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I can't beat games anymore without a walkthrough :(

You filthy casual.

Yeah i'm getting to that point too. Don't have the time nor patience to learn puzzles anymore so after like 5 minutes I just look it up. I know it ruins it, but sometimes it just gets harder to allow yourself time to bash your head against a wall.
 
Called lack of time and bigger priorities. I'm pushing 40 and have 2 small kids at home, gaming time is at a premium and normally late at night. I dont have the time to screw around for hours and not progress in a game. So if I have to look something up to progress, I do.
 
Hibiki Kurosawa said:
Yiiikes. I can't stand to ever use walkthroughs. I would feel so gross if I did.
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I don't use them much either, but I also don't get to play games as much as I used to. Wait til you are married and have a kid or two, then revisit this post.


Edit: your gaming revolves around breaks and after everyone else is asleep. (At least, in my experience.)
 
I don't think too much about it, tbh, and neither should you. OP (or anyone else, for that matter). Normally, most of the games I play are all about story, and if I feel like I'm not making enough progress, I'll use a walkthrough without a second thought.
 
Um...well. To each their own.

I tend to look to walkthroughs, ordinarily only when I suspect I'm stuck because of a bug. Often, in those situations, it turns out to be the case.

Other than that...I find it way more fun to just tough it out.
 
Late Flag said:
I've said this before, but I'm 100% convinced that the Souls games are supposed to be played with the help of the wikis and forums. Those games are so deliberately opaque that I see sharing information and tips with other players as part of the community-based aspect of this franchise. Playing them blind isn't really what the developers had in mind.
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Define what you mean by "supposed to be played".

If you are talking about how the designer intended it to be played, then I would say no. The game presents all the information that a person would be required to know within the context of the game. Read the item descriptions, read the player messages, read the stat descriptions and take appropriate precaution when exploring unknown areas. Do all that and you will be fine. There's probably some parts of the game that were designed with information-sharing in mind (particularly some of the obscure optional stuff), but I don't think the use of a wiki falls into this category as that circumnavigates the discovery process entirely.

If you are talking about it in terms of it being the ideal way to play the game, then I would say that it is entirely a matter of taste. Personally I think that looking up a wiki to find an easy way to beat a boss is ruining the fun. I don't mind getting a few tips from a buddy though - mostly because it's just a fun topic to talk about! Your mileage may vary.
 
I can sympathise with the OP, but I'm not a fan of guides myself. Last time I used one was for Steins;Gate, and that practically requires one to get the best ending.

Sometimes I may look up a guide if a game is really trying my patience -- as in, I am wasting more than an hour trying to work something out -- otherwise I'm happy to just work it out myself. Even that stupid
hidden bottle
in Life is Strange.

Just do whatever it takes for you to enjoy the game, and don't feel bad. Not everyone has the time to devote to working everything out, and sometimes I feel games don't really value certain people's time.
 
Most of us have changed by the world that just keeps spinning faster and faster.

I'd rather play 1 game for 1 month where I really enjoy exploring it than speedrunning through it just to play the next game.
 
I try not to do this. I just finished Ori and DmC and had one point in each (puzzle and boss respectively) where I found myself getting frustrated and almost went to google.

Instead I stopped myself in my tracks and forced myself to consider the last upgrade I got and retrace my steps for the last 5 mins (Ori) or pay attention to absolutely EVERYTHING in my environment for the DmC boss fight. Worked out both fine, by myself.

Most of the time the clues for where to go and what to do are obvious if you pay attention, but I think that handholding in a lot of titles in recent years has us expecting to have things spelled out. It can be so much more satisfying when you figure things out for yourself.
 
I love spoiler free walkthrough for RPG, though I at least try to beat the bosses by myself first. Don't really like missing on the hidden content and side quests.
 
Don't worry about it. I find most games these days really easy but if I'm stuck for a super long time on something I wouldn't hesitate to look it up. Games are supposed to be fun not a chore.
 
No worries, I have kinda young friends (16-20) that do the same, they play with walkthrough/guides/let's play by side all the times because "they don't want to miss something"

Frankly, it's a bad way to play because most of those games that have hidden content are planned exactly like that, and discover items/quests/characters/etc is part of the experience and it gives a way more satisfactory feel.

But then, I understand you may not have much time (I'm 30 and basically have no time at all, even sold my PS4 since it was collecting dust, and my last game was DS2:Scolar of Sin) so you simply want to enjoy the most out of it.

