Your worst "Oh hell I am dumb" gaming moment.

[Mister K]

Everyone of us had at the very least one moment when we couldn't progress in a game not because it was hard, or buggy, or anything else, but because our brain decided to shut itself down for the moment.

Take me for example. I was playing Shadowrun: Dragonfall. During one mission I hacked into a server and I could type in 3 things to get an intel for sell. 2 I entered without problems. The third one, however, was a bit difficult. I had to find info about a thing called "Formula 17". So, I enter the following:

Formula17

Doesn't work. What the hell, thinks I. I enter it again, then again, then again. Nothing. I hit Google, I search forums. Nothing.

The it hits me. I type in the following:

Formula 17 (with space between "Formula" and "17").

Worked like a charm.

I felt so damn stupid after that.


What about you, people? Had you ever had situations like this?

 

[Silvanus]

There was a laughably simple puzzle in A Link to the Past which stumped me for ages.


There are three blocks, with something behind them I have to shoot:
[-]
[-]
[-]

You can only push each block once, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to create a hole through which to shoot my arrow. If I push them all back, there's still no hole! WhadoIdo?!

Obviously, the solution is this:


[-]<-
0 [-]
[-]<-

---------

[-][-]
0
[-]

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Realizing there was a double jump half way through Darkwatch.

Silent Hill Piano Puzzle - I decided to play this game about a month ago on a nice dark to grey blizzardy morning.

So when I finally made it to the school and came across this puzzle I vowed I would figure it out without a guide.

And damn it, I did, the only problem is I was doing it the wrong way. I was hitting the keys that chimed instead of the keys that simply clicked. I eventually gave in and looked it up and when I saw that, 3 slaps to the head.

I actually had this happen to me a lot with the puzzles in the game. Especially the Reapers List puzzle.

 

[go-10]

Phantom Hourglass, the whole closing the DS to transfer something from the bottom screen to the top screen had me confused for hours, then my girlfriend at the time (who's not a gamer) just told me "close the damn thing and open it back up stupid" I did just that and it worked... sometimes I hate video games

 

[Ravenier]

In Shadow Warrior, there was one particular level in the later game when you essentially came into a rotunda and had to slash your way through different corridors extending from it to disable a force field blocking the exit. So I made my way through said corridors, successfully destroy two of the three power field thingies, but for some reason positively can not find the third shrine powering the force field.
"Very well," I think, "clearly the devs have carefully hidden that stupid thing somewhere. Let's hug every wall and shoot at every odd texture to find the hidden door".

Cue me being a complete idiot for about half an hour until I realize I had overlooked a door within the rotunda leading straight to the shrine I had to destroy.

Edit: Coming to think of it, I should probably apply as a playtester for Valve.

 

[Aerith]

Was playing The Wolf Among Us just a bit ago and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to "look" at something. Then, after button mashing, I realized it's triangle for looking. Then I realized it was even color coordinated to help me out.

Simple things like that make me feel the dumbest, really.

 

[Username Redacted]

It took me several playthroughs of Skyrim to stop over-thinking its pathetically simple puzzles. My issue was that you don't encounter them often enough to keep in mind that they all involve the same 3-4 symbols (pillar puzzles) being rotated to match a pattern you find in or near the puzzle OR involve checking an item in your inventory for the solution (claw doors).

Without any specific title coming to mind at the moment there are more than a few games where I either played through without realizing that there was a sprint button or played through most of the way without realizing that there was a sprint button. This has usually occurred because the game made no mention of this functionality and/or it was mapped to a non-conventional key; i.e. I expect 'Ctrl' or 'Shift' to be sprint with whichever is not sprint to be crouch and when you significantly deviate from this I'm probably going to think your game doesn't want me running fast.

 

[Twintix]

Phantom Hourglass, the whole closing the DS to transfer something from the bottom screen to the top screen had me confused for hours, then my girlfriend at the time (who's not a gamer) just told me "close the damn thing and open it back up stupid" I did just that and it worked... sometimes I hate video games

I know that feeling. My god, did I feel stupid once I figured it out.

It's actually kinda brilliant in its simplicity. And that's probably why I couldn't figure it out for the life of me.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

In Dark Souls, I fell down a bottomless pit that I had easily walked by 1000 times prior more often than I care to admit. It also took me about 3/4 of the way through the game before I figured out how to slide down ladders.

I'm not sure if this makes me that dumb, but I shot a bunch of aliens with a rocket launcher in X-Com, which promptly blew up the wall behind them...and revealed a pack of about 8 Chrysalids. Freakin' 'Long War'.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I can't remember what FPS it was, but I do remember that it was the game that made me realize that on a controller you don't have to hold down the right stick to sprint. I could have saved my poor thumb hours of pressing down.

