Gaming Mechanic you hate the most!!!!

[Lightning Delight]

Well I don't really hate QTEs but a game that only uses them occasionally is annoying. You're not looking for a QTE so by the time you see it you're like huh? what? I mean would it be so hard to show a little pop up in the corner that says QTE scene so I'm not eating or drinking or something when a QTE suddenly happens!?

That actually happened to me once. I was in mid swig when the "Press X to not die" button appeared. Not wanting to re-watch the first 5 minutes of the cut-scene, I scrambled for the controller and spilled diet Dr. Pepper all over my couch. I got the QTE, though.

OP: I would have to agree with QTE's. Not only because they are annoying and kinda lame, but because of what they do to boss fights. I was finishing Mercenaries 2, and I was expecting a huge gunfight with loads of baddies, choppers, and tanks as a final boss fight. But when I cracked Solano's bunker, the only things there were two bad guys and a chopper, still on the ground. When I ran up to the chopper, it initiated a 5 button QTE that apparently was the boss fight. I was pissed. It had so much promise, and then it used the laziest and cheapest way out of having an actual boss fight.

 

[Xannieros]

Games show you the way you need to go, like in Prince of Persia games. They show you the complete path, and you don't really even solve any puzzles or explore.

 

[TheDooD]

Rechargeable shields and/or regenerating health, nothing drives me crazy like having an enemy that's almost run away and come back with full health. With every game having it these days, it starts feeling like less of a feature and more of a delaying tactic to make the game longer.

Shoot I thought it was a way so they didn't have to create a HUD for health and or armor.

Also I agree with everything that TheMadTypist said

 

[GartarkMusik]

Fucking Karma Meter, Paragon/Renegade Bar, every other moral allignment thing
They are so stupid. I don't need this. They serve no purpose except to make you play the game more than one way. Except they force you to play it either good or bad and thats no fun.
Also, they have video game logic with them. Like in Fallout 3 I hated doing the evil option because it was always kill a kitty morally black evil. So what I did to get the achievements was I stole all I could and still went with the good choices for most of the major ones like with the slaves. And Three-Dog would still greet me as the horror of the wastes. But yeah they need to get rid of that or fix it somehow.

You know, I thought Mass Effect actually got pretty close with it. You can be Paragon for some things and Renegade for others, depending on what you wanna do. My interpretation was a mostly Paragon character who wasn't afraid to break the rules when it had to be done.

Moral CHOICES, on the other hand, are a totally different story.......

 

[pspman45]

shitty stealth missions, thats right Uncharted 2 I'm calling you out!!

and lengthy finisher sequences, it's fine in a 1v1 fighting game, because then you get to turn to your friend and laugh as his character is horribly mutilated, but in something like Dante's Inferno the sequences get old very quickly

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Unrealistic time limits: I don't mind a little bit of rush to do a small thing in a game, but when they want you to do something immediately that you NEED to do to advance to the next stage in a very limited space of time - I get pretty damn flustered. Alice: Madness Returns is a good example of that right now. The Card Bridge is so far the worst. But then again, when I do manage to beat it after trying a few times, I get an immense feeling of satisfaction. "I did it!" I yell happily. But I'll keep this here anyway.

Quick time events: Alright now, that's enough.

Escort quests with terrible A.I.:

 

[GartarkMusik]

Escort missions. I have yet to think of one escort mission in a game that I considered fun. Oh wait, there aren't any!

Oh, and stealth missions in non-stealth games. They're not stealth games for a reason, people!

 

[psicat]

I love these threads.

Regenerative health and 2 weapon limit. I always say the same thing every time.

I somewhat hate these threads because everyone complains about these and I don't mind them. I hate having to hunt down and stack up on health packs, etc. and I never really use more than 2 weapons usually so who cares. Just give me my favorite combo of an assault rifle and shotgun, or siper rifle and sub machine guns and I'm happy. Besides it somewhat kills the challenge when you can carry a complete arsenal on you.

 

[ultrachicken]

Games that don't allow manual saves at any point. Far Cry 2 is the worst offender. Save points were so far out of the way that it was just a giant pain in the ass to deal with them.

No/little autosaving. We have the technology to do this, why can't some developers realize that this is a necessary component?

 

[Ticonderoga77]

Having to micromanage every single solitary aspect of your party members' armor.

Honest to whatever god exists... why the hell do I, the hero of this motherfucking story, keep enlisting the aid of individuals too super stupid to dress themselves?

But that raises an even bigger question, who was dressing them before me?

 

[ArmyHelmetDog]

I don't know if this is really a game mechanic, but grind. I can never get into mmorpgs because having to kill the same enemy fifty times, then having to kill a palette swap one hundred times to be able to kill the boss monster and frustrates me.

Another mechanic I despise is nearly the opposite of level grinding; level scaling. I despise how I can start up a new game in Oblivion and even if I go through a huge dungeon, the only enemies I'll ever face are rats and the only loot I'll get is a cruddy sword that breaks in three hits and two lock picks. Later in the game, the only enemies I'll fight are telekinetic supersoldiers and gods and the only things I'll find are "rare" swords and ancient and mystical armor.

 

[tooWhite2ball]

Unskippable Tutorials, especially on games that actually have replay value.

 

[Krinku]

ESCORT MISSIONS( FRIKKIN DON'T BE USELESS OR I'MA KILL YOU MYSELF) EG. Dead Rising. Oh you know what I'm talking about.

