Game mechanics you're glad have (virtually) died.

[Dreiko]

Nah, some mechanics are shit like random battles, which literally only ever existed in the 1st place due to hardware limitations. They make the world feel lifeless (you see nothing in the game world) and they disincentivize exploration. Having to go into the options to constantly adjust it like Bravely Default just proves it's a bad mechanic. QTEs are hardly even a mechanic, it's just a game telling you to press buttons at a certain time instead of having normal gameplay flow of the player deducing for themselves what buttons to push and at what time.

Sometimes you wanna go somewhere and not do any fights, sometimes you wanna grind and wanna do fights back to back. In both of those cases having physical enemies out in the overworld running around ready to aggro you is worse than random encounters with a rate control. If you wanna go somewhere you are forced to either fight or somehow avoid all the enemies, and if you wanna grind not only do you have to walk to each enemy's location but once you clear an area you gotta zone in and out of it to get the enemies to respawn and get another fight. Jrpgs have evolved around random encounters so they fit em if they allow you an easy and good way of managing them.

 

[Iron]

QTE’s seem to have faded from the forefront of game design since last gen.

Also, needing to have a dedicated cinematic for stupid crap like opening a door or stealth kills. That last one might still be hanging around more than it should though. It’s disorienting and immersion-breaking.

same.
Taking away your control of the character for opening a door, terrible design, probably an attempt to mask a loading screen (like the elevator in ME).

 

[Ghostrick Dorklord]

There's a lot of stuff I'm glad are long gone from the DS era. Namely stuff related to the microphone like blowing or speaking specific phrases. They have a hard time registering if I'm being honest. I do have mixed feelings about the touch screen because it can be done right like how Pokemon Heartgold/SoulSilver demonstrated but there's times where it just didn't work out either. Touch screen controls still do exist but aren't as prominent as before, at least in video games.

Also seriously what was going on with Kid Icarus Uprising's and Star Fox Zero's control schemes? I'm really hoping that we'll leave the gimmicky controls in the last gen.

 

[Dreiko]

There's a lot of stuff I'm glad are long gone from the DS era. Namely stuff related to the microphone like blowing or speaking specific phrases. They have a hard time registering if I'm being honest. I do have mixed feelings about the touch screen because it can be done right like how Pokemon Heartgold/SoulSilver demonstrated but there's times where it just didn't work out either. Touch screen controls still do exist but aren't as prominent as before, at least in video games.

Also seriously what was going on with Kid Icarus Uprising's and Star Fox Zero's control schemes? I'm really hoping that we'll leave the gimmicky controls in the last gen.

Touch screen implementation in the world ends with us was really revolutionary, same in Project X Zone, but not that many games took advantage of it, they just used it cause it was there and they had to, they just adapted normal controls to the touch screen instead of trying to come up with touch-specific controls. Goes to show the issue with innovating just to innovate. Same thing with the 3DS and having 3D visuals you see without those funny glasses, only time I ever used the thing was in Senran Kagura lol.

 

[Chimpzy]

Sometimes you wanna go somewhere and not do any fights, sometimes you wanna grind and wanna do fights back to back. In both of those cases having physical enemies out in the overworld running around ready to aggro you is worse than random encounters with a rate control. If you wanna go somewhere you are forced to either fight or somehow avoid all the enemies, and if you wanna grind not only do you have to walk to each enemy's location but once you clear an area you gotta zone in and out of it to get the enemies to respawn and get another fight. Jrpgs have evolved around random encounters so they fit em if they allow you an easy and good way of managing them.

Disagree emphatically. None of the issues with overworld enemies you mentioned need to exist if the developer doesn't want them to.

Unavoidable enemies on the overworld? Unless they're gatekeepers for a higher leveled area, that just a dick move that imo makes having overworld enemies more or less pointless, and is bad encounter design. If being able to simply run around them is not enough, provide a means of stunning for easy getaways like in the 3d Personas, perhaps also giving you a minor advantage if you do decide to fight. And/or the game could provide a readily available means of just charging through encounters, like the horse in Dragon Quest XI. Speaking of DQXI, if you're overleveled enough for an area, enemies start running away from you. Earthbound does this too, but goes one step beyond, because at that point touching enemies can mean you just win without even having to fight. Over 25 years ago.

