What game mechanics get underrated. Add to that. What ideas do the public say are bad but actually good for you.

I always hear that Stealth games are bad if they don't let you do blah blah blah. It usually amounts to, stealth is bad if you can't go guns blazing. I loved Splinter Cell 1, shadows, etc. I play every stealth game, even Styx or whatever. I know i work to make stealth action based for selling it and for obvious reasons, all media is told to be fast and action. But dang do i love learning patterns, sneaking, and more. I never really even use all of the gadgets to make the games more "fun".

I'll add that I grew up playing real-life games with friends where we acted like guards and i snuck in the "base" home. I never lost. :). Point is, I know Covert slow stealth. They all seem boring but can we stop making it seem like no one wants them. We cater so much to fast fast fast action, that we forget people enjoy time to plan out. Lol. Not sure if that hits mainstream sales though so I understand why stealth games are low.

@topcyclist: As I have gotten older srealth games have become more and more my jam, even in games with rpg elements. I think I have become more patient and enemy AI has advanced to be better. I have tried to play assassin's creed 3 so many times and just given up because the AI was trash and I would just stand up out of a bush randomly. Didn't play an AC ga,e until Origins. I also really appreciate when going LOUD isn't a chore in a stealth game. Far Cry, Metal Gear, current era AC, etc, these are games I would prefer no one ever saw me, but if it pops off, I can still have fun. There is something so satisfying about playing a game that isnt stealthy, like Warframe, and stealth sprinting through a level. I think the public gets frustrated more so when a game that isn't an outright stealth game, for example tailing missions in GTA.

Agreed re: stealth games that aren't entirely cover based. The original Thief games are phenomenal pieces of work and that game boils down to learning the maps and paths of enemies/threats, hiding in shadow until your plan hopefully work out. And then it falls apart and you work out your mistakes from there, cool!

Aside from that, I adore tank controls when they're done in a fairly stiff-but-not-sluggish manner, because you always know where you're going, and if not then it's usually a lack of familiarity with the map, the most common player errors, or indeed a disorienting and confusing bad camera angle but that's pretty rare in RE1, but not uncommon in some others (Galerians had some bad ones if my memory is to be trusted). The original 1996 Resident Evil is the best/easiest to source example of great tank controls. You are liable to not make mistakes with movement once you have the muscle memory for steps/avoiding enemies even in close hallways. Resident Evil 3 had evolved it in a significant way over the prior two games, making mistakes more forgivable and less stiff feeling, but I still prefer the original game's controls (though RE3 is by far the better game, one of the best ever).

Weirdly the worst thing about the first two Silent Hill games, which are incredibly great, are the controls being the worst of sorta-tank like, but in those instances I suppose you can use the often mis-used 'increases horror via a lack of proper control' line that's used incorrectly with the original Resident Evil games. I don't agree with that, but yeah, tank controls are generally my thing.

I wish every single game on Earth didn't have "RPG mechanics"

Talked a bit about this in another thread recently but first person platforming, there was a time where it felt like a large portion of people hated it, maybe it's a spatial awareness thing and some people can't do it, but now with games like Ghostrunner and older examples like Clustertruck, FOTONICA and of course Portal and Mirror's Edge i think people are generally fine with it, but it's always been my jam.

@cikame: First person platforming used to be extremely bad and clunky. It got better because developers got better at building levels and movesets that work with it (such as adding parkour elements like ledge grabs and making controls less slippery and momentum based so its easier to judge your jumps.) Portal and Mirror's Edge are examples of when it started to get good and a lot of people liked it, but if you go back further to games like Turok you can see why it was so despised. It just used to be incredibly hard to judge your jumps properly before developers figured it out. Now it's mostly fine.

In terms of stealth mechanics...the reason I don't like most stealth games is because they're boring. You spend a lot of time just sitting in the same place watching a bunch of AI go through routines, and then if you make one mistake you often have to restart from a checkpoint. This combines in very bad ways where you're tempted to try to get through an area even if guards aren't in the ideal position because waiting for another 2 minutes for them to set up is so boring, but then you get caught and sent back to a checkpoint leading to even more waiting. If a game punishes you by making things take longer but it takes a long time to do anything even if playing as designed I find that frustrating. I don't like games where a large part of the mechanics are just waiting around.

