Video game lessons learned the hard way

Awww D: What system was Freedom Planet delayed on and to when?

edited 20th Aug '15 3:38:13 PM by lalalei2001

The Protomen enhanced my life.

Any class-based RPG, but especially Final Fantasy Tactics A 2: Use what's useful in that portion of the game, not what will be in ten hours. Save the Magikarp Power and Lethal Joke Character for when you are past Early Game Hell.

edited 20th Aug '15 4:37:53 PM by Ninety

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Wii U. This is actually rather annoying, as it was supposed to come out earlier this month, but a major bug was discovered that delayed it until today while they worked out a patch. Then, sometime in the last week, the patch was finished and turned out to not actually fix the freezing bug, so the new launch date is offically "TBD" (if you go by the eShop; the devs themselves say "delayed indefinitely").

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer. — Unknown

Pac-Man 256: You can stockpile as many as six credits at once (being a free-to-play title, they recharge every 10 minutes or so), but you can only use one to continue after you get killed. MAKE IT COUNT.

I hope you get tiny bits of eggshell in all your omelettes for the rest of your life!

Sounds like what happened with Mighty No. 9. Was supposed to come out in September, they found a bug, delayed til Q1 2016.

edited 20th Aug '15 7:01:18 PM by lalalei2001

The Protomen enhanced my life.

Mine Craft:

Witches are assholes. I already learned this the hard way about Creepers, but I had no idea that Witches shared a trait with them: They don't make a sound until they attack. I had no idea anything was anywhere near me, until crash. Hit from behind by a potion. Then hit in the face with another while I was trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Then I got hit in the face by a Zombie. Then I died.

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold:

As a corollary to my previous post:

• You WILL need to bump it up and eat the higher TP costs sooner or later though - a good indication is when the heal from Order Mastery is healing for more than PO's per-turn regen
  • And honestly, speaking of Order Mastery, by the time the above becomes a concern, the healing from Order Mastery should be enough for most random battles

• If you're serious about using Chloe as a frontline attacker, she really should have a shield by the time you get to the 3rd stratum.

My Laharl had only transmigrated a couple of times, and with a ~700 power weapon, his attack was somewhere around 2200 at a level in the mid-80s.

That said, on another go at it I learned that spamming the shit out of Braveheart makes a huge difference.

I have also realized that on New Game Plus and/or transmigrating, the Promotion Exams for raising your rank in the Dark Assembly are a great way to repeatedly get a lot of levels.

Spamming Braveheart:

From my Internet research and in-game findings, each Braveheart spell adds 20% ATK, to a maximum of +100%, which means you just need to pile five on any given character.

Two on subsequent turns to compensate for decay.

For such purposes I actually used pupils to teach Braveheart and Magic Boost to practically all of my characters, including monster-type named characters (even those awful at magic). For the latter, some of these pupils were literally named ThrowAway1, etc., deleted as soon as their master was able to reliably cast the spell.

I really pile everything I have on attack (or for mages, magic) when I'm farming XP for someone: Best weapons and armor in that field (Astro Suit on physical fighters does wonders), best specialists transferred, buff spell x5, etc.

edited 25th Aug '15 2:09:18 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Crypt of the Necrodancer:

• Don't use Skull Shrines on all-zones mode runs. The increased difficulty applies to the enemies encountered during those fights, so Dead Ringer will be summoning frost/fire dragons, all of the Necrodancer's summons will be black level, and so forth.
• Aria mode bosses have even more enemies to deal with.
• Do not throw your weapon when you can't see where it will land. You don't want to get pinned down without so much as a knife.
• Bomb explosions will send Bone Knights flying away from the explosion, not the character. I've lost on an Eli all-zone run more than once because of this.
• Explorer Boots block fire tile damage.
• Crossbows may require reloading, but they deal damage through shields. They're worth it.
• You don't get the steam achievement if you don't let the scores submit online. And sometimes not even then.
• The Ring of Becoming means that any damage you take is guaranteed lethal. But it is guaranteed to transmogrify into the best ring in the game.

If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.

Far Cry 4:

Jumping directly out of the paraglider will not allow you to immediately activate the parachute. Instead, it's the Wingsuit which has that option, meaning you need to jump out of the paraglider at a sufficiently safe height first, activate the Wingsuit, THEN trigger the parachute. Ended up wasting a very long glide to my objective because of me failing to understand that.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes

This game both is, and isn't like Samurai Warriors. It may have the same kind of "you vs a million other guys" gameplay, but the RPG elements and style of story progression are different enough to throw you for a loop if your expectations are too strict.

That said? Just cut loose, and have some fun.

Shovel Knight:

• Do not hit an enemy while standing on an icy surface next to a pit.

