Yeah I mean that is a MASTER TIP once you reach around story chapter 8 (when you get the first Skell). You NEED to setup your FrontierNav properly early so that you'll have enough money stockpiled for Ch.12 to buy those Lv 50 Skells and not have to grind it out at the end.
Again: Landmarks are your money maker. There's a GREAT spot in Oblivia, near the central east where there are multiple hexs where there are 2 Sightseeing Landmarks. Setup your best Research probes with Boosters and Duplicators around those spots, and you'll be easily raking in 100K+ per tick. And you don't even need flight, you just need the Skell jump to find all the Landmarks around there.
Pro Tip #329: Don't rush to anything in this game. It'll be a slog.
Just take on some Basic/kill something missions or wrap up some Affinity or Normal missions. You'll get EXP that way, or just explore Probes or Landmarks, you'll also get XP that way.
Team members will only board their own Skells, mind. You can't use them to get a free repair on your own. If you don't want to risk losing insurance your best bet is either to run away as soon as you know you're going to lose an encounter or just get out of your skell and die on foot.
I just found this place at the very north end of Cauldros, which is like... a little bit on the eastern side of the region. It's maybe a square or two north of a FrontierNav point. Anyway, if you approach it from the north, you'll see a bunch of level 58 Ictuses, and there's a Cave behind them. You don't have to fight those dudes to land, so land, and go into the cave where there's a bunch of level 60+ enemies that are pretty easy to take down.
Seems to be getting the job done. I'm fine with grinding, but not the way they foisted it upon me at the end of the game.
Wow this game is overwhelming with all the systems it has. I really just wanted to explore and fly around in a sweet mech but the game really gets in the way of itself in that regard. Wish they had an "easy mode" that trimmed some of that out, but I may be in the minority here.
Ahh, thanks. In which case... Bluh, guess I'll have to make some other adjustments. I mean I read this boss was a HUGE pain in the ass, but I didn't imagine this much... Also the fact that it is annoyingly long to get to it is another irritation.
I mean a part of me suspected due to "fear of humanity" thing, but then I thought maybe I was just overspamming some abilities <_<
Edit: Said screw it and dropped to easy mode, lol...
Must be a bad group then?
I had the same experience with Ares 90 users when I'm rocking my Lailah, but that was before they saw many numbers cluttered all over their screen because of my discbombs were in the work. Lol
Must be a bad group then?
I had the same experience with Ares 90 users when I'm rocking my Lailah, but that was before they saw many numbers cluttered all over their screen because of my discbombs were in the work. Lol
Not a bad group in terms of the hurt we put on the bosses, just a couple of wannabe elitists out of the hundreds of people I've grouped up with. Honestly the community overall is pretty ace. It reminds me of the monhun community, people are generally pretty friendly and helpful.
I think the needle has swung very far the other way now. It's far, far rarer to see a well put together end-game skell with proper augments, appropriate skell armour and skell wear than it is to hear "Ghost Walker! Zero Zero! Blossom Dance!" over and over.
Of course, you could always have the best of both worlds and rock both play styles. On a related note, I wish you could save armour sets on this game.
That's practically how I'm playing the game at the moment. That, and doing the sidequests. I could've started Ch. 8 like 20 hours ago, but I'm perfectly content to simply explore the world, learn everyone's story and take pictures. I'll be OP for the story missions when I get back to them, but I'll be mainly playing those for the revelations and to change the game world in different ways (i.e. people around town will say new things, etc).
I find the most efficient way to take pics is to upload one to abload.de and then keep that link handy on your smartphone. Then when you take another pic and upload it, just erase the last four or five characters on the link on your smartphone, and replace it with the new four or five characters. Then you save the image to your smartphone to share on GAF later!
Wish Nintendo had a Share feature like PS4, though, where you can save the full-resolution pics as JPGs or PNGs with a click of a dedicated button on the controller.
Sylvalum is absolutely beautiful. Neteio, I see your shots (which look amazing, btw) don't cover the top of the Delusian Mountains. That place is sublime, probably my favorite in the game so far. So green, so many cervuses, so good.
Sylvalum is absolutely beautiful. Neteio, I see your shots (which look amazing, btw) don't cover the top of the Delusian Mountains. That place is sublime, probably my favorite in the game so far. So green, so many cervuses, so good.
