People are all so bored of the game and playing BG3

[Lauront]

I really loved the original BG and BG2.

I never once went to other game discussion forums (Gamefaqs or whatever was the style at the time) to prattle on about them.

I fully suspect BG3 is a good game.

But that doesn't change the fact if it was so earthshatteringly good, people wouldn't come here to post about it, they'd just be playing it. So it's clearly not that good to them that they would rather play it than post on these forms about it. If it was so much fun they couldn't put it down, they wouldn't have time to be here posting bait threads featuring it in a starring role.

I've never had a point in my life where I was so enjoying a game I...would intentionally stop playing it to load up forums for some other game to make posts about this game instead.

That's all I'm going to say about the matter.

But that logic just doesn't follow. It doesn't take much effort for someone who plays both games to make a post about it here and you can make the exact same argument regarding XIV... if it's so good, why are you posting about it rather than playing it? Liking a game doesn't mean I'm playing it 24/7 and doing nothing else. That'd be very strange. Given that we're often told Yoshi encourages people to go play other games, it's hardly unsurprising that people do that and then relay their experiences here. Was the thread started on a bad faith basis? Perhaps, but it doesn't prevent discussion on this from unfolding organically.

And we know they do that. But what works well for one game isn't guaranteed to work well in another, especially when they're different genres.

Doesn't need to be "guaranteed" for it to be either considered or to be discussed. They already reach into genres outwith the usual MMO fare in search of inspiration; in fact, the mainline titles alone would be candidates for that here, but even then they don't restrict themselves to those.

What the MSQ needs for a change is an over-the-top evil to the core antagonist. No suddenly revealed backstory about how they were abused as children or were just trying to save their people. No moralizing, no shades of grey. Just downright unwilling to negotiate villainous. I think the only time we got that was the Sorrows of Werlyt and it was that nature that probably made the quest line so impactful for many players. While complex antagonists are also good, sometimes it's nice to have a plain villain to sink your teeth into and be able to hate without someone trying to convince you you're wrong for hating them.

It's one of my least favourite quest lines, but perhaps that was down to execution more than anything. With that said, I do agree with the spirit of that - not every antagonist needs to have sympathetic motivations, and the game is at a point where it could introduce one to change the pace a bit.

For an antagonist to be bereft of redeeming qualities I think they need to be a credible threat to be interesting. I'd get bored rather quickly if we're due yet more expansions where we're stuck with an immortal main cast and the only causalities are the occasional throwaway character or other antagonists.

Zenos was - by Yoshi-P's own words - intended to be utterly lacking in redeeming qualities and yet in the end he never once actually killed anyone of note. He was just exploited as a convenient plot device to help deal with Garlemald off-screen and devolved into fawning over the player character like so many other characters already do already.

Personally I quite like shades of grey and nuance - I just prefer it when a setting can commit to it with consistency. A good game also arguably pleases fans of both the protagonists and antagonists alike - since personal tastes differ significantly and it's often quite subjective as to who is a 'hero' and a 'villain' when a story is complex enough.

Yup, I'd agree with all of those points. I can't really see them taking the main cast and exposing them to a villain like Valens who may actually be allowed to get a kill shot in to build up hatred towards him, so I'd expect it to be more throwaways.