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MojoKingBee posted:Ok, so if Monado defenses are the best way to change the future, how come warning them brings up their art list? What's the point of warning them if Monado speed/shield does a better job? Shulk has the best responses to future-changing, but Shulk doesn't always have to be in your party. The warning mechanic is probably around for those times.
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Dec 28, 2012 05:38
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Several reasons. For one thing as I said earlier, Shulk doesn't have any good moves to deal with Ether attacks, so warning someone is a good way to have them use a free move without regard to cooldowns that can help you out, such as a powerful attack to get the monster to target them or a heal or a toppling/daze move. Additionally, you shouldn't always be playing as Shulk (and you still get the warnings even if he's not in your party) so you'll want to be able to warn someone (possibly even Shulk himself) and have them use a move that will be helpful. And finally it's always a good idea to warn someone regardless. Even if you don't have them do something specifically to counter the attack, you can get a free heal or buff or something useful out of it that you control and that doesn't affect cooldowns. It's pretty handy.
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Dec 28, 2012 05:38
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Yeah, one possibility is to have Melia use one of her arts to seal the enemy's arts, thus preventing their attack.
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Dec 28, 2012 05:39
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I guess shield bullet might not have worked because maybe the enemy used their talent art? Does the color of a defensive art determine what kind of damage it protects against? Sharla's shield bullet and Reyn's block are both blue, but I assumed they protected against physical damage.
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Dec 28, 2012 05:44
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The color of the defense skill doesn't matter. If the attack dropped Sharla through Shield Bullet, you either needed to use one of Shulk's Monado skills, or have someone like Reyn taunt the mob and redirect the attack.
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Dec 28, 2012 05:53
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MojoKingBee posted:I guess shield bullet might not have worked because maybe the enemy used their talent art? Talent arts are just special in that absolutely the only thing that blocks them is the Monado shield. The things you mentioned do block physical attacks, Talent arts just don't count.
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Dec 28, 2012 06:02
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Regy Rusty posted:And finally it's always a good idea to warn someone regardless. Even if you don't have them do something specifically to counter the attack, you can get a free heal or buff or something useful out of it that you control and that doesn't affect cooldowns. It's pretty handy. (And if you've ever been randomly unable to warn someone, that's why: you need at least one bar.)
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Dec 28, 2012 06:06
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MojoKingBee posted:I guess shield bullet might not have worked because maybe the enemy used their talent art? Shield bullet just soaks up some amount of damage, if the attack does enough damage it'll still kill you.
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Dec 28, 2012 07:38
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You can see if the damage is still going to kill the target after the warning, there will be a skull next to the damage number. If the character you're controlling can do something about it, like heal them or pull aggro or something, you might still save them, but otherwise they're screwed. And yeah, the colour of your ability icons isn't related to this, that's for building up the multiplier during chain attacks. Also a visual guide for certain things: break attacks are always pink, topple attacks are green, daze attacks are yellow, physical attacks red, ether attacks purple, self-buffs orange, heals and party buffs blue.
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Dec 28, 2012 09:19
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Suaimhneas posted:You can see if the damage is still going to kill the target after the warning, there will be a skull next to the damage number. If the character you're controlling can do something about it, like heal them or pull aggro or something, you might still save them, but otherwise they're screwed. Wait, I thought ether arts were blue? I've been pumping up Sharla's ether because I thought that would increase the effectiveness of her many heal/buff arts
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Dec 28, 2012 18:33
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Safe and Secure! posted:Yeah, one possibility is to have Melia use one of her arts to seal the enemy's arts, thus preventing their attack. Melia also has the Reflection skill which is god drat amazing against these. I'm pretty sure it can reflect anything too.
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Dec 28, 2012 18:37
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MojoKingBee posted:Wait, I thought ether arts were blue? I've been pumping up Sharla's ether because I thought that would increase the effectiveness of her many heal/buff arts Blue is generally defensive/healing/buffs, purple is generally ether attacks. Anything with a horizontal bar across it is an ether art and works off the ether stat; otherwise, the skill uses strength.  Note how most of Melia's arts there have bars, except the staff one.
