Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

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@EvilLucario wow thanks for the in depth response. I guess you are responding more towards thing other people find offputting who never played Xenoblade 1. Again I put in a lot of time for that game. There are issues I had with it sure. Also in terms of Xenoblade X, I didn't own a WiiU, so any references you make there are only going to confuse me and mean nothing, though I do hope to get a switch port so I can try it as it looked really cool. Finally, I kept it short and vague because I wanted others to sort of kick off the conversation, and I honestly thought I'd get ignored or simply slapped down as a hater, so thank you.

First I'd like to add what I agree with you about.

1. The collectible situation is much better. one spot spawns a billion things that can be boosted by blades, yay. Do you know how long I spent trying to find rainbow slugs in the first game? Probably 4-6 hours for the various needs. Also salvaging I find to be a fun method to obtain items. I'm just so glad I don't have to kill "x" monster for its drops anymore and that they did away with the arts books needed to unlock the privilage of upgrading an art on your characters.

2.I also agree with the mush buttons, win game aspect to the first game. A big improvement I appreciated was that timing arts to your auto attacks allows for faster special attack gains.

3. It is true that in this game, the difference between monsters and you don't add debuffs to you and buffs to the monster. Whiffing auto attacks non-stop on an enemy just because it was red just felt bad, and I like that I can size up against bigger enemies and take them out based on what I do, and actually encourages you to try it and get the bigger xp gains.

What I am curious if you could elaborate upon

1. What about the menu differences between 1 and 2 make you think there was an improvement? I honestly don't think either are really all that bad. Minor thing sure, but maybe you were more personally miffed at something.

2. "more complex terrain and level design". Again, I'm curious. I remember 1 had lots of nooks and crannies and secret areas. One might even say they were obnoxious. I find both had fun to explore territories. It feels awesome to find a new place. First thing I did in Breath of the Wild was just unlock the entire map and that was the most fun part to me, especially since I did it with such limited resources and I had to get clever. I even snuck all the way into the final boss room in the castle at 5 hearts just to see what was in the castle. Curiosity killed me many times to say the least. Anyhow, I just find both games to be pretty and fun to explore equally, though 2 is obviously higher fidelity graphics.

3. You seem to clearly be a pro at the combat system, any tips you might provide? Overall I get it, but I want to know if maybe I misunderstand combat stats and what they mean, or maybe there is a type of aux core that I should be using over another etc. Something maybe that helps more. Just want to see what you did to improve the enjoyment of combat.

4. What about sidequests between 1 and 2 makes you like them more now(besides the obvious fact that collecting items doesn't require farming monster drops).

Addressing your questions for me

1. "restrictive character builds even mean"? Maybe that was the wrong phrasing. But I am incredibly let down by the blade awakening system. For a time I had just a few common blades to get by, not really making much note of the system itself until I tried to increase trust with Roc and do merc missions, thus needing lots of blades. Then I got my first unique blade with Morag not expecting it. So though I felt it was cool, I realized I didn't think I wanted that blade with Morag and went to reset the game. Again, I know it says it, but I was surprised that it saves the game after you awaken a blade. But the system is entirely random...So though they give you this great freedom to customize drivers and blades in theory, in practice it is a gamble. Even in pokemon, baby's first JRPG, you can reset the game to get the right stats on a pokemon you want. Honestly if this one thing was changed, I'd be okay. Either make unique blades all have unique cores, allow blades to rebond to new drivers without needing an uber rare item and just reset their trust and stats, or allow soft resetting. What I liked in 1, was that affinity between characters allowed you to cross swap with their passive abilities as you pleased. While they had defined roles more or less, you could still decide what to do with them. You hate on Sharla, but she could do more than heal, and was crucial to my success in certain fights where I needed to cleanse debuffs while I benched her when I just wanted to have fun with DoT effects with Riki and Melia together. This is part of the issue. Drivers have very few, and very generic skill trees. In the first game, each character had 5 skill trees, and again borrow from each other. Since affinity was vital I did a lot of heart to hearts for it too, though I think the gain of affinity needed to be faster, the concept was enticing. Another thing is the armor too. Each character has 2 armor slots now, and each blade can take only 2 aux cores as opposed to the up to 7 gem slots in armor and weapons for the first game. I really enjoyed the gem system as in any game, and thankfully the weapon chips in 2 can at least still provide some unique bonus on the rarer ones. A big problem with the skill trees is that they are so generic, that it doesn't feel fun. Each driver's tree seems pretty samey, and the blades seem to not do anything super special either. It would be nice if they unlocked new arts, or added new bonuses to ones already available or something. Segue into next issue is yes the arts themselves. Again its hard to plan your tactics when blades are random excpet for Tora. The tactic I have in mind just might not work because the wrong blades are with the wrong people. Since each blade has only 3 arts, that means that your choices are limited if your roll of the dice leaves you high and dry. Character building I guess I should have said, is a bit too generic and open ended, while also being too random to make use of it unless you get lucky. I don't want to feel like I have to reach the late game before a real tactic emerges that I feel I made on my own, and that just comes down to having gained enough cores that by sheer number I have a big enough pool of blades to say that I have a good selection to customize how I want. I want to enjoy my journey to the end game, not resent it you know?