 

[Ice Car]

Time limits.... I do not work well under pressure. (Note: Turn limits, like in some turn based strategy games, I've had a more changeable relationship with... I'll let them slid...)

Wait, was that the kind of thing you were talking about?

I can go along with that. Games where there is a time limit through out the whole thing (Majora's Mask, Pikmin) piss me off because then it becomes almost a dangerous chore for me. Like when your dad tells you "I'm going to the store. I want this room cleaned by the time I get back." That's pressure enough with the knowledge your bum might become a little more tender if you don't get it done in time. Imagine the fate of an entire civilization on your head. Eeek.

Oh, and escort missions can F&%@$ right off!

Pikmin is a better example of that. To be fair, Majora's Mask gives you an option to set back the time limit whenever you want and gives you more time. If anything it is a minor inconvenience, it would only be stressful if there was no way to set back the clock.

Pikmin is different. Sure, it gives you a wealthy amount of time compared to Majora's Mask, but it gives you no option to turn back the time and often times you stress out because of the possibility that you took too long to do "x" mission or "y" task.

 

[Angry Camel]

Escort missions, depending on the A.I. The civilians in Dead Rising were a nightmare. The escort mission at the end of Bioshock was the worst bit for me. Also, huge traveling sequences to extend gameplay.

Just remembered, flying in GTA games. So irritating, particularly in San Andreas when you had to maintain a low altitude from one corner of the map to the other.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Quick motherfucking Time Events, and no they cannot be done right, because if you did it right that shit would be Gameplay!
QTE's are done by the intern who hasnt heard of programming before, it's simply lazy ass bullshit.

Button mashing, yet again a display of how low a developer can go

Insta-regen, gameplay without consequence, really realistic that...
Let's make standing in a corner and not playing the game a core mechanic to gameplay.

 

[Ironman126]

Completely Regenerating Health, because while having a layer of protection you can rely on when you're on your last legs is great, but cowering behind a corner for a few seconds to make it like you were never clumsy enough to get hit in the first place is terrible. It usually breaks the pace of the game, it breaks immersion (for me, although I can see an argument going the other way), and usually means that developers will compensate the reduced difficulty of health management by giving you hardly any health (which results in EVEN MORE FREQUENT hiding until the mortal wound fades away).

This mostly.

Maybe that's why i loved the Bad Company 2 multiplayer so much. Tactics and a surprisingly good health system. For those who haven't played it (please come out from under the rock where you live), it is a strange combination of regenerating health and health bars. You get hit, the screen turns red and bloody and eventually gets somewhat better, depending on how much you got hit, but your health stays pretty much the same. All taking cover does is give you a chance to wipe the blood from your eyes. No magic restoration, unless a health kit is nearby, naturally.

And i guess i dislike QTEs as well, but only when they are misplaced. Some aren't bad, tho. Example 1: I found the QTEs in Metro 2033 to be reasonable, as they made me use the "Activate" key to grab ledges and what not, like i normally would. Example 2: In Mass Effect 2, the "Paragon/Renegade Action" pop-ups worked well, i thought, because they didn't have any major consequences and served only to make the game more interesting at times.

 

[Saulkar]

I'm pretty much just parroting everyone here, but:

Time Limits, these are usually there just to make me scream incoherently, and even when I can succeed at the mission/event in question, I don't enjoy it because I spend the entire time worrying about how much time is left on the clock, even if I have a significant lead.

Quick Time Events, when poorly implemented. I can see a quick time event working well when it's an optional thing that the PLAYER can initiate, but popping these into cutscenes or making it a frequent, environment-initiated and required part of gameplay turns them into diabolical engines of frustration.

Completely Regenerating Health, because while having a layer of protection you can rely on when you're on your last legs is great, but cowering behind a corner for a few seconds to make it like you were never clumsy enough to get hit in the first place is terrible. It usually breaks the pace of the game, it breaks immersion (for me, although I can see an argument going the other way), and usually means that developers will compensate the reduced difficulty of health management by giving you hardly any health (which results in EVEN MORE FREQUENT hiding until the mortal wound fades away).

Singleplayer Weapon Limits, seriously. I'd rather developers let me deal with the presented situations with all the tools I've encountered up to that point, not just the ones they think I'll need to get to the next segment.

Checkpoints without Quicksave Options, although I understand the useful nature of the autosave, preventing me from saving progress between checkpoints is incredibly frustrating, especially over the more difficult segments. It also discourages me from trying new/risky things, which often results using the same tactics over and over, not necessarily because I enjoy them but because I feel like I'm being punished for trying anything else.

Idiot RTS Campaign AI, because it feels silly if my opponent never builds any more units than the buildings/army it starts with and just stands there until I move into sight.

Mind if I copy and paste this because you covered everything I wanted to say just perfectly?!

 

[minimacker]

Iron sights.

While they can be a good addition, I feel theres a lot of games that don't do them very well.

Ninja'd at the second reply. I guess I'm not the only one, eh?

 

[blizzaradragon]

Oh this one is easy: Regenerating health.

Here's why: it makes no sense, especially in the games claiming to be "realistic"; it takes away challenge in a game; it makes every character seem like a fridge with legs since they can take BULLETS TO THE FACE then hide behind a rock for 20 seconds and be good as new; depending on the game it can break the immersion (for me its like that with CoD or DNF, but not Halo cause its more futuristic and MC has super armor of win). There are probably other things but my brain has a dumb right now so I'll just leave it at that.

BRING BACK THE DAYS OF HEALTH BARS AND MED KITS!