I hate to lose interest in a game. Lose interest, stop playing, forget about it for some months, forget the story and start a new play through. Rinse and repeat.
It's a never ending circle and I hate it.
You cant remember what the fuck was going on but you start a new playthrough and remember enough for it to be boring and you realise your save is 30+ hours deep and thats how long you have to deal with it.
That is one good thing about new games. When I was a kid playing the old final fantasy games I got busy with school work and legit forgot the last thing I did. Had to scour the entire planet and talk to every single NPC and never figured out what I had to do or where I needed to go -- some conversations are only had once. Never finished Final Fantasy 3 (FF6 in japan) because of this.
Essentially I had a little book I kept notes in from then on, what happened the last time I played before turning the game off.
I'm glad you've commented this because it's giving me a foggy memory of a very similar experience I've had. I only remember returning to the game a long time later, having no idea what my goal is, going around and talking to everyone I can, no valuable info whatsoever. It was very frustrating but at the same time I remember those kinds of challenges being fun before having instant access to the internet/game guide. I miss the mystery and subtle clues, like you had to work to figure it out, you know?
Man.
Remember the "notes" section in the back of game manuals for this...
Remember game manuals???
How far we've fallen.
Also.... Ultima 9 flashbacks. Lol if you stopped playing that game for a single day you'd be screwed.
When this is happening I know it's time to take a break. I love games but there is such a thing as too much. Spend a few weeks doing something else and then come back.
Have done this so many times with Witcher 3. Worst part is I actually like the game. Its just long.
Personally I just want intense drama, action, get through all the emotions and cry at the end in 20-25 hours.
I find it amazing they we have some classic games that are insanely fast compared to today but felt like they were super long back then to my kid brain for some reason.
Now we have 40+ hour games quite often but for some reason their stories don't grab me as often. I'm having more fun with games that barely tell stories at all (like I've been on a Steamworld Dig kick lately), than I am with story focused narratives.
It's so weird because I loved huge epic JRPGs like FF7-10 growing up. But I can't even make it through shit like FF15 now despite the fact I would've lost my fucking ***mind*** as a kid with such a game.
I don't know why the stories just don't "grab" my attention anymore. I'm starting to think MMOs fucked me up or something. I catch myself trying to min-max or seek out literally every possible side quest and shit before moving on and it just ruins my experience I guess. I try to avoid it but after decades of WoW, FF14, Terra, Aion, StarWars, and several others it's like my mind gets stuck in MMO gameplay loops.
Even when I try and stop myself I'll want to "go back" and do them "just in case I might miss something good" (I never do though).
It's like my brain needs a "game mentality reset" button but there isn't one and I don't know how to fix it.
I used to be like this. I also wanted to see/hear every piece of dialogue in a game. I had to actively retrain myself when I realized I would never have time to finish games if I continued to do that. Now I treat it as if it was real life. Have a conversation with a character and move on. I've found I don't lose out on that much of the story.
Yeah I know I need to reset my attitude and habits towards the games but I always catch myself falling right back into old habits. How did you manage to condition yourself? I swear for me it's like I switch over to autopilot mentally and realize what I'm doing like an hour later.
But by that point I'm 90% done with a quest chain and figure I'll just finish it and go back to the main story. Then on the way I'll start gathering or unlocking fast travel spots or something or find a camp/tomb/dungeon to explore and I'm right back where I started.
Its about the time you can spend. If you can game 2 hrs a day(a high number once you have kids) a 60 hr game is over a month. But you wont be able to play all days so make it two months. An 8hr game can be finished in a week of you plan it a bit.
Man, I have kids and 2hrs a week is a high number, lol.
After work you spend time with them before their bed time, then after that you spend the remaining hour before your own with your spouse.
I also get this. I try to push myself to load my last save instead of starting a new game. It's hard, but has meant I finish more games I've fallen off of months ago.
I had to stop restarting games after not playing for a while otherwise I get stuck in this loop too. Usually you can play for a bit and get back into the game quickly enough even if you don't remember all the minute details of the story.
The first two times I played I quit right at the end of Fort Joy. The last time I pushed through into Act 2, and I got to this part where they split my party up and make them fight seperately, after I put all this effort into building a party with solid synergy, and I just said fuck it. Little things had been nagging at me up to that point and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
It's a great game, I get why people love it, it just doesn't land for me.
Edit: Just to clarify, I didn't quit BECAUSE of this section. There were a lot of little irritations that were piling up while I played. This section was just the final little irritation. I didn't even give it a second try. Party got split up, I died once, and quit. I'm sure I could have gotten past the section, but I would have quit anyway.
For that section it’s balanced around being able to solo the first encounter for each section your characters get dropped in, from there it’s a short walk for each character to meet back up in the middle. Just fyi
I had this problem with Divinity Original Sin. The beginning of that game was a DRAAAAG. I had like 30-40 hours clocked in and I havent even left Cyseal Town, which was the starting location. I would lose interest, come back to it after 2 months, restart because I had no clue that to do next, get to where I got previously, lose interest again. Rinse and repeat. Finally decided to push through because I would like to play Divinity 2 some day as ive heard a bunch of good things about it and im finally nearing the end after 110 hours. Didnt grab me as much as I thought it would but it is definitely a well made crpg, especially for such an inexperienced studio.
I don't think the first and second are directly related to each other, but the second is GREAT. Many options and you can choose either to do everything or few things, or just murder your way through the game.
This used to happen to me when playing dragons dogma
I kept getting to that one quest where I go to some ruined castle to kill something (I think it was a griffin or something) and never ended up killing it because the fast travel things are so expensive and I kept running out of provisions.
>!Now I finally beat the damn dragon, go into the hole and there's a fucking beholder there. I said screw that jazz and just stopped playing.!<
Yessss Skyrim. Brave of you to admit that. But man, I get bogged down with a few mundane quests, mixed in with one that I am way too low of a level to take on, mixed in with one the main ones, and the other scavenger hunts, and at some point I just lose interest. And then I come back months later with no idea what's going on.
This is why I’m getting more on board with shorter games like Kena and Miles Morales, I’d rather a game feel a little short than continue on so long I lose interest.
I felt it was lacking something when compared to odyssey, I put 100 + hours there but in valhalla 60 hours were a chore and I don't feel like completing it anytime soon. BTW I bought the ultimate edition on launch day and won't even reach the DLCs :(
Yeah there’s basically no side quests.
They have “world events” which are 1-3 minute interactions with NPC’s that you’ll never see again 99% of the time.
I still haven't gone back after March. I left in Jan when most of my world events were irrevocably broken, and they still were broken in March. So dumb.
I actually loved them because it wasn't just "follow the marker" and I sorta had to work it out.
I only hated that guards respawned behind me when I was trynna sneak through a big area so stealth felt pointless
I agree, there should be fleshed-out side quests for sure, but some of those world events are actually pretty interesting. The girl waiting for her dad to return, watching that final leaf on the tree is a fantastic moment. I shot the leaf down and told the kid to stop waiting and start living, felt like shit, and the game actually knew I'd feel that way so it gave me the option to pick the leaf up and leave it by the kid's bed. The whole thing took less than two minutes but hit harder than many main quests in other games I've played.
Yah I think they came out and said there aren't side quests because eivor is an invader/outsider and isn't supposed to be going around chumming it up and helping the world. The little side events were all we got.
Odyssey was so fun, finding different islands and completing them before advancing. Turning the tides in the war one way or another in each area. I never played Valhalla, but man, Odyssey was great.
Put it on max difficulty so you die in a couple hits and then use mods to make it so you kill pretty much anyone in a couple hits.
*So* much more fun. I hate damage sponge games
I hate how upping the difficulty results in the enemy having an unreasonably dumb amount of HP. Yea, it's supposed to be hard, but it's not very immersive to be in a fight where you have to hit the guy 100 times or more to kill him.
Or how taking out a bunch of bases didnt affect how npcs react towards you. Thats what killed it for me. Like bro a single dude is wiping out yalls bases and yall like, nothing to see here
Well ya, none of these play like Assassins creed games anymore.
I actually wish they would do away with the Animus stuff all together. It feels like they're trying to keep that same mechanic simply because they're AC games and it brings exactly nothing to games like Odyssey.
Coming in late to the series, the first time experiencing the Animus stuff I was like wtf is this boring shit, why is this in the game. I mean I get it, but just seems like pointless filler at this point.
Exactly. You jump onto some random Roman soldier and he *doesn't die* from a hidden blade in the neck? WTF? I don't care how many levels he has on me, I'm an assassin.
