Xenoblade Chronicles X: lots of details about the Dolls and Network Features

10 April 201510 April 2015 Lite_Agent Monolith Software, Nintendo, Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X

Today, Monolith Software streamed their third live presentation for Xenoblade Chronicles, which was entirely dedicated to Dolls and Network features. Thanks to Siliconera, we now have a summary of all the info revealed during this presentation!

Dolls – Types

Xenoblade Chronicles X will have three types of Dolls:

– Light: low HP, but high evasion rate.
– Middle: easy-to-use, well balanced.
– Heavy: bulky, heavy, are quite hard to control, but have lots of HP and a high defense.

What’s more, there’s various models for each type of Doll (such as Formula, Urban, Wels, Inferno, Mastema, Amdusias, etc.), which have their own specificities. For example, the Urban Dolls can transform into a bike-like vehicle, which is able to drift (really useful if you want to go fast). In fact, each type of Dolls has its own kind of transformation, and some of them are more efficient on certain terrains (like sand, rocks, etc.) than others.

At one point in the game, you will acquire a Flight Pack: it allows you to fly freely around New Los Angeles and Planet Mira with your Dolls… just make sure you keep an eye on the fuel gauge, because once it’s empty, you won’t be able to move anymore. Fuel is also used for Arts, so you really cannot afford to use your Doll without looking at the fuel gauge, or you’ll end up in trouble sooner than later. If you need, you can buy fuel over at New Los Angeles, but it won’t come cheap…

Apparently, you can purchase and own several Dolls, but as you can expect, those are quite expensive… If they were available in real life, you would probably need more than two jobs to be able to afford one! Therefore, you have to be careful and take care of your precious mecha, as monster can damage them. Just like you can remove body parts of monsters, monsters can also remove parts of your Doll.

Thankfully, there’s special insurance for your Doll: it allows you to get free repairs, but only a limited numbers (4). If you use all your “repair allotment”, you’ll need to pay for the repairs… and as you can expect, those aren’t cheap at all!

Dolls – Battles

Of course, you can fight onboard your Doll, and just like your character, it has its own set of Arts (depending on the equipment used).

Here’s a rundown of the various kinds of weapons:

– hand weapons: used for auto-attacks, which are as important as when you’re fighting with your characters;
– Arm weapons: used for Arts. They have various features such as Beam Shield or Miniguns, as well as effects allowing you to power up yourself (and allies) or weaken enemies.
– Spare weapons: they’re not too powerful, but they have a fast Recast rate (which means you can use Arts faster and more often).
– Back Weapons: powerful, with strong weapons on the right side of the Doll, and characteristic weapons on the left side of the Doll. Some of them use both sides, and as you can expect, they’re quite powerful.
– Shoulder Weapons: even more powerful than Back weapons. They have the same right/left side characteristics.

Finally, there’s special armor that you can wear that increases the stats of your Doll in battle.

Dolls – Customisation / Equipment

During the game, you will be able to purchase various weapons and pieces of equipment for your Doll, at shops. But that’s not all: some of those can’t be purchased in stores. They’re called “Super Weapons”, and they require design plans and more equipment slots (meaning you can’t equip as many weapons as usual). Of course, they are also much more powerful than regular weapons, so it’s really up to you to decide whether they’re actually worth it or not.

And if you like customisation, you’re going to love Xenoblade Chronicles X. You can customise pretty much any part of the Dolls: its various parts, its weapons, or even its colour. During the presentation, Monolith Software showed a lot of possible options for customisation, meaning you will be able to make your very own Doll, unlike any other.

Finally, here’s lots of screencaps from the Doll part of the presentation:

Network – AI Recruits, Squads

During the presentation, Monolith Software showcased the Network Mode, starting with the players AI you can recruit. Those are based on other players, and you can add them to your party like any other “offline” character. Of course, your own character will be sent as an AI to people via internet.

Next comes squads. When you play online, you can join a network of 32 players, who are all exploring Mira at the same time. Members of that squad can share reports on their findings (such as quest objectives), that all players can check out. Those can also be rated, and if one of them gets lots of positive ratings, it will become visible to all players, not just the members of the same squad.

There’s also a feature called “Treasure Deal”, which allows you to give and receive equipment from within your squad. It works that way: a player marks an item / piece of equipment they’re willing to give away by putting a notice on the Squad board. Any member of the squad can then join in order to have a chance to get it, but if there’s more than one person interested, the player to receive the item will be chosen at random.

Next: Squad Missions. Those are special subjugations missions where you and other squad members have to go take out some monsters. This was meant to give players the impressions they’re really connected with other people, as the number below a monster’s name (indicating how many more need to be taken down) goes down whenever another player kills one.

Each Squad Mission has 5 different objectives, and once those have been met, you can take part in a Squad Quest. Squad Quest are special missions playable with 4 players, that you take from a network terminal located at the B.L.A.D.E. home base. Apparently, those quests can be done with other players’ AI, too, not necessarily with human players.

Clearing those Squad Quests is quite beneficial: it advance your research in Planet Mira, and it increases your conquest development. In doing so, you will end up finding “World Enemies”, which are much more powerful than regular enemies (obviously). They’re quite the massive monsters, and even unique monsters (Overred) look rather tame in comparison… you have been warned! Of course, you and your Squad members get a very nice reward if you manage to kill one.

Unions

A few weeks ago, Monolith Software explained that players can join 8 different Unions during their adventure: they are basically factions, giving you access to different quests and missions. When you play in Network Mode, the Unions actually compete against each others, to see who’s contributing the most to humanity. You can check it out using the Uniongram.

Duing the presentation, Monolith Software explains that you get Union points for setting up data probes as a Path Finder, or killing monsters as a Interceptor. The Uniongram shows the contributions of all Unions, the one at the top being marked with a “Fever” icon.

But that’s not all: Xenoblade Chronicles X also have various personal rankings, that go from “Most Kills” to “Most Union Points”, along with “Time Attack” rankings. Players will therefore have the choice: they can chose to ignore those rankings completely, aim to be the best at everything, try to do better at the most popular rankings, or even try to master the least popular ones. Looks like you could end up at the top without even realising it!