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{{trope}}
[[File:kenroster_lulz.jpg|link=Street Fighter IV (Video Game)|right]]
{{quote|''We all know players who'll just look sadly at their newly-dead dwarf, Snorri Goblinkiller III, cross out the name, and start playing with Snorri Goblinkiller IV. These types of gamers can only do one thing: [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|a Scottish accent]].''|'''Alan Lenczycki'''}}
 
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The trope for limited player use of characters/weapons/techniques in [[Video Games]] is at [[Player Preferred Pattern]]. The trope for limited locales is at [[Abridged Arena Array]].
 
The exact opposite condition, most often induced by a stringently balanced game, is [[AltitisAlt-Itis]]. Contrast with [[Self-Imposed Challenge]].
 
Games with evolving [[Metagame]] tend to avert this, because as new strategies are learned, characters fall in and out of popularity.
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== Comic Books ==
* Every tabletop gamer in ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' except for the DMs and possibly Sara. It gets to a point where they abuse the offscreen training rules [[Final Death|so that when their character dies]] they can literally [[Send in Thethe Clones]] at a minor loss in level. When forced to break out of this trope, [[The Real Man|Dave]] showed signs of secretly being [[The Smart Guy]], and poor [[Munchkin]] Brian was so paralyzed by this that he could hardly play a competent character. Even Sara is most often seen playing a barbarian or a cleric: some variation of the "fighter with benefits" niche. As for Brian, after literally a decade-plus of playing nothing but high-level mages, he was so used to the high firepower and versatility that when forced to play as a fighter, he loaded him down with proficiencies for ballistas, catapults, and other siege weapons, along with a high number of leadership traits. The problem is, that most of his leadership skills won't kick in for several levels, he won't have access to siege weapons until he's in a position to lead armies, and he's completely neglected to be proficient in so much as a regular sword or any other melee weapon, making him all but useless on a typical dungeon crawl.
* Often happens to Matt's sessions in ''[[Dork Tower]]''; even when they try to change games/genres/systems for variety, the gang inevitably falls back to their usual Warhamster fantasy standby.
 
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** Another terrible RPG, ''deadEarth'', tried the same thing except that ''everything'' was decided randomly. Up to and including if the character starts the game alive or dead (not zombified or something, '''dead''').
** In ''[[Maid RPG]]'', everything is randomly generated, but only the stats have an in-game effect, and you can wind up with something [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|ludicrous and fun]]. The amount of randomness in ''[[Maid RPG]]'' is such that you can have an albino with brown skin, or someone with both elf ears and cat ears. Of course, the sourcebook for ''[[Maid RPG]]'' also states that if you want, you can just choose character attributes.
* ''[[Munchkin (Tabletop Gamegame)|Munchkin]]'' hangs a lampshade on this - when you die, you keep your race, class and level, but you lose all your items (only because the other players stole them).
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has [[Fan Nickname|Paranoia Combat.]] Sure, PC's have amazingly powerful and fun tricks to deal massive damage, but most artifact weapons have a reasonable expectation <ref>Somewhat, anyway. Damage is highly randomized in ''Exalted'', so it is entirely possible and not terribly unlikely to have a really powerful attack do barely any damage at all</ref> of being able to kill any character in a hit or two if they hit. This, of course, completely ignores the phenomenal cosmic powers of an elder Exalt, or the reality-warping powers of the Yozis. However, nearly any Exalt type has access to [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Perfect Defenses]], usually cheaply and without requiring a great deal of investment on behalf of the character. As a result, [[Boring but Practical|it's far more efficient to use normal attacks on a character and force him to perfectly defend,]] while he does the same. Some people dislike this as rendering most of the combat powers of the Exalted [[Awesome but Impractical|needlessly flashy]], others because it leads to long, drawn out slogfests while characters stunt back motes and try to break even, and then some people just adjust [[Cast From Hit Points|their paradigm.]]
* [[Paranoia]], being a system in which death is frequent and expected, embraces an institutionalized form of this. Player characters come in six-packs of clones, and if you run out, you can buy another six-pack. Don't make a new character, just increment the number at the end of your name and keep playing.
** Unless the DM tells you no and hands you a randomly made character, yes this is a suggested way to play. Also a new six-pack cost a lot and adds new mutations (unless you pay more) making it only useful for Blue-class up.
