Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Once, again without the inn i just started chapter 5 and i am already almost level 50...just with side quests.
On another note, did anyone use a particular auxilary core with their blades??

@AlternateButtons Probably wouldn't have helped you now if you already passed that section, but I also mentioned that there was a second way of progressing that didn't involve Merc Missions, and it was just directly buying the info from the Informants that were around the towns. You know, like the ones that tell you what affinity does, Blade Combos, like the tutorials but heavily abridged. Three of the like eight or seven of them sell the info you need to salvage those items. However, I will grant you that the game does not tell you that you can do that particular way, I only stumbled upon it by accident myself when I was just fooling around at one point and I had my Merc Missions doing other stuff.

Also, there's two Rare Blades that doesn't require RNG to get for another Nopon Wisdom skill. One is Kasandra who can be salvaged from in Mor Ardain at a specific place (which you can find out if you bought the appropriate info from an Informant), the other is Theory who's locked behind another sidequest that also requires doing another sidequest that unlocks Praxis. Nopon Wisdom is fairly annoying, yeah, but at least the Blades you need for that isn't locked behind an RNG wall.

@Grumblevolcano We call that the Collectopedia from Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade X, and I hated both those and the Hyrule Compendium personally. Filling them out was busy-work, and if you never ran into the materials you need in the first place, you never would have gotten them in your information at all. Granted, maybe they could have made a tracker that shows you specific spots like BotW did, but I still hated it in those games. Just me though.

@EvilLucario In BotW you can pay the guy in the Hateno Lab rupees to get Hyrule Compendium entries.

@scubydo Three words:
Exploit Rex's criticals.

The collect random item sidequests are nowhere near as bad as the original Xenoblade's. For the sidequest 'Insurgent Investigations' does anyone know how to get into bellyfull canteen? I can't find an entrance anywhere...

@NinjaAceTrainer There's 2 options, you can either jump over the hole or you can go a bit further and there's a door you can open.

As I've said before, I tend to accept quests and play the game normally and then at some point I walk past the guy who gave me the quest and I notice I've gathered all the necessary things at some point. I don't think it's worth it to go hunt for random item for a quest. It's likely you randomly stumble upon it at some point anyway. I didn't finish the crane quests in Torigoth until chapter 7 and as for the Bana quest, I'm not hunting for the items. I don't think I've found any yet and my Nopon Wisdom ain't good enough for the Merc Mission but at some point it will be. I just need to start Boreas's quest at some point, most likely when I happen to be at the right place while doing some other stuff.

I just played the beginning of chapter 9. Quite a lot of cutscenes lately. Has anyone else had the problem where you don't want to skip travel because it would not make sense in story? I would like to visit the old places and see what has changed since the last time but it doesn't make sense that I would suddenly be in places like Indol or Mor Ardain at the moment. I'm kind of curious if there's anything different going on in those places right now but if the answer is no, it would really take me out of the experience. I've had the same problem multiple times before. In story perspective, you're stuck on another titan and then you just suddenly warp to another one. Does the game ever restrict warping? I haven't really paid attention.

@Late Well, Rex has to have a snooze sometimes. He's only human after all. Just pretend any return trip is a dream sequence. Simple.

@Late There's only one warping restriction in terms of story and you've already reached it. Indol turns hostile at the end of Chapter 8.

@bellow That's a fun way to think about it. In my case, Rex sure would need a rest. I've only visited an inn about 10 times during my 100 hours of playtime. I don't really see a reason to go to one often since I don't use them to level up.

@Late I think that Tora put it best then... "No time for rest, Rex-Rex!"

@AlternateButtons If you did do the right merc mission, then you should have received the items Switch Parts 1, 2 & 3, which are information items, as one can see from the icon when receiving them. As with all information items, when viewed in the item list, the description will show a piece of information, in this case, the location of the three required items respectively.
The merc mission tells you that it is linked to Bana's Secret Treasure and if you can't do the merc mission, then I think, I am not certain but I think that Niranira mentions something about asking informants when you talk to him.

@AlternateButtons I am not going to say sorry for something I did not do. If you choose to read my comments as condescending, that is you making an assumption. But here's a hint, you don't have to pay anything to get into that warehouse, you need lockpicking as I recall. Also, several other blades get Nopon Wisdom. Two of which are obtained through quests. A female dark type with the hammer, and a female ice type with the katana. The merc missions can be made much faster if you choose team members with the needed skills, and if you don't have them, open more core crystals.

To get core crystals like candy, just salvage in the chapter 4 region, at the port, and kill Krabbles that pop up when you deliberately fail the button prompts(getting them right makes them spawn less) They always drop at least a common, often drop a common and a rare, and sometimes as many as 3 spawn, you can get 6 crystals from a single salvage.

@AlternateButtons Pandoria has passives to annihilate machine enemies, and O V E R L O A D T H U N D E R B E A M stacks the effect. If you don't want to replace a character slot with Zeke, you can always equip Pandoria to Rex. He also gets the machine-melting art, but it's under a different name.

@AlternateButtons The key here is a dark Blade combo, the seal that creates prevents reinforcements (i.e. those level 68 enemies) from appearing which then makes the boss much easier. You don't have a dark Blade engaged so that's where Pyra's 3rd form comes in, do the second part of the blade combo then activate the 3rd form and choose the dark combo. Don't remember which combos lead to dark though.

@AlternateButtons When playing through that boss for the first time, I did a dark seal early on just to increase the number of orbs ready for doing a chain attack later and was wondering why the boss seemed easy for a final boss. After finishing off side quests and being several levels higher I faced the boss again, didn't do a dark seal and everyone died from the reinforcements that I hadn't seen the first time. It was only then that I realized the dark seal prevents reinforcements.

@AlternateButtons I was wondering if I replied to a ghost! LOL!

Finally reached the 100 hours mark and also made my way to chapter 10. Died on my first try against the final boss of chapter 9 so I decided to check my items and stuff. I guess I haven't modified my weapons for quite some time. Mythra's auto-attack went from 239 to 626.

@AlternateButtons I know exactly what you mean. I anticipated that I would feel that way, so right before the final boss, I caught up on about 30 hours worth of neglected sidequests and exploration. Was 10 levels higher than the final boss but it was worth it to be able to finish on the ending. What I'm going to do is buy the DLC when it becomes fully/mostly available and finish off anything that I have left to do whilst playing the DLC.

@AlternateButtons Yeah, it's tough to go on to a new game as well. I'm struggling with Lost Sphear while the memory of XC2 is still fresh. I keep thinking how nice it would be to start a new game with Rex and do it all over again. It'll pass.