Rage Quit No More: In-Depth Guide to Skipping/Solving the Infamous Fallout 4 "Best Left Forgotten" Quest

As a passionate Fallout franchise fan whose played over 500 hours of Fallout 4, I‘ve completed pretty much every quest the base game and DLCs have to offer…some more painfully than others.

Anyone who‘s played the Far Harbor expansion knows the notoriously brutal "Best Left Forgotten" questline. After excitement exploring the mysteries of Acadia, your dreams are dashed against the rocks navigating DiMA‘s glitchy memory puzzles. I can‘t count how many times I‘ve rage quit after yet another failed puzzle attempt!

But fear not fellow wanderers – in this guide, I‘ll share all my hard earned tips for making it through Best Left Forgotten without pulling out your hair. We‘ll cover:

• Just how nightmarishly bad the puzzles are
• Using console commands to completely skip puzzles
• What backstory/lore you‘ll miss by skipping
• Puzzle solutions plus tips to make them less impossible
• How your choices impact the DLC‘s endings

Strap in for the fully story on conquering Fallout 4‘s most irritating quest!

The Mind-Melting Frustration of DiMA‘s Memory Puzzles

After the twist reveal that DiMA has somehow erased portions of his past, you discover a hidden simulation lab underneath Acadia. This is where DiMA‘s lost memories have been offloaded for storage as data packets.

To access the memories you have to guide the packets through a digital maze, avoiding roaming enemies and blocked paths using tools like turrets, barricades and beam redirection cubes. Pretty cool right? It definitely piqued my interest on first entry!

But any excitement soon crumbled into abject frustration bordering on controller-throwing levels. Allow me to elaborate on just how torturously bad the memory puzzles are:

They‘re wickedly complex

These aren‘t your typical pipe dream or sudoku puzzles…the solutions often involve extremely unintuitive placement and orientation of tools. I pride myself on creative problem solving in games, but was fully stumped here. The complexity ratchets up exponentially in later memories too, so just when you‘re getting the hang of concepts, it switches them up.

The glitches are unreal

This might be the worst part. Even when you think you have a seamless solution pathway mapped out, the packets often get stuck, trapped behind invisible walls or clipped into surfaces. The coding is clearly busted in places – no amount of reloading or world exiting fixes it. Nothing like spending 30 minutes arranging a killer setup only to have it fail for no discernable reason!

It destroys pacing and tension

The urgency of investigating leads on the wind farm and nuke codes takes a nosedive. Spending ages in lifeless simulation environments leaves you checking your watch more than feeling captivated by the revelations within DiMA‘s memories. They could have structured delivery of the backstory better.

Frequent repetition sucks motivation

Since there‘s no mid-puzzle saving, a single failure means starting completely over…regathering all blocks, re-placing turrets etc. Having to repeat tedious setup multiples times had me questioning why I bother playing games at all!

So in summary, they took what could have been an awesome concept and executed it so poorly that it ruins the questline‘s momentum. Surely there must be a way skip this torture? ….and luckily there is!

Skip the Pain Using Console Commands

One workaround available on the PC version is using developer console commands to auto-complete the memory sections.

Here are the key console commands to skip the puzzles:

SetStage DLC03MQ04 150
SetStage DLC03MQ04 250 
SetStage DLC03MQ04 350
SetStage DLC03MQ04 450
SetStage DLC03MQ04 550

After entering these, the quest will proceed as if you finished each memory sequence. The key memory items will appear in your inventory ready for review. Then you can resume the main story progress.

Some warnings around using console commands:

• Achievements will be disabled for that game session
• Can break quest scripts if you input incorrect commands
• Make a separate hard save before using!

Still for me, it was a small price to pay to skip the mental anguish of wasted puzzles attempts crashing over and over.

