Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Wishlist for Divinity

- Tough combat that is actually rewarding without simply enabling the enemy to do things while not enabling you

- Zero self-indulgent characters such as fane and astarion where you wish there was a "How about I brutally slaughter you right now?" dialogue option to everything they say but there ISN'T.

- Zero generic dialogue choices which are way too obvious or which the game shames the player for, especially on NG+ (well that's assuming NG+ will be real, if not then just on subsequent playthroughs is what I mean).

- Actual commentary on issues, which DOS1 has. Or, even better, the indirect commentary of the previous games.

- Actual lore congruent with the previous game chronologically, not just new lore. Not with DOS2, which after finishing, enables you to instantly switch to another divinity game and instantly feel the quality difference.

- Legit characters, engaging story. Zero soycringe.

- Zero massive enemy stats as a substitute for the combat itself being good, and DOS1 kind of has this issue (I am not far in) but it's way better than DOS2 and actually matches the first thing on this list. The player should not have to create the combat around what are practically horribly statted enemies.

- It genuinely being in the spirit of what Sven wanted to make back when he started being a game developer.

I hope by actual commentary on issues you don't mean the obnoxious trait system from DOS1..

My biggest and most simple wish list is to have a minimum party count increase from the common 4 of larian games to 5 (if not six). It would be nice to have a rounded group that includes more than the staple (Tank, Rogue, Ranged, Spell) specialists. The 5th will offer a playful addition that often gets left behind in the camp because it is either redundant or not necessary. I know skills are more broad as the game does not lock skills but when it comes to customization we tend to specialize in order to get the greatest benefit.

I may be in the minority but I really want a voiced playable character. Especially if it's Dark Urge type that has a pre-established storyline. My favorite run in BG3 was as Durge (resist temptation), and I really missed having him fully voiced by Neil Roberts (he was soooo good with the limited lines he was given).

This would be nice, and if still open so there is not one primary avatar. They would have to have the voice for all origin characters + a few different voices for custom characters of any sex/race. It would really add to the game for sure.

I would like
- a "relaxed" item progression
- no shields system hindering mixed magical/physical groups
- a twisted and complicated story with some turns and surprises and grey elements
- a deep visual character creator (I liked it in BG3, face types instead of sliders are fine; but more face options and also body sizes like "lean, normal, muscular, fat" would be nice, although personally I got exactly the faces I like)
- several distinctive areas with diversity in them
- many companions, some sexy, some complicated, maybe not necessarily all with the same deep story
- diverse armor and clothes, from practical to skimpy/sexy
- a similar combat system to DOS 2, but with lesser emphasis on surfaces (will not happen of course ...)
- a decent amount of sex and connected stuff, as long as it fits into the story
- some random combat elements, connected to traveling maybe
- some gore elements beyond the overdone blood splatters of BG3 (as option, f.e. cutting heads or disemboweling)
- a transmog system for items

I would also prefer a voiced main character, however that may cause a lot of/too many recources bound to it?

Yes, it's more costly, but I think Larian is now finally in a position to make it happen. Make it an option so that way everyone is happy, and there's no backlash. Some can play voiced, others can play silent, and Larian pleases everyone. Win-Win-Win.

Personally, I would like to see:

- A great character creator like BG3. I really love to spend an good amount of time just trying out different things out. I am very hopeful for lizardmen to have as many scale options as the dragonborn.

- A tiered magic item system. Instead of getting small increments in stats, I'd prefer to see better defined item power levels (a bit like in dnd with +1 to +5 items, but not necessarily with those numbers).

- Upgradable Unique magic items, with their own unique abilities.

- Clear indicators of ability scores and skill limits, so that players have a better understanding of what those numbers actually mean. So, instead of indicating "Strength 20", add some tooltip indicating what is the maximum. Because random numbers without a proper context don't really mean that much, and I'd like to understand what I am doing from the start of the game, not when I am 30 hours in.

- The ability to create character leveling templates. I'd love to see how the leveling works in the character creator, so that I know how to pre-plan my character advancement (I saw it done in Pathfinder, where you can clearly see what each level gives you).

Also, you could get something like a code on the internet for a build, paste it into your character somewhere, and then either get an indicator of what to select at each level up to properly follow the chosen build or have to choice to auto-level up using the selected template.

