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[SecretMoblin]

It seems like affinity grows really slowly, is there some better way to raise it beyond just hitting the prompts in combat?

I just got through

Spoiler

Gaur Mines

and now storywise

Spoiler

I have Dunban, so a party member sits out. Then that means I can't raise their affinity? ;_;

I see in the achievements there's stuff tied to giving gifts, how is that done? Or is it a part of heart-to-hearts?

Affinity is supposed to grow slowly; it's a long game. There are other ways to raise affinity between characters (including giving gifts), but using them in your battle party is by far the most efficient.

To give a gift, go to your inventory, head to the collectibles, and select one. You should get the "present" option, which will allow a character to give the collectible as a gift to another.

Edit:

I knew you could quick travel. I didnt know you could do it from region to region.

Yeah, I forget whether it's in one of the early tutorials or not (I think it is, but I'm not totally sure). I know I would have been much more sour on the game if I had played for a few dozen hours without realizing you could go anywhere you've been in the entire game in less than a minute.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

It seems like affinity grows really slowly, is there some better way to raise it beyond just hitting the prompts in combat?

I just got through

Spoiler

Gaur Mines

and now storywise

Spoiler

I have Dunban, so a party member sits out. Then that means I can't raise their affinity? ;_;

I see in the achievements there's stuff tied to giving gifts, how is that done? Or is it a part of heart-to-hearts?

You can raise affinity by giving them collectables.

 

[ag-my001]

Edit: Instead of being answer #5, I'll ask one myself. I had started up a new playthrough of the game, and wanted to focus on some of the party members I hadn't used much. I noticed when using Riki (as an AI) he will sometimes just stand there and not attack the entire fight. Is this something he does, a glitch in the AI, or some other factor I'm missing?

 

[branny]

This game does some really neat things, but I fail to see how it's that much better than something like White Knight Chronicles or Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, games that weren't received nearly as well as this, let alone being better than the entirety of JRPGs "from the past 5-6 years". I can understand how Xenoblade is better than Xenogears and Xenosaga (because I never once considered those games actually fun to play, sorry), but that's about it.

I see battles that resemble FFXII's and Dragon Age's but lack the same degree of finesse, feedback, and AI control. I see a distracting plethora of banal yet excessively rewarding sidequests that only serves to burden (and overpower) completionists. I see an expansive but ultimately vapid world with little to do beyond gather materials for said sidequests or locate the next story sequence.

What am I missing? The story is intriguing, and the music is amazing. (Really, Nier all over again.) So if you don't like the battle system or the quests, what's the best way to enjoy this?

I just happily spent over 180 hours with Tales of Graces f, one of the blandest, most mediocre RPGs I've ever played, because its battle system and auxiliary mechanics coalesced into a piece of software I wanted to keep playing.

I want to love this. I already love what it represents with Operation Rainfall and supposedly reinvigorating interest and faith in JRPGs. But is this really the game everyone has been hyping up? Really? What exactly am I supposed to be liking here?

 

[SecretMoblin]

If you go into the inventory, there is an option to give items between characters as a present. Depending on the item and receiving character, affinity may increase or decrease. Some have noted that affinity grows faster in battles than via items, but I haven't tested it myself. It grows fast enough as you play normally that it won't be a problem unless you never use a member but suddenly insert them into your active party.

Even if you go the entire game without using a character, it's not too difficult to max affinity between two characters at the end. There are also ways to grind affinity, using enemies with a high defense and/or ones that use status effects (which allow you to "help" a teammate, raising the affinity between the two).

 

[ag-my001]

Even if you go the entire game without using a character, it's not too difficult to max affinity between two characters at the end. There are also ways to grind affinity, using enemies with a high defense and/or ones that use status effects (which allow you to "help" a teammate, raising the affinity between the two).

True. I never went after the 100+ enemies, but I remember reading up on ways to abuse them for quick affinity raising purposes.

