Especially egregious in games where you already climb around in other places!
Fallout 3 and NV had loads of this crap. A door is busted to hell and somehow locked but you need a key to unlock it. A stiff breeze will destroy the rest of the door.
Lol, that's ridiculous!
Unrepairable weapons are the worst thing. There's nothing worse than finding a super cool, rare weapon and being paranoid about it breaking.
That's one of the big things that bothered my in Breath of the Wild. I wanted to go to this cool looking location and find something neat, but I knew that I'll either get a weapon that breaks in 5 hits, a seed, or an orb. Really deflated my sense of exploration when I realized this was the gameplay loop.
Exactly! It triggers my hoarding response and I find myself keeping all the weapons because something harder might be around the next corner. I end up with only using boko clubs for half the game...
It was definitely a pain in the ass. That was the first game I thought of. Second was dying light. Nothing like get swamped by a hoard and all your equipped weapons break.
Game timers. I want to screw around on my time. The more time-based a game becomes, the less I enjoy it.
Timers just really stress me out for some reason. Give me more time damn it.
Yes! I remember that I could not really enjoy fallout 1 because of the 150 in-game days time limit to get the water chip...
I could never get into Animal Crossing for this very reason
Radiant quests. You can never complete the game because of this, the quests are generic and repetitive and offer nothing but "stretch the playtime".
That and mechanics like "rando dragon attacks in Skyrim" and "City is under attack" from Fallout 4. I quit F4 because I was on my way to a mission and got the "city under attack notification, and on my way to defend another city was under attack.
To yes-and this: procedural content in general. No Man's Sky is a snore-fest for me, big, empty, meaningless. Missions in Elite Dangerous and X4 are similarly pretty boring, though the former is more fun the first time around. There has to feel like there's some world-affecting point to what you're doing. IMO
I found the procedurally-produced planets in No Man's Sky to be stunningly beautiful. Then I would walk around on them and the similar-but-not-quite look of every part of the landscape would slowly drive me INSANE.
I started playing No Man's Sky recently and it looks like they added a mode that's more 'streamlined'. Dunno if it's still procedurally generated, though.
Pretty much a lot of procedural "content". I guarantee big publishers will capitalize on all of this AI to replace writers with generated stories/quests/etc. No idea what to make of this.
I would disagree, some of my favorite games are procedurally generated.
Factorio, RimWorld or valheim for example.
Oh totally. I didn't mean to imply "all procedural content = bad". Terraria comes to mind and is one of my favorite game of all time. The "world" is procedural when created, but there are "key" areas/objectives that don't change. I'm thinking more along the lines of Fallout 4's "radiant" junk that big publishers salivate over because mountains of endless+cheap content = ($o$)
Pay 2 win and excessive abuse of FOMO.
E.g. for the next two weeks you can purchase/grind for [character] with a LIMITED EDITION green hat!
It would be OK if such thing was behind an achievement and allowed to be gained later.
Some companies have gotten a little sneaky with it, like Microsoft with age of empires. They make their newly released DLC civs overpowered for two months then nerf it every time.
That game took one of my most hated mechanics (binary moral choices), came up with a concept for it I could have actually loved (the personas arguing), then botched the execution so badly that it felt even worse than a normal morality system. Impressive is certainly the word for Gollum, just not in the way the devs hoped.
Sadly, the whole "rogue" genre if that counts as a mechanic. I don't enjoy replaying everything over and over again in different ways in a system where its designed one should fail eventually, so you must lose to continue. It sounds great on paper but hell it really sucks. Also, turn based stuff.
I like it until I get pretty good at the game. At that point the runs start taking too long to complete and it's no longer fun. I know this is pretty controversial but I especially hate it in games like Hades where you progress, come up against something new, fail until you learn the mechanic, and then have to get through all the previous bullshit before you can apply what you learned.
I think you're describihg "Rogue-lites", which are games where you can maintain some permanent progression even after you lose. "Rogue-likes", which are games that are like the game Rogue, are games where when you lose you just go back to the start with no progression at all, so you need to complete the game altogether.
The permanent progression rewards are meant to be a kind of crutch, which is where the "lite" comes from.
Why I'm making this distinction is that the original rogue-likes don't expect you to fail at all - or rather, they do, but there's no expectation of needing to fail to progress.
That's an important distinction for sure, thanks for adding that. Roguelites looks so fun and I wish I could enjoy them but after awhile it just feels like a timewaste. But that's just me of course. I wonder if I would enjoy roguelikes more, not sure if I've tried one or not? What are some examples of roguelikes today? I tried searching Steam but for some reason games use both the tags roguelike and roguelite.
Risk of rain 2 is almost a pure roguelike. The only thing that you can increase from run to run are lunar coins that can be used in a run to buy lunar items with tradeoffs. But other than adding extra variety to the game you don't need to use lunar items at all, winning depends on skill and partially drop rng.
I've not beaten it yet but Noita seems to be a pure roguelike.
