pushing against the borders - using unintended strategies in games

[Torzelbaum]

So when you're playing a game (video or otherwise) do you ever use unintended but not necessarily cheating strategiesm

What I mean by this is a strategy that is allowed by the design of the game (as opposed to a bug, cheat or exploit) but is not how the designer(s) intended for people to play the game.

(These are sometimes called degenerate strategies but the word degenerate has a lot of unfortunate associations so I have removed it from the title.)

 

[lincolnic]

Yes, but it's subjective and depends on the game. Sometimes it's just fun to do a silly and powerful thing (e.g. getting the Gravelord Sword in Dark Souls right at the start), but sometimes doing that thing takes the fun out of the game altogether (can't actually think of an example of this off the top of my head, but I know I've done it plenty of times). I will say that I generally try to play a game as intended for my first playthrough, but after that, I consider all options to be on the table. If the game lets me do something busted, why not try it?

 

[Mogri]

Here's a trick for infinite XP/GP that works in most RPGs: you can just keep fighting random battles over and over. Surprising but true!

 

[Patrick]

It's totally game dependent. I generally want to do whatever makes the game the most fun, which usually includes having a certain amount of challenge. I'm not at all interested in using a strategy that avoids core parts of the game just to say I've beaten it.

But, if I've already beaten a game and just want to goof around on a later playthrough, I might try out whatever options exist.

 

[Issun]

Here's a trick for infinite XP/GP that works in most RPGs: you can just keep fighting random battles over and over. Surprising but true!

Okay yeah but, come on.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Do Accessibility Options count for this or no?

I recently started playing Sea of Stars and I eventually started using the relic that fully restores HP after battle because I find that to be a more pleasant experience, though it clearly isn't the playstyle the game was balanced around since it more or less makes the cooking system for healing items unnecessary.

 

[Vaeran]

I am 10,000% certain that the Tears of the Kingdom developers did not intend for me to get around the Fire Temple by tossing a dozen pinecones into campfires and riding the updrafts, thereby skipping half of the puzzles

BUT YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH RESULTS

 

[Yimothy]

If a game has an option to recover HP by standing around I will waste so much time doing it.

 

[Issun]

If a game has an option to recover HP by standing around I will waste so much time doing it.

This is the way

 

[Torzelbaum]

Do Accessibility Options count for this or no?

I recently started playing Sea of Stars and I eventually started using the relic that fully restores HP after battle because I find that to be a more pleasant experience, though it clearly isn't the playstyle the game was balanced around since it more or less makes the cooking system for healing items unnecessary.

That's not what I intended but I guess that means they actually do count for this.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

The vast majority of the time, I'm very happy to let cheese strats and exploits exist, rather than see them be patched out of the game or otherwise "corrected". If I'm enjoying a game, I will usually try to do things the intended way, since overcoming challenges is a big part of why I play stuff to begin with. But if the game veers into frustrating or poorly-balanced territory, then it's great to have an easy option to grab hold of so you can just move on with your life. Trust that the player will usually do the most fun thing available to them and everyone will generally end up happier.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I am 10,000% certain that the Tears of the Kingdom developers did not intend for me to get around the Fire Temple by tossing a dozen pinecones into campfires and riding the updrafts, thereby skipping half of the puzzles

BUT YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH RESULTS

TOTK is the one game where I'm 100% sure the intent is for you to do everything in any way that works.

kinda off-topic and I know it's gaming-specific in its contextual meaning here but hooboy "degenerate" is not a term I like, given its historical uses

 

[Kirin]

Who am I to say what a game designer intended? Also, I'm rarely gaming with challenge/difficulty being one of my primary motivators. Which is to say, I will absolutely do anything the game allows if the fancy strikes me.

 

[Bongo]

Degenerate strategies are much more interesting in a competitive multiplayer context, where they clearly transform the game into something worse, but there's no bright dividing line between it and normal play, so the community responds by eliminating the preconditions to executing them. For instance, in Smash Bros tournaments, the iconic stage Temple is disallowed, despite being completely static, because it enables the degenerate strategy wherein one player gains a slight damage lead, then runs out the timer by running in circles around the central island. There's no intrinsic mechanic that forces players to engage, nor is there a possible objective definition that encompasses all instances of this boring shit and no legitimate tactics (and there wouldn't be enough referees to go around even if there were). The only recourse was to constrain the game only to stages that aren't big enough for it to be easy to do that.

 

[SabreCat]

Usually I avoid "broken" strategies (disliking the 4channish associations of "degenerate") unless I'm feeling backed into a corner and need some way out. Part of my enjoyment of a game is coming to an understanding of the design of the thing, and challenge is part of that. But if I just can't proceed without an exploit, I'll use it. It's much the same way as I'll try to figure out a puzzle without a walkthrough but if I'm likely to quit the game without hitting up a guide, out comes the websearch.

Examples I can think of are Yell cheese for FF Tactics' notorious Wiegraf battle; and a side boss in Mortal Shell that was an absolute horror to play against reactively, but could be turned into a simple rhythm sequence with a steady combo of rushing jump attack + harden.

