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!

  • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Personally I just hop in an wing it. In the case of baldurs gate I already understood most classes and races because of DND but in general when it comes to games like that yeah I just wing it and hope for the best

  • muhyb@programming.dev
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    1 year 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@lemmy.ml
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      1 year 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).

  • limeaide@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I recently started playing Divinity Original Sin 2, and I went through this problem as well until I changed the way I approached the game.

    I just let go of trying to make the most optimized decisions and instead just make the decision I, or my character would make (if I’m role playing).

    I just realized that no matter what decision I make, it will still lead me to finish the game. If I really want to, later I can go back and play it again to see more of the game. Only if I like my first play-through though.

  • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I just pick a character class that looks interesting, make them look like me, and get going.

    Figure it out as I play, and just have fun. I pretty much never watch videos or read anything about games unless I get really stuck, or have already finished the game and am curious about other playstyles.

  • Glide@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    BG3 is a unique example in that its built in a system many players already know and understand, AND the whole thing is so watered down that you can absolutely just wing it with a rudimentary understanding of how things function and be fine. You don’t need to min/max to enjoy the game, and if it’s too hard there are multiple difficulty levels. It’s fine to hit explorer difficulty pick a class for RP and just enjoy the game. The “GaMeR” police aren’t going to kick down your door.

    The answer to the wider question is: No, I don’t. I like learning systems and I’ve practiced learning systems very rapidly. I’ve been quickly learning new systems for some 20+ years, so by now, I am just good at it. I do not spend any real length of time researching how to play these games; I load in, read and absorb what’s in front of me, and try thngs. Things that don’t work, I throw out, and I try new things. After a few iterations of this, if I am still heavily struggling I may Google some build repository so I can glance over some ideas of what other suggest work and then incorporate those ideas into my own setup, but even then, that practice is preserved for more competitive games. Games like BG3, Deep Rock, Warframe, Darktide, Inkbound, and Cassette Beasts, just to name some I’ve played in the last couple months, I’ll never look up how others build and play. This is in part because I don’t need to, and in part because crafting my own builds and finding my own solutions is a large part of the fun for me.

  • averyminya@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

    Why do you need to know? Just pick one and go with it!

    Deep Rock Galactic

    I haven’t played much but, it’s not complicated? There’s a main lobby where you select a quest, then you go on it. It generally involved following a path and gathering/dropping off stuff with some fighting in between.

    Overwatch

    This one is just anticipating other people’s movement on a map, which can be chaotic but I don’t really think it’s complicated? Honestly if you’re having issues just play Paladins instead I would stick by 1 or 2 teammates and just focus on staying with them no matter what. Over time you’ll learn what works and doesn’t work.

    Destiny

    Now THIS one is complicated bullshit. lol

    • exponential_wizard@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      As with any competitive game, in overwatch you are expected by other players to understand complex strategies that have evolved over time, which can be stressful for a newcomer.

      It doesn’t help that many players who don’t understand the Meta aren’t afraid to chime in. Standing in front of you holding up my shield isn’t my job, learn how to use cover fool.

    • cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m a casual gamer and I used to play Overwatch. There’s always the practice range or training room, I forget what it’s called. But what really got me learning all the characters was playing Mystery Heroes over and over.

    • LoboAureo@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This!

      The fun of this games are learning what are good or bad combination of traits.

      Its true that if you already have playe Dungeon and dragóns or are used to play this short of games need less tries until you found something that works

  • Magnus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Wing it, discovering that I’ve made a massive mistake is part of the fun, I don’t want to spoil any game with let’s plays. I don’t try to get the most optimal build I’m just looking to have fun. I use what ever gun I enjoy the most in borderlands, yeah when it starts to feel weak I swap but I’m not going to use a gun I hate because it does two more damage that one I love.

  • Titan@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    No need to watch tutorials on how to create a character brother. Figuring things out as you play is the fun part

  • ulkesh@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Experience. I’ve been playing video games for 40 years. Many of them of any given genre tend to follow a familiar formula. While I also wing it, like others have said, it usually doesn’t take long to recognize the patterns of the formula.

  • Xerø@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    I’m playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with Wyll as my mage, and two custom hirelings that I brought in to replace Shadowheart the cleric, and the vampire thief guy who I was really liking up until he tried to bite me. So I killed him. Also thinking about letting Gale starve to death because I’d rather sell surplus magic items. The heroic characters talked too fucking much, and I didn’t appreciate all their drama. Hirelings are quiet and they kill who I want them to kill without complaing about it.

    I’m playing a half-drow elemental monk who somehow learned to play the lute and lyre. He’s black because I’m black, which is also why I wanted Wyll. I found a cowboy hat somewhere. Cowboy monk

  • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Deep Rock is good at letting you ignore what you don’t care about. I’ve never needed a wiki for it. It’s just fun and silly co op action, with massive complexity mostly about trivial things.

  • Poggervania@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    BG3 is based on arguably the most user-friendly version of Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition (5e). Larian themselves also do a fantastic job at easing you into the mechanics via gameplay, so you can honestly jump in and just play something that sounds cool to you without worrying about having to min-max or optimize your character. The game lays out what you get on each level-up pretty well and it defaults you to being a single class, so you won’t have to worry about multi-classing unless you want to - and because it’s based on 5e, you can honestly get away with not optimizing your build that much, if even at all, and manage to do fine as long as your main damage (STR for melee, DEX for ranged and Finesse weapons)/casting stat (INT for Wizards, CHA for Bards/Sorcerers, and WIS for Clerics/Druids) is high.

    Can’t speak on OW2, but with games like Deep Rock Galactic and Vermintide, I found it’s best to just play it and figure stuff out slowly from experience. A lot of it can sound complicated, but I found it’s easier to digest the complexity of the mechanics and systems a bit at a time as your experience with the game grows. Like with Vermintide, as an example, I recently started really diving in deep with Cleave, Stagger, and Frontline/Heavy Frontline/Tank property mechanics and numbers for melee weapons; you literally cannot see these things from the game’s UI, and starting out I had no idea these things even existed, and it only really matters once you start playing on the hardest difficulties, Legend and Cataclysm. If I had to figure out all that stuff early on, I would nope out of the game super quick lmao.

    • Moonguide@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      5e might be easier to grasp than previous editions, and even easier to play than other TTRPGs, but even then. I started playing DnD after my second playthrough of BG3, and even having some experience with CRPGs, reading through the DM book, PHB, and all the sourcebooks I totally legally acquired, felt like trying to map a room with my eyes closed. Bg3 streamlines the math, but the complexity is still there.

      Half of all the time I’ve spent as a DM has been spent devising homebrews to streamline the game further.

  • CarlsIII@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Is destiny complex? When I played, it felt basically like all you do is follow the arrow and shoot everything

      • Sir Gareth@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Also all the actual good content (raids) are not explained and you need to herd some cats to do them. Which is even harder if you’re learning them.

        The best time I had with destiny was when I had a clan and a couple of the more experienced players would take a bunch of newbies through. Then we could fuck around and not be completely lost.

      • Moonguide@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yup. D2 has the worst new player experience of any game I’ve played. But at the end of the day, it’s just about knowing where the daily solo dungeon is, so you can grind Light level. Raids are complicated though, because a lot of them are like puzzles.

        Stopped playing it because of how money hungry the game is.

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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    1 year 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