I understand the sentiment, but in some way I think you are missing the point. Let me try to explain the appeal.
When you play, for example, Diablo you spend the time with the game making your build. You also play the story and see the bosses but your focus gameplay wise is your build.
Yo go for that skill. You farm that weapon. Yo optimize your buffs and load out.
And when you are done, after 20 or 30 hours… the game becomes extremely easy. Playing your fully builder character has no challenge. And building another is a 20 hour time investment.
So you get into PVP. Or into boss rushes where yo can get marginal improvements. You repeat a very small amount of end game content for months.
Enter the “rogue” mechanics.
The play unit is no longer “the character”, now it is “the run”
You build a full character each run. You make meaningful decisions to make the most of your build with what the game is offering.
If a run goes badly you are 30 min or less away from getting were you were. If you win you can play again for a completely different experience.
You have no complete control about your build, so you can’t really on the same strategy and gameplay for the whole game. You have to engage with every system.
And your reward for playing is choice (more options to better controls your play style) and knowledge (to better use what the game throws at you)
And it’s true you repeat the initial part of the game a lot. But in Diablo (keeping with my previous example) you repeat the endgame. The only diferente is that one is front loaded and the other is back loaded. And initial areas USUALLY have more work put into them in both cases.
Also remember that there are a spectrum between Isaac likes and Hades likes. There are games were chance has lots of importance and a good build in the hands of a bad player can steamroll the game, where in others a bad build in the hands of a great player is viable.
Definitely. Crypt of the Necrodancer probably has really cool locales and enemies in it. I don’t know, because most of my sessions were locked to the first few worlds where any mistake minimizes your time in future worlds.
Enemies that scale with your level in an RPG. I would rather get completely curb stomped by rare high level enemies, so I have something to work towards. In the same vein, I don't like it when the stat gain you get from leveling ends up with you literally being unkillable by lower level enemies. Most MMOs are an offender to this, where you can just sunbathe in a group of 30 level 1 enemies and are unable to die to them.
GOD, yes. The Fable games are like that, resulting in a large portion of the endgame map in Fable III positively loaded with werewolves and what feels like nothing else. As these were intended to be hard-hitting and unfairly fast, traveling became an annoyance.
I'm curious what your happy medium is, though, since you dislike being over-leveled as well. I personally think being whaled on ineffectually is funny mental image, and sometimes I really just wanna chill
For me, the absolute worst is when the game effectively punishes you for not constantly menu diving to change your equipment.
Some random examples:
Disco Elysium - your clothes have a MASSIVE effect on some specific stats which influence dialogues. In order to get the best outcomes, you have to change your clothes before an interaction with another character.
Ghost of Tsushima - you get separate armor sets for different activities, which is not too bad, except one of the sets is for exploration. So every time you switch between combat and riding your horse, if you don't switch your armor sets, then it feels that the game is punishing you.
I love both of those games, but really really hate that mechanic.
That's funny, I actually think TotK is great in this regard.
The DPad Up quick inventory menu is awesome and the sorting options are exactly what I'd want (most used, attack power, type, and zonai).
Having quick swappable equipment sets would be nice but so many games lack that feature that I don't even think about it. In TotK it also seems unnecessary unless you're into min-max. Like, I just need one piece of fire immune clothing to go into Death Mountain, I don't need to wear an entire set and if I was really lazy I could pop an elixir from the quick select menu instead.
Cooking is annoying though. It's such a fun animation and satisfying outcome but the laborious hold and drop mechanics get tedious when you're cooking in bulk.
Oh my god yes, couldn't someone have come up with a better way to do this over the 6 years of development time? I keep itching for full text search at the very least.
I can say that the only timed content I enjoyed was in WoW and it was the Challenge Modes.
Both because you could try it multiple times and because the reward was an actual prestigious and awesome reward.
I can't think of another game with a timed run mechanic that offered anything close to that.
My only contention for good timed content in video games would be examples similar to the beginning of Metroid Prime. "The whole planet is gonna explode and you need to leave RIGHT NOW!!" type of deal. It's essentially the same as putting a timer on a task, in fact that game does show you a timer with how long you still have until the place explodes, except it doesn't feel like a fakey cop out
Currently playing through "unsighted". It is a really nice metroidvania game, however everyone (even you) is dying and only has a certain time left. For now i am really enjoying the novelty, but I hope no game copies this. It does really stress me out. knowing that i have to go and upgrade my weapons now because the blacksmith npc s dying in 4 in game hours(like 10 minutes irl). Or quietly exploring the beautiful world just to get a pop up showing that the (nice elderly) consumables vendor is about to die. Like I said it is quite novel, but does have me not play the game often due to knowing wath wil come. I'd say try it out if you feel like stressing a bit :).
Quick-time events but SPECIFICALLY the ones that give you way too little time to react. Like, I never mind them too much, especially the ones in the Yakuza series, but I remember there was this game on the Wii called Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings that would throw these inputs WAYY too fast at you.
