PVP Update, June 2015

Strider_Roshin

Getting rid of the former emperor passives is a terrible idea! You get rid of that and you get rid of any incentive I had in trying to become an emperor. What a terrible idea!

Sacadon

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

WRX wrote: »

Makkir wrote: »

WRX wrote: »

After reading this I am torn. I love hearing what you are actively investigating for lag, etc, so that is good news. However there are some things I am concerned about.

-No PvE buffs then mean no PvEr's to fight in Cyrodiil. Computer's population is already extremely low, and this lowers it further. Need some reason for them to come play again.

-The no travel option to me is the biggest issue however. With the current state of PvP, and I am not joking, the first 30 minutes is always the group going to the few active campaigns and trying to find the most fun fights WITHOUT LAG.

If I can not travel out of a campaign on a Saturday when its a laggy mess, I know myself and 80% of Decibel will simply go play something else. This will be a major issue as fighting with lag every 10-15 minutes really hurts the flow of a team.

-Lastly is the Emp passives. I would very much like them to stay personally. If you farmed it, honestly, who cares? Mechanic was bad, but so were/are CP grinds, duping, bots farming mats, and all the other issues so far. If you farmed emp, you are likely a bad player anyways so you will still die. This seems to be more of a PR stunt and appealing to the casual (I understand, a fish has to swim though) and is kind of a punishment to players who have PvP'd. Its a buff you earn with passives, just like mages and fighters guild, legermaine (sp) and many others.

.

Lol,

You realize the spamming zerg ball you run is creating the lag you complain about, right? New system will likely keep players grounded to their chosen campaign, which means you can't continually run to campaigns you outnumber for easy wins. The one thing guild leaders will need to do is work on communication among each other to make sure they end up on the right campaigns together.

And I don't know what you are talking about in regards to your last comment. The proposed changes to Emp seem more like a deterrence to casuals not an appeal. An appeal to casuals would be dumbing content down and making it easier to obtain Emp...you'll see more competition now to obtain Emp in order for a player to maintain his Emp powers which means casuals probably don't have a good shot at it now (which they shouldn't, imo).

My "zergball" is constantly running smaller groups than essentially all our competition. Roughly 2 times a week we will go over that. No clue what group you run with or if you are a solo player, but Deci avoids lag at any cost.

And no, this is catering to the people that think the emperor passive is the reason they are losing, when it really has nothing to do with it. I am all for helping the health of the game though.

Someone who is no longer emperor should not have emperor buffs. You want the power of being emperor? You become one and you stay one. That's what would make being emperor really special.

Since it's late I will get cheesey. Bruce Banner doesn't have any Hulk passives when he isn't the Hulk. He is just Bruce Banner. The Hulk gets all the skills and passives. Then it goes away.

But grasshopper... It is Banner's brains that are of much greater value than the hulk you see. (It's too early so...) (EDIT: Disregard my Hulkisms because I just read where @Rylana bested me with way more entertaining info we'll be purging from our memories in 5,4,3,2...)

Seriously though, the current generation of players are more interested in acquiring some form of permanent buff, not a temporary one that requires them to exhaust their supply of Red Bull. I definitely think it's going to change the emp-meta such that very few are going to care about pursuing it now.

Draxys

Xsorus wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

So we know that stacking and everything is causing the lag, and the change to AOE caps did help some what..Problem is stacking is still pretty rewarded on some level.

It also doesn't help that things like Barrier/Purge/Vigor/Retreating Maneuvers is still uncapped pretty much, All of those (Esp Retreating Maneuvers) help keep the zerg ball together.

if RM was changed to only grant immunity say every 15 seconds or whatever it'd be much easier for say Archers running Bombard to split the zerg ball up and cause them to die.


Also I noticed on Console the group cap seems to be 12 for Large Groups, is there anyway we could do that on PC by chance?

And another thing..Is there anyway we could can go back to unpurgeable snares on the Oil Catapult?

Back when that was a thing you use to be able to hit a group with it that was stacked and that slowed them down so they would keep getting pelted by AOE and such.

ugh no thanks, maneuvers need to stay the way they are, it's the only way around playing a damn horse simulator. The duration is perfect for that, and if you make it shorter, magicka builds won't be able to keep it up so they can actually get places in a timely manner.

