Mechanics in games that should just die.

B

BidetoftheDead

Well-known member
Mechanics, they're good and bad, let's focus on the bad.

What mechanics in games would you personally like to see become a niche or just get sent to the grave.

For me it would be useless skills and board skills in games. For instance take Fallout New Vegas, you have a lot of broad categories. For instance you put perks into science and use it all for computers, why is my character suddenly a physicist, chemist and engineer expert that can fix a generator or make observations on things they have no experience with or "guns" my character is using nothing but assault weapons but I'm a master at revolvers because ???

 
why is my character suddenly a physicist, chemist and engineer expert that can fix a generator or make observations on things they have no experience with
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The Science skill determines the character's understanding of physics, chemistry and software engineering because guess what. They're all considered a part of science. Would you rather have a separate skill for rocket science, chemistry, physics, software engineering, Astrophysics, quantum physics, string theory, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, ect...?

I certainly don't and neither would you as they would start falling under "useless skills" due to being so many of them.

The Repair skill is what determines how well the character can fix something due to their knowledge of complex machinery. It's less about understanding the science behind how a machine works but rather knowing how the parts that make the machine work go together.

my character is using nothing but assault weapons but I'm a master at revolvers because ???
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Because all firearms work on the same basic principle of: load cartridge, cock the hammer/firing pin, aim, shoot. The only major difference between a rifle and a revolver in operation is how you load it and ready it and even then those are simple and easy to learn.

assault weapons
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Stop using made up terms.

As for a mechanic in games I would love to see die is: free aim/aiming deadzone. If any of you have played Red Orchestra 2 or Insurgency you may already know what this is. For those who don't know it's a mechanic where the player's view does not move until the view model of the weapon reaches a certain point on the screen. This causes the problem of where the player's shots will no longer go towards the center of the screen due to shots following the barrel.

Anyone who has been in the military knows that you don't do this, you always keep your firearm pointing in front of you ready to fire at a moments notice when in a combat environment. This also applies to a video game environment since if you're rifle isn't at-the-ready for when an enemy comes around the corner to your right, and your gun is pointing to your left because of a stupid mechanic, you're more than likely going to die. The biggest irony about it is that it's most present in games trying to portray themselves as "realistic" or "authentic".

 
Mechanics, they're good and bad, let's focus on the bad.
What mechanics in games would you personally like to see become a niche or just get sent to the grave.

For me it would be useless skills and board skills in games. For instance take Fallout New Vegas, you have a lot of broad categories. For instance you put perks into science and use it all for computers, why is my character suddenly a physicist, chemist and engineer expert that can fix a generator or make observations on things they have no experience with or "guns" my character is using nothing but assault weapons but I'm a master at revolvers because ???
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This is honestly one way in which I kinda preferred the skill system in Fallout 4. Because of its perk based nature, and since there were 70 different perk varieties, you could reasonably vary your skill set. The only problem there was that these only affected immediate game-play abilities, but not much in terms of character development. This was rectified a bit in Far Harbour, which showed how this system could be used more effectively than the previous skill system, but it was a bit too little too late.

why is my character suddenly a physicist, chemist and engineer expert that can fix a generator or make observations on things they have no experience with
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The Science skill determines the character's understanding of physics, chemistry and software engineering because guess what. They're all considered a part of science. Would you rather have a separate skill for rocket science, chemistry, physics, software engineering, Astrophysics, quantum physics, string theory, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, ect...?

I certainly don't and neither would you as they would start falling under "useless skills" due to being so many of them.
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But most people in the sciences really don't have a full understanding of all of science. For instance, I'm an electrical engineer with a masters focusing in electromagnetics. I couldn't "hack" a computer or whatever if my life depended on it. I mean, granted, I see what you mean about it becoming cumbersome to be too specific, but a little more variety isn't too bad. Sort of like how F4 has these things spread among the Hacker, Science!, Chemist, Robotics Expert, and Nuclear Physicist perks, all with their own gameplay specific benefits (making them each useful in their own way). Now, if these could be called upon individually as skill checks (for instance, Nuclear Physicist 2 or Science! 4 to fix a reactor or something), it would probably work really well, and allow you to better define your character.

