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[nenjin]

I want to say that's been done to some degree, some time in gaming's distant past.

It just pains me in games when a spell caster's choices are those three things, Fire, Frost and Lightning. I don't care how detailed or cool some of the (undoubtedly pure offensive) spells look, that tells me whoever wrote the design doc didn't really care about magic, and they didn't give it any more thought than people 10 years ago did. I mean, what does that say about the world, if we take game systems as an expression of the realities of a fantasy world? That mages were only interested in studying magic to the degree it allowed them to: burn shit, freeze shit or electrocute shit? If we're lucky, they left the guy that figured out how to heal stuff alive.

I sometimes wonder if it's an age thing. If you've played D&D, you were exposed to a wealth of ideas about what magic is and can be; I wonder if a younger generation of gamers who grew up just on mainstream video games (JRPGs and the eventual rise of American aRPGs) can't think any farther outside the box than that.

[alexandertnt]

Over-automation of gameplay
Limiting what you can do by doing it for you. This mostly applies where the automation takes away things you could otherwise have done. In RTS's, prebuilt bases and squads would count (Damnit, if I want to spell out my name with houses, or make an army of villagers, I should be able to).

"RPG ELEMENTS"

This bugs the crap out of me in games. Most games with "RPG elements" tend to use heavily stripped down stereotypical-RPG elements, and my main complaint with RPG's is the already oversimple, generic mechanics many use to begin with.

Minor graphical errors

I would expand it with:

Shoddy graphical work
(Note, this applies to "professional" AAA games, where for the cost and development effort you would expect better. It does not apply to amature/indie games, where the resources and skills simply may not exist).

Holes/gaps in models, ugly seams in textures, low-resolution bump maps. Eye-bleedingly bad animations, skin poking awkwardly through armor/cloths etc. Im looking at you, TES III & IV.

The Sacred Quartet of Elements

Completely agree. The things that represent magic are not even particularly magical. Why is water even related to magic? It just seems that fire/water/wind etc magical elements are there because every other game uses them. It brings me back to my "Why are RPG's so damn traditional" peeve. Lots of RPG's tend to do certain things (both mechanically and conceptually) because "Thats the way its done, damnit".

[mastahcheese]

I like what Magicka did with magical elements 

[CognitiveDissonance]

I like what Magicka did with magical elements 

Is that game good? I assume you like it... it looked too silly to me, and back when I looked at it I was still burned by D3

[Gamerlord]

Over-automation of gameplay
Limiting what you can do by doing it for you. This mostly applies where the automation takes away things you could otherwise have done. In RTS's, prebuilt bases and squads would count (Damnit, if I want to spell out my name with houses, or make an army of villagers, I should be able to).

YES. When I used to play RTS's a lot, back when I played Rise of Nations and Age of Empires, I would ALWAYS end up building my own little squads and bases as I saw fit to in an RP way. Like my little team of a group of villagers, some warriors and a mounted leader sent to colonise far off lands... Which leads me to one of my peeves.

AI Which Does Not Understand How To Do Things The Player Can
If any of you played Age of Empires, you might remember a certain scenario where you could start with three AI foes, all of you on different tiny islands with a massive island over the sea. That would have been AWESOME to play... IF the AI could understand how to use boat transports. A simple gameplay mechanic. The fecking AI could not colonise islands or other continents. COMPLETELY ruined that scenario for me.

[mastahcheese]

AI Which Does Not Understand How To Do Things The Player Can

AI CANT USE THE FREAKING BOATS
I HATE this! I personally find that in MANY games, there is some awesome navel combat, but the AI is just too FREAKING STUPID to know how to use it.
I'm a huge fan of boats in general, and this irritates me to no end. There have been so many games that I've stopped playing solely for this reason.
Age of Mythology, awesome game, too stupid to use boats.
Rise and Fall, awesome game, excellent navel combat, too stupid to use boats.
Civilization, awesome games, TOO STUPID TO USE BOATS
Need I go on?

[nenjin]

I like what Magicka did with magical elements 

Magicka was on the right track. For an action game, it was actually more than expected. Your average AAA RPG never even goes there though, it's up to roguelikes to even scratch the surface of interesting magic. As for whether Magicka is any good, yes, it is. It's silly, but fun.

Dominions 3 probably has the best representation of magic I've played in a long time. It's got the elemental color wheel, but those are divided among schools, elements mix, elements can represent different magic concepts besides bolt throwing and such. We need so much more of that in our everyday RPGs and RPG-esqe action games.

