|
You all realise that, regardless of who is designing the characters or what the concept art looks like, the in-game models are the exact same level and style of sort of realistic but sort of anime that they were in the first one and you're only just noticing how anime it is now because they have more polygons to work with this time (maybe with a side of there not really having been an important child character in the first one), right?
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 03:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 21:19 |
|
|
wateyad posted:You all realise that, regardless of who is designing the characters or what the concept art looks like, the in-game models are the exact same level and style of sort of realistic but sort of anime that they were in the first one and you're only just noticing how anime it is now because they have more polygons to work with this time (maybe with a side of there not really having been an important child character in the first one), right? No Xenoblade's character eyes were all textures on the head. XCX's character's eyes are individual polygonal objects linked and rigged to the head. The modeling style is going to change the look of the characters somewhat because they're not going the project diva route with animated textures on a face rig for facial expressions it seems. Doing poo poo like how they make guys in project diva or the Namco Tales games would be the more advanced way of how they made the original Xenoblade characters. Anime is pretty weird and fussy in how it translates into 3d. Because you have to model a 2D look from the start and not everything can be in 3D or stuff is covered by a filter. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jul 9, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 03:38
|
|
|
I don't think even Melia or Fiora looked like porcelain dolls to the extent that the girls in the new game do. The men have a different look going on too. I think it's incorrect to say that the only difference is graphical power.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 03:47
|
|
|
They look like the characters from the Xenosaga games so it definitely has nothing to do with polygons. It's an art direction decision.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 03:53
|
|
|
Supercar Gautier posted:I don't think even Melia or Fiora looked like porcelain dolls to the extent that the girls in the new game do. The men have a different look going on too. I think it's incorrect to say that the only difference is graphical power. It's art direction essentially, or how they chose to approach building them. The characters start on paper for reference and have turnaround views. It's nothing related to graphics or hardware, it's a choice. The skin textures could look off since it's still an unfinished game. The porcelain doll look isn't exclusive to this one instance. Unfinished models can get that look too when the render isn't a full on production one. Axing stuff like that saves time when you're rendering out. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Jul 9, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
The textures in the first one look less "porcelain doll" sure but I think that's largely because they have more shading hand arted into them because they had less polygons and less real time lighting to work with (and also, if we're entirely honest, because they were frequently kind of muddy and low res). The models on the other hand totally have the same distinctive weird pointy noses and, on the relatively unexaggerated looking adults / older teens, about the same size eyes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 04:48
|
|
|
When I say "porcelain doll", I don't just mean the skin texture, but the facial proportions. Xenoblade: Men and women portrayed in the same style. Most characters of both genders have tall faces, large pointed noses, large eyes, small chins/jaws, and pronounced foreheads. Xenoblade X: Men and women portrayed in very different styles. Women have more rounded faces, larger eyes containing larger irises, and very small noses. Men have strong jawlines, very small eyes, and rough, lined features. The characters really don't have the same look at all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 05:05
|
|
|
ManlyGrunting posted:Oh, and does anyone have a good way to hike up affinity other than showering people with gifts and swapping around the party while accepting quests? I like to vary my party for variety's sake and late game gets sort of cumbersome if you don't have good affinity. I'm replaying and am at Makna forest right now, so any tips for mid game and level 80 or so for my post-game file would be much appreciated. Fastest source of affinity is combat. Gifts are actually quite slow when you factor in the running-around time to get them and the menu time to administer them. Quests should be considered a convenient bonus more than anything; they help, certainly, but shouldn't be your primary go-to method. Just simply using people together as you go around will naturally get you affinity gains as you get the timed B prompts for misses, dodges, crits, etc., as well as untimed B usage for reviving people, removing their status effects, and encouraging them, as well as every time you fire off a chain attack. If you really want to farm though, you can deliberately take advantage of the second of those things and set up situations