* Tournament-level ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]'' usually gravitates towards the four or five best decks in the format at hand, each deck beating another good deck and being weak against another good deck in a sort of [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] form. Sometimes, a "rogue" deck can enter and completely wreck strategies (this is more likely to happen in low-level competitive Magic, though); usually, though, they're "rogue" decks for a reason (i.e. they're not good enough to hang with the best decks). However, the DCI is always vigilant about a format becoming ''too'' complacent (if the number of best decks whittles from four or five to two, with one of them more dominant; aka a "play this deck" or "play to beat this deck" scenario); when that happens, card bannings usually ensue.
* The GM is just as vulnerable to [[Complacent Gaming Syndrome]], and this can both kill game balance and fun. The GM may simply not know how to build a wide variety of encounters, may over-use his favorite monsters/clan/faction/powers while completely ignoring or even putting down his least favorites, may have too few personalities for the NPCs, may refuse to tailor the general thrust of his plots to the players' interests, may fail to take into account player experience when building encounters (either wiping out new players or leaving vets bored), may ignore the possibility for players to try diplomatic or sneaky solutions and just demand they fight his villain, or may just limit the scope of the setting to some corner of it he likes. This can occur in any game.
* The cost of buying new miniatures can mandate this in wargames, especially if "what you see is what you get" is in effect. Some players, however, will just insist on using their favorite side or always use the same builds even if they have the opportunity to do something new.
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** Can be fixed through the use of tiers (like many other games). Sports games, unlike many other games which strive for balance, will usually have a fairly easy way of tiering via in-game ratings of teams (either out of 100 or out of 5 stars or whatever). Only problem of course is there still is no TRUE balance, since usually one team will still be slightly better.
== Fighting Games ==
* As illustrated above, around 50% of all ''[[Street Fighter IV (Video Game)|Street Fighter IV]]'' players use [[Shotoclone|Ken]] and 40% use Sagat. This has earned the game the nickname "Ken Fighter IV: Sagat Strike". This has been mocked [http://www.halolz.com/2009/03/10/street-fighter-iv-online-fighting-edition/ numerous] [http://i40.tinypic.com/ih1j4z.jpg times].
** Even ''worse'' in ''[[Street Fighter III (Video Game)|Street Fighter III]]'' which only carried over Ryu and Ken from the previous games. 75% of all ''Street Fighter III'' players used Ken (Shinryuken super, natch), 20% used Ryu, and 5% used someone else. It got a little better in ''Second Impact'' and ''Third Strike'' once players realized the new characters had a lot of potential.
*** Even so, high-level [[Tournament Play]] almost always consists of the top-tier fighters (Chun-Li, Ken, and Yun) with the occasional Akuma in the mix. There's a reason ''3rd Strike'' has its ''own'' nickname (''Chun Fighter III: Ken Strike - Yun for the Future'').
** Found a tally of ''Super Street Fighter IV'' character usage of over 4,000 matches, [http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2010/sep/26/ssf4-character-usage-numbers-over-4000-matches/ which you can see here.] Ryu and Ken make up over 1,000 of them. Apparently, the stranglehold of these two is weakening...
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** ''Tekken 5'' fanatics would prove mathematically that playing with anyone but Nina, Steve, or Bryan Fury was a waste of time.
* ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' gives us Sol Badguy and Chipp Zanuff.
* Go to [http://www.supercade.net/ Supercade] and watch some of the replays. You will see players spend literal ''hours'' using the same character (or in the case of ''[[The King of Fighters (Video Game)|KOF]]'' the same ''team'').
* ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Video Game)|Marvel vs. Capcom 2]]''. Every team will include Cable and take advantage of his BFG.
** And lest we forget about the remaining members of the [[Fan Nickname|Four]] [[Game Breaker|Gods]], Magneto, Storm, and Sentinel. Or Psylocke. Or Strider Hiryu. Or Doctor Doom. Or Cyclops. Or Iron Man. Or Tron. Or Captain Commando... Long story short, if you're not upper/high/god-tier and/or don't have a good assist, ''no one will want to play as you'' (which, quite frankly, applies to most of the ''[[Loads and Loads of Characters|56 playable characters]]'', many of whom, unfortunately, hail from the Capcom side of things).
* ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Video Game)|Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]''. Every team has Dante and/or Wolverine in it. ''EVERY''. ''Team''. Dante is particularly used by new players, as is X-23 due to button bashing as she's so quick. Wolverine is more likely to be used by more advanced players who can pull out ridiculous combos with him.
** You can also expect the ridiculously powerful Akuma, the ridiculously fast and strong Wesker, and the ridiculously funny Deadpool to frequent a large number of teams as well.
** There're quite a few Phoenixes in high level play.
** As well as a decent amount of Zero and Sentinel players. However, the number of Sentinel players ''did'' drop when a patch [[Nerf|nerfed]] his health (formerly the highest in the game at '''1.3 million'''; for reference, most of the other characters rank in somewhere between 1 mil and 850K) down to 910K.
* The ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' series has Ragna and Jin, the two main rival characters. They aren't particularly overpowered -- in Calamity Trigger, Nu-13 is far superior to both of them, and in Continuum Shift the whole cast is pretty well balanced. Still, players go through the tutorial for the first time with Ragna, and they both have plenty of easily spammable moves with few drawbacks.
* ''[[Street Fighter X Tekken (Video Game)|Street Fighter X Tekken]]'' is not safe from this. Play online, and enjoy fighting some of these six characters again and again: Ryu, Ken, Kazuya, Jin, Rolento, Raven.
* ''UFC Undisputed 3'' purports to have over 40 different fighters, good luck trying to find a match which is not against the top 4: Jose Aldo, Georges St. Pierre, Jon 'Bones' Jones or Cain Velasquez.
== [[Mascot Fighter]] ==
* In the ''[[Super Smash Bros (Video Game)|Super Smash Bros]].'' games, the community analyses the hell out of every character, game mode, stage and glitch, developing the fabled 'tier lists' for each game to show which character is considered the 'best'. Thus with each new tier list, expect at least 50% of your opponents to play one of the top 3 in the tier list (Meta Knight in ''Brawl'', anyone)?
** Stock seems to be the go-to game mode. No one even considers Coin Mode, everybody assumes you accidentally forgot to change the default with Time Mode and in ''Brawl'' Bonus Mode was simply removed from the game.
** Players also tend to have an irrational fear of items (lampooned when the official site sneaked in the message that "Real men use items!"), leading to the [[Memetic Mutation]] "NO ITEMS! [[Player Preferred Pattern|FOX ONLY!]] [[Abridged Arena Array|FINAL DESTINATION!]]" If you're lucky, you'll have a friend who occasionally likes to mix things up (99 stock super sudden death with high items). Mostly its complacency in the above pattern, rarely its someone who refuses to not play by personal rules.
== First-Person Shooter ==
* ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' eventually buckled to the competitive audience and added server options to disable absolutely ''every'' random factor in the game, including ones that are factored in to balancing weapons against their alternatives. Most servers with a large enough community will have these turned on.
** Additionally, every single update to the game gets the [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]] treatment thanks to more variety in maps and weapons being added, causing a lot of grief for players who are tired of changing their play styles.
** The originally-informal, now-official [[Highlander (Franchise)|Highlander]] game mode averts this a bit, because as we all know, [[There Can Only Be One]] of each class on every team, where players have to split their duties accordingly and work together efficiently. You know -- be a ''team'', like the game's ''title'' suggests. It was originally an out-of-game ruleset, but Valve eventually made it an official game mode in a patch.
** Eventually, when the game went free-to-play, the log-in interface was changed to feature a "Find Me a Game" option in addition to the traditional server list. Since the system was impartial to map, many veteran players joked the mechanic was installed to put new players on solid footing with experienced ones because "New or old, no one plays Turbine".
* For ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Star Wars: Jedi Knight]]: [[Colon Cancer|Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy]]'', there's the no-Force, saber-only game setting. There's ranged weapons and Force powers<ref>Jump, and more rarely Speed, are occasionally allowed to make navigating a bit easier, but even then they'll be limited to the lowest level</ref> in the game? Apparently not, judging by the multiplayer community.
