Gaming funk

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slippery

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Not a thread about a game, just a thread about gaming.

I'm in a huge funk right now with games where I just can't seem to really enjoy any. I feel like it happens on occasion, but I'm not really sure how to get out of it. I can't decide if it's just I'm older and grumpy about it, if it's just a reflection of other shit going on in my life, or if games are just getting worse. I mostly play PUBG and Hearthstone, and they are both just in the dumpster for quality. I don't like to spend too much money on games, because I tend towards playing one game a lot, and other games just don't get played.

Other stuff I've played recently.

Endless Space 2. Seemed neat, but overly complex and time consuming. I don't think I finished my first game. Feels like I need a thousand page instruction manual to really understand everything.

Rise of the Tomb Raider. I'm like 50% through. Good enough game, puzzles are decent. Combat is generally easyish. I'm pretty completionist, so having to pass things by and come back later is a little annoying.

Slay the Spire. Good for a while. Mostly just waiting for third character before I play it anymore, don't feel like playing Beta branch.



What's the deal. What should I do/play? Do all games just suck now? Are we in the dark days of gaming?
 
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Crone

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Over the years, there's been a few different threads like this, but it's a topic that I feel effects me on a regular basis until I find a game I really enjoy and it snaps me out of it. It's so bad for me, that my wife knows when I don't have a game to play and yells at me to quit moping around the house!

My biggest problem is I spend money on the games, even though I know they probably won't last that long. Dropped $100+ on Hearthstone trying to catch up, and I don't really play much just a few weeks later. $60 on Far Cry 5, and put less than 10 hours into it. $35 on Season Pass for Destiny 2. They are Billions and Civ 6 are both games I've also tried recently with putting less than 20 hours into both.

Only games I tend to ever be able to get into are MMOs, for the community/guild/people, but haven't found any of that recently either. You'd think I'd find the game, then find the people, but my problem is I want to find the people, and then play the game with those people.
 
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goishen

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I, too, have been feeling this way. That's why I'm taking forever and a day to finish up BattleTech. I'll prolly keep on playing that 'till it gets boring or another game comes out. Tried re-playing Stardew Valley. Even that wasn't enough to break me out of my funk.

Myself, I've been waiting on Starfield. Here's to hoping that game will be good.
 

Penance

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How long do you go without gaming? Sometimes I feel it helps to break a week or two and my spark can be reinvigorated by the smallest of indie games. There is such thing as too much fun. Try being at a party for a long time its the same thing.
 

Quineloe

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I'm with you. We clearly need another MMORPG to suck us in for a few years. I sit down at my computer and browse the web because I can't be arsed to fire up any game right now.
 
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Tauntworth

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Same boat. God of War is the only thing that has recently been of interest. Prior to that I have been in a funk since 2016. Think part of it is age, but it might also be that games have to hit such a high note for us because over the years we've seen it all. Like an addict that has to keep taking more to get that high. So much of what is released these days is over-hyped and so never hits its mark that unless it's something truly special (Wticher, God of War, Last of us, etc.) it's all meh. Why waste my time?
 
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Ravishing

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Not a thread about a game, just a thread about gaming.

I'm in a huge funk right now with games where I just can't seem to really enjoy any. I feel like it happens on occasion, but I'm not really sure how to get out of it. I can't decide if it's just I'm older and grumpy about it, if it's just a reflection of other shit going on in my life, or if games are just getting worse. I mostly play PUBG and Hearthstone, and they are both just in the dumpster for quality. I don't like to spend too much money on games, because I tend towards playing one game a lot, and other games just don't get played.

Other stuff I've played recently.

Endless Space 2. Seemed neat, but overly complex and time consuming. I don't think I finished my first game. Feels like I need a thousand page instruction manual to really understand everything.

Rise of the Tomb Raider. I'm like 50% through. Good enough game, puzzles are decent. Combat is generally easyish. I'm pretty completionist, so having to pass things by and come back later is a little annoying.

Slay the Spire. Good for a while. Mostly just waiting for third character before I play it anymore, don't feel like playing Beta branch.

