Game mechanics you hate

[GloatingSwine]

What I am trying to figure out, is why is these ?Simon games? are such a pain, and detract so much from what would otherwise be a good game. Why is Guitar Hero and it?s ilk so popular? All they are is extended Simon sequences put to music.

The difference in a rhythm game, even outside of funky controllers, is that there's a clear association between the button you're being asked to press and the effect it has. In most QTE button matching sequences, they buttons you press don't produce anything like the effect they normally produce in open gameplay. To use your Guitar Hero example, there's a clear association between pressing a given colour and the note or chord that is produced (if you time the strum right).

Contrast that with the opening of the Heavenly Sword demo, where you mash X to run along the ropes, mashing X doesn't do that in the rest of the game, it's the jump button, so it feels artificial.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

For some reason, I completely forgot to bring up my biggest fear in a game: instant kill enemies. sorry if it sounds like it makes me suck, or a wuss, but if it can kill me in one hit, no matter what, that is just cheap and unfair. The Bella Sisters and Dr. Salvatores in RE4 are chief culprits, along with the Death lvl 5 spell in FFIX.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

Platforming in First Person Shooter games tops my list.

I'm playing a first person shooter usually to shoot stuff, from the first person perspective. Usually the challenges I want to see have to do with enemy AI, positioning, and good level design.

What I don't want to do is feel like I'm playing Mario 64 and trying to jump from ledge to ledge onto various hanging or floating platforms with the risk of falling into one of those endless lava spike acid pits or whatever cliché is waiting down there.

Situational awareness isn't as easy in a first person shooter as a third person platformer, you generally have at most a good 80 degree field of view (often less though) and you usually have no way of recovering (like grasping a ledge) like you can in a platformer, so if you miss by an inch, it's the same as missing by a mile. Some games often even make it difficult to figure out what it is you can stand on, you can jump onto the top of the lampost but not the brick wall, that kind of thing. Momentum, obstacles, or sometimes the pesky enemies shooting at you can often compound these issues.

So the results tend to be a lot of running, jumping, crouching in the air while jumping and just some strange stuff. Overshooting a jump and dying. Undershooting a jump and dying. Jumping to the wrong surface and slipping off, then dying. Falling 15 feet and landing fine, falling 20 and dying instantly.

Just an annoying mechanic that I really don't like being in games. I assume they're their for the token variety, but they're often just exercise in frustration, even with the Quick Save feature.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I've just come to a part in Crysis that has reminded me of another game mechanic I hate. Forced vehicle levels in first person shooters. Quake 4 did it, and it sucked. Call of Duty did it, and it sucked, and now Crysis has done it, and I assure you it still sucks.

At best these segments turn into Battelzone, and at worst you're forced to man the gun while some other idiot drives, and the vehicles are usually much easier targets for the enemy, and are almost always explosive.

Half Life 2 is the only game to pull off making these segments enjoyable because their vehicles don't explode, taking you with them.

In Crysis it is even worse because it makes no sense. You have super speed, and you're driving a tank with a giant target painted on it. It is like the Flash riding a motorcycle, but you can't exit your tank when it is almost ready to explode, and risk going on foot. No. the clipping in the level isn't made for that, and you will walk right through hills instead of over them. Awesome.

Once again I hate a mechanic that enables the instant failure button. I think there is a pattern here.

 

[Saskwach]

Playing Mass Effect a fair bit and raging a lot so here's another one:
Tactical shooters that negate their "tacical" by giving enemies amazing durability and power then write up some wacky AI code that makes them sprint to your position and run around you like a loony. And they can pull this off, unlike you, because they're so much tougher.
Another negation of tactics in that game is the enemies with amazing paralysis beams that also levitate cover. The only way to avoid them (because they are pure death once you're hit) is to either dodge like a you've just come from Halo or spam them with any quick killing/stunning thing. I don't regard "quick, hit that thing with SOMETHING and dodge like crazy before it pwns us!" as very tactical.

 

[CyberAkuma]

My pet peeve for this post is what Yahtzee refers to as "God of War Simon Says Button Mashing." I personally first experienced it on the Dreamcast not with Shenmue, but with Sword of the Berserk, and instantly disliked it.

Games are interactive entertainment, and I feel this mechanic scales back the interactivity to the early 80s, or late 70s (whenever Simon was popular). I hate it because it takes a complex game, and boils it down to a binary system where one option is instant failure.

