PR linked to NW (in Changelog)

As discussed here and previously, PR is now part of the NW calculation. To quote from that thread,

Basically, everything will count towards PR, except for a weapon "allowance." Since tanks need NW + ST combined to keep dmg growth up, weapon NW up to a point (about 2/3 of all the XP your [character] has trained, since that's easier to calculate inside a trigger than what ST would turn out to be after all the bonuses are added in) doesn't count towards your PR. NW above that cap is counted normally.

If that doesn't make sense to you, just play the game. Or ask bartjan to explain it. :)

To prevent abuse, a cooldown period of 8 hours was imposed: if you unequip something from a minion, you won't be able to equip it back to the same minion for 8 hours. (To be explicit: you CAN equip it to a DIFFERENT minion.) The tattoo lvl penalty has been removed.

No, tattoos aren't counted twice.

Update: there is a cooldown exemption for 5 minutes after you unequip, during which you may re-equip normally.
Update: newbies get a grace period of 3 days before cooldown applies.
Update: before panicking about lower rewards, wait for your opponents' scores to stabilize at the higher levels. This will probably take a day or two.

I wish this post about the cooldown was made before I unequipped my AxBow to see the PR change >_<

/me is sad

3rd

c/p'd from another thread, as it seems appropriate here:

This is outrageous!

Score / PR / MPR: 186,442 / 524,550 / 64,954

I've spent the last 5 months on here enjoying the facet of this game that I've enjoyed the most. That would be camping. I have never sold or bought on item on cb2 for USD, and have only ONCE converted my cb1 cash to cb2.

So here I sit, with a complete inability to tackle anyone even NEAR my PR.

The kicker is, my NW has been spread out fairly well among all my equipment. Yes, my bow is the second largest in the game. Yes, My BoNE is the largest. But take a look at my armor! Over half of my armor items are also the biggest! Why in the world does this seem like a penalization to people who put in countless amounts of hours doing what they enjoy?

The PR now on my farm (Maranello) is funny - went from 50k to 130k +. It's holding on to trinkets for my main when I add minions, but even still - holy cow!

So does this pretty much kill Forgers and Rentals?

Speaking as the most powerful person in the game now, not having fought to see the consequences, I'm shocked and stunned that some rescales did not occur before NW was linked to PR. Seems to me it would be easier to do it before than after to rescale CoBF's, BG's, and Hope To All That Is Good the Mage Shield.

Not sure if this is a sign that those items will not be rescaled or not. If not then everyone will pitch the BG's and MGs into the trash can (which I guess could be the goal) and if they are smart they will add as much NW to their CoBF's as humanly possible as it is the only linear NW progression in the game at a paltry 100K per +.

Now to see what this has done to my rewards.......

I'm surprised by the amount to which NW increases PR. Even po'boy Brock with a $4.5m NW at 240k MPR gained 60k PR. This combined with the tattoo NW exemption would seem to me to put even more impetus on using and relying on your tattoo at first blush.

Just to make sure (a few people I talk to seem to read it differently than I do).

It's xp trained TOTAL, not XP trained into ST, that determines the networth window for weapons, right?

I think this change needs tweaking, not all NW is created equal. But what do I know.

So: I rent a CoI, I wear a CoI, my rented CoI goes back to rentals, I go to rentals and get another day on the same CoI, and it is unequipped for 8 of the 24 hrs. I've paid for?

well camping and fighting together is dead, now i need to pick 1 :(

Sorry Descent, the days of lowbie chars with uber gear are over.

parenthetically, I find it hard to take your outrage seriously when this was pre-announced months in advance and you didn't bother participating in the discussion until now.

I don't like this, now my fight list is polluted with LOW pr chars that shot up to my pr because of their equipment, but when I attack them I get crap rewards, how is the PR matched to NW fair if someone at this level is not giving me fair rewards for this? Or is there something I'm missing yet again?

Questions:
1) A compound and elven bow with the same X an + are weighted the same, or does the compound (due to higher NW) weight more on the PR, even if the elbow actually does more damage?
2) Do the ammos contribute to NW? Namely, does it make any difference if we equip 10 arrows or 10,000?
3) Do tattoos still lose experience if unequipped, or do they use the cooldown instead?

Jon, here is my plea...

