Opinions on the different versions of System Shock 2? Which one do you prefer?

[678b3651b58f0ZylonBane]

The vanilla gameplay isn't that good, though.

Now that's a hall of shame quote right there.

[678b3651b5a74voodoo47]

I see no reason why any of those mods shouldn't load. anything unusual in the logs? started a completely new game?

[678b3651b5d8dBrisk]

I see no reason why any of those mods shouldn't load. anything unusual in the logs? started a completely new game?

Yes, brand new game every time I test. There is a warning stating "Too many mods active or paused"in the log.

I just moved the "migraine cyberspace" mod above "four hundred" and now it's working. Does this mean that all graphics mods have to be above "four hundred" in the load order to avoid being over written?

The load order in this thread shows otherwise...

[678b3651b67e8sarge945]

I don't know. I just checked the thread for the mod and the complete version it mentions the inclusion of the psiamp and "not needing anything else". https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?wap2;topic=691

Aha, I see the problem now.

Tacticool includes the weapon models and textures, but the two-handed weapons don't have the second hand model, they are all essentially held one-handed. It also doesn't contains Rocketman's weapons, as voodoo pointed out.

The extra hands are added by a different mod.

By following the guide, you get the complete arsenal with all of the big weapons being held with both hands. The "complete experience", so to speak.

I can probably remove the reference to Eldron's Psi Amp, though, since it's now included in Tacticool (and maybe always has been??).

Now that's a hall of shame quote right there.

Are you serious? Are we even playing the same game?

SS2 is a game where:

• Every single guide recommends a handful of skills, because the rest are borderline useless.
• Of the skills that are useful, most of their utility is front-loaded (Research, Modify, Hack), and higher level investment is always never worth it. In the case of Modify, the standard tactic is to get Modify to the level needed to get to weapon mod 1, then use a FE device to get to level 2, rendering high level Modify investment almost completely worthless. 1 point of Research (which is literally required) is enough to get a 10% damage bonus against every enemy, which is super powerful compared to the other benefits given by the Research skill.
• Every melee enemy can be instantly rendered harmless by backpedalling (including rumblers!!!!). You may have assault rifles, fusion cannons, and explosive grenades, but the S key remains your most effective weapon.
• The Security system mechanics are laughable, cameras are extremely easy to bypass, it's typical for even an inexperienced player to go through the whole game without ever setting off a single alarm. I have seen multiple lets-plays by fresh, new players who set off the alarm once in MedSci before they understand the mechanics, and then never ever set it off again because it's so easy and so quick to destroy cameras. The security mechanics might as well not exist. Even Bioshock did better here, because as terrible as the pipe-mania hacking minigame is, at least you couldn't just destroy all of the cameras with one easy, simple pistol shot.
• Psionics is a complete mess. Psi Overloading only applies to a handful of skills, a number of psi skills are almost completely useless (alarms time out faster), others have weird/wacky undocumented interactions (pyro field making you immune to incendiary damage), some are far too strong to actually be useful and are just a waste of psi points (advanced healing), and some really should be useful but are hamstrung by bad map design or countered by other mechanics (why use psi pull when you can shoot down most objects?).
• Some OS Upgrades are VERY good. Others are laughably bad. SCP already addresses this issue, so I know you agree with me on this one.
• Mechanics are not particularly well explained and constantly trip up new players (Repair vs Maintenance, for instance)
• Because of the above issues, and many others, Impossible difficulty isn't particularly difficult, and most veteran players already play on Impossible and still find the game not particularly difficult because it's so exploitable. Hybrids can boop you in 1 hit? Bro just backpedal. Everything costs lots of CMs? Just don't buy the crap skills. By the time you get up to Command, the difficulty essentially plateaus and the rest of the game is piss easy, but even before that point the game is pretty easy after the cargo bays, which is the hardest part of the entire game because it's a gauntlet that you will likely face before your overpowered min-max build is really online.

