Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic

Games are a particularly interesting category of medium in that, unlike most other media, they involve a high amount of player interactivity. As such, the audience reaction for games often hinges on the reception of communicative elements that other purely narrative-driven mediums lack, namely the implementation of gameplay mechanics.

Sometimes these gameplay mechanics are sound in concept, but for whatever reason their implementation is lacking, leading to a lot of audience dislike and backlash. For example, a 2D platformer may suffer from an unreactive jump, or an FPS may have inaccurate hitboxes. Other times, a game may experiment with a unique mechanic that ends up being less fun than intended. But rather than abandon the Scrappy Mechanic altogether, or have their gameplay shift in a different direction, developers may choose to acknowledge criticisms in a constructive way by taking audience feedback into account and retooling or refining aspects of it in content updates or successive entries.

Frequently sequels to video games that are not entirely narrative-driven will advertise themselves as having incorporated updated and improved mechanics to correct for previous mechanical criticisms. Although, due to their interactive nature, even purely story-based games such as those in the Visual Novel genre may have technical improvements to celebrate.

The Balance Buff, Nerf, or Obvious Rule Patch are examples of minor gameplay changes that are an attempt by the creator to invoke this reaction within the same game, although when done sloppily or excessively, these may backfire and lead to widespread audience disapproval instead. See Author's Saving Throw for when the creators themselves openly acknowledge the kind of backlash that typically results in attempts to garner this reaction. Also see Salvaged Story or Improved Second Attempt for the narrative equivalent.

Related tropes:

• Even Better Sequel: When the sequel to an already well-received game manages to be even better by fixing whatever controversial mechanics existed in the original.
• Pandering to the Base: The most common cause of this reaction, as creators will often seek feedback from and modify gameplay mechanics in response to the criticisms of the more dedicated segments of their audience.
• Polished Port: When a port of a video game does this to successfully improve upon the original for audiences.
• Remade and Improved: When the remake of a game does this to fix weaker aspects of the original to audience approval.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: When the sequel to a game known for poorly-implemented mechanics fixes them to great audience acclaim.
• Win Back the Crowd: When improving gameplay mechanics manages to revive a dwindling fanbase.

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Specific work examples

Action Adventure

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
  • The game greatly improves its stamina system compared to that of its predecessor Skyward Sword. In the latter game, while some players appreciated that it allowed for good puzzle design, many felt that its execution of stamina was a major Scrappy Mechanic due to it restricting movement for the sake of not running from enemies, having a very weak and temporary way to upgrade with the stamina potions, and ultimately feeling rather pointless since "Stamina Fruits" that fully restored the meter were peppered in areas as an Anti-Frustration Feature that ultimately showed the system's weakness rather than complementing it. On the other hand, while Breath of the Wild still has sprinting drain stamina very quickly, it is now used for many more actions that don't drain it as much like gliding and climbing. In addition, the player can prepare a whole stock of Stamina potions that restore part of the gauge while doing those actions, turning it into a gameplay loop of preparation and management rather than following Stamina Fruits to get to the main path. Finally, the player can earn permanent upgrades for the stamina meter by cashing in four Spirit Orbs to a Hylia statue for a Stamina Vessel instead of a Heart Container, adding an additional element of decision making.
  • Thanks to complaints over the lack of dual audio options, Nintendo eventually released a multi-language option for free that enables players to choose any combination out of the game's 9 different dubs (including Japanese) and 10 languages for menus and subtitles. (Wii U players must download a separate but free Voice Pack from the eShop to use this option.)
  • Blessing shrines and combat trials are generally disliked due to being the same. Of the sixteen shrines added in "The Champions' Ballad" DLC, none are blessing shrines and only one is a combat trial, and the latter shakes things up by being much larger and more involved than any other combat trial, as well as playing completely differently due to the unique conditions you're under at the time. The rest are unique puzzle shrines.
  • In the vanilla game, once a Divine Beast has been appeased, you can never see that Blight again in that save file, which makes 100% Completion of the Hyrule Compendium more difficult than it should be. With "The Champions' Ballad" DLC, you have the opportunity to have a rematch with each one as a "Phantom Ganon", giving you more opportunities to take a picture for the compendium.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom improves on a number of game mechanics that were critiqued in Breath of the Wild:
  • BOTW's use of Breakable Weapons was criticized for making most weapons break too quickly and constantly forcing the player to scavenge for new ones. TOTK introduces a new ability that allows Link to fuse objects to weapons, both increasing their durability considerably and making it much easier to create new weapons to replace broken ones.
  • The cooking system now comes with a cookbook that lists the ingredients required to make any meal the player obtains and keeps track of all recipes used and their results, mitigating the need for the player to remember it all.
  • TOTK introduces elixirs and a new armor set that allows the player to climb wet surfaces without slipping, something impossible in BOTW.

