Why was BG2. . . subpar?

[Rabby]

My problems with BG2 are its extreme linearity, its plot, total lack of choices, being forced a lot, the way they handled the evil plot, the romances, the loot, and few other minor things. If you disagree or would like me to explain each or some specific points in more details, let me know.

I thought BG2 sucked.

I seems that it's at least the opinion of the two I've quoted above that Baldur's Gate 2 inhaled large volumes of air. I thought posting this question amidst the. . . lively discussion in the other thread might be a little off topic, hence the creation of this thread that aims more to satiate my curiosity than advance the future of CRPGs.

Just as a precautionary note: If, by the slim-as-paper chance that you don't know much about the game, there's lots of spoilers ahead, though somehow I suspect visitors to this forum tend to know more about my examples than I do.

Personally, I enjoyed BG2 quite a bit. I enjoyed making my sorceress don the Robe of Vecna and Skulltrapping unaware bands of Kobolds and watching them explode simultaneously, and I enjoyed reading about Viconia's grisly vengence upon her captors. (I also hope that these two particular examples don't reflect poorly upon my sense of morals and ethics. . . *ahem*)

In more specific response to some of Vault Dweller's points above, I really didn't feel the linearity was "extreme." The freedom in initial quest-selection, and more appealing to me, selection of NPCs, felt a quite satisfactory facade over the inherent binarity in computer games. The portions of the game where you're travelling underground is much more linear, but I don't feel it's not justified -- in an extremely foreign and strange land, it seems to make sense that you do whatever the huge, silver dragon tells you to do. And even in that portion, many independent discoveries can be made, mostly in the Drow city. Now, I agree that a high number of quests doesn't automatically make a game non-linear and interesting, but I thought each of those quests shed light on the culture, and were more complicated than, say, finding a lost kitten for a villager. :wink:

The plot wasn't overwhelmingly tear-jerking on the Planescape: Torment scale, but I felt at least it all held together, and even had a few interesting surprises in store. (The first Slayer change had me screaming "holy moly" and scrambling to protect the sweet, lovely mage who is being shredded apart)

The romances is also something I've observed many people accusing as "lame pretense of love that's really a few lines of code and dialogue." Yet, what's wrong with that? I've found some Asian date-simulations to elicit attraction and attachment, and that's also mainly text with still-frame images. Was the romance in Planescape: Torment that much different?

I guess the main point that I'm having difficulty coming to terms with is that. . . comparing a game to a vacuum cleaner, to me, means that out a score of 10, you'd give it 2 or 3 at best. For the craft in text, complexity in gameplay, and sheer-hugeness of the world, I cannot bring myself to say that BG2 sucked. It may not live up to Fallout's standard of freedom, but why does it elicit such a repulsed attitude? Is it because you feel that it's a wrong direction to take RPGs, and that initial direction has resulted in a mass of similarly-approached games? So the hatred is more of a "This game is caused the downfall of CRPGs" instead of a "This game has such subpar quality I wouldn't be caught naked in an Elven princess' bedroom with it caught between my legs."?


. . . Mmm. . . naked in an Elven princess' bedroom. . . . . .


Erm, thanks beforehand for the response, clearing up some confusion in poor Rabby's mind, as well as inducing some picturesque fantasies.

 

[Voss]

Hmm. Well, for myself I have mixed feelings on the game. Some aspects were good and some were quite bad.

good- interaction with the NPCs. They weren't just mules and targets. And some of them got pissy and left if you did something they felt was inappropriate.

good- romances. I'm sappy that way- I like such things. Though the Jaheria one offended every romantic bone in my body. Mourn for roughly, what, two days? And carry enough bagge and divided loyalties to crush a titan beneath the weight. Neh.

good and bad-
some story aspects were very good- the dragon and the shadowlord were interesting, though the dungeons were annoying with the pathfinding (and they knew pathfinding was an issue, why make everything so damn narrow?), though the dragon's motivations were...odd at best. the planar sphere had its nice moments of betrayal and who's the villain.

and some story elements were handled very badly. The harpers were handled horribly,
the main plot had the urgency-that-wasn't. Hurry and rescue your childhood friend (and later hurry and save your soul, because you're dying/bad things are happening to you, hurry, hurry!) ...but feel free to roam about randomly tying up random trivial tasks in your complete lack of actual haste.
The beholder cult- people need a new god, because ones that offer healing and resurrection aren't doing enough for them? OK.

