IMHO this is one portion of the game Monolith really F'ed up. If you are avidly collecting most everything you can along the way you should have all blades unlocked near the end of the game. having to grind to raise your luck stat, collect Core Crystals, and then having to open literally hundreds (if not thousands) of said crystals is nothing short of insanity. It takes much of the enjoyment out of the experience especially late game. I hope they integrate a patch that greatly raises your chances of unlocking these blades, or better yet integrate some sort of challenge mode that allows you to complete certain tasks to unlock them. Pointless grinding does not increase the enjoyment of a game it arbitrarily extends play time in a negative way.
totally agree with you, I would've understand it if it were a weapon chip or accesory or anything for completionist, but never for something so integral like unlucking new characters, honestly some say it add more playability but IMO its sadistic, to me the stuff that adds playability is grinding the blade's affinity chart, and their respective blade quest, but the game kept punish me by NOT showing me that simply because I don't have a 900 + luck, I finally got all of them and I did it with a luck below 700, still, I don't look back to that grinding with joy, it was one of the most unpleasent experiences I had in a game, honestly there was a point were I was expecting monolith to make this a lootbox and pay for the nightmere to end.
facepwnagewtf couldn't agree more, the only thing I will say is when a rare does pop up it's like taking a hit of ecstasy for a min watching your intro video with your beautiful new rare blade that you farmed and grinded half your life away to acquire, and that final blade you get (Kos-Mos for me) was like winning the freaking lottery while on ecstasy. Maybe that's what M.S. was going for when they designed it but in the end the highs didn't outweigh the lows.
I actually like gacha as long as its free. One of my favorite parts of the game is the rush of seeing a non common cutscene. I also love how it makes almost everyone's play throughs different since every time i watch someone else play they usually have blades and setups i dont have. KOS-MOS is actually the first blade some people get.
I think MonolithSoft intends for players to just play through the game without grinding and get whatever rare blades they happen to get naturally. This increases replay value because each time you play you essentially meet a bunch of new characters. This game doesn't seem to be made for completionists.
I think this is the best explanation we have thus far on how the summoning mechanics work with rare blades. Thinking of it like a roulette rather than a lottery changes your perspective on how you might handle summoning and when you would want to summon the most during the story. Good job compiling the info!
Just tested out summoning using your video as a guide as well as another for luck boosting. And I got rares within the last thirty minutes. Like another poster, I got a bunch of rare blades after first getting new party members and just spamming rare core crystals after those members joined. Got rares for each easily. Usually about three apiece. I then just within the last 30 minutes got two rare blades by manipulating the RNG (random number generator) or Blade "wheel" using Rex and high luck. What I did is as follows: Boosted the luck as high as I could with each character I was using to summon with (Rex). Checking for common blades with luck modifiers when my summons did not pan out to include rares. Then equipping those blades to the character I was trying to summon blades with after equipping them with chips that boosted luck as well if I had them on hand. Different weapon types require different chips for effects. Watched the "wheel" for rare blades, you can tell by their shapes usually. I then modified the amount of boosters I used after each spin when I missed landing on a rare. This *worked* for me because I was actively adjusting the amount of boosters used by either one or two to affect the spin. I will continue testing out this method. But I think I found a winner thanks to your video.
I agree on the wheel. From my experience the wheel is set for each character (Nia, Rex, Morag, and Zeke) when you open the blade bonding menu. The reason for this assumption is that I have tried bonding with 99 common core crystals and after about 20 draws on Nia some of the flashing blades became blank. I switched to another character and there were no blanks for a while (I think I did about 15) but when I returned to Nia the pattern continued. So you might be better off saving a bunch of core crystals and bonding with them all at once. Also your hypothesis about the progression is very very true! I played the game on another save and since I have the expansion pass got 10 rare crystals and got 6 RARE blades out of them on Rex with very low luck in chapter 3. In my main save where I;ve beaten the game, I only got 2-3 star common blades from the 10 rare crystals even with boosters and significantly higher luck. So it must be the level or progression in the story that effects how many blades you can get. Sorry for the essay of a comment! Great Video :)
Something interesting to note was I was playing on a separate save and the 3rd flash ended up being an empty silhouette. Boreas comes out of it. I'm not sure if this was just lag from the game or if blades can actually come from "empty" silhouettes. Might disprove the first theory if true idk.
i had an empty silhuette as the 3rd flash a few times now... it was always a common for me... soooooo i guess that makes it hard to define what they mean^^`
Edit: I kind of used the term "in real-time" wrong in the video. Obviously the blade is determined around the time the game saves (preventing a re-spin) but the 3 blades flashing are the final blades the spindle passed over (and landed on, in the case of the third) *Do you have a theory on how it all works?*
Interesting. I've always thought it made sense as a roulette system, but this video made me aware that the flashing blades is what caused me to always imagine it that way. Thanks for inspiring me to examine this process more closely.
The only part I don't agree with is that they don't add some rare blades till later. If anything I'd say that as rare blades are unlocked their position on the wheel is replaced with common blade positions, leading to the exponential increase in difficulty unlocking new rare blades. It'd be interesting to see this part of the game datamined at some point, just because of how vague the game and developers are about it
I heard a theory that there's a set number of blades in the pool that never changes. Once you get one, the pool reduces by 1 permanently (unless you release a blade). This is why some people claimed to have an easier time pulling the last few rare blades once they completely maxed out their blade inventory (it's because the resulting pool to choose from is WAY smaller). In terms of why the late game blades are hard to summon, it's because they appear on the wheel way less than others. All blades aren't equal. The XC2 director downright said this.
Hmm very interesting. You might be onto something with the "sweet spot" in the story theory. There was a point where I summoned 5 rare blades in one day and that was probably around chapter 5-7. It's the only time that's happened to me. The most I've ever summoned besides that in one day was 2 rare blades. I wish we got official confirmation on how the system works becaue these last 4 blades (KOS-MOS ;___;) I need are driving me crazy.
BaoZakeruga my first run I got kosmos in ch 5 but didn't farm hard for her till ch8 in my second run bit it felt very random. Also different blade very clearly have different weights to them since I popped nim 11 times farming for kosmos( I kept getting rid of nim since I noticed a large difference in rare pops after dismissing 3 rares as a test that and I hate nim) Juggle soul eater Stanley or the 130 superboss for grinding since they both drop legendaries
Unfortunately Jay, while your theory is mostly sound. We have instances of people summoning any of the rare blades at the start of the game. So it's more likely that rares have different rates and as you go through the game and increase your ideas, the lower crown commons are starting to be replaced with three crown. This seems to be why people get rares like Godfrey, Boreas, Ursula, Kora over rares like Newt, Vale, Zenobia or Kosmos. Rare Blades that have quests in the later part have this rarer disposition, to prevent you from getting a Blade that almost can't be leveled up until you get to the later chapters, but still being possible to pull them early. The spaces that the rares occupy would also not be 'gone' after you draw them, but could be replaced by higher crowns as well. This can also be why it seems to get harder to draw a rare over time, because the wheel isn't getting smaller, but your rewards keep getting better, even for the commons.
I don't think this is the case at all. At least in my game, which is now on 95 hours, I've released xenobia 2 times and constantly gotten her back on different characters. Kosmos was my third rare draw. Vale was the 9th. I've never seen Boreas or Kora.
I would add that Ursula might be rarer than people think. A streamer I watched has Ursula as one of his last 3 blades. I've rolled about 2/3 of the rare blades and have yet to get Ursula. I did get Zenobia and Kos-Mos within the space of 10 minutes so I'm not really complaining.
The more understanding of the RNG system in this game, the better. If you don't know, in computer programming, true randomness does not exist. This means that if we know how it works, we can exploit it, and get the blade we want every time.
Not Bad. I was also summoning a lot of blades and what I saw, was that with a normal crystal you can get only blades up to 3 crowns and a rare can get you blades with 4 crowns. Also I think the affinity influence it. I got a lot blades with 4 crowns with zeke and justice booster, so blades with darkness element and he has a very high justice from the start. Also the theory with the wheel is in my opinion exactly what I was thinking how it worked. So to sum it up luck and affinity level are working in the way of getting stronger blades and rare blades in the way you said with the wheel by increasing the space they take up on it.
I never really thought of the summoning system this way, but it sounds like a very plausible alternative to what I was thinking. Keep up the good work!
Actually took me a while to figure out boosters increase your chances of getting a certain element. But it really helped getting my last rare blade. Since I knew it was Kora (yeah, try to look up stuff and you will eventually get spoiled in some way or another) I was specifically using compassion boosters.
Just noticed something. Boosters probably directly effect your chances of getting certain elements. When you choose them, you can clearly see certain elements swirl into the core crystal. Justice = Light/Dark Compassion = Lightning/Earth Idea = Wind/Ice Bravery = Fire/Water I comfirmed this by releasing certain element Blades and seeing which boosters I'd get. Sure enough, when releasing a Fire or Water element you'll always recieve at least 1 Bravery booster.
A bit of advice, if there's a specific rare blade that you want, use boosters to narrow it down to only their element (plus one other element but you get the point) or if you already have all of one element, and just want more rares, use a booster that doesn't increase the rates for the elements you already have.
I actually like this theory. It at the very least clears up some confusion about things. Luck and boosters affect the outcome but not directly, more of an indirect thing. Also I'm at chapter seven and I'm only getting three star commons, meaning I guess I should move up on the story just a bit more and I'll probably get the four stars. And that's where I'll farm for core crystals. I guess that's a way to use the system to it's fullest potential.
Well, i think all that summoning mechanics are BULLSH*TS. I tried all thing i found to boost the chance of getting a rare blade but nothing work. Crystal core rarity ? -> got all my rare blade with common crystal Luck stat ? -> i have less than 500 Booster ? -> only common blade come out After 250h+ (150h farming core) of playtime i still can't get my last rare blade (Electra) 3700 core only to try getting her, i give up... The real question is why can't we get all blade with quest ? I think it's not that hard to make difficult quest who reward player with a blade after completing. We acquire some with them but they were so easy you can't feel proud and satisfied after finishing .
By the way. I think it should be noted as well that everytime you summon a blade that one will be out of the wheel. For example If you summon a female blade it will have a certain head type/weapon/element/role and rarety. I know that it's still a lot but that means that the pool will get smaller every time which gives another factor to it. When you dimiss a blade than they will be added back(I'm sure of it).
I'd like to add one small detail that might make it a bit more accurate, not all rare blades have the same number of spaces, Ursula and Electra are said to be very common rare blades, while KOS-MOS is said to be the most rare of them
I was listening to this video to occupy my time while opening cores and I managed to get one of the two blades I'm missing while watching : KOS-MOS. It was the first time her silhouette had ever show up as well. Now I'm only missing Agate, who funnily enough, often appears as a silhouette. That aside, this was a great video. It would make a lot of sense that the system works like that.
Personally i think the wheel idea is right. I think that your luck makes the wheel larger while your idea stats determine how many of each element are on the wheel. So using boosters simply adds more of those two elements to it. Also that there are fixed rare blade slots, as in only so many will appear on the wheel per spin, and the blades present are chosen at random. it could also explain why KOS-MOS is such a pain to get since shes the only light element blade on the wheel at any one point. It also explains why for most people shes one of the last blades they pull or one of the first since a lower luck means there's a smaller pool. As for a sweet spot in the game i think that's either due to 4 star/crown blades being locked and your luck increasing or that you simply don't get enough core crystals.
