Difficulty, Balance Of Power Vs Skill, Powercreep And More

[Bakercompany86]

Never played Dark Souls, but if its just memorizing enemy/boss patterns, then I'll pass. If memorizing enemy AI patterns is considered skill, I'll take bigger and bigger numbers.

Raiding in mmos is the same dreadfully boring thing. Its a big collective game of Simon Sez where the challenge is staying awake til the end. "Everyone group up" "Everyone spread out" "Dps target mob X" "Move out of fire" Lots of hardcore raiders think that this equals skill. Its the same kind of skill that assembly line work requires.

Once again, I've never played Dark Souls, so maybe it has much more interesting mechanics than simple memorization.

 

 

You really need to go play Dark Souls....  it's a masterpiece.  Difficulty honed into an art form.  Pure, beautiful art.

[Guest]

You really need to go play Dark Souls....  it's a masterpiece.  Difficulty honed into an art form.  Pure, beautiful art.

all the way

[NaotaZ]

Indeed, and just like Warframe, Dark Souls IS progression-based. Killing enemies gains you souls, you use souls to level up your character stats (HP, damage, stamina, carry capacity, resists, and the potential to wield larger and better weapons) and to improve your weapons and armour directly, and these two things make you more capable of taking on the next set of enemies. The next set of enemies is stronger - the further into the game you get, the more health they have and the more damage they deal, just like Warframe. Yet in addition they each work in different ways and pose you different and more demanding challenges from the enemies at the start of the game. This is what Warframe completely lacks.

A typical Hollow in Dark Souls' first area has three or four standard melee attacks with different timing which you are intended to either block, parry, or evade. They will also sometimes turtle up behind a shield, jump back evasively, jump forward a long distance to engage, or let loose a special flurry of short frontal attacks.

You can kick a turtling Hollow's shield, hit it with a heavy two-hander to break its guard, or bait it into attacking by hitting the shield and countering when it retaliates; you can take advantage of its back jump by following it with a forward rolling attack or switching to a ranged weapon; you can avoid its initial jump by closing distance fast, rolling to the side, or blocking with your own shield; it telegraphs its flurry, allowing you time to back away or time a parry. If you build for poise, you can take some of its hits and trade your own back without being staggered. If you wound it heavily and switch targets, it will retreat to a safe distance and drink a one-time potion to restore its health before re-engaging you.

There are dozens of dozens of enemies in Dark Souls and every one is different in all of these areas. They are huge, tiny, fast, slow, fragile, tanky, predictable, unpredictable, sneaky, overt, and diverse in many other ways. On top of this, they also have the varying health, resists, damage, and weak spots of Warframe's enemies. As you progress you need more skill and more stats/levels/upgrades to take them on. Comparatively...

A typical Grineer in Warframe has one standard attack: it attempts to establish line of sight and then fires a stream of completely unavoidable bullets towards you for as long as this is maintained, which you cannot block or otherwise mitigate. It does not reload, shoot off target due to recoil, or have a cone of fire which might allow it to miss. Its tracking is absolutely flawless and cannot be confused by darting between cover; if there is an unobstructed path between you and the Grineer, it will make that shot and hit you.

Defensively there's nothing at all to say about them. They make no attempt to protect themselves, never leave themselves open, and are always weak to shots in the face. There is a single tactic to damaging them (shoot the face), and a single tactic to avoiding their damage (break line of sight).

A Corpus Crewman is mechanically identical to a standard Grineer, but with different resists. A Commander is identical to a Crewman, but with a one-time teleport swap. A Heavy Gunner is identical to a Commander, except with a one-time instant knockdown AOE if you get too close. A Bombard is identical to a Heavy Gunner except with AOE rockets. A Napalm is a Bombard, with a lingering fire effect. A Corpus Moa is identical to a Crewman, but with a shorter engagement range. A Scorch is identical to a Moa but does fire damage. A Trooper is identical to a Scorch but with slower and stronger attacks. Vay Hek is a Trooper. The Hyena is a Moa. They are all the same. A single strategy beats them all: shoot the head, break line of sight when (not if!) you take too much damage.

Warframe's core gameplay never really evolves beyond these two simple tasks. Bigger numbers don't change this, and this is why it isn't ever challenging - only more frustrating and punishing as the levels rise.

