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Forums - Nintendo - Monolith Soft Boss Talks About Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Development Struggles

Nuvendil on 06 February 2018
melbye said:
Monolith has really become the best external Nintendo-developer, the game is so awesome

They are owned by Nintendo, 100%, they are not external :P



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curl-6 on 06 February 2018

Hopefully Monolith's next Switch title has all hands on deck. As good as Xenoblade 2 was it did feel a little held back by what at the time I thought was a rushed schedule but now seemed to have been a manpower shortage.

If they can get a full team of 100 and bolster that with the experience they now have with the hardware, their next game could be something truly impressive.



Nuvendil on 06 February 2018
curl-6 said:

Hopefully Monolith's next Switch title has all hands on deck. As good as Xenoblade 2 was it did feel a little held back by what at the time I thought was a rushed schedule but now seemed to have been a manpower shortage.

If they can get a full team of 100 and bolster that with the experience they now have with the hardware, their next game could be something truly impressive.

If I were to hazzard a guess, I would say the bigger stumbling block was not having the hardware in their hands for half the process.  But I don't think the vission was at all limited here, it feels whole and complete.  It's mostly polish issues, mainly technical ones.  Which the first game had as well, but that was more a case of fighting against badly aging hardware. 

And the 40 man core team wasn't by themselves, as stated, they brought in assistance.  It would be good to see what the full team can do.  But then, you have to ask if the 60 missing here are merely rank and file, say, 3d artists, programmers, etc who mostly just do the work and don't impact overall design or are there major players in that 60 man group.  



curl-6 on 06 February 2018
Nuvendil said:
curl-6 said:

Hopefully Monolith's next Switch title has all hands on deck. As good as Xenoblade 2 was it did feel a little held back by what at the time I thought was a rushed schedule but now seemed to have been a manpower shortage.

If they can get a full team of 100 and bolster that with the experience they now have with the hardware, their next game could be something truly impressive.

If I were to hazzard a guess, I would say the bigger stumbling block was not having the hardware in their hands for half the process.  But I don't think the vission was at all limited here, it feels whole and complete.  It's mostly polish issues, mainly technical ones.  Which the first game had as well, but that was more a case of fighting against badly aging hardware. 

And the 40 man core team wasn't by themselves, as stated, they brought in assistance.  It would be good to see what the full team can do.  But then, you have to ask if the 60 missing here are merely rank and file, say, 3d artists, programmers, etc who mostly just do the work and don't impact overall design or are there major players in that 60 man group.  

It definitely had the feel (or rather, the look) of a game where the devs weren't entirely comfortable with the hardware, similar to a lot of games that release early on in the lifespan of their hardware, stuff like Dead Rising 3 on Xbox One, Perfect Dark Zero on 360, Resistance Fall of Man on PS3, etc.



Nuvendil on 06 February 2018
curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

If I were to hazzard a guess, I would say the bigger stumbling block was not having the hardware in their hands for half the process.  But I don't think the vission was at all limited here, it feels whole and complete.  It's mostly polish issues, mainly technical ones.  Which the first game had as well, but that was more a case of fighting against badly aging hardware. 

And the 40 man core team wasn't by themselves, as stated, they brought in assistance.  It would be good to see what the full team can do.  But then, you have to ask if the 60 missing here are merely rank and file, say, 3d artists, programmers, etc who mostly just do the work and don't impact overall design or are there major players in that 60 man group.  

It definitely had the feel (or rather, the look) of a game where the devs weren't entirely comfortable with the hardware, similar to a lot of games that release early on in the lifespan of their hardware, stuff like Dead Rising 3 on Xbox One, Perfect Dark Zero on 360, Resistance Fall of Man on PS3, etc.

Agreed, but they caught on quick though.  It's not like a lot of games on the early 360 where the devs were tripping over themselves to figure out how to use the hardware.  More like a second year game.  And I think some of it was design miscalculations.  I think they underestimated the impact on performance they would see in portable and failed to make the smart compromises they could have made for that mode.  I'm personally impressed most by Monolith Soft's ambition, which is why I count them among Nintendo's elite.  They could have just left the engine at X levels and reeled in their ambition for a more compact project than 2, I don't think anyone would have necessarily complained so long as it was good.  They didn't have to make such a big game and they certainly didn't have to overhaul the lighting, foliage system, implement per-object motion blur, create a new volumetric cloud solution.  Their willingness to pursue big projects regardless of the challenges that brings is something you don't find much in the industry these days.  



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curl-6 on 06 February 2018
Nuvendil said:
curl-6 said:

It definitely had the feel (or rather, the look) of a game where the devs weren't entirely comfortable with the hardware, similar to a lot of games that release early on in the lifespan of their hardware, stuff like Dead Rising 3 on Xbox One, Perfect Dark Zero on 360, Resistance Fall of Man on PS3, etc.

Agreed, but they caught on quick though.  It's not like a lot of games on the early 360 where the devs were tripping over themselves to figure out how to use the hardware.  More like a second year game.  And I think some of it was design miscalculations.  I think they underestimated the impact on performance they would see in portable and failed to make the smart compromises they could have made for that mode.  I'm personally impressed most by Monolith Soft's ambition, which is why I count them among Nintendo's elite.  They could have just left the engine at X levels and reeled in their ambition for a more compact project than 2, I don't think anyone would have necessarily complained so long as it was good.  They didn't have to make such a big game and they certainly didn't have to overhaul the lighting, foliage system, implement per-object motion blur, create a new volumetric cloud solution.  Their willingness to pursue big projects regardless of the challenges that brings is something you don't find much in the industry these days.  

