Poll: Do you use Spoilers/Walkthroughs/FAQs to progress through a game?

[Gregz]

Includes console codes, youtube vids, screencaps with diagrams, etc.

Votes are not displayed publicly, so feel free to be honest for the sake of science .

 

[Excidium]

Only when I get stuck for a long time, and it pisses me off because most of the time it's something retarded.

Usually on adventures, when the "use everything on everything" approach fails.

 

[felipepepe]

I hate them, they completly break the sense of discovery and mistery of any game. In the old era, when no internet existed, half of the fun was discussing with bros if they had seens iten/quest/monster X, how they beated it, where it was so you could try to find it on your game, the guys saying "dude, I have no idea, I think is random!", and all that mystery of thinking if certain things were possible....

Now it's just "lol, I saw on teh walthoughtz the best biuld and best weapond in the game, itz pretty easy game". Me and my brother played Dark Souls, no guides, walkthourghs or even giving each other hints, unless asked. We had completyl different experiences, kickass surprises and that awesome "holy shit, I could do that? I have to replay this game NOW!" feelings. Meanwhile popamole retards where, "yeah, I knew that there were a bonfire there, and that the Drake Sword is the best weapon available at the start".
Game guides should be burned in public square.

Still, I have to admit that some badly made adventure games require them...but I think it's the only exception.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I use them a lot, but not to progress through the game.

I use them so that I don't miss out on stuff.

Call it OCD, but I usually don't replay games and I like to get a good percentage of the optional stuff on the first and only playthrough.

So if a boss runs away and I'm not sure if I was supposed to kill him before he got away, I'll consult the FAQ to see if there was an additional reward for killing him.

I won't defend this behavior, but I do it.

 

[Zed]

Moving to GG.

I never use cheat codes. I have looked at FAQs when stuck, though.

 

[Stabwound]

I use them, but mainly because I don't have the time or patience that I used to when I was a kid.

I will openly admit to using them on games like Wizardry 6. I can only imagine playing that spoiler-free when I had endless time to play video games and be stuck on obscure puzzles forever. Yes, I know that's decline but I'm sure many people do the same thing these days. We can't be teenagers with summer vacations to waste on video games forever.

 

[SCO]

After the first playthrough, replaying a game later to check alternatives.

This was my reaction to the fallout 1 & 2 and Gothic (the quest to swim to the city) walkthroughs:

 

[felipepepe]

After the first playthrough, replaying a game later to check alternatives.

This was my reaction to the fallout 1 & 2 and Gothic (the quest to swim to the city) walkthroughs:

That's true, I found out some years ago that Ian and Dogmeat were only half of the followers in the game, and I still can't believe that.

 

[Infinitron]

I use them a lot, but not to progress through the game.

I use them so that I don't miss out on stuff.

Call it OCD, but I usually don't replay games and I like to get a good percentage of the optional stuff on the first and only playthrough.

So if a boss runs away and I'm not sure if I was supposed to kill him before he got away, I'll consult the FAQ to see if there was an additional reward for killing him.

I won't defend this behavior, but I do it.

I do this too, although I want to break the habit - at least until finishing the game. Too big a chance of reading a bit too far and encountering spoilers.

Reading FAQs to discover how to actually progress is for tards.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

I mostly use walkthroughs for frustrating puzzles, really tough fights, or to see if there's any bit of content I missed.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

When stuck I use them, unless the game is exceptionally well-designed. Like someone else says, I don't have time to waste in trial and error and wandering aimlessly anymore, I mostly see it as an annoyance.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Far more often than I really should have to, especially in RPGs. The main reason I turn to supplemental guides is because the game (or manual) itself doesn't sufficiently explain the mechanics or has some serious documentation issues. Practically every mainstream RPG I've played in the past few years has required a trip to the wikia page or something just to figure out how a few things work with Dragon Age: Origins being an especially bad offender that had enormous gaps in explanation (how do stats contribute to things? what exactly do spells do? why the fuck doesn't the game or manual explain all of this important stuff?). All sorts of stuff that could be handled with better, more detailed combat feedback, or some short descriptions, or something.

Convenience is another factor. Fusion charts in SMT: Nocturne or the Devil Summoner games were nice, as well as spoilers on what moves demons learn as they level up so as to not waste time levelling up some demons only to find that they don't bring any good skills to the table, and who can inherit or not inherit certain moves (no, staring at the fusion screen for longer than necessary isn't much fun). It was also nice to "pre-screen" content in some games, namely Fallout POS: 2, Massterfect, and New Vegas, to make sure I wasn't going to lose a half hour of my life in some mind-numbing shitdungeon killing a bunch of level-scaled enemies to find a datapad and a unique backscratcher+7 of coyly implied faggotry. Course I've found a better solution...don't play shitty games like that anymore. I plan on staying Skyrim-free for life :SXC:.

