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B.02: Team Management Screens
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**CONTROLS NOTE**
Messing around in the team management screens is easier with the keyboard--
especially since, for some reason, menu commands are displayed with
keyboard controls, regardless of your primary button configuration. Default
keyboard controls are listed here. Put your gamepad down for a minute or
two and use the keyboard.
Press the Stats Menu button or choose Change Team at an Xtraction point or
press ESC and choose the Team Management option to bring up the main team
management menu. The main menu shows your current four-man team (or less if
one or more has died). Select a character using the movement or character
controls, then:
* Press Space to open that character's stat screens.
* Press E to remove that character (Change Team screen only)
* Press J to replace that character (Change Team screen only)
* Press O to apply a different costume (skin) (Change Team screen only -
not available for all characters)
* Press ESC or ENTER to end the session, accept all changes and return
to the game (or game menu if you used the Team Management menu option)
If you choose to Replace a character, a menu of available heroes appears.
Scroll through the menu using up/down movement keys to highlight the hero
you want. If that hero previously fell in battle, there is a cost to revive
him or her. This cost varies based on your character level and is shown
next to the character's portrait. Press J to revive the character.
Press J to place a character in the current position on the team. Press ESC
to quit the replacement menu. Note: you can also bring up stat screens
(press Space) of characters on the replacement menu. Thus, from the Change
Team menu, you can manage the stats, skills and equipment for all playable
characters.
There are four stat screens: Stats, Skills, Gear and AI. To switch screens,
press left or right movement buttons or character select buttons or click a
tab. Underneath the tabs, on all screens, is the current character's name,
XP progress through the current level (displayed as a simple bar graph, no
XP numbers are actually shown) and current level.
B.02.a) Stats
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At the top of the stats screens are listed your four abilities as well as
stats based on those abilities. Underneath is detail information about the
currently selected stat. All information displayed on this screen includes
bonuses from skills and equipped items. Your four ability scores are:
BODY
Increases your health points (HP) and chance for double health from
potions. Next to your current Body score are your current and max HP. To
add a point to Body, select it and press J. To remove a point from Body
that has been added during this session, select it and press E.
Health is calculated as: 25 + 5 per level + 3 per Body
Body also affects your natural resistances. Your resistances are listed on
the right side of the screen. In order they are:
Energy resistance
Mental resistance
Radiation resistance
Elemental resistance
FOCUS
Increases your energy points (EP), energy regeneration, melee mental
damage, and chance for double energy from potions. Next to your Focus score
are your current and max EP. To add a point to Focus, select it and press
J. To remove a point from Focus that has been added during this session,
select it and press E.
Energy is calculated as: 30 + 4 per level + 2 per Focus
STRIKE
Increases the damage you do with melee attacks. Next to your Strike score
is shown your melee damage. The range before the slash is standard Attack
damage. The range after the slash is Smash attack damage. You get a damage
bonus of +2% per Strike. To add a point to Strike, select it and press J.
To remove a point from Strike that has been added during this session,
select it and press E.
SPEED
Increases your attack rating (ATK) and defense rating (DEF). Next to your
Speed score are your ATK and DEF.
ATK: Increases the chance to hit with melee attacks (5 per Speed - 35)
DEF: Increases your ability to dodge incoming melee attacks (3 per Speed)
To add a point to Speed, select it and press J. To remove a point from
Speed that has been added during this session, select it and press E.
B.02.b) Skills
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If you played XML1, this will be the biggest change as characters have a
greater selection of powers. At first, the selection seems overwhelming,
but some powers are just stronger versions of other powers. For example,
Storm gets Lightning Strike and Chain Lightning. While they are separate
powers--you can continue leveling and using Strike even after leveling
Chain--they're still basically the same effect.
One big change is two Xtreme powers per character (most characters, anyway)
rather than one. Also, the Xtreme powers have ranks just like all the other
powers. There's also been some shuffling of roles (Storm no longer has
Leadership), and more reasonable allocation of skills (only melee-focused
characters get Critical Strike).
Unlocked skills show a series of boxes representing the ranks available.
Like so:
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
Ranks you have bought are colored in, ranks available to be bought are
highlighted in white. All powers show 20 ranks; however, some powers don't
allow 20 ranks. These powers show "locked" boxes on the left:
[/][/][/][/][/][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
Why did the developer team do this? Especially when some skills with fewer
than 20 ranks simply show fewer than 20 boxes? The world may never know.
