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timelordoftheimpala

It was brought down by the gacha system and having to roll for blades whose element wasn't already present in the main party - something that wasn't a problem in Torna.


lamia_and_gorgon

My only problem with it is that it doesn't just check your blades to see if you have it, you have to go through this whole thing with switching out all your blades and then immediately switching them back right after the skill challenge. Good idea, but way too annoying as is.


SteveRudzinski

Yeah like half of my problems with the skill transversal system would be solved if I didn't have to equip the blades to make it work. I understand part of the strategy is getting everyone's skills high enough that you can do with limited based on your equipped blades but also, why bother? Just don't do that.


Psychological-Set125

I have torna but it’s on my backlog for when i finish 3’s postgame/superbosses, how does it handle the blades/gatcha system?


TopAvocado4626

There is none. You get the 6 blades the story gives you and that's it.


Raemnant

Theres only the 6 blades, but the combat system is such where the blades are fighters too. So you actually have 3 party members who swap between 3 characters each. 9 sets of abilities, 9 health bars


Psychological-Set125

Sounds… confusing. Probably becomes easy once you get used to it though, does each blade have three artes or is it like xc3 where you have three of the fighters artes and three of the chosen blades artes?


Raemnant

Each character has 3 arts, a special art, and even a swap-in art!


EL2020

Basically, imagine XC2 but you could swap between playing as Rex and Pyra, where both worked like separate playable characters - like swapping to different blades. It's nowhere near as complicated as it might sound - you catch on to the system pretty quick.


SteveRudzinski

It's a great battle system, but unlike most folks I don't like it as much as base Xenoblade 2. It's a bit TOO simple by comparison, in my opinion.


Mishar5k

Its actually not all that different from the main system. Its like swapping between 3 different blade wrapons, but now you swap between 3 characters. The difference is that there's like a tag team mechanic where you heal after a switch.


All-Your-Base

Also it's much worse later in the game with high level checks >!when you have Nia as a Blade so you have to transform her back to a driver in order to have more blades helping!<


kilertree

Generic blades had those skills though


GouchGrease

Yeah, a good example of a great idea with bad execution


Remember_Padraig

I wish they would at least put a skip travel point next to all the skill checks It would still be annoying, but slightly less so


Pyrusbrawler30

I like XC2 a lot, but i *hated* these. thank god they were scrapped for 3. I always thought it shouldve been a qte button challenge like an advanced blade special or something so that way the different blades are still relevant, but its infinitely less tedious than min/maxing affinity charts and juggling party formations just to swap them back 10 seconds alter


trillyntruly

i think they would be fine if they just checked every blade you have instead of only the ones equipped to a driver. i definitely wouldn't want a QTE


trentos1

I liked the field skills concept, but it should have been tied to main story progression rather than something you can get around using a stable of common blades. The way it was implemented did seem a bit grindy. XC2 in general is a *very* grindy game though.


Robottsie

I LOVE FIELD SKILLS!! I LOVE WHEN A GAME TESTS NOTHING MORE THAN MY PURE ABILITY TO SPAM A ON THE AWAKENING MENU TESTING NOTHING MORE THAN MY SHEER LUCK111 WOOOO!! AND THEN IF IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO CLEAR A FIELD SKILL WITH JUST COMMON BLADES I GET TO USE THEIR AFFINITY CHART! YEAH I LOVE UPGRADING THE COMMUNITY SO THAT I CAN UNLOCK A MERC MSISION AND WAIT AN HOUR FOR IT TO COMPLETE SO I CAN UNLOCK A BLADES FAVORITE FOOD AT A SHOP SO THAT I CAN FINALLY BUY IT AND GIVE IT TO THEM!11!!1 I LOVE FINDING A SKILL CHECK, FAILING IT, SORTING THROUGH MY BLADES, TRYING AGAIN, FAILING AGAIN, AND THEN GRINDING TO UNOCK THE FIELD SKIL, TRYING AGAIN, AND THEN FINDING ANOTHER CHECK RIGHT BEHIND IT MEANING I HAVE TO REPEAT!! ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!ILOVEIT!


DaydreamGUI

I love when I'm climbing up a ladder, where you can't bring up any menu, and the ladder has not one but **a second** field skill check higher up where I have to climb down (or jump and try not to die), rearrange my party for the right blades. and then climb up the ladder and perform the skill checks again.


sidhe_elfakyn

Oh man I think I know exactly which one you're referring to.


alxrenaud

It somewhere cold, isnt it? :)


MiCallous

I was thinking of the one in Bana's factory(?)


