/xgg/ Xenoblade 2 spoiler-free FAQ

/xgg/ Xenoblade 2 spoiler-free FAQ
Last update: 26th July 2018

Q: Do I need to play previous games to understand XB2?
A: No, Xenoblade 2 is standalone. It isn't a direct sequel of any of the other games, but rather a spiritual successor to XB1.
That said, beyond the similarities in its structure and narrative, the game is not called "2" for nothing and you will understand if you played XB1 beforehand. In other words, you don't have to, but you might appreciate it a little more if you played XB1.
The usual recommendation is that you should play XB1 before XB2, while XBX can be played whenever you want because it is quite different from the other 2. If you don't plan playing XB1 at all, it is still recommended you watch the cutscenes or read a summary.


Q: Will I like it compared to XB1 and XBX?
A: Xenoblade 2 is closer to XB1 compared to XBX, as it is more story oriented. On the other hand, the exploration part is bigger than XB1, even if the general total explorable surface is roughly the same as its predecessor, but smaller than XBX. Consider Xenoblade 2 as the compromise between both games, while leaning towards XB1 for its structure and story focus. As such, if you liked XB1 for its story in comparison to XBX, it is very likely XB2 will satisfy you. However, if you prefered XBX due to the exploration, XB2 might be lacking in that department.


Q: Is there an option for JP voices? Text?
A: Yes, there is a free Japanese voice pack DLC and the game lipsynch is actually based on the Japanese voices 95% of the time (there are very few instances where the lipsynch has been changed for the western version regardless of the dub).
As for the text, since the western version is handled differently due to the voice pack DLC, it is similar to Fire Emblem Warriors: There isn't any common version of the game, hence why there is "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" for the west, while Japan has its own version, "Xenoblade 2". As such, the western version of the game isn't designed to work like Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild when it comes to JP text: switching your account or language settings into Japanese won't change the game language at all. If you want JP text, you will have to buy a japanese game card or the digital version on the JP Eshop, but you won't have English text nor English voices. However, you can select Chinese language.


Q: What are the Sound options?
A: You can tweak Cutscenes voices, BGM, SFX, Game voices, Battle narration (Announcer) separately. So if you can't stand "AMAZING/MARVELOUS/etc" yells in combat, you can disable them specifically without affecting the rest. You can also disable Game voices which will render fights completely void of characters banter and mute the comments the characters make while traveling on the main map or after a fight. Meanwhile, Heart-to-Heart portions and Story Cutscenes are part of the Cutscenes voice option. Note that there isn't any individual character voice option. Note that the BGM might be a bit too loud for cutscenes, so it is advised you reduce the BGM volume to half way and increase the cutscenes voices volume to max.


Q: Is there an auto save function?
A: No, except when you use a core crystal to stop the player from save scumming. It's suggested that you save often, especially that there is no limitation as to where you can save. This is quite important because as of now, the game isn't completely optimized, leading to unpredictable crashes, be it before a cutscene, reaching some new landmarks etc. Don't be that guy who wasted 5 hours of their life because they forgot to save every so often.


Q: Can I change any characters' outfits?
A: Yes, but outfits are changed only with certain accessories, which are obtained as rewards from the challenge mode, an exclusive feature of the Expansion Pass.


Q: Am I stuck playing as Rex?
A: You still can control other characters like any Xenoblade game, although you cannot swap character in the middle of a fight. Note that Rex is still mandatory for story reasons in specific parts of the game but otherwise, you can compose your party however you like by accessing the party composition screen with the X button. If you want less than 3 characters for whatever reason, press X on the characters you want to exclude on the party composition screen (remember the game is balanced around a full party, so reducing your party size might increase the difficulty by a huge margin).
In combat, you can issue a focus order to the IA (left on the D-pad), but you cannot make any other specific order. However, the IA will act accordingly to the style of the driver, depending of the type of blades they have, so equip them with more tank or healer blades if you want a dedicated tank or healer. They also tend switching blades to match the current element requirement for the Blade combo (let's say Nia has Zakuro/Kora (electric) equipped, if your current blade combo requires water, she will automatically switches to Byakko/Dromarch so you can continue the blade combo with a water special).
Also know that characters who are not in the active party still gain experience, weapon points and skill points.


Q: How is the battle system? It looks slow.
A: It is actually the most fast paced system in the series. The game forces you to position yourself correctly to take advantage of your arts effects, and relying mainly on auto-attacks isn't efficient. Combos, positioning and timing are important.
In practice, Canceling arts allow you to activate more specials (A button), which are needed for a Blade Combo. Driver combos are used to disable the enemy as much as you can while dealing high damage if you land "smash" on them. Doing a proper Blade Combo leads to a Blade Combo Finisher (Result of chaining 3 specials in a specific order. For example: Fire => Water => Fire generates Steam Explosion), dealing above very high damage, but also creating an elemental orb. And these orbs are important so you can dish out massive damage during Chain attacks, although they make the enemy resistant to that element as long you don't break the orb.

