I am still enjoying the missions. I have yet to completely fail one. The first thing I did was look at all the equipment and figure out what equipment was needed, and then i spent a bit of my starting cash on some stealth items.
It was cool to explore them and figure out the different things you can do in them. It is clear that some elements can't be completed until you get a bit more experience under your belt. So I will return when I have raised my stats to complete those parts.
The missions are interesting and I think they add to the immersion and allow for some more world building.
Way better than before.
Reading this thread, however, has become incredibly depressing. The negativity is so suffocating to creativity.
I enjoy playing games. I like puzzles. I like game mechanics. I like a bit of difficulty.
I wish more VNs would add some game elements. But it is clear why so many don't. A massive amount of people want a "I win" button. I find it frustrating.
But I have lived in this world long enough to know that no matter what you do you can't satisfy everyone. At some point if you want to create anything you have to just tune out a lot of the complaints. The alternative is mediocrity.
Most games offer cheat options so that people that want to play without actually playing can just cheat. When I saw that there were 3 game options in this update I thought that might reduce the complaining. But I guess not.
I hope that HopesGaming will stick to his vision. If he decides that he doesn't like the missions and chooses to remove them then so be it. But I hope he doesn't remove them in an attempt to placate the complaints. It won't work as people will find new things to complain about... and it will lead to burn out.
Good luck, HopesGaming. The one thing you can be sure about is that with success will come complaints. You can literally go to any successful game's thread on Steam, for instance, and find an endless stream of complaints. The more people that enjoy your work the more complaints you will encounter. It is just part of the experience.