[MBlinow]

I've made an effort in recent years to actively avoid researching wikis and guides on games as I play them. I've come to think that a lot of the joy in gaming is the discovery and unraveling the systems that make the game tick. Finding the optimal ways to level or complete some mission through exploration and experimentation is always so much more fulfilling than finding the first result the comes up in google where the answer is already there for you.

Admittedly, it does take a degree of willpower and sometimes I will still do some online research when a game gets particularly frustrating. The biggest obstacle to my approach of avoiding online information is that some games feel like they're designed with that in mind and don't provide enough information in the games for an isolated player to really figure everything out.

[rhines]

100% agreed with games being designed for online aids. Some of the quests in Oldschool Runescape make me wonder if I'd ever have completed them without guides - it's like they're designed to be a challenge for the whole community upon release, rather than for individual players.

[musicale]

> it's like they're designed to be a challenge for the whole community upon release, rather than for individual players

This is the metagame: game designers vs. every single player in the game. I kind of like it, though once the players win (by figuring out a strategy that works) the solution (often not exactly what the developers had intended) tends to be enshrined in youtube videos, wiki pages, and common practice.

[andrepd]

2007 Quest Cape with no guides is a long-standing childhood dream of mine. One I think I will never complete, but still!

[dgfitz]

I will always be in awe of the folks that figured out all of Elden ring without a guide. Some of those quests were just bananas.

[Cthulhu_]

I try to play through these games without a guide first, but especially with Elden Ring, there's a high chance you miss half the game then. Which is a shame.

To figure out all of ER, you'd need to play through it multiple times, comb through everything, do things in a different order, etc etc. There was a post on Reddit the other day, someone said they found Jarburg after playing for more than 900 hours. I know of it, but in two playthroughs I don't believe I actually went there yet.

I wonder if they collect analytics and they can at one point say which areas, questlines, gear items, etc are discovered the least.

[bee_rider]

I love FromSoft’s environments and gameplay, but the obscure quests, I don’t really get it. There’s being mysterious so the players want to do multiple playthroughs… then, there’s being so mysterious the players just have to use the wiki (ruining all the mystery).