Anybody here also thinks that "freedom of choice" can be detrimental to players' experience ?

[gobaterann]

People often complain about certain type of games on here. RPGmaker games that make players walk around for ages to artificially push game time, sandboxes where it is extremely difficult to trigger the correct content (use a banana at 4:30 in the morning on saturdays in front of the drug store to trigger a scene, etc.). Yet when reading game reviews on here, I often tend to disagree when I see people positively using "choice" as something positive when rating games and have never seen anyone voice this disagreement. I know that these games don't work the same way for everyone. But I am convinced that I am not alone in the way these games work for me. IMO, it boils down to a few things :

- The gameplay in these game is based on rewarding players with sex scenes (ie why games with "content" are always considered good)
- To get these scenes, players will either patiently grind stats (like in an RPG or management game), explore settings or .... read an illustrated story as far as pure VNs are concerned (but I am really not a fan of that genre) which reward players for their patience.
- Visual novels with "freedom of choice" will reward player for taking the "right" decisions.
- The problem is : these "right decisions" often depend on how the developers see their own story rather than the players. Sometimes the "right" decision means being gentle with a female character, sometimes it means being brazen, sometimes you have to alternate, sometimes it is purely arbitrary and it is impossible to know what effects your decision had until it is too late. Of course this can be mitigated with a points and roll back system. But you can never be so sure that you really took a good decision (for example in games where you have both lust and love points) to get your rewards.
- Story based games often have a very bad replay value, as there is no discovery element anymore, time spent on rereading or skipping text has no value at all, it is time wasted.
- This means that a walkthrough will almost always be necessary if you want to get access to the rewards (ie sex scenes), killing the immersion.

Personally, the kind of games that I find much more fun to play are those that allow players to reach every single scene in a single playthrough, where a "bad decision" doesn't mean you need to start over if you are reaching for a specific type of reward (say, a threesome with characters C and D) but where you still have to "work" a bit to reach the scenes. IMO, games like Milfy City, Solvalley schools and so on.

Anybody on the same page as me on this?

 

[AmazonessKing]

I agree with you on a couple of things, namely: It's very subjective what is a right or wrong choice, that's why in my game, there are no right or wrong choices, just choices that will lead to a different conclusion, and that goes to the other point I agree with: getting all scenes in a single playthrough is a must, having you being locked out of content because of choices is stupid, like how summertime saga locks you out of girls based on choices, it's just ridiculous you have to reload the game to get the others in a much much previous point.

I also agree with how story based games have bad replayability, so if you have different choices, locking you out of content is pretty bad and boring because gameplay doesn't consist on exploration but reading, so keeping the changes those choices do at minimum but still easy to traverse if you want to 100% the game is also a must.

As an example: My game will implement a point system based on choices, 1 choices will give you 1 point, the other 0 and the other will subtract 1 point. These choices will slightly change the text of the following scene, but will not change the scene on itself, but in the end of each route, depending on how many points you scored, you will receive 3 different endings. The thing is, they are not "good" or "bad" ending, just different endings, and I hope they are satisfying for the player based in their choices regardless of what ending they liked the most and why. That way you can go back on choices. Also, I want to implement that once you finish that route, choices will change in appearance, to be more clear what each choice do, and even include a point counter for that route. That way what it used to be a "don't surrender" in your first play through, will become a "don't surrender (+1)" in your next.

I believe that choices are an "illusion". There's no way a player can have absolute control on how an story evolves, BUT I also believe that any player, me included, would actually want to be involved in the story, and feel their choices matter, which is why you give them the illusion, so they can think they made a difference, as small as it could have been.

 

[thecardinal]

I agree that all scenes should be attainable in a single playthrough.

As a developer, coming up with a points system to rewars 'good' and 'bad' choices, or branching paths in the gameplay is a lot more work for you.

Unless the game has replayability, I really don't feel like playing the game all over again just to see more scenes. And neither do most players, that is why you see so many save requests in threads here.

 

[AmazonessKing]

I think a way to handle it is also adding cheat codes. It's cheap, but effective. I personally think branching paths are easy if you know how to streamline them or not making them too complicated, both for the dev and the player.

 

[kytee]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're contradicting yourself here. You want choices that matter and have impact, but you don't want it to change the story in any meaningful way. If route A and route B lead exactly the same place, your choices are worthless. You could remove those choices entirely and you'd have a kinetic visual novel that plays the exact same way. I don't see how this makes a game more replayable than a game with branching routes that locks you out of content.