I lucked out and got KOSMOS on Zeke while his luck was around ~250, soon after he joined. Was one of his first rares, actually. I'm also seeing some people saying Newt is particularly rare, but for me she was my first ever rare pull, chapter 3 early. I pulled Kora and Floren out of common cores, but something I've noticed: certain roles (TNK, ATK) tend to show up more often on different characters, in addition to different types without considering boosters. (Note: Electra, Godfrey, and Zenobia were the only rares I had left to pull during the below test. It's only Zenobia now.) I was until recently trying for Electra (Elec TNK, Hammer) on either Rex or Nia (mostly because I have 8-9 Overdrives and was trying with Rex's innately higher Compassion idea) but still found that her silhouette almost always flashed on Nia while only showed up a third of the time on Rex. If the character does matter beyond general idea totals, then it would mean that certain rares have an innately higher chance being pulled by specific characters than others, likely to ensure that Nia doesn't end up with a bunch of ATK blades while Rex only ever pulls HLR blades. I've also seen several people say that Zeke was the character that pulled KOSMOS on their files as well. Considering that Rex and Zeke are the two that have ATK blades (Pandoria, Pyra/Mythra) as their story blade, it would make sense that they have a higher chance of pulling other ATK rares (Vale, in particular, has been giving a few people I've seen headaches trying to get. I got her from a legendary from a chest right in front the lvl130 monster in Temperantia.) My Ursala, Boreas, and Kora were on Morag, Finch, Percival, and Floren were on Nia. Perun, Vale, Dagas, and KOSMOS all ended up on my Zeke. Azami was an odd out and ended up on my Nia while my Nim ended up on Zeke, but aside from those, most blades role aligned to the character's story blade. Rex got mostly ATK/TNK, Nia got mostly HLR/TNK, Morag got mostly TNK/HLR, while Zeke got almost entirely ATK blades with one or two TNK/HLR. Because of that, I refuse to field Zeke most of the time because I had him at level 90 sometimes randomly dying to something 40+ levels below him. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there. I assume that certain guaranteed rares like Herald and Vess are there to give you some choice on who goes on what for elemental coverage. And Tora is Tora.
I do want to point out that, during the three-blade-flashes I got the same few rare blade silhouettes (namely, the ones that look like fire wings and large shield) much much more often than you would statistically expect. And I still haven’t gotten them yet either. So I expect it isn’t completely random.
Used 5 Brave Boosters hoping to roll Dagas on Zeke, got Floren instead. Not sure if the boosters influence much, however Gorg did show up as the first silouhette when I rolled Floren. I have a feeling the second theory in which luck and boosters systematically roll the wheel up places might be what really happens. Also having more rares means less chances to roll another rare, which makes getting the last few an absolute nightmare. Perhaps a good tip would be to not release blades until you've finished doing your bonding run.
Overall, excellent theory and great analogy to a roulette wheel! Just one thing to point out is I think rather than certain blades being "locked" before certain points in the game, it's that they're in a lower rarity tier (or appear more often on the wheel). It supports Takahashi's comment about not all rare blades being rare. Rare blades like Boreas, Ursula, Godfrey, Nim, and Agate appear to have very high chances of being summoned. Blades like KOS-MOS, Newt, and Dahlia have extremely low rates. It's not that they can't appear in early game, it's just the chances of them appearing are so small. This explains why some people have pulled these blades early on, but the vast majority of people don't pull them until post game.
I do like the idea of a roulette wheel. Based on my blade grinding attempt to get each blade on the character I want without using the last overdrive protocol I have (saving it for Kos-Mos) I think that each rare blade has a set percentage of the table they cover. I was frequently running into the same blades and releasing them in the hopes that it would increase my chances of pulling the blade I wanted on the specific character. I wanted them to be on. I repeatedly drew Dahlia, Ursula, and Floren on Zeke and it was incredibly frustrating seeing the same blades pop over and over again. This was late in the game so I assume that every blade was on the table while I was spinning.
I like this theory, here is my praxis: My personnal experience that could corroborate a bit, i got almost every single rare blade at around chapter 8,with very average farming(like doing every quest possible and killing each unique once that i could) and only started the hard farming for KOS MOS in chapter 10 ,when it was first time i encountered a bunch of 4 crown normal blade. On the anedcotal evidence i have read, many people took enourmous amount of time, usually started farming hard at the end of the game or after the final boss, meaning they had to deal with the larger roulette, instead the smaller one if we follow your theory. It may be interesting for experienced player to test on a new playthrough getting as many rare blade as possible, as soon as possible.
I've heard a bunch of people saying that at a point in each chapter they stop getting rares whatsoever which supports the first theory however the second theory in my experience must be false because in my 3 blades I seem to get this blade who looks somewhat like morag or maybe an organization XII member from kingdom hearts, I know its neither of those I'm just saying those for reference as far as build and clothing
Spanish Vanguardia I feel that this could be correct. The only way to test this is to have people tell us what their idea levels were when they summoned Kos-Mos for example. If someone tells us they were able to summon the rarest of the rare with trash idea levels, then we can rule this out.
I'm pretty sure idea levels only affect the type of element you get. Ex bravery boosters focus on fire and water, truth focuses on wind and ice, compassion focus on electricity and earth and justice focuses on light and dark
I will say about the unskippable cutscene part, I did have the game crash/hang up when it showed (I think) Ursuala. When it actually crashed and I had to reload, I had summoned something different (want to say fire katana generic). Regardless, pretty sure the Blade itself is chosen before the cutscene, even if your roulette theory turns out to be true.
Just for the record, there are 2 Rare Blades that do not have a pre-image. Their pre-image is actually empty, KOS-MOS is one of them. So if you see nothing there, it might be KOS-MOS or the other one. Also, I’ve summoned Boreas in Chapter 3. I’ve also gotten Vale right after. So I’m not sure the Chapters have to do with anything. However, believe when the creator said, “Not all Rare Blades will be ‘rare’.” He refers to Rare Blades that are guaranteed, like Theory.
Update from my previous comment. Finally got my final blade KOS-MOS by using just rare core crystals lol did no farming at all after my first 50 legendary crystals from getting Zenobia and Newt. Used zero luck enchancers, funny thing is I pulled KOS-MOS on my bro's Switch two days before getting mine. Was one of his last 5 blades. Pulled her with a rare on his and again zero luck boosters.
hadn't thought of the alternate theory, though the rest seemed the only real explanation that'd account for the sharp drop as I got more blades, albeit I had assumed all legendary randoms could be received from the beginning. That last point could be verified (lest your starting pool is also random) by looking for cases of people having received each individual rare blade early on in the story.
I restarted the game recently and had a load of extra crystals due to the DLC items. I've just rescued Nia so I'm not that far through the game but I've had 6 rare blades appear (Godfrey, Agate, Gorg, Boreas, Electra and Finch)
Good solid explanation on this.... so happy to have found your Chanel that I am... I just started playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and am really struggling, so watching your videos has really helped. When can I equip 3 blades at a time? Is that a story thing or.....
I belive if you do new game+ and advance the story there are certain moments when your chance to get a rare blade is higher. Advancing the story will allow you to unlock a new rare blade for free aslong youre useing a legendary corecrystal. You can use that to unlock blades like t-elos and Kos-Mos who normally have a accurence chance of 0,5% anyways, if you stuck the whole time at chapter 8 you probably will have a hard time to unlock Kos-Mos
What I noticed after looking at my journy in XC2 and my friends journeys (I could be wrong tho'): Rare Blades should be divided into 4 cathegories: pure random (1), random plus chapter/level locked (2), actually non-random but chapter/level locked (3) and quest/main story related rare-blade (4). Cat 4 is those like Ves and Aegeon, it is a bit not interesting for this topic. The more rare blade you have, the lower possibility you will get for your next rare blade from the cathegory 1+2, hence the last blades are difficult to get. You can not get any cat 2+3 Blades no matter how hard you try as long as you haven't reach certain chapter. Luck and boosters do effect blades (cat 1+2) summons.
Thank you for sharing this video. I always thought that in the "three blade roulette" was obvious, that the first two are possible blade, while the last is the resonance blade, but it is not. Your metaphor of the roulette is good at explaining the basic concept, but I think you missed something along the way. The virtues crystal affect the probability of getting a rare Blade will define the presence of a more powerful blade in the wheel. A strong dark blade, require a high level of Justice (according to my tests), this imply that it will probably show up later in the game. Consider also this; if the wheel have variable sized slice (e.g. in %) and a fixed number of blades, then the following may apply: crystals and driver's level define which rare-blade to choose for the wheel, than common placeholders are added up to an unknown fixed number, then luck and affinity levels increase/decrease the size of rare and/or compatible blade. Then you run the roulette (well, as a developer I must say throw a RNG and use a partition :-P ), and you get what you get. The two shadow show in the animation, are to be considered ashint of possible, blade I think are completely unrelated to the probability; I say this because is highly likely that you see a rare during the animation, but the last one... is always a damned dog :)
A lot of people are also misunderstanding the what the boosters do in the first place. The boosters don't directly influence the summoning process, they boost a specific Idea which [presumably] directly influences the process.
I think everyone understands that, it's just that people say "boosters" rather than "Idea" because "idea" is stupid and vague lol. It's just easier to refer to that whole system as boosters.
Your theory is really very interesting and, from my experience, could be true. I summoned a lot of rare blades relatively early in the game (in Gormott or when I arrived in Uraya). The droprate was really high. Almost one rare blade every 10 common crystals. But after I arrived in Mor Ardain, where the core crystal grind spot is, the droprate got really bad.
What if a rare blade appears twice on the roulette ? (I got Perceval on the first and third slot, and he was actually summoned). Does it mean my roulette only had perceval and a common ?
You mentioned how rare it is for a rare blade to be seen in the three flashed blades shown during summonings on common crystals. Whenever, and I mean every single time, that I roll a common crystal, I always see 1-2 rare blades before it lands on a common (not to upset that I got a common blade from a common core), but whenever I use a rare crystal the three blades to flash are almost never rare (I've yet to get a legendary crystal yet so nothing to report there). Something I thought I'd throw out there to even further this weird summoning system.
So basically if you want the best possible chance for rares 1: restart 2: play until you can resonate 3: get the season pass 3: RESONATE RESONATE RESONATE
A friend and I discussed the theory right now and came to the possibility of how a higher mercenary rank let's you have more blades. Maybe, just maybe, - because we just had the discussion minutes ago and we could not start to test it out - that also means that a number of rare blades is appointed to the pool at random everytime you are able to get more blades. Therefore it would be interesting to know if anyone got all rare blades before maxing out the mercenary rank. If this would prove correct, you would have a limited amount of rare blades at a certain point of development, which is not necessarily tied to story progress, but rather said mercenary rank and maybe even town development. Food for thought, did anyone try it out or does think this could be a part of the system how summoning works as well?
Based on the informants and my testing, I’ve come to a similar conclusion. My version has you first spin for an idea category, then that drivers idea level dictates the rarity pool for the second spin. My Rex, with low idea levels, gets a ton of level 1 blades and I’m shocked when anyone else does. (He’s using everyone else’s blades) You can see that boosters raise that idea level so you get better levels in that idea. As for quality, I’ve got on record that I haven’t gotten a lvl1 from rare. Similarly, I haven’t gotten a lvl2 from a legend. So I think they remove those from the wheel to better your odds. But, hey, I’m just a nerd.
I am not so sure about certain rare blades not being on the wheel at the beginning. As your idea values increase, weaker blades take less and less space on the wheel. Zenobia is one of the strongest rare blades. I got her early in my first play through, but late on a second.
