1. randos overreacting to you changing your haircut (or other equally trivial alterations) is not what player agency means.
2. the fact that the coding infrastructure exists to facilitate this highly specific feature request of yours does not mean it is an effortless change to make. Nor the fact that this change the fact that is a highly specific request for new features. You are falsely making it out to be a failing of the game, that the game is wrong in not catering to this extreme niche fetish of yours. That this is not just your fetish addition request but a very serious defect in the game.
This is not a game defect, this is not a lack of agency. This is you having a very specific niche fetish and pretending that the game has no player agency because this very specific fetish is not catered to.
And before you say "but some of those changes are pretty extreme! far more so than change of haircut". It takes way more effort to change your haircut IRL (like, an hour!) than it does to become a winged furry futa with 3 foot long penis and 2 foot long tongue (~5 minutes. most of which is walking to the store).
3. The game is literally open source
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go download the source code. write up some NPC reactions. and submit a PR / release it as a mod. Show us how it is done. after all you keep on going on about how trivially easy it would be to code this feature request of yours. I want to see how many lines of code it takes you to do it.
just to twist the dagger a bit, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what agency actually means, and what kind of agency we're after in this game - a game of which already has one type of agency, and we're asking for it to evolve into another.
"Agency is the degree to which a player is able to cause significant change in a game world. Low agency games involve either no interactivity, nudging or busywork. High agency games allow the player to significantly change the world or the state of objects within the world with every action."
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hot damn would you look at that! it's almost like i did the smart thing and used the internet to back up an argument! bro, that's insane!
just because i can, let's refute your other points of 'contention' while you simp for Inno's lack of progress in a game that, from the start, all-but promised high agency for the players. let's do that!
Point Uno:
1. Where in the lore does it say that stores do not sell transformative items casually to anyone with money? All I have seen is that most people are unable to directly harvest essence and instead must buy it in bottles. Which you yourself can fill up and sell for some pitifully small amount of cash (30 flames per bottle)
in the beginning, actually. if you paid a damn iota of attention to literally anything Lilaya says about extracting essences and transforming yourself you would know that essences themselves are pretty useless to the wider population because so few can actually use them. so even if they're rare, they're useless, get it? transformative items, the things like cakes and drinks and such, are a - here comes the big shocker -
gameplay decision by the creator! gosh, it's almost as if the game does not specifically need to adhere to the lore verbatim!
wow!
uh, also? the foods themselves don't transform you. you need to enchant them first and them drink the potion variant you create - you know, enchanting? that thing only witches and demons can do? that thing? the thing Lilaya mentions to us? yeah, that thing. and if you paid any attention to the prologue of the game, you'd find out that - as the big, scawy pwotagonist - you're special! you can extract essences from other people and use them for - you guessed it - enchanting! sure, some foods can transform you, but they're quite expensive and can only be bought at either a specific shop, or found in a highly specif area with a highly specific enemy to beat before getting the chance to get it. get it?
the shops might be able to sell those things, true, but did you ignore the - very good, actually - argument about how fucked this game's economy lore-wise is? here you are, quoting lore, and ignoring that specific part of it to fuel your baseless argument! you silly goose, you! the reason shops sell transformative potions is never actually explained, sure, but it is well explained that flames roughly equate to the british pound sterling - considering this game is, or was, based in the british isles that makes sense, no? - and that most transformative potions are...you guessed it...expensive! also, in case you missed that little dig at your investigative skills, allow me to point it out for you - flames are a rough equivalent of the pound sterling, and i dunno about you, but 375 flames for a t-shirt? highway robbery...or a sign of a collapsed economy! wow! look at all the brian cells i had to expend figuring that out!
Point Two:
Whether it is good or bad is irrelevant to the argument. The argument being on whether NPCs should make a big deal out of you walking to any of a half dozen different stores in town and buying a transformative. Whether it is a transformation cake at the cafe, or a transformation potion at the shop, or a transformation tattoo from the tattoo parlor, or a transformation piercing from the sex shop, or a transformation bondage from the slavers
lessee here...i've pretty much addressed all of this except for...wait! here it is! some more stupidity!
"...or a transformation tattoo from the tattoo parlor, or a transformation piercing from the sex shop, or a transformation bondage from the slavers."
there are transformative tattoos in this game? transformative piercings that the player doesn't make themselves? fucking where! boy, how can i have played this game for a solid three years and never noticed this? sweet golly jesus i must be blind!
...or to have actually played the game.
because you clearly haven't. you've probably gotten past the tutorial, glanced over some of the available locations and items on offer, and then suddenly think you understand everything this game has to offer.
wow! it's almost like i destroyed your petty argument with some well thought-out reasoning! gee golly, it's almost like i have actually played the game! it's almost like i know what i'm talking about! wowee!
pick your fights my dude, because i can guarantee you acting all high and mighty pretending to know what you're on about is winning you no favours. quit while you're ahead.
EDIT: I take back my argument that tattoos can't be transformative, because they can...but they're far more expensive than a regular transformative potion ever could be. 1000 flames minimum just to get the damn thing in the first place, and depending on the transformation that you want that price could climb past 5000 flames. so, while i take back my argument on the tattoos, you're still silly for thinking that such a thing could ever be used in this argument of yours in the first place, considering that the price itself is even more indicative of a fucked economy and, therefore, invalidating your argument.