Finally, remember the game is designed so your party is composed of 3 characters. As such, it is quite natural you struggle a little bit in some parts of the story if your team isn't complete.

For more information (details on the terminology and flow of battle depending of your progression), please check the combat section of the Advanced FAQ pastebin.


Q: What do the character stats mean?
A:
* Strength: affects physical damage
* Ether: affects ether damage and healing
* Dexterity: affects accuracy
* Agility: affects evasion
* Luck: affects resistance to debuffs and reactions, and chances of obtaining rare blades

Unlike a lot of RPG, Dexterity, Agility and Luck do NOT affect chances of dealing and receiving critical hits at all. Critical chances are solely based on the blade equipped, which can be modified by the Chip and the Aux Cores.

Blades have a stats modifier that affect the driver even if the Blade isn't the active one in battle. So if you have 3 blades with 10% Strength Modifier on Rex, that means his strength his increased by 30%, not just 10%. The same goes for any stats modifier provided by their weapons (for example, a Chroma Katana equipped with a Pentagon Chip will provide 50 agility. This bonus is applied even if the Blade is in the second or third slot).
On the other hand, defense is calculated based on the physical and ether defense provided by the active blade. Similarly to battle skills, only the active blade is counted in battle. So even if you have a TNK blade on Rex that mitigates 30% physical defense, if Rex has Homura/Pyra active in combat, only her 5% physical defense will apply on Rex. You have to switch to that blade if you need a higher defense.


Q: What are common and rare blades?
A: Weapons in the form of characters you obtain from core crystals which might be similar to lootboxes at first glance, except you cannot buy with real money. You also cannot get duplicates of rare blades. There are different kind of cores (common, rare, legendary) but none have 100% chance of yielding a rare blade except the special story cores such as the Beast core crystal. Note that blades are bonded to the character who opened the core crystal. You can release a rare blade (including those that are tied to a special core instead of a random core) and get them again with a common/rare/legendary core, so if you don't want to use an overdrive protocol, you can try you luck again. Don't neglect common blades though: while you might not use them compared to rare blades, some might have handy battle skills such as Orb Master, Treasure sensor and Field Skills. In fact, pay attention to their skill sets because some combination of skills might make them more powerful than a lot of rare blades, particularly the 4 crown rarity generic blades.


Q: Can I abuse save function to roll a good blade?
A: No can do. There is an auto save function that activates every time you open a core crystal and you cannot turn it off. You do get a lot of core crystals during a regular playthrough, so you shouldn't worry aboutnever getting good blades in the long run. Also note that you only have 1 save just like XBX, but it is tied to the user profile. If you want another save, just launch the game with another user, but you just can't duplicate a save at all.


Q: How do I get rare blades?
A: Rare blades are well... rarer than your common blades, so it might take a while before you get them. Using a better core (Rare or Legendary) will increase your odds of getting rare blades, but still without any guarantee result (the only guarantee results are the special cores that have a specific rare blade such as the Beastly core or the inherited core). Luck stats affects your chances of getting rare blades, so don't forget equipping + luck and +% luck on your characters when you use core crystals.
The following point doesn't affect the rarity but characters' "Ideas" affect the element of the blade you might get. For example, if Rex has a high bravery idea, his chances for drawing a Fire or Water blades increases. Also, boosters serve as bonus ideas for this, so don't hesitate to use them. Note that according to an informant item, it might affect the stats/skills of a generic blade.

In the early game, you can farm specific salvage spots that have high chances of spawning krabbles, which often drop common and rare core crystals. Make sure you use lower rarity cylinders and fail the QTE to increase the odds of getting krabbles instead of salvaging loot.

Later in the game, it becomes possible to farm legendary core by abusing the smash mechanic on Unique Monsters, while equipping your party with gold chip (+50% item drops for each). A suggested farming target is "Vampire Bride Marion", a lvl65 Unique Monster that is located in the Dragon's Stomach in Uraya (its room can only be unlocked as part of the Titan's Teacher quest.)

Please note it has been confirmed that drop chances are not equal for all rare blades, and some of them are really way rarer than others (notably a certain ether cannon rare blade). So it is normal if you see a lot of people missing the same rare blade. As such, it is actually difficult to get the whole collection of rare blades without spending some time on rare/legendary core farming.