I still have 2 more blades to collect; namely Elektra and KosMos; I spent about 40 rare core yesterday, and with around 600 luk on zeke I consistently got Elektra flashes; however; I still didn't get her; instead, I got Gorg (whom I didn't have at the time) the interesting part is; I didn't get Gorg flashes once; the only time I saw his silhouette was when I got him how strange.
I actually think you're on to something here. I know that when I got my last party member I instantly went to the summoning screen and used rare cores to summon new blades for the new member. I actually got 3 rare blades in a row. I have noticed that some characters seem to summon a lot of blades that fill a specific arch type (like Nia summoning healers). So I actually wonder if the "wheels" are character specific or influenced by the characters traveling with you at that point in the game. So the reason blades seem more common in the middle is because you're using new characters that have different odds and types of blades found on the wheel (think if it like Nia having multiple spots on the wheel dedicated to Boreas, a healer, for instance).
What people should be doing is getting rid off all the low rarity commons. You rarely get a low crown rarity common from legendary cores. So by keeping high crown blades in your blade inventory you shrink the high rarity common blade draw pool size thus increasing your odds at getting a rare blade although still fairly small but increases it nonetheless. Just dont keep releasing the latest high rarity blade you get otherwise don't be surprised when that same common blade shows up on your next 10 pulls from legendary cores. It happened to me a few times with the cores found in treasure troves. So I decided to change my ways when I started farming legendary core crystals near the end of the game. Managed to get Zenobia and Newt in less than 20 legendary core crystals this way. Thats pretty much all the farming I did up to that point. The only remaining rare blade is KOS-MOS, had to be freaking KOS-MOS... Feeling confident though that I can get her in just a few more dozen legendary core crystals. Also my luck stat is fairly low. So I'm starting to doubt the luck stat effects anything outside of combat. How is luck mentioned exactly on the tutorial? If anyone decides to test this please let me know the results. thanks and good luck
I'm in chapter 4 and I farmed a ton of core crystals.. I got most of the Rare blades.. I even got some back to back... but then I got a wall... no matter what I did I couldn't get another rare blade.. I love to grind.. so I've grinded up to level 80.... so I'm lead to believe that I need to progress further in the story for more rare blades to be added to the pool
I'm in chapter 8 and Ive spent 110 rare crystals. Got 6 out of 7 rare blades I was missing (Newt, Dahlia, Ursula, Gorg, Electra, and Agate). Of course, Kos-mos is the only one I wanted and just had to be the last rare blade for me to pull -_- fuck my life. Im gonna be farming for like 5 weeks now
Luck does affect a lot... but there's certain threshold when you just had to spam, especially for the last 5 legendary blade. btw this threshold mechanism also can be found in the odd of summoning 4 star rating blade. When you had more 4 star rating blade (mine was 24 in total), you would have a very hard time finding another 4 star rating.
If there is a story progression or luck element tied to unlocking rare blades and a "sweet spot" before you get flooded with 4 star rares why wouldn't you mention at what point that is?
Interesting. About a month ago, I posted a simple poll to the Xenoblade Reddit, just to see what blades people had gotten after about a week with the game. Obviously not the best way to find good numbers, but it definitely showed that some blades seemed to be more common than others. Godfrey and Boreas being two of the most owned blades, for instance. www.strawpoll.me/14593455/r I'm curious about this idea that the pool grows as you progress the game. That could certainly account for why rare blades start out relatively common and get rarer as you progress, though I wonder if the data supports the idea that some rare blades simply are not available early on. Has not one extraordinarily lucky person gotten KOS-MOS as their first rare blade? I guess what we need is information on the order everyone received their rare blades from, which even if you weren't keeping track should be easy to find (just list your blades by Chronological). Might be able to find some more useable patterns with ordered lists.
Who the F*ck is Boreas? lol. I want Boreas now dammit! that's the only major problem I have with this game (endearing technical glitches aside lol). This RNG S*it show is somewhat annoying+aggravating from my perspective, like if you're going to make it random, fine, but don't go non-MT SWBFII loot box RNG levels of annoying with it! At this point, it's like the Japanese 'free DLC' equivalent to an EA dumpster fire! Do You have any idea how many people are still P*ssed/salty that they haven't gotten KOSMOS?!?! ALOT! There's literally an entire salt mine on the internet thus far, and some people have even stopped playing the game altogether because of it. Now, looking at it from my perspective, I've never even played a 'xenoblade' game before this one, but as a first time player, it's ANNOYING as all hell to have this BS 'RNG system' in place, for obtaining the 'rare blades' for your party, that obviously EVERYONE wants to feel like they've successfully 'completed' the game, Personally, I would much rather prefer that the 'blades' you get, be obtainable through the MANY in game quests or correlate to the 'effort' you've put into the game, like certain blades you get through such means, like praxis+theory+Nia etc. for example. I mean, seriously, WTF were Monolith soft thinking with this insanity?!? I've never played a SMT game either, but was excited to check that series out for the Switch, and now thanks to this 'RNG' BS, I'm sort of reluctant to even bother, because of this aspect being added in to a single player JRPG! Granted, so far there's no indication that the SMT game will have any such horrendous 'RNG' system in it, but I'll say, that if there's ANY 'RNG' BS going on like with Xenoblade, it's playtime will be cut short, to the point of non-existence+possibly re-sell/refund at that point due to it's inclusion, if any. To re-iterate this point/common sense perspective...Personally, If I wish to 'gamble' or waste my time on 'long shots' or 'games of chance'...I'll go to a nearby casino or buy some scratch off tickets or place bets on some horse races if I want to "gamble"....and subsequently waste my time+money on stacked odds or disappointing outcomes, I DO NOT WANT THIS ASPECT IN A GAME I AM PLAYING! However, having said all of this, I do still very much enjoy the gameplay+world elements of the game+I'm moving forward with Xenoblade chronicles II, to see the story+character development to it's conclusion (at this point I'm 186hrs in...which is insane lol), but I'm very aggravated/annoyed with all of this added in 'RNG' BS S*it show, that they've concocted/added in to the game....IMO, AS A GAMER, IT BELONGS IN 'MOBILE LAND' WITH ALL THE OTHER 'MOBILE GAME' F2P BS, and SHOULD NOT BE IN A FULL RETAIL PRICED RPG OR JRPG! THERE NEVER WAS SUCH AN "RNG" S*IT SHOW IN JRPG'S BEFORE, SO WHY PUT THIS GARBAGE IN NOW?!?!? (Ni No Kuni, TALES OF SERIES,DISGAEA, THE WITCH AND THE HUNDRED KNIGHT, BRAVELY DEFAULT, FINAL FANTASY, SECRET OF MANA, CHRONO TRIGGER, NEVER HAD *ANY* OF THIS BS...so I have to wonder, did the DEVS just decide to do drugs when incorporating this aspect, and then summarily think that this was a 'good idea' for some nonsensical reason?!?) I was excited to play this game+had very high hopes, as I had heard that Xenoblade was an amazing JRPG series, with great elements/facets to round out the experience, and I WAS very much in anticipation for this game for the Switch, and I will admit that I have been getting some enjoyment from the game overall in it's scope, character development, gameplay mechanics, and sheer amount of content offered, but it's just a shame that this 'RNG' aspect of a fundamental progression system towards your gameplay/party is pure torture towards it's potential+overall enjoyment. It's total BS towards gamers IMO, and it fundementally INSULTS the TIME+ENERGY they've invested in such a game, ON TOP OF GRINDING for the resources needed to progress by adding in this pointless 'RNG' aspect! FFS! #noGatchaElementsInJRPGS
If I weren't so lazy I'd make dummy accounts just to like this comment over and over. I needed to read someone else's rant on the matter. Sweet, sweet catharsis... Randomness is never, NEVER fun to completionists, and grinding completion has been a staple of the JRPG since the dawn of time. I've loved this game so far, but I'm ready to just say screw it now and play through the story. Sadly I just won't feel like I've experienced what it has to offer unless I play through a significant chunk of the story with ALL blades. Post-game content can eat a dick, now and forever. Honestly one of a tiny number of games I've done end-game content with is Xenoblade Chronicles (the first one, on the Wii). It is an absolute masterpiece. XB2 is great I think, but it pales in comparison. Any rpg fan is seriously missing out on something special if they haven't played XB1. Seriously. Get it. You'll thank me. One of the best games in the past decade, easily. And absolutely no rng grinding necessary.
Haven't gotten Boreas yet, he's apparently tied with Floren as the 2nd best healer in the game behind Ursula. For a commonly owned blade that's pretty nice of Monolith.
well technically the game does not have ALL the Blades available as there's one more being added to the roster in the spring, so you could attain all the ones currently in the game, but that's all you can obtain.
I think it would've been interesting if you had to do a button Challenges like you do with salvaging, but instead of 3 prompts you need to do 5 to dramatically increase your chances in getting a Rare Blade, if it's a Common Core Crystal, the Prompts will be (A normal, A fast, B slow, A fast, A normal) they're easy to do but it won't do much, if it's a Rare Core Crystal the timing on the Prompts are a little more tight (A very fast, B fast, A very fast, A normal, X very slow) but there will be a high chance of getting a Rare Blade if done correctly, and for Legendary Core Crystals, you do these prompts (X very fast, Y extremely fast, Y very fast, A slow, A normal, Mash B, X very fast) And if you were to mess up these prompts, it would have the same randomness effect as the game already has, to some this idea may sound dumb and messy, but I think it's better than not getting something because the game didn't decide for you to get it, but hey, I'm not a game developer!
After a month, how has this hypothesis evolved? Is there new evidence? Side note: Leg cores do not always give high lv blades; I've got pretty bad lv1 blades without even a decent affinity tree.
Actually the third blade isn’t always the one that’s summoned it’s the one that’s summoned almost every fucking time, but i know from experience it isn’t always what you get. That kosmos eluded me in the most trolly way across all of history...
I've got 3+ hours of footage showing the third blade to be the one summoned 100% of the time. I have yet to see an instance where it isn't the case. I thought at one point I was wrong but when I rewatched the footage the same type of common had just appeared twice in the same 3 blade segment, there are only limited silhouettes they can use after all (Some have minor variations but there is no difference in the silhouette for different rarities, elements, or weapons. Mostly only different headpieces.)
I have the same experience. The third blade to pop up if it's a common I will get it ,but if it's a rare blade I don't get it. Kosmos refuse to show up for me too. I feel your pain...
Jay RPG can you explain whats going on with the blank flashes where no outlines pop up? I always thought it would be a rare blade, but the one time I got it was a common. You have any data showing otherwise? If not, do you have an explanation on why a blank flash even appears for commons?
I have a feeling that Kosmos might be one of the few blades that almost never show up during a silouhette. Dagas, Ursula, Vale and Kos-Mos never showed up in any silouhettes for me yet and Electra only once before I rolled her. I got Kos-Mos through sheer luck as I was trying to cut down the numbers of common cores on hand. I've been really after the three best healers in Ursula, Boreas and Floren, so not thinking about Kos-Mos must've manipulated the desire meter.