where you can help/encourage your teammates frequently. For example, remove everyone's offensive arts (to draw out the battle) and send a melee team (if you include Sharla or Melia, control them) to fight an elemental near or above their level. Being melee - especially without arts - fighting an elemental, they'll take forever to kill it and get major damage reduction, meaning their tension will go down and you'll get lots of opportunities for people to cheer each other up. If it's above their level, so much the better so long as you can survive, since they'll whiff a bunch too (getting you timed B prompts and more opportunity for them to get depressed). You can do that method at basically any point after the very early-game. There's usually one or another flavor of elemental to play with. When there's not, find something with levels in the low red and fight that without agility gems: it shouldn't murder you right away but you'll still miss a lot. However, if you really want to grind affinity fast, get so you can survive fighting a level 87 unique long enough to say so (don't need to survive it long enough to kill it, just long enough to be able to retreat on demand instead of wiping). If your post-game file can't do this yet, it'll be able to in a few levels. Then go to Eryth Sea and hunt Stormy Belagon. Get your controlled character's sleep resist or debuff resist up to 100% through gems, and don't do that for the two AI-controlled characters. Stormy Belagon has a sleep spike where someone will promptly take a nap whenever they hit him. Have your controlled character run in and spam B to wake people up over and over and over (and occasionally encourage them when they get bummed out about their narcolepsy). When your party or Stormy Belagon starts getting low on health, run away to reset the fight, check your affinity, switch party members and move the sleep/debuff resist gems as needed, run back in, and repeat. It's the hands-down fastest way to grind affinity once you're high enough level; in an hour or two you can get everyone to pink-heart affinity with everyone else. Note that the affinity gains will be between the controlled party member and each of the others, but there'll be little to no gains from one AI party member to the other AI party member (since they'll be too busy sleeping to help or encourage people, most of the time). Pick who you're controlling appropriately.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 15:24
|
|
|
Supercar Gautier posted:When I say "porcelain doll", I don't just mean the skin texture, but the facial proportions. Because they're doing what Xenosaga 2 and 3 did and tried to fully flesh out the Anime look in 3D which just always looks really really weird. Look at Momo from XS 2 and 3. Star Ocean is guilty of this too. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jul 9, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 15:35
|
|
|
Vil posted:Stuff Thanks! Mostly I just wanted to get Seven to a decent level of affinity, since she joins so late in the game compared to everyone else I've got everyone sort of lukewarm about her.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 16:24
|
|
|
I did my affinity grinding on a unique elemental below Reef 5 in the Eryth Sea. It has one attack that it uses infrequently and doesn't even do much damage, so it's pretty safe to just take off everyone's arts except heals, equip lovely low-level weapons on everyone and leave them to it while you go do something else. The AI characters will cheer up each other and you whenever anyone drops below normal tension, so you don't need to be actively involved like with the sleep spike one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 21:42
|
|
|
wateyad posted:You all realise that, regardless of who is designing the characters or what the concept art looks like, the in-game models are the exact same level and style of sort of realistic but sort of anime that they were in the first one and you're only just noticing how anime it is now because they have more polygons to work with this time (maybe with a side of there not really having been an important child character in the first one), right? Not really. Different art directors on each game. XCX looks a lot more like Xenosaga, XC looks a lot more like FFXII. I'm not saying either way looks better or whatever but the styles are distinctively different. As Supercar Gautier pointed out, you can look at the various ratios to build faces on XC and XCX and see some fairly extreme differences. The approach to textures in general in each game is also very different as well. This is kind of a stupid argument. New game, new art director, looks different.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 22:03
|
|
|
Is there a way to way to work Sharla into a team with Melia and Seven (probably not), or should I just include Riki instead and if so, what gems work well on him? I know that with the other two, I need a tank to keep things off of them, and I don't feel like using Dunban right now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2014 19:05
|
|
|
I honestly found Seven to be an excellent agility tank. She does enough damage to keep aggro (especially with Dunban's 10% more aggro from dealing damage) and if you stack agility on her she's almost at Dunban's level.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2014 19:41
