Building/Customising in single player games - Anyone else not a fan?

VincentHanna

VincentHanna

VincentHanna

Caporegime
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(And cosmetic items in general)

Hot off the heels of the news that 'Assassins Creed: Shadows' features it's first "fully customizable sandbox" at the hideout, am I the only one who doesn't care about this stuff?

This isn't me bashing that game specifically, I'm sure I will enjoy other aspects of it, but ever since Skyrim released DLC that let you own and customise a house, I just couldn't give two hoots about it. For me, that wasn't really that far removed from the infamous horse armour DLC from Oblivion and I have never touched that part of Skyrim. It's also one of the reasons that I didn't enjoy Fallout 4 as much as 3/New Vegas - Because in Fallout 4 you had to build your own little settlement and then were encouraged to build bases throughout the wasteland, and I just don't care about any of that.

I should clarify that I'm not talking about games like Cities: Skyline, which is kind of the point of the game.

As an example: I'm currently playing through Hogwarts Legacy, and half the items you collect from chests scattered throughout the land are bits of furniture, artwork etc to customise your 'room of requirement' at Hogwarts. To me, this adds absolutely nothing to the game - The game is big enough as it is with quests and merlin trials and battle arenas, without me spending hours changing a magic room that nobody other than me will ever see - Give me the quickest way to resource farm and let me get on with playing the game!

And to be honest, this also extends to my character in a game. I'm happy with an extensive character creation at the start of a game. If I'm playing a male, I mostly I try to make the person either look vaguely like me, or failing that I create someone that isn't going to annoy me to look at whilst they are my avatar, but once I'm in a game I'm not interested in haircuts or body changes or cosmetic clothes changes or any of that stuff. For me it's just a pointless time sink.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the people that do enjoy all that stuff to be able to tinker around and build a settlement or change their jeggings, as long as I can completely ignore it - But increasingly games are making this part of the story or making you do a training mission to understand how the building mechanics work.

Am I alone here, or are there others who don't touch this stuff with a barge pole?
 
The base building was the worst part of Fallout 4, I engaged with it for just a little bit, then stopped quite quickly.
 
It depends on how relevant/useful it is to the game, if it's just tacked on and makes no difference whether you do it or not, and it's clunky, then I'll just ignore it.
 
Ayahuasca said:
It depends on how relevant/useful it is to the game, if it's just tacked on and makes no difference whether you do it or not, and it's clunky, then I'll just ignore it.
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Another clarification - I don't have an issue where you have one main base of operations and can upgrade parts of it to further your skills, with some simple resource collection or doing specific quests

I'm primarily talking about cosmetic stuff
 
100% agree - I have no interest in these features.
These features aren't trivial - the parts of the game I do care about will have had to make some sacrifice for these features to be delivered.
Customisation leads to dlc/mtx more often than not - so it's a red flag.
 
also could not care less. I usually hit the randomise character button a few times then crack on. even in 3rd person games you spend most of the time seeing only the back of the avatars head anyway...
 
I'm the same. I'm playing though Avowed and just don't care what by character looks like. I'm playing in fps mode, so only see them in the cutscenes.
 
I find it depends upon the game, I spent ages in Subnautica making my base look all cool etc, I didnt need to, it served no purpose, I could have simply built a functional base using nothing more than what was mechanically required in order to play the game, but instead I decorated out the base, I did the same in Raft and V-Rising and I spent more time in Valheim designing bases than I did in actually fighting bosses/mobs, the same really with Project Zomboid and 7 Days to Die, where I also spent more time designing and decorating bases than I did playing the practical elements of the game. Actually come to think of it, The Long Dark is another where I spent a large amount of time decorating bases
 
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Tombstone said:
I find it depends upon the game, I spent ages in Subnautica making my base look all cool etc, I didnt need to, it served no purpose, I could have simply built a functional base using nothing more than what was mechanically required in order to play the game, but instead I decorated out the base, I did the same in Raft and V-Rising and I spent more time in Valheim designing bases than I did in actually fighting bosses/mobs, the same really with Project Zomboid and 7 Days to Die, where I also spent more time designing and decorating bases than I did playing the practical elements of the game. Actually come to think of it, The Long Dark is another where I spent a large amount of time decorating bases
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That reminded me, as soon as I realised subnautica had base building, I stopped playing :cry:
 
I also dislike any kind of base building, eg my PoE hideout is a default layout with the vendors/devices and thats it. I think its cool when I go to others and they are customised but cannot be bothered to do it myself. Any game that is centred around it is an automatic no from me.
 
I don't like base building in first person games. I must admit I lost interest in Subnautica because of the base building.
Same for satifactory. Building a base doesn't click for me from first person perspective.
But I do love it in strategy games/top down view games. E.g. Factorio (or many many many others)...
 
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I don't bother with it. It doesn't interest me and I don't find it fun, which is why I'm playing the game in the first place, but I do get that there's a not insignificant crowd of folk who really do like that ability to personalise their experience. If it's optional then no harm no foul, let's play ball.
 
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