History NotTheIntendedUse / VideoGames

* ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi Saidaioujou]]'' has the Hyper recharge technique. Normally, defeating a midboss, boss phase, or certain types of enemies turns all on-screen bullets into small star items. But during a Hyper, cancelled bullets turn into large star items, which are worth 10 times the usual small ones. However, items picked up during a Hyper don't charge up your Hyper gauge. This can be exploited by triggering a bullet cancel just as your Hyper times out, spawning a screenful of large items which ''do'' charge up your next Hyper because your previous one ended before you actually pick them up. Since this is much easier said than done (you only have a brief window to pick up a spawned star item before it falls off the screen), it became a high-level technique and turned into an AscendedGlitch: The UsefulNotes/XBox360 port actually includes a demonstration video teaching you how to do it, and in Ver 1.5, a Level 6 or higher Hyper turns ''all'' star items spawned into large ones plus higher levels above 6 increase the number of large star items spawned, making this exploit possible in more places than before.

** Trolls do enormous amounts of damage to the environment when attacking, usually resulting in a OneHitKill for the player. However, they're also relatively easy to dodge, so some players use trolls to clear forests and break up ore deposits instead of chopping/mining it themselves.

** '''Cyber Style''', exclusive to Zane Truesdale allows the player to summon 1-3 Proto-Cyber Dragons to the field depending on how much damage you've taken. The skill was supposed to make fusion summoning Zane's boss monster Cyber End Dragon easier, but players found it far more useful as an easy source of tribute fodder. It got to the point that the skill was nerfed so that the monsters it summons can ''only'' be tributed for fusion summons now.

** '''Contract Procrastination''', exclusive to Declan Akaba allows players to skip their Standby Phase if they control a Dark Contract card. This is meant to dodge the maintenance cost of said Contracts (some of which cost as much as '''2000''' life points per turn), but it saw use as a way of keeping [[AwesomeButImpractical Golden Castle of Stromberg]] on the field without needing to banish 10 of your (at most) 30-card deck on each of your Standby Phases. Contract Procraastination was thus nerfed to only be usable once per Duel.

** Mekk-Knights also sometimes made use of '''Middle Age Gears''' and '''Master of Rites II''', skills exclusive to Dr. Vellian Crowler and Alexis Rhodes respectively that play a free Ancient Gear Castle and Ritual Cage respectively at the start of the player's first turn. While intended for Ancient Gear decks and Ritual decks respectively, Mekk-Knights didn't care what those cards actually did, and simply used the free cards as a way to kick-start their plays without spending a card of their own to set up a column (this was less problematic than Surprise Present and not addressed by the devs, since you were giving up one of your own Spell/Trap Zones instead of blocking one of the opponent's).

* ''[[VideoGame/NarutoShippudenUltimateNinja4 Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja 4 (and 5)]]'' have "Unlimited Chakra" feature in Versus Mode, making jutsu spam possible without worrying about your chakra. Scaled up to eleven with [[BareFistedMonk Might Guy]] and his trademark flying kick/punch attack ''Night Phoenix'' which has easy button combination to activate, fast start-up time, fast recovery time, launches his opponent flying if the attack connects and deals considerable chipping damage if the attack is blocked. In no time, Guy players would be filling the screen with blaze of fire as Guy [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown keeps pummeling his opponents]].

** ''VideoGame/Disgaea5'' re-introduced Map Creation in its initial release on Playstatuon 4, to allow users to make maps and upload them to challenge other users. Maps were divided into two categories -- "Challenge" Maps were intended to give other users a serious challenge, whereas "Money" Maps would reward users. Trouble is, Money Maps would only unlock in the post-story game after unlocking the Carnage Dimension and clearing Martial Training 5 on Carnage mode, making any potential rewards from playing Money Maps more or less useless. That said, users began making maps that allowed for extremely fast Weapon and Skill Mastery, alongside the mass collection of Revenge Shards, allowing lagging units to be quickly brought up to speed.

