Why is the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles so boring? Am I missing something? Am I not far enough into the game to make it better?
Why is the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles so boring? Am I missing something?
Why is the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles so boring? Am I missing something? Am I not far enough into the game to make it better?
building your characters is meant to be the fun part
too bad the skill trees filter most people
I'm a big fan of the Dunban skilltree where you equip no armor and dodgetank everything
Everyone memes this but it's not even close to an optimal or even good build. Gems are simply too strong to forego them, and a decent Agility gem will outclass it in almost every case.
Agility gem on weapon is better than equipping no gems for unadorned beauty, but inner peace for equipping no armor is still optimal for maxing agility.
That really only applies at max level, and it requires eating up weapon slots where you'd prefer Haste or Double Attack. For most of the game you aren't going to have Agility gems high enough for it to be a noticeable increase over using armor slots for more Agility.
Who do you have in your party?
I just passed Xord.
Bench sharla and use literally anyone else
It is really boring at the start. The game only starts to get good once your party fills out and you get more arts while the enemies get stronger and have more variety to their behavior then "regular attack" and "regular attack but slightly more damaging". Don't bother doing optional fights or sidequests early on. It makes you over leveled anyway.
This is remedied with the Definitive Edition version which I recommend using Expert Mode to keep all that quest EXP stockpiled away. I 100%'d DE to full autismo completion (crafted EVERY possible Rank 6 Gem). Just gotta grind out some achievements I suppose.
I find the combat so fricking convoluted, and there's just too much fricking shit all over the screen during it. Nightmare UI design.
This! Where is the accessibility settings sisters?
You are actually moronic.
>Why is the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles so boring?
because it's a jrpg
xenoblade combat is high iq, if you dont like it you just need to get smarter
its low iq and the level curve only makes it worse
took them four games to finally make something that half works lol
Because it is. You are not missing shit.
Spamming shit on cooldown while watching automatic animations and not having control over the whole party simply sucks.
>any other game: press button = attack with animation
>"woah this is cool"
>xenoblade - press button to attack with animation
>"WTF WHAT IS THIS BORING AUTOMATED SHIT SHUSYEBSVFAHB"
this series truly is THE brainlet filter
>roll through an 8 icon sphere line to activate new attack when cooldown is up = press button to do animation
>zero agency when cooldowns are not up because moving does not allow dodging and interrupts auto attacks
Someone sure is a brainlet in this conversation
>when cooldown is up
this is how i know you're a moron
Elaborate
>play DPS
>spam abilities on cd
>end up taking all aggro and die
This is just one instance
So what you are saying is you are supposed to do even less in an already boring combat game?
I'm saying you pick and choose and make decisions based on the circumstance, like in every video game ever.
So the only thing that makes combat exciting in the game is the fact there is thread and you need to not use every skill?
>"uh duh you just brainlessly spam"
>"ugggh so what you're saying is it's good because you don't brainlessly spam? lol gotcha duuuuuhh"
You are not making a good case for making me like a game you like by being an annoying butthole about it instead of using big people words.
lol why the frick do you think i'm trying to convince you to play it? just do something else if you don't like it
That is literally what the thread is about moron.
Yeah man, waiting 5s for the CPU tank to finally use the aggro pull skill before I use my offensive art for the second time is totally great and a very fun, in depth, multilayered combat system that allows players oh so many ways of tackling enemies that totally require adaptations as amazing as the one just mentioned
>"wait i have to play around a tank in this video game? that's outrageous no game ever does that!"
Please tell me how one uses arts while they are on a cooldown.
Or are you going to ackshually me with shit like Sharla and Melia's Talent Arts and pretend that somehow nulls my initial statement?
(Also feel free to address how using Xeno 1 artd in any fricking way equates to instantly using attacks bound to button inputs in non menu based games like you implied. Except we both know you won't, as you will never enlighten OP on what he is missing about this combat system, because you don't have an answer other than "well I liked it", little b***h.)
You use auto-attacks with double attack and haste so you can spam Blossom Dance you pleb.
Moving does not interrupt auto attacks in Xenoblade 1
So why not instead tell me why the combat is good instead of shitting on people over nothing?
I like being able to auto attack while positioning to get bonus effects in my arts while using my equipment and party comp to literally stun lock enemies for minutes at a time while doing ridiculous damage 🙂
it's about careful planning and set up. Unlike the story.
