Xenoblade Chronicles

2013-09-02 10:29:54 am

The agility gems + the agility up skills vs higher level enemies allows Shulk and Reyn to dodge nearly every hit in the first 30 seconds.

If visions are simply a calculation of damage then it would be best to drop some of the armour (probably not put in on Reyn as the iron set is so heavy and he needs the agility), but it really seems like there's an RNG element to me. I've had Sharla take a Xord Impact into critical life without a vision being triggered several times. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

Finrod

2013-09-02 11:11:12 am

Usually, even in other fights, you have vision when you are low life, that's true... Rarely you will die without having a vision before.

But as Xord Impact is very powerful, I guess you are not prevented as it would do normally, as you still have a lot of HP...

Finrod

2015-01-01 10:43:17 am

First message since a really long time, but I guess it's important for tons of stuff to revive this -again. It concerns both categories btw :3

Thanks to the NG route and couple of optimizations here and there, I was able to drop the NG+ speedrun to 3:32:29 RTA, beating Hexade's time by 6 minutes. It's still a pretty bad run however, but there is cool things in it: http://www.twitch.tv/legrandgrand/c/5772759

different stuff from sir VG's video (as no one talked there about hexade's video):
-different weapons setting for Reyn, Dunban, Melia and Seven: only one weapon, 3 slot anti-mechon/Distopeia (already on Hexade's run)
-different gearing for everyone: mostly to be cool than really useful for Sharla, Riki and Fiora. Others are also cool (ledios armor for Dunban <3 ), but it has other aims: haste+ on Dunban, Reyn and Shulk with glory gloves, agrius top to try to avoid stun lock against Jade face/galahad fights, ether glasses for Melia for obvious reasons. Gearing Fiora with unique armors to save time and still getting maxed DPS
-different gems setting: quick step for Shulk, Reyn, Dunban and Melia to avoid at maximum menus at fallen arm and to go faster
-earth cloak for Shulk to skip some fights, stability attack, attack + and first attack + for maxed DPS: allow to do a back slash attack in front of the ennemy that deals as much damage on first attack as a back slash from behind to save movements during fight. Useful too if you can back slash from behind pretty fast on first attack (mainly useful at Prison Island) or stream edge on early fights (eg human assassins)
-Using Seven instead of Reyn for the endgame because she has more DPS because of faster attacks (already on Hexade's run too)
-Different parties from time to time, mainly to avoid menus (eg fallen arm fight where I lead with Reyn, Lorithia with Shulk instead of Melia): endgame strats are however still to optimize
-Aimed for better routing using landmark (mainly used on Valak mountain, but I actually forgot the strat... also visible at Alcamoth, and once again all that was on Hexade's run)
-used all the NG shortcuts of Mechonis field/Agniratha, as well as on the ether mine (with an elevator skip found 3 days before the run by dhrGR, that I call "casual" skip) => few fails on those
-different fight strats/time of the day strats, mainly thanks to different gems/party settings

I guess I went through everything, and it's actually a lot for NG+ ^^ NG+ can be taken down to sub 3:30 easily, ot sure how much more though. Might be closer to sub 3:27-3:28. I can also send stuff about arts used and skills if anyone is interested.

I have done notes on NG for those who could be interested; however it's in french, but if anyone is interested in speedrunning that I can translate it for sure. I haven't run the category for a while (PB is 10h10), but I have ately thought about 2 things to discuss:

1) how interesting would the elevator skip at the central pit? The main problem is that it skips 2 landmarks, so couple of XP/AP/SP: so would it be worthing it skipping it and farming more later on or just stick to old strat? I didn't time the skip, but it saves ~2min on NG+, so a bit more in NG

2) I just realized Riki had 2 really cool arts that we don't use and could be helpful for endgame (Prison Island and onward): behave, that can remove craze' aura from Dickson and the final boss (2nd phase), and cause paralysis. Have to test that art, but it could replace a red art of Riki that aren't really that useful ^^
Second one is Riki is angry: that would make Riki a really good tank in case he takes the aggro on the final boss.

