Let's Talk About Death_Adder

[Ruby 0]

Hey, it's your friendly Floor Development Lead for the game that you currently play!

First and foremost: We would like to sincerely apologize for the lack of communication between staff and the community. We'd like to take some time to address a pressing issue with all of you and get some feedback to bring back the transparency and make the best decisions for the site.

With that said, the Floor 21 boss fight is temporarily halted. The sign-up period has been extended until 10/31/17 @ 2:00 UTC/EST. The reason for the sudden halt is, well, Death_Adder and the uniques skills.

Simply put, Death_Adder was originally created as a means to stall out and create a bit of hype till the Unique Skills were completely ready to be released and Dual Blades could finally be put back out into the community. However, as time progressed and staff roles have shifted, the Death_Adder account has been baton passed along with the whole Unique Skills project... and things have gotten a little chaotic. Luckily, the unleased Unique Skills are being polished and will be balanced to the best of our abilities before they are pushed out. With the revamp underway, the problem right now has become Dual Blades and the existence of Death_Adder.

You have my apologies that I wasn't coming out about this before, and that we are stalling the current boss battle more. But I wish to ask all of you: what do you wish to see from Death_Adder and the Dual Blades skill? We have been playing with a number of ideas that range from simply rebalancing his stats, to involving him in the current boss fight, to killing him off. We cannot stress enough that everyone's opinion matters. Feel free to post your thoughts here, PM a staff member on site, or on Discord. We will respect everyone's voice and privacy.

Cant wait to see all your replies!
~ Buttercup King Ruby

[Jomei 0]

With Death Adder, I feel like he could have become a great character to drive an overall story to this site. However, I feel somewhere along the way.. he not only became a joke, but became a goal for players to want to kill without even knowing who the hell he is. His purpose IC was not fully expanded on, so players heard the name and did not know what to think of him. I think giving him Dual Blades was also a good idea, but not necessarily needed. Because now, going back to what I said earlier, everyone wanting to be Kirito have dual blades and do "super heavy" damage has made it a point that their character will kill them, not only breaking the 4th wall to find out about the character, but also breaking their characters morals of killing another player. 

In my opinion, this can be settled in two ways:

1.  The swords of Michael and Lucifer break (during the boss fight most likely) but still keep DA alive. That way, he still serves his purpose of keeping Dual Blades.. but isn't this over powered force to be reckoned with. From there, his involvement should be consistent with a story, not just popping back in after half a year. This would allow for story to grow around Death Adder and who he killed, giving people more to role play about. This could also be expanded into Players of SAO vs. Laughing Coffin ordeal like in he canon. 
2. Death Adder dies during the boss fight (NOT by a player) This would completely wipe him from the system, and remove the two Unique Swords, as well as Dual Blades from his grasp. Just because he no longer has the skill, does not mean that it needs to be released to the world to be up for grabs. It can remain undiscovered again until the skill is fully polished, allowing players to search for the skill once it is released fairly. 

 

[Macradon 0]

This discussion doesn't have enough visibility, I'd advise it pinning it somewhere to everyone can see it. The status update feels like it's just some lollygagging about Death_Adder.

That aside.
For now, I don't really have a feeling about Death_Adder, not really knowing much about this player other than he's orange and a meme OOC. I'm fine with having him helping the frontlines so we can clear these floors a bit faster, but it feels wrong not having an actual player help us out (not saying a player should have Dual Blades). 
The baton has indeed been passed a lot, I can feel that as a player, but if it is being worked on, I don't really have much to say. I don't really see Death_Adders motives to actually help out the frontlines, since I see him not really being the type to help out.

My few coins for now. I might find some more thoughts about this topic later, but right now, this is what I have.

Ninja EDIT: Jomei posted before I was done with this comment :V
- His points are pretty valid and I actually like his ways of handling this Eath_Dadder

[Takao 0]

I never wanted this fate for you, Death Adder. You were a good boy, but now you need to be put down. (also, death adder's purpose wasn't to stall. it was for storytelling, which i know is a foreign concept around here)

 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Takao

[Ruby 0]

4 minutes ago, Takao said:

I never wanted this fate for you, Death Adder. You were a good boy, but now you need to be put down. (also, death adder's purpose wasn't to stall. it was for storytelling, which i know is a foreign concept around here)

 

Really? Huh, I guess the lack of actual people wanting to RP with him kind of felt like it.

My bad my guy, will always love you <3

[Ariel - The Crowned Lion 0]

I'm with Jomei's second suggestion, have him die or removed until his story is fully fleshed and made public . As it stand now, it looks like he is just another Unknown or Heathcliff, thrown in the boss fight to babysit the front liners.

[Morgenstern 1]

I believe I have to agree with Jomei's first point. In fact, I don't want to do die by the staff just shooting the death ray at him and kill him like that. 

Instead, what I would like to see happen are actually a few of things. 

• First off, we need to reduce the OPness. The two unique swords together, are super powerful, and allow for 9 out of 10 hits to deal like 45 Base DMG. As of now, just the would seem to balance him out for the time being. He is good in 1v1 combat, but against a group of enemies attacking him, he would have trouble against two prepared  frontliners. As it should be. 
• Second Off, I wanna see more story from the character of Death Adder. Even @Takao probably had some further down the road plans for him and could help chip in, but so far we know absolutely nothing of his horseman,  nothing of what he normally does other than be a badass and kill Beatbox.... Story has to be a good portion of this characters time on the site
• Lastly, If we kill Death Adder now just through, then all problems we have with him now, will just move on to the person who receives it when the Unique Skills are released, (Which we have no idea when that will happen)

I vote to allow Death Adder to remain a part of our community.