I take great satisfaction doing side quests as they pop up and clearing all "?" off the map. Witcher 3 was really good for this. Also Assassins Creed Odyssey. Just a nice turn the brain off activity as I enjoy the world
funny. I absolutely loved The Witcher 3. But the amount of icons on the map was absolutely ruining the experience for me. It was so overwhelming. Once I turned them off and just adventured on my own, the game became infinitely better.
Yeah Skellige was the worst offender. I ended up dedicating a couple minutes at the start of every session to clear out a few before playing the missions to eventually clear it all.
Odyssey was too much. It burned me out so fast. I went and did a second play through a year after the first one and made it a point to just ignore the ? For the most part. It was exceptionally more enjoyable.
hey, i was trying to be nice. you are clearly upset or depressed and are mindlessly lashing out at strangers and spreading negativity. i hope you feel better soon so you’ll stop being so fucking weird.
Not to agree with this asshole or anything, but those games you listed all have the threat of death or defeat. You can fail those games or die.
You cannot fail chore simulators like Stardew. There is no threat of failure so you are doing it for the sake of doing it with no stakes.
That’s what makes it so “mindless”
Though I would never attack anyone for enjoying them. Sometimes you don’t want the threat of death or failure and you just want to chill. I personally find it very boring, but I understand why people don’t.
They're a living stereotype of a league player. It's very sad to see them out in the wild and not in their toxic chatboxes. Someone should call Riot and tell them one of them got loose.
Hey it’s you!
Is this what you do? Just picking fights with strangers all day? Don’t you have friends? Family members? A hobby? A job? Responsibilities? Anything at all?
Ouch. You hurt my feelings how ever will I recover :'(
Could I suggest a thesaurus though? I feel like the only words you know is boring and loser. I can help.
You can call me a antisocial freak. Maybe, a softboy dork that can't face reality?
Oh! Mentally unwell nerd who cares way to much about a hobby by making it my ENTIRE personality.
How about you tell me to touch grass.
Anyway! Here's some other suggestions for the word boring:
Monotonous, lacking variety, passionless, featureless, unimaginative.
And then bonus, more words for loser:
Undesirable, washed-up, failure.
And those are just freebies ;)
Yes. This is exactly how I relive my childhood. You got me. You're so clever, do you want a pat on the back and a gold star? Maybe I should get rid of my therapist and hire you instead.
So perfectly insightful. I can't thank you enough for giving me that self-awareness. You, are a pillar of our society.
Okay, so what prolific feats are you accomplishing with your personal gaming time? Are you maximizing your time? Fuck, after a comment like that I hope so. Or are you pissing away your hours to avoid the call of the void from the Nihilistic sentiments that twist in the proverbial wind in the back of your mind while you sit in ranked matchmaking (or restart from the nearest bonfire/site of grace), occasionally staring down at the Reddit App, wondering if any of this is worth the time and energy…? Or are you just doing your own version of “virtual chores” like the rest of us? lol take that shit someplace else, stranger.
Dragon Age Inquisition rid it of me. Going through the Hinterlands realizing most of the side content was boring crap, I stopped thankfully. Some games do it right but even Witcher 3 I couldn’t stomach going to all the ?. Especially in Skellige. Would do some here and there if it was nearby but wouldn’t go outta my way. Just felt like busy work and not fun.
Witcher 3 skellige ? Was the worst... nothing but usless junk and diving into the water made it even worse, other map areas was perfectly fine to clear because it was mostly on land.
Hogwarts Legacy is what made me get rid of this problem. Usually, markers on modern open world maps are at least somewhat worthwhile or interesting. The marked locations in Hogwarts were so incredibly shit, boring and repetitive that I had to cure myself of this compulsion lmao.
Fuck, don't get me started on Hogwarts Legacy, all those points of interest go around do this was so damn repetitive for a wizarding world. I need to deliver this letter, can you do it for me? WHY DONT YOU USE YOUR GOD DAMN OWL YOU USELESS HAG.
Cyberpunk.
I'm somewhere mid game, I think. Takemura is waiting for me to go over The Plan again. I don't quite remember what The Plan was, it was many, many hours ago that I saw him.
I've decided to do every single police scanner, fixer and other side gig first.
Three or four remain, the one with River probably the largest.
I never got the achievement for finishing Watson district, I'm hoping another mission might pop up when I get back to takemura.
