I’ve recently found that big (mostly open world) games tend to overwhelm or even intimidate me. I’m a big fan of the Rockstar games and absolutely adored Breath of the Wild, but my playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom has been a bit rocky from the get-go.
As soon as the game let me explore all of its content and released me from the tutorial island, I was able to roam the lands of Hyrule freely as I once did in Breath of the Wild, but I’ve come to a sort of paralysis. I feel like there’s such an enormous amount of content to see that I’m constantly anxious to unintentionally skip content or to not make the most of my experience. I did not feel like this back in Breath of the Wild, and I’m not really sure why. I did, however, have this same sense of FOMO when I first played Skyrim. That game also made me feel like I was constantly missing stuff which left me kind of unsatisfied.
This is not a big problem and all of the games I listed are great games. I’m posting this because I unconciously took a two week break from ToTK in order to alleviate that feeling but when I came back to the game today and still felt the same, I thought of posting here and maybe hearing your opinions on this thing.
Have you ever felt the same in big open world games? Do you feel like this in more linear games with multiple endings? (I do) Do you think I’m an overthinker and should just rock on? Looking forward to your comments!
My problem is I don’t have time and recently faves have tried to get harder and harder or copy the dark souls pattern too much or try to be a rogue like. This has forced me to mainly stick to slower paced simulation games. Even strategy games take too much work to learn their systems and once you stop playing mid game forget about remembering how to play.
As a casual gamer who only plays once or twice a month I completely agree. I want small and relaxing games that do not need hours of training until you can even start to have fun. Or small and extremely hard games. I really enjoyed “Getting over it with Bennett Foddy” for example.
Absolutely, it feels like so many big budget games made recently command 50+ hours of your time, or have really complicated mechanics that require note taking and maths to really enjoy. Those things are great, but man, just the thought of starting a behemoth like Tears of the Kingdom makes me anxious.
some blame that on the idea of “1€/1$ per play hour” - and when these games come with a price of 60€+ (modern AAA is 80€), they’ll get content shoved inside…
I think it’s just bad game design that became the norm. I’m pretty sure you can make a game that’s received as worthy its price, without overwhelming players like me with the sheer amount of content.
There are too many random side quests in my opinion. I get annoyed seeing Addison and Koroks. They take too long. Every dialog just feels like it takes ages. I remember in an old Dunkey video he called to them AGLs, artificial game lengtheners. A good example of this is the great fairies. Having them have to pop out every time and always tell you about set bonuses and always having to watch the animation and then the star slowly appear in the armor. It’s just infuriating. J believe they can capture the feel of it without ruining the experience. Like look at chests in BotW versus TotK. Perfect example.
All that to say, I don’t mind the amount of content but when experiencing the content is annoying it makes it worse in massive games because there’s so much of it.
I can summon and dismiss sages from my key items. Why the hell can’t I do that with the towing saddle??
Totally agree on them taking too long and I’ve also found myself being annoyed with Addison quite quickly. The koroks I don’t mind as they offer a different challenge every time and it’s not very relevant to complete them all. But Addison’s tasks are. always. the. same. Boring!
At about 20 hours in I remember thinking, “hmmm this map isn’t too awfully large. I handled BOTW no problem.” But my god the map is deceptive of the sheer size and “hidden” regions.
60+ hours in now and I think maybe 16% of all achievements? Wild.
I thought I was alone with that feeling. I’m in exactly the same boat as you.
For me, it’s a tiny bit different, because I played BOTW shortly before my daughther was born in 2017. I still had time for games like that back in the day. Now I don’t only have a daughter, but a son as well.
When I grab the controller and start playing something time intensive like BOTW and now TOTK, I usually feel really guilty really quick, because there are so many other things to do, that in theory should have a higher priority.
Just do what I do. Split your time between family, work, house projects, errands, and play a little of each backlogged game you have. Get absolutely nothing in your life done by trying to do everything 24/7. This way you get the benefit of feeling like you have no free time while also having the benefit of getting burnt out and overstressed. It can’t backfire. 100% sustainable.
Don’t forget taking so long a break between games that you completely forget what you’re supposed to be doing, and if the game offers no sort of recap/hand-holding quest system - you have to start from scratch.
At which point the daunting nature of that overwhelms you and you just sit there browsing your catalog for something new to play/continue until you’re 15 minutes past your allotted time - and you’re now even further behind.
