What game mechanic(s) should be incorporated to other games?

franman

franman

[13] Hero
What game mechanics from a game that you find very useful that all or some of it's elements should be incorporated to other games of other genres?

For me I find Final Fantasy 12's particular mechanic the gambit system, to be usefull for a beat'em-ups, FPS, and espeically RPGs.

What is the gambit system?
A gambit system is a list of commands(or gambits in FF10) for a CPU or your character to do automatically when he/she meets a certain situation. Each command is prioritize by the order it is stacked in; whereas a command stacked at the top will become top priority.

It is also worth to note that you can disable gambits by turning all commands to neutral.

How I think gambits should be incorporated?
Beat'em-ups with a target-locking feature could have made the experience easier with some of the gambit system incorporated. When I'm surrounding by a bunch of goons who do I want to target first? Maybe the guy with the lowest HP, maybe the guy who stay at a distance, maybe the one who poses the most threat or whoever is nearest to me? And during battle should I run low on HP do I still attack or run away?

Alright so I'm running out of time... I'll post more when I have time. Meanwhile just post a certain game mechanic you think should be incorporated to other games of various genres.
 
Throws with canned animations
If it's brutal, badass, or wacky enough, I always find these to be very gratifying in genres outside of fighters. The best examples I can think of are the "pinning" attacks of the playable zombies in Left 4 Dead, the...well, throws of Monday Night Combat, and Anarchy Reigns/Max Anarchy. I actually find how they break up the pace of their respective games pleasant as well, as contradictory as that sounds.


Some wacky gimmicks from Final Fantasy X-2
Lol, yes I played an enjoyed that game. Shut up. It had a very interesting take on turn-based battles, I thought. Its job/class system allowed characters to skip a turn to change classes, which radically altered how battles played out. Additionally, you had different sets of items to place your class/job of choice on and they acted something like a mindless mini-puzzle in the midst of battle: switch between certain slots on the grid and you gained bonuses like nullifying certain types of elemental damage or. Each grid had its own layout with a specific limit on how many jobs(even the same job!) could be placed on it, and when you've used every job on a grid you gain access to a 'super' job that replaces the entire party. Wonderful, I thought it was.


Grappling, swinging, and rappel mechanics without context
Lost Planet does this. You have a button devoted solely to your grappling hook, which you can use like in any video game cutscene ever basically. And you can use it wihout context-sensitive controls? Wonderful!


EDIT:


Dynamic difficulty
I think this is one of the best things out there that could be applied to a tremendously wide variety of genres, save for multiplayer. The best use of it I've seen have been in Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil 5. Do better, the game becomes more difficult. Do worse, it shows some mercy. The amount of things that could trigger changes in how the game responds to the player is mind-boggling. The game could keep track of how fast you respond to things(like breaking a throw in SC or hitting an evade button in something else), your accuracy in a shooter, how much you spam things, and so on until you're given a very fine-tuned experience that gives you just the right amount of difficulty; even between the game difficulty settings.


Training modes with online abilities
I saw SFxT had this and I was just amazed at the concept. Why did no one(that I know of) think of this before? Training modes have supported offline co-op of sorts for ages, with little things to keep it under control like the host having total authority, whether someone is joinable by the general public/friends only/invite only...It sounds wonderful, I think. Better than wasting time with matches that have a time limit.


One game mechanic I'd like to see less of is QTEs...I got sick of them in Resident Evil 4, why did it have to go and popularize them? -.- Done well, they add to a game...But of course most of the time they're not. And occasionally game designers think making your gameplay consist solely of QTEs is a good idea.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(2012_video_game)
 
Wandrian said:
Grappling, swinging, and rappel mechanics without context
Lost Planet does this. You have a button devoted solely to your grappling hook, which you can use like in any video game cutscene ever basically. And you can use it wihout context-sensitive controls? Wonderful!
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Yes, this times 1000.
 
If I were to make a fighting game which involved weapons I would take out HP, take out rounds. Instead of getting hit by their sword you do a emergency block which would have the same effect as getting hit but this would reduce your, I dunno... 'Endurance' if you like. It would be like a UFC game where you know if you keep getting battered by an attack, sooner or later they will get through and kill you with one hit with a Pyrrha stab.
 
Sett said:
If I were to make a fighting game which involved weapons I would take out HP, take out rounds. Instead of getting hit by their sword you do a emergency block which would have the same effect as getting hit but this would reduce your, I dunno... 'Endurance' if you like. It would be like a UFC game where you know if you keep getting battered by an attack, sooner or later they will get through and kill you with one hit with a Pyrrha stab.
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Bushido Blade.
 
This isn't really a mechanic but it's something nifty.
I can't for the life of me remember what it's called, but when the BGM adds subtle changes when you're doing something. Only games I've played that do this are Pokemon B/W [seasons, people with instruments, walking, etc], Sonic Generations [modern Sonic dashing] and SotC [on the ground vs on the colossus].
It's been an idea of mine for a long-ass time to have a sound-based character in a fighting game whose BGM is just a beat/bassline or something, and when they do moves/combos with that specific character it creates a melody. Kind of hard to explain but it would me really cool imo
 
Sett said:
In Soul Calibur you got it subtly. Like when they breath heavy when they're hurt.

Edit: That's probably not what you're getting at lol.
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REALLY?
That isn't what I was getting at but still, I have to go check that out
 
Music in SFII would become faster ocne someone was about to lose. I wonder why they never implemented that in later games.
 
Unleashed is worth playing IMO. Sonic stages are so much fun so I suffered through werehog. One of the best game soundtracks ever. I had more fun with it than I did with generations.
 
So this is a continuation from where I left off. I think it's cool to have gambits on games that are team-oriented espeically when it comes to FPS, RPGs and beatem ups. Your team can automatically heal your teamates when their HP reaches a certain point; cover one of them if they are being attacked etc. Even in single play for RPGs and beatem ups especially if your character is a custom character you can set up the gambits to make things a little easier for you. FPS I don't think gambits for its single player maybe necessary maybe you can prove me wrong I like to hear from you.

I little more elaboration on custom characters it's good to have gambits of some sort because it could also mean the reflection of how you want to personify that character. For example if your character sees a barrage of enemies unoticed should your character automically decide to go in stealth mode and you just manually take them out silently or should your character go Rambo style and you manually beat the crap out of them?
 
I didn't really have much fun with generations after the first couple stages for some reason. I dunno why. I did finish it though.
 
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