Looking Pro

[NeonSpider]

What are some things that make you look "pro" at specific video games? It doesn't mean you have to necessarily be pro, but it needs to be visually impressive but perhaps not that hard to pull off.

Example. Super Mario Bros.

Most people just jump on two goombas one after another to get 300 points (100 pts first goomba, 200 pts second one). But if you instead land a single jump right in the middle of two goombas just right it looks hella impressive and you get 500 points (100 pts first goomba, 400 pts second one). And all you really have to do is wait for a goomba to hit an obstacle (such as a pipe) and reverse direction before you land your hit (exception of 1-2 where there's a "gimme" right at the start that everyone can do).

I'm going to mention the 1-UP trick not because it's a good example of looking pro but because if I don't mention it then someone else probably will. The reason this isn't a good example is it's too overdone and almost anyone can pull that one off. It would have made you look pro back in the day before it was widespread knowledge though.

Here's a counter-example -- something that is pro but which doesn't look pro. Getting 15 coins from a coin box, particularly if you can do it a few times. Only reason it doesn't look pro is people watching you play are likely not counting while doing so. 15 is the most coins you can get from a coin box. 13 is pretty typical. 14 is the best you'll usually do if your timing is very good. It's all about that perfect timing because once you hit it the first time an internal clock goes off and you only have that much time to milk the rest before it'll only give 1 coin.

Also naturally if you get a 6 as the final digit on your timer on all non-Bowser levels that's going to look extremely pro, but that actually is difficult to pull off, whereas the goombas thing isn't.

[Painbringer]

At 2/23/18 07:45 PM, NeonSpider wrote: It's all about that perfect timing because once you hit it the first time an internal clock goes off and you only have that much time to milk the rest before it'll only give 1 coin.

All this time I thought the coin boxes had a fixed number of coins...

[NeonSpider]

At 2/26/18 02:00 PM, Painbringer wrote:

At 2/23/18 07:45 PM, NeonSpider wrote: It's all about that perfect timing because once you hit it the first time an internal clock goes off and you only have that much time to milk the rest before it'll only give 1 coin.

All this time I thought the coin boxes had a fixed number of coins...

Yep, try it out! Hit a block, then wait around. Then hit again and you'll get a grand total of just 2 coins out of it. If you just hit it sort of spastically you'll probably get 10 to 12 or so coins. As soon as you hit that first coin out the timer starts, so to maximize coins requires a good rhythmic strategy.

13 coins is pretty decent. 14 coins is the best you should expect to be able to do, with practice. 15 is the absolute max.

Also, to get 15 coins you'll need to be large Mario and not small in most cases. Small Mario can max out at 10 coins most coin boxes. The only ones small Mario can get 15 on are the extremely low to the ground ones that large Mario would have to run and duck under.

That said, while extremely difficult to pull off, it's unlikely to be noticed by spectators as they're likely not counting coins while watching play.

[Jackho]

In the old Resident Evil games when you have a shotgun your characters tend to aim it from the hip. But if you wait for a zombie to get close, then aim up at its chin you'll get an instant kill decapitation on every shot. Time it right and you can decapitate several zombies with one shot thanks to the wide range too. Once you figure this out it heavily impacts the challenge of these games.

Dead Space - only use the plasma cutter, not only is it the best gun all round, but ammo only spawns for the weapons you own. So if you never buy any other guns you'll just get infinite plasma cutter ammo and sail through the game. No panicked inventory management or searching for ammo.

Crash Bandicoot 2 glitched high jump - if you do a crouch jump and spin just as you leave the ground you'll jump slightly higher than the designers intended, and adding a body slam gives you slightly more air still. This allows you to pull off jumps not intended to be possible, allows getting gems early and skipping certain obstacles altogether. It's easy to pull off and once you get the hang of it you look like a total pro speedrunner.

There's also a 'neutral slide-spin', where you perform a slide and halfway through turn it into a spin. This is a longer range attack with more invincibility frames than the designers intended, and bc the spin cancels the slide it gives you the extra speed of sliding but without losing any momentum. They also seemingly turned both of these bugs into features by keeping them in the remakes.

Fallout 3 - unlike the other Fallout games you're completely invincible while in VATS, which is a massive advantage once you realize it. You can launch a nuke at your feet and blow any enemies away without taking damage.

[NeonSpider]

At 2/28/18 04:00 PM, Jackho wrote: Crash Bandicoot 2 glitched high jump - if you do a crouch jump and spin just as you leave the ground you'll jump slightly higher than the designers intended, and adding a body slam gives you slightly more air still. This allows you to pull off jumps not intended to be possible, allows getting gems early and skipping certain obstacles altogether. It's easy to pull off and once you get the hang of it you look like a total pro speedrunner.

There's also a 'neutral slide-spin', where you perform a slide and halfway through turn it into a spin. This is a longer range attack with more invincibility frames than the designers intended, and bc the spin cancels the slide it gives you the extra speed of sliding but without losing any momentum. They also seemingly turned both of these bugs into features by keeping them in the remakes.

That's pretty cool. Remakes or ports though? Shoddy ports/remakes are always a terrible experience. Hopefully those were good and not ones that make players of the original games facepalm.

There's always a lot of cases where makers of ports/remakes don't bother to adequately test their games and/or where they completely miss some important aspect of the original.

[CitizenGoose]

Spamming a certain action on the right moments.

Like in mario world, using the spin all the time.
In Dark Souls, rolling in different directions
PUBG and Fortnite, those IQ 200 pull offs

[WaffleCrisp]

Defeating Diablo 3 without dying on normal. Wait that's incredibly easy.

Mmmm... what else 7 headshots in a row in FPS shooter Vietcong Purple Haze online with iron site AK 47, in a game that's actually somewhat difficult to aim with.

Winning a Halo 2 match at around lvl 30 rank, 2 on my team counting me, and we won from a plasma that blew up 3 of them at the last seconds of the game winning by 1 kill.

Runescape, winning several pvp matches heavily outnumbered and dieing only a few times in all of my fights, which was with not knowing Members cant use rune halberds in a non member server in the wilderness.

Actually kicking ass in WoW in the Warrior class nerfed to oblivion at that time. With gear not that good in a gear dependant class. Just really quick with action keys/bind keys and being very quick/cunning.