Ever realize you've been playing a game the wrong way?

Azureth

Azureth

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Feb 29, 2008
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What I mean by that is, there's a move or feature of it you didn't realize until either you are pretty far in the game or even after you beat it but pick it up later?

For me I remember being very frustrated when playing Star Wars Republic Commando at how difficult it was to kill things, I just figured it was the games difficulty; it wasn't until later I realized you could command your squad to all target an enemy and fire making it MUCH easier. I felt pretty dumb afterwards.

Another one was that I didn't realize that in Super Mario World the blue spaces meant there was no secret exit but a red space was. I just found that out a few years ago despite me mastering the game. As a kid I would thoroughly search every level.
 
Fast Travel The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion finished the game without it... yea.
 
Nahawand said:
Fast Travel The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion finished the game without it... yea.
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That's the better way to play that one, though. Fast travel really has you missing out on a LOT (most) of interesting side quests.
 
dderidex said:
That's the better way to play that one, though. Fast travel really has you missing out on a LOT (most) of interesting side quests.
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But if you've already cleared the areas in between towns, running around manually is kind of just a waste of time.
 
I didn't figure out how the mechs in Xenosaga worked until very near the end of the game. I just thought they sucked.
 
I played KOTOR as a light jedi the first time. Oh what a waste of conversation options.
 
on f.e.a.r. i realized that it has slow-mo only at the end of the game, the game was so tough lol
 
well I'm playing dungeon keeper and suddenly a game that was easy as cake is frustratingly unforgiving at around level 9... I must've missed some bit of tutorial or somethin...
 
Playing a racing sim with a controller, lol. Wasn't until years later that I got a racing wheel and found the experience more fun and less painful.
 
Hornet said:
Playing a racing sim with a controller, lol. Wasn't until years later that I got a racing wheel and found the experience more fun and less painful.
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better than playing on a kb.
 
Every time I try to get into STALKER. Every fucking time. Too much RPG, not enough action. Guns blazing is NOT the way to do it, so I quit every time.
 
I think, currently, it has to be with the game "Banished."

I believe I'm playing this the wrong way if my villages are either dying of old age or dying of starvation due to food shortages. There must be something I'm missing that would explain why I can't survive past the 30th. year in the game.
 
Fallout 3 comes to mind. I found about fast travel after always dying. Going from place to place. But that wasn't as bad as founding about VATs til way late in the game. I was always running out of ammo.

Then when I went back and played Fallout 3 knowing about fast travel and VATs. It made things alot better. Serves me right for not paying attention in the beginning.
 
I was playing a frost mage in WoW, thought I was doing great. Pretty near the top of DPS in raids, but mostly playing solo. Had no problems, was having fun, thinking I was pretty bad-ass. Then I saw a video of a frost mage killing things that usually took a full party or small raid group. He kept mobile (i mostly just stood there or used blink) and was killing things that could one shot him if they ever connected. He used his timers perfectly, and had just enough mana. Some of those battles took a LONG time. I never even came close to being as good as this guy, but it massively upped my game.

Then of course they changed everything several times since then, but it was one of those epiphany moments. I was doing things wrong so well. And I have looked at other things in my life that I was doing the same thing with. A stupid game helped me to analyze my mind set and helped me to look at things from a different perspective. I still try to this and its one of my favorite expressions. "But I was doing it wrong SO WELL!!"
 
Mine is Dishonored. Just never occured to me to take the high road. Here my dumb ass was on the ground fighting everyone. So much easier when youre zoomin over their heads.

Also, have tried to play Oblivian and skyrim without fast travel.. It just takes way too much time. But, at least in Skyrim the scenery is amazing and it is a great way to find hidden things. ie valleys
 
Playing Final Fantasy on NES and never realizing you had to "equip" equipment :rolleyes:. I felt so dumb afterward.

Also, conserving ammo in Doom. What the hell was I saving those power cells and rockets for?
 
Playing Starbound I didn't realize you could place a single tile. So much time wasted placing 4 tiles then mining the excess! LOL
 
Armenius said:
Also, conserving ammo in Doom. What the hell was I saving those power cells and rockets for?
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OMG this is so me! And I STILL do it! I dont know why but I am so OCD about conserving the ammo of high power weapons and use them only when I absolutely have to.
 
MaZa said:
OMG this is so me! And I STILL do it! I dont know why but I am so OCD about conserving the ammo of high power weapons and use them only when I absolutely have to.
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I'm the same way in every game. For me I think it got real bad when I started playing Resident Evil.
 
qbanb8582 said:
Fallout 3 comes to mind. I found about fast travel after always dying. Going from place to place. But that wasn't as bad as founding about VATs til way late in the game. I was always running out of ammo.

Then when I went back and played Fallout 3 knowing about fast travel and VATs. It made things alot better. Serves me right for not paying attention in the beginning.
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Same here,I knew about fast travel but overlooked VATS. Ironically,when I discovered it I chose to ignore it,felt too much like a console aimed cheat that took the challenge and tactics out of firefights.
 
Shadow of the Colossus. The fruit and lizards that gave you more max health/grip.

I didnt realize this until my 3rd playthrough (when I bought the remastered PS3 game). Made the game sooooo much easier.
I don't recall in game they ever telling you about it. Guess I should have RTFM
 
MaZa said:
OMG this is so me! And I STILL do it! I dont know why but I am so OCD about conserving the ammo of high power weapons and use them only when I absolutely have to.
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Yeah, same here. I end up with a lot of ammo for weapons that I never use. I am trying to become better about it, and I think over time I will get there. :p
 
michael.pa2 said:
Same here,I knew about fast travel but overlooked VATS. Ironically,when I discovered it I chose to ignore it,felt too much like a console aimed cheat that took the challenge and tactics out of firefights.
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I think VATS was OP in Fallout 3, but I also think they did a good job of balancing it in New Vegas. While in FO3 you could choose VATS all the time, the limited nature of AP and perks supporting it in New Vegas forced you to mix it up. It's my opinion that VATS adds strategic value in New Vegas while it detracts in FO3.
 
