*** FROM USER
So I’m sure you’ve seen it discussed extensively that gay colonists need some tweaks, from a game balance perspective. The community generally agrees that advances between colonists of incompatible sexualities should be decreased, so they would stop getting “rebuffed” mood penalties needlessly.
This isn’t particularly urgent in my opinion, since there are (as usual in Rimworld) some creative and questionably moral ways to get around this. I’ve expressed my opinions, and you can react however you please; it’s your game. But if you’re already planning on changing the code for romancing/sexuality, I have a few things to request:
First off, I’m bi, and no colonists are bisexual in Rimworld. It would nice to get some representation, blah blah blah… In truth this isn’t a big deal to me personally, I just thought I might bring it to your attention that we exist.
Now, one thing that really does bother me, both from a game-balance and “political” point of view, is a conclusion drawn from this thread: “set a value that multiplies attractiveness by 0.15 at the end, then keep going. That’s right – women are always a little bit bi.” If neither gender had this multiplier, I would write it off as you not wanting to overcomplicate game mechanics (not that you need to or seem to feel the need to). If both did, I don’t think anyone would have a problem. It could even be a minor workaround fix for the current complaints, allowing gay colonists to have a small chance to succeed in their advances on straight ones.
But at the risk of calling your opinions invalid (not my intent) I have to insist that being “bi-curious” is not asymmetrical between genders, as you seem to imply in this code. I’m not going to tell you how to make your game, and I certainly have no intentions of telling you how to think, but I just wanted to express my opinion as an admiring member of your game’s community. Overall you’ve created something great that a lot of people enjoy.
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Hi there, thanks for the mail.
I think bi-curiosity is quite asymmetrical between sexes. I’ve developed this view from research, and it also aligns with what I’ve observed personally.
Research:
http://www.advocate.com/bisexuality/2015/08/26/study-women-are-more-likely-be-bisexual-men
The above study indicates that a larger proportion of women who identify as straight are bi-curious or have engaged in bisexual behavior.
Research:
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gates-How-Many-People-LGBT-Apr-2011.pdf
The above paper indicates (on page 6 specifically) that of people who identify as gay/lesbian/bi, the proportion of bi among women is about double the proportion of bi men.
And personal observations: I’ve known some bi women and a large proportion of the nominally straight women I’ve known have discussed bi impulses or experiences they’ve had. In contrast, every bi man I’ve ever known has ultimately ended up identifying as gay. These patterns seem to apply even in very gay-friendly social contexts.
Of course I’m sure bi/bi-curious men exist, but the research and what I’ve seen supports the conclusion that they’re rarer than bi women. Conversely, gay women seem to be rarer than gay men.
Nor am I an expert in all this; the game simply attempts a very rough approximation of some patterns from real life. In truth I never did a full analysis of every possible situation this code could run into. I’m sure various numbers are wrong. But, it’s functional and gets the job done.
In truth I hate these discussions because there’s really no way to reach agreement. So I don’t ask you to agree with me necessarily, only to understand why I would make these choices given the research and observations I’ve found.
Best
Ty
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Wow, thanks for this great reply! I think you should post an explanation like this somewhere public. (Maybe you did, and I missed it) I’m sure people like me would appreciate that you put a lot of thought into this, rather than just basing it on stereotype. That was my biggest concern, honestly. This is great!
But the other burning question – just because I’m curious: Are you planning on tweaking the code? The “dealing with attractive lesbians” thread is actually the highest scoring one of all time in /r/rimworld, heh. No judgement either way, I’m just wondering your thoughts on the functionality of it. Thanks again!
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Sadly these discussions, had in public, have a tendency to attract people that enjoy conflict. So I choose to just try to do something reasonable (that I can explain if ultimately necessary), but not to put out justifications for it because they’d be bait for any Internet flame-wars. Because you know no matter what I say some people will hate it – and some of those might hate it a lot, and I just have better things to do than deal with that. It’s a sad thing about the Net.
As for the lesbians, I added a “gaydar” factor so colonists will be less likely to attempt romance with others of non-matching orientation. That was easy – just something I didn’t think to add before. Of course awkward interactions will still happen, just not so constantly and repeatedly, because that made little sense and screwed up the balance.
Best Ty