Game Teams Request - Feedback

[Voltric-DN]

There is something else I would really like to see changed. It is a simple change, but I believe in my heart every Cleric out there would agree:

✨Add HEALING BOOST to Ultimate Fierce Katalam Mystic Accessories✨

I spent weeks farming Legendary Blood Marks in Katalam for this Ulti set, as I was told it was the best PVP set I could buy. Only after purchasing several pieces did I realize, there is literally NO WAY to RNG a set with Healing Boost stats. I am a HEALER. What good is a set that doesn't boost my healing abilities? Why should other classes get the full benefit of their Ultimate Fierce Katalam accessories, but the Clerics are forced to farm two entirely different sets just so they can PVP and do their job???

[TSin-KT]

Other than RNG and Kaisinel event, Can we have an event or more resource for Manastone Fastener or Blessed Manastone Fastener? used all and still have some slots not opened yet.

[Lavin-DN]

I used to support this game. Spent tons of $$$ for this game but i literally stopped playing and spending money anymore until they do something about : 

1.) HACKERS

2.) put more ways or events to obtain ULTIMATE TRANSFORMATION (i just wish they didn’t remove running, casting and attack speed scrolls)

3.) RNG (enchanting gears to +15 sucks!

and so many more... so if NCWest really cares about their players, considering this games is slowly dying, people are leaving one by one and new players are not happy and convinced to try this game then you people should do something about it. LISTEN to your players since keeping this game alive is all because of the people the plays this game. Just my 2 cents! Aeraluma my friend!

[buknoy-DN]

PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG

 PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG

Perhaps just get rid of the pin code verification since we already have the authorized IP verification. Maybe this will fix it.

 

[Cifer-DN]

Also make it possible to put EXP Mark and Pvp/Pve enchanment stones in the account warehouse too like what  happen on the fighting spirit fragment.

FIX the PIN BUG Too its annoying

[Nalariel]

Well I'll talk something about stigma system since I don't know anything else about current Aion

Beside more relaxation like 4.8 I want them to add diversity of some classes stigma.
-Ranger stigma could be a bit of confusing so maybe why don't we change some stigma or add pet stigma for tanking mobs for ranger ? I mean sure if you're an experienced ranger you could jump shots and kill elites but what about people who couldn't ?
Pet is an easy answer for a ranger it will make class easier to solo for everybody who doesn't know how to do jump shot(I don't think it will make a different in pvp it only help solo ability of ranger)
-Chanter I would like them to go back as a buffer (That attack/cast speed buff is almost useless at this point since legendary transform is a standard requirement for this point),it should offering ability that transform can't give maybe allow attack cast over cap limit  Alternate ways instead nerfing attack/cast speed of transforms we can do many such as increase mp cost of skills/lower mp pool,increase CD of skills,decrease mp healing from pots I find it's kinda dumb you can spam anything without ever running out of skills.Actually you will find really tired if u spamming too much.Weaving/auto attack helps u relax your hands instead full spam keyboard(and probably longer life of your keyboard too saving money xD)
-CD of healing mode and dps mode buff I already said this but yeah reverse to original cd and not passive instead put cd on switching gears instead should be more acceptable for people.
 

I can't figure anything more so I'll post more when I got some more ideas

Thanks everyone for liking my previous comments ^^

[Bluebeard-KT]

9 hours ago, buknoy-DN said:

PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG

 PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG

PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG

 PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG PIN BUG

 

 

[Minimus-DN]

It would be great if you provided information about the enchantment rate for all items in the game, and also about minion combination rate.
And I would like to see the value of runestones buffs without having to equip it (like in runestone description).

[Atilas-KT]

well this game need really take care of the not animation hackers.

we need a way to get ultimate tranfo is just too hard, its no way get one for a new players in a decent period of time.

stigmas enchant rates like korea and eu i just feel scammed in the last "EVENT" 40 fail in a row +9 to +10 

ànother way to get enchants how a new player can lv up his gear those days

 

[Thronos-DN]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the overpriced items in your store (enchants, stigmas, luna, transformation scrolls) and lack of various items we don't get that other regions do.