 

[Zornica]

Edit: Instead of being answer #5, I'll ask one myself. I had started up a new playthrough of the game, and wanted to focus on some of the party members I hadn't used much. I noticed when using Riki (as an AI) he will sometimes just stand there and not attack the entire fight. Is this something he does, a glitch in the AI, or some other factor I'm missing?

were you fighting in water or near water? because of rikis size, he can't fight there, he would just drown.

 

[Karsticles]

Is there any downside to not doing the early sidequests? I.e. is there anything irreplaceable in them?

This game does some really neat things, but I fail to see how it's that much better than something like White Knight Chronicles or Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, games that weren't received nearly as well as this, let alone being better than the entirety of JRPGs "from the past 5-6 years". I can understand how Xenoblade is better than Xenogears and Xenosaga (because I never once considered those games actually fun to play, sorry), but that's about it.

I see battles that resemble FFXII's and Dragon Age's but lack the same degree of finesse, feedback, and AI control. I see a distracting plethora of banal yet excessively rewarding sidequests that only serves to burden (and overpower) completionists. I see an expansive but ultimately vapid world with little to do beyond gather materials for said sidequests or locate the next story sequence.

What am I missing? The story is intriguing, and the music is amazing. (Really, Nier all over again.) So if you don't like the battle system or the quests, what's the best way to enjoy this?

I just happily spent over 180 hours with Tales of Graces f, one of the blandest, most mediocre RPGs I've ever played, because its battle system and auxiliary mechanics coalesced into a piece of software I wanted to keep playing.

I want to love this. I already love what it represents with Operation Rainfall and supposedly reinvigorating interest and faith in JRPGs. But is this really the game everyone has been hyping up? Really? What exactly am I supposed to be liking here?

Everyone needs different things in RPGs. Maybe it's not just for you. You didn't like Xenogears, so my guess is that you don't like turn-based RPGs so much, and prefer action games.

 

[branny]

Everyone needs different things in RPGs. Maybe it's not just for you. You didn't like Xenogears, so my guess is that you don't like turn-based RPGs so much, and prefer action games.

Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and Persona 4 are some of my favorite games ever. =\

I do demand a good battle system, so maybe that's the issue.

 

[sfried]

Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and Persona 4 are some of my favorite games ever. =\

I do demand a good battle system, so maybe that's the issue.

Have you played Radiant Historia yet?

 

[branny]

Have you played Radiant Historia yet?

Yes, I stopped playing that game because I didn't like its battle system, either. I kind of figured I'd dislike it, though, if my post in the OT is anything to go by. :lol

I'm not saying Xenoblade is a bad game by any means, I just don't understand all the hype. From my 20 or so hours with it, it seems to have a lot of things that people hate in other games, so I was curious what made it so special. I'd really like to know what people love, especially in relation to other games that have executed similar ideas and mechanics much better.

I refuse to believe this is something people praise simply because it's a decent Wii game that we almost didn't get. I do love the music and want to see what happens with the story--there's just a bunch of BS I feel like I'm sifting through to get there.

 

[Karsticles]

Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and Persona 4 are some of my favorite games ever. =\

I do demand a good battle system, so maybe that's the issue.

FFT pretty much has the best, or maybe second best, traditional SRPG combat ever. If those are your standards, most things will fail to meet them. The only SRPGs with comparably enjoyable combat, IMO, are Devil Survivor and Valkyria Chronicles.

 

[Papercuts]

My Reyn is slowly but surely becoming a walking clusterfuck of armor.

 

[Emitan]

My Reyn is slowly but surely becoming a walking clusterfuck of armor.

Meanwhile I keep finding really good armour for Sharla that happens to be a bikini top every time.

 

[Bisnic]

My Reyn is slowly but surely becoming a walking clusterfuck of armor.

My Reyn's current armor looks like its coming out of fucking WoW considering how huge the shoulders are.

 

[MetatronM]

Yes, I stopped playing that game because I didn't like its battle system, either. I kind of figured I'd dislike it, though, if my post in the OT is anything to go by. :lol

I'm not saying Xenoblade is a bad game by any means, I just don't understand all the hype. From my 20 or so hours with it, it seems to have a lot of things that people hate in other games, so I was curious what made it so special. I'd really like to know what people love, especially in relation to other games that have executed similar ideas and mechanics much better.

