The gold standard up until the end where the game makes you stand there and watch him run away as his face starts melting (but that's for a different thread). They all get shafted in one way or another, even god's favorite princess who is so relevant to the plot but didn't get a single line to say in any of my endings.
Oh certainly. Even my gold standard for companions in RPGs broadly, Daeran from Wrath of the Righteous, has gaps in his writing that could be improved. It's hard to address every eventuality in the limited time game developers have, and as fans we'd always wish those gaps could be addressed.
I think EA Wyll was better. I was really looking forward to seeing the extent of his hate for goblins and his other flaws.
To be honest, I never experienced EA Wyll. (I've been burned out testing some other games and just want to experience them in their release state for now.) But the things I read about him don't make me think I'd prefer him. I like that current Wyll is thoughtful about moral issues and mostly gets things right. I like that, broadly speaking, I don't have to shepherd or change him. He's an adult and an equal partner. Not everyone likes that - to some people, it's boring - but I feel like those people already have other companions that appeal to them? They don't need every companion to be focused around their preferences, surely. Some of us enjoy companions like Wyll and Karlach who are fairly together from the start, and I like that the game offers them to us. (I do enjoy all the companions in their own way, for the record.)
Of course everyone has flaws, but, on the surface of it, without having played EA, hating goblins doesn't seem that interesting. It's too obvious a flaw. Depending on how it was approached, though, I agree that it could offer potential for character development. Perhaps Wyll would say that he didn't want to hate them but he kept facing them as enemies time and again and seeing the terrible things they did. And then...
...once they kidnapped his father (and are heard rejoicing at having done so, mocking the look on the duke's face, etc.), it became way more personal and pushed him up against the edge of becoming someone he didn't want to be.
Honestly, I was stunned at Wyll's lack of response on the various occasions where the goblins specifically boasted about the attack on Waukeen's Rest.
A more realistic confrontation with his father.
I loved the one we got.
It was extremely refreshing to me that Wyll understood where his father was coming from. It showed that he knew the real reason for the rift between them was Mizora hiding the evidence. If he failed to see that, I'd have a lot less respect for him as a person.
For companion interactivity he could have more thoughts on traveling with a vampire and a Shar worshiper.
Now this would have been interesting to me.
Having been a Forgotten Realms nerd for decades, it felt wild to me how obvious the Shar stuff was, for a goddess who's supposed to be all about secrecy. It would have been fun to have Wyll engage with it more, maybe via experiences he had facing the cult of Shar over his years of heroing.
I also would have enjoyed more engagement from Wyll in the vampire storyline. We get it teased a bit in some banters, with the semi-joking attempt to get him focused on the true vampire rather than the vampire spawn. Involving him in research in act two, or setting up traps in act three, could have been very fun. Or maybe he could have had more to say and do with the Gur.