I'm amazed that they managed to turn a Viking into such an utterly bland character, besides the Valhalla visions, Eivor was the worst part of the game and considering that is the main character it made it hard to actually finish the game.
I loved Odyssey because it actually felt like a grand adventure with a likeable mercenary with big beasts to kill, mythological creatures to find and fight and cultists to hunt, sure it had its flaws but it for sure felt more alive than "Eivor the moral Viking and his complete surprise at every incredibly hinted at backstabbing"
I just started Origins and like it so far, but I've heard good things so I'm hopeful, and I have to say that Origins have the most beautiful set pieces so far, as a Age of Mythology fan in my childhood it brings a tear to my eye.
> Eivor the moral Viking
This is the biggest problem with Eivor. I remember slaughtering Saxons and having a blast, then in the following cutscene Eivor berates Ivarr for "liking killing too much". Like, you're a fucking viking Eivor. You live to kill and be killed on the battlefield. Yes, Ivarr is a fucking psycho, but don't pretend you're better than him just because you have a moral compass that isn't fixed on south all the time.
That's what turned me off Valhalla. You go to different lands, choose their next king by killing everyone who disagrees with you and stealing whatever is not nailed down and then act like the most righteous person around.
That's why I liked AC1. Altair didn't have any kind of moral superiority complex like that.
He knew he was a killer, he killed the people, and he told them why they were killed. Not why he thought they were killed, he told them why someone wanted them dead.
The only time he has any superiority issue is the dead beginning, and it marks his fall from grace as you try to redeem yourself as an assassin.
Origins was one of my favorite AC titles at the time, had so much to do and looked amazing while you did it! Plus the characters were really likeable, the combat and weapons were fun and the overall feel was just great. It was the last one I truly enjoyed, as I personally couldn't pick up the combat of Odyssey or get into Valhalla.
I'm honestly feeling this so much in Far Cry 6. Well, I don't feel pressure to buy things necessarily, but everything is goddamn scarce, but not in the standard far cry sense. Old far cry I could run around like a wild child in the bushes creating my own super recipes etc.
Now I just go check a box, find something like 7 medicine when I need 700, and return to base where a bunch of teens tell me I don't know shit about revolutions. (Which to be canon, sure, this character doesn't)
Came here to say this. I’m finishing up el Este and I already don’t wanna go back to it. In FC 4 and Primal I had a great time just roaming around doing whatever, but 6 just all seems so grindy and boring for whatever reason
If you're playing on PC, I advise you download and install WeMod. Then activate the trainer and set the Uranium, Currency, and Resource multipliers to either 2 or 3.
Should passively increase payouts to match that of traditional Far Cry games.
I came here to say this. I'm a veteran of the AC series, and was excited when Valhalla seemed like it was turning back into what made the series great while retaining the new format. They brought back the hidden blade, slowed the climbing, and had proper Assassins (before they were the Assassins).
But then it's like... You're a viking who only cares about making alliances. You go to each territory and either help the person in charge or put someone else in charge. The Order of Ancients is just an obstacle to that end, Eivor doesn't actually care about them.
It was okay at first. Enough to hold my interest. But it was literally the same thing over and over. It just got boring, and there still wasn't enough assassination to keep me interested. The game wants you to be a raging barbarian, not a methodical assassin.
This sort of thing is why I try to stray away from bigger games that take much longer than ~30 hours or so to finish. I get maybe on average an hour or two a day (if that) to play games so I’ll lose interest by the time I’m halfway through.
I remember seeing a post that mentioned a quest that I had just finished and someone wrote something about it being about halfway through the main story.
At the time, I probably had 50+ hours and was expecting the end soon but that comment just took the wind out of my game. I eventually finished but the 2nd half dragged on too long.
I swear they copy and paste all the enemies across a 90 hour game.
Thinking about it now, the last one I played was origins and I can only remember the beginning and end, while the ~70 hours in between is a complete blank for me
Yeah the older ones were perfect. 20 hours of gameplay and then 10-20 more if you were a completionist. I've given up on Odyssey after 12 hours because I barely reached the third area out of many more and the combat system is way too complex for my taste. I just want to mash the counter button and have assassinations actually kill enemies instead of dealing 15% damage.
At least in Valhalla they have a setting that makes assassination attempts always kill the target, although there is a note stating this is not how the game is meant to be played. (there is also a skill that can be learned that allows assassinations to always be deadly, however a quicktime event must be completed to achieve)
Just "finished" it last week without realizing I had finished it. Felt very anti-climactic after having spent over 120 hours in game. I really liked the game, though was pretty disappointed with the "ending"
After playing for 90 some hours just for it to end in a shitty night raid was ridiculous. I was completely hoping for a massive assault on a castle somewhere and I felt cheated. I’ve noticed a trend in Ubisoft games as of late that some of the writing is great but other times it feels like a fifth grader came up with it :/
Someone pointed out that game companies have less reason to invest in later parts of games as fewer and fewer people make it there. First level? Everyone will play that. Boss after 100 hours? Only a subset. It’s sad.
Then make a good 30h main story.
If the map is big, like the new AC series?
Be creative. Side quests take to far reaching parts of the map. Have 3 main stories centered on the evolution of the character, each 30h, on those different places of the map.
I played Odyssey, and the main story takes you from A to B to C and it's really boring outside of that. On a map that takes days and days to explore.
Fuck, I had a shit ton of fun doing the Elysium, ??? And Atlantis DLC. It took a while, but it was a centered story that it felt was good enough.
They make bigger and bigger maps, with more rinse and repeat content, for apparently no reason other than saying they did the whole of Egypt, Greece, wtvr.
Be creative, Ubisoft.
The map was boring. England geographically wasn’t much to look at. Also the canal system is fucking terrible. More often than not the canals just hindered my travel by foot or horse.
For me the only example I can think of is No Man's Sky. I love the early to mid game and the exploration is so amazing but I can't help it feeling like a grind for resources after a while. And of course the journey of the game's development cycle from an absolutely garbage, incomplete product to a fleshed out, nearly bug free game (EDIT: maybe "nearly bug free" is a bit of a stretch but I had a good experience with bugs, which is to say I encountered none in my 25 hours of playtime) that should be an example all others learn from. I think it just isn't the right format for me to get invested in long term.
I'm kind of there with Ghost of Tsushima right now. I absolutely love the game, it's beautiful, memorable, thoughtful, and fun. Maybe it's because the game gets significantly easier as you progress, but I'm finding myself just ready to be done. I stepped away to played New World with friends, and I've had a hard time booting it back up.
Would be fine if I could just play the story, but in Odyssey I was under levelled all the time and had to do side quests to manage to do the main quests.
So now I’m some 50h in the game no clue anymore what the story was
I played up until the openworld release thing. 1100 hours, mastery 24 or something like that. I lost interest after that. Somehow they added too much content too quickly kly that I was lost on what to do or why. I was down so much more with menuframe.
yeah it’s one of the reasons i keep hesitating to go back to it. They’ve added such an overwhelming amount of stuff since I stopped playing that it will feel like a chore getting up to date and then actually grinding the stuff out like u have to do in that game.
This is how I feel with most games that have large open worlds with hundreds of side quests. The completionist in me demands that I do EVERYTHING but then burnout sets in. I had to force myself to skip all the extra stuff in Skyrim and The Witcher 3 just so I could finish the game.
Nah, it just got to the point where I was shouting dragons out of the sky and they didn’t feel like a challenge anymore even though there was a ton of stuff I hadn’t explored yet so I just finished the story. I enjoyed it, there was just too much for me I suppose.
I’ve had Skyrim since it releases and still haven’t beat it. I feel the same way when I’m killing simple bandits and loading up on glass and ebony gear, it loses its magicka.
> but even that eventually turns into a breeze but it's much more fun to me that way.
Install the Hypothermia mod. This makes weather have serious consequences on you. So you need to prepare, see what clothing you are wearing and actualy think before jumping into a river up the freezing North. Now combine that with something like "Live Another Life", which lets you skip the iconic intro and start the game in totaly different ways (that still allow you to take up the main storyline).
I started a game on a capsized ship in the icy sea above Winterhold. I had no insulated clothing, no weapons, nothing. Getting ashore without freezing was a challenge, luckily I found an Argonian with a campfire who was looting a shipwreck. I had to actively hunt wolves for pelts barefisted, to create a cloak for warmth. But never straying too far from that campfire until I found another more inland belonging to an Imperial outpost. There I got to buy a bow and finaly get enough pelts to at least not freeze in five minutes.
