Noman Feedback

Fallen London
1

So I purchased a Noman during Sackmas, and liked a lot about it, but feel inclined to give feedback. Apologies for the length of this.

I feel a little awkward commenting on the Noman story, not least because I cannot be sure that it is over and there is still a chance that there is still some content we haven’t seen. That being said, I feel that if I am unsatisfied, I should feedback on why, with said feedback to be listened to or not as FBG pleases. I want to make clear that it isn’t the Noman story in itself that I was unsatisfied with, but rather its mechanisms. Hopefully others will comment on this and let me know if I am alone in my thoughts or if they had a similar impression.

I love the concept of the Noman. I love the mysteries around it and I found its starting text and context enchanting. Thank you, Alexis / FBG, for creating it.

The mortality of the Noman was made very clear from the beginning. What wasn’t clear was the outcome. Was there the possibility of the pet giving a nice financial reward (as it accused players of thinking)? Was there was a possibility that it could turn into a permanent pet (if kept alive long enough or whatever)? Would there be juicy Neath lore oozing from its cold, slushy head? Was it a good story waiting to be told? I felt that any one of those options were possible, purchased a Noman with that in mind, and felt let down on three of those counts. I may have been entirely unjustified in those expectations, but there you go.

The story was good. Intriguing and well worth exploring. It did not feel ‘interactive’, but that isn’t a requirement for a good story.

Financialy, the best reward from the Noman seems to come from prematurely ending it (a rare, but not unique, item worth 312 echoes). All other known outcomes gave less than that. Without going too deep into the math, it was very hard to get what the community would consider a decent rate of return from the Noman. If you place no value on quirks, and had a lot stockpiled, then you could make a nice profit from it. I have no idea how many people were in that camp. Expending a single tear to keep the Noman alive any longer than the two-to-three weeks given would wipe out any possibility of having a positive economic return. I got my Noman Knows to 15 inside 2 weeks through intensive play, but many people could not do that. Overall, I don’t think that the Noman was intended to offer much of a financial reward.

The possibilty of a permanent Noman pet was enticing. If we kept it alive long enough, say to the Feast, or the Flash of light, maybe it would become real? There were reasons for that to look possible. The increasing cost of the Noman could be a way of compensating the early purchasers for having to keep it alive for an extra week. The fact that it could be kept alive for longer, at great expense, implied that there might be a reason to do so. Maybe if I had kept it alive until the flash, or fed it quirks until it hit Noman Knows 20, a permanent pet would come out of it. I gave up feeding it quirks at Noman Knows 18. I stopped grinding tears to keep it going when the feast started - I couldn’t both participate in the feast and feed the Noman. The chance of the flash of light working a miracle was a consideration, but my chances of catching it were minimal and the cost exorbitant. A Noman’s stats are nice, but after the extraordinary generosity of giving everyone Scuttering Squads for Sackmas (thanks for that by the way), the Noman is just not exceptional enough to be worth an investment along the lines of a-third-to-a-half of an overgoat to keep it going to the flash of light.

Lore, well. I didn’t really get much lore out of it. If I had brought it to a premature end I would have gotten a little more, I think, but I’m no more likely to murder my pets for lore than for cash. I won’t feed a spider to my pot plant, I avoid exploding my ferrets and I had no plan to finish off my Noman early. That’s clearly my fault, but the reward for finishing it wasn’t that juicy, lore wise, in my opinion. Not for the significant investment in actions to get that far.

I cannot say what Alexis was attempting when creating the Noman story, but I would guess that it is an investigation into mortality. If it was Alexis’ intent to explore this area then it fell a little short for me. Largely, I think, because I never established any emotional connection with my Noman.

The Noman, by design, had no real personality. While you could let it drain your quirks, it never noticeably changed because of them. There was no impact beyond a few CP of Noman Knows. I never had the feeling that the Noman was changing in any way other than melting. It was less like a short-lived friend and rather like a run-down car that kept needing repairs until it finally gave up the ghost. Some people bond with their cars, I don’t. I have no idea what the breakdown is between groups, but I know that I didn’t feel anything much beyond mild relief and mild disappointment when my Noman finally died.

The Venerable Bede quote on the Noman hover text is about dealing with uncertainty with faith, similar to the Julian of Norwich quote that made up a portion of its parting words, at least for the ending I chose. This was actually the problem with the Noman for me: there was a lot that we were uncertain about, and as far as computer games go, faith isn’t always rewarded as we would like.

