What are some of your LEAST favorite game mechanics?

Unrepairable weapons are the worst thing. There's nothing worse than finding a super cool, rare weapon and being paranoid about it breaking.

That's one of the big things that bothered my in Breath of the Wild. I wanted to go to this cool looking location and find something neat, but I knew that I'll either get a weapon that breaks in 5 hits, a seed, or an orb. Really deflated my sense of exploration when I realized this was the gameplay loop.
- Exactly! It triggers my hoarding response and I find myself keeping all the weapons because something harder might be around the next corner. I end up with only using boko clubs for half the game...
- It was definitely a pain in the ass. That was the first game I thought of. Second was dying light. Nothing like get swamped by a hoard and all your equipped weapons break.

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.

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.
- I started playing No Man's Sky recently and it looks like they added a mode that's more 'streamlined'. Dunno if it's still procedurally generated, though.
Pretty much a lot of procedural "content". I guarantee big publishers will capitalize on all of this AI to replace writers with generated stories/quests/etc. No idea what to make of this.
- I would disagree, some of my favorite games are procedurally generated.
  Factorio, RimWorld or valheim for example.

Game timers. I want to screw around on my time. The more time-based a game becomes, the less I enjoy it.

Timers just really stress me out for some reason. Give me more time damn it.
Fucking time trials man
I could never get into Animal Crossing for this very reason
Yes! I remember that I could not really enjoy fallout 1 because of the 150 in-game days time limit to get the water chip...
This!
There's not much else in gaming that makes my blood boil as much as being rushed.. especially in single player games. I'm usually playing to relax so please don't stress me out.

Pay 2 win and excessive abuse of FOMO.

E.g. for the next two weeks you can purchase/grind for [character] with a LIMITED EDITION green hat!

It would be OK if such thing was behind an achievement and allowed to be gained later.

Some companies have gotten a little sneaky with it, like Microsoft with age of empires. They make their newly released DLC civs overpowered for two months then nerf it every time.

The new Gollum game was very impressive in the way it managed to implement so many of the mechanics in this thread

That game took one of my most hated mechanics (binary moral choices), came up with a concept for it I could have actually loved (the personas arguing), then botched the execution so badly that it felt even worse than a normal morality system. Impressive is certainly the word for Gollum, just not in the way the devs hoped.

Anything using timers, especially based on the clock. It just artificially adds playtime, and it also means I forget about them and lose track of what I was doing most the time, too.

Agreed, timed missions especially stress me out. Just let me do shit in my own pace!
- I can say that the only timed content I enjoyed was in WoW and it was the Challenge Modes.
  Both because you could try it multiple times and because the reward was an actual prestigious and awesome reward.
  I can't think of another game with a timed run mechanic that offered anything close to that.
Currently playing through "unsighted". It is a really nice metroidvania game, however everyone (even you) is dying and only has a certain time left. For now i am really enjoying the novelty, but I hope no game copies this. It does really stress me out. knowing that i have to go and upgrade my weapons now because the blacksmith npc s dying in 4 in game hours(like 10 minutes irl). Or quietly exploring the beautiful world just to get a pop up showing that the (nice elderly) consumables vendor is about to die. Like I said it is quite novel, but does have me not play the game often due to knowing wath wil come. I'd say try it out if you feel like stressing a bit :).
Yep, soon as the calendar came up in P5 I quit. Same with FE3H. I did eventually go back to P5 and followed a single playthrough walkthrough, but it far overstayed its welcome.

Escort quests. Stealth sections in games that aren't built around stealth would be close second.

Genshin Impact occasionally has little stealth missions where you have to sneak by guards.
Pain.

Less of an issue nowadays but unclimbable knee-high walls which force you to go round. Always drove me crazy!

Especially egregious in games where you already climb around in other places!
Fatal Frame 4 release has the most agonizing form of this.
There’s a hallway you’ve been down before, but at one point a ghost blocks it with a wheelchair. A WHEELchair.
- Lol, that's ridiculous!
Fallout 3 and NV had loads of this crap. A door is busted to hell and somehow locked but you need a key to unlock it. A stiff breeze will destroy the rest of the door.

Sadly, the whole "rogue" genre if that counts as a mechanic. I don't enjoy replaying everything over and over again in different ways in a system where its designed one should fail eventually, so you must lose to continue. It sounds great on paper but hell it really sucks. Also, turn based stuff.

