You know what I mean. Crime. Murder. Tax evasion.
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Counter point: Taxation is theft.
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I may have not said it how I meant before. I guess what I mean is, have the option to have the person just be an associate, don’t force me to hang out, don’t get buddy buddy with me, or anything like that. Plot stuff can still go forward without the person and the MC being friends like that. Just limit the reasons the MC has to interact with them. Like say if it was a group of mercs, they don’t need to be friends to have them still involved in the plot under the reason, “These are the people I have to work with to make a living.”. I wouldn’t ask for a character to be taken out of game since i’m not really down for making someone conform their art for me and I would rather not engage with the work anymore instead and just say its not for me. I am more just giving an opinion on a thing I don’t tend to like here lol
I think the issue is that some writers just expect the player to like their character so all of the choices are just different ways to say Yes to that character, or a fake choice to feel like you had a choice on your relationship with them.
I think I know the game you are talking about, but forgive me if its not. In that game I played a character that had no issue killing people who he felt deserved it and I did end up choosing to kill that character, but I already figured from the start the friend is there with you to do what needs to be done if you can’t go through with it yourself. I thought that was pretty clear since they are your family’s hitman and there is really nothing else they could do in that situation anyway. Disobey your powerful family? Sure but that seems like it would not go anywhere great so it is a bit weird that people hate the character for doing the job that they always do for your crime family lol. But on the choice front it does feel cheap. Anyway, I feel that the plot still could be done without the MC and that friend being…well a friend and just be a character they get paired with cause of the situation and let the player choose to keep it professional if it fit their MC more. I know all possibilites can’t be covered but it still could make sense in terms of the story. I dont know if my jumbled thoughts are making any sense, so sorry if they aren’t lol
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exactly! or when your options are either flirty or cold. what if i want to be polite/friendly? can’t i just be nice to someone without finding them hot?
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The funny thing about that game for me was that I actually kinda liked the overall plot, but found the romance aspect to be severely lacking.
I remember the first time I played, my character was really aggressive and aloof to everyone (I chose the background where I was a POW from an enemy land), yet everyone had the hots for me regardless; near the beginning, I deliberately let one of my fellow gladiators die, yet the RO who was upset about it still wanted to go out with me in the very next conversation; the healer person (can’t remember their name) tried to come onto to me at the end, acting like how different and special I was, despite the fact that I threatened them in our very first meeting (and was generally very uncaring towards other people).
I went through the game a few times after that (trying out all of the different romances), and I found that as long as you don’t make choices that explicitly block off/end a romance, all of the ROs will be down to date and/or have sex with you regardless of who you are - it pretty much doesn’t matter what personality you have or what other options you choose.
Look, I get that the whole of that line of the games is romance, but if you’re barely even going to acknowledge my MC’s personality and the choices they make, it’s just going to feel like a hollow experience to me.
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I remember there was a character like that in Psy High that irritated me to no end.
Here’s me, crushing on my best friend, yet every time this particular popular character comes into view (who my MC apparently thinks is super hot), my MC’s brain turns into mush and they become a drooling idiot - no game, I really don’t fancy this person, can I please interact with someone else? 
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This isn’t exactly what you’re talking about here, but this is one of the reasons I really don’t like it when the villain is romanceable, even though I just never play their route. It feels so awkward trying to play a hero who opposes the villain when the game keeps drawing attention to how attractive and charming said villain is, having you spend a disproportionate amount of time with them, putting you in romance trope situations, etc. By the end it barely feels like the villain is actually meant to be such.
To tie it back to the point of this topic. I don’t like it when the potential villain romance route in an IF overlaps with the rest of the game. On a meta-level, the reader can tell when the setting of a scene is designed for a romance route. It’s easy to dismiss with other characters in the party as it could just as easily be used for friends hanging out, but when it’s the villain, it just feels kinda weird for everyone who’s not interested in that route.
And while I don’t even write romance the people interested in said “villain romance” trope would probably also like it if the villain romance felt like a true villain romance. Instead of a more traditional romance. But maybe I’m wrong, like I said, I don’t write much romance.
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I personally think villain romances work best when it’s a villain you need to work with for whatever reason (like to take down another villain, or to prevent the end of the world) or are otherwise stuck in the same place (like a small space station), but it also wouldn’t be romancing THE villain, just A villain… but then again, I also usually don’t go for villain romances (antagonist romances where MC is the villain notwithstanding).
