It's probably not ideal to have a likeable antagonist.

My chars are drawn from RL history, which is impeding me a bit. So in my antagonist story, I tried to make a seed of a dark side that can fester away, eventually resulting in a boil upon his soul.

Although I am also interested in exploring rivalling 'good interests' during the upcoming story-writing. However I imagine possible readers want something more dramatic.

Has anyone here had any writing experience with a likeable antagonist? Like, can that work? Or is it setting up for difficulties later?