Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls?
Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls?
Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
I'm going to go with
g) bad controls.
I had to think about this quite awhile, but it's bad controls.
There's nothing that will make me quit a game faster.
Justisaur <[email protected]> writes:
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls?
Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
I'm going to go with
g) bad controls.
I had to think about this quite awhile, but it's bad controls.
There's nothing that will make me quit a game faster.
I agree, bad controls are the worst. Or I dunno, considering I somehow muddled through *streaming* Horizon Forbidden West which has timing
sensitive combat and jumping puzzles...
To be sure, I don't like puzzle bosses or rubber banding either. Or
mandatory crafting but then if I can (easily) craft fun buffs or ignore
it completely, no problem. I have to say Starfield crafting is kind of annoying, seems like I don't have the ingredients to craft anything interesting and I'm not sure but I haven't seen any way to tag crafting supplies for easier finding like Fallout 4 had.
As for Spalls' point, revolving doors or whatever in mazes to confuse
you, also not a fan. Even worse with the addition of wraparound and impossible geometries. Thinking of ancient "Asylum" here, a text
adventure in a maze-like asylum. I did quit that game after an "intro"
part which already took quite some time.
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
#
Me, I'm going with something that's a little bit of "d) Mazes", and a
little bit of "g) Fill in your own", because it's an old-school
mechanic that is usually only found in maze-games. And that's spinner
traps which whirl you about and randomly face you in some other
direction than you were initially headed. Or sometimes they just
teleport you so you are facing in another direction, all unknowing
that it's happened. It's actually not the worst mechanic, but for
whatever reason it's the one that annoys me the most. They still get
used in modern games's (although more often done as enemy attacks that
spin you about so your attacks miss) and I hate them every time I
encounter the mechanic.
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
I'm going to go with
g) bad controls.
I had to think about this quite awhile, but it's bad controls. There's >nothing that will make me quit a game faster.
On Mon, 01 Jun 2026 12:04:22 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><[email protected]> wrote:
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
#
Me, I'm going with something that's a little bit of "d) Mazes", and a >>little bit of "g) Fill in your own", because it's an old-school
mechanic that is usually only found in maze-games. And that's spinner
traps which whirl you about and randomly face you in some other
direction than you were initially headed. Or sometimes they just
teleport you so you are facing in another direction, all unknowing
that it's happened. It's actually not the worst mechanic, but for
whatever reason it's the one that annoys me the most. They still get
used in modern games's (although more often done as enemy attacks that
spin you about so your attacks miss) and I hate them every time I
encounter the mechanic.
While reading your post, I was thinking of inventory management, but
you know what? Your answer here is the better choice. Mazes themselves
do not bother me, but add in all the things that makes navigating them
(and mapping them) difficult, and yes, this is the most annoying
mechanic to me. Add in necessary wall humping because some of those
maze walls are illusionary because of course they are and this whole
mechanic can fuck right the hell off.
On Mon, 1 Jun 2026 15:00:00 -0700, Justisaur <[email protected]>
said this thing:
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
I'm going to go with
g) bad controls.
I had to think about this quite awhile, but it's bad controls. There's
nothing that will make me quit a game faster.
Fair answer, although I wouldn't normally consider controls part of
the gameplay mechanics. They're more of the game / player interface;
I'd consider bad controls up there with bad graphics, awful sound,
terrible AI or bugs. I was thinking more along the lines of degradable weapons or a lack of Coyote-Time jumping mechanics in platformers.
I'm not so bothered by control schemes myself, barring the truly awful
ones (like you'd find back in the old DOS days, where the controls
seemed randomly distributed across the keyboard and were literally
painful to use). I'm a bit more disturbed by games that don't let you
remap controls, which just seems purposefully malicious in an era when
most engines make it easy to do and it's so expected (not to mention
it hampers people with disabilities from playing your game).
But what do I know; I always re-map "jump" to the X key ;-)
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:11:25 -0400, Mike S. <[email protected]> said
this thing:
But spinners? Even though they are rare these days, the suffering they
caused me back in the '80s lingers four decades on. ;-)
On 6/2/2026 12:01 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Mon, 1 Jun 2026 15:00:00 -0700, Justisaur <[email protected]>
said this thing:
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
I'm going to go with
g) bad controls.
I had to think about this quite awhile, but it's bad controls. There's >>> nothing that will make me quit a game faster.
