Test Discussion Episode 34: Difficulty Feedback

Hello! We would like to approach balancing this episode a little differently.

Instead of us crawling through a bunch of threads for issues regarding difficulty, I would like to consolidate difficulty discussion here. There is a slight caveat in that we are looking for specific information and specific experience to back up this feedback.

This thread is for overall balancing and NOT instance-specific balancing. That means we do not want feedback here (in this thread) that says whether or not the mechanics of a fight are good or interesting or fun or confusing or too hard, etc. That feedback belongs in the individual instance threads, and the content masters in charge of them will look there for it.

This thread is to discuss the following things:

• Are Boss/Subboss/Minion NPCs too easy or too hard?
• Do NPCs take too long or to short a time to kill, and which NPCs?
• Are Event, Normal, and Elite versions of NPCs different enough in terms of difficulty?
• Do you need proper gear, new gear, old gear to play through the new content?
• And more! Any feedback that is broadly about the difficulty of the episode and NPCs as a whole is welcome here.

Please be as specific as possible. The more specific you are, the better we can help address your concerns. Try to describe your character (CR, skill points, gear, artifacts), where you were and what you were fighting, what you saw happen, and what you would have preferred to see happen.

Thanks for the help!

Avair,

Firstly, I will say that my feedback and my points that follow are strictly in relation to Elite content, I will not speak to balancing the difficulty of Event and Normal because I feel those types of content have valid reasons for not having the same level of mechanics and difficulty in place. The pretext to this type of discussion revolves around one fact only and that is Artifacts. It is fair that the existing artifacts will not change but it doesn't deny the underlying fact that artifacts in synergy like the
-Eye of the Gemini
-Manacles of Force
-Scrap of the Soul Cloak
-Powers like Dash Attack, Amazon Deflection
-Strength of Precision Single Target Damage
makes a discussion like this a unique one because its not that we have to balance how hard an npc hits etc its that we have to balance it around groups having group shield supercharges in rapid succession throughout an entire fight in addition to that any hit they take through the supercharge would be halved with the manacles and this is also in addition to the multiple DPS in the run being able to take advantage of heavy hitting damage supercharges of their own. The ONLY and I mean ONLY way to have a balance is to take the effects of these artifacts into account and to plan accordingly for them. I also don't need to have players quoting me that well that's only with artifacts at 160 and not every group has them etc. Artifacts are the new driving force of this game and just like events of GU36 or Stats Revamp it is now Artifacts and their synergy in group set ups. There is plenty of opportunity for players to rank up artifacts if they are specifically intending to complete Elite content. With that in mind the type of extra mechanics that generally need to be looked at being included in all forms of JDA raids is preexisting mechanics such as the Manta bombs and the Murk gut hook skull. The manta bombs ignored all form of shield so you had to complete the objective or you died it was as simple as that because you couldn't be rescued or bailed out by a healer using a supercharge. The Murk Gut Hook was also a great exemplar of this because it also ignored shields and brought you as a tank down to a specific amount of health regardless of your personal circumstances or artifacts. If the game now presents the opportunity for players to have group shields capable of absorbing enormous amounts of damage every 30 seconds or less and when the artifacts are in synergy it is much less than 30 seconds than the only way to balance is to have routine mechanics that would counter such a setup.

Regarding Fellowship of the Arcane Elite Difficulty

• Subjugated Dr Fate has no real danger associated with his teleport attacks, they are easily ignored with a group shield and the only risk comes if he teleports twice on the same player but if that player was blocking originally they would still be at no risk.
• The DOT from the electric arc between the pillars is too small to matter as well it is easily covered by HOTs or a Shield from either the controller or Healers
• There is no way for a player to die running the Library scrolls unless they intentionally walk into a Eye bot, they move slow enough and are easily visible so it really just turns it into 3min of running in and out of rooms
• The extra npc's in this fight present absolutely no risk to the group unless the tank dies and losses aggro they are just a distraction and something to cause splitting damage on Fate currently
• The room is large enough where Fate's fields that he places on the ground can be easily avoided and im sure some players aren't even aware they deal damage
• You can see a clip showing all this in the FOA thread that I replied to showing no deaths or even any real danger, it honestly felt like a regular run.
• In terms of group CR 259-265-262-262-261-259-258 and myself at 270. Those cr's besides myself and 1 other dps are what the CR's would be from live server currently and in terms of 160 artifacts there are more than plenty endgame content running leagues with all the 160's they require. In terms of skill points on test this is the larger part of the equation. Most of those players will be less than 250sp where as a player on live we are specing 450+ skill points. In terms of survivability with shields, health etc almost 200sp makes a GIANT difference also there would be no extra stats from the OP feet and Head on test on these players.
• I previously mentioned in the other thread there needs to be a little more emphasis put on the difficulty of running the scrolls in elite where the player can just teleport in fast movement down the hall and come out. There needs to be either more Eye Drones patrolling or they need to have a faster movement in Elite
• I would also increase the damage on Fate's teleport and also give Fate an attack similar to Murk's Gut Punch to give some greater risk to the tank with adds out and making it so the group may need to focus adds first etc during the fight.

