What games have you ragequit?

Hexprone said:

Madness! This is the opposite of reality! Athkatla was wonderful, and coming at the beginning of the game, the extended free exploration fit the flow of the story. It felt natural to wander around a new city getting established and getting a sense of world before the plot had that much urgency.

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Oh I suspect that even though I believe I played 50% of the game, I actually didn't, b\c I don't remember plot having any urgency. Athkatla is a completionist nightmare. I always try to complete ALL side-quests in games (and often fail, lack of patience), so I decided to finish all side content before I go after Imoen. Never got her back. Each time I started BG2 anew I became boggled down in side content. It's like how I never finished Oblivion or Skyrim, the same story.

Shame on me, maybe the main quest is great, but I just never managed to finish all side quests in order to move it along.

It's true that there was some fun content in the city section of Baldur's Gate, but it brought the story to a screeching halt just as it was gathering steam.

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I have no idea what you're talking about! Had so much fun over there! It was tricky to fight without triggering the guards or random killing. And I'll always remember with fondness how my lawful party kept running away from the guards by having mages cast Ooloke (sp?) Spheres on them, every damn time.

I liked the city for how tricky it was to remain legally and then spiritually lawful in it, haha. If I was smashing everyone left and right, I doubt I'd have fond memories of it.

And BG is probably the only game in which I didn't care for the story all that much. I loved the combat. Usually it's vice versa for me.

The city of Baldur's Gate is a nightmare for people who are OCD. I notice that the people who didn't like it usually mention something about too many empty houses or how they felt that they were compelled to explore every inch.

Was Bioware supposed to place something of importance in every single residence just for the sake of being there? Nah… they did things realistically, and that's why I like it so much.

Elel said:

And I'll always remember with fondness how my lawful party kept running away from the guards by having mages cast Ooloke (sp?) Spheres on them, every damn time.

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Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. Fun spell.

JDR13 said:

The city of Baldur's Gate is a nightmare for people who are OCD.

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But Athkatla is not?! Something doesn't compute.

The city in BG1 was so small compared to Athkatla and had a small amount of quests in comparison.

I think they're actually pretty similar in size and #quests, but the quests in Athkatla often lead to dungeon crawls or to quests elsewhere. Basically, every quest or quest region in chapter 2 and 3 can be uncovered while talking to people in Athkatla. Quests in Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, usually only take a few minutes.

Also, as JDR points out, there really are less houses you can enter in Athkatla. For the most parts, the ones you can enter are relevant in some way (not all of them, but most). Most of the houses in Baldur's Gate actually have nothing but some random "Commoner" or some such thing in them.

Elel said:

But Athkatla is not?! Something doesn't compute.

The city in BG1 was so small compared to Athkatla and had a small amount of quests in comparison.

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I didn't say anything about Athkatla, I was just talking about Baldur's Gate. I think it's an apples and oranges comparison though. Athkatla is the primary hub for much of BG2, while Baldur's Gate is just a city within BG1.

The quest structure is also very different as Maylander mentions. A lot of quests are delivered to you in BG2, and I agree that it can be overwhelming at times. I wish Bioware had made more of them the kind that you find on your own as opposed to NPCs running up to you and giving them. The main complaint (understandably) is that you have multiple open quests in your journal shortly after emerging from the starting dungeon.. without any idea which ones to do first.

As far as a preference though, I'm not sure if I have one. I like both cities and both games for different reasons. Baldur's Gate has more of a classic medieval feel and is more consistent throughout, while Athkatla is much darker and weirder by comparison.

Kordanor said:

Still, giving the player lots of optional houses to explore, while in most of them is nothing valuable to find, is somewhat critical, especially if loading times are involved.

To me it's somewhat along the line of "optional quests". I have to do them. There is no way around them.

I would actually enjoy a game which offers all these options: But not all at once.
For example a timer which only allows like a certain amount of activities.

Or, and that would be even better - a world which doesn't wait for you. If you don't stop the murder of Person A in time, A is dead for good. The problem is, that this would in a normal case just set a time pressure on the player. But if quests and events like that would be generated on the fly, it could be a pretty awesome experience.
I think there was a MMO-Platform which tried to do something like this, but I don't remember it's name anymore (I think it was from some more or less well known guy from EQ or so, together with his wife)
Also I think the RPG FRONTIER was planning on doing something along these lines. I am not too sure about that though.