Fair answer, although I wouldn't normally consider controls part of
the gameplay mechanics. They're more of the game / player interface;
I'd consider bad controls up there with bad graphics, awful sound,
terrible AI or bugs. I was thinking more along the lines of degradable
weapons or a lack of Coyote-Time jumping mechanics in platformers.
Hmm. In that case, I'll go with unnecessary travel time. One of the things with Open World proliferation I don't like. The worst of that
was Everquest, I swear it took around an hour just to get across the continent.
I'm not so bothered by control schemes myself, barring the truly awful
ones (like you'd find back in the old DOS days, where the controls
seemed randomly distributed across the keyboard and were literally
painful to use). I'm a bit more disturbed by games that don't let you
remap controls, which just seems purposefully malicious in an era when
most engines make it easy to do and it's so expected (not to mention
it hampers people with disabilities from playing your game).
Bad controls generally goes along with no or limited remapping.
But what do I know; I always re-map "jump" to the X key ;-)
Eew.
On 6/2/2026 12:15 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:11:25 -0400, Mike S. <[email protected]> said
this thing:
But spinners? Even though they are rare these days, the suffering they
caused me back in the '80s lingers four decades on. ;-)
I'm sure there's others but I remember Bard's Tale most for spinners
(and 99 Phreds attacking you.) I can't remember a single game I've
played in the last couple decades that had spinners, which is why I
don't really place them as being up there.
Come to find out PW is 68 years old, maybe it's because you guys are all >majorly old. Who plays video games at that age? Those are the guys who
tell us not to play video games.
I swear it took around an hour just to get across the
continent.
Bad controls generally goes along with no or limited remapping.
On Tue, 2 Jun 2026 09:35:11 -0600, phoenix <[email protected]>
wrote:
Come to find out PW is 68 years old, maybe it's because you guys are all
majorly old. Who plays video games at that age? Those are the guys who
tell us not to play video games.
I'm curious why someone under maybe the age of 50 would even be
interested in Usenet at all? I'm not asking in snark, I'm genuinely
curious.
It's a nostalgic bit of ancient computing history that's fun to hold
onto for that reason only. Below a certain age group, however,
there's no nostalgic memories, thus it's hard to me to understand what
would draw younger folks here.
Hmm. In that case, I'll go with unnecessary travel time.
For me bad key remapping is usually an instant Steam refund, so for
that reason I couldn't call it the worst part of any game. The game
gets put out of its misery before I really try it, most of the time *.
Hmm. In that case, I'll go with unnecessary travel time. One of the
things with Open World proliferation I don't like. The worst of that
was Everquest, I swear it took around an hour just to get across the >continent.
There were two other options I considered for my choice: these were
inventory management (or, more specifically, games with a limited
inventory system), and games with breakable weapons.
I'm sure there's others but I remember Bard's Tale most for spinners
(and 99 Phreds attacking you.) I can't remember a single game I've
played in the last couple decades that had spinners, which is why I
don't really place them as being up there.
Hmm. In that case, I'll go with unnecessary travel time.
Yes, and I'll generalize it to 'not respecting my time' as a gamer.
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:15:27 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> wrote:
There were two other options I considered for my choice: these were
inventory management (or, more specifically, games with a limited
inventory system), and games with breakable weapons.
Breakable weapons is another good choice. Two games immediately come
to mind with that annoying mechanic.
The first is Might and Magic 3-5. Your weapons and armor can break in
those games with no indication to you that they actually just broke.
You have to keep checking your equipment to make sure they are still
intact. This annoyed me, even when I first played them as a young
teen. It adds nothing to the those games other than frustration.
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
On 6/3/2026 6:42 AM, Mike S. wrote:
Breakable weapons is another good choice. Two games immediately come
to mind with that annoying mechanic.
The first is Might and Magic 3-5. Your weapons and armor can break in
those games with no indication to you that they actually just broke.
You have to keep checking your equipment to make sure they are still
intact. This annoyed me, even when I first played them as a young
teen. It adds nothing to the those games other than frustration.
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the last game I played with this. I really >hate it.
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:19:17 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<[email protected]> wrote:
For me bad key remapping is usually an instant Steam refund, so for
that reason I couldn't call it the worst part of any game. The game
gets put out of its misery before I really try it, most of the time *.
There are things people are complaining about in this thread that
don't really bother me. But this one does really annoy me.
