Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bae Blades

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bae Blades

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

IcePhoenix posted:

Selling works as well. Buy some gold cylinders, go salvage with them at dock #2 (the place you were at when you got to the continent for the first time), turn in everything at the salavge trader for 35k+ a pop, repeat until dev 5

This does it fast, I've had Mor Ardain at level 5 for about 60 hours of my 80 hour game time.

The thing is that just raising the dev level doesn't work. You'll also need to raise it in Tantal and Gormott to get the merc missions that you need to finish off the shops. The game doesn't explain this brilliantly and definitely gives the impression that all you need is the Dev level and nothing else.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 18:28

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 08:00

Pierson: Oct 31, 2004; College Slice

Just put Overdrive Boosters in the shops you dumb fuckin' game.

Make them cost ten million gold if you want and need dev level five, just do it and I'll give you fifty more hours and get your season pass.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 18:32

Amppelix: Aug 6, 2010

I mean, you can get the expansion pass... for three overdrives! That's one per ten bucks!

# ? Jan 11, 2018 18:49

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

Make them a merc reward. Make it take an hour and need Strength 35+ or whatever.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 18:51

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005; Can't post for 5 hours!

Reiterpallasch posted:

It's not a great niche, but it is a niche, which is more than the really dreadful tanks (hi, Perceval!) can say.

I saw people online talking about Perceval being really good, and I can't for the life of me figure out why from looking at his skills. He seems based around killing adds, but I feel like you'd normally want to seal a boss's reinforcements (if they have reinforcements to begin with; if they don't it seems like he just kinda sucks).

Taear posted:

Because Nia has Perceval for me I'd never used him until just recently and I was super surprised to see that he was a Tank. I'd never realised! It just doesn't seem to fit him at all.

He has a katana. All blades with a particular weapon are the same class. It seems like this should be really obvious by the time you've opened more than a handful of cores (or from just looking at a character's weapon skills).

PJOmega posted:

The accents definitely threw me, but I was glad for them after a short while.

The voice direction was a notable weak point. Between awkward pauses and flat emotions there were very few scenes that didn't make me stop at least once and wonder what went wrong in the recording booth.

Yeah, my issue isn't with the accents so much as just awkward timing and the tone feeling vaguely "off" a lot of the time.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 19:34

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

Ytlaya posted:

He has a katana. All blades with a particular weapon are the same class. It seems like this should be really obvious by the time you've opened more than a handful of cores (or from just looking at a character's weapon skills).

I opened him absolutely ages ago and all I ever do is send him on merc missions. I never notice the weapon when I'm doing that unless it specifically calls attention to it. (like one that says "Bitball" being needed and etc)

And honestly I hadn't noticed it until someone in this thread mentioned it. All I was looking at was "Is this a rare?" then totally ignoring it. The types of weapons didn't matter to me until much later.

Taear fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jan 11, 2018

# ? Jan 11, 2018 19:58

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

They'll add more Overdrives to the game in the next update

as a rare drop in Tiger Tiger :unsmigghh:

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:00

Gato The Elder: Apr 14, 2006; Pillbug

I don't think I've ever played a game where I was so enamored with the combat and general systems, but so repulsed by the writing and story (with the exception of Sheba, who knows exactly what's good in life)

I'm like a 100 hours into this poo poo fest, and I don't think I'm stopping anytime soon.

Do I ever get to take the story blades off of people? Dromarch is 'fine', but I'd really like the ability to switch him out for a non-water blade (to better pair with Nia's Sheba/Boreas setup).

Gato The Elder fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jan 11, 2018

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:03

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

97 Legendary blades opened yesterday and today. On #5 with 999 luck. Everytime using full boosters to hit 13 or 14 value in the respective stats. All done in front of the Mor Ardain trade guild because you can only hold 25 at a time for whatever reason.

I started off needing Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

At the end I need Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

To add insult to injury, there was a single Orb Master in the whole batch. A 2*, single tier Orb Master.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:10

SloppyDoughnuts: Apr 9, 2010; I set fire to the rain watched it pour as I touched your face

Ytlaya posted:

I saw people online talking about Perceval being really good, and I can't for the life of me figure out why from looking at his skills. He seems based around killing adds, but I feel like you'd normally want to seal a boss's reinforcements (if they have reinforcements to begin with; if they don't it seems like he just kinda sucks).