Love how it throws massive numbers at the player when you are like 40 minutes in lmao. Pure overrated single player mmo slop
>I HATE FUN WHY ARE THEY DOING FUN THINGS
I defeated the final 3 bosses by spamming heals with Sharla while Shulk and Dunban or Spoiler kept killing and dying, zero brain or proper skill/equipment setup required
>i used stabilizers to ride down that hill, it was so shit
>game is so poorly designed the player has avoid playstyles offered to him for it to be good
Wow such defense
>game has bad and good character
Yes, like every fricking game ever
Struggling to think of a game I've played that offered me deliberately 'bad characters'. Then again most of the games I play rely more on player skill than character stats, having options that are just bad seems like poor game design.
>I chose to play as a boring character, why is this game so boring?
I see why devs complain about entitled playerbases now
Why the dev made a boring character in the first place
Eh, Shulk complaint is less true after you reach Mechonis, though the monado whirlwind or whatever the frick is still way too useful not to use when the game JUST gave everybody a way to deal with the robots
Holy illiterate anon
I was playing XBC3 late at night and fell asleep during the cutscene before a boss fight. When I woke up, the boss fight was over because the AI party members beat it for me while I was asleep.
This was a major story boss and I wasn't even over leveled
Idk about the boss fight part, but falling asleep while playing XBC3 is definitely believable at least.
I just finished XB1 recently and am nearing the end of 2. The combat feels like such a missed opportunity, specifically because you can't switch between party members and to a lesser extent switch in benched members like FFX. I don't primarily come to RPGs for the combat these days but it stands out here as a big weakness for the games (the other being the sidequests)
My issue with XB1 is there is nothing but combat and generic sidequests to do. It's not like I can go do something else like fishing or a minigame or something inbetween, it's just all mediocre combat all the time.
yeah that's not a bad point. I should maybe note that I've greatly enjoyed the stories in both games so far, most of the characters are great. The scale depicted in the world, particularly in XB1, is maybe the best I've ever experienced. I've had a largely positive experience but yeah the combat and endless shallow sidequests have been real bummers
I like the world and I want to explore it more, that is why I do sidequests, but I guess I need something to break up the monotony.
You can switch party members in 3
that's great to hear, playing XB3 is basically why I was playing the previous games
>The combat feels like such a missed opportunity
its even worse when you're trying to pull off a cpecific element combo but the moronic party AI refuses to swap their blades to a different element. Glad they finally let you change party members in 3
That really just depends on who's in your party. Females won't swap blades often until you start an elemental combo, and they will quickly swap to the corresponding element required. If they have 2 blades that work, they'll swap between the two when the blades go off cooldown. Males will typically ignore the blade combo and focus on swapping blades for driver combos, so they may just be on cooldown and can't swap to the right element or there's a driver combo active and they're prioritizing that.
I guarantee everyone who shits on the combat used Sharla or at least had her in their party for the majority of the game
Lets say I did, how does that change anything?
She's the crutch character made for literal shitters who couldn't work out how to build a good party
Ok sure but how does that make the combat better?
You never realize how fun riding a bike can be if you always use stabilizers
She isn't a crutch. She makes the game harder because she's actually just bad. She's only good for her healing skills which have cooldowns that are way too long for 90% of the game and she barely contributes after they're popped. Her talent art is awful and unnecessary and the AI sucks at using her so you can't even rely on her healing you when you really need it.
>She isn't a crutch
Yes she is. Most people who say they hate the combat have her in their team for a majority of the game, whittling down the enemies taking forever when they could just set up good skill trees and gems and wipe the enemy with a good team, but they're too braindead to try doing that so stick to what they know is safe.
she also makes the game harder when you get her into some skimpy robot or jungle outfit and have to split your concentration between combat and dat body
She's a crutch with Reyn and especially Riki, but does make every fight she's in take a whole minute longer because she has the lowest dps and only shines in the ether team fighting overleveled enemies. Her viability is either F or A rank depending on what you need with no inbetween.
>hurrr the healer with shitty heals is the sole reason you think combat is bad, spamming 2 spirits with melia is peak kino but you wouldn't know
I thought X's combat was alright, or rather the setting was interesting enough to warrant sticking with the combat, but 1 I just couldn't stick with. I got as far as the sci-fi elf city and that's where I dropped it. The combat felt less like something I looked forward to and more like something that gated off progress/the story.
