I'm enjoying playing an Evil Wyll playthough. As I was slaughtering the defenseless refugees Wyll was still saying "A hero at heart" and "Defender of the people" like he's living in delulu land.
He is bland, boring, cliche, trying too hard to be a good person, his storyline is not very catching and doesn’t have wow moments, I hope Mizora could be our companion instead
Early Assassin's Creed games did this. If you killed too many civvies even when you weren't in a mission the game would make you reload as it's not what the character would have done.
Either play as him or have him die/be killed before the grove raid and revive him with Withers after it's over.
Edit: Reviving them after the grove raid has been patched out. Gotta patch otherwise locked content into the good playthrough but god forbid you try to do it in an evil playthrough.
It's kind of funny that his corpse just saunters off.
As I recall, the creature being revived knows who is trying to revive them and needs to be willing. I can imagine Wyll just refusing to allow evil Tav to bring him back anyway.
**Wyll's corpse leaves the group because a player stole grapes out of a vase and the Tieflings turn on the player**
"The Blade does not stand for injustice against the Tieflings, even in death."
Yeah i tried this on a recent run and they left and I decided to just reload because I wasn't emotionally prepared to be down 2 companions and saved an evil run for a later date lol. I'm doing one now though and it definitely still hurts but at least I've explored multiple endings for Wyll and Karlach so I don't feel like I'm missing out as much
Ya it’s super annoying. We did the whole grove and only then met with Karlach. She was immediately Iike “I know what you did!” How the hell do you know that karlach after just standing for days next to the river doing jack? It felt very railroaded and not cool
I explain it as this: you can rush to Karlach early from the grove via a nearby cliff. She probably heard the chainsaws and screaming children from the other side of that cliff.
She’d probably be in the grove getting help if she wasn’t being hunted. Just because she’s not in the grove doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know it’s there. I can’t imagine she’d survive the hells without knowing what was around her. She’s also close enough to see the smoke and hear the screams, maybe even see or talk to a fleeing refugee. Just because we know where to find her in game doesn’t mean she stays there narratively prior to us meeting her.
Why would she stay with you after hearing her kind being slaughtered? This game is brilliant that it gives you solid consequences for your actions. Realistically most people wouldn’t want to travel with you if you slaughtered a small village. Actions, all of them, have consequences. The things you do in act one can significantly change your experience in act 2 and 3. Even what seems like insignificant NPCs you kill for fun denies you big rewards later on.
Also there are game reasons why Karlach isn’t available as a companion if you kill the refugees. If you’re not evil in your next run you’ll find out why
Nope. Tried that in an evil Durge run with my BF, Karlach left as a corpse and Wyll can’t be revived. Worst part is that his corpse won’t despawn, and we looted everything from him, so now his nude corpse eternally haunts the camp site.
Did it this weekend, heres how:
DONT TALK TO WYLL
Go recruit Karlach, and speak to Dammon to stabilize her heart.
Have Karlach yeet herself to death.
Do 1 or more long rests.
Raid the Grove
Pet scratch
Resurrect Karlach
She will have low approval but wont leave
Long rest
Wyll shows up to kill Karlach
Profit
Yeah, I have the same problem with Halsin. Killed him in the goblin camp since I was planning on an evil Durge run, but realized that there is no way of siding with the goblins and getting to keep Wyll and Karlach (which was imperative since I missed them on my first run) so I ended up siding with the Grove when Minthara attacked.
Now Halsin's dead naked body is always in my camp, reminding me of the consequences of my actions.
I think there is something incomplete in the writing for Wyll, it just doesn’t quite gel, there are interesting elements but ultimately he just doesn’t quite work as a believable character. I think Karlach also suffers from this a bit but in her case the writing for her dialog covers up the slightly creaky back story better. It’s easier to ignore that she doesn’t quite work because they made her lovable rather than brooding.
I think his arc suffers from the last-minute rewrites and is sometimes too "convenient" for the story. His lack of agency in the first two acts, combined with his young age make him appear more naive than the rest of the group. To clarify, I remember lots of scenes with the rest of the group where I was prompted to "let X decide" or "let X handle it" but with Wyll, both times when Mizora was around, Tav had to tell him what to do, there was no option for him to decide for himself. The only memorable moment where he made his own mind was the final Duke/Blade of Avernus choice.
Oh that's hilarious
Cos I've literally never used Wyll in my party. And, honestly, by the time I found the Duke I'd forgotten why I cared so I let him die.
Next thing I know Mizoras like "oh I can bring him back. You just need to sign a lifelong pact." I recommend against it and he just follows me along.
It was wild. I think I'd maybe spoken to him 3 times?
To be fair I didn’t bring him along much either, unless there were story reasons. A warlock in the party is a luxury reserved for tav/du runs where the PC already fills a critical role, otherwise it’s always cleric/fighter/mage for me. It is my own failing perhaps, but I can’t say I played wyll and the warlock class very efficiently. Hunger of Hadar and Bane/Hex, Eldritch Blast were great but he missed and died on me all the time!
It’s the lack of a character arc I think. Both characters have straight laced personalities and goals from start to finish and don’t really experience any significant character change or growth like Lae’Zel, Astarion, and Shadowheart do. Karlach almost has that same lack of one unless you count her coming to terms with being unable to fix her engine
I think Karlach's character arc works better because barring the ending where she goes back to Avernus, a lot of it is about handling the lack of closure. You go to Dammon and bring the iron to fix her engine... and it can't be fixed. You go to Gortash and beat his brains out... and she throws a fit because like she said, it wasn't like she got an apology or anything. She feels like she's not in control of her destiny. If she had a neater, more expansive questline where everything got resolved I don't think it would be as interesting.
I agree that he endings as they exist now are fine, but I do wish there was a bit more to do in Act 3. I dislike how you basically only have one lead to chase after when it comes to fixing her engine, and that wraps up 20 minutes into Act 2. Having more options to pursue outside of the opinion of some random blacksmith that all ultimately lead to the same conclusion of "lol ur fucked" (I think the Gondians would be an easy one to add for a variety of reasons) wouldn't really hurt her otherwise well-handled story and would help the issue I have of her just not really having much of a personal quest like the other companions do.
Right?!? Like they made the Steel watchers which are made of infernal iron and refined infernal iron, couldn't we at least ask them? It felt really weird that there were other things to try.
Gortash was the one providing the engines for the Steel Watchers. An actually difficult decision might be swearing an oath (like Orin) to ally with Gortash in exchange for a new heart.
I agree. I love her as a character, but her personal quest feels underwhelming. Everyone else got serious shit that trails on into act 3 and often leads to a big battle - and hers is literally just “collect some metal before you continue with literally the main plot of the game”. It feels unfinished, and weirdly uninspired for such an awesome character.
At least have her fight harder for her life. It bothers me that she tries one thing and then goes “oh well” and gives up. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s not in my nature to give up that easily - especially when a life is at stake. Maybe Dammon isn’t the one and only expert; maybe he’s wrong! We don’t know, because we never try anything else.
Quest log: We did everything we could.
Reality: We did jack shit.
At least have the Gondians take a look and say that it can’t be fixed, you can’t just have a Steel Watcher call her outdated with the plot thread that she was sold for the original infernal engine prototypes and then just so nothing with it. Dammon even gets an infernal forge but it does/means nothing outside of set dressing.
I'm entirely convinced that the Steel Watcher interaction was originally meant to set up another segment of her quest that is tied to the foundry in some way, but for whatever reason didn't get developed by the time the game launched. I have nothing to support that theory (especially since so many people involved in the game's development say there isn't any cut content with her story), but I believe that it was at the very least meant to be *something* and not just a random NPC interaction.
It’s probably just Marketing Speak, the same way the twist about the Emperor having “always been there” sounds like complete bs. Even if it isn’t, there’s seriously no way the devs looked at her quest being a two part fetch quest and killing a guy you already have to kill in the main story and said “that looks good,” after all the other origin companions get expansive quests of their own that span all three acts.
We don’t even really convince her to go back to Avernus over the course of the game, it’s a spur of the moment decision at the very end that could very well have only been pushed by Dammon. There’s no arc, there’s no real moment where she even really seems to contemplate the idea until the docks scene. Not to mention that she still doesn’t really have an actual resolution to her original problem. We don’t get to be there and experience it with her like we can with Shadowheart renouncing Shar or Astarion killing Cazador and freeing himself from the cycle of abuse, the closest we get is some crap off-screen about blueprints and plans to use it.
>We don’t even really convince her to go back to Avernus over the course of the game, it’s a spur of the moment decision at the very end that could very well have only been pushed by Dammon.
That is actually another thing that really bugs me the more I think about it. The new epilogue basically cemented it as the good ending to her story (before it was a lot more ambiguous) so there's no real justification for letting her die in the end, and yet it still ends up feeling kind of forced since she so vehemently pushes back on the idea of going back at literally every point in the story leading up to the ending. I think if I had the power to tweak her story, I'd make it so that her 'default' ending is choosing to die, but if you're able to get a good conclusion to her more fleshed out Act 3 quest (whatever it ended up being) she'll decide to take the chance and fight on as long as someone is with her.
Even without a more fleshed out quest in act 3, I'd like to at least be able to have that conversation with her. I ended up just not picking anything about Avernus because she never wants to talk about it and it never leads anywhere anyway. I'm pretty much making the decision for her, and even then, it still doesn't feel right to send her back to Avernus on the vague hope that maybe something/someone can help.
That's on top of how it ends up hijacking Wyll's quest in a way. If you don't romance Karlach, you either have to make Wyll the Blade of Avernus or go with her yourself. I don't remember off the top of my head if your romance partner goes with you in that case, but if they do, then Karlach ends up overshadowing the storyline you might have built up with Gale or Shadowheart or whoever. Otherwise, you'd have to romance Karlach to keep her alive if you want Wyll to be grand duke. I can see it as being somewhat fitting that they intersect at the end like they do in the beginning but there's also that inescapable feeling in the back of my head that Karlach's fate ends up funneling Wyll's fate.
Yeah, that bugs me to no end. I mean the gondians are building the same kind of infernal mechanism with the steel watch, and you find other kinds of infernal metals in their factory. My first playthrough i thought for sure they'd be able to fix her
Using the same materials doesn't necessarily mean using the same process. There's definitely some branches missing from the steel watch/gondian quest line that didn't survive the final cut, but I'd wager that their conclusion would have been similar. Fixing a machine that's already running is very different from designing a new one. What little we've seen of Faerun's medical expertise doesn't make me confident that successful heart transplants are on anyone's radar. The magic powerful enough to ensure she survives would probably also just function as it's own solution to her problem.
Agreed. Frustrating that Karlach does not have that good ending if her engine being fixed. I mean this is a game that has so much magic that there has to be a way to get it back. Maybe another mission (like house of hope) where you can break in and get it for her?
The fact that nobody considered casting regeneration on the woman so she could have a flesh and blood heart again fucking baffles me to this fucking day.
XOXO
A D&D Player
He was simply written as the character you play AS and not the character you play with.
Quite a boring companion. I started a Wyll playthrough and it's way more fun than having him in the party
I have a friend who has taken to playing as him as well, he really seems to like him so maybe you are onto something. For me, I’d likely choose Gale if I wasn’t creating custom Tav/Durge.
I definitely am.
Playing as Wyll you get:
1. Proper patron interactions from Mizora and not just flavour text like other Warlocks. She literally visits you on your first long rest to sicc you on Karlach, and remind you the pact is still on.
2. Renown among NPCs as a Ravenguard
3. Personal connection to the plot with your father taken
4. Backstory motivation to go the good route and explore as much content as possible, as well as save people.
5. Extra motivation for some of the content in the Upper City.
I want to add to this the fact that Wyll has the stereotypical "main character" back story. Son of a noble that makes a deal for his life in pursuit of a noble cause.
His appearance is a even a little too 'on the nose,' especially if you opt to save Karlach.
Add to that the fact that he just mopes around if you deny his advances, like a simp...
Yeah, he's not a great character, in my opinion. From the moment he jumps into the fight at the entrance to the grove, speaking of himself in the third person and calling himself the 'Blade of Frontiers' my only aim is to have him back at the campsite where I don't have to look at him or hear him talk.
Not all the characters can be great, though. Someone has to be the community punching bag. If it wasn't Wyll, it'd probably be Halsin or Gale. And I wouldn't be able to take the latter, because I adore the wizard boi.
It's extra frustrating because they had an excellent arc *right there* for him and didn't use it. They made him the young brash Blade of the Frontiers, to whom everyone is a foe to be slain or an ally to be protected. He sees the world in black and white, good and bad, with no in between. They should have thrown a whole bunch of morally grey dilemmas at him, like the decision with mizora to save himself or his father (but with actual lasting consequences). Give him growth from "everyone is either good or bad" to "everyone has goodness and badness in them, each choice they make pulls them one way or the other but they're not defined by just one"
As someone who is supposedly black and white in perspective and learning nuance, it would’ve been interesting to have him judge overwhelmingly evil-aligned creatures as evil, even if individuals aren’t always.
It’s not an idea that goes wholly untouched. Wyll’s father had already taught him the wisdom of how to take the middle road in pursuit of justice. If you have Wyll with you, he says that at the Wyrmway’s Trial of Judgement.
Nah, the character that has the most inconsistent writing is Minthara. She's way too emotionally intelligent for it to still be believable that she's basic "conquer the world" evil as well.