bad- all the fetch it quests Slog here, slog back. Slog there. Slog back.

bad- the forced plot-line. You have to deal with the vamp or the thieves. And yet the 'asylum' is next to an active pirate town- every shady character within 500 nautical miles is going to know exactly where this place is. So you have to deal with one of these two groups because..? And contrary to the claims of the initial recruiter (who I think of as the annoying Coo guy) you don't need them for anything beside the location of the ship.

bad- the good/evil path thing, that was hyped so much, turned into 5 minutes of slightly varied sub-quests and then back on the railroad of forced plot... and of course, the morality of dealing with the evil vampire or slightly less evil thieves/assassins guild gets little treatment.

bad- can't avoid being drugged. Traitor in your party or not. Can't eat your own food or do anything to avoid it. (and are you going to trust the crew of a pirate ship provided to you by a thief or a vampire?)

bad- drow. Over used, over hyped and overly generic. They were scary and unique once upon a time. Now they're just an overused S&M, reversed sexism, veiled-racism meta-social-commentary that has frankly become dull.

bad- Irenicus's motivations. (and backstory). They stripped his elfness? and he can strip a divine soul (which raises so many issues with the concept of soul that aren't even mentioned in passing) , bind it to himself and attach mutant caepillars to trees in order to become a god? Neh.

as for linearity I didn't really think of it in those terms. I like to try to do everything possible in games, and there are so many side quests that it just got old, and I got fairly bored before even starting on the main path. Which was fairly linear. And if you're actually trying to rescue your childhood friend, are you really going to explore Amn? All the side quests actually detracted from the main story. (particularly since it was quite easy to get all the gold you need in Athlatka itself)

It seems I've come up with more bad than good. Huh. I've generally thought of it as a decent game- not good and definitely not great, but I expected it to even out more... Maybe it is bad.

 

[Volourn]

*looks around* Not this again. *shrugs* Oh, well...

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I thought the story started off well with you being held prisoner, and having no equipment what-so-ever other than the basic stuff found conviently (hehe) nearby. Fom the time I saw Irenicus torturing my PC; I was hooked. I knew it was somehow connected to me being a god; but learning the archizard's motivation for going after you is very well done.

From Irenicus' past of trying to conquer the Elven pantheon, and relationship with the Elf Princess to his subseuent punishment and casting out to his desire for revenge which led him to you. The ironic thing is that he blames his race for betraying him when it was he who had betrayed them first. Him, and his sister are two of the bets villains in any game I've played - only TNO from PST, Sarevok from BG1, The Master from FO1, and maybe a few others rival them.

All the places you explore were magnificant - from Hell to the Underdark, to the Island really fir the game rather well. Made you want to exp,lore. It most certainly is the most epic feeling game I've played.

The characters, though many fo them were based off stereotypes (like 99% of characters in games, books, movies, and tv shows); are but they seemed as real as a computer game can mae them. One example is Jaheira. She went from losing her husband to having to possibly feeling enamored by the PC and not being able to help. She had a past enemy return trying to curse her to deathw hich unfortunately dragged the party into it. Not to mention she had to deal with the strife of having to choose her loyalties between you, and the harpers. Tough indeed. The ship captain who continually betrays you is a riot, and the two maind row you meet in the Underdark certainly ahve thir moments.

Combat was helluva fun. Before the IE games, I fully favored turn based combat. The IE changed that. It got rid of the ultra long battles from some of the older tb games yet with the pause n play and the way the rounds are set up; you can keep a lot of the strategy.tatics from tb games without the click fest of full fledge RT games. The battles are challenging; though soe of it goes overboard.

The biggest problem with BG2 as many here would attest to is the lack of non combat options to complete the larger side quests as well the main quests. There are some quests that allow muliple solutions; but they are few and far between. This is where BG2 should have learned from the FO series. Then again, every RPG can learn that from FO.

BG2 is slightly behind FO2 as my favorite RPG because of its trong story, memorbale characters, and fun combat.

FO2, in contract, is just above it as my favorite RPG because of its special setting, and the multitude of ways to solve quests.

FO1, and BG1 fight over the next two spots.

