Increasing the dmg bonus by 5x or whichever factor is required to balance would be a bit boring and may give an incorect perception that a weapon with dmg on it is better.
Actually, just doubling the buff of [Dmg] should be enough.
The impact of damage mods currently decreases relative to a weapon's overall output as the weapon goes up in level. This, at least, I plan to address. I'm currently doing a balance pass on all weapon mods internally, so I hope to fix the disparities between the different mods and just make them equally impactful but in different ways.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
The impact of damage mods currently decreases relative to a weapon's overall output as the weapon goes up in level. This, at least, I plan to address. I'm currently doing a balance pass on all weapon mods internally, so I hope to fix the disparities between the different mods and just make them equally impactful but in different ways.
...thx, very appreciated! i really hope u succeed with!
The impact of damage mods currently decreases relative to a weapon's overall output as the weapon goes up in level. This, at least, I plan to address. I'm currently doing a balance pass on all weapon mods internally, so I hope to fix the disparities between the different mods and just make them equally impactful but in different ways.
/* Jumpsoffhischairandcelebratesloudly */
Thanks for addressing the [Dmg] mod problem!
Not that [Stl] mod that has been broken for 3 years now on deflectors........
Before you celebrate, notice he said bring the mods in line with one another. This could herald a nerf of the other mods.
Don't worry, we think Dmg and to a lesser extent CritH and CritD are underperforming. There's a small chance I'll tweak the overflow multipliers for Accuracy, so it becomes less of an "all stack, all the time" stat. But as for core numbers, Accuracy is very unlikely to change.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
The mechanics of this game change from patch to patch, what may have been a good build can soon turn to TRIBBLE after one patch. Its best to just wait as they usually detune older ships and builds to make way for the new stuff(whether or not that Species was more or less advanced in the TV series) the developers of STO will always make something as silly like a Talaxian ship that's more powerful than a Voth ship, even though we all know its rather the reverse. So until people boycott the dumb ideas the developers come up with, than be prepared to play an increasingly glitchy game that has old issues/errors that will never be fixed.
Are you going to do anything with Antiprotons, Epic Antiprotons they would look like ACCx3 plus the built in CrtD they would outclass everything by far.
Well, given the obsession with Acc and the "overflow black box they don't quite understand" issue, that wouldn't be too bad.
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate:
Accuracy Math
Given a Hit chance (Accuracy) and a Miss chance (Defense):
If the difference (Acc-Defense) is negative (Defense is larger than Acc), the chance approaches zero:
Chance = ChanceNeutral / (1 - Difference)
If the difference is positive (Hit is larger than Miss), the chance mirrors the negative case:
Chance = ChanceNeutral * 2 - ChanceNeutral / (1 + Difference)
Specifying a min and max Chance does not change the above equations, it simply places a clamp on the results.
So, let's say you have 0% Accuracy, and your target has 20% Defense, the target's Defense is larger than Acc. This means we use the first formula above to calculate total hit chance:
So if your Accuracy is 20% higher than your target's Defense, the target gives you effectively a 17% chance to miss it.
OK, that's the simple (lol) case. Let's talk about Accuracy Overflow, which only applies in cases where your Acc gives you a greater than 100% chance to hit the target. Let's look at a fairly decked out player, who has a +50% hit chance between their weapon mods and their skills and traits. We're firing on a target with 0% defense, cuz that makes math easy. Because .5-0>0, we use the second formula from the beginning of this post:
So at this point we have a 1.333 chance to hit the target. However, as specified above, the ChanceMax for Star Trek is 1.0. This means .333_ of your accuracy is overflowing - NOT .5 as you might expect if you think the two stats just subtract to find your final hit chance. So we look at the Overflow Multipliers, stating each 1.0 points of Accuracy (which is actually 100%) overflows into 0.125 Crit Chance AND into 0.5 Crit Severity. This means our 33% Acc Overflow is giving us ~4.1% Crit Chance and ~17% Crit Severity.