Enodoc

Darlgon wrote: »

Thanks for the update Brian. Most of the changes are interesting on first read-thru but..

Can I say that I find the scoring changes MORONIC AND CONFUSING?

How about making all resources (Keeps, resources, scrolls) worth one point a piece in every campaign? WHY THE HECK DOES EACH CAMPAIGN HAVE ITS OWN SCORING?

It's to encourage different playstyles in different campaigns. Personally though, I would rather see a couple of campaigns maintaining the scoring where everything gives points, and where Scrolls are worth more than Keeps are worth more than Outposts are worth more than Resources. This scoring (which is the current system) appropriately applies reward for effort. Applying the same importance to an Elder Scroll as to a Resource would basically make capturing Elder Scrolls pointless. In the campaign where Keeps and Scrolls are both worth 0, what's the point in capturing Keeps?

ZOS_BrianWheeler

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics, however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

Armitas

I think it would be cool if they did a monster campaign, 1 faction WW, 1 Vamp, 1 fighters guild. That would be fun and unique. (WW get 100% transformation time) The score doesn't really matter to me, people are still going to take the things that give them an intrinsic advantage and all the objectives do just that on their own.

Armitas

If they just made all the buffs based on total alliance success rather than individual campaign success * it would fix the population imbalances and we wouldn't have to screw over half the community in the process. Those that are there for buffs..the ones that actually make the buff servers..will have to distribute themselves evenly to achieve the same goal as before. It would also redistribute players locally because all objectives are equally important for those buffs, thereby reducing the point to point lag. People care about buffs, not score, if you want them to move you need better bait and it's apparent that buffs are the biggest bait in existence right now.

It fixes the point to point lag, the population distribution, it keeps the total pvp population high, and best of all it doesn't screw over half the community in the process. Seems like win a win to me. It's end goals are exactly the same as outlined in the OP, It's potential to acquire those goals relies on a much stronger power source, but the biggest and most important aspect is that we don't interfere with anyone in the process.

*success includes ownership of all objectives, even resources. Each type provides a unique scaling buff.

Leandor

@ZOS_BrianWheeler , if I may, I would like to re-post my question in regards to campaign duration and ask for your thoughts on it. Having only one 30-day is my only real gripe with the proposed changes.

Merlin13KAGL

Enodoc wrote: »

Darlgon wrote: »

Thanks for the update Brian. Most of the changes are interesting on first read-thru but..

Can I say that I find the scoring changes MORONIC AND CONFUSING?

How about making all resources (Keeps, resources, scrolls) worth one point a piece in every campaign? WHY THE HECK DOES EACH CAMPAIGN HAVE ITS OWN SCORING?

It's to encourage different playstyles in different campaigns. Personally though, I would rather see a couple of campaigns maintaining the scoring where everything gives points, and where Scrolls are worth more than Keeps are worth more than Outposts are worth more than Resources. This scoring (which is the current system) appropriately applies reward for effort. Applying the same importance to an Elder Scroll as to a Resource would basically make capturing Elder Scrolls pointless. In the campaign where Keeps and Scrolls are both worth 0, what's the point in capturing Keeps?

@Enodoc, Keeps will still be required to emp, and for Imperial City access, ultimately. Also, Keeps will be required to unlock the gates to get the scrolls, to get the buffs from the scrolls. (You'll also still get the buffs from Keeps).

Point-wise, you are correct. The Resource=Points campaign will likely be the highest sought after one. I presume capturing anything will still yield AP's, just not campaign points.

They do need some campaigns where everything still counts, though.

It will be nice to see the results of 18 months of Emp farming go away (not saying that some didn't earn it), and I suspect it will open it up to more people than what it previously did.

Buff server loss won't break my heart - it will free up the campaigns from the death grip they currently experience (or the troll-grip, depending on which side and what day). It will also even things out a bit more PvE side for leaderboards, etc.

Also will be glad to see exploit-to-friend go away, not sure why it took so long.

