Should collectibles go away?

Only ones that make sense are those rewarded for completing a challenge. I don't mind getting rewards for completing a tasks proficiently. For example, beat every boss without dying once, complete this level in under 10 minutes. That's fine.

But collectibles? That shit needs to go. They're just pointless and 99% of the time break the immersion of the game. Why is a page from the book of the dead in some random sewers in the middle of nowhere? Why do I have to collect 100 gold coins to unlock an item? They're padding. They make you waste time. Thankfully they're rarer and rarer in most games except for Assassin's Creed. Hidden Packages in Vice City were a bore to collect.

I agree with you. One of the laziest game designs ever especially in story driven games. Make it meaningful and believable.

For example in Deus Ex you find credits and other goodies by exploring environments. That's cool. But collect xyz number of random items as a trophy or whatever is just lazy.

In games like Mafia II where they make (somewhat) contextual sense, I don't mind them at all and often enjoy searching for them (that, and vintage Playboy centerfolds are awesome).

But games like Assassin's Creed where they are added for the sake of padding game length? Ugh...

No! I like collectibles! As long as they're not used as padding, or just plain ridiculous "collect 500 flags."

Collectibles are not the only padding in modern videogames though there is some merit to arguing they are one of the worst. Problems is... it's mostly Ubisoft that does this with every single game, like they have a fucking template of annoying awfulness which to their strange minds is 'fun'.

Far Cry 4 is great though, just don't collect, refuse, count yourself out and the game is excellent. It's saying something that you have to literally fight their awful game design to have a good time in a great game but hey it is what it is.

That's exactly what I did in Far Cry 4. Was a pretty fun game. I ignored most of the collectibles and just played the game and did the side quests.

I'm against the useless ones.

I have seen bad collectibles in games, but I think the worst one is the thermoses you collect in Alan Wake. They are 100% useless.

I agree if they are just there for the point of padding a game, or trophy bait. The biggest one I can think of is the uncharted series treasures. I guess it kinda fits you are a treasure hunter and you find treasure, but I mean you collect it look at it and that's it. I suppose the argument could be made that it helps people explore a whole game world, rather than just the points connected to story advancement.

A game where collectibles were implemented in a good way was the Division, I liked how their collectibles gave context to earlier events prior to the start of the game . If the collectibles flesh out the story in the form of lore then it's cool, but collecting stuff for the sake of collecting stuff, not so much.

Worthless padding for shallow console games, yes it should go away and replaced with real content.

Who cares? If it's boring to collect shit in a game, then don't collect them. If it's fun, then collect them. I suppose it sucks if you have OCD but that's the individual's problem and not the game's.

Sometimes I just don't bother if it just feels way too tedious. In AC games most of them are easy to acquire, eventually you buy maps and stuff that pin-point them all. My achievement hunting compulsive tendencies can't help but do it as long as it's not too daunting. For GTA games, I straight up ignore pigeon hunts, screw that. I liked it for games like the first Tomb Raider reboot where finding artifacts and journal entries actually added to the narrative.

In short, no, they shouldn't go, but developers need to make it not feel cheap. And like @SOedipus says, if you don't like collecting stuff, then just don't. Works for me.

As for things like achievements, I find it like a great excuse to go back and replay the games which I don't mind if I found such game to be fun. It's like if when you were a kid and you just cracked open a Where's Waldo book to find Waldo, you can pretty much finish it on the shitter. But, if you go to the back, and it has a checklist of things to find like "find the clown making people laugh", replay value. In this way, I feel collectibles should be like that, designed to take you back into an enjoyable game, to appreciate it more, not something that make people hate it more (looking at you AC Unity and those stupid mobile app unlocking chests).

I don't mind collectibles, but there is a fine line developers have to walk. Games like the Bioshock series and TLOU have very meaningful collectibles.

No.

I think collectables can be fine, if used right. For example, putting collectables in hard to reach locations of a 2D platformer is a nice way to say "hey, can you do all these challenging things in this level by collecting everything?". I also enjoyed some of the collect-a-thons that people dispise in old Rare games like Banjo-Kazooie. But each to their own.

I don't see why it should "go away" if others enjoy it and you can simply ignore it.

If you don't want collectibles... don't collect them.

Concept.

Except when they're used as an obstacle to get something desirable it's not as simple. I just wanted the black dye in AC Unity and had to collect 100 cockades for it.

I don't mind collectables as long as you get rewarded with a weapon/power up or something, but getting nothing for collecting all the flags in AC was annoying.

I'm sure no one complained with the collectables in Mafia 2 lol.

there were these collectibles in Mirror's Edge Catalyst and at first I was: "Are you kidding me ? another open world games with collectibles ? pass !"

But after a while I liked hunting for these hard to reach collectibles, in fact I thought it totally fit a platformer game. It fits Mario, it fits Banjo Kazooie and it fits Mirror's Edge.

But yeah if you want your collect-a-thon to have some meaning, don't just make the collectibles abstract nonsense. Make them have some meaning.

It really depends on how they are implemented. Rastchet and Clank for example do it pretty cool. You can gather pieces of a plan for the ultimate weapon and gather golden bolts which unlock "cheats". For all of them you need to do some sort of short challenge or find a hidden pathway or something special else. If implemented that way, i'm totally fine with it.

On the other side, ubisoft is horrible in adding collectibles in their games

@Juub1990:

Speak for yo'self! I love collectibles! It's like playing Tomb Raider on every game!