Useful features you didn't realize where in a game?

[Korten12]

So I was just playing Kingdoms of Amular doing quests when I decided to check my map, and then notice the world map which I hadn't seen before for some reason. I then see that there is a fast travel system... O.O

All of this time since I began the game (not too far, but enough to have done some quests) I have ran back and forth from the woods to town to hand in quests. Never realizing I could use fast travel and cut down on so much time.

So for the topic, any useful features you didn't realize where in a game and then finally noticed it?

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I nearly went through an entire playthrough of XCOM: Enemy Unknown without realizing there was that market thing where you can sell all your useless alien parts for tons of cash.

 

[MOXron]

Fallout 3. I must have nearly made it the whole way through the game before I realised that you could hold the pip-boy/inventory button to use it as a flashlight. Same goes for New Vegas, I didn't realise you could hold (or tap) the VATS button to do a scan of enemies through walls etc until my second playthrough. I'll be damned if I can recall seeing a hint anywhere for the VATS scan thing either. It's almost like Obsidian didn't want it to be known...

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I didn't actually work out how to save manually in Fallout: New Vegas until I got killed about 10 times trying to go north from Goodsprings and kept getting sent back to an autosave outside the bar.

 

[TheCommanders]

I'll be damned if I can recall seeing a hint anywhere for the VATS scan thing either. It's almost like Obsidian didn't want it to be known...

Sounds like it might just be something they couldn't find a way around when programming the VATS, so maybe they didn't want you to know!

OT- It took me quite a while to figure out that you could combine items in Dragon's Dogma. This was mostly because I was playing on a standard definition tv, and couldn't read the bloody tiny text

 

[King Billi]

I was pretty much halfway through Dark Souls before I figured out how to do the running jump.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I was going through half of Divinity 2 just to find out you can scroll down the Skill menu and develop Healing spell, and I thought the game was being cruel since health potions come in limited supply in the first half of the game.

 

[lRookiel]

I nearly went through an entire playthrough of XCOM: Enemy Unknown without realizing there was that market thing where you can sell all your useless alien parts for tons of cash.

Same here!

I was looking for it since I used it in the original. I found it during my 2nd playthrough after losing the 1st. So mad since that extra cash would have helped so much....

 

[lRookiel]

playing fallout 3 for 12 months and then discovering you can simply hold down a button to continually drink rather than having to constantly press it over and over

Wait.... WHAT?! HOW AM I MISSING THESE THINGS?!

I feel so silly now -.-

 

[krazykidd]

I was pretty much halfway through Dark Souls before I figured out how to do the running jump.

This . I had no idea i could jump in the game until i got to sens fortress .

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Well when I was younger I didn't play a lot of pc games so I was blissfully unaware of the quick save/quick load function present in most pc games. So as you can imagine when I came to a particularly difficult section of a game I would pause and save instead of just pressing F5. That would have made certain sections of Deus Ex and Half Life a lot less tedious, had I known >.<

 

[magicaxis]

Repair hammers and enchantments in oblivion...Nobody ever told me they were any use, i just grouped them with the other useless stuff like inkwells and such

 

[D-Class 198482]

Houndeyes in Half-Life are stronger in packs and when you kill the 'leader' they get weak. Helped to fight the little buggers, and kudos to Valve for adding that little feature.

 

[The Funslinger]

I didn't realize the Mako has rockets until the Prothean ruins.

 

[WWmelb]

Got through most of Demon's Souls without knowing i could run at all lmao. Somehow missed that tip at the beginning of the game.

 

[Pickles]

playing fallout 3 for 12 months and then discovering you can simply hold down a button to continually drink rather than having to constantly press it over and over

you can do WHAT!?

 

[Frontastic]

Not until I'd finished the game several times did my friend point out that you could place markers in Dead Rising to tell survivors where to go. Which made things a lot easier.

But my biggest failure is this area was when I was playing Oblivion and showing to a friend (the same friend as above actually). I'd already sank several hours into it and brought up the map to lament how far away my objective was only for him to ask, "see on the map, what does that fast travel button do" to which I said "the what-... AWWWWW". Yeah, I felt mighty stupid.

 

[Dectomax]

playing fallout 3 for 12 months and then discovering you can simply hold down a button to continually drink rather than having to constantly press it over and over

you can do WHAT!?

That is so much funnier than it should be, just because of your avatar. :')

I'm gunna go with the sprint function on Skyrim - I didn't notice it for a good few hours of gameplay!

 

[bobmus]

I played a few hundred hours of TF2 before I figured out how to Rocket Jump... :/

Also the 'Z' key in Oblivion, so you could arrange things nearly in your house. Figuring out its replacement in Skyrim took me slightly too long as well. >.>