I have another theory I’m thinking has been more likely now that I only have 3 Blades left - regarding the thought cloud. I believe that each corner of the axis actually represents two conjoined elements of two different ideas. After taking a few things into account, like the secondary type of boosters offered most often after releasing a blade of a certain element (2+ Star usually), the likelihood and frequency of rare silhouettes flashing when I use certain boosters (I only have Vale, Kos-Mos, and Nims left), and the frequency that a blade’s affinity chart - more specifically its elemental column - shows an idea from a different element, and what that idea is. I’ve come to believe that it is highly likely that fire and darkness are in the top right quadrant, light and lightning in the bottom right quadrant, earth and ice in the bottom left, and wind and water in the top left quadrant (however I am really uncertain about wind and ice, their roles could be reversed). Basically, I’ve noticed that fire Commons will often give Justice boosters more than any other as a secondary, darks will often give Bravery, Lightning will often give Justice, Earth will often give Truth, Ice will often give Compassion, Wind Bravery, and Water Truth boosters. There’s still some randomness, but with large sample sizes, these will be the most common - as will the idea points offered for their elemental affinity column. Thereafter, since I have 1 dark, 1 light, and one earth blade left, the silhouettes pop-up most often when Justice or Compassion are are boosted - with Bravery already being the highest on Rex, and Truth for Nia. Now, I’ll do more testing with Rex since his Truth, Compassion, and Justice are all at 7 and Bravery at 8. But what I had realized was that when I used Truth boosters, I rarely see the Silhouettes (because the only one that would be connected to “Truth” is Nims), when I use Bravery boosters I always see at least one, and occasionally two (Vale and Kos-Mos basically), but when I use Compassion or Justice Boosters, I more often than not see two rare Blade Silhouettes before receiving a common with Luck under 400. Now my Luck tops 500 with Rex, but I’m still farming. However, I believe that it is quite likely that to get certain high-rarity Blades, it is best to lower the “randomness” by attempting to “zero-in” on that specific element with two ideas. For example, to get Kos-Mos it may be best to have Justice as the highest and Compassion as second highest, and then Luck would help you get the right Blade. Yet it is doubtful that just having the “highest” out of all 4 would be enough. I think that the unfilled space on the thought cloud simply represents absolute randomness, meaning that if your draw were to fall outside of your ideas - in any of the four quadrants - then you may have an equal chance of receiving any one of the 8 elements. But the takeaway would be to sometimes boost the secondary idea instead of the first. If I had 9 Justice, 7 Bravery, and 5 Compassion but wanted Kos-Mos, I may receive more Dark and Fire Blades than anything else, but if I boosted Compassion to 8+ per say - instead of increasing Justice even further - then I may start seeing Lightning Blades but with Kos-Mos’s Silhoutte becoming far more frequent. This would require a lot more testing though lol.
I wanted to update this comment by saying that I think my hypothesis may be legit. I got the last three rare today, including Kos-Mos last, within 70 rare cores and the Silhouettes + long pauses in the sequence were far more common when I was using Compassion boosters, because my Justice and Truth were at 7. Whenever the pauses and the controller’s vibration were longer, I always pulled either a Dark, Earth, but especially Lightning Blade. Also, Mythra’s Affinity Chart is all Justice Idea Points except for the Light Affinity Column. That one is Compassion lol, so I’m pretty sure that’s one of the hints designed to lead us into figuring out the RNG system - meaning increasing the Primary and Secondary Ideas needed to zero-in on the Quadrant you want, and increasing your luck to increase the likelihood of drawing a Rare within that quadrant.
Oh and I’m only at the very beginning of Chapter 5, so I don’t think there’s a story progression requirement. I just think it’s really about the last few ones being rarer, requiring us to minimize the likelihood of getting other elements, and then require more luck to pull out of a pool of commons. I just made a more detailed post here if you’d like to check it/test it out, because I’m not gonna have the time to do another run through just to thoroughly apply this hypothesis throughout lol: www.reddit.com/r/Xenoblade_Chronicles/comments/7p4v43/possible_spoilers_my_hypothesis_on_the_rare_blade/?st=JC794JAO&sh=7deacdc4
Does this still hold up or is there better info out there and I shouldn't even bother watching this now? Edit: Nevermind, I watched the later video with the datamined info. Very helpful!! Also very re-assuring, since every summon you do will help a little bit more.
There are some weird things going on though. I still need about 12 or so rare blades. The last 70 common and 20 rare draws, I've seen certain rare silhouttes (one with a flaming banner almost every time and another one about 70% of the time) far more often than others. These, however, have never been the rare blade eventually summoned from the crystal. I don't know what it means, but it's interesting to note.
What I wonder about the Boosters is that do they create a higher chance of being any two of the elements it represents for both the common and rare blades or does that only affect the common blades by removing certain ones from the wheel?
One of my first if not my first rare blade to get was in chapter 1 or 2 which was Ursula absolutely love her character and as a blade anytime you switch to her you hear everyone in your party!
So when you said more are added to the game... Is that hinted by the architect explaining blades changed from the data to be better? Like, some of the common spaces changed to new rare blades?
I always just knew that the third one was the one you got. The first thing I thought was it was like a set of dice. And now they are letting you skip that scene in the next update
I got the Snow-Bunny healer girl on my main DPS character (not saying who due to possible spoilers). That's why I don't like the 'random' aspect of this. I would rather have had Nia have her, she's my main heals.
You saying that by the end of the game it's harder to find the rare blades... Where do you think I am in this game? I've already met the architect and I think I'm about to meet Malos if I continue the story
So along with boosters, how would each characters Idea stats fit into this? My Zeke has a higher justice, so I’ve been using him to try and pull KosMos, while my Nia has higher Bravery, so I need to use truth boosters on her to try and pull Dahlia.
Soooo...I’m in chapter 10 right before the final boss. Does this mean it’s damn near impossible for me to get my last 4 rare blades?(Ursula,Electra,Zenobia, and KOS-MOS)
Ugh, I feel so bad now lol. I meant to screenshot a few of the comments from Amino and put them in the video, but forgot all about it until I just read this. I'll make up to you guys in the next XC2 video.
I would normally be inclined to believe this but because of my own personal experiences in doubtful. I've summoned plenty of blades so at I recognize all the silhouettes that flash and know exactly what blade it is. And at one point while summoning a bunch of commons on Nia the silhouette for Perceval kept showing up in the second spot, at one point it was about 7 or 8 times in a row. And if the wheel is as big as you say I doubt it would land in the same spot like that so many times in a row. But if the spots on the wheel aren't the same everytime then I'd totally believe your theory as I just have terrible luck and that sort of thing would happen to me
Part 1 - You may be right, but I think you didn't take one thing into accounts After seeing a lot of posts about this and experience 2 playthroughs, notice that you have a kind limite of rare blades per story character. Let me give you an example I'm on my second playthrough and I've been getting 3 rares per character (now at chap 5) and this within about 20 normal cores On my first playthrough, I passed a lot of time on chap 3 farming exp, mobs for the pentagon chip and salvaging. I got a lot of cores, more than 300 and open the majority of then and only got 3 rares. After this, I opened cores at the start of chapter 4,5 and 6 and got about 6 or 7 rares, rushed chap 7 and didn't open cores in chap 8 and on chap 9 only opened about 15 and got 2 rares, buy chap 10 got my 3 rares and now after more than 700 cores (common, rare and legendary) I can't get my last blade
Part 2 - Kos mostly Now, in my second playthrough, at chap 4 and got may 3 rares, opened some cores for blades with salvage mastery until I could no longer open cores, I free some blades including the rare one nim (earth healer), because it was on Rex, opened 3 common cores with Nia and got nim with her From other posts, apparently completing side quests as the same effect I'm not saying your theory is wrong, it's very good to tell you the truth, but you may add that each time you advance to a new chap, your chance to get a rare greatly increases and you have a kind of limit of how many blades you can get per chap (you can get more, but you need to grind a lot, and I mean a lot)
Part 3 - I continued thinking about this on my way home from work. Now imagine that story/side quest progression may influence your chances of getting rares, this would explain why the only moment the game auto saves is when you open a core, so the game can compare the new save with the last one. Another thing I thought is that we may actually have a high chance of getting a rare every time, that's why we have 3 blades show, the first shadow would be the first pull and will be taken from the list, same for the second and third shadows, witch means, they start with we have more probability to get, lowering our chances of getting a rare at each poll, the third one, the one we get
Part 4 - I have a thought about how the poll works, and I think we may have more than one roulette, one for weapon, another for element, another for rarity and another for class For example to get zonobia you would need axe+wind+rarity 5+atk So booster could increase the number of slots of an element in that roulette, chance could increase the number of hight rarities on that roulette If the connection with the story progression exist, it could add a re-roll, meaning you got hammer+wind+rarity 5+atk, it would re-roll the weapon and you would get another chance for getting the axe witch would result in Zenobia What do you think about what I said?
Part 5 - Only to add something and imagining that the i was right about more than one roulette and that i could be possible to re-roll one of the polls i think that the rarity would be one where that could not be a re-roll and the number of rare blades you already got in the same character, would decrease the number of rarity 5 slots in the rarity slot we may say that this would work more like a slot machine and after each roll those options would be taken away from the poll and that would be why we have have tree polls and having less chance of getting a rare at each poll
![Quando Rondo - Life Goes On [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eIf3fhMXAow/mqdefault.jpg)
Blade summoning “Theory” with Theory on the thumbnail. Nice
IMHO this is one portion of the game Monolith really F'ed up. If you are avidly collecting most everything you can along the way you should have all blades unlocked near the end of the game. having to grind to raise your luck stat, collect Core Crystals, and then having to open literally hundreds (if not thousands) of said crystals is nothing short of insanity. It takes much of the enjoyment out of the experience especially late game. I hope they integrate a patch that greatly raises your chances of unlocking these blades, or better yet integrate some sort of challenge mode that allows you to complete certain tasks to unlock them. Pointless grinding does not increase the enjoyment of a game it arbitrarily extends play time in a negative way.
facepwnagewtf glad they weren’t made I to loot boxes
totally agree with you, I would've understand it if it were a weapon chip or accesory or anything for completionist, but never for something so integral like unlucking new characters, honestly some say it add more playability but IMO its sadistic, to me the stuff that adds playability is grinding the blade's affinity chart, and their respective blade quest, but the game kept punish me by NOT showing me that simply because I don't have a 900 + luck, I finally got all of them and I did it with a luck below 700, still, I don't look back to that grinding with joy, it was one of the most unpleasent experiences I had in a game, honestly there was a point were I was expecting monolith to make this a lootbox and pay for the nightmere to end.
facepwnagewtf couldn't agree more, the only thing I will say is when a rare does pop up it's like taking a hit of ecstasy for a min watching your intro video with your beautiful new rare blade that you farmed and grinded half your life away to acquire, and that final blade you get (Kos-Mos for me) was like winning the freaking lottery while on ecstasy. Maybe that's what M.S. was going for when they designed it but in the end the highs didn't outweigh the lows.
I actually like gacha as long as its free. One of my favorite parts of the game is the rush of seeing a non common cutscene. I also love how it makes almost everyone's play throughs different since every time i watch someone else play they usually have blades and setups i dont have. KOS-MOS is actually the first blade some people get.
I think MonolithSoft intends for players to just play through the game without grinding and get whatever rare blades they happen to get naturally. This increases replay value because each time you play you essentially meet a bunch of new characters. This game doesn't seem to be made for completionists.
I think this is the best explanation we have thus far on how the summoning mechanics work with rare blades. Thinking of it like a roulette rather than a lottery changes your perspective on how you might handle summoning and when you would want to summon the most during the story. Good job compiling the info!
The Musical Gamer this*
I would bet that at least 10% of the reason for making this video was probably just so Jay could put Theory in the thumbnail.
