Aw sir
I remember that I was checking this thread a few months ago, and sir said something very similar at that time.
I hope that this story can help:
My friend wrote and published a book. It wasn’t really bad or really good. But he got a lot of negative reviews from readers. I even said to him that I could gather friends and we could write a lot of positive reviews to balance it. He said: “No, leave it.
I’m very happy that readers sacrificed their free time and wrote reviews of my book. And they’re right. My work has lots of drawbacks.”
I was very impressed because he was genuinely grateful to readers that they took their free time and wrote reviews of his work. What’s more, he wasn't angry at negative reviews but was approaching them humbly (objectively, in his opinion).
Much more important for peace of mind is our attitude/approach than what’s really happening. I think many creators could adapt my friend's attitude/approach to endure the pressure of having their creations judged (he didn’t feel it at all, quite the opposite).
As for hate raters, they exist, true. But first, are you sure, sir, that diagnosing somebody as a hate rater is always 100 % correct?
The hypothetical rater, taken as a hate rater, can be more balanced in giving good and bad ratings than me or you, sir. They can also genuinely think that something is terrible and justify it to the best of their (sometimes poor or lacking) ability, etc.
What’s more, you, sir, identify as hate raters who give likes to negative reviews. I can think of many possible reasons to like somebody's negative review. From so straightforward that somebody is grateful to that person that they sacrificed their free time and wrote a review (getting nothing in exchange) to more elaborate judgment when somebody finds that review is good in pointing out weak points, and as such, it can contribute to improving dev’s work (if dev is willing to accept criticism).
But let’s say that the identification was correct. So, let’s consider a little more: “Why would those people want to do that? And, the only conclusion I can come to is what Walter said again. Because they can. To me it's akin to someone who kicks a dog, to be honest. People that do that do it because they can. Anyone that has any ounce of humanity or a heart would never do anything like that.”
With all due respect for you and everyone involved, it's a rare occurrence when a social phenomenon has only one simple, radical explanation.
As much as it may appear unlikely, it’s impossible to rule out that some of them may have good motivation, like trying to help devs improve their work. Granted, it is far from an optimal approach, but considering that a substantial amount of people don’t have developed diplomatic skills or even social, and not all imperfections of language are to be overcome (and what is possible to overcome may not be for various reasons), I’m far away from judging such attempt as the worst possible evil in the internet.
It’s also possible that they seek attention. Funny thing, if that’s their goal, they achieved it somewhat because you, sir, bring our attention to them again.
I checked how big of a problem hate raters could be here, and it looks like they don’t have the power to affect the statistics noticeably (be it because they’re in low numbers, the staff is doing their job excellently, or for any other possible reason/s).
When I started to write this post, 15629 games were here, which means 521 pages with default settings of 30 games per page. The middle are 260-261 pages. Pages from 247 to 293 mostly consist of games with ratings of 3 (average). That’s almost exactly what could be expected. The middle page is 270, so raters as a whole are statistically a little more generous than a machine would be.
Sorry for only touching the peak of an iceberg, but:
Are these considerations really worth your time and sanity, sir? Evil exists in this world in one form or another. Hate rates are unpleasant for creators, but they’re hardly the worst that exists. They’re unable to destroy your soul or even harm your body, sir. Why give them so much of our attention? Is that not fulfilling one of their possible goals?
That’s normal. Whatever anybody creates, they’ll get contradictory opinions. In some cases, both can be right to some extent. In some, only one can be right. I remember when my friend got reviews of his master's thesis from two people from the same cathedral of law/law department. One said that he wrote too much about historical regulation. Another was that he wrote too little about historical regulation.
But, funny thing, I can agree to some extent with both statements sir mentioned:
1."You don't give us choices when it comes to the sex scenes". - is partially true. You forced some sex scenes on the player, sir. About three by sir’s words:
Imo the good practice is to allow the player to choose if he wants MC to have sex and with whom (unless the game is about rape). It's even better if that’s not only entirely dependent on the points. I mean,
having enough points to have a possibility to have a sex scene is a good solution if MC still could be forced by player's decision to back off (unless MC’s getting raped, but you don’t do these kinds of scenes, sir).
The second meaning of "you don't give us choices when it comes to the sex scenes" is also partially true. In some sex scenes, choosing what the MC is doing is impossible. When it doesn’t matter a lot to me (unless MC is into some hardcore or niche stuff, which isn't the case in your game, sir), some porn games give a lot of freedom to players in that regard, and it can hardly be seen as a bad practice.
2."Choices don't matter"—I agree to a meagre extent - you can’t avoid some sex scenes in the game, regardless of your choices. Also, I remember that choosing some dialogue options changed MC’s saying only a little, like an additional sentence. However, the rest was the same in both options (and the additional sentences didn’t change anything in reply to MC’s saying nor set any variables). So I understand that some people may get the impression that "choices don't matter", especially after playing games concentrated on branching. The aspect of “choice matters” could be improved, but that doesn’t mean that’s bad currently, especially compared to kinetic novels (that I rather don’t consider as games, but that’s my radical view).
Regardless, the game is 5/5 for me, and what you did well (written in my review) greatly offset what could be improved. I also suspect that your game left a good impression for most people commenting to go through the trouble of sharing their opinions