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Why do people like collectathons?


Gebby
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I really don't understand why people enjoy them, most of the time they're meaningless fetch quests with no reward.

A recent example would be Super Mario Odyssey (I'm not sure whether or not there's any form of reward for getting every power moon, and I don't know if anyone does, but for the sake of this post we'll just assume it doesn't), which has gotten endless praise for having 999 power moons to collect.

This is a game getting praise for a fetch quest, for being extended with little effort by a meaningless task.

Thoughts? Do you like collectathons? If so, why?

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Easy. It's a sense of accomplishment. And it's about the gameplay and mechanics too.

This "shit on collectathons" trend picking up as of late is kind of entirely terrible. Just because you don't enjoy something doesn't mean it's bad and that other people are somehow lesser for enjoying that thing. Let people enjoy things.

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It depends on how it's done but there's just a charm in collecting things. And regarding Mario Odyssey, there is actually a reward for getting all of the Power Moons and it's actually pretty great from what i hear.

Collectathons are fine and fun so long as the reward is meaningful in a way and not just a pile of shit (looking at you Breath of the Wild and your Korok Seeds.)

 

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it's not all about collect the power moons.  The main charm is really the journey and experience to get those rewards and you do get heavily rewarded for collecting them in the end.  The Level design is the biggest factor of why people enjoy collectathon games.  There are many games where there is a lot to collect but the levels themselves aren't fun and thus not many will 100% it.  The reason why Mario is praised despite being a collectathon is because the levels themselves are so much fun to traverse go around and the freedom of movement control you have with a character.  Movement being the one of the reasons why people love Mario games. 

Many Mario games do heavily reward you for collecting them all. 

Mario 64 gave you 100 lives, a new unique third jump and fly up to the castle top.
Mario Sunshine gave you a new unique ending picture.
Mario Galaxy gave you Luigi Mode and a extra new playthrough using him.
Mario Galaxy 2 gave you green star challenge and eventually one of the hardest challenging levels in the game.
Mario 3D Land and 3D World did the same thing when you collect all the star coins as galaxy did.
Mario Odyssey gave you new kingdoms and new challenging levels to go to when you get them.

You can easily argue a lot of games have those collect things that don't matter in the end kind of deal like even RPGs do this with excessive grinding and are heavily fetch quest too.  Mario at least rewards you for doing these things.  Many games out there don't.  For example, Sonic the hedgehog games does this frequently where the collectathon is Red Rings where in some games they don't do anything but give you an achievement.

Edited by kingddd
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The Enjoyment is Found in the Journey and Gameplay to Earn the Collectibles, there does not have to be a Reward as long as the Journey there is fun. Having a ton of Collectibles only Means a Ton of content of an (Hopefully) Enjoyable game.

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51 minutes ago, Ultrawing said:

The Enjoyment is Found in the Journey and Gameplay to Earn the Collectibles, there does not have to be a Reward as long as the Journey there is fun. Having a ton of Collectibles only Means a Ton of content of an (Hopefully) Enjoyable game.

The issue is that, a lot of the time, these ‘enjoyable journies that add a lot of content’ turn into nothing but meaningless tasks. 

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1 hour ago, Gebby said:

The issue is that, a lot of the time, these ‘enjoyable journies that add a lot of content’ turn into nothing but meaningless tasks. 

thing is, you're basically saying "these games are bad because some of them are bad"

unless you give an example, the only real answer is

some of them are good, too

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As a Platform gamer I have this to say.

Platform games regardless of whether 2D-3D were always about collecting things whether its to 100% the game or not. Never once have I encountered a platform game that doesn't have things to collect or does not have a straightforward goal.

Platform games are made in such a way that you would like to collect said stuff or accomplish levels to earn an in-game achievement like a gold game save slot or a slot that says 100% showing a medal.

Platform games are always straightforward and generally do not offer much of replayability. The only replay value that platform games have is to 100% them otherwise, there's not much to do in such games. If you just want to beat a Kirby game, go ahead and do it. But if you want a challenge out of it, then 100% it because that's where Kirby games are at.

If you're just someone who wants to play a quick game and then try something else, platform games work as well because of their simplicity. Its just that straightforward.

 

 

Edited by Harvey
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The point of collectibles is so you can see all content.

"Completion bonuses" are completely irrelevant. Getting all stars / Jigsaw pieces or whatever is a much more satisfying goal. It isn't about having them in the inventory or some other nonsensical thing- it is about doing all f the platforming segments within the levels to get them. 

Calling it a "fetch quest" is a complete misuse of the term- In an RPG collecting items or flagging certain NPCs is a fetch quest because the "traversal" to get to them is different (and inferior) to the main gameplay (usually the battle mechanics). In a platform game collecting items is not a fetch quest because the "traversal" to get to them is actually a part of the main gameplay, usually due to the bottomless pits / bosses / trap mazes that you have to go through as part of the mission for any given star or other collectible.

If anything, I would argue that completion bonuses in RPGs are meaningless- people should be motivated to fight post-game bosses for the sake of fighting them- especially since gameplay after getting "super equipment" that they drop is usually totally mindless. In a case like that, earning a completion bonus that DOES have a gameplay effect is actually negative imo. I would rather have the excitement of fighting the final boss in a damage race than to come back to him with the mega sword and blow him up without a fight. Completion can actually remove gameplay.  

Edited by Reality
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You know, I think @Reality said it best.  I think people tend to confuse "collectathon" with "fetch quest".  I know it's an old, tired saying and a lot of people have already said it, but it really is a case of "the journey beats the destination".  You put all the work in, and in the end the point isn't that you had all the things, but rather that you had beaten all the trials required to get them.  The Power Moons are essentially trophies.

