More whining about the Flower Dance

[SeekerUnrelenting]

(This is probably well worn territory but I have some thoughts I'd like to unload, and I didn't want to resurrect years old threads.)

It's really disappointing that it's practically impossible to get a dance on your first year. I understand it's technically possible if you're completely singleminded about it, but not if you're just casually and organically trying to build up the relationship. From a roleplaying and storytelling standpoint there's the potential of creating a moment where you've been living in the town for a few weeks, and a special NPC has cought your eye, you've said hi to them almost every day, and given them at least a liked gift twice a week, then the dance comes, you ask them to dance, they say yes, and it leads to the start of a relationship that can potentially blossom throughout the year. Instead, unless you were completly minmaxing your relationship meter for those first 3 weeks, the relationship starts off on a sour note, and from there you go on trying to form a relationship with someone who's flat out rejected you despite having an established friendship.

Now I'm not saying the rejection is bad across the board. In my first playthrough I was turned down, and though it was disheartening, in retrospect it felt organic and justified. I'd spent most of my time up until then working on my farm, on the fishing dock, and in the mines, and I'd mostly ignorred social interactions up until that point, and the Flower Dance actually did a good job serving as a wakeup call that social interactions were an important part of the game, and my character needed to work harder to avoid becoming the towm pariah. So I worked harder to build relationships over the course of the following year, and by the time the next Flower Dance rolled around the following year I was already married and going there seemed like a childish indulgence and a testament to how much had changed in the last four seasons.

Now in my current playthrough I did make a concerted effort to build a relationship with someone (Gifts, talking to them every day) I got up to three hearts and I was still rejected. Now this would have been all well and good if I'd been a recluse like before, but having made the effort this time the rejection seemed a lot more final than before. Like in my first playthrough the rejection seemed like a result of unfamiliarity, I was still a stranger to them. But this time it felt more like they'd gotten a chance to get to know me and decided in that moment that they weren't interested in my character.

A possible remedy without making any mechanical alterations might be to have different rejection diologues based on heart rating. Like 0-1 hearts gets the original flat out rejection ("I don't want to dance with you"), 2 hearts gets you more of a noncomittal soft rejection ("Sorry, I actually have my eye on someone else."), and 3 hearts gets you more of a regretful soft rejection, ("I'd love to, but I already promised [NPC's usual Dance partner] I'd dance with them.") That way there's more of them leaving the door open. They aren't rejecting you outright, they just don't know you well enough to want to dance with you, or there just happens to be somone they'd like to dance with more at that moment. It sets up a goal for your character to get to know that person better so you become the one they want to dance with. The way the diologue is now it gives the sense that you're barking up the wrong tree. If I asked someone I knew IRL to dance and they said "I'm flattered! But... No." my natural and I believe correct reaction would be to conclude that this person was not interested in me in the slightest and I aught to cease pursuing anything other than a platonic friendship with them.

Just some thoughts. great game.

[ceilidhachaos]

I actually don't find anything wrong with using the gift guide that you can find online.. there are some gifts they like more than others.

[I Kinda Fail]

I like the idea about the heart rating affecting how they respond to you.

I think the game does it well, still - it uses the dance to show off who your competition is, and the NPCs say "Sorry, maybe next year?" to signify that if you keep befriending them, you've got a chance.

I'm not opposed to them lowering it by a heart, though, either. It's what, 4 hearts to dance? Lowering it to 3 would be more doable for a newer player, if they really tried.

[SeekerUnrelenting]

It's especially jarring given that genrally in the IRL dating world "Maybe" means "No", and "No" means "Not if we were the last person two people on earth"

As I've said before my complaint isn't so much the rejection mechaninic itself. It honestly created one of the most memorable and emotionally ressonant gaming moments I've experienced in the last decade, but the way it's presented can make further pursuit of a particular NPC thereafter seem almost sociopathic.

[tuxdelux]

Got to say that it hit me in the feelies, too. I was surprised how much it bothered me. Even though I was playing casually, I had become emotionally invested in the game.

The girl that I had been chatting up and giving gifts said no, then the next girl said no, and so on. When I worked my way through everyone's rejections (some not so polite), the game made me watch everyone else pair up and dance.

The game shouldn't build it up, as if the player will simply choose a dance partner. That would be a pretty good time to explain how the friendship heart meter works.

As someone trying to play SV without using the online resources, I keep getting stuck with the game talking about concepts that are inaccessible. That has taken away from the experience, and I reluctantly had to check online to find out how to do cooking and how to bait a crabpot.