The upgraded battle leveling is also long overdue for those that were above 50 but below VR14 and having a bit more of a hard time.

The only thing that baffles me about this entire thing is Why the hell did they ever perform a LoS check on AoE's in the first place? Distance, sure (for obvious reasons), LoS for a skill that doesn't require LoS...please. (It's like doing a crafting level check once you're VR14...you're obviously high enough level to do anything...)

(Though I equally wonder what Vet level skills they are referring to that aren't used as much...Arrow Barrage/Impulse? Meteor is the only one that makes some kind of sense as to nonavailability in non-Vet campaigns. If such is the case, I don't know why they don't just call it out that way.)

Erwen

frozywozy wrote: »

Erwen wrote: »

dont agree with the former emp removal. simple, there is no reason to take this off, NO REASON!

Yes. It it a first step to totally destroy emp farming and changing the emperor buff into something really meaningful. A buff that reward a player who work for the scoreboard and not the leaderboard.

I earned my emperorship on Thornblade 2.0 fighting hard for it and I'm still up for this change, 100%.

and what hurts more its that they are not doing anything to "punish" the cp farmers, they are blaming guilds like ours that organize and try to cap emps with all our players to make us stronger, what they are doing is a simple way to dont work with new things on cyrodill and getting better servers... we are blamed for their *** job, i wont use the "we work hard talk anymore" cuz this is nothing to them.

i just wanna see what this game will have after they take all the variables that we have to make our character stronger, when this game become a *** easy game they will be happy, [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Seth_Black

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Commitment of all ZOS teams working on PvP changes/fixes/improvements will bring PvE players back to Cyrodiil!
Some of us - players - actually know how hard it is to work on something that's constantly live & in use.
Thanks for working so hard on it

Publius_Scipio

Former emp buffs should have NEVER existed to begin with. You want emp to be very special but let people walk away from having the crown with residual powers? Yeah, doesn't make sense to me.

You should have the powers of emperor while being emperor. Why would you have emperor powers when you are no longer emperor?

Then of course this being a video game, players will always come up with something, and the guilds came up with what we lovingly call emperor farming. They pick a campaign, could care less about the alliance and start cycling their people holding the crown. We have all seen the resource and outpost farms going. Worse of all, we have seen the guilds in control of a campaign allow a dethrone so that they can then farm again and raise the next name up.

That needs to stop. If you want the powers of emperor, you become one and fight to stay one. If you think that makes emperor lack incentive then simply don't invest the time.

Dutchessx

Thanks for listening to the PvP'er's!!! While I do like the changes that are coming. I must admit I am not fond of loosing the former Emperor Buffs. There are still those of us that saw it as an achievement and spent many sleepless nights to get it. Yes,I am a former emperor - I recently got it and lost it on Hadderous and it was against DC & AD being pop locked. The server was so laggy none of my skills worked majority of the time, I crashed & didn't even see the notification or anything - it took almost 30 mins for me to get back into the campaign. I also know others emperor swapped or did something not so good to get it just for the buffs. A lot of times on Hadderous I would see someone come in & push the ring & then not even stay to defnd it. While other times - people would just give up because they would get zerg'ed down. Having said that isn't there a middle ground in regards to being a former emp counts for something? Maybe such as in your home campaign or some other perk? Just 100% across the board swipe to remove it seems a little drastic. Once again thanks for listening and your consideration

Lava_Croft

Turelus wrote: »

Some fantastic ideas and I look forward to trying out the new systems.

A little sad to see the Emperor passive go, but I had my time with them and I have the achievement/title/memories from it all.

The only thing I am not happy about is the idea of a reset of keeps at the end of the campaign (that's at least what I feel people are disucssing) there are a lot of tactics about setting up for the next campaign with a strong start I would miss.

While setting up for the next campaign is a absolutely a thing, I do think it's better to start every new campaign on an equal footing.

Crown

Rylana wrote: »

This isnt why people feel vindicated by the removal, it is because certain guilds that transition map to map and ruin the leaderboards so they can crown 2, 3, 4 new emps for their core group that then are never seen on that campaign again, depriving the LEGITIMATE players of that campaign their rightful emp while the other group leaves it and doesnt even defend the map.