I mean, any special post-game level in the Mario series - like the Star Road in Mario World or the Champion's Road in 3D World - will just show a big "thank you for playing the game".  Outwardly, that seems like it'd be such a disappointment.  But it's just the fact that you had beaten the most difficult part of the game that makes it so great.  You don't need to see something earth-shattering for it to be good; you already shattered the earth yourself with your persistence and stellar performance.  It's only when it's an unfair challenge or you cheated that it would actually be disappointing.

If it really isn't enough for you that the game itself is challenging, then it's just that you play games for an entirely different reason than those who enjoy collectathons or platformers.  Or it's that those aren't the kinds of challenges you like.  What I will say is that Mario Odyssey is definitely not a game devoid of entertaining content.  No mainline Mario game is devoid of entertaining content; they all have reasonable, fun challenges that give the player a sense of accomplishment.  Some stuff is easy to get, sure, but most collectibles are attached to a challenge of some kind.

You want to talk pointless collectathon nonsense, maybe look at some of DK 64.  It has some fun elements, sure, but there are also a lot of bananas (regular ones, not the golden bananas) you need to get that are just pointless tedium; some are located right along ordinary paths or in easy-to-reach spots, and each of them can only be collected by one specific character.

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Exploration has always been a facet of game design. Developers noticed that players actually love finding secrets and collectibles. The Metroid series was perhaps first on the scene of exploration-driven games. Games that task the player not to find secrets, but to find their way forward using only their ability to explore. And the 3D "collectathon" games were mostly an adaptation of the same concept in a 3D environment. Samus finds new abilities that serve as keys to her environment, so too did the bear and the bird.

Gaming in three dimensions helped to contextualize a non-linear experience. After all, Samus could only move up, down, left, and right when working in a 2D plane. 2001's Grand Theft Auto 3 was the first of what we called "sandbox" games. Games that have a large, open world to interact with that's just as engaging as the actual story missions. GTA3 still had remnants of collectathon design with its hidden packages that unlock weapons to be picked up at safe houses. Sandbox games, and their more currently accepted term, open-world games, are an evolution of collecta-thon design. The only difference being that open world games still typically have a primary campaign the player goes back to when they're done exploring. 

The reason I suspect open world games have overtaken the collectathon genre is because developers want players to beat their game at the end of the day. The story campaign of such a game tasks the player with simplistic objectives and waypoints so they never lose track of what they're doing. And the story campaign has the bulk of story telling and "set pieces" that the developers put more time into than they did dropping secrets behind rocks. And I could only imagine how few players would finish an Arkham game if a requisite for reaching the end was finding just half the riddles in the game. Yikes.

But now, a collectathon game is game of the year. Was it nostalgia, or the most carefully built re-introduction to the genre we could ask for? Too early to tell.

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4 hours ago, Gebby said:

The issue is that, a lot of the time, these ‘enjoyable journies that add a lot of content’ turn into nothing but meaningless tasks. 

Does it Really? Reality and Ertrick say it better then me, but a "Fetch Quest" is a Meaningless Task to that usually has Little to nothing to do with the Gameplay. Usually an Item for an NPC, a Good Example of this being the Biggoron Sword in Ocarina of Time.

Collect-athons Differ because the Items you Collect have everything to do with the Gameplay. Usually Having something to do with using the Character's Abilities to Explore and Fight Obstacles in your way.

I know im not going to Convince you, As I always Say, You do You.

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On 11/9/2017 at 10:26 AM, Gebby said:

This is a game getting praise for a fetch quest, for being extended with little effort by a meaningless task.

Whoa, pardner! Slow down! You must know that a collection quest is not necessarily a fetch quest. I define a fetch quest as follows:

1. You travel to get "a thing".
2. The path contains little to no interesting challenges.
3. You backtrack to some arbitrary spot - again, sans interesting challenges.

After a fetch quest, you feel like the developers wasted your time - because they did. Odyssey is NOT a fetch quest because

A. you obtain (most of) the moons through interesting challenges.
B. after getting a moon, there is no backtracking for the next one. And even if there is, there's a fast-travel system to fix it.

I haven't played Odyssey and don't claim all the moons are good - most reviewers are disappointed with at least a few of them. However, it seems that on the whole Odyssey is filled with interesting content. As a 3D Mario aficionado, I say Odyssey looks like an easy 9/10, 8/10 minimum.

Edited by Zera
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  • 1 year later...
On 11/9/2017 at 12:58 PM, Harvey said:

As a Platform gamer I have this to say.

Platform games regardless of whether 2D-3D were always about collecting things whether its to 100% the game or not. Never once have I encountered a platform game that doesn't have things to collect or does not have a straightforward goal.

Platform games are made in such a way that you would like to collect said stuff or accomplish levels to earn an in-game achievement like a gold game save slot or a slot that says 100% showing a medal.

Platform games are always straightforward and generally do not offer much of replayability. The only replay value that platform games have is to 100% them otherwise, there's not much to do in such games. If you just want to beat a Kirby game, go ahead and do it. But if you want a challenge out of it, then 100% it because that's where Kirby games are at.

If you're just someone who wants to play a quick game and then try something else, platform games work as well because of their simplicity. Its just that straightforward.

 

 

I know this is a ridiculously old thread, but have you ever played Sly 2 or Sly 3? These platformers are not about collectables. (Sly 3 didn't even have clue bottles.)

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