Reading your post made me realize something, our hubworld sucks. Savin got inspired by DnD which is why stuff like initiative and skills scaling off of non offensive stats exist. Heck the game even starts with you in a tavern. And usually in longer campaigns you want a hubworld.
The problem is none of the NPC's that aren't in the tavern are 3-dimensional. Ogrish is useless and barely memorable, Kohaku does his job better because of her rotating stock, TF's suck so Ivris gets useless very quickly. Nelia stuff is neat in the early game but falls of real quick once you get unique items. And Leorah was a step in the right direction with her being sexable and giving you a quest but they forgot about her kitty butt real fast (archery didn't even get an ultimate skill). Even with additions like Clementine and Sugo Hawkethorne is still as wide as an ocean but as shallow as a pool.
It's real bad when the village that calls you a barbarian and tried to kill you is more enjoyable just because I at least have a reason to interact with their denizens and learn more about them.
The hub world being lacklustre is simply an indicator of the biggest issue with the game which is that it lacks a coherent central vision that would usually come from a single creator, where Savin seems to simply not be up to snuff as he focuses on the wrong things and the fact it is driven by whim and free content created by others.
If there is a central design document for each part of the game I'd be surprised indeed if it was in-depth or detailed, if it even exists. In the old COC, the Oasis city had shitloads of content but it certainly wasn't very coherent because each character existed independent of each other except where they shared a creator and even then it was mostly just shallow.
I thought Mayternity for instance would be about doing a checklist to add pregnancy to every single NPC there that already had that content or to write it and they literally didn't do any of them, not even the sheep or the goddamn GOBLIN. Or the Merc who even mentions it, jesus. That's one of the big reasons that dumb fucking temple pisses me off; it's optional content I'll never play because I fundamentally hate Cait as a bad NPC (It's because the point of games is we have fun, not that fake NPCs have fun to be brief but there's more to it)
I would like to point out especially how useless transformations are because of how central they were to pretty much every NPC that mattered in OG COC: you could give or remove dicks, make them have bigger tits or change them into less furry types, you could have them lactate and so on. A lot of it also connected with the corrupt paths, giving you an actual reason to do it, like on the farm.
Now, despite the alchemy system initially being fairly deep and good it leads to nothing interesting. I can't give my elf-sissy an asspussy/nipplepussies and breed them royal heirs that way; I can't de-dick another character or whatever. TBH, I feel like a real area for actual improvement would be a better alchemy thing, adding scenes, characters and dare I even say, story, around it. (Like for instance someone trying to catch imps and trying to transform them or even force souls into them sounds interesting)
You realize that some people like story and gameplay more than the porn?
When I entered the White City I was there to get my big-titty/booty sissy slut a big chair, follow my tsundere waifu demoness that I wanna redeem and possibly breed a bunch of hot fucking elves while quite possibly fucking
What each of those ideas had in common is that they connected to the core fucking conceit of a fucking porn game which is delivering sexual content to the player. I am not playing a fucking RPG. I am not playing a fucking a fucking story driven game. I am playing a mother fucking porn game and anything that does not lead to lust is worthless fucking shit distracting from the whole point of the enterprise. If the story isn't about leading to porn it should be the porn. The gameplay should be finding more ways to get you porn or test what kind of porn you like.
It should not be some of the most meaningless drivel I have ever wasted my seconds skimming before rapidly skipping. I can tell you that I don't know the smallest shit about whatever god garbage the game featured because I DO NOT CARE. Unless I am fucking said god IT LITERALLY DOESNT MATTER. What I got was a bunch of boring garbage happening AROUND ME, that I did nothing about or for and then I get cucked by the villain out of an incest threesome
Good game design is about understanding what lies at the center of a game and then tying everything else to that center. You can tell the people making this aren't pros because they constantly deviate from this. The game does not need a detailed story except as a device to deliver the porn. The game does not need a complex RPG system because I'm not here to make sick combos or think of clever strategies: I'm there to play the game one handed. (A UI element they actually do implement fairly well and is the only thing I think they have improved over OG COC, which is commendable.)
Bad game design is constantly adding shit that literally drags you away from and off of the core conceit. If we use the aforementioned roleplaying games as an example, it would be extremely pathetic to be playing one where the GM keeps going on about their detailed backstory and their incredibly cool GM-Character that's in the game because the people are there to engage in a collaborative storytelling experience, not wargame or listen to long fucking monologues from a nerd opposite them.
I just want to transform people, get them pregnant and have a harem. And read interesting erotic content that has other interesting fetishes. Not waste my mental space on some bottom tier fantasy theology or reading about some dumb fox people or bull people