Q: Can I transfer blades? Can I unequip/transfer special blades like Homura/Pyra or Byakko/Dromarch?
A: Regarding non story blades, it requires an overdrive protocol, but be warned that these items are extremely rare and one-use only.
The methods to get the overdrive protocols are as follow:
- You get 3 overdrive protocols in specific chests in the game and can be found quite early too.
- You get 1 overdrive protocol when you completely finish a DRIVER affinity chart (Rex etc)
- You can get 1 overdrive protocol by releasing a 4 crown rarity common blade with a COMPLETED affinity chart (this isn't guaranteed, but you can save before releasing them).
- You get 7 overdrive protocols when you buy the season pass.
- You can get more of them in the New Game+ mode.

As such, be careful when you decide to transfer a rare blade. Alternatively, you can also release a rare blade if it is bonded on the wrong driver and hope the proper driver will get it later. This is also doable for rare blades that are obtained with special cores such as Jikarao/Wulfric. Also note that rare blade retain their affinity chart progression when they are released or transferred, but there is no guarantee you will get them back without spending an awful lot of legendary/rare cores.

As for the special blades, no you generally cannot unequip them nor transfer them as they are bonded to their respective driver for story reasons.


Q: Since there aren't a lot of protocols, how should I distribute the rare blades? What about blade composition aside of elements?
A: The usual suggestion is that: don't use any random core crystal on Rex. For story reasons, he will have enough options at his disposal, so using core crystals on him is a waste in general. That said, feel free to use the Beastly Crystal Core (Jikarao/Wulfric) as Rex is pretty good with that blade and helps his elemental coverage with the other story blades. Regarding other blades from special cores, they are usually best on other characters, although Mikumari/Praxis is another legit choice for Rex, but not recommended if you already used Jikarao/Wulfric core as having 2 Megalances on the same character isn't really a good idea for driver combo. For the rest, try to give HLR blades to Nia, Agility TNK blades to the other tank character, and everything else to the last party member.
Generally, TNK characters should only have TNK blades for the damage reduction and aggro bonus of the master defender class (so try giving the best TNK mod parts to Hana/Poppi if you want to keep Tora as a tank). Note that there are HP Tank and Agility Tanks. Tora is the former while the other tank character is the latter. It isn't a good idea to mix HP and agility on the same character, so keep that in mind when you set Tora or the other tank character with TNK blades.
HLR and ATK characters may have 1 blade of the other category, but absolutely no TNK blade as it is detrimental because of the aggro bonus.
You aren't forced to keep the characters in their original role, so you can use Rex as a TNK or HLR if you so desire, but remember that each character has some specialized affinity passive skills so they might not be the best in another role compared to another character.


Q: I just got a core and I can't use it, what gives? Also what are the special core blades and their types?
A: Special cores that can't be used right away require you to be in combat for a certain number of times. You don't need to fight mobs of your level range, so feel free to slaughter lvl1 mobs at Gormott to speed up this process.

As for what each specific special core gives you:
* Beastly Core Crystal: Jikarao/Wulfric (Earth Strength modifier ATK, Megalance)
* Lucky Core Crystal: Kasane/Kasandra (Dark HP modifier TNK, Shield Hammer)
* Praxis' Core Crystal: Mikumari/Praxis (Water Dexterity modifier ATK, Megalance)
* Theory's Core Crystal: Seori/Theory (Ice Agility modifier TNK, Chroma Katana)
* Inherited Core Crystal: Rinne/Sheba (Water Ether modifier ATK, Ether Cannon)
* Vess' Core Crystal: Musubi/Vess (Electric HP modifier HLR, Bitball)
* Sealed Core Crystal: Teni/Herald (Electric Strength modifier ATK, Ether Cannon)

As a reminder, if you released them, you can get them back with common/rare/legendary cores\
For more information regarding rare blades, such as their stats or how to obtain them, please refer to the google doc.


Q: How do you raise trust efficiently in this game?
A: Using the blade in combat will raise their trust if you increases their affinity in combat to max (the ether line between the blade and driver starts with a blue shade and turns into golden when it is maxed). Alternatively, you increase their trust if you use pouch items or have them engaged when you clear a quest (blades engaged on characters not in the active party are still counted).
For faster trust grinding, just spam pouch items. Since 1.2.0, you can skip voiced lines with A or B, so feel free to use any item. The cheapest item with the highest trust value is the noponcho, a cloth item that is purchased in Fonsett.


Q: Hana/Poppi's concept sounds nice but what do I have to do to make her good?
A: One thing: Tiger Tiger. Basically, you have to play that mini game to get parts and ether. You can also  create parts with the ether you have obtained from Tiger Tiger, although advanced parts also require manuals. Remember that you can also scrap parts that aren't needed into ether. For this, just press Y in the parts menu, and it will show the parts you can scrap.
If you don't fancy the minigame, fear not, Hana/Poppi is pretty serviceable as a HP/block tank with her base parts, although playing Tiger Tiger a bit will help quite a lot. Note that if you want the best stats or change her role, you will have to grind that minigame.
Suffice to say, with enough investment, Hana/Poppi can be the most powerful ATK or TNK Blade in the whole game.