I disagree here.
The problem is not in itself the 'Simon Says'-button mashing concept, but what I like to call it 'Do what Simon Says... or die!'.

There is a big difference between the 'Simon Says' sequences in Shenmue / Prince of Persia: Two Throwes and the ones in the Tomb Raider/God of... *caugh* Heavinly Sword etc and the difference between them is just that.

Shenmue for as an example did have some 'Simon Says'-sequences *BUT* if you missed the correct button during the sequence- you wouldn't die, you would take another path to your goal that is more difficult, and if you continued to miss during the sequence, you would fail your "mission", but you wouldn't die.

This might be hard to explain in practice, but for any of you who has played Shenmue 2 might remember this scene from the very beginning of the game: You are hunting down a little kid that has stolen your backpack through a filled city with people and in this hectic chase the Simon Says button sequence is the main core of it. During this chase if you miss the correct button/direction, you will accidently bump into people, or run into things and that in return will slow you down BUT you will continue to chase the kid - only that you take different paths and it becomes more difficult.
If you miss enough buttons duroing this sequence, you will lose track of the kid(and your backpack) and you will have to walk around in the city to find him again.

This is the kind of button 'Simon Says' sequence I think is what is astonishing and very well thought through, because then you can ramp up different difficulties on the sequences and reward the player if he is fast enough by clearing the level/sequence earlier. It adds up to the dynamic and non-linearity to the game by the different paths etc.
In Prince of Persia Two Thrones, missing the button on the exact moment wouldn't kill you, but it would hurt you i.e take a small chunk out of your lifebar. (at least during the boss fights)

The Simon Says sequence becomes a pain when it becomes to a 'Do what Simon Says or Die!' which is remeniscant of the early 80's game (Dragons Quest/Space Ace etc.) and this is no exception in God of War/Heavinly Sword and Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition which I believe is taking a step back in gaming concepts.

 

[Zombie Badger]

I also hate escort mission's guts. This is because often on these you are in a large area with enemies appearing from several directions at once, and the person you're supposed to protect dies after being poked a few times.

I also hate, all together now, God of War style Simon-says button mashing, because it's usually put into a game as an afterthought, and when it starts it breaks the suspension of disbelief, and it very quickly becomes boring. Games that implement this sort of thing as a major feature however, tend to do it rather well, for example Fahrenheit, which is an excellent game, and you can get it for £5 now so I suggest you do.

The final mechanic I hate is cheating AI. I hate this because it shows laziness on the part of the developers, as instead of develop good AI for enemies, they just develop retarded AI and make them have incredibly powerful guns ,steel skin, and eyes with heat vision goggles covering every inch of their body. The best alternative to this, I believe, is in Crysis, as the enemies are always as intelligent on each difficulty, their guns always do the same amount of damage, and they do not become bulletproof of the highest difficulty. The game just removes the helpful features it gave you on the lower difficulties.

 

[njsykora]

- Defence missions in any FPS are a nightmare for me, the main reason I don't play Quake 4 anymore. They can be done well though as COD4 and Half-Life 2 have proved.
- Any collection mission that doesn't involve several boss fights. The Arcadia section in Bioshock was just so tedious as a result.
- Random battles in any JRPG, I can live with them but they are supremely annoying.
- Turn based strategy missions where losing a specific unit will fail the mission, even if its the only unit to go down (looking at you Advance Wars).

 

[blackfly01]

I don't want to be inspire too much rectification or conflict here, but...

* The being arrested as you're driving away from a cop that manages to open your door and draw their gun on you in the recent Grand Theft Auto games WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING! Seriously, have they rectified this yet? Your car is rolling and the cop stands perfectly still as he casually opens the door. You'd think he'd have to keep up with you or fall on his face!

* Escorting/Protecting young defenseless women in ANYTHING. As much as I love protecting defenseless women, games make the experience seem laborious, distant and bitter. The only games I appreciate it in are Resident Evil 2, Leon's scenario (Ada kept her distance and uses her gun, A+) and in Silent Hill 2 as Maria kept her distance when you swung a weapon in front of her.

* The Simon-Says buttons. I don't care if they keep you from dying or keep guards distracted so your friend can sneak into a building as you gyrate your hips for them... they ALL suck! Whatever happened to the designated, specifically set Panic button from Clock Tower or the slapping sequence in FFVII?!

