Well, i don’t wanna go too deep and share too many examples of my OCD in gaming. But holy shit… it actually bothers me.
So as many of you probably know by now, i’ve been revisiting Oblivion. Playing an evil character. AND playing a good guy and doing the main quest line. I think this mental disorder (or whatever you wanna call it) has only gotten worse for me. I now have a hard time continuing with my good guy character. I am several quests into the main quest line. And would like to continue. But i also don’t because i dont want to do other quests in between the main quest line. My OCD wants me to do them in order. All main quests grouped together. With no side quests in between. But my rational side is telling me that freedom is part of the game.
Ugh… Does anyone else have serious cases of OCD when gaming? I wish i could just stop giving a fuck…
I have a tendency of not wanting to miss things in games to the point where I’ll purposely go the wrong way which sometimes turns into massive detours from the main path.
I used to because I’m so bad at gaming it used to annoy me so bad.
Now I’m the opposite and give zero fucks. There is hope.
Use this tale as a sort of anti-OCD distress tolerance exercise.
I started Just Cause 3 in January 2016 and it took a year to finish. I got as far as the 5th mission and the game got too hard for me. But it’s my favorite game so I spent all year just wandering around. No point. No quests. No missions. No destination. I was just causing trouble in the open world.
After a year of just screwing around I decided to try level 5 again. Much to my surprise the open world was persistent and in all my wanderings I had managed to kill most of the minions on the island. At most missions where I had to conquer an enemy base, there was only a skeleton crew left. Finishing the game was easy after that.
As soon as I finished, I deleted my save game and started doing the same thing again. Maybe I will try to win tomorrow. Maybe I will try to jump a jet ski out of a cargo plane. Who cares? I don’t give a fuck about winning, I just want to make the fun last as long as possible.
I have a horrible habit of going out of my way to pick up quests. Then, when I have a crap ton of them, I don’t feel like doing them all. Games with a completely open world drive me crazy, because there is almost too much to do at any given time.
Yet, open world RPG’s are still my favorite game genre…
I always love doing the main quest first for open world games, but then I find mods to"enhance" my character and then I start over, and unfortunately it’s a downward spiral after that…
Hmm I tend to want to do everything in one single playthrough. So i have a fear of progressing too far and blocking off content or having a bunch of quests automatically fail.
Of course with oblivion etc, this means I have to join all of the factions and try and max out all the skills. Ahh fond memories of getting into a boxing match with vivec in morrowind.
Yes definetly, if it’s a 6-8 hour game i have that feeling when i play that i have to finish it in one sitting if not i fear i wont play it the next day or ever. For instance doom was what 12h and ofc i had to split it up into 2 days. As soon as i woke up i started playing. If it’s a game like mass effect, the witcher that’s something else. I play them like 1 to 2 hours a day.
Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice was the worst all in one sitting and on top of that i didn’t knew the rot mechanic was fake + on hard. You can imagine the pressure i had.
OCD is an important factor to modern game design. Without the OCD customers we wouldn’t see nearly as much of the genial game mechanics that are achievements and elongated item unlock paths.
Been around games for longer than I care to remember. Pretty much nothing really bothers me anymore except blatantly bad coding/scripting or animation work.
Then I go into full bug tester / QC mode and tear the game a new one.
The worst and most egregious thing though in every single game I’ve ever seen is walk/run speed matching and on-off type character/vehicle controls that have no subtlety. It’s either full forward, full left, full right or full backwards with no degree of precision in between this is particularly bad in open world games or any games that require stealth and precise maneuvers often under time pressure.
Have you ever run up to a wall in a third person game and tried to stop exactly at a switch that you have to face exactly to actuate but your character is only able to turn in what seem like 90 degree angles…
Yeah Uninstall! It really isn’t hard to set adjustable speeds, mouse sensitivities and better link you characters facing direction to your camera…
As for story. I really can’t be bothered. Most game storytelling is shallow as all hell anyway, once you start poking at it the plot holes start opening up in your road like potholes on an african road after a thunderstorm.
Plotholes, Plotholes and terrible writing everywhere. I don’t want you to tell me a story by forcing me to play the actor like a slave for your game movie set on a linear rolercoaster stage either. That’s what most games seem to be doing of late.
Nor do I want the lazy storytelling that games like LA Noire did where your character makes story decisions on his own that are completely disconnected from how you the player where running this characters life.
In LA Noire I was playing the professional ace detective in my 1940’s themed detective fantasy and then suddenly out of nowhere my character get dragged into all kinds of dumb shady shit because the story writers wanted to be so. Decisions that should have been left to me, and It really ruined the game for many people. Which was a common point in reviews at the time.
I’m okay with doing sidequests when the story comes to a break, like when a story part has reached some kind of conclusion - doesn’t mean it’s over - and you can decide to either continue with the main story or do sidequests. As long as I can come pack and pick up the main storyline I’m fine with it. But I don’t like mixing sidequests in while doing the main story.
What i absolutely dislike is if there are sidequests only available at certain points of progression in the main story and won’t be available later on.
I know that. I end up playing the main quest and don’t care about sidequests anymore.
Then I replay doing all the sidequests… it is just the opposite^^
There are super few games I try to do everything at once.
Well I try harder every new game that came out lately… like you have so many more options in terms of RPG elements if you go sidequests first and then continue main story(mixing them up).
To determine how bad your OCD is, play a game called Super Mario Sunshine, hopefully with a completed save. I’m sure you must be familiar with how the game works and whatnot. If you have access to a location called “Pianta Village”, select the third mission “The Goopy Inferno”. In that mission, the entire level is covered in lava and you lose F.L.U.D.D (the water gun) to wash the lava away. You do get the water gun back but two options will appear to you:
Either immediately complete the level once you acquired the water gun
Clean up the entire village that is infested with lava before you complete the level.
If you did one, your OCD is manageable. If you did two, you have some OCD problems.
This is a completely unscientific experiment and I am not a physician.
Ahahaha. I bought that game at launch for my Gamecube when it came out. Good times. Awesome Mario game. Unforgettable.
WAHAHAHA… I actually just played more Oblivion today. And the “Wayward Knight” quest is meant to be done during the main quest. If you complete the main quest line before doing it, the quest disappears. YAAAY! +1 for piece of mind!
Or just as bad: There is a snap grid, but not all of the build parts respect the intersections of the snap grid as the reference and snap exactly to half-grids instead.
