What games have you beaten/sunk hours into despite not having a full grasp of the mechanics?

[Euler]

The word Quality comes from Demon's Souls and it lowers the base of a weapon to improve both the str and dex scaling. So let's say a weapon scales in strength as E and Dexterity as D, making it a Quality weapon could change the scaling to D/C. So if you had 40str and 40dex, you'd get more attack power, even though the base attack of a quality weapon was lower b/c you're getting more from the improved scaling of the weapon.

In Elden Ring, i think it's Keen that is the equivalent to quality. Heavy is for just str and so on.

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In Elden Ring, Quality is equivalent to quality.
Keen is for dex.

 

[Wrexis]

There are some advanced elemental combos in Horizon Forbidden West I never bothered with.
I just stuck the game in Story Mode.

 

[Slushimi]

There is no way anyone understood what Overdrive did in Xenoblade X without reading a guide.

 

[Easy_G]

I have no idea how to do a t-spin in Tetris. Considering I've played it in various iterations for 30 years now (not all of which had the t-spin, I hope?) and have put a hundred hours into Tetris 99, I really feel like I should know how. I just repeatedly rotate the t piece in areas that look like it would fit and sometimes it works. I have no clue.

 

[Memento Mori]

I've never parried in any Dark Souls game or Elden Ring.

 

[Bunkem]

Every Infinity Engine game I played as a child. Somehow managed to blunder my way through all of them except IW2 despite not really understanding THAC0 or much of anything else.

 

[Serule]

God of War

Game gives you like a hundred runic attacks; only ever used the first ones it gave me
Skills unlock abilities like "pause after first attack to switch stance …" i just pushed light attack a bunch and maybe dodged or threw my axe when appropriate

 

[Menchin]

I'm still pretty much clueless when it comes to the deeper Diablo 2 mechanics but I can farm up high runes and get all my characters geared pretty quickly

 

[eXistor]

At the release of FFVIII, I didn't get the junction system at all, which is weird, because it's basic as hell. I replayed the game a few years later and immediately understood it (and proceeded to break the game due to how op it can be).

 

[Jane]

All I did in MGS3 was shoot people in the head with the tranquiliser and run if I got spotted. Like a fraction of all the mechanics in the game. Still beat it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Jane]

Okay, but why would you want to split your stat focus like that? Does this only come into play toward the mid/late game when you've got enough points to hit the soft cap in your primary stat so if you were going pure strength you'd do less damage?

'Cause I rarely pay attention to soft caps, plus I like having enough stats in health and stamina that I'm not sure I'd ever have enough points to get to 40 str/dex. Or is this NG+ strats?

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I think the usual reason to go quality is if the weapon naturally scales with both str and dex, then quality will probably end up being the strongest. Usually the way to get the best scaling is to choose whatever emphasizes the natural scaling.

 

[tim1138]

I have collected millions of flowers, yet the only thing I have ever crafted after 100 hours is arrows. 😹

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Arrows and a few fire pots for me 😂

No clue what any of that other stuff is all about.

 

[Kiro]

Bloodborne. Beat it twice but no idea how bloodtinge works or going into werewolf mode(whatever it's called?) Or how to fluidly fight while changing weapon modes. And couldn't figure out timing for the guns. I just r1 and roll.

 

[rahji]

It took north of 100 hours until I grasped all the different concepts of Genshin Impact and the resin economy.

 

[Tavernade]

Still don't quite know what I'm doing in Monster Hunter Rise after 150+ hours.

I'm attempting a 100% run of Yakuza Kiwami and I don't think I've used any advanced combos yet.

Also in any game you can beat without parrying/blocking I have not learned how to parry/block. I learning it in Sekiro because I had to.

 

[Ssyem]

I played the entirety of FFXIII (first JRPG) without using buffs/debuffs. I knew they were there but figured they were unnecessary.

It was a much harder time than I should have had.

 

[kurahador]

Vagrant Story comes to mind.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

I've nine fully geared , lv 80 characters in guild wars 2 and I don't know a damn thing about what their proper skill rotations are.

