If the mystery of the emailer was moving forward more quickly then the lack of content for the LI wouldn't be such a problem. The player could be excited by the fact that the "central mystery" is getting closer to a conclusion. However, that plotline has been a very slow burn and it doesn't even seem that solving it will impact the player's decision to either choose money or the girls (which is the central decision).
I have to say I agree with this, and it's the most disappointing part of the game nowadays. When I first started playing this game early on, it was fun having the mystery about the will as it gives the game a main plot line instead of just the random fuck with girls. However, that was
around two years ago and we still pretty much know the same thing now.
I understand the devs can't just give the answer to the mystery right away, but there's a big difference between slow burn and hardly any progress. Even the newest update about Elaine's USB turned out to be meaningless with the broken email. It's like we're playing a game with 20 people trying to find 2 bad guys and the hint is "one bad guy is a man, the other one is a woman" ... it doesn't really narrow down who the bad guys are, it only shows that they can't be 2 men or 2 women. Then the next hint is "bad guy A wears glasses, bad guy B doesn't wear glasses", then the next one is "one of the bad guys is married". And when pretty much all the hints are like that, it feels like we aren't making progress.
Comment like Bella's dialogue about the religious nut only left us with "Well that could've been Theresa, but could also be not Theresa because who knows if Bella is lying or not, and who knows if there's another religious nut in the game to be introduced later on" like what's even the point? If it is Theresa, is it really a game-changer to just say that in the game? Let us know it's Theresa on Episode 17 so we have something to look forward to on Episode 18.
Same thing again with Jolina. The whole point of Episode 16's date with her is to get information. We were left with cliffhanger as Jolina saw Jenna on the laptop. Then Episode 17 ended up just further delay because now Jolina is pissed off. We have no idea either if Episode 18 will be where Jenna apologized in person to Jolina or not, and we don't know if that means the information will be given right after or further pushed back to another episode. So in theory, what was started on Episode 16 (Jolina date to get info) resulted with Episode 17 just existing to delay further, and could end up being resolved on Episode 19 or 20.
The main issue is that there plenty of hints and stuff, but they are all
maybe maybe maybe and even more maybe with hardly any concrete facts.
Learning something new about the plot in this game doesn't feel satisfying at all because it's purposely written to tell a lot of things without actually telling anything whatsoever.
The game has amazing characters, but I am severely disappointed that the plot line hardly moves. I love story in adult games, but this game is one I kind of wished just focus on the girls and forget the plot instead. I hardly care about the mysterious email sender and the whole will thing now because how bad the progress is.