this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Gaming

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How are you all playing these insanely complex games? (feddit.nl)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by helenslunch@feddit.nl to c/gaming@beehaw.org
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Just some off the top of my head: Destiny, Deep Rock Galactic, Overwatch, and most recently Baldur's Gate.

I received BG3 as a gift. I installed and loaded up the game and the first thing I was prompted to do is to create a character. There are like 12 different classes with 14 different abilities and 10 ability classes. The game does not explain any of this. I went to watch a tutorial online to try and wrap my head around all of this. The first tutorial just assumed you knew a bunch of stuff already. The second one I found was great but it was 1.5 hours long. There is no in-game tutorial I could find.

I just get very bored very quickly of analyzing character traits and I absolutely loathe inventory management (looking at you Borderlands). Often times my inventory fills up and then I end up just selling stuff that I have no idea what it does and later realizing it's an incredibly valuable item/resource and now I have to find more.

So my question is this: Do you guys really spend hours of your day just researching on the internet how to play these games? Or do you just jump in and wing it? Or does each game just build on top of working knowledge of previous similar games?

E: General consensus seems to be all of the above. Good to know!

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[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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@kbin.social 2 points 1 year 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.