2. "actions have minimal impact". What I mean here is that my choices don't mean much. The only real tactic seems to be, break, topple, launch. Again, I don't have any new unique blades besides one because luck and random blades and all. But with the default stuff, the arts are mainly just boosting some damage, or spawning hp potions, which I have mixed feelings about. Many arts just don't do anything besides damage, so its not worth me using my points to level them very far. I have no damage over time, or buffs or debuffs to play around with. I should be grateful that dromac has a direct heal at all, and that tora can at least force aggro and combo it with damage boosting against enemies targeting him. I rather liked making reyn take aggro and use spike to reflect damage back for example. I also liked how you could turn dunban into a monk basically by having no armor, and then linking over melia's thing to boost stats if you have no gems, and then use his aura arts to boost stats further, and use that to gain bonuses from another skill that boosts stats with more auras. I forgot exactly who did that or how though. You had some unique paths to take at times and they were fun. But again, it comes down to the fact that my arts and blades seem to be pretty homogeneous and with only 4 arts to use per blade, those unique flavors are pretty limited to very options. If you did have a blade with really unique abilities, they might be totally useless, so I can see why they tried to keep their arts pretty in line, but it seems so easy to let each blade have more than just 4. I think 6 to choose from would have been better, and give them more interesting effects. Probably my favorite art from xenoblade 1 was Fiora who had one that required her battle state to be very high tension, and it would do 4 hits of aoe damage, and it was huge damage, and it caused topple without needing break first. I loved it, high risk, high reward, and I made it so that battle tension was high at the start of battle and riki had an art to prevent tension from dropping, so it was a good combo. The final bit here is that chain attacks don't allow you to use arts, just specials. It would have been awesome if you could choose. I loved how chain attacks were able to let you set up the stage as you pleased. Again using fiora I would use that topple ability, then start a chain attack to use it again, and then use everyone else to topple or daze to topple lock people, and with topple extend gem, it could be beautiful. I even liked using dunban's demon slayer to time it so that I could topple groups of enemies and extend the topple after a chain attack. Felt good to pull it off. No cool combos yet for me. Even sharla had things like headshot and the anti-air art for specific situations. While I like the special combos, they rely in large part on again, random blades coming out right. Need a thunder healer? Too bad, its a fire healer, or a thunder tank, or maybe just a water tank. Its frustrating. Chain attacks lost their ability to do anything but special attacks, and are needed because of the orb resistances. Those seem pointless just like light/medium/heavy armor being locked in xenoblade 1 was kind of pointless. I'll be honest, I like the special combos, but they take so much time to set up, and are impeded by the blade lottery. It would be nice too if it was clear what each level 1/2/3 special did on its own since some do more than damage.

What you say about Tiger Tiger isn't really going to convince me to like it. This all may be true, but I don't care, I don't like it. It might have been cooler if the game didn't punish you so hard for a single mistake, or if the game was just different. A platformer would have been much more agreeable to people's enjoyment for example. I'm also baffled at how the "normal" mode which is incredibly difficult considering chests are right next to wall which murder you, gives no extra points. In general that little game should delve out more ether, and I think failing with the large chest should still let you keep at least that one part. Its just too much to ask for an already long RPG game IMO.

To your last statement of frustration, I think it does say something. Xenoblade 2 was passed off as this mainstream friendly game, when it wasn't. I have to admit, that even knowing the first game's mechanics, I can see how the way they showed you game info was all jumbled up and out of order. I mean, why did they decide to explain base stats as far in as they did and when they did too? There were no shops around to buy gear anyhow. Its pretty basic really. use arts, time them with auto attacks, chain specials. That was a big fault of the developers jumping around from topic to topic. Can't remember how it was in the first game though. I do remember however how they explained that you had to cause break and then topple to hurt mechon, which made it easy to remember. Knock over robots, or it won't hurt it. Right.

