I have two characters fully leveled (tier 5) in both Romulan and Omega reputation lines. My third character is tier 2 in both reputation lines, I tried but couldn't keep going with the same grind fest my other two went through.
While my 3rd Character isn't badly equipped I feel bad taking her into eSTFs due to the fact that she does not have access to fleet gear or Omega rep items. With LoR around the corner I will have a 4th Character, who again will not have access to the Reputation items.
This brings me to my point, why not change the items from Character to account based? This would stop them from being sold, but you would be able to equip your lesser played characters well. The advantage is, when you feel like doing an eSTF you won't be feeling bad as the weak link.
The passive skills in the Reputation lines are worth doing them alone, but at least you would not "feel" forced to do so. If I could give my alt a full set of M.A.C.O space gear along with a full set of ground gear, I would have no problem dropping in on an occasional stf, and slowly she would advance in tiers.
In the long run this would be beneficial because with more well equipped characters, a player might end up purchasing ships for the other characters on an account.
For example my hardly used character is a Sci VA, if I had the equipment to justify playing her actively in eSTFs I would considering buying the Vista ship pack, because it might be worth while. As it stands I only concentrate on my two main, and only bother equipping them with new ships / items.
It has my vote. But I want account rep system more I think. :S
I would love that even more, but I doubt cryptic would go for it. I'm hoping this thread gets the notice of some of the Development team. With LoR around the corner I think this is more important then ever, especially because we are getting a NEW rep line (Tholian).
This is a real problem that I'm not sure anybody at Cryptic has considered: The more effort you require to reach maximum potential, the further behind any new character is going to be. It's a huge disincentive to starting a new character when you know that you have a minimum wait time of months before that character can use the same features that your other characters already have access to.
If they were smart, they would be lowering the time and resource costs of bringing a character to peak performance as time goes by. That way new alts, and new players, don't feel like they are unalterably months behind everybody else.
Well that is exactly why I only play my 3rd character occasionally, and why I wouldn't bother getting her the Vista set, as it stands I have her running the Aegis set. Not worth buying a new ship for a character who is under-geared.
I have a job, I play STO for fun, not for work. 2 Reputation grinds was enough for me. I wouldn't mind taking my Romulan and Alt through the tiers, *IF* they had good gear, and could take my time....... like years, lol.
Well lets keep this thread rolling. I know a lot of my friends in-game who never use the forums all love the idea of being able to equip their Alt characters with Omega / Romulan items.
An account based system would be the best, but I feel Cryptic wants to maintain a "grind", my suggestion does not change the grind at all, only makes one more willing to play alt characters and then make a timely climb up the rep lines.
I say make your marks pool account based. That way, you can run any toon you want in the STF or Rep event, and any of your toons can spend the points. Kinda the same thing, but might be easier to implement?
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
Hmm just had another thought. Make it faction wide, Fed, KDF, Rom. So there would still be grinding content but it wouldn't hurt new toons. I mean.. I have 14 toons.. Rep on all of them just plain sucks. Im forced to pick 3 at the most and make them my mains. The Devs use to want us to make more toons, but now it just hurts to bad..
I dont mind grinding for the resources needed for the rep items...but i absolutely hate the idea of having to grind the rep system more than once, especially with the romulans coming up.
i say once we get t5 rep in any of the lines, that particular line unlocks for every character on that account, including new ones that get to lvl 50, BUT still needing to unlock the store items/rep items/etc.
ie. I get t5 rep in rom and omega on one toon (which i have)....if i made a new character or for any of my existing characters, that upon reaching level 50, do ONE, low cost project that finishes the rep on that character (with say..a 1-2 day timer, as its very easy to get to 50 these days), which gives full t5 XP (but still having to do the simple tier unlock for the passvies) in any of the ones that has the project available, but still having to unlock/requisition the items.
its alot like what other MMOs are doing nowadays. (obviously not as advanced like this is)
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
From an RP perspective the "reputation" is for character. It doesnt make sense that some unknown person just comes and collects the gear. Granted, this is one of the few RP points in the game...
... While my 3rd Character isn't badly equipped I feel bad taking her into eSTFs due to the fact that she does not have access to fleet gear or Omega rep items.
