Video game lessons learned the hard way

The Crew:

• The "back on track" button tracks you holding it down only when it feels like it.
• It's possible to have all the time spent on a cross state race wasted because the game felt like letting you fall gradually to the bottom of the Grand Canyon was easier than letting you respawn.

SMT 4 Apoclyapse

Be warned, if your DDS demon is dead, it will cause the Internet exchange sequence to abort before any exchanges are made, but the game will still count it as if the entire sequence had occurred and you will have to wait 2 hours of playtime to try again.

There's likely also issues with Streetpassing under the above circumstances, but Streetpass isn't under a strict time limit.

Mass Effect

• The AI of humanoid enemies is VERY aggressive. If you're on Hardcore or Insanity and don't have someone with high-level biotics on the squad, prepare to see half of the enemy force use Immunity, Zerg Rush right up to you, switch to shotguns and TPK before you can kill even one of them.
  • Krogan are even worse because even if you manage to kill them, they just regen and get right back up, in the middle of your party.
  • Geth Destroyers are even worse because as soon as they have a straight way to you, they'll sprint up to you and smack you in melee, doing far more damage than their shotgun. And unlike other shotgun-wielding enemies, they don't back off and run back to cover upon catching up to you.
• Biotic enemies using Barrier massively cranks up their physics threshold. Do not expect to be able to knock them over with anything short of a fully-leveled Throw or a Master Spectre Gear sniper rifle with high explosive ammo. However, zapping them with Damping while they're in the middle of Barrier's casting animation makes them a joke.
• On Hardcore, snipers and rocketeers kill you in two shots maximum if you're not using Immunity. Do not even think of counter-sniping without Assassination Shot because by the time you line up the shot, you're dead.
• Low cover is NOT effective against rocketeers who have the high ground because the rocket will hit the top of whatever you're crouching behind and clip your hitbox with the splash damage.
• Geth armatures' siege cannons have splash damage. If it hits the ground next to the corner you just took cover behind, you still die. Kill (or even better, hack) the other geth first, then run around like a madman shooting at the armature because, again, cover is of limited use against this one.
  • Every potshot you score, no matter how ineffective, will reset the armature's shield regen timer. Keep the pressure up because it has a monstrously durable shield that's hard enough to rip down as it is, let alone if you let it regenerate.
  • Above all, if someone on your team has Sabotage, USE IT. It will knock out the siege cannon too.
  • If you're an Engineer or happen to have Tali around, max-level Hacking works on armatures. The armature's siege cannon does just as much damage to other geth as it does to you. Do the math.

edited 4th Oct '16 6:42:03 PM by amitakartok

Wargame: Red Dragon, latest patch/Israeli forces DLC, friendly match, Israel vs Israel (or, as I nicknamed it, Jewish Family Dinner).

• When your opening, mostly-armored vanguard is up against four Nimrod-equipped CH-53Ds escorted by air-to-air Cobras and an Apache...screw it, everyone into the trees. They can have that town.
• No, your older Chaparral variants can't outrange those damned Nimrods. Wait and ambush. Next time, more Hawks.
• Rovait '90 M72E4 rockets don't really have the oomph needed to take out Achzarit armored carriers, but damned if they can't try!
• On that note, Achzarits are superb close-support platforms for an infantry fight. They have the armor to survive multiple rocket hits, while 3x FN MAG can do a wonderful job suppressing enemy infantry.
• MAR-290 rockets are devastating, but they really come into their own when used en masse. Take a page from the Soviets.
• If you can't storm a town right away, you can do almost as good a job by choking off its line of communication and blowing up any vehicles that try to come in to reinforce it. Maglan special forces and Spike missileers are much less scary when they're out of shots, whittled down by air strikes, and about to be stormed by a platoon of paratroopers.
  • Always consider coming in off-axis to an enemy town. If it's been cut off and bombed/sieged for a while, the back route in might just be inadequately guarded. Once you have a toehold with shock infantry it's only a matter of time.

