Read, think, comment. Nothing could be simpler: http://j-u-i-c-e.hubpages.com/_esforum/hub/wellappointedbandit.

I agree that level scaling is something of a necessity. I think you could argue for less of it - like in Morrowind, and just have certain areas that, at least at the beginning, pose a significantly greater (and infact impossible) challenge for lower level characters, with other areas that become less dangerous as you grow in power.

However, I think the real problem people have is leveled loot. In Skyrim I often encounter bandits, or other miscreants that I can dispatch rather quickly with the odd one included that turns out to be surprisingly skilled (does more damage, needs to take more to be killed), and that works out just fine. But I kind of resent how I can do the Thieves Guild chain to get really cool armor, weapons, etc. which are then rendered obsolete within a few levels. Nevermind that I can make the best items in the game by myself without even leaving Whiterun, provided I've got the cash on hand.

The problem with Skyrim's scaling, in my view, is the rewards - not the monsters or the combat itself.

It was a decent article. I don't mind level scaling in Skyrim so far. It doesn't seem as obvious as Oblivion's and I'm still struggling for riches at level 35. I wish there were more high level static creatures/areas that gave you some great rewards and also kicked your ass if you aren't ready for them. As much as I hate to run out of a dungeon, the sweet taste of a later victory is always worth waiting for.

I didn't start the storm cloak quest until late in the game and these imperials are like not leveled at all? They die instantly. Other than that it seems like most things were done well.

I think this is really the same problem as the Well-Appointed Bandit, only applied to quest rewards.

Like leveled enemies, Bethesda really only has a couple of options here: make quest items statically leveled or make them dynamically leveled. If they make static items those items are either going to be ( a ) too powerful and unbalance the game at lower levels ("Hur, this quest reward makes my character too uber! I can kill everything with 1/2 a shot! Now I've got nothing to look forward to!") or ( b ) too weak and thus useless at higher levels ("Wow, thanks a lot for making my reward for this quest a piece of trash, Bethesda! C'mon, get it right!".) If they make them dynamically leveled, based on the player's level, then when they get them they will be appropriately leveled (neither too strong nor too weak), but become progressively weaker over time; which means they suffer exactly half the number of problems of static items.

The only way a static item is going to be better than a leveled item is if you manage to get it at that 'sweet spot' where it's just a little better than it should be. After that, it's exactly the same as the leveled item, since it's not going to get any better and you're going to outgrow it exactly the same way you outgrew that leveled item. The thing people don't seem to understand is that once a leveled item enters the game world, it is exactly the same as a static item. You're going to outgrow either one of them unless you make it a god-item. Should all quest items be god-items?

The only option I see is to make quest items level with the player, so that if they get it at 10th level, it's a tenth level item. Every time they level up, it gets upgraded along with them, so at 20th level it becomes a 20th level item. The problem with this is that once you have a powerful quest item that continues to become more powerful as you level, there's nothing left to look forward to; all later rewards become redundant. I'm not sure there's any solution to the problem of leveled enemies/loot that is going to satisfy everyone. The best solution is probably just to have 'quest zones' that work the same way as encounter zones, with some quests presenting much more challenge than others and rewards that are similarly scaled past your level; but that doesn't solve the problem, it just delays it. Skyrim already has dungeons like this in any case so I'm not sure how big a difference it would make. Ultimately, whether its static or leveled before you find it, sooner or later you're going to outgrow it unless it's already the best item in its class. It which case, your game is over in that area.



There are some zoned dungeons like that. I've had to leave some of them. Should there be more? I don't know what the numbers are, but there has to be a good mix of novice/apprentice/adept/expert/master dungeons to keep everyone happy. I'm sure there will be more challenging areas in the DLCs.

Static dungeons seem like a good idea at first, but I'm not sure they're in the best interest of the game in the long run. If I make 10 characters, that static dungeon might be really cool the first time, still pretty cool the second time, and progressively more boring over time. By the 10 character you can be sure I'm hating playing that dungeon. I'm not saying that leveled encounters are perfect either, but at least there is some variability and unpredictability.

What Bethesda needs to do is come up with more sophisticated ways to make dungeons dynamic. My vote is for dynamic dungeons: basically, when I enter a dungeon, it might be one of three or four different presets that are slightly different, the way character presets are slightly different. Maybe when I enter it with one character it has an extra room or one of the passages is blocked and replaced by a second passage. If you combine that with leveled creatures and loot you have dungeons that are a little different every time you play them, but that still allow the developers to personalize them since the differences aren't that great.

