Game Mechanics you always love, and always hate

[null1024]

Frothing despise: Action games that give a damaged player neither hitstun nor recovery time. Feels nasty and tatty and leads to enemies just rubbing themselves all over you being a bigger threat than their attacks (The Killing Game Show).

Generally a sign of a shitty game and/or shitty programming anyways. It takes a non-trivial amount of effort to code in hit-stun/recovery time/push back, but any decent programmer or developer realizes this is worth the work.

Related: there's nothing quite as annoying as games that do implement hitstun and recovery time, and make them hilariously short to the point where it might as well not be there, considering you're still getting drowned in whatever's attacking you.

[Durandal]

Frothing despise: Action games that give a damaged player neither hitstun nor recovery time. Feels nasty and tatty and leads to enemies just rubbing themselves all over you being a bigger threat than their attacks (The Killing Game Show).

Generally a sign of a shitty game and/or shitty programming anyways. It takes a non-trivial amount of effort to code in hit-stun/recovery time/push back, but any decent programmer or developer realizes this is worth the work.

I dunno, I don't think it negatively affected Turrican too much.

[wgogh]

Love: Basic run'n'gun games where you shoot on diagonals, lay on the ground, crawl the walls and/or stairs etc (Contra, Dinossaurs for Hire and a lot of Mega Drive)
Hate: Waste of time on a game due to story elements, and having to shake the ps3 control

[copy-paster]

Hate : Enemies that spawn nowhere and forced to fight and will interrupt the players (GBA Rockman EXE games)

[JBC]

Always love:

Enemies that will fight each other & the ability to lure them into a clash. Simply the best, most underutilized & ignored mechanics in gaming.

Always hate:

Walking around a village talking to 20 people, only 1 or 2 of which actually affects my progress. You have to intuit where to go & which ones to talk to if you don't want your time wasted getting to the actual gameplay.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Hate
Extended unskippable tutorials. With the demise of manuals, games nowadays ease you in - which can be fine but it wrecks replay value because you have hours of patronising gameplay to wade through that, while helpful first time around, is now redundant. Games need to use their cutscene obsession to show tutorial story elements as cinematics. And of course there's stuff like FF13 where the game holds your hand for a good 30 hours!

Quick time events. I've played one game (Force Unleashed 2) that renders QTEs playable by giving you more chances to win after initally failing. QTE suddenly appears in cutscene... you die.... cutscene starts up only now you know what's coming. At its unfair worst it's just a game of Simon as you remember when each prompt comes up. Also fuck those that change button prompts after failing AND make a wrong button an auto-fail

Difficulty settings that merely scale damage. I've tried playing Mechcommander 2, for instance, on harder than default difficulty but enemies have so much health and do so much damage that it's impossible without tediously exploiting the AI. I want more, smarter enemies. Not the same dumb ones just acting as damage sponges. When the game is easy it makes the game a chore not a challenge, or when the game is hard it outright renders it unplayable

[BrianC]

Love:
Harder difficulty modes that add new enemies and mix up the challenge a bit. Kirby's Dreamland's extra mode is a good example of this.
Paddle controls in games like Arkanoid
The pedal mechanic in a couple of the Time Crisis games
Using a light gun to interact with and protect a character like in Gumshoe

[BulletMagnet]

Love: Any sort of glossary/encyclopedia/item list/bestiary/etc. that you can fill in; I always like being encouraged to try out different things and check every nook and cranny to fill in all of the "???" entries (even better if they're listed in roughly chronological order, as they can hint as to whether or not I've missed something).

Hate: Pretty much any excuse to stand still and do nothing for more than a few moments, whether it's multiple moving platforms you need to have lined up just right before jumping or a slooow moving guard you can't afford to get caught by, I absolutely hate having to just sit there.

[Ex_Mosquito]

Love: Platformers that allow you fire a projectile at grounded height and immediately jump at the same time when pressing the jump and attack buttons simultaneously... If that makes sense. As opposed to having to awkwardly stagger the button presses to get the same result.

Examples that do: AC Shinobi, Wardner, Makaimura games
Examples that don't: Arcade AC/MD Shadowdancer, MD Eswat.

Hate: Platformers that let you jump diagonally and when at maximum height if you pull the opposite direction you end up further back than where you originally launched from. WTF. A couple of lesser PCE platformers do this. Shoddy.

[quash]

Love: An evasion/dodge ability in melee action games. Most 2D games from the past don't have it, but it's standard in 3D action. Makes combat much more enjoyable.

