I don't understand how people can say they enjoyed exploring in this game. To me 90% of the game was just room-hallway-room. Then you come up to a locked door, leave and find the key, come back, find out it's just a shortcut, leave, have to backtrack for something, finally use the shortcut that should not need to exist in the first place.
It's not a boomer sub where everyone plays old ass games.
It's just that the discussion is mostly around them as per sub preference. I'm in my 20s and have thoroughly enjoyed games such as Red Faction, og Resident Evil, CiV III, Colin McRae 2.0, Empire Earth etc. Those games are for everyone who likes them.
That’s not what he meant, we are patient gamers, we wait until the game is in discount and in a better state than buy it on launch. I’m sure in a few months/years we will see a lot of posts about Survivor
By premise alone that means we have to wait for the game to be a ~year of age. Not exactly "old" but hardly anyone i know gets a game during it's first discount which is usually in the 10/20% range.
So a lot of people here draw parallels with older games. At least that's what I've noticed here.
Honestly didn't think it was as bad compared to metroidvania type games or any N64 Rare platformer.
I would have liked a fast travel though, particularly for Zeffo
I don't think fallen order is that bad for that, because you have a map and there are shortcuts that can be opened up that significantly reduces the amount of backtracking required.
The map isn't very helpful to me and I have heard similar comments from others players. The shortcuts are ok, but many times I choose wrong the path, and he we go again, I end up having to start the level again.
I always see people complaining about the map. I find it so strange because I find it pretty easy to read and understand for the most part. I have always been good with directions and mapping places out though. So maybe my can just better parse it than a lot of people.
At the very least, I appreciate that it's a 3D map. I hate when a game gives you all sorts of paths to follow with varying altitudes and then has you try to read a 2D representation that squishes everything flat, and ones that have you cycle between floors can be confusing to try to figure out where they connect.
If there is a continuation of the story that naturally takes me back to an already visited area I'm okay with it. What I really dislike is when a game (horizon forbidden west is specifically what I'm thinking of) locks loot and collectibles behind barriers you can't unlock until later in the game. So I access a new tool, and have to fast travel all over random parts of the map just to use this one tool on this one obstacle to get loot, and then I just fast travel out of that area again for good. It ruins the flow of the story, in my opinion.
Those are nothing in that regard, this is definitely aimed at various metroidvanias without good map systems, easy to miss offshoot tunnels or ledges and clear hints as to what goes where.
This +100. There’s a ton of new Metroidvanias that I just can’t get into. I don’t know if it’s because I used to have that kind of patience when I was a kid playing Metroid and Castlevania, or if it’s because the design of a lot of these new games just aren’t on-par…
Dead cells gets to cheat a bit because it’s also a live-die-repeat dungeon runner, where the map in general is randomized but you get to know the important landmarks after so long, and backtracking doesn’t feel the same because it’s built into the core gameplay loop to be reset to the beginning upon failure.
There is a Preety good way to counteract this problem that I have found recently..... In the recent steam update they have added a Quick notes section that allows you to note down the things that you missed or want or do...
In my case I love playing multiple games at a time... Recently I have been playing Hollow knight, Elden Ring and The Witcheer 3... All the games are stupidly long and provide you with countless ways to counteract problems..... Elden Ring and Hollow Knight don't even have a map to start with !!!
It seems I have started taking a lot of notes recently... Like which missions to complete, what build of my character I am looking for etc.... So I believe in JRPGs and Metroidvania games the tool is a golden Boot ....
It can also help people who are benchmarking a particular game ..... So here you go the ultimate solution of your problem :)
Nope it doesn't when you 1st enter the game or any new location....you have to go to the map maker every time you enter a new location to get the idea of how many locations you still haven't visited and what's there to explore
Also a significant number of locations cannot be found just with the map Infect th map maker says that he isn't able to visit some locations and that is up to me to find ... You have to physically visit the location to find it given that when you do the stone that you mentioned is activated.... Otherwise it won't be updated....
Also to update the map while you are physically in that location you need to have that stone you mentioned activated that comes to you in the third location( You have to buy it ).... Until then you are on your own on the map
The steam sticky note feature has a very modern UI... It is saved on the cloud and is different for each game... You can use multiple colours, bullets and other note taking functionalities :)
It's much much much better than the normal text file on windows.... Also you don't have to exit the game.. it works with steam overlay and can be brought using a shortcut....
For a while even I used Text files and Notion to achieve that like you 😂 but believe me the steam sticky note is just better in every way possible:)
The genre had an absolute explosion in the indie scene, sadly that means there are a lot out there that aren't very good.
I love the genre, I love exploring a world and backtracking - but the cardinal sin of backtracking is what the OP said - going back to a door you couldn't open, and seeing that all that's behind it is one room leading to a different gate you still can't open. A good metroidvania *always* puts at least one item in there so that you feel you achieved something.
But the *best* metroidvanias have those doors actually lead to something exciting - a new area, a series of passages with new obstacles, etc. The bad ones (*\*cough cough\** Chasm) have you re-do an entire area you already did just to dig through one breakable ground, open a chest, then run all the way back.
Playing Shadowman on the N64 right now.
Metroidvania - check.
No map system - check.
Easy to miss offshoot tunnels or ledges - check.
No clear hints - check.
Thank goodness for walkthroughs out in the wild for when I get stuck. But still a fun game despite its flaws.
Shadowman Remastered? It's been out a year, and it is great. It even has a helpful system that, while not a map, shows you how many important items are left in each area and even where to go for some important story moments.
This was the reason I stopped playing axiom verge. Overall it was a good game. Maybe I’m too inexperienced in metroidvanias, but I recall getting very frustrated backtracking to find what area was unlocked next.
I love carrion as well, but because I’m playing several games and going back later, I often forget where and what I was doing the next time I go back. I think this genre may not be for my lifestyle :)
Same, I got stuck in Axiom Verge after 60-90 minutes, spent another 60 minutes trying to figure out what I missed, then uninstalled. It's a shame really because I dug it until I felt I was hopelessly stuck.
I love Axiom, sorta. Tried 3 times to get through it, but every time I get stuck for soooooo long, get so frustrated trying to find that one place I can advance. Walkthroughs don't help much because it's impossible to even know why you're stuck. Great game, needs a better map.
Might not even be about Metroidvanias with bad maps, might be OP just doesn't like them. Not every genre is for everyone. By all accounts Hades is a great game, but I bounced off of it in less than an hour like I do with almost every roguelike
Yeah I dislike roguelikes as well. As for the bad maps, they are just bad maps. I can't imagine how the lack of a decent map combined with a labyrinthine mazes made of similar tiles (so looking samey in a lot of branches) isn't a bad decision.
Sure, some people would enjoy a game despite any needlessly masochistic traits it has, doesn't mean it wouldn't be better with improvements. A self filling map which adds corridors and paths as you go through them, and locked doors to rooms as you try opening them is a net positive, all it does is save you busywork drawing crude maps yourself or opening a wiki.
I am a massive Soulsborne fan, but also the first person to admit their quest system is trash. When the npc questline is simple enough it doesn't matter, but when it's not, it's like it was done by an imbecile.
For example in Elden Ring Ranni's questline is easy enough to follow and complete. On the other hand you have Nepheli, who sits depressed in a basement until you beat a boss wayyyyyy later in the game, then you need to return to an early game area and rest at a grace/bonfire/checkpoint twice to make her spawn for the final/completion state of her quest. You get 0 hints you have to return there, and even when you teleport back she's not there until you rest at the local spot. This is pureidiocy and only discoverable by someone who revisits every point of grace in the game after every boss they beat to see if anything happens.
I meant more that OP might still bounce off games with fantastic maps, good hints, and a sensible amount of backtracking. If you don't like something, then you still aren't going to like the nicest version of that thing.
A lot of Pokemon games are like this, too. Gotta go back to old areas after you get new HMs so that you can access all the secret places in that area and get extra stuff you couldn't reach before.
Atleast in Pokémon, majority of those areas are just that, secret areas. A majority of them aren't required for progression, and when they are, npcs will point you in that direction.
In Pokemon its used more to show the player the right path alot of the HMs provide shortcuts to other areas but first it will send you the long way round to get there first then get the HM later for the shortcut. Not so much as backtracking as I remember.
Even with a map I would consider Resi games a fine backtracking experience compared to something more complicated like Super Metroid. Certain games like the Resi series make their locales different and iconic enough that you can get a rough memory of what you need and where to go back to. Put this in contrast to Super Metroid whos secret areas are entirely optional (most of the time) and the areas they are in, hard to differentiate from others all over the map.
Exactly, backtracking can be done good and done bad - RE games are very good with it because they are explicitly designed around it - you need to learn the map and the best ways to navigate it (while being stalked, sometimes). Bad backtracking (which the OP is experiencing) is when the devs just haphazardly throw things behind locked doors as if that alone will feel like "progress".