(I don’t have a problem with the game making it clear the villain is charming, though. I can acknowledge a person being charming even if I don’t like said person, and villains can be charming.)
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Honestly? Uneven casts gender-wise, particularly in games with romance content. I understand the structure of the plot sometimes skews one way or another, but far too many times I stumble upon main parties that are like: 2 men, 1 woman, and 2 characters you can pick the gender of (which in like 90% of occasions will be male either way, because a considerable majority of IF readers are exclusively attracted to men). As someone who has no preference for the characters I go for, it nonetheless makes me go a little 
, specially because even when they’re genderlocked, very few people will actually discuss them with gender neutral pronouns (which I guess is its own issue that’d make the post longer than it needs to be).
Dunno man, I guess the conclusion of this is that I’d like more equity in IF in general.
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I’m not sure I follow. What do you mean by ‘equity’?
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I guess equity isn’t quite the word, but I feel like there’s still an inherent bias in IF stemming from the influence romance games have had on it, which are majorly F/M-focused with a full male cast.
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Oh yeah, them! I forgot about them but that’s another really frustrating example, yeah. (meanwhile Hayley was my favorite RO and not pushed AT ALL, being basically just a surprise RO at the end).
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I’m curious now, would you rather the ROs not be gender selectable, or that there would be an option to set them to their “canonical” genders?
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I’m more partial to gender-locked characters, but if the main cast is small, (like, 2-3 ROs) I understand the need to make them more accessible to everyone. In that case, there wouldn’t really be a ‘canon’ gender since they’d be conceived as switchable, but as the cast wouldn’t be unbalanced right from the start, (unlike in the hypothetical I posited before) I’d have zero issues with a given player tailoring their genders to suit their personal preferences.
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Re: everybody wanting to get in your pants regardless of personality, I believe the author more or less went on record as enjoying the kinds of romances where you’re the most popular kid in class, so to speak, and so they purposely designed the romances in their games as being so ridiculously easy to get into in fulfillment of this aspect they enjoy. No matter what you say or do, unless you outright reject the ROs (And there was a glitch on game release where if you didn’t reject Remi as soon as the option presented itself or lock into someone else’s romance, you’d get snagged into their romance whether you wanted to or not), they’ll keep finding excuses to pine after you.
Which, I get you, it’s still annoying to even have personality traits if the game can’t be bothered to acknowledge them and have the cast react accordingly. But I get where the author’s coming from as well, sometimes I just want to indulge in a bit of wish fulfillment in my games, so I can’t be too bent out of shape on either side, really.
Also: healer’s name was Petra in my game, and I had ROs set to female. Not sure what the male version of them would be called.
If you’re talking about who I think you’re talking about, doesn’t that RO turn out to be a case of biting the Apple of Eden, in a sense? Like, they’re super cool and sexy, but then you hook up with them and find out they’re secretly trash?
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what?
I don’t get it, because if we take your exemple here:
if you are interested in females = 3.
So, how is that Full male cast?
And if you are interested in males = 4
where is the issue again?
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There is no full male cast; the issue is that it sets up an inherent unbalance right from its premise. Like, yes, you can gender flip them should you wish to, but two of those characters will be invariably male in all playthroughs and canons. This isn’t me going ‘I’d like a perfectly-balanced cast 24/7 otherwise it’s a Bad Game’ but rather ‘I’ve noticed a trend where IF games to favour male ROs and it sorta annoys me’.
EDIT:
…I can’t unfortunately deny that
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Maybe because the whole world already cater to the dude player…?
Imagine how I feel, being a Lesbian and only place I can get some is in these games 
My butthurt is bigger than yours 
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I’m confused. Are you… agreeing with me or not? Honest question.
Yes and no.
Yes, because there is an imbalance, but that imbalance exists everywhere not just in IF games. And if you gonna put forward a request or a complaint, I rather you do it for all games, not just these.
No, because like I said the issue resides in every damn game not just IF.
For example, in Divinity Original Sin 2: They created Romance and you had the ratio of 2 females and 4 dudes.
When I asked Larian why it was so imbalanced? They gave me the old 'Oh it just happen that way.
I’m happy they are thinking of female players, but we are still far away from a balanced ratio. Cause that would be nice. 3x3x3 would be wonderful.
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