What's a mechanic that you used to dislike when introduced, but now that it's common you prefer having it
As the games industry continues to grow there are many new things introduced which sometimes players don't like, but then overtime we either get used to them, while still disliking them (only a bit less maybe) or we realize "hmm, yes it's good to have this actually". Of course any such mechanic can be implemented very well or quite poorly. I'm not asking about specific implementations, but the mechanic itself as a whole.
Personally I can think of some quality of life changes that at first I thought are not needed or would make a game needlessly easier. When playing I would always try to go for full immersion, but overtime as I've had less and less time to be able to play in long uninterrupted stretches I've come to appreciate things like fast travel and quest markers and other features which would help resuce "wasted" time when playing.
Regenerating health
Saving anywhere
Online gaming
This in particular is rather rare though, isn't it? I would argue it was more common back in the days.
We basically went through:
Sure there's a lot of mixing and matching but it still feels like automated saves are the primary way of saving.
Even autosaves differ. Some games are near constantly writing saves to disk while others are doing it on a checkpoint basis. It's.. not necessarily my favourite feature. I like being in control of saves because I can't ever tell if I have enough time to reach the next checkpoint.
One of the first things I do when I play the new Pokémon games is disable autosaves. I also do it on other games if the option is available, but that's the first to pop into my head because Pokémon has only one save slot. I'm alright when games have autosaves in its own save slot, but if it autosaves to your main file, you can be screwed.
One of my friends had to restart Skyrim after autosave trapped them in a death loop. Another friend who had a disastrous time trying to play Pokémon Scarlet/Violet on release day (seriously, I have yet to see someone else with a worse experience just trying to get their starter) at one point had the game autosave after falling through the ground. I think that was the one that made him give up on playing it for the time, and also what made me turn off autosave on my own copy ASAP.
Same but for Bethesda games. Mostly because I don't want to get into a death loop nor have my save file be corrupted, as Bethesda games are known to do.
It used to be super common to restrict where you were allowed to save. Presumably to stop you saving right before the high stakes action and reloading when the game design was to send you back to the start. Some games had a weird mix, like in Pokemon Mystery dungeon, you could save in the dungeon but it would stick you in a menu so you couldn't continue playing. hitting continue would then delete that save.
The only modern game I can think of that restricts save time is Stardew Valley.
I remember that you had to earn your saves in Resident Evil! You had to find these ribbons for a typewriter and then had a save that you could use later on.
Can't say that I miss that, though.
With some games like PMD, the restricted save points seem to be part of the difficulty. They'd allow quicksaves if you had to quit, but the ultimate goal was so that players couldn't just reset if they lost or got a bad roll from the RNG and try again.
I like the way PMD did it as you still could save and quit the game, it only prevented roll backs to undo mistakes. What really sucks is games where you flat out can not save at certain spots, so you are forced to continue playing longer than you want, or to leave the game idling. This bothers me a lot in Stardew Valley.
Yeah, can agree on that. It's weird to me that a lot of cozy games have a set save location/time (end/start of the day) to prevent people gaming the RNG. Those are the games that are supposed to be more laid back, so you'd think that people abusing the saves wouldn't matter as much. Yet those are the ones where I tend to encounter that mechanic the most...
The codes just gave me flashbacks to playing Lilo and Stitch, and Barbie: Secret Agent on GBA. I could never remember the passwords, so I'd have to play Barbie in one sitting every time. (Never got past the first level of the Lilo and Stitch game, so wasn't as big of an issue there.) I never liked the password system for saves, it's one feature I'm glad is gone.
Yeah, it was definitely a product of the limitations of its times. They didn't have space or tech in the cartridges to actually save anything, so they instead used cheat-codes that could directly access each stage and made those the "save" mechanic in itself.
But yeah, as soon as we could actually persist data, it no longer made sense.
I remember as a kid thinking the password/codes were saved to the cartridge, and avoiding the option to show the password until I was really done playing or had made some good progress, as I thought the game would eventually run out of space to store them.