In conclusion, great fun, indeed. :shock:


P.S. The fun, most likely begins. :D

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Um, okay, where do I start. The game was just boring. I slogged through to the end out of mindless determination and haven't repeated the feat since. I don't think I've even managed to get out of Athkatla since.

Stupid Imoen hook, as VD said. You just wander around doing whatever you want while Imoen is supposedly in dire trouble. At first I went through without having my character sleep, then it dawned on me that time was irrelevant. I got around to her after cleaning out everything, not knowing if I was going to get a chance to come back. Hooray for me. The funny thing is, I imagine if you did get to her as soon as was humanly possible, most likely by stealing from shopkeepers and selling to the thieves' guild, you'd get toasted for being low-level.

I thought the villains and most characters were kind of flavorless, really. Okay, Irenicus had a cool voice, but Bodhi was just kind of extraneous. Keldorn's mess with his wife was sort of interesting, but most of the characters I ran into were pretty boring. Nothing really reached out and grabbed me, I just felt like I was watching a fourth-rate soap opera. The romances were rather dumb, too. Okay, I only sat through part of one, but it was enough. I just had to laugh, it seemed like Jaheira kept wanting to chit-chat in the worst times and places, like when we were being attacked. The fact she jumped right on you after Khalid died seemed a little tacky, too. She said maybe 100 words mourning the dude, then it was time to move on.

The ph4t l3wt was a little much, too. If you had the bonus material, there were all kinds of silly things, and the smith dude made some impressive gear, too. Money was no object since for some reason the thieves' guild didn't mind buying back stuff you just stole from them. And you could steal from most shopkeepers, anyway. If they require something silly like 180 pickpocket, just chug a potion or 3.

The fights were boring. The only things that weren't pushovers were mages, and then you just wound up playing stupid rock-paper-scissors crap to bring down their defenses and counteract them.

There was no sense of adventure even like in BG1. You had to talk to people to unlock areas, and then that's all there was. I at least never really felt I stumbled across anything, just unlock areas and go through all the doors. Yay.

I didn't get the expansion, so I can't really say much about that.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Things I didn't notice that were mentioned already..

• Reroll system: Just because Temple of Apshai Trilogy did it, doesn't mean a modern game has to do it. For fuck's sake, that's why TSR came up with the point-buy system, as a way to balance out rolling of characters. You can design a much more balanced game with a point buy system rather than having to deal with characters created by rerolling for hours until you get all really high scores.
  
• Reputation system: Why the hell would a chaotic evil character have a really high reputation, which is internally tracked and not based on what people just see you doing? That's what D&D's alignment is for. If you declare that you're an evil son of a bitch who doesn't give a rat's ass about law and order, then don't give that player nearly as many options on being a great and wonderful Hugh Beaumont kind of guy. Even worse is that you can be a completely evil dude as a paladin as long as you're willing to pay out money to the temple! Given how much plunder there is in the game, I fail to see how that's even remotely a consequence. The only time you could really become fallen is if you just wanted to be a fallen paladin.
  
• Meaningless attributes: Okay, I have two characters, one is an INT 3 fighter and the other is an INT 18 mage... The fighter is only one skip and a jump away from being a dog-level intelligence, so why is the fighter as eloquent as the mage when it comes to speaking? How come I get nearly all the same outcomes from dialogue with my low CHR character versus my high CHR character? Really, other than combat, attributes didn't affect the game much at all. In fact, the only non-combat use of an attribute in BG2 was carry weight for strength.

Enjoy

 

[Flink]

I always hated Imoen in the first game. So that you HAD to save her never really appealed to me. Besides, She was even more annoying in the dungeon at the start then she ever was in the first game. By the time I got out I wanted to strangle her myself!

I also didn't like the cheesy vampire/drow subplots. And don't get me started on the shark-man city! (I know they're not really called shark-men. Sue me for not remembering.)