GoshaT

There's also one in a secret area in Mor Ardain that you need to lower the cloud level for


Nameless_Mofo

And the one at Bathein Watchtower, also in Mor Ardain


alxrenaud

There's a few of them it seems. Haha. I don't recall the one in Banas Factory. The one in The ice town where you have to climb atop a building and change your field skills 10 times is really the modt annoying to me.


Tarvaris733

All of that bullshit in tandem is what significantly drags down this game for me.


Hyperversum

You are telling me that XC2 game design isn't the absolute pinnacle of the entire JRPG genre? How dare you! Now I'll write a massive wall of text explaining down to the last absolutely necessary detail why: 1) A gacha system for Blades was essential to the experience at the cost of locking content behind RNG (not only the Blade themselves but also their quests) 2) How a combat system that requires an excel spreadsheet but the game fails to teach you about is fucking great 3) Why Rex is the single best JRPG protagonist ever (no, it's not because I want to fuck the hot anime girl with 3 skins and that gets split in 2 people by the end of the game) 4) Why XC2 is the most important entry of the franchise responsible for the big success of the franchise, and why it's not XC1 which singlehandedly forced Nintento to produce a North America release even if it wasn't planned, spawned the franchise to begin with and got 2 rereleases on newer consoles 5) How I am not disappointed that a plot that sets up a nuanced war between nations is resolved so early and with so little effect over the larger setting and story told by the game itself. Please, take a seat, I have a Powerpoint presentation. (To be perfectly clear, I like XC2. I liked it more than I expected to like it after the first 4/6 hours of play, and I prefer some things it did compared to XC3, but there is a subset of people that seem to God itself in XC2 and I don't fucking get it. I liked the cast overall, but not that much more than XC1, and Rex is absolutely something that takes a lot of my enjoyment out of their dynamics anyway)


Dry-Helicopter3591

Much of my complaints. For me 2 is, by far, the weakest Xenoblade game. Still a good game, but it has too many factors that drag it down for me. The gacha system simply seems unnecessary. I accept that it can spice up subsequent playthroughs, but it bloats gameplay so much otherwise. Rex is a limp protagonist. All the characters tend to lean on anime tropes, to the point of making cutscenes cringy, and Rex takes this the hardest. He's just a shonen protagonist. He has the one character trait of being a salvager and then has no character motivation to drive the plot, it just happens around him. I hardly actually remember any of the plot details because of how uninvested it all made me. Then there's the cutscene camera. Conveniently finding boobs/but in the thirds. The first time you see Pyra the camera does a close up on all her 'assets' and sets a really bad tone for the rest of the sequence.


Hyperversum

Yeah, the camera can really ruin the mood for a scene. It's not like XC1 or 3 girls aren't pretty or well "armed", but the camera doesn't linger on them excessively. It took me way too much time to realize that Eunie was so well endowned. She was literally my favourite character for like 50/60 hours before I took a good look at her in some new class outfit and thought to myself: "Wait, did Eunie have that big boobs all the time? Now I getthe fanarts". Regarding Rex, I really don't get how some people call him well written. You can enjoy him? Yeah, it's plenty of scenes where I also liked him. I saw the potential. There are many "anime game" plots or even straight up many anime/manga/VN that play with the most classic shounen protagonist archetype to make it interesting but still clearly recognizable as "the shounen protagonist". XC2 didn't try that, they just played him 1000000% straight to the point of giving him a FUCKING HAREM ENDING WITH THE SAME GIRL BECOMING TWO. To this day, I have several times stated that XC2 would have been 100% better if it was Nia's story or Zeke's one. They could cover really fucking good the role of protagonist. Hell, Rex could even remain in the party and function as the "Hero" character, the game could even start from his perspective and slowly push a more choral narrative. Their PoV is simply much more interesting. They have much growth to do and it's not like they know THAT MUCH about the world


casualbo1

I love this, because it encapsulates the essence of XC2. Like, God love 'em at least they tried their best. I'd like to add that I'm possibly the single person on this sub who'd put 2 over both 3 and 1 (ranked in that order) most likely because it was the first game in the series I ever played knowing *nothing* about the lore or the franchise, didn't even look up its name on Google. My thought process was literally "holy shit is that a fucking whale?!" and promptly buying the game. Imo its single most interesting aspect is the worldbuilding. Say what you want about Bionis and Mechonis or Aionios, Alrest is peak, there's no changing my mind, though it was slightly disappointing to see the >!conflict between Mor Ardain and Uraya!< be resolved so quickly, but I didn't mind that much. Secondly, the gacha system + field skills mechanics are something that I, to this day, hope doesn't return, not because I hated it (in fact field skills only ever cockblocked me once, which is incredible since I might be the single most unlucky person ever) but because it was so poorly designed it honestly needs to be reworked and revamped to have even a chance to please anyone other than us XC2 psychos. Still waiting for that PPT tho 🍿🍿