 
I'm sick and tired of unskippable cutscenes, and 'press X a lot of times really fast to keep from being eaten' mechanics.

First, cutscenes... I know they're usually an integral part of the storyline, but I don't want to sit through the same hour or more of cutscenes I've already got memorized...

Now the other... It needs to die a horrible death. It's on-par with unskippable cutscenes, but it also requires interaction to make sure you're still paying attention to the unskippable cutscene. (so you can't just go get a coffee or sandwich in the meantime, you have to sit there doing effectively nothing)

 
unskippable cutscenes are bad, but unskippable cutscenes RIGHT after savepoint? those need to burn. Especially if boss is tough to beat- even 2 second scene is annoying in that case.

crafting for crafting sakes. Now, crafting itself isnt bad thing if done properly, but most of the time it is just ridicolously bad. Whats worse is that in too many games you just have to craft to get anything useful (im looking at you, far cry). And so many games have crafting shoved into them because people like crafting, but devs dont know how it would fit the game.

Lengthy tutorials. Ok, i get that you may need some info, but there are better ways than acting like player is idiot (FC3, looking at you again). And really, REALLY annoying when you start game again.

 
unskippable cutscenes are bad, but unskippable cutscenes RIGHT after savepoint? those need to burn. Especially if boss is tough to beat- even 2 second scene is annoying in that case.
crafting for crafting sakes. Now, crafting itself isnt bad thing if done properly, but most of the time it is just ridicolously bad. Whats worse is that in too many games you just have to craft to get anything useful (im looking at you, far cry). And so many games have crafting shoved into them because people like crafting, but devs dont know how it would fit the game.

Lengthy tutorials. Ok, i get that you may need some info, but there are better ways than acting like player is idiot (FC3, looking at you again). And really, REALLY annoying when you start game again.
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Regarding Far Cry 3: are you talking about the original, or the Blood Dragon?

 
original. Blood dragon was more ok, as it had that tongue-in-cheek attitude about it (like, seriously, i cracked up with movement tutorial)

 
Isn't this just a slightly more specific version of the "pet peeves" thread? I'm not complaining, sorry... (o_o)

I've never like automated context-sensitive jumping, i.e. the kind that requires a specific placement of the player which results in an activation of a jumping animation, assuming it's a straight 3D adventure game and not some interactive narrative type title like Until Dawn or Fahrenheit. I don't mind this kind of movement activation if it's pull off some special gory kill move in the style of the God Of War games, but I still prefer being able to jump and attack freely in platformers.

 
original. Blood dragon was more ok, as it had that tongue-in-cheek attitude about it (like, seriously, i cracked up with movement tutorial)
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Okay, I watched the beginning of Far Cry 3. And I can see and understand what you mean.

And now that you mentioned lengthy tutorials: Borderlands 2 is pretty guilty of this, and I consider the entire Liar's Berg as a tutorial section, up to and until the battle with Captain Flynt (opinions may differ on this). First Borderlands and the Pre-Sequel handled the tutorials much better, IMO.

OT: Ludicrous placement of save points. I don't like when they're placed way too far in between them, and when there are too few of them (I heard about one Yu-Gi-Oh game where there is only ONE save point). And also I hate when they're placed in such places that make progressing more of a hassle than before. Or worse: make you lose as soon as you loaded the save. "Loading... Done! WHOOPS! You fell into lava, because the save point was on top of the crumbling platform! Loading..."

 
Fast Travel should go die in a fucking hole. It's in my face and it ruins my immersion. Having Fast Travel is not an excuse for barren open world maps. There's got to be stuff in between where you currently are and where your heading too. I know you want talk about how big your map is but if it's empty then it's not a very impressive map now is it? Maybe you should scale down your map so that it isn't so hollow. Oh but who am I kidding? Open world games have been nothing but map size waving contests for years. It doesn't matter how big your map is it's how much stuff in your game that matters. I'll take small maps full of stuff over gigantic maps with nothing in them thank you very much.