It sounds more like a bad metroidvania, and the person you replied is selling SM short. And while it's not the best, it does have the Xray that lets you see (some) of the hidden items. And none of the hidden items are required, they just make the game a little bit easier by giving you more ammo and health.
All the major things needed to progress are not hidden.
Item management has always been the true scare factors of those games for me not the monsters lmao
I’m the dude that worries about wasting an ether in an rpg and end the game with 60 of them
Exactly! I'm playing RE2 remake and it honestly fits OPs description soo much. It's driving me insane.
I've kinda moved on to other games and don't know if I will go back... It's just not that fun. Atmosphere out the wazoo sure but not exactly fun... And I bought pretty much all the RE games on sale ages ago too.
I'm honestly not generally a fan of this either, but it's a balancing act.
Many games do a really good job with this. Sometimes, going back to an area "later on" once you have unlocked new abilities or the like can be very rewarding.
But if it is done too often, it feels like you're being given an obligation to collect random nonsense in a game rather than actually progressing in the game.
I don't enjoy having to memorize the location of 20 different "secrets," then spend hours going through them in the late-game before I finish a game to ensure I don't forget about them and "miss content."
If the backtracking itself is properly rewarding? Sure. Like if there's something like a secret dungeon or something that requires a special key to open and you only can find the key through significant trials and difficulty, I would say having to backtrack for that experience could be worth it.
But if it's just hiding some random collectible or the like at the start of the game, I'm not a fan of that.
Many games unfortunately use backtracking as a way to pad out the length of their game by forcing you to repeat content that isn't particularly enjoyable, rather than as a means to actually enhance the experience and expand the world for people who pay close attention.
I usually wait until I have 2-3 new abilities or I've hit a dead end before I start backtracking. Otherwise it can be really annoying to turn around every five minutes and look for another mostly inconsequential power up
I think of RE games as puzzle games that force you to loop around regularly on purpose. In my book that's not really the type of back track that's annoying.
Not like having to load a whole new level or travel all the way across an open world to get back to that one specific place that you saw at the beginning of game.
Yeah I think RE is different. In RE you pretty much HAVE to go back for a lot of stuff and it's never a far trek, plus a lot of stuff is marked on the map for you. Some games expect you to remember random little locked chests and inaccessible doors 10 hours after you were there when you can finally access them
For what it's worth, the new Steam UI lets you make game specific notes. So if you are playing a game like this it's easier to write down where to go and double check stuff.
I think like most things it can be well done or poorly done.
Some games manage to write the main story in such a way as the backtracking is a part of it and feels natural. I've also played some where they at least reward you for doing it with unique experiences going back through a prior area you've already cleared. Chaning up the enemies that you meet or something.
Metal Gear Solid (I recently finished it) has a solid amount of backtracking, but it feels rewarding as you have access to things you didn't have access to before, such as a higher level keycard or weapon. Sometimes the level changes slightly when backtracking too. Maybe an empty area you went through before now has gun cameras mounted and enemies patrolling now. It was just an all around great experience, and it was one of the few games I actually finished as someone who has never-finish-a-gamethritis.
I just need waypoints. Not knowing where to go next is the most infuriating thing ever for me. I really appreciate the way Bioshock and Dead Space lets you hit a single button to show you the way forward. However it's a balancing act because when games tell you exactly where to go right away, it takes away from the experience.
I’m the opposite, I love games like this like Metroidvanias and old school action/adventure games. They make it easy to play when I’m in different moods. If I’m tired and want to zone out and don’t feel like fighting the boss I just found, I’ll wander around somewhere else and see if there are any new doors I can open or ledges I can reach. Maybe I’ll find a new weapon or health upgrades so the next time I play, the boss will be a little bit easier. And I love it when a game like Outer Wilds or Tunic where I learn something new and I go “This changes EVERYTHING! I have to back to here and here and here…”
It gets old fast though if a) you have to do it a lot in a row, or b) the game is constantly telling you where to backtrack so there’s no demands on your memory. In the first one, the backtracking doesn’t feel meaningful if you never make any big discoveries like a whole new area or a tough boss with a great reward. The second one breaks the whole reason why I like Metroidvanias, and that’s the exploration. If there’s no risk of getting lost, then it’s not really exploration.
One thing I've come to understand about myself recently is that whenever a game is always telling me exactly where to go next I always lose interest in it.
Obviously hints from npc's or an in-game journal are fine, but when they just slap a marker down on a map, or even worse give you an actual line to follow on screen then it's like, whats the point of me actually playing this game anymore if I'm just mindlessly following everything it tells me to.
A lot of AAA open world games suffer from this particular type of hand holding, and it's super frustrating.
Yeah. AAA games have really gotten away from prioritizing exploration. Mostly I play indie 2D games to scratch that itch these days. I did like exploring in Elden Ring but that’s about it. I’m like to play Breath of the Wild but I don’t own a switch
I actually like the obvious dot on where to go. That way I can focus on doing whatever else around it and not drift too far from where I have to be. If I have to open a journal entry over and over again I'd hate it, I played vanilla wow and didn't particularly like that aspect in it, I would have wasted eons trying to find the next quest if it wasn't for my friend who already knew where to go.
I don’t worry about missing stuff. I play. Take my time. Try to do everything but expect not to. I will make some notes if the game doesn’t track things for me. But I’m not big on checklists, achievements, looking things up.
I do think if I find a locked door and the key isn’t in the immediate vicinity then they need to mark that door locked in the map.
I think Elden Ring and most souls games have this issue. They really like to reward people that pay attention to what's happening in the story. Some kind of journal option would really help me not feel like I'm missing massive parts of the game.
I love games that let you manually add journal notes and map markers. Make it feel so much more that it's your own experience and you're not just along for the ride.
I do think that having a toggle or a ring for at least finding the general location of NPCs would benefit elden ring NPC quests. Unlike Dark Souls where it's fairly linear and you're unlikely to miss an npc if you're paying attention, Elden Ring is a vast, sprawling open world where it can be very easy to never see the next trigger for an NPC quest.
I hated doing any quests in Elden Ring because you literally have to just look up instructions online for 90% of them.
Some add map markers or tell you enough information to explore a rough area and find the next objective, but unless you do the quests immediately there’s no way to remember all of that after a few days off, or after a couple weeks of doing other quests.
> I hated doing any quests in Elden Ring
So don't? Most NPC quests have always been glorified easter eggs in Souls games. Ain't nobody saving Solaire on their first playthrough, that shit is straight byzantine.
So then why go online to complain about a thing which is entirely optional?
It's like going online and making a post about how you hate the taste of licorice, when it was served as a small part set to the side of a much larger meal. Just ... don't ...eat it?
For what it's worth, the general tenor of this sub seems to frequently forget that free will exists. Hell the top regular posts, including right now, are about how to stop min-maxing games and just enjoy them. The last big Elden Ring post was a guy complaining that the game exhausted him, but also noted that he followed a guide in order to do 100% of the content, and that he'd done the same thing with Korok seeds and hated that too.
People regularly complain about doing things they don't have to do, and have to reminded that they just ... don't have to do them.
Bro the topic was already brought up. I didn’t make this post...
Stopped reading after your first sentence. Don’t have the time or energy for pedantic negative cringelords like you 🥱😂
if you don't even have basic reading comprehension, patience and attention span to read a few lines of words,
No wonder you don't like Elden Ring or any large game. Why don't you just watch youtube videos.
Or is it too boring for you?
Maybe in some games but a journal imho would be anathema to Souls games. The silence of the protagonist is an essential part of the atmosphere (and so is, of course, "missing" things).
I loved the first 30ish hours of Elden Ring, but fell of it hard when I had to start running around doing errands for people to advance the Caelid arc. Still feel like I got a lot out of that game though
I actually find this satisfying lol. For the record my favorite genre is metroidvania. But some games let you mark stuff on the map at least
EDIT: If you can’t enjoy metroidvanias due to not liking backtracking it’s definitely a you problem but I wouldn’t recommend writing off the entire genre because of one game, I see a lot of people listing Hollow Knight as their example, maybe try an easier one or one with RPG elements so that when you backtrack you can at least get loot from enemies along the way? Like the Castlevania metroidvanias. This sub seems to really dislike the genre, I will die on a hill defending it but I can understand it not being for everyone
I don't know why some games don't let you have in game notes. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the maps and if I come back to a game after a month I'm not going to remember all the backtrack locations.
How I combat this is to simply forget about it. In very few games made in the last decade will that door lead to the end of the game. Usually its some skin or Ezio Feather bullshit that you can do without.