Q: How many forms does Hana/Poppi have?
A: 3. Her first and second form are obtained through the story. The third one is optional and locked behind a questline that is available only starting from chapter 8. For more details, please refer to the google doc.


Q: I seem to always have money issues. How do I fix that?
A: One word: salvaging. Use silver cylinders first and salvage the same spot over and over (the salvage spot next to Torigoth fountain is good enough), then trade the salvaging loot at the trade NPC nearby for more cylinders and boosters. Once you have enough money, do the same, but with gold cylinders, which will increase your profits quite nicely. This will increase the development level of the continent too. Note that you cannot trade salvage items if your boosters count is full so use or sell them in such case.


Q: What are shop deeds?
A: An early quest in Torigoth serves as a tutorial for that, but as a quick summary: shop deeds are key items that bestow a permanent bonus to your party which can range from increased movement speed to gold/exp bonus obtained after a fight. In order to buy them, you have to buy at least 1 of every items sold in a shop. However, most of the time, shops won't have all the goods from the get go and you have to unlock them with the development levels of the continent, but also get "contracts" from mercenary missions. So even with a maxed development level, you might not unlock the deed purchase if you didn't get the goods contract related to that shop. Also, not every shop sell a deed item. Please check the google doc for more information.


Q: How long is the game?
A: Going in straight line without bothering too much with exploration and subquests can easily take between 60 and 80 hours. The full content of the game easily reaches 200+ hours.


Q: What about post-game?
A: As of patch 1.3.0, there is a New Game Plus feature. However, before covering that, note that the game will save your progress after the credits and you will be back in front of the door leading to the final boss. New high levels mobs roam around in certain areas such as the old factory (this is effective the moment you reach chapter 10). There is no limitation for whatever you can do, so you can finish every subquests, blade affinities etc.
Considering listing the NG+ features are pretty big spoilers, the NG+ features are covered in the other FAQ.


Q: Is the music as good as the first game?
A: Matsuda and ACE+ are back. If that's not enough listen to these tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFwObPlg7Y1rLqeFE4sr7C-MQsfIdVTlF


Q: Can I replay heart to heart scenes?
A: Unfortunately, it isn't possible as of now. The event theatre has all the cutscenes you have unlocked as well as the rare blade quests, their introduction and the generic blade introduction. If you are only going to do one playthrough, it's best to save before you play the heart to heart and then reload so you can select the other choice. Keep in mind it's worth to watch both versions because they can have very different outcomes, however they do not affect anything in game.


Q: Is anything censored?
A: No, there isn't any visual alteration in the western versions compared to the Japanese version. There are still few changes for the script and they are mostly about Tora and his fetishes.


Q: What is the DLC?
A: Similar to Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade 2 has a season pass that will span over a year. You cannot buy any item separately right now. Use your own discretion if it is worth your money or not, but it is obvious these aren't really cut content from the base game. Takahashi has confirmed you don't need to finish the game to play the story DLC, so it is very likely that the story DLC isn't an epilogue.


Q: Any trailers?
A:
Regular trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygax_f4e5a8
Direct with world & gameplay explanations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hb0KmH2WBQ
Story trailer (Some early game spoilers, watch at your own risk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOQ9q4HDb0U


Q: Are there gameplay videos?
A: Most are spoiler free, but some reveal more than usual, so caution is advised.
Gamespot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s49dktg5_8
GameXplain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W7ROTyWFQs
IGN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW_REqB8vbc
Polygon (no commentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwuUlw876T4


Q: What's in the special edition?
JP version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OZS6iQEpUs
US version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DESdmng_N1s
EU Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4w8lH9_6ws

The Australian version looks similar to the EU version, but there are drastic differences: the outer box is similar with lime green for Homura/Pyra's sword highlight, but there is no gold back with Hikari/Mythra's sword, and the box doesn't have any fancy "sliding inner box" contrary to the EU version. Also, the OST selection cover and disc designs are the same as the US version but without any jewel case (it is just a cardboard disc sleeve). As a bonus, there is also a poster featuring the main visuals on the front, and the limited edition illustration on the back.

Meanwhile, JP version is closer to the US one with some exceptions: softcover book like the EU ver and steelbook is used for the OST selection, not for the game card. Also, not only it has a regular case for the game, but an additional cover featuring Rex with Hikari/Mythra instead.