@Zero There isn't an item called Silver Steel. If this is for the housing level, then you probably mean Steel Silk.
Steel Silk can be found
in the Tephra Cave area.

It is
a blue dot collectible. It is rare.

How would I have known this though?! GAH.

The wiki is your friend

Yeah that is what I've been doing is just looking answers up online. I usually hate doing that but I'm not really sure how the game expects you to find this stuff out otherwise. For a game that is so forward-thinking in so many ways, this colony 6 quest feels very obtuse.

Well it needs to retain some aspect of JRPGs. ;)

DOES IT?

...WHY?

So... there are a lot of ways this game is slick, but a lot it isn't. Like, it's awesome that when you finish a quest you just instantly get your rewards, you don't have to go back and find the person who gave you the quest.

...except that sometimes you do, and if you forget where they were (as I often do) then all you can really do is check the quest and see what areas they are in but man, some of these areas are FREAKING HUGE so if all you know is that someone is in "Bionis Leg" well, good luck. Also certain people are only at certain places during certain times... argh.

I'm relying on FAQs for some of the quests in this game way more than I should have to.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it is a spectacular game. But sometimes when something is so good the parts where it isn't stand out even more.

@Zero

That was really my main complaint with it. And I completed some areas 100% without a guide too... absolute torture. I don't understand how they can design a game this way and not realize that there are much better and more convenient ways around it for the player. Most of the quests aren't even that fun either. It's why I preferred The Last Story's more focused design around its quests than Xenoblade's way of doing it. There is much less to do but they feel more satisfying to complete. Though both still have issues...

@Zero You can narrow it down a little bit more. If you find that person in the Affinity Chart, you can see what landmark they are closest to and (most valuable to me when I played) what times they're active.

When I got annoyed (walking around the cold area looking for a certain item for HOURS), I reminded myself that this is an optional thing, totally not necessary for beating the game. I forgave, but I did not forget.

@VickiL Ah, that's a good tip. Is there a way to do this for creatures too? Like some beastiery or something? There totally should be. I'll get some hint for a that is like "this creature might have it in this area" and I'm like ok, BUT THAT AREA IS FREAKING HUGE. Plus some creatures only come out when it rains, or at night, or whatever... I'm not running all over the place randomly hoping to stumble on this creature again. If I've met them before, I should be able to look up where / when / under what circumstances they appear! The names are so obtuse too, so just reading the name of a creature doesn't make me think "oh yeah, I know who that is" very often.

@VofEscaflowne Yeah I think the sidequests in this were made for people who love collecting, which is not really me, so I skip a ton of them (and then accidentally finish them sometimes anyway.) It feels a bit Western / MMOish actually. But I am trying to do the Colony 6 rebuilding, and I try to follow-up on the sidequests that seem to have unique things to do, like this one in Satori Marsh where I had to go into the ruins and yada yada and many steps later I'm fighting this secret spider boss. That is the stuff that is interesting to me, not "collect 3 knick-knacks".

It seems though like even for some of those you might have to do some random sidequests first? Like right now I have two places that are "locked" to me that I would like to go into... a king's tomb and a hode lair. I'm not sure what I need to do to unlock them, but I checked a guide quick on the hode lair and it sounds like you need to finish a lot of the sidequests for the people in the area first... ug. How would you ever know this without just randomly doing all of the sidequests and hoping that you stumble upon the right ones?!

So yeah, this is my big complaint about this game I guess, is that the sidequests, while managed better than some games, could still use some work. If you have a bunch of random collect-a-thon quests, and then you have some that actually have new areas / possibly bosses to fight, don't require players to randomly stumble upon the way in through random collect-a-thon quests! At least give some hints as to what needs to happen to open those places! Because many people will be interested in doing those without doing all the collect-a-thon quests. And then have better ways to manage information so that people aren't running all over the place trying to find some creature or something that they already have fought, etc.

Wow, I have spent the last 7 or 8 hours (over a few sessions) on sidequests and I'm still nowhere near completing all of the ones that I have open. Like, very nowhere near. I'm trying to focus on the ones that seem like they might lead to more than just random swag, including hopefully figuring out how to open up the tomb and the hode lair. At this rate I may never move the story forward.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Be careful... the quest leading up to the Hode Lair looks like it's just random swag

@Zero I don't think there's a convenient way of finding the enemies, other than the internets.

I'm fine with the grinding for minor things; I was raised on the JRPG. If I weren't running around trying to find three left ear-lobes, I'd be killing the same monsters over and over for money and levels. But I totally understand how that's so different from what you see now-a-days in most games.

@mrbiggsly

The Hode Lair... was underwhelming once you actually get in. But the bonus EXP for finding it is worth it! Love the bonus EXP.

@mrbiggsly That's what I've heard, which is why out of nowhere I just started doing every random quest I get. I'm not sure if this will ultimately be that satisfying... and I certainly don't want to spend like 300 hours on this game. I need to get back to the main quest soon or it will start to feel all wrong.

@TheOldManFromZelda Yeah but it has a gate with a lock, of course I need to see what is inside!

XP, on the other hand, is sort of the last thing I care about. If anything I've been over-leveled for awhile. Unless a game is built where you kind of need to find secrets to keep up (Metroid, etc.) hunting down secrets tends to hold the risk of becoming too powerful, which throws the difficulty out of whack and can make things less enjoyable. Which is why I tend to only do secrets if the sense of discovery is there, because that is what I'm after. I don't even really notice what the rewards are half the time, and it is tough to get too excited about making a game easier for myself.

I think they just intentionally put so many sidequests into the game so that, no matter where you are in the game, you can distract yourself and do something else (and have something more entertaining to do than grinding). Do the developers really expect you to 100% everything? Wouldn't you be insanely overpowered?

IF you build your XP scale exponentially in the right way, you can make it so that doing a bunch of sidequests can help you out with a few levels wherever you are, but won't push you over the edge in some major way in the end. But few developers actually do this.

Every player should read this - Follow these rules and you may enjoy Xenoblade even more.I am concentrating more on the story now as I was getting a bit bored after hours upon hours of quests.

Withstand the Sidequests!

S

@Smerd Mostly true.

I spent nearly 2 hours on a single sidequest this morning, and that was AFTER looking up online where to find the stuff that I needed. It had you collecting 3 different groups of things but still... ug. Random drops and stuff. Had to keep leaving areas and coming back and such.

I think maybe it is time to get back to the main game. I may never know what was in those secret areas, but I'll have to live with that.

Maybe.

@PogueSquadron Yeah, I don't think the developers intended for people to complete the game 100% because there aren't even enough inventory slots to hold every item, weapon, armour, etc. Not to mention that you can't collect everything since the sidequests that you have visions at the beginning have more than one outcome. I find that the game has many problems if you try to play for 100%, but if you just play to experience the story and world and all that stuff, it's a much better game. I don't know if I'd call this a "flaw" of the game since it was intentionally designed this way, but it is a shame it wasn't designed to allow completionists to better manage it.