Regarding Shattered Gotham Elite Difficulty

• The current madness level ratio to damage done to Tala needs to be much higher. At 8 madness we already had Tala down 5% health, with madness never reaching above 20 the entire fight Tala was dead in 7 minutes in Elite all with gear and skill points much lower than we would have on live and not to mention as the DLC progresses we will have vendor and elite gear to work from making it even quicker. You should have to have at least a madness of 50 to deal any real damage to Tala and keep it between the 50-65 range the duration of the might and that can have some groups in the 80+ range taking that risk etc but anything less than 50 madness should deal minimal damage to Tala
• Similarly because there are 3 fights with madness meter each fight you could have on a increasing scale where with Tala you need at least 50 madness, Faust you need at least 60 and with Mordru you need at least 70 to be able to deal any normal damage.
• When the Harbinger of the Devourer comes out during the fight and fires those purplish FX through the group they don't even seem to do anything and certainly wasn't a cause of any damage. I would make them like a Strafing Run similar to USE and MachineE where the group would have to avoid them or have significant damage dealt as the animation appears that it should do damage but currently does nothing
• I would have Tala's meteor strike go through a percentage of shields, I wouldn't say ignore them because that may be too difficult but say each meteor strike goes through 50% of your current shield making them only 1/2 as good etc would focus the group more on avoiding them because the spawn time to damage is sufficient to roll away if you act
• I will say that the Blood Golem adds seem to have a one-shot to the group that was mentioned in another post I forget the name of the attack but there doesn't seem to be any warning nor way to avoid it presently
• Currently there is zero reason to run 2 tanks and 1 can do it successfully with Tala and the adds so, that may change with the madness meter increase but I feel like this should at least be a 2 tank fight with having to separate the adds and then in the future with better gear etc groups can clear it with 1 tank.
• The Felix Faust fight also didn't seem to present any danger and felt like regular we cleared it in 5min and that was only with a madness maintained less than 20 and the fight just seemed like a damage check where with better gear etc it will be a couple min fight
• Once again the strafe from the Devourer seemed to have no effect during the fight and needs to be strafing run based in damage
• The tentacles that spawn from the Harbinger 100% need to be a one-shot if you are hit to have the group focus on proper positioning, they were just ignored during out fight
• Mordru was a 2min fight and has the same attack pattern as fate with hbs fist slam being the danger and the odd teleport so easily recognizable from FOA what you have to do to survive and nothing changes.
• The Harbinger of the Devourer's afterbuner does fine damage and is obviously based on the Paradox Tyrant but the other attacks of the Tyrant need to be increase. His teleport slam when he disappears should 100% kill the tank any any player within range just like it used to in Paradox Wave
• His chomp attack should also ignore a % of shields or it should be similar to Murk's gut hook where it will leave the tank on 20% health etc no matter what the tank is doing.
• Currently there are no adds, no danger to the group besides his roll and after burner? and the odd time he faces the group to fire the electrical discharges. Can there be a phase either with adds like how it is in regular or can there be a phase where the Devourer will put his arms into the ground or just spawn more Tentacles around the room that will kill so either the group has to kill 1 to make a safe opening or they will have to watch where they move to avoid the roll because they may go into range of the Tentacles

Thank You and I am sure will have more comments to follow
-ObsidianChill

Glad this thread was created because the artifact issue especially was not being mentioned very often in terms of how they affect difficulty; it is one element of the slanted feedback that is traditionally given on difficulty (there’s usually information withheld either innocently or on purpose).