Quality gear does not make a player "good". I've seen a lot of players decked out in Mk XII purple gear getting their butts kicked & blaming it on their gear thereafter. A good player is one that uses common sense to survive (don't agro the entire map, hit & run, heal injuries regularly). I have many Alts that are only equipped with Mk XI common gear & I don't have any problems running elite STFs. So your logic of needing access to elite gear to run elite missions isn't a sound one.
... If they were smart, they would be lowering the time and resource costs of bringing a character to peak performance as time goes by. That way new alts, and new players, don't feel like they are unalterably months behind everybody else.
This idea is a step in the right direction but not good enough for players with a large number of alt toons. Under the old STF system, you had a least a "chance" to get elite gear relatively quick. I don't think it's fair to require players to grind each alt for weeks/months to complete the entire Rep system & equip them with Rep gear. Here's my idea for improving the Rep system. The initial Rep unlock is an account based unlock. Only one toon in an account has to complete the entire Rep system. Thereafter every alt in an account is immediately granted access to the passive skills. Every alt in an account can also purchase gear from the Rep Store immediately that is Character Bound.
Under my proposed Rep model, a Rep account based unlock will lead to less mark grinding. Equipping alts won't be as difficult or time consuming, keeping the player base happy. Continued interest in running missions on alts for marks to purchase Rep equipment will keep Cryptic happy. A win-win senario for everyone concerned.
I dont mind grinding for the resources needed for the rep items...but i absolutely hate the idea of having to grind the rep system more than once, especially with the romulans coming up.
i say once we get t5 rep in any of the lines, that particular line unlocks for every character on that account, including new ones that get to lvl 50, BUT still needing to unlock the store items/rep items/etc.
ie. I get t5 rep in rom and omega on one toon (which i have)....if i made a new character or for any of my existing characters, that upon reaching level 50, do ONE, low cost project that finishes the rep on that character (with say..a 1-2 day timer, as its very easy to get to 50 these days), which gives full t5 XP (but still having to do the simple tier unlock for the passvies) in any of the ones that has the project available, but still having to unlock/requisition the items.
its alot like what other MMOs are doing nowadays. (obviously not as advanced like this is)
WoW now enables faster rep for alts.
The fact that maxing Romulan rep on a character unlocks Remans on the account shows that they can track rep at the account level.
My proposal here would be to have double rep projects which unlock on the account when a character on the account has hit T5.
From an RP perspective the "reputation" is for character. It doesnt make sense that some unknown person just comes and collects the gear. Granted, this is one of the few RP points in the game...
Then let's use an existing mechanic to solve that problem - the Doff system. Have the alt characters run a doff assignment chain devoted to either Omega/New Romulus and unlock passives as they progress. At the end, they're fully "vested" at T5 but nothing more (no store unlocks, etc).
Star Trek: Online - Now with 100% more dinosaurs!!
Then let's use an existing mechanic to solve that problem - the Doff system. Have the alt characters run a doff assignment chain devoted to either Omega/New Romulus and unlock passives as they progress. At the end, they're fully "vested" at T5 but nothing more (no store unlocks, etc).
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
I'll be honest, I'm somewhat reluctant to make new Romulan characters mainly of this "catching-up game": DOFFing, Reputation, Dilithium grinding for buying gear, and of course all those accolades..........
At this point, I would LOVE it if Cryptic redid STO so the majority of this stuff is account work than character work, it might even encourage people to try new characters without worrying of having to play catch up.
So your logic of needing access to elite gear to run elite missions isn't a sound one.
I don't need it, I prefer it. I've done over 1 thousand+ elite stfs, I can do them in Mark X white gear, but I prefer not too. When you've done as many as I have, you want to just bust through them fast, for example ISE with 9 minutes left on the clock @ the boom.
My main character had over 5k Omega marks that I do nothing with but turn in for Dilith, same goes for my Klink over 3k and 300+ NPs.
Funny thing is I was going to bring this up in a couple of days. In fact just last night (about 24 hours ago) I wrote up an appeal post (in a text editor) to express my concerns about how character focused this game has become in the past 12 months, more so since seasons 6/7.
Many of my ideas have already been suggested in this thread, but I'll post the whole thing anyway.