I refuse to believe this is something people praise simply because it's a decent Wii game that we almost didn't get. I do love the music and want to see what happens with the story--there's just a bunch of BS I feel like I'm sifting through to get there.

Part of it might also be how you're playing the game. At 20 hours, how far are you in terms of actual progression? Depending on playstyle, you might be in a radically different place than somebody else, so it makes it hard to judge precisely where you are or what things have or haven't opened up for you.

At the end of the day, though, some things click for some people and some things don't. I personally like the cast of characters a lot, find the world one of the most creative and best realized in any JRPG, enjoy the novel battle system for what it is, and perhaps most of all really enjoy seeing how all the other characters populating the world interact, relate to, and connect with one another over the course of the entire game (I'm talking the NPCs here...it's one of my favorite things that really makes the game's world feel "alive"). Add on an incredible soundtrack, a really well-done if not terribly groundbreaking or innovative story, and some really really neat tech tricks to solve some potential points of tedium (fast travel, no loading, change time of day, experience for exploration, etc.), and I think you have a really fine RPG. One of the best in years and certainly, by far, the best available on the Wii, if not on any home console this generation.

That said, it's got plenty of flaws. The inventory could be more organized, comparing new pieces of equipment could be more convenient and streamlined, many of the sidequests are mere "kill X number of beasts" or "collect Y number of items," and because the game is structured to give the player the highest level of freedom possible it is very possible for players to burn themselves out before they even get deep into the real meat of the story.

Basically, it comes down to what elements of a game are of most importance to you.

 

[Zekes!]

I just came to the realization that Riki must have a lot of sex

 

[ZenaxPure]

I just came to the realization that Riki must have a lot of sex

I am not sure I can ever look at him the same way again now.

 

[Bisnic]

I am not sure I can ever look at him the same way again now.

It's hard to imagine him with his english voice making sex right?

 

[anaron]

Derpyderp is estimating 141 593 copies were sold. Are they reliable?

Edit: nevermind lol

 

[Mikey Jr.]

I'm 20 hours in and wow at the

Spoiler

............Swamp

When its day time, the music kinda sucks and the place is just brown. Switch to night time though and FUCK! Music is amazing, and the night environment is fucking awesome. The game doesn't have great graphics, but shit, they make up for it with this stuff.

 

[SecretMoblin]

******** is estimating 141 593 copies were sold. Are they reliable?

Heh, there's a reason it's all asterisks.

 

[ZenaxPure]

It's hard to imagine him with his english voice making sex right?

Oh god, you're making it worse. The only saving grace is I can't visualize how Nopons go at it, not that that stops my brain from trying anyway. Oh god the horror. He has so many kids too...

 

[L00P]

were you fighting in water or near water? because of rikis size, he can't fight there, he would just drown.

Yeah this happened to me. lol He doesn't drown he just swims around. This blows, he can't fight those fish in the jungle

 

[Zekes!]

Oh god, you're making it worse. The only saving grace is I can't visualize how Nopons go at it, not that that stops my brain from trying anyway. Oh god the horror. He has so many kids too...

I am unsurprised that Riki doesn't use contraceptives

 

[Karsticles]

Can anyone answer my question?

I want to know if there's any serious disadvantage to not doing early game sidequests, and just doing the last batch toward the end of the game. I.e. special abilities that you can never get anywhere else, or really quality experiences that ought not to be missed.

 

[SecretMoblin]

Can anyone answer my question?

I want to know if there's any serious disadvantage to not doing early game sidequests, and just doing the last batch toward the end of the game. I.e. special abilities that you can never get anywhere else, or really quality experiences that ought not to be missed.

Not really no. You can save the non-timed ones for as long as you want. Most are fetch quests. and the ones that have interesting characters or dialogue will be there whenever you want.

 

[Shaffield]

I'm 20 hours in and wow at the

Spoiler

............Swamp

When its day time, the music kinda sucks and the place is just brown. Switch to night time though and FUCK! Music is amazing, and the night environment is fucking awesome. The game doesn't have great graphics, but shit, they make up for it with this stuff.