Uncertainty makes people act more emotionally than they would do otherwise. I remember playing DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online, an MMO) a while back, and the upset in the forums due to the lack of feedback from the devs for long periods of time was considerable. Even bad news was a lot more tolerable than silence. FBG are a very, very long way from being as bad as the DDO dev team were at feedback at that point, and I am very grateful for that. In particular I am delighted with the new monthly change summary - thank you very much for giving us that.

I can quite understand why FBG were mostly silent about the Noman, but it didn’t make the uncertainty easier to deal with. The ramp up in cost of maintenance of the Noman in February was unexpected and unwelcome. Was it a nod to the reality of temperature / emotional fluctuations in the Neath, an attempt to clear the Nomen from the decks to make room for the Feast, or a mechanism to sort the wheat from the chaff? Unknown. I was keeping my Noman alive by farming tears from expeditions. About the time when others commented that eyeless skulls were showing up more often from expeditions, I noticed a drop in tears rewarded by my expeditions and an increase in skulls. Did the drop rate change? Was I just lucky before, or unlucky after? The change was again unwelcome as the skulls are a nuisance to get rid of as you have to deal with those Revolutionary gits and they cost a lot of actions to sell. I am pretty sure that the ‘wait until the Moon-misers are properly aligned before starting an expedition’ technique was nerfed. I think it is possible that the opponent progress rate for the slow progress route got faster too. In the absence of knoweldge, we’re left guessing and staring at the entrails of animals in the hope of divining the greater plan. I’m a lousy haruspex, but it feels like expeditions were nerfed. When it looks like the nerf bat is flying, uncharitable thoughts abound. Was the purpose of the Noman just to eat quirks down to reasonable levels, to make future content relevant? Was the Noman a quick-fix to keep the veterans interested and busy until the feast? I don’t know. Probably not. I asked the question though.

I don’t know how many people have Nomen still standing. I would be very interested to know if anything does happen to Nomen at the end of the feast.

What could have been done differently? Well, with the limited resources available to do this, I have to say that I’m glad it was done at all. My complaint is that it was too expensive in terms of actions / echoes for the reward. A similar mechanism but with a quicker resolution or else a cheaper investment in consumables would have helped in my eyes. Even a warning that investing in the Noman would be unlikely to result in any worthwhile financial return, particularly when it came to spending tears, would have been nice. Having a different death scene if it died of natural causes with more than 14 Noman Knows would also have been nice, for those of us not inclined to treat pets as loot pinatas.

From the point of view of effectiveness, I feel that the story hinged on the played establishing emotional attachment to the Noman. If the Noman was to have greater emotional connection, I feel it would have to be more than a blank slate you can’t write on or mannequin you cannot clothe. Having its stats vary depending on what quirks it was fed would have been very interesting (i.e. start out at 1 across the board and have quirks improve relevant stats). This would probably have been impossible to program and may have had balance issues, but would probably have resulted in people caring more for the Noman, even if it never got as far as +7 in any stat. Having the Noman image change with quirk investment / Noman Knows or even Noman’s Friend would again have been interesting and given it a little more personality, although, again, that probably be more difficult to program than it was worth. I don’t have any good ideas.

I realise that this post comes across as being highly critical, and I apologise for that. The Noman was great content and I enjoyed it. I just feel a little underwhelmed after the fact, and wanted to feedback.

2

I can’t speak on the Noman content in and of itself, as I didn’t end up getting one (which I ended up regretting, but that’s what I get for letting myself get distracted by shiny new lodgings).

However, Alexis’s comments elsewhere (I looked, but could not find the exact comment) implied that he was intentionally keeping quiet about the Nomen, so I’m not certain you’re going to get much of a response, I’m afraid. I don’t recall the precise words, but that it was more designed as &quotarty&quot content, not intended for any kind of financial return for the player.

Obviously, not to dissuade you from ASKING about it, just wanted to say, in case you were unaware, that there intentionally isn’t any. May the Feast be kind![li]
edited by Allanon Kisigar on 2/23/2014

3

Thanks for the note, Allanon Kisigar. I know that there probably won’t be an official response of any kind, but feel that if I provide an explanation of my thoughts and reasons behind them then FBG can, if they want, consider them for other content.

