Stupid game mechanics in AVN's

[Vlad Cepesh]

Name of the title is enough to understand point of thread. Many AVN's have these mechanics that are boring, tedious, stupid, repetitive, etc. For example a few:
- Mini games. For me there are fine for time to time, for some progress to be made, but when you need to play one game over and over it quickly becoming boring really fast.
- Quick time event. To most annoying mechanic in any type of game, not just AVN's. I don't know who ever think of this stupid idea.
- Button prompt's that have no meaning. Example "Get up", "Have a breakfast", etc. These have no purpose or meaning what so ever. And yet game developers put them in games all the time. Why?
- No save function. I've seen some good games, but author left save function from some.... reason. Now if I want to see how different choice played out i need to restart game or go back and read same lines of text over and over.
These type of game mechanics are big let down in many AVN's. Just to name a few. Do you have any that you think is stupid, or annoy you?
Cheers.

 

[Elvishious]

First of all, Mini games are there to diversify the gameplay experience. In a Game designer perspective, trying to vary the gameplay is a great thing, that's why you have most of the time one or more water level in a 2D platformer. I admit, most of the time it's boring, but take in count that most of the devs that propose this type of game are often volonteers, self-taught and/or not paid, and I understand their will to try to do something new on top of the actual game to improve themselves/their skills.
Second point on QTE, i kinda agree with you but not for the same reason: QTE can be there if it's the designer intent. For example, it could represent a physical effort (spamming space bar to lift something, ...) But it should have a button in the setting menu to turn them off, in case people with a disability can't make the Spamming/reflex minigame.
I'm assuming that what you mean with "button prompt" is a single button with a single action. If the game dev want to pace a dialogue, leave suspens or surprise, this is the most practical idea if you don't have other way to make transitions. It only annoys you because you can't skip in one segment until the sex scene, you're just biased.
Save system: back to point n°1, most of the devs don't have enough knowledge to pull it off, this is not like a minigame where you can allow yourself to messed up, if you screw the save system, you fucked the entire game experience. The save system is one of the most hard thing to pull of correctly when you made something a bit custom, like you need to keep track of the items, the player location, the current state of the player progression... Better not do instead of doing bad.

You've based your whole point on exceptions. Every of these can be made well with time, effort and/or support, that's not because it's bad now, that it's will be bad at the end, that's the meaning of development. On this site, you'll find mostly games that are still in development. If you want to improve them, play them, and bring a concise point on the game you've played under the game post (Why you don't like it? how could it be improved? Why should some mechanics be removed? Why does it feel grindy?). With a correct argumentation, you'll help game devs (involved or not in the game development) to improve themselves.
Feedback > bold statement

 

[TheBlueKnight]

This is more a issue with me than the game really, but a lack of autosave. Too many times I've been really into a new game (so short) and then its over, sometimes I can rollback but not always. For example Parental Love was so good I played through the game in one go and suddenly it was was over. Because it was so good I don't mind replaying when it gets updated, but other games though I don't always feel like I want to redo the first few hours. Again though my fault I need to get into better playing habits.

Mini games are a tricky one, Parental Love again has a fighting mini game. But it's simple and felt good to punch out guys trying hit on your hot daughter. Yesterday I played a game with a QTE and wasn't really too keen on it but thankfully you could just skip it or turn it off completely from the menu. So if there simple or completely optional I'm ok with them.

Oh yeah and I forgot (funny that) some RPG type games that have no quest log or one that's just unhelpful, there are a few (mostly older RPGM games) that I've stopped playing because I just don't know where or who I'm meant to be going to.

Edit - So Ren'Py does in fact have a autosave... I never knew.

 

[Jashmyne]

I think the minigames and grind is the main no no for me.
Games like Deeper, Milfy City, The Twist and more where you need to get money to do something and you either have to do minigames over and over again that hardly give you any money or visit someone to do a job and you can only do it once a day(or once a week like in The Twist) and that also pays like shit.
Games like just makes me want to cheat to skip it and I doubt I'm the only one and if people are just cheating to skip it then they don't serve a good gameplay function.

 

[TheBlueKnight]

I think the minigames and grind is the main no no for me....

There's one game I really want to like, some of the things you have to do to get affection changes but others I've been doing for over twenty days and it's exactly the same... I want to see what happens but I don't think I can make it through.

 

[DownTheDrain]

I think the minigames and grind is the main no no for me.
Games like Deeper, Milfy City, The Twist and more where you need to get money to do something and you either have to do minigames over and over again that hardly give you any money or visit someone to do a job and you can only do it once a day(or once a week like in The Twist) and that also pays like shit.
Games like just makes me want to cheat to skip it and I doubt I'm the only one and if people are just cheating to skip it then they don't serve a good gameplay function.