I hope you don't think I'm clueless. I made it to level 40 in my party in the place(forgot the name) where Rex grew up. I want to enjoy this game and finish it just to see where it goes, but I've throw my controller down in frustration a lot, and that doesn't happen to me often.

I'll end it with a few non-gameplay directly complaints that I have.

1.too many powerful monsters that roam around. Too often I just want to explore, kills some guys, but a level 81 birb that has a territory of half the map swoops down and murders me, or the giant gogol looking thing in the mor ardain plains is the classic example. I don't feel free to explore like I did before. Also at that, there was at least one point where there were level 80 enemies mixed in with the appropriate leveled ones so that I could not train in certain areas at all. The area leading to the old warehouse where the barrels are delivered go is full of level 80 enemies for some reason when you are probably at most level 40 at that point. Just why?

Ending fights and running away is super hard. You can't just press a button and disengage. You have to do your best to tilt the camera just so in order to keep any monster out of vision, and then it disengages combat. Why? Part of the fun should be poking bears and seeing if you can take them, and if you can't being able to at least stop fighting and try to run away. Its easier to just wait a bit and let it kill you while you do something else. That was a genuine development oversight.

The final thing I'll say is that I'm not a fan of the character design choice. The characters look all anime, but they move the same way too. Their movements are stiff as a board, especially when they move their upper torso, so unnatural. Some people seem to criticize the VO, and nothing is perfect, especially when you are looking for something with no demand in games like Scottish. You just won't get the right people period. But I must say Rex in particular, that guy doesn't know how to yell. The writing also made me sad. The cringiest thing was perhaps when Jin stabbed Rex at the start and he almost said verbatum "Nothing personal kid". I nearly cringed into the next solar system. He just had to have a katana too. I wanted to die.

I also must say I feel like an idiot with anime waifu's following me. Pyra is a great character, and her English VO is genuinely great, but her massive tits, insane clothes, and red hair ruin so much. Standing Next to the woman who raised rex washing dishes and having a casual conversation just looked so out of place it kicked me out of any immersion. This is just a personal thing, but I do think most people even dudes who don't give a crap, would find this anime waifu stuff embarrassing and tasteless for a mainstream AAA game trying to take itself seriously and appeal to a wide international audience.

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@hirokun
1) Equipment in Xenoblade 1 was a nightmare compared to 2 (although X was bad with it too). The sorting options were also awful compared to Xenoblade 2's sorting, which after patches has the best sort options now. It was mediocre before patches, but now it's pretty good.

2) Xenoblade 1's maps were extremely linear and easy to explore. They were focused less on verticality and more on horizontal depth, showing how far you can see in the distance. Xenoblade 2 builds on X's level design to include more vertical depth and complexity there so you have to more actively explore to find things. The addition of treasure chests from Xenoblade X to give more rewards also fuels the level design even more.

3) Pouch items: These things are extremely powerful, ranging from directly buffing the damage on your Specials to passively recharging your Arts/Specials to flat damage reduction to increasing Party Gauge gain. Use them. Favorite items also boost the effect, so for example Mythra and Brighid both like desserts. So feed them desserts to get a bigger buff. Zeke and Pandoria both like meats and they stack, so feed them meats to get a double boost.

Aux Cores:
Shoulder to Shoulder and Hunter's Chemistry are both extremely good. Hitting max affinity (the gold tether between Driver and Blade) increases the level of all of your Arts by 1 level, increases your movement speed, and allows level 4 Specials, and getting there as quickly as possible for quick battles is ideal. This also stacks with Blades across the party, so with enough Aux Cores you can instantly hit max affinity right off the bat, and you can do this pretty much as early as Chapter 3-4.

On that same note, Affinity Max Atk is also the biggest damage boost you can find in the game, in regards to Aux Cores at least.

Accessories like the Overclocking Bangle that allow for easy Blade switching can also be obtained at Chapter 5, the Beta Scope that reduces Break resistance at around Chapter 4, and accessories that just buff damage are also a big priority for me.

Blades:
Pay attention to what every Blade's skill does. Wulfric in particular is a fantastic Blade that can out-DPS almost everyone midgame and remains a modestly top-tier Blade by endgame. He does more even more damage if the enemy is Toppled/Launched, he gets an even bigger boost from being at max affinity, and he does even more damage with critical hits. If you finish a Blade Combo with his level 4 Special while pumping as much crit chance and damage boosts you can muster while the enemy is Toppled, you can do 400k damage in one hit as early as Chapter 4.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Blades have Blade Arts that you should take advantage of in a more active manner and not just ignore. Roc has Back Attack Up, which boosts your damage if you attack from the back. Pyra and Wulfric also have Arts Plus that boosts the damage of the next Art you use, so if your Blade uses it, hold back on your Art and cancel it after the third autoattack instead of just canceling immediately after the first two autoattacks or Art.

