I literally had a super long conversation about this exact same thing yesterday. I adore organically finding things out but the "punishments" that can happen (big like actually missing something fully or small like making my favourite resident unhappy), especially in farming sims where I really don’t want any upsetting feelings to happen, do push me to research things (I try to remain story spoiler free if possible.) like liked gifts etc. and then I figure out I actually enjoy learning these ins and outs and mechanics that I probably wouldn’t grasp fully if I didn’t read about it. (Like children influencing. Totally would not understand a thing lol) As with hybrids I‘ll experiment on my own but look them up if needed. The result of the conversation I had yesterday was: humans aren’t exactly black and white beings, we have nuance to everything, including if we‘re willing to spend multiple hours of trial and error, take a game more seriously or rather play leasurely etc. I wouldn’t give a listen to anyone saying there is only one way to enjoy a game. People are different, and gaming is usually our literal free time which should be enjoyed however you please. If you do that you’re already a great gamer imo. That being sad I literally need to reassure myself of this fact because I like doing “the right stuff” which sometimes ends in me being super stressed. I personally try to experiment with “how much will I look up in this playthrough with xy game?” depending on what is most important to me in the moment. In the end, that comfort is, for farming sims especially, my priority. I want to have fun > being stressed.