I just try to trust the game, though in the case of TotK I did have an “ugh not again” moment when I first landed at the surface level. Glad I stayed with it, though. We usually chip away on it for an hour or two each day, but when I’m not in the mood I just do something else. As long as you’re enjoying yourself, there’s no wrong way to game. ✌️

Yes, I never finished BOTW because of the size, same for Skyrim and although I’m excited for Cities: Skylines 2 I’m also a bit intimidated by the scale of it and learning all the new tools again!

Absolutely.

I’m playing Street Fighter Five until I started Diablo 4. Now Final Fantasy 16 is out. Uffda.

I feel the same way about big games, and just yesterday I was feeling the same anxiety after the tutorial island in TOTK. I usually feel I need to find every secret and every korok sees etc. But this time I’m trying a new strategy - letting the game lead me. Some NPC says “go do this now”, OK I do that and try not to get side tracked. Supposed to visit a certain town next? Then I go there! The game (so far) does seem linear or at least it offers that option*, so when I’m overwhelmed, I follow that line.

I do feel overwhelmed and intimidated by certain games, and sometimes it’s paralysing (right now I’m a struggling with what job to level in Final Fantasy XI), but whether that’s a bad thing depends entirely on the kind of “big” we’re talking about.

If it’s big in the sense of mechanical depth, I adore that. It’s like a drug for me. I adore learning and games that reward that are often great for my mental health. Thinking of things like Project Zomboid, Dwarf Fortress, Loop Hero, Noita, or most of Zachtronics’ titles. With those it really isn’t about the scale of the world or the number of quests (often those metrics aren’t even relevant).

My personal problem when it comes to some games like that, is that I know I’ll love them – like Factorio – but I simply don’t get around to them quickly, if at all; because I also know learning those systems will be a not insignificant time commitment. Ironically, that sensation of being overwhelmed with things to learn is part of why I love them, but I often fail to get around to actually playing many such games out of concern I won’t be able to give them the time and attention that ‘they deserve’. I’m not sure if that’s the same as that FoMO you describe.

When it comes to the more conventional meaning of a “big game”, it depends entirely on two things: the originality of the content, and the quality of the storytelling; i.e. the difference between Red Dead Redemption 2, and a modern Far Cry title. I would absolutely worry about missing stuff in RDR2, but would struggle to care much at all about modern Ubisoft titles in the same way.

Personally I love breath of the wild and adore tears of the kingdom more

There’s so much to do and explore and I want the game to keep going forever

For me since I quit smoking weed something in my mindset changed and it just seems like too much effort overall to play most games, especially bad with open world with hundreds of quests. The quest log tends to remind me of my ticket backlog at work.

I mainly play some small and quick to pick up and put down games with tight gameplay loops atm.

Absolutely! I bought Red Dead Redemption 2 on sale, played for a couple of hours and then I just stopped. Was so many things to do and I couldn’t decide on what to do first… 🙄

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.

Removed by mod

Seems like you found the correct Lemmy instance.

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.

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??

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.

Absolutely! I just picked up the Mass Effect collection and the Dragon Age collection when they came in a bundle a couple of weeks ago. I am really, really intimidated having like 7 big games all in my backlog now. I’m just playing Bioshock Infinite and Hades in my happy little box.