Yeah, I often feel like devs are just banking on that "compulsion to 100% a game" Leroux's link mentions, rather than making the side-content engaging, fun and maybe, you know, actually story driven. As someone who doesn't have that compulsion, at all, I see it as particularly lazy and cheap.

I tend to ignore any and all side quest unless it alters an ending when it comes to an SP game. If the side quest just adds lore then that is OK too but I may not even try it unless a friends highly recommends it. For MP games I don't mind any side quest that offers up a challenge.

If the side stuff is done badly, then I just don't rate game highly.

What about when games have optional content, but the game is designed with the intent that the player would complete a sizeable portion of it? (Chrono Trigger is an example here, as is Final Fantasy 6.)

Or, I can mention the case of Romancing SaGa 1. To beat the game, all you need to do is the following:
* Play the intro of the main character you choose. (This is very short, and will likely be finished in your first playing session.)
* Fight a certain number of battles. This amount is rather large, and would be boring if it weren't for the sidequests you can do.
* Do one of 3 pre-ending quests. Which one you get depends on a hidden alignment value, which can be modified via sidequests.
* Do the final dungeon and beat the game.

That's it when it comes to mandatory portions of that game.

What the developers explect players to do, and what most players do, is to do side quests during that second step. As you do more sidequests, you'll get items that may make things a little easier, and you'll also fight battles along the way, so you don't need to tediously fight thousands (?) of battles just to get to the end without anything else to do.

So, in other words, sidequests are technically optional, but the player is expected to do them. (Worth noting, however, that the game doesn't require 100% completion; in fact, 100% is really difficult due to the fact that some quests will close after a certain number of battles (while others open).)

What are your thoughs on this structure? (Particularly interested in the opinions of those who normally just ignore all the side content.)

While I know it's not for everyone, I LOVED the Valkyrie battles.

Yes, and the Valkyries from GoW are a great example. After I did 3 I'm like, "This isn't fun" and decided to rush the rest of the game to end it.

The comment on the superbosses in FF10 is appropriate too: This is why the "non-International" version that doesn't have the dark aeons at all is the better version (especially since the dark aeons prevent certain backtracking until you can kill them).

ALL of the late game side content in FF12... It's like they decided, "since we made the game play itself, why don't we make all the optional battles take an hour or more?" but then also "but let's make sure they have to jump in and intervene all the time!"

Any game with a casino that is anything more than gambling for money to get money. Even Stardew Valley would be better without one, since it has a few things that are only acquired there. Yes, SDV's is tempered by the in-game luck mechanic, but it still takes tons of time spinning and waiting (and in multiplayer, it doesn't pause, but still hides the in-game clock). Ni no Kuni and Dragon Quest 11 were also victims of this.

Too many games have optional side acquisitions where you just get it too late. Nanostory (typing game that recently come out) gives you the "self" targeting spell, but it's basically the last thing you get, at the point when there's really only the last boss to get. Too early would have been a puzzle breaker, sure, but there are better ways. UNLIKE MANY, I don't have an issue where sidegame content can overpower you so the "last boss" sequence is too easy. But optional side superbosses that often go with this are, as discussed above, often a problem. But not always.

I could probably go on... But I'm already crossing the line where some of these are still good games in my mind, so clearly not ruined by the side content. (FFX is still the best in the numbered series, etc). GoW's valkyries was definitely a tipping point that made me decide not to bother with NG+.

I'm thinking that such quests might be appropriate, provided that:
* The quest is clearly marked as such. In other words, someone shouldn't just make the game too easy without being told that is going to happen. (Perhaps requiring the final boss be defeated first would work here.)
* The task of getting it requires a genre-appropriate challenge that is harder than the final boss.

I note that FF7's KotR Materia doesn't follow these guidelines; you get it through chocobo breeding (not difficult) and racing (not difficult when you have a good chocobo, and not genre-appropriate), and there's no indication that this item would be a game breaker.