Action Games

• Like a Dragon:
  • In older Yakuza titles (particularly Yakuza 3 and especially Yakuza 5), the game's Inventory System was rather limited in what you can carry (totaling out to 20 items total - including weapons, crane game prizes, and other resources), as your inventory space would be quickly filled up by random junk received after most enemy encounters. Starting from the original release of Like a Dragon: Ishin!, this inventory system would see an overhaul that only allowed Healing Items and other Vendor Trash in the main 5x4 grid while Weapons, Resources, and Key Items would now have their own sections. And starting from Yakuza 6 onwards, the Inventory system would be overhauled to the extent that you can now carry virtually every healing and miscellaneous item in the game - albeit in limited quantities (e.g., you're limited to 10 Staminan Royales, but you can now stock up on lower-tier healing items like Staminan X or Toughness Z to your heart's content).
  • One of the most common criticisms about Yakuza 6's Extreme Heat mechanic (which, while fixed to an extent in Kiwami 2^note  Extreme Heat Mode had to be unlocked at a certain point in the story in K2 via Komaki's Training, as opposed to Kiryu having it from the start in 6. , only exacerbated the problem further in most places) was that it effectively trivialized combat by making Kiryu's damage output far too high while he's in the state, making most of the game devolve around waiting until you have a bar of Heat, then popping Extreme Heat and watching most enemies drop like flies. Come Judgment and not only has this been addressed considerably, but that game's equivalent mechanic, EX Burst, is far better balanced with the addition of new combo strings, enhanced abilities, and overall reduced damage output when compared to Extreme Heat in 6 and especially Kiwami 2.
• Luigi's Mansion 3:
  • Dark Moon received some criticism for removing Portrait Ghosts (which were beloved for their humanoid appearances and personalities) and making the overall enemy design more cutesy. While Luigi's Mansion 3 still has a more goofy design than the original, enemies have been made more intimidating, and the game is once again host to a cast of human-like ghosts as NPCs and boss characters. Also, the bosses guarding Toads possess objects, a much-beloved aspect of the climactic boss fights in Dark Moon.
  • One of the most divisive and complained about elements of Dark Moon was its mission-based structure, which limited exploration due to Luigi constantly being warped out of the mansions. Luigi's Mansion 3 replaces this with a more open design akin to the original Luigi's Mansion: the player can freely travel between floors of the hotel, with the game still maintaining the distinct, themed levels of Dark Moon via the different floors.
  • A concern that most fans have had with the first game was its short length. This game manages to have an impressive 17 floors (or 18 if you count the roof as its own floor), including at least a couple that you end up going through more than once.
  • Polterpup is much less polarizing than his appearance in Dark Moon, as he actively assists Luigi as he explores the hotel, giving him hints on where to go and interacting with the scenery in goofy ways, rather than stealing things Luigi needs and forcing him to backtrack through areas he's already been, making it easier to like him. Instead, Polterkitty, a more overt villain, takes up the role he played in the previous game, allowing for some catharsis when Luigi finally defeats her for good.
  • The game seems to address the repetitive returns to the lab from both previous games by mostly allowing Luigi to keep moving forward after every boss ghost. Only when the plot intervenes is Luigi required to go back to Gadd, but otherwise, he can go at his own pace.
  • The game is much more forgiving than the previous two as far as challenge and ranking go, only tracking the amount of money you collect. This means there is no metric for any of the bosses (you simply need to defeat them, with no reward for doing it with particular finesse), and the lack of missions means there are no ranks for that, either. It's more easygoing than the previous two, as a result.
• Mega Man Zero 3 game vastly improves the Cyber-Elf mechanic. The player is given two kinds of elves: Satellite and Fusion Elves. While Fusion retains the original mechanic (Using Cyber-Elves deducts your score), Satellite Elves don't hinder the player's points and rank, allowing them to equip any Elf without penalty.
• Sengoku Basara: The first game's localisation, Devil Kings, changed the gameplay to add a mechanic where enemies could be primed, increasing the damage dealt to them, and the Basara meter would now only charge when hitting primed enemies. It was considered a poor attempt at differentiating the gameplay from other hack-and-slash games and a part of the poor difficulty rebalancing Devil Kings attempted. The Heroes expansion of the second game brought in a reworked version of priming, with more moves that can prime a foe, the difficulty being better balanced around it, and the Basara charge from priming was now a bonus, rather than the only way to build it. The reworked priming is effectively an optional ability to take advantage of and considered much better integrated than Devil Kings' version, which was seen as an attempt to fix a game that wasn't broken.

Action RPGs

• Horizon Zero Dawn: To a certain extent. The Frozen Wilds DLC moves the level cap to 60 and introduces a bunch of new skills that are less about making Aloy more powerful and more about fixing some gripes the fanbase had with the game engine: Increasing the number of resources you can pick up, allowing you to search dead enemies and gather resources while mounted, disassemble stuff you don't need for Shards and repair Machines you've hacked, plus increasing your chances of picking up the rare (and valuable) skins and bones from dead animals. They additionally heeded the criticism that dialogue (particularly facial) was subdued and wooden in the base game and stepped it up in that regard.
• Mass Effect: Roaming on planets with the Mako in the first game of 2007 was not quite the astounding experience as you might have expected, and many players think it was the weakest part of the game, to the point of entirely ruining what would have been one of the most interesting sources of attraction: exploring the wilderness in hostile planets, looking for salvage or special encounters. Maps themselves were also largely barren and monotonous. That's why the second game ditched entirely the vehicular exploration part (except for the DLC "Firewalker Pack" involving some short sequences with the Hammerhead, with mixed reception: the differences in handling between the Mako and the Hammerhead led to a small shout out in the third game with the DLC "Citadel", when your companions discuss which one is better, hinting at real life discussions between fans). Comes Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2016 and the vehicular expansion is totally revamped with many upgrades and fixes, both on the part of the vehicle itself, and in the design of maps and exploration mechanics, worthy of the concept of "pathfinding" embraced in the game. Now exploration is way more comfortable, inspiring and enjoyable to do. The only exception is that the Nomad doesn't have a cannon like the Mako and so you can't use it to fire at hostiles from the distance. Then, the Legendary Edition of the original trilogy in 2022 reworks the Mako to implement the handling corrections seen with the Nomad, plus some new features to make it easier to use in combat (for example, no more xp penalty if you kill an enemy with the vehicle). The maps are still the old ones, though.

