Baldur's Gate 3 is guilty of a ton of shit that people hate on other games for. It's incredibly buggy, its writing is inconsistent, and it gets notably worse in act 3.

I'm getting more and more annoyed with Larian the more I play the 3rd act and realize what a let down it is.

The first two are so fun and exciting, and then you get to the city, and it's so empty.

The weed is making me courageous so I think my biggest unpopular opinion for Bg3 is I don’t think Astarion is sexy or cute or anything at all really. He’s just there. Like he’s just a dude with an attitude problem lol like I keep seeing people compare the man to a renaissance painting like he’s fucking Lestat. Dude wishes he was Lestat lmao he’s just some white man with high cheekbones 😂😂

I have a lot of criticism and little love towards bioware nowadays but if larian made DAI they would've straight up deleted Sera and Vivienne from the game.

Sometimes I cannot tell if you guys want villains who do not want to be redeemed or not bc we get gortash and everyone trips over themselves to make this version of him that is absolved from his actions and he’ s changed … Anyways another day another time Wyll gets put to the back burner with crumbs of content yet everyone huddles around like “ OMG THANK YOU LARIAN … oh yeah sorry about Wyll : ((( “

You guys get you are a part of the problem right . You are letting Larian know they can get away with being racist as long as they feed fandom and whatever . Instead of actual quality of life updates and patching in content that would Actually help the game run better and feel finished , they just bloat the game and let companions go untouched with minimal content while playing into whatever the loudest voices in fandom demand the most .

The studio account should not be interacting with fandom so often . This blur between creators and fans is bad ! This leads to fans blindly defending and protecting a Game Studio that they have no connection to because haha larian mad a funny reply . And this also causes a feeling of ownership that should not be there ! You do not own a piece of bg3 and you should not be dictating it ! This is different from criticism btw . Just so we are Clear . Larian deserves and needs criticism .

It is super telling that they voices they are choosing to listen to are not voices that actually care about the game at its story . If they were , we would not have Zero Story for the Son of the Duke of Baldur’ s Gate and yet we have so much for a character that isn’ t actually tied into any major story beat ! We have no more for the character directly tied to Gortash with a prototype of the Steel Watch in her chest , but we can take a side character a few people wanted to bang and speed to have him included ad a full companion ! Instead of Dark Urge getting more content with Orin , Savrok and anyone else that had a tie to Bhaal , they get their relationship with a guy unrelated to all that be made to be read more and more explicitly romantic when that is just ruining the character !

Wyll should have a proper sex scene . He should have a romanced greeting that changes after the proposal . He should have more personal story content . He should have scenes of him in Baldur’ s Gate . The Emperor reveal as Balduran should not have been the main focus of HIS FINAL STORY QUEST . He should have hug and kiss options in the epilogue . People should comment on the engagement ! He should have all of this !! AND MORE FRANKLY .

But because everyone is so quick to forgive Larian , they’ ll never feel pressured to add any of this . They’ ll never feel like they’ ll loose players if they don’ t . Because you guys don’ t actually care . No , I am not saying thank you to larian for not giving me anything I have been asking for and sending feedback on for months . I am not thanking larian for choosing to bend over backwards to random big name fandom people who are racist and just want to fuck the pale guys again and again .

Larian Studio is not your fucking friend, stop acting like they are .

It's really weird that we can walk around all of Baldur's Gate in Act 3 and no one even remotely recognises Wyll or seems glad to see him. Did he not have any friends in his childhood?

He has a couple dialogue options in the bank and a tavern, but if I was returning to my home town after being banished by my father, I would have sooo much more to say! He should be excitedly hopping around, pointing out every building and giving us a historical tour of the Gate. Especially given how dedicated he is to saving the Sword Coast. He loves this place. And, tbh, if my friend took me back to their hometown where they were basically the son of the Mayor, and NO ONE recognised him (not a single shop keeper or merchant or passerby on the street? Only Florrick?) I would think he was making it all up.

Did Ulder Ravenguard just keep him locked in a room, by himself, for his entire childhood or something? Did any of the writers think about this at all? Even KARLACH, who was added after Wyll, and has been in the hells for the past decade, has friends in town. But Wyll who grew up here and is the son of a Duke knew no one? Had no peers or rivals or friends? Didn't want to take his lover on a date where he shows them the wonders of the town he grew up in?

I'm begging, Larian, hire just one writer who cares about Wyll enough to give him a background and some personality beyond asking Astarion how his "rat diet" is going.