The end of Atomic Heart is an absurdly fast QTE. I played that whole game, and basically had to give up at 99.99% complete simply because I wasn’t fast enough.
Yeah it guarantees that the game will be unplayable through legal means in a few years when it is no longer profitable to keep the servers running.
What about open-world rpgs that get tucked onto card games? cough The Witcher 3 cough
I still can't believe they put a whole open-world rpg minigame in Gwent
The Genshin TCG is already light on strategy, but the lack of QoL features is what really annoys me.
So much time is spent staring at rolling dice and slow attack animations, and there's no option to speed it up. Pain.
they feel like cheating.
Or worthless. This item increases your dmg for 10 seconds.
Dude, 1 second is the animation alone and after consuming it, I need to use 3 skills to snapshot the dmg increase so effectively I have 4-5 seconds of actual usage.
Consumables are horrible as a system in general.
Obligate stamina bars/circles for traversal. Just allow me to move at the speed of fun, and definitely don't make me stand still to recharge when climbing.
I think it's telling that death stranding, a game all about traversal, let's you sprint outright for as long as you want until well after your character's shoes literally fall off. The stamina bar is more a measure of abuse rather than a limit on your movement.
I like stamina bars in many circumstances, but I've decided I hate them specifically in life sim games like Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and similar - at least unless there's an easy and fun way to re-fill them. I won't write them off entirely, I think it can be done well, but in practice in these games they often serve no purpose but to frustrate you.
Good point! How is "my time?" I've been thinking of getting it to play with my gf. We really like dinkum.
Honestly it's games lacking save points that has made devices like the Steam Deck so nice for gaming. Being able to have a dedicated gaming device that I can put to sleep whenever without reaching a save point is fantastic.
Quicktime events. Please make up your mind if you show me a sequence or if you want me to play. I can enjoy watching, but I don't want to feel like I am being tested for paying attention.
The beginning of the Tomb Raider remake pissed me off especially. You played a few minutes, then watched a minute of sequence, then play, watch, play, watch. One of the sequences took like 5 minutes, so I leaned back to enjoy when suddenly it flashes a heavy PRESS X in my face. I tried to quickly grab the controller but failed... too slow. I almost rage quit.
I am not playing games to get stressed out...
Quicktime events.
I'd limit it to mandatory QTEs - better games have a "story" mode that doesn't punish you (much/at all) for having the reflexes of an old-timer.
But yeah, mandatory QTEs are an immediate buzzkill. I don't intend to waste more time in Tomb Raider - that's already 21 minutes I never get back.
QTEs are also often pretty bad from an accessibility standpoint, especially the older kinds that had you repeatedly mashing buttons!
After biting myself through the loooong intro session path, the game turned out quite good. It did still have a few QTEs later on, but typically in short sequences, which was okayish. First, because I started to expect it, and second because the sequences were short enough that I didn't get the impression I might have to sit through a movie.
Still, the beginning of the game has left an ugly impression about QTEs.
My backlog is large enough to not consider that particular game anytime soon. I'd rather retry getting into Witcher 1 or step a toe into Heavy Rain.
Best hunger mechanics are the ones that don't harm your character when you're hungry, but you do get a buff for eating.
Valheim's like that. Don't want to eat? Fine. Go multiple days without and you'll still be ok. But if you want your hp to be all it can be, you'll want to eat up before going out to fight.
This is one of several reasons I didn't play Ark for more than 2 days. Kill animals, get meat, cook at camp fire, eat throughout the day, store meat where half of it spoils before you can eat it.
Or where it just becomes a nuisance 5 minutes in. For example Subnautica, which is an amazing survival/exploration game. But the hunger/thirst becomes a chore like 30minutes in when you get the possibility to get food basically everywhere and stock up on water. Still enjoyed the exploration/base building a lot. But it really stopped being a survival game quickly, which honestly might have been for the best given its other qualities.
I would be ok with it if I only needed to pick up the stuff and my character would eat it automatically, and not need to open up the menu every ten minutes
This pissed me off when I was watching a game show. Two teams played two rounds, where Team A got two questions right. Then, for the "final round", the prize score was tripled. Not only did Team B won, the third prompt was super easy, and Team A didn't get a chance at it. It felt so stupid.
People have said escort quests but I'm going to go more specific.
Escort quests WHERE THE NPC INEXPLICABLY HAS A DIFFERENT WALKING/RUNNING SPEED THAN THE PLAYER.....
I think it was on one of the Half-Life 2 developer commentary where they mention that the made the NPC move faster than your walking speed, but slower than your running speed, so that you are able to catch up with them if you stay behind to look at something. If they move at your running speed, you are kinda forced to follow them all the time, and any obstacle will separate you more and more from the NPC that you are supposed to escort.
But that feels terrible if you want to follow them without stopping (or in the case of obstacles, are able to).
