What really happened is that "competitive online gameplay" now requires you to do outside research to determine the game meta, usually some kind of grind to achieve said meta, and only at that point can you begin to use your brain to optimize your individual performance. And you have to do all that fast enough to keep up with the current season before the meta changes.
This is different from the games we played growing up, where from the beginning you could use your brain to optimize, improve, and do the brain things that give satisfaction.
"Mundane chores" that gamers do are now mostly part of the "meta grind" but also niche mundane tasks like, say, trading a certain resource, doing a dungeon for the 200th time but faster, etc are in the few remaining places where you can derive this kind of satisfaction.
Developers have become so hyper focused on ensuring the "meta" play is balanced (and requires you to grind in their game), that they patch out these chores as "quality of life" improvements.
This is different from the games we played growing up, where from the beginning you could use your brain to optimize, improve, and do the brain things that give satisfaction.
"Mundane chores" that gamers do are now mostly part of the "meta grind" but also niche mundane tasks like, say, trading a certain resource, doing a dungeon for the 200th time but faster, etc are in the few remaining places where you can derive this kind of satisfaction.
Developers have become so hyper focused on ensuring the "meta" play is balanced (and requires you to grind in their game), that they patch out these chores as "quality of life" improvements.