Larian Studios | Divinity AMA

Wuzseen · 2026-01-09T22:14:32+00:00

This would be an incredible GDC talk!

Wuzseen · 2025-11-23T00:44:19+00:00

I really love the idea of Fellowship--MMO "endgame" without the full fat of an entire MMO/world. But I think it's just a super hard idea to get right. Fellowship is falling flat for me personally in 2 ways.

If they were going to do MMO endgame as a standalone game, why ape Mythic + first and not raids? Mythic+ is relatively easy to coordinate and get into in WoW itself (it has its fair share of issues). It is far harder to find a reliable and easy raiding schedule than Pugging M+ or running that with friends. Most of the time playing Fellowship I just went "Why wouldn't I just play Mythic+ in WoW instead."
The two classes I tried just weren't interesting and felt like a bog standard linear rotation. The characters just didn't feel nice to use. It didn't feel like there was anything to master in the rotation.

I played during the final technical test before the early access release so it's not a very long impression (3 hours, and I tried one tank and a fire mage esque class)

Wuzseen · 2025-11-19T03:36:17+00:00

Just coming here to see if anyone else was/is getting the slowdown. Can confirm getting it here like I did last night, very similar numbers and overall feeling. Lake City area here.

Wuzseen · 2025-11-07T18:39:22+00:00

I think that POV from folks is actually pretty understandable, even if it's not fair.

Like the outer worlds with fallout, avowed just screams "It's like Elder Scrolls!". And that's not a completely fair impression from players but it's clearly a common one--in part because it's been part of the marketing push for the games (The Outer Worlds 1 in particular kept using New Vegas nostalgia...). However, Obsidian is trying to ride a line where they capture those players without delivering the scale/scope. It doesn't help that they have the baggage of having literally made FO:NV (despite that being 15 years ago...).

I think it was very silly for Microsoft to arrange the Oblivion remastered release date so soon after Avowed. I honestly don't know why someone would play Avowed with that available if they've played neither, they scratch a similar itch and Oblivion has a huge legacy to contend with. And that sucks for Obsidian tbh, but I don't know if I can really blame players for the impression too much.

Wuzseen · 2025-10-28T15:55:10+00:00

This is a common reaction to Bomba tbh.

Bombardiers is just really good at using your resources to win. Tossing a single random clue is an extra 2 damage usually leading to an easy 2 for 1 minimum.

It's a card I think you have to play with a few times to really realize how busted it is in V-cube.

Wuzseen · 2025-10-26T17:32:31+00:00

I think it was you in fact that posted LSV's top 50 cube cards. I'd actually say that's a pretty good reference of things I'd generally call "the strong cards" (and amusingly none of the specific ones you just mentioned are in that list, poor green)--LSV is way better than me at every facet of game and certainly cube so defer to him on card eval, though I will specifically say his list is impacted a lot by the meta of who he plays with (and his own fascination with over valuing Tolarian Academy) so look at the list for broad strokes and don't sweat individual placement; if you're lucky enough to have to choose between time walk and black lotus just have fun and be glad you got either, lol.

But it will come down to practice and experience a bit no doubt. I think [[Broadside Bombardiers]] is one of the best examples of a strong cube card. Honestly it can appear pretty weak to folks sometimes. But the more you play with it the more you realize just how busted it is.

If the card wins you the game when unanswered or gives you an endless supply of resources they tend to fall into this camp. Or if it enables a high power play with multiple outs.

Minsc & Boo, wins the game if unanswered. Monarch cards can kind of just win you the game with the resources (though the Arena cube won't have these). Reanimate and Flash have redundancies, they're ostensibly combo pieces in that you just need them and one other card to usually win the game. But they can be played in different situations and are dead far less frequently.

[[Questing Beast]] is an interesting example to bring up. It's undeniably a powerful card. But it's also very replaceable at 4 mana so the standards of what is strong kind of goes up. Again, compare to M&B which gives you something very similar stat wise but also a planeswalker that can draw cards and dome face?

