[Xenoblade Chronicles] is a pretty good game. Good enough to get a Wii U sequel.

Artereis · April 2012

So out of curiosity, has anyone who ordered straight from Nintendo received their copy yet? What state was it delivered to?

akajaybay · April 2012

So I spent like close to two hours making gems last night since I maxxed out my components inventory.
Probably shouldnt put so much thought and time into the rank 1 stuff, but I figure it was a good learning experience for later.
I havent been able to find a tutorial or anything that specifically says what some of the stats do. Like Ether. I'm going to assume it increases the effectiveness of ether based arts but I was surprised there wasn't something more spelled out. Is anyone's auto attack ether based? Sharla's auto still seems to go up with +Str gems.

Also some 4 star townsfolk convo, post ether mine stuff.

Spoiler:

Xenogears of Bore · April 2012

Yes, anything magic based is boosted by Ether up/the Ether stat. Heals, magic attacks, etc. It's color code is...purple? or blue? One of those two.

Vyolynce · April 2012

I'm not sure if Ether has its own color code; aren't Ether arts indicated by a horizontal bar, like a striped billiards ball?

Lanrutcon · April 2012

Ether is a straight addition to magic. So +150 to your ether stat would count as +150 hp healed with a cure spell, for example. Note: ether is added before skills are brought into the calculation (this goes for almost all the stats, as I understand it).

Huggles · April 2012

akajaybay wrote: »

Also some 4 star townsfolk convo, post ether mine stuff.

Spoiler:

I talked to a woman in Colony 9 whose watch I had fixed earlier, she goes on to talk about her dad Xorn who died in the previous years sword valley battle. I'd just got done fighting the faced Mechon whose name is Xorn. DUN DUN DUN

Spoiler:

Also Vyolynce is correct, the horizontal bar denotes an ether attack. The colours are there for the purpose of chain attack combo colour matching for super-crazy damage multipliers.

Warlock82 · April 2012

Speaking of gem making. Is there any advice on what the best combos of people are? I am guessing I should always be picking people with high affinity to each other for the extra turns, but honestly I can't really tell what I should be shooting for here. I haven't noticed a "high chance of Fever" with Shulk despite what it says. In fact, the strength of the flame seems to be super random so it's not like I can even plan for anything. It's all really weird.

Huggles · April 2012

Best advice is to wait until you start getting lv4 gems, it's really not worth it before.

Warlock82 · April 2012

Huggles wrote: »

Best advice is to wait until you start getting lv4 gems, it's really not worth it before.

Well if I don't do it I am running out of bag space. Honestly inventory has been super annoying because I don't know what is safe to sell

GnomeTank · April 2012

In reference to our conversation from the last page, it does seem a little strange that Monolith didn't put mid-battle leader switching in to the game. I guess they thought people might abuse it and game the AI? I don't know.

The AI is pretty good, but any AI without easy switch-to capability, or without some kind of visual logic system like FF12's gambits, is going to eventually show cracks...it can't read my mind and doesn't always know when I want to pull something off.

Huggles · April 2012

You can sell gems/crystals/cylinders with impunity. It's collectibles and mob drops that can sometimes catch you out for a later quest. Most of these give you a vision when you first get them, and an exclanation mark in your inventory, except for (early-midgame spoilers)

Spoiler:

Xenogears of Bore · April 2012

Vyolynce wrote: »

I'm not sure if Ether has its own color code; aren't Ether arts indicated by a horizontal bar, like a striped billiards ball?

Yeah, damn it, I knew there was a simple answer that I had forgotten. Ether just plain isn't that important until a certain character shows up.

akajaybay · April 2012

I used Shulk/Reyn for trying to punch gems up to the next rank (getting the stat to 200) since they had maxxed affinity and Shulk could trigger the Fever runs.
best to have just one or a couple stats in the mix. then when I wanted to try and get stuff boosted closer to 80-90 but not turn into a ge I used Sharla/Shulk.
Sharla would get alot of gentle flames which would increase how many canisters you could pull back out. So I could have a bunch of stuff in there all creep up just a bit and then keep them all as canisters for Shulk/Reyn to mess with.

I spent way too much time on it probably. But now I'm back down to 1 page each of rank 1 and rank 2 ingredients. And its mostly concentrated stuff.
Interesting to see some of the rarer stats in there. I'm curious just how stealthy you could make someone with the Ground enemy avoidance stuff.

Xenogears of Bore · April 2012

Full ground cloak is like 100% camo in Snake Eater. You basically have to bump into them.

It can actually be pretty useful if you want to sneak around some high level monsters.

Warlock82 · April 2012

Huggles wrote: »

You can sell gems/crystals/cylinders with impunity. It's collectibles and mob drops that can sometimes catch you out for a later quest. Most of these give you a vision when you first get them, and an exclanation mark in your inventory, except for (early-midgame spoilers)

Spoiler:

Rebuilding colony 6, in which case you don't get the warning.

Yeah I kind of know that, but I just figured might as well make gems rather than sell the mats to make them off randomly.

It's the other crap that I'm really not sure about. I started selling stuff that shows up at the back of the list for sale price/order acquired since I figure that is mostly starter area stuff I won't need. But it's hard to tell. I've run out of room a few times now

Lanrutcon · April 2012

All my hours of gem making paid off eventually. Mhuhahahaha!

Huggles · April 2012

That's sickening.

And awesome.

captaink · April 2012

50% Haste and 50% Double attack? Dear god.