Of course not all stealth games are like that, and stealth games that either give you tools to do stuff in order to set up the stealth or just have quick cycles so you're not stuck sitting behind cover watching some guard walk back and forth can be a lot of fun. So can stealth games that give you tools to fight back when things go wrong. There are a fair number of stealth games or games with stealth mechanics that I enjoy. But traditional stealth is just too much waiting around watching boring things happen for me.

Dumb AI. I don't necessarily enjoy it more when enemies in FPS's are "smart", as in running around a lot, seeking cover, etc etc. I find it very fun when they are dumb as rocks and just stand there and shoot you ala GoldenEye/Perfect Dark. Then I can consistently get headshots which feels great. It can still be made very challenging if you have low health and there are many enemies.

@osail: Exactly, tank controls are tank like for a reason. So much better in those types of games. I get that current day its super annoying for those who didnt grow up with it and expect fast paced douging and gliding strafing etc.

@darksouls1988: Yeah stealth is so fun when your into it and the ai is on point. If your caught its nice when its not made so you can never go stealth again and have to restart. There's a balance not many games make. MGSV did well in that the game recognizes you were seen. guards go back to scanning the area but they are now on new patrols, super jumpy. Start using night vision goggles. etc.

@sombre: Yeah, the fps or action game that doesnt let you upgrade and level up use to get slammed in review for being too simple. Tons of the reasons most games have the same mechanics is cause reviewers always slam them for not including them ie aim down sights, crafting, prestige, ranking, dumb trophies/achievements, long lengths padded out, long cutscenes, driving parts, tank sections, that thing where your shooting from a helicopter, clearing out the area as a timer goes off, press x to start swarm defense etc.

@cikame: Yeah, fps platforming is fine. People just right it off instantly when they fail a jump. They get docked in reviews and by the general public so they are mostly kept out of games. Making shooters mostly shooting gallaries to the next press x defend location.

@bigsocrates: Funny, to add to that my non gamer friends, who dropped out after playstation went analoge would say any game that doesnt make you control the camera is fun. They enjoy crash bandicoot for this reason. NO nonsense controling a camera, we forget how hard this is for people who didnt grow up with it and still look down to press x or b in a game.

Anything that reduces grinding in a JRPG.

Going back to even old classics (with exceptions like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound, which are awesome and I can't believe more games didn't follow in their footsteps), it's not difficult to see just how padded those legendary "60-80 hour" runtimes were when you have to wander around the worldmap outside the final dungeon for 5+ hours just button-mashing through easy battles to build your GODDAMN experience points and level up. And that's just the last example, to say nothing of the OTHER sessions of 5+ hours of wandering through random encounters, returning to rest at an inn, then wandering around for MORE random encounters...

It absolutely destroys interesting and weird games like Breath of Fire 2, yet people STILL defend them as "adding to the challenge of the game," which they absolutely DO NOT. Increasing numerical values to even be competitive VS a boss isn't a CHALLENGE. "Zeboyd" did this absolutely the best with "Breath of Death VII" and "Cthulhu Saves the World," limiting random encounters per dungeon and even giving the player a "trigger battle" button. You can get through every single random dungeon encounter on your first step in the dungeon, then explore at your own leisure. Or trigger more battles if you're feeling underleveled.

Persona 5 gives you the ability to just plow through battles if you're a lot higher than them, and in "Royal" gives you the ability to radically increase XP and money earned in the proc-gen "Mementos" dungeon, making grinding effortless and even fun as you chase down Shadows and plow into them with your cat bus.

That every JRPG doesn't have a system like this (or just do what Chrono Trigger did and balance your damn game) is baffling, and that people STILL defend endless grinding as "more content" is even MORE baffling.