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:Is there a way to way to work Sharla into a team with Melia and Seven (probably not), or should I just include Riki instead and if so, what gems work well on him? I know that with the other two, I need a tank to keep things off of them, and I don't feel like using Dunban right now. Melia/Sharla/Seven was my least favorite team in the whole game. I was trying to work on their affinity ratings and they just died over and over. I could never tweak things to get them working together well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2014 19:48
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:Is there a way to way to work Sharla into a team with Melia and Seven (probably not), or should I just include Riki instead and if so, what gems work well on him? I know that with the other two, I need a tank to keep things off of them, and I don't feel like using Dunban right now. Riki works great with Melia and Seven. That was my go-to party. Control Melia, of course. AI Melia sucks. I'd give Riki Ether-boosting gems, since he has all those nice DOT skills that are Ether-based. Then, I dunno. Buff his defense, perhaps? Riki's pretty drat great. For Seven, concentrate on Haste, Double Attack, and Agility.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 03:30
|
|
|
I picked up Xenoblade a while ago and have run into a problem that seems to be fairly unique. I've just arrived at Agniratha, and I've noticed that Riki has -12787 Strength and -11704 Ether. This results in an Auto-Attack Damage range of -12372 to -122. I have absolutely no idea what has caused this; I noticed it just after I killed the Magestic Mordred unique monster in the Mechonis Factory, and I'm fairly certain he was fine before that. Riki didn't take part in that fight though, which is what confuses me. Changing gems and equipment just adjusts the new stat total, and levelling up doesn't reset it either. It means he now auto attacks for single digit damage, except for the random times when he hits for several hundred thousand damage (record so far is just under half a million). Resetting the game also has no effect on it, as I must have saved after the stat was bugged. I'm playing on the Wii U with an actual disc and no cheat programs/devices of any kind, so its not from hacking or anything. I suspect I'm just screwed, but I figured I'd see if anyone else ever came across the same thing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 15:54
|
|
|
I've heard of that happening before, but it's really rare. It's a bug of some sort - don't know the cause - and it affects the character's base stats. Since the game doesn't use a lookup table for base stats from leveling, but instead simply adds to the previous base stats, leveling won't fix it. Equipment won't fix it either. Legitimate solution is a previous save or starting over, neither of which are pleasant. Illegitimate solution is to cheat and edit in the stats you're supposed to have. Not sure if that's an option on Wii U, but if emulating or using a jailbroken Wii, it's a possibility.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 16:03
|
|
|
Put as many +Crit gems as you can on him for that sweet buffer overflow damage?
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 16:22
|
|
|
What kinda heavy armor for Melia is best? I got the Eclipse set, but I don't really like not having control over what gems are in my gear.Silver Falcon posted:Riki works great with Melia and Seven. That was my go-to party. Control Melia, of course. AI Melia sucks. I'd give Riki Ether-boosting gems, since he has all those nice DOT skills that are Ether-based. Then, I dunno. Buff his defense, perhaps? Riki's pretty drat great. I did kinda end up going Melia/Seven/Riki, and they're a pretty great team. I've been thinking of how to do Melia/Seven/Sharla, and having Seven as a tank is kind of...alright? She's not amazing or anything and I just think Sharla doesn't contribute enough to this team. Sucks, cause I'd like to boost her skills and affinities up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 02:41
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:What kinda heavy armor for Melia is best? I got the Eclipse set, but I don't really like not having control over what gems are in my gear. I think heavy armor increases your aggro, which you definitely do not want with Melia. If you need more protection, go with medium armor, I guess. But really the idea with Melia is you need someone else to hold the aggro. She's not going to be able to take a hit to save her life.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 03:12
|
|
|
Well yeah, I mean in a serious battle I'd have Dunban or Riki tank instead. I'm having fun loving around with different setups, tho.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
Heavy armor doesn't have any aggro multipliers that I'm aware of. The only armor-related aggro multiplier I know of, is that one skill for Dundun that gives him +25% aggro when he's not wearing any armor. The main differences between heavy, medium, and light armor is that as you go heavier, you get: - More physical defense - Less ether defense - More weight (= less effective agility) Since dodging is king and undodgable damage tends to be ether-based, on the whole light armor will suit you best from a gameplay-mechanics perspective. Go dress everyone up in jungle outfits or default outfits. (Unfortunately there's no endgame-defense swimsuit outfit. Latest one comes from Fallen Arm or so.) From a practical perspective it's not a huge deal either way so long as the armor itself is reasonably up to date and has a gem slot, so go for Fashion Which means, of course, put Reyn in the most ridiculous outfit possible. On the bright side, a good half of his outfits fit the bill.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2014 20:53