I'm not sure if this is the place you're describing, but during the photoshoot I was trying to find this tall mountain I climbed before, but I couldn't find it. I remember it had a steep incline leading up to the top, and if I recall correctly, there was a strong mechanized enemy perched at the top (a tyrant, I believe). I wanted to go back there and take a landscape shot of the view from high in the sky.
I'm not sure if this is the place you're describing, but during the photoshoot I was trying to find this tall mountain I climbed before, but I couldn't find it. I remember it had a steep incline leading up to the top, and if I recall correctly, there was a strong mechanized enemy perched at the top (a tyrant, I believe). I wanted to go back there and take a landscape shot of the view from high in the sky.
The area with the Zig perched at its peak is different. He's talking about the mountain with the big spiky crystal/plant things on top that you can see from ground level.
I'm not sure if this is the place you're describing, but during the photoshoot I was trying to find this tall mountain I climbed before, but I couldn't find it. I remember it had a steep incline leading up to the top, and if I recall correctly, there was a strong mechanized enemy perched at the top (a tyrant, I believe). I wanted to go back there and take a landscape shot of the view from high in the sky.
I'm not sure if this is the place you're describing, but during the photoshoot I was trying to find this tall mountain I climbed before, but I couldn't find it. I remember it had a steep incline leading up to the top, and if I recall correctly, there was a strong mechanized enemy perched at the top (a tyrant, I believe). I wanted to go back there and take a landscape shot of the view from high in the sky.
It's located in the northwest of the continent. There are actually two mountains there, inside of the south-most one is a huuuuge cavern and a probe right outside of it. The place I described is the top of the north-most one. It's full of big ass plants, cervuses and tyrants Just spent like an hour there walking around and killing cervuses, awesome as always.
quick edit: the one with the big incline you described is in fact the south-most mountain
edit 2: on another note (Tobias quest line spoilers ahead):
Just beat Vainamo, the bellower. Wow, that thing had HP, goddamn. First try I got murdered, second try it only had like a millimeter of HP in its life bar left before the 30s ended (felt bad man), third try I got him, with two out of four skells left in my party.
Can't wait to turn lv. 50 and get those lv. 50 Skells. I want to murder every indigen in sight, despite Elma's recommendations! (and I know I won't, lol)
All the weapons and augments that you'll end up with by the time you're done allows for a lot of flexibility though, so it's worth it. In one config my Mastema can basically one shot nearly anything (tyrant slayer layout). In another config it'll autobreak every appendage - even skell untargetable ones (mat/ygg zero farming layout). The Ares 90 can't kill nearly as fast, nor farm as efficiently.
Of course, for every specialization there's drawbacks. The tyrant slayer layout is augment setup heavy, and is rather unproductive for doing anything other than killing large things with millions of HP. Meanwhile the farming layout isn't exactly ideal for killing the high end tyrants. In comparison the Ares 90 is more well rounded, and can handle most anything you encounter without extensive setup changes.
Not that you need to super specialize with a 60 skell. A properly setup diskbomb Lailah is basically perma OD which makes it nearly indestructible and immune to debuffs throughout the fight. It wont do the damage numbers of a heavy skell, but when you'll win any war of attrition, who cares? It's my general "go anywhere, do anything" skell for when I don't have a particular task in mind. Fuel use is basically zero since OD negates any superweapon draw, and diskbombs alone are good enough to annihilate pretty much anything that's not worth an OD.
If you are concerned about the grind time, I'd suggest the Lailah. Getting the diskbombs is probably the biggest part of the grind there, and it's not that bad (for the 50 series at least). Since that build is not oriented around one shotting things, it's less picky with what you use for everything else. Contrast this with the heavy skells where you're min maxing every damage and positional attribute for every weapon to reach the damage cap, and you're more or less forced to use the zenith cannon. (It also has a farming build possible, although the optimization route is slightly different from the heavies.)
Kind of a relief -- that last bout of leveling up was uncalled for. Anyway, I liked the game. It's a solid 8/10 for me, but everything was worse than Xenoblade Chronicles. Story, characters, environments, music, world design, combat. Everything.
