This is just a thought that popped up in my head recently. How would you feel if a villain from MLP: FIM showed actual redeeming qualities upfront throughout a story? Examples like kindness, camaraderie, empathy, mercy, etc. along with their villainous traits.

For me, I would love to see those types of villains like Doofenshmirtz (who is generally a nice guy pretending to be evil due to his tragic backstories once you get to know him) in MLP to show that not every villain is all bad and that life is more complicated than black-and-white, but more shades of gray morally. I love sympathetic villains who show their redeeming qualities upfront with a few pure evil ones here and there.

What do you guys think?

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It depends on how it's used. But yeah I don't mind it in principal.

That being said people need to get over the morally grey nonsense.

A person can have nice qualities yet be involved in things that justify their being stopped.

There's a difference between there not being a right call and not being certain what the right call is.

Just because someone's nice on occasion doesn't warrant letting them have their way when they do bad things.

In G4, even sociopaths are redeemable in the eyes of the fandom.

Ive tried to implement that with my Fiur villianesses vs Dusk Shine stories. Its a pain but it can work if given time and effort

I love that, it adds depth to a character as well as make them more realistic. People (and ponies) are complicated, just because you're evil doesn't mean you can't have moments of goodness, same as why a good character can have moments of weakness in which they succumb to their worse impulses. You do need to keep it consistent with their goals and personality. If you have a villain spare someone after proving they can kill without remorse, you have to justify it in some way, for example. Discord always seemed lonely, even in season 2, despite being evil and a major asshole about it. Tirek laughed at one of Discord's jokes. The impact Frenemies had came from seeing the villains as people capable to holding conversations that were not in the benefit of their goals, but which also explored their personalities, preferences, even their humor. Laughter is the most effective way of making a villain feel relatable and closer to humanity.