If u look and compare the BCM to the BCM in the Korean region and our LUNA price to their QUNA they have way more variety of things and much cheaper. Every single Korean I know in this game that lives in North America tells me in Korea it's much easier to gear because the store items are much cheaper. That's why they have multiple geared alts in Korea and people could barely gear up 1 character let alone 2 in NA server.

Now you're probably thinking, if we lower our prices people will get bored after they are geared and will not buy anything. Wrong. Most people want to gear other Alts too but they can't because nobody who lives in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Dominican Republic, etc will in their right mind pay 2 dollars for a enchant stone only for it to fail enchant. Your prices should be 1/8 of what they are right now. So 0.25 cents for an enchant seems reasonable when you need x100 to succeed. And maybe with this you would also have less people doing RMT.

[Thronos-DN]

Thank God Ashes of Creation is turning out nicely because ncsoft servers are losing players by the droves due to their lack of good management and understanding about what players in the North America region expect in an MMO.

I've been playing this game since the official launch in 2009 and I have seen all the phases from an asmo and elyos perspective. Any sense of accomplishment like Dark Poeta S rank, winning inner fort siege not by numbers but by strategy, crafting the hot heart of magic, crafting a Balic weapon, winning an extendable from Theo labs, bakarma, inner forts or world boss, winning dredgion and many other things has become watered down crafting, watered down PvP, watered down pve, watered down sieges. Anyone who thinks otherwise look up aion between 2.0-3.0 or check the population of private servers during this patch is way much bigger than in official. 

[Squid]

1. What are your biggest pain points in Aion? 

 These types of posts 

Time and time again we have seen these posts and time and time again we have been disappointed with the outcome. They have only been used to improve sales and not the players enjoyment with-in the world because time and time again you keep getting shut down by the changes we need for our region by NCsoft. Till we know NCsoft will be responding to our feedback we will never have 100% assurance that our feedback means anything so people are keeping their messages short and sweet for the most part. Especially those who hang around in-game or on the forums and talk to players of all progression points( think cheese or aly as an example ). Players like these despite me not always agreeing with them or what they have to say they do have the interest of helping people beyond just improving their own progression point. These posts should not just be about giving feedback it is about knowing our feedback is being heard. Pick some of the questions people picked out some of the issues people are having and give us the idea you are pitching to fix it. Players can then chime in which is something i will get in to later.

Cheaters

The punishment is to light. Simply put players are now deciding that taking a 14 day ban for 6mo - 1year worth of progression if you are a f2p player is worth over actually playing the game for that 1 year because even if you got banned you would be behind for over a year anyways so it is better to take the risk.

Playable options

This kind of chimes in to number 2 here if players had actual playable progression it people would not be tempted by the devils fruit(cheating/exploiting/hacking). Questions you need to ask when it comes to playable options is if a player had a monthly sub how long would it take them to obtain all of the below participating in the content.

1. Enchantstones 
2. Manastones
3. Fragments 
4. Runes/the other one 
5. Transformation
6. Kinah 
7. Skill books 

Ask the team knowing full well 8.0 will probably come out next year or December of this year for Korea, Will the players in the NA region reach endgame before 8.0 and information about the new systems/gear it announces invalidates the current methods of gear? If the answer is less than 20% will reach end game then you currently have a serious problem on your hands. All in All the playable options are good if you stay ahead of the curve if you are behind or equal you just go welp...NCwest will give us stuff for free through events so no point participating.

Payable options

For the most part players want NCwest/soft to keep making money because they love this game/other games you create. The issue is when it comes to this the lack of options is a turn off to many who can not afford to pay the amount you need for progression based payments. Some who can only afford say $50 a month would prefer to spend it on things like skins or anything that has a functional use rather than progressing their in game character because it has a 100% outcome. You will find the more payment options you have the more people will spend because you are opening up the options beyond just pay to enjoy end game. 