Needing to zone in and out because you cleared an area is also easily avoidable by having enemies just respawn, either over time, or when you've moved far away enough and broke line of sight. If that is not enough, provide a means to repop a zone, kind of like bonfires in the Souls games. The classic Tent item could serve this purpose, perhaps dividing it into two variants, one which heals and repops, and an improved one that simply heals.

Anyway, opinions may vary, but in mine, any decent use of overworld enemies is better than even the best use of random battles. I fight when I want, wherever I want, and usually also whatever specific enemy I want. The only implementation of random battles I actually like is in Cthulhu Saves The World. Encounter rate is lenient, do a certain amount of battles in an area and random encounters stop, and then on you can simply start a battle whenever you want from the menu (well technically, you could do this from the start).

 

[Dreiko]

Disagree emphatically. None of the issues with overworld enemies you mentioned need to exist if the developer doesn't want them to.

Unavoidable enemies on the overworld? Unless they're gatekeepers for a higher leveled area, that just a dick move that imo makes having overworld enemies more or less pointless, and is bad encounter design. If being able to simply run around them is not enough, provide a means of stunning for easy getaways like in the 3d Personas, perhaps also giving you a minor advantage if you do decide to fight. And/or the game could provide a readily available means of just charging through encounters, like the horse in Dragon Quest XI. Speaking of DQXI, if you're overleveled enough for an area, enemies start running away from you. Earthbound does this too, but goes one step beyond, because at that point touching enemies can mean you just win without even having to fight. Over 25 years ago.

Needing to zone in and out because you cleared an area is also easily avoidable by having enemies just respawn, either over time, or when you've moved far away enough and broke line of sight. If that is not enough, provide a means to repop a zone, kind of like bonfires in the Souls games. The classic Tent item could serve this purpose, perhaps dividing it into two variants, one which heals and repops, and an improved one that simply heals.

Anyway, opinions may vary, but in mine, any decent use of overworld enemies is better than even the best use of random battles. I fight when I want, wherever I want, and usually also whatever specific enemy I want. The only implementation of random battles I actually like is in Cthulhu Saves The World. Encounter rate is lenient, do a certain amount of battles in an area and random encounters stop, and then on you can simply start a battle whenever you want from the menu (well technically, you could do this from the start).

I just see the whole thing of trying to engage the enemy in the overworld and trying to score a first attack by hiding behind it and all that stuff as waste time and busywork cause there's no challenge to it. It's faster to just have skill which do that behind the scenes and skip the whole shebang.

DQXI has a skill which just summons a fight into you by completely bypassing the overworld enemies (I think it's Whistle) and has a skill which makes enemies not aggro you and I think you can walk through them if they don't just run away completely, so it's kinda best of both worlds which is just the normal random encounter null spell that you saw in old DQ games that still had random encounters, so it's kinda having its cake and eating it too. It was my game of the year for a reason after all .

 

[Chimpzy]

I just see the whole thing of trying to engage the enemy in the overworld and trying to score a first attack by hiding behind it and all that stuff as waste time and busywork cause there's no challenge to it. It's faster to just have skill which do that behind the scenes and skip the whole shebang.

It's really more about having options than providing challenge. Attack (from any angle) an enemy on the overworld to stun. Now you have a choice. Continue on, or fight. If the latter, perhaps grant a small advantage like guaranteed first strike. Perhaps go one step further. Maybe starting a fight with a stunned enemy starts a regular fight, but this can be modified with certain equipment or skills for some initial damage, or first turn, or a buff/debuff. Don't want any of that? Just run into the enemy regularly.

DQXI has a skill which just summons a fight into you by completely bypassing the overworld enemies (I think it's Whistle) and has a skill which makes enemies not aggro you and I think you can walk through them if they don't just run away completely, so it's kinda best of both worlds which is just the normal random encounter null spell that you saw in old DQ games that still had random encounters, so it's kinda having its cake and eating it too. It was my game of the year for a reason after all .