I like it until I get pretty good at the game. At that point the runs start taking too long to complete and it's no longer fun. I know this is pretty controversial but I especially hate it in games like Hades where you progress, come up against something new, fail until you learn the mechanic, and then have to get through all the previous bullshit before you can apply what you learned.
I think you're describihg "Rogue-lites", which are games where you can maintain some permanent progression even after you lose. "Rogue-likes", which are games that are like the game Rogue, are games where when you lose you just go back to the start with no progression at all, so you need to complete the game altogether.
The permanent progression rewards are meant to be a kind of crutch, which is where the "lite" comes from.
- That's an important distinction for sure, thanks for adding that. Roguelites looks so fun and I wish I could enjoy them but after awhile it just feels like a timewaste. But that's just me of course. I wonder if I would enjoy roguelikes more, not sure if I've tried one or not? What are some examples of roguelikes today? I tried searching Steam but for some reason games use both the tags roguelike and roguelite.
Definitely. Crypt of the Necrodancer probably has really cool locales and enemies in it. I don’t know, because most of my sessions were locked to the first few worlds where any mistake minimizes your time in future worlds.
I understand the sentiment, but in some way I think you are missing the point. Let me try to explain the appeal.
When you play, for example, Diablo you spend the time with the game making your build. You also play the story and see the bosses but your focus gameplay wise is your build.
Yo go for that skill. You farm that weapon. Yo optimize your buffs and load out.
And when you are done, after 20 or 30 hours… the game becomes extremely easy. Playing your fully builder character has no challenge. And building another is a 20 hour time investment.
So you get into PVP. Or into boss rushes where yo can get marginal improvements. You repeat a very small amount of end game content for months.
Enter the “rogue” mechanics.
The play unit is no longer “the character”, now it is “the run”
You build a full character each run. You make meaningful decisions to make the most of your build with what the game is offering.
If a run goes badly you are 30 min or less away from getting were you were. If you win you can play again for a completely different experience.
You have no complete control about your build, so you can’t really on the same strategy and gameplay for the whole game. You have to engage with every system.
And your reward for playing is choice (more options to better controls your play style) and knowledge (to better use what the game throws at you)
And it’s true you repeat the initial part of the game a lot. But in Diablo (keeping with my previous example) you repeat the endgame. The only diferente is that one is front loaded and the other is back loaded. And initial areas USUALLY have more work put into them in both cases.
Also remember that there are a spectrum between Isaac likes and Hades likes. There are games were chance has lots of importance and a good build in the hands of a bad player can steamroll the game, where in others a bad build in the hands of a great player is viable.

Offline games which require an internet for no apparent reason has to be my pet peeve

Yeah it guarantees that the game will be unplayable through legal means in a few years when it is no longer profitable to keep the servers running.

Perhaps not specifically a mechanic, per se, but save points. I want to be able to save whenever, wherever. I don't always have time to make it to the next save point before I need to stop playing.

Honestly it's games lacking save points that has made devices like the Steam Deck so nice for gaming. Being able to have a dedicated gaming device that I can put to sleep whenever without reaching a save point is fantastic.

Any sort of intense micromanagement of units, resources, etc. I've got like 16kb RAM in my brain. I can barely remember what I ate today lol.

Also, invisible walls that make absolutely no sense. Maybe just all invisible walls, really.

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
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.
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.

Quicktime events. Please make up your mind if you show me a sequence or if you want me to play. I can enjoy watching, but I don't want to feel like I am being tested for paying attention.

The beginning of the Tomb Raider remake pissed me off especially. You played a few minutes, then watched a minute of sequence, then play, watch, play, watch. One of the sequences took like 5 minutes, so I leaned back to enjoy when suddenly it flashes a heavy PRESS X in my face. I tried to quickly grab the controller but failed... too slow. I almost rage quit.

I am not playing games to get stressed out...

Quicktime events.
I'd limit it to mandatory QTEs - better games have a "story" mode that doesn't punish you (much/at all) for having the reflexes of an old-timer.
But yeah, mandatory QTEs are an immediate buzzkill. I don't intend to waste more time in Tomb Raider - that's already 21 minutes I never get back.
- After biting myself through the loooong intro session path, the game turned out quite good. It did still have a few QTEs later on, but typically in short sequences, which was okayish. First, because I started to expect it, and second because the sequences were short enough that I didn't get the impression I might have to sit through a movie.
  Still, the beginning of the game has left an ugly impression about QTEs.
- QTEs are also often pretty bad from an accessibility standpoint, especially the older kinds that had you repeatedly mashing buttons!
I am not playing games to get stressed out…
I pretty much only play souls games. So I'm all about being stressed out. I still hate QTEs.
Same, though my single exception is FF7R. Worth a watch if you haven't played.

Obligate stamina bars/circles for traversal. Just allow me to move at the speed of fun, and definitely don't make me stand still to recharge when climbing.

I think it's telling that death stranding, a game all about traversal, let's you sprint outright for as long as you want until well after your character's shoes literally fall off. The stamina bar is more a measure of abuse rather than a limit on your movement.

I like stamina bars in many circumstances, but I've decided I hate them specifically in life sim games like Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and similar - at least unless there's an easy and fun way to re-fill them. I won't write them off entirely, I think it can be done well, but in practice in these games they often serve no purpose but to frustrate you.
- Good point! How is "my time?" I've been thinking of getting it to play with my gf. We really like dinkum.

For me, the absolute worst is when the game effectively punishes you for not constantly menu diving to change your equipment.

Some random examples:

Disco Elysium - your clothes have a MASSIVE effect on some specific stats which influence dialogues. In order to get the best outcomes, you have to change your clothes before an interaction with another character.

Ghost of Tsushima - you get separate armor sets for different activities, which is not too bad, except one of the sets is for exploration. So every time you switch between combat and riding your horse, if you don't switch your armor sets, then it feels that the game is punishing you.

I love both of those games, but really really hate that mechanic.