Afkable/short content options(includes events)

1. Minium vault 3-5 mins 
2. Luna 6-10 mins 20mins if afk
3. SAS 2 mins 
4. Events

These are all features that are better progression avenues than actually playing the game itself. I have friends who have full +15 gear with enchanted stigma's and books who have not set foot inside any instances outside buying skill books from other players. It has gotten to a point where they do not want to bother with actually running content because NCsoft/west are just giving us free progression(all be it late) through not playing/participating in the core gameplay mechanics. Many of these mechanics are 2015 mechanics new games after 2015 do not have these tasks these 2-5 minute gameplay mechanics, They are replaced with free log-in dailies instead of wasting the consumers time doing pointless tasks and then sell the excess players need on the cash shop.

Luna needs to stop being the one solution fixes all. People accept it as so because with-out it and events they would have very poor gear still so it is a necessary evil so they do not fall behind in the game they enjoy. 

 

To me very little needs to be changed to improve and i genuinely believe Aion currently needs less than 10 changes to improve the game and return it to its former glory outside class balance.

[awkward-DN]

On 7/21/2020 at 1:22 PM, Kibbelz said:

@Amarah-KT We absolutely intend to take this feedback and create a follow-up post. The one interim action will be to review this thread with the team, which will be happening later this week. From there we should be able to continue the discussion early next week


 

How'd the meeting go?  Community is looking for transparency and communication, and as you said "later this week" (now, being last week), an update would be very much welcomed.

[Rapier-DN]

and he stated that he expected to continue the discussion early next week. We aren't even yet "early next week".

[awkward-DN]

4 minutes ago, Rapier-DN said:

and he stated that he expected to continue the discussion early next week. We aren't even yet "early next week".

As I'm aware.  Thank you for reading.  Just don't want it to be forgotten

[Squid]

Actually kinda interesting reading it all back and seeing everyone coming up with the same points but totally different views on it and how they could fix the problems.

[sKiks-KT]

Is it a ncsoft joke? you wait years, wait for the game to sink into shit. Players leaving the game. The game has been over for years and now they want to say they want to hear from the community, the community has been shouting informing them about everything for years, you didn't care, now that the server is at great risk of closing its doors, for profit down do you want to try something ?! You rarely do events to entertain players and the event is just for profits, we never saw gms monitoring the game again, you let the bots do what they want ... don't say you can't solve it because you can, because an account fake bot with 8 painters is not normal! you did the shit of the culprits that was going through! if aion ends today for me tomorrow, 2 days ago ... now they want to make a change, i came to ask for help, the community will nyerk ncsoft! if you were worried, the game would never reach that point. They abandoned the game because here there is no "investment" of players like in the euro and in Korea for many skin stores that you don't have the courage to update! now you want to ask for help? you can fool donkeys, but those who play aion for years, know the truth! THE MINIMUM YOU SHOULD DO AND RECOGNIZE THE SHIT YOU DID!

1- Nowadays, the main requirement that everyone looks for when they want to start playing a mmorpg is whether it is F2P OR P2W if it is p2w more than 80% of the players have already given up playing the game. Missing when at the aion store, there were only style items, items from home pets

2- What you need to do is put an end to bots with better anti-fraud, because any child bypasses this system

3- Trying to call new players, for years aion doesn't even care about marketing for the game itself ... they fell into decay!

4- ending the system of having multiple accounts is just one account and it's over!

5- New events, we know that you cannot change the style of the game much because it is like a franchise, but you need to realize that the standard does not apply to the Korean or European standard

this and many other things would have to change to try to improve .... I know this is one of the last sighs of aion in an attempt to make the server not close ...... I particularly have no expectations. You had one of the best mmoprg in your hand and you let it slip, you lost the big audience you had ... you focused on the money in greed and you forgot the fun of the players ... You have to earn more, the players also deserve more attention ... you have to be a two-way street, you have to win and this is reflected in our happiness within the game and happy players are happy investors! think about it !

There are dumb players asking for a transformation event, there is no decent game to play, players wanting ignorant aff events

[skythee-DN]

8 minutes ago, sKiks-KT said:

4- ending the system of having multiple accounts is just one account and it's over!