SS2 is a very good game in terms of it's atmosphere and what it tried to do at the time. Making an FPS-RPG hybrid with that level of depth is downright impressive. But the implementation absolutely sucked. SCP fixes some of these issues, but mods like Repairman and RSD are needed to fix most of the rest. At that point, SS2 becomes far less cheesable and is much, much better than the out of box experience, ESPECIALLY for veteran players who are probably so familiar with how exploitable the game is at this point that they likely do entire playthroughs without needing to have a single independent thought, because the game is so completely rote because it's so utterly broken in it's fundamental design. Unfortunately, by deluding themselves into thinking the gameplay is actually excellent and all criticism is just mindless whining from clueless call of duty players, a lot of veteran players are missing out on an actually good modded SS2 experience that makes them think and strategise and use their brain the way the game likely did the first time they played. Their bias is literally preventing them from having a more fun experience.

If you think this criticising the vanilla gameplay is "hall of shame" worthy, then I'm sorry but you're just plain wrong. SCP has had to fix a lot of the vanilla design issues, but even then, it's only a drop in the bucket towards fixing everything. Other mods are required to really fix all of the problems and make the game fun/interesting again for people who have already "solved it".

[678b3651b6a9evoodoo47]

There is a warning stating "Too many mods active or paused" in the log.

try the dmm.exe from here (which one are you using right now btw?) and see what happens.

//ok, random idea, try to shorten the SS2_Vaxquis_VintageSongRemake and SS2_DeNoised_CutscenesV1 foldernames (SS2_Vaxquis and SS2_DeNoised for example).

[678b3651b6e1bBrisk]

try the dmm.exe from here (which one are you using right now btw?) and see what happens.

//ok, random idea, try to shorten the SS2_Vaxquis_VintageSongRemake and SS2_DeNoised_CutscenesV1 foldernames (SS2_Vaxquis and SS2_DeNoised for example).

I just tried this again quickly before leaving for work. The mod manager that I was using was already the same version as that one (1.1.1) but I used the version you linked to anyway. I shortened all zip archive names, deleted every single mod from the mod manager interface, exited saving the progress. Opened the mod manager again, installed all mods from scratch, enabled them, sorted in the same load order and applied changes. I then checked the mod manager log and the previous error regarding "too many mods" was now gone. I started the game executable and a new game with the exact same results of "Migraine Cyberspace" not loading. I then went back into mod manager, moved it to the slot above "Four Hundred", applied changes, launched the game again and it's now working. For some reason this mod simply refuses to load if placed after "Four Hundred"...

Now I don't really have a problem leaving it in this load order but it leaves me wondering what other mods are not working correctly and as far as I can tell there's no way to determine this without playing the game through entirely...

[678b3651b6f38sarge945]

I guess this is something to do with the max length of the mod paths, which ss2bmm usually warns about, but maybe not DMM.

[678b3651b71a1Brisk]

I guess this is something to do with the max length of the mod paths, which ss2bmm usually warns about, but maybe not DMM.

Unfortunately not in this case. The behavior is exactly the same as before and "migraine cyberspace" simply will not load behind "four hundred" still.

This would be a perfect opportunity for zylonbane who created the mod to chime in with something actually constructive but I guess that would require a bit more effort than a single sentence fly by insult...

[678b3651b72cbsarge945]

I find the best way to deal with fly-by insults is to carefully explain in excruciating detail why the other person is a fucking idiot for saying what they said.

Hence the wall of text above.

That usually gets rid of them for a while.

[678b3651b7bb9Join2]

SS2 is a game where:

