The most worthless game mechanics/features

[josemlopes]

So basicly shit that devs try to do to innovate in some aspect that ends up being the most useless waste of resources. Things like the blinking button of Alone in the Dark

Or the all high tech physics based smoke of the tires (they even made interviews about it) in Need For Speed Pro Street

Edit: You know, stuff that somehow you know someone thought he had this brilliant idea at 2am while taking a shit in the toilet and managed to convice his coworkers to waste time implementing it.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

2-gun limits in first person shooters have always felt useless to me. It limits how you the player are able to approach enemies, it makes it so that the devs don't have to build up levels outside of making corridors (after all, why make big levels if there's no extra weapons or ammo?) and, it makes weapons like shotguns and rocket launchers seem special. They are sure but they really shouldn't be that special when you're up against an alien hoard or, super Nazi's from the future. Developers did this as a way to imitate Halo when what they SHOULD have done is copy the vehicle-friendly level design and the choice of getting into a vehicle or not.

This isn't a game mechanic at all but a story mechanic: Anthologies are sometimes better than sequels. Silent Hill proved this after all but it seems like developers (or publishers) are afraid of OKing anthologies. Assassin's Creed would have been more compelling in my opinion if Desmond never existed and you were just assassins throughout history. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed completely skull-fucked the plot of the original (in my opinion) by having a direct sequel when it could have had Force Unleashed 2 centered around some other Jedi or Sith Lord at any other point in Star Wars history.

Forced Stealth sections are bullshit but mainly the ones that instantly fail you if you're sighted. The ones that let you fight your way out are slightly less shit.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Pretty much all the mechanics that modern shooters have picked up including regen health, grenade buttons, and melee buttons.

 

[Lictor Face]

Weapon or equipment degradation in any single player RPG game. Honestly, what does it do other than just annoy me at the wrong possible moment.

You're playing by yourself, there is no need for a cash-sink as there is no economy. And if you want me to spend my ingame monies, think of something else rather than something as banal as equipment repair.

Bonus points if you can ONLY repair your stuff at a blacksmith or something.

A prize if that blacksmith so happens to be an area two miles where you currently are.

 

[dyre]

I've always found "investment" minigames to be out of place. They seem to exist exclusively to give the player more money (contrast to crafting, which adds a layer of interest in terms of keeping track of where I can get this or that resource. Also it rewards the player with cool stuff and sometimes makes sense in the setting), and often only start paying off when the player is already swimming in money. And since it's a simple matter of spending money to get more money, there's really no gameplay value. Lastly, if I'm supposed to be The Chosen One destined to save the world, slay dragons, or assassinate Vatican officials, it seems downright strange for me to be using my spare time to pretend to be Donald Trump.

Pretty much all the mechanics that modern shooters have picked up including regen health, grenade buttons, and melee buttons.

Hmm? Love them or hate them, it seems undeniable that these mechanics change the nature of gameplay in shooters in a fundamental way. Personally, after years of having to switch to the knife before meleeing enemies in CS:S, I was ecstatic to see it hotkeyed in newer shooters.

 

[scorptatious]

Tripping in SSBB?

Can't think of any use for that other than to slightly change the flow of a match.

 

[J.V]

The ATM's in GTA IV (and V, but they gain some use in Multiplayer so it's not as bad)
They tell you how much cash you've got when it already states it clearly in the corner of the screen.

 

[Iwata]

The jump button in most FPS games. Why is this even still a thing?

 

[Magix]

The jump button in most FPS games. Why is this even still a thing?

So you can... jump on things? :O

 

[uchytjes]

The jump button in most FPS games. Why is this even still a thing?

Mostly to confuse the enemy, get extra distance when jumping off a ledge, just general things. Also, it feels weird to not be able to jump.

OT: Actually, I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. Maybe its because I've chocked up most worthless features as just simple parts of the experience of the game.

 

[Signa]

Status effect spells in pretty much any final fantasy. Yes, I think I'd miss them if they were removed, because I'd want them too if the enemies were casting them on me, but lets face it, they are useless. Either you can poison an enemy, and then wait turn after turn as it fights you and then slowly dies, or you can use the same turn and just kill it. The only enemies it makes sense to use status effects on are bosses, but most of them are immune to effects, so it's pointless.

 

[JET1971]

A. 1 hit kills from NPC's. It is just a cheap mechanic to fake real difficulty. Having to run and hide to get healed adds an "oh shit! OH SHIT!! AUUUGHHHHGGHHH!!!!" feeling that gets stronger as the closer to death you get verses further away from safety you are. Massive relief when you make it and equally massive downer when you don't.
B. Boss fights after every level. That makes the final encounter less meaningful. Good story leading up to the final boss is better and makes the final boss more exiting. 1 or 2 mini boss along the way is good though if the story requires it.
Ca. Final boss that 1 hit kills you with super weapon of doom and has it's 1 single vulnerability unprotected for X amount of seconds after firing. Standard NES final boss fight bullpucky. dodge minor attacks and do X a certain amount of times until it charges the Gun Of Doom, go stand in the corner and wait for it to fire. As soon as it fires move forward quickly and shoot the vulnerable spot with a specific weapon. Repeat until it dies.
Cb. Final boss that becomes vulnerable as it charges it's Unavoidable Gun Of Doom but charges quickly and you have to time your attack with a specific weapon(limited ammo) or any weapon from a specific spot to prevent it from insta killing you. Wash, rinse, repat until it is dead and 10 loads later. Stupid mechanics that includes 1 hit kills and generic thoughtless repetitive attacks. Seriously Dev's don't use those systems.
D. (partialy a bad feature because it does not have to be in every game, and yes I am generalizing) Boss fights in every single game that has combat. A good story does not always need a final boss to make the game fun, they can be a great way to end the game but that does not mean make it the only way for every game.
E. Quick Scope.
F. Aiming down iron sights or have massive bullet spread regardless of distance from target. I am looking at you EA! Playing against my cousin in BFBC2 and turn around and fire from the hip while he was just outside knife distance and hit him with 1 bullet out of 5 is just stupid. At 10+ meters I can see that but not 2.5 meters. Cone the Bullet spread if you are going to force it on us and even aiming should have it after the first round.(I did kill him though)

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The jump button in most FPS games. Why is this even still a thing?

