Poll of the Day > I'm playing Xenoblade wii. It's fun. Any tips/things to keep in mind?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's just a shame the menu text is so blurry. All they had to do was increase the font size. It's not an issue with graphics, which while somewhat poor are completely irrelevant to me, it's that the text is so small so that when you combine it with the blurriness, it makes for a most horrid combination.

Not too much of a deal breaker, since I really enjoy the game and voice acting and exploring the world, it's amazing how huge said world is and on the Wii. Just a shame about the text size.
---

Put every girl in skimpy bikinis.

I am serious.

They give out some of the best stats.

Accept every quest offered, but don't go out of your way to complete any of them. But you know...if you're gonna kill a bunch of X monster anyway just wandering around, may as well have those kills count towards a quest and such.
Timed quests you might want to finish, they'll become unavailable once you get to certain points in the story. But there's no "time limit" based on when you accept them.

Unless you've really got the combat system down, use a balanced party. Shulk, Reyn, Sharla is kinda boring and very slow to defeat enemies, but it'll keep you alive in the tough fights.
Later on, you can do some nasty things with the caster types, and some of the melee characters (other than Reyn) can be twinked out to get double attacks, high crit rate, and healing off of crits and become true monsters. :)
Manage the skill tree regularly to make sure you're unlocking the ones you want prioritized. Also note you'll gradually be able to "share" skills that one character has with other characters (how much can be shared is limited by affinity coins, which you get each time you kill a unique monster for the first time). The nasty skill combos you can put together there is where the real ultimate power lies.

I'd like to finish that one day. Think I've got 80 hours on my save file.
---

Would like to know more about skills, chain attack and maximum efficiency of chain attacks, as well as those crystals and gem crafting. Also would be nice to get more quick step gems, being faster would be so nice.
---

So many quest.... my only advice is make sure your ears dont bleed from the voice acting
---

they game is meant to be played twice so don't worry about the choices you make. they don't effect the main story or ending at all.

also i'm playing it too. im 110 hours in. and so close to the end, but i'm to underpowered to do anything. yeah for grinding.
---

I really need to play the first and second games so I can play the third.

Such a huge undertaking though.
---

Tell me the secret of how to find the game enjoyable. Put 20 hours in it hoping it would be interesting at some point.
---

culture_den posted...

Would like to know more about skills, chain attack and maximum efficiency of chain attacks

The most important thing to keep in mind in chain attacks is to use skills that are the same colour in sequence. A chain of 5 will give you a damage multiplier of 15x, which is huge, and that bonus continues for subsequent abilities if you can keep the chain going (it caps at 15x). Also, Talent Arts (white abilities) count as a wild card, so a chain of, say, Red>Red>Red>White>Green will still hit that 5-chain bonus. Melia's extremely useful for this because she can use her Talent Art any time she has a spirit up, which relaxes everyone else's colour requirements considerably. Melia's also extremely useful in chain attacks because the damage multiplier applies to DoT effects even after the chain attack ends. The DoT from her Summon Earth ability lasts a whopping 90 seconds, and if you get the 15x boost on it, you'll get a phenomenal amount of damage. Also, cooldowns are completely ignored during chain attacks. This is great for the party member you'll get later who has an ability that forces Topple but has a 120 second cooldown.

As for extending chain attacks beyond three attacks, that's based on affinity between the characters, plus a bit of luck. You won't always get the longer ones, especially before you max out affinity, but when you do, it's a good time.

culture_den posted...

as well as those crystals and gem crafting.

When crafting, you want to get the highest possible number for your desired gem. Ideally, if you get it over 300% (I think), you'll get the next tier up of gem, which is the only way to get Rank VI gems. To do this, you want to start with two cylinders as close to 99% as possible, then get a lot of red flames to boost that one stat . I believe Shulk and Reyn (in that order) are the best pair for that (but it's been a while and I could be wrong), with the most affinity you can get.

To get those cylinders, put together lower-value gems to get as close as possible to 99%, then get mostly green flames to make sure you get cylinders instead of boosting the desired stat past 100% (which would get you a gem right away). Lower affinity's better there so you don't have too many rounds and have less chance of getting a red or blue flame. I forget which pair is best there, but just pick one with more green flames. For both steps, save scumming comes in very handy.

culture_den posted...

Also would be nice to get more quick step gems, being faster would be so nice.

http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Quick_Step#Crystal_and_cylinder_sources

That's a list of where you can find them, if you want to craft more. The wiki also has a guide for crafting, but it includes some spoilers, so you may want to hold off on that until you've got all seven party members.

ernieforss posted...

im 110 hours in. and so close to the end, but i'm to underpowered to do anything. yeah for grinding.