First message since a really long time, but I guess it's important for tons of stuff to revive this -again. It concerns both categories btw :3

Thanks to the NG route and couple of optimizations here and there, I was able to drop the NG+ speedrun to 3:32:29 RTA, beating Hexade's time by 6 minutes. It's still a pretty bad run however, but there is cool things in it: http://www.twitch.tv/legrandgrand/c/5772759

different stuff from sir VG's video (as no one talked there about hexade's video):
-different weapons setting for Reyn, Dunban, Melia and Seven: only one weapon, 3 slot anti-mechon/Distopeia (already on Hexade's run)
-different gearing for everyone: mostly to be cool than really useful for Sharla, Riki and Fiora. Others are also cool (ledios armor for Dunban <3 ), but it has other aims: haste+ on Dunban, Reyn and Shulk with glory gloves, agrius top to try to avoid stun lock against Jade face/galahad fights, ether glasses for Melia for obvious reasons. Gearing Fiora with unique armors to save time and still getting maxed DPS
-different gems setting: quick step for Shulk, Reyn, Dunban and Melia to avoid at maximum menus at fallen arm and to go faster
-earth cloak for Shulk to skip some fights, stability attack, attack + and first attack + for maxed DPS: allow to do a back slash attack in front of the ennemy that deals as much damage on first attack as a back slash from behind to save movements during fight. Useful too if you can back slash from behind pretty fast on first attack (mainly useful at Prison Island) or stream edge on early fights (eg human assassins)
-Using Seven instead of Reyn for the endgame because she has more DPS because of faster attacks (already on Hexade's run too)
-Different parties from time to time, mainly to avoid menus (eg fallen arm fight where I lead with Reyn, Lorithia with Shulk instead of Melia): endgame strats are however still to optimize 
-Aimed for better routing using landmark (mainly used on Valak mountain, but I actually forgot the strat... also visible at Alcamoth, and once again all that was on Hexade's run)
-used all the NG shortcuts of Mechonis field/Agniratha, as well as on the ether mine (with an elevator skip found 3 days before the run by dhrGR, that I call "casual" skip) => few fails on those
-different fight strats/time of the day strats, mainly thanks to different gems/party settings

I guess I went through everything, and it's actually a lot for NG+ ^^ NG+ can be taken down to sub 3:30 easily, ot sure how much more though. Might be closer to sub 3:27-3:28. I can also send stuff about arts used and skills if anyone is interested.

I have done notes on NG for those who could be interested; however it's in french, but if anyone is interested in speedrunning that I can translate it for sure. I haven't run the category for a while (PB is 10h10), but I have ately thought about 2 things to discuss: 
 
1) how interesting would the elevator skip at the central pit? The main problem is that it skips 2 landmarks, so couple of XP/AP/SP: so would it be worthing it skipping it and farming more later on or just stick to old strat? I didn't time the skip, but it saves ~2min on NG+, so a bit more in NG

2) I just realized Riki had 2 really cool arts that we don't use and could be helpful for endgame (Prison Island and onward): behave, that can remove craze' aura from Dickson and the final boss (2nd phase), and cause paralysis. Have to test that art, but it could replace a red art of Riki that aren't really that useful ^^
Second one is Riki is angry: that would make Riki a really good tank in case he takes the aggro on the final boss.

Radman

2015-02-05 04:42:32 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

This is the second topic for a game I wanna speedrun where Sir VG has made the topic. Weird.

Anyway, still going through first playthrough. Wanna collect pretty much everything and get my levels up. If anyone could give me some setup tips for when I'm fully maxed and on New Game+, I'd appreciate it. Tongue

I_eat_tables

2015-02-06 12:23:10 am

Fire Emblem?

Are you really sure you want to do NG+? NG+ is a really dull category, almost entirely running around for 3 or so hours, with battles being mostly very quick.

Sir VG

2015-02-06 05:55:47 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Quote from Radman:

This is the second topic for a game I wanna speedrun where Sir VG has made the topic. Weird.

Anyway, still going through first playthrough. Wanna collect pretty much everything and get my levels up. If anyone could give me some setup tips for when I'm fully maxed and on New Game+, I'd appreciate it. Tongue

If it's your first playthrough, let me tell you this. You're NOT going to be ready for NG+ after one playthrough. The main reason is the coins for linking abilities are limited each playthrough and to max them out takes I think 6 playthroughs of beating nearly every uber boss.