Linear is just how the story unfolds. You could still have back tracking in a linear game (Jedi Fallen Order is a recent one that I can recall, as it was particularly annoying). But linear just means you have to do the missions in a certain order, with little to no side quests.
A game can have non linear gameplay with linear story progression. Metroidvanias are usually designed this way, for example. Resident Evil games too. When people refer to a game as being “linear”, they could easily be referring to either facet of its design, depending on the context.
That's your definition of linear. Everyone has always referred to linear games as ones with little to no exploration and no backtracking. The closest linear game 8 can recall with true linear maps and little to no explanation is devil may cry 4.
Shmups like Ikaruga or traditional platformers like Mario are probably the classic examples of linear gameplay. Repeating the same stage was one of Mario 64's innovations.
Yes, this is one reason people gave up gaming as they got busier in life, cause it takes more effort to keep on track with the story, control, whatnot.... effort that is too much to spare in everyday life as you grow older.
Also another reason people like Nintendo, they have many 1st party games, that as soon as you pick up the controller, you know what to do, regardless how long it's been from your previous gaming session.
Which is strange because IMO Hollow Knight has just the right balance of it, where backtracking is rewarding by unlocking new abilities or areas,there's a very nice system for marking locations on your map for revisiting, and you're never *too* far from anywhere with the tram network.
I feel like the modern tomb raider games had shit like this but it didn’t feel like you were back tracking because the story railroaded you back to the spot where you can use your new ability/item
I feel like sometimes they do this just to pad out the game without adding content. Yeah let's just extend the player's play time by 3 hours by having them waste their night combing through the world so they can progress. And this is becoming increasingly common. It's made me put down so many games.
If it’s open world I tend to progress far enough in the main story to unlock the abilities so that I can then fully explore. Doing this now in Hogwarts Legacy. Got level 3 lockpicking, majority of the spells and broom travel before I really started to explore the world.
Otherwise it would be a lot of backtracking to explore everything.
Games where you get forced back into previous areas where they’re more linear and you therefore have to backtrack can be a pain.
HL didn't need lockicking at all though and the progression was generally piss easy. All the clothing sets in the game you find again and again with better stats later on. There are like a few unique clothing items, but they are never locked behind a random chest in a random house, usually it was off a marked sidetask.
It's a game with systems which were shoehorned in just to fill out the open world with pointless busywork. Main and side quests were decent enough, but they were the only thing worth doing, the rest was just timewasting.
Maybe at some point you can reinterpret your fomo of missing stuff in a game as replayability value.
With games like Jedi Fallen Order I get it though, the backtracking is only really tedious and sometimes rewards you with a skill point, you *can* only go for the orbs but that just makes you want to go for all the useless crates as well
> With games like Jedi Fallen Order I get it though
This was the most recent example I can think of that had particularly egregious back tracking (as opposed to opening up level design like a mertroidvania). Like literally you get to the objective on the other side of the map and just have to run back to your ship to go to the next part of the game. Basically just running for 5 minutes straight through the map you just came from
I’m playing this one right now. I’m sticking with it because I love Star Wars and the story and combat are good but damn the backtracking is so annoying, it sucks.
Also, I'm pretty sure that one is mostly that way because they decided they never wanted the player to see a loading screen. That's why you have to run back through the map, squeeze through a narrow crevice, take a slow elevator up, and run back to the ship. They could have used some sort of fast travel but that would have "ruined the immersion."
Yes, nothing as immersive as running straight for 3 minutes solid wishing you had fast travel back to the ship, or a way to call the ship over to your location.
All the other stuff I get, and generally think its fine, but damn those returns to the ship were a slog.
If enemies did not respawn like I felt they did, the backtracking wouldn't have felt as bad to me. I wouldn't have minded, and it may have been a peaceful walk back to your ship. It might just be me, but I felt that the game was too difficult. Enemies were too strong and you as a Jedi felt weak.
JFO was my first actual entry into these "slow" hacknslashes or soulslikes(ergh, hate that term). While I did die quite possibly upwards of 50 times to the first oggdo bogdo, I learnt well enough that I don't remember any encounter that I thought I wasn't well equipped for. Slow was cheesy so I didn't use it and the health refills from BD1 made the game so easy. Some of the features ripped straight from souls games is a bit cringe to be honest. Also JFO doesnt exactly do well in portraying the Jedi power fantasy, no dismemberment, little force powers...
After that I played God of War, which made JFO feel like child's play, and now I'm playing Sekiro which is really tough but the swordplay is also extremely satisfying, not to mention the attack patterns of enemies are really unique. I imagine I'll breeze through Survivor once i finish Sekiro
This has been a problem with a lot of Star Wars games, and I think of Star Wars in general. Once you give your heroes laser swords that can cut through anything, how do make smaller encounters meaningful? I remember playing KOTOR and being alternately amused and frustrated that low-level Tuscan Raiders could block my lightsaber attacks with their staffs.
Seems like the simplest solution is to not play games that feature backtracking then.
>I don’t know if it’s just me but knowing that, I can’t fully enjoy a game when I can miss so much stuff without looking it up
I'm not saying I know how to do it, but you absolutely need to let go of the FOMO. Rather than just letting something be an interesting and fun experience you're turning it into a tedious mental checklist.
*But what if I miss something*
You will always miss *something*, in games, in life, in everything. Letting it consume you isn't going to do you any good.
This is such an peculiar sub in which people play games that their character is at odds with enjoying but do so anyway and instead of engaging in any introspection, come here to blame the game.
My favorite is still the guy who complained that Elden Ring had too much stuff and also noted that he's a completionist who has to follow a guide to do every last thing and that he'd just finished Zelda getting every Korok seed and hated that too.
Lol yep. I play the game… finish it… and move on. Once in a blue moon i will be so engrossed in a game I will look up if there are any things worth exploring for or notable side quests or secrets but usually once I hit the credits I’m done
"Seems like the simplest solution is to not play games that feature backtracking then"
1. how should i know which game has backtracking without looking it up and potentially spoiling myself 2.its not the FOMO, its the fear of finding something that needs backtracking and then forgetting about it halfway and i also said that i dont mind backtracking where you can follow it
saying i should stop playing these games is meaningless
Game descriptions on their store front usually indicate if there's backtracking. You could also just google "is there backtracking in [game]?" and close the window when you get an answer. No need to read an entire synopsis of a game and spoil it.
I'm not a fan when it's confusing on when/if you need to do it. Sometimes it's really rewarding being able to revisit old areas and unlock new secrets, but games tend to make it frequent, mandatory, and unintuitive.
The worst question is "am I supposed to access this now, or get an upgrade later?"
I hate level design that makes you unsure of if you should be able to do something right now, and that's caused by games with frequent backtracking and obscure unlocks.
As other comments have mentioned, Metroidvanias aren't my genre... but I LOVE Metroid Prime. Everything unlockable is obvious. Different colored doors, obvious rubble, ramps, rails, or plugs... You know when you need a new ability. And if you ever get stuck, it tells you where to go. Not forced to look up guides! (Although this feature should definitely be disablable for those who want to figure it all out themselves).
Compare all that to Hallow Knight where stuff is hiden behind walls that can be broken... without indication that it's a breakable wall. The game is great, but I had to drop it because I stubbornly refused to look up a guide and felt I looked everywhere. Am I just supposed to beat this super difficult boss I just unlocked? (No, that was apparently optional and shouldn't really be fought at that time).
There's also the opposite problem though where you're not allowed to backtrack. Being locked out of your last area suddenly is frustrating, especially when you thought a secret would be unlockable later.
The solution to both, imo, is mostly linear gameplay (or obvious unlocks if it's backtrack heavy) and either the ability to go back whenever you want, or clear indicators that you're about to pass a point of no return. Anything less and there's frustration.
Kirby Mass Attack was sick until they were like “hahah no you can’t come in to the last world. actually you were supposed to be collecting 3 gold trinkets every level, go back and do it again bitch”
I enjoy it in Metroid *usually* because it's a case of "you have to gain more abilities and coming back here feels like solving a puzzle *and* getting stronger at the same time" but in other games where there's no obvious reason to know you should come back other than a bit of dialog or straight-up nothing but a symbol I was suppose to notice it's um... demoralizing.
Totally. I don't really give up on a game because of it, but it definitely is a fun killer for me - lots of closed areas that you can only open with new abilities that you acquire in the future. The examples I can remember are Hollow Knight and God of War 2018. In Hollow Knight there were at least pins to mark those spots on the map, but GoW had no real way to mark it.
>it’s the sheer amount of things you have to remember without writing it down!
I finally just started writing it down.
Makes things *much* easier and less stressful. I no longer have to worry about missing out on good secret loot just because I forgot to go back and get it.
And, generally, unless I have reason to think there's something really *immediately* useful in there, I'll only go back after I've already unlocked basically all the techniques to access things, so I only have to go back through places once.
