Do you think it's ok to use online guides when gaming?

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I prefer to avoid online guides. I think they're a form of cheating, but will use them under certain conditions. Generally I avoid using them during the main quest. If I've been stuck at a certain part of the game for hours and have given up then I'll use an online guide. If a game requires you to make decisions which are time consuming or impossible (save starting a new game) to reverse then I'll research the consequences of the decisions online. After completing the main quest if I feel like going for 100% completion then I'll use an online guide to save time.

For example, I used a guide to find all the shrines in Breath of the Wild after defeating Calamity Ganon and looked up the difference between the sphere grids in Final Fantasy X.
 

Cyan

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I didn't use guide nor interactive online map to find all the shrines in zelda. hopefully didn't have to.
I didn't find all the seeds, but don't really need them to get full stack of items so it doesn't bother me.
I found all the missions (I think).
I didn't even reach the "200h" mark of the path recorder. I guess I completed all that in under 150h without a guide.

otherwise for other games, I don't look at guides on first play at all, unless like you said I'm stuck for hours and are on the verge to stop trying/playing for that reason. it's like I obviously forgot something, or does something wrong.
I did follow one guide on first play for one game (Valkyrie profile) because I wanted the good ending on first play through and didn't plan to start that game again. I'm not even sure I got the good one with the guide, it felt too random how you won points to unlock it.

I'm tempting to look at a guide to save everyone at a second play of Until dawn (I had some character killed and I don't know how I could have save them).


Games with decision making affecting too much the story (without good/bad, just different), I tend to can't choose any. Like Mass effect... I looked at a guide to see the repercussion in the story.
choosing which character to save, having mandatory death or making enemies with someone for all the rest of the trilogy is too stressful. I finally decided randomly and didn't care too much anymore what would happen. I took it as "the story as it was meant to be" more than "it was a choice, I can always replay the game to try the other one". I won't play it again anyway, so it's just ended as "look at it as linear story" more than choice I did.


This week I played Oddworld, and completed it with the bad ending. missing lot of hidden places and therefore not enough saved characters to unlock good ending.
I looked at a guide to see where they were on first level. It appears I didn't notice hatches on the ground at all! I wouldn't have imagines you could open the floor at all and would have never found that without a guide.
 
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Alexander1970

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Hello.:)

Online (Video) Game Guides can be a good Help.

Some Games (3D Jump and Run for Example) has often very tricky Parts/Passages where Gamers (like me or my Wife) did not see where and how to go on.
I remember last Year on the "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" DLC Levels (mostly in Caves).
I had a few Passages where I simply "lost".

So in my Opinion it has nothing to do with Cheating to find the Way "back".

To find all "Treasures"......honestly in the Tomb Raider Games,yes I used them.:)

Not everyone can be such a great Gamer who plays such Games in 2 Hours and have all "Findings" ......

Thank you.:)
 

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Whether guides are good or bad depends on how you use them. For example, the vast majority of games can EASILY be beaten without any guides, just through trial and error (the few exceptions that might require a guide are things like Runaway 2 which have some weird issues guides might help warn you about). Guides to beat the game are kinda like handholding, so I never use them (only two guides I've ever used for the story were for FF1 when replaying it recently after 15 years and for the aforementioned Runaway 2 since there's some progression-related items that glitch out and I didn't know that so got stuck without the guide).

Once you beat the game though and depending on the game, guides can be EXTREMELY important. For example, the main three game series I play are Pokemon, Monster Hunter and Kingdom Hearts. For Pokemon you need to know stats, moves, mechanics, etc. to make the most out of the Pokemon you breed along with stuff like learning about IV inheriting and so on, so while you can play endgame (meaning online battling) without all that it will make an enormous difference. Monster Hunter and Kingdom Hearts on the other hand have a ridiculous amount of drops or items found from enemies and other places with some being extremely rare, plus need to know advanced mechanics and so on to truly master them both. For example, for MH you need to learn in-depth mechanics of weapons, monster weakspots, damage calculation, hidden mechanics, in-depth skill effects, dodging mechanics and so much more that the game doesn't even remotely try to explain, so without guides to learn that stuff you will literally never master the games. For KH, knowing what enemies are found where and in what conditions they drop the items you want to synthesize things to help you get better (eg: the same enemy can drop VASTLY different items depending on where you encounter them), knowing dodging/blocking mechanics, knowing enemy attacks and so on are what will make you improve, that's why once you truly know the game you can go from the usual 50 hours it normally takes to beat on easy difficulty (you'll be around lv60) to only 3 hours on critical difficulty (aka very hard) while only being lv1!

To sum it up, guides aren't really needed for story and might ruin your enjoyment, but depending on the game, once you beat the story, guides might be the one thing that will make you truly master a game.
 
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its up to the gamer really. sometimes when you are stuck in a game, you either dont play the game anymore, or you use a guide to progress. and some games like Pokemon mystery dungeon if you want to get all legendary Pokemon. without a guide its near impossible to do what you want without a guide.
 
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I think, so long as you aren't letting the guide dictate every choice you make in a game, they're an asset. Games aren't always designed perfectly, and there's many times I can think of sections in video games where the solution is obtuse, confusing, or hard to see. And even in the case of games where you don't necessarily need the guide to progress, they can still be helpful. e.g. using a guide to find out how to plant Bell trees in Animal Crossing, or what placement of items creates a tool in Minecraft. They just remove trial and error and help streamline your gaming experience.
 

Tom Bombadildo

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I don't think there's anything wrong with using a guide, so long as you're not just mindlessly following something so you don't have to think about how you want to play a game.

It's fine if you're like...trying to achieve a specific ending or goal that's not immediately obvious, or if you get stuck for too long on something in a game (so long as you feel like you've given whatever thing you're stuck at serious thought and actually tried to figure out the solution first), or if you're using a guide to collect all XYZ whatever's, that's all totally good reasons to use a guide for something. But just following a guide cuz you always wanted to play a game but can't be bothered to do puzzles or make choices is dumb, might as well just watch a long play or something instead.
 

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I think its perfectly fine. My time is limited now, and I have an ever growing library of games I'll never get to. I find myself dropping difficulty down to a reasonable level and finding a good guide, depending on the game.
A few years ago I played Persona 4G with a guide, start to finish and I had TONS of fun. And that is the bottom line. Games are supposed to be fun.
 
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FamicomHeero

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I don't think it is bad. I don't hardly have any time and If I want to game, I don't want to be stuck for hours.
 

Ryccardo

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Sure - it's foolish for anyone operating any software to not take full advantage of any documentation available :)

Tangentially, I can't decide whether the complete lack of manuals in switch games should count as developers being fucking cheapasses, or smart (knowing that someone on gamefaqs or [ew] wikia is going to make something much more detailed in a week or so)
 

godreborn

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I've not used a guide for any switch game. I find it to be a way of cheating, yes. however, I can understand wanting to experience everything. it's just that there's no joyful moment once you get something that's eluded you for a long time like cracking a puzzle.

edit: it's kinda irritating to hear some gamers complain that a game is too short when they used an faq or a walkthrough. it's kinda like, well yeah, you knew where to go and what to do the entire time. what game wouldn't be short by comparison?
 
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HippyJ3

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It is okay especially if you only want to play the game once and want to get all the secrets on one playthru, I only used a guide when I played Suikoden 1 to 5 to get all 108 characters since most of the characters are missable and the PS1's Wild Arms infamous De La Metallica puzzle, that really racked my brain back then.
 

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