For me, TotK has been great for forgetting what’s next. The whole game is chunked into small little tasks that string together. It’s rare that I’ve managed to set a goal and gone straight to it. It’s usually “warp to x in order to do y but now, z is on the way and it says to go to b. But b redirects me to do g,h, i, and j before I can fight my way to c. Aaaand whoops I just finished temple and I was just trying to deliver eggs to the shop keep.
That may not be to your taste, but I’m enjoying the happy accident moments of the game. I feel like a diagram of the quest flow would look similar to a technical diagram for the whole us postal system. Just play in the sandbox and have fun. You’ll eventually get where you’re going!
Yeah that’s fine and all, it’s basically the same formula Bethesda uses - and a formula I love for gameplay. The issue is coming back 6 months to a year or more later and then trying to get back into it. Which is a struggle with games like that.
I usually keep handwritten notes about quests and activities, but sometimes even then I still cannot get back into them because they rely on intricate knowledge of gameplay mechanics I’ve forgotten over the timespan of absence.
I love Zelda, and have been slowly working my way through my catalogue of unplayed titles in the series. A Link to the Past was actually the first game I got with my SNES. But I skipped out on the N64 and GameCube ones. But I don’t have the time for TotK just yet. I did get BotW at launch - and it was fun - but the final boss fight was rather underwhelming.
But to be fair the only Zelda boss that hasn’t been a real pushover is the original NES one where it will let you fight the final boss without the item you need to defeat him. And in no way tells you this.
Anyway I still need to beat Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Odyssey (all launch purchases) before getting yet another Switch game. TotK is on my radar, but Starfield looms ever closer and I know I’ll never beat TotK in time. HLTB puts it at like 58 hours just to do the main story. That’s a daunting amount of time at my point in life right now.
Also see: taking so long between games that a save breaking update is released that ruins your 30hr save game. At that point just closing the game and browsing Lemmy instead.
happened with me and new vegas. I did it in the spring of 2021 and did everything but the dlcs and the final confrontation at hoover damn.
Started Dead Money, hated it, and quit it and started old world blues. After this I was burnt out so I just stopped playing NV, and wanting to come back recently I tried to resume in the DLC.
I have no idea what the hell is going on so I have no idea if I’m going to continue where I left off or start the game over, only to miss the DLC content again when I inevitably get bored after the main game
Oh I want to go back and actually finish NV. I bought it at launch and played, but when I actually got to NV it was such a disappointment that it took me out of the entire game, and I didn’t get much further than that. I guess I got caught up in the in-game hype of New Vegas so much that I ended up with Paris Syndrome when I actually got there.
So I know I’m gonna have to restart, even if my save is somehow in the cloud because I have zero recollection of that game - having been nearly 13 years since I played now. And I don’t have the time to start a Bethesda game and finish it so close to another one coming out.
I’m trying to play Elden Ring, Last of Us Part I, Diablo IV, Stray, BOTW, SW: JFO, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider-Man: Remastered, Hogwarts: Legacy, Atomic Heart, It Takes Two, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and more.
I’m not going to beat any of these before Starfield comes out, of which I will surely add to my catalog of “actively” playing games. I’m currently working on D4, but I did go back to BOTW briefly and get the third devine beast done, because my kids got me TOTK for Father’s Day, so I feel compelled to not sleep on it because I want them to play it with them.
I haven’t even finished Skyrim yet. How do people do it?
Like I enjoy games, but I’d rather spend time with kid and spouse than play them. Like I almost feel guilty taking time for myself to actually play them.
The spouse isn’t so much an issue to gaming, as separate work schedules gave ample time to just game. Kids on the other hand, and a special needs one for me, as the at-home parent take up almost every waking second of my day, from 7am to 8pm - 9pm if you count cleaning up the days activities.
My backlog is similar to yours - with the same “gotta get them in before Starfield comes out”. And I know it’s not gonna happen.
It was a much simpler time when you only had one console - and like 2 games + whatever you rented for the week.
Yep, Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games despite not having tons of time. Whenever I play it, I just dedicate all my gaming time to it. With smaller games I play 2 at the same time. Quick Resume.
I don’t feel this way about open-world games because they do usually have an end and you can skip a lot of the open-world filler content. I get this anxiety about sandbox games. I hate it because I really enjoy games like Cities Skylines and I’d love to get into Dwarf Fortress, but I can’t play them anymore because I could spend 1,000 hours in one of them and never finish. That open-endedness keeps me from playing.