That may be the case for some campaigns or factions, but not for AD in any campaign that I've ever been homed (that I'm aware of).

Another @ZOS_BrianWheeler just in case ;-)

AP farming and Emperor farming are completely different things. I AP farm all the time. There are two main reasons. First, I want a higher rank with more pretty colours; Legate black is the best black in the game and after that the colours are rather meh (to my personal taste). Second, I have a lot of new people running with me who don't have all the PvP passives and need to reach Alliance rank 24 (some don't even have purge or caltops). I'll usually look at the map and decide if I should farm or go for map control. When farming, I make between 2 and 4 times more AP per hour than when just playing the map. There is a third reason, and that's AP can be spent on pretty shiny items that a lot of people need for use or want to sell for gold. AP farming is a nice way to make some extra gold to pay for pots or other gear that you don't want to farm for.

This was AP farming with an 18 person group a few days ago:
.
I know that a few red guilds make more than this when AD keeps throwing themselves at them, though it's about the cap of what we can do lately. Goung back to 150k AP for campaign change - it means nothing to us. Farm up somewhere for two or three hours and there we go. Nobody has said anything about group queues either (I brought it up in my first post). Transit to a friend does NOT solve the problem.

Regarding achieving Emperor, if there is anyone near the top of the leader board who has never had Emperor before, being as I and other AD leaders feel that everyone should have a chance at it, benefit from the passives, and we know that we'll easily pass most people, we'll play an alt to let them get past us. Now, removing the Former Emperor buff gives us no incentive to do so. I can say with a high degree of confidence that whatever campaign that we're in with passives removed, there are probably only 5 people who will contend for Emperor at any time. Most will see it as something unattainable because there's no reason for those of us leading to help *them* get it rather than just let whichever one of us is top of the leaderboard get it AGAIN. This isn't meant as a threat, it's simple fact based on my discussions with other leaders and the most common players for a few groups. We want to help our fellow players. With passives removed, Emperor means a lot less other than one person in a faction being able to count for about 12 normal players.

Preyfar

Crown wrote: »

This was AP farming with an 18 person group a few days ago:
.

AP Farmers are pretty easy to spot. When somebody gains 100-150K on the leaderboards within an hour on an otherwise dead server... and they've got 2-3X the AP of the next player it's pretty easy to see what they do. That and when you come across a random resources where you see a few dozen people run up and suicide at it, then come back again in 5 minutes and do it again... really not hard to spot.

EDIT: This is a reason I've given up on ever getting Emp. You just can't compete against AP farmers.

Kloud

I hope you mean that your play testing a arena In imperial city Brian wheeler?

kaithuzar

Can we get back forward camps while you're at it?

Crown

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Former emp passives should have never existed to begin with in my opinion. Being emp makes you the most powerful person on the battlefield. When you are dethroned, why would you have any residual powers if you aren't emperor anymore?

Once you have been imbued with all the power that is the Emperor, after being dethroned there is some that remains. It gives you a very slight increase in power, but not one that is a game changer by any means.

Once again, with PvP buffs being removed from PvE, should this include Former Emperor, one of the issues presented is resolved.

Look at Azuras this campaign. If we keep playing as it stands, there is only one person from each faction who will be Emperor. None of us at the top will drop campaign (I'm still waiting to get a Master's resto staff and bow after about 15 useless others and 20+ gold useless cyrodiil's crest set items), though if there was someone close we would almost certainly allow them to pass us.

I get a few people whispering me every week asking if I'll help them get up on the leader boards. My answer is always the same - I'll be happy to help crown whoever is on top (with a few exceptions for trolls / malicious players harming others). Regarding AP farming, I tend to stay within a few guilds for groups (those I have access to guild chat and a few friendlies). I open my group up to randoms for an hour here and there if there's no population or to help find good new recruits, though there is no Emperor farming now, nor has there been for months.

FENGRUSH

Crown wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Former emp passives should have never existed to begin with in my opinion. Being emp makes you the most powerful person on the battlefield. When you are dethroned, why would you have any residual powers if you aren't emperor anymore?