 

[jpfriction]

I definitely would always start my FF VI playthroughs by looping around the river with Banon in your party overnight courtesy of a turbo button. Let’s you breeze through the early game but is really a bad long term strategy since you don’t have espers yet.

 

[SabreCat]

oh, though I never quite pulled it off myself, I have huge respect for the game-breaking "level 1 until you have all the stat growth junctions" strategy in Final Fantasy VIII. Level scaling in a single player RPG is not my favorite design element, so I find it a funny thing to abuse, hah

 

[otakujeb]

I generally do not use bugs (unless it's specifically done to see something interesting, like the Time Warp Beam glitch in Super Metroid). However, "degenerate" methods are my proverbial bread and butter. I get those Hi Jump Boots early, son. I don't think I've ever NOT swam under all the ships in Bowser's navy. I save Kary for last.

 

[Yimothy]

I (maybe incorrectly) always had a slightly different understanding of degenerate strategies (also agree I’d like a better term for it). I thought it meant something that is maybe optimal for like the player character or for safely progressing in the game, but which makes the game less fun for the player. Like my example of regenerating HP above - it makes sense for the character in the game to get back to full health without consuming any resources, but it’s a waste of my real person time.

In terms of not playing how the designers intended, I often just ignore systems in games if I can’t be bothered engaging with them, which often results in games being harder/taking longer. I read a list of difficult video game levels recently they included a section of Bioshock where your plasmids stop working properly. That section was no problem for me, because I never bothered fiddling with plasmids I just used the guns. More recently, yesterday I was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and my party got enough experience to level up, but I didn’t want to deal with making the choices involved so I put it off. In the next fight my whole party got hit with a status that made them drop their weapons and run away, which made things difficult. Afterwards I did the level and my monk got an ability that makes him automatically cure himself if he gets frightened. Could have used that in the fight.

 

[Issun]

I definitely would always start my FF VI playthroughs by looping around the river with Banon in your party overnight courtesy of a turbo button. Let’s you breeze through the early game but is really a bad long term strategy since you don’t have espers yet.

I have never min/maxed my stats with Espers in FFVI and I never will.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I have used soul-farming tricks in Dark Souls, like the bridge grind, or rune-farming in Elden Ring like the bird farm, to level up more. Not to overpower myself necessarily, just to give myself an edge and make things a little easier. I know the communities for those games definitely frown upon that, but I dunno if it's considered downright scummy. Strategies, though, like bug abuse... it feels like something I've done before, but not a lot of. I can't think of any examples right now, though.

 

[Bongo]

As they say, the punishment for pudding farming is pudding farming.

 

[Kalir]

As they say, the punishment for pudding farming is pudding farming.

My favorite quote about gameplay strategy, this.

 

[ShakeWell]

I have beaten the Yellow Devil in Mega Man 1 fair-and-square once. I will now always use the pause trick.

See also: Boobeam Trap in Mega Man 2.

For the kind of unlocks that are like "boot up the game X number of times" or whatever, I will just switch the game on and off until it's done. Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 for the N64 allows you to unlock moves from the developers previous WCW and WWF games, and I'm not waiting until I've played the game on 50 separate occasions to get all that stuff, I'm just gonna sit here a flip the power switch until I get the little silhouetted Goldberg animation.

 

[Pombar]

I think I did the "swim through the air" glitch in Spyro 2 but that was almost more exploring something that was possible and new to me, than it was something I did in order to complete that level.

I've also definitely used Yell to grind in FFT. Nothing else really springs to mind, though.

 

[FelixSH]

Don't you have to grind in FFT, to not be underleveled? I never played that far in it, but I vaguely remember that just doing the story missions wasn't enough. It's been a few years, though, maybe I'm wrong.

If not, though, I can't really differentiate between grinding that you have to do, and grinding you do to get stronger than you need to.

That's a general thing with jrpgs. If they aren't balanced well, so that I'm the right level if I just fight every random batte that pops up while moving towards my goal, , it's impossible for me to say if I play as intended.

Aside from that, I try to play the intended way, as far as I can tell what it is. But if there is an aspect that doesn't work for me, I'll try to trivialize it. Maybe through grinding.

 

[madhair60]

I finished Final Fantasy VII for the first time earlier this year, and you'd better believe I used the emulator's fast-forward button to skip a whole lot of grinding.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

In FFT there are a few choke points that you may have to grind for, but it's not a constant thing as I recall.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I don't think it's entirely necessary - I have beaten FFT without any "extra" grinding.

Don't you have to grind in FFT, to not be underleveled?

Character levels don't matter as much as job levels do. And grinding is a bit counter-productive since random battles scale to your level. And enemies in those battles will get better equipment (which you can steal but that is very tedious and unreliable in the original FFT).

Also, equipment is locked by story chapter so it's not possible to get equipment for advanced jobs until later in the game.

 

[Büge]

I would like to voice my discomfort with the word "degenerate"

It is a word (still) used by Nazis and those like them to describe things (and people) to be shunned, mocked, and, ultimately, destroyed