Don’t worry, you won’t get to 1000 hours in dwarf fortress without your world ending in magma fuelled mega death while the survivors get eaten by some zombie bull yaks.
Oh, that’s interesting that you feel that way about sandbox games. I get that it can be irritating to not have a clear goal or end to the game. They’re more about making up your own challenges and by that your own gameplay experience on the way. Reminds me of Minecraft!
Somehow, sandbox games don’t induce that kind of anxiety for me because I never feel like I’m “missing” something if I tackle a challenge one or the other way because there’s always another playthrough up next to explore the other route.
Yeah, come to think of it, I think this is a larger issue I have in life: I always have to be working toward a goal or else I feel guilty. I can see your point of view too though. If there’s no beginning and end, there’s no minimum amount of time you need to play. The goal is just to enjoy.
My perspective is basically the inverse: if there’s no beginning and end, there’s no maximum amount of time I need to play. 😅
I can certainly understand that! I kind of am the opposite though; I like not knowing the exact extent of the game, or where everything is, because to me it then feels more like a real place that I’m really exploring. I don’t need to see everything, and honestly I hope I never do see everything because then the magic is gone. I like feeling like a small fish in a very big ocean.
Anti-completionist! I like that. That makes a lot of sense, I think it really might be my inner completionist that wants me to see every nook and cranny of a game. But you’re right about that taking away the magic. Similar to when you replay a game you played as a kid and realise that there’s a lot less to the once magical game world than you thought.
Hehe I know exactly that feeling! Honestly I found the same with Skyrim, GTA5 and Witcher 3 - I can’t imagine spending 100+ hours on a game like that, knowing I’ll probably not finish it! I know it’s irrational but I’m the same. :)
I loved Disco Elysium and Life is Strange 1 because I truly did feel that I left no stone unturned in my playthroughs - it felt very “complete” and had such a satisfying ending that didn’t leave me wandering around a progressively more empty hand world.
I guess that’s a type of game preference - I love watching other people play big games like that, but can’t do it to myself as I feel it’s never “done.” :)
And yet… I’ll play a wrestling game for probably hundreds of hours, knowing fully beyond unlocking everything, there’s a game I can’t “finish” - weird really! :)
Funny you should mention Disco Elysium and LiS! I loved Life is Strange because it felt very purpose-driven and really led you into a clear direction story-wise. On the other hand, I feel like I’m one of the three people who didn’t bother to finish Disco Elysium :D I tried and tried to like it for more than 15 hours of playtime, but in the end I had to admit that its dialogue is too lengthy and that it felt a little too slow story-wise, for my taste at least!
That’s interesting, as I remember not being immersed in Disco Elysium the first time I tried it too! I found it pretty tedious, but eventually the plot lurched forwards after I’d done a few main quests, and I wound up playing it all night sometimes! :)
Damn I miss being able to play a game through a night until the sun comes up, that was nice :)
I do not. I feel no particular obligation to finish anything, and most of the time I do I feel let down that there isn’t more. I want enough to be able to play until I feel the desire to play something else, then have plenty more to explore next time that game scratches the right itch.
This describes me perfectly. As an example, I have had Skyrim since the original release and never beat it. I enjoyed playing around in the world until I went on to other things. I can always go back and play some more when I want. I like having a large world there for me to explore and interact with on my own time.
I think of games like books. I read for pleasure, if I’m not enjoying the book after a decent try I start a different book. I only have so much time in my life to play games and read, no need to spend it on something I’m not enjoying.
Lol books I’ll read (mostly listen to) series from start to finish and reread the full series (occasionally with regularity). I just finished the 26 books of Karen Rose’s Romantic Suspense Series and 5.5 books into CJ Archer’s Glass and Steele series. I love longer form story arcs. I will cut out of truly bad books occasionally but it’s rare. I do more often decide after finishing a book not to read the next one.
But I don’t really do video games for the story telling, so I don’t have anything to be hooked to.
It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.
Thanks for your perspective, that sounds like a good way to tackle that game. In my last session, I just felt that there was so so much to do and wanted to do everything at once. Maybe I’ll also focus on the main story for now and get to exploring a bit later. It’s like you said: We have all the time in the world, Hyrule’s literally sitting there waiting for us to come and explore.
