Glossary¶

All · reference

About this manual¶

XC1: Short for Xenoblade Chronicles (2010), the real-time party RPG whose combat rules XenoCore's defaults follow. The manual says "XC1's value" or "XC1-style" when a default copies that game's number or rule, so you know where it came from and that changing it is a design choice, not a fix. XenoCore is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the game's makers, and you need no knowledge of the game to use it.

Combat¶

Art: A special move a character chooses from the palette. Each has its own cooldown. Defined by an Art definition asset; see Your first art.
Talent Art: A character's signature Art. It has no cooldown; instead it spends the Talent gauge.
Talent gauge: A per-character meter that fills as the character auto-attacks. The Talent Art can be used once the gauge covers its Gauge Cost (a full gauge, unless the Art says otherwise).
Auto-attack: The basic attack a character repeats on its own while engaged. You don't press a button for it.
Palette: The row of Arts on the combat HUD. Move the selection with the D-pad and confirm to use one.
Learnset: A Data Table, named on a character's pawn Blueprint as Art Learn Table, listing which Arts the character learns and at what level. See Arts.
Art Points (AP): What raising an Art's level costs. Each character earns them from kills and spends them in the Arts menu.
Cooldown tag: The gameplay tag an Art's cooldown is recorded under. Every Art needs its own; two Arts with the same tag share one cooldown.
Party cursor: The highlight on a party member's HUD row (and a white ring under their body) used to pick an ally: by an Art that targets one ally, or by holding a trigger to switch characters.
Break, Topple, Daze: A chain of reactions. Break staggers the enemy's guard. A Broken enemy can be Toppled, knocked down and unable to act. A Toppled enemy can be Dazed, which keeps it down longer. Each step only works on the one before, so chaining Arts in the right order is the core of combat.
Status effect: A timed effect on a character, such as Slow, shown as an icon on the HUD and a popup over the character's head.
Target mode, lock on: Selecting one enemy to fight. The camera and your attacks follow it.
Engage, disengage: An enemy starts fighting (engage) or gives up and returns home (disengage). An enemy engages once it is attacked, or when it notices the party by its Detection (sight, sound or ether). An enemy chased too far from its home, or outrun, gives up and recovers its health.
Detection: How an enemy notices the party before being hit: None (passive), Sight, Sound (hears the leader running) or Ether (feels an ether art). An enemy 6 or more levels below the party leader notices nothing, but still fights back when attacked.
Squad, spawner: A XenoCore Enemy Spawner keeps a squad of enemies alive in one place. When one is provoked the rest join in, only the last one killed drops a chest, and fallen members come back after a while, out of sight.
Aggro: Which party member an enemy is attacking.
Party Gauge: A party-wide meter of three bars, filled by critical hits and other battle events. One bar revives a downed member. See Party Gauge and revive.
Downed: A party member at 0 HP kneels and waits to be revived instead of dying. The battle is lost when everyone is down, or the member you control is down and the gauge has less than one bar.
Party tactics: Standing orders for the whole party or one member, such as who to attack and which Arts to use. Tap X to switch focus, hold X for the list. See Party tactics.
Skill: A passive upgrade a character learns by spending SP. It raises a stat, adds a bonus another system asks for (such as more healing), or reacts to something (a buff at the start of a battle). See Skills.
Skill tree, branch: A character's skills, as up to five branches of five skills each. Skills in a branch are learnt top to bottom. One branch is selected at a time; SP goes only into that one.
SP (skill points): What skills cost. Every party member earns SP from each kill; benched members earn the Reserve Skill Point Rate, which the sample sets to 0 (XC1 uses 90%). SP earned after the selected branch is complete is lost.
Trait: The stat bonus the selected branch gives, such as Agility +8. It grows as more of the branch's skills are learnt, and moves to another branch when you select it.
Gem: A stat bonus set into a socket on a weapon or armour piece. Its strength is rolled when it is found, and each stat's total from gems is capped per character.
Rarity: Common, Rare or Legendary, shown as a name colour and pips in every menu. It belongs to the item definition, so a rarer copy is a separate item.
Weapon type: What kind of weapon an item is, such as Greatsword. Each character can wield only the types listed on them, and the type holds the weapon's stances, draw, sheathe and attack animations, reach and gem sockets.
Drawn, sheathed: Weapon in hand for battle, or stowed for exploring. Characters draw automatically when a fight starts.

Party¶

Party, roster: The roster is every character you have. The party is the ones currently fielded.
Active member, reserve member: Active members are in the world and fight. Reserve members are on the bench, with no body in the world. They gain experience at the Reserve Experience Rate on Game/BP_XenoCore_Progression, which the sample sets to 0 (XC1 uses 90%). The sample fields up to seven, so a member is benched only by your choice.
Leader: The active member you control. Tap LT or RT to switch to the previous or next member, in or out of battle, or pick one in the Party menu.
Member definition: The data asset that says who a character is: name, portrait, role, and which pawn to use.
Pawn Blueprint: The character Blueprint a member definition spawns (its Member Class): the body, with its mesh, abilities, stats and starting level.
Anim profile: A data asset holding one character's own combat clips (reactions, death, victory emote) and idle personality. Any empty slot uses the shared default.

Stats¶

Strength, Ether: Physical and ether attack power.
Agility: Chance to hit and to evade.
Weight: Total weight of worn equipment. It is subtracted from Agility.
Physical defence, Ether defence: Damage reduction. On party members these are points from equipment; on enemies, a percentage.
Statline, stats effect: The gameplay effect (GE_XenoCore_BaseStats_*) that sets a character's base stats at its level, read from a curve table. It is named on the character Blueprint as Stats Effect and re-applied on every level-up.
Curve table: A table of values by level. Stats and level-difference modifiers are curve tables. Experience to the next level is a Data Table instead, Game/DT_XenoCore_ExperienceCurves, with one row per character.

Unreal and Lyra terms¶

Experience (Lyra): The set of rules a map runs: which pawn, which HUD, which features. Not related to character XP.
Game Feature plugin: A plugin that switches its content on only when an Experience asks for it. XenoCore is one.
Pawn data: The asset that says which abilities and input a pawn gets.
Ability set: A Lyra data asset listing abilities, effects and attribute sets to grant together. Pawn data names the ability sets a character gets; a weapon's ability set grants its Talent Art.
Class Defaults: The button in a Blueprint editor's toolbar that shows the Blueprint's own settings in the Details panel. Most XenoCore settings are there, grouped under XenoCore › ....
Data Asset, Data Table: Unreal's two ways of holding plain data. A Data Asset is one record (an Art, a member definition); a Data Table is many rows of one shape (a learnset, a skill tree). Neither needs code.
StateTree: Unreal's state machine asset for AI. Companions and enemies each run one; the numbers on its tasks are what you tune.
EQS (Environment Query System): Unreal's tool for scoring places in the world. Companions use it to pick where to stand round an enemy.
Game Feature Data: The asset named after a Game Feature plugin (XenoCore, at the top of XenoCore Content). Its Actions add XenoCore's components and input to the game while the plugin is active.
Tag relationships: Game/TagRelationships_XenoCore, a table of "while a character has this tag, these abilities cannot start". How XenoCore stops jumping in a menu or acting while downed, as data.
Gameplay tag: A hierarchical name such as Status.XenoCore.Reaction.Break, used to label states and abilities.
Gameplay ability, gameplay effect: From Unreal's ability system: an ability is something a character does; an effect changes stats or applies tags, for a moment or for a duration.