The practice mode in fighting games. I'm trying to get more into 2D games and work on some of the timing based gameplay those types of games require. If I ever get good at Mortal Kombat it will be because i spent time working in the training mode. It's something I should have been doing all along but I never have. Here's to new horizons.

I like weapon degradation when it is done well (I guess that’s true for anything really).

My favourite example is the much maligned Far Cry 2. Before each mission you would go to your stash and pick a limited number of weapons to take with you based on what you will be doing. Your weapons do not jam but during the mission you might run out of ammo or have picked the wrong weapon for the job which might lead you to pick up a gun off the ground, and those would jam. It meant that weapon choice in the beginning was meaningful while allowing you to pick up guns as a last resort. Which also covered the world consistency issue of being able to pick up guns without devalueing the gun buying mechanic. It also lead to some organic moments of desperation which were great.

I generally like inconvenience in games though and I get why it wasn’t popular. Another rarely seen favourite is any form of manual landing/docking in flight based games, I just love it so much. Just let me fly into the hangar myself dammit!

Everything Jeff and Vinny said they dislike about Breath of the Wild on the most recent HotSpot. I love games that deliberately slow down the pace of play. I don't like power fantasies that much; having rain prevent me from climbing a cliff or weapons breaking so that I need to avoid combat actually makes me happy.

If something gets in my way, I'll just go do something else: cook, pick fruit, or whatever. I like that same thing about the downtime in Monster Hunter, just wandering around picking up herbs and whatnot is very relaxing. People often talk about video games not respecting the player's time, but those arguments always strike me as an oversimplification. If my goal is to live another life, even the mundane, slower parts, then I'm making a contract with the game to do so. Not everyone plays games for that reason, I know, but I really enjoy the escapism. Living an adventurer's life without any of the risk is a good time.

Breath of the Wild is great because it fulfils those desires in compelling ways, since the number of interactions you can have in the world are almost endless, even if most of them don't have a specific purpose vis a vis killing bad guys or 'winning'. Dwarf Fortress is another game in that vein, where bad guys are just an incidental part of a dangerous world, but you could just choose to focus on making a Dwarven holy city full of religious artworks and temples and hope it doesn't fall to a goblin siege. But if it does, then you'll leave behind some beautiful ruins which add texture to the game world.

I have pretty different tastes than some, especially Jeff. :P Call of Duty is the furthest thing from an interesting gaming experience to me, but the benefit of personality-driven journalism is that I know something about Jeff's tastes and can treat his opinions accordingly. I don't ignore them altogether, but when he has a grievance with a game it is easy to tell if it is something that would bother me, and similarly there are things he loves about games that do not grab me at all. I don't think I'd call any of these games 'underrated', since it really is just a matter of taste; it can be a bit bothersome, though, when people insist that a game is objectively good or bad. Especially if, in the process of doing so, they outright dismiss the game's fans as stupid, wrong or whatever else.

The strategy layer to the new X-com games, seems like a lot of the clones seem to miss the mark on that part. To me it's the glue that makes those games worth playing for 100's of hours.

I fucking love weapon degradation.

@purpleoddity: This is well-put. A lot of these inconveniences are actually really important to the overall experience. I'm with you on BOTW's rain - it made the world feel real to me. Having to change my plans based on the weather made things dynamic and challenging. For that matter, the whole stamina system itself also had this effect. The great thing BOTW did was not that it gave you a completely open world - it's that it made it challenging and interesting to traverse. The game just wouldn't be as fun if you could fly, for example. I feel like some of the quality of life improvements to modern games take away some of what make them interesting - like quest logs that tell you exactly what to do at each step, instant fast travel, etc.

@wollywoo: Thanks. I agree with your points as well. Luckily for me, I can resist using fast travel, so I'm happy to have it in games for those who like it. When it comes to quest logs, I really wish games would stop giving you checklists telling you immediately how much there is to see and do, as it diminishes the excitement of discovering something new. The same goes for upgrade mechanics, BotW doesn't tell you all the ways you can improve your character at the outset. It only teaches you about the health and stamina system. By not knowing exactly how you can progress, it frees you up from having to worry about min-maxing--which is always stressful for me--and adds to the discovery aspect.

