Your most hated gaming mechanics/ gameplay designs

Saipanne

When items are too cheap, or its too easy to hoard money. It makes money meaningless, after some time. Resources should always be reasonably finite.

Sudden Valley

Enemies levelling up with you (as your character reaches higher levels so do all your enemies)- prevalent in Skyrim and the fallout series. It takes the enjoyment out of improving your character if even at the end of the game all enemies becoming super freaks and take forever to kill.

The prevalence of the Arkham Batman series types of fistfights in a number of games in which the only trick is spamming the "counter" button.

lawlolawl

Games where the entire story is told by someone talking to you through an earpiece telling where to go, what button to push next and what it will do.

I picked up Doom a couple of days ago and this aspect is really starting to ruin my enjoyment of the game. It's making it feel exactly like every other single player action game campaign from the past decade.

Devs, just don't bother. If your story can be conveyed through the medium of a one sided conversation then it probably isn't very good and you should just cut the inane chatter and have text at the beginning of a level to tell the player what to do.

Penn

Spend ages solving puzzles, making huge jumps, crawling through caves/wrecks that haven't seen daylight in centuries...

Find modern day equipment/currency/items and leave the hidden dungeon through a door that leads right outside.

Glico Man

The dreaded words "follow your target" send shivers down my spine. I still remember those from the first Assassins Creed game. The constant repetition of those have burned themselves into my memory. I have no fond memory of that mission type.

Escort missions like others have said too. Sweet lord... if the AI actually wasn't suicidal and had some semblance of thought to try to stay alive they wouldn't be as bad. Seemingly any sort of escort mission the person runs directly into gunfire or enemies and whatnot.

Even worse are escort missions teamed with stealth missions. "There's enemies over there, I'll run straight into them and cause you to fail the mission". Fcuk off devs. At least Naughty Dog solved this issue in TLOU.

Canis Lupus

Escort missions but for a different reason and that's because 9/10 times your characters default walk is too slow for the escort and your run is too fast so you have to run stop run stop run stop run stop.

CastorTroy

Escort missions when it's not the main goal of the game ICo is good. Spartan Total Warrior is hell.

Shooting Galleries. This was my main gripe with Uncharted 3 and Dead Space 3. Move, cutscene, open area with waist high boxes, constants bad guys

Unfair enemy advantages. By this, I mean enemies being able to see you despite you not being able to see them. Once again, the one level that really annoyed me in Uncharted 3 was at the end of the desert where there were loads of enemies with guns, grenade launchers and sniper rifles in a sand cloud where everyone was able to shoot me with perfect aim but I could only make out 1 or 2 of them at a time.

Following. Not in the way mentioned above where you have to folow someone and liten to them to complete the mission, but when you have to follow them to a door that you know is the destination and you can get there quickly, but you have to wait for them to unlock it.

ShadowHearth

Sudden Valley wrote: »

Enemies levelling up with you (as your character reaches higher levels so do all your enemies)- prevalent in Skyrim and the fallout series. It takes the enjoyment out of improving your character if even at the end of the game all enemies becoming super freaks and take forever to kill.

The prevalence of the Arkham Batman series types of fistfights in a number of games in which the only trick is spamming the "counter" button.

I completely agree on this with Bethesda rpgs. This was one of the biggest reason I just did not played oblivion. Hey look, bandits are now wearing all this beasty awesome armour, because I leveled up my jumping...
Though I have to admit, wow did this scaling thing and it's actually perfect. while you leveling, zones adjust to you, so you can tackle any zone in any order and when you mixed level it stays on that last level. Your gear improves and you become stronger, but enemies still stay same. You do feel like you getting stronger and more badass. It used to take me ages to kill one mob with my paladin at 110 level with just fresh gear. Now i am high level geared and I only 10 of mobs and just shred them to pieces.

dreamers75

H3llR4iser wrote: »

You need a key for this door - Main culprit the Elder Scrolls saga ( probably just because it's the only Fantasy RPG series I play); Often found in some old, abandoned and damp dungeon. I am playing as a 2 meters tall Viking with a 35Kg battleaxe in his hands or a earth-shattering mage who can resurrect the dead and incinerate an army with a gesture of her hand...but need a key for that flimsy, moldy, rotten wooden door. Right.

.

Retr0gamer

lawlolawl wrote: »

Games where the entire story is told by someone talking to you through an earpiece telling where to go, what button to push next and what it will do.

I picked up Doom a couple of days ago and this aspect is really starting to ruin my enjoyment of the game. It's making it feel exactly like every other single player action game campaign from the past decade.

Devs, just don't bother. If your story can be conveyed through the medium of a one sided conversation then it probably isn't very good and you should just cut the inane chatter and have text at the beginning of a level to tell the player what to do.

If you are playing Doom for the story you're doing it wrong.

CastorTroy

Another thing is grinding just to prolong the game. I can kind of understand it in RPGs or whatever to gain XP, but No More Heroes, Mad World and Anarchy Reigns are 3 fun games I liked but had to keep doing the same minigames over and pver until I got enough money to progress.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Osmosis Jones

"Sixth Sense" vision mode I'm sick of games thinking they don't have to be intuitive and instead just telling you to hold a button and get x-ray vision. Really annoyed me when I found out they had it in TLOU and played a fair bit of the game for a second time around without it while wearing headphones, it was much harder but a lot more engaging.

