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Games that have borderline useless mechanics
- Thread starter AuthenticM
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Yeah, only discovered it 60h in and even then never used it lmao
Yeah, I rarely used them. I think they're there more for a lore device more than a gameplay one.
So many of the mechanics in RDR2. Like any sort of inventory management. It has this fairly robust inventory system for an action game, and the game basically automates so many choices you end up fighting against it. I love RDR2,.it's one of my favorite games ever, but I could also call it "RDR2: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Handholding."
Extracts in Judgment / Lost Judgment... they are really cool visually and would be fun to use but the material requirements for them is usually too high and they last 10-30 seconds at most... only really found them actually useful for Amon.
Crafting in Elden Ring. I guess it's not really useless because I'm sure you can do some cool shit with them but I never used it in my playthrough and never felt like I was missing something. Maybe it's different with other builds. I ran simple melee only.
RDR 2 kinda has multiple? But the game puts such an emphasis on immersion that I don't really view them as "useless". I always liked drinking coffee first thing after I woke up and cooking some food instead of just scarfing down cans of peach.
Yakuza 7, i dearly love this game and I enjoy the combat system but its the poster child for "RPG where 75% of the skills are useless". Loads of debuff skills are gimmicky and have a really low % of working, and there's a handful of highly effective skills that have such low MP costs that you have to go out your way to not just constantly spam them.
Crafting in Elden Ring. I guess it's not really useless because I'm sure you can do some cool shit with them but I never used it in my playthrough and never felt like I was missing something. Maybe it's different with other builds. I ran simple melee only.
RDR 2 kinda has multiple? But the game puts such an emphasis on immersion that I don't really view them as "useless". I always liked drinking coffee first thing after I woke up and cooking some food instead of just scarfing down cans of peach.
Yakuza 7, i dearly love this game and I enjoy the combat system but its the poster child for "RPG where 75% of the skills are useless". Loads of debuff skills are gimmicky and have a really low % of working, and there's a handful of highly effective skills that have such low MP costs that you have to go out your way to not just constantly spam them.
The issue with crafting in Elden Ring is you need to find cookbooks to get most of the good stuff, and a lot of the best stuff is locked into later in the game when you're already checked-out of disposable item usage. Crafting is actually very strong but the time investment to get the right cookbooks, then get all the crafting items, is not worth it when you can just use weapons. I do try to use fire pots on all of my playthroughs since like Erdtree Avatars and the giant plants and the hand spiders are weak to fire.
I'll submit - Dark Souls, the Resistance stat. It's useless to level it up.
I'll submit - Dark Souls, the Resistance stat. It's useless to level it up.
Fallout New Vegas has the survival mode where you have to keep hydrated. But at any time you can fast travel back to an area with unlimited water.
I forget if it was Assassin's Creed Brotherhood or Revelations, but one had this deep bomb crafting mechanic that just seemed over complicated and I never bothered with. Just kept killing people with the tried and true method of having them chase me up a building and then throwing them to their death.
Agreed, though I feel like at least one was placed between two important cutscene locations, so using it was marginally quicker occasionally?
Agreed, though I feel like at least one was placed between two important cutscene locations, so using it was marginally quicker occasionally?
Crash Bandicoot 1 golden mask, 90% of your deaths comes from falling into the void so, totally useless power.
???
Upgrading shields increases their stability stat, making them consume less stamina when blocking attacks. It's extremely useful.
I'm running a sorcery build as usual for me but with 25 faith so I can access some incantations (using the seal that scales with INT).
I end up cheesing a lot of enemies with poison arrows, esp big tanky enemies (like the hug dudes with mega healtth pools in sewers in Leyndell Capital, ugh)
That said, the poison / fire / etc arrows you can buy are better than the crafted kind...so....yeah. I just spend spare runes on those instead.
Plus using a weapon with INT scaling means all of the oils are useless.
Really not using almost 0 crafting as a result. Feels like a waste of time, a negative add, just like I feel it is in almost every game (DQ11 comes to mind, game would have been better designed without it IMO).
