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BOREDOM: A FATAL PROBLEM IN VIDEO GAMING.


Are you bored playing a certain video game?   

9 members have voted

  1. 1. What makes you feel bored playing that certain game?

    • It's too short to beat/ little content.
    • It has too long to beat/ too much content.
    • There's too much plot.
      0
    • There's not enough plot.
    • The enemies and/or bosses are push-overs.
    • The music is too soft, too ambient, too "laid back", too "comfortable" and doesn't "tackle" an emotion to an extent.
      0
    • IT'S TOO EASY!
    • Anything else that I forgot, because I'm too bored to remember it myself.
    • I'm not immersed in this world.
    • All of the above!... And number 12!
      0
    • YOUR FACE. roast.
    • Forgot loading screens.


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When I played Mega Man 3       hours ago, I thought it was perhaps the easiest game in the series. Then, I realized that if it didn't have any challenging parts and didn't have some really great things to it, I would think less of it than 2, and would have called it... MEDIOCRE. It's not to say that mediocre games have some outright horrible problems, but they rarely excel at a few things that make them stand out. 

 

One of the things that could make a certain game horrible or mediocre is BOREDOM. Video games are supposed to pull people out of their "usual lives", even though that's not true for all people. Some people want the rush of doing something grand, like saving a castle from a bad guy, getting revenge on someone, or just "playing god" in a simulated world. So, if their lives are just "plain and simple", while video games usually are filled with "imagination and fun"... who would want the opposite to happen. 

 

Although the arcade machines and ATARI games were basic in design, even then there was that part of excitement and the like. You control a ship and shoot alien ships in Space Invaders, you swallow white blocks and escape those ghosts in Pac-Man, and you save a woman from a large ape in Donkey Kong. The plots are so simple, but playing the games themselves felt fun and engaging. 

 

So, what game made me think of boredom? Final Fantasy V. I myself will call it mediocre. It's another take on the crystal story (it's the fourth one to involve them). There were great moments of comedy and drama. I liked a good amount of music, but thought compared to other games in the series, this one had a decent art-style. It brought in new jobs as well, though some were just horrible. The only stand-out bosses I remembered were Gilgamesh and Exdeath. The main characters are okay, but I think there's some disconnect of how Bartz acts in this game compared to his Dissidia appearances. So, how was I bored? Every job can also use a secondary ability from each of the jobs, and every job can be "leveled up" to get a new ability. That's neat... But... Every enemy usually drop from 1-10 points, and leveling up jobs to their max takes time. And some of the abilities are useful in this game. So, I acquired a certain power for a certain class that allowed me to OKH these enemies in this one dungeon painfully easy. They drop about 4 to 8 points max and a good amount of money, and come in either as a pair or five. So, I grinded for four characters to get the best use out of them. As I did so for at least maybe three to five hours, I came to hate the music, the slow death animations, the ATB, the back attacks, walking around to get a random encounter, healing my team, walking to another room to restore my HP and MP with a certain item, the restoring animation and music, going back to the other room, and repeating the process ad naseum. It's not bad in Poke'mon, because Pokemon have to learn a distinct move-set, while there's freedom here in V. I only gave my characters some jobs that fit them the most, and didn't make them learn everything. And the sad fact is... this game is said to be hard. Which I'll say is easy when you get the right jobs and abilities, it's just that some of the enemies use cheap attacks. Cheap and difficult are not the same thing for me. They're not hard to beat, but just annoying to deal with. When I became prepared, this game was much easier to deal with. But, that sense of what I did in that room alone also carried for most of the rest of the game. I just wanted move on and defeat the bosses to get to the end. And, that's sickening to think about. That I became so BORED that I just wanted to ESCAPE battles than FIGHT. And that has never often happened when I played I, III, IV, and VI. There were some moments for good reasons, but not because I was tired of facing enemies. Sometimes, it was because my characters needed health or because the enemies I faced were too dangerous. By the end of V, I felt so conflicted, because I wanted to like this game, but it was that moment of the game that may have dampened an otherwise possibly fun experience. And comparing it to I, III, and IV before it didn't help it's chances of me calling it mediocre. 

