I'm alright with the people who've been friends with Sage instead of fuck buddies jumping on her wagon in Episode 7, but for those who've tried to deliberately ignore Sage and go out of their way to ensure that they don't get on her path, I don't understand at all why they can still choose to pursue Sage at the HOT's party. I vividly remember a member of the forum commenting about this exact case, and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Like, you're already treating her like Chad is at this point, but why the hell are you still allowed to choose whether to go for her or not???? Does the built-up RP mean nothing? I'm so confused by this, honestly speaking. I'm hoping for those that went for her in Episode 7 even after deliberately avoiding everything to do with her have to deal with some repercussions in future episodes.
Well, RPs have never meant much in this game. So I wouldn't put much stock in them.
I do agree that MCs who go out of their way to avoid Sage completely shouldn't be given the opportunity to pursue her now. But I think that's more an indication we should never have had the opportunity to avoid her that completely in the first place.
It's pretty clear the game intends the LIs to be load-bearing plot elements in the story, and thus the MC needs a reason to at least care about each of them (even if not romantically). I think that's reasonable, but it does mean the game should be clear on that point. Don't pretend I can wash my hands of Sage if it's going to be vital that the MC be the sort of person Sage might call for emotional support after Chad breaks up with her.
I think this just comes down to DPC wanting to offer a lot of choices but not thinking through the full implications. I found it easy to make that sort of mistake in my brief career as a pen and paper game master, so it's not too surprising DPC might have bitten off more than he could chew in the earlier episodes. Hopefully he's learned his lesson.
(It would also help if the game would avoid antagonizing us with the actions of the LIs (*cough*ruined library in Episode 4*cough*), but that's a separate issue.)
I would be perfectly ok with Bella beeing pissed but as the game lets you think this is not a problem during two episode and then suddently backstab you for this, it's really lame.
If Bella had told me this just after the scene with Cathy, it would be fine.
And you say it's not a harem game, are you kidding me, the whole game constantly push you and worse force to to that direction for what , beeing able to backstab you later and make choices for you so you are pissed
I have made a first gameplay before by trying to reject all girls and you can't really, so if you want a girl you need to reject all others from start or you will get fucked up well in the end.
And by playing this way you give up to all the fun content in this game, so what's the point, playing an anoying game just to maybe have the girl you want in the end.
It hasn't been that long in game since the incident with Cathy, and Bella is definitely not going to have this conversation in the library. The only time the MC and Bella interact in private between the end of Episode 5 (which is the first time she could have found the panties) and the shoe dropping in Episode 7 is when she helps the MC clean his room in Episode 6.
If Bella had found the panties by then, I agree she should have confronted the MC rather than have her lewd scene. But it's quite possible Bella hadn't found them yet, in which case the timeline fits. So I'll assume that's what happened unless we learn otherwise.
As for being forced to miss all the content with other girls, that's one way to look at it. The other is that this is an opportunity to add replay value. If you pursue both Cathy and Bella, you get a unique scene in that run. Yes, you can no longer pursue Bella (at least for now), but that's what other playthroughs are for.
If i for example, we go back to my scene with Bella in the car, it was totally lame because i did not had any choice. If she had told be about this and asked me to explain what i had done, i could have talked with her and she would have given me the choice to pursue with her and give up about the other girls and then trying with her to find a way to clean up the situation with her friend Jill.
But if the game lets you go very far with all the girls without warning (other girls getting jalous and pissed) and then in the end just choose a girl for you based on your past events without letting you anything to say, i'm out.
I have played many other games for example Where the heart is, where you can pursue all girls but at a certain point you can just talk with the girl and stop her path when you see that it will become impossible to go on without getting problems.
But what i totally hate, is that someone suddently tap me on the shoulder and tells me "you are an asshole y ditch you because ten years ago, you stole my cookie" !!
But WTHI is doing precisely what you claim not to want: allow you to persist in a mistake it
absolutely will hold against you down the line for a much longer time. If we had been able to smooth-talk our way out of this predicament with Bella, we'd just be kicking the can down the road until the next opportunity to get caught.
It's true that WtHI has some opportunities to bow out of a romance gracefully, but they're not all that common. So putting off the decision isn't guaranteed to give you an opportunity to avoid the consequences. (BaDIK only has such an option for M&J so far, but it's also much still fairly early in the story.)
we are not talking about a relationship in its infancy
when Bella starts pushing Jill to give MC a chance it makes sense, and at that moment there is little more than sexual attraction between Bella and MC, so something that doesn't take long to stop.
But by the sixth chapter the situation is different, Bella is already aware that it's no longer just a sexual need and in fact wants to deepen the relationship with MC.
Bella knows how important Mc is for Jill, so important that she has to submit to Tybalt's blackmail, to accept not to see Mc in public. how can a friend bring him home and ask him for a real date?
in this situation how is the escapade with Cathe an insurmountable problem?
Because she sees Cathy's panties as proof the MC is willing to sleep around without regard to a long term goal. Am I the only one who thinks this makes sense?
Bella rationalizes her relationship with the MC as - against all logic - having a chance to be more than just sex. She sees his courtship of Jill in the same light; as the thousands of jokes will attest, anyone pursuing Jill is clearly after something more than a quick lay. But Cathy is different. A long-term relationship between the MC and Cathy is even more doomed than a relationship between the MC and Bella, AND Bella has a much easier time recognizing that because her hormones aren't clouding her judgement (if anything, they're sharpening it via jealousy). That in turn makes it much easier for Bella to recognize just how unwise it is to fool around with the MC, and gives her the push needed to call it off.
As for why Bella doesn't break things off because of Jill, again, that seems pretty obvious: Bella's only human. She *knows* she should call this off in favor of Jill. She'll all but say that in some dialog choices. She just can't bring herself to do it because she really wants to be with the MC [well, that's the theory; I'm still not feeling it personally]. It would be *so* much easier for Bella if the MC broke things off himself, so she keeps putting off the decision in hopes she won't have to make it. Combine that with the fact that actually telling Jill what's going on is a complete non-starter (it would mean revealing something profoundly embarrassing about herself AND admitting what she had been doing to Jill), and Bella's basically stuck in a loop with no easy way out.
Of course this is only a temporary state of affairs. Eventually circumstances will force some sort of resolution, which is just what happened with the panties. But even if you make no move on Cathy, I imagine similar results will occur if Bella learns the MC has been having flings with other girls.
So to me the resolution to this situation may be unexpected, but it does
not feel arbitrary. As I said before, we all knew there would eventually be consequences to fooling around, it seems silly to complain when said consequences finally bite you in the ass just because you weren't able to predict exactly when and where the bite was coming.