I'd combine the dungeon presets with evolving dungeons that basically allow things like: a cave-in or a new tunnel being opened or maybe flooding, etc., also implemented as presets. When one of these environmental changes occurs, the dungeon could be completely repopulated with a different type of enemy.

Thanks to both for taking the time to read.

As already eloquently stated above, Bethesda can't win either way. If you don't level quest rewards you become uber-powerful from the start. Even though, even at low levels, the armor or weapons gained from faction quests completely outclass anything you're going to find/buy for many, many more levels. One could say, well, make the quests so hard that you can't complete them at low levels then a non-scaled reward would be earned. The problem with that is then you either have to keep working all the faction quests at once to be leveling up so you can finish even one, which may well go against the character being RPed, or you have to grind in the wilderness forever to complete even one quest line. And who plays TES games to grind?

I wouldn't mind if there were a few static artifacts out there that are guarded by ancient dragons or super powerful daedra or something though.

One thing that seriously irks me though? I'm at level 36 in a Dwemer dungeon, I find a novice chest, pick the lock with ease and find a pretty sweet magical glass sword. Deeper into the dungeon I stumble across a master chest protected by traps and think, oh, man, even though my lockpick is low I have to get in there. I proceed to waste 10 lockpicks and a lot of time for... 21 gold? Really? I'll just drop that in with the other 31,000 gold I'm carrying and move along I guess.

I know how to fix it the problem.

Make faction's take 2 or even 3 times as long to complete, with a ton more content. Rewards given should have 'personality', and be unique, but not necessarily crazy powerful. At the end of each faction quest-line, give an 'uber item' that is not scaled or is only very lightly scaled to your level. That way you had to work for it. Also, take an idea out of Morrowind and have each faction have a required set of skills (i.e. One-handed weapon, block, heavy armor, two-handed weapon) and require you to have at least one of those skills be at a relatively high level before you can accept the later quests of a faction, to the point where if you want to do the last Companion's Quest, you need one of their 'required skills' to be at level 90, with a couple others at, say, 40.

I think part of Skyrim's problem really is pacing. You can do everything too fast, and in some cases too easily. It is incredibly unrewarding to do the Thieves Guild stuff, where starting it at level 2 you could end it by level 6, and then there's still dozens of levels left in the 'average playthrough'. The current system is just too unrewarding. And, not to beat the Morrowind drum, but I think that the way loot worked in that game was the best.

I find Skyrim to have the best level-scaling of the series. On the overworld, I don't even notice it - Frost trolls, Snowy Saber Cats, Wolves, Giants, and all sorts of creatures can be found.

The biggest complaint against level scaling that I keep seeing bandied about is "Why is it easier to kill Dragons at level 5 than Bandits at level 40?! That's Ridiculous!"

I can see two ways to answer that:

1. If you're saying that the bandits are too powerful at level 40: Keep in mind, they're human (Or elf, or lizard, or kitty-cat). Want to know what else is also Human (Or Elf, or Lizard, or Kitty-cat)? You. Unlike you, though, these bandits have "Wrecking Adventurers, merchants, and other wanderers" as their job description.

2. If you're saying Dragons aren't strong enough... Well, while you may have the body of a mere man, you're pretty much the Prince of Space to dragons. At the beginning of the game, the Jarl of Whiterun's housecarl comments that the dragon fight was one of the hairiest she'd been in: This is someone who can wipe the floor with your puny self in combat. After all, "Wrecking dragon's [censored]" is in your job description.

There's kind of a Rock-paper-scissors thing in Skyrim's adventuring system:
Dhovakiin beats Dragon
Dragon beats Bandit
Bandit beats Dhovakiin.

If there's anything the past TES games have taught us, it's that humans are notorious for kicking the asses of Demigods (An Imperial Battlemage recruit took out almost all the forces of the Daedric Princes... by himself)

As far as a fight with a bandit - here's some dialogue of a fight between Dhovakiin vs. Bandit Chieftan

Bandit: Looks like you chose a bad time to get lost, friend!
Dhovakiin: You fool! No dragon can stand before my blade!
Bandit: I guess I'm glad I'm not a dragon, then. *Runs the Dhovakiin through*


Alduin: Om Nom Nom Nom.

