It feels like corrupt paths are only really there for the sake of being there. Not even for fun, or to make an interesting choice, but just there for if the player wants to be a dick for no reason. Hell, there's practically negative value associated with full-on corrupt path stuff. Sure, smaller one-off corruption scenes may be understandable, as they're pretty much just "immediate sexual gratification with no downsides aside from corruption," but the few big things like the Centaur Village or the Hive don't really feel like there is a reason to do it, and overall corruption has a negative effect as it increase libido (which, sure, it makes you tease better, but it also makes you more fragile against resolve damage) and brings you closer to a point where you can get bad-ended.
Often, games with moral choices and systems offer you two ideas: The good, hard path, which has fewer rewards and is harder, or the evil, easy path, which has greater rewards and doesn't need as much effort. Like what the Little Sisters of Bioshock would have been if it weren't for how you get basically as much ADAM from the combination of the giftbaskets and the saving as you did from harvesting, along with a ton of extra upgrades/rewards from said baskets. An interesting moral choice is one where the upsides may outweigh the evil. Yes, it's bad to send a kid into a nuclear reactor, but if that prevents an explosion then it's worth the harm.
The most interesting choices are not black and white. If the choice is "nuke a town for profit" or "help every villager for 15% less profit than the other option," then basically everyone will go with choice #2. If the choice is "abandon the plague shelter and get a load of valuable supplies" or "deliver the supplies and end up with a net loss," it's more interesting because the evil option makes things much less stressful, so there's incentive to abandon your morals because everything is going to shit. Potentially more interesting than that is "Someone is stealing water from a farm run by an unliked government. They're using this water to set up their own farm to feed people who don't wish to become part of the hegemony. To retain that water, one of their number killed someone. If you report them, they loose the water and the killer gets punished. If you don't, the poorly-paid farmers on the government farm will end up loosing their job, and the killer never faces justice." Yes this example is lifted straight from New Vegas, but it's a good, interesting conflict. You don't think of it as just good or bad, because both choices bring people harm. There may not necessarily be a greater reward for one than the other, but it's more interesting because you have to think, and decide, which path you think is the more moral path.
So, after all of that, how is CoC2? Most corrupt actions are the equivalent of the first option, if that. You fuck Etheryn with a too-large cock, doing an evil action for a short reward that's not even really worth the harm. You fuck a demon for the joy of the sex scene, and honestly it's not that worth the corruption when you can just fuck anyone else really. I don't expect any real moral grays, the game is literally about corruption being presented as evil and the corruption system is distinctly black and white. So for an interesting moral choice, you'd expect them to be the second type, where there's a great reward for the evil that you do, particularly if it's a great evil. So why is it that Quint's "Fuck Off" choice gives you 8 points of corruption? You're gaining absolutely no reward, beyond removing him from the game, plus it doesn't really seem like that evil of a choice for someone with a healthy level of skepticism for the cult. I never chose "fuck off," but it's absurd that that has suck a great corruption gain while actively draining value from your playthrough. Also, Infrith. If you fuck her when you shouldn't you get 7 points of corruption, and get locked out of content in the future. It's even more absurd that telling Quint, someone who initially seems to be very suspicious and openly having participated, quite happily, in the cult activities, that you're not going to help him any extra is considered to be worse than raping Infrith while Hretha begs you to stop. I get why this is a heavily corrupt action, but you're getting substantially less by doing this corrupt action than you would by being pure.
But those two aren't really as important as the big dungeon choices. One of them makes things harder and the other removes a massive amount of content. The Taldahs fight is pretty difficult, and you do it instead of a super-easy conversation battle. It also removes all post-quest content with Taldahs and Ahmri, hell Ahmri gets captured so you technically don't even get to finish the quest. Of course, the post-quest Taldahs stuff is just "Please marry my daughter and pound her pussy into the ground posthaste" but still, there's quite a bit of Ahmri content that's currently unavailable to the corrupt path. And that's fine, but there's nothing to replace it with. Not only is the corrupt path harder, and will probably be harder in the future given that the quest can't even finish in the current version for the corrupt path, but it gives negative reward. You loose out by taking the harder path. This means that not only is it not an interesting moral choice, but there is, in essence, no reason for its presence. So why is it here? Why is it a choice? Similar with the Hive. You loose out on an entire companion by taking the corrupt path, and what do you gain to replace it? A brainless bimbo with no real use. And you don't even really get that exclusively on the corrupt path, since the pure path has a brainless bimbo who does have use as the strongest resolve damage dealer in the game (apparently). Not only does the corrupt path not make anything easier (you have to have already beaten the dungeon to make the choice), but it only subtracts value. The bimbo companion is, paradoxically, locked behind the pure path, despite how someone would only take the corrupt path for Bimbazzy.
So, I think that's why I don't care for them. They do not exist to act as an interesting moral choice. They don't even serve to benefit the theme of corruption being selfishness/greed/desire, because corruption seems to be taking what you want through potentially immoral methods/means, but these corrupt choices do the exact opposite. Sure, it's nice to go like "being evil never prospers, being good always wins" but if you're going to do that then there's no point in even having corruption exist as a mechanic, because being purity just gives you everything.
This has nothing to do with how much corruption content there is. It has to to do with how interesting it is, as a mechanic and as a moral choice system. Perhaps in the future there will be more interesting corruption content, but I can't exactly give my opinion on a hypothetical future. Right now, though, it feels like corruption content is just here to be here, as a hypothetical choice you could take on your 15th playthrough because you're curious about what it's like to gain absolutely nothing and sabotage all of your efforts. Corruption feels like it's supposed to be big central mechanic, since you're always shown a counter of it and which you're basically fighting Kasyrra over as a battle of good and evil, but right now it just feels pointless and practically vestigial.
Often, games with moral choices and systems offer you two ideas: The good, hard path, which has fewer rewards and is harder, or the evil, easy path, which has greater rewards and doesn't need as much effort. Like what the Little Sisters of Bioshock would have been if it weren't for how you get basically as much ADAM from the combination of the giftbaskets and the saving as you did from harvesting, along with a ton of extra upgrades/rewards from said baskets. An interesting moral choice is one where the upsides may outweigh the evil. Yes, it's bad to send a kid into a nuclear reactor, but if that prevents an explosion then it's worth the harm.
The most interesting choices are not black and white. If the choice is "nuke a town for profit" or "help every villager for 15% less profit than the other option," then basically everyone will go with choice #2. If the choice is "abandon the plague shelter and get a load of valuable supplies" or "deliver the supplies and end up with a net loss," it's more interesting because the evil option makes things much less stressful, so there's incentive to abandon your morals because everything is going to shit. Potentially more interesting than that is "Someone is stealing water from a farm run by an unliked government. They're using this water to set up their own farm to feed people who don't wish to become part of the hegemony. To retain that water, one of their number killed someone. If you report them, they loose the water and the killer gets punished. If you don't, the poorly-paid farmers on the government farm will end up loosing their job, and the killer never faces justice." Yes this example is lifted straight from New Vegas, but it's a good, interesting conflict. You don't think of it as just good or bad, because both choices bring people harm. There may not necessarily be a greater reward for one than the other, but it's more interesting because you have to think, and decide, which path you think is the more moral path.
So, after all of that, how is CoC2? Most corrupt actions are the equivalent of the first option, if that. You fuck Etheryn with a too-large cock, doing an evil action for a short reward that's not even really worth the harm. You fuck a demon for the joy of the sex scene, and honestly it's not that worth the corruption when you can just fuck anyone else really. I don't expect any real moral grays, the game is literally about corruption being presented as evil and the corruption system is distinctly black and white. So for an interesting moral choice, you'd expect them to be the second type, where there's a great reward for the evil that you do, particularly if it's a great evil. So why is it that Quint's "Fuck Off" choice gives you 8 points of corruption? You're gaining absolutely no reward, beyond removing him from the game, plus it doesn't really seem like that evil of a choice for someone with a healthy level of skepticism for the cult. I never chose "fuck off," but it's absurd that that has suck a great corruption gain while actively draining value from your playthrough. Also, Infrith. If you fuck her when you shouldn't you get 7 points of corruption, and get locked out of content in the future. It's even more absurd that telling Quint, someone who initially seems to be very suspicious and openly having participated, quite happily, in the cult activities, that you're not going to help him any extra is considered to be worse than raping Infrith while Hretha begs you to stop. I get why this is a heavily corrupt action, but you're getting substantially less by doing this corrupt action than you would by being pure.
But those two aren't really as important as the big dungeon choices. One of them makes things harder and the other removes a massive amount of content. The Taldahs fight is pretty difficult, and you do it instead of a super-easy conversation battle. It also removes all post-quest content with Taldahs and Ahmri, hell Ahmri gets captured so you technically don't even get to finish the quest. Of course, the post-quest Taldahs stuff is just "Please marry my daughter and pound her pussy into the ground posthaste" but still, there's quite a bit of Ahmri content that's currently unavailable to the corrupt path. And that's fine, but there's nothing to replace it with. Not only is the corrupt path harder, and will probably be harder in the future given that the quest can't even finish in the current version for the corrupt path, but it gives negative reward. You loose out by taking the harder path. This means that not only is it not an interesting moral choice, but there is, in essence, no reason for its presence. So why is it here? Why is it a choice? Similar with the Hive. You loose out on an entire companion by taking the corrupt path, and what do you gain to replace it? A brainless bimbo with no real use. And you don't even really get that exclusively on the corrupt path, since the pure path has a brainless bimbo who does have use as the strongest resolve damage dealer in the game (apparently). Not only does the corrupt path not make anything easier (you have to have already beaten the dungeon to make the choice), but it only subtracts value. The bimbo companion is, paradoxically, locked behind the pure path, despite how someone would only take the corrupt path for Bimbazzy.
So, I think that's why I don't care for them. They do not exist to act as an interesting moral choice. They don't even serve to benefit the theme of corruption being selfishness/greed/desire, because corruption seems to be taking what you want through potentially immoral methods/means, but these corrupt choices do the exact opposite. Sure, it's nice to go like "being evil never prospers, being good always wins" but if you're going to do that then there's no point in even having corruption exist as a mechanic, because being purity just gives you everything.
This has nothing to do with how much corruption content there is. It has to to do with how interesting it is, as a mechanic and as a moral choice system. Perhaps in the future there will be more interesting corruption content, but I can't exactly give my opinion on a hypothetical future. Right now, though, it feels like corruption content is just here to be here, as a hypothetical choice you could take on your 15th playthrough because you're curious about what it's like to gain absolutely nothing and sabotage all of your efforts. Corruption feels like it's supposed to be big central mechanic, since you're always shown a counter of it and which you're basically fighting Kasyrra over as a battle of good and evil, but right now it just feels pointless and practically vestigial.