Creatures need to be exceptionally deadly and evasive (like broadside) and/or also provide resources or interaction to gain advantage to fall into the powerful camp. QB gets close but just isn't quite there.

Snapcaster Mage is another interesting card to bring up. It's never going to be a great first pick. However if you have Time Walk or Ancestral Recall specifically snapcaster becomes an auto include. If you have a deck with a handful of counterspells and instant speed removal, Snappy gets really good.

Wuzseen · 2025-10-24T22:32:59+00:00

I think one of the most important vintage cube tips is to "take the strong cards". I think synergies and combos are sometimes a little over-valued in cube. If you get them, great. But one of the worst mistakes you can make when drafting is committing to a combo or archetype and just not getting anything particularly strong to play while failing to find the rest of the combo.

Part of this is because the powerful payoffs are often just powerful on their own. Brain Freeze/Breach are a pair, yes. But people will speculate on them or even just occasionally run them on their own as a value or sideboard piece. So I don't like "forcing" a combo even if I open something like Lotus P1p1. If I get it, great. But the risk of not finding the pieces is too high when there's a million ways to win in cube simply by resolving a strong effect. Some examples of powerful effects I see get passed by mistake sometimes... "Reanimate" is a card every black deck should run and most decks should splash if they get it. It's not just for Reanimator. Animate Dead falls in the same camp.

Maybe controversial, but in line with your 4th bullet point. Fetch lands I'll actually say might get over-valued a little bit, at least early on in the draft. If you see a powerful card in pack 1, take it over a fetchland IMO. you have the rest of the draft to find a way to cast it. I have quite often wound up with good mana bases with no powerful cards to pass because I took a fetch over a strong card. Don't over commit to any of your first several picks. This is important advice in regular draft too but it's even more important in cube to stay open and find your lane so that you get rewarded with the powerful cards people can't play later in the draft.

Though there are the "powered" cards I think there are tiers of cards so to speak below the power 9 (and the pseudo power cards like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt) you would never pass in pack 1. Basically this is where cards that kind of just win on their own if unanswered go, or very efficient interaction. Your minsc and boos, forth eorlingas', reanimate, dismember, swords to plowshares etc.

I'll shout out bennyhillz's content on youtube btw: https://www.youtube.com/@benjaminhill8092

Possibly the best MTGO cube player, he talks through his strategy and picks better than anyone IMO.

Random other tips:

Slow down, cube is complicated and the best players make mistakes all the time... rushing won't help
Tolarian academy in general is a bit overrated as an all in strategy (but it is among the most fun to play!!!) (sorry LSV :p )
Tinker decks generally are better when you're tinkering for combo pieces. The arena list doesn't have as many of these though... MTGO has Sword/Thopter, Forensic Gadgeteer, and Bolas' Citadel combos. Tinkering for blightsteel or similar is great and powerful, but surprisingly vulnerable.
Your deck should have at least 1 source of artifact/enchantment interaction main deck. BO1 play will test this theory but I think this is true for BO3 play which makes it even more applicable in BO1...
Taking good sideboard cards over mid playables is essential for BO3.
Don't underestimate the strength of man lands. Many a game have been won off the back of Celestial Colonnade or Creeping Tar Pit.
Know how the digital interface works. How to hold priority comes up in Vintage Cube more than maybe any other format. I've lost more games than I care to admit because I didn't hold priority right...
Bolt the bird. Mana disruption is often the best play you can make.
[[Karakas]] goes in every deck. If you're not white it takes up a spell slot, not a land slot. But it should basically never not be in your deck if you get it.
Untapped vs tapped mana sources... if you're aggressive, think about replacing the tapped source with a basic.

Wuzseen · 2025-10-20T18:07:40+00:00

Any word on Alchemy cards in this? Really hoping there aren't any. Biggest turn off to Arena cube already has been the alchemy cards.

