Current Events > It's hard for me to enjoy open world games anymore. Afraid to miss stuff.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been playing games since the NES like a lot of the people here. There's been something I've noticed though as games evolve more and I get older and it's that I can't really play an open world game anymore without a map showing me stuff. I never used to have this problem but I noticed it first with Elden Ring and now Tears of the Kingdom. I can't just play the game. I'm so afraid of missing a cool weapon or armor that I have to find all the caves and hidden treasure areas.

Or on more open games, but maybe not an open world type thing like FF14 I will make these super unrealistic goals for myself that I never have any hope of achieving like having to collect all the triple triad cards or forcing myself to have classes at max level while working on an expansion (example: I wanted one class at 50 by the end of 2.0, 2 at 60 by the end of 3.0, 4 at 70 by the end of 4.0, etc. No idea why I made that goal but it just randomly became a goal that I was doing. It takes away from the fun of the actual game.

I know some people will just call it getting 100 percent or being a perfectionist but that has NEVER been me and I am finding it a lot harder to enjoy games nowadays.

why can't I just play a game and not care if I miss shit like I did back in the day?

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

why can't I just play a game and not care if I miss shit like I did back in the day?

One half of it is game companies explicitly exploiting psychology and addiction to keep you in the game longer. The other half of it is you just not valuing your own time.

I'm kind of the opposite of you, where I used to try to complete everything 100%. Then I realized that I was missing out on a lot of really good games because I was spending all my time grinding in mediocre ones, so I started to compare playing games to buy a movie ticket. As long as I got more value out of the game that I would have going to the movie, I can comfortably move on from the game and say I got my money's worth. If a game is incredible, I keep playing. If I get 5 or 10 hours in and realize I'm not having fun, I drop it.

Now, for some people that could get expensive, but I've offset that by mostly playing indie games on steam that I wait for when they go 50% off. So rather than trying to 100% something like gears of War 5, instead I end up playing three really well crafted indie titles for the a smaller dollar amount and end up getting way more out of it.

I've learned to not give a crap about everything in game. I look at guides and shit to see what'll make me OP and just go for that now.

Well, for most of these newer games, there's nothing permanently missable. So you're not really MISSING anything. You just haven't gone to pick it up yet. I find them fun to explore at my own pace, and look around on my own thoroughly. And then at the end of all that if I still think I may have missed something I'll use a wiki or guide to clean up anything else. Then it's just a matter of going to where the thing was and picking it up. These games are big and you can spend weeks on them - but I enjoy that. I'm looking for excuses to keep playing games I enjoy.

Back when open world games could be completed 100% in abiut 60 hours I cared. Now that it takes 100+, I quit caring. Just let me max out my relationship with one or two party members that I like, and get me some cool looking armor and then I'm ready for the end.

Like for GTA3, I never cared for those racing missions.

Maybe I just need to force myself not to have the map up. Slap my own hand every time I reach for my phone.

Like in TOTK the last three times I've played it's just been running around getting every Korok. Why? No clue. I don't need all the weapon/shield/bow slots, I probably have enough for the rest of the game.

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

Maybe I just need to force myself not to have the map up. Slap my own hand every time I reach for my phone.

Like in TOTK the last three times I've played it's just been running around getting every Korok. Why? No clue. I don't need all the weapon/shield/bow slots, I probably have enough for the rest of the game.

Got to get the most out of that purchase, yo. Ninty games are wicked expensive.

Also, keeping the Korok nonsense in TotK is nothing but a grievous sin.
Who actually had fun doing the same 5 "puzzles" over and over?

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

Slap my own hand every time I reach for my phone.

Definitely do this. A game that requires you to constantly look at guides is a bad game, imo. That isnt to say I dont occasionally look up how to get a collectible I cant find, but if its constant its no fun.

As someone who just put Tactics Ogre: Reborn on hold because I was pissed that I missed recruiting a character I very much wanted because I didn't go to the right random village in the exact weather during the exact window of time, open-world is not the genre that always seems to screw me over with this level of missable bullshit.

masterpug53 posted...

As someone who just put Tactics Ogre: Reborn on hold because I was pissed that I missed recruiting a character I very much wanted because I didn't go to the right random village in the exact weather during the exact window of time, it never seems to be open-world games that screw me over with this level of missable bullshit.

It's weird, I don't concern myself with that. And I have a save game going in that, although It's only a few battles in. I could care less about missing a character there.

The_Yahtz09 posted...

Definitely do this. A game that requires you to constantly look at guides is a bad game, imo. That isnt to say I dont occasionally look up how to get a collectible I cant find, but if its constant its no fun.

It isn't even that the game requires it, it's this self imposed roadblock I've put on myself and I don't know why. Sure there might be the occasional quest I need to look up that I've been stuck on but I've always needed to do that.

I guess it isn't even an open world game problem either.... I was playing FF6 a week or two ago since I bought the Pixel Remasters. That's a game I have played and beat a half dozen times and know my way through. But I had to have a guide up to follow along with and I DID notice shit that I never knew about like a Ribbon in S Figaro during Locke's scenario but why would I get a little anxiety not using one? It's weird.

You just need to force yourself not to use a guide for a while, and that feeling should go away. The guides have become a habit for you, so you need to break it. If you legitimately force yourself to not use a guide for 2-3 weeks of consistent gaming, I bet you wont even miss it after that.

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

Maybe I just need to force myself not to have the map up. Slap my own hand every time I reach for my phone.

Like in TOTK the last three times I've played it's just been running around getting every Korok. Why? No clue. I don't need all the weapon/shield/bow slots, I probably have enough for the rest of the game.

I plan on scouring the land for Koroks after I've done pretty much everything else. For now I just wander around and interact with whats in front of me. Low hanging fruit and quests plus whatever I see along the way. Finishing Koroks is one of the last "completion" thing to do and also probably the biggest. I'll get what I get on the way through every other thing.

masterpug53 posted...

As someone who just put Tactics Ogre: Reborn on hold because I was pissed that I missed recruiting a character I very much wanted because I didn't go to the right random village in the exact weather during the exact window of time, open-world is not the genre that always seems to screw me over with this level of missable bullshit.

Tactics Ogre has a mechanic to go back in the story mode

BlackOmnimon posted...

Tactics Ogre has a mechanic to go back in the story mode

I know, and that helped temper my frustration. I'm still miffed about it though, and it's really hard to make excuses for what I would almost describe as a Zodiac Spear-level missable in terms of being convoluted (especially in a game that's been 'rebalanced' and rereleased at least twice now).