Tedious optimal play is probably a whole book you could write.
I remember one old RPG where you got XP from reading books in the world. But if you went three menus deep, swapped on a particular accessory, exited three menus, then read the book, you’d get double the xp. What the fuck kind of choice is that? It was super tedious to do every time, and annoying to realize I was a level behind because I hadn’t been doing it.
I think this has mostly fallen out of fashion, but some games would have a “your benefits from leveling are determined by your stats at the time of level up.” So if you’re about to level, you better swap on as much +wis +con +int gear as you can, or you’ll be significantly under powered at the end of the game. Extremely tedious. Takes you out of the gameplay loop. Trash.