Keep in mind: While the game is "open world", it weaves an emergent, linear story from your experiences. The only story I've ever read when the Hero ran from a single battle just to come back to the same place and exact revenge when he's stronger is the Half-Life: Full Life Consequences saga.

As far as the guild quests: I think they're well-enough designed and thought-out as-is. Arbitrary skill requirements would just be stupid, considering that:
To become the leader of the Dark brotherhood, you:
Who's going to argue that you shouldn't be leader of the Dark Brotherhood?
To become "leader" of the Companions, you:

I think the title of Harbinger is quite well-earned in that case, regardless of actual level.

I've not done the College of Winterhold or thieves' guild yet. Sure they may be short, but only if you're ambitious and directly take the path to power by cutting through red-tape and getting [censored] done instead of being a 9 to 5 Radiant Questor hoping to be eventually acknowledged for your contributions. I like the new approach to the guild quests

Easy solution for too powerful gear: level/stat requirements. And make sure that the most powerful items are really hard to get, so you don't have the problem with finding early the best gear (but even if you find it, so what? you can't use it anyway for a long time).
The daedric quests are awful: easy to finish them and the reward is scaled (afaik), and a weak daedric artifact is really immersion breaker.

Other thing: Static level dungeons can be interesting replaying-wise if you have enough monsters to vary it up. Skyrim doesn't have enough, so they respawn a bandit marauder with insane stats instead of a bandit to keep things challenging. They just went with the easy way.

Here's a situation they can probably improve. Scale the lock level to the loot level. One of the reasons why people play thieves is to get access to extra loot. Not much good if the loot isn't worthwhile.


I agree that quest rewards should have personality. They should offer some sort of advantage you simply can't get from any other object in the game. How about a helmet that causes wolves to follow you around attacking your foes? Not followers, just a change to their AI that can create interesting situations. Walk around the wilderness for a bit, collect some wolf followers and walk into a bandit camp. Or, how about a circlet that causes paralysis in trolls? Or a pick axe that has a random chance of collecting ore from depleted mines? Give these kinds of objects an interesting back-story and custom models and textures and you have yourself something different. This is where static objects are appropriate and useful. They can be useful without being game-breaking.

I'm not as fond of the minimum skill levels, but I'm not opposed to it either, as long as it all occurs behind the scenes. ("Come back when you have more experience.") I think players should be given a way to demonstrate they are ready even if they don't have the minimums, though, just to make things interesting. Don't tell the player what that is, but provide clues that let him discover the shortcut. For example, if a guild leader likes to hunt sabre cats, let the player give him a pelt as a sign that he's ready. Drop clues in conversation and decorate his room with a stuffed sabre tooth. "When I was your age, I was already hunting sabre cats..." Give the player a chance to figure it out. Maybe even make passing a Speech test a requirement. For that matter, if the player passes a second Speech test, have the quest giver give him something that will be useful and directly relevant to the quest. There are all kinds of ways these things can be improved.


I agree that a lot of players have a very dismissive view toward bandits. Why should they necessarily be less powerful than the player? Maybe that bandit chief was an adventurer before he got lazy and started a gang. Maybe he was in the army but found out he couldn't handle authority. Maybe he's a mercenary that can't find work. These are exactly the kinds of people who would take up this kind of lifestyle. I expect a lot of bandits to be tough, dirty fighters. That sort of is what they do. Not hard to believe one of them could give my player a run for his money.

And the leveled dragons are a separate design issue entirely. They can't be made too powerful or quest progression ceases. And if all you want to do is sit down and play the main quest, not being able to beat the dragons to unlock the shouts is going to seem like a HUGE design flaw. Could they be better? Yes. I think a great way to fix that is through the difficulty slider. Playing on Adept or less, leave dragons as is, and just up their strength so that on Master they are every bit as deadly as you expect them to be. People playing on Master are expecting that kind of challenge and can handle it. Those aren't the people the main quest has to cater to.


Nothing personal, but I'm not overly fond of minimum stats. It doesn't really solve the problem that it's designed to solve: sure you can find it, but you can't use it. How is that different from not having access to it until...you're ready to use it? Just drop them in a high minimum level encounter zone and be done with it. If the player can get it, let him have it.