But since I only do open world pvp/Zerg wvw it's not really a concern.

 

[Jetsun Mila]

I'm still not sure if I understood all the mechanics from The Wonderful 101, but there are a ton of hidden mechanics as well.

It took me until Final Fantasy XII to get buffs/debuffs in general. Then again, FF XII is pretty much one of the very few games where buffs/debuffs are important.

 

[digit_zero]

+1 for Xenoblade 2, that combat system definitely went over my head.

Recent one, the very end fight made me realize there was potentially a lot more to Nier Automata's combat other than mindlessly spam dodge cause the game just kinda lets you do that. I also literally never fished, idk why it was in the game or why I'd buy something to mark fishing spots on the map.

 

[jokkir]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

I understood a lot of if and knew how to do stuff but apparently was missing a lot more estuff to make the combat a lot less time consuming. Like that last boss took me probably 30+min to beat.

I have around 100 hours in the game

 

[Diogo Arez]

Elden Ring is the most recent one, I always adapted quickly to other From Games, heck Sekiro took like 10 minutes to adapt, but 120h later and 4 playthroughs I don't feel like I got much better at Elden Ring, the lag on PS5 certainly didn't help but the mechanics themselves like jumping went so much against my Souls muscle memory I never adapted to them fully, even though I use jumps to dodge things in other games, in Souls my brain just doesn't do it lmao

 

[Blue_Toad507]

I have no idea what I'm doing in FFXIV half the time and I've sunk 80 hours or so into it.

 

[derk]

Lol. I beat Kirby over the weekend and didn't realize you can dodge and get bayonetta like witch-time until I saw people talking about it in the OT this morning. In fact, I don't think I used the block button the entire game.

 

[Deleted member 110527]

As Hugo brought up in a lot of interviews, I pretty much just brute forced Doom 2016 with nothing but the Super Shotgun, only occasionally swapping to the Plasma Rifle or the BFG for larger enemies... that's how I always played the original games!

 

[DustyVonErich]

Monster Hunter World as a Gunlance.

I upgrade my shield, block hits, and swing my giant weapon while blasting. I feel pretty safe, but my kill times are slow.

MH Gunlance vets be hopping around (??), shelling everything in sight, and killing the toughest shit in record times like what???

I tried switching up. I can't. Shout out to those hunters though.

Nioh 1 & 2

Aint nobody got time for all those Stance Dancing during Ki Pulse shenanigans.

We pick one stance and we like it.

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Ha! This is a good one :)

 

[Zissou]

4X games in general. I always start off for the first few hours trying to understand the mechanics and play "properly," but then I give up and sort of wing it. I've played tons of Alpha Centauri over the years all while having no idea how half of the things actually work. Why does unit A beat unit B? Why will it take X many turns to build (insert thing here)? I have absolutely no idea.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Tetris. I think you get more points if you clear a bunch of rows at once, though I don't know that. That is just what the competitive people do I watched.

 

[AJUK]

Hitman series, I only use stealth when absolutely necessary and just blast everything

 

[b0nk]

Yeah, Xenoblade is a good one. I actually spent 30 hours or around half of the game without ever upgrading a character's skill tree. Even now, there are strategies to play the game using ether arts and such that enable you to beat enemies 20+ levels above you that I just don't care to even attempt to learn.

Xenoblade 2 might be even more convoluted.

 

[Jencks]

My first playthrough of Xenoblade 1 I barely used any of the gems. I think I went into the final boss with Level 2 gems or something and was wondering why I kept getting destroyed.

 

[djplaeskool]

I played through like half of The Last Remnant while only having a marginal grasp of the group combat mechanics.
The game punished me thoroughly until it clicked.

 

[Doggg]

+1 Xenoblade Chronicles 2

 

[Magnus]

I guess Pokemon maybe. I've played so many Pokemon games, no doubt thousands of hours on them over the years, and I still have no idea about this EV training or IV training or whatever all that stuff is that people talk about. I just catch Pokemon I think look cool and level them up..