Fortunately, I only ran into this 'mechanic' once. The game was the
original Torchlight. It offers no way to remap keys in the options
menu. That is game breaking to me so I understand why you would return
a game for this reason alone. I did find out that you could manually
remap those keys via a config file in the game's directory at least.
Without that, I would have been done with the game before I even
started playing it.
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
Note: I've no idea how or if this works in the recent 'remaster'.
Mike S. <[email protected]> writes:
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
Yah. Maintenance skill and some care. I think I managed to shoot a laser >pistol down to broken state twice when I recently played the SS2
remake. Even though you can see the gun's condition on the HUD. Didn't
feel like loading a save either time to preserve it and this was early
enough so I didn't have one of those autorepair thingies. Both times
what use I got from the laser pistol saved enough ammo so I didn't have
a shortage.
Back when SS2 was new, I just turned down the degradation, didn't want
to deal with that. But it isn't that hard but it may have been tweaked
from the original which I haven't played "plain" recently, only with
some texture and fan patches.
And coming back to the topic, enemies respawning annoyingly and
impossibly, like in an empty room you just left is annnoying. System
Shock 2 here again. OTOH, the unpredictability of that does add to the
horror feel of the game. It was similar in the remake of the original
System Shock I also played recently except it kind of concentrated on
spots you wanted to visit, like charge stations.
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:15:27 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><[email protected]> wrote:
There were two other options I considered for my choice: these were >>inventory management (or, more specifically, games with a limited
inventory system), and games with breakable weapons.
Breakable weapons is another good choice. Two games immediately come
to mind with that annoying mechanic.
The first is Might and Magic 3-5. Your weapons and armor can break in
those games with no indication to you that they actually just broke.
You have to keep checking your equipment to make sure they are still
intact. This annoyed me, even when I first played them as a young
teen. It adds nothing to the those games other than frustration.
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
You forgot Lands of Lore, where there were canon D&D critters that could >disintegrate armor or weapons.
No degradation, just gone, and you might not notice for a bit.
Xocyll
For the life of me, I didnt' remember that mechanic existed in the
later M&M games. Then again, I didn't play those games very intently.
I've great love for the first two games, but everything after that is
pretty much a blur as far as that series goes. ;-)
On Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:51:29 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><[email protected]> wrote:
For the life of me, I didnt' remember that mechanic existed in the
later M&M games. Then again, I didn't play those games very intently.
I've great love for the first two games, but everything after that is >>pretty much a blur as far as that series goes. ;-)
Weapon breakage did not occur in the first two M&M games. I don't
remember if it was a thing in 6-9. But it definitely was in 3-5. When
you go into your inventory, you will see red text that says 'broken'
next to any armor or weapon that had this condition.
Another annoying mechanic is permanent stat losses in RPGs with no
indication that it happened. One example of this, again in M&M 3, was >permanent aging of your characters. There were crystals you can touch
in one area of the game that seemingly had no affect. But your
characters were just aged. Aged characters will have their stats
lowered permanently. There is no fix for this other than restoring to
an earlier save or hex editing.
On Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:34:54 -0400, Xocyll <[email protected]> wrote:
You forgot Lands of Lore, where there were canon D&D critters that could >>disintegrate armor or weapons.
No degradation, just gone, and you might not notice for a bit.
Yep, you are right. I did forget that. Instant reload when that crap
happens. And as you said, that reload is only if I noticed.
Even in the first two Might & Magic games, aging was always a part of
the game, and stats dropped accordingly. At least in M&M1, the
Rejuvenate spell was specifically used to de-age the character and
restore some of those lost skills (albeit at a small risk of it doing
the opposite). M&M3 not only removed that spell, but several other
spells actually cause even more aging when cast. Apparently there is a >fountain of youth in the game (although it only removes 'unnatural
aging') but it's difficult to find. Or so the Internet claims.
On Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:29:13 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> wrote:
Even in the first two Might & Magic games, aging was always a part of
the game, and stats dropped accordingly. At least in M&M1, the
Rejuvenate spell was specifically used to de-age the character and
restore some of those lost skills (albeit at a small risk of it doing
the opposite). M&M3 not only removed that spell, but several other
spells actually cause even more aging when cast. Apparently there is a
fountain of youth in the game (although it only removes 'unnatural
aging') but it's difficult to find. Or so the Internet claims.
Yes, those crystals I mentioned aged your characters naturally.
Magical aging can be reversed in-game. Natural aging can not.
