It's 0 to 100 too quick. I can somewhat believe the idea that you "rent her womb", but outright confiscating the child would be a turnoff to many characters in-universe too. I plain don't like how we are not getting ANY sort of say about the literal child of the protagonist. Or how we can't even react.
Like I'd be fine with this if the MC had a chance to react and say "what the fuck".
Tobs or Savin simply doesn't give you the chance.
To them, if you chose the scene, you completely agreed with everything that they will ever write from then on. Too black and white.
And before you pull out the same card "but you can't praise Cait either bro"
Remember that Savin literally fucking put an option for a quest called "Thx4Cait" where you thank ther Dad...for making Cait a thing. Don't even start, man.
I guess I'm just too jaded over CoC2 choices in general. It's like Fallout 4 against Fallout New Vegas, in one game you read exactly what you will say, in another, it might say "No" for a choice but the actual dialogue is very rude.
It's much like that. I might choose a scene, but I don't expect my character to act like he does in that scene. And this happens way too fucking often.
Your character takes indifferent stance. They do not praise or reject how Mallach does thing. Which, if they are not giving us the choice to make our stance on that stuff, is best way for them to do it. While yes, it does suck that you have no imput in what your character wants to say, 90 percent of the time it is not necessarily.
Also, if you go and pay for their services, you are agreeing to their terms. While it sucks for you that you can not take your child with you, the game makes it no secret what is going to happen to them. Why would developers write about you complaining about the service you yourself payed for if you are getting exactly what you payef for?
That whole "Thanks 4 Cait" is there if you want to say it. That is a good thing. It is a nice way for your character to show affection you feel towards her. As noted, if you are doing characters quest, game is going to assume that you care at least somewhat for them in some capacity. It is nor unique to this quest alone. Me saying this is not justification for it tho. I also have that problem where it feels like game is making to many assumptions when it comes to reasons why you are doing certain quest/things. Etheryn and Brinr being also up there.
But at same time, most of the companions and quest do have good deal of story variations depending on how you deal with the quest itself. So as you said, it is not all black and white.
And I am sorry, but comparing this game to fallout 4 is kind of insulting. While the game is not as open ended as NW, it certainly has more story variety and story consequences then 4. A lot in fact. To small changes in dialogue to major story decisions.
Still, thaf last thing about your character acting differently to how you expect them to in certain scenes. Yeah, it happens. But in defence, it is kind of hard to convey what a entire dialogue scene is going to convey into one square. And most of the time, game gives you good enough idea how the scene is going to play out.