What I wish I could see in some marriage candidates:

[Snowy Sprout]

I wish the game had a bit more racial diversity. It wouldn't have hurt if, for example, Elliot might have been a swarthy, romantic South American, and Leah perhaps could have been Japanese, and Harvey might have been an elegant Pakistani or something. Not that lacking diversity makes the game bad, exactly, but more diversity would have made it better.

I wish the bachelors as a whole were better quality. Harvey is nice, but ugly. Sam is nice, but immature. Elliot is nice, but so so romantically idealistic he's almost detached from reality. Sebastian is nice, but a total edgelord. Shane isn't even nice.

I wish I could see the boys (and even some of the girls like Abigail) showing more readiness to marry in general. There should be dialogue about them contributing a fair adult share of household expenses and chores, or else why would they suddenly be ready to take on those responsibilities with you? There should be dialogue about their views on parenthood, either looking forward to having children or specifically wanting to delay or avoid having children for the sake of whatever career they might still want to achieve. Having kids shouldn't be such a default position for everyone. I even wish that choosing to marry was more optional than it is, with some of them perhaps deciding that it's best to NOT marry, and either just move in together or date while staying in separate homes. I just think it'd be healthier and more realistic to acknowledge that happy relationships don't all look the same, and don't all end in marriage and children.

I wish all marriage candidates could maintain their personal interests a bit more, and pursue independent careers. I wish they could brag about their own achievements and breakthroughs, and have their own successes, rather than just being subsumed into the role of "farm spouse" and watering the crops or fixing fences.

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I wish the game had a bit more racial diversity. It wouldn't have hurt if, for example, Elliot might have been a swarthy, romantic South American, and Leah perhaps could have been Japanese, and Harvey might have been an elegant Pakistani or something. Not that lacking diversity makes the game bad, exactly, but more diversity would have made it better.

From a artists/writers-perspective, it is often better to mostly stick to what you know. If you've just a very narrow view of differend countries, then it might be better to not include them or just the versions of people you might know from your country, what obviously can't reproduce the reality from different countries as good.

For example implementing an elegant Pakistani only works, if you know, how an elegant Pakistani dresses, speaks and acts. If you're just guessing or using stereotypes, then the players will most likely note that to some degree. You might also be able to resort to some archetypes from Hollywood, Anime, etc., but here again you're still limited to what you consume and people might notice it.

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I wish the bachelors as a whole were better quality. Harvey is nice, but ugly. Sam is nice, but immature. Elliot is nice, but so so romantically idealistic he's almost detached from reality. Sebastian is nice, but a total edgelord. Shane isn't even nice.

The game is not really story centered, so the villagers doesn't really have enough time to develop a big personality through actions, which is why big parts of their personality gets formed by their appearance. And to accomplish that properly, the villagers obviously need to be more excentric, as otherwise you would've probably 10 villagers, who look quite similar, which would be boring to the players.

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I wish I could see the boys (and even some of the girls like Abigail) showing more readiness to marry in general. There should be dialogue about them contributing a fair adult share of household expenses and chores, or else why would they suddenly be ready to take on those responsibilities with you? There should be dialogue about their views on parenthood, either looking forward to having children or specifically wanting to delay or avoid having children for the sake of whatever career they might still want to achieve. Having kids shouldn't be such a default position for everyone. I even wish that choosing to marry was more optional than it is, with some of them perhaps deciding that it's best to NOT marry, and either just move in together or date while staying in separate homes. I just think it'd be healthier and more realistic to acknowledge that happy relationships don't all look the same, and don't all end in marriage and children.

That's where one of the most important game dev rules come into play:

"gameplay over realism"

The game is mostly about the player doing stuff they enjoy or to work towards specific goals. If the game starts to get unpredictable up to a point where it actively stops the player from advancing, just "because it can", then that can usually be considered a bad feature.

Like there's no reason for the candidates to reject a marriage proposal. The players had fullfilled every requirement to marry the person and then getting rejected, after putting all that ressources and time into getting to 10 hearts is just frustrating.

Same for the childrens. If you're on a 100%-run, then having 2 kids is definitely necessary and being denied for no particular reason just feels frustrating, especially as that instantly implies, that you just wasted several hours of your life, because now you need to divorce (which can be quite expensive for people, who're just playing casually) and then invest the time of gifting and marrying and stuff again. And given that it already happened once, you can't even be sure, if you might get denied by the next person as well, wasting even more time for no reason other than annoying the crap out of you.

Obviously feel free to write some mods, which make it more unpredictable, if that's what you want the game to be, but it is definitely a good think, that the vanilla game itself keeps predictable.

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I wish all marriage candidates could maintain their personal interests a bit more, and pursue independent careers. I wish they could brag about their own achievements and breakthroughs, and have their own successes, rather than just being subsumed into the role of "farm spouse" and watering the crops or fixing fences.

I wouldn't mind them maintaining some of their initial schedule, though my imagination is still good enough to just assume, that they're already doing it to some degree, like that's why they've their own room and the area behind the house to begin with.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Given that the game isn't set on Earth Concerned Ape could make whatever kind of characters he wants and base them as accurately or inaccurately on whatever he wants.

[happybjorn]

Originally posted by Dimensional Traveler:

Given that the game isn't set on Earth Concerned Ape could make whatever kind of characters he wants and base them as accurately or inaccurately on whatever he wants.

Spot on.