|
|
|
Found this awesome story regarding Xenoblade's development. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-09-most-anticipated-x quote:Midway through the project the team encountered a raft of difficulties and, realising they would miss the launch deadline, a deflated Takahashi met with Hitoshi Yamagami, the Nintendo producer who oversees RPG development, to suggest a list of deadline-aiding compromises. But Yamagami rejected the plan and told the designer: "You've come this far. You should see it through to the end. I'll convince the others at the company." Hitoshi Yamagami is now one of my favorite producers ever.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2014 05:11
|
|
|
theblackw0lf posted:Found this awesome story regarding Xenoblade's development. Well, it's a nice story, but Xenoblade wasn't a really important game for the Wii in Japan and the Wii wasn't exactly aching for games, either. While it fits with Nintendo's philosophy of wanting to make the best game they can even if it means a delay, it's not as if it was Smash Wii U that was going to miss the holiday 2014 season.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2014 05:37
|
|
|
A new issue of EDGE Magazine came out today and it includes a ton of interviews with game devs at Nintendo. Here's a choice quote from Tetsuya Takahashi regarding X:quote:Vehicles are called Dolls. They are 5 Times larger than a person. So to get the same feel as Xenoblade Chronicles, the map would need to be 5 times bigger. The game world in X is e in fact even bigger than that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
Jesus Christ..
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 17:23
|
|
|
Having a "welcome to Bionis' Leg" moment, only the landscape expands for literally ten+ miles around you, would be seriously cool.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 17:40
|
|
|
theblackw0lf posted:Found this awesome story regarding Xenoblade's development. They've also done a great job with Monolith Soft Kyoto. Unlike Monolith Soft Tokyo, the Kyoto branch is largely an art/asset production studio. They've helped the development of Monolith's games and the recent Zelda games. They've also done design work on the Smash Run mode in Smash Bros for 3DS. It really nice to see a developer take care of its employees through strong work-life balance and give opportunities for self-improvement: quote:The Kyoto studio is located near the famous local junction of Shijoukarasuma, where the staff members can look outside their windows to enjoy the summer festivities from the comfort of their office. Most of the employees in the Kyoto branch consist of artists with their average age being in the late twenties, and a high ratio of female staff members. http://www.siliconera.com/2013/07/05/monolith-softs-new-kyoto-studio-sounds-like-a-great-place-to-work/ Ometeotl posted:Well, it's a nice story, but Xenoblade wasn't a really important game for the Wii in Japan and the Wii wasn't exactly aching for games, either. While it fits with Nintendo's philosophy of wanting to make the best game they can even if it means a delay, it's not as if it was Smash Wii U that was going to miss the holiday 2014 season. Along with the Last Story and Metroid Other M, Xenoblade was part of a major Nintendo push towards attracting Japanese core gamers to the Wii. While Wii in the United States continued to be strong in second half of 2008, they started to falter in Japan due to a lack of appealing titles. Wii Music and Animal Crossing Cit Folk did not do well as they had hoped. Many of Nintendo's major strategic decisions at the time were focused on gathering Japanese developer support to help the Wii in Japan. You might notice that the teaser sites for Xenoblade (which was re-branded from its original title of Monado), Metroid Other M, and The Last Story all came at the same time during the beginning of 2010. So Xenoblade was a key part of this strategy of attracting core Japanese gamers. At the end of the day, giving a team of 60-80 people more development time is not a decision to be made lightly. Louisgod posted:Jesus Christ.. Anyone else find it funny that Monolith is delivering on their promises in spite of having a fraction of Square-Enix's manpower and resources? More importantly, I find it really refreshing to have an ambitious JRPG developer back up their game with open communication and lengthy demos rather than empty promises and radio silence.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 18:26
|
|
|
Monolith Soft being bought by Nintendo was the best thing to happen to them. Takahashi gets the budget and time to actually make the games up to snuff. It may take forever for their games to come out, but they're really great. (Well, a bunch of the DS offerings like DBZ and Super Robot Taisen were just okay.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 18:57
|
|
|
That sounds like a good place to work. "No, you may not work overtime or work on this over the weekend, but feel free to use company assets after hours. Just be sure you leave for home by nine."
