Poll: how do you play single player games?

[BFG10K]

Option 4 here.

I explore environments thoroughly, pick up all useful items, check all containers, listen to all diary recordings, generally kill all enemies, and try to find as many secrets as possible. I don't always read everything if it clutters the gameplay, and I don't care about achievements at all.

Racing through games and/or doing time trials isn't my idea of fun.

 

[snoopy7548]

#4. I don't go out of my way to try to find secrets, but I make it a point to at least see/go into every possible area that I can.

 

[Rifter]

I went with option 4 but its sometimes option 5 if i really like the game, or option 3 if i dont.

 

[Oyeve]

4. for me. I like to take my time and explore especially if its an open world game. I don;t try to platinum or 100% anymore as I aint got time for that. Last game I did 100% was Fable 2. In GTA V I think I am at 99% or so. Still do a lot of exploring in that game. RDR2 has me wanting to 100% but it will probably never happen.

 

[BSim500]

4. because it's a decent balance between being thorough vs not completely sucking all the fun out of everything / breaking the pace by spending hours walking in circles for some utter triviality. I used to try and get 100% secrets where possible in old school style games (Doom, Thief, etc), but never did care for achievements or jumping through hoops to get 100% in newer games (a lot of which involves cheap game-time padding). Reading depends on the game, eg, I'll listen to all audio logs in Bioshock but won't read every line of every book in Elder Scrolls, etc. And speed-runs are best done as separate challenges rather than main play styles, or to showcase some epicly cunning shortcut.

 

[EXCellR8]

By myself.

 

[quikah]

Usually 4, but there are certain cases where I will go back if I haven't gone too far past something or there is a major secret. For example I went back to an older save when I realized I shouldn't have killed Sander Cohen in Bioshock.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I'm somewhere between 4 and 5. I try to find everything so that I don't miss something, but I try not to scour the internet first before playing as I want to attempt to do things on my own (for the first playthrough at least, and if I like the game I might look to see if there was something I missed and play it again).

 

[Zenoth]

Usually #4, sometimes #3; and sometimes both, depends on the game and my mood.

 

[DeathReborn]

I do try and explore everything, find alternate routes etc but I don't mind missing the odd collectible, I can always get it in another play-through. My playstyle doesn't suit the "twitch" or rapid gameplay in modern online games, I am more of an Arma style of player now. Single player allows me to get more enjoyment without feeling rushed.

 

[nakedfrog]

Between 3-4, more towards 4 overall.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Depends on the length of the game. The first 10-15 hours I usually do 4-5 if I really like the game. Then gradually a hard 4, then if it's 50+ hours I do 3. I mostly do not care about collecting everything as it is useless busy work.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I guess I'd categorize myself as a 4 . Games are supposed to be fun, not work. Some games I like to hang out in and see all the sights and hear the sounds and others have me just trying to get to the end of the story.

I used to be a hard no on walkthroughs and guides but I've found that my enjoyment of a game goes up exponentially if I use one if I get stuck or hit a particularly frustrating part.

 

[ImpulsE69]

agree with the guides part...the whole reason I never finished so many games back before the internet was due to being stuck on some dumb hard to figure out thing

 

[SMOGZINN]

I guess I'd categorize myself as a 4 . Games are supposed to be fun, not work. Some games I like to hang out in and see all the sights and hear the sounds and others have me just trying to get to the end of the story.

I used to be a hard no on walkthroughs and guides but I've found that my enjoyment of a game goes up exponentially if I use one if I get stuck or hit a particularly frustrating part.

I agree with this as well. I take my time and enjoy a game, explore the areas and read the history. I don't care if it takes me a year to finish a game if I am enjoying it. And just like you I used to be a hard pass on any type of outside information on games, but recently (in the last 3-4 years) changed my mind on that. I now believe that it is better to look up something and move on then to beat my head against some riddle or puzzle until I get tired of playing the game and quit the game, especially since too many times I find that the answer is that the problem is a bug. I hit this exact thing this weekend playing Divinity OS2 in co-op, in the arena in fort joy we got stuck because of a bug and the solution was for one player of a co-op game to drop out of the game so it recognized the battle was over.

 

[rivethead]

I'm somewhere between 4 and 5. I try to find everything so that I don't miss something, but I try not to scour the internet first before playing as I want to attempt to do things on my own (for the first playthrough at least, and if I like the game I might look to see if there was something I missed and play it again).

This best describes me as well. But (and I hate to admit this), I always read through the achievements list in Steam before playing, just to get an idea of what I need to do to get the achievements. And that usually drives some of my playing behavior.

 

[AlanWade]

I normally play through without bothering too much on the secrets on the first run through then play it again with more care and go for whatever I can.

 

[mopardude87]

Usually its always 4 for me but dang it Doom 2016 put me into the 5 spot just about.Never was a fan of hide n seek and during my limited time playing that,it was tiredsome finding out to get to one area i need to find stuff to unlock a simple door.When i think of Doom or Duke Nukem,i think ok i am here to f*** stuff up,but nope i need to find a "codec" or tip a shipping container in a particular fashion to get past a spot.Feels like a deliberate cheap way to keep you playing just a bit longer.I want to shoot something ,not feel like i am messing with the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser.

Other games like Hard Reset,you find items and its usually gonna help you on weapon upgrades which is fine.Bioshock had this with too which was fine.

 

[PlanetJosh]

Exploring while trying to not do any fighting which about a dozen other people in the world are interesting in. So I use invisibility codes if offered like in Skyrim (which is a toggle ai off command.} I'm into checking out the design and graphics.

I have to fight sometimes in some games of course usually at the start of levels in order to get out into the main parts of a map. And hopefully they have savegames to let me replay without having to do the fighting all over again. And spending hours getting various graphics mods for the games.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I start out at around 3.5 to 4 then I move down to a 2 after about 30 to 40 hours in a single player game. It feels like most of the games I play that give you more than 30ish hours of gameplay get there because of repetitious mechanics or non consequential exploration. Once I pass 30-40 hours I get bored and speed things up.