 
As someone with heavy ADHD and intense problems with Executive Dysfunction, I'm strongly opposed to removing fast travel. If I have to travel back and forth long distances repeatedly then it doesn't matter how good or fun the game is, I AM going to put it down. Reckless fast travel is one thing. Forcing the player to make a trip a million times because of the potential to break immersion is just bad design. Instead of forcing people to take fast travel out, just don't use it.

 
As someone with heavy ADHD and intense problems with Executive Dysfunction, I'm strongly opposed to removing fast travel. If I have to travel back and forth long distances repeatedly then it doesn't matter how good or fun the game is, I AM going to put it down. Reckless fast travel is one thing. Forcing the player to make a trip a million times because of the potential to break immersion is just bad design. Instead of forcing people to take fast travel out, just don't use it.
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Then developers should include an option to turn it off in the options menu. I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't completely your face with no way of turning off outside of cheats or modding it out. Witcher 3 doesn't even have mods to remove the damn signposts. It's obnoxious and developers put it in without considering how immersion-breaking it can be.

Also Open World Design and Fast Travel do not compliment each other. Neither systems' strengths are used to their fullest. For instance Open World Design's strengths are length and immersion whereas Fast Travel's strength's are being instantaneous and convenient. Utilize both systems in your game and they wind up compromising/countering each others' design since both of them come from opposing design philosophies. IMO They don't mesh well together and they would work much better if only one system was being used rather than awkwardly combining the two.

I was probably a bit too harsh with wanting to ditch Fast Travel entirely as I prefer a pure open world. As I said Fast Travel has it's strengths. But utilizing both a Fast Travel System and an Open World Design in the same game is just counter-intuitive.

 
uh, what? What game forces you to use fast travel (well, at least excluding going to DLC/off-map in general)? And how it is counter-intuitive to one another? I mean lets take 2 open-world staples here: fallout & elder scrolls. Both have large open worlds, with lots to see & do in. Like seriously- if you want, there are mods that make it even more full (still, remember that devs make games so that widest possible audience can enjoy it. Speaking hardware-wise, plus in some cases software used to create sets its limits).

And yet, neither forces you to fast travel. Heck, first time i played skyrim i didnt even realise i CAN fast travel until few hours in (used the map, more for seeing possible paths). And i know of people that didnt discover it UNTIL they had already finished it first time around. In fallout games its notified by one-time(!!!) popup. So if you dont want to use it, just dont- you dont have to.

So i really find it odd seeing anyone complain about this

 
uh, what? What game forces you to use fast travel (well, at least excluding going to DLC/off-map in general)? And how it is counter-intuitive to one another?
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Open World Design and Fast Travel don't play to each other's strengths. Open world wesign strength is immersion whereas Fast Travel's is convenience. If you're going to have fast travel why even have an open world in the first place? Why not just make a purely Fast Travel based game if that's what you care about. That way you wouldn't have to worry about the Open World Design. Likewise if you want to do an open world game just do an open World game.

I mean lets take 2 open-world staples here: fallout & elder scrolls. Both have large open worlds, with lots to see & do in. Like seriously- if you want, there are mods that make it even more full (still, remember that devs make games so that widest possible audience can enjoy it. Speaking hardware-wise, plus in some cases software used to create sets its limits).And yet, neither forces you to fast travel. Heck, first time i played skyrim i didnt even realise i CAN fast travel until few hours in (used the map, more for seeing possible paths). And i know of people that didnt discover it UNTIL they had already finished it first time around. In fallout games its notified by one-time(!!!) popup. So if you dont want to use it, just dont- you dont have to.

So i really find it odd seeing anyone complain about this
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Sure you can avoid it to some degree in Bethesda's RPGS. But it still gives you the prompt to fast travel when you hover over a mark. But with the Witcher 3 you have use signposts due to how the game was built. You can't boat from Novigrad to Skellige if you wanted to.

