Game Mechanics You Hate

rapa-nui · Post by **rapa-nui** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:07 am

The same as the old thread, except totally different.

Examples-

Grinding. I don't like MMOs mainly because of their emphasis on repeating no or low risk encounters, over and over again.

Rewarding excessive specialization.

Too many triggers/modifiers. Arkham Horror, I'm looking at you.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:38 am

Weapon durability. It is boring and tedious for no real value.

FFVIII's drawn magic and junction system with the end result that you never used magic.

The IV system in Pokemon adds nothing to the game besides making it a chore to raise monsters and disincentivizing keeping your original monsters around - which contradicts the themes of friendship. For that matter natures and EVs too.

Excessive specialization - stack bonuses to fire damage.

Night Goat · Post by **Night Goat** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:39 am

I hate it when you need a rogue to deal with locks and traps, and rogues aren't good at anything else.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:40 am

Death spirals. Any system that makes you continuously weaker as you lose health sucks incredibly hard. Combats become an endless whiff fest as everyone flails about like weaklings.

Skipping turns. Skip your turn mechanics should probably be removed from almost every game. They are not good. Any time a game tells you to stop playing the game it has gone awry. I have had Arkham Horror games where people simply stop playing after 3 skip your turn events happened in a row causing them to not be able to play the game they signed up for for about 20 minutes of their real actual life.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:04 am

Rules that get in the way of letting me play the character that I want.

Redundant Skill lists (Wasteland 2-ish, Shadowrun are famous examples), though attributes count as well.

Respeccing costs, which is something of a thread I've wanted to talk about actually.

Having an MP Meter AND Cooldowns for abilities, it seems ok to have one or the other, but pointless to have both.

K · Post by K » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:28 am

Turn skipping, specialization that makes it impossible to meaningfully act in a substantial portion of the game's different mini-games, permanent character death, and anything else that basically wastes my time at the table....

Trap options. The desire to make a basket-weaving samurai is not a chance to punish people, but it is instead an opportunity to design a game where basket-weaving samurai exist.

Complexity with little or no payoff. Chargens with 1000 points to spend or spell lists with only 40 good spells out of 600 spells are bullshit.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:32 am

Too many interrupts and reaction effects. When your turn has no flow because everything gets interrupted, the game turns to shit.

Most mechanical incentive to roleplay better.

Puzzles in videogames that reset themselves.

Most hidden stats in videogames.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 7:57 am

Power now for power later.
Permanent resource expenditure 4e style.
Fear rolls for mundane stuff.

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 9:58 am

Scavenger hunt crafting systems, I hate running around collecting stuff. Especially in WoW ripoffs where you have to mass produce crap that you won't ever use.

I prefer Monster Hunter style where you kill a boss and you get items that are made out of said boss, all straightforward.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:36 am

I can't stand games with a 'chat wheel'. Like say Dragon Age or Mass Effect etc.

I also hate mechanics designed to waste your time. Like the amount of walking back and forth you have to do in certain games.

Whenever the RNG feels like it invalidates your choices. For example in the new XCOM game, when playing at the higher difficulty, I had a bad RNG streak at the beginning of the game. Ít didn't matter if my characters were behind cover or not, they'd get crit anyway.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:27 pm

Victory Point races where the point totals are hidden information.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:56 pm

Random character generation, like WFRPG or old-school clones.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:35 pm

I hate mechanics that are gated by roleplaying. For example, I dislike DnD's special locations, and prestige classes with "member of [game-specific organization]".

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:36 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:The IV system in Pokemon adds nothing to the game besides making it a chore to raise monsters and disincentivizing keeping your original monsters around - which contradicts the themes of friendship. For that matter natures and EVs too.

This, like a thousand times.

Rewarding higher XP to higher level characters, and lower level characters getting less XP. (I've got my eyes on you, Dragon Quest IX).

Enemies who can stun lock players.

Any game where you don't get the full ending if you either a) didn't collect all the MacGuffins (like Chaos Emeralds in StH, for example), or b) beat the game on a lower, easier difficulty (this was a HUGE problem in mid-90's SEGA games, such as Streets of Rage 3. Or at least it was in the American version.)

Invisible walls, especially in Bethesda games (Oblivion, FO3, etc.). I'm not opposed to the idea behind them, but I don't like the implementation. I mean, they really could have come up with a more imaginative way to prevent you from leaving the game world (such as guards around the borders saying you can't leave, as an example off the top of my mind cage) other than an immersion breaking invisible force field with the accompanying text "You cannot go any further, please turn back". What a load of shit.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:41 pm

Trap options specifically in games with a lot of customization that only have a scant few viable builds.

Grinding. I hate it. Grinding is the worst part of RPGs for me (both MMO and not). Better the game disguises grinding at least as shit I want to do instead of a task I have to perform to get to what I want to do.

I hate puzzles that require a lot of backtracking. Making me waste more time running back and forth does not make the game more interesting.

I hate just about everything in FF13. You can just randomly pick any mechanic from that game and I can go on to tell you why I hate it.

Hidden stats at all (Pokemon).

Alignment/Moral choice systems. They do nothing to make the game more interesting and in fact just hamper people's ability to tell better stories especially ones that explore moral grey areas.

Any mechanic that enforces waiting. When I can't skip a cutscene, I can't skip dialogue, etc.

Edit:

Shrapnel wrote:Any game where you don't get the full ending if you either a) didn't collect all the MacGuffins (like Chaos Emeralds in StH, for example), or b) beat the game on a lower, easier difficulty (this was a HUGE problem in mid-90's SEGA games, such as Streets of Rage 3. Or at least it was in the American version.)