There are also many portrait mods, so at least changing appearance should be easy.

[Radiosity]

*sigh*

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by Dimensional Traveler:

Given that the game isn't set on Earth Concerned Ape could make whatever kind of characters he wants and base them as accurately or inaccurately on whatever he wants.

That's just an argument writers throw in casually to stop any discussions about that topic, since it easily allows to declare the portrayed diversity as the diversity of the whole world. And at that point a discussion like this is pointless right from the beginning.

[TamanduaGirl]

Well you can get Krobus to move in with you as a roommate but he wont marry you. So you have one nontraditional option.

Otherwise there are mods that cater to character diversity and more story.

[NBOX21]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Originally posted by Dimensional Traveler:

Given that the game isn't set on Earth Concerned Ape could make whatever kind of characters he wants and base them as accurately or inaccurately on whatever he wants.

That's just an argument writers throw in casually to stop any discussions about that topic, since it easily allows to declare the portrayed diversity as the diversity of the whole world. And at that point a discussion like this is pointless right from the beginning.

In this case, however, it's also a part of the game's lore - despite sharing many similarities with the real world, the entire world of Stardew Valley basically takes place inside a fruit on a vine, at least according to the Book of Yoba:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2787226258
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2787226326

[Maya-Neko]

I don't say anything about it being another world. The only thing which is a non-argument in my opinion is the part of that fact creating something on its own and being detached from the creator or their capabilities.

Sometimes its better to simply not represent something, if the only way you might be able to represent it would be a bad representation. People can and will complain about it, when it starts to be racist, sexist or whatever and "that's how this world works" isn't an excuse for that, because the world didn't decide to be that way on its own, but you as its god decided, that it shall work that way.

[happybjorn]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

That's just an argument writers throw in casually to stop any discussions about that topic.

And that's a marginalization designed to force a topic that isn't relevant. This is forum for a video game, not evangelizing ideology.

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by happybjorn:

And that's a marginalization designed to force a topic that isn't relevant. This is forum for a video game, not evangelizing ideology.

That topic was brought up by OP. Do you expect me to derail the topic right from the start, just because someone else might not be mentaly prepared to discuss that topic?

Also i'm not religeous. Like at that point you're showing pretty much, why it is sometimes better to not say something than to just assume something and completely fail at it already on its premise. And that's not just true in discussion, but even more so in pretty much any field of art.

[ChrillBill]

The discussion would only be "pointless" if someone expected ConcernedApe to suddenly change the characters in such a big way after all these years. That is hardly going to happen and this is also part of the reason why we have mods so that we can change things that we would like to change. As an artist you are usually always prepared that people would like to change something, that they aren't happy with something or even have a completely different view on the piece than you originally intended. But that doesn't change the original vision. I am not a game developer, but I can imagine and also to some degree relate to the internal struggles here. There are surely things you can change and improve on, but only to a degree so that it doesn't become something else entirely down the road.

This is what many fails to understand and perhaps something that only artists can truly understand. But even so, it can also be fun to imagine and discuss how things could have been - which in turn can also be inspiring for new projects. Maybe not for the dev since according to my understanding he doesn't read these forums, but maybe for a mod author.

[Snowy Sprout]

Gosh, folks, I didn't mean to start any arguments. I was only pondering what I might find more ideal, not directly criticizing the game or its creator.

It's just some ideas that crossed my mind, that's all. I only thought others might spark ideas about what they would find more ideal in a partner candidate, not an actual expectation that this game would ever be reworked around these thoughts.

I've always felt very glad this game exists. It's my favorite game of all time, and I find it rich and almost endlessly engaging. I don't want us to bicker over it. I'm sorry if my tone came across as unappreciative before, of what it is now.

[Dimensional Traveler]

You didn't come across as unappreciative to me, Snowy.

[NBOX21]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

Gosh, folks, I didn't mean to start any arguments. I was only pondering what I might find more ideal, not directly criticizing the game or its creator.

It's just some ideas that crossed my mind, that's all. I only thought others might spark ideas about what they would find more ideal in a partner candidate, not an actual expectation that this game would ever be reworked around these thoughts.

I understand what you mean. It's very easy for many people, myself included at times, to think of topics such as these as looking for an excuse to complain about something to draw attention to yourself, especially on the internet. Even I felt a similar way about this topic at first, which was why I waited a little bit until others started posting their thoughts before I joined in.

That's not to say that it was without good intent because you did bring up some good points, such as wishing the spouses would have a slight dialogue or personality change to feel more enthusiastic about marriage and parenting if for no other reason than to add a bit of depth to some of the characters.

I've always felt very glad this game exists. It's my favorite game of all time, and I find it rich and almost endlessly engaging. I don't want us to bicker over it. I'm sorry if my tone came across as unappreciative before, of what it is now.

That's okay. Sometimes, the passion for the things we love can kind of get to us in a way we don't expect if you know what I mean - I feel like this was just one of those moments. I experience a similar feeling about some of my favourite games too.

I, and the rest of the community as well, apologise for the misunderstanding here.

[Astra]

I am so glad everyone feels comfortable to be able to have such discussions freely, but please, try to keep very personal beliefs and opinions a little bit more close to the chest, not because they aren't valid, but because so many people of different walks of life come through this forum, making it impossible for everyone to agree, so it's best to just to keep the forum a comfortable place where ideas can be discussed freely, but without the need to enforce an opinion. Just be mindful of one another.