• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Xenoblade Chronicles X |OT| You want a baked Potatsu? http://youtu.be/8qPGXDk23mE

Status
Not open for further replies.
I like how Murderess is in a completely different spot than the map tells you. This wouldn't be a problem if you could change party members without having to track them down individually.
 

rockx4

Member
Just finished Chapter 5 and while the silent protagonist was a little bit awkward in one of the cutscenes, it was still a nice progress in the overall story. I enjoy the story so far and looking foreward to what happens next.

Btw after which Chapter it's possible to get your skell license?

After you finish chapter 6
 

Chaos17

Member
I've been did a bunch of probes but didn't complete the Kristy quests. And I just started an affinity quest! Its the repair job one, shouldn't be too difficult. I wish you could drop those quests halfway through, but it is what it is. Maybe then I should be high level enough to do chapter 4. Thank you!

Yeah, I don't really understand either why they didn't make that option available. It's good that you already planted some probes, many people didn't when started Lin first quest so they kinda raged :x
 

Venfayth

Member
You're really passionate about defending the game, aren't you

I have plenty of problems with the game myself and I find complaining about character choice and impact to be a lazy and thoughtless criticism. Even the argument about your character not really being the main character rings hollow on me. I agree that Elma is more of the main character, but I don't have a problem with that.

Look at a pretty universally praised game like Persona 4 and you find both of these same 'problems' - MC plays second banana to Yosuke for most of the story. Your dialogue choices make little to no difference except in specific cases and with regards to how many social link points you get.

It could easily be improved, but I find it pretty low on the list of things I'd criticize about this game.
 

emb

Member
Just noticed the aerial cam option, and I love it.

Drives me crazy how my character can't talk or be addressed by name during cutscenes. Also, my face looks really dumb (that's on me though, lol). Still, I can't help but wish it was a normal RPG character rather than user made.

Starting out, even being familiar with Xenoblade, everything seems a bit overwhelming.

Any concern is completely eased when I get a nice view though. Can't wait to see the rest of the world! More than any other game I've played, I feel like I want to reach new places solely for the purpose of sightseeing.

I'm only an hour in though, lol. Probably the first of many.
 

Diffense

Member
Man I really can't get used to this combat system. I think I spent 2 hours just "fighting" low level enemies, and I put that in quotes because I still don't know what to do.

So here are my questions about combat:

1. Is there a dodge or defend mechanic, or does moving around during the fight do anything beside get you closer to attack

2. What does that B button prompt that comes up mean.

3. Why is melee combat so slow

4. It tells me to target with the R button and draw with the A button, except i've never been able to target anything, most of the time i walk into the monsters line of sight and then they attack.

1)No. You can't dodge in real time like an action game. However, if you're behind the enemy you get an evasion boost so their attacks have a higher chance of missing. Some arts (techniques selected from the palette) also add effects or damage boosts depending on your position. Check the art description for details.

2)It's a "Soul Challenge". If you get "good" or "perfect" you'll heal your whole party a bit and call out a "Soul voice". A "perfect" will also give you TP. There are posts linked in the OP that explain those aspects of the combat system.

3)The auto-attack rate is determined by the weapon's cooldown stat. If you have a weapon with a slow cooldown (like 2.5s) you won't attack faster than that.

4)Monsters can have a detection type next to their names. Nothing means they're not hostile and will fight back only if you initiate. The eye symbol means they'll attack if they see you and the one that looks like a bolt means they'll attack if they hear you.
 

zroid

Banned
Man I really can't get used to this combat system. I think I spent 2 hours just "fighting" low level enemies, and I put that in quotes because I still don't know what to do.

So here are my questions about combat:

1. Is there a dodge or defend mechanic, or does moving around during the fight do anything beside get you closer to attack

2. What does that B button prompt that comes up mean.

3. Why is melee combat so slow

4. It tells me to target with the R button and draw with the A button, except i've never been able to target anything, most of the time i walk into the monsters line of sight and then they attack.

I understand, the combat can be confusing at first, you will get the hang of it eventually though.

1) no dodging, but yes if you run behind an enemy it will not target you as much.

2) that's a QTE, it's called a soul challenge. soul voices are an important part of the game, check the manual for more info.

