The difficulty with experimenting is that most powerful attacks in games like this tend to have some sort of limit associated with it. Players won't for exampl

The difficulty with experimenting is that most powerful attacks in games like this tend to have some sort of limit associated with it. Players won't for example feel the need to use this super powerful item they found and see how well it works because they only have one copy of that item. The best way to avoid this is to give players access to low/zero opportunity cost versions of strong items so they can get a good "feel" of when to use stronger things in their arsenal. Players need to be able to safely experiment with their kit but that experimentation also has to happen in an environment where it can be meaningfully tested. (You can see this with the dark souls formula on both ends; because death and healing are both low cost resources to manage, players are more incentivized to experiment, since the cost for a "dud" attempt at a tough boss fight/figuring out a weapon is much lower. Meanwhile rarer items like summoning allies have a much greater cost attached to them, meaning players don't feel driven to use them since if they die, they now lost a rare and valuable resource they could've used elsewhere.)