I was doing another run of the harvest moon game FoMt the other day and i realized a feature which i find pretty interesting that being that there is a challenge behind getting the girl in the town to love you and the two of you getting married, that being that there are rivals people that are after the same person you try to court. The interesting mechanic in this is that it kinds of puts you into a race (well a very slow one atleast) of who can get their dream partner first. I feel that is a very nice feature that kinds of forces turtle gamers to be kind of social instead of getting max lvl everything then that is the last thing they do. I know some people might disagree with me about this since it kinda forces you in some way but there could maybe be a way to shut this feature down. Anyways please give this idea some response and say what you think.
First and foremost: Marriage should never be forced nor should it be considered as a conquest. As you can see, I'm a voice against it Hi I'm turtle The turtle can still be very social in game with it's maxed out skills but without having a need for a partner. This is something I do in game (did the same in rune factory 3), first I would woo any and each suitable partner to the max possible before marring a specific one.
The first thing I thought of, actually, was something akin to Jamie's role in Magical Melody. A direct competitor to you with more consequences for losing to him (like, say, lucrative business deals being thrown his/her way rather than yours). Marriage...meh. It'd be interesting to see what NPC hooks up with who, but nothing more.
I wouldn't mind rivals only if after getting certain level of affection from the girl you block them from proceeding till you decide on being with someone - simply because in some installments of HM/RF series you had to choose a girl who no matter how madly in love with you, at some date was marrying a rival. I understand that it may seem realistic that she didn't wait for player character forever but I'd gladly drop that aspect from this game as it often made it impossible for a player to just concentrate on farming, as at some point to finish the game one had to marry and all partners beside usually some, well, leftover, emergency one were taken. Alternatively (or in addition to that) being able to finish/continue the game without having to marry would be nice. I also recall some players who were asking for non-traditional (when it comes to sexuality of the partners) relationships and supposedly there are to be some - in such case being able to form them (heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, asexual, mono- and polygamous, open, whatever-the-hell-have-you) without official, binding rituals would be very nice. Of course, different NPCs could have different views of such and so it may be that if a player wants to become a partner of some particular girl, they have to keep in mind that she may not be happy if they'll be seeing other girls for anything but 'friends-like' interactions and that one won't be able to persuade her to not seek marriage at certain point. At the same time, it also would be nice if some of the people's beliefs regarding relationships and their outcomes could be changed (which also suggests there would be people of carying opinions about such) - it would be quite a lot of work, but a really nice and interesting addition giving a whole new level to the NPCs, their depth and meaningful player interaction. I slowly get off-topic though, here, so here I end this post.
Although i am for equal rights and stuff but do you really think polygamy isn't kinda of op for this kind of game where you get bonuses from having a partner since you would have like 3 wives (or husbands i don't really know how it works). And i also feel like polygamy is strongly related to the Mormon church and Islam where only the men can have several wives but not the other way around which i don´t feel a game like this needs. Also i kinda think most npc should start with being neutral when it comes to liking girls or boys since i feel like many people will try to mix things up in different runs
To be honest, aforementioned were more of examples of what do I mean by 'non-traditional sexuality'. I do agree that polygamy may be very controversial even in the age of growing support/acceptance of homo- and bisexuality. In general though, a few from the options regarding 'who likes what' wouldn't be bad even if not everyone may want to really follow them. I am hoping it will be more of a fluff for NPCs than anything - to broaden horizons, show variety of outlooks on life (and to be a decent reason for why not every character in the game will be possible for courting) rather than some big mechanics. Same with some people being comfortable in serious relationship only if marriage is soon to follow, while others plain being together because they love each other and don't care about the rest, including religious aspect. The reason is that I want to be able to meet all kinds characters in the game, of all kinds of approach - and I want to have interaction with them developed enough to learn about their beliefs/preferences, discuss them, react to them, maybe sometimes even change them - and change the NPcs behavior based on what I'll do. As I've mentioned before - interaction with and complexity of NPCs are one of the aspects of the game I hope to see on 'high priority' list, given how in HM/RF it was sorely underdeveloped, even considering the theme of the games.
