What Side Content to Skip in Dragon’s Dogma II

Dragon’s Dogma II is exactly the kind of game that can eat a month of your life if you let it. It constantly puts new caves, escort requests, monster hunts, and little detours in front of you. A lot of that stuff is fun for a while. Not all of it stays fun. If you’ve got a job, kids, a backlog, or just a normal adult tolerance for repetition, you should be selective fast.

The good news is that you do not need to clear the map or chase every side quest to get the best parts of the game. The best stuff in Dragon’s Dogma II is still the feeling of traveling somewhere dangerous, getting jumped by a griffin at the worst possible moment, and stumbling into a questline that actually changes how you move through the world. The weaker stuff is the filler around that. The errands. The backtracking. The quests that feel important for ten minutes and then turn into running between towns.

So here’s the honest version. I’ll tell you what is worth doing, what is safe to skip, and how to play this thing without wasting your evenings.

Why picking your side content matters more here than in most RPGs

In a lot of open world RPGs, side content is where the best writing lives. In Dragon’s Dogma II, side content is more uneven. Sometimes it gives you great monster fights, useful unlocks, or a memorable chain like the Sphinx riddles. Other times it gives you a lot of walking and a reward that barely matters by the time you get it.

That unevenness hits harder because travel itself is part of the cost. Fast travel is limited unless you spend Ferrystones, and even with oxcarts and Portcrystals, you will spend a lot of time on the road. Early on, that’s exciting. Midgame, it’s still good. Later, if you keep taking every little quest that sends you across Vermund and Battahl, you will absolutely feel the drag.

This is why busy players need a filter. You are not just choosing what story to see. You are choosing what to spend travel time, inventory space, curatives, and real-life patience on.

The questlines that are actually worth your time

The Sphinx questline is worth doing, even if you use a guide

Do the Sphinx. Full stop.

It is one of the few side activities in the game that feels genuinely distinct from the normal loop of travel, fight, loot, repeat. The riddles are memorable, the setup is weird in a good way, and the rewards are strong enough to matter. It also gives you the kind of story you will actually remember later, which is not true of half the side quests in Vernworth.

If you hate puzzle-solving or don’t want to risk messing it up, just use a guide. I normally wouldn’t say that, but this is exactly the kind of content that can become annoying if you’re tired and trying to remember obscure details from ten hours ago. The point is to get the fun out of it, not to prove something.

The vocation maister quests are worth prioritizing

If a quest helps unlock or improve your preferred vocation, do it early. These are some of the best side objectives in the game because they directly improve how you play every fight after that.

The obvious examples are the maister teachings tied to vocations like Sorcerer, Warrior, Mystic Spearhand, Magick Archer, and Trickster. Even when the quest itself is not amazing, the payoff usually is. If you already know you love a vocation, anything tied to that class jumps to the front of the line.

Mystic Spearhand and Magick Archer especially are worth the effort if those playstyles appeal to you. They don’t just add variety. They can make travel and combat smoother, which matters a lot in a game with long stretches between towns and frequent ambushes.

This is side content with a clear return on time. You do a quest, and your next twenty hours are better.

Monster culling that overlaps with your route is good value

Not every monster hunt is busywork. The ones that are on your way, or tied to roads you already need to travel, are worth grabbing. Ogres, cyclopes, griffins, drakes, and cave bosses are where the game’s combat really shines, especially when the environment gets involved and the fight goes sideways.

The trick is not to chase them across the map just because a notice board or NPC points you there. Take culling objectives when they line up with your current destination. Ignore them when they don’t.

This is one of the biggest time-saving habits in the whole game. Dragon’s Dogma II is at its best when side objectives stack naturally. Head to Bakbattahl, clear a cave on the way, kill the monster near the pass, camp once, and come back loaded with materials and experience. Great. Running from Vernworth to a random corner of the map for one target, then jogging back for a modest reward? Skip it.

Key city questlines are worth doing until they stop being interesting

The political and social questlines in Vernworth and Bakbattahl are a mixed bag, but some are still worth doing because they open up the world and give context to the main story. The problem is pacing. A lot of them start with intrigue and then turn into stealth, eavesdropping, or messenger work.

So here’s the practical advice. Follow the major city threads long enough to unlock useful access, meet important characters, and see where the game is pointing you. If a chain starts sending you back and forth for minor updates with no meaningful fights, no useful unlocks, and no real tension, you can safely step away.

The palace and noble intrigue material in Vernworth is the clearest example. It sounds important. Parts of it are. But it can also become the exact kind of stop-start questing that feels worse in short play sessions. Do enough to keep your main progress moving. Don’t treat every court-related errand like it deserves top priority.

What you can skip without missing much

Most escort quests are not worth the hassle

You can skip most escort quests without guilt. They are classic Dragon’s Dogma content in the sense that they create chaos on the road, but they are also one of the easiest ways to burn half an hour on a reward you will forget immediately.

If the destination is already where you’re going, fine, take it. Otherwise, no. Escorts are too vulnerable to random nonsense, too dependent on safe routing, and too likely to become a slog if night falls or a large monster shows up. Great story to tell later. Bad use of a Tuesday night.

Cave clearing for its own sake gets old fast

Early on, caves are exciting because every one of them might contain a nasty surprise, a useful chest, or a boss that forces you to improvise. After a while, the rhythm becomes familiar. Enter cave, fight goblins or saurians, loot materials, maybe find a chest that is nice but not life-changing.