• Every single guide recommends a handful of skills, because the rest are borderline useless.
• Of the skills that are useful, most of their utility is front-loaded (Research, Modify, Hack), and higher level investment is always never worth it. In the case of Modify, the standard tactic is to get Modify to the level needed to get to weapon mod 1, then use a FE device to get to level 2, rendering high level Modify investment almost completely worthless. 1 point of Research (which is literally required) is enough to get a 10% damage bonus against every enemy, which is super powerful compared to the other benefits given by the Research skill.
• Every melee enemy can be instantly rendered harmless by backpedalling (including rumblers!!!!). You may have assault rifles, fusion cannons, and explosive grenades, but the S key remains your most effective weapon.
• The Security system mechanics are laughable, cameras are extremely easy to bypass, it's typical for even an inexperienced player to go through the whole game without ever setting off a single alarm. I have seen multiple lets-plays by fresh, new players who set off the alarm once in MedSci before they understand the mechanics, and then never ever set it off again because it's so easy and so quick to destroy cameras. The security mechanics might as well not exist. Even Bioshock did better here, because as terrible as the pipe-mania hacking minigame is, at least you couldn't just destroy all of the cameras with one easy, simple pistol shot.
• Psionics is a complete mess. Psi Overloading only applies to a handful of skills, a number of psi skills are almost completely useless (alarms time out faster), others have weird/wacky undocumented interactions (pyro field making you immune to incendiary damage), some are far too strong to actually be useful and are just a waste of psi points (advanced healing), and some really should be useful but are hamstrung by bad map design or countered by other mechanics (why use psi pull when you can shoot down most objects?).
• Some OS Upgrades are VERY good. Others are laughably bad. SCP already addresses this issue, so I know you agree with me on this one.
• Mechanics are not particularly well explained and constantly trip up new players (Repair vs Maintenance, for instance)
• Because of the above issues, and many others, Impossible difficulty isn't particularly difficult, and most veteran players already play on Impossible and still find the game not particularly difficult because it's so exploitable. Hybrids can boop you in 1 hit? Bro just backpedal. Everything costs lots of CMs? Just don't buy the crap skills. By the time you get up to Command, the difficulty essentially plateaus and the rest of the game is piss easy, but even before that point the game is pretty easy after the cargo bays, which is the hardest part of the entire game because it's a gauntlet that you will likely face before your overpowered min-max build is really online.

SS2 is a very good game in terms of it's atmosphere and what it tried to do at the time. Making an FPS-RPG hybrid with that level of depth is downright impressive. But the implementation absolutely sucked. SCP fixes some of these issues, but mods like Repairman and RSD are needed to fix most of the rest. At that point, SS2 becomes far less cheesable and is much, much better than the out of box experience, ESPECIALLY for veteran players who are probably so familiar with how exploitable the game is at this point that they likely do entire playthroughs without needing to have a single independent thought, because the game is so completely rote because it's so utterly broken in it's fundamental design. Unfortunately, by deluding themselves into thinking the gameplay is actually excellent and all criticism is just mindless whining from clueless call of duty players, a lot of veteran players are missing out on an actually good modded SS2 experience that makes them think and strategise and use their brain the way the game likely did the first time they played. Their bias is literally preventing them from having a more fun experience.

If you think this criticising the vanilla gameplay is "hall of shame" worthy, then I'm sorry but you're just plain wrong. SCP has had to fix a lot of the vanilla design issues, but even then, it's only a drop in the bucket towards fixing everything. Other mods are required to really fix all of the problems and make the game fun/interesting again for people who have already "solved it".

All valid criticism (well, except maybe for the expectation that mechanics be well explained where it's arguably not neccessary), but mostly pertaining only to balance, and some of it only perceivable after multiple playthroughs or deeper digging. It doesn't make the gameplay not very good overall. SS2's gameplay is flawed like nearly any other game (especially RPGs) and yet epic, multi-layered, respects the player's intelligence, highly replayable, super engaging...it's great gameplay. Of course it can be better and mods are much appreciated there as always, but save the "not very good" for lesser games.

SS2 vanilla is pretty solid.  Much like Deus Ex, which was even more flawed (thrice as!) yet still an absolutely incredible game, amazing gameplay despite the very core mountain of issues.

The balance issues suck in SS2 but the best part about that is nothing is notably overpowered. It sucks on the opposite end of the spectrum; the balances issues are largely in certain things being useless, so as a result the core engagement/experience is preserved. Deus Ex on the other hand let you run around with ridiculously overpowered regen health aug that healed 40hp every second, letting you tank any threat including drowning, as well as making many related upgrade choices completely redundant.
I know which approach I prefer.

Still, maybe you just have very high standards, and I can certainly respect that. But there aren't too many games as engaging as SS2 that's I've played. Lots, but not enough.

As for the topic in question, I can't answer. I only have played the original release with varying mods.

[678b3651b7e6bsarge945]

The balance issues suck in SS2 but the best part about that is nothing is notably overpowered.

Standard Weapons?

The Assault Rifle is hands-down the best weapon in Vanilla. It's still really good even after being nerfed by ss2tool and SCP, is available the earliest of all the 6-skill weapons, and has the most ammo readily available and the most enemy types it can damage.

