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Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or maybe because there’s so many games competing for my attention, or maybe because I feel like I’ve seen it all…whatever the reason, it’s really hard for me to play games to completion nowadays. Basically, the thought that’ll usually precede me uninstalling game is “I’ve played this before in another game”. Notable exceptions in recent memory are Cruelty Squad, Death Stranding, Prey, RE:7 (my first resident evil game). Lately, paradox games have been my bread and butter because even though the patterns and godawful UIs are familiar, they’re still like crack for me. Couldn’t get myself to finish RE:8, Nier Automatica, Horizon Zero Dawn, RDR2, Sunset Overdrive, just to name a few recently. I dunno what it is goons, these games are supposedly great but they just ain’t cranking the hog for me anymore. What are your experiences, fellow Games posters?
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# ? Feb 3, 2022 20:33 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 21:09 |
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Games that are puzzle heavy, or requires a lot of exploration with little to no direction of where to go, will turn me off them quickly. Lots of mechanics that slow down the gameplay/pacing, and happen too often, will also cause me to lose interest. My attention span is much shorter as I have gotten older. Things I use to tolerate or not see as an issue, are now a huge issue for me.
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# ? Feb 3, 2022 21:13 |
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cmon surely more of you gamers have this issue, it just cant me me and come in.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 03:33 |
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Yeah I get the same thing now I'm in my 30s. I struggled to finish quite a few games. I sort of put it down one evening and just never go back.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 03:37 |
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I have the same issue, though seemingly for different reasons than you. For me there usually needs to be either a strong narrative motivation for me to finish a game or exceptionally fun gameplay (the latter is very rare, since there needs to be the right balance of ease and challenge - only recent examples I can think of are Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-man, and those games also had a decent narrative element). Basically a game needs to be the game equivalent of a "page-turner" novel. So I actually *could* finish Nier Automata (because I really wanted to find out about the plot/setting, and found the combat both easy and fun enough that it didn't frustrate me or make me bored), but haven't been able to finish Death Stranding and am 99% sure I'd feel the same about a game like Prey (because "challenging gameplay with lots of player freedom" is basically poison to me finishing something even if it's the sort of thing I see most goons praise - I'll sort of intellectually acknowledge that the game is good, but can't get enough enjoyment out of it to keep playing).
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 04:27 |
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buglord posted:
These are all basically the same game. The only 3rd person actiony game I've managed to sink a lot of time into in a while is Valheim. e. 3rd person and 1st person action games are derivative as gently caress and if you've been playing games for more than a decade or two there's nothing really new to see in those genres.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 04:30 |
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:e. 3rd person and 1st person action games are derivative as gently caress and if you've been playing games for more than a decade or two there's nothing really new to see in those genres. This is basically my feeling on that genre. Maybe it’s less about me being burnt out with games in general more that the 3rd person/first person action/action rpg genre feels like it really hasn’t evolved much since like…2010 in my mind. It’s a genre I’ve historically loved but now I’m kinda pushed into the arms of paradox menu games.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 04:57 |