Please give new people ( or new chars ) some sort of temp. exemption from this. Its hard to start a new char if you can't put anything on it.... unless you want us all to be mages

please take the cooldown off ammo

Any possibility that the cooldown period for ammo might go away??

Verifiex: score counts too

1) NW is NW
2) NW is NW
3) read the first post in this thread

Jon, is it the XP trained into ST, or XP trained in total that affects the NW window?

burrito: please lay off the crack, or at least don't post in changelog threads until you do

I had no way of participating meaningfully, because I had little idea just how this would effect my character. I can see now that being ranked #11 after this change is a horrible thing, as I wasn't able to see my projected PR, as it was typically the new Top 10.

What is one to do at this point? I have this equipment, with high NW, right? So what do I do logically? I'd sell it. But that only leaves me with an abundance of cash laying around. But that cash really only serves the purpose of increasing NW on items. The only viable solution is to sell everything off for USD. Which is just a little bit funny, because it seems to me that this change would have been an attempt to curb the USD infusion a bit.

I'm over this already.

P.S. My graph can't handle the PR jump. Can I just get a picture of the graph exploding (like in the cartoons) instead?

Does this mean renting tattoos is back?

I actually agree with Burrito to an extent. I will say that it'd be nice if the cooldown didn't apply at least until after their first botcheck and preferably a little later. Give them a little time to play around with ideas before they get blending...

"The tattoo lvl penalty has been removed."

Havent tried fighting anyone yet....=/ here goes nothing.

And we all thought this was a small change month......=P

Tenchi: what part of "all the XP your [character] has trained" was unclear?

Descent: if it were me and I decided to prioritize fighting after all, I'd ditch some of the less-efficient pieces while I got my MPR up. The weapon window is quite large so growing into your weapons will help a lot. It won't fix itself overnight but in all fairness there WAS plenty of warning, as such things go on CB. :)

"... PR is now part of the NW calculation." -- Jon

Just judging from a cursory look at the Stats -> Characters page, I think NW is now part of the PR calculation. Or maybe I just don't get it.

Can the cooldown be changed so that you are free to unequip/equip whatever you want, but your PR is the max() of the past say 5 minutes (or that 8 hours) ?
That should work better for those who threat their minions like Barbie dolls and like to try all kinds of dresses ;)

Also, is it 2/3 of the XP, or 2/3 of the XP converted into a stat?

/me lays off the crack


Question, I'm scared to try it so, is there a timer or anything to count down the cool down time

Does the weapon window include both melee and ranged weapons, or just melee?

Ascent: I'm disinclined to exempt ammo; 5 minutes is plenty to do a merge, and equipping uber-ammo while your BA regens isn't something I'm sorry to see happen a bit less often, if that's what you're getting at.

my fight rewards seem to have gone up. =) And I don't even have a mage.

Now when I attacked everyone in my fight list, I get crap rewards. Not even enough to pay for my ammo. I guess, I won't be fighting any longer.:(

I'm assuming you adjusted clan PR space to accommodate for this seeing as how we magically gained some in Alleviation. Either that or something really weird happened.

Well it would appear the Almuric's statement was correct. That the penalty for fighting lower exemption for top 10 score characters, is limited to fighting within that group of 10 scores, so I apologize in advance for what appears to farming. My list of 50 people I fight is now 8 to have decent rewards (still can't beat Ranger, but Im drawing a bead on markxe, so actually its 7), and I usually burn about 600-1000 BA a day, so well sorry guys, I can only do what the game dictates me to.

One thing I didn't realize would happen, but now will, basically anyone in the top 10 scores who can be beat by the majority of the top 10 list, is going to make his clan suffer. Or at least can be beat by me, their clan will suffer. Those 600-1000 BA a day instead of getting spread over a regular 20-30 and occasional 50 people on my list now gets concentrated into 7.

So Black Belt Jones, The First, Proteus II, Nardo Polo, Spid, Bartlett, and currently Magnus and the clans they are all part of I apologize in advance it is nothing personal.

Still stunned about the lack of rescaling.........

very well, I suppose a no-cooldown period for newbies wouldn't hurt

usually though newbies equip different stuff as they upgrade, it's not like they're going to experiment over and over to see whether the whip works better than the dagger.

My rewards went up, for some reason. At least my XP rewards. And my Score to PR ratio is worse than it was, so I'm cool with this. Thanks Jon.

