Thank you for your valuable advice.
In particular, I will refrain from the hopeless story part from now on.
I apologize to players who may have been offended by the story.
From then on, the desperate story will rarely appear, and if it does, there will be ways to overcome it at the same time.
no no. i think you misunderstand. and perhaps is poor translation.
"most of the new content i was really looking forward to was gated behind nasty requirements." perhaps would be better stated, gated behind DIFFICULT or GRINDY or long time consuming requirements.
"either at the end of long long quest lines (samdai, post yumi kidnapping, AV scenarios, etc) or requiring quite high amounts of money (luxury items, laptop). what was fun just started turning into a grind slog just to see the new scenes and events."
if you play a new game from day 1 takes a long time to unlock things if you have to go through many of these events over and over to get new things. money is definitely an issue (unless you just cheat), especially with the high money trait taken out.
i like the darkness of the story. its brave. i even have all mods installed. i WANT the luxury items for a reason.
and please don't apologize for offending people. just make your vision.
but also, perhaps, from time to time, play your own game. feel how it plays and flows.
many devs do fall into a trap of just adding things and going. never stopping to consider the game play part of the game, or just tack on things to ends of paths. some devs do the exact opposite problem in completely linear stories, for example, by going back and making changes in earlier parts and people have to replay to see the content. lol