* Any FPS for which you will find single-map 24/7 servers. Contributes heavily to the map becoming [[That One Level]]. See [[Abridged Arena Array]]. Examples include:
** ''[[Starsiege: Tribes|Tribes 2]]'' has Katabatic. It even made its way into ''[[Tribes Ascend]]''!
** Go into the server list for ''[[Battlefield (Video Gameseries)|Battlefield]] 2'' and find a section without any "Strike at Karkand 24/7 Infantry Only" servers. Good luck!
*** Or Wake Island for the vehicle whores. This also extends to that map's debut game, ''Battlefield 1942'', and every version of it included in later games as well.
** For ''[[Battlefield (Video Gameseries)|Battlefield]] 2142'' it's Camp Gibraltar.
*** Try to find a team that isn't mostly made up of players armed with rifle rockets and the Voss.
** ''[[Battlefield: Bad Company (Video Game)|Bad Company 2]]'' has 3 major configurations like this: "24/7 Atacama only" for tank lovers, "24/7 Arica Conquest" as it's the closest thing to 24/7 Karkand BC2 has and "24/7 Rush Isla only". Which is weird since Isla on rush is one of the worst maps in the game because 90% of the attacking team will be snipers.
*** Atacama has mostly been replaced by "24/7 1000 Ticket Heavy Metal". There's also quite a bit of 24/7 Harvest Day.
** ''[[Unreal Tournament (Video Game)|Unreal Tournament]]'' has Facing Worlds (CTF-Face) and Deck16. ''[[Unreal Tournament 2004 (Video Game)|Unreal Tournament 2004]]'' has Rankin and Torlan. ''[[Unreal Tournament III (Video Game)3|Unreal Tournament III]]'' has Sentinel.
** ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' has 2Fort.
*** And Dustbowl. [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|Certain players]] will complain that 2fort is only populated by [[Noobs]], while they themselves can only be found on Dustbowl.
**** Worse yet are the servers that only play ''one part'' of Dustbowl.
** ''[[Counter-Strike (Video Game)|Counter-Strike]]'' has de_dust and de_dust2.
*** It also has the Magnum Sniper Rifle, disaffectionately known as the AWP to every poor victim who's been [[Boom! Headshot!|instantly killed by it]]. It's the most overpowered sniper rifle in the game, capable of [[One-Hit Kill|one-hit killing]] a character on almost any area of his body, including ''[[Critical Existence Failure|his toes.]]'' The 'increased accuracy' of the zoom is merely down to it becoming easier to see your opponent.
** ''[[Call of Duty]] 2'' has Toujane, Tunisia. Also notable that [[Game Breaker|almost everyone used bolt-action rifles and nothing else because of how much better they were.]]
** ''[[Modern Warfare|Call of Duty 4]]'' has Killhouse, Broadcast, Crash... there's bound to be at least one 24/7 one-map-only server for every map in the game, but those three are the most popular. Weapon variety, on the other hand, is pretty much exclusively either the final-unlocked weapons of a class (Desert Eagle, P90, etc.) or [[Running Gag|the bolt-action snipers]].
*** Specifically, players who use sniper rifles prefer the M40A3. Attaching an ACOG scope to it [[Good Bad Bugs|raises its base power slightly]]; combine with the Stopping Power perk, and you've basically got a shorter-ranged version of ''Counter-Strike'''s AWP: [[One-Hit Kill]] on anyone.
** ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops (Video Game)|Call of Duty Black Ops]]'' has Nuketown and Array, to the point that there's an actual ''game mode'' based around playing solely on the former.
** ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' in spades. The only two guns used online are the UMP and the ACR, both because [[Game Breaker|they shoot straighter than an arrow and make better snipers than the sniper rifles]]. As for Perks, expect to see the tele-knifing Commando on almost every class.
*** While the UMP is a [[Game Breaker]], the ACR is simply not. It may have zero recoil, but it deals less damage and fires slower than most other assault rifles.
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*** The Pistol in ''Halo:CE'' is more powerful than the Halo 2/3 Battle Rifle. The Battle Rifle is a 4 shot kill, the CE pistol is a 3 shot kill. Also: You are a "Noob" if you do not use the Battle Rifle instead of the Assault Rifle, the Assault Rifle was inferior in every way possible to the Battle Rifle.
