Sort of agree but it also depends on what you mean by grind. A game like war thunder or enlisted you could call it a grind to unlock top tier things, or throw money at it. Or you can just play the game for fun while spending little to nothing.

Seriously, I have had conversations with other players before and even if I wanted to spend £100 on either game there is nothing really worth me spending it on. Even subscribing to the game just isn't worth it as the main benefit is more xp. But that is more xp to unlock things I don't care for. The other benefits are so small it isn't worth bothering with.

Kim's dialogue in disco elysium is pretty much this dressed up as a conversation

It costs quite a bit on the start, you may try to see if there is any mod that add the calendar to the characters menu

I miss tutorials on the start screen.

Also minecraft books are a good idea, but lack the "hey btw youre gonna get busy and drop this game for 6 months and have no idea what your goals are. Care to take a note?"

My solution is a captains log after video game sessions, but i forget sometimes

If you're getting one-shot by every enemy in an area, then that usually means that you shouldn't be there yet and you should leave and explore elsewhere until you find a place with enemies that are closer to your level.

I think the open world of Elden Ring is better in that regard because you can just go somewhere else if enemies in an area are too tough.

There's no real story in botw though? Just look at your quest log and that should be enough

I used a pen and paper when I played Blue Prince. It was pretty much necessary.

Though I did take a lot of screenshots too and those were also helpful

Is that the one where, if you don't wear contact lenses, your eyeballs might literally explode?

I don't care. I play helter-skelter anyway. Just jumping around to whatever is fun, forgetting where I was, repeating stuff I liked. Never finishing the game. It's all good.

It will never go away as long as in-app purchases are a thing. It's far more profitable (which is a problem in and of itself) to just offer a "buy to progress NOW" option to bypass grinding.

Disco Elysium is not that big of a game though.

I mean, any deckard cain-like character can act as the "catch me up on what's going on" menu

Nope, your cornea might fall out. At least I haven't heard of exploding eyeballs

Blizzard would totally paywall that as we speak

1. Can be, but youre forgetting teenagers are also included. In essence, its quite logical to say there are more over 18s than under 18s.

2. How come? In my opinion its quite ageist to be basing difficulty of of age, unless I'm reading too deeply.

The solution is to have dynamic personalized tutorials.

Lets take Death Stranding 2 for example, since I think its played a lot by working adults.

Death Stranding has a lot of story, relationships, and game mechanics they slowly throw at you. But when you take a break for 1-3 months it can definitely be difficult to remember what you were doing and how to do it.

They already have tutorials in their VR system, but that just goes over the basics. It would be neat if the game took the metrics they collect on you, to teach you how to use your most common moves and such.

It would also be neat if they could have a mentor system where the tutorial would then teach you new mechanics you ignored if it would help you out immediately (totally optional of course).

This is what I love fallout 4. Yeah it's not the best story, or game, but It's like it was made for ADHD people. Constant sidetracking, few timed quests, even less that matter at all, easy to jump into and just spread chaos at a moments notice. Its pretty easy, even on hard or survival, eventually you become so OP it's like playing God and flooding the earth.

I wish every game had an ultra easy/explorer mode for this reason. I have zero interest in having to become “good” at a game in order to move forward. I’d love to give Elden Ring and such another try but I’m just a regular dude with a job and a family. I’m not trying to make video gaming a new “skill”, I just want to play the stupid game for a bit, put it down, maybe forget about it for a month before I have time to pick it back up again…

The newer Deus Ex games had something like that, the loading screen would be a "Previously on Human Revolution" sequence like with a TV series

Oh nice, is it tied to the game or global notes?

Wait whaaat? That's really cool.

One of my favourite games atm is "Into the dead: our darkest days". It's a survival rogue like, basically like this war of mine, but set in texas in the 80s with zombies.

It's fantastic, but too often when revisiting a scavenge site I forget which rooms I've gone in and what resources are available/I need to bring.

I've wished they'd implement a "pen" feature for the map (like project zomboid), or spray paint you could bring to mark a door, for the entire time I've played it.
But steam notes sounds like a fantastic solution, assuming they don't implement something in game.

I'll comeback after month sometimes and be like "shit, what do I need here again?" but even just the next day I'll forget some stuff

Ha! Maybe this is why even after playing all the others up to it, I still haven't played BOTW. (Skyward Sword didn't do much for me, either.)

Grinding has been around way before in app purchases and will be around with or without them. They're a thing certain players enjoy.