u/Thespac3c0w

So I am starting Xenosaga 1. I have beaten it once before when PS2 was new and dinosaurs roamed the earth. I remember the game is cutscenes for the start. I am also about 5 hours in and the battles are harder then I remembered (I have not lost yet but it is certainly non trivial). Do I need to know about certain things or will basic exploring get me what I need?

Also I read that going all in on a single ranged tech is the way to go. Is that true or should I have 2 or 3 techs leveled? I am cool with having say shion focus support spells and beaming people with spell ray if that is optimal. I also heard ether defense is the best stat, is this correct?

What recipes do you prioritize first in your games? I know this will change by race and map but there are some that are always good to have.

I tend to go for wood, brick, and cloth as high priorities. However they can change based on resource availability for example who cares about brick if you are on rocky ravine.

After those I like flour (have to have a race that likes biscuits or pie), dye (used in so many luxury items), metal (either type is fine), containers that can easily be built, and of course any farm is high priority once I get a fertile ground plot.

After this I focus on clothes, food, religious items, or resource production (can't make boots if you can't source leather and those 3 big meat nodes look great).

This does mean I tend to make services a low priority which seems bad but recently getting commons has improved this tremendously. If I get a perfect item on a blue print roll early I pick it. For example a service structure that serves all 3 of my races is an instant pick along with similar food production.

Are your priorities similar or do you do things differently?

So I am fairly new I have done 2 cycles and closed the first seal so far. I have noticed that having multiple farm types is really nice. Both herb garden and small farm can complete a few types of complex food, and plantation gets you a good supply of plant fibers for cloth and has a ton of other uses. It feels like in order to make my people happy I generally want 2 farm types. My quickest run so far had me pick small farm and then buy herb garden and plantation from a trader. Is doubling up on farms worth the opportunity cost?

So I am playing through WOTR and have reached as far as I have ever gotten without feeling the need to reroll. Chapter 3. Will I find super bosses by just playing or should I use a guide? Search engines sadly didn't answer this question.

I am currently happy with my KC. I didn't plan much out besides knife master 4 / spawn slayer. I don't feel the need to reroll. She does all the dex skills great and has made every boss that normally given me trouble a cake walk. All hail halfling demon (at least for now) nok nok.

So it's my first time playing and I ended up getting bad ending 2. I then went back to my save and used a guide to ensure I can play the rest of the game. Do I have to worry about losing lots of content for a bad decision that to recover from would make me replay weeks of gameplay? I don't care if my ending isn't super I just want to see the game through and would prefer to do that without a guide.

I mean I may not have used Chie if I had a guide because I would have seen how ass her magic spell selection is and that she isn't really an ice specialist. She did however allow me to murder gold hands early and is an amazing random battle clearer.

What lords do you like to use but you can't actually recommend using? I love night goblin warboss. I can't think of a great reason to use him over the shaman lord though. He does give a goblin crap stack a solid bruiser though. That said his armor is crap his defense is ok, and supported by poison. He doesn't come with strong AP and needs his squig for that. He isn't beating anything worth a damn in a duel, but I mean he's a gob he shouldn't be 1v1 that's not how gobs do it. Who do you love to use that you shouldn't? Are you a necromancer fan, or do you choose a ruin grey seer over an engineer?