What unusual game mechanic do you wish you'd see more often?

[StaceyPowers]

Is there a distinctive game mechanic you’ve only encountered in one or two games that you wish would be used more widely?

[m76]

Yes.

There are a few I'd particularly wish every game would adopt that it can apply to.

1. Realistic difficulty setting - This means NPCs, enemies and the player characters should be as resilient and durable as you'd expect in real life. As in a humanoid with no special armor should be disabled by one limb shot and killed by headshots instantly.Or when there are machines or monsters, they should not be immune to damage, at least no more than what their armor would suggest.
2. Hardcore mode - The need to eat / sleep / drink in role playing games / immersive sims.
3. Soft Body Physics - Most games still use the archaic rigid body physics for most things. Despite of having computation power to simulate soft body physics. Developers are reluctant to adopt it, probably because of its relative unpredictability and higher computation intensity. But in reality nothing is completely rigid, every common construction material have a certain internal stress and flexibility, this is completely ignored by rigid  body physics as it assumes objects are completely rigid as the name suggests.  Soft body physics however takes into account the springiness of materials. Resulting in leaps and bounds more realism.  And it's not like it is brand new technology. I first saw it in tech demos in the mid 1990s and by 2000s there were games using it.
4. Changing half empty clips means loosing the ammo in it. Not many games do this, probably for the sake of player convenience. Some games offer it as an option which is the best solution.
5. Per character based reputation system as in every key NPC has it's own unique view on you

 

[Reality vs Adventure]

Having a bird that can fly above everything; see the landscape; spot points of interest. To me, that is such a great function. I guess it would only work in open worlds. But doesn't have to. 

[Anders]

I'd say the objective marker from Ghost of Tsushima. Where a lot of games have either a big arrow, a compass or a glowing trail showing you where to go, Ghost of Tsushima has a great mechanic where you just give the PS4 touch sensor a swipe, and a gust of wind will blow in the direction of your next objective. It's a really simple feature, but it's very effective at maintaining immersion. 

[staticradio725]

On 1/30/2021 at 6:26 PM, m76 said:

Changing half empty clips means loosing the ammo in it. Not many games do this, probably for the sake of player convenience. Some games offer it as an option which is the best solution.

 

Oh God, I would be doomed. I'm constantly reloading around every corner just in case there happens to be twelve boss monsters hiding behind it. I would be out of ammo in about four minutes.

[m76]

5 hours ago, Anders said:

I'd say the objective marker from Ghost of Tsushima. Where a lot of games have either a big arrow, a compass or a glowing trail showing you where to go, Ghost of Tsushima has a great mechanic where you just give the PS4 touch sensor a swipe, and a gust of wind will blow in the direction of your next objective. It's a really simple feature, but it's very effective at maintaining immersion. 

I don't remember which game, but in one game it was implemented that flags would wave in the direction you need to go.  Although I'd prefer no guidance at all, as in the need to use the map. Games are more immersive if there is no built in gps.

[Syntax]

On 1/30/2021 at 4:26 PM, m76 said:

Yes.

There are a few I'd particularly wish every game would adopt that it can apply to.

1. Realistic difficulty setting - This means NPCs, enemies and the player characters should be as resilient and durable as you'd expect in real life. As in a humanoid with no special armor should be disabled by one limb shot and killed by headshots instantly.Or when there are machines or monsters, they should not be immune to damage, at least no more than what their armor would suggest.
2. Hardcore mode - The need to eat / sleep / drink in role playing games / immersive sims.
3. Soft Body Physics - Most games still use the archaic rigid body physics for most things. Despite of having computation power to simulate soft body physics. Developers are reluctant to adopt it, probably because of its relative unpredictability and higher computation intensity. But in reality nothing is completely rigid, every common construction material have a certain internal stress and flexibility, this is completely ignored by rigid  body physics as it assumes objects are completely rigid as the name suggests.  Soft body physics however takes into account the springiness of materials. Resulting in leaps and bounds more realism.  And it's not like it is brand new technology. I first saw it in tech demos in the mid 1990s and by 2000s there were games using it.
4. Changing half empty clips means loosing the ammo in it. Not many games do this, probably for the sake of player convenience. Some games offer it as an option which is the best solution.
5. Per character based reputation system as in every key NPC has it's own unique view on you

 

Wow, this actually is exactly what I was going to say almost. I LOVED Detroit: Become Human since if you kill a person in the story, they no longer are there at all. Def. makes the gameplay more realistic as unique since every story mode is special in a specific way. 

[killamch89]

The paint brush combat mechanic from Okami was so original and yet, it worked so amazingly that I would like to see something similar to that implemented in other games as well.

[Heatman]

On 2/2/2021 at 7:50 PM, staticradio725 said:

Oh God, I would be doomed. I'm constantly reloading around every corner just in case there happens to be twelve boss monsters hiding behind it. I would be out of ammo in about four minutes.

Seriously, that's definitely going to be one the things a hardcore shooting gamer would be so interested in to see fixed because it's going to affect them so badly. Ammo is life in shooting games.