cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/shit/p/1070381/when-you-finally-play-a-game-beloved-by-most-gamers-but-you-don-t-enjoy-it-at-all

Me with Satisfactory. I realized all the factory lines need to feed into something I get to use, and not just to.make number go up. I haven't played it since I found out 98% of the shit you make literally has no purpose but to be sent up the space elevator for points. Project Ozone 3 probably set me up to hate that.

That was bauldurs gate 3 for me. I started a co-op game with my husband and neither of us made it farther than about two hours in. It just didn't click with me.

You would probably click quite a bit more with Factorio then.

Actually, I wonder if that is why Satisfactory wasn't clicking for me. Since I kept making stuff to feed into the big box.

Me with Binding of Isaac, Hades and Vampire Survivors On paper, I should enjoy them a lot, yet I like some pretty similar games a ton more. Those 3 each do something I really dislike to the point of not playing and feeling like I'm missing out. Every year I give them another shot and never manage to stick around for more than 1 session.

Amazing games I'm sure, just not for me :/

Same. I wanted to like it.

I feel infinitely sorry for both you and your husband for never being able to enjoy one of the best games of all time.

I have wanted to play that one but can't catch it on sale. Satisfactory just felt like a game based on every peg going into the square hole.

This is most modern games for me. If I can't get a handle on all the mechanics I'll need to know to beat the game in the first 20 minutes or so, I'm not interested. I'll just play Super Mario World again.

I must suck or it must be hard, but I restarted like 3 times before it clicked.

Factorio never goes on sale, fwiw :/

Factorio will not go on sale and never has. The devs have always been committed to offering the game at a reasonable fixed price. They did increase the price in modest small increments during early access as they got closer to 1.0. After 1.0, the price has not changed.

The price is completely justified if you like factory automation games. You can easily get 40 to 100 hours from the game. But if you want to really dig into it you'll be in for >200 (none of it is a grind). If you decide to install mods you could easily bump thst playtime out to 1000+ (again, all of it is enjoyable if you like these games).

Yeah its not really about the price being unfair and more about me not being a drunken pirate on Steam all the time sorry

Gotta be honest, I had the same experience as op. I could write paragraphs on how much I desperately wanted to like the game Vs how disappointed I was in it. It really made me sad.

First hit is free (there's a demo available).

I did not care for GTA V.

Souls-like games. My theory is that the people who like these games feel like they have something to prove. I do not, but all the people I know who are really into them had massive inferiority complexes.

I generally love crafting survival games, but I find Minecraft boring. I still play it from time to time, because my daughter loves it. But, it's not something I play on my own.

Red Dead

Me with dark souls series.

But I don't know if it's because of the games themselves or by the toxic community that makes everything a "skill issue" and blames you for not being good enough to play them instead of helping a player find a way to enjoy them.

This is pretty close to the same for me, except it's more like, just let me play the damn game a bit and see if it's worth learning more shit. I was finally going to play Ori and the Blind Forest but they throw a 30+ minute depression fest at you to start, where I thought I was getting a vibrant, fluid platforming game.

Stardew Valley

My friend once suggested to play The Binding of Isaac. I have checked gameplay and though "what a crap game. Soot tears to dig through poles of poop. How funny..."

The I was watching one streamer and he began to play that game. I got the idea of how it plays and this time tried myself this time.

It is weird. Weird as heck. Controls are simple and it is basically bullet hell type of a game. But when you understand how items are working with each other, you begin to appreciate work put in this game and how deep it can actually go. The beauty of this game is in how items work with each other. Really unique game.

Same. It's especially frustrating when people get hyper specific about genres. Specifically, claiming that black myth wukong is not a souls like because reasons, so I bought it and suffered through the first two chapters before giving it up. I don't care what monkey minutia makes it not a souls like, it has punishing bosses and no difficulty settings.

Dark Souls is just clunky controls + sequence memorization, presented as 'difficulty'. And yeah, operating the clunk effectively is difficult, but it's a low hanging and very unsatisfying flavor of difficulty.

I could make Pokemon Yellow difficult by requiring you to operate the controls through a dish sponge, but that wouldn't make it fun.

Unpopular opinion apparently, but I wholeheartedly agree with you on Dark Souls.

Yeah, I noticed this too. It's an unpopular opinion to think that dark souls is not hard but just frustratingly clunky in order to make it appear hard.

It's just not satisfying. Reminds me of certain old games that were made artificially hard by dumb mechanics only to make them last longer.

I've played hard games that were satisfying to beat, then I tried several dark souls games (included elden ring and a myriad of soulslikes) and found them obnoxiously clunky and unfun.

Yep.

GTAV, Undertale, Elden Ring, and Myst.