Fighting Games

• Street Fighter 6 has been putting a lot of effort a lot to regain good graces with the fighting game community after Street Fighter V had been very polarizing among the fanbase due to its various attempts at "simplification", actively trying to make the game easier for newer players. This was particularly reflected in the mechanics, in which they "trimmed the fat" from previous games, which many believed removed elements of depth and nuance from the gameplay. The game was also heavily criticized for its lack of reliable defensive options in a game where offensive pressure was very strong.
  • The new Drive System in SF6 is essentially a love letter to the fans for all the dedication they've put into the series, as it effectively allows players to use every single definitive mechanic from every past game, both offensive and defensive: Alpha Counters, Parries, Focus Attacks (including Dash Cancels), and heavily enhanced EX Special Attacks, all as part of one single resource via the Drive Gauge. As shown through many characters' movesets, V-Triggers, and V-Skills from SFV also return, now as a part of the default character movesets (both as special moves and as super arts).
  • The punch, kick, and special move hit sound effects in SFV were noted as being underwhelming and a little "splashy" when compared to previous iterations, particularly the hard punch sound effect, which lacked the usual satisfying snap. SF6's hit sounds have been beefed up considerably, sounding much more dramatic and, well "punchy".
  • One thing the previous game was criticized for was having extremely lacking single-player content, especially when it first launched. Likely in response, this game includes a proper single-player campaign in the form of the Wide-Open Sandbox World Tour mode.

First-Person Shooters

• BioShock 2 has a greatly-revamped Hacking Minigame from the first one. To whit, it's now a timer-stopping puzzle, where the one in BS1 was based heavily on Pipe Dream, and the computer would cheat with both hands to ensure that players would use hacking tonics. It also has the potential to reward the player with bonus items or benefits should they stop the timer on blue sections that tend to be much smaller than the green sections needed for a successful hack, encouraging players to actually go through the hack instead of simply buying their way past or using auto-hack tools. The result is a much faster hacking process that encourages players to go through the game for some goodies instead of bypassing them as quickly as possible.
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption:
  • After a few extreme cases of Checkpoint Starvation before bosses in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes due to how some areas were designed and save stations being your only form of checkpoint (most infamously before the Alpha Blogg and Spider Guardian), the game always sets up temporary checkpoints before boss fights, major battles, or segments that can result in a Non-Standard Game Over if failed.
  • Another often criticized aspect of Echoes was the endgame scavenger hunt for the Sky Temple Keys, which was considered to be the most tedious late-game collectathon in the series (and one of for the Action-Adventure genre) due to incredibly cryptic clues, a lot of backtracking to find the keys, and most of the keys requiring very late-game upgrades to collect. In Corruption, not only are a good number of the Power Cells (this game's "final area keys") found barely out of the way (and sometimes in the way, as collecting those specific Cells is mandatory for immediate progression) and are evenly accessible throughout your adventure, you don't have to collect all of them to finish the main story. The only reason you'll have to find them all is if you're going for 100% Completion and want the hidden endings.
  • After two straight games of the Disappointing Last Level you've spent the whole game preparing for being very short, nonhostile and essentially just a lobby for the boss room, Corruption's final level is Phaaze, which comprises a very long trek through an extremely hostile living planet while you try to stave off terminal corruption long enough to find and kill Dark Samus. You also can't leave once you get there.
• Paladins' loadout system allowed players to equip cards to tweak their abilities' effects, and use one Legendary Card to significantly improve one ability. Cards were obtained through chests or by spending Essence, and players equipped 5 cards whose total levels could not exceed 12. Then, the OB 64 update replaced this with "Cards Unbound", which gave all cards to all players, but also removed the level cap (except in Ranked mode, which set all cards to level 3, but most players didn't touch that mode), and allowed players to increase card levels by getting duplicates, with plans to eventually let players buy card chests with Crystals. This proved to be incredibly unpopular to the point of causing fans to protest, so the card system was once again reworked: now, all cards are unlocked for free, and can be leveled up to 5, and total card levels cannot exceed 15, while Legendary Cards (renamed to Talents) are now unlocked just by playing a few matches. This was very well-received, as it removed any potential pay-to-win elements from the game.

MMORPGs

• Path of Exile
  • Bestiary league's seasonal mechanic involved catching beasts by getting them to low health and throwing nets at them to catch it. This mechanic proved to be cumbersome in the late game, considering it's hard to leave enemies just barely alive in a game about killing things as fast as possible. When it was added to the core game, the beast hunting mechanic was reworked: Einhar will throw nets at weakened beasts for you and beasts can't be killed at all.
  • Archnemesis mods were added to the core game to update outdated monster mods and make them more challenging and interesting to fight. As a league mechanic, it worked because you can choose what Archnemesis mods could be given to a monster and what rewards to receive from them. As a core game mechanic, it can randomly generate a monster that counters your build and enemies with multiple Archnemesis mods can stack up to create an extremely tough monster for very little reward. GGG tried again with an Archnemesis rework, but it still suffered from the same problems as before, even after multiple mid-league nerfs, and also added problems regarding loot: some mods would overwrite its drops with less useful types of items and it also created a "loot goblin" problem where players who want to optimize drops from certain mods would stop to look up what it drops and find a Magic Find build to kill it for maximum profit. The next league, Archnemesis mods were scrapped and replaced with much more simplified system: each mod does one or two things rather than the 4-5 things one Archnemesis mod could do while keeping the more complex mechanics they provided, and the extra rewards from mods were kept but were no longer determined by specific mods.