If so then good shit.
Just tested out summoning using your video as a guide as well as another for luck boosting. And I got rares within the last thirty minutes.
Like another poster, I got a bunch of rare blades after first getting new party members and just spamming rare core crystals after those members joined. Got rares for each easily. Usually about three apiece.
I then just within the last 30 minutes got two rare blades by manipulating the RNG (random number generator) or Blade "wheel" using Rex and high luck.
What I did is as follows:
Boosted the luck as high as I could with each character I was using to summon with (Rex). Checking for common blades with luck modifiers when my summons did not pan out to include rares. Then equipping those blades to the character I was trying to summon blades with after equipping them with chips that boosted luck as well if I had them on hand.
Different weapon types require different chips for effects.
Watched the "wheel" for rare blades, you can tell by their shapes usually. I then modified the amount of boosters I used after each spin when I missed landing on a rare.
This *worked* for me because I was actively adjusting the amount of boosters used by either one or two to affect the spin.
I will continue testing out this method. But I think I found a winner thanks to your video.
Bluevirage I need to try this!
I agree on the wheel. From my experience the wheel is set for each character (Nia, Rex, Morag, and Zeke) when you open the blade bonding menu. The reason for this assumption is that I have tried bonding with 99 common core crystals and after about 20 draws on Nia some of the flashing blades became blank. I switched to another character and there were no blanks for a while (I think I did about 15) but when I returned to Nia the pattern continued. So you might be better off saving a bunch of core crystals and bonding with them all at once.
Also your hypothesis about the progression is very very true! I played the game on another save and since I have the expansion pass got 10 rare crystals and got 6 RARE blades out of them on Rex with very low luck in chapter 3. In my main save where I;ve beaten the game, I only got 2-3 star common blades from the 10 rare crystals even with boosters and significantly higher luck. So it must be the level or progression in the story that effects how many blades you can get.
Sorry for the essay of a comment! Great Video :)
Something interesting to note was I was playing on a separate save and the 3rd flash ended up being an empty silhouette. Boreas comes out of it. I'm not sure if this was just lag from the game or if blades can actually come from "empty" silhouettes. Might disprove the first theory if true idk.
i had an empty silhuette as the 3rd flash a few times now... it was always a common for me...
soooooo i guess that makes it hard to define what they mean^^`
Edit: I kind of used the term "in real-time" wrong in the video. Obviously the blade is determined around the time the game saves (preventing a re-spin) but the 3 blades flashing are the final blades the spindle passed over (and landed on, in the case of the third)
*Do you have a theory on how it all works?*
Jay RPG why is your rexs armour like that, and i believe its truly random but rarer cores have a better chance albeit not much at giving rare blades.
Endgame Rex gets a visual armor upgrade as part of the story.
Bv
This is a solid explanation. Kudos for your work here.
Quanterius smith spoilers, don't ask :-P
Interesting. I've always thought it made sense as a roulette system, but this video made me aware that the flashing blades is what caused me to always imagine it that way. Thanks for inspiring me to examine this process more closely.
The only part I don't agree with is that they don't add some rare blades till later. If anything I'd say that as rare blades are unlocked their position on the wheel is replaced with common blade positions, leading to the exponential increase in difficulty unlocking new rare blades. It'd be interesting to see this part of the game datamined at some point, just because of how vague the game and developers are about it
I heard a theory that there's a set number of blades in the pool that never changes. Once you get one, the pool reduces by 1 permanently (unless you release a blade). This is why some people claimed to have an easier time pulling the last few rare blades once they completely maxed out their blade inventory (it's because the resulting pool to choose from is WAY smaller).
In terms of why the late game blades are hard to summon, it's because they appear on the wheel way less than others. All blades aren't equal. The XC2 director downright said this.
For the most part I agree totally. It is a wheel like system. And luck and boosters do effect chances and elements.
Hmm very interesting. You might be onto something with the "sweet spot" in the story theory. There was a point where I summoned 5 rare blades in one day and that was probably around chapter 5-7. It's the only time that's happened to me. The most I've ever summoned besides that in one day was 2 rare blades. I wish we got official confirmation on how the system works becaue these last 4 blades (KOS-MOS ;___;) I need are driving me crazy.
BaoZakeruga my first run I got kosmos in ch 5 but didn't farm hard for her till ch8 in my second run bit it felt very random. Also different blade very clearly have different weights to them since I popped nim 11 times farming for kosmos( I kept getting rid of nim since I noticed a large difference in rare pops after dismissing 3 rares as a test that and I hate nim)
Juggle soul eater Stanley or the 130 superboss for grinding since they both drop legendaries
I dunno, I think KOS-MOS is an outlier as there is some people that got their first rare blade in the form of KOS-MOS
I got Kos-Mos in chapter 5
Unfortunately Jay, while your theory is mostly sound. We have instances of people summoning any of the rare blades at the start of the game. So it's more likely that rares have different rates and as you go through the game and increase your ideas, the lower crown commons are starting to be replaced with three crown. This seems to be why people get rares like Godfrey, Boreas, Ursula, Kora over rares like Newt, Vale, Zenobia or Kosmos. Rare Blades that have quests in the later part have this rarer disposition, to prevent you from getting a Blade that almost can't be leveled up until you get to the later chapters, but still being possible to pull them early. The spaces that the rares occupy would also not be 'gone' after you draw them, but could be replaced by higher crowns as well. This can also be why it seems to get harder to draw a rare over time, because the wheel isn't getting smaller, but your rewards keep getting better, even for the commons.
VanStolin my first rare blade was perun on nia is that good?
I don't think this is the case at all. At least in my game, which is now on 95 hours, I've released xenobia 2 times and constantly gotten her back on different characters. Kosmos was my third rare draw. Vale was the 9th. I've never seen Boreas or Kora.
My Rex does seem to really like drawing Dagas though, though I have no illusions this won't be the case for most other players.
I would add that Ursula might be rarer than people think. A streamer I watched has Ursula as one of his last 3 blades. I've rolled about 2/3 of the rare blades and have yet to get Ursula. I did get Zenobia and Kos-Mos within the space of 10 minutes so I'm not really complaining.
This is what I was going to say, I got KosMos on my first crystal in Torigoth and apparently it´s super rare and hard to get.
The more understanding of the RNG system in this game, the better. If you don't know, in computer programming, true randomness does not exist. This means that if we know how it works, we can exploit it, and get the blade we want every time.
If that were true, then Nintendo has invented the greatest RNG machine.
Seeing these comments makes me feel bad bout summoning KOS-MOS when I first got to Uraya
Happened to me to. Also released Xenobia 2 times and kept getting her back pretty much stat.
Bernd Genegel why release a rare blade
I hate you on a deeply irrational yet personal level...
I already got kos mos in first training by opening
A tresure trove
These are the best XBC2 videos out there right now. Glad I found your channel. ;)
Well done video, mate!
LemonEatingKow Haha why don't you do a let's play on this game?
Whoever summoned Kos-Mos in chapter 2... welcome mate we match
Not Bad. I was also summoning a lot of blades and what I saw, was that with a normal crystal you can get only blades up to 3 crowns and a rare can get you blades with 4 crowns. Also I think the affinity influence it. I got a lot blades with 4 crowns with zeke and justice booster, so blades with darkness element and he has a very high justice from the start. Also the theory with the wheel is in my opinion exactly what I was thinking how it worked. So to sum it up luck and affinity level are working in the way of getting stronger blades and rare blades in the way you said with the wheel by increasing the space they take up on it.
I never really thought of the summoning system this way, but it sounds like a very plausible alternative to what I was thinking. Keep up the good work!
Actually took me a while to figure out boosters increase your chances of getting a certain element.
But it really helped getting my last rare blade. Since I knew it was Kora (yeah, try to look up stuff and you will eventually get spoiled in some way or another) I was specifically using compassion boosters.
Just noticed something. Boosters probably directly effect your chances of getting certain elements. When you choose them, you can clearly see certain elements swirl into the core crystal.
Justice = Light/Dark
Compassion = Lightning/Earth
Idea = Wind/Ice
Bravery = Fire/Water
I comfirmed this by releasing certain element Blades and seeing which boosters I'd get. Sure enough, when releasing a Fire or Water element you'll always recieve at least 1 Bravery booster.
A bit of advice, if there's a specific rare blade that you want, use boosters to narrow it down to only their element (plus one other element but you get the point) or if you already have all of one element, and just want more rares, use a booster that doesn't increase the rates for the elements you already have.
I actually like this theory. It at the very least clears up some confusion about things. Luck and boosters affect the outcome but not directly, more of an indirect thing. Also I'm at chapter seven and I'm only getting three star commons, meaning I guess I should move up on the story just a bit more and I'll probably get the four stars. And that's where I'll farm for core crystals. I guess that's a way to use the system to it's fullest potential.
Well, i think all that summoning mechanics are BULLSH*TS.
I tried all thing i found to boost the chance of getting a rare blade but nothing work.
Crystal core rarity ? -> got all my rare blade with common crystal
Luck stat ? -> i have less than 500
Booster ? -> only common blade come out
After 250h+ (150h farming core) of playtime i still can't get my last rare blade (Electra)
3700 core only to try getting her, i give up...
The real question is why can't we get all blade with quest ? I think it's not that hard to make difficult quest who reward player with a blade after completing. We acquire some with them but they were so easy you can't feel proud and satisfied after finishing .
Fanatiks ExP that's unfortunate cuz Electra is beastly. Arguably best lightning blade
Electra was my first rare blade lol
Fanatiks ExP its rng. My gfs first rare was electra
Muchlis Adeputra Same here. My first. I wonder if summoning location is taken into consideration. Lol
Legion wait she is I pulled her out from a common core in chapter 3 for Rex then I got bored of her and put her away
By the way. I think it should be noted as well that everytime you summon a blade that one will be out of the wheel.
For example If you summon a female blade it will have a certain head type/weapon/element/role and rarety. I know that it's still a lot but that means that the pool will get smaller every time which gives another factor to it.
When you dimiss a blade than they will be added back(I'm sure of it).
I'd like to add one small detail that might make it a bit more accurate, not all rare blades have the same number of spaces, Ursula and Electra are said to be very common rare blades, while KOS-MOS is said to be the most rare of them
I was listening to this video to occupy my time while opening cores and I managed to get one of the two blades I'm missing while watching : KOS-MOS. It was the first time her silhouette had ever show up as well. Now I'm only missing Agate, who funnily enough, often appears as a silhouette.
That aside, this was a great video. It would make a lot of sense that the system works like that.
LuxSpes
Agate came pretty easily for me. I still need Vale, Electra, KOS-MOS, Dagas, and I need to complete the Vess quest.
Personally i think the wheel idea is right. I think that your luck makes the wheel larger while your idea stats determine how many of each element are on the wheel. So using boosters simply adds more of those two elements to it. Also that there are fixed rare blade slots, as in only so many will appear on the wheel per spin, and the blades present are chosen at random. it could also explain why KOS-MOS is such a pain to get since shes the only light element blade on the wheel at any one point. It also explains why for most people shes one of the last blades they pull or one of the first since a lower luck means there's a smaller pool. As for a sweet spot in the game i think that's either due to 4 star/crown blades being locked and your luck increasing or that you simply don't get enough core crystals.
I lucked out and got KOSMOS on Zeke while his luck was around ~250, soon after he joined. Was one of his first rares, actually. I'm also seeing some people saying Newt is particularly rare, but for me she was my first ever rare pull, chapter 3 early.