If you hate menu diving then Tears of the Kingdom will actually make you go insane. I'm constantly swapping armor and scrolling up and down to find specific items.
- For a game that has borderline genius baked into almost every system it presents, the UX of the menus is bafflingly shite.
- That's funny, I actually think TotK is great in this regard.
  The DPad Up quick inventory menu is awesome and the sorting options are exactly what I'd want (most used, attack power, type, and zonai).
  Having quick swappable equipment sets would be nice but so many games lack that feature that I don't even think about it. In TotK it also seems unnecessary unless you're into min-max. Like, I just need one piece of fire immune clothing to go into Death Mountain, I don't need to wear an entire set and if I was really lazy I could pop an elixir from the quick select menu instead.
  Cooking is annoying though. It's such a fun animation and satisfying outcome but the laborious hold and drop mechanics get tedious when you're cooking in bulk.
- Gear breaking is the worst mechanic of them all. At least if it is every 5 hits.
- Oh my god yes, couldn't someone have come up with a better way to do this over the 6 years of development time? I keep itching for full text search at the very least.

Quick-time events but SPECIFICALLY the ones that give you way too little time to react. Like, I never mind them too much, especially the ones in the Yakuza series, but I remember there was this game on the Wii called Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings that would throw these inputs WAYY too fast at you.

The end of Atomic Heart is an absurdly fast QTE. I played that whole game, and basically had to give up at 99.99% complete simply because I wasn’t fast enough.
I like them sometimes, but there should ALWAYS be a way to turn them off, for people who don't have fast reflexes or have problems with their hands, etc.

Enemies that scale with your level in an RPG. I would rather get completely curb stomped by rare high level enemies, so I have something to work towards. In the same vein, I don't like it when the stat gain you get from leveling ends up with you literally being unkillable by lower level enemies. Most MMOs are an offender to this, where you can just sunbathe in a group of 30 level 1 enemies and are unable to die to them.

GOD, yes. The Fable games are like that, resulting in a large portion of the endgame map in Fable III positively loaded with werewolves and what feels like nothing else. As these were intended to be hard-hitting and unfairly fast, traveling became an annoyance.
I'm curious what your happy medium is, though, since you dislike being over-leveled as well. I personally think being whaled on ineffectually is funny mental image, and sometimes I really just wanna chill

non-renewable consumable items.

using consumables is hard enough, but you're telling me there's a finite number of these? forget it.

only exception is rougelikes.

Yep. I never use consumables. Unless the game really pushes you to use them they feel like cheating.
- they feel like cheating.
  Or worthless. This item increases your dmg for 10 seconds.
  Dude, 1 second is the animation alone and after consuming it, I need to use 3 skills to snapshot the dmg increase so effectively I have 4-5 seconds of actual usage.
  Consumables are horrible as a system in general.

In any competitive game, golden snitch mechanics. If I'm kicking ass all game, I shouldn't instantly lose for making one tiny mistake at the 11th hour.

This pissed me off when I was watching a game show. Two teams played two rounds, where Team A got two questions right. Then, for the "final round", the prize score was tripled. Not only did Team B won, the third prompt was super easy, and Team A didn't get a chance at it. It felt so stupid.

Excessive grinding or padding in a game just for the sake of it or for microtransaction reasons.
Microtransaction and pay-to-win models in full price $70 games...
Overuse of Quick time events Press E to dodge etc etc
Escort missions when developers want to pad their game out
Terrible stealth mechanics when an enemey spots me when im standing still in a bush from the other side of the map

Yeah, the older I get, the more "I don't have time for 10h grinding a day" I get. Just let me play a complete game in peace please.
- I decided a few years ago that I play games to have fun and if a game isn't fun, I don't play it. I don't have much time these days to dedicate gaming, so I want to enjoy the time I do.
  I've had a few I've really enjoyed until I hit some really terrible game mechanic or even a boss encounter I can't get past. I'll usually give it a few days/tries, but I'll flat out just bail and uninstall a game if it is causing me too much stress.
I'll never forget playing my first Assassins Creed game, killed someone and ran to hide from the soldiers. I ran up a ladder, jumped 3 rooftops away and hit in a bail of hay.
A soldier climbs straight up nearby stairs, walked right up the bail of hay, and stabbed me with the bayonet. In the hay

Escort missions

Daily quests or login rewards, things to force me to play the game, always stop playing

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.

Squad/micro-strategy mechanics in fps games. Commanding npcs to do specific things in the middle of a gunfight isn’t fun.
While it's ai is still sometimes a drunk toddler, i like the way arma offers it. You set rules of engagement and kind of a "ready mode", and the formation and you're set. Also quick hotkey based ways to change them.
You can still set up positions and micro manage your squad if you wanna but 90% of the time its unnecessary.
undefined> Bonus points if the npc ai gets in your way when you’re not fighting as well.
I swear I have yet to see a game where an NPC/ally doesn't walk right in front of when attacking an enemy.

People have said escort quests but I'm going to go more specific.

Escort quests WHERE THE NPC INEXPLICABLY HAS A DIFFERENT WALKING/RUNNING SPEED THAN THE PLAYER.....