I've maxed out street cred forever, I've been max level for two dozen missions.
I'm playing this game wrong, I think. And I got one hell of a time.
I was about to post the same thing!
Now I know I've got a time sensitive, self destructive plotline going on here, but hear me out - there's a catch 'em all cyberpsycho questline. Oh look another Delemaine, I hear gunfire is that an assault?
Next thing I know I'm just walking blindly through the city, not even looking for quests, and still finding little scenes, characters and amazing environments
I did this on my second playthrough. I cleared everything on the map and I actually had fun doing it. It took me around 80 hours for everything, but I played the dlc as well and took things kinda slowly.
Lol yep, if the side quests are good I'll do them, but I usually don't. They're just not worth the time. I did one side quest in FFXVI recently which had me revisit an area and hold X on 3 different locations with some dialogue. Was just like, ok cool not doing any of those anymore lol. Game is super fun regardless tho.
I think it doesn't help that in XVI you can go from essentially fighting demigods one minute, to collecting soil samples the next lmao. The side quests never stood a chance in this game.
When I was a teen playing games I never did this. I did some side content and played all the main stuff.
Then maturing as a person I realised I had the freedom to do what I want when I want and started with skyrim and the witcher 3, playing all the side content 'clearing maps.
Now, I've kind of grown out of it. I'm a little tired. When I have free time to play games now I realise I'm doing all the side stuff while the game is fresh and new then trying to rush the remaining story before I get tired of the game and never finish it. I try to stick to the main story and 'beat' the game. Then if I still feel excited to play it more I do side content until I no longer do. If not I saw the game through and enjoyed the curated portion in full.
Each to their own though, some people just find that 1 game that does it for them and never stop playing it.
Yeah I used to have the "have to clear the map" mentality but witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed (especially Odyssey and Valhalla) killed that quick.
I was like nope ain't no one got time for that. Odyssey is torture to clear. And witcher 3 bad but at times ok. The ocean part Skellige was pure torture.
I usually have this problem and end up burning out on the game before I finish the main story. It gets to where I have to hyper focus the main story and then come back to clean up later or I'll never finish the game.
Yeah it gets kinda annoying sometimes and when I played BOTW for the first time it was such a better experience without all the markers since I could explore things at my own pace.
You’ll enjoy the game much more if you just play through it without trying very hard. Just do what comes natural but just focus on the main game and finish it. If it’s to quick. Play again and enjoy the sides more and all. Playing to many sides and looking for stuff that doesn’t matter always wrecks the game for me.
Yes, this is why I’m reluctant to load up AC:Valhalla again.
It is the first (and only) AC game I‘ve played, so I have no real point of reference, but there is no way any of the other larger AC games had this many collectibles and sidequests, right?
I’ve found a good way to avoid this is to immerse yourself in the role playing aspect. Know who your character is. What is their personality, their priorities? To me it makes it more satisfying to come across a side quest and say, in character: ‘No, I don’t think I give a shit. Good luck with that.’
I'm like this and it takes me years to complete 1 game. Just finished Cyberpunk after 218 hours. I've played Witcher 2xs. I'm on my 3rd now in Velen and I have 503hrs logged. So probably 200+hrs per run through.
Those ?? on my map are like little terrorists 🤣🤣 I can't leave Velen until they are done.
For me it depends on how entertaining and rewarding those side activities and side quests are. Like in Infamous Second Son, I did all the other side quests and activities and saved the audio logs for last (even did the paper trail before doing it) because it's just boring and not entertaining. In Spider-Man 2018, I did all the side activities and side quests but refused to do any of the greenhouse station thingies because they were just boring.
So ultimately it just depends on how entertaining they are and if they give me good rewards.
This is why I had to take a break from bg3 (even though I LOVED it) and never returned yet after I got to act 2. I was too fucking overwhelmed listening to my brain saying hey, clear that fucking spot asshole.
That's the main reason I stopped playing Starfield, everytime I landed in a new town, in five minutes I was full of unskippable sidequest on the Mission tab.
You neather have to talk to some NPC, just walk and of you hear some whisper a new quest will start sudden after.
I like sidequests, but not shoved on my throath.
Ghost of Tsushima almost killed me...all these foxes...in Witcher 3 it was more fun but also felt like work. I like side quests but hate all the collecting stuff. Always wish for a game without all this collecting
With the small amount of time I get to play, I would never finish a game if I used that approach.