I do support minimum stats for things like weapons and armor though. I'd be happy to have a system that penalizes my 90 lb mage for swinging a greatsword. There's no way to do that with the current system, because there are no attributes anymore, but you could do it with a mod that adds new perks on character creation: eg. slim build, -15% damage for two-handed weapons and half-weapon speed, 10% chance of dodging attacks or some nonsense like that.

And I think the issue regarding Bethesda taking the 'easy way' isn't that simple. Creatures are incredibly time-consuming and expensive for developers to make. High-poly sculpts, low-poly game meshes, normal map baking, complex texture pages, animations and AI. Very expensive from a developer's perspective. That's why you don't see all of the creatures from earlier games ported over. It's just too much work and expense.

The difference is the joy of finding a powerful item even if you can't use it yet. Finding a glass dagger at level 40 is not really satisfying, and knowing that at level 10 you have zero chance to find glass is sad. Besides, as you said, it's stupid that I'd have the skills to be able to use it at low levels anyway or without serious penalties.

About creatures: I used to work in the game industry so I know it's hard but not as hard as you'd think. Making a brand new monster with mesh and texture takes a day or two, but to customize it (especially textures) and make 20 version of it takes little time and yet we don't see much variety, only bears with different colors and that's about it. It just wasn't a high priority for Beth, they knew it's about ok for the casual players and the modders will make more content for free for the hardcoe players anyway. They went with the absolute required minimum like the rest of the developers, and honestly I can't blame them, it's just sad to see that as the gfx complexity and the required work and resources to make it happen go up, the games get simpler, shorter and dumber.

Good to get some insight from someone who has been in the trenches. I'd love to know what you worked on.

Finding that glass dagger at level 40 might not be satisfying if you've already found equivalent or better stuff. The problem is that it's relative: if glass items had always been really hard to find in ES games, people would get a lot more excited about finding them, no matter the level. If you can go down to the shop and buy one, or find one on a bandit, it's no big deal.

I agree that if you already have a bunch of stuff close to that in strength it doesn't seem nearly as impressive, though. Maybe they should have a half-dozen chests scattered around the map at the start of the game, some of them trapped and locked, others guarded by tough beasts, and others that require a bit of magic to obtain. The scaled item could be adapted to the player's skill set (eg. something more appropriate for thieves in the locked/trapped chest, etc.) and slightly over-leveled so that it's useful for at least a few levels. I'd probably do it like this: if the player joins the thieves' guild and his highest skills are stealth-related, activate one or two of the thieves' chests in the game world. Don't make them quest-related, just put them out there in unexplored dungeons for him to find. If the player joins the Companions, activate a different pair of chests. If he joins the mages' guild, activate a different set of chests, etc. Over time, as the player levels, more of these chests could be unlocked and the items inside could be leveled to the player at that time. That would be possible with Radiant. Forcing the character to unlock them by leveling but never knowing where they will appear or what will be inside provides the best of both static and leveled, I think. Then, every time they release a new DLC they could add a couple more unique items to these special level lists.

As long as there is hand placed legendary loot in some of the dungeons, I am good to go even if I wade through a bunch of junk loot to get there.

Bump cuz I find this thread really interesting and hope the discussion might continue.

Thanks, UFC.

In case anyone misses it in the torrent of posts, I've published another article:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1297326-article-a-tale-of-two-exploits/

Feel free to continue the discussion in that thread.

Level Scaling is great when it's done right and I think Skyrim has the perfect balance.

The author makes a straw man argument against static enemies by saying that it wouldn't work with respawns.
"Cant have hand placed enemies because once you kill them all the game would be over herpherp"
I see no reason why you cant have the level scaled enemies be put into a dungeon after the hand placed ones are killed.

The troubles on adding respawns with static enemies:

Even so the system in skyrim right now is that the dungeon doesn't level up after you enter it the first time... so after you kill the first set of randomly generated nameless bandits a second set of another group of randomly generated nameless bandits around the same level as they were the first time you entered the dungeon spawns. So we have the same issue that the author pointed out we would have had with static enemies only we didn't get to kill hand placed, interesting, uniquely named bandits the first time.

I would rather have the first time, the first play through, be unique and interesting with unique weapons and characters rather than have it always be randomly generated based around my characters level.