- Less item bloat in the world. I think that direction in BG3 has been good though, there are less items shown with the highlight button. Please keep that.

- Voiced main character. I know that's difficult to get for all the permutations of races and I am not asking that. I'd be happy if there is just a choice between Male or Female (like in Mass Effect).

- Romantic interest, with clear dialogue icon indicating that that's where things are going. Sometimes I can be a bit dense.

As i said in another thread (but it belongs here better), i really hope at least for multiplayer they give us easy way to have more than 4 characters. I usually play solo, but when i do play with friends it can easily exceed 4 character limit so some of us can't play with others. Making party cap soft cap instead of hard cap would be fantastic, i think if you could toggle it as option with disclaimer that it may mess with balance and cause unexpected issues it would be fine. Even less polished experience with some issues here and there but with everyone being able to participate is more enjoyable than splitting the group or some of us not playing.

other:
-Less gear tiers and bloat than in DOS2. Makes each piece more meaningful and less micromanagement, small stat differences should instead be done by runes and other player controllable things, not counting legendary unique gear and such
-While generic stuff can vary in quality and stats as game progresses, truly legendary unique piece of gear should remain legendary even in late game.
-More visual armor/outfit customisation options
-Ability to pre-plan my max level character in-game
-Less floor is lava compared to DOS2
-Less missing in combat than in BG3
-More detailed quest log to record important previously done choices better. Game is long, its really difficult to remember every decision.

I could probably go on for pages if I took the time to really think about things and write it all down, but just on the top of my head:

- A day/night cycle and some hint of NPC scheduling. I want to see AT LEAST an attempt to have a degree of world simulation.

- A progression system that doesn't lean heavily on stat BLOAT. Keep things lean. I want a system where the character starts the game at 40 HP and ends the game at 100 and a lot better at avoiding and dealing damage, rather than one where level 1 characters have 20 HP and endgame ones have 9999 (please note that this is just an example of the general concept I would go for, the reference numbers I'm throwing here are entirely made-up and would need to be fine tuned after extensive testing depending on the general rules of the game).

- Unique and hand-placed items need to be the backbone and main pillar of the itemization. And their scaling needs to be limited to few distinct tiers of quality that are valid in absolute terms. Fuck that noisy bullshit of common, rare, epic, legendary, etc... that ALSO scale with specific level requirements. That type of itemization is ALWAYS GARBAGE, has no redeeming quality and I'll die on that hill.

- I wish for companions that feel like amazing friends and allies (or at least that grow into becoming so), characters I can even grow to admire and respect, toward which I can feel a sense of solidarity and camaraderie. Not a gallery of annoying petulant sex pests that basically give me option to interact only if we want to have an orgy. Unless I'm deliberately pursuing a romance, I don't want to talk to my party members and feel like we are constantly flirting and I'm about to be sexually molested at every dialogue pick that isn't openly hostile toward them.

- Speaking of which, I would also appreciate companions that introduce themselves as maybe "promising fledgling", only relatively competent in their role, but that GROW into becoming "heroes of the realm" over time. Not ones that are immediately introduced under the pretense of being already "super big shots" at level 1 (and then hilarity ensues).

- An engine update that can deal with true, genuine 3D verticality. Flying creatures who can actually fly and stay mid-air. not just make big jumps. More Solasta 1 and less BG3, to give a frame of reference.

- I'm going to be so sad if we don't get something similar to a reaction/interrupt system AT LEAST for a few abilities where it makes sense.

- The game world being "seamless and continuous" is not really an added value when the side effect is having the "diorama effect" when everything seems to be a model in scale and there's no sense of scale whatsoever. A series of separate areas connected through a world map would be 100% better than the "bonsai world" effect of BG3 where the goblins couldn't find the "super hidden" druid grove 150 meters down the road.

- The most controversial for last, I guess. I know everyone and their grandma praised the idea of DOS 2 of letting the players decide even the basic class of every companion joining their party. Well, I'm going to say it: I think it's SHIT. Companions need to have strongly defined identities and ideally even something unique about them that the player can't replicate (i.e. special talents, perks and maybe even pieces of equipment that are unique to their background). Hell, I think if it was up to me I'd even move away from the idea of choosing abilities at level up for story companions and I would make them a fixed, pre-established build, take or leave. Of course, under these conditions I would put an effort into making them good and a desirable addition to the party. Not underwhelming and poorly built.