By Chapter 5-6, you should be dishing out thousands of damage casually and by the end of the game you should be breaking the damage cap with Chain Attacks.

4) Xenoblade 1 (and X, but X handles them better and also has really fantastic sidequests) was packed to the brim with filler, completely brain-dead sidequests that amounted to barely anything. Xenoblade 2 actually has the least amount of sidequests in the series so most of them can be a bit more fleshed out than your typical "kill 5 bears" quest. In fact, they've all been moved to Merc Missions, so all the filler stuff can simply be training fodder for Blades you're not using.

Re: restrictive builds. The RNG system is not to everyone's cup of tea and I get that part. But I think people should also go out and actually experiment with what's given to them and not focus too much on "oh man I wanted this guy on THIS guy, but I guess I'll just live with it". I don't mind it's a gamble and I don't expect people to suddenly force themselves into a different mindset, but that's a sticking point for some that I can get, but at the same time should get over because at that point you're trying to manipulate RNG to your advantage.

And yes, Sharla WAS bad. She has no offensive power and if you wanted to do good damage in Chain Attacks, you had to bench Sharla. All she can do is... what, Head Shot when the enemy is Dazed? Where that's RNG and not even going to help against Unique Monsters and bosses? Sharla is by far the worst part of the game and how combat is from the start of her introduction to the end of the Ether Mines is enough to make enough people quit the game from how awful and dull that part is. By not allowing good Chain Attacks, she's going to slow down combat drastically while you're not going to be able to experience the better parts of combat with properly getting the max multiplier from your Chain Attacks so you DON'T need dedicated healing or debuff cancels with Shulk, Riki, and Melia doing enough healing on their own. That's one of Xenoblade's strongest strengths, where playing without a healer is always more fun (and effective sometimes) than playing with.

Drivers having generic skill trees is no big deal when the focus is on Blades, which all have their unique charts.

Gems and Aux Cores are pretty much the same thing, only you can't stack the same types anymore. Which is a good thing after Xenoblade X's lolworthy augments.

Armor being removed for accessories is also fine because they converted worthless defense stats that meant nothing in 1 and X into something more than that by actually changing how you build your party by revolving around critical hits, around quick Party Gauge gains to just Chain Attack more, etc.

Honestly, all I'm seeing here is just giving up at not being dealt the right hands with random Blades and not looking at options, but even the common Blades are good. Some even have exclusive skills that Rare Blades don't, and by endgame if you want to spend time grinding, they can be even more powerful than 90% of Rare Blades.

Re: actions have minimal impact. If you want to talk about Arts diversity then you have a stronger point, where it's a downside compared to 1 and X that do have better Arts diversity. 2 is a much more offensive-oriented game, but it pulls it off much better than 1 ever did and can edge out X's Overdrive system depending on my mood. There still is good offensive diversity in how you kill things, and maximizing what I've said earlier is enough to overcome obstacles.

Re: Tiger Tiger. I never defended it, I'm just saying it's an RPG staple to have some minigames that have nothing to do with the main game that also unlocks additional stuff.

Re: mainstream? Xenoblade is nowhere near mainstream and was never billed as a mainstream game. JRPGs except for Final Fantasy have always been niche, and Xenoblade is no exception. They've never advertised the game as anything more than an adventure, and it was never realistically going to hit critical mass and Nintendo/Monolith Soft knew that. That's fine by me, they know what they're making and don't need to dumb it down.

And I do think that even veterans of only Xenoblade 1 (without having to play X and its absolute lack of tutorials, which is why there are a bunch of tutorials in this game) have been approaching Xenoblade 2 (and X) the complete wrong way, expecting to get a button-mashy, easy to master game like Xenoblade 1 then getting overwhelmed by X and 2's actual need of skill/understanding for good damage. I do genuinely believe that almost everyone complaining about the combat (in any game) are clueless one way or another about it.

High leveled enemies have been a Xenoblade staple since the beginning. Don't you remember Makna Forest with level 90+ Gogols, Satorl Marsh with similarly level 80+ enemies at the start? X is also packed to the brim with Tyrants and much stronger enemies that can wipe the floor with you in one shot if you're not prepared at all. They've all impeded exploration in some form and fashion. 2 is the in-between middle between 1 and X in terms of putting high-leveled enemies, and there is never a time where you need to pass through high-leveled enemies out of your range. Even in Chapter 4 with the plains right before Zeke, if you've bothered exploring the industrial district you would have found an alternate way that completely skips the level 80ish monsters there.