3) cooldown depends on the weapon but really auto-attacking is not the primary way of inflicting damage. battles are all about managing your arts and positioning.

4) if tapping R doesn't target an enemy on its own, try holding R and tapping Y or A to switch targets, then it will try to lock onto the closest enemy if you aren't targeting anyone already.
 
Man I really can't get used to this combat system. I think I spent 2 hours just "fighting" low level enemies, and I put that in quotes because I still don't know what to do.

So here are my questions about combat:

1. Is there a dodge or defend mechanic, or does moving around during the fight do anything beside get you closer to attack

2. What does that B button prompt that comes up mean.

3. Why is melee combat so slow

4. It tells me to target with the R button and draw with the A button, except i've never been able to target anything, most of the time i walk into the monsters line of sight and then they attack.
1. I don't think moving can make you dodge anything. Positioning yourself can help your attacks though (get on the enemies' back).

2. Soul challenge. Read up on it from the manual.

3. I think it was a bit slow at start but it gets better as you get more arts and stuff and have more stuff to look for in combat.

4. That sounds strange if you do it most of the time. Why? Anyway, the enemies with a sign of a red eye on their name are ones that attack you if they see you, and enemies with a red lightning attack if they hear you.
 
30 hours in and the honeymoon period is beginning to transition into slight disdain as many of the flaws are eating at me leaving a bit of frustration. Not nearly to the degree that MGSV or Fallout 4 left me cold though. I am still thoroughly enjoying what is good.

At 10 hours I could definitely be in the honeymoon period and things could turn sour or grindy.

I agree about Fallout and MGS though.
 

Sitrus

Member
I think I broke the game, it's so easy now post-game:

I get 300k gold and 30k Miranium every 4min after getting one of the superweapons (antimatter cannon). Then spam that mission (Scouting Antropolis) and since you get enough miranium for fuel, it's very easy. The mission is also very short. One shotting all enemies xD
 

JulianImp

Member
Totally agree, especially about the Chapter 5 cutscene in particular. It was really weird and kind of took me out of the scene. If Shulk had been there, he would have
let out a very awesome sounding scream. :p

The silent protag is still very much a turn off for me in this game. It has FFXIV-syndrome where your character nods constantly to stuff and things just come off as really stilted. If they were going to do the "create your own character" thing, they should have just done it like Mass Effect or Dragon Age where your character still talks quite often and is part of cutscenes in a meaningful way (and isn't awkward in said cutscenes).

It's probably my biggest disappointment about the game. I'm still enjoying it, but compared to the first Xenoblade, it just doesn't have that special/charming feeling to me.

Same here. I feel like the party dynamics took a big step down from Xenoblade thanks to the lack of a voiced MC, and the rest of the cast isn't enough to provide us with fun and varied situations. Having a dynamic, non-stable party also means that meaningful character interactions are limited to missions that force you to have specific people in your party, and anyone besides them gets ignored during cutscenes and normal dialogs. It would've been nice if they were given some written lines during generic missions since they're available for taking even without a party, and that results in the NPC speaking all the time while the MC only gets a couple multiple-choice lines at best.

Exploration has been amazing so far. I'm greatly enjoying that you can actually go anywhere, and the tension that comes from being surrounded by enemies twenty levels over your party and attempting to go around them without being spotted. I went on a grand trip around the land yesterday, and it was really cool to see that you can get almost anywhere with a skell even before you get your hands on the flight augmentation.
 

Jarmel

Banned
I have plenty of problems with the game myself and I find complaining about character choice and impact to be a lazy and thoughtless criticism. Even the argument about your character not really being the main character rings hollow on me. I agree that Elma is more of the main character, but I don't have a problem with that.

Look at a pretty universally praised game like Persona 4 and you find both of these same 'problems' - MC plays second banana to Yosuke for most of the story. Your dialogue choices make little to no difference except in specific cases and with regards to how many social link points you get.

It could easily be improved, but I find it pretty low on the list of things I'd criticize about this game.

The problem isn't inherently the lack of character impact, it's that the presentation went down the tubes due to the decision to make the player controller character silent. As a result the tradeoff is that the player gets more 'options' however those options come off as usually as half-baked. In addition, the party dynamic is completely fucked partially as a result in this game.