[Neonivek]

Dominions 3 has two essentially 4 schools of magic (Fire, Water, Earth, Air) and 4 schools of Sorcery (Astral, Death, Nature, and Blood)

Which both Blood magic and Astral magic being the purist forms of magic.

It is secondary to how Magic the Gathering does its magic. Where each element is a color, emotion, feeling, and species.

[Darkmere]

I like what Magicka did with magical elements 

Is that game good? I assume you like it... it looked too silly to me, and back when I looked at it I was still burned by D3

The only thing Magicka has in common with D3 is that they're both isometric and "fantasy." Well, okay there are weapon slots too. If you hate silly you'll still hate it, as it mercilessly parodies... everything, including itself, constantly.

[nenjin]

It's mercilessly silly.

[hector13]

Over-automation of gameplay
Limiting what you can do by doing it for you. This mostly applies where the automation takes away things you could otherwise have done. In RTS's, prebuilt bases and squads would count (Damnit, if I want to spell out my name with houses, or make an army of villagers, I should be able to).

Yes, good lord yes.

AC3 RUINED THE GAME with this. On two counts!

On the one hand when Connor kills

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Charles Lee

in a fucking cutscene it then doesn't let you choose whether or not

Spoiler: ultra spoiler of franchise ruining proportions (click to show/hide)

Desmond accepts Juno's offer to save the earth, while enslaving the human race, despite the fact that, you know, the Assassin's claiming to be a force for freedom.

It was most frustrating. I'm not the biggest fan of the AC series, but god damn I thought the third game was a saving grace up until the last 4 missions.

[Darkmere]

You know what's been missing from the whole thread? Unless it's very small and I just missed it when I skimmed back over...

Escort quests
Yeah. Okay there's one I can think of that's decent. In STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, one of the scientists from Lake Yantar is trapped when his helicopter is shot down and you need to get him past some bandits and... mercenaries? It's been a while. Said escortee has pretty good armor, is a passable shot with a pistol, always tries to hid behind you, and takes cover the instant shooting starts. If he runs ahead and sees a hostile, he immediately calls for help and runs behind you to hide in an already-cleared area. Also, if you fail, you can still grab his data and deliver it, but the reward is greatly diminished and a later quest plays out differently if you save him.

See? It's really not that hard to make an escort quest that isn't a ... words fail me. I hate escort quests.

[Gamerlord]

You know what's been missing from the whole thread? Unless it's very small and I just missed it when I skimmed back over...

Escort quests
Yeah. Okay there's one I can think of that's decent. In STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, one of the scientists from Lake Yantar is trapped when his helicopter is shot down and you need to get him past some bandits and... mercenaries? It's been a while. Said escortee has pretty good armor, is a passable shot with a pistol, always tries to hid behind you, and takes cover the instant shooting starts. If he runs ahead and sees a hostile, he immediately calls for help and runs behind you to hide in an already-cleared area. Also, if you fail, you can still grab his data and deliver it, but the reward is greatly diminished and a later quest plays out differently if you save him.

See? It's really not that hard to make an escort quest that isn't a ... words fail me. I hate escort quests.

I know! There was an escort quest in Skyrim, seems pretty easy to take some guy to a cave that you're going to anyway, but the only practical route passes at LEAST one giant camp, at LEAST one unmarked sabre cat den and I think maybe two bandit camps. And. He. Runs. Off. To. Fight. Each. And. Every. One.

When They Give You a Map, Why Don't They Let You Make Permanent Marks?
Skyrim is the worst for this. Why can't I mark the locations of stashes, or places where enemies spawn a lot? Why?

[itisnotlogical]

Resident Evil 4 fixed every problem with escort missions with exactly three changes:

- Ashley stays about two feet behind you at all times, or you can order her to stay put and SHE STAYS RIGHT THE FUCK PUT
- She ducks when you're aiming at her
- She doesn't collapse in a bloody heap from one hit

Three simple changes that make the entire game so perfect. There is no reason for any game to fuck this up ever again.

[nenjin]

When They Give You a Map, Why Don't They Let You Make Permanent Marks?
Skyrim is the worst for this. Why can't I mark the locations of stashes, or places where enemies spawn a lot? Why?

My thought is that people don't want to go through the effort of saving out the map data with your custom coordinates. It comes down to map design I guess. What's interesting about Skyrim in particular is the map is actually you viewing the entire game space. So you'd think storing the coordinates of player set flags would be trivial. It kinda already does that with way points (if I'm remembering the game correctly, haven't played it in a while.)

I don't really consider that a pet peeve of mine because it's almost never done by any game. It's a mythical unicorn of a game feature, an oft wished for, non-existent industry standard.