Even Ocarina of Time, in 1998, got this right. The Dampe race, which isn't technically an escort, would feel weird if Dampe was too much faster or slower than you, because it would feel unfair. But not everyone moves as fast while playing - some people like rolling, which is a different speed from walking, etc. Also, he throws fireballs at you, and players who are less good at dodging them will end up being slower. So Dampe doesn't "follow you," (in fact, he spends most of the thing in front of you), but he has a rubber band effect. If you get too far behind, he slows down. If you get too far ahead, he speeds up. This does a good job of keeping him in view, which helps give the feeling that you're going at an intended pace, whatever reasonable pace you take. If you're too slow, you will fail, but... it pretty much requires standing still or getting hit by lots of fireballs.
In contrast, the Yunobo escort in BOTW feels terrible casually and even worse to speedrun. He's faster than you walk, but much, MUCH slower than you run. And if you get too far ahead of him? He stops.
I have yet to play a game where NPCs have the same speed as the player, have you? I get it on the game design level, since NPCs need to move at a speed that their animations look natural at but player characters need to move fast enough to not feel frustrating to the character.
I have yet to play a game where NPCs have the same speed as the player, have you?
RDR2 did an excellent job with this by making it more of a pseudo cutscene. You can just hold a button and your character will match the target speed.
Nintendo is the only company i know that gets it right. Most of their gachas are for optional collectibles and you can rig the odds in your favor by filling the machines with tokens you collect in-game
I'm not a big fan of fishing mechanics, they're usually shallow "press button at random signal, get a random prize" mechanics.
Also escort missions where the NPC being escorted does not understand that it should protect its own life. I don't mind repeating a mission due to my own mistakes, but I don't want to do it because some AI went potato.
I give props to Warframe for being the only game that made fishing fun for me. 'Waiting' is an element, but only because you're fishing with a harpoon and you'll want to line up your shot. The water populates with fish pretty quickly, and it feels far more interactive.
Fishing is pretty interesting to discuss in terms of a game mechanic in terms of enjoyablity since it seems like a very marmite "you love it or hate it" sort of deal and seems to pop up in lots of games. Some people love it precisely because of its slow-paced, chill nature. I quite enjoyed it when I played some of the MMO's that have a fishing profession as a pretty low energy thing to do when I wanted to focus on talking to guildies or doing some other thing in the background.
Loot
I hate collecting it, managing inventory, selling it, crafting it, and so on. I used to love it, but these days I much prefer a more guided experience where the only items I get are interesting. Elder Scrolls completely destroyed this whole mechanic for me because I'm a bit obsessive and would try to bring literally every plate back to town to sell.
As a corollary, I'm not a fan of dealing with shops in general. I'm fine if they exist, but I really think the game should supply you with everything you need to complete the game, and shops should be a backup plan, not a core mechanic.
Loot is great when it's unique, or at least rare. Unique weapons and lore items in Dark Souls come to mind.
But yeah, loot that just fills up your inventory (or worse, your equip load) until you go sell it is just Worse Money.
I wish games like that had an auto loot feature where you take what you can use, then hire an NPC or something to go sell the rest. I think that could be a cool, immersive middle ground.
For all the things I liked about RDR2, when they felt the need to have dead enemies drop their guns, which are worse condition than yours, but you can't sell them or anything really makes me wonder what they were thinking there.
I know Dishonored does it, and I love it.
Yup, and unfortunately I ruin the game for myself by doing it. Why? Because I can fit within my encumbrance limit, so I'm just leaving money on the table if I leave it there.
It's completely illogical, but I think if I had a way to auto loot and just turn extra junk into cash, I'd do it. Whether that's with a mechanic like Dishonored has where loot turns into money, or a mechanic where I can hire someone to follow me to dungeons to loot for me doesn't really matter, I just want to essentially ignore the looting mechanic while still getting the benefit from it.
Squad/micro-strategy mechanics in fps games. Commanding npcs to do specific things in the middle of a gunfight isn’t fun. Bonus points if the npc ai gets in your way when you're not fighting as well.
Bad tutorials. Don't teach me the game mechanics that could be learned in-game in an environment different from the rest of the game. Also dislike sudden lore dumps after the tutorial.
Mechanics in games where they don't belong. Not every game needs skill trees, not every game needs stories or lore.
Squad/micro-strategy mechanics in fps games. Commanding npcs to do specific things in the middle of a gunfight isn’t fun.
While it's ai is still sometimes a drunk toddler, i like the way arma offers it. You set rules of engagement and kind of a "ready mode", and the formation and you're set. Also quick hotkey based ways to change them.
You can still set up positions and micro manage your squad if you wanna but 90% of the time its unnecessary.
undefined> Bonus points if the npc ai gets in your way when you’re not fighting as well.
I swear I have yet to see a game where an NPC/ally doesn't walk right in front of when attacking an enemy.
Consumables.
They either offer too little for a too short time or too much too easy.
I haven't seen a game where consumables are promoted from the get-go and are easy to use and not a hussle or completely broken.
Alaloth has a great iteration of consumables but I still wouldn't say it's fun as a standalone mechanic.