I felt like Chronicles nailed the open world thing. It was open, but not too much. It guided you from point A to point B, and gave you plenty of opportunities to explore. It has a good flow. Chronicles X somehow feels more constrained, because especially early on, you keep running into enemies that are way too strong, which makes you feel railroaded as you traverse through the world looking for stuff that won't kill you in one hit. And I didn't particularly like that there were several moments where the game basically tells you "go find shit to do!"
Also? Dungeons. I wish there were dungeons. Not just more field.
The combat was fun, but I think the first game did that better, too. I liked how much importance was placed on positioning in the first game, and I liked that the Monado was so damn powerful. It was a thrill every time you got to use it. X's combat felt a little clumsier in how all of your skills worked together, and there was nothing on-foot that just let you absolutely devastate enemies like the Monado did. Skells were cool, but kind of broke a lot of encounters later on.
The environments pretty much ran together for a lot of the game. Noctilim looked cool at night, but during the day, it was too similar to Primordia... and Oblivia just felt like more of the same, except drier in places. Sylvalim was cool. Cauldros was whatever. With only 5 main areas, though, it just wasn't quite enough variety for me.
Obviously, music kinda shit the bed compared to the first game. There was like one good battle theme. And I swear, if I ever hear the first few notes of that song that plays when you take flight in the Skell again, I will fucking kill somebody.
And like a bajillion others. I did think it was kind of funny, though, that the song they used in the first trailer of the game, like 3 years ago, was
the song that plays during the final boss battle
.
Story should've been stronger. Affinity missions do NOT make up for it. Those are like... 2 minute snippets of nothing in most cases. There was precisely one good cinematic in the entire game, and that was the one at the very end. So well put together, and much better directed than all the rest. I wish it was a game entirely like that.... Oh, wait, that was Xenoblade Chronicles.
But really, I swear -- I liked the game a lot. It was cool. But it's tough playing the sequel to what's one of my top 10 games of all time, and having it be so... not quite as good. In conclusion, if Xenoblade Chronicles got an HD re-release on the Wii U, I would die happy.
Man, imagine if in 10 years the original Xenoblade got remade graphically. Bionis and Mechonis fully realized. Seeing Colony 9 in full detail from Splintered Path, all the domes of Alcamoth bustling with life, and less blurry everything. *_*
I've already posted my thoughts on the two games, and I love them both for different reasons (even though both are deeply flawed), but I think Monolithsoft could create a good compromise between the two. Keep the Normal Missions from this game, cut down the playable characters back to 5-7, remove affinity missions entirely, and put those resources towards fleshing out the main quest.
I love the original's soundtrack too but there are so many great tracks in X. They're both up there with my fav OSTs. Celica's theme is great (as is Divine Roost in the 2nd half of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOWqE-VATZg
I find X's world design to be superior, imo. The whole "railroaded by strong enemies" concern is simply not true if you're skillfull and resourceful in your approach. I charted half of Sylvalum before ever setting foot in Noctilum or Oblivia. And each continent feels so unique, and so well-designed. But I'm on my phone right now. Really deserves a lengthy writeup.
Ultimately, though, I see little point in comparing the two titles. They're both great games. They aim for different experiences, and which you prefer is simply a matter of one's personal taste.
I find X's world design to be superior, imo. The whole "railroaded by strong enemies" concern is simply not true if you're skillfull and resourceful in your approach. I charted half of Sylvalum before ever setting foot in Noctilum or Oblivia. And each continent feels so unique, and so well-designed. But I'm on my phone right now. Really deserves a lengthy writeup.
Ultimately, though, I see little point in comparing the two titles. They're both great games. They aim for different experiences, and which you prefer is simply a matter of one's personal taste.
The point of the "feeling railroaded" bit isn't that I don't understand how to be resourceful. I just feel like it makes more sense to not even have enemies that are way higher level than you all over the place. Show me those enemies when it's actually a valid challenge for me. I mean, yeah, it feels kinda cool to sneak past them and find some new area, but there's not a whole lot of incentive to do it, in most cases.
But, as you said, they're completely different experiences. I like 'em both, but I don't have a single doubt that XC is more my style.
The point of the "feeling railroaded" bit isn't that I don't understand how to be resourceful. I just feel like it makes more sense to not even have enemies that are way higher level than you all over the place. Show me those enemies when it's actually a valid challenge for me. I mean, yeah, it feels kinda cool to sneak past them and find some new area, but there's not a whole lot of incentive to do it, in most cases.
