I completely agree with you! Hate that feature. I guess that's the reason why I can't seem to force myself to like Pokemon games.

1. Hardcore realism in gameplay and graphics
2. "Muh immersion"
3. Consolisation and console ports in general
4. Dumbed-down systems
5. Forced action elements
6. Infinite respawns
7. Hard counters
8. Pre-generated characters/party members
9. No fail state; infinite resources/lifes
10. Long cutscenes/walls of text/long dialogues

I did read your descriptions. Maybe we can agree that well made cities are nice and genuine realism is good as long as it doesn't unbalance the game or result in parts of the game becoming monotonous. I agree with that. That's no realism

But man, you hate that? I think the problem in this case is not that the merchant realistically has limited resources and needs to sleep but that the game gives you unrealistically much loot and that it fails to make you enjoy waiting for the shops to open.

Only one: "Console-like games and features of games", on pc titles or even worse, bad ports.

Quest markers.

Took game design, especially for open world RPGs, into a whole new direction of suck. What's the point of interpreting clues or game information when there's a big flashing arrow on the map showing you where you have to go?

"Achievements/Trophies."

I've never understood the appeal of these. Oh you've completed the tutorial? Here's a message saying you completed the tutorial but we'll call it an achievement. You finally beat the first boss? Here's another one.

Shouldn't the achievement be completing the game? I can understand why scoring isn't used anymore since the arcades are long gone, but these "trophies" really don't serve any purpose.

There used to be a time when achievements were awarded only for...y'know...real achievements. Like something that requires real player skill or special discovery for the most persistent players or some in-game surprise. Now achievements have become "fired a shotgun 10 times" or "completed the first level" or "customised your haircut". Like in the kindergarten, everybody is a winner.

Yes, since it's already unrealistic to pack that much stuff in the first place, so I don't see why the game should make such a fuss about a few more pounds. Of course I realize that the designers probably try to balance my loot and gold in this way, but what's the point if I can still come back for the 10th greatsword after dropping off the nine in the next city? It's just annoying and inconvenient and doesn't really work in terms of balance or realism.

Well, yeah. That's what I mean, the way some of these features are implemented just feels pointless most of the time, like a waste of my time, artificially stretching the playtime through waiting, backtracking and such, instead of being an actually enjoyable game mechanic. And you're right, I much prefer fewer but more exciting loot that my character would have a use for, instead of feeling like my character class is scrap dealer. ;)

Loot

I don't see the appeal in constantly having to manage and arrange your inventory, switching your weaponry and looking for merchants to get rid of all the useless stuff for a handful of coins. Since I'm an utterly indecisive person in general, this part of (role playing) games often kills the experience for me. The less loot the better.

Total reliance on a random chance of success in things. Especially where it's a binary 'total success' or 'catastrophic fail'. It's basically the game playing itself and deciding whether or not you get to win. Pretty much all turn based games can suffer from degrees of this.

Permadeath. I can make games interesting. But really takes a toll on replayability if you pretty much know the outcome before you even start. It's why I lost interest in FTL. I got right to the end. Lost. Meh. You did see the part in the title where it said "most people seem to like"? The only person who likes checkpoint saves is Cliffy B. Out of seven billion people, I don't think that counts for much.

Agreed.
I loved finding all artefacts in the TR games or getting the Knights of the Round materia in FF7, and love seeing my accomplishment in game. But have no interest in such details being plastered on my profile and don't see "pushed obvious button" as an achievement.

First of all, you make it sound like all achievements you ever get are only for doing the obvious things - which is false of course, in fact, for majority of games I have played that have achievements implemented, you only got a small amount of the total achievement count just for progress. Secondly, progress-based achievements are certainly not useless, they're good for two things:
a) If you're talking to a friend who has his achievements publicly displayed you can make sure to not spoil the game for him. Sure, a "How far did you get?" question suffices too, but for me, achiements carry that message faster and in a clearer fashion.
b) They're kinda fantastic to get rudimentary statistics about overall progress of players trough your game, which is why I imagine most developers include those.

Achievements and trophies actually have more uses than just that, tho, especially the optional ones. There are many achievements that developer can use to communicate intent to players which they can't really communicate well within the game - like fun ways they found to play the game (Dishonored's mostly flesh and steel for not purchasing any magical powers, for example), to present their players with interesting challenges or to point out advanced ways to play the game as a non-intrusive tutorial. There are bad examples of achievements designed only to get players to stick with the game longer like "kill 1000 of that", but since they're very easy to implement by developers and even easier to ignore by players (which is why I don't get why would anyone "hate" them), there's next to no reason to NOT include them in your game.

Mainly those 2 features: Multiplayer, forced minigames (optional ones are okay).

I have to disagree. There is no reason why every game "has to include" achievements. When you mentioned talking to a friend about where they are in the game, achievements simply aren't needed for this. Is the friend using the exact same game distribution service or program? If not then you'll never see the "achievements" unless you talk to them directly.

You said the developer can use achievements to "communicate" to the players, but again, this can easily be done without including artificial trophies. I would argue that the story and the gameplay itself are used to convey meaning to the player.

What I find really sad is that more and more players are demanding that achievements should be included in a game--even when the game itself has no real use for them. A game should be judged by its merits, not by its inclusion of trophies!

They're not needed and aren't applicable everywhere, I know. But when they're there and I can use them to that end, I always do, which should give you an idea of which method is preferable to me. As I said tho, that's not the primary reason unavoidable achievements are implemented, just a pleasant side-effect.

Yes, achievements are routinely used for communication when something can't be conveyed trough story or gameplay, that's exactly the point. Of course what you mentioned is the primary and preferred way of communication - but sometimes, like in the example of Dishonored, it just makes absolutely no sense for Corvo to not acquire any magical abilities - in fact that would be the antithesis of empowerment that game is trying to offer. But playing without those powers is actually a lot of fun and forces different way of thinking on many problems in the game - yet directly supporting it in-game makes no sense. Solution? Put an achievement in. And since we already have a standardized way of communicating these challenges, why not put in an achievement for all of them?

And, I have to re-iterate, they're extremely easy to both implement and ignore if you dislike them, so where's the harm in doing it?

I don't understand people who would skip a game because it doesn't contain achievements, that feels insane to me. But to point out that achievements, a standard feature in today's industry, are missing in a game is a perfectly natural reaction. I honestly think that when a game comes to Steam and doesn't have achievements at this point, developers were just too lazy to implement them, which makes me wonder which other and more important standardized features they happened to omit?