Bonus points if you have to go out of your way to find resources to CRAFT consumables. Just - why??
This was my BotW experience. Once I figured out how to make fully recovery meals, that's all I ever used. I had like a thousand random rocks, bugs, and lizards and I have no idea what they do (and don't really care to figure it out)
First thing for me is fall damage and it almost always ends with me back at the Start screen
I agree, I feel like the crafting system could be removed from the game.
100% agree... I've played through the game several times and the only time I meaningfully engaged with crafting was in my bow-only build. And that was out of necessity not by choice.
Any sort of intense micromanagement of units, resources, etc. I've got like 16kb RAM in my brain. I can barely remember what I ate today lol.
Also, invisible walls that make absolutely no sense. Maybe just all invisible walls, really.
Having played a bit of Zelda recently, micromanaging weapons. Oh, I've got this metal broad sword and I've used it to to stab an unarmored fleshy bad guy and oh it's broken after three stabs.
I get that weapon degradation is a real thing that happens, as they become blunt or potentially fragile, but Zelda BOTW and TOTK take it way too far to the point of it being a real chore. I thought they'd fix it after all the BOTW complaints but TOTK is just as bad.
Honestly, I think thats just a love it or hate it thing that I can totally see why it isnt for everyone and I dont blame you, but I personally love it and would hate to see it reduced/taken away. Once I leaned into it it really encourages me to explore and I enjoy the new fuse system enough that I like when a weapon breaks because Im excited to make a new one
I'm actually getting impatient when a weapon lasts too long, because I want it to break already so I can use something new and interesting without feeling like I'm wasting it. :P
I think part of it is having enough weapon slots that I'm choosing different weapons in different contexts, and so they all subjectively feel like they're lasting longer than they did at the start of the game (even accounting for regular vs sturdy weapons).
Also making more use of shield fusions lately, and consumables on arrows, which again results in using the weapons less.
I keep kinda wishing I could fuse things to my bows though lol, even though I can use so many different consumables with the arrows already.
I like some micromanagement. If it's tinkering with gear or stats then I'm down. Working out how to squeeze out that little extra bit of damage or efficiency is great. However, if you have to actively micromanage units or resources during combat, then its a pass for me. I feel like micromanagement should be an addendum to the core gameplay loop, not it's focus.
You've made me suddenly realize how rare invisible walls have gotten in my gaming life.
The closest I've come recently are "barriers" that are clearly just, like, a small pile of trash that could be easily walked over, but even that is rarer than it used to be.
I decided a few years ago that I play games to have fun and if a game isn't fun, I don't play it. I don't have much time these days to dedicate gaming, so I want to enjoy the time I do.
I've had a few I've really enjoyed until I hit some really terrible game mechanic or even a boss encounter I can't get past. I'll usually give it a few days/tries, but I'll flat out just bail and uninstall a game if it is causing me too much stress.
I'll never forget playing my first Assassins Creed game, killed someone and ran to hide from the soldiers. I ran up a ladder, jumped 3 rooftops away and hit in a bail of hay.
A soldier climbs straight up nearby stairs, walked right up the bail of hay, and stabbed me with the bayonet. In the hay
I cannot jump. Not for the life of me. I mean I do press space at the right moment, but somehow I miss, or it's just not working, I keep falling down or to my death. That's why platformers aren't for me sadly, even though I'd like to play them. I cannot do jumping puzzles in Guild Wars 2, I even struggle in Doom! Please, I'll do everything, but don't make me jump!
I was always so thankful for Mesmers that took the time to create the portals for other players on those jumping puzzles. I am similarly awful at jumping and platforming. I even have a few newer Mario games I never finished because I'm so awful at it. Thank goodness for Yoshi's Woolly World.
Yes! There's a big guild that's always present when it's a daily so everyone can get it done. I remember the old days when people were expected to pay the mesmers for the service, nowadays almost every class has a port :)
I wanted to revisit the game when End of Dragons released, as I hadn't played since a year or so after Path of Fire released, but when I went to log in, it said my account was locked, and I wasn't able to get it unlocked. Still a little perturbed about it.
Bonus points for being stealth and having them constantly turn around
Flowcharts for multiple endings. Let me take multiple distinct routes from the start, or make a choice at the end I can come back to. I hate going through some of the same content again and again and having to look up guides just to find the true ending (looking at you Persona).
I wish more games allowed for choices that are meaningful in the moment but don't have to affect the ending or even the main plot at all. It doesn't need to effect that part of the game for the choice to be meaningful to me.
The main example that comes to mind is Soma. I know some people hated that the choices don't affect the story, but I loved that about it. I thought a lot about all of those choices, and all of them felt more meaningful than most video game choices, and it straight up wouldn't have made any sense for most of them to have any impact on the player character's life after he moves passed them.
Edit: I think I prefer the structure of a mostly linear main quest, with a whole bunch of side quests that don't effect it but are adventures in their own right, over the structure of a super-branchy main story. Especially since I'm always aware that every choice will mean I might miss out on entire areas or characters - that kinda stresses me out, sometimes.
