Mistakes You've Made in Games?

[Moonface]

Nobody is a perfect gamer except me, so I'm sure we've all made a mistake or two when playing a game that made us feel a little stupid or learn something the hard way.

I'll start with two of my most memorable ones:

• Hitman 2016 (PS4) - I had only just got the game, so I was still learning the controls and whatnot. I was on the first proper mission (Paris) and had found one of the targets on a balcony at the top of the map. Since I had a fire extinguisher on me, I decided I would put it down on the table she kept walking to by herself, and shoot it to blow her up in an accident kill. Nobody was suspicious of me, so I just openly walked up to the table and was standing on one side of it as she came to the other side. However, even though I looked at the controls to see how to place an item, it wasn't clear enough for me and instead of putting my fire extinguisher down, I instead threw it straight into the targets face in front of a crowd of people.
  

• Binding of Isaac: Repentance (PC) - This one is more recent. I was doing a run as Tainted Apollyon and one of their unique abilities is to transform an item into an attack fly instead of picking the item up. I thought I was being clever when I defeated Mom and transformed the two polaroid items that spawn upon defeating her by getting two flies instead of one. Unfortunately, I was also doing a run to fight the Beast, which requires holding one of the two polaroid items to unlock the door to that boss pathway. I didn't realise my error until I teleported myself back to that door and briefly wondered why it wasn't opening. This one hurt because I had an incredibly powerful run going and I was forced to abandon it as I had already cleared any remaining paths that were open to me.
  

[ShiraNoMai]

Today in Deep Rock, I learned the difference between the two instances of the verb "to get down": 1) You want to reach a lower platform and 2) You are unconscious and in need of healing/reviving. On a multi-platformed area, a teammate noted they were going down, and I thought they meant they needed me to put a zipline down for them to avoid being swarmed by incoming enemies. They meant they were going to be "downed". I... yeah we lost that mission...

[Moonface]

Today in Deep Rock, I learned the difference between the two instances of the verb "to get down": 1) You want to reach a lower platform and 2) You are unconscious and in need of healing/reviving. On a multi-platformed area, a teammate noted they were going down, and I thought they meant they needed me to put a zipline down for them to avoid being swarmed by incoming enemies. They meant they were going to be "downed". I... yeah we lost that mission...

Sounds like the solution there is to call out getting downed with only the word "downed" and avoid using the term "down" in relation to it at all.

I just thought of an older mistake I did that really hurt, especially because I still don't know what I actually did wrong. Back when I first got Hitman 2, I was trying to do every mission in the hardest difficult with Silent Assassin Suit Only, because doing so would get the most things unlocked at once and would also let me play the missions after without needing to care about stealth at all. I had succeeded on every map and had just the last one, Isle of Sgail, left to do. Now on the hardest difficulty, you only get a single save, so if you screw up at all you have to restart the mission or reload to your last save, whichever is more recent. I spent like two hours on the mission, and left thinking I'd obtained SASO. The results screen told me otherwise, claiming I had been spotted. I don't know when as at no point did an NPC act like they saw me nor did the alert sound play for it, and my save was something like an hour in and I had no clue if the mistake was before or after the save. I have never gone back to try that again. XD

[Mr EliteL]

I've mentioned this before in an earlier topic, but will re-word it for this one.

In Super Paper Mario for the Wii you have to collect a key in Chapter 2-2 and speak to Mimi to progress. In my first copy of the game, I never found this key so if you go to Mimi without it and speak with her, she begins to talk but then the game freezes up. You have to restart and play up to that point and find the key. I just simply never found it and thought that there was a problem with the game, took it back to the store for a refund. Bought the game a second time later, not the same day, reached that part of the story and did manage to find the key. Wish there was a different way the game informs that you didn't have the correct item to progress instead of freezing.

Much more recently, in Genshin Impact in The Chasm Underground, I was in a middle of a battle with some Treasure Hoarders high up. There's a new type of explosive introduced in The Chasm and I didn't notice one was there. I was using a melee character, and was by the ledge very close to this barrel. Normally you stay clear, try to get enemies near and attack with a projectile or an AOE attack on them. I accidentally hit it while fighting and went flying off the ledge to my death (fall damage). I could've opened the menu and teleport to a waypoint as that stops the fall/potential death but I was too confused by what happened. The only way those could cause you to be launched is if they inflicted you with either Pyro or Electro and hit you again with the other element for Overloaded, but knew I wasn't inflicted or hit with any of them, so was like "EH, WHAT WAS THAT?!" Now I wish I recorded it as a funny moment I've had on the game.
Sometimes being near an explosive can be a common occurrence but that one was the most unexpected one where I should've paid more attention to the surroundings.