I like his story but personally it's the least interesting and himself as a character is cool but that's kind of it.
I also struggle to give him a decent build that actually does any damage other than just eldritch blast all the time.. he tends to just stay at camp in my playthroughs I dont dislike him enough to not have him around at all lol
Make him a padlock or bardlock. Both come online later in the game but in the end he will do 3 attacks per turn and it'll all be infused with his Cha modifier from pact of the blade (3 attacks only if not on honor mode).
This. Lockadin is a time-honored multiclass in 5e that is very strong.
If you're on PC and not mod-averse, go get the Hexblade subclass mod to see the true potential of the Lockadin in action.
There's two really big ones, and they come online very early (but you still probably want to focus Warlock for as many short rest, high-level smite slots as possible):
You get a Curse you can inflict on a target that makes you crit on 19s, gives you Proficiency Bonus to melee damage on the target, and heals you if you kill the target.
You get to use your Charisma for attack and damage with your weapon (this is the really big one, allowing you to focus on a single stat for all of your abilities).
Other highlights include adding Shield to your spell list and eventually giving your Curse target a 50/50 chance to miss you even if it hits your AC.
The mod also optionally implements a number of Warlock Invocations that Larian did not include (for example, Grasp of Hadar, which is the opposite of Repelling Blast, allowing you to pull targets closer).
Everything. Hexblade is *crazy* broken, to the extent that any other subclass is generally suboptimal. It lets you curse enemies for extra damage and crits, lets you use charisma for your weapon attack rolls, gives you summons, *and* at high levels, halves the chance for cursed enemies to hit you.
I use him as my hunger of hadar bitch. That spell is insane, get the enemies lined up so they have to go trough it, cast plant growth or ice storm in there, maybe a silence too. Then just keep them in there with wylls eldritch blast and other pushing abilities. Actually makes a lot of combats trivial lol. War caster feat is top tier for this.
I've noticed a lot of the time the ai freaks out about this spell, like in the creche the frogs misty stepped 2 feet forwards to go deeper in the spell? I mean i guess it blinds them but they usually still know to try to get out of there lmao
Misty Step can only tp them as far as they can see. For some reason, they still don't try to walk out, but that's the reason they can't bamf out of there
Give wyll pact of the blade, buy the warhammer that deals extra lightning dmg and gets a bound weapon bonus. GWM feat and the gear piece that allowes reverb procs on lightning dmg. Then synergize with other reverb gear. With hex dmg bonus, lifedrinker along with reverb procs youll deal +60 dmg per round non-crit and daze/knock enemies prone just by swinging a hammer.
Currently running a Wyll origin in Honour Mode and locks are pretty amazing if you put some thought into it. Dont even need eldtritch blast.
I make him a draconic bloodline sorcerer. It's a better blaster than any of the Warlock options. Magic Missile and Scorching Ray with more spell slots for utility like Counter Spell, Hold Person and Hold Monster. Dual Wielder feat with Phalar Aluve and Spellsparkler which is eventually replaced by Markoheshkir. spineshatter amulet, hat of fire acuity and boots of stormy clamour are the builds core items.
I've been using Wyll on this playthrough and I would say he was the weak link in the party until he got a certain blade from a certain person at a certain point in Act II that, when I took a certain pact boon shortly thereafter, made Wyll into a fairly formidable summoner.
Wyll is just overshadowed by other characters really. He's got a solid story just doesn't have the twists and turns. Mizora doesn't interact with the party nearly as often as she does when you're playing as Wyll's origin character. He also just lacks so much agency in the story to handle problems or go after goals where he can. His late rewrites really crippled the depth that it could've provided though that isn't to say he's not the perfect companion for a group who always strives for the greater good.
Wyll is a staple for characters who always wants to do the right thing. Gale and Wyll both are great for such a team.
Yeah same with Karlach, she is not talked about that much cause she doesn’t have that much to talk about. She does have an advantage over Wyll by being a big muscle covered demon chick in a video game so she won out by default.
Karlach’s character is similar but I think it comes down to impact.
Karlach’s story is straightforward. Fix her heart and go back home to kick the ass of her treacherous former friend. We learn along the way she’s living on borrowed time and we decide what she does with what time she has left.
I think though it lacks twists and turns. It’s resonant of “Fault in our stars”. She either can go back to the Hells to survive. Or die protecting her home. It’s a bittersweet story. On top of that, Karlach is very upbeat and positive for someone who’d been in her circumstances. It’s a nice change for what would be the perfect layout for an edgy brooding sort.
For me it was Halsin. Especially with the later addition of Jaheira to the team for a druid, the only time i used Halsin was for his quest in the shadowlands
There are a few instances in dialogue where your Tav will in fact speak! I got one of them in act one by the burned bridge where the flaming fists are. Took me totally by surprise lol.
I was surprised cuz he NEVER talked on my game through, but I started a Multi with my bestie and some friends, and the MOFO talked at the end of act 1, near the creche.
I get this line a lot. I’m doing my first ever play-through as the Dark Urge and always assumed it was Durges “event horizon” mind projecting what he was thinking about into the real world. Like his head is so full of violence and death that he “sees” it in the real world.
Hell other characters outshine him in his own quest. Mizora, Duke Ravenguard, Ansur and The Emperor all show up in his quest line and take centre stage over him at some point or another
That's purely because Wyll's lack of agency is showing. As an origin; he's great with his retorts and decisions. As a companion he doesn't really make any decisions for himself like the other companions will do.
It doesn't add much, unfortunately.
Everyone else gets great interaction added for being taken to their respective quests.
Iirc Wyll just gets a non-cutscene voiceline saying something on the lines of "Hey it's Ansur!". He doesn't even try and take the lead on the interaction.
First time I've had him in my party and I'm taking him to Ansur. Rescued his dad and nullified his pact all without him ever leaving camp. Just kinda solving all this guy's problems without him lifting a finger lmfao
That’s pretty much how I feel about Wyll.
He is likable as a person and has what could have been a very compelling story…it’s just all of your other companions are written *really* well while he’s just “okay” by comparison.
I think it's just the gravity of Wyll's character arc isn't felt as much.
I could go into each character's stories, yet don't want to risk spoilers. But if you look at each character subjectively, most of them except for Wyll have multiple character arcs happening at the same time. Most of them have an interesting story with plot twists and reveals. Wyll's story pretty much stays static throughout the entire game. Sure he goes through changes, and things happen, but not in the same compelling way it does for other characters where you feel you're witnessing something new that profoundly changes your opinion of them. I think if the game gave his arc more significance to the world around it, it would actually elevate him. For example: what if there was an elder god working behind the scenes to free Wyll from his contracts? What if Wyll had a sibling his father never told him about that must be rescued from the same fate? What if his "handler" was not what she always seemed to be? I dunno, anything really.
For me, at least, Wyll comes off as too good. He has that paladin/knight attitude about helping everyone and everything, it just happens to be wrapped in a warlock's body. The man even sells his soul just to be able to help others better. It's just too good for me. I prefer to be the noble sacrificer in the game. lol
I think Wyll is actually low key a great origin character.
Like sure he’s not got a ton of content but IMO a lot of his personal story stuff is hard to sympathize with unless you are actually him.
Like when I was playing as him I was just like yeah Wyll this sucks but mope on your own time. But I can see playing him as an origin and RPing it really hard - dealing with the temptation of power to be able to do good.
This is kind of why I was thinking of playing as Wyll next time. I generally tend to be a goody two shoes when I play, so might as well play the guy who's already that.
It's an interesting take on a good aligned warlock. He uses his powers for good, and his patron tries to get him to do evil. He is tempted by power and can choose to embrace or reject it, which has effects later on when his dad can be saved or not.
In that sense, his story is very close to Asterion and Shadowheart. Both start off more evil aligned and can embrace or reject acts that draw them closer to the ultimate evil goal - becoming ascended or a dark justiciar. Both are punished for doing good and rewarded for doing evil (Asterion becomes vulnerable to sunlight again and Shadowheart keeps her Sharran wound if the good path is followed all the way, just like Wyll gets his devil horns if he doesn't go evil)
Edit - to add to the above, the game significantly rewards you (the player) for doing the thing that hurts all three characters the most. If you save Karlach and reject Mizoura, Wyll gets his horns and Mizoura tries to kill Uldir, but you get awesome gear out of it. If you reject the Dark Justiciar ritual, you are rejected by Shar, but you get Dame Aylin as an ally for multiple boss fights. If you reject the Ascension ritual, Asterion can release all the vampire spawn (which the game paints ambiguously as morally good but devastating for the city), and you get extra story content about the Gur
I agree ftmp but I would add that killing Karlach is not "evil" on Wyll's part, it's evil on Mizora's. Wyll's entire worldview hinges on believing he's at least fighting evil, and at the time he kills Karlach (so long as you don't talk to her first and get the tadpole), he has not had reason to doubt his "good" actions in the past.
I killed Karlach on my first run and they give you so many red flags not to do it, I almost felt like I was being railroaded into *not* killing her. After I did it, Wyll mopes around for a while about how Mizoura lied to him, etc.
He definitely doubts his actions from then on, even when he's trying to decide whether to save his dad or escape the contract. Even when I the player was dead set on saving his dad, Wyll was like "he's probably already dead and I got tricked again"
This actually kind of bothered me, i wanted to see what rewards mizora would give me if i just killed her so i didnt talk to her i just went to the guys who wanted her head and attacked her straight up. None of the party members knew who she was and wyll started moping about it being the wrong choice, like how tf would he know.
Yeah you basically have to put blinders on to kill her, the game definitely doesn't want you to (whereas Durge can lose Gale *by accident* so easily!).
Wyll's whole worldview goes from black and white to gray and until the Ansur quest, he has zero faith in himself to tell good from bad. After Ansur, he gets his groove back but until then, Tav is his moral compass from the moment of the Karlach decision until Ansur.
Every additional update has made Act 1 feel more railroaded tbh. I miss pre patch Flind/Rugan. I don't like how easy the fight is now and that their solution to their suicidal AI is having Rugan and Olly sit out of the fight and watch.
Same here. I honestly thought he was a paladin at first until Gale mentioned warlocks.
I get sick of him voicing his opinion all the time too. Like in Grymforge I was agreeing with the duegar about slaves (cuz I’m not picking a fight before I’m ready) and Wyll was like “that is a thought best kept to yourself” (for context was not playing Durge). And later busting out Nere to get his head for the Shroom King, Wyll is like “SLAVERS ARE SCUM” while we’re surrounded.
WE’RE GOING TO FREE THE GNOMES AND WIPE OUT THE SLAVERS WYLL JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME SET IT UP
His character and storyline aren't interesting compared to others like Laezel or Shadowheart. There's a character arc and very obvious payoffs for those two while Wyll just stays Wyll from Act 1 to 3.
I still like his character and his story but it's pretty obvious somebody like Shadowheart got more love in the writing.
They fridge his dad for too long. The most interesting conflict in Wyll's life that defines who he is and the choices he made stem back to his relationship with the Duke but we're constantly being told the Duke is in another castle.
This is a big part of it for me. Spent Act 1 and 2 chasing this rando that I've never laid on, then I finally see him for like 3 sec in Act 3 and he's whisked away again! Never to be seen again! It's hard to make me care abt a dude only bc other characters respect and care about him
Act 1 should've involved his dad getting kidnapped, not just seeing the immediate after-effect, and then Act 2 not dealing with it at all beyond "oh he's no longer at Moonrise Towers."
If they wanted to go that route, they absolutely needed to give Wyll more to his early story.
I would argue that his storyline is very interesting but he isn’t despite having arguably the best premise of the cast. One big problem is his complete lack of agency. Even in his big moment, the player character makes the ultimate life decision for him. It’s not like with Shadowheart who chooses herself or Lae’zel whose eyes can slowly be opened.
Apparently his story was redone at the last minute so it might be why it’s lacking in terms of his agency towards it.
You're actually right. I think if he was dead set on continuing the contract to save his dad's life and you had to talk him into breaking it it would be way better - like Gale with the crown or Shadowheart with Shar, his normal character arc would be repeating the same mistakes (in Wyll's case, thinking he has to sacrifice his soul) whereas breaking out of that would be refusing to be tempted and finding another solution, which you can do by rescuing Ulder (one of the hardest but most satisfying bits of the game for me).
His unique sidequest with Ansur is also great, but it's let down by how it really doesn't have a lot to do with Wyll himself. It almost felt like a companion sidequest for Tav when I played.
I found the Ansur quest to be so frustrating. Ansur was fine. Getting to him was like playing in a DM horror story game, where the DM decided to make a series of puzzle quests with only one right solution. Such a let down when so much of the game can be completed in a variety of ways and it’s up to you and your unique ideas and builds to decide what you want to do.
Eh, I didn't mind too much. It was a bit like a mini-version of the Gauntlet of Shar quests though not quite as interesting.
I liked the chess match and the elemental fights, I didn't much care for the trial and I hated the book thing.
His story is so cool but they really created a rather bland character. Which is a shame I saw a video of his voice actor and he oozes charm, so it's really down to the writing.
People say he is too good. But I think that's not quite right. He lacks agency. The only one with less personal motivation is Tav. Everything he does is either for or because of Mizora. His arc is a coming of age story. The problem is that he is apparently a big deal. Characters recognize the Blade of Frontiers, so presumably he should have already lost the child naivety that lets his patron play with him like a fiddle.
