What's a mechanic that bumps a game's score up for you?

[Tangerine]

I really like class-switching mechanics, especially if it lets you mix and match ability sets/passives. They let me tolerate mediocre games for longer than I would otherwise, and my score generally gets an extra point/star/watermelon if it has them.

[Kalarion]

Class systems where classes are locked behind in-game achievements, quests and so forth. Several of DAO's prestige classes are locked behind sometimes mutually exclusive quests, for instance (working around this is trivial but I appreciate the thought).

The best example in my mind right now is Ogre Battle: MOTB. It has classes that you get by giving certain items to certain unit types (Princess, Vampyre, Sorceror/Lich); classes locked behind certain battle conditions (Werewolf); classes' progression determined by units' individual Alignment score; and some classes are locked behind combinations of the preceding.

Stumbling into making a Princess, and turning Warren into a Lich (with accompanying pair of Tiamats!), were huge rushes for teenage Kal.

[Tadeusz]

I like equipment upgrades as I usually don't like to change gear if I like the stats and there's no direct successor (an item strictly better in all attributes). Two Worlds does this perfectly, allowing to improve the same item infinitely. Slots and other gear upgrades also work for me.

[rusty_shackleford]

Games that pass either the Good Samaritan and/or Functional Pockets test.
viewtopic.php?t=2981-good-samaritan-fun ... ckets-list
I'm sure I could get into more abstract concepts like reactivity, tags, etc., but I think these two are closer to a game mechanic.

In terms of actual concrete mechanics: I vastly prefer dual-class, where you pick two classes and are a hybrid of both. A lot.

[dagal]

When every cinematic or non-interactive part is skippable.

[TKVNC]

No respawning items, and loot that is hidden, and worth searching for.

[logincrash]

I don't know if it counts as a mechanic, but any kind of visual customization. Making your own personal character or vehicle or weapon can make me spend a lot more time on a game than I otherwise would.
Like, I've racked up a ton of time in Ghost Recon Wildlands because of its relatively extensive gun customization. I've spent way too much time on Starfield because of the cool spaceship builder. I've only ever enjoyed the NFS games that have car modifications and didn't care for any kind of pro racing simulators.
I even like Crusader Kings more than I like Europa Universalis because you can make your own ruler, rather than just managing a country.

[TKVNC]

I don't know if it counts as a mechanic, but any kind of visual customization. Making your own personal character or vehicle or weapon can make me spend a lot more time on a game than I otherwise would.
Like, I've racked up a ton of time in Ghost Recon Wildlands because of its relatively extensive gun customization. I've spent way too much time on Starfield because of the cool spaceship builder. I've only ever enjoyed the NFS games that have car modifications and didn't care for any kind of pro racing simulators.
I even like Crusader Kings more than I like Europa Universalis because you can make your own ruler, rather than just managing a country.

Absolutely Patrician take.

[Oyster Sauce]

Grqppling hook/swinging physics

[WaterMage]

Armor working by flat damage reduction and not percentage. Seriously. It is much better than only percentage based DR.

[aimlesshealer]

Being able to scan enemies or the environment for information, like in Metroid Prime or Subnautica. Not just for combat stats, but for things like the diet of a passive animal mob or the life cycle of a weird plant. It has to be an active scan; item descriptions and automatically acquired codex entries don't do it for me. I subconsciously yearn to be a shitlord gentleman explorer.

[methoxetamine]

Being able to pick a girl to impregnate, then have your future child use some time travel shenanigans to join your army

Thank you, 3DS Fire Emblem's

[J1M]

Games that try removing something that is standard for the genre. It doesn't always work out, but I enjoy seeing the design exploration at their expense instead of mine. And sometimes it makes for an interesting game too.

[Tweed]

Suffering.

[rusty_shackleford]

Suffering.

Good?

[Oyster Sauce]

Suffering.

Good?

Yes, but it autismwalls content

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Being able to summon something big and cool, like an Aeon, or a large mech or a large dragon. And it stays on the battlefield for at least a while rather than being a one and down cutscene.