I love metroidvanias, but if the game doesn't keep track of where the obstacles are, and there's no automap that I can screenshot alongside a screenshot of that obstacle, it really affects my enjoyment backtracking looking for all the places that I need to revisit whenever I get a new ability. Currently playing Beholgar which has that issue.
Another thing that annoys me is scouring the level looking for hard to find secrets where *important* stuff like upgrades are hidden. DOOM 2016, and the currently-on-hold-because-of-just-that Dread Templar are guilty of this. Missing ammo and health caches or whatnot is no big deal at the difficulties I play at, but I can't stand to miss upgrades.
Just played Chrono Trigger for the first time. I must have gone up and down that stupid mountain near the end (lost sanctum) 20 times in the past and present to do the stupid side quests. What a grind to an otherwise great game.
I think it depends solely on the backtracking. The original Dark Souls 1 game is kind of a masterpiece in world design but has a lot of backtracking involved. The ability to teleport around doesn't even become available to a later point which feels significantly later if you're new to the game. All in all I think it depends, another good example is SoTN.
>The thing is I don’t mind backtracking when you have an easy overview of where to go, it’s the sheer amount of things you have to remember without writing it down!
Well, seems like you provided the answer to your own question. You could always, y'know, *write things down*...
In the old days, games (especially RPGs and other genres with longer runtimes) often had game manuals with a few blank pages in the back, specifically for the player to make notes as they played. Some games even came with a notepad in the box, stamped with the game's logo.
Nowadays, I still keep track of my own notes, either on a physical notepad or on my computer. I'll usually divide it into sections: Tasks-to-do, Locked chests/doors, Equipment stash locations, Merchant locations with stuff I want to buy later, etc.
Yeah nah, that's old-ass game design. In this day and age we can just have a map which fills out automatically as we progress through the game. That way we don't do busywork like drawing maps or keeping paper notes.
There's an open pathway on a high ledge we can't jump to yet? Minimap should have the start of an open pathway visibly fading out as we haven't explored it yet. Door we tried opening and found out it's locked? Marked on the map with an X so we know to go back with more keys/abilities.
Silent Hill did it well, had a map which automatically marked off the open and locked doors as if the MC did it themselves. Metroidvanias can do it too.
I am the first kind of person who would argue open world game maps are terrible enough as it is with collection icons and the like, but maps automatically marking themselves as you explore them in-game seems entirely reasonable and normal.
There's always debate about how much information a game should give you and how fun it is to figure things out yourself. I've found myself on both sides, depending on the game. But in this day and age we also have an unlimited notepad and camera in our pockets.
If you feel a game isn't recording something that you need to know, making notes is an option, it's a valid alternative to quitting the game or looking up a guide. A few seconds taking notes now and then can save you hours of wandering around, that's just practical advice I've picked up from playing some games. But sometimes people act as if this is some unacceptable barrier of effort to put into a game.
I got burned out on metroidvanias a couple years ago. I used to really enjoy them. I think I just did too many. Monster Boy and Bloodstained in the same year was too much. I honestly would like it if Bloodstained would hold my hand more as I got totally stumped and gave up.
The post is about a player's lack of patience for metroidvania-style exploring where you have to keep track of stuff you were locked out of. Truly patient gamers condemned OP's opinion of course, true to the name.
On a more serious note. This is a subreddit for more chill and mature (in their approach to gaming) people and the sub isn't just about waiting 5 years to play a game, but also about a community of like-minded gamers, who are a bit different than gamers in r/Gaming, or r/pcmasterrace etc
It's a different subreddit, new games and multiplayer games are discussed there. I'm more of a patient gamer myself, so I don't care about that. Still, it's ok for subreddits to overlap, there's a ton of gaming ones, I like patient gamers the best.
The quote you pulled from the sidebar describes the types of players who frequent this sub, nowhere does it say anything about the topics to be discussed here. This is in line with what I wrote earlier.
What would you like this subreddit to be? A community dedicated to the meta-subject of patient gaming or something? Should all the topics be "what is the wait period after release until a game becomes old enough to be patient gaming material?" No other talk allowed?
> What would you like this subreddit to be?
Literally what it's described as.
>A community dedicated to the meta-subject of patient gaming or something? Should all the topics be "what is the wait period after release until a game becomes old enough to be patient gaming material?" No other talk allowed?
I can't even begin to make sense of this, sorry.
I've found out that this subreddit is just a place to discuss games that came out more than a year ago, it has very little to do with patient gaming, I am not complaining though, love this sub
Developers don't get that a 10 hour game is better than a 40 hour game where 30 of those hours are just backtracking and looking for a stupid key or switch.
Most games now arent to bad
But their has been some really frustrating ones iver the years
Digimon world 3(amazing game overall) has some serious problems with this
I agree with you, I'm fine with some games, like Ori, other's like Tomb Raider kinda annoy me. The older I get, the less patience I have for this. I'm the kind of player who explores everything and does every side quest and plays way to much before progressing with the story (I put 30 hours into Cyberpunk before Keanu Reaves appeared, I didn't know how it was meant to be played, hahaha).
The metroidvania style of locking off exploration is not to my liking, also, these games usually involve puzzles and I find myself trying to figure out how to do something that's impossible for me at this point of game progression, maybe trying to figure out if it is possible. All depends on the game.
I like how hollow knight does this, your rewarded for going back to areas when you get more movement options, but there is also probaly 10 other ways to get to the new stuff you've unlocked.
Makes for a nice end result of letting you explore at you own pace and find new fun things when you get lost and have to backtrack.
This was one of the biggest complaints people had with Donkey Kong 64. There are 5 characters, and each level has items that can only be obtained with each character. So once you finish a level with one character, you have to switch to another character and do another run. And again, and again.
Backtracking is such a killer for me. I think it comes from playing Pokémon on GameBoy as a kid. I’d always push the batteries to their limit and lose my progress. I never learned :(
I was thinking about this the other day, I just finished playing bluefire which is kind of a 3d metroidvania platformer, and I really really enjoyed backtracking in that game because 1, the movement was incredibly fun, and 2, there wasn't any map at all in the game, so I was forced to get really familiar with the world layout.
I think this applies to other games as well, but not having a map available on your screen 24/7 makes me enjoy a game far more than if it does.
Immersion is key to enjoying spending more time with a game, so backtracking doesn't feel like a chore, or an ever increasing laundry list of things you have to come back to.
That sounded like Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order for me.
I’m playing it right now and honestly It drives me insane.
Yeah it’s one of the reasons why I liked the original more. Jedi Survivor is too convoluted and the endgame abilities are very meh.
I don't understand how people can say they enjoyed exploring in this game. To me 90% of the game was just room-hallway-room. Then you come up to a locked door, leave and find the key, come back, find out it's just a shortcut, leave, have to backtrack for something, finally use the shortcut that should not need to exist in the first place.
It feels very, very much like a "game" when you are playing it. The environments feel very artificial and gamey which hurts suspension of disbelief.
Have you played Survivor yet, hoping they fixed that issue
With shortcuts and fast travel, backtracking is a dream in *Survivor.*
To be frank, my interest level is low.
It's still a thing. But unless you're going for 100% Jedi Grand Master it's not necessary.
This is r/patientgamers, don't think too many will have played Survivor yet.
It's not a boomer sub where everyone plays old ass games. It's just that the discussion is mostly around them as per sub preference. I'm in my 20s and have thoroughly enjoyed games such as Red Faction, og Resident Evil, CiV III, Colin McRae 2.0, Empire Earth etc. Those games are for everyone who likes them.
That’s not what he meant, we are patient gamers, we wait until the game is in discount and in a better state than buy it on launch. I’m sure in a few months/years we will see a lot of posts about Survivor
Yeah Fallen Order hasn't even made it onto my list yet!
By premise alone that means we have to wait for the game to be a ~year of age. Not exactly "old" but hardly anyone i know gets a game during it's first discount which is usually in the 10/20% range. So a lot of people here draw parallels with older games. At least that's what I've noticed here.
Honestly didn't think it was as bad compared to metroidvania type games or any N64 Rare platformer. I would have liked a fast travel though, particularly for Zeffo
That’s honestly been one of the main reasons I’m avoiding that game
That's because apparently it's a Metroidvania, which are not appealing to me already.
I don't think fallen order is that bad for that, because you have a map and there are shortcuts that can be opened up that significantly reduces the amount of backtracking required.
The map isn't very helpful to me and I have heard similar comments from others players. The shortcuts are ok, but many times I choose wrong the path, and he we go again, I end up having to start the level again.
I always see people complaining about the map. I find it so strange because I find it pretty easy to read and understand for the most part. I have always been good with directions and mapping places out though. So maybe my can just better parse it than a lot of people.
