I was speaking broadly but “repetitive” isn’t a binary quality, there is a spectrum.
this conversation would be more constructive if you told us some of the games you do like
Well, that would be a long list but my absolute favorite games are of a very specific nature. I don’t know if there’s a name for them. All the Devil May Crys (but especially DMC), God of War, Control, Jed: Fallen Order, etc. Basically third-person fighter games with combo attacks, a relatively clear direction (even when there are multiple available), and an easy-to-understand progressive skill tree. Anything with characteristics like “strength, charisma, durability” etc. tends to lose me very quickly because while those words have very clear and obvious meanings in the real world, it never explains what those things actually mean in the game and I find myself just upgrading them almost totally randomly.
It’s why wikis are created and maintained.
When I’m relaxing I don’t want to spend my time reading documents, personally. I never see any mention of “pick up and play-ability” in reviews and no one ever seems to complain about the complexity so I inevitably end up buying these games because gamers rave about them, playing for a few hours, and then getting bored/confused and dropping them, which ends up being a giant waste of time and money because I got zero enjoyment out of them.
I mean it’s all over headlines in the gaming community, and front page all the time in the Steam store, and all these gamers glowing about how great it is. So not necessarily “my circle” but just the gaming community as a whole.
Personally, I find that researching games on the internet can be really fun
Yeah, I don’t find that fun at all, and have no interest in such things, so I’m just trying to figure out if that’s what I need to do, because if so, I’m out, and I don’t want to start walking down that path and spend my valuable gaming time tearing my hair out because the necessary info simply doesn’t exist in the game. I just want to relax.
Honestly just being here reading all these responses and trying to figure out what “min/max” and “rogue-lites” (rogue-likes?) are is exhausting. I just want my games to have all the necessary information in the game.
I can’t speak for today but when I played it, it wasn’t so much “complex” as there were hidden missions (and according weapons) that are nearly impossible to find if you don’t know about them, and raids you basically have to join a group with a leader and the leader will require that you read documentation before-hand because they’re nearly impossible to figure out on your own.
Absolutely. I spent years playing Destiny and eventually got tired of researching lore on the web because that’s what you had to do. The secret missions and guns and raids are next to impossible to figure out on your own.
As for OW, I played for a while but was just instantly slaughtered. My playmate explained it was because I was X character and Y character has Z ability and I needed to switch to V character when I respawn to counter their abilities and then I realized she had spent hours researching all these character traits on the internet and that’s around the time I bailed.
casual mode or training mode first and just get a feel for everything
These usually don’t have any explanation of the game mechanics though. Like you’d have to sit down and analyze all the character traits on some web forum in order to not get immediately slaughtered by other more experienced players, since it’s multiplayer only.
My point though is that you talk about all of that as if it’s some sort of chore.
Repetitive gameplay is not fun for me, personally but more power to you. I’m just trying to figure out what exactly I’m missing before I invest time into this game.
I rarely even get to the point of having to stop and weigh choices in my inventory
Those are not the types of games I’m talking about. Borderlands is the worst example I can think of where you have to stop every 3 minutes because the ground is constantly just littered with weapons, each with a dozen traits that is, at no time, explained to you while playing the game.
Horizon Zero Dawn is another one.
Now obviously those games are very popular, which is precisely what I’m trying to understand.
Broadly, you’re asking if other people actually invest the time and energy to sort out how to play complex games.
No it’s not. Obviously you do, or you wouldn’t play them. What I’m asking is how you sort it out.