And on that note, running away. I would argue that it's a GOOD thing that running away requires more actions on top of being more intuitive in button presses. In Xenoblade 1, it was on the same "scroll" as Chain Attacks or your Talent Art, so it was annoying having that there. It hinders the controls just a tad. Not enough to really complain about, but it's there, and you can sometimes hit it when you don't want to. In Xenoblade X, pressing B would instantly destroy your Overdrive, and when Soul Voices come very rapidly, it's annoying as hell. There's a buffer so you don't drop combat if you press B if you missed the Soul Voice, but all that does is making running away even more annoying if you get hit and trigger a Soul Voice as a result. I'm fine with how 2 handles its disengage command.

No it doesn't disengage combat like how you describe with the camera. That never works in any Xenoblade game at all. The only thing that does is climbing vines, which was a "feature" in both 1 and 2. Sure, running away is harder than 1, but it's not as hard as X and I'd argue it's still very easy.

Character design/artstyle is something I'm so sick of talking about so pardon if I sound heated again. Every single Xeno game is anime. Xenogears is full-on anime with actual anime cutscenes. Xenosaga is anime. And yes, even Xenoblade 1 and X were anime, except 1 and X had the ugly mix of trying to mix realism with anime faces. I would rather much prefer 2's artstyle over something like Xenoblade 1 or X's artstyle, especially if you compare Shulk and Fiora from Xenoblade 1 with their appearance in Xenoblade 2 where they look fantastic.

"Stiff animations". You don't remember Xenoblade 1's stiff animated cutscenes? 1 and X both have their fair share stiff cutscenes for budget reasons, and 2 is no exception. Except for X (which only had like a few good fully-animated cutscenes), they all bring the animation quality only when it's needed in important story sequences.

Ugh, "waifus". I'm so sick of this argument. People only latched on to the term "waifus" because of the Internet culture surrounding them. Waifus can be applied to ******* everything. Fiora from Xenoblade 1. Elma from Xenoblade X. Miang and Elly from Xenogears. Shion and ESPECIALLY KOS-MOS from Xenosaga. Melia is circlejerked around the Internet as a waifu too. I can't take any facet of this argument seriously, at all. It's impossible for me at this point.

@NEStalgia Go to Morag and open Aegaeon's Core Crystal. He has Ancient Wisdom, which is a very easy unlock. You've already passed one of two only RNG Field Skill checks in the game, but the second one is extremely easy with only requiring some Electric Mastery.

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@Grumblevolcano After I posted last night I spent some time googling around, with little help available other than just having to do the charts. Then I finally found a post that told me what I needed to know and it actually wasn't so bad. Getting Brighid to Keen Eye 2 required.....feeding her 10 desserts but sticking them in the driver's pouch. What the heck kind of requirement is that? I saw the text that described that but still had no idea what it meant. That's just odd. The other one, Dromarch had 0 levels of ancient wisdom (and the other story blade had 1.) Thankfully that internet post explained I had to salvage to get the random parts that upgrades that. Dromarch needed mechanical things, the other one needed bugs. Salvage where? I inferred it must mean Mor Ardain for mechanical things, and it worked. So I only had to grind 10 cylinders or so worth of salvaging.

Thankfully it ended up being not a big setback unlike the "my game ends at this gate" problem it looked like. The problem is, nothing in the game indicated that this works this way, gives you no real way to know that you have to do this, or how to do this, and the text for the affinity chart is so vague as to not really be helpful, as it uses systems, or applications of systems, that were never really explained or demonstrated beyond a tutorial that had you "do" it without explaining the benefits (and ultimately there aren't many except things like this.) "Stuff cake repeatedly into a driver's pouch" is not intuitive. Nor is "salvage repeatedly in specific unidentified locations to get a quantity of ill defined components."....in order to get an unrelated skill upgrade that you'll need to pass a specific door halfway through the game? What is this, Star Tropics?

