Hence why I dislike random stat gains at level up (well, and the missable stat problem).

The SaGa games with battle rank (including the Romancing SaGa series and SaGa Frontier) don't suffer from this partcular problem, at least not nearly as badly, because poor stat gains early on can be made up later; a character with low stats/skills fighting high rank enemies will gain stats quickly, and will also spark new skills quickly.

(Note: For SaGa Frontier, this observation only works for humans, and for mystic HP; other races have entirely different growth rules, which differ enough to need separate discussion.)

Any *sufficiently long* game, that is. Games like Tetris the Grand Master don't need to allow saves at all; in fact, in that sort of game (and other arcade or arcade-style games where a game won't last even 15 minutes), saving doesn't even make sense (other than things like high scores).

That assumes you're actually able to hide; sometimes you get into a fight with no place to hide, and then the auto-heal is only helpful if you're good at dodging (unless the auto-heal outheals the damage, but if that happens on the default difficulty setting without a specific character build, that's a major balance issue).

There's some games with discrete encounters (in other words, encounters are on a separate screen) that give you full health between encounters; I've seen this in many SaGa games, as well as in Gargoyle's Quest (though GQ has dungeons that are essentially treated as long encounters, and you don't auto-heal during them).

One thing that's worth noting:
* Beating the game via RNG manipulation is harder than beating the game without. You actually have to worry about how many frames you're moving, and when to pause a few frames to avoid a random encounter. It's a lot more effort than the mindless "grind" (I really don't like this term) involved in casual plays and no-manip speedruns.
* Figuring out the RNG manip will likely take more time than beating the game without using it.

Oh, I just assumed that manipulation meant externally. I've seen a Diablo 1 speedrun a long time ago where someone hacked the game to have the entrance to the next floor next to the entrance from the previous floor every time. If it is achievable in-game just by knowing the RNG behavior, then I would consider that fine.

One I hate is quick time events. As someone who enjoys taking their time to explore a game the whole "Quick make a decision before you've even had a chance to think about it!" thing isn't particularly enjoyable. That of course goes hand-in-hand with the save problem, "Made the wrong choice, tough!". Even better if you have dyslexia so you are slow at reading things and dyspraxia so you're slow at pressing buttons :-D

One of the things I dislike most which has become quite common over the past few years, is the player being forced to give back things they've spent time and effort to acquire in game.
It's like being punished for being successful.

This is the primary reason I've bounced super-hard off every 'map game' I've ever tried.
A genre I should like given its proximity to 4X.

1: QTEs/button-mash/rhythm-game/mirror-input sequences. They wreck games. I'm glad newer games' accessibility features are putting "auto pass QTEs" into games.

2: Long games with significant missable content. I don't have time to replay your long game. [Note, this doesn't apply to significant CHOICES in story direction/character development/class selection.]

3: "hit chance determines everything else". X-Com style games irritate me because nothing matters more than your hit chance, and a single stray missed attack will wreck your play of the stage.

(At least one, if not more, above part part of the "not respectful of player and his or her time" trend that a lot of games have.)

I'm not sure what you're going with here. Could you develop your thoughts a little bit more? It's probably me being dense in this case.

What is QTE? Cut scenes should always be skipable, but aren't they usually anyway?

Quick time events. 12 minutes of examples I'm glad I skipped due to accessibility features (would have been even more, since many of these repeat)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfBiGDcdA9M

Another example: As much as I loved Infamous Second Son, even the graffiti/spray paint arts, I hated the "turn 6axis controller sideways and shake it and move it around" thing at each one.

EDIT: https://youtu.be/ZgQ1psF-54Y?t=425
Link to specific time point. See the "hold sideways" and then you move the dot around with the game using accelerometers. Or that Wii Metroid game [I skipped it!] that made you go through the motions of opening doors.

I don't know what you are talking about, Please give an example of "giving back what you've acquired".

What is a "map game" and what does it mean to "bounce off" it?

My guess is games with "maps" (levels) instead of one big world to conquer, and in every new map you start off from scratch.

I would say, however, that this does apply to missable stats; if a game gives you stat boosts for having items (or other things) equipped at the time of level up, has a level cap (even if it's much higher than the expected endgame level), and does not have another way to permanently raise stats or a way to reset a character's level, then that's a problem.

Similar situations include HP gains from Constitution (or whatever the stat is called) not being retroactive (in a game where you can choose which stats to increase at level up), and of course random stat gains.

Again, this isn't an issue if there's another way to boost stats permanently (like the stat seeds in Dragon Quest games, provided that there's an infinite source of them; this is an issue in original Dragon Quest 3, for example, which has no MP seed), if there's no level cap (like in the Bard's Tale trilogy), or if the game has SaGa-like stat growth (where the number of stat increases isn't limited, though the stats are, of course, capped).

The first example that comes to mind happens in SaGa 1. In the first world, your task is to get the king sword, armor, and shield. (The sword is the only obtainable weapon in the US version to have infinite uses; the Japanese version has two others, but they're both late game weapons.) However, in order to progress past this world, you need to place those items on the statue, and you can never get them back. (Note: Do not save between putting the items on the statue and the boss fight that follows; doing so can render your save useless if you can't defeat that boss, and the game has only one save slot.)

Reminds me of how, in D&D based games and other older CRPGs (mostly WRPGs but early Final Fantasy is somewhat guilty of this), in the early game attacks miss *way* too often.

(By contrast, I've started playing The Alliance Alive, and while I haven't fought many battles, I have yet to see an attack miss; if it had D&D-like accuracy, there would already have been missed attacks.)

I think QTE are appropriate if the game is designed around them, and if it's the primary point of the game. (I'm thinking something like Dragon's Lair.) This way, the QTEs don't get in the way of non-QTE gameplay.

I could say the same thing about stealth sections, though perhaps insta-fail when spotted is still bad game design for pure stealth games, at least on the default difficulty setting. (The stealth sequences in Zelda games ruined the series for me; the one in Metroid: Zero Mission, on the other hand, isn't as bad because being spotted isn't an instant failure, but instead you just have to dodge the space pirate's attacks (which hurt, but aren't instant death if you're not doing low %) and find another spot to hide.)

What about rhythm-game input sequences in (pure) rhythm games? Do those bother you?

As discussed, I believe, in your thread on the topic -- I'm OK with that, so long as there are a lot of exchanges and a single miss isn't determining your battle. X-Com style games (I'm including Regalia in here because of its miss rates) are brutal where one miss means you're probably going to lose a guy or seriously have to make up time.

There are, of course, better ways to handle "lots of misses" that are more fun that should be used instead. But that's that other thread.
A genre that is not for me.

Sounds like a good idea for CIV-like games with Zombies.

Well, CivClicker has zombies in it; you just heed to worship the god of the dead.

Yes, in that case I probably wouldn't be playing the game anyway. It's such a pain when they unexpectedly pounce on you and you miss it because you were relaxing during a cutscene.