Stats Gone Wild

[HarrisPS]

@ashestoashes018

For instance, the Zombie Exodus games and Tin Star are fantastic games, and I greatly enjoy that they’re meant to be pseudo sandbox games, but it’s, quite frankly, overwhelming to have that many stats - especially when you will never use all of them in a single play-through.

I see what you mean - I’m not super familiar with the games in question but I do find that Choice of the Deathless, say, while being one of my faves, has a huge list of relationships on the stats page that’s quite daunting.

@A-M-A

I love it when stats influence some lines or choices, in the sense that it makes it like your character thinks, acts and says things differently (An Odyssey: Echoes of War is a good recent example, some lines and choices as well as their outcomes change depending on your stance on fame and divinity, aswell as your level of mercy vs. cruelty).

I LOVE when this is done well. I did a bit of domineering vs accommodating multireplace in Creme de la Creme and it seemed to go down well.

@A-M-A

I dislike it though when a game makes a list of stats and seemingly at random make this complementary or make that exclusive for the sake of a double skill and personality check or makes it that this choice or situation defines you in a way that can be seen as out of character.

I hear this. In Blood Money I went in a direction having a ton of stats and test combinations, which led to a lot of later choices being impossible until I thoroughly reduced their difficulty (and even then it wasn’t entirely clear what I was testing).

@expectedoperator I really enjoy when there’s that sense of personalisation to the game. There’s something to be said for D&D style stats when it’s the right game, but having something characterful gives that special something.

@AChubbyBlackCat That’s really interesting, I hadn’t thought of it like that! Are there particular games with fewer stats that you’ve especially enjoyed?

@AdmirableAnimation I like that! In Choice of the Deathless I believe if you have less Sleep you’re less good at the rest of the challenges which was a really cool mechanic. I love the idea of having a wild card stat that could make unusually fortunate things happen.

@Alice-chan

I dislike the system whereby if you have e.g. 64 in [stat] an the stat check requires 65 that’s a massive failure, i.e. the pass-fail model of stat-checks.

I like having graduated successes - a super success, a medium success with some caveats, and a disaster. But it can be so challenging to figure out the results for regular choices like that!

@Alice-chan

Anyway, In what I have been working on I have basically implemented a level up screen after each chapter so you can spend your experience gained as you would like, so you don’t need to worry about which choices increase which stats. Of course success and failure are still dependent on stats so there is that - its all a bit of an experiment.

That sounds so interesting! If there were still increased stats with choices, I wonder about the idea of having periodic updates too between chapters, where you could see where your stats had increased and whether there were particularly major choices that changed them.

@iota in Wayhaven if you have low Intimidating and try to intimidate someone, what happens - do you fail the check? Or does something else happen?

@iota

The Passenger also does this well where your dialogue will change based on if you’re nonchalant vs goal-oriented you’re either on time for your meeting at Hellbender’s or 5 minutes late. It’s flavor text that makes the game so much more immersive

I love this and want to do more of it. Not necessarily something that majorly affects that plot or gives a mechanical disadvantage, but flavour.

@Gshen

I feel like I’m in a battle of wits with the author and they have all the answers.

This is SUCH an issue for me as a developer and I’m thinking a lot about developing my skills. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told “this isn’t clear what the choice is testing”, and I’m still very much learning! Which is a major reason why I made this thread, to learn more about what people like and dislike, and what feels immersive or intuitive.