Mine would be arbitrarily slowing down a character to maintain horror in a game. I get if there are reasons like age, injury, or location that could provide context, but don’t turn my legs into molasses because you need to time the jump scare just right.
rpg style leveling/experience
This one interests me. Like level grinding or not having character growth at all?
no experience points or at least make it not required to grind at all. xp really just adds tedium and isn’t interesting like equipment based growth
consumable items (how am i supposed to know when a surprise boss fight happens?)
I’m a fan of games that put an expiration date on consumables, or letting me know that the items I have are low level next to the ones I’ll get later (e.g. if I get a Small Potion of Healing I know there’s probably gonna be large ones later). That sort of thing gets rid of the FOMO from using the consumables right away.
They only work in an actual survival game like Minecraft where you have to eat food, and even then, potions are kinda silly (but there are a bunch of cool ones like the speed boost, night vision, and fire resistance). I feel like most games just don’t have a big enough loss from death to bother with them. Playing Witcher 3 and I’ve basically never used potions or whatever outside of required quest items. There’s too many, they’re too specific, and if you die you just reload a save and attack enemies in a different way. In other words, the only good consumables are ones that restore your health.
Crafting. Just chuck all that shit in the garbage
I’m okay with it, but I think they need to streamline things a little better. Fewer animations and bulk making items. Maybe a separate item section for ingredients to reduce clutter and a marker to show which are items to sell vs those that are useful later.
But all that’s over complicating a tedious part of many games.
Unless it’s Minecraft lol. Because you can actually craft useful things like doors or buckets, and you can use the same resources for many things. Lots of crafting systems don’t even use resources in interesting ways. It’s just an alternative currency. They’re icons in a menu. In Minecraft you can place wood blocks or make them into sticks and stuff. And even a stick can be an interesting item if you put it in a picture frame or armor stand. It interacts with the world. Crafting doesn’t belong in non-sandbox games. Linear story-games should just use Doom-like weapon unlocks and upgrades.
It really got annoying when they decided to put it into every single game seemingly because some marketing team decided their game needed it too.
Like did the Last of Us really benefit from having a crafting system?
The only game I can think of where the crafting adds anything is Tarkov. Building a gun with a ton of different parts is interesting and actually adds to the game.
I really hate how it’s infected the way characters talk in game. No one says “craft a knife holster” or whatever in real life, yet this terminology just permeates at least one interaction you’ll have. “Collect resources and craft some equipment for your journey” my mentor says to me. Yeah, no one talks like this and it’s not cute like in Metal Gear when the Colonel tells you to push the X button. It just pushes me away from the whole thing.
I’m gonna be constantly jumping even if it’s slower. it’s the best.
live to jump.