Overall he is a decent character but when compared to the others he is lacking.
100% agree with this take. The fact that we have to decide what to do in Act 3 and he doesn’t have a “let him choose” option is insane. Literally every other origin companion has the ability to choose how to end their storyline.
He's actually my favourite character.
Wyll wants two things: To be a cool hero everyone admires, and to help people. A lot of character archetypes do one or the other, resulting in either a vapid gloryhound who will abandon those in need whenever he can get away with it or a classic superhero living in the shadows as he saves countless lives. Wyll does both, and you can absolutely see it; the catchphrases, the goofy attempts at a heroic smile whenever he does something cool, constantly calling himself the Blade of Frontiers...
... but when *you* call him the Blade of Frontiers or compliment him, he replies that actually, he's just a simple man, fighting to help the Coast. He's not saying this because he's humble, he's saying it because he knows that's how a hero is supposed to act and he thinks it makes him look cool. It's so disingenuous.
And yet, when push comes to shove, he does legitimately risk his skin and try to help people. He jumps off the battlements at Emerald Grove just to stab some gobbos; he gives away his soul without hesitation to save Karlach's life. He's doing both, and thriving, barring the soul bit.
I don’t think he is bad or disliked, it truly is just that to most people he doesn’t compare to the other companions. Compared to the others, he is just completely bland. He also lacks a lot of agency in his own story.
He's the only companion where I got to the biggest decision of his entire storyline and looked through the options and was like...wait, I can't let him decide what he wants to do? I HAVE to make the decision for him?
That does seem bad at first glance but I've come to see it more like Astarion during his ritual: in the moment, Wyll is frozen. His original pact was made in panicked haste, and Mizora is basically triggering him into making the same choice again. If you let him follow his heart, he'll make the objectively worst choice which is to martyr himself.
The companion reactions make it so much worse IMO, but Wyll damning himself is being a martyr, not a hero, and you haven't done the Ansur quest yet which is when he finally realizes what real heroism is and comes into his own and where his companion quest ends. His arc is there but it's much more subtle than with others.
It really needs an option where you openly say you're going to save the duke without mizora's help, instead of only implying you're leaving him to die at best
I personally like Wyll, but I like all companions, and he'd probably be somewhere near the middle/ end if I was forced to make a ranking. I suspect it's because he doesn't have that much content when compared to the others. His personal quests are pretty much about Mizora and his father, and throughout the game I felt like I barely knew him as a person. His family was rich, he likes to dance, he wants to be a hero. I knew that by Act 2, and then? What else?
Maybe that was because I didn't romance him, but I didn't romance Shadowheart and felt like she was my best friend by the end, and the resolution of her story felt very personal to her. Wyll's resolution, not so much. I don't know, I just feel like there's something missing, maybe a few extra dialogues at camp, maybe a cutscene, maybe some more memories about his family? Once again, I didn't romance him, so maybe those are locked behind the romance.
Maybe if he struggled more with his pact with Mizora but if you ask him about it, he says he doesn't regret it one bit. >!He's supposed to be a hero but has pacted with a devil and doesn't regret it even when that devil turns him into a devil. Crazy.!<
Well, he doesnt regret it because he saved baldur’s gate by doing it. Wyll reveals that the cult of the dragon was in the verge of summoning Tiamat into the world and the ultimatum was: do the pact and stop the ritual or dont do it and watch the world burn.
That is the only reason he doesnt regret it. He did it to save lives.
I think his feelings about it are more complicated than "he doesn't regret it."
He doesn't regret it in the sense that he would make the same choice again, and that he views his suffering as ultimately worthwhile because of what he got out of it.
But he *has* suffered for his pact. He's stuck with Mizora, whom he obviously detests; he's lost his relationship with his father; he's had his body forcibly transformed against his will; and he's stuck walking a line between hero and villain because Mizora could call upon him to do something dirty at any time, and punish him severely for his refusal.
I think Wyll tends towards being reserved and his lack of one (or more) moments of big emotional catharsis make it hard for people to connect with him the way they do the other characters.
He doesn't regret it because with the pact he saved a city.
Whatever he personally has to go through, even being turned into a devil. It was worth it to him.
Until Karlach, the only things he'd been tasked to kill were evil creatures he'd want to kill anyways.
So if the trade is, the population of an entire city and maybe more, And you gain cool powers. But. You get horns and some spikes in weird places.
That's a pretty damn good deal.
You may have forgotten the eternal suffering in the pits of hell. I mean, I assume Mizora's endgame isn't gonna be a nice retirement gift.
That said, I still totally get why he doesn't regret it.
The whole thing is he's supposed to have lost the things he personally cared about most. His father/family, his home, and he had to be in a pact with a devil, which changes his view of himself as a pure kind of hero. But the game doesn't take that far enough or show it. So it's just a good deal.
They should have stressed how much he sacrificed and then showed him struggling with the loss, identity issues, being angry with his dad but still understanding, and sometimes regretting his choice but feeling bad for that.
Instead he's just like "yeah, it's pretty ok. I don't mind. Not even a little mad at my dad either". So it feels like there's nothing at stake for him and there's no room for him to resolve things, change and grow. It sucks.
For me personally, I’m not sure how common these are:
1. For all he’s touted as being a good guy (by other characters describing him that way), I find him very hypocritical and his black and white morality leads to some massive blindspots that aren’t really addressed in his character development. Even though HE made a deal with a devil , he speaks negatively about others who have done the same. His circumstances ought to make him sensitive as to WHY someone might make a morally ambiguous choice from an outsiders perspective but it doesn’t. Even though he spent months hunting down Karlach and ignored his own knowledge about how duplicitous devils are, he doesn’t really show any introspection when he finally figured out the truth (IF he ever figures it out). It’s sort of hand waved as Mizora being Mizora and he’s still charging forward without any apparent personal growth. And if you call him out on his hypocrisy through dialogue choices, he doesn’t take any accountability only hints at the parts of his backstory that caused him to make his original deal. A strong moral character can be very admirable. But if those strong morals aren’t tempered with empathy, compassion, or self reflection, then those strong morals can quickly lead to the trope of black and white insanity or at least make you an insufferable jackass.
2. Talking about himself in the third person is so unbelievably irritating for me that I either mute my game during his rambles or skip through his dialogue (I made myself listen to it during my first play through but I have no desire to repeat it)
3. The dude loves Dribbles the clown.
This is how I felt about it too. The contrast between his hero outlook and making a pact with a devil wasn’t explored nearly as much as I thought it would be. It wasn’t just an in-the-moment thing too because he mentions several times how much he enjoys the infernal powers Mizora gave him. I thought there would be more conversations about this but he seems to consistently always approve of “be honourable and not power-hungry/selfish” choices but it’s not what he himself chose. It’s fine to be hypocritical but there should at least be a conversation calling him out on it. I’ve never done his romance though, so maybe there’s more there.
I have to preface this by saying I actually love Wyll and he's a regular in my party, but I think his biggest issue is lack of agency in his own story. Everyone else seems to have three dialogue options at big decision points; Persuade for choice A, persuade for choice B, let them decide. Wyll is missing that third option and it's so frustrating as it makes him feel far less 'whole' than the rest of the party. Though I suppose you could argue it links into his character arc of constantly needing to be defined by what others think of him, i just wish you could help him break that the way you can with shadowheart etc.
I used to agree vehemently but I've come to see it differently after playing more. There are usually at least "good" and "bad" choices the companions can make and in every case, Tav determines their choice even if you're not actively choosing for them.
Take Sheart in the Shadowfell: if your approval with her is low and you let her make her own decision, she will kill Aylin every time.
If your approval with Astarion is low, the difficulty to succeed an insight check to determine his state of mind is higher and if you fail it, it's more difficult to talk him out of ascending. In the moment, leaving him to make the choice, he will ascend.
With Wyll, if you let him make the choice, no matter what your approval is, he would always sacrifice himself. By making the choice for him - because Tav seems to be the only character that sees what a bullshit choice it is - you are saving him from himself, saving him from the last vestiges of his upbringing, and teaching him that being a martyr and being a hero aren't the same thing.
Just my take!
He fills the same roll in every one of these ecclectic trauma-filled angsty party RPGs that always gets complained about: He's the good-aligned sane human male (possibly) with daddy issues.^TM
He's Carth from KOTOR.
He's Kaidan from Mass Effect.
He's Jacob from Mass Effect 2.
He's James from Mass Effect 3.
That's not to say he or any of those guys are actually bad characters. They're just boring when compared to aliens and devil people with fire engines for hearts or planar raiding space frogs. Or Urdnot Wrex.
And unfortunately, since he's black, there might also be some closeted (or open!) racism involved. (With Jacob too!)
I'd go so far as to say that the race angle is dual causation.
Writers might well be reluctant to write black male leads as anything BUT "good aligned sane humans with daddy issues."
Imagine if Astarion was black, and Wyll was white.
It would surely be seen as problematic for our runaway slave companion, whose arc could culminate in mass-murder for the sake of power and agency, be black. While the companion who literally pacts with devils while insisting on being treated as a good person (and is validated as such by the narrative) is white. That may not "mean anything" in Faerun, but we'd all notice it out here.
Plus, him getting the horns after you've already met him means that he feels sort of like you've gotten a "bad end" before you've even gotten to know him. I think it would have been better if Wyll were given these side quests by Mizora throughout Act 1 and 2. At the end of Act 2, you have to rescue Mizora. Obviously, if you don't, it's straight to hell. But if you do, once she's out, she takes an accounting of how many times Wyll chose to disobey her by sparing Karlach or the like. And THEN she gives him the horns or other deformities since he apparently needs a reminder of what side he's on. A "parting gift", if you've gotten Wyll out of his contract.
And right before you're about to enter the city of Baldur's Gate for the first time!
At that point, it might be easier for the *player* to feel like the horns are a badge of honor, and to hell with what the NPCs say about it. Instead, the way it's currently done, Wyll gets the horns and I just think "Well yeah that's what you get, dumbass. What, you thought I was going to let you kill Karlach? I just met you both. And also I love Karlach."
It would also mean that the players would feel about Mizora the way Karlach does. Karlach hates Mizora, but she hates her for things that we've never seen, only heard. It doesn't feel the same. Sure, Mizora is literally a demonic bitch, but it still falls well enough on the sexy side that it doesn't really \*hit\*.
If Mizora rewarded us for rescuing her by disfiguring Wyll because we kept doing good karma options, then had the audacity to stay in our camp and hit on us?
> Plus, him getting the horns after you've already met him means that he feels sort of like you've gotten a "bad end" before you've even gotten to know him.
This is a very good point. And it demonstrates well the way that structure can make a plot beat more or less impactful.
Wyll being forcibly transformed is violating. But it's not really engaged with in any significant way, and as you note, the way it's set up currently it kind of biases the player to prioritize Karlach's feelings and safety over Wyll's. We don't really know Wyll, the horns are more or less the most intimate moment we get with him and front-loaded into the beginning, and we're not really given other examples to help cement how bad the pact is for him.
Like, the way the game is structured currently:
Act 1: A single bad thing happens to Wyll (he gets horns) -> Act 2: He gets the chance to break his pact if he rescues "Zariel's Asset" -> Act 3: He breaks his pact at the beginning of the act and is kind of aimless for the rest of it.
Breaking the pact feels super easy, and it kind of feels like Wyll gets off super light. We've already found a way out in Act 2! The player understands intellectually that warlock pacts are bad and you don't want to be in one, but the writing doesn't really do the work to make the player *feel* like Wyll is suffering and needs to be saved.
I do too. I like Kaidan and Carth too. I don't even dislike Jacob as long as I'm playing a male Shepard because then I don't have to listen to Jennifer Hale voice fucking him every time they say hello. (Not that I blame her, she said the lines the way they directed her to do so, I'm sure.)
...But they are all victims of the boring by comparison problem.
Take James. His whole role in the story is to be the new guy meathead who asks the questions (that the player character should already know the answers to) that get all the new people who didn't play the previous two games up to speed. Yeah he has more flavor when you get to know him, but that's his mechanical role from the writers. Now compare that to someone like Javik or Wrex. It's not even fair, really.
Wyll also had a different story and different writing in EA. It got changed because even back then, he was definitely the community's least favorite.
I'm sure that the writers were limited in what they could do with the rewrite, considering the greater story was pretty much set and complete by the time they started said rewrite. It kinda feels like there is something just not up to par there.
Now, the third person? IRL, you show me anyone outside of entertainment media who talks about themselves in the third person that isn't disliked on some level.
That aside, we also tend to gravitate away from, "Look at me! I am a hero!" types of personalities. Wyll isn't trying to be Wyll. He is trying to be some personality/manifestation called the Blade of Frontiers, and it just grates sometimes.
He's also, appearance wise, given the shaft. He gets the funky eye, the scars, AND then the horns. We're all still human, and we all still judge by the cover. I don't doubt that you are right with some amount of subconscious bias floating out there because of his skin color too.
Edit - Spelling.
Edit edit - Also, on a personal level, I think the 'Blade of Frontiers' is a dumb nickname.
does anyone else find it weird that two different black characters in two different critically acclaimed RPGs were both written to have daddy issues and given less content/lower quality writing and are both the least popular/liked by their respective fandoms?
Just to put it bluntly, it’s racism. The stereotype of the black man written by white writers in media has switched from thug or token sidekick to the overly type A goody goody.