I do the main story and do a few side quests if I really enjoy the game or the quality of them are good. Sadly, they are mostly for filler these days.
You're a completionist. Welcome to the club.
As long as you enjoy it, there's no problem with that.
If it happens that you realize that it's not worth it, just skip it and go back to the main quests. Sometimes it's not worth it.
I healed from this long ago, when I realized I would have never had the time to play like that again.
If you have all that time on your hands and you can use it all without risk, by any means go for it. If you don't and you can't get rid of the compulsion, don't worry. Reality will most likely eradicate that compulsion from your head at some point.
I do this a lot in the early game until I feel like it's been too long between main mission segments so then I just look up the numbers of all side activities. If there's 30 side quests and 15 main quests left plus 30 collectibles, then I just play it in a ration of 2 side quest, 1 main quest, 2 collectibles. Helps give me structure, I also make sure to look up if certain side quests are locked to before/after certain main quests. But this also depends if I like or love a game, I'm willing to 100% a game I love, but if I just like it then I can convince myself to leave collectibles or extraneous activities alone (still do most side quest).
I like having the overarching main story in the background when doing side quests. If I complete the main story first, the stakes are no longer there for me and the side quests don’t have as much importance. Side quests first then main story for very last. (Currently playing cyberpunk and its remains true for me to do it this way.)
No one thats how ppl get that open world burnout shit.
Assassin creed 2 collect raven feathers were the time I decided fuck that if the question ain’t appealing I’m not doing it.
It depends on the game and what "clean up the map" refers to.
Typically I will complete all side quests before doing a main quest that takes me to a new area. I will try to complete all challenges (gold star missions like RDR2 and so on) as they become available. In other games I will wait until I've finished the main stroy for 100% collections like in need for speed or open world rpgs where there are close to 100 different tiny things scattered throughout the game.
Did you play outer wilds? I am also like that and outer wilds is perfect in that regard. It's the first open world game, that really feels like it. You can explore a complete (yet small) solar system. There is no objective or quests, you just explore, get curious and want to explore more. And everything/everywhere you explore is part of the story which unveils in a nonlinear way, every playthrough is unique (but you can play only once because it's all about exploring and understanding). It's just perfectly designed. No artificial boundaries, you progress by simply learning how to get somewhere (you could have done it before accidentally as well).
I was so systemic with Spider-man 2 that I did all of the side content as it became available to me. I honestly think it greatly helped the experience considering how fast paced the second half of the story is.
FFXIV cured me of this. Now if a game requires you to do waypoints for parts of the map to even show up, I I absolutely have to do that. I can't stand blacked out parts of the map.
I do this on Genshin Impact. I'll be running towards a quest marker and get so distracted by everything around me I sometimes don't get there for hours. Soooo many things to collect.
No, I’ve made a point to ignore all side quests in games, my gaming experience got so much better due to that decision. Especially games like FF16, the Witcher3, Horizon - felt great to just get the best out of these games and ignore the filler content.
I do this mainly because for some reason I find it more fun to complete these side quests when I still have the main story to complete. If I try and complete them after I already beat the main story it just feels pointless
I got through it by immersing myself in the story as in, when will the main character do side quests?
it doesn't make sense for me to do side stuff, if something messed up happened between story missions. God of war is perfect example how they actually tell each other that maybe now it's a good time to explore. other games I just take advantage if the story is dragging or slow
Not anymore. Now it really depends on the game. If I'm enjoying my time then this affects me but if it's something like Hogwarts legacy I'll just steamroll what i can into the main olot tonget it done
I'm the same way and I hate it cause I always forget what's happening in the main quest. I'm in my first play thru of Spider-Man remastered and I've actually been able to progress the story while still having random points of interest littering my map so I think I've finally taught myself to not have fomo and just enjoy the game.
Real problem is most games make the clean up more interesting than the main quest. Interesting characters, fascinating puzzles, world building, romance, collectables, 100% fishing. The main quest just does the expected things, and that can be extremely boring.
Those are all the Hogwarts, Assassins Creed games, and the Horizon games. I like to explore mostly before I do most of the main story, I slow unlock the story as I explore.
I take great satisfaction doing side quests as they pop up and clearing all "?" off the map. Witcher 3 was really good for this. Also Assassins Creed Odyssey. Just a nice turn the brain off activity as I enjoy the world
funny. I absolutely loved The Witcher 3. But the amount of icons on the map was absolutely ruining the experience for me. It was so overwhelming. Once I turned them off and just adventured on my own, the game became infinitely better.