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.
- But that feels terrible if you want to follow them without stopping (or in the case of obstacles, are able to).
  Even Ocarina of Time, in 1998, got this right. The Dampe race, which isn't technically an escort, would feel weird if Dampe was too much faster or slower than you, because it would feel unfair. But not everyone moves as fast while playing - some people like rolling, which is a different speed from walking, etc. Also, he throws fireballs at you, and players who are less good at dodging them will end up being slower. So Dampe doesn't "follow you," (in fact, he spends most of the thing in front of you), but he has a rubber band effect. If you get too far behind, he slows down. If you get too far ahead, he speeds up. This does a good job of keeping him in view, which helps give the feeling that you're going at an intended pace, whatever reasonable pace you take. If you're too slow, you will fail, but... it pretty much requires standing still or getting hit by lots of fireballs.
  In contrast, the Yunobo escort in BOTW feels terrible casually and even worse to speedrun. He's faster than you walk, but much, MUCH slower than you run. And if you get too far ahead of him? He stops.
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 have yet to play a game where NPCs have the same speed as the player, have you?
  RDR2 did an excellent job with this by making it more of a pseudo cutscene. You can just hold a button and your character will match the target speed.

Consumables.

They either offer too little for a too short time or too much too easy.

I haven't seen a game where consumables are promoted from the get-go and are easy to use and not a hussle or completely broken.

Alaloth has a great iteration of consumables but I still wouldn't say it's fun as a standalone mechanic.

Bonus points if you have to go out of your way to find resources to CRAFT consumables. Just - why??
I think my entire experience with consumables is storing them in a bank for one day when I need them and then never taking them out again.
This was my BotW experience. Once I figured out how to make fully recovery meals, that's all I ever used. I had like a thousand random rocks, bugs, and lizards and I have no idea what they do (and don't really care to figure it out)

I hate how in a lot of retro games water kills you instanly.

First thing I do in any game. Test the water.

Cutscenes for repeated actions like in the Zelda series. Having to dig through the menu to perform simple actions.

And this is what this mod solves, but yes, you are correct. Once is enough. EVERY time is atrocious.

I'm not a big fan of fishing mechanics, they're usually shallow "press button at random signal, get a random prize" mechanics.

Also escort missions where the NPC being escorted does not understand that it should protect its own life. I don't mind repeating a mission due to my own mistakes, but I don't want to do it because some AI went potato.

nah man fishing mini games are THE SHIT
it’s not about gameplay it’s about vibes It’s just so calming
- As long as they're not required for progression. I find it quite boring and just want to get over it already.
I give props to Warframe for being the only game that made fishing fun for me. 'Waiting' is an element, but only because you're fishing with a harpoon and you'll want to line up your shot. The water populates with fish pretty quickly, and it feels far more interactive.
- Fishing is pretty interesting to discuss in terms of a game mechanic in terms of enjoyablity since it seems like a very marmite "you love it or hate it" sort of deal and seems to pop up in lots of games. Some people love it precisely because of its slow-paced, chill nature. I quite enjoyed it when I played some of the MMO's that have a fishing profession as a pretty low energy thing to do when I wanted to focus on talking to guildies or doing some other thing in the background.
feebas flashbacks

Best hunger mechanics are the ones that don't harm your character when you're hungry, but you do get a buff for eating.
Valheim's like that. Don't want to eat? Fine. Go multiple days without and you'll still be ok. But if you want your hp to be all it can be, you'll want to eat up before going out to fight.
- Valheim's hunger / food-as-major-buffs mechanic is legit the best way I've seen any video game handle food.
It's also the reason I DO NOT like survival games.
I would be ok with this mechanic if I didn't have to eat 10 bear steaks of 2 kilos each to last me for the next 10 minutes.
- This is one of several reasons I didn't play Ark for more than 2 days. Kill animals, get meat, cook at camp fire, eat throughout the day, store meat where half of it spoils before you can eat it.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a popular roguelike that removed its hunger mechanic and the game is so much better.
Or where it just becomes a nuisance 5 minutes in. For example Subnautica, which is an amazing survival/exploration game. But the hunger/thirst becomes a chore like 30minutes in when you get the possibility to get food basically everywhere and stock up on water. Still enjoyed the exploration/base building a lot. But it really stopped being a survival game quickly, which honestly might have been for the best given its other qualities.
I would be ok with it if I only needed to pick up the stuff and my character would eat it automatically, and not need to open up the menu every ten minutes

Gacha. I can tolerate lootboxes but when lootboxes are the central feature, I'm out.

The only good implement is the Zelda ToTK gacha machines. All the fun of gacha with none of the monetary expense!
- Nintendo is the only company i know that gets it right. Most of their gachas are for optional collectibles and you can rig the odds in your favor by filling the machines with tokens you collect in-game

Card games that get bolted on to other genres. cough genshin cough

What about open-world rpgs that get tucked onto card games? cough The Witcher 3 cough

Loot

I hate collecting it, managing inventory, selling it, crafting it, and so on. I used to love it, but these days I much prefer a more guided experience where the only items I get are interesting. Elder Scrolls completely destroyed this whole mechanic for me because I'm a bit obsessive and would try to bring literally every plate back to town to sell.

As a corollary, I'm not a fan of dealing with shops in general. I'm fine if they exist, but I really think the game should supply you with everything you need to complete the game, and shops should be a backup plan, not a core mechanic.