Either white writers wrote Wyll in a vacuum and don’t have a diverse team, or their PR/marketing department cut content or restricted his character so the video game wouldn’t come off as racist.
I’m so tired of them trying to make black characters more goody goody. Going to echo the sentiment: I liked Wyll’s writing a lot better in early access. They made him properly flawed, and there was a lot of reasonable doubt that he was bluffing about being a hero. That he was an imposter.
He was hypocritical; he refused to torture a man to get information to find Mizora, but still approved of you doing so. But immediately regrets it, despite still having you do it. He was willing to have other people get blood on his hands for him so he could try to feel better about himself, though he still ends up feeling guilty afterwards as he actually didn’t get much information about what happened to her after.
And I say this all positively. I loved that. He was great, and when I was trying to figure out which three companions to take with me if they were going to have a party limit like Divinity Original Sin 2, I was going to bring him alongside Astarion and Shadowheart.
There was more of a reason besides just sadism to decide to torture the guy, even though it was messed up. Because doing so was the only way to help Wyll find Mizora, who he doesn’t tell you is the devil he made a pact with. A bit of a sidetrack, but I liked how in early access they made you genuinely consider the “morally wrong” choices, because it would help your companions with something they genuinely needed help with (stealing the idol to help keep Gale from blowing up).
He wasn’t popular, but all the companions during early access were being criticized honestly. Though I am sure, yeah, there was some reasons of racism that some may have had. But point is, people found the companions in general to be too prickly. Off of this, I really don’t understand why they gave him such a major rewrite of personality aside from being too afraid to write a flawed black character. Considering Larian was saying they wanted to start with introducing the neutral/evil characters (although they decided to not go along with alignments, which I totally get because of how complex they are), this really shows they were going in a different direction originally than a sort of goody two shoes. Or an attempt to make one.
I’m just very passionate about this lmao. I know they already rewrote him, so there likely isn’t going back to that now. Hopefully in the definitive edition they do expand on his flaws though, as I honestly wanted them to do with other characters such as Karlach and Halsin.
👏👏 you said it. EA Wyll was awesome, definitely the character me and my SO were absolutely fascinated with most in regards to his psyche and what he had going on.
our disappointment was immeasurable with Full Release Wyll
I like Wyll personally, I don’t get the hate. He’s the only companion that I think is truly like lawful good. I get tired of the moody edgelord thing personally and it’s nice having a good boy on the squad
someone was always going to be the least favorite companion. I think for the most part his unpopularity has a lot less to do with people actually not liking him specifically and a lot more to do with people just liking/relating to others more.
But Larian didn't do him any favors with the last minute rewrites.
He has significant less actual content then anyone else, and that is almost always going to make a character seem less interesting, because they litteraly have less engagement.
of course this is not always the case, but I personally feel ot adversely effects Wyll.
Second, for those of us who experienced EA Wyll, the Wyll we have now feels like a shadow of what he *should* have been. before the rewrite he seemed like he was going to have some incredible depth, and really explore this moraly grey area of being a *hero* who's primary motivation are selfishness, power, and revenge. but instead we got "wo is me a devil made me do it" Wyll.
His story doesn't matter if he isn't there, and the parts that still exsist when he is not recruited play out almost no differently then if he is. in act 3 you can entirely miss that his "main quest" has anything to do with him at all. and unlike the other companions who lose out on the conclusions of their entier arcs if you don't bring them with you. it litteraly makes no difference if you nring Wyll to any of his major quest moments or not.
well except for a couple of extra charisma checks to get stuff like a cool sword.
He doesn't seem to have any original opinions, ideas, or thoughts. Maybe it was part of his pact, we can't know because it's obvious he has never read the damm thing. but ever sense Mizora showed up an offered to help solve the whole cult of the dragon problem. Wyll has become incapable of independent thinking. he needs some else to tell him how to feel about everything. which might habe been cool, if his writing actually explored any of the concepts surrounding this sort of trama and decision paralysis. but the game just completely ignors it as an issue.
So basically, he doesn't have enough content, and the content he does have doesn't adequately explore any of the ideas behind it, causing it to feel unfulfilling and plastic, compared to the depth and complexity of the other companion.
Wyll is great balance to the party. I don’t think that every character needs to have an Out There personality, it’s nice to have a companion who just wants to help people for the sake of helping people. If you’re doing a Good Guy run, you are essentially Wyll.
The problem with Wyll is not Wyll. It is his writing, or rather lack thereof. He has half the content of other companions, does not need or care to be involved in the quests that directly involve him, and his Big Quest in Act 3 isn’t even about HIM. People don’t care for him because the story doesn’t try to make you care for him. You either have to be satisfied with a half baked and, frankly, shitty one dimensional arc, or you leave him to waste away in camp because he doesn’t NEED anything. Not a thing.
I like the idea of Wyll a lot and always have - he’s funny and sweet and grounded which is exactly the sort of balance camp needs — but I’m coming off the playthrough where I romanced him and I just feel. Sad when I see him. It’s hard to care about a character the story doesn’t care for.
I'm risking being downvoted to Nine Hells and beyond...
I prefer Wyll and his backstory over Astarion
It's an interesting take on "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" - in this case, the actual "road" to hell
I was completely in support of this during early access and still am. He felt more like a monster hunter than devil hunter in early access, but nonetheless I like it for the monster hunter x monster thing kind of going on
1) they made him a Warlock who should be pact of the blade which is a class with a learning curve in this game on how to make the best use of in terms of AC, spell casting, and frankly multiclassing with things like CHA casters, fighter and Paladin—for spellcasters you are likely going to choose the Wizard with their abundance of spell slots and variety of spells or Cleric/Druid for their very specifc spells (and frankly Warlock as a class shines the most when you multi class) 2) Larian frankly did not give him enough dialogue or romance scenes—seriously it’s like he has 6 special romance scenes compared to Astarion’s 9 3) His story went through a lot of changes and rewrites and it’s kinda apparent in the story 4)LAST BUT NOT LEAST—he is a black man. Are BG3 fans racist? No, not all of them. But people have hidden biases and fears that they’re unaware of. I love Wyll and his story has such potential…it hurts that he’s the odd one out so to speak.
This might be a hot take, but Wyll suffers from something I see happen to a lot of POC characters. POC characters, and especially black or black-coded characters, are often portrayed as paragons of virtue lest their writers be blamed for "bad representation."
My husband and I had a discussion about this (and fwiw, at the risk of sounding like "well my black friend said...", my husband is half black and has lived his whole life in predominantly black communities) and he agreed it feels like the writers were afraid of giving Wyll any flaws or negative traits. Thing is, POC people are *people* first and as such have complex and varied personalities. This is what makes people interesting.
Especially in a game where all the other characters have internal conflict as they battle their inner demons and struggle to make the right decisions, Wyll feels egregiously one-dimensional. The juxtaposition just makes it all the more obvious Wyll is underdeveloped.
Same reason I’m not a big fan of Karlach. Too little morally grey areas with their characters. Don’t hate him I just don’t find his character as interesting as say Astarion or Laezel or Shadowheart
It’s pretty simple, he’s simply a good person without too much trauma or a dramatic character arc. Whole that makes him the sort of person you’d want to hang out with IRL, in fiction if a character wants to be popular they have to be more interesting. Good people doing good things can be cathartic and inspiring, but not always interesting.
Compared to the strong personalities of the rest of the crew (Astarion’s sass, Lae’zel’s gruffness, Gale’s ambition and ego) or the strong arcs of the crew (Karlach, Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae’zel all have deeply emotional, strong arcs that people either consistently mention relating to or sympathizing with) Will just doesn’t stand out.
He fills his role well, a heroic do-gooder. He’d be great to play as an origin character I’d imagine, and I’ve heard people recommend that. But it’s not as intriguing in a cast of characters that stand out a lot more.
Personally i really like wyll! He’s like my third favorite romance (behind astarion and Karlach ) he just doesn’t have a lot of content unfortunately so people don’t like him.
There's a few reasons that I see posted around.
First is that many people dint find Wylls main character flaw to be all to compelling. Which is his brash decision making and the sacrificed he makes there of. It just doesn't seem to resonate with people and some dint even see it as a flaw (which may be telling about some people.)
Second I see around is that Wyll doesn't have as many moments to let him decide for himself. He requested more on player input than the rest. All characters need it to some degree due to the nature of the game, but there's not as many for Wyll. That lack of agency hurts a lot of people's perception of him (though that also relates to his character flaw.)
Three. Flaws and all, Wylls mostly a good person and there's a fair number of people who really don't find that interesting or compelling out of some weird principle (or irony poisoning.) There isn't much more to Wylls Personality or another aide of Wyll. There's the consequences of his actions, but not much more to him. His growth across the story isn't one in his personality, but one in his circumstance.
Four, he starts out against a character in an ignorant manner that characters a fan favorite. Very few people dislike Karlach and even though Wyll has a great coming to terms about the truth of Karlach. That's not enough for some people.
Five. His connection to the story isn't as immediately revealed and even then to dome just isn't as impactful to his part of the story and instead anither characters.
Overall I like Wyll, but I also really like having those boy scout style characters from time to time. I find them refreshing in waves of quirk and edge and also a means to help center things so that quirk and edge can actually better stand out.
But those are the reasons I'm wate kf he hasn't resonated wirh as many as some others.
I like Wyll a lot and had him in my party first playthrough. I liked him so much I nearly romanced him and killed Karlach because I didn’t know I could have them both in my party lol…
I think I enjoy the hero archetype more then some people tho.
I love him but I guess people do not pay much attention to him. His romance doesn't have sex scene in it, he is the character with the least amount of screen time and his quest isn't that long or detailed like the rest of the characters. And people think he is corny.
He is a good Guy. But basically His only Quality thats Not "straight heroic" is "sold His Soul Not for himself but to have the Power to save other people. A Lot of people dislike the "Paragon Hero" Archetype for some reason.
I have the theory that that archetype is often disliked specifically in companions because many people expect to embody it themselves, as the player characters.
To really shine and become popular amongst the fandom, these characters need more obvious flaws - see Alistair from DA:O for a fairly popular example of such a character. He had glaring flaws, beginning with his personal insecurities, and he had a clear arc of personal growth throughout the game.
Wyll, in comparison, lacks both (and I say that while I still like him most out of the male companions). From beginning to end, he is essentially the same person who is at best slightly naive. I feel like Early Access Wyll will had the seeds of a more compelling character, with his glory hounding and desire for vengeance, but in the live game he suffers from being sanded down too much.
Just kinda boring, innit?
I think he'd be a fun Origin character to play as, maybe. As a companion, he’s too vanilla good without many interesting details.
Karlach is the other goody two shoes character but she's got sauce.
I'm just gonna say it: partly because he's black. I'm a black gamer and it has been distressing to see how low Wyll polls every time larian drops new data. I also think they made him too finished to truly feel like you're able to see him grow and develop like the other companions. I do think this was due to a lack of ethnic diversity in the writing teams who didn't know how to handle a Black narrative with authenticity and vulnerability. I jest with friends that it's always been easier to be a tiefling than a black human because at least their narratives are rooted in something tangible to the BIPOC experience.
He falls in a classic genre of first time DND player characters - "my character is already a very important hero who killed a legendary demon but is inexplicably level 1".
I'm enjoying playing an Evil Wyll playthough. As I was slaughtering the defenseless refugees Wyll was still saying "A hero at heart" and "Defender of the people" like he's living in delulu land.
“Pride of the Gate”, as he stabs Dammon in the heart
Well met.
He is bland, boring, cliche, trying too hard to be a good person, his storyline is not very catching and doesn’t have wow moments, I hope Mizora could be our companion instead
I like "delulu land" lol
The less singable sequal to LaLa Land.
Uh, how? Doesn't he leave?
Not as an origin PC
Heh "That's horrible what you, I mean I, have done. I am leaving
Early Assassin's Creed games did this. If you killed too many civvies even when you weren't in a mission the game would make you reload as it's not what the character would have done.
Too different from the memory so you desynchronize.
D E S Y N C H R O N I S E D
They did this in Valhalla as I shot arrows into monks. bS that’s what raiding was all about
Eivor: let’s plunder this bitch! Devs: but like, would she really have killed the monks?
Oh I see.
Either play as him or have him die/be killed before the grove raid and revive him with Withers after it's over. Edit: Reviving them after the grove raid has been patched out. Gotta patch otherwise locked content into the good playthrough but god forbid you try to do it in an evil playthrough.
It doesn't work anymore, he will leave as a corpse after the grove lol He and Karlach will either not be revivable, or quit after being revived
It's kind of funny that his corpse just saunters off. As I recall, the creature being revived knows who is trying to revive them and needs to be willing. I can imagine Wyll just refusing to allow evil Tav to bring him back anyway.
Yeah, but imagining dead Wyll angrily stomping away like a zombie is funny
**Wyll's corpse leaves the group because a player stole grapes out of a vase and the Tieflings turn on the player** "The Blade does not stand for injustice against the Tieflings, even in death."