Mismatched expectations can be a cause for dissatisfaction and FBG may want to avoid that to some degree.

I’m more interested in the community’s response the Noman content. What did people think of it? Am I the only one who didn’t ‘get it’?

4

I genuinely felt sad (as much is as possible within a game context) when mine died. Would I have liked a pet? Sure, but then it would just be another Pokemon-like thing I collected.
As it is, I have a lingering sense of forlornity whenever I think of him. He would not have had that enormous an impact if he had lived, or indeed been possible to keep living. If he had lived, he would have been a nice thing gradually reduced to collectors trinket. If it had been possible to keep him and I had failed, I would have been mildly exasperated at the result, forgetting the content I enjoyed in the process.

As for emotional bonding - I deliberately sent myself to menace areas for several days to keep him alive. I cared enough. Perhaps more obvious emotional link wouldn’t have worked for me, might have for others. I hate overt manipulation in stories/games, others don’t. (Not saying you were suggesting this [can’t consider your alternatives this tiny device, just top of head thinking while i walk, if I’m mugged I blame you], just personalities vary enough they’ll never please all.) (I wonder whether cultural stereotypes have any value here? I’m stiff upper lip English, which means the mere hint of emotional tugging make me a soggy mess, whereas all out emotional string pulling makes me uncomfortable or even sneery. I know less ‘English’ friends enjoy romances and comedy more, genuinely getting pleasure because of (rather than despite) the manipulation. They’re lucky, as I think there is more stuff available suit … anyway, tangent.)

But, I acknowledge, I’m not a gamer who plays for the shiny. I play for content. Getting stuff is, to me, a way of accessing more content, or a momento of previous content. I don’t hoard for its sake, though I know many gamers do and get pleasure from doing so.

I wonder whether being active on the forum/irc can taint the game experience, sometimes. People surmise*, enthuse about possibilities, and, because of the surprises FB often pull off, are disappointed on the occasions when forum generated ideas don’t eventuate (am I making up words, now?). This is not to say we expect coding in response to forum posts, but that we’ve been conditioned to expect extraordinary things from FB, and when we just get 'pretty cool’things, are disappointed. I’d say that’s a pity, but think the benefits and fun of discussing where things in game go, and delighting on the occasion when we’re right, outweigh that.

On phone, can’t see beyond 7 words back of what I’ve typed, will check for coherency when at a computer.

P.s. as a rule of thumb, I suggest never assume nerfing where rng and observation bias are as likely factors.
*On computer, and wonder whether this is worth a separate post, especially as I can’t be bothered to go through and edit, now. Turns out I’m lazy.
edited by babelfishwars on 2/23/2014

5

So: on assumptions and whether the forum/IRC feeds disappointment.

A trait I’ve noticed among us, the eagerest of the eager, is that we assume things that were ‘good’ (and this generally tends to be good in the high echo or item value sense, rather than ‘cool content’ sense), they’ll stick around as events reoccur. But we also want more things, to keep events fresh. So excited discussions occur, wondering what can be built upon the previous year’s version of an event, assuming that there will be ‘more’, rather than different - forgetting this may be frustrating for lower level players who may feel they’re missing out on stuff (as it’ll be harder to access the content), or that it may unbalance the economy (a too easy game is rarely a fun game). To fulfil our expectations, FB would constantly have to add MORE and BETTER, and never balance. Because that’s taking stuff away and always BAD. (Except it isn’t.)

So, using your post (and just because I’m too lazy to hunt other examples, not because I wish in any way to attack you. Having ‘I’m disappointed’ feedback is useful to FB even if it’s just to let them know that they’re setting expectation levels too high.), I want to highlight a few things:

I get great pleasure in exploring the mystery of Fallen London. Were I always given a treat at the end of everything, I’d be in-the-moment happy, and overall disappointed. I like a game that punishes as much as it rewards, as it feels less like a box of press button get treat and more like a genuine story I’ve explored - sometimes getting a better ending than other times.

So - if you’d been pleased, I would have been disappointed. But I know from these forums many people would prefer to have something ‘spoiled’ that risk losing out.

Simply here: FailBetter can only lose. People who are happy rarely declare it, especially if happy with a loss. Unhappy people almost always do.

