My perfectionism ruins my games.

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I love video games, they're my favorite form of entertainment. However I have a bit of a problem, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to games where you get to create your own character like Fallout 3, and I have restarted my game over a hundred times because my character isn't "perfect". No matter how hard I try to make a character and stick with it, I always find a flaw and feel like I have to completely start over, and it's ruined the games for me.

I was wondering if anyone else has this problem? And if anyone has any solutions to help me stick with one character and not restart?

I sometimes have a "health" complex... When I'm doing so well in a level and lose none, then suddenly lose a fraction, I get agitated and very tempted to restart to take 100% ZERO damage... It's hard to remind myself, "keep going, it's only a small amount" Not as bas as I used to be though

Yeah, my problem is the type of character I play. I'll watch a movie or read a book and then get insperation to create a character based off my favorite character, but then I quickly loose interest and decide to start over and make a different character. I also do this thing where I make "myself" in a video game and if I find myself making choices I wouldn't make in real life then I start over too.

mine does too, but it is not for the same reason as you.

if i play a level of a game and i get no damage at all, and none of my units sustain any damage, then i know my strategy was correct.

if any of my units sustain even the mildest damage (that is not even detrimental to the likely hood of me winning the scenario), i will still reload the level and adjust my strategy to make sure that those particular units do not get hit next time.

in intensely difficult battles against ai, i can be clearly going to win, but i will relinquish my progress and reload because (for example) a knight of mine was snicked by an enemy arrow and took 3% of his health away.

even if i know am going to win, i do not want to win except with perfect strategy. not just strategy that is a "bit" better than the AI strategy, but perfect strategy where i sustain not one injury to either me or my "army".


i often play levels more than 20 times to try different methods of attack to also minimize my time taken to complete the level with no injuries to my army.

RPGs where you make your own character are going to be "interesting" for you. First off, there is no such ting as a perfect character. So, what i would recommend is the following:

1) How do you like to play? Do you prefer to us magic, long range, melee, or combination thereof?
2) You character will not likely reach his/her potential until at least level 10, then stronger from there.
3) Make sure your class and its stats remain fairly constant. For example, you dont want to give a caster class heavy armor and heavy weapons (unless you can do a cross class thing, but even that should be reserved for later levels)
4) The first few levels are always rough. You will likely die a dozen times until you figure out what you're supposed to do.
5) It will likely take a while to get the class/spec that best suits your needs. Just try each one, or ones closest to how you like playing.

Most importantly, have fun. There are hundreds of combinations in skills and stats, just balance the right ones and you'll be fine.

I do have a problem, but for me it is more of a problem with resources.I have a fairly large problem with trying to conserve as much amunition as possible and trying to max out all amunition and I usualy stay away from weapons like rocket launchers and rappid fire weapons because I cringe at at little amunition or lossing too quickly.

To continue your Fallout 3 example, in my game I tend to use the weapon I deem has the most amunition to spare, plus I spend a large amount on stimpacks, keeping it around 60 and mostly buy them from the children who sell them at base price. I colect all cigaret items, nuka cola, resources for creating weapons, food, and drugs though I rarely use any of it instead storing it for some hypothetical rainy day for use or sell. And then I could go on all the habits I have created in making fights use as little resources as possible and how I criticise my brother for not seeing the importance in saving every bit.

I often get afraid of a lot of health driven games, instead likeing regeneration (healing spells are a favirout) or playing specificly in mind to conserve, or even keeping bad weapons for the purpose of saving in game money. I am getting better though I am starting to be able to play more riskly in games like Bioshock and ODST, though I still have the compusion and I have to convince myself it will help in the long run.

Heh, I kind of have that problem in Fallout 3 too. I'll be half-way through the game and find out that I haven't used any of my chems except the Stimpacks, but I still pick them up when I find them. I also collect a lot of ammunition, but the only guns I seem to use are the 9mm Pistol and the Hunting Rifle. Also in Oblivion I have a thing about collecting millions of Alchemy Ingridants, but rarely using them to mix potions.

That doesn't bother me as much as the character restarting thing though, because every time I go through the game and find a lot of locations, after I start over I have to find them all over again.

^ We cats (Bradleigh and I) are alike in this.

Would you care for a tin-foil hat? Low price! Keeps out Government mind control AND picks up local radio!

I think I have got myself around not having a perfect character as I often tend to chose one specialty and I will neglect others for one style. Usualy in games I will first choose to major in magic/force/biotic or some use in small guns and do criticle damage, which I think can be a maximum use as such skills can alow getting around the others. Though admitidly I do have trouble keeping myself on track when playing an evil opposite stats character.

