Favoritism

[Gear]

One of the staples of the VN genre is the point system. Decisions the player makes can increase or decrease the favor towards one character or another. Some non-VN games, like the Dragon Age series, famously use this system to determine character bonuses, strengths, interactions, and even romantic inclinations.

So my question to you, my fellow Lemmites, is this: in a VN, should the game alert you when you make a change to this system? For example, if you make a decision, and person A like it, and person B dislikes it, should the game display this information? Like:

A likes this!
B doesn't like this!

or

+10 to A
-5 to B

or should it be kept a secret, not letting the player know what kinds of decisions they're making, or not being sure how their decisions will affect things until the end? Let me know both as a player and a creator of VNs.

Edit: Bear in mind that I'm not speaking from a dating sim perspective. Think more like an adventure game, like Dragon Age.

[Desu_Cake]

I'd say definitely no actual numbers. Even most RPGs don't show the numbers of relationship points. It breaks the immersion, and the illusion of it being a relationship. Even the "A likes this" is a bit too far, although it would be fine in an RPG. At the same time, you should definitely include some indication about how they feel about your actions, it should just be incorporated into the story.

For example: You have a gift that you can give to A or B; You choose to give it to A
A: Thank you, I love it!
B: Hmph! Ignore me why don't you!

[Gear]

The problem with that is the fact that in some cases, the character being affected isn't necessarily present. In my game, for example, if you've chosen a specific path, person C is far away from you. You get points if you opt to rescue him, but it's a long journey to get there. You get the points right away, and the character, being who he is, probably won't say anything about it. It's not so much that the character you're playing did something nice for him, it's that YOU seem to think highly enough of him to merit the points...if that makes any sense.

[Desu_Cake]

I'd still suggest finding some way to work it into the dialogue. Of course, if it doesn't happen very often, you could probably leave the player uninformed. With the scenario you described, the player could most likely guess that they'll get points from that.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Morrigan disapproves! -12
"Son of a - !!! I was just giving 5 coppers to a starving child!"

Yeah, Dragon Age also showed the amount of points being deducted. But I agree with the others and say that relationships should feel more organic, and thus you should hide the numbers and give some other indication instead, like the response of the NPC. If you have visible points I think it starts to feel too gamey, and you get players not thinking in regards to what they want to do, but whether or not such and such action with an NPC is going to give them the most points. Instead, you want them to be thinking of the NPC like a person, and trying to evaluate what actions will put them on the NPCs good side.

And I would argue that in your example, giving the points right away when a player determines to rescue an NPC but must go on a long journey first is wrong. It doesn't effect the relationship until the NPC learns of it. Until then, all it indicates is that the player is interested in the NPC. Maybe if you have separate point systems keeping up with:
A: How much does the player seem to be indicating they like this NPC?
B: How much does the NPC like the player?

"A" is difficult however, since it is dangerous trying to interrupt the acts of the player. I find it much easier to just keep up with the NPC attraction, and then have a scene where the player can state they share these feelings or turn the NPC down.

And I think hiding the points can allow more dramatic scenes and actions. It will allow big shows of affection or valor to win over an NPC more quickly, or have a serious action derail or torpedo the relationship without it looking silly. If you had to say "NPC dissapproves! -50 points." it would seem silly and extreme to the player. "That many points off just for that?!" they would scream. But without points, with the NPC expressing themselves: "You went behind my back and slept with my sister?! How could you do that to me? Stay away from me!" Now the same 50 points are deducted behind the scenes, but players are not going to be thinking about points, but the fact that they cheated on this NPC and they found out, so OF COURSE they're mad at them.

In my own game, relationship meters are a hidden scale of (-100 to 0 to 100). Every NPC starts at 0 towards the player. In my game, every NPC has this scale, even those you can't date. 0 to 50 indicates Friendship, with 50 being the highest a non-dateable NPC can be. Now, only if a player makes romantic overtures towards a date-able NPC does the scale start to go over 50 representing a progressively deeper and more intense romance. Now, in the opposite direction 0 to -50, represents Enemies. This meter also stops at -50 for most NPCs, but there are certain NPCs (including some you can date) that a certain action or extremely antagonistic act can start the meter moving past -50 into Mortal Enemy territory.

But I supplement all this with event trackers. I.e. it isn't JUST the points that matter, but what the player did to build those points. So even if you do a reversal of points, say -75 back up to 75, the NPC will still remember that you were Mortal Enemies and why. It means a lot of extra dialogue, but it leads to some very fun relationships, including one where it is possible to be mutually in love with a mortal enemy. It creates wonderful drama where your and the NPCs actions are diametrically opposed to one another, but you still care for each other. So basically the player can get themselves in a "star-crossed" lovers situation.

I hope that gave you some ideas about different ways to handle something like this.