I've passed on possibly good games with -- in my estimation -- too much dlc.

I've lost interest in bad games with too much busy work -- optional or not (ie Dragon Age Inquisition... which I played through completely hoping it would get as good as I'd been told. Nope.).

I've also lost interest in games (usually RPGs) that cancel objectives or quests based on your actions (or timers). There's nothing that deflates me more -- even in an experience I enjoy -- than being locked out of chunks of content this playthrough.

But I've never -- that I can remember -- lost interest in a good game due to too much optional side content. Now, I have taken "breaks" with some of the biggest games (yes, Ubisoft titles) and finished them over time... but I've never felt the whole thing was ruined.

And yes... those pesky Valkyrie fights!

Personal taste...

I quite liked them, but yes, they are tough... and I think I still have the final fight to accomplish! But for me, that's a bit of a positive... something that will call me back to the game one day just to 100% the experience. For what I consider a "great game," I'm glad to revisit it.

Hyrule Warriors. I generally love the "Koei Warriors" games. But that game -- more than any other? -- has too much content. WAY too much content. I played it TONS and never unlocked all tiers of weapons for the characters (before even "grinding" for particular weapons within them). I was just so overwhelmed with what it had that I... stopped going back to it. There was no way I was ever going to get through it all, so, I kind of dropped it from my rotation.

I already had too many characters to learn how to play with [you have to use a fixed set, sometimes specific one, in various missions required to progress] BEFORE they added even more in DLC. And this was all the Wii U version. The later DS added even more content, and the Switch port yet even more again (not that I have either handheld system).

So this is another case of, "loved the game, great game, but too much overwhelming amounts of optional/side content made me give it up".

I, in most cases at least, try to get as much content out of a game as is possible, so it really doesn't bother me. :)

Those pop-ups a la 'hey, here's some side missions' - if not too obnoxious - are imho quite helpful. But I can understand people, that find this bothersome.

Did want to add one thing...

I have felt that there are a number of good games with too much content in their main campaigns...

... and that if they edited either content or time needed for leveling to progress the story -- the experience would have been great (not just "good"). Again, Ubisoft is a serial offender -- especially once they moved to the recent RPG-lite trilogy.

Grinding for hours just to progress a story sometimes feels like I should bill UbiSoft for my time.

You might want to avoid Romancing SaGa, then.

Actions? Sure. Timers? No. This has to be tempered though... If the game is shorter, more can be locked out per play through. But a super long game? The vast majority if not all should be available in that one play through. FF10-2 is a good example of one done well. It's short and you literally can't get all paths in one play, but, as Final Fantasy games go, it's short. Probably the shortest? (I never did a full comparison to speeding through 4, since I never speed through 4.) In these cases, I consider "one play through" to include multiple plays of the main story. (FF10-2 has plenty of other things to complain about, like the promotion and matchmaking mini-games that were 100% "buy the guide" and even with a guide are annoying to do.)

I wouldn't say ruin, but definitely sometimes it does make the experience worse.
I'm having some trouble finishing Ghost of Tsushima because of the amount of side activities.. just can't focus on the main story to the point where I don't even remember what the hell I'm doing!

That's one where I didn't have any issues with it. I didn't quite get all the cosmetic skins (flower hunting would have been a PITA), but I got most. The game was just too fun and pretty not to explore it. And it was dense and packed enough it didn't run into the typical "open world game" issues for a while. I liked the "inverted" structure of it, too, where each new region that unlocked went faster than the previous.

Now other open world games got quite dull by their 6th "take out the fortification" and 3rd "activate the map tower" ones, I never did get bored of them in Tsushima.

This mention of "too much content" made me think of Cookie Clicker, which has quite a bit of content (including side content), and more is still planned, and I'm wondering if that game may reach the point of "too much side content".

In anything, I believe you need to use the garden to get to certain large amounts of cookies in a short time. (The biggest problem with the game is that it's just too long, and it also uses up too many CPU resources for what it is.)