Space Station 13

• Geneticist
  • NEVER remove the blindfold from monkeys you experiment on.
  • Scrambling the genetic code of a subject will remove their current mutations... including blindness. In other word, blindness is not a blindfold substitute for monkeys.
  • Mutadone will remove ALL current mutations from you. And what's more, you'll have to rescramble your own DNA if you want a shot at getting those mutations again with no destabilizing- if it was fixed by Mutadone, a second injector will not give it back to you again.
  • To get filled activators; you need to research a mutation, vend the activator, and then use it on someone in which it's still latent. Manually activating the mutation via filling in the GACT blocks will not give any immediate benefits to you, as fun as it is.
  • Synchronize the Self Biomass Manipulation gene before giving it to someone. Otherwise, the ability to turn your body into a "liquid" is a one-way trip.

edited 13th Oct '16 3:23:16 PM by NesClassic

Factorio

• Don't go near the enemy nests unless you have turrets installed around your base, and are fairly sure you can sprint back before they eat you.
• If there's a huge blockade on your conveyor belts, something's gone wrong somewhere.
• Solar Panels need to produce more than double what your base requires, since they don't function at night.
• Efficiency modules may not be required to research rockets, but they're still very useful. Whenever you have space, install these.
• If you rely on Logistics robots to manage most of your resources, you can't really complain when certain machines end up idle due to lack of resources.
• Don't try to pump the specific types of oil across your base where they're needed, it takes up a lot more room than its worth. Build the manufacturers next to the plant, and downgrade the oils as necessary.
• Unless aiming for the achievement, use laser turrets. They don't need an endlessly complex web of conveyors to get ammo, and are much more effective against the larger wildlife.
• Be careful with your tank. It can quite easy to wreck your own base when you aren't paying attention.
• The lower end of the tank is the front, not the back.
• "Surely they build too slowly to build up that quickly". Whenever you think this, you'll come back to find whatever it is clogging up your conveyor system.

edited 22nd Oct '16 3:37:14 AM by Ekimmak

Civilization VI: Blitzkrieging your way across the continent leaves the land very sparsely settled, which means barbarians coming in from every conceivable angle.

Meta: You can't expect the general public to get their brands right.

While at a video games store I overhead some people talking:

(translated from another language) "Have you seen the new Playstation? The Switch?" O_o

I guess it's like the old days when some people would call any console a "Nintendo", or even now when people would call copiers a "Xerox".

Overwatch — Junkenstein Edition

• Due to the massive increase in damage output on Hard, Reaper is a bigger priority target for sleep than Junkrat (whereas it can arguably be the opposite on Medium).
• Although it's generally rarely seen compared to Roadhog, Reaper can actually ult if left alone for too long. On Hard, this amounts to him getting it after only 10 seconds of dealing damage.
• Even if Reaper gets slept as soon as he finishes Shadowstepping, someone will probably wake him up.
• The guy who wakes Reaper is going to complain that everyone else doesn't know how to play.
• Someone will invariably scream at Ana for "not ulting anyone all game" because Mc Cree was getting the Nanoboosts instead of them.
• There is a blind spot in the lake under the ramparts that lets Zomnics approach somewhat undetected if mid and/or Ana are distracted. So many 100%-HP doors spoiled by this.
• As McCree, wait to make sure Roadhog has either hooked someone else or walked the opposite direction before starting that ult. Nothing ruins a run faster than losing Deadeye on either Roadhog fight.
• On Hard, Junkrat has exchanged his normal grenade launcher for a grenade gatling gun. Learning the precise weave pattern to trick his AI is integral to not getting insta-gibbed. Even with practice, ulting McCree can have issues with this.
• Depending on some level of luck, Ana may or may not have enough debuffs to lock down Roadhog on Medium. Due to Roadhog's HP pool, definitely not on Hard. McCree needs to contribute Flashbangs.

edited 26th Oct '16 1:26:06 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

Civilization VI: Starting in later eras takes wonders and great people from earlier eras off the table. Among other things, this means that any game started in or after the Industrial Era will have no Great Prophets, and therefore no religion.

Tinker Island:

• Use healing items wisely because they become less potent the more you use them.
• Under any circumstances, do not let anyone's health drop to zero, or else they'll be unable to work. The more they get severely wounded, the longer they'll have to heal, and ads to speed up recovery are very limited.
• Always bring three or more survivors to a battle. I didn't realize this sooner when I was fighting off the leeches. It took me about a week to kill all four of them because I was using only my strongest fighter.
• Hope the RNG's by your side when you're fighting, because damage is distributed to all party members.
• Focus on upgrading labor buildings so you can gather resources faster.
• You can't run from the natives who capture you after fighting in the village arena.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

-Carjacking vehicle while running at same time causes driver dies on heart attack.

-Tram must be haunted there no tram operator and passengers inside, Olso tram never stops.

