Video game lessons learned the hard way

Well, my failures on the mission so far have centered around the fact that I keep hanging around her to take out the airborne units in that area instead of going to save the helicopter, so......... >_>

No need for that. They can't hurt her.

I had a sneaking suspicion that that might've proven to be the case.

Warframe: the "Augmented Shields" Sortie modifier applies to everything. That includes those pesky security cameras. Trying to kill them with a Bullet Jump will fail (and will trigger the alarms if you're in a Spy vault).

Like I said, she can take care of herself.

Overwatch

• Not all objects, even if they look big and tall, will count as a wall for bonus damage to Reinhardt's charge attack. In fact, this large object may be a statue that instead deflects one to the side and off the map (cue Taking You with Me).

Raidou Kuzonoha vs. the Soulless Army:

• Your demons make Donald and Goofy look careful with their MP, and your commands aren't saved between fights.

Home Front The Revolution.

This game emphasizes the need for literal hit and run approach. Trying to hunker down and go toe to toe with the KPA soldiers is a good way to get your ass shot off. Stealth and ambushes are king. Avoiding conflict also keeps you alive longer. A silent ranged take down weapon is a must. Use health items sparingly as they are uncommon outside of some stashes or have to be purchased.

Going toe to toe with a heavy soldier in Exoskeleton powered armor with a heavy weapon is a good way to get your ass handed to you.

edited 10th Jun '16 6:57:15 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Endless Space:

When it's time to prepare for war, stop all other things. Devote your research to whatever will help you get ready. Devote every non-shipyard star system to producing Dust (The game's equivalent to cash) and have your shipyards build fleets nonstop. The cash can be dumped wholesale into either producing new ships or bringing old ones up to their class's current design. Otherwise your enemy will bring twenty fleets to bear on you while you're thinking your five or six are spiffy.

8 Beat Story:

• This game's touch controls require a certain amount of touching pressure. If you are buying a phone to play this game, do not use safety protectors or you will have to press the screen very hard.
• Also, the character icons are placed in slightly curved lines. This is not The Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage or Love Live! School Idol Festival.
• This game is very unforgiving when it comes to unresponsive lives. If you happened to get stuck in an unresponsive live, kiss the stamina gone waste.
• Having your character evolved and maxed affection is not enough to S rank the hard difficulty unless you have a team of SR characters with UR support or having said characters max leveled. S ranking expert difficulty requires maxed leveled UR cards to get the evolution materials.
• Make good use of the program drop time. Leveling characters will take forever without them.

Hitman: Blood Money

• It's still Silent Assassin if your victim sees you right before you kill them, just as long as they don't live long enough to sound the alarm.

If you've got enough of a power lead on the enemy, or a specially designed fleet, then you absolutely could take on twenty fleets at once. It'll hurt, but once done, you'll be able to punish them for their insolence. Getting the upgrade to scan enemy fleets is handy if you pin them down on the planets with those upgrades, since you can then mass-produce a fleet of cheap ships to specifically counter them.

edited 20th Jun '16 7:44:17 AM by Ekimmak

Fire Emblem: Mages are, as a general rule, better suited for finishing off weakened foes than actually leading the charge. Sending them off into the front lines, especially unguarded, especially if the enemies have throwing axes, is just stupid.

I learned that lesson well in this last game.

My enemies the Sophons had well over twenty fleets. I produced one fleet of warships and one fleet of siege ships for each of their eight systems. I parked those fleets in orbit of each system before declaring war. Twenty fleets came at one of my warship fleets. There's only five ships in my final warfleet design. Never lost a battle because the Thor class warship is a behemoth packed to the gills with weapons and armor. Five of them can survive anything the enemy's thrown at them.

This is an end-stage game. I've utterly smashed two of the three factions that started the game against me, and won four or five different victory conditions. Only thing left to do is kill off the Amoeba and see if conquering the full map permanently ends the game.

Mages are a bit squishy in the earlygame, yeah, but Magikarp Power is usually well in effect - by midgame or lategame, they can typically solo decent-sized swathes of enemies.

Pray for crazy speed growths and watch them dodge everything that isn't a high Skill sword user.

edited 21st Jun '16 5:50:33 AM by Volatile-Fox

Project × Zone: the XP (Cross Points, basically MP) gauge appears to be shared by everyone, rather than each unit having their own pool.

This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, and makes strategic thinking a lot more critical.

8 Beat Story:

• The Mother difficulty is insane. Do not attempt this unless you have mastered single slide notes. Being the only 5th rank difficulty of all Japanese mobile rhythm games, it really deserves the reputation.

• Using the multiplier means forfeiting possible exp, gold and cards that can be obtained without using this option.

Super Mario Maker: If you have one life left on the final stage of expert mode, you are not going to make it.

• Civilization V
  • On Immortal and Deity, always assume all leaders who show up as Friendly is lying straight out of their ass. Yes, even when playing with supposedly "nice" leaders like Pedro II or "loyal" leaders like Shaka and Genghis Khan. Yes, even when using the Vox Populi modpack. Yes, even when playing against modded civs whose "loyalty" and "DoFWillingness" parameters are set to 10 or greater and "deceptiveness" set to something lower than 3 (by looking at the respective leader's SQL or XML files, of course). Always be prepared for war - and if you're lucky, genocide of an entire civilization that's not yours.

edited 21st Jun '16 9:45:30 AM by DarkDestruction

Even on difficulties lower than that (I usually play on Warlord or Prince), you will inevitably do something at some point to piss off even the friendliest neighbors.

• The longer you wait to build an army, the more sacrifices you'll have to make to get it to a decent size.
• The AI prioritizes the Great Library. Once that's built, it jumps to the Terracotta Army.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions:

Your primary worry with leaving a dungeon to get healing is the time cost, not the monetary cost. Drinks from a vending machine are 160 yen for a full heal (HP, EP, statuses and revivals), and you'll be making at least twice that off the average random encounter in the first dungeon (where, ironically enough, you're locked in until you beat the boss, so you get a free healing spot instead). In later dungeons? Your primary reason for not leaving is not wanting to deal with the puzzles again!

(Also, if the maze that is dungeon 3 makes you want to rip your hair out, join the club.)

On a related note, you'll be visiting Tiki a lot to perform Unity, so getting Tsubasa's Traport Radiant Skill should be a priority once she hits Stage Rank 1.

Overwatch: Hanzo's ultimate won't even touch enemies at close range.

Star Wars: Empire at War: if you increase the population limit in order to make battles go faster, the AI will benefit from it too. I found this out the hard way when I lost Kessel to a screen-spanning solid wall of Y-Wings. After my fleet arrived and saved the day, the kill tally listed 35 Y-Wing squadrons, 11 X-Wing squadrons and somewhere around 9-10 frigates, which is about triple of what you're normally allowed to field at once.

Hell, the only reason I even managed to kick their teeth in without suffering near-total losses is because I edited the campaign files to keep Boba Fett beyond the one mission I'd normally get to use him in: when the Y-Wings moved to engage my fleet, I charged Fett into their formation, dropped a seismic charge and laughed my ass off as 80% of the Y-Wing force simply ceased to exist on the spot.

And a while later, I got attacked by a blob of 46 Y-Wings but managed to repel them. And without Fett too!

edited 26th Jun '16 1:18:25 PM by amitakartok

Gaming in general: Going for 100% Completion on your very first playthrough is a good way to end up hating the game.