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It's pretty rare for a game to get more than an hour out of me. Looking at my purchase history from October of last year until today, I bought 25 games on Steam and refunded 20 of them. Of the 5 games I kept, I stopped playing 3 of them after about 3 hours, and the other two are EA games that won't be better than their prequels for a long time yet. Most of the games I'm into are open-ended or run-based and don't have a defined ending to the game. The last game with a defined endpoint I can remember beating is Superhot VR which was 6 years ago and before that it was Dark Souls 2 (8 years ago) and before that the first XCOM reboot (10 years ago). I can't fathom the idea that people actually beat most or many of the games that they play because structured games like that don't remain interesting to me long enough to play them all the way through. By the time I've seen and accustomed myself to all of a game's mechanics and feel like I've 'solved' its major mechanical challenges I lose interest. If I'm into the plot or characters at that point I'll go read spoilers on a wiki, but I'm not generally in to games that have plots or characters in the first place - my ADHD is far too severe for me to care about dialog in games, I just want to poke at interactive things and figure out how to climb over obstacles and learn how to chump the toughest enemies. I can get really into a game's plot for the first hour or two but after that I skip every bit of dialog, every instructional screen, every cutscene, etc. I'm the guy who never talks to his party members back at camp in an RPG. RPGs hold my interest until I experiment with character builds a bit and know how to build an overpowered character, colony sims and city builders hold my interest until I've unlocked and messed around with all the building types and did a little theorizing about best placements, multiplayer games keep me interested until I start to feel confident about my ability to win and then I feel like there's no point, action games keep me interested until the combat clicks and then I'm bored. Once I know the best layouts or best routes or how to make it through the level or what builds are OP, there's nothing left for me to gain from the game. I don't really feel like it's a waste of time or anything because I've been able to distill it down enough to figure out what things are engaging for me in games (like theorizing and executing character builds, learning characters' movesets, figuring out what weapon is exploitably overpowered, etc.) and I can just vampirically leech those things out of a game then move on to the next one, and it's still fun for me. I like challenging myself to jump into a brand new game I know nothing about and see how quickly I can get it all to click. And since I spend such little time with most games, Steam's refund policy makes it a virtually free hobby Games that I spend a lot of time with are generally games that do a good job of constantly delivering the distilled things I enjoy in games (Total Warhammer series - building armies to counter opponents, cinematic spectacle in battles, fairly easy/low-stress on sane difficulties so I can play it half-heartedly while doing other things) or games with a high novelty value where you can never really predict what's about to happen (Rimworld, Synthetik, heavily RNG-skewed games like x-com, 'collectathon' strategy games like Battletech)
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 05:19 |
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Here are my secrets to finishing almost every game I buy (not counting the crap I try on Gamepass for an hour): - Buy something at full price or close to release so that there's some energy for the product and you actually feel invested in finishing it. - Only buy games that engage you on some level aesthetically, if it looks like total crap to you then it's going to be visually exhausting to play. - Don't follow goon recommendations blindly, only you can know yourself and some random assholes on the internet aren't going to solve it for you. - Buy maybe only a few games a year and give yourself spots on the calendar to look forward to. Allow yourself the pleasure of getting hype. This will hopefully give you the drive and motivation to finish games. Like you I don't enjoy the sensation of leaving stuff unfinished, so I'd rather play 60bux on a game I know I'll probably enjoy rather than 3 games on sale that are less certain and nobody is talking about anymore.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 15:12 |
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I feel like my brain was broken in 2002 and I can only enjoy games that play like Diablo. But I also don't like that about myself and want to get out of that mindset. So yeah op, I would say more often than not games fail to hold my interest. Especially with limited time being a parent of a toddler and working a non-wfh job. Exquisite Tea has a good idea there in not taking goon advice, unless it's like a gamepass game you can mess around with and see for yourself. I also do find myself investing more time into games I actually purchase, although on the switch I fell into a trap of buying all sorts of crap on sale and playing an hour or two. Sad!
