[Taking Part in the NEXON PEAK Post Challenge]

https://peak.nexon.com/post/2343

When I first started playing Elsword, my goal was simple.

I wanted to choose a character, clear dungeons quickly, and build up my gear to take on harder content. Since it was an action game, I naturally thought combat would leave the most lasting impression.

But as time went on, I found myself checking my wardrobe more often than my equipment window.

I would register a piece of clothing from an event, look for a hair accessory I did not have yet, and compare colors that might suit another character. Some days, I stopped after just three dungeon runs, yet spent more than an hour standing in town changing outfits.

For me, Elsword is the NEXON game where collecting has been the most enjoyable.

I was not just collecting things I needed to become stronger. There were outfits and accessories, pets and titles that I could progress perfectly well without. Even so, the empty spaces in my collection kept them on my mind.

As those things accumulated one by one, it felt as though my account was keeping a record of the time I had spent.

It Started with One Event Outfit

I was not interested in collecting at first.

Back then, I paid more attention to stats than to my character's appearance. Even when I received clothing from an event, I put it in storage if it did not help my performance.

Then I got a costume top I liked.

The top looked quite nice on its own, but its color did not match my existing pants at all. So I started looking for bottoms in a similar style. Once I found those, the shoes looked out of place. After I changed the shoes, the hairstyle began to bother me.

I had only meant to change one piece, but before I knew it, I was putting together a whole outfit.

The day I added the final piece, I felt just as pleased as I did when I put together a new set of gear, even though my combat power had not increased. I stood my character in town, turned them around to see the outfit from the front and back, and took several screenshots.

From then on, clothing was no longer just something to put on my character.

It became a record of the events I had taken part in, when they happened, and which character I had mainly been playing at the time.

As I Added More Characters, the Way I Collected Changed

Each character in Elsword had a distinct look and feel.

An outfit that suited one character often looked surprisingly awkward on another. Some characters looked good in bright colors, while darker colors or neat, simple clothes felt more natural on others.

At first, I dressed all my characters similarly.

It was hard to go wrong with outfits built around black and white. But as I added more characters, they began to look so alike that it was hard to tell them apart.

So I chose a theme for each character.

For one character, I focused on neat clothes like school uniforms; for another, combat outfits; and for another, seasonal clothing. Giving each a different direction made it easier to decide who would get a new outfit when it came out.

Rather than simply collecting as much as I could, I felt as though I was creating a small display for each character. That made it more enjoyable.

With Pets, I Remembered Our Time Together More Than Their Stats

After clothing, pets were the collectibles that left the strongest impression on me.

At first, I checked whether they would help in combat. I considered how well they attacked, whether they offered any convenience features, and whether they were worth raising.

But the pets I actually kept with me the longest were not necessarily the best-performing ones.

A pet that had been with me from the early days was hard to replace, even if its abilities were ordinary. It was always there beside me on dungeon results screens and in screenshots taken in town.

Often, I would try a new pet for a little while, then go back to my original one.

Each pet filled just one slot in the collection list, but my attachment varied greatly depending on how much time we had spent together. Those differences made collecting pets more enjoyable than simply adding to a total.

A Single Title Took Me to Dungeons I Rarely Visited

Titles were another part of the game that held my attention longer than I expected.

There were titles I needed for their effects, but there were also ones I wanted simply because I liked their names or how they looked.

The difficulty came when I had to run dungeons I would not normally visit over and over again.

The first few runs were fun, but I gradually grew tired as they added up. Still, when I saw that my progress was nearly complete, it was hard to stop. I would do another run or two, thinking, “I've come this far, so I might as well finish today.”

The moment I earned a title, I equipped it and went to town to see how it looked.

Sometimes I switched to another title a few days later, but the entry remained in my list. I liked that equipment went into storage when I replaced it, while my collection record remained part of my account.

The Guidelines I Developed Over Time

At first, I tried to collect everything I saw. That left me constantly counting the things I did not have instead of enjoying the game.

After that, I set a few guidelines for myself.

First, I collected only one type of item at a time.

I gave myself separate goals: clothing this month, pets next time, and so on. When I tried to fill several lists at once, I ran short of currency and could barely remember what I had obtained.

Second, I started with sets I could complete.

Holding on to the rest of a set while waiting for one hard-to-find piece only cluttered my storage. I found it more satisfying to start with sets I already had several pieces of, or ones whose remaining pieces I could get through an event.

Third, I checked whether items were registered before selling or clearing them out.

With so many similar-looking items, I sometimes mistakenly thought I had already registered something. I also hastily cleared out an unregistered item, only to spend time finding it again.

Fourth, I checked the event dates first.

I made sure to check whether the shop or exchange would close as soon as the event ended, and whether I could still claim rewards afterward. I had once left all my exchanges until the last day, only to find that I was a little short on the materials I needed.

Finally, I saved screenshots of completed outfits.

Once I changed an outfit, it was hard to remember the previous look. Taking one screenshot in town and another in a dungeon gave me a small album to look back through.

I Stopped When Collecting Began to Feel Like a Chore

Seeing empty spaces in a collection makes it tempting to keep going.

But trying to fill every entry brings more pressure than enjoyment. There was a time when I kept searching for event outfits I had missed and hard-to-find items until even launching the game felt tiring.

That was when I let go of the goal of completing everything.

I limited my goals to a few outfits for my favorite characters, pets I would keep with me for a long time, and titles whose names I liked.

It was all right to leave some spaces empty.

In fact, leaving the collection unfinished meant that finding something I liked in the next event gave me a reason to collect again.

My Collection Brought Back Memories of When I Played

Over years of playing a game, equipment stats and ways of fighting keep changing.

Yet looking at outfits and pets I obtained long ago somehow brings back what I was doing at the time. An item I earned while running dungeons with a friend, an outfit I barely managed to exchange for on the last day of an event, an accessory I thought about buying for a long time because I was short on currency—each held a different memory.

So collecting in Elsword was not just about increasing a number in the collection log.

It was a way of preserving the different periods of my time with the game.

Even when I grew a little tired of making my characters stronger, simply opening the wardrobe, changing an outfit, and choosing a pet to walk around town with gave me a reason to log in again.

For me, the game that makes collecting enjoyable is not the one with the most things to own.

It is the one where every item I have collected makes me think, “I remember when I got this.”

In that sense, Elsword was a game that kept me looking through my wardrobe and collection lists long after the fighting was over.

Which do you tend to keep longer in games: items with good stats, or collectibles that look good?

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