I hear 2 and 3 make it a little more active feeling, where your arts are set to face buttons so it feels a bit more like you're actually taking part in the fight and not just selecting options, but the setting doesn't pull me as strongly.
(Sorry, should clarify I'm not OP but I agree with him that the combat is pretty dull)
It just felt like generic mmo combat to me, standing around inflicting status effects and trying to wrangle the AI.
Out of all the main games the only combat I liked was in 3. I still like all of them and think they are fun to play but I just couldn’t click with the combat in 1 and 2.
I've played the game three times now and I'll be honest, it's not really about the battle system. The battle system imo is the weakest part of the game, as they're clearly inspired by MMOs, with auto-attacks, positionals, rotations, etc. At least with MMOs you get a lot of skills and your rotation increases in complexity over time and oftentimes you need to coordinate with other players to be effective.
To add to that you're essentially pidgeon-holed into using Shulk as your main character or at least building a party around him because of the monado skills. Party balance is shit and you'll end up using the same team almost every run. Even if you mix it up you'll find that characters like Melia and Sharla are insanely boring to play. The most fun character comes near the end, but you still are stuck with red sword man.
The fun part of the game is that they open you up to huge landscapes/areas full of quests and collectables in a way that's nostalgic of MMOs. You can challenge yourself to high level enemies whenever you want and beating a Unique Enemy is the highlight of the gameplay. If you played MMOs back in the day but quit due to subscriptions or some shit like your FC/Guide being full of insane people, then you'll probably like the game
>you're essentially pidgeon-holed into using Shulk as your main character or at least building a party around him because of the monado skills
The only time you need Shulk is vs Mechon enemies and even then they can be beaten with topple on other comps
So many shitters criticising this game
>and even then they can be beaten with topple on other comps
While this is true, having to wait for AI to break or topple is agonizing and extremely no fun RNG nonsense - for every enemy in the encounter - that absolutely does not make for good combat
The AI is kind of dumb, but Dunban can set up topples and dazes solo pretty easy if it's really that much of a problem. The game also gives you weapons that damage Mechon without needing enchant once you get to Mechonis so you don't even need to bother with it for most fights.
You need to use him for plenty of story battles and before you get access to mechon weapons/talent art mitigation for your other party members, which is the majority of the game. Once you make it far enough you can drop him, but my problem is that you're forced to use him a lot early to mid game. Also I like the game (I played it 3 times), but it's not perfect and don't act like being "good" at it solves these problems.
Again, it takes a while before you get access to weapons to beat mechon enemies easily. Shield is the easiest way to handle enemy talent arts for the majority of the game as well. You also need him for Monado purge until you have other ways to deal with auras. I had to reconfigure my party several times because of this.
If the combat isn't the point of the game can I have a version of the game without the combat, or with better combat, or an option to skip said combat
Go read a VN or play a walking simulator then holy frick
Isn't THIS world and story good though? I'm not averse to gameplay but if you're telling me the bit that I find bad isn't the point of it, then why didn't they give it actually fun combat?
>why didn't the devs cater this game to ME and MY preferences
You are such an entitled twat.
>Entitled
Oh, frick off. You said it yourself, the combat isn't the point. So why can't I wish that the games had better combat in that case?
That wasn't me who said that and nobody is forcing you to play the game, just play something else if you're not enjoying it instead of complaining "waa why don't i find this fun". Plenty of other people do. It's very successful and spawned several spin-offs.
If you didn't say that, then I wasn't and am not talking to you.
Like genuinely, I think the xenoblade games would be like my favourite series ever if they kept everything the same BUT made the combat action based, like monster hunter or Dragon's Dogma or ANYTHING. Lost planet, that had on foot and mecha combat, that'd be perfect for X. Give me that, the world and the stories and the characters but actually fun combat when you get into fights.
I don't really agree. The last time I played the game, I almost never used Shulk. I didn't find Melia boring either. I had fun building her skills up with gems and nuking everything with lightning and poison then baiting them into killing themselves with redirect. Funny enough, I forgot to put Shulk in my party for a mechon boss fight. I didn't feel like loading a save, so I tried it just to see what would happen and Melia ended up winning it pretty easily without needing enchant.