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 16:03 |
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Same OP, there are so many games vying for attention it's rare that I'm still playing one a couple weeks after I've started it.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 16:07 |
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I'm finding that the games I end up sinking tons of time into these days are the ones that allow me to do it one discrete chunk at a time. Thinking about actually starting up a new game, being introduced to a new story, going through another new quest log or whatever bullshit, and being committed to 40 hours of gameplay really does just kind of turn me off at this point. Meanwhile, I'll spend hundreds of hours on Binding of Isaac or Dota because I can do it one 30-40 minute run at a time and not feel like I need to immerse myself in it, or like I'm going to "lose my place" if I drop the game for too long. I described Isaac to a friend as my evening wind-down game, and he said that didn't make any sense because it's not exactly a chill/low-anxiety game, but somehow in my head it does.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 16:14 |
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My backlog is stupid between my steam, ps4 and switch. I'll give a game 30mins to hold my attention or I'll move to the next in a vain attempt to finish anything. To make it worse my favorite games are sandboxs like Cities: Skylines, Crusader Kings 3, No Man's Sky, Animal Crossing, GTA Online. I really, really want to finish Nier: Automata, Persona Strikers, Death Stranding, Yakuza 0 but Ghost of Tsushima has been amazing, enjoyed RE8 since I could beat it in like 8 hours, trying to finish Dark Souls 3 with my friends. Nier keeps getting pushed further down the pile as time goes on. Same with like 90% of my steam library with all the $5 purchases over several years. No Man's Sky is practically always on my ps4. Know it's a shallow game compared to space trucking in Elite: Dangerous or space politicking in EVE, but it maintains a soothing vibe when I need to clear my head and feels like Animal Crossing where I can do whatever I want with little to no resistance. Don't plan on buying a ps5 or any new system till I can knock some of these out. Thing is, every game I have is one I genuinely want to experience. Just figure it'll take me several years lol
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 18:18 |
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If I start something and get to where I feel like I can envision the full scope of the gameplay loop, and the thought of doing that for x more hours doesn't appeal to me, I'll just put it down and not even feel bad
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 18:31 |
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For me, most games don't catch my interest in the first place. I only try maybe 15-20 games a year, but the ones I get will mostly be played to completion. Maybe it's easier since I have MMO brain and most of my gaming time goes to that, but I just generally don't feel inclined to play something unless it's a standout.
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 18:40 |
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I don' wanna talk about it My attention span is godawful, but I usually always finish a game even if it takes me years. One of the worst case I can give you is FF12 where it took me 10 years to finish its main quest on ps2. Bonby fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Feb 4, 2022 |
# ? Feb 4, 2022 20:38 |
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I have a hard time starting any RPG these days. Either they're very slow to start and have alot of tutorials to slog through, or I have to create a character and oh god there's too many options I have choice paralysis. What if I pick a gimp build and didn't realize it until halfway through the game?
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# ? Feb 4, 2022 22:03 |
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Open world games do this to me. I might be enjoying a game, but too many side things make me lose focus and eventually interest. This happened with Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Genshin Impact and a few other games. I'm also unable to stay on the treadmill on an MMO and usually go on extended hiatus until more story content comes out (though to be fair, this is probably a good thing.) The types of games that keep my interest are either roguelites, 4x games/paradox games, turn-based strategy games and non open-world RPGs.
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# ? Feb 5, 2022 06:40 |
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It happens to me more often than I'd like, but that's in large part because I don't have as many consistent blocks of time I can devote to longer session games like rpgs, so I tend to stick to shorter run based forever games like Warframe or Genshin or Monster Hunter or fighting games. "Not having the time" is also kind of a cop out though, because I know I end up playing some of those run-based games long enough to do appreciable progress in a longer game, so it's ultimately just a matter of breaking a habit. Something that does kind of kill things for me is what I am already noticing in Valheim which I just picked up today. I'll have some objective like just getting to build cool stuff, but the amount of preamble to that rapidly grows before I even get to that point.
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# ? Feb 5, 2022 07:02 |
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exquisite tea posted:Here are my secrets to finishing almost every game I buy (not counting the crap I try on Gamepass for an hour): like I hate lovely smeared pixel-art junk, so i dont buy those games. i'm also tired of most ubisoft-made games, so i dont play them either because they're very tedious and boring to me these days. If it doesnt look good, dont buy it. no i shant be hearing about teleglitch or whatever is actually good, i'm not playing it. I also don't like 4x games so I dont buy those either. the real secret is buying a game while the zeitgeist is hot and striking the iron instead of just loving off buying it on sale 50% later and then just never playing it because its been on your wishlist so long you've forgotten about it but compulsively bought it anyways. likewise i've probably played a lot of random game-pass games just because they came out (like The Goop) but probably wouldn't have bothered later. in 2021 ive beat Inscryption, Highfleet, Outer Wilds dlc, Bright Memory, Deathpoop, GRIME, Death's Door, Ender lilies, Cruelty squad, Loop Hero, Valheim*, Dyson Sphere program, Psychonauts 2, Creeper world 4, Subnautica bz, Boyfriend Dungeon, The Goop, Orcs Must Die 3, The Assscent, and RE: Village. most (but not all) of them all good and bought at launch (or close to it). if i bought some of them 2 years from now on sale and just ended up in a generic pile I probably wouldn't have bothered to finish several of them (like deathloop or asscent).
