Xenoblade Chronicles X

[danzibr]

For those of you who don't know, Xenoblade Chronicles X is the newest game in the Xeno series (Xenogears on PS, Xenosaga I-III on PS2, Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii, Xenoblade Chronicles X on Wii U). All the games except Xenosaga I-III are only spiritual successors of their predecessors. Currently, Xenolade Chronicles X is set to get a direct sequel.

Gameplay-wise, it's like Xenoblade Chronicles but with gears (called skells). It's... really fun.

I've been playing quite a bit of this game lately (picked it up in December, don't have much time to play since I have a full-time job and two young children... just broke 100 hours). Got into post-game around 92 (?) hours. I'm farming mats and doing quests now.
Specifically, I have just about everything I need for an Ares 90. Going to get that before finishing affinity quests (and other quests, for that matter), then going to get stuff for some custom 60's, then ground gear.

As for ground gear, I'm managing infinite overdrive just fine. I didn't figure out how to do it until the chapter 9 boss. Got my booty whipped, motivated me to figure it out.

Also, for a comment on plot, man that ending was wack.

[Hunter Noventa]

I didn't know XB-X was getting a direct sequel, gives me more impetus to finish it I guess.

I've only recently started playing it with any seriousness, and I just beat Chapter 4. With all the grinding I had to do I'm clearly a bit behind, given that I have a ton of quests expecting me to be level 20. Definitely going to hold off on the Chapter 5 story mission til long after I've beaten a lot more other missions.

I did unlock Blast Fencer as part of my grinding to get through the battle at the end of chapter 4, and I didn't even know it had an Electric Resistance aura that was very helpful against the Chapter 4 boss beforehand, so that was nice.

I really wish the difficulty listing on the mission terminal was more precise, giving you a rough level rather than a star rating.

[danzibr]

I didn't know XB-X was getting a direct sequel, gives me more impetus to finish it I guess.

I've only recently started playing it with any seriousness, and I just beat Chapter 4. With all the grinding I had to do I'm clearly a bit behind, given that I have a ton of quests expecting me to be level 20. Definitely going to hold off on the Chapter 5 story mission til long after I've beaten a lot more other missions.

I did unlock Blast Fencer as part of my grinding to get through the battle at the end of chapter 4, and I didn't even know it had an Electric Resistance aura that was very helpful against the Chapter 4 boss beforehand, so that was nice.

I really wish the difficulty listing on the mission terminal was more precise, giving you a rough level rather than a star rating.
Yeah, the terminal difficulty is a bit wonky.

As for the quests expecting you to be level 20, you mean like affinity quests around the map, or stuff in the terminal? Sometimes you get affinity quests waaaaaaaaaaay in advance, and sometimes the terminal stuff is much harder than you can handle. I wouldn't worry about it.

Also, the sequel ought to be a long ways off. No need to rush. Stop and smell the roses :)

[Hunter Noventa]

Yeah, the terminal difficulty is a bit wonky.

As for the quests expecting you to be level 20, you mean like affinity quests around the map, or stuff in the terminal? Sometimes you get affinity quests waaaaaaaaaaay in advance, and sometimes the terminal stuff is much harder than you can handle. I wouldn't worry about it.

Also, the sequel ought to be a long ways off. No need to rush. Stop and smell the roses :)

Well one example would be a couple quests from the terminal to equip a specific weapon and kill some enemies with it. i can kill the enemies now just fine, but I can' equip the weapons until level 20, that sort of thing. or that quest where you had to find a guy who was lost,t hen his comm device, which was sitting right by two level 30ish enemies who would aggro on sight, and you had to walk along the edge of a cliff very carefully to get tot he item without aggroing them, little things like that. Haven't actually tried any affinity quests yet, though those at least seem to have a minimum actual level attached too.

The game could also stand to be a little bit more clear in regards to some stats and stuff. Like, I have no idea what the 'Potential' stat does. Or the benefits of wearing light armor instead of heavy, other than some different resistances.

I also need to go and configure my Soul Voices to be a little more useful...there's probably whole guides devoted to exactly that.

And part of me wishes that I could use L and R to move through the arts on my bar, rather than the dpad, having to take my thumb off the stick you use to move to select an ability is a little wonky, but I'll admit I haven't really looked at the control settings.

[danzibr]

Well one example would be a couple quests from the terminal to equip a specific weapon and kill some enemies with it. i can kill the enemies now just fine, but I can' equip the weapons until level 20, that sort of thing. or that quest where you had to find a guy who was lost,t hen his comm device, which was sitting right by two level 30ish enemies who would aggro on sight, and you had to walk along the edge of a cliff very carefully to get tot he item without aggroing them, little things like that. Haven't actually tried any affinity quests yet, though those at least seem to have a minimum actual level attached too.

The game could also stand to be a little bit more clear in regards to some stats and stuff. Like, I have no idea what the 'Potential' stat does. Or the benefits of wearing light armor instead of heavy, other than some different resistances.

I also need to go and configure my Soul Voices to be a little more useful...there's probably whole guides devoted to exactly that.

And part of me wishes that I could use L and R to move through the arts on my bar, rather than the dpad, having to take my thumb off the stick you use to move to select an ability is a little wonky, but I'll admit I haven't really looked at the control settings.
Agreed, agreed. I'd like to remap the controls.

As for the mobs, I kind of like having missions that are too hard to handle at the moment. Like, in D&D you can't expect to be able to beat everything you come across. Sometimes it's best to come back later. I know some people don't have the same opinion, which is totally fine. Just sayin'.

Oh, as for potential and armor and resistances, all of that's in the manual. One day, when I got stuck on some boss, I took like an hour reading the manual. So much in there that's not in the game. I have mixed feeling on this. Like... you get to skip the tutorial part of the game, but at the same time, the game doesn't give you the info in-game.

[Hunter Noventa]

Agreed, agreed. I'd like to remap the controls.

As for the mobs, I kind of like having missions that are too hard to handle at the moment. Like, in D&D you can't expect to be able to beat everything you come across. Sometimes it's best to come back later. I know some people don't have the same opinion, which is totally fine. Just sayin'.

Oh, as for potential and armor and resistances, all of that's in the manual. One day, when I got stuck on some boss, I took like an hour reading the manual. So much in there that's not in the game. I have mixed feeling on this. Like... you get to skip the tutorial part of the game, but at the same time, the game doesn't give you the info in-game.

Ah see, after the first time I got wiped out I was hoping for something clever like having to wait for them to go to sleep or something, but no dice.

As for the manual....I kind of wish there was a printed one now. Reading it on-screen is a little awkward.

And GameFAQs has surprisingly few guides for the game. Good thing I have that monstrous strategy guide.

[danzibr]

Ah see, after the first time I got wiped out I was hoping for something clever like having to wait for them to go to sleep or something, but no dice.

As for the manual....I kind of wish there was a printed one now. Reading it on-screen is a little awkward.

And GameFAQs has surprisingly few guides for the game. Good thing I have that monstrous strategy guide.
It is a bit awkward. And not just 'cause it's on-screen. Navigating it was not fun.

Right, few guides. The forum fortunately has pretty much all you need.

[cobaltstarfire]

I've been thinking about getting Xenoblade Chronicles X...but have never played any of the others (and know nothing about them). It's also a little outside the kind of game I usually play, but it looks really interesting.

I guess it did pretty well for itself despite being on the wiiu if it's getting a sequel, that's cool.

[Hunter Noventa]

I've been thinking about getting Xenoblade Chronicles X...but have never played any of the others (and know nothing about them). It's also a little outside the kind of game I usually play, but it looks really interesting.

I guess it did pretty well for itself despite being on the wiiu if it's getting a sequel, that's cool.

It's not connected at all to any of the other games, so you don't need to worry about that.

Xenogears on the PS1 was its own thing.
Xenosaga was loosely connected to Xenogears and was sort of a spiritual prequel with call backs to Xenogears
Xenoblade Chornicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X aren't connected to any of the others or each other, except by a battle system and being made by a lot of the same people. So you don't need any prior knowledge really.

[danzibr]

I've been thinking about getting Xenoblade Chronicles X...but have never played any of the others (and know nothing about them). It's also a little outside the kind of game I usually play, but it looks really interesting.

I guess it did pretty well for itself despite being on the wiiu if it's getting a sequel, that's cool.

It's not connected at all to any of the other games, so you don't need to worry about that.

Xenogears on the PS1 was its own thing.
Xenosaga was loosely connected to Xenogears and was sort of a spiritual prequel with call backs to Xenogears
Xenoblade Chornicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X aren't connected to any of the others or each other, except by a battle system and being made by a lot of the same people. So you don't need any prior knowledge really.
Yeah. Really all you're missing are a few nods to the other games. And you're actually sparing yourself some disappointment, from what I've seen. I mean, playing its spiritual predecessors, I would've liked to see some things that didn't appear.

And I read somewhere that Wii U sales surged because of the release of this game. It's that good. Dunno how much time you want to put into it, but some dude on GameFAQs 100%'d it and it took him over 500 hours.

[Hunter Noventa]

Yeah. Really all you're missing are a few nods to the other games. And you're actually sparing yourself some disappointment, from what I've seen. I mean, playing its spiritual predecessors, I would've liked to see some things that didn't appear.

And I read somewhere that Wii U sales surged because of the release of this game. It's that good. Dunno how much time you want to put into it, but some dude on GameFAQs 100%'d it and it took him over 500 hours.

I'm something of an expert when it comes to Xenogears and Xenosaga. While they're all solid games (well, Xenosaga 2 less than the others) they all fell short of their potential, or ran too far with too many ideas.

Xenogears would have been an absolute masterpiece if Final Fantasy 8 hadn't stolen the budget for Disc 2. And what did we get in exchange? Time Kompression.

You'll have to pardon me, I'll never stop being bitter about that.

[danzibr]

I'm something of an expert when it comes to Xenogears and Xenosaga. While they're all solid games (well, Xenosaga 2 less than the others) they all fell short of their potential, or ran too far with too many ideas.

Xenogears would have been an absolute masterpiece if Final Fantasy 8 hadn't stolen the budget for Disc 2. And what did we get in exchange? Time Kompression.

You'll have to pardon me, I'll never stop being bitter about that.
SO MUCH THIS!!!

Man. Man oh man. Xenogears was utterly beautiful... and then disc 2.

And I feel ya on Xenosaga 2. Least favorite of the entire Xeno series.

[cobaltstarfire]

Yeah. Really all you're missing are a few nods to the other games. And you're actually sparing yourself some disappointment, from what I've seen. I mean, playing its spiritual predecessors, I would've liked to see some things that didn't appear.

And I read somewhere that Wii U sales surged because of the release of this game. It's that good. Dunno how much time you want to put into it, but some dude on GameFAQs 100%'d it and it took him over 500 hours.


Yeah the same thing happened with Splatoon, though that's never stopped the internet from talking about it as if it's the deadest poopiest console in the universe. It's hard to really gauge success with so much noise. (I love my wiiu, I've got quite a few games on it that I have enjoyed, hell Splatoon alone has basically paid back the cost of the console with how much I've played it).

I probably won't put 500 hours into it, but I rarely 100% games since doing so is usually just collecting all the little doodads and whatnot. Which is usually not that important to me, I like to find all the secrets in games, but I usually get bored after a certain point of trying to collect all the things or beat all the challenges.

[danzibr]

Yeah the same thing happened with Splatoon, though that's never stopped the internet from talking about it as if it's the deadest poopiest console in the universe. It's hard to really gauge success with so much noise. (I love my wiiu, I've got quite a few games on it that I have enjoyed, hell Splatoon alone has basically paid back the cost of the console with how much I've played it).

I probably won't put 500 hours into it, but I rarely 100% games since doing so is usually just collecting all the little doodads and whatnot. Which is usually not that important to me, I like to find all the secrets in games, but I usually get bored after a certain point of trying to collect all the things or beat all the challenges.
Same.

I'd bet I'll put another 40 hours in, so ~150 total. I want to get the best (or darn near the best) equipment and stuff, and want to see all the content (as in quests), but I have no desire to grind endlessly to squeeze every little bit out.

For example, there's some super sidearm weapon, and the highest default modifier it comes with is classified as VI, but the V version is plentiful enough (or it might be V and IV, I dunno). People have reported spending over 2 hours to just get one of the sidearms, and yup, you need 2. But wait, that's for a single character. If you want a full party equipped with those, you need 8 total.

Me, I'd just grab the lower quality and say, "Good enough." It might result in a 5% loss of dps (in reality, I suspect it'd be less than this, but I just pulled that number out of my donkey for argument's sake), but again, good enough.

[Hunter Noventa]

SO MUCH THIS!!!

Man. Man oh man. Xenogears was utterly beautiful... and then disc 2.

And I feel ya on Xenosaga 2. Least favorite of the entire Xeno series.

