20 Things You Can't Stop Doing in Video Games. Do you do them?

[ZedClampet]

Spoiler: This is Brian Boru's fault

@Brian Boru started this in the weekly thread, but it seemed fun enough to me to merit its own thread (but, then again, I think letting everyone know I had muffins for breakfast merits it's own thread). Mods, no hard feelings here if you merge this back to the weekly thread).

Here's the video. Below it's written out.

View: https://youtu.be/1oLv3StGimU


20: Shoot all the red barrels, even if no enemies are around.

19: Try to climb impossible mountains to get to your waypoint rather than to go around as the game wants.

18: Smash buttons during title screens, warnings, etc. trying to make them go away.

17: Spin your character/camera while NPCs are talking.

16: Kick enemies off cliffs/ledges

15: Hoard everything (inventory)

14: Go the opposite direction you know the game wants you to go.

13: Shooting lights to see if they go out.

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.

11: If there's lava, you stand in it.

10: Obsessively clear out dungeons, often rechecking areas you know you've been.

9: Obsessive closet checking.

8: Hoarding ammo.

7: You frequently refuse to heal, or at least delay that significantly, often leading to death

6: Focus on the minimap instead of the game.

5: Unnecessary grinding

4: Mash buttons to make your character go faster

3: Refuse to give up your favorite gear/equipment even after it may be outdated

2: Doing all side missions and quests before doing the story

1: Falling asleep during play

 

[Colif]

15, 14, 10, 2

I am not that bad really

some of them don't apply based on the games I play.

 

[Brian Boru]

What kind of muffins? Blueberry ftw!

I scanned the video comments for a write-out but couldn't find one, so the internet goddess thanks you for this service to lazy humanity. However…
However, this doesn't get you out of answering the list yourself—this is an equal-blackmail-opportunity thread.

Green = I do that; Red = I don't; White = see comment.

20: Shoot all the red barrels, even if no enemies are around.

19: Try to climb impossible mountains to get to your waypoint rather than to go around as the game wants.

18: Smash buttons during title screens, warnings, etc. trying to make them go away.

17: Spin your character/camera while NPCs are talking.

16: Kick enemies off cliffs/ledges

15: Hoard everything (inventory)

14: Go the opposite direction you know the game wants you to go.

13: Shooting lights to see if they go out.

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.

11: If there's lava, you stand in it.

10: Obsessively clear out dungeons, often rechecking areas you know you've been.
Not that obsessive, but I'll clear out enemies in an area and then comb it for goodies.

9: Obsessive closet checking.

8: Hoarding ammo.

7: You frequently refuse to heal, or at least delay that significantly, often leading to death

6: Focus on the minimap instead of the game.

5: Unnecessary grinding

4: Mash buttons to make your character go faster

3: Refuse to give up your favorite gear/equipment even after it may be outdated

2: Doing all side missions and quests before doing the story

1: Falling asleep during play

Hmm, only 11 of 'em—felt like more, probably due to recency bias with 4 of last 5. List is clearly aimed at RPG players tho, would be nice to see similar for gamers who are not mentally deficient.

 

[ZedClampet]

20: Shoot all the red barrels, even if no enemies are around.
Nope. Don't do this.

19: Try to climb impossible mountains to get to your waypoint rather than to go around as the game wants.
Definitely yes. Sometimes it takes what has to be 3 times as long for me to get over the mountain than it would have taken me to go the correct way.

18: Smash buttons during title screens, warnings, etc. trying to make them go away.
Buttons? Console peasant. I press Escape

17: Spin your character/camera while NPCs are talking.
Nope. But I'm not listening either. My mind is just somewhere else doing ADD things.

16: Kick enemies off cliffs/ledges
Yes, but rarely.

15: Hoard everything (inventory)
Pretty much

14: Go the opposite direction you know the game wants you to go.
Of course. How are you going to find everything if you beeline to the objective?

13: Shooting lights to see if they go out.
No way I'm wasting ammo on this.

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.
Rarely. I pretty much have to have an actual reason to go in.

11: If there's lava, you stand in it.
No, that's stupid.

