Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles X - OT

@AlternateButtons: For the first quest your blade lvl needs to be 2+. The other one is given by Kirsty who is also in the admin district. Just walk around a bit and keep an eye out for red question marks on your radar.

Edit: never mind about the first one. The quest is to get your blade level to 2+, not the prerequisite. I think it just pops up after joining blade, maybe try excepting all the "talk" quests from the quest board as they usually lead you to the normal missions.

So, after 4 chapters in and some silly but fun mistakes I finally get the subtleties of the battle mechanics and the tension points thing. I want to increase the tension points as much as possible, as fast as possible - any tips? I know waiting for a soul voice and going by that color helps a lot, but I like to have more influence in triggering and building it.

@AlternateButtons: You should be able to access about 80% of the first area probes, 50-60% of the second and third, 30-40% of the fourth (with stealth and luck) and even about 9% of the last continent without a Skell. I will admit however quite a bit of them requires finding the right spots to jump up stuff like a billy goat. Sometimes it means you will be running like crazy to escape overpowered monsters, hoping to reach a fast travel spot before you die.

@erv: Generally speaking melee weapons will build tension faster than ranged weapons. Given that I mainly use the Longsword, you can get around 200 TP per auto attack and you can eventually gain an Art called True Stream Edge that gains 100 TP per hit (with morale) and is an Area Attack. I also know that Decoy Round (with Morale) and Furious Blast (after a second charge up) are Assault Rifle abilities that can build TP. I believe all the other classes have something similar.

In general, has anyone found a decent arts palette with Assault Rifle/Knife combo? I want to mess around with having the Assault Rifle be my primary but haven't quite found as nice of a combo as the longsword combo I listed earlier. Despite the game's prodding, it just seems strange and silly that soldiers would prefer CQC over hitting something from a distance and I eventually want to replay with that style.

@erv
There are a lot of things you can do to gain TP. There are augments you can make(Arts TP Gain and Max TP UP XX) that will help you gain TP and increase your max TP respectively. It also depends on your build. If you go Photon Saber, you can use Essence Exchange. If you go Dual Guns + Longsword, you can use Primer and Zero Zero. I believe the Ramjet Rifle is also useful in gaining lots of TP.

I just realized that Caudros isn't just a lava continent. There are ruins everywhere, like there was a different race before the Ganglion came. There are also the rings in Oblivia. These are some of the things that seem unexplained for a reason. Like Monolith wanted to add them in, but they didn't have the time to make a beautiful world and an intriguing story, so they first made the world to have a building platform for the sequel(hopefully) and now they may be working on the next XCX game that should be focused on the story.

Happy Holidays from me and my Prone brutha.

I think the most exciting gameplay so far was in Chapter 11 where you're forced to go into an actual building with small corridors and enemies running around on foot where you can't just drag your skell into it. It felt much tighter and more satisfying than the usual huge open areas the game puts you in

I've just got myself a level 30 amdusias st and I'm looking to equip some strong weapons and armour. What does the force stat mean? Does it affect or change anything? Is it the higher the better?

Force is damage, so yes, the higher the better.

OK cheers. I thought as much but no harm in checking. Anything in particular I should be looking out for?

Later on(or right now), you can farm for a Phoenix and G-Buster a little bit away from FN 406 in Sylvalum. The enemies that drop them-Prones- are only level 35. They drop level 30 Phoenix and G-Buster weapons. When you're farming skell weapons, you want intergalactic, or orange, weapons. Those will do the most damage. Once you get a level 50 skell, go to Baldr Basin and far the level 40's there for a level 50 Phoenix and G-Buster.

I finished the story.

Not satisfied. But ooh well. There are too many games to try and 100% everything in this one in the hopes of getting answers to my questions

An NPC explains the rings at some point. They were an old weapon left there by an ancient civilization.

I just started playing the game (after getting home from christmas and working out formatting a USB stick as a secondary storage unit) and man some of the text is small. I need to sit closer to the TV when playing this game, and I wear glasses.

The silent protag doesn't bother me. But then I remember how great a main character Shulk was and I kind of want that again. Oh well.

I made a Shulk-ish character btw, I couldn't help myself I just wish I could get him to not scowl so much lol

Lin doesn't bother me either. She's pretty cool actually!

Started playing yesterday, it's fun so far, but damn the text is tiny. Any smaller and you'd need a microscope.

The only thing I don't like about Lin is the Tatsu stuff and the fact that she's 13 but is a combat and mechanical genius

Beat chapter 6 and got my Skell licence, only need to level 3 of my characters 1 one more time to get some level 30 Skells but will do that tomorrow.

One more chapter and then I can get the flight module. First thing I'll do is plant all the probes. I still have a while to get there because I have a ton of sidequests to complete. At least I can get another art for my Blossom Dance build. Is anyone else going to 100% this game? I definitely am. I'm moving at a faster pace now-mainly because I'm not doing as many sidequests- and I'll probably leave a lot until post-game.

Lin isn't a pure tank. L is a pure tank. Lin is more of a balanced tank, with DPS. H.B. is a support tank. I haven't really set up Lin that well. I need to check her arts and skills and switch some of them around.