Game mechanics you hate

[Kaisharga]

I hate badly-written event handles. I can't remember any specific examples off the top, but there have been a number of story-driven games I've played where I get to a certain point, finish a certain objective, and then the game stops paying attention. Was I supposed to go into that building? Was I supposed to leave the other through the front door? Was I supposed to go to whatshisface's house? Who knows? I spend half an hour (or more) running around, doing just random crap, looking for what will satiate the game's need for me to continue the story through some arbitrary, and frequently counterintuitive, action. Hell with that.

 

[Archon]

So many game mechanics I despise are already well-covered here. Let me just add generally that I hate:
1) Strategy games that confuse "beautiful graphics" with "realistic". World War II real-time strategy games that allow tanks to take dozens of shots and require point-blank engagements, for instance, may look pretty, but they aren't realistic.
2) Awesome turn-based games that are transformed into awful real-time games because of "market demands". X-Com, I'm looking at you!

 

[Booze Zombie]

The one game mechanic that annoys me over everything is the Oblivion style, no hitboxes, even groin shots, hit anyone anywhere for blah, blah damage.

Screw that, I want to shoot some nuts off, Scarface style. Maybe even some SoF 3 dismembering and damage, eh.

 

[shinbo]

Hi there, new here. I think this has already been mentioned but the one game mechanic that has turned me off some FPSes is enemies with uncanny marksmanship and/or psychic abilities. The first time this really ticked me off in a game was the first Rainbow Six game, where terrorists would shoot your foot off the moment you stuck it through the doorway... behind them. This was made worse by the fact that in that game you could take maybe just 2 or 3 shots before dying.

The most recent game that ticked me off this way was in Medal of Honour Pacific Assault, where I'd be creeping through dense jungle foliage in pitch-black darkness, when suddenly gunfire would erupt and then I'd be lying belly-up with the stupid bugle music playing. Countless quickloads later, I gave up at some river mission where enemies so far downriver I couldn't see them yet were already landing headshots on me. Never completed the game, or touched a MoH title since.

"Dear Mrs Johnson, we regret to inform you that your son has been killed in action by a platoon of Japanese super-soldiers with Predator-like vision and weapon targeting systems. You may take some comfort in the fact that he died swiftly and never knew what hit him."

 

[akatsukix]

1. Trigger reflex button mashing- whether it is God of War, or decrypting in Mass Effect, it is just retarded. That also goes for Bioshock's water pipes hacking, also retarded. Any simple mini-puzzle that just has nothing to do with anything you are actually doing.

2. Bosses that are tough because of stupid game limitations. SPOILER- In Metroid Prime Corruption, the last guy is only tough because you can't look up very well, so to get his weak spot is inconvenient.

3. Super hard difficulty levels that just require perfectly executed shots to the same places. One example is COD4 at the highest difficulty, many of the levels basically require you to have memorized the placement of every enemy and be ready to shoot them in a very particular order and manner. It has nothing to do with skill, it has everything to do with just doing it over and over again.

4. Pointless arcade mechanics. Zack and Wiki was guilty of this. Instead of solving the puzzle, you just ran around a lot while waiting for your chance.

5. Overly animated and tedious turn-based combat. Blue Dragon, I am looking at you. As if the game wasn't slow enough.

6. The "I am an elite soldier" who has zero skills at the beginning. Coupled with the "I am going to save the world/universe/local pub" but I start off with a peashooter. Mass Effect, I am looking at you.

7. Combined with above, stupid puzzles that stop gameplay. Seriously, does everyone have to jump through ten hoops everytime they go through this door? Maybe that is why the universe is so messed up?

8. The stick buttons on all controllers. If you ever end up in an intense firefight and are trying to run around only to find out you are crouched or scoped by accident...

 

[Kaisharga]

How about button rapidtapping. Man, testing your ability to hit the button 10 times a second was innovative back in the days of the Commodore 64, and it is in that era it should have stayed. Please leave it out of my PS2 games.

 

[Yerocha]

My least favourite aspect of gameplay in anything ever would have to be level grinding. What I do like, however, are games that give you the option of either level grinding or coming up with an actual strategy to beat enemies. This refers mainly to the newer tactical RPGs, but also a few older games.

I also think that at this point, now that we have half-decent graphics engines, we can do away with the "cutscene attacks" in most RPGs. FFVII is the most well known example of this, having two-minute-long attacks that didn't really do as much as regular hits. A lesser known example of this is Disgaea 2, where it's possible to use a massive, space-rending attack, but you can have the entire animation go through while the whole attack still misses (and characters still act as if hit).

 

[shadow skill]

8. The stick buttons on all controllers. If you ever end up in an intense firefight and are trying to run around only to find out you are crouched or scoped by accident...