And for the longest time we thought that Square had forgotten Xenogears even existed...and then I find out they're putting the Gears into some terrible japan-only mech fighting game where they do gun kata or some nonsense. Weltall does Kung Fu dammit!

[danzibr]

And for the longest time we thought that Square had forgotten Xenogears even existed...and then I find out they're putting the Gears into some terrible japan-only mech fighting game where they do gun kata or some nonsense. Weltall does Kung Fu dammit!
Whuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. Yeah, I don't like that at all. Come to think of it, Bringandier and Andvari use whips, Heimdal and Fenrir use swords (well, Heimdal spends most of his days going fisticuffs), etc.

:(

[GloatingSwine]

Xenogears would have been an absolute masterpiece if Final Fantasy 8 hadn't stolen the budget for Disc 2. And what did we get in exchange? Time Kompression.

You'll have to pardon me, I'll never stop being bitter about that.

That's not quite what happened. Xenogears was something like 18 months behind schedule and massively over its initial budget because, well, it was Tetsuya Takahashi's first project as lead and he was overambitious as all hell. Square basically eventually had to pull on the leash and make him publish something, because otherwise it would never get done. I would go as far as to say that Xenoblade Chronicles is the first game he delivered where it doesn't fall to bits in some critical way because of overambitious scope and feature creep.

Hell, Xenogears was originally proposed as being Final Fantasy 7, it just took that long for them to make it.


(Also the English translation of Xenogears is abysmal.)

[Hunter Noventa]

That's not quite what happened. Xenogears was something like 18 months behind schedule and massively over its initial budget because, well, it was Tetsuya Takahashi's first project as lead and he was overambitious as all hell. Square basically eventually had to pull on the leash and make him publish something, because otherwise it would never get done. I would go as far as to say that Xenoblade Chronicles is the first game he delivered where it doesn't fall to bits in some critical way because of overambitious scope and feature creep.

Hell, Xenogears was originally proposed as being Final Fantasy 7, it just took that long for them to make it.


(Also the English translation of Xenogears is abysmal.)

I heard it was just not the sort of plot they wanted for a Final Fantasy game, so it became its own thing.

And yeah, here's that thing i was talking about- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwEJlEYcdOE

[Sajiri]

I really enjoyed this game though I didnt finish it. I was struggling because for one, the text on the screen was too small for me without my glasses, but my eyes get tired if I watch a screen while wearing them. Then there was something with headphones, I had to play with headphones and I think it switches the map out from the gamepad which was immensely annoying and inconvenient. I think I got as far in the main plot as the...third? Region. The big forest area...wandered around there an entire day and just could not reach whatever area I was meant to go to, and I really didnt want to look up a guide.

I've been meaning to try it again lately, but I have too many games to work through at once right now @_@

[BeerMug Paladin]

I've been really liking this game a lot lately. Exploring the world they have set up is fun on its own, and I really appreciate the writing (despite it being a bit anime-ish in places). Like the parent post, I got it way back in December, but don't have much time to play it.

I just got the flight module and have just started chapter 10. I really love the way you can get lost on foot, how much faster it becomes when you've finally got a skell, and how different it feels once you've got flight to explore the various environments.

I haven't read the manual at all, just figured things out by trial and error, and blind guesswork. I should probably look at the manual at some point.

[RoyVG]

I've played this game a ton when it first came out, but I still have a loooooot of things to do. I never finished the final battle though, but the story just wasn't what I was expecting from it, especially when I compare it to the original Xenoblade Chronicles, so I didn't feel any pressure to finish it. I just need one or two more levels on my main characters and I should be able to beat him with much less problems, especially when I can finally get some stronger Skells.

[Mr.Moron]

I liked it, didn't love it. It had a tons of elements I enjoyed but each of them was paired with some problem that kept me from fully enjoying it.

The overall feel of the open overworld was quite good but in some ways felt like it like a prototype for really cool fully multiplayer game than a super rewarding single player experience.

I enjoyed the general premise & tone of the story, but kept getting pulled out by the execution and plot details that made no sense. In addition I was coming right off from playing the original Xenoblade and was a bit let down by the less substantial story elements. The alien races and overall world building were interesting. However by the end the final twist just felt a bit too out there for me.

The robots looked cool but felt less rewarding to plya than foot characters and controlled like a drunk hippo.

All the customization was fun but the systems were really opaque and the challenges presented by the game just didn't feel diverse enough to need the diversity of gear and abilities.

The game just felt like this large bundle of good ideas smothering each other, each enjoyable but still feeling only half thought out and one quarter executed on. If the features and story had been even half as polished as the environments, it would have been a real instant classic.

[danzibr]

That's not quite what happened. Xenogears was something like 18 months behind schedule and massively over its initial budget because, well, it was Tetsuya Takahashi's first project as lead and he was overambitious as all hell. Square basically eventually had to pull on the leash and make him publish something, because otherwise it would never get done. I would go as far as to say that Xenoblade Chronicles is the first game he delivered where it doesn't fall to bits in some critical way because of overambitious scope and feature creep.

Hell, Xenogears was originally proposed as being Final Fantasy 7, it just took that long for them to make it.


(Also the English translation of Xenogears is abysmal.)
Ahh yes, I heard that, the VII thing. And Chrono Trigger was possibly going to be, what, V or VI or something.

I heard it was just not the sort of plot they wanted for a Final Fantasy game, so it became its own thing.

And yeah, here's that thing i was talking about- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwEJlEYcdOE
That's uhh, ya know, it doesn't look that bad. Sort of. I'd give it a whirl.

At least Gears is getting *something*.

I really enjoyed this game though I didnt finish it. I was struggling because for one, the text on the screen was too small for me without my glasses, but my eyes get tired if I watch a screen while wearing them. Then there was something with headphones, I had to play with headphones and I think it switches the map out from the gamepad which was immensely annoying and inconvenient. I think I got as far in the main plot as the...third? Region. The big forest area...wandered around there an entire day and just could not reach whatever area I was meant to go to, and I really didnt want to look up a guide.

I've been meaning to try it again lately, but I have too many games to work through at once right now @_@
Huh. I actually quite like gamepad + screen. Gamepad-only is dreadful.

I've been really liking this game a lot lately. Exploring the world they have set up is fun on its own, and I really appreciate the writing (despite it being a bit anime-ish in places). Like the parent post, I got it way back in December, but don't have much time to play it.

I just got the flight module and have just started chapter 10. I really love the way you can get lost on foot, how much faster it becomes when you've finally got a skell, and how different it feels once you've got flight to explore the various environments.

I haven't read the manual at all, just figured things out by trial and error, and blind guesswork. I should probably look at the manual at some point.
Good progress! That's one of the points that I slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaay down to smell the roses.

I've played this game a ton when it first came out, but I still have a loooooot of things to do. I never finished the final battle though, but the story just wasn't what I was expecting from it, especially when I compare it to the original Xenoblade Chronicles, so I didn't feel any pressure to finish it. I just need one or two more levels on my main characters and I should be able to beat him with much less problems, especially when I can finally get some stronger Skells.
Yeah, stronger skells will do it. And I'd suggest beating it at some point. The ending is like whuuuuuuuuuuuuut.

I liked it, didn't love it. It had a tons of elements I enjoyed but each of them was paired with some problem that kept me from fully enjoying it.

The overall feel of the open overworld was quite good but in some ways felt like it like a prototype for really cool fully multiplayer game than a super rewarding single player experience.

I enjoyed the general premise & tone of the story, but kept getting pulled out by the execution and plot details that made no sense. In addition I was coming right off from playing the original Xenoblade and was a bit let down by the less substantial story elements. The alien races and overall world building were interesting. However by the end the final twist just felt a bit too out there for me.

The robots looked cool but felt less rewarding to plya than foot characters and controlled like a drunk hippo.

All the customization was fun but the systems were really opaque and the challenges presented by the game just didn't feel diverse enough to need the diversity of gear and abilities.

The game just felt like this large bundle of good ideas smothering each other, each enjoyable but still feeling only half thought out and one quarter executed on. If the features and story had been even half as polished as the environments, it would have been a real instant classic.
I agree with this. Lots of things seemingly came out of nowhere.

You think you're alone on the planet, turns out there's another race. Then another race. Then another race. Then another race. It gets freakin' absurd. Unless it relates to the whole "It's this planet!" thing. And the ending. This whole game, plot-wise, really just felt like a prologue.

As for the controls, the lightweight skells are easy to control. But yeah, Amadeus (or whatever), drunk hippo. Totes.

[Sajiri]

Huh. I actually quite like gamepad + screen. Gamepad-only is dreadful.


I cant recall, I think if you want to use headphones you have to switch to gamepad only, which of course makes you lose the map. No conveniently just glancing down, had to stop, switch back to non headphone mode, look at the map, switch back to headphones....horribly inconvenient because I liked to play it when nobody else in the house was awake so I HAD to use headphones >_o

[Hunter Noventa]

I cant recall, I think if you want to use headphones you have to switch to gamepad only, which of course makes you lose the map. No conveniently just glancing down, had to stop, switch back to non headphone mode, look at the map, switch back to headphones....horribly inconvenient because I liked to play it when nobody else in the house was awake so I HAD to use headphones >_o

That is some really awkward design.

I got to play a bit last night for a change and did a couple of Affinity Missions to build up for Chapter 5. Funny how the Strategy Guide didn't list that one of the dialogue options will send you all the way to Oblivia to gather some items. Luckily the items were in an area populated by non-hostile mobs, but it was still kind of funny.

I'm still trying to figure out just how I want to build my main character. I figure though that building up every class to the max first would be the way to start so I have all the choices. Is there any reason not to do this other than the time it would take?

[danzibr]

That is some really awkward design.

I got to play a bit last night for a change and did a couple of Affinity Missions to build up for Chapter 5. Funny how the Strategy Guide didn't list that one of the dialogue options will send you all the way to Oblivia to gather some items. Luckily the items were in an area populated by non-hostile mobs, but it was still kind of funny.

I'm still trying to figure out just how I want to build my main character. I figure though that building up every class to the max first would be the way to start so I have all the choices. Is there any reason not to do this other than the time it would take?
It takes freakin' forever. And it temporarily gimps you. I did this when I was spending most of my time in a skell.

And speaking of which, finally got the strongest skell last night. Now time to...
-get the last character
-revamp my FrontierNav
-do all affinity missions
-get good skell augments
-get better ground gear
-get better ground gear augments
-use my new ground gear and augments to get even better ground gear
-make a custom skell (and all that comes with it)

[Hunter Noventa]

It takes freakin' forever. And it temporarily gimps you. I did this when I was spending most of my time in a skell.

Yeah I did notice the gimping part when I upgraded to Psycorruptor and I had no arts to use. Luckily the first couple ranks get you some and it's just a bit of grinding there. The class ranks come much faster than levels. I don't mind a bit of grinding for that sort of thing, heck grinding in this game is actually kind of relaxing for me now that I'm getting a better handle on the gameplay. I feel like I could just hop on, head out to Primordia and work on the squad mission to rank up my classes and that's a good feeling.

I like that almost everything you do goes towards accomplishing something.

Oh! Here's a question though, I maxed out my Mechancial field skill to 4 (i know there are quests to get to five later), what's the most important one to start next? I've certainly noticed more Archeological finds than Biological, and I know you can max them all eventually but...

[danzibr]

Bio and arch are about even. I leveled them evenly. I think bio gives BP and arch gives... stuff. Like gear maybe?

Also, heads up, baddies give diminishing returns for exp and class points, I think.

[Hunter Noventa]

Bio and arch are about even. I leveled them evenly. I think bio gives BP and arch gives... stuff. Like gear maybe?

Also, heads up, baddies give diminishing returns for exp and class points, I think.

Well I'm not about to waste time fighting level 2 and 3 mobs, so hopefully it won't be too bad.

[GloatingSwine]

The amount of XP and BP you get for an enemy depends on its level relative to yours.

I got XCX to about ~80% surveyed, completed basically all of the missions (of which there are squillions) but couldn't be arsed to grind all the bits for the best robit or punch the same damn beetle hundreds and hundreds of times for the best orange gear to fight the optional megabosses.

I ended up using Dual Guns and Photon Saber, with Starfall Blade, Starfall Rondo, Starlight Duster, Zero Zero and Sky High as my attacks because they all combo off of melee or ranged. (Combo a melee attack into level 5 Zero Zero and get a dump of 720 TP, nearly enough to use a TP skill in one go).

Best way to character in XCX is to figure out which skills and weapons you want, level up the appropriate classes, and then use Drifter. Drifter can equip any weapon and has 5 skill slots which can give you way more power than the fixed bonuses of the other classes.

[danzibr]

Well I'm not about to waste time fighting level 2 and 3 mobs, so hopefully it won't be too bad.
I remember my main character being in the 50's and whaling on some guys in the 40's and getting extremely poor XP and BP. Or maybe I was being impatient.