This is typically the mechanic that makes or breaks 3D action for me. Of course, enemy placement and level design play a role in this as well, but the general rule for me is as long as it isn't too strong, it's at least passable.

I think MGR did a great job with this by making your dodge an instrumental part of keeping yourself safe during combos. It goes without saying that the NG games did a great job with this as well.

Love: pokes in fighting games that cover a specific area really well, but have blind spots to make them lose to hard call outs.

Love: moves in fighting and action games that become unlockable when you fully charge them.

Love: projectile weapon inheritance in FPS.

[iconoclast]

This is typically the mechanic that makes or breaks 3D action for me. Of course, enemy placement and level design play a role in this as well, but the general rule for me is as long as it isn't too strong, it's at least passable.

Yes, and this is one reason why I think Platinum's games will always pale in comparison to Ninja Gaiden. Platinum tends to let you cancel any attack at any point with a dodge, which completely cripples the amount of strategy and depth required in combat. None of your attacks have any meaning if you don't have to commit to them - you can press any button you want at any point and you'll always have the option to evade an incoming attack. Ninja Gaiden was clearly made by experienced fighting game developers. You have to develop an understanding of the start up, recovery, invincibility, damage, delimb rate, and whatever misc advantage each weapon's combo may have, fully learn each enemy's moveset (what's punishable, what isn't, what can be countered and when, when do they have super armor, etc), and then figure out optimal punishes with every weapon. All while taking spacing and the environment into account (walls are very important, especially in NG2). It's obvious that NG's school of design is inherently superior.

But I'm still a big fan of Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, The Wonderful 101, and MGR. Platinum actually took steps to improve the balance between player and enemy in Bayonetta 2 by giving enemies more ways to defend themselves and making them harder to open up for a combo, but of course there are people who cite that as a reason why the game's worse than the original. This genre is hopeless.

[quash]

This is typically the mechanic that makes or breaks 3D action for me. Of course, enemy placement and level design play a role in this as well, but the general rule for me is as long as it isn't too strong, it's at least passable.

Yes, and this is one reason why I think Platinum's games will always pale in comparison to Ninja Gaiden. Platinum tends to let you cancel any attack at any point with a dodge, which completely cripples the amount of strategy and depth required in combat. None of your attacks have any meaning if you don't have to commit to them - you can press any button you want at any point and you'll always have the option to evade an incoming attack. Ninja Gaiden was clearly made by experienced fighting game developers. You have to develop an understanding of the start up, recovery, invincibility, damage, delimb rate, and whatever misc advantage each weapon's combo may have, fully learn each enemy's moveset (what's punishable, what isn't, what can be countered and when, when do they have super armor, etc), and then figure out optimal punishes with every weapon. All while taking spacing and the environment into account (walls are very important, especially in NG2). It's obvious that NG's school of design is inherently superior.

Couldn't agree more. This is coming from a guy who loves MGR, too.

That being said, I think Platinum's goal is a noble one: if it is possible to make a game as good as or better than NG by using DMC style combos within the superior NG template for level design and movement, they'd be the only developer at this point with the talent to do it. So I say let them keep doing what they're doing.

Platinum actually took steps to improve the balance between player and enemy in Bayonetta 2 by giving enemies more ways to defend themselves and making them harder to open up for a combo, but of course there are people who cite that as a reason why the game's worse than the original. This genre is hopeless.

Where have you been my entire life?

Honestly, as much as I like the game, DMC3 has completely ruined people's standard of 3D action. But that's a subject of discussion for another time.

[TransatlanticFoe]

As I didn't put a love in earlier and the above has inspired me a little.

I do love a system which allows freeflowing combat. I'm probably in the minority but Remember Me just felt superb - you could attack for extra damage, health recovery or special meter recovery, with dodging counting as a freebie. So you could evade all you like until you get in the right position, reel off a few attacks, dodge back to land more. All while executing a combo that you customised for said damage/recovery/special charge. It was probably too rigid for mass appeal - unlike the Arkham/Mordor system, the timings were always the same... but you still had to make sure you had balanced combos available if you wanted to stay alive.

Vanquish's boost/dodge into bullet time is pretty special too. Zooming around, stopping only to nail a few hits or get in behind a group of enemies. Beautiful. Perfect balance between feeling superpowered when you got it right but still being vulnerable if you screwed it up.

[atheistgod1999]

I hate how in Demon's Souls, you become a "soul" (who can still touch things besides the ground and get hurt) and your health bar shrinks if you die. Like what's the fucking point?

[Shoryukev]

I hate how in Demon's Souls, you become a "soul" (who can still touch things besides the ground and get hurt) and your health bar shrinks if you die. Like what's the fucking point?