The problem that I think you're reaching for are bad implementations of branching. When a player is given a choice, he should be given context for that choice and just the right amount of hints that will allow him to predict the consequences of his choices without outright telling him. Choices are bad when the player has no way of knowing what might be the consequence of each choice.

 

[pasunna]

you can fancy thinking on a good perfect game very easy
but making it is in the other hand
you say choice that matter
yeah every body can think of it
but who will do it?

do something she hates you
do something she like you
do something she so so
and then triple work load go in with these separate scene going on
with much more to come in the future
not to mention that it will affect the main story line too?

I don't know if you are on work now or a student
but when your boss or teacher coming in and say
three times work for this week what would you say?

if you want to more clear about how hard it is
just make a think map by your self
choice 1-2-3
choose-2-choice[1-2-3] - whatever - choice[1-2-3] -
no story dialogue etc
just write some idea that difference from the other choice route no detail until the end
you will see how hard of that by yourself
more than just talk about what amazing perfect good it can
in just talk and think anything good can be...

 

[Sphere42]

First of all disentangle the concept of choice from (potentially bad) implementations or technically unrelated mechanics like grind, obscurity or RNG. The only arguments against offering choice I can think of are tied to immersion into very specific contexts e.g. roleplaying as a slave or cuck where outside forces need to maintain dominance and initiative. Meanwhile "choice" is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY if the game is to include more than one "taboo"/"controversial" fetish (or even plain and benign ones like pubic hair...) and they do not form the core of the entire game.

I agree with unlocking/scene availability in general but there are a few exceptions: true split paths like love/slave in Four Elements Trainer or good/evil in LOQO might require the additional context to make sense and being able to oscillate freely ruins immersion. Again anything dealing with specific types of sexuality or fetishes might still be enjoyable as post-game gallery unlocks but straight/gay, dom/sub or lover/slut routes tend to be so fundamentally different it makes more sense to replay them outright as well. On the other hand a full gallery unlock (with no in-universe explanation) is pretty much necessary in every Game Over rape game to realign the player's goals with those of their character(s) and the game mechanics.

Reward broadcasting can be an issue even without real "choice" in the form of content being "optional" and that includes being optional and poorly telegraphed within the sex scene itself, like optional boob fondling or kissing actions. Walking Simulator, trial-and-error romance and rampant RNG can all be applied to an otherwise linear framework to serve exactly the same purpose of padding the game.

 

[gobaterann]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're contradicting yourself here. You want choices that matter and have impact

No I don't actually. I don't want "choices that have an impact", I want some sort of gameplay in which my efforts (ie something more than just clicking through text) will be regularly rewarded with scenes, and the overall experience will be better if the storyline is at least decent. Many mainstream (non porn) games are linear, do not have branching storylines, and yet still have gameplay without being "kinetic visual novels" (say, GTA5 for example). It is the same here. Milfy City has no branching storylines, yet it still works on a work-reward system that make it worthwhile.

 

[kytee]

Ah okay, I understand now. I play adult games first and foremost for engaging stories with branches, so I never understood your argument. That being said, have you ever seen this video?

You must be registered to see the links

What he talks about is the reason I don't play adult games but gravitate towards adult novels.

 

[Sphere42]

Many mainstream (non porn) games are linear, do not have branching storylines, and yet still have gameplay without being "kinetic visual novels" (say, GTA5 for example).

What the hell have they done to GTA5 if you bring it up as a positive example in this context?!? I don't remember what the story/"intended progression" in Vice City was, heck I don't remember whether GTA2 even had an actual story but the lightning gun and flying tanks still are some of my fondest gaming nostalgia moments.

And correct me if I'm wrong and they really changed that much but I would expect GTA5 to give you plenty of "choices" in terms of which vehicles or weapons to use, which route to drive between many objectives or vague goals such as "earn money" or "diminish rival influence" at times, with some approaches being objectively better than others but several distinct viable options.

 

[SlLePER]

I would say that choice* is pretty much essential in a game and is something that makes the experience completely different from other forms of media. I consider the kind of choice where it has purely "good" and "bad" outcomes to be a poor design, equivalent in awfulness to adding time-fillers**, especially if they directly and frequently lead to game-overs. I am not saying that you shouldn't have good or bad choices in a game, just that they should also offer something different.
They should also change the story in some way, not neccesarilly something major, just a thing makes you view the story from a different perspective. When I think choices can actually be detrimental is when they serve just as another time-filler, e.g. you play for some time then a usually really arbitrary choice takes you a completely different path and the it repeats in a way that makes sure that you can't just reload to see the other options without also going through the usually very repetive gameplay that led up to the choice.