I pulled Kora and Floren out of common cores, but something I've noticed: certain roles (TNK, ATK) tend to show up more often on different characters, in addition to different types without considering boosters.
(Note: Electra, Godfrey, and Zenobia were the only rares I had left to pull during the below test. It's only Zenobia now.)
I was until recently trying for Electra (Elec TNK, Hammer) on either Rex or Nia (mostly because I have 8-9 Overdrives and was trying with Rex's innately higher Compassion idea) but still found that her silhouette almost always flashed on Nia while only showed up a third of the time on Rex. If the character does matter beyond general idea totals, then it would mean that certain rares have an innately higher chance being pulled by specific characters than others, likely to ensure that Nia doesn't end up with a bunch of ATK blades while Rex only ever pulls HLR blades.
I've also seen several people say that Zeke was the character that pulled KOSMOS on their files as well. Considering that Rex and Zeke are the two that have ATK blades (Pandoria, Pyra/Mythra) as their story blade, it would make sense that they have a higher chance of pulling other ATK rares (Vale, in particular, has been giving a few people I've seen headaches trying to get. I got her from a legendary from a chest right in front the lvl130 monster in Temperantia.)
My Ursala, Boreas, and Kora were on Morag, Finch, Percival, and Floren were on Nia. Perun, Vale, Dagas, and KOSMOS all ended up on my Zeke. Azami was an odd out and ended up on my Nia while my Nim ended up on Zeke, but aside from those, most blades role aligned to the character's story blade.
Rex got mostly ATK/TNK, Nia got mostly HLR/TNK, Morag got mostly TNK/HLR, while Zeke got almost entirely ATK blades with one or two TNK/HLR. Because of that, I refuse to field Zeke most of the time because I had him at level 90 sometimes randomly dying to something 40+ levels below him. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there.
I assume that certain guaranteed rares like Herald and Vess are there to give you some choice on who goes on what for elemental coverage.
And Tora is Tora.
I do want to point out that, during the three-blade-flashes I got the same few rare blade silhouettes (namely, the ones that look like fire wings and large shield) much much more often than you would statistically expect. And I still haven’t gotten them yet either. So I expect it isn’t completely random.
Used 5 Brave Boosters hoping to roll Dagas on Zeke, got Floren instead. Not sure if the boosters influence much, however Gorg did show up as the first silouhette when I rolled Floren. I have a feeling the second theory in which luck and boosters systematically roll the wheel up places might be what really happens.
Also having more rares means less chances to roll another rare, which makes getting the last few an absolute nightmare. Perhaps a good tip would be to not release blades until you've finished doing your bonding run.
Overall, excellent theory and great analogy to a roulette wheel! Just one thing to point out is I think rather than certain blades being "locked" before certain points in the game, it's that they're in a lower rarity tier (or appear more often on the wheel). It supports Takahashi's comment about not all rare blades being rare.
Rare blades like Boreas, Ursula, Godfrey, Nim, and Agate appear to have very high chances of being summoned. Blades like KOS-MOS, Newt, and Dahlia have extremely low rates. It's not that they can't appear in early game, it's just the chances of them appearing are so small. This explains why some people have pulled these blades early on, but the vast majority of people don't pull them until post game.
When he said common from the legendary core crystal in the beginning... I could relate.
I do like the idea of a roulette wheel. Based on my blade grinding attempt to get each blade on the character I want without using the last overdrive protocol I have (saving it for Kos-Mos) I think that each rare blade has a set percentage of the table they cover. I was frequently running into the same blades and releasing them in the hopes that it would increase my chances of pulling the blade I wanted on the specific character. I wanted them to be on. I repeatedly drew Dahlia, Ursula, and Floren on Zeke and it was incredibly frustrating seeing the same blades pop over and over again. This was late in the game so I assume that every blade was on the table while I was spinning.
I like this theory, here is my praxis:
My personnal experience that could corroborate a bit, i got almost every single rare blade at around chapter 8,with very average farming(like doing every quest possible and killing each unique once that i could) and only started the hard farming for KOS MOS in chapter 10 ,when it was first time i encountered a bunch of 4 crown normal blade.
On the anedcotal evidence i have read, many people took enourmous amount of time, usually started farming hard at the end of the game or after the final boss, meaning they had to deal with the larger roulette, instead the smaller one if we follow your theory.
It may be interesting for experienced player to test on a new playthrough getting as many rare blade as possible, as soon as possible.
I've heard a bunch of people saying that at a point in each chapter they stop getting rares whatsoever which supports the first theory however the second theory in my experience must be false because in my 3 blades I seem to get this blade who looks somewhat like morag or maybe an organization XII member from kingdom hearts, I know its neither of those I'm just saying those for reference as far as build and clothing
You say that rare blades are not on the wheel early in the game.
I say that's because of the low idea levels.
Spanish Vanguardia I feel that this could be correct. The only way to test this is to have people tell us what their idea levels were when they summoned Kos-Mos for example.
If someone tells us they were able to summon the rarest of the rare with trash idea levels, then we can rule this out.
I'm pretty sure idea levels only affect the type of element you get. Ex bravery boosters focus on fire and water, truth focuses on wind and ice, compassion focus on electricity and earth and justice focuses on light and dark
Got KOS-MOS on a lvl 20ish Nia, I think round lvl 1-2 justice, while maximizing bravery boosters on a common crystal
Anthony Burns
Maximizing a non-light boosting stat? Yeah, we can rule OP's point out.
So did I
I will say about the unskippable cutscene part, I did have the game crash/hang up when it showed (I think) Ursuala. When it actually crashed and I had to reload, I had summoned something different (want to say fire katana generic). Regardless, pretty sure the Blade itself is chosen before the cutscene, even if your roulette theory turns out to be true.
Just for the record, there are 2 Rare Blades that do not have a pre-image. Their pre-image is actually empty, KOS-MOS is one of them. So if you see nothing there, it might be KOS-MOS or the other one.
Also, I’ve summoned Boreas in Chapter 3. I’ve also gotten Vale right after. So I’m not sure the Chapters have to do with anything. However, believe when the creator said, “Not all Rare Blades will be ‘rare’.” He refers to Rare Blades that are guaranteed, like Theory.
Update from my previous comment. Finally got my final blade KOS-MOS by using just rare core crystals lol did no farming at all after my first 50 legendary crystals from getting Zenobia and Newt. Used zero luck enchancers, funny thing is I pulled KOS-MOS on my bro's Switch two days before getting mine. Was one of his last 5 blades. Pulled her with a rare on his and again zero luck boosters.
hadn't thought of the alternate theory, though the rest seemed the only real explanation that'd account for the sharp drop as I got more blades, albeit I had assumed all legendary randoms could be received from the beginning. That last point could be verified (lest your starting pool is also random) by looking for cases of people having received each individual rare blade early on in the story.
I restarted the game recently and had a load of extra crystals due to the DLC items. I've just rescued Nia so I'm not that far through the game but I've had 6 rare blades appear (Godfrey, Agate, Gorg, Boreas, Electra and Finch)
Good solid explanation on this.... so happy to have found your Chanel that I am... I just started playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and am really struggling, so watching your videos has really helped.
When can I equip 3 blades at a time? Is that a story thing or.....
God I wish this system didnt exist. I wish all of the blades were tied behind challenge missions and blade story lines like praxis and vess
I belive if you do new game+ and advance the story there are certain moments when your chance to get a rare blade is higher. Advancing the story will allow you to unlock a new rare blade for free aslong youre useing a legendary corecrystal. You can use that to unlock blades like t-elos and Kos-Mos who normally have a accurence chance of 0,5% anyways, if you stuck the whole time at chapter 8 you probably will have a hard time to unlock Kos-Mos
What I noticed after looking at my journy in XC2 and my friends journeys (I could be wrong tho'): Rare Blades should be divided into 4 cathegories: pure random (1), random plus chapter/level locked (2), actually non-random but chapter/level locked (3) and quest/main story related rare-blade (4). Cat 4 is those like Ves and Aegeon, it is a bit not interesting for this topic.
The more rare blade you have, the lower possibility you will get for your next rare blade from the cathegory 1+2, hence the last blades are difficult to get.
You can not get any cat 2+3 Blades no matter how hard you try as long as you haven't reach certain chapter.
Luck and boosters do effect blades (cat 1+2) summons.
Thank you for sharing this video. I always thought that in the "three blade roulette" was obvious, that the first two are possible blade, while the last is the resonance blade, but it is not. Your metaphor of the roulette is good at explaining the basic concept, but I think you missed something along the way. The virtues crystal affect the probability of getting a rare Blade will define the presence of a more powerful blade in the wheel. A strong dark blade, require a high level of Justice (according to my tests), this imply that it will probably show up later in the game. Consider also this; if the wheel have variable sized slice (e.g. in %) and a fixed number of blades, then the following may apply: crystals and driver's level define which rare-blade to choose for the wheel, than common placeholders are added up to an unknown fixed number, then luck and affinity levels increase/decrease the size of rare and/or compatible blade. Then you run the roulette (well, as a developer I must say throw a RNG and use a partition :-P ), and you get what you get. The two shadow show in the animation, are to be considered ashint of possible, blade I think are completely unrelated to the probability; I say this because is highly likely that you see a rare during the animation, but the last one... is always a damned dog :)
A lot of people are also misunderstanding the what the boosters do in the first place. The boosters don't directly influence the summoning process, they boost a specific Idea which [presumably] directly influences the process.
I think everyone understands that, it's just that people say "boosters" rather than "Idea" because "idea" is stupid and vague lol. It's just easier to refer to that whole system as boosters.
Jay RPG
I guess I just don't have as much faith in humanity as you lol.
I managed to get my Kosmos while listening to this video so thanks :] Great vid either way tho
Your theory is really very interesting and, from my experience, could be true. I summoned a lot of rare blades relatively early in the game (in Gormott or when I arrived in Uraya). The droprate was really high. Almost one rare blade every 10 common crystals. But after I arrived in Mor Ardain, where the core crystal grind spot is, the droprate got really bad.
What if a rare blade appears twice on the roulette ? (I got Perceval on the first and third slot, and he was actually summoned). Does it mean my roulette only had perceval and a common ?
You mentioned how rare it is for a rare blade to be seen in the three flashed blades shown during summonings on common crystals. Whenever, and I mean every single time, that I roll a common crystal, I always see 1-2 rare blades before it lands on a common (not to upset that I got a common blade from a common core), but whenever I use a rare crystal the three blades to flash are almost never rare (I've yet to get a legendary crystal yet so nothing to report there). Something I thought I'd throw out there to even further this weird summoning system.
So basically if you want the best possible chance for rares
1: restart
2: play until you can resonate
3: get the season pass
3: RESONATE RESONATE RESONATE
Realistically speaking if you want rare blades get your luck as high as you can reasonably manage and just start cracking court crystals.
I had great time Just got theory blade core crystals last night
A friend and I discussed the theory right now and came to the possibility of how a higher mercenary rank let's you have more blades. Maybe, just maybe, - because we just had the discussion minutes ago and we could not start to test it out - that also means that a number of rare blades is appointed to the pool at random everytime you are able to get more blades.
Therefore it would be interesting to know if anyone got all rare blades before maxing out the mercenary rank. If this would prove correct, you would have a limited amount of rare blades at a certain point of development, which is not necessarily tied to story progress, but rather said mercenary rank and maybe even town development.