I've probably had more moments of mistakes, can't think of any others right now.

[Moonface]

I've mentioned this before in an earlier topic, but will re-word it for this one.

In Super Paper Mario for the Wii you have to collect a key in Chapter 2-2 and speak to Mimi to progress. In my first copy of the game, I never found this key so if you go to Mimi without it and speak with her, she begins to talk but then the game freezes up. You have to restart and play up to that point and find the key. I just simply never found it and thought that there was a problem with the game, took it back to the store for a refund. Bought the game a second time later, not the same day, reached that part of the story and did manage to find the key. Wish there was a different way the game informs that you didn't have the correct item to progress instead of freezing.

I'm surprised that sort of freeze wasn't caught by Nintendo before launch, since it doesn't sound like you have to try very hard to cause it to happen.

Your story slightly reminds me of my time with Sonic Heroes, where I didn't see the game could only be saved manually and so I assumed it auto-saved. I got quite far through the first area or whatever, turned my game off, and came back the next day to find all my progress gone. Played the first level again, finished it, reset the console and saw again there was no save. Assumed my game was broken because I never noticed there was a way to manual save so I took it back. XD

Much more recently, in Genshin Impact in The Chasm Underground, I was in a middle of a battle with some Treasure Hoarders high up. There's a new type of explosive introduced in The Chasm and I didn't notice one was there. I was using a melee character, and was by the ledge very close to this barrel. Normally you stay clear, try to get enemies near and attack with a projectile or an AOE attack on them. I accidentally hit it while fighting and went flying off the ledge to my death (fall damage). I could've opened the menu and teleport to a waypoint as that stops the fall/potential death but I was too confused by what happened. The only way those could cause you to be launched is if they inflicted you with either Pyro or Electro and hit you again with the other element for Overloaded, but knew I wasn't inflicted or hit with any of them, so was like "EH, WHAT WAS THAT?!" Now I wish I recorded it as a funny moment I've had on the game.
Sometimes being near an explosive can be a common occurrence but that one was the most unexpected one where I should've paid more attention to the surroundings.

What happens when you die in Genshin? I've never actually thought of that game having player deaths in it until now somehow.


Carrying on from earlier in my post, EL's mistake reminded me of my time with Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. The game introduced strength checks for Lara, which means if she lacks the strength to move something, you can't progress. Normally you'll find something earlier or nearby that can be used to increase her strength so you can then clear that obstacle, but there was one like that in the Paris area early into the game and I could not find what I was missing. I was using a strategy guide too, so I was naturally assuming that I was getting everything and my game was broken. I had it replaced two times before I just gave up and got a refund on it, and to this day I still do not know what I missed. I only found out the game was beatable because EL's sister beat it and I recall being shocked finding that out because of my own struggles with the game. Not sure if the mistake lies with me or the guide or both though. XD

[ShiraNoMai]

In Super Paper Mario for the Wii you have to collect a key in Chapter 2-2 and speak to Mimi to progress. In my first copy of the game, I never found this key so if you go to Mimi without it and speak with her, she begins to talk but then the game freezes up. You have to restart and play up to that point and find the key. I just simply never found it and thought that there was a problem with the game, took it back to the store for a refund. Bought the game a second time later, not the same day, reached that part of the story and did manage to find the key. Wish there was a different way the game informs that you didn't have the correct item to progress instead of freezing.

It turns out that this is a European-exclusive glitch. Whoops! You also got juked by the store you got it from since you should have got it free, according to Nintendo.

My latest heck-up was during a recent play of Pokemon Legends Arceus: I wasn't paying complete attention, and my left joycon has been drifting a lot lately: when purchasing some Full Restores, I only wanted 3, but then my drift caused my stick to go up, which adds 10 to the total, and I hit buy without looking and wasted almost quite literally all of my money. I couldn't sell it back because they'd only sell for half price

[Mr EliteL]

What happens when you die in Genshin? I've never actually thought of that game having player deaths in it until now somehow.  

