Male romance options looking meh...

[ponypony]

So we have 3 male bachelors that are not an animal and not an old man (zero old women though, I wonder why?)
With this demographics please, please, please make the 3 males hot and write them well. Right now they're not horrible, but they're nothing to write home about, you know? Generic male NPC 1, generic male NPC 2 (in his 30s, tired after a night shift, with those sideburns to douce the flames in your loins if you somehow managed to get any), a blacksmith quirky NPC with an unfortunate incident for facial hair (for those not brave enough to lay with an otter). That's a well-earned 'meh' in my book.
Women are a sizable audience for this type of games. Just look at the Evershine KS - guys at Pathea basically did a free marketing survey for you, summarizing their experience with two previous similar games. Male bachelors 1:1 ratio with females, all of them being not okay-ish, but hot. That's what those guys learned from Sandrock, with Fang and Logan being the most popular romance choices. Surprise-surprise: beautiful men sell well.
Personally, I won't be buying a game with current designs. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[punkuke]

Opprinnelig skrevet av galacticcorgi:

To all the people saying that the men need to be as visually interesting as the women: what? I feel like I'm in bizarro-land reading this. What kind of guy is even missing from the romance list BESIDES fat men??? Meanwhile, all the women are thin and conventionally attractive young women. You have a twink in Sasaki, Musashi is the standard conventionally attractive man, Leon is the older man, Torleone is older man but furry, and Yohji is a dandy. I guess I'm confused what people want besides increasingly niche types??? Also like... Everyone is a yokai. Are people seriously mad that not every yokai is gonna be human? I'm pretty sure Oda Yui, for example, is a doll come to life, for example, are people mad you can date a doll yokai????

Also ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, "Women are treated as second class player" when women into men get actual diversity among their choices while all the women are always young, thin and conventionally pretty. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥??? Imagine how I feel as a bi woman and only seeing ONE body type among all these women, save for one of them is a petit centaur!

10000% agree. There's nothing wrong with the bachelors, it's the bachelorettes that are completely homogenous lmao. And it's absolutely mind-blowing to me the number of people here convinced that NOBODY would EVER find men like these attractive, saying that they're unattractive as if it were simply an objective fact.

[Kaezeribato]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kirara:

Straight men was and still are obvious target audience for this game.

You sure about this? The female option are extremely lacking too.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Amberbaum:

I'm glad this reached the devs, but it's seriously annoying that so many farming sims don't get their male bachlors right. It's almost like they are scared of making them being attractive and interesting.

You should say what you find attractive. Most of those who complained here didn't give any idea on what they find attractive, so you cant really hope that the dev get what you want.

[Kirara]

Opprinnelig skrevet av galacticcorgi:

snip.

You missed Anna, who is currently on the game's banner and have nonhuman ears and fluffy tail.
And you are wrong about me not being into anime charatcers. I am years long Fire Emblem player and have played many farming games, rpg's, visual novels and horror games in anime style.
I'm not against older men and women. I just prefer romance when one of the participants are not cradle robber.
There is nothing to be excited about, if said bachelors are not to ones liking and has not received same attention as bachelorettes.
I don't have time to hunt for links so I will just mention some names. Though I don't see how such info would be useful.
Fire Emblem series - Seth, Cain (his looks in 'New Mystery of The Emblem' remake,), Hector, Chrom, Xander, Dimitri, Cormag.
Some Otome characters form Steam games. Hajime Saito form Hakuoki and Hattori Hanzo from Nightshade.
Jrpg's on Steam - Star Ocean 2 - Dias, Star Ocean 6 - Theo.
So am I qualified to criticize looks of love interests in this farming game? Or should I present some kind of paperwork?

[Kirara]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kaezeribato:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kirara:

Straight men was and still are obvious target audience for this game.

You sure about this? The female option are extremely lacking too.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Amberbaum:

I'm glad this reached the devs, but it's seriously annoying that so many farming sims don't get their male bachlors right. It's almost like they are scared of making them being attractive and interesting.

You should say what you find attractive. Most of those who complained here didn't give any idea on what they find attractive, so you cant really hope that the dev get what you want.

Yes, I'm sure about that. It is obvious that male chars did not receive same attention as female ones. This has already been pointed out by many people.
We complained in several threads, btw. And I did say 'what I want', cause yesterday I completed their love interest survey.

[galacticcorgi]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kirara:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kaezeribato:

You sure about this? The female option are extremely lacking too.


You should say what you find attractive. Most of those who complained here didn't give any idea on what they find attractive, so you cant really hope that the dev get what you want.

Yes, I'm sure about that. It is obvious that male chars did not receive same attention as female ones. This has already been pointed out by many people.
We complained in several threads, btw. And I did say 'what I want', cause yesterday I completed their love interest survey.

Farming sims have a primary audience of women. The men are "less detailed" but vary widely compared to the women.

