Irrational Gaming

Sorry Balla but couldn't think of any myself, and yours is a big one.

You guys might be able to think of one for me, maybe my love for Kojima.

Oh yes: you've got several, I've got several, other people will likewise. Also, I kind of saw this as stuff you do in the games you buy, rather than what games you buy. Otherwise my aversion to anything looking even vaguely 'realistic' would be up there.

Balladeer wrote:

Until recently I would definitely have had completionism in here - not being able to move on until I've got every last major collectable, or at least finding it a real wrench to do so.  It killed my playthrough of Yoshi's Woolly World, for example.  Fortunately I've managed to shake that in recent years.  Seeing as it's the same 'must get/see everything' that makes me not want to play choicy games, in the future - who knows?

My enjoyment of games with major player choice is part of what helped me shake my own completionist tendencies, so I reckon it might work for you in reverse!

Can't think of any in game, that I do or don't.

I don't know if you realise this, Mas, but if you can't think of something to add to a conversation, you're allowed to just not reply.

Here's a genuinely bad and irrational habit: if I really like a game, or characters in a game, I'll look up the details around them on the Internet and then be genuinely surprised and disappointed when I spoil something for myself.

Haha, that sounds like quite a bad habit. I normally only look things up after I've beaten the game (or decided that I'm not going to beat the game/ don't enjoy the game enough to mind about spoiling details).

I'm not sure that this is irrational, but I sometimes sit down at my computer or look over my physical games with full intentions of playing something. And then I spend like a million years thinking about things and end up not playing anything

Muss wrote:

I'm not sure that this is irrational, but I sometimes sit down at my computer or look over my physical games with full intentions of playing something. And then I spend like a million years thinking about things and end up not playing anything

Yeah, I've definitely done that a fair few times as well & it's only worse if I have just finished a game I really enjoyed in the last day or so.

Balladeer wrote:

EDIT: Oh, I've got one.  I much prefer my Pokémon to cover a range of levels, say 25-28.  That feels more 'natural', and less 'forced', than when they're all around the same level.  The Lady does exactly the opposite, switching monsters out to keep them all within a level of each other.

I do something similar in that my starter always has to be a few levels ahead the rest of the team and then whichever 'Mon has been putting in the most work and has impressed me the most - my ace, if you will - will be a level or two ahead of the pack but just behind the starter 'Mon.

Oh, I've thought of another one! In RPGs, if I stop at an item shop and I notice that a stack of particular items, say potions or antidotes, doesn't end in a 5 or a 0 then I have to buy a few to round the total up to a number ending in 5 or 0.

Is restocking to a set number (e.g. 20 potions, 20 Poké Balls, 2 of each status cure) every time you pass a shop, even when you're nowhere near out and will probably pick up more along the way, irrational?

Sounds like an odd list to me The only things I ever buy in Pokemon are 20 max of the current pokeball (I try not to overdo it because I won’t upgrade to the next one until I’ve used up my current stock), evolution stones, Max Revives & Full Restores. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a status restoring item.

Stocking up on status heals when you already have a lot is a bit irrational, but in pokemon games I've had the opposite problem where I've hoarded money and not bothered getting items aside from pokeballs when they could be useful. I end up in the middle of long caves with my most useful pokemon paralysed or near fainting before reluctantly deciding to head back to a pokemon centre. Meanwhile any kind of potion stays relevant up until the end of the game for healing in between elite four battles.

Talk of keeping pokemon levels the same has reminded me that I do the same in Fire Emblem and it's a habit that I try to break out of, because in those games it makes even less sense to do that. Funnily enough I feel like when I first played the games, starting with FE7, I had the right idea with actually focusing on the units that seemed good even if I leaned on Marcus and the pre-promotes a tad too much. Better than not using them at all though.

I definitely don't bother with keeping my team levelled equally in Fire Emblem. I think the investment isn't worth it most of the time when you could be levelling your really strong units to carry the party to victory. I'm pretty sure that most of my team were a fair few levels below Dimitri and Byleth in my Blue Lions run of FE:TH.

My Fire Emblem strategy is the same as Jay's, focus on a core team and make sure a few capable reserves are there for you in a pinch. I do play with permadeath on, but with the rewind feature in the later games there's not too much of a threat of units dying. I guess that ameliorates some of the need for a balanced set of reserves.

I definitely do suffer from stocking up on nothing but money in video games though. I think that's symptomatic of there being a campaign and my uncertainty about how long is left. In board games I'm usually pretty good at economic management or worker placement games which put a premium on spending money effectively, but in video games I'm scrooge McDuck. .

My irrational stance on board games is just getting far too competitive and stressed out about the results.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

Sounds like an odd list to me

Even list mate.

I always look at the options menu before starting the game the first time I ever boot it up if I'm given the choice, even if it's a game I know full well I don't want to tinker with at all. I don't know when I started doing this, but I'm pretty sure it's the reason why I'm no fun at parties anymore

I do that too

I think the only people that don't do that belong to the Chaotic Evil group.

It's worked against me on occasion: changing Murder by Numbers' text speed to 'Fast' before starting the game meant that things zipped by and I occasionally missed them!

But yes everyone sane does that.

Treesmurf wrote:

I think the only people that don't do that belong to the Chaotic Evil group.

Hello!

I'm also another that'll check the options first before launching a game, the one time I didn't do it recently was with Doom (1993) and the default sensitivity was cranked up way too high. Put it down to the halfway mark and I could still spin around pretty quickly.

My recent approach has been "is this game likely to have gyro aiming? Yes - better check options to turn it off. No - just start the game then"

I get really nervous about a thing I recall the great Matthew Castle writing about; playing a linear story-based game, being in a corridor, with a door half-way along and to the side, and another at the very end. One will lead to an optional room with an extra piece of loot to count towards your 100% completionist score, one will lead to a cutscene and then the next chapter of the game, thus making the optional loot item inaccessible FOR THE REST OF TIME. Or until Chapter Select after you've finished natch.

Yep, I will always go down all the Wrong Routes methodically. Even if it's a game I have no intention of 100%ing, that dungeon must be relieved of all its loot! You coudl stick the entirety of my completionist tendencies into this thread, actually...

Jimbob wrote:

I get really nervous about a thing I recall the great Matthew Castle writing about; playing a linear story-based game, being in a corridor, with a door half-way along and to the side, and another at the very end. One will lead to an optional room with an extra piece of loot to count towards your 100% completionist score, one will lead to a cutscene and then the next chapter of the game, thus making the optional loot item inaccessible FOR THE REST OF TIME. Or until Chapter Select after you've finished natch.

I've managed to get pretty good at sussing out which route is "the main route" in games - telltale sort of stuff like a big circular obvious boss arena, spotting an important looking NPC waiting to usher in a cutscene... that sort of stuff.