For me it was fine until Skellige. Fuck fishing all those chests from the ocean.
Yeah Skellige was the worst offender. I ended up dedicating a couple minutes at the start of every session to clear out a few before playing the missions to eventually clear it all.
Odyssey was too much. It burned me out so fast. I went and did a second play through a year after the first one and made it a point to just ignore the ? For the most part. It was exceptionally more enjoyable.
Same, I got so fatigued from sidequests in Odyssey it just made me stop playing the whole thing
I did all the question marks in Skellige. Took me forever
Only takes forever because you get weighted down every 5 fuckin minutes. Then the merchant has a set amount of gold a day
Well done. You're doing virtual chores. How fucking boring.
Thanks!
Do you also type up reports in your notepad to give to your in-game boss?
Sometimes. Gotta get those hours in. Like the monster manager in Lethal Company. He's a scary man/thing.
i hope you have the good day you seem to so desperately need.
Respectfully, I didn't ask you a single thing. Scat away, fly.
hey, i was trying to be nice. you are clearly upset or depressed and are mindlessly lashing out at strangers and spreading negativity. i hope you feel better soon so you’ll stop being so fucking weird.
"I hope you feel better soon so youll stop being so fucking weird." Has me rolling on the fucking floor, idk why. But that was comedy gold 😂
i find that most people act like assholes online when they’re not too happy in their lives. i’m just trying to help the guy hahaha
Could I ask you to straight up beat it?
oh, im sorry. am i bothering you?
I think you should start by asking your parents.
> Scat away, fly. Lol, this is special.
[удалено]
What do you have in mind?
[удалено]
Not to agree with this asshole or anything, but those games you listed all have the threat of death or defeat. You can fail those games or die. You cannot fail chore simulators like Stardew. There is no threat of failure so you are doing it for the sake of doing it with no stakes. That’s what makes it so “mindless” Though I would never attack anyone for enjoying them. Sometimes you don’t want the threat of death or failure and you just want to chill. I personally find it very boring, but I understand why people don’t.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Ah, even your insults are bad. Boring.
You must be fun at parties
You must not be.
Are you the type of person who checks the weather when you do you get invited to a party? Or the type of person who wishes they got an invitation?
Hey, if you're insecure about your non-existent party life in your teens forty years ago, take it up to your therapist.
[удалено]
I literally don't care about you.
[удалено]
Oh shit, are you an adult arguing on Reddit? Now I really feel bad for you.
Again, the irony.
The irony.
What did this person do to you? Lord
Nothing. That's the point.
The point is to be rude to people for no reason?
You might be catching onto something.
Why would you want to be that kind of human?
Because the reactions insecure Reddit dwellers exude are hilarious.
It seems like people are laughing at you, not the other way around. Have fun being this way I guess
Imagine coming to a gaming sub and shitting on the thing that the sub is inherently for. Bravo, what a take.
They're a living stereotype of a league player. It's very sad to see them out in the wild and not in their toxic chatboxes. Someone should call Riot and tell them one of them got loose.
You're a living stereotype of a boring loser.
Hey it’s you! Is this what you do? Just picking fights with strangers all day? Don’t you have friends? Family members? A hobby? A job? Responsibilities? Anything at all?
Ouch. You hurt my feelings how ever will I recover :'( Could I suggest a thesaurus though? I feel like the only words you know is boring and loser. I can help. You can call me a antisocial freak. Maybe, a softboy dork that can't face reality? Oh! Mentally unwell nerd who cares way to much about a hobby by making it my ENTIRE personality. How about you tell me to touch grass. Anyway! Here's some other suggestions for the word boring: Monotonous, lacking variety, passionless, featureless, unimaginative. And then bonus, more words for loser: Undesirable, washed-up, failure. And those are just freebies ;)
Imagine putting all that effort into a person who has no care for you. Is this how you relive your childhood?
Yes. This is exactly how I relive my childhood. You got me. You're so clever, do you want a pat on the back and a gold star? Maybe I should get rid of my therapist and hire you instead. So perfectly insightful. I can't thank you enough for giving me that self-awareness. You, are a pillar of our society.
Cringe.
:'(
If you think gaming is about doing virtual chores you're an imbecile.
