i've been playing a lot of No Man's Sky and Terraria lately. both of them have crafting systems, both of them require extensive storage juggling. i spend a lot of time in each session fussing with what's in my inventory, portable secondary inventory, storage inventory, etc. just to be able to see what i have, let alone craft with it. Stardew Valley, Starbound, Little Witch in the Woods, same issue.
but contrast that with the Atelier series, which have a dizzyingly in-depth crafting system deeper than any of these that manages to work fine with just two inventories across about 25 years of the series history: my small backpack and my atelier's massive storage container. get back to the atelier, everything that isn't equipment gets automatically dumped into the atelier container. on top of that, both are treated like databases. there's no spatial layout. i can sort and filter by ID, quality, traits, etc. to find what i need for synthesis, and never have to worry about what goes where. it's just much lower friction.
What are some of your LEAST favorite game mechanics?
The other thread about favorite mechanics is great, so let's also do the opposite: what are some of your most hated mechanics?