Game Mechanics You'll Never Get Tired Of

A video game mechanic you really dig. Simple. Post it.

I'll start with Active Reload from the Gears of War franchise. It's cool and satisfying. From increasing the damage output of the Lancer to insuring the Flamethrower's range increases, it's a great mechanic worth getting used to.

Been playing the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and it's still great.

Now, it's your turn. Show us mechanics that are just darn-tootin' sweet as candy.

Climbing towers

Thank goodness for Ubisoft!

Its a tie between auto attack and auto run. I think i like auto attack more though.

@charizard1605: Screw that shit in Far Cry though. I hate how you can't reach the ledge unless it prompts you to.

Haha, I was just kidding, tbh, poking fun at Ubi's tendency to use the same template across all their games.

I guess my real answer would be social linking and its variants? Loved that shit in Persona, Fire Emblem, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Xenoblade, DanganRonpa, so many other games.

Btw, you play Far Cry Primal yet?

Final Fantasy XII's Gambit System

Figuring that stuff out so it became a well-oiled machine was incredibly satisfying--yet I never had the same problem that others had in feeling that the game was playing itself. Maybe it felt that way in the opening areas, much like any Final Fantasy where all you do is Attack>Attack>Attack with every random encounter. Later in the game, especially with bosses, you aren't just keeping the game on autopilot and it's still incredible fun then.

@charizard1605: Sure did. Stopped playing, due to it not being great.

:/

It seemed like such a cool setting too

Bravely Defaults Auto/speed up mechanics for grinding. Takes edge off grinding.

@charizard1605: It is. Two things; give your "club" much more customization options and revamp the melee system, since that's what you're gonna be doing in this game.

But being Ubisoft, they didn't. It could've been brilliant with a bit more attention.

That's a shame. *sigh*

Hopefully Horizon fills the void, I guess?

Looting and crafting. I like building stuff in games from small weapons to sprawling cities, also getting a powerful drop from an enemy or random treasure chest is always satisfying.

Player influences or impacts the game world. I like my choices to have an effect on the game world whether it changes the landscape or npcs opinion of the player.

@charizard1605: The Killzone thing? Maybe. Probably. I'm sure it'll be better.

Quick time events in RE4. It was so cool when it first came out....

*edit

Misread the topic, nvm. I'd go with the classic turn based rpgs as my answer.

One gaming mechanic I have liked since day I was first introduced to it is the accumulation of wealth and resources.

There is something deeply satisfying about hoarding all the resources in the game.

Teleportation maybe? I loved how in Dishonored you could just go right from one sneak kill to another, distract someone 'whoop i'm here' and then sneak behind them and cut their head off. Looks kinda cool in Overwatch too. I wish more games would have this

Upgrading weapons if that's considered a mechanic. Love it.

Gonna go with a simple, and rather boring answer, but Fast Travel. Such a good feature that makes backtracking and side quest much more reasonable.

Leveling up RPG style, and yeah active reload is cool.

QTE.

I keed.

i know you're kidding but that's my actual answer lol

In AC i love climbing towers...oddly satisfying :D

I would say getting in a Mech suit, like in Halo 5, FO4, HellDivers, Black Ops..It never gets old.

• Unlockable cheat codes like in Golden Eye 64.

• Unlockable playable characters like in Ninja Gaiden.

• Map deforming abilities like in Populous: The Beginning.

• Claiming parts of a map like in Dungeon Keeper / GTA, etc. and Claiming or sacrificing enemy units like in Sacrifice.

• Building an economic machine that harvests resources like in Factorio.

• Hover tanks like in Battlezone / Planetside 2 and weapons that transform like in Hard Reset.

• Ordering around huge machines like in Battlezone.

• Card drafting and bidding for a position of power (not in any video game that I know of but I love these in board games.)

@Sandulf29: that was also cool in shadows of mordor. you would teleport to an enemy you just shot with an arrow and lob his head off.

handy for navigation, bailing out when under pressure and just being a complete ba"($^rd :P. those poor orks.

Boob physis.

Witcher 2,3, Dragon Age, Divinity OS & Dark Souls' combat and skills. Deus Ex HR Augmentations specially Icarus landing system.
Walking horizontally along the wall, jumping from wall to wall. Climbing buildings, realistic parkour, double air assassination. Maybe Far Cry 3 skills.

