Most pointless quest in Skyrim?

[adams_apple]

I can't think of a dumber, more inane, more immersion breaking quest than Calcelmo's Dwarven arrow errand. For starters, there is literally nothing special about Dwarven arrows. They're average strength, they're all over the frickin place, and every merchant, blacksmith, and fletcher in Skyrim sells them. But for some reason, whenever I buy one from any of these sellers, within seconds Calcelmo sends a courier after me to initiate a tedious fetch quest to bring him ONE SINGLE arrow, all the way out in the bum♥♥♥♥ ends of the Reach. Never mind how he possibly knows which merchants sell the arrows he needs or why he can't just go buy one himself, or how or why he seems to monitor my purchases in real time like a credit card company. But he is sitting literally RIGHT ON TOP of a Dwemer excavation site, and there are TWO blacksmiths in his own town that could sell him the arrows! Ghorza sells them by the dozen! I went out and bought her arrows right after the quest and Calcelmo didn't even notice. It's not even like I can just sell him a bundle of arrows as a regular service, he only wants a single one. All of this just for a measly 10 gold profit. To make it even more insulting, you have to actually haggle for it! How did anyone become lame enough to even think of a stupid quest like this? It's not like they just added in a few lines of code, they had actors actually record dialogue specifically for this. I'd even go as far as to say this could be the most pointless quest in any video game.

[258789553873]

Actually, he sends you that letter if you acquire any dwarven gear, not just arrows. And yeah, its a bit dumb, but I don't think it comes up if you've met him before you acquire any dwarven gear (which is pretty common for me since I often play mages).

[Docsprock]

Not every quest needs to be epic and involve the gods.

Just dont do it. I usually dont.

[adams_apple]

Originally posted by IXBlackWolfXI:

Actually, he sends you that letter if you acquire any dwarven gear, not just arrows. And yeah, its a bit dumb, but I don't think it comes up if you've met him before you acquire any dwarven gear (which is pretty common for me since I often play mages).

I'm pretty sure I've bought other gear in the past and I've never gotten a letter about it. But he ALWAYS sends a letter for arrows. I tend to craft my own Dwarven gear actually. It's really OP thanks to the Ancient Knowledge power. It's even stronger than Ebony armor.

Originally posted by Docsprock:

Not every quest needs to be epic and involve the gods.

Just dont do it. I usually dont.

What an absolutely idiotic takeaway. How in the HELL did you get this from the topic? Did you even read my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ post??

[Dexter]

There is many wrongs in Skyrim
Did You know that You can get the heritage of bandits and others, if you use calm spell or voice of the emperor etc before killing them

[258789553873]

If its any consolation, he can give you access to a dwemer ruin which is known to have the highest amount of dwemer scrap metal lying around in the entire game (you can easily get over 100 bars out of that place). After you do a few of his quests, he'll even let you take some of the stuff that's laying around his work area, though that may not be an intentional feature. If you seriously like making dwemer gear, I would highly recommend you go to him. Besides that ruin btw, there's also the gold and silver mines nearby, which are also great for quickly leveling your smithing. Really, any smith should go there once they're able to handle dwemer ruins, which I assume you are if you got that perk.

As for the quest, I don't think it triggers if you make something dwarven; you have to buy it from a merchant for him to send you that letter.

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

Originally posted by adams_apple:

Originally posted by IXBlackWolfXI:

Actually, he sends you that letter if you acquire any dwarven gear, not just arrows. And yeah, its a bit dumb, but I don't think it comes up if you've met him before you acquire any dwarven gear (which is pretty common for me since I often play mages).

I'm pretty sure I've bought other gear in the past and I've never gotten a letter about it. But he ALWAYS sends a letter for arrows. I tend to craft my own Dwarven gear actually. It's really OP thanks to the Ancient Knowledge power. It's even stronger than Ebony armor.

Originally posted by Docsprock:

Not every quest needs to be epic and involve the gods.

Just dont do it. I usually dont.

What an absolutely idiotic takeaway. How in the HELL did you get this from the topic? Did you even read my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ post??

his point was probably that since you have such a problem with Calcelmo's quest, just don't do it then.
(i.e. ignore it instead of ranting to us about it)

edit: also wouldn't dwarven armor still be worse even with the ancient knowledge power? I don't know if skyrim calculates the values right, but Ancient Knowledge only gives a 25% armor boost so with dwarven armor's base value being 34, then ancient knowledge would bump it to 42.5? which makes it 0.5 worse than ebony armor (at base values), and heavier, and worth less

[Master Talon]

you get the arrow then get a letter from him telling you to find the armor set all over the map that is basicly what the quest is

[258789553873]

Originally posted by Vrakos Anthrakir:

Originally posted by adams_apple:

I'm pretty sure I've bought other gear in the past and I've never gotten a letter about it. But he ALWAYS sends a letter for arrows. I tend to craft my own Dwarven gear actually. It's really OP thanks to the Ancient Knowledge power. It's even stronger than Ebony armor.




