Scrappy Mechanic Cleanup

This thread is to curb rampant use of Scrappy Mechanic to complain.

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

I'm not opposed to this, but I'm also not sure why we can't just use the normal Scrappy cleanup.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The complaining thread noted that Scrappy mechanic in particular has a large complaining problem

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

Yep, that was me. I'm in favor of this. Video game tropes attract a particular brand of rambling, and combined with the typical complaining of Scrappy tropes, it can be more aggravating to clean up than the normal Scrappy tropes. Plus it's not even about characters, so I only barely consider it a "Scrappy" trope besides its name (it should honestly be called "That One Game Mechanic" or something).

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Yeah, it's cool, I just wanted to ask first.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I strongly agree. I much prefer the name That One Game Mechanic because video game mechanics (as in how the video games are meant to be played as opposed to The Engineer) are rarely characters.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Nov 21st 2021 at 12:45:49 PM

Kirby is awesome.

This is on the FPS page.

• A general one, not necessarily coming from but heavily inspired by Call of Duty (due to the popularity of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare), is the prevalence of "aim down sights" (ADS). Early FPS games did not have any sort of aiming mechanism, your gun just fired wherever you pointed it. Typically the gun was oriented directly within the character's line of sight but as time went on it became more sensible to hold the weapon off to an angle for logical and aesthetic reasons. As more modern FPS games began to rise, the realization set in that firing from this position would be inaccurate in a real firefight, so bullet spread was added to be more realistic and it was compensated for by adding the ability to bring the sights to your character's eye level, emulating a shouldered position. This also typically made foot speed movement slower as well so it changed the pace of these games to being more about locating enemies quickly then snapping to ADS mode and gunning them down instead of using mobility and agility to out-strafe a foe while returning fire in motion. The Fackler Scale of FPS Realism has more details.

Not only is it general, I also have no idea what it's talking about.

I've removed it on grounds of Examples Are Not General.

Edited by Shadow8411 on Nov 22nd 2021 at 10:13:51 AM

General example and an example of forgetting that Tropes Are Tools

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

Tabletop Games has 2 folders at the top and nothing really seperating them from everything else. Is that okay?

I have my doubts about this entry in Shin Megami Tensei V:

Demon recruitment is a major game mechanic in the series, having been in every mainline game and several spinoffs. This entry also reads more like a single person's complaint about randomness, and I'm pretty sure that the fans of the game's homeland don't see it as a "scrappy mechanic."

What mons game doesn't have RNG when trying to catch/recruit mons?

Edited by Albert3105 on Nov 23rd 2021 at 6:50:57 AM

Speaking of mons games, I'd like to at least start on ScrappyMechanic.Pokemon GO. Here's some examples I think might be misuse.

• Early in the game's life, the lack of interaction with other players such as not being able to battle other players' Pokémon locally without the use of a Gym or not being able to trade. Over time, though, Socialization Bonus features like the Friends list and trading have been implemented, then later Player Versus Player, though not without their own problems (see below). The lack of a mechanic is treated as a Scrappy Mechanic. I still don't think this should be allowed — maybe it'd better fit They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. Plus, the game later implemented these elements.
• The sheer power drain the game causes due to the fact it utilizes the phone's wifi/data connection, GPS, graphics processor, and optionally the camera at the same time. There is a Power Saver mode, but even with that enabled you're not likely to keep the game running for more than a few hours without stopping to recharge. This isn't helped by the fact that, without the Plus accessory, the game needs to be running in the foreground for its tracking and location features to work. Players are often advised to invest in portable chargers. Additionally, the Pokemon Go Plus will still cause a good battery drain to the phone's battery if used in the background. This isn't a game mechanic, this is a structural issue with the app.
• If your device's GPS signal gets weak (especially if you're inside a building; see Annoying Video Game Helper above), your character sometimes may appear to just wander around the overworld by themselves. Now, this isn't inherently a bad thing, but it becomes a nightmare to deal with when you're challenging a gym inside a building (or while sitting inside a building) only for the battle to abruptly end (and negate all of your progress in the battle) because your character on the overworld walked too far away from it under no fault of your own. Are glitches disqualified for this trope?
• Spoofers and bots. Despite Niantic ban-waving people who have been caught using GPS spoofers, people still have created bots to take gyms for them (taking advantage of superhuman reflexes) or to hold gyms for them. For people who are trying to get coins for free (since Niantic very rarely^note You do get some at levels of multiples of 5 or during certain events gives out incubators for free and you only start with one), this is very annoying, since a bot or a spoofer will often instantly grab the gym before they can accrue more than a couple coins. Woe betide you if you live in a suburban area with fewer gyms, because people spoofing their location routinely search for gyms in less populated/out of the way locations to snag. The game outright disqualifies gameplay tactics exploiting otherwise decent mechanics, and I'm pretty sure hackers fall under that category.
• Lag manipulation strategies in PVP. By manipulating one's phone connection carefully, they can force the enemy's connection to glitch, allowing them to deal damage and farm energy in peace while the opponent cannot counterattack. This glitch still persists even with Niantic's attempt to fix it, making battles against its abusers a frustratingly one-sided affair. See above reasoning.