Food for thought, did anyone try it out or does think this could be a part of the system how summoning works as well?
Based on the informants and my testing, I’ve come to a similar conclusion. My version has you first spin for an idea category, then that drivers idea level dictates the rarity pool for the second spin. My Rex, with low idea levels, gets a ton of level 1 blades and I’m shocked when anyone else does. (He’s using everyone else’s blades) You can see that boosters raise that idea level so you get better levels in that idea. As for quality, I’ve got on record that I haven’t gotten a lvl1 from rare. Similarly, I haven’t gotten a lvl2 from a legend. So I think they remove those from the wheel to better your odds. But, hey, I’m just a nerd.
I am not so sure about certain rare blades not being on the wheel at the beginning. As your idea values increase, weaker blades take less and less space on the wheel. Zenobia is one of the strongest rare blades. I got her early in my first play through, but late on a second.
I'm glad that my favorite Blades are not random. Mythra, Kasandra, and Sheba Best Girls. Pretty much never changed blades for Rex since.
I still have 2 more blades to collect; namely Elektra and KosMos; I spent about 40 rare core yesterday, and with around 600 luk on zeke I consistently got Elektra flashes; however; I still didn't get her; instead, I got Gorg (whom I didn't have at the time)
the interesting part is; I didn't get Gorg flashes once; the only time I saw his silhouette was when I got him
how strange.
I actually think you're on to something here.
I know that when I got my last party member I instantly went to the summoning screen and used rare cores to summon new blades for the new member. I actually got 3 rare blades in a row.
I have noticed that some characters seem to summon a lot of blades that fill a specific arch type (like Nia summoning healers). So I actually wonder if the "wheels" are character specific or influenced by the characters traveling with you at that point in the game. So the reason blades seem more common in the middle is because you're using new characters that have different odds and types of blades found on the wheel (think if it like Nia having multiple spots on the wheel dedicated to Boreas, a healer, for instance).
When I have my 5th party member and I have used many crystals on them and I have not gotten a single rare blade, maybe I just need to try more
My Nia did not get a single healer blade; she got all tanks
What people should be doing is getting rid off all the low rarity commons. You rarely get a low crown rarity common from legendary cores. So by keeping high crown blades in your blade inventory you shrink the high rarity common blade draw pool size thus increasing your odds at getting a rare blade although still fairly small but increases it nonetheless.
Just dont keep releasing the latest high rarity blade you get otherwise don't be surprised when that same common blade shows up on your next 10 pulls from legendary cores. It happened to me a few times with the cores found in treasure troves. So I decided to change my ways when I started farming legendary core crystals near the end of the game.
Managed to get Zenobia and Newt in less than 20 legendary core crystals this way. Thats pretty much all the farming I did up to that point. The only remaining rare blade is KOS-MOS, had to be freaking KOS-MOS... Feeling confident though that I can get her in just a few more dozen legendary core crystals.
Also my luck stat is fairly low. So I'm starting to doubt the luck stat effects anything outside of combat. How is luck mentioned exactly on the tutorial?
If anyone decides to test this please let me know the results. thanks and good luck
I'm in chapter 4 and I farmed a ton of core crystals.. I got most of the Rare blades.. I even got some back to back... but then I got a wall... no matter what I did I couldn't get another rare blade.. I love to grind.. so I've grinded up to level 80.... so I'm lead to believe that I need to progress further in the story for more rare blades to be added to the pool
This was quite helpful. Subscribed!
I'm in chapter 8 and Ive spent 110 rare crystals. Got 6 out of 7 rare blades I was missing (Newt, Dahlia, Ursula, Gorg, Electra, and Agate). Of course, Kos-mos is the only one I wanted and just had to be the last rare blade for me to pull -_- fuck my life. Im gonna be farming for like 5 weeks now
Interesting, I got ursula from a common core crystal right after the point where you first fight morag. I think it was my 4th common crystal
Theory pun... well done
Seriously a well done video and explanation!
Luck does affect a lot... but there's certain threshold when you just had to spam, especially for the last 5 legendary blade.
btw this threshold mechanism also can be found in the odd of summoning 4 star rating blade.
When you had more 4 star rating blade (mine was 24 in total), you would have a very hard time finding another 4 star rating.
If there is a story progression or luck element tied to unlocking rare blades and a "sweet spot" before you get flooded with 4 star rares why wouldn't you mention at what point that is?
Not the kind of theory I expected, but I'm sure their are a lot of folks this helped so upped. Good job.
Interesting. About a month ago, I posted a simple poll to the Xenoblade Reddit, just to see what blades people had gotten after about a week with the game. Obviously not the best way to find good numbers, but it definitely showed that some blades seemed to be more common than others. Godfrey and Boreas being two of the most owned blades, for instance.
www.strawpoll.me/14593455/r
I'm curious about this idea that the pool grows as you progress the game. That could certainly account for why rare blades start out relatively common and get rarer as you progress, though I wonder if the data supports the idea that some rare blades simply are not available early on. Has not one extraordinarily lucky person gotten KOS-MOS as their first rare blade?
I guess what we need is information on the order everyone received their rare blades from, which even if you weren't keeping track should be easy to find (just list your blades by Chronological). Might be able to find some more useable patterns with ordered lists.
Who the F*ck is Boreas? lol. I want Boreas now dammit! that's the only major problem I have with this game (endearing technical glitches aside lol). This RNG S*it show is somewhat annoying+aggravating from my perspective, like if you're going to make it random, fine, but don't go non-MT SWBFII loot box RNG levels of annoying with it! At this point, it's like the Japanese 'free DLC' equivalent to an EA dumpster fire! Do You have any idea how many people are still P*ssed/salty that they haven't gotten KOSMOS?!?! ALOT! There's literally an entire salt mine on the internet thus far, and some people have even stopped playing the game altogether because of it. Now, looking at it from my perspective, I've never even played a 'xenoblade' game before this one, but as a first time player, it's ANNOYING as all hell to have this BS 'RNG system' in place, for obtaining the 'rare blades' for your party, that obviously EVERYONE wants to feel like they've successfully 'completed' the game, Personally, I would much rather prefer that the 'blades' you get, be obtainable through the MANY in game quests or correlate to the 'effort' you've put into the game, like certain blades you get through such means, like praxis+theory+Nia etc. for example.
I mean, seriously, WTF were Monolith soft thinking with this insanity?!? I've never played a SMT game either, but was excited to check that series out for the Switch, and now thanks to this 'RNG' BS, I'm sort of reluctant to even bother, because of this aspect being added in to a single player JRPG! Granted, so far there's no indication that the SMT game will have any such horrendous 'RNG' system in it, but I'll say, that if there's ANY 'RNG' BS going on like with Xenoblade, it's playtime will be cut short, to the point of non-existence+possibly re-sell/refund at that point due to it's inclusion, if any.
To re-iterate this point/common sense perspective...Personally, If I wish to 'gamble' or waste my time on 'long shots' or 'games of chance'...I'll go to a nearby casino or buy some scratch off tickets or place bets on some horse races if I want to "gamble"....and subsequently waste my time+money on stacked odds or disappointing outcomes, I DO NOT WANT THIS ASPECT IN A GAME I AM PLAYING!
However, having said all of this, I do still very much enjoy the gameplay+world elements of the game+I'm moving forward with Xenoblade chronicles II, to see the story+character development to it's conclusion (at this point I'm 186hrs in...which is insane lol), but I'm very aggravated/annoyed with all of this added in 'RNG' BS S*it show, that they've concocted/added in to the game....IMO, AS A GAMER, IT BELONGS IN 'MOBILE LAND' WITH ALL THE OTHER 'MOBILE GAME' F2P BS, and SHOULD NOT BE IN A FULL RETAIL PRICED RPG OR JRPG! THERE NEVER WAS SUCH AN "RNG" S*IT SHOW IN JRPG'S BEFORE, SO WHY PUT THIS GARBAGE IN NOW?!?!? (Ni No Kuni, TALES OF SERIES,DISGAEA, THE WITCH AND THE HUNDRED KNIGHT, BRAVELY DEFAULT, FINAL FANTASY, SECRET OF MANA, CHRONO TRIGGER, NEVER HAD *ANY* OF THIS BS...so I have to wonder, did the DEVS just decide to do drugs when incorporating this aspect, and then summarily think that this was a 'good idea' for some nonsensical reason?!?)
I was excited to play this game+had very high hopes, as I had heard that Xenoblade was an amazing JRPG series, with great elements/facets to round out the experience, and I WAS very much in anticipation for this game for the Switch, and I will admit that I have been getting some enjoyment from the game overall in it's scope, character development, gameplay mechanics, and sheer amount of content offered, but it's just a shame that this 'RNG' aspect of a fundamental progression system towards your gameplay/party is pure torture towards it's potential+overall enjoyment. It's total BS towards gamers IMO, and it fundementally INSULTS the TIME+ENERGY they've invested in such a game, ON TOP OF GRINDING for the resources needed to progress by adding in this pointless 'RNG' aspect! FFS! #noGatchaElementsInJRPGS
I got kos-mos near the end of chapter 3
If I weren't so lazy I'd make dummy accounts just to like this comment over and over. I needed to read someone else's rant on the matter. Sweet, sweet catharsis... Randomness is never, NEVER fun to completionists, and grinding completion has been a staple of the JRPG since the dawn of time. I've loved this game so far, but I'm ready to just say screw it now and play through the story. Sadly I just won't feel like I've experienced what it has to offer unless I play through a significant chunk of the story with ALL blades. Post-game content can eat a dick, now and forever. Honestly one of a tiny number of games I've done end-game content with is Xenoblade Chronicles (the first one, on the Wii). It is an absolute masterpiece. XB2 is great I think, but it pales in comparison. Any rpg fan is seriously missing out on something special if they haven't played XB1. Seriously. Get it. You'll thank me. One of the best games in the past decade, easily. And absolutely no rng grinding necessary.
Haven't gotten Boreas yet, he's apparently tied with Floren as the 2nd best healer in the game behind Ursula. For a commonly owned blade that's pretty nice of Monolith.
well technically the game does not have ALL the Blades available as there's one more being added to the roster in the spring, so you could attain all the ones currently in the game, but that's all you can obtain.
I think it would've been interesting if you had to do a button Challenges like you do with salvaging, but instead of 3 prompts you need to do 5 to dramatically increase your chances in getting a Rare Blade, if it's a Common Core Crystal, the Prompts will be (A normal, A fast, B slow, A fast, A normal) they're easy to do but it won't do much, if it's a Rare Core Crystal the timing on the Prompts are a little more tight (A very fast, B fast, A very fast, A normal, X very slow) but there will be a high chance of getting a Rare Blade if done correctly, and for Legendary Core Crystals, you do these prompts (X very fast, Y extremely fast, Y very fast, A slow, A normal, Mash B, X very fast)
And if you were to mess up these prompts, it would have the same randomness effect as the game already has, to some this idea may sound dumb and messy, but I think it's better than not getting something because the game didn't decide for you to get it, but hey, I'm not a game developer!
After a month, how has this hypothesis evolved? Is there new evidence? Side note: Leg cores do not always give high lv blades; I've got pretty bad lv1 blades without even a decent affinity tree.
Actually the third blade isn’t always the one that’s summoned it’s the one that’s summoned almost every fucking time, but i know from experience it isn’t always what you get. That kosmos eluded me in the most trolly way across all of history...
