mkfs.xfs completely ignoring "|more" redirect

trying to install gentoo linux and can't format the drive with xfs because when I run mkfs.xfs /dev/sda3 it throws an error and then displays help, but the help is so big that it takes up the entire screen and I can't scroll up because Im on tty1. mkfs.xfs /dev/sda1 |more does nothing, it still shows the enlarged help and doesn't pause. I've tried redirecting the output to a file using

cat mkfs.xfs /dev/sda1 > file.txt 2>&1

but it just outputs garbage