The best/most interesting/funniest/suprising or worst/most boring/lamest/annoying mechanic you've ever encounter a game (not just RPGs)

[BurningOrca]

Like the title says I am just interested to read about your expiriences. Please don't write grinding. It's obvious that many people don't like this and I guess those who do like it will easily find a more interesting mechanic to tell me about.

About me, I haven't played so many games and most of them where pretty similar, so it is hard to find an example for the positive functionality. My favourite game is Paper Mario for the N64 (wasn't able to play TTYD yet), so maybe I just pick the partners in this game. Each partner has a different ability that helps progressing the story an reaching previously unreachable places. Using them to explore the world is pretty funny. Most of my games I've played just once, but this one I play every once in a while and it doesn't become boring.
After thinking about Non-RPGs, I would probably choose Creating your own stuff. I've liked Super Maker Maker. I've played it a lot on Wii U, while the Miiverse was still active. I've bought the 2nd Mario Maker, but didn't feel any creativity what so ever and now it is just lying around in my room. But I love to watch other peoples crazy and creative ideas with this wonderful tool. Off course RPG Maker MV is also about creating my own stuff and I love it. I may be a poor writer and bad in art, but I'll still try to finish what I've started. I just have to compensate for my weaknesses with something I am good at.

For the negative side I'll pick TIme Limits. They aren't lame, bad or boring as they are an interesting factor aswell as a challenge to overcome, but they are simply annoying. They force me completely change my style of playing. I like to keep just one save file and do all the optional stuff I am able to find before continuing with the main story. But if a game has a time management mechanic included I switch to saving each time into a different slot and just trying to push through the main story. I just hate loosing to the time limit and not being able to see the credits and being forced through a NG+ in order to be able to still see the credits.

 

[TheoAllen]

I always feel "Wow"d when I'm playing strategy games when they introduce a unique or a new way to represent resources. And it is probably one of the reasons why I like strategy games. Unless the resource management has been done many times (you mine a resource, you get it per second/minute/turn. You use it universally for everything. When the resource depleted, you moved on, that's too boring). Note that I specifically said strategy games, not tactic (tactical games = when you control units, strategy include a grand scheme such as strategical resource, building, etc).

As for RPG, I think Fallout 4 deserves a sweet spot as the first RPG that makes me like and care about crafting. There're many QoL that exist in the game that doesn't exist in crafting focused games I've played. It is the ability to highlight the item that contains the component you seek, and the ability to store it anywhere and use it.

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As for the thing I hate, I hate puzzles in RPG with passion. Especially a roadblocking puzzle. I didn't grow up playing RPG with puzzles in my childhood and I don't understand the charm of it or even the nostalgia feeling from it. I simply hate it. I never ran into a moment where I thought roadblocking puzzles are amazing or fun when what they do is completely change how I play the game. From battle, picking up skills, beating up the mobs, turned into a puzzle game where you have to think. I didn't hate puzzle in RPG right away, It built up as I played a lot of RPG and I'm stuck for hours trying to solve the puzzle and it blocked me from enjoying the game. Why do I even playing the game?

 

[Milennin]

Despite growing up with old school games, I don't like having limited lives in games. It feels like such an outdated concept to have a Game Over and having to start all over when running out of lives, it's a good thing it's rarely done anymore.

For RPG's with a party of characters, I never liked having open classes/jobs where the characters can be whatever you choose from a large list of options. It feels like it takes away from their identity.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

One of my biggest gripes in an RPG is when you get high up in levels and your characters begin to play exactly the same because they all unlock everything. That being said, most of my favorite (old school) RPGs have this issue. I was really glad when FF12 was released with zodiac system and allowed for greater customization options.

One thing I really like is when games have new game+ options that allow for multiple endings. When Chrono Trigger introduced this feature to me, I was amazed! First time I encountered that kind of feature in an RPG. However, if new game+ doesn't add anything besides playing through with end game levels and gear, then I really don't get excited about it too much.

Something I really love is PvP content in RPG games! I love the souls and souls-type games with PvP. I loved PvP in EsO as well.

 

[Bastrophian]

Final Fantasy 8’s draw/junction/magic system in general... I liked the idea, but there has to have been SOME-WAY they could have made it all less repetitive and grindy... I wish you could at least use junctioned magic without it lowering your stats :/ . Also making it so it was possible to get the most powerful weapon, and some of the most powerful spells in the game before you even leave the tutorial was a hilarious over sight, I think, lol.

 

[LostFonDrive]

One of the worst mechanics I've ever seen is Tales of Zestiria's equipment system. It's hard to explain but anyone who's played it knows what I mean. It's horrible and you end up spending as long in menus as you do actually playing the game! (The game actually counts how much time spent in menus so I'm not kidding)

 

[bgillisp]

Record of Agarast War's Battle system. You have to position your characters in abritrary spots that make no sense so they can link attacks. So how can someone who is 9 left and 2 spaces down link up with me again? And if you are one off, forget it, link broken. It has to be that exact location.

 

[CraneSoft]

FF8's enemy level scaling was a brutal surprise for me (it was my first RPG) and after awhile I was left wondering why normal enemies are harder to kill than 90% of the bosses in the game. It was...fun, but nevertheless made me cringe when I think about it.