The amount of XP and BP you get for an enemy depends on its level relative to yours.

I got XCX to about ~80% surveyed, completed basically all of the missions (of which there are squillions) but couldn't be arsed to grind all the bits for the best robit or punch the same damn beetle hundreds and hundreds of times for the best orange gear to fight the optional megabosses.

I ended up using Dual Guns and Photon Saber, with Starfall Blade, Starfall Rondo, Starlight Duster, Zero Zero and Sky High as my attacks because they all combo off of melee or ranged. (Combo a melee attack into level 5 Zero Zero and get a dump of 720 TP, nearly enough to use a TP skill in one go).

Best way to character in XCX is to figure out which skills and weapons you want, level up the appropriate classes, and then use Drifter. Drifter can equip any weapon and has 5 skill slots which can give you way more power than the fixed bonuses of the other classes.
I'm currently going dual guns and longsword. Longsword I want for reasons (I modeled my main character off of someone from a story who uses a longsword), dual guns could be anything else (but Ghostwalker, mmm...).

I think I'll call it quits after I get a decent skell with baddonkey weapons (and not *that* one), decent but not perfect ground gear, do all missions, and 100% surveillance. Right now at about 106 hours, probably 140 or 150 total. Leave happy.

[GloatingSwine]

I remember my main character being in the 50's and whaling on some guys in the 40's and getting extremely poor XP and BP. Or maybe I was being impatient.

You start getting quite poor returns once enemies are more than about 5 levels below you.

Once you get a level 50 skell though you can level boost to 60 super fast by fighting the robits in the bottom left corner of the map (there are some level ~58 robits that are actually quite easy to kill once you have big robit swords)

[Hunter Noventa]

Best way to character in XCX is to figure out which skills and weapons you want, level up the appropriate classes, and then use Drifter. Drifter can equip any weapon and has 5 skill slots which can give you way more power than the fixed bonuses of the other classes.

Ah, I didn't know that about the Drifter, that'll be good to know.

In other news, I took an affinity mission yesterday (Weaponized) that says 'Oh yeah, go ahead and kill these mobs on another continent you have to swim to for us, thanks.'

Well I got there without a problem, but I think I may have meesed up by deciding to take on the extra large mob there. I might have to grind up to 20 to unlock the next wave of weaponry, as well as making sure I've got plenty of armor.

[danzibr]

You start getting quite poor returns once enemies are more than about 5 levels below you.

Once you get a level 50 skell though you can level boost to 60 super fast by fighting the robits in the bottom left corner of the map (there are some level ~58 robits that are actually quite easy to kill once you have big robit swords)
For me, I went straight to Joker once I got a 50 skell. Bad of me consulting GameFAQs, I know.

Ah, I didn't know that about the Drifter, that'll be good to know.

In other news, I took an affinity mission yesterday (Weaponized) that says 'Oh yeah, go ahead and kill these mobs on another continent you have to swim to for us, thanks.'

Well I got there without a problem, but I think I may have meesed up by deciding to take on the extra large mob there. I might have to grind up to 20 to unlock the next wave of weaponry, as well as making sure I've got plenty of armor.
Yeah, sometimes that's a hassle. Seemingly minor quests which send you to a whole new continent.

[Hunter Noventa]

Yeah, sometimes that's a hassle. Seemingly minor quests which send you to a whole new continent.

Yeah, Lin's affinity quest that sent me to Oblivia wasn't bad, because I at least had fast travel nearby and could walk. The mind-numbing swim to Sylvanum was not fun though, but I can fast-travel back after I do some re-equipping and leveling up. Just have to figure out exactly where to find mobs right about my level.

[danzibr]

Yeah, Lin's affinity quest that sent me to Oblivia wasn't bad, because I at least had fast travel nearby and could walk. The mind-numbing swim to Sylvanum was not fun though, but I can fast-travel back after I do some re-equipping and leveling up. Just have to figure out exactly where to find mobs right about my level.
OH! Big, big pointer. I didn't discover this until I was like level 55 or something.

See on FrontierNav how the hexes are different colors? I'm pretty sure purple is level appropriate, maybe a bit on the tough side. Red is gtfo, and other colors (blue? green?) are beneath you. In fact, maybe blue is level appropriate, a bit on the easy side, and green is quite easy.

Wish I'd known that at low levels.

Currently I'm trying to get more of Oblivia done so I can do a quest (it has a prereq of surveying 65%, and I'm only in the 50's).

EDIT: Just so we're clear, from easy to hard it's green, blue, purple, red. Good leveling would be blue or purple. I think.

[Hunter Noventa]

OH! Big, big pointer. I didn't discover this until I was like level 55 or something.

See on FrontierNav how the hexes are different colors? I'm pretty sure purple is level appropriate, maybe a bit on the tough side. Red is gtfo, and other colors (blue? green?) are beneath you. In fact, maybe blue is level appropriate, a bit on the easy side, and green is quite easy.

Wish I'd known that at low levels.

Currently I'm trying to get more of Oblivia done so I can do a quest (it has a prereq of surveying 65%, and I'm only in the 50's).

EDIT: Just so we're clear, from easy to hard it's green, blue, purple, red. Good leveling would be blue or purple. I think.

Oh yes that is helpful, I think it's mentioned at one point, but I had a break between starting the game and playing it more recently and forgot. I wasn't sure if they were changing colors or not.

Went to the easiest parts of Oblivia to do a little grinding last night once i found some mobs with level-parity. Did that til a sandstorm rolled in, then tried my hand a few mobs in Primorida that had a couple of levels on me, but weren't too touch. Managed about 1.5 levels in an hour or so. Hopefully I can finish that affinity quest this weekend and give something else a try too, going to try and do what I can before moving on with the story.

[danzibr]

For an update from me, I redid my FrontierNav (following some post on GameFAQs) and am getting ground gear. Oh, and I finally got all the characters. After ground gear I'm going to do all the affinity quests. Or maybe get more of the yellow dots scattered around the world. I'm missing a lot of them.

[Hunter Noventa]

For an update from me, I redid my FrontierNav (following some post on GameFAQs) and am getting ground gear. Oh, and I finally got all the characters. After ground gear I'm going to do all the affinity quests. Or maybe get more of the yellow dots scattered around the world. I'm missing a lot of them.

Nice. I got that affinity mission in Sylvanum done, even if I ended up having to lower the difficulty on the boss. But I got a new party member out of it. Going to work on clearing as many basic missions and affinity missions as I can before moving on with the story.

Had a fun one where I had to go save a downed helicopter. Getting to it was easy, but then I had to go find parts to fix it, which involved going deep into Noctilum and dodging around a bunch of level 50+ enemies while looking for the randomly spawning item. Managed it without dying though, and unlocked a bunch of FrontierNav points while I was at it, so it worked out nicely.

I'm aware of these Heart-to-Heart things, but I've not encountered any. They sound like something that might be missable, is that true?

[danzibr]

Nice. I got that affinity mission in Sylvanum done, even if I ended up having to lower the difficulty on the boss. But I got a new party member out of it. Going to work on clearing as many basic missions and affinity missions as I can before moving on with the story.

Had a fun one where I had to go save a downed helicopter. Getting to it was easy, but then I had to go find parts to fix it, which involved going deep into Noctilum and dodging around a bunch of level 50+ enemies while looking for the randomly spawning item. Managed it without dying though, and unlocked a bunch of FrontierNav points while I was at it, so it worked out nicely.

I'm aware of these Heart-to-Heart things, but I've not encountered any. They sound like something that might be missable, is that true?
Nice progress!

And nope, not missable. This game's *really* good about not having anything be missable. Just make sure you don't sell your Ramjet Rifle (if/when you get it).

Speaking of which, I went through a vendored a bunch of junk. I was up to like over 600 pieces of armor. Cap is 999. It made it really hard to switch between sets (like Treasure Sensor and Skell Wear). I kept all of my gear for appearance, but honestly I might vendor all that too. You can get it back from regular quests, and most of it doesn't look nice. In fact, now that I think of it, I'll probably put some fashion gear on every character, then sell the rest. The inventory is so easy to get bloated in this game.

[Hunter Noventa]

Nice progress!

And nope, not missable. This game's *really* good about not having anything be missable. Just make sure you don't sell your Ramjet Rifle (if/when you get it).

Speaking of which, I went through a vendored a bunch of junk. I was up to like over 600 pieces of armor. Cap is 999. It made it really hard to switch between sets (like Treasure Sensor and Skell Wear). I kept all of my gear for appearance, but honestly I might vendor all that too. You can get it back from regular quests, and most of it doesn't look nice. In fact, now that I think of it, I'll probably put some fashion gear on every character, then sell the rest. The inventory is so easy to get bloated in this game.

I don't think I sold it, I certainly hope I didn't.

[danzibr]

I don't think I sold it, I certainly hope I didn't.
Even if you did, it's not that big a deal. The weapon itself is pretty crap, but generates a lot of TP. Later on you're better off with an actual good weapon. There's a small time when you might struggle with TP generation to maintain infinite OD.

[Hunter Noventa]

Even if you did, it's not that big a deal. The weapon itself is pretty crap, but generates a lot of TP. Later on you're better off with an actual good weapon. There's a small time when you might struggle with TP generation to maintain infinite OD.

Ah, I thought you meant it might be needed for a quest down the line. That's less troubling.

[danzibr]

Ah, I thought you meant it might be needed for a quest down the line. That's less troubling.
That's another thing. I was selling all my inventory, and a few things I couldn't sell, exactly because they're needed for quests. This game really is good about not shafting you.

[Hunter Noventa]

That's another thing. I was selling all my inventory, and a few things I couldn't sell, exactly because they're needed for quests. This game really is good about not shafting you.

Ah that is nice to know. I've also started unlocking some new characters too, going to try to at least bring them all to level 20 while I'm doing random missions. Sadly this week is busy so I won't really have time to play until the weekend.

[danzibr]

Haven't played much (hence haven't posted). Did do a bit today. Farmed up some good stuff, did a high end affinity mission which unlocked something nice. I have a few things on the to-make list (crap ton to farm).

[Hunter Noventa]

Haven't played much (hence haven't posted). Did do a bit today. Farmed up some good stuff, did a high end affinity mission which unlocked something nice. I have a few things on the to-make list (crap ton to farm).

Same, been a busy week for me, hopefully I can get some time in with the long weekend.

EDIT: All right, what jerk thought that making collectibles available for two minutes in specific weather was a good idea?

[danzibr]

Same, been a busy week for me, hopefully I can get some time in with the long weekend.

EDIT: All right, what jerk thought that making collectibles available for two minutes in specific weather was a good idea?
Oh man. Yeah, that's terrible.

BUT sometimes if it says it's available when raining or something, you *can* get it other times, just less frequently. I think for tyrants it has to be the weather though.

Anyway, played last night for a bit. Farming the mats for Art: Gain TP XX. It's the key to infinite overdrive. Going to make 3. Each one gives 200 TP every time you do an art, on top of your gain from the art itself. Cuh-razy. Then it's on to getting, well, everything else >.>

[Hunter Noventa]

Oh man. Yeah, that's terrible.

BUT sometimes if it says it's available when raining or something, you *can* get it other times, just less frequently. I think for tyrants it has to be the weather though.

Anyway, played last night for a bit. Farming the mats for Art: Gain TP XX. It's the key to infinite overdrive. Going to make 3. Each one gives 200 TP every time you do an art, on top of your gain from the art itself. Cuh-razy. Then it's on to getting, well, everything else >.>

Yeah I got the items I needed, only for the next quest in the chain to be getting items from enemies that I've only seen spawn at level 30, whereas I'm 24.

Did some affinity missions to unlock some people. There really needs to be a better indication of where people who can join your party actually ARE. I had Doug join a mission, and I gave him some gear so he'd live through it, then I wanted it back afterwards and I had to look up where he actually was.

I need to check if there's a way to abandon basic missions, because I've got at least one that's impossible without flight at this point. But otherwise I've made some good progress, I'm getting close to maxing out Galactic Knight, then I'll probably go try something different.

[danzibr]

Yeah I got the items I needed, only for the next quest in the chain to be getting items from enemies that I've only seen spawn at level 30, whereas I'm 24.

Did some affinity missions to unlock some people. There really needs to be a better indication of where people who can join your party actually ARE. I had Doug join a mission, and I gave him some gear so he'd live through it, then I wanted it back afterwards and I had to look up where he actually was.

I need to check if there's a way to abandon basic missions, because I've got at least one that's impossible without flight at this point. But otherwise I've made some good progress, I'm getting close to maxing out Galactic Knight, then I'll probably go try something different.
UUURGGGHHH yeah, I totally understand with the party stuff. This game has, hands down, the biggest PITA party system. Just switching out characters and stuff. Ugh >.>

What weapons do you plan on using? My main character is based off of someone from a book so I use longsword (could change it, of course). Also, use dual guns for the dodge art.

