Sometimes i feels like DPC didn't offer us maximum choices to choose, for example in episode 4 when MC were having words with both Maya and Josy at DIKs library. He gave us only two choice to choose which is something like this :
1. Be friend with both of them.
2. Try for something more with both of them.
What i means maximum choice was something like this that DPC should have offers us :
1. Be friend with both of them.
2. Try for something more with both of them.
3. Dump both of them.
4. Try for something more with Maya only.
5. Try for something more with Josy only.
If he give us maximum choices like that, we as player will have better options to decide what path we would like to take for good.
yeah, yeah , but this also would quintuple his job. that would be 5 different branch, just for 2 girl. and we have like 20 other girls.
you know unfortunately that this is a trigger that I can not resist ...
let's start with the premise that the best solution would have been for the result of the clarification to be that the three of them take time to deepen their feelings.
otherwise we have to face the paradox of a Mc who after his father's advice to follow his feelings, after having found courage in alcohol..., asks the two girls to remain friends!? a huge WTF, made even more senseless if the next day we confess to Derek that we still have feelings for one of the two girls... then it means that the night before we blatantly lied and hid our true feelings...
Having said that, it is not true that it would have doubled the work of DPC. The double choice did not really double it, it only doubled the interaction after the visit of Josy's father, the dialogue with Derek and the birthday message, I would say a very reduced effort.
option 3, to dump them both, (which for me is the least sensible and would have been avoided anyway) should have only excluded from certain contents (Josy's father's visit, having lunch with them etc) or at the limit leave the choice to the player if he wants to be involved or not (when Josy calls to help Maya). also the opening to D&G could have been kept, making Mc simply study at their table. we are talking about a few more lines of dialogue. but I would have avoided this choice because it basically cuts out too much of the game and story content that DPC evidently has in mind.
option 3 and 4 were even simpler, you can not expect DPC to anticipate the " solo routes" (which are not visible yet) but he could simply anticipate the confession to Derek, Mc declares himself to one of the two girls and she does not feel like it (after all the relationship with the other girl has started before and basically they are at BR for that) MC accepts her decision but continues to feel interest for her, it would start all the way "rejection". Of course at that point there would have been no choice on who to follow after the visit of Josy's father and everything would have continued as it is doing now.
really little more work, but it would still have offered a more believable reaction and closer to the one felt by the different players
So... you're saying Jill is moving too fast for you?
More seriously, though, I don't mind the MC automatically declining encounters
in theory. But in practice I wish there was a coherent rationale for his decisions. The MC will automatically turn down Cathy if he's on M&J's path, yet he's happy to bang Nora or Envy AND Sandy. On Jill's path he'll turn down N/E&S, but he's still happy to fool around with Cathy, or even Jade. And he'll turn down simply kissing Lily (purely for her scavenger hunt!) even though he could pay her for a blowjob a mere one episode before.
It's hard to see pattern connecting those dots. Jill's path at least includes a monologue where the MC will call himself out for sleeping around, so it's possible he'll be more consistent now that he has that polaroid. But then again, Jade doesn't even come up in the monologue so maybe not. Maya & Josy is even worse, since the MC will brazenly say they agreed to an open relationship if Derek asks about Bella; can't very well claim he
needed to turn down Lily, can he?
So yeah, I understand the need to keep the options to manageable level but I wish DPC would either give us bit more choice or stick with a more consistent explanation for the MC's choices.
I'm pretty convinced that these sudden dead ends are related to future situations in the game.
i.e., that at some point MC can't be both tied to Cathy and M+J, or Jill and Nichole, or Quinn and M+J (and maybe Jill and Sage).
and then to avoid this situation DPC places blocks earlier in the story
otherwise there would remain some really very arbitrary plot choices as you were pointing out.