I'm against fully voice acted MC. People should understand this will limit the dialogue options. I wasn't even satisfied with dialogue options we had in Bg3.

Oh, I'll add to my wishlist:

- Some form of unified inventory for the party. And YES, that can work even with multiple human players doing co-op. You just make a separate "unified inventory" for each human player, regardless of how many characters he's controlling and you solved this issue almost effortlessly.
And holy fucking shit if Larian games aren't in a desperate need to do something to streamline the amount of inventory busywork they usually involve.

Ideally, while the overall party inventory would be unified, individual characters would still have some sort of personal "belt" with a bunch of slots where they can equip consumables that they are required to carry personally to use (i.e. potions, 1-use items, etc.).
Basically what Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 and Owlcat Games already do.

Apparently i can't edit my post, but:

-Ability to pick which character you enter into conversations with. Game should not randomly ignore main character and talk to whichever companion happens to be closest, and at least in some situations game should allow you to use character with highest persuasion to help influence the conversation
-Make it clear which conversation option is a decision or "decision", and which lets me ask more questions. I often want to go trough all the dialogue options before continuing, but it often turns out option i picked continued the conversation so i can't pick the option that i actually would have.

- If Divinity has sex scenes, nudity, sexualization, sexy clothing, fanservice, jiggle physics etc..
I hope it is TOTALLY BALANCED for men and women, EQUALITY. 👍

I HATE games that focus on male audience "Male fantasy"

This turns conversations into checkboxes and it actively diminishes games that have it. I vehemently hope they DON'T implement this.

It's up to the player to think things through, but hey, sometimes conversations don't go where you expect them to go. How things turn out is not for your character to decide, he or she can only make choices for him- or herself.


This makes no sense. It's the option you would have picked, but you didn't pick it? Huh?

If marked dialogues can be implemented by having a check box to toggle it on or off, I guess it depends on how you want to play your game. Sometimes, having an extra dialogue option (especially for Githyanki) would have been nice, but I also thought that how conversations could lead to unexpected outcomes was rather a strength of BG3 rather than a weakness. I hope I wasn't a save scrummer, but the quicksave button was handy if I really misunderstood something.

Lot of reasons. There is usually more to talk about than just 1 thing, why would i start conversation by first telling my big final decision before i have all the information and end conversation forever when there is more that i could by game's own design and by real life logic continue to talk about? There is lot of information i would like to hear before making a decision. So i first talk about the less important things, then get on the important topic which might involve big decisions. And the big decision could with a good reason end the conversation and i know it, so i want to leave it last.
And people in real conversations often go back to what was earlier said if it was something important/interesting they wanted to keep talking about, another thing you can't do in these games for somewhat arbitary reasons.

Its many times not clear what game considers a decision and what is designed to be "talk more".



Sure but that is different than what i am talking about. In real life there might be arbitary time limit for conversations, but i don't just accidentally end conversations and leave people standing there waiting for me to come back even when i could and would keep talking with them. But that is what happens in the game, because some dialogue is conversation ender for no clear reason.


Its fine to have situations where you just can't talk about everything, even situations which seem like you should be able to but you for example get interrupted and don't have time to talk about everything. You could even make game's interface look like normal, like it would allow you to ask more questions. It does not need to reveal to player what will happen, but it should make it clear to player what player character intends to do with conversation decision they choose: this is my opinion/decision versus "i want to talk more about this" Player in real life would know this, player character would know this.

In real life or tabletop RPGs you also can correct lot of misunderstandings in conversations unlike in the game, where people may misunderstand your question as a decision and you have no way to correct it.


And conversations in these games are some of the best parts, i don't want to accidentally end them without a good reason, like if i offend somebody or if somebody ambushes us in middle of conversation or if we are in middle of a battle and there is no time to talk much.

Hi Larian

Please make main character voice acting like in DA Inquisition, Solasta 2 and on.