But, as you said, they're completely different experiences. I like 'em both, but I don't have a single doubt that XC is more my style.
I feel it makes more sense for there to be a mix of high-level and low-level enemies in each area, like in X, since this is a living breathing world and not all enemies are equal. It's not a world where most of the enemies are conveniently scaled to how strong you happen to be. It's a world where if you strike out into the wilderness, you will encounter creatures that can kill you — and you need to work around that. It makes the world feel dangerous and exciting.
And there's plenty of incentive to sneak past high-level enemies, or find alternative routes around them, since the deeper you can push into the world, the more probes you can plant, which means more warp points, more intel, more credits, more fuel. You'll also find more treasure chests and acquire better loot. It's thrilling to outrun a strong enemy, or squeeze past it in a bottleneck canyon when its back is turned, or to scramble up a slippery slope and pounce from one rocky outcropping to the next, bypassing the enemy entirely. Incredibly rewarding, and memorable, too — I can vividly describe examples of each of the above.
Of course, it's also perfectly viable to take the path of least resistance and let high-level enemies funnel you through a certain progression, i.e. Primordia to Noctilum to Oblivia and so on. The game is mindful of this. But the beauty of X is how you can go just about anywhere at anytime, right from the start, and no matter where you go or what you do, you'll be making progress of some sort. X is a game that constantly feels rewarding. I love it.
I'm having such a love/hate relationship with this game but right now I'm really frustrated with it. It's like whoever had to make the design decisions for this game looked at the first and thought things were too easy and decided to make the new structure as inconvenient as possible. Either that or there just wasn't enough time to make things better. And I'm not just looking at this game compared to the first, but to RPG design in general.
Like why would you make so many playable characters in a game and make it so you can really only use them for the shitty missions or their own affinity missions? I mean you obviously can't use them most of the time when three of the four party slots are occupied.
Also why would you choose to lock the player into all affinity or story missions? There had to be a better approach. Why not just make it so when you switch to a mission that required a character you would have to put them back in your party? Because you have to find them? That in it-self is a terrible design decision.
Those are the two major things bother me right now, but there's a bunch of small things as well.
If you are determined to make a super skell, you might be better off making an ultimate grinding machine first. There are previous posts talking about it, the build centered around the ME or SA M-Missiles. If you haven't read it, the GameFAQs post which pretty much lays the groundwork for this build can be found at http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/701151-xenoblade-chronicles-x/73104108.
It could take several hours to build this, but it is going to save you 10 times of that amount if you are into super skell building so it is absolutely worth it. The first time I fire a round of missiles and see a Lepyx's legs exploding (literally) in fire all at the same time is one the most joyful moment I had with the game You can continue to improve upon that, adding Custom WP-ATK, PositionDmg.ABOVE, etc., building yourself a Mastema White Reaper, making indigent appendages more and more fragile to you. Better still, most of these arguments and skells are also needed for your "super Zennith Cannon wielding one-punch skell" so you aren't wasting your time, only saving it. Sure, Crush.APPEND isn't needed in the supper DPS skell but they are pretty easy to make so it shouldn't be an issue.
Actually, I think I'm having so much fun with my Mastema Appendage Crusher, and helping friends with Yggralith ticket run right now that I feel reluctant to move on to build the super skell which is exactly why I built my Appendage Crusher in the first place
All the weapons and augments that you'll end up with by the time you're done allows for a lot of flexibility though, so it's worth it. In one config my Mastema can basically one shot nearly anything (tyrant slayer layout). In another config it'll autobreak every appendage - even skell untargetable ones (mat/ygg zero farming layout). The Ares 90 can't kill nearly as fast, nor farm as efficiently.
Of course, for every specialization there's drawbacks. The tyrant slayer layout is augment setup heavy, and is rather unproductive for doing anything other than killing large things with millions of HP. Meanwhile the farming layout isn't exactly ideal for killing the high end tyrants. In comparison the Ares 90 is more well rounded, and can handle most anything you encounter without extensive setup changes.