Oh look, somebody who actually played the game and didn't get filtered by the supposedly braindead combat
Discord?
>not enjoying something is now equivalent to being filtered
Still finished the game and used more characters than you, xenocuck
pure cope
>"You didn't play it the FUN way, which is why you didn't have fun."
It's a single-player game, there is no meta because there game is already solved
>You didn't play it the FUN way, which is why you didn't have fun.
Literally yes. Look at all the people telling OP to bench Sharla, play Dunban or nuke with Melia.
Sure but no one is saying why the combat is fun though, just there is a bad character and put in a better character but ultimately the combat is still boring.
>why won't you in fine detail explain to me intricately what makes this "fun"?
Autism
Not him, he's got a point. Nobody in the thread has really explained what's enjoyable about the combat, except maybe some oblique references to "building the characters" which to me seems less like characters and more like spreadsheet cringe.
I did a "nuke" Melia run but she's just not that fun. Dunban is more fun, I'll give you that, but imo the shulk thing isn't even the biggest problem with the gameplay. It's still MMO-lite and that's simultaneously its biggest draw and imo its biggest weakness.
>I did a "nuke" Melia run but she's just not that fun
>starlight kick toppling into nukes isn't fun
ngmi
Melia and Riki are not fun either. Stop this meme that if one uses Sharla, they never tried other options nor ever benched her and that every other setup is magically more engaging. Dunban is better, yes, but when you get him, by the way the game explains its own mechanics, most players will justifiably bench Reyn for him instead.
And it's not their fault.
All xeno combat is boring shit. It's just waiting for a timer to tick down and navigating chain attack menus
Because you got tricked into playing a japanese game. Just learn this life lesson and move on, wiser than before.
>can't switch between characters out of combat
This infuriated me to no end
Unless out of combat*
Torna and 3.
just play as Dunban except when fighting rainbow dragon dudes where you pretty much have to use Shulk. By far the most fun character to play as
Would be nice if the games had bothered to explain in any sensible way how to build your party.
Then again if X actually taught you how to build parties people would have realised you could just utterly break the game:
Do the numbered games have anything similar?
And if I didn't like the combat in 1 can I just skip to 2 or 3 since it sounds like the combat in those is improved?
The combat in 2 is honestly weird as frick because you're locked out of using most mechanics for a long time and they're laid out to you over the course of like 10 chapters. The game's gacha is also a huge trap. Without getting into the story, you basically roll for characters that your party members team up with and so many of them are so awful. I only played the game once, but I wish I had just stuck to the characters in the story because they're way stronger than most of the stuff you get from the gacha and building up all these mediocre characters is such a huge time sink that I burnt myself out and wish I had just done it on new game+.
Wow, that sucks.
How about 3? Okay to play on its own if that's where the combat is strongest? Or should I watch a recap of the first two games?
To be honest, 2 has the best combat and even then it's still not great. It also has the worst tutorials even made by man and takes ages to unlock all the important mechanics.
3's combat is the most boring. 90% of your damage comes from chain attacks, which are cool for the first few times, but when you have to do it for every fight it gets mindnumbing.
Also, both 2 and 3 still suffer from the worst xeno combat trait. Every fight plays out the exact same way. Doesn't matter if you're level 15 fighting a rabbit, level 50 fighting a giant robot, at the end fighting the final boss, or even the max level superbosses, every fight plays out the same way.
>90% of your damage comes from chain attacks
The chain attacks do nothing, at least when you're playing on hard. There are many times when I purposely don't use them because just whittling the enemy with normal attacks is quicker dps than going through the chain attack.
Mind numbing seems subjective - like most people describe the combat in games like drakengard 1 mind numbing, but I would honestly take that style of gameplay over even the highest rated traditional JRPG (IE. Menu based) combat.
I hated the combat 1, am in the middle (almost exactly) of 2:
While I still hate the core of it (control 1 character only, not fully real time nor turn based, MMO Triangle bs), the new mechanics (auto attack cancelling, elemental orbs manipulation, etc), big tweaks on existing ones (chain attacks, different auto attack strings for each character by way of weapon types) and outright removal of others (break the future tags bs) make it actually engaging to me.
Plucking different blade setups and working on skill sealing and long orb chains against different enemies is not particularly complex, but feels rewarding instead of a waste of time.
