Been stuck on this puzzle for 30 seconds, time to google

How long will you generally wait before looking up guides when you're stuck in a video game? I've done this more than I care to admit with BOTW lately.

Most of the time I don't wait at all. I know through painful experience built up over two and a half decades of gaming that if I don't see the solution to a puzzle immediately, or within my first three attempts at the absolute most, I'm not going to see it at all. My mind just doesn't work that way. There is no struggle, no gradual realisation, and no satisfaction - I either know it or I don't. This is one of the reasons I avoid games that are heavily puzzled-based: they're either extremely boring or damn near impossible. It's...weird. I've always either understood puzzles immediately or I've never been able to get them no matter how long I stare at them. Usually it's the more abstract ones that frustrate the hell out of me. Give me a block puzzle and I'll have it done quick enough. Ask me to raise and lower water levels and I'm probably going to scream before I start watching videos or reading guides.

I will admit that I've based this philosophy off of getting hopelessly lost and stuck in games when I was younger, so it might be different now that I'm older and (hopefully) wiser if I was a little more patient, but here's the thing: as a kid, I had time to get lost and stuck. As an adult with a job, a partner I want to spend as much of my free time with as possible, other hobbies I enjoy, and a backlog of literally 200+ games that is only increasing because of my terrible compulsive spending habits, I don't have the time to spend hours on a single point of a game. Or the willpower. Maybe it's supposed to be part of the experience, but if it IS, then it's not a part I care for. Any game I play it's not a core part of the experience anyway, so what does it matter? Honestly I've always hated it when puzzles are shoehorned into video games, because they're never a welcome distraction. They're almost as bad as minigames.

Outside of puzzles...well, it really depends. Older RPGs I often don't play without a guide anyway because they're frustratingly obtuse sometimes. I don't have time to talk to every NPC in a specific order to progress the story, thank you very much, Dragon Quest. But it's in my nature to explore EVERYTHING where I can so quite often I don't really get stuck at all - either everything is signposted for me, as is the way in modern games, or I just find things in my exploration to uncover sidequests and secrets. I can't even remember the last time I got stuck on a boss battle because I tend to overlevel. It's almost always the puzzles that will stop me in my tracks.

The way I play games is weird, I guess. I want a smooth, enjoyable playthrough of whatever I happen to be playing, so if I need to use a guide to progress I will. I've outgrown my "I can do this all by myself!" phase because it never really brought me any joy and it damaged my miniscule pride far more than I could take because quite often I couldn't do it by myself.

I will look up what I need to do if I simply can't figure out the solution. Though I do sometimes like doing trial and error if I'm enjoying the struggle, like at on part in God of War as an example where I didn't look up the solution.

10-15 mins or too many failures is usually my limit I don't like puzzles honestly.

hahaha the title is so me
maybe a few minutes before I give in and google. I play games mostly for the story and entertainment, and struggling in a puzzle/battle/etc is usually not my type of entertainment. I like going through things a little more easily, especially with my attention span nowadays.

When I was younger, I would honestly just call it quits and stop playing the game lol. I remember when I first played Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and couldn't figure out that the boomerang is flammable and you needed to use it to light the torches in the Temple of Fire, I just stopped playing due to frustrations. Now however, I'd just google it if I can't figure out the puzzle in 5-10 mins

I'll spend hours/days trying to figure out a puzzle before looking into a walk-through. My reason is that after taking the first look at a guide, I feel like I lose motivation to solve puzzles myself. When using a guide for one puzzle I'm tempted to start using it for all the puzzles.

If the puzzle isn't fun, I'm shamelessly using a guide for the entire thing. Example being those trial puzzles in FF10.

I'll stick it out stubbornly for a while usually, but if I can't get it, I'm using a guide. I refuse to have my enjoyment of a game ruined by a dumb puzzle.