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MTZehvor on 07 January 2016
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RolStoppable said:
MTZehvor said:

Ideally, pick a different narrative entirely. The decision to implement a story where the player is consistently told they need to hurry felt like a questionable choice to me when it was originally introduced, but something I assumed they would resolve fairly quickly. Six chapters later, I wish that was the case. All that would need to be done is just remove the timer aspect from all of it. Say that the lifehold has the power to sustain itself for years, and your problem is fixed.

With that said, even if we are dead set on keeping with this narrative exactly as is, the next step would be to simply remove the mandatory side quests from before each mission. That way, the players who want to go out and do lots of side questing before they reach the end of the game can do so, and the players who want to get immersed in the game and play as if they were in the story themselves can do so as well.

But, even if we're tied to mandatory side quests for some other arbitrary reason, have all of the sidequests be at least tangentally related to searching for the lifehold. Change them from "finding someone's cat" or "helping some guy get a date" to "help test new software that will expedite the process of finding the lifehold." Some of the affinity missions do this well and I can see how they're related, such as the probe placement. Others, however...don't.

1. The Ganglion are searching the lifehold too, with the goal of destroying it; XCX's narrative has two reasons that call for urgency. Say that the lifehold has the power to sustain itself for years, then as the player you'll wonder why you should even bother. That isn't a strong narrative.

2. If the game were left as it is, but with the mandatory sidequests removed, players would have a hard time to immerse themselves because the actual story missions are really bare bones. While you may not like it, being forced to explore by the game makes everything a more coherent whole.

3. Actually, I am not so sure that the sidequests you consider out of place are indeed out of place. Getting to know the various characters better gives the whole endeavor more of a meaning. Ideally, the people you are supposed to save are more than just a bunch of random people to you. It's not just a job, it's also about friends.

1) I'd argue it is a strong narrative still, since the Ganglion are a threat to wipe humanity out. This makes finding the lifehold important because they're afraid of real human bodies. In other words, finding the lifehold is still an important task, but one that isn't running on an ever present (story) timer. And yeah, while the Ganglion know about it, the pressure isn't quite as intense. Say something along the lines of the Ganglion don't know the maximum distance that the lifehold can function at, so their search will take far longer to find it, as opposed to humanity which has less ground to cover.

There doesn't need to be a huge sense of urgency for there to be a compelling narrative; in fact, I'd argue that in a game based around exploration to the degree that Xenoblade is, it's far better off with a relatively low pressure plot.

2) I think we're using different definitions of the word "immersion" here. It sounds more like you're saying that the player would miss out on a lot of the game if they didn't do side missions, which I'd agree with, but A: that should reasonably be the players' choice to make anyway, B: they have the ability to explore as much as they want in the post game, and C: there's already a high degree of exploration required of the player to simply reach the locations for the story points. Add in the fact that there's at least two story missions per area and an incentive to place probes that comes from the additional money, resources, and fast travel points, and you're already taking in quite a bit of what the game has to offer.

3) When I say, out of place, what I simply mean is that they are not tasks you would expect what is the purportedly most skilled Blade team who's tasked with saving humanity in a limited window of time to perform. It'd be like asking Seal Team Six to go water the White House's lawn before they head off to take down Osama bin Ladin.