Hmm, I wonder why followers and lovers in CoC1, are universally more loved than companions in CoC2?
Oh! That'd be because you interacted with them! Sav and friends so completely misunderstood the assignment, they forgot that the player needs to actually interact with their toys for them to get to like them. Somehow, they made the static npc's back from a flash game, feel more alive compared to the party members who you have to take into battle. Truly a marvel of Savco reverse engineering.
In CoC1 you had downtime back at camp every day cycle where your options were "Go to bed early,", "Fap,", or "Maybe see about farming a sex scene with that mousegirl/boy over there." You were encouraged to spend time with and enjoy, and get the stories out of them. Not only that, but everytime you refreshed the campsite description, it was full of side details about them hanging out, and even "Gasp" interacting with each other. It made them actually feel like companions, way better than the bland stat-sticks of CoC2.
CoC2 you have to remember a companion exists, go out of your way to one of two locations you're allowed to interact with them (one of which is only accessible through a useless consumable), and they're just standing there, waiting, repeating the same bark every time. The only dynamic one was Berwyn because of his heat/sub/dom mechanic. Now what happens is sometimes when you remember to sleep (because you don't have to do that in CoC2), and only if you do it at the Frosthound, sometimes an event will happen. Mostly it's just Bri reminding you she exists, and guess what, she's the most loved companion. And given we know Savco are universally lazy, of course they aren't going to write content that "Most players won't see," (which was their original excuse for no corruption content).
They broke a perfectly good system from the first game, insist they did no such thing, and then don't do anything with it because of the flaws they introduced.
Why bother writing/scripting more complicated interactions between companions? No one's going to see them anyway. Just shove a one time scene in their faces when a commissioner ponies up the cash for it, that way the commissioner is happy, and we definitely made the NPC's deeper, right guys?