• Fire Emblem
  • No, units shouldn't promote as soon as they can.
  • And no, just because it can crit doesn't mean it is useful now.
  • You should never go with the "if an unit dies, means that it sucks" method. Never
  • Even though it seems like a good idea sometimes, do not use prepromotes! Especially not the starting Paladins!
• Earth Bound/Mother 3
  • Yes, healing is important. More than attacking.
  • And sometimes it's better to deal more damage over time than less damage in one attack (which leaves you without nearly enough P Ps)
• Pokemon
  • Even though you have a damn good Pokemon that does not mean that you should always use him.
  • Always, always remember to have some spare Pokeballs. That way you'll not get Entei at critical HP and have him escap because killing him would be worse.
  • You should save Master Balls for rare Pokemons. Not for Uxie. (I was 8, but I still remember it)
  • Even if it looks cool, doesn't mean he is as strong.

edited 29th Aug '15 1:09:42 AM by DarknessAwaits

Even though it seems like a good idea sometimes, do not use prepromotes! Especially not the starting Paladins!

Highly debatable.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

They can be useful if you've accidentally put a unit into a tight spot, but usually I also kinda leave them on the sidelines.

Depending on difficulty, they can be downright essential (there's a reason Awakening's Lunatic Mode is known as Frederick Emblem), and even on the lower ones, they can be very useful to lure enemy units by unequipping their weapons, weakening tough bosses, and transporting other units.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Also, depending on the game, some actually got nice growths on them, meaning that they'll be perfectly capable of joining the rest of your heavy-hitter squad come endgame.

Titania was fine, for example, and I remember Seth being borderline OP. You shouldn't use them too much right out of the gate, but once the rest of the characters got a chance to catch up, it's probably fine.

Seth in particular is generally considered the strongest units in the series, overall. Soloing FE 8 with him is easier than not doing it.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Whether prepromotes are useful or not largely depends on a) which specific game you're playing, and b) your preferred style of play.

If you prefer doing everything as fast as possible for low turn counts, then those kinds of people will spend hours pontificating about the benefits of characters that already have increased movement, better weapon ranks, and higher base stats.

But if you prefer to do a lot of grinding and/or like getting units as powerful as possible, then yeah, prepromotes are largely going to be your "oh shit, need a Meat Shield" characters when you need them, because many of them have lower growth rates, and they all just plain don't have as much room to grow.

...But yeah, Seth borders on Game-Breaker.

Drift Spirits:

• Nitrous can make up for performance shortfalls. It can't make up for ineptitude.
• Yes, cheaping out on screen protectors has a detrimental effect on games that require you to press the screen.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

Even when it comes to really leaning on growth units, pre-promotes are worth using on a regular basis. Earlier games require some finagling to get them unequipped, but the pre-premotes have higher HP and Def, so they can regularly be used as bait, rather than just saving them for "oh shit, gotta bail growth unit X out!" situations. There's just less risk in general by letting them eat the hits, then having the growth units dogpile the poor bastard who got lured in. Having them use wimpy weapons to weaken enemies is usually a good idea too, since growth units picking up the kill will still be getting something like 80% of the total experience. Fred vs Lunatic(+) is a great example of how this can work out. The enemies are generally too tough and fast for him to one-round, even with the Silver Lance. This lets him put several enemies into single-digit HP, so that Robin and the scrubs can clean them up with little risk (especially important, since very few of the early recruits come with ranged weaponry).

Slaughtering a bunch of enemies with early pre-promotes tends to not be a good idea (exceptions include Seth; Sothe, to an extent; and Titania), but not using them at all is pretty much just as detrimental.

edited 30th Aug '15 6:12:02 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

I was merely attempting to describe the two extremes.

CS:GO:

• Communication is vital if you want to win.
• Yes, even if everyone else doesn't have access to voice communication.
• You can't just shut down and not communicate, even if your team members have names like, "Bush did 9/11", and they're constantly spouting some of the most uninspired trite you've ever heard.
• You may think it's of little importance, but staying positive, and congratulating your teammates on a good performance can help with morale, and subsequently, their performance.
• You can't just zone out if you expect to perform well. You may have been able to play other games decently up to this point, but this games requires a certain amount of concentration to do good.

edited 31st Aug '15 10:47:44 AM by OhBoyTime

More Elite Dangerous:

• Don't get too close to a star when fuel scooping, unless you like hearing alarms blaring about how your temperature is going critical.
• The Asp Explorer may be intended as an exploration ship, but she's still a nasty fighting vessel, especially if she's equipped with railguns.
• I don't care how much of a hotshot pilot you think you are, if you come under fire from three or more big ships and you're not properly-equipped, you get the heck out of there... Especially if one of your assailants is a player-commander.
• Exploration is actually fairly profitable if you prefer quantity over quality. It doesn't matter if you're scanning rocky planets or metal-rich ones, scanning any planetary and stellar bodies is always going to be better than simply ignoring them.
  • That being said, Asteroid Belt Clusters can be safely ignored.
• Don't be afraid to wing up! You share profits from Combat ventures you go on.
• Remember what I said about not flying in front of Anacondas in combat? The same goes double for Vultures. The Plasma Accelerators might not be as big as the 'Conda's, but they will still hurt.