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 Posted: Wed, 21st Sep 2011 23:04 Post subject: |
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> get your ass kicked
Sometimes I've saved when in the middle of a fight... there are two very cheap bosses in the game where your party AI behavior can cost you a wipe.
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| Posted: Wed, 21st Sep 2011 23:05 Post subject: |
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I'm used to party AI ending the fight, I've played through FFXIII. Twice.
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Gvaz
Posts: 345
Location: USA
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Gvaz
Posts: 345
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed, 21st Sep 2011 23:16 Post subject: |
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I just didn't want anyone to go "it's freezin cause you played too long!!" because it's not that
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| Posted: Wed, 21st Sep 2011 23:22 Post subject: |
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> "it's freezin cause you played too long!!"
I had only two issues with the game:
1. Occasional freezing, once per 2-3 hours maybe (I don't play long sessions anyway).
2. Sound starts "crackling" after a while, approx. 2 hours, restart to emulator solves it always (using LLE).
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Gvaz
Posts: 345
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu, 22nd Sep 2011 01:20 Post subject: |
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Or you could just change zones, it seems to fix itself on bgm changes
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Gvaz
Posts: 345
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu, 22nd Sep 2011 16:17 Post subject: |
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Lower your standards my son. I know you can do it!
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deelix
PDIP Member
Posts: 32062
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Thu, 22nd Sep 2011 16:45 Post subject: |
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Gvaz, you playing on Wii or Dolphin?
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| Posted: Thu, 22nd Sep 2011 16:51 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Thu, 22nd Sep 2011 19:18 Post subject: |
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| Gvaz wrote: | | Lower your standards my son. I know you can do it! |
It's not about standards. Remember; I said I can handle games slowing down. It's about my aggravation levels; hearing that goddamn hitching in the audio whenever the framerate fluctuates.. and even when it doesn't... it just too much for me and I end up getting more and more annoyed.
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Gvaz
Posts: 345
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri, 23rd Sep 2011 01:43 Post subject: |
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Great game, just playing for 4 hours makes me realize this game is huge and will eat up a lot of time. Some things make no sense to me though, maybe someone can explain. I have no idea how the skill system works. There are three trees I can set, but what exactly is happening here? The tut says to switch up the trees so they'll level up faster. What are affinity coins and how do I use it? The afiinity thing, how does it work? I can make connections between two people by doing quests, but what's the point?
Last, what should I sell?
The game feels quite easy. Is that normal? There was a unique beast on the beach, I get a warning to be cautious, but it was piss easy.
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Gvaz
Posts: 345
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri, 23rd Sep 2011 18:35 Post subject: |
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It's easy to overlevel if you do every quest.
Affinity coins you get from killing a rare mob the first time, or from leveling up. you use them to link skills from one character to another. each time you kill a mob/quest/landmark you gain SP. SP is auto added to the tree you currently have selected. Affinity is gained by giving gifts to your party members, or from doing heart to hearts, or by them interjecting in conversations with npcs, or from burst affinity (pressing B correctly when it comes up). Affinity leads to more chain attack chances, more gem making turns, and more heart to hearts available (leading to more affinity and more character development)
some tips
1. sell junk that doesn't have a red or blue "!". however, hold on to these items for as long as possible, you might need them later for quests, especially ones with little * and fat pouches
2. do not sell collectables
3. if a weapon has 3 slots for gems, don't sell it unless you have something much better also with 3 slots because slots are a billion times more important than say like +50 defense
4. don't sell gem parts, make the gem first then sell the garbage gems
5. don't worry too much about money
6. buy skillbooks and ignore armors/weapons unless you have to
7. spend your AP on Arts as soon as you are able. that extra damage can help.
8. game starts off easy and slowly gets harder as you play (as opposed to easier as you play, though it's never like ninja gaiden hard or anything)
9. The AI is kind of dumb sometimes, so control characters like melia or riki when you get them to utilize them properly.
10. in gem making, use lower affinity characters to combine stats as close to 99% as you can, then use two high affinity characters to mix those 99% containers together in order to get great gem results.
There was another tip but i forgot it
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| Posted: Fri, 23rd Sep 2011 19:09 Post subject: |
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Thanks, much appreciated. I still don't fully understand this affinity thing, but I guess I'll get used to it.
