The analogy makes a lot of sense to me. Once you have an “easy button”, it’s hard to not use it. It’s sort of like when you’re at work and see the “quick workaround” effectively become the standard process.
I remember burning out on games because the cheats made them really fun in the short term, but afterward playing normally felt like agony.
I have to force myself to not fall into the trap of trying to play a “perfect” game and instead to just let happen, what happens. Blundering through content and accepting temporary setbacks is more fun than following guides or save scumming.
But it also depends on game design:
With bg3 I missed a one of a kind item in act 1, a staple dnd item (ring of protection) that I was locked out off because I did quests in the “wrong” order. that gave me some anxiety, after which I started checking the wiki page before starting a new zone, which eventually sucked the fun out of the game, after which I abandoned my first playthrough.
And then I found a mod that randomizes all loot, so I can just let happen again what happens, without that anxiety of losing access to unique loot because of game design.
I also fall into this trap semi regularly, a happy medium I have found is a missable items guide that doesn’t tell you how to play or where to go but it does tell you “make sure you get item X before going to place Y as that’s your last chance”
It means I can be happy to play sub optimally knowing that if I really want I can go back and collect anything I missed later.
This has been quite good for Clair obscur
You got upset because you missed a +1AC item? There’s so many much better items in that game I’m surprised this one matters so much.
I totally recognise playing the perfect game angle though, depending on the game I look up collectibles ahead of time, so that when I find the area I know there’s one nearby.
Nah, the knowledge that I could be locked out of unique items is what caused anxiety, not what I was actually locked out off (though I do think it’s a really good item for a ring). I played act 1 as a blundering fool, at the end of act 1 I checked an item list to see what I missed, so I could backtrack for what I could use. And then I destroyed my fun in act 2 by checking guides before starting an area.