Once you have been imbued with all the power that is the Emperor, after being dethroned there is some that remains. It gives you a very slight increase in power, but not one that is a game changer by any means.

Once again, with PvP buffs being removed from PvE, should this include Former Emperor, one of the issues presented is resolved.

Look at Azuras this campaign. If we keep playing as it stands, there is only one person from each faction who will be Emperor. None of us at the top will drop campaign (I'm still waiting to get a Master's resto staff and bow after about 15 useless others and 20+ gold useless cyrodiil's crest set items), though if there was someone close we would almost certainly allow them to pass us.

I get a few people whispering me every week asking if I'll help them get up on the leader boards. My answer is always the same - I'll be happy to help crown whoever is on top (with a few exceptions for trolls / malicious players harming others). Regarding AP farming, I tend to stay within a few guilds for groups (those I have access to guild chat and a few friendlies). I open my group up to randoms for an hour here and there if there's no population or to help find good new recruits, though there is no Emperor farming now, nor has there been for months.

Wondering the same thing - who is actually emp trading and on which campaign these days? Every campaign FENGRUSH visits has folks at the top that arent dropping or stopping.

Gravord

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Soulac

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics, however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

What about a simple duel function.
Like a trade invite you invite people to a duel..

This would make many people very happy

Niberion

Gravord wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Big shame

Crown

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Emperor is not about former emperor buffs. Being emperor is a reward in itself. Anyone who thinks otherwise has gotten emperor for the wrong reasons in my opinion. The point of emperor is to aid your faction to the best of your abilities to help them gain an advantage in the campaign.

Too many times have I seen people get emperor then log out because they just wanted some buffs. People have even begged and offered money to others that are above them on the leaderboard to let them pass them while saying, 'let me be emperor, I only want the passives'... They are completely missing the point of emperorship and AVA and it'll be great once that becomes a thing of the past.

I agree with you that there are a lot of people who only do it for the buffs, though there are a lot of people who do it for the campaign, and the fun of being Emperor. When you had emperor, we could hear in your voice how much fun you were having. I even copied your build the next time I was crowned to see how it differed from my previous time as Emperor in a similar style.

For a lot of people the Former Emperor buffs are a regular reminder of that happy fun time. Not that normal play isn't happy and fun, but being Emperor is a bigger happy and more fun. Every time a stone balista does 2040 damage in their screen instead of 2000, or every time they change ults and watch the number drop by 5%, it brings up a memory of their time as Emperor. The buff makes very little difference in the overall performance of a character. It makes a huge difference in the personal satisfaction the player has in their character.

The majority of the people complaining about Emperor buffs are those who have not had it nor will they. It's not hard to become Emperor if you put in the time and effort. Most people are unable to maintain leader board, though at campaign reset (especially with more 7-day campaigns), it'll be a lot easier for anyone with 12 hours to play.

Crown

Preyfar wrote: »

AP Farmers are pretty easy to spot. When somebody gains 100-150K on the leaderboards within an hour on an otherwise dead server... and they've got 2-3X the AP of the next player it's pretty easy to see what they do. That and when you come across a random resources where you see a few dozen people run up and suicide at it, then come back again in 5 minutes and do it again... really not hard to spot.

What you describe isn't AP farming, that someone taking advantage of having friends in other factions and for lack of a better word, CHEATING. I have never done this, and if I found out anyone of my crew did so or helped to do so, they would be immediately kicked from my guild.

To me, AP farming is going where the fights are, taking Aleswell farm or Arrius mine and defending it against all odds killing massive numbers of opponents.

Preyfar wrote: »

EDIT: This is a reason I've given up on ever getting Emp. You just can't compete against AP farmers.

You can't compete against cheaters. Nobody can, not the best AP farmer out there.

Regarding competing against AP farmers, there are ways to do so. A good ganker group of 4 can make more AP than a good AP farmer group of 16. If you're alone, you probably won't. The solution, talk to me - or one of the other group leaders for a guild that is known to make good points in game, and see if you fit into our group!