What's the deal.

Yes I get into funks like this. For the past 3+ months I've been "going through the motions" just to pass time. Hearthstone usually when I only have access to a tablet, and then on PC I really had no desire to play ANYTHING so would log in to Overwatch just cause it's there. But I really don't care for the game. I was so bored of my options that I decided to load up FortNite again and now I've been hooked to it all week. Getting no sleep and in the learning phase atm which keeps me thinking on the game most of the day.

I'm not sure if Battle Royales will keep me interested for long, but the FortNite team seems to make changes quite often. Seasons last just over 2 months and they add additional modes (Thanos mode right now). To keep it interesting.

However, in these FPS games, including OW, and why I haven't tried PUBG, I sometimes get thoughts that my age drags me down a bit and maybe I should just play an MMO or more Hearthstone. Watching the kids speed build and run circles around me feels like I might not ever be able to keep up. But I'm trying damnit! At 36 I'm hoping I can at least stay somewhat competitive with FPS games into my mid-40s.

A bonus with FortNite, is it's VERY strategic (the build aspect is a giant puzzle game). And having a strategic mindset is a skill a lot of people, especially kids, lack. Also FortNite has such wide ranging audience, you really face a wide range of skill. You're not going up against Ninja every game.

But back to the point... I'm similar to you in that I stay focused on 1 game at a time usually. Hearthstone is a filler game for me so I don't count that. I had no primary game for a LONG time this winter. I like to put my attention into 1 thing at a time and I gravitate toward the popular multiplayer/online games. I was very close to trying PUBG and I almost got back into League of Legends (lasted about a week).

I wasn't moping or depressed really, because my RL is hectic and I have very little time anyways, but I always need something to occupy me. So what I did last October was started teaching myself the Unreal engine and learning how to MAKE games. So if I get bored again I just load up the Unreal engine and go through a tutorial or 2 of whatever. It got me through the winter but I see that actually making a full game would be very unrealistic for 1 person, so I just focus on creating individual game mechanics of ideas I have... and maybe 1 day I'll have something I could sell on the Unreal Marketplace or that I think could be revolutionary to make an entire game around (with a team).


What should I do/play?

Nobody here can tell you this answer. I know I've interacted with you a lot in Hearthstone and I know you like to stream. I always thought you had a passion for building your stream. You can start there maybe. Or focus on RL/Family/Job, whatever your situation may be, until a game comes along you have a desire to play.


Do all games just suck now? Are we in the dark days of gaming?

A lot of games suck. They are built to make a quick dollar, the space is highly congested and they are all striving to stand out. Budgets are thinner because risk is higher. It really is a shit time for gaming. Also basically everything's been done already. But I do believe there are good games and still good ideas to come.

Again I'll bring up FortNite. I played this when it first came out and only had PvE mode. People hyped it for about a week as "fun", but lacking. And it does lack in many ways. The PvE is fun for a short while but the layers of "systems" piled on top of each other is hot garbage. People easily saw this as having insane potential, but the backend systems drove it down.

Then BR releases and originally the big streamers give it an "ok", but the kiddie graphics turned most of them back to PUBG. Also FN has a smaller map and wasn't very fleshed out in its original version. And no store/leaderboards for the first month+ of BR as well.

I took a break from FN and then it explodes in popularity.

I believe it's popularity was a perfect storm of things:
1. Some people (Ninja/some other big streamers) realized how revolutionary the FN "building" aspect was in a BR game. It adds a ton of depth to a mode that is fairly mundane.
2. While a lot of the big PUBG streamers refused to play FN because of the graphics, and were very vocal about it, the graphic style is what attracted all the kiddies to the game, and parents see it as a cartoon so allow their kids to play it.
3. Pop culture gets on board cause the kids are, Drake plays with Ninja, his stream explodes, and now he's a household name among the youth.
4. It's a very strategic, high skill-cap game. Kids see adults playing at a very high level and want to emulate this. I only see FN becoming more and more popular. It can easily be a 10-year lifespan game.