 

[L4Y Duke]

I have to agree with the person who said 'timers'. I hate timers.

Especially unexplained timers. When the game makes you run to a certain spot in order to avoid death by timer, that really sucks. I prefer when the game makes you run to a certain spot in order to avoid death by the big deadly thingy chasing you, be it an explosion, collapsing floor, rampaging vehicle or giant death-laser.

 

[Malidictuim]

One thing I hate in FPS games is a limit on guns.
Games like F.E.A.R and Halo for example, make it pointlessly more difficult by giving you a limit. For example, in the last mission of Halo you need to blow some things up (four to be exact) and need a rocket launcher to do so (Grenades are also usable but it's too damn fiddly to get them in). On top of that you need a shotgun to deal with the pesky Flood and that takes up your second slot. Then you need a machine gun to take out the Covenant further along (not really nessecary but helps as they throw grenades and it's hard to get close without getting blown up).
But the limit is two so you have to choose which part you are gonna not be able to complete.
It drives me insane that a guy who can flip over a battletank with one arm can't carry more than 2 weapons.

 

[Malidictuim]

this isnt a game mechanic, but i cant play movie games. usually cuz evrything about them is cheap. especially the floaty physics, like for jumping. floaty jumping bugs me.

Many movie games are bad for one reason.
They try too hard to follow the movie plot and make a mockery by leaving out many parts and making too many cutscenes. I have Enter the Matrix on Xbox and it tries too hard to follow the Matrix films that it consequentely breaks both the story in the game and the story in the movie into 1000000 easy to inhale pieces. An example is the Merovingian's mansion and when you rescue the Keymaker, a time paradox is born as in the movie Neo does it.

 

[MrCIA]

It drives me insane that a guy who can flip over a battletank with one arm can't carry more than 2 weapons.

Personally I like this feature. Guns may not be all that heavy but they are bulky and awkward if you can't carry them in your arms. Now while it would be possible to carry a dussin different weapons on ones person. The simple mechanics of where to put them would make it impossible to get to them when you need them. Two long guns (anything bigger than a pistol or very tiny SMG) are about all that can fit on a human frame without getting in the way. Of course pistols and the aforementioned really tiny SMGs could be carried in larger numbers. But they would then require special attachment points (holsters) to stay out of the way. Simply speaking, banging the barrel of you big .50 sniper weapon on the door frame while attempting to go through is just not tactical.

 

[Arbre]

Took me a while to wish to think about one mechanic I hate, and what I have found is not a mechanis of a game per se, but more a plot convenience.

Merely how characters, NPCs or not, manage to get around issues and obstacles in a level while you struggle hard to reach the next spot, and they kinda waiting for you here, since minutes.
Makes you feel dumb.

Or how a cutscene, using the engine, will show a character hide somewhere, behind a tree you actually walked around, and suddenly disappear... *poof*, like that.
Think of Rogue Galaxy, when on Juraika, the first time Zefram gives a call to *someone*, after the waterfall or so, before fighting the boss.
I don't know, I hate those things, where characters generally piloted by some average AI, suddenly manage to hide out of the game's world, with such a lack of respect for credibility.
I mean, you see where he's actually been hiding. It's just 20 meters down the path, but no matter if you race back to find him, he's gone. And sorry for you, you could spend a whole life trying to find the crack in the world map's which Zefram went through, you won't find him.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

One thing I hate in FPS games is a limit on guns.
For example, in the last mission of Halo you need to blow some things up (four to be exact) and need a rocket launcher to do so (Grenades are also usable but it's too damn fiddly to get them in). On top of that you need a shotgun to deal with the pesky Flood and that takes up your second slot. Then you need a machine gun to take out the Covenant further along (not really nessecary but helps as they throw grenades and it's hard to get close without getting blown up).
But the limit is two so you have to choose which part you are gonna not be able to complete.

Here's how I did it: I swapped the rocket launcher for a pistol from a dead Flood after the "blowing things up" bit. Grenades + sniper-pistol-o'-doom + shottie got me past the Covenant easily. (It was the Sentinels that gave me trouble in that scenario, but they're easily distracted by Flood forms.)

It'll come as no surprise, Halo fan that I am, that I agree with MrCIA's opinion; indeed, I'd be inclined to put "bag of holding for guns" in my list of tired mechanics myself except that it doesn't bother me that much.