I think the rewards will balance out in couple days as people get scores increased to higher rates.

Ammo is include in weapon allowance right ?
Why a cooldown for ammo i need to buy ammo at each 3 hour less when i start buying ba?

Duke, work with me here.

the cooldown applies to re-equipping THE SAME ITEM. equipping a different batch of ammo is NOT THE SAME. that's what DIFFERENT means.

(a merged set of ammo is technically not the same to CB, either, but even if it were, you would still be able to merge and re-equip in 5 minutes unless you're trying to control CB by telepathically urging your cat to hit the right mouse buttons.)

Yay, Thanks Jon!

Question, though I think I know the answer, UC obviously does not equip a melee weapon per se. Our weapon is the UC skill. When we up Helm's Gauntlets and that skill we gain x's and +'s on our melee 'weapon.' Since a weapon allowance is given to those with melee weapons (as well as all of us who have ranged weapons) will there be an allowance of some sort given to UC tanks?

" very well, I suppose a no-cooldown period for newbies wouldn't hurt

usually though newbies equip different stuff as they upgrade, it's not like they're going to experiment over and over to see whether the whip works better than the dagger."

Speaking as a guy who was once eager to ditch his heavy leather armor for double chain or a fluted steel cuirass as soon as possible... this will be much more of a benevolent action than you know. :D :D Thank you.

Jon can we please get a <OPTGROUP LABEL="[THE NW OF ITEM]"> on each of the select boxes for the equipment on our minions, so we can see the NW of the item without having to unequip it.. please? It will make it unselectable, and still show us this valuable info. Thanks :)

As in many situations, UC is sort of a problem child there...

the answer is "maybe, but not today."

Gotcha, hmm ... I don't know if I like being the redheaded step child;)

Descent, I understand your outrage...what this means, like with everything else, you need to concentrate NW.

Think of it like learning intrinsic skills like STR and DEX. Even if you had 3-4 nice sized STRs and DEXes, you would get owned by one BIG tank. Armor is the same way now. Let your enchanters be naked, beef up walls and tanks, and put mages somewhere in between.

I know this is a huge adjustment, but we will get our heads around it, I am sure.

My question: How do CBFs factor in? 5 million invested in one CBF can go a LONG way. Is there a NW "adjustment" for certain items? Or is it just base net worth? My question is not altogether silly, since CBFs are the ONLY item EVER to have a linear upgrade curve. Seems there should be some sort factor there. If you are telling Descent "tough" for having so much money in armor, are you then also saying "forget everything you've learned -- buy a CBF and make it huge"?

Verifex: Forge....

Verifex goto forge to see the NW of equipped items.

oh thanks guys :) i forgot about that.

Sry jon i did not look or try for myself i just saw someone that say there were a cooldown on ammo.

So the weapon allowance is per minion right.

Forge works for most, but the items that are unforgeable such as the new HoE and EC's are a problem.

" Gotcha, hmm ... I don't know if I like being the redheaded step child;) "

No kidding. The townspeople already look at me funny. :D I was hoping I could just make myself a disproportionately ridiculous crossbow to soak up the weapon window benefit, but now I'm not sure whether that's even part of the calculation.

weapons = melee + ammo + ranged, sheesh

once more, the allowance is based on "all the XP your [character] has trained."

hint: that means it's not per-minion

The plus to UC players then would be that we can 'uber' our ranged a bit more than other tanks.

Thanks for the begrudging clarification, Jon. CooperTX, you can turn the exclusion of UC to your advantage a little bit then. It's time for me to make the most ridiculous crossbow you've ever seen. :D

Don't use crossbows Mags.. they already sucks, in other ways (even compared to bows without archery)

I like the opportunity to steeply drop the ST/DX of opposing tanks, since they're pretty much my natural prey anyway. It's much more for that than for damage since the damage dealt by me in ranged is pretty negligible anyway.

"The tattoo lvl penalty has been removed."

Just wondering... could the Tattoo artist lower the level of a tattoo for free ( or a small fee ) since we can no longer unequip tattoos over and over to lower level?

