What's fun in a stat-raising sim?

[persium]

An example of a bad stat-raising sim would be... Persona 4 with ONLY the options to study, work or do thing X in your room for a year, while the scenes for those activities remain roughly the same.

lol, considering my idea is mostly inspired by Persona 3/4... I should probably ask for your thoughts.
did the 'ranks' with those 'Social Links' seem fun when thrown in with the stat raising aspect, without the dungeon crawling and saving-the-world plot?

for those who haven't played Persona games...
you raise the stats to see the different scenes of the social links, which aren't one-time and missable, and the player has multiple opportunities to see the scenes, usually on set certain days of the week. they're in order, you see scene 3 before you can see scene 4, and you see scene 3 because your score with that character is at 30 points. your choices give you some points toward that score, hanging out with them without a major scene does the same, etc...

was that aspect of the game fun?

I'm certainly not fond of their 'you must be this level in this stat to start the link', but if the stat being too low makes sense as to why you can't progress any further with whoever you're after, would that be fine for you?

I could ask more specific questions but then that'd be getting even more into MY specific need rather than general questions that might help other people. unless that's totally fine...

[HikkiPanda]

for those who haven't played Persona games...
you raise the stats to see the different scenes of the social links, which aren't one-time and missable, and the player has multiple opportunities to see the scenes, usually on set certain days of the week. they're in order, you see scene 3 before you can see scene 4, and you see scene 3 because your score with that character is at 30 points. your choices give you some points toward that score, hanging out with them without a major scene does the same, etc...

was that aspect of the game fun?

I think it's fun, but I think it will be better if the events are not missable as long as stats and character points requirements are fulfilled.

I'm certainly not fond of their 'you must be this level in this stat to start the link', but if the stat being too low makes sense as to why you can't progress any further with whoever you're after, would that be fine for you?

Just like everyone else stated, I think it will be better if low stats only cause the player to progress more slowly with the relationship instead of halting it completely.

I could ask more specific questions but then that'd be getting even more into MY specific need rather than general questions that might help other people. unless that's totally fine...

I think it's okay, but if you're in doubt then just make a new thread and asks your questions

[persium]

I think it's fun, but I think it will be better if the events are not missable as long as stats and character points requirements are fulfilled.

yeah, that's what I was planning on. I don't like missable events either lol. how is the player supposed to know, if the story doesn't mention it, that it exists at all? ._.'
I had a one-time party thing in mind that would technically be a missable event, but is not required for any endings to be reached. it was only a bonus scene that seeing will just add points to the character's level of affection, so that's a bit less hanging out with them between major scenes later.

Just like everyone else stated, I think it will be better if low stats only cause the player to progress more slowly with the relationship instead of halting it completely.

I wasn't sure how that would be coded, but... maybe, the lower a stat is, the less points you get for a choice in a scene... ?

[HikkiPanda]

yeah, that's what I was planning on. I don't like missable events either lol. how is the player supposed to know, if the story doesn't mention it, that it exists at all? ._.'
I had a one-time party thing in mind that would technically be a missable event, but is not required for any endings to be reached. it was only a bonus scene that seeing will just add points to the character's level of affection, so that's a bit less hanging out with them between major scenes later.

No problem I guess. I think you can even use several of this bonus scene, hopefully after the player notice that he/she missed some of the CG events he/she will be encouraged to play it more . Maybe add achievement/unlockable bonus for player who manages to get those event CGs

I wasn't sure how that would be coded, but... maybe, the lower a stat is, the less points you get for a choice in a scene... ?

Yeah, that will work I guess

[modesty]

Adding to what Pappillon mentioned earlier, pure random stat rolls are a game design sin.
Players need that illusion of control or predictability and having it be a random dice roll every time makes everything a crap shoot. It does not matter how high a number you have in stat A, it's still a random guess how well you will do in that particular gain.

To combat that, there obviously needs to be a reduction in the frequency of failure/good outcomes. It could be that when you have a LOW number in Stat A you gain faster because like in real life Lesson one is the easiest and you most likely will get through it quickly. Alternatively if you have a LOW number in Stat A, the gain will be pure chance, but as the number increases the more likely you are to perform that task well or good.

For me, story progression is really important for any stat based game. So in a game like Re:Alistair there was a sense of time passing as different events happened at the end of every week or by being in the right place at the right time. These are things that don't necessarily rely on how high a particular stat is. (I think that qualifies for a Surprise/Event like LateWhiteRabbit explained thoroughly.)

[MoPark]

(though I would have no idea how to code them =_=; )

Which part in particular do you not know how to code? Depending on your answer, I may be able to offer some help.

The VN I'm working on using stats. I'm going to try to minimize the concept of level-grinding, but there certainly I think should be rewards for those who do level-grind, so as to give incentive to players who do enjoy that.

Also in terms of the conversation on how to gain stats, the idea of diminishing returns to scale seems to come up a lot in gaming. That is to say, the higher your level is, the more experience you need to level up, leaving you with a graph like this:



I haven't seen too many RPGs that break away from that overall concept, and I believe there's a good reason for that.

[Anna]

lol, considering my idea is mostly inspired by Persona 3/4... I should probably ask for your thoughts.
did the 'ranks' with those 'Social Links' seem fun when thrown in with the stat raising aspect, without the dungeon crawling and saving-the-world plot?

I only spotted this now ^^; oops.

Anyway, I generally just dislike stat-raising aspects (like doing repeatable chores to get your intelligence up or something), but I think that the way Persona handled it with the social links events made it more tolerable and more fun than usual. Mostly because they really felt like a reward (fun and thought-out scenes), you had a lot of possible links and it showed character development + you learned about the characters and more.

All in all, I think players will forgive you for boring parts if the rewards are good enough, but that doesn't change the fact those parts are boring.