Anyway, select a skill and press 'J' to buy a rank. Available points are
shown at the bottom of the skills page. All ranks cost one skill point.
To subtract a rank bought in this session, press 'E'. Once you Accept the
changes (by exiting the team management screens), you can't subtract the
points. There doesn't appear to be any kind of Cancel command, so if you
want to delete your changes, you'll have to do it manually before pressing
ESC or ENTER.
To assign a power to a power key (Attack, Smash, Use or Jump) select the
power, press 'P', then press the appropriate button. Remember, only non-
Xtreme offensive powers on Attack and Smash; only non-Xtreme Boost or
Debuff powers on Use and only Xtreme powers on Jump.
B.02.c) Gear
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At the top of the Gear screen are your ability scores and related stats (as
shown on the Stats screen). This allows you to examine the effects of
equipping and unequipping items. Below your stats are your three equipment
slots and whatever items you currently have in those slots: belts, gloves
and armor. Below that is the current inventory of unequipped items.
To remove an equipped item, select it and press E.
To equip an item to a slot, select the slot, press J to move to the
inventory list, select the item you want to equip and press J. If you
already had an item equipped in that slot, it will be swapped with the new
item.
To drop an item on the ground either from your gear slot or from the
inventory list, press P.
B.02.d) AI
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The AI screen shows the current settings for this character when controlled
by the computer.
AI HEAL WHEN FULL
If set to Yes, when walking over a health pack and any current team member
needs health (no matter how small) and you have a full complement of health
packs, your characters will use health packs and pick up the new one. Set
this to Yes.
AI HEAL
Governs how the AI uses health packs. A change on any one character's sheet
affects all characters, not just the individual. There are four rules:
Never: the AI never uses health packs
< 20%: the AI uses a health pack if the character's health falls below
20 per cent of maximum and there are more than two health packs
in inventory
< 40%: the AI uses a health pack when the character's health falls below
40 per cent of maximum and there are more than two health packs
in inventory
< 80%: the AI uses a health pack when the character's health falls below
80 per cent of maximum and there are more than two health packs
in inventory
The recommended settings are 40% and 80%. Never is not a good idea unless
you intend to rapidly switch characters while in combat in order to use
health packs. Less than 20% can cause a character to die from massive
damage before getting low enough to use a health pack. Less than 40% is a
good all-around rule that will keep your teammates alive while saving on
your store of health packs. Less than 80% will cause the AI to use health
packs far too rapidly in the early game; but, you can switch to it once you
are able to hold 20 or more health packs (at level 20).
AI MODE
Sets how the character should react in combat, especially when you call for
help. There are three levels of AI for each character.
Aggressive: the character responds immediately to attack
Normal: the character waits for an opportunity before attacking
Defensive: the X-character only attacks if he or she is attacked
There's little use in this game for Defensive AI. Melee characters should
be set to Aggressive, the remaining characters can be set to Normal.
AI SKILL
This is the mutant power the AI will use when you call for an attack using
the Call Allies button. See the individual character listings in Section C
for recommendations.
AI AUTO-TRAIT, AI AUTO-SKILL, AI AUTO-EQUIP
Controls whether the AI will automatically level up stats or skills and
automatically equip characters with new equipment.
While micro-managing equipment is not fun, the Auto-Equip function has one
very nasty habit: it seems to operate only on item level (i.e. minimum
character level required to use the equipment). This becomes a problem when
you start getting the character-specific items from the Challenge Danger
Room courses. The Auto-Equip function routinely removes the no-minimum-
level uber unique item and replaces it with a much less powerful minimum-
level-required item.
Still, Auto-Equip removes a lot of the tedium involved in character
management. You're best off leaving it on and keeping an eye on active
characters that have their unique Challenge course reward. Just re-equip it
every time you find the game has taken it off. Fortunately, Auto-Equip only
considers active characters, so your work is minimal.
Stats (traits) in XML2 are a bit less important than in XML1. Because of
the number of bonuses you can get (from tech stations, Danger Room awards
and equipment), there's no need to micromanage your stats. Turn Auto-Trait
on during the tutorial stage and forget about them.
Auto-Skill is good for giving you a flavor for each character. On your
first run-through, you may wish to turn it on, at least until you get to
level 20 or 25. Auto-Skill tends to spread skill points around, but, this
will give you a good idea of what works and what doesn't and what is just
plain annoying. Once you've got a feel for each character, go to Forge or
Beast and purchase the option to redistribute skill points, then turn Auto-
Skill off.
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