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# ? Feb 6, 2022 13:43 |
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When you think about it the biggest power move you can perform on a videogame is to stop playing right before the final boss. Certainly has happened to me a few times since fatigue sometimes sets in when I think "Well, I should really finish a lot of these sidequests before committing to the finale"
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# ? Feb 6, 2022 14:44 |
I've noticed in the way I play games, that I either just completely click with a game and then play it to completion in a relatively short time, or I lose interest a couple of hours in and either never come back to the game, or only do it sporadically. Having some sort of break in the middle of a longer game also usually means I have a hard time returning to it - the best example being DMC 5, I think. I love the game and the series, but the first time I started playing it, I had controller issues at the moment and shelved the game after a couple of levels, waiting until I'd fix them. After I fixed them, I've sporadically returned to it, always playing a level or two and enjoying it, but then just dropping it for months. Something similar happened with DOOM (2016), I played it a bunch and enjoyed it a lot when I got it, then at around halfway point I took a break as I had some flu or something, and then I just never got back to it. I've tried to return to it later, but starting from the middle of where I was felt silly, and replaying the earlier levels felt a bit like a chore, so the end result is that I've never actually finished a game I feel like is 9/10. I just remembered I took a break from La Mulana 2 for a weekend once, and then never played it again. That makes me feel sad, I had put in 27 hours at that point, but I just didn't return to it after that despite the fact I really liked the game. There are some games that I can return to despite taking months long breaks, Apex Legends, Path of Exile, Beacon, Dead Cells, Dirty Bomb (rip that game's servers) and Team Fortress 2 being the ones I've been able to return to despite long breaks. There was like a five year break in TF2 once, but I still ended up returning to it for a couple of months, and I've booted up the game sporadically since. Its just easier to return to multiplayer games or roguelites/roguelikes than anything else for me, although if I feel like a game is 'done' for me, like Hades, even if there would still be content there, I have a hard time returning. I've also noticed a habit of playing several 'backlog' games at once when I don't have a game that clicks going on at the moment, often complimented by one of those few games I do keep returning to. Like in the last few months I've been playing a bunch of games from Humble Bundles I've bought years back, old games from Steam sales and so on - and its likely that the next time there's a game that really 'clicks', I'll stop playing most of them for good unless the game is only like 10 hours long, anything that takes more than a weekend is going to completely sideline those games. A good recent example is actually from December, I was playing Trials of Fire and liking it, went to visit family during Christmas, bought Ace Attorney-trilogy, and then I just played that for more than a week after I returned, and I haven't opened Trials of Fire since, instead opting for random backlog games. I'm also keenly aware that the small bunch of backlog games I'm playing right now will all be sidelined for good next week most likely, as next Apex season launches and I'll play mostly that for a week or so, before the next set of backlog games comes to supplement it.
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# ? Feb 6, 2022 14:47 |
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Emberfox posted:Open world games do this to me. I might be enjoying a game, but too many side things make me lose focus and eventually interest. This happened with Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Genshin Impact and a few other games. I'm also unable to stay on the treadmill on an MMO and usually go on extended hiatus until more story content comes out (though to be fair, this is probably a good thing.) I think this is far more understandable (and common) with open-world games, since they are stuffed so full of repetitive content. These games ask more of you in terms of time invested than, say, a smaller linear indie game with that doesn't have a bunch of non-story content. 22% of players finished Red Dead Redemption 2's epilogue. 30% of players finished the main story quest in Horizon: Zero Dawn. 23% of players finished The Witcher 3. 16% of Fallout 4 players reached one of the four endings.
