I'll be honest with you guys, I think RPGMs are far superior to VNs, especially when it comes to NTR. My experiences have been better with RPGMs, especially in terms of hidden NTR or branching routes.
Not to mention things like SFX or in-game features such as cell phones or "battle-fuck".
Because many VN games are not talking advantage of the format.
VNs shine when the character sprites are detailed and expressive, and the music/SFX appropriately used. Not to mention, voice acting acts a lot of flavor. Because the genre is so text-focused, you
need strong writing or the entire thing falls flat.
Now, if you are going to use sprites with minimal variations, no voice acting, no solid writing to keep the viewer’s interest, then the flaws are going to become super apparent.
With RPGM games, there are battle and exploration elements to distract players, for better or worse. The "stockiness" of the RPGM assets also prevents the game from being
too shit, unlike the default Ren’Py UI which is horrid.
If the RPGM engine didn’t already provide a plethora of tilesets, sprites, and music, then the average RPGM quality would drop drastically.
How many people can design a battle system from scratch, let alone a competent one? Pixel sprites and tilesets? No way in hell that’s happening. You’re getting AI-gen images passed through a pixel filter.
That being said, I’ve played so many RPGM now, that I would rather play mid VNs than mid RPGM. Some RPG Makers contain the most horrendous time wasters, whereas a VN you can skip the terrible parts with CTRL.
The first thing I saw from the dev in that thread is "people don't understand hard work."
Playing the hard work card is just bad imo.
Yeah, I never got this excuse. People don’t need to be told you’re working hard.
They can see it in the results of your work.
Now, there will always be naysayers who don’t appreciate your work. But that’s fine.
They were never going to give you money anyway.
Ignore them and make stuff for the people who actually care.
Treat your readers right, and the support will follow. No one likes being told they’re underappreciative, so give reasons for people to appreciate you.