Though I am not foreign to keeping an unecesary amount of saves where I think there is a crossroad or that I might not upgrade properly or solve a situation corectly.

I sometimes pick up special items, and don't use them, ever!! I have started to correct this though, like when a situation calls for it. I try to save it for that "something" which never comes.

I've improved my gaming since, I've forced myself to look for certain situations to use special items.

Pistol for weak enemies. Shotgun/M16/Uzi for larger crowds or larger enemies.

Because of the "perfecting technique" I noticed my gaming was poor. Now it's at a stage where I can now adjust accordingly - and that was not easy.

I remember when Quake III Arena was released, I couldn't beat "Phobos" on EASY!! It took me a few tries to see WHY the character/AI was beating me. Now it's not much of a problem

At this point any game I play is only to reverse engineer the game mechanics, figure out the "optimal" strategy and then get bored and quit. I used to play RPGs and save before each character would level up, then if that character didn't get a "good" level-up, I'd reset and try again. I also had a tendency to collect resources and never use them, which wasn't hard considering I always had super-powered characters

Fallout 3 character optimisation is easy.

Start with 9 INT, other stats do not matter as long as you DO NOT bring them to 10/100 (depending on whether its an att or a skill).

After leaving the vault, BEFORE you gain another level go to Rivet city and get the INT bobblehead from the science lab. This strategy gets you the max amount of skill points possible per level up and the highest atts.

As for other atts, get the ones you prefer to 9 and then bobblehead them to ten.

For skills, bring them to 90 and bobblehead them to 100.

You can't max everything, but you can max more than you could in any other build.

Hope this helps.

PS
I recommend the game Borderlands, kinda like fallout 3 buuuuuuutttt you can redistribute skillpoints whenever you want for a trivial fee (you don't really buy anything because there's a focus on loot anyway)

My biggest perfectionism in gaming is needing to find EVERYTHING in the game. I've played through most every Final Fantasy about 5-15 times with anywhere from 30-110 hours (Yeah, that was on my massive chocobo game on FF9). I've got about 400 total days played on WoW as well. I've already gone through Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 3 separate times on Legendary trying to find everything and max all of the heroes. What's sad is that it's only annoying in the fact that I'm pissed I finished the game and there's nothing left to do. All of the new games can be finished soo damn quickly now, barely 10 hours of gameplay in most of them. Fable II was really annoying like that. Got everything maxed and even bought every single place in the game to be King in about 20 hours played.

Basically, I want big long games like Final Fantasy and Legend of Dragoon again. (I really wish MUA2 had about 10 more missions, game is amazing but soo short )

I know these feelings. I'm not a mix maxer by any extent with stats, but RPGs have a strangely appealing OCD quality to them. I like to play wargames that recreate historical battles as accurately as possible. I try and match my wins as much as possible to the historical results. If I do any worse than the real generals then the battle was a failure to me.

Me too somewhat. I always play too conservatively. For example, in shooters I'm always hoarding grenades, special items, and ammo for my better weapons while promising myself I'll ONLY use them if I REALLY have to. But for some reason, I never end up using them, even if I'm about to die. And when I finally complete a level, I lose all that I saved up until then without using any of it. It kinda makes the game a long, arduous struggle rather than a fun experience filled with explosions, which typically means most kills are done by knives, or pistol headshots. I'm just too damn efficient when it comes to games.

The only games where my efficiency comes in handy and actually makes the game FUN is Battlezone and Battlezone II: Comabat Commander, since that's the whole point.

Basically it's an FPS/RTS where you have to build a base and take control of resources so you can destroy the other teams base (more specifically, their recycler; the pivotal construction unit required to even START a base) before they can destroy yours. It just feels so rewarding to spend hours and hours on a SINGLE map slowly crushing the other teams outposts, taking control of resources, and getting closer to their base to the point where you have MONSTER amounts of offensive and defensive units swarming across the map, at your command, in a giant circle around the enemies last remaining building (recycler) waiting for your word to move in and completey obliterate it effectively winning the battle for you.

Of course, also being an FPS, you could choose to have your units hold their fire so that you can move in and take out the enemies recycler yourself.

Here's some intro videos...

Battlezone
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr2_gH5ixQg[/youtube]

Battlezone: The Red Odyssey (Battlezone expansion)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q255hmAh27Y[/youtube]

Battlezone II: Combat Commander
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oewk8TX6KSs[/youtube]

EDIT

b9, judging by your post I'd say you'd like the Battlezone series.

I remember playing Battlezone. I still have the CD and case somewhere in my room. It was a pretty nifty game.