contracting in persona

[Zenieth]

Now, I had heard a lot from people before about how demon contracts took away from the gameplay of persona, some saying it wasn't refined enough, others saying it just didn't fit the feel of persona. I'd like to know some opinions on the contracting systems of the old persona series. I personally felt it added a bit extra to how you could approach battles, in that you didn't always have to fight, but could in turn see how good you were at determining another views and thoughts with the benefit of being able to implement status affects without relying on your magic or obtaining useful items.

[Foobar]

I don't really have a problem with the system as it was, but it tends to be a lot to remember since certain characters work better with certain demons than other based on certain moods they're able to satisfy.

Some means of tracking who negotiated well with a demon previously, not unlike how you analyze other affinities, would have been a tremendous asset to the system overall.

Persona's negotiation system doesn't have the random factors some parts of the systems in Nocturne or Raidou 2 have, so being able to catalog mood/phrase affinity would have been a big plus.

I mean, moods are displayed, but being "foolish" doesn't mean Mark dancing or Nanjo bribing someone is always going to work, but instead that it could be Maki needs to cringe for that type of demon. That's the sort of thing that would have been nice to catalog for reference later and removed a lot of re-learning or trail and error.

[Zenieth]

I see what you mean on how contracts in the early persona's didn't have as much random nature to them as the others however there were times when I had a basic understanding of all the demons in a certain dungeon in p2 and manipulated them to my benefit only for a few to change reactions when presented with what i was certain was a sure fire win strategy, only for them to act in a totally different way.