alright if that's what you want.
It's been a while since I played through it, but what emotions are in that quest? Her reuiniting with her dad? Why should I care about that when I don't like the character? Besides that though, I have no idea what the point you're trying to make here is.
It's not engaging if you don't care about Cait or her family, which would be normal considering you don't interact with her family and you might not like the literal whore who sleeps around with everybody for free. An engaging narrative would give reasons for the player to care about her family, which I just don't see here. Just because Cait is over-the-moon about finding her dad, that doesn't make me feel the same way.
the emotion is in the premise, the execution is another matter altogether and i'd rather not pretend any part of the game is exactly heart wrenching. choosing to save a life is, in a vacuum, more engaging than being forced to save your own skin.
but not all characters have every other practically worship the ground they walk on. Seemingly every single NPC loves Cait and the game goes out of its way to shove her down your throat(heh) a fair amount. Why does every other NPC being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu make the point invalid? That just means it's an even bigger problem.
and once again i think this comes down to her being the earliest designed character and thus the first to be fleshed out. she feels everywhere because she's the only one who has enough content to qualify a presence outside of events she's personally involved in. i don't see it as the game going out of its way to shove cait in, i see it as the game not giving other party members their due screentime. i don't see how talking shit about cait as a character contributes to solving this problem. to reiterate, much of it can be alleviated, with any luck, once the other party members get what they deserve, assuming savco is at least competent enough to do that much.
the point i'm wiling to step back on is to not have everyone else's reactions towards her be so enthusiastic on top of positive. while it makes sense for a literal prostitute enchantress to appeal to everyone, it's just not interesting. agni has taken steps to include more lukewarm reactions and hopefully that's more to the tone of what they plan for cait in the future.
if everyone is a mary sue, but cait is getting the brunt of the hate, then clearly being a mary sue isn't the root cause.
Trespasser or not, their first instinct was violence rather than just asking what we're doing there or for us to leave. All they had to do was bring us to Komari to hand her the bag thing. At least I think, haven't read it in a while and game does not lend itself to looking at older scenes well. Regardless of whether or not you can sex them(which is just food for them so kind of a moot point), they still try to make you feel unwelcome for the most part. Kiyoko telling you your opinion on who your daughter marry means absolutely nothing, your daughter holding a grudge against you for something you can't control
if your first reaction to a literal break in is to talk it out you're certainly a nobler and braver man than i. it is one thing if they were actually a village out in the open fully expecting traders and travellers, and another when it's a foreign colony deliberately hidden with magic and very much not expecting visits to even be possible. they have more in common with the orc tribe than with hawkethorne. with the tone of the game being what it is (sans gwyer quest) a scuffle isn't something i hold a grudge over and all this still rings to me as people being a little more sour than is warranted.
as for kinu, i'm again fine with not being treated like dad of the year. while i'm not satisfied with TOBS' execution i understand his approach. children resent their parents for all sorts of reasons and those reasons are often out of said parents' hands. i appreciate him trying to bring this bit of reality in even if it's in a silly porn game. if you want to claim to not want full control, but then complain about the only parts of her you don't have control over, you're suddenly a lot less convincing.
it's the same thing with her marriage. it makes sense for an outsider to not have a say in a semi-political arrangement, parent or not, and colder things fudalist japan have done for the sake of social hiearchy and tradition. TOBS was too preoccupied with injecting the historical influence to consider player reaction which makes the outrage justified, but the alternative would also be far less interesting.
there is an argument to be made regarding the lack of further input on kinu's development. unfortunate, but kitsune content is already extremely bloated for side content and i doubt family therapy is something the game is desperate for. as i see it, its absence is a valid piece of criticism but ultimately an inactionable one. it's more productive to point out how silly it was to give a single piece of side content that big of a scope and that it should probably be avoided in the future.
Regardless of whether or not you can sex them(which is just food for them so kind of a moot point), they still try to make you feel unwelcome for the most part. your wife not even remotely trying to explain and integrate you into her culture even a little bit
you forgot the impregnate part. sex is food, that's one thing, sure, but being allowed to knocking up one of their shrine maidens is not quite what i consider unwelcome. the NPCs are more than happy to explain to you their roles and their culture, and provide you with their service. i literally just went through the headpat ceremony yesterday so the part about kiyoko is provably wrong.
again i feel like i'm playing a different version of the game here. the MC is intergrated into kitsune society far more than the rest of the game world, considering it's literally a magically hidden tree house club, and where our outsider status do come into play it's not out of bigotry or dickishness. in nature it's once again akin to the orc tribes, which drives me to think TOBS' reputation plays a not insignificant role in how much criticism it recieves.
Point is it's never going to detach itself entirely because they share the same name.
never occured to you the act of detachment includes changing the name?
to repeat myself: you are paying for their product, not their time or engagement. if an aspiring writer wishes to learn, they have resources dedicated to that made by people who aren't just qualified to create, but also qualified to teach. it's a waste of time on the student's part for banking on the uncertain byproducts of confronting creators with criticism, and a waste of time on the creators' part for indulging them. the potential usefulness you listed can just as well be gained by the creator sitting on a sidelines watching people discuss, argue and agree on points amongst themselves.
the answer to "why can't they just be nice and helpful" is "because being nice and helpful costs time and effort they don't owe you." there's a reason education isn't free. it's one thing for a creator to publish commentary on their own volition because they wish to do so, and another to demand a creator's commentary when they aren't open to giving it.
you said yourself the bar for what they do could not be any lower, yet here assumes they have valuable knowledge they could impart if they'd only explain. you'll forgive me if all this strikes me as a little insincere.
i still think there's miscommunication in this regard. confrontation is the key word here. it's not my intention to say the creator should not have to deal with criticism, only that they shouldn't be confronted directly about them. i have fully endorsed posting criticisms in forums and discussing it amongst ourselves, a.k.a what happens here, and have criticised them for responding to criticism that aren't confrontational. unless you're confronting the writers directly about your gripes this isn't about you.
pressuring people who aren't open to changing their minds can trigger knee-jerk defenses. which is referred to as back fire effects. they are the correct term for the specific effects at work as coined by Cook & Lewandowsky (2011). belief perseverance refers to the result and general topic of study. you'd know this if you read your way past the first sentence on wikipedia, put the term in google scholar, or just do a ctrl+f.
criticism is something that needs time to be weeded, digested and refined into something actionable, especially when they come from the general public.
just because someone was polite and nice doesn't mean it's constructive. just because it's constructive doesn't mean it'll be useful. just because it'll be useful doesn't mean it's doable. just because it's doable doesn't mean it's worth doing. and just because it's worth doing doesn't mean it makes sense to do.
this should not be so wild a claim to anyone who had worked with big projects. and yes, there also needs to be time for the creators to confront their own egos, i don't think it's reasonable to demand a proper artist to have no ego and be perfectly receptive to advice and critique, let alone for it to be even possible. if you genuinely do want the project to turn out as good as possible, you'd take this into account. and if you'd like to volunteer yourself as the exception, i envy your bliss.
as a consumer(piracy or no) you may feel you have the right to confront creators with criticism and recieve a reply in return, and given the right perspective you may very well do, but that does not change the fact that being pressured to perform this process in short order and coming up with a reply is less effective when it comes to actually improving the product. as it stands most creative teams perform this process internally in private and does not extend the critic a notification or explanation afterwards. for a good reason.
as a final note i'm under the impression that this is a discussion and not an argument, and a discussion is cooperative in nature. I expect people to meet me half way when it comes to surface level research as i will do for them when and if the need arises. if you don't intend to come off as abrasive then don't be abrasive, it's shockingly easy with written text.