I don't support or agree with this point but your entitled to your opinion. To qualify that and as I understand it a player is restricted to 2 accounts per ip address so I have 2 for two characters on each a/c and that's it. I took that path so that I can have some variety with party in my somewhat non interactive timezone so I can mix it up with ranger/sin and vandal(s). There may be some reasons a third account could be valid...I set one up once on my laptop so I could see the Asmo side out of curiosity without compromising my main game but long abandoned that as impractical for me as 2  is very often more than enough to handle in concurrent play. Usually I just rotate through the options solo so if my ranger dc in lakrum for example then i just go with sin while heal bow sit. Sure if there's a way to track 10 accounts bypassing the ip address restriction then yes maybe something should be done but since I don't know how bots actually work the various exploits I 'll leave that to the various experts

 

[Cunl-KT]

im fine with most of the game things but the rng. pls reduce (i dont ask to remove) the impact of rng in the game, almost everything gained in the game is at the rng gods' will. increasing rate or making it harder to farm but easier to proc for example.

also here some more:

- we have good events (like stormwing hatching), but ppl missed them. pls send mails about these good events' kick off together with the 'updates to your privacy policy' mail i received recently and havent even yet opened it. just kidding, some trolling but many ppl have missed good events when they took break from the game. these mails will be helpful. over-right any related options, no offense.

- i dont think know if we can do a thing about the hacks and bots. oh pls, police pls help us. or guys, pls at least dont use broker bots, why do u guys need it when having got ton of another benefits from the hack?

after trying the ultimate trans potion, really love it. wish we have more chances to get more in the future, or the best, ofc, the high chance of getting ultimate trans.

players interested in trans fusion rates? here the page (and just another aion powerbook thing): https://aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/transformations

[Vantheria-DN]

3 hours ago, skythee-DN said:

as I understand it a player is restricted to 2 accounts per ip address

This statement is inaccurate. Many people have more than 2 accounts with absolutely no botting involved.

18 hours ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

These are all features that are better progression avenues than actually playing the game itself. I have friends who have full +15 gear with enchanted stigma's and books who have not set foot inside any instances outside buying skill books from other players. It has gotten to a point where they do not want to bother with actually running content because NCsoft/west are just giving us free progression(all be it late) through not playing/participating in the core gameplay mechanics.

To further expand on this good point;

If I successfully complete an AoA normal mode instance and am lucky enough to win the Bursting accessory, then when I retune it, it should not be WORSE than my 6.2 Frostspark belt that I'm using on my 2nd set. We need the patch where we can continuously retune these accessories.

If I successfully complete a PFHM 3rd boss run, it should not be a 20% (if that) chance to get a belt.

If I run 5 SL normal mode instances in a row in a zombie-like state, I should not end up with 2 ancient pve enchantment stones from the 2 times repeatable weekly quest. 2 ancient pve stones? That is NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. It should be a quest every single time you enter the instance AND it should be legendary enchantment stones AT A MINIMUM with a very high chance for ultimate stones.

If I slowly work on collecting and opening transformation scrolls until I get 6 green/greater transforms, I should not be able to combine all 6 and get a green back. It should be a guaranteed ancient transform if I'm using the max amount of combines.

These kinds of examples are the reasons why people just buy accounts that are already geared and/or participate in afk events. The actual game content is not rewarding to grind out.

[Wihaea-KT]

Make transformation contracts and kinah easier to get. Or at least make an event that'll give lots of contracts and kinah. Please. Even the oldest players are stuck with legend contracts while the ones with ulti just got lucky. There are ways to get kinah in-game yet the new players can't really do it because they lack gear and they just get zerged, helpless whenever they farm CK Crystal boxes and the already OP players still get those boxes even though they have nothing to enchant or upgrade at all. They can't even be surpassed at that point yet for a long time if they do have something to enchant. Also, those boxes are rarely there, someone already got them. If players do wait for it to spawn again, (1 hour lol, hourglass maximum is 4 hours. Imagine, about 20 players get them each day and they're already too OP, what about the newcomers?) they'd probably just get zerged. There are lots of bugs too and sometimes there are even invisible obstacles on the way. Like, wth. Please remove those lol. Also, enchanting costs kinah, why not make it free when kinah is "terribadly" hard to get? Just don't make it cost kinah anymore, or at least make it cost less like 1k-16k kinah. Srsly, 200k something? And you'd always fail enchant? While kinah is terribly hard to get? Lol. It's either you make kinah very easy to get (easy to get millions and billion/s) or make enchanting/upgrading/expanding/etc. cost less or just don't make it cost. 

