Wyll is Baldur’s Gate 3’s most boring companion, but he’s a necessary force for good in these games.

  • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    What a weird article.

    They have varied characters because different people like different things. “Characters you don’t enjoy” aren’t and shouldn’t be a design goal. That’s idiotic.

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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      1 year ago

      They have varied characters because different people like different things.

      That’s what the writer is saying, though? She’s saying it’s good for games to have characters some people consider “bad,” because what’s “bad” Is different for everyone. It means a game has a well-rounded cast of characters.

      • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        No, it’s not even close.

        He’s claiming being “bad” has inherent value. It’s a terrible, incoherent article presenting an absurdly stupid opinion.

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          “Bad” does have inherent value because one person’s “bad” Is another person’s “awesome.”

          I think Gale is “bad” as she’s defining it because he’s boring and his squishy ass kept getting curb-stomped when I tried to use him. I also hate the way he tries to romance you and the incel vibes I got of him. But go on tumblr and folks just adore him and his romance. What makes him “bad” to me is a selling point to others. That’s what I think the writer is trying to say.

      • Glemek@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think they are being a bit pretentious with their fun fact side note, as if playing a paladin and romancing shadowheart isn’t really compelling, and is fundamentally undeserving of being the most popular option for a first playthrough. Its especially weird to me that they like Karlach but dislike Wyll, because I feel like they are very similar.

        It doesn’t matter who your bad companion is. […] But as long as you have one (and only one), you know you’re in for a great game.

        That all aside, their conclusion is wrong anyways, because people are perfectly capable of liking the whole cast, and they probably would enjoy bg3 more if they also enjoyed Wyll. Having an ensemble cast means the writers maybe don’t have to worry too much about any particular character being hit or miss, those misses are allowances, not targets.

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          Having an ensemble cast means the writers maybe don’t have to worry too much about any particular character being hit or miss, those misses are allowances, not targets.

          I don’t think the writer is talking about having characters people don’t like as what the game writers spoiled be aiming for, but that from the point of view as a player, if there’s a character you just to not like, it means the game is written well. Which to me makes sense, because you don’t care one way or the other about a character that’s not written well. For you to actually dislike a character, they’ve got to be well written because they feel like a person.

          • Glemek@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Wyll is bad for the reason I find so many companions bad in games like this. He’s good: too good. I felt the same way about Kaidan in Mass Effect, who is the archetype for these sorts of companions. They’re always very nice people on the surface, often driven by some military code that holds virtue and justice above everything. Then they have conversations mostly about bread or how clear water is, reveal some deep burden, and then keep on smiling throughout it. It’s supposed to be admirable. But it’s dull. It presents a character who has no flaws, and when faced with their greatest challenge, they simply smile and shrug.

            It doesn’t seem like that’s how they feel, and this paragraph to me says the opposite. Their complaint about wyll is that he is (to them) unrealistically too good of a person. I don’t know about you, but I frequently actually dislike characters because they don’t seem like real people, which seems to be the article author’s position on Wyll.