Things in games that you didn't realize until WAY after you started playing

[Absolution75]

I'm playing it now, and only have the 10 skill bar. How do I get 20 more?

I forget exactly, but I believe you unlock the bar by clicking on the lock icon on the right side of the bar and then you just click + drag it.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I forget exactly, but I believe you unlock the bar by clicking on the lock icon on the right side of the bar and then you just click + drag it.

Thanks, when I get a chance I'll play with it. Now that I know it is something that is possible I'm sure I can figure it out.

 

[fatpat268]

This is one of the things that bugged me about Mass Effect 1. No sprinting outside of combat and very large levels, so it can take a long time to get anywhere. ME2 made the environments smaller and allowed sprinting anywhere (although you can only sprint for a few seconds at a time). ME1 has a superspeed console command, but it's kind of tedious to use when you have to constantly enable and disable it.

Lol, try running through that long ass prothean library in ME1 near the end of the game on foot. I did that once... and then I had to go all the way back when I realized I needed the damn mako to jump down the waterfall at the end of the library.

Ugh.

 

[stahlhart]

Regardless of whether it was intentional or not, the coincidence between the lambda symbol for HL and an arm holding a crowbar.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

I played about 20 hours into Fallout before I realized you could rest.

 

[Zenoth]

I played about 20 hours into Fallout before I realized you could rest.

Oh, wow, now that one sparked a sudden flash of memory. In my case, it was the other way around, but in Oblivion, for some reason it took me around a dozen play sessions within something like a week after I bought the game before I realized that I HAD to rest to level up at all (and I knew about the very feature of resting in itself). And the worst part is that I do believe that I got some form of a notice on the screen about the fact that I was indeed ready to level up, although I'm not sure about that anymore, it's been so long. I must have left my mind somewhere up in the clouds for that entire week.

Another one I can think of right now is with Dragon Age: Origins, two things from that one. First, like someone else mentioned, I as well only noticed much later on (something like during my third play-through) that I could extend the skills bar towards the right side of the screen to include more skills, and coincidentally I was playing a Mage in that play-through, quite useful!

And, last but not least, I still clearly remember to this day that for the ENTIRE first play-through I just wasn't aware of the objects highlight feature at all (now moved to my TAB key). Since I just wasn't even aware of its existence you guys can guess how many codex entries and various chests and interactive objects I missed by not highlighting stuff as I played. So when I discovered that feature very early in my second play-through (somewhere during the siege at Ostagar) you can bet how many things I found that time around, I literally rediscovered the entire game as if my first play-through never happened, and of course I also felt incredibly stupid for having missed the feature at all during my first play-through. My reaction upon discovering the feature was something along the lines of a couple of swearing words, followed by heaps of frustration for having "lost my time" in the first play-through without it. Suffice it to say, that my second play-through lasted almost twice as long as the first, it was very thorough.

I could certainly think about similar situations where I discovered things in various games much later on, but to be honest I'd rather not try to think about that too much, sometimes it's almost better not to be aware of what you've missed, especially if the games in question are too old today to even bother going back at them to try them "properly" again, but that's just me heh.

 

[Rifter]

I played oblivion for months(yes months, 100+ hours of playtime) before i relized you could fast travel, it never occured to me because you couldnt in morrowind.

On the bright side my guys athletics was maxed and i could run hella fast, thats what running to/from every city on the map a few times will do, but man was it boring.

 

[Borealis7]

I played The Last Remnant on the PC (amazing game BTW), i had ABSOLUTELY NO F**KING IDEA what i was doing until halfway through the game. but once i did get a clue as to how to play the game properly, i found out my guesses were quite good.

 

[MustangSVT]

I played all the way through Dragon Age: Origins before I realized you could increase the size of your skill bar.

Beating that game with 10 skills was tough. With 30 skills readily available, though, it's a cake walk.

WHAT?!!!!
i beat the game quite easily without knowing that.. damn.

 

[Soccerman06]

I must have played EQ for 6 months before figuring out auto run.

In D2 my first char was a barbarian and I never assigned an ability to left click, all the way up until 80 something. I played a nova/frost nova sorc and didnt get teleport (lol) got to 70 and deleted the char to make a new one.

WoW it took me over 2 years to replace the standard UI with something slightly more custom than stock.

 

[RisenZealot]

I played the original Diablo for hours on end before I realised I could hold down the shift key while attacking to make my character stand his ground as opposed to running all over the screen like a chicken with his head cut off lol.

That alone made a HUGE difference in my enjoyment of the game. It's really funny how little tiny things like that if overlooked can completely change a game.

 

[shortylickens]

I played oblivion for months(yes months, 100+ hours of playtime) before i relized you could fast travel, it never occured to me because you couldnt in morrowind.