* ''VideoGame/Disgaea5'' re-introduced Map Creation in its initial release on Playstatuon 4, to allow users to make maps and upload them to challenge other users. Maps were divided into two categories -- "Challenge" Maps were intended to give other users a serious challenge, whereas "Money" Maps would reward users. Trouble is, Money Maps would only unlock in the post-story game after unlocking the Carnage Dimension and clearing Martial Training 5 on Carnage mode, making any potential rewards from playing Money Maps more or less useless. That said, users began making maps that allowed for extremely fast Weapon and Skill Mastery, alongside the mass collection of Revenge Shards, allowing lagging units to be quickly brought up to speed.

* ''VideoGame/Disgaea5'' re-introduced Map Creation in its initial release on PS4, to allow users to make maps and upload them to challenge other users. Maps were divided into two categories -- "Challenge" Maps were intended to give other users a serious challenge, whereas "Money" Maps would reward users. Trouble is, Money Maps would only unlock in the post-story game after unlocking the Carnage Dimension and clearing Martial Training 5 on Carnage mode, making any potential rewards from playing Money Maps more or less useless. That said, users began making maps that allowed for extremely fast Weapon and Skill Mastery, alongside the mass collection of Revenge Shards, allowing lagging units to be quickly brought up to speed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Palworld}}:

** The Innervating Locket item restored some of your mana and caused a minor self-targeted [[AreaOfEffect AoE]] heal whenever you used one of your abilities. Originally it was thought of as a powerup for healers, but then people realized you could use it on Udyr, a melee fighter who uses his abilities in quick succession. The Locket/Udyr build was so powerful that it forced Riot to remove the locket from the game.
** The Tear of the Goddess. This item gives you a very large mana pool over time. It was originally thought of as a caster item. Then people started to use it on other characters, such as Corki and Ezreal, both high physical damage characters who nonetheless have abilities worth spamming. Riot took note of this and made the Manamune, which is an item for DPS characters that builds from Tear of the Goddess, and the Winter's Approach for tanks.

** Pre-Rework Poppy's ultimate, ''Diplomatic Immunity'', was essentially meant to force Poppy and her target into a one-on-one fight. That's okay; there are several other characters with similar ults. It did this by having Poppy ignore ''every'' form of damage or crowd control from anyone but her chosen target. Problem is, [[RulesLawyer nowhere in the rules for the ability did it say Poppy actually had to fight her target]]. She could target someone who was basically no threat to her, and then merrily lay in to the team's GlassCannon without fear, since that person had no way of retaliating. Poppy, like Sion, was completely reworked, and her current ult is still good, but less game-breakingly ridiculous.
** Evelynn used to be a stealthy assassin midlaner. Then people realized you could compensate for her terrible, just-too-squishy early game by playing her in the jungle, where she was unlikely to be interrupted as she farmed creeps, and could easily use her invisibility to sneak up on the other jungler and kill-steal. She turned out to be an utter GameBreaker there, and for a while was riding an unstable nerf-buff cycle that left her intermittently unplayable before her complete rework.

** Champions classified as supports are generally the ones with teammate-helping abilities, like aura buffs, shields, and heals, that could help the team's carry get lots of gold for their items. However, players eventually realized that there was another way to get their carry gold: get them kills. This is the basis of 'Catcher' and 'Vanguard' champions as supports. For example, a Morgana or Lux support can use their Dark/Light Binding to root champions (leaving them easy kills), and are thus sometimes played as supports despite being designed for mid-lanes.
** Players are intended to start a match by buying some basic items. Instead, many players simply bought around thirteen healing potions and/or a flask and/or several wards. Flasks were made more expensive, and healing potions [[ObviousRulePatch limited to 5]].

** In general, champions are often used in different roles than intended. Sometimes the developers say "eh, close enough" (Diana was intended as a roaming jungler but is played in mid lane as something of an anti-mage), sometimes a {{nerf}} follows (supports Janna and Soraka mid, [[note]]often referred to as battlemage Soraka or Janna[[/note]] or the support Lulu as a DPS[[note]]referred to exclusively as "Machinegun Lulu[[/note]]).