If artifacts are required at 160 max now, then so be it; but people should be aware of what’s going on. I personally don’t mind, but real money has to be spent to get there at least with seals (excepting those people who glitched seals or bought enormous stacks off broker before it was stopped). For those without as much time, they have to buy nth metal off marketplace (excepting those who glitched the artifact leveling and are sitting with 3 mil xp already on any one artifact). But that’s just looking at the bigger picture.

My boy Chill got into more detail than I ever could and I agree with all points. But after testing both elite I would like to see (in the elite raids):

- Supercharge shields not completely absorbing all damage. Just like the bombs in Spindrift Elite and Murks attack in Crown Elite where it ignores all shields and just wrecks you to a point where you need to pay attention.

- Larger health pools on boss and sub-bosses, harder hits, incorporate some attacks like Love and War where everyone needs to block on a certain skull, maybe throw a reflect in there, just something so people aren't standing still and burning.

- Equal level of difficulty between all bosses

The reasons for this is last night was my first night running the elites with my league on test and we finished both raids. (While I was on leave they completed both raids first earlier in the week. Shattered Gotham took 35 minutes first attempt on all bosses. Fellowship of the Arcane took 37 minutes and we were causing multiple wipes during the puzzle room to mess with people and had 1 wipe on doctor fate because we started with 7 men. They shouldn't be this fast considering everyone was under the CR of what we would be when the DLC drops (<262) and we had an average of 250 SP each on test server.

Essentially, everyone's stronger on live and people shouldn't be able to beat the content on the first day let alone 30-40 minutes. Along with the fact that hopefully the bosses will be balanced enough to a point that groups aren't farming the first couple sub-bosses in order to get a full set of elite.

With the influx of artifacts in the last year, the playerbase has essentially been buffed by a significant margin since revamp first dropped, whereas the Elite content itself has not. Obviously the deal always was that new content would have increases in difficulty, health pools etc. to counteract these buffs to the playerbase. However, I believe the effect certain artifacts have had, especially in conjunction with each other as Obsidian mentioned, have far exceeded what the devs likely imagined.

The Eye of Gemini meta itself is a huge obstacle in the way of creating difficult content. The main aspects of this are that the supercharge gained back when used by either healers or tanks in the group allows 1) healers/trolls to rotate supercharges at a rate that I don't believe developers imagined and 2) DPS's to output damage at a rate that likely also exceeds what the devs imagined as supercharge spam in the DPS stance is quite strong as well. Pair EoG with the Scrap of the Soul Cloak and you have an exceedingly supercharge-centric game leading to Elite raids where multiple mechanics can be ignored due to the nature of 5000 shield supercharges like Group Transducer. Look further back to the release of the Venom Wrist Dispenser, which in itself is a good artifact that I do not believe is out of line, however due to its effects has pushed one weapon that was out of line (Dual Wield) out into the forefront whereas all of the others lag behind. It is hard to account for damage potential when looking at Elite bosses when 1 style is outperforming everything else on the might/prec side.

In the long run I would consider potentially looking back over these artifacts and where they have left the game in terms of balance across the board. At the very least, I'd consider taking a look at supercharge balance (shields), balance between these shields themselves, and the Eye of Gemini artifact.

And the undeniable fact is that’s replay badge use reduced. I know your side has been stated it in the past, but it would be worth repeating here why it matters to you if people replay even just the first boss of one elite raid. You are seldom if ever going to run with those groups (you’ll form your own with the same circle of people - like Chill). The face value effect to your play is neglible as you should still have other bosses and another entire raid to your liking. And given that the elite gear is useful to all pve aspects of the game, it is sought after (just like artifacts are).

So just for the record, explain to the dev team why it’s worth changing their profit model and how your method will be just as or more profitable. They deserve to see your full proposal and reasoning before making a financial decision. You may have a solid plan - articulate it. They can be the judge.

That makes your entire assessment invalid. You do this every time you supposedly test new DLCs. You totally miss the point of what the testing is supposed to accomplish. No one wants to know how easy the content is when you get all the gear.

TEST WITH THE GEAR FROM THE PREVIOUS DLC FIRST. PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE DLC WILL BE LIKE WHEN IT COMES OUT, NOT WHEN IT'S OVER WITH. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE HELPING WHEN USING ALL OF THE VENDOR GEAR.