Didn't know about Whistle. I mean, pretty sure I have it, just never used it or paid attention to it. So that's what it does. But yes, DQXI provides ample means to fight on your own terms. I feel that despite being such a long game, it respects my time when it comes to its combat. Hence why it's the only DQ I've played where I don't find that a hassle, even tho I'm sure purists are balking at it.

 

[Dreiko]

It's really more about having options than providing challenge. Attack (from any angle) an enemy on the overworld to stun. Now you have a choice. Continue on, or fight. If the latter, perhaps grant a small advantage like guaranteed first strike. Perhaps go one step further. Maybe starting a fight with a stunned enemy starts a regular fight, but this can be modified with certain equipment or skills for some initial damage, or first turn, or a buff/debuff. Don't want any of that? Just run into the enemy regularly.
Didn't know about Whistle. I mean, pretty sure I have it, just never used it or paid attention to it. So that's what it does. But yes, DQXI provides ample means to fight on your own terms. I feel that despite being such a long game, it respects my time when it comes to its combat. Hence why it's the only DQ I've played where I don't find that a hassle, even tho I'm sure purists are balking at it.

See, it feels bad to avoid getting every benefit you can by not engaging in sneak attacks, meanwhile doing so delays things. It's why I prefer mementos in p5 as opposed to the dungeons, since in those you literally just hide and teleport from corner to corner rather than traversing them when enemies are around. Fits the themes of the game particularly well but I wouldn't want every game to be like that.

And yeah Whistle is a mainstay of the thief/brute type of character in DQ but ever since they moved away from random encounters in IX it became really necessary for grinding. And nah XI was beloved by everyone, it was a love letter to the older games in the series while still being very unique and very heartfully put together at the same time.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I think the health bars going down too fast is not it's own system, but rather just an example of badly-implemented escort quests, the properly implemented ones being quests where you feel tension and responsibility but it doesn't feel like a chore. I really really love the quests where you have to save the hostages or safeguard noncombatants in ghost of tsushima for example because it makes you wanna play sneaky and it's dishonorable but if you protect your honor and just come out and fight fairly the mongols start killing the hostages so you gotta basically go ham and kill them extremely quickly and in some cases even using dishonorable means, which just really does it thematically for me since I'm playing the game trying not to disappoint my uncle and my bushido. So yeah, that's another thing you definitely can make work.

Ah that why i specify with those words, as there are of course tolerable examples, even Just Cause 4 does them quite well by giving them guns, a generous tank of health and fairly competent AI. Even one time where the AI fuzzled up recently and they wouldn't get in the next car i stole to take us to the next checkpoint after the last was blow to smithereens, instead choosing to run aimlessly towards a bush veiling an invisible wall. After running them over a few times to see if their AI would reset and see sense without any results, i just tethered them to the back of the car with a balloon mod so they hovered above me whilst i dragged their sorry malfunctioning ass to the next checkpoint. And it worked! They snapped out of it and got back to their duties all while a whole military base was firing down upon us. Only in videogames! Or more specifically, only in Just Cause 4. Which sincerely i hope they do some kind of next gen upgrade as it struggles a bit, but there isn't much else like it for toying sandbox funsies.

I still think that one part in the first Metro game towards the end (if you've played it, you know the exact part I'm talking about, with the exploding testicles) is the absolute worst example of that.

Anyway, saving your game as a limited resource. It's hard enough just finding the time to play games these days with life and everything, don't also penalize me for when I do get to play and have to stop, you know?

Oh god, that section has been burnt into long-term memory more than any other Metro moment. Luckily i was far from sober to remain calm enough to carry on at the time, otherwise quitting of the rage would most probably have occured.

Worse being when said Escorts refuse to show any sense of self preservation, and will often blindly run into oncoming enemies rather then wait for you to either signal it's safe to move or hide until you've cleared the path.

RDR2 has slightly annoyed me in this regard during certain missions with Sadie, because while she can protect herself, she's very reckless and dives headlong into combat encounters, meaning she will die from enemy fire if you aren't killing enemies aggressively enough. And yes, I realize it's character justified by her Death Seeker personality, but it makes all of her missions feel like an escort mission of some sort.