In the same boat as OP. I love gaming, I love well made Fantasy media, but I absolutely hate High Fantasy and the entire D&D universe / franchise. No Baldur's Gate games for me.

I'm with you on this one.

I always found funny when the soulslike tryharders get pissy about difficulty settings and hyper specific about bullshit. To me, those people seem like they are trying so hard to gatekeep in order to keep the genre a niche that only them can enjoy. As if they were afraid that the genre became too "casual". It's kinda pathethic when a community (be it soulslike or any other one full of tryharders) wants to keep something in a certain way so nobody else can enjoy it. As if they were afraid that "impure" people could rob them their fun or something.

ER definitely should have been like...30% shorter
so much shit repeating

You gotta try the mod packs

I havent played in a long time but Satisfactory is one of the worst games I've ever played. On paper it's everything I love but the gameplay is so agonizing. Fuck the chainsaw and cutting down stupid trees for wood and having to run belts across half the map and all the animals getting in the way. I do like the buildings how they look how it feels to walk through the factory. I like the ratios but hate that there are different recipes that get unlocked/locked.

The price did increase after 1.0 in order to catch up with inflation (I think)

Halo. Very overrated.

Undertail. Overrated AND cringe fandom.

Ocarina of Time. Surpassed by a number of its successors.

TALE

BG3 can be fun to play and all, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. BG3 wasn't even the best game of 2023.

Any game where the main focus is 'story' or being 'cinematic'. I just wanna play a game. If I want a good story, I'll read a book. If I want a cinematic experience, I'll watch a movie. Games trying to be anything other than games reeks of cultural cringe to me. Stop interrupting my fun with your non-interactive bullshit, games!

I don't play souls likes that have no difficulty settings. I'm nearing 50 and my reaction times are not what they used to be. Sometimes I just need to tone it down to be able to enjoy a game.

Damn. I just finished my first play through yesterday and I had a blast. Sunk 250 hours to get credits. Top 10 game for me.

My only complaint was the combat system. I turned it off around 40 hours in when I realized the combat is pretty shallow and was detrimental to my experience. I like that the game allows you to turn off combat so easily although I wish it was off by default.

I don't think anyone likes Binding of Isaac at first glance. It has a disgusting theme, it's slow paced, the combat is a bit awkward at the start, and you won't understand anything at first...

But it's an acquired taste. I stuck with it and watched a few videos that explain how it works, and it's a very rewarding game. Ended up playing 400+ hours.

• elden ring: not having fun coz I basically followed the walkthrough due to its difficulty
• Baldur's Gate 3: too many choices and decisions to be made so couldn't play more than few hours each time and eventually burned out

Most AAA games. When a game is overhyped even before it's published, you can be sure it'll be pretty but boring and repetitive AF. I always wait at least 6 months to a year after a game is out to see whether it lived up to expectations.

I disagree with Dark Souls haters (old gamer here, I need the challenge, else I'm bored out of my mind and do something else), but I'll agree with them on how toxic the community is. Most male gamers are toxic cunts, especially the online ones who grew playing competitive games. Competitive game culture is a temple of toxicity.

Point: The series and genre has evolved

Conclusion: The first of the series was not as good as it could have been.

There have been many games since that provided an interesting evolution on the formula. Sometimes, just by throwing away needlessly obtuse bits of the original. And only by traveling back do we see: Yeah, it broke a lot of molds. But some of those molds existed for a good reason.

Stopping people from pausing, giving the most obtuse explanations, putting near-invincible enemies so near your starting point - generally not good design steps even when building up something challenging for players.

And worse: Every critique of it had to be filtered through “git gud”. Yes, its push for high difficulty was a good thing for gaming advancement. But people tried to excuse EVERY issue the game had through that filter. A dad that wants to pause the game to care for his crying baby does not need to “git gud”.

They feel like playing the old Dragon's Lair arcade game. Duck, swing, move left on cue etc.

BG3 also, if you're into d&d it's probably amazing. But the learning curve is insane. Just so much niche stuff a non d&der would never think of.

Playing BG3 a few hours at a time is fine, if your normal gaming sessions last for a day or longer please consult a medical professional

I'm the same. I loved GTA4 but I just found the characters in 5 too unlikeable. I also hate when games get you to switch between a number of characters as it just sort of ruins my immersion

Take me back to cousin Roman calling me asking if I want to go bowling

It took me a while to get into them but I had a friend who got me to play through Dark Souls 3 and once I got good enough at it, I really started enjoying it. Something just sort of clicked and ended up playing through every FromSoft game (some multiple times over)

I realise it's not a genre for everyone but I find the game really rewarding as well as having the most gorgeous level designs of any game I've played

It insists upon itself

Really? The different recipes seem like a pretty cool addition to me. Does it work out differently in practice? (I haven't played much Satisfactory)