In terms of video games, Invisigun is the only variant I’ve enjoyed. It’s comes off as a party game to me and has a decent chunk of content available on the free demo.
Thankfully it has died out, but minigames that add literally nothing to gameplay. Most of the time this was in the form of having to drop all flow of gameplay to play a stupid fucking Pipe Mania game for 5 minutes to hack something. Every bethesda game has lockpicking and hacking, the former being fun for about 10 minutes and the latter I still don't get what the puzzle even is supposed to be. If I wanted to play these kinds of games, I woulda started up Minesweeper and not a first person shooter. I really hope these minigames where skill checks used to be never make a return.
Looking at you fdev with Elite Dangerous, or Rockstar and GTA.
Having balance and not level locking stuff is hard I get that. And you have people that will burn though content like it’s a free crackpipe. But it basically makes a lot of adults or people that just play games casually or in moderation just not fun
I can’t stand “meta-game” mechanics in single player games. I’m talking Just Cause 4 or Middle Earth Shadow of *. Where you’re progressing some tacked on system forward and the “game world reflects that”. It never feels natural and just me a that I’ll spend more time in menus.
Honorable mention goes to spots game UIs. I like the idea of sports games. I’d probably get into MLB the show if I could just figure out which menu brings me the the flagship game mode.
I'm finding sparsely populated open worlds pretty unappealing nowadays. I get the idea behind creating these grand scale environments, but they need to be populated with characters, vendors, events, literally anything to warrant the space.
I've found that inside games have been doing this well, focusing more on detailed smaller spaces but with plenty of stuff to interact with
I have yet to play a game where NPCs have the same speed as the player, have you? I get it on the game design level, since NPCs need to move at a speed that their animations look natural at but player characters need to move fast enough to not feel frustrating to the character.
I think it was on one of the Half-Life 2 developer commentary where they mention that the made the NPC move faster than your walking speed, but slower than your running speed, so that you are able to catch up with them if you stay behind to look at something. If they move at your running speed, you are kinda forced to follow them all the time, and any obstacle will separate you more and more from the NPC that you are supposed to escort.
Probably simple, mindless side/fetch quests. Defeat enemies, get loot, run it back, rinse and repeat. It also is incredibly dry to watch as well as actually do yourself.
I like some micromanagement. If it's tinkering with gear or stats then I'm down. Working out how to squeeze out that little extra bit of damage or efficiency is great. However, if you have to actively micromanage units or resources during combat, then its a pass for me. I feel like micromanagement should be an addendum to the core gameplay loop, not it's focus.
I really like the early access game Against the Storm, because it's got micromanagement, but it's also a bit of a roguelike so that no one run ever gets big enough to get too bogged down. It's got the feel of the fun early part of a Civ game, but almost all the time, and with fun variations.
You've made me suddenly realize how rare invisible walls have gotten in my gaming life.
The closest I've come recently are "barriers" that are clearly just, like, a small pile of trash that could be easily walked over, but even that is rarer than it used to be.
Having played a bit of Zelda recently, micromanaging weapons. Oh, I've got this metal broad sword and I've used it to to stab an unarmored fleshy bad guy and oh it's broken after three stabs.
I get that weapon degradation is a real thing that happens, as they become blunt or potentially fragile, but Zelda BOTW and TOTK take it way too far to the point of it being a real chore. I thought they'd fix it after all the BOTW complaints but TOTK is just as bad.
Honestly, I think thats just a love it or hate it thing that I can totally see why it isnt for everyone and I dont blame you, but I personally love it and would hate to see it reduced/taken away. Once I leaned into it it really encourages me to explore and I enjoy the new fuse system enough that I like when a weapon breaks because Im excited to make a new one
I'm actually getting impatient when a weapon lasts too long, because I want it to break already so I can use something new and interesting without feeling like I'm wasting it. :P
I think part of it is having enough weapon slots that I'm choosing different weapons in different contexts, and so they all subjectively feel like they're lasting longer than they did at the start of the game (even accounting for regular vs sturdy weapons).
Also making more use of shield fusions lately, and consumables on arrows, which again results in using the weapons less.
I keep kinda wishing I could fuse things to my bows though lol, even though I can use so many different consumables with the arrows already.
Yeah! I just learned that fusing elemental items to shields adds elemental shockwaves when you block, and it really made me think more about my shield fusions
Radiant quests. You can never complete the game because of this, the quests are generic and repetitive and offer nothing but "stretch the playtime".
That and mechanics like "rando dragon attacks in Skyrim" and "City is under attack from Fallout 4. I quit F4 because I was on my way to a mission and got the "city under attack notification, and on my way to defend another city was under attack.
Dragon attacks in Skyrim are so annoying. I often forget that I quit the game because of it. I’ll boot it up only to be dropped in mid-dragon and just force quit the game.
At least with Oblivion you got something worth it after closing Oblivion gates. And you could cheese them too by running all the way to the end.
To yes-and this: procedural content in general. No Man’s Sky is a snore-fest for me, big, empty, meaningless. Missions in Elite Dangerous and X4 are similarly pretty boring, though the former is more fun the first time around. There has to feel like there’s some world-affecting point to what you’re doing. IMO
I found the procedurally-produced planets in No Man’s Sky to be stunningly beautiful. Then I would walk around on them and the similar-but-not-quite look of every part of the landscape would slowly drive me INSANE.
Squad/micro-strategy mechanics in fps games. Commanding npcs to do specific things in the middle of a gunfight isn’t fun. Bonus points if the npc ai gets in your way when you're not fighting as well.
Bad tutorials. Don't teach me the game mechanics that could be learned in-game in an environment different from the rest of the game. Also dislike sudden lore dumps after the tutorial.
Mechanics in games where they don't belong. Not every game needs skill trees, not every game needs stories or lore.
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