Unfortunately, no. Later in the game, you are railroaded and can't back track at all. The game has 20 chapters and one of the items I needed was in chapter 14 I think. And yes, you are completely right when you say the game is flawed. If you didn't have the right weapon mods, enough shottie shells and the RPG when you face the end boss, you're gonna have a bad time, and that ties into the question you put fourth in your edit.

I have a habit of hoarding consumables just incase I needed them in case the game throws a rediculously unbalanced challenge at you. More often than not, I found I didn't need to hoard items but there were a few games when it was needed. The way I beat Ruby weapon in Final Fantasy 7 was constantly hit him with a stockpile of dazers with releasing an unrelentling string of the ???? enemy skill. I think I used about 120 -130 dazers but I can't remember, it was definately over 100 though.

As for the category 2 items mentioned in your last post, I do use those items when I know the game. For example, I use a protection from undead scroll in Baldur's Gate 2 to take out the lich in Watchers Keep without any fuss. While this is cheesy is still a justifiable way to deal with the lich's cheesier imprison spell. The same goes for using a scroll of magic protection on Isair in Icewind Dale 2, he falls so quickly when you do that.

To me it's not a waste of time if it's something fun and the outcome is a memorable(good) one. ;)

It is still repetitive in that they repeat their last line until the next event happens.....and it's still frustrating for those who are completionists to go through every single map every time something happens to see new dialog. Of course, one can skip most of it, but still.....

I hoard them sometimes until the final battle or tough battles/moments because I worry I won't find more or that the item might be needed for some quest/event as well.

For me, this is perhaps the only form of OCD that I can tolerate. As long as you don't try to practice it in real life, then I see no way that it can ever be harmful to both you and other people. However, I think I can safely say that I've ever experienced the same experience that you've been through in LEGO games, where I would exert most of my effort into destroying every destructible object in the game in order to collect all the coins in every level of the game.

Ugh, I know the feeling. Once I binged on Dragon Age: Inquisition, and was determined to explore every inch of the map and solve every little sidequest. Except a lot of them involved senseless gathering such as those shards. After a week or so, I fully completed the game, but felt really drained by the experience. I then vowed to myself never to hunt for collectibles. If I stumble upon them by chance, so be it, but I'm no longer going to repeat that experience.

What I really don't like is games that go out of their way to antaganise looters/hoarders by way of asset resets.


All that ammo you've carefully hoarded.

All that gold you've carefully collected.

All those potions, scrolls and other buffs.

Gone. Vanished in a puff of smoke.

I still have misgivings about Mafia 2 for doing it at least twice. It just feels like my effort playing the game was wasted. (That I'll eventually finish the game and leave the hoard behind is besides the point...)

Yep, but it's always been a thing for me. If there is "fog of war" or similar I must clear out every dark spot. If there isn't, I still look behind every bush and follow every little piece of land as far as I can. The quest can wait, dammit, I'm having a look around!

Oh yeah, much tougher with those types of games. Might be a reason I don't like them as much.

I like the game's story/plot/gameplay(usually).....it's the aspects I mentioned which irk me the most.

The problem isn't(imo) just that they are that open....but that it's hard to make notes(in notepads/etc) as to what one has done/where one has been as some areas don't have many unique "landmarks"(i.e. "Played till the big house" doesn't work if surrounded by many big houses that all look the same).

Also they tend to refill the map's fog of war on FO3 which sucks as well.

Now as to open world games I like: Ones with narrow "sector entrances/exits"...i.e. the areas leading into a smaller area of the map have paths I can mark as my completion point when making notes. Other natural boundaries work as well in this regard. If games with open areas are cordoned off a bit by such boundaries it makes it much easier to play such for me.

Also: I like playing some games like infamous more with open worlds as to me they are mindless run and guns and I don't have the need as much to see every detail(usually) for some reason.


============
Aside: Love your avatar....Doom 3? I loved that game as it was nicely detailed yet closed off enough that i could explore everything easily.

Avatar: if I remember correctly, I just did a search for "pentagrams" and picked one I liked. Don't really know where it originated...

Over time I've just become less enamored of first-person "explore until you find something to do" games. Something about the Fallout reboot just didn't do it for me, probably because I loved "Oblivion" so much and it just came off as "Oblivion with different graphics" to me. I'm much more into isometric and/or turn-based games these days. Run-and-guns are fun, but some of them leave me with the feeling of "Stop pushing me to do something right away, I'm trying to look at something!"

1st bit: It came from Doom3, I believe. It's a great game where it's not too open and the action is pretty fun to boot.

2nd bit: Some run and guns are fun if they let one(well except bosses/etc) explore before/after fighting. Doom3(with a few exceptional moments) usually allows one to do so at their leisure. You might like it(but if you play it try the original version and NOT the BFG edition as that one cuts some content(in-game arcade cabinets in the Doom 3 expansion and some nazzi symbols in the classic doom games which come with it) due to licensing and legal issues, and the original version supports modding.

As for Oblivion: It looked pretty, had great music and intro, but the world was too open to remember everything I did and keep track of things. Also the damn enemies scaling to my level in difficulty was a bit annoying.

Ah yeah, not a fan of level scaling. I'd much rather have to work for it, which to me is more realistic approach. Of course I'm not going to tackle enemies that are way too strong for whatever level I'm at, but to to make them change just because I level up is lame.

Over-encumbrance is my bane. I have to carry everything that isn't nailed down on my quest to afford a bigger loot bag.

Obsessive compulsive looting? Never.

Wait, is that a sword that I can sell for 3 golds and increase my already 2 million? Nice.... :)

I played Deux Ex for the first time (the oldest one) recently to test it on Linux and was devastated to learn that you can't sell items. It tore my heart apart to have to drop that shotgun. :@

One more thing to consider is that, when you're playing a game for the first time, it's difficult to know which items are important and which are not. Some might even be quest items, others may be used for sidequests. E.g. I may not pick up every carrot I come across, but later I get a quest to obtain ten carrots and I only happen to have eight of them, and no matter how hard I try I can't find the last two, even though the previous area was chock full of them. Therefore I tend to stockpile items in case I need them much later.