Compulsive item hoarding. I’ll go through a JRPG without ever touching the highest level healing items, no matter how badly I might have needed them along the way. It makes the overall experience worse because I’m stuck punishing myself to “play better” instead of just eating the mega-potion or whatever. I don’t even know when this started, maybe Pokemon like mentioned above. In Mass Effect 2 there was a nuke heavy weapon that I took on every mission but never used. In some respects items like that feel more like cheating to me than cheesing the AI or something does, so I avoid them.
In stealth games, I’ll save-scum to go through the game optimally. Being seen is the same as dying, I might as well start over. I think this stems back into item hoarding, because in most stealth games you’re quite limited in the tools at your disposal, if not completely than at least early on. That and a lot of stealth focused games tend to have awful combat, whether on purpose or not. So I’ll sneak through like a ghost and if I get caught I’ll reload the entire mission if need be. I have a hell of time living with my consequences in games, which is really terrible because it means I miss out on a ton of really awesome games and experiences. I’ve heard Austin sing the praises of Invisible Inc. but its a game I’ll probably never actually play because fucking up just eats away at me. Its a huge bummer.
It’s so hard to actively reject unappetizing content that’s under the same umbrella as really amazing stuff!
Or actually, what’s worse is content that you know will be great, but you’re currently playing on a different wavelength. Struggling with The Witcher 3, sometimes I just want to go on a string of Gwent quests, but as long as I’m already in a particular area, I might as well clear out the bounties and monster nests and treasure and sidequests of the local village. It’s even more pressuring to dutifully sweep the buffet precisely because I know everything is good - and woe to my cravings.
Oh I also nixed my enjoyment of Pyschonauts entirely by deciding to ignore all the collectibles that were distracting me, only to find out I needed to collect a huge sum of the money to be able to buy a piece of equipment that was critical to progress.
Any JRPG that has a stealing mechanic means that I feel obligated to make sure I use it as often as possible. If I’m not stealing that piece of equipment from the boss that I could also just buy 30 minutes from now, then I’m wasting money on equipment I could get for free! Even if it takes forever to get it because of RNG.
I’m also pretty bad about hoarding items in general. Sometimes makes it hard to play any game that has carry loads or finite bag slots.
Oh geez, I have too many of these gaming compulsions to count. I do the “obey traffic laws” in pretty much every GTA style open world game, so I’ll mention that in passing.
I think my fafourite one of these is how I always “slice the pie” in any shooter (PLAYERUNKNOWN’s Battlegrounds is a perfect example). I learned about “slicing the pie” and room clearing because I played Police Quest: SWAT, so I do it constantly.
I stopped the compulsion to do it in public in my 20s, thankfully.
I learned to play Guitar Hero by tapping the strum bar down with my index finger. I’m capable of playing pretty much anything on expert in Guitar Hero/Rock Band, unless it gets too fast, because my rigid, aching index finger cannot tap that fast in one direction.
Myth: The Fallen Lords did more to reinforce the mentality of ‘no one left behind’ than any other game, save maybe XCOM. The loss of experienced troops made a huge difference in later levels. Granted, Dawn of War III is not Myth. Cannon fodder is the name of the game, not building GIs into elite soldiers.
Oh boy, the ending section of Fallout 4 really annoyed me, so I get you on that part. Especially when you’re forced to murder every major faction other than the one you’re siding with, to the detriment of any other possible choice that could have easily been included.
Darkest Dungeon is a game I’ll probably never finish, partially because of the length of it on normal, but mainly for the fact that you’re supposed to churn through characters and kill them off/drive them mad. Years of playing Xcom 1 and 2 have trained me, like Rob, to treat every one of these characters like a fabergé egg.
Another bad habit I have is running through Souls games after my first playthrough. I won’t fight any enemies on the way to the boss unless I absolutely have to and I’ll ignore every item unless it’s required for my build. Keep in mind, I’m not playing for pvp, so I’m really just rushing through these games so I can get to the bosses as soon as humanly (or hollowly) possible. This has gotten a few responses from friends of “why do I even play again if I run past everything” which just gets a shrug back from me.
Absolutely. I do think that it says a lot about the particular brand of ethical philosophy the game subscribes to. I’m just not sure if that’s a conscious authorial decision, or just my own reading of it attempting to reconcile the issues I have with that lack of choice. There’s a massive chasm between telling a player that murder is the only option to ensure their group’s safety, and making it the only option to create an illusion of moral choice.
By that point it felt more like an oversight than anything else. I spent a good 10 hours or so avoiding the end of the story if only because I was so flabbergasted that a very obvious choice hadn’t been included. It felt like, “the ending section is only scripted to work one of 4 ways so I need you to pick one right now or this won’t go anywhere.” And trying to do anything else was just omitted, though I don’t know if it was done purposefully because it was rushed, or if whomever was involved with the writing genuinely didn’t consider any other options.
The most baffling part was that the writing in Far Harbor was actually very excellent. It made me wonder what went wrong with the main game.