How? I took ~80 hours to reach the end while being fairly thorough with sidequests, no actual grinding, and that left me very much overlevelled for all of the actual story content. The last boss is only 85ish. What is it you're having trouble with?

culture_den posted...

Would like to know more about skills, chain attack and maximum efficiency of chain attacks, as well as those crystals and gem crafting. Also would be nice to get more quick step gems, being faster would be so nice.

Skills: Just keep up on your skill trees to make sure you're getting points towards the skill you want next. Some end-tree skills are really good, but take a long time to reach, so it's worth early on picking up the early skills from each tree since you can get them quickly.
Shared skills...you're limited by affinity between the characters (build it by helping/praising them in battle w/ the B button QTEs (really handy for getting rid of some status effects for free), heart-to-hearts, and giving them gifts), the "shape" of the skill has to match the "slot", and your affinity coins to spend on it.

Chain attacks: Higher affinity between the involved characters makes it more likely to "extend," but it's somewhat random. You have access to each art (except Talent Arts, those have to be filled up like usual from attacking) even if it was on cooldown, but only once each per the duration of the chain attack. Using the same color attack in a row builds up a multiplier (doesn't have to be for damage; could get super-healing and such, too), and your Talent Art (the white one in the center) counts as any color and can "bridge" between two different colors. For example, you could use 3 straight red (attack) arts, then a talent art, then switch to green (topple) arts and KEEP the multiplier! It caps (at 5x I think), but still...all chain attack arts after that point doing 5x damage will end a fight quick! the max possible attacks in a chain attack is 17 I think, but I never got more than a dozen myself (which was still more than enough to insta-win).
Sharla is the only character whose Talent Art isn't an attack and thus can't be used for this method. It's one of the reasons some players tend to not use her, especially late game.

Gem crafting is a bit complex. Early on, don't worry much about it at all, and prioritize stronger gear over gear w/ more gem slots.
There are four "tiers" of crystals/gems (I, II, III, IV, and V I think were all of them), and with crafting you can bump them up one tier from the base tier if you do well (so max of tier VI for gems). You can't mix different tiered crystals.
You'll be swimming in crystals w/o even trying and the high tier ones are much stronger than low tiers, so you'll probably end up selling the low tier ones due to lack of inventory space. And you won't get the good stuff until you face high level enemies.
So...maybe craft some early on to use slots you have, but don't worry about it too much. Some attributes are also much more useful than others, which might justify keeping some lower tier crystals w/ the right boosts.
When you're trying to make gems to use, Shulk + Reyn is usually the best combo. I remember there also being a benefit to having people w/ bad affinity crafting because you can end up w/ a ton of extra crystals when you fail to make a gem or combine two crystals to get them closer to 100% w/o actually reaching it (and thus becoming a gem), making it very strong to use for your "actual" gem crafting and make it easier to get a +1 tier result. I think Sharla + Riki was the best combo for this, hard to recall... (hid the name just to be safe, but most don't consider that character a spoiler)

ernieforss posted...

they game is meant to be played twice so don't worry about the choices you make. they don't effect the main story or ending at all.

also i'm playing it too. im 110 hours in. and so close to the end, but i'm to underpowered to do anything. yeah for grinding.

Gonna have to disagree with this. That was my original intention, to put off the "hard" side quests for New Game+.
But...they'll still be almost as hard in NG+, since they involve extremely high level monsters and your level is capped. So maybe you go in at level 99 instead of 93. That's really negligible, IMO, and the miss chance for being low level can usually be compensated for by using Night Attack gems (if possible to fight at night) or just using a mage-heavy party.
The hardest sidequest with a major reward (don't want to spoil anything), IMO, you don't even need to fight, you can sneak around and get the key item, which is what I did.

I intended to do NG+, but after 130 hours of playing, I didn't feel like it. Plus, you're just so stupidly overpowered for the first 2/3 of the re-play that it wouldn't even be fun. Would've preferred if NG+ left you w/ skills and gear (which you can use or not use as you choose to adjust difficulty), but took away your levels.

As for your current position...the final boss is MUCH easier than a lot of the sidequest bosses, so i'm sure you're fine. Game can easily be beaten at level 70, if I recall correctly.

streamofthesky posted...

Game can easily be beaten at level 70, if I recall correctly.

