I accept your opinion, about how you personally feel about it. You feel, it is a dik move, its you own personal feelings speaking.
. Not agreeing with something because you personally not like it, I accept and agree with. but using this as to try to justify that hey its bad writing, is something that I not agree.
I don't agree how mc stormed out and avoided maya and Josy for 2 day, but that is my personal feeling, and MC has his own feeling, just because he say he start to fall in love with Jill, does not mean I feel the same.
we reading a book, with his own character , we can alter what chapter we want to read, but it's still a set in stone story.
You know, there are people who may not interested in sage at all, so for them this is not even a dilemma. just like there are peoples, who are not interested in Josy and Maya as much as they wont even mind if they are removed.
I personally not care about Bella, I have not even seen her more than what the story wanted me to. once the game is finished, once we have the whole puzzle, we will know what decisions and action has to take for the out come we want to achieve, until then we are just getting pieces
I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it
bad writing, I just feel like the presentation is at odds with the actual events.
Obviously, if a player doesn't care about one girl at all, or if they've played the game in such a way that one (or both?) girls never asks to see the MC, the choice is pretty easy. But for players who are at least considering pursuing both girls, from an out-of-game perspective it
feels like this choice is meant to be a significant one: the MC will bare a bit of his soul to one or the other of them and she will respond with clear interest. Jill's branch goes even further, with the MC learning of a major development in Jill's life and declaring that he thinks he's falling for her.
Yet from an in-game perspective, it's just a routine moment. Jill asks if the MC is busy, and it turns out he is. It's no different than when the MC couldn't study with M&J because he had to go to the nursing home... except that this time the player happens to get a choice. In the former case, the MC said he was busy automatically and the girls rescheduled automatically. In the latter case, the
player must make a momentous decision even though to the MC it appears to be as open and shut as visiting the nursing home was.
In a sense, it's a bit like the choice to go see Bella in Episode 3 after Jill says she came around. To the MC, it's just a spur of the moment thought that popped into his head: I should ask Bella why she changed her mind. But to the player, it's a crucial decision that will open or close Bella's route for good (or so it seems now), with heavy ominous foreshadowing thrown in for good measure. But at least in that case the MC's thought process tracks with the player: if he likes Bella, he'll probably go see her. Whereas in this case, the thought process doesn't track: even if he likes Jill more than Sage, he probably wouldn't go out with her.
If the goal was to make picking Jill a flat out less appealing route than picking Sage for roleplaying players (and only for roleplayers), I would say the scene is working as intended. If the goal was to make it a hard choice for players generally, I would say it works but could have been improved for roleplayers without harming the overall dilemma by having Jill arrange her date first. That way it would be arguable whether Sage or Jill should have get priority: Jill was first but Sage's need is more urgent.
As is, I don't see any reason for an MC to pick Jill (again, assuming he cares about both girls) except that the player is doing a Jill focused run. It's a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like a wasted opportunity to give the dilemma more weight by tying it into the story.
When I start an AVN, I usually choose which character Im going after based on looks and later based on personality and character development. But Im also a completionist, and thats why my first playtrough of an AVN is always a manwhore playtrough
I like the fact that a game has that type of consequences for cheating if they are well implemented. On being a Dik that isnt implemented yet, because the MC isnt on a real relationship with anyone. However we have been seeing hints of it actually starting to appear, for example, with the Maya & Josy "open relationship" and now with the MC confession to Jill on the date, that already cost us a sex scene and probably more scenes in the future (who knows) where DPC took our option away and the MC couldnt "cheat" even if the player wanted it.
My unpopular opinion on the Sage and Jill choice: I actually liked it because it makes the neutral and chick players to actually miss, for the first time, some content with an LI
Technically, it's the second time, since you can only choose to follow Maya or Josy in Episode 5. Or the third, if you count staying with Bella or Sage in Episode 4 (you can sleep with Sage either way, but you can only get the activities in the respective pools by choosing that LI). Actually, it's the fourth time if you want to count choosing between dancing with Sage and family photos with Maya back in Episode 2.
It is the first time Jill has been involved in such a choice, I suppose. But I think that's mostly down to the fact Jill's romance has been such a slow burn.