 

Gameplay isn't the only thing to create boredom. Even some musical pieces can be too peaceful, like perhaps that in Kirby's Epic Yarn. Actually, even though I haven't played it in some time, I remember that boring me too. It didn't help that there was no such thing as death in that game, and the one thing I liked about Kirby, his copy ability, was gone in that game.  

 

I don't know about the current shooters. Most of them revolve around war stories no one usually cares about, and just go to the multiplayer, which has a select variation of weapons are similar in some way. But, Overwatch has been probably the best when it comes to multiplayer... though I recently got back into that game after months of playing games I really wanted to beat. And, I'm sure most of the objectives of each game in multiplayer are usually the same.  

 

To keep it short, so I don't lose my mind, boredom should be considered one of the seven deadly sins of video gaming. If you aren't challenged or having fun with a certain game and lose interest, then play another game/ sell that game/ or give it to a person who might find it more enjoyable than you do. Maybe that will get rid of the moment after a while.  

 

If you have some other thoughts about boredom in video gaming, then please post of how you deal with it, or which video games come to mind when it comes to boredom and how it bores you. It's just that I don't think anyone has really discussed this in this forum, or the last two. :| Maybe you found this post boring too. Just click the "Your Face. roast." thing then in my poll. 

 

PSEdit: Forgot loading screens, sometimes they are the worst. 

Edited by XLW
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Too much customization, especially in RPGs.

 

I've attempted and gave up on FF6 so many times because I get stuck in this "don't know what/who I'll need, so I'll do everything" and end up trying to give all of the things to every character which leads to excessive grinding which leads to boredom. It's probably why FF9 is my favourite. Every character has a class, you use the ones you want and if you are forced to use different ones you usually have one or two of your mains with you anyways. Sometimes when I want to play a game, I just want to play. I don't want to have to spend a shit ton of time making sure I've got the perfect team, with the perfect gear (which probably needs to be MADE juuuuuuust right) just to play a game. 

 

Fetch quests. I'm going to use probably the worst offender for this, Xenoblade Chronicles. I don't mind a FEW. And I don't mind when I'm playing a game and a handful of active sidequests. But when each area seems to have 20 fucking fetch quests in it... Even though I can ignore them, it makes me almost want to ignore the game.

 

I'm sure there's more... and that even those are the completionist/OCD gamer in me complaining.

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16 minutes ago, EH_STEVE said:

Too much customization, especially in RPGs.

 

I've attempted and gave up on FF6 so many times because I get stuck in this "don't know what/who I'll need, so I'll do everything" and end up trying to give all of the things to every character which leads to excessive grinding which leads to boredom. It's probably why FF9 is my favourite. Every character has a class, you use the ones you want and if you are forced to use different ones you usually have one or two of your mains with you anyways. Sometimes when I want to play a game, I just want to play. I don't want to have to spend a shit ton of time making sure I've got the perfect team, with the perfect gear (which probably needs to be MADE juuuuuuust right) just to play a game. 

 

Fetch quests. I'm going to use probably the worst offender for this, Xenoblade Chronicles. I don't mind a FEW. And I don't mind when I'm playing a game and a handful of active sidequests. But when each area seems to have 20 fucking fetch quests in it... Even though I can ignore them, it makes me almost want to ignore the game.

 

I'm sure there's more... and that even those are the completionist/OCD gamer in me complaining.

 Would you say the Monster Hunter series is a prime example of too much? Then again, beating monsters to get better weapons and armors could be either fun or boring depending how you look on it. I love the series, but don't spend too much time with the games because of the grind at times, and the bosses can be quite the juggernauts.  

 

Haven't played IX, but somehow I had the opposite effect you had apparently for VI. Yes, the grinding is a problem in this one too, but for some reason I cared a lot more in this game than in V. And that's because I liked MOST of the characters, and wanted them to grow both emotionally and... "physically" cannot work, because some of the team are magic uses. I wanted them to prepare for any fight ahead. Unlike the last few games I played, I really think this game works well as an ensemble piece. I even had odd and cute nicknames for them. I called Setzer -ZZ Top- because of his white long hair and his look (all he really needs are cheap sunglasses). IX sounds that way for you too, and that's good to know, because IX's on my list of what I need to play too. But, my experience is different than yours, so I'm not telling you you're wrong. 

 

I just played XC for its story, and the sequel too. The only thing I did in the case of the side-quest in XC is restoring that one Colony. I'm not going to say that those fetch quests are bad because... I just haven't played them. 