It would really help to take the game to the next level if we could hear our response. It would add a lot of depth and the ability to empathize with the main character and not just watch the dumb reactions.
I know it would take a lot of work to voice everything possible (about two variants for the female character and two variants for the male character), but it would be really worth it and a lot of people would appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Oh gods, no Beatris, please don't use that game as an example. Nah, listen... I actually AGREE with you, hehehe.... I'll explain:

In my opinion Larian should not emulate BioWare in anything that is post 2009's Dragon Age: Origins or after Mass Effect 2. Everything after those particular games coincides with the decline of BioWare and streamlining of everything that made their games deep and interesting. BG3 borrowed a lot of things from Origins and Mass Effect and that was the right call.

Buuuuuuuuuut as far as main character voice acting, absolutely 100% YES: I fully support and 100% agree with what you are saying. BioWare did that fantastically. And I think Larian are now in a position to accomplish this. Though, it should be an option, not a forced feature. People who prefer a silent protag (not me) should still be able to play the game that way. this would make everyone happy.

Especially if we get a Dark Urge type main character option. It would've made much more sense to have a fully voiced MC with that role specifically.

My wishlist:

- Return of DOS2 style OST. It was so much more epic and awesome than what BG3 provided. I still get chills when entering Act 2 in DOS2 when you ride in on the ship with the epic music playing.

- Fully voiced MC. Won't happen though because of Larian's commitment to Blank Slate PC's...

- Origin characters for all. Not just the companions of the game turned into Origins where you just play through their story. But unique backgrounds for different races that allows your PC to fit into the game world (You can still keep your Blank Slate character option for those that prefer it). Ideally some of these will have unique prologues and unique interactions with different people/factions.

- Deeper companions. With inter-companion relationships (With some being so hostile towards each other you cannot recruit both). Also, give them some autonomy, don't just make them things you collect and then will happily sit in camp the entire game while you ignore them, despite them having things they want to do...

- Diverse companions. Don't make them all "Pretty" and don't make them all "Nice and likeable". I want variety. I want characters like Astarion that I dislike. I want characters like Beast who's not conventionally "Pretty". But I also want sweethearts like Lohse and beauties like Shadowheart. Having variety makes things more interesting. Especially if the aforementioned depth means they aren't just Pokemans that you collect every run because there's no reason not to.

- Movement and actions to be separated. Much like how BG3 clearly separates Movement, Standard Action, Bonus Action and Reaction. It would be nice if Divinity kept movement and actions separate, meaning that you (Or enemies) can close the distance/reposition and still do something. (Beyond that I'm whatever about it... Going back to AP would be fine as would D&D style combat. I err towards AP as it's more flexible). You can keep "disengaging" competing with actions, but none of that "The best strategy is to stand still and fling ranged attacks at the enemies whom are using all their AP to move closer and so don't fight back" garbage.

- Enemy turn consolidation. If multiple enemies are taking turns in a row between your character actions (Which is common with Larian's love of large numbers of enemies), have them all take their turns simultaneously rather than one-by-one. So that combat can be sped up, especially in large scale fights. (BG3 has hints of this, as multiple enemies just using Dash and moving closer will occur simultaneously)

- Enhanced Surface design. Separate sufaces into dedicated abilities to create and manipulate them. Meaning that someone who chooses not to deal with them, doesn't constantly interact with them. Meanwhile, improving the depth and complexity of surface combinations and interaction. Thus allowing people to build for messing with surfaces or not. Of of the main issues with the system in prior titles is that it is forced upon you (Then of course the whole "Hitting an enemy makes the ground below them into a blood surface... Hence it just devolving into Necromancy abusing Blood surfaces and/or Electrified Water/Blood) which takes any interesting strategy with it and throws it out the window when every battle just becomes one giant electrified blood surface no matter what (With a few exceptions, like that one encounter in DOS2 Act 2 with the blobs of tar where everywhere becomes fire)

- More options and customization for clothing and armor. An upgrade to DOS2 armor looks, not a continuation of what BG3 had to offer, not a fan of BG3 armor. More options for heavy armor, and making sure this time heavy armor has a correct uniform look, not like BG3

- A transmog system for item looks, or a crafting system that makes you mix abilities, stats and appearance of your choice

- Origin characters, or at least some of them, that have customizable appearance. For example Durge was able to select everything, race, class, etc. Not a fan of fixed race/appearance combo for Origin characters

- More "bold" decisions when it comes to interactions with npcs or relationships. In Kingmaker, you could even romance a certain antagonist, something that really stood out for me