As for annoying mechanics, I don't have a thing about crafting in general, but I really, really HATE FF9's synthesis system. It doesn't sound so bad at first until you realize you had to hoard at least 5-7 copies of every single piece of equipment at the current shop in fear that you might not have enough materials to craft the newer, significantly more powerful equipment on the next Synth shop you might come across... and even those might eventually become materials. And let's not get started on certain mid-game materials that becomes permanently unavailable at the endgame...and you need them for some final-tier equipment.

 

[Nenen]

Here goes.

One of my favorite was the 'portal gun' in the portal series. The way they were able to use it to create such interesting traversal puzzles made them some of my all-time favorite games and helped me realize my love for a good puzzle. The original Mirror's Edge also has very good traversal-based puzzle gameplay using its unique parkour system. All this has even caused me to look for well-made puzzles in the RPGs that I play.
So, I'm quite unlike @TheoAllen LOL. Though I can certainly agree about the bad puzzles out there, some of which are too simple or boring . Skyrim disappointed me with that first dungeon puzzle ('You don't have to study the walls to find the answer to opening the door? You just look in your inventory for that jeweled dragon claw? Seriously???')
A note to developers though, please make sure your game provides ALL the necessary information to solve the puzzle, and not somewhere impossible to get to.

On the other side.
Since the first Splinter Cell, I have loved a good stealth system. But this seems to be that which RPGs are notoriously BAD at doing. Any Bioware title I've tried, for example, it's either horrible or practically nothing.
I've almost always regretted choosing the 'rogue/thief/assassin' class because of this problem. If I'm supposed to be some 'stealthy' whosoever, where's the stealth?
It's usually better for the game to avoid it completely, then do some half-baked job.
But some games, even RM titles, figured out that they could do a better job if it's a short puzzle/minigame. And it's amazingly not done too bad, though some almost cross the line. (Only three examples: FF12, Numina, and Faraway Story)
Although, I should say that the newer Elder Scrolls and Fallout games have decent stealthplay (far from perfect though).

Sorry if all this gives you sore eyes. I don't seem to be good with short answers, & it's not easy drafting this on my phone...

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

To this day I still feel intense hatred if anybody so much as mentions Breath of Fire 3's desert of death mini game... They give you this clue...

"First, follow the north star for two nights so that the evening star hangs in the sky
directly to the west. Then head east until the evening star sinks below
the horizon and you can no longer see it (it should be about two and a
half nights). Once the evening star disappears, head north again for
about three nights, and you should reach the Oasis."

...And yes, they really intend for you to walk around at night hoping you're following the right star, and that's what you do look at starts while walking, and walking, and walking. If you do everything right, it will take around 10 minutes of looking the sky, resting during the day, drinking water, and fighting mobs. During the whole trip you have 16 water canteens and if you don't drink water you start to lose max hp (recoverable at an inn but you must completely leave the desert between attempts), eventually you pass out and must start the whole process over. Oh and if you so much as take a step during the day, you run the risk of being completely off course because each encounter randomly changes your direction and you can't see the stars. Oh and if you walk the exact right way, it takes 13 canteens. Good luck!

 

[Aerosys]

Wow, that's a pretty big questions, as you ask for positives AND negatives. I try to write what just comes into my mind. At the moment I play Child of Light and Horizon Zero Dawn.

What I like for both, is their crafting system. Child of Lights crafting system is unique and intuitive. You can gems with different colors, so for each element a color. You can combine them, ie you can mix colors (red + blue -> purple) and you can raise them (red + red -> bigger red).
Then I like Horizon's crafting because it's simple. And every weapon you can get, changes the way you play massively. Additional, every encounter is designed so you have multiple ways and playstyles to win it.

Child of Light has really wonderful looking graphics and setting. It looks like a colored book. It is not medieval fantasy, but still is about magic.

What I obviously dislike is a crafting system that is too complex or just boring. Too many side quests without a journal is also a minus, however I haven't encountered this issue for a long while.

 

[Black Pagan]

Best Mechanic : Gear Upgrade
Description : Ability to upgrade your Gears to the Next Tier without having to sell it away

Interesting Mechanic : Gear Set Bonuses
Description : Complete collecting similar Gear and it offers Bonus Stats or Effects

Worst Mechanic : Gear Destruction
Description : Gear disappears if you mess up Upgrade, You lose all effort

Annoying Mechanic : Switch Puzzles
Description : Toggle Switches in the right order or colors to solve a Puzzle

 

[Archeia]

Best Mechanic: Final Fantasy XIV's crafting
The experience as a whole legitimately surprised me and made me addicted to it. It's like, tfw crafting feels like a battle system, items feel like bosses, 35 Durability Items to HQ are Raid bosses, collectables are superbosses and when the marketboard feels like a dungeon, you know you got a legitimately good system on your hands.

Meh Mechanic: Timed Nodes
I get why they exist, especially when they are part of the reason you want to use the marketboard and especially from a lore perspective but they're still a huge time waste.

Awful Mechanic: MVP-based Grinding and Low Drop Rates
I don't enjoy GBF levels of spamming the same skills and attacks on the same boss for 200x all the while trying to DPS and Refresh your game to skip animations because you want that sweet silver chest to maybe get the weapon you want. Realize it's futile because you can't defeat Japanese ping.