Seeing discussions around Nioh, and previously on Crosscode.
For Nioh, and other loot heavy games like Diablo, Path of Exile, and Borderlands, tons and tons of RNG loot flooding my inventory is super annoying. Like, I know I can and should just trash/sell/break-down all non-rare items, but the constant pings and busywork of it all just stresses me out and makes me anxious.
Same think with rampant sidequests. Lots of openworld games do this, arguably most open world games. But Crosscode specifically was a game I liked the gameplay of a lot, but dropped because of constant sidequests.
And for both of these, I know its dumb on a certain level to just drop games for 'optional' mechanics. Like, the obvious thing to do in Crosscode was just skip sidequesting and focus on beating the game. But just, something about doing that, about not playing '''optimally''' or w/e I just hate. And since I play games to have fun and de-stress, I just stop playing those games instead, and have learned to just skip games that look cool, but have some of these 'features' that I know will stress me out and be a fun killer.
Is this relatable to anyone here?
I definitely feel this when I play Bethesda games. Skyrim will flood your inventory with useless weapons and armor and jewelry if you don't exercise restraint and refuse to loot anything other than the big treasure chests, and your quest log will quickly become saturated even if you only care about the main quest because couriers keep bringing you letters and random NPCs will forcegreet you and start their quest. I don't want to narc on some redguard woman even if the guys looking for her have curved swords!
Fallout 4 here to let you know another settlement is under attack for the 200th fucking time!
I actually completed FO4 in about a week because I ran out of stuff to do. Skyrim took me something like 5 years because I'd keep getting burnt out and then making a new character when I came back to it.
For me I fall into the Skyrim and Morrowind modding hole alongside FNV modding, then I lose interest and delete all of it and then start it up again months later
The last time I tried getting a Skyrim playthrough going I spent two weeks picking mods and then played it for a few hours :yea:
Reaching the final boss with 20 elixirs, 9 megaelixirs, and 7 items that stop time for one turn :stalin-approval:
Yeah, on top of my other comments here, I've come to hugely value short games. Like, I did enjoy Elden Ring, but dawg, I ain't got time for 100 hr games. Compared to like, Portal, who's only 'flaw' is taking like 5 hrs to beat? I'll prefer the 5 hr game most of the time.
30 hours is the perfect runtime for an RPG - beyond that point, I usually get bored and start playing something else. Also movies should shouldn't be longer than an hour and 42 minutes.
Another scar of growing up in poverty tbh
I know that feel. I even have a little money now IRL, but I'm so broken from poverty that I can't even spend it on things that I want.
Yes and thats why i never play without my trusty cheat engine running in the background. I pretty much always have something enabled to skip around annoying/boring game mechanics. I just don't have time anymore for that stuff.
Played through persona on emulator specifically so I could go through the 'dungeons' at 3x speed
yeah this stuff sucks so much fun out of game. Dont make me micromanage piles of loot, especially if the game is too easy to make me use it.
I love poring over heaps of loot, but I am extremely good at ignoring sidequests.
Yeah 100%. Past few years I fell way into Japanese RPGs > Western RPGs because it just gets overwhelming. In a lot of the better JRPGs, all side quests feel like they exist for a purpose. If you get a new weapon, its a BIG deal (usually only one or two new weapons per "section" of the game per character). Played through the entire Trails series during covid explicitly because loot RPGs were turning me off.
Very very relatable to me. In general, I refuse to play games that have RNG loot now. I refuse to play Ubisoft style open worlds for the same reasons you fell off CrossCode (and is the exact reason I fell off CrossCode, a game I enjoyed).
I don't think I can play another big Western AAA open world game. Everyone loves ghost of Tsushima but I was so bored by that one, just wave after wave of easy enemies with boring loot.
Got through the first island. When I saw the second (bigger) island open up, I quit the game and haven't touched it since.
CrossCode is a bit of an odd case because it was developed in order alongside early access, so the early-game sidequests are some of the first content developed for the game and it shows. This unintentionally trains the player to ignore sidequests, but the mid-late game sidequests were developed after feedback that the sidequests were boring, so nearly every sidequest from the third area onwards (after most people have just stopped doing them) has some sort of optional boss with unique mechanics, a mini-dungeon or some other type of setpiece/minigame. Great for people involved in the process, but the blind playthrough experience results in many people just missing a lot of content because of course you're going to assume the sidequests in the first area are more or less representative of the rest of the game.
Honestly I hate repetitive time sink games (it's why I liked the uncharted series and last of us because though they were long it never felt overdone and was something that could be completed over the course of a week). I look at lost modern RPGs and see endless grindsets (modern assassins creed post syndicate for instance is a fresh kind of endless grindy hell).
I don't mind grinds in games where playing the game is itself part of the payoff. Like, I loathe idle games, but I'll happily spend hours zoning out and farming in Warframe because I fucking love the combination of mobility/melee/guns/magic.
I think Warframe is one of the few free to play games that understands that good game play and mechanics keeps player engagement. For me it's more the endless side-quest generators and unlock towers ubisoft mechanics that just feel meh after the 10th time.
Yeah I get it a bit. There's sort of an unspoken contract between the player and the game in regards to how the game ought to be played, etc. that's partially the fault of the game developer and partially the player's own ideas. The game spamming you with side quests feels like it's saying "you want to do these, they're important because you see them first-thing in the menu, etc. etc.". So when games emphasize or spam you with stuff like that or rare gear I get the same sort of anxious annoyance at it. Games that give you a completion percentage (especially when it's above 100%) and also the gold/silver/bronze trophy or 1/2/3 star ratings on missions too. I don't know who's satisfied with just getting the silver/2-star ratings it seems like people would either accept the bare minimum to progress or want the top-tier option as a point of excellence. Never seen a game actually utilize ratings like that effectively where you can decide your own goals outside of Zachtronics games where they give you multiple stats that you can choose to care about after each puzzle.
Me - still having not finished Death Stranding despite playing it for 2 months at this point, because I have a pathological need to get 5 stars with every prepper/waystation before I come across before continuing the story.
The lvl 3 Stabilizer upgrade is so worth it tho I fly down mountains now