10: Obsessively clear out dungeons, often rechecking areas you know you've been.
Yes, at the beginning of a game. No, at the end.

9: Obsessive closet checking.
Is this like neurotic closet checking? Then, no.

8: Hoarding ammo.
What's the opposite? Not bothering to pick it up? Ammo never takes up much inventory space anyway. Yes, I hoard it.

7: You frequently refuse to heal, or at least delay that significantly, often leading to death
I heal appropriately taking into consideration the situation, my inventory, etc.

6: Focus on the minimap instead of the game.
I'm the opposite. I have to keep reminding myself it's there.

5: Unnecessary grinding
How do you know it's unnecessary unless you've played the game before? I enjoy grinding, so I'll say "yes".

4: Mash buttons to make your character go faster
Never heard of this before, so no.

3: Refuse to give up your favorite gear/equipment even after it may be outdated
Rarely.

2: Doing all side missions and quests before doing the story
No. I generally do missions based on how near they are.

1: Falling asleep during play
Yeah, it happens.

 

[Brian Boru]

To amplify a few:

19: Try to climb impossible mountains

2 nights ago I was trying for a Libertad Crate in Far Cry 6, the one ~800m NE of Verdera—a town in the Lozania province of the Madrugada region. I air-dropped from Verdera but couldn't stay airborne long enough to reach the crate, so dropped maybe 100m in 'front' of it.

I spent the next 10 minutes trying to scale the little mountain—the crate was maybe 30-40m up the side of a cliff. No go. I did manage to get above it a bit, ~50m off to one side, but wingsuit didn't get me there, got me dead instead.

That was bedtime. I signed on next time and air-dropped from the Armored Division FND Base east of the crate and piece of cake—simple trail up 'back' side of mountain. This is a regular occurrence for me, stubborn persistence in the face of clear impossibility

14: Go the opposite direction you know the game wants you to go.

Oh yeah, always. Exploration and random encounters are a big part of it for me, so following the path most traveled by is not the route for that. Especially with a map as huge as Far Cry 6, there are lots of locations which never appear on the menu map unless you trip over them.

8: Hoarding ammo.

I don't do the fire a round and reload so you can pick up ammo, but otherwise yeah, obsessive about keeping ammo full. My FC6 AR has 120 stock, and I always play single shot, so I always have tons—but I still get a bit antsy if I drop under 70 in stock.

RAT4 is a different story, only 4 rockets in stock and it takes 2 to drop a chopper… which is kinda chop a dropper, isn't it? Hens teeth are more findable than spare rockets out n about—but it's not a biggie as I can swap to my bow with 23 explosive arrows, which needs ~6 to chop a dropper.

7: You frequently refuse to heal, or at least delay that significantly

I used to do that in the bad old days of health kits. "When will I see the next one???" I'm half health, let's take on these 4 guys and then run back to that health kit. Oh, they have friends in the building—RIP.

Thankfully healing is now much more player-friendly in games I play. I haven't done a thing for Health in FC6, which is weird—in the old perk systems beefing up health was almost always an early priority. I think I saw some perk somewhere which give a Health 'thing', but seemed eminently skippable at the time.

Now it's just run to cover and hit the H key for manual healing. This works fine, as almost all my deaths are either from wrong key presses or wingsuit glitches, which a health system wouldn't prevent anyway.

6: Focus on the minimap instead of the game

Well, not "instead"… but yeah, as long as it's not that awful horizontal strip minimap, I've trained myself to glance at it frequently for intel. It's especially useful in FC6 when air-dropping into a location—get a general fix on enemy location and density, which is great for picking which roof to land on.

FC5 and ND have the horizontal strip, which I hate—can't see the center marker against the sky, or was it against the trees? And needing to turn in place to get the compass marker to show, ick. The little round minimap is so much more intuitive and useful, so glad they brought it back for FC6.

2: Doing all side missions and quests before doing the story

Games are as good at telling stories as books are at playing music—apart from maybe linear VNs and adventures. Most of the fun is in writing my own story, and that happens off the beaten path. Besides it's nearly always a good strategic choice to learn the game's systems and mechanics, plus accumulate resources and experience, before tackling story missions.

