>Bubs thinking people will feel bad for a complete shitstain of a person
I'm convinced him and TOBS just think we're supposed to get invested in these characters by default. Do they not realize they have to actually make you give a shit about characters for drama to actually mean anything?
Honestly, if you look at many recently made AAA games with bland/unlikable protagonists, it does feel like that's a common writer issue - they think that everyone will love the characters they make by default and will go with whatever the writer plans for them, when in reality most people just hate them. There were characters I disliked at first which I grew to love as they developed, but doing that is REALLY hard and also requires self-awareness about the issues with the character, which is... kinda rare, especially in CoC2 team.
If the devs actually alluded to the idea of Cait and the groomer cult actually being corrupted it would be hot, but no apparently they're reddit wholesome big chungus. It's totally normal for little Timmy to hear constant moaning and see his caretakers getting slamfucked, we swear this will have no impact on his development!
Seriously, they had to be on fucking drugs when thinking of this shit.
Oh and speaking of writer issues, I think this one of them. I don't think Savin was taking drugs when writing Cait, rather, it's the case of mixed priorities. A few pages ago I explained why I think Cait actually works really well as the first character and companion, in short: nothing too out there, horny and casual about sex like most people are in the game, setting the tone, and lets you fuck without any sort of moral obligations - essentially a hot catslut fuckbuddy. That works well as an opening story character in a porn game.
The problem begins when the writers mix this wacky porn game idea with a grounded explanation of why she is like that that clashes with the real world morals and the player cannot react to it in any way that makes sense or doesn't lock you out of a bunch of content. For Cait to not be like that - all they needed to do is to be more vague. Just say that Cait's culture in general is way more casual about sex and even has sacred prostitutes and she is one of them. But nooo, we need to have the story about her and her homeland that explains how she was trained for this position ever since she was a child with no way to express the clash of the morals that we are facing.
I think the issue here is that in pursuit of being realistic, detailed and "deep" for the story, Savin had to give a lore-friendly explanation for why Cait is like this that is still interesting and gives depth to the world and the character. A noble goal, I have to admit, but I think in doing so here didn't quite realize that... Refer to issue 1 - Not everyone is invested in Cait by default and this backstory doesn't make her better or more likable because it raises a lot of questions regarding morality of everything she has done. There is this thing that many find objectively evil, but the game doesn't have any reason to actually explore the topic and face those questions. Because that was never the point - it's there because the writer wanted to add depth to a very simple character without considering all of the moral consequences of that.
The funniest thing for me is that it wouldn't even be an issue for me of the story wasn't about Kas and stopping the corruption. Oh, a cult that raises sluts that then still function like normal people, who also try to spread their religion and legs? Sign me in, that's pretty hot and depraved for a corrupted world. But when the premise of the game is to stop a demon/cult from corrupting everything with the power of a slut who will probably be grooming children once this is all over? Yeah, that's a massive disconnect.