Hello fellow old. Don’t forget to take your medication.
I’m still suspicious of a lot of online gaming as many games that are online only use it to control and extract further cash.
What caught me off guard was the saving anywhere. Quicksaves are life. Im actually annoyed most games these days seem to have done away with the practice.
One of the reasons I prefer to emulate my games. I'm not giving up save states.
I mostly agree with your list, but I think the "saving anywhere" really depends on the game. Some games (a notable one for me is Alien Isolation) really benefited from enforcing specific save points. The vast majority of games I play are much better with saving anywhere, but I thought I would mention at least one where I thought it was an enjoyable game mechanic.
Regenerating health is a huge plus for streamlined singleplayer FPS games, but I don't think it's always the right fit for multiplayer FPSs.
For singleplayer games its nice since you can retreat from the action and come back, instead of getting in to awkward spot of needing to find health packs that often may only be in front of you, past more danger. They also came out at the same time that low health visual indicators became more of a thing, such as blurring of vision and blood showing up on your "camera lens", which as a combo I think made it a lot easier to tell when you're about to die.
For multiplayer games, it works sometimes, but also loses a bit of the depth in having item control to get that health back. For something like Quake 3 duels, if you chip away at your opponents health, they need to go to specific places to get healthpacks or armour to regenerate, which you can use to predict where they go and try to cut them off, or alternatively use it as an opportunity to refill on weapons or get a timed armour spawn. Compared to something like Halo, where if you chip away at a person, they may run away and regenerate before you can kill them. Not necessarily a bad thing, but its a different style and creates a very different feel to the game.
I think most multiplayer FPSs games at this point have landed on the class thing where you have support classes that can heal, which I think is a good balance. You don't have to memorize healthpacks spawns, but healing isn't done for free either, it becomes a balance in your team composition.
Dual Analog aim, I remember trying to play Halo as a child and getting really mad I had to use both sticks to move rather than just being able to use the Dpad to navigate. Honestly I don't think I could live without Dual Analog now, moving back to old games control schemes can feel archaic. If I remember correctly there's a Gamespot review of an Alien Resurrection game that says something along the lines of "The control scheme is awful, you have to use one analog to move, and another to aim??", it's quite funny how standardized the video game controller has become over the past 20 years.
On mechanics that I used to like but now hate I'd have to say Quest Markers, I understand they were useful in open world games when they first started being popular, and it was an easy way to communicate with the player where they need to go but I feel this has just led to lazy map design. I tried playing Ghost Wire Tokyo and had to turn the HUD off because it looked like the meme where the entire screen is filled with map icons and mini maps and an overload of information. I played the game for an hour trying to immerse myself in the setting and atmosphere, then realized It's literally impossible to navigate the game without the horrible UI taking up >50% of your screen.
There was one instance where I was scaling a staircase at the side of a block of flats and all the doors were locked, turns out I had to go up X amount of floors, then go into one specific door that was identical to all the others but this was one unlocked. This was impossible to know without Quest markers so I ended up missing it then had to try every door on every level until it opened. This could have been signaled to the player with a different light source, or some sort of sign on the door that made it unique.
I feel like map markers have just led to lazy map design and development, you don't need to make well designed maps because a big marker tells the player where exactly where to go. I think this is caused by trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator and devs worrying if everything isn't spoon fed to the player they won't know what to do. I'm not saying let's go back to 90's moon logic but I feel game design in the AAA space has stagnated since the 360 era. I feel the only "new" genre we've got since 2007 is Battle Royale.
To be fair, Goldeneye had one of the worst control schemes of all time. I was a PC gamer even back then, and trying to play Goldeneye periodically was just madness.
WASD = forward/strafe/backwards
Mouse = Aim.
Mapping that to analog sticks is fine, but one is for movement and the other is for looking/aiming. Everything else is all sorts of wrong. :)
There was that crazy dual controller control scheme for Goldeneye. Holding an N64 controller in each hand must've been wild, never tried it myself.
