Your views on mechanics vs story?

[ciderPunk1877]

Mechanics are King.

Other mediums provide you with story. Good stories are great, and appreciated, but if that's all I cared about, I wouldn't have any reason to play games rather than reading or binging Netflix or whatever.

[Chris Simon]

It really depends on the game in my case, it seems.

I play Elite, which is basically just a collection of mechanics and no story, I also recently enjoyed Life is strange, which is a story without mechanics.
I enjoyed Mass Effect Andromeda (Yeah, I know, I suck and have no self-respect) which was kind of bad at both but the combat was incredibly fun and addictive.
And I enjoy deep RPGs like The Witcher and Divinity that excell at both.

I think the question for me is "Can bad mechanics prevent you from enjoying a good story" and vice versa. Then the answer would probably be yes.
But it's hard. Sometimes just the fact that I like the main protagonist or some of the characters can save the game for me (ME:A and DA:I, for example) and sometimes one fun mechanic in otherwise crap game can convince me to keep playing.

Yeah, a non-answer from me, it seems. Sorry.

[Whiskycat]

Grew up with game that had terrible mechanics so I'm a bit biased towards story. I prefer lore, rich story lines, character development over gameplay and mechanics. If it's needs to be it should be balanced but SP games should never in my opinion be mechanics>story. Multiplayer and MMOs are obviously mechanics>story.

[Kraneloran]

My former self is definetly on the story-side of things, although not if the game mechanics are annoying for some reason.
My current self is definetly on the mechanics-side of things because I like to distract myself from certain hardships in my personal life at the moment, and the better the mechanics of a game, the more involved I can get.
I am actually someone who suffers the fact that things in videogames, stories told through a medium that also allows playfulness, are taken out of context, which is the reason why I can't care for depth of story in a videogame as I used to.

I'm sure somewhere on an objective standpoint, the best games are those who have a perfect balance between story and gameplay (including mechanics).

[TickleTriggers]

I am leaning more towards great gameplay over story.

If a game had a crappy story but fantastic gameplay. I tend to keep playing it after beating it. But when it has a great story and crappy gameplay, i will either never finish it or never play it after beating it.

Having innovative game design and story should still be a game devs focus.

[MadMummy76]

Good mechanics without at least a decent story - skip
Good mechanics with a good story - buy
Bad mechanics with a good story - wait

[Ary]

For you, how important are solid mechanics in a game compared to the importance of a good story?

Story, characters, arcs, leveling systems, etc, all matter more to me. Take the close recent Tomb Raider game. Mechanically sound. Ticks all the right boxes. But the story put me to sleep. The characters were flat, and the setting was drab.

Assassins Creed Odysee had all of those bases covered. I was never bored. Was engaged with the story, the characters were interesting and fun, and the setting was stunning and fun to explore.

At the end of the day, I'm just one of those guys that doesn't prioritize gameplay as much as others. I still play the original Fallout games and it's a great experience every time. Especially playing as low INT.

[Trout]

I am militant on having solid mechanics for strategy games, and will abandon games quickly (cough, Civ VI, cough) if it strays into weird territories especially if its in a franchise. But when it comes to story, I am a casual gamer and will often play easy mode just to get to the story quicker. A decent example is Mass Effect 1-3, I will easy mode that game because when I think about those games I think of the character interactions and story more than pwn'ing the Geth or what have you.

[miraydor]

First, I'm learning english, so forgive me for spelling mistake etc. I also want to point out that the game I use in my views are exemple, and how we see them might differ for anyone. No one has the same experience when playing a game, and that's a great thing.

For me, it always start with the expectation I have when I hear about a game. For exemple, I knew that the game Firewatch would be a character driven story and If I remember correctly, this game was marketed that way. On the other side, when I heard about the game Factorio, a game where it's all about collecting ressource and designing complex idea, with almost no story at all, I knew I was in for the gameplay and the mechanic. So, the fact that I was correctly informed and even more so by the review I read made me aware of what I was going into. I could say it was a question of taste and that I chose what I wanted to put up first in the experience propose by those 2 games.

Some game clearly mixed solid mechanic with solid story, like the new Spider-Man game on PS4, the Witcher 3, the bioshock series, the less known game Recore on xbox, etc. But how would Spider-Man been received if the story was bad? Would people still praise it that much, or should I ask, would the good mechanic be enough to assure this game the success it had? And vice-versa.

Let's start with the criteria that makes mechanic important. I think good mechanic means more fun, more thinking, more freedom, less unfair or game breaking situation, and a good balance between challenging, rewarding and intuitive.

Next, what makes the story important. I think it needs to make us loves or hate the different characters, it entertains, helps us learn about the world, it doesnt feel out of place or at least, it makes sense, has a good pacing and it absolutly need to surprise us. I can say that when I can predict everything that will happen next in a story, it makes it boring.

With this in mind, I would prefer solid mechanic in a game than a good story, because it's about making fun while in the gameplay part. The chance is higher for me to stop playing a game with a good story if the mechanic are bad, because it creates frustration and it feels like a shore to get to the next part of the story. The story need to be crazy engaging to keep us. It should not be that way. But with good mechanic and bad story, you can just focus on the cool gameplay and have fun with it. It's always about how it makes you feel when you're living it. And patience is the trait that will influence if you can deal with bad mechanic or bad story.

It all comes back to personal taste and knowing a glimpse of what you're gonna experience. But I think in general, games need to be fun to play before being fun to watch. I would then put solid mechanic upfront, but let me tell you that having solide mechanic and an awesome story is what makes real masterpiece. I'm looking at you God of War...

I'm interested to know what you people think about that!

[VideoRelaxant]

Personally, I prefer game mechanics, if a game is fun then who really cares? Stories are fun but you're supposed to be PLAYING a game, aren't you? This is why games like Super Mario are so memorable, you have more fun playing them that you hardly realise there's no narrative, character development, or... well depth? This is why games like Undertale, The Walking Dead or Life Is Strange suffer, because they focus SO much on story and narrative that they are forced to spend less time on gameplay so that they can... get a game out?

That doesn't mean that UnderTale is necessarily BAD, but it does mean that the gameplay isn't... that memorable? ACTing in that game is just boring. They should have either gone full bullet-hell or not make in an RPG at all? DeltaRune doesn't do much to fix it either because only one person can ACT, and you can only spare one at a time. See what I mean?

It's safer to go with gameplay, because if you make a story-based game, there is still a chance your story sucks and the whole game suffers for it.

Well, that's just my view on it.