The synthesizing of gems is the hardest part to figure out. To get VI gems takes good setup. It's been a while since I've done it so my memory is a bit fuzzy. You want a pair with low compatibility and another with perfect compatibility (I think my teams were Dunban/Riki for low and Shulk/Ryen for high). Low gives you some high% vials and then you combine those for perfect gems. Or that's how I think I remember it going.

[quote="Radman"]This is the second topic for a game I wanna speedrun where Sir VG has made the topic. Weird.

Anyway, still going through first playthrough. Wanna collect pretty much everything and get my levels up. If anyone could give me some setup tips for when I'm fully maxed and on New Game+, I'd appreciate it. :P[/quote]

If it's your first playthrough, let me tell you this. You're NOT going to be ready for NG+ after one playthrough. The main reason is the coins for linking abilities are limited each playthrough and to max them out takes I think 6 playthroughs of beating nearly every uber boss.

The synthesizing of gems is the hardest part to figure out. To get VI gems takes good setup. It's been a while since I've done it so my memory is a bit fuzzy. You want a pair with low compatibility and another with perfect compatibility (I think my teams were Dunban/Riki for low and Shulk/Ryen for high). Low gives you some high% vials and then you combine those for perfect gems. Or that's how I think I remember it going.

Finrod

2015-02-06 08:34:17 am

That's indeed the best way to do it, but actually for makig gem you can not care about affinity, it's really just RNG to get what you want, but basically
1: separate cristals to get cylinders with a pair specialised in low temperature; you can use useless cristals to avoid having too high percentage for the gems you want
2: Get the highest combo with only cylinders of each types with a pair specialised in high temperature.

And Actually you don't need that much coins to get enough skill links. I think I have something like 200 on my file and it's fine, since you want movement skills and physical/ether damage skills; the other doesn't matter at all, unless maybe velocity but really minor again. Every ennemies die in 5 hit maximums with a good team, good equipment and good gems.

Affinity however is really important; you want at least lvl 4-5 between everyone. And of course all skills of every characters.

Anyway VG is right: you won't be ready after one playthrough. It will take a few (the other one are really fast however.) It should *only* take ~200 hours IGT if you are efficient to get a decent file. Mine was done in 100hours, but I actually knew everything to do when starting the file from scratch ^^

That's indeed the best way to do it, but actually for makig gem you can not care about affinity, it's really just RNG to get what you want, but basically
1: separate cristals to get cylinders with a pair specialised in low temperature; you can use useless cristals to avoid having too high percentage for the gems you want
2: Get the highest combo with only cylinders of each types with a pair specialised in high temperature.

And Actually you don't need that much coins to get enough skill links. I think I have something like 200 on my file and it's fine, since you want movement skills and physical/ether damage skills; the other doesn't matter at all, unless maybe velocity but really minor again. Every ennemies die in 5 hit maximums with a good team, good equipment and good gems.

Affinity however is really important; you want at least lvl 4-5 between everyone. And of course all skills of every characters.

Anyway VG is right: you won't be ready after one playthrough. It will take a few (the other one are really fast however.) It should *only* take ~200 hours IGT if you are efficient to get a decent file. Mine was done in 100hours, but I actually knew everything to do when starting the file from scratch ^^

Radman

2015-02-06 09:12:57 am

For Fun! For GLORY!!

Quote from I_eat_tables:

Are you really sure you want to do NG+? NG+ is a really dull category, almost entirely running around for 3 or so hours, with battles being mostly very quick.

As opposed to the fresh New Game that's almost 20+ hours? No thanks.

Quote from Sir VG:

Quote from Radman:

This is the second topic for a game I wanna speedrun where Sir VG has made the topic. Weird.

Anyway, still going through first playthrough. Wanna collect pretty much everything and get my levels up. If anyone could give me some setup tips for when I'm fully maxed and on New Game+, I'd appreciate it. Tongue

If it's your first playthrough, let me tell you this. You're NOT going to be ready for NG+ after one playthrough. The main reason is the coins for linking abilities are limited each playthrough and to max them out takes I think 6 playthroughs of beating nearly every uber boss.

