Side missions give you too little to work with.

[Butt Dragon]

Just got one where I needed to identify and arrest a specific person.
The info I got was: Age, haircut and that they work in the stubbs building. Do you know how many offices there are in the stubbs building?? After going through employee records of like 6 offices I gave up.

Am I stupid and didn't realise there was an easier way to do this?

[WordCobbler]

You could always put it off to the side and check back to see later if you have found information that helps you further. Sometimes you will run across things doing other jobs or even just talking to people that helps to solve a case with almost no information. You can have up to 5 open at once.

Are you on the regular branch or the experimental? I did have one side job where I needed to find someone that worked in the main office building and checked all of the office workers, staff in the security room, and the basement businesses. I'm on the experimental and I think that particular one bugged, but I am keeping it open just in case. I have successfully on another save file (before the last experimental update) managed to hunt one of these down though. So I'm just wondering if sometimes even though you do get the info if it just never updates.

[Sirioland]

I have a similar problem. Only info i got is "glasses, no facial hair" and additional that he/she likes to play violin and a building that they work in. Businesses in that building are a bar, clinic and an office. And a building janitor but he does not match the "profile". I managed to narrow down to 9 suspects that are workers there and match the "description". I managed to get all their employee info, all of them talk a lot about sports but none is interested in violin. I talked with all coworkers and turned out one of my 9 suspects is interested in music! "That was it" I foolishly thought, because it was not my target in the end...I have no idea what to do next. I even checked a pawn shop ledger in case someone bought a violin recently but no luck there....Only bright side is I "found" a lot of diamonds during all that work.

[cinless]

Have to agree there.
Every time I solve a murder I pick up one of these side jobs to pass the time while waiting for another murder to happen, but for the rewards offered, there's not enough to go on.
At best I end up wandering around an office building for a little while before giving up, and with the worst cases I just throw them immediately into the sea.

The most infuriating part is that your employer clearly knows their target in most cases, right? Why would you want someone humiliated if you don't even know who they are? How would you know if the detective didn't just find someone who looked close enough?

And to top it off, they don't even pay anywhere near enough money to justify the work.

[raydeejay]

Originally posted by Sirioland:

I have a similar problem. Only info i got is "glasses, no facial hair" and additional that he/she likes to play violin and a building that they work in. Businesses in that building are a bar, clinic and an office. And a building janitor but he does not match the "profile". I managed to narrow down to 9 suspects that are workers there and match the "description". I managed to get all their employee info, all of them talk a lot about sports but none is interested in violin. I talked with all coworkers and turned out one of my 9 suspects is interested in music! "That was it" I foolishly thought, because it was not my target in the end...I have no idea what to do next. I even checked a pawn shop ledger in case someone bought a violin recently but no luck there....Only bright side is I "found" a lot of diamonds during all that work.

Street vendors have their home listed as their workplace.

[Namie]

Bear in mind that the higher the pay the less information they r likely to give, up to a point that they could tell you "its someone with blue eyes, go manage yourself with that"
The game needs a couple of changes on that kind of mission cuz it seems way too random and most of the info is useless on the first look, "shoe size, writing type, eye colour" on its own its useless so i just discard a ton of those unless they give something more concrete, at LEAST the building where they live/work so i could just start scratching out of the list the rest of the city.

[Anker]

Yes, unless they give you a specific building floor they work on or live at, vague physical descriptions are completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ worthless.