*** Not really. A quarter of a AR clip is enough to drain half of someone's sheilds. A melee is enough to deplete it. If you time it right you can insta-kill someone with one melee hit if the timing's right. It was mostly seen as a bug.
*** [[Halo: Reach]] fixes this meaning a melee hit, no matter how much sheild is left, it only drains it (unless it's already drained), but there the AR can atleast kick someone's ass. A good example is a video on Youtube by Bungie Favorites which displays a player taking out a warthog, from afar with a AR.
**** And the Noob Combo (Plasma Pistol charged shot to remove shields, quickly switch to your other weapon and make the kill). Granted, it's almost required to complete the second game on [[Harder Than Hard|Legendary difficulty]].
* Multiplayer-only game ''[[Shattered Horizon]]'' originally ''enforced'' this by including only one weapon to focus the game more around player skill. Shortly after release a patch increased it to five due to complaints.
* ''[[Left 4 Dead 2 (Video Game)|Left 4 Dead 2]]'' introduced Realism mode (campaign with tweaked settings for a better challenge) and Scavenge mode (a different flavor of VS mode), but most people ignore them in favor of campaign and VS. Realism VS mode was one of the first mutations introduced in The Passing DLC and was made a permanent game mode due to popular demand, but now no one ever plays it, going back to normal VS and campaign.
** Same for the campaigns, in both the first and second game. While the Coop-Players play pretty much anything, trying to find anything else than No Mercy, Blood Harvest or The Sacrifice in ''Left 4 Dead'' is not that easy. In the sequel, Dead Center is added to the mix and at least the other originally released campaigns are played more commonly, but still not as bad.
** When Left 4 Dead got released, you even got kicked out of the game for not picking the Auto-Shotgun in Versus. That has thankfully changed since and the other weapons are also more commonly taken now. In the sequel, it was similar with secondaries - you were called a Noob for using dual pistols.
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* While ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' battlegrounds provide more variety than usual, there is only one tactic used for each. Even if it sucks. Case in point: Warsong Gulch. Both sides run to the opposing flag (usually completely ignoring each other), take it, run back and either clash in the middle (often with both flags getting returned) or both flags end up in the opposing fortress, heavily defended for most of the battle. There is a good reason a 25 minute time limit was added to this battleground.
** Alterac Valley suffers from a similar case, turning into a rush to kill the opposing general as soon as possible. The fact that this got much harder in a recent patch didn't deter players from this procedure much.
** This also happened in "Vanilla" World of Warcraft wherein most classes had one maybe two talent trees if they were lucky. That's because the other one or two was completely ''broken''. This was most prevalent in druids, who didn't really have Balance and Feral considered viable until ''Burning Crusade'' and ''Wrath''. It didn't help that they and warriors were the most gear-dependent classes in the game and the gear was mostly made for healing or tanking if they were warriors. As a result, feral and balance druids were scoffed at by guilds because there was no gear and they were needed to heal since a good 70% of people are DPS-classes anyways. This has ''thankfully'' gotten ''much'' better after Burning Crusade where specs were made more viable and gear made available for [[PvP]] classes, also to stop the issue of how DPS classes got their [[PvP]] Gear. (By running Blackwing Lair.) Not to mention, other trees were made more feasible too. While there are a few that are still [[Overshadowed Byby Awesome]] (Enhancement shamans late-game) it's nice to have a wider variety of classes available to fit certain roles.
** Likewise, this happens whenever an expansion pack is released: [[Play the Game Skip Thethe Story|ignore all of the plot]], then go on the boards and complain that there's no content. Or deliberately underplay your usefulness so your class gets a buff in the next patch.
* [[Diablo]] 2's multiplayer was pretty much this: Log onto multiplayer. Pay people in-game loot to run you through the game, sitting by and absorbing all the experience so you can level up as fast as possible. You look up a stat sheet on the internet and follow it ''to the tee'', with no room for deviation (unless you want to be laughed at by all the [[Munchkin|Munchkins]], unless you're doing something like a "Crazy run") Then when you hit level 80, you run the final act again and again, get [[Sturgeon's Law|nothing but junk 98% of the time]] in hopes of finding that "perfect loot", until a player bribes you with something that ''isn't'' junk and you run them through the game.