The synthesizing of gems is the hardest part to figure out. To get VI gems takes good setup. It's been a while since I've done it so my memory is a bit fuzzy. You want a pair with low compatibility and another with perfect compatibility (I think my teams were Dunban/Riki for low and Shulk/Ryen for high). Low gives you some high% vials and then you combine those for perfect gems. Or that's how I think I remember it going.

Quote from Finrod:

That's indeed the best way to do it, but actually for makig gem you can not care about affinity, it's really just RNG to get what you want, but basically
1: separate cristals to get cylinders with a pair specialised in low temperature; you can use useless cristals to avoid having too high percentage for the gems you want
2: Get the highest combo with only cylinders of each types with a pair specialised in high temperature.

And Actually you don't need that much coins to get enough skill links. I think I have something like 200 on my file and it's fine, since you want movement skills and physical/ether damage skills; the other doesn't matter at all, unless maybe velocity but really minor again. Every ennemies die in 5 hit maximums with a good team, good equipment and good gems.

Affinity however is really important; you want at least lvl 4-5 between everyone. And of course all skills of every characters.

Anyway VG is right: you won't be ready after one playthrough. It will take a few (the other one are really fast however.) It should *only* take ~200 hours IGT if you are efficient to get a decent file. Mine was done in 100hours, but I actually knew everything to do when starting the file from scratch ^^

And I'm well aware I have to put in ALOT of hours to have the file ready for a good run. Right now I'm focused on 1 or 2 things at a time, like affinity and all max levels. The skill links and gems will come later. I'm falling in love with this game, so putting in the time will be no trouble. Thanks for the gem tips. ^_^

I just wanna ask what's the best skill links to make? I'm guessing anything that raises a stat?

[quote="I_eat_tables"]Are you really sure you want to do NG+? NG+ is a really dull category, almost entirely running around for 3 or so hours, with battles being mostly very quick.[/quote]

As opposed to the fresh New Game that's almost 20+ hours? No thanks.

[quote="Sir VG"][quote="Radman"]This is the second topic for a game I wanna speedrun where Sir VG has made the topic. Weird.

Anyway, still going through first playthrough. Wanna collect pretty much everything and get my levels up. If anyone could give me some setup tips for when I'm fully maxed and on New Game+, I'd appreciate it. :P[/quote]

If it's your first playthrough, let me tell you this. You're NOT going to be ready for NG+ after one playthrough. The main reason is the coins for linking abilities are limited each playthrough and to max them out takes I think 6 playthroughs of beating nearly every uber boss.

The synthesizing of gems is the hardest part to figure out. To get VI gems takes good setup. It's been a while since I've done it so my memory is a bit fuzzy. You want a pair with low compatibility and another with perfect compatibility (I think my teams were Dunban/Riki for low and Shulk/Ryen for high). Low gives you some high% vials and then you combine those for perfect gems. Or that's how I think I remember it going.[/quote]

[quote="Finrod"]That's indeed the best way to do it, but actually for makig gem you can not care about affinity, it's really just RNG to get what you want, but basically
1: separate cristals to get cylinders with a pair specialised in low temperature; you can use useless cristals to avoid having too high percentage for the gems you want
2: Get the highest combo with only cylinders of each types with a pair specialised in high temperature.

And Actually you don't need that much coins to get enough skill links. I think I have something like 200 on my file and it's fine, since you want movement skills and physical/ether damage skills; the other doesn't matter at all, unless maybe velocity but really minor again. Every ennemies die in 5 hit maximums with a good team, good equipment and good gems.

Affinity however is really important; you want at least lvl 4-5 between everyone. And of course all skills of every characters.

Anyway VG is right: you won't be ready after one playthrough. It will take a few (the other one are really fast however.) It should *only* take ~200 hours IGT if you are efficient to get a decent file. Mine was done in 100hours, but I actually knew everything to do when starting the file from scratch ^^[/quote]

And I'm well aware I have to put in ALOT of hours to have the file ready for a good run. Right now I'm focused on 1 or 2 things at a time, like affinity and all max levels. The skill links and gems will come later. I'm falling in love with this game, so putting in the time will be no trouble. Thanks for the gem tips. ^_^

I just wanna ask what's the best skill links to make? I'm guessing anything that raises a stat?