Appeal for More Account and Less Character
Like many players, I generally have more than one character I like to work on, I myself actually have 8, 3 in the Federation and 5 in the KDF that I have devoted much time too, especially before season 7 came out.
However since season 7 it has become increasingly difficult to work on more than two characters thanks to the reputation grind that was introduced. It's not the items that are the real issue but that fact is if you want to get the most out of your characters you need to get through the reputation system to get the additional trait options. So like many I have been forced to neglect many characters and only focus on two, one in each faction.
My proposal to Cryptic is to make the reputation system either faction based or account based, where characters can contribute to the overall project much like members of a fleet can contribute to a fleet project. This would allow those of us who run more than one or two characters to be able to take advantage of this system more and not be forced to neglect characters. I don't think anyone reasonable would object to the items being character unlocks, just the overall progression through the tiers being the account or faction based.
Another thing is the Lobi store, depending on the faction you are on, can only access items that are either for that faction only or are cross factional. Most of us open boxes on the one character so we can accumulate Lobi rather than having bits and pieces everywhere. My proposal here is to have all available items on both faction's Lobi store allowing a Federation character to buy a KDF uniform for their KDF characters which can be mailed over or put in the account bank. Would be nice if the uniforms where also account unlocks, rather than just character. Would make their 150-200 Lobi price a lot more worth it and value for money considering most boxes only give you 4 lobi. However the point is there needs to be more account focus.
I also propose that all weapons and sets in the Lobi store be account bound rather than character bound. Allowing players to be able to buy them on their Lobi character and sent to other characters who they might want to use them, or even after using them on character 1, they decided they want something else and character 2 can now use them. It just makes the whole purchase more value for money considering the Tribble server doesn't allow players to try these out before they buy on Holodeck.
Finally, when the account bank came in lots of things became account bound, but the most expensive items, that being consoles, remained character bound. I would like to see these become account bound as well as they can be very expensive. Alternatively could the Mk12 very rare consoles be put into the dilithium store for a reasonable price. Currently MKXI rare are in for 11,350, I would like to propose that the MKXII very rare would be in there for no more than 22,000 dilithium. I know a lot of people who don't do PvP as they simply can't afford to be competitive due to how expensive a lot of the top end gear is. This could help improve the PvP community, who have seemed to been forgotten for sometime now.
Also all settings, chat, hud etc should be via account so when I join a new chat channel I don't have to go through every character assigning a colour.
All these suggestions I've made aren't meant to be gameplay altering, just allowing for those of us who spent the money to open more character slots to be able to take advantage of our purchases and enjoy the game a lot more. It also eases the grind up allowing and even enticing us to spend more in the game rather than spending it all in just levelling up 3, 6 or 12 etc odd characters in reputation grind. Which has also hurt smaller fleets because of this grind. I know there has been talks of reducing costs across the board to assist smaller fleets and this could be one method to help these fleets.
Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
I would say levelling the rep system is pretty easy. maybe they could reduce requirements needed after your 1st rep completion. I have 6 toons and think it's pretty easy going doing omega and rom reps as it is. that all said, I would like to see more account bound items in the game. just think this isn't a good area to do it.
From an RP perspective the "reputation" is for character. It doesnt make sense that some unknown person just comes and collects the gear. Granted, this is one of the few RP points in the game...
Well, the whole system is based on you killing the same enemies and rescuing the same people, in the same locations over and over and over. For that you get reputation which allows you to requisition stuff with which you can more efficiently kill the same enemies and rescue the same people, in the same locations over and over and over. So much for RP.
I completely agree with the OP.
FKA K-Tar, grumpy Klingon/El-Aurian hybrid. Now assimilated by PWE.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
An account or faction based rep system I believe would be the way forward. Considering many people apparently struggle through the game as it is (according to Dan, I think the pace is too astoundingly quick).
I think the rep system as it stands is too much of a massive barrier to acquiring a lot of stuff, granted, I don't think its unreasonable atm, just, I think a lot of people may be being put off from it, it would be interesting to see the metrics.
I definitely agree either way that it completely eliminates making alts. I'm not that keen in the first place, preferring to work away at just one character, but, I can't see myself ever going through all of that on more than one character, granted I did power through at quite some pace.