Being able to fly on a dragon or an airship over the world.

Being able to tame the cool monster models in the game and fight with them in combat, maybe even ride on them in combat.

Characters having unique combo attacks with each other and they're shouting each other's names.

Being able to reclass a character you like but you don't like their how their default kit or class plays, and they have alternative class options and outfits for them that make sense and is appropriate for their character. Ie, G'raha Tia from FF14 being able to be a paladin, a white mage, or a black mage, since he is a muscular wizard and was in charge of leading his nation into battle. Or reclassing Takumi in Fire Emblem Fates from an archer to a samurai, and he wears his father Sumeragi's armor.

Characters being able to spontaneously do something awesome during battle. Ie, Romancing Saga 2 where your character can randomly learn a new technique and use it on their turn and it is more powerful than you expected their action would be. Or Valkyria Chronicles where you are about to shoot with your character and then they suddenly proc a trait and they do it super amazing. Or VC4 when your character gets shot and reaches 0 HP, but then he gets a determination moment where he stands back up and is able to still run and fight for a few more seconds before collapsing.

Enemies run away from you when you reach a high enough level.

Being able to pick a girl to impregnate, then have your future child use some time travel shenanigans to join your army

Thank you, 3DS Fire Emblem's

I think it'd be more coherent to have the game or the series take place over the course of many years so that this would be natural without having to resort to Fates time bubble stuff. But yes, it was satisfying that the romances actually matriculated and resulted in a new character you got to see and interact with during the game, not get a glimpse of in the last five minutes.

[rusty_shackleford]

can't believe I didn't answer this first:
companions
not referring to generic party members, but characters you don't control that can hold their own. Banter with you, talk, you work together, etc.,

[DecadeRiptide]

Object persistence. It's cool moving things around the world and coming back later to see things where you left them.

[methoxetamine]

Being able to tame the cool monster models in the game and fight with them in combat, maybe even ride on them in combat.

Easy, don't let Nigtendo hear you say this

Characters being able to spontaneously do something awesome during battle. Ie, Romancing Saga 2 where your character can randomly learn a new technique and use it on their turn and it is more powerful than you expected their action would be.

No comment other than Romancing Saga 2 Remake was ******* great. Should I play other SaGa games? I want to try Minstrel Song sometime

I think it'd be more coherent to have the game or the series take place over the course of many years so that this would be natural without having to resort to Fates time bubble stuff. But yes, it was satisfying that the romances actually matriculated and resulted in a new character you got to see and interact with during the game, not get a glimpse of in the last five minutes.

I agree that would be ideal, I started DQ5 recently because this is in it. Got distracted by FE but I'll be going back to DQ5 soon

[rusty_shackleford]

Being able to reclass a character you like but you don't like their how their default kit or class plays, and they have alternative class options and outfits for them that make sense and is appropriate for their character. Ie, G'raha Tia from FF14 being able to be a paladin, a white mage, or a black mage, since he is a muscular wizard and was in charge of leading his nation into battle. Or reclassing Takumi in Fire Emblem Fates from an archer to a samurai, and he wears his father Sumeragi's armor.

bit related, but I really liked that deadfire allowed you to pick from thematically fitting(ahem, mostly…) class choices for companions when you recruit them. You typically got 2 classes + the hybrid dual-class option.

Games that allow free respeccing of companions break my immershun

[Cipher]

Class systems where classes are locked behind in-game achievements, quests and so forth. Several of DAO's prestige classes are locked behind sometimes mutually exclusive quests, for instance (working around this is trivial but I appreciate the thought).

The best example in my mind right now is Ogre Battle: MOTB. It has classes that you get by giving certain items to certain unit types (Princess, Vampyre, Sorceror/Lich); classes locked behind certain battle conditions (Werewolf); classes' progression determined by units' individual Alignment score; and some classes are locked behind combinations of the preceding.