So what's left are these cutscenes that are awkwardly framed and player deviations not being enough to justify that.
 

zombieshavebrains

I have not used cocaine
For anyone that hasn't done the "Repair Job" Affinity Quest with Lin yet, just say NO to the second part, I wasted about 2 hours of my life on that. Just feed Tatsu and move on :)

Any quest that makes you "hope" for a certain random item to drop from an enemy is terrible.

Second part is killing the machines where you first meet the aliens right? I dont' think it took me 2 hours but it wasn't the most fun i've had.
 

Not_Mario

Neo Member
As a game, I'm enjoying this way more than Xenoblade. Even character movement feels so much better that I don't mind running around NLA talking to people and taking on quests whereas in the first Xenoblade it was always a pain.

So far the story is too different to compare directly, plus I haven't finished it. I liked Xenoblade's story presentation better so far since there were more of the high budget cutscenes although it's possible those are loaded into the back half of X, I'm at chapter 6 and it does seem like the story is picking up.

The world on top of two giants scenario of the first was really cool and unique but I think I'm just a sucker for sci-fi Takahashi. Considering some of the early twists, I think I like the scenario of X better. Do you think Takahashi will publish a Perfect Works for X? I remember reading that he had a ton of writing about the Xenoblade X universe.
 

Chaos17

Member
You're really passionate about defending the game, aren't you

No, I just want people to be fair and stop not giving attention about the feedback of oher people otherwise that thread is pointless if people ignore usefull infos giving by others.

Also that game has flaws (ex : people dislike the music or Tatsu ? I won't go against them), that's for certain (that's why I will never give it 10/10) but I would dislike anyone who would spread misinformations.
Misinformation hurted too many games that I know.
 

aravuus

Member
I have plenty of problems with the game myself and I find complaining about character choice and impact to be a lazy and thoughtless criticism. Even the argument about your character not really being the main character rings hollow on me. I agree that Elma is more of the main character, but I don't have a problem with that.

Look at a pretty universally praised game like Persona 4 and you find both of these same 'problems' - MC plays second banana to Yosuke for most of the story. Your dialogue choices make little to no difference except in specific cases and with regards to how many social link points you get.

It could easily be improved, but I find it pretty low on the list of things I'd criticize about this game.

I'm not trying to take a stance with either side of this argument, I just think it's hilarious how defensive chaos is all the time.

Well, regarding the mute character, I will say that going by recent memory, this game has one of the worst handled mutes I've seen. It feels like the game can't decide just what sort of mute the MC is (literally mute, player avatar, Persona-sort of mute etc), and it's handled very differently in different scenes and quests. That said, the mute MC isn't bothering me nearly as much as I thought it would since he's really just on the sidelines most of the time. Aside from a couple of stupid scenes here and there (like the
"screaming" part
Jarmel mentioned) it's been fine so far and I'd rather have him/her than a stupid goody two shoes like Shulk

Quest becomes available after chapter 9.

Nice, only two chapters to go! Might do them right now and focus on side questing after that, again.

Level 48 should be high enough to do chapter 9 without much difficulty, I imagine.

No, I just want people to be fair and stop not giving attention about the feedback of oher people otherwise that thread is pointless if people ignore usefull infos giving by others.

Also that game has flaws (ex : people dislike the music or Tatsu ? I won't go against them), that's for certain (that's why I will never give it 10/10) but I would dislike anyone who would spread misinformations.
Misinformation hurted too many games that I know.

Jarmel thinking the mute protagonist isn't getting used the way it should be isn't misinformation, it's just their opinion. Nobody's ignoring others who voice their opinions because of Jarmel either.

Also while the game has a ton of objective flaws, the two things you listed aren't among them. Just a matter of taste.
 

Venfayth

Member
The problem isn't inherently the lack of character impact, it's that the presentation went down the tubes due to the decision to make the player controller character silent. As a result the tradeoff is that the player gets more 'options' however those options come off as usually as half-baked. In addition, the party dynamic is completely fucked partially as a result in this game.

So what's left are these cutscenes that are awkwardly framed and player deviations not being enough to justify that.

The party dynamic is definitely the biggest problem for me with regards to this. It's really weird to basically have 3/4 of your group locked for the majority of quests in the game, especially when they went out of their way to create so many other companions to choose from.
 

Diffense

Member
Then they probably shouldn't have done 20 different options.

