I feel the same way. 
 
I didn't even bother finishing a lot of the quests on Colony 9 because it was just too annoying running around looking for stuff.

Uh don't agree. Most of the quests are fairly easy to figure out and they aren't too bad. The worst parts is just the huge crapton of annoying colony 9 fetch quests. Oh it is time to do a village upgrade, all we need is 3 items shulk! Oh well they do all drop from rare spawn enemies who only show up in certain weather.... at a certain time of the day though.... Well and they are rare drops to boot.... Oh well isn't like we will do this to you on like every one of these though right? What's that? We will.....

@Karkarov said:

Uh don't agree. Most of the quests are fairly easy to figure out and they aren't too bad. The worst parts is just the huge crapton of annoying colony 9 fetch quests. Oh it is time to do a village upgrade, all we need is 3 items shulk! Oh well they do all drop from rare spawn enemies who only show up in certain weather.... at a certain time of the day though.... Well and they are rare drops to boot.... Oh well isn't like we will do this to you on like every one of these though right? What's that? We will.....

This.

Then again, I'm not concerned with gunning for 100% completion. However, I'm getting absolutely everything out of the game that I can (which is a hell of a lot), but I have yet to actually consult a FAQ for anything.

I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree. One of the thing that bugs me about modern game design is how quests oftentimes become nothing more than FOLLOW THIS ARROW. Completing quests is completely trivial anymore because they basically solve themselves.

With that in mind, I feel like Xenoblade is a breath of fresh air in a lot of respects. For one thing, there are so many quests that it's clear you're not really meant to do them all -- it's like they just throw a shitload of them at you and say, "hey, pick what you want," and there's nothing (that I've seen) in the game like a completion % that makes you feel bad for not doing everything ever. "It's okay," Xenoblade says to you. So, that silly obligation is gone, and that's good.

But I've done nearly everything I've come across regardless. It's rewarding to actually complete a quest, because I put the pieces together, I found the monsters, and the game didn't feel the need to hold my hand the whole way. Few quests are truly nebulous, anyway -- if it's not described fully in the quest text itself, most of the time you'll find that talking to the npc a second time gives you a vital clue. And that's the key: clues. I love getting hints so much more than a big fat arrow on my map. I'll agree that a couple quests are fucked, but I still felt good about them in the end after I brute-forced my way through.

Admittedly I'm an old fogey though with a penchant for punishment. You kids with your modern conveniences. Why, back in my day...........!!!!

(By the way, there's totally an in-game screen where you can see when NPCs are active. It's the same place where you check relationships and all that.)

All that said, I do have a problem with the quests: it's that there's so many of them, and they never stop a-comin'. But, as they're well emphasized as optional that's not too bad a complaint. Eventually I just felt like they were just interrupting the flow of the story, so I ignored more of them towards the end of the game, haha.