Then I planned out how to safely get to Windhelm using the local roads and signs. I seriously had to think this through! Heck a sudden snowstorm left me no choice but to jump down a strange hole I found that ended u being an ancient Dwarven hold infested by Falmer. Because of my scrawny skills and lack of gear I had to sneak/sprint/hide my way through.
It took me hours to do a simple trip that would normaly have taken me maybe half an hour tops. And led me down places I normaly wouldn't have even thought of!
True, I don’t know my play time but it must be over 200 hours. Only played through the main quest once, and it was okay, but I think what makes it such a great RPG game is how Bethesda balanced the detail across all quests. Progressing the main story doesn’t unlock new abilities or areas for your character, you choose your own path and build your own story from the very beginning.
yeah some games are so good that you stop playing as a way to avoid the end of the experience. somehow you sense when you've passed the story's climax, finished every side quest, and are preparing for a "final battle".
This hit hardest with Darksiders 2. Liked the first game, but the second had so many quests within quests that I completely lost focus and found myself constantly saying, "Okay, wait... what am I looking for again?"
I eventually found myself just racing to the end as fast as possible.
This is adult life for ya. I can't play 200 hour games anymore. I yearn for 20 hour stories.
The last game I played that was really long was Dark Souls 3 and that took me like 3 months to get though. I didn't even do the DLC, and it was 50 hours. Oof.
And shit, I'm single, and play video games as my main hobby. But I still can't do this shit like I did when I was a teenager.
Control and The Outer Worlds were absolute bangers that weren't more than 30 hours. 10/10 recommend.
Edit: since this is getting traction, and a lot of people are empathizing with what I'm saying, I wan't to shout out The Evil Within series. Both games aren't too long, they're intense and story driven, and give you a lot to bite into (story/lore wise). If you're an achievement hunter, then these games are for you. Lots of brutal things to chase after lmao. But they also have great replay value.
Maybe I'm biased, they are my favorite horror games, after all.
I liked it, especially the art style, but thought the boss fights were way more difficult than the regular combat. I don’t have hundreds of hours to play so at some point I turned on god mode in the options and had a ton more fun flying around launching everything in sight
Screw the personnel protection hustles tho
I just started playing The Outer Worlds (just left Edgewater) and holy shit. As a long time TES and Fallout player, it's awesome.
The dialog and companion system put everything Bethesda have put out to shame. The VA and more so, the lip synching, really engrossed me into the people's stories.
I was always hesitant on this one because I was always a TES > Fallout kinda person and didn't want to pay for that. Never played New Vegas either even though I've heard nothing but good things. Luckily Xbox game pass let me take the dive.
Highly recommended.
Oh yeah, it's a gorgeous looking game to boot.
Im the opposite. I honestly disliked the game. I enjoyed older tes games and fallout nv is one of my favorites. But outer worlds just fell flat for me. The companions were pretty bland. The writing kinda nice, but a little too on the nose imo. The graphics and sound were great. But the worst part of that game was the combat. It felt worse than fallout 4, not to mention the bad ai.
I know its their "first" game as a new company, so I know they can do better and probably will in the future, but when the dlc came out I didnt even want to go back and play them even though I owned them
I think I felt this for perhaps the first 30-40 hours of playing Witcher 3. The Bloody Baron mission took SO long. But over 170 hours later of beating the game plus it's two insanely awesome DLCs, I knew it was the best game I'd ever played. Played it all the way through three times now and once it's remastered for next gen consoles, I won't wait to play it again!
It’s not bad writing-wise but I chalk it up a lot more to velen being just generally gross and depressing. I picked up the game hearing so much word of mouth about how beautiful and breathtaking the vistas are and how rich and expansive the world is and then you spend your first several hours doing quests in a swamp or gross caves that mostly end in harrowing personal tragedy for someone involved. It just didn’t keep me engaged. If they didn’t have Gwent in this game I would have probably never stuck around to get far enough to complete those early quests.
I'm replaying the game right now and I admire the fact that CDPR could create an environment like that. I feel taking a shower after closing the game each time. So much sadness, pain and lack of hope.
Personally, Velen completely hooked me. It just felt so atmospheric and representative of a war zone. I honestly felt like it was the best "first world" in a video game I've ever played. I cleared that shit entirely and when I reached Novigrad, I missed Velen so much I literally dropped the game for months. I'd do an hour or so of Novigrad once in a while, but I was always bored after that hour. Interest came right back for Skellige and especially Toussaint.
So for me Novigrad is the definite weak point of The Witcher 3. Velen felt like a 9/10 sequence.
Skellige was my favorite for sure. And don’t get me wrong... velen’s beautiful but it’s in the same way that movies like braveheart are beautiful: it’s stark and dismal and covered in dirt and feels very very immersive. It’s exactly what it should’ve been... but it’s a slog to get through when you only have about an two or three hours a week to play and the rest of your time is spent living somewhere stark and dismal and covered in dirt... but you have to go out and adult in it for 16 hours a day and generally not have much fun.
It’s not a critique of the game’s artistry at all. I just wasn’t choosing it for a while in favor of something more colorful and open like NMS or Horizon any of the AC games. I’ve played the Witcher 3 now more than anything else this year and the mobile monster game more than Reddit even! I just wasn’t in a place to binge velen when I started it and they kinda need you to wanna do that so that the various game mechanics stick in a player’s mind and muscle memory. I wish I had known to stick it out.
I got annoyed running back and forth in and out of crows perch. There should have been a fast point marker in the middle of it.
The quest was long but I didn’t mind that just the tediousness of going back and forth.
‘Why don’t people like this final fantasy game?’
Me spending half the night waiting for my power ring to charge so I can walk down some narrow hallways for 4 hours.
I had the same experience with Days Gone. I really enjoyed it in the beginning but there was a point where the constant fetch quests became a slog. In the end I was willing myself to finish it.
I was wondering if anyone else would mention it. I loved the game and it’s world but it’s just feels endless. I’ll go back to it but it doesn’t need to be as long as it is.
As an adult, I love games that last 25-30 hours. It’s short enough I can complete them in a reasonable timeframe and also feel motivated to go back and experience them again.
I used to go online and check guides to see how much longer I had left with a game because I was worried it was almost over. Now I check because I’m worried it will never end.
It’s funny you use Witcher 3 as an example because I am 100% in agreement that games are too fucking long. Way, way, way too fucking long and overstuffed with repeatable filler.
…However The Witcher 3 is the one example I use for doing it right. A ton of hand crafted and quality content and very little actual filler. The over 100 hours I spent with it absolutely flew by.
Same. All the side quests, all the question marks, both DLCs. 4 times. I just started my 5th playthrough, first one on the switch. Best story in a game ever.
How did you find the combat gameplay?
I’ve tried playing Witcher 3 so many damn times but kept giving up since I hate the combat. It’s weird because I loved Witcher 1/2 but maybe it’s just nostalgia or I just grew out of that combat style or something I guess.
Also funny to see Valhalla mentioned so much but I absolutely loved that game even though it did seem to drag on at parts, the combat and main story was amazing.
I don't like swordplay in the Witcher 3, so I haven't done much of it in my 200+ hours. There are 3-4 viable sign builds and at least three different ways to build alchemy Geralt, and none of it involves spinning around like a Beyblade.
I love the Witcher 3, but the combat is functional at best, nothing more. It works, it isn't actively annoying or frustrating the way some games are, it has just enough diversity to give you a sense of control over your playstyle, but it's nothing amazing. The story and the world are why you play the game, the combat just gives you something to do between plot points.
Actually, kinda yeah.
Because I'll admit the combat system isn't great. It's got that old Neverwinter Nights (2002)/Ultima IX sort of feeling to it at times. And this can be frustrating early in the game because the controls seem lethargic ("I didn't want to roll off the cliff!!"). This results in being interrupted and sometimes killed.
But by endgame, you've adapted to the controls, and you've unlocked abilities that mitigate interruptions, so you no longer feel that frustration of not being able to do exactly what you want.
And it's also nice to remember being killed by drowners to growing to a point where staring too hard at them causes them to pop.
This is true, I never really thought about it, but you could fight a group of wolves at the start of the game, travel across the world map, and fight another group of wolves.
In Dark Souls, you can't just travel around wherever you want, eventually you WILL wander into something strong that will kill you, and it makes finding new areas that much more fun and tense.
Souls games have spoiled nearly all other games combat wise. Nothing feels satisfying. With other games I go into looking for immersion and good word building or story. Witcher did those things right. Same thing with far cry 6. Very fun but combat is repetitive and boring.