Platformer Games

• Donkey Kong Country Returns was otherwise considered excellent, but one of its few downsides was crucial moves like rolling and ground-pounding requiring shaking the Wii Remote. In Returns 3D and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze both actions are mapped to buttons instead, and blowing was removed entirely in the latter.
• A common criticism of even the most well-liked modern Sonic the Hedgehog entries is the Boost mechanic being too powerful and too easy to maintain, turning levels into "Boost to win". In Sonic Frontiers, boosting into enemies no longer destroys them. Instead, you take damage. This forces players to use boosting more strategically as a movement/speed tool, rather than making it ideal in every situation.
• Super Mario Galaxy: One of the most promising ideas seen in Super Mario Sunshine was the presence of A-to-B obstacle courses inspired by the 2D Mario games, which were initially played without the help of Mario's sidekick FLUDD to recreate the old-school platforming challenge. However, due to Mario's necessary reliance on FLUDD for his moveset in the standard gameplay (which led to said moveset being very limited when FLUDD was stolen by Shadow Mario), these obstacle courses proved to be too difficult and frustrating even for veteran players. Galaxy greatly improved upon the idea and mixed it with the game's unique gravity mechanics for the design of the levels and missions. The execution was met with praise from critics and fans.
• One of the biggest criticisms of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine was how the game booted you out to the hub after collecting each Star/Shine Sprite, which clashed with the sandbox design of worlds. Super Mario Odyssey returns the idea of levels being a large sandbox with scattered collectables but makes it so Power Moons don’t reset you back to the start barring certain story-related moons.

Puzzle Games

• Amateur Surgeon: The tool for healing (i.e. increasing) the patient's heart rate in the first game and Christmas Edition, the Corkscrew, received complaints for being relatively hard to use for a tool that's likely to be used regularly during any level, especially because the player had to choose another tool (the Healing Gel) in combination with it to make it work properly. Amateur Surgeon 2 replaced the Corkscrew with the more simplistic Syringe, which involved a maze-like task to complete for the healing to be successful and had the additionaly function of taking out poison^note This was the standard for Amateur Surgeon 2. Later games allow the player to choose between the syringe and the cutting method featured in the first two games.; the game even had Bradley lampshade the Corkscrew's reputation in the opening cutscene to the level that introduces the Syringe. From Amateur Surgeon 3: Tag Team Trauma onwards, the task was changed to an even easier one: simply sliding the finger down or up its plunger.
  Alan: You know they even made a video game about me?
  Bradley: Yeah! I could never get the hang of the corkscrew!
  (Beat with Alan and Bradley staring at the fourth wall)
  Bradley: Yes... Anyway!
• Puyo Puyo Fever 2 had an item mechanic that was retooled and polished up for Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop. While the items were not a Scrappy Mechanic, the 24-item limit was. The stringent 24-item limit is gone in Puzzle Pop, and you can hold multiple copies of an item. You're also allowed to use up to three at once, some of which stack for stronger effects. You could make a particularly hard battle a breeze, and can just as easily make it terrible for yourself to cash in on the extra point currency.

Racing Games

• In F-Zero (1990), the boost arrows would boost your machine to 999 km/h but would also make you slide all over the place if you attempted to steer or shift your machine. F-Zero 99, which is a battle royale version of the first game, slightly reduced the speed boost from the boost arrows and they no longer make your machine slide when steering, giving the player much more control when getting a speed boost and more of an incentive to hit the boost arrows.
• Starting with Mario Kart 64, the Spiny Shell would always attack the racer in 1st place with no way for them to defend against it. By Mario Kart 8, the Super Horn was introduced to counter Spiny Shells, finally giving the lead player a chance to block it. To balance out the changes, the Super Horn rarely appears.

Rhythm Games

• When Paradigm Reboot was first released, the in-app purchase songs all had to be bought individually, i.e. a separate transaction for each song. This proved annoying especialy for credit/debit card users (as opposed to those with pre-loaded iOS App Store / Google Play Store credit), due to how suspicious multiple transactions from the same merchant within a short period of time can look to some banks and card providers, and if Touch ID or Face ID fails on iOS on any one transaction, the user is forced to input their password to authorize the transaction, which might happen multiple times when performing multiple transactions. This was later resolved by introducing Active Crystals, a Premium Currency that can be bought in bulk, so that the player only needs to perform one real-world transaction and then they can spend those Active Crystals on their desired purchases from there.

Roguelike

• The Binding of Isaac:
  • Sacrifice Rooms are a special room type with a set of spikes in the center that you can pay health to for a chance at rewards. The problem was that the payout — originally just a chance at regular chests — was way too low for something that demanded so much health, especially since it takes from rarer Soul Hearts before common Red Hearts. As much, they were the least popular new room type added in Wrath of the Lamb. The Afterbirth expansion reworked the reward system for them, and paying them will now give you high-quality rewards like Angel items and free Soul Hearts at guaranteed payment tiers. It's still a very expensive room to use, but the reward is at least worth it now.
  • Angel rooms are an alternative to Devil rooms first added in Wrath of the Lamb which in theory provide powerful items without having to pay health. The problem was twofold; first, Angel rooms cannot spawn until you've skipped a Devil deal at least once. That means you have to give up the huge power boost Devil rooms can provide going into the third floor to maybe get an Angel room next floor. The other, and more pressing, issue is Angel rooms were frequently awful. There were multiple rooms that had no items, and even then many Angel items ranged from underwhelming to useless. There are standout great items, but it simply wasn't worth the risk. Rebirth made this even worse, locking the True Final Boss behind Angel rooms which may never appear if you were unlucky. Repentance gave a huge fix to Angel rooms: changing or removing most of the no item layouts, massively buffing every bad Angel item, adding tonnes of new chase items to Angel rooms, and making an Angel room guaranteed on the next Angel/Devil spawn after you skip a Devil room.