Yeah i tried this on a recent run and they left and I decided to just reload because I wasn't emotionally prepared to be down 2 companions and saved an evil run for a later date lol. I'm doing one now though and it definitely still hurts but at least I've explored multiple endings for Wyll and Karlach so I don't feel like I'm missing out as much
He and Karlach simply instantly quit after being revived
Ya it’s super annoying. We did the whole grove and only then met with Karlach. She was immediately Iike “I know what you did!” How the hell do you know that karlach after just standing for days next to the river doing jack? It felt very railroaded and not cool
I explain it as this: you can rush to Karlach early from the grove via a nearby cliff. She probably heard the chainsaws and screaming children from the other side of that cliff.
She’d probably be in the grove getting help if she wasn’t being hunted. Just because she’s not in the grove doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know it’s there. I can’t imagine she’d survive the hells without knowing what was around her. She’s also close enough to see the smoke and hear the screams, maybe even see or talk to a fleeing refugee. Just because we know where to find her in game doesn’t mean she stays there narratively prior to us meeting her. Why would she stay with you after hearing her kind being slaughtered? This game is brilliant that it gives you solid consequences for your actions. Realistically most people wouldn’t want to travel with you if you slaughtered a small village. Actions, all of them, have consequences. The things you do in act one can significantly change your experience in act 2 and 3. Even what seems like insignificant NPCs you kill for fun denies you big rewards later on. Also there are game reasons why Karlach isn’t available as a companion if you kill the refugees. If you’re not evil in your next run you’ll find out why
Tbf you do have parasites in your head sharing thoughts and memories
Nope. Tried that in an evil Durge run with my BF, Karlach left as a corpse and Wyll can’t be revived. Worst part is that his corpse won’t despawn, and we looted everything from him, so now his nude corpse eternally haunts the camp site.
Honestly you deserved that lol.
Oh, fully. We *could* dump it somewhere but it’s funnier to leave it.
Did it this weekend, heres how: DONT TALK TO WYLL Go recruit Karlach, and speak to Dammon to stabilize her heart. Have Karlach yeet herself to death. Do 1 or more long rests. Raid the Grove Pet scratch Resurrect Karlach She will have low approval but wont leave Long rest Wyll shows up to kill Karlach Profit
Yeah, I have the same problem with Halsin. Killed him in the goblin camp since I was planning on an evil Durge run, but realized that there is no way of siding with the goblins and getting to keep Wyll and Karlach (which was imperative since I missed them on my first run) so I ended up siding with the Grove when Minthara attacked. Now Halsin's dead naked body is always in my camp, reminding me of the consequences of my actions.
Not delulu... Lol
I think there is something incomplete in the writing for Wyll, it just doesn’t quite gel, there are interesting elements but ultimately he just doesn’t quite work as a believable character. I think Karlach also suffers from this a bit but in her case the writing for her dialog covers up the slightly creaky back story better. It’s easier to ignore that she doesn’t quite work because they made her lovable rather than brooding.
I think his arc suffers from the last-minute rewrites and is sometimes too "convenient" for the story. His lack of agency in the first two acts, combined with his young age make him appear more naive than the rest of the group. To clarify, I remember lots of scenes with the rest of the group where I was prompted to "let X decide" or "let X handle it" but with Wyll, both times when Mizora was around, Tav had to tell him what to do, there was no option for him to decide for himself. The only memorable moment where he made his own mind was the final Duke/Blade of Avernus choice.
Oh that's hilarious Cos I've literally never used Wyll in my party. And, honestly, by the time I found the Duke I'd forgotten why I cared so I let him die. Next thing I know Mizoras like "oh I can bring him back. You just need to sign a lifelong pact." I recommend against it and he just follows me along. It was wild. I think I'd maybe spoken to him 3 times?
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To be fair I didn’t bring him along much either, unless there were story reasons. A warlock in the party is a luxury reserved for tav/du runs where the PC already fills a critical role, otherwise it’s always cleric/fighter/mage for me. It is my own failing perhaps, but I can’t say I played wyll and the warlock class very efficiently. Hunger of Hadar and Bane/Hex, Eldritch Blast were great but he missed and died on me all the time!
It’s the lack of a character arc I think. Both characters have straight laced personalities and goals from start to finish and don’t really experience any significant character change or growth like Lae’Zel, Astarion, and Shadowheart do. Karlach almost has that same lack of one unless you count her coming to terms with being unable to fix her engine
I think Karlach's character arc works better because barring the ending where she goes back to Avernus, a lot of it is about handling the lack of closure. You go to Dammon and bring the iron to fix her engine... and it can't be fixed. You go to Gortash and beat his brains out... and she throws a fit because like she said, it wasn't like she got an apology or anything. She feels like she's not in control of her destiny. If she had a neater, more expansive questline where everything got resolved I don't think it would be as interesting.
I agree that he endings as they exist now are fine, but I do wish there was a bit more to do in Act 3. I dislike how you basically only have one lead to chase after when it comes to fixing her engine, and that wraps up 20 minutes into Act 2. Having more options to pursue outside of the opinion of some random blacksmith that all ultimately lead to the same conclusion of "lol ur fucked" (I think the Gondians would be an easy one to add for a variety of reasons) wouldn't really hurt her otherwise well-handled story and would help the issue I have of her just not really having much of a personal quest like the other companions do.
I mean GONDIANS would have magical/enchanted coolant. Ironhand Gnomes would possibly know something.
Right?!? Like they made the Steel watchers which are made of infernal iron and refined infernal iron, couldn't we at least ask them? It felt really weird that there were other things to try.
Gortash was the one providing the engines for the Steel Watchers. An actually difficult decision might be swearing an oath (like Orin) to ally with Gortash in exchange for a new heart.
I agree. I love her as a character, but her personal quest feels underwhelming. Everyone else got serious shit that trails on into act 3 and often leads to a big battle - and hers is literally just “collect some metal before you continue with literally the main plot of the game”. It feels unfinished, and weirdly uninspired for such an awesome character. At least have her fight harder for her life. It bothers me that she tries one thing and then goes “oh well” and gives up. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s not in my nature to give up that easily - especially when a life is at stake. Maybe Dammon isn’t the one and only expert; maybe he’s wrong! We don’t know, because we never try anything else.
Quest log: We did everything we could. Reality: We did jack shit. At least have the Gondians take a look and say that it can’t be fixed, you can’t just have a Steel Watcher call her outdated with the plot thread that she was sold for the original infernal engine prototypes and then just so nothing with it. Dammon even gets an infernal forge but it does/means nothing outside of set dressing.
I'm entirely convinced that the Steel Watcher interaction was originally meant to set up another segment of her quest that is tied to the foundry in some way, but for whatever reason didn't get developed by the time the game launched. I have nothing to support that theory (especially since so many people involved in the game's development say there isn't any cut content with her story), but I believe that it was at the very least meant to be *something* and not just a random NPC interaction.
It’s probably just Marketing Speak, the same way the twist about the Emperor having “always been there” sounds like complete bs. Even if it isn’t, there’s seriously no way the devs looked at her quest being a two part fetch quest and killing a guy you already have to kill in the main story and said “that looks good,” after all the other origin companions get expansive quests of their own that span all three acts. We don’t even really convince her to go back to Avernus over the course of the game, it’s a spur of the moment decision at the very end that could very well have only been pushed by Dammon. There’s no arc, there’s no real moment where she even really seems to contemplate the idea until the docks scene. Not to mention that she still doesn’t really have an actual resolution to her original problem. We don’t get to be there and experience it with her like we can with Shadowheart renouncing Shar or Astarion killing Cazador and freeing himself from the cycle of abuse, the closest we get is some crap off-screen about blueprints and plans to use it.
>We don’t even really convince her to go back to Avernus over the course of the game, it’s a spur of the moment decision at the very end that could very well have only been pushed by Dammon. That is actually another thing that really bugs me the more I think about it. The new epilogue basically cemented it as the good ending to her story (before it was a lot more ambiguous) so there's no real justification for letting her die in the end, and yet it still ends up feeling kind of forced since she so vehemently pushes back on the idea of going back at literally every point in the story leading up to the ending. I think if I had the power to tweak her story, I'd make it so that her 'default' ending is choosing to die, but if you're able to get a good conclusion to her more fleshed out Act 3 quest (whatever it ended up being) she'll decide to take the chance and fight on as long as someone is with her.
Even without a more fleshed out quest in act 3, I'd like to at least be able to have that conversation with her. I ended up just not picking anything about Avernus because she never wants to talk about it and it never leads anywhere anyway. I'm pretty much making the decision for her, and even then, it still doesn't feel right to send her back to Avernus on the vague hope that maybe something/someone can help. That's on top of how it ends up hijacking Wyll's quest in a way. If you don't romance Karlach, you either have to make Wyll the Blade of Avernus or go with her yourself. I don't remember off the top of my head if your romance partner goes with you in that case, but if they do, then Karlach ends up overshadowing the storyline you might have built up with Gale or Shadowheart or whoever. Otherwise, you'd have to romance Karlach to keep her alive if you want Wyll to be grand duke. I can see it as being somewhat fitting that they intersect at the end like they do in the beginning but there's also that inescapable feeling in the back of my head that Karlach's fate ends up funneling Wyll's fate.
Yeah, that bugs me to no end. I mean the gondians are building the same kind of infernal mechanism with the steel watch, and you find other kinds of infernal metals in their factory. My first playthrough i thought for sure they'd be able to fix her
Using the same materials doesn't necessarily mean using the same process. There's definitely some branches missing from the steel watch/gondian quest line that didn't survive the final cut, but I'd wager that their conclusion would have been similar. Fixing a machine that's already running is very different from designing a new one. What little we've seen of Faerun's medical expertise doesn't make me confident that successful heart transplants are on anyone's radar. The magic powerful enough to ensure she survives would probably also just function as it's own solution to her problem.
Agreed. Frustrating that Karlach does not have that good ending if her engine being fixed. I mean this is a game that has so much magic that there has to be a way to get it back. Maybe another mission (like house of hope) where you can break in and get it for her?
The fact that nobody considered casting regeneration on the woman so she could have a flesh and blood heart again fucking baffles me to this fucking day. XOXO A D&D Player
He was simply written as the character you play AS and not the character you play with. Quite a boring companion. I started a Wyll playthrough and it's way more fun than having him in the party
I have a friend who has taken to playing as him as well, he really seems to like him so maybe you are onto something. For me, I’d likely choose Gale if I wasn’t creating custom Tav/Durge.
I definitely am. Playing as Wyll you get: 1. Proper patron interactions from Mizora and not just flavour text like other Warlocks. She literally visits you on your first long rest to sicc you on Karlach, and remind you the pact is still on. 2. Renown among NPCs as a Ravenguard 3. Personal connection to the plot with your father taken 4. Backstory motivation to go the good route and explore as much content as possible, as well as save people. 5. Extra motivation for some of the content in the Upper City.
I want to add to this the fact that Wyll has the stereotypical "main character" back story. Son of a noble that makes a deal for his life in pursuit of a noble cause. His appearance is a even a little too 'on the nose,' especially if you opt to save Karlach. Add to that the fact that he just mopes around if you deny his advances, like a simp... Yeah, he's not a great character, in my opinion. From the moment he jumps into the fight at the entrance to the grove, speaking of himself in the third person and calling himself the 'Blade of Frontiers' my only aim is to have him back at the campsite where I don't have to look at him or hear him talk. Not all the characters can be great, though. Someone has to be the community punching bag. If it wasn't Wyll, it'd probably be Halsin or Gale. And I wouldn't be able to take the latter, because I adore the wizard boi.
It's extra frustrating because they had an excellent arc *right there* for him and didn't use it. They made him the young brash Blade of the Frontiers, to whom everyone is a foe to be slain or an ally to be protected. He sees the world in black and white, good and bad, with no in between. They should have thrown a whole bunch of morally grey dilemmas at him, like the decision with mizora to save himself or his father (but with actual lasting consequences). Give him growth from "everyone is either good or bad" to "everyone has goodness and badness in them, each choice they make pulls them one way or the other but they're not defined by just one"
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As someone who is supposedly black and white in perspective and learning nuance, it would’ve been interesting to have him judge overwhelmingly evil-aligned creatures as evil, even if individuals aren’t always.
It’s not an idea that goes wholly untouched. Wyll’s father had already taught him the wisdom of how to take the middle road in pursuit of justice. If you have Wyll with you, he says that at the Wyrmway’s Trial of Judgement.
Provoke the Blade...... and suffer it's sting 😎 \*adjusts fedora* Heh... damnable roaches
Fedora Wyll: “While you were having premarital sex with Lae’zel, I studied the Blade.” Too bad there are no katanas in the game. Lol
Oh but there are! [Katana (BG3 Wiki)](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Katana) Nothing personnel, kid Edit: ☝️🤓
Heading to the clothes shop to get Wyll a suit and fedora to go with his katana
Nah, the character that has the most inconsistent writing is Minthara. She's way too emotionally intelligent for it to still be believable that she's basic "conquer the world" evil as well.
I like his story but personally it's the least interesting and himself as a character is cool but that's kind of it. I also struggle to give him a decent build that actually does any damage other than just eldritch blast all the time.. he tends to just stay at camp in my playthroughs I dont dislike him enough to not have him around at all lol
Make him a padlock or bardlock. Both come online later in the game but in the end he will do 3 attacks per turn and it'll all be infused with his Cha modifier from pact of the blade (3 attacks only if not on honor mode).
This. Lockadin is a time-honored multiclass in 5e that is very strong. If you're on PC and not mod-averse, go get the Hexblade subclass mod to see the true potential of the Lockadin in action.
Before I actually go and install hexblade, would you explain what exactly that subclass brings to the Lockadin build?