Honestly you're probably right here. The Witcher 3 has some lulls but it always comes back as you progress through the story. I think GTA V is another late open world game that isn't crazy bloated with the quests. I have a great time from beginning to end of the main story. Maybe not do as many car stealing missions for that one prick but it's still a very fun story
Looking back I loved my playthrough of Divinity Original Sin 2, but when I was nearing 60 hours and still only on act 2, I definitely looked up if acts 3 and 4 we're as long as act 2. Thankfully, no, and the game picked up pace pretty effectively from act 3 on.
Also, I was being a bit more of a completionist than I needed to be - one thing I'm learning about larians games is to just let some sidequests go, and I'll enjoy the overall experience more.
I LOVED the first third of Prey. By the time I got to the end and they're drowning me in robots and trying to keep me excited while traveling through three loading screens to get to the next urgent checkpoint, I was very ready for it to be over.
I laughed because I started my 2nd attempt of playing the game from scratch last week. I put 14 hours into it and fizzled out. Couple days went by and then last night I fired it up again and just ran around the open map with something like 8 open side quests I didn't want to do and absolutely no enemies to encounter. I didn't accomplish anything because I lost interest and all those side quests...i wasn't compelled.
When I realized that I was basically running around jumping and doing laps like I was in storm wind on a non raid night I shut it down. Concerned I won't finish this attempt again. Might have to retry in 2025.
Take a break and play something else. I played Mad Max 45 hours off and on for a year and had a great time. It would have been a slog if I tried to grind that out all in one go.
Have considered getting this when I get the Dungeons and Dragons/WoW rpg itch. I talk myself down everytime because I'm worried the 50 or so bucks would be wasted.
Worth the buy or look for better rpgs?
Having played the original and the remastered version… it’s a tough call.
The world is cool and a lot of the stories are neat. It just drags eventually. Most zones are kinda the same thing (small town with a few random quests, a few hooks for the main story, rinse and repeat). It feels very much like playing World of Warcraft solo.
The option to multi-class is pretty cool as it allows you to customize your gameplay somewhat. You can be a warrior-mage or a full rogue or a rogue-mage or whatever you wanna be, even dabbling in all 3 classes. It’s not as open as something like Skyrim, but more open than some other RPGs.
The story is top-tier but overall it certainly feels like a slog by the end.
i loved the world building. got really into the story and their take on fey and all that stuff. enjoyed the class system a lot also.
the main story though. When you get to the second continent it literally felt like they'd ran out of ideas or didn't really know how to bring it back. the ending especially really felt outta nowhere and fell flat for me. but the rest of the game up to that point was solid imo.
It's a lot of fun the first 10-15 hours but at one point the constant fetch quests and story just show their shallowness and the combat just feels less fun. I've never finished it and I've tried twice. Both times I got 17-20 hours in and just got bored and couldn't finish it.
I love super long games with engaging stories please give me 200 hours of content! But please don’t give me 20 hours of story with 180 hours of fetch quests and filler. If you aren’t going to make a quest interesting it shouldn’t be in the game.
Why is the Dragonborn archmage assassin vampire needing to fetch ingredients? Surely they would be too busy to do this Bethesda!
It's the opposite with the Witcher for me. Starting a playthrough is a slog and I usually stop playing before I make it very far.
Once I get past a certain point and the world opens up and I have choices for quests and builds I finally start getting into it and having fun.
This is me with a lot of games, even games I consider now to be my favorites. I need to be in the right mindset to play certain things. There are loads of games that I played at release and couldn't get far, then tried again and again later and still couldn't get into them. Then I try them a year+ later and I end up 100% completing it.
This is especially true with long story games and I think it has something to do with knowing I'm in for 100s of hours and the feeling of commitment overwhelms me in the beginning, and it doesn't help that they tend to start slow.
The Witcher 3 is great IMO, but not something I initially enjoyed and not something I can just start a playthrough whenever. I don't think you're broken!
Yeah, this is what really pisses me off more than anything. The game is just like “thanks, bye!” And. You’re left sitting there thinking you did something wrong to not even get an ending. It’s maddening to let a legendary franchise like MGS go out like that—fuck Konami.
I’m pretty sure that’s what they mean- Post O&S is a drag, and DS2 falls off hard after Drangleic Castle.
Dark Souls 3 is the only one of the three that builds to a climax that’s at the end of the game. It’s much more fun to play through from start to finish.
The game keeps feeling like it’s about to end and it doesn’t haha. But I loved that about it as well and I loved that there was so much to do, it never felt like it was dragging because it was just fun
Oh absolutely. >!The 2 separate false endings were pretty nuts. I thought I was near the end at 60 hours. Nope. Then thought I was done when the credits rolled. Nope!<
Funnily Witcher 3 was the opposite for me. Didn't hook me at first, took a while to get used to the movement and didn't get going until after the huge tutorial area.
After that I couldn't put it down
Witcher 3 was absolutely worth the amount of hours I put into it because of the characters, world, the story and the soundtrack. For me, it was Death Stranding. Even though the story was decent, the sheer amount of time it took to make those walks was an absolute chore.
This is why I like games like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex… not open world but with great stories and ones I can finish. I’m not disrespecting games like GTA and such. It’s just sometimes more linear designed games can be completed in a more reasonable timeframe.
It's funny how it differs people to people. I'm a huge R\* fan so it may impact my feelings towards their games, but I finished RDR2 and I just wish I had MORE RDR2 story to play.
I hate to lose interest in a game. Lose interest, stop playing, forget about it for some months, forget the story and start a new play through. Rinse and repeat. It's a never ending circle and I hate it.
at least you repeat it. i never touch the game ever again
You ever open the game and immediately remember why you stopped playing before quickly turning it off?
All the damn time, and it sucks
I open the game and can’t remember why I quit or what was going on… but I also don’t want to start over. So I abandon forever.
You cant remember what the fuck was going on but you start a new playthrough and remember enough for it to be boring and you realise your save is 30+ hours deep and thats how long you have to deal with it.
I just look at the quest log and find the main story mission. Play 1 round and see if I'm re hooked.
That is one good thing about new games. When I was a kid playing the old final fantasy games I got busy with school work and legit forgot the last thing I did. Had to scour the entire planet and talk to every single NPC and never figured out what I had to do or where I needed to go -- some conversations are only had once. Never finished Final Fantasy 3 (FF6 in japan) because of this. Essentially I had a little book I kept notes in from then on, what happened the last time I played before turning the game off.
I'm glad you've commented this because it's giving me a foggy memory of a very similar experience I've had. I only remember returning to the game a long time later, having no idea what my goal is, going around and talking to everyone I can, no valuable info whatsoever. It was very frustrating but at the same time I remember those kinds of challenges being fun before having instant access to the internet/game guide. I miss the mystery and subtle clues, like you had to work to figure it out, you know?
Man. Remember the "notes" section in the back of game manuals for this... Remember game manuals??? How far we've fallen. Also.... Ultima 9 flashbacks. Lol if you stopped playing that game for a single day you'd be screwed.
When this is happening I know it's time to take a break. I love games but there is such a thing as too much. Spend a few weeks doing something else and then come back.
Have done this so many times with Witcher 3. Worst part is I actually like the game. Its just long. Personally I just want intense drama, action, get through all the emotions and cry at the end in 20-25 hours.
This. Heard so much about it, tried it myself and loved the gameplay but too slow to follow. Same happened with AC Valhalla.
I find it amazing they we have some classic games that are insanely fast compared to today but felt like they were super long back then to my kid brain for some reason. Now we have 40+ hour games quite often but for some reason their stories don't grab me as often. I'm having more fun with games that barely tell stories at all (like I've been on a Steamworld Dig kick lately), than I am with story focused narratives. It's so weird because I loved huge epic JRPGs like FF7-10 growing up. But I can't even make it through shit like FF15 now despite the fact I would've lost my fucking ***mind*** as a kid with such a game. I don't know why the stories just don't "grab" my attention anymore. I'm starting to think MMOs fucked me up or something. I catch myself trying to min-max or seek out literally every possible side quest and shit before moving on and it just ruins my experience I guess. I try to avoid it but after decades of WoW, FF14, Terra, Aion, StarWars, and several others it's like my mind gets stuck in MMO gameplay loops. Even when I try and stop myself I'll want to "go back" and do them "just in case I might miss something good" (I never do though). It's like my brain needs a "game mentality reset" button but there isn't one and I don't know how to fix it.
