Heart to Hearts in this game are a lot friendlier than in the first game, no affinity requirements at all just need to make sure you have the required party members

Collection points: collection points all have a type and drop chance that determines what drops. For some ungodly reason the player is unable to see what type it is. You figured out what ive found to be the best way to get a specific resource. On top of this strategy you can also equip blades that have skills such as forestry or mineralogy that buff the amount of resources you get.

Xeno music is incredible, I'm always listening to the sound tracks.

Aux cores are essentially gems from the first game except you use collectables to refine them instead of crystals

50:04 Riku just Riku, common variety Blade

Since you haven't upgraded your driver affinity chart yet I'll give you the advice to aim for the art cancel slot as soon as possible, it makes combat significantly more flexible as it allows you to cancel arts into other arts.

In the map screen using L and R you can select things to enable and disable on the map including connection points that are disabled by default. Every menu screen says what the buttons do on the bottom screen. But yeah sadly drops are random.

You know you can actually select your characters levels when using Bonus EXP instead of upgrading one level after an over You can go to the right to select higher levels I'm enjoying the playthrough!

Don't feel pressured to push through the game fast. Not exploring and not unlocking those yellow and green nodes would eventually cause issues.

You will unlock the third blade slot a little later on for now

When leveling up at the inn you can scroll to level up all at once. ______________________________ One of the quests in torigoth is actually a tutorial for side content that gives small upgrades. Specifically the quest "Paying it forward." (Edit: i see you finished that one at the end) ______________________________

Don't be frustrated, all Xenoblade have complex systems, sadly Xenoblade 2 is a lot more complex than Xenoblade 1 and has one of them worse tutorial systems. You can't revisit it, it is not always clear and it used to even have wrong information (I think it was fixed in a patch) Luckily the game isn't that hard you can force your way through the main story by only grinding levels. But the optional content is really on another level, I just read some FAQs to understand all the mechanics when I got to the end game. I recommend you to give a look into it. You probably already unlocked the elemental orbs, the basics is of combat is do especial combo attacks and put the most elemental orbs on the enemy as possible, then do chain attacks and use blades with opposite elements of the orbs to try to break at least one orb for chain attack turn, this will give you another turn, when you brake 5 (if I'm not mistaken) orbs it will end the chain attack starting a fullburst breaking all the remaining orbs, for each orb broken this way you will get a damage modifier. The total damage of a chain attack + full burst with damage bonuses from extra orbs can be devastated. There also equipment and aux cores that can work together to give you even more bonuses during chain attacks. Like better critical rate during chain attacks + better critical damage. I'm in the middle of Xenoblade 3, I'm liking it a lot, but my favorite battle system still is Xenoblade 2 / torna combat system.