How hard do you go for a new release?

[DXCHASE]

Maxing gear level in Destiny, Unlocking all Pokemo..i mean Pals in Palworld, reaching max level of 100 in Diablo 4 (and every other ARPG). Unlocking all hidden secrets and achievements.

When a game first comes out, you have people that just absolutely stop everything and stop playing anything else to grind through a game. If anyone here belongs to a facebook group of some sorts, you see people reaching and beating endgame, maxing their builds, characters, houses, cities etc. and unlocking everything in an extremely short period of time.

Do you play your games like this? Do you need to have everything done right away?

Personally, no not at all, i play too many games on rotation to sink 100 hours in the first week in 1 game. I also dont want to be bored and upset that theres "nothing to do" within a week, which is a real problem and inspiration to this question.

 

[Alm]

I tried that with Breath of the Wild. Nowadays I still get the FOMO and will buy games I'm interested in at launch but I take my time and I find that more enjoyable.

 

[Brian Boru]

Do you need to have everything done right away?

No, not at all, I'm the opposite of that—I have no need to finish a finishable game. Assuming game passes first hour test, then first play is to find out if it's worth replays—so get the basic hang of the systems and mechanics, get any story out of the way, go maybe ¼ to ½ into it.

I imagine the pursuits you mention are to do with social needs rather than just playing.

 

[Pifanjr]

I get bored of most games before I even finish them. I'm not sure I've ever 100%'d a game before.

 

[LexDiamonds81]

I get bored of most games before I even finish them. I'm not sure I've ever 100%'d a game before.

happens to me alot as well

 

[Zloth]

No, I never get that hard core. I might max things out in aspects of a game that I really like, but the parts that I don't like get little more than the minimum.

I don't know about 100 hours in the first week. I might just barely be able to hit that when I retire, but it would have to be an incredible game. (And it would help if this site was down, so I didn't ramble on about it for hours, too. )

 

[McStabStab]

I don’t have time anymore to immerse myself completely in a game. I’d say the last time I did this was when I was reintroduced to PC gaming in college with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and it dominated my life for about a month.

 

[Colif]

Not myself, no, but I have known people who play the game to end as fast as possible so they are ready for the next game to come out. Consumers, indeed.

I don't play like that. I try to find games that I enjoy and often don't want to end. I only finish games that have no end... in other words, it lets you continue after end, either to start again or continue a character. I don't like ends as then I need to find something else to play... and the time between games seems to grow so extending the time in a game I like is something I try to do.
I often stop if I am bored or game doesn't let me restart... many games these days only let you play through once and that is sad... even Diablo did it. Shame on them.

 

[Brian Boru]

many games these days only let you play through once

What, you can't start a new game? Surely not…

 

[Veronica Winston]

Never not at all i look for others reviews first

 

[Colif]

What, you can't start a new game? Surely not…

I often stop if I am bored or game doesn't let me restart... many games these days only let you play through once and that is sad... even Diablo did it. Shame on them.

What I mean is, The game type I play is action rpg and up until Path of Exiles release, almost all games in that style wouldn't end once you finished story, but would let you continue playing same character in a harder difficulty and replay story. Alas, its now a habit to only let you play through once and then have end game that goes forever. Diablo started as replay story endless time game and is now just one time through and no replaying story again once you finish it. Getting into other difficulties is different in Diablo 4, I didn't really like it much.

You can restart, sure. But its not the same. Restarting before the end is why I ran out of character saves on Grim Dawn.
Making new characters is obvious way to extend playtime.

 

[Pifanjr]

What I mean is, The game type I play is action rpg and up until Path of Exiles release, almost all games in that style wouldn't end once you finished story, but would let you continue playing same character in a harder difficulty and replay story. Alas, its now a habit to only let you play through once and then have end game that goes forever. Diablo started as replay story endless time game and is now just one time through and no replaying story again once you finish it. Getting into other difficulties is different in Diablo 4, I didn't really like it much.

You can restart, sure. But its not the same. Restarting before the end is why I ran out of character saves on Grim Dawn.
Making new characters is obvious way to extend playtime.

Even if you restart with a new character, it's not a true restart, as there is a bunch of progress that's tracked for your entire account and applies automatically to every new character.

Of course most ARPGs give you a shared chest, so you can get a jump start on new characters by getting some good weapons or selling some stuff for extra gold, but in Diablo 4 you don't get a choice.

 

[Frindis]

It depends on the genre for me. With Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I am taking my sweet time as I wouldn't want to rush a fantastic experience. The game does have a lot of different achievements to go after, so I will try to do a 100% completion but it will take a long time. I'm 70 hours into the game now and only finished a couple of the main story missions, so that should put things into perspective.

With Diablo 4, I just skipped the main story because I knew it would suck and started grinding to level 100 on a couple of classes to test out some fun-looking builds. Then I got bored gearing up because the crafting system is garbage and stripped my chars naked and donated 50 million from each to some random low level before deleting my characters.

 

[ZedClampet]

Very rarely, but it depends on the game/genre. The last game that I got at release and finished very quickly was Resident Evil 7, but the game was only about 5 to 6 hours long. I immediately replayed it and got the achievement for finishing in under 4 hours.

Most of the games I buy don't have endings, anyway.

 

[Colif]

Not all games give you any benefit from completing game before. It is a fresh start. In the time before Steam and people playing games on accounts, there really wasn't anywhere to record overall performance. Before New Game+ was even a thing.

Of course most ARPGs give you a shared chest, so you can get a jump start on new characters by getting some good weapons or selling some stuff for extra gold, but in Diablo 4 you don't get a choice.

Shared stash in diablo 4 is all you get... but in other games, its just one tab of the characters bank. If you crazy enough to try to play more than one class in Diablo 4, you would realise character tabs are necessary (lol) but you don't have one... I don't want to go into that again so I will stop here.
In both Torchlight 2 & Sacred 2, you could save items in a shared stash but gold wasn't shared. Every character started with no gold. Items were too valuable to sell - they were useful. All other progress was from scratch. Every character had a blank slate and could write their own future - if you ignore fact they all had to play same stories.
I can only think of some items I used to sell on new characters in Sacred 2, the rewards from the quest where you find all the instruments for a band (Blind Guardian). I would do quest in a hard difficulty and then put them in stash to sell on a start of a new character in a lower difficulty. Price increases due to difficulty. Its why selling anything at start of game from that difficulty is a waste of time.

I don't think a stash where you have to put the items in yourself is the same as automatic benefits that might come from finishing a story on one character. Sacred 2 I may have had 13 bank characters full of gear + the extended shared stash added with community patch, but I had to put every item in there. It was 2+ years of collecting. Unlike Diablo 4, if I had ignored a legendary in that game (none existed but if they did), it wouldn't have randomly appeared in my stash next time I got to town.