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I am having a world which evolve while you play, so you can't just wait if there is an urgency.

JDR13 said:

I didn't say anything about Athkatla, I was just talking about Baldur's Gate. I think it's an apples and oranges comparison though. Athkatla is the primary hub for much of BG2, while Baldur's Gate is just a city within BG1.

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It's just that I think BG2 induces a lot more OCD, just by the sheer size of its city. I remember how I'd plan to do one quest, by while going from point A to point B, I'd get a few more quests to do. That was too much, and without an adequate quest journal. In BG1 the side-quest completionist in me had never felt so overwhelmed.

The main complaint (understandably) is that you have multiple open quests in your journal shortly after emerging from the starting dungeon.. without any idea which ones to do first.

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I'd say that's nothing in comparison with dozens of them later, and you forgot which ones in particular, and some of them are timed, and you barely made any plans when some companion's quest suddenly comes up and it's timed, so you drop everything and rush to do it, and meanwhile you forget what you were doing before… That about describes my experience with BG2. I even had a notepad to write down all quests the second time I attempted to play it, but then I lost my save game.

As far as a preference though, I'm not sure if I have one. I like both cities and both games for different reasons. Baldur's Gate has more of a classic medieval feel and is more consistent throughout, while Athkatla is much darker and weirder by comparison.

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I agree, they're very different.

JDR13 said:

The city of Baldur's Gate is a nightmare for people who are OCD. I notice that the people who didn't like it usually mention something about too many empty houses or how they felt that they were compelled to explore every inch.

Was Bioware supposed to place something of importance in every single residence just for the sake of being there? Nah… they did things realistically, and that's why I like it so much.




Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. Fun spell.

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I don't disagree with your comment about OCD, although I might characterize slightly more positively as something like "thorough".

I've said before that I prefer games that make you scrounge for every last scrap in order to win, so I generally play every game as if it is designed that way, even if it isn't. When the game isn't designed to push you to your limits, though, extra exploration yielding the 1,000th healing potion you don't have room for in your inventory anyway isn't worth it, and I tend to like it a lot less.

Reading the posts on this site over the years has driven home just how many different perspectives there are on what makes an enjoyable rpg...

Elel said:

It's just that I think BG2 induces a lot more OCD, just by the sheer size of its city. I remember how I'd plan to do one quest, by while going from point A to point B, I'd get a few more quests to do. That was too much, and without an adequate quest journal. In BG1 the side-quest completionist in me had never felt so overwhelmed.

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I actually disagree. While I was in a bit of panic mode when I first entered Athkatla and quests were literally being thrown at me, it was not as bad as BG1 for me. Let me elaborate. For BG2 quests, there is a journal to keep clear track of things. When I entered the city of BG, I was overwhelmed by how many houses you can enter and most of them don't even have anything interesting. YET, I'm an OCD person, who MUST ENTER ALL HOUSES and see if there are anything. And it was FREAKING HARD to keep track of which houses I've been to... my map was covered with markers with: house - entered, house - in middle of quest, house - completed quest, house - not entered, house - NPCs name.

Elel said:

It's just that I think BG2 induces a lot more OCD, just by the sheer size of its city. I remember how I'd plan to do one quest, by while going from point A to point B, I'd get a few more quests to do. That was too much, and without an adequate quest journal. In BG1 the side-quest completionist in me had never felt so overwhelmed.

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It's more likely due to the difference in quest structure that I mentioned before. You're free to explore at your leisure in Baldur's Gate without NPCs seeking out your party to throw quests at you.

As far as Athkatla's size, I never felt like it was overly large due to the way it's divided. The districts feel more separate and distinct from each other than the sections of Baldur's Gate.

Jaguar said:

I don't disagree with your comment about OCD, although I might characterize slightly more positively as something like "thorough".

I've said before that I prefer games that make you scrounge for every last scrap in order to win, so I generally play every game as if it is designed that way, even if it isn't. When the game isn't designed to push you to your limits, though, extra exploration yielding the 1,000th healing potion you don't have room for in your inventory anyway isn't worth it, and I tend to like it a lot less.

