Worst, most illogical quests

[Master]

As the title says.
What are some of the most horrendous examples from our dear genre?

Example:
New Vegas's "Contain the Virus" quest or how was it called, in the BoS bunker.
I cant remember the exact details.
There are 10 or so terminals positioned around a room. You have to access each one at a time and press some button on it, in order to by a process of elimination ultimately isolate a computer virus on just one terminal. You have 60 seconds to do it, you have to run between them as fast as you can. The BoS are completely stumped. They dont know what to do. They cant run fast enough, and unless you help them they are completely fucked.
The virus is also preventing them from accessing some important data, or can bring down their entire network, i cant remember. In any case, my head hurt really bad after that.

Example no. 2:
Mass Effect's "Scan the keepers" quest. Maybe i missed something, but... The keepers take care of the Space Station. They go arround and fix things, sometimes rearange architecture, add instalations or remove them. People dont mind it, and are hapilly living on the station for centuries. At the same time, nobody knows anything about the keepers. If anyone tries to touch them, they explode (lol). And nobody knows where they come from. They just apear and dissapear from "... somewhere inside the station". But it doesnt matter, because no one cares. However.
One day, Commander Shepard arrives and initiates conversation with some guy in the hallway. This guy is the one who has done the impossible, he has made a device to scan the keepers. And even though he never saw Shepard before, he tells him everything, and gives him this device to scan 20 keepers. After the scan, seemingly nothing happens. However, in the second game there is an email in which it says that there is something strange with the keepers. The end.

 

[moleman]

Fallout 4

"Ghoul kid in the fridge"

Ghoul kid stuck in a fridge for 200 years, while the parents (ghouls too, of course) live nearby.
This quest is total maximum retardation on so many levels I can't even.

 

[Egosphere]

All of fallout 3

 

[Darth Canoli]

Wasteland 2

The nuke quest in the first area.
You report to a General every time you want to take a leak but when an unknown military trigger-happy faction and an insane cultist group ask you to recover a nuke for them, you don't report anything and decide for yourself what to do with the nuke.
Probably the most retarded quest in an otherwise good cRPG.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There's a quest in DA:I where you escort some buffalo or something similar. It moves extremely slow.
That's the entire quest.

 

[howlingFantods]

In Baldur’s Gate II there is a ghost of a halfling boy who can’t rest because his flipping teddy bear was “abducted” by a dwarf—a dwarf that killed him. Why did the dwarf kill him? And more importantly, why did the dwarf steal the boy’s teddy bear of all things!?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[RaptorRex888]

That one fetch quest in that certain RPG.

 

[Trashos]

New Vegas is full of great questlines, but "The Moon Comes Over the Tower" was just a weird quest- and probably unfinished. Emily Ortal asks you to bug House's network so that she receives some important medical data. You go and do that, and for some reason you then have the option to go and tell House that it was you who bugged the network, and... there are no consequences.

 

[Sigourn]

New Vegas is full of great questlines, but "The Moon Comes Over the Tower" was just a weird quest- and probably unfinished. Emily Ortal asks you to bug House's network so that she receives some important medical data. You go and do that, and for some reason you then have the option to go and tell House that it was you who bugged the network, and... there are no consequences.

The quest was unfinished. The thing that stands out to a lot of people is the amount of EXP you get out of something that is literally "get in, get out".
There's a mod that restores the entirety of the quest to working condition. Mod can be found here.
I don't mind being able to tell House: it makes sense he wouldn't care, his network is extremely protected, and after all you are not trying to get him killed or antyhing like it, just help out fellow Followers of the Apocalypse.

 

[Trashos]

The quest was unfinished. The thing that stands out to a lot of people is the amount of EXP you get out of something that is literally "get in, get out".
There's a mod that restores the entirety of the quest to working condition. Mod can be found here.

Ah, yes, that's better.

I don't mind being able to tell House: it makes sense he wouldn't care, his network is extremely protected, and after all you are not trying to get him killed or antyhing like it, just help out fellow Followers of the Apocalypse.

I don't understand the motivation behind telling him (sure, I don't have to tell him, but why is the option even there?).