Will you look at that - a petition to spread far and wide through the BG3 fandom and beyond so Larian Studios might actually, finally, be pressured into fixing the content for Wyll.

People when game characters have their own goals and motivations, aren't yes men to whatever the player says and don't change their views and opinions just cause the player wants them to

One thing I was thinking about, I DESPISE this running joke that wyll is attracted to Mizora. With abuse being such a focal point in the game, that joke in the Christmas special just made not want to watch it at all. I saw a clip of it and just straight up said "hell to the naw". It just felt really icky to me. Then, I saw some article with the headline of why doesn't wyll want mizora to treat him like a dog. What kind of fuck ass bullshit is that???

Yall can call it pulling the race card but I don't give a FUCK. That is such a weird weird WEIRD thing to say about a black man who is in a position where he has NO POWER. NO CONTROL. NO AGENCY.

Next Larians just gonna cut Wyll from the game entirely and pretend he never existed so they can give other characters extra interactions and dialogue

I LOVE Wyll and I understand why they did the rewrites I think he's a wonderful character and wouldn't dream to trade him for his EA counterpart. However, since they chose to rewrite him the lack of material does a disservice to his character.

I love Gale and Astarion and would not change their stories for the world but they aren't really integral to the main plot. Wyll is though and yet Astarion especially has SO much dialogue he comments on EVERYTHING and Wyll barely has anything to say even on the stuff that's important to him, like Gortash's coronation.

It's just so heart braking that Theo, his voice actor, is so passionate about and loved doing his romance scenes so much but Wyll has the least amount of hours dedicated to it.

Scenes I would have liked:

Wyll talking to a child or an innocent post Karlach and he either gets hugged and gets to be surprised that people still see him as heroic. Or he's a bit too smug about it if he killed Karlach.

Wyll meeting up with a member of the flaming fist he used to know in Act 3- maybe they were trainees together when they were teens - and getting to talk about the old days like Karlach and her friend.

Wyll getting to be really surprised Florrick still wants his help in Moonrise after he's been transformed and she puts 2 and 2 together at his reaction and asks if this is why he left Balder's Gate and he tells her that his father asked him to leave. Florrick says that's BS and can become a pseudo parental figure.

The companions dialogue reaction to him braking his pact is fixed so everyone is more like how they react to Shadowheart killing her parents and aren't instead jumping down his throat like he's a power hungry maniac. It's clearly leftovers from EA Wyll when he was more power hungry but it throws his whole character off because clearly this version doesn't struggle with selflessness, he is nothing but! He needs to put himself first over his shitty dad for once in his life. Like the only one I even kind of like is Halsin's dialogue about how a plant sometimes need to strangle a tree to find it's own light. I'm wondering if that isn't something to do with Halsin being expanded upon later in development so it was easier to match it to the new Wyll. Like Wyll damning himself for eternity is satisfying if he's been selfish, but at present it's just him risking himself again and not even for someone we know yet (or *spoilers* someone useful like all the dragon tip does is give us a bit more info about the Emperor and give Wyll some confidence).

I think it's VERY bold of Ravengaurd to say he WILL make it up to Wyll. Not that he'll try but that he knows he can make it up to him. Despite throwing out the sweetest teen on earth even though he was clearly trying to tell him something. Despite likely hearing about the Blade of Fronteir's exploits and never reaching out. Even after being rescued by him to just be still so full of bitterness and hatred. Despite all his failings as a father and always putting his reputation and Baulder's Gate above his son he really thinks it'll all be water under the bridge soon. So, I would like it if your TAV was able to challenge this assumption.

I would like it rewritten so Wyll actually has it out with his Dad instead of tadpoling him what has happened post rescue. Let them actually talk finally. Wyll lacks so much agency and could really use a dramatic moment like everyone else get's in Act 3 to shine.

I would love if your approval is high enough or you're romancing him for you to be able to see his walls come down once. I think it would be so powerful if after this whole journey he's been so composed and careful and then whatever happens with the contract in Act 3 he lets you see how he really feels for once. Like you still have your talk and he's all composed and tells you he just needs some time. However, later that night when you've gone for a long rest you catch him on the roof of the Elfsong or something. He could be crying, or praying to Tyr to save his father, or screaming, summoning dark tendrils of magic and yelling about how he resents his power.

Also Florrick should not show up if you break the contract unless the Duke is dead. It screws up Mizora's dialogue and brakes it a bit. Like if Florrick didn't show up till after you killed Orin that would probably work because if you kill Orin first you probably aren't going to kill Gortash or go down to the Iron Throne. Or at least give it a long rest or two before she shows up.