This has my vote. I am so excited for LoR I have been plugging away with my two test toons on Tribble but the thought of grinding rep is terrifying. I already know that my new main is going to be a Romulan simply because they have always been one of my two favorite factions with the Tholians tieing them for first place, so with LoR dragging in the new Tholian rep system I am in a potential heaven....but it is another rep grind.
Now one of the ideas being posted was that the Tiers are unlocked account wide but the individual unlocks such as weapons and consoles are character unlocks, this I like. It will save hours and hours of grinding and months of watching that clock tick down. But at the same time it does take some minor grinding to unlock the toys which I am fine with.
I really hope Cryptic is going over this, I mean they really should be since they are releasing a whole new faction....heh never thought I would actually admit to them being a faction but playing on Tribble has changed that I guess. But the point stands that they need to take a hard look at rep system and give it a bit of an overhaul, Lobi too, that could use some love.
From an RP perspective the "reputation" is for character. It doesnt make sense that some unknown person just comes and collects the gear. Granted, this is one of the few RP points in the game...
From an RP perspective the whole reputation system makes no sense. After blowing up hundreds of Borg ships and killing millions of drones they finally let you build the best weapons they have. Shouldn't they be doing that right from the start to increase the odds of your survival?
Part of the problem is that the gear at lower tiers [Mk X and Mk XI] feels like you're wasting time/dilithium/marks by unlocking. So it fosters the attitude of it it isn't tier 4/5, it's not worth spending money on.
However, it also results in new characters being stuck in Jem'Hadar Space set until well into Tier 4 reputation because they aren't going to bother spending their marks on the Mk XIs. There are the new set [Console/E.Weapon/Torp] that are fairly well distributed through the tiers, but they are generally supplemental, and still leave you feeling like you're using Mission gear for a very long time.
I like the system but hate the way XP and gear is done. Why not just let us get account XP? We still have to grind a ton for gear. This would promote alts more and would get Cryptic a lot more money from character slot sales.
Elite gear is exactly that ELITE. Each toon has to put in the work to earn it. This practice is common amongst most MMO's, however STO' system is the most forgiving. With other MMO's it's all based on RNG, at least here you will definitely get the gear, it's a matter of if your willing to put in the work or not for each toon.
You make it sound as if we haven't earned it. Two characters are tier 5, even from an RP perspective why couldn't my main character "give" my alt (Both are Fed) a MACO space set. Someone else added an idea of faction based unlock, I like that as well. I intend on sending my Romulan to side with the KDF, giving me two characters in each faction.
Hardly. In many MMOs top raid gear gives insane DPS, tanking or healing advantage compared to regular gear. In STO you barely even notice it. In fact you can complete every single encounter or fleet action in common gear.
Each toon has to put in the work to earn it.
That's the word I'd use too. Not giving your best, not having fun, simply 'work'
This practice is common amongst most MMO's, however STO' system is the most forgiving.
Except those numerous MMOs that sell account bound gear in reputation vendors because they though it would be stupid to make players do all that grinding more than once.
Comments
I would love that even more, but I doubt cryptic would go for it. I'm hoping this thread gets the notice of some of the Development team. With LoR around the corner I think this is more important then ever, especially because we are getting a NEW rep line (Tholian).
If they were smart, they would be lowering the time and resource costs of bringing a character to peak performance as time goes by. That way new alts, and new players, don't feel like they are unalterably months behind everybody else.
I have a job, I play STO for fun, not for work. 2 Reputation grinds was enough for me. I wouldn't mind taking my Romulan and Alt through the tiers, *IF* they had good gear, and could take my time....... like years, lol.
this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ +1
system Lord Baal is dead
An account based system would be the best, but I feel Cryptic wants to maintain a "grind", my suggestion does not change the grind at all, only makes one more willing to play alt characters and then make a timely climb up the rep lines.
i say once we get t5 rep in any of the lines, that particular line unlocks for every character on that account, including new ones that get to lvl 50, BUT still needing to unlock the store items/rep items/etc.
