Is Reach the most casual freindly Halo?

EDIT:The test is still ongoing, submit any suggestions you might have at any time.

This thread was a result of a common persistent belief amoung some players that frequent Halo forums that Reach represents the most “casual” freindly Halo to date. The “proof” presented thus far has been completely based on opinion and perception about AA and their benefits to the casual player. So I set out to apply a mix of soft/hard science, community opinion and my penchant for dogged persuit of the truth to find the answer to this long asked question, <mark>does Reach represent the most casual friendly Halo of all of them?</mark>. The body of this thread was constucted in part with help from players that believe whole heartily that AA have brought a negative effect to gameplay. Even if you have read this before, please take the time to read the entire thread starting from the beginning, I believe this will allow for the maximum amount of validity to the the result that I have been able to provide. While not definitive (nothing ever is) it provides the first physical evidence provided that concerns this matter that I have ever seen.

Enjoy!
Plunderfull

Part 1:<mark>Would the casual player have a better K/D in Reach or a better K/D in Halo 3 within the first hundred games?</mark>

It has been suggested to me by the upper echelon of competitive informed players that AA’s provide a crutch for the casual less skilled player, one that takes away from the pure skill of the game of Halo. Reach alone represents the only abberration from the basic formula of Halo as explained to me by players far more superior in their understanding of the technical side of games then I. AA loadouts according to this line of thought, provide the most benefit for the casual player with the least amount “skill” needed to garner results, results being kills and wins. Although K/D and W/L does not give the complete picture of a players performance, it is the two easiest ways of deducing battle effectiveness and ability and therefore will be the focus of this experiment.

Halo 3 is currently the last Halo that qualifies as competitive settings as compared to Reach, which represents the most casual freindly Halo of them all according to the competitive player. I recognize previous examples of Halo (CE and 2) as a more pure Halo expeirence. However being as they are so far in the past, data collection and informed firsthand opinion, would be prohibitively hard to compile, thus the selection of Halo 3. Competitive does not reffer to a competition, but rather the current competitive players concensus settings that are most conducive to competition in FPS.

Part 2:<mark>How does one identify a casual?</mark>

The casual label in no way indicates skill or success at playing the game, mearly a mindset that would indicate that he/she is just playing a game. There is no single identifier for a casual, it seems that a true “casual” will have most if not all of the qualifiers listed below.

Casual qualifications:

1.A casual will not visit a forum on Halo, but if the casual did, he would most likely dismiss faulty mechanics arguments for Reach as needless.

2.A casual player will either have no care or no concept of mechanics and how they differed from Halo to Halo and how that effects gameplay, this is indicative of a “mindset” that is more prevalent in a “competitive” player. That mindset would be dedicated goal and achievement oriented gameplay through higher understanding of the core mechanics and game design.

3.A casual most likely does not use a mic and therefore does not use callouts or any sort of communication that would benefit team play.

4.A casual will frequent playlist such as Living dead and Team slayer, default settings and “fun” gametypes suit the casual the best.

Part 3: I will attempt to find a candidate that meets all the criteria listed in part 2 which to the best of my ability has been compalated through input recieved directly from the community and 7 months of expeirence on two