So I take it Cloak of Balrog Flame even though it's a cloak, it isn't considered a weapon? Well answer would be that it isn't but still, if you think about it, people do use it as a weapon.

war:
"weapons = melee + ammo + ranged, sheesh"

--Jonathan, 6:59 PM EDT

Devil_Burrito:
could the Tattoo artist lower the level of a tattoo for free ( or a small fee ) since we can no longer unequip tattoos over and over to lower level?
-I've been mulling this myself, and now it really looks like a good idea - my named ToA is exploding faster than I can handle. A fee is worth it.
smallpau1:
Verifex goto forge to see the NW of equipped items.
-As pointed out earlier, you can't forge a tattoo so an old problem has a new face. Tattoo artist could have this info?

I, for one, like the change. I do feel like raw power is better represented using the new formulae.

i thought the tattoo change was terrible i will wait to call this the apocalypse. although i think this change will lead to alot of usd cash outs

To reply to myself : yeah, maybe tattoo NW could be in the artist, but you can't find the NW of an Elven Cloak in the forge, either.
Sell price * 6.25 was proposed somewhere back there? There has to be a better way now that NW is so important =)

Yes, NW for tattoos is sell price x 6.25.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy contains the following entry for "changemonth".

Changemonth: a peculiar invention, originally designed and created on the planet Earth. While its true purpose is not fully clear, scholars generally agree that it was implemented by a homesick freelancer for the Encyclopedia Galactica, who became marooned on Earth after inexplicably forgetting where he had had put his towel.

Despondent over his inability to obtain a proper Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster on the backwater planet, he created a simulation of the drink and embedded it in a game he wryly called "Carnage Blender." Those familiar with the game marvel at the accuracy of the simulation: playing the game during changemonth is said to feel exactly like having your brain smashed out with a slice of lemon, wrapped around around a large gold brick.

It also resembles the drink in that a single experience with the simulation often results in inexplicable addiction and craving for more, "just to see what will happen next," according to one terminally-addicted junkie.

While further research on the simulation is difficult due to the Vogon destruction of the Earth in order to make way for a hyperspace bypass, one cryptic transmission, said to have been salvaged from the logs of the game's chat room, contained this phrase:

Don't Panic!

See also: addiction, masochism, Stockholm syndrome

bart, you make a good point for war, but would you not agree that the CBF has the one luxury of NOT following the "curve" that every other item has to follow? Now that NW is linked to PR, it is even more powerful (translated by Sutekh as "incidental") than before.

Jonathan, more and more I am seeing the CBF as a simple caste barrier. Can you weigh in on this? At least by June 1? Do you mean the CBF to be an initiation? If not, then Sesame Street (I think it was them) put it best: "One of these things is not like the other..."

Why?

Chet:

To paraphrase George Orwell:

All items are created equally, just some items are more equal than others.

LOL.

Sounds like Orwell beat Sesame Street to the punch. *grin*

I can't help but notice that unequipped items increase pr, and I don't really think that should be.

Okay, comming from the position of someone whose NW ISN'T high...

If my character has low NW, his PR remains generally unchanged.

But everyone elses goes up.

Since everyone elses goes up, and they all fight eachother, all their scores go up.

I'm now fighting people with higher scores and winning, just like I did before.

Bigger fight rewards for me.

Right?

AvoidCXT, my unequipped items don't affect my PR - are you sure about that?

One of my lower chars:

Score / PR / MPR: 5,226 / 40,515 / 1,436

I have a reasonable Katana and ExBow on the char, nothing uber or extremely overpowered. I could equally win/lose against the chars around my Score before, there is no way I could even compete against other chars with 40K scores. Doesn't 40k seem a little high? I am not complaining about the change, just want to understand why this change even impacts the lower level chars? Why even have rares if using them on a starting character would render them fodder for prime killing? Why not just restrict rares to certain MPR chars?

Is this it? I haven't really experienced much change in my rewards.

You'll find I'm a huge fan of indirect effects rather than outright prohibitions on this or that, Glory

so yes, indirectly this disencourages uber gear on lowbie chars (and obviously "uber" and "lowbie" are relative terms), but I have no desire to enforce anything more explicit.

I thought so Jon, I myself am a fan of indirect methods of prohibition. I take it then, that this also an indirect way to discourage new players from camping for rares? Because they would be relatively useless to a new player due to this change. They could always sell the items in auctions or in the forums, but large amounts of cash nets them nothing on the game, so, I guess they could still sell the cb2 for usd, so that is still a viable option for new player campers....your thoughts?