ie. I get t5 rep in rom and omega on one toon (which i have)....if i made a new character or for any of my existing characters, that upon reaching level 50, do ONE, low cost project that finishes the rep on that character (with say..a 1-2 day timer, as its very easy to get to 50 these days), which gives full t5 XP (but still having to do the simple tier unlock for the passvies) in any of the ones that has the project available, but still having to unlock/requisition the items.
its alot like what other MMOs are doing nowadays. (obviously not as advanced like this is)
Quality gear does not make a player "good". I've seen a lot of players decked out in Mk XII purple gear getting their butts kicked & blaming it on their gear thereafter. A good player is one that uses common sense to survive (don't agro the entire map, hit & run, heal injuries regularly). I have many Alts that are only equipped with Mk XI common gear & I don't have any problems running elite STFs. So your logic of needing access to elite gear to run elite missions isn't a sound one.
This idea is a step in the right direction but not good enough for players with a large number of alt toons. Under the old STF system, you had a least a "chance" to get elite gear relatively quick. I don't think it's fair to require players to grind each alt for weeks/months to complete the entire Rep system & equip them with Rep gear. Here's my idea for improving the Rep system. The initial Rep unlock is an account based unlock. Only one toon in an account has to complete the entire Rep system. Thereafter every alt in an account is immediately granted access to the passive skills. Every alt in an account can also purchase gear from the Rep Store immediately that is Character Bound.
Under my proposed Rep model, a Rep account based unlock will lead to less mark grinding. Equipping alts won't be as difficult or time consuming, keeping the player base happy. Continued interest in running missions on alts for marks to purchase Rep equipment will keep Cryptic happy. A win-win senario for everyone concerned.
WoW now enables faster rep for alts.
The fact that maxing Romulan rep on a character unlocks Remans on the account shows that they can track rep at the account level.
My proposal here would be to have double rep projects which unlock on the account when a character on the account has hit T5.
So rep is sped up on your alts.
Then let's use an existing mechanic to solve that problem - the Doff system. Have the alt characters run a doff assignment chain devoted to either Omega/New Romulus and unlock passives as they progress. At the end, they're fully "vested" at T5 but nothing more (no store unlocks, etc).
Or they could add a max level project:
Recover Priceless Romulan Artifact from Ferengi Trader
Reward: Priceless Romulan Artifact (Account Bound)
Requirements: 100k Dilithium
You mail it to an alt.
And the alt runs the project:
Return Priceless Romulan Artifact
Reward: 100k Romulan Reputation
Requirements: Priceless Romulan Artifact
mm i see...yeah that could work
At this point, I would LOVE it if Cryptic redid STO so the majority of this stuff is account work than character work, it might even encourage people to try new characters without worrying of having to play catch up.
I don't need it, I prefer it. I've done over 1 thousand+ elite stfs, I can do them in Mark X white gear, but I prefer not too. When you've done as many as I have, you want to just bust through them fast, for example ISE with 9 minutes left on the clock @ the boom.
My main character had over 5k Omega marks that I do nothing with but turn in for Dilith, same goes for my Klink over 3k and 300+ NPs.
Many of my ideas have already been suggested in this thread, but I'll post the whole thing anyway.
Appeal for More Account and Less Character
Like many players, I generally have more than one character I like to work on, I myself actually have 8, 3 in the Federation and 5 in the KDF that I have devoted much time too, especially before season 7 came out.
However since season 7 it has become increasingly difficult to work on more than two characters thanks to the reputation grind that was introduced. It's not the items that are the real issue but that fact is if you want to get the most out of your characters you need to get through the reputation system to get the additional trait options. So like many I have been forced to neglect many characters and only focus on two, one in each faction.
My proposal to Cryptic is to make the reputation system either faction based or account based, where characters can contribute to the overall project much like members of a fleet can contribute to a fleet project. This would allow those of us who run more than one or two characters to be able to take advantage of this system more and not be forced to neglect characters. I don't think anyone reasonable would object to the items being character unlocks, just the overall progression through the tiers being the account or faction based.