So I'll wrap this up in saying: FN got a bad wrap because of it's PvE mechanics and also the art style, but it's not a terrible Battle Royale game. It's very unique imo. I recommend giving it a shot. You'll spend at least a week working out hotkeys/building techniques alone. After 5 days of learning I finally had some decent build-offs last night. Was amazing.
 
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Kharzette

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I was about to jump in with some solidarity thinking this thread was about gaming for 3 days straight and starting to stink really bad.
 
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Utnayan

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I'll take a different approach and say try some of these games that are kind of off the beaten track. What do you have for systems? But yeah I get this too. And then I cycle through about 60 games in my backlog and still cannot find anything that grabs me, then I go deeper into the hole and try something new and that sits there too. I think the problem is that we see so much shit these days being launched, and very few quality titles, but when they come out, it's awesome. We just don't see them as much as we would like.


1) Observer (PC, PS4)
2) SOMA (PC, PS4, Xbox one)
3) (I'll edit this list)
 
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Vandyn

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I usually get into these phases where I'm not completely 'gamed out', I just don't have the time or patience to devote a serious amount of time to a particular game. It's usually during these stretches where I'm only playing 'quick' games like Fortnite or even Hearthstone, because I'm only giving that 10-15 minutes at a time and I know I can walk away from it easily. I got to say as time has gone on it's gotten harder and harder for me to devote significant time to just one game, like an deep RPG. Which is kind of sad since RPG's used to be my bread and butter go to genre and I used to really get sucked into the gameplay and stories. But these days I just don't have enough time or even the patience to devote what's needed to really get into them. It's because of this that my MMORPG days are probably few and far between going forward. I grew up on them but I think I've just gotten older to the point where it's just not anything that I want to devote my time too. With family/kids, my gaming time is kind of valuable and limited and playing an MMORPG just doesn't work with what I'm doing right now.

I still love games and have a shitton of them in my Steam library, but I've also come to the acceptance that a lot of them will see very little if any play. It's more like a collection at this point.
 
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ronne

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I too have thought about this a lot in recent years. I'm 33 now and have been doing this shit for basically my entire life, so I figured just maybe some of the passion for it has burned out.

But no, I was wrong. Games are just fucking awful now is the problem, and I don't have the patience for it any more. God of War made me realize that games can still be super awesome to the point that you're sitting at work thinking about going home and playing it more,, just like that shit was 15 years ago. The problem is nearly everything that releases is merely passable and isn't really even deserving of that kind of passion, so we sit there plugging away at it out of habit more than anything else, not really enjoying ourselves. Just kind of coasting.

So I've stopped. I don't play B- or C+ tier shit at all any more. If I buy a game and play it for an hour or two and think "meh, its fine", then I'm fucking done with it forever. I'm at a point in my life where my time is far, far more valuable than my money and I just can't sit there and slog through yet another Ubisoft open world game or whatever the fuck the current AAA bologna sandwich release is.

Specifically for me the problem mostly lies with AAA titles. I can't think of the last one before God of War that I even bought, much less truly enjoyed? Maybe Bloodborne? I play a shit ton of indie pixel roguelikes and strategy games and shit, and those are all great and I never get in to that slump of like "why am I sitting here wasting my time". So my advice would be to get way, way more picky about what you play, and try some new things out. Don't buy whatever the shitty current Ubisoft open world mess is, or the latest CoD/Battlefield or whatever, just stay away from that mountain of mediocre garbage and play something with some love and care put it to it.
 
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goishen

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I will agree that games these days are shitty and the outlook for them (*cough*especiallyEA*cough*) is only looking worse. Them and WB games. Whoever decided that a major film studio should decide to get into games and therefore, ultimately into our pockets with microtransactions should be shot.
 
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Utnayan

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Games are just fucking awful now is the problem, and I don't have the patience for it any more. God of War made me realize that games can still be super awesome to the point that you're sitting at work thinking about going home and playing it more,, just like that shit was 15 years ago. The problem is nearly everything that releases is merely passable and isn't really even deserving of that kind of passion, so we sit there plugging away at it out of habit more than anything else, not really enjoying ourselves. Just kind of coasting.