And big news, played a bit the last couple days, go 2 Art: TP Up XX. Now every time I use an art I get 400 TP, in addition to whatever the ability and weapon generate. It's nice, makes getting into OD and sustaining OD *much* easier. As soon as I get some decent armor and maybe farm up another augment or 2, I can start handling the big boys.

[PhantomFox]

I enjoyed this game a lot, but I was hoping for a story experience like the first game, and this wasn't it. The game's great, don't get me wrong. The world is drop dead gorgeous, and lots of beautiful scenery to look at. And it's freakin' huge. Lots of stuff to explore. But it might be TOO huge, as I felt it hard to navigate without staring at the map. Not enough landmarks to say "you are in THIS part of Primordia" or whatever. And once you get the flight module, exploration of the terrain is rather pointless as you can just go from A to B as the crow flies. Perhaps if it was a bit more compartmentalized instead of just the major five areas. The combat is great. I like how you can choose your class, and then cross-class your other weapon, and then cross-class even more for skills. And finding synergies is fun.

But the story really fell flat for me. The whole "You can customize your party with tons of characters to choose from!" and "You must take these two characters with you for all story missions" really conflict with each other to me. That, and the "Your Lifehold is in another castle" rug pull got old after a while. Cross has pretty much as much personality as Link, and Elma and Lin felt pretty one-note as Military Business Boss and Hopeful Youngster. And since all the other characters aren't in the main story, they're more or less relegated to their affinity missions. Which are all right, but no one really gets to shine enough to get promoted to main character status since they're merely sidequests. I guess the core plothook was never strong enough for me, which made me lack connection to the heroes or villains. Speaking of, the underlings of the villain felt really anti-climatic in their fights, as they're taken down before they're really established as much as I'd like them to be.

Overall, worth the price, but it doesn't feel as... impactfull as the original.

[danzibr]

Spot on, PhantomFox. Spot on.

I'd much rather have a few meaningful characters over a swath of shallow ones. And I don't like the silent protagonist it. I wasn't a Shulk fan, but still... it was weird. And right, perhaps too big.

[Hunter Noventa]

UUURGGGHHH yeah, I totally understand with the party stuff. This game has, hands down, the biggest PITA party system. Just switching out characters and stuff. Ugh >.>

What weapons do you plan on using? My main character is based off of someone from a book so I use longsword (could change it, of course). Also, use dual guns for the dodge art.

And big news, played a bit the last couple days, go 2 Art: TP Up XX. Now every time I use an art I get 400 TP, in addition to whatever the ability and weapon generate. It's nice, makes getting into OD and sustaining OD *much* easier. As soon as I get some decent armor and maybe farm up another augment or 2, I can start handling the big boys.

Nice. I just started Chapter 5 finally over the weekend, and my main character hit level 25 which is nice. I have no idea what weapons I want to use, I really want to try them all out is the problem, and to get the full impact you really have to go to the end of their respective trees. I am enjoying the photon saber a lot though, it's very stylish.

[danzibr]

Nice. I just started Chapter 5 finally over the weekend, and my main character hit level 25 which is nice. I have no idea what weapons I want to use, I really want to try them all out is the problem, and to get the full impact you really have to go to the end of their respective trees. I am enjoying the photon saber a lot though, it's very stylish.
Grats! Now you have access to Overdrive, eh? Might want to get some practice in with that. I can give you some (spoiler-free!) pointers if you want.

For me, I figured out my short-term goals a bit better. I got to the point where I can try to farm the weapon I want, an ether longsword. I already have a max quality one, just need some non-crappy stats on it. Then, get some armor with non-crappy stats. I won't be too picky, to be honest.

Oh yeah, speaking of weapons, you can really go whatever you want. I've seen videos of lots of different combos whupping super bosses. Some are more suited for certain roles, like daggers for support and shields for tanking, but they can all own.

[Hunter Noventa]

Grats! Now you have access to Overdrive, eh? Might want to get some practice in with that. I can give you some (spoiler-free!) pointers if you want.

For me, I figured out my short-term goals a bit better. I got to the point where I can try to farm the weapon I want, an ether longsword. I already have a max quality one, just need some non-crappy stats on it. Then, get some armor with non-crappy stats. I won't be too picky, to be honest.

Oh yeah, speaking of weapons, you can really go whatever you want. I've seen videos of lots of different combos whupping super bosses. Some are more suited for certain roles, like daggers for support and shields for tanking, but they can all own.

Ah not just yet, I had to leave off in the middle of taking down the three turrets. If I hadn't done some affinity missions beforehand to unlock Yelv and Frye I might have gotten them all done. I wanted to unlock Boze too, but I'm certain I've taken the backup request mission and done it, but his mission isn't showing up, I must be missing something else.

I did like having the Raygun weapon as a commando or whatever that was, there's some very satisfying about firing off gigantic frak-you beams. I do want to try out some of the other stuff too of course.

Hilariously, I've gotten a few skell weapons already. One I somehow got from a treasure deal I think, I didn't realize at first how those worked, is it really just people giving away stuff? I also got one as a drop from a prone mech in Sylvanum, that was nice.

[danzibr]

Ya know, I have no clue how treasure deals work. Better look into that.

*BUT* I did discover something crucial to getting good gear. I used to think that greens could have 1 slot, blues could have 2, and oranges could have 3. I discovered this is so not the case. Like, not at all. *All* armor can only have one slot, and *all* weapons can have 3 slots. The rarity influences number of abilities, but only influences. You might think it's 1 for green, 2 for blue, 3 for orange, but I've seen greens with 2 and blues with 1, and so on.

Long story short, I was selling all my greens and blues, when in reality you can get greens better than oranges, depending on the abilities.

With that said, I was able to farm up a respectable set of armor today. I now have level 58-60 for every piece of gear. I have an ether longsword, which is exactly what I need for my build (sort of the standard build), and all my armor either have + to potential or hp or tp. So... at this point I need to farm up 4 Melee Attack Up XX and 6 Potential Up XX. Once I have those, I should be able to roflcurbstomp anything, but for a perfect file I'd have to grind out better gear. At the moment, mine is acceptable, but far from what I would consider good.

[Hunter Noventa]

Ya know, I have no clue how treasure deals work. Better look into that.

*BUT* I did discover something crucial to getting good gear. I used to think that greens could have 1 slot, blues could have 2, and oranges could have 3. I discovered this is so not the case. Like, not at all. *All* armor can only have one slot, and *all* weapons can have 3 slots. The rarity influences number of abilities, but only influences. You might think it's 1 for green, 2 for blue, 3 for orange, but I've seen greens with 2 and blues with 1, and so on.

Long story short, I was selling all my greens and blues, when in reality you can get greens better than oranges, depending on the abilities.

With that said, I was able to farm up a respectable set of armor today. I now have level 58-60 for every piece of gear. I have an ether longsword, which is exactly what I need for my build (sort of the standard build), and all my armor either have + to potential or hp or tp. So... at this point I need to farm up 4 Melee Attack Up XX and 6 Potential Up XX. Once I have those, I should be able to roflcurbstomp anything, but for a perfect file I'd have to grind out better gear. At the moment, mine is acceptable, but far from what I would consider good.

I have noticed that, I figure at this point I'm going through gear quickly enough that I should just save mats for augments later.

Is it at all feasible to have multiple sets of gear for different situations? I've noticed that there are definitely augments that are say, skell-specific among other things.

[danzibr]

Oh yeah, totally feasible. In fact, I have 3: a set with Item Sensor, a set for your foot combat, and a set of Skell Wear. Granted, a fair portion is just stuff from the shop (it doesn't feel like it now, but later on you have an abundance of money). It's important to keep your inventory trim, otherwise it takes forever to find.

[Hunter Noventa]

Oh yeah, totally feasible. In fact, I have 3: a set with Item Sensor, a set for your foot combat, and a set of Skell Wear. Granted, a fair portion is just stuff from the shop (it doesn't feel like it now, but later on you have an abundance of money). It's important to keep your inventory trim, otherwise it takes forever to find.

It feels like I have a ton of money already, but I can see the more expensive gear on the horizon.

[danzibr]

It feels like I have a ton of money already, but I can see the more expensive gear on the horizon.
Buying skells is the huge money sink.

Grinding up those Potential Up XX takes forever. I'm like... 2/3 done for getting the first 3, need 5 total >.>. And I'm almost out of Miranium. I found some cool looking outfits, though.

[Hunter Noventa]

Buying skells is the huge money sink.

Grinding up those Potential Up XX takes forever. I'm like... 2/3 done for getting the first 3, need 5 total >.>. And I'm almost out of Miranium. I found some cool looking outfits, though.

Playing pretty princess dress up is the best part of any game like this. I'm so glad there's separate 'Fashion Gear'. I gave Lin a pair of glasses and she's just adorable.

[danzibr]

Playing pretty princess dress up is the best part of any game like this. I'm so glad there's separate 'Fashion Gear'. I gave Lin a pair of glasses and she's just adorable.
Yeah, I like it. Not just the pretty princess part, but the fact that there's your regular gear, then fashion gear. Super convenient.

So I played quite a bit yesterday. For end-game augments, you need 2 or 3 Art: Gain TP XX, 3 or 4 Melee Attack Up XX, then 5 Potential Up XX (some other ones are nice, like Treasure Sensor XX or accuracy). Right now I have 2 of the first, none of the second, and 3 of the third. With just those I was able to kill Lucile, the Eternal (the HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE level 90 something tyrant that walks around Primordia near the water). Pretty happy. Can probably kill anything in the game now.

So what's left... craft a custom skell with superweapons, finish up affinity quests, do some exploring, then that's it. Currently at 124 hours.

EDIT: Nix that "Can probably kill anything in the game now" business. Watched a video this morning, there are a couple superbosses which I could certainly not beat right now. Something to strive for, I guess.

[Hunter Noventa]

Got some play in yesterday and finished chapter 5. Taking down those turrets was harder than fighting the skells at the end, if only because of the sheer number of enemies between you and the turret, including the level 27-28 mechs that I could only take on if there were no reinforcements.

Hell of a twist about the nature of your characters and the number on the blade tower.

After that I recruited Boze, as my guide was so very wrong about only having to beat chapter 3 to unlock him. Made good use of Shadowrunner getting through that horrible cave, but it still took me 4 tries to make it without dying.

[danzibr]

Got some play in yesterday and finished chapter 5. Taking down those turrets was harder than fighting the skells at the end, if only because of the sheer number of enemies between you and the turret, including the level 27-28 mechs that I could only take on if there were no reinforcements.

Hell of a twist about the nature of your characters and the number on the blade tower.

After that I recruited Boze, as my guide was so very wrong about only having to beat chapter 3 to unlock him. Made good use of Shadowrunner getting through that horrible cave, but it still took me 4 tries to make it without dying.
Grats on the progress!

I did a bit more grinding. Got myself a really good longsword. I need to get 2 more augments for my armor (have 3), then... I'll be pretty much up to snuff. Want to have a go at the superbosses.

[Hunter Noventa]

Grats on the progress!

I did a bit more grinding. Got myself a really good longsword. I need to get 2 more augments for my armor (have 3), then... I'll be pretty much up to snuff. Want to have a go at the superbosses.

Got some more progress in today since my D+D game was cancelled. Got a bunch of missions knocked down and found a couple of heart-to-hearts. Also found a trail that led to a random semi-hidden tyrant in Noctilum,a nd when he woke up I proceeded to jump off the cliff into the water as that was safer.

Maxed out the Galactic Knight part of the class tree, swapped over to Commando for now. I certainly seem to be building TP a lot faster with it than I was with Galactic Knight, but I need to figure out how you're actually supposed to use Overdrive, when its' not unlimited anyway.

[danzibr]

Got some more progress in today since my D+D game was cancelled. Got a bunch of missions knocked down and found a couple of heart-to-hearts. Also found a trail that led to a random semi-hidden tyrant in Noctilum,a nd when he woke up I proceeded to jump off the cliff into the water as that was safer.

Maxed out the Galactic Knight part of the class tree, swapped over to Commando for now. I certainly seem to be building TP a lot faster with it than I was with Galactic Knight, but I need to figure out how you're actually supposed to use Overdrive, when its' not unlimited anyway.
Shame bout the DnD, but hey, not a bad alternative.

I know, beyond just skills, the classes have some built in differences. Like Drifter is generic but has 5 skill slots, there's one that boosts Potential, etc.

As far as OD goes, here's the process:
1) Get to 3000 TP. Since it doesn't go away unless you die or a lot of time passes, this is easy.
2) Activate OD when ready.
3) Get back up to 3000 TP again. Ideally you're building your OD count when you're doing this (every time you hit an opponent, it goes up by 1).
4) When OD is about to expire, refresh it (by hitting the middle button again).
5+) Repeat steps 3-4.

