How are you all playing these insanely complex games?

novakeith, 7 months ago

I’m curious why you think Deep Rock Galactic is complex. It’s one of the most “pick up and play” friendly games, I think, that I own.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

I don’t remember. According to my history I last played Feb 2022 and for a total of 7 hours. I just remember why I quit.

novakeith, 7 months ago

If you want a calm group of people to play with, DM me and we can trade Steam information (assuming you use that platform) - we typically need a 4th player anyway

helenslunch, 7 months ago

443664174

novakeith, 7 months ago

Just sent you a request. KNova

steb, 7 months ago

Exactly. I'd be reluctant to try any of the other games that OP names because I "don't have the time" and yet I have 200+ hours in DRG.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

Maybe I’ll find my way back to it later…

Skua, 7 months ago

Obviously if you don't enjoy it then that's 100% valid, but at least in terms of understanding what to do it's totally okay to play DRG without understanding anything beyond "shoot bugs and do whatever thing mission control most recently asked you to do". There's no need to play at a higher hazard if you don't yet know or just don't care to know about how to set up your weapons for maximum effectiveness or how to counter each type of bug and so on. Just play at whatever hazard you find fun and try things out until you find what you enjoy. There's no class or weapon that is non-functional without some other component. No wrong choices, so to speak. They're all just degrees of better and worse at any given job, and if you try something out on a mission and it doesn't work then the absolute worst possible penalty is just that you fail that mission and only get a little bit of xp and cash instead of a bigger amount.

Stillhart, 7 months ago

Personally, I find that researching games on the internet can be really fun. I get analysis paralysis pretty badly (I’m the guy who is always worried he will be out of consumables when he needs them so he never uses them in the first place!) so researching a little beforehand helps me enjoy myself more. I don’t need to min/max the fun out of a game, but knowing I’m on the right track is really good for my enjoyment levels.

And this is very much a me thing, and that’s okay. We play games to have fun so play the way that’s the most fun for you. If you don’t like doing research before you play, but the game seems to require it, then play something else. It’s okay to not like a game. (I wasn’t super into BG3… shhh! Don’t tell the internet or they will burn me alive! Good game, but not for me.)

Personally, I really like rogue-lites these days. They’re games where you are meant to replay them and every run will be randomized in some way so that each one ends up being unique. (Hades, FTL, Nova Drift, those sorts of games.) The randomness makes it so that there’s no WRONG way to play, just better or worse choices for a given run, which takes that “stress” of making a wring choice away for me.

You gotta find what floats your boat and don’t worry about the other games.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

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.

Stillhart, 7 months ago

There are lots of games out there, and just like any kind of entertainment, some will hold your hand and some won’t. Everyone has different tastes, different things they want to do with their time, different amounts of time and money, and there are games that cater to all of them.

Unfortunately, the only way to tell which is which without playing it first is by doing a little research.

So it seems like you’re a little stuck, you either play a game blind and hope it’s right for you, or you look into it beforehand to figure it out before spending your money. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect but hey, you do you. Good luck!

helenslunch, 7 months ago

I get that. I just don’t know how to figure out which is which before I actually buy it.

Stillhart, 7 months ago

Well, there is a pretty large community of gamers who play games on Youtube and Twitch professionally. You could always watch someone else play it briefly to get an idea of what to expect. Once you eventually find some games you really like the style of, you will be in good shape. You can then ask for more targetted recommendations here on Lemmy, or look up reviews for games in a similar genre, or find streamers who play games you like and look through their old videos for similar games (they tend to stick to a style usually), etc.

First step, I think, is figuring out not what you don’t like, but what you DO like.

averyminya, 7 months ago

I just want my games to have all the necessary information in the game.

Something that I meant to say in my comment but slipped my mind; a lot of these games will have you learn by playing. IMO, games either show too much trying to show you everything or they don’t show you anything and have you learn the mechanics of the game and its engine.

It sounds like you are wanting some information from the game before you start it, but the game is going to do that by experience not by text, which is why so many people have said “oh that’s why we look it up online!”. They’re just doing the same thing you are, just not in the game. I understand not wanting to be in the game and then having to get taken out of it for something though.

