Would you play a game that had a dom vs love mechanic? (more details)

[TacoHoleStory]

• Each dialogue option would have a heart next to it or a whip, and they would give slightly different dialogue results from the other party and different scenes which are (hopefully) both equally appealing to most people.
• In the corner of the screen there would be a love and dom counter to keep track.
• If you have more love than dom when a lewd scene starts then you'll get a romantic scene and if you have more dom, then you get a dom/slightly rougher/FWB type of scene.
• Ideally between lewd scenes you have enough space to change to a different path.

 

[Cryswar]

I don't really like 'hard' dom stuff, but don't mind dom in general. So as long as the love side was wholesome and well done, I would probably just play and enjoy it. I get that not every single thing in a game will be custom-made for me personally, so knowing there's a dom route I don't care about wouldn't really bother me unless the love route was obviously halfassed in comparison.

If there's a decent way to fuse the two for a dom+love ending I might give it a shot, but unless the dom was very much focused on consent I probably wouldn't.

 

[Rafster]

It's not a bad idea, in fact I have some sort of this on the game I'm making

 

[woody554]

interchanging love & dom points isn't necessarily the best idea. the point of having any character stats is to simulate the character having a personality, and responding in ways its personality dictates. so when you implement a system which allows getting the dom endings on love route (or vice versa) you instantly make the choices leading to that point meaningless. and people just hate meaningless choices.

a good rule of thumb is that the illusion of personality emerges from DISAGREEING with what the player wants them to do. the pushback is the main driver of it. when an object, a thing, a gadget works exactly as expected, it stays as an object with no will of it own. but when that object 'acts up', refuses to do what it should, we instantly feel it as a will of its own. a personality.

so if you make a point system, don't turn back and undo all the hard work the player put in to push that personality. the choices have to mean something, which always requires closing some paths. only meaningless choices keep all options open.

doesn't mean you have to be 100% black & white about the separation, but be very aware how gray areas dilute the personalities. a little fuzzy logic is fine, but never let the paths end identical or none of the previous game matters. people get so angry when they get to the end and it turns out all choices lead to the same place.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

I would, and I do. Princess Tower has such a mechanic, and it's one I'm keeping an eye on. I'd definitely go for dom over love, though. Come to think of it, Lust and Power also has this.

 

[tanstaafl]

Why would it be dom vs love? Most dom relationships, real ones, are both.

 

[hakarlman]

I see three paths:

Dom: "Yes daddy."
Love: "Yes dear."
DomLove: "Some days daddy is sweet, other days daddy is mean. He's so unpredictable keeping me on my toes. I never know if daddy is gonna spank me or caress me."

I don't think you have to spend points. Instead, as the values get higher, you gain access to more intense and hardcore, repeatable scenes; of which slightly change over time to offer surprises.

You could also keep the DomLove route(having certain amount of points in both routes) simple, just add one sentence every once in a while where romantic interest npc addresses the MC's dom and love persona.

If you're worried about the player missing out on content, as long as the player enjoys around 75%-80% minimum of the game's content, that is good IMO. That means variation exists between dom & love, but not too much to the point where the player only sees half the content. Definitely want to avoid a situation where player only sees 50% of the content imo.

 

[TacoHoleStory]

Why would it be dom vs love? Most dom relationships, real ones, are both.

I know this, but I really don't want to have to render sub scenes which would be the other "opposite" It's more to do with how the sex scenes will play out rather than the relationship.

 

[TacoHoleStory]

interchanging love & dom points isn't necessarily the best idea. the point of having any character stats is to simulate the character having a personality, and responding in ways its personality dictates. so when you implement a system which allows getting the dom endings on love route (or vice versa) you instantly make the choices leading to that point meaningless. and people just hate meaningless choices.

My idea is that you'd have to earn the points appropriately in either being romantic or domineering in main story interactions to be able to spend them on the scenes. i.e. you have the opportunity to earn 4 points, either in dom or love during the first section of main story. The lewd scene comes at the end of that first section of main story and costs 2 points so the only way you'd have both options open is if you did exactly half interactions on each during the main story. (The other two points would be spent on side scenes)

I may also add a counter for how much you spend in each. That would effect the free roam and story line dialogue.

 

[woody554]

in some games you can sort of exchange love points into corruption points due to the fact that corrup choices subtract love points. so that the way you get corruption is first advancing the relationship, then lose some love points to gain corruption.

I think that's a workable model as it has negatives for treating characters badly. but usually it's far too safe to choose the corrupt choices and it becomes very mechanical. I think it should be somewhat dangerous and require careful balancing. simply spamming corrupt choices without paying attention should quickly proc a game over or some other large setback. something that makes you sweat a bit taking the risk.