hit before the shrinking circle get to the B button icon and within the outer circle

if you hit it right, you will see the shrinking circle turn golden

Always the light blue circle

Hopefully you download the japanese voice, way way better with more feeling.

The game battle system is a bit different yeah, gotta get used to it, you'll love it in no time. Also make sure to always explore, collect materials, you'll need it a long the journey.

Easiest to just salvage at gormott. Other places are irrelevant, because it's slow for other places, due to high leveled monsters. Pick the first spot you ever salvaged at, it's the easiest and fastest. Salvage at Gormott for like half and hour or around 1 hour you can get up to 1 million or more.  I think in the game I only spent like 3 hours max in salvaging. Enough to last to finish all side quest, buy and spend on stuff for a certain blade and etc.

wait till you see the end of Chapter 3   

damn... i should really take it slower and try to grind more too....

To me yes. I need those Overdrive Protocols to reassign rare blades.
I'm 220+ hours into the game, Chapter 8, level 73+, all dev 5 stars, grinding most blades to affinity level 4 now. Still have not get all blades.



Another game worth getting for Switch is of course Zelda: BoTW
Same with me, I'm not good at this tiger tiger game, high score not even 10k. Don't bother premium cylinders. Just hoard gold coins and buy 99 gold cylinders. Remember to keep your cashflow 600k (495k for gold cylinders 5 star dev)

For some quests where you need premium, there are ways to get it. I think I accidentally game my premium to a kid in Mor Ardain, but somehow I managed to get another one for the Salvaging King quest.
Also Merc quests. Then there are also many hidden NPC Merc/driver quests. Just the main storyline alone is like 40% of the game only.

Overdrive protocol - I've used up all, there is a troublesome way to get more, but I purchased DLC pack and will carefully evaluate how to reassign.

My suggestion is just speed to halfway Chapter 8 to level up higher, then come back grind / farm, it is easier to move around the map without enemies attacking you most of the time.

There really is a need for a fail safe mechanism so that players can get a rare blade after a certain amount of fail. But yeah the gatcha system is what it is, to make you grind more and more.

I think i'm somewhat lucky considering I never actually farmed for the cores and just do main quest, side quest and a little bit of salvaging from time to time. Only left 4 rare blades that hasn't been resonated.

Also I have terrible luck with the legendary cores. I only manage to get one rare blade from it lol. As for rare cores it seems to give me a little also. But damn common cores, I have a lot of luck from those. Most of my rare blades comes from common cores.

I just leave the last 4 rare blade for next time, when I pick up the dlc, no rush as more blades will be added, I kinda know to get the last 4 it will be frustrating for sure lol

Rare cores are easy, just follow main storyline until chapter 8 *spoiler alert*

then stop story line and start farming/grinding everything else. You can get Legendary Core from some level 60+ unique monsters easily. I always farm soul eater stanley.
LOL, I've burn 2x-3x your cores recently, did not get any rare, I'm still like 5-7 rares missing.
10+ legendaries, 100+ rare, 200+ commons, 150+ boosters

I'm done with maxing quite a few rares like Zenobia, Mythra (S7), Praxis, Aegeon, Roc, Godfrey, Agate, Ursula, Dagas, Boreas, Herald, Sheba (gold digger), and already open up level 5 affinity for like half of the rares.
Zenobia is fun, to search and fight the UM one by one.

Some really time grinding stuff are Ursula, Dagas, Vess, a few b!tch3s to prepare for the Girl Power Off  (i'm still looking for Vale),  spent a lot of money (like 2M+ coins so far) but sell to earn a lot (like 5M+ so far)
The rest are just normal grinding, I'll be upgrading Kassandra, Perun, Theory, and a few more.

240+ hours into grinding ... 2M+ coins excluding 25 legendary and 99 gold cylinders.

Yes, quite boring to grind affinity. Normally I sit in front TV and just spam A button for the pouch.

Last night maxed Wulfric, Dahlia and Vess. Checked: Perun, Electra, Brighid, Dromach, Sheba and Adenine already maxed as well. A few are near-maxed as well, except storyline need Chap 9-10 or left Trust grinding only. Working on Kassandra. Need further grind on some maxed affinity 4: Finch, Theory, Azami, Floren, Nia as blade, Pandoria. I'm bad at Tiger Tiger, hence won't be able to max Poppi
With all those Ultimate/Intermediate Weaponry, I upgrade the WP to level 4-5 for all my five drivers main blades.

What I'm missing:    Kos-Mos, Vale, Perceval, Nim, Newt

Need to grind crystal cores as well. So far, I sold like 120 common cores as 99/99 full sometimes. You can make a lot of money by selling low level unrefined cores, I only keep highest level IV or V only. Also sell all lower level driver accessories. Don't sell those collection point items, you may need it somewhere. The bulk of my money comes from here, I estimate I sold >2M+ worth in total already.

Latest 259 hours into the game.

The main story line, required Merc missions, quests, etc. are just like 40-50% of the game only. I revised down from earlier 60-70%, as the game opens up.

https://gematsu.com/2018/02/xenoblade-chron...xt-week-details
time to replay the game again 

  d@mn u ...  congrats. I didn't grind cores recently, but 99% finish grind all current blades to max, including Nia as blade. Both Pyra & Mythra level S+ already. Mythra is really OP, if you stock her up with Critical hits.

Recently start using more Break-Topple-Launch-Smash and getting lots of drops. Spend 1M gold for a doubloon quest. Sold a lot of stuff and still have net 3M+ gold in hand. But I'm still not paying 100k to that rentarenta fellow 

Over coming holidays, will swap luck items and core grind into Zeke. Sold another 100+ common cores cause always 99/99 full. Have 40+ rares and 10+ legendary in hand also.

Finish Chapter 10 with level 80+ drivers, it was an easy walk, perhaps I over leveled. Now level 91-92.

Really hope I can grind Kos-Mos as well.