Oddly, AC Odyssey did this for the most part. There are exactly one or two major obvious decisions that impact the outcome, but there were a lot of small visual but otherwise meaningless world changes that can occur as a result of decisions in side quests.
You would HATE AI Somnium Files then, haha. I really like their flowchart, but I definitely see how others wouldn't.
I actually love AI Somnium Files because it makes it super clear and it doesn't just repeat the same story bits! haha VNs are really bad for just giving hidden branching paths, and branching-story RPGs for hiding true endings behind convoluted sequences of events.
Stealth. I hate hiding and creeping around waiting for an NPC to move. It's like, "oh, you want to play the game? How about not playing the game instead?" Infuriating.
I don't mind stealth as a concept in a game, but I hate forced stealth in games that aren't like, Thief or whatever. Let me choose to be stealthy, or let me choose to be creative, or go in guns blazing, etc. If you want me to use stealth, give me a very good reason why the alternatives are much worse. It's so frustrating to just get a "Game Over" because someone saw you.
I feel like most games get it wrong and just make you stay in one place waiting for the enemy dude to slowly make his route as you map it in your head. It’s just boring, I don’t know.
A nice way to change that would be to give a button that gives you a “top view” map of the enemies’s movement maybe, to make it a little bit puzzle-y. Or, if you want to make it more “action-y”, give the player a way to hide or disengage by scrambling to find something in the environment that allows them to do that, when they get detected.
Stealth is just implemented in a terrible way in most modern games I feel like. Makes it not fun.
I always find it hilarious when I want to upgrade a bow or something and the game expects me to use like hundreds of wooden logs, metal ingots and other random shit. It just makes no sense at all. This was even worse in AC Valhalla where you run around in 9th century England and craft gear out of tungsten and titanium for some reason.
OMG, so tired of crafting. Seems so unnecessary and such a chore
This - either I avoid it completely, or I just craft whatever I can with the ingredients I have just randomly collected.
And this is what this mod solves, but yes, you are correct. Once is enough. EVERY time is atrocious.
I've never been a fan of character weapon skill being tied to the bullet not hitting where the player is aiming in first person RPGs and immersive sims. Think something like Fallout 3, where a shot with a sniper rifle can be perfectly lined up, but the bullet might veer off randomly.
I do understand and appreciate character weapon skills being tied to certain weapons encrouages distinct playstyles, but there are many other ways to implement it that don't feel as arbitrary. Tying character skill to greater reticle sway, longer time to aim down sights, longer reload times, more likely to jam or jams taking longer to clear. It accomplishes the same goal of rewarding putting points into the skill and making players feel like they are progressing, but without creating the instant frustration of missing a clearly lined up shot.
On that note, actively degrading weapons are not something I think has ever been a good idea. It's neither fun, nor is the rate of degradation ever realistic. If the goal is to make player cautious, then limiting ammunition and the availability of good weapons is a much better idea. I have no problem with weapons in different conditions existing in a game, for example: Pristine rifle, good rifle, rusty rifle, etc. That's fine, but a good rifle should never degrade into a rusty rifle in the hands of the player.
Areas of open worlds dynamically level scaling to match players is another gripe I have. Once a player notices it, it takes away the feeling of progress from leveling up. In some cases, smarter players in games have found certain areas easier to beat with low level characters. It creates a bad kind of meta-game. I much prefer worlds where every area is built with a certain player level in mind. Honestly, overleveling in RPGs and going to wreck starting bandit camps is a joy that shouldn't be taken away.
I hate RNG-heavy progression that discourages playing the actual game.
Path of Exile had terrible loot droprates and gamble crafting when I last played in Ritual League. Starting a league = poring YouTube for safe league starter builds to follow step by step. Gearing up = only picking up currency and buying items from other players on a website. Making $$$ = flipping items (buy low sell high) in hideout (personal town).
Path of Champions (PvE gamemode in Legends of Runeterra) drops shards and fragments to unlock new champions and relics that add a passive effect. Drops are random and not duplicate protected. Champions need 2 star upgrades totalling their unlock cost to feel playable. Optimal progression = speedrunning dailies/weeklies, 2-starring meta champs, and logging out.
I think elden ring had the right idea for this. If there's an enemy nearby, you use stamina. Otherwise, its infinite
Endless monologues and dialogue-dependent quests. Tell me what to do once, then be happily surprised when it's done. I don't need to know why it's important to uncle Sandy to find the green gate key, he can say "Thanks!" later if I want to talk to him at all.
I hate stealth mechanics in general, it is just not my type of gameplay. It is the reason I stopped playing Death Stranding, although I loved everything else in it, but being forced to use stealth mechanics was so off-putting to me, I just stopped playing and can't go back.
Escort missions and weapons breaking without a reasonably easy way to get/make more (glaring at you, Dead Island...)