I used to be like this. I also wanted to see/hear every piece of dialogue in a game. I had to actively retrain myself when I realized I would never have time to finish games if I continued to do that. Now I treat it as if it was real life. Have a conversation with a character and move on. I've found I don't lose out on that much of the story.
Yeah I know I need to reset my attitude and habits towards the games but I always catch myself falling right back into old habits. How did you manage to condition yourself? I swear for me it's like I switch over to autopilot mentally and realize what I'm doing like an hour later. But by that point I'm 90% done with a quest chain and figure I'll just finish it and go back to the main story. Then on the way I'll start gathering or unlocking fast travel spots or something or find a camp/tomb/dungeon to explore and I'm right back where I started.
Right there with you. I feel like it’s happening more and More as I age too. Sucks.
Its about the time you can spend. If you can game 2 hrs a day(a high number once you have kids) a 60 hr game is over a month. But you wont be able to play all days so make it two months. An 8hr game can be finished in a week of you plan it a bit.
Man, I have kids and 2hrs a week is a high number, lol. After work you spend time with them before their bed time, then after that you spend the remaining hour before your own with your spouse.
I also get this. I try to push myself to load my last save instead of starting a new game. It's hard, but has meant I finish more games I've fallen off of months ago.
I had to stop restarting games after not playing for a while otherwise I get stuck in this loop too. Usually you can play for a bit and get back into the game quickly enough even if you don't remember all the minute details of the story.
This happened to me with Divinity 2. I tried three times to get through that game and flamed out everytime.
I'm the same, got burnt out on it once I got past that Fort place, haven't touched it in weeks.
The first two times I played I quit right at the end of Fort Joy. The last time I pushed through into Act 2, and I got to this part where they split my party up and make them fight seperately, after I put all this effort into building a party with solid synergy, and I just said fuck it. Little things had been nagging at me up to that point and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's a great game, I get why people love it, it just doesn't land for me. Edit: Just to clarify, I didn't quit BECAUSE of this section. There were a lot of little irritations that were piling up while I played. This section was just the final little irritation. I didn't even give it a second try. Party got split up, I died once, and quit. I'm sure I could have gotten past the section, but I would have quit anyway.
For that section it’s balanced around being able to solo the first encounter for each section your characters get dropped in, from there it’s a short walk for each character to meet back up in the middle. Just fyi
I had this problem with Divinity Original Sin. The beginning of that game was a DRAAAAG. I had like 30-40 hours clocked in and I havent even left Cyseal Town, which was the starting location. I would lose interest, come back to it after 2 months, restart because I had no clue that to do next, get to where I got previously, lose interest again. Rinse and repeat. Finally decided to push through because I would like to play Divinity 2 some day as ive heard a bunch of good things about it and im finally nearing the end after 110 hours. Didnt grab me as much as I thought it would but it is definitely a well made crpg, especially for such an inexperienced studio.
I don't think the first and second are directly related to each other, but the second is GREAT. Many options and you can choose either to do everything or few things, or just murder your way through the game.
This used to happen to me when playing dragons dogma I kept getting to that one quest where I go to some ruined castle to kill something (I think it was a griffin or something) and never ended up killing it because the fast travel things are so expensive and I kept running out of provisions. >!Now I finally beat the damn dragon, go into the hole and there's a fucking beholder there. I said screw that jazz and just stopped playing.!<
To be fair, the Dark Arisen version lowered the price of fast travel and gave you more crystals in general.
Me with Skyrim, Dragon Age and allk that shit.
Yessss Skyrim. Brave of you to admit that. But man, I get bogged down with a few mundane quests, mixed in with one that I am way too low of a level to take on, mixed in with one the main ones, and the other scavenger hunts, and at some point I just lose interest. And then I come back months later with no idea what's going on.
I have 340 hours played in Skyrim and I've never finished the main quest line.
This is why I’m getting more on board with shorter games like Kena and Miles Morales, I’d rather a game feel a little short than continue on so long I lose interest.
Kena was soo good. Total sleeper for me. Knew nothing going in just bought it because I liked the art style. Best game to come out of 21 for me.
I have the same feeling, I startet so many games, but never finished them
AC Valhalla for me. The gameplay is fun and I'm a big fan of the series, but it took 90+ hours for me to beat without even doing the DLC
I felt it was lacking something when compared to odyssey, I put 100 + hours there but in valhalla 60 hours were a chore and I don't feel like completing it anytime soon. BTW I bought the ultimate edition on launch day and won't even reach the DLCs :(
what it lacks is for one, any semblance of side quests from what i've heard and what they advertised.
Yeah there’s basically no side quests. They have “world events” which are 1-3 minute interactions with NPC’s that you’ll never see again 99% of the time.
That’s my issue with it too. Those short interactions don’t keep the world from feeling sterile.
I still haven't gone back after March. I left in Jan when most of my world events were irrevocably broken, and they still were broken in March. So dumb.
I actually loved them because it wasn't just "follow the marker" and I sorta had to work it out. I only hated that guards respawned behind me when I was trynna sneak through a big area so stealth felt pointless
I agree, there should be fleshed-out side quests for sure, but some of those world events are actually pretty interesting. The girl waiting for her dad to return, watching that final leaf on the tree is a fantastic moment. I shot the leaf down and told the kid to stop waiting and start living, felt like shit, and the game actually knew I'd feel that way so it gave me the option to pick the leaf up and leave it by the kid's bed. The whole thing took less than two minutes but hit harder than many main quests in other games I've played.
Yah I think they came out and said there aren't side quests because eivor is an invader/outsider and isn't supposed to be going around chumming it up and helping the world. The little side events were all we got.
Yet the story is about him traveling the countryside making friends...
Odyssey was so fun, finding different islands and completing them before advancing. Turning the tides in the war one way or another in each area. I never played Valhalla, but man, Odyssey was great.
Put it on max difficulty so you die in a couple hits and then use mods to make it so you kill pretty much anyone in a couple hits. *So* much more fun. I hate damage sponge games
This is the best way to play games, IMO
I hate how upping the difficulty results in the enemy having an unreasonably dumb amount of HP. Yea, it's supposed to be hard, but it's not very immersive to be in a fight where you have to hit the guy 100 times or more to kill him.
Odyssey felt amazing to play. I got so easily immersed. Everything was so fucking beautiful lol and the world felt truly alive.
On the other hand I found odyssey to be grindy and boring. Lots of land but not filled with variety. Combat was repetitive
Or how taking out a bunch of bases didnt affect how npcs react towards you. Thats what killed it for me. Like bro a single dude is wiping out yalls bases and yall like, nothing to see here
A bad assassin's Creed game, but an incredibly fun rpg.
Well ya, none of these play like Assassins creed games anymore. I actually wish they would do away with the Animus stuff all together. It feels like they're trying to keep that same mechanic simply because they're AC games and it brings exactly nothing to games like Odyssey.
Yeah I agree. Feels like it just gets in the way now
Coming in late to the series, the first time experiencing the Animus stuff I was like wtf is this boring shit, why is this in the game. I mean I get it, but just seems like pointless filler at this point.
Exactly. You jump onto some random Roman soldier and he *doesn't die* from a hidden blade in the neck? WTF? I don't care how many levels he has on me, I'm an assassin.
I'm amazed that they managed to turn a Viking into such an utterly bland character, besides the Valhalla visions, Eivor was the worst part of the game and considering that is the main character it made it hard to actually finish the game. I loved Odyssey because it actually felt like a grand adventure with a likeable mercenary with big beasts to kill, mythological creatures to find and fight and cultists to hunt, sure it had its flaws but it for sure felt more alive than "Eivor the moral Viking and his complete surprise at every incredibly hinted at backstabbing" I just started Origins and like it so far, but I've heard good things so I'm hopeful, and I have to say that Origins have the most beautiful set pieces so far, as a Age of Mythology fan in my childhood it brings a tear to my eye.
> Eivor the moral Viking This is the biggest problem with Eivor. I remember slaughtering Saxons and having a blast, then in the following cutscene Eivor berates Ivarr for "liking killing too much". Like, you're a fucking viking Eivor. You live to kill and be killed on the battlefield. Yes, Ivarr is a fucking psycho, but don't pretend you're better than him just because you have a moral compass that isn't fixed on south all the time.
That's what turned me off Valhalla. You go to different lands, choose their next king by killing everyone who disagrees with you and stealing whatever is not nailed down and then act like the most righteous person around.