@the_nubster: YES!

Audiologs are great for worldbuilding and reward exploration in openworld games if done right.

Edit: audiologs dont really count as "mechanics" I guess

If there was something mechanical I guess I would say that I could do without sprint or aim down sights in first person shooters. I still play the old halo games that have a lot of hip fire weapons and no sprinting and it's great!

@the_nubster: Me, too. Weapon and item degradation is awesome, and adds so much strategic tension to games that use it well.

@purpleoddity: I agree completely with you here. The criticisms that people have about Breath of the Wild are precisely the reasons that I love it. You've articulated my thoughts beautifully here, and I don't have anything to add.

For the OP, I think that Rogue-like elements in games are great. Let me get better at the game by learning the systems and by trial and error, not just because I can grind out levels and overpower everything through sheer numbers.

There's so much getting explored in games now that its hard to say much is "underrated", however one that really jumps out to me is shooters with Squad Orders and those type of strategic mechanics where you direct around a squad of AI.

Think Brothers in Arms or Rainbox Six or Ghost Recon, on down to the simplest good version in Freedom Fighters. There were a lot of games like that for a bit and then it was basically entirely abandoned, when I think there's more than ever you could actually do with that.

I feel like it was a focus on multiplayer and also developers think when gamers play a shooter they just want to get to shooting entirely but there's so much room for that and fun things you can do with AI, for example customizing them and having them progress and develop how you choose. That's so satisfying in games like XCOM and you could do it in a squad shooter too. Its crazy to me games haven't stolen from Freedom Fighters at least because that seems pretty simple to do yet effective version.

On the more complex end, I love games that allow AI behavior programming like FF12 or Dragon Age Origins.

I would also say Tower Defense and Horde modes are really underrated as a general idea and there's a lot more that can be done there making full games vs now how often its some side mode in a game. But they're mechanics that can make for good replayable fun when paired with solid gameplay.

Two other small ones:

Top down driving. If done well with good drifty physics I think it can be so fun. Renegade Ops is so good and there should be a bunch of games like it. I still love hopping on Ironman Super Off Road when I see it in the wild.

I also really enjoy games that allow you to customize your moveset as a mechanic like God Hand. More of that please.

1) I agree with the sentiment about people missing "light" based stealth over cover based. I absolutely loved the feel of Splinter Cell and its a shame its all this cover based feel now to all stealth games. It is basically a limiting factor. I think it can help readability and things to the player but there's also a way in which is simplifies and allows for less control and player expression.

However, there are games that do it still, I would suggest MGSV for example which is certainly not some rigid cover based stealth game (and its the GOAT stealth game for me).

2) As far as weapon durability, its overrated as a complaint for sure. I have played games where it sucked as a mechanic but mostly it just means you have to dump some money in the game town or shop to repair your weapons and then just get on with your life, often games where I don't have much to spend money on anyways, unless you love those moments where you buy some expensive gear and then find better stuff minutes later.

I also went into BOTW so ready to be bothered by it but its so harmless in the game and I always had good weapons to the point where I was actually annoyed a bit I didn't have more room just to stash them and had to leave good stuff behind (I didn't undertand how the inventory upgrade worked for too long in BOTW lol). I thought I would have an inventory of bullshit and be scrambling to get anything halfway decent going in but it was the opposite. It doesn't matter in the game at all and having finally played it after coming to it late I can't believe people still complain about that part of the game.

I mean, there may be vocal dev critics of them but they are extremely popular in games. They are in like every game out there lol.

For me I agree with the criticisms but I don't really see another way to do it in many games. They can be a crutch but also the only real outlet that makes sense for storytelling.

I'm someone who basically always wanted this in theory and now it's like some twisted monkey paw scenario. Especially because they've brought in basically all the RPG mechanics I don't like and not the ones I do into so many of these games, and done the rest so shallowly.

Most of it is all the ARPG loot grind stuff I hate. And then an extreme "numbers go up" focus.