I think I've included all the information you'd need to run through any hypothetical situation and calculate Accuracy's impact on your DPS, if you so choose. If there are any holes in the post above, let me know and I'll try to fill in the blank for ya.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate:
Given a Hit chance (Accuracy) and a Miss chance (Defense):
If the difference (Acc-Defense) is negative (Defense is larger than Acc), the chance approaches zero:
Chance = ChanceNeutral / (1 - Difference)
If the difference is positive (Hit is larger than Miss), the chance mirrors the negative case:
Chance = ChanceNeutral * 2 - ChanceNeutral / (1 + Difference)
Specifying a min and max Chance does not change the above equations, it simply places a clamp on the results.
So, let's say you have 0% Accuracy, and your target has 20% Defense, the target's Defense is larger than Acc. This means we use the first formula above to calculate total hit chance:
So if your Accuracy is 20% higher than your target's Defense, the target gives you effectively a 17% chance to miss it.
OK, that's the simple (lol) case. Let's talk about Accuracy Overflow, which only applies in cases where your Acc gives you a greater than 100% chance to hit the target. Let's look at a fairly decked out player, who has a +50% hit chance between their weapon mods and their skills and traits. We're firing on a target with 0% defense, cuz that makes math easy. Because .5-0>0, we use the second formula from the beginning of this post:
So at this point we have a 1.333 chance to hit the target. However, as specified above, the ChanceMax for Star Trek is 1.0. This means .333_ of your accuracy is overflowing - NOT .5 as you might expect if you think the two stats just subtract to find your final hit chance. So we look at the Overflow Multipliers, stating each 1.0 points of Accuracy (which is actually 100%) overflows into 0.125 Crit Chance AND into 0.5 Crit Severity. This means our 33% Acc Overflow is giving us ~4.1% Crit Chance and ~17% Crit Severity.
I think I've included all the information you'd need to run through any hypothetical situation and calculate Accuracy's impact on your DPS, if you so choose. If there are any holes in the post above, let me know and I'll try to fill in the blank for ya.
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate:
Given a Hit chance (Accuracy) and a Miss chance (Defense):
If the difference (Acc-Defense) is negative (Defense is larger than Acc), the chance approaches zero:
Chance = ChanceNeutral / (1 - Difference)
If the difference is positive (Hit is larger than Miss), the chance mirrors the negative case:
Chance = ChanceNeutral * 2 - ChanceNeutral / (1 + Difference)
Specifying a min and max Chance does not change the above equations, it simply places a clamp on the results.
So, let's say you have 0% Accuracy, and your target has 20% Defense, the target's Defense is larger than Acc. This means we use the first formula above to calculate total hit chance:
So if your Accuracy is 20% higher than your target's Defense, the target gives you effectively a 17% chance to miss it.
OK, that's the simple (lol) case. Let's talk about Accuracy Overflow, which only applies in cases where your Acc gives you a greater than 100% chance to hit the target. Let's look at a fairly decked out player, who has a +50% hit chance between their weapon mods and their skills and traits. We're firing on a target with 0% defense, cuz that makes math easy. Because .5-0>0, we use the second formula from the beginning of this post:
So at this point we have a 1.333 chance to hit the target. However, as specified above, the ChanceMax for Star Trek is 1.0. This means .333_ of your accuracy is overflowing - NOT .5 as you might expect if you think the two stats just subtract to find your final hit chance. So we look at the Overflow Multipliers, stating each 1.0 points of Accuracy (which is actually 100%) overflows into 0.125 Crit Chance AND into 0.5 Crit Severity. This means our 33% Acc Overflow is giving us ~4.1% Crit Chance and ~17% Crit Severity.
