• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

StarTopic Monolith Soft Development and Speculation |ST|

there are ways to improve the combat without changing it entirely tho
Personally i'd love a more meaningful back and forth between attack and defense and also bringing timing based mechanics and maybe even go further with that.
 
Xenoblade's combat system suffers from the YuGiOh problem where they put together a lot of systems to build depth, but the depth added is much less than the complexity added. For its system complexity, you would hope for more depth and variety than it achieved. It's not bad, but it's just too complex without a ton of benefits from that complexity.
 
If they're gonna change up the combat system for whatever they do next I hope they avoid the shallow action combat that's been plaguing PRGs lately.
 
I don’t think they should mess with the combat system at all. That’s xenoblades combat. I’m already NOT fond at all with what they did to the Final Fantasy franchise
 
Nah, I’m completely against watering down, “casual-ising“ the Xenoblade franchise, being the combat, game systems, story, design, etc. just to try to somewhat sell 1-2 more million units. The fan base in general probably wouldn’t want the franchise to become something completely different or would look for it in other series, as there are plenty with other styles, combat systems etc to choose without taking what makes Xenoblade special from many fans.

I’m all in for whatever new crazy ideas Takahashi has for the future of the series, or new ones. He hasn’t disappointed me yet, but I also don’t think that he’s planning something like FFXVI, Monster Hunter, Souls or whatever on vogue genre/mechanics/combat system some people would love to see here. Or maybe he has, who knows…i just can’t see it being realistic right now.
 
Just make a damn new IP. You can do combat, world, music, everything you want in a new IP. If you need to shape your combat with a new IP it’s better than trying to make it fit into Xenoblade
 
Honestly, the only thing they need to do is let you attack whenever you want with actual hit boxes and keep everything else the same along with the cool downs.

They don’t even need to get rid of auto-attacks. Just let the player manually attacks if they want to kinda like how MOBAs do it. Characters auto-attacks but also register manual input.
 
Last edited:
I do think they should ditch auto attacks and have the player manually attack, dodge, guard and parry. I think you can do this without losing the arts or any complexity (although I think they need to get rid of chain attacks as well). I think this would get rid of many of the complaints I see about the gameplay.
Frankly I don't think it would even be that much of a difference from late game Xenoblade.

Usually I think a combat system is, to the broader audience for RPGs, mostly irrelevant. They're not buying Witcher 3 or Skyrim for that stuff.
But when I first got a Switch, not knowing anything about modern games, the second game I looked into was Xenoblade 2, and two things put me off it:
1. The horrible character designs
2. A video from beatemups (I know) where he showed a battle in the game in which he didn't touch the controller at all.

About a week ago on Resetera, I saw someone say that player input in Xenoblade 3 combat is irrelevant, the fights play themselves. Totally untrue from my experience. This is what people hear though, and part of it is because of the auto attacks that, to be honest, are also totally irrelevant to the combat at large. In late game they only matter for timing!

But even then I'd say the combat isn't the most important factor for broadening appeal. I think they just need to make the world more of a focus (intractable. moving to a unified move set in and out of battle would help hugely with this), and to ditch the explicit catering to teen boys. That latter thing though, is something I can't see them doing. The entire FantasyQuest scene is mired in nichedom because the developers are catering to an audience that barely exists at the expense of the people who readily play these games and hold their nose.
 
0
With every game they've made alterations to the combat system to make it feel more dynamic, introduce more movement and make non-Art-related player input matter more. In Xenoblade 1 you just moved around to take advantage of positional attacks and there are the (B) button prompts to keep you engaged, in Xenoblade X they significantly spiced up animations (Elma's double-gun knee slide hnnnggg) and added limb-targeting and moving in and out of Skells mid-combat, in Xenoblade 2 we got the big interface overhaul that removed the MMO-looking hotbar and bound all the actions to the face buttons which makes executing Arts feel more like action-game attacks along with auto-attack and Art-canceling, Torna got another wrinkle with character swaps that come with special attacks, and finally, in Xenoblade 3 we got the dash move, way more positional effects and transformations. Just pressing A to swing a sword on my own doesn't really add anything there, imo. The combat in this series is uniquely cool and making it less about reflex-based action skill is also a huge part of the appeal and approachability for people.