This was a part that helped to totally win me over on the world as a whole. So much excellent subtle stuff like that, especially since the description of the area mentions that it looks different at night.

The world in this game is incredibly well-developed, and it allows you to experience all the beauty -- some nuanced, some a bit more apparent -- whenever you happen to come across it.

 

[Shaffield]

So I'm at

Spoiler

Alcamoth

now after about 40 hours (this might be a little long, I spend hours just looking around at the scenery ), and I'm about to head over to

Spoiler

Prison Island (like, I'm standing at the opened transporter right now.)

.

I've finished a majority of the standard side quests around the outside area while exploring, but I still have several to complete, and since almost all of these are timed, I'm wondering if going into

Spoiler

Prison Island

is going to trigger the event that makes them go away?


On a similar note, over the last couple of hours I've started to truly get a hang of the NPC Affinity system, and I'm really getting to know the patterns and personalities of the people around

Spoiler

Alcamoth

. It seems like it just takes time and actual interest in the links between NPCs to get the hang of it, and now that I actually understand how it works, I'm looking forward to spending hours on end just talking to people in the cities.


this game is so good, so so good.

 

[SecretMoblin]

So I'm at

Spoiler

Alcamoth

now after about 40 hours (this might be a little long, I spend hours just looking around at the scenery ), and I'm about to head over to

Spoiler

Prison Island (like, I'm standing at the opened transporter right now.)

.

I've finished a majority of the standard side quests around the outside area while exploring, but I still have several to complete, and since almost all of these are timed, I'm wondering if going into

Spoiler

Prison Island

is going to trigger the event that makes them go away?


On a similar note, over the last couple of hours I've started to truly get a hang of the NPC Affinity system, and I'm really getting to know the patterns and personalities of the people around

Spoiler

Alcamoth

. It seems like it just takes time and actual interest in the links between NPCs to get the hang of it, and now that I actually understand how it works, I'm looking forward to spending hours on end just talking to people in the cities.


this game is so good, so so good.

The

Spoiler

Alcamoth

cutoff point is a long, long, long ways away. You're fine.

 

[Dmax3901]

So when I first got this game last year I got up to

Spoiler

The Sword of the Bionic

then my Wii and copy of Xenoblade got stolen.

I've since bought another Wii and another copy and I'm slowly getting back to where I was (fuck its hard to play a second time so soon).

Doing

Spoiler

Eryth Sea

now, my god its gorgeous.

 

[Gravijah]

question about the quest "an impoverished critic":

Spoiler

where in the hell do i meet king squeeze? do i not meet him until later?

 

[MetatronM]

Can anyone answer my question?

I want to know if there's any serious disadvantage to not doing early game sidequests, and just doing the last batch toward the end of the game. I.e. special abilities that you can never get anywhere else, or really quality experiences that ought not to be missed.

The only thing I would say is that it might not quite work this way, really. You can't get most of the "last batch" of quests unless you've built up your regional affinities all around the world, and the only way to do that is by completing quests. You might need higher affinity in, say, Colony 9 for certain things, and the only way to do that is to do Colony 9's quests. Colony 9 has MANY late/endgame type quests, but you can't get them unless you've built up your regional affinity there to 4 or 5 stars.

So the short is, you're going to need to do early sidequests no matter what if you want to do later sidequests. Additionally, some sidequests won't occur unless you have already cleared prerequisite sidequests. Which isn't to say you need to do ALL of the sidequests. But you need to do a bunch.

Think of every named NPC in the game as a character who has their own story. Some of their stories are super simple, but some of them can be quite complex and play out across the world in multiple stages. And pretty much everyone is linked in some way to everyone else.

 

[MetatronM]

question about the quest "an impoverished critic":

Spoiler

where in the hell do i meet king squeeze? do i not meet him until later?

I had trouble finding this guy too.

Spoiler

He's behind the buildings near the gem crafting man. You can cut through the building next to him there, go to the left and then up some stairs, and King Squeeze will be hanging out up there. I think he only shows up in the middle of the night, though.

