You need to differentiate your potential issues:
- Heat creep in the extruder mechanics can lead to softening of the filament already in the cold end components of your extruder → Leading to issues during extrusion.
- Heat in the stepper drivers usually leads to weird error messages.
- Heat in the stepper motor is more rarely an issue. See 4. Stepper Motor Temperature: What’s Normal?
For lost steps see Can I find out whether the printer has lost steps?