So nothing wrong with you, but you are missing something, once you are aware of that and are fine with it, you'll deal with the situation.
 
I find walkthroughs take away from the experience for me. I have limited time to play too but The reason I play games is not to rush through them. Accomplishment and challenge is a huge part of it depending on the game. I'll use one if I've been stuck for days but otherwise generally not.
 
I think it depends whether you are the type of player who has to have every collectible and optimal equipment by the time they reach the end of the game. I really don't mind if I miss obscure optional items etc, because the opposite of that, when I stumble across something awesome by accident, is such a great feeling.

Even in my favourite game of all time, Zelda LTTP, I don't think I've ever cared enough to make sure I have every possible item and every single heart container on any one run (there's usually one out of three possibilities from the more out-of-the-way ones that I miss), and I must have finished it 30+ times by now.

What does annoy me is any kind of 'collect these meaningless items' used to pad the game out. It drove me mad in Minish Cap with the Kinstones, only to find that they were used to get little figures from a shop, and it was a tedious ten-second animation for each of the hundred-plus possible results. Anything like that I just ignore, life's too short.
 
I'm following a guide to play through Majora's Mask for the first time ever. I don't have the time to sit around, spending hours playing around with certain aspects until I figure it out on my own. I would love to do that but I just can't. This way, I get through all the aspects of the game, not missing anything, in a timely manner.
 
Hmmm I don't have as much time as I used to but I still beat a game the first time through without a walkthrough.

For me, having the patience and dedication makes overcoming the games challenges that more rewarding.

But I understand for parents it's not that easy
 
I used to use them all the time as a kid but now I usually only look up what I absolutely need to. I generally do try to make sure that there's nothing important that I can miss and not return to before I start playing though because I've been burned by that before (went back and used a guide to make sure I collected all the audio diaries in BioShock once I was very close to the ending, only to discover that after all that I'd missed literally the first one you can get, and both of the first two are lost forever if you miss them).
 
I can beat them but missables and trophies and shit make me want to use them anyway. Especially in older games, I still usually play new games completely blind.
 
I expected this to be about being a completionist and wanting to collect everything, but to even advance? Games have never been easier.
 
I used to be opposed to guides on principle in my younger days. Now I'm opposed to wasting precious time, so rarely play without a guide. I don't have time to fight the same boss 7 times anymore.
 
I don't know how old the OP is but being in my 30s I simply don't have the time to dick around for an extra hour every time I get stuck in a game. I don't necessarily use guides all the time, but I probably should. The alternative is never finishing the game.

Nowadays I find ways to get through games to save time and to move on to something else (my backlog is ridiculous across systems new and old). I'm playing MGS3 right now and I turned it to Easy just to see the story and get back in the groove for The Phantom Pain without the hassle of struggling with the controls etc.

8-bit and 16-bit games I'm far less inclined to do this. Something about those old games makes me want to keep improving and keep getting a little bit further. More modern games I enjoy playing but a part of me just wants to get it over with for some reason.
 
I feel the OP. I never used to do it, but now I am such an old cunt I simply do not have the time and patience sometimes. It does depend on the game though.

For Arkham Knight I used a guide for some Riddler Trophies but not to finish the main game itself.


dickroach said:
I refuse to believe anyone's 100%'d this game without a walkthrough.
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Lol. Yeah some stuff in that game seems almost impossible to find out without one.
 
I used to be a no-walkthrough stalwart, but as others have mentioned, that all changes when your time vanishes as you grow older. At least, for most people.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not Actually using an entire walk through. I'm just consulting it or a friend who's played the game a couple of times throughout the game, whenever I get stuck for a long time.



Chastten said:
Same. If I'm stuck in a dungeon for like an hour I just look up how to continue. Don't have an entire night to waste on something like this. There's just not enough time.
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Yeah. I'm 30 now. The last couple of years have cut gaming time at home in half (or even more!) and there just isn't time anymore to get 'stuck' somewhere for an hour. An hour is all I get some evenings. The 3 or 4 times I was clueless as to how to move forward in Arkham last month, I either share play'd to have a friend guide me somewhere, or checked in with them to get a hint. Two times it was something small and totally ridiculous that I probably would've gone in circles for hours.

At this point in life, I'd rather give up the pride of doing it 100% on my own than give up being able to get through the big games I and my friends are playing on a limited time budget.
 