Depends. For a single death, the character drops down and fades away and the game switches to one of your alive party members. The character can be revived via item or certain character skill/constellation. If they all die, the game sends you back to I assume the last Waypoint you spawned at. I've only fully lost my party in domains, so I just get sent out of the domain and I think everyone revives but with very low health. If a character falls into a bottomless pit the whole team spawns back at the start of the domain/last place your character stood, but all have less health than what they had before the fall. I might be slightly wrong but it's the general gist.

@ShiraNoMai: Damn. I think I insisted on a refund at the time not knowing if that was possible though. I didn't check the internet back then.

[Moonface]

Carrying on from earlier in my post, EL's mistake reminded me of my time with Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. The game introduced strength checks for Lara, which means if she lacks the strength to move something, you can't progress. Normally you'll find something earlier or nearby that can be used to increase her strength so you can then clear that obstacle, but there was one like that in the Paris area early into the game and I could not find what I was missing. I was using a strategy guide too, so I was naturally assuming that I was getting everything and my game was broken. I had it replaced two times before I just gave up and got a refund on it, and to this day I still do not know what I missed. I only found out the game was beatable because EL's sister beat it and I recall being shocked finding that out because of my own struggles with the game. Not sure if the mistake lies with me or the guide or both though. XD

So turns out that the mistake here wasn't the guide, but my reading comprehension. I managed to find a copy of the guide online, and checking it saw that it does mention the strength check I missed. It just turns out that the guide starts off by explaining a brief rundown of the objective of the graveyard area, which I assumed at the time was not a summary but the actual guide and so was trying to do the objective (push the statue) without reading ahead to see that the guide breaks down the area into actual steps which includes getting the strength check.

[ShiraNoMai]

I'm sure I've made hundreds of silly mistakes like that growing up. Probably the reason I left many a game unfinished Especially Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. I spent countless hours trying to figure out how to progress and never figured it out. Moony had to help

[Moonface]

Ugh, I just had such a massive screw-up in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance's daily run just now that it actually made me go looking to see if a thread like this exists already or not. x.x

So in TBoI there are sacrifice rooms where you can walk over a set of spikes in the middle of the room to take damage in return for possibly getting an angel room/item. However, if you do it a large amount of times in the same room you will be teleported to the last floor of the entire game, skipping any other floors you have left to go through. If a Daily Run does not go as far as that floor though, then the teleport doesn't happen. However, today's Daily Run does go that far and I forgot about this mechanic, so my smart arse decided to get greedy in a sacrifice room on Floor 2 and got sent to Floor 10, missing out on 7 floors worth of items. Almost every room on Floor 10 is a boss fight so with only the starting stats and barely any items, I died the second I walked out of the starting room.

I don't think I've been punished that hard for getting greedy in a game except for anything that's a Souls-like where I'll get greedy attacking a boss who's nearly dead and ending up dead myself...

[Kyng]

One mistake I made in Railgrade was spending too much money on long station platforms.

In other train-based games I've played in the past (such as Chris Sawyer's Locomotion and Transport Fever), these are worth the investment, because they're relatively cheap compared to the track and trains themselves. However, in Railgrade, they're much more expensive, and the only benefit they offer is faster loading and unloading times (which is nice to have, but not essential, especially early on!)

[Moonface]

@Kyng: I'm guessing there isn't an option to demolish/sell things you've made to try and recoup some of the costs back?

Seeing the name of the game reminded me of this mistake I made in Lies of P, where I didn't expect it to have items you get from defeating a boss that can be traded for weapons/amulets or consumed for echoes. I only thought they were used for the latter, so the first one I got in the game I consumed for echoes and then later met a character who would trade weapons for those items, but because I consumed the first one I didn't have it to trade with. I wasn't really bothered about not being able to get the weapon/amulet trade for it but what did bother me was that the game has a trophy for acquiring all of the boss weapons, which are only obtained via trading these consumable items of which I had used one of them, so I had to wait until my NG+ run to get the weapon for the trophy.
Oh, actually another one I just thought of while writing that from the same game was making the mistake of going straight into NG+1 and missing an item that only appears after defeating the final boss, which is required for a trophy. So now I have to do one of the endings in Lies of P again just to get that item for the trophy which means I have to do at least four runs of the game now instead of three.