Finally, I've got to echo PorkaMorka on using guides to see more things/not miss out on cool content. This is especially true because developers love to make inane triggers for certain content with no real discernible way for players to puzzle it out themselves save ludicrous trial/error schemes, which become even more outlandish when you factor in the length of many games, and that designers think it fun to lock you out of SUPER COOL EXTRA DUNGEON™ if you inserted the red buttplug rather than the green one 27 hours ago in the Temple of Anna'linguish. Not my idea of fun, especially when most modern games are terribly unfun to replay, thanks to copious use of terribad filler content and extreme railroading.

 

[octavius]

I use them to double check a level/map/area after I've cleared it to make sure I haven't missed anything.

If the game drags out and I just want it to end I have been known to use walkthroughs.

FAQs can also be nice for games with inadequate manuals and where I don't want to play halfway through a game and then realizing that my characters have the wrong race/class/skill combos. Although a FAQ is usually redundant when having access to the accumulated wisdom of the RPG Codex.

BTW, how do you pronounce FAQ? It is like "eff aye queue" or "fack"?
I must admit that I read it almost like "fuck"...

 

[Azalin]

I use them only when I am stuck,like others here I no longer have the patience or the free time I had when I was younger.

Very rarely I use them in a second playthrough to make sure I do everything I missed the first time.

 

[Carrion]

Sadly, I think I use walkthroughs nowadays much more often than I used to. There have been a few instances when I've been stuck in a game for days or even weeks because of some kind of a bug, and because of that I may nowadays do a quick check to see whether there even exists a possible solution to the problem or puzzle I'm facing in the game. I admit that sometimes it's just plain laziness as well. I finish most games without any kind of a walkthrough, but if I do use one, it usually becomes harder and harder to resist the temptation of resorting to it again.

 

[Menckenstein]

I usually ask for help specifically with what I'm stuck on instead of reading walkthroughs so I don't accidentally spoil it.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Used them when I was kid, not so much anymore though. One of the idiosyncrasies of my personality is that I like to know how long something takes, how many pages I am from the end of a chapter, etc. so I often check walkthroughs to see how far into a game I am, but not to actually get any guidance on beating the game/finding secrets.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I use them after I've thoroughly searched for a solution on my own, as I don't actually get much joy out of accidentally discovering solutions. I have a knack for missing obvious things so ibeing stumped is not a very rare situation.

 

[laclongquan]

Almost everygame. Certain games dont drive me to it, but they are rare.

And no, it's not spoiling the game for me.

I read about Bloodlines for years before I even played it the 1st time. The indiscribable feeling of playing a virgin Malk game can never be transmitted through some texts.

Reading about them is one thing, playing is another.

 

[Ulminati]

Voted "well there was this one game" for lack of an option for "Used to, don't anymore".

The only game(s) I used spoilerz for were the old lucasarts adventure games. In my defense, I was 9 at the time and not a native speaker. I used a combination of having a parent translating and looking words up in a english-danish dictionary and mistakes in translation could lead to some puzzles being very, very obscure. (In fact, I was semi-fluent in english by the time we began having english classes in public school thanks to a combination of monkey island 1+2, sam & max, day of the tentacle, indy & the fate of atlantis and a LOT of The Muppet Show).

Being a gentler time, before widespread internet, my spoilers consisted of phonecalls to an uncle in France, who was teaching himself english much the same way I was. He had completed sam & max + dott. I had completed monkey island 1+2. I'd ask him a bunch of questions about where I was stuck (my grandfather working as a french-danish translator for us) and in turn tell my uncle how to proceed from where he was stuck in monkey island.

It's a point of stubborn pride for me. I'll rather have a game sit on my shelf unfinished than live with the knowledge I had to resort to a walkthrough/cheats to solve it.

 

[felipepepe]

The only game(s) I used spoilerz for were the old lucasarts adventure games. In my defense, I was 9 at the time and not a native speaker.

Yeah, DOTT had me and some school friends stuck for fucking months on the puzzle where you had to use white paint on the cat stuck on the fence so he would look like a possum and scare the people...was only when the first cybercafe opened in our city and one of them read the guide that we could get past it...

 

[mondblut]

Options 1 and 3 should be merged into one.

 

[Menckenstein]

It's a point of stubborn pride for me. I'll rather have a game sit on my shelf unfinished than live with the knowledge I had to resort to a walkthrough/cheats to solve it.

Another thing to consider is when a bug renders a certain part of a game unpassable. If you couldn't check the internet for "wtf am I supposed to do / is going on" and find out there's a necessary patch or console command to set something right you'd never get past it.

BLOODLINES.

 

[Ulminati]

Heh... Bloodlines.
I nearly quit tha tin disgust during the Nosferatu sewer bit. Talk about padding the game length with samey filler combat.

 

[laclongquan]

The only object I have toward playing those shitty sewer is that I can not replenish my blood supply with nectars straight from some sweet young thangs on the street. I have to, HAVE TO, do with blood packs or, yuck, rats. God damnit!