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Dec 28, 2012 18:41
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I'm about to drive 2 hours just to pick this game up for cheap, but now I'm worried because the last page has been a jumble of really confusing sounding poo poo. Is it all explained fairly well in-game? I hate playing games with a guide, it's the entire reason I never finished Twilight Princess. Why does Nintendo hate quest journals and auto-updating maps, what is this, the 90s where I have to keep a notebook on hand? That's fine for grid-based 2D Zelda games where I can have a column for "Bomb" or "Hookshot" and write "14Q" and know exactly where the poo poo is, but for 3D Zeldas it's a complete pain in the rear end. Bit of a tangent there, sorry. Point being, I'm pretty excited to finally play a modern JRPG that's good!
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Dec 28, 2012 19:05
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precision posted:I'm about to drive 2 hours just to pick this game up for cheap, but now I'm worried because the last page has been a jumble of really confusing sounding poo poo. Is it all explained fairly well in-game? I hate playing games with a guide, it's the entire reason I never finished Twilight Princess. Why does Nintendo hate quest journals and auto-updating maps, what is this, the 90s where I have to keep a notebook on hand? That's fine for grid-based 2D Zelda games where I can have a column for "Bomb" or "Hookshot" and write "14Q" and know exactly where the poo poo is, but for 3D Zeldas it's a complete pain in the rear end. You'll be fine, the game has tutorials and takes its time introducing these concepts.
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Dec 28, 2012 19:08
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The gem crafting is the only thing that you might need a guide for.
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Dec 28, 2012 19:21
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Suaimhneas posted:And yeah, the colour of your ability icons isn't related to this, that's for building up the multiplier during chain attacks. Also a visual guide for certain things: break attacks are always pink, topple attacks are green, daze attacks are yellow, physical attacks red, ether attacks purple, self-buffs orange, heals and party buffs blue. I just want to point out how important this is. The game teaches you with some boss fights that the thing to do in chain attacks is the break->topple->daze series, but that's not necessarily the best thing to do depending on what you're fighting. If you use the same flavor of attack with everyone, the damage will shoot up dramatically fast. The middle skill is considered a wild card (except for Sharla's) so you can use it to chain different types of attack together. This becomes more useful as you get more characters, and it's an important part of choosing what talents to bring to the table depending on party construction. Later characters have a little wider variety of skillsets so it's easier to chain. Early on, Sharla only has like 1 attack ability, which is Ether based -- and neither Shulk nor Reyn have one of those so you can't keep a chain going easily. Melia's primary attack skill is one that chains with anything so when you get her you can start maxxing out at every opportunity. My endgame party was Melia-Riki-Seven and goddamn you can get some good chain damage out of that. My favorite was when I managed Mind Blast(ether)->Freezinate(ether)->Strength Drain(ether)->Thunderbolt(wildcard)->Roly Poly(topple)->Final Cross(topple)->Thunderbolt(wildcard) and took off like 2/3 of a named enemy around my level in one go. quote:Why does Nintendo hate quest journals and auto-updating maps, what is this, the 90s where I have to keep a notebook on hand? There's a quest journal and there are auto-updating maps. What there isn't is a quest tracker, which is annoying but not crippling. Most quests just finish themselves once you fufill the conditions, but some of them do require going back and talking to the questgiver / someone else, and in those cases you might have to fart around a little to try to find the person -- but not a single sidequest is mandatory, and the main plot quests DO put markers on the map for you to follow. E: Just to clarify, if a quest needs you to talk to John Hom it'll say something like 'Talk to Jon Hom in Colony 9!'in the log but won't mark where is his on the big map. There will be an ! over his head when you find him and the ! will also show on the minimap once you're close enough, but there may be some running around necessary to get nearby. Since people have day / night schedules it's also possible you'll be standing in the right spot but at the wrong time of day. This is one of the few things that the game doesn't quite manage to do properly, but it's not so bad except in one or two annoyingly huge zones (Alcamoth!  ). If you're fed up trying to find someone for a sidequest just say gently caress it and go somewhere else -- there's no penalty and you can almost always come back.
NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Dec 28, 2012 |
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Dec 28, 2012 19:27
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PFlats posted:Blue is generally defensive/healing/buffs, purple is generally ether attacks. Anything with a horizontal bar across it is an ether art and works off the ether stat; otherwise, the skill uses strength. I never knew that about the bars 
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Dec 28, 2012 22:02
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When I told the guy selling it that I drove 2 hours to meet him and buy it, he gave me several "extra" games for free: Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Sin and Punishment, and Super Paper Mario. All for $40! I almost felt bad but if the guy knew how to use Craigslist I can't really feel sorry that he didn't look on eBay. Now I'm considering buying a Wii so we don't have to keep borrowing our roommate's and carrying cables from room to room. 
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Dec 28, 2012 22:29
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That's actually a pretty good haul you got there! You might be able to find a returned Wii U or something cheap now that the holidays are closing.
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Dec 28, 2012 22:54
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Weird. I bought this game for $50 new (~$59 after tax and shipping) like two weeks ago from Gamestop.com, but now it's out of stock. I guess the reprint was just a quick thing for the holidays?
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Dec 29, 2012 00:31
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Safe and Secure! posted:Weird. I bought this game for $50 new (~$59 after tax and shipping) like two weeks ago from Gamestop.com, but now it's out of stock. I guess the reprint was just a quick thing for the holidays? Unless they're really big games, which this definitely isn't, I thought that they almost never got more than a couple print runs, and certainly not reprints 6 months or more later. I thought it was more like, some stores were sending their copies back in or they were getting found in warehouses or whatever. Anyway, I've barely started the game because of a crippling need for a nap, but my RPGOCD is going crazy already. I don't want anything spoiled for me so I'm  about looking at a guide, but I also don't want to miss things. Is this game pretty good about not locking you out of areas that you still have collection or quest stuff to do in?Also, should I be saving all the poo poo that mobs drop, selling it all, or somewhere inbetween? Is crafting super important? Also, if there's an ! on the map but I for real, no kidding can't find a person there, does that mean there's a quest giver that will appear there at a different time of day or...? Also, holy poo poo the British voice acting. I was going to switch to Japanese but it seems like a good/funny dub, is this going to bite me in the rear end, ie are there any "incredibly annoying" characters? Also holy poo poo this game is fun. 
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Dec 29, 2012 02:33
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precision posted:Also holy poo poo this game is fun. Lot of questions. The game doesn't lock you out of anything without good warning beforehand. Keep an eye out for timed quests. Save it all. The only crafting in the game is gems, but some quests have obscure requirements. Keep looking? Someone's there with a quest. I played the entire game in English and enjoyed it. Quality voice work.
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Dec 29, 2012 02:41
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If there's no stopwatch next to a mission, there's no cutoff point for it (except for the Final Boss, obviously). Oh, and the in-game clock actually DOES matter since NPCs have daily routines, always make sure to check sometime around 10 AM and Midnight for any new quests. Gem crafting is important, and if you don't get into it early you WILL fill up your inventory around the time you hit the swamp. As for the other materials, check the reconstruction tab of the google doc spreadsheet in the OP, but BE VERY loving CAREFUL because there are major spoilers in certain tabs, mainly involving characters you pick up later on. So just stay in the Quest and Reconstruction tabs, making judicious use of the drop-down menus. You should be safe that way. As for the dub, some people got sick of Reyn's repeated one-liners but they are obviously jerks.
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Dec 29, 2012 02:46
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It's always Reyn-time somewhere. 