RPGs

• Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: This game removes the much-maligned 1,000-en fee for renaming a character, which served no purpose other than to steeply tax players who changed their mind on a character's name for one reason or another. Now renaming characters is free of charge, and subsequent games follow suit. Sadly, the Origins Collection remakes of the first three games reinstate the fee.
• Fallout 4 introduced Settlement Building to the series, enabling you to bring back a semblance of civilization back to the post-apocalyptic Scavenger World setting while also providing massive gameplay bonuses. However, it came with a massive flaw that turned off a significant portion of players — the settlements needed to be actively defended by the player by completing randomly generated Timed Missions. This was even worse when working with the Minutemen, as Minuteman companion Preston Garvey (and later the Radio Freedom station) would assign you these quests ad nauseam. As such, many players simply said "screw it" and didn't bother with the mechanic while others turned to Game Mods to address the issues. About three months after the game came out, Bethesda released a patch with major overhauls to the Settlement Building system that largely salvaged it. With proper defenses, Settlements now had a chance to defend themselves, and cooldowns/limits were implemented to keep the amount and frequency much more manageable.
• Failbetter Games:
  • While Sunless Sea always used top-down travel, combat in its earliest form (i.e. in the game's Early Access) consisted of cutting to a Turn-Based Combat interface upon contact with any roaming enemy, using an 'illumination'-based system to determine when the player's ship and its opponent could attack. Player feedback described this style as clunky, repetitive, and disruptive to the game's 'travel' aspect; as a result, combat was overhauled into a real-time system in the overworld, wherein combatants built up 'firing solutions' for imminent attacks by lurking within range of the target. This went over much better.
  • Its successor, Sunless Skies, would improve on the second style of combat further by making use of the game's 'spacefaring steam trains' premise, incorporating thrusters (for dodging incoming projectiles) and an attack management system based around Overheating.
• Paper Mario: Sticker Star was heavily criticized for its battle system revolving around one-use consumable items; more powerful attacks take up more space in the album, and if you run out, you are completely helpless and have no choice but to run. Paper Mario: Color Splash ditched the Inventory Management Puzzle aspect by replacing the variable-size stickers with cards that all take up the same amount of space in your inventory, and though the one-use item battle system remains, some cards allow Mario to attack multiple times in an attempt to lessen the blow. Paper Mario: The Origami King patches things up even further by not just giving jump and hammer attacks a Breakable Weapons system that allows for each to have multiple uses, but by re-introducing basic attacks that will never run out and cannot break.
• Persona 5:
  • Guns were considered a cool concept in the original release. However, they were significantly hampered by having a limited amount of ammo per dungeon visit (which would usually equate to several hours of gameplay), and so became Too Awesome to Use. The Updated Re-release Royal has gun ammo refill at the start of every fight (with the in-story justification that Your Mind Makes It Real in Palaces and the enemies would logically expect the party to be fully loaded), making them much more useful.
  • The original game had a "Technical" mechanic for using certain skills on enemies suffering specific ailments, such as following up Burn with Wind, mental ailments with Psy, or Sleep with anything. It caused more damage but, unlike hitting an elemental weakness, had only a random chance of a knockdown and a One More, which meant it went mostly unused by players. Royal lets the player raise the party's "Technical Level" by playing billiards, which increased the chance of knockdown, up to guaranteed at max level and made status ailments more likely to succeed (and added effects like Makoto's Persona Trait to boost their success rates further), making Technical far more useful. It also added more enemies with no weaknesses but major ailment vulnerabilities, encouraging players to use the mechanic more.
  • Ryuji's Rank 7 Confidant ability, Instakill, was considered very unwieldy in the base game. It instantly killed weak enemies without a fight, but it would only give a Persona and no Exp or money, and it would always trigger when ambushing weak enemies once unlocked. In Royal, Instakill not only gives Exp and money, it also requires you to dash into the enemy, meaning it won't trigger unless you want it to. It went from detrimental to one of the best abilities in the game.
  • Iwai's Confidant unlocked gun customization, which was a fun idea in theory but let down by him only being able to customize the guns he sells, not the Infinity +1 Sword guns made by itemizing Personas. In Royal, not only can Iwai customize all guns, customization becomes free once you max his Confidant.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl made major changes to the metagame and the franchise overall thanks to the physical-special split. This made so that moves can be either special or physical based on the move itself instead of their type. This change caused several Pokémon who were previously laughably bad to become invaluable players because the moves they learn now became useful due to the stats for them. For example, Absol was introduced in Ruby and Sapphire and has a huge attack stat, but because it's a pure Dark type and all Dark-type moves are categorized as special, it couldn't properly take advantage of its sweeping abilities nor its STAB boost. Said split actually debuted in Pokémon XD with the Shadow moves introduced in that game, so the franchise started pulling itself out of the heap as a result of that. So since then, it became mainstream in Gen IV.
  • Pokémon Black and White saved Technical Machines. For fourteen years, TMs were one-use items to teach moves, with most being found only once per save file or otherwise rather expensive, especially since some were exclusive to Game Corners. This resulted in most TMs being Too Awesome to Use. Gen V changed this so that they can be used as many times as the player wishes, much like with HMs. This was eventually dialed back in Generation VIII with a return to single-use items, with the most useful of TMs being converted into TRs (but still keeping TMs as infinitely-reusable), and both Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and Scarlet and Violet outright made all TMs single-use, which while a considerable step back from the previous mechanics, it does include means to replenish them so players can obtain more than one per save file.
  • Baby Pokémon. When breeding was introduced in Gen II, it spawned Pokémon like Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Magby, Elekid, Smoochum, and Togepi, which were all hard to raise because of a lack of good moves and low stats, and it didn't help that you're forced to deal with them if you breed an older evolution. Gen III attempted to fix this by offering Incense items, which gives you the option to create a egg of the baby Pokémon, but this was only for those introduced beyond Gen II. Gen IV is seen as where the baby Pokémon issue was remedied by having some that evolve quicker via learning certain moves or having a certain Pokémon in your party, and are worth raising. It's still a tossup considering some of these Pokémon are still terrible regardless, and some can be difficult to find (such as Munchlax in Gen IV without knowing how your Trainer ID determines which Honey Trees have them), but the new changes still made it more forgivable.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon salvaged several game mechanics from previous generations:
    • Generation VII saved an entire battle mechanic: terrains. Introduced in Generation VI, terrain effects were seen as a failed attempt to spice up the battlefield due to a lack of good setters and abusers in competitive play. Generation VII managed to solidify them as a battle mechanic through introducing a legendary quartet themed after the Terrain effects, more Pokémon that can take good advantage of the system, and the Terrain Extender item.
    • Hail teams got some much needed improvements. To put it short, hail was always the worst of the four weather conditions, with few good setters and almost no benefit for non Ice-type Pokémon beyond a 100% accurate Blizzard. Then Gen VII gave players a few interesting things: firstly, two decent setters in Alolan Ninetales and Vanilluxe (the latter notable for not having a double weakness). Second, the move Aurora Veil, a fusion of Light Screen and Reflect that can only be activated in hail. Finally, the Ability Slush Rush as a counterpart to Swift Swim, Sand Rush, and Chlorophyll, making hail more viable. While it has since disappeared from top tier play as a result of Ice types in general having too many weaknesses to capitalize on, in the mid and lower tiers it's all over the place, finally give Hail and Ice types some measure of viability and time in the sun. To make the playstyle even better, Generation IX replaced hail with snow - which no longer did passive damage to non Ice-types^note which even then, went both ways, as now while the enemy team wouldn't be chipped, it was now easier to build teams, since your own teammates wouldn't be eating chip damage but gave all Ice-types an effective +1 Defense boost, allowing for better setup opportunities and overall survivability.
    • HMs were replaced by the more convenient Poké Rides. Instead of having to teach your team members dubiously-useful moves just to push rocks, cross water, or fast-travel to previous towns, you are now given a separate set of Pokémon just to use those moves, who aren't counted as part of your team, and they can be assigned to directions on the D-Pad, letting you use them instantly instead of having to navigate through menus.
  • The Voltorb Flip minigame saved the Game Corner in Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver. Previously, the Game Corner was viewed by the fanbase as an obnoxious Luck-Based Mission that was more trouble than it was worth. Voltorb Flip is much more forgiving, and even enjoyable in its challenge. While it's still a divisive change to some, it wasn't enough to prevent future games from removing the Game Corner entirely.^note This is because the change to the Game Corner, and the decision to ultimately scrap the concept, both were a result of running afoul of anti-gambling laws.
• Super Mario RPG: In the original game, the Signal Ring was introduced way too late into the game to be considered useful, and, as such, was considered Better Off Sold. In the remake though, now it's given out at the start of the game by a Toad in the Mushroom Kingdom item shop who teaches Mario about hidden treasure chests, making its usefulness more practical.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Definitive Edition's epilogue story Future Connected corrects some aspects the main game was criticised for:
  • The main game was criticised for having a huge amount of trivial fetch quests, some of which involve items that only spawn rarely and require the player to visit the same area again and again. Future Connected still has a few quests like that, but the spawn rate of the required items is much better, which means that almost all of them can be completed with one trip to a specific area.
  • "Heart-to-Heart" moments in the main game are optional conversations between the protagonists which add considerably to their characterisation. However, they are not voiced, and having a Heart-to-Heart between two characters requires a certain Affinity level between them. Since the best way to gain Affinity between two characters is to have both of them in your active party, this means that players are forced to use characters they might not care about in order to see all Heart-to-Hearts, and even then it requires some grinding. In Future Connected the Heart-of-Hearts are replaced with "Quiet Moments", which are fully voiced and have no Affinity requirements (since the epilogue ditches the Affinity system altogether), so the player doesn't need to put any unnecessary effort into seeing them.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country puts a lot of effort towards improve on its base game's more controversial elements while building on its strengths:
  • The combat system eschews the much-despised gacha mechanic in favor of a fixed party composition. This also avoids shuffling blades around to pass field skill checks, another hated mechanic in the base game.
  • Blade Combos are much easier to achieve than with the cryptic and dodgy system from the base game, where a single elemental orb would take a very long time to create. Now, elemental orbs don't depend on Blade Combos, and can instead be used to create them separately during battle, and a single special will add an orb to the opponent, as opposed to just the last special used in the combo. In fact, it can act as a first step to properly learn the base game's more complex Blade Combos.
  • Torna lets you re-view previous tutorials from the menu, a feature the main game was heavily criticized for lacking.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3:
  • The Hero system as a whole is Monolith's attempt to correct for the most common gameplay criticisms of the Blades system from 2 while retaining its strengths (such as the ability to recruit a large cast of allies with interesting designs, characterization, and gameplay mechanics). For example, the recruitment of Heroes is now tied to story and sidequest progression rather than being reliant on the greatly despised randomized gacha system to obtain them. Likewise, Power Creep had a tendency to make a lot of Blades outright useless, especially if the RNG gave them to you after rolling the better ones, but the Class System and Master Arts/Skills ensure that even the weakest Heroes can still offer some degree of utility to the party.
  • The concept of master arts being obtainable by leveling classes on a character and using them on any compatible class remedies the issue of a completely static party and arts composition of Torna despite mostly having a party consisting of the same six characters.
  • Pre-release trailers for 3 emphasized the return of customizable gear after one of the more heavily criticized aspects of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was its lack of it, along with base designs that were also considered bizarre enough to be in sore need of it (unless one bought the costume DLC). The trailers also highlighted the ability to override outfits with other costumes as a kind of Fashion Gear similar to Xenoblade Chronicles 1 Definitive Edition, for those who were concerned that the best classes would be locked to ugly costumes or vice versa.
