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Xenoblade Chronicles |OT| Man, what a bunch of jokers.
- Thread starter Sadist
- Start date
Out_Of_Ammo said:Need help with the big quest chain of thered pollen orbs. I found the evidence and now I need to find a secret location in Alcamoth but I can't find itI think I know where it is but don't know how to get there. In the big hallway of the palace, there's a small part on the map that looks the same as the part where the teleporter is to go to the room with the big table, so I think there's another teleporter there, but the "door" is closed
It's not there.
Actual location:
On the outside edge of the second floor of the main plaza there's a walkway with little glass-roofed pods on them. It's in one of those at night.
Edit: I should add,
I was unreasonably lucky with this one. During my initial exploration of the city, I happened to be standing in exactly the right pod when night fell. I got a message about being thrown out because it was now member's only, which I recalled once it actually mattered!
Gvaz said:
Children actually generally hate tutorials and cutscenes in games. That's why the most popular games among younger audiences are those which are not really heavy of cinematics or story, and the gameplay elements are naturally introduced and learned without obvious prompts and tutorial messages.
Starwolf_UK
Member
@Out_Of_Ammo. You know at night time the part where
the guards say not to bother going there becasuse nothing in there, they are not telling the truth. One of the gazebos is where you find it (if I were to describe that part as a E its about the centre).
Out_Of_Ammo
Member
mclem said:
Ah k thanks! It would take me a long time to find that, I never go there after dark
Have I reached the point of no return?
I'm about to enter the Junks airship in order to fly to the Mechonis core
Considering how many people in this very thread haven't understood some very basic gameplay stuff ("What? I can warp to other areas too?") the game apparently needs even more tutorial windows! ;oGvaz said:
wrowa said:
No, but I'd wrap up any quests in Alcamoth if I were you. Don't forget the Red Pollen Quest too (initiated in Frontier Village, eventually ends up in Alcamoth).
You may have also noticed that Agniratha, Mechonis Field and Central Factory have already become inaccessible. But, you'll be able to reach (at least) Central Factory from Mechonis core. So if you still got some stuff to do there, do those then too. Not sure if you can still reach Agniratha or Mechonis Field from Central Factory though.
You may have also noticed that Agniratha, Mechonis Field and Central Factory have already become inaccessible. But, you'll be able to reach (at least) Central Factory from Mechonis core. So if you still got some stuff to do there, do those then too. Not sure if you can still reach Agniratha or Mechonis Field from Central Factory though.
wrowa said:
Actually, I think it is much more of a result of over relying on tutorial messages instead. Static tutorials are generally almost always a bad thing in game design. What you want to do is show, not tell. If the game naturally guides players into using and understanding various systems and mechanics, more casual players will learn to appreciate them much quicker.
Tutorial windows don't really benefit anyone. Experienced core gamers are usually familiar enough with game design quirks to try things out on their own, read various messages and explanations buried inside menus or the manual, etc. Less experienced players would feel lost having to read messages which refer to various terms and other sub-systems, and tend to zone out and not pay much attention after a while.
Zelda games are a great example of how the game design itself trains players to learn the game mechanics and the new mechanics of each new weapon/tool, before expanding the use of such tools to solving more complicated puzzles and situations.
Wow, I can't believe they gave you your money back before the trace was even completed. Will they take the money back once the game arrives, do you think? This kinda shit happens to me all the time when I import. Hell, even the 3DS accessories I ordered from Play-Asia took a couple weeks beyond the "please review your purchase" email I got to get here. I emailed them to complain and they were running a trace when suddenly there it was in my mailbox one day.RPGCrazied said:
A lot of us who ordered from Zavvi/The Hut still haven't gotten our games. Our orders probably just got held up in customs and will be here soon. Just gotta be patient and find other games to fill the agonizing void in the meantime.
pancakesandsex
Member
Carlisle said:
He's probably still going to get it in the mail this week or next and then feel incredibly silly about this whole thing. Methinks the odds of him owning up to that are low.
Dead Prince
Banned
no one listens to npc unless it's a quest lulz.wrowa said:
Carlisle said:
This is pretty standard procedure for any major online retailer. I had a big shipment from Amazon a few years back, which took way, way longer than it should have. I made a complaint, and they sent a second shipment, which arrived before the original one did. Eventually the original shipment arrived too, and I asked the post office to send it back.
jump_button
Banned
PixyJunket said:
not played FF13? that 20 hour of tutorials and cut-scenes before you free
Yeah, I spent most of my time exploring Satorl at night. It's prettier, and it's easier to get around.Antagon said:
That is definitely the zone that freaked me out the most so far. There's just this oppressive atmosphere of dread and danger, especially during the day. I genuinely don't like being there and can't wait to get back someplace more inviting. Very very effective ambiance in that zone.
About 25 hours in, I'm at Satori (Satorl?) Marsh - how far into the game am I currently?