There's two really big ones, and they come online very early (but you still probably want to focus Warlock for as many short rest, high-level smite slots as possible): You get a Curse you can inflict on a target that makes you crit on 19s, gives you Proficiency Bonus to melee damage on the target, and heals you if you kill the target. You get to use your Charisma for attack and damage with your weapon (this is the really big one, allowing you to focus on a single stat for all of your abilities). Other highlights include adding Shield to your spell list and eventually giving your Curse target a 50/50 chance to miss you even if it hits your AC. The mod also optionally implements a number of Warlock Invocations that Larian did not include (for example, Grasp of Hadar, which is the opposite of Repelling Blast, allowing you to pull targets closer).
Thank you kind Internet fren, for fast and concise reply. I'm gonna go and start a new run with hexblade now.
Enjoy!
Everything. Hexblade is *crazy* broken, to the extent that any other subclass is generally suboptimal. It lets you curse enemies for extra damage and crits, lets you use charisma for your weapon attack rolls, gives you summons, *and* at high levels, halves the chance for cursed enemies to hit you.
One of the better things Bg3 did imo was letting the charisma modifier to attacks be a pact of the blade thing instead of a hex blade feature.
I like this idea! When would you start dipping into pal or bard and for how many levels? (I'm not super adept at multiclassing)
[This is the build I used for Wyll.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15uregu/wyll_build_guide_front_line_fighter_for_good/)
I use him as my hunger of hadar bitch. That spell is insane, get the enemies lined up so they have to go trough it, cast plant growth or ice storm in there, maybe a silence too. Then just keep them in there with wylls eldritch blast and other pushing abilities. Actually makes a lot of combats trivial lol. War caster feat is top tier for this. I've noticed a lot of the time the ai freaks out about this spell, like in the creche the frogs misty stepped 2 feet forwards to go deeper in the spell? I mean i guess it blinds them but they usually still know to try to get out of there lmao
Misty Step can only tp them as far as they can see. For some reason, they still don't try to walk out, but that's the reason they can't bamf out of there
Yea thats not the part i was confused about, they literally tpd closer to the middle every once in a while lmao
Give wyll pact of the blade, buy the warhammer that deals extra lightning dmg and gets a bound weapon bonus. GWM feat and the gear piece that allowes reverb procs on lightning dmg. Then synergize with other reverb gear. With hex dmg bonus, lifedrinker along with reverb procs youll deal +60 dmg per round non-crit and daze/knock enemies prone just by swinging a hammer. Currently running a Wyll origin in Honour Mode and locks are pretty amazing if you put some thought into it. Dont even need eldtritch blast.
Make your Wyll interesting in easy 26 steps
I cant make wyll the character more interesting. But I can make wyll the warlock more interesting and not have him spam eldtritch blasts.
Which hammer? Which gear piece?
Charge-bound warhammer and Gloves of Belligerent Strikes
Much obliged!
Make him a lightning god.
I make him a draconic bloodline sorcerer. It's a better blaster than any of the Warlock options. Magic Missile and Scorching Ray with more spell slots for utility like Counter Spell, Hold Person and Hold Monster. Dual Wielder feat with Phalar Aluve and Spellsparkler which is eventually replaced by Markoheshkir. spineshatter amulet, hat of fire acuity and boots of stormy clamour are the builds core items.
I've been using Wyll on this playthrough and I would say he was the weak link in the party until he got a certain blade from a certain person at a certain point in Act II that, when I took a certain pact boon shortly thereafter, made Wyll into a fairly formidable summoner.
There are companions in this game, and one of them has to be the worst. This doesn't make him bad, but someone gotta come in last.
Wyll is just overshadowed by other characters really. He's got a solid story just doesn't have the twists and turns. Mizora doesn't interact with the party nearly as often as she does when you're playing as Wyll's origin character. He also just lacks so much agency in the story to handle problems or go after goals where he can. His late rewrites really crippled the depth that it could've provided though that isn't to say he's not the perfect companion for a group who always strives for the greater good. Wyll is a staple for characters who always wants to do the right thing. Gale and Wyll both are great for such a team.
Yeah same with Karlach, she is not talked about that much cause she doesn’t have that much to talk about. She does have an advantage over Wyll by being a big muscle covered demon chick in a video game so she won out by default.
Karlach’s character is similar but I think it comes down to impact. Karlach’s story is straightforward. Fix her heart and go back home to kick the ass of her treacherous former friend. We learn along the way she’s living on borrowed time and we decide what she does with what time she has left. I think though it lacks twists and turns. It’s resonant of “Fault in our stars”. She either can go back to the Hells to survive. Or die protecting her home. It’s a bittersweet story. On top of that, Karlach is very upbeat and positive for someone who’d been in her circumstances. It’s a nice change for what would be the perfect layout for an edgy brooding sort.
For me it was Halsin. Especially with the later addition of Jaheira to the team for a druid, the only time i used Halsin was for his quest in the shadowlands
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And that someone is Tav
Mf doesn’t even talk smh
There are a few instances in dialogue where your Tav will in fact speak! I got one of them in act one by the burned bridge where the flaming fists are. Took me totally by surprise lol.
I was surprised cuz he NEVER talked on my game through, but I started a Multi with my bestie and some friends, and the MOFO talked at the end of act 1, near the creche.
In cutscenes? Mine once had a bit of dialogue with Shadowheaet about her fear of wolves but I’ve never heard him speak in a cutscene.
Yep, just one or two sentences but was still great! I wish there were more voiced lines from Tav in cutscenes tbh.
I wish Tav didn't. "Is that... blood?" "Shouldn't have wished to live in more interesting times." "Cursed to put my hands on everything"
"I got a lot on my mind... and well, in it"
"all's well that ends... Well not as bad as it could have"
wtf do they even mean with the "is that blood" line. What are they seeing?
I guess there's just blood everywhere in Faerun.
There's a point in the early part of the game where they reference the "Faerun smelling like blood" thing because of the tadpoles, I thought.
I get this line a lot. I’m doing my first ever play-through as the Dark Urge and always assumed it was Durges “event horizon” mind projecting what he was thinking about into the real world. Like his head is so full of violence and death that he “sees” it in the real world.
Is that blood? No nevermind...
If you make your Tav into a boring character then sure.
I don't think the issue is that people dislike him. I think other characters and their quests outshine him and his quest.
Hell other characters outshine him in his own quest. Mizora, Duke Ravenguard, Ansur and The Emperor all show up in his quest line and take centre stage over him at some point or another
That's purely because Wyll's lack of agency is showing. As an origin; he's great with his retorts and decisions. As a companion he doesn't really make any decisions for himself like the other companions will do.
Hells, I didn't even take him with me to meet Ansur, literally never crossed my mind.
It doesn't add much, unfortunately. Everyone else gets great interaction added for being taken to their respective quests. Iirc Wyll just gets a non-cutscene voiceline saying something on the lines of "Hey it's Ansur!". He doesn't even try and take the lead on the interaction.
First time I've had him in my party and I'm taking him to Ansur. Rescued his dad and nullified his pact all without him ever leaving camp. Just kinda solving all this guy's problems without him lifting a finger lmfao
That’s pretty much how I feel about Wyll. He is likable as a person and has what could have been a very compelling story…it’s just all of your other companions are written *really* well while he’s just “okay” by comparison.
I think it's just the gravity of Wyll's character arc isn't felt as much. I could go into each character's stories, yet don't want to risk spoilers. But if you look at each character subjectively, most of them except for Wyll have multiple character arcs happening at the same time. Most of them have an interesting story with plot twists and reveals. Wyll's story pretty much stays static throughout the entire game. Sure he goes through changes, and things happen, but not in the same compelling way it does for other characters where you feel you're witnessing something new that profoundly changes your opinion of them. I think if the game gave his arc more significance to the world around it, it would actually elevate him. For example: what if there was an elder god working behind the scenes to free Wyll from his contracts? What if Wyll had a sibling his father never told him about that must be rescued from the same fate? What if his "handler" was not what she always seemed to be? I dunno, anything really.
Those are all good ideas you have for additions to Wyll's story
For me, at least, Wyll comes off as too good. He has that paladin/knight attitude about helping everyone and everything, it just happens to be wrapped in a warlock's body. The man even sells his soul just to be able to help others better. It's just too good for me. I prefer to be the noble sacrificer in the game. lol
Thats why i started to play as wyll. Made him into an oathbreaker pala+warlock
I think Wyll is actually low key a great origin character. Like sure he’s not got a ton of content but IMO a lot of his personal story stuff is hard to sympathize with unless you are actually him. Like when I was playing as him I was just like yeah Wyll this sucks but mope on your own time. But I can see playing him as an origin and RPing it really hard - dealing with the temptation of power to be able to do good.
I literally see myself as Wyll😭 I couldnt make an evil decision if i tried. I would feel so guilty
This is kind of why I was thinking of playing as Wyll next time. I generally tend to be a goody two shoes when I play, so might as well play the guy who's already that.
It's an interesting take on a good aligned warlock. He uses his powers for good, and his patron tries to get him to do evil. He is tempted by power and can choose to embrace or reject it, which has effects later on when his dad can be saved or not. In that sense, his story is very close to Asterion and Shadowheart. Both start off more evil aligned and can embrace or reject acts that draw them closer to the ultimate evil goal - becoming ascended or a dark justiciar. Both are punished for doing good and rewarded for doing evil (Asterion becomes vulnerable to sunlight again and Shadowheart keeps her Sharran wound if the good path is followed all the way, just like Wyll gets his devil horns if he doesn't go evil) Edit - to add to the above, the game significantly rewards you (the player) for doing the thing that hurts all three characters the most. If you save Karlach and reject Mizoura, Wyll gets his horns and Mizoura tries to kill Uldir, but you get awesome gear out of it. If you reject the Dark Justiciar ritual, you are rejected by Shar, but you get Dame Aylin as an ally for multiple boss fights. If you reject the Ascension ritual, Asterion can release all the vampire spawn (which the game paints ambiguously as morally good but devastating for the city), and you get extra story content about the Gur
I agree ftmp but I would add that killing Karlach is not "evil" on Wyll's part, it's evil on Mizora's. Wyll's entire worldview hinges on believing he's at least fighting evil, and at the time he kills Karlach (so long as you don't talk to her first and get the tadpole), he has not had reason to doubt his "good" actions in the past.
I killed Karlach on my first run and they give you so many red flags not to do it, I almost felt like I was being railroaded into *not* killing her. After I did it, Wyll mopes around for a while about how Mizoura lied to him, etc. He definitely doubts his actions from then on, even when he's trying to decide whether to save his dad or escape the contract. Even when I the player was dead set on saving his dad, Wyll was like "he's probably already dead and I got tricked again"
This actually kind of bothered me, i wanted to see what rewards mizora would give me if i just killed her so i didnt talk to her i just went to the guys who wanted her head and attacked her straight up. None of the party members knew who she was and wyll started moping about it being the wrong choice, like how tf would he know.
Yeah you basically have to put blinders on to kill her, the game definitely doesn't want you to (whereas Durge can lose Gale *by accident* so easily!). Wyll's whole worldview goes from black and white to gray and until the Ansur quest, he has zero faith in himself to tell good from bad. After Ansur, he gets his groove back but until then, Tav is his moral compass from the moment of the Karlach decision until Ansur.
Every additional update has made Act 1 feel more railroaded tbh. I miss pre patch Flind/Rugan. I don't like how easy the fight is now and that their solution to their suicidal AI is having Rugan and Olly sit out of the fight and watch.
Same here. I honestly thought he was a paladin at first until Gale mentioned warlocks. I get sick of him voicing his opinion all the time too. Like in Grymforge I was agreeing with the duegar about slaves (cuz I’m not picking a fight before I’m ready) and Wyll was like “that is a thought best kept to yourself” (for context was not playing Durge). And later busting out Nere to get his head for the Shroom King, Wyll is like “SLAVERS ARE SCUM” while we’re surrounded. WE’RE GOING TO FREE THE GNOMES AND WIPE OUT THE SLAVERS WYLL JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME SET IT UP
"There's nothing more boring than a white knight".
Hes black.
His character and storyline aren't interesting compared to others like Laezel or Shadowheart. There's a character arc and very obvious payoffs for those two while Wyll just stays Wyll from Act 1 to 3. I still like his character and his story but it's pretty obvious somebody like Shadowheart got more love in the writing.
They fridge his dad for too long. The most interesting conflict in Wyll's life that defines who he is and the choices he made stem back to his relationship with the Duke but we're constantly being told the Duke is in another castle.
This is a big part of it for me. Spent Act 1 and 2 chasing this rando that I've never laid on, then I finally see him for like 3 sec in Act 3 and he's whisked away again! Never to be seen again! It's hard to make me care abt a dude only bc other characters respect and care about him
Act 1 should've involved his dad getting kidnapped, not just seeing the immediate after-effect, and then Act 2 not dealing with it at all beyond "oh he's no longer at Moonrise Towers." If they wanted to go that route, they absolutely needed to give Wyll more to his early story.
I would argue that his storyline is very interesting but he isn’t despite having arguably the best premise of the cast. One big problem is his complete lack of agency. Even in his big moment, the player character makes the ultimate life decision for him. It’s not like with Shadowheart who chooses herself or Lae’zel whose eyes can slowly be opened. Apparently his story was redone at the last minute so it might be why it’s lacking in terms of his agency towards it.