 

[raven777]

played 14 hours and got to

Spoiler

where I beat Xord and Dunban joined the party. The story is getting interesting, and from the voiceover of metal face. I can guess some of the things, although I am not 100% sure.

Since now I have 4 members, which would be the best party? I want to take out Reyn and put Shulk, Dunban, and Sharla, but I am worried about not having a tanker (unless Dunban is a tanker). What would be the best member set?

And just curious, about what % of the story have I progressed so far?

 

[Shaffield]

I had trouble finding this guy too.

Spoiler

He's behind the buildings near the gem crafting man. You can cut through the building next to him there, go to the left and then up some stairs, and King Squeeze will be hanging out up there. I think he only shows up in the middle of the night, though.

Yeah, it took me a while to find him as well. He's only there for a few hours during the night, I can't remember exactly which hours tho. Somewhere around midnight I think

 

[Emitan]

played 14 hours and got to

Spoiler

where I beat Xord and Dunban joined the party. The story is getting interesting, and from the voiceover of metal face. I can guess some of the things, although I am not 100% sure.

Since now I have 4 members, which would be the best party? I want to take out Reyn and put Shulk, Dunban, and Sharla, but I am worried about not having a tanker (unless Dunban is a tanker). What would be the best member set?

And just curious, about what % of the story have I progressed so far?

I think

Spoiler

Reyn

is a better tank than

Spoiler

Dunban

but I haven't really used the latter very much.

 

[Shaffield]

played 14 hours and got to

Spoiler

where I beat Xord and Dunban joined the party. The story is getting interesting, and from the voiceover of metal face. I can guess some of the things, although I am not 100% sure.

Since now I have 4 members, which would be the best party? I want to take out Reyn and put Shulk, Dunban, and Sharla, but I am worried about not having a tanker (unless Dunban is a tanker). What would be the best member set?

And just curious, about what % of the story have I progressed so far?

I actually switched to controlling

Spoiler

Dunban

at that point, and really enjoyed it after being bored with Shulk for a long time. I'm still currently using him as a tank, although his system is to buff his Evasion and dodge all the attacks rather than just taking the damage.
I find that to be appropriate to his character and superbadass

 

[SecretMoblin]

played 14 hours and got to

Spoiler

where I beat Xord and Dunban joined the party. The story is getting interesting, and from the voiceover of metal face. I can guess some of the things, although I am not 100% sure.

Since now I have 4 members, which would be the best party? I want to take out Reyn and put Shulk, Dunban, and Sharla, but I am worried about not having a tanker (unless Dunban is a tanker). What would be the best member set?

And just curious, about what % of the story have I progressed so far?

The best party is whatever lets you have the most fun. If you haven't tried controlling another character by now, here's your chance. It changes up the flow of battles nicely.

Spoiler

Dunban is an avoid tank with some good offensive moves. Load him up with agility-enhancing gear and abilities and watch him dodge most of the stuff that comes his way.

And you're maybe 15% of the way through the story.

 

[raven777]

I think

Spoiler

Reyn

is a better tank than

Spoiler

Dunban

but I haven't really used the latter very much.

I actually switched to controlling

Spoiler

Dunban

at that point, and really enjoyed it after being bored with Shulk for a long time. I'm still currently using him as a tank, although his system is to buff his Evasion and dodge all the attacks rather than just taking the damage.
I find that to be appropriate to his character and superbadass

The best party is whatever lets you have the most fun. If you haven't tried controlling another character by now, here's your chance. It changes up the flow of battles nicely.

Spoiler

Dunban is an avoid tank with some good offensive moves. Load him up with agility-enhancing gear and abilities and watch him dodge most of the stuff that comes his way.

And you're maybe 15% of the way through the story.

wow! thanks for the quick replies.

Spoiler

I was just worried that if I take Shulk out of the party, wouldn't if be hard to fight against the mechon since there is no monado to enchant, or is there other way to fight mechons easily?


And I was curious what does enhancing agilty do? Does it attack faster? move faster? evade more? or all of them?

 

[SecretMoblin]

wow! thanks for the quick replies.