I’m an introvert, and keep a tight circle of very good friends, rather than cast a wide net with lots of acquaintances.
Ever since Pokemon Red/Blue, this has manifested itself in my only ever building a team of six Pokemon I really like, leveling them all equally. I don’t level more than six and store them in the PC, or get a Pokemon just for type-advantage over a gym or in preparation for the elite four, and I would absolutely never consider not using my starter.
Often this ends up with me having 3-4 water/ice types, because they tend to be my favorites. This makes the late game much harder than need be, but I can’t imagine doing it any other way. I like the idea of it being me traveling around the world with my best friends.
Not to start evoking Bogost too much here, but I think that’s the biggest challenge the Fallout series runs up against: the more freedom it attempts to give players, the more it undermines the narrative. I think you’re entirely right about scripting. The end of the main story isn’t the end of the game world, and so it’s forced to flip a number of switches that say “This is how the world is now that you’ve made this choice.” Unfortunately, the simplest approach to that is to create these binary, absolutist outcomes, for risk of breaking the game and creating a series of cascading contradictions (and/or putting thousands more man-hours into inconsequential side plots to ensure that they’re all dynamically updated once you complete the main quest).
I think it’s telling that I had to think hard to even remember the end of Fallout 4, when I finished it less than a year ago. By the time I got to the game’s end, I was equally exhausted with the railroaded narrative, so it really did feel like I was just flipping a switch to cross the finish line, and that my choices didn’t really matter that much.
In any Pokemon game, I only capture less than 20 Pokemon, unless required by the story or what have you. I only catch those I intend to feature on my team or cover a glaring hole in my team’s composition. I don’t want those extra pokemon to just sit in a computer somewhere! That’s super depressing to me.
I think the fact that they included a voiced main character probably played into it a lot as well. It feels less expressive because a voiced character tends to come out of the gate feeling like an already established person that you’re guiding through a story, rather than playing as a character you’ve “written” for the story. The NPC interaction is essentially the same as it was in 3 and New Vegas (and probably 1 and 2, which I haven’t played) but the sheer number of options from the mundane to absurd shrinks quite a bit when your character actually needs to speak every line that comes out of their mouth. Especially in something like an open-world game where the interactions that need to be considered are an order of magnitude greater than a more linear game.
I think this is cool, particularly given the divide between the Pokemon games and every other medium where they push this narrative that the protagonist’s Pokemon are supposed to be their “friends” but it doesn’t quite shake out that way for me in the games - mechanically, they never present as anything more than tools (haven’t played for a few generations though).
Totally, and I think that’s also related to the matter of resources and budgeting. In an ideal setting, a game would have infinite resources to create a fully dynamic, fleshed out world with endless possibilities, but the more that need to be written, voiced, produced, etc, the more limited those options become. At the same time, voice acting can lend a sense of verisimilitude and immersion to a story’s narrative — we’ve all seen the awkward pitfalls and narrative challenges that arise from the Gordon Freemanesque Silent Protagonist. It’s a fine line to walk between offering players a sense of agency, creating a living, human world, and keeping within the technical constraints of a game without making it too obviously railroaded.
I have a couple of gaming quirks that I find add to my already-dire habit of not finishing games. I like to make things more difficult for myself in ultimately meaningless ways. Not just upping the difficulty, but by adding new elements. I’m a big fan of survival and resource management games, and I’ve installed countless mods that add elements like that into games. Sometimes it adds some much needed challenge to a game I’m finding easy (like Skyrim.) But a lot of times, it just makes a hard game harder (I’m utter garbage at KSP, but I still downloaded mods that require me to lug food and water up into space).
I also have a serious problem in collecting things that aren’t “collectibles.” I don’t care about collecting flags or finding all the hidden statues. But you put in 40 different kinds of armour that need different crafting materials/achievements to access, and I’m sure as hell going to throw myself against the wall until I’ve unlocked them all. Can’t help it.
Perhaps this is more mechanical than moral in nature, but…
I’m always terrible about using consumables in games. To, a rather absurd degree until recently.
I hate expending resources. If it’s even remotely optional, I’ll save it. All game, no matter the game, until the credits, when they are a pile of wasted opportunity and ease.
I’m getting better. Dark Souls helped me on my path to being better about using items. I didn’t heal in Dark Souls. It was slow, and bad. Each section of trash, particularly before bosses, ended up being played over, and over, and over again until it could be executed without taking hits. (Which is to say, I think for Dark Souls, it was perfect.) now I’m healing in Dark Souls 3, and life is good.
It was the same in Starcraft, on those missions where you’re given a small number of units. I’d micro so much harder than the game demanded, or as zerg, wait for units to heal up. Lose nothing. It was just slow, and awful, and not at all intended.
I just hate waste. I think somewhat similarly, I hate having a timer going. Even if a timer was 72 hours for a game with a 7 hour long campaign, it would make me nervous. Not sure exactly the cause, so it’s nice, and interesting, to hear other people have similar reactions to things. Well… some people do sometimes. It sounds like? What was this thread about? Has anybody else slept since this forum went up?