The game creates uses that to create a sense of fear and helplessness though, I always felt like it was a staple of the series. Even when you triumph over a boss and get your full health bar back, there is this looming sense that you could lose it at any moment due to either an unforeseen obstacle in a new area, or being invaded by another player.

Exploring a new area with your newly restored status is unnerving, and creates an experience I found very refreshing when I played it at launch. If the online servers are down now it probably takes away from that feeling though, since the risk of invasion is no longer there. The feeling of panic when you see the "you're being invaded" prompt and you're in the middle of something perilous is a big part of what made the game awesome IMO

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, Shoryukev's got it.

It gives a sense of tension and excitement to full health exploration, and encourages you to treat that life and death with meaning.

No penalty for failure = no excitement.

Also I think Dark Souls did it better, since Humanity (the equivalent of having a "body", in that one) affects more than just hp. It's a rare meta currency that effects certain obscure but important elements of the game, opening up secret paths and having effects on certain npc relationships.

[atheistgod1999]

Yeah, I know what you're saying, but I still think it's kinda stupid. I mean, the tension only lasts until you die once. I also think it's kinda bullshit to raise the challenge like that after a player dies; I mean, in games where you have to restart from the beginning after getting game over, the player isn't handicapped in any way so I still think it's fair. Isn't just having to restart the level enough of a consequence, if the levels are actually somewhat hard?

I actually don't really care about the lower HP; what really bothers me is that it pushes suspension of disbelief too far. It really doesn't make sense to be a soul when you're collecting and trading souls for items yourself; that's some Uncle Ruckus shit right there. If you were a soul, you shouldn't be able to walk or anything, like everyone else. The character isn't even supposed to have supernatural powers or anything, just a muggle who was badass enough to survive, so the fact that you can still get hurt and hurt other things without a body just doesn't make sense.

[Shepardus]

It's more like a temporary bonus you get until the next time you die than it is a penalty for dying. I don't know how Demon's Souls explains it but in Dark Souls the equivalent humanity/hollowed form mechanic works just fine with the lore.

[Blinge]

Also I think Dark Souls did it better, since Humanity (the equivalent of having a "body", in that one) affects more than just hp.

Point of information - Hollowing in Ds1 doesn't affect your HP at all. It does in 2, incrementally with each death, but isn't as much of a problem.
Don't know about 3

If you were a soul, you shouldn't be able to walk or anything, like everyone else. The character isn't even supposed to have supernatural powers or anything, just a muggle who was badass enough to survive, so the fact that you can still get hurt and hurt other things without a body just doesn't make sense.

You're not *a soul* otherwise you'd have given up the ghost , and be just an item about to get squeezed by another player.

You're in spirit form. You've lost your body but aren't allowed to die until you've fulfilled your purpose. If you lose the will to fight you'll simply cease to exist, dissipate. The crestfallen blue knight in the Nexus is in soul form and on the verge of giving out.

Oh and, don't throw the word "muggle" around like we're supposed to know what it means. Ew. I do, but it's not in common parlance just yet.
Also there's nothing to say the Slayer of Demons isn't a fully fledged mage when he first arrives in the Nexus. The player character is badass yes, but it's because of the journey they go through in game, and from obtaining a power beyond human imagining.

[BIL]

Didn't quite twig until finishing my Gun.Smoke ST, limited shot range (on enemies and players alike) is a great mechanic for topdown action games. Encourages active, tactical use of open space, and naturally creates a range-finding footsie scenario - always compelling with aggressive AI (and/or multiple partners!). Going a step further and having projectiles differ not only in range but other aspects is even better:

Animated GIF: Senjou no Okami II MD

Spoiler

^ Dealing with that boss's MG bullets, grenades and cannon shells on the fly is always a fun juggling act. Also avoids a clumpy "bullet barf" effect. Tying that to a more aesthetic sense - in "conventional" STGs, I and others have long praised bosses with articulated weaponry that vividly represents each attack; minelaying apertures, flamethrowers, beamswords, my personal favourite the icily tracking Massive Fucking Cannon favoured by Yagawa boss machines (a small example seen in the above GIF!). I'd not realised just how precisely this transposes onto zako weaponry, though. Obviously you could express these weapons and infinitely more with generic sprites and the right coding, and I'm all for smart algorithms over pretty graphics (RIP DRUM ;-; ) - but getting the best of both worlds is always nice. :3

Also, might've mentioned this before, but just in case: I always love it when action games with multi-step dash inputs (typically sidescrollers) allow you to start entering the command while the character's airborne, completing and executing it upon landing. Superb examples offhand are SOTN, Gigantic Army and Strider 2 (1999).