  • This game introduces a great deal of Anti-Frustration Features aimed at addressing various fan criticisms of past games' battle systems. Chief among them is the ability to freely switch between characters mid-battle, resolving issues with Artificial Stupidity and the viability of the break-topple-etc combo system; this had been one of the most common complaints dating all the way back to the very first release of XB1. Other updates include quick-dash options to address the limited mobility issues in 2, plus specific arrow indicators on the UI to better notify positional attacks (particularly since several classes are built around that mechanic).
  • Field Skills were one of the most despised aspects of 2's gameplay, where they were originally tied to the Blade gacha, which resulted in a lot of tedious rotation of team blades, and particularly unlucky players would be forced to grind for hours or even days to get the right Blades and Affinity nodes just to progress past certain areas. 3 significantly revamps them by making some Field Skills Metroidvania-esque traversal abilities that are permanently granted to the whole party after completing the right quests, and others are buffs that are straightforwardly unlocked by leveling affinity with Colonies.
  • Relatedly, a common criticism of 2 was the absurd amounts of time many players would have to spend in the game's labyrinthine menus fiddling around with equipment, Blades, and Affinity Charts, especially since rotating them for Field Skills would reset their equips. 3 streamlines menus significantly, and while the issue of spending a long time micromanaging loadouts in menus isn't completely gone, the game at least will remember what Arts and equipment you've manually equipped upon switching out and back in, saving on a great deal of tedium. A postgame patch also added in the ability to remember party layouts to allow for switching with far less tedium.
  • The tutorials for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are infamously terrible for a multitude of reasons, between being simultaneously too frequent and too simplistic to properly explain the game's complex game mechanics, to being Permanently Missable Content after their first viewing, to in some cases being so poor as to actively mislead players. They're often held up as one of the biggest reasons dislikers of 2 ended up dropping the game. 3 on the other hand goes out of its way to provide detailed and tutorials for every mechanic it introduces, which can be viewed in the menu at any time and also offer practice training missions to get the hang of it. While a lot of fans feel that the game perhaps overcorrected with the tutorials and leads to a Slow-Paced Beginning, it's overall still considered a step up from the last game.
  • The Collectopaedia from 1 and X returns after its absence from 2 and Torna was sorely lamented, and while fans still miss the lack of world-building item descriptions for loot and collectables, this time the Collectopaedia is tied to cards on individual NPCs instead of regions and can be completed directly from the menu, essentially serving as a more interesting and significantly streamlined replacement of previous games' 20 Bear Asses Fetch Quests. Moreover, they give players the option to bypass the grinding by using easily-found Nopon Coins and are mostly optional compared to 2's Affinity Charts which served a similar purpose but gated core gameplay mechanics and abilities behind them.
  • 1's version of Affinity Charts is back, but now with the Anti-Frustration Features of having NPCs now display a special icon and be marked differently on the map if they haven't been talked to yet or if they have new dialogue, to address players' frequent gripes about how the Affinity Chart was a Guide Dang It! to fill out and update.
  • Item orbs are back, but this time they will tell you what type of items are inside ahead of time as you approach them. You can also just buy them in bulk at Colony Plants if you're in particular need of certain items, to cut down on the infamously laborious grinding for rare orb drops by having to canvas the entire map for them and waiting for them to respawn. Also, any monster loot and item orbs you run into in the middle of a battle are automatically picked up to further reduce tedium.
  • The news that players could initiate combat in deep water was met with much approval, given that swimming enemies were notoriously Goddamn Bats in past games, since they would often aggro players from afar with no way to retaliate unless you were at the very shallow edge of the water. Worse, swimming enemies had a tendency to move out of range of players, forcing them to have to swim back out to aggro them and start the battle all over again. In the case of small characters like Riki, water monsters would often be treated as out-of-range even in puddle-deep water, leaving you down entire party members for no good reason. 3 also grants a jump function in deeper water that lets the party climb back onto any solid ground that is low enough without needing it to be a gentle incline.
  • The metagame for past Xenoblade entries frequently favored hard-hitting offense and evasion-based tanking, with healing-centric characters often becoming regarded as useless Low Tier Letdowns past the early game. X acknowledged that by dispensing with dedicated healers altogether, though that came with its own issues. In an effort to overcome this persistent balance issue, 3 made it so that Healer classes are the only ones who can revive fallen party members and revived characters start with very little restored health, incentivizing players to continue utilizing healers into the latter parts of the game. The game also lacks the general Crit-Heal mechanic that largely invalidated Healers (though it still exists, it's limited only to the Hero Masha and her Lapidarist class), and Healing is determined by a separate stat to prevent players from just running an entire party of Attackers and Defenders equipped with healing-based Fusion Arts as a Cheese Strategy. In fact, Healers have been rebalanced significantly enough that several of the game's best classes are Healers. Relatedly, it no longer costs Party Gauge levels to revive allies, so you don't have to worry about using a Chain Attack too soon and getting wiped out in retaliation if the enemy survived, as was all too common in 1 and 2.
  • The 1.20 patch for the 2nd wave of DLC balances the frequency of the post-battle lines, so you won't only keep hearing "Lanz wants something a bit meatier" or "I'm the girl with the gall!" over and over. At the same time, it doesn't outright remove these lines, avoiding the criticism Xenoblade Chronicles 2 suffered when it patched out the Mor Ardanians' most memetic quotes. The memetic lines will still play, just not as often.
  • Arts that did extra damage against an enemy's side or back were usually dismissed as negligible in Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X, and flat-out detrimental in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, with the effort of moving around being not worth the time and with better arts being available. Here, directional attacks in general are made useful by contributing to an Attacker class' Talent Art gauge, and the ability to quick-dash in battle makes getting into position much more intuitive without interrupting combat flow despite the ability to attack while moving still being nonexistent. It also helps that there's now a visual indicator showing you the enemy's position in relation to your character so that you know when such Arts will work.