Fun fact: Halo was originally going to be a Mac exclusive. Bungie was a Mac game developer.
You sound like you would enjoy this video from Game Maker's Toolkit about the how the quest marker has affected game design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzOCkXsyIqo
Also this video on HUDs in video games is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bv45aPMGyI
Basically the whole channel is excellent if you have any interest in video game design.
Similarly, I have really turned a corner on Motion Aim thanks to Splatoon and Zelda. I’ve become so used to motion aim that when I play a game without motion aim it just feels wrong.
The use of tasteful, brightly-colored but context-appropriate paint/objects/etc. to help with path finding in games. You know, the blue ribbon tied to the ledge or the smear of yellow paint on a wall you should be vaulting up. First few times I saw that in gaming I was rolling my eyes like “YEAH WE GET IT, JUMP HERE.”
But thinking back, I can’t count the number of times in gaming a decade+ ago where I was just doing laps through a city or cave or whatever because it’s night and it’s raining and people are shooting at me and I just couldn’t see the path to the next objective.
I felt the same way. I think this especially helps as graphics improved, worlds got busier and more immersive, and then it became harder (at least for me) to know what objects are interact-able or what doors are openable.
Not as common as I'd like, but HUD minimization. Not the kind where your HUD hides itself after a while out of combat, but rather the kind where the HUD is seamlessly integrated into the game world. Things like having a bullet counter integrated into the gun model rather than a number in the corner of the screen, gradually hearing your character breathe more and more heavily as you sprint, blood on the character model as you take damage, and (my personal favourite; thanks, Ghost of Tsushima and Elden Ring) effect-based map navigation (as opposed to waymarkers).
I love it as well. I believe it is referred to as a diegetic interface. Another popular example being Dead Space.
Matchmaking.
When i first heard about it, I avoided it at all costs because I thought it would be the end of community servers/server browsers. To an extent it was, however, I do see it's value now. It's nice to just queue up with some friends and be paired with people around your skill level. I'm now at the point where I think Multiplayer games should have both.
The death of the community server/LAN play sucks. I like that indie titles are bringing it back. It also helps with longevity (hence why the AAA are loath to bring it back for their major franchise).
I appreciate the convienince of matchmaking, but the gameplay is so much more frustrating as it tries to filter you to same skill levels. I preferred getting to know the server a bit. Even if I was the worst, it made getting a kill on 'the best' that much sweeter.
Like I said in a previous comment, community servers do ensure that games will still be playable for years to come, but there's a little more to it than that. Yes it will remain playable for years to come, but the remaining players are typically insanely good at the game. While you and I might be willing to just keep trying, most people aren't. Team Fortress Classic is a great example of this. it has a small community filled with extremely good players, and most new people just give up after an hour because everyone is just running circles around them.
On the other hand, matchmaking and pairing people up with others with a similar skill level encourages people to keep playing because they actually stand a chance.
I think having both would just mean you still only have matchmaking, since most people would use that and the server browser would be empty. I understand that there would be people still choosing to use it, but having that and matchmaking would greatly reduce the number, naturally. Thinking about it, I'm not sure there's a game that has nothing, it's either or. It would also depend on the genre I guess - if it's a game that has short matches then people wouldn't want to wait e.g. 30min to play a 15min match.
CS:GO, and from what I've heard TF2 have both. Sure you have less people in the community servers, but they're not empty. It also ensures that the game will still be playable until long after the developers shutdown the matchmaking.
Look at CS:GO and TF2's predecessors (CS 1.6 and TFC), while they never had matchmaking in any sort of official capacity, they did and still do have active community run servers over 20 years later.
I hated every second of Death Stranding shipping, turns out that after you leave the first area, the game actually gives you tools to make the transport fun and challenging instead of clumsy and tedious, from that point on I loved the game and how clever the system is to make you optimize your resources and make the best out of every trip.
Also, I'm not a big fan of online games, and initially turned of the online feature in Death Stranding. Turned in on after a couple of hours, just to see how it is. I still dislike general online gaming, but I quite like the online features in Death Stranding where you see other players structures, know when somebody used you structures etc.