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Dec 29, 2012 02:59
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Some of these were answered already but eh:precision posted:Anyway, I've barely started the game because of a crippling need for a nap, but my RPGOCD is going crazy already. I don't want anything spoiled for me so I'm Even if there IS a stopwatch icon by a quest, none of the quests are exactly 'timed.' In all cases they only cut off if you advance the plot past certain points, and you are always prompted beforehand if this is the case. It's not always totally obvious what'll happen exactly, but if you get to a 'Hey are you sure you wanna go in here?' question there's a chance some plot events will occur that'll cut off some quests. Edit: I just doublechecked and there are one or two points that cut off without warning, but both of those are zones more than 30 hours in (if you're rushing like a crazy person) and the cut off is like 20 hours after that. The first bunch of timed quests you get have an entirely voluntary cut off, and you don't lose access to the next set until like 60 hours in. There's really nothing to worry about. Even if you do miss a few, you won't lose out on anything but a bit of XP and some items you're probably overlevelled for anyway. You will occasionally be locked out of a zone, but there are still ways to get collectibles. This sort of thing doesn't happen until much later in the game. quote:Also, should I be saving all the poo poo that mobs drop, selling it all, or somewhere inbetween? Is crafting super important? Somewhere in between, and crafting is as useful as you want it to be. You'll eventually fill up on materials but you can just sell off most of it. When you do, sell items with the icon of a small sack first -- they're less likely to be used in a quest or something. Gem crafting stuff is nice but not really that necessary at first. Remember that if you spend an hour crafting up level 1 gems you'll just be replacing them as soon as you get level 2 crystals around. quote:Also, if there's an ! on the map but I for real, no kidding can't find a person there, does that mean there's a quest giver that will appear there at a different time of day or...? Check the Z axis. It's probably above or below you. Also, it can be a little hard to tell where the center of the ! is on the minimap -- sometimes people are just on the other side of a wall or something. quote:Also, holy poo poo the British voice acting. I was going to switch to Japanese but it seems like a good/funny dub, is this going to bite me in the rear end, ie are there any "incredibly annoying" characters? The dub is good. Some of the voices are awesome, some of them are a little meh. The combat barks are annoying at first but once you get used it it they're more useful than not since the visuals are pretty hard to sift through. quote:Also holy poo poo this game is fun. 
NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Dec 29, 2012 |
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Dec 29, 2012 03:01
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I tried the japanese voices for my second playthrough but after hearing a nasally and way too young voice for Dunban I immediately went back to english.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:12
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404GoonNotFound posted:always make sure to check sometime around 10 AM and Midnight for any new quests.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:29
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precision posted:Also, holy poo poo the British voice acting. I was going to switch to Japanese but it seems like a good/funny dub, is this going to bite me in the rear end, ie are there any "incredibly annoying" characters? Even the designated cute mascot character's voice is awesome and not annoying at all. precision posted:Also holy poo poo this game is fun.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:36
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PFlats posted:My routine was always to check at 10 AM and 10 PM (20:00). That generally catches everyone, even if they have weirder schedules. Yeah, I just got attached to midnight because that drat gangster guy in 9's back alleys never showed up at 10 PM when I wanted him to.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:39
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I got awesome Christmas presents: Plus I finally beat the game. After 167 hours, I feel weird playing other games....
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Dec 29, 2012 03:56
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Keska posted:I got awesome Christmas presents: Where... how...Although that does remind me... is there any official merchandise out there, aside from the Japanese art book? My wife wants nopon plushies.
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Dec 29, 2012 04:54
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OK, I tried just peeking in a walkthrough or the wiki for this, but started seeing spoilers everywhere. There are two exclamation marks that are driving me insane. One is in Tranquil Square and seems to be inside of a tree. It's definitely not below me, because trust me I learned you can jump off cliffs  and I see absolutely nothing and no way to get above me. Am I insane or is this something I need to come back later for or what?The other one is also in a tree, in the very first area (Commercial District). Do Unique Monsters show up as exclamation marks as well? Because that would explain the one in the grotto with Magdalena(?). Speaking of which, what's the point of Unique Monsters having levels if they're very obviously about twice as powerful as their level?  Other than that, oh my god GOTY all years. I just spent 3 hours swimming around, playing dress-up (  ), Trading with everybody, and marvelling at how good the English dub is. Fiora actually sounds exactly like she should, not "too old or too young" like most JRPG Plucky Female Characters.