So you can climb things and traverse the environment in more interesting and unpredictable ways? Seems pretty straight forward to me. In fact, I really dislike it when games don't give me a jump button or the ability to jump. It makes level design much less interesting when the developers just take away the players' ability to jump.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

The kinesis 'puzzles' and two forms of 'hacking' in Deadspace 3.

I say 'puzzles', in '' marks, because they were presented as puzzles to be solved, but always just entailed moving an object from A to B. There was never a puzzle element really to them. So I never really understood why they existed. When playing on coop, all I remember being was annoyed whenever we approached one, for the time-wasting it caused. I don't get why they bothered.

Also the 'hacking' of consoles and two player hacking mini-game were both tedious extras as well. They were just impossible to fail and had no difficulty to them. It was just an exercise of 'clicking until you are allowed through'. I don't get why they bothered with adding these. The two player one had the potential to necessitate coordination, but the time limit was so long, that it really wasn't needed and it could be solved by no thought.

Don't get me started on the lifts/elevators in that game... but that's less so relevant for this topic.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I take it you mean things that effort was actually put into but turned out to be arbitrary. I would say things like the arcade game from GTA IV except that those are part of what GTA is. I'm going to go with the trading and crafting in Assassin's Creed IV. It is a way to make money, pure and simple, but it is so fucking boring and stupid that once all the ship upgrades are done, which are the only thing that costs that kind of money, you won't bother with it at all and it serves no other purpose. Furthermore, everything is made of several ingredients and you need to collect people for your village to make them, with the result that most things aren't even craftable for a while and it serves as a glorified progress meter for your village (another arbitrary mechanic). I would much rather the tradespeople I acquire be able to craft weapons for me to use in-game than shipments of whatever to send away and join the cloud of arbitrary that is everything outside of the combat and exploration. It's not satisfying to use, and it is only good for one thing.

And to an extent, the platforming in GTA IV. You get a fair way into the game and you think you're doing your own thing when you're given what is basically a tutorial for hanging from ledges. While it does do the tutorials as gameplay thing pretty well, the number of times ledge traversal is useful are next to none, and the controls are fucking temperamental.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Pretty much all the mechanics that modern shooters have picked up including regen health, grenade buttons, and melee buttons.

Hmm? Love them or hate them, it seems undeniable that these mechanics change the nature of gameplay in shooters in a fundamental way. Personally, after years of having to switch to the knife before meleeing enemies in CS:S, I was ecstatic to see it hotkeyed in newer shooters.

Grenade buttons totally ruin gun fights. If you are losing a gunfight, you can just chuck a nade with a press of a button to potentially take the better player out. It's especially bad in high health games like say Uncharted. It's just cheap to be able to toss a nade causing your opponent to either finish the kill (and die from the nade) or run away and not finish the kill. I played Uncharted online for a bit, and I just felt so cheap doing it to other people as there was no skill involved whatsoever. There has to be some premeditation involved in throwing a grenade, same thing with melee even though melee doesn't affect gameplay as much as grenades. Lastly, if you remove these mechanics and do things the old school way, you then actually have more buttons available on the controller to fit in more game mechanics adding more depth.

 

[dyre]

Pretty much all the mechanics that modern shooters have picked up including regen health, grenade buttons, and melee buttons.

Hmm? Love them or hate them, it seems undeniable that these mechanics change the nature of gameplay in shooters in a fundamental way. Personally, after years of having to switch to the knife before meleeing enemies in CS:S, I was ecstatic to see it hotkeyed in newer shooters.

Grenade buttons totally ruin gun fights. If you are losing a gunfight, you can just chuck a nade with a press of a button to potentially take the better player out. It's especially bad in high health games like say Uncharted. It's just cheap to be able to toss a nade causing your opponent to either finish the kill (and die from the nade) or run away and not finish the kill. I played Uncharted online for a bit, and I just felt so cheap doing it to other people as there was no skill involved whatsoever. There has to be some premeditation involved in throwing a grenade, same thing with melee even though melee doesn't affect gameplay as much as grenades. Lastly, if you remove these mechanics and do things the old school way, you then actually have more buttons available on the controller to fit in more game mechanics adding more depth.

I do agree regarding the grenades, as the act of tossing a grenade should involve a moderate degree of planning (compared to melee; you don't have to think too hard to whack the guy in front of you). At the very least, the "animation" when pressing the grenade button should involve shifting your weapon to the side, reaching for a grenade, pulling the pin, arming, then throwing, to create a realistic delay. But I think regenerating health speeds up the pace of fights (which is good in some cases), and melee improves upon the previous system of having to switch to a knife, so to merely simply them off as useless is unfair.

Also, that "more buttons" argument is rather weak, but I don't feel like getting into a fight about it so I'll just let it go

 

[Splitzi]

The tower defense sections from Assassin's Creed (Revelations?). I know if you were proactive about clearing out Templar forces you could avoid it, but still, fuck that shit. Just let me do parkour and murder someone from 200 ft in the air.

 

[otakon17]

The battery recharge upgrades in Deus Ex. Because you can't recharge anything past the first battery pack without using up VERY bulky power bars and energy drinks.