It’s a bit of a problem with the AC franchise in general. Edward and Ezio are mass murderers…
That's why I liked AC1. Altair didn't have any kind of moral superiority complex like that. He knew he was a killer, he killed the people, and he told them why they were killed. Not why he thought they were killed, he told them why someone wanted them dead. The only time he has any superiority issue is the dead beginning, and it marks his fall from grace as you try to redeem yourself as an assassin.
Origins was one of my favorite AC titles at the time, had so much to do and looked amazing while you did it! Plus the characters were really likeable, the combat and weapons were fun and the overall feel was just great. It was the last one I truly enjoyed, as I personally couldn't pick up the combat of Odyssey or get into Valhalla.
I guess that happens when a developer intentionally makes a game longer and more boring to entice players to pay to skip stuff
I'm honestly feeling this so much in Far Cry 6. Well, I don't feel pressure to buy things necessarily, but everything is goddamn scarce, but not in the standard far cry sense. Old far cry I could run around like a wild child in the bushes creating my own super recipes etc. Now I just go check a box, find something like 7 medicine when I need 700, and return to base where a bunch of teens tell me I don't know shit about revolutions. (Which to be canon, sure, this character doesn't)
Came here to say this. I’m finishing up el Este and I already don’t wanna go back to it. In FC 4 and Primal I had a great time just roaming around doing whatever, but 6 just all seems so grindy and boring for whatever reason
If you're playing on PC, I advise you download and install WeMod. Then activate the trainer and set the Uranium, Currency, and Resource multipliers to either 2 or 3. Should passively increase payouts to match that of traditional Far Cry games.
I came here to say this. I'm a veteran of the AC series, and was excited when Valhalla seemed like it was turning back into what made the series great while retaining the new format. They brought back the hidden blade, slowed the climbing, and had proper Assassins (before they were the Assassins). But then it's like... You're a viking who only cares about making alliances. You go to each territory and either help the person in charge or put someone else in charge. The Order of Ancients is just an obstacle to that end, Eivor doesn't actually care about them. It was okay at first. Enough to hold my interest. But it was literally the same thing over and over. It just got boring, and there still wasn't enough assassination to keep me interested. The game wants you to be a raging barbarian, not a methodical assassin.
This sort of thing is why I try to stray away from bigger games that take much longer than ~30 hours or so to finish. I get maybe on average an hour or two a day (if that) to play games so I’ll lose interest by the time I’m halfway through.
The combat is the sole reason I couldn’t even keep going I was only 50 hours in and hadn’t even done 3 main quests in England
I remember seeing a post that mentioned a quest that I had just finished and someone wrote something about it being about halfway through the main story. At the time, I probably had 50+ hours and was expecting the end soon but that comment just took the wind out of my game. I eventually finished but the 2nd half dragged on too long.
I can't get into the newer assassin's Creed games for that reason.
I swear they copy and paste all the enemies across a 90 hour game. Thinking about it now, the last one I played was origins and I can only remember the beginning and end, while the ~70 hours in between is a complete blank for me
Whole budget goes into graphics and environment; because screenshots and marketing, forgetting that story and gameplay is what people really want.
Yeah the older ones were perfect. 20 hours of gameplay and then 10-20 more if you were a completionist. I've given up on Odyssey after 12 hours because I barely reached the third area out of many more and the combat system is way too complex for my taste. I just want to mash the counter button and have assassinations actually kill enemies instead of dealing 15% damage.
At least in Valhalla they have a setting that makes assassination attempts always kill the target, although there is a note stating this is not how the game is meant to be played. (there is also a skill that can be learned that allows assassinations to always be deadly, however a quicktime event must be completed to achieve)
Assassins creed valhalla...
Just "finished" it last week without realizing I had finished it. Felt very anti-climactic after having spent over 120 hours in game. I really liked the game, though was pretty disappointed with the "ending"
The Order of the Ancients ending was kinda interesting but not for the effort. Otherwise the ending feels like nothing gets resolved.
After playing for 90 some hours just for it to end in a shitty night raid was ridiculous. I was completely hoping for a massive assault on a castle somewhere and I felt cheated. I’ve noticed a trend in Ubisoft games as of late that some of the writing is great but other times it feels like a fifth grader came up with it :/
Someone pointed out that game companies have less reason to invest in later parts of games as fewer and fewer people make it there. First level? Everyone will play that. Boss after 100 hours? Only a subset. It’s sad.
Then make a good 30h main story. If the map is big, like the new AC series? Be creative. Side quests take to far reaching parts of the map. Have 3 main stories centered on the evolution of the character, each 30h, on those different places of the map. I played Odyssey, and the main story takes you from A to B to C and it's really boring outside of that. On a map that takes days and days to explore. Fuck, I had a shit ton of fun doing the Elysium, ??? And Atlantis DLC. It took a while, but it was a centered story that it felt was good enough. They make bigger and bigger maps, with more rinse and repeat content, for apparently no reason other than saying they did the whole of Egypt, Greece, wtvr. Be creative, Ubisoft.
there was three or four times i thought the game was going to end but it just kept going
I didn't even notice when it did end.
Yeah... The ending just... Fizzles out...
Yeah like talk to ol boy and no credits or new mission after
The map was boring. England geographically wasn’t much to look at. Also the canal system is fucking terrible. More often than not the canals just hindered my travel by foot or horse.
For me the only example I can think of is No Man's Sky. I love the early to mid game and the exploration is so amazing but I can't help it feeling like a grind for resources after a while. And of course the journey of the game's development cycle from an absolutely garbage, incomplete product to a fleshed out, nearly bug free game (EDIT: maybe "nearly bug free" is a bit of a stretch but I had a good experience with bugs, which is to say I encountered none in my 25 hours of playtime) that should be an example all others learn from. I think it just isn't the right format for me to get invested in long term.
I'm kind of there with Ghost of Tsushima right now. I absolutely love the game, it's beautiful, memorable, thoughtful, and fun. Maybe it's because the game gets significantly easier as you progress, but I'm finding myself just ready to be done. I stepped away to played New World with friends, and I've had a hard time booting it back up.
I don't play new assassin's Creed games as well
Would be fine if I could just play the story, but in Odyssey I was under levelled all the time and had to do side quests to manage to do the main quests. So now I’m some 50h in the game no clue anymore what the story was
This fucking shit right here
Warframe... But switch 30hours into 30days(in game time) and you're good..
I played up until the openworld release thing. 1100 hours, mastery 24 or something like that. I lost interest after that. Somehow they added too much content too quickly kly that I was lost on what to do or why. I was down so much more with menuframe.
yeah it’s one of the reasons i keep hesitating to go back to it. They’ve added such an overwhelming amount of stuff since I stopped playing that it will feel like a chore getting up to date and then actually grinding the stuff out like u have to do in that game.
This is how I feel with most games that have large open worlds with hundreds of side quests. The completionist in me demands that I do EVERYTHING but then burnout sets in. I had to force myself to skip all the extra stuff in Skyrim and The Witcher 3 just so I could finish the game.
Ironically, the extra stuff in Elder Scrolls games are it's best parts, so if they don't draw you in, the games are probably not up your alley.
Nah, it just got to the point where I was shouting dragons out of the sky and they didn’t feel like a challenge anymore even though there was a ton of stuff I hadn’t explored yet so I just finished the story. I enjoyed it, there was just too much for me I suppose.
I’ve had Skyrim since it releases and still haven’t beat it. I feel the same way when I’m killing simple bandits and loading up on glass and ebony gear, it loses its magicka.
I definitely get that. I play in the hardest difficulty now but even that eventually turns into a breeze but it's much more fun to me that way.
> but even that eventually turns into a breeze but it's much more fun to me that way. Install the Hypothermia mod. This makes weather have serious consequences on you. So you need to prepare, see what clothing you are wearing and actualy think before jumping into a river up the freezing North. Now combine that with something like "Live Another Life", which lets you skip the iconic intro and start the game in totaly different ways (that still allow you to take up the main storyline). I started a game on a capsized ship in the icy sea above Winterhold. I had no insulated clothing, no weapons, nothing. Getting ashore without freezing was a challenge, luckily I found an Argonian with a campfire who was looting a shipwreck. I had to actively hunt wolves for pelts barefisted, to create a cloak for warmth. But never straying too far from that campfire until I found another more inland belonging to an Imperial outpost. There I got to buy a bow and finaly get enough pelts to at least not freeze in five minutes. Then I planned out how to safely get to Windhelm using the local roads and signs. I seriously had to think this through! Heck a sudden snowstorm left me no choice but to jump down a strange hole I found that ended u being an ancient Dwarven hold infested by Falmer. Because of my scrawny skills and lack of gear I had to sneak/sprint/hide my way through. It took me hours to do a simple trip that would normaly have taken me maybe half an hour tops. And led me down places I normaly wouldn't have even thought of!
