POLL: For a porn game, would you prefer two customizable NPC or four non-customizable NPC?

[destroyergd]

Customizing can be fun, but my problem with it is that it rarely matters. Sometimes it won't change CGs/Animations or scenes in general, much less the actual story. In most games I've played that change is only visible inside the house/base/wardrobe HUD/minor interactions - also, if there's any change in personality/dialogue, it's usually limited to these places too.

An exception that comes to mind is Four Elements Trainer, where you can change breast size and it also changes CGs/Animations.

 

[ClockworkGnome]

When playing porn games (as opposed to just watching porn), I'm generally in it for the story.

Because of that, while I might enjoy a bit of customization for potential LIs, I much prefer having more variety and choice when it comes to their personalities way more than just their appearance. I'd much rather have the option to pick between, say, the light-hearted childhood friend, the shy girl, the manic party girl, and the sensual vamp rather then only getting one or two immutable personalities with multiple-choice appearance.

(If anything, I'd almost prefer being able to change characters' personality archetypes than their physical appearance - ie, being able to toggle between Romantic/Nympho/Tsundere/etc to change how a LI reacts to me.)

Honestly, most of the time the only time I'm playing any game where I dislike the model/design the dev used is in ones where one or more LIs have tattoos (because that's a major turn-off for me). It'd be nice to be able to toggle tattoos on/off for those sorts of characters. But I'm not hugely concerned with other aspects of appearance most of the time, as long as a character is designed to look good in general.

 

[Zoran89]

It... it depends.

First, what does it mean to get "more characters"?
If getting more characters means getting characters which I don't particularly enjoy, then I would go with less but with customization.

But if the choice is between two customizable, but boring characters and four non-customizable characters, but two of which are really fun, I'd go with the second option. Unless the two "fun" characters are absolutely not my type, visually. In that case, it depends on the content - if the game has enough content to keep me entertained, despite "boring" characters, I'd go with the first option. Otherwise, I'd skip the game altogether.

If, however, the additional two characters are not "fun", but the original two are, then I would go with the customization route, since I am not losing anything of value anyway. Same if they are all similar personality-wise - if the additional characters don't bring anything new AND interesting to the table, drop them, I'd rather have customization.

See how convoluted this gets?

Then there's also the issue of the author's designs.
I mean... if the character design is alright (not great, but alright), then I don't necessarily miss the customization option in the first place. If it's awful, then sure, customization might help, but only if you actually have a story/gameplay to support it. Dress-Up dolls are only fun for like 10 minutes.

I find it difficult to choose, because for me, it's a case-by-case thing, mostly because I would need to know what I am losing in return for the customization option. Sometimes it might be worth it, sometimes it might not, but there's no single answer to this, I feel.

Overall, I would say visual customization is always a nice addition that can score you some points, but unless you are going full character creator mode, it's not likely it will make or break your game - and even if you DO go full character creator route, you still need to have a solid backbone to your game, in addition to having a good customization - which is yet another layer to this. What kind and amount of hairstyles, clothes and accessories do I get? Because if you are going to half-ass the customization, you might as well skip it - nothing more frustrating than hearing you can customize your waifu, only to realize that none of the three hairstyles actually fit the image you are trying to make or that while the clothes' designs are good, their colour combinations are awful or (I'm looking at you both, Illusion and KISS) that certain bottoms only work with certain tops and either clip or are completely mismatched when joined with any others. One-part full clothing options are one possibility, but then they are a hit-or-miss, cause if you wanted a tomboy with a denim jacket and hot pants for example, well tough shit, because hot pants only come supplied with a tank top... You know what I mean? But then, to me, having one top match only one bottom is kind of the same thing, just with extra steps.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I DO want customization if possible. But I want it done properly. And only if it doesn't come at a detriment to the rest of the game.

 

[Burt]

To be able to customize chars to any extent would be a welcome addition to games, but I would like to change colour / ethnicity more. Obviously; not the multiverse of ethnicities that exist in the world, but maybe a white black and yellow characteristics rather than just a colour change. The type of stuff you see in most AA titles, they don't depict every ethnicity, just basics of Western / Afro Caribbean and Chinese/Korean/Asian. I know it's a lot of work and probably too much just from a personal point-of-view I choose games on here that have black female characters as I am Japanese, but my wife is Jamaican.
Good idea to poll though. You could have two customizable main chars and other non-customisable NPC's to enrich the storyline.

 

[SunBoots]

Customizeable characters kind of draw a line that makes the text surroundings them less personal.

Customisation is less interesting, in the end, than engaging writing.
I'd prefer the middleground of putting work into opt-in fetish variant scenes, but for the sake of this conversation, non-custom is how I'd go about it.

More natural, specific variety in potential character writing.

 

[Xelnous]

Personally, I'd prefer more customization, less characters as a short answer. However, if there's less customization in terms of body, face, and stuff that pertains to the appearance of the characters "features," but more customization in terms of clothing items, tattoos, etc. I'd take that over any game that features customization of the "features" of a character.

Also it very much depends on the game. Is it a harem game (harem hotel)? Then it's kinda forced into the "less customization, more characters" archetype. Is it a kinetic novel (Good Girl Gone Bad)? Then it's more so forced into the "more customization, less characters" archetype. Certain things may fit different stories.

To add on, Harem Hotel does it nicely I think. There's a wide variety of characters, however you can't customize them in the "body slider" sense. You can choose which outfits they wear though, which I think is more than most games with a similar amount of content. So while you're not "customizing" them, you still are.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

One extremely customizable npc.
Because nothing beats customization.
And the more you offer, the more you will probably suffer. But also will be loved for.

