I recently finished the map-collecting sidequest in FF15 without a guide out of gamer pride hubris and it was not worth it. The final reward is just 50K Gil and a mythril ingot - basically nothing. And a thank you note too I guess.

Judging by the extreme difficulty of finding everything, I thought the reward would be notable. I could feel the devs laughing at me though the screen for some of them. Man, if I had known ahead of time then I wouldn’t’ve tried so hard.

Anyway if search engines somehow catch this comment, here’s a spoiler-freeish guide if you want to put in a more appropriate amount of effort into the search:

• There are 14 map pieces total: 5 in Leide, 5 in Duscae, 4 in Cleigne
• The scraps and maps are spread more-or-less evenly across the continent
• With one exception-ish, no location hosts both a scrap of mystery AND a Sylvester map piece
• You will find scraps exclusively near civilization. So check towns, scattered buildings, and ruins. Don’t check bushes and rocks and nature. Don’t go inside dungeons looking for scraps either
• There is nothing in the Vesperpool swamp and Ravatough mountains
• There is nothing within imperial bases or the army junk outside them
• The Sylvester pieces will be pretty close to the exclamation point. Idk why the game highlights such a big search area; nothing was ever by the perimeter