- Plot twists, i like those :p

- Did i say more options for heavy armor visuals? Well then, a system that allows us to change how certain parts of the armor look. For example, a full plate armor with different type of tassets, or shapes for kneeguards, or choices for having a tabard/clothing or not

- I want a sort of free class system, but i would also like the world to react to the abilities i wield. For example if you play something like a Death Knight, abilities and appearance wise, i would like the world to react to it

- Undead race FTW :DD

Ooh, Wishlist for Divinity. I hope we get a new trailer and it has a fade in with III: Rebirth. This would be a single player RPG at first similar to Ultima IV. Companions should be deep and optional. I'd like the romanceable companions to be in the character creator along with the main. Let us pick what our companions look like and what their role in the team will be. That would be an interesting first. I'd love a customizable pet too that fits the lore. Make Zix-zax be our insane mentor

I mean, I have my own qualms with some of the aesthetic choices in BG3, but criticizing them while praising DOS 2 at the same time is BEYOND bizarre to me.

I agree with this point, but I'd like to stress that what makes the "Durge" concept appealing is not "customizable appearance" per se, as much as the fact that as an "Origin" is one tied to the story of the character AND unique to the player.

Ideally I still don't want to take the place of one of my companions and play that as the protagonist, no matter how much I can customize his apprearance. I want companions to be companions and the protagonist to be his own thing.

Are the devs reading this forum? or everything we've said here is waste of time? 🤔

I'm not praising DOS2 as a whole, the quality is worse because the models were more crude, it's an older game.

What i meant is that, BG3 for example, used a system for armor design(or rather the meshes of the armor, and how it all looks together), that just doesn't work, it's difficult to get right when you try to make heavy armor. I could get more technical, but i will just say that f.e. designing leg armor has 3 ways of doing it. Kneecaps as part of boot model, as part of thighplate model, or a one piece, providing thighs and boots are separate pieces( in BG3 thighs were part of the chest armor). If you go with the option part of the thighplate model(like in BG3), you will most certainly have to put extra work to make it look right when you wear all the armor. Or it will clip worse than the other options, or not align at all, which happened usually in BG3.

DOS2 doesn't suffer from this specifically, but it does suffer from other problems, like npc armors that looked cool were unavailable again. Like in BG3 Ketheric thorm full armor or Dame Aylin's armor were inaccessible without mods. Also, DOS2 armor looked more goofy or exaggerated i guess, i wouldn't want to see that return either.

So yeah, i don't want to see the same cartoony style armor of Divinity, but i don't want to see the problematic designs of heavy armor of BG3 either.

Whatever they do though, i would prefer if we don't have again cooler armors for the npcs while we get fewer options. If they put resources into gear customization like they do for options and permeations or characters, we should be fine.

For the origin character part, i agree. Durge and origins in general can be appealing because they are more tied to the story than a general Tav. I agree however that i would like companions to be just that, and not potential protagonists.

It's likely they're keeping tabs on the forum. Given that:

1) They implemented this subforum this early. When it would be filled with people's ideas and wishes for the next game given the lack of actual information about it to discuss.

2) Larian do entertain player feedback. It's the basis for their overall development. The whole "Early Access" releases are there to get player feedback to shape development and polish of Act 1. With post-release patches being driven by a lot of player feedback.

Of course, one does have to take this with a grain of salt. Just because they might look at the forum, it doesn't mean they will necessarily act upon any of the wishes people here may have. Since they still have their own vision for what the game will be, as well as however much development that's already been put into it.

I'd much rather my PC were unvoiced than have the wrong voice, i.e. one that didn't quite match my character concept or who says things (both wording and emphasis) in a way that my character wouldn't.

Agreed, I think voiced characters work, if they are set, but with having different races and backgrounds, it's pretty hard to find voices for every occasion.

It's very possible to have options.

For example, Solasta has a system for tuning voices based around an "Alignment" style graph of personalities (Allowing changes for fully voiced protagonists).

Many games (Includng BG3 and DOS) offer a selection of voices or voice types for their PC callouts (Some CRPG's also offer "No Voice" for those who'd prefer a silent protagonist for full headcanon players).

It takes more resources to have multiple people record a full protagonists voice lines (And/or have each person do multiple personalities)... But given that Larian is now a AAA studio (To the point where they exclaim their ability to work on MULTIPLE AAA titles simultaneously), they should be able to afford it.