It's because he's really dodgy in a lot of abusable ways.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:10

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

OMG sriracha pudding! posted:

I don't think I've ever played a game where I was so enamored with the combat and general systems, but so repulsed by the writing and story (with the exception of Sheba, who knows exactly what's good in life)

I'm like a 100 hours into this poo poo fest, and I don't think I'm stopping anytime soon.

Do I ever get to take the story blades off of people? Dromarch is 'fine', but I'd really like the ability to switch him out for a non-water blade (to better pair with Nia's Sheba/Boreas setup).

Yes. Once you hit chapter 8 you can remove all story blades if you feel like it, except for Pyra.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:11

Gato The Elder: Apr 14, 2006; Pillbug

PJOmega posted:

97 Legendary blades opened yesterday and today. On #5 with 999 luck. Everytime using full boosters to hit 13 or 14 value in the respective stats. All done in front of the Mor Ardain trade guild because you can only hold 25 at a time for whatever reason.

I started off needing Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

At the end I need Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

To add insult to injury, there was a single Orb Master in the whole batch. A 2*, single tier Orb Master.

So, is Kos-Mos better than Sheba? 'Cause I've heard that's the case, and I'm having trouble imagining it.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:13

CharlestheHammer: Jun 26, 2011; YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

PJOmega posted:

97 Legendary blades opened yesterday and today. On #5 with 999 luck. Everytime using full boosters to hit 13 or 14 value in the respective stats. All done in front of the Mor Ardain trade guild because you can only hold 25 at a time for whatever reason.

I started off needing Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

At the end I need Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

To add insult to injury, there was a single Orb Master in the whole batch. A 2*, single tier Orb Master.

I never used boosters so maybe boosters gently caress with the rare blade drop rate?

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:14

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

PJOmega posted:

97 Legendary blades opened yesterday and today. On #5 with 999 luck. Everytime using full boosters to hit 13 or 14 value in the respective stats. All done in front of the Mor Ardain trade guild because you can only hold 25 at a time for whatever reason.

I started off needing Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

At the end I need Kos-Mos & Dahlia.

To add insult to injury, there was a single Orb Master in the whole batch. A 2*, single tier Orb Master.

sounds about right

FWIW I only got a single rare blade from the dozens of legendary cores I opened. The rest were from rare and common cores

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:14

Evil Fluffy: Jul 13, 2009; Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.

U-DO Burger posted:

They'll add more Overdrives to the game in the next update

as a rare drop in Tiger Tiger

Would still be less soul crushing than the current means of farming them.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:15

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

CharlestheHammer posted:

I never used boosters so maybe boosters gently caress with the rare blade drop rate?

All my rares I've been using boosters for.
Which I know is totally meaningless. Maybe if you specifically use Justice (for Light) boosters and whichever one is good for Ice?

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:16

CharlestheHammer: Jun 26, 2011; YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

Taear posted:

All my rares I've been using boosters for.
Which I know is totally meaningless. Maybe if you specifically use Justice (for Light) boosters and whichever one is good for Ice?

Yeah but I got all my rare blades in significantly quicker than like everyone here.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:19

The Sean: Apr 17, 2005; Am I handsome now?

I posted a few days ago about not being able to defeat Akhos/Malos at the end of Ch3. I got some decent advice but I still can't win. I'm extremely irritated. I went around doing other stuff for a while and grinding some levels. I found a shop that sold anti-shackle stuff so I'm less affected by that. I switched to Nia so I could control the healing on my own. I even practiced the chain attacks and started pulling them off for the first time pretty consistently.

My hurdles still: I can't get my other two characters to attack Akhos. I know the other dude has taunt but even so once they target Malos I can't get them back; I'm aware that switching targets is R+A or Y but my controlled character is the only one that listens to my command. Chain attacks don't even come up so I can't get to stage three; I think this is because dudes keep dyin'.