Edited August 6, 2013 by NaotaZ

[11.11.11]

:snip:

 

Glad someone else understands this.

[Mietz]

Indeed, and just like Warframe, Dark Souls IS progression-based. Killing enemies gains you souls, you use souls to level up your character stats (HP, damage, stamina, carry capacity, resists, and the potential to wield larger and better weapons) and to improve your weapons and armour directly, and these two things make you more capable of taking on the next set of enemies. The next set of enemies is stronger - the further into the game you get, the more health they have and the more damage they deal, just like Warframe. Yet in addition they each work in different ways and pose you different and more demanding challenges from the enemies at the start of the game. This is what Warframe completely lacks.

 

No DS is not progression-based.

 

If DS was progression based it would be impossible to complete the game at soul-level 1, essentially naked. Theres people doing SL1 runs in New Game +7.

 

DS gives you progression as a way to mitigate your lack of skill and give you a wider margin of error, however its is NOT based on the progression of your character. All gear and leveling does is to make the game easier for you in case you didn't master it.

The same rule applies for games like Monster Hunter, I've seen complete naked runs with just a basic Longsword.

 

Warframe does not give you the option to go T3 defense with a LVL1 Warframe and succeed, it is impossible.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Mietz

[NaotaZ]

No DS is not progression-based.

 

If DS was progression based it would be impossible to complete the game at soul-level 1, essentially naked. Theres people doing SL1 runs in New Game +7.

 

DS gives you progression as a way to mitigate your lack of skill and give you a wider margin of error, however its is NOT based on the progression of your character. All gear and leveling does is to make the game easier for you in case you didn't master it.

The same rule applies for games like Monster Hunter, I've seen complete naked runs with just a basic Longsword.

 

Warframe does not give you the option to go T3 defense with a LVL1 Warframe and succeed, it is impossible.

 

You say "in case you didn't master it", but masters are rare exceptions among the playerbase, and this is a good thing. Everyone I've known who played Dark Souls used the level up mechanics and item upgrades whenever possible to enable them to make more mistakes and get more mileage out of their successes. These things are tools given to you in order to be used to beat the game. Just because it's possible to beat it without ever using them doesn't remove its elements of numerical progression.

 

It's possible to beat the Asylum Demon with nothing but the broken sword you start with, but it does 3 damage a hit and you will be there for 30 minutes dodging nearly every attack or dying by attrition. 99.9% of the player base just equips their class weapon.

 

It's possible to beat a Nightmare Raid mission with level 98 enemies and an unranked frame and weapon in Warframe. 99.999% of the player base will never do this.

 

It's possible to beat Doom without ever switching away from your fists, or X-Com without ever using the research mechanic, or Street Fighter without ever jumping.

 

This doesn't invalidate the elements of these games you are deliberately choosing not to use. Dark Souls simply allows skill to compensate for progression as well as the inverse. With godlike skill it's possible to block or avoid every single attack in the game, so you could conceivably never use the progression elements, but the fact remains that only a tiny, tiny minority ever do this.

 

For all intents and purposes, Dark Souls is a game with character progression, and that character progression is very similar to Warframe's. The difference is that Warframe has next to no mechanical depth, so its only effective tactic (shoot the face, break LOS when hurt) works to the same success all the way up the level curve (read: boring) until it suddenly doesn't (read: frustrating). And when it doesn't there is no other option, so it skips right to punishing and unfair without ever being a challenge.

Edited August 6, 2013 by NaotaZ

[11.11.11]

It's possible to beat the Asylum Demon with nothing but the broken sword you start with, but it does 3 damage a hit and you will be there for 30 minutes dodging nearly every attack or dying by attrition. 99.9% of the player base just equips their class weapon.

 

._.

 

What's a class weapon? 

 

I just jumped down on him from above, then ran around screaming and dodging until I managed to wear him down. 

[Mietz]

 

You say "in case you didn't master it", but masters are rare exceptions among the playerbase, and this is a good thing. Everyone I've known who played Dark Souls used the level up mechanics and item upgrades whenever possible to enable them to make more mistakes and get more mileage out of their successes. These things are tools given to you in order to be used to beat the game. Just because it's possible to beat it without ever using them doesn't remove its elements of numerical progression.