Brainiac 8 · April 2012

God, this game will take forever. I don't think there has been any game on the Wii so packed with content as this one. Last Story will be a nice breather when it's released.

Joshmvii · April 2012

Is there any sort of barrier to how early you can 5 star colony 9? I keep going back and forth between wanting to do every quest and just move on, but now that I'm like 14 hours in and still haven't finished colony 9(I've been 3 stars for a little while) I figure I'm just going to try to 100% the game the first go round. It helps that one of the side quests had me kill a level 18 dude that dropped awesome weapons instead of level 8 guys or whatever, since i'm already level 22.

Chen · April 2012

It takes a while to get colony 9 to five stars, since it dries up after a while until the story picks up. You can however pick up Shulk's 4th skill tree as early as Satorl Marsh.

Joshmvii · April 2012

Thanks, so I am actually going to have to move on and come back later then. Right now, my story is at the point where I just got Sharla in my party, and I went back to colony 9 to do more quests. I've done 51 that are listed as colony 9 at last count, and am still 3 star.

captaink · April 2012

Seems like the 4th and 5th star came quicky there, but maybe I'm not remembering right.

Chen · April 2012

Going from 4 to 5 stars in colony 9 is kind of a trudge if you're completing quests whenever they open up. Shulk's quest to obtain his 4th skill tree for example requires about 4 and a half stars, which basically amounts to every quest except the one involving two little girls if you want it as early as possible.

flapjack · April 2012

I'm assuming it is, but is it safe to sell off old equipment and weapons?

captaink · April 2012

flapjack wrote: »

I'm assuming it is, but is it safe to sell off old equipment and weapons?

There's no reason to keep them, no. Weapons and armor tend to be plentiful.

Gyral · April 2012

Brainiac 8 wrote: »

God, this game will take forever. I don't think there has been any game on the Wii so packed with content as this one. Last Story will be a nice breather when it's released.

Yeah, The Last Story feels like a short story compared to Xenoblade.

Lanrutcon · April 2012

captaink wrote: »

50% Haste and 50% Double attack? Dear god.

...before skills and active abilities are factored in.

Scosglen · April 2012

I'm level ~22-23 and have been avoiding leaving the Bionis Leg for the sake of completing all of the timed quests. I feel like I'm getting a bit overleveled now and I'm wondering how big of a deal that is, because so far nothing from the main story has been in any way difficult, and the only time I die is when some super high level thing sneaks up on me.

I'm also wondering if there is any way to tell when a timed quest's deadline is. I feel like I have to do them all immediately since I have no idea how long I've got.

Vyolynce · April 2012

captaink wrote: »

flapjack wrote: »

I'm assuming it is, but is it safe to sell off old equipment and weapons?

There's no reason to keep them, no. Weapons and armor tend to be plentiful.

I've been lugging around the Scrap Driver Shulk made for Reyn as a memento, but everything else gets sold pretty quick.

RainbowDespair · April 2012

Artereis wrote: »

So out of curiosity, has anyone who ordered straight from Nintendo received their copy yet? What state was it delivered to?

Just checked the post office. Still not here. I'm in California.

Warlock82 · April 2012

I am really glad GameStop decided to offer that art book. Would have never ordered from them over Nintendo otherwise. Even if they did fuck up my order and made me re-order one day before they stopped giving out the art books. At least I got the game on Saturday

maximumzero · April 2012

So right from the get-go I'm confused. The first quest I receive is some guy in the market looking for a doodad for his daught, so he asks me to get one. Where do I get one? FUCK IF I KNOW? lol.

Shenl742 · April 2012

maximumzero wrote: »

So right from the get-go I'm confused. The first quest I receive is some guy in the market looking for a doodad for his daught, so he asks me to get one. Where do I get one? FUCK IF I KNOW? lol.

Chances are it's a collectable: one of those items you can find out in the areas outside town that look like a blue twinkle on the ground

LockedOnTarget · April 2012

If the quest description doesn't say you get the item from a certain kind of monster, than yeah, it's most likely a collectable.

akajaybay · April 2012

Which you'll likely run across just playing in that area after a bit. what's nice is if you had already found one it'd have just updated then and there that you already had it. Sometimes it'll be a specific item hidden in town somewhere like someone missing their wedding ring or something. But those will show up as red ! on the minimap when you're near them. And if you find it ahead of time it'll be a red glowy object on the ground. You can just pick it up with the assumption that at some point someone is going to want it. I carried around a torn piece of paper for ages before I ran into who wanted it.

Spawnbroker · April 2012

Are collectibles totally random?

Maz- · April 2012

Spawnbroker wrote: »

Are collectibles totally random?

Not totally, no.

There are some that apparently have a higher chance to appear in certain areas or at certain times of the day..but I'm not totally convinced that that is the case.
Some are definitely rarer than others, though.

Kris_xK · April 2012

Spawnbroker wrote: »

Are collectibles totally random?

I think each node has a loot table, as in certain collectables will spawn in certain spots. I know from OCDing the first couple zones that that I generally had to go out of my way and grab some hard to reach orbs to get the final few collectables. This is purely based of off my experince tho, so ymmv.

Zephiran · April 2012

Not entirely. Certain Collectibles have set (remote or out of the way) spawn locations and certain locations have a very high frequency of Collectibles lying around, some of which may or may not be set to appear more frequently only in those locations. I think that's the most concise way of explaining it, at least.

Penny Arcade

[Xenoblade Chronicles] is a pretty good game. Good enough to get a Wii U sequel.

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