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# ? Feb 6, 2022 15:37 |
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Completion percentages are kind of imperfect metric to measure overall engagement because a majority of players fail to finish ANYTHING. Streets of Rage 4 for instance has only 47% completion for the final boss, and it takes maybe 90 minutes to clear every stage. You also tend to see completion rates go down over time as the games go on deep discounts, picking up a ton of low engagement buyers. Which just reinforces my own theory that people should stop scooping up a whole bunch of poo poo on sale and just buy what they want to play right now if they'd ever like to finish it.
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# ? Feb 6, 2022 15:44 |
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My attention span with games is amazingly fickle at times, and my overall completion rate is undeniably low. It's rarely a problem of me not being interested in this game specifically, it's more of an issue of being more interested in some other game. At least the majority of what I'm playing these days is either the odd small indie titles or under the radar games from the GCN/PS2/Xbox era and back, so at least the price on my wallet isn't as bad as it could be. I lost interest in modern AAA titles in general during the WiiU/PS4/XBone release year. These days, the only ones I really look to are mainline Zelda games and Soulsborne stuff. Srice posted:When you think about it the biggest power move you can perform on a videogame is to stop playing right before the final boss. Did that recently myself with Fae Tactics, but did eventually go back to beat it. I should also probably go back and beat BotW someday.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 01:50 |
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Totally in the same boat, OP. The older I get, the less patience I have for games that don’t grab my attention from the start. That’s why I only get new games on sale- then I don’t feel bad about abandoning them. Off the top of my head - I bounced off dishonored and control - the story didn’t seem too interesting and the gameplay loop wasn’t super engaging. Both of those titles are very highly reviewed and liked by a ton of people, but they just weren’t for me. On the other hand, I loved doom eternal, and I’m currently playing through Disco Elysium. And I always go back to team fortress 2.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 05:16 |
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This happens to me all the time, it's why in a year I'll be lucky to finish even like 2/3 games. The habit seems to be that I'll buy whatever the newest game is that's out (did it yesterday with Dying Light 2), I'll play it for a couple days (usually just the weekend) and then get tired of it and never play it again.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 05:34 |
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To me, there's a distinction between "This game doesn't hold my interest like it once did" and "I keep starting and not finishing things". For the former, yeah, I've gone through that experience with games (and books, and movies) in my 30s. Things that used to pass the bare minimum threshhold to hold my interest just don't anymore. I used to really like JRPGs a whole lot but now 90% are intolerable wastes of time, for example. I also realized that virtually no game has a narrative good enough for that to be the reason I play it-- I'd always rather read a book or watch a movie so I stopped trying games like that finally. Actually, in the past year or two I started skipping dialogue and cutscenes and my enjoyment of many games skyrocketed. Game writing is poo poo and a waste of time. But I also think there's this thing some people do (I've done it myself) where there's so many games coming out with buzz that they have to try them all and naturally don't finish. And regardless of game quality, there's a definite unsatisfying, exhausting element to this. I consciously avoid doing it and I finish plenty of games and have more fun gaming overall. Goons mention in multiple threads all the big games coming out this month like they have to play every single one in February. Pick one and play the others later. Kill the FOMO (in all things!)