Probably the worst part of story missions in general is their tendency to go off-genre. "Yeah, we know it's not a driving game, but we're the devs so we can make you have to bring this unwieldy tanker across the map to progress." Off-genre crap should be skippable, at the cost of points, achievements, super weapon, whatever the reward is. Just don't have a compulsory chess puzzle in my checkers game.

Save Scumming

Surprised that didn't make the list. Despite having the ability in FC6 via a mod, I don't save at all—spawns are pretty good. But other games, especially without Fast Travel mechanic, you bet I'll hit F5. Or of course, to see what happens if you make a different choice at some important juncture.

 

[ZedClampet]

To amplify a few:



2 nights ago I was trying for a Libertad Crate in Far Cry 6, the one ~800m NE of Verdera—a town in the Lozania province of the Madrugada region. I air-dropped from Verdera but couldn't stay airborne long enough to reach the crate, so dropped maybe 100m in 'front' of it.

I spent the next 10 minutes trying to scale the little mountain—the crate was maybe 30-40m up the side of a cliff. No go. I did manage to get above it a bit, ~50m off to one side, but wingsuit didn't get me there, got me dead instead.

That was bedtime. I signed on next time and air-dropped from the Armored Division FND Base east of the crate and piece of cake—simple trail up 'back' side of mountain. This is a regular occurrence for me, stubborn persistence in the face of clear impossibility

Oh yeah, always. Exploration and random encounters are a big part of it for me, so following the path most traveled by is not the route for that. Especially with a map as huge as Far Cry 6, there are lots of locations which never appear on the menu map unless you trip over them.


I don't do the fire a round and reload so you can pick up ammo, but otherwise yeah, obsessive about keeping ammo full. My FC6 AR has 120 stock, and I always play single shot, so I always have tons—but I still get a bit antsy if I drop under 70 in stock.

RAT4 is a different story, only 4 rockets in stock and it takes 2 to drop a chopper… which is kinda chop a dropper, isn't it? Hens teeth are more findable than spare rockets out n about—but it's not a biggie as I can swap to my bow with 23 explosive arrows, which needs ~6 to chop a dropper.


I used to do that in the bad old days of health kits. "When will I see the next one???" I'm half health, let's take on these 4 guys and then run back to that health kit. Oh, they have friends in the building—RIP.

Thankfully healing is now much more player-friendly in games I play. I haven't done a thing for Health in FC6, which is weird—in the old perk systems beefing up health was almost always an early priority. I think I saw some perk somewhere which give a Health 'thing', but seemed eminently skippable at the time.

Now it's just run to cover and hit the H key for manual healing. This works fine, as almost all my deaths are either from wrong key presses or wingsuit glitches, which a health system wouldn't prevent anyway.


Well, not "instead"… but yeah, as long as it's not that awful horizontal strip minimap, I've trained myself to glance at it frequently for intel. It's especially useful in FC6 when air-dropping into a location—get a general fix on enemy location and density, which is great for picking which roof to land on.

FC5 and ND have the horizontal strip, which I hate—can't see the center marker against the sky, or was it against the trees? And needing to turn in place to get the compass marker to show, ick. The little round minimap is so much more intuitive and useful, so glad they brought it back for FC6.


Games are as good at telling stories as books are at playing music—apart from maybe linear VNs and adventures. Most of the fun is in writing my own story, and that happens off the beaten path. Besides it's nearly always a good strategic choice to learn the game's systems and mechanics, plus accumulate resources and experience, before tackling story missions.

Probably the worst part of story missions in general is their tendency to go off-genre. "Yeah, we know it's not a driving game, but we're the devs so we can make you have to bring this unwieldy tanker across the map to progress." Off-genre crap should be skippable, at the cost of points, achievements, super weapon, whatever the reward is. Just don't have a compulsory chess puzzle in my checkers game.

Save Scumming

Surprised that didn't make the list. Despite having the ability in FC6 via a mod, I don't save at all—spawns are pretty good. But other games, especially without Fast Travel mechanic, you bet I'll hit F5. Or of course, to see what happens if you make a different choice at some important juncture.