It sounds like each game you mentioned you wanted information from the game before you started playing it, which is the same thing that everyone else has done just with the internet. Personally, I’m in the camp of jump in and go and then 40 hours in if there is still something the game hasn’t explained (or realistically, something that I skipped over) then I look it up. Otherwise, you spend all your time reading about what to expect instead of just having it happen to you.

This sounds like it might suit you as long as you give up some expectations. Like I said, from how you’re talking it sounds like you’re still trying to preload on information (like everyone else) but expecting it from the game. The game will show you eventually, you just gotta see the response from your actions and suffer the consequences!

FWIW it’s a wide range of genres out there. Games at this point are being made from decades of existing gamer techniques. There’s games like Monster Hunter where the game gives you an hour and half of learning the game and there’s still more to learn in entirely different aspects of the game (crafting weapons/armor/items and the actual attacks and monster patterns), there’s games like BG3 where there are character traits and specifics that are there for nudging you to play a certain way (where min/maxing is minimum amount of effort for maximum amount of gains - it’s not very ideal to have a strength warrior focusing on magic).

Then there’s games like Pathologic that do tell you exactly what you need to do, but the entirety of the game is made to dissuade you from playing it.

You should try Shadow Warrior. It is a first person slasher where all of your abilities are gained one by one and grow on top of each other. It tells you everything you need to know, no guesswork. Max Payne 3 is a third person shooter that is very straightforward. And Okami, a third person open-area puzzle explorer, where the game makes you think outside the box for abilities it has taught you how to use, and just a few points where you have to do an explicit objective before continuing.

Story based progression games akin to Borderlands but free from inventory and stats. No bothering with how many levels you have to get through before you can level up your abilities, just good old point A to point B action.

Tl;Dr don’t preload information from games, compile information from playing them

helenslunch, 7 months ago

You should try Shadow Warrior.

Already played this one and thoroughly enjoyed it, thanks for the suggestions!

averyminya, 7 months ago

Hey, glad I had a good guess that was already up your alley! And sorry for some of the responses - unfortunately elitism has a high correlation to certain min/max communities.

Overzeetop, 7 months ago

Yeah, I’m with you and it’s keeping me from really starting a new game. I got back into gaming with Elite Dangerous and got a kick out of the hours of offline research (because the in-game tools were fucking terrible when they even existed). It took me a while to get past the cool graphics and flight, but it got boring and tedious managing stuff. I failed to start Witcher 3 twice before just diving in and deciding I was going to not figure out anything and just play. It’s a far more forgiving system than most, and the gameplay benefits from it (to the suffering of realism).

While I enjoy the games, I loathe the min-max and inventory management necessary in most games. That’s not technically necessary if you spend a couple hundred hours perfecting technique. While that’s less than a month for a full time gamer, it’s about 5 years of play time in my life, so I end up looking up some obscure bit on line and chasing crafting for no good reason except to make my gaming time no fun. As a result, most of my SteamDeck time has been on simple arcade shooters and a couple of card-combat games. It’s frustrating to know there are good games out there if I just had 20-30 hours to get into them, and also knowing that I’ll have 20-30 hours free on a regular basis only when I retire some day. I guess my nursing home days will have lots of content, so I’ve got that going for me.

ampersandrew, 7 months ago

Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of mechanics to it, but it does a really good job of onboarding you in most of them. On character creation, or on leveling up, or anything where the game asks you to make a decision about how you've built out your character, there are tooltips to explain the mechanics. Mouse over it if you're on mouse + keyboard, or press Select or click in the right analog stick if you're on controller (it should tell you which one). It will explain everything you need to know there. But if you'd like to breeze past the character creation screen, you can choose an origin character, which are pre-made, or you can stick to basics. Choose a Fighter with 17 Strength if you want to do melee stuff. Choose a Rogue with 17 Dexterity if you want to do ranged attacks like bows. Choose a Wizard with 17 Intelligence if you want to do magic; magic uses "spell slots" instead of mana or MP, which basically just means you can use a spell that many times. When you get the option to choose a "feat", which is approximately every 4 levels, upgrade that primary attribute until it hits 20, which is the max. Whatever that attribute is (the ones I just listed for those classes), the higher it is, the more likely you are to hit with your attacks.

