Do you ever find yourself pursuing useless upgrades in games you're close to finishing and will never play again?

Today I finished my playthrough of Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India, a game that I didn't really like and don't intend to ever play again.

The game gives you upgrades depending on how well you do on a given level, and when I got to the 10th and final level of the game it set two time goals, each of which would grant an upgrade if you reached them. The game allows you to reset to a checkpoint at any point and have your time reset too (so your time reflects only the parts where you made it to a new checkpoint, not the times where you died or reset) and I found myself using this feature liberally during the final level to try and hit the time goals...even though I knew that as soon as I finished the game I would put it down forever and never use those upgrades (which are intended for a New Game Plus run or for revisiting old chapters.)

There's no other benefit to hitting the time goals; no achievement or better ending associated with them. It's just a means of getting those upgrades, which are in turn totally useless. I could have gotten through the level faster if I'd just ignored my time and focused on progression instead of resetting the checkpoint every time I climbed down a ladder when I should have dropped or missed a window to advance past a guard and would have had to wait for the window to open again.

This is not the only example of my doing this. I often find myself almost compulsively pursuing stuff that I know will be totally useless given where I am in a game or how close I am to finishing it. In mainline 3D Assassin's Creed games I find myself opening chests even after I have all the money I will need and I know I'm ready to finish the story and move on. It's one thing if the grinding is inherently enjoyable, but even when it's not I can't help myself. I feel like I'm just so used to chasing upgrades that I can't keep myself from doing it even when I consciously know it's pointless and even when it's not actually fun.

Have you ever chased worthless in game stuff that you knew you'd never actually get a chance to use?

I have definitely done this. Not always, but if it seems like a relatively easy thing to complete a list, yeah. There have been times where I've done this and NOT gotten an achievement for it, which is disappointing. I'm not an achievement hound or anything, but if I complete a skill tree or something, it's good to see that.

I will say part of this may be that endings and beginnings, especially of story-heavy games, require more mental effort than simply filling out a list on a game.

Sure, I just like completing tasks, doing checklists, clearing out icons.

I feel like in most games if there is an ultimate weapon or skill or whatever then by the time you've completed the act of acquiring it you've almost certainly exhausted any relevant content that it would be useful in. But I still enjoy the process of going after it.

I don't understand this at all. I just finished Dishonored 2 with almost no powers unlocked. I was just playing for the story and didn't go out of my way to find runes/bonecharms. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to get most of them in a playthrough, and then start a new game+ to actually use all the cool powers from the start. I would have enjoyed that game a lot more if I had all the powers from the start (whether fully upgraded or not), but I'm not going to play the game twice just to start a game with the cool stuff.

Maybe one day game developers will trust the player enough to allow them choose how they want to play and offer an option to just start the game with more/most/all powers unlocked. MineCraft is the most fun for me in creative mode, give me that in every game.

@warpr: Well.. for Dishonored you unlock plenty of things you can use as you play the game. It's not as though you're getting them in the last hour in time for the final boss.

So I don't think they're interested in making sure you play the game a second time, but rather creating an interesting power curve as you go along.

I'm actually doing this now with Marvel's Avengers. While its on PS Now, I'm playing it and fully experiencing everything the end-game has before its removed, hopefully after the Wakanda Forever, Black Panther update happens, since this is the next major event. After that, I will be done with the game forever, unless by some miracle Crystal Dynamics fixed many of its problems with that update. I'm already close to maxing out Kamala and might work on Black Widow next.

This topic hits so hard, lol! I've found myself in that scenario too many times. I have to step back and ask myself "What the fuck are you doing?!? Just finish the damn thing already!"

I've gotten better more recently at knowing "when I'm satisfied" and to just move on and not fret over all the little extra bits games throw at you. It helps to realize that modern games are designed so that anything you need is going to be unmissable and anything off the beaten path is literally superfluous for the purpose of finishing the game.

I recently also played through Dishonored 2 and quickly realized that 90% of the powers and bone charms were not necessary for how I played the game. I still hunted a lot of them down though because they gave me impetus to explore and take in the environment. But eventually it got to the point in later levels were I was content to leave many uncollected.

@warpr:

"I don't understand this at all. I just finished Dishonored 2 with almost no powers unlocked. I was just playing for the story and didn't go out of my way to find runes/bonecharms."

Me and you are on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum. I never play a game for the story and only care about the powers, mechanics, and checklists of the game. I like the assassin's creed icon vomit, Diablo-style loot systems, and the JRPG multi-character job system complete with overly complicated cooking, fishing, and crafting mechanics. But watching the same old dozen story archetypes play out in slight variations does not interest me.

I usually only do that if there's a trophy (achievement) for it. If there isn't one, and I don't even like the game that much, I wouldn't waste my time on it.

However, I'll clear out the map in open world games if the "running around" is good. I'll open every useless chest in Assassin's Creeds just because I like exploring and traversing. (Always found it funny that people complained about collecting feathers.. I just put on a podcast or video on the side, and had a great time collecting them)

Im finding myself doing it right now with Resident Evil Village. Im trying to get SS ranks in the Mercenaries stages for the weapon it unlocks in the extra content shop. It's not needed for the platinum, i don't even know if it's good. But i see it there and i just know my brain won't be happy if i don't bash my head against this wall and get something i might use once to, maybe, make a trophy in NG+ easier

sometimes but not normally. if i'm real close to a 100% then sometimes i will but its pretty rare.