I don't have any way to record or stream, but could someone help me out please? I can't believe how long this is taking me. Maybe I don't have enough skills unlocked on characters/blades?

In any case, this game reminds me of FFXV last year. Some things are awesome and keep my attention and plenty of other design decisions are terrible/unexplainable but I keep playing.

In return for my whining, I've gathered some posts that would be helpful for the OP.

Zoran posted:

Yeah, you haven�t actually reached the point where all the essential mechanics are open to you. It's actually impossible for any of your drivers to acquire anything with Smash (and therefore impossible to complete a full Break → Topple → Launch → Smash �driver combo� for tons of damage and extra loot) until partway into the next chapter.

That said, Cunning Saggie is indeed a unique monster, and you do have enough of the game's tools now so that your strategy for dealing with unique enemies and bosses should be different than it was before. In particular, you're looking to set up a chain attack with multiple rounds�one where you break one element orb each round and keep earning higher and higher damage bonuses with stronger and stronger specials.

Breaking one single solitary orb in a chain attack is trivial. Each of your drivers will do at least one damage to the orb, and you have three drivers, so you�ll do at least three damage and will break it. But breaking just one orb isn�t really good enough for all these boss enemies, and at this point you should shoot to break two orbs and get three full rounds in.

Right now, reliable three-round chain attacks require exactly two orbs (not more). You need to carry not only two blades of the right elements to finish the blade combos but also two blades of the corresponding opposite element. Then in round one you hit the first orb with its opposite, you hit the second orb with its opposite, and then it doesn�t matter what the third driver hits because they�ll break either one. The reason you don�t necessarily want more than two orbs is this last part�the third driver's attack chooses an orb at random unless targeting the opposite element, and you might hit the undamaged one and fail to break anything.

Right now, the blades you�re guaranteed to have are:

Rex: Pyra (fire) + Rex's generic wind knuckles

Nia: Dromarch (water)

Tora: Poppi (earth)

Vandham: Roc (wind)

The obvious choice for one elemental orb to set up is Fire, because it's easy to do with Fire-Water-Fire and because Dromarch can target the Fire orb with Water. The trouble is the second orb. The only opposing pair here is Fire and Water, and it's really difficult with this setup to build a Water orb because the only combo you have that ends in Water is Water-Water-Water. So you should look at whatever other blades you have right now, even your common ones. Maybe Rex has a decent Water blade himself (a water axe is particularly nice here for eventual driver combos). Or if Nia has an Ice blade, you might do Water-Earth-Wind and break the Wind orb with Ice. In my case, Rex had Agate (an earth axe) and Nia had Kora (electric knuckles), so I was able to do either Earth-Earth-Electric or Earth-Fire-Earth fairly comfortably.

I would not recommend watching any streamers for combat advice except maybe for the speedrunners. The people who are streaming their casual playthroughs are almost universally terrible at this game. There's even a series of YouTube videos showcasing each rare blade where almost every build shown off by that guy is really bad.

Aithon posted:

Use arts/special restore pouch items. Just cram sweets into your face all the time. That's the big one, having arts regenerate with time instead of just with attacks speeds your actions up a LOT. If you picked up any pouch expansions, just use them, there's enough for all party members to use one.

Also unlock the "art equipped under button is charged at the start of the battle" skills.

You can also do the cancelling trick by walking a tiny bit right after the first hit of your combo to attack much faster and recharge arts quicker, but if you use pouch items you probably won't need to.

For me, it balanced out when I started gaining more levels and retreading areas, because non-unique enemies stop aggroing pretty quickly when you're stronger than they are. An old school jRPG will throw you into ten thousand battles with enemies that can't do anything to you, in Xenoblade you'll just be able to run past anything that isn't at least a marginally interesting fight.

U-DO Burger posted:

The full burst gauge replaces the party gauge during a chain attack, and it fills up depending on how many orbs you smash in a round. Smash one and it fills up 20% (so destroying five in five rounds will trigger the FB). The second orb you smash in a round fills the gauge by 30%, bringing the gauge to half full (so smashing two orbs each in the first two rounds will trigger a FB). IIRC if you manage to smash three orbs in a single round that will fill up the gauge to full. It's better to trigger the FB as fast as you can because it smashes all remaining orbs, and the damage multiplier is insane, like, an additional 800% per orb.

