The most worthless game mechanics/features

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

the panting sound they put into skyrim when sprinting.

If you play the game without the music on as I do (it's not always a good time for bellowing operatic music), then the games soundtrack becomes asthmatic man trying desperately to catch his breath

Ha! Good one.

The cooking mechanics in Skyrim and FO:NV. I never once needed to use them. It's easy enough to recover health without this mechanic. Not that I want them to take it out. It's harmless, immersiony and I'm sure some people use it but I find it useless.

Another good one!

X-ray vision/wallhacks (Batman, Far Cry 3, The Last of Us) is a big one for me. As well as mini-maps, crosshairs (that aren't attached to guns,) objective markers, built-in "hints" that simply tell you what to do, quick-time events and the use of teleportation as "fast travel" in lieu of actual fast travel options.

There may be more, but they're the ones that spring immediately to mind.

And a THIRD good one. You guys are on fire today.

About the X-ray vision thing: did anybody ever play "Batman: Arkham Asylum" with this turned OFF for the most part? I didn't.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i got another one

vehicle cover in Company of Heroes, its mentioned in the loading screen tips of the game, but its never really explained, and turns out, it makes almost no difference, it works like this, if you place a vehicle behind certain pieces of cover in the environment, it receives a reduced accuracy modifier, its harder to hit for the enemy, just a counple of problems here

1) for some reason, this cover, unlike the infantry cover mechanics in the game, is not directional, meaning you can get this bonus by placing your vehicle on the WRONG SIDE of the cover

2) heavier vehicles have a harder time receiving this bonus because they might destroy the cover by mistake

3) vehicles receive reduced accuracy modifiers by moving, and in general, moving around is a much better option than standing in one place, so this makes the vehicle cover almost completely obsolete

 

[Ninjat_126]

Na I don't mind them either. If its telegraphed and you can negate it is not cheap. I hate them if you have a boss that is an easy hit sponge for half of the fight and then can 1 hit kill or near 1 hit kill for the second half though. Makes the first half feel like its just there to waste your damn time.

Yeah, pretty much. You should be punished if you decide to run up to an enemy willy nilly, but distant 1 hit ko attacks should have some motion/sound/something to show that the attack is about to come.

If it can instantly kill you, it should be telegraphed. There should be some way of knowing that something's about to come and make you dead no matter what.

Attunement in Dark Souls annoys me also, now I think of it.

Edit: Spelling

Yeah, I get where you're going. Dark Souls II makes it increase casting speed, instead of it just being there for extra spellcasting slots. There are rings and items that boost your attunement though, and it makes sure that casters can't just stack pure INT if they want to be effective.

Sticky cover systems. There is no need to attach me to a wall for me to take cover. The game often has perfectly good movement controls. If I want to be in cover I can easily use those controls to move behind something and stay there without breaking any sense of control/mechanical consistency. It is unnecessary and only makes my experience worse.

I like sticky cover systems actually, in many contexts. In Resident Evil 5 and 6 they just feel stupid, though.

I think the problem is that the Sprint, Get Into Cover and Get Out Of Cover buttons are almost always all the same. The ability to slide into cover in the Mass Effect series has saved me many, many times... and killed me almost as many when Shepard decided to headbutt the wall instead of stick to it. Two seperate buttons for Take Cover and Leave Cover would fix most of the problems I have with this.

Red Orchestra (II) does it pretty well, actually. And by well, I mean dreadfully. You have a button to stick to cover, another to brace your gun against the wall and a third to crouch down behind it. Then again, this is a game where semi-automatic rifles are considered cutting edge and getting shot at causes your character to shake in fear, so it kind of works.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

The critic of not being able to move forwards while looking behind you is kinda pointless because you can move backwards when you look forwards. Most FPS don't have you move your head but move your body because you need to shoot that direction. Your gun always needs to be in the direction that you are looking. I just don't understand the criticism because it really doesn't seem important to me. When would looking behind you but not shooting ever be effective? Many third person games do allow you to do this though but by there nature it works. Having to switch to a grenades just seems like adding a not needed step. Most shooters don't need that many buttons anyways. The ones that do are usually RPG shooters or have some other gimmick (ME for example). If you haven't played Titanfall yet you should. Their movement system is amazing. What I like most about it is it gives you the added abilities of movement but doesn't require them for the shooting. The slide is like jumping in COD or Halo. There are meant to surprise your enemy and give you an edge inside of straight fighting them. Titanfall uses their movement system to allow you to get in a better position then start the fight not so much as am ambush technic. But, then again I haven't really played a game with a good slide so my answer is kinda bias. I might need to try Warfighter out.

Oh, yeah and Killstreaks are terrible! Total agree there. Another reason I like Titanfall, titans are given to everyone. That game is not prefect but it might be a good start to a series.

You can walk back very slowly. I'm talking about moving in a direction at normal speed (or sprinting) and looking back or to the side. I do that so often in TPSs, especially when you're flanking around the enemy team, you want to look behind you due to your back then facing the enemy's spawn area. Also, I can't do what I did in this video at 7:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgrbDF032LQ] in a FPS.

