Remove a Game Mechanic from Existence

[DaJoW]

Friendly AI who have an IQ of -1000 like they do in basically every game ever made that has a team of you and 3 other guys.

Without bad AI, you'll never get good AI. Some companies are better at it than others, and you can be sure they won't share that knowledge.

Combat. No seriously, not permanantly, but I'd love to see gaming survive for, say, a year, without combat. Writing would get better in an instant.

You're more likely to see the death of a number of studios and quite possibly a big decline in the medium itself.

OT: Junk items from RPGs and MMOs. Serve no purpose other than to fill inventory space. I'd prefer it if mobs dropped nothing over a useless cracked tooth worth absolutely nothing. Not really a mechanic, but I still hate it.

 

[Weslebear]

I would keep regenerating health, many situations where it works just fine. And you know what, I think they are less situations where scavenging for health packs works in my opinion. Very few games make that fun.

As for the mechanic I would get rid of, protection/escort quests. I am fine with running around helping an NPC, but when I fail a 30minute mission on Guild Wars because the NPC guy attempted to tank about 15 enemies while I was already busy killing the rest is just unfair. I would be fine with it if I could at least control the NPC so I could help then avoid shit like this, or just make it so they can't die and it's just my team trying to survive.

 

[Yosato]

Quick time events for me - I've never enjoyed them and it's sometimes more interesting to see what happens if you fail (There were some funny wipeouts in Spiderman 3), but then after a few laughs I realise it's not worth doing the whole thing again

 

[xsoenx]

bosses fights that is not really a boss (like end boss of Duke Nukem Forever) i want old-school bosses like Crash bandicoot and Rayman

 

[Stilkon]

Escort missions. They're tedious, overused, and none of them has ever been fun for me.

 

[CaptainTrilby]

I want to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand but social media integration in video games. I don't want a constant stream of 'Player X got Achievement/Trophy Y!' everytime I log into Facebook/Twitter etc.

Games with tacked on morality systems annoy me as well, where they serve no purpose besides giving you an extra move or skill and maybe a different ending. It is a way of artificially padding out a game by making you play multiple times to fully complete it. Plus, the choices are so clear cut, you have to be Nazi Devil Stalin or Super Altruism Man and there is no middle ground.

Games with bosses that follow you round until you can beat them. I'm looking at you, Pikmin 2. It just completely destroys the pace at which you play, by making you drop whatever you were doing and run away until you can beat them.

 

[Nexus4]

QTEs unless the game uses it as the key method of interaction, ie Heavy Rain, when the focus is on things other than gameplay. Seeing it in FPS's is particularly jarring. I get that they want to show off their cinematic flair, but it is very out of place in a shooter. My suggestion would be perhaps to use an on-rails sequence instead, as it allows the devs to show off their artistry without kicking the player out of the core shooting mechanics. For example, check out the restaurant scene of The Darkness 2 when it comes out.

 

[Folksoul]

Forced stealth/escort sections in a game not specializing in either.
Cover based shooting.
Pointless Sandboxes.
Combat being the entirety of gameplay.

What needs to be in more AAA titles.
Platforming
Puzzles beyond "How do I kill [X]?"
Colour pallets beyond brown, black, and blood.

 

[BSCCollateral]

Invisible Walls. Please, there's nothing that pulls me out of a game faster than running into one of these. Toss in a canyon if you must.

Inconsistent terrain. Okay, I understand that the computer sees the world as ones and zeros, and you need to establish places you can't go. But here, a foolish consistency is the way to go. Establish rules, even silly rules, and I'll follow 'em. You say I can only walk through red doors? Fine, I'm happy with that. But then don't screw things up by changing the rules.

3-D platforming without camera control. I'm looking at a 2D projection of a 3D environments, and I can't see how far away that next platform is. Sidescrolling platformers work because, duh, you can see how far the jump is.

1st Person Platforming. Not only can I not see how far the jump is, but I can't see my feet.

 

[Vault Citizen]

I'm torn bewtween QTE and a two gun limit.

 

[Compatriot Block]

Many many people have stated why regenerating health is better for design and difficulty, so that's not gonna ever go away.

I'd choose stunning from MMORPGs. Nothing like literally being unable to fight back.

Except all those reasons why regenerating health is good are bullshit. It is added because developers can't be arsed to add health kits or medic stations in levels.

Not really. If you take an unlucky shot to the face at the start of the level and are left with only a sliver of health, almost any fight you're in becomes insanely hard, and developers can't predict it. Regenerating health means they can tune the difficulty for every fight just as they want, rather than having to worry about the chance that a player is extremely hurt.

And if they add enough health packs to make sure that you don't go into a fight extremely hurt, then that's not all that different from regenerating health. It just means more time spent combing levels.

 

[UltraDeth]

Please don't remove regenerating health, but to Hell with 2 weapon system

 

[loc978]

Fast-regen health is a plague infecting modern shooters, as far as I'm concerned. Give me a health bar with health packs or a first aid button any day.
The only regenerating health system I could stand in a shooter recently was in Mass Effect. The first one. Shield regen I get, and items that cause slow health regen, those I get too.

 

[w00tage]

The holy trinity of tank, healer and dps. It was never like that in original RPGs because you couldn't heal in combat, only afterwards, and it was a "touch" effect - no range. So EVERYONE fought and healed / bandaged afterwards, which is how it should be.

But Everquest (I believe) started the healing in combat thing and made up the "aggro" mechanic to enable it, and RPGs have been broken ever since.

 

[supermariner]

ONLINE ACHIEVEMENTS
fucking online achievements make me cross goshdarnit

first of all game developers, don't make your achievements so online heavy so that its only possible to get 50% of them without playing online
I'M LOOKING AT YOUR LEFT 4 DEAD!

second of all, don't add in a tiny amount of trivial and unimportant (yet online) achievements and then give them an uneccessary amount of gamerscore attached. so i can have 45 achievements out of 50 and still only have 700 of the 1000 G

god i hate them

 

[Count Igor]

Massive kill quests.
If they're funny, unique or interesting, then fine. (like dropping bombs or using a giant cannon or flying on a dragon) But just "Killing 12 things" is so. Damned. Annoying. >.<

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Moral choice systems that are black and white like Mass Effect or Fable and penalize you if you arent shiny or diablolical. It all just seems so pointless.

Fallout 3 and Vegas are better with a more morally grey tone. Oblivions karma system is nice too so I can be a rascally theif/merc but not an utter psycho if I please.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Wave gameplay. You know, when you just sit there and fight wave. After wave. After wave. Of enemies, constantly. It's boring, breaks immersion unless done REALLY well, and makes me hate games. Looking at you, Uncharted. UGH.

Ever play Drakenguard? It was pretty grindy with the wave after wave of enemies(I don't think they respawned though) but for whatever reason, I didn't mind it. It was pretty cool taking out entire armies with your one guy.

 

[Fozza]

Forced stealth sections in action games.

Haha. Especially when the stealth-system doesn't work x)

Otherwise Health-regen is pretty lame in some cases. Though in ME2 I thought it was good. I also hate sections in games where infinite enemies spawn until you've "done the right thing".