Full Bursts are absolutely incredible. I took the level 130 superboss from 60% HP to dead a mere 2/3 of the way through my full burst wityh Zenobia, and that was with only 5 orbs. I imagine it gets even more insane if you can manage it with 8.

Incomplete List of Story Blades (?)

Zoran posted:

In order of availability:

Chapter 2

Sheba (Water Ether Cannon): Buy the Inherited Core Crystal in Torigoth.

Chapter 3

Wulfric (Earth Megalance): Acquired from the Elder Arachno fought during the story. Not story-relevant, though.

Chapter 4

Vess (Electric Bitball): Meet Vess in Torigoth and run some errands for her.

Kasandra (Dark Shield Hammer): talk to Razzlydazzly in Argentum by the Maelstrom, then get a bad result salvaging near Chansagh Wastes in lower Mor Ardain. You can get there from the back side by crossing the field of level 80 dinosaurs, or you can retrieve the gate key from the Fief of Forgetfulness, which you visit during Vess's quest.

Chapter 5

Praxis (Water Megalance): Buy the "Core Crystal Hunters" tip from an informant, then go to the back alley in Torigoth where you first met M�rag.

Chapter 6

Herald (Electric Ether Cannon): Break the wall in the Theospiti Temple Ruins in Theosoir and make 100 offerings at the altar.

Chapter 7

Theory (Ice Chroma Katana): Advance Praxis's affinity chart to tier 4, then go to the Royal Guard Barracks in Fonsa Myma.

edit: I lose

On missable content:

RazzleDazzleHour posted:

There's a couple of merc missions, I think three, that are technically missable but give no specific rewards and have no side-story components to go with them so they're literally just for the sake of it if you really really care about completion. There's only one point of no return in the game which locks you off from one specific area, but everything in the area gets relocated to somewhere else so in that sense there isn't any "real" missable content in the game. In fact, some things won't be available until you hit the point of no return, so there's more incentive to actually reach it than not. Any quests that would have taken place in the area you get locked out of relocate, and so do all the shops, which will get new associated merc missions to unlock more stock only once they relocate. The point of no return is in the middle of chapter 8, once you beat the first boss fight of the chapter and are about to enter the big dungeon, the trigger is a little ways into the dungeon.

The only thing to actually be worried about if you're worried about getting locked out of content is that once you finish chapter 6, something happens that makes the game a mega pain in the rear end and locks you out of a lot of content temporarily, so you basically have to blow through the entirety of chapter 7 and half of chapter 8 in order to fix it. So, if you're doing side content, do it before the end of chapter six if you don't feel like doing 5+ hours of story all in a row. To give you a hint of where chapter 6 ends without spoiling anything: basically something Bad will happen and you'll be told you have three hours to fix it. Going where the game tells you to go at that point will end the chapter, so totally ignore the pretend time limit and go hog wild.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:20

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

The Sean posted:

My hurdles still: I can't get my other two characters to attack Akhos. I know the other dude has taunt but even so once they target Malos I can't get them back; I'm aware that switching targets is R+A or Y but my controlled character is the only one that listens to my command. Chain attacks don't even come up so I can't get to stage three; I think this is because dudes keep dyin'.

Press left on the D-pad to make your party members target the enemy you are currently targeting

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:22

IcePhoenix: Sep 18, 2005; Take me to your Shida

The Sean posted:

I posted a few days ago about not being able to defeat Akhos/Malos at the end of Ch3. I got some decent advice but I still can't win. I'm extremely irritated. I went around doing other stuff for a while and grinding some levels. I found a shop that sold anti-shackle stuff so I'm less affected by that. I switched to Nia so I could control the healing on my own. I even practiced the chain attacks and started pulling them off for the first time pretty consistently.

