Video game lessons learned the hard way

Yeah, I went from "never bothering to level up my magic" to "obsessively Level Grinding whenever the cap went up" as well, and for the remake I gave that up in favor of "get a level or two when I get a new spirit, and just use them as I go otherwise".

Also, in the original SNES version, leveling up only refilled your HP, so you didn't miss out then

EDIT: Pagetopper

edited 4th Mar '18 7:23:54 AM by Reflextion

"Also, in the original SNES version, leveling up only refilled your HP, so you didn't miss out then"

Oh really now? Smart move on the remake for adding that feature.

I also like the fact that you can increase the number of items you can carry in a stack from 4 to 12. Not that I'd ever need 12 Cups of Wishes, but it's a nice idea regardless.

Medal of Honor: Frontline

• Always watch how much ammo you have because it can be gone pretty quickly.

• Be on the lookout for medical kits so you can heal yourself.

• Try not to die because it you get killed you'll have to restart the level all over again.

Dead Cells: You need either a lot of damage reduction or a lot of health if you to have any shot at The Hand of the King. Preferably both, on top of a sixth sense to avoid bugged attacks.

Speaking of the big current Final Boss:

• You can parry his charge. He'll still knock you down into a spike pit.
• After summoning the flunkies, he'll come back into fight when one is left. This includes any Elites you might have thought to leave for last.
• Kill the banners, but don't make it a priority.
• He charges right back past a certain HP loss.

edited 5th Mar '18 6:04:13 AM by FergardStratoavis

Dark Souls III

Make sure you're actually good at PVP before joining the Spears of the Church.

Overnight Mare:

• Do not solve the puzzles without triggering them. Instant death can ensure.
• Protudor and arrogant can pierce through physical obstacles.
• Grind's attack is an instant kill in normal and above.
• Master the fixed facing movement. It will make using knife against certain enemies easier.
• Do not attempt the Over Nightmare difficulty at the first try. Bump down to Nightmare difficulty first to save on ammunition.
• Saya's assassination attempt in chapter 1 & 3 can be avoid by taking the lower half or leave the enemies alive.
• Kill the flunkies which spawns during the Dercabia boss fight to increase attack power of your silver knife.

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star: The "Don't pursue Lu Bu" meme applies to this game, too. (At least until the story gives you a way to temporarily weaken him. Then yeah, pursue Lu Bu all you want.)

Puyo Puyo Tetris:

• Don't pit yourself against 3 AI with similar difficulties. Or maybe ones with hard difficulties. Or maybe JUST don't fight Dark Prince and Ecolo at the same time, cuz I had a match that took an hour because they kept trying to fight for 2nd and 1st place and it was just too absurd to witness. I couldn't even save a full replay cuz it was too large. And no, this wasn't with the Core AI cheat. This was actually a match with regular AI, they just so happened to be difficult AI already.

Galactic Civilizations (applies mostly to III, but could be true of the older entries; I don't know): The Drengin Empire doesn't seem to care what difficulty you're playing on - if you don't have a strong space navy, they will roll you.

If you don't have a strong navy, everyone will try to shake you down for cash.

Well I was hoping Gal Civ 3 would've finally fixed that pattern of always needing a military at all times, even if "peaceful". Guess not.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

• QQ Bangs are pretty much just dice rolls, not combinations of your clothing.
• The nerf to Justice Combination hurts, but not as much as it still hurts the opponent.
• Frieza Race’s combos aren’t as “customizable” as the female Saiyan or female human, so try to figure out which actual alternations between Square and Triangle work.
• Min-Maxing still isn’t a bad idea.

Kingdom Hearts χ

• Didn’t get a Foreteller Medal (especially Ava)? A lot of events quests are gonna be out of your reach.
• Atk Down medals are way too rare. Fighting in Expert Event Quests (like say, the new Organization quests) are pretty much ride or die. No war of attrition for you.

Football Manager 2017 (probably applicable to other installments):

• Try to field as many club-grown players as possible when playing against a rival. Those players would be extra motivated for the match, and chances of them putting up good performances are higher than usual.
• For the same reason, try to field players that played for the opposing team at some point.
• Never have three strikers of first-team quality in your squad. In will end in a disaster: you won't be able to provide satisfactory amount of first-team time for all of them, and best case only one of them will become unhappy, forcing you to sell him. Worst case all of them will, and they'll start complaining to their teammates, which will result in revolt in the team's locker room against you.
• On the other hand, having three center-backs of equally high quality in your squad is a good idea (if you're playing with four defenders).
• Invest in the youth.

edited 29th Apr '18 6:11:30 AM by Millership

Breath of Fire 4

• The camera really sucks.

• Try to mix up attacks in order to get good results.

• The game may look easy but you can die if you're not careful.

Also try to get all the optional dragon forms ASAP. If left for later, they will be useless.