Yeah, i do remember that offender. It's especially bad when the game allows and indeed rewards stealth, but the enemies react to your companion who's AI can't quite get to grips with the intricacies of not being a bumbling clumsy asshole. As much as The Last of Us breaks immersion with their invisible stealth companion trick, at least it doesnt screw you over constantly, because you just can't trust an AI with stealth, you just can't. Whereas Far Cry New Dawn's cute lil doggie companion keeps fucking up my perfecf stealth runs, the cuddly idiot. And getting itself killed in the process!

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Sometimes you wanna go somewhere and not do any fights, sometimes you wanna grind and wanna do fights back to back. In both of those cases having physical enemies out in the overworld running around ready to aggro you is worse than random encounters with a rate control. If you wanna go somewhere you are forced to either fight or somehow avoid all the enemies, and if you wanna grind not only do you have to walk to each enemy's location but once you clear an area you gotta zone in and out of it to get the enemies to respawn and get another fight. Jrpgs have evolved around random encounters so they fit em if they allow you an easy and good way of managing them.

You can just do quests that don't require fighting if you don't wanna fight. I'm pretty sure I had 5+ hour stretches playing Divinity 2 without any battles. Why would you ever want to grind? Getting experience is a by-product of fighting, not why you do it. Plus, the strength of the enemies should tuned to your level (or have a method in place to ensure the player is at a certain level for the content) so somebody bee-lining the story can do that or somebody literally doing every single thing shouldn't be overleveled when getting back to the story. Grinding levels is literally just dropping the game a notch in difficulty, which is a standard thing for like every game already. If you're a DM for DnD and your party isn't doing side or optional things, you don't make them kill kobolds for like 2 sessions in a roll to have them grind out levels for the next story quest. How would that be considered engaging content? My DM doesn't even give out experience points in our sessions because it's an unneeded thing for players or the DM to even have to record.

 

[Dreiko]

You can just do quests that don't require fighting if you don't wanna fight. I'm pretty sure I had 5+ hour stretches playing Divinity 2 without any battles. Why would you ever want to grind? Getting experience is a by-product of fighting, not why you do it. Plus, the strength of the enemies should tuned to your level (or have a method in place to ensure the player is at a certain level for the content) so somebody bee-lining the story can do that or somebody literally doing every single thing shouldn't be overleveled when getting back to the story. Grinding levels is literally just dropping the game a notch in difficulty, which is a standard thing for like every game already. If you're a DM for DnD and your party isn't doing side or optional things, you don't make them kill kobolds for like 2 sessions in a roll to have them grind out levels for the next story quest. How would that be considered engaging content? My DM doesn't even give out experience points in our sessions because it's an unneeded thing for players or the DM to even have to record.

No that's not what I mean, sometimes you're doing quests that require traveling from place to place and you don't need to fight but just the traveling sometimes can be bogged down by fights which are not part of the quest.

And no grinding is still very relevant in a lot of games. You're thinking of Wrpgs here and we're talking about Jrpgs. In Jrpgs you usually have endgame content that needs a good chunk of grinding more to beat than the main story stuff which usually doesn't require any grinding. Also a lot of games have a lot of jobs which aren't necessary but you wanna level anyways to unlock cool skill combinations, and those you would grind for too but it wouldn't make you OP to do so.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Also, needing to have a dedicated cinematic for stupid crap like opening a door or stealth kills. That last one might still be hanging around more than it should though. It’s disorienting and immersion-breaking.

Came here to say just that. The cinematics in the Deus Ex reboot were so offputting. Really made you feel like you were playing a game made ages ago.

 

[BrawlMan]

Puzzles in action games like Devil May Cry or God of War. They're even kept more to a minimum/simplified or just plain gone. This started with Bayonetta, but became more noticeable around 2013-2014 with DmC (only having one puzzle throughout the entire game), Bayo2's being even more simple, and with DMC5 having no puzzles period. I don't mind the change, because honestly, got in the way of the action. At it's worst in these type of games was DMC3, 4, & any of the God of Wars. Especially in DMC4, where you can tell the puzzle well was running dry. Lazy reuse of puzzles being complete time wasters. Yes, I am referring to the dice maze. Once you figure out how the gimmick works, it's surprisingly easy, but they should have just done a regular boss rush.