Also how do you know where each town is in Skyrim? Outside of the area you start in you shouldn't know where any other areas are because you haven't been told where they are.

 
but here is where you are wrong: you ARE NOT forced to play either way, so you can use whatever playstyle you want. Also, you miss the thing, where it wouldnt make sense quest markers being placed near eachother, but quest is there. So you may be forced to walk & waste tons of hours on just that to fill the quest. Thats what fast travel prevents, giving you a CHOICE to play that way. Dont want fast travel option in any way? go play arma.

And seriously, fast travel option in map disturbs you when hovering mouse over location? dude, you get disturbed way too easily.

Not to mention you conflict your own statements. You first complain how you are FORCED to fast travel (which is NOT the case), but then you go on to complain about game where you have to discover location first, i.e do it open world style (fallout & Skyrim). Heck, in those games even if you DO know where they are, you still have to TRAVEL there normally before you get to fast travel there.

And its not just Bethesda's open world games where you have fast travel, but you arent forced to use it. Newsflash, bud: both Mafia 2 & GTA (since 3) have fast travel. Assassin's Creed franchise- again, you arent forced to fast travel, but option is there. MGS V. Tomb Raider. Need i go on? All these games are open-world (ok, tomb raider is most debatable), have fast travel but by no means they force you to use that. And all these games have GOOD open world. And good fast travel.

I mean damn, dude, you seriously get annoyed if fast travel is present in game? just, wow.

 
but here is where you are wrong: you ARE NOT forced to play either way, so you can use whatever playstyle you want. Also, you miss the thing, where it wouldnt make sense quest markers being placed near eachother, but quest is there. So you may be forced to walk & waste tons of hours on just that to fill the quest. Thats what fast travel prevents, giving you a CHOICE to play that way. Dont want fast travel option in any way? go play arma.And seriously, fast travel option in map disturbs you when hovering mouse over location? dude, you get disturbed way too easily.
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That CHOISE is what annoys me. As far as I'm concerned I should get CHOISE choice to turn fast travel off in the options menu so it's not in my face. Is that so hard to ask for?

Not to mention you conflict your own statements. You first complain how you are FORCED to fast travel (which is NOT the case), but then you go on to complain about game where you have to discover location first, i.e do it open world style (fallout & Skyrim). Heck, in those games even if you DO know where they are, you still have to TRAVEL there normally before you get to fast travel there.
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Um no I didn't, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I complained about Open World Design. I'm in favor for a purely Open World game over one that awkwardly mashes both a fast travel system with open world design.

I mean damn, dude, you seriously get annoyed if fast travel is present in game? just, wow.
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Look if you like fast travel that's fine and I don't hold it against you. But I have a right to express my mind for any specific feature I dislike. If you have a problem with someone's opinion who isn't imposing it on anyone else then I'm afraid I can't help you. I even said getting rid of Fast Travel entirely was far too harsh as it has it's own strengths as does pure open world design. I just don't think they should be occupying the space and should be their separate individual system.

 
That CHOISE is what annoys me. As far as I'm concerned I should get CHOISE choice to turn fast travel off in the options menu so it's not in my face. Is that so hard to ask for?
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That's the "lets assume players aren't drooling abhuman imbeciles and actually give them a multitudinous and multidimensional options menu" school of thinking common to the previous decade, that's the OLD way of thinking Helio. Nobody wants to tailor anything to their own tastes anymore. Nobody wants to learn anything. OLD...

;p Basically I agree with you. I personally have no issues with fast-travelling, but that may have something to do with me being a slightly casual second-interest gamer. I'm amazed how spartan the actual content of option menus in games can be these days. I think it's nice to have the option to tinker with the mechanics of a complex and diverse game that warrants it.

 
no offense but how braindead do you have to be to need an OPTION to not use fast travel

the option is literally there, if you want to enjoy the open world you can walk

 
no offense but how braindead do you have to be to need an OPTION to not use fast travelthe option is literally there, if you want to enjoy the open world you can walk
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OT: Regenerating health and two weapon limit. IMO both of these seem like a step backwards.

 
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