In many missions, while there are additional mission items to be picked up for additional lore, not all of them are needed for mission completion.
For example: The Hellmouth mission in Alpine Unrest DLC.
In there, there are 4 mission items in total but to complete the mission, you only need to pick up 2 mission items, leaving other two as optional ones.
Also, this is made so that players won’t get stuck on completing the mission. If you have enabled POI icons, these will spoon feed you through the missions (e.g go to X spot, pick up Z item) but they won’t lead you to the secondary mission items.
This remembers me the good old times, when there were no POI icons in the game what-so-ever.
I remember that i had hard time completing Flying Objects mission, since all i had to go on, was the mission items themselves and what they said.
Optional reading on how i (and all others) back then had to do the mission
First off, mission tasks. Do note that additional tasks didn’t show up until you completed the previous one. And where i got stuck, was “Locate Fredrik Blom’s house”.
I did find the phone book that listed his address.
And i also found the map of Lilla.
So, looking the map and phone book, i had to figure out where he lived. It took me quite a bit of hard thinking to figure out where his house was. Another option would’ve been going through all the 20+ houses in Lilla but i’d rather figure out the exact location based on the clues given.
Eventually i figured it out and found the house. From there, i found additional clues and got stuck on the next task of “Go to Dr. Ingrid Granqvist’s house”. Since all i had to go on, was the newspaper article.
After another session of brainstorming, i figured out where her house was, so i was able to continue with the mission.
This was how GZ was in the beginning and it was so with ALL the missions. I find it very enjoyable, despite getting stuck. Since once i figure out the solution, the feeling of completion is far more rewarding.
Now, there are POI icons, spoon feeding players through the game. With those, i get a feeling that i’m like a rat in the tunnel, following the rope and incapable for thinking for myself.
Relying heavily on POI icons will get players stuck, once the POI icons aren’t dead accurate anymore, just like seen in here: Woodcutter Side Mission Help (minor spoilers)