The upgrades to shading and foliage are nice, and the cloud simulation especially so. And while some may criticize it, I like that, seemingly alone among Nintendo's first party studios, they appreciate the value of anti-aliasing. Still, it does kind of feel like maybe they built a lot of it before they had a good idea of what the target hardware would be. For instance, I'd expect an exclusive for a system with 3GB of RAM and a Tegra X1 to have better textures, and a higher resolution both docked and when portable.



Nuvendil on 07 February 2018
curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

Agreed, but they caught on quick though.  It's not like a lot of games on the early 360 where the devs were tripping over themselves to figure out how to use the hardware.  More like a second year game.  And I think some of it was design miscalculations.  I think they underestimated the impact on performance they would see in portable and failed to make the smart compromises they could have made for that mode.  I'm personally impressed most by Monolith Soft's ambition, which is why I count them among Nintendo's elite.  They could have just left the engine at X levels and reeled in their ambition for a more compact project than 2, I don't think anyone would have necessarily complained so long as it was good.  They didn't have to make such a big game and they certainly didn't have to overhaul the lighting, foliage system, implement per-object motion blur, create a new volumetric cloud solution.  Their willingness to pursue big projects regardless of the challenges that brings is something you don't find much in the industry these days.  

The upgrades to shading and foliage are nice, and the cloud simulation especially so. And while some may criticize it, I like that, seemingly alone among Nintendo's first party studios, they appreciate the value of anti-aliasing. Still, it does kind of feel like maybe they built a lot of it before they had a good idea of what the target hardware would be. For instance, I'd expect an exclusive for a system with 3GB of RAM and a Tegra X1 to have better textures, and a higher resolution both docked and when portable.

Yeah, texture quality improvements are not consistent in all instances.  Some are quite nice, others are not.  I think that definitely came from not having the hardware in hand, it feels like they may have done texture quality reduction near the end of development to perhaps help alleviate unanticipated performance issues.  I definitely think their next game will have greater consistency there.



Jumpin on 07 February 2018
curl-6 said:
Jumpin said:

I didn’t find the game had any difficulty spikes after chapter 7. The biggest difficulty spike for me was Chapter 4, the giant robot at the end of the factory (mostly because that’s where I was forced to learn the systems, all other spikes just needed a stay at the inn to use the bonus XP; even chapter 4 was NOWHERE near as Xord from XC, which requires a ton of grinding, even on my third play through it required more grinding than any point in XC2; and then there were bigger ones such as Lorithia, Gadolt, and Zanza at the end of the game - which (if you were as grossly under leveled for the point I was) required you to turn off the game and return to the save point - a while back, in order to grind out levels - extra annoying because you need to set aside a significant amount of time in order to get past that portion, and if something comes along (and you need to turn off the game) you lose all your progress, which could be quite substantial. There is nothing like that in XC2. XC2 is much better balanced, but it’s also a shorter game.

Still, I think the worst difficulty spikes of any Takahashi game are still Xenosaga Episode 2. Even on my second play through it took me about ten attempts to get past the Patriarch. That boss is the most brutal I have come across in a post early-16-bit RPG (You have to go back to games like Phantasy Star 2 and Seventh Saga to see spikes like that)

Those bosses were hard, but I don't recall them being as frustrating as chapter 9 Jin because they didn't have as many annoying overpowered gimmick moves. They were straight fights, just harsh ones. That was one thing I didn't like in Xenoblade 2 versus 1, too many of the bosses had gimmicks.

I didn’t really find any of the bosses to be any more gimmicky than XC. If you mean having to equip certain builds (very specific types of equipment in order to have a shot), use specific character combos, and exploit certain battle mechanics/skills in ways you normally wouldn’t, XC has more of that than XC2. When was the last time you played XC? It might be that you were in a more forgiving mood at the time.

I am not trying to deny XC2 had spikes that were kind of annoying; only that, relative to past Xeno games, it’s not really that bad. IMO the most annoying spikes are: last section of Xenoblade Chronicles and the Encephalon in Xenosaga Episode 1; not because they require hours of grinding, but because if you try and fail, you potentially wasted 1-3 hours of your life for no progress/gain.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

curl-6 on 07 February 2018
Jumpin said:
curl-6 said:

Those bosses were hard, but I don't recall them being as frustrating as chapter 9 Jin because they didn't have as many annoying overpowered gimmick moves. They were straight fights, just harsh ones. That was one thing I didn't like in Xenoblade 2 versus 1, too many of the bosses had gimmicks.

I didn’t really find any of the bosses to be any more gimmicky than XC. If you mean having to equip certain builds (very specific types of equipment in order to have a shot), use specific character combos, and exploit certain battle mechanics/skills in ways you normally wouldn’t, XC has more of that than XC2. When was the last time you played XC? It might be that you were in a more forgiving mood at the time.

I am not trying to deny XC2 had spikes that were kind of annoying; only that, relative to past Xeno games, it’s not really that bad. IMO the most annoying spikes are: last section of Xenoblade Chronicles and the Encephalon in Xenosaga Episode 1; not because they require hours of grinding, but because if you try and fail, you potentially wasted 1-3 hours of your life for no progress/gain.

By gimmick I mean more like enemies having annoying moves like blocking all healing, or dealing a ridiculous amount of damage without even giving you a fair warning and a chance to block it like Xenoblade 1 did.