Agreed there's a lot of freedom in how you approach things. When I started Fallout 3, I was coming from JRPGs which normally started linear and opened up over the course of the game. I exited the fault and was at a loss to what I should do or do first maybe. It took time, but I eventually grew to appreciate that as I became more knowledgeable about the game - went from confusion to go to junkyard -> get Dogmeat -> get Victory rifle -> start game proper lol.
I just hope they don't ever repeat the timed Minutemen Radiant quests from Fallout 4 (that cannot be refused). Reading your comment made me realize how unusual those are compared to the zero pressure of other quests. They were not a good change either.
Open world games (often western) arent the types of games for completionists either. You got to be a hardcore gamer to do everything.
I cleared out most Fallout 3 locations, but realized what a time sink that was as well as repetitive. So when I played Skyrim on 360 I wasnt so amped up on finding every location. I'd clear out shit and eventually beat the game on Series X (continuing my cloud game saves from my Xbox One!).
When I played Oblivion, I actually had bookmarked game sites that showed every location that was in the game thinking I would literally clear out like 200 locations. Then I realized how dumb that was and just randomly explored. Then got to a point I just said fuck it, I had enough dabbling and bee lined the main quest to beat it.
I'm no developer, but I dont think they expect gamers to do so much in open world games. They want to give gamers the freedom to do their own path and eventually beat the game. But some of the complaints come from gamers trying to every quest, so of course it'll get repetitive. It sounds pretty hard to make 200 quests all insanely different. If the average gamer was modest in their open world gaming where they dabble with some parts of the game and then beat it, it wont be so samey and like a burden. But I think a lot of open world gamers do this:
- Boot up game and create character
- Explore on your own doing as much shit as possible even if its repetitive like the 25th cave to clear out
- At some point either quit the game due to burn out and dont want to spend time beating the main quest, or they finally get to the main quest
- Final rating. Either it's a great game because I did a lot of shit. Or the game sucks because it's a smorgasbord of repetitious stuff
I dont think too many gamers buy an open world game and all they do is bee line the main quest and then quit.