As for Lily's storyline however, the things that were mentioned about the side characters are definitely not true here in my opinion, i mean sure, you could say that it's filler or that it's irrelevant and you're technically right because neither of the 2 sidestories have any actual impact on the main story, at least not yet, but if you separate the two and just look at the side stories individually, Lily's route is so far and beyond in every imaginable way possible compared to Haylen it's insane, which is actually not something i would've ever expected to happen.
Although i guess i'm a bit biased here because in the demo i REALLY liked Lily's character, but as the story progressed and more and more things were revealed, the less i wanted to play her questline because her story was going in such a different direction from what i had envisioned that i was just immensely disappointed whenever i was on her quest, for which i guess i'm partially to blame because i hyped myself up during the Demo and Update 1 that Tavros is gonna corrupt Lily in a pretty generic NTR way, but as it turned out i was not only wrong about Tavros, but after Lily's first quest was released, EVERYBODY was convinced that she was going to become the obligatory BDSM character for HC3, me included, which was not the final nail in the coffin but the coffin itself for me, i knew that eventually i was gonna make my peace with Nezar (which i did) but BDSM is something i never have and never will like.
I guess what i'm trying to say is that me liking her current quests might be because deep down i'm like "I will literally take anything over BDSM".
While Haylen's questline is seemingly just a string of random everday events like a picnik or a seminar where the event is already preplanned before Jazon is even in the picture, he just weasels his way into everything in the last minute (which is a reoccurring theme in Haylen's quests by the way for some reason), Lily's every single quest on the other hand is a continuous chain of events and whenever we reach the end of each quest it feels natural to reach that conclusion. Another thing i love about her questline is that i feel like it takes a 180° during every quest and it's something that you never would guess beforehand, and most imporantly it makes sense every time. First Lily started working as a maid after she was caught stealing that flower, then from maid she transitioned into a student and the reasons WHY she did were great and again, it made sense. Then from student/maid, because of the events of her latest quest, she transitioned into Nezar's successor who's gonna inherit the Magic Shop one day, which again, complete 180° and yet it makes sense and it fits her character. I feel like the thing i'm looking forward to the most in Update 12 is that as soon as it's released N_Taii is gonna start working on Lily's next quest.
As closure i'm gonna tell you the most important reason for why i love Lily's storyline, ready ? Say it with me: "Her scenes are not BDSM themed".