What game mechanic did you discover way too late?

Story time.

This is a really old one, but when I was a young kid, we had a PC game called "Test Drive 2: The Duel." You were a racer trying to beat a specific time, and there were speed traps. You had a radar detector that would alert you to speed traps, and if you were speeding, the cops would pull you over and write you a ticket before letting you continue. Of course, getting a ticket would ruin your time.

So I tried to slow down so I wasn't speeding whenever the radar detector went off. I could never get the required times, no matter what I tried, because there was always a speed trap on every level. Eventually I complained to my brother, who had beaten the game several times over. He watched me playing once, and when he was like, "Why are you slowing down?!" Because I don't want to get pulled over. "Your car is faster than the police car!"

I had been playing the game for weeks, and it never occurred to me to try to outrun the police. I'd see lights and sirens in the rearview, and I'd just pull over like a responsible citizen.

So I hit the gas and watched the police shrink in the rearview and eventually disappear on the horizon, and then I had to rethink everything about my life up to that point.

So after the rethink are you now a successful thief outrunning the cops at every turn? Or is more subtle crimes like big lies on a CV?
- Well I considered it, but I don't have access to a Countach. So mostly just piracy and jaywalking, like a boss.

Tech specialization in RTS games back in the day like AoEII. My older brothers would stomp me because I thought I needed to develop every single tech in the game, while they would streamline their research to match their strategy.

Here's an obsure one: every N64 game I had as a kid used 2 of the 3 N64 grips. You got either Dpad + face buttons, stick + face buttons (most common), and dpad + stick (sim weirdos). So you took the grip that each game required. However, to unlock the minigames and half of the features of Pokemon Stadium, you needed to use the dpad to select other overworld items. I owned the game for 2 years having only played half of it.

The N64 controller was so weird. Those yellow directional camera buttons took months of regular gaming before they felt intuitive. Only the GameCube controller was worse IIRC, that thing just never found grace.
- For my money gamecube controller is hands down the best controller shape and some of the features. The triggers are a chefs kiss. The ergonomics are the best. The modern versions of the controller for Switch fixed the only two issues, the missing shoulder button and replacing the nub on the C-stick with an actual thumb stick.
- I miss the N64 unironically... Emulating it never feels right.

Metal gear solid - I didn't find the thermal goggles till my second playthrough. So it took me days of random flailing and pausing the game for school/sleep to beat psycho mantis cause he was invisible.

I didn't know dead eye was a thing in RDR2 until about halfway into the main story when I accidentally activated it. If it is featured in a tutorial mission I must have missed it.

It suddenly made a lot of the missions, especially the ones where you need to shoot people riding on horses while you are yourself riding on a horse or train, much much easier.

Never used dead eye on purpose. As a game it is beautiful and fun but too easy. With dead eye feels like cheating when playing chess with kindergarten kids

Pole Position. It was part of an Atari arcade pack on my Gameboy Advanced. I would press and hold the A button so hard that the letter would be imprinted on my thumb, but I could not pass the qualifying round despite my best attempts.

As an adult, it suddenly hit me one day. I did not realize, as a kid, that I needed to change gears to go faster.

So I tried it out in order to test my theory. The graphics barely showed up on the screen because the gba was like 15 years old or older at that point.

Passed the qualifying race my first try just by gearing up.

Wow. I hated that game. I think this is why. To be fair, I don't think I even knew what gears were on a car at that age.
My wife and I went to an arcade this weekend and they had Pole Position there. She didn't figure out shifting either for the first several tries and once I showed her she then didn't understand that you had the option of lifting off of the gas instead of slamming into your opponents at light speed and turning into burning wreckage.
I miss when games were unapologetically hard.

I played sniper elite v2 twice. Once on the hard difficulty. And then the third time around I found out the scopes have variable zoom...

When I first played Dark Souls I, i had no idea what kindling the bonfires did and only ever had 5 estus unless I ran all the way back to firelink to get 10. So I did all of Sen's Fortress with 10 estus by running all the way from firelink, up the elevator and down the stairs to the tower where Andre is every time I died. Which was a lot. I found out what kindling was because the first time I noticed the "right of kindling" loading screen when I died fighting the Iron Golem boss at the end. I was so mad.

Ha get revenge on the game, do a no bonfires run!
For some reason I thought that summoning helpers would reduce the rewards for beating bosses, so I soloed almost the entire game. It wasn’t until the black dragon in the DLC that I caved and summoned help. Later in Dark Souls 2 I found out this is not the case and it just increases the boss health.
I also soloed all of Demon’s Souls for a similar reason. I thought I could avoid invaders that way (its sort of true, but in that one using the item which allows summons also allows invasions). I had found out about world tendencies too and would avoid using those items thinking it would maintain an easier world tendency. Only after beating the game did I look this shit up and find out how it really works.
That's funny, mine was about Dark Souls too. They really could do a better job of explaining mechanics, but then again, it's what makes it feel so mysterious and magical too.

I still don't know how to "wave dash" in Rocket League, even though I consistently stay in the Grand Champion rank. It's more than just jumping and flipping forward or diagonally hella fast, there's something to do with the rotation of your vehicle and I've never even been able to understand exactly what's going on through reading guides or watching videos. I guess you're supposed to be able to get like unlimited momentum because you're never touching the ground, like bunny hopping in an FPS? But my car doesn't ever seem to spin while mid double jump like I see happening in the videos of how it works so IDK WTF to do.

I don't really notice anyone ever going faster than me doing what I do, so maybe it's just a smokescreen; like all the players that are constantly rotating and flipping while flying for no discernable reason. I can control the flight of my vehicle without constant rotation; it's the same as trying to control a rocket in KSP so I only flip or rotate exactly how I want to turn or change pitch. It certainly looks flashy compared to how I play, but I don't see how it's making controlling your angle easier as many players claim it does. If you're constantly changing direction, how do you know what direction you need to be facing to go where you want to go in the moment?

I haven't played since pre-Epic but I also never got into wave dashing, even at the GC level. I rarely found my teammates using it or being bested because of it. Viable but overrated is where I landed on it.
Regarding the random air flips, I did find using that technique useful against opponents who excel at reading ball movement. I rarely needed it in team games, but sometimes in solo an odd hit that goes (relatively) in the direction I wanted is just enough to confuse them. Using it everytime though is just stunting.

It took me forever to understand how iframes worked in Dark Souls. I had already bounced off the game once and had jumped back in a year or so later determined to figure out what everyone was talking about. I swear I ran that bridge area in Undead Burgh a hundred times figuring out the mechanics. If someone had just point blank told me as I started the game that there is a portion of your roll where you are completely invincible and that it doesn't matter where you are or the enemy attack hits during that part of the roll, it would have saved me a lot of streess and trial and error.

I have yet to find it in monster hunter

Somehow it didn't cross my mind until later in TotK that I could hold logs and flint simultaneously in the last two Zeldas so each time I first dropped one to the ground and then the other. I'm dumb.

That Tribbles can grow into a problem in Elite on the C64.

I played an old MUD (entirely text-based game, for those who don't know) for many months before I learned that there were keyboard shortcuts and I didn't have to type out the full action I was taking every time. For example, I could have been typing "c [spell]" instead of "cast [spell]".

On the plus side, this resulted in me eventually developing a typing speed in the 130s.

In Stardew Valley you can use the mouse wheel to select different items in your inventory. You don’t need to hit the number keys.

I learned that one after an embarrassingly long time playing.