** Version 1.9 allowed players to craft End crystals to respawn and redo the [[FinalBoss Ender Dragon]] fight. Destroying them resulted in a ''powerful'' explosion that could very easily kill you, necessitating that you destroy them with a ranged weapon. They soon found a second use as an ImprovisedWeapon in PvP servers as a single explosion could kill someone in maxed-out armor at point-blank range.

** '''Contract Procrastination''', exclusive to Declan Akaba allows players to skip their Standby Phase if they control a Dark Contract card. This is meant to dodge the maintenance cost of said Contracts (some of which cost as much as '''2000''' life points per turn), but it currently sees use as a way of keeping [[AwesomeButImpractical Golden Castle of Stromberg]] on the field without needing to banish 10 of your (at most) 30-card deck on each of your Standby Phases. Contract Procraastination was thus nerfed to only be usable once per Duel.

** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': The dagger's Weapon Art is intended to provide you with better chances at a backstab by allowing quick, aggressive movement. However, since it also provides that same quick, aggressive movement in ass-deep poisonous swamp mud, many players -- especially speedrunners -- use it to accelerate movement through the most obnoxious parts of Farron Keep.

** Storywise, Deconstructed in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', Sora primarily uses the Power of Waking to restore the hearts of those that have been put to slumber, such as Ventus, or Roxas. However, during the climactic battle against Xehanort, Sora starts abusing the power to perform feats it was not originally intended for. [[spoiler: After his friends are killed by a massive swarm of Heartless, Sora uses the Power of Waking to bring them back to life, but Xehanort's various incarnations and Chirithy repeatedly warn him that he's misusing the power by doing this. Young Xehanort describes it as "traversing hearts to reach worlds, not traversing worlds to reach hearts", and Chirity states it's meant to wake sleeping hearts, not restore hearts that have vanished from existence. By doing so, Sora has not only altered the flow of history, but violated a very important law of the world, and that he'll pay a steep price for doing it so many times, risking losing the power altogether, and jeopordizing his own existence. Sure enough, after he restores Kairi using this power, Sora eventually vanishes from the world, and ''Melody of Memory'' implies he was banished to a realm that exists opposite to reality, a fictional world, and cannot escape it under his own power.]]

*** Stasis and Magnesis also highlight any objects that they can affect, which can make finding certain treasures and items easier in places that would ordinarily be difficult to see them in, such as tall grass or underwater.

*** Brightbloom Seeds can illuminate dark areas... or instantly eradicate undead.

** Anti-Air Tanks are relatively inexpensive, highly mobile, and ''extremely'' effective at dispatching enemy infantry, since their only means of attack is their Vulcan Cannon which can do upwards of 180% damage, unlike the Tank whose secondary machine gun will do about 80% damage. They're also rather effective against Recons and other light vehicles; in a pinch, they can also take on Tanks as well. In spite of their name, they see more usage against infantry than they do against aircraft, and later games actually point out their effectiveness at this.

*** The Alchemy system. The intended use is to craft potions that would improve your skills in combat and dialogue.. However, it was discovered that by making and drinking an Intelligence potion, you can make better Intelligence potions which you can then drink. After a few iterations, you can easily make incredible GameBreaker potions that increase all of your attributes to insane levels and allow you to regenerate thousands of health per second for many real world hours.

*** The game ''tries'' to fix the positive feedback loop of making potions that made you better at making potions from previous games by making you unable to craft potions that help with Alchemy or enchant gear with effects that boost Enchanting... but you can still enchant gear to help you make better potions, and also brew potions that boosts enchanting. Along with Smithing, the road to epic level is thus paved by crafting blank equipment, enchanting it with alchemy-increasing stats, crafting potions that boost Smithing and Enchanting... rinse and repeat. The bug that makes Fortify Restoration (improve healing magic) potions raise all your stats even more quickly is just icing, really. And after just a few loops, [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale the numbers go off the side of the screen]]. Later versions of the game create a cap to avoid this.

