Support NeoGAF

[Booshka]

Comprehensive stats are actually a good way to look out for the stuff you want to avoid in the game you are playing, rather than seek them out to rack up completion %.

I like seeing time played, players killed, distance traveled, all that, don't get hung up on completion, it's totally arbitrary. Value your time and enjoy the game under your terms, you determine your own completion percentage, not whatever some insane stat tracking and mindnumbing fetch quests say.

There are bigger issues at play if you are constantly feeling like you are wasting your time, and should be doing something more "worthwhile."

 

[HyperCubed4]

Tracking play stats. Large open world games track play time, completion %, and a wide variety of achievements. This does two things rather immediately - compels me to increase that % and reminds me of how much of my life I have dumped into games.

Less directly, but more importantly, it negatively affects my enjoyment of gaming. I don't engage as much with the game world because I'm chasing the next collectable or side mission. For example, the stunning scenery and we'll constructed town is at best no longer within focus and at worst an obstacle to the next location on my minimap. It also makes me feel that gaming is shallow. The obvious manipulation of psychological need for feedback and progress and collecting makes me feel, well, manipulated. Finally, it makes me feel that I am wasting my life. Seeing that playtime and realising that I could be well on my way to learning one of the many languages spoken by an enemy I just stabbed makes it clear how hollow the accomplishment of gaming can be.

You certainly don't have to look at the stats, but once I did, I haven't stopped thinking about them.

I realised this when playing Nine Man's Morris in AC Black Flag. That board game required more strategy than my entire play through at that point and was more satisfying in less time.

Here's the result and my question. I can't play epic games any more or even ones that require time investment. They seem like a waste. Short distracting bursts seem like the only justifiable gaming. Has anyone else had the same train of thought?

I somewhat agree.

Games that tell you of your progress make it feel a tad more... binary, for lack of a better term. There's a bunch of stuff to do in a game, there is a progress bar to tell you about all the tasks you can do, but it doesn't tell you about all the other stuff. Shooting pigeons in GTA IV was fun for some people I'm sure, but it doesn't tell you about thing like the Heart of Liberty City. They're there for completion and "completing" an open world seems like it would hinder it. At the same time, you could try and ignore it, like many others do. If there's an option to turn it off, I would.

 

[SigSig]

Tracking playing time and general stats is cool with me.
But if the newest open world sensation shows me I have like 5% progress after completing the mainquest and all sidequests, then fuck that noise.
I completed your game and the 50000 "hidden" geocache and the 100 bridges I need to fly under and the 1000 thingamajigs I need to destroy and the 4000 secret masks are fucking bullshit.

I'm currently playing classic Tomb Raider and you know how many secrets those well-crafted levels have? Like, less than 10. And they are often a challenge to find. And I actually want to find them.
When collectathons have less stuff to collect than your Ubisoft school of design approved... thing, then there is a problem with your leveldesign.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

I love game stats that are actually useful metrics of performance or conceptually interesting. A mere flat percentage of "Find 100 Xs" is emblematic of the worst kind of game design; most often found in open world games because it's the fastest way to make "content" and fill your world with icons to make it seem "full".

That's in opposition to say, being able to pore over accuracy statistics with regards to weapons. That kind of quantification can be used to discover the weapon you're most effective with, or to find the areas you need to improve the most on. Telltale Games show very simplified choice stats, but those are fun to see because you get to discover not only what other people did but whether you were in a minority or majority. I wish it was more robust for sure, but it's in the right direction. I want to pore over conditional stats and decision trees. Of those who did X instead of Y, how many did Z instead of W, that sort of thing.

As far as achievements, they should be used a way to encourage and foster new kinds of gameplay or interaction. My ideal achievement is something that makes me think "Wait, what? That's possible to do in this game? I've got to try that". They can also be useful for encouraging players to diversify their approach and try new things. As a simple example:

Fallout 3: Psychotic Prankster: Placed a grenade or mine while pickpocketing (10 points).

A player may have never thought to do this until they read the achievement. It helps to jump-start their creativity and help them start thinking about the different ways they can interact with the sandbox.