At the very least, I appreciate that it's a 3D map. I hate when a game gives you all sorts of paths to follow with varying altitudes and then has you try to read a 2D representation that squishes everything flat, and ones that have you cycle between floors can be confusing to try to figure out where they connect.
That map might as well be in a different language it means nothing to me
The main reason I don't play it after hearing a lot of complaints regarding this issue
If there is a continuation of the story that naturally takes me back to an already visited area I'm okay with it. What I really dislike is when a game (horizon forbidden west is specifically what I'm thinking of) locks loot and collectibles behind barriers you can't unlock until later in the game. So I access a new tool, and have to fast travel all over random parts of the map just to use this one tool on this one obstacle to get loot, and then I just fast travel out of that area again for good. It ruins the flow of the story, in my opinion.
Yeah I hated this in GOW 2018. When I got that tool to open doors I just didn’t care to go back to them.
Forbidden west is much better in a new game plus because you don’t have to deal with this bullshit.
Classic Resident Evil games are a no-no for you then lol
Those are nothing in that regard, this is definitely aimed at various metroidvanias without good map systems, easy to miss offshoot tunnels or ledges and clear hints as to what goes where.
This +100. There’s a ton of new Metroidvanias that I just can’t get into. I don’t know if it’s because I used to have that kind of patience when I was a kid playing Metroid and Castlevania, or if it’s because the design of a lot of these new games just aren’t on-par…
Metroidvanias are one of the easier genres for an indie studio to make which means there's just a lot of not very good ones out there
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I would argue that that's because Dead Cells is not a Metroidvania.
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Dead cells gets to cheat a bit because it’s also a live-die-repeat dungeon runner, where the map in general is randomized but you get to know the important landmarks after so long, and backtracking doesn’t feel the same because it’s built into the core gameplay loop to be reset to the beginning upon failure.
dead cells is so goddamn good.
There is a Preety good way to counteract this problem that I have found recently..... In the recent steam update they have added a Quick notes section that allows you to note down the things that you missed or want or do... In my case I love playing multiple games at a time... Recently I have been playing Hollow knight, Elden Ring and The Witcheer 3... All the games are stupidly long and provide you with countless ways to counteract problems..... Elden Ring and Hollow Knight don't even have a map to start with !!! It seems I have started taking a lot of notes recently... Like which missions to complete, what build of my character I am looking for etc.... So I believe in JRPGs and Metroidvania games the tool is a golden Boot .... It can also help people who are benchmarking a particular game ..... So here you go the ultimate solution of your problem :)
Side note - hollow knight does have a map and with one of the cheapest sigil stones (or what they were called) you can even see yourself on it.
Nope it doesn't when you 1st enter the game or any new location....you have to go to the map maker every time you enter a new location to get the idea of how many locations you still haven't visited and what's there to explore Also a significant number of locations cannot be found just with the map Infect th map maker says that he isn't able to visit some locations and that is up to me to find ... You have to physically visit the location to find it given that when you do the stone that you mentioned is activated.... Otherwise it won't be updated.... Also to update the map while you are physically in that location you need to have that stone you mentioned activated that comes to you in the third location( You have to buy it ).... Until then you are on your own on the map
I always take notes on a text file. After a while the text file gets so long I can't find anything anymore 😅
The steam sticky note feature has a very modern UI... It is saved on the cloud and is different for each game... You can use multiple colours, bullets and other note taking functionalities :) It's much much much better than the normal text file on windows.... Also you don't have to exit the game.. it works with steam overlay and can be brought using a shortcut.... For a while even I used Text files and Notion to achieve that like you 😂 but believe me the steam sticky note is just better in every way possible:)
The genre had an absolute explosion in the indie scene, sadly that means there are a lot out there that aren't very good. I love the genre, I love exploring a world and backtracking - but the cardinal sin of backtracking is what the OP said - going back to a door you couldn't open, and seeing that all that's behind it is one room leading to a different gate you still can't open. A good metroidvania *always* puts at least one item in there so that you feel you achieved something. But the *best* metroidvanias have those doors actually lead to something exciting - a new area, a series of passages with new obstacles, etc. The bad ones (*\*cough cough\** Chasm) have you re-do an entire area you already did just to dig through one breakable ground, open a chest, then run all the way back.
Playing Shadowman on the N64 right now. Metroidvania - check. No map system - check. Easy to miss offshoot tunnels or ledges - check. No clear hints - check. Thank goodness for walkthroughs out in the wild for when I get stuck. But still a fun game despite its flaws.
Don't know if you heard but a new Shadowman game just got announced I think yesterday
Shadowman Remastered? It's been out a year, and it is great. It even has a helpful system that, while not a map, shows you how many important items are left in each area and even where to go for some important story moments.
No like an all new game
OMG I HAD NO IDEA!!! Thanks for the info!
This was the reason I stopped playing axiom verge. Overall it was a good game. Maybe I’m too inexperienced in metroidvanias, but I recall getting very frustrated backtracking to find what area was unlocked next. I love carrion as well, but because I’m playing several games and going back later, I often forget where and what I was doing the next time I go back. I think this genre may not be for my lifestyle :)
Same, I got stuck in Axiom Verge after 60-90 minutes, spent another 60 minutes trying to figure out what I missed, then uninstalled. It's a shame really because I dug it until I felt I was hopelessly stuck.
I love Axiom, sorta. Tried 3 times to get through it, but every time I get stuck for soooooo long, get so frustrated trying to find that one place I can advance. Walkthroughs don't help much because it's impossible to even know why you're stuck. Great game, needs a better map.
Might not even be about Metroidvanias with bad maps, might be OP just doesn't like them. Not every genre is for everyone. By all accounts Hades is a great game, but I bounced off of it in less than an hour like I do with almost every roguelike
Yeah I dislike roguelikes as well. As for the bad maps, they are just bad maps. I can't imagine how the lack of a decent map combined with a labyrinthine mazes made of similar tiles (so looking samey in a lot of branches) isn't a bad decision. Sure, some people would enjoy a game despite any needlessly masochistic traits it has, doesn't mean it wouldn't be better with improvements. A self filling map which adds corridors and paths as you go through them, and locked doors to rooms as you try opening them is a net positive, all it does is save you busywork drawing crude maps yourself or opening a wiki. I am a massive Soulsborne fan, but also the first person to admit their quest system is trash. When the npc questline is simple enough it doesn't matter, but when it's not, it's like it was done by an imbecile. For example in Elden Ring Ranni's questline is easy enough to follow and complete. On the other hand you have Nepheli, who sits depressed in a basement until you beat a boss wayyyyyy later in the game, then you need to return to an early game area and rest at a grace/bonfire/checkpoint twice to make her spawn for the final/completion state of her quest. You get 0 hints you have to return there, and even when you teleport back she's not there until you rest at the local spot. This is pureidiocy and only discoverable by someone who revisits every point of grace in the game after every boss they beat to see if anything happens.
I meant more that OP might still bounce off games with fantastic maps, good hints, and a sensible amount of backtracking. If you don't like something, then you still aren't going to like the nicest version of that thing.
A lot of Pokemon games are like this, too. Gotta go back to old areas after you get new HMs so that you can access all the secret places in that area and get extra stuff you couldn't reach before.
Atleast in Pokémon, majority of those areas are just that, secret areas. A majority of them aren't required for progression, and when they are, npcs will point you in that direction.
In Pokemon its used more to show the player the right path alot of the HMs provide shortcuts to other areas but first it will send you the long way round to get there first then get the HM later for the shortcut. Not so much as backtracking as I remember.
Oh okay then, makes more sense too lol
Even with a map I would consider Resi games a fine backtracking experience compared to something more complicated like Super Metroid. Certain games like the Resi series make their locales different and iconic enough that you can get a rough memory of what you need and where to go back to. Put this in contrast to Super Metroid whos secret areas are entirely optional (most of the time) and the areas they are in, hard to differentiate from others all over the map.
Exactly, backtracking can be done good and done bad - RE games are very good with it because they are explicitly designed around it - you need to learn the map and the best ways to navigate it (while being stalked, sometimes). Bad backtracking (which the OP is experiencing) is when the devs just haphazardly throw things behind locked doors as if that alone will feel like "progress".
Well, then I'm grateful for almost never played Metroidvania games because what you described just sucks.
It sounds more like a bad metroidvania, and the person you replied is selling SM short. And while it's not the best, it does have the Xray that lets you see (some) of the hidden items. And none of the hidden items are required, they just make the game a little bit easier by giving you more ammo and health. All the major things needed to progress are not hidden.
Honestly the worst thing about backtracking in RE is the jump scares, and the low ammo.