And otherwise the problem is so many games execute all their RPG mechanics so shallowly it all feels like busy work and not a real RPG. Why have a system with RPG like abilities in different trees, where I get every single ability by the end of the game easily without much effort? Or other games there is such a direct upgrade path between options that there's no choice to builds or equipment. That's not how an RPG should actually work and it means its all just a big time waster and illusion in that regard.

An essential part of RPGs should be builds and... ROLES. They miss that basic part in a lot of these games.

Photo modes. I like to take pictures in videogames. It makes me feel like Duncan Harris.

Game mechanic seems like a fuzzy term. Wikipedia says:

"Game mechanics are the rules that guide the player's moves or actions, as well as the game's response to them. A game's mechanics thus effectively specifies how the game will work for the people who play it."

Is stealth itself a game mechanic, or a set of rules? Are targets and patrols mechanics, systems, or rules? Also, do people not like stealth mechanics fundamentally, or do they just find stealth gameplay punitive, unfair or unrewarding, or do they not like games that have bad forced stealth sections?

Could concepts used in game design like thauma and fun be considered underrated as mechanisms for delivering a sense of meaning, satisfaction and engagement?

@ravey: I don't quite see what you are getting at. Like... unless you're doing math, all terms are fuzzy terms at some level. Personally, I'd say all of those are game mechanics, except the last two - those seem more like abstract concepts, whereas I usually think of game mechanics as specific sets of rules.

@wollywoo: I guess my point is that if stealth doesn't work for someone, then what is it about stealth that players don't like? Is it the mechanics, the implementation, the game dynamics, or the game?

My last point was that good games are built on top of rules that are specific to games, but these rules are usually ignored in favour of telling a story with a plot or trying to go "beyond fun".

Scale. I don't know if it really counts as a mechanic but I think it's something that games should be designed around more.

Alpha Protocol I think isn't a super great game (as far as gameplay goes) but I think it handles scale in a way that is very good. Barring the intro, you can go about the majority of the game in various combinations of order, and that matters a lot on what you learn as a character, but also how the world responds to you. But the scale of it (Small number of missions and total plot-related characters) means they are able to weave a lot more meaningful differences in your approach.

I love Mass Effect, and it does a really good job overall of making it feel like your choices do have an impact (sometime to an absurd degree, like someone in 3 sending you an email to thank you for something you did in a D-tier sidequest/collectable in 1) but the scale of Mass Effect is still quite literally galactic and the way things can branch and then consolidate can only go far.

Warren Spector used to give GDC talks about his idea of the City Block scale game and it's always fascinated me. I think a lot of games tend to be a thousand miles wide and an inch deep. I'd like to see more go the other way with it (or maybe in somewhere in the middle?)

generally speaking- i like games that have a map that requires the player fill in the details and important bits. i don't want icon vomit all over the page- just give me landmarks and the ability to annotate.

it's also ok to make me earn it- nothing kills exploration faster than spelling everything out for the player. if you want to instill a sense of wonder and discovery from the player- don't present them with info to immediately start optimizing against.

and on a more general note- absence of info is a pretty powerful motivator- these days i really appreciate games that compel me to take out a piece of paper to work things out or make notes.

@mmmslash: If you were unaware, Disco Elysium was made in part to fulfill the Warren Spector city-block concept. It's a small map with a ludicrous amount of detail and permutations as the days go by. I'm pretty certain the devs talked about that Spector pitch a while ago.

As some of the other things here, this might not be a game mechanic per se, but roguelites where you can be killed just because of bad luck don't bother me one bit, and I rather enjoy grinding against a wall till I get this one great run, even though I know quite a few other people who can't stand it. I played hundreds of hours of Faster Than Light and completed everything in Dicey Dungeons (it helps that Dicey Dungeons runs are rather short) despite both being very RNG heavy.