Also, In before 9001BPM complains. You're feedback in testing threads is also invalid as you have never set foot onto the test servers. **** or log on before you come in here.

Now, to my feedback. I don't think the DLC meets the non artifacts difficulty level. When artifacts came out, players were told that DLC would be designed so it wouldn't require artifacts to complete raids and alerts.

Don't listen to the points made about the shields. That's adding a game mechanic that isn't already there.

Don't listen to the comments about adding more to the boss mechanics. I like it when you guys make unique boss fights. There have been tons of bosses with reflects, huge health pools, and one shots used over and over ad nauseum. Keep the boss fights interesting and don't make them the same difficulty.


PS - If you want the DLCs to last longer, take away replays on alerts and raids. If people can't level up in 3 days like ObsidianNoChill then they will be forced to play the DLC longer before being done with it.

I don't see how it couldn't, to overlook what artifacts have done for balance would be completely negligent. I don't have an issue with the concept of artifacts in general but when you have 23 artifacts all with 3 different sets of tiered ranks when some overlap they can create serious and glaring balance issues just look at what the venom wrist and the other artifacts with the controller buff already present have done to precision dps. If this is the direction they want to take the game i'm fine with it but you have to adjust content accordingly because it shouldn't be any surprise that down the road we are not only going to get Rank 200 and beyond bringing increased reward tiers but also a 4th artifact slot because its just inevitable progression at this point. Artifacts are there in game, there shouldn't be an expectation that players won't max them out and especially when dealing in the context of Elite Raids you should have to expect groups being prepared to go into it with near 160 artifacts. That's why Event and Normal are there if you don't want to scale with artifacts there is already a progression system in place and the only content you miss out on is a style set and a few skill points by not running elite content that's it. I don't think its an unfair expectation that elite content should be scaled with artifacts in mind and have mechanics in place to counter their usage.

This is unequivocally a completely false statement. For one if you think being 262 cr vs 270 cr makes you a god in a raid that is not a valid statement, an extra couple of thousand might doesn't make or break you from completing a raid, the damage of the other dps were much high than mine based on their builds for this raid so that in itself makes it a moot point as well. The raids have already been tested at current CR are players just not expected to gear up throughout the entirety of the two weeks on test server to meet your testing standards? If elite content can be easily cleared in full vendor than it completely kills longevity of a raid if you can just be 270 and sleep walk through an elite raid ignoring mechanics. Mechanics are what keeps the raid difficult at any level, if a group of 262 dps when into Hive Elite they out gear the instance but they can still easily wipe on Terra, same with Manta in SSE we outgear that dlc but can still die 1st boss to the mechanics. Replay badge use is inevitable and is one of the main secondary sources of income for the game, the difference is content hasn't accounted for increase vendor stats. If a raid is really hard when it comes out and is just hard when you are full vendor that keeps longevity throughout the episode without artificially increasing it through extra vendor drops, there are many examples of elite raids in the past that remained hard throughout the episode despite being fully geared, Machine Elite being a good exemplar.

If you want to offer actual constructive feedback im sure Avair and others will entertain it

thanks

For the record we did that on day one and two of the Episode being on Test. Thankfully though they have adjusted it some since then. We will run it tomorrow evening and give feedback once that has been done.

To be fair, that same argument was made with time caps; but people lost their minds and quit even with the option to buy what they needed in broker (or now on quark vendor).

I don’t mind needing the regular set before trying elite; and I think the gear discount model is also at fault because the devs are telling players to do elite first. It’s a backwards system - if modeled properly, getting a full regular set should trigger a discount on marks needed to buy the elite set (thus making it detrimental just on mark cost to do elite first). But using that system doesn’t account for replay waste on the current model.

Many who rerun the first boss only in elite aren’t finishing out their marks on regular afterward; so they spend more time and money later (bonus mark weekend) to make up for what they didn’t get before. I’m not saying it’s logical - there’s just many people who do it that way. I’ve seen it. I think part of the reason for the rush is that the player base has become accustomed to the new elite content having problems that make it easier on the first day or two; and people want to get what they need before it’s fixed. I don’t know if that’s intentional, but it does encourage the replay waste.

There’s just more at play here than “make it harder”. There are other factors to consider; and if we don’t talk about and consider all of them, it’s not going to work. This is about human psychology (whether it be about marketing or some sense of pride).