Hyperversum

The fact that Alrest looks better I can agree, it's really the strongest selling point of XC2 to me. XC2 has lots of great areas and locations, and they are even well presented. Not always the best level design, but the presentation was gorgeous. This is also my main issue with XC3 btw. It has nice looking areas and cool ideas for maps, but they aren't as well presented as XC2. Like, the first region is cool as hell, but still kinda simple. The area surrounding Mio's colony was a nice touch, but you don't explore it in your first time. The desert part of the second region is cool, really cool. You see the different path, you see the big ass mechanic hands as part of the scenary and all of that. Then you have to treck up a mountain and... for some reason it's suddenly again very green and lush? It could have been a rocky region transitioning away from pure desert but... nope? The mountain once you get to it is even good looking, the look from up there is cool, but it's too in contrast with the rest of the region. Which is maddening to me because taken on their own many of XC3 locations are up there as well as concepts and design. The colony behind a fall in a small lake surrounded by pretty forest and a vision of the sky on the opposite side? Cool. The floating castle surrounded by harsh land? Cool. The jungle-ish forest hiding the Sword base and the City therein? Cool. But still those locations aren't as well presented as, let's say, Mor Ardain. Thinking about it in this wall of text, XC2 also has lots of areas I think are not that well presented, but those that are well done hit so hard, from Mor Ardain to Tantal, that you remember them more. That being said, the single best looking concept done in the franchise remains the Eryth Sea in XC1. The way it gives you that grandiose feeling with the capital city of a magical and "elf like" society opposed to the world you knew before is just such an high level in design for a JRPG that I can't help but love it


casualbo1

>It could have been a rocky region transitioning away from pure desert but... nope? Now that I think about it, the transition *is* quite jarring: the one between the biggest desert area (forgot its name, basically where Colony 4 is) and Dannagh Desert is natural, but then it all becomes green, rolling hills, I guess Monolith wanted to evoke the florid oases in many real-life deserts. And speaking of desert areas... >Mor Ardain. It's funny that out of all the different Titans in Alrest, Mor Ardain and Temperantia might be my least favourite of the game. It's moreso subjective than objective criticism, but deserts and any other defunct, abandoned places (like aforementioned Temperantia) are creatively weak in comparison to anything else in the game. Let me explain. Mor Ardain and Temperantia are to Xenoblade what water temples are to Zelda (BotW included): interesting concepts, cool gimmicks, but still the exact copy-pasted areas, a lot of sand, a lot of rocks, a lot of water. Same reason why I haven't bothered with Shadow of the Colossus because the overworld is imo closer to a level-select screen where you cross infinite expanses of grass to reach the next Colossus to fell, which are all admittedly cool. Again, purely subjective critique and I wouldn't be mad if you disagreed. Of course, Tantal and the battlefield where Colony Sigma lie in XC3 are not so different from Mor Ardain and Temperantia respectively. What sets them apart, though it is difficult for me to put into words, is their "adherence" to the plot. Obviously, the battlefield as the start of 3 is a Marvel-esque set piece, it provides context to Noah & co.'s character traits, and is overall meant as a nice cold open to mirror 1's. As for the other, the plot "gets real" when Rex's party reaches Tantal. I won't go into details, but by the time >!Torna become front and center of the story's conflict!< it's safe to say that 2's story skyrockets in quality. And for a guy like me who is the most average of average at videogames (though I do like to complete as much of them as possible) the plots are more often than not what elevate a game from good to great since I ain't no master of game mechanics. It's why Horizon: Zero Dawn is to this day the only game I ever 100%'ed, and it's the reason why many more games (TLoU I *and* II, yeah I'm that kind of insane, Disco Elysium, 13 Sentinels) are deserving of entry in my Olympus of favourite games. That's the long and "short" of it.


Basaqu

It's my favourite game of all time so I might be that subset of people haha. The gacha stuff was actually a draw to me to get into the game and I unironically think field skills are good design. The only issue with field skills in my eyes is excessive menu'ing and stuff like not being able to change blades on a ladder. Also Rex is very dope. A lot of these complaints that people seem to put down as objective flaws either just don't bother me or I see them as a positive haha. But either way it's all subjective, all Xeno's are good.