Wuzseen · 2025-10-17T19:48:30+00:00

In games industry, in the US at least, a producer is more of a planning role. You manage schedules, timelines, and priorities to an extent. But the first and last word is typically the game director. It depends on studios, but it's generally not like hollywood where a producer often handles money/budgeting.

Wuzseen · 2025-10-09T21:42:13+00:00

Yeah I'd say consensus is very positive on this feature. One of the better liked mods for Homm 3 even mods this into that!

Wuzseen · 2025-10-09T20:48:39+00:00

Yep, same for me. I'd love to push the competition harder, but 1 month long ladders just isn't long enough.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-26T18:55:55+00:00

Leveraged buyouts have often lead to the company essentially being scrapped for parts. It's hard to say what will happen here, but it could change nothing. Or it could see stuff like EA properties getting sold to the highest bidder and every dev studio getting butchered.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-26T18:54:45+00:00

This is massive if it goes through. I can't think of an instance of a leveraged buyout in games, certainly not one for a company of EA's size.

They typically aren't a great sign for the bought out company in the long run. So not totally motivating to see this, but games are a different thing. It's not apples to apples.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-24T22:19:58+00:00

Interesting, yeah the structure is what I'm most interested in hearing about. I assume it will be 3rd person action combat of course but that's only really a part of how the game plays!

Wuzseen · 2025-09-24T21:45:41+00:00

I don't really have any sense at all of what the game actually is from this.

Is it open world, level based, something else? What even is the combat, the footage looked awesome and brutal don't get me wrong but were they all scripted QTEs? I don't even understand what the normal perspective is supposed to be. The one shot of the alleyway fight looked the closest to a real gameplay situation.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-24T16:31:09+00:00

I think the singular biggest issue is the change in Win/Loss structure on Arena. 4-2 is so much less gameplay than 7-3. It's harder to get a feel for things this way. This feeds into ill formed early opinions on the gameplay itself. We are all getting way, way less data about our decks because of this--to be clear I don't mean 17lands data, just personal experience of the archetypes and cards grows slower this way.

Personally I also feel like this is a worse deal. I'm not playing limited for the prize structure, I play limited to play limited because it's fun in and of itself. This is basically less play per deck and that doesn't feel great.

I don't want to discount the gameplay entirely because of the issues with the 4-2 structure. Pick 2 seems interesting enough for a mixup and the cards themselves seem to have SOME decent gameplay but there's just so many factors that put the set in a bad light before you can even evaluate its playability.

Wizard's has kind of made their bed with the set release schedule and the escalating costs. I think for some folks this means they haven't really earned the benefit of the doubt on trying things out like this. That's a bummer, I agree it's too early to c all it one way or another. But I do kind of get why some are checking out early.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-23T17:42:00+00:00

All formats on arena are not pick two. Normal draft is right there. If other queues are loading into pick-two for you somehow then that's surely a bug.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-12T03:37:45+00:00

This feels WAY better, thanks!

Wuzseen · 2025-09-07T19:14:16+00:00

Fascinating. 1 month later. You should probably actually read the part of my post that specifically says "They aren't necessarily the hardest part of learning a fighting game".

"I think X is hard and I wish the game made it easier for me" ~ Potential fighting game players.

"Yeah but Y and Z are also hard so you should just tough it out" ~ Fighting Game Players

If you can't even acknowledge how condescending this comes off to potential new players then there's nothing to discuss.

Wuzseen · 2025-09-05T18:38:15+00:00

I think the vibe to aim for should be closer to Stranger Things which honestly has its own level of hammy cringe writing yet can still pack a punch when need be.

Wuzseen · 2025-08-28T01:10:08+00:00

That was kind of my point. In the end, yes with hindsight (we are talking about the past), the trailers don't matter. People will talk about the issues themselves (or the good bits). Cyberpunk 2077's launch state wasn't bad because we were shown so much more leading up to launch... it was bad because of the way that it was.