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Then you probably shouldn't dislike something just because the developers didn't design it for someone with your play style.

The common theme that I'm seeing in this thread is compulsion. Sometimes gamers are their own worst enemy.

Btw: I used to be very much the same way until I realized it was killing a lot the enjoyment for me, so I can relate to what you guys (and girls ) are saying.

I would explore open-world games in a very mechanical way… constantly checking the map to make sure I didn't miss an inch while travelling to my destination. After awhile, I would simply get burned out and end up not finishing some games.

Once I realized that and let go of my OCD style, I started enjoying games a lot more. Try to play more organically. You don't have to enter every house, cave, ruin, etc., the first time you see it.

JDR13 said:

Then you probably shouldn't dislike something just because the developers didn't design it for someone with your play style.

The common theme that I'm seeing in this thread is compulsion. Sometimes gamers are their own worst enemy.

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But isn't the extent of conformity to one's preferences largely what "like/dislike" is all about? I finished Baldur's Gate without complaint (no ragequit or even rage delay - unsurprising as there were not a lot of other options back then) and really liked it, despite my concern about the city. I would agree that, to the extent one can tell, it's better to pick games that are likely to match what one prefers in games.

As I said, to each their own - I can't fathom doing what Crpgnut is doing and replaying MM7 over and over and over, without taking some sort of ironman approach for example… but as he said, it is what he prefers.

BTW, I would agree in general that OCD is bad in terms of forcing yourself to finish a game you hate, or starting a game that you bought but not have no interest in - these are "sunk costs" in economic terms. But I don't agree that OCD is necessarily negative in gameplay itself.

Jaguar said:

But isn't the extent of conformity to one's preferences largely what "like/dislike" is all about? I finished Baldur's Gate without complaint (no ragequit or even rage delay - unsurprising as there were not a lot of other options back then) and really liked it, despite my concern about the city. I would agree that, to the extent one can tell, it's better to pick games that are likely to match what one prefers in games.

As I said, to each their own - I can't fathom doing what Crpgnut is doing and replaying MM7 over and over and over, without taking some sort of ironman approach for example… but as he said, it is what he prefers.

BTW, I would agree in general that OCD is bad in terms of forcing yourself to finish a game you hate, or starting a game that you bought but not have no interest in - these are "sunk costs" in economic terms. But I don't agree that OCD is necessarily negative in gameplay itself.

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I don't consider OCD a "preference".

But I agree with the "to each their own" thing. I was just trying to give you some advice that might be beneficial to your enjoyment.

I used to be a lot more carefree while playing games and then, at some point, I became math-OCD in my exploration process which ruin my enjoyment. I just get bored with the game and then kinda forget about it so it's not actually a "ragequit".

I have huge problem replaying BG (the first one) because of that (especially the wilderness maps, I was at the point of doing logical maths to maximize how to explore them..and not just removing the fog of war, literally the order to go through them), BG2 has a bit of it too, but not as much because it use more of a quest hub design. I even got bored in The Witcher 3 and DAI because of it and then just focused on the main quests to be done with it.

Sometimes I wonder if I put myself in OCD mode when I'm already getting bored with a game and I just want to speed it up and not miss everything because I don't want to replay the game to see stuff I haven't seen. There is clearly a "I don't have the time to play all my games" feeling somewhere in there.

azarhal said:

There is clearly a "I don't have the time to play all my games" feeling somewhere in there.

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Most of us have that nowadays. I think it's impossible not to.

I've never quit a game because of completeness frustrations.

Yeah..."I don't have time for this BS" is somewhat along the lines what I thought here. Just watching the fight in the first minute should be painful enough.

Thrasher said:

I've never quit a game because of completeness frustrations.

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Most OCD people don't.

When I ragequit, it's usually because of really though encounters, usually waiting a few days and retrying does the trick. I usually abandon games because I get bored with them or they are just not for me (aka can't get into them).

The only exception was FFXIV, where I got pissed at the dumb elitist snobs on my servers at release and left without looking back...

Kordanor said:

Yeah..."I don't have time for this BS" is somewhat along the lines what I thought here. Just watching the fight in the first minute should be painful enough.

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I played and finished Anvil of Dawn only within the past five years or so and quite liked it - the graphical effect of that enemy in the first minute is pretty cool, no?