 

It's possible to beat the Asylum Demon with nothing but the broken sword you start with, but it does 3 damage a hit and you will be there for 30 minutes dodging nearly every attack or dying by attrition. 99.9% of the player base just equips their class weapon.

 

It's possible to beat a Nightmare Raid mission with level 98 enemies and an unranked frame and weapon in Warframe. 99.999% of the player base will never do this.

 

It's possible to beat Doom without ever switching away from your fists, or X-Com without ever using the research mechanic, or Street Fighter without ever jumping.

 

This doesn't invalidate the elements of these games you are deliberately choosing not to use. Dark Souls simply allows skill to compensate for progression as well as the inverse. With godlike skill it's possible to block or avoid every single attack in the game, so you could conceivably never use the progression elements, but the fact remains that only a tiny, tiny minority ever do this.

 

For all intents and purposes, Dark Souls is a game with character progression, and that character progression is very similar to Warframe's. The difference is that Warframe has next to no mechanical depth, so its only effective tactic (shoot the face, break LOS when hurt) works to the same success all the way up the level curve (read: boring) until it suddenly doesn't (read: frustrating). And when it doesn't there is no other option, so it skips right to punishing and unfair without ever being a challenge.

 

I objected to you calling Dark Souls being a game BASED on progression, I never denied that there is progression in it.

WoW is a game that is BASED on progression, it is mechanically impossible to beat a lvl20 mob at lvl1, no level of skill can mitigate the numbers advantage the mob has.

 

Similarly, in Warframe it is -impossible- to beat higher level enemies with unranked items and the reason for that is resistance scaling, at some point you stop doing damage to them entirely. Not to mention other enemies with shields will regenerate shields faster than you can put out damage with unranked weapons. For example Ancient Healers will never be beat with unranked weapons because, by design, they are a DPS-check for your gear.

 

Yes, you could conceivably run past all the enemies, although with the current damage-scaling I still insist this is entirely impossible because whatever hits you will immediately kill you at high levels. No amount of skill will mitigate this because avoidance is inconsistent in Warframe, block doesn't work, rolls don't convey invincibility, you have no access to invul skills at LVL1, and the stealth system is broken.

Not to mention the core concept of WF isn't actually to complete missions but to get intrinsic rewards inside the mission (mods, resources).

 

To reiterate, I do not deny DaS having progression but I object calling it "progression-based" as the focus of DS is on the player skill not the numbers advantage the avatar-puppet has. I also object in comparing WF to DS in this context as WF's core mechanics operate currently far closer to stat-based RPGs than it does to something like DaS or MH.

[Trylobyte]

My thoughts.

 

When I was new, I liked to see how far I could get with just the stuff I started with.  I still have my Mk.I Braton and would really like to use it more because it's a nice gun - It's not a bullet hose that chews through my ammo like crazy, but it fires fast enough to be dangerous.  It's more accurate than its regular counterpart and it has less jitter and recoil so I can stay on target longer.  The first gun I ever bought was the Lex, the sniper pistol, because I favor a sniper playstyle.  This was good for a long time; I had few shots and a slow fire rate but could one-shot anything I ran into.  The problem I ran into as I moved on was that the regular Braton was just better.  That slower, more controlled marksman style I used with the Mk.I and the Lex was simply less effective than the 'spray and pray' of the standard model because I couldn't afford to expose myself to incoming fire long enough to do something silly like aim.  So I upgraded.  The Braton was fine for a while, but once I hit Earth (which used to be mid to high level content) I hit a stone wall named Councilor Vay Hek.  I had nothing that could do anything to him because of his enormous armor value and instantly-regenerating shields and staying out in the open to fire off a full clip with the Braton would probably get me killed.  So I branched out to other weapons.  The Boltor and the Kunai were both duly built specifically to kill Councilor Hekand let me farm Trinity parts, and afterwards I fully intended to go back to the weapons I was using.

 

I didn't.  The Boltor and the Kunai were, even with their projectile flight time, simply so much better than what I was using that I almost never had to bother with anything else.  These guns did consistent damage against everything, once again removing the health and safety hazard known as aiming.  Since then, the only other weapon I've used for any significant amount of time is the Hek shotgun and the Torid, which I just built.  Armor ignoring is so powerful and so useful that I've no reason not to use it, and indeed in later missions I feel I have to in order to even keep up.  It's a bit of a sorry state, too.  I want to be able to use other guns, but I just can't.  I want my Lex back.