On the bright side my guys athletics was maxed and i could run hella fast, thats what running to/from every city on the map a few times will do, but man was it boring.

Didnt you wonder where the stilt striders and mage teleporters were?

 

[DominionSeraph]

In HOMM3, that Expert in a school of magic would confer an "All" effect with many spells, and that starting at Advanced Earth Magic you can choose what town you'll Town Portal to (instead of just porting to the nearest).
I played that game many many hours thinking that the magic school skills were pretty much useless.

 

[BFG10K]

In the original Soldier of Fortune there’s a mission where you’re on a train with a nuke and you’re attacked by a helicopter. Many times I replayed it and shot the helicopter down by using heaps of bullets. Then one day I realized I had the sniper rifle, and 1-2 shots through the glass cockpit would kill the pilot.

 

[shortylickens]

In HOMM3, that Expert in a school of magic would confer an "All" effect with many spells, and that starting at Advanced Earth Magic you can choose what town you'll Town Portal to (instead of just porting to the nearest).
I played that game many many hours thinking that the magic school skills were pretty much useless.

Nope actually they are the best skills. MUCH better than most of the combat stuff which only gets you small percentage increases in attack/defense.
And I seem to recall theres like a dozen places which state spells get more effective when their related skill is raised.

 

[Rifter]

Didnt you wonder where the stilt striders and mage teleporters were?

yeah, this is what eventually led to my googling and discovery of fast travel.

 

[Glayde]

Playing Sentinal Worlds:Future Magic, a party based RPG on the C64, one of the aspects of the game was landing on planets to advance story or to mine.

You could pick the grid coordinates you could land on, the default increment being 256. Even when I knew the exact coordinate I'd have to land fairly far away and navigate there. This meant 20-30mins of additional driving every time I needed to get to a specific point on a planet. After I had been playing a long time, I accidentally hit the space bar while selecting a landing point, and the scale went from 256 to 128. Hitting it again, it went to 64.....all the way down to 1.

 

[El Guaraguao]

You guys remind me of my brother. If were playing the same game and Im showing him something I found within the game, Hell always come out with, "How did you do that?" then "Oh, I didnt know you can do that!" followed by us both laughing in unison. Its not like RTFM, I just look at the details in things...

 

[DominionSeraph]

Nope actually they are the best skills. MUCH better than most of the combat stuff which only gets you small percentage increases in attack/defense.

Uhhh... Offense is no joke.

And I seem to recall theres like a dozen places which state spells get more effective when their related skill is raised.

Yes, but Basic does practically nothing and Advanced only confers a minor boost. Given that the status spells are rarely worth casting as single-stack effects it's easy to skip using them at all in favor of damage spells. Once you do that you'll never see an Expert effect. So then if you get in the habit of not picking the magic skills, you'd only stumble across the effect in the edge case where you were forced to pick a magic school, forced to level it to Expert, and then were in a situation where a single stack was begging for a status effect that happened to be in the school you had skilled.

 

[JTsyo]

I used to read the manuals while the game installed but now with Steam I don't any more. Luckily most games now have a tutorial at the start.

 

[sandorski]

Played through Stalker SoC right through(didn't finish once reaching Chernobyl though, kept dying and decided to start again)without using Bolts. Early on in the game I tried to figure out which key to use, but after trying most I just gave up. Apparently I didn't try the more obvious keys. :'( Didn't seem to matter though.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Yes, but Basic does practically nothing and Advanced only confers a minor boost. Given that the status spells are rarely worth casting as single-stack effects it's easy to skip using them at all in favor of damage spells. Once you do that you'll never see an Expert effect. So then if you get in the habit of not picking the magic skills, you'd only stumble across the effect in the edge case where you were forced to pick a magic school, forced to level it to Expert, and then were in a situation where a single stack was begging for a status effect that happened to be in the school you had skilled.

Mass Haste, always.

 

[TecHNooB]

i thought the aiming in ME was hella bad until I finally read somewhere that aiming jitter is a byproduct of your class.

 

[dpodblood]

STALKER - Didn't realize what bolts did or that they even existed till half way through.

Guild Wars - Running out of inventory space because I forgot to get a bag or belt pouch.

Splinter Cell - Didn't realize you could rappel from rooftops until I got stuck for 20 minutes and had to check a youtube video.

Many many other examples as well. Also many times when I've gotten stuck at the beginning of a game because I missed some tooltip. For example I recently played through The Chronicles of Riddick EFBB and got stuck at the beginning because I didn't realize you needed a "vent tool" to open vents. This is part of the reason why I have started looking at manuals or FAQ's before starting a new game now.

 

[CPA]

With your pip-boy out and on the weapons menu, hold a number down and click a weapon. Except for #2. For whatever reason that # is hardwired to be your "switch ammo type" button. 1-9 work otherwise though.

Got it, thanks.