[Calm-KT]

@Kibbelz welcome! Thanks for this chance.

I popped in here and saw this thread and thought I'd give my input to see if I can help at all. I had played this game avidly for many years, more than 8 since 2009. Hopefully, this is somewhat helpful or at least sparks some ideas.

I know RNG has always been a pain point of the game, though we dealt with it for years and that never pushed the bulk of us away. What started to give us resistance when trying to have fun with the game was when we were able to, in any way shape or form, pay real money to end up getting a leg up in the game. Of course, I and many others understand that you have to monetize things to be able to generate the revenue to keep things afloat. 100% makes sense. Though, I believe there are better things in the game to focus on for monetization that would enrich the gameplay and the community.

For example, fashion. It's always been a thing in the back of everyone's mind in Aion. You have to look pretty awesome while playing. It truly enriches the gameplay and, to be honest, the overall feel of the game in general. Over the years I have seen fashion approached as a very passive monetization method. Things like: some skins in RNG boxes, event skins, costume rotations, buy skins for kinah in-game, random decent looking skins from gear that drops from bosses or mobs. Never has it truly been monetized. Skins in RNG boxes and from events become not worth it after the first few boxes/tries, so the only way to get it is passively and get lucky. Costume rotations never caught my eye because whenever I wanted a skin, it was not available. The skins for kinah in-game can be cute or alright, though that's not really monetizing unless you're thinking about how they obtained the kinah in the first place, etc...

So as an alternative, back off of selling things for real cash that give people a stat boost in the game and think about some of these ideas for monetizing fashion in the game. Allowing all players to enjoy the game, bringing more players to the game, and still being able to monetize to some factor. Again, this is only a single idea. I hope it's not expected that I have some winning idea. Just a consideration to have and perspective to take on. I mean honestly, imagine seeing the posts and messages about how Aion PC is no longer pay to win! It'd market itself pretty hard. I know it's something unspoken, though it would pretty much make most private servers fairly useless as well.

Few ideas for fashion monetization...

Of course, the gear we work for in the game should look pretty awesome. We've gotta show off that we beat a big boss or accomplished a PvP goal visibly. Though, literally anything else, take it to the store. By this, I don't mean anything like costume rotations. Remove all other ways of getting skins entirely and have a well-constructed gallery of all the skins in the game in a cash shop, all at a decent premium. Would I pay $50 for some badass skin? Even if it's one-time use? Sure! Once I end up changing gear... Would I buy it again because I loved having it so much before? To be honest, I'd probably reward myself with that. I'm curious what other players would think. Please let me know in the replies! Remember this is given that there is no pay to win items in the store. So your money would primarily be going towards these fashion items. As for "costume rotations", maybe you can take a note from Overwatch and either reward players with themed fashion items for participating or winning in something X number of times or just make them available for a limited time for purchase. How is this different from costume rotations? Well, it builds trust with your community. Once Halloween comes and I grab a skin off the store I will know that in a while when I replace the skin or upgrade my gear I will be able to grab it (or an even cooler new themed one) when it comes back around to Halloween again!

Now, as I said in the previous paragraph, one-time use. Do not allow any skin to be skinned more than once at all, no exceptions. Also, taking on the example of how some subscription games can sell purchased items in-game for in-game currency. Make all of these fashion items brokerable so that the rich can give to the poor. Where the poor do not spend the cash, the rich will for them so that they can make more kinah! I always felt that it was a very smart and economic system. 

Where will these skins come from? There's already a load of awesome skins, dyes, and other fashion items in the game. Many of which I haven't seen in ages and have no idea why. It was always my expectation they would come back and be monetized somehow, though never were. I very much miss them (RIP the shining white crucible greatsword and gear...). Aside from utilizing what is already there, inclusive of the actual look of old but beautiful gear, make more items! Yes, place a bit of focus into making some amazing skins and items. Maybe even have more of those art events that get a user's submissions created as a skin! I know that may be quite a bit of work though, so I can understand why that wouldn't be often at all. Overall what I am getting at is, Aion is a BEAUTIFUL game and it feels as though this has been entirely overlooked.