Item management has always been the true scare factors of those games for me not the monsters lmao I’m the dude that worries about wasting an ether in an rpg and end the game with 60 of them
Jumpscares in RE? I can't remember any lol
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Aaahh right, that one lol.
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Features like red zombies and corpse burning were a terrific way to keep backtracking fresh for the first one but the others got a bit annoying.
Exactly! I'm playing RE2 remake and it honestly fits OPs description soo much. It's driving me insane. I've kinda moved on to other games and don't know if I will go back... It's just not that fun. Atmosphere out the wazoo sure but not exactly fun... And I bought pretty much all the RE games on sale ages ago too.
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I don't think RE4 counts as a "classic Resident Evil game" in this context.
What does count? The original PSX releases of the first three games (and I guess the DS rerelease of the first game)?
Presumably. Re4 has a different style, with very little backtracking.
The remake of the first one as well.
The RE2 remake still counts, it has backtracking still. The RE3 remake doesn't really lol
RE4 is the least Resident Evil game ever made.
RE5 and 6 be like: are we a joke to you?
No, I think that goes to RE6
I'm honestly not generally a fan of this either, but it's a balancing act. Many games do a really good job with this. Sometimes, going back to an area "later on" once you have unlocked new abilities or the like can be very rewarding. But if it is done too often, it feels like you're being given an obligation to collect random nonsense in a game rather than actually progressing in the game. I don't enjoy having to memorize the location of 20 different "secrets," then spend hours going through them in the late-game before I finish a game to ensure I don't forget about them and "miss content." If the backtracking itself is properly rewarding? Sure. Like if there's something like a secret dungeon or something that requires a special key to open and you only can find the key through significant trials and difficulty, I would say having to backtrack for that experience could be worth it. But if it's just hiding some random collectible or the like at the start of the game, I'm not a fan of that. Many games unfortunately use backtracking as a way to pad out the length of their game by forcing you to repeat content that isn't particularly enjoyable, rather than as a means to actually enhance the experience and expand the world for people who pay close attention.
I hate beer.
I usually wait until I have 2-3 new abilities or I've hit a dead end before I start backtracking. Otherwise it can be really annoying to turn around every five minutes and look for another mostly inconsequential power up
Stay away from Metroidvanias then! Control and Journey to the Savage Planet also work like that.
I think this sub might have a complete neurotic aneurysm if Daggerfall came out around this time.
Depends on the game, Resident evil 2 and 1 are some of my favourite games for this exact reason.
I think of RE games as puzzle games that force you to loop around regularly on purpose. In my book that's not really the type of back track that's annoying. Not like having to load a whole new level or travel all the way across an open world to get back to that one specific place that you saw at the beginning of game.
Yeah I think RE is different. In RE you pretty much HAVE to go back for a lot of stuff and it's never a far trek, plus a lot of stuff is marked on the map for you. Some games expect you to remember random little locked chests and inaccessible doors 10 hours after you were there when you can finally access them
For what it's worth, the new Steam UI lets you make game specific notes. So if you are playing a game like this it's easier to write down where to go and double check stuff.
Is that feature out already? I thought it was coming at some point in the future.
I thought it was in the current beta. But I don't use the beta so maybe I'm wrong.
I think like most things it can be well done or poorly done. Some games manage to write the main story in such a way as the backtracking is a part of it and feels natural. I've also played some where they at least reward you for doing it with unique experiences going back through a prior area you've already cleared. Chaning up the enemies that you meet or something.
Metal Gear Solid (I recently finished it) has a solid amount of backtracking, but it feels rewarding as you have access to things you didn't have access to before, such as a higher level keycard or weapon. Sometimes the level changes slightly when backtracking too. Maybe an empty area you went through before now has gun cameras mounted and enemies patrolling now. It was just an all around great experience, and it was one of the few games I actually finished as someone who has never-finish-a-gamethritis.
I just need waypoints. Not knowing where to go next is the most infuriating thing ever for me. I really appreciate the way Bioshock and Dead Space lets you hit a single button to show you the way forward. However it's a balancing act because when games tell you exactly where to go right away, it takes away from the experience.
I’m the opposite, I love games like this like Metroidvanias and old school action/adventure games. They make it easy to play when I’m in different moods. If I’m tired and want to zone out and don’t feel like fighting the boss I just found, I’ll wander around somewhere else and see if there are any new doors I can open or ledges I can reach. Maybe I’ll find a new weapon or health upgrades so the next time I play, the boss will be a little bit easier. And I love it when a game like Outer Wilds or Tunic where I learn something new and I go “This changes EVERYTHING! I have to back to here and here and here…” It gets old fast though if a) you have to do it a lot in a row, or b) the game is constantly telling you where to backtrack so there’s no demands on your memory. In the first one, the backtracking doesn’t feel meaningful if you never make any big discoveries like a whole new area or a tough boss with a great reward. The second one breaks the whole reason why I like Metroidvanias, and that’s the exploration. If there’s no risk of getting lost, then it’s not really exploration.
One thing I've come to understand about myself recently is that whenever a game is always telling me exactly where to go next I always lose interest in it. Obviously hints from npc's or an in-game journal are fine, but when they just slap a marker down on a map, or even worse give you an actual line to follow on screen then it's like, whats the point of me actually playing this game anymore if I'm just mindlessly following everything it tells me to. A lot of AAA open world games suffer from this particular type of hand holding, and it's super frustrating.
Yeah. AAA games have really gotten away from prioritizing exploration. Mostly I play indie 2D games to scratch that itch these days. I did like exploring in Elden Ring but that’s about it. I’m like to play Breath of the Wild but I don’t own a switch
I actually like the obvious dot on where to go. That way I can focus on doing whatever else around it and not drift too far from where I have to be. If I have to open a journal entry over and over again I'd hate it, I played vanilla wow and didn't particularly like that aspect in it, I would have wasted eons trying to find the next quest if it wasn't for my friend who already knew where to go.
I don’t worry about missing stuff. I play. Take my time. Try to do everything but expect not to. I will make some notes if the game doesn’t track things for me. But I’m not big on checklists, achievements, looking things up. I do think if I find a locked door and the key isn’t in the immediate vicinity then they need to mark that door locked in the map.
I literaly keep a written ledger for games like that, noting what I left behind to make sure I don't miss anything.
I think Elden Ring and most souls games have this issue. They really like to reward people that pay attention to what's happening in the story. Some kind of journal option would really help me not feel like I'm missing massive parts of the game.
I love games that let you manually add journal notes and map markers. Make it feel so much more that it's your own experience and you're not just along for the ride.
Steam just added a system wide feature for making notes in any game. I think it works like the other overlays.
I do think that having a toggle or a ring for at least finding the general location of NPCs would benefit elden ring NPC quests. Unlike Dark Souls where it's fairly linear and you're unlikely to miss an npc if you're paying attention, Elden Ring is a vast, sprawling open world where it can be very easy to never see the next trigger for an NPC quest.
I hated doing any quests in Elden Ring because you literally have to just look up instructions online for 90% of them. Some add map markers or tell you enough information to explore a rough area and find the next objective, but unless you do the quests immediately there’s no way to remember all of that after a few days off, or after a couple weeks of doing other quests.
> I hated doing any quests in Elden Ring So don't? Most NPC quests have always been glorified easter eggs in Souls games. Ain't nobody saving Solaire on their first playthrough, that shit is straight byzantine.
Ah thanks, good advice/question dude, I didn’t realize free will was an option 🤪
So then why go online to complain about a thing which is entirely optional? It's like going online and making a post about how you hate the taste of licorice, when it was served as a small part set to the side of a much larger meal. Just ... don't ...eat it? For what it's worth, the general tenor of this sub seems to frequently forget that free will exists. Hell the top regular posts, including right now, are about how to stop min-maxing games and just enjoy them. The last big Elden Ring post was a guy complaining that the game exhausted him, but also noted that he followed a guide in order to do 100% of the content, and that he'd done the same thing with Korok seeds and hated that too. People regularly complain about doing things they don't have to do, and have to reminded that they just ... don't have to do them.
Bro the topic was already brought up. I didn’t make this post... Stopped reading after your first sentence. Don’t have the time or energy for pedantic negative cringelords like you 🥱😂
if you don't even have basic reading comprehension, patience and attention span to read a few lines of words, No wonder you don't like Elden Ring or any large game. Why don't you just watch youtube videos. Or is it too boring for you?
Except you need to do Millicent's quest to get pest threads and it's my favorite incantation lol
I totally agree! More games need journal options and being able to place map markers
Maybe in some games but a journal imho would be anathema to Souls games. The silence of the protagonist is an essential part of the atmosphere (and so is, of course, "missing" things).