Loot is great when it's unique, or at least rare. Unique weapons and lore items in Dark Souls come to mind.
But yeah, loot that just fills up your inventory (or worse, your equip load) until you go sell it is just Worse Money.
- I wish games like that had an auto loot feature where you take what you can use, then hire an NPC or something to go sell the rest. I think that could be a cool, immersive middle ground.
- For all the things I liked about RDR2, when they felt the need to have dead enemies drop their guns, which are worse condition than yours, but you can't sell them or anything really makes me wonder what they were thinking there.
I forget which game unfortunately but it would tell you what junk you picked up but then autoconverted it to a gold value and gave you that instead.
- I know Dishonored does it, and I love it.
Oh god yes. I literally check every single urn in every dungeon, grab every mushroom or plant, check every shelf. It's like this goblin comes out of me playing TES
- Yup, and unfortunately I ruin the game for myself by doing it. Why? Because I can fit within my encumbrance limit, so I'm just leaving money on the table if I leave it there.
  It's completely illogical, but I think if I had a way to auto loot and just turn extra junk into cash, I'd do it. Whether that's with a mechanic like Dishonored has where loot turns into money, or a mechanic where I can hire someone to follow me to dungeons to loot for me doesn't really matter, I just want to essentially ignore the looting mechanic while still getting the benefit from it.

Stealth. I hate hiding and creeping around waiting for an NPC to move. It's like, "oh, you want to play the game? How about not playing the game instead?" Infuriating.

I don't mind stealth as a concept in a game, but I hate forced stealth in games that aren't like, Thief or whatever. Let me choose to be stealthy, or let me choose to be creative, or go in guns blazing, etc. If you want me to use stealth, give me a very good reason why the alternatives are much worse. It's so frustrating to just get a "Game Over" because someone saw you.
I feel like most games get it wrong and just make you stay in one place waiting for the enemy dude to slowly make his route as you map it in your head. It’s just boring, I don’t know.
A nice way to change that would be to give a button that gives you a “top view” map of the enemies’s movement maybe, to make it a little bit puzzle-y. Or, if you want to make it more “action-y”, give the player a way to hide or disengage by scrambling to find something in the environment that allows them to do that, when they get detected.
Stealth is just implemented in a terrible way in most modern games I feel like. Makes it not fun.
- Hitman is one of my favorite stealth games in this way.
- This was why MGS was so good.
- I love the shit out of stealth. The last of us, metal gear solid, and sniper elite are some of my favorite games because of the stealth.
  If your game isn't built for stealth it's basically universally a disaster, though. If you don't have tools to manipulate enemies, and AI where stealth is a functional element of the rest of the game, you shouldn't have stealth sections. They're a lock to be a trainwreck.

I've never been a fan of character weapon skill being tied to the bullet not hitting where the player is aiming in first person RPGs and immersive sims. Think something like Fallout 3, where a shot with a sniper rifle can be perfectly lined up, but the bullet might veer off randomly.

I do understand and appreciate character weapon skills being tied to certain weapons being more viable, but there are many other ways to impliment it that don't feel as arbitrary. Tying character skill to greater reticle swap, longer time to aim down sights, longer reload times, more likely to jam or jams taking longer to clear. It accomplishes the same goal of rewarding putting points into the skill and making players feel like they are progressing, but without creating the instant frustration of missing a clearly lined up shot.

On that note, actively degrading weapons are not something I think has ever been a good idea. It's neither fun, nor is the rate of degradation ever realistic. If the goal is to make player cautious, then limiting ammunition and the availability of good weapons is a much better idea. I have no problem with weapons in different conditions existing in a game, for example: Pristine rifle, good rifle, rusty rifle, etc. That's fine, but a good rifle should never degrade into a rusty rifle in the hands of the player.

Areas of open worlds dynamically level scaling to match players is another gripe I have. Once a player notices it, it takes away the feeling of progress from leveling up. In some cases, smarter players in games have found certain areas easier to beat with low level characters. It creates a bad kind of meta-game. I much prefer worlds where every area is built with a certain player level in mind. Honestly, overleveling in RPGs and going to wreck starting bandit camps is a joy that shouldn't be taken away.

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 cannot jump. Not for the life of me. I mean I do press space at the right moment, but somehow I miss, or it's just not working, I keep falling down or to my death. That's why platformers aren't for me sadly, even though I'd like to play them. I cannot do jumping puzzles in Guild Wars 2, I even struggle in Doom! Please, I'll do everything, but don't make me jump!

I was always so thankful for Mesmers that took the time to create the portals for other players on those jumping puzzles. I am similarly awful at jumping and platforming. I even have a few newer Mario games I never finished because I'm so awful at it. Thank goodness for Yoshi's Woolly World.
- Yes! There's a big guild that's always present when it's a daily so everyone can get it done. I remember the old days when people were expected to pay the mesmers for the service, nowadays almost every class has a port :)

I agree, I feel like the crafting system could be removed from the game.
100% agree... I've played through the game several times and the only time I meaningfully engaged with crafting was in my bow-only build. And that was out of necessity not by choice.

Endless monologues and dialogue-dependent quests. Tell me what to do once, then be happily surprised when it's done. I don't need to know why it's important to uncle Sandy to find the green gate key, he can say "Thanks!" later if I want to talk to him at all.