Sir VG

2015-02-06 09:52:38 am

Fucking Weeaboo

New Game runs are under 10 now, if you know what you're doing and have good luck.

As for my NG+ run, it was 180 hours of setup time. I can't remember my skill links off hand, but uping stats and movement speed is a must.

Radman

Edit history:

Radman: 2015-02-06 01:13:13 pm

Radman: 2015-02-06 01:13:05 pm

2015-02-06 01:06:48 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

Quote from Sir VG:

New Game runs are under 10 now, if you know what you're doing and have good luck.

As for my NG+ run, it was 180 hours of setup time. I can't remember my skill links off hand, but uping stats and movement speed is a must.

Gotcha. Thanks for the info VG.

But first things first, gotta actually beat this game once. Tongue

HaosEdgee

2015-02-15 09:25:31 am

Flopping Lunky since 2015.

Hey guys, HaosEdge(e) here!

Today I've done my 2nd run of Xenoblade Chronicles NG+ any% and it turned out to be a new world record!
The time is 3:28:05, so sub 3:30 has been archived. Smiley

http://www.twitch.tv/haosedge/c/6122700

Fights could've definitely been better, really glad about menuing and overall movement though.

My first run was a real wreck, ending up at ~3:50, with doing about all of mechonis blind. Did a whole week of practise and apparently it payed of!
I am using very few new movement strats compared to legrandgrand's PB, such as in Sword Valley and Mechonis Field. Other than that I only use 4 Arts on Reyn - Bone Upper, Sword Drive, Dive Sobat and Shield Bash. Also my equipment varies a slight bit.

#Lastitemorbgavemeavision. Kappa

Radman

2015-02-15 11:18:32 am

For Fun! For GLORY!!

Wow! Gratz Haos! If you can get a sub 3:30 without an optimized setup, gives me hope of what I can get done once I get all my affinity and skill chains set up.

I'm coming for you! Roll Eyes

Finrod

2015-03-01 10:11:51 am

tfw you don't notifications of new stuff happening here... Anyway congratz again Haos ^^

Since I've worked with him for this run and watched it all I can say it was a really good run overall. Not many mistakes besides maybe fights stuff, so really good but still beatable.

A while ago, as I think I said here, here is some tutorial that explains how to get a NG+ file:

There is pretty much all in here, and if there is something in it that I forgot to mention or you wanna discuss, I'm right here! For the record, this file took me ~110 hours to finish. Not as optimized as it could be but I think there is pretty much every thing needed. Also around 300 SP so you don't really need THAT much to get something good.

Also if you still plan on doing a NG run I've created a route that pretty much explains everything: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11WuQcIQnIuGL5hbaWjDbP_akYbP1raB0B5n3VmQNJno/edit?usp=sharing

Considering however how fights are mainly adaptations o what is happening, it's not THAT precise on that point but basically knowledge on the game fighting system and practice is all you need.

tfw you don't notifications of new stuff happening here... Anyway congratz again Haos ^^

Since I've worked with him for this run and watched it all I can say it was a really good run overall. Not many mistakes besides maybe fights stuff, so really good but still beatable.

A while ago, as I think I said here, here is some tutorial that explains how to get a NG+ file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyhmXfAZYXM

There is pretty much all in here, and if there is something in it that I forgot to mention or you wanna discuss, I'm right here! For the record, this file took me ~110 hours to finish. Not as optimized as it could be but I think there is pretty much every thing needed. Also around 300 SP so you don't really need THAT much to get something good.

Also if you still plan on doing a NG run I've created a route that pretty much explains everything: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11WuQcIQnIuGL5hbaWjDbP_akYbP1raB0B5n3VmQNJno/edit?usp=sharing

Considering however how fights are mainly adaptations o what is happening, it's not THAT precise on that point but basically knowledge on the game fighting system and practice is all you need.

Radman

2015-03-01 01:08:14 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

Thanks Finrod! I pretty much had the gist of that down already, but with some tweaks to save menu time, some I came up with myself, and some I borrowed from Haos. The arts are a good touch I'll be sure to change to. All I gotta do now is get the Affinity Coins for all the skills.