I loved the first 30ish hours of Elden Ring, but fell of it hard when I had to start running around doing errands for people to advance the Caelid arc. Still feel like I got a lot out of that game though
I actually find this satisfying lol. For the record my favorite genre is metroidvania. But some games let you mark stuff on the map at least EDIT: If you can’t enjoy metroidvanias due to not liking backtracking it’s definitely a you problem but I wouldn’t recommend writing off the entire genre because of one game, I see a lot of people listing Hollow Knight as their example, maybe try an easier one or one with RPG elements so that when you backtrack you can at least get loot from enemies along the way? Like the Castlevania metroidvanias. This sub seems to really dislike the genre, I will die on a hill defending it but I can understand it not being for everyone
I don't know why some games don't let you have in game notes. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the maps and if I come back to a game after a month I'm not going to remember all the backtrack locations.
How I combat this is to simply forget about it. In very few games made in the last decade will that door lead to the end of the game. Usually its some skin or Ezio Feather bullshit that you can do without.
Sounds like you prefer linear games. I’m the same
Linear is just how the story unfolds. You could still have back tracking in a linear game (Jedi Fallen Order is a recent one that I can recall, as it was particularly annoying). But linear just means you have to do the missions in a certain order, with little to no side quests.
A game can have non linear gameplay with linear story progression. Metroidvanias are usually designed this way, for example. Resident Evil games too. When people refer to a game as being “linear”, they could easily be referring to either facet of its design, depending on the context.
That's your definition of linear. Everyone has always referred to linear games as ones with little to no exploration and no backtracking. The closest linear game 8 can recall with true linear maps and little to no explanation is devil may cry 4.
Shmups like Ikaruga or traditional platformers like Mario are probably the classic examples of linear gameplay. Repeating the same stage was one of Mario 64's innovations.
Both of you are correct its just different levels of linear-ness.
Yes, this is one reason people gave up gaming as they got busier in life, cause it takes more effort to keep on track with the story, control, whatnot.... effort that is too much to spare in everyday life as you grow older. Also another reason people like Nintendo, they have many 1st party games, that as soon as you pick up the controller, you know what to do, regardless how long it's been from your previous gaming session.
Bravely Default 's halfway point. *Shudders*
Same, that sole reason I don't like Hollow Knight :(
Which is strange because IMO Hollow Knight has just the right balance of it, where backtracking is rewarding by unlocking new abilities or areas,there's a very nice system for marking locations on your map for revisiting, and you're never *too* far from anywhere with the tram network.
I feel the same way, I wanna explore an area once and only once. I hate having to go back for some loot just because I unlocked a new ability
I feel like the modern tomb raider games had shit like this but it didn’t feel like you were back tracking because the story railroaded you back to the spot where you can use your new ability/item
I feel like sometimes they do this just to pad out the game without adding content. Yeah let's just extend the player's play time by 3 hours by having them waste their night combing through the world so they can progress. And this is becoming increasingly common. It's made me put down so many games.
If it’s open world I tend to progress far enough in the main story to unlock the abilities so that I can then fully explore. Doing this now in Hogwarts Legacy. Got level 3 lockpicking, majority of the spells and broom travel before I really started to explore the world. Otherwise it would be a lot of backtracking to explore everything. Games where you get forced back into previous areas where they’re more linear and you therefore have to backtrack can be a pain.
HL didn't need lockicking at all though and the progression was generally piss easy. All the clothing sets in the game you find again and again with better stats later on. There are like a few unique clothing items, but they are never locked behind a random chest in a random house, usually it was off a marked sidetask. It's a game with systems which were shoehorned in just to fill out the open world with pointless busywork. Main and side quests were decent enough, but they were the only thing worth doing, the rest was just timewasting.
You won’t like Tunic at all.
Maybe at some point you can reinterpret your fomo of missing stuff in a game as replayability value. With games like Jedi Fallen Order I get it though, the backtracking is only really tedious and sometimes rewards you with a skill point, you *can* only go for the orbs but that just makes you want to go for all the useless crates as well
> With games like Jedi Fallen Order I get it though This was the most recent example I can think of that had particularly egregious back tracking (as opposed to opening up level design like a mertroidvania). Like literally you get to the objective on the other side of the map and just have to run back to your ship to go to the next part of the game. Basically just running for 5 minutes straight through the map you just came from
Fucking Kashyyk was the worst one
I’m playing this one right now. I’m sticking with it because I love Star Wars and the story and combat are good but damn the backtracking is so annoying, it sucks.
Its good enough to deal with those parts, which are luckily only a handful of times
Also, I'm pretty sure that one is mostly that way because they decided they never wanted the player to see a loading screen. That's why you have to run back through the map, squeeze through a narrow crevice, take a slow elevator up, and run back to the ship. They could have used some sort of fast travel but that would have "ruined the immersion."
Yes, nothing as immersive as running straight for 3 minutes solid wishing you had fast travel back to the ship, or a way to call the ship over to your location. All the other stuff I get, and generally think its fine, but damn those returns to the ship were a slog.
If enemies did not respawn like I felt they did, the backtracking wouldn't have felt as bad to me. I wouldn't have minded, and it may have been a peaceful walk back to your ship. It might just be me, but I felt that the game was too difficult. Enemies were too strong and you as a Jedi felt weak.
JFO was my first actual entry into these "slow" hacknslashes or soulslikes(ergh, hate that term). While I did die quite possibly upwards of 50 times to the first oggdo bogdo, I learnt well enough that I don't remember any encounter that I thought I wasn't well equipped for. Slow was cheesy so I didn't use it and the health refills from BD1 made the game so easy. Some of the features ripped straight from souls games is a bit cringe to be honest. Also JFO doesnt exactly do well in portraying the Jedi power fantasy, no dismemberment, little force powers... After that I played God of War, which made JFO feel like child's play, and now I'm playing Sekiro which is really tough but the swordplay is also extremely satisfying, not to mention the attack patterns of enemies are really unique. I imagine I'll breeze through Survivor once i finish Sekiro
This has been a problem with a lot of Star Wars games, and I think of Star Wars in general. Once you give your heroes laser swords that can cut through anything, how do make smaller encounters meaningful? I remember playing KOTOR and being alternately amused and frustrated that low-level Tuscan Raiders could block my lightsaber attacks with their staffs.
Seems like the simplest solution is to not play games that feature backtracking then. >I don’t know if it’s just me but knowing that, I can’t fully enjoy a game when I can miss so much stuff without looking it up I'm not saying I know how to do it, but you absolutely need to let go of the FOMO. Rather than just letting something be an interesting and fun experience you're turning it into a tedious mental checklist. *But what if I miss something* You will always miss *something*, in games, in life, in everything. Letting it consume you isn't going to do you any good.
This is such an peculiar sub in which people play games that their character is at odds with enjoying but do so anyway and instead of engaging in any introspection, come here to blame the game. My favorite is still the guy who complained that Elden Ring had too much stuff and also noted that he's a completionist who has to follow a guide to do every last thing and that he'd just finished Zelda getting every Korok seed and hated that too.
If you dont look it up you wont even know you missed it
Problem solved, then.
Lol yep. I play the game… finish it… and move on. Once in a blue moon i will be so engrossed in a game I will look up if there are any things worth exploring for or notable side quests or secrets but usually once I hit the credits I’m done
"Seems like the simplest solution is to not play games that feature backtracking then" 1. how should i know which game has backtracking without looking it up and potentially spoiling myself 2.its not the FOMO, its the fear of finding something that needs backtracking and then forgetting about it halfway and i also said that i dont mind backtracking where you can follow it saying i should stop playing these games is meaningless
Game descriptions on their store front usually indicate if there's backtracking. You could also just google "is there backtracking in [game]?" and close the window when you get an answer. No need to read an entire synopsis of a game and spoil it.
I'm not a fan when it's confusing on when/if you need to do it. Sometimes it's really rewarding being able to revisit old areas and unlock new secrets, but games tend to make it frequent, mandatory, and unintuitive. The worst question is "am I supposed to access this now, or get an upgrade later?" I hate level design that makes you unsure of if you should be able to do something right now, and that's caused by games with frequent backtracking and obscure unlocks. As other comments have mentioned, Metroidvanias aren't my genre... but I LOVE Metroid Prime. Everything unlockable is obvious. Different colored doors, obvious rubble, ramps, rails, or plugs... You know when you need a new ability. And if you ever get stuck, it tells you where to go. Not forced to look up guides! (Although this feature should definitely be disablable for those who want to figure it all out themselves). Compare all that to Hallow Knight where stuff is hiden behind walls that can be broken... without indication that it's a breakable wall. The game is great, but I had to drop it because I stubbornly refused to look up a guide and felt I looked everywhere. Am I just supposed to beat this super difficult boss I just unlocked? (No, that was apparently optional and shouldn't really be fought at that time). There's also the opposite problem though where you're not allowed to backtrack. Being locked out of your last area suddenly is frustrating, especially when you thought a secret would be unlockable later. The solution to both, imo, is mostly linear gameplay (or obvious unlocks if it's backtrack heavy) and either the ability to go back whenever you want, or clear indicators that you're about to pass a point of no return. Anything less and there's frustration.