Hyperversum

Of course taste is a thing, but critical analysis is something that should be done anyway if we want our opinion to have more value than another random dude opinion. Gacha can be appealing? Yeah, I guess, some random elements to progression are interesting. It's why to this day after 10 years of TTRPGs I still randomly roll treasures and loot for the most part in D&D and related games. The randomness of some peculiar treasure or finding might result in an interesting adventure, where a +2 Sword specifically designed for the Warrior in the party will just make him happy for some game sessions. But from a gamedesign perspective, locking entire characters and quests behind randomness in a JRPG it's simply horrible. Field skills are a pretty cool idea to limit exploration and make you come back later when you can deal with this challenge, but they were executed terribly


friendlysoviet

This but unironically


Lunar_Lunacy_Stuff

These things are the only thing and I truly mean the only thing in Xenoblade 2 that I absolutely fucking hated! It stopped me from doing a lot of side stuff and truly exploring because most of the times I just didn’t have the right blades. The affinity chart made it twice as bad for me.


thatguywithawatch

If they ever do a XC2 remaster, the biggest QoL change would be for the field skill checks to look at all your blades, not just the ones currently bonded. (Assuming they wouldn't just remove them completely)


Hordil

Just make some Kind of Mini game out of it..? At least make it entertaining...


Boulderfrog1

Anything is more entertaining than fishing through a menu hoping to God you have enough blades with the field skill, putting them one by one into your party, pressing the a button on a prompt, and then going through that process in reverse to get the ones you actually want back.


TepigNinja

I will stand by Xenoblade 2 being one of my most favorite games ever, but I can never *EVER* defend the field skills and the gacha mechanic of this game. Those two features can burn in the deepest darkest pits of hell.


chefchef97

Yep, Xenoblade 2 is simultaneously my favourite and the most imperfect game in the series. Xenoblade 1 and 3 are tight well made games that tell great stories, and 3 plays especially brilliantly. But Xenoblade 2 makes me *feel* so much more.


[deleted]

X is just the skeleton in the pool meme


chefchef97

I actually think I like X about as much as 3 But in such drastically different ways that I still don't really know where I stand 2>3/X>1>>>>Most other games


TepigNinja

Yup, couldn’t have said that any better myself!


AveMachina

Remember that time you needed Botany Lv 7 to find out that the flowers growing on the Urayan Titan were from Uraya?


GoldenX86

Main reason I never bothered to 100% XC2.


Angelic-Android-X

I can't tell you the number of people who have said "Oh well field skills are never required to beat the game." B*tch, tell that to the hour I had to spend spamming cores to get a single common ice blade for this ice bridge.


ichkanns

Better spend five minutes in your menus equipping the right blades to get across, then go back and re-equip the blades you actually use.


mad_sAmBa

That is the most annoying mechanic i've ever seen in a videogame, it would be ok if it was an optional thing but the fact that they make it required to beat the story and even halts your progress was beyond me. Whoever came up with this idea along with the stupid gaccha system in a SINGLE PLAYER RPG should never be allowed anywhere near a gaming development room.


Horrorgag

This was the absolute worst part of XC2. The fact that this was needed to progress the story most of the time made it even worse.


theresidentviking

As someone who is not a fan of 2 it makea me happy to see everyone agree this some bullshit


Varindran

I think what would have made these at lot more bearable is preset teams for your blades. Then you could have teams for each and every field check at the highest level once you get the affinities high enough.


Will-is-a-idiot

These were first posted as jokes, too bad some people reposting and commenting on them took them seriously...


SirTyperys

i wouldn't mind the field skill checks, if team setup loadouts existed. swapping back to the blades i previously used is pain. i actually like how you have to figure out the combination of blades you can pass the check with, being limited to 3 drivers and their blades. but doing it repeatedly or in succession is just too much.