I generally don't save scum unless it's a game like Divinity Original Sin where if you die you have to go back to the last save that you manually created. Learned that lesson the hard way. Lots of ways to get in over your head unexpectedly in that game then you can only load your last save, so it better be recent.

 

[Colif]

14 & 10 are really the same thing. or cover same topic. Making sure you don't miss anything. I do the clear all zones the same, dungeon or not.
2 = Sacred 2. Sure, you can stick to story but you miss 95% of the world. Blame it for 14 & 10 really. The later difficulties are where having 600 side quests comes in handy. But really, there was no wrong way in sacred 2 so the going backwards thing only really counts in that at start you often went in opposite direction to main quest chain... ignore it completely as it was only there to open map up. (I wish that game could have a sequel worthy of its name). The game gave you a bonus for exploring the map, there really wasn't a wrong way in game.

save scumming wouldn't work in Grim Dawn. Most of the time the game would crash on a warp, and ironically, warps were when it would save progress. That or at shutdown. So it paid to restart client every 8 hours or so or maybe have a random crash/black screen when you portal. I could see signs it was going to happen soon and if lucky I would be not half way through a dungeon. That happened once, I learned to restart client before i went in there. The other reason I wouldn't work is all characters saved on steam cloud... so no copies locally. Meanwhile I don't know how many copies I have of my Sacred 2 characters. The backups were more insurance in case PC died though.

 

[Zloth]

Copy/pasting from the weekly thread....

20. No, only if I think there's a strong chance the barrel will be used against me. Ammo is too valuable and there's a SLIGHT chance I can use that barrel against some future enemy.

19. Sometimes. DEFINITELY save first - I've gotten stuck in geometry far too often.

18. A little but, if it doesn't work... ugh. Try it the second time I start the game, too - sometimes you only have to watch those things the first time. I've "modded" games to get rid of those things lots of times.

17. Errrrr, no. But the entry made me think of that Dead or Alive song. Not the game, the group.

16. Hell yeah! (And, every time I see Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, I have to yell out "Das Boot!!")

15. Yeah, mostly. If I'm worried about getting slowed down, I might consider leaving it then coming back later to pick it up.

14. Yeah. That's the sign of a smart gamer. You see this?

It means check around the room and make certain there's no other way to go. If there is, take it. It might even be smart to turn around and go back out the door you came in to see if anything changed.

13. Uhhhh, no, don't think I've done that since Half Life 2. (And I used the crow bar - I ain't wastin' ammo like that!)

12. Yeah, I guess? It doesn't seem like many games make it optional. Either you have to go in or you can't go in (or the water kills you the instant you touch it).

11. Are you MAD!?!? Well, in some games you are clearly supposed to be crazy, but normally lava means instant death! (Very important in South Park: The Fractured But Whole!)

10. I check out all the rooms as I go in. (Exception: see #15)

9. Heck yeah. Especially in JRPGs.

8. I ammo hoard, but not like that! Leave that ammo clip behind! Then, when you need to reload, you run back to that spot and get the ammo. If there happens to be ammo right in front of you when you need to reload, run back to the ammo clip anyway. {I'm even worse about healing items.}

7. Do I learn a lesson? Yes! I learn to not pick up health stuff pointlessly. That way I can use my potion in this difficult battle, run back several rooms, and pick up the one I left there! If I haven't been able to do that, I've got a special save game name ("Ouch") for saving after I've been hurt bad and I'm not sure if I can survive.

6. !?!? No.

5. Did you hear that little "you didn't do a regular save" bit? That ain't likely to happen. I save a LOT. If I find I got to a boss too early, I go back a save or two and play on. (If it's a grind, I consider quitting.)

4. Whaaa!? No.

3. Rarely. I'm more likely to run around wearing a mish-mash of different armors to get a +1 bonus. Though, now that I think about it, that may be changing as the graphics in games get nicer.

2. Well, I make finding quick travel points a priority, but not that much of a priority! So no.

1. Not even once. But I don't game on a couch or sitting in a La-Z-Boy chair, either.

 

[Brian Boru]

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.