I won't get a chance to play Titanfall until a sequel, I don't PC game nor am I going to get an Xbone. Warfighter's MP is actually really fucking awesome. The single player is complete shit though, the reason for the bad reviews. The slide is so awesome; once you play a FPS with it, you won't wanna go back. Far Cry 3 has a slide but it's weird because it resets the camera angle at the end of the slide messing your aim up.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Also, compulsory button mashing.

In order to non-lethally knock someone out in Hitman Absolution, I have to repeatedly press a button? Why can't I press a button once and have 47 take the guy out?
In order to prise open a door (among other things) in the new Tomb Raider, I have to repeatedly press a button? Why can't I just press the button once and have Lara take it from there?

Oh heck yes. 10,000 times yes.

I hate this mechanic every time it appears, it's just so unnecessary. Especially when I'm using a keyboard (which I am 90% of the time). And can we add mechanics where you have to, say, twirl the mouse in a circular motion to "crank" something? (Amnesia the Dark Descent, I'm looking at you.) I'm just... WHY? It doesn't add tension, it doesn't add to the experience. It just takes you "out of the game" and makes you acutely aware of what you're using to control it. Instead of being aware of the game itself.

 

[Pink Gregory]

the panting sound they put into skyrim when sprinting.

If you play the game without the music on as I do (it's not always a good time for bellowing operatic music), then the games soundtrack becomes asthmatic man trying desperately to catch his breath

You should hear it in Miasmata...

Gentle slopes and gathering mushrooms.

HUH, HUH, HUH, HUH, HUH, GUH.

 

[dlharp2]

Posing after drinking a potion in Monster Hunter.

I know the potion must taste great, but there are things that want to eat you at the moment.

 

[aozgolo]

Camera Panning Cutscene Intros... like seriously it's a game, you can use ANY camera angle you want including completely impossible ones to frame your cutscene how you want, don't arbitrarily pan to the action, panning should only be used to move from one action camera angle to another, not to annoyingly draw out your "emotional tripe" unskippable cutscene to better time it with the melodramatic music.

Also in games like Skyrim when the developers invest a lot of time making really cool weapons and armor that are never going to be used by anyone because you already got better stuff in the first intro dungeon... Looking at you Hide, and Iron armor.

 

[cdemares]

Stamina bars for running and encumbrance in RPGs. I hate those so much.

I have to defend grenade and melee buttons. If I run right into a person, should we really have to shoot each other to death and circle strafe when we can touch each other? Why not just resolve that fast and keep the flow going?

As for grenades, grenades already have a delay. It's baked-in for balance. If you throw a grenade while being shot at, you will die because you forfeit that time instead of shooting back. I should know. You throw the grenade before the shooting starts. I remember the days when I had to select grenades before throwing them, I never did it ever. Having to select grenades or melee makes them worthless.

 

[Fractral]

Posing after drinking a potion in Monster Hunter.

I know the potion must taste great, but there are things that want to eat you at the moment.

Oh god, this so much. I was trying to kill a Qurupeco in MH3U earlier today and it's so aggravating when I get set on fire because the animation for healing is unnecessarily long.
Adventures from Crusader kings are pretty stupid. I'm the Holy Roman Emperor, I have the largest army in the known world, so why can some random asshole with a claim on my titles suddenly raise an army twice the size of my own? And how come this one province is somehow able to raise an army larger than is capable of being sustained in it in the first place? If there are 30000 well armed peasants living there, why the hell can't I raise them?

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

I absolutely love how about half of this thread is people complaining about entirely optional content added simply to increase immersion, and the kind of things you'd find people praising in a stock "little details you like in games" thread.

OT: People have mentioned numerous bad, even horrendous game mechanics in this thread. Bad, but not necessarily worthless. About a worthless game mechanic?

Mother.
Fucking.
Checkpoints.

Especially if there is no alternative. If the game has checkpoints, or autosaves at time intervals or based on certain actions, I guess I'm okay with that, but let me do my own goddamn saving.
Hell, the system might not even be so pointless if the bloody checkpoints would be in sensible places, but the locations of these things in about 90% of the games that use them make them more of a hindrance than anything else.

At least give me the option to save when I want to, game. Seriously.

 

[bug_of_war]

If it can instantly kill you, it should be telegraphed. There should be some way of knowing that something's about to come and make you dead no matter what.

Yeah, but if you run directly in front a an enemy in say ME3 or Gears of War that telegraph should not be 5 seconds long, at most it should be 2 seconds like how the locusts rev the chainsaw, you have like a 1 second chance to dive roll backwards or raise your own chainsaw. You know the enemies in games mentioned above are deadly and you should be punished for trying to shoot them from a distance of 30cm.