[Wyldstrife]

I vote to keep it hidden from the player, as this will often lead to a more immersive experience. Take the Mass Effect series, with it's dialogue tree, making it clear as day what is the given 'right' and what is the 'bad' choice, from the game's default point of view. This, in relation to the 'morality' system, makes it more than child's play to determine what action to take to get your desired result, which is most evident in character relations. However, their 'carrot on a stick' so to speak, is the fact that they make it a selling point that it is the culmination of these various choices that shape the outcome of the game, which in turn leads to added replay value. Especially considering the scope of the series being a trilogy. However, I personally feel that in order to maintain the players immersion, it is better to not to display the immediate outcome of the player's action, as it will leave them guessing and hoping at what the aforementioned outcome might be and what it might lead to. Where's the mystery in knowing the mechanics?

Anywho, those are my two cents.

[Taleweaver]

In a VN, by all means, keep the stats hidden. Like the people above, I absolutely recommend showing the effects of actions in the reactions of the characters involved, and that's it.

In my current almost-done project Adrift, your actions in the beginning of the game determine which character will accompany you during the rest of the story. However, they also accompany how the other characters in the game react towards you when you meet them later. Did you never meet them during the first part? Then they'll probably be indifferent towards you. Did they find you to be pleasant company? They will be more helpful to you and your chosen partner. Did you do something to alienate them? Well... don't expect them to be very friendly in your presence.

Do you ever see any of the stats involved? Hell, no! This is a story, not a number-crunching fest!

[LVUER]

You could go with Riviera system. Though they don't explicitly tell the player who likes or hates your decision, they add sweat, happy, angry, and sad bubble (along with SFX) to corresponding character, denoting that their points towards you has changed.

[papillon]

I think it really depends on the game. The more complicated the game and stat system is, the more difficult it's going to be to express meaningful feedback through description.

One thing I really dislike in some dating sims is when the relationship appears to be progressing just peachy, my love interest is saying nice things to me all the time, I'm unlocking all kinds of special scenes, and then at the end... I get an alone ending, because I failed to meet some esoteric point requirement I had no way to know about. WTF? (I seem to recall swearing at Princess Maker 4 over this because of problems with one of the princes. As far as I could tell he was in love with me!)

In visual novels it's usually unnecessary to display (+4 Love) because you can *tell* how your relationship is going, assuming it's well-written. In a dating sim where one wrong decision shouldn't scupper the whole relationship, you *do* likely need some way to check whether things are going well or not. That doesn't have to mean a complete numerical readout of every action, but a simple display of relationship status between you and other characters would do. After all, if it were real you could call them and ask them if everything was cool. If they slammed down the phone, you'd have a pretty big clue.

Mysterious organic relationships sound good but they can lead to extremely frustrating experiences for the player, particularly in games with a large variety of outcomes where completionists are desperately trying to find those last few possibilities.

[Pugfarts]

You could go with Riviera system. Though they don't explicitly tell the player who likes or hates your decision, they add sweat, happy, angry, and sad bubble (along with SFX) to corresponding character, denoting that their points towards you has changed.

I like these kind of visual indicators as well. It worked really well in persona 3 and 4 because you could tell when you made a good or bad choice, but the numbers themselves were less clear.

Main reason I'd like to see renpy enable animated .gifs

[LateWhiteRabbit]

In visual novels it's usually unnecessary to display (+4 Love) because you can *tell* how your relationship is going, assuming it's well-written. In a dating sim where one wrong decision shouldn't scupper the whole relationship, you *do* likely need some way to check whether things are going well or not. That doesn't have to mean a complete numerical readout of every action, but a simple display of relationship status between you and other characters would do. After all, if it were real you could call them and ask them if everything was cool. If they slammed down the phone, you'd have a pretty big clue.

Mysterious organic relationships sound good but they can lead to extremely frustrating experiences for the player, particularly in games with a large variety of outcomes where completionists are desperately trying to find those last few possibilities.

Hmm, that's true.

But still, I think sometimes just being able to look and see how the relationship is doing spoils things and prevents certain types of story lines. For instance, the player may be pursuing a boy, repeatedly doing nice things towards him, etc. but he shows no interest, and it takes a certain meaningful act AFTER all those hidden points have accumulated to start dating him proper. (I've been the boy in this situation in real life before - liking a girl more and more but giving her no indication of my growing affection toward her as she pursues me - because I want to wait and make sure I really want to be with her and she doesn't blow it. If I show no interest before that I can pull out of the potential relationship easily and with no drama. I know, I know. I am a horrible person.) This is commonly seen when trying to date so called ice-queens, etc. I think having something that told you - "Hey, she still acts cold and indifferent towards you, but her warm feelings on the inside toward you are at 75%!" - would ruin it.

MoaCube just showed something recently they are doing with Cinders that I thought was interesting. They will be displaying a tiny blooming branch in the corner of the screen every time you get a new scene caused by an earlier choice you made. I think that's something that will help completionists.