Not that you need to super specialize with a 60 skell. A properly setup diskbomb Lailah is basically perma OD which makes it nearly indestructible and immune to debuffs throughout the fight. It wont do the damage numbers of a heavy skell, but when you'll win any war of attrition, who cares? It's my general "go anywhere, do anything" skell for when I don't have a particular task in mind. Fuel use is basically zero since OD negates any superweapon draw, and diskbombs alone are good enough to annihilate pretty much anything that's not worth an OD.
If you are concerned about the grind time, I'd suggest the Lailah. Getting the diskbombs is probably the biggest part of the grind there, and it's not that bad (for the 50 series at least). Since that build is not oriented around one shotting things, it's less picky with what you use for everything else. Contrast this with the heavy skells where you're min maxing every damage and positional attribute for every weapon to reach the damage cap, and you're more or less forced to use the zenith cannon. (It also has a farming build possible, although the optimization route is slightly different from the heavies.)
If you are determined to make a super skell, you might be better off making an ultimate grinding machine first. There are previous posts talking about it, the build centered around the ME or SA M-Missiles. If you haven't read it, the GameFAQs post which pretty much lays the groundwork for this build can be found at http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/701151-xenoblade-chronicles-x/73104108.
It could take several hours to build this, but it is going to save you 10 times of that amount if you are into super skell building so it is absolutely worth it. The first time I fire a round of missiles and see a Lepyx's legs exploding (literally) in fire all at the same time is one the most joyful moment I had with the game You can continue to improve upon that, adding Custom WP-ATK, PositionDmg.ABOVE, etc., building yourself a Mastema White Reaper, making indigent appendages more and more fragile to you. Better still, most of these arguments and skells are also needed for your "super Zennith Cannon wielding one-punch skell" so you aren't wasting your time, only saving it. Sure, Crush.APPEND isn't needed in the supper DPS skell but they are pretty easy to make so it shouldn't be an issue.
Actually, I think I'm having so much fun with my Mastema Appendage Crusher, and helping friends with Yggralith ticket run right now that I feel reluctant to move on to build the super skell which is exactly why I built my Appendage Crusher in the first place
I bought my very first Skell today and gave it to Lin. It's a Mastema and I was curious how it controlled... if at all. Whenever I go into vehicle mode I feel like a drunk driver.
I love that the game is pretty much Elma's story, you're just her sidekick throughout. She's your boss, and she fills the "chosen one" role in the games story
What was great was that in the final battle I was on my way to a fallen teammate hoping to revive them when Elma (who was the only party member left other than me) dealt the final blow, which tied things together thematically quite nicely
pretty much feel the opposite of you. I really saw no need for the create a character and would have preferred to have just played the entire game from Elma's POV if she was to be the main character.
Someday I'll get around to making a longer post about all that. Don't think I've ever been so frustrated with a game that I still really enjoyed.
Farming Ygg Zero with the Ares? I'd suggest stopping that and spend one night farming the Pugiliths at Ganglion Antropolis for the SA M-Missiles with MSL-MAG attributes and boost those to max. (Farming with a party totaling 100% treasure sensor obviously.) Then farm one diskbomb with the same attribute from the Misaldi slightly south of 513 (sharp bend in the path down the mountain). Use them on the Mastema that you're building (with Amdusias armor) with some Crush.APPEND augs. For the rest of the build use anything with front and/or thermal attributes. Then go back to farming Yggy using the rest of the augment slots with Ultrafauna slayer (or WP ATK on the missiles).
Essentially go in, target the chest, and begin combat with one volley from the diskbomb. That'll break in one hit. Then fire off your two M-Missiles. That should break everything that's left 95% of the time. On the odd chance anything is left intact, a single diskbomb will see it gone. Your farm times on Ygg will drop to sub 30 second affairs. It's worth the time investment for the future vs wasting time doing so in the Ares. Even if it was a net zero situation time wise, your sanity will thank you if you start doing 50+ Ygg runs back to back.
pretty much feel the opposite of you. I really saw no need for the create a character and would have preferred to have just played the entire game from Elma's POV if she was to be the main character.
Someday I'll get around to making a longer post about all that. Don't think I've ever been so frustrated with a game that I still really enjoyed.