Death penalties. Any game that seriously penalizes you for dying is just so frustrating for me. I understand that there has to be some form of reason to not die but please, at worst just reload an earlier save for me (and make sure you have frequent autosaves too).

If I lose all my items on death I'm just reloading a save. If I have to respawn at a checkpoint ten thousand years away I'm going to be very mad. If I have to listen to someone monologue to me every time I die I'm refunding your game.

Combo attacks - I'm not coordinated to hit the buttons in order fast enough. I tried Black Desert when it was free and this was the dealbreaker for me, though it wasn't the only thing that bugged me about the game.

I played Icey for a bit and it had combo attacks and I was like "I do not have the brain capacity for this shit" and quit. The narrator was terrible too.
This is why I hated Jedi Fallen Order.

Quest systems, especially in linear games. All is does is clog up the UI, and if you need to constantly tell me what to do and where to go, is your game really designed that well?

Currently?
Having cool abilities tied to NPC companions.

And I'm pretty sure (nearly?) everyone knows why and what I'm talking about.

TOTK? The number of times I've lost items because the bird decided to gust instead of Link picking it up, but then having to search around for someone when you actually do want to activate a power.
- of course
- it can be easier to just put them all back in their pokeballs until you need one.

Stamina, why can't i just keep running forever!! Even worst in open world games.

I think elden ring had the right idea for this. If there's an enemy nearby, you use stamina. Otherwise, its infinite

Most open-world games have areas on the map that are blank until you "explore" them by climbing a tower of some kind and "activating" that region on your map.

This results in trudging blindly into the middle of every new area, ignoring interesting stuff along the way and beelining to the tower just so you can see the damn map. It's an annoyingly unnatural way to explore.

I didn't even realize that I disliked it until I played Far Cry 6, which has a much more organic and immersive landmark discovery process. You learn locations of interest from readables and by talking to friendly NPCs that you encounter in the world.

In FC6 it's even thematic, since you're guerilla fighters passing intel along by word of mouth.

Edit: sp

The bit in a certain DOS game where a demon respawns lower level demons... If you know, you know.

I think forced stealth mechanics in games not designed for them are my pet peeve. Looking at you Witcher 2.

Yes, yes and more yes. Even worse in co-op or MMO games where there's always one smug friend who does it first time while you're laying dead on the floor after your 32nd attempt...
I hate stealth mechanics in general, it is just not my type of gameplay. It is the reason I stopped playing Death Stranding, although I loved everything else in it, but being forced to use stealth mechanics was so off-putting to me, I just stopped playing and can't go back.

crafting dear god I hate crafting if I ever find the person that introduced crafting into the triple a formula...

I enjoy crafting if its a core game component, like in a survival game. But having to craft in order to upgrade your gear in Assassin's Creed was just tedious.
I always find it hilarious when I want to upgrade a bow or something and the game expects me to use like hundreds of wooden logs, metal ingots and other random shit. It just makes no sense at all. This was even worse in AC Valhalla where you run around in 9th century England and craft gear out of tungsten and titanium for some reason.
This - either I avoid it completely, or I just craft whatever I can with the ingredients I have just randomly collected.
OMG, so tired of crafting. Seems so unnecessary and such a chore

Escort missions and weapons breaking without a reasonably easy way to get/make more (glaring at you, Dead Island...)

I honestly do not like the RPG mechanic of levelling up/buying skills, especially in FPS games. I'd rather have a Half Life experience over levelling.

I'm also not a fan of side quests. I find it breaks the immersion when you're character is on some crazy, world saving overall quest but sure, I can spend time to find that random thing for you.

I think some level of choice in the power progression in fps games is good, but it gets annoying when it's tied to a skill tree.
- Nailed it. It's the skill trees I dislike.

I really don't like random bullet spread. Especially when it becomes more random if your character is moving.

The bit in the RPG when your character gets captured and you lose all your gear, and have to do the shitty stealth thing.

I like those in theory, because they make you appreciate how strong your character is normally, but yeah they never turn out to be fun.

QuickTime events. I started replaying RE4 original. Did not miss them.

Slow, boring climbing sections that add nothing to the game and just pad out playtime. I'm looking at you, God of War (2018).
Lives systems. Luckily modern games never use it anymore, but every now and then I play an older game and wow, losing 30+ minutes of progress just because you died a few times SUCKS.

Slow movement systems are often hiding loading screens. Hard to say if we’ll see those transition out as SSDs become more popular.

Perhaps forced online with no way to self host.

This is one of my bigger problems with things like Diablo IV. If I want to play single player I shouldn't need internet connectivity...

I know it's a popular mechanic that lots of people love, but I really don't like games where you die a lot, or where death has significant impact. I generally play games to chill out and just have fun and I often feel like games are punishing me when that happens and I find myself doing sort of "risk management" and becoming a hermit in the game.

I love shooters but I can’t do fortnight or any game mode that CS-esque because I need that respawn

Disclaimer: not always

Character stats, commonly called "RPG elements".

In games with low enough detail that I have to use my imagination, it makes sense to have a character constitution 10 increase to 15 and take 50% less damage from blunt weapons. It works perfectly in Rimworld, ADOM, Terraria and the like because you can't completely see what's happening, so when your character does low damage your imagination has room for him to hit badly or be partially blocked.

