10 Modern Video Game Tropes We're Totally Sick Of
8. Incrementally Numeric Skill Trees
The latest offender of this at time of writing is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - a game bursting at the seams with memorable characters and iconic power-sets, and yet you're left unlocking "+20 Vitality" or "+10 Health" after you've acquired each character's main abilities.
Now, props to Team Ninja for giving us additional moves for each hero or villain whatsoever, but far too many titles fall back on such an ultimately boring method of "character progression". Fallout 76, Anthem, Battlefront 2, The Division, Destiny - even God of War had its "Rune" system.
So many games show numbers popping off when you attack or resign them to level-up screens, and this is assumedly meant to be as satisfying as unlocking an entirely new move, weapon, combo, environmental interaction etc.
The problem, is it doesn't fundamentally change gameplay.
When all we're doing from moment one to hour 100 is making numbers go up or down while everything else stays the same, that rings painfully hollow for the medium and its players.