-Police not fine drivers if drive on red light,drive too fast, or ignore road signs;

-Police officer knows everone had premit to carry gun at hands

-Enter military base and start being chased by FBI agents not army.

edited 3rd Nov '16 8:42:54 PM by Pablo1989

What!!!???

Well I guess they thought the old way Civ did it, which is distributing religion randomly, was too unfair...

OK I explain :) -Carjacking vehicle while running at same time causes driver dies on heart attack. There glitch in game if you enter car and press run key/buton at same time drive wil die for unknown reasons :P so ive call this heart attack.

-Tram must be haunted there no tram operator and passengers inside, Olso tram never stops. Tram are not programed to be used unlike trains.

-Police not fine drivers if drive on red light,drive too fast, or ignore road signs; Because game are not driving simulator.

-Police officer knows everone had premit to carry gun at hands This GTA not Mafia:City of lost heaven :) or even better real life

-Enter military base and start being chased by FBI agents not army. Im not sure did real FBI start chase somebody if enter Area 51 or other us.army base.

My previous post had 3 arrows, meaning I was referring to ABNDT's post about Civilization 6. :)

But thanks for the explanation about the heart attack glitch and it sounds amusing. Does it still work on latest steam version or do I gotta bust out my old copy (by old I mean so old it still has the old turns and hot coffee and installs from a disc)...

edited 4th Nov '16 1:31:19 AM by Malco

Space Station 13- Goonstation Traitor edition

• Syndicate Pipe Bomb
  • Syndicate Pipe Bombs do NOT fit into belts or pockets so easily. Don't buy one until you're in a good position to use it.
• Voice Synthesizer
  • Does not work with the breath mask, as far as I'm aware.
• Agent Card
  • Remember to swipe your old ID in before heading out. Really.
  • Also, don't leave your old ID somewhere where it'll be hard to get.
• Microbomb Implant
  • The suicide command is not instantaneous. Do not try to weaponize suicide via a microbomb implant.
• General
  • Don't pick fights near somewhere where you can easily get spaced, dumbass.
  • If you make a daring escape out an airlock via jetpack, come back onto the ship via any entrance EXCLUDING the one you left out of.

Factorio

• Flamethrower turrets are extremely powerful, but slow, and can't work at close range. Either build normal turrets behind them to cover the biters, or walls far out enough that they can hit anybody.
• If you set fire to a forest, it causes a lot of pollution, meaning loads of enemy attacks will occur until it burns out.
• Walls are fireproof. Gates are fireproof. Rails are fireproof. YOU are fireproof (or at least friendly fireproof). Pipes... are not.
• The portable fusion reactor charges at all times, unlike the solar panel mod. But it's so big, that if you fit it into the lowest moddable armour, you have virtually no room left for anything for it to power. Either wait till you have better armour, or spend a lot of time switching between charging and modifiers.
• Armour increases your personal inventory size. So if you take it off, make sure that you have enough empty pockets, or you'll drop everything on the ground, and spend ages picking it up again.

edited 6th Nov '16 6:38:53 PM by Ekimmak

Splatoon

• You can't charge Splatlings in the air.
• If you hear a bomb, but don't see a bomb, there's probably a bomb.
• Suction Bombs have a noticably shorter range compared to their Splat-type brothers.
• Do not let them push you back to spawn on Blackbelly Skatepark.

Splatoon

• The last one should be expected for all maps, but especially the small ones.
• The Bubbler special does not work on a teammate holding the Rainmaker.

edited 15th Nov '16 10:05:16 AM by tclittle

Stardew Valley: If you have three of the four dwarf scrolls, the RNG will taunt you with additional copies of the ones you have. Want the last one so you can talk to Dwarf? Too bad, here's three more copies of the first one you found.

[[Video Game/Journey]]

• If you decide that the first sandsurfing section is a good place to spontaneously start belting out Rolling around at the speed of sound/Got places to go/Gotta follow my rainbow your roommate's never going to forgive you.

#5218 re: Splatoon

Wait, I thought we "can" charge splatlings and chargers in the air or while jumping, but there's a massive penalty to charge speed?

Yes, we "can" but even with a mini splatling the charge time is horrendous.

Stardew Valley:

• Wood can be gathered more quickly than stone. That said, stone is actually more easily renewable than wood in this game. Trees take time to regrow, whereas you can mine as much stone as you have the time and energy for every day in the Mine.

edited 16th Nov '16 1:36:50 PM by Yinyang107

Preach.