This game makes me wish the Wii wasn't a piece of shit hardware slightly stronger than a toaster. Character models look plain ridiculous, this much low res textures were last seen in 2000 on PC. Luckily the gameplay in such games makes up for it vastly. I hadn't played a proper jRPG in years, I missed them.
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Grouch
Posts: 74
Location: Mississausage, Ontario
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 00:50 Post subject: |
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What a fantastic game! I have over 145 hours on my save, and I'm right before the final point of no return.
I've maxed the affinity on all the cities/regions, farmed the best armor, weapons, gems for all the characters, farmed all the Lvl100+ uniques, and I still wish there were more things to do.
The story is above average with great pacing. One of the best parts is that there are no annoying characters, and some really great and loveable ones(Shulk, Dundun, Riki). If you loved Xenogears/Xenosaga themes you'll probably love it like I did.
This game sits alongside Witcher 2, Deus Ex HR and Radiant Historia as my favorite RPGs this year. Haha, I don't want it to end, but I guess I'll go ahead and continue the story since I've nothing else left to do.
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 01:22 Post subject: |
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| Grouch wrote: | | there are no annoying characters |
The [spoiler] party member is quite annoying, IMHO.
| Mister_s wrote: | | I still don't fully understand this affinity thing, but I guess I'll get used to it. |
Affinity for an area means more quests.
Affinity of NPCs means different quest outcomes sometimes.
Affinity of party members means better support AI (reviving, healing, buffing).
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 01:35 Post subject: |
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Grouch
Posts: 74
Location: Mississausage, Ontario
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 10:49 Post subject: |
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| psorcerer wrote: | | Grouch wrote: | | there are no annoying characters |
The [spoiler] party member is quite annoying, IMHO.
| Mister_s wrote: | | I still don't fully understand this affinity thing, but I guess I'll get used to it. |
Affinity for an area means more quests.
Affinity of NPCs means different quest outcomes sometimes.
Affinity of party members means better support AI (reviving, healing, buffing). |
psorcerer: If you mean 7th party member, I guess more than a few people find s/he unlikable. I just felt given what s/he went through, it was all understandable and not out of character. I also appreciated very much the parallels between Shulk and 7th,  Spoiler: | considering they were both "hijacked", so to speak. |
Mister_s: To add to what psorcerer said:
Affinity for an area - you can trade for more collectibles with named npc's. Completing the collectibles for an area early on, can often mean getting gem rewards you won't be able to farm till much later.
Affinity with party members - means you can also share more of their skills, ie, lvl 1 affinity between characters means they can share 1 skill with each other, while lvl 5 affinity affords them to share 5 skills with each other. Higher affinity with party members also means you can craft higher quality gems much easier. You can reach Heat(craft gems 1 level higher than the crystal you use) and Mega Heat(craft 2 perfect gems 1 level higher) with higher affinity between party members.
I know this all may seem overwhelming, but by about the 1/3 mark of the main story, this will all make much more sense. The overall complexity of skill linking and gem crafting is what makes this game a gem when it comes to strategic battles, especially later on when you need to kill enemies much higher level than you.
If you get stuck at any point, the Xenoblade Google Docs spreadsheet has all the information on skills, quests, armor, weapons and even where to farm for the best gems; just be aware it can contain spoiler information.
Overall Tips:
Levels play an important(some say too important) part in determining damage and ability to hit, evade, block. Early on, when you have not filled out your skill trees and do not have access to the good gems(nightvision, topple plus, double attack, haste etc) avoid fighting enemies 10+ higher levels than you.
That said, the 5th and 6th party members use mainly ether(equivalent of magic in other rpgs) attacks instead of mostly physical attacks like the rest your party, and you can use them to farm monsters that are 10 to 20 levels higher than you(again with the right gems and by sharing 6th party members skill which reduces enemies resistance to ether attacks regardless of level).
In hindsight, you should continue the story with minimal levlelling until you get the 7th party member. The way the AP(skill system) works makes it easier to learn skills for everyone once you have your final 7 members the lower level you are, and can proceed to do the sidequests to your hearts content. Of course this can be mitigated/made easier also by farming AP+ gems for everyone.