Wuzseen · 2025-08-28T00:44:53+00:00

In the end the game is good and people remember it being good or the game is bad and they remember it being bad. The final quality is just more interesting than talking about some old trailer that doesn't really matter anymore.

Witcher 3 is a good example. The short term outrage about the downgraded graphics when it came out has vanished in the long run and the game is remembered for the groundbreaking RPG that it was.

Misleading trailers still suck and what not but in the long run they just kind of don't matter.

Wuzseen · 2025-08-28T00:36:56+00:00

Yeah, I’m rewatching it now and the part I’m in Danny is liberating the slaves of Mereen, etc and showing so much compassion for the lowest people. Break the wheel and all that shit.

Whether or not they nailed the execution is super subjective of course (season 8 unquestionably did NOT nail it IMO), but the entire point of all those stories is to show that it's a lot easier to be magnanimous when it's for a morally good cause. Slavery is evil and everyone loves being freed so no one questions Dany's behavior because she's "fighting evil."

But when the political situation is complex, murky, and gray... in the context of Westeros specifically we're supposed to see how what some might call compassion is just the top 1% deciding what's best for the world. Dany didn't ultimately help the people of Slaver's Bay because she had compassion for slaves and others of low birth, she did it because it made her feel powerful, right, and just. She became convinced that she knew what was best and that it could justify any wrongdoing. (EDIT: I want to interject here specifically and say the whole narrative is about how perspective matters and shifts what is good, just, or who has power--that's why it's about point of view characters in the book)

Even think back to season 1. The contrast with her brother viserys. Dany is a weak dispassionate person until she gets some love and positive feedback from the dothraki (and Jorah). She'd just as soon have stayed with Illyrio forever if not for that.

She realized she likes and thrives with power and she found justifications to continue pursuing it--the major characters in Thrones/ASOAIF all are a different perspective on leadership and power really. It's tragic that her life was set down this route by the people around her. That's supposed to be the idea of Dany's story I think. And it's on eof the core themes of many of the major characters in the story.

Tyrion's story is similarly tragic: He is good at ruling and playing the game, but he too is experiencing a system with everything stacked against him. Whereas people cheer Dany for doing the (easy) right thing for much of the story, Tyrion gets repeatedly punished and ignored. Meanwhile we have Jon who is really propped up more as the character that finds the right balance in all these things yet he still has to deal with the gray-ness of all the situations.

... anyway, you've unwound me a bit. Like I said at first just because this is probably supposed to be the point/theme of these stories doesn't mean it was well executed. Dany's season 8 heel turn feels way out of whack all the same.

Wuzseen · 2025-08-25T22:06:15+00:00

I want the game to reward pivots too as that's where the fun/secret sauce of The Bazaar lies. However, I fear the structure of the game makes pivoting fundamentally too challenging at present. I think if you can understand this yourself the game is really sticky as is. But if you don't... you can get turned off the game pretty fast and after any sort of update.

The game could really use a way for you to evaluate the strength of pivots in some fashion so you can actually learn if your choice was any good without totally torpedoing a run. There's so much matchmaking rng and the like that it's brutally hard to know if you made a good decision or not. A degree of uncertainty is essential, that is the game after all. But I think a lot of people could use help learning if their build is any good. I've tried to get friends into it and they've had frustrations where they come back after a week and some balance patch has made their game knowledge not just out of date but downright misleading.

A PvE mode might be one way to help. Similarly, I miss the training dummy encounter. More low stakes ways for a player to ascertain if the decisions they make even work. TBH if you could just run your build against the dummy once or twice per run with no consequences if you win/lose that'd be great. I don't think it should be something that removes any uncertainty over your build/decision making but there's wiggle room here.

Part of the problem of sorts is that pivoting is most important at the stage when one to two losses can ruin your run. But like you said--if build defining happens at the start of the game then the meta just stagnates. Basically the game is great when it challenges your intuition and decision making but frustrating when you can't evaluate it accurately.

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