Typically, I'll be Little Hell Annoyed if not provoked to lasting enmity if a game insists on the character being grounded first! Imagine how much more stiltedly SFII or any other quality fighting series would play sans "wakeup" inputs. Ugh.

[atheistgod1999]

I always hate when there's a guide character that tells you the story/what to do. Right now, I'm playing TES: Arena, and the ghost lady is probably the worst one I've seen. Tons of unnecessary detail, and the music is the most annoying thing I've ever heard.

And on an unrelated note: WTF is with the horrible draw distance in that game!?

[Bitter Almonds]

Hate: Unresponsive and sluggish controls. Example: In Exerion, no matter how many times you press the "fire" button, it is slow as shit to fire. It fires about once for every five times I press the button. The ship moves slow as hell, too. You press the button to move and the damn thing takes a bit long to move. If it weren't the first Shoot-'Em-Up I ever played, I'd absolutely hate playing it.

Hate: "block" button. I fucking hate having to remember to press that in Fighting games. I'm a shitty player (more than usual) at Mortal Kombat and Dead Or Alive 5 because of it.

Hate: having to have reflexes of steel to play Cosmophony. I died about 500+ times on the practice level 3.

Love: being able to block by just pressing back on the D-pad.

[atheistgod1999]

Love: being able to block by just pressing back on the D-pad.

Not as good as being able to block by pressing a shoulder button.

[Bitter Almonds]

Blasphemy! That's another button to remember pressing.

[Squire Grooktook]

Like any mechanic, it depends on the type of game.

For something where you're always "locked on" to a single opponent, holding back generally feels better.

For games with more free movement or multiple targets, block buttons can give more control and freedom.

[Bitter Almonds]

Hahah. I'm just a shit player and that doesn't deter me from playing DOA 5 for hours and pushing back to block until I die

[Durandal]

I'm not sure what's the idea behind those teleporters in Descent which spawn waves of enemies every time you hit a nearby invisible trigger in the level, up to three times on Ace difficulty and infinitely on Insane.
Stand in front of these teleporters until it stops teleporting in enemies, that sounds fun. Even more fun when multiple teleporters get activated at once. IN ENCLOSED SPACES.

[Squire Grooktook]

Okay I'll go:

Love: In general, any mechanic that "simulates" the character and/or world.

Example: Mech-scrollers heavy handling simulating the weight and power of a giant robot. Shadow Dancer's emphasis on vertical surprise attacks and instant kills simulating ninja stealth murder. Guwange's multitasking familiar simulating two symbiotic entities that require interdependence for survival. Dark Souls/Bloodbornes dog-eat-dog violent soul harvesting and visceral, hard hitting, yet intensely vulnerable and fragile player character combat simulating their killer dark fantasy worlds, etc.

Characterful mechanics channeling the essence of a character or setting are for me part of the heart of gaming and how they bring a fantasy to life through interactivity. I think game designers who consider mechanics only through the lens of pragmatism, viewing mechanics only as agents of challenge and competition without putting thought into the more escapist "take you out of yourself" element of the medium and fantasy in general, are limiting themselves and their creations into something engaging but with a dulling and dry lack of magic.

On the other hand, the more "casual" game designers aren't much better in this department. In the modern 3d era, any big budget asshole can throw together a qte or cutscene to tell you "YOU ARE A NINJA", but even with all the technology in the world, those un-interactive and simplistic elements will never channel the raw immersion of a simple but deep mechanic or idea that's simply fun to play around with any time.

In short, think about what you have done, humans.

-

Hate: Non-normalized diagonals (or other movement directions) and non "even" player hitboxes in shmups or other top down combat games. I believe in the purity of moving in every direction at equal speed, and I also don't like the idea at all of attacks coming from certain directions requiring different movements or navigation due to a rectangular or other odd hitbox shape compared to a perfect square or circle.

Acceptable in different kinds of games besides shmups, or even shmups that deliberately buck trends with interesting mechanics (ie Slap Fight Md's satisfying interplay of shape changing and detonation), but in general if you're going to give me a "pure" combat game, I prefer to have "pure" controls.

[Blinge]

And on an unrelated note: WTF is with the horrible draw distance in that game!?

Have you considered playing modern games?

[atheistgod1999]

And on an unrelated note: WTF is with the horrible draw distance in that game!?

Have you considered playing modern games?

Yeah, but I got no good open-world RPGs right now, and that's what I'm in the mood for atm

Besides, I like playing my games in order.