I honestly do not like the RPG mechanic of levelling up/buying skills, especially in FPS games. I'd rather have a Half Life experience over levelling.
I'm also not a fan of side quests. I find it breaks the immersion when you're character is on some crazy, world saving overall quest but sure, I can spend time to find that random thing for you.
Nailed it. It's the skill trees I dislike.
Combo attacks - I'm not coordinated to hit the buttons in order fast enough. I tried Black Desert when it was free and this was the dealbreaker for me, though it wasn't the only thing that bugged me about the game.
I played Icey for a bit and it had combo attacks and I was like "I do not have the brain capacity for this shit" and quit. The narrator was terrible too.
This is why I hated Jedi Fallen Order.
I like crafting in general, but the "trek across the map to collect large quantities of ingredients only available in a specific place" part of it, when there is no way to automate that process, and especially if you also have very limited and manually managed inventory space, is maddening (looking at you, subnautica, gosh darnit.)
Do this to get that to get this to get that One example is the Minecraft tech tree. Abosultely no choice whatsoever. I don't ever need to make a choice. Obviously Minecraft is now begining to take steps to sort this out. But it's been over 10 years and the system is ingrained into people's minds
Huh always felt that Minecraft had a very horizontal game play loop. As in getting a certain upgrade never had you jumping though that much hoops. The only get this for that kinda thing i can think about are the tools/armour, which does have a bit if progression you are forced to go through. Modded Minecraft on the other hand...
I know it's a popular mechanic that lots of people love, but I really don't like games where you die a lot, or where death has significant impact. I generally play games to chill out and just have fun and I often feel like games are punishing me when that happens and I find myself doing sort of "risk management" and becoming a hermit in the game.
3D 3rd person platforming. Any flavour of it. It consistently either sucks (souls games) or is just plain boring (the uncharted series). I'm sure there are some games where it's done reasonably well (probably some sonic or mario game), but I've never seen that.
Pretty much every 3d mario game has nailed it pretty well, Super Mario Galaxy and Oddysey being my favorites. Sonic is very hit and miss, but i've heard good things about Sonic Frontiers. Kirby and the forgotten land is also very good. I haven't played a hat in time but the gameplay looks phenomenal. The Crash Bandicoot series is also very decent.
I think what sucks is platforming in 3D games that are not primarily platformers. I don't think it has anything to do with 3rd person perspective. If anything, 3rd pp makes it easier to see exactly where your character (and their feet) is and how they can jump.
A hat in time is a good platformer for instance
I don't agree at all, I think it has to do everything with it being 3d.
For any game, I don't want to look at the thing I'm controlling often - I need to feel where I am, and not see where I am. Many 3rd person games break that for me - the camera-object distance is not fixed for various reasons (speed indication, avoiding a wall, motion smoothing), and that immediately breaks the feeling of control for me. Not to mention anything that takes control of the camera.
With 1st person controls you always get perfect motion controls, a camera that cannot accidentally clip into walls, and motion smoothing does not exist. If a game is 1st person,you don't need it to be desiged as a platforming game for its controls to be good for platforming - take a look at Minecraft or Counter Strike with their emergent gamemodes.
I might be biased from the hundreds of hours of cs surf though.
Having a quick look at how A Hat in a Time looks, I think I wouldn't enjoy its platforming as well, as it seems to suffer from the same problems.
Slow, boring climbing sections that add nothing to the game and just pad out playtime. I'm looking at you, God of War (2018).
Lives systems. Luckily modern games never use it anymore, but every now and then I play an older game and wow, losing 30+ minutes of progress just because you died a few times SUCKS.
I do not know, but it did remind me of that God. Damn. Naga vampire-thing in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. FUCK THAT THING. I had to cheat to get past it.
On that note... games that set up systems that encourage you to choose your own skill routes, including nonviolent routes, then force you into combat-only scenarios anyway >:(
... VtmB was a great game though anyway. At least to teenage me. I've seen a bit of gameplay video since then and it just seemed hilariously edgy, which, to be fair, is still a type of great.
TOTK? The number of times I've lost items because the bird decided to gust instead of Link picking it up, but then having to search around for someone when you actually do want to activate a power.
I really don't like random bullet spread. Especially when it becomes more random if your character is moving.
Disclaimer: not always
Character stats, commonly called "RPG elements".
In games with low enough detail that I have to use my imagination, it makes sense to have a character constitution 10 increase to 15 and take 50% less damage from blunt weapons. It works perfectly in Rimworld, ADOM, Terraria and the like because you can't completely see what's happening, so when your character does low damage your imagination has room for him to hit badly or be partially blocked.
But in games with modern graphics and animations, it feels... off. An attack animation that shows someone swinging a sharp steel battleaxe perfectly and connecting with bare flesh at momentum, deals... no damage because the wielder has low strength and axe skill, while the target has a high armor value.