Ah, gaming in the early-to-mid '90s, when fucking over the player in a
way that they might not realize it until dozens of hours later was
considered acceptable gameplay. (I'm looking at you, Sierra adventure
games!)
Man, all these horrible memories of bad gameplay mechanics are almost
making me rethink my stand on Spinners. Almost. I /really/ hated those >things.
On Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:34:23 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> wrote:
Ah, gaming in the early-to-mid '90s, when fucking over the player in a
way that they might not realize it until dozens of hours later was
considered acceptable gameplay. (I'm looking at you, Sierra adventure
games!)
Yeah, this hit me at least once in a Sierra game. If it only happened
once, I probably should consider myself lucky as I played most of
their games when I was younger.
Man, all these horrible memories of bad gameplay mechanics are almost
making me rethink my stand on Spinners. Almost. I /really/ hated those
things.
Seriously, same here.
It turns out what I was calling 'spinners' are actually known as loifers:
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls?
Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
On Tue, 2 Jun 2026 09:35:11 -0600, phoenix <[email protected]>
wrote:
Come to find out PW is 68 years old, maybe it's because you guys are all >>majorly old. Who plays video games at that age? Those are the guys who >>tell us not to play video games.
I'm curious why someone under maybe the age of 50 would even be
interested in Usenet at all? I'm not asking in snark, I'm genuinely
curious.
It's a nostalgic bit of ancient computing history that's fun to hold
onto for that reason only. Below a certain age group, however,
there's no nostalgic memories, thus it's hard to me to understand what
would draw younger folks here.
On 6/3/2026 6:42 AM, Mike S. wrote:
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:15:27 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<[email protected]> wrote:
There were two other options I considered for my choice: these were
inventory management (or, more specifically, games with a limited
inventory system), and games with breakable weapons.
Breakable weapons is another good choice. Two games immediately come
to mind with that annoying mechanic.
The first is Might and Magic 3-5. Your weapons and armor can break in
those games with no indication to you that they actually just broke.
You have to keep checking your equipment to make sure they are still
intact. This annoyed me, even when I first played them as a young
teen. It adds nothing to the those games other than frustration.
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the last game I played with this. I really hate it.
Justisaur <[email protected]> wrote at 22:00 this Monday (GMT):
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:[snip]
Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls?
Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
g) E-S DELETING MESSAGES!!!!
ok but for real
I think my answer is a lot more boring, mostly just because i cant think
of anyting off the top of my head but:
Games with no hint system and/or no recap on load
Maybe I'm just scared of getting stuck wit no idea how to move forward
but yea
Also, on the topic of save points, I hate when games with limited saves
ALSO have no quicksave feature (as in, one-time use saves that are
deleted on load) since it puts way more pressure on you to keep playing
until the next save.
Also also games that have a limited reward that can only be achieved
once a save, ESPECIALLY if theres an aformentioned save issue
On 6/3/2026 6:42 AM, Mike S. wrote:
On Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:15:27 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<[email protected]> wrote:
There were two other options I considered for my choice: these were
inventory management (or, more specifically, games with a limited
inventory system), and games with breakable weapons.
Breakable weapons is another good choice. Two games immediately come
to mind with that annoying mechanic.
The first is Might and Magic 3-5. Your weapons and armor can break in
those games with no indication to you that they actually just broke.
You have to keep checking your equipment to make sure they are still
intact. This annoyed me, even when I first played them as a young
teen. It adds nothing to the those games other than frustration.
The second is System Shock 2. The Maintenance skill was basically
required just to prevent weapon breakage through degradation.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the last game I played with this. I really hate it.
On Mon, 8 Jun 2026 15:20:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<[email protected]> said this thing:
Justisaur <[email protected]> wrote at 22:00 this Monday (GMT):
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:[snip]
Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls?
Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these,
feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________
g) E-S DELETING MESSAGES!!!!
It may not be Eternal September. My provider sometimes can be quite
flakey too. I recently encounted an issue where I too 'lost' some of
my own messages (even though I saw that they propogated to other
servers, they didn't show up in my feed). I don't know if these were
the same messages as you're missing, but they could be.
If in doubt, double-check on sites like https://newsgrouper.org/ or https://csiph.com/groups to see if it's just you, or Usenet at large
;-)
ok but for real
I think my answer is a lot more boring, mostly just because i cant think
of anyting off the top of my head but:
Games with no hint system and/or no recap on load
Maybe I'm just scared of getting stuck wit no idea how to move forward
but yea
Also, on the topic of save points, I hate when games with limited saves >>ALSO have no quicksave feature (as in, one-time use saves that are
deleted on load) since it puts way more pressure on you to keep playing >>until the next save.
