Visibility of stats?

[Elmiwisa]

Hi. After some thought, I put this topics in the Writing section because I think it has more to do with the narrative and presentation.
Anyway, normally VN tend to have stats, be it affection points or some other sort of points, as well as flags which can be considered stats in a way; however, they are rarely showed. The distinction between a normal VN and a stats raising sims is of course whether you display these stats at all. In a stats raising sims it is normal to still have both visible stats and hidden stats. If flags are shown, they tend to appear as say an entry in the MC's journal. So here we will just talk about numerical stats.

Common type of stats are:
-Route point: determine the route you will be able to take/forced to take.
-Relationship points: usually affection (romance genre) or trust (mystery genre). They can be simply route points, but could also be used to influence events with the specific character.
-Personal skill: strength, intelligence, etc. use for influence outcome of event, usually higher is better.
-Morality scale: good vs evil, nice vs mean, order vs chaos, etc. influence available action, usually being on one side disable action associated with the other side.

There are also various degree of stats' visibility. Common choice are:
-Completely invisible (player will never get explicit acknowledgement about their existence from the game, and must infer their existence from the effects).
-Existence acknowledged (the game said those stats are there, but nothing more).
-Effect known (the game acknowledge the stats and what it does): this cover anything from a vague relationship (for example, Stress affect chance of failure) to a fully explained relationship (for example, each point increase in Stress increase chance of failure of a learning attempt by 1%, reduce chance of failure of a cruel action by 1%, and have no effects on the rest).
-Value known (the game tell you the numerical of the stats, or of its effect; so in the above example, you will either be informed of the Stress stats, or the chance of failure): this cover anything from a vague allusion (for example, tint the screen redder with more Stress, or alter the dialogue slightly for every 10 points change in Stress stats) to a full-blown showing numerical value.
-Subverted stats (the game make it look like a stats, but either it is never there, or have no effects at all).

So the question is, for effective presentation and good narrative:
In the genre X, for a given stats of type Y, what are the reason for and against to have that stats display at the level of visibility Z?
(fill in X, Y, and Z your choice)

[SundownKid]

IMO, stats make the game a bit less serious/realistic in its presentation. For example, if affection/love stats are visible and not invisible, it seems less serious, since in real life you can only infer things based on people's behavior. Of course, there are some people who disagree with having any stats, but they are a necessary tool due to your limited writing repertoire if you want to make a non-linear game. However, actually showing them to the player encourages them to "compete" in a way rather than focus on the story.

In Icebound, I have a visible reputation stat system. However, I plan to remove it in future games and make all stats invisible because it forces the main character's personality to change too much. I'd rather have situational decisions than moral ones.

[Elmiwisa]

If I were to show stats, I probably would need to code in a stats screen, so unless there is quite a significant number of stats to show, it's probably not worth it.
That say, I feels like just hiding all the stats might not be such a great idea either. Maybe if the VN contains very few choices or very few stats that behave in a way that conform to the genre (eg. affection points in otome game), then it won't matter if the stats are shown or not.
But what if there are some complexity in how the stats behave, and the VN have a lot more choice that can affect those stats? For example, let's say the VN have 50+ choice which affect 2 stats: affection and trust of the guy the MC is after. If affection is high and trust is low he turn yandere. If affection is high, but trust is slightly low he hire a detective, which might fall in love with you himself. If affection is low and trust is high, he considered you a comrade. And so on and so forth. In the end, a complex interaction between the 2 stats can significantly change whether the outcome. Without showing it, I feels like the player are never gonna be able to figure out which choice to make to get which ending. Even worse, if some choices give out a random amount of stats, then player can't even look up a walkthrough either.

[SHiNKiROU]

I know stats are unrealistic, so in my worlds, stats are actually scientific theories: Fighting strength is an integral of attack * defense over endurance and attack and defense are defined like the International Prototype Kilogram.

Even though they can see the stats of their organo-synthetic monsters, I chose to hide the relationship values in the dating part.

If I were to create a raising sim that is not science fiction or fantasy, I would justify stats by mentioning a fictional personality test that the character will put it on her diary every night (and share them to their friends?). The unintended consequence is that other people, including your love interest and rivals, are also talking about their stats. Personality tests can work for business and military settings since they like to use stats to make people work more efficiently.

[cuttlefish]

If you want the player to strategize, show the relevant stats. But I would say,

-HIDE Route points [Completely invisible]
If your story and point allocations at choices are crafted well, the player can tell (mostly) where they're headed from the writing and you wouldn't need to show this. It would break the immersion.

-HIDE Relationship points [Completely invisible]
Same case as above. If the player finds them self in a situation where they want to see stats because they can't get on the path they want, I'd say point allocations should be changed or else the range of the point value to unlock certain routes could be changed. (After reaching an ending once, these stats could be shown if the player wants to achieve a perfect ending with a character, or get 100% completion of the game [Existence acknowledged?]. The stats could remain invisible if there is another progress indicator, like CG galleries.)

-SHOW Personal skill [Effect / Value known]
If the stats are relevant (influences events), influenced by the player, and something the writing can't show easily (like RPG stats), show it.

-SHOW Morality scale [Effect known]
This sounds more appropriate to a management sim, and it would be used to summarize events. For example, how the player's actions have affected country X or patient Y.

Hopefully this answers your question.

[Tsundere Lightning]

If you want to include these stats, it's less breaking to immersion, at least to my immersion, to have the stat blocks displayed in a blatantly out-of-universe way.

If there is an in-universe rationale behind them, the characters can reference it as well, but I always hate it when a character tells my that my Strength is 18, my Paragon rating is 55 and that I should press and hold X to charge my sword.

Much better is to have them say "You've gotten very strong." [Your Strength is 18.] "I heard a bard sing of how you convinced the Dragon of Ryven Pass to leave us in peace, is it true?" [You are 65 Paragon/5 Renegade.] "You need merely concentrate your will in the tip of your blade, and then... release for a powerful whirlwind attack." [Press and hold X to charge your attack, then release to execute it.]

It's kind of weird and counter-intuitive, but I always liked it when games did this - maintained a clear separation between the stats and what they meant in universe.