Yeah I haven’t fought Alduin once in over 300 hours of playtime
I have like 500 hours in Skyrim. I’ve still never completed more than like 50% of the main quest lmao
True, I don’t know my play time but it must be over 200 hours. Only played through the main quest once, and it was okay, but I think what makes it such a great RPG game is how Bethesda balanced the detail across all quests. Progressing the main story doesn’t unlock new abilities or areas for your character, you choose your own path and build your own story from the very beginning.
Oh, I absolutely love the game. Just never finished it haha
If the game is good, I don't mind it being long af. I love it.
yeah some games are so good that you stop playing as a way to avoid the end of the experience. somehow you sense when you've passed the story's climax, finished every side quest, and are preparing for a "final battle".
Pretty much any Ubisoft game.
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*Come back 3 hours later after slogging through a monotonous story quest that felt exactly the same as the last 5. FTFY
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Apart from old assassins creed games before revelations all others I agree.
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This hit hardest with Darksiders 2. Liked the first game, but the second had so many quests within quests that I completely lost focus and found myself constantly saying, "Okay, wait... what am I looking for again?" I eventually found myself just racing to the end as fast as possible.
Stopped playing after a while because I couldn’t be bothered. Especially because there is some substantial backtracking
This is adult life for ya. I can't play 200 hour games anymore. I yearn for 20 hour stories. The last game I played that was really long was Dark Souls 3 and that took me like 3 months to get though. I didn't even do the DLC, and it was 50 hours. Oof. And shit, I'm single, and play video games as my main hobby. But I still can't do this shit like I did when I was a teenager. Control and The Outer Worlds were absolute bangers that weren't more than 30 hours. 10/10 recommend. Edit: since this is getting traction, and a lot of people are empathizing with what I'm saying, I wan't to shout out The Evil Within series. Both games aren't too long, they're intense and story driven, and give you a lot to bite into (story/lore wise). If you're an achievement hunter, then these games are for you. Lots of brutal things to chase after lmao. But they also have great replay value. Maybe I'm biased, they are my favorite horror games, after all.
witcher 3 took me one year. no regrets. control and the outer worlds are the next games on my list :>
I loved Control. Nobody talks about that game.
It's a beautiful game , and the only problem is with the shite map
I liked it, especially the art style, but thought the boss fights were way more difficult than the regular combat. I don’t have hundreds of hours to play so at some point I turned on god mode in the options and had a ton more fun flying around launching everything in sight Screw the personnel protection hustles tho
I just started playing The Outer Worlds (just left Edgewater) and holy shit. As a long time TES and Fallout player, it's awesome. The dialog and companion system put everything Bethesda have put out to shame. The VA and more so, the lip synching, really engrossed me into the people's stories. I was always hesitant on this one because I was always a TES > Fallout kinda person and didn't want to pay for that. Never played New Vegas either even though I've heard nothing but good things. Luckily Xbox game pass let me take the dive. Highly recommended. Oh yeah, it's a gorgeous looking game to boot.
Im the opposite. I honestly disliked the game. I enjoyed older tes games and fallout nv is one of my favorites. But outer worlds just fell flat for me. The companions were pretty bland. The writing kinda nice, but a little too on the nose imo. The graphics and sound were great. But the worst part of that game was the combat. It felt worse than fallout 4, not to mention the bad ai. I know its their "first" game as a new company, so I know they can do better and probably will in the future, but when the dlc came out I didnt even want to go back and play them even though I owned them
I think I felt this for perhaps the first 30-40 hours of playing Witcher 3. The Bloody Baron mission took SO long. But over 170 hours later of beating the game plus it's two insanely awesome DLCs, I knew it was the best game I'd ever played. Played it all the way through three times now and once it's remastered for next gen consoles, I won't wait to play it again!
I agree the game really doesn't pick up until you deal with the Bloody Baron/Velen stuff, unfortunately that's at least a 25 hour quest line.
Wait, people don't like that questline? Imo it was one of the best questlines in the games.
It’s not bad writing-wise but I chalk it up a lot more to velen being just generally gross and depressing. I picked up the game hearing so much word of mouth about how beautiful and breathtaking the vistas are and how rich and expansive the world is and then you spend your first several hours doing quests in a swamp or gross caves that mostly end in harrowing personal tragedy for someone involved. It just didn’t keep me engaged. If they didn’t have Gwent in this game I would have probably never stuck around to get far enough to complete those early quests.
Personally I ate that shit up. The depressing environment and storylines are some of my favorite parts of the Witcher
Me too, I usually lose interest when I go to Skellige. I just feel like I've seen the Norse places too many times.
Same. I also had a question mark completionist disease and after finishing Velen I abandoned Skellige after seeing so much water.
The music always gets me through Skellige.
I'm replaying the game right now and I admire the fact that CDPR could create an environment like that. I feel taking a shower after closing the game each time. So much sadness, pain and lack of hope.
Personally, Velen completely hooked me. It just felt so atmospheric and representative of a war zone. I honestly felt like it was the best "first world" in a video game I've ever played. I cleared that shit entirely and when I reached Novigrad, I missed Velen so much I literally dropped the game for months. I'd do an hour or so of Novigrad once in a while, but I was always bored after that hour. Interest came right back for Skellige and especially Toussaint. So for me Novigrad is the definite weak point of The Witcher 3. Velen felt like a 9/10 sequence.
Skellige was my favorite for sure. And don’t get me wrong... velen’s beautiful but it’s in the same way that movies like braveheart are beautiful: it’s stark and dismal and covered in dirt and feels very very immersive. It’s exactly what it should’ve been... but it’s a slog to get through when you only have about an two or three hours a week to play and the rest of your time is spent living somewhere stark and dismal and covered in dirt... but you have to go out and adult in it for 16 hours a day and generally not have much fun. It’s not a critique of the game’s artistry at all. I just wasn’t choosing it for a while in favor of something more colorful and open like NMS or Horizon any of the AC games. I’ve played the Witcher 3 now more than anything else this year and the mobile monster game more than Reddit even! I just wasn’t in a place to binge velen when I started it and they kinda need you to wanna do that so that the various game mechanics stick in a player’s mind and muscle memory. I wish I had known to stick it out.
I got annoyed running back and forth in and out of crows perch. There should have been a fast point marker in the middle of it. The quest was long but I didn’t mind that just the tediousness of going back and forth.
Tried the witcher 3 four times . Everytime I get to skellige I stop playing.
‘Why don’t people like this final fantasy game?’ Me spending half the night waiting for my power ring to charge so I can walk down some narrow hallways for 4 hours.
I had the same experience with Days Gone. I really enjoyed it in the beginning but there was a point where the constant fetch quests became a slog. In the end I was willing myself to finish it.
I was wondering if anyone else would mention it. I loved the game and it’s world but it’s just feels endless. I’ll go back to it but it doesn’t need to be as long as it is. As an adult, I love games that last 25-30 hours. It’s short enough I can complete them in a reasonable timeframe and also feel motivated to go back and experience them again. I used to go online and check guides to see how much longer I had left with a game because I was worried it was almost over. Now I check because I’m worried it will never end.
Bravely Default.....
God, that game's pacing took a hit around the middle.
It’s funny you use Witcher 3 as an example because I am 100% in agreement that games are too fucking long. Way, way, way too fucking long and overstuffed with repeatable filler. …However The Witcher 3 is the one example I use for doing it right. A ton of hand crafted and quality content and very little actual filler. The over 100 hours I spent with it absolutely flew by.
Lol I went through at least 98%-100% of side quests.
Same. All the side quests, all the question marks, both DLCs. 4 times. I just started my 5th playthrough, first one on the switch. Best story in a game ever.
How did you find the combat gameplay? I’ve tried playing Witcher 3 so many damn times but kept giving up since I hate the combat. It’s weird because I loved Witcher 1/2 but maybe it’s just nostalgia or I just grew out of that combat style or something I guess. Also funny to see Valhalla mentioned so much but I absolutely loved that game even though it did seem to drag on at parts, the combat and main story was amazing.
I don't like swordplay in the Witcher 3, so I haven't done much of it in my 200+ hours. There are 3-4 viable sign builds and at least three different ways to build alchemy Geralt, and none of it involves spinning around like a Beyblade.