The gist of it is, when you find a complicated game, you can often just engage with it on the most basic level, and then once you master that basic level, you build on it a little bit at a time. BG3 is a long game, so you've got plenty of opportunity to master what you know before building on it; rinse, repeat. I've applied this same methodology to fighting games plenty of times as well, which many people would consider to be a difficult genre to learn. We got rid of game manuals a long time ago, so complex games have had to get better and better at teaching you how to play while you're playing.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

Thank you for this insightful feedback ❤️

massive_bereavement, 7 months ago

I had the same overwhelming reaction to BG3's creation menu, but honestly, the game goes the mile to let you change everything later if you feel like it and honestly there's a "go with the flow" vibe by the fact that very few cases have instant game over conclusions.

I would say though that combat tends to be a measure twice and cut once because there's often an easy way of dealing with it, being either using the environment or exploring first another location that might give an advantage.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

I will just dive in, then!

EvaUnit02, 7 months ago

I love both Baldur's Gate III and fighting games but disagree. I think both are woefully inadequate at explaining their rules to players. Larian games need to not only make BGIII's rules as clear as a rulebook but also make tactics and strategies plain and clear to the user. Otherwise, it is very easy to fall back on decades of video game expectation only to realize your expectations are wrong. I had a co-op game of BG3 with a friend. My friend couldn't understand why he had to position his units anywhere. Didn't understand why inventory wasn't just immediately being teleported to a shared infinite item box. Didn't understand the basic mechanics of D&D combat (which even then, Larian changes to various degrees) Didn't understand why decisions had any meaningful consequences. Didn't even understand what he was supposed to be doing narratively despite there being a quest log and having us recap the story up to the point we were.

While fighting game tutorials have gotten better, I still have yet to experience one that explains very basic things that the FGC takes for granted. Things like health bars being identical physical lengths but representing different numerical values. Things like "waiting for your turn." Things like meter management.

Complex games are great. But complex games need to recognize that they have a larger duty to teach than simpler games. I think video game design needs to take a page out of tabletop game design and provide some analog to the tabletop rulebook: complete with not just rules but detailed explanations, sidebars, and examples of play.

ampersandrew, 7 months ago

I agree that fighting games haven't made it where they need to be yet. In fact, I've only ever found one that explains how to defend against a command grab, which is a very basic thing they should be doing better. As you agreed though, they're getting a lot closer, with a lot of intermediate steps along the way.

I disagree that the teaching tools are insufficient if they never teach you about something like positioning in Baldur's Gate. For one, you can observe that your opponents are doing so, and you can observe which things that makes easier or harder for you and why, like now it's harder for your melee character to hit them when they run away. That's way better than someone telling you about it, and it's better onboarding to not info dump all the rules at once.

EvaUnit02, 7 months ago

While I agree in principle, I think a game needs to make it clear when something isn't window dressing. My buddy just couldn't understand why positioning mattered. It never clicked for him because he figured RPG combat was just "swing a sword/shoot an arrow until the other guy dies". We had to explain it to him. He also never thought to explore the UI for information as to why his movement was reduced or why he was disadvantaged, despite having icons next to his character with tooltips explaining what status effects were in play. While it may seem obvious that things are happening on screen and one could deduce that something meaningful is occuring, I think if I'm honest, I can't blame my buddy for not understanding. I've fallen victim to it myself.

Sometimes we just don't, on our own, interpret information as being meaningful. Consequently, we unduly discard it before making decisions. I think it's important to be told in one form or the other when something matters. Whether that's tutorialization or otherwise, I think it's important. I think the more complicated the game, the easier it is for a player to fall in to a trap of discarding important information and subsequently becoming frustrated.

I think even something as simple as the game making its expectations clear from the start could go a long way. Something as simple as conveying to the user that they are expected to be attentive as they play.

ampersandrew, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

We had to explain it to him.