GG Y'all
- Vinlock

[Arctic]

Thank you everyone here SO MUCH for your feedback. I want you to know that I read through each of these, and have organized them into "categorized albums" to help the Game Team more easily review the feedback. In many cases that many breaking up a comment so that it existed in multiple albums, since many of you had so much to offer.

 

I recently shared an update from the Game Team here, where I detail what we've been up to, and some changes we will be making according to the feedback. Every journey begins with a first step, and I hope (and believe) there will be more to come! We already have our next meeting planned, and intend to follow-up as soon as possible afterwords.

 

We will not longer be regularly monitoring this thread for input, so I have unpinned it. In future threads, we will be asking targeting questions for your input, and using the feedback you provided here to guide our selection. As you should expect though, we'll keep our ear pinned for any new issues/concerns.

 

Thanks again for all the great feedback. It gave us a wonderful launching pad to kick things off from.

 

[Violy-DN]

I usually don't post these things but I'll post this timeIn my opinion, there's a lot of things that need to be changed.

1. Sieges: Sieges are pretty boring right now, it's always the same thing, we barely have pvp, just few elyos go to Gelk to get contribution and few asmos go to Ingg to get contribution, when we had Lakrum we could have a bit of pvp and fun. I suggest to you guys alternate between one week Gelk and another week Inggison, just don't put both fortress vulnerable at same time, if we have different times  we could actually fight for it. No one really try to get Silona and Pradeth because there's no good rewards anymore and this deity is pretty tanky, we don't have any incentive to get those fortress, people just kill mobs and get few kills there. Divine is the same thing, no good rewards too.

2. World Bosses: It's a new patch, more people are getting geared, there’s returning players, new players and old players are already max geared so they don't really anything else in the game, except the dazzling gemstones, runestones and new weapons that drops from world bosses. Most of those max geared players don't give a chance to the rest of players to get loot from world bosses, they don't want 100 people to compete with them and it’s understandable, they worked hard to get max geared and now they are trying to get what they still need in game but the game wasn't made to work like that, right? Asmo side and elyos side should pvp to get world bosses but right now it's like asmo vs. asmo vs. elyos (when they decide to appear, when there’s only few asmos they wipe all really easy since asmos aren’t working together anymore). Most players get unmotivated to keep playing and quit because of attitudes like that and it affects Aion community. My suggestion is to increase world boss hp and also increase loot. Anomos is one of the bosses that dies in less than 1 minute, for example.

3. Pin bug: The most annoying bug ever.

[Briearios]

I just came to give my input. I saw the update thread relating to this. Firstly I would like to say I hope you guys are going to be truly transparent with us. If you know you can't give us certain things, speaking for myself right now I'd be more annoyed if you promised things knowing full well you can't deliver. Saying that I think it's reasonable to say as a casual player with the amount of items we are behind in, you guys can't fully help us before 7.7 hits and there's new gear. So my suggestions would be to help us with the next patch. Increase rng on enchanting gear. This game is not rewarding the time spent it on. You can gather items for 1 month and in 1 day see it all go down the drain and have little to no progress done. As most people stated an ultimate transformation is needed to be useful in most expects in this game. There are 2 now and I think there's more coming. Giving one couldn't hurt. S rank minions are needed. I'd increase the entry counts to minium vault and more ways to get A minions.

I saw the 30% increase when trying to enchant stigmas from +9 onwards. Being honest here this doesn't help anyone but people who spent money on that extremely p2w stigma "event" and didn't get all the +15s they wanted because as a casual player a lot of us don't have +9 stigmas let alone 12. The amount needed to get from 9 to 15 you can't provide us with. Let's be honest here. The retuning cost is a good change and the experience change is also good. Thank you for that. My biggest thing is not being able to catch up and then a new patch comes out and I still haven't caught up. Again you guys said when we got 6.2 you weren't going to focus on events yet the majority of events were p2w and helped those who spent a lot of money get far ahead leaving a lot of people behind and making them take the decision to quit. I hope the decisions you make are actually good ones.