Now, step 3 is hard. With no special skills or equipment or augments, OD only lasts a few seconds, and there's literally no way to get up to 3000 TP before it expires. A few things that can help are max TP boosting skills and armor, artes that build TP and have lots of hits, and... stuff like that.
Oh, and using green artes boost OD time a little bit, and blue artes do such even more.
And don't use red right after yellow or vice versa. Do a purple or green or blue between them. Otherwise OD count doesn't go up.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Oh, and using green artes boost OD time a little bit, and blue artes do such even more. And don't use red right after yellow or vice versa. Do a purple or green or blue between them. Otherwise OD count doesn't go up.

That's some good info to have.

I haven't progressed the main plot much lately, because I've been recruiting minor side characters to up their affinity levels and regular levels and doing minor quests and searching for hidden areas I had neglected to find before now.

[danzibr]

That's some good info to have.

I haven't progressed the main plot much lately, because I've been recruiting minor side characters to up their affinity levels and regular levels and doing minor quests and searching for hidden areas I had neglected to find before now.
That was a big factor of fun with the game for me.

Also, the OD stuff is a bit more complicated. There are also combos which I don't really know about, like if you go green then blue something special might happen. I don't think it's really important, like to get unlimited OD, since I do it just fine without combos.

And... also, I didn't say what OD is good for. The biggest perks are super fast cooldowns on your artes, unlocking the tertiary bonus, and you get some bonuses the higher your OD count gets, like maybe bonus damage or something. Perhaps ironically, it does get easier to maintain your OD with a higher OD count since blue and green artes make it last longer the higher your OD count.

[BeerMug Paladin]

That was a big factor of fun with the game for me.

Also, the OD stuff is a bit more complicated. There are also combos which I don't really know about, like if you go green then blue something special might happen. I don't think it's really important, like to get unlimited OD, since I do it just fine without combos.

And... also, I didn't say what OD is good for. The biggest perks are super fast cooldowns on your artes, unlocking the tertiary bonus, and you get some bonuses the higher your OD count gets, like maybe bonus damage or something. Perhaps ironically, it does get easier to maintain your OD with a higher OD count since blue and green artes make it last longer the higher your OD count.

Yeah, I've noticed the increased cooldown the higher that count is, and the tertiary cooldown. Those are always super-nice. And I've been able to trigger OD again a couple of times before just because my art selection was very TP-generation heavy at the time.

[danzibr]

Yeah, I've noticed the increased cooldown the higher that count is, and the tertiary cooldown. Those are always super-nice. And I've been able to trigger OD again a couple of times before just because my art selection was very TP-generation heavy at the time.
Wow, impressive. What chapter are you in? Look at any guides?

In post-game, I *still* haven't mastered it. Can make it work, but not master it. I didn't even touch it until... pretty far in. Got stuck on a boss.

[Hunter Noventa]

Wow, impressive. What chapter are you in? Look at any guides?

In post-game, I *still* haven't mastered it. Can make it work, but not master it. I didn't even touch it until... pretty far in. Got stuck on a boss.

That's probably how I'll handle it, use it once ina while normally, but I won't go out of my way to make heavy use of it until I actually need it. Not to mention it feels odd investing so much into gear that'll be outdated in a few levels.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Wow, impressive. What chapter are you in? Look at any guides?

In post-game, I *still* haven't mastered it. Can make it work, but not master it. I didn't even touch it until... pretty far in. Got stuck on a boss.

I haven't looked at any guides, and right now I don't think I can do it any more. I don't remember exactly what I had, but I think it was that one melee art that attacks an area around me and gives 40 tp per hit. At 5 hits per mob, and fighting 6 mobs at once, the tp adds up pretty quickly. Also, I had the blood sacrifice art as well, I think. (The one that halves your current hp in order to give you 1000 tp.)

I honestly didn't make much use of the extended OD, and only managed to pull it off a couple of times because of several enemies around me at the same time. I've also generally favored the weapons with high TP boosts per hit, and always use the skill that cuts the delay between normal melee strikes in half. I think that really helped a lot in that. It wasn't something I really aimed to accomplish, I just sort of thought at the time. "Hey, I can do it again. That's pretty neat. Sure, I'll go for it."

Right now I'm just after chapter 11, I think. Not sure about the number, exactly, but I do remember what happened most recently plot-wise.

I just defeated the Zu Pharg. That was a great battle.

[Hunter Noventa]

Ahahahahhaaaa! I've done it! I completed the second most important quest in the game!

I unlocked Skells!

Goodbye all of money, it was nice having you! but now I have two skells with a semi-random assortment or weapons at least.

But no matter which parts of them I blow up, the Copper Cinculas refuse to drop Honey Oil. but they are MUCH easier to blow up now.

[danzibr]

I haven't looked at any guides, and right now I don't think I can do it any more. I don't remember exactly what I had, but I think it was that one melee art that attacks an area around me and gives 40 tp per hit. At 5 hits per mob, and fighting 6 mobs at once, the tp adds up pretty quickly. Also, I had the blood sacrifice art as well, I think. (The one that halves your current hp in order to give you 1000 tp.)

I honestly didn't make much use of the extended OD, and only managed to pull it off a couple of times because of several enemies around me at the same time. I've also generally favored the weapons with high TP boosts per hit, and always use the skill that cuts the delay between normal melee strikes in half. I think that really helped a lot in that. It wasn't something I really aimed to accomplish, I just sort of thought at the time. "Hey, I can do it again. That's pretty neat. Sure, I'll go for it."

Right now I'm just after chapter 11, I think. Not sure about the number, exactly, but I do remember what happened most recently plot-wise.

I just defeated the Zu Pharg. That was a great battle.
Yeah, that was a great fight. Good progress!

Ahahahahhaaaa! I've done it! I completed the second most important quest in the game!

I unlocked Skells!

Goodbye all of money, it was nice having you! but now I have two skells with a semi-random assortment or weapons at least.

But no matter which parts of them I blow up, the Copper Cinculas refuse to drop Honey Oil. but they are MUCH easier to blow up now.
Great! Yeah, that's one of the most exciting parts of the game. From the first 10 minutes you know you'll be piloting a skell at some point, then... it finally happens! Nice.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Great! Yeah, that's one of the most exciting parts of the game. From the first 10 minutes you know you'll be piloting a skell at some point, then... it finally happens! Nice.

Agreed. It just feels so awesome to finally get the skells unlocked and being able to play around with them from then on.

[Hunter Noventa]

Great! Yeah, that's one of the most exciting parts of the game. From the first 10 minutes you know you'll be piloting a skell at some point, then... it finally happens! Nice.

I really want to load one up with nothing but Missile Launchers and pretend it's Macross for a little bit, but like I said, I spent all my money. Thankfully I've got a few levels before I need to buy anyone any ground gear, as my main character just hit 30.

[danzibr]

I really want to load one up with nothing but Missile Launchers and pretend it's Macross for a little bit, but like I said, I spent all my money. Thankfully I've got a few levels before I need to buy anyone any ground gear, as my main character just hit 30.
btw, I'd suggest the G2 sword thingy and Phoenix.

Haven't played this game at all lately. What little free time I have goes to Mighty No. 9 (which is really friggin' hard), working on my game, and rewatching Game of Thrones. Still have lots to do. Hopefully before summer's over.

[Hunter Noventa]

btw, I'd suggest the G2 sword thingy and Phoenix.

Haven't played this game at all lately. What little free time I have goes to Mighty No. 9 (which is really friggin' hard), working on my game, and rewatching Game of Thrones. Still have lots to do. Hopefully before summer's over.

Lots to do for me as well. Hopefully i can get some more in the next couple of weekends. I'm sure I'll beat the game eventually,but I'd really like to do so before SRW OG comes out at the end of August.

[danzibr]

Lots to do for me as well. Hopefully i can get some more in the next couple of weekends. I'm sure I'll beat the game eventually,but I'd really like to do so before SRW OG comes out at the end of August.
Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa it's like Shining Force but with robots. Awesome!

[Mr.Moron]

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa it's like Shining Force but with robots. Awesome!

Shining Force already has robots!

[Hunter Noventa]

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa it's like Shining Force but with robots. Awesome!

Yes, yes it is. I highly recommend the series, unfortuantely only 2 games to date have some out in English, for the GBA. However, if you have a PS4 or Vita, the latest entry, SRW OG - The Moon Dwellers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzKuBKqNRYI), has an English translation for the 'Asia' region and can be imported. It's supposed to be something to get new people into the series, and as such it has a whole thing that summarizes the events of the previous games. The OG games are 'Original Generation', meaning they're nothing but the characters invented by the company.

Further down the line we have SRW V (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18otfdWJlLI) also for the PS4 and Vita getting a translation, it's a more traditional SRW in that it's full of robots from various anime, making it Giant Robot Crossover Fanfiction: the Video Game.

A couple of the other games in the series have fan translations (SRW Alpha Gaiden for PS1 and SRW J for GBA) but obviously they require the use of emulators to play.

Of course, the games being in Japanese hasn't stopped me from enjoying them, there's a dedicated community running a wiki that summarizes all the menus and secrets and such for all the games.

I've already named my Skells after robots from SRW. When I have more money in game again I'll have to do a better job of picking robots to model them after.

[danzibr]

Shining Force already has robots!
Haha, that it does. Adam and his nemesis in the original, I recall. Got him late, took a bit of beefing up, but I recall him being pretty boss. Not as good as Bleu, but hey. In II... yeah, there was one there too. A skinny dude with a laser or something. Didn't use him much.

Yes, yes it is. I highly recommend the series, unfortuantely only 2 games to date have some out in English, for the GBA. However, if you have a PS4 or Vita, the latest entry, SRW OG - The Moon Dwellers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzKuBKqNRYI), has an English translation for the 'Asia' region and can be imported. It's supposed to be something to get new people into the series, and as such it has a whole thing that summarizes the events of the previous games. The OG games are 'Original Generation', meaning they're nothing but the characters invented by the company.

Further down the line we have SRW V (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18otfdWJlLI) also for the PS4 and Vita getting a translation, it's a more traditional SRW in that it's full of robots from various anime, making it Giant Robot Crossover Fanfiction: the Video Game.

A couple of the other games in the series have fan translations (SRW Alpha Gaiden for PS1 and SRW J for GBA) but obviously they require the use of emulators to play.

Of course, the games being in Japanese hasn't stopped me from enjoying them, there's a dedicated community running a wiki that summarizes all the menus and secrets and such for all the games.

I've already named my Skells after robots from SRW. When I have more money in game again I'll have to do a better job of picking robots to model them after.
Ha, that's awesome. Seriously need to play these.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I recently beat Chapter 12 and got the end credits. I liked where it went.

One thing I really like about this game is that when there's something ridiculous that happens in the story, it sometimes gets a perfectly reasonable explanation. How did humanity create the massive White Whale to escape Earth despite the sudden nature of the alien attack? The project to build the thing was already well underway, of course. Should have been obvious, in retrospect.

I appreciate the fact that the writers for this piece actually put some thought into their world and the underlying concepts. It makes me believe that there's going to be a satisfying answer (or at least some kind of answer) for the mysteries that haven't been explained yet. Even if the characters sometimes (absurdly so) don't seem to notice there's a mystery, or acknowledge that there is one and don't seem to care. (Like the fact that nobody cared the Nopon was speaking English some how, but noticing it was strange when they eavesdropped on the Manon that were speaking English to each other. Then completely ignored it, because they had absolutely no idea how that could make any sense, and it really wasn't an important issue at the time, just something mysterious that happened to be beneficial.)

The twist of Elma being an alien visitor to spark the whole saving the human race project was rather good, and I appreciate the fact that reveal was foreshadowed. Same with the after-credits scene. Gee, Elma. You're just now noticing something about this planet is strange? Granted, keeping essentially dead people alive is quite unexpected, but so is being a universal translator, and being in some kind of space-warp bubble that essentially traps visitors while also having anomalous space-time traits the well-travelled Professor B has never even heard of. Really, at this point, just about nothing should be that shocking to you.

I do appreciate the fact that the plot and conflicts were brought into this strange planet, and very little about the planet has had a major impact on that. Makes it seem less contrived, that the main story arc could have mostly been the same on any world. It just happens to take place on this uniquely strange planet, which is a mystery to be solved last, if ever.

[danzibr]

I too liked the ending. And I agree with the people ignoring obvious oddities. Like, they talked about the speaking English just a little bit. I figured it was some TARDIS-type phenomenon. It was a helluva lot of plot at the end, lots of twists, but this seems to happen a decent bit in JRPGs. For some thoughts of my own...

I wonder about that dude in black at the end.