This line strikes me as curious. Were you playing co-op together for his first time through? There are a lot of tutorials in the early game that explain so much of this stuff that you have to explicitly dismiss that they're hard to miss...unless you're in a discord call with some friends. And did you have to explain it to him, or was that just the first opportunity he had to raise the question, and you answered right away without him having time to figure it out himself? Did he ask you because he found the game difficult, or did you just tell him without him even asking because you observed that he wasn't using his movement? The opening moments of the game actually require you to use your movement in turn based combat in order to continue, and you can observe which enemies can reach you or not as you approach your objective.

If your friend really had this hard of a time learning that without trying to see how to overcome the challenge by just doing anything else besides what didn't work, it sounds like the type of person that Sony gets for their play tests that tells them they need to give an answer to a puzzle after looking at it for only a few seconds. I don't know that you can onboard that person without frustrating everyone else, other than easy mode, which BG3 does have, and it tells you what kinds of expectations it has of you on that screen.

EvaUnit02, 7 months ago

And did you have to explain it to him, or was that just the first opportunity he had to raise the question, and you answered right away without him having time to figure it out himself?

I suppose it was a bit of both.

It was three of us playing. I had finished the game already by the time we started. At first, we left it to him to explore the systems on his own. He got frustrated with that and would complain that we weren't telling him what to do. So, we gradually explained more and more until we just started making decisions on our own. He was still frustrated. For example, late in to Act I, he would continue to throw his cleric in to the middle of battle as a melee fighter and die. Shortly after that, we all decided to stop playing.

There are a lot of tutorials in the early game that explain so much of this stuff that you have to explicitly dismiss that they're hard to miss.

I must have missed them, then. I don't recall any tutorials explaining anything beyond the cursory "you have to be in range to attack" or "potions heal HP" type of things. In fact, I loaded up my save and perused the tutorials again. The tutorial titled "Combat" simply tells you that there's an initiative roll, combatants are listed at the top of the screen, and during a turn, a character may take an action, bonus action, and move. It's entirely unhelpful. It may as well be a fighting game tutorial which says, "use punches and kicks to defeat your opponent."

The opening moments of the game actually require you to use your movement in turn based combat in order to continue, and you can observe which enemies can reach you or not as you approach your objective.

I got through it by just running past most everyone. Sure, you can clearly see you have to move and that you have actions to take but nothing else is explained beyond that. I think that opening sequence is a great example of the lack of explanations in the game. My buddy thought he had to kill absolutely everyone on the nautiloid. We tried twice before telling him that you can continue moving past enemies. The thought never occured to him. I can't blame him, either. All you're told is that you have to connect the transponder in a certain amount of turns and narratively, there's a sense of urgency. Nothing tells you that you don't have to kill everything on the screen. That might seem painfully obvious but that's my point: things obvious to one person are not obvious to another. That doesn't make someone stupid, either. They just have different experiences and different expectations.

Nothing in the game explains that encounters are not immutable. Nothing in the game, as far as I can remember, explains the value of environmental elements and how to leverage them in combat. Nothing explains the tactical value of oil or water on the ground. Nothing explains the concept of crowd control at all. Nothing explains how to keep backline party members safe. This is all left for the player to discover.

I've been playing Larian games for a long time and I don't remember a single one of BGIII, DOS2, or DOS ever explaining these concepts. If you walk in to these games without the understanding that you are expected to be observant and play around with the game mechanics, you will have a bad time. There are innumerable posts on the Web by people frustrated with the game because they don't know what to do. My buddy is not an isolated example. People think differently.

My buddy tried fighting in melee combat as a low-level cleric. That might be a totally valid thing to do in something like Final Fantasy. My buddy thought he had to kill every enemy on the nautiloid. Maybe that's just what you do in something like Diablo. Hell, I just finished a dungeon in Star Ocean which required exactly that. (It even told me upfront that would be the expectation of the dungeon) We are taught things which influence our decision making process. Without being told otherwise, it can be hard to understand exactly what is being asked of us as players as we try to reconcile those expections with our experiences.