I totally agree, the stick buttons require too much pressure to be exerted when you want to use them so holding them down is not comfortable and often you end up pressing them when you don't want to.

How about button rapidtapping. Man, testing your ability to hit the button 10 times a second was innovative back in the days of the Commodore 64, and it is in that era it should have stayed. Please leave it out of my PS2 games.

I can't beat some of the bosses in the god of war games without a turbo controller. I've never been good at these rapid press things and I don't like how quickly my hands start to hurt when playing games that have them.

 

[DangerMan]

Probably the most extreme example I can think of "guess what the developer was thinking"; would be back from my college days. There was a version of the X-men for the Genesis. It was a side scrolling shooter. About four or five levels in I think, there was a confrontation, which when completed, got me stuck every time. I was stuck on it for MONTHS before I finally figured out that I was somehow supposed to know to actually physically hit the reset button on the console. (I never had before, when I got frustrated I would usually turn it off.)

GOD yes that was annoying. X-Men 1, Sega Genesis, Mojoworld level. "Reset the computer that controls the Danger Room!" Oh, and it makes the game not work in emulators, which is neat.

It was creative, yes, but HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GUESS THAT? Also, there was a timer on that level, so if you waited too long to figure it out, you DIED and game OVER, no 'restart level'.

My peeve is adventure games that require you to do something arcane with A and B that C would work for as well. Like, "I have this skeleton arm with glue on it, but I can't pick up that thing on a high shelf with it, because I can only use the arm to pick up something else with later, though in reality, this would work."

I replayed Monkey Island 1-3 recently, and will never touch them again.

 

[Kaisharga]

Ironically, the last point made by DangerMan echoes a revelation I have had recently, and that is that adventure game protagonists are some of the least resourceful people ever.

 

[MrInsecure]

I'm not sure if someone has already complained about this but one of the major problems I have is that game developers try to compensate for shorter games by artificially ramping up the difficulty or simply making quick tasks into longer ones (see Yahtzee's Paper Mario review). I liked Resident Evil 4 a lot but one of the things that pissed me off was that as the enemies became harder to kill, and therefore required more firepower to kill, the game started to implement a gradual ammo starvation.
This is weird because in the beginning I literally had more ammo and healing items than I could carry, but by the end levels I found myself surrounded on all sides by bullet-absorbing mutants with only one or two spare healing items and barely enough ammo to clear a hole to run through.
If any developers are listening, please stop this now. I would much rather go through a short masterpiece (see Portal) than trudge through a 25-hour game that should only have been 20 hours at most.
Also, the next time I have to hear the phrase "but the multiplayer more than makes up for the single player" I will personally go to Bungee and kick all of them in the balls. They're the ones that started this retarded trend (I believe) where the Single Player is basically just a training mode for the multiplayer. It sucks for the rest of us who don't like being called "FUKIN GAY A$$ N00B" while being pwned by pre-adolescent boys.

 

[MrInsecure]

Probably the most extreme example I can think of "guess what the developer was thinking"; would be back from my college days. There was a version of the X-men for the Genesis. It was a side scrolling shooter. About four or five levels in I think, there was a confrontation, which when completed, got me stuck every time. I was stuck on it for MONTHS before I finally figured out that I was somehow supposed to know to actually physically hit the reset button on the console. (I never had before, when I got frustrated I would usually turn it off.)

So that's how you beat that level. I ended up just using Game Genie to skip to the next level (I was just six at the time, don't hold it against me).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call atrocious game design. Funny, though, how Kojima pulled a similar stunt in Metal Gear Solid when you faced Psycho Mantis and got called a genius. I forget if he at least gave a hint as to what you were supposed to do, or if you simply had to guess/visit Gamefaqs. Either way, if you make it so that the player has to have psychic powers to figure out how to advance in the game, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Divinegon]

Here's my favorite: FPS Jumping.
Why? Because no damn character had the level of education needed for them to realize they can grab to freaking ledges. I see you Half Life 2, I do not need your egocentric self-glorification with the physics engine to make me stack up a bunch of boxes which is hard to do since you can't drag items or place them gently next to each other. It's just a bunch of dropping clunker in hope they don't hit each other down like a disastrous attempt of domino art.

In fact, I never liked the whole physics engine of Half Life 2 (even though I enjoyed the game itself, I admit), because it's not practical in a game universe where you have body limitations. I can't use that steel table as a cover with my gravity gun because every time I take it it's lying horizontally instead of vertically where it would provide more cover, but Freeman never got his MIT for How to Rotate Objects (Yes, I'm blaming a game character, I know. It's silly).

Sneaking missions with first person view is horrible for me too. As much as I loved Metal Gear Solid 3 I felt like snapping Snake's neck so he wouldn't take 2 whole seconds to look to his side. But I blame the genetic deficiencies the whole damn character cast are born with.