I consider myself a fairly hard core player. I don’t do homework on the lore, but I’m always in the forums and IRC, and try to get as much info as I can without getting content I haven’t accessed yet spoiled. I can honestly say that I saw nothing that suggested the Noman would last. And it simply wouldn’t make sense. It’s made of ‘snow’. Unless they’re going to introduce cold storage into FL, or magic of the skantily clad damsels and blokes in cloaks kind - I genuinely can’t think of a way it would work. I suppose a Pinocchio ‘I’m a real boy’ thing, maybe …
Put it this way: there would have to have been some damn good writing/clever game design to make me feel other than cheated for him to have lasted when the Mr Sackes didn’t.

Which brings me to ‘assumptions’: ‘Flash of light’. We didn’t get boxes this year. We got different pets. Why are people assuming we’ll get the flash of light when SO MANY people complained about missing it last year? (I missed it.) They do keep some stuff that not everyone likes (as I’ve pointed out, they’ll have to, or there would be no game) - but it was universally loathed (maybe a little strong. I was peeved.) by those not online for the crucial period. We don’t know how the Feast will end, but I’ve been assuming it won’t be with light. But because it was a positive thing for the few that got it, people are assuming it’ll appear again, as the possibility of removing something which gives stuff is … inconceivable (I do not think it means …).
I firmly believe, if it appears, it’ll be very different to last year. I suspect it won’t appear, and there will be something else, less dramatic but more accessible to all players.

Again - I didn’t get this. Or we at least need to acknowledge ‘implied’ and ‘might’ is our hopeful reading of something, rather than straightforward seeing what was there. The Noman melted, all the text was about losing etc … if we’re going to read possibilities into every piece of content we’re given, and be disappointed when we don’t get our expectations met, then there are a few options: 1) reset our expectations to get what the game straight suggests, and not try to read more into what is hinted by cost, or gaining/not gaining a treat.
2) FB introduce out of game text that says: ‘Seriously, we’re not kidding about the melting, this is just temporary content to be enjoyed while it lasts’ - but this may seem like a double bluff (seekers, I look at us!), and would probably jolt many out of the game in a bad way/
3) Hope for things, and be disappointed, and deal with it. If it spoils the game, leave, if it doesn’t, stay.
Maybe there are other routes. But I do feel that our enthusiasm for wondering what we might get if we push to the very bounds of content might actually be spoiling our appreciation of the content.

I’m genuinely surprised by your desire for certainty in Fallen London. I can’t think of a game that would be more spoiled by certainty. But this is just personal opinion and taste, can’t really be argued/discussed.

I know nothing about any DDO upset in forums, but your comment here made me go: ‘Woah!’ a little. ‘a long way from being as bad as’? Seriously? FB post explanations on a regular basis, interact with us, a small core of their fan base, to a huge degree. Even when they don’t reply to every post, it’s pretty clear they read most if not all of them. They post regular updates not only on progress, but things they’ve learned from mistakes - whether in community management, game design, faulty servers, kickstarter operation.

I feel like I must sound like I’m sucking up, but this is sincere: I feel FailBetter interact with us to a huge degree, and this may be part of the problem that has appeared elsewhere in the forums, and not just in this comment here. We (forum users) feel we have some kind of influence on the game (we probably do, to a tiny degree), are aware we’re probably the higher end payers, and are slighted when things don’t go as we see fit. Where FailBetter fail in their community interaction is expectation management, not in not telling us enough. And if we (and they) aren’t careful, the forum users will start phrasing things in a manner that is entitled, and may risk upsetting those who don’t actually have to interact with us at all. It’s their ball, and if we tell them how to play with it, they can take it away. Bad for them, bad for us.