I wouldn't necessarily say "easily," since it does require some fairly specific setups (either capped Night Vision and Agility games, or a setup with Melia's spell accuracy skill) and knowledge of how to take advantage of those setups, but yeah, it is quite possible. With the Melia-Sharla-Riki party, I was farming the level 99 T-rex thingies for Double Attack gems at like 80.

streamofthesky posted...

I intended to do NG+, but after 130 hours of playing, I didn't feel like it. Plus, you're just so stupidly overpowered for the first 2/3 of the re-play that it wouldn't even be fun.

I did a quick NG+ run right before XCX came out just for the sake of playing through the story. Being overpowered worked for that, and I finished in like 20 hours. As an actual playthrough, though, I doubt it would have been that fun.

_AdjI_ posted...

culture_den posted...

Would like to know more about skills, chain attack and maximum efficiency of chain attacks

The most important thing to keep in mind in chain attacks is to use arts that are the same colour in sequence. A chain of 5 will give you a damage multiplier of 15x, which is huge, and that bonus continues for subsequent abilities if you can keep the chain going (it caps at 15x). Also, Talent Arts (white abilities) count as a wild card, so a chain of, say, Red>Red>Red>White>Green will still hit that 5-chain bonus. Melia's extremely useful for this because she can use her Talent Art any time she has a spirit up, which relaxes everyone else's colour requirements considerably. Melia's also extremely useful in chain attacks because the damage multiplier applies to DoT effects even after the chain attack ends. The DoT from her Summon Earth ability lasts a whopping 90 seconds, and if you get the 15x boost on it, you'll get a phenomenal amount of damage. Also, cooldowns are completely ignored during chain attacks. This is great for the party member you'll get later who has an ability that forces Topple but has a 120 second cooldown.

As for extending chain attacks beyond three attacks, that's based on affinity between the characters, plus a bit of luck. You won't always get the longer ones, especially before you max out affinity, but when you do, it's a good time.

culture_den posted...

as well as those crystals and gem crafting.

When crafting, you want to get the highest possible number for your desired gem. Ideally, if you get it over 300% (I think), you'll get the next tier up of gem, which is the only way to get Rank VI gems. To do this, you want to start with two cylinders as close to 99% as possible, then get a lot of red flames to boost that one stat . I believe Shulk and Reyn (in that order) are the best pair for that (but it's been a while and I could be wrong), with the most affinity you can get.

To get those cylinders, put together lower-value gems to get as close as possible to 99%, then get mostly green flames to make sure you get cylinders instead of boosting the desired stat past 100% (which would get you a gem right away). Lower affinity's better there so you don't have too many rounds and have less chance of getting a red or blue flame. I forget which pair is best there, but just pick one with more green flames. For both steps, save scumming comes in very handy.

culture_den posted...

Also would be nice to get more quick step gems, being faster would be so nice.

http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Quick_Step#Crystal_and_cylinder_sources

That's a list of where you can find them, if you want to craft more. The wiki also has a guide for crafting, but it includes some spoilers, so you may want to hold off on that until you've got all seven party members.

ernieforss posted...

im 110 hours in. and so close to the end, but i'm to underpowered to do anything. yeah for grinding.

How? I took ~80 hours to reach the end while being fairly thorough with sidequests, no actual grinding, and that left me very much overlevelled for all of the actual story content. The last boss is only 85ish. What is it you're having trouble with?

Thank you so much for the informative post!

Thanks everyone, I'll keep you updated as I progress through the game. I tend to take my time since I really enjoy exploring every nook and cranny, and this big open world is probably going to take many hours for me to explore.
---

wolfy42 posted...

I really need to play the first and second games so I can play the third.

Such a huge undertaking though.

Don't.

As somebody who loved the first, participated in operation rainfall (also bought last story and pandoras tower, although pandoras tower is passable for sure in terms of the 3 games) and bought it first day it come to the states... the second game is not related at all and unless you are super into modern jrpg bishonen prettyboy style ala FF15 and dont mind the japanese hiphop sountrack you CANNOT turn off, dont waste your money.

I was so excited I bought the game and guide first day, turned it back in a week later.

culture_den posted...

Thanks everyone, I'll keep you updated as I progress through the game. I tend to take my time since I really enjoy exploring every nook and cranny, and this big open world is probably going to take many hours for me to explore.