I think I've included all the information you'd need to run through any hypothetical situation and calculate Accuracy's impact on your DPS, if you so choose. If there are any holes in the post above, let me know and I'll try to fill in the blank for ya.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate:
Given a Hit chance (Accuracy) and a Miss chance (Defense):
If the difference (Acc-Defense) is negative (Defense is larger than Acc), the chance approaches zero:
Chance = ChanceNeutral / (1 - Difference)
If the difference is positive (Hit is larger than Miss), the chance mirrors the negative case:
Chance = ChanceNeutral * 2 - ChanceNeutral / (1 + Difference)
Specifying a min and max Chance does not change the above equations, it simply places a clamp on the results.
So, let's say you have 0% Accuracy, and your target has 20% Defense, the target's Defense is larger than Acc. This means we use the first formula above to calculate total hit chance:
So if your Accuracy is 20% higher than your target's Defense, the target gives you effectively a 17% chance to miss it.
OK, that's the simple (lol) case. Let's talk about Accuracy Overflow, which only applies in cases where your Acc gives you a greater than 100% chance to hit the target. Let's look at a fairly decked out player, who has a +50% hit chance between their weapon mods and their skills and traits. We're firing on a target with 0% defense, cuz that makes math easy. Because .5-0>0, we use the second formula from the beginning of this post:
So at this point we have a 1.333 chance to hit the target. However, as specified above, the ChanceMax for Star Trek is 1.0. This means .333_ of your accuracy is overflowing - NOT .5 as you might expect if you think the two stats just subtract to find your final hit chance. So we look at the Overflow Multipliers, stating each 1.0 points of Accuracy (which is actually 100%) overflows into 0.125 Crit Chance AND into 0.5 Crit Severity. This means our 33% Acc Overflow is giving us ~4.1% Crit Chance and ~17% Crit Severity.
I think I've included all the information you'd need to run through any hypothetical situation and calculate Accuracy's impact on your DPS, if you so choose. If there are any holes in the post above, let me know and I'll try to fill in the blank for ya.
Thank you! I had been looking for this formula.
Much appreciation.
Is there any chance you could take a look at ground weapon mods as well? more precisely crafted ground weapon and the fact it's impposible to get any of the new mod that were supposed to be part of the crafting.
I'd sell my kydney for an ultra rare 116-B with the run speed mod on it, sadly until the new mod actually exist in the system that's just not happening.
also to go back to the [dmg] I have done some math and with a 25% chance to crit if the [dmg] is worth a 5% dps increase it become rougly equal to the [Crtd] mod . same math show that [CrtH] mod need to increase crit chance by 5% to be equal to the [crtD] mod.
Also could you give us some feedback on the new space version of rending shot for the delta alliance trait line? I said it before but a stack reset on a crit when ship crit multiple times per seconds just don't sit well with my idea of usefullness.
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate: Snip: Cool math stuff
So now my question is this: how is BFAW calculated into overflow?
Is it as I suspect: Only the first (main shot) receiving the benefits of acc overflow? And all the extra beams are calculated with no overflow (since they "autohit")
Or is it as I dread: When BFAW is active NO shots are using Acc Overflow since they "autohit"?
Autohit in this instance meaning the way you guys have previously explained BFAW as working: drawing from the target(s) to the user.
Or is it completely different? I'd love to know as it directly impacts whether I use my Spiral Waves or my CrtDx3 Phaser Beams (and which ones I'll upgrade.)
Thanks for being in this thread!
Formerly Known as Protector from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
BFaW does not benefit from overflow at all. It hits automatically, and thus never calculates to-hit chance.
I was afraid of that -- so as long as BFAW is active, no acc overflow. ah well.
Formerly Known as Protector from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
The impact of damage mods currently decreases relative to a weapon's overall output as the weapon goes up in level. This, at least, I plan to address. I'm currently doing a balance pass on all weapon mods internally, so I hope to fix the disparities between the different mods and just make them equally impactful but in different ways.
Given a Hit chance (Accuracy) and a Miss chance (Defense):
If the difference (Acc-Defense) is negative (Defense is larger than Acc), the chance approaches zero:
Chance = ChanceNeutral / (1 - Difference)
If the difference is positive (Hit is larger than Miss), the chance mirrors the negative case:
Chance = ChanceNeutral * 2 - ChanceNeutral / (1 + Difference)
Specifying a min and max Chance does not change the above equations, it simply places a clamp on the results.