[quote=RandomWalker]
I can quite understand why FBG were mostly silent about the Noman, but it didn’t make the uncertainty easier to deal with. The ramp up in cost of maintenance of the Noman in February was unexpected and unwelcome. Was it a nod to the reality of temperature / emotional fluctuations in the Neath, an attempt to clear the Nomen from the decks to make room for the Feast, or a mechanism to sort the wheat from the chaff? Unknown. I was keeping my Noman alive by farming tears from expeditions. About the time when others commented that eyeless skulls were showing up more often from expeditions, I noticed a drop in tears rewarded by my expeditions and an increase in skulls. Did the drop rate change? Was I just lucky before, or unlucky after? The change was again unwelcome as the skulls are a nuisance to get rid of as you have to deal with those Revolutionary gits and they cost a lot of actions to sell. I am pretty sure that the ‘wait until the Moon-misers are properly aligned before starting an expedition’ technique was nerfed. I think it is possible that the opponent progress rate for the slow progress route got faster too. In the absence of knoweldge, we’re left guessing and staring at the entrails of animals in the hope of divining the greater plan. I’m a lousy haruspex, but it feels like expeditions were nerfed. When it looks like the nerf bat is flying, uncharitable thoughts abound. Was the purpose of the Noman just to eat quirks down to reasonable levels, to make future content relevant? Was the Noman a quick-fix to keep the veterans interested and busy until the feast? I don’t know. Probably not. I asked the question though. [/quote]

If you’re referring to the Nadir, it was over-lucrative and economy breaking, I think no one disagrees there. I’ll never get an overgoat without it, but it’s for the best :-p . The change there was deliberate, clear, and came with more and interesting content. It was not changed to make the Noman experience harder.
The rest of this paragraph is weird. You ask questions, assume answers, and then complain about the consequence of answers you’ve assumed without knowing they’re right.

Also - ‘lots of actions’ to get rid of skulls? … Isn’t it ‘one’? Heck, even if it’s five, FB have doubled the action candle, which means it’s the equivalent of 2.5 actions. Not much.

Your queries about ‘absence of knowledge’ suggests you’re looking to play the most lucratively optimal game. Some people are optimisers, I’m not, but fair enough. Optimise the game, talk to others to work out how to do it - but don’t expect the game devs to tell you the back end of the game so to make it easier for you to do so.

Helped what? What level of content/cheapness would be optimally pleasurable? What price in goods would have made the content worthwhile? You place an arbitrary value on a text reward, but how should that be measured? Should storylets have ACIV ‘rate this memory’ endings, so FB learn how many dead rats a certain paragraph of text is worth?
Right, I’m being snide. Sorry - I just don’t see that your comment is helpful. It comes across as the same problem as this forum has a lot - we expect X, so when we get Y, we complain as we feel entitled to X. But where each player has a different level of X, FB are forced into a game where they can only gain complaints.

Dear FB, please no. Yes, it’s a balancing act between types of customer, but I value, cherish, PLAY FOR the mystery. Allow me to enjoy being disappointed, allow my pleasant surprises. (As if you did this for this and not other similar content you’d get complaints. And then you’d have to put it on all content that wasn’t obvious. And then there’d be nothing but spoilers or obvious content and I’d be sad and bored.)

In the context of the rest of your thoughts - isn’t this saying ‘I didn’t want to treat it as a loot pinata, so I want better loot as a reward for not … getting loot’?

Agree. (Finally!) ;-)

That would have been interesting. But I don’t think Noman failed as it was. Better is already better, but I sincerely feel it was good.

&quotGreat content and I enjoyed&quot &quotUnderwhelmed&quot. Which in itself is not useful feedback.

Griping aside, I think I may be grumpy as I haven’t eaten and am hungry, so apologies if this comes across too attacky - if possible, ignore the grump and take the counter points.

However, I think the most useful thing about your post is it reveals a problem with expectation management of players. If a player can sincerely say ‘I loved what you did, but’ - the problem isn’t with what was done, but with what the player wanted/expected to be done. The fix isn’t in changing the content.

I AM GOING TO EAT NOW.

6

Thanks for your response, Babelfishwars. We obviously play the game from very different perspectives.

I’ve read your comments, disagree with some, agree with others and feel that we don’t understand one-another for most. I don’t think that a point by point rebuttal that would resolve anything, however dearly I would like to write one.

I realise that my post and responses come across as the whining of a player with perceived entitlement who wants the game to be handed to them in book form. I did try to avoid that and clearly didn’t succeed. I don’t want the mysteries to be removed. I would like a little more knowledge when the existing game has been changed. I’m not saying that FBG should tell us, just making my preference known. I would like it, but what I would like is pretty irrelevant.

FBG produce a game. A magnificent creative work. We consume that work. I wanted to give feedback on how I felt about that work, and why I felt that way. It’s a data point, and not a particularly useful one, but I felt that it was better than nothing. Should I just be silent if I am happy or unhappy? Maybe. I am increasingly thinking that I lack the skills to communicate what I was thinking clearly enough and the original post was a mistake.