My buddy didn't need to be told what to do. What he needed to be told is what he can do and why he might want to do those things. In that, Larian failed him and, in my opinion as an adoring fan of their games, they have a habit of doing so.

ampersandrew, 7 months ago

I don't think you actually let your friend fail and try to figure out how to not fail, and I don't think it makes the game better when you're so afraid of letting the player fail and apply what they've learned that there aren't actually any decisions to make, like those Sony examples (God of War and Horizon's latest entries, to be specific, were the ones that caught flak for this). That's where the fun comes from.

I don't recall any tutorials explaining anything beyond the cursory "you have to be in range to attack"

And that's all you need to know in order to determine that positioning matters. They also explain opportunity attacks.

The tutorial titled "Combat" simply tells you that there's an initiative roll, combatants are listed at the top of the screen, and during a turn, a character may take an action, bonus action, and move.

Which are a few of the things you said your friend was unaware of, despite the fact that several of these things are reiterated on most of the cards for your available actions during combat.

I've been playing Larian games for a long time and I don't remember a single one of BGIII, DOS2, or DOS ever explaining these concepts.

Me neither, but even in my brief time with DOS1, I don't recall needing to be told either. I just somehow found out that poison clouds can be set on fire, and very quickly.

This is not an insult to your friend, but just because he falls into the group that didn't catch on immediately, I don't think that's indicative that the game is bad at teaching you how to play it. The Nautiloid highlights exactly where you have to go and how many turns you have to do it. If you let him fail once and try again, presumably, he'd realize that what he was doing wasn't working and notice that giant UI element telling him how many turns he had to get to his objective.

comicallycluttered, 7 months ago

Lol, some of these replies…

I think you know what it is you enjoy, so you’ve just got to remember not to fall into that trap of “well, everyone says it’s good, so I must try it”.

The great reviews come from the people who already enjoy that kind of game. Like, reviewers on a site usually favor specific genres. If something gets a good review, you’ve got to put it into the context of whether or not it’s something the reviewer usually plays.

You’re not often going to see an RPG review by someone who mostly plays platformers.

So if an RPG is good to an RPG-enjoyer reviewer, and most of the people picking it up are already RPG fans, then good reviews are always going to be biased in favor of people who enjoy that gaming experience.

My advice?

Take a look at the tags on Steam. I know they’re user-submitted and “RPG” is on like every fucking game now, but things like “turn-based”, “tactical”, “simulation”, “crafting”, and a few others I’m forgetting will most likely be the things you’ll want to avoid (maybe there will be some exceptions here and there).

Also, wait a bit. No need to play games immediately. Play some stuff you enjoy for a year and then see if you still want to play it.

As for how and why people play these games… Just preference really. It comes down to the energy and time someone’s willing to commit. Neither a good thing or bad thing. Some find that thrilling, others find it chore. Both perspectives are perfectly valid.

Sometimes, people just enjoy them as is without getting too deep and never bother with “the meta” or whatever. Usually one of two things happens here: either they really enjoy it because they don’t have people backseat gaming them and telling them how to play and they’re finding creative ways to do things, or they find it a miserable experience because it’s just not fun if they don’t like the core mechanics.

I personally don’t have the energy for “deep complex games”, despite enjoying RPGs and immersive sims. I don’t ever bother with crafting or strategy games (although I did get into Civ V for a while, which was nice).

Over the years, I’ve learned what I like, what I don’t like, and just wait things out. Game Pass and deep sales help a lot here, actually. (Also other options, but not strictly ones people necessarily approve of for various reasons.)

EvaUnit02, 7 months ago

I think Larian Games do very little to explain their rules to the player. I, too, found it incredibly frustrating when I played Divinity: Original Sin and later, DOS 2. So while I didn't carve out time from my day to learn the ins and outs of Baldur's Gate III, I did have experience with the other two games that helped me navigate it.

I adore these games but it took many hours of training for me to understand what it was I was even supposed to be doing.

mrnotoriousman, 7 months ago

DOS: 2 was fuckin hard. I'm glad Larian made BG3 more forgiving. While I enjoyed DOS it was too much effort for most of my friends to get into.