If I back it out, ever since entering those caverns the gameplay has involved the following problems:
1: Story based ability restrictions coupled with powerful enemies, including two very powerful uniques, for which the official strategy appears to be to keep trying to run until you can make it (slightly RNG/aggro affected.) I.E. it's a cave filled with monsters you're not able to actually fight, mostly.
2: Cavern design that requires specific field skills to light tunnels and open doorways (miasma.) High probability of failing both (including a story based character restriction), and the fact that the field skills were never really explained nor given meaningful focus other than opening chests or forraging collection points as bonuses), and ultimately the system doesn't make much sense, requiring one to "fall to almost their doom" repeatedly all the way to the waypoint.
3: I may actually have had the abilities for the above after all but only found out afterward that you have to have the blade equipped, not just bound (yet doesn't have to be equipped to an actively in-party member!?), so my other blades either in inventory or on missions weren't considered even if they had the skills. This means you have to go through several sub-menus for every single blade you own to see if they have a required skill, and equip them.....but it can be to any driver, not just one in the party. The game does not inform you of this entire system at any point.

That right there is terrible, terrible design, there's no sugar coating it. It's just plain bad. We're talking Bandai-Namco Anime-licensed game level of bad here. (Then again, Bamco assists in Xeno games do they not?)

@Tsurii LOL thanks. To a degree I probably do fall into that a bit, but what I'm seeing, there's plenty of reason the game "makes people stupid." It puts a large variety of systems, many complex, many counteractive into the game, but explains nearly none of it, and you often encounter a need to use it as a sudden brick wall (enemy impossible to beat without knowing it, or literally the ability check at the gated entrances in the caverns.) Then there was the gimmick of the phantasms at the end of the cave. The battle was not difficult at all, but endless unless you check the internet for solutions, and even then I'm not sure if I finally got it right via method A, method B, or if the game finally just pitied me and let me go by attrition. Through this part of the game you keep running into brick walls that assume you just "know" what it wants without any in game context informing you what it wants. It assumes you know the minutia before it being presented to you.

Additionally the inventory. There are so many pages for inventory, store types, uses of materials, and you're presented no means to know what you need, what you should be saving, what might become some magic problem not having it later (or the advice to use Tora's chain art skill....but i didn't have enough points to buy it, having bought other things, so it trains you to use nothing, save everything, and therefore you have it all for that sudden wall when you'll need it.) There's an overload of information and meaningless loot objects (not uncommon for JRPGs) that makes the systems kind of easy, if not mandatory to ignore. And then there's Poppi. I've mostly ignored Poppi through the game. Tiger Tiger isn't difficult per-se, but grindy and annoying. Poppi has so many upgrade options and trees specific to only Poppi, all of which depend on collecting massive amounts of ether, all of which is tied to grinding what is essentially a single stage GameBoy Color game for hours. And even if you do, comprehending how to upgrade her is another complexity in itself. So I mostly ignore her and stick to Morag for tank. (Of course now I have the character you can use as blade or driver....and I can't imagine for the life of me why I'd want to use such a useful driver as a blade....) Tifa is always a poor substitute.

It's a game that generally seems to assume you know how to play, or check the internet/Nintendo Power/Nintendo Hintline like it was in the 80's to figure out how to pass illogical barrier after illogical barrier via unexplained systems. I think people who play that kind of thing often get used to it (25 years ago I was probably "used to it") but that doesn't mean it's good design.

Let's be real. If the game didn't have a great story, great characters, amazing otherworldly worlds, captivating music, and a sense of wanting to see the whole of this great world, I doubt anybody would be playing this thing for it's gameplay. It's no FFIX or SMT when it comes to addictive, rewarding gameplay for the sake of gameplay. I love the game for it's world, it's atmosphere, etc. But the actual game is deeply flawed. So was XC1. I only played part of X (finally opened it just before Switch launched and I had to unplug WiiU.....I'll buy an enhanced port in an instant though.) But that seemed more rounded (except for the worst design choice of all: Being locked into quests.)

It's a love-hate game. It's a game you want to explore, and hope the gameplay doesn't interfere too much.

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@EvilLucario Thanks, I already had Ageon, it was Dromarch lacking any Ancient Wisdom (random salvaging was the solution.....inexplicably) and Brighid lacking Lv2 of Eye (because desserts in the pouch.)

@hirokun @EvilLucario You both have valid points. I do agree with hirokun about navigation in both XC1 and 2 (but not X.) Due to the complex world design and verticality EL described, the "marker on the compass/radar" is wildly insufficient to figure out where you're supposed to go in more complicated terrain. Gormot was particularly difficult with the twisted roots and winding closed paths to figure out which way it really meant. Uraya was hair pulling with its extreme verticality, the compass was meaningless (and actually deceptive/counter-productive) until you got to the right elevation. X had the orb and it worked wonderfully, but the current system adds needless frustration.

