my friend is trying to get me into it despite me not having played it at all before or watching the anime (online version only, tcg on omega, it's not like i can buy the cards or anything) and i feel so fucking dumbfounded. is this a children's card game? why is there a turn mechanic when you won't be making it past turn 2? every goddamn card comes with two paragraphs of text and the fun part is the punctuation fucking changes the gameplay, and your opponent will lay them on you nonstop. and even if they are a good sport and allow you to read you will lose the plot with the third card they pull.
your opponent will keep adding and removing cards back and forth and you can't keep up how things have been stacked and what effects are active or not and by the end of turn one your opponent has probably pulled out 15 to 20 cards out of their 60 card deck, and those are just repeats so in reality they've basically done all of their combos. i know preparing a good deck for combos is part of the game but come on how can a new player even keep up? this is insane.
These two things always baffled me about YGO. You can do so much cleanup and provide clear templating with keywords. And the non-rotating format is just asking for problems. Do young people even pick up the game anymore? How do you come into YGO at 12 or 13 years old when everyone is playing bullshit? I don't think they have limited formats, either.
You say that, but a lot of YGO effects are kinda built around the wording and what words they use for a long time now, e.g. there's a huge difference between when and if, not to mention what cards target or don't target.
Though a large part of the problem is that the TCG refuses to adopt the OCG effect formatting, though that one can be put at Konami of Japan's feet because it has always felt like KoJ treats KoA (the US branch) and thus the TCG as an afterthought.