Spoiler

I was just worried that if I take Shulk out of the party, wouldn't if be hard to fight against the mechon since there is no monado to enchant, or is there other way to fight mechons easily?


And I was curious what does enhancing agilty do? Does it attack faster? move faster? evade more? or all of them?

Spoiler

Yes, you should probably leave Shulk in your party for a while longer, just in case you run into any mechon.

Agility affects dodging and accuracy; it's one of the most important stats in the game, especially for Dunban.

 

[branny]

Part of it might also be how you're playing the game. At 20 hours, how far are you in terms of actual progression? Depending on playstyle, you might be in a radically different place than somebody else, so it makes it hard to judge precisely where you are or what things have or haven't opened up for you.

I took a break at the story fetch quest in

Spoiler

the Satorl Marsh

.

I think that's when I started to get really frustrated. This game has so much going for it, but I feel like I'm ultimately just wheeling my characters through all these breathtaking areas to get to each new story sequence. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I'm not enjoying this journey as much as the next person, particularly when it comes to the battles. I'm also kind of sick at the moment, so maybe things are a little more irksome than usual.

The more I play, the more I think this is an RPG meant for new or lapsed fans of the genre. Being so easygoing isn't a bad thing, but it wasn't what I expected. I also feel like every time the game rewards the player, it does so with things that just make it easier and more boring. There's little room to challenge myself--it's possible to ignore sidequests and not grind, but this battle system cannot support doing anything it wasn't explicitly meant for. It's too haphazard, swishy, and one-dimensional. No alternate difficulty modes, no solo runs, no "no exp" playthroughs, no in-battle items, very little inter-battle resource management, no clear delineation or feedback when dealing with enemies, no formations, no explicit AI control, etc. This battle system only appears to understand brute force, not unlike Disgaea games. It's crude and unrefined. It lacks subtlety, nuance, technique, finesse, meaningful and applicable depth, strategy. Unless something serious changes, battles don't seem likely to evolve beyond basic dice-roll wars of attrition that you'll always win as long as your healer survives. Yggdra Union was particularly horrible because of this exact problem, but at least battle conditions changed once in a while. In Xenoblade, most battles seem so samey I feel like I'm playing Resonance of Fate or FFXIII all over again. Yikes! I did not expect this to be more monotonous than your average free-to-play Korean MMO.

I know it's up to me to determine if I can stick with the game to enjoy what I can. I'm hoping somewhere along the line I can let down my defenses and surrender myself to it. The audiovisual presentation is already arresting, the world has a clear sense of identity, and the story has me hooked. Those have to count for something, right? So why do I feel like I need to bend over backwards to accommodate everything else? =\

I don't hate this game. I'm just incredibly disappointed and feel duped by all the hype. That's all.

 

[Zornica]

The only thing I would say is that it might not quite work this way, really. You can't get most of the "last batch" of quests unless you've built up your regional affinities all around the world, and the only way to do that is by completing quests. You might need higher affinity in, say, Colony 9 for certain things, and the only way to do that is to do Colony 9's quests. Colony 9 has MANY late/endgame type quests, but you can't get them unless you've built up your regional affinity there to 4 or 5 stars.。[...]

not necessarily...

Spoiler

some endgame quests improve your affinity with an area way more than those low level quests do. They can give up to a whole star. I am not sure though if there are any quests of that kind in C9. But I am certain there are at least a dozen in "Alcamoth, Hidden village and Frontier Village.

Spoiler

And I was curious what does enhancing agilty do? Does it attack faster? move faster? evade more? or all of them?

Agility is BY FAR the most important stat in the game. It improves accuracy and evasion. If your Agility is high enough, the enemies will miss you more often, and in the end barely touch you at all. High Agility makes healing redundant.

 

[SecretMoblin]

High Agility makes healing redundant.

yes yes yes

People, you don't need Sharla if you follow this advice!

 

[Emitan]

yes yes yes

People, you don't need Sharla if you follow this advice!

But I like playing as her

 

[SecretMoblin]

But I like playing as her

She's the most fun to play with by far, in my opinion.