MrInsecure: If you took too much time, Campbell would actually break the fourth wall in order to tell you to switch the controllers. It's a silly concept to make people guess what to do, but Kojima never had a hard time making their characters say incoherent stuff in their universe to explain stuff to us even more than Final Fantasy game.

 

[twilightCrossing]

Timers have always been a nuceince, although I liked Art of theft's timer system. It's run on rewards, not punishments.
And speaking of punishments; terrible, useless button mashing, cause of broken controlers worldwide.
Not that I broke my x key because of heist 4, Yahtzee.

 

[Duck Sandwich]

The game mechanic I hate the most would be...

Random Chances - "Hey, I've got an idea! Let's have an attack/event rely completely on luck and throw any sort of skill or effort on the player's part out the window!" I hate random chances, even when they work in my favour. Once I played X-Men Legends and was low on health. I got hit by an attack that should have killed me, but didn't because my character magically blocked the attack without any input from me. I just love it when my character is doing the playing for me.

It's ridiculous how in many action RPG's you have to level up "dexterity" so that your character has a higher "chance to hit". You see your character's weapon clearly connecting with the enemy's body, but absolutely no damage is done.

Grinding - Kill the same weak monster over 9000 times so that you can level up and kill slightly stronger monsters an even higher amount of times. It wasn't fun or challenging the first 100 times, and it's not showing any signs of improvement anytime soon.

Enemies that don't stagger when hit - It's really annoying when an enemy can smack you whilst having your boot embedded in his face. The only time when this is acceptable is when you're fighting a big slow giant.

Turn-Based RPG combat in general - (Fighting normal enemies: attack - attack - attack -attack -attack - win) (Fighting bosses - boost party - attack - heal when necessary - win if your characters/items are strong enough, otherwise you're screwed) Kudos to Paper Mario and Grandia 2 for having combat systems that are actually GOOD

Puzzle-Based Boss Fights - Someone else brought this up and I agree with them wholeheartedly. First of all, the only kind of challenge is finding out the boss' weakness. After that, all the fun goes out the window, especially when you have no choice to stun an enemy using an item that's otherwise completely worthless in a fight (Morph Ball Bombs, I'm looking at you), and then proceed to mash the A button repeatedly until the boss recovers. What I hate about it most is that you're FORCED to use certain weapons without any exceptions. What's the point in giving me all these cool weapons when I'm forced to use 1 or 2 of them throughout the entire fight?

Long Travel Times - I love sandwiches and all (points to username), but if I wanted to go make myself one I would pause the game, or shut it off.

Button-Mashy combat - It really kills the fun when the most effective way to defeat enemies is to simply stand next to them and tap the "A" button until they die, or launching fireball after fireball after fireball, with a little bit of running away to spice things up. No maneuvering or skill necessary.

Not exactly a game mechanic, but I really hate short, easy, no replay-value at all games. They might be okay for a rental, but they're a complete waste of money when it comes to buying.

 

[alexhayter86]

Inaccessible areas:

I hate it when you are trying to get from point A to point B in a game and there is something tiny blocking your path, or there's a small hole in the ground or whatever. Despite the fact that you'd be able to climb said object or jump said hole, the game doesn't let you.

Case in point- Condemned: Criminal Origins. In the library level, you go through a maze of bookshelfs trying to hook up with your friend, then you come to a hole that is about 2 feet wide... your friend is like "sorry dickhead, there's no way you can get over this". So you walk around the corner and there's a table blocking your path that is about 1 foot high. No dice.

 

[Minic]

Forced tutorials always boggle the mind. Half-Life had the wise idea to keep the tutorial and the story mode SEPARATE. It's such a simple move, and yet other developers still think it's necessary to herd us into a lesson on how to play the game every time we even try. Guys: just make it our choice, and pay respect to the people who actually want to re-play your game. Better yet, let us read the manual to find out. It's not beyond us.

EDIT: Some games even go as far as to give you on-going hints as to what you're supposed to do. Now that's just ridiculous. A prime example is Jak 3: one ability your character gains is a "Dark Strike" that destroys one particular type of wall. Not only does this type of wall stick out like a thorn - especially since there's always the item nearby that allows you to use this ability - the game pops up with a "hint" on how to do the Dark Strike EVERY TIME YOU HAVE TO FOR THE REST OF THE GAME. What is the point? None. How could they not realise it? That's still beyond me.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Being able to shoot and kill allies is annoying.
Friendly Fire HAS to go, friend.

 

[Knight Templar]

I hate getting: a dark map in a game a sniper with flash suppressor and scilanceor, unaweare enermys, high, but hidden spot. I line up my shot and....my friendy AI's start shooting like crazy from right behind me, disipte being orderd to stay behind