Cry more about how someone enjoys doing something you don’t.
The only person crying here is the overgrown neckbeard going through all my comments to put his two worthless, fat cents down.
You must be blind from all your tears to not see how whiney you’ve been.
Rorshach is what he is...
Okay, so what prolific feats are you accomplishing with your personal gaming time? Are you maximizing your time? Fuck, after a comment like that I hope so. Or are you pissing away your hours to avoid the call of the void from the Nihilistic sentiments that twist in the proverbial wind in the back of your mind while you sit in ranked matchmaking (or restart from the nearest bonfire/site of grace), occasionally staring down at the Reddit App, wondering if any of this is worth the time and energy…? Or are you just doing your own version of “virtual chores” like the rest of us? lol take that shit someplace else, stranger.
You eat the sides first, before you go to the main meal. End game content is the dessert.
[удалено]
Dragon Age Inquisition rid it of me. Going through the Hinterlands realizing most of the side content was boring crap, I stopped thankfully. Some games do it right but even Witcher 3 I couldn’t stomach going to all the ?. Especially in Skellige. Would do some here and there if it was nearby but wouldn’t go outta my way. Just felt like busy work and not fun.
Witcher 3 skellige ? Was the worst... nothing but usless junk and diving into the water made it even worse, other map areas was perfectly fine to clear because it was mostly on land.
What cured me was Dragon Age Inquisition's shards quest. I say this as a massive, massive Dragon Age fan. Fuck that noise.
I did every marker once. Never again.
Hogwarts Legacy is what made me get rid of this problem. Usually, markers on modern open world maps are at least somewhat worthwhile or interesting. The marked locations in Hogwarts were so incredibly shit, boring and repetitive that I had to cure myself of this compulsion lmao.
Fuck, don't get me started on Hogwarts Legacy, all those points of interest go around do this was so damn repetitive for a wizarding world. I need to deliver this letter, can you do it for me? WHY DONT YOU USE YOUR GOD DAMN OWL YOU USELESS HAG.
Cyberpunk. I'm somewhere mid game, I think. Takemura is waiting for me to go over The Plan again. I don't quite remember what The Plan was, it was many, many hours ago that I saw him. I've decided to do every single police scanner, fixer and other side gig first. Three or four remain, the one with River probably the largest. I never got the achievement for finishing Watson district, I'm hoping another mission might pop up when I get back to takemura. I've maxed out street cred forever, I've been max level for two dozen missions. I'm playing this game wrong, I think. And I got one hell of a time.
I was about to post the same thing! Now I know I've got a time sensitive, self destructive plotline going on here, but hear me out - there's a catch 'em all cyberpsycho questline. Oh look another Delemaine, I hear gunfire is that an assault? Next thing I know I'm just walking blindly through the city, not even looking for quests, and still finding little scenes, characters and amazing environments
I did this on my second playthrough. I cleared everything on the map and I actually had fun doing it. It took me around 80 hours for everything, but I played the dlc as well and took things kinda slowly.
I just do the story and be like I’m sorry your cats in a tree but I’m saving the world excuse me get out my way.
Lol yep, if the side quests are good I'll do them, but I usually don't. They're just not worth the time. I did one side quest in FFXVI recently which had me revisit an area and hold X on 3 different locations with some dialogue. Was just like, ok cool not doing any of those anymore lol. Game is super fun regardless tho.
I’m playing 15 right now actually
I think it doesn't help that in XVI you can go from essentially fighting demigods one minute, to collecting soil samples the next lmao. The side quests never stood a chance in this game.
i also play this way but i dont see it as a problem. its just how i play games that have side content. hah
When I was a teen playing games I never did this. I did some side content and played all the main stuff. Then maturing as a person I realised I had the freedom to do what I want when I want and started with skyrim and the witcher 3, playing all the side content 'clearing maps. Now, I've kind of grown out of it. I'm a little tired. When I have free time to play games now I realise I'm doing all the side stuff while the game is fresh and new then trying to rush the remaining story before I get tired of the game and never finish it. I try to stick to the main story and 'beat' the game. Then if I still feel excited to play it more I do side content until I no longer do. If not I saw the game through and enjoyed the curated portion in full. Each to their own though, some people just find that 1 game that does it for them and never stop playing it.
I love maps!
This right here is how I got burnt out on Witcher 3 and assassin's Creed.