With of course, always the option for silent protagonist for those who don't find any particular voice to their liking.

I would like to see:

- A greater number of areas to explore, each fairly distinct and suitably dense with things to see and do. In particular, I'd like settlements to be more populated and have a lot more quests to discover.

- One or more 'player home'. Whether it be an actual home, a keep or something else. The Lady Vengeance sort of fulfilled that role in DOS2, so building further on that and allowing for more NPC's to be recruited to provide their services across multiple Acts would be great.

- At least one conventionally attractive male character in a physical role, particularly a handsome knight. Clean shaven, fairly serious and duty driven, yet open to forming a deeper bond over time. I really disliked the subversion in Baldur's Gate 3 in regards to the amount of female characters in physical roles. I thought it was very strange, especially, when Astarion and Gale had their muscles reduced in a post patch launch but Karlach remained untouched.

- Following on from the previous point, less sleaze more romance. The majority of people are not actually interested in sleeping with bestial creatures or sleeping around with multiple partners. I would like that reflected in the majority of companion romances. It's a mood killer when multiple companions talk about their ex-lovers, or make it clear that your character is in fact just a 'side piece'.

- More cats! Animals in general, really. Pet Pal is such a fun addition to a character.

- The ability to side with antagonists and villains. I am hoping this is the case, as it was in the previous game.

- In addition to the prior point, more options to save specific characters at critical points. You can go through the trouble of sparing and persuading a certain character in DOS2 only for him to be unceremoniously killed off. I would have liked the ability to prevent him from being slain and even to have an entire ending focused on him.

- Representation done sensibly and not at the cost of immersion. There are certain terms and phrases that, quite frankly, I do not believe suit a fantasy setting as they are much too modern and tied to unpleasant baggage.

- For the player character to be referred to as their chosen gender. I find it lazy and immersion breaking when various modern games use the term 'they' to describe a character whose gender is known as either male or female.

- Following on from that, I do not want to see the morality of characters and their nuance sanitised for the 'modern audience'. I liked how dark and tragic certain characters could be in DOS2, as well as the ability for the player to choose to side with, sympathise with or oppose them as they saw fit. My favoured approach in RPG's!

- More options for gaining experience if you avoid combat through persuasion and diplomacy. It was easy to fall behind in terms of experience gains at times in DOS2 if you did not kill as many NPC's as possible. Maybe additional quests can unlock from characters who are spared in order to make it more viable to not simply be a 'murder hobo'.

- Surface interactions! I hope that they return in full. It made for fun chaos and a need for additional strategy.

That's all for now, really. I am sure I might think up more stuff later.

I like sliders, but I guess that requires a graphic engine that is adapted for armour and outfits. But as an alternative, they could provide "components" of faces and bodies (like eyes, mouths, noses, or necks, shoulder, torso, boobs, legs...) that can be selected separately and combined, instead of predefined faces and bodies. It would increase the available options and be easier to handle with respect to armour because every choice is predetermined.
I have several face and hair and colour mods active, but still I often think, I would love the nose from that face with the mouth of this other one etc...

And, of course, there should be a magic mirror that allows you to change "on the way".

I agree, It was annoying in BG3 that you couldn't even change the character ears in the character creator.

One aspect that bothers me in most games is when you want to create a muscular male character, but they always give you a "V" shaped body, disproportionate.

Hey, men have thick thighs and big glutes too!

How could I forget that wish, indeed a very important feature!

Also very important in BG 3 for me was the ability to change class, stats etc. very cheaply and easily. It was fun to test stuff. I want this again in Divinity.

Yeah, despite a few crashes, I loved changing little or greater things as the events slowly changed the character.

Oh, I just remembered my biggest gripe in all CRPG's:

- Have the "Show Items" function being a toggle.

Such a pain to have to constantly hold the button down when moving through an area and wanting to check what items and interactables are around. Let us just toggle it on or off as we need it.

It's almost as annoying as that popular mechanic in ARPG's where you press a button and such things are highlighted for a few seconds (Meaning most of your gameplay consists of pressing the button every few seconds to be able to see items...)

Just screw off with that garbage and make it a toggle. (Ideally without any other side effects... Like the whole thing of playing Batman Arkham Asylum constantly in Detective Mode because that highlights enemies and interactables... But it makes the visuals garbage)