That doesn’t mean skip all caves. It means stop treating every cave icon like mandatory content. Do the ones on your route. Do the ones tied to a vocation unlock, a maister, a named monster, or a quest with a real payoff. Ignore the rest unless you’re just in the mood to roam.

This is one of those things that starts strong but slows down hard. You will feel it after a few hours of trying to be thorough.

Notice board style errands are low priority

If a task feels like pure cleanup work, treat it that way. Fetching, generic deliveries, and simple kill requests with weak rewards should sit at the bottom of your list unless they happen to overlap with your route.

Dragon’s Dogma II does not consistently turn these into something surprising later. Sometimes an errand is just an errand. That’s fine. You don’t need to do all of them.

Affinity chasing and gift-giving can be ignored

If you really care about specific NPC outcomes or just enjoy roleplaying, sure, mess with the affinity system. For most players, especially anyone trying to keep momentum, this is very skippable.

The game does not make relationship management clean or efficient. Gifts, repeated interactions, and trying to influence who matters to you can feel fiddly. Unless you already know you want a particular character outcome, let this system happen in the background and move on.

Pawn guild style busywork is optional, not essential

Managing your main pawn is important. Constantly fussing over every little pawn-related task is not. Hire good pawns, update your gear, adjust inclinations if needed, and keep moving. You do not need to turn the pawn system into a spreadsheet.

Likewise, chasing every pawn quest or recruitment wrinkle is unnecessary unless you enjoy it. The core value of pawns is practical. You want good support, useful callouts, and maybe a specialization that helps with logistics. Beyond that, don’t overinvest.

How to approach the game efficiently without flattening the fun

The best way to play Dragon’s Dogma II efficiently is to think in loops, not checklists.

Before leaving town, pick one main objective, one side objective that supports your build or progression, and one flexible detour if it’s nearby. That’s enough. More than that, and you start spending your session juggling routes instead of actually playing.

Use Portcrystals in places you know you’ll revisit. Vernworth is obvious, but a smart placement near Bakbattahl or a route hub saves a lot of time later. Don’t hoard Ferrystones so hard that you make the game worse. Use them when a trip back would be dead time.

Restock in batches. Upgrade gear when you’re already in town. Bank materials if you’re carrying too much. Small efficiency stuff matters here because travel friction compounds over time.

Also, commit to a vocation for a while instead of constantly swapping. Experimenting is fun, but if you keep bouncing between classes, you end up spending extra time relearning your toolkit and chasing gear spread across too many builds. Pick one main vocation, one backup, and let the rest wait.

Most importantly, know when to stop following a weak questline. Dragon’s Dogma II rarely punishes you for walking away from side content that isn’t paying off. If a quest has turned into pure commuting, cut it loose.

How handheld play fits this game for side content decisions

Dragon’s Dogma II is not the easiest game to turn into neat little portable chunks because travel can swallow a whole session. That said, handheld play can work well if you are disciplined about what kind of content you do there.

Good handheld tasks are short cave runs near a town, gear cleanup, pawn hiring, inn rests, vocation setup, and local monster hunts that don’t send you across the country. These are easy to pause, easy to resume, and don’t punish you if you only have 20 or 30 minutes.

Bad handheld tasks are long escort quests, major city intrigue chains where you need to remember who said what, and any trip that starts late in the in-game day and risks turning into a drawn-out night trek. Those are better when you have a proper block of time and can stay focused.

If you’re playing on a handheld PC, the stop-and-start nature actually makes selective side content even more important. You want quests with a clean beginning and end. Dragon’s Dogma II has plenty of those. You just have to ignore the ones that sprawl.

If you only have 20 minutes, do this

If you’ve got a short session, don’t start a new questline in Vernworth or Bakbattahl. Seriously. That’s how you end up stuck halfway through a conversation chain with no satisfying stopping point.

Instead, do one of these:

• Upgrade gear and reorganize inventory. Not glamorous, but it makes every later session better.
• Hire better pawns for your current area and level range.
• Clear a nearby cave or road encounter if you are already outside town.
• Advance a vocation unlock or maister-related objective if the next step is close.
• Use a Ferrystone to cash in progress instead of ending your session stranded in the wild.

If you have 45 to 60 minutes, that’s when a proper travel loop makes sense. Leave town with one destination, clear anything meaningful on the way, camp once if needed, and come back. That rhythm works. Trying to squeeze a multi-step political quest into a tiny session usually doesn’t.

The short version: skip the filler, keep the stories and systems that pay you back

Dragon’s Dogma II has good side content, but it does not have all-good side content. That’s the key thing to accept. If you try to be a completionist, the game will absolutely waste your time with errands, escorts, repetitive cave dives, and quest chains that lose steam halfway through.

Do the Sphinx. Prioritize vocation and maister content. Take monster hunts that naturally fit your route. Follow city questlines only as long as they are opening doors or staying interesting.

Skip most escorts. Skip low-value errands. Stop clearing every cave just because it’s there. Ignore affinity micromanagement unless you truly care.

This game is much better when you play it like a traveler with a purpose, not a janitor cleaning the map. Be picky. The best parts survive that approach just fine, and your free time will too.