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2 minutes ago, XLW said:

 Would you say the Monster Hunter series is a prime example of too much? Then again, beating monsters to get better weapons and armors could be either fun or boring depending how you look on it. I love the series, but don't spend too much time with the games because of the grind at times, and the bosses can be quite the juggernauts.  

 

Haven't played IX, but somehow I had the opposite effect you had apparently for VI. Yes, the grinding is a problem in this one too, but for some reason I cared a lot more in this game than in V. And that's because I liked MOST of the characters, and wanted them to grow both emotionally and... "physically" cannot work, because some of the team are magic uses. I wanted them to prepare for any fight ahead. Unlike the last few games I played, I really think this game works well as an ensemble piece. I even had odd and cute nicknames for them. I called Setzer -ZZ Top- because of his white long hair and his look (all he really needs are cheap sunglasses). IX sounds that way for you too, and that's good to know, because IX's on my list of what I need to play too. But, my experience is different than yours, so I'm not telling you you're wrong. 

 

I just played XC for its story, and the sequel too. The only thing I did in the case of the side-quest in XC is restoring that one Colony. I'm not going to say that those fetch quests are bad because... I just haven't played them. 

Never played MH. But I DID play Final Fantasy Explorers and that bored the shit out of me

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Anything involving luck.

 

If a quest gives me an objective along the lines of "collect 5 Goblin penises", I expect to able to complete it by killing five Goblins. But if I have to spend hours running around the Goblin Hideout because each Goblin only has a 1-in-255 chance of dropping a penis, then we have a problem.

 

The way Xenoblade 2 handles this for rare Blades is inexcusable.

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Honestly? It's hard to distill to say what one specific trope that I find boring, since whether or not that trope is boring needs to be understood in the context of the game. I find post apocalyptic settings boring, but Horizon and Nier Automata are among my favorite games from last year despite being post-apocalyptic. I also have a higher tolerance for repetition than most, which is probably why I can spend hundreds of hours breeding in Pokemon even if I use said mon for only a handful of battles in the Battle Tree/Maison/whatever

 

The last game that really bored me was Breath of the Wild, and even then, I don't think there's a succinct answer to what specifically that game did that failed to grab me. I suspect the lack of direction given for shrines, played no small part. The shrines are an extremely integral part of the definitive BotW experience yet to find them you need to be willing to explore for the sake of exploring. Compare that to, say Horizon, where I can see most of the cool things the game has to offer just by having various quests I find set my itinerary. More fundamentally, it seems like BotW requires a certain spontaneity to enjoy that I simply don't have; and it's perhaps unsurprising as a whole I tend to prefer linear rather than nonlinear games.

Edited by KefkaFFVI
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1 hour ago, Tyranogre said:

Anything involving luck.

 

If a quest gives me an objective along the lines of "collect 5 Goblin penises", I expect to able to complete it by killing five Goblins. But if I have to spend hours running around the Goblin Hideout because each Goblin only has a 1-in-255 chance of dropping a penis, then we have a problem.

 

The way Xenoblade 2 handles this for rare Blades is inexcusable.

This is my greatest enemy in video games. RNG drops are the worst. Ask any of my friends about that, and they can tell you stories about me and droprates.

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I found I've become increasingly sensitive to/annoyed by game design that just wastes time and leaves the player disengaged with the gameplay, which can manifest in a lot of ways:

  • Long loading times is definitely one. I know sometimes it's just the size of the game but other times it just feels like poor optimization on the developers' part.
  • Slow character speed is another aspect that may not seem like a big deal but there are games where I'm playing and I realize it's just plain taking too long to walk across the screen, like there's nothing else to really look at or engage with and you're just slowly walking which can take you out of the experience.
  • A big one is mindless fetch quests/generally collecting junk, which happens a lot in open world games. I started playing Witcher 3 a few weeks ago and I was immediately bored by the idea of collecting dozens of herbs, crafting items, monster drops, etc. At the very least it should be faster to pick up junk than individually clicking on every box/bush/monster corpse in an area. And then there's sorting/selling this inventory…bleh.
  • RNG is another design element that is solely designed to waste the player's time. I give the Monster Hunter franchise somewhat of a pass on this one since the whole point of the game is fighting monsters over and over, though even in that series there needs to be a balance between engaging gameplay and actual rewards.
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I'm not gonna go full boredom but...

