Side Quests and Burnout

ne0

ne0

ne0

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2 Feb 2018
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Games are way more exciting, engaging, and memorable for me if I just ignore side quests and play the main story. Most of the time the pay off for side quests is just not worth it and only serves to drag out a game's play time to the point I get bored with it half way through the main story. They also drag down the momentum of the story and in a lot of cases make no sense in the context of what's going on; why would I give a crap about some random missing person when the world is literally about to be destroyed if I don't crack on and save it?

Anyone else boycotting side quests? I think the only exception for me would be The Witcher 3 but that is a unique experience and most games are nowhere near that quality.
 
ne0 said:
Anyone else boycotting side quests?
Click to expand...

No, not really. My only mild gripe would be when a side quest makes you make a choice that locks you out of another side quest, or even if the main story makes you do this. If a game does this I will most likely just watch a youtube vid of the other story rather than messing about repeating parts of the game or playing through it again. But apart from that I always want my moneysworth in games.
 
Just did a replay of FNV and did all the quests. Mostly excellent. Depends on game I guess. I like a game that organically places side quests as you move through the world.
 
It's the total opposite for me... I usually find that the side quests are vastly superior to the main story for a lot of games, so I prefer to focus on those than progressing the plot.
 
You need to play better games.

Open world games with high quality side content that I complete all of:

Witcher 3
Kingdom Come Deliverance 1&2
Fallout New Vegas
Enderal
Archolos
Fallout London
Red Dead Redemption 2
STALKER series
Jagged Alliance 3
....

On the other hand, in most Ubisoft or Guerilla or Insomniac games, sidequests are often repetitive filler, so there I usually skip some of them.
 
I like side quests when they're decently done, I don't mind the odd fluff quest either.

That said, I can quite happily not do things and move on. I've never felt compelled to 100% a game or do aspects beyond the main questline which I don't enjoy. My GOTY for 2024 was FF7: Rebirth, a lot of people complained about the side content but I honestly didn't really get the issues anyone had. If you focused on the main quest you still had a solid 40-50 hours of solid gameplay and a fairly tight narrative experience, nothing forced people to clear all the zones and do all the things.

I think FOMO and "achievements" hit hard for many in a negative sense, I've never been particularly fond of achievements and viewed them quite negatively back when they first started to be introduced because I knew how damaging they'd be to a number of those within my gaming group back in the day. They're not something you can really detach from the experience now.
 
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Ignore side quests and leave extra EXP on the table? Couldn't be me :p

I still have some level of PTSD from when I was 9 and Pokemon Yellow came out. Got my ass handed to me and I learnt the importance of grinding away and over levelling to stomp your enemies.

So now I can't ignore easy experience points
 
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It depends massively on the game for me.

Witcher 3? Do them all.
Final Fantasy 16. Do none of them lol.
 
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When the side quests pop up I can't help but stop progressing the main story and completing all the side quests before I continue.
 
I should have boycotted them when Skyrim first came out. I don’t think I even managed a qtr or the main quest I was so busy doing other things.
 
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