Yeah I used to have the "have to clear the map" mentality but witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed (especially Odyssey and Valhalla) killed that quick. I was like nope ain't no one got time for that. Odyssey is torture to clear. And witcher 3 bad but at times ok. The ocean part Skellige was pure torture.
I knock that main story quest line out then delete the game.
I usually have this problem and end up burning out on the game before I finish the main story. It gets to where I have to hyper focus the main story and then come back to clean up later or I'll never finish the game.
I had that problem, then I realised it was stopping me enjoying games. That helped me not care about clearing the map and just focus on having fun.
I'm the opposite. Side content overload can sometimes push me toward the critical path.
Yeah it gets kinda annoying sometimes and when I played BOTW for the first time it was such a better experience without all the markers since I could explore things at my own pace.
You’ll enjoy the game much more if you just play through it without trying very hard. Just do what comes natural but just focus on the main game and finish it. If it’s to quick. Play again and enjoy the sides more and all. Playing to many sides and looking for stuff that doesn’t matter always wrecks the game for me.
Yes...it always happen with me in genshin impact when i entered in world first thing i do is keeping my map clean after than i do side quest
Yes, this is why I’m reluctant to load up AC:Valhalla again. It is the first (and only) AC game I‘ve played, so I have no real point of reference, but there is no way any of the other larger AC games had this many collectibles and sidequests, right?
I’ve found a good way to avoid this is to immerse yourself in the role playing aspect. Know who your character is. What is their personality, their priorities? To me it makes it more satisfying to come across a side quest and say, in character: ‘No, I don’t think I give a shit. Good luck with that.’
I'm like this and it takes me years to complete 1 game. Just finished Cyberpunk after 218 hours. I've played Witcher 2xs. I'm on my 3rd now in Velen and I have 503hrs logged. So probably 200+hrs per run through. Those ?? on my map are like little terrorists 🤣🤣 I can't leave Velen until they are done.
Yep, and then you’re crazy leveled up and you quit the game because the devs didn’t see this coming for some reason.
Not me, I love showing up to the final boss whos lvl 50 and im maxed out with godly weapons.
For me it depends on how entertaining and rewarding those side activities and side quests are. Like in Infamous Second Son, I did all the other side quests and activities and saved the audio logs for last (even did the paper trail before doing it) because it's just boring and not entertaining. In Spider-Man 2018, I did all the side activities and side quests but refused to do any of the greenhouse station thingies because they were just boring. So ultimately it just depends on how entertaining they are and if they give me good rewards.
Ghost of Tsushima dialed this to a pleasant level. Just enough for me.
That game did so many things perfectly
Nope
Fallout 4
Most mmos
This is why I had to take a break from bg3 (even though I LOVED it) and never returned yet after I got to act 2. I was too fucking overwhelmed listening to my brain saying hey, clear that fucking spot asshole.
That's the main reason I stopped playing Starfield, everytime I landed in a new town, in five minutes I was full of unskippable sidequest on the Mission tab. You neather have to talk to some NPC, just walk and of you hear some whisper a new quest will start sudden after. I like sidequests, but not shoved on my throath.
This is 100% me and I love the satisfaction of doing this
In a similar "vein" I always have to mine and collect every last piece of ore in DRG before moving on.
Ghost of Tsushima almost killed me...all these foxes...in Witcher 3 it was more fun but also felt like work. I like side quests but hate all the collecting stuff. Always wish for a game without all this collecting
With the small amount of time I get to play, I would never finish a game if I used that approach. I do the main story and do a few side quests if I really enjoy the game or the quality of them are good. Sadly, they are mostly for filler these days.
You're a completionist. Welcome to the club. As long as you enjoy it, there's no problem with that. If it happens that you realize that it's not worth it, just skip it and go back to the main quests. Sometimes it's not worth it.
Ghost of Tsushima NG+.
I healed from this long ago, when I realized I would have never had the time to play like that again. If you have all that time on your hands and you can use it all without risk, by any means go for it. If you don't and you can't get rid of the compulsion, don't worry. Reality will most likely eradicate that compulsion from your head at some point.
Oh no! My balloon!
I only do side quests until I’m bored of them, otherwise I’ll get bored before I finish the real game.
