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Why is there such a hunger for boring, samey open world games?

Valcrist

Valcrist

Tic-Tac-Toe Champion
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,749
I like a good open world game. They can be immersive as hell, they can be fun to explore and just lose yourself in for a while. The problem I'm having right now is with Spider-Man, which has these Assassins Creed towers and various "find thing" quests that just get... boring as hell. The web swinging mechanics are great. They feel fucking AMAZING, but it's not normal for me to get sick of a "good" game after the first act of the story. I find myself just letting robbers rob, ignoring people who are in need and just pinpoint focusing myself on the story because the rest of the game has bored me to death. Breath of the Wild was also a great game that had towers, but at least it did something to make climbing those towers interesting at times.

The Witcher 3, which in my opinion is the greatest open world game of all time... still has some tedious samey elements in it sprinkled throughout the world and I just can't see any of it as exciting to run after. The first thing I did when I started Spider-Man was go around picking up backpacks. Then as the game progresses, I find more and more things that they find to sprinkle throughout the world and each thing is just as uninteresting as the last. I saw a lot of praise for Spider-Man, but I'm not understanding why. Not at all.
 
shadowsdarknes

shadowsdarknes

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,745
It makes sense for certain games. Not so much others.

But you cite Spiderman. That makes sense that it's open world. You're web slinging.
 
Bjones

Bjones

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,622
Ac odyssey is the best one I've played. I still play it from time to time. If an open world game with a ton of content has a gameplay loop you like it can be a tremendous value.
 
Lotus

Lotus

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
106,572
DarknessTear said:
I saw a lot of praise for Spider-Man, but I'm not understanding why. Not at all
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Because of the webslinging. Good/great traversal mechanics in an open world goes a loooooong way (even better if they actually have cool stuff to discover/collect). Often I find the worst/most tedious parts of open world games is having to actually travel through them, they're so freaking huge. So while Spider-Man isn't exactly genre-defining, it being enjoyable to actually move around went a long way.
 
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Valcrist

Valcrist

Tic-Tac-Toe Champion
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,749
TheInfinityGauntlet said:
Conversely I think it's an incredibly boring and poorly made game

Funny how opinions work isn't it
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At the very least in The Witcher 3 each sidequest has a story that is on the same level as a main story quest and "Hello, super hero man! Find 12 of my birds please, they're all over the entire city!" and then you chase each one down and it's just... not great.
 
YaBish

YaBish

Unshakable Resolve - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,348
I think I did all of spideys towers in like 15-20 minutes just to get them over with.
 
dancingphlower

dancingphlower

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,130
Spider-Man is at least fun to play (unlike Witcher 3) and to just traverse the world, even if the tasks can be mundane. And Spider-Man needs to be open world for the sake of web swinging.
 
Hippopuncher12

Hippopuncher12

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,361
Cincinnati
I'm just personally burnt out on open world games in general. I have been focusing on more focused and linear games here the last few months to fight off the fatigue. Hopefully, my burn out goes away in the next few months as I have a few open world games I want to go back and play but just even thinking about doing it right now makes me vomit lol.
 
teruterubozu

teruterubozu

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,022
I had the same thoughts when I played Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Witcher 3 back-to-back-to-back. All 3 of them involve riding a damn horse from point A to point B for a good 75% of the gameplay. That's all you're mostly doing is traveling and nothing else. That's why I thought Death Stranding was ingenious in its own way - it made traveling more intense and meaningful instead of "c'mon aren't we there already!".
 

rusty chrome

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,640
What's even weirder to me is how I often see people talking about the size of the open world, as if bigger is supposed to mean better here. More often than not, we end up with a pointlessly large open world that actually just kills the immersion when you see how lame that turns out. Too many open world fans seem to always ask for this and it has put developers in a really bad position to make the game big "just because", not because it makes sense.

In The Witcher 3, I got straight up tired of all the stupid bandit camps all over the place. You could also end up fucking yourself over if you stumble on a quest/contract before officially accepting it from the quest/contract giver.

Either way, I think it's rare for open world games to be fun.
 
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Valcrist

Valcrist

Tic-Tac-Toe Champion
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,749
Lotus said:
Because of the webslinging. Good/great traversal mechanics in an open world goes a loooooong way (even better if they actually have cool stuff to discover/collect). Often I find the worst/most tedious parts of open world games is having to actually travel through them, they're so freaking huge. So while Spider-Man isn't exactly genre-defining, it being enjoyable to actually move around went a long way.
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I definitely get that, but even that isn't enough to carry me through. I'm bored and it's kind of frustrating.
 
Admiral Woofington

Admiral Woofington

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
14,892
Spiderman's praise is DESPITE the repetitive/uninspired side content. Those are largely used to get you points so you can get new costumes and get upgrades for Spiderman.
 
QuantumZebra

QuantumZebra

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,304
DarknessTear said:
I like a good open world game. They can be immersive as hell, they can be fun to explore and just lose yourself in for a while. The problem I'm having right now is with Spider-Man, which has these Assassins Creed towers and various "find thing" quests that just get... boring as hell. The web swinging mechanics are great. They feel fucking AMAZING, but it's not normal for me to get sick of a "good" game after the first act of the story. I find myself just letting robbers rob, ignoring people who are in need and just pinpoint focusing myself on the story because the rest of the game has bored me to death. Breath of the Wild was also a great game that had towers, but at least it did something to make climbing those towers interesting at times.