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It’s funny that you got that in Skyrim, really felt like that game was terrified that I’d miss some random quest and shove it in my face
Absolutely.
I’m playing Street Fighter Five until I started Diablo 4. Now Final Fantasy 16 is out. Uffda.
My problem is I don’t have time and recently faves have tried to get harder and harder or copy the dark souls pattern too much or try to be a rogue like. This has forced me to mainly stick to slower paced simulation games. Even strategy games take too much work to learn their systems and once you stop playing mid game forget about remembering how to play.
As a casual gamer who only plays once or twice a month I completely agree. I want small and relaxing games that do not need hours of training until you can even start to have fun. Or small and extremely hard games. I really enjoyed “Getting over it with Bennett Foddy” for example.
Stardew valley is a good one! Play for 5 minutes or 5 hours.
Absolutely, it feels like so many big budget games made recently command 50+ hours of your time, or have really complicated mechanics that require note taking and maths to really enjoy. Those things are great, but man, just the thought of starting a behemoth like Tears of the Kingdom makes me anxious.
some blame that on the idea of “1€/1$ per play hour” - and when these games come with a price of 60€+ (modern AAA is 80€), they’ll get content shoved inside…
I think it’s just bad game design that became the norm. I’m pretty sure you can make a game that’s received as worthy its price, without overwhelming players like me with the sheer amount of content.
Seems like you found the correct Lemmy instance.
There are too many random side quests in my opinion. I get annoyed seeing Addison and Koroks. They take too long. Every dialog just feels like it takes ages. I remember in an old Dunkey video he called to them AGLs, artificial game lengtheners. A good example of this is the great fairies. Having them have to pop out every time and always tell you about set bonuses and always having to watch the animation and then the star slowly appear in the armor. It’s just infuriating. J believe they can capture the feel of it without ruining the experience. Like look at chests in BotW versus TotK. Perfect example.
All that to say, I don’t mind the amount of content but when experiencing the content is annoying it makes it worse in massive games because there’s so much of it.
I can summon and dismiss sages from my key items. Why the hell can’t I do that with the towing saddle??
Totally agree on them taking too long and I’ve also found myself being annoyed with Addison quite quickly. The koroks I don’t mind as they offer a different challenge every time and it’s not very relevant to complete them all. But Addison’s tasks are. always. the. same. Boring!
Better not play Elden ring
20 hours in and a few sleepless nights I already got a glimpse of my future. It wasn’t pretty. Haven’t played since.
True lol, I’ve purposely steered away from that game because even seeing other people play it makes me think about what they could’ve missed. :D
I actually think Totk was more overwhelming than Elden Ring.
At about 20 hours in I remember thinking, “hmmm this map isn’t too awfully large. I handled BOTW no problem.” But my god the map is deceptive of the sheer size and “hidden” regions.
60+ hours in now and I think maybe 16% of all achievements? Wild.
I thought I was alone with that feeling. I’m in exactly the same boat as you.
For me, it’s a tiny bit different, because I played BOTW shortly before my daughther was born in 2017. I still had time for games like that back in the day. Now I don’t only have a daughter, but a son as well.
When I grab the controller and start playing something time intensive like BOTW and now TOTK, I usually feel really guilty really quick, because there are so many other things to do, that in theory should have a higher priority.
Just do what I do. Split your time between family, work, house projects, errands, and play a little of each backlogged game you have. Get absolutely nothing in your life done by trying to do everything 24/7. This way you get the benefit of feeling like you have no free time while also having the benefit of getting burnt out and overstressed. It can’t backfire. 100% sustainable.
Help me.
Don’t forget taking so long a break between games that you completely forget what you’re supposed to be doing, and if the game offers no sort of recap/hand-holding quest system - you have to start from scratch.
At which point the daunting nature of that overwhelms you and you just sit there browsing your catalog for something new to play/continue until you’re 15 minutes past your allotted time - and you’re now even further behind.
Win/win all around.
For me, TotK has been great for forgetting what’s next. The whole game is chunked into small little tasks that string together. It’s rare that I’ve managed to set a goal and gone straight to it. It’s usually “warp to x in order to do y but now, z is on the way and it says to go to b. But b redirects me to do g,h, i, and j before I can fight my way to c. Aaaand whoops I just finished temple and I was just trying to deliver eggs to the shop keep.