*Depending on a game it can take a lot of forms, you can have it both pure-gameplay and pure-story games.
**This and other absolutely horrible design decisions are unfortunately extremely common in games, either because the devs are inexperienced, hostile to the players, or just add things they think will make them the most money. While I don't agree with everything in there, it would be really nice if people who want to make games took at least a cursory look at the no twinkie database, or other game design resources.

 

[Segnbora]

I go back and forth on this. I don't mind exclusionary choices unless they come really early in a game. DMD, for instance, can deny you scenes (or, more correctly, extensions of scenes) very late in Chapter 2 because of choices you made fairly early in Chapter 1. If it was a relatively short game that wouldn't be a big deal, but it's not and the idea of replaying from the beginning is, at least for me, a nonstarter. I definitely prefer branching — like, say, in a game where there are multiple single-character endings and also a harem ending — to come later rather than earlier. The problem, of course, is that this isn't necessarily realistic; few characters are going to say, "okay, I know you've had tons of sex with every other piece of artwork in this game and lied to all of us about it, and I'm totally fine with that and in no way need you to get tested for STDs, but now it's time to settle down with just me." Someone searching for more realism in their story yet wanting to provide multiple options is going to confront this sooner or later.

I'm more and more turned off by open world/sandbox games without persistent and repeatable content, but that's a matter of personal taste. I don't like clicking around a map and searching for the right time/place/event trigger any more than I like being forced to ride elevators twice a day in RPGM games. Wasting my time isn't the same thing as making me earn a reward.

Regarding choice itself, though, I think the biggest problem is that most writers aren't skilled enough (or careful enough) at plotting to make the choices drive the story rather than simply adjust variables. Ideally, any choice offered to a player should have logical and predictable outcomes, not capricious but invisible (unless you study the code) attempts at branching-in-service-of-replayability. Behind the scenes, my general feeling is that if a series of choices can't work just as well as a series of content gates rather than counters, they're not well-crafted choices. Onscreen, choices should accumulate to push the story and/or the character forward without hiding that process from the player, but also (in a well-written story) in a way that doesn't shoot of fireworks and announce, "HEY! BIG CHOICE HERE!!!" That a choice is important should be obvious, no matter how subtly it's worded. That a choice has had an effect should be equally obvious. In Ren'py, with the rollback option intact, that's the most powerful tool at the storyteller's disposal. Yet so few know how to use it as effectively as possible.

Here's an example of what I mean. In The Adventurous Couple, a bit past halfway through the game, the player is offered a choice to encourage or prevent the wife from having sex with one particular and narratively disruptive character. It's probably the most important choice in the entire game because the story bifurcates into cheating and non-cheating routes at that point. But the core flaw is that the player is asked to actively make that choice. The game has been tracking variables that indicate how open the relationship is, how honest the couple are with each other, how committed they are to their marriage alongside all the extracurricular activities, and how much enthusiasm they both have for each other's extramarital excursions. Whether or not the wife is going to have sex with this particular character (and thus follow a path in which her husband's preferences and fetishes are of decreasing importance versus her own) should already be determined; the character herself should be the one making the choice. As it is, though, none of the choices leading up to that inflection point affect the player's options, even though we're told those choices matter because the dev went ahead and added a visible stat box to the interface. That's the illusion of choice followed by a request that the player make up for that failure with a choice that actually does matter.

 

[jamdan]

Well, that seems to be from the perspective of someone who plays the games for sex scenes. Obviously, if you just play for sex scenes you don't want to "work" for it whether thats grind or having to make multiple saves to see all of the scenes.

If you play for the story, freedom of choice (which usually will lead to different routes) is a good thing. You can choose your LI, you can choose whether or not to go down a specific route etc. Those games have a lot of replay value, you want to get all the endings you would like to see. "Content" means different things depending on who you're talking too, for some "content" is sex/lewd scenes and for some "content" is story content and plot/character development etc.

I'm solidly in that 2nd camp. If I want porn (sex scenes), there are literally millions of videos on porn sites. To me, playing a game for sex scenes alone is just a waste of time. Take whatever amount of time it takes to download, uncompress and advance through the game or just go find a video or something similar you like.

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But choice can become a bad thing if it leads to branching that is too complex, a lot of games get abandoned because the devs bit off more than they can chew. But IMO, thats a dev problem not a choice problem.