Always go as far as you can. There are hidden special monsters/bosses EVERYWHERE just like an MMO.
---

@_AdjI_

I played it last night. i beat the second to last boss at level 76. when i got to the last boss i was at level 77. i could have won if the last boss didn't summon lackies and if the last boss didn't do the 8000+ hp laser beam attack that hits in a group. I tried beating that last boss for 4 hours. I got half way down the bosses life. I won't have trouble if my alies attack what i was attacking. If we could gang up on one lacky we could kill them in a minute and i woudn't have so much trouble.

I haven't level up my monado, because the parts i need are from level 85 monster and i can't do any damage to level 84 and higher monsters. i just need to fight level 83 monsters untill i can take down those level 85 monsters and get the parts i need.
---

bulbinking posted...

Don't.

As somebody who loved the first, participated in operation rainfall (also bought last story and pandoras tower, although pandoras tower is passable for sure in terms of the 3 games) and bought it first day it come to the states... the second game is not related at all and unless you are super into modern jrpg bishonen prettyboy style ala FF15 and dont mind the japanese hiphop sountrack you CANNOT turn off, dont waste your money.

I was so excited I bought the game and guide first day, turned it back in a week later.

X is also a great game, it's just very, very different. It's a game about exploring, rather than being story-based, and it does a delightful job of capturing the feeling of exploring a strange and fascinating planet. Sounds to me like you just really hate the style of it, which isn't something you should be using as a basis for recommending or not recommending a game.

ernieforss posted...

I played it last night. i beat the second to last boss at level 76.

Again, how are you 110 hours into the game and only 76? Taking the game that slowly should leave you pretty overleveled, by my experience.

ernieforss posted...

I won't have trouble if my alies attack what i was attacking.

Hold Z and press A, I believe. If it's not that, it is in the manual for the game.

ernieforss posted...

haven't level up my monado, because the parts i need are from level 85 monster and i can't do any damage to level 84 and higher monsters.

The easiest way to tackle higher-level enemies is to use a party of Melia, Riki and Sharla, link Melia's skill that gives increased accuracy with Ether attacks to the other two, and put heavy armour on Riki so he can tank effectively. You won't be doing a lot of damage, but you'll at least be able to hit them, and Melia's DoTs are very powerful for longer fights. If you want to use physical attackers, you'll want to give them Agility VI and Night Vision VI gems and fight at night to fix their accuracy, but even so you're going to have a bit of a rough time until you get better skill links (like the one that makes all double attacks be crits, paired with a Double Attack VI gem and the skill that heals on crits).
---

i spent a lot of time looking for quests day during day and night cycles each time an area opens up i went back to previous towns and locations looking for new quest. also i spent a lot of time trying to equip the best armor.
---

Ok i beat it at 111 hours. I was at level 80 and it was super easy to beat. Its pretty crazy how 3 levels can make you overpowered.
---

Great game. Just make sure you play it at Reyn Time
---

ernieforss posted...

Its pretty crazy how 3 levels can make you overpowered.

Level differences dictate accuracy bonuses/penalties, with a huge jump between +5 and +6 levels (-40% hit rate and -120% hit rate, respectively), where the enemy's level switches from yellow to red. When you're facing a higher-level enemy without enough bonus accuracy, you end up missing a lot, which not only means you aren't doing damage on those hits (which is devastating on higher-cooldown arts), it also means you're building up your talent arts more slowly, and most significantly, your Tension is going to drop. Having low Tension also provides a significant accuracy penalty (at the lowest level, you'll have a 5% hit rate) and crit rate penalty, so the problem just gets worse.

Basically, if you're having trouble beating anything, the first thing you should be looking to do is improve your accuracy, whether by leveling up to reduce the penalty (which isn't an option for the superbosses, since all but one are 6+ levels above 99), stacking more agility, or using Night Vision. It'll help tremendously.
---

Is there something wrong with my Wii or TV?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v158HFwqlDA

This guy's text is extremely clear and legible, while mine is blurry. I thought it was a problem with the game but I need to know for sure since I can't understand why his game is extremely sharp with no jaggies and almost HD-like
---

Not sure, we'd have to see what it looks like on your end.

I played Xenoblade first on an old 19" CRT TV and later on a 42" LCD TV, and it looked fine on both, and the text was totally readable even on the former tv. (It was Xenoblade X, despite being on the LCD tv, that had nearly unreadable small text)

Some people use Dolphin to play the game and it gives better graphics, but it should still be fine on a Wii, certainly the text at least, character models maybe not as much.

mine was burry with jaggie too compared to youtube videos. i was playing on the wii u with 55" tv.

I think they are probably playing with an emulator.
---