I remember running through BotM two-shotting Rumblers with anti-personnel rounds. It's definitely overpowered

[678b3651b7fbfvoodoo47]

ok, nope, that "Too many mods active or paused" thing is random, was able to replicate and it has nothing to do with foldername lengths or anything, it just comes and goes, or so it would seem.

also, migraine cyberspace is a level texture mod, so yeah, if you have multiple loaded (Four Hundred), then you will have to give it a higher priority, I thought that was clear.

[678b3651b82b8Join2]

Standard Weapons?

The Assault Rifle is hands-down the best weapon in Vanilla. It's still really good even after being nerfed by ss2tool and SCP, is available the earliest of all the 6-skill weapons, and has the most ammo readily available and the most enemy types it can damage.

I remember running through BotM two-shotting Rumblers with anti-personnel rounds. It's definitely overpowered

It has to be at least a little to justify all those Cybermodules, because it uses the same ammo as the pistol. Personally I invest standard to shotgun then invest the modules elsewhere, cause I already have a competent gun that fires standard/personnel/AP rounds. But still, it could have instead had its own unique ammo.
So yeah, Assault Rifle is definitely problematic in terms of OPness but not incredibly so + only available halfway through the game or more. It's also one of the few OP examples that could be presented.

[678b3651b8746Brisk]

ok, nope, that "Too many mods active or paused" thing is random, was able to replicate and it has nothing to do with foldername lengths or anything, it just comes and goes, or so it would seem.

also, migraine cyberspace is a level texture mod, so yeah, if you have multiple loaded (Four Hundred), then you will have to give it a higher priority, I thought that was clear.

It is now. Kind of counter intuitive based on how most other games from this era and prior with mod tools work. Usually the mod last on the list is the last to be loaded which will overwrite anything prior within the same asset space. Now I know that in dark mod manager this is load PRIORITY and not load ORDER as all the guides I have run across state or atleast fail to mention that it's in reverse order. Thanks for informing me.



Regarding the arguments on vanilla gameplay, I don't really understand why one would go through so much effort to change how the game mechanics fundamentally function. Do you not like the game for what it is? Also essentially all first person shooters well into the 2010's (with few exceptions) could basically be "cheesed" by two basic tactics: running backwards down a hallway shooting while an overly aggressive enemy attempts to hit you with a melee attack or by circle straffing while shooting an enemy with a ranged attack. This was countered in the early days by the use of hit scan which I've seen more complaints about being "cheap' than anything else. Later games (once the computational capabilities of hardware improved) were programmed with better AI which lead to enemies falling back or flanking but this could more often than not be addressed by either waiting the enemy out or side step shooting around a corner. Human players are resourceful and will always find ways to exploit enemy AI tendencies one way or another.




One last question before I start my playthrough hopefully tonight, was there ever a mod to implement a widescreen menu in System Shock 2?

I find it hard to believe that a game as popular as System Shock 2 with a still active modding community with talent in both programming and art would still be subjecting players to black bars and 4:3 assets on the opening screen of the game. Or are we going to have to wait for nightdive to release the "enhanced edition" and hope they don't fuck it up by abandoning it in an unfinished mess as is status quo?

[678b3651b89e5voodoo47]

infinitely arguing about things that most people won't even know exist is pretty much our job description.

nope, the menu stays unchanged, we like our 4:3 bars. now go play the game.

Now I know that in dark mod manager this is load PRIORITY and not load ORDER

oh yes, we do get this complaint every five years or so, never really understood why a few people think this way but some do. so yes, if multiple mods modify the same thing, whatever has the position closest to the top of the list will end up shown in the game.

[678b3651b9852sarge945]

It has to be at least a little to justify all those Cybermodules

All of the other 6-skill weapons cost the same amount of cybermodules as the Assault Rifle, and yet are SIGNIFICANTLY less good. The EMP rifle is only useful against bots, the Fusion cannon is more likely to blow your face off than theirs, and the Annelid Launcher is only available right before the body of the many (Exotic actually gets specifically shafted twice, because the Viral Proliferator is also only available in rec, which is a significant amount through the game. Exotic builds really aren't viable at all in Vanilla for this reason).

You find the first usable non-broken Assault rifle in Hydro. That's well before the halfway point. Meanwhile the first Fusion cannon is in Command(!) and the first EMP rifle is in either Ops or Recreation, I can't remember.

It's also the only weapon class where you can reliably ditch the previous weapon (in this case, the pistol) because it's literally a better version of the same thing, so it even saves you inventory space.