 

[Volourn]

You don't have to rescue Imoen.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Extreme Linearity
The story was very linear by itself, the chapters that limited your movement made it extremely linear. Once you get out of the starting dungeon, you have to 2 Bioware-style choices: to save Imoen or to get even with Irenicus, both choices have the same path. Chapter 2 is filled with quests of all kind, but somehow they left me with an impression that the only reason they are there is to level you up, provide you with NPCs, and load you up with tons of ph4test l3wt (more on it later), and give you a complimentary stronghold to pile up the loot. Can you skip these quests? No, because you need 20,000. Needless to say, you can't threaten the thiefs with a fury of Bhaal's spawn, you can't persuade them, and you can't bluff. Once you have paid the money, what do you have? You have to do more quests including Bodhi's place. I'd understand if these quests were accepted instead of money, but you have to do them anyway. Once you are done, you go to the island, then to the prison, then..... Comparing BG2 to games like Fallout and Arcanum that allow you to do whatever you want exploring freely all but the most critical locations, BG2 is extremely linear. Doesn't make it a bad game, just a bad RPG.

The choices
You can choose very little, and your choices are of no importance and have little impact on the game. When I started the game I was asked a riddle by a genie, I thought it would have some consequences. Turned out it didn't. Both answers led to fighting a summoned creature. The better answer resulted in a creature with a better loot. Little did I know that this approach will be appiled to almost every situation in the game.

The romances
PST had NPCs with deep personalities, who had meaningful interactions with PC, and there was a scene or two that explored some feelings between the characters. The creators of BG2 did not quite get the mechanics of PST, so they added lotsa NPCs who complained, bitched, whined, moaned, and irritated the hell out of me. The developers replaced "deep personality" with "attached quests and more loot", and instead of a hint of romance gave you a trip to a singles bar. Well, some people might find that amusing, I didn't, in fact half-way through the game, I switched to custom made party just to shut them up.

The loot
Every game has loot, but BG2 managed to upgrade loot into a separate feature. Loot was everywhere, in a sewer, in a barrel, under the bed, in a cupboard, everyone was selling it, everyone was packing it. The Crom Fayer hammer+4 that set Str at 25 (+7 to hit, +14 dmg) :shock: is a good example. Saint made a good post in another thread so I'll quote it here:
"And yes, one reason I think that is the ph4t l3wt syndrome of showering the player needlessly with hordes of fantastic treasure, uber-powerful magic items, and so on, all found in mundane locations like sewers, local town crypts, and so on. Bioware is really, really bad about dumping hordes of ph4t l3wt, which is the term for it and I didn't coin it, especially when the location certainly doesn't call for it. It's munchkinism. Rewarding a player for a quest is one thing, but you certainly shouldn't find a shiny Armor of Comfort in a sewer location for characters of level 3-4. And something like the Deck of Many Things should never, ever be placed in a CRPG because quick loading and quick saving basically makes it a built in cheat"

The Summary.
I also like Saint's summary a lot so here it is:
"It's almost like their design philosophy centers around 12 year old D&D player mentalities. Take an uber story about an uber thing, fill it with uber beings that people would know about if they followed the setting and let the player be uber and kill them, and then cram it full of as much uber items as possible. Then, of course, skimp on the role-playing options."

 

[Jed]

Why is BG2 sub-par? Two words: Bhaal Spawn.

Just because Temple of Apshai Trilogy did it, doesn't mean a modern game has to do it. For fuck's sake, that's why TSR came up with the point-buy system, as a way to balance out rolling of characters.

Ooh, did you see that, Volurn, he cursed to make his point! Get him!

 

[Elwro]

I tried to play this game two times.
Fisrt time, the first thing I did after leaving the big market with a circus tent was to capture a fortress. I was very surprised that I succeeded, but told myself that I was not an average underdeveloped PC, but a guy who had defeated Sarevok. But then I generally got bored with the plot and the all-too-similar quests; I just liked to listen to Korgan's voice (voices in the Polish version are really well done).
The second time I got bored in Irenicus' house, but I told myself that the second chapter was surely non-linear and I could do lots of different things, so I went on. I did a few quests in the city, each of them requiring excessive hack'n'slash. I stopped playing during a quest about some beholder-god or sth. Too many fights which are just inevitable and make the game boring for me.
I had an impression that BG2 could have been a good game if the designers put more thought into quests and dialogue, and cut the number of enemies a few times. I actually think that BG2 was not very far from being an enjoyable RPG.

