Let's talk regrets! Specifically where games ended up too complex, too overloaded with gimmicks or too blinged out for your enjoyment
I frequently read that people at the time said the plastic minis in Nemesis can detract as much as they can add to the atmosphere, hiding important parts of the board space owing to their sheer size.
TI is often lambasted for taking an entire weekend.
Rosenberg's euro games are the bane of many a player trying to keep all possible actions in their mind.
Modern kickstarters can arrive in shipping crates worth of stuff, making you rent a lorry just to get your 25 minute party game to a meet-up.
What's your biggest regret purchase you can readily recall where a game was just "too much". No matter what specifically it was too much of.
For me personally, my big one was Android: Netrunner. I was excited to jump back into 2-player competitive deckbuilding after I quit Magic The Gathering early in the fourth edition. And it seemed so perfect. No luck involved, known spaces of cards, multiple factions, asymmetry which I nearly always love, it's all perfect!
On paper...
In reality I found out, yes, for me this is a strictly superior MtG. No downsides. Except that I'm no longer 16, and I no longer want to spend forever creating decks, collecting cards even if they're not random, or engage with sifting through hundreds or thousands of cards when working on decks. The exact things that made me excited to play MtG-but-better and brought me to buy Netrunner were the very things turning me away from it now.
Still got to sell it, oddly attached to my first-run box + all expansions now that it's no longer available. But played it like 6 times and that was it. 0 enjoyment. Gave actual MtG a try, even less enjoyment. Tried Keyforge, also even worse. I feel that the entire genre is just a goner for me, and I regret investing so much money into Netrunner. A lot.
Honestly, if I'm seeing more than say two or three currencies or kinds of bits to keep track of, it's a no for me. I don't care how much I'm in love with the concept.
Mainly because I don't have the available real estate at my place to break out every other War & Peace- worth of board game, but especially if it looks like the setup time is will take longer than playing an actual game.
Yeah I only accept something like resource or currency type overload if there's a specific reason the game needs that - Sidereal Confluence would be an example of this.
Shit. I just looked up that game because I'd never heard of it before and realized that it sounds a lot like a concept for a board game that I had come up with and was excited about making. Oh well, I guess I should play it first, but damn, that's disappointing. I almost thought I was creative lol.
Heh, well in that case, congrats on having the idea for a great game, I really enjoy Sidereal Confluence. And sorry you didn't get to make it before someone else did. >.<