Bingo. I completely agree. We wait for those 2-3 games a year that will completely blow our socks off, and in the middle, we play 30+ mediocre overhyped garbage titles or annualized IP's which do the same thing over and over again, but we are all so game starved and love games we keep trying to take the plunge on a few even though we know better. Sooner or later, we will get to the point where we know we will only play 2-3 games a year, they will get all our time, and we will train ourselves to quit buying filler titles to bide our time while waiting. And obviously that list is subjective, but for me, this year: Monster Hunter World, God of War, and RDR 2. Anything else seems to be filler. Last year, Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, and Breath of the Wild. (Nier as well I suppose)

And every once in a while there are a couple surprises. Like Evil Within 2 was actually good.

I think it's in the filler stage we are in (And usually this time of year actually between spring and fall) where we fall into the rut.
 

TJT

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Bingo. I completely agree. We wait for those 2-3 games a year that will completely blow our socks off, and in the middle, we play 30+ mediocre overhyped garbage titles or annualized IP's which do the same thing over and over again, but we are all so game starved and love games we keep trying to take the plunge on a few even though we know better. Sooner or later, we will get to the point where we know we will only play 2-3 games a year, they will get all our time, and we will train ourselves to quit buying filler titles to bide our time while waiting. And obviously that list is subjective, but for me, this year: Monster Hunter World, God of War, and RDR 2. Anything else seems to be filler. Last year, Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, and Breath of the Wild. (Nier as well I suppose)

And every once in a while there are a couple surprises. Like Evil Within 2 was actually good.

I think it's in the filler stage we are in (And usually this time of year actually between spring and fall) where we fall into the rut.

DS2 should be on that list bro! That game is fantastic. Even thought we only play a few hours a week.
 
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Utnayan

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DS2 should be on that list bro! That game is fantastic. Even thought we only play a few hours a week.

Yeah that one too but I wouldn't play it in a crazy way solo. You guys are what makes that game so hilariously awesome :)
 
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Grim1

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Most of us go through this eventually, getting older definitely plays a part. I think (just a guess) it has something to do with most new games being just a repeat of the old games we've already played. The graphics might be prettier but a bear hide quest is still just a fetchit, and it gets old fast. Also, the industry loves copying games (movies, tv shows, etc) that sold well before. Boring.

My only advise is to perhaps try a game genre you've never played before. I remember clearly the first time I tried an mmo. Had been playing online fps games exclusively for years and was pretty bored of it. Suddenly in the mmo space everything was new and fresh. And that kept me entertained for a long time. Unfortunately, I'm tired of mmo's now and am having a hard time finding something else. Have tried to switch genres but no luck. Guess I'm waiting for the NEXT BIG THING, whatever that is.
 
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goishen

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DS2 should be on that list bro! That game is fantastic. Even thought we only play a few hours a month.


Fixed that for you. At least it seems that way, lately. The game is kind'a boring right now, but it should really kick into high gear once we get past level 12. Level 13 is where the real the real fun starts.
 
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TJT

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Fixed that for you. At least it seems that way, lately. The game is kind'a boring right now, but it should really kick into high gear once we get past level 12. Level 13 is where the real the real fun starts.

Yeah, god damn life and people having shit to do and vacation and shit like that!
 
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Ruhl

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Part of my problem is that I see a game that has gotten decent reviews at a good price so the penny pincher in me says "Hey, pick the game up. You'll play it soon". Then I just never end up playing it at all. I bet I spent over $500 on 360, PS3 & PS4 games that I haven't even taken out of the package yet. My excuse was that we were working 60-70hr weeks at work so I always said that I'd get around to playing them when it slowed down a little. Now it's slower & I'm still not playing anything. I believe I'm just getting to the age where I don't have the desire to dedicate to playing games anymore & that sucks big time. I just have no desire to start something, even though I have killer games that I would have loved to play even a couple years prior. The most I can muster myself to play is my modded Skyrim game (of which I've already put over 500+hrs into over 3 different consoles/PC versions lol).
 
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