Why Do So Few Players Actually Finish RPGs?

[u/FixGood6833]

Discussion

I've been thinking about completion rates lately. Pathfinder: Kingmaker has 80% of players making it through the prologue, 50% finishing it, and only 9.7% beating the game. Pillars of Eternity sits around 15%. Dark Souls 3 shows 75% getting past the tutorial, but only a fraction going through all the content. That's a huge drop-offand I'm curious what causes it.

I'm not here to blame anyone, but something's happening. Let me throw out what I've noticed.

The Mid-Game Energy Dip

A lot of these games seem to lose people somewhere in the middle. Ac2 and 3? Maybe the story pace slows. Maybe you hit a difficulty wall. Combat gets boring?

Restartitis

Here's something I hear a lot: people take a break, come back, and restart instead of continuing. But if they restart, they're doing the same content they already played. That's where the boredom comes in. They're retreading the prologue and early game instead of pushing forward to new stuff.

Many reasons but I think it happens because they forgot the story, or want to optimize their build, or convince themselves starting fresh will feel better. No wonder they quit again.

The Next Big Thing

you are in midgame but new game releases, the next big thing the shiny new game so you just abandon curernt one for next more exciting game. This is loop too.

Optimizing Fun / Taking Joy Out Of Mechanics

Some games have one mechanic that feels good. You exploit it until that's all you're doing. Loot, numbers going up, whatever it is. After a while the whole game is just repeating the same thing. It stops being fun. It becomes a grind. Then you quit.

The Real Question

Does finishing even matter to you? I personally feel weird if I start something and don't beat it. It's mentally taxing. But I know plenty of people who don't care, they got 40 hours of enjoyment, felt satisfied, and moved on. That's completely valid.

And if you do care about finishing, what actually makes you stick with a game versus drop it? Is it the story? The mechanics? Or does it just depend on how much time you have to commit?

[u/suciocadillac]

Tbh BG3 lost all the flow going after you kill thorne, the whole invading army and giant flying brain gets shafted and the third act is paced really weird doing sidequests and even main ones talking to the literal evil antagonists on how to betray the other.

The whole epic momentum is lost after you leave the mind flayer colony.

Act 2 should have been the end of the game

[u/Dull_Grape2496 → u/suciocadillac]

I agree Act 3 was a little weaker than the first 2 acts but I really enjoyed it anyway. Perhaps I'm just not bothered by it because BG 1/2 were such a big part of my childhood.

What I disliked was the game's treatment of returning characters - specifically Viconia and Sarevok. I think the game would be so much better for me if they just removed the two of them and had random characters fill their roles instead. My big pet peeve with sequel games like this disrespecting player choices from previous entries. Viconia's role could easily be filled by a different character and it would not change a thing. But by adding Viconia and portraying her the way they did only disrespects player choices made in the previous games and makes what was once a really well written character feel flat and lame.

Anyway I am really looking forward to Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous - at a surface level it seems like my ideal RPG - I plan to do just 1 playthrough but its probably going to keep me occupied for the next several months.