Also also games that have a limited reward that can only be achieved
once a save, ESPECIALLY if theres an aformentioned save issue
I think I can live with limited saves... but one thing I really
dislike (and fortunately has fallen out of favor) is requiring a
special consumable object to save. Like the typewriter ribbons in
"Resident Evil", or the special crystals in the early console versions
of "Tomb Raider". For some reason, I always found that more annoying
than just saying "you can only save once per level", even if
functionally (by limiting the player to only having one save-crystal)
it was the same effect. Maybe its because it ran counter to my
hoarding (erm, 'collecting') instincts where I'd never want to use any
of my items. ;-)
Happily these days most games are much more lenient; not only don't
they require consumables to save, but frequent saves are considered
the norm (not always 'save anywhere', because sometimes that just
doesn't make sense for the game, but frequent enough that you don't
lose too much progress if you fuck up and have to restore). And for
the hard-core Real Gamer (tm), the games usually also offer an Iron
Man mode, so it's best-of-both-worlds.
Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> wrote at 16:11 this Monday (GMT): >> On Mon, 8 Jun 2026 15:20:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 >><[email protected]> said this thing:
Justisaur <[email protected]> wrote at 22:00 this Monday (GMT):
On 6/1/2026 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:[snip]
Didn't I just do one of these Completely Random And Pointless polls? >>>>> Maybe, but if my posting history proves anything, it's that I've no
ability to keep a regular schedule when it comes to articles. ;-)
#
Here's the question:
Of all the video game mechanics, what's the one you hate the most?
Here's a selection to get you started (but don't feel tied to these, >>>>> feel free to add your own!)
a) Limited save points
b) Crafting
c) Instant death pits where if you miss a jump you die
d) Mazes
e) 'Puzzle bosses' (where a specific trick is needed to defeat)
f) Rubber-banding AI that catches up with you regardless
g) Pixel-hunts
h) Moon-logic puzzles
g) so many more... fill in your own! ___________________________ >>>>>
g) E-S DELETING MESSAGES!!!!
It may not be Eternal September. My provider sometimes can be quite
flakey too. I recently encounted an issue where I too 'lost' some of
my own messages (even though I saw that they propogated to other
servers, they didn't show up in my feed). I don't know if these were
the same messages as you're missing, but they could be.
If in doubt, double-check on sites like https://newsgrouper.org/ or
https://csiph.com/groups to see if it's just you, or Usenet at large
;-)
ok but for real
I think my answer is a lot more boring, mostly just because i cant think >>>of anyting off the top of my head but:
Games with no hint system and/or no recap on load
Maybe I'm just scared of getting stuck wit no idea how to move forward >>>but yea
Also, on the topic of save points, I hate when games with limited saves >>>ALSO have no quicksave feature (as in, one-time use saves that are >>>deleted on load) since it puts way more pressure on you to keep playing >>>until the next save.
Also also games that have a limited reward that can only be achieved
once a save, ESPECIALLY if theres an aformentioned save issue
I think I can live with limited saves... but one thing I really
dislike (and fortunately has fallen out of favor) is requiring a
special consumable object to save. Like the typewriter ribbons in
"Resident Evil", or the special crystals in the early console versions
of "Tomb Raider". For some reason, I always found that more annoying
than just saying "you can only save once per level", even if
functionally (by limiting the player to only having one save-crystal)
it was the same effect. Maybe its because it ran counter to my
hoarding (erm, 'collecting') instincts where I'd never want to use any
of my items. ;-)
Happily these days most games are much more lenient; not only don't
they require consumables to save, but frequent saves are considered
the norm (not always 'save anywhere', because sometimes that just
doesn't make sense for the game, but frequent enough that you don't
lose too much progress if you fuck up and have to restore). And for
the hard-core Real Gamer (tm), the games usually also offer an Iron
Man mode, so it's best-of-both-worlds.
Oh yea, saving items are very stressful, tho I think it's more
understandable in a horror survival game. Being able to restart easily
does probably reduce the tension a bit.
I still really wish more limited save games offered a quicksave since
you almost have to plan very specifically around playing or have even
more tension heaped on.
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