What an absolutely idiotic takeaway. How in the HELL did you get this from the topic? Did you even read my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ post??

his point was probably that since you have such a problem with Calcelmo's quest, just don't do it then.
(i.e. ignore it instead of ranting to us about it)

edit: also wouldn't dwarven armor still be worse even with the ancient knowledge power? I don't know if skyrim calculates the values right, but Ancient Knowledge only gives a 25% armor boost so with dwarven armor's base value being 34, then ancient knowledge would bump it to 42.5? which makes it 0.5 worse than ebony armor (at base values), and heavier, and worth less

If you have smithing, you can easily reach the armor cap with any heavy armor. Either way, if you get that perk before you get past dwarven, that will give you a higher armor rating than you normally would at that level. And as you said, it almost makes dwarven equivalent to ebony, so its like having ebony armor long before you would normally see it.

[ShallowGoddess]

The most pointless one is the one where you have to pick up frost salts from Farengar I think? I mean, can't she pay a courier to do it for her? The alchemist? Why does she need a Dragonborn to do it?

[Master Talon]

she doesn't ask you for the frost salts he does he meant to do it but you were there so he asks you do bring them to her yourself

[ShallowGoddess]

Ah okay. Still, somewhat pointless. I mean yeah we're there, but he could just use a courier. Or one of the many servants in the palace, or even a guard. But that's probably getting a bit too nitpicky.

[adams_apple]

Originally posted by Vrakos Anthrakir:

his point was probably that since you have such a problem with Calcelmo's quest, just don't do it then.
(i.e. ignore it instead of ranting to us about it)

Don't like the topic? Don't read it. It's as simple as that.

Originally posted by ZAVAZggg:

The most pointless one is the one where you have to pick up frost salts from Farengar I think? I mean, can't she pay a courier to do it for her? The alchemist? Why does she need a Dragonborn to do it?

Similar to Balimund's fire salts quest, the main difference is that those are standard fetch quests, meaning you're basically doing them as a favor. Also frost salts are a bit harder to come by. Alchemists may or may not carry them, and they generally come from Frost Atronachs, which are rarer than Fire Atronachs. Calcelmo on the other hand, is more like "I MUST HAVE THIS" and he literally owns an entire Dwemer museum yet he has trouble acquiring basic dwarven gear? He devotes his life to studying the dwarves, so why would he not have found an dwarven arrow by now? There is no reason why he shouldn't have mountains of this stuff already.

[Master Talon]

Originally posted by ZAVAZggg:

Ah okay. Still, somewhat pointless. I mean yeah we're there, but he could just use a courier. Or one of the many servants in the palace, or even a guard. But that's probably getting a bit too nitpicky.

it is a pointless quest but I do it because you can take some of her stuff and not be stealing them if you bring her the salts

[PsychoDino]

Originally posted by adams_apple:

I can't think of a dumber, more inane, more immersion breaking quest than Calcelmo's Dwarven arrow errand. For starters, there is literally nothing special about Dwarven arrows. They're average strength, they're all over the frickin place, and every merchant, blacksmith, and fletcher in Skyrim sells them. But for some reason, whenever I buy one from any of these sellers, within seconds Calcelmo sends a courier after me to initiate a tedious fetch quest to bring him ONE SINGLE arrow, all the way out in the bum♥♥♥♥ ends of the Reach. Never mind how he possibly knows which merchants sell the arrows he needs or why he can't just go buy one himself, or how or why he seems to monitor my purchases in real time like a credit card company. But he is sitting literally RIGHT ON TOP of a Dwemer excavation site, and there are TWO blacksmiths in his own town that could sell him the arrows! Ghorza sells them by the dozen! I went out and bought her arrows right after the quest and Calcelmo didn't even notice. It's not even like I can just sell him a bundle of arrows as a regular service, he only wants a single one. All of this just for a measly 10 gold profit. To make it even more insulting, you have to actually haggle for it! How did anyone become lame enough to even think of a stupid quest like this? It's not like they just added in a few lines of code, they had actors actually record dialogue specifically for this. I'd even go as far as to say this could be the most pointless quest in any video game.

its a cool idea

[Scythia]

The Calcelmo letter always triggers for me when I buy a piece of dwarven armour that has an enchantment i really want. Without fail, I'll buy it and that's the item that he wants.