Also, OK, House doesn't really trust anyone, and he is known to collaborate with headcases anyway. It does make some sense that he keeps on collaborating with the Courier after bugging his network. However, no consequences at all?! He does not even tell the Courier off. Not to mention, having no consequences here makes it even more nonsensical that we are able to admit our action to him ("why is this option even there" etc-etc). I guesstimate that there were further plans on this too that never came to be.

 

[Turuko]

There's a quest in DA:I where you escort some buffalo or something similar. It moves extremely slow.
That's the entire quest.

and the pathfinding is so fucked that it gets stuck every 5 steps or so

 

[Zep Zepo]

Gabriel Knight...

Some retarded thing about a mustache (made from cat hair?). I don't recall how far along I was in the game at that point...but that's where I quit, never to return to it or play any sequels.

Zep--

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

The Linxia quest in Kingmaker is an abomination. She comes to you and asks to hunt around in your kingdom for a criminal, you tell her to fuck off so she goes and starts torturing your citizens. At this point you tell your guards to arrest her and she just leaves, apparently your guards in your own capital just decide not to listen to you for this one quest only. Then you ambush her at some inn, but she teleports away (despite having no reason she should be able to do that) and then you just have to wait around awhile to finally have the quest "progress" to the point you can find her and finally kill her.

And of course, when I first played it that last part was bugged so it never triggered and I never got to kill that bitch

 

[JarlFrank]

There's a quest in DA:I where you escort some buffalo or something similar. It moves extremely slow.
That's the entire quest.

No matter how absymally retarded a quest is, it can never be as bad as an escort quest where whatever or whoever you have to escort moves at a different speed than the player character/party.

Seriously, how hard is it to set the speed of the to-be-escorted character to the same value as the player's?
Even if the game has different speeds depending on stats, like how in Morrowind you had a speed stat that made you go faster when it's higher, it isn't too hard to script the escort NPC's speed to adjust to the player's.

You could give me an absolutely retarded quest like having to assassinate a king who hates chocolate by bringing him a poisoned chocolate cake and convincing him it's not chocolate, and I'd choose that quest over an escort quest every time.

Fuck escort quests. Fuck them in particular if the escort NPC moves slower than the player character.
Fuck it with a giant nuke if he moves significantly slower than the player character, and running too far ahead of him fails the quest.

 

[Neanderthal]

In BG2 you save the Elves of SuddenSizzler, I was not amused.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

In Evil Islands there is a quest where a craftsman's apprentice steals villagers' tax money and you are sent to a remote valley to get a different bag of money to replace the stolen one. The reason that money is still there is because the valley is infested with angry skeletons that kill everyone on sight. There is no option to chase the thief. It's also not explained why and to whom the villagers are paying taxes to, and there is also the little problem that there is basically nothing to buy or spend tax money on in this post-apocalyptic world where only this one village exists, and people there dress in furs and use stone tools and weapons. The only merchants in the world are the craftsman whose apprentice stole the gold, and a witch who lives in a swamp and doesn't let the villagers into her territory anyway. What did the thief want to do with the gold after he run away from the only place that he could spend it is also a mystery.

Spoiler

the truth is the quest is one of many attempts by the village's chief to have the hero killed but still the premise is really weird, and the apprentice does steal the gold and disappears from the game, so it's not like that part was faked

 

[Dr Skeleton]

The Linxia quest in Kingmaker is an abomination. She comes to you and asks to hunt around in your kingdom for a criminal, you tell her to fuck off so she goes and starts torturing your citizens. At this point you tell your guards to arrest her and she just leaves, apparently your guards in your own capital just decide not to listen to you for this one quest only. Then you ambush her at some inn, but she teleports away (despite having no reason she should be able to do that) and then you just have to wait around awhile to finally have the quest "progress" to the point you can find her and finally kill her.

And of course, when I first played it that last part was bugged so it never triggered and I never got to kill that bitch

I did that quest differently and it was also complete shit. I thought maybe I chose a path that was half-finished or something but apparently not.
- she asks to look for a criminal in my kingdom, I said ok
- she bullies random people so I tell her to get out of the kingdom, she doesn't, nobody seems to think that's a problem
- the guy she's looking for appears and says "I'm ultra-mega rich because the demon lord of greed sends me bitcoins, I'll give you 150 gold if you kill her for me" I tell him to fuck off and get out of my kingdom
- somehow it's revealed where Linxia is staying and I'm supposed to go there because the quest needs to happen
- when I get there the criminal also teleports in and obviously that means I work with him and Linxia tries to kill me, I kill all her guards and she teleports away, the criminal guy also teleports away
- some time later the criminal guy sets up a town near my border and that is a problem for some reason? I guess? Linxia sends me a letter saying something to the effect of "you've been rude to me when I tried to kill you for no reason, but help me bring down this guy and his shitty town, ok"
- I go to the town and kill the criminal guy and his men, Linxia basically says "well, fuck you for helping, you're a shit baron" then I kill her.
What. I mean the writing in Kingmaker isn't amazing, but it's alright overall, just this one quest is retarded on a whole different level.