My hurdles still: I can't get my other two characters to attack Akhos. I know the other dude has taunt but even so once they target Malos I can't get them back; I'm aware that switching targets is R+A or Y but my controlled character is the only one that listens to my command. Chain attacks don't even come up so I can't get to stage three; I think this is because dudes keep dyin'.

Hit left on the DPad to tell the AI to focus on your target. I think the game mentions it as a throwaway line when it teaches you how to lure and this is basically the first time it's really necessary so I'm not shocked you don't remember.

If they are still affected by taunt it won't work, obv, but keep pushing it and they'll switch when they're able.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:22

Fritzler: Sep 5, 2007

The Sean posted:

I posted a few days ago about not being able to defeat Akhos/Malos at the end of Ch3. I got some decent advice but I still can't win. I'm extremely irritated. I went around doing other stuff for a while and grinding some levels. I found a shop that sold anti-shackle stuff so I'm less affected by that. I switched to Nia so I could control the healing on my own. I even practiced the chain attacks and started pulling them off for the first time pretty consistently.

My hurdles still: I can't get my other two characters to attack Akhos. I know the other dude has taunt but even so once they target Malos I can't get them back; I'm aware that switching targets is R+A or Y but my controlled character is the only one that listens to my command. Chain attacks don't even come up so I can't get to stage three; I think this is because dudes keep dyin'.

I don't have any way to record or stream, but could someone help me out please? I can't believe how long this is taking me. Maybe I don't have enough skills unlocked on characters/blades?

so the left dpad button (next to your blade switching) makes your teammates target whoever you targeted. Maybe that will help?

Edit: beaten twice

# ? Jan 11, 2018 20:28

Louisgod: Sep 25, 2003; Always Stupid; Bread Liar

God drat the music is so loving good in this game. I'm starting to feel it's better than XC1's soundtrack.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:03

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

Louisgod posted:

God drat the music is so loving good in this game. I'm starting to feel it's better than XC1's soundtrack.

I really enjoy the Indol and Tantal music. I think it's because it has lyrics, but it's great.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:07

Louisgod: Sep 25, 2003; Always Stupid; Bread Liar

Taear posted:

I really enjoy the Indol and Tantal music. I think it's because it has lyrics, but it's great.

I haven't even gotten that far yet but Gormott and Mor Ardain's overworld music is brilliantly conducted. Like the first soundtrack, putting on headphones makes you appreciate it even more as you pick up on the more muted nuances of the instruments they used.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:09

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

Louisgod posted:

I haven't even gotten that far yet but Gormott and Mor Ardain's overworld music is brilliantly conducted. Like the first soundtrack, putting on headphones makes you appreciate it even more as you pick up on the more muted nuances of the instruments they used.

Gormott is like Gaur Plains 2.0, and Mor Ardain's theme is like Wild Arms. So loving good.

The Indol and Tantal town themes are done by Mitsuda in his religious choral style. Look forward to those, they own so much

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:14

Silver Falcon: Dec 5, 2005; Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and barbecue your own drumsticks!

Louisgod posted:

I haven't even gotten that far yet but Gormott and Mor Ardain's overworld music is brilliantly conducted. Like the first soundtrack, putting on headphones makes you appreciate it even more as you pick up on the more muted nuances of the instruments they used.

Gormott is Gaur Plains as gently caress and I love it.

The Mor Ardain music vaguely reminds me of Bloody Tears from Castlevania, and I don't know why. Both are super good! Sure beats the pants of the music from XCX, which barring a few exceptions I couldn't stand.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:29

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005; Can't post for 5 hours!

CharlestheHammer posted:

I never used boosters so maybe boosters gently caress with the rare blade drop rate?

I've mentioned this a couple times before, but I'm basically certain that boosters boost the average star rating of commons you pull for their respective elements. The "boosters increase chance of X element" theory doesn't really make sense once you take into account the existence of characters' permanent idea levels. Theoretically once you maxed your idea levels, it would no longer be possible to increase your chance of getting a particular element blade (if this were true).

I have also all-but-confirmed that high idea levels = high common star ratings. My Five with ~10-11 base idea for all ideas almost always pulls 3* commons, while my other party members with only ~4-5 of each idea average 2* pulls. Five virtually never pulls 1* commons anymore.