LegionEris, 7 months ago

There are tons of games that don’t require that sort of knowledge base or study investment. It’s a minority that do. But you’re on Lemmy. This is a self selected community of extra thoughtful nerds. This community is more likely to be excited about games with homework than your average gaming community. I do genuinely love the research part of complex games. I like crafting builds and planning battles. I loved both Divinity Original Sin games and will love BG3 when I get there.

But sometimes I do just want a game for my hands to play while by brain takes a break. That’s why I spent most of the summer with Earth Defense Force 5, a 9/10 space insect exploding experience. Highly recommend it if you don’t want to fuck with the details.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

There are tons of games that don’t require that sort of knowledge base or study investment

Oh yeah I know that, it just seems like these type of games are super popular. My brother, who gifted me the game, loves it.

I think it may be something about my personality that just gets FOMO if I don’t know everything.

phonoodles, 7 months ago

You really need to put away the idea of having to min/max everything, especially in a single player game. Just make the choices as they come and if they aren’t perfectly optimal, who cares. Games are meant to be fun so if you are having fun then mission accomplished. If you still can’t shake the FOMO then yeah maybe the more complex games aren’t for you and that is okay too.

LegionEris, 7 months ago

Oh yeah I know that, it just seems like these type of games are super popular.

I honestly think that’s just your circle. That does not describe the majority of the gamers I know or have known. I have always been in a minority for wanting to do math in my free time and have to find places online to discuss these games because usually nobody else in my life is playing them. Most of the people I know who played BG3 did so because it is popular, and they avoided as much of the math and homework as possible. And most of them are done with it.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

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.

LegionEris, 7 months ago

BG3 is a huge exception. It’s more popular by far than most games of the sort. And still only two of the dozen gamers I work with has played any of it, and they are both done with it.

all these gamers glowing about how great it is

Where? If you mean online, yeah, online discussion and gaming publications focus on more complex games that more serious gamers are playing. There’s just more to say about them. And news sites are gonna pay more attention to exceptions to the norm like BG3. None of the many gamers in my life are talking about it. If you’re hearing about BG3 and other huge, complex games regularly, it’s because you are spending time in spaces where and with people who care about them. Because it’s not just everywhere.

RandoCalrandian, 7 months ago

Aren’t most gamers technically mobile gamers? Pokémon Go has a user base most PC games only dream of

LegionEris, 7 months ago

Tbh I play the hell out of some Kairosoft games on mobile <_< I love watching my little guys thrive.

sim_, 7 months ago

I’m with you, the research is half the fun for me with complex games. But like others have said, BG3 is a great example of “choose your own” depth. You can absolutely stumble your way through the game and do just fine!

bionicjoey, 7 months ago

The Baldur’s Gate character creator is a lot less daunting if you’ve played D&D before. Honestly I’ve seen far scarier character creation screens

Rottcodd, 7 months ago

Yeah - I just jump in and wing it.

At the risk of inviting the internet’s wrath, when people talk about the difference between serious gamers and casuals, this is the sort of thing they’re talking about.

“Serious” gaming involves a particular set of skills and interests, such that the person is willing and able to just jump into some complicated new game and figure it out. And it’s not just that “serious” gamers can do that - the point is that they want to. They enjoy it. They enjoy being lost, then slowly putting the pieces together and figuring out how things work and getting better because they’ve figured it out. And they enjoy the details - learning which skills do what and which items do what, and how it all interrelates. All that stuff isn’t some chore to be avoided - it’s a lot of the point - a lot of the reason that they (we) play games.

You talk about your inventory filling up and then just selling everything, and I can’t even imagine doing that. To me, that’s not just obviously bad strategy, but entirely missing the point - like buying ingredients to make delicious food, then bringing them home and throwing them in the garbage.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

You talk about your inventory filling up and then just selling everything

Uh, no, that’s not what I said at all.

My inventory is finite and at some point I have to choose what stays and what goes. Not only that but I have to sell enough things that I can continue picking up more items without leaving items on the ground in the middle of the map.