I'd argue that grind is less of a mechanic and more of an attempt to stretch little content over as much time as possible.

Then again, you listed Milfy City in there, which has basically no grind for that kind of game. 5 minutes of mini games and you're set for good and no need to repeat certain scenes over and over. Big Brother is probably the grindiest experience I can think of.

 

[Jashmyne]

I'd argue that grind is less of a mechanic and more of an attempt to stretch little content over as much time as possible.

Then again, you listed Milfy City in there, which has basically no grind for that kind of game. 5 minutes of mini games and you're set for good and no need to repeat certain scenes over and over. Big Brother is probably the grindiest experience I can think of.

I wouldn't say that.
By my guess you need about 1000 dollars in Milfy City and you are set for the duration of the game, you can get everything there is to buy and you can pay for the events that happen but it is grindy.
1. you do the photo shoots but don't do all 6 of the first ones, leave the last one for later and just grind the other 5. It's fast and easy with no risk of losing money but you get less and less money the more you do it and you can only do it once a day but you can get to those 1000 dollars from it but grindy.
2. Memory game, with rising tiers which increases the reward but also increase the risk of losing and losing more money. This is just tedious at best and even more of a grind. Even at the highest tier if you are lucky you will get the easier version of the game which you can do fast and easy but they are random so you might end up getting the more difficult ones and thus might lose money. Very tedious and grindy.
3. Rock-Paper-Scissors, this should never be a mini-game. Might as well just have a dice game. Even more grind and tedious.

Is it a way to stretch things out ? for sure it's padding but as a movie and game lover, there is nothing worse then padding.

 

[DownTheDrain]

I wouldn't say that.
By my guess you need about 1000 dollars in Milfy City and you are set for the duration of the game, you can get everything there is to buy and you can pay for the events that happen but it is grindy.
1. you do the photo shoots but don't do all 6 of the first ones, leave the last one for later and just grind the other 5. It's fast and easy with no risk of losing money but you get less and less money the more you do it and you can only do it once a day but you can get to those 1000 dollars from it but grindy.
2. Memory game, with rising tiers which increases the reward but also increase the risk of losing and losing more money. This is just tedious at best and even more of a grind. Even at the highest tier if you are lucky you will get the easier version of the game which you can do fast and easy but they are random so you might end up getting the more difficult ones and thus might lose money. Very tedious and grindy.
3. Rock-Paper-Scissors, this should never be a mini-game. Might as well just have a dice game. Even more grind and tedious.

Is it a way to stretch things out ? for sure it's padding but as a movie and game lover, there is nothing worse then padding.

I wasn't aware that anyone used the photo sessions to actually make money, those are just eye candy. A pretty decent one at that.

If you want to argue that setting yourself up financially in Milfy City takes more than 5 minutes then fine, make that 10 minutes of save-scumming with the memory game. It didn't affect my enjoyment of the game in any way and it really can't be compared to having to click through weeks and weeks of no new content to get the progress for the next scene like in Big Brother and to a lesser degree in The Twist.

The Rock-Paper-Scissors might as well be a coin toss, true enough, but I'm not arguing that any of the mini games are the peak of entertainment, just that it's a very minor issue compared to many other games in this genre.

 

[Elvishious]

Rock-Paper-Scissors is the fastest way to get money in Milfy city by pressing skip button for player that only want to fap, and was added later in the game because the memory minigame was too repetitive/grindy and time consuming.
The photoshop should'nt even be considered as a minigame, but as a narrative event. My opinion is that this event is not meant to be reproduced indefinitely, that's why it's not a viable way to earn money.

 

[Vlad Cepesh]

I just want to point out on one button prompt actions in games like for example Twist of my life. Every morning eat, go to shower. Two action that have no purpose. I remember only one scene in shower in the morning, but that scene could be done in another way. Just a cheap way to extend the game. And there are many of those type of events.
QTE can be done right. Example from adventure games from Telltale games, like Walking dead. You have several seconds to react to question with 4 options or to remain silent. That is fine by me. But there are some bad examples. In The intoxicating flavor there are match of ping-pong. Winner is decided by sequence of letter you have to press in 2-3 seconds. Or climbing mechanic in Milfy City. All bad design choices, that are repetitive and tedious.
I can see to types of AVN's. One is a story driven experience like Depraved awakening or Living with Mary. In that type of AVN's aditional mechanic don't have place. There surve no purpose. Then you have some type of open world games, with or without RPG element. In that type of games additional game mechanics are welcome. But when done in good way.