New players who camp are

a) wasting thier BA.
b) still able to rent these items to make CB2.
c) so lucky they should play the lotto....not CB2.
d) rare.
e) all of the above.

You forgot another option deifeln...

f) none of the above (your opinion is not absolute) :)

there's no "newbie bonus" to camping, so yes, it's much smarter to spend that time fighting, or forging if you must

Jon: I was having trouble equipping *any* ammo at the time I wrote that, though the problem seems to have resolved itself.

Don't expect anyone to charge up the PR ladder like before. Good change Jon.

And go tanks! w00t!

Unless that uber newbie gear is a jacked-up CBF! In that case, carry on!

Flaming death? Try some!

Is clan Pr cap as been change ?

I think you're misunderstanding... newbies using a CoBF will get penalized _more_ than they would using an large weapon...

No, I disagree. A super huge CBF only needs to be 5-6 million in NW because it's upgrade cost is constant. Even with the 2/3rds cap, I think that could beat out a large ELB of BoNE.

Best bang for buck? Still CBF. How could it not be? It is s single stat with constant upgrade price! That stat gets you defense, offense, and CHICKS! I swear it.

Not sure about the chicks part since they can't touch you wearing that cloak.

DAMMIT! That's the problem....

Just some questions, I can't find them answered anywhere else.

A: Is NW weighted the same for all items? IE: Is a 100k NW DCM and a 100k NW Corn worth the same PR?

B: Should a character that starts with your average gear (say a single tank that gets a decent comp and katana by 75k, and a.. like... steel brig and cab or armet, you know, averageish stuff.) have any problems really?

C: When you made your "Tattoos count toward PR" change, you gave a ratio (I think it was like 75% or so) of tattoo level:pr that was acceptable, or normal, or "where it should be". Can you give us that for our NW? Is there some magic ratio, where our overall NW should be about X% of our pr to have it be on track?

Also, let me throw you a situation, and I'd like your advice.

Let's say I start a character, and say get him to 200k pr, and then decide I don't like him and want to start over. What do you suggest I do? If I sell him off, and his equipment, what do I do with the cash? It doesn't make any sense to sink it into equipment for a new character right? I'm just wondering what you think I should do with it?

With the cash you could buy all the rares you need, but base but would best.

No fair, now I can't level down my ToJ by taking it off. :P

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
bah this sucks hardcore

YES YES YES YES YES.

Now players that equip their minions EFFICIENTLY will be rewarded for their play.

I just read through the entire thread, and I didn't see Bast's questions about rentals answered.

If people rely on rentals, or rent for the heck of it even, at the end of the rental period, their item is returned to rentals. If they rent the exact same item again, are they prevented from equipping it again for 8 hours due to the cooldown period?

Rentals should be exempt from the cooldown penalty.

hmmm...good point.

Undertow:
A: Yes.
B: Nope. I think their weapons for example would fall entirely within the weapon "allowance".
C: That 75% figure was gone the very second that Minion PR was introduced.

Todd, I think my question was answered by the "edit" addition of a 5-minute period during which you should be able to go to rentals, get what you want, and get dressed.

If you are not available to attend to your party when your rental time expires and, thus, lose your 5 minute window, you are apparently supposed to remember not to rent the same item you previously had.

My other comment actually deserved far more attention, since it was the PR stat that changed, not the NW stat. :P

100!

I think this change in all is for the better, once everything settles down a bit. It'll give us another facet of strat design to think about...
Do I pay for that extra + on my corn and is it worth it for the PR/%increase...? :)

101!

and though people fear the change i welcome it :)

102!

I also like this new change! It gets rid of those people with small MPR's who have Uber Armour! as Jon said.

it doesn't get rid of them but just makes their PR higher so they don't only get the bonuses of the high armor but also a downside of it :)

Effectively nerfing the "low level uber gear farm"

Good riddance, I say.

Effectively nerfing the "low level uber gear farm"

those farms were already nerfed in the way that if they get attacked and lose that they don't make money, farms now have to win before making money.

I'm not sure if this was intended or not, but I can re-rent and re-equip the same item outside of the 5 minute window.

This is a good thing.

Fantastic change Jon, definitely your best one to date.