 

[Dalisclock]

Moon Logic Puzzles. Anyone who played adventure games back in the day knows what I'm talking about here but for everyone else, Moon Logic Puzzles are just what they sound like. Puzzles whose solutions don't follow any reasonable train of logic.

Where a normal train of logic would be "I need a key to open a locked door" or maybe "I need a way to force the door open", a moon logic puzzle would be "I need to convince a guard it's night in the middle of the day, so I'm going to find an egg which will give birth to an owl which will then hoot and the guard, being both blind and incredibly stupid(apparently) will kindly open the door for me. Also, there are two eggs but one of them contains a snake that will eat all my health items and there is no way to know which egg is which before picking up one and only one of them".

And if you're wondering, I'm using an actual example from an actual video game.

I noticed the moon logic puzzles seem to have been reduced significantly though I haven't played every adventure game to come out in the last few years.

 

[BrawlMan]

Where a normal train of logic would be "I need a key to open a locked door" or maybe "I need a way to force the door open", a moon logic puzzle would be "I need to convince a guard it's night in the middle of the day, so I'm going to find an egg which will give birth to an owl which will then hoot and the guard, being both blind and incredibly stupid(apparently) will kindly open the door for me. Also, there are two eggs but one of them contains a snake that will eat all my health items and there is no way to know which egg is which before picking up one and only one of them".

And if you're wondering, I'm using an actual example from an actual video game.

Metal Gear 2: Soild Snake (MSX)

 

[Phoenixmgs]

No that's not what I mean, sometimes you're doing quests that require traveling from place to place and you don't need to fight but just the traveling sometimes can be bogged down by fights which are not part of the quest.

And no grinding is still very relevant in a lot of games. You're thinking of Wrpgs here and we're talking about Jrpgs. In Jrpgs you usually have endgame content that needs a good chunk of grinding more to beat than the main story stuff which usually doesn't require any grinding. Also a lot of games have a lot of jobs which aren't necessary but you wanna level anyways to unlock cool skill combinations, and those you would grind for too but it wouldn't make you OP to do so.

If you already traveled to a place, then you already killed the stuff on the way before (that's how good games do that). Grinding is only relevant because of shit game design. It doesn't matter if it's a JRPG or a WRPG. How is endgame content requiring grinding anything but bad game design? Why would you create any game that doesn't respect the player's time? In a JRPG, you're only grinding for endgame content because you don't have the stats to win. You're not grinding to up your own skill level and actually getting better at the game to beat the challenge, you're only grinding to raise arbitrary numbers to be basically allowed to beat the challenge. Again, that job system is a badly designed system, why can't you respec? Say you earned 20 job points through the game so far, why can't you switch jobs and allocate those 20 points from the old job to the new job? It seems like JRPGs need better game design or fucking mods.

Puzzles in action games like DMC or God of War. They're even kept more to a minimum/simplified or just plain gone. This started with Bayonetta 1, but became more noticeable around 2013-2014 with DmC (only having one puzzle throughout the entire game), Bayo2's being even more simple, and with DMC5 having no puzzles period. I don't mind the change, because honestly, got in the way of the action. At it's worst in these type of games was DMC3, 4, & any of the God of Wars. Especially in DMC4, where you can tell the puzzle well was running dry. Lazy reuse of puzzles being complete time wasters. Yes, I am referring to the dice maze. Once you figure out how the gimmick works, it's surprisingly easy, they should have just done a regular boss rush.

It definitely didn't start with Bayonetta because God of War had puzzles that I recall enjoying when I played it way back. The majority of "puzzles" in the new God of War was basically annoyingly look around the environment for pots to throw your axe at. Though God of War is far more of an adventure game than DMC/Bayo where it's juggling different elements because if you only played it for the combat, then what are you doing man.