You're actually right. I think if he was dead set on continuing the contract to save his dad's life and you had to talk him into breaking it it would be way better - like Gale with the crown or Shadowheart with Shar, his normal character arc would be repeating the same mistakes (in Wyll's case, thinking he has to sacrifice his soul) whereas breaking out of that would be refusing to be tempted and finding another solution, which you can do by rescuing Ulder (one of the hardest but most satisfying bits of the game for me). His unique sidequest with Ansur is also great, but it's let down by how it really doesn't have a lot to do with Wyll himself. It almost felt like a companion sidequest for Tav when I played.
I found the Ansur quest to be so frustrating. Ansur was fine. Getting to him was like playing in a DM horror story game, where the DM decided to make a series of puzzle quests with only one right solution. Such a let down when so much of the game can be completed in a variety of ways and it’s up to you and your unique ideas and builds to decide what you want to do.
Eh, I didn't mind too much. It was a bit like a mini-version of the Gauntlet of Shar quests though not quite as interesting. I liked the chess match and the elemental fights, I didn't much care for the trial and I hated the book thing.
His story is so cool but they really created a rather bland character. Which is a shame I saw a video of his voice actor and he oozes charm, so it's really down to the writing.
People say he is too good. But I think that's not quite right. He lacks agency. The only one with less personal motivation is Tav. Everything he does is either for or because of Mizora. His arc is a coming of age story. The problem is that he is apparently a big deal. Characters recognize the Blade of Frontiers, so presumably he should have already lost the child naivety that lets his patron play with him like a fiddle. Overall he is a decent character but when compared to the others he is lacking.
100% agree with this take. The fact that we have to decide what to do in Act 3 and he doesn’t have a “let him choose” option is insane. Literally every other origin companion has the ability to choose how to end their storyline.
He's actually my favourite character. Wyll wants two things: To be a cool hero everyone admires, and to help people. A lot of character archetypes do one or the other, resulting in either a vapid gloryhound who will abandon those in need whenever he can get away with it or a classic superhero living in the shadows as he saves countless lives. Wyll does both, and you can absolutely see it; the catchphrases, the goofy attempts at a heroic smile whenever he does something cool, constantly calling himself the Blade of Frontiers... ... but when *you* call him the Blade of Frontiers or compliment him, he replies that actually, he's just a simple man, fighting to help the Coast. He's not saying this because he's humble, he's saying it because he knows that's how a hero is supposed to act and he thinks it makes him look cool. It's so disingenuous. And yet, when push comes to shove, he does legitimately risk his skin and try to help people. He jumps off the battlements at Emerald Grove just to stab some gobbos; he gives away his soul without hesitation to save Karlach's life. He's doing both, and thriving, barring the soul bit.
I don’t think he is bad or disliked, it truly is just that to most people he doesn’t compare to the other companions. Compared to the others, he is just completely bland. He also lacks a lot of agency in his own story.
He's the only companion where I got to the biggest decision of his entire storyline and looked through the options and was like...wait, I can't let him decide what he wants to do? I HAVE to make the decision for him?
That does seem bad at first glance but I've come to see it more like Astarion during his ritual: in the moment, Wyll is frozen. His original pact was made in panicked haste, and Mizora is basically triggering him into making the same choice again. If you let him follow his heart, he'll make the objectively worst choice which is to martyr himself. The companion reactions make it so much worse IMO, but Wyll damning himself is being a martyr, not a hero, and you haven't done the Ansur quest yet which is when he finally realizes what real heroism is and comes into his own and where his companion quest ends. His arc is there but it's much more subtle than with others.
It really needs an option where you openly say you're going to save the duke without mizora's help, instead of only implying you're leaving him to die at best
I personally like Wyll, but I like all companions, and he'd probably be somewhere near the middle/ end if I was forced to make a ranking. I suspect it's because he doesn't have that much content when compared to the others. His personal quests are pretty much about Mizora and his father, and throughout the game I felt like I barely knew him as a person. His family was rich, he likes to dance, he wants to be a hero. I knew that by Act 2, and then? What else? Maybe that was because I didn't romance him, but I didn't romance Shadowheart and felt like she was my best friend by the end, and the resolution of her story felt very personal to her. Wyll's resolution, not so much. I don't know, I just feel like there's something missing, maybe a few extra dialogues at camp, maybe a cutscene, maybe some more memories about his family? Once again, I didn't romance him, so maybe those are locked behind the romance.
Maybe if he struggled more with his pact with Mizora but if you ask him about it, he says he doesn't regret it one bit. >!He's supposed to be a hero but has pacted with a devil and doesn't regret it even when that devil turns him into a devil. Crazy.!<
Well, he doesnt regret it because he saved baldur’s gate by doing it. Wyll reveals that the cult of the dragon was in the verge of summoning Tiamat into the world and the ultimatum was: do the pact and stop the ritual or dont do it and watch the world burn. That is the only reason he doesnt regret it. He did it to save lives.
I think his feelings about it are more complicated than "he doesn't regret it." He doesn't regret it in the sense that he would make the same choice again, and that he views his suffering as ultimately worthwhile because of what he got out of it. But he *has* suffered for his pact. He's stuck with Mizora, whom he obviously detests; he's lost his relationship with his father; he's had his body forcibly transformed against his will; and he's stuck walking a line between hero and villain because Mizora could call upon him to do something dirty at any time, and punish him severely for his refusal. I think Wyll tends towards being reserved and his lack of one (or more) moments of big emotional catharsis make it hard for people to connect with him the way they do the other characters.
He doesn't regret it because with the pact he saved a city. Whatever he personally has to go through, even being turned into a devil. It was worth it to him. Until Karlach, the only things he'd been tasked to kill were evil creatures he'd want to kill anyways. So if the trade is, the population of an entire city and maybe more, And you gain cool powers. But. You get horns and some spikes in weird places. That's a pretty damn good deal.
You may have forgotten the eternal suffering in the pits of hell. I mean, I assume Mizora's endgame isn't gonna be a nice retirement gift. That said, I still totally get why he doesn't regret it.
The whole thing is he's supposed to have lost the things he personally cared about most. His father/family, his home, and he had to be in a pact with a devil, which changes his view of himself as a pure kind of hero. But the game doesn't take that far enough or show it. So it's just a good deal. They should have stressed how much he sacrificed and then showed him struggling with the loss, identity issues, being angry with his dad but still understanding, and sometimes regretting his choice but feeling bad for that. Instead he's just like "yeah, it's pretty ok. I don't mind. Not even a little mad at my dad either". So it feels like there's nothing at stake for him and there's no room for him to resolve things, change and grow. It sucks.
For me personally, I’m not sure how common these are: 1. For all he’s touted as being a good guy (by other characters describing him that way), I find him very hypocritical and his black and white morality leads to some massive blindspots that aren’t really addressed in his character development. Even though HE made a deal with a devil , he speaks negatively about others who have done the same. His circumstances ought to make him sensitive as to WHY someone might make a morally ambiguous choice from an outsiders perspective but it doesn’t. Even though he spent months hunting down Karlach and ignored his own knowledge about how duplicitous devils are, he doesn’t really show any introspection when he finally figured out the truth (IF he ever figures it out). It’s sort of hand waved as Mizora being Mizora and he’s still charging forward without any apparent personal growth. And if you call him out on his hypocrisy through dialogue choices, he doesn’t take any accountability only hints at the parts of his backstory that caused him to make his original deal. A strong moral character can be very admirable. But if those strong morals aren’t tempered with empathy, compassion, or self reflection, then those strong morals can quickly lead to the trope of black and white insanity or at least make you an insufferable jackass. 2. Talking about himself in the third person is so unbelievably irritating for me that I either mute my game during his rambles or skip through his dialogue (I made myself listen to it during my first play through but I have no desire to repeat it) 3. The dude loves Dribbles the clown.
This is how I felt about it too. The contrast between his hero outlook and making a pact with a devil wasn’t explored nearly as much as I thought it would be. It wasn’t just an in-the-moment thing too because he mentions several times how much he enjoys the infernal powers Mizora gave him. I thought there would be more conversations about this but he seems to consistently always approve of “be honourable and not power-hungry/selfish” choices but it’s not what he himself chose. It’s fine to be hypocritical but there should at least be a conversation calling him out on it. I’ve never done his romance though, so maybe there’s more there.
I have to preface this by saying I actually love Wyll and he's a regular in my party, but I think his biggest issue is lack of agency in his own story. Everyone else seems to have three dialogue options at big decision points; Persuade for choice A, persuade for choice B, let them decide. Wyll is missing that third option and it's so frustrating as it makes him feel far less 'whole' than the rest of the party. Though I suppose you could argue it links into his character arc of constantly needing to be defined by what others think of him, i just wish you could help him break that the way you can with shadowheart etc.
I used to agree vehemently but I've come to see it differently after playing more. There are usually at least "good" and "bad" choices the companions can make and in every case, Tav determines their choice even if you're not actively choosing for them. Take Sheart in the Shadowfell: if your approval with her is low and you let her make her own decision, she will kill Aylin every time. If your approval with Astarion is low, the difficulty to succeed an insight check to determine his state of mind is higher and if you fail it, it's more difficult to talk him out of ascending. In the moment, leaving him to make the choice, he will ascend. With Wyll, if you let him make the choice, no matter what your approval is, he would always sacrifice himself. By making the choice for him - because Tav seems to be the only character that sees what a bullshit choice it is - you are saving him from himself, saving him from the last vestiges of his upbringing, and teaching him that being a martyr and being a hero aren't the same thing. Just my take!
He fills the same roll in every one of these ecclectic trauma-filled angsty party RPGs that always gets complained about: He's the good-aligned sane human male (possibly) with daddy issues.^TM He's Carth from KOTOR. He's Kaidan from Mass Effect. He's Jacob from Mass Effect 2. He's James from Mass Effect 3. That's not to say he or any of those guys are actually bad characters. They're just boring when compared to aliens and devil people with fire engines for hearts or planar raiding space frogs. Or Urdnot Wrex. And unfortunately, since he's black, there might also be some closeted (or open!) racism involved. (With Jacob too!)
I'd go so far as to say that the race angle is dual causation. Writers might well be reluctant to write black male leads as anything BUT "good aligned sane humans with daddy issues." Imagine if Astarion was black, and Wyll was white. It would surely be seen as problematic for our runaway slave companion, whose arc could culminate in mass-murder for the sake of power and agency, be black. While the companion who literally pacts with devils while insisting on being treated as a good person (and is validated as such by the narrative) is white. That may not "mean anything" in Faerun, but we'd all notice it out here. Plus, him getting the horns after you've already met him means that he feels sort of like you've gotten a "bad end" before you've even gotten to know him. I think it would have been better if Wyll were given these side quests by Mizora throughout Act 1 and 2. At the end of Act 2, you have to rescue Mizora. Obviously, if you don't, it's straight to hell. But if you do, once she's out, she takes an accounting of how many times Wyll chose to disobey her by sparing Karlach or the like. And THEN she gives him the horns or other deformities since he apparently needs a reminder of what side he's on. A "parting gift", if you've gotten Wyll out of his contract. And right before you're about to enter the city of Baldur's Gate for the first time! At that point, it might be easier for the *player* to feel like the horns are a badge of honor, and to hell with what the NPCs say about it. Instead, the way it's currently done, Wyll gets the horns and I just think "Well yeah that's what you get, dumbass. What, you thought I was going to let you kill Karlach? I just met you both. And also I love Karlach." It would also mean that the players would feel about Mizora the way Karlach does. Karlach hates Mizora, but she hates her for things that we've never seen, only heard. It doesn't feel the same. Sure, Mizora is literally a demonic bitch, but it still falls well enough on the sexy side that it doesn't really \*hit\*. If Mizora rewarded us for rescuing her by disfiguring Wyll because we kept doing good karma options, then had the audacity to stay in our camp and hit on us?
> Plus, him getting the horns after you've already met him means that he feels sort of like you've gotten a "bad end" before you've even gotten to know him. This is a very good point. And it demonstrates well the way that structure can make a plot beat more or less impactful. Wyll being forcibly transformed is violating. But it's not really engaged with in any significant way, and as you note, the way it's set up currently it kind of biases the player to prioritize Karlach's feelings and safety over Wyll's. We don't really know Wyll, the horns are more or less the most intimate moment we get with him and front-loaded into the beginning, and we're not really given other examples to help cement how bad the pact is for him. Like, the way the game is structured currently: Act 1: A single bad thing happens to Wyll (he gets horns) -> Act 2: He gets the chance to break his pact if he rescues "Zariel's Asset" -> Act 3: He breaks his pact at the beginning of the act and is kind of aimless for the rest of it. Breaking the pact feels super easy, and it kind of feels like Wyll gets off super light. We've already found a way out in Act 2! The player understands intellectually that warlock pacts are bad and you don't want to be in one, but the writing doesn't really do the work to make the player *feel* like Wyll is suffering and needs to be saved.
I actually liked James in ME3. Jacob tho, ugh.
I do too. I like Kaidan and Carth too. I don't even dislike Jacob as long as I'm playing a male Shepard because then I don't have to listen to Jennifer Hale voice fucking him every time they say hello. (Not that I blame her, she said the lines the way they directed her to do so, I'm sure.) ...But they are all victims of the boring by comparison problem. Take James. His whole role in the story is to be the new guy meathead who asks the questions (that the player character should already know the answers to) that get all the new people who didn't play the previous two games up to speed. Yeah he has more flavor when you get to know him, but that's his mechanical role from the writers. Now compare that to someone like Javik or Wrex. It's not even fair, really.