* [[Warhammer Online]] has very vocal complaints about "bomb squads" - namely parties that guard and buff up a single (''long range'') DPS character who then solely runs through enemies spamming a short range area of effect ability that happened to have no cooldown or cast time. After 16 months of complaints about the inability to defend against it, suggestions to change the mechanics of the ability or noting that players were using a long range character to do more damage than a dedicated melée character, the game developers actually played some games and immediately issued a notification that they would nerf the mechanic in the upcoming patch. Although the mechanic has changed slightly, it is still feasible (and hated) and rumours persist of entire guilds who only accept one of the few classes who make this technique possible to avoid using any other tactics.
* This trope goes skipping hand-in-hand with elitism in [[Guild Wars]]. Don't have the skillsets or professions to match the popular cookie-cutter team builds everyone else is running? You do, but want to play your own way? Good luck finding a pick-up team for [[Bonus Dungeon|FoW]], [[Bonus Dungeon|UW]], [[Bonus Dungeon|Slavers]], or [[Bonus Dungeon|DoA]]. Your Lightbringer and Sunspear titles aren't maxxed out? Forget [[DOAD.O.A.]] altogether unless you run your own guild. Lacking levels in other alliance titles will also get you viewed as a liability, depending on the attached skills, the mission, and the group build in question.
* [[Dungeon Fighter Online]]'s [[PvP]] has this. most matches will be on the Tavern stage, Elimination mode, no Mages or Gunners (Especially Summoners or Mechs, respectively) allowed. If you try to switch the mode or stage to anything else, or try to use a Mage or Gunner, 99% of the time somebody's going to complain that it's "unfair".
* ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'' players tend to gravitate towards the [[Boss Rush]] quest "Towards the Future", since it's the fastest way to [[Level Grinding|Level Grind]]. You will rarely find anyone playing anything else.
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== Racing Games ==
* Expect to see a lot of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions in ''[[Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune]]'', especially the eighth and ninth iteration. Mazda RX-8 is also quite common.
* ''[[Mario Kart (Video Game)|Mario Kart]] Wii'': Certain players will only play as Funky Kong + Flame Runner because is the best combination statistically. Pretty everyone else plays as their Miis.
** ''Mario Kart 7'' has nearly everyone using the B Dasher because of its extremely high top speed and how cool it looks, along with the Mushroom Wheels since it gives a good boost in speed and handling.
* ''[[Initial D Arcade Stage (Video Game)|Initial D Arcade Stage]] Ver. 2'': Honda Integra DC2 on Irohazaka was basically the only combination anybody ever played in multiplayer.
 
== Real-Time Strategy ==
* The ''[[Supreme Commander (Video Game)|Supreme Commander]]'' equivalent is "Seton's Clutch" for 4v4 games and "Fields of Isis" for 2v2 games. Despite a large number of 3v3 maps to choose from, 3v3 games are always on Seton's Clutch again with 2 of the player positions left empty. A large proportion of the player base also insists on playing "20min no rush" (which is built into the game) and with nukes and heavy artillery disabled.
* In the old days, when playing ''[[Age of Empires (Video Game)|Age of Empires]]'' online, any game that ''didn't'' start off in "Post-Imperial Age" (highest level of technology, every inch of the map known to every player, etc.) was doomed to languish in solitude until the game leader caved -- god help you if you ''liked'' building a civilization.
** Try and play ''[[Age of Empires II (Video Game)|Age of Empires II]]'' without every enemy [[Zerg Rush|rushing your base with hundreds of paladins and trebuchets]].
* ''[[Command and Conquer Red Alert]] 2: Yuri's Revenge''. Almost all 3v3 games were played on Tour of Egypt.
** Red Alert 3 players tend to pick a side (Allies, Soviets, or Japanese) and completely forget about the other two. Even worse, players will then develop a strategy that works well for them and stick to it (Allie air-power, Soviet armor, Japanese mobility) and fail to remember their other possible strategies (Allies stealth/sabotage, Soviet glass cannon/zerg rush, Japanese heavy bombardment [should be noted that their Wave Force Artillery and Shogun Battleship are two of the best because they don't yell "I'm over here" like the Athena Cannon and Aircraft Carrier or give the enemy a chance to run like the V4 rocket-launcher and Dreadnaught.])