The high level enemies are indeed a staple of the series....not sure it's a good thing, but it is. I would argue it's a flawed staple. In big fields it makes sense...nature in its habitat and all...but it also means those fields aren't fit for actually battling as you're likely to just get steamrolled during a battle big a bigger monster. In closed environments it's a needlessly frustrating design to have to run from/avoid monsters that are basically labeled "Return here for post-game content!" That's something that's a questionable design of Xeno in general.

EvilLucario I think many of the systems you described though in terms of "just do this, and use that, and be sure to set this , and check these items." is a core of the issue though. Your'e describing uses of systems and abilities that are largely not transparent, and seem to depend on "internet wisdom" to navigate. That's not a good design, the game should be self contained without reading on the internet from someone who read it on a forum from a guide from a Youtuber who ran a hint show, and the Prima guide. Systems should be inferable. This game throws a lot of systems in a menu, significantly more complicated than it needs to be. Ignoring the mess that is Poppi, the game explains bonding with cores well (never explains the bribes for element, but it's fairly explanatory on its own as presented). It doesn't really explain loot well at all (when do you sell, when do you use for crafting aux cores, how do you know what's good, what's bad, what to save, what not to?) Accessories are self explained, but the affinity trees and field skills are not. The pouch system is ill defined because there is such an overload of options all of them wtih seemingly minute attributes, how do you have a handle on what to use, or when, or to save your money for chips? It basically doesn't explain chain attacks or the major importance they will play, it treats it as an aside "by the way, did you know you could do this?" as part of a mock boss battle, and it does half the process for you so you come away from it having no understanding the gameplay loop that even sets it up unless you understood the text description (relying on the previously inadequate combo tutorial.) Nothing about that tutorial suggests that's going to be a critical component of battles, and up to that point you save your party gauge for healing (I still tend to )

A lot of those complaints aren't limited to just XC, JRPGs as a whole suffer from similar problems, and devs copying the same problems from each other. That's why they are niche. Enthusiasts like to believe "oh it's just complex and you have to learn so people don't like it". No, it's because the systems actually are needlessly complex, obtuse, ill defined, and ill explained in many, many JRPGs. Elite Dangerous is a game that's niche because of unavoidable complexity. JRPGs tend to be "complex" by being sloppily obtuse and throwing the kitchen sink in for good measure with no focus on well synergized systems. SMT, crazy difficult as it is, probably is one of the better examples of being focused with its systems. Still difficult to to correctly, and still often inspires needing to ask, but almost always because you know your build needs specific strategies for a role, rather than because there's an opaque wall of features that you still don't even know how they work by halfway through the game.

You're describing XC1 as easier...maybe it was, but I remember it having just as many opaque barriers and walls due to unexplained systems as 2 despite simpler battle systems (and yeah Sharla was trash. Heropon Riki forever!) There's a surprising lack of polish to the finer points of XC games overall that betray the all star team making them.

I love the series because I know it will be a grand adventure in an amazing world, and there will be nothing else like it, but combat, and the systems involved are all very loose in design. Super Mario Bros, they spent more time designing 1-1 than the rest of the game. It had to be just right to teach the player how to play through example. That was ace design. BotW, same thing, the game is designed to guide you in how to play without you even realizing it. Xenoblade instead doesn't really guide you or show you the ins and outs piecemeal. It just kind of throws you in the world, has you kind of figure out how to get by with some limited tutorials separated from real play, and then periodically throws a gate in your way (literally or figuratively, apparently) that says "ok you've mastered all that including the stuff we didn't mention yet, right? Prove it." It's sloppy. Unfortunately not as uncommon as it should be in JRPGs overall, and XC gets a pass on worse design because of it's amazing world, which is fair to a point, but yeah, the flaws really can't be overlooked either. It's a deeply flawed but still amazing series.

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@EvilLucario wow thanks for sharing about pouch items. I didn't know that "favorite" foods actually doubled the item's effectiveness. I just assumed it was a feature to unlock more stuff on the skill tree and give just a bit more trust points than normal foods.

Nice to know about aux cores. I thought shoulder to shoulder looked good, but the numbers were arbitrary to me, and when I doubt I usually default to things like increased healing, or improved ether/strength

[quote]
"hold back on your Art and cancel it after the third autoattack instead of just canceling immediately after the first two autoattacks or Art." I don't understand this feature. Also its of note that its hard to tell especially with roc since his auto attacks seem to be 2 hits.[quote]
How do you know what attack is the third if you lose track, and how do you know if you executed your auto-attack cancel on the third attack versus the first one or second one, and is there a middle ground if you cancel on the second auto attack? I also noticed mention of arts canceling, do you know what that is and how it works? I tried cancelling arts but you can't select a new art until another one finishes.