Their answer as to why static levelling is impossible is that the same types of creatures have to respawn, or that levelled lists have to be used to ensure diversity. They do know you can have a list of spawnables without the levelled part right?
Uh... why?

^Pretty much this.^

More tough enemies please. When I can take 5 hits from a Giant or fight an Ancient Dragon face-to-face, it's obvious we need tougher enemies.

That said, I think it's more about the combat system than enemies damage ratios and AI. I was playing Arkham City before Skyrim came out, and I really think Bethesda RPGs need to rework their entire combat systems to bring the action up to the standard of recent action games. Basic improvements like proper countering, parrying and even clashing of swords and spells would help add depth and technique to the combat. That's not to say we need QTEs though, but some greater, "meatier" violence and control needs to be added. Decapitating people at random in Skyrim is all well and good, but when Batman performs those bone-crunching moves on henchmen, that's both awesome and quite sickening. Also, whatever happened to people's legs being used offensively. Ever seen 300? THIS.IS.SKYRIM! :mohawk:

Set the leveled lists to generate spawn chances based on a virtual population.(Instead of player level number, put population number) Let the system to monitor population to change spawn rates. Also add the prey-hunter link. Some sort of phasing chances, cycling lists would spice it up.

http://i.imgur.com/dPoZ5.gif

http://www.mathscareers.org.uk/_db/_images/predator-prey.jpg

An ever changing world. It is amazing how balanced and realistic real world can be!

I'll give it this, I like the title. "The Well-Appointed Bandit" sounds like a wonderful old English children's story... Or a dirty old English limerick...

What does Bethesda say the point of scaling enemies is? To offer a challenge no matter your level?

You don't have to scale every single opponent in order to do that, and why would you? Why in God's name do bandits have to be a continuous challenge? All you have to do is have a few creatures that scale with you throughout the whole game (dragons maybe?!?!) and then stop scaling everything else where it makes sense to stop scaling them. There should be ZERO level 46 bandits in my game. I should wipe the floor with them by the time I get to that level. If I want a challenge all I got to do is find the nearest dragon.

I recently went to a dungeon with my stealth character. Saved at level 13 right at the entrance. Used console commands to max out my archery and sneak. Cleared the dungeon with both characters. I did more damage to the bandits with my level 13 than I did with my level 30 something. That is BAD GAME DESIGN.

The fundamental flaw I see with this article, and level scaling in general, is the notion that the player should have a fair fight anywhere they go. It's an open world game, therefore the player can travel anywhere at any time, therefore the player should be able to fight and win a suitably challenging battle that is tailored to their level.

I say this is silly.

The player isn't entitled to a fair fight. They should EARN it. The player should find places that, quite simply, are suicidal to enter. You shouldn't go to a crypt at a low level and think "I can do this, the worst I'll see in here is an enemy that's about as tough as I am, plus lots of sword fodder", rather, you should see a crypt at low level and run the hell away because you will be horribly murdered by undead abominations that you can't hurt. An open world should not automatically equate to every part of the world obliging the player by stooping to his level. There should be quests you cannot do, places you cannot go, until you become powerful enough to survive there. Unlike a linear game where you are literally "stuck" if you are not powerful enough to continue, the open world should be designed so that the player can travel to other areas at their level and continue honing their skills until they are ready to move up to greater challenges.

It should be a personal accomplishment to finally reach the end of The Cave of Sinister Badness, not only because you killed the Superbad Boss Monster but also because it's the culmination of days of gameplay just to reach a point where you can get in the front door and not die instantly. That sense of personal accomplishment is utterly missing in both Oblivion and Skyrim. In fact many people advocated designing your character to NOT level up while doing Oblivion's story, because quite frankly it was easier at level 1 and there was no barrier whatsoever to a wetback completing all the momentous events seen in the plot. Which is insanity.

Here's the quote you mean:

I thought it was fairly clear that I didn't consider that the only option, or even a serious one.


Yes, I already mentioned that option:

My mistake was failing to point out that it could be either a statically leveled list or a dynamically leveled list. In either case, it's still a list. They're not hand-placed anymore.