That said, by skipping them you do lose out on some backstory lore and context for judging DiMA‘s actions later. Let‘s take a look…

What Lore You‘ll Miss By Skipping The Puzzles

Without completing the memory sequences, you miss various insights into DiMA‘s hidden past including:

• His early days gaining sentience and escaping the Institute
• Meeting the Nucleus zealots and founding Acadia as a refuge
• Creating Nick Valentine as his first fellow synth prototype
• His methods for removing his own memories
• Backstories for supporting characters like Faraday

Additionally, there may be important connective tissue between memories that aids fuller understanding. Jumping straight to the ending denies you a complete picture of pivotal events.

However, I personally wasn‘t compelled to dwell on DiMA‘s distant past when there were active threats in the present day still unsolved. And frankly after 4 or 5 failures, I was DONE analyzing his psyche!

For true devotees though, skipping means relegating DiMA to more of an archetypal villain role. Keeping his motivations shrouded robs emotional impact from the climax and conclusion.

Here‘s my take – exhaustion is worse than ignorance! But it‘s a judgement call depending on your engagement in the narrative layers.

Puzzle Solving Guide & Tips For The Determined

Alright, maybe you‘re a patient player willing to see the puzzles through for the story payoff. I certainly started out intending to unravel the mysteries!

While I ultimately gave up and console commanded my way out, here are some hard-fought tips for piecing together solutions yourself:

Start by gathering resources – The simulation layouts all have various tools like turrets, barricades and redirection cubes. Grab everything possible before attempting any building.

Analyze objectives before acting – The puzzles have distinct inputs like the data worm spawn points and output beam endpoints. Understand the start and end goals before blindly connecting blocks.

Build safe zones early – Use turrets and barriers to make safe paths for memory worms away from patrolling enemies. This protects your data packets.

Leaf-on-the-wind diagramming – Draw out relay block beam inputs and outputs while experimenting with layouts. This spatial reasoning helps avoid dead ends.

Save the most complex concepts – Some tools like rotation cubes are single use. Don‘t waste them early; they‘re likely key for later tricky traversals.

Brute force works too – While elegant efficient solutions exist, sometimes spamming blocks in the right general direction gets the job done!

One example of digging into the guts of a puzzle layout to analyze

With spatial awareness, technical logic and maybe a little luck, you can muscle through the memories. Stepping away for breaks often brings new insights too. I made more progress after resting than pulling my hair out!

That said, I can‘t guarantee smooth sailing even if you follow my guidance. The glitches may defy all attempts at sanity. If you feel yourself reaching the brink, don‘t hesitate to lean on those console crutches!

How Your Actions Shape the Far Harbor Endings

A final consideration around skipping the memory sequences is that they provide context for the endgame choices you face.

Minor spoilers ahead on general endings – skip this section to avoid!

After Best Left Forgotten, you have to judge DiMA‘s actions and decide to either:

1. Convince him to shut down/turn himself in
2. Expose his misdeeds back to the people of Far Harbor
3. Bury the secrets to keep a shaky peace

Each conclusion has moral shades-of-grey and leads to variations on the final outcome. Both Acadia‘s and Far Harbor‘s fates pivot heavily based on your perspective of DiMA.

With his history obscured, it may alter which faction you sympathize with more. The context shaped my judgements – without it, wars felt needless. But I played devil‘s advocate in my mind around keeping the reprehensible secrets buried too.

Either way it spirals, there‘s no rainbows and butterflies ending. Lots of destruction and death flags possible! But that‘s signature Fallout style I suppose…

Final Thoughts: Puzzles = Pain but Skipping = Missing Out

After many hours of play across multiple characters, I confidently believe employing Fallout 4‘s console commands to skip the Best Left Forgotten puzzles is perfectly reasonable.

The shift to pure logic challenges wrecks momentum compared to other quests. And the rewards for enduring multiple failures feels light considering the frustration payoff ratio.

BUT…if you have a high tolerance for opaque sim puzzles and desire every granular story detail, pushing through manually has value. Glitches and repetition agony aside, reaching the satisfying conclusions of each memory by your cunning alone offers a mighty rush!

At the end of the day playstyle priorities determine what path works best. Now armed with puzzle tips AND the console skip option, getting stuck on Best Left Forgotten never has to halt your adventures through the dangerous but phenomenal world of Fallout again!