That may not be to your taste, but I’m enjoying the happy accident moments of the game. I feel like a diagram of the quest flow would look similar to a technical diagram for the whole us postal system. Just play in the sandbox and have fun. You’ll eventually get where you’re going!
Yeah that’s fine and all, it’s basically the same formula Bethesda uses - and a formula I love for gameplay. The issue is coming back 6 months to a year or more later and then trying to get back into it. Which is a struggle with games like that.
I usually keep handwritten notes about quests and activities, but sometimes even then I still cannot get back into them because they rely on intricate knowledge of gameplay mechanics I’ve forgotten over the timespan of absence.
I love Zelda, and have been slowly working my way through my catalogue of unplayed titles in the series. A Link to the Past was actually the first game I got with my SNES. But I skipped out on the N64 and GameCube ones. But I don’t have the time for TotK just yet. I did get BotW at launch - and it was fun - but the final boss fight was rather underwhelming.
But to be fair the only Zelda boss that hasn’t been a real pushover is the original NES one where it will let you fight the final boss without the item you need to defeat him. And in no way tells you this.
Anyway I still need to beat Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Odyssey (all launch purchases) before getting yet another Switch game. TotK is on my radar, but Starfield looms ever closer and I know I’ll never beat TotK in time. HLTB puts it at like 58 hours just to do the main story. That’s a daunting amount of time at my point in life right now.
Also see: taking so long between games that a save breaking update is released that ruins your 30hr save game. At that point just closing the game and browsing Lemmy instead.
happened with me and new vegas. I did it in the spring of 2021 and did everything but the dlcs and the final confrontation at hoover damn.
Started Dead Money, hated it, and quit it and started old world blues. After this I was burnt out so I just stopped playing NV, and wanting to come back recently I tried to resume in the DLC.
I have no idea what the hell is going on so I have no idea if I’m going to continue where I left off or start the game over, only to miss the DLC content again when I inevitably get bored after the main game
Oh I want to go back and actually finish NV. I bought it at launch and played, but when I actually got to NV it was such a disappointment that it took me out of the entire game, and I didn’t get much further than that. I guess I got caught up in the in-game hype of New Vegas so much that I ended up with Paris Syndrome when I actually got there.
So I know I’m gonna have to restart, even if my save is somehow in the cloud because I have zero recollection of that game - having been nearly 13 years since I played now. And I don’t have the time to start a Bethesda game and finish it so close to another one coming out.
This is my biggest issue with open world games I always forget what I’m doing
Right?!?
I’m trying to play Elden Ring, Last of Us Part I, Diablo IV, Stray, BOTW, SW: JFO, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider-Man: Remastered, Hogwarts: Legacy, Atomic Heart, It Takes Two, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and more.
I’m not going to beat any of these before Starfield comes out, of which I will surely add to my catalog of “actively” playing games. I’m currently working on D4, but I did go back to BOTW briefly and get the third devine beast done, because my kids got me TOTK for Father’s Day, so I feel compelled to not sleep on it because I want them to play it with them.
I haven’t even finished Skyrim yet. How do people do it?
I think they skip the “have kids” part of life.
Like I enjoy games, but I’d rather spend time with kid and spouse than play them. Like I almost feel guilty taking time for myself to actually play them.
The spouse isn’t so much an issue to gaming, as separate work schedules gave ample time to just game. Kids on the other hand, and a special needs one for me, as the at-home parent take up almost every waking second of my day, from 7am to 8pm - 9pm if you count cleaning up the days activities.
My backlog is similar to yours - with the same “gotta get them in before Starfield comes out”. And I know it’s not gonna happen.
It was a much simpler time when you only had one console - and like 2 games + whatever you rented for the week.
i remember this overwhelming feeling when first playing Witcher 3. At some point I just said f it, ignored the thoughts and had a blast
The game would be better with 75% less of the random map markers. I find them hard to ignore even though they’re often not worth getting.
I spent so much time trying to clean up map markets that I was not high level enough to deal with
This! I had to turn off most of them to make the game enjoayable.
Yep, Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games despite not having tons of time. Whenever I play it, I just dedicate all my gaming time to it. With smaller games I play 2 at the same time. Quick Resume.
That’s probably the best way to go about it!
I don’t feel this way about open-world games because they do usually have an end and you can skip a lot of the open-world filler content. I get this anxiety about sandbox games. I hate it because I really enjoy games like Cities Skylines and I’d love to get into Dwarf Fortress, but I can’t play them anymore because I could spend 1,000 hours in one of them and never finish. That open-endedness keeps me from playing.
