Ask Lemmy

Anything requiring you repeatedly mash a single button super fast

Exponentially growing requirements that out pace rewards. I don't want to spend 10 hours grinding just to level up.

Lootboxes

A multiplayer game that pits you against lousy AI bots with human looking names for your first "games' so you feel like you know how to play and makes the game seem fair and fun.

Then after you're comfortable, you get pitted against a lobby of 12-year-olds who haven't seen daylight since birth who annihilate you and curse you out on coms.

Not the worst, but I'm annoyed by invisible walls. Just give me a reason why I can't be there.

Stat/EXP loss on death.

Unskippable cut scenes, especially before a boss. I want to play on hard difficulty, which means I WILL die to bosses. Do not force me to watch that shit 5+ times or I'm out like trout.

INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE

I don't like durability mechanics when its clearly there just to waste your time or money or whatever. Any game that makes you do more hiking to repair benches than fighting is either getting a thumbs down or I'm going to download a mod.

Pay to win.

The worst game mechanic is artificial difficulty where enemies aren't challenging. Instead, they are just damage sponges.

Game has collectables scattered in almost every room including lore text and audio logs.

Meanwhile the story NPC is nagging you to move on every 30 seconds on a loop and won't shut the fuck up. Because play testing revealed most of their players are fucking morons and get lost in one way apartment rooms I guess.

These two mechanics conflct with one another way too often and it's immersion breaking every time.

Achievements.

I want to enjoy the game, not artificial milestones for bragging rights.

Permanently loosing a treasure that you can only get once because your pocket is full.

One of the worst game mechanics ever found in a game was where the enemy got harder as you gained levels. The same enemy. It basically defeated the value of having more levels. I think it was Oblivion ~~Skyrim~~ where I found this, particularly annoying.

2 sets of teeth, the first only lasting 1/9 of your life and the second being 8/9. 2/9, 7/9 would be much better or just 2/9, 4/9, 6/9.

Oh, hair falling out and all your joints hurting for 5/9 of your life kinda blows as well.

Microtransactions - the answer always has been and always will be microtransactions.

Health as a resource

press ▲ to jump. shit button. it's x.

• Games with designated save points only.
• Skill/Tech trees that really only have one viable path.
• Games that reward stealth until the boss battle.

Relationship mechanics. If I give someone a pumpkin twice a week, they’re just going to be confused and pissed.

"Here's a rare weapon dropped by this boss! But wait, you need to be at least level 30 to use it, and you're still on level 2."

I went out of my way to repeatedly grind and kill this late game boss during early game, just give me my reward for not following the stupid linear progression

Insert real world money to continue/for advantage. Whether it's modern FTP with MTX or old school quarter eaters, it's poison to games.

Limited inventory space in an otherwise unrealistic RPG.

You're telling me I can carry six two-handed weapons and 500lbs of gold, but seven is just too much?! Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Specifically, this especially sucks when the inventory is a grid, like in the Diablo series, or Grim Dawn, or WoW, FFXIV or... many other MMOs.

especially when you can spend real money to alleviate the artificial limitation they fucking designed in to the game.

It's so unnecessary and these days absolutely makes me instantly not care to continue playing. FUCK artificial limitations that don't have clear, valid reasons.

I'm here to play a game, not Inventory Management Simulator 33.45

Not a mechanic i guess, but motion blur

Escort missions

The only good escort missions are the ones where you aren't limited at all by the NPC you need to escort, which no longer makes it an escort mission.

Survival crafting. I spend my real life days trying to keep up on sheltering and feeding myself. I don’t want to “relax” by punching trees to make a fire to cook a bird I punched to death.

The pervasiveness of this in every game has limited the content I engage with the last 10 or so years. Everyone started chasing that Minecraft money and now it’s Ubi-fied into just about every mainstream title.

I don’t want to forge new weapons. I want to find them in a chest or earn them by killing a boss. I have bounced off of so many games the moment they ask me to learn a system of crafting. Keep that in it’s own genre and stop padding games out with repetitive busy work.

Something that hasn't been mentioned: difficulty variations that only change stat penalty. These get really annoying for people who enjoy challenging gameplay...

Case in point, unmodded Skyrim's legendary difficulty where the only difference is that you do 0.25x damage and take 300% damage. Instead of providing challenging gameplay that forces you to use gaming skills or think, it just makes the game more annoying to play & limits player build options (stealth is mandatory as any other playstyle deals no damage and results in you getting kill-animation'd...)

Loot boxes

Escort missions. Specifically when the person you are escorting is as sharp as a bag of hammers.

Games with inventories where they treat a single gem or a flower petal as occupying the same space in your rucksack as a pair of boots.

Guys, we go back to Ultima 7 with the key ring, the problem was solved along fucking time ago. Stop being lazy and have gem sacks, crafting bags, keyrings, etc for small items.

Puzzles that are entirely music based with no visual cues.

They're bad enough for me as just a guy with no rhythm or note recognition, but also just fuck deaf people I guess?

Unskippable intro levels that teach the control mechanics.

When you can't dodge because you're charging an attack/doing a combo/whatever. If I'm attacking one enemy, and I see another one about to attack me from behind, I want to be able to get out of the way, not be stuck in an attack animation until I get hit

For me: weapon durability.

QTE, especially when they're randomly inserted into an otherwise action/skill based game.

Deliberately ableist bullshit. Like no pause or an over reliance on quick time events.

Any game that forces snap to center cameras. No one should ever have to fight against the controls in a game.

(Looking at you No Man’s Sky)

Grinding.

When the game progresses naturally, and as you move through the game, you always find yourself in the right spot to overcome the next obstacle, that's great. But the second I have to stop progressing through the game and go spend 6 hours killing goblins, I'm done.

Very few checkpoints or save options. I don’t have time to try to beat something if there is like 20 mins of playtime from the last checkpoint.

Timer that can be skipped with paid currency.

Where one enemy sees you and now all their friends somehow knows where you are

Upgrades that cannot be changed. Don't force me to replay the entire game just to see what a different upgrade does. I'm my opinion, all games should let you rebuild your character pretty much whenever. I think BG3 did a good job of it with Withers. The price is low enough to not feel like a burden but high enough to not encourage you to cheese it. The only small downside of it is that Withers is technically an optional character you could miss. I think mechanics like this should just be baked in.