I'm excited for the sequel. We already have the world set, can see where it goes.

Speaking of the sequel, I hope we don't get a nameless protagonist.

Oh right, and Elma. Very curious about her backstory. Weird, helpful alien shows up to earth. Mysterious.

Also... I wonder if we can play as Vandham at some point. I was looking forward to that for a long time, never happened.

And I wonder if a sequel would tie into previous games more.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I too liked the ending. And I agree with the people ignoring obvious oddities. Like, they talked about the speaking English just a little bit. I figured it was some TARDIS-type phenomenon. It was a helluva lot of plot at the end, lots of twists, but this seems to happen a decent bit in JRPGs. For some thoughts of my own...

I wonder about that dude in black at the end.

I'm excited for the sequel. We already have the world set, can see where it goes.

Speaking of the sequel, I hope we don't get a nameless protagonist.

Oh right, and Elma. Very curious about her backstory. Weird, helpful alien shows up to earth. Mysterious.

Also... I wonder if we can play as Vandham at some point. I was looking forward to that for a long time, never happened.

And I wonder if a sequel would tie into previous games more.


First, about the twists in the ending. I like how that big twist was pretty heavily foreshadowed with the "we might not get our bodies back" worries that people had. When people spontaneously say things like that in a story, it's a way to introduce the idea of a plot twist to the audience without making it seem like it's absolutely contrived when it does show up. So when it was mentioned not once, but twice, I figured that something like the extra scene with Elma at the end would take place.

I figured Elma was an alien during chapter 12. The villain's noting that only the Qli have the technology he wonders how humans acquired, along with never having met a Qli in the game sort of pointed to an undercover alien collaborator assisting in building the white whale. Elma was the obvious choice next because she had always known absolutely everything about the project. I liked that detail.

All the stuff about being simulated copies. I could picture working on such a project and not telling people about a detail like that, because I imagine a lot of people would reject such a procedure and it would slow down the whole process pointlessly. I am amused that everyone but Doug kind of reacted to that news with an indifferent, blank stare. That's how I picture most people reacting as well. "Huh? I don't notice anything different. And this happened a while ago... Whatever."

I am not sure what you mean by the dude in black at the end. If you're referring to a story event after the long sequence of cutscenes where (among other things) Elma reports that the data archives are trashed, it's something I haven't seen. If it's something that I have seen, then I can't recall.

Elma's backstory makes sense to me. She learned humans were likely going to be wiped out and just decided to be a hero. Presumably, with her extremely long life as a space-elf, she was bored enough to leave her crystal forest and go do something. That's all the explanation needed, I think. Plus, maybe she wanted to keep the descendants of the Samaarians alive.

I didn't acquire Director Chaussen until virtually right before chapter 12 (I am very scatterbrained when it comes to accepting quests in a timely order) and found that surprising. So maybe. But the thing that strikes me as making that unlikely is that his beefy arms would require all the skin tight bodysuits to be modelled a little differently just to accommodate him. But I get the appeal of bringing mustache man along. When I first found Celica and Rock, I thought that Rock might eventually serve as Celica's skell. For some reason, it kind of feels like that was a wasted opportunity.

As for the translation thing? I've been thinking virtually since that scene where the people are puzzled by the planet translating language, that Mira is really some kind of purgatorial plane. That doesn't fit completely, because I believe one of the Manon mentioned that the space the planet occupies IS possible to detect from outside it. It's just hard to leave once you're there.

From what I've heard, Xenoblade Chronicles has nothing to do with this game, save the existence of the Nopon. So I would expect the next would also be a new world, like how the Final Fantasy series does it. Anyway, I am pretty sure I'm a fan of this series now, so I will also be looking forward to a sequel.

[danzibr]

I am not sure what you mean by the dude in black at the end. If you're referring to a story event after the long sequence of cutscenes where (among other things) Elma reports that the data archives are trashed, it's something I haven't seen. If it's something that I have seen, then I can't recall.

When Lao washes up on the shore, we see a dude in black (maybe could be a chick) walk up to him. Only time we see him the whole game. I mean, could be someone disguised.



Elma's backstory makes sense to me. She learned humans were likely going to be wiped out and just decided to be a hero. Presumably, with her extremely long life as a space-elf, she was bored enough to leave her crystal forest and go do something. That's all the explanation needed, I think. Plus, maybe she wanted to keep the descendants of the Samaarians alive.

I didn't acquire Director Chaussen until virtually right before chapter 12 (I am very scatterbrained when it comes to accepting quests in a timely order) and found that surprising. So maybe. But the thing that strikes me as making that unlikely is that his beefy arms would require all the skin tight bodysuits to be modelled a little differently just to accommodate him. But I get the appeal of bringing mustache man along. When I first found Celica and Rock, I thought that Rock might eventually serve as Celica's skell. For some reason, it kind of feels like that was a wasted opportunity.

As for the translation thing? I've been thinking virtually since that scene where the people are puzzled by the planet translating language, that Mira is really some kind of purgatorial plane. That doesn't fit completely, because I believe one of the Manon mentioned that the space the planet occupies IS possible to detect from outside it. It's just hard to leave once you're there.

From what I've heard, Xenoblade Chronicles has nothing to do with this game, save the existence of the Nopon. So I would expect the next would also be a new world, like how the Final Fantasy series does it. Anyway, I am pretty sure I'm a fan of this series now, so I will also be looking forward to a sequel.

I'd like to see more of it. Like, unless I'm not recalling or just missed it, what kind of alien is she? In the whole game, she's the only person looking like that.


I didn't acquire Director Chaussen until virtually right before chapter 12 (I am very scatterbrained when it comes to accepting quests in a timely order) and found that surprising. So maybe. But the thing that strikes me as making that unlikely is that his beefy arms would require all the skin tight bodysuits to be modelled a little differently just to accommodate him. But I get the appeal of bringing mustache man along. When I first found Celica and Rock, I thought that Rock might eventually serve as Celica's skell. For some reason, it kind of feels like that was a wasted opportunity.

I got him pretty early, and that was a pleasant surprise. I love his lines in combat :P

I had the same thought, Rock serving as her skell. That would've been great.


From what I've heard, Xenoblade Chronicles has nothing to do with this game, save the existence of the Nopon. So I would expect the next would also be a new world, like how the Final Fantasy series does it. Anyway, I am pretty sure I'm a fan of this series now, so I will also be looking forward to a sequel.

There are other references to Xenoblade Chronicles. Like the Nopon Sword of Legendaryness is a wooden Monado (the Monado is the main weapon from Xenoblade Chronicles).

I was really talking about Xenogears and Xenosaga. Like, Vandham is pretty clearly based on a bad guy from Xenogears. And Elma looks just like the main android from Xenosaga.

[BeerMug Paladin]

When Lao washes up on the shore, we see a dude in black (maybe could be a chick) walk up to him. Only time we see him the whole game. I mean, could be someone disguised.


Oh, right.



I'd like to see more of it. Like, unless I'm not recalling or just missed it, what kind of alien is she? In the whole game, she's the only person looking like that.

The bad guy (forgot his name) implied a Qli gave Earthlings technology, since he said it's impossible for humans to have the shielding tech that the lifehold core made use of. As far as I know, that's pretty much it. She's implied to be a Qli, not outright stated to be one. Really, it's kind of unimportant.


I got him pretty early, and that was a pleasant surprise. I love his lines in combat :P

I had the same thought, Rock serving as her skell. That would've been great.

I know! I'll be using Chaussen next time I play the game, just to look around and explore.



There are other references to Xenoblade Chronicles. Like the Nopon Sword of Legendaryness is a wooden Monado (the Monado is the main weapon from Xenoblade Chronicles).

I was really talking about Xenogears and Xenosaga. Like, Vandham is pretty clearly based on a bad guy from Xenogears. And Elma looks just like the main android from Xenosaga.

Oh, this is my first game in the series, but those are pretty neat references.

[Hunter Noventa]

I've been stalled out having too much fun wrecking things in my skells. I got a drop of some kind of horrific electro-scythe for my skell that does like, 40k damage. And I've found that some mobs are really easy to kill even when you're technically underleveled when you have something like that. Like the level 41-ish giant bugs around the river near the giant lake in oblivia.

Suffice to say, I gained about 11 levels it he course of the past day of playing. I'm up to three Skells.

Now I have to figure out how to earn money faster...

[danzibr]

The bad guy (forgot his name) implied a Qli gave Earthlings technology, since he said it's impossible for humans to have the shielding tech that the lifehold core made use of. As far as I know, that's pretty much it. She's implied to be a Qli, not outright stated to be one. Really, it's kind of unimportant.
I don't remember the Qli thing. I did some googling, and can't find anything on Qli. Some people suggested she's the same race as L, but I don't really see it. Some said maybe a Samaarian (or whatever it was), but... another person pointed out that she said that about someone else in-game. Referred to someone as a Samaarian witch, that is.

Anyway. I dunno, I could see her race being important. Like, the Ganglion-human thing was pretty key.

I've been stalled out having too much fun wrecking things in my skells. I got a drop of some kind of horrific electro-scythe for my skell that does like, 40k damage. And I've found that some mobs are really easy to kill even when you're technically underleveled when you have something like that. Like the level 41-ish giant bugs around the river near the giant lake in oblivia.

Suffice to say, I gained about 11 levels it he course of the past day of playing. I'm up to three Skells.

Now I have to figure out how to earn money faster...
Haha, yeah, that part of the game was a huge smell-the-flowers point for me. I loved it.

Oh, and the best way to make money is through FrontierNav. Specifically, there's a place in Oblivia where you can really make some bucks. I can tell you about it if you wish.

Really nice
Indeed

[Hunter Noventa]

Haha, yeah, that part of the game was a huge smell-the-flowers point for me. I loved it.

Oh, and the best way to make money is through FrontierNav. Specifically, there's a place in Oblivia where you can really make some bucks. I can tell you about it if you wish.

I've noticed that, it's just a matter of putting the right probes in the right places to generate more cash. Pretty sure I came back from my bug-hunting spree fairly loaded, except I'm level 40 something now and everything costs a ton more. So some help would be appreciated.

[danzibr]

I've noticed that, it's just a matter of putting the right probes in the right places to generate more cash. Pretty sure I came back from my bug-hunting spree fairly loaded, except I'm level 40 something now and everything costs a ton more. So some help would be appreciated.
k, found it!
http://www.crenet-games.com/guides/img/xenoblade-x/oblivia-revenue-highlight.jpg
Just the red part. Not sure if it's ideal or not, but basically following that with a little bit of tinkering should make your revenue skyrocket. Mine went up by like 70k per tick, iirc. Oh, and the more scenic locations you find, the better. Might be worthwhile to do some exploring in that red region.

[Hunter Noventa]

k, found it!
http://www.crenet-games.com/guides/img/xenoblade-x/oblivia-revenue-highlight.jpg
Just the red part. Not sure if it's ideal or not, but basically following that with a little bit of tinkering should make your revenue skyrocket. Mine went up by like 70k per tick, iirc. Oh, and the more scenic locations you find, the better. Might be worthwhile to do some exploring in that red region.

I think I have most of those from running around grinding and doing collection missions, I'll have to reference it next time I play. But yeah,t eh sightseeing spots are trickier. I really should advance the story til I can fly.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I don't remember the Qli thing. I did some googling, and can't find anything on Qli. Some people suggested she's the same race as L, but I don't really see it. Some said maybe a Samaarian (or whatever it was), but... another person pointed out that she said that about someone else in-game. Referred to someone as a Samaarian witch, that is.

Anyway. I dunno, I could see her race being important. Like, the Ganglion-human thing was pretty key.

I went ahead and dug up the thing I'm thinking of. Turns out that it's Qlu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwnCvZyky5E), not Qli. I guess the race isn't exactly named, but there's the implied thing I was mentioning. Someone seems to have given these humans some kind of advanced and rare shielding technology. It makes sense to me to call Elma a Qlu, or maybe Qlulian or something like that. In the same way a human is an Earthling since humans are from Earth.

In other talk, concerning money issues. I've never seemed to have any lack of money, but that might be a combination of failing to purchase equipment upgrades consistently when I am able to use a new tier and wandering around the surroundings in a hilariously aimless fashion. I've wasted so much time just ambling about aimlessly while looking for hidden places that I never seem to run out of money when I get around to actually using it. Nothing beats finding a new location that I somehow never visited before and getting that "New scenic location" thing to pop up.

I've actually thought since shortly after the game's start that money is so abundant that it's almost completely pointless. So to read a report of someone else having money shortages in the game is kind of interesting for me to see.

[danzibr]

I think I have most of those from running around grinding and doing collection missions, I'll have to reference it next time I play. But yeah,t eh sightseeing spots are trickier. I really should advance the story til I can fly.
At this point, probably, yeah. Not only does it open up a bunch of stuff, but it just makes getting around quicker. I remember being frustrated from time to time, supposedly able to get to the top of some cliff/whatever and having a bear of a time getting around.