"Honestly, all I'm seeing here is just giving up at not being dealt the right hands with random Blades and not looking at options, but even the common Blades are good. Some even have exclusive skills that Rare Blades don't, and by endgame if you want to spend time grinding, they can be even more powerful than 90% of Rare Blades"

could you elaborate there? I honestly see that as great news.

"actual need of skill/understanding for good damage. I do genuinely believe that almost everyone complaining about the combat (in any game) are clueless one way or another about it."

I'll push back here. Yes, and that is the point of contention. This was the issue I had with in the first place. To understand things I had to look online at explainations of what arbitrary words actually meant. Like in xenoblade 1 a good example is for gems you had electric plus and electric up gems and lightning attack gems. There are other similarly confusing situations. There isn't really an explaination of what each does exactly. Its the small things of not having a description tag to tell you what something is that causes issues. However as soon as you know, it changes the game entirely. Having good clarity in a game is important, and why digimon world on the PS1 to this day is an enigma that I will never bother figuring out. Poor me as a child never had a chance. See the very fact that you have to explain this stuff because I can't even find good enough explainations on my own is why I put the game down sadly. But you are giving me hope because I do genuinely want to see the story of this game unfold to the end, and the combat is otherwise engaging.

High leveled enemies have been a Xenoblade staple since the beginning. Don't you remember Makna Forest with level 90+ Gogols, Satorl Marsh with similarly level 80+ enemies at the start?

yeah but a lot of them either didn't move, or had a region they stayed in. These jerks roam half the area map. Even just a few of the flying characters that are maybe 10 levels ahead of you suddenly deciding to say hi can be unwelcome especially since attacks on you when you aren't engaged in combat seem to do like 3 times more damage than normal more or less on some enemies, I'm guessing a surprise attack bonus can be a pain. But really its more about zoning than it is the fact they exist. immovable gonzales in guar plains was just that, and he stood as a monolith of don't go that way rather than "is this part of the flightpath of birbo the destroyer?" and then when thinking no, getting in a fight, and suddenly dying, looking up and seeing birbo the destroyer. That is my only qualm there.

Even in Chapter 4 with the plains right before Zeke, if you've bothered exploring the industrial district you would have found an alternate way that completely skips the level 80ish monsters there.

fair enough if true, that one is on me. ha!

And on that note, running away. I would argue that it's a GOOD thing that running away requires more actions on top of being more intuitive in button presses.

bad game design is bad, don't make excuses for it. I agree with your premise, but the asinine way to go about it in 2 is not right either. a combo button press could easily be a solution potentially. If I recall, the left arrow button isn't mapped to a blade or any action, so to press and hold that to bring up a prompt and then tap it again to confirm would be nice. I just feel there has to be a mutually agreeable solution. Though I do admit I don't think its unfair to die to a fight I decided to pick and couldn't win. Just when birbo shows up for example mostly. A big reason I like xenoblade is it doesn't outright punish you for losing a fight by reverting to last save point or docking you tons of xp or money or anything like that. So its just a gripe that confused me when I first tried to run as if I had missed something thinking "surely this can't be right, they have to have made disengaging fights less stupid" as I was cycling attack focus on enemies half way across the map trying to disengage.

character design is personal. Just because you seem to not be able to understand why people groan at it doesn't mean it isn't valid. But since you seem to be popping a vein, I don't want to contribute to an aneurysm haha.

In terms of the stiff animation, yeah, it was a thing on the first game. Again I have no idea what X was like. But I figured after all this time they would figure it out. This is more technical, but I think it comes down to the people doing the model rigging for the animators. A good animation rigger is worth his weight in gold, but it seems they likely have some people that are not very good at it, so their skeletons don't articulate as well as they could otherwise. But also the animators seem to not ease any sort of animation easing which if even used in a minor sense would eliminate that issue. But I pay way more attention to that than most people, and its not too bad overall. Each character moves in their own way and has flavor, and that is far more important. If you played charades with each character and had them move like another you'd probably be able to tell which character they were mimicking. Totally a plus there.

So again, thanks for helping me understand the game better. As I said I really want to finish it and I do enjoy it, but have hit a wall. I just set down the game as I got to the boss fight with Zeke for the third time, and I figured enough was enough with that one since I can't beat him. I'm curious if you would recommend which two characters to use for that fight or a tactic maybe in particular.