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    Xenoblade Chronicles

    Game » consists of 14 releases. Released Jun 10, 2010

    An RPG developed by Monolith Soft, for Wii and New Nintendo 3DS. Two great civilizations that live on the vast bodies of slain deities have been at war for aeons, and now with the development of a dangerous superweapon, things are finally coming to a head.

    Man, the sidequests kinda become exhausting 45hrs in.(SPOILERS)

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    falcos_abortive_rainbow

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    The sidequests were always just shitty MMO-style fetch and 'extermination' quests, but it wasn't a problem because they always went by super fast. You take three steps outside a town, kill the monsters you need and find the items, if you didn't already have them. Once you hit Frontier, though, the pain in my ass level increases dramatically. Suddenly, I need to get items that very rarely spawn, meaning I have to constantly teleport back and forth until it pops.(Fuck you, Empress Beetle) What made it even more tiring was that Frontier is full of quests, that actually require you to go back to the giver after completion, betraying the game's established take on questing. This wouldn't be a problem if Frontier and Makna Forest weren't designed by assholes, with generic Nopon, after generic Nopon crowding every spiraling floor. Plus, the game doesn't let you track sidequests, so you can't just run to the person, nor does it give you the time they pop up in town. Very frustrating to a person that has spent hours upon hours with these quests. Anyway, I thought Frontier was bad, but Alcamoth kinda ups the ante when it comes to confusing design and disappearing quest givers. I'm at the point where I just want to abandoned the dozen or so quests I have left at Alcamoth, I just can't take it anymore. Of course, if I decide to take a break and focus on the story, then those dozen quests will lost forever.

    Basically, like Kingdoms of Amalur, you can drive yourself crazy and sick trying to do the hundreds of quests.(Plus, the boss fights become easy as shit because you level up so much)

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    BisonHero

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    #2  Edited By BisonHero

    @falcos_abortive_rainbow: I have the game, but haven't started playing it yet at all. Do the sidequests offer anything of note?

    From the sounds of it, they're pretty simple "get X amount of Y", and don't have a lot of story to them or anything like that. Do they ever yield meaningful rewards, like unique gear/gems/skills/whatever? Or are the sidequest rewards always just experience, money, and common items like health potions?

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    falcos_abortive_rainbow

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    @BisonHero said:

    @falcos_abortive_rainbow: I have the game, but haven't started playing it yet at all. Do the sidequests offer anything of note?

    From the sounds of it, they're pretty simple "get X amount of Y", and don't have a lot of story to them or anything like that. Do they ever yield meaningful rewards, like unique gear/gems/skills/whatever? Or are the sidequest rewards always just experience, money, and common items like health potions?

    I've only gotten two or three unique gems, the rest is all generic. Anyway, I've heard that maxing out a town's affinity will give you access to some of the best armor/weapons, so that's the main reason to do any of it.

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    rubberluffy

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    #4  Edited By rubberluffy

    @falcos_abortive_rainbow said:

    Plus, the game doesn't let you track sidequests, so you can't just run to the person, nor does it give you the time they pop up in town.

    Did you ever try opening up the quest menu? It tells you who gave you the quest, and the affinity chart tells you what time of day they're active. Does nobody press the 'check' button when getting/finishing a quest or talking to an NPC? It takes you directly to the quest/affinity chart. Also, you can trade with named NPCs, and a large amount of quest items can just be traded for, depending on the town's affinity. Also, it's not like you HAVE to do the quests, unless you really have to do everything. The timed quests are extremely lenient on how long you have, except for a few places near the end. And if you're that worried about overleveling, but still want the affinity points, just do the quests after some time has passed so the EXP rewards aren't as relevant to your current next-level requirement.

    @BisonHero said:

    @falcos_abortive_rainbow: I have the game, but haven't started playing it yet at all. Do the sidequests offer anything of note?

    From the sounds of it, they're pretty simple "get X amount of Y", and don't have a lot of story to them or anything like that. Do they ever yield meaningful rewards, like unique gear/gems/skills/whatever? Or are the sidequest rewards always just experience, money, and common items like health potions?

    Sidequests give different rewards, but usually EXP and money. Some give you equipment, some give gems (for stat altering on slotted equipment), some give key items needed for other quests in a chain. All quests give you affinity for the location you're in, which unlocks more quests and changes what some NPCs have for trading. Accepting and finishing quests from named NPCs will make your team members talk to each other, giving you affinity points between them, which are important for a number of reasons. Some things like additional skill trees are only available from quests that only appear at a certain level of town affinity. If you explore a lot and kill a lot of stuff it's very easy to go around accepting quests that you already have all the items for.