It's just that with her in your party, battles drag on wayyyyyy longer than they need to.

 

[Hiltz]

wow! thanks for the quick replies.

Spoiler

I was just worried that if I take Shulk out of the party, wouldn't if be hard to fight against the mechon since there is no monado to enchant, or is there other way to fight mechons easily?

By the way, wearing equipment affects agility. Equipment that raises a character stat such as agility, will be highlighted in blue while equipment that decreases a character stat will be highlighted in red. I think a green highlighted character stat shows the gained ability and/or an increase in that stat by using gems. For

Spoiler

Dunban

, equipping him with light armor and +50 agility and like 2 Aggro Up gems is a good idea. Agility will still increase as you level up. Lastly, you can increase a character's agilty stat even more by taking advantage of character skill links on the skill link tree menu. An example of this would be using a skill link that reduces the weight of equipment.

 

[MetatronM]

I took a break at the story fetch quest in

Spoiler

the Satorl Marsh

.

I think that's when I started to get really frustrated. This game has so much going for it, but I feel like I'm ultimately just wheeling my characters through all these breathtaking areas to get to each new story sequence. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I'm not enjoying this journey as much as the next person, particularly when it comes to the battles. I'm also kind of sick at the moment, so maybe things are a little more irksome than usual.

The more I play, the more I think this is an RPG meant for new or lapsed fans of the genre. Being so easygoing isn't a bad thing, but it wasn't what I expected. I also feel like every time the game rewards the player, it does so with things that just make it easier and more boring. There's little room to challenge myself--it's possible to ignore sidequests and not grind, but this battle system cannot support doing anything it wasn't explicitly meant for. It's too haphazard, swishy, and one-dimensional. No alternate difficulty modes, no solo runs, no "no exp" playthroughs, no in-battle items, very little inter-battle resource management, no clear delineation or feedback when dealing with enemies, no formations, no explicit AI control, etc. This battle system only appears to understand brute force, not unlike Disgaea games. It's crude and unrefined. It lacks subtlety, nuance, technique, finesse, meaningful and applicable depth, strategy. Unless something serious changes, battles don't seem likely to evolve beyond basic dice-roll wars of attrition that you'll always win as long as your healer survives. Yggdra Union was particularly horrible because of this exact problem, but at least battle conditions changed once in a while. In Xenoblade, most battles seem so samey I feel like I'm playing Resonance of Fate or FFXIII all over again. Yikes! I did not expect this to be more monotonous than your average free-to-play Korean MMO.

I know it's up to me to determine if I can stick with the game to enjoy what I can. I'm hoping somewhere along the line I can let down my defenses and surrender myself to it. The audiovisual presentation is already arresting, the world has a clear sense of identity, and the story has me hooked. Those have to count for something, right? So why do I feel like I need to bend over backwards to accommodate everything else? =\

I don't hate this game. I'm just incredibly disappointed and feel duped by all the hype. That's all.

Seems more like you're not exploring the systems to the fullest when it comes to battle. For one, you don't need your healer at all. Part of the reason why it feels like a battle of attrition is because your healer kinda sucks. Her presence in the party slows battles down, causing you to take longer to kill enemies and, as a result, causing you to take more damage, thus justifying her presence because you need to be healed. (She does have her uses, of course, and if you play as her you'll find her battle strategies are rather unique compared to your other guys, but the fact remains that she is also something of an albatross weighing down your ability to deal damage.) It sounds like you're just sticking with the Shulk-Reyn-Sharla party that they stick you with to teach you the basics of combat. But that's just it, the basics. Almost any party configuration in the game is viable. Maybe try a

Spoiler

Dunban-Shulk-Reyn party with you controlling Dunban for now. That configuration would have Dunban and Shulk as damage dealers (and Reyn dealing heavy damage too, for that matter), with aggro shifting back and forth between Dunban and Reyn, one of whom will dodge and the other can absorb a lot of punishment, who can be bailed out by Shulk's Light Heal in a pinch.