I'm not a close follower of the forums, I was just pointed to this post, so forgive the silly question. I'm curious to know if you believe the core subtractive model, even with the symmetric asymptotic modification, is the most appropriate for a system with overflow modifiers. Wouldn't a system that decoupled Accuracy from Defense proportionately like an Acc/(1+Defense) variant provide a better way for players to build reasonable critical overflow values without dealing with the intrinsic (albeit global modifier dependent) 0.0625 asymptotic ceiling intrinsic in the chance calculation and the base multipliers?
Or have I just overlooked something stupid, like a balancing factor that restrains accuracy to a more logarithmic-looking behavior? Because asymptotic soft caps seem problematic to me when they are connected to modifiers constructed from gear.
I'm not a close follower of the forums, I was just pointed to this post, so forgive the silly question. I'm curious to know if you believe the core subtractive model, even with the symmetric asymptotic modification, is the most appropriate for a system with overflow modifiers. Wouldn't a system that decoupled Accuracy from Defense proportionately like an Acc/(1+Defense) variant provide a better way for players to build reasonable critical overflow values without dealing with the intrinsic (albeit global modifier dependent) 0.0625 asymptotic ceiling intrinsic in the chance calculation and the base multipliers?
Or have I just overlooked something stupid, like a balancing factor that restrains accuracy to a more logarithmic-looking behavior? Because asymptotic soft caps seem problematic to me when they are connected to modifiers constructed from gear.
Also, did you fix regeneration yet?
You can put your fears away, you just overlooked something stupid.
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate: [Math Snip]
Any chance that we can have "accuracy/critH/critD bonuses from equipment" added to the ship's attack tab in the status screen UI? And while we're at it, factor in any overflow? Because these numbers are otherwise invisible to us so we can only guess how much we actually have.
----
And the final line in your post got me snickering.
well be - in the chat room - on the IRC - out at the Big Con - Star Trek costume for me - down in the dungeon - RP D&D - and baby - talk nerdy to me
OK, that's the simple (lol) case. Let's talk about Accuracy Overflow, which only applies in cases where your Acc gives you a greater than 100% chance to hit the target. Let's look at a fairly decked out player, who has a +50% hit chance between their weapon mods and their skills and traits. We're firing on a target with 0% defense, cuz that makes math easy. Because .5-0>0, we use the second formula from the beginning of this post:
This is the part where it all unravels. This is my favorite part of the curve, it isn't well liked or possibly well understood elsewhere. STO is fairly balanced with reasonable damage output by tactical systems when the hit rate is around 60 to 70 percent. The rate at which damage accelerates as ACC-DEF decreases isn't something folks just intuitively grasp. It's fast. And once you get into overflow damage increases even faster. This 'complex' seeming system isn't playing well with the customer base.
Because it isn't intuitive. Not because it sucks. It's currently a rare system to have in MMO combat. It's why PVP is so challenging, it's why a half dead ship can still rise up and smack down a careless attacker. It's what epic is made off.
Hit capped single roll combat tables are full of 'blah' and 'been there done this'. Granted that it is frustrating that long CD tactical abilities have a chance to miss while even short CDs from the other classes do not I don't think that tossing this model out is the answer. And frankly I think that is the direction you're heading into. I think the game would be better served by educating players that they NEED to keep their ships in a certain difference range to maintain their chances of survival than by forcing this into a hit capped game complete with a true global cooldown system.
Cheers and glad you're moving DMG somewhere it can be tweakable.
Thanks for the insight into how [acc] and [def] interact. I knew it wasn't a simple subtraction, but I didn't know the actual formula, so that's very interesting.
Bringing the [dmg] mod into line with the others sounds perilous. Because of how mods behave, a fixed amount of damage won't scale (not that scaling is necessarily desirable), and a scaling amount of damage unrelated to the other mods could either be useless or terrifying (and obtuse, especially if it turns out to be nonlinear).