-- Steve

 

[soladrin]

a very popular one.. the boss that is out of the world powerfull compared to what you faced just before.

right now, im playing mass effect, and im at the first boss, and this is the biggest bullshit i've ever seen, theres no cover or anything theres minions everywhere, and theres cut scenes wich you can skip, i'm seriously pissed off and contemplating if putting the disc in the microwave would be worth it.

 

[Kaisharga]

Props to CyberAkuma for mentioning Space Ace and Dragon's Lair. I was thinking precisely the same thing about the button-reflex sequences myself.

You know what I hate? Juggling in fighters. Not so much in 2d fighters, because they're not supposed to be realistic, but in games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter. Do you know how much force a standard lunging cross punch has? I'll give you a hint; it's not nearly enough to lift a 180 pound human off the ground for a whole second, nor is it even close to the force required to abruptly stop a falling 180 pound object and project it back upwards for any distance. Soul Calibur is okay, though, from what I've seen there are actually very few juggle combos in that game, although I admit I haven't been paying attention since SoulCal 2.

I hate the bosses-as-puzzles aspect. Nintendo is particularly guilty of that lately, with Twilight Princess, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Corruption. I don't want my opponent to have a specific vulnerable weak spot that I can just solve some movement puzzle to get to every time, where until I solve said puzzle they are completely invulnerable. I want to fight it out, to best the bosses by virtue of my own skill or planning.

Similarly, I don't want to be able to stun bosses. I want them to be competent warriors, who have a greater instinct to fight through the pain than to reload in the open. Shooting a man while his pants are down isn't fun or rewarding; it's despicable and cowardly. Granted that game protagonists are less interested in honor than they are survival and getting the necessary job done, and so it is justifiable to do whatever it takes however cowardly it may be, but it should not be treated as the norm, the expected pattern.

I also prefer games that have alternate solutions to problems that are 'supposed' to be solved with a certain tool or technique. Portal wins at this because of the one testchamber with the 'victory lift,' where you can actually project yourself up the lift way before messing with any other part of the puzzle--and they left that capability in the game on purpose. Props, Valve. Twilight Princess also gets to be on this highlight reel for the armored knights with the tower shields that you're 'supposed' to fight with a leading quick-draw strike. Tower shields are big but these guys are too professional to drag the shields on the ground; a well-placed bomb arrow can go under the shield and tag 'em in the foot, which counts as a valid hit. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to play a game where I reach an impasse, and then get a really good, creative idea to unconventionally get through it, but am barred from so doing because of an invisible wall or overrestrictive physics.

Waggle, too. In the words of Tycho, when it works it's great, but when it doesn't work it is goddamned infuriating.

More later as I think about it, possibly.

 

[shadow skill]

a very popular one.. the boss that is out of the world powerfull compared to what you faced just before.

right now, im playing mass effect, and im at the first boss, and this is the biggest bullshit i've ever seen, theres no cover or anything theres minions everywhere, and theres cut scenes wich you can skip, i'm seriously pissed off and contemplating if putting the disc in the microwave would be worth it.

If you are talking about Matriarch Benezia she is not difficult at all the trick is to never try to attack her. Her minions are not really all that if you have the right squad. I just used Liara and Ashley and hammered her minions witth Lift.

 

[stevesan]

how about weapon reloading? pretty annoying in most games (like BioShock). maybe i just suck at counting my bulletz.

 

[DMShade]

Games like Devil May Cry that Grade your performance, especially based on time. I like to explore, fool around, go where enemies respawn and slaughter a few more...only to finish off the area/mission and get a C because I didn't blast through the stage like the mission was to find a bathroom before you crap yourself. It reduces my enjoyment by establishing the notion that 'good' players will get as few hours of gaming fun out of it as possible.

Also, I hate RPGs that actually count the playtime because that brings the people the earlier issue pander to out.
'I beat (RPG name here) in 12 hours!'
"12 hours? Did you have any fun?"
'What's Fun? Some sidequest?'

Nevermind how these speed freaks often want to share how awesome the story was at a point I haven't seen yet because I like to take my time.

Would you want your burger at a restauraunt thrown together so fast it's still greasy? Or wait five minutes for the good stuff?

Over all, my big issue is making us even more of a Done Fast mindset, over Done Right, or just Done Your Own Way.