"It's Always Been Done This Way" What's your most disliked game element we can't seem to escape?

[barretxiii]

I start with a twofer.

Contact Damage: It made sense when games had serious memory limits and enemies didn't get attack animations, but now that's clearly not an issue, so it makes no sense to keep adding it, at least except for enemies that are obviously meant to be dangerous to touch (Covered in spikes or some dangerous element). One of the most egregious offenders is the side-scroller souls-like Afterimage, where the mechanic is so poorly implemented that your dodge/dash is pretty much useless until a late game upgrade grants you i-frames, and the greatsword's midair down+attack is totally worthless since contact interrupts you before the attack registers.

No Pausing: For the Soulsborne purists out there. This only makes sense in ONLINE games that obviously can't be allowed to pause, lest they cause issues with connectivity between players/servers. It does NOT make sense in single player games (or predominantly online games played in an offline mode). One of the dumbest arguments I read in favor of no pausing was that it would somehow allow players to "cheese" the game by giving them more time to react to incoming threats... That's not how pauses work!

 

[Advil Lavs]

Microtransactions, lootboxes and anything similar

 

[barretxiii]

Microtransactions, lootboxes and anything similar

The pain is real...

 

[gwardojones]

Shield enemies. Specifically the kinds that invalidate all strategies, except for the very specific one the game wants you to use on them.

DOOM Eternal was the most recent offender that I played. Not only do the shield enemies in that game completely stop your murder momentum, but the freaking Marauder blocks literally everything if you don't hit him exactly the way the game wants. It feels like cheap design every single time.

 

[barretxiii]

Shield enemies. Specifically the kinds that invalidate all strategies, except for the very specific one the game wants you to use on them.

DOOM Eternal was the most recent offender that I played. Not only do the shield enemies in that game completely stop your murder momentum, but the freaking Marauder blocks literally everything if you don't hit him exactly the way the game wants. It feels like cheap design every single time.

Hard agree. On paper, they sound like a good way to make the player adapt and adjust their strategy... In practice, it's just annoying, since they tend to implement them poorly, especially when the shield is impenetrable. They tend to make them always face you apart from some very brief window during an attack, so simply running around them is rarely a viable move, and you rarely get some kind of pass-through dash/attack to bypass them completely.

 

[usergaycoolguy]

I feel like to some extent we're moving away from this trend but in FPS games I basically feel like there's two play modes:

1) you have bullets for the shotgun and 2) you don't have bullets for the shotgun so you've got to use any other gun.

I don't know if it's the wide spray or the sound design or the look of the gun (probably a combination) but it's so much more satisfying and for whatever reason there's just such a clear difference in fun between the feel of the shotgun and literally any other gun that I'm basically annoyed any time I have to switch out.

Since Doom 2016 it feels like there's been more of a conscious shift in design philosophy to only include stuff that actually feel fun to use in a given roster, and to include enough ammo that you're basically encouraged to use whatever gun that suits your play style. But especially when I'm playing something from like 2000-2015 it just feels like a massive slog for half the game like I'm eating veggies (assault rifle) to get to dessert (shotgun my beloved).

 

[Moreno909]

Retro inspired indie games that are ball-crushing hard for no reason than other of cargo cult

 

[Banana_Mojo7]

Yellow paint. I understand that sometimes people need a push in the right direction, and that's fine. But most of the time it's overbearing, and it ruins my immersion. It feels like the game designers think the average gamer is an idiot.

 

[Mahopon]

exp and lvl. I feel like exp and lvl are treated as an obligatory feature checklist. They’re often added to a game that doesn’t necessarily need them.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with them, I just dislike mechanics that feel like they’re there because the developer/shareholders have an obligatory feature checklist, rather than adding mechanics because the game actually needs them.

 

[DAME NINGEN]

No constant energy regen: Since Armored Core 6 did that, I've seen it rear its ugly head again in other mecha (or mecha adjacent) games, most recently in Dolls Nest (which hurts mostly during flight but as usual, mods to the rescue) and Code RAPID demo (which, at this point, means it'll make it into the full game). It was one of my greatest woes in AC6 (before I started using mods). The cutoff and then delay before energy regen because energy is being consumed is like driving a car that stops charging the battery whenever you turn the lights on or step on the gas.

you don't have bullets for the shotgun so you've got to use any other gun.

Well, you never actually have bullets for the shotgun anyway.

 

[Tsukishima]

FPS games where the layout of the level is labyrinthian or maze-like:

It happens everytime I replay a Halo game, I get confused for ten-twenty minutes of where the hell I'm supposed to go. I didn't grow up on DooM but is this seriously a design aspect people love or is it something every FPS game includes because it "captures the heart & soul' of these games?"

