Even limiting it solely to Bioware those trees got way less complex over time. In the Baldur's Gate games there were numerous conversations and trees for those conversations; whether a romantic subplot triggered or not, whether you even got the option or not, largely depended on how those conversations went and it wasn't just a countdown to sex. Knights of the Old Republic was highly simplified and a number of their other games, like Jade Empire, followed suit. DAO was conceived as an updated Baldur's Gate (that felt less D&D and more Lord of the Rings) and that tried to add some complexity back by tracking party member's affections but you could still go through the entire romantic subplot in a single sitting if you wanted. Then Mass Effect almost put it on rails.
Persona's social links are a much better implementation of the talk X number of times way of doing it - it can't be done all at once, responses matter, it's interspersed throughout the story, it's possible to screw it up - but they're also too isolated. A number of games do that sort of thing well (the Ar Tonelicos, Mane Khemia, Growlanser, Trails of Cold Steel, etc) but I really like those that have affection trackers based on things you do in the course of playing the game, not just during designated waifu events. FF7 and Riviera both had hidden affection systems with a combination of obvious and not-no-obvious actions that influenced it. The Rune Factory games also got p. good about it as they went on, branching out from the largely gift-giving affection system of most Harvest Moons into little subplots involving the various waifus for you to discover and that sort of thing.
Effort always shows and heavily telegraphing the fuk button, gated behind two conversations, is super boring.
Persona's social links are a much better implementation of the talk X number of times way of doing it - it can't be done all at once, responses matter, it's interspersed throughout the story, it's possible to screw it up - but they're also too isolated. A number of games do that sort of thing well (the Ar Tonelicos, Mane Khemia, Growlanser, Trails of Cold Steel, etc) but I really like those that have affection trackers based on things you do in the course of playing the game, not just during designated waifu events. FF7 and Riviera both had hidden affection systems with a combination of obvious and not-no-obvious actions that influenced it. The Rune Factory games also got p. good about it as they went on, branching out from the largely gift-giving affection system of most Harvest Moons into little subplots involving the various waifus for you to discover and that sort of thing.
Effort always shows and heavily telegraphing the fuk button, gated behind two conversations, is super boring.
My point is I agree they should try to make it better but i can't hate them for doing what they do. Not yet at least.