Another thing is the Lobi store, depending on the faction you are on, can only access items that are either for that faction only or are cross factional. Most of us open boxes on the one character so we can accumulate Lobi rather than having bits and pieces everywhere. My proposal here is to have all available items on both faction's Lobi store allowing a Federation character to buy a KDF uniform for their KDF characters which can be mailed over or put in the account bank. Would be nice if the uniforms where also account unlocks, rather than just character. Would make their 150-200 Lobi price a lot more worth it and value for money considering most boxes only give you 4 lobi. However the point is there needs to be more account focus.
I also propose that all weapons and sets in the Lobi store be account bound rather than character bound. Allowing players to be able to buy them on their Lobi character and sent to other characters who they might want to use them, or even after using them on character 1, they decided they want something else and character 2 can now use them. It just makes the whole purchase more value for money considering the Tribble server doesn't allow players to try these out before they buy on Holodeck.
Finally, when the account bank came in lots of things became account bound, but the most expensive items, that being consoles, remained character bound. I would like to see these become account bound as well as they can be very expensive. Alternatively could the Mk12 very rare consoles be put into the dilithium store for a reasonable price. Currently MKXI rare are in for 11,350, I would like to propose that the MKXII very rare would be in there for no more than 22,000 dilithium. I know a lot of people who don't do PvP as they simply can't afford to be competitive due to how expensive a lot of the top end gear is. This could help improve the PvP community, who have seemed to been forgotten for sometime now.
Also all settings, chat, hud etc should be via account so when I join a new chat channel I don't have to go through every character assigning a colour.
All these suggestions I've made aren't meant to be gameplay altering, just allowing for those of us who spent the money to open more character slots to be able to take advantage of our purchases and enjoy the game a lot more. It also eases the grind up allowing and even enticing us to spend more in the game rather than spending it all in just levelling up 3, 6 or 12 etc odd characters in reputation grind. Which has also hurt smaller fleets because of this grind. I know there has been talks of reducing costs across the board to assist smaller fleets and this could be one method to help these fleets.
Well, the whole system is based on you killing the same enemies and rescuing the same people, in the same locations over and over and over. For that you get reputation which allows you to requisition stuff with which you can more efficiently kill the same enemies and rescue the same people, in the same locations over and over and over. So much for RP.
I completely agree with the OP.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
I think the rep system as it stands is too much of a massive barrier to acquiring a lot of stuff, granted, I don't think its unreasonable atm, just, I think a lot of people may be being put off from it, it would be interesting to see the metrics.
I definitely agree either way that it completely eliminates making alts. I'm not that keen in the first place, preferring to work away at just one character, but, I can't see myself ever going through all of that on more than one character, granted I did power through at quite some pace.
Now one of the ideas being posted was that the Tiers are unlocked account wide but the individual unlocks such as weapons and consoles are character unlocks, this I like. It will save hours and hours of grinding and months of watching that clock tick down. But at the same time it does take some minor grinding to unlock the toys which I am fine with.
I really hope Cryptic is going over this, I mean they really should be since they are releasing a whole new faction....heh never thought I would actually admit to them being a faction but playing on Tribble has changed that I guess. But the point stands that they need to take a hard look at rep system and give it a bit of an overhaul, Lobi too, that could use some love.
From an RP perspective the whole reputation system makes no sense. After blowing up hundreds of Borg ships and killing millions of drones they finally let you build the best weapons they have. Shouldn't they be doing that right from the start to increase the odds of your survival?
However, it also results in new characters being stuck in Jem'Hadar Space set until well into Tier 4 reputation because they aren't going to bother spending their marks on the Mk XIs. There are the new set [Console/E.Weapon/Torp] that are fairly well distributed through the tiers, but they are generally supplemental, and still leave you feeling like you're using Mission gear for a very long time.
I like the system but hate the way XP and gear is done. Why not just let us get account XP? We still have to grind a ton for gear. This would promote alts more and would get Cryptic a lot more money from character slot sales.
Centurion maximus92
12th Legion, Romulan Republic
12th Fleet
=\/= ================================ =\/=
Hardly. In many MMOs top raid gear gives insane DPS, tanking or healing advantage compared to regular gear. In STO you barely even notice it. In fact you can complete every single encounter or fleet action in common gear.
That's the word I'd use too. Not giving your best, not having fun, simply 'work'
Except those numerous MMOs that sell account bound gear in reputation vendors because they though it would be stupid to make players do all that grinding more than once.