IMO it goes triply so for games with guns, if regular enemies can just shrug off bullets to the head I have difficulty enjoying it cause it just makes the weapons feel weak
I don't mind area denial when it's based on damage, rather than stunning. The Demoman's sticky bombs are a good example, which also can be countered. The Spitter in L4D2 is area denial, and if the team absolutely wants they CAN just run straight through the acid pool to sacrifice health to get where they need to be.
Controversial opinion but I mostly hate crafting. I feel like it's a huge time sink just to make you waste time in the game. It's not content at all just mindless farming for no real reason.
There are games where the whole game revolves around it so you couldn't really remove it from those games. Minecraft is an example.
But I feel like every single game now has some kind of crafting mechanics. Mainly the F2P to get some kind of weird limitation that will either take you half a lifetime to accomplish or $5...
Story, specifically cutscenes, especially if they're unskippable. Everything I need to know should simply be presented in the HUD or in the menu/options/inventory/etc. It's fine that there /is/ a story but at least give me the option of skipping it entirely and playing the actual game.
I like story heavy games so I personally don't mind unskippable cut scenes... the first time around. What reeeaaaaally annoys me is when it's a game with multiple endings and I can't skip the same cut scenes on future playthroughs.
Same when it's a reading-heavy multiple ending game, but it won't let me skip text that I've seen already.
Most open-world games have areas on the map that are blank until "explore" them by climbing a tower of some kind and "activating" that region on your map.
This results in trudging blindly into the middle of every new area, ignoring interesting stuff along the way and beelining to the tower just so you can see the damn map. It's an annoyingly unnatural way to explore.
I didn't even realize that I disliked it until I played Far Cry 6, which has a much more organic and immersive landmark discovery process. You learn locations of interest from readables and by talking to friendly NPCs that you encounter in the world.
Edit: sp
Swimming/diving, it usually has terrible controls. My prime example is Witcher 3, swimming with Geralt feels like steering a freighter while underwater enemies can quickly move in all directions.
Also I generally don't like platforming, but that's just me.
Someone already sort of mentioned this, but I don't usually like crafting and building stuff. So games like minecraft and animal crossing new horizons are out. For the latter, greatly prefer new leaf.
Those hints to success "difficult parts". Some games think their players are braindead. If you have some trouble or spend a bit too much time doing a quest or killing a boss, NPCs or game interface constantly yells at us hints to skip those "difficult" parts. Games are more and more aimed for dumb casuals. I'd rather have the satisfaction completing a challenge by myself. Lets not forgot that today's games are increasingly easier and shorter (and pricier) than before...
I was playing TotK and today I finally figured out a hint that I'd puzzled over for hours. It felt very satisfying to finally get the answer without using a guide.
Any puzzly or exploring games that suddenly introduce a twitch response element. Having to successfully jump onto a sequence of 14 wildly gyrating levitating rocks to get to my next “thoughtfully re-arrange some tiles” challenge has caused me to leave so many games unfinished. Basically if I can’t deal with it by mashing every button at random, it ain’t gonna happen.
Open worlds with markers. It takes every feel of exploration from me and changes the open world part of the game to really long and boring interactive loading screen through which I must pass between (very often) very linear missions.
Invisible walls, including on high places or on bridges - I get it, possibly it would be less fun if the character dies just because you go a bit off-road, but not everything has to be easy!
Pokemon-style puzzles and crafting.
Fast travel that is just a game mechanic with no story ties in open world games.
Disclaimer: My main experience with games so far has been some Nintendo stuff, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls.
Of what I've played I like Morrowind's fast travel system the most. You don't just open your map and click a button, you talk to people or use a spell/item. And NPCs mention these travel systems and story wise would use them.
I like Oblivion's (and to a lesser extent, Skyrim and the 3D Fallout's) the least. Time passes like your character walked to where you fast traveled but not much is timed so that has little effect on immersion. Too much of the journey has to have gaps filled in by the player's imagination because walking on the road normally has a lot of encounters and wandering off to check out random buildings and people. It encourages less exploration and taking some time with the game.
Obviously I want a balance, I don't want to be walking the same road with 2 wolf encounters a thousand times because it's between two areas I need to frequent. And I don't want 90% of my playtime to be traveling. But I also don't want to keep instantly fast traveling to all places and feel "lazy" and like I'm missing experiences and encounters. And I want more immersion. More character interaction instead of UI interaction.
Quick save/quick load. Not as relevant any more, but so many games used to have it. The meta game just became saving at the opportune moment and trying every possible action from there to progress forward.
Blew my mind in the first Bioshock where you could qs/ql, but the vita chambers were forgiving enough to wean you off it.
I love quick save / quick load features. I quick load ALOT but doesn't bother me at all, they are games and I like to try out different things and for example in Max Payne I quick loaded back to awesome fights just to try them again.
When you enter a level and the camera pans over every important thing in the level before you can move. I'm not an idiot. I can discover the level on my own. Stop holding my hand.
thanks for using Leebra!
go to feed...
Less of an issue nowadays but unclimbable knee-high walls which force you to go round. Always drove me crazy!
save