I went ahead and dug up the thing I'm thinking of. Turns out that it's Qlu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwnCvZyky5E), not Qli. I guess the race isn't exactly named, but there's the implied thing I was mentioning. Someone seems to have given these humans some kind of advanced and rare shielding technology. It makes sense to me to call Elma a Qlu, or maybe Qlulian or something like that. In the same way a human is an Earthling since humans are from Earth.

In other talk, concerning money issues. I've never seemed to have any lack of money, but that might be a combination of failing to purchase equipment upgrades consistently when I am able to use a new tier and wandering around the surroundings in a hilariously aimless fashion. I've wasted so much time just ambling about aimlessly while looking for hidden places that I never seem to run out of money when I get around to actually using it. Nothing beats finding a new location that I somehow never visited before and getting that "New scenic location" thing to pop up.

I've actually thought since shortly after the game's start that money is so abundant that it's almost completely pointless. So to read a report of someone else having money shortages in the game is kind of interesting for me to see.

Ahh I see, Qlu system, good call, good call. Surely Elma's from there, yeah.

EDIT: Whoa, did some googling, apparently *Celica* is a Qlurian. Maybe Elma is Samaarian. And the Samaarian witch comment was apparently because the Ganglion worked for the Samaarian or something.
For money problem, I had them once or twice. I almost never bought gear with my money, but when you first unlock the 30 and 40 skells I was strapped. Wanted to outfit my entire team in the heavies, ran out of cash.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Ahh I see, Qlu system, good call, good call. Surely Elma's from there, yeah.

EDIT: Whoa, did some googling, apparently *Celica* is a Qlurian. Maybe Elma is Samaarian. And the Samaarian witch comment was apparently because the Ganglion worked for the Samaarian or something.

Well, Elma and Celica are both space elves, so that makes sense to me they're from some kind of elfy planet. Celica is the forest variety and Elma is the crystal variety. As for the Samaarians, I believe they were mentioned as the creator race for the Ganglion that was supposedly extinct, the one that humans were hypothetically descended from. Hence why human DNA was stated to be some kind of weapon against them. Also explains why the Ganglion was so invested in destroying human bodies.

[danzibr]

Well, Elma and Celica are both space elves, so that makes sense to me they're from some kind of elfy planet. Celica is the forest variety and Elma is the crystal variety. As for the Samaarians, I believe they were mentioned as the creator race for the Ganglion that was supposedly extinct, the one that humans were hypothetically descended from. Hence why human DNA was stated to be some kind of weapon against them. Also explains why the Ganglion was so invested in destroying human bodies.
Huh, good call. Based on their appearance, I could totally see Celica and Elma being, well, as you said. I mean, they're pretty different, but similar enough to have a common ancestor. Celica's ears are a bit furry though...

Yeah. I could see it. Wouldn't be surprised if they weren't, but wouldn't be surprised if they were. Hopefully we see in the sequel.

[Hunter Noventa]

Spoiler talk aside, I finally moved forward with the plot a little bit. by a little bit I mean I spent more time grinding up a 4th party member to use than beating the mission itself. I might have overleveled a little bit for a while, but that's fine by me. Did Chapter 7 super quick, then saw a bunch of mission unlock in NLA so I started doing some of those. Getting close to having enough money for a 4th Skell at least.

[danzibr]

Spoiler talk aside, I finally moved forward with the plot a little bit. by a little bit I mean I spent more time grinding up a 4th party member to use than beating the mission itself. I might have overleveled a little bit for a while, but that's fine by me. Did Chapter 7 super quick, then saw a bunch of mission unlock in NLA so I started doing some of those. Getting close to having enough money for a 4th Skell at least.
Hmm, what happened in chapter 7? And grats on the almost full party of skells! I really liked that part of the game :)

[Hunter Noventa]

Hmm, what happened in chapter 7? And grats on the almost full party of skells! I really liked that part of the game :)

Chapter 7 was where you
headed off to support Irina's team in recovering a piece of the lifehold in Oblivia, but it was also Goetia setting a trap for you. Given that I had three skells, and was level 43 or so, we absolutely destroyed her.

It's amusing how long the random weapon drops i've gotten are remaining effective, simply because you can't buy new Skell weapons til 50, and even then I'll likely still outclass them between my Beam Scythe, Gravity Cannon, and Energy Zankantou. And that's just on my Skell. Elma's has some giant sword that does a crapton of damage too.

[Hunter Noventa]

Well I went ahead and did chapter 8 yesterday. I think I'm a little overleveled, seeing as I'm level 46 and the guide suggests like, level 36 for the content I'm on.

Still don't have enough money, never have enough money. I need to update my ground gear badly, but I just can't afford it, and the next chapter forces me out of my skell for boss fights it seems, so I really need to update the ground gear. I mean I could try farming for drops while leveling up some people I haven't used much I guess...

[danzibr]

Oooh yeah, chapter 8, *that* boss fight. It was a huge wall for me. I had to do some training, most notably figure out infinite overdrive.

Good luck!

[Hunter Noventa]

Oooh yeah, chapter 8, *that* boss fight. It was a huge wall for me. I had to do some training, most notably figure out infinite overdrive.

Good luck!

I kind of walloped it because I had three skells and was overleveled.

It's chapter 9 where I'm going to be stuck ouside my skells. I need money, FrontierNav just isn't bringing it in fast enough.

[danzibr]

I kind of walloped it because I had three skells and was overleveled.

It's chapter 9 where I'm going to be stuck ouside my skells. I need money, FrontierNav just isn't bringing it in fast enough.
Oh huh, maybe it is chapter 9. *checks Google* Yup, chapter 9. That battle, yeah, that was brutal. I remember getting thoroughly owned, training up, coming back, and *still* getting owned, though not as bad.

gl!

[aneesha]

subscribed, this seems like a very interesting thread

[Hunter Noventa]

Oh huh, maybe it is chapter 9. *checks Google* Yup, chapter 9. That battle, yeah, that was brutal. I remember getting thoroughly owned, training up, coming back, and *still* getting owned, though not as bad.

gl!

Yep, I'm already overleveled, but I'm seriously undergeared. Just gonna toss random people in my 4th party slot and grind the really easy level 43ish insects in oblivia for drops and xp. Unless there's some other similarly easy mob around level 50 i can grind somewhere, those just have the right balance of population and respawn rate.

[danzibr]

Yep, I'm already overleveled, but I'm seriously undergeared. Just gonna toss random people in my 4th party slot and grind the really easy level 43ish insects in oblivia for drops and xp. Unless there's some other similarly easy mob around level 50 i can grind somewhere, those just have the right balance of population and respawn rate.
Gear really isn't that important. Like, the raw stats. Augments become important though. Interested in unlimited overdrive? At your stage it should be pretty easy to achieve with be right stuff. I can give you the link I used.

[Hunter Noventa]

Gear really isn't that important. Like, the raw stats. Augments become important though. Interested in unlimited overdrive? At your stage it should be pretty easy to achieve with be right stuff. I can give you the link I used.

Well for that it's basically slapping a ton of 'Art:Gain TP' augments on right? I think I can manage that part. Aside fromt hat it would be swapping back to drifter to choose a combination of weapons and arts that would work well to gain TP without spending it, I imagine. I've finished out several class trees so I have some good weapon selection going for me at least...Launchers, Photon Sabers, Dual Blades, Dual Guns...working on Sniper Rifle/Javelins.

[danzibr]

Well for that it's basically slapping a ton of 'Art:Gain TP' augments on right? I think I can manage that part. Aside fromt hat it would be swapping back to drifter to choose a combination of weapons and arts that would work well to gain TP without spending it, I imagine. I've finished out several class trees so I have some good weapon selection going for me at least...Launchers, Photon Sabers, Dual Blades, Dual Guns...working on Sniper Rifle/Javelins.
Later on, yeah. *BUT* when you first start, there are other augments that are mighty nice. Basically it goes like this:

1) Get at *least* 3000 TP, but more is better.
2) Activate OD.
3) Get back up to 3000 TP (and hopefully in the process build your uhh, that number at the bottom).
4) Wait until your timer's about to run out, then hit the OD button again.
5) Repeat 3 and 4.

Easy in theory, eh? But to actually make it happen, it's helpful to have

a) augments/skills/gear that increase your max TP. I think I got to like 6k with little problem, and that was overkill.
b) skills which boost TP, and skills which have lots of hits.
c) a spread of skills. I know blue and green both give you a bonus to time, and you don't want to do red then yellow (or vice versa). Like, you can do red, red, purple, yellow, or something. It's not really a big deal, but if you go red then yellow, the yellow won't up your OD count.
d) (and this might be the most important at the beginning) augments/skills/gear that give you more time when you activate OD.

Oh, and these are the two points of OD

i) Spam those good abilities which have big cooldowns, like Ghostwalker.
ii) Get the tertiary cooldown on a big finisher. Proceed to whup booty.

Yeah, sounds good! I know *any* weapon combo can work, and any class for that matter.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I'm in to the post-game content now. And I feel ridiculous when I play the game now.

These are some things I've done since beating the final chapter in the main story arc and seeing the ending: formed the alliance with the Nopon, recruited Murderess, recruited Yelv. Various low-affinity missions for characters I haven't used much.

I spent a long time skipping over quests I had unlocked since pretty early in the game just because I was kind of aimlessly wandering around while doing other stuff. Unlocking access to something I could have had much earlier in the game makes me feel a bit silly.

I'm not sure if there are any others characters to recruit (maybe one of the cat-folk? Maybe the appropriately named Mia, who is currently MIA in Cauldros? Maybe someone I haven't considered, like that one friendly definian?), but my percentage of completion is gradually rising. Being capped out at 60, it's pretty silly to unlock a new character and find they're level 16 or something. But I would expect either of those anticipated options to start at a higher level, since attaining them at all would happen later in the game.

As for maintaining overdrive, I believe I had the easiest time chaining it by using a photon saber's arts. I'm woefully unoptimized for it now.

[danzibr]

It's super easy to get newbies up, both in affinity and level. But yeah, having a 16 in a party of 60's is kind of silly >.>

As for unlockable characters, I won't say whom you can and can't recruit, but I will say I was disappointed. I mean, some were really cool, but... yeah, won't say it.

[Hunter Noventa]

I don't know how much post-game stuff I'll get to, at least right away. I've got the new Super Robot Wars game on the way and that's going to eat up my console gaming time when it arrives.

But yeah, I think I'll work on getting everyone I have unlocked up to 40ish at least, that won't take long with the nice grinding spot on the river by the Nopon caravan in Oblivia. And hopefully they'll drop some more level 48 gear I can slap some good augments onto.

[Hunter Noventa]

Spent half the day tooling around finishing missions. Hit level 50, can't afford a new skill to slap all this level 50 skell gear onto.

I'm in desperate need of research probes so I can make more money...how do I even get more beyond mission rewards?

[BeerMug Paladin]

Spent half the day tooling around finishing missions. Hit level 50, can't afford a new skill to slap all this level 50 skell gear onto.

I'm in desperate need of research probes so I can make more money...how do I even get more beyond mission rewards?

As far as I know, the only way to get them is via mission rewards and (rarely) opening those treasure dealies scattered all over the map. Personally, I'd like to have more storage probes, but it appears I'll have to wait until a mission reward feels like giving me one.

[Hunter Noventa]

As far as I know, the only way to get them is via mission rewards and (rarely) opening those treasure dealies scattered all over the map. Personally, I'd like to have more storage probes, but it appears I'll have to wait until a mission reward feels like giving me one.

Lame. I just got a...third Storage Probe I think, 21k Miranium limit now, and my production is just a little beyond that.

I have tons of mining probes, but no research probes at all. Guess I'll keep doing missions.

[danzibr]

Lame. I just got a...third Storage Probe I think, 21k Miranium limit now, and my production is just a little beyond that.

I have tons of mining probes, but no research probes at all. Guess I'll keep doing missions.
There are a couple which you can find. But yeah, that Miranium limit, blergh.

OH! Storage Probes are compatible with like boosters and stuff. Try combining them.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Lame. I just got a...third Storage Probe I think, 21k Miranium limit now, and my production is just a little beyond that.

I have tons of mining probes, but no research probes at all. Guess I'll keep doing missions.

I've got the same deal. I think I've pretty much always been hitting my miranium limit each generation cycle. There's so many mining probes given out and so few storage and research probes in comparison. Now I'm in the habit of not even putting anything on a location that looks suitable to put a non-mining probe, because I just simply don't need any more mining probes. If I get another storage probe, I'll easily be able to optimize or just add some more mining probes to hit my generation limit again.