Louisgod posted:

God drat the music is so loving good in this game. I'm starting to feel it's better than XC1's soundtrack.

Counterattack (the "dramatic stuff happening during a cutscene" theme) > Engage the Enemy IMO. Also the battle theme when you fight Rosa owns.

None of the boss battle themes are quite as good as You Will Know Our Names, though. They're still really good, though, and I think there are more of them than there were in XC1.

Silver Falcon posted:

The Mor Ardain music vaguely reminds me of Bloody Tears from Castlevania, and I don't know why. Both are super good! Sure beats the pants of the music from XCX, which barring a few exceptions I couldn't stand.

Yeah, I hated most of XCX's music. Sawano's music is okay for anime, but it's all very, very samey and doesn't work well in a video game. Once you've heard one Sawano soundtrack, you've basically heard them all.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jan 11, 2018

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:49

IcePhoenix: Sep 18, 2005; Take me to your Shida

Ytlaya posted:

I've mentioned this a couple times before, but I'm basically certain that boosters boost the average star rating of commons you pull for their respective elements. The "boosters increase chance of X element" theory doesn't really make sense once you take into account the existence of characters' permanent idea levels. Theoretically once you maxed your idea levels, it would no longer be possible to increase your chance of getting a particular element blade (if this were true).

Your theory falls apart if there is an additional bonus when you go past idea level 10, as characters max out at 10 (and it can be increased to 15 with boosters)

quote:

Counterattack (the "dramatic stuff happening during a cutscene" theme) > Engage the Enemy IMO. Also the battle theme when you fight Rosa owns.

Counterattack is super good

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:55

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

Ytlaya posted:

Yeah, I hated most of XCX's music. Sawano's music is okay for anime, but it's all very, very samey and doesn't work well in a video game. Once you've heard one Sawano soundtrack, you've basically heard them all.

I really enjoyed the XCX ones with the exceptions of the times it's screaming out over a cutscene.
But I can't really hear music unless it has lyrics. If you played me the themes of anywhere without lyrics in I wouldn't recognise it at all. So when a game uses them it's a huge novelty to me.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:56

Barudak: May 7, 2007

Ive never gotten a rare blade with a booster so I stopped using them.

Holy poo poo 97 legendary cores and no rares what is wrong with this game.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:56

RazzleDazzleHour: Mar 31, 2016

Gormott and Mor Ardain having the best themes checks out because they're also the best areas in the game. XCX had forgettable music with the exception of NLA night theme which is so heckin dope.

Also I only ever used boosters to get them out of my inventory because that's another series of inputs that eat up time when you need to open 50+ cores. I find it interesting that out of every rare blade you could "randomly" pull, someone else had their last two unobtained blades be Dahlia and KOS-MOS also. I didn't have a problem with the rare blade drop rate until I got into like chapter 8 where it just slowed to a crawl, and now in the postgame it took me 150+ rare/legendary cores to pull KOSMOS. Thankfully now that I have Five's goofy ether cannon build, a maxed out Poppi, and an essentially unkillable Rex, I'm running out of things I feel motivated to do and might finally play something else.

Maybe.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:39

Chronojam: Feb 20, 2006; This is me on vacation in Amsterdam
Never be afraid of being yourself!

I got kosmos on an unboosted random crystal right after getting the fifth party member. My girlfriend pulled Dahlia as her third rare back in gormott, right after Nim.

I'm actually sitting on ninety common crystals at chapter 8 that I kind of am not looking forward to using, and instead pulled out Nim on a rare. None of my legendary crystals have ever gotten anything beyond a common guy.

Basically there's no rhyme or reason and we won't know until some homebrew guy finds the math in like two years.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:46

Count Bleck: Apr 5, 2010; DISPEL MAGIC!

I just finished the game.

It ended exactly how I thought it would and did the Sad Thing That Happens followed by The Undoing of The Sad Thing That Happens every jrpg has a habit of doing and I still loved it.

I never got my Zenobia past level 2 trust and she was still busted as gently caress.