The game can still make money without the half-raid spammers. You mentioned it above but turning the elite raids into something you can't spam makes players go the next best thing, which in this case are the regular raids. The amount of players with money and thirst for the best gear isn't going away. Instead this time you have people spamming the regular raids first for their marks and gear, and even afterward on more artifacts or whatever they need to complete elite. Not to mention the fact that a hoard of players come back after a break to play new content, and a good bunch will end up staying if the content is to the level they want.

Difficulty levels on new DLC should be a way where it forces everyone to buy at least half a set of regular gear in order to complete elite, then at that point working towards a full set of the best gear to get the hardest feats. We shouldn't finish elites and feats within the first three days regardless of spamming or not.

And as much as people don't like to hear it, this community needs to focus more on the actual gameplay rather than using a loss of profit for the company as an excuse for content being easy/lazy. I'm guessing the devs worked hard these last DLC's to accommodate to everyone's playstyles, so they made three raid modes correct? These being event, regular, and elite. If they're seriously trying to appeal to all groups then all points should be taken into consideration especially through groups that have been planning to test for months. I don't know where people get the idea of others not stepping into test server when there's videos up to help devs see the difficulty and glitches of runs along with proper feedback in the testing section from leagues and raid groups being on test every night.

Time Caps you just miss out on 100sp

But my point shouldn't be that you need to have vendor gear to beat elite etc cause then i'll have Proxystar coming out to post his gear progression comments, my actual point was that there should be "mechanics" that doesn't matter if you are low geared or full vendor they present the same level of difficulty throughout. You can't just have well at CR265 this raid is really hard but at CR270 it becomes easy. That worked during a CR scaled structure of the past but not now, raids like DWFE, USE, MachineE have held their difficulty well after a group is max cr and beyond because of the mechanics that were present in that raid. If you have a raid without those types of mechanics its easy day 1 and easy day 100 just like PANOE, TTBE, OlyE, ThroneE. I think its a fair statement to make that a DLC episode should last and be enjoyable until the next episode releases, and its not about replay badge spam and having nothing to do, if the raids are engaging difficulty wise it keeps players with something to do *in addition to having items like manbat commandos or elite only drops that prolong the longevity of a raid to get those items. How many groups still run Gotham City Zoo elite and it came out in Sept 2017 to try for the trinket drop? a lot. Or you have feats that take awhile like Omega and Omega or the No Death Elite feat runs where it takes you a month or two months to get the gear and techniques down to complete the feat, we haven't had a feat like that in awhile.

In reference to only running first 2 bosses I know it happens and has always happened which is why I liked the renown system in AF3 where it took like 18 runs to finish renown instead of what it takes now which is like 7 with a renown booster. I don't have a problem with saying 1st boss 100 renown 2nd boss 100 renown and 3rd boss 600 renown concept to put more emphasis on completing the content.

I just wanted to say this in general terms as it seemed to be a good place and time to put this.

Im going to provide more specific feedback as well in due course from testing i just wanted to say in your previous episodes i believe it is fair to say that there has been a decent gap between event content and elite content and im still working on my thoughts for this particular episode.

However in general it feels like normal content within this game is too close to event content in terms of difficulty and feel, i think normal content needs to be a bit harder, especially if people want to make elite harder.

I don't take issue with a lot of the feedback that has been given about this dlc specifically however i do think we have to be cautious about just amping up damage or npc health pools in the name of difficulty, i don't think that creates an engaging experience but rather just a tedious one, that goes for all levels of content.

Difficulty should be obtained through making meaningful mechanics that should be followed and punished when not followed, not just stacking health on a boss so it takes 10 minutes to burn them

I think we also have to be given an element of clarity because you talk above about gear, but have a system that actively encourages people to move from elite gear to elite gear from DLC to DLC, is it the developers intention that that challenge be at the start of the DLC or the end?

People question why content is so easy, allegedly, i say allegedly because the group's completing the content are often exceptionally proficient groups of players, so what they find lacks a challenge at 262 for example is sometimes distinctly different from the vast and differing experience of other players who play the content when it goes live.

Just because some people beat the content at 262 doesn't mean most will for example so a level of restraint needs to be applied when just jacking up the difficulty because a handful of people call it too easy.

