Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don't forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Not a bad game per se, but I don't get the hype behind it. Sure the dungeons are fun but the world is so lifeless, the story non existent, the combat pretty shallow, the tower climbing is very much like FarCry but for some reasons it's okay here while Ubisoft gets the blame...like I said I dont get why the game is so beloved. Never finished it after the 20 hour mark and probably never will.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Just like Zelda not a bad game, but imho highly overrated. Graphics and and atmosphere are amazing but the controls are clunky and overloaded, nearly everybody is an unlikable douchebag who I would love to shoot myself at the first opportunity (maybe except Jack and Abigail) but I have to root and care for them. The game is just so long and feels very stretched, you already know that you won't get Dutch because it's a prequel and for an open world game you often get handholded in your weapon selection or things you can do because you have to wait for them to be unlocked by the game. I'm now nearly done with the game, playing the epilogue at the moment and I would say the last chapters are more entertaining than the rest of the game, but I still can't understand why this game was on so many game of the year lists and I really wanted to put the controller down a dozen times.
So there they are, two highly controversial oppinions by me and now I'm really curios what your takes are and how highly I get downvoted into oblivion ๐
So, like you I don't enjoy most competitive games. I like to dabble occasionally and enjoy an FPS here or there(I enjoyed the Finals for a bit, and occasionally a CoD, last one was Modern Warfare), but mostly play single player or co-op games because I find them far more enjoyable.
There is one genre that is an exception, fighting games. I fucking love them. I used to enjoy them as a kid, then had a long hiatus, dabbled when Street Fighter 4 launched, but didn't "git gud". Then Dragonball Fighter Z and the Arcade Edition for Street Fighter 5 launched and I think they were the gateway drug for me. Street Fighter 5 was tough, I couldn't find a character I liked, so kinda bounced off it, but DBFZ kept me in. It wasn't until Blanka in SF5 came out that it all clicked for me.
The genre starts of like a little puddle, you don't really need to know a lot going in, but you definitely need to want to improve. And the more you improve the more you realise how deep the puddle is, cause it is actually an ocean. When you play against another human, at the lower ranks it is quite random and spammy. But as you get past them, you get to where you can condition people, you can learn their habits and combo choices. Then you take that knowledge and adjust your gameplay and see if they can counter it, and it can be come a big back and forth of trying to get the other person to make a mistake and exploiting their habits.
It is also a genre where nothing else really transfers across. All that time in FPS or RTS games isn't going to help, so learning to do the technical inputs can be rewarding, or labbing out a combo and how to implement it in your gameplay.
I also really enjoy the ranking climb in most fighting games. SF6 has kinda perfected it, you play 10 games and it gives you a placement from Rookie upto Diamond 1, then you match against someone typically within +-1 rank(Gold 1 would be matched with Silver 5, Gold 1 or Gold 2)and rack up points. At the top of the ranking you hit Master, then it turns into Elo points and a proper distribution of skill, cause the difference between a professional and good player that just hit Master is massive. And for SF6 it is done on a per character basis, which allows you to sink time into every character and be playing with people your skill level.
I am 417 hours into SF6, 3 characters at master rank and a few in diamond/platinum. I still feel like I am bad, and I am definitely not using all the systems effectively in the game. But I sure as hell am excited to sink another several thousand hours into this game over the life of it.
Tekken 8 also just came out, which also seems incredible, but 3D fighters are basically an entire new genre to learn.
Fighting Games are fucking cool.
i grew up playing street fighter ii turbo and mortal kombat with my friends from the neighborhood. Whenever we get together these days one of us will have a copy ready in case we want to throw down like when we were kids. Getting a big group talking shit and passing the controller around will never not be fun for me, but i know i dont have what it takes to handle people online.
I have read about all that goes into competitive ranked fighting games and it looks (as you say) as deep as the ocean. there is sooooo much to learn and practice that i don't think i would ever have fun online, but i can still hold out with my favorite characters with my old pals. I agree with you, fighting games are quite fun.
I am going to respectfully disagree, I think if you have a desire to learn and participate everyone can have fun online in fighting games. Don't get baited by thinking that you need to learn all these combos and moves and be 100% perfect at doing it all the time. Cause you dont.
The difference between someone just starting and a pro is vast, and will seem daunting and like you need to know a bunch of stuff. But honestly competitve starts out similar to you and a bunch of pals just having fun together.
You are playing the other person, getting reliable damage from a combo is more important to begin with than doing optimal damage. For street fighter(it is what I have the most experience with), you need to know how to anti air to stop people from jumping(this is usually a crouching Heavy Punch, but can be different for some characters). Then throw in a simple combo, can be an easy target combo(or using the modern inputs in SF6) or something as simple as HP > Fireball/Tatsu. And then making sure you know basics like blocking and throws, drive impact and drive parry for street fighter 6.
That seems like a lot, but it is less than the mechanics of most single player games that get thrown out in tutorials, and the rest of the knowledge will come with time and practice. Say you come across someone who just cleanly wipes the floor with you, you can look at the replay and see if there is a gap, or learn the timings, or if it is unsafe if you just kept blocking. But that won't be something you have to worry about for a while. You will spend a lot of time figuring out how to handle people randomly throwing out DP or Drive Impact or who just won't stop jumping.