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.

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

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

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…

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…

Most open-world games have areas on the map that are blank until “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.

Edit: sp

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.

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.

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

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.

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 encrouages distinct playstyles, but there are many other ways to implement it that don’t feel as arbitrary. Tying character skill to greater reticle sway, 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.

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

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.

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.

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