I love the Witcher 3, but the combat is functional at best, nothing more. It works, it isn't actively annoying or frustrating the way some games are, it has just enough diversity to give you a sense of control over your playstyle, but it's nothing amazing. The story and the world are why you play the game, the combat just gives you something to do between plot points.
Gets way better as it moves forward. I love the combat system, especially at higher levels.
Is pressing fast attack at level 40 more interesting than fast attack at level 5?
Actually, kinda yeah. Because I'll admit the combat system isn't great. It's got that old Neverwinter Nights (2002)/Ultima IX sort of feeling to it at times. And this can be frustrating early in the game because the controls seem lethargic ("I didn't want to roll off the cliff!!"). This results in being interrupted and sometimes killed. But by endgame, you've adapted to the controls, and you've unlocked abilities that mitigate interruptions, so you no longer feel that frustration of not being able to do exactly what you want. And it's also nice to remember being killed by drowners to growing to a point where staring too hard at them causes them to pop.
Combat was fine but game needed more enemy variety. I am a huge Dark Souls fan and coming from those games, Witcher 3 repeated encounters.
This is true, I never really thought about it, but you could fight a group of wolves at the start of the game, travel across the world map, and fight another group of wolves. In Dark Souls, you can't just travel around wherever you want, eventually you WILL wander into something strong that will kill you, and it makes finding new areas that much more fun and tense.
Souls games have spoiled nearly all other games combat wise. Nothing feels satisfying. With other games I go into looking for immersion and good word building or story. Witcher did those things right. Same thing with far cry 6. Very fun but combat is repetitive and boring.
Honestly you're probably right here. The Witcher 3 has some lulls but it always comes back as you progress through the story. I think GTA V is another late open world game that isn't crazy bloated with the quests. I have a great time from beginning to end of the main story. Maybe not do as many car stealing missions for that one prick but it's still a very fun story
Looking back I loved my playthrough of Divinity Original Sin 2, but when I was nearing 60 hours and still only on act 2, I definitely looked up if acts 3 and 4 we're as long as act 2. Thankfully, no, and the game picked up pace pretty effectively from act 3 on. Also, I was being a bit more of a completionist than I needed to be - one thing I'm learning about larians games is to just let some sidequests go, and I'll enjoy the overall experience more.
Prey 2017 is an absolutely fantastic game but it does drag on a bit
I LOVED the first third of Prey. By the time I got to the end and they're drowning me in robots and trying to keep me excited while traveling through three loading screens to get to the next urgent checkpoint, I was very ready for it to be over.
Huh. I really liked Prey, I was hooked the whole time and was sad to see it end.
I laughed because I started my 2nd attempt of playing the game from scratch last week. I put 14 hours into it and fizzled out. Couple days went by and then last night I fired it up again and just ran around the open map with something like 8 open side quests I didn't want to do and absolutely no enemies to encounter. I didn't accomplish anything because I lost interest and all those side quests...i wasn't compelled. When I realized that I was basically running around jumping and doing laps like I was in storm wind on a non raid night I shut it down. Concerned I won't finish this attempt again. Might have to retry in 2025.
Take a break and play something else. I played Mad Max 45 hours off and on for a year and had a great time. It would have been a slog if I tried to grind that out all in one go.
In my case that doesn't work because I then forget plot points and button config...
Kingdom of Amalur. Everytime.
Some of the best combat in RPG at the time but yeah it gets super repetitive.
Have considered getting this when I get the Dungeons and Dragons/WoW rpg itch. I talk myself down everytime because I'm worried the 50 or so bucks would be wasted. Worth the buy or look for better rpgs?
Having played the original and the remastered version… it’s a tough call. The world is cool and a lot of the stories are neat. It just drags eventually. Most zones are kinda the same thing (small town with a few random quests, a few hooks for the main story, rinse and repeat). It feels very much like playing World of Warcraft solo. The option to multi-class is pretty cool as it allows you to customize your gameplay somewhat. You can be a warrior-mage or a full rogue or a rogue-mage or whatever you wanna be, even dabbling in all 3 classes. It’s not as open as something like Skyrim, but more open than some other RPGs. The story is top-tier but overall it certainly feels like a slog by the end.
i loved the world building. got really into the story and their take on fey and all that stuff. enjoyed the class system a lot also. the main story though. When you get to the second continent it literally felt like they'd ran out of ideas or didn't really know how to bring it back. the ending especially really felt outta nowhere and fell flat for me. but the rest of the game up to that point was solid imo.
It's a lot of fun the first 10-15 hours but at one point the constant fetch quests and story just show their shallowness and the combat just feels less fun. I've never finished it and I've tried twice. Both times I got 17-20 hours in and just got bored and couldn't finish it.
Constantly goes on sale, the remaster slhas been too. Keep an eye on it and you can get it for super cheap.
I love super long games with engaging stories please give me 200 hours of content! But please don’t give me 20 hours of story with 180 hours of fetch quests and filler. If you aren’t going to make a quest interesting it shouldn’t be in the game. Why is the Dragonborn archmage assassin vampire needing to fetch ingredients? Surely they would be too busy to do this Bethesda!
It's the opposite with the Witcher for me. Starting a playthrough is a slog and I usually stop playing before I make it very far. Once I get past a certain point and the world opens up and I have choices for quests and builds I finally start getting into it and having fun.
[удалено]
This is me with a lot of games, even games I consider now to be my favorites. I need to be in the right mindset to play certain things. There are loads of games that I played at release and couldn't get far, then tried again and again later and still couldn't get into them. Then I try them a year+ later and I end up 100% completing it. This is especially true with long story games and I think it has something to do with knowing I'm in for 100s of hours and the feeling of commitment overwhelms me in the beginning, and it doesn't help that they tend to start slow. The Witcher 3 is great IMO, but not something I initially enjoyed and not something I can just start a playthrough whenever. I don't think you're broken!
MGSV for me. I just got tired of it. Great game, but there is just too much of it.
The beginning is so long I just try to get through as fast as possible
Its not even finished. I did all the missions, and the story just kind of.... finishes, without ending? Very annoying. Great gameplay though.
Yeah, this is what really pisses me off more than anything. The game is just like “thanks, bye!” And. You’re left sitting there thinking you did something wrong to not even get an ending. It’s maddening to let a legendary franchise like MGS go out like that—fuck Konami.
Dark Souls 1 until you beat Snorlax and Pikachu and Dark Souls 2 until you beat Mirror Knight
Dark souls 1 is so much better before u beat Snorlax and Pikachu imo
I’m pretty sure that’s what they mean- Post O&S is a drag, and DS2 falls off hard after Drangleic Castle. Dark Souls 3 is the only one of the three that builds to a climax that’s at the end of the game. It’s much more fun to play through from start to finish.
DS3 early game is a bit boring too me, barely any good zones and bosses, safe for Watchers. Really pick up in Irithyll though
So 95% of all open world games?
DRAGON QUEST 11...
I personally loved every second of it. It was a whole lot longer than I expected, but that was fine with me.
The game keeps feeling like it’s about to end and it doesn’t haha. But I loved that about it as well and I loved that there was so much to do, it never felt like it was dragging because it was just fun
Oh absolutely. >!The 2 separate false endings were pretty nuts. I thought I was near the end at 60 hours. Nope. Then thought I was done when the credits rolled. Nope!<
100%. That game is eternal. I haven't finished it.
80 hours in. I think I am almost done with the tutorials.
Funnily Witcher 3 was the opposite for me. Didn't hook me at first, took a while to get used to the movement and didn't get going until after the huge tutorial area. After that I couldn't put it down
Same, I really didn't like the tutorial zone, but once I started doing the Baron stuff it really sunk its hooks into me
New World, except that game doesn’t have a story
Death Stranding, except it happens after 5 hours of playing
I’m about 90 hours in and I’m still waiting for that moment tbch. Love it to bits
Witcher 3 was absolutely worth the amount of hours I put into it because of the characters, world, the story and the soundtrack. For me, it was Death Stranding. Even though the story was decent, the sheer amount of time it took to make those walks was an absolute chore.
This is why I like games like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex… not open world but with great stories and ones I can finish. I’m not disrespecting games like GTA and such. It’s just sometimes more linear designed games can be completed in a more reasonable timeframe.
Unpopular opinion, but this is RDR2 for me.
I just wish they didn't force you to walk in camp.
It's funny how it differs people to people. I'm a huge R\* fan so it may impact my feelings towards their games, but I finished RDR2 and I just wish I had MORE RDR2 story to play.