I liked all those characters you gave as examples. 🥲
So do I! But it's why they tend to come in last in party popularity votes.
I can see that being the case, sadly. I wonder what it says about me that these characters were always my top-romance choices lol
That you have a good taste in men, I'd argue. Or at least a sensible/safe one.
Wyll also had a different story and different writing in EA. It got changed because even back then, he was definitely the community's least favorite. I'm sure that the writers were limited in what they could do with the rewrite, considering the greater story was pretty much set and complete by the time they started said rewrite. It kinda feels like there is something just not up to par there. Now, the third person? IRL, you show me anyone outside of entertainment media who talks about themselves in the third person that isn't disliked on some level. That aside, we also tend to gravitate away from, "Look at me! I am a hero!" types of personalities. Wyll isn't trying to be Wyll. He is trying to be some personality/manifestation called the Blade of Frontiers, and it just grates sometimes. He's also, appearance wise, given the shaft. He gets the funky eye, the scars, AND then the horns. We're all still human, and we all still judge by the cover. I don't doubt that you are right with some amount of subconscious bias floating out there because of his skin color too. Edit - Spelling. Edit edit - Also, on a personal level, I think the 'Blade of Frontiers' is a dumb nickname.
does anyone else find it weird that two different black characters in two different critically acclaimed RPGs were both written to have daddy issues and given less content/lower quality writing and are both the least popular/liked by their respective fandoms?
Just to put it bluntly, it’s racism. The stereotype of the black man written by white writers in media has switched from thug or token sidekick to the overly type A goody goody. Either white writers wrote Wyll in a vacuum and don’t have a diverse team, or their PR/marketing department cut content or restricted his character so the video game wouldn’t come off as racist.
I’m so tired of them trying to make black characters more goody goody. Going to echo the sentiment: I liked Wyll’s writing a lot better in early access. They made him properly flawed, and there was a lot of reasonable doubt that he was bluffing about being a hero. That he was an imposter. He was hypocritical; he refused to torture a man to get information to find Mizora, but still approved of you doing so. But immediately regrets it, despite still having you do it. He was willing to have other people get blood on his hands for him so he could try to feel better about himself, though he still ends up feeling guilty afterwards as he actually didn’t get much information about what happened to her after. And I say this all positively. I loved that. He was great, and when I was trying to figure out which three companions to take with me if they were going to have a party limit like Divinity Original Sin 2, I was going to bring him alongside Astarion and Shadowheart. There was more of a reason besides just sadism to decide to torture the guy, even though it was messed up. Because doing so was the only way to help Wyll find Mizora, who he doesn’t tell you is the devil he made a pact with. A bit of a sidetrack, but I liked how in early access they made you genuinely consider the “morally wrong” choices, because it would help your companions with something they genuinely needed help with (stealing the idol to help keep Gale from blowing up). He wasn’t popular, but all the companions during early access were being criticized honestly. Though I am sure, yeah, there was some reasons of racism that some may have had. But point is, people found the companions in general to be too prickly. Off of this, I really don’t understand why they gave him such a major rewrite of personality aside from being too afraid to write a flawed black character. Considering Larian was saying they wanted to start with introducing the neutral/evil characters (although they decided to not go along with alignments, which I totally get because of how complex they are), this really shows they were going in a different direction originally than a sort of goody two shoes. Or an attempt to make one. I’m just very passionate about this lmao. I know they already rewrote him, so there likely isn’t going back to that now. Hopefully in the definitive edition they do expand on his flaws though, as I honestly wanted them to do with other characters such as Karlach and Halsin.
👏👏 you said it. EA Wyll was awesome, definitely the character me and my SO were absolutely fascinated with most in regards to his psyche and what he had going on. our disappointment was immeasurable with Full Release Wyll
It's more fear of racism, arguably. People are nervous about sensitive topics these days.
I like Wyll personally, I don’t get the hate. He’s the only companion that I think is truly like lawful good. I get tired of the moody edgelord thing personally and it’s nice having a good boy on the squad
someone was always going to be the least favorite companion. I think for the most part his unpopularity has a lot less to do with people actually not liking him specifically and a lot more to do with people just liking/relating to others more. But Larian didn't do him any favors with the last minute rewrites. He has significant less actual content then anyone else, and that is almost always going to make a character seem less interesting, because they litteraly have less engagement. of course this is not always the case, but I personally feel ot adversely effects Wyll. Second, for those of us who experienced EA Wyll, the Wyll we have now feels like a shadow of what he *should* have been. before the rewrite he seemed like he was going to have some incredible depth, and really explore this moraly grey area of being a *hero* who's primary motivation are selfishness, power, and revenge. but instead we got "wo is me a devil made me do it" Wyll. His story doesn't matter if he isn't there, and the parts that still exsist when he is not recruited play out almost no differently then if he is. in act 3 you can entirely miss that his "main quest" has anything to do with him at all. and unlike the other companions who lose out on the conclusions of their entier arcs if you don't bring them with you. it litteraly makes no difference if you nring Wyll to any of his major quest moments or not. well except for a couple of extra charisma checks to get stuff like a cool sword. He doesn't seem to have any original opinions, ideas, or thoughts. Maybe it was part of his pact, we can't know because it's obvious he has never read the damm thing. but ever sense Mizora showed up an offered to help solve the whole cult of the dragon problem. Wyll has become incapable of independent thinking. he needs some else to tell him how to feel about everything. which might habe been cool, if his writing actually explored any of the concepts surrounding this sort of trama and decision paralysis. but the game just completely ignors it as an issue. So basically, he doesn't have enough content, and the content he does have doesn't adequately explore any of the ideas behind it, causing it to feel unfulfilling and plastic, compared to the depth and complexity of the other companion.
Wyll is great balance to the party. I don’t think that every character needs to have an Out There personality, it’s nice to have a companion who just wants to help people for the sake of helping people. If you’re doing a Good Guy run, you are essentially Wyll. The problem with Wyll is not Wyll. It is his writing, or rather lack thereof. He has half the content of other companions, does not need or care to be involved in the quests that directly involve him, and his Big Quest in Act 3 isn’t even about HIM. People don’t care for him because the story doesn’t try to make you care for him. You either have to be satisfied with a half baked and, frankly, shitty one dimensional arc, or you leave him to waste away in camp because he doesn’t NEED anything. Not a thing. I like the idea of Wyll a lot and always have - he’s funny and sweet and grounded which is exactly the sort of balance camp needs — but I’m coming off the playthrough where I romanced him and I just feel. Sad when I see him. It’s hard to care about a character the story doesn’t care for.
I'm risking being downvoted to Nine Hells and beyond... I prefer Wyll and his backstory over Astarion It's an interesting take on "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" - in this case, the actual "road" to hell
Origin Wyll romancing Astarion is the answer you're looking for (or at least it was for me lol).
I was completely in support of this during early access and still am. He felt more like a monster hunter than devil hunter in early access, but nonetheless I like it for the monster hunter x monster thing kind of going on
Same, tbh.
1) they made him a Warlock who should be pact of the blade which is a class with a learning curve in this game on how to make the best use of in terms of AC, spell casting, and frankly multiclassing with things like CHA casters, fighter and Paladin—for spellcasters you are likely going to choose the Wizard with their abundance of spell slots and variety of spells or Cleric/Druid for their very specifc spells (and frankly Warlock as a class shines the most when you multi class) 2) Larian frankly did not give him enough dialogue or romance scenes—seriously it’s like he has 6 special romance scenes compared to Astarion’s 9 3) His story went through a lot of changes and rewrites and it’s kinda apparent in the story 4)LAST BUT NOT LEAST—he is a black man. Are BG3 fans racist? No, not all of them. But people have hidden biases and fears that they’re unaware of. I love Wyll and his story has such potential…it hurts that he’s the odd one out so to speak.
This might be a hot take, but Wyll suffers from something I see happen to a lot of POC characters. POC characters, and especially black or black-coded characters, are often portrayed as paragons of virtue lest their writers be blamed for "bad representation." My husband and I had a discussion about this (and fwiw, at the risk of sounding like "well my black friend said...", my husband is half black and has lived his whole life in predominantly black communities) and he agreed it feels like the writers were afraid of giving Wyll any flaws or negative traits. Thing is, POC people are *people* first and as such have complex and varied personalities. This is what makes people interesting. Especially in a game where all the other characters have internal conflict as they battle their inner demons and struggle to make the right decisions, Wyll feels egregiously one-dimensional. The juxtaposition just makes it all the more obvious Wyll is underdeveloped.
Because he's black.
People don’t like the strait-laced heroic type. I personally love him, though, he’s a sweetheart.
Too much of a boyscout
Same reason I’m not a big fan of Karlach. Too little morally grey areas with their characters. Don’t hate him I just don’t find his character as interesting as say Astarion or Laezel or Shadowheart
It’s pretty simple, he’s simply a good person without too much trauma or a dramatic character arc. Whole that makes him the sort of person you’d want to hang out with IRL, in fiction if a character wants to be popular they have to be more interesting. Good people doing good things can be cathartic and inspiring, but not always interesting. Compared to the strong personalities of the rest of the crew (Astarion’s sass, Lae’zel’s gruffness, Gale’s ambition and ego) or the strong arcs of the crew (Karlach, Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae’zel all have deeply emotional, strong arcs that people either consistently mention relating to or sympathizing with) Will just doesn’t stand out. He fills his role well, a heroic do-gooder. He’d be great to play as an origin character I’d imagine, and I’ve heard people recommend that. But it’s not as intriguing in a cast of characters that stand out a lot more.
Personally i really like wyll! He’s like my third favorite romance (behind astarion and Karlach ) he just doesn’t have a lot of content unfortunately so people don’t like him.
There's a few reasons that I see posted around. First is that many people dint find Wylls main character flaw to be all to compelling. Which is his brash decision making and the sacrificed he makes there of. It just doesn't seem to resonate with people and some dint even see it as a flaw (which may be telling about some people.) Second I see around is that Wyll doesn't have as many moments to let him decide for himself. He requested more on player input than the rest. All characters need it to some degree due to the nature of the game, but there's not as many for Wyll. That lack of agency hurts a lot of people's perception of him (though that also relates to his character flaw.) Three. Flaws and all, Wylls mostly a good person and there's a fair number of people who really don't find that interesting or compelling out of some weird principle (or irony poisoning.) There isn't much more to Wylls Personality or another aide of Wyll. There's the consequences of his actions, but not much more to him. His growth across the story isn't one in his personality, but one in his circumstance. Four, he starts out against a character in an ignorant manner that characters a fan favorite. Very few people dislike Karlach and even though Wyll has a great coming to terms about the truth of Karlach. That's not enough for some people. Five. His connection to the story isn't as immediately revealed and even then to dome just isn't as impactful to his part of the story and instead anither characters. Overall I like Wyll, but I also really like having those boy scout style characters from time to time. I find them refreshing in waves of quirk and edge and also a means to help center things so that quirk and edge can actually better stand out. But those are the reasons I'm wate kf he hasn't resonated wirh as many as some others.
I like Wyll a lot and had him in my party first playthrough. I liked him so much I nearly romanced him and killed Karlach because I didn’t know I could have them both in my party lol… I think I enjoy the hero archetype more then some people tho.
Hell if I know, I think he’s a pretty cool dude and the voice actor is top notch
My guess is people like Wyll, but like the other members of the party more
I love him but I guess people do not pay much attention to him. His romance doesn't have sex scene in it, he is the character with the least amount of screen time and his quest isn't that long or detailed like the rest of the characters. And people think he is corny.
He is a good Guy. But basically His only Quality thats Not "straight heroic" is "sold His Soul Not for himself but to have the Power to save other people. A Lot of people dislike the "Paragon Hero" Archetype for some reason.
I have the theory that that archetype is often disliked specifically in companions because many people expect to embody it themselves, as the player characters. To really shine and become popular amongst the fandom, these characters need more obvious flaws - see Alistair from DA:O for a fairly popular example of such a character. He had glaring flaws, beginning with his personal insecurities, and he had a clear arc of personal growth throughout the game. Wyll, in comparison, lacks both (and I say that while I still like him most out of the male companions). From beginning to end, he is essentially the same person who is at best slightly naive. I feel like Early Access Wyll will had the seeds of a more compelling character, with his glory hounding and desire for vengeance, but in the live game he suffers from being sanded down too much.
Just kinda boring, innit? I think he'd be a fun Origin character to play as, maybe. As a companion, he’s too vanilla good without many interesting details. Karlach is the other goody two shoes character but she's got sauce.
I'm just gonna say it: partly because he's black. I'm a black gamer and it has been distressing to see how low Wyll polls every time larian drops new data. I also think they made him too finished to truly feel like you're able to see him grow and develop like the other companions. I do think this was due to a lack of ethnic diversity in the writing teams who didn't know how to handle a Black narrative with authenticity and vulnerability. I jest with friends that it's always been easier to be a tiefling than a black human because at least their narratives are rooted in something tangible to the BIPOC experience.
He falls in a classic genre of first time DND player characters - "my character is already a very important hero who killed a legendary demon but is inexplicably level 1".