Ludger does a pretty mean in response to Elle...

The game also explains it, but here's my lowdown on jobs in this game. First, all jobs fall into three specific categories: any job with a green exclamation point, these jobs usually have a specific cutscene (never voiced, from what I recall, and require certain people to be in the party to complete) or event attached to them for completing them, any job with a monster's head, simple bounty hunting, and any job with a blue bag is a gathering quest for specific item(s).

However, you cannot accept up to five jobs willy-nilly. First you need to see if you have the required level to take it. For example, Jolyne's Plea - Part 1 requires you to be at Wooden Badge level to accept / complete it. That's where the "Title" part comes in. Completing jobs gives you Merit Points (indicated in the job details box), and when you level up, you can accept higher-level jobs.

Now, while generic jobs (in white) cycle in and out, depending on how many you complete (and they refresh occasionally), jobs in the red color are special, and, I believe, will never go away until you complete them. For now, let's accept this job, Percise Measurement (1 Fossilized Shell), You On an Adventure? (defeat two Alest Chirpees), Grandfather Crab (1 Land Crab), and Defeat Alest Plant (defeat 3 of them, actually). Time to hit the bricks. Everything you need to complete all five can be found in the Alest Highroad, which is the only exit to Duval that we can take right now).



Yeah, so a lot of Xillia 2's locations are just trails like this that lead from one distinctive town to the next (in this case, from Duval to Trigleph).



I will probably include post-battle conversations as videos in the future. A lot of them are just too amusing not to include (in this case, it's Elle complimenting Jude's ability to dodge enemy attacks with Snap Pivots, before asking him rapid-fire questions about his abilities, and Jude concluding that Elle's questions seem to be the one thing he can't dodge).



Once you've completed a job (in this case, it's the crab one), you'll get this pop-up, which is the only indication I believe that you've completed a job. It's to this game's detriment, quite honestly, that you can't check the status of jobs from the menu, or, if you can, it's very well-hidden.

Oh, and the sparkle indicates a random material pick-up you can get for free. Only materials monsters in the area you're fighting drop, however.



Whereas this sparkle indicates Elemental Ores you can get. You'll get anywhere from 2-20 in this part of the game. Maybe it increases further into the game, can't remember.

And for bags someone very rudely left lying around everywhere, you'll get any number of basic consumables / cooking items (like, this one contained a Sandwich. I'll explain how cooking works a bit later), or small amounts of gald.



Skills are learned in the exact same way as artes, but instead of new moves, you buff your characters / change their abilities in any number of ways. Skills are divided into three categories: Parameter (indicated by a yellow arrow), Action (indicated by an orange man), or Linked (indicated by a purple heart). We don't have any of the third category at the moment, but the time will come, yes.



Character status screens contain all the typical information you might expect from a status screen, but there is one special thing with Ludger: checking the affection level of the entire party at a glance. Jude's almost at level 1, as you can see, with a maximum level (read: get all the benefits of that character's affection level), being a very distant dream at the moment).



Every now and then, a random monster in the field will be designated as a "Dangerous Monster" or something and be worth considerably more gald and experience for defeating. It's just the parameters, though, so Alest Plants, dangerous or no, are still first-rate chumps.



And, in many cases, there will be little tunnels on sides of the map. Be sure to comb trail areas like this from top to bottom, as caves usually have a nice little bonus in them.



Obviously, despite what this guy says, this guy is here to make sure the player can't sequence break. Funnily enough, there's actually not an invisible wall where these guys are. You can walk all the way past these guys to the Trigleph border, but you can't actually enter it. Anyway, whatever jobs you took on, between enemies and pickups, you should have completed most of them. If not, just do a little more grinding, and return to Duval.



I'm going to count this as a skit, but it activates under a certain condition: get Jude's affection to level one. So, how did I do this, without any choices to increase his affection since that first skit in Trigleph? Well, when you perform linked artes with a certain character, their affection level goes up by a minute amount, which is what finally put Jude up to level one for me.

Jude gives you a skill book that unlocks Assault Step, which, if turned on, lets a character's front step do a little damage and cause the enemy to flinch, which is pretty good for starting a combo off on, especially since you don't have much else to spend SP (Skill Points) on right now.



Of course, if you already have all the items and it's a gathering quest, you can turn in gathering quests as soon as you see them on the board.



Once you have enough money for a debt payment, Nova will automatically call you up and prompt you for payment. You don't have to pay her at first, but you can't stockpile too much money before she'll call you, and you can't back out until you do pay her. You can also call her up any time you want by pressing L2. You can pay in one lump sum or spread out, but it's generally better to pay her all at once.



After this first payment, you can either continue the story, or continue paying more of your debt. There's really no point in doing the latter at this point in the story, but, if you do pay more than the required debt (you can earn extra money in-between the debt repayment and continuing the story), you can earn extra goodies (costumes and special consumables and such) that will be sent to Ludger's apartment's mailbox, where you can pick them up.

But, don't worry. There is absolutely no chance of you missing out on extras because you didn't pay enough at a certain point in the game, so don't worry about that at all. Anyway, the much smarter thing to do right now is head back to Trigleph via Duval Station.



There is one more job we can complete, but you can't from the job board. You need to get something from this girl before it counts.

Sylphid fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Mar 31, 2016

Sindai fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Mar 31, 2016

Sylphid fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Apr 6, 2016

Junpei fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Apr 12, 2016

Sylphid fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 12, 2016