This is something I think Persona 4 Golden handled the best out of the three Social Link-based Persona games. There's no huge reward for maxing all links, just a special armor that increases xp gain. There's no special bonuses to links except for party members and the fox, and there's no feasible way to max all links on the first run unless you follow an EXTREMELY strict guide that involves absurd things like grinding in dungeons for hours to finish in one ingame day. It's so much easier to just, not worry about doing all the links, and just play the game as you go. And when you also take into account all the NG+ only dialogue options, it makes P4G by far the most fun game to play NG+, since you can be just as relaxed as in your first run while also maxing all the links thanks to the extra free time not worrying about social stats. It helps it be by far the most chill Persona game, both on first play, and on NG+.
I think it was never intended to max out every social link all in the same playtrough. Possible, but not reasonable. You should pick your fav social links and enjoy the interactions with them, even those bonus interactions where your social links don't progress.
The original Persona 3 had that as the intent but Fes included Telos and every game thereafter has some powerful reward for maxing every SL. It’s a hard puzzle to solve, the pieces of each SL itself are rewarding to take part in and the games are so long it can be hard to chalk it up to “I’ll just see that one next time I have a spare 50 to 100 hours”.
I wouldn’t say grinding for hours to finish palaces in one day is a crazy thing, that’s what I did and it wasn’t troublesome at all. Just grinding for quest items gets you at least halfway there. Otherwise yeah I guess, but it made me care so much less about SLs that I didn’t feel motivated doing any of them in the first place, except for fox.
@@MisterIncog i think there shouldn't be a motivation for completing social links besides an intrinsic one like, "I like this person and want to see their story through." One of my biggest issues with P5 was that there were several instances where I really did not like a social link, but I begrudgingly trudged through it anyway just because it gave a good ability. It really sapped a lot of my enjoyment of the game.
Orphious tellos isnt even remotely needed. You can get by perfectly fine not ever even knowing about its existence. These games are made to be fairly easy so that you can tackle it however you want. Tellos is just a reward for those who enjoy mixmaxing, he is not there to demand players to play 1 specific way,
I agree with everything you’ve said here. Telos is sort of the lightning rod for this discussion since he’s a big extrinsic reward and easy to use as an example but my intent is to highlight that many players will optimize the fun out of the game when given the chance (as the saying goes). While the intent of his inclusion was as a reward for players who love to min max, a side effect is that not only is there a “optimal path” but also a spotlight of encouragement for players to take it. FOMO can kick in and players who don’t know that Elizabeth can be beaten without Telos or are unsure of how easy / difficult the end game is may feel like they’re missing out and playing incorrectly / suboptimally. This is something I’d like to avoid in terms of a design thinking exercise and examining what we might lose and what we might gain by changing things.
I don't know about that. Basically every game has an "optimal way of play". Ive seen lots play the game and never once even boot up a guide. True playing like this means they'll probably need a guide for the Elizabeth fight and not get to beat it, but that fight wasn't made for most to beat anyways, it's just a challenge for those who do like to over optimize there game, it's why it's optional to begin with. If the player cant control themselves to just play a game normally and looks up a guide that basically tells em how to play there game just because they hear about a hard optional fight at that last part of the game, that's a player issue not a game issue
@@thepheeesh Yeah, I see what you mean. Now that I’ve begun to make my own game projects, I’m starting to try and make player issues into my own issues (game issues) so that if I have the responsibility, I’m better set up to fix the it. In this sort of situation it’d be something along the lines of “how do we efficiently protect the players from themselves?” The solution I came up with (no optimal / canon path) is too drastic (everyone misses some content) if the payoff was simply that it’d help with this one issue but the other effects of it (everyone gets to have “their” experience, really sink in and play the game intuitively, hang out with the people they want to get to know more, go deeper into those relationships than simply maxing a social link, that and multiple playthroughs could be quite rewarding) seemed pretty compelling to me. The feasibility part might be a bit too drastic as well but then it’s about figuring out if a core part of Persona’s identity at this point is that it needs to be 100+ hours long. Which is a whole other intricate convo :) Sorry if the structure for this is wonky, off the cuff I find this a bit harder to talk through in a way that makes sense.
@@Plexicraft no problem. Sorry if I came off snarky too. Balance is a very tricky thing to achieve and when developing a game especially, I can be annoying when you want the player to just play it normally only to turn around for 5 seconds then return to the players finding that 1 op way to tackle it and never trying anything else. Makes you sometimes feel powerless as a dev
@@thepheeesh Haha well said! And no problem at all, this short is just an excerpt from a full video and it doesn’t have the full context so I totally understand where you’re coming from :)
I’d agree that an aspect of it is on the player but I’m approaching this from a design standpoint. In the real world we have many constraints like budgets and timeline for example but it’s a fun exercize to think: “What would be optimal design?” Beating the game isn’t the only goal when it comes to playing an RPG especially. Many people enjoy trying to get as much out of it as possible and enjoy many aspects of the content like building up their equipment, items, or compendium. Seeing as much of the story side content as possible and beating the secret uber bosses. What makes this difficult with Persona as a series specially is just how long each game is. The longer they are, the harder it is to justify doing another run. One method I’ve suggested here is to make it so each run could be more unique. It has its benefits and drawbacks but really it’s just an expression of the aspects in these games that I personally prioritize :)
This is something I think Persona 4 Golden handled the best out of the three Social Link-based Persona games. There's no huge reward for maxing all links, just a special armor that increases xp gain. There's no special bonuses to links except for party members and the fox, and there's no feasible way to max all links on the first run unless you follow an EXTREMELY strict guide that involves absurd things like grinding in dungeons for hours to finish in one ingame day. It's so much easier to just, not worry about doing all the links, and just play the game as you go. And when you also take into account all the NG+ only dialogue options, it makes P4G by far the most fun game to play NG+, since you can be just as relaxed as in your first run while also maxing all the links thanks to the extra free time not worrying about social stats. It helps it be by far the most chill Persona game, both on first play, and on NG+.
I think it was never intended to max out every social link all in the same playtrough. Possible, but not reasonable. You should pick your fav social links and enjoy the interactions with them, even those bonus interactions where your social links don't progress.
The original Persona 3 had that as the intent but Fes included Telos and every game thereafter has some powerful reward for maxing every SL.
It’s a hard puzzle to solve, the pieces of each SL itself are rewarding to take part in and the games are so long it can be hard to chalk it up to “I’ll just see that one next time I have a spare 50 to 100 hours”.
Very good point about 4.
It definitely does feel the most laid back :)
I wouldn’t say grinding for hours to finish palaces in one day is a crazy thing, that’s what I did and it wasn’t troublesome at all. Just grinding for quest items gets you at least halfway there.
Otherwise yeah I guess, but it made me care so much less about SLs that I didn’t feel motivated doing any of them in the first place, except for fox.
@@MisterIncog i think there shouldn't be a motivation for completing social links besides an intrinsic one like, "I like this person and want to see their story through." One of my biggest issues with P5 was that there were several instances where I really did not like a social link, but I begrudgingly trudged through it anyway just because it gave a good ability. It really sapped a lot of my enjoyment of the game.
Orphious tellos isnt even remotely needed. You can get by perfectly fine not ever even knowing about its existence. These games are made to be fairly easy so that you can tackle it however you want. Tellos is just a reward for those who enjoy mixmaxing, he is not there to demand players to play 1 specific way,
I agree with everything you’ve said here. Telos is sort of the lightning rod for this discussion since he’s a big extrinsic reward and easy to use as an example but my intent is to highlight that many players will optimize the fun out of the game when given the chance (as the saying goes).
While the intent of his inclusion was as a reward for players who love to min max, a side effect is that not only is there a “optimal path” but also a spotlight of encouragement for players to take it. FOMO can kick in and players who don’t know that Elizabeth can be beaten without Telos or are unsure of how easy / difficult the end game is may feel like they’re missing out and playing incorrectly / suboptimally.
This is something I’d like to avoid in terms of a design thinking exercise and examining what we might lose and what we might gain by changing things.
I don't know about that. Basically every game has an "optimal way of play". Ive seen lots play the game and never once even boot up a guide. True playing like this means they'll probably need a guide for the Elizabeth fight and not get to beat it, but that fight wasn't made for most to beat anyways, it's just a challenge for those who do like to over optimize there game, it's why it's optional to begin with. If the player cant control themselves to just play a game normally and looks up a guide that basically tells em how to play there game just because they hear about a hard optional fight at that last part of the game, that's a player issue not a game issue
@@thepheeesh Yeah, I see what you mean.
Now that I’ve begun to make my own game projects, I’m starting to try and make player issues into my own issues (game issues) so that if I have the responsibility, I’m better set up to fix the it.
In this sort of situation it’d be something along the lines of “how do we efficiently protect the players from themselves?”
The solution I came up with (no optimal / canon path) is too drastic (everyone misses some content) if the payoff was simply that it’d help with this one issue but the other effects of it (everyone gets to have “their” experience, really sink in and play the game intuitively, hang out with the people they want to get to know more, go deeper into those relationships than simply maxing a social link, that and multiple playthroughs could be quite rewarding) seemed pretty compelling to me.
The feasibility part might be a bit too drastic as well but then it’s about figuring out if a core part of Persona’s identity at this point is that it needs to be 100+ hours long. Which is a whole other intricate convo :)
Sorry if the structure for this is wonky, off the cuff I find this a bit harder to talk through in a way that makes sense.
@@Plexicraft no problem. Sorry if I came off snarky too. Balance is a very tricky thing to achieve and when developing a game especially, I can be annoying when you want the player to just play it normally only to turn around for 5 seconds then return to the players finding that 1 op way to tackle it and never trying anything else. Makes you sometimes feel powerless as a dev
@@thepheeesh Haha well said! And no problem at all, this short is just an excerpt from a full video and it doesn’t have the full context so I totally understand where you’re coming from :)
The game does not incentivize you because you do not need opheus telo to beat the game
That just sounds like your ocd brain
I’d agree that an aspect of it is on the player but I’m approaching this from a design standpoint.
In the real world we have many constraints like budgets and timeline for example but it’s a fun exercize to think:
“What would be optimal design?”
Beating the game isn’t the only goal when it comes to playing an RPG especially. Many people enjoy trying to get as much out of it as possible and enjoy many aspects of the content like building up their equipment, items, or compendium. Seeing as much of the story side content as possible and beating the secret uber bosses.
What makes this difficult with Persona as a series specially is just how long each game is. The longer they are, the harder it is to justify doing another run. One method I’ve suggested here is to make it so each run could be more unique. It has its benefits and drawbacks but really it’s just an expression of the aspects in these games that I personally prioritize :)