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 19:02
|
|
|
Chronojam posted:That sounds like a good place to work. "No, you may not work overtime or work on this over the weekend, but feel free to use company assets after hours. Just be sure you leave for home by nine." That sounds awesome by American standards, and absolutely incredible and unheard of in Japan
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 19:32
|
|
JordanKai posted:A new issue of EDGE Magazine came out today and it includes a ton of interviews with game devs at Nintendo. Here's a choice quote from Tetsuya Takahashi regarding X: Jesus christ. That is messed up and I love them so much for it.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2014 19:58
|
|
|
Is there a decent easy-to-use crafting guide? I'm picking up a save from a year and a half ago where I just recruited Heropon and have no clue anymore what to do with all these gems!
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2014 18:39
|
|
|
Basic idea is that it's a two-step process: Step 1: Split the crystals out into cylinders by getting a lot of gentle flames and trying not to let any effects (or at least not your desired effects) get to 100% or higher. Ideally you want as high as possible without hitting 100%, so somewhere in the 70%s to 90%s is good. Step 2: Take those single-effect cylinders, pile up as many as you can without hitting 100%, then add your single biggest one to that. For example, take a 20% and a 25% and a 44% and combine them to get 89%, then add a 78% to that to get 167%. The idea is that when you do push past 100%, you push past it as high as you can. You want a lot of strong flames here, with party bonuses and maybe (they're very RNG) fevers. You're hoping for it to hit 300%, called "mega heat". It stops showing you percentages and just shows "heat" when you're in the 200%-299% range. But the closer you start to 300%, the less the gem crafting actually has to increase it in order to end up at 300%, which is why you do all that stuff with the cylinders. Sharla or Seven as shooter, and Riki as engineer, is good for step 1. Shulk or Dunban as shooter, and Reyn as engineer, is good for step 2. For step 2 you definitely want high affinity between your shooter and engineer, and it helps to have high affinity between them and the rest of the party too. For step 1, low affinity is slightly helpful, but I wouldn't give up on the other benefits of affinity just to make it a little easier to make cylinders. Vil fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Aug 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2014 19:57
|
|
|
Little Mac posted:Is there a decent easy-to-use crafting guide? I'm picking up a save from a year and a half ago where I just recruited Heropon and have no clue anymore what to do with all these gems! Here's my easy to use crafting guide: Never craft.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2014 21:59
|
|
|
I beat the game yesterday with max affinity with party and areas, all skill trees learned, Colony 6 fully rebuilt, made all the monados, collectapedia finished, and all trials complete on a single playtrhough. I hope X has a better quest tracking system because some of the quests were a real pain in the rear end to find ingame info on and nothing is ever marked on the main map like Elder Scrolls, there's around 400+ quests in the game. Also the excessive load times.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2014 22:10
|
|
|
The Taint Reaper posted:I beat the game yesterday with max affinity with party and areas, all skill trees learned, Colony 6 fully rebuilt, made all the monados, collectapedia finished, and all trials complete on a single playtrhough. Jesus, what was your final time?
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 01:23
|
|
|
RadicalR posted:Jesus, what was your final time? I did that too; it took me around 120 hours.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 12:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 21:19 |
|
|
I'm playing through the game again and am about 55 hours in and only at Sword Valley. I've been taking my time with doing all the quests and exploring and am having just as much fun as I did the first time through.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 15:36
|
|