Darnathian

Jakeol wrote: »

I'd like to see changes to place more of an emphasis on focusing on winning a campaign rather than farming AP. As it stands right now the players with the most time available to them are the ones who get end of campaign rewards such as gold master's weapons/set pieces (having high AP earned isn't necessarily a good indication that a player contributed towards taking objectives, thus contributing to score (gankers are a prime example, they do still have their role though)).

With only the top 2% of a faction getting these rewards at the end of the campaign, players with less time available to play or players that prefer to be in smaller groups away from the zerg (such as attacking remote locations, which should be encouraged to some degree) are penalized.

Since the current rewards system rewards the players who farmed the most AP on their faction (regardless of how their faction performed) and the gold (currency) for the winning faction is trivial, why not expand on the current system? For instance, the winning faction and faction that comes in 2nd could have that 2% cutoff expanded significantly, such as maybe 20% for the winning faction, 10-15% for the faction that comes in second, and the last faction getting anywhere from 5-10%. (I believe even if you lose the current rewards system should be more inclusive and that 2% cutoff should be higher, but with more incentive to win). You can also have a low pop faction get a bonus to this cutoff, promote players to fight for a faction that is outnumbered. This 100% needs to happen. Again, the gold is trivial at the end of campaign rewards, the system needs expanding on to rewards more players to incentivize participation to more people than those who just are able to play 8-16 hours everyday.

Also the gold currency rewards just needs to be done away this in its current incarnation, i'd also like to see a fat chunk of AP (several hundred thousand for a month long campaign) awarded to winning factions.

Yes this! You want PVPers to actually try and win and PVErs to come and play have a 7 day campaign or 14 (30 is way too long) and actually give a reward of a huge some of gold or AP. Make it actually worth it to win

Obviously scale the rewards like you do now based off rank. Also give the option when you get a masters weapon to choose which. Lol

F7sus4

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Getting rid of the former emperor passives is a terrible idea! You get rid of that and you get rid of any incentive I had in trying to become an emperor. What a terrible idea!

The problem with "Former Emperors" is that they're mostly PUGS that intentionally used short campaigns, leeched AP all day and night just to wait for proper keeps-taken setup to get the title. Not that they even participated in taking those keeps.

Since I love their attitude, I love to kill them for breakfast. "Empoorers".

Yummy!

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Forward camps are still needing some UI tweaks and heavy testing before being brought back and in case anyone needs a refresher, they'd come back with a smaller respawn radius (keep sized), can only respawn within the radius if you die in the radius, and would have a global cooldown on when you can respawn at ANY forward camp.

There have been talks about making a "meta score" or flat out removing scoring across the board, but those are still in talk phases.

As a follow up to the "can we unassign ourselves entirely?", we would need to put a cooldown\cost on doing that just like the cooldowns on home\guest reassignment. All that being said as well, we will be watching the queues\populations when the guest\home changes occur and see if we need to keep it as noted here or relax it a bit due to concerns you have all noted about Cyrodiil performance and offering a good experience vs. bad.

Darnathian

Preyfar wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

This was AP farming with an 18 person group a few days ago:
.

AP Farmers are pretty easy to spot. When somebody gains 100-150K on the leaderboards within an hour on an otherwise dead server... and they've got 2-3X the AP of the next player it's pretty easy to see what they do. That and when you come across a random resources where you see a few dozen people run up and suicide at it, then come back again in 5 minutes and do it again... really not hard to spot.

EDIT: This is a reason I've given up on ever getting Emp. You just can't compete against AP farmers.

Here's an idea. When arena comes, lol, you battle it out in the arena. First each faction, then the winner of each faction fights each other. The victor is crowned emperor for a week or 2.

Then it is based off skill. Not AP farming.

Then instead of keeps and scrolls counting for points towards winning the campaign, they count towards AP or gold. People will try then.

You want to spread people out Brian here you go. Make ever keep actually mean something. Yes I will consult with your creative department.

[snip]
[edited for bashing]

Kloud

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics, however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

What does this mean the itch you speak of! talking In riddles or maby I'm dumb probably the latter xD