 

[Saduj]

Always thought it made no sense that one guy would be sent out into a post apocalyptic hell unarmed to find a water chip that is vital to the entire vault’s survival. Wouldn’t a squad of heavily armed men carrying goods that can be traded for a chip make more sense? Any sensible person in the Vault Dweller’s situation would have settled in Shady Sands figuring “if they are serious about the fucking chip they’ll invest some actual resources next time”.

 

[Sigourn]

I always thought Fallout 2 had a retarded main quest, slightly less so than Fallout 3's, but retarded nonetheless. A tribal, facing the remnants of the U.S. government. All of who wear Power Armor, nonetheless.

 

[Viata]

It's been a long time since I last played FO1, but does it even explains why Vault Dweller was selected for that mission?

 

[Viata]

tribal, facing the remnants of the U.S. government. All of who wear Power Armor, nonetheless.

That is not really the main quest, it's a consequence of the main quest. The main quest was to get the G.E.C.K.

 

[AW8]

I don't understand the motivation behind telling him (sure, I don't have to tell him, but why is the option even there?).

To attempt to "switch sides" and tell on Emily in the first conversation. (House turns out to not give a shit.) After you've done the deed, the option is there to come clean and see if House gets pissed. (Again, he doesn't give a shit.)

Also, OK, House doesn't really trust anyone, and he is known to collaborate with headcases anyway. It does make some sense that he keeps on collaborating with the Courier after bugging his network. However, no consequences at all?! He does not even tell the Courier off. Not to mention, having no consequences here makes it even more nonsensical that we are able to admit our action to him ("why is this option even there" etc-etc). I guesstimate that there were further plans on this too that never came to be.

The bug was immediately found and what little data Emily got turned out to be useless. Trying to bug his network is proven to be completely impossible, just like he told you. It's like being an important business associate to House and then telling him you pissed on his fence.
His reaction is and then he just wants to go back to business.

 

[zurek]

It's also not explained why and to whom the villagers are paying taxes to, and there is also the little problem that there is basically nothing to buy or spend tax money on in this post-apocalyptic world where only this one village exists

I always thought it might be a tribute to the orc clans or bandits. Beside, the player never gets to buy anything from other races, but there are few examples where humans deal with orcs and goblins, like the exchange with Gogo, bandit alliance with the orcs, and that girl that even joined the orcs, so there might be some trade between the village and other races with gold. But yeah, it's never stated in the game so it's all just me filling in the blanks.

 

[Horton]

Wasteland 2 - that's true!

 

[Zibniyat]

Example:
New Vegas's "Contain the Virus" quest or how was it called, in the BoS bunker.
I cant remember the exact details.
There are 10 or so terminals positioned around a room. You have to access each one at a time and press some button on it, in order to by a process of elimination ultimately isolate a computer virus on just one terminal. You have 60 seconds to do it, you have to run between them as fast as you can. The BoS are completely stumped. They dont know what to do. They cant run fast enough, and unless you help them they are completely fucked.
The virus is also preventing them from accessing some important data, or can bring down their entire network, i cant remember. In any case, my head hurt really bad after that.

Even worse, if you have a high enough computer skill (at least I think it is computer skill), you can tell the person responsible for giving you the quest the "obvious" solution. He then says something like "You are right, how did I not think of that?", but for some reason that does not bring about the conclusion of the quest but instead you are supposed to do it the idiotic way anyway. And assuming that the "virus isolation" procedure was somehow logical, considering that we're speaking about a bunker with a lot of people, it's obvious how this quest is totally stupid as there are more than enough people to devote 60 seconds of their time monitoring each of the computer terminals in order to "lock" the virus.

Needless to say I did not complete this quest.