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    IAmNotBatman

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    #5  Edited By IAmNotBatman

    Between story missions and doing side-quests I listened to a large amount of podcasts to help kill the boredom when it comes to grinding.

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    veektarius

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    #6  Edited By veektarius

    @falcos_abortive_rainbow: Yeah, there's this actually this one monster challenge they send you on for a level 38 Ekk, but the entire next story area after Makra forest is under level 38, so if you can beat him, that means you're overleveled from then on. That's where I really felt the pain of my sidequesting ways. I'm letting most of the next group go unfinished, but I'm not sure when things will fall back in balance.

    @BisonHero: There are two kinds of sidequests - there are sidequests offered by nameless NPCs that only give you item/gold/xp rewards, and then there are sidequests offered by named but irrelevant NPCs that offer a chance to slightly improve your affinity with your party members through the (literally generic) dialogue and will expand your links for the area they live in - benefits of that, I haven't really figured out yet, but I bet it's tied into some sort of late game rewards. Oh, and then there's a city you have to help rebuild by gathering collectables from various parts of the world. Those aren't actually quests, but I think they're probably the most important of the bunch.

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    Dallas_Raines

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    #7  Edited By Dallas_Raines

    @IAmNotBatman said:

    Between story missions and doing side-quests I listened to a large amount of podcasts to help kill the boredom when it comes to grinding.

    Yeah, that's how I've been doing it as well.

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    zor

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    #8  Edited By zor

    Personally i just have my laptop running next to me so that i can keep track of the side quests that way (well, it more of so that i know where to go, damn npcs like to play hide and seek way too much). I find it best to mix side and story stuff, so that if i get bored of doing one, i just switch to the other for a bit... that or grinding mats for a certain major side quest.

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    MikkaQ

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    #9  Edited By MikkaQ

    I just tend to accept as many quests as I can, and see which ones solve themselves when I grind in certain areas, then I either ignore what's left, or pick out ones that have really nice rewards and focus on those.

    Goddammit, I want to get back to this game so badly, one more day of exams left then I'm going deep into the rabbit-hole.

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    DeF

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    #10  Edited By DeF

    @rubberluffy: The Nopon Village just sucks, gameplay wise. it looks cool and walking through it once is cool as well but finding the right Nopon is just a pain in the ass (what floor? what side? what time?). If the affinity chart showed you the exact location of the quest giver, this wouldn't be an issue. It's fine in pretty much every other town since they're mostly flat but that Nopon Village ...

    I did them all 2 weeks ago in a sidequest marathon session and checked the wikia page for quests that had rare spawn items. I didn't find it that bad ultimately because you keep getting Affinity Points and XP which is always useful. It's what saves the sidequests from being pointless. You always get improvements in one way or another and some of the sidequests are even pretty cool story-wise.

    I keep doing them all, ultimately, because I wanna see where they lead me and I like how everything affects the affinity stuff. I love that system!

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    Justin258

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    #11  Edited By Justin258

    Sounds like a good podcast-listening game.

    Speaking of, has Amalur dropped in price recently?

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    spazmaster666

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    #12  Edited By spazmaster666

    @believer258 said:

    Sounds like a good podcast-listening game.

    Speaking of, has Amalur dropped in price recently?

    It's 33% off on Steam right now ($40). Amazon also has it at $40 for the 360 version.

    Anyway, my problem is that I can barely get past the first area of the game without losing interest. I'm usually the kind that openly embraces a JRPG with tons of sidequests, grinding, and length but for some reason I'm just not digging this game. Maybe it's because I've been coming off of over 80 hours of FFXIII-2 and 180 hours of Tales of Graces-F (and not to mention about 10 hours spent finishing up Trinity Universe) and am just all JRPG'd out at the moment.

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    Hailinel

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    #13  Edited By Hailinel

    I just crossed the fifty hour mark and haven't entered Prison Island yet. I have no idea how slow that's making me, but I've ended up doing most of the sidequests that I've come across.

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    Dallas_Raines

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    #14  Edited By Dallas_Raines

    I recently hit the wall, and decided to use Ocarina to boost my remaining affinity. I feel like maxing Shulk's affinity with everyone, plus Colony 9 was more than enough to endure. I just want to go through the story now without that nagging sensation.

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