Recently, I bought Demon Crawl, a Minesweeper roguelite, and I have been really enjoying it despite the double dose of RNG (some of the items can absolutely screw you). I feel like for a game to have the flexibility to give you an absolutely broken run, as can happen in those games, it also needs to have the flexibility to completely screw you over. I also enjoyed Rogue Legacy and Into the Breach (got all 55 medals), but really felt like something was missing, and I didn't figure out what till I got into Demon Crawl.

I think the term "game mechanic" has been made fuzzy when there's really not a reason to do so at all. If you simply refer to a game mechanic as in the mechanical functions the player executes (jumping, shooting, spinning Tetris blocks or reloading weapons), it's not fuzzy at all.

And I can't see why one would need to make them more nebulous than that.

@ridenator: I think mechanics can consist of rules as well, not just actions.

In Counter-Strike, stealth is a mechanic: walking means you move silently.

@ravey: Yeah but see, that's the case-in-point of how it becomes an unnecessarily nebulous term. There's no reason to bake in rules with the term, since the game already makes sure every game mechanic follows all the rules of the game (say that you can't jump through a solid roof or whatever). At that point it becomes a question of what a "rule" is to begin with. And there's no point in going down that road in my opinion. I know that the basic thinking behind the issue is that, you have a "stealth mechanic" which is made of "player actions" where you hide and the "rules" would be that if a guard sees you from X distance the game goes from state A to B, or whatever. But it's just unnecessarily muddied in my opinion. I would much rather define all player input driven game functionality as game mechanics - i.e. in a stealth game doing the MGS pushing-yourself-against-the-wall or hiding in cardboard box - and the "stealth" would just refer to the theme/genre/core of the game, kinda like "action" or "adventure" (there's no "adventure" mechanic either, but there's mechanics that make an adventure game, like using items on other items, or whatever).

I missed your point about the crosshair though.

We can agree to disagree, but for me I'd definitely say that the silent walking in Counter-Strike is a _mechanic_ which can be used by the player for various purposes. The totality of what a game mechanic can be used for would be called "possibility space". But I digress.

@ridenator: I'm on board with silent walking being a mechanic and saying the rules of stealth apply. Though it would make sense to break silent walking down further (e.g. walking, sneaking, shuffling).

Areas gated by levels in mmos, or single player I guess.

These days there seems to be this notion that everything scaling to the player is a good thing and while it does have its benefits it takes away a huge feeling of progression and achievement from a levelling experience. Sad thing is a lot of these companies just want you to hit endgame asap so you can started busting out the micro transactions, or even have them relevant from the start.

Or they are too scared to challenge the player or have them quit or something. Idk. Level scaling sucks though.

@purpleoddity: Yeah people online really push the idea that Fast-paced no-nonsense no bells and whistles to limit the straight bombastic action is good and emergent, realism, slow and steady stuff is bad. Honestly why i liked skyrim back in the day or oblivion was cause I could set out on adventures no waypoint and just happen upon a house loot it, make my own story and move on. On paper that sounds awful and a waste of time. Zelda saying you can't climb now on paper sounds bad. But it forced me to work out ways to overcome issues and have fun in the process. Preparing for a big boss battle was fun, getting food, getting weapons etc. That said i get that the majority would like to just get it over with faster so they can move on to the next thing. We have information overload and often dont just sit and let our brains rest a bit. Yeah and the respects my time thing...i hope we get rid of that...its the new...Im never getting that time back.

That's why I hate the modern Assassin's Creed games so much.

I don’t know if it is necessarily an idea, but the brawler combat in Yakuza is genuinely good in my opinion especially with the way it has improved since Yakuza 5 and Ishin. It’s gotten faster, more responsive, the boss battles are really fun in games like Yakuza 0 or Judgement, especially when you pull off counter moves. I always saw the combat as part of the series DNA along with the heat actions. I hope the series returns to it.

I also don’t think tank controls are bad when you get used to them, and fixed camera angles really did a lot for the horror of the old Resident Evil titles. That said, I don’t mind modern Resident Evil titles playing like RE7.

The ability to jump the start in racing games. Gunning the revs without penalty is dumb and a bad habit. And a good start is a useful skill.