Even better, because the Wrench scales with Standard, doing a Standard playthrough will be a breeze at all stages of the game - good wrench damage early, with pistol for tougher fights while ammo is somewhat scarce, then an easy transition into the Shotgun at the end of MedSci and Assault Rifle in Hydro. Marines and Navy also both predominantly benefit Standard because they each give you +1 Standard, setting you up to go Standard, whereas transitioning to another weapon type essentially wastes those points. The placement of the weapons in the maps means that doing an Energy playthrough will leave you naked and exposed with only the Wrench and Pistol until the end of Engineering, and without Repair, going Heavy will leave you naked and exposed with only the Wrench and Pistol until Hydro. If you pick OSA instead of Navy, you will be stuck with only the wrench unless you manually invest in Standard, which will be wasted when you transition to your other weapon class. Your other option is to go as a Marine to get the Energy Pistol or Grenade Launcher at the start of the game, but that sacrifices development in other areas, namely the critically important technical skills, which matters on Impossible.

If you want to go Exotic as your primary weapon skill you're just fucked. Not only are you going to be required to put a bunch of points into Research as well just to use them, you're going to need to wait until a significant portion of the game is complete before you can use any of them, relegating them permanently to "secondary" choices. In most cases, there's no real need for a secondary weapon class (except maybe with Energy) because investing in just 1 weapon class is usually enough to get by, which is why nobody ever uses Exotic for any reason - it's a waste of points.

After jumping through so many hoops and waiting so long to get the alternative weapon types online, what you get is a series of weapons that never rise to the height of the assault rifle, leaving you at a permanent disadvantage compared to if you just went Standard, which would have been easier anyway, wasted less CMs, and been a much more pleasant experience from the start of the game onwards.

The issues with SS2's weapon balance (and it's balance in general) aren't simply a matter of comparing weapons or skills directly against each other. The game is so fundamentally broken on a core level that virtually every aspect of the design comes into play - from the career selections, to weapon placement in the maps, to Research, to CM costs - everything combines to make the balance a total clusterfuck of badness. And it's not just weapon skills that are effected.

RSD fixes most of these issues, btw, which is why you should use it. It's essentially the GMDX of SS2.

Other OP aspects of the game:
- With 1 level in hacking you can disable every security system in the game, which also disables turrets. Cameras don't matter much since they are already trivial to bypass, as I have complained about before, but disabling turrets is huge.
- Pressing the S button instantly wins all melee fights
- Putting just a few points in psi and getting Adrenaline Overproduction basically renders the entire game trivial, you can wrench your way through everything easily at that point.
- More things I haven't thought of yet.

The balance of SS2 is atrocious.

oh yes, we do get this complaint every five years or so, never really understood why a few people think this way but some do. so yes, if multiple mods modify the same thing, whatever has the position closest to the top of the list will end up shown in the game.

The reason people think it works the other way is because the Bethesda games work from top to bottom in terms of mod order, and I would argue that Bethesda games are by far the most popular in terms of modding. Not many people play obscure old titles like SS2, and much less of them mod it to a significant degree to where load order will matter. Everyone and their mum has played Skyrim and a significant portion of those people will have modded it.

I would seriously recommend adding a note to both the DMM and ss2bmm (ss2tool) pages to explain to downloaders that mods are ordered from bottom to top, because it will significantly reduce confusion.

Regarding the arguments on vanilla gameplay, I don't really understand why one would go through so much effort to change how the game mechanics fundamentally function. Do you not like the game for what it is?

I'm wanting to fix the gameplay imbalances precisely because I like the game.

When you've finished it multiple times, the cracks really start to show, and it can really take away a lot of the fun when you know that certain builds are extremely overpowered and others are borderline useless.

Most people don't really care about the gameplay or balance of SS2, and that's understandable. It's a game that can carry itself almost entirely on it's vibes, it's story, and it's atmosphere. But wouldn't it be nice to have an excellent game like SS2 that also had good gameplay as well? Especially when so many people have completed it so many times that the game is trivially easy (even on Impossible) if you play it the "right" way by picking the most overpowered builds/strategies every time?

Why wouldn't you want to fix these issues? It can only result in a better game! I know the first time I played SS2-RSD it felt fresh again, because the same old mindless choices weren't so obvious anymore. Which is great! Even now after multiple SS2-RSD playthroughs, I'm exploring new builds and strategies that just weren't viable at all in vanilla SS2, which is awesome as it has added a significant amount of depth to the game, just by fixing up some of it's most glaring issues.