 

 

Things that put me in quit mode:

 

The thing, if a game lacks "the thing" I tire of it easy and don't get motivated to get back to it.

 

RPGs that you HAVE TO LEVEL GRIND to have hope to progress.  Unless something really gets me motivated to do it,  I can't stand racking up enemy kills for experience points for nothing more than being too weak for the next boss but was good enough finish the prior boss.

 

Having to be annoyingly precise with game actions like jumping, aiming, ect...  When it becomes too tedious to perform actions or it feels like the AI/game is coming after you I tire of it easily.

 

Some puzzle games can get to puzzles to make me stop when I can't get a solution figured out.  Like that wall you can't break through.

*Specific games are Pushmo/Crashmo/Stretchmo, BoxBoxBoy HARD stages, Some stuff in Battle Lode Runner games I have run into...  Sometimes even the strategy guide or youtube video of the solution isn't the breakthrough I need.

 

Super Speed button mashing required to advance....

 

 

 

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For me, I think the biggest single thing is if I can't get invested in a game's world and/or aesthetic. That applies especially to single player, story driven games but even multiplayer games and games that don't have a story still a sort of aesthetic and feel. If I'm not into that aesthetic I won't like the game. The best example I can think of where the aesthetic didn't work for me was Skyrim, and really Bethesda games in general. I can look at those games and objectively see why they are good, but I just could never get into them and I've concluded it's just because I don't particularly like Bethesda's presentation style. On the other end of things, I've played only two of Vanillaware's games and loved both of them. Even though both have some pretty big problems with feeling repetitive and getting stuck in long menus. The look and feel of the world just won me over instantly, even when the gameplay or story faltered it didn't matter because I enjoyed the aesthetics and feel of the worlds so much. 

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Pacing.  If a story-driven game is taking too long to unfold and open up, I drop it.  Fuck the "just wait until you're 20 hours in" bullshit, if you can't at least create a vaguely intriguing narrative where I'm at least mildly interested in seeing how it unravels, you failed as a story writer.  This can be attributed to both not teasing the player with enough plot to get them invested, or bogging it down in a shitload of exposition that nobody cares about.  I remember Eternal Sonata in particular had a character I just met who was going to die and they dropped a 10-minute cutscene on them pontificating about life just in an attempt to get me invested and I almost dropped the fucking game there.

 

I'm an MMO/dungeon crawler/pokemon player, so things like grinding doesn't particularly bother me.  Those are games that can function as busywork while I do something else like listen to podcasts or watch shows.  I think a lot of what contributes boredom is contextual and additive.  I don't mind easy games, but if there's nothing else to keep me engaged like a plot or the presentation, I get burned out.  Grinding in games CAN be a slog, but if it's something like Warframe or Diablo 3 where the gameplay is engaging and fast-paced as fuck it can keep me occupied enough that I don't mind it.

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I love customization in my RPGs. In the best case, an RPG can have loads of customization, and still a decent playtime (20-40 hours.) Most Fire Emblem games fit into this category. I play FE Awakening on an annual basis, and I find it satisfying in seeing my results with each playthrough.

 

RNG is a terrible factor, and it killed my enjoyment of Xenoblade Chronicles. Many of the sidequests are dependent on finding random drops on the field or from enemies. For the player, this becomes an exercise in gathering information from a Wiki, and hoping that the RNG is in your favor.

 

Games featuring a slow start for the first few hours bore me. This can be applied to most Final Fantasy games, where your first few hours are spent being introduced to characters and the world, but it's hours until you get to the meat of the game.

 

Another feature that can ruin my interest is bad checkpoints. This stopped me from getting far in Donkey Kong Country Returns. Levels are long, and checkpoints are minutes apart. It can be discouraging to make a mistake that's going to cost you several minutes of your time.

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1 hour ago, Doc Brown said:

Yea I'm no fan of those either, especially if a game is rather buggy. Along with Points of No Return. If you miss anything, you're screwed.

Points of No Return are fine when they tell you in game it's happening and you have a choice to not go past. Mostly seen towards the last boss, but midpoints, timeskips, ect can happen too, and as long as you have a choice to back out and do it later I think they are fine.

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