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Old school gaming habits you still hold

mopspear

Member
multiple saves ever since Fallout 2. I angered everyone at the top of a building and I couldn't survive the run to the bottom so I fell into a permanent fail state
 

Raven117

Member
- save all potions, elixirs, etc…. For that impossible boss.

- never use status spells in jrpgs, because they never work against bosses.

- play one game at a time until I beat it (was a kid with a very limited gaming budget).

- inverted y.

- multiple saves.

Yup… a kid of the 80s/90s.
 

01011001

Banned
Invert-Y.

Although I think that's not an old school gaming habit, you younguns just have it all wrong.

Preach it, invert Y for life.

I was inverted for life too, started on PC flight sims with a joystick in the early 90's (Falcon 3.0, Mig-29 Spectrum Holobyte). My kids play normal (not-inverted), and because I got tired of having to have to switch to inverted every time they get stuck somewhere and need my help, I just forced myself to get used to vanilla (non-inverted), and now I can't go back to inverted. Weird, right?

adjusting to inverted or non-inverted takes like an hour or so.
I switched for the lulz, as the youth says, like 4 times at this point.

inverted is the more logical option tho. it just is. which is also why basically every single shooter in the early days of 3d up until the early PS2 days was inverted by default. it just made more sense.

just like almost all 3D third person games with camera controls had inverted Y and X axis back then.


these days I'm a non-inverted guy, but I could switch back if I wanted within an hour like I said... I think most people can, they just don't stick with it and switch back after trying for 5min 😁
 

Trunx81

Member
So many great comments that make me finally not feel like a weirdo.

Also pushing buttons while loading. For once to hope that it loads faster, but also because some developers implement little Easter eggs sometimes (like FE:Three Houses).

Ah, and jumping onto mountains, even if it seems impossible, instead of walking around, taking the normal route. Started with the Elder Scroll Games and is still used in Horizon ..
 

TMONSTER

Member
Still use inverted Y axis because i grew up playing MechWarrior 2 and Descent with a joystick. I am respectful when playing online because back in the day in community servers you would be quickly banned for being a jackass. I tend to be pretty forgiving towards players suffering from laggy connections. This empathy stems from my own memories of struggling with a dial-up connection, where 300 to 400 ping was the norm. Back then, going up against opponents equipped with early broadband connections boasting a 50 ping was quite the challenge.
 
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01011001

Banned
Fuck wireless. Nothing but lag/input drops. I play with wired controllers.

I hope you don't play wired on PS4 and Switch... both of these consoles reduce the polling rate of your controllers if you activate the wired connection mode in the console settings.

that means inputs will be less precise and input lag will be higher by a significant margin
 
- exploring every single corner of the map

- seen waterfalls mentioned, yup!

- man by man, level by level, only really old-school mfs know what's up lol

- saving up ALL the strongest potions for "the end", only end up using 5% of them at the end

- before even starting the game jumping into the OPTIONS menu

- never using any guides/walkthroughs on first playthrough. These started to proliferate in the 90's and there was the Nintendo Power Hotline in the late 80's. Even when I did buy strategy guides back in the day it wasn't for the guide itself but more the art/compendium aspect, there were some really beautiful guides!

I'm sure I'll think of a few more, just off the top of my head.
 
arrow keys
ill use wsad if trying out a game i have little faith in, but once im invested i set up my proper controls.
requires a traditional full fat keyboard layout w/ numpad.
IBM-Wired-PS-2-Keyboard-KB-8926-Boxed.webp


no autoaim, even with a controller.

clamp negative lod bias.
dont care if it basically doesnt apply anymore.

ps you inverted y people are animals ha.
 

Fermbiz

Gold Member
I hope you don't play wired on PS4 and Switch... both of these consoles reduce the polling rate of your controllers if you activate the wired connection mode in the console settings.

that means inputs will be less precise and input lag will be higher by a significant margin

Usually on console, I'll play wireless, but wired wirh arcade sticks. PC, wired for sure
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Play 30-minutes, hit benchmark...I'm done for the day
Play 5-minutes, hit benchmark...I'm done for the day

I have very few times in my life played any game over an hour at a time.
 

Dutchy

Member
I'm there with you on achievements OP. Though some games do a great job at making them so you'll actually end up discovering new stuff or try out new things. I loved getting my platinum for Hades cause it was only then that I felt as if I had seen and experienced everything there is in that game.

Finding all of Odins Ravens in GoW 2018 was such a stupid, pointless and time consuming thing to ask of players. Not to mention there was no way to see which ravens you had or not.

As for gaming habits. I taught myself to play Claw during my Halo 2 competitive days and haven't stopped since. Shit's a game changer even to this day.
 
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CGNoire

Member
Me at 3 HP looking at the 7 foot tall walking pile of muscles in front of me waiting to introduce his boot to my ass...

"Better not use any of those those 35 consumables I have, I might need them for later."
Yep. I often been stuck at a boss for an hour while constantly complaing how unbalanced the game is and how he is too hard and right after finally beating it I remember I have 100 HP potions and a bunch of unused super moves I forgot about the whole time even though the whole reason I was saving them was for bosses to begin with.
 

CGNoire

Member
When playing Uncharted: Drakes Fortune I would sometimes only slightly push the analog stick forward because I found it fascinating that you could walk instead of jog. Pretty sure that game started my habit of doing that. But ever since I do it in nearly every game that allows it. Mostly to take in the scenery or make the characters appear like more realistic humans, because humans walk everywhere!
I like you.
 