For a long time, I was thinking there was some way to purchase or create probes that needed to be unlocked and I just hadn't found it yet. For all I know, there still could be and I just haven't found it yet. But that's been one of the strange quirks about the game design that I don't really understand. As I've mentioned before, I've never had money shortages, but miranium is another matter entirely.

[Hunter Noventa]

Help! I'm trapped in an infinite spiral of sidequests! I can't stop myself!

On the plus side, i almost have enough money for the absolute cheapest of the level 50 Skells. Is there an appreciable difference between light, medium and heavy that should worry about? Or will actually having a level 50 Skell make more of a difference than anything?

[danzibr]

Help! I'm trapped in an infinite spiral of sidequests! I can't stop myself!

On the plus side, i almost have enough money for the absolute cheapest of the level 50 Skells. Is there an appreciable difference between light, medium and heavy that should worry about? Or will actually having a level 50 Skell make more of a difference than anything?
The kind of armor they can equip, I think. And the heavier ones have more fuel.

The biggest thing is the ability to equip level 50 gear. For that, even the lightest works just fine.

And grats on the progress!

[Hunter Noventa]

The kind of armor they can equip, I think. And the heavier ones have more fuel.

The biggest thing is the ability to equip level 50 gear. For that, even the lightest works just fine.

And grats on the progress!

That's what I thought, I've got a medium and two lights at the moment. I don't think I could save the 7 million you need for the biggest level 50 heavy. Not with FrontierNav only bringing in a little over 40k a pop.

[Hunter Noventa]

Well, a few more quests and I managed to save up for a medium level 50 Skell, and it makes a big difference.

Now if only Doug's affinity would go up faster, I set myself the goal of doing his 3-heart affinity mission before moving on with the plot.

Meanwhile, I'm finding the combination of Sniper Rifle and javelin very nice, Overwhelm is a great attack. I maxed out that class tree and until I have the money for other weapons, I went back to drifter to have 5 skill slots, two of which boost my TP max, two of which make my melee arts do more damage and recharge faster, and another that gives TP on using arts. I think I'll be in good shape for the rest of the story...given that my main character, Lin and Elma are all about level 55 right now >.<

[rayquaza]

Out of all the open-world games to follow out this current year, Xenoblade Chronicles X may just be the most formidable. This can be a truly enormous game, in scale and scope, with towering animals and rock formations stretching so far as the attention can watch. In spite of as much as 60 hours, X carries on to provide taller mountains to climb, and stronger opponents to topple, without end of new challenges in sight.

[danzibr]

Well, a few more quests and I managed to save up for a medium level 50 Skell, and it makes a big difference.

Now if only Doug's affinity would go up faster, I set myself the goal of doing his 3-heart affinity mission before moving on with the plot.

Meanwhile, I'm finding the combination of Sniper Rifle and javelin very nice, Overwhelm is a great attack. I maxed out that class tree and until I have the money for other weapons, I went back to drifter to have 5 skill slots, two of which boost my TP max, two of which make my melee arts do more damage and recharge faster, and another that gives TP on using arts. I think I'll be in good shape for the rest of the story...given that my main character, Lin and Elma are all about level 55 right now >.<
Sounds like a good combo!

And yeah, raising affinity is a pain >.>

Out of all the open-world games to follow out this current year, Xenoblade Chronicles X may just be the most formidable. This can be a truly enormous game, in scale and scope, with towering animals and rock formations stretching so far as the attention can watch. In spite of as much as 60 hours, X carries on to provide taller mountains to climb, and stronger opponents to topple, without end of new challenges in sight.
It's da bomb alright.

[Hunter Noventa]

Sounds like a good combo!

And yeah, raising affinity is a pain >.>

It's da bomb alright.

Yeah. I still wanna try out all the other weapons of course, but this will work for this chapter. An maybe the rest of the story, seems I'm fairly close to the end. Though I will have to save up for more level 50 skells and flight modules.

Of course, once my copy of SRW OG The Moon Dwellers arrives I'll probably be all over that, so hopefully I can beat the story by then at least.

I just really hope the sequel to this isn't on the NX, I'm very wary of what weird direction Nintendo might go with that.

[Hunter Noventa]

I CAN FLY! WOOOO!

Finally got around to beating Chapter 9. Being level 57 probably made it a lot easier. Then I went and unlocked flight. Shame it eats fuel to do so but it's still pretty amazing. Went and hit up a bunch of FrontierNav beacons I couldn't reach before, though I need to do whatever you're supposed to do to unlock Mechancial 5 for some of them it seems.

[danzibr]

I CAN FLY! WOOOO!

Finally got around to beating Chapter 9. Being level 57 probably made it a lot easier. Then I went and unlocked flight. Shame it eats fuel to do so but it's still pretty amazing. Went and hit up a bunch of FrontierNav beacons I couldn't reach before, though I need to do whatever you're supposed to do to unlock Mechancial 5 for some of them it seems.
Grats! So much fun there ;)

For Mechanical 5, that's a bit of a pain. I can get you a link if you don't want to risk spoilers. Or you can google mechanical 5 off the record.

[Hunter Noventa]

Grats! So much fun there ;)

For Mechanical 5, that's a bit of a pain. I can get you a link if you don't want to risk spoilers. Or you can google mechanical 5 off the record.

I'll probably find it when i start digging through the strategy guide for everything else after I beat the main story. At this point all I have missing are the level 5 points in Primordia, Oblivia and Noctilum, a few in Sylvanum, and most of cauldros. Making just above 60k on each frontiernav return, and just about 24k in miranium, which is all I have storage for.

it was really weird going to Cauldros and seeing spots with like, level 9 critters. And then twenty yards away are some level 45 enemy skells.

I really want to buy a 5th Skell, I have my leftover one from when I upgraded my own, but if I give it to an NPC and it gets trashed, I have to pay to replace it because it has no insurance left, whereas the other ones are replaced for free without decrementing the Insurance.

Trying to hold off on buying new ground gear til I hit 60 because when I'm in my skells most of the time, why bother?

[Hunter Noventa]

All right, I finally beat the game! Huzzah!

Well you know, the main plot, there are a zillion side and affinity mission left, but I've already dumped nearly 100 hours into this thing, they can wait.


Finally got around to getting another level 50 skell, even if it was teh cheapest one, so with that I was able to take on the last two chapters pretty easily.

Most of the bosses weren't too tough Luxaar and the Vita went down fast enough thanks to G-busters, but Lao, ugh Lao.

I lost twice before I remembered 'oh wait, i'm not using my best weapon and arts combination' once i switched back to drifter I was able to spam overdrive to burn him down after the adds were taken out and then it was over.

As for the plot, I kinda figured something was up with Elma. Of course she's in a pod that looks like it would hold Kos-Mos and looks very much like Kos-Mos, why not?

And then the post-credits reveal that screams sequel? I had already called it ages ago. Well, I figured that the bodies were all dead and everyone was truly living in their mims, not that everyone had been backed up to a database, and yet weren't because it got smashed to pieces. Same result in a way though.


I won't be touching the game again for a while, since SRW the moon Dwellers arrives tomorrow, but it was a fun ride.

[danzibr]

All right, I finally beat the game! Huzzah!

Well you know, the main plot, there are a zillion side and affinity mission left, but I've already dumped nearly 100 hours into this thing, they can wait.


Finally got around to getting another level 50 skell, even if it was teh cheapest one, so with that I was able to take on the last two chapters pretty easily.

Most of the bosses weren't too tough Luxaar and the Vita went down fast enough thanks to G-busters, but Lao, ugh Lao.

I lost twice before I remembered 'oh wait, i'm not using my best weapon and arts combination' once i switched back to drifter I was able to spam overdrive to burn him down after the adds were taken out and then it was over.

As for the plot, I kinda figured something was up with Elma. Of course she's in a pod that looks like it would hold Kos-Mos and looks very much like Kos-Mos, why not?

And then the post-credits reveal that screams sequel? I had already called it ages ago. Well, I figured that the bodies were all dead and everyone was truly living in their mims, not that everyone had been backed up to a database, and yet weren't because it got smashed to pieces. Same result in a way though.


I won't be touching the game again for a while, since SRW the moon Dwellers arrives tomorrow, but it was a fun ride.
Grats on the victory!

Yeah, it's funny how the ending made more questions than it answered. Can't wait for the sequel. I hope it's this but minor improvements to gameplay and not a create your own main character.

[Hunter Noventa]

Grats on the victory!

Yeah, it's funny how the ending made more questions than it answered. Can't wait for the sequel. I hope it's this but minor improvements to gameplay and not a create your own main character.

I actually prefer being able to create my character in a game like this to be honest. Now if they could find a way to put a little more personality into your character I'd like that. I just really hope the sequel isn't for the NX.

[GloatingSwine]

Whether the sequel has a custom character or not, I'd prefer something more like the original Xenoblade Chronicles.

Looking back, I think it was genuinely a better game. There was more variation in the way the different characters worked in combat (nothing like Melia in X), the battles felt like there was more to them because of the additional statuses like knockdown etc.

Also XBX had way too many characters for many of them to have significant development. 6-7 is about the sweet spot for a JRPG for everyone to get time to shine.

(If they do another one it will almost certainly be for the NX. Nintendo has something like an 80% stake in Monolith Soft).

[ryuplaneswalker]

Looking back, I think it was genuinely a better game. There was more variation in the way the different characters worked in combat (nothing like Melia in X), the battles felt like there was more to them because of the additional statuses like knockdown etc.

Most of the fights were far to reliant on those mechanics though. Bosses generally felt like "pray you get the effects on a skill chain but outside of that just spam attacks."

[Hunter Noventa]

Most of the fights were far to reliant on those mechanics though. Bosses generally felt like "pray you get the effects on a skill chain but outside of that just spam attacks."

Ironically that was how I beat the final boss of XCX. 'Load up on TP gain and TP max up, Overdrive, Overwhelm, Overhwelm, Overhwlem.'

Overwhelm is a great art, is what I'm saying.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Ironically that was how I beat the final boss of XCX. 'Load up on TP gain and TP max up, Overdrive, Overwhelm, Overhwelm, Overhwlem.'

Overwhelm is a great art, is what I'm saying.

Well..I did that sort of too >.> but it was mostly "Keep up Eagle Eye and Ghostly Sniper and spam the heck out of Galaxy Knight skills to max out TP from crits"

[BeerMug Paladin]

I made heavy use of that one aura that does damage to enemies around the user, (one of the shield arts), and just tanked my way through it with the aura on. It was a harrowing struggle. Many times I nearly dropped and I struggled to revive my allies, but it worked.

[Hunter Noventa]

I made heavy use of that one aura that does damage to enemies around the user, (one of the shield arts), and just tanked my way through it with the aura on. It was a harrowing struggle. Many times I nearly dropped and I struggled to revive my allies, but it worked.

I never got around to leveling the Shield classes. The only one who dropped regularly was Irina, but she was about ten levels behind everyone else...so at about the level you're supposed to be to beat the game. I could have leveled her, but I just really wanted to get the game cleared and over with.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I made heavy use of that one aura that does damage to enemies around the user, (one of the shield arts), and just tanked my way through it with the aura on. It was a harrowing struggle. Many times I nearly dropped and I struggled to revive my allies, but it worked.

There is a aggro aura for shield arts? Why does Lin Not have that!

[BeerMug Paladin]

There is a aggro aura for shield arts? Why does Lin Not have that!
I didn't find out until well after beating it, but with the right optimization, the damage you can do with that art feels rather ludicrous. I moved on once I maxxed out the classes that use that weapon, but it's the most effective attack I've found so far. I didn't even bother with my party most times, I was walking doom.

As for why Lin doesn't have it? I never pay very much attention to where my main character's arts come from (and I pay their arts/skills a lot more attention than I tend to do individual characters). If it was some other character's special unique skill that would make a lot of sense to me. Those special skills you unlock tend to be pretty strong.

[BeerMug Paladin]

So, I'm slowly working my way towards a higher level of completion. Right now I'm somewhere at 75.5% Is there anyone else that is trying to get that exploration rate number higher? I'm not using a guide or anything, and don't really want to, just kind of wandering around randomly and discovering what to do.

[danzibr]

So, I'm slowly working my way towards a higher level of completion. Right now I'm somewhere at 75.5% Is there anyone else that is trying to get that exploration rate number higher? I'm not using a guide or anything, and don't really want to, just kind of wandering around randomly and discovering what to do.
Oh man. I haven't touched this game in a while. I'd love to 100% it at some point, but with the school year starting up (I'm a teacher), my game time is down to jack. If I were to... well, I'd start by finishing up all my quests and upping my affinity (never did that), then build some super skells, then maybe hit up a guide for completion.

[Hunter Noventa]

I haven't touched the game since I beat it, but yeah, work up to your affinity Missions for everyone to unlock skills, do all the missions that show up on the mission terminal, and make the most powerful skells you can.