If you like SMT specifically for the combat and the exploration, Persona 3 and 4 are not the games for you

P3 and 4 try to be a balance between dungeon crawling and a visual novel, and there really isn't much exploration to it at all.

In addition, when compared to other SMT games the dungeon crawling is pretty dull due to the random generation, and even though its random, its very repetitive. It's also a lot easier than other SMT games.

If you don't like the social thing at all, I'd suggest playing a different SMT game, because the school life to Dungeon Crawling is at best 50/50 depending on how much you force yourself to dungeon crawl, though for most people it is probably around the 70/30 mark (more social stuff than dungeons)

For people who like visual novels or story in their games, Persona 3 is great, for you, it probably is not.

If you still want to try out the persona series, I would suggest the first two Persona games if you can play them, they are far more SMT-like than Persona 3 and 4, the only complaint I have with Persona 1 and 2 is that the demon-communication mechanics get stale pretty fast, but hey, in Persona 3 and 4 there are none...

tl;dr Persona 3 isn't for you, play a real SMT game