Get Rid of Floating Damage Numbers (for Most Games)

[Arnox]

I am so sick of seeing damage numbers fly up from an enemies head every time I see gameplay of a new FPS. It's also often accompanied by an incredibly unimmersive and distracting healthbar above an enemy's head.

The Diablo-style leveled loot and RPG-lite systems that have infected so many games needs to stop. I get that in an MMORPG, you need to know this stuff (or do you), so I won't complain about it there at all, but regardless, these two systems smack of skinner-box gameplay at worst and unimaginative devs at best. Every single item should be useful in some way and level progression should give sidegrades. If it's a full dedicated RPG though, then upgrades and enemy healthbars are fine and expected.

In the end, the rule of thumb is there should be as much immersion into the game world as possible. UI clutter, unnecessary RPG elements, and leveled loot can take away from that, but sometimes, like in an actual dedicated RPG or an MMO, the sacrifice of some immersion is necessary to serve the targeted gameplay.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I highly disagree that they need to be removed from most genres (some might have overdone it though. I don't know about FPS, since it's not a genre I play often). Gameplay should come first and foremost among everything, and immersion, lore, atmosphere, graphics/effects, etc, should take a back-seat to that. Personally, I think scripted action and move-like "mechanics", can go die in a fire. Like automatic actions (ledge-grabbing, finishing moves, etc), chase/escape scenes, etc).

There's also no such genre as "RPG". It's used as a collection of common mechanics but it's something else entirely. Roleplaying even comes in 2 separate and different forms. CRPG parent genres "create your own role", and Adventure parent genres "play as an existing role". These encompass many different games and sub-genres. So using RPG is more or less entirely meaningless if one wants to find games similar to others.

In fact, let's break it down;

CRPG > Roguelike > Rogue-Lite
CRPG >JRPG > Spectacle Fighter > Soulslike > Souls-Lite (JRPG and sub-genres are..different. They blend both CRPG and Adventure RPG, and other stuff, much more freely than other genres)
CRPG > WRPG > Immersive Sim
CRPG > ARPG > Diablo-like
CRPG > ARPG > Looter Shooter
CRPG > TRPG > TTRPG
CRPG > MMOARPG

Adventure > Action-Adventure > Zelda-like
Adventure > Action Platformer > Metroidvania
Adventure > Action Platformer > First Person Adventure

There are also another few made-up non-genre terms often being banded about, and are more or less similar to the use of just RPG. Action RPG, Character Action Game, and Hack and Slash. They're not real genres and are overly broad for any actual use-case.

Going even further, game genres should be defined with objective terms (/tags) and not subjective "feels".

Camera angles; First Person, Third Person; Sideview: Sidescroller. Behind View: Over-the-Head, Over-the-Shoulder. Eagle-Eye: Top-Down, Isometric. Free Form. Static. Hybrid.

World type; Not connected (Levels, Stages), Intra-connected (Overworld, Hub world), Inter-connected (single map, Open World).

Progression; Not Gated, Utility/Item-Gated, Story-Gated, Boss-Gated, Ability-Gated. etc

Playthrough; Linear, Semi-Linear, Non-Linear, Sandbox.

Gameplay focus; Combat/Action, Puzzle/Mystery, Adventure/Story, Exploration/Backtracking. etc

Various Mechanics: Too many to list, but specific for each sub-genre (loot, double-jump, ).

Graphics (2D flat images, 2.5D flat images with illusionary depth, 3D images with depth) usually don't matter for a genre,
(although people wrongly mix/conflate Spatial Movement (cartesian coords) with Camera angle and Graphics depth sadly.