Shoot 'Em Ups

• Touhou Project: The UFOs in Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object are somewhat of a Scrappy Mechanic because you need sets of three to summon a UFO, and it's frustratingly easy to accidentally pick up the wrong one and have to either take a UFO type you don't want or start over. Wily Beast and Weakest Creature has a similar gimmick where you enter Roaring Mode after collecting five beast spirits. However, you get a lot more leeway because you only need three matching spirits to get a bonus, and even if you don't have three of a kind, you still get a "vanilla" Roaring Mode that can negate a hit.

Strategy Games

• The Pair Up mechanic in Fire Emblem: Awakening was notorious for being a Game-Breaker. It lets two units combine into one for boosted stats, a chance of additional attacks from the inactive unit (Dual Strike) and a chance to negate all damage (Dual Guard). Both chances became virtually guaranteed at high support levels, especially for a Battle Couple, and to make matters worse, enemies never used the mechanic. Fire Emblem Fates overhauled the system into Attack Stance, where two units stand adjacent and the partner contributes guaranteed Dual Strikes, and Guard Stance, which works like the old Pair-Up and also negates enemy Dual Strikes, but does not allow Dual Strikes of your own. Not only that, but enemies can use both stances too. This retained what made Awakening's support mechanics fun, but also made them more strategic and less "everyone becomes a One-Man Army".
• Nintendo Wars: One of the most noteworthy changes to the mechanics of Re-Boot Camp is that the enemy AI no longer cheats in Fog of War. While it does have some knowledge of where your units are, it can no longer see and attack your units at all times as if the fog wasn't there. This alone makes the first game's Challenge Campaign significantly more tolerable, as many of the more notorious missions in the original Advance Campaign had a large part of their difficulty derived from the AI cheating; now, not only do they have to follow the same rules of engagement as you, but they can even get ambushed by your own troops, something that took the original series until Days of Ruin to implement. This allows the player to engage in tactical plays on these maps, such as destroying enemy Recons to cut off their vision, or positioning units just out of sight.
• Pikmin 3 Deluxe adds difficulty options for the first time in the otherwise-easy series, allowing Pikmin veterans to make the game much, much more challenging. In particular, the Plasm Wraith was considered far too easy to be a Final Boss by some; on Ultra-Spicy, it's an absolute monster, dishing out huge amounts of pain if you give it the opportunity.

Tabletop Games

• Arkham Horror 3^rd Edition: The Influence skill is an Underused Game Mechanic in the core game, as it doesn't directly support the fight against the Ancient One. Later expansions add new uses for Influence, characters that can apply it to boost other skills, and a story path where it becomes a key mechanic.
• The second editions of Dominion releases sometimes rework underwhelming or overpowered cards to salvage them:
  • Thief is a very underwhelming attack card that makes each opponent reveal the top 2 cards of their deck, and if they reveal Treasures, you choose one for them to trash, and may gain a copy of the trashed cards. The problem is that this can trash Coppers, which more often than not helps the target (and you don't want Coppers for yourself, which makes playing Thief a waste if you're only hitting Coppers). The concept of a card that "steals" treasures was salvaged with Bandit, which has a "non-Copper" rider, and gives you a Gold regardless of how the attack goes.
  • Scout lets you look at four cards from the top of your deck, draw the Victory Cards, and put the rest back. This is a very underwhelming effect because (1) if you've built your deck properly, it's likely to draw nothing, (2) most Victory Cards do nothing to improve your current turn, so Scout mostly serves to make the next turn somewhat better, and (3) there are several types of junk it can't deal with, like Coppers and Curses. This concept was salvaged with Patrol, which has a "draw 3 cards" stapled onto it before Scout's effect.
  • Pirate Ship is a weak attack card that also has the problem of being a beginner trap. It wants you to use the effect of trashing opponents' Treasures often, but this means you'll probably help your them by trashing their Coppers for them. And even if you can make it produce a decent amount of money, you're better off just buying basic Treasures. This concept was salvaged with Corsair, which offers their player a decent benefit from the start and only trashes opponents' Silvers and Golds.
  • Oracle is a weak attack that has every player reveal the top two cards of their deck, and then for every player, you choose whether the cards get put back or discarded. The problem is that this isn't very impactful, and the card's secondary effect of drawing you two cards doesn't make up for it. The concept of an attack that sifts through your deck was salvaged with its replacement Witch's Hut, which has you draw four cards, then you discard two and get to give your opponents Curses if you discarded two Action cards.
  • Mountebank is an obnoxious attack card that frequently gives opponents two junk cards (one Copper and one Curse) and likes to turn games into slogs. The second edition replaces it with the milder Charlatan. It only gives a Curse, but keeps the idea of "giving opponents a Copper and a Curse" by adding a clause that when Charlatan is in play, Curses are also Treasures similar to Copper.
• Everyday Heroes: The wealth system of d20 Modern, in an attempt to better replicate the economy of the modern world, makes items have a wealth "difficulty class" that characters need to roll to obtain. This means that a bad roll will prevent a player from getting the item they desire, something many GMs ignored due to potentially depriving characters of equipment they need due to bad luck. Everyday Heroes avoids the issue by making wealth more a set number, getting an item simply requires a character having at minimum the same wealth required to pick up the item.

Wide Open Sandbox

• Palworld:
  • The 0.1.5.0. patch includes an option for continuous work by pressing the work button once.
  • The heat system was also revamped in 0.1.5.0 so the game counted the number of environmental heat sources. Previously, the game only counted the type of environmental heat sources. This led to bizarre scenarios such as the incubator being surrounded by campfires and the game saying that the egg was too cold because it only counted a single heat source.
  • Building stairs and triangular roofs became much easier in 0.1.5.0 as they loosened the building restrictions for them. Patch 0.2.0.6. loosened the restrictions even further.
  • Condensing Pals used to be a tremendous pain because you had to have all the Pals on hand to condense and condensed stars could not be carried over. Patch 0.2.0.6. now allows partial condensation and condensing a starred Pal into an unstarred Pal will transfer the condensed stars over.
• Terraria: The widely despised Torch Luck mechanic added in Journey's End was revamped so that it could only ever provide a positive bonus, meaning that was no penalty for using regular torches in the wrong biome. It also added the Torch God, an event that once beaten, allowed regular torches upon placement to be instantly converted to the proper torch for the biome.

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