Skyrim has quite a few mechanics that seem to just be for role play purposes. Like, cooking isn't particularly useful either, the ingredients are harder to come by, weigh more and do less than just making potions
Hard disagree. Why, yes, sir, I *would* like to kill you and your adjacent buddy as you both stand atop this corpse.
Far as I can tell, the Gummi Ship in Kingdom Hearts served virtually no purpose. It had all these mechanics and upgrade systems, but you really couldn't fail, you could get by pretty much ignoring it all, and this whole concept I guess was just something only there to try and spice up travel in between worlds, rather than just doing simple loads or a "warp" cutscene or whatever. But it really was just this added time sink for me as you transitioned between places.
This is a great answer. The only time these are useful is occasionally in Pokemon. In games like FF or SMT I never use them ever.
Saying crafting in Elden Ring is useless because you never used it is like saying magic in Elden Ring is useless because you ran a melee build. So silly. Crafting was not useless at all.
I think they removed it because it's a bit tedious and discourages experimentation since materials are so limited, not because it was useless.
The Resistance stat, however, was not "borderline useless", it was 100% useless. :D
Upgrading armour in Dark Souls is also incredibly strong, a maxed out armour makes a big difference in damage reduction. My SL1 invaded with a maxed out Crimson set and I was taking very little damage from other players, to the point where I stopped (even though I used non-upgraded weapons to make it more fair) because it felt cheap.
I think they removed it because it's a bit tedious and discourages experimentation since materials are so limited, not because it was useless.
The Resistance stat, however, was not "borderline useless", it was 100% useless. :D
I know they aren't exactly useless, but weapon crafting/purchasing in the Yakuza series always feels extremely superfluous to me. The items break, take up precious inventory slots, and don't give me a particular advantage in most fights. I'd rather pick up a sofa or crowbar in the middle of a fight than keep on my person. I hate that you occasionally need to spend time on this stuff to get a trophy or two, 'cuz that's the only reason I bother.
OH
I always preferred the "default" combos so never used this one, but makes sense. Thank you all for clarifying a 20-something year old doubt.
It's not. It's just useless to me because it's impossibly fucking hard to learn for me for some reason lol
I have 0 memory of this so i'm also going to vote for thisMagic Hands in Sonic Adventure 2. Use it to shrink down and enemy and throw them like a bomb. Ain't no one using that ability.
The ability to pick up and manipulate objects in the game world in Skyrim. If I recall correctly there is zero quest content in the game that requires you to do this.
Depends on your definition of useless though. For some people the ability to stack cheese wheels or put a bucket on someone's head is a big part of the fun.
Depends on your definition of useless though. For some people the ability to stack cheese wheels or put a bucket on someone's head is a big part of the fun.
For real. I guess you can make an argument for explosive rounds for vehicles but AP works for literally every enemy.
I have played SA2 a billion times, I recognize the item that gives you the power up, and I remember collecting it.Magic Hands in Sonic Adventure 2. Use it to shrink down and enemy and throw them like a bomb. Ain't no one using that ability.
I have absolutely no memory of this ability whatsoever.
Fishing in Nier Automata. Literally never touched it in my playthough and in looking up for what its intended for (a money making method) I questioned whether there was every really a point in the game where money was actually an issue in the first place.
The only time I ever used Death in Final Fantasy was in XV, I killed almost every superboss spamming that spell
Status effect magic/abilities in waaaay too many RPGs.
Too often status magic has minimal effects on smaller enemies because they'll die soon from attacks, and you'd be better off just damaging them with your time/turns.
Meanwhile, bosses will be immune to most if not all status magic. That or it'll have a high chance of just not working on them, meaning you'll probably be better off ignoring the mechanic.
It's for annoying you, not the AI, in these games.
Some games will have a the occasional boss that is weak to one type of status magic, in which case it's the silver bullet to beating them, and closer to "beating them the right way" than it is the player trying out a strategy they want to use.
And then fewer games will have it be a legit strategy the whole way.
Too often status magic has minimal effects on smaller enemies because they'll die soon from attacks, and you'd be better off just damaging them with your time/turns.