Stumbling into making a Princess, and turning Warren into a Lich (with accompanying pair of Tiamats!), were huge rushes for teenage Kal.

Knights of Lodis on the GBA also has a system of medals that unlock classes. It is really cool getting to the final boss and seeing everyone's journey through their medals.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Should I play other SaGa games?

The Last Remnant (same designers and systems) exists, but it's a real mixed bag. The main issue is that it suffers from 1. a severe case of walkthroughitis, and 2. it is 90% sidequests, and the sidequest gameplay loop is that huge swathes of your time are wasted by bad RNG. You need to play the game with the TLRplanner mod that will tell you what is the next missable thing you need to do next, and to force spawn the correct mobs when you zone into a level and to force drop their entire loot tables so you get the quest items you need. That way you aren't zoning into zones and spending many moneys running through it only to find that the mob you need hasn't spawned, and then fight it and it didn't drop the item you needed so now you need to run back out and do the whole thing all over again. You also need to read a gamefaqs guide on how to set up your party so that by the lategame, you have at least two characters who have learned the Cachexia spell that can stun The Fallen superboss. Otherwise, it has good art direction, and the powermetal music by Black Mages guitarists by Tsuyoshi Sekito is memorable. Beware that the game has screentearing on AMD cards and I could never get that fixed no matter what programs or settings I tried. The English dub is surprisingly okay.




I heard Saga Frontier brought up a lot in /vrpg/ threads so that might be something to check out.

[rusty_shackleford]

I had SaGa Frontier 2 for the PS1 and it was very good. The story spans over a century of time featuring two primary protagonists whose stories are intertwined but distinct.

[Fitz]

One of my all time favourite games is Ultimate Spider-man. The swinging mechanic in it is really good. You can do a small boost by pressing Q mid-swing and you can climb up the web by holding E again while swinging add to that the web-zip move and the double jump and it's really a joy to run around the city and listen to the banger soundtrack. There's also races and other stuff that require the player to be on point with how they move. I also liked the gliding in Arkham City and Arkham Knight. It's just fun to move around the town.

Moving in a fun and dynamic way from point A to point B is what does it for me. It's hard to translate this into rpg form tho. Clicking on a map where to go only to be surprised by a loading screen and get ambushed by 5 goblins is the antithesis of fun.

[Oyster Sauce]

One of my all time favourite games is Ultimate Spider-man. The swinging mechanic in it is really good. You can do a small boost by pressing Q mid-swing and you can climb up the web by holding E again while swinging add to that the web-zip move and the double jump and it's really a joy to run around the city and listen to the banger soundtrack. There's also races and other stuff that require the player to be on point with how they move. I also liked the gliding in Arkham City and Arkham Knight. It's just fun to move around the town.

Moving in a fun and dynamic way from point A to point B is what does it for me. It's hard to translate this into rpg form tho. Clicking on a map where to go only to be surprised by a loading screen and get ambushed by 5 goblins is the antithesis of fun.

Forspoken has magical parkour

[Fitz]

Even magical parkour won't help that piece of **** of a game get a positive score.
The later entries in the Prince of Persia series have pretty cool magical parkour in them. They even look like proper games and not some culturally appropriate cash grab.

[maidenhaver IV]

Level caps, because they tell me the devs thought about encounters. That they did their job and designed the game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Level caps, because they tell me the devs thought about encounters. That they did their job and designed the game.

I feel that these are usually bandaids, that the game designers didn't sit down and budget and restrict beforehand just how far ahead a player can overlevel at a certain point in the game. Tim Cain in his videos had a good 80/100 rule of thumb, where if you just do the main story then you will get 80% of the total EXP in the game, but if you do everything then you will be slightly further than that.

[rusty_shackleford]

Level caps, because they tell me the devs thought about encounters. That they did their job and designed the game.

Counterpoint: Baldur's Gate 3.

I hit the level cap 2/3rds of the way through the game and got to spend a few dozen hours at max level.