Baldur's Gate 3

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)

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The Importance Of Bad Companions In Games Like Baldur's Gate 3 (www.thegamer.com)

submitted 1 year ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to c/baldurs_gate_3@lemmy.world

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

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[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Nepenthe@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

More damning that they've been able to put into words exactly why I don't care for him. And notice that I did not say I disliked or hated him, I do not care about him enough to have something to hate about him. Which is a MUCH bigger problem, storywise. He's not unlikable, he's bland.

It's not even like he doesn't have the capability. He has a fair number of things the writers could have worked with. A semi-pampered noble forced to strike out on his own, who is very obviously trying to find absolution by making a name for himself as a hero he's questionably cut out to be? For all he bleeds idealism and dreams of being a protector, you have the option when you first meet to say you don't have the slightest idea who he is.

Don't tell me that doesn't have every hallmark to be just as compelling as anyone else in the group. But he's not. Somehow, a plot like that is easily outshone by Gale, whose whole thing is he did a Stupid one time and now his ex that he can't get over is being really mean to him. That's the basics of Gale's storyline. And it manages to be more interesting, mostly because he manages to feel several ways about it.

He doesn't have Astarion's complicated hatred for his own physical form. He doesn't have Karlach's recognizable PTSD response to the idea of slavery and life in Avernus, stopping at what feels like general disgust and annoyance. He does share Gale's overblown self-image and Shart/Lae'zel's hyper-devotion to a cause, but those are not traits that are ever drawn into question for him like theirs are. Whatever goes on with him, he seems to accept it with minimal self-blame.

The end result is a character that is, like the article says, a walking shrug. That he doesn't have to be only makes it more frustrating to experience. He has all the elements required to be just as compelling as the others, but instead he just stands there like the adventuring equivalent of a fat friend and the article spins this as necessary if we're to make all the others look good. To suggest it's even a contributing reason all the others look good.

The author seems to have misunderstood that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is apathy. I wish I disliked Wyll the way I used to hate Lae'zel, because it would have meant he struck me enough to at least form some sort of meaningful opinion about him. As it is, I simply don't even care enough to dislike him. He could be removed from my game and I don't think I would notice. They dropped the ball.

I wish she would have given any insight into why her wife loves Wyll as much as she does. It would have been invaluable to know the other side of it, even if the way she wrote off Astarion immediately and forever makes me suspect it's mostly a personality preference.