They can take this system places that remain fresh every time without abandoning a system that is really cool and fun to engage with. The work that should be done is with legibility and balance and animation-/feedback more than anything. Tutorialization already got a big boost last time but it would be nice not having to watch half hour youtube deep dives every time to fully grasp combat intricacies (which is mostly just an issue of not really knowing what's happening at any given point). If they let you turn off damage numbers (and imo you should turn them off because they don't add anything), then why are they on by default to clutter the screen and invite the "lol jprg nonsense battle chaos" responses, for example.
 
Last edited:
TheMoon said:
With every game they've made alterations to the combat system to make it feel more dynamic, introduce more movement and make non-Art-related player input matter more. In Xenoblade 1 you just moved around to take advantage of positional attacks and there are the (B) button prompts to keep you engaged, in Xenoblade X they significantly spiced up animations (Elma's double-gun knee slide hnnnggg) and added limb-targeting and moving in and out of Skells mid-combat, in Xenoblade 2 we got the big interface overhaul that removed the MMO-looking hotbar and bound all the actions to the face buttons which makes executing Arts feel more like action-game attacks along with auto-attack and Art-canceling, Torna got another wrinkle with character swaps that come with special attacks, and finally, in Xenoblade 3 we got the dash move, way more positional effects and transformations. Just pressing A to swing a sword on my own doesn't really add anything there, imo. The combat in this series is uniquely cool and making it less about reflex-based action skill is also a huge part of the appeal and approachability for people.

They can take this system places that remain fresh every time without abandoning a system that is really cool and fun to engage with. The work that should be done is with legibility and balance and animation-/feedback more than anything. Tutorialization already got a big boost last time but it would be nice not having to watch half hour youtube deep dives every time to fully grasp combat intricacies (which is mostly just an issue of not really knowing what's happening at any given point). If they let you turn off damage numbers (and imo you should turn them off because they don't add anything), then why are they on by default to clutter the screen and invite the "lol jprg nonsense battle chaos" responses, for example.
Click to expand...
Hear hear
 
0
To be honest, as far as combat is concerned, I will say let Monolithsoft cook whatever ideas they have in mind.
 
Smile said:

"Xenoblade continuation" officially trademarked. Verrrry interesting.
Click to expand...

AXicHsS.gif
 
ILikeFeet said:
The image just says Xenoblade. That looks like a google translate fuck up
Click to expand...
Yeah the "continuation" part is from the next line, but google translate moved it to the same line as Xenoblade for some reason

Still, the date I assume suggests they're doing something with the brand?
 
chocolate_supra said:
Yeah the "continuation" part is from the next line, but google translate moved it to the same line as Xenoblade for some reason

Still, the date I assume suggests they're doing something with the brand?
Click to expand...
We already knew they were, this is just Nintendo keeping the trademarks up to date. It doesn't mean anything as they do it even for dead IPs
 
ILikeFeet said:
We already knew they were, this is just Nintendo keeping the trademarks up to date. It doesn't mean anything as they do it even for dead IPs
Click to expand...
Huh, kay. Didn't realize trademarks would need to be renewed so soon after an entry coming out.
 
0
You mean the series that Monolith said would continue is continuing? No way, I can't believe it.
 
0
It's called Xenoblade Continuation because it's releasing on the Nintendo Continuation. Like all those games that had 64 or Advance in the title
 
So just to make sure I'm understanding, that's just a general trademark renewal for the series overall and not a registration for something new coming soon?
 
System lost depth for me, when we lost 8 different arts and Monado Arts to counter mechanics from the first one lol.

Just make an action RPG now.
 
0
ILikeFeet said:
Xenogears is possible

lol Xenosaga
Click to expand...
Bandai Namco ain't putting in any more work than absolutely necessary, but modern ports of the Xenosaga games seem plausible after recent developments like Xenoblade 3 Future Redeemed and the... honestly kinda bad, but it's playable I guess (except that one boss arena that just absolutely tanks the framerate) Baten Kaitos HD.
 
0
new year, new hiring ads. for development tools and for a 3D action game programmer. still unknown if that just means Xenoblade, Zelda, or a generic three dimensional game

 
I've been reading many posts of people speculating that the Action RPG was TOTK all along but then why would still have that artwork on their website for recruitment. Them keeping that while no having other previous recruitment pages, such as the one for Xenoblade DE, makes me think this projects is still in the works. God willing, we see it this year.
 
