Please have better leads for side jobs

[topaz moss]

I have 5 side jobs at the moment and all of them have useless information that would take forever to find. I feel like the additional notes should be on every side job to give more direction. Like giving the building they live at for example or when it tells you the initial. I hate when you have to break into a bunch of places and look through files that you don't even know will have your target in, it just kind of ruins the immersion a little bit.

[dusky wave]

I had to find one where they had only shoe size 13, glasses and no beard. That could fit anyone... No other info was given. How is that remotely fair?
I double and triple checked to see if i was missing something. but no... That was literally the only info i was given.
I ended up just closing the case and moving on, cause i'm not going to try and arrest half the town, in the hopes i MIGHT get perp...

Another arrest case i had, i had to find one with blue eyes, glasses and black hair. That's it. That's all i was given for info. No additional notes or the like. Are you kidding me?!? Who? Where?!... Give me more info...

The algorithm needs a little stern talking to about this...

One way to mitigate this would be to make the case double check to see if the given info does not exceed more then 1 citizen. If it does, either give more info, or re-gen the random info given until the info given is still minimal, but also could only fit the one citizen that is made the target of arrests or murder cases or the like...

[topaz moss]

Yeah, i had 5 all similar to that

[vocal basalt]

While I understand how the vagueness of the mark descriptions can prove challenging, to me, it’s not immersion breaking. If anything, I feel it’s even more realistic. I have an uncle who worked as a police detective in a major American city, and he recounted a time where he had to canvass cameras from a wide region to look for a long blond haired person between 5 ft 5 and 6 ft wearing dark coloured clothing. And then they had to follow up on literally hundreds of matches (both men and women) to narrow down on the suspect. I was not told of any more details other than they eventually caught the suspect, but I imagine it probably took them awhile.

So, to me, the question is not one of immersion or realism — because it is realistic to have only the most minimum of information — but whether or not we desire minimal viable information to this degree. I, for one, welcome this level of vagueness, and nothing pleases me more that dragnetting entire residences to hunt down my mark. I totally understand, though, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

[topaz moss]

Yeah but these leads are coming from people who know the target already, so it being really vague doesn't make much sense

[vocal basalt]

Who says they actually know the target?

[topaz moss]

Because they are usually neighbours or coworkers

[vocal basalt]

My reading of the side job postings actually suggest quite the opposite. For example, in Photography cases, it seems like a case of “I saw someone interesting with such and such characteristics, and I like them, but don’t know who they are. Find out for me, Mr./Ms. Private Investigator, ID them and take a photo as well.”

[maiden mantle]

I think it's very common, like to the point that if you get a gemsteader meetup so that you're face to face and they want a photo of a certain person and your clue is a face picture, you can just straight up ask them "do you know this unknown person you want me to find" and they'll go like "yea I know them" and give you more info

[topaz moss]

For me unknown people are always 'not enough info' when asking people if they know them

[maiden mantle]

yeah, you need either name or face photo and then someone who knows them personally

[topaz moss]

Yeah, it kinda sucks people can't try give a name or something like "that description sounds like [...]"

[vocal basalt]

The only side jobs I see where the job poster might know the mark are the demolition and public humiliation jobs, and even then, the way the dialogue is structured suggests the involvement of some independent arms-length third party facilitating the transaction. Said third party may not necessarily know the mark, and one can argue they don’t want to know the mark to maintain plausible deniability.

[topaz moss]

Its not really to do with dialogue, its more to do with investigating the home and building of the person who is setting the side job

[vocal basalt]

Well, yes, the dialogue itself is really not that important fluff that only serves as a vehicle to convey information to you as the player. I was more answering to your assertion that most job posters personally know the mark. I was asserting the opposite based on in-game lore and setting (which does involve dialogue).

But ultimately, whether or not the job poster know the mark doesn’t matter (at least to me) in the face of what I feel is the real question behind the topic: do we want to play a game where we are given such vague and minimal clues to begin our hunt of the suspect? Even if we make the possibly overreaching assumption that such minimal clues are “realistic”, is this level for realism fun?

My personal answer is that, “Yes, this is fun.” I know, however, that many (most?) would not share the same view.

[topaz moss]

Well its fine i guess but when I get 5 jobs in a row which I can't solve without randomly stumbling along the target it just kinda sucks

There should be more likely to get more helpful info

[vocal basalt]

Unless it’s an Arrest, Theft, or Sleuthing side job, it’s not as random as it seems:

• Demolitions and Public Humiliations are usually the neighbours of the job poster — even if the mark isn’t on the job poster’s address book, they usually live or work in the same building.
• Photography is a bit more random, but the mark actually crosses path with the job poster somewhere during their daily routine
• Stolen Items marks always know the victim in some way
• The new infidelity case, the job poster might not know the mark, but their partner certainty does!

Usually, these serve for me as a solid starting point. Coupled with the additional clues provided by the side job itself, it usually not too hard to track down the mark even with the most basic of info.

[topaz moss]

Kinda proves my point that the descriptions should be better

[vocal basalt]

I think what you call “randomly stumble into” I call “investigative work”. But that’s fair — I can see why you’d call it that. Like I said, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, so I guess it boils down to what type of vision the devs ultimately have for this game.

[topaz moss]

Yeah I guess, i just hate the aspect of having to search through loads of random files with no reason other than that maybe the target will be in that one

[maiden mantle]

in this game my main problem with grind type investigations with no real trail is that it basically destroys the save by making you get too much information that will later remove gameplay

[topaz moss]

I find that issue with the side jobs rather than the main ones