If more players spent more time embracing change and trying out balance fixes, and less time decrying SS2 as a perfect game (it's not) or considering all criticism to be invalid whining by Call of Duty players, they would have a much better time because the game would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable on replays. But alas, people are set in their ways. I don't really mind though, they are only ruining their own fun.

Also essentially all first person shooters well into the 2010's (with few exceptions) could basically be "cheesed" by two basic tactics: running backwards down a hallway shooting while an overly aggressive enemy attempts to hit you with a melee attack or by circle straffing while shooting an enemy with a ranged attack. This was countered in the early days by the use of hit scan which I've seen more complaints about being "cheap' than anything else. Later games (once the computational capabilities of hardware improved) were programmed with better AI which lead to enemies falling back or flanking but this could more often than not be addressed by either waiting the enemy out or side step shooting around a corner. Human players are resourceful and will always find ways to exploit enemy AI tendencies one way or another.

Yes, well, most first person shooters still find plenty of ways to be exceptionally difficult, like Doom (2016) which is absolutely ballbusting on Nightmare despite not having any hitscanners. It's not like SS2 where you can literally trivialise large portions of the game's difficulty by pressing S.

Most first person shooters have a lot of problems. That doesn't mean we should overlook them here. Especially when SS2 has such a high emphasis on resource management, and health is no exception. Being able to cheese around enemies in a standard FPS is less important if you were going to find health kits at the end of the fight to put you back up to 100 anyway. In SS2, every med hypo matters, and that's somewhat undermined when you can laugh at a number of enemies while they fruitlessly try to hit you. It especially trivialises the early game, where resources matter the most.

[678b3651b9c75Join2]

The assault rifle is surely the best weapon in the game but you certainly underestimate the EMP rifle:

-Infinite ammo (providing you can maintain it and there is a charging station nearby).
-Not just bots, but melts Cyborg Assassins, Midwifes, Security systems, and Shodan herself.
-Rapid fire and radial damage means you can destroy all these targets around corners without ever exposing yourself.

"RSD fixes most of these issues, btw, which is why you should use it. It's essentially the GMDX of SS2."

I will be, next playthrough.

I'm aware of many balance issues in the game. Though some things you highlight I just dont agree with. Yeah, investing in energy and other weapon skills early is useless, but I don't consider that a strictly bad thing. Standard is what everyone starts with and you branch out from there. Could it be better if more styles were available from the get-go? Absolutely, but it's not outright bad here as it stands, aside from the potential to trick unsuspecting players investing elsewhere early, yet that isn't a huge deal. You're soon enough given plenty cybermodules to course-correct.

Btw Deus Ex is the same in this regard (e.g zero point upgrading heavy weapons skill right away, and to a lesser extent rifles skill) and GMDX does not change the fact, aside from slightly better early shotgun and assault gun ammo availability. It's problematic, sure, but not a huge deal. And in SS2's case it certainly helped to nail the merging of extensive RPG choice alongside somewhat strict survival horror resource scarcity.

Other person said:

"Regarding the arguments on vanilla gameplay, I don't really understand why one would go through so much effort to change how the game mechanics fundamentally function. Do you not like the game for what it is?"

Major pet peeve for me is those 100% content with the game they've played before, despite its imperfections, despite grand potential to be significantly better. Yes I was satisfied with vanilla, and consider the game a masterpiece of sorts, but it had its flaws and game design has grand potential, especially these types of games. I am only defending it from claims that its gameplay wasn't very good. Irksome claim for a game of this caliber but far less detestable than those with no desire or vision for progress. every serious gamer should be playing the fuck out of great games with mods. In certain cases, they elevate them to new heights of game design excellence. If it weren't for the many great mods out there I'd have likely abandoned gaming in sheer frustration of the mediocrity of new games over the past 20+ years and the people that consume them.

[678b3651b9f0asarge945]

I will be, next playthrough.

While you're at it, why not join the RSD discord and play the new GMDX as well.

[678b3651ba03aJoin2]

When it is released perhaps. Kinda all Deus Ex'ed out though at this point.

Also don't want to step on your guy's toes, as I am unashamedly elitist.