I feel this is something people might miss in the thread. So for newbies or those who aren't too far into the game this advice will be relevant.

I am running into the affinity mission trap. I used one character as my fourth in an attempt to have a highly levelled partner. But you need to use multiple characters to build affinity or you cannot do certain missions. And now I cannot do the next story mission because it is a requirement that I have completed certain affinity missions - which I cannot start because I do not have the required affinity. So I'm stuck doing basic missions waiting for affinity to build between certain characters.

Also, if you ditch a couple of basic social missions like "Marry Me" or "backup request" you then cannot do the affinity mission in the residential district. Don't ditch basic missions, just be more careful about what ones you accept. Like Archie said, only accept Gathering missions that you already have all the items for. Don't accept Bounty missions that are more than 3 stars unless you are uber powerful.

Moral of the story?

Don't bother sticking to a single 4th character on your team, you can easily level up 4th characters in the Beasts lair which has level 40 Grexes. It is situated just north of NLA, in the adjacent segment. You must have at least 2 skells though.

It's stuff like this which makes me not even want to start a game like this.  I hate having to have hindsight before you even start a game.  It reminds me when I couldn't finish Fire Emblem after easily making it to the very last mission because I hadn't used certain units as much as I should have had.  And why I couldn't finish the final boss in Final Fantasy IV.  Annoys me no end.

edgecrusher said:

I haven't played this in so long I have no idea what you're talking about even though i'm like 35 hours into the game.

Look at the touchscreen map in NLA. Click the little documents, they tell you if they are affinity missions and what the requirements are for starting them.

THERE IS NO POINT RUNNING ABOUT NLA TO THE RED ICONS TO CHECK THEM one by one. You'll just waste time. Use the touchscreen map.

SteelAttack said:

Don't fall into the trap of playing any xeno game.

Bastard.

bugsonglass said:

It's stuff like this which makes me not even want to start a game like this.  I hate having to have hindsight before you even start a game.  It reminds me when I couldn't finish Fire Emblem after easily making it to the very last mission because I hadn't used certain units as much as I should have had.  And why I couldn't finish the final boss in Final Fantasy IV.  Annoys me no end.

It's partially my own fault. I read an article on Siliconera where the writer said he got stuck for 6 hours on an affinity quest and he couldn't continue with the story because of that. It was mostly his own fault too as he could have used probes to get the item he was missing. So anyway because of this article I avoided all afinity missions until I beat Story chapter 10.

Then I didn't want to tear through the story too quickly so I started mopping up the affinity quests. I was doing great, being overlevelled and cash rich with mechs, but when it came down to the last quarter of affinity quests, I found myself locked out of them because either I didn't have enough affinity with a particular character or because I had abandoned a basic "social"  or gathering mission. So I went back to continue the story but it was a requirement that I had completed a couple of affinity missions I couldn't even access to continue the story.

Also I didn't know about the basic mission limit. There are several types of missions in XCX. For basic missions though you accept them from the console near the barracks THERE IS A 20 MISSION LIMIT, I just took on as many as possible not knowing this. So when I got frustrated with the gather missions I abandoned them, not knowing that some basic missions lead the way to NLA based affinity missions.

It's not a total pain, there is tons and tons and tons of stuff to do in this game. There are basic missions and exploration, so much stuff I can do. And it is really easy to level up guests in this game like 20 levels in less than an hour once you have mechs. So I'll just complete missions and explore with my guest until I have the required affinity with them and continue.

But the main point is, don't just stick to one character as your 4th guest and don't avoid the affinity missions like I did. Because you also only gain access to certain characters - that you need to complete more affinity missions.

SteelAttack said:

Don't fall into the trap of playing any xeno game.

How can you say such hurtful things?

Doing the heart to hearts will help raise your affinity level with those characters pretty significantly.

So to continue on the traps of XCX...

Raising the affinity between guests isn't that bad. You just put them in your team and do a lot of missions.

Problem is that at this point all the missions I have are too difficult to complete with massively powerful enemies that my team of 4 skells can't even take down.

Or Arms Testers wanted missions where I or my team aren't the right class or level to equip a certain weapon to defeat a specific enemy. The affinity missions are locked out until I raise more affinity. It would help if the arms tester missions told you what class of weapon they were and who could equip them.

So all these missions clog up my missions screens and the only stuff I am able to do is basic low level bounty missions or Gathering missions. So I have gone balls deep into Gathering and learned a few things. The missions where you need one item are easy as they are actually marked on the map and the follow ball works too.

The missions where you need multiple items are a pain in the backside with no indication of where they might be - THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET

The missions where you need to gather materials from enemies you can buy in the barraks console by using reward tickets - thanks archie for the advice.

I'm max levelled now so I'm guessing after I finish the final chapter I'll get some uber gear and some uber skell. I also hadn't been properly equipping skills, augments and other stuff which greatly increase your stats.