My quick take on stats
I love stats and stat checks for abilities, less for relationships. Sometimes I want a power fantasy and sometimes I want a true role playing experience so for me, stats is a great thing and I love them. I love min-maxing and playing around with that stuff but that’s of course personal preference play style. The stats and stat check are what draws me to CoG rather than other websites with CYOA games. In short, the more stats the better (although this may draw on my love for strategy games).
While stats do narrow the chances to play and truly immerse yourself in the character, I believe that they are essential to the story (at least ability based ones). I would like to succeed in an action like being able to run fast and escape a gang if I was role-playing as an athletic character so to pick my background like that and fail to run away kind of takes me out of the character. Being able to persuade someone to do something while role-playing as a computer nerd who never leaves the house is a bit jarring and will take me out of character sometimes.
Relationship stats are a hit and miss with me. It’s nice to see what saying things and acting certain ways affects your relationship with a person but sometimes it does take you out of character when your character disagrees but in order to get an RO option you have to agree. I think the main limitations for the writer would be coding so I give a bit of leeway in terms of relationship stats and how they’re calculated.
Yeah, I like that part. The part I don’t like is when the tailoring isn’t interdependent and I run into cases where I want to make a character who is decent at everything but the game is tailored for specialists and I wind up bad at everything instead. What I really want are lots of combo options so being okay at two things can be as useful as being really good at one thing.
Semi-related to Stats, but on a slightly different note:
Anyone remember DAII? Specifically the Friendship and Rivalry system?
If you don’t remember or don’t know, here’s a quick screenshot for you!
The basic premise was depending on certain dialogue options or actions Hawke would take, it’d increase their Friendship or Rivalry with one of their Party Members. I actually quite liked this new relationship system being a bit more… forgiving?
Well, no - the phrase I’m looking for is less cut and dry when concerning the extreme ends of a relationship measurement.
In the previous game DA:O, if your relationship with certain party members dipped too low, or if you made certain choices at certain parts of the game, your companions would leave you one way or another - either by physical leaving your party or if you killed them.
I want to say that I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with the second relationship system that I’ve described, especially because - when it’s well executed - can have a big impact on making the game feel more lifelike.
On the other hand, I like the first system from DAII because it was something different. Barring the decision at the very end and if you have The Exiled Prince DLC with Sebastian throwing an ultimatum in your face, I can’t remember if any or your party members leaves you based on your actions/decisions/dialogue.
I loved having a Rival-mance with Fenris or Rivalry-based friendship with Merril because I couldn’t agree with their actions or opinions, but I still cared about them enough to give them “tough love”.
You can especially see this if you lean in a Rivalry with your relationship with Merril as she progressively goes down this darker path in pursuit of knowledge, granted she was willing to pay the price for it, but paid for it - in an albeit kinda weird and kinda shoe horned way that I thought was leaning towards beating a dead horse - nonetheless.
Anyone have some thoughts or suggestions as to how this sort of relationship system could be implemented into a Choice Game? Would you want to see this sort of relationship approach in a Choice Game?
My main complaint with that system was basically the same one as my above remarks about opposed stats; you didn’t get anything for the middle of the road. That’s the curse of most scales like that; they demand you align yourself with one pole.
ME1’s paragon/renegade was my favorite implementation of this sort of thing; they were tracked separately and it was very generous with the points, so if you split your play then rather hitting endgame and having no way to talk Saren down you have both ways to talk Saren down. ME2 was stingier with the points so it demanded more consistency, but at least taking Paragon didn’t reduce your Renegade so there was a little more leeway.
I’m new to this forum but I have been working on a story for a while now.
Currently I’m curious on how important are stats for you guys? Personally, I’m having trouble deciding on stats, esp. relating to a person’s personality as I feel like itgets too one-sided with stats and it may get some readers trying to just push for one side of the red/blue bar. I understand most of the stories nowadays have stats unlike old ones like Lords of Aswick which was my first read.
I personally don’t care for them most of the time. I read for the plot and characters, and I prefer not focusing on stats. They have their place though. On one hand, stats can be useful if there’s just a few and they are tightly woven into the gameplay and story. Otherwise, why even have them?
On the other hand, I’m also okay with cosmetic stats that serve no purpose but define my character regardless. In one of my future games, my only stats are relationship stats and a Meyers-Briggs type. The latter serves absolutely no purpose in the game. It’s just there to reflect the player’s choices.
I’m also a minority in this opinion. A lot of people here love stats and want to min/max as much as possible, and I rarely see a game without them anymore.
We’ve had a thread about this topic before, and I think you’d get a lot of your answers reading through there
To be fair, part of that is by necessity. A game without stats would likely not be released by CoG nowadays unless there was something exceptional about it, and if you turn one in as a HG it’s a decent chance they will release it for free. I can’t imagine how many years you must go back to find games where this wasn’t the case. Two years? Three? Five?
I personally hate stats, especially opposite pairs, but that comes from the opposites often do not feel like opposites to me. But I must say I use stats in my game, it is easier to write choices based on stats. But I think, I might have handled stats a bit different^^
Relationship stats are much more important for me, there I can see a progress and always understand how they relate to the relationship they show. Normal stats are sometimes difficult, when I do not get what one might do to get better and that at some games you are not going to get a good end, when you are not very good in at least one stat.
Yea it was a loooooong time ago haha
I’ll look into it thanks!
Maybe I’m thinking too much of a one-sitting read scenario here where I’d be aware of how I treated others throughout the story instead of depending on stats where I’d need to refresh my memory the next day
I guess it helps make players able to identity what type of alter ego they want to take on when approaching the book, esp. after their first read
I find games that are stat heavy or require a skill check to actually get past a certain enemy, boss or obstacle in a fight incredibly annoying. I feel like I can’t focus on the story or create a character I actually enjoy playing as if I’m too worried about my stats and will I get past the skill check.