lose all your progress online. But in exchange for that you can make the Sudden Quests respawn right away. Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to reset away a good weapon so the Resetter needs to make good judgement on their drops and tell the people that they are playing with “Hey. I just got Boss Killer 19%. I am going to save now.”
**Remember that the Resetter has to be the first person in the area where the Sudden Quest spawns or else this won’t work. If someone made a mistake and they went into the area ahead, simply go back to town and try again.
Since the Resetter loses their progress in exchange for having the team farm weapons faster, it shouldn’t be a role that one person always ends up doing. Come up with a way to select who today’s Resetter will be and be sure to thank them for sacrificing their progress.
“Hey BK. Are you sure these max values for weapons are correct? I have been farming Skoell for a week and the highest Object Eraser I got was 3780.”
The level of a monster directly affects the attack power of weapons. If you want the strongest version of a weapon, make sure you farm the highest level boss that drops it.
If you farm the Skoell in the 7 Star Extra Quest, there’s no way you’ll get an Object Eraser above 3780. But if you farm the Skoell Sudden Quest online, you can get the max value listed in my Database.
But also, since each update changes the character level cap, the levels of Sudden Quest bosses also change. By extension, the Maxes of weapons dropped from these bosses also change.
The values listed in the Database are in accordance with the boss levels on JP version 1.20. I think English is on 1.10 right now, so if you subtract 6 from the Max of all the Sudden Quest drops, you’ll get the max in your version.
“Hmm. So how did you make Unica-chan so strong in that BP farming video found in your Leveling Guide?”
I updated the Leveling Guide with the equipment I used on her.
The most important thing is to play the game in Easy Mode. I just had her at Level 1050 with Rank 10 Attack Unit. Also had a 50% Dark Engraved Stone and her armaments looked like this:
- Dark Up (Lowers Ice Resistance)
- Dark Up (Lowers Status Ailment Resistance)
- Blunt Up (Lowers Thrust Resistance)
- Blunt Up (Lowers Slash Resistance)
- BP Booster
- Lime Wing (Obtained through Side EP “Mystification/Emblem” #02)
The rest is the level of your Dark Cloud Storm and your luck on having the birds not run away.
Take note that almost all this equipment unless otherwise stated is found in the shop.
“I don’t know man. It says here that I can find Dark Repulser/AW Enhancement Material/A Grade Engraved Stones in the Flossilde Center Sky Cave. I’ve plundered the shit out of those chests and I haven’t gotten anything like that man. Are you sure those locations are correct?”
The Strategy Guide says that you can get that stuff there. When I tested it, I didn’t get anything there either but I have terrible luck so I decided to listen to the Strategy Guide and put it as a farm spot.
But if you are looking for that kind of stuff, don’t go to the Flosshilde Sky Cave. Go to one of the AW stages.
For AW Enhancement Materials, go to the Apocalyptic City with an AW character. For weapons and Engraved Stones try the Purgatory Stage or the Ghost Ship stage.
If you don’t get the thing your looking for, just go to the Title Screen and come back into the game. You can reset the chests without going back to Town like that.
“I don’t like you. You think you’re God now you little asshole? You ain’t shit.”
Why am I getting comments like this? I worked myself almost to death to get this site ready for the English release and this is how I get repayed? I didn’t expect to be appreciated for my work here but seeing a comment like this when all I’ve done is try to help is deeply demoralizing.
Even if you say all that, you will probably still end up using this site, so why don’t you just rather keep quiet and take this information for what it is?
In any case, if I somehow hurt your feelings by trying my best to help, tell it to your diary.
“So BK. Which characters would you recommend for online PvE?”
That’s kind of a difficult question because I don’t really know your playstyle or what you prefer. But if I had to give my list on 5 characters that are definitely worth leveling, it would be:
- Liz (Axe)/Rain (Dual Blades)
- Sachi (Spear)
- Black Lotus
- Yuuki (2Hand Sword)
- Blue Knight/Cyan Pile
These 5 characters are incredible. You can’t go wrong picking one of the characters here. But at the same time, this isn’t the be all and end all list of good characters for the game. Play whoever you like and whoever appeals to you. Hell, you could get serious about Silica, the weakest SAO character in the game and make her the meanest Silica anyone will ever see.
The important thing is that you have fun doing it.
“Um BK. You have an Extra Quest listed there that isn’t in my game. I cleared all the Extra Quests and there’s still nothing. Is there some special requirement?”
Like with Sudden Quests, new Extra Quests were added in future updates. Since the English version is behind and I am trying to keep this site up to date with the Japanese version, there will be some discrepancies like this. The last few EQs were all added in updates.
If you come across something like this, check the Update Notes page to see if that particular quest was added in an update.
“So BK. About Damage Types. How do I know what weapon does which kind of damage?”
For SAO characters, I’ve put that information in each weapons respective section in the SAO Sword Skills and Weapon Breakdown guide.
For AW characters, I’ve spent countless nights wondering the same thing. Unfortunately, there’s no answer in the Strategy Guide… so figuring it out becomes Trail and Error.
This becomes even more annoying because AW characters aren’t limited to one single damage type in their movelist. For example, Cyan Pile does both Thrust and Slash damage depending on the skill he is using.
The way I figured this out is by interpreting the audio and visual cue you get when you hit a monster. If its a slashing attack there will be a slash-type sound along with a bright gash on the screen. If its a blunt attack there will be a crushing sound effect and a bright cluster effect.
Testing this is hard work.
“Uhuhuehehehe! I am a greasy YouTuber! I will make videos of the stuff you say here! Then I will justify it to myself and my viewers by saying that the flow of information is more important than respecting the intellectual property of the original author! Also, I can get famous so its a win-win situation!”