[Kirara]

Opprinnelig skrevet av galacticcorgi:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kirara:

Yes, I'm sure about that. It is obvious that male chars did not receive same attention as female ones. This has already been pointed out by many people.
We complained in several threads, btw. And I did say 'what I want', cause yesterday I completed their love interest survey.

Farming sims have a primary audience of women. The men are "less detailed" but vary widely compared to the women.

Yes farming sims are mainly played by women, so what is your point?
And nope, you are wrong. Otherwise there would not have been many complains across different platforms about bachelors. Steam is not the only place where people have voiced their disapointment.

[B Unit]

IDK why people are passing their preferences off as if they speak as an ambassador for half the human population,

[Amberbaum]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Kaezeribato:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Amberbaum:

I'm glad this reached the devs, but it's seriously annoying that so many farming sims don't get their male bachlors right. It's almost like they are scared of making them being attractive and interesting.

You should say what you find attractive. Most of those who complained here didn't give any idea on what they find attractive, so you cant really hope that the dev get what you want.

We did. It's even in OP's first post right on the top, but you didn't read. Me talking about the My time at... series should giev a clue and how other people talked about the games form this series.

[Kaezeribato]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Amberbaum:

We did. It's even in OP's first post right on the top, but you didn't read. Me talking about the My time at... series should giev a clue and how other people talked about the games form this series.

Saying "the character in this game were made with more care and are better" is not explaining what you like about said character... Especialy not when the two game have vastly different artistic dirrection.

[Vandelesca]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Oso:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Vandelesca:

Finally, it's a W for the gays and furry

I mean, not wrong . I find most of the options to be pretty attractive and that's really rare for me in these types of games! The fact that most of the guys actually look older instead of looking straight out of highschool is a huge plus.

Now there need to be more pretty boys something like Love Deep Space kinda pretty boys to satiate the female playerbase but I would not complain if dev is adding bara tiger yokai

[pp]

These male NPCs are shameful, there's no way any woman is into these. Everyone has black or brown hair, not sure why.

Sasaki looks like some little bowl cut dweeb.

Musashi has scumbag facial hair.

Hephaestus - one eye'd man with a braid.

And then we got Leon, the grandpa.

The two animal NPCs are horrible and not even cute. I don't think even furries would be into it, I don't know though. Why does the cat look like a neckbeard?

Aside from the bird, the women are all nice looking. I don't get it. I am going to skip on purchasing or just pretend to be a lesbian.

[WillowG]

Definitely not a very appealing row of bachelors. The designs are either unappealing or boring. I'm the type who usually give a chance to male LIs in the hope writing can save a bad/unappealing design, but these days is very easy even for man to look up what is considered appealing for a male enjoyer public, expecially with the many otome VNs that see the light.

By the way: taking care of color palette, less beards (or a well taked care of one - no mustache!!! I remember only Jude Law in Sherlok Holmes as looking good with mustache!!!) and elegant design help a lot. Flashy but elegant colors, handsome faces and pretty eyes are a big turn on. And less furry characteristics. Ears and tails like in Nekopara: catboys paradise are cute, full on beast face is not. Even otome with youkai characters stir away from overly non-human designs. Rune Factory 4 Special and Rune Factory 5 with Leon, Dylas and Murakumo are good examples.

For youkai/japanese like designs in otome VNs to look up as example: Hakuoki, Birushana, Dairoku, Nightshade, 9 R.I.P., Winter's wish.
For more western style: Code: realize, London Detective Mysteria,
Fantasy like: Olympia Soiree, Radiant Tale, Cafè Enchante

Overall, the basic ideas of the Seikyuu man could be a good base, but lack what make them appealing. They have the NPC feeling, don't feel very interesting to me. It give the impression of being designed to be simple NPCs (expecially the otter), and than added as LIs because the devs realized later that lots of women are into these kind of games and had to put out some male LIs (is clear with how the male are less than the gals too).

I've already left my feed back with the romance survey anyway.

[galacticcorgi]

...Do people seriously like the weird K-POP-inspired sameface???

[WillowG]

Or maybe people just like handsome man. By the way, since those are the type that sell (and I'd say with characters like Benkei in Birushana, Rindo and Canus in Cafè Enchante, the kpop look is definitely not the only template) I'd say yes, these are the genre at least a mayority of women like. But the face look is not the only thing that make a LI attractive. Clothes, design and personality are a big factor too.

[galacticcorgi]

Opprinnelig skrevet av WillowG:

Or maybe people just like handsome man. By the way, since those are the type that sell (and I'd say with characters like Benkei in Birushana, Rindo and Canus in Cafè Enchante, the kpop look is definitely not the only template) I'd say yes, these are the genre at least a mayority of women like. But the face look is not the only thing that make a LI attractive. Clothes, design and personality are a big factor too.

I'm AFAB. I find the characters here far more attractive and interesting than bog standard trope factories with sameface where the only real flavor is "this one is tsundere" and "this one is yandere."