Amazing game btw. I'm having a hard time thinking of the last time I was this completely absorbed by something. Night-time in the marsh, the graphics combined with the music, is just about as magical as it gets!
Amazing game btw. I'm having a hard time thinking of the last time I was this completely absorbed by something. Night-time in the marsh, the graphics combined with the music, is just about as magical as it gets!
Heart Attack
Member
I wish i had the time to finish this game. Played over 40 hours the week it came out, but i got back to school and now i don't have the time... sigh
â Narayan
Member
Got my copy in yesterday! I'll fire this up after I finish Persona 4.
Yeah satorl marsh isn't that far in, really. If you don't do many sidequests you can get there pretty quickly. I'm 48 hours in and apparently about halfway.Mudo said:1/4 the way in?
Dascu said:
Thought that much. I still have some quests open in Agniratha, so I'll probably reload the save file from directly before the Egis fight again. Not a big deal.
Btw. is there a point to gather Central Factory quests? I've only got 6 quests in that area and all of them have been story quests.
Btw 2: regarding the Red Pollen Quest. I have delivered the Pollen from Satori Marsh to Frontier Village. Where does the quest continue at this point?
Btw. is there a point to gather Central Factory quests? I've only got 6 quests in that area and all of them have been story quests.
Btw 2: regarding the Red Pollen Quest. I have delivered the Pollen from Satori Marsh to Frontier Village. Where does the quest continue at this point?
Huh? The Quadwings at night (don't know anymore what they are called) surely are aggressive. And they will kill you if you come too closeAntagon said:
duckroll said:
I agree with you, but what would have been your solution in the case of Xenoblade? Because I quite frankly can't think of a way to teach the player most of the system stuff naturally. Most of the stuff many people didn't discover until later in the game (area warping, the collectibles, the clock,...) are in the menu -- it's not comparable to teaching the usage of an item step by step.
The tutorial windows aren't even very complicated. They have huge pictures, they don't have much text; they are easy to understand. It's certainly not the best way to explain the systems of the game, but they are doing their job.
More or less. If one would make a list of all the areas in the game, Satorl Marsh would be about 1/4th in. So you still got lots of places to explore, not to mention going back to those previous areas to find new areas and secrets.Mudo said:1/4 the way in?
It's a really massive game, quite the achievement.
Toma said:
You've started the reconstruction? Then talk to Juju and keep trying to upgrade the 4 areas of the town. And you can also invite new NPCs over. A lot of them require certain conditions though, like your Housing level must be at least 3. Things like that. (I don't have a list of all invitable NPCs handy, sorry.)Those new NPCs should cause new quests to pop up.
wrowa said:
Some of the NPCs in the Fallen Arm village and the hidden Machina village in Mechonis Field might have quests that require you to get some items in Mechonis Field or Central Factory. Otherwise, there's a couple of uniques to kill. Beating a unique gives you an affinity coin. I personally didn't bother to go through the entire area again, for maybe a handful of coins.
I'd just do the ones in Agniratha and Alcamoth, and then move on. Also don't worry about missable item drops: you can find every one of them through trading.
As for the Red Pollen quest... I'd keep talking to the key NPCs in Frontier Village. Bana, Gadada, blablabla something. They should eventually send you over to Alcamoth to find this "secret club". A nopon in Alcamoth named Nero should be of assistance for that.
I'd just do the ones in Agniratha and Alcamoth, and then move on. Also don't worry about missable item drops: you can find every one of them through trading.
As for the Red Pollen quest... I'd keep talking to the key NPCs in Frontier Village. Bana, Gadada, blablabla something. They should eventually send you over to Alcamoth to find this "secret club". A nopon in Alcamoth named Nero should be of assistance for that.
Where exactly are you? Has theToma said:
reconstruction already begun?
If not
you've got to talk to O-something in the Colony 6 area. He'll give you the quest to defeat some monsters on the bridge, so that the people from the Refugee Camp can come back to the colony. After you have defeated the monsters you have to report back to Juju in the camp; he will ask you if they should abandon the camo now or later (apart of the Earnest quests all quests will expire)
wrowa said:
I don't think the tutorials in Xenoblade are particularly bad, but I do think they could have been handled better. Instead of the text-heavy pop-up windows all over the start of the game, I think that it would have been better if they had pop-up commands while you were actually performing the task. Mostly for the combat tutorials, this would probably have made it much better.
As for the extra stuff that people don't seem to "know" about, I think it would have been helpful if they had some mandatory quests early in the game when you're exploring Colony 9, which required you to make use of such systems, while the game has floating tool-tips suggesting that the player make use of such systems. A quest which requires you to be at different landmarks at different times of the day for example, along with a non-intrusive floating text window which says "If you don't want to wait around all day, you can change the time of day in your menu!" and "Instead of walking from one landmark to another, you can use the map to warp between major locations!" would be great.