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 18:11 |
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I'd heard for years and years about how amazingly good The Witcher 3 is as a game. I'd had it on my Steam wishlist and a couple years ago it finally dropped to like $14 on a sale. Oh I was so stoked, finally it would be my turn to experience one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Well I bought it and installed it and started it and immediately felt this enormous wave of apathy wash over me as I realized I would need to commit to learning and getting good at a whole enormous system of combat and armors and potions or whatever. I just felt so acutely that I didn't have the mental energy to Get Good at all of this new stuff. So I stopped playing after getting through the tutorial and making it to the very first hamlet. Didn't even do a side quest. Maybe one day I'll try again.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 18:34 |
buglord posted:Couldn’t get myself to finish RE:8, Nier Automatica, Horizon Zero Dawn, RDR2, Sunset Overdrive, just to name a few recently. I dunno what it is goons, these games are supposedly great but they just ain’t cranking the hog for me anymore.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 18:51 |
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Alhazred posted:I honestly feel that big open world games feels kinda intimidating. But at the same time they induce a weird sense of fomo, at least if you're tuned into reading threads or consuming whatever gaming journalism you find palatable.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 19:21 |
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I thought I was starting to hate open world games but then I started playing stalker again and now I think it's just that most modern stuff is kind of bland. There's a tendency to use qtes and one hit kill buttons that play fatality animations in place of engaging gameplay in everything now and it just kind of sucks.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 19:24 |
External Organs posted:But at the same time they induce a weird sense of fomo, at least if you're tuned into reading threads or consuming whatever gaming journalism you find palatable. Absolutely. I honestly dreaded starting AssCreed: Odyssey because it was so huge, then I discovered that I've spent over 100 hours playing it.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 20:06 |
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I actually find open world games can maintain my interest better than more linear games. There's constantly something to distract you and nothing demands more than five or ten minutes of your time so I find it easy to get into the groove of clearing off those map markers and before I know it the whole afternoon is gone. If a game has me in the same mission for an hour or more then I'm probably going to be ready to quit for the day once it's done and I'll have a harder time working up the enthusiasm to start it back up again later.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 20:30 |
How are u posted:I'd heard for years and years about how amazingly good The Witcher 3 is as a game. I'd had it on my Steam wishlist and a couple years ago it finally dropped to like $14 on a sale. Oh I was so stoked, finally it would be my turn to experience one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Well I bought it and installed it and started it and immediately felt this enormous wave of apathy wash over me as I realized I would need to commit to learning and getting good at a whole enormous system of combat and armors and potions or whatever. I just felt so acutely that I didn't have the mental energy to Get Good at all of this new stuff. that reminds me I dropped Witcher 3 in the final dlc for no clear reason. Just arbitrarily decided "I'll take a small break to play other games", and two years later, I have not opened the game again.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 20:33 |
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How are u posted:I'd heard for years and years about how amazingly good The Witcher 3 is as a game. I'd had it on my Steam wishlist and a couple years ago it finally dropped to like $14 on a sale. Oh I was so stoked, finally it would be my turn to experience one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Well I bought it and installed it and started it and immediately felt this enormous wave of apathy wash over me as I realized I would need to commit to learning and getting good at a whole enormous system of combat and armors and potions or whatever. I just felt so acutely that I didn't have the mental energy to Get Good at all of this new stuff.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 20:40 |
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I’m also having a rare bout of success with Psychonauts 2. What’s keeping me playing is how cute and refreshing the story/world is. It’s also legitimately funny, which I think is only possible because it’s rated T and can’t resort to shock humor. Anyway I’m glad I made this thread because I seriously thought I was alone in this incredibly first world issue.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 20:48 |
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Some games that people think are amazing are just boring OP. Simple as
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 20:49 |
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For me as an adult, my IRL gamer buddies are now 0, so a lot of games that I had fun in the past with a group like fighting games aren't interesting for me. I still buy them for some reason. It's also a reason I don't play a lot of my older games because I get sentimental that X and Y or Z aren't around to enjoy a good Silent Hill 2 run. It's probably why I watch too much Twitch these days. There are games that I really want to play day 1 full $60 ahead but those are only a few times a year.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 21:22 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 21:09 |
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I have ADD so yeah, it's not great sometimes. Even with a wide selection of games that people think are very good, I'll find a bunch boring. Luckily, I have thousands of games to choose from so I can always fine one that isn't boring me, plus these days I'm more aware what kind of game is bound to bore me and I don't even play those anymore. Basically everything turn based has gone out the window, I can't do them anymore they bore me too much. I more have an issue with commitment, I don't like finishing games (it makes me sad). I literally have around 50 games right now that are within 30 minutes to an hour of being finished and I just don't want to, because if I do I won't play them again. Even though I'm not playing them again anyways.
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# ? Feb 7, 2022 21:25 |