[NaotaZ]

._.

 

What's a class weapon? 

 

I just jumped down on him from above, then ran around screaming and dodging until I managed to wear him down. 

 

It's the first actual weapon you find in the game, right after you get the first shield in the game to move past the archer. Both the shield and the sword change depending on your choice of starting class, hence "class weapon". It's technically possible to beat the demon the first time you see him using the broken sword hilt you start with (you're expected to run away), and you even get a special weapon as a reward, but that's much like trying to wear down a level 60 Ancient Disruptor with an unranked Skana. Even if you somehow avoid every attack, you're going to be there for ages.

 

At that point it's not an enjoyable challenge, even if it is technically possible. You hear about SL1 playthroughs plenty, but SL1 with no weapon upgrades? That's not fun for anyone.

 

To reiterate, I do not deny DaS having progression but I object calling it "progression-based" as the focus of DS is on the player skill not the numbers advantage the avatar-puppet has. I also object in comparing WF to DS in this context as WF's core mechanics operate currently far closer to stat-based RPGs than it does to something like DaS or MH.

 

Fair enough, though as I said the brilliance of Dark Souls is that its difficulty self-corrects. If you want a challenge you can push ahead; if you're finding things too difficult you can make a pit stop to gather up extra souls and level up your character and weapons. Progression compensates for skill and skill compensates for progression, though the benefits of each fall off sharply without a certain amount of the other.

 

Warframe often doesn't let skill compensate for anything, as you said. The same very basic tactics you establish within five minutes of starting the game reward the same success all the way up until you reach an enemy with so much health and damage that they don't any more. Then you don't have any alternatives, so you die. The only strategy is in finding ways to prop up the same simple tactics, which immediately kicks the difficulty back down from literally impossible to trivially easy.

 

Shooting Bastile-paralyzed level 110 Gunners to death from behind a snow globe is trivial and devoid of risk or challenge - shooting level 110 Gunners to death without Bastile and Snow Globe is not possible and thus equally devoid of risk or challenge.

[Hitomo]

 

Warframe often doesn't let skill compensate for anything, as you said. The same very basic tactics you establish within five minutes of starting the game reward the same success all the way up until you reach an enemy with so much health and damage that they don't any more. Then you don't have any alternatives, so you die. The only strategy is in finding ways to prop up the same simple tactics, which immediately kicks the difficulty back down from literally impossible to trivially easy.

 

 

 

I see no Problem with this ... its what good game design is all about ...

 

especialy in Action games like this ... you have to nail the Action down to the Player in about a few seconds and then make the Player want to repeat this second over and over again (this has nothing to do with grind) ... and I can say thats exactly what makes warframe so good to everyone who trys it

 

the Problem is the Format of an online game and the F2P model ...

[Mietz]

 

Fair enough, though as I said the brilliance of Dark Souls is that its difficulty self-corrects. If you want a challenge you can push ahead; if you're finding things too difficult you can make a pit stop to gather up extra souls and level up your character and weapons. Progression compensates for skill and skill compensates for progression, though the benefits of each fall off sharply without a certain amount of the other.

 

Warframe often doesn't let skill compensate for anything, as you said. The same very basic tactics you establish within five minutes of starting the game reward the same success all the way up until you reach an enemy with so much health and damage that they don't any more. Then you don't have any alternatives, so you die. The only strategy is in finding ways to prop up the same simple tactics, which immediately kicks the difficulty back down from literally impossible to trivially easy.

 

Shooting Bastile-paralyzed level 110 Gunners to death from behind a snow globe is trivial and devoid of risk or challenge - shooting level 110 Gunners to death without Bastile and Snow Globe is not possible and thus equally devoid of risk or challenge.

 

Undeniably this is the core problem of WF, it behaves too much like a stat-based game for all the actual gameplay execution we get with direct player input. There is a reason why these genres rarely mix, one gives the power to the puppet, the other to the player.

If you have a game with direct skill-components like WF pretends to be (i mean the designers put dodge, block, parkour in here for SOME reason) it can't function like stat-based games where you point weapons at things and they die depending entirely on your damage numbers.

[Hitomo]

If you have a game with direct skill-components like WF pretends to be (i mean the designers put dodge, block, parkour in here for SOME reason) it can't function like stat-based games where you point weapons at things and they die depending entirely on your damage numbers.