** The Innervating Locket item restored some of your mana and caused a minor self-targeted [[AreaOfEffect AoE]] heal whenever you used one of your abilities. Originally it was thought of as a powerup for healers. Then people realized you could use it on Udyr (a melee fighter who uses his abilities in quick succession). The Locket/Udyr build was so powerful that it forced Riot to remove the locket from the game.

** While radically different uses for champions are occasionally found, the champion Gragas stands out for the alternate having massively surpassed the original. He was intended as a [[StoneWall tanky melee fighter]], using his abilities mostly for utility to debuff, disrupt, and initiate. He is basically never used this way, instead functioning as a burst damage mage who relies on his tank origins to make him tougher than most mages. For a long time the Riot Games recommended items focused on completely different attributes than most player-recommended builds, until they eventually gave in and completely overhauled them. It went to the point that Riot Games decided to rework his kit to return him back to his root as a tanky melee fighter.
** Sion, a giant berserker zombie with a massive axe, was obviously intended to function as a beefy melee DPS, using his Death's Caress (an exploding shield) for protection in fights and his Cryptic Gaze (a guaranteed hitting ranged damage spell with a lengthy stun) to catch enemies for him to whale on. While he is often used like this, people noticed that both of those skills had high base damage numbers and perfect 1-1 ability power scaling ratios and he became one of the most powerful burst mages in the game. The scaling was later decreased to make this less prominent, and Sion has since been reworked as a high-health tanky fighter.
** Pre-Rework Poppy's ultimate, ''Diplomatic Immunity'', was essentially meant to force Poppy and her target into a one-on-one fight. That's okay; there are several other characters with similar ults. It did this by having Poppy ignore ''every'' form of damage or crowd control from anyone but her chosen target. Problem is, [[RulesLawyer nowhere in the rules for the ability did it say Poppy actually had to fight her target]]. She could target someone who was basically no threat to her, and then merrily lay in to the team's GlassCannon without fear, since that person had no way of retaliating. Poppy, like Sion, was completely reworked and her current ult is still good, but less game-breakingly ridiculous.
** Evelynn was originally a stealthy assassin midlaner. Then people realized you could compensate for her terrible, just-too-squishy early game by playing her in the jungle, where she was unlikely to be interrupted as she farmed creeps, and could easily use her invisibility to sneak up on the other jungler and kill-steal. She turned out to be an utter GameBreaker there, and for a while was riding an unstable nerf-buff cycle that left her intermittently unplayable before her complete rework.
** The Ability Power builds for [[GlassCannon melee DPS]] champions Master Yi and Tryndamere are considered some of the worst abuses of an alternate build by the developers themselves. Yi has a multi-targeting dash that makes him completely unhittable for a second, Tryndamere has a spin attack that scales with AP, and both have powerful heals that can bring them from almost no health back to fully healed in just a few seconds. Ability Power Tryndamere has been {{nerf}}ed, Ability Power Yi was done away with entirely when Riot removed his AP ratios in his rework.

** ''VideoGame/SuikodenIII'': The Theater feature is meant to be something to create more money: Give the right characters and personality the right role to act and it will create a proper crowd-pleaser that would generate money. Giving the wrong characters for the roles will make the crowd boo... but [[InvokedTrope invoking such]] [[WTHCastingAgency wrong casting choices]] will actually generate very hilarious dialogues from the colorful cast of actors (for this game, 104 actors). And so, players tend to use the theater not for the intended money making machine, but for cases of [[RuleOfFunny the player wanting to roll over on the floor laughing their asses off.]]

*** The Camera Rune lets players know when something that they can take a picture of is in it's sight. Players can use this to counter [[spoiler:[[BonusBoss Maz Koshia's]] cloning technique, as only the real one will register.]]

** The Decaying Dragon Key gear item is normally an item used to open the Orokin Derelict's vaults, which while equipped in your gear wheel harbors a significant maximum shields penalty, which sounds bad on paper, but when utilized with certain mods that allow you to gain shields upon casting a Warframe ability can be used to quickly regain maximum shielding in order [[MercyInvincibility to abuse shield gating]] to completely avoid damage until one can return to relative safety.