7

[quote=RandomWalker]
FBG produce a game. A magnificent creative work. We consume that work. I wanted to give feedback on how I felt about that work, and why I felt that way. It’s a data point, and not a particularly useful one, but I felt that it was better than nothing.[/quote]

:-)
Whether it’s useful to them is for them to judge, not me. Even if they don’t respond, it doesn’t mean it’s dismissed. They do seem to read everything here.

I’m just loud and opinionated. I’m not always right. (I am, but apparently I’m not supposed to say that, so I try to say it less.)

The nice thing about a game such as FL is it is playable by completely different types of players. I’m a reader turned gamer. Others may be gamers turned readers. Some may be both readers and gamers. I suspect fewer are neither. But our entry to the game will almost certainly determine our emotional responses to it, and what bits of it scratch an itch and what bits trigger itches.

8

I’m not sure how qualified I am to comment on this, as I didn’t get a noman myself, but from what I can glean from the wikis I think it’s the most interesting part of Christmas. I certainly formed an emotional attachment to the noman just reading snippets off the wiki, and was sad to read about “Noman’s End”. I’m sure that my distance from the gameplay aspect of this colours my opinions, but it seemed like an interesting (if limited – which quirk you choose doesn’t actually affect the noman at all) experiment.

In fact, I wonder if the whole point of it was to criticize precisely this economical playstle? It does mock you for thinking it’ll produce treasure (and it’s hideously expensive to maintain). And there is an option to salvage it for material components when it dies, if you’re a heartless monster. :p

Perhaps it’s a lesson? Appreciate the content for the story, rather than boiling it down to pence-per-action? Maybe FBG was annoyed at players for doing that boiling and expecting material compensation from stories.

I have heard other players express dissatisfaction with the execution, however – primarily over the fact that it’s tied to the rest of the game’s economy. It’s possible to blow tons of resources – and real money – on Fallen London, even encouraged. Prior to this, the expectation (discounting SMEN) was that you’d get something in return for that investment – so if you Fate-rushed to try and preserve your noman, but got nothing, that’s going to leave people pretty miffed. I think the experiment would have worked better as a more isolated thing, rather than a black hole you can impoverish yourself feeding.

9

[quote=Little The]Perhaps it’s a lesson? Appreciate the content for the story, rather than boiling it down to pence-per-action? Maybe FBG was annoyed at players for doing that boiling and expecting material compensation from stories.

I have heard other players express dissatisfaction with the execution, however – primarily over the fact that it’s tied to the rest of the game’s economy. It’s possible to blow tons of resources – and real money – on Fallen London, even encouraged. Prior to this, the expectation (discounting SMEN) was that you’d get something in return for that investment – so if you Fate-rushed to try and preserve your noman, but got nothing, that’s going to leave people pretty miffed. I think the experiment would have worked better as a more isolated thing, rather than a black hole you can impoverish yourself feeding.[/quote]

Good points.
I wonder if there’s a balance that can be struck - a way that FB can flag ‘look guys, this won’t help your FB bank balance, but you may enjoy it’ without dragging us out of the game or spoilering too much. Of course, the problem is as with Eaten - we take such warnings as challenges rather than actually meaning what they say.
By ‘we’, I of course mean ‘crazed seekers of the name’ - but everyone is one of those, right? Right?

10

cough I did wonder, a little, if the point of the noman was to reduce the levels of peoples’ quirks.
. I get the impression that FB are wanting players to work harder to maintain levels of quirks / connections / second chances etc rather than being able to build large stockpiles and coast through.

11

I was disappointed by the noman ending because I expected the quirks we fed it to have some kind of effect on the ending. I drew all the cards I possibly could to get the most effect I could and because I didn’t make it to the cutoff needed for the premature ending, it seems to have had no effect at all. I wanted the changes in him to mean something.

12

I felt connected to the Noman at first, but when I found out there was a reward and that he could be kept alive by Tears/Taste, I became quite detached from the emotional part and focused on power-drawing cards to get to 15 and burst him before having to spend a Tears. On reflection, that felt like a bad thing afterwards, and I feel like there would’ve been more emotional impact without either a lucrative reward or a way to keep it alive. I’m not so broken up about the lack of different results from feeding quirks, as I understand that would have taken a lot of extra effort to get right.