it seems really shitty to me to be entirely unwilling to add or change anything when there has been such visceral reactions towards Eleanor.
No. It's shitty of you to try to bully the developers into changing Eleanor because you don't like her. Play. A. Different. Game.
I'm gonna have to disagree with both of you.
Ubiystvo. You're being unfair. We've already seen some changes with Kyo, as I've pointed out. In later interactions, the player is allowed to call her out on her behavior and call her bluff when she tries to force a sex scene. This is as opposite to the kidnapping scenario as we can get. And from that point on, she isn't nearly as rabid in her attempts to belittle the player as she was before. She now comes across as more snide and arrogant rather than unreasoning hatred, with a few hints that seem to me like she might be genuinely hurt by how her attitude has pushed the PC to be angry and distrusting towards her. Some good character development there. But it does show that the dev is trying to fix things as they go forward rather than altering existing scenes in any way, which could lead to some inconsistent behavior, but also result in less time being used up changing past scenes rather than continuing the story. I'm okay with this. Not only is the dev considering criticism, but too many games end up in limbo only to be abandoned because the dev kept going backwards rather than pushing forward.
RHFlash. Bullying a dev is one thing, but you are a little too defensive of this whole thing. There needs to be a balance. If a dev makes a mistake, which this dev has admitted was a mistake, it should be called out. More than that, it should be explained why it was a mistake, what the various perspectives on it are, and there should be a discussion on how it could have been done better. That is called criticism. Is there a point where someone should just go play something different? Yes, popping into a Fem Protag thread just to bitch about how you don't play as a dude, that doesn't really help anyone. But that doesn't mean devs should just get a free pass to do whatever they want and no one should ever say anything about it because 'go play another game.' The only thing as damaging to an artist of any kind as destructive criticism, is a hug-box. Destructive criticism can hurt an artist's moral and desire to keep working, but if no one is willing to give any criticism, the artist and their skill stagnates, for an artist cannot improve if they didn't know they made a mistake in the first place.
And a character like Eleanor, that deserves some criticism, and I'm calm and collected now. She is a character that, in an otherwise great game, comes in while the PC is at her lowest point, gets partnered with the PC for the foreseeable future, forms a budding romance with the PC, after being given a roof over her head and a speech about how the PC was in the same seemingly helpless position, is pretty much the only non-antagonistic force with a face in the game up to this point, and generally becomes an anchor in a harsh situation. She is a character that a lot of players would have an emotional investment in at this point, then she betrays the PC in favor of her cartoonishly cruel abuser, whatever Eleanor thinks of Kyo, it should be obvious how those Players, and by extension how those Players think the PC, might feel about such an action. The fact that the PC so quickly forgives what is a substantial breach in trust doesn't do Eleanor's comparisons to a Mary Sue any favors. To try and give a comparison; I would equate it to game having your lover sell you to slavery, but it is okay because she really needed the money for college, so don't be mad at her.
There isn't just a breach of trust, but a breach of internal consistency. Points A, B, C, D, E, and F just don't mesh well. I'll keep this simple.
A. Eleanor likes and trusts the PC, and the PC is training Eleanor.
B. Kyo is abusive of the PC.
C. Kyo is blatant in her abuse of the PC, especially in front of Eleanor.
D. The PC tells Eleanor about how cruel Kyo is and how much she hates having been treated like this for years.
E. Eleanor forcibly brings the PC back to Kyo, so Eleanor can be trained by Kyo.
F. The PC forgives Eleanor, despite Eleanor never even acknowledging that she did something wrong.
Something here is wrong. The actors are showing through their masks. It is clear to see that the kidnapping scene only exists because the futa-potion
needed to be introduced, but there are other ways it could have been done. There are numerous ways to fix this. Maybe have Kyo use the potion on Eleanor if she failed to retrieve the PC and Eleanor asks if the PC can make one, or make it so Kyo is always on her best behavior around Eleanor, or have her constantly give complements to Eleanor that serve a
subtle insult to the PC, or have Eleanor not be so complacent about how awfully the PC is treated, or even just have Eleanor say something after leaving Kyo's training about how she doesn't think the PC is useless.
Personally, I think the best way to go about it that wouldn't involve going back and changing anything would be to have a confrontation somewhere down the line, where the PC gets a chance to call her out for being so callous and selfish, and always taking Kyo's side rather than caring about her friend/lover. Eleanor, being naive, always adhering to authority, and absolutely sure that Kyo really does care about the PC, might not have realized how it looks to the PC until then and tries to make amends for her actions. Even if she still doesn't think she did anything wrong, she would realize how it looks like she did from the PC's perspective and try to make things right.
Boom, apology scene. One scene is all it takes to completely change how the Player sees a character, as we've seen with the kidnapping.