 

[Volourn]

Fuck no, SP can swear as he pleases. :twisted:

 

[Sharpei_Diem]

I enjoyed it though not as much as the first. Some things that stand out in my memory:

Horrid beginning: I just didn't like slogging through the dungeon to get to amn. I thought it was boring, and is one of the reasons I never played the game again. It was just so contrived

Romances: I found them irritating and couldn't figure out why they were there (well, I think i knew why they were there, and I found that thought disturbing so I tried not to think of it anymore). PS:T did it well....they alluded to it and then developed it. BG2 slapped you over the head with it...

Dragons, dragons and more dragons: Probably a problem with D&D, more so than BG2, but BG2 demonstrated it well. How do you challenge high level players? The D&D system of power growth for characters assumes an exponential curve. As a player grows in level, just adding to the number of lower level critters for them to fight doesn't challenge them. So how do you challenge a level 13 character and their party? Dragons...lots of em...

Mage Scripting: again, maybe a problem with d&d, but high level mage battles became such a PITA. It became the same scripted battle, time and time again. And because of the growing power of the PC party, every opposing group had to have their own mage to balance it out. towards the end of the game, there was so many powerful things and beings walking around, you just had to ask, "Where the Hell am I?". I'm very glad I saw this as a growing tendency and didn't get TOB, which turned out to be this in spades...

 

[Ausir]

As for rerolling... well, doesn't ToEE has it too?

 

[Flink]

You don't have to rescue Imoen.

I know, You don't HAVE to rescue her. But you still HAVE to go to Spellhold. And Imoen is pretty much your only motivation. Sure, Irenicus is there too. But the urgency is centred on springing Imoen, not getting Irenicus.

I've always condiered the IE games Strategy games with a few rpg elements. Thats why I actually liked the BG2 expansion better then the original game. It wasn't trying to be something which it didn't work very well as. It was just battle after battle. Like any strategy game. With a few story elements to wet one's apetite.

 

[Spazmo]

I agree. To me, Baldur's Gate and other IE games (PST aside) are just action/squad-based strategy games. When I play, I don't look at them as RPGs. I just kill the bad guys.

 

[Psilon]

ToEE has point buy and rerolling. If you reroll, it tracks how many times you clicked the button before getting all 18s.

 

[Volourn]

That's one thing I like about TOEE a lot. It gives you te option on how to play the game - rolling (my choice), point buy (yuck), and rerolling (disgusting). Thumbs up, indeed.

Flink, not for me. When I'm playing an evil bastard in BG2; my only motivation is revenge on Irenicus for imprisoning and torturing me. Imoen is a non issue.

 

[Jed]

That's one thing I like about TOEE a lot. It gives you te option on how to play the game - rolling (my choice), point buy (yuck), and rerolling (disgusting). Thumbs up, indeed.

Yeah, I think point-buy is okay (in terms of creating balance), but it does encourage a certain generic-ness among characters. I like rolling for the randomness, ie--what stat am I going to assign that 6 to?

 

[Azael]

Things I severely disliked about the game:

The Imoen plot - Bad, bad, bad. It doesn't take into account players who went through the entire first game without her, nor do you provide any good motivation for those characters to pursue Irenicus if they're not of the vengeful type. Hell, it would have been a lot better to just have Irenicus steal your soul at the beginning of the game, that would be motivation for any character to track him down

Irenicus - David Warner is an excellent voice actor, but not even he could make me overcome my dislike for this character. The fact that you had to beat him not once, but three damn times, doesn't exactly make things worse. Well, at least he wasn't as bad as Bodhi.

Loot Ahoy! - Having quest rewards is one thing, finding hidden treasures is another, getting loot virtually thrown in your face wherever you walk is completely inane.

The Role Playing - Or rather the lack of it. There's basically not a single choice in the entire game that matters. Add to that the lack of importance of stats, unless they are for combat and/or spellcasting, which pretty falls under combat, since there is little other use fo magic in the game, except perhaps for casting Friends before you go shopping. Thankfully, Bioware thought of that and gave you a nice Charisma boosting ring really early in the game...

The NPCs - Beyond Viconia, not a single one of the characters I actually liked in the first one got exported and the only new character which could also be called somewhat likeable turned out to be a traitor, convetienly enough at such a time so it would free up a spot in your party for Imoen...

 

[Tris McCall]

Spazmo said:

"To me, Baldur's Gate and other IE games (PST aside) are just action/squad-based strategy games. When I play, I don't look at them as RPGs. I just kill the bad guys."