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* ''[[Ivalice Alliance]]'' games tend to toy with this:
** In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', it is ''vital'' to have more than one weapon type. (For example: an edged smallsword with Light affinity against Evil enemies, a blunt two-handed mace with three gem slots against Beasts, a piercing crossbow to get down the [[Goddamn Bats]]...) It's entirely left up to the player which ones to use, but you'll be spending at least a third of the game honing your weapons. You're also pretty much forced to use status effects and buff spells. In short, ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' does everything it can to prevent this trope.
** In ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'', the gamer once again has a large array of weapon types and armor types to choose from and status effects are incredibly important. Contrary to ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' though, you probably ''will'' spend most of the endgame simply hitting things with large swords.
*** Holds true for most RPGs. Once your party reaches a high enough level, it is generally faster to smack everything with swords than to waste time casting spells or using abilities to watch the animations kick in and do nearly the same amount of damage.
* One problem with many RPGsis that you are given a huge array of attacks but most are either [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|flat-out useless]], [[Crippling Overspecialization|only work on specific enemies]], or have a [[Useless Useful Spell|high failure rate]]. Attacking with weapons might ''not'' always cause the most damage, but this approach almost always ''does'' cause damage, and usually in the most time- and resource-efficient manner.
* In the ''[[Pokémon (Franchise)|Pokémon]]'' games lots of people keep their starter throughout the game, even though there is the option to not use it.
** Semi-justified, as many of the starters have a solid movepool and set of stats. The idea is to assemble a strong team and most players have no reason to just ditch what is probably their strongest to begin with.
*** Not to mention that some players [[Video Game Caring Potential|may form an emotional attachment to their first Pokemon.]]
** The competitive tiers, as well. As of ''Black and White'', the Standard or "OU" (OverUsed) tier, has just around 50 Pokémon in it, out of a total of 646. And up to the top 5 Pokémon in a tier are on more than 20% of teams, which means you'll be seeing the same Pokémon ''a lot''. Pokemon is probably the only game on this page that regularly has tournaments only for mid-tier or low-tier Pokemon, due to the fact that the creators didn't even try to balance it. Generally, underused (one step below OU) also has the same few Pokemon being used over and over though.
** Most Pokémon players stick exclusively to single battling, or 1vs1. This is not because of any sense of superiority, but that the thought about other battling types never occurs. They need to be reminded of double battling (2vs2) to even recall its existence. Even with triple battling (3vs3) and rotation battling (3vs3, but with only 1 attacker or target at a time) showing up. This is most definitely due to single battling being the ''only'' mode until [[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (Video Game)|Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire]], when double battling showed up and was treated as a [[Scrappy Mechanic]]. In addition, every main series Pokémon game deals in single battling almost all the time, so it's natural for people to think about that mode and no others. The focus on single battling is so strong that despite official tournaments all being in double battles, the aforementioned competitive players are unique among video games in that most do not attend them as they are outside of their comfort zones. Japan is the exception to Complacent Gaming, whose players welcome all battling modes and are equally proficient in them.
* Many builds for ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' are basically copies of builds that worked in ''[[Fallout 3]].'' This fits the trope because changes to ''NV'' actually neutralized several basic aspects behind making an effective build in ''FO3''.
** Many people drop Charisma to 1 because in FO3 it was useless. In FNV, it adds a massive boost to combat effectiveness of followers, which makes it the most important stat to increasing the sheer quantity of damage you can do (assuming you have at least one follower).
** In FO3 you could max out every skill with mediocre Intelligence because of the sheer quantity of skill books. Even with max Intelligence, this is not possible in FNV.
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** Melee and Unarmed are now very overpowered, so don't be surprised if practically everyone you talk to about the game is running around with Oh Baby! or a Ballistic Fist and [[It's Easy, So It Sucks|complaining about how they can 2-shot Lanius]].
*** Melee and Unarmed are quite well balanced for the higher difficulties - they're cheap, easy and reliable, but you're never going to be a badder mofo in close combat than an alpha deathclaw, much less Lanius or the Legendary Deathclaw.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]] [[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories|Re: Chain of Memories]]'' gave access early on to the sleight "Sonic Blade." With enough Hi-Potions (and insane levels of AP), players could set themselves up to be ''near-invincible.'' 90% of all bosses could be beaten within 5 minutes just by spamming the △ button, and making sure to use a Hi-Potion once you ran out. It was a bit of a [[Game Breaker]]. Sure, it was rather dull to watch, but it got things done quickly and effectively. Why try out other methods when you could kill everything in a matter of seconds?
* Pick any game based on the Dungeons and Dragons. At some point, the developer had to make compromises to make the game playable and often adds extra features to make the game more unique. Most builds are going to be based off what is effective in the pen and paper game and most unique features are going to be ignored.
* The first [[Disgaea Hour of Darkness (Video Game)|first ''Disgaea'' game]], due to the theory behind it being thoroughly mapped by the nerdy playerbase. Any player who is grinding to take on the [[Bonus Boss]] knows that there is one true strategy: make a Divine Majin and [[Level Grinding|Level Grind]] the "Beauty of Evil" stage for literally hours on end, simply because there is no quicker way to gain levels.
 
== Simulation Games ==
* Oddly enough, the language barrier is not a major issue for Americans (and others that don't know Japanese) playing the ''[[Galaxy Angel (Videovideo Gamegame)|Galaxy Angel]]'' games. This is because the first option in a given dialogue almost always raises at least one of the girl's affection level, which makes them better in combat. The only times you don't choose option 1 is when you know ahead of time it will actually decrease the affection level of the girl you're after. Some of the levels, on the other hand, can be headache-inducing, moreso if you've been mean to the girls (which makes them worse in combat).
 
== Third-Person Shooter ==
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** And its sister, the 7-11, offered either $50 per word or $1,100 for getting all 7 right. Almost no one ever took the former, so the latter quickly became the only option.
** In addition, players had the option of either giving or receiving clues for the Winner's Circle. Most of them opted to receive, mainly because that was the predominant convention at the time (in ''[[Password]]'', for example, the celebrity always gave clues in whatever bonus round they played), and the round was difficult enough without putting someone who's much more comfortable in the giver's chair in the receiving position.
* Sometimes present in the Art Fleming era of ''[[Jeopardy (TV)|Jeopardy!]]'', which paid full winnings to all contestants, winning or losing. Some contestants would intentionally stop ringing in if they felt that they had earned enough money, or if another contestant picked up a significant lead. The Trebek era gave this an [[Obvious Rule Patch]] by offering the full winnings only to the winner, to create more of an incentive to compete. The losing contestants initially got parting gifts, but starting in the early 2000s, second and third place respectively won a flat $2,000 and $1,000.
* During the trivia sections on ''[[Double Dare 1986|Double Dare]]'', a team could "Dare" and pass the question onto their opponents if stumped, though that team could "Double Dare" and pass it back, earning the other team twice the cash if they answered it correctly. However, they could go for the "Physical Challenge", where they would play a game to earn the cash. Only one family managed to exploit the Double Dare strategy.
* In ''[[High Rollers]]'', it was ''very'' rare to see a contestant roll the dice if there was so much as a 25% chance of rolling a bad number. Even if there were tens of thousands of dollars in prizes available on the board, players immediately started passing the dice to their opponent as soon as there was a semi-decent chance that they could roll a bad number and hence lose the game.
* This was lampshaded after a 2010 [[Retool]] of [[Who Wants to Be Aa Millionaire?]]. The whole show was predictable, and the hot seat just wasn't scary anymore. Two of the lifelines have been replaced with the opportunity to skip the question at hand, and the first ten categories and dollar amounts are random. That's not even all of the changes.
* During the Big Sweep in ''[[Supermarket Sweep]]'', most contestants were [[Genre Savvy]] enough to grab the expensive stuff — Farmer John hams, gallon-sized jugs of Bertolli olive oil, diapers, macadamia nuts, giant steaks, cheese wedges, frozen turkeys, medicine, etc.
* A couple of recurring techniques have cropped up on ''[[The Price Is Right]]'' when four contestants are required to bid on an item to determine which of them will play the next pricing game. One typical action is for a contestant to bid one dollar, in the hopes that most of the other contestants will go over the actual retail price and they'll win by default. Another trick sometimes employed by the last contestant to place a bid is to give a figure one dollar higher than what they think is the best bid, with the intent of begin just one dollar closer than their opponents.
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