I've got 3+ hours of footage showing the third blade to be the one summoned 100% of the time. I have yet to see an instance where it isn't the case. I thought at one point I was wrong but when I rewatched the footage the same type of common had just appeared twice in the same 3 blade segment, there are only limited silhouettes they can use after all (Some have minor variations but there is no difference in the silhouette for different rarities, elements, or weapons. Mostly only different headpieces.)
I have the same experience. The third blade to pop up if it's a common I will get it ,but if it's a rare blade I don't get it. Kosmos refuse to show up for me too. I feel your pain...
Jay RPG can you explain whats going on with the blank flashes where no outlines pop up? I always thought it would be a rare blade, but the one time I got it was a common. You have any data showing otherwise? If not, do you have an explanation on why a blank flash even appears for commons?
I have a feeling that Kosmos might be one of the few blades that almost never show up during a silouhette. Dagas, Ursula, Vale and Kos-Mos never showed up in any silouhettes for me yet and Electra only once before I rolled her. I got Kos-Mos through sheer luck as I was trying to cut down the numbers of common cores on hand.
I've been really after the three best healers in Ursula, Boreas and Floren, so not thinking about Kos-Mos must've manipulated the desire meter.
I have another theory I’m thinking has been more likely now that I only have 3 Blades left - regarding the thought cloud. I believe that each corner of the axis actually represents two conjoined elements of two different ideas. After taking a few things into account, like the secondary type of boosters offered most often after releasing a blade of a certain element (2+ Star usually), the likelihood and frequency of rare silhouettes flashing when I use certain boosters (I only have Vale, Kos-Mos, and Nims left), and the frequency that a blade’s affinity chart - more specifically its elemental column - shows an idea from a different element, and what that idea is.
I’ve come to believe that it is highly likely that fire and darkness are in the top right quadrant, light and lightning in the bottom right quadrant, earth and ice in the bottom left, and wind and water in the top left quadrant (however I am really uncertain about wind and ice, their roles could be reversed). Basically, I’ve noticed that fire Commons will often give Justice boosters more than any other as a secondary, darks will often give Bravery, Lightning will often give Justice, Earth will often give Truth, Ice will often give Compassion, Wind Bravery, and Water Truth boosters. There’s still some randomness, but with large sample sizes, these will be the most common - as will the idea points offered for their elemental affinity column.
Thereafter, since I have 1 dark, 1 light, and one earth blade left, the silhouettes pop-up most often when Justice or Compassion are are boosted - with Bravery already being the highest on Rex, and Truth for Nia. Now, I’ll do more testing with Rex since his Truth, Compassion, and Justice are all at 7 and Bravery at 8. But what I had realized was that when I used Truth boosters, I rarely see the Silhouettes (because the only one that would be connected to “Truth” is Nims), when I use Bravery boosters I always see at least one, and occasionally two (Vale and Kos-Mos basically), but when I use Compassion or Justice Boosters, I more often than not see two rare Blade Silhouettes before receiving a common with Luck under 400. Now my Luck tops 500 with Rex, but I’m still farming.
However, I believe that it is quite likely that to get certain high-rarity Blades, it is best to lower the “randomness” by attempting to “zero-in” on that specific element with two ideas. For example, to get Kos-Mos it may be best to have Justice as the highest and Compassion as second highest, and then Luck would help you get the right Blade. Yet it is doubtful that just having the “highest” out of all 4 would be enough. I think that the unfilled space on the thought cloud simply represents absolute randomness, meaning that if your draw were to fall outside of your ideas - in any of the four quadrants - then you may have an equal chance of receiving any one of the 8 elements.
But the takeaway would be to sometimes boost the secondary idea instead of the first. If I had 9 Justice, 7 Bravery, and 5 Compassion but wanted Kos-Mos, I may receive more Dark and Fire Blades than anything else, but if I boosted Compassion to 8+ per say - instead of increasing Justice even further - then I may start seeing Lightning Blades but with Kos-Mos’s Silhoutte becoming far more frequent. This would require a lot more testing though lol.
I wanted to update this comment by saying that I think my hypothesis may be legit. I got the last three rare today, including Kos-Mos last, within 70 rare cores and the Silhouettes + long pauses in the sequence were far more common when I was using Compassion boosters, because my Justice and Truth were at 7. Whenever the pauses and the controller’s vibration were longer, I always pulled either a Dark, Earth, but especially Lightning Blade.
Also, Mythra’s Affinity Chart is all Justice Idea Points except for the Light Affinity Column. That one is Compassion lol, so I’m pretty sure that’s one of the hints designed to lead us into figuring out the RNG system - meaning increasing the Primary and Secondary Ideas needed to zero-in on the Quadrant you want, and increasing your luck to increase the likelihood of drawing a Rare within that quadrant.
Oh and I’m only at the very beginning of Chapter 5, so I don’t think there’s a story progression requirement. I just think it’s really about the last few ones being rarer, requiring us to minimize the likelihood of getting other elements, and then require more luck to pull out of a pool of commons.
I just made a more detailed post here if you’d like to check it/test it out, because I’m not gonna have the time to do another run through just to thoroughly apply this hypothesis throughout lol:
www.reddit.com/r/Xenoblade_Chronicles/comments/7p4v43/possible_spoilers_my_hypothesis_on_the_rare_blade/?st=JC794JAO&sh=7deacdc4
Does this still hold up or is there better info out there and I shouldn't even bother watching this now? Edit: Nevermind, I watched the later video with the datamined info. Very helpful!! Also very re-assuring, since every summon you do will help a little bit more.
I honestly wouldn't mind if the common blades were customisable. That would be really cool.
There are some weird things going on though. I still need about 12 or so rare blades. The last 70 common and 20 rare draws, I've seen certain rare silhouttes (one with a flaming banner almost every time and another one about 70% of the time) far more often than others. These, however, have never been the rare blade eventually summoned from the crystal. I don't know what it means, but it's interesting to note.
even though I already have him, I've seen Percival flash overhead so many times it's actually absurd at this point
Well, I'm glad that this is exactly my thought. I just wanted to see if I'm right or not. Thanks :)
What I wonder about the Boosters is that do they create a higher chance of being any two of the elements it represents for both the common and rare blades or does that only affect the common blades by removing certain ones from the wheel?
One of my first if not my first rare blade to get was in chapter 1 or 2 which was Ursula absolutely love her character and as a blade anytime you switch to her you hear everyone in your party!
Probably fucking why it took over 40 Legendary cores and around 100 Rare cores to get my final blade, Agate
So when you said more are added to the game... Is that hinted by the architect explaining blades changed from the data to be better? Like, some of the common spaces changed to new rare blades?
Thanks dude. Just started playing. Got a bunch of cores from expansion pass. Only used a few so far. Need to know when best to open them all.
This makes a lot of sense. I still don't have Kos-Mos though.
I always just knew that the third one was the one you got. The first thing I thought was it was like a set of dice.
And now they are letting you skip that scene in the next update
I got the Snow-Bunny healer girl on my main DPS character (not saying who due to possible spoilers). That's why I don't like the 'random' aspect of this. I would rather have had Nia have her, she's my main heals.
Yeah, the unswappability between party members was dumb. It knocks any high you might of finally getting the rare blade you want.
You saying that by the end of the game it's harder to find the rare blades... Where do you think I am in this game?
I've already met the architect and I think I'm about to meet Malos if I continue the story
So along with boosters, how would each characters Idea stats fit into this? My Zeke has a higher justice, so I’ve been using him to try and pull KosMos, while my Nia has higher Bravery, so I need to use truth boosters on her to try and pull Dahlia.
Soooo...I’m in chapter 10 right before the final boss. Does this mean it’s damn near impossible for me to get my last 4 rare blades?(Ursula,Electra,Zenobia, and KOS-MOS)
Hey nice my post got referenced, wasn't expecting that
Ugh, I feel so bad now lol. I meant to screenshot a few of the comments from Amino and put them in the video, but forgot all about it until I just read this.
I'll make up to you guys in the next XC2 video.
I have been thinking it's like a slot machine, but I like this theory more.
So in your honest opinion, once you’ve reached the endgame, your chances of getting the final rare blades are second to nil, right?
“Or Why you got that common from a legendary core core crystal” i was pissed when that happened
I was watching you video and going through core crystals and managed to get both Floren and Electra
I would normally be inclined to believe this but because of my own personal experiences in doubtful. I've summoned plenty of blades so at I recognize all the silhouettes that flash and know exactly what blade it is. And at one point while summoning a bunch of commons on Nia the silhouette for Perceval kept showing up in the second spot, at one point it was about 7 or 8 times in a row. And if the wheel is as big as you say I doubt it would land in the same spot like that so many times in a row. But if the spots on the wheel aren't the same everytime then I'd totally believe your theory as I just have terrible luck and that sort of thing would happen to me
Part 1 - You may be right, but I think you didn't take one thing into accounts
After seeing a lot of posts about this and experience 2 playthroughs, notice that you have a kind limite of rare blades per story character. Let me give you an example
I'm on my second playthrough and I've been getting 3 rares per character (now at chap 5) and this within about 20 normal cores
On my first playthrough, I passed a lot of time on chap 3 farming exp, mobs for the pentagon chip and salvaging. I got a lot of cores, more than 300 and open the majority of then and only got 3 rares. After this, I opened cores at the start of chapter 4,5 and 6 and got about 6 or 7 rares, rushed chap 7 and didn't open cores in chap 8 and on chap 9 only opened about 15 and got 2 rares, buy chap 10 got my 3 rares and now after more than 700 cores (common, rare and legendary) I can't get my last blade
Part 2 - Kos mostly
Now, in my second playthrough, at chap 4 and got may 3 rares, opened some cores for blades with salvage mastery until I could no longer open cores, I free some blades including the rare one nim (earth healer), because it was on Rex, opened 3 common cores with Nia and got nim with her
From other posts, apparently completing side quests as the same effect
I'm not saying your theory is wrong, it's very good to tell you the truth, but you may add that each time you advance to a new chap, your chance to get a rare greatly increases and you have a kind of limit of how many blades you can get per chap (you can get more, but you need to grind a lot, and I mean a lot)
Part 3 - I continued thinking about this on my way home from work.
Now imagine that story/side quest progression may influence your chances of getting rares, this would explain why the only moment the game auto saves is when you open a core, so the game can compare the new save with the last one.
Another thing I thought is that we may actually have a high chance of getting a rare every time, that's why we have 3 blades show, the first shadow would be the first pull and will be taken from the list, same for the second and third shadows, witch means, they start with we have more probability to get, lowering our chances of getting a rare at each poll, the third one, the one we get
Part 4 - I have a thought about how the poll works, and I think we may have more than one roulette, one for weapon, another for element, another for rarity and another for class
For example to get zonobia you would need axe+wind+rarity 5+atk
So booster could increase the number of slots of an element in that roulette, chance could increase the number of hight rarities on that roulette
If the connection with the story progression exist, it could add a re-roll, meaning you got hammer+wind+rarity 5+atk, it would re-roll the weapon and you would get another chance for getting the axe witch would result in Zenobia
What do you think about what I said?
Part 5 - Only to add something and imagining that the i was right about more than one roulette and that i could be possible to re-roll one of the polls
i think that the rarity would be one where that could not be a re-roll and the number of rare blades you already got in the same character, would decrease the number of rarity 5 slots in the rarity slot
we may say that this would work more like a slot machine and after each roll those options would be taken away from the poll and that would be why we have have tree polls and having less chance of getting a rare at each poll
Did you get all blades on Rex first? And then try on others? And can u pull the same rare build for different characters?