Ha ha

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5CvQ0hOioU

 

[Frindis]

20: Shoot all the red barrels, even if no enemies are around.

• No.

19: Try to climb impossible mountains to get to your waypoint rather than to go around as the game wants.

• I do like to climb a lot of mountains and if there is one thing dopefish taught me, it is that there is no such thing as an impossible mountain.

18: Smash buttons during title screens, warnings, etc. trying to make them go away.

• Occasionally, though I use the Steam launcher to get rid of most of them.

17: Spin your character/camera while NPCs are talking.

• No, or I skip the NPC dialogue completely if possible.

16: Kick enemies off cliffs/ledges

• I remember doing this a lot in the MMO: Age Of Conan. What I did was ride my horse to some narrow road on a cliff. Then whenever some other player would walk past me, I'd kick with my horses' legs and knock the players off the cliff. It was beautiful!.

15: Hoard everything (inventory)

• Either from using my inventory or using chests I find in games.

14: Go the opposite direction you know the game wants you to go.

• Whenever I play a new MMO I see how far I can get on my low-level character. Usually, I'll get to some high-level zone and the aggro range is soooooo long that it gets impossible to venture further. Always fun when a high-level whispers to you "WTF are you doing here!!".

13: Shooting lights to see if they go out.

• Always. You need to add some destruction, as I'm sure Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg would agree with.

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.

• Jupp.

11: If there's lava, you stand in it.

• Or not, if WoW raiding has thought me anything.

10: Obsessively clear out dungeons, often rechecking areas you know you've been.

• Yes as in unmapping it, no as in clearing all enemies the Diablo 4 dumb way.

9: Obsessive closet checking.

• Oh yes, Atomic Heart closet fingers arise! I don't like to check closest in horror games though and especially not hiding in them *winks at the Alien creature*

8: Hoarding ammo.

• Always. If you are not gearing up like John Matrix from the movie Commando, you are doing it wrong!

7: You frequently refuse to heal, or at least delay that significantly, often leading to death

• I usually play as a tank so I can complain when I don't get enough heals.

6: Focus on the minimap instead of the game.

• Minimaps are something I tend to glance at every now and then. My preferred way would be to use a transparent map like the one you have in Diablo 2.

5: Unnecessary grinding

• Blasphemy!

4: Mash buttons to make your character go faster

• I use this technique in a lot of fighting games.

3: Refuse to give up your favorite gear/equipment even after it may be outdated

• Depends, thankfully a lot of new games offer transmog.

2: Doing all side missions and quests before doing the story

• Not ALL of them, but definitely a lot. From my experience side stories are almost always more exciting than the main story.

1: Falling asleep during play

• Been there, done that.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Brian Boru said "Games are as good at telling stories as books are at playing music—apart from maybe linear VNs and adventures. Most of the fun is in writing my own story, and that happens off the beaten path. Besides it's nearly always a good strategic choice to learn the game's systems and mechanics, plus accumulate resources and experience, before tackling story missions."

Thanks for trying to trigger me. Fortunately, I already know you have no idea what you are talking about because you would never play a game that has a good story. You're like a garbageman complaining about how boring performing neural surgery is.

 

[Brian Boru]

you would never play a game that has a good story

Well duh Captain Obvious—can't do what doesn't exist

neural surgery

Don't get me started, all those freakin' pathways to wander down, so many a dead end…

 

[SWard]

Always check behind waterfalls

 

[ZedClampet]

Always check behind waterfalls

Hahaha you should play with my son. First game he ever played was Wizard101 when he was very young (he's 18 now), and there was something hidden behind the waterfall in the commons. He's checked every single waterfall ever since.

 

[SWard]

Once you do it, you always do it

 

[mjs warlord]

1,2,3,10

many years ago a family was staying with us and they said they did not mind me gaming whilst they were visiting , i would say to wife .... just another 10 minutes and i am done ..... an hour later i was still playing.

Since then their son who is now grown up visits us and if i go on pc he says are you having one of your 10 minutes ( an hour ) or the real 10 minutes

 

[Zloth]

He's checked every single waterfall ever since.

And I expect he finds something about half the time!

