If that’s what brings you joy and how you like to play games, more power to you.

Eh, who cares really. As long as it’s offline, you play however you want, mod and cheat the game, use a walkthrough… Or don’t, up to you.

Let me answer the headline with a couple other questions: What’s your opinion about consulting a GPS or map when going somewhere you haven’t been before? What’s your opinion on not cooking every meal from scratch?

Some of us have cognitive impairments that lead us to otherwise getting completely lost and abandoning the game altogether. Others just want to get past an annoyance like in your case.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s ok to achieve things with help, especially in a medium that’s supposed to be about enjoyment and an escape from the drudgery of real life.

I never got the appeal of achievements in the first place. I see them more as friendly reminders than something actually worthwhile pursuing. Chasing them is only making things stressful and tedious, oftentimes annoying and grindy. That’s kinda the exact opposite of any of the reasons I play video games for in the first place. If you want to use guides to get that 100% completion badge, do it. But if you ask me, your question means that you’re letting other people tell you how to play your games on 2 different levels: first by the devs in telling you what “completing the game” has to mean for you and now, secondly, by strangers on the internet in their opinion about which ways to get there are appropriate. Play it the way you want! If you want to hunt achievements because it’s fun to you, do it! And if you feel like referring to guides to get there, then do that, too!

I dunno. In the broader sense, I feel like I achieved many things in life with guides. The things I did without guides were significantly worse and are more embarrassing via their poor outcome, than they are satisfying through their sheer difficulty. For example, I learned broken Vietnamese out of sheer necessity by just staring at words long enough – but the fact is that I’m an adult that speaks with the eloquence of a child. Overcoming difficulty sometimes masquerades as success, but it’s not he same.

I don’t see why video games would be different. If it helps you be the hero in your story, why not? That’s what we all want, isn’t it?

Or maybe the real accomplishment is writing guides, in guiding others to be the hero? It’s dangerous to go alone ;)

My opinion is to not have opinions about how other people enjoy their games. For myself, I’m not above using a guide but I’m also likely to just move on when it starts to feel like a study guide for a test.

It’s a game, do whatever you want. Every achievement is already solved and completed by hundreds of people before you at least so it’s not really that special for you to figure it out on your own anyway.

Aside from the fact that people in your life may like that these things because they bring you pleasure. No one will ever really care about your video game trophies/achievements but you.

If no one else cares about them, then no one cares about how you got them.

If you think using a walk through or guide lessens your sense of achievement, then don’t do it and accept you may never 100% the game in question.

In the end, do whatever brings you the pleasure.

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Usually I tend to want to try things myself until I get extremely frustrated. I enjoy games more when I have to figure it all out myself. But at some point, when I’ve achieved most of the main game and I’m on to the extra stuff, I tend to look some stuff up. Some extra content like sidequests or achievements are just silly and don’t really bring me any joy to solve, so I make them a bit easier by looking up parts of it.

I don’t care how anyone else plays the games though. They should play a game however they like

Sometimes getting an achievement shows you some unique bit of content you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. In those cases I am 100% for it.

Totally okay if the game is endless like RDR2, for example. Now, Journey, on the other hand, feels more organic to just explore the possibilities. Depends of two things for me, his much I enjoy the game and if there is another one waiting for my attention.

There have been several achievements I could only get with a guide for Forza horizon 5. A few shortcuts that were required to make it with a 3 star time. I have no issue with using guides but you do you.

For me it is a balance. Getting the achievement the correct way feels nice, but I am also aware that if the achievement is too dificult to get I might lose interest in the game. Add to this the fact that achievements are in fact made by human beings that are flawed by nature and could make them unfair, I refuse to compensate for bad design with my own time and attention.

Even back before youtube guides, I used to use ASCII text guides to help when I got stuck at something. It also helped immerse me in the game I was playing to read about cool things I didn’t know about. But if you don’t feel like it’s deserved, don’t use guides. It doesn’t detract from my personal experience, because I usually don’t have that amount of time to put into a single game or a specific achievement.