Games unnecessarily taking control out of your hands Tomb Raider 2013 did this whenever you would vault over a wall our crawl through a gap, the game would stop letting you control it and go into a two second animation, leading to that moment where Lara Croft just stands still and you realise you're back in control.

SeantheMan

Torches on the walls in dungeons , especially dungeons where noone has obviously lived or been for years on end, but someone is tending to all the the torches of the world keeping them alight.
At least have them there but out, and the player has to light them as he goes, or find some alternative light sources.

lawlolawl

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If you are playing Doom for the story you're doing it wrong.

Wasn't playing it for the story, that was sort of my point

Finished it last night anyway. Saw all the game had to offer by the halfway point and just wanted it to be over by the last third.

Not a bad game but there's only so many times you can find a room full of monsters entertaining.

H3llR4iser

CastorTroy wrote: »

Unfair enemy advantages. By this, I mean enemies being able to see you despite you not being able to see them. Once again, the one level that really annoyed me in Uncharted 3 was at the end of the desert where there were loads of enemies with guns, grenade launchers and sniper rifles in a sand cloud where everyone was able to shoot me with perfect aim but I could only make out 1 or 2 of them at a time.

Ohhh, you should play the original X-Com from 1993. Full squad wipeouts before you could even see an alien were not exactly uncommon...and you wouldn't dare going on a night time mission, that equated to sending your soldiers to the meat grinder

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I completely agree on this with Bethesda rpgs. This was one of the biggest reason I just did not played oblivion. Hey look, bandits are now wearing all this beasty awesome armour, because I leveled up my jumping...

Wasn't always like this, it did actually start with Oblivion AFAIK; Older ones up until Morrowind had static enemies which resulted in a very interesting "no go areas" scenario until you were decently leveled up. Now, if TES3 didn't have that "You missed. You missed. You missed. You missed." combat system...

And Cliff racers.

lawlolawl wrote: »

Finished it last night anyway. Saw all the game had to offer by the halfway point and just wanted it to be over by the last third.

Not a bad game but there's only so many times you can find a room full of monsters entertaining.

Pfft...tell that to 1994 me, nothing more entertaining that coming back from school, firing up (eventually literally, as a capacitor in the PSU gave out with a bang) the trusty 486DX, type CD DOOM<enter> DOOM<enter> and listen to the MIDI sountrack "blasting" through the 0.05W AA battery powered speakers, while Imp after Imp fell victim of my rocket launcher

um7y1h83ge06nx

Dcully wrote: »

Modern gaming in general with their almost 100% hold your hand type gameplay, i really hate this BS that seemed to start with console games.

bigphil2

"Press E to Mark Respect"

Just F*ck Off yeah?

lawlolawl

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Pfft...tell that to 1994 me, nothing more entertaining that coming back from school, firing up (eventually literally, as a capacitor in the PSU gave out with a bang) the trusty 486DX, type CD DOOM<enter> DOOM<enter> and listen to the MIDI sountrack "blasting" through the 0.05W AA battery powered speakers, while Imp after Imp fell victim of my rocket launcher

The original Doom had interesting level design and wasn't just corridor - monster arena - corridor - monster arena over and over.

pumpkin4life

lawlolawl wrote: »

The original Doom had interesting level design and wasn't just corridor - monster arena - corridor - monster arena over and over.

Another great thing about the original Doom: Incredibly balanced choice of weapons which all had their strengths/weaknesses depending on where/what you were up against. On the harder difficulties, you had to be good at this to survive lol.

For most modern shooters its basically machine gun all the way.

Retr0gamer

^ This

Every gun is exactly the same other than different stats. They differ in accuracy and damage. That's it. Remember games like Shadow Warrior and Half Life where guns were bizarre and crazy with a variety of uses? How many machine guns do you really need?

SirLemonhead

Retr0gamer wrote: »

^ This

Every gun is exactly the same other than different stats. They differ in accuracy and damage. That's it. Remember games like Shadow Warrior and Half Life where guns were bizarre and crazy with a variety of uses? How many machine guns do you really need?

The BFG is very unique... http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=113150999

H3llR4iser

lawlolawl wrote: »

The original Doom had interesting level design and wasn't just corridor - monster arena - corridor - monster arena over and over.

True that - I still remember the sound of the "elevator platforms" and the "where the f@ck is that, I want to get up there" effect it had when you heard one in the distance

Not to mention the jumpscare of the very first pink Demon you met...if I recall correctly it sat right behind a door / moveable wall and was in your face as soon as you opened it!

SeantheMan

SirLemonhead wrote: »

The BFG is very unique... http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=113150999

I had no idea...

Turtyturd

Levels/segments where you're being chased/have to outrun something. The obstacles blocking your path are always a pain in the hole but not in the way they designers intended and almost always due to clunky controls and bad interaction between them and your character.