This too.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 2:30 pm

I hate healing that requires futzing around with a giant sack full of medical kits or healing potions or surprisingly nutritious food items.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 2:54 pm

Shrapnel wrote:Invisible walls, especially in Bethesda games (Oblivion, FO3, etc.). I'm not opposed to the idea behind them, but I don't like the implementation. I mean, they really could have come up with a more imaginative way to prevent you from leaving the game world (such as guards around the borders saying you can't leave, as an example off the top of my mind cage) other than an immersion breaking invisible force field with the accompanying text "You cannot go any further, please turn back". What a load of shit.

I'm going to have to call bullshit. Maybe in Fallout 3, I don't remember the walls in that game, but are you fucking kidding me? Oblivion has super high mountains to block your path outside the game. And people still got over those mountains. Same for Skyrim, but without the getting over. Morrowind was literally an island with Ocean in every direction, and I don't care about invisible walls out in the middle of the Ocean.

Elder Scrolls has the best fucking invisible border walls of any fucking open world game because they actually make sense or are in the middle of no where and so it doesn't bother people.

And fucking guards? Are you a complete idiot? If the entire fucking border was covered in arbitrary guards in Fallout that would be way the fuck worse. It's fucking fallout, I should be able to shoot the guards and keep walking. Not to mention the completely absurd idea that all these guards surround and area and never let anyone in or out for no reason at all because they are literally guarding an empty frontier.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:29 pm

I hate Kaelik gratuitously offensive attitude as shown in the above post.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:39 pm

Kaelik gon' Kaelik.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 5:59 pm

silva wrote:I hate Kaelik gratuitously offensive attitude as shown in the above post.

Fuck you you fucking fuck. Stop being a child.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 9:32 pm

silva wrote:I hate Kaelik gratuitously offensive attitude as shown in the above post.

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 9:51 pm

Speaking of of open world games, stuff where you're trying to 100% mission completion and getting all the hidden doodads, vs something where you're using the open world as a means to the end

Star Control 2 is a classic example of open world done right, where the point of exploring the galaxy is to get the resources and technology you need to defeat a superior alien threat. It just wouldn't have been the same with a Grand Theft Auto or Skyrim mission structure, where every quest is a self-contained test that never has an opponent you can't handle.

It sounds as though the new LOTR game may be bucking the trend what with the simulated orc politics that you can interfere with. It may yet get my money.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:25 pm

Shadows of Mordor is basically half the game it should be. The main quest is actually pretty short and disappointing in a number of ways. It has a lot of sidequests, but all of them are pointless and generic collectable quests. The orc politics thing is an amazingly nice touch, but by the time you get to play with it fully you are individually too awesome for any of it to matter (if you've been playing completionist). The combat and stealth is satisfying, but the game's challenge doesn't improve with you and eventually you are just an unstoppable god of destruction.

Here is an example of a maxed out character, spoilered in case you don't want to know what is and isn't awesome and figure it out yourself:

After every combo of 5 hits, I get two special moves. Each special move can be a combat drain that gives me +4 energy (elf shot) and +1 combo, during which you are invulnerable. I have a rune that gives me an additional +4 energy for each drain. That is +16 total energy. Shadow strike, an execution move during which you are also invulnerable, costs 2 energy and gives +1 combo. With an upgrade, you can chain shadow strikes as long as you have energy to avoid their cool down. Bonus: I have another rune that gives me health back on a drain, meaning even if I do somehow take damage drain gives it back.

So I open combat with 7 shadow strikes (max mana is 14), drain two people for +16 (max mana is still 14), and then repeat ad infinitum. The only thing in the game that stops that is a captain/warchief who is invulnerable to ranged attacks. At which point there are three possibilities:
1) He is invulnerable to combat attacks and needs to be stealthed. I have to break contact and come back to stealth kill him.
2) He isn't invulnerable to combat attacks. I kill everyone else around him and then use one of the game's stun moves on him (some of which are not specials and can be used at anytime!) While stunned, murder him to death. Repeat if he comes unstunned before he is dead.
3) He isn't invulnerable to combat attacks, and we are in a stronghold with an endless wave of reinforcements. I can't just kill everyone else then focus on him. So I use a stun on him, hit him, and if I take any damage whatsoever I begin shadow striking to build my combo, drain to get my health and energy back, and then stun him again and resume murdering.

Compare this to the start of the game:
1) Every 8 hits gives you 1 special move. Reducing the threshold to 5 and getting 2 special moves per threshold are upgrades.
2) Drain only gives +4 energy. The additional +4 comes from a rune I found.
3) Shadowstrike can't be chained, and has a small cooldown. That is another upgrade.
4) Drain doesn't give health. That is another rune I found.

The game keeps handing you awesome things but never finds a way to make enemies challenging once you have those awesome things. I did all the sidequests, dicked around with the orc politics system, and by the time it came to wrap up the game I was an untouchable god and it was fucking boring.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:45 pm

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:Speaking of of open world games, stuff where you're trying to 100% mission completion and getting all the hidden doodads, vs something where you're using the open world as a means to the end

Star Control 2 is a classic example of open world done right, where the point of exploring the galaxy is to get the resources and technology you need to defeat a superior alien threat. It just wouldn't have been the same with a Grand Theft Auto or Skyrim mission structure, where every quest is a self-contained test that never has an opponent you can't handle.

It sounds as though the new LOTR game may be bucking the trend what with the simulated orc politics that you can interfere with. It may yet get my money.

Dark Knight over Gotham is definitely closer to Grand Theft Auto than Star Control in terms of its Open World questyness.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 12:15 am

As has been said, trap options, not having flexibility in class builds, and hidden stats. A new thing would be quantum bear mechanics and mechanics that remove complexity for the sake of balance.