Spazmo (and everybody else at RPG Codex) --

I liked Shadows of Amn, but I can't argue with any of these criticisms -- there's not much genuine roleplaying involved, and too many of the choices you're given have no meaningful consequences. The first game I ever played was Planescape:Torment, and foolishly, I expected all other games to be similar to that one. Imagine my dismay when I started Icewind Dale: "hey, where are all the big dialogue trees?!?!"

Anyway, since I've only ever gotten the Infinity Engine games, perhaps I've never played what you guys would consider a real computer RPG. I'm finishing up Icewind Dale II right now, and while I'm enjoying it for what it is, I'd love to go out and get a game that conforms better to my original understanding of a real RPG -- somewhat non-linear, plenty of dialogue and interaction, a story without the kill-the-big-bad-guy cliches. You know, something more like Planescape:Torment.

Any games you'd recommend? I don't mind if they're old; reading the Codex has already convinced me I should play Fallout next. But I always feel like there must exist others, ones I just don't know about because of my limited exposure to the genre, and to computer gaming in general.

Thanks,
Tris

 

[Jed]

Y'know what I really hated about BG2? The fact that you start out captured. Why? You end BG1 kicking Saervok's ass, and yet wind up conveniently imprisoned by some stupid upstart wizard at the beginning of the next game. Wack. Talk about a lack of choice or consequence...

 

[Vault Dweller]

Any games you'd recommend? I don't mind if they're old; reading the Codex has already convinced me I should play Fallout next.

Hi Tris and welcome,
Fallout should be your next choice without a doubt. It's a classic. Then there is Fallout 2 of course, which is not as good but still ok. Then there is Arcanum, another game by Tim Cain, highly recommend: choices, non-linearity, freedom to do anything go anywhere, very good story and excellent dialogues. Daggerfall and Morrowind with 2 expansions represent first person take on RPG matters: huge world, lotsa places to see, dungeons to loot, monsters to kill. There are a few threads here about Morrowind. Wizardry 8 is mostly about TB combat and has its moments. Depending how far back in time you are willing to go you can check other Wizardry and Ultima titles. There there are shareware games: Avernum 1,2,3, Geneforge, and Prelude to Darkness that has its own forum here. What I can recommend is Fallout, Fallout 2 if you are hooked and have to have more, Arcanum, Geneforge, Prelude, Avernum 3. Insert Morrowind whenever you are tired of isometric view and want to see places and people up close and personal.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I liked Shadows of Amn, but I can't argue with any of these criticisms -- there's not much genuine roleplaying involved, and too many of the choices you're given have no meaningful consequences. The first game I ever played was Planescape:Torment, and foolishly, I expected all other games to be similar to that one. Imagine my dismay when I started Icewind Dale: "hey, where are all the big dialogue trees?!?!"

I had the same problem because I played BG after playing Fallout and Fallout 2 back to back. I was expecting something similar to those two games and wound up with something that seemed more like a cookie cutter game made to cash in on the D&D license.

In Fallout, I was confused about who to trust, who was good, and who was bad. In BG, I knew right off the bat that the lady who was hiring me to get back some item from some weak little guy was evil. There was no sense of accidentally doing the wrong thing because I didn't know the situation.

I also didn't like that everything in BG revolved around combat. You pick up a quest, it was most likely going to be Kill the Foozle.

 

[Rabby]

Much appreciation here for the reply -- its definitely offered me a lot more insight into CRPGs and how they're constructed, if not how they should be constructed. While I still wouldn't accuse BG2 of suckiness, I'm definitely going to pay more attention to at least the amount of subtlety that the developers are willing to use. Killing vampires, later demogorgons left and right, and picking up automatic-invisible-ing, 25-strength-bestowing equipment under the gnome's bed probably scores low on the subtlety scale. :wink:

 

[Elwro]

Another thing, mentioned above, that struck me:

I took my dwarf from BG1 to play with. He was really low on Charisma. I thought "Man, I might have trouble telling NPCs to join; I remember how I couldn't get Kivan in BG1". Then I noticed that Jaheira has a really high Charisma, I think really higher than in BG1. But I wanted to try to talk using my character to check if there were any interesting options and differences. I found none of them while speaking with NPCs in Irenicus' house, and than I found the CHA := 18 ring. My first thought: "This game sucks bad".