 

[Avaron1974]

Personally, the kind of games that I find much more fun to play are those that allow players to reach every single scene in a single playthrough,

I hate those.

If there are no consequences there is no point to giving a choice. May as well just make a kinetic novel or get rid of the plot entirely and just have a slide show of porn.

Giving everything no matter what is boring as fuck. I can go to pornhub for that shit.

 

[khumak]

There are a bunch of different ways that choices can be set up in a game so that it's not fun. Many games have choices set up that were really not thought out well. For instance:

1. Choices without enough context for the player to intelligently choose the "right" answer. If I walk around a corner and see 2 doors and my choices are to open the left door or the right door and one of those leads to a good outcome and the other leads to a bad outcome, that is an objectively bad design decision. It's not possible for me to intelligently decide which door is the better choice so my only option is to save the game, pick randomly and reload if I get it wrong. Something leading up to that scene needs to clue me in to the fact that the girl I'm chasing ran through the door on the left or whatever or it's just a pointless excersize in save scumming.

2. Choices that literally have no effect. If I'm talking to someone and I every dialog option leads to the exact same outcome without even having any stat/score adjustments as a result then that choice is entirely pointless and should not be there. Choices that lead to the same immediate outcome but have differences like score/stat adjustments or something are ok as long as those stats matter eventually and as long as there is enough context leading up to the choice to be able to choose intelligently.

3. The game over/bad ending. There are situations where a choice is so bad that a game over/bad ending is justified, but if most of your choices boil down to one option leads to continuation of the game and the other option is just an immediate game over/bad ending then it's just an excersize in forced save scumming.

4. Stat/score affecting choices leading up to endings that require perfect (or near perfect) scores. If the primary difference between most of my choices is just a minor difference in some stat or score adjustment and I have to wait til the end of the game to find out that I don't have a perfect score so I get the bad ending, then most of those choices better be blatantly obvious or it's just a frustrating excersize in following someone's walkthrough.

I like it when choices have consequences but only if there is enough context to be able to make an intelligent choice. I don't mind bad endings but only if it's an interesting scene and only if it never happens via some random, accidental choice. I don't mind when stories reconverge back to the same path after some choice you made that leads to a divergence in the story. It's easier to make an in depth story for each path if some of the content is the same. Ideally a story like that would diverge in multiple places with interesting things that are entirely unique to that path before reconverging to some common path again later.

To me context is really the most common element that most games get wrong though. I should NEVER be faced with a choice that matters and have no idea which option is the right choice without looking at a walkthrough or save scumming. Minor choices that are purely random don't bother me as long as they're not adjusting stats/scores in a game where I need a perfect score to win. Random choices are also less of a problem in a sandbox style game where scenes are repeatable so you can "fix" mistakes from a previous scene without save scumming.

 

[HarveyD]

I think the issue with a lot of VNs is that choices are often just Yes or No to a certain type of content or fetish, you pick yes and get a scene or no and don't get it. A better option would be to have your choices lead to two different scenes that are mutually exclusive so that you always get something no matter what you pick.

Choices that lead to game overs are just pointless, I'm sure we can all agree.

I'm not a fan of points based games, there's usually not enough variance in what the points do to make it worth do anything other than just going full "romance" one play through and full "slut" or something in another. Games that require a certain amount of points for an action later on in the game are annoying too. Take "A wife and a Mother", you can't walk naked across a womens shower room because you didn't flirt with your son and his friend (or something like that). Those choices are so far apart and shouldn't have an impact on one another.

 

[khumak]

I think the issue with a lot of VNs is that choices are often just Yes or No to a certain type of content or fetish, you pick yes and get a scene or no and don't get it. A better option would be to have your choices lead to two different scenes that are mutually exclusive so that you always get something no matter what you pick.

Choices that lead to game overs are just pointless, I'm sure we can all agree.

I'm not a fan of points based games, there's usually not enough variance in what the points do to make it worth do anything other than just going full "romance" one play through and full "slut" or something in another. Games that require a certain amount of points for an action later on in the game are annoying too. Take "A wife and a Mother", you can't walk naked across a womens shower room because you didn't flirt with your son and his friend (or something like that). Those choices are so far apart and shouldn't have an impact on one another.

I agree about the fetish thing. I really appreciate it when a dev adds an alternate option for a scene where there might be fringe sex option there that a lot of people won't like. So rather than have to turn it down entirely I can get some alternate scene.