 

[Dreiko]

If you already traveled to a place, then you already killed the stuff on the way before (that's how good games do that). Grinding is only relevant because of shit game design. It doesn't matter if it's a JRPG or a WRPG. How is endgame content requiring grinding anything but bad game design? Why would you create any game that doesn't respect the player's time? In a JRPG, you're only grinding for endgame content because you don't have the stats to win. You're not grinding to up your own skill level and actually getting better at the game to beat the challenge, you're only grinding to raise arbitrary numbers to be basically allowed to beat the challenge. Again, that job system is a badly designed system, why can't you respec? Say you earned 20 job points through the game so far, why can't you switch jobs and allocate those 20 points from the old job to the new job? It seems like JRPGs need better game design or fucking mods.

That's untrue, in Jrpgs everything you kill respawns either after some time or once you zone even if they don't use random encounters.

And no you have no idea how the superboss type enemies work lol. They often require you to be multiple tens of levels higher than the final boss.

 

[FennecZephyr]

If you already traveled to a place, then you already killed the stuff on the way before (that's how good games do that). Grinding is only relevant because of shit game design. It doesn't matter if it's a JRPG or a WRPG. How is endgame content requiring grinding anything but bad game design? Why would you create any game that doesn't respect the player's time? In a JRPG, you're only grinding for endgame content because you don't have the stats to win. You're not grinding to up your own skill level and actually getting better at the game to beat the challenge, you're only grinding to raise arbitrary numbers to be basically allowed to beat the challenge. Again, that job system is a badly designed system, why can't you respec? Say you earned 20 job points through the game so far, why can't you switch jobs and allocate those 20 points from the old job to the new job? It seems like JRPGs need better game design or fucking mods.

God, we get it, you hate RPGs. Leave the genre alone for the rest of us.

 

[BrawlMan]

It definitely didn't start with Bayonetta because God of War had puzzles that I recall enjoying when I played it way back. The majority of "puzzles" in the new God of War was basically annoyingly look around the environment for pots to throw your axe at.

Well for me it is Bayonetta. God of War has puzzles, but the series as a whole, I never liked a majority of their puzzles. It's why I have a hard time going back to older games. Most are not fun, and bring things to a complete slow crawl too often. I'll give 3 credit for some creative puzzles, but 4 I don't mind. They go by quick, and most do not stay out their welcome.

Though God of War is far more of an adventure game than DMC/Bayo where it's juggling different elements because if you only played it for the combat, then what are you doing man.

You'd be surprised. They are people who only care about the combat, story, and not the puzzles. I've seen and met plenty who don't like puzzles in God of War.

 

[Ghostrick Dorklord]

Moon Logic Puzzles. Anyone who played adventure games back in the day knows what I'm talking about here but for everyone else, Moon Logic Puzzles are just what they sound like. Puzzles whose solutions don't follow any reasonable train of logic.

Where a normal train of logic would be "I need a key to open a locked door" or maybe "I need a way to force the door open", a moon logic puzzle would be "I need to convince a guard it's night in the middle of the day, so I'm going to find an egg which will give birth to an owl which will then hoot and the guard, being both blind and incredibly stupid(apparently) will kindly open the door for me. Also, there are two eggs but one of them contains a snake that will eat all my health items and there is no way to know which egg is which before picking up one and only one of them".

And if you're wondering, I'm using an actual example from an actual video game.

I noticed the moon logic puzzles seem to have been reduced significantly though I haven't played every adventure game to come out in the last few years.

Oh thank you for reminding me those existed. I actually do love point and click adventures and maybe I am a complete dumbass and not get the solution to them but I do know when a game has a bad case of those.

Namely the fact in King's Quest V in order to beat the entire game you need to save a talking mouse from a cat which feels like a complete background event that you would miss it. Said mouse saves you from some drunks who tie Graham in a basement which requires the mouse to chew through the rope. The fact the game is completely unwinnable for this random event just kind of ruins it for me. I feel like most games let you figure out the solution eventually without destroying the game and making you go back and lose a ton of progress. It makes me just want to save after every screen or so.