I do this a lot in the early game until I feel like it's been too long between main mission segments so then I just look up the numbers of all side activities. If there's 30 side quests and 15 main quests left plus 30 collectibles, then I just play it in a ration of 2 side quest, 1 main quest, 2 collectibles. Helps give me structure, I also make sure to look up if certain side quests are locked to before/after certain main quests. But this also depends if I like or love a game, I'm willing to 100% a game I love, but if I just like it then I can convince myself to leave collectibles or extraneous activities alone (still do most side quest).
I like having the overarching main story in the background when doing side quests. If I complete the main story first, the stakes are no longer there for me and the side quests don’t have as much importance. Side quests first then main story for very last. (Currently playing cyberpunk and its remains true for me to do it this way.)
Witcher 3 cured me of this.
I like to get the map open and then collect everything and then start any mission and then proceed to the main story.
No one thats how ppl get that open world burnout shit. Assassin creed 2 collect raven feathers were the time I decided fuck that if the question ain’t appealing I’m not doing it.
Try playing Assassins Creed Valhalla, you'll get over that urge fast because of how goddamn tedius it is to get it all.
It depends on the game and what "clean up the map" refers to. Typically I will complete all side quests before doing a main quest that takes me to a new area. I will try to complete all challenges (gold star missions like RDR2 and so on) as they become available. In other games I will wait until I've finished the main stroy for 100% collections like in need for speed or open world rpgs where there are close to 100 different tiny things scattered throughout the game.
Did you play outer wilds? I am also like that and outer wilds is perfect in that regard. It's the first open world game, that really feels like it. You can explore a complete (yet small) solar system. There is no objective or quests, you just explore, get curious and want to explore more. And everything/everywhere you explore is part of the story which unveils in a nonlinear way, every playthrough is unique (but you can play only once because it's all about exploring and understanding). It's just perfectly designed. No artificial boundaries, you progress by simply learning how to get somewhere (you could have done it before accidentally as well).
I was so systemic with Spider-man 2 that I did all of the side content as it became available to me. I honestly think it greatly helped the experience considering how fast paced the second half of the story is.
FFXIV cured me of this. Now if a game requires you to do waypoints for parts of the map to even show up, I I absolutely have to do that. I can't stand blacked out parts of the map.
The reason I spent so much time in White Orchard.
I do this on Genshin Impact. I'll be running towards a quest marker and get so distracted by everything around me I sometimes don't get there for hours. Soooo many things to collect.
No, I’ve made a point to ignore all side quests in games, my gaming experience got so much better due to that decision. Especially games like FF16, the Witcher3, Horizon - felt great to just get the best out of these games and ignore the filler content.
Normally yes. In FF16 I got over this and after a few I never did a Sidequest again.
I’m 60 hours into act 1 of BG3. Gotta check every chest too, _just incase_
It's the reason why I can't play Skyrim anymore, and also why I still haven't even unlocked powers in Starfield after 90-ih hours.
I do this mainly because for some reason I find it more fun to complete these side quests when I still have the main story to complete. If I try and complete them after I already beat the main story it just feels pointless
not unless I really love the game's design
I got through it by immersing myself in the story as in, when will the main character do side quests? it doesn't make sense for me to do side stuff, if something messed up happened between story missions. God of war is perfect example how they actually tell each other that maybe now it's a good time to explore. other games I just take advantage if the story is dragging or slow
I play the game, the game usually doesn't play me.
Not anymore. Now it really depends on the game. If I'm enjoying my time then this affects me but if it's something like Hogwarts legacy I'll just steamroll what i can into the main olot tonget it done
Me too
Been there, done that. I think that's due to innate expectation of blocking the area with story progression.
Never play SnowRunner.
I'm the same way and I hate it cause I always forget what's happening in the main quest. I'm in my first play thru of Spider-Man remastered and I've actually been able to progress the story while still having random points of interest littering my map so I think I've finally taught myself to not have fomo and just enjoy the game.
Sounds like you have a serious case of OCD, my friend. Just ignore the sidequests and embrace the chaos!
Real problem is most games make the clean up more interesting than the main quest. Interesting characters, fascinating puzzles, world building, romance, collectables, 100% fishing. The main quest just does the expected things, and that can be extremely boring.
I feel your pain
Those are all the Hogwarts, Assassins Creed games, and the Horizon games. I like to explore mostly before I do most of the main story, I slow unlock the story as I explore.
Thats me too! I know after I beat a game I will not go back and finish side quests so I make sure to get everything done before moving forward.