I only really use it for those collection trophies.
On the odd occasion I've used them because I couldn't figure out exactly what the game wanted me to do or where to go.
 
Jakku said:
I expected this to be about being a completionist and wanting to collect everything, but to even advance? Games have never been easier.
Click to expand...

Starting with the last gen, I've found that the occasional next step in a main campaign for a game requires you to find or do something incredibly obtuse or interact with something easily missed. In Arkham, there was a moment where you had to navigate the Batmobile to Bruce, and there was no way to tell how to get to him. No radar, no hud arrows, nothing. You had to drive around and find this one stupid little alley and go up several ramps of a parking garage to get to the spot needed to move the game forward. I didn't find that segment intuitive or understandable at all. I share play'd with my buddy to find that ramp, and even he and my other friend, who'd both finished the game already (!) took 5 or more minutes to find the ramp again.

So, yeah. Little moments like that get me really frustrated. It's less about being 'easy' - just that I wasn't looking at the game in the right way to notice the ramp or something.
 
Nothing wrong with using a guide, just make sure it's spoiler free :)

It's a video game lol, have fun or use a guide to get to a point where you're having fun.

Unless I am getting paid to play game why the hell would I stress myself out?
 
randomengine said:
Nah, not really. I just want to experience all the content. I want to see what the game has to offer from beginning to end. When I get stuck, it is hard for me to brute force through it. I might as well just play something else that doesn't frustrate me. A walkthrough helps me through frustration.
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Sounds like you just play games for the story. That's fine, but you should recognise this as your preference, rather than seeing it as a problem of any kind.

Sometimes I'm in the same mood and I just want to finish a game to experience its narrative/world. I got tired of The Witcher 2 and Wolfenstein: The New Order by the end – I put them on easy and just blasted through the last two worlds/levels to find out what happened.

Other times I'm not in that mood at all and I'll waste hours on Dying Light on Hard mode, or The Swindle, or Bloodborne or something just trying to overcome challenges and obstacles.

However you want to play is however you want to play, man.
 
Yeah I don't have the time to fuck around. If something is just stupidly hard or boring I'm going to go straight to a guide or the net.

My game time is extremely precious, but it feels a little like cheating.

Saying that I don't feel it is cheating to look up guides on games like Demon Souls. I normally give the bosses a good go before checking out the guide to see what I'm missing.
 
I have no qualms looking something up if I'm stuck. I have too little time for gaming to waste it making zero progress. I'd never play with a guide the whole way, but don't feel bad at all looking something up if I'm out of ideas. I also have no qualms dropping difficulty, especially in games I'm playing more for story, exploring etc than the gameplay.

Games are simply meant to be fun. Play them the way you have the most fun, and don't waste I've caring what others think.
 
I rarely revisit games either, but I don't use walkthroughs unless I've been stuck for a while and can't find what to do. When I get the info I need, I don't use them anymore unless I get stuck again.

I enjoy playing the main quest/part/story/whatever of my games and I usually lose interest in the game when the credits roll (unless I got an unsatisfying ending because the game ends much further away). Subquests are usually filler and almost never interesting since I avoid grinding. I don't see what the point of finding better equipment is when there's nothing left to do. Optional bosses/levels? Sure, if you like them.

I don't need to 100% each game to be satisfied. I have a friend like you OP, who uses walkthroughs for every single game he plays and wants to find everything. I can understand it.
 
I think the problem has less to do with age, and how real world growth as a person can change who you are.

I am a single father with 3 high school kids living with me full time. I am in my 40's and I have played games most of my life.

I have gone through a lot of changes as I have gotten older, with the biggest happening when my kids were born. My game life changed, with little time to spend between work/marriage and of course the kids.

The last 4 or 5 years though I have massively increased not only the amount of games I play but how good I am at them. (divorce had a lot to do with this, and my kids love playing with me)

I play just about every game on the hardest difficulty. I only use a guide after I have finished to find stupid collectibles if I need them to finish a trophy/achievement. My Kill/Death ratio in games has gone from about 1.25/1 when I was in my 20's to over 2/1 now that I am in my 40's. I actually feel my reaction time is slower, but I have better spacial awareness for some reason than when I was younger.

We all change as we get older. It is completely possible that you will change into the kind of person that likes games more, or one who just has little time for them....or some place in the middle...
 
I just ignore games that make you walk around aimlessly nowadays. Seeing no fun in that personally, not doing that in real life either.
 
