Official Xenoblade thread- Opinions, thoughts and questions inside! Can it hit 1mil in sales next year? Sequel coming for Wii U???

[Mr Khan]

RolStoppable said:

Mr Khan said:
Hmm... Puzzling over whether the bait-and-switch with Fiora amounts to bad storytelling, or good storytelling. I suppose the fact that i have to think about it says something for it, though... Otherwise i'm optimistic that i have something good ahead, the chain attacks seem to make for some exciting combat, and i do like how lenient the game is on the matter of dying

As seems to be all-too-common in RPGs, is there anything i should be doing early in the game that will, in hindsight, make the later game much much easier?

Avoid doing sidequests that were given to you by named NPCs, because they net you EXP.

EXP, tech points and skill points you gain from enemies scale to your level. By doing sidequests that reward you with EXP you quickly level up which will make the game easier in the early stages of the game, also because of equipment rewards. But on the flipside you won't amass many tech points and skill points by fighting what gets in your way in the storyline. Thus your abilities and skills may end up being underdeveloped towards the end of the game. Nothing dramatic, it's only going to hit you hard if you want to tackle all the optional content.

There's no harm in accepting all sidequests you come across. The ones you get from unnamed NPCs you can complete right away, because they only award you with money. The ones you get from named NPCs you can also complete in the sense that you slaughter requested monsters or collect materials dropped by monsters. The actual completion only triggers if you speak to the named NPC again.

All of the above is not that important, just keep in mind that the difficulty of the game is largely in your own hands. If you want to be overpowered, do all sidequests as soon as possible. If you want more challenge, stay clear of sidequests.

One aspect that is important is the affinity between your party members which allows you to link more skills (very important) and also raises the probability of longer chain attacks. During battles, you are sometimes prompted to press B when one character dodges an enemy attack or something. Hitting it perfectly when for example Reyn dodges in a party with Shulk and Sharla will net you three hearts between Reyn and Shulk and three hearts between Reyn and Sharla. Pressing B a little too late reduces these values to one heart. Activating a chain attack with the same party will reward you with one heart between Shulk and Reyn, Shulk and Sharla, Reyn and Sharla. For this reason I recommend to activate chain attacks even it is completely unnecessary (like right before the end of a battle you would win anyway). This stuff will add up over time.

Also, when you accept and complete sidequests from named NPCs, your active party will talk to each other and the leader will always be among the two characters that receive hearts. So if you have a character that lags behind in affinity, put him/her in the lead of your party when talking to named NPCs.

How do i measure affinity? Haven't quite figured out all the menu functions yet...