Fallout 4:

Avoid using grenades indoors, through doorways, or any sort of narrow passage. Apparently the game doesn't throw the grenade directly from center, but instead throws it partially to the right side. This means that while your screen may be centered on a potential target, in reality the corner of the wall will end up catching the grenade, causing it to bounce right back to you. Oh, and let's not even start at how many objects in the world have invisible corners or walls you can't pass through; that alone ruined more than a few attempts at sneaky headshots or potential clever use of cover.

Borderlands 2:

• If you're planning to do Mighty Morphin', don't wake Mordecai up (by shooting Varkids with an incendiary gun). If you do, he'll start shooting things in combat with you - which normally is good, but because you need to wait for a Varkid to slip into a morphing pod and the injector takes a while to start, you'll find yourself with a lot of dead Varkids, plenty of popped pods and a lot of lost patience.
• E-tech pistols are kinda meh.
• Explosive weapons that aren't launchers need some forward aiming if you want to fight a fast-moving target (i.e. a Buzzard) or to fight at a longer range.
• Tediore reload is amazing and hilarious both, but it chews ammo like candy. Exercise caution.

Devil May Cry 4: Frosts are evil.

Fairune: Hidden paths are well hidden, but not impossible to notice. Perception is better than aimless wandering for 30 minutes of something, anything new to find.

Paladins: Fernando's "Immortal" Ultimate locks your health at 1500...even if you were already at full health beforehand. So if he ain't broke, wait until he is before trying to fix him.

Mario Tennis Aces

• You can double-tap to quickly charge topspins (A), slices (B), and flat shots (Y). You can not double-tap to charge lobs or drop shots, since that'll cause a Trick Shot (the X inputs) or a topspin/slice (the A/B inputs).
• Make sure you bounce the ball properly when serving with a Zone Shot! Aiming by the opponent's feet will cause a fault, since it didn't bounce in the service box first.
• This is one of those games where it's hard to bounce back when you lose momentum- make sure you're never in a spot where you're empty on meter and your opponent's topped off on it, since that makes keeping up near impossible.
• Everyone excels at different shots... so don't expect Powerful characters to be anything other than shabby when it comes to making slices curve.

• Tactics Ogre
  • Videogames can motivate you to learn new languages, such as ENGLISH.
  • If you're in a position of power, you will eventually think everything goes if it's to win a war. Even labeling the guy who refused to do it as a terrorist to keep your own ass out of trouble.
  • The only reason I don't let Robert Rudlum die is because he has draconian grimoires with him.
  • The remake far outdoes the original, no matter what fans of the original say or how awesome the original still is.
  • I miss the cussing when playing the remake.
• Final Fantasy VIII
  • If the boss has Demi in its Draw list, you can use it against him.
  • Machines have problems with electricity.
  • No one has the exact same viewpoint as you. Thank you for teaching me that, Irvine.
  • Every good powerup comes at some kind of price.
• Final Fantasy Tactics
  • History is indeed written by the winners.
  • Having a magical piece of auracite possessed by a Scion is the best way to gain superpowers at the cost of your own soul.
  • Rapha Galtena is a suicidal bitch.
  • Status protection is extremely important and not to be ignored.
  • The Random Number God is not your friend.
  • There's so much wanking about the "Blind Idiot" Translation. Half the name changes may be bad, but damn, the PSP version's text got so much better.
• Ragnarok Online
  • Never try to make a build based on some famous legend player.
  • Elemental systems can be a massive piece of shit if they are done in a massively confusing way as this game does. (No, the normal wheel isn't the only thing this elemental system has.)
• Final Fantasy XII
  • Elemental opposition systems are can be awesome if they are easy to memorize.
• The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match
  • Goro Daimon is the best way to shatter the AI into pieces, no matter what installment you are playing.

edited 4th Jun '18 1:32:11 AM by ZeroDozer

Pokémon: As a wee lad playing Gold Version, I fought and failed to catch Ho-oh atop Tin Tower (though I did catch Lugia). However, I didn't learn. Instead, a few short months later, I was playing through Yellow and wandering around the Power Plant (didn't know there was a legendary waiting for me at the end). Suddenly, Zapdos! I got into a battle with it, whittled it down, put it to sleep, and then threw out an ultra b—THERE IS NO MORE ROOM IN YOUR PC.

And then I killed it and forgot NOT to save. No Zapdos for me. Never made that mistake again.

This was how I learned to always save before battling legendaries.

Tales of Grace f

• Sometime blocking won't protect from getting a chunk of your health from getting taken so try dodging.

• Your characters can use the Eleth gauge to become invincible . However so can your enemies. This can be a problem, especially if the enemies know how to do mystic artes.

Warframe:

• Try not to change frames and/or weapons repeatedly in a single session, because doing so leads to muscle memory problems like, say, wondering why I can't cast Snow Globe before I remember I'm on Trinity and not Frost.