But in games with modern graphics and animations, it feels... off. An attack animation that shows someone swinging a sharp steel battleaxe perfectly and connecting with bare flesh at momentum, deals... no damage because the wielder has low strength and axe skill, while the target has a high armor value.

IMO it goes triply so for games with guns, if regular enemies can just shrug off bullets to the head I have difficulty enjoying it cause it just makes the weapons feel weak

Anything that encourages toxicity and trolling behavior, though I suppose in some ways that's unavoidable and is the nature of anonymity/pseudo-anonymity that online gaming offers.

Someone already sort of mentioned this, but I don't usually like crafting and building stuff. So games like minecraft and animal crossing new horizons are out. For the latter, greatly prefer new leaf.

I hate RNG-heavy progression that discourages playing the actual game.

Path of Exile had terrible loot droprates and gamble crafting when I last played in Ritual League. Starting a league = poring YouTube for safe league starter builds to follow step by step. Gearing up = only picking up currency and buying items from other players on a website. Making $$$ = flipping items (buy low sell high) in hideout (personal town).

Path of Champions (PvE gamemode in Legends of Runeterra) drops shards and fragments to unlock new champions and relics that add a passive effect. Drops are random and not duplicate protected. Champions need 2 star upgrades totalling their unlock cost to feel playable. Optimal progression = speedrunning dailies/weeklies, 2-starring meta champs, and logging out.

Flowcharts for multiple endings. Let me take multiple distinct routes from the start, or make a choice at the end I can come back to. I hate going through some of the same content again and again and having to look up guides just to find the true ending (looking at you Persona).

I wish more games allowed for choices that are meaningful in the moment but don't have to affect the ending or even the main plot at all. It doesn't need to effect that part of the game for the choice to be meaningful to me.
The main example that comes to mind is Soma. I know some people hated that the choices don't affect the story, but I loved that about it. I thought a lot about all of those choices, and all of them felt more meaningful than most video game choices, and it straight up wouldn't have made any sense for most of them to have any impact on the player character's life after he moves passed them.
Edit: I think I prefer the structure of a mostly linear main quest, with a whole bunch of side quests that don't effect it but are adventures in their own right, over the structure of a super-branchy main story. Especially since I'm always aware that every choice will mean I might miss out on entire areas or characters - that kinda stresses me out, sometimes.
- Oddly, AC Odyssey did this for the most part. There are exactly one or two major obvious decisions that impact the outcome, but there were a lot of small visual but otherwise meaningless world changes that can occur as a result of decisions in side quests.
You would HATE AI Somnium Files then, haha. I really like their flowchart, but I definitely see how others wouldn't.
- I actually love AI Somnium Files because it makes it super clear and it doesn't just repeat the same story bits! haha VNs are really bad for just giving hidden branching paths, and branching-story RPGs for hiding true endings behind convoluted sequences of events.

I like story heavy games so I personally don't mind unskippable cut scenes... the first time around. What reeeaaaaally annoys me is when it's a game with multiple endings and I can't skip the same cut scenes on future playthroughs.
Same when it's a reading-heavy multiple ending game, but it won't let me skip text that I've seen already.

Repeateable procedural quests. I feel like this explains it all.

Crafting with survival elements, one button stealth attacks, random loot with stats in story games.

Not a gameplay mechanic but constant fucking talking mains and npcs

Crafting. I don't want to have to remember the recipe to stuff, then find out where it is, then keep going back to make it again

I like crafting in general, but the "trek across the map to collect large quantities of ingredients only available in a specific place" part of it, when there is no way to automate that process, and especially if you also have very limited and manually managed inventory space, is maddening (looking at you, subnautica, gosh darnit.)

Fast travel that is just a game mechanic with no story ties in open world games.

Disclaimer: My main experience with games so far has been some Nintendo stuff, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls.

Of what I've played I like Morrowind's fast travel system the most. You don't just open your map and click a button, you talk to people or use a spell/item. And NPCs mention these travel systems and story wise would use them.

I like Oblivion's (and to a lesser extent, Skyrim and the 3D Fallout's) the least. Time passes like your character walked to where you fast traveled but not much is timed so that has little effect on immersion. Too much of the journey has to have gaps filled in by the player's imagination because walking on the road normally has a lot of encounters and wandering off to check out random buildings and people. It encourages less exploration and taking some time with the game.

Obviously I want a balance, I don't want to be walking the same road with 2 wolf encounters a thousand times because it's between two areas I need to frequent. And I don't want 90% of my playtime to be traveling. But I also don't want to keep instantly fast traveling to all places and feel "lazy" and like I'm missing experiences and encounters. And I want more immersion. More character interaction instead of UI interaction.

3D 3rd person platforming. Any flavour of it. It consistently either sucks (souls games) or is just plain boring (the uncharted series). I'm sure there are some games where it's done reasonably well (probably some sonic or mario game), but I've never seen that.