Direfox said:
I was playing a frost mage in WoW, thought I was doing great. Pretty near the top of DPS in raids, but mostly playing solo. Had no problems, was having fun, thinking I was pretty bad-ass. Then I saw a video of a frost mage killing things that usually took a full party or small raid group. He kept mobile (i mostly just stood there or used blink) and was killing things that could one shot him if they ever connected. He used his timers perfectly, and had just enough mana. Some of those battles took a LONG time. I never even came close to being as good as this guy, but it massively upped my game.

Then of course they changed everything several times since then, but it was one of those epiphany moments. I was doing things wrong so well. And I have looked at other things in my life that I was doing the same thing with. A stupid game helped me to analyze my mind set and helped me to look at things from a different perspective. I still try to this and its one of my favorite expressions. "But I was doing it wrong SO WELL!!"
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It sounds like completely different scenarios. Your experience was in realistic group environments while the guy you're talking about sounds like he was doing some self-imposed challenges. There's nothing wrong with keeping still until you need to move since it maximizes dps (of course, moving to minimize any damage taken takes priority, your healer will thank you).

But yeah, timing your CDs/consumables is still a nice lesson to learn from it if you never planned them around specific boss fights before.
 
wow, this thread would sure have ended up differently in genmay
 
My first char in wow was a holy priest, I solo'd casting+wanding most mobs till ~50. It was still 100x faster than in EQ and i felt like I was cheating.
 
Armenius said:
Playing Final Fantasy on NES and never realizing you had to "equip" equipment :rolleyes:. I felt so dumb afterward.

Also, conserving ammo in Doom. What the hell was I saving those power cells and rockets for?
Click to expand...

MaZa said:
OMG this is so me! And I STILL do it! I dont know why but I am so OCD about conserving the ammo of high power weapons and use them only when I absolutely have to.
Click to expand...

haha, yeah, I was really really bad about that too. There were even times where I accidentally killed a single imp with the sawed off shotgun. I'd reload and kill him properly with a normal shotgun. Can't waste two shells on a guy like that. And a single newb zombie? pistol or I feel guilty.

In games now, I make myself burn ammo, only to be rewarded with excessive plenty sooner than I think.
 
Here's another perspective on the MMO:

In Final Fantasy XI the Dark Knight class was pure DPS. I knew this and I even had a macro that would pull so much aggro that no one could pull it off of me until I was dead. You know... to make things interesting :D. Aside from that the best armor it could wear only provided probably about a third of the defenses a real tank would get. So a glass cannon in the purest sense of the term.

But this one time when I was LFG to do some leveling, the person putting the group together could not find a tank. He wanted me to do it despite my warnings that the group would not last long if I did. Sure enough I die half way through the first mob and everyone else leaves without saying a word while the leader keeps trying to apologize... Ignored :eek:
 
I remember playing a DOS side scroller, maybe commander keen or duke nukem and realizing very late games that all the crystals I had been collected could be used to buy lives, ammo, health ect. It ended up making the end game really easy.
 
Old School, but for me it was Ultima 7:

It wasn't until I pulled out a notepad and started writing down information that I was able to start tying everything together. Seriously the first time I did this it was being a part of the Da Vinci Code or Cold Case Files because I had elements from different areas of the game starting to intertwine and it was a rather amazing experience!
 
Finishing the main quest too soon in Oblivion. I disregarded just about every side quest and missed out on a lot of content. I replayed it about a year later and did every major side quest and most of the minor ones. It was a much better overall experience even though I had played it before. I try to do every side mission I can in RPG/FPS games, now.
 
Hype the Time Quest(Old playmobil video game, so much fun). The boss of the first world, didn't know you could jump up on the table and hit him back by jumping up and hitting attack. I was stuck in that first world for months until I saw a friend do it.

Oh and I also always conserve ammo for every special gun in games. I recently played Half Life 2 and was doing it with the shotgun, assault rifle and crossbow.

Oblivion as well with the leveling. My character was so weak compared to the one I leveled perfectly(I actually used cheats because I didn't feel like jumping around for hours to get acrobatics up). The game was actually much more enjoyable starting at max level. Loot was better, enemies were more fun to fight. I would suggest it to anyone playing it a second or third time.
 
I do the ammo thing a lot.
In Dark Souls I knew you could upgrade your weapons but I kept thinking I would simply find much better weapons throughout the game so I used the regular starting battle axe till I was like level 30 something. It was about that time I said screw it and looked it up and found out that some starting weapons fully upgraded are really good so I went from no upgrades straight to level 10. The difference in damage was crazy. Oh and I ended up getting the gravelord sword like right after that.
 
pigwalk said:
I didn't figure out how the mechs in Xenosaga worked until very near the end of the game. I just thought they sucked.
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This game for me also, but it was something else. I forget what exactly it was, but you had to steal abilities or items from enemies, bosses gave special one time only things. Didn't know until about 20 hour of gameplay. I got pissed and quit right then.
 
In darksouls after i got past the starting area and got to the camp site with all the trainers. i killed every one there. and didn't realize what they were until my friend told me 20+ hours in.
 
when operation flashpoint first came out, this was me......

I tried to play it like an FPS game and would just get wrecked all the time. Stopped playing the game in disgust....

Years later when back to it and the light bulb went off and now it is one of my favorite games of all times (including the expansions)

It made you think like other games didn't. You had to think like a soldier in war and not just twitch your way around. So rewarding.
 
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