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How do you keep yourself motivated?


Starkadhr
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So I have 49,200 gamerscore over the course of the 360's lifespan and I have a ton of incomplete games that I recently decided to start plowing through. However I hit a snag with what I currently have and games like FF13-2 just make me second guess myself. How do you motivate yourself to complete games that normally wouldn't hold your attention?

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I want to get the most out of the games I purchase and if that means grinding through repetitive sessions or playing through a game multiple times, well it pays off in the end and that's how I keep myself motivated.

 

It also helps to set yourself a goal, one that is possible and somewhat easy to achieve. If you have 0:gsicon: and set yourself a goal of 50000:gsicon: in 3 months, although it may be possible, you aren't going to have much fun with that. But if you start off with a goal of 20000:gsicon:, well then you want to go back and keep trying.

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I avoid starting other games until I've either completed the game or I've decided to shelf it. If it's just grinding that needs to be done, then that takes the ginding slot in my game rotation (I use 1 game for Story/Completion, 1 game for grinding, 1-3 games for unwinding/multiplayer/games to play without worrying about completionism).

 

One thing that helps is how I place my games. I have a display by my console that fits 6 games. Those are the games in my current rotation. The rest of my hundreds of games are on the other side of the room out of sight and reach from my gaming chair. That way, I don't find my self browsing my library for something else if my attention drifts away. I find it works rather well considering the amount of super-grindy games I've completed.

 

 

In your specific situation I have to ask, why did you start XIII-2 if you never even finished the story for XIII?

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In your specific situation I have to ask, why did you start XIII-2 if you never even finished the story for XIII?

 

There was a period of time where my 360 broke when I was in between jobs and I didn't have the money to replace it. I ended up renting and beating 13 on the PS3.

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I think setting an achievable goal that iBuzz7s mentioned is a great idea. I used to setup goals like getting +100,000 in a year, which I have done and is quite possible, but it was no fun and I lost all motivation after achieving the goal. Literally almost stopped playing games for about 3 months.

 

Try and set-up bite sized goals and if possible break it down further to the games that you plan to play and how much of it. For example, now I don't have a overall gamerscore goal, but I have goals like finish Seriously 3.0 on Gears of War 3, or finish the story mode of Prince of Persia. I really didn't like the first Prince of Persia on Xbox 360 but didn't want to quit, so my plan is to finish the story, grab some misc achievements and forget about getting 1000. I was stuck on Prince of Persia forever because I wanted to get a full 1000 on it, but I was not motivated at all, but by lowering my expectation, I was able to get through 2/3 of the game. (I got distracted by something else and did not go back to it yet, but I definitely will finish it.)

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I think setting an achievable goal that iBuzz7s mentioned is a great idea. I used to setup goals like getting +100,000 in a year, which I have done and is quite possible, but it was no fun and I lost all motivation after achieving the goal. Literally almost stopped playing games for about 3 months.

 

Well right now my goal is to finish the last 800 or so GS I need to break 50k because I have been sitting here for a long time. After that I want to try and get to 60k within a month without using crap like Hannah Montana and Avatar.

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Just play when you feel like it. If it bores you then stop. Don't bore yourself grinding a game you don't like/can't be bothered playing. No-one should need 'motivation' to play video games. Play games that you genuinely enjoy - that's what gaming is about... not the number next to your name that only represents the amount of time you grinded through games you didn't enjoy. Gamerscore is driving people crazy. Set yourself GS goals, sure. But the time spent achieving those goals should be enjoyable - if it's enjoyable, no motivation is needed.

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One other tip I thought of for when dealing with a large grind: Make a visual aid. Make a pile/stack/whatever of something that represents your current grind goal, then remove them as you get closer.

 

As a personal example, I'm currently working on grinding out Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon. One of the achievements is completing 500 waves of survival. As a patch killed the online community for that game mode, it is a true slog. What I have done is made a stack of trading cards that I keep by my gaming chair. Each card represents a round to complete, and as such, each time I complete a round, I remove a card from the pile.

 

While I still have 160 rounds to go, it helps because I can see the stack getting smaller, which thus encourages me to press on.

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How do you motivate yourself to complete games that normally wouldn't hold your attention?

 

It's all about the TA ratio and score for me. I love completing games that most people have given up on because they were deemed too difficult and/or time consuming. Some of them I actually enjoyed more because of the completion, than if I had just rushed through it in one playthrough (Bullet Witch, F.E.A.R, Galaga Legions, NIER, Splosion Man just to name a few).

