Video Game Tactical Index

This is an index, but its also a handy guide to tropes specifically relating to common player tactics deployed in video games. Taking a read through these tropes may even give you some tips to try during play...

Tactical Tropes include the following:

Don't know which button to press? Completely new to a Fighting Game? Press anything and hope for the best. Some educated guessing is advisable though, what did you think pressing forward and B would do? Less a tactic and more a form of humiliation. Deliberately using a weak attack or deliberately weakened character to defeat the enemy in the most embarrassing way possible. Remember, predictability is a weakness. I hope you people who play Fighting Games are listening! For when you just HAVE to use fireball on the fire elemental. Too many to deal with at once? Try luring them away one at a time and continuing the slaughter from the shadows! Shoot, run away, shoot, repeat. Certain contexts where a character can endure attacks without flinching, getting knocked back, or having their own actions interrupted. Grind for items for whatever purpose. Getting moved or pushed around when you take damage, or for its own sake. You made your opponent step out-of-bounds. You win! Shoot along the path the target is likely to follow to avoid them "outrunning" your shots. (Though this is more an absence of tactics.) The Berserker in video game form. Committing mass murder of random monsters for experience. Unbalancing equipment, spell casts, armour and any other stat-influencing items to privilege a specific trait to the detriment of another. A common tactic of a Munchkin. Get enough money for whatever purpose. You know that when you see a mudpit or a mud bog, you can go through it. Just be aware that there are only a few safe spots, and there are some swamps in which you can go too deep... Refusing to share the best items after a team effort has brought an enemy down. Very frowned upon. Not using the scope to aim on a weapon you would be expected to do so with (e.g. a Sniper Rifle). The way to go is the way the enemies are coming from. If in constant danger of death, pause often, giving you more time to react. If in constant danger of death, save often, minimising loss of progress. Breaking the pre-determined order of events the game designers have laid out. May shorten the game considerably... or screw up your game file. A risky tactic but valuable for completing Speed Runs. Shooting the healer of the enemy group to prevent him from healing the others/himself. Being unpredictable because you have no idea what you're doing. Infantry get up close and personal with crossbowmen, crossbowmen make horse-kebab, cavalry runs down footmen, thus closing the circle. That sort of things. Using only one narrow tactical option to devastating effect, often to the chagrin of other gamers. Sending waves upon waves of cheap, weak units in order to overwhelm a more tech-aware enemy with sheer numbers.
 * Button Mashing
 * Cherry Tapping
 * Confusion Fu
 * Elemental Ignorance
 * Fishing for Mooks
 * Hit and Run Tactics/ Kiting
 * Immune to Flinching / Super Armor
 * Item Farming
 * Knockback
 * Ring Out
 * Lead the Target
 * Leeroy Jenkins
 * Level Grinding
 * Min Maxing
 * Money Grinding
 * Mucking in The Mud
 * Ninja Looting
 * No Scope
 * Path of Greatest Resistance
 * Pause Scumming
 * Save Scumming
 * Sequence Breaking
 * Shoot the Medic First
 * Strategy Schmategy
 * Tactical Rock Paper Scissors
 * Whoring
 * Zerg Rush