Nintendo Showcases Quality Of Life Changes For Xenoblade Chronicles 3

I should really work on the first one, got about 10 hours in got to a spot where I had to grind and grind then grind some more and eventually got bored and gave up. Was enjoying the rest of it besides the meh controls though. Just don't enjoy fighting the same robots 70 times to be able to progress past a boss.

Looks cool. Maybe I will get Xenoblade 1 and then Xenoblade 3

@SteamEngenius there is a fine line between appreciation vs. devs using players as free advertisement.

@SteamEngenius
Grinding in Xenoblade 1?
I don't remember ever doing that, actually.

If you just do some of the sidequests, you should be fine, usually.

I had more of a problem getting overleveled, because of the sidequests, even though I didn't do all of them either.

This game looks way better than Xenoblade 2 in the graphics department. Monolith are wizards.

@Kirgo
yeah from what i remember while there were some cases of praying to rng for getting certain items for sidequests/collection (like those damn cabbages) the game rarely felt like it was grindy.

as you mentioned a bigger issue was that it was too easy to become overleveled from exploring or sidequests which could make gaining skill and ability points feel more of a grind, however in the switch version they had an option which fixed that (the expert mode where level ups raised you "max" level and you could set what level you were at)

That battle system tho! Looks amazing!!

The character switching is instant which is amazing, in XC2 you had to wait a bit to see the blades you're switching.
It's impressive to see how more optimized this game is looking to be. I hope its runs just as good as it looks too!

In the first video you can see the obligatory early game giant ape that'll wreck you up if it sees you, lol.

Honestly, the character switching (especially mid-battle) is a HUGE QoL that I'm excited for. Not only does it actually mean that all characters can get a chance in the spotlight during battles, but it simply means more strategy is open to you before letting the AI take over. This might also mean that you can "avoid" death in certain moments and that it perhaps wont immediately mean game over when your lead party member dies with no party gauge. We'll see how they've rebalanced for that, though.

@SteamEngenius I often over-levelled myself by accident due to being a very thorough person when playing most RPGs. Xenoblade in general is designed in such a way that if you do at least some of the side quests as you go, and you aren't just trying to skip past every enemy on the way to your next destination, then you're essentially at the point that the devs expect you to be when you get to a boss.

"Grinding" doesn't really exist in the first game unless you've tried your hardest to avoid enemy encounters that your normal path takes you, which I see a lot of people do. The fights don't take that long either if you master the break, topple, daze system too. If you play well enough, sometimes you don't even get the chance to topple an enemy before you kill them.

Man, these late generation Switch games are looking gorgeous!

A real QOL improvement would be having a less bloated world, and removing about 90% of the fetch quest filler.

@iLikeUrAttitude They also made it clear that you can switch characters during the battles too.

@SteamEngenius you never need to grind in Xenoblade. Like many others said, the game assumes you do the side-quests, which net you the most EXP.

@GuyProsciutto Less generic XB1 style fetch side quests and more XBX quality side quests would be awesome

Hopefully they will get rid of some of the regression from Xenoblade 2 like having to go back to NPCs for fetch quests.

I NEED THIS GAME!

Oh my God, go pick up those glowing things! You're going to need the rare drops...trust me!

Looks cool. Might not get it at launch but I will get the game. Hope they have atleast one playable character as welldesigned as Pyra.

@SteamEngenius grinding levels in XC1 is not a good idea. The game increases your exp if you're under leveled and reduces it if you're over leveled.

Instead of that, you can spend 10~20 minutes looking up how to improve on combat and on party setup. You can absolutely beat bosses while underleveled and the game keeps you from getting too underleveled if you just beat mobs along the way (once).

And if you don't want to improve, you can activate casual mode (XCDE only) or raise your team Agility (and lower weight) as much as you can. Agility easily break 90% of the game if you are not underleveled.

Really hyped for this game just hope it will run well on the normal switch so I won’t have to buy the switch pro in march 2023 along with BOTW2.

I'm just here to say that I'm crazy hyped for this. Carry on.

being able to switch characters midbattle is a godsend, I've wanted this since I booted up 2, Torna kinda gave us it but you were still limited to 2-3 at a time, super awesome

Some nice improvements for sure. Can't wait for this game.

Awesome. Really hoping improved tutorials are another area where this game will see improvements from its predecessor.

@Faruko We'll see how performance holds up in the final product, but I was pleasantly surprised with the footage as well.

Honestly, it makes the absence of Soul Hackers 2 seem even more ridiculous.

Switching characters on the fly is much more than a QoL improvement - it's game-changing. It gives you more real control over executing multi-character combos and timing buffs.

It's also a massive change that they've made reviving a class exclusive ability. Hopefully this will bump the late/post-game viability of healers somewhat, but we'll see...

@Kirgo I had a similar thought. If anything, I had to deliberately AVOID combat in the first Xenoblade because otherwise it was too easy to be fun. The new system that lets you de-level your characters (Expert Mode) felt like a welcome addition in the Switch release because it meant you could explore and quest as you desired without having to worry about trivializing the game. Definitely never, ever felt like grinding was necessary or even encouraged.

I love the battle system in X1 and didn’t mind the system in X2. Xenoblade X was my least favorite battle systems, but I still enjoyed it. This looks promising. I know whatever Monolift is gonna do with this game, I’m gonna love ❤️ .

@SteamEngenius Just do side quest. That's how you basically grind XP. People who played the games knows it, I know it. The only reason I was farming an enemy was for it's materials not XP

The quick move looks awesome and adds more depth to the whole being unable to auto attack while moving thing

looks interesting

@SteamEngenius There are some boss fights where you're more or less supposed to lose if you don't use the right Monado skill. In general, just spamming your most recently unlocked skill (+enchant for Mechon) will do the trick.

Really like the addition of a dodge/dash mechanic. Not sure if it actually avoids damage or anything, but slowly spinning in circles to get the right positioning was probably the most ridiculous part of the other games' combat.

Most anticipated game this year. I CANNOT wait

@GuyProsciutto Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I hope Monolith never listens to yours. The Xenoblade games have my absolute favorite map designs, and the side quests often reward you with some cool enemy encounters or a great view that you might have missed otherwise, along with having some really interesting self-contained stories.

I'll echo what everyone is saying that you don't grind in Xenoblade. In fact, I often ran into the issue where I was overlevelled.

@SteamEngenius Not sure why you needed to grind tbh.
As long as you do enough side quests and discover landmarks you should be fine all the way till the end.
I felt perfectly levelled the whole game.

Those battle animations look so damn smooth.

Oh man, i just bought the first one and it is a overhyped grindy Mess.
I really dislike that Game -,-
Edit:
And the Battle System is soo boring, oh i am regreting it so hard.

Oh snap, being able to swap characters on the fly, especially during battle, was like my #1 wish in the first 2.X games!

REAL-TIME CHARACTER CHANGE?!

Will it actually run at a frame rate above 15?

You can switch characters during battle now? That's wonderful, I really missed that feature in the past games

@SteamEngenius I feel you. I am trying to speed my way through my second play through of game (this time on the Switch) and hitting a wall of being under leveled for the area and can not progress any further. This game really wants you to do the boring and annoying side guests. It would be a great qoL for this next game to make side-quests more optional since there are players who don't have time to spend hours getting 30 wolf pelts or x rng item or bring y to Bob across the continent. Or make the side quests actually interesting - take a page from the Witcher 3.