And for the record, I still haven't completed my first playthrough. So far I've just been getting gems and affinity. Go me. :|

Radman

2015-03-06 03:04:22 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

So update. Almost got everything I need. Probably one more playthrough for affinity coins/skill chains and I'll be set for runs. Expect a vid of a rough first run sometime next week. Tongue

Radman

2015-03-10 08:08:52 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

So here are my splits from my first run:

I did some derp things like forgetting to unlock the Prison Island teleporter, and missing strats on late game fights. But that's what practice is for. I'm just happy to get a run that beat the SDA run, so there nowhere to go from here but up. Tongue

I'm a little hesitant to attach the 13GB vid on a forum post, so would that be fine to do or should I wait the absurdingly long time for Youtube to encode it?

Sir VG

2015-03-11 09:34:57 am

Fucking Weeaboo

13GB would take a ridiculous amount time to upload, so the best thing to do is encode it in Yua and then upload to YouTube. You'll get a much more reasonable upload for size and time, while still looking good qualitywise (for Youtube).

I'm also attaching my split icons if you wish to use them. You do have fewer splits than what I do though, but feel free to use them (or not).

Attachment:

Xenoblade Icons.7z

Finrod

2015-03-11 11:42:11 am

Good job! Realy good time already!

Radman

2015-03-11 01:38:59 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

Glad I was hesitant. Thanks for the tip VG. I might wait and get a better run before uploading.
The splits are just each area I complete, with the boss names being the point when I do hit that split. I'll use the icons in another way though. ^_^

Radman

2015-03-19 03:08:54 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

Took a crapton of time to upload, but here's my new PB for Newgame+:

I both know and do not know how all these splits happened. Lost time in Ether Mine waiting on spinning platform cycles, and still missed the triple telethia kill in Makna. Whiffed the Inquisitors in Alcamoth. But time saved was definitely in the late game bosses. Nailed Galdot in Agniratha, and Lorithia was pretty quick. I'm confused on how I got a 30 second save on Mechonis Field.

Either way, still improvable. I know I need to change to night more often, but it keeps slipping my mind, and my overworld movement requires a LOT more refinement, but I'm happy with this run. This by the way will be the vid I use when I submit this for SGDQ. Hope I get in! ^_^

Finrod

2015-04-16 06:51:24 am

Hello everyone! big news for NG Xenoblade: it's now done in around 6 hours!

How, are you gonna ask? Well, new skip was find by the japanese community that allow you to reach lvl 50 before first encountering metal face (yeah, before Fiora even dies). Just discovered that, gonna do a video to explain that trick soon... and likely going to do runs soon Smiley

Sir VG

2015-04-20 05:29:33 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Here's the first video I've seen that shows how to get the super fast level ups: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm25933396

A basic idea is that you use Reyn to push Shulk through the normally locked red door, then go into the lake and up the vine. Save/Load to respawn a Lv 10 enemy, draw him up to the top of the vine, then after switching to Reyn, jump and get hit to get pushed up the small ledge at the top (left of the vine). This takes you to an area where you normally can't access until nearly the end of the game. Funny enough that the collectables are there and landmarks trigger, but yet no enemies exist in this area yet. They hit a few landmarks and mine for a few high level gems in this area. And then, super quick gain of 43 levels! o_O

Finrod

2015-04-20 05:34:13 am

Yeah it's pretty cool ^^ that changes the whole run until like Fallen arm. The whole route isn't fully uploaded (and apparently upload will stop when X will come out in Japan), but it's really interesting. Also you don't nee to save/load from what I've tried; however, you need lvl 8 when trying to do that, so before the cylinder cave... Also that means you don't have to farm once getting Melia and Riki but you can't therefore get any money, so money management is REALLY different now.

I'm ikely going to try to reroute a lot LOT of stuff (or at least try to) based on that jap TA run, starting after this week Smiley

Radman

2015-04-20 01:14:16 pm

For Fun! For GLORY!!

I'll let you do all the hard work and wait for the vid Fin. Been too busy to actually do more runs atm. :|

Sir VG

2015-04-20 04:27:59 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

I tried to recreate it today, but obviously messed something up as I couldn't get Reyn to push me through the door. Will try some more later.