Tension is important to farming higher level enemies(10+ levels higher). If you hit your tension goes up, if you miss, tension goes down. Sharing skills that mitigate tension reduction or starts the battle with higher tension can determine how effective you are at farming higher level creatures. Reaching the highest tension(character portrait on fire) can meant hitting, evading, blocking and faster farming.
At level 93, with the right skills shared, and the right gems, you can effectively 'farm' the Lvl 114 and 120 unique monsters, keep them toppled the entire fight, so you take no damage.
The AI cannot effectively control the 6th party member. If I need to deploy 6th for affinity, or farming reasons, I take control directly. 6th member is very fun to play, albeit different than the rest. Summon bolt and aqua to gain ether up and hp regen aura for the entire party, then summon and release a third elemental to actually damage enemies.
Enjoy.
PS. Isn't the soundtrack amazing? I give Xenoblade and Radiant Historia most epic music for 2011.
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 12:08 Post subject: |
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Thanks for the explanation. So I should progress with teh main story ASAP to get the party members? I was playing it like I do with all RPGs, do all SQs first.
Things do get clear once you screw up a couple of times. I never traded with NPCs since you have to give an item of much higher value to the NPC (that's how it is stated in the tut). So I should trade?
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Grouch
Posts: 74
Location: Mississausage, Ontario
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 12:56 Post subject: |
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| Mister_s wrote: | Thanks for the explanation. So I should progress with teh main story ASAP to get the party members? I was playing it like I do with all RPGs, do all SQs first.
Things do get clear once you screw up a couple of times. I never traded with NPCs since you have to give an item of much higher value to the NPC (that's how it is stated in the tut). So I should trade? |
In hindsight, yes that is what i would do; progress the main story as far as possible gaining as few levels in the process until you get the 7th party member. If Xenoblade has one flaw that irks me a bit, its that gaining AP and SP, at the higher levels becomes more difficult at higher levels. AP and SP are both important in completing the optional 4th and 5th skill trees of each character and advancing their talent arts. This can be mitigated somewhat with gems, but not completely.
Gaining the 7th party member, you will still be only at about the half way point in the main story, so there will still be plenty of twists ahead.
The game will not 'punish' you for not getting a collectible later in the game for when an area becomes inaccessible due to story reasons. You will always be able to trade(given a high enough affinity with a region, see Google Docs spreadsheet) to complete the collectibles. The only thing you can miss out on are the timed quests. But I was able to max my affinity with regions without having fully completed the timed quests, so its all good.
That said, you can complete this game at your leisure. The beauty of Xenoblade is that you can progress the story, complete quest when you feel like, all at your own pace and get a very satisfying end game strategic battle, all the while only utilizing the quest rewards from the story quests. The above statements and my tips only apply if you want to complete the optional content. Completing the optional content will most likely put you in the mid 90's level and will make the concluding story battles a cake walk.
If you have a completionist bone like me, though, the challenge comes from defeating the optional bosses, which are all Level 100+, and not the main story boss which is only high 70's.
More Tips I just thought of
Debuf Resist Gems should become a staple in your battle party's armour. Not only does it prevent stat down debuf, but also prevent poison, bleed, sleep and instant death attacks. It will not, however, prevent daze, topple or blow back.
Later on, Spike Defense Gems are almost necessary, most unique mobs have what the game calls 'spike damage'. Spike damage can be broken down into 3 categories as far as I've observed:
a) retribution damage: any damage you do reflects a portion or multiple back to you
b) aura damage: being within a certain distance of the enemy will constantly damage you
c) damaging the enemy while it's incapacitated(ie, toppled, dazed, etc) will damage you
At the 2/3 mark of the game, I always had the highest level Debuf and Spike Defense gem in my active battle party so as not to rely too heavily in the Monado Art that Shulk will eventually get during the course of the story.
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 14:13 Post subject: |
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Thanks again, you made things a lot clearer. One last question. I know SQs will get a clock icon once I progress teh MQ too much, meaning they'll be unavailable shortly. Does this also mean the area in which those SQs preside will get locked down? So in short, do I get a clear warning before an entire area (let's say Colony 9) gets inaccessible.
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 15:11 Post subject: |
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Last edited by Yondaime on Mon, 2nd Dec 2024 15:45; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 15:20 Post subject: |
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| Grouch wrote: |
Levels play an important(some say too important) part in determining damage and ability to hit, evade, block. Early on, when you have not filled out your skill trees and do not have access to the good gems(nightvision, topple plus, double attack, haste etc) avoid fighting enemies 10+ higher levels than you.