I have this problem as well. I have noticed the last few years I have less time available and there are times when I go weeks without playing. It makes it hard to jump back into a game with out a guide. Also I want to make sure I see as much content as possible during what will probably be my only playthrough. I also wonder if my job, which is mostly driven by technical manuals, has something to do with it. It is almost second nature to go directly to guide to overcome a problem.
 
foxdvd said:
I think the problem has less to do with age, and how real world growth as a person can change who you are.

I am a single father with 3 high school kids living with me full time. I am in my 40's and I have played games most of my life.

I have gone through a lot of changes as I have gotten older, with the biggest happening when my kids were born. My game life changed, with little time to spend between work/marriage and of course the kids.

The last 4 or 5 years though I have massively increased not only the amount of games I play but how good I am at them. (divorce had a lot to do with this, and my kids love playing with me)

I play just about every game on the hardest difficulty. I only use a guide after I have finished to find stupid collectibles if I need them to finish a trophy/achievement. My Kill/Death ratio in games has gone from about 1.25/1 when I was in my 20's to over 2/1 now that I am in my 40's. I actually feel my reaction time is slower, but I have better spacial awareness for some reason than when I was younger.

We all change as we get older. It is completely possible that you will change into the kind of person that likes games more, or one who just has little time for them....or some place in the middle...
Click to expand...

This is an amazing story. Thanks for sharing.
 
I only use guides if I'm stuck after a few days of trying or if I've come back to a game after a long time period to figure out exactly where I am. I don't have time to replay the whole game again.
 
I recently got stuck when playing Tomb Raider Underworld and had to resort to Google.

It was because of a maneuver that you could perform but never actually had to until a certain spot near the end of the game.
 
I know where you coming from OP, I have the same time issues though I decided to go with the play fewer games and use walkthroughs only when something has taken too many tries or too long route. Whichever makes one happy.

I don't mind using them, I don't have the time anymore and almost always I knew what I needed to do but just didn't push the rock long enough, talk to the NPC 4 times instead of 3, or I tried the jump 5 times but it turns out you have to be spot on from this pixel, etc. Either that or it's Animal Crossing or an RPG and I'm not dumping my entire gaming time for a year to figure out bestiary, hybrids, or alchemy.

butman said:
Games are a lot easier and guided nowadays. With the exception of Souls games.
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Guided games drive me crazy. The moment I realize the game is not going to stop holding my hand and telling me step by step how to solve every puzzle is the moment I stop playing. It's like having a built in walkthrough.

foxdvd said:
...
Click to expand...

I've long thought that as gamers get over 40, family life winds down, the workaday world recedes, etc. they'll see a sharp increase in gaming time. I expect in 5 or so years that 40+ male gamers will skyrocket to be one of if not the most important gaming demographic. Not the thread for it but it's interesting to think about how that will shift the industry.
 
I use walkthroughs only when I'm completely stuck on a first playthrough (but I don't waste more than half an hour without any progress before getting help). For trophy hunting attempts I will happily follow a walkthrough every step of the way since so many trophies are missable (or can only be done easily in one or two places).
 
I might look at a walkthrough in a bloated open world game just to find my way to the best path to avoid grinding away at the filler.

However I'd have to die at least 20 times to the same thing to resort to looking for help in something like Dark Souls. I don't like "cheating" myself if its an issue with difficulty.
 
I too am getting less patient with games.

I recently played Suikoden 1 and decided to use a walkthrough a lot (not entirely) to get all the stars - as a result I didn't enjoy it at all. I'm now playing Suikoden 2 with no walkthrough and am determined to enjoy it for what it is, not to worry about missing stars etc.

Also, I found the Binding of Isaac to be such a breath of fresh air - I can play it freely without worry, who cares if I missed something it's just one run. I think I've put more hours into this than any other game in recent memory! (though there's no way to check your time on playstation is there?).
 
I can understand your viewpoint. There are times where I needed a walkthrough for some of the puzzles in Arkham Knight (and I know I'll probably need one for the Riddler trophies) but I wouldn't feel bad about it.
 
I always use a guide when I play RPGs so I can do everything and get the best/good/true ending on the first time through the game. I don't know if I would ever return to it so I don't want to miss anything. I don't want to get screwed out of the best ending of a 40 hour game because I didn't talk to some person in some obscure location in the game at a certain point.
 
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