Dark Cloud said:
I think it was Imran Khan who knew Xenoblade 3 was coming. I’m hoping he has some source tied to Monolith to let us know what’s coming lol.
Click to expand...
I was in a Xenoblade discord before it imploded just after the release of Xenoblade 3, and pretty much everyone and their mother knew Xenoblade 3 was coming at some point after Jenna Coleman (Voice actor for Melia in Xenoblade 1, Future Connected and the soon-to-be-revealled Xenoblade 3) accidentally slipped a small piece of information that made everyone realize it was going to be announced at some point in the next year.

That being said, it was one hell of a plot twist that it was shown off in literally the next direct with a release timeframe of around 7 months, but you get the idea.
 
Look, they all have/had friends/former colleagues at NOA or Golin Harris at this point.
 
0
ILikeFeet said:
Takahashi from WSJ was the one who first broke the details for XC3. Don't know if he's willing to play leaker again
Click to expand...
Dark Cloud said:
Oh ok. Interesting that came from him lol
Click to expand...
SoldierDelta said:
I was in a Xenoblade discord before it imploded just after the release of Xenoblade 3, and pretty much everyone and their mother knew Xenoblade 3 was coming at some point after Jenna Coleman (Voice actor for Melia in Xenoblade 1, Future Connected and the soon-to-be-revealled Xenoblade 3) accidentally slipped a small piece of information that made everyone realize it was going to be announced at some point in the next year.

That being said, it was one hell of a plot twist that it was shown off in literally the next direct with a release timeframe of around 7 months, but you get the idea.
Click to expand...
Momo said:
He also knew about Xenoblade 2 back in late 2016.
Click to expand...
www.fanbyte.com

Xenoblade Voice Actress Implies a New Game is in the Works — Which is True

The voice actress for Melia implied that a third Xenoblade Chronicles game is in development. We can confirm that's accurate.
www.fanbyte.com
 
Last edited:
AranPrime said:
I've been reading many posts of people speculating that the Action RPG was TOTK all along but then why would still have that artwork on their website for recruitment. Them keeping that while no having other previous recruitment pages, such as the one for Xenoblade DE, makes me think this projects is still in the works. God willing, we see it this year.
Click to expand...
Also if the Action RPG was TOTK then why were there separate recruitment pages for Zelda and the Action game?

#ibelieve
 
ILikeFeet said:
I think it's way to early to even be hiring for programmers on the next Zelda. they're probably still in the exploratory phase
Click to expand...

Considering that they dedicated close to a year to polishing TOTK with it being content complete, I'd hope that they're a bit further ahead than expected with the development of the next 3D Zelda
 
With Zelda probably not coming back until 2028 at the earliest, Monolith is the only Nintendo studio with the knowhow to deliver an impressive open world game for the Switch 2.

I think (and hope) they will fill that void with the potential medieval ARPG.
 
Truno said:
Considering that they dedicated close to a year to polishing TOTK with it being content complete, I'd hope that they're a bit further ahead than expected with the development of the next 3D Zelda
Click to expand...
Yeah this is my hope too. With TotK lifting so much from BotW and the really long polishing phase, I hope and maybe even expect that they’ve got a head start with the next Zelda.

Nintendo is going to want it out within the first three years of the Switch 2’s life imo. It’s an absolutely crucial system seller at this point.
 
brand new IP from Monolith Soft this year or the next would be a treat. Kinda want them to cook Xenoblade 4 (or whatever is next for the franchise) for awhile especially if it ends up starting another trilogy.

Regarding Zelda, you're not getting it before mid/late 2027 at the absolute earliest imo.
 
It's difficult to see how Monolith Soft will handle their next releases.
  • I could totally see Xenoblade X being remastered for his 10th anniversary in 2025, just like the first Xenoblade got in 2020.
  • But at the same time, this old adventure game revealed in 2017 through the recruitments ads still seems to be in the works 7 years after and could be released this year or next year.
  • There's probably the new Xenoblade game coming in 2027/2028 as well.
Can't wait to see how they'll handle all of this (if all of this already exists, lmao). Maybe the Switch 2 reveal conference will give us more information about it in the next months.

But one thing I'm almost sure of, as Lelouch0612 said, Nintendo will probably want at least one huge adventure game for the launch window as they did with the Switch (BoTW + Xenoblade 2) and since Zelda was released last year, Monolith Soft seems like the only studio that could bring this (not including a BoTW 4K version), either it be Xenoblade X Remaster, or the new adventure game.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom