Throwing this out there...folks often say "bigger is better," and that's part of the reason why on the front page each story's chapter depth is shown. But what about...total chapters? What about when you click on that first chapter and there's dozens of options? Is it a turn-off when you click on a story and it turns out to have over a thousand chapters? At what point does a story get so big that you don't want to start it?
While I can't speak for everyone, stories whose story map has a horizontal slider is probably that. One example would be Wicker's image inspiration story, where the quality is shaky and the quantity is phone-unfriendly because of its sheer size and amount of chapters.
I know I definitely hesitate to start a story if I see it has a huge number of branches at the start as it feels hard to decide where to go, same if the number of chapters is massive like in the 1000s as you mention since I will want to read everything and it feels like such an investment of time and energy. I think the introduction or subject matter makes a big difference in that case. If it's something I'm really interested in I'll go ahead anyway but there's not that many stories on CHYOA that really hit that mark for me.
It's a weird point for me. I do like the ability of CHYOA to grow and spread out. I just know I sometimes find stories 100+ chapters deep intimidating...and I think the 4.4k+ chapters of LLNO might turn some folks away, if the wall o' tags doesn't.
If it's a private story, or a moderated story almost wholly written by one author, I'm impressed. It's safe to assume in such a scenario that the author has exercised some degree of caution about how they structure their story, even subconsciously. There's a certain kind of organisation inherent to someone's own personal project, I find, even if it might seem chaotic from the perspective of a stranger. If it's a collaborative moderated story, I'm cautiously optimistic. A two-digit number of options, if from a range of authors, raises an issue with dilution: to find any quality content, you may have to sift through a mess of inferior writing. That said, I am initially willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a careful moderation of the story. If it's a public story, I would need to be able to quickly identify the branch I want to read, e.g. if the introduction is high quality and I want to continue reading the owner's content. It could also be justified if there's a specific reason for such a great number of choices. Otherwise, I'm probably not interested in wasting my time clicking through them all until I find one that satisfies me as a reader. I don't mind chapter depth as much. I'm perfectly willing to read new stories that only have 3 or 4 chapters of content in one branch. It stands to reason, then, that a greater depth, even hundreds of chapters, wouldn't disinterest me, since I have the freedom to simply stop reading if I don't want a long story.
I think 100+ chapter depth is enough to put me off. For I how I see erotic stories I find it really difficult for them to stay fresh for so long. Whatever pussy or cock or ass was there has been more than throughly fucked, sucked or spanked at that point. Also, a wall of tags usually pushes me away. Over tagging is bad more that undertagging. As far as 'horizontal' magnitude goes, I'm usually more than willing to sift through a few 'bad' lines to find a nice one if the premise hooks me. Yet sometimes you have these stories where chapter 2 entries multiplicate beyond reason and I'm a little baffled by all these 'I'll give it a shot and write exactly what that other guy wrote'.
Generally a huge number of chapters (horizontal or vertical) kills it for me. Sorry Zeebop, I know LLNO is one of the really popular stories on the site, and I like the premise etc, but I know I cant read the whole 4.4K and I'm convinced I would pick the worst threads to go down and miss out on all the good bits. Its a bit like War and Peace. Took me decades to summon up the will to get started on it though I'm glad I did. I get the multiple chapter 2 thing. If someone writes an interesting hook with multiple options as number 1, then lots of folk might think they have an interesting spin on it though (There's been a few what if.. superhero chapter 1s with multiple folk with their favourite superhero or villain as chapter 2). I'm happy enough to browse the chapter 2s if this is the case, looking for the good ones, (even if it was a bit fruitless in the example given)
Hah. You think there are good bits. Yeah, trust me, I understand. As of this moment there are 458 chapter 20 endings, and that's more ending chapters than most stories have chapters total...and a ways to go before this story is finished.