It's more than a feature or gimmick, really. It's a part of the story, which is probably why I like it.
Death Stranding truly is a polarizing game... My experience was the polar opposite, the first few deliveries were the best ones for me, it felt like a hiking simulator having to keep your balance, mind where you step, climb obstacles, find the best routes on dangerous terrain... Then it gave me a motorcycle and a bunch of gadgets to skip it all, I still finished the game, but let's just say my excitment for it dwindled after that.
I’ve finally come around on weapon durability in Zelda. I hated it in BotW because it created a system where I horded my best weapons for fights that never came and I forced myself to fight lynels with trash. But in TotK I decided I wouldn’t fuck around with any of the shit that caused me grief in BotW, and now I thrash red bokoblins with royal claymores and I fucking love it. The Fuse system is a big part of that because I love seeing the different effects I can make with different combos, and I don’t feel so attached to good weapons because I can make anything into a good weapon with the right monster parts.
I didn’t think I’d like rougelite mechanics, now it’s one of my favorite genres. Having gameplay focused on short bursts of time and replay-ability really let’s me sink into one game and focus on that. Really makes me wonder how many other games could benefit from having a rougelite mode much like how games for awhile just tacked on multiplayer.
I used to not like sprinting in fps games, but I actually quite like the feature now. I think that what made me dislike it at first was that a lot of games that used it did so as a way to limit the players movement, rather than enhance it. As an example, for many years the typical Call of Duty would have base movement speed that was basically walking pace, and a sprint speed that was what the base speed should have been, combined with a sprint meter that would run out after 1 to 2 seconds. This effectively gave the sensation of playing as a couch potato who hadn't exercised in years as opposed to the elite soldier that you we're ostensibly supposed to be playing as.
I've since played games like half-life 2 where the base movement speed is actually decent and sprinting actually feels fast. There is a sprint meter admittedly, but it is actually somewhat generous so it doesn't feel too limiting.
Deep Rock Galactic, as another example, has a somewhat slow walking speed, but an ok sprint speed, and crucially no sprint meter so you can essentially treat sprinting as your default movement whenever you aren't shooting at something. The game also has perks you can use to augment your movement further, such as one that increases your sprint speed after a couple of seconds of sprinting, and another that let's you deploy a huge burst of speed on a 25 second cooldown.
Jagged Alliance 2
When I got it in 2000 (I believe), I didn't play it. My friend borrowed it from me and played the shit out of it. I got to playing it like 10 years later. And I play it to his day. What a great game!
EDIT: Sorry, I totally misread the title...
RE: your edit - no problem I was reading your comment waiting for the on-topic part, but it never came, hahaha. Happens to the best of us 😃
Things that I really had to lean on from Apex:
…and probably a lot more.
I’ve played a lot of team-based online FPS titles and put in a lot of time with my favorites like TF2 (1557h) and Overwatch (~1100h) and Apex (~1300h). I love those sorts of games and they become my go-to when I have a few spare hours in a week.
When I started playing Apex I hated it. Folks were toxic and bossy and there was so much to learn and do on top of having to get way better at core FPS skills that it wasn’t fun and I either played tag-along or loot simulator.
But now that I’ve gotten used to the movement, the gun play, the team play and other things like the ebb and flow of engagement I am hooked. I can’t play games without these things because they feel hollow and boring.
Apex didn’t necessarily create any of these but I feel like they defined how some of them should work — even if some of the movement is actually “wrong” because that’s not how momentum and gravity works.
I’ve seen a lot of newer FPS titles include these sorts of things that I came to know from Apex and I think that says a lot about how FPS mechanics have evolved.
I played a decent amount of Apex when it came out and I really relate to what you're saying. Specifically for the tag system I remember being in awe at both its ease of use and how comprehensive it was. I felt like the tag system made voice comes pretty much obsolete, but it did take a lot of getting used to. They did a very good job with the way you can communicate with your teammates.