When you get your next character, definitely try using her too. In fact, she sounds exactly like the sort of character you would enjoy, with a completely different style of play entirely from everybody else in the game, with more complicated techniques and strategies required in order to use her most effectively.

Additionally, there are still many battle concepts that haven't been introduced into the game where you are yet. For example, I believe you still haven't even had Spike damage introduced as a concept yet, nor several of Shulk's Monado abilities. As the game goes on, more complicated strategies are needed. How you deal with enemy auras. How you balance using and saving talent arts, party gauge, etc. becomes much more important the deeper you go. Enemy parties that use chain attacks AGAINST YOU. Spikes that only take effect when enemies are toppled, forcing you to change strategy. The actual NEED to use team formation commands, particularly in certain boss fights. And so on. These are all things that come later on. The game basically doesn't stop introducing new ideas, gradually, slowly, for almost the entire game.

The game also has a major difficulty spike about halfway through, where any overleveling that might have occurred in some of the early zones, making things easy on you, rapidly evaporates. You are still quite a long way away from that point, though.

So...the game does have some built in ways of addressing some of your issues with it. Not all, and likely not completely, but some. That said, it might just be "not your thing." The battle system might just be inherently uninteresting to you because of some of the fundamentals of its mechanics. You shouldn't force yourself to play something you're not really enjoying or make it some kind of job to discover why the game is so hyped when you don't like it as much. These are games that we're supposed to play for entertainment, after all.

 

[anaron]

I don't hate this game. I'm just incredibly disappointed and feel duped by all the hype. That's all.

Don't buy it into it then.

 

[Zekes!]

I took a break at the story fetch quest in

Spoiler

the Satorl Marsh

.

I think that's when I started to get really frustrated. This game has so much going for it, but I feel like I'm ultimately just wheeling my characters through all these breathtaking areas to get to each new story sequence. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I'm not enjoying this journey as much as the next person, particularly when it comes to the battles. I'm also kind of sick at the moment, so maybe things are a little more irksome than usual.

The more I play, the more I think this is an RPG meant for new or lapsed fans of the genre. Being so easygoing isn't a bad thing, but it wasn't what I expected. I also feel like every time the game rewards the player, it does so with things that just make it easier and more boring. There's little room to challenge myself--it's possible to ignore sidequests and not grind, but this battle system cannot support doing anything it wasn't explicitly meant for. It's too haphazard, swishy, and one-dimensional. No alternate difficulty modes, no solo runs, no "no exp" playthroughs, no in-battle items, very little inter-battle resource management, no clear delineation or feedback when dealing with enemies, no formations, no explicit AI control, etc. This battle system only appears to understand brute force, not unlike Disgaea games. It's crude and unrefined. It lacks subtlety, nuance, technique, finesse, meaningful and applicable depth, strategy. Unless something serious changes, battles don't seem likely to evolve beyond basic dice-roll wars of attrition that you'll always win as long as your healer survives. Yggdra Union was particularly horrible because of this exact problem, but at least battle conditions changed once in a while. In Xenoblade, most battles seem so samey I feel like I'm playing Resonance of Fate or FFXIII all over again. Yikes! I did not expect this to be more monotonous than your average free-to-play Korean MMO.

I know it's up to me to determine if I can stick with the game to enjoy what I can. I'm hoping somewhere along the line I can let down my defenses and surrender myself to it. The audiovisual presentation is already arresting, the world has a clear sense of identity, and the story has me hooked. Those have to count for something, right? So why do I feel like I need to bend over backwards to accommodate everything else? =\

I don't hate this game. I'm just incredibly disappointed and feel duped by all the hype. That's all.

Drop Sharla and change your player controlled character. Xenoblade's battle system isn't without it's flaws, but I find that it strips away a lot of the extraneous shit from most battle systems and instead simplifies it and prioritizes the specific use of each character. A complaint I would definitely make is that I wish you got more party members earlier in the game, as having a full party allows for you to significantly change how you go in to battles, not only by allowing you to have various different parties, but also by controlling different characters.

I wanna say wait until you get the next two party members (it shouldn't be that long) but there's going to be a point where you're not going to like the game no matter how far you get.