 

wich game isnt working like this, seriously what are you talking about ... Dance Dance Revolution ?

[NaotaZ]

I see no Problem with this ... its what good game design is all about ...

 

especialy in Action games like this ... you have to nail the Action down to the Player in about a few seconds and then make the Player want to repeat this second over and over again (this has nothing to do with grind) ... and I can say thats exactly what makes warframe so good to everyone who trys it

 

the Problem is the Format of an online game and the F2P model ...

 

But I don't want to repeat these actions, because they're easy, boring, and lack variety. They have all the depth and engagement of washing dishes, and nothing ever surprises me or requires me to think or react in anything but the same way I have been for the past hundred hours of gameplay. Being online changes nothing about this, and no amount of paying or not paying will suddenly add depth or challenge to the game. The problem is a lack of variety and depth in the core gameplay, plain and simple.

 

Once you've done it a few times, a second of Warframe is not something you want to repeat over and over. The only thing keeping you in the game is your investment in the numerical progress you're making towards new levels and mods - not how much fun you're having.

 

If a defense mission opened up right now that gave 0 credits, had no mod drops, and did not advance your frame or weapon level, would you do it just for the fun of playing Warframe? How about five times in a row? Would the raw gameplay still be fun then?

 

I rest my case.

Edited August 6, 2013 by NaotaZ

[Mietz]

wich game isnt working like this, seriously what are you talking about ... Dance Dance Revolution ?

 

I dont know what you are talking about, your posts are confusing, you use too many ellipses, are you out of breath?

[Hitomo]

The only thing keeping you in the game is your investment in the numerical progress you're making towards new levels and mods - not how much fun you're having.

 

when it gets that far I usally stop playing this particular game ... coming back after few month ... when the few seconds are fresh and exciting again^^

 

because warframe s online it cant last and happen betweeen a start and a endpoint ... its always there, thats why the above descrbed concept of desgning acton games loses its effect after a while ...

 

you Need to be Aware of this ... this game is not designed with an endpoint in mind, so there is nothing to be accomplished by staying and sticking,

this game wll not tell you to stop, even if it has stoped delivering any fun / newideas / excitment to you anymore ...

 

you stop playing every offline game at some point ... why should it be different here .. .just because there s no endsequence  or last Level ;)

[Hitomo]

I dont know what you are talking about, your posts are confusing

 

Keep trying, Tenno ...

[NaotaZ]

when it gets that far I usally stop playing this particular game ... coming back after few month ... when the few seconds are fresh and exciting again^^

 

because warframe s online it cant last and happen betweeen a start and a endpoint ... its always there, thats why the above descrbed concept of desgning acton games loses its effect after a while ...

 

you Need to be Aware of this ... this game is not designed with an endpoint in mind, so there is nothing to be accomplished by staying and sticking,

this game wll not tell you to stop, even if it has stoped delivering any fun / newideas / excitment to you anymore ...

 

you stop playing every offline game at some point ... why should it be different here .. .just because there s no endsequence  or last Level ;)

 

But Warframe loses its fun at an accelerated rate, and caps off far short of maximum fun. I call that a failure of design.

 

Besides which, I don't play offline games to reach the end in the first place - I play them to enjoy myself all the way through, and they provide this to me by having mechanics with enough depth that I can adopt a wide variety of tactics to a variety of situations if a single one ever gets stale. I'm playing them because their gameplay is consistently fun and their narrative is consistently engaging, and will stop before reaching the end if that's no longer true.

 

There are plenty of games that I play over and over due to the deep and enjoyable mechanics I described earlier: Dark Souls, Hotline Miami, Chivalry, Megaman, X-Com, Dwarf Fortress, Interstate '76, Crusader Kings II. A sample from every genre and era imaginable. What they all have in common is that no session is quite like the last, and I always have a breadth of options at my disposal. Every minute of Warframe is just like the next, and I don't have any options besides "shoot easy target in weak spot" and "take cover when shields get low".

[eStecko]

NaotaZ has a point, Hitomo, you can't deny that. As he named Chivalry, a medieval game, with swinging swords and spaming of attacks, you will die all the time. At first you will do that and get destroyed, even when its mechanics looks very simple, but the...