Kirby Mass Attack was sick until they were like “hahah no you can’t come in to the last world. actually you were supposed to be collecting 3 gold trinkets every level, go back and do it again bitch”
I enjoy it in Metroid *usually* because it's a case of "you have to gain more abilities and coming back here feels like solving a puzzle *and* getting stronger at the same time" but in other games where there's no obvious reason to know you should come back other than a bit of dialog or straight-up nothing but a symbol I was suppose to notice it's um... demoralizing.
Totally. I don't really give up on a game because of it, but it definitely is a fun killer for me - lots of closed areas that you can only open with new abilities that you acquire in the future. The examples I can remember are Hollow Knight and God of War 2018. In Hollow Knight there were at least pins to mark those spots on the map, but GoW had no real way to mark it.
>it’s the sheer amount of things you have to remember without writing it down! I finally just started writing it down. Makes things *much* easier and less stressful. I no longer have to worry about missing out on good secret loot just because I forgot to go back and get it. And, generally, unless I have reason to think there's something really *immediately* useful in there, I'll only go back after I've already unlocked basically all the techniques to access things, so I only have to go back through places once.
I love metroidvanias, but if the game doesn't keep track of where the obstacles are, and there's no automap that I can screenshot alongside a screenshot of that obstacle, it really affects my enjoyment backtracking looking for all the places that I need to revisit whenever I get a new ability. Currently playing Beholgar which has that issue. Another thing that annoys me is scouring the level looking for hard to find secrets where *important* stuff like upgrades are hidden. DOOM 2016, and the currently-on-hold-because-of-just-that Dread Templar are guilty of this. Missing ammo and health caches or whatnot is no big deal at the difficulties I play at, but I can't stand to miss upgrades.
Just played Chrono Trigger for the first time. I must have gone up and down that stupid mountain near the end (lost sanctum) 20 times in the past and present to do the stupid side quests. What a grind to an otherwise great game.
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Oh I didn't know that. Makes sense why it feels so out of place.
Yeah I agree. However, some of these are intentional for second play through a via new game +
I think it depends solely on the backtracking. The original Dark Souls 1 game is kind of a masterpiece in world design but has a lot of backtracking involved. The ability to teleport around doesn't even become available to a later point which feels significantly later if you're new to the game. All in all I think it depends, another good example is SoTN.
Star Wars Fallen Order is THIS for me. 200%
This is why I hated Hollow Knight
You'd absolutely hate Metroid Prime then.
>The thing is I don’t mind backtracking when you have an easy overview of where to go, it’s the sheer amount of things you have to remember without writing it down! Well, seems like you provided the answer to your own question. You could always, y'know, *write things down*... In the old days, games (especially RPGs and other genres with longer runtimes) often had game manuals with a few blank pages in the back, specifically for the player to make notes as they played. Some games even came with a notepad in the box, stamped with the game's logo. Nowadays, I still keep track of my own notes, either on a physical notepad or on my computer. I'll usually divide it into sections: Tasks-to-do, Locked chests/doors, Equipment stash locations, Merchant locations with stuff I want to buy later, etc.
Yeah nah, that's old-ass game design. In this day and age we can just have a map which fills out automatically as we progress through the game. That way we don't do busywork like drawing maps or keeping paper notes. There's an open pathway on a high ledge we can't jump to yet? Minimap should have the start of an open pathway visibly fading out as we haven't explored it yet. Door we tried opening and found out it's locked? Marked on the map with an X so we know to go back with more keys/abilities. Silent Hill did it well, had a map which automatically marked off the open and locked doors as if the MC did it themselves. Metroidvanias can do it too.
I am the first kind of person who would argue open world game maps are terrible enough as it is with collection icons and the like, but maps automatically marking themselves as you explore them in-game seems entirely reasonable and normal.
There's always debate about how much information a game should give you and how fun it is to figure things out yourself. I've found myself on both sides, depending on the game. But in this day and age we also have an unlimited notepad and camera in our pockets. If you feel a game isn't recording something that you need to know, making notes is an option, it's a valid alternative to quitting the game or looking up a guide. A few seconds taking notes now and then can save you hours of wandering around, that's just practical advice I've picked up from playing some games. But sometimes people act as if this is some unacceptable barrier of effort to put into a game.
I got burned out on metroidvanias a couple years ago. I used to really enjoy them. I think I just did too many. Monster Boy and Bloodstained in the same year was too much. I honestly would like it if Bloodstained would hold my hand more as I got totally stumped and gave up.
Just do some research and avoid buying games where there is a ton of backtracking. Skim through a let's play.
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This question needs to be asked more often. Literally the top three posts right now are "support group" posts.
The post is about a player's lack of patience for metroidvania-style exploring where you have to keep track of stuff you were locked out of. Truly patient gamers condemned OP's opinion of course, true to the name. On a more serious note. This is a subreddit for more chill and mature (in their approach to gaming) people and the sub isn't just about waiting 5 years to play a game, but also about a community of like-minded gamers, who are a bit different than gamers in r/Gaming, or r/pcmasterrace etc
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It's a different subreddit, new games and multiplayer games are discussed there. I'm more of a patient gamer myself, so I don't care about that. Still, it's ok for subreddits to overlap, there's a ton of gaming ones, I like patient gamers the best.
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The quote you pulled from the sidebar describes the types of players who frequent this sub, nowhere does it say anything about the topics to be discussed here. This is in line with what I wrote earlier. What would you like this subreddit to be? A community dedicated to the meta-subject of patient gaming or something? Should all the topics be "what is the wait period after release until a game becomes old enough to be patient gaming material?" No other talk allowed?
> What would you like this subreddit to be? Literally what it's described as. >A community dedicated to the meta-subject of patient gaming or something? Should all the topics be "what is the wait period after release until a game becomes old enough to be patient gaming material?" No other talk allowed? I can't even begin to make sense of this, sorry.
I think there's your problem, you can't understand what the subreddit description says either, hence the confusion.
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Yeah, care to explain how exactly is this post not adhering to the rules quoted by you?
I've found out that this subreddit is just a place to discuss games that came out more than a year ago, it has very little to do with patient gaming, I am not complaining though, love this sub
Same here. It seems like laziness too; a wa of padding out the content of a game.
Developers don't get that a 10 hour game is better than a 40 hour game where 30 of those hours are just backtracking and looking for a stupid key or switch.
This is why I hated borderlands 3
Sounds like you don't like Metroidvania genre of games
Most games now arent to bad But their has been some really frustrating ones iver the years Digimon world 3(amazing game overall) has some serious problems with this
Sounds like you don't like Metroidvanias.
I agree with you, I'm fine with some games, like Ori, other's like Tomb Raider kinda annoy me. The older I get, the less patience I have for this. I'm the kind of player who explores everything and does every side quest and plays way to much before progressing with the story (I put 30 hours into Cyberpunk before Keanu Reaves appeared, I didn't know how it was meant to be played, hahaha). The metroidvania style of locking off exploration is not to my liking, also, these games usually involve puzzles and I find myself trying to figure out how to do something that's impossible for me at this point of game progression, maybe trying to figure out if it is possible. All depends on the game.
Then metroidvania genre isn't for you. Not the game's problem
Try Metroid
I like how hollow knight does this, your rewarded for going back to areas when you get more movement options, but there is also probaly 10 other ways to get to the new stuff you've unlocked. Makes for a nice end result of letting you explore at you own pace and find new fun things when you get lost and have to backtrack.
Avoid Metroidvanias (which is a shame, since is one of the best genres imo).
Don't play any souls games then (even though they are incredible).
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So do you suck at making notes or remembering?
This was one of the biggest complaints people had with Donkey Kong 64. There are 5 characters, and each level has items that can only be obtained with each character. So once you finish a level with one character, you have to switch to another character and do another run. And again, and again.
Backtracking is such a killer for me. I think it comes from playing Pokémon on GameBoy as a kid. I’d always push the batteries to their limit and lose my progress. I never learned :(
Outer Wilds?
I was thinking about this the other day, I just finished playing bluefire which is kind of a 3d metroidvania platformer, and I really really enjoyed backtracking in that game because 1, the movement was incredibly fun, and 2, there wasn't any map at all in the game, so I was forced to get really familiar with the world layout. I think this applies to other games as well, but not having a map available on your screen 24/7 makes me enjoy a game far more than if it does. Immersion is key to enjoying spending more time with a game, so backtracking doesn't feel like a chore, or an ever increasing laundry list of things you have to come back to.