Im glad you've asked for peoples stats because i believe it is important to know what the makeup of a group is or a player is when they provide that feedback because of the extra context it creates.

I'll get back to more feedback at some point in the next few days as i get time.

Hi Avair,

Strange how these topics always tend to get sidetracked. Anyways, I have some further comments regarding the current state of raids on test. As of yesterday, there was no difference between the Regular and Elite versions of the raid. I have posted my feedback on both raid threads but I would like to reiterate some key points.

Our testing group was composed of players with the following Stats: CR 258-260,230-290 Skill Points and all artifacts at max level. We used this setup for every run except for two additional instances, in which case, we had two players above Cr262. Please note, that in my league and in most end-game leagues, players are well above the 400SP+ range. We tried to replicate our stats on test but grinding every single feat on the test server would be too time consuming.

Each player in our group selected their favourite powerset, movement mode, loadouts and rotations that were close, if not identical to what they play on live. These are experienced and end-game oriented players so rest assured that their feedback is quite relevant to the topic of difficulty in elite, otherwise, what business would they have commenting on a game mode that isn't suited to their level of play. In essence, every single player in our testing group agreed that there are serious issues concerning these specific elite raids but more importantly, we all agree that there needs to be an intelligent discussion concerning certain artifacts and how they affect elite content.

I think there needs to be an intelligent discussion about artifacts in general because anything that is powerful enough to cause a difference in elite content has the power to completely decimate the other difficulty levels even moreso.

The artifacts seem to be getting more and more powerful in terms of how they change roles while also creating differing metas everytime new ones come out.

We certainly can't create content any content where an artifact is required to say complete elite that then puts pressure on the end user to spend money to level up the freshly required meta.

Just speaking in general terms.

To be fair, given this last DLC, I personally think it has been more than a handful of people as opposed to in the past. I've also observed and believe that there have been more players beating both of the Elite raids this DLC than in the past. I don't think it is just a top of the top percent anymore, and it seems as though the new DLC would have been heading there if not for the feedback that has been given. At least in the past there was this compromise and the restraint that you ask of the devs in that one of the Elite raids was closer to the median of the population as far as difficulty, whereas the other was closer to the top percentile. JFAE/USE and Hive E/Machine E are a good example imo. I used to argue against this set up of having an easier Elite raid, however I much prefer it to having both raids close to the median.

Also, stacking health isn't terrible when it is combined with those meaningful and punishing mechanics, especially considering how groups can 4 stack prec dps's. Higher health pools allows the groups to make those mistakes that lead to wipes.

It may have not been so intelligent , but there has been a large discussion surrounding the Eye of Gemini which is by far the biggest culprit so far. It was months ago, but I remember clearly outlining how this predicament would arise where Elite difficulty and Eye of Gemini simply cannot mix. And you're absolutely right. You can't create content where an artifact is required to complete it. Luckily, mechanics that bypass the effects of this artifact don't necessarily affect anyone without it adversely. With that said, in the long run that simply requires too much effort on the developer side of things focusing on the effects that one artifact has on a raid and the numerous ways it must be countered. The artifact needs a rework, or the variables it effects (supercharges, specifically shields), should be adjusted in either their mitigation or the supercharge costs themselves.

But you can have mechanics in place to address them.

• If a tank with max 160 artifacts gets hit with the Murk Gut Hook then they are taken down to the same health percentage as a player with level 80 artifacts or no artifacts.
• If there is a mechanic to wipe or drain supercharge from players it impacts players with EoG and Cloak just as much as it does players with no artifacts.

There are very easy ways to create situations in raids that could counter artifact usage. Where the issue comes in is when there is nothing in place so it makes content that much easier for players with max artifacts vs players with low or no artifacts. All these statements about "the devs said they didn't intend to include artifacts when they make raids" that statement took place when we had 4 artifacts, didn't have a 160 rank and didn't even have 3 artifact slots so that whole statement from them has been invalidated. With 23 artifacts and increasing from Time Capsules and Episodes and the inevitable rank 180,200 and a 4th slot there is absolutely no choice but to address it when creating content.

I'd argue that for the sake of balance and for the sake of attempting to keep difficulty in content in an appropriate place, a 4th slot should never happen. Adding more variables to the equation is only going to make more complicated and probably make the issues at hand worse.