I also feel the game doesn't really handle trading well in terms of introducing the system to players. It's so completely optional that most people might not even know it's an option. Same with gifting items to your party members. Having an early quest in the game involving those systems would be a great way to introduce them as an option to players.
Clever Pun
Member
duckroll said:
Yeah I know that trading exists, but 16 hours in and I haven't done it at all. Should I be trading? Will I get better equipment, gems, what? Anyone willing to give me a quick rundown on the trading system?
RPGCrazied
Member
beje said:
source?
duckroll said:
Yes but Zelda is more of an action game than Xenoblade is. I'm pretty sure I'd be doing a lot worse had I not read the tutorials. Half the new mechanics in this game they show you before the actual tutorial anyways. Also the tutorials are like a car manual in terms of accessibility.
Clever Pun said:
It's not a very well documented system at all. Basically you can trade with any non-story named NPC in the entire game. Each named NPC has his/her own set of items which can be traded for, as well as a set of items that they will be willing to trade for. This list expands as your affinity with the region the NPC is linked to grows.
The benefit of the system is generally not so much to get better equipment (since the odds are good that you have better equipment than you can trade for at any given time), but instead you could get gems instead of making them (also not very useful), or you could trade for materials and/or collectibles that you need for a quest instead of going out to grind for them. This is the main use of the trading system, but first you'll need to find out who might trade you that item. The plus side is that once you do know, you can trade for unlimited amounts of that item, and the odds are you have enough junk materials and collectibles which are useless, and you can easily trade for what you need.
It's pretty... poorly implemented, and overall it sounds better on paper than in practice unless you want to use a FAQ. Such design is often present in most Japanese games though, where they design stuff which is relatively obscure and doesn't really benefit players who are playing it on their own without additional aid from a guide.
pancakesandsex
Member
I really don't get how you people are having so much trouble with the basic game functions. The tutorials all pop up for things the first time they are relevant and are fairly comprehensive. Any details not explained in the automatic tutorials is usually explained in the optional ones, which they mention in the tutorial tutorial! It's like you're all playing in Swahili or something, and I don't think that's on the disc.
Yeah. I'm going to guess it has to do with money and time. Static, game-pausing pop-up screens were probably the quickest, cheapest way to develop the in-game tutorials. It's too bad. However, if it kept them from cutting a few corners in the rest of the game, then it was worth it, to me.duckroll said:
Xenoblade is one of those RPGs where it'll be fun to see how much better I am the second time through, when I actually know how to do everything from the get-go. I hardly even bothered with some things (e.g., trading) on the first playthrough.
It's a pretty complex game -- not always in terms of the depth of the systems, but in terms of the sheer number of systems and options. When I wasn't playing, my wife ran around all the areas, filling up the collectopaedia, making gems, and selling surplus equipment at the shops. It was actually a really fun game to co-play, in that sense. (Except that she now refers to herself only as Gem Man.)
Okay, that really sounds like a much better solution.duckroll said:
I think the biggest problem is that trading honestly is a pain in the ass. If you don't know which NPC trades the particular item you are looking for, you would have to search for dozens of different NPCs (which in many areas aren't even easy to spot) in the hopes of finding the right items. That's too much of a hassle for most people.
I wish that the game would track all the items the different NPCs offer for trade. No one can remember what 200 different NPCs offer for trade; so why isn't the game doing that for the player? They could have easily integrated the list of tradeable items into the affinity chart. (It also would help much if the game gave more precise directions than just the area a particular NPC lives in. Actually, I wish that the game would offer me to activate a quest arrow that leads to a chosen NPC)
They're complaining about the tutorials being too obtrusive, which to me is better because if they were pop ups I don't know if anyone would read them. Since they're "all up in your face" it forces people to read them. Some people still ignore them, especially in this thread, but that's their own fault.pancakesandsex said:
Lord Ghirahim
Member
Got my Xenoblade Chronicles steelbook, it took less than three days to get here from France. Couple of minor scratches, but it's cool. They used a cropped version of this for the inside.
Clever Pun
Member
Ok, that makes sense. The one time I pulled up the trade screen with someone in Colony 9 it seemed useless, but that was before I really started questing. I'll have to give it a try next time I play. Thanks for the info.
wrowa said:
Tracking stuff is actually an interesting comment. One thing I always appreciated in Tales games, is that on your map, the game also tracks what stores in each town sell. It's pretty helpful when you want to get a certain equipment or item, and you don't want to manually go to each place to check. It would definitely help if the game made better use of the Affinity Chart. If you can select the NPCs on the list, and view what they have for trade, it would be great. Also, the Chart doesn't even list the goddamn location of the NPC. Since some areas can be pretty huge, it can be a pain in the ass to find someone if you forgot where they generally are. There are sub-area names for all towns and cities anyway, so the game should use them! Grrrr.