Part of eliminating frustration with these things is effectively communicating the personality and wants of relationship characters. Too often players are just left with the "be nice all you can" strategy to getting a date with characters, when in reality, if something more or different is needed instead, that needs to be communicated to the player.

I'll use True Love 95 as an example because I think it does this well, even though it has a lot of characters. The class president girl requires you to be ranked well in the class academically, as well as being smart and nice to her. This is communicated to the player in certain dialogues they can have if they only partially meet the requirements: "You're a nice guy and I think you're sweet, but I could never date someone that doesn't take their grades seriously." The player is immediately told by this that they need to do better on the school tests and bring their grades up to date this girl.

[Camille]

One thing I really dislike in some dating sims is when the relationship appears to be progressing just peachy, my love interest is saying nice things to me all the time, I'm unlocking all kinds of special scenes, and then at the end... I get an alone ending, because I failed to meet some esoteric point requirement I had no way to know about. WTF? (I seem to recall swearing at Princess Maker 4 over this because of problems with one of the princes. As far as I could tell he was in love with me!)

In visual novels it's usually unnecessary to display (+4 Love) because you can *tell* how your relationship is going, assuming it's well-written.

I agree with this 100%. That top paragraph is something that particularly annoys me. (even in something as recent as the Winter in Fairbrook game, haha--he basically said he loved me, but I still ended up alone because I think I was short a few points in one stat! ) If you're writing something like a VN with choices, those choices should matter. If those choices matter, then you shouldn't need a meter or a visual points system to tell you how your choice mattered. If you say something that a character doesn't like, that character should treat you differently or at least react badly to that one thing you said, right? That's much more meaningful than "X's friendship points went down!", which also breaks immersion.

If you can't get through the game without a walkthrough/a screen that tells you exactly how the characters feel about you, then your writing isn't transparent enough. Subtlety is good, but not to the point where every choice is a total stab in the dark. If the choice doesn't affect the character yet (like in the example you provided in your second post), don't add the related points until the character is affected.

But I supplement all this with event trackers. I.e. it isn't JUST the points that matter, but what the player did to build those points. So even if you do a reversal of points, say -75 back up to 75, the NPC will still remember that you were Mortal Enemies and why. It means a lot of extra dialogue, but it leads to some very fun relationships, including one where it is possible to be mutually in love with a mortal enemy. It creates wonderful drama where your and the NPCs actions are diametrically opposed to one another, but you still care for each other. So basically the player can get themselves in a "star-crossed" lovers situation.

Love this idea, too. I have this going in my current game-in-progress where there's (invisible) points, but specific things you say/things you do together are remembered, as well, and have an impact on the story and/or how the main character perceived by the other characters. It really is a pain to write because it makes things much more complex, but it makes the relationships seem much more genuine, as well.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

In visual novels it's usually unnecessary to display (+4 Love) because you can *tell* how your relationship is going, assuming it's well-written.

I agree with this 100%. That top paragraph is something that particularly annoys me. (even in something as recent as the Winter in Fairbrook game, haha--he basically said he loved me, but I still ended up alone because I think I was short a few points in one stat! ) If you're writing something like a VN with choices, those choices should matter. If those choices matter, then you shouldn't need a meter or a visual points system to tell you how your choice mattered. If you say something that a character doesn't like, that character should treat you differently or at least react badly to that one thing you said, right? That's much more meaningful than "X's friendship points went down!", which also breaks immersion.
[/quote]
I think one way to handle this is to do what I am doing - all the hidden relationship points do is unlock choices and options with that romanceable character. It is your choices out of those unlocked options that determine whether or not you end up with the character, not the point value of the hidden meter. That avoids situations like you talk about from Winter in Fairbrook - you would never share a declaration of love with a character unless you had sufficient points for their ending already.

[Camille]

I think one way to handle this is to do what I am doing - all the hidden relationship points do is unlock choices and options with that romanceable character. It is your choices out of those unlocked options that determine whether or not you end up with the character, not the point value of the hidden meter. That avoids situations like you talk about from Winter in Fairbrook - you would never share a declaration of love with a character unless you had sufficient points for their ending already.

Yep, I think this is pretty much the way it should be in every romance-based (or even just character/relationship-based) VN. Because gosh, if your affection points are at 100 but one time you said something absolutely horrible to the character, they should remember that. D:

[Gear]

I want to start by thanking you all for your input.

The reason for my question was the complexity of the story. Most of the characters in the story are not very extroverted. They will say what they need to, don't get me wrong, but they hide highly sarcastic sides, as well as other emotions. Therefore:

Option 1: Rescue Bryan
+5 Bryan
+5 Ethan

Option 2: Continue without him
-5 Bryan
+5 Damian

In the above example, Ethan isn't particularly saying he's happy about the decision, but he was in favor of it, even if it was unsaid. However, I agree that if the player is paying enough attention, then it's moot, and if they're not, then I suppose it's on them. I don't want to make things TOO obvious all the time, especially later in the game when it's supposed to get more difficult.