Maybe it would be simplest to replace all [dmg] mods with [crtH]. This would:
- interact with the other mods
- not be a nerf for anything (crtH isn't always the most desirable, but it is also not always the least desirable)
- work for both ground and space, unlike replacing it with something involving acc
Comments
Actually, just doubling the buff of [Dmg] should be enough.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
...thx, very appreciated! i really hope u succeed with!
/* Jumps off his chair and celebrates loudly */
Thanks for addressing the [Dmg] mod problem!
Not that [Stl] mod that has been broken for 3 years now on deflectors........
Before you celebrate, notice he said bring the mods in line with one another. This could herald a nerf of the other mods.
Don't worry, we think Dmg and to a lesser extent CritH and CritD are underperforming. There's a small chance I'll tweak the overflow multipliers for Accuracy, so it becomes less of an "all stack, all the time" stat. But as for core numbers, Accuracy is very unlikely to change.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Well, given the obsession with Acc and the "overflow black box they don't quite understand" issue, that wouldn't be too bad.
Oh boy! Something people don't understand? *grabs flashlight* Hang on to your seats, it's time to illuminate:
Given a Hit chance (Accuracy) and a Miss chance (Defense):
If the difference (Acc-Defense) is negative (Defense is larger than Acc), the chance approaches zero:
Chance = ChanceNeutral / (1 - Difference)
If the difference is positive (Hit is larger than Miss), the chance mirrors the negative case:
Chance = ChanceNeutral * 2 - ChanceNeutral / (1 + Difference)
Specifying a min and max Chance does not change the above equations, it simply places a clamp on the results.
Defined Variables:
ChanceNeutral = 1.0
ChanceMin = .25
ChanceMax = 1
CritChance Overflow Multiplier: 0.125
CritSeverity Overflow Multiplier: 0.5
So, let's say you have 0% Accuracy, and your target has 20% Defense, the target's Defense is larger than Acc. This means we use the first formula above to calculate total hit chance:
So if your Accuracy is 20% higher than your target's Defense, the target gives you effectively a 17% chance to miss it.
OK, that's the simple (lol) case. Let's talk about Accuracy Overflow, which only applies in cases where your Acc gives you a greater than 100% chance to hit the target. Let's look at a fairly decked out player, who has a +50% hit chance between their weapon mods and their skills and traits. We're firing on a target with 0% defense, cuz that makes math easy. Because .5-0>0, we use the second formula from the beginning of this post:
So at this point we have a 1.333 chance to hit the target. However, as specified above, the ChanceMax for Star Trek is 1.0. This means .333_ of your accuracy is overflowing - NOT .5 as you might expect if you think the two stats just subtract to find your final hit chance. So we look at the Overflow Multipliers, stating each 1.0 points of Accuracy (which is actually 100%) overflows into 0.125 Crit Chance AND into 0.5 Crit Severity. This means our 33% Acc Overflow is giving us ~4.1% Crit Chance and ~17% Crit Severity.
I think I've included all the information you'd need to run through any hypothetical situation and calculate Accuracy's impact on your DPS, if you so choose. If there are any holes in the post above, let me know and I'll try to fill in the blank for ya.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Epic quality flashlight. Thanks much for this!
The guy asked for it. Its not like it hasn't been explained before. Seems Hawk is in a good mood today to answer questions.
:eek:
Ooh yeah talk nerdy to me. :P
Joined January 2009
Yup, and that's currently part of my plan.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Thank you! I had been looking for this formula.
Much appreciation.
I'd sell my kydney for an ultra rare 116-B with the run speed mod on it, sadly until the new mod actually exist in the system that's just not happening.
also to go back to the [dmg] I have done some math and with a 25% chance to crit if the [dmg] is worth a 5% dps increase it become rougly equal to the [Crtd] mod . same math show that [CrtH] mod need to increase crit chance by 5% to be equal to the [crtD] mod.