The ability to bunny hop in online first person shooters for advantageous movement and speed gains, though few games exhibit these traits anymore.

Dark Souls and Bloodborne combat.

Any game that involves a support/healer class. i.e. TF2, Battlefield 4, WoW.

Pulling off high combos in the Arkham games is always fun.

Super Mario 64 and Sunshine mechanics. Love how fluid and nuanced getting around levels is in those games. Also Super Metroid has similar fluidity. Basically games where movement both on ground and vertically is done well.

Day/Night cycle. Fantastic way to add variety without creating new level designs.

@osan0: Oh yeah, totally forgot about Shadow of Mordor and killing em archers. Best part was just shadowing on a Graug letting the beast run wild though. Man I should buy DLC to that game and give it a go again

so you like the borderlands games?

Quarter-circle punch!

of course. would rent you my body for BL3 right now. But BL have no weapon upgrading system, tho and it'd be nice if BL3 had one.

Zelda dungeons.

Mario 64 movement.

@the_master_race said:

Agreed, throat slits in any game are just guaranteed greatness. Even with all the countless ways of taking out an enemy in MGSV, I'd still just rather interrogate and then throat slit lol.

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One thing that never gets old for me, is capping someone in the knee, then running in for the melee attack in RE4. Especially when you're dealing with a horde. There is just something infinitely satisfying about that.

Another one is OLUT in NGB and NG2. It just makes for such a great release when the set up is perfect.

Leveling up. Nothing like knowing you slaughter just enough things to progress ever so slightly into being a more badass character.

Honorable mention: Stealth gameplay, because when done right it's fun to be the shadow that takes down everyone without making a sound.

blitz attacking, paralooping, spindashing, boosting, grinding, performing aerial combos and tricks, wall jumping, dash jumping, quarter circle punching, hook shooting, etc.

Slowing down time. Zed time in Killing Floor, bullet time in Max Payne, slow motion in Viewtiful Joe and F.E.A.R. I love them all.

true but maybe they figured if they did then it would defeat the purpose of finding new better loot and weapons.

Here is to hoping that they make BL 3 as awesome as possible. Nothing better than co-oping and getting better loot weapons that make your buddies and friends envious and jealous

"Hey you better watch out! He knows about timed hits. He's gonna punch your lights out!"

Jumping on a turtle and hoping I can jump before he ricochets from the pipe... Lol

Exploding barrels.

The combo I guess in beat-em ups and fighting games. Varying degree of difficulty depending on the game, but when the set up is there to get your bread n butters in or one of your better stuff, awww yeah.

The Dodge offset mechanics in Bayonetta are fucking GODLY, and open up so many possibilities for combos in that game.

The Gambit System was a great idea and would still work extremely well in modern action-RPGs. FFXII was, however, a polarizing entry in the series for a number of reasons.

"The game playing itself" was usually a blanket statement for various issues Final Fantasy fans had with Final Fantasy XII. The gambit system more-or-less a compounding contributor an already "detached" perspective players had for lack of cohesion within the game. The player feeling like a spectator had more to do with plot and character issues in conjunction with other game mechanics.

The primary issues included:

• The convoluted pace and detached political background of the story's narrative overshadows the players purpose.
• It was too easy to forget where you're headed, why you're going there, and why its important. There's never an implied sense of urgency because the primary villains exist only in cutaways, the impact of their actions has little to no effect on the player in most cases, and they disappear for over half the game.
• The player is forced to give up on finding relevance between the actions of their characters and the plot when the game essentially becomes a dungeon crawl with annoying political banter between dungeons. Instead of the epic quest you'd expect from a Final Fantasy, you end up on one treasure hunt after the other.
• There is minimal character development and the significance of most party members, including the main protagonist, is never established. Aside from weapon types and a signature quick-time ability, party members lacked truly unique and necessary qualities, even relatively early in the game. Since their stats are equivalent for the most part, you're often selecting your party members based on the best weapons you have in your inventory.

While having party members that you can "program" like bots was a good idea conceptually, for lack of unique characters with a clear purpose, you're dampening the player to player-character relationship that most JRPGs are known for when you allow the characters to control themselves.