I think what sucks is platforming in 3D games that are not primarily platformers. I don't think it has anything to do with 3rd person perspective. If anything, 3rd pp makes it easier to see exactly where your character (and their feet) is and how they can jump.
A hat in time is a good platformer for instance
- I don't agree at all, I think it has to do everything with it being 3d.
  For any game, I don't want to look at the thing I'm controlling often - I need to feel where I am, and not see where I am. Many 3rd person games break that for me - the camera-object distance is not fixed for various reasons (speed indication, avoiding a wall, motion smoothing), and that immediately breaks the feeling of control for me. Not to mention anything that takes control of the camera.
  With 1st person controls you always get perfect motion controls, a camera that cannot accidentally clip into walls, and motion smoothing does not exist. If a game is 1st person,you don't need it to be desiged as a platforming game for its controls to be good for platforming - take a look at Minecraft or Counter Strike with their emergent gamemodes.
  I might be biased from the hundreds of hours of cs surf though.
  Having a quick look at how A Hat in a Time looks, I think I wouldn't enjoy its platforming as well, as it seems to suffer from the same problems.
Pretty much every 3d mario game has nailed it pretty well, Super Mario Galaxy and Oddysey being my favorites. Sonic is very hit and miss, but i've heard good things about Sonic Frontiers. Kirby and the forgotten land is also very good. I haven't played a hat in time but the gameplay looks phenomenal. The Crash Bandicoot series is also very decent.
Yeah I think of Mario 3DS, which really blew me away.

Swimming/diving, it usually has terrible controls. My prime example is Witcher 3, swimming with Geralt feels like steering a freighter while underwater enemies can quickly move in all directions.

Also I generally don't like platforming, but that's just me.

Controversial opinion but I mostly hate crafting. I feel like it's a huge time sink just to make you waste time in the game. It's not content at all just mindless farming for no real reason.

There are games where the whole game revolves around it so you couldn't really remove it from those games. Minecraft is an example.

But I feel like every single game now has some kind of crafting mechanics. Mainly the F2P to get some kind of weird limitation that will either take you half a lifetime to accomplish or $5...

The bane of my existence in any pvp game is crowd control mechanics.

In general, I hate every player skill in pvp games which take away the opponent's ability to play.

I don't mind area denial when it's based on damage, rather than stunning. The Demoman's sticky bombs are a good example, which also can be countered. The Spitter in L4D2 is area denial, and if the team absolutely wants they CAN just run straight through the acid pool to sacrifice health to get where they need to be.

QTE by far

Games that require you to follow someone, and if you get too far behind, you have to restart.

Those hints to success "difficult parts". Some games think their players are braindead. If you have some trouble or spend a bit too much time doing a quest or killing a boss, NPCs or game interface constantly yells at us hints to skip those "difficult" parts. Games are more and more aimed for dumb casuals. I'd rather have the satisfaction completing a challenge by myself. Lets not forgot that today's games are increasingly easier and shorter (and pricier) than before...

I was playing TotK and today I finally figured out a hint that I'd puzzled over for hours. It felt very satisfying to finally get the answer without using a guide.

Open worlds with markers. It takes every feel of exploration from me and changes the open world part of the game to really long and boring interactive loading screen through which I must pass between (very often) very linear missions.

this was why I think breath of the wild was so cool, you had to make your own markers and just go to things you thought seemed interesting. It made it feel much more like you were actually exploring

Do this to get that to get this to get that One example is the Minecraft tech tree. Abosultely no choice whatsoever. I don't ever need to make a choice. Obviously Minecraft is now begining to take steps to sort this out. But it's been over 10 years and the system is ingrained into people's minds

Huh always felt that Minecraft had a very horizontal game play loop. As in getting a certain upgrade never had you jumping though that much hoops. The only get this for that kinda thing i can think about are the tools/armour, which does have a bit if progression you are forced to go through. Modded Minecraft on the other hand...
- I wasn't refering to minecraft as a whole, just the tech tree - obviously thats vague. I meant the tools and armour etc

The game over mechanic in platformers. Fine with it in RPGs, but after playing Rayman Legends and Mario Odyssey game overs seem more intrusive in platformers rather than something beneficial to the overall enjoyment of the game.

Any puzzly or exploring games that suddenly introduce a twitch response element. Having to successfully jump onto a sequence of 14 wildly gyrating levitating rocks to get to my next “thoughtfully re-arrange some tiles” challenge has caused me to leave so many games unfinished. Basically if I can’t deal with it by mashing every button at random, it ain’t gonna happen.

Quick save/quick load. Not as relevant any more, but so many games used to have it. The meta game just became saving at the opportune moment and trying every possible action from there to progress forward.

Blew my mind in the first Bioshock where you could qs/ql, but the vita chambers were forgiving enough to wean you off it.

I love quick save / quick load features. I quick load ALOT but doesn't bother me at all, they are games and I like to try out different things and for example in Max Payne I quick loaded back to awesome fights just to try them again.

Invisible walls, including on high places or on bridges - I get it, possibly it would be less fun if the character dies just because you go a bit off-road, but not everything has to be easy!

Might be a bit too specific but limited-time battles in JRPGs. Not sure how prevalent it is nowadays, but the most recent one to do it that I've played is Persona 5 Royal.

Either crafting or being Sonic the Hedgehog

When you enter a level and the camera pans over every important thing in the level before you can move. I'm not an idiot. I can discover the level on my own. Stop holding my hand.

Grinding to advance and make the game easier.

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

Pokemon-style puzzles and crafting.