Superbosses in RPG's that invalidate the natural state of play and narrative:
I don't mean to hate on people who enjoy the challenges of fighting the Weapons in FFVII and the like, but why are the strategies to beat these bosses so over the top and ridiculous? Take Ruby Weapon for example. It's 'optimal' for all your party members to either enter the battle dead or stay dead the whole fight. Why is that? I like my party members being alive and contributing to the fight. It also destroys the immersion of the story where the characters band together to face a threat, but in gameplay that impact is detracted for nonsense like this where it's optimal for the main protagonist to walk up to the Ultimate Weapon dragging two corpses with him and saying he wants to throw down.

Material grinding:
I absolutely abhor this game design. Monster Hunter, Granblue Fantasy Relink, every single game that decides we need to have a billion types of materials just because. Why can't it be made simpler? Why do I need to write a notepad as if going on a shopping list when I'm supposed to be playing a video game?

 

[Fighting Mochi]

This one might be a bit controversial but: Fighting game inputs. It sucks that a lot of older games had hard inputs just to do a super move.

 

[Tsukishima]

This one might be a bit controversial but: Fighting game inputs. It sucks that a lot of older games had hard inputs just to do a super move.

There's a fighting game I like to play called Acceleration of Suguri 2 where the inputs aren't motion based at all and instead focused on a combination of buttons at a specific time. At most it's just three inputs and that's for a super move. It's not a conventional fighting game at all, but I really loved this detraction of motion inputs and it was a game I could actually play without arthritis acting up because i need to do a half circle input of all things.

 

[Arthxas3]

DLC Characters in fighting games. Before games connected to internet era there was only one way to unlock characters in game... PLAY THIS GAME. now you must open your wallet. I would rather have 3 tekkens or mk in 6 years with new characters than one for 10 ten years with dlc characters.

 

[Jimbo_McDumbo]

NPC's that won't shut up drive me nuts. Especially if they have anything to do with a puzzle

 

[RageBurner]

I agree with you on contact damage. 1 hit deaths are incredibly prevalent in some genres and I very much dislike that as well.

 

[Ikagura]

I got used to Contact Damage but I also remember that Freedom Planet, being a Sonic inspired platformer, tried to only get you damaged by the enemy's attack animation which changed the dynamic (it felt more like a beat'em up because enemies had more than 1HP).

No Pausing: For the Soulsborne purists out there. This only makes sense in ONLINE games that obviously can't be allowed to pause, lest they cause issues with connectivity between players/servers. It does NOT make sense in single player games (or predominantly online games played in an offline mode). One of the dumbest arguments I read in favor of no pausing was that it would somehow allow players to "cheese" the game by giving them more time to react to incoming threats... That's not how pauses work!

Phantasy Star Online, being built with online play in mind (duh), didn't have a proper pause from going to the menus.

However the game has been made with hallways and rooms as enemies cannot pass through them so it gives you some room (pun intended) to check your inventory and equipment. Even easier to swap items with the shortcut menu added in Ver.2.

Now they fumbled it a bit with Episode 2 where enemies appeared in hallways and Episode 4 where there are bridges instead which don't exactly act the same as doors.

 

[MajorMachina]

Unskippable cutscenes/story segments: i'm completely fine with cinematic and story-heavy games. but please give me the option to move forward and not have to wait for something to happen while doing nothing. especially when you're playing the game a second time and already know the story

 

[fake-chan]

Ice physics and oxygen meters.

 

[Ikagura]

Ice physics and oxygen meters.

Ice slips and you cannot breath underwater though.

But I appreciate when there's air bubbles.

 

[CheesyExplosive]

All games that stay in common game mechanics.

 

[Majora Fi]

I have my issues with Pokémon due to the technological advancements being ignored in favor of cockfighting, but collecting series bothers me more because the party is made up of creatures without personality or development, allowing you to discard them for others with better stats.

I could even say that Pokémon is a JRPG where campaign is the tutorial for competitive multiplayer.

 

[brettd94]

exp and lvl. I feel like exp and lvl are treated as an obligatory feature checklist. They’re often added to a game that doesn’t necessarily need them.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with them, I just dislike mechanics that feel like they’re there because the developer/shareholders have an obligatory feature checklist, rather than adding mechanics because the game actually needs them.

GTA V comes to mind.

 

[SantasFavourite]

Weird one, but damage numbers in action games, i really disklike seeing all those numbers popping up on screen

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Escort missions.

I can actually go babysit a little shit in real life AND get paid for it.