Hilton is a Staff Writer with TheGamer from Ireland, and a self-proclaimed Zelda Historian. They’re passionate about a whole bunch of games, from obscure indies to the most overly praised AAA. They studied Games Development at University and decided to put that knowledge to use writing about them instead of making them. They are also a digital photographer aficionado and waste most of their time taking silly in-game images.
There’s a lot going on in Where Winds Meet at any given moment, enough to make your brain feel like it’s going to implode. Of course, that frantic feeling doesn’t end once you’ve honed in on a single activity either, with many of them still bursting at the seams with mechanics for you to wrap your head around and manage all at once.
Take, for example, the Gift of Gab minigame. There are a lot of minigames in Where Winds Meet, but the Gift of Gab is one of the more complex because, in attempting to emulate actual debate, is timed, with you having to choose your words carfeully. It just doesn’t explain the mechanics of that minigame very well. Don’t worry though, we will.
What Is The Gift Of Gab Minigame?
The Gift of Gab is a card-based minigame, despite the fact that it would seem to otherwise be one based on conversation and dialogue choices. It is still, but the cards determine what you say and what exactly they do. At times, you will find NPCs in the world who are up for a debate, and you can engage with them in the Gift of Gab minigame as a means to beat them and earn some rewards of your own.
The cards are provided to you randomly throughout the debate, and each has an assigned value, as well as a function. You can see the value right in the corner, which determines how many inspiration points it takes to use, while you can see its exact effect by highlighting it. More cards are provided as you use up old ones, so your deck will never run out.
You can take as long as you want to reply as your Inspiration refills in real-time, but the same is true for your opponent as well.
The goal of the minigame is to deplete your opponent’s Mental Focus, which is the white bar above their head. There are a few other mechanics in play here, but that’s the core of it. Choose the right cards, deplete your opponent’s Mental Focus, manage your Inspiration points. We’ll detail everything else in more detail below.
The Types Of The Gift Of Gab
For the minigame, there are two overall types you can choose from. The vast majority will use the Rhetoric Duel type, though some also offer the Free Persuasion type as well. Here’s what each of them are:
Free Persuasion
Free Persuasion is nothing like the the Rhetoric Duel type, as you have to engage with an AI chatbot and argue your points to it directly. This does mean it can be quite inconsistent, and is particularly painful on a console if you don’t have a physical keyboard plugged in.
There’s not a strict guide on how to win this, really. You just have to actually argue. But AI chatbots are primarily built to be appeasement machines, so you can probably just ask it to let you win.
Rhetoric Duel
The Rhetoric Duel is the real bulk of the minigame, which is where all the aforementioned details from above are put into use. You debate the opponent with the cards at your disposal while managing your own Inspiration points. There’s no way of regaining your Mental Focus, so it’s best to be careful and choose your words carefully. Literally.
How To Play The Gift Of Gab
When you come across an opponent that is willing to engage in debate with you, all you have to do is talk with them to get the minigame underway. There are a few other little intricacies to the minigame we’ll cover here so you know exactly what you’re doing.
Styles
Before the Gift of Gab minigame begins, you must choose your style. There are four in total which are:
Bluster – Counters Provocation
You are shown your opponent’s style before the match begins, allowing you to choose the style that counters them. That said, the game just about always shows you the recommended style to use, which is typically the most effective. You can still change your style if you want more of a challenge, however.
Once your style is chosen, it is locked in for the battle. You and your opponent cannot change styles in the middle of a debate.
Inspiration
Inspiration is the core resource of the Gift of Gab minigame. It restores naturally over time, and is consumed to use the cards in your hand. Typically, the more powerful the effect of the card, the more Inspiration it uses. You have to be careful with what you use to keep your momentum going, as if you use up all your Inspiration on powerful cards, you’ll be left idling while your Inspiration recovers.
As such, always take note of the Inspiration value of the cards in your hand before using one so you have backups ready to go for when your Inspiration is low. There are also certain cards that can increase the rate at which your Inspiration recovers, which is always worth doing.
Trash Talk
The game has a bit of a translation issue in that Trash Talk system. In the tutorial minigame, it’s called a Rebuttal, which is also the name of a Gift of Gab style. This is meant to be called Trash Talk, which is also referred to in certain cards you can use during the minigame.
Trash Talk are the timed prompts that can appear in the middle of your conversation on either side of the screen. When these appear, press the highlighted button to open up a menu with three options you can choose from, each with a unique effect. These are entirely free to use, so always take advantage when you see them appear.
Some cards can also cause Trash Talk prompts to appear more frequently, so choose this when you can.
So, cards make up the bulk of the minigame. These are what allow you to deal damage to the opponent’s Mental Focus, but can also provide a variety of other effects to increase your chances of winning, even if they don’t directly deal damage.
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For example, you may increase the chance of Trash Talk appearing, increase your own defense, lower an opponent’s, or even immediately regain some Inspiration. You can’t choose what’s doled out to you though, with new cards being provided each time you use up an existing one.
It’s all about finding the balance between dealing outright damage, and stacking up buffs that will let you deal even more damage.
How To Improve Your Performance
That said, it’s not all down to Skill. Sometimes, you really do just need to deal more damage. There are a few different ways to increase this. The first, and the one recommended to you when you lose in the minigame, is to pursue the Scholar Legacy path, which will in turn improve how well you do in the Gift of Gab minigame.
There are also some perks you can get that amplify your abilities. You’ll unlock these naturally for the most part as you increase your five main attributes, though you can check the requirements for every perk if you want to try work towards unlocking specific ones.
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