 

[EHKOS]

The everything the six-axis touches. Sly Cooper 4 has a weird hacking minigame, not to mention it will sometimes kick in when you fire an arrow. I'm usually sitting comfortably with my controller in my lap, where it should stay. On that topic, button mashing QTE's. I feel like I'm shortening my controller's lifespan and if it's difficult/long enough, it gets really annoying.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

The mobile phone in Contagion, it works well in the co-op mdoes Escape and Extraction because it acts as a GPS device to guide the players co-operatively towards their destination and goals.

However during the mode the Hunted, all 8 players are pitted against each other and are spawned not so very far from one another, this elads to some people using the phone which will show up peoples names as soon as they get within close proximity of each other, this usually leads to enemy players spamming your phones ringtone and follow it until they get to you and end your life before you can tell what's going on.

Now sure it sounds great on paper but really in a PvP mode it plays out really awful since it rewards players who just use the phone as a radar ping device and constantly spam other players with it and punishes those that don't use it or don't use it back in return when pinged, that can be really annoying and fof putting for some people.

I'd at least suggest that you gain the ability (if it's trying to be realistic at least try all the way) to drop your phone in Hunted to either lose other players or lure them into a possible trap since in hunted you are perfectly fine to hole up somewhere like a gun store, board up the windows and doors and wait it out or actively hunt people down or create a diversion for them (like firing your gun since people in hunted always go toward where the gunshots are coming from).

At times I don't mind the phone since it;s fine for the other two modes which are based on co-op gameplay (until you become a zombie and then it becomes pvp again) but when it's hunted which is pure PvP I tend to want to tear out my hair because it gives players who spam it the easier option vs and punishes those that don't spam theirs.

 

[IceForce]

For me, it would most likely be Galactic Readiness in Mass Effect 3. To get the best endings, I'd need to play online multiplayer to increase my Galactic Readiness percentage, even though said multiplayer could've just as easily been taken out. Thank Princess Celestia's mother I could play that RTS mini-game included on the N7HQ site as an alternative.

It's been mentioned before but Galactic readiness in ME3. I don't play multiplayer so fuck you for messing with my single player experience and fucking up my ending trying to MAKE my play it.

Just to let you guys know, the Extended Cut DLC removed the requirement to play multiplayer to get all the endings.

So unless you're specifically talking about ME3 as it was on release, this is a bit of a non-argument at this point.

 

[Ninjat_126]

If it can instantly kill you, it should be telegraphed. There should be some way of knowing that something's about to come and make you dead no matter what.

Yeah, but if you run directly in front a an enemy in say ME3 or Gears of War that telegraph should not be 5 seconds long, at most it should be 2 seconds like how the locusts rev the chainsaw, you have like a 1 second chance to dive roll backwards or raise your own chainsaw. You know the enemies in games mentioned above are deadly and you should be punished for trying to shoot them from a distance of 30cm.

Well, of course. Mass Effect 3, for one, telegraphs the instakill attacks by giving the enemies in question giant claws, swords, crushing vice-like grips or massive mandibles. Even then, the attacks have a few seconds of windup so your allied have a chance to kill the enemy before it kills you.

To stray back on-topic, Status Effects in RPGs where the biggest enemies are immune to them. It's been said before, but putting a Poison effect on a random encounter just wastes time... and if the boss is immune to DoT effects then they may as well not be there.

Dark Souls does this kinda well... different enemies (and players) are resistant to bleeding or poison, but I don't think anything's entirely immune.

 

[Salokin]

Also, compulsory button mashing.

In order to non-lethally knock someone out in Hitman Absolution, I have to repeatedly press a button? Why can't I press a button once and have 47 take the guy out?
In order to prise open a door (among other things) in the new Tomb Raider, I have to repeatedly press a button? Why can't I just press the button once and have Lara take it from there?

Oh heck yes. 10,000 times yes.

I hate this mechanic every time it appears, it's just so unnecessary. Especially when I'm using a keyboard (which I am 90% of the time). And can we add mechanics where you have to, say, twirl the mouse in a circular motion to "crank" something? (Amnesia the Dark Descent, I'm looking at you.) I'm just... WHY? It doesn't add tension, it doesn't add to the experience. It just takes you "out of the game" and makes you acutely aware of what you're using to control it. Instead of being aware of the game itself.

This is the main reason why I never used Jimmy in the new South Park game. All his special abilities required you to button mash, and each took a full minute of spamming whatever button it wanted.

 

[Soxafloppin]

In Mortal Kombat 9 (A great game IMO) one of the shoulder buttons changes how your character stands..its a 2D fighting game but the button changes if they have there front or back to the camera, doesnt have any effect on gameplay at all, I think the devs just wanted to add some feature to that button.

My only theory is you get to choose if you stare at Kitanas tits or ass.

 

[Altorin]

In Mortal Kombat 9 (A great game IMO) one of the shoulder buttons changes how your character stands..its a 2D fighting game but the button changes if they have there front or back to the camera, doesnt have any effect on gameplay at all, I think the devs just wanted to add some feature to that button.

My only theory is you get to choose if you stare at Kitanas tits or ass.

certain moves only worked one way or the other. but really, yeah, waste of a shoulder button