Meanwhile, bosses will be immune to most if not all status magic. That or it'll have a high chance of just not working on them, meaning you'll probably be better off ignoring the mechanic.
It's for annoying you, not the AI, in these games.
Some games will have a the occasional boss that is weak to one type of status magic, in which case it's the silver bullet to beating them, and closer to "beating them the right way" than it is the player trying out a strategy they want to use.
And then fewer games will have it be a legit strategy the whole way.
Mario's sweep kick from Mario 64. It doesn't do anything that punch doesn't already do, plus you have to completely stop moving and crouch to use it.
In a Street Fighter 5 patch, they gave Zangief a counter move that only works for mid-high kicks (IIRC). This means for Boxer/Balrog, the move is 100% useless as he only has punches.
In a Street Fighter 5 patch, they gave Zangief a counter move that only works for mid-high kicks (IIRC). This means for Boxer/Balrog, the move is 100% useless as he only has punches.
X Items are actually pretty broken. Perfect for Speedruns and the like.
You can just stuff a single Pokemon full of them and clean house.
And of course, they got BUFFED in later Gens to where they give a 2 Stage Boost instead of just 1.
Yup. Lots of enemies including Bosses are usually weak to a number of that game's Insta-kill spells so long as you Level them up enough.
Hell, you can even insta-kill FF2's Final Boss (on Famicom thanks to a bug with Reflect/Wall).
AP and hollow point in new vegas are a nice concept, but even on the hardest difficulties, you really dont need them. or any of the special bullets honestly
at least its a good framework for the true hardest difficulty mods you can install and then absolutely need it
this is so wrong i can't even
get another notification as punishment
at least its a good framework for the true hardest difficulty mods you can install and then absolutely need it
this is so wrong i can't even
get another notification as punishment
I actually ended up using them sometimes in my playthrough of Shining Pearl. This is coming from Pokemon Masters where boosting stats with those items is a big part of the battles.
Which speaking of, there's a game where stat debuffs actually help and are necessary. Some have special skills like Overpower or Pecking Order, which do more damage the lower the opponent's attack is, Outsmart for Special Attack, and Cakewalk or Hunter Instinct for Speed, I think. The higher TTK makes that possible.
You'll be happy you have a jump later in the game. Believe me.
I know a lot of people that don't use debuff abilities in RPGs, but there are definitely some RPGs where debuffs are the cornerstone of the combat (like FFXII for instance).
It was fucking great in FF13 tho. With the right party combo you could take down Adamantoise waaaay before you were supposed to be able to and you could get those sweet, sweet, tetrahedron thingies.
The move Splash in Pokémon. It quite literally does nothing. Fun for memes and goofs though I guess.
Fun fact though: if you use Z-Splash in Gen 7, it will boost your Pokémon's attack by three stages. Not sure if it was ever competitively viable though.
Fun fact though: if you use Z-Splash in Gen 7, it will boost your Pokémon's attack by three stages. Not sure if it was ever competitively viable though.
it's probably rigged to specific quests and not a game wide mechanic. But in Skyrim during certain quests you have the ability to dress up as someone from a different faction and the enemy faction won't notice you. A popular example is when you have to infiltrait the Thalmar Embassy. If you are a high elf and wear Thalmar armor nobody will attack you. There's another civil war quest where you can dress up and nobody will think otherwise buts it's more of a minor one.
It's an odd one for me as it's a really cool addition but it's never really explained that this is an option in the game and it's used so sparingly I question why time was spent doing it at all.
It's an odd one for me as it's a really cool addition but it's never really explained that this is an option in the game and it's used so sparingly I question why time was spent doing it at all.
I've seen some impressive A-Rank runs using this move. It's definitely useless for 99% of players though.Magic Hands in Sonic Adventure 2. Use it to shrink down and enemy and throw them like a bomb. Ain't no one using that ability.
This is amazing to me as I beat the game with all emblems and I can't remember this ability at all.Magic Hands in Sonic Adventure 2. Use it to shrink down and enemy and throw them like a bomb. Ain't no one using that ability.