This is the best advice, in my opinion, keeping your data in a separate partition (or a separate drive if possible). This makes distro-hopping a breeze, since your data remains intact between distros.
After that, jump around as much as you want until you find something you’re comfortable with.
Good for you. You do you. I’ll keep pirating all the games I can, and if they are from a respected developer (fuck you Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, etc.) AND I like the game, then I’ll certainly buy it.
If you like “unlikely to break, don’t mind my software and kernel a bit behind”, anything Debian or Ubuntu based will be fine. Now, if you want cutting edge, even if you have to get pissed and confused a bit, Arch or Fedora based, in my opinion.
At the end of the day it comes down to taste and need. They all work (mostly 😋).