Also Poppi QTPie is a dumb blade, that allows Tora to be a tank that shits damage while also being able to single-handedly do a Driver Combo alone. It's the best.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:47

Amppelix: Aug 6, 2010

NG+ is coming out this month still! There's a hundred hours more fun to be had!

Also, no disrespecting Tantal's theme, aka the best song in the game. I had that on loop for a pretty long time yesterday while shopping and I did not get tired of it one bit.

For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWkz0DF-3g8

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:49

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

RazzleDazzleHour posted:

Gormott and Mor Ardain having the best themes checks out because they're also the best areas in the game. XCX had forgettable music with the exception of NLA night theme which is so heckin dope.

I thought I was the only one who loved the hell out of the NLA theme :hfive:

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:50

U-DO Burger: Nov 12, 2007

yeah Tantal has some of the best music, including the theme Nintendo used to make their sweet music video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv5CifO4KtA

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:52

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

Barudak posted:

Ive never gotten a rare blade with a booster so I stopped using them.

Holy poo poo 97 legendary cores and no rares what is wrong with this game.

I just want the quests at this point. I haven't had a problem with the superbosses so far, but all of the blades still have gold chip weapons because I keep having to go back and get more cores.

I want to love this game. I want to recommend it to others. But I cannot. It has too many utterly bizarre choices of content gated behind randomness that I'd feel bad. And it isn't only equipment. I'd be annoyed by 1/255 equip drops in TYOOL 2017/18 but whatever. This is story content.

Especially when there are things like The World Ends With You Remastered coming out on the Switch on the horizon.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:56

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

Amppelix posted:

NG+ is coming out this month still! There's a hundred hours more fun to be had!

Also, no disrespecting Tantal's theme, aka the best song in the game. I had that on loop for a pretty long time yesterday while shopping and I did not get tired of it one bit.

For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWkz0DF-3g8

Have they announced if blades and their trust levels will carry over? Because if you have to go through the gashapon and trust grind again there's no way I'll even consider it.

# ? Jan 11, 2018 22:57

Meowywitch: Jan 14, 2010

I hope it doesn't take Nin long to start selling the soundtrack

# ? Jan 11, 2018 23:16

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 08:00

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005; Can't post for 5 hours!

Amppelix posted:

NG+ is coming out this month still! There's a hundred hours more fun to be had!

Will it have the extra Torna blades? I've been ignoring post-game content since I'd rather do that stuff with a NG+ if NG+ is required to use the Torna blades.

Also, will it have higher difficulty? It would be fun to play with access to all previously unlocked blades but a higher difficulty to make up for it. A lot of the earlier story content isn't that fun gameplay-wise, since it doesn't take advantage of a lot of the game's neater mechanics (like blade switching, combos, chain attacks, etc).

edit: Generally speaking, I never enjoy NG+ if there isn't a correspondingly higher difficulty; it just isn't fun effortlessly destroying everything. I had this issue with P5 NG+, where I had to self-limit myself from checking higher level personas out of the compendium.

IcePhoenix posted:

Your theory falls apart if there is an additional bonus when you go past idea level 10, as characters max out at 10 (and it can be increased to 15 with boosters)

No, even then it still doesn't make sense, because it would mean that boosters would give a smaller bonus as your ideas leveled up (while still being limited to only using 5 at once). a 15/10/10/10 spread would give less of a relative bonus to getting the elements associated with the 15 than a 5/1/1/1 spread would for the 5.

Characters having their own ideas that level up when you do things simply doesn't jive with the idea that boosters - which increase idea levels - increase your chance of getting blades of that element. Meanwhile, it's all-but-confirmed that idea levels do influence star rating of commons.

Taear posted:

But I can't really hear music unless it has lyrics. If you played me the themes of anywhere without lyrics in I wouldn't recognise it at all. So when a game uses them it's a huge novelty to me.

That is genuinely strange, and I don't mean that as an insult or negative thing; it's legitimately something I don't think I've ever heard of before.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 11, 2018

# ? Jan 11, 2018 23:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bae Blades

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