It does have the issue of making some unimportant mob fights too long, though fortunately the vast majority are optional, and unlocking some passives is nonsensical agony, but it still works for me.
>auto attack
I've never understood the appeal of any system that uses these, attacking is the fun part - why would I want to automate that away? I've never really got any genre that did that, like tower defense or RTS or MMOs or what have you. The only MMO I've ever got into is XIV (the only FF game), and that's because despite it having auto attacks, with how you map your skills onto your hotbars on controller it feels more like you're playing an action RPG.
>thinking FFXIV combat is fun
This tells me everything I needed to know. Thread's over.
>I don't get RTSes because of autoattacks
>but XIV is fun
What the frick
Well, in RTS you don't attack yourself, you order units to attack. They do the attacking. In XIV, though there are auto attacks you can basically ignore them and just focus on the weapon skills which are more direct (press button, your character does an attack).
I mean it's not as fun as an actual ARPG, and if it were solely the combat I was playing XIV for I would have dropped it years back. I honestly think all JRPGs would be better as proper ARPGs though.
>every JRPG should be like FFXVI!:DMC-lite edition
you are scum.
Oh my god, thread's over indeed.
>XIVgay shitting on any other game's combat
lol
I accept your concession.
Let's be honest, even Drakengard 1 combat is better than any traditional JRPG combat.
Combat is genuinely pretty bad in xenoblade 1. 2 and 3 improve on it a lot, although neither are perfect.
I honestly hate the chain attacks in 3. They're awkward, boring and the music gets grating.
I liked them for most of the game. I enjoyed figuting out how to optimize them and get super powerful hits, but eventually it feels like you've "solved" them and they start to feel more tedious.
>I enjoyed figuting out how to optimize them
I got to that point after doing 5 of them. They really did simplify things because people got filtered by 2's chain attacks huh
I think sharla is the hottest xenoblade character so far
>not the robot waifu with fin funnel swords
ngmi
it's better than ff16
Doubtful on the basis that 16 appears to have actual combat mechanics
>i press de buttonz but things don't go mashy 🙁
Yes, this is a very low bar to clear and xenoblade fails it.
Fortunately, FF has gone in the right direction, and it seems that Dragon Quest is also getting the right idea. We can but hope more RPG makers learn as well.
Go suck off DMC in another thread dumb slav
>Go suck off DMC in another thread dumb slav
What an odd thing to say. My point stands though, I can't help if you're annoyed that Japanese devs are learning the way of good combat.
Nah its bad
Sex with Sharla
Why is Enel shilling FFXIV?
Is he? I checked his youtube and it seems like all xc3 stuff.
If he is, he's way late for the grifting of subs/money for playing it.
I really like the combat once Melia joins, since cycling through her summons is really fun.
Replaying DE earlier this year made me realize how incredibly late you unlock Summon Ice though, which means you can't really be stacking the DoTs for a while.
Shulk should have married Melia and had like 10 kids with her. Her race was genocided and he just let her go. Sad.
Shulk wasn't a degen manprostitute like Rex.
He was happy with his one wife and kid.
It is genuinely the worst combat system ever made, and they've been doing it for 4 games.
Just fricking stand there and press cooldowns in the same order while the game is having a seizure showing two billion effects and subeffects and whatever that don't do anything.
Enemy is throwing an attack? You can't mitigate it. You're losing hp ? Chances are you can't do shit. You want to run away ? Too bad, enemies will keep hitting you from 20 miles away until the game chooses you to end the fight.
Only xc2 had slightly more interesting combat but in the end it's always a glorified dps check against a training dummy.
I enjoy the moronic anime stories for what they are, but the gameplay of this series is atrocious. I hope xc4 revamps the whole fricking thing.
>Enemy is throwing an attack? You can't mitigate it
>you're losing hp ? Chances are you can't do shit.
what are shields, debuffs, heals, evade?
>You want to run away ? Too bad, enemies will keep hitting you from 20 miles away until the game chooses you to end the fight.
you can safely run away from most enemies that don't oneshot you
what is with all this shitter misinformation around these games?
>Enemy is throwing an attack? You can't mitigate it.
There are multiple ways to cancel enemy attacks, even once they are mid-animation.
Filtered.
Git gud
If you think this is bad try going through 2's combat without a guide
Why do I find the combat in this so boring but the combat in FF12 fun? Is it because more options?