I think points based games can be done in a way that is fun if it's done right. If you're using that as a difficulty mode and you want there to be some challenge in the game that's fine but build in enough wiggle room that a player can play through the game and do ok on the first playthrough without ever looking at a walkthrough (maybe not get the best ending but not be completely lost) and then be able to get the best endings on the 2nd playthrough without needing to take notes or look at a walkthrough. I should not need perfect knowledge of the scoring system to get the scenes I want.

I also think that bad endings can actually enhance a game if they're done right, but most games waste that opportunity. I think if they're done right they should be thought of more of as alternate ending rather than a bad ending. Create some sort of an interesting story path for the bad ending that's actually worth plaything through to see. For instance rather than an abrupt ending you can have NTR or some other sort of major relationship change that results from following the "bad ending" path. Or some villain takes over at the end or whatever and you get to see an interesting storyline about the build up to that. This should not be a surprise though.

This should be something the player is getting hints about as he plays so he knows he's on that path (whether it's intentional or not). Maybe MC gets depressed and ends up committing suicide on the bad ending path. Or his wife cheats on him. It doesn't really matter what the end result is as long as there is a story building up to it that's worth playing through to see. Is there some reason I want to see this guy's life falling apart like that? There needs to be or it's not really worth doing. Similar to a game where you can play as the good guy or the bad guy. There should be some unique reasons to play both paths.

 

[215303j]

Basically I think that playing a game / branching story with the intention to see all content in one playthrough is rather stupid for a number of reasons.
1) The core idea of a game is that the player has some freedom in how things work out.
2) Freedom of choice means that you are likely to miss some content.
3) Some content is mutually exclusive. Harem is a trope that I'd like to avoid, because it is ridiculous in most cases. If you confess your everlasting love to one girl while declaring the same the next day to the other two roommates would be extremely unlikely IRL. And e.g. avoidable NTR simply can't be avoided or not avoided at the same time, so in a game where NTR is not welcome, you'll (hopefully) never see those scenes.

My "perfect game" in terms of game design is GGGB. The variety of outcomes is enormous. At the same time, the outcomes are also reasonable and believable.

 

[HarveyD]

I think points based games can be done in a way that is fun if it's done right. If you're using that as a difficulty mode and you want there to be some challenge in the game that's fine but build in enough wiggle room that a player can play through the game and do ok on the first playthrough without ever looking at a walkthrough (maybe not get the best ending but not be completely lost) and then be able to get the best endings on the 2nd playthrough without needing to take notes or look at a walkthrough. I should not need perfect knowledge of the scoring system to get the scenes I want.

I also think that bad endings can actually enhance a game if they're done right, but most games waste that opportunity. I think if they're done right they should be thought of more of as alternate ending rather than a bad ending. Create some sort of an interesting story path for the bad ending that's actually worth plaything through to see. For instance rather than an abrupt ending you can have NTR or some other sort of major relationship change that results from following the "bad ending" path. Or some villain takes over at the end or whatever and you get to see an interesting storyline about the build up to that. This should not be a surprise though.

This should be something the player is getting hints about as he plays so he knows he's on that path (whether it's intentional or not). Maybe MC gets depressed and ends up committing suicide on the bad ending path. Or his wife cheats on him. It doesn't really matter what the end result is as long as there is a story building up to it that's worth playing through to see. Is there some reason I want to see this guy's life falling apart like that? There needs to be or it's not really worth doing. Similar to a game where you can play as the good guy or the bad guy. There should be some unique reasons to play both paths.

I don't mind choices leading to bad events, such as a character dying, but complete game overs too early don't add anything. A choice leading to a character death should also be pretty well sign posted. "Bad ends" having their own branch or arc could work, but that does add more work to a lot of games that never even get finished as is.

 

[khumak]

I don't mind choices leading to bad events, such as a character dying, but complete game overs too early don't add anything. A choice leading to a character death should also be pretty well sign posted. "Bad ends" having their own branch or arc could work, but that does add more work to a lot of games that never even get finished as is.

Yeah I mean the type of bad ending that is a legitimate alternate path that is interesting enough to intentionally devote a playthrough to that. For me that would just mean that someone got the upper hand over the MC. That doens't have to mean an immediate game over.

It could mean I get blackmailed into working for the crime boss or whatever so I'm forced into becoming a bad guy myself. It can still be fun to play a bad guy. Maybe MC starts cheating on his wife, she catches him and retaliates by fucking anyone she thinks will piss him off the most. That's a legit path that would be interesting to play for a lot of people.