CGNoire

Member
Doing challenges just to unlock an "achievable" and tying this into your online profile in some way is ridiculous, I absolutely hate the concept.

I'll complete challenges if they unlock something in the game's world but unlocking a badge on some stupid profile outside of the game goes against all the reasons to play.
To me this was the first sign that gamers are easily socialy engineered.
 

Soodanim

Member
Absolutely. It's not "inverted", it's correct. Tell a pilot he's using inverted controls.
Correct on the left stick if you're flying a plane, sure. Otherwise no thanks. Inverted Y on the right stick doesn't make logical sense, you're not controlling the muscles contractions in the neck. Definitely not for 3rd person games.
 

Koenigssee

Member
Quick save spam, quick save + manual save if the game allowed.
Stretch ratio + minimum graphics settings on competitive FPS games.
 

01011001

Banned
Correct on the left stick if you're flying a plane, sure. Otherwise no thanks. Inverted Y on the right stick doesn't make logical sense, you're not controlling the muscles contractions in the neck. Definitely not for 3rd person games.

for 1st person games, inverted Y makes the most logical sense.
for 3rd person games, double inverted makes the most logical sense.

in first person you look up and down through your character leaning his kneck back and forth. inverted Y axis emulates that perfectly.

in third person you are controlling a camera that's flying around your character. if you have both axes inverted that translates correctly to how the camera flies around your character.

this is why almost every single game in the 90s and early 2000s had inverted Y for first person, and inverted X+Y in third person.
this changed due to PC and console games becoming closer in nature and having more direct 1 to 1 ports of each other's games.
and on a mouse playing inverted was never popular and also makes less sense than on a stick.

and I'm saying all of this as someone who doesn't play inverted anymore... it still makes more logical sense...
just look at how you're moving your controller when you use Gyro aiming ;)
 
I still expect battles in JRPGs to be 95% beatable by just spamming physical attacks and healing when needed. No wonder I suck so hard at them.
They usually can be, if you grind. A lot of isekai anime even promote this, due to main characters usually grinding or over leveling to make sure that they can win no matter what.
 

Rex_DX

Gold Member
It's pretty heavily game-dependent but I have a spiral notebook with hand written notes for dozens of games dating back to the late '90s. Stuff like Thief, Deus Ex, Pathologic, Myst, Morrowind, or STALKER to name a few.

I guess this has become less (or not at all) necessary with most modern games but I still take notes to this day for some.

For instance my notes for Elden Ring, if discovered by non-gamers, will surely look like some kind of serial killer manifesto. 🤷‍♂️
 

Dr.Morris79

Member
I'm never happy when it comes to waterfalls in games.
Scenario A: Your game has a waterfall and there's nothing behind it.
My reaction: "This is bullshit, what kind of waterfall doesn't have something hidden behind it?!"

Scenario B: Your game has a waterfall and there is something behind it.
My reaction: "Tsk , bit unoriginal!"
Perfection :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Reloading after shooting 1 bullet
This is mine. You have no idea how much it pains me on games that waste the rest of the ammo in the mag..
 

Wildebeest

Member
Yeah, notepad ready to go at all times. I know where my graph paper is. Invert Y. When a game is loading I have infinite patience, but if in game I feel like my time is being wasted with voice acting, cutscenes, and other scene building stuff I fly off the handle.
 

DelireMan7

Member
Not really applicable with modern games but always use different save slots. Especially if suddenly the game asks you if you want to save.
 

calistan

Member
Correct on the left stick if you're flying a plane, sure. Otherwise no thanks. Inverted Y on the right stick doesn't make logical sense, you're not controlling the muscles contractions in the neck. Definitely not for 3rd person games.
It's still pitch up / pitch down, regardless of which thumb you're using.
 
-Manually saving every 5-10 mins in any game that lets me.
-Reload any gun even if I fired a few times (though had to break that habit for online games ‘cuz that shit’ll get you killed)
-Any older game that has set character names, but lets you name the character something else, I always name them the canon name otherwise it breaks my immersion.
-Hoard health items (pretty much everyone does this)
-Replay my older favorite games periodically (Zoomers can’t imagine doing this).
-Play primarily single player games.
 
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Mr Blobby

Member
playing at least medium difficulty, but with modern shooters hard is the new medium.
only play horror games in the dark.
no mods on first playthrough
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
just look at how you're moving your controller when you use Gyro aiming ;)
Moving the pointer up to look/aim up and down to look/aim down?
Left to look/aim left and right to look/aim right?
Sounds pretty non-inverted to me and my brain. Screw “logic” here. I don’t see it as if I’m moving a traditional camera.
 
Taking physical notes of interesting locations, quests, items, characters etc.
Yes dude! My brother and I both bought the Red Dead 2 Steel Book on physical disc for PS4. And he didn't want the physical map that came with it so I kept my map pure and used his to mark every camp site that I came across in the game because for some reason you can't actually do that in the game itself. I used a blue sharpie for story mode camp sites and a red one for online.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Me at 3 HP looking at the 7 foot tall walking pile of muscles in front of me waiting to introduce his boot to my ass...

"Better not use any of those those 35 consumables I have, I might need them for later."
I was playing the final boss in A Link Between Worlds yesterday and was down to half health, had 3 bottles full of potion and was reluctant to use them lol. Thought of this post.
 
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