They prioritized giving the player options in this game. If you read the Iwata asks you'll glean as much. They were quite willing to sacrifice aspects of exposition to do that as evidenced by the introduction of an avatar late in development. Clearly, they weren't interested in cloning Xenoblade Chronicles.

I think Takahashi has a very strategic management of his limited resources and team wherein he sees each game as a stepping stone in preparation for the next. Even if he couldn't do everything in X it seems he had certain goals for the project as their first HD game.

(While we're *still* waiting on the next FF...)
 
Honestly I'm really surprised at how getting the Skell completely changes the game. I was liking some of the improvements to the combat made from the first game, but I was missing the character specific combat quirks that it had as well. But once I got my first Skell I really got an appreciation for the combat system in this game. I'm sure in the next one it will be perfected even more.
 
Look at a pretty universally praised game like Persona 4 and you find both of these same 'problems' - MC plays second banana to Yosuke for most of the story. Your dialogue choices make little to no difference except in specific cases and with regards to how many social link points you get.

It could easily be improved, but I find it pretty low on the list of things I'd criticize about this game.
Ugh i feel this one, as I OVERLY praise personas, but I really can't stand silent mc..
The issue is that silent mc that is "dragged around" by a persistent story (see persona... or suikoden..) is fine..
a silent mc, that is dragged around simply by affinity quest that are effectively the "main dish" to enojy the story, i consider this too much of a stretch..
there you have it, my justification..
it MIGHT seems weak, but try to consider how you're basically saying that
- silent mc (see suikoden, persona)
- no story that "delineate" your whole story experience (NO persona, NO suikoden..)
it adds up to an unconvincing mix..
not that the game sucks, by any means, i find it enjoyable..
just I would have preferred a more "entwined" story :)
 

Whizkid7

Member
Anyone here a high rank enforcer/psycorruptor/mastermind? I'm playing as a tank-ish DPS longsword character, but I have three extra art slots after assigning the melee arts I want and the assault rifle arts are practically worthless. So my question is, does the raygun get some good debuff arts I could use with my otherwise mostly melee build?

Raygun gets Myopic Screen, which causes Blackout, as well as an art that causes Debuff Resistance Down (I forget what it's called). I haven't fully maxed out Mastermind yet so I don't have everything, but those are the two I remember offhand as being most useful. The others I use regularly are damage arts (though one of them causes Topple, Gravity Blast, I think it was.)
 

Spierek

Member
EFF YEAH!

SKELL AHOY!

Don't get too excited yet, the license mission is pretty time-demanding.

So far I think I'm enjoying the game less than XC, mainly due to how they've downplayed party dynamics. I felt like in XC each companion had a lot more character to them and I enjoyed almost everyone's company - here it's just you, Elma, Lin and random character needed for the current mission. Oh, and Tatsu is a goddamn disgrace, he's nowhere near Riki. I wish I could disable his dialogue lines.

Exploration feels a lot better though, even if at times it ends up being "Find The Rock You Can Land On Simulator 2015".
once you get the initial Skell it does become a lot easier
Running around the world and discovering new vistas, planting probes and trying to avoid completely overpowered beings is fun.

I'm really bummed they've changed the Vision system from XC into Overdrive, because IMO the new one is needlessly complicated and doesn't work nearly as well. Gone is the feeling of teamwork when executing combos, and "breaking" enemy attacks before these happen (or, alternatively, healing yourself right before a deadly blow) :( Comboing Stagger - Daze - Topple also doesn't feel right in XCX, I mostly forget about which Arts perform which extra actions. Being able to switch between guns and melee is a welcome addition though.

I'm still enjoying the game, but not as much as I hoped. I feel like it shouldn't be called "Xenoblade Chronicles X", but rather something in the lines of "Xenocross" (idk) - it uses a lot of similar concepts and mechanics to Monolith's previous title, but the end product is a very different beast.
 

Diffense

Member
Anyway, too many chapter numbers floating around this thread now. I'm still pretty early in the story and don't want to know that I'll get X or Y item/character/capability/exciting cutscene after chapter Z. I want to be surprised so I'll be bailing out for now. See you on Mira.
 