Also could you give us some feedback on the new space version of rending shot for the delta alliance trait line? I said it before but a stack reset on a crit when ship crit multiple times per seconds just don't sit well with my idea of usefullness.
So now my question is this: how is BFAW calculated into overflow?
Is it as I suspect: Only the first (main shot) receiving the benefits of acc overflow? And all the extra beams are calculated with no overflow (since they "autohit")
Or is it as I dread: When BFAW is active NO shots are using Acc Overflow since they "autohit"?
Autohit in this instance meaning the way you guys have previously explained BFAW as working: drawing from the target(s) to the user.
Or is it completely different? I'd love to know as it directly impacts whether I use my Spiral Waves or my CrtDx3 Phaser Beams (and which ones I'll upgrade.)
Thanks for being in this thread!
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
BFaW does not benefit from overflow at all. It hits automatically, and thus never calculates to-hit chance.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
I was afraid of that -- so as long as BFAW is active, no acc overflow. ah well.
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
I like your plan.
I'm not a close follower of the forums, I was just pointed to this post, so forgive the silly question. I'm curious to know if you believe the core subtractive model, even with the symmetric asymptotic modification, is the most appropriate for a system with overflow modifiers. Wouldn't a system that decoupled Accuracy from Defense proportionately like an Acc/(1+Defense) variant provide a better way for players to build reasonable critical overflow values without dealing with the intrinsic (albeit global modifier dependent) 0.0625 asymptotic ceiling intrinsic in the chance calculation and the base multipliers?
Or have I just overlooked something stupid, like a balancing factor that restrains accuracy to a more logarithmic-looking behavior? Because asymptotic soft caps seem problematic to me when they are connected to modifiers constructed from gear.
Also, did you fix regeneration yet?
You can put your fears away, you just overlooked something stupid.
Any chance that we can have "accuracy/critH/critD bonuses from equipment" added to the ship's attack tab in the status screen UI? And while we're at it, factor in any overflow? Because these numbers are otherwise invisible to us so we can only guess how much we actually have.
----
And the final line in your post got me snickering.
well be - in the chat room - on the IRC - out at the Big Con - Star Trek costume for me - down in the dungeon - RP D&D - and baby - talk nerdy to me
This is the part where it all unravels. This is my favorite part of the curve, it isn't well liked or possibly well understood elsewhere. STO is fairly balanced with reasonable damage output by tactical systems when the hit rate is around 60 to 70 percent. The rate at which damage accelerates as ACC-DEF decreases isn't something folks just intuitively grasp. It's fast. And once you get into overflow damage increases even faster. This 'complex' seeming system isn't playing well with the customer base.
Because it isn't intuitive. Not because it sucks. It's currently a rare system to have in MMO combat. It's why PVP is so challenging, it's why a half dead ship can still rise up and smack down a careless attacker. It's what epic is made off.
Hit capped single roll combat tables are full of 'blah' and 'been there done this'. Granted that it is frustrating that long CD tactical abilities have a chance to miss while even short CDs from the other classes do not I don't think that tossing this model out is the answer. And frankly I think that is the direction you're heading into. I think the game would be better served by educating players that they NEED to keep their ships in a certain difference range to maintain their chances of survival than by forcing this into a hit capped game complete with a true global cooldown system.
Cheers and glad you're moving DMG somewhere it can be tweakable.
Bringing the [dmg] mod into line with the others sounds perilous. Because of how mods behave, a fixed amount of damage won't scale (not that scaling is necessarily desirable), and a scaling amount of damage unrelated to the other mods could either be useless or terrifying (and obtuse, especially if it turns out to be nonlinear).
Maybe it would be simplest to replace all [dmg] mods with [crtH]. This would:
- interact with the other mods
- not be a nerf for anything (crtH isn't always the most desirable, but it is also not always the least desirable)
- work for both ground and space, unlike replacing it with something involving acc
I....
Rightio.
Thanks, Hawk, but my brain has always been incapable of processing mathematics. Soooo, I'm going back to the kiddie pool.