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It only depends on that games you want to complete, when I completed Skyrim, I was so excited that I wanted to complete 2,3 other games, then I lost the motivation after a while, I have to find a game that I really fall in love with to motivate me!

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So I have 49,200 gamerscore over the course of the 360's lifespan and I have a ton of incomplete games that I recently decided to start plowing through. However I hit a snag with what I currently have and games like FF13-2 just make me second guess myself. How do you motivate yourself to complete games that normally wouldn't hold your attention?

 

I don't. helpful/10

 

But I really don't. In fact unless you really, really feel the need to complete the game; if you're not having fun playing it I'd actually suggest you stop too. Especially if like most people you have a backlog of unplayed games waiting for you. Achievements and fun shouldn't be mutually exclusive.

 

Hydro nails it. Completion is a nice feeling but isn't a driving force.

 

OP I feel your pain. I too have played FFXIII-2. And I too, have lost the urge to complete it to 100%.

 

If it's just grinding that needs to be done, then that takes the ginding slot in my game rotation (I use 1 game for Story/Completion, 1 game for grinding, 1-3 games for unwinding/multiplayer/games to play without worrying about completionism).

 

Now that you mention it, have found myself moving into just this style but haven't added the "grinding" section yet, grinds usually go straight to the "trade in" pile :p. May start this with finishing off the freeplay events in Saboteur.

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grinds usually go straight to the "trade in" pile :p. May start this with finishing off the freeplay events in Saboteur.

 

I honestly didn't think any part of The Saboteur was a grind. I was having fun from the moment I put the disk in for the first time till the last Nazi I blew up.

Now if we're talking about a game like Binary Domain or Kingdom Under Fire: Circle Of Doom, then those would most definitely go into my definition of a grind.

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If I need to keep myself motivated to play a game, I'm doing it all wrong.

 

Not necessarily. If we're talking about a game like Quake 4, then no matter how much you enjoy the game, if you're looking to complete it you WILL get bored with it, since it takes hundreds of hours to complete. It basically comes down to how committed someone is to completing their games. For some people, completion means nothing, but for some of us it's a pretty big deal, and we take pride in achieving goals that most others gave up on for whatever reason. Unfortunately, along with that dedication, you're eventually going to run into games like Quake 4, or Inversion, which seem like they take a lifetime to complete. So yes motivation is needed sometimes to continue on, be it motivation from your gaming friends, or hell even your rivals who might be trying to complete the same game at a faster pace than yourself. It's all about how far you're willing to push yourself for that last achievement to unlock IMO.

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What B A R 4 D said, sometimes a different game will help.

 

@Death Metal Jim Completely agree with you about Quake 4. I was trying to finish that game within a short amount of time and playing it just didn't feel fun.

 

For me to feel motivated I just try something new or different, otherwise the same game will feel boring after so long. Same goes with my artwork, If I continue to work on the same piece for too long I have to move onto something else. Sometimes the motivation just isn't there and you just can't do anything about it. If it's there, it's there.

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Not necessarily. If we're talking about a game like Quake 4, then no matter how much you enjoy the game, if you're looking to complete it you WILL get bored with it, since it takes hundreds of hours to complete. It basically comes down to how committed someone is to completing their games. For some people, completion means nothing, but for some of us it's a pretty big deal, and we take pride in achieving goals that most others gave up on for whatever reason. Unfortunately, along with that dedication, you're eventually going to run into games like Quake 4, or Inversion, which seem like they take a lifetime to complete. So yes motivation is needed sometimes to continue on, be it motivation from your gaming friends, or hell even your rivals who might be trying to complete the same game at a faster pace than yourself. It's all about how far you're willing to push yourself for that last achievement to unlock IMO.

The issue is I used to care a lot like most of the people on this site, I would put myself through an insurmountable amount of time to get through games and I just realized the dedication wasn't worth it because I wasn't having any fun. You call it completion, looking back now, I call it useless tasks. Because pausing the game in Eat lead and only performing some of the challenges in Hitman is hardly completion. I've seen and heard many people say completion matters to them only to find out that 'dedication' to completion only extends to achievements/trophies and they're sitting there with a large chunk of things left to do.

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I really don't try to complete games. If you look through my game history, I have some games with 5 gamerscore that I played for 10 minutes. If I really don't t like the game, I won't play it. Simple as that. If I like the game though, I try to get as much as possible. But I don't stress over 100% completion.

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