 

[COMaestro]

I'm sure there are others that are worse, but the only one I can think of at the moment was getting hours into Demon's Souls before learning that there was a lock-on function.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

In Legend of Mana, there's a story mission with Pearl where you have to climb a tower. I got lost in that tower and that made me quit the game. Fast forward several years and downloading the game onto my PS3, I easily memorize the way up the tower by falling down ledges to the floor below.

That was a "...and this is why I quit this game?" moment if ever I had one.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Some of my recent dumb moments in Elder Scrolls Online-

I didn't know how to change maps. When traveling long distances, I ended up teleporting to the wayshrine nearest the border of whatever zone I was in, crossing the border on foot, heading to the nearest wayshrine, and teleporting again.

I didn't realize that equipment could be bound to me (or what that meant). I painstakingly made and tempered a set of armor for a friend with special set pieces and specific traits. I tried it on before delivering it to make sure it looked good. Then I was dumbfounded as to why I couldn't trade or mail it.

captcha: screw driver. Yea, I could go for a drink.

 

[Signa]

Phantom Hourglass, the whole closing the DS to transfer something from the bottom screen to the top screen had me confused for hours, then my girlfriend at the time (who's not a gamer) just told me "close the damn thing and open it back up stupid" I did just that and it worked... sometimes I hate video games

That one got me too. But in my case, I gave up and went on GameFAQs to find the answer. I had suspended the DS, so as soon as I returned to the game, it was progressing itself without GameFAQ's help.

I remember reading one years ago about a guy that got stuck for hours in the first level of Goldeneye. He was searching for hours for a key to the chain link fence's padlock on the Dam level. Totally slipped his mind he could just shoot the lock.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Yesterday, whilst playing Elite: Dangerous I managed to kill my Cobra III and send 40t of rare goods into the void, total loss 1.3 million credits.

I did this by hitting the emergency boost whilst docking.

I flew 300 Light Years, made blind jumps into unexplored systems, dodged interdictions, refueled in the coronas of stars and after two hours of flying it was all undone by one careless input into the throttle lever.

Gahhh...

 

[Parasondox]

When game does a QTE where it says, "Tap R1/R2, RT/RB" I forget what those buttons are and tap the opposite.

Also, DOORS. They often blend too well into the wall or background that I take about 5 dumb minutes looking for.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

There's a puzzle in Devil May Cry 4 that took me forever to figure out and I felt like a fucking moron.

Basically there's a maze, and the only clue you have about how to solve it is the phrase "follow the sun."

My brain decided "I can't see the sun since the camera points down, so I should just run whichever fucking direction I want until I brute force my way through."

After about 20 minutes of trying every combination of turns I could think of I realized that all I had to do was look at the shadows on the ground to figure out the position of the sun. The puzzle took all of 30 seconds to solve and I felt like a moron.

 

[Asuterisuku]

There's a puzzle in Devil May Cry 4 that took me forever to figure out and I felt like a fucking moron.

Basically there's a maze, and the only clue you have about how to solve it is the phrase "follow the sun."

My brain decided "I can't see the sun since the camera points down, so I should just run whichever fucking direction I want until I brute force my way through."

After about 20 minutes of trying every combination of turns I could think of I realized that all I had to do was look at the shadows on the ground to figure out the position of the sun. The puzzle took all of 30 seconds to solve and I felt like a moron.

I will admit to having a similar moment with that very puzzle... But Devil May Cry isn't exactly known for the clearest of level design; the damn castle in 1 had me lost for days. >.> I still haven't finished it. Maybe I should find a cheap PS2 and do just that....

 

[Jeroenr]

For me, just about every point and click game i ever played.
When i just couldn't figure out how to do that one filial thing, gave up and looked up the answer.
and think why the hell didn't i think about that.

In Dark Souls, I fell down a bottomless pit that I had easily walked by 1000 times prior more often than I care to admit. It also took me about 3/4 of the way through the game before I figured out how to slide down ladders.

The pit in Bligttown? with the chest with a dragon scale at the bottom.
yeah, i lost quite some souls and humanity on that on.

But that game mostly doesn't make you feel stupid, it makes you feel "ow, come on........".

 

[Thebazilly]

First multiplayer level in Portal 2. The players are separated by a glass wall with a window-like opening. On one side of the wall is a cube. On the other side is a button to open the door.

It took my cohort and I half an hour of running around in confusion before we realized that the cube could be passed through the window.