She's teasing the MC just like she's always done and she even says that line on the DIK path too. Plus, Quinn doesn't exactly seem like the type of person to let something like that get in her way. If she likes the MC and wants the MC, then she'll go for him, regardless of who she thinks he likes or who she thinks likes him. Also, when it comes to that offer to help, it's just that; an offer to help, so her perceiving that him and Maya have a thing shouldn't really be an issue.
Furthermore, between the end of ep 4 and that point in ep 6, there doesn't seem to have been much that could make Quinn think there's nothing between them anymore, so when he offers to help on the non-M&J DIK path, she still thinks that there is, yet accepts the help anyway. So, since that's the case, then it would seem inconsistent to not accept help on the Neutral/CHICK paths if this doesn't bother her.
Regarding Quinn knowing about the MC getting back together with Maya, it has been three days at that point. The MC left the DIK party with Maya and Josy, had a picnic with them on Sunday, and got quite close with Maya in gender studies class (and we know Sarah was there). If Quinn was keeping tabs on the MC (and she totally would!), she would certainly have grounds for suspicion.
No, that's not what I want. I'm fine to have to create different saves for different LI paths and not simply rollback to see a different scene that's locked on a different path, but the problem is that some of the locking here doesn't make sense when you're often being locked out despite doing all the right things with the character(s) in question.
What I'm talking about is a system that's essentially the same one as AL. That was one where the MC's choices with regards to how they interacted with certain characters determined what scenes you got and what ending you got and it made sense. Once the MC has committed to Megan and/or Melissa, if he strays from them between then and the Leah kidnapping, then he faces the consequences for his cheating, and rightly so. There's no affinity system there, the ending and the lewd scenes are both based on what choices the player made when interacting with certain characters.
In this game, players can do everything with M&J, and even with Quinn, and seem to have a really good relationship with them, so you would think that they would be rewarded, but just because you're in one affinity or the other, you are denied that and it doesn't marry up to how that relationship has progressed and been portrayed throughout the rest of the game.
There are already variables for Quinn interactions, Nicole interactions, Camila interactions, etc, so it's not as if DPC doesn't have these kinds of checks and could have simply used these rather than the affinity system. The status system is fine because that's like a behaviour metric and is much better at representing the personality of the MC than the affinity system. Arbitrarily splitting up characters into different pre-designated paths that don't take key character interactions into account creates inconsistencies, and that is happening here more and more.
I think you're somewhat overstating how good even your MC's relationship with Quinn was. She clearly had an interest in him, but just like Maya had trouble processing her interest in the MC, Quinn is clearly not comfortable with liking the MC. Since Quinn is very different than Maya, her ambivalence feels very different, but it's still there. In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that the chance to fuck Quinn on the roof occurred during the break-up with Maya.
At any rate, while I agree the game would benefit from a simpler, streamlined systems, this the way DPC wants it. Characters will judge the MC based on a combination of his past actions and his Affinity. The past actions
generally seem to be limited to things the judge could potentially know about. The Affinity system is much more of a handwave, because it's not always clear why a given action is supposedly so important, and a lot of those actions are not public knowledge. In DPC's mind, however, it clearly represents important aspects of the MC's personality.
Sadly, we just have to accept this as a heavy case of gameplay and story segregation. For better and for worse, it's how the game is designed. (Not that I'll stop snarking about it, mind you!)
Do you find any logic in not being able to keep things going with Cathy just because I was able to keep M&J, thus leading me to miss Jade's date? I've done everything right with her, yet I'm not even given the choice, I just tell her it's over. All while I keep banging practically all that moves with M&J's approval. We all get this is not an harem, paths will lock somewhere and choices should have an impact (and they will), but some of dev's locks along the way are fairly questionable. Especially by comparison
Oh, I see plenty of in-game logic to it: the MC spent two days miserable because of the whole Maya & Josy fallout. When he finally addresses the matter head on, he notes that he's been acting without thinking too much. So after reflection, he decides to try for something more, and the girls agree. In that light, it's easy to see why he would turn down a chance for casual sex with Cathy barely a day later.
Of course what I definitely do NOT see in this is consistency. We all know how the MC can bone pretty much anything with a vagina in the Prep Mansion a couple hours before he turns down Cathy. Likewise, he's happy to spend the night hobnobbing with Jill and Bella - even if he's not pursuing either - rather than return to the girls he just turned down Cathy for. And of course he'll be eager to ask if he can keep dating other women when the three get together to iron out their relationship the next day. I'd make a joke about how the MC thinks fidelity only applies to older women, but the MC is
also perfectly happy to make out with Bella a couple days later if she helps clean his room; he'll even favor her help over his two girlfriends.
So like I said, I understand the logic, but that doesn't mean the implementation is any good. The game picks and chooses when to apply its logic for the sake of the meter.