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It has much more to do with level. You cannot possibly kill lvl 60 mob if you're lvl 50, all your attacks will miss, regardless of agility.
But it's not the case after approx lvl 60, the gap between levels gets much smaller and you can damage (and kill) higher level mobs.
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Grouch
Posts: 74
Location: Mississausage, Ontario
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| Posted: Sat, 24th Sep 2011 19:32 Post subject: |
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| Mister_s wrote: | | Thanks again, you made things a lot clearer. One last question. I know SQs will get a clock icon once I progress teh MQ too much, meaning they'll be unavailable shortly. Does this also mean the area in which those SQs preside will get locked down? So in short, do I get a clear warning before an entire area (let's say Colony 9) gets inaccessible. |
Sadly, there is no clear cut indicator that I remember, which would warn you when timed quests will expire. I personally just just cycled saves after story events(I know the 3 slot save is archaic).
The timed quests are all logical in why they cannot be completed, and the areas which get lockdown(much later in the game).
| psorcerer wrote: | | Grouch wrote: |
Levels play an important(some say too important) part in determining damage and ability to hit, evade, block. Early on, when you have not filled out your skill trees and do not have access to the good gems(nightvision, topple plus, double attack, haste etc) avoid fighting enemies 10+ higher levels than you.
|
It has much more to do with level. You cannot possibly kill lvl 60 mob if you're lvl 50, all your attacks will miss, regardless of agility.
But it's not the case after approx lvl 60, the gap between levels gets much smaller and you can damage (and kill) higher level mobs. |
After some trial and error, I was able to strategically start farming mobs up to 20 level higher starting at around late level 20s or early 30s(can't recall exactly). This means that I was indeed farming level 50 mobs when I was level 30.
The key early on as I alluded to previously is using 5th and 6th party members, plus your choice for the last spot(I tended to use Shulk, Monado shield early on, then Monado speed) for basically immortality. But I guess the dedicated healer would also work. I always controlled 6th, because the AI will butcher talent arts usage, and just burst affinity Shulk after a vision if I need Monado arts. Save the party gauge for resurrecting members, no need to use chain attack with this party setup.
Complete the bottom skill tree on 6th member, the one that reduces enemy ether resistance, and link that skill to 5th member; then equip 5th and 6th with 3 socket weapons. It matters not how weak those weapons are, as long as they have 3 sockets, then load them with poison plus, blaze plus, chill plus, etc..., to match whatever talent they have equipped with the lowest cooldown. It takes patience, but with this setup you can easily farm 20+ level mobs. Concentrate on the damage over time spells for both 5th and 6th member. Your ether attacks will still miss, but when it hits, the DOTs do full damage as the mobs ether defense does not seem to figure in damage calculations.
As I progressed the story a bit, I tended to farm the high level mobs which could drop armor or weapons, but more importantly, I targetted the mobs that dropped double attack, then topple plus, and eventually night vision. Sadly I do not remember which those mobs are, as that was over 80 game hours ago.
As for the physical attackers:
-link skills which increase initial tension and/or mitigates lowering tension, plus increased agility skills, and skills that lower armor weight impact.
-equipping topple plus, then eventually nightvision and farming at night obviously
-using Shulk/Dunban/Reyn early on to chain attack perma-topple the enemies. Once enemies are toppled all attacks connect(not necessarily status effect, as enemies can still be immune) and you raise tension fast, and the party gauge goes up quite fast, plus topple stacks, so if Dunban inflicts topple then Reyn, the 3 second timer becomes 6, add in the topple plus and the enemy will spend more time lying down than being on its feets.
-later in the game Shulk/Dunban/7th chain attacking perma topple party will dispatch mobs the quickest. As I mentioned earlier i was 93 when I dispatched the unique level 120, and did it in about 8 1/2 minutes consistently.
By early or mid 40s I had my chain attack toppling crew of physical attackers which I used for farming.
| Yondaime wrote: | | I gotta get this game, thanks for all the tips and words on it, I watched some videos and judged it erronously it seems, definitely going to give it a good try! |
NP, you've given me plenty of great games to try out over the years.
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