One can but hope :(

why bother with amiibo when you can wait for kotobukiya to finally release this thing :v
img_sp-welcome17L-04.jpg
 

aravuus

Member
Raygun gets Myopic Screen, which causes Blackout, as well as an art that causes Debuff Resistance Down (I forget what it's called). I haven't fully maxed out Mastermind yet so I don't have everything, but those are the two I remember offhand as being most useful. The others I use regularly are damage arts (though one of them causes Topple, Gravity Blast, I think it was.)

Thanks, sounds like they would be worth it. Do you happen to know if brainjack, or whatever it was that could make enemies attack each other, is a raygun art? Would love to be able to use that one
 

Freeman76

Member
Is there a tutorial about weapons anywhere? At level 18 my assault rifle has a damage stat of 8, and there are rare weapons i have that are equippable at level 20 which have a damage stat of 6. Not sure how to read this.
 

Kureransu

Member
Man I really can't get used to this combat system. I think I spent 2 hours just "fighting" low level enemies, and I put that in quotes because I still don't know what to do.

So here are my questions about combat:

1. Is there a dodge or defend mechanic, or does moving around during the fight do anything beside get you closer to attack

2. What does that B button prompt that comes up mean.

3. Why is melee combat so slow

4. It tells me to target with the R button and draw with the A button, except i've never been able to target anything, most of the time i walk into the monsters line of sight and then they attack.
First off, there is a bit to take in and there can be an information overload, so I can be hard to click with. but to answer your questions.

1. You can't dodge or defend per say, but your positioning matters a lot. Your position is listed on the screen when in battle it's on the right side above your arts. It's a translucent Black bar with white text.

You're must vulnerable position (the place you don't want to be) is low and in front (it'll read simply as LOW / FRONT. The Best position is HIGH/BACK or HIGH/SIDE depending on what attack you're going to do. This decreases the enemies accuracy, causing them to miss more, while increasing your accuracy as well as chance to critically strike.

Also note there is a MIDDLE position as well. when you fight, try to find rocks or structures that put you on higher ground to jump on so you aren't LOW.

2. The B. Buttons prompt is a soul challenge, Landing it before the inner ring hit's the B button will net bonuses, ranging from HP regain to stats up to extra TP as well as increasing you Morale (higher morale stacks bonuses and triggers more soul voices for more stat bonuses lol).

Speaking of soul voices, you'll notice that often times your teammates will say something. the text bubble will pop up with a certain color. This is a soul voice If you use an art that matches the color of the text box (the arts usually with pulsate to let you know), you'll get a healing bonus to your team and a stat boost depending on what the soul voice has set to trigger (you can customize i think 4 of them for your own character, but you can view all of them for your party members).

3. Because you have a melee weapon with a slow cool down. Check out your ground gear and try to find a nice balance of damage, tp recovery(if you have tp heavy spells) and Cool down.


Also, I don't know how far you are but you also have skills that gives your characters stat boosts as well, make sure you use them and level them up to fit your play style (you get a lot of skills but are limited to many you can have in use at a time).


Hope this helps and anyone feel free to correct whatever i got wrong and/or missed.

EDIT

OPPS!

Missed number 4.

Just to make sure you are pressing the shoulder button (R) and not the trigger button (ZR). Because one would make you jump lol. Pressing R should put a red cursor over their head along with basic info of the target. You can do this way out of combat range. so if it's not targeting i'd say it's another issue.
 
I think I broke the game, it's so easy now post-game:

I get 300k gold and 30k Miranium every 4min after getting one of the superweapons (antimatter cannon). Then spam that mission (Scouting Antropolis) and since you get enough miranium for fuel, it's very easy. The mission is also very short. One shotting all enemies xD

well... that's because it's the dlc quest... :v
 

Freeman76

Member
Anyway, too many chapter numbers floating around this thread now. I'm still pretty early in the story and don't want to know that I'll get X or Y item/character/capability/exciting cutscene after chapter Z. I want to be surprised so I'll be bailing out for now. See you on Mira.

Spoilers are tagged well, if you are this precious about spoilers you should probably stay off the Internet in general
 

aravuus

Member
Is there a tutorial about weapons anywhere? At level 18 my assault rifle has a damage stat of 8, and there are rare weapons i have that are equippable at level 20 which have a damage stat of 6. Not sure how to read this.

