Re: Pointless Poll - Online Guides

On Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:04:35 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

With the abundance of information available online how much do you use
online guides when playing a game.

a) Real gamers don't use guides they let their stronk skillz carry the
day. Get back to playing Tetris if you're not good enough.
>
b) Try and use them as little as possible as I want to learn how to play
myself but some times beginner tips can be useful if you feel like
you're floundering.
>
c) Knowing a lot of the in-an-outs of the game is really helpful but
only so I can then play the game the way I want to and not just follow
what someone else has said.
>
d) You want me to actually learn how to play a game on my own, why do
that when you might miss out on having a maximally powerful character.
Who doesn't like an archer that can one-shoot anything you meet?
>
e) Who doesn't have a full walk-through playing on the second screen so
they can faithfully follow it?
>
I'm mostly in the b) category although it does depend on the game. So
strategy ones I prefer a bit more in-depth advice but for say RPGs I
just try and look for the most basic one available. If I can really get
away with it I'll only refer to them if I get total stuck on either just
not understanding the mechanics or part of the game.

I've no issue using a guide when I get stuck (or, when it comes to it,
cheat codes) but puzzles in games are so simple that I rarely find use
for them. Occassionally I'll pull up the map to a game (usually for a
large open world) to more easily navigate or find my way to some
hidden location, especially when hunting collectibles. But I generally
don't follow the guides from start to finish; once I find what I want,
I usually close it again. Half the fun of the game for me is the
immersion and exploration.

But if a game's puzzles continually get in the way of that experience,
I'll use a guide throughout, if necessary. It's just that so few games
actually require it.

Of course, there's a problem that most modern guides are videos these
days, rather than a nice concise walkthrough. Not only are they padded
with unnecessary personality, I find the videos to be LESS useful.
"The wand of wandoozi is underneath the rock at the back of the
dungeon nixus at 334x763" is a lot more information dense than a
wobbly video showing somebody wandering through the same dungeon,
picking at some random stone and finding the wand. Especially if the
text is accompanied by a single-frame picture.