Here's the thing, Chet: for CBF to be continuously useful, it HAS to be linear for the same reason magic damage does. Is that worth leaving things open for abuse by USD spenders? I don't know. So far I'm not convinced otherwise.

Let me see if I am getting this straight:

Since the CBF's main use is to stop tanks, it needs to stay viable up against a type of damage that can increase with NW and with STR. Tank blows generally increase more quickly than linear, is what I think you are saying. If the CBF had an exponential upgrade curve, it would lose ground as the tank blows got greater and greater.

Is that what you are saying on the melee front?

An alternate example would be the MgS, where it's upgrade costs are exponential, otherwise it would be able to fight magic as fast as the mages could grow it. The CBF DOES have that advantage over FB, then. Fireball mages truly are useless against the CBF.

Finally, we have the CBF vs. CBF scenario. That cancels out whether or not the upgrade costs are constant or exponential.

So, of the three things the CBF does (melee backlash, FB stoppage, and opponent CBF cancellation), it is the melee backlash that provides your reasoning to make the upgrade curve constant. For the FB stoppage, the CBF is actually a bit overpowered, and for the CBF cancellation, it is a tie.

Considering all of the things a CBF can provide, I guess I didn't realize it was supposed to be "continuously useful" for the melee stuff. I suppose it is an "all or nothing" kind of thing. Either it needs to be continuously viable or will eventually be pathetically useless.

My final question would be: Now with NW being figured into PR, do you still think melee damage will grow exponentially? If not, then the CBF has the edge...

you're right, the MgS wasn't intended to be continuously useful. It is, IMO, quite useful for newer players where tanks are at a disadvantage vs mages, and that's how it was designed.

"you're right, the MgS wasn't intended to be continuously useful."

*Now* I feel like a fool.

What's this new Mage shield adjustment? No changelog on it?

"$30,820 sent to you after adjusting value of your Mage Shield"

Odd message figuring my cash didn't change at all o,o

I didnt see it mentioned and having no experience with them, I am curious. Named items, does naming add to the nw of the item? If not does naming an item increase your PR since naming grants a bonus to the weapon/armor?

Well, I haven't been a fan of this idea since the day I read it, and I wasn't happy yesterday when I saw it was implemented, but it looks like it's working out. I must say thank you Jon for taking into consideration several of the problems myself and several others had with the link. I'm sure you thought it all through yourself, but thanks for taking some of our concerns into account (like not counting tattoos twice).

I guess all I have to say now is that the PR increase from NW seems a little severe. That's only a first impression though, maybe I'll look deeper into it and try some tests. It does make me a little sad since I think it will mean rentals and forging suffers in the long run since people won't want to jack up their PR too high. I don't mind the rentals as much, but it seems to me that forging adds to the community feel and conversations around here. I guess I'm just being overly cautious.

i didn't read all that, but I just thought, if desc. doesn't spend any more money, his pr will go down as he trains... lol

k... now I read it all...

for those of you that were wondering about the mage shield, it's in armor change 4.... (MgS=mage shield)

His PR won't go down as he trains, it will only increase a little less than his MPR increases.

May I ask a question? Don't know whether it was brought up. I noticed that my pr increased when I sold something on a character. Will it lower by itself or it just keeps going up?

selling items doesn't increase PR

you've got the wrong cause for your effect

Won't this effect rentals in a very negative way?
Who will want to rent an item that adds 400k NW only to have it nerf any rewards they would have gotten? Should rental fees be cut to compensate?

yes, it will affect rentals

rental fees are as low as they are likely to get

I've only rented out like 2 items, so it was just an overall concern.

The main effect of this change is to benefit mages, since mages don't have to rely on high NW to be effective, and a good mage team could defeat a single tank much higher than their PR *before* this change ... mages should start to see a big increase in fight rewards.

Why do you hate tanks, Jon?

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth
and remove all doubt."

Words to live by, blue.

lol cool

amen to that Jonathan. wise words :)

My high school driver's ed teach, also the gym teacher and football coach, used to say "People don't know how stupid you are until you open up your mouth." Same philosophy. Less tact.

blue, just in case Jonathan's reply wasn't obvious enough: this change does *boost* tanks, and nerf mages.
He still doesn't hate mages enough to my liking, but at least CB2 moving into the right direction ;)