 

[ZedClampet]

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.

I answered that I didn't do this. Then today I was playing a new game, Smalland: Survive the Wilds. I'd been playing for about 5 minutes when I came across some water. It reminded me of this post, and I thought, okay, why not? And I jumped into the water and immediately died.

 

[mainer]

Green = Always. Yellow = Sometimes. Red = Never.

20: Shoot all the red barrels, even if no enemies are around.
Explosive barrels of any kind I'll us in combat when I can, but I don't shoot/explode them unnecessarily. Sometimes they can do more harm than good, like this battle in DOS2, where it hurt my party more than help.

19: Try to climb impossible mountains to get to your waypoint rather than to go around as the game wants.
Obviously you can't do that in some games, but it open world games I'm always trying to climb mountains looking for that alternate path, even though I've occasionally gotten stuck on textures and had to reload.

18: Smash buttons during title screens, warnings, etc. trying to make them go away.
Never, with one notable exception. Those un skippable cutscenes before a boss fight that you have to repeat every time you die. I will smash some buttons then, even though it won't do anything. Just frustration.

17: Spin your character/camera while NPCs are talking.
Maybe? Depends on the game. Some games won't allow you to do that, but when trying to follow a conversation between 2 NPCs I will shift my viewpoint to follow who's speaking. "Spinning my character or camera is a bit misleading.

16: Kick enemies off cliffs/ledges
Hell, yeah! At least whenever possible.

View: https://youtu.be/mju-_I-Fvm0


15: Hoard everything (inventory)
If I can pick it up, I'll pick it up. Because I'll never know when something will be needed. For whatever reason.

14: Go the opposite direction you know the game wants you to go.
Sometimes. It happens frequently in open world games.


13: Shooting lights to see if they go out.
Sometimes, depends on the game parameters. If I'm trying to eliminate light sources (this includes extinguishing torches) for a stealthy approach, then yes. Otherwise, not much point to it.

12: If there's water, you at least try to jump in and swim.
If it's possible, then yes, even in plate mail.

11: If there's lava, you stand in it.
Duh! No. I have died accidentally from falling into, driving into, or trying to jump over lava, but never intentionally. Duh.

10: Obsessively clear out dungeons, often rechecking areas you know you've been.
Depends a lot on the game, but overall, yeah, I'll often recheck my route checking for secret doors or chests that I missed.

9: Obsessive closet checking.
Pfffttt. Closets, chests, barrels, sacks, bags, and your momma's underwear drawer; Ill check (and probably loot) them all. If you're talking about possible enemies hiding in closets, the same procedure applies, only I have a shotgun locked & loaded.

8: Hoarding ammo.
Always. Armor piercing bullets, hollow points, fire arrow, cold arrows; I hoard them all so I can have the right ammo for the right situation.

7: You frequently refuse to heal, or at least delay that significantly, often leading to death
No. I fail to see the benefit in that, unless I'm critically low on ways to heal myself.

6: Focus on the minimap instead of the game.
Normally, no. But there have a few times in some games that I've been so lost that I resorted to that.

5: Unnecessary grinding
I can't think of a reason that I would do that. I associate "grinding" with ARPGs, and while I've done it to get better loot or a higher level, I've never done it to a point that actually felt unnecessary.

4: Mash buttons to make your character go faster
What!? No. I've never seen a reason to do that when playing a PC game on KB & M. My mouse hand will occasionally spaz out if I'm trying to maneuver, but I've never been a button masher.

3: Refuse to give up your favorite gear/equipment even after it may be outdated
No. What would be the point? I'll sell it, or if there are crafting options I might break it down for resources. Some ARPGs, like Diablo 2 & Grim Dawn, you have a "shared" storage area between characters, and in that case I'll save the items for another character, but not use them myself.

2: Doing all side missions and quests before doing the story
Always, unless there happens to be some kind of time restrictions on the main quest. I explore everywhere, talk to everyone and experience as much of the game world as possible.

1: Falling asleep during play
Rarely, but it happens, especially if there is soothing music playing in my headphones. Normally, if I feel myself nodding off late at night, I'll just turn off the PC and go to bed.