Don’t worry, you won’t get to 1000 hours in dwarf fortress without your world ending in magma fuelled mega death while the survivors get eaten by some zombie bull yaks.
Oh, that’s interesting that you feel that way about sandbox games. I get that it can be irritating to not have a clear goal or end to the game. They’re more about making up your own challenges and by that your own gameplay experience on the way. Reminds me of Minecraft!
Somehow, sandbox games don’t induce that kind of anxiety for me because I never feel like I’m “missing” something if I tackle a challenge one or the other way because there’s always another playthrough up next to explore the other route.
Yeah, come to think of it, I think this is a larger issue I have in life: I always have to be working toward a goal or else I feel guilty. I can see your point of view too though. If there’s no beginning and end, there’s no minimum amount of time you need to play. The goal is just to enjoy.
My perspective is basically the inverse: if there’s no beginning and end, there’s no maximum amount of time I need to play. 😅
I can certainly understand that! I kind of am the opposite though; I like not knowing the exact extent of the game, or where everything is, because to me it then feels more like a real place that I’m really exploring. I don’t need to see everything, and honestly I hope I never do see everything because then the magic is gone. I like feeling like a small fish in a very big ocean.
I guess I’m an anti-completionist in that way.
Anti-completionist! I like that. That makes a lot of sense, I think it really might be my inner completionist that wants me to see every nook and cranny of a game. But you’re right about that taking away the magic. Similar to when you replay a game you played as a kid and realise that there’s a lot less to the once magical game world than you thought.
Hehe I know exactly that feeling! Honestly I found the same with Skyrim, GTA5 and Witcher 3 - I can’t imagine spending 100+ hours on a game like that, knowing I’ll probably not finish it! I know it’s irrational but I’m the same. :)
I loved Disco Elysium and Life is Strange 1 because I truly did feel that I left no stone unturned in my playthroughs - it felt very “complete” and had such a satisfying ending that didn’t leave me wandering around a progressively more empty hand world.
I guess that’s a type of game preference - I love watching other people play big games like that, but can’t do it to myself as I feel it’s never “done.” :)
And yet… I’ll play a wrestling game for probably hundreds of hours, knowing fully beyond unlocking everything, there’s a game I can’t “finish” - weird really! :)
Funny you should mention Disco Elysium and LiS! I loved Life is Strange because it felt very purpose-driven and really led you into a clear direction story-wise. On the other hand, I feel like I’m one of the three people who didn’t bother to finish Disco Elysium :D I tried and tried to like it for more than 15 hours of playtime, but in the end I had to admit that its dialogue is too lengthy and that it felt a little too slow story-wise, for my taste at least!
That’s interesting, as I remember not being immersed in Disco Elysium the first time I tried it too! I found it pretty tedious, but eventually the plot lurched forwards after I’d done a few main quests, and I wound up playing it all night sometimes! :)
Damn I miss being able to play a game through a night until the sun comes up, that was nice :)
I do not. I feel no particular obligation to finish anything, and most of the time I do I feel let down that there isn’t more. I want enough to be able to play until I feel the desire to play something else, then have plenty more to explore next time that game scratches the right itch.
This describes me perfectly. As an example, I have had Skyrim since the original release and never beat it. I enjoyed playing around in the world until I went on to other things. I can always go back and play some more when I want. I like having a large world there for me to explore and interact with on my own time.
I think of games like books. I read for pleasure, if I’m not enjoying the book after a decent try I start a different book. I only have so much time in my life to play games and read, no need to spend it on something I’m not enjoying.
Lol books I’ll read (mostly listen to) series from start to finish and reread the full series (occasionally with regularity). I just finished the 26 books of Karen Rose’s Romantic Suspense Series and 5.5 books into CJ Archer’s Glass and Steele series. I love longer form story arcs. I will cut out of truly bad books occasionally but it’s rare. I do more often decide after finishing a book not to read the next one.
But I don’t really do video games for the story telling, so I don’t have anything to be hooked to.
It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.
Thanks for your perspective, that sounds like a good way to tackle that game. In my last session, I just felt that there was so so much to do and wanted to do everything at once. Maybe I’ll also focus on the main story for now and get to exploring a bit later. It’s like you said: We have all the time in the world, Hyrule’s literally sitting there waiting for us to come and explore.