A big takeaway from the ending (specifically the post-credits) is that while the main story was basically about Elma, with the PC leading/guiding the crew, the post-credits reveal means that there's something massively important about the PC. After all, with none of the humans being stored, and the PC having no memories, it means the PC is likely wholly a creation of Mira. Given Mira's propensity for directing events, could mean Mira created the PC with the explicit goal of helping humanity establish itself and for a peaceful alliance with the various other races that have ended up there. Elma takes an unusual interest in you from the outset, so it could be argued she knew there was something more going on with you than just amnesia, but just didn't know what.
It's ripe territory for a follow up story, and I hope they do revisit XCX's universe.
On an unrelated but spoilery note, they don't seem to update Elma's age in the affinity chart after the ending. She was on Earth 30 years before the Exodus, so add in 2 years in space plus a least 20-30 beforehand, she should be in the ballpark of 60 years old.
On an unrelated but spoilery note, they don't seem to update Elma's age in the affinity chart after the ending. She was on Earth 30 years before the Exodus, so add in 2 years in space plus a least 20-30 beforehand, she should be in the ballpark of 60 years old.
She's an alien. She could have been a hundred plus years old when she visited earth in the first place. There's nothing saying any of the xenoforms age at the same rate that humans do AFAIK.
Unrelated, but I kind of feel sorry for keeping her in human form after everything is revealed, but that hair... So awkward and stiff. Obviously not designed with gameplay in mind.
As much as people complain about Plains Land, Desert Land, Jungle Land and Lava Land (reductive as it may be) - Sylvalum at least is such a unique and completely alien landscape, I love it.
She's an alien. She could have been a hundred plus years old when she visited earth in the first place. There's nothing saying any of the xenoforms age at the same rate that humans do AFAIK.
Unrelated, but I kind of feel sorry for keeping her in human form after everything is revealed, but that hair... So awkward and stiff. Obviously not designed with gameplay in mind.
Yeah, which is why I just said at least 20-30 years old. Since anime, it's probably either 20 or 200 and not something normal-ish.
I also wanted to put her into her real form (even though I really like her Mim form), but keep putting her back to the Mim appearance for the same reason. It's more the clipping that gets me. Too bad there's no up hairdo for her. I also like having her as a Mim because it gives the party a little diversity. All the human party members save for Lin and Elma are pretty interchangeable appearance wise.
In non-spoilery news, finally 100%'d collectopedia. Didn't finish Cauldros for a week or two after the other four, had a bunch of entries I just couldn't come across even though most were 'common'. Turned out I just needed to find the right cave and I blew through the rest of the list.
Yeah, which is why I just said at least 20-30 years old. Since anime, it's probably either 20 or 200 and not something normal-ish.
I also wanted to put her into her real form (even though I really like her Mim form), but keep putting her back to the Mim appearance for the same reason. It's more the clipping that gets me. Too bad there's no up hairdo for her.
Brings up the question of whether a person in stasis counts as getting older. Actually, the whole stasis thing bothers me. How were they suspending the body while keeping the brain active? Logic would dictate that if you cease cellular activity in the body, the brain must be stopped as well. Unless her consciousness was uploaded like the rest while in stasis and was restored to her on coming back out. That doesn't make much sense either though.
As much as people complain about Plains Land, Desert Land, Jungle Land and Lava Land (reductive as it may be) - Sylvalum at least is such a unique and completely alien landscape, I love it.
In terms of standard game settings, it's intended to fill the ice world niche aesthetically, but they really did a great job in creating something unique and memorable from that general archetype. The rest of the environments are still fantastically well done (apart from some non-castle parts of Cauldros), but Sylvalum stood out for me as something particularly notable. I'd hope if we ever got a sequel on Mira, they'd take the opportunity to get weirder with the general theming of areas - especially if the continents from the first game were available as well for contrast. For all its level design faults, I loved the look of the Bionis' heart - I'd hope the core of Mira would be even more surreal.
It's even worse when you consider he was originally a DLC character. At least you didn't have to pay extra for those dangling plot threads and sequel hooks.
After all, with none of the humans being stored, and the PC having no memories, it means the PC is likely wholly a creation of Mira. Given Mira's propensity for directing events, could mean Mira created the PC with the explicit goal of helping humanity establish itself and for a peaceful alliance with the various other races that have ended up there.
I may have said this before, but taking that into account, it was kind of a missed opportunity to not have Blake Ritson as a voice option for the avatar.
