My favorite Kitsune is Kurako. Because while she dose start with a predator/prey attitude, after you prove your just as tough as her (three wins) she shows respect akin to "o hay your a bad ass too"
We'll file this away for later reference.
The Forest Kitsune getting away for free. Annoying, considering that they forced he fight. (No saying "there's no fight if you just do what they want" is not valid. If someone tried to mug me that's on them, not on me for refusing to hand over my wallet)
There are consequences for what you do either way, they just don't involve kicking their asses and making them kiss your feet. You can actually skip a whole boss fight for being nice to them when you didn't need to be. The person who was going to adopt the scouts was going to have two completely different attitudes for all three of them depending on how you approached them back in the old forest.
Most of the core rp being between the npc's telling each other how great they are as the character (and by extension the player) sits there clicking next over and over with no real input or choices
This is called not being a bubble person, which is one of the core tenets we set out to have from the ground up in the core design doc: it's why the companions talk about each other, Brint and Garret have a broship going, etc, etc, etc. People actually have a life and interact with each other outside of your purview; the world doesn't immediately freeze when you're not around to observe it like the way it did in the first game. Yeah, it makes it look like you're not the only catalyst in the game and people acknowledge each other. Small price to pay for the world being far more alive.
Furthermore, you actually have to
ask them for their opinions on each other, so if you click on the button that says "get fucked" don't be surprised when you actually get fucked.
The timeskip for your wife an kids making you a dead beat dad. And while it's nice, saying she doesn't blame you is doesn't remove the fealing of being forced to fail them in that regard
What could be equally precious to you, that you could give up for the lives of your wife and daughter to be restored? Ah, a decade of memories growing up with them, that's what.
it further shows how little you matter to the story by effect.
(Laughter)
The whole "corruption can't effect us" I think especially rubs players raw
Can't be corrupted... because already demons. Raises the question of the nature of demonhood, what it means, and how it pertains back to Kas.
Also, to stop the flood of people pitching me their donut steal chimaera OC ideas back in the early days just after release.
The players actions have basically no impact outside who Kinu grows up to be, and wich jerk she married.
See, this where I know you're talking bullshit, because you're making a gross oversimplification of the matter: let's just take this one example, of who Kinu grows up to be, and see its knock-on effects on --
-Adult Kinu's character interactions. Two entire separate characters.
-Every single character who talks about Kinu.
-Every single scene which involves her, which has options opened and closed depending on who she is.
-One, soon to be two entire questlines.
-Alters her stats, loadout, and weapons.
-And far, far more.
And unlike the examples that you give down below, both are equally fleshed out, both routes actually have an equal amount of content preplanned out for in great detail.
And that choice is heavily obscured behind hidden systems and random encounters.
Deliberate, in the same way the Witcher games obscure the effects of your decisions until later, and the Ultima games had you choosing between two virtues in every iteration of the gypsy's tent. I wasn't always successful, but I wanted people to be genuine in their answer instead of driving through the meta to a point.
And if you didn't trigger at least a reasonable number of her random encounters, you clearly didn't give enough of a crap to visit your daughter enough, so why should you have a say in her upbringing in that case?
Compared it to
Orc's: you can stomp their whole camp and make their leader your personal bitch
Palace of Ice: blitzkrieg their army and restore Etheryn to the throne.
Centaurs & Bees: Do you save them or dam them to corruption?
Each of the examples of "player agency" basically falls flat. Basically it boils down to what I call false choice -- the illusion that you have a choice to do something, but you really don't because the writers so far only really accounted for one path and if you don't do that you lock yourself out of massive amounts of content.
-Orcs. The only REAL choice you have here is to make Arona chieftain, because otherwise you cut out a huge amount of content -- Roljar, Arona herself, Ragnild, Hretha, the orc lodge, Infrith in the future. Getting Arona exiled or noping out at Benny simply cuts all that content off at the knees.
-Palace of Ice: You don't "blitzkrieg" anyone's army, you literally sneak in through the bloody gardens and stealth into the palace. So you're wrong to begin with. Neither, regardless of what happens during the events, do you actually deviate from the script of "chase off Kasyrra, expose Alissa, make Ryn regent." The true choice there is whether you romanced Kas or not -- which again, works in the same fashion: there's a whole bunch of content if you actually choose to romance Kas, but not doing so doesn't provide the same. Once more, another false choice.
-Centaurs and Hive: Same difference. And you don't have a real choice in that once more in that killing Taldahs cuts out an enormous amount of centaur content, including Amhri; while corrupting the hive actually lets you fuck Liaden, it's a small price to pay for losing out on the entirety of companion Azzy and ALL her content and interactions with the world at large.
And it plays out the exact way I expected it to: the difference between the corrupt/save steam achievements is extremely blatant, with roughly five times as many people choosing to save the centaur village than corrupt it (22.1% vs 4.9%), and three times for the orcs (18.2% vs 6.0%) and that's even counting the achievement hunters. Compare this with 6.9% vs 5.9% for Inari vs Hime Kinu -- now THAT is more a sign of actual meaningful choice and player agency.
The player can have effects on her, and she is very to the point.
(Laughter) The only changes she makes is that she stops attacking you, and that doesn't even actually diverge. There's a mild divergence in the opening depending on whether you lost or won against her three times in a row, but it converges down the line. Well, there's also the matter of her complete attitude change if you're one of them, but that's something shared by every foxen NPC in the game.
You want player agency? Sure, become one of them, and every single encounter immediately becomes non-hostile. Every single NPC does an about-face in their apparent attitude to you. Enough player agency, or is it not the kind of player agency you like?
***
Invariably, whenever I hear "player agency", all it really translates into is "I want to swing my big dick around and swat every character who gets in the way of my power fantasy. Any other choice which is presented doesn't count regardless of the far-reaching effects it has on the narrative", and given the entire thrust of your post it falls straight into this mold. Yes, there is player agency in that your actions have far-reaching effects, even if not immediately apparent. No, they don't involve feeding your need to feel like you've got the biggest dick around, that's all.
The boss has already weighed in on what he thinks of power fantasies, so I won't repeat myself.
Also this game is not, and was never designed as, a power fantasy. There are very few things I dislike more.
Every single complaint you've given boils down to "I want to punch those people who slighted me in the face and I can't", and if you're feeling upset that you can't just up and slaughter/dominate all the foxes Overlord style, then I've achieved my goal.