 

 

I dont say that Chivalry is perfect. It's not. But here you can see, how much in-depth you can go with only melee weapon system, without puting much of complexity in it and when you die in Chivalry, it's mostly to your own fault and if you are observing, you might even figure out why and get better. As i said in the original topic, there is plenty of room for Warframe to expand upon its already build-in features like dodge, block and movement (Guild Wars 2 is build entirely around...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9VWofx5XG8

). But currently, it does not.

[Bakercompany86]

Personally I think it was a huge mistake to base this game on increasing damage, health, and shield capacity.  Once they've done that, that's the only form of progression that will work.  It's possible to cap it, and stop it.  At that point you'd have to make all future content linear, and the difficulty based on smarter AI, different units with different attacks, and more challenging situations.

 

 

Someone in another thread suggested that DE close this game again, and perform an overhaul.  I don't think it's a horrible idea really.  The powercreep situation, plus the energy system could use overhauling.  I just wonder if they have the funds to do it.

 

 

This game would be much better without all the damage mods and stuff.  Where weapons were different from each other, but all on the same level.  And mods could be for more fun stuff instead of just increasing damage one way or another...

 

Honestly, damage increases and such are just lazy.  It really is.  No creativity at all.  Just +Damage%.  Another level?  Time to increase that % a bit more....

[eStecko]

Armor is quite a big problem...

Because numbers... only to show how much health, armor, shields -> effective health Grineer Elite Lancer gets per 5 levels... used with formulas datamined from the game by pwnatron (stats/formulas armor).

Elite Grineer Lancers start from level 20, thats why there is nothing for them below level 20.

Effective HP - aka how much damage you have to do with weapons for enemy to die.
AP Effective HP - aka how much damage you have to do with armor piercing weapons for enemy to die.
- To show the difference aka how much overpowered AP weapons get on higher levels and how much mess armor does on higher level.

You will have to do your own elemental damage multipliers, as each of those depend on weapon used, its rank, multishot and affects each enemy, body part and type of protection differently.

*numericals are hidden (because it would be a mess to read), so numbers can differ +-1 due to rounding.

*table and graph differes from enemy to enemy, this one is ONLY made to fit Grineer Elite Lancer

*OBVIOUSLY, THIS IS NOT THE CASE FOR ENEMIES THAT HAVE NO ARMOR!

*also added into main topic


First... table. As i said, i used formulas datamined from the game. No problem to upload entire excel file.



If you are not fan of tables, there is a graph.



The important thing, is the gap between AP and not AP health. As you can see, it goes HELL of a way at higher levels.

Health against weapons that do NOT have AP, scales up rather a lot on higher levels, so if you do not have AP weapon, you will need to pump out 10x bullets at 90-ish level. Shields are included, but they are not affected by armor.

Health against weapons that do have AP is close to linear in the graph, but it scales more and more per every level step. This also includes the shields.


I guess you know where next rumbles will go now... Armor i dont like you! Also there is a reason, why weapons without AP get obsolete on higher levels, personaly i call for balance in one of those areas... a) armor numbers and its system   b) AP/AP-less weapons re-balance.

Edited August 6, 2013 by eStecko

[eStecko]

Good news and bad news.

 

Good one... congratz on making it into community hot topics - https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/91501-august-6th-communtiy-hot-topics/ in points #5 and #6.

 

Now for the sad news.

 

"The answer is that Armor is currently working as intended and is unlikely to change."

 

On the powercreep crawling issue we got a diplomatic answer... read as not many things will change.

 

Well... iam afraid and sad. Guess we can only hope that problems we've been talking about previously won't go any deeper and worst.

 

edit: Spark of hope from our favorite Lotus on the armor point.

"I anticipated this, will try and keep the conversation alive."

Edited August 6, 2013 by eStecko

[Mietz]

 

"The answer is that Armor is currently working as intended and is unlikely to change."

 

 

How?

How is it working as intended?

[Bakercompany86]

How?

How is it working as intended?

 

Because it requires you to grind, and spend more time in the game, in order to obtain the right weapon with the right amount of armor bypassing to win.

 

This is why I hate vertical progression.

[silentdrumr]

If I ever met you irl, I would shake your hand. Great post, great feedback. just, wow. +1

 

Couldn't really add anything since you've pretty much covered it.