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This. Fuck all the EV and IV stuff. I'm not coming to these games for that level of detail. I put some min-max energy into my favorite game, World of Warcraft, but I can't bring that kind of energy to something else.

 

[Thera]

I am like you, every food / potion things. I don't like temporary buff and I don't like crafting most of the times, especially if this is a side thing in a game.

 

[ProtomanNeo]

Like others have said Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is the one that sprung to mind for me. I was really deep into the game before the battle system finally clicked with me.

 

[dalq]

Diablo 2 LOD when I was a teenager.

Didn't know too much english and had no clue what character building was, so my builds were basically one of every skill and I would use whatever one looked cooler. My stat distribution was also 1 point in each of the four stats every level. Manage to finish normal mode with /players8 several times lol

 

[tok9]

Probably Monster Hunter World. I messed around with long Sword, Dual Blades, Hammer and Insect Glaive and think I had a good handle on all of them.

But now that I'm playing Rise on PC and have only now started countering with the Long Sword, I'm not as sure, lol

 

[OneTrueJack]

Despite finishing the game (including side quests) I don't think I ever fully got the combat of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Whi h was fine because even just a surface-level understanding carried me through the game, that is until the final boss battle. It was a huge difficulty spike for me that I couldn't beat until dropping the difficulty from normal to easy.

 

[Knight in Shining Armani]

Smithing in the Nioh series.

Couldn't beat the DLC of the first one and gave up on the main game of the second one (late game) but had a blast anyway.

 

[EarlGreyHot]

Smash. Dozens of hours and I still just spam strong attacks until something is launched off the stage.

 

[5pectre]

I completed Micro Mages recently on NES and only realised afterwards that you had a charge shot.

 

[Pancracio17]

I misunderstood how parrying worked in Metal Gear Rising up until the monsoon fight. I thought you first had to look at the enemy and then move the stick up, down left or right depending on the direction of the attack.

 

[Puggles]

Put 80 hours into the switch version of Monster Hunter Rise and another 30 on the PC version before figuring out you have to manually equip skills for the Palicos and Palamutes

 

[froginhotwater]

Tbh Elden Ring. I'm at 100hrs, one trophy away from the platinum, and last night I was struggling with... how to load ammo into my crossbow? For the life of me, I couldn't figure it out. I had bolts set in the equipment, I had my crossbow in hand... but he wouldn't fire (did the animation like he was out of ammo). In the end, I gave up and used a throwing knife ffs.

 

[Lobster Roll]

I'm super far into Elden Ring and I don't think I've used like 95% of my items like those livers or greases or whatever. I just roll up and start slashing and stabbing.

 

[TransEuropaExpress]

Subnautica

I was super far into the game and realized I had never used some insanely useful navigation tips like the damn markers you can fabricate and actually NAME. I did the entire game from memory in terms of navigation and was quite amazed that I did that shit after realizing I could've placed those markers all along...

 

[Orso]

I put a lot of hours into Last Remnant to get all the achievements. I followed the very strict levelling guides to get powerful enough to beat the last optional boss, but I didn't understant how the levelling worked. This was around the time of release and even the people writing the guides were not 100% sure of what was going on.

 

[PAFenix]

Tales of Vesperia. Played it when the Definitive Edition came out and I know I was playing the game poorly. The Enemy Break system is something I couldn't ever fully grasp as I only did so on some bosses by mistake while others when I actually attempted to do so, would never succeed in it.

Just ended up button mashing through the game.

 

[Deleted member 104622]

Vagrant Story comes to mind.

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I was reading through this thread, thinking of my own and agreeing with many but this one resonates with me. I've tried a handful of times to beat this game and can get about as far as those red djinni guys randomly appearing. At some point I just couldn't find a reliable way to damage to enemies! Everyone online says, "oh, you need three weapons..." and they link you to that one guide but sometime in the past couple years I was on Gamefaqs and some guy was crankily saying how that's not how things work at all and you need to build up your weapons in a different way and you need more than three.

In the end, the game has some of the best graphics of the generation, has unparalleled ambience and mood, and interesting systems but it's key mechanics are so obtuse!