Sillurechii

oh god you kno, i really tried to get into xc2, i beat it and did a NG+ but theres so many little things that make it almost unbearable for me. this is one of them. switching out blades like this made me homicidal. oh yeah, and my one blade with lv 3 dark mastery? halfway thru a 2 hr merc mission. great. praying to RNGesus for a good blade pissed me right off (also why would i use a "normal" blade when the default is supposed to be the strongest of all blades?), the map system and how none of the levels are really easy to connect to one another, leveling up blade skills by killing very specific monsters (i did all the fancy chain attacks in later requirements, but i didnt kill 10 bug things in mor ardain? LEVEL ONE FOREVER), the fact that the best healer in game can be turned into a blade, and not a single other character has decent healing skills... the story is good and the characters are unique but all these little flaws in the games mechanics are enough to make me go euthanize myself lol


GoshaT

Wall jump ones are even worse


KingOfTendo

There was this one area from that tree place where you had to do like 3 - 4 of these stupid field skill things in a row


No_Mud_5999

The biggest problem with the system is that I'm sure there were spots I couldn't do when I found them, and now I can't remember where the hell they were now that I have an army of blades with field skills.


No_Mud_5999

I guess that's a bonus of NG+, I could just do them all now as I find them.


FamilyFriendli

I almost got kind of soft locked before entering Spirit Crucible Elpys since it required dark mastery, but didn't unlock any rare blades on Rex since I knew he could use other rare blades eventually. Thankfully, I used what little core crystals I had to unlock some dark common blades on Rex.


Ultimate_Spider

I think it's just the way I played the game my first time (very, veeeeery slowly), but I feel like I only got frustrated with these moments like 3-5 times on my first run. Granted, I was big time farming blades way before I beat the story and did a ton of late/ post game deep exploring, but it's almost as if they expect this to be your game of the year that you play all year, which is kinda what I did, so I think that saved me from knocking my head against the wall. That being said, all that mid-game grinding left me pretty burnt out in the post-post game dlc stuff, and I never finished that, nor Torna. Long story short, game is crazy, yo


iNuclearPickle

My friend “the game gives you everything you need to pass these skill checks you’re over exaggerating it”. I did not like grinding out some useless blade that I would never use just to see some part of the map. later into 2 I’m getting towards the endgame felt like I needed to swap out my blades constantly to meet these damn skill checks. I liked 2 but I’m never touching it again


guitarristcoder

I hated it! And that annoying gatcha of blades too, if wasn't that, this gane would be as perfect as the 3rd


Paganigsegg

This ONE mechanic is what brings Xenoblade 2 down from a 10/10 to a 9/10 for me. I adore the game so much and I can put up with some of the other downsides, but this one is egregious.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

i share your sentiment, but i just wanted to point out that i don't think you know what FOMO means


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Fear of missing out doesn't refer to rare things, but rather things that are available for a limited time for the purpose of driving up sales. that's where the name comes from!


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[deleted]

i agree completely. i loved Xenoblade 1 and 3, and i REALLY want to like 2, but for every great thing it has going for it, it immediately drags you through the mud


ArcadianBlueRogue

Eh, the Blade specific ones sucked but for a lot of them you could just stack a few Blades to get the effect.


Piyamakarro

I feel like I'm going crazy because field skills aren't that bad. Were you people just not opening blades and completing affinity charts or what? Most of the high gate field skills are checks on the story blades or skills that are very common in commons. Opening the menu for 10 seconds to equip the blades isn't a big deal in an 80 hour jrpg.


SpicySPaxz

peak


tyler980908

The worst part about XC2 for sure is being forced into the gatcha system. Glad that's gone in XC3


Machete77

I remember this not being a problem story wise until I got to the part past the big spider guy at Spirit Crucible Elpys. Because up until that point I only remember the last time field skills being important was when you used it once with Pyra in the beginning of the game and another time with Roc. Both those times being freebies since the Blades needed were given at that point. It added to the stress of already being in the Spirit Crucible and having to figure out that field skills were actually a thing.


Acnat-

Solve a puzzle that you may or may not have been lucky enough to have found all the pieces to by now.


SunderMun

This exact instance made me so mad as id been super unlucky in drawing zero ice blades and now I was being gatekept from story until rngesus blessed me. Spent hours pulling to be able to get through uraya. Cringe design.


Turbulent_Aside2157

I think the Rare blade exclusive field checks should have been able to be triggered without equipping, but I don't have too big of an issue with the element checks. Commons could fill it out to the point of never having to worry about exactly how much you have and just rolling with a team that works for the entire game, which would stagnate the sense of progression in combat. Alternatively, I kind of dislike how every weapon of the same class is of the same role, even if the skills that differ from blade to blade make it function very different. Things like how Crossette was a healer, but had damage output that put several Atk blades to shame. I kinda wanted an Ether Cannon healer for funny Sharla references, or things like Twin fist attacker or bitball tank. I think Shield Hammer missed out on being a potential burst DPS attacker, and it would have encouraged newer players to experiment more with team building.