No Fog of War Left Behind ... and other compulsive behavior
Ygramul
Member Posts: 1,060
How do YOU play? With what fixations?
I fear that I am a completionist even in my umpteenth run through the game:
I uncover every corner of the map from the Fog of War;
I touch the four map edges as if it is a religious necessity to reveal neighboring regions in BG, even when I know that those regions are already unlocked;
... and then that very worst of compulsions: if I die, I delete my save and go back to character creation.
What are your compulsions?
(And why *this* game? So many CRPGS have come out in the last two decades; so, why be compulsive about this one?)
I fear that I am a completionist even in my umpteenth run through the game:
I uncover every corner of the map from the Fog of War;
I touch the four map edges as if it is a religious necessity to reveal neighboring regions in BG, even when I know that those regions are already unlocked;
... and then that very worst of compulsions: if I die, I delete my save and go back to character creation.
What are your compulsions?
(And why *this* game? So many CRPGS have come out in the last two decades; so, why be compulsive about this one?)
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- I explore all maps and remove all the fog of war.
- I pickpocket from every person.
- I go into every house and loot every container.
- I loot every container outside in the cities as well.
- I go through every single part of Baldur's Gate and pick up every single gold coin.
- I play No-reload, making the whole pickpocket very hard and sometimes I have to wait until getting Alora before i'll pickpocket important characters. I'll write down every character i haven't pick pocketed on a paper next to me and return later.
- I always start in BG1 and have to play through the entire game no-reload before being able to play BG2. So even though i want to play BG2 i'll have to go through BG1 first, completing everything in BG1. I don't get to play ToB that often, sadly.
- I'll kill 2-3 ankhegs at a time and then return with the shells to the smith in Beregost, return to the farm and kill another 2-3 and do this again. Sometimes if i'm playing with a party that can't carry much weight, i'll travel 8-9 times between the farm and Beregost so i can sell them all.
I'm like this in every game i play, you should watch me pulling useless shit in Fallout to a vendor.
A normal BG1 run for me take around 30+ hours in real life, and i'm playing fast.
(I'm joking. Nowadays I role-play a lot).
That always seems like a pretty good challenge with decent XP and gold. But I never actually collect scalps. That is ridiculous. What those things are actually is special Bandit Medicine totems carved by
Tasloi shamans.
And I can get pretty compulsive about making sure everyone has plenty of arrows, antidotes and healing potions.
It is a problem I know I have but I can't help myself. The magic red button has enabled my addictive behavior. Thanks Beamdog!
However, I'm not playing No Reload ... although I don't find that I need to reload often.
What absolutely astonishes me, however, is that Fast?! That's more than just "fast", 30 hours is absolutely lightning-speed for a completionist game! I can't see how it's possible to do it so quickly. I'm playing similarly, and I'm not deliberately dawdling, but it takes me far longer. I haven't actually tried to add it all up, but for me it's certainly way over 100 hours of real-time, probably over 200 hours.
BG2 takes quite a bit longer for me as i have to focus much more to stay alive with SCS installed.
In my games I tend to complete BGEE 9/10 times and BG2EE 5/10 times. It's very rare that i die in BG1 nowadays.
Which basically results in them never getting used and by the time I finish the game I have so many that I'm struggling to carry them.... but I still keep saving them for later. Even on the final fight!
I don't clear entire maps, and there are some maps I'll never visit. If it's a RP-intensive and no-meatgaming run then a lot of people, places, and things won't ever be encountered. Even in a more of tactically oriented powergaming style of run, I won't have the party do something that isn't roughly consistent with a basic concept that I have for the main. But in the latter type of games I will metagame to visit maps that have content (including of course items) that I particularly like or value, and often prepare (buff) for fights on the basis of foreknowledge as a player of what the enemy is going to do. In the former type of game I don't do that at all. The former type of game is usually minimal reload. The latter is reload-at-will.
I mean, that's the two basic approaches that I use. With the deeper immersion style I have been journaling the adventure, and maybe that is comlusive? On the one hand, the journaling definitely deepens the overall experience. But on the other hand, it is a bit of a chore and requires a lot of leisure time that I sometimes don't have. I hope that I'm able to enjoy the more roleplaying-intensive style without journaling after I finish the current game where I'm doing that.
@Gallowglass Waste a spell slot on Clairvoyance? NEVER !!!
...
I have a problem...
*Anduin turns to his group of BG nuts... Otherwise known as Baby Dryads.. Who are nodding sagely.*
I hate unclean maps in pretty much every game though mind you. I like how Wildstar actually rewards me for getting rid of the damn fog of war.