I think you can more or less safely ignore the base stat of each weapon and just pay attention to the augments they have. If you don't know what an augment does (for example, Reinvigorate, which is not very descriptive at all), you can check it's description out by going to the terminal next to the shop one and choose to upgrade gear.

No other way to see though, as far as I know, which is obviously stupid as hell.

I think I broke the game, it's so easy now post-game:

I get 300k gold and 30k Miranium every 4min after getting one of the superweapons (antimatter cannon). Then spam that mission (Scouting Antropolis) and since you get enough miranium for fuel, it's very easy. The mission is also very short. One shotting all enemies xD

Quoting this for future grinding use. No idea if I'll be interested in post-game, though, usually lose all interest in a game when the main story's over and done with.

It does, but it's a knife art

Damn, no brainjacking for me then

Maybe I'll experiment with the classes later on when I can grind BP.
 

Diffense

Member
Spoilers are tagged well, if you are this precious about spoilers you should probably stay off the Internet in general

Disconnecting from the internet is a bit overkill don't you think? It's highly unlikely that I will run into Xenoblade X spoilers while checking stocks or reading what's been added to the Linux kernel. Leaving the thread, as I said I would, will suffice I think. But thanks for the well-intentioned advice.
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
Disconnecting from the internet is a bit overkill don't you think? It's highly unlikely that I will run into Xenoblade X spoilers while checking stocks or reading what's been added to the Linux kernel. Leaving the thread, as I said I would, will suffice I think. But thanks for the well-intentioned advice.
Watch Torvalds use the Xenoblade X script as his next commit message.
 

Not_Mario

Neo Member
I feel like I'm the only one who likes Tatsu. Riki was the cute mascot character who was secretly a 40 year old father of 11 who had surprisingly insightful things to say at times. Tatsu serves the same mascot character role but instead of moments of insight he has these moments of being a complete asshole for no reason and it makes me laugh everytime.
 

desu

Member
I think I broke the game, it's so easy now post-game:

I get 300k gold and 30k Miranium every 4min after getting one of the superweapons (antimatter cannon). Then spam that mission (Scouting Antropolis) and since you get enough miranium for fuel, it's very easy. The mission is also very short. One shotting all enemies xD

Where does the weapon drop from :D?

Also random information, Galatic Knight class has an Skill that gives your Skell up to: 12% more melee attack, ranged attack, melee & ranged acc, potential and evasion!!!
 

Freeman76

Member
I think you can more or less safely ignore the base stat of each weapon and just pay attention to the augments they have. If you don't know what an augment does (for example, Reinvigorate, which is not very descriptive at all), you can check it's description out by going to the terminal next to the shop one and choose to upgrade gear.

No other way to see though, as far as I know, which is obviously stupid as hell.



Quoting this for future grinding use. No idea if I'll be interested in post-game, though, usually lose all interest in a game when the main story's over and done with.



Damn, no brainjacking for me then

Maybe I'll experiment with the classes later on when I can grind BP.

Thanks for advice, i will look into it. Perhaps its better to let the game pick best gear and check the weapon it selected, as i have been basing it off the damage stat only.
 

aravuus

Member
Dana is exceptionally knowledgeable for a one-off side quest NPC who apparently does nothing all day but drink coffee and whine about her non-existent love life. "Please get me these two very specific items that are only dropped by these two very specific monsters whose name and location (that's VERY far from here) I happen to know!"

I feel like I'm the only one who likes Tatsu. Riki was the cute mascot character who was secretly a 40 year old father of 11 who had surprisingly insightful things to say at times. Tatsu serves the same mascot character role but instead of moments of insight he has these moments of being a complete asshole for no reason and it makes me laugh everytime.

He was tolerable at first, but it's the same shitty jokes with him and Lin all the fucking time that's particularly starting to get on my nerves. They weren't funny the first time, they are NOT funny the 50th time.

Thanks for advice, i will look into it. Perhaps its better to let the game pick best gear and check the weapon it selected, as i have been basing it off the damage stat only.

Nooooo! The equip best gear option seems to ignore augments completely. After you start getting items with 2+ augments, it's practically worthless, and if your MC has mastered classes (can equip any weapon) it's not just worthless, it's stupid. Right now it would equip me with a shield, for example, because it has a higher base stat than my carefully crafted longsword.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom