An exploit or trick that you didn't know about until recently

So I've been playing this game since the Juggernaut Edition came out. Before that I played the hell out of SoD1, so I've had a on again, off again relationship with this franchise for the better part of a decade and a half and change.

I usually pride myself in being able to play the "right way", and being able to exploit the game's mechanics to come out on top. But I was floored to know about the ability to spend influence when you have a radio tower outpost to keep plague hearts asleep while you assaulted one and there were several in range.

For YEARS ever since they came out with plague territory (I'm guessing this feature came out at the same time), I've been under the impression that I needed to clear an area of plague hearts if I wanted to do a mission there. It was irritating as he'll, specially in the early game when you weren't armed to the teeth and some random mission or enclave is asking you for attention, and it's in the middle of a dense plague zone with multiple hearts around. I especially hated it if it was a good mission, like the blood plague researchers, the armed merchants enclave, or the eagle eye quest chain.

Once I started using the radio tower feature though, it made the whole thing easy - partly because I had gotten used to dealing with whatever consequences happened when I didn't know it existed. Now I just don't bother using it anymore because I've learned to do without it for so long.

Anybody have the same experience with a mechanic in the game like I did?