Everything else needs a cleanup for natter and rambling more than anything.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I strongly agree.

Some of these reek of complaining for the sake of complaining.

Kirby is awesome.

This is on Minecraft:

• A lot of the bigger servers rely heavily on commands, but not all of them use the same commands. Okay, so you would type in /help so you'd know what you can and can't do, right? Well, some servers don't give /help permissions to visitors. That's right, you need commands to play on the server, but you're not allowed to know what they are!

Does it count if it's third party servers having a scrappy mechanic, and not the game itself?

I would say that no, the Minecraft example is not valid.

After looking at the page, I'd say the mining and raid entries are also not valid. The raid entry outright admits at the end that there's a really easy way to avoid them, and if you don't like mining, I really have to wonder why you're playing a game called Minecraft.

Edited by Serac on Nov 26th 2021 at 8:25:36 AM

These are on the main page under Pinball:

• Every pinball machine that provides unlimited balls but only allows you to play until time runs out—James Bond 007, Flipper Football, and Safe Cracker—have all bombed in sales and were unpopular with people passing by putting coins in to play. (A fourth one, Goin' Nuts, was scrapped before it could even be sold.) For all of these cases, the reason is the same: Newcomers get destroyed until they run out of time, whereas people dedicated to playing them well could learn to exploit time bonuses and play for way longer than it would remain interesting. Safe Cracker has since been Vindicated by History when individuals bought used machines for personal use and they didn't have to worry about paying per game, however.

• The upper playfield in Popeye Saves the Earth is placed right on top of the regular playfield and prevents you from seeing its entire top half. Though when new, the upper playfield's surface is transparent plastic and won't inhibit your vision much, once it gets enough play, the plastic will eventually become scratched up and opaque, rendering the upper half impossible to see.

The top one is pretty general, albeit for a very rare type of machine, while the lower one might fit better in idiot design.

When cleaning up the Scrappy Mechanic page for New Horizons should I just cut every single entry that is a massive nitpick or is just overly long?

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Mar 6th 2022 at 2:30:34 PM

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

What do you consider nitpicky?

People complaining about extremely small annoyances such as being unable to turn off arcade machines, minor kinks with gifting (such as furniture replacing default furniture for that villager), moving a building taking a day, needing multiplayer to get every type of fruit (which do practically nothing aside from aesthetics), getting a photo being up to chance (which only takes a bit of patience), etc. Many of the entries are also walls of text.

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

I mean, keep in mind, it's an audience reaction. If people actually react this way, it's not our job to determine if their reactions are valid or not.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Here's one on YMMV.Animal Crossing 2001 that I've always found a bit iffy:

• It has to be noted that rather having the hourly themes change within the context of rain (as in later games), there's instead, a theme dedicated to it. The composition, itself, is fine, but it replaces the game's beautiful, electronic soundtrack, so it'd be something you'll be hearing anytime you're outside, until the next day — where it could rain, again.

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Now I'll be the first to admit that I like the soundtrack for the first Animal Crossing way more than later entries' scores, but I don't think "not being able to listen to the song(s) you like" counts as a Scrappy Mechanic in this context since it doesn't really hamper the actual gameplay experience itself any more than just playing the game on mute (especially since Animal Crossing is a life sim, not a rhythm game).

Edited by bowserbros on Mar 7th 2022 at 10:45:58 AM

Be kind.

Yeah, that isn't really a mechanic at all, just an annoying musical feature.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Good to remove it, then?

Be kind.

What should I do with the pinball examples?