It’s a good idea to complete side stories for the sole fact that doing so will increase the strength of your companions, giving them upgraded skills, new weapons and eventually a new Monstie to use in battle.That said, they also tend to be somewhat simplistic, as far as guide pages go - if you can manage to head to the quest objectives you will, in most cases, be hand-walked to the end of the quest by the game itself. Ogden’s side stories are a bit more involved, however, requiring you to do some honest to goodness monster hunting to complete them, and to assist you in that endeavor, this page will cover Ogden’s first side story, Letter from and Unknown Sender, with info about catching and defeating the 
Exotic Velocidrome in Monster Hunter Stories 3!
Page Breakdown¶
Talk to Ogden to start his first side story and he’ll show you a letter about an Exotic Velocidrome.
Follow the letter’s instructions to stake out this Exotic Velocidrome to confirm its existence.
Starting Letter from an Unknown Sender¶
This quest begins at the same time as every other companion’s first side story - after starting the main quest Tracks in Azuria. Going forward you can generally expect subsequent chapters to begin when you reach what passes for civilization in a new map - the second you’re in a new town (or in an old town after a long absence, in one case…) find where your companions are gathered and talk to them to start their side story - the yellow exclamation point over their head should make it easy to spot who is ready to have their side story continued!
Ogden will drone on about a mysterious letter he received containing specialized information - information of a sort that should interest any professional hunter, especially ones who thought they knew the local fauna of Azuria well!
(1 of 3) To catch the critter, just stand somewhat you observed it running and wait for it to make contact with you - it’s much easier than chasing the monster down!
How to Catch and Defeat the Exotic Velocidrome¶
Head to the marked location along the eastern edge of the Sunpetal Plains (northeast of the Camp established here) and you’ll trigger another cutscene, after which head southeast to find some egg quartz near the cliffs which provokes a second cutscene. Your stakeout ends successfully, proving that the rare monster in the letter does, in fact, exist, and leaving you with the task of catching the wily 
Velocidrome!
The game dialog suggests that the beast runs along a preset path, and perhaps it does, but it’s too fast and meandering to really make sense of, and in our experience you’re unlikely to catch the beast by actively pursuing it. We had more luck simply watching where it ran, picking a spot near the tree it was sprinting near, and once in place we just put down the controller and let the silly creature run into us. Work smarter, not harder, right?
This of course leads to an encounter, where the Exotic Velocidrome has lost none of its speed. This critter (like all of the monsters Ogden will end up hunting) tends to be somewhat leveled, at least enough that they can prove dangerous if you don’t fight well enough - we completed this quest late-game and faced a Lv60 Exotic Velocidrome!
The Exotic Velocidrome’s speed translates to a high avoid rate which makes normal attacks only marginally effective. Instead you need to rely on Double Attacks. When the Exotic Velocidrome is in its normal phase (at the start of the fight, for example), it’ll typically use Speed attacks, so counter with Technique attacks. If the Exotic Velocidrome doesn’t target you or your Monstie with a counterable attack, focus on healing, buffing or take a gamble and attack - normal attacks can hit, but they often won’t. Once the Exotic Velocidrome becomes angry, it’ll switch to Power attacks, which you can punish with Speed attacks. Keep up the fight and eventually your Kinship gauge should fill, providing you with another opportunity - the Exotic Velocidrome can’t dodge Kinship Attacks, so use those to (hopefully) finish the fight.
The quest will end soon after, and while the business with the Exotic Velocidrome has been settled, the larger mystery behind the anonymous letters has yet to be resolved…
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