Can I complain a bit?
I predicted that this would happen. YouTubers that do this kind of Game Jouhou thing that I do have absolutely no originality whatsoever. Especially for SAO games (The only other two SAO YouTubers I know of actually putting their own thought into their own videos are Sng and Koy) These YouTubers just log on gamefaqs, come here or watch other people’s videos and then reupload the ideas there with their half baked knowledge.
And it shows.
This dumbass did a video on “How To Find Crest of Yggdrasil” which looks a lot like a copy of that same section in my Leveling Guide. Now. a viewer comes through and asks a legit question “Does Crest of Yggdrasil increase the leveling speed of Sword Skills?”
The dumbass responds “nope”. Nevermind it in actual fact increases it does increase Sword Skill leveling and I specifically state so in my Leveling Guide.
(I know he’s reading this so now watch him go and fix up that exchange ww)
Back in HR days I did that old Complete Legendary Farming video. Do you know how hard that shit was to make? But even so, within a few months there were many similar videos popping up doing the exact same thing using the same methods I thought up. I found a fucking Italian version of my video where I even got a shout-out in the video description for crying out loud. (If you wanna see, search “Definitive Legendary Farming Guide”)
I’m not going to sit here and say I have a monopoly on all this information. But I had all of the stuff written here done months before the English release. And looking back I worked myself too hard making this site and I almost collapsed from exhaustion a few times. So how do you think I feel when someone does a video rendition of something I painstakingly figured out or spent hours thinking up???
If you, as a viewer agree with me that this is unfair, I hope you also understand that there’s literally nothing I can do if someone steals my ideas and pretends its their own. As long as you know like I know that I am the original source I guess that would be good enough.
It would make me happy if someone actually called these guys out on their bullshit like “Well done dude. You just stole BK’s shit.” But I know that the world isn’t that convenient of a place so I’ll be genuinely shocked if that happens.
Now. A YouTuber reading over this will get angry and now steal my ideas even harder. But you know what? I predicted that also. By doing that you just help to prove my point that YouTubers have no originality.
Guess I’ll just back away into the shadows and let these worthless assholes claim the glory for my hard work because that’s how it works man…
“So BK. What kind of Accessories and stuff would you recommend wearing?”
That’s a good question. Such a good question I wrote a Mini Guide on some noteworthy equipment choices for different kinds of characters.
“BK I am having serious trouble doing the Mystification/Nagivation side EPs. I know you’re tired of hearing this but please can you help me?”
Okay. I’ve added a mini-guide on side eps to the top of this page. Go have a look at that.
“So BK who are your favorite characters?”
Gameplay:
- SAO – Liz
- AW – Blue Knight
Waifu:
- SAO – Phillia
- AW – Sky Raker
“Does Cooldown Time Reduction Stack?”
It does. This extends to Dual Blades where you can have a cooltime reduce on each blade (Take note that Boss Killer/Skill Connect won’t stack on Dual Blades since each one istreated like an individual weapon)
“I’ve got a serious question and don’t get angry. Does the ‘BK’ stand for Burger King?”
I’m so tired of hearing that (X_X)
Let’s see. Let’s say the BK stands for Boss Killer ww
“Okay. This is driving me crazy. Where do I get Ruby/ Aquamarine/ Emerald/ Garnet/ Diamond/ Black Opal? I been plundering those chest as AW characters and I still have nothing.”
Tell me about it.
But luckily in Version 2.00, those precious gems can be purchased in the Material Shop. If the grind is irritating you that much, why don’t you wait for the update?
“I’m checking this FAQ often, but its its not updated most of the time I check. What’s up with that?”
I am being asked new questions less frequently.
“So BK, any word on Custom Characters?”
The developers did ask fans if they wanted Custom Characters and they said that if there was enough demand, they would put them in.
But do you know what happened?
The fans said “Nevermind that, remove the Passive Bug.”
If you don’t know, there was this whole thing about un-knowledgeable players calling the Passive Bug a cheat because they didn’t know how to do it. It got to the point where us who did the Passive Bug couldn’t play in free rooms because everyone was bloodthristy for us “Cheaters”. If people found you with All 36 in a room, they would dox your PSN ID and post it on 2CH with the tag “SHITTY FUCKING CHEATER”.
If you’ve been reading my site, you probably know what the Passive Bug is right? Yeah, It’s been removed in Version 2.00.
On top of that, we aren’t getting Custom Characters because a bunch of fucking man babies complained about a bug that everyone had access to.
“Which characters build up the Switch gauge the fastest?”
Chiyuri Bell’s Full Splash Stinger builds up the Switch gauge like crazy. She can easily get two full bars off one cast depending on how many hits she lands.
Second to that but far worse is Void Dimension (Tier 2 Dark Magic). Having the entire team cast that skill in unison is one of the fastest ways to build up switch.
“BK, I read through your whole site and you hardly mention anything about Offensive Magic. What’s up with that?”
That’s because Offensive Magic is almost useless ww
Magic is not a primary source of damage. It never has been. Sure, its good at killing Lv200 Mobs. But in the grand scale of things, how often do you go kill Lv200 mobs outside of material farming?
But outside of damage, Magic has some auxiliary uses that are very important. Tier 1 Earth Magic DOWNs most enemies consistently. Tier 2 Dark Magic builds up the Switch gauge at an alarming rate. Tier 1 Wind Magic builds up your hit counter crazy fast.
But is Dimensional Abyss the almighty one button finish to every situation? Hell no.