Then having to regularly stop and weigh the weapons in my inventory against the weapons on the ground and making choices I don’t even fully understand that come back to bite me in the ass later.

RandoCalrandian, 7 months ago

And what they're saying is that those elements are fun to the people who play these games.
Weighing different priorities to choose the best or preferred option for the future is flexing some very serious psychological muscles. Developing strategies to do it well is these types of people's version of practicing 3 point shots.

Reading you complain about it (which is fine, it doesn't have to be your sort of game!) is like listening to someone complain about how many times they have to throw the ball in basketball. "I just wanted to dribble and dunk, what are all of these other silly elements for? They're just getting in the way!"

If you want a really good comparison between these types of gamers and others, look at Path of Exile versus Diablo 4. Diablo took the mass-market appeal route, and de-prioritized many of the elements that more serious gamers enjoyed.

Now Path of Exile is a free to play money printing machine, and Diablo gets headlines for how poorly it's doing. There are many detailed analysis' online about why, and most of the reasons come down to removing the 'complicated' parts you're talking about.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

And what they’re saying is that those elements are fun to the people who play these games.

In no way did I respond to that.

Weighing different priorities to choose the best or preferred option for the future is flexing some very serious psychological muscles. Developing strategies to do it well is these types of people’s version of practicing 3 point shots.

That’s all well and good but the game often doesn’t give you the knowledge required to make those choices thoughtfully. It feels like I’m expected to spend my days on internet forums and search engines just to figure out how to play the game.

If that’s the case, that’s fine, I will just avoid the game. But I feel like there should be some sort of disclaimer in the store.

Reading you complain about it

I haven’t complained about anything. I just asked a question.

RandoCalrandian, 7 months ago

That’s all well and good but the game often doesn’t give you the knowledge required to make those choices thoughtfully

This is a complaint. One that other commenters have addressed.

It’s often an intentional and critical part of the vision of the game and why people play

Elden Ring, specifically, hides information from the player on purpose, intending for them to discover things through experience.

It doesn’t hold your hand at all and is arguably one of the better games in the last decade, in no small part due to features you are referencing.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

This is a complaint.

You are interpreting is as a complaint. But it is not. It is a relevant observation to the topic at hand.

intending for them to discover things through experience.

…through what experience? The experience of trawling wiki docs? Are they in the game or are they not in the game?

RandoCalrandian, 7 months ago

That particular decision was to keep them immersed in the game, and exploring.

But back to your warning label topic, what do you expect that to look like?

“E for e=mc^2”? Or “S for Seseme Street approved”?

We already have shenanigans in the rating system, this would be monumentally worse.

I am really curious what a metric for game complexity would even look like

Rottcodd, 7 months ago

My point though is that you talk about all of that as if it’s some sort of chore.

To me, it’s a lot of the fun.

I rarely even get to the point of having to stop and weigh choices in my inventory, since every time I come across something new, I have to stop and check it out and try to figure out what it is and what it does and what sort of advantages or disadvantages it might have. I enjoy that. So all along the way, I’m figuring out what I want to or think I should keep and what I want to or think I can get rid of, and not because a finite inventory demands it, but because that’s part of the point of playing in the first place.

Broadly, you’re asking if other people actually invest the time and energy to sort out how to play complex games. I’m saying that we not only can and do, but that that’s a lot of the point. That whole process of sorting things out is a lot of the reason that we play in the first place.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

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.

RandoCalrandian, 7 months ago

Perhaps this conversation would be more constructive if you told us some of the games you do like, instead of the ones you don’t.

Because I’ll tell you right now, unless you prefer interactive novels which are only arguably games, every game is based on repetitive gameplay.

Specifically, building repetitive gameplay on top of repetitive gameplay is what makes games, games.

Like with chess. You have a repetitive “chess game” loop which has many “your turn” loops inside.

What I’m asking is how you sort it out

To address this specifically, this is what the community of the game is about. It’s why wikis are created and maintained. And so the answer would change based on which game you’re talking about and your goals in that game

For borderlands specifically, a few quick heuristics you can use is to ignore all weapons of not legendary color while in lower level areas, or to stop picking up lower tier items when you don’t need the cash, or to skip everything that isn’t a shotgun because that’s the only piece you need to update

helenslunch, 7 months ago

every game is based on repetitive gameplay.

