cain

cain

@cain

  • he/him

transsexual menace

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my games: https://cmddx.itch.io/
@cmddx@peoplemaking.games on the other website
if you think the things i make are cool you can support me at https://www.patreon.com/cainmaddox

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cain
@cain

i wish more character-based games *didn't* have relationship metrics

i'm playing The Pale Beyond right now, which is an excellent game, except i can't help but feel like something is lost because of the Loyalty meter it has for every main character. in every conversation, i feel the need to analyze exactly what i should say in order to up their Loyalty score instead of just - you know, picking the options i'd actually like to.

i know some people defend this with "well you don't need to min-max, just play the way you want and if there's consequences, deal with them" but i don't agree! i think game mechanics, fundamentally, are there for the developer to guide the player in how the game should be interacted with, and if the game mechanics encourage manipulation then that's how people will behave.

i'm only signalling out The Pale Beyond because it's the game i currently have running in another window (and once again, it's excellent despite this) but a lot of other games do this too.

it just feels like such a waste for all these brilliant writers to put so much effort into great dialogue choices, only for the game mechanics to go "lol okay but actually, pick this one". anyway rant over thanks for listening

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in reply to @cain's post:

Jonah
@Jonah

Dialogue options that are a multiple choice test in disguise are usually no fun. Give the player bad choices and make them as meaningful or as surprising as the good ones! And while we're at it, we can probably do a little better than "Character didn't like that..."

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mrhands
@mrhands

I agree, and the problem of min-maxing dialog options is even worse in Midnight Suns. In that game, you can earn Light or Dark points depending on your choices. So obviously I only ever pick the Light option because I'm not a jerk. But then some characters prefer the Dark options, so they call you a jerk anyway! Horrible system, great game otherwise.

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johngottschalk
@johngottschalk

I felt this way with The Banner Saga, yes, I want choices to matter to some degree, but if an option means the character dies 3 hours down the line from now, then I want to know, and I want to avoid it (unless it actually feels meaningful). Unfortunately this kind of system just means you're trying to derive the designers sense of moral logic for the game, and that's just a really annoying task.

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