You're correct: dungeons in Skyrim use statically leveled lists after the first play-through. (As far as I can tell, and assuming they use encounter zones.) They also have minimum levels. The difference between an encounter zone and a static dungeon is that with a static dungeon you can't be sure what level it will be set at before you enter. With an encounter zone, the first time you enter it will always be at least your level or higher. I never said that dynamically leveled lists were perfect. As far as respawning enemies goes, they're about as good as statically leveled lists. The issue is whether or not you like your enemies scaled to your level the first time you play a dungeon. Neither list is original, hand-placed content anymore, but...


Your last line is a good point. Of course, it's much more labor-intensive to create a game of this size this way. If you're making a linear game with significantly less content, you can get away with it. Much harder to do when there are hundreds of locations + an enormous exterior map. Having worked for over a year on a total conversion, I can appreciate the scale of the task. Leveled lists were invented to reduce work-load as well as control game balance. I don't think anyone on these forums can really say whether or not Bethesda has time to place every single spawn and object by hand. It's all speculation in this regard. My own writing included.

My problem with static dungeons is that I don't necessarily want each dungeon to be the same each time I play the game. To me, that feels too linear. In Oblivion, if I go through a dungeon at a different level with a different character, the spawns are going to be different than they were the last time I entered. Yes, they will be drawn from the same type (bandits/undead/etc.) but they will be different versions of that type and present a different challenge. The differences might be slight, but the differences between multiple playthroughs of hand-placed dungeons are nil. The argument between hand-placed and dynamic lists is mostly pointless and comes down to personal preference. Would you like your repetition now or later? The real issue, as we know, is level scaling.

What happens if I out-level half the dungeons in a statically leveled game? Have I just made half of the locations boring facerolls? I guess I could pick the other half of the dungeons the next time I play. Or, there could be just enough dungeons to level me up each time I play, but if they're statically leveled that means I have to play the same dungeons in the same order each time = linear. If I go into one that is too hard, it means I have to go shopping for a different dungeon and hope it's not too hard too. What if I spend hours wandering around in frustration looking for a dungeon that isn't too hard for me? Understand that I'm not saying that dynamic level scaling is better, just that it's different and the devs went with it for a reason. Neither system is perfect.


Which is why I need to get more than four hours of sleep at night. I made the mistake of confusing static level with hand-placed in this part of the argument. Obviously you can have locations occupied by statically leveled spawns. That's what encounter zones are. The point I was trying to make is that you can only hand-place creatures and loot once. Once it's gone, anything that replaces it has to come from a list, whether that's statically leveled or dynamically leveled. It's no longer any more original than any other list at this point and the difference it makes to the player in terms of warm fuzzy feelings of custom craftsmanship is negligible. But refer to my comments to Rajy above. The issue is really leveled vs non-leveled lists, ie. level scaling.


Not disagreeing, but every game is different. Time and resources are limited. Could Bethesda 'bring the action up to the standard of recent action games'? It would be awesome if they could. Of course, they're not working on a linear game and the content demands and gameplay requirements are entirely different. I haven't played Arkham City, but I understand it's more open than Arkham Asylum. How does it compare in scope to Skyrim?

Sorry, it's late and I'm exhausted. I'll have to reply to the others tomorrow. My replies tonight probably seem pretty lame, too. Thanks for everyone's replies. You're helping me to understand the issues better, which is sort of the point. Not my intention to rub anyone the wrong way.

Has been done in Oblivion with Planes. There were IIRC 6 basic outdoor outlets. The interiors were random as in each door had several maps to lead to randomly. This can be done for normal caves, too. But this would led to generic dungeons again as best of both worlds probabyl won't work in a timely, moneyish manner.

I prefer the static item way. Make the item too uber and useful, and I can use it forever if I choose to. If I don't want to be too potent, I won't use that item. This series is all about choice, and taking away the choice to be uber powerful (which some people really like) kind of undermines that feeling for me.

And on the topic of difficulty, I think there's a good balance now. Sometimes I'll be in a dungeon, easily cutting through everything, and some crazy powerful draughr or something will wreck my day. Won't even see it coming. Then again, I'm not playing with anything but non-cheating enchantments and my smithing isn't maxed out. Keeps the difficulty level. Dragons, though -- you can say that they don't pose as much of a challenge because I'm the Dragonborn, but they're really not a challenge for anyone. I've seen a small group of bandits kill a dragon. Guards kill dragons. Dragons aren't really all that scary, and I feel like they should be scarier than giants which are currently the only thing that still make me think twice.