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.

RandoCalrandian, 7 months ago

Ok, then don’t play them. No one is forcing you.

You said BG3 was a gift, so it’s not costing you anything to not play something you don’t like.

Given what you’ve said, I would suggest avoiding anything with an RPG label anywhere.

For BG3, if you want to keep playing, you can skip the character creator. They have a dozen prebuilt options you can play without doing the detail work.

For inventory, you can ask your brother to handle it and send everything to camp.

But even with those, you’ll likely not enjoy BG3 because even the fighting mechanics are based around that type of complex decision making, making you pause all the time so that you can make those decisions.

It’s ok to tell your brother you don’t enjoy the gameplay. You don’t have to like it just because other people do.

ag_roberston_author, 7 months ago

My inventory is finite and at some point I have to choose what stays and what goes.

It’s not, actually. You can send anything and everything to camp and decide about it later on. This includes camp supplies/food.

helenslunch, 7 months ago

I was not speaking about any specific game.

muhyb, 7 months ago

For BG3, don’t search something about it, just start and play. You don’t need to know anything prior, however it’s a role-playing game so play accordingly what kind of character you created. You can save-scumming if you want if some desicion you made leads to something bad, though they all the part of the game. Just play and experience.

For games like Overwatch, it isn’t complicated at all. It just requires you to play it constantly and learn counter measures just by playing. Learning them is the fun part, overthinking about them not so much.

To be fair when I see “complex game” part, I was kinda expexting some advanced building games, something like Factorio, maybe RimWorld.

Anyway, also you don’t have to like any games even if they are overwhelmingly positive titles. Just find what you like and dig in.

Moonguide, 7 months ago

I don’t know I’d qualify Rimworld as complicated, honestly. It has more moving parts than The Sims, sure, but it is nowhere near how complicated EU4 seems (I haven’t played it, it scares me, but CK is another good example).

GrayBackgroundMusic, 7 months ago

Counterpoint. Rimworld is complicated. EU4 is super complicated.

key, 7 months ago

Hey now factorio isn’t complex, just play it a lot and you’ll pick it up… I’m 2000 hours in and managed to finish a game in only 70 hours! I’m thiiiiis close to making train lines without constant crashes. Pretty soon I’ll feel ready to add in Bob’s mods to the mix. It’s… Simple…

KSPAtlas, 7 months ago

You should jump right into PyAE, very great easy mod idea just trust me

/s

Rolder, 7 months ago

When you have a lot of experience with games, you find that most things follow common trends and tropes. Like if I open a new shooter it’s a safe bet that shift is gonna make me sprint and things like that.

In Baldurs Gate specifically, it’s basically Dungeons and Dragons in a video game format, so if you know Dungeons and Dragons already that is a huge head start.

Sharpiemarker, 7 months ago

I used to be into brainy games. When life gets busy, I tend to enjoy simpler games that are easy to put down.

MMOs require a lot of time and effort.

I think some games require you to be a bit ADHD.

sculd, 7 months ago

I got you. Nowadays I would look at the UI of a game first before jumping in. If it looks too complicated I just pass. My job is already complicated enough, I don’t need to make myself more stressed when I just want to have fun.

bermuda, 7 months ago

It’s just lots of experimentation. Lots of complex games are games that are not designed for you to make it through successfully on your first go. They’re designed to be complete game overs that you learn from and make it further the next time. Lots of games also have a lot of moving parts that you have to master each one individually before you can tackle the whole thing. There’s a reason Hitman speedruns are like 1 minute each level when most regular players can take well above an hour.

ono, 7 months ago

IMHO, some of the beauty of Baldur’s Gate 3 lies in the ability to start playing immediately, and discover the mechanics little by little as you go. Instead of an impenetrable wall of complexity, it gives you a world to explore while learning something new every time you play.

However, if you want to study the mechanics, you can also consult the D&D 5th edition rules. BG3 follows most of them. media.wizards.com/2018/…/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf