> but to get the milk he has to work with humans and learn their secrets
No, he has to watch them. He can hate what they do the whole time.
>Plus, that "search" never goes anywhere as well.
OFc it doesn't, thats the whole point. He find the milk without realizing it.
>With Strong, and in fact almost ALL companions in Fallout 4, you have little reason to care after you learn of them because they never develop, never change
Which is a good thing.
The problem with NV's companions is that they are totally mindless robots, with no agency of their own.
They claim to have all these major life problems, but chose to do nothing about it, and just stand around with their thumb up their ass until you the special snowflake PC comes along and drags them to do it, and even then, they are so mindless, and unable to form an opinion of their own, that they need you to tell them how to feel about what happened.
The thing that makes Fallout 4's companions enjoyable is that they DON'T do that
Cait for example realizes she has a drug problem, tries to get it cured by doctors, then, when that doesn't work, she does the research and ifnds out where a cure might be found on her own, and just needs you to help her reach it since a bunch of Gunners are in the way.
She doesn't need you to tell her she has a problem, she doesn't need you to tell her she needs to get cured or she will die, she doesn't need you to do the reseach for her, she doesn't need you to tell her how to feel about it afterward.
Cait actually acts like a thinking, feeling, adult, with actual agency, which makes her, despite being one of the worse companions in the game, more enjoyable then anyone in NV, who act like nothing but retarded adult babies who need you to ead them by the hand to do even basic stuff like take a shit.
What you described is exactly whats WRONG about companions in RPGs in general.