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Dec 29, 2012 06:47
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If a quest has commanded you to kill a unique monster, it will show up with a ! on your map. Otherwise no. As for having levels, I'd say that any unique has a flat +5 bonus to their level, not a doubling. If that Monado piece was custom-made then it's pretty impressive. If not, holy poo poo there are Xenoblade LEGOS out there?
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Dec 29, 2012 07:09
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precision posted:OK, I tried just peeking in a walkthrough or the wiki for this, but started seeing spoilers everywhere. Some items might have a marker over them if you need them for a quest, that could be it.
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Dec 29, 2012 07:26
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precision posted:There are two exclamation marks that are driving me insane. Is the Tranquil Square one behind the wall a few feet from the tree? Are there some crates you can jump over to get behind a wall? The commercial district one I dunno, but it's probably buried in the back of a stall or something. As far as I remember, if I could ever see a ! I could get to it somehow. You're probably missing something really obvious.  Monsters at a higher level give you pretty large penalties to hit, so if you actually try to take something down at +5 you'll probably just whiff everything. Unique monsters have a bunch of life and sometimes abilities that normal monsters don't, but you should usually be able to handle them if you're around the same level. Just think of them as minibosses, and remember that you can almost always just go around them if you need to. NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Dec 29, 2012 |
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Dec 29, 2012 07:44
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I think I must just be entirely incompetent, because I'm up to about 6 !'s that I just can't figure out. I can get to them, there's just nothing there. There's one at the entrance to Colony 9, which I thought was down on the beach - nope. It's just nothing. The one in Commercial Square that seems to be in the brass machine thing - wtf? There's one at the Military District entrance too... I'm relatively sure they're not monsters that I'm at the wrong time of day for, because I don't have any quests for those areas either. The one at the entrance to town has been there since the first time I came to town so it can't be a monster or quest item... I think I should just accept that I'll never figure this out, unless there's some kind of interactive map online somewhere.  e: I just killed the Lake Magdalena and the ! is still there  precision fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Dec 29, 2012 |
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Dec 29, 2012 08:07
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Uh. Is there one in front of the Gem Man's stall and one in the middle of Central Plaza? Those are location markers, not exclamation points. E: Do they correspond 1:1 to the places you can fast travel to on the map? Select button on the classic controller, or pull up the menu and go to area maps on the far left.
NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Dec 29, 2012 |
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Dec 29, 2012 08:17
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NmareBfly posted:Uh. Is there one in front of the Gem Man's stall and one in the middle of Central Plaza? Those are location markers, not exclamation points. Holy poo poo I'm stupid. From a distance from the TV they look the same. THANK YOU. Maybe now I'll advance the plot.
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Dec 29, 2012 08:53
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precision posted:Holy poo poo I'm stupid. From a distance from the TV they look the same. THANK YOU. Maybe now I'll advance the plot. To save you a little pain in the future, try not to kill unique monsters the moments you come across them (which doesn't even sound possible right now, I know, but Xenoblade is like this eternal heavenly pinata that vomits EXP on you at the least provocation). They have extremely erratic respawn rates and if you run across a sidequest telling you to kill a unique you've already dealt with, you've got around fifteen minutes of reloading to look forward to before it comes back.
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Dec 29, 2012 09:02
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precision posted:Holy poo poo I'm stupid. From a distance from the TV they look the same. THANK YOU. Maybe now I'll advance the plot. I have the same exact issue all the drat time, so don't feel bad.
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Dec 29, 2012 09:20
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