 

[khumak]

Appearance customization sounds nice in theory, but in practice it means a lot of time wasted on multiple renders for each scene when only 1 is actually going to be seen by the player. So instead of getting a decent sized game with whatever default features the dev had in mind, if you can customize them then you get a game maybe 25% of the size. IMO you're better off just picking how you want the characters to look and only having 1 version. You'll get a bigger game and probably more fans as a result. You may lose some people who prefer different body types but I think you'd lose even more if you had a much smaller game.

Customizing dialog and scene choices can be done without requiring a bunch of redundant renders so that makes a lot more sense to me. I have the same issue with games that have some system of outfit customization. You have a bunch of renders of all these different outfits for each pose, so you get a much smaller game with no real value added unless someone has a clothing fetish of some sort. Cosplay maybe?

 

[TifasMakesMeNut]

Hmmm guess it depends. If i like all the 4 then kinda fine with it. But im kinda torn on it since i do like to customize like clothes and standard stuff. Games like costume maid i mostly just pick body presets and and change abit here and there. Like for me if there is too many options with all kinds of details i rarely touch it since it becomes too much. But smaller options like many other Hgames does with picking a outfit and body accessories and tattoos i like.

 

[whiteTpoison]

After a while playing these games, customizing things seems like a waste of time to me, I don't even give them custom names

 

[Lafuelle]

Customization only works if the game hooks into that. If I give someone small breasts instead of large breasts, that should be a significant change in dialogue and theme when any sort of breast play comes around. Similarly, if I give a male NPC a small or a big dick I want that to change how that view looks when comparing dicks or something. If I give the NPC a muscular body type, I want to be picked up and tossed on the bed or have my head crushed between strong thighs versus if I gave the NPC a more small and chubby body type that just sits on my face.

tl;dr it's the quality of the writing here that carries it

 

[tr556]

como quiera el autor

 

[5k1n3xt]

I think there's a point to be made for a middle ground, you don't have to be able to fully customize each character's every feature as if it was a sim, because at that point it doesn't feel lie a real character, but influencing them to make certain changes to their appearence can be fun, like making them choose a different hairstyle, making them get a tatoo, maybe making them choose a certain kind of clothes over another (for example, tons of games make it so you dress up the characters in sluttier and sluttier clothing while maybe you just want them to look normal, or even dress them in cute clothes instead). So i'd personally choose idk, 3 characters with 2-3 customization options?.

 

[Jester-Fox]

Customization is nice, that said depending on scope it becomes closer and closer to moot as you have one of each trope. Harem games seem to be based on that principle or at the very least embody it.

 

[Alxyen]

I'd like to create/customize myself.

 

[Somber Stay]

For a porn game, do you prefer:

A) Two women NPC total, but who are highly customizable; changing their hair type, hair color, body type and breast size.
B) Four women NPC total, but can't customize them in anyway.

Ever play a game where you like the mother, sister or wife, but you don't like their body type, hair color, or breast size? Maybe you like short hair instead of long, or red hair instead of blonde. Maybe you prefer athletic body type instead of buxom?

Do you prefer more women NPC without customization, or less women with lots of customization?

Ideally, you'd have four highly customizable NPC, but that's A LOT more work. So if you had to sacrifice two NPC, to make the existing ones more customizable, would you prefer that?

EDIT: The poll can be viewed proportionally in regards to how much manpower your dev team has. Example:
One highly customizable NPC vs two non-customizable NPC?
Two highly customizable NPC vs four non-customizable NPC.
Four customizable NPC vs 8 non-customizable NPC?

The overall idea is sacrificing x amount of NPC to make existing NPC customizable.

I'd MUCH prefer a mixture like 2 that u can customize and 2 that u can't. I think it'd encompass a lot more ppl that way

 

[Eagle1900]

absolutely two NPCs but they can be customized! indeed the more features you can put to your liking the better!

 

[erisonkel]

Four with caveats - IMO customization options for NPCs in porn games tend to lead to the decrease in quality and variety of sex scenes - either you have to make sure that they fit every option (I reckon that's especially hard with body types), or you can just fckn ignore player's choices and draw CGs with the default character options only.
On the other hand, there is such a thing as too many characters, so at that point options would be better perhaps? Dunno.

Also, if we were to assume that the presence of options doesn't lower the quality and/or variety of sex scenes, then I guess I'd go for options? Still not sure about that, because personality goes a long way, and you can't really add options for that as well, can you? So if I was presented with two characters whose personalities I don't like, I won't care much for how I can moderate their enormous tits down to something reasonable and change their hairstyles to something I'd enjoy more - I'd prefer getting a character who I like as a character. That's probably a weird approach to porn games, but if I wanted basic eye candy, I'd open a booru instead of playing games.

 

[Porthas]

For a porn game, do you prefer:

A) Two women NPC total, but who are highly customizable; changing their hair type, hair color, body type and breast size.
B) Four women NPC total, but can't customize them in anyway.

Ever play a game where you like the mother, sister or wife, but you don't like their body type, hair color, or breast size? Maybe you like short hair instead of long, or red hair instead of blonde. Maybe you prefer athletic body type instead of buxom?

Do you prefer more women NPC without customization, or less women with lots of customization?

Ideally, you'd have four highly customizable NPC, but that's A LOT more work. So if you had to sacrifice two NPC, to make the existing ones more customizable, would you prefer that?

EDIT: The poll can be viewed proportionally in regards to how much manpower your dev team has. Example:
One highly customizable NPC vs two non-customizable NPC?
Two highly customizable NPC vs four non-customizable NPC.
Four customizable NPC vs 8 non-customizable NPC?

The overall idea is sacrificing x amount of NPC to make existing NPC customizable.

People love to customize stuff, it's why they spend so much time in the CC setting working on their protag if a game makes it available.

 

[Holodaryn]

Customizable NPCs sound really great