The Witcher 3, which in my opinion is the greatest open world game of all time... still has some tedious samey elements in it sprinkled throughout the world and I just can't see any of it as exciting to run after. The first thing I did when I started Spider-Man was go around picking up backpacks. Then as the game progresses, I find more and more things that they find to sprinkle throughout the world and each thing is just as uninteresting as the last. I saw a lot of praise for Spider-Man, but I'm not understanding why. Not at all.
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Echoing other's opinions that TW3 wasn't even that great of an open world game.

Horizon Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild are better.

And yes I get very tired of "go here and do X" open world games.
 
lt519

lt519

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,064
Then just play the main story? All that other stuff is optional filler for people who enjoy the game and wish to stay in its world for longer.

I main-line A LOT of open world games.
 
hipsterbodega

hipsterbodega

Member
Oct 30, 2017
603
I think people like traversal and discovery and small deviations, and open world games can provide those things in ways linear games cannot.

It does mean that a lot of open world games overlap quite a lot in how they achieve them, but perhaps there are only so many ways to encourage players to go to this place or engage with this system.
 
kubev

kubev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,533
California
You should give Sunset Overdrive a shot, as the action is a lot more engaging. Aside from its traversal mechanics being incredible, they're also well-integrated into getting collectibles, and all of the game mechnics play off one another to keep you engaged. You have to constantly vary your movement style to build weapon power and trigger special abilities. I daresay that it can be a bit overwhelming at first, but it's worth getting the hang of.
 
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Valcrist

Valcrist

Tic-Tac-Toe Champion
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,749
Lotus said:
Well if you now get that, then congrats, you now understand the praise for Spider-Man.

Well okay, people enjoyed the main story and costumes as well.
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If the web swinging and traversal mechanics are enough to carry the game, why isn't Anthem widely praised as a good game for its flying mechanics? I think it requires more than just good traversal...
 
AYZON

AYZON

Member
Oct 29, 2017
910
Germany
I hope next gen is going to give us worlds that are able to react to what we do in it. I feel like we had this already but devs just stopped making games like that.
Im currently playing through Wildlands and among other things what Ive really started to notice how passive worlds are to the players. If I dont start something in the world, then theres nothing going on and the world only reacts to your actions through scripted sequences.

Even Boiling Point from, i dont even know who made it, way back had a world that was feeling more alive than some of the "big" open world games nowadays.
 
Novocaine

Novocaine

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,946
I don't mind a good old open world checklist game every now and then. Smashed AC Origins a couple years back, did everything. Haven't been in the mood for one since but eventually I will be.
 
Dennis8K

Dennis8K

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,161
Open-world games are the Holy Grail of Gaming™ so even when they don't quite work out they have an audience.

FREEDOM
 
nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,063
because gamers value games in how long they spend in them and not how good the content they are spending the time on is
 
Lotus

Lotus

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
106,572
DarknessTear said:
If the web swinging and traversal mechanics are enough to carry the game, why isn't Anthem widely praised for its flying mechanics? I think it requires more than just good traversal...
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Well like I said, people liked the story as well. Also Anthem is a GAAS multiplayer experience, whereas Spider-Man is a single player game, so comparing them doesn't make much sense.

That said, I thought people did praise the flying mechanics. Only real gripe I've heard is that it has a cooldown, or limits how far up you can fly, which yea, would be annoying.
 
hrœrekr

hrœrekr

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
May 3, 2019
1,655
litebrite said:
It's funny how we're starting to miss linear games.
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Is funny how the trends go towards the extreme.
We had amazing semi-open world before, divided by subareas, unlocked over time, with freedom to be creative on level design and progress mechanics without the obligation to join everything in the same map and limit it all by a common denominator.
 
Chamon

Chamon

Member
Feb 26, 2019
1,221
If you think that Witcher 3 is the greatest open world game... well that explains everything.
 
Meg Cherry

Meg Cherry

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,332
Seattle, WA
Sou Da said:
People percieve more value out of them for their 60 bucks
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How are they 'percieving' more value out of them, rather than just actually getting more value out of them?

If you're the sort of game buyer than only gets 2-3 games a year, Spider-Man offers a great deal of content that can keep somebody occupied through months and months of casual playtime. I have to imagine if Spider-Man was just a linear experience w/ nothing to do in the open world but swing around - it wouldn't have sold as well as it did.
 
Tyaren

Tyaren

Character Artist
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
24,961
fluffydelusions said:
Remember when open world games were the big thing and everyone wanted them?
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Hate to break it to you, but outside this little community it is still the big thing and there are many more open world games to come or to turn open world. ;)

I for one enjoy open worlds in video game, but only the good ones. Good ones only come once in a blue moon, and when they do, I am completely absorbed by them.
 

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
4,721
People have been brainwashed into liking them.

They're big and "impressive" looking, therefore they must be "good".
 
N7_Kovalski

N7_Kovalski

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,465
Because I like them. Give me more huge worlds to explore. I even like a million questions marks all over. The worlds have to be interesting though.
 
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