There's also just dialogue that does not fit that's leftovers from EA I believe. Like after braking the pact TAV being able to tell Wyll he shouldn't be a duke because he's too power hungry. Or even the companion dialogue where Wyll is a bit of a playboy and flirts with Lazel and then Shadowheart immediately afterwards - it totally goes against his hopeless romantic nature. Not that I want them to take even more content away from him.

Not to be dramatic, but becoming a Baldur's Gate fan after a decade of being a Dragon Age fan really feels like escaping an abusive relationship

I sort of laugh at people who call the companions "found family" like they aren't complete asses towards each other all the way into act 3.

It's strange that a game that seemingly has so much thought put into its variables lacks the feeling that anyone actually gets closer to one another over time.

You give Shadowheart away, and the only one whose opinion seems to have actually evolved with the game's story is Lae'zel. Everyone else acts like they barely know her.

I really don't want to be a sour dough. I like dnd sessions with BG voice actors and the meme voiceovers etc. But I can't help feeling like larian studios don't put nesesary boundaries to prevent parasocial relationships between fans and their workers. Like isn't it weird how they blur the lines between characters and actors for marketing all the time.

Add to that their discord with writers oversharing that already caused some drama. And their excessive and uncritical dependence on fan feedback that comes from keeping the game in easy access for so long. For example, that already lead to completly unnecessary Wyll's rewrite (that lead to him having less content than other companions which is yuck)

I dunno it just feels like a dozen of powder kegs that just need a sparkle of fandom drama to blow up

Re the same 2 conversations happening over and over, I want to submit another recurring theme that comes up so frequently it’s nearly impossible to avoid: the idea that an “imperfect survivor” like Astarion really needs compassion and patience from others—except in the context of this game, this innocuous-on-its-own idea is overwhelmingly framed as “therefore a good person would stick with Astarion through his cruelty and sexual manipulations because he needs to be cruel and sexually manipulate you in order to feel safe, but give him time and he’ll get better!” And anyone who expresses basic dislike for Astarion’s early behavior is told “but stick with him and he has the best development” at best, and at worst, “you must hate stories of survivors who aren’t ‘perfect.’” Where to begin with the conflations and assumptions? As though it’s impossible to be a survivor or care about survivors and not love this cruel, manipulative, abusive character. As though it is never valid for anyone worthy of respect to find Astarion’s early behavior a dealbreaker. As though finding Astarion’s actual cruelty and sexual manipulations too high a price to pay for whatever development he has later is a sign of an inferior moral character in real life. And don’t get me started on the tendency to call holding Astarion accountable for his cruel words and actions “victim-blaming.” In a word, yikes?

Which brings me to another point about this character being less than groundbreaking: “you owe it to a cruel man to stay with him and endure him treating you badly because he’s only cruel as a result of his past suffering and he will get better through your love” is not a new message at ALL. Especially not to women. And while I will give it to the game that this wasn’t necessarily intended in the writing, too often this is exactly what a lot of the gushing about Astarion’s character falls into and regurgitates. It can be a bad time to run into that over and over again, especially combined with other characters being vilified in comparison with Astarion. It can feel as though the efforts to drive home that “you never owe someone who is cruel to you a relationship, it is not your moral obligation to fix them through your love, you are not a bad or unkind person for leaving to protect yourself” is being directly combatted. Even though I know it’s just a game, when the rhetoric about “why Astarion matters so much” takes this form, it can feel really hostile. Rather than expanding awareness and empathy for all survivors, it often feels like another game of “this cruel white man’s pain matters more than other people’s safety.”

(Disclaimer about “not every Astarion fan says these things, just enough to be a disturbing pattern and impact one’s experience in general fan spaces,” etc.)

I have a response to this, but I'm gonna do a separate reblog for it.

This ask by itself needs to stand alone and be seen.

Hey baldur’ s gate three fans suddenly interested in poc characters in the game ( to ignore the black companion ) what is your opinion on rromani people and can you identify antirroma stereotypes in the game . Quickly . Same with indigenous people . I expect an essay with the same energy as the gortash defence posts . Can you name what characters fall under these umbrellas and how DND upholds these stereotypes ? Since now anyone who dislikes gortash is actually racist , let’ s talk about it .

But this isn’ t about representation , is it ? This isn’ t about a fandom ignoring rep and silencing people who “ speak the truth “ . This isn’ t about acknowledging poc in the game and discussing how fantasy ( both games and fandoms ) treat those characters + their identities .

This is about excusing racism . This is about making antiblackness about yourself . This is about supporting a company’s racist actions by upholding the character who is a slaver and a tyrant and saying that , actually , Larian cannot be racist ! Gortash is brown ! And the reasoning for why is … up in the air . Left unexplained . Nevermind what that actually means and implies .

Don’ t think we don’ t notice when you decide to pull out this ‘ gotcha ‘ card . When the patch that gave Gortash ( a side character ) unneeded romance lines while Wyll is left unfinished , in both romance and main story . This sudden , vocal demand is not lost on us . We are not stupid .

This is a refusal to accept that Larian is racist . This is the choice to silent poc voices , specifically black voices . This is childish , this is racist and this is extremely pathetic .

In response to this post (https://www.tumblr.com/messiahzzz/742694448371236864/im-not-here-to-claim-that-wyll-doesnt-deserve?source=share) I saw the other day claiming that it's hostile for Wyll fans to "demand" more content for him, and that objecting to his lack of content is "misinformation"... I have so many thoughts.

I have a bit of an issue with calling a difference in opinion "misinformation" as though Wyll fans are lying about the fact that Wyll, as a character, is underdeveloped. I see a lot of people online who use data to back up their own opinion by manipulating statistics in a way that supports their argument without looking at the information holistically.

Sure, we can look at the length of time that Wyll spends on screen, and look at the number of words he was allowed to say throughout the game so say "haha! See, he gets plenty of screen time so you can all shut up about how his character has been done a disservice!" However, there is a huge problem when all of his "screen time" is purely used as 1) a method of moving along the main storyline because he is the *Son*of the Duke of Baldur's Gate which is the titular city in which the majority of the game is set or 2) as a backdrop to focus on other characters' stories (I'm looking at Mizora and Karlach here).

If we were to separate out scenes in which Wyll is present and scenes which revolve entirely around Wyll as a person and not in reaction to someone else, the number of "scenes" he has, according to the list given by the OP, goes down significantly.

1. The "Meeting Karlach" scene is almost entirely about Karlach and the outcome can be decided by the player character without input from Wyll. I would only very loosely call that a "Wyll scene" because it shares very heavily with Karlach.

2. Similarly, the "Mizora scene" has things happening to Wyll but much of the conversation happens between the player character and Mizora - they talk over Wyll as though he is a naughty pet who peed on the floor and the grownups have to decide how they're going to clean up his mess. This is, again, a case where Wyll is in the scene and things are happening to him, but we don't get any one-on-one scenes with him exploring how he feels about it, or what even happens to him. We get a line from the Narrator which tells us that it - his torture- feels like an eternity for him but lasts only seconds for us. What happened to him during that time? How long was he being tortured? Was he actually dragged through all Nine levels of Hell during that time? Did he meet all the devils at each level and get tortured by them? We don't know any of this, because the scene was not focused on what was happening to Wyll. It was focused on Mizora and how she was able to punish him as his Patron.

3. The tiefling party dialogue, where he spends most of the time complaining about looking like a tiefling regardless of whether he is speaking to a tiefling, in a party filled with tieflings, is... well. It's certainly a choice that was made by his devs and story writers. Do I think Wyll would spend the whole tiefling party complaining about how people who look like *tieflings* don't deserve to party because they have horns and claws? No. Do I think the brief kiss you can get from him (only if you choose one very specific dialogue choice and none others) is enough to balance out the rest of this inconsistency for his content in Act one? Also no. But I hope this doesn't come off as too "hostile" and "antagonistic" in the face of the fact that he was allowed to talk for such a long time! We should be grateful that we're even able to hear his voice for all that time even if the quality of what he's saying is subpar, right?

4. The dance scene is cute. It's one of the only scenes that is all about Wyll as a person and a character. He doesn't really talk about himself much, but at least Mizora isn't there so that's... something, right?

5. More scenes where Mizora is the focus. She comes to camp to demand that the player character frees Zariel's asset (and they can talk over Wyll the entire time with basically no input from him. Nothing about his background, past, present feelings, hopes for the future.) Do people understand the difference between being present in a scene and being the *focus* of a scene? A good example would be the difference between a scene where Mizora is talking to the player, vs when Elminster comes to tell Gale to kill himself. During the Elminster conversation, the player character is there, but it is clearly a conversation between Gale and Elminster. There is the option for Tav to leave the conversation to Gale (an option which is also there for Lae'Zel scenes with the Githyanki) and the interaction can go forward without much input from the player. We are watching two people converse. When Mizora visits camp, she talks to the player character and talks about Wyll like he's a dog. She is very much the focus of the scene and Wyll is a prop or background character.

6. The fact that Mizora joins the camp and there is no option for Wyll or Tav to tell her to leave is NOT A GOOD THING?? This just further goes to prove how much of Wyll's "storyline" is actually just a Mizora storyline. If we separated the parts of Wyll's content that revolve SOLELY AROUND the white-coded devil woman who enslaved him as a child (17 yo is a child to me, argue with someone else about that) ... he has the dance scene, the proposal scene (where the intimate scene happens off screen because the devs really just didn't want to animate a sex scene with a black character because who wants to see *that*?) and maybe a kiss at the tiefling party if you choose the one very particular dialogue tree that leads to it. (Honestly, why do you start that by saying "surely you know why I came out here to find you" ?? It doesn't intuitively lead to a kiss in my mind. AND THEN you have to roll a persuasion check to convince him to kiss you?? WHAT?? WHY?)

I, as a Wyll fan, have an issue with the fact that he has so few scenes AND that most of them are of such low quality that they can barely be counted as his scenes at all. So stretching the numbers to include any scene in which Wyll is even present in the scene... It's just not good enough to combat the obvious lack of care that has gone into the writing of his character. Sorry if that seems ungrateful, or "hostile" 🙃

On to the issue of his autonomy: I don't know if OP just hasn't played with Gale, Karlach or Astarion in their party to the end. Karlach's autonomy is that if you kill Gortash without her in your party, she will get angry and leave. Gale can decide to keep the crown and become a god whether or not you want him to, even if you tell him you don't want him to. Although Astarion needs the player character's help to complete the ascension ritual, if you don't help him and can't convince him that foregoing ascension is the right thing to do, **he will leave your party with all the equipment and gear that he has on him**. I don't know what he says if you complete the Cazador quest without him in your party but I can assume there will be some furious words and he will possibly leave. Why? Because his writers have given him enough personality and agency that I pretty much can guess how he would react to any situation. They are all clearly able to show their own wants or needs regarding their own personal storyline.

Wyll, on the other hand, apparently has no wants or needs. If you go to the Iron Throne and let his dad die, he is fine (i.e. he wont leave the party and there will be no actual consequences). If you choose to reject Mizoras' contract and condemn his father to death, he is fine. If you choose to damn him to an eternity of serving Mizora in return for his father's life, he is fine. The only circumstance in which he will leave the party is if you go the evil route and kill all the tieflings in Act one. Regarding his own personal storyline though? Tav makes all his decisions without discussing it with him and he apparently has no problem with that. There is no option to say "hey man, I've only known you for a couple weeks. Maybe you should decide how your life and future will play out?"

Again. It's an issue of both quality AND quantity.

Finally, the issue with the "Ansur quest" being moved from Wylls main storyline to a side quest is symbolic of the rest of the issues we have with Wyll content. Many of Wyll's quests could be moved to the "main quest" or "side quest" subheadings without affecting the game at all. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. The companion quests should be PERSONAL to the COMPANIONS. The fact that THE ANSUR QUEST ABOUT THE EMPEROR was the CULMINATION of Wyll's PERSONAL QUEST was a travesty. The developers would not have been able to easily move any other companion's ENDING TO THEIR PERSONAL QUEST to a side mission without having any impact on the game because there was care an thought put into the other companions' personal quests that wasn't put into Wyll's personal quest. I'm hoping that they're gearing up to give Wyll an actual ending to his personal quest and that's why they've changed that quest to a side mission. HOWEVER, it has been months since the "full release" of the game. There have been 6 patches and 19 hotfixes and there have been no material improvements to Wyll's content and characterisation. The hope is getting spread thin.

Honestly, I feel that people who are only willing to point out the "hostility" of fans who noticed a discrepancy between the quality and quantity of content devoted to a black character and feel "scared" to interact with the fans of said black character should stay in their own fandom spaces where they feel safe. No one is asking for a saviour from the fandom who feels uncomfortable owning up to their own racism and anti-blackness (hint: we live in a world that was colonised by white supremacists hundreds of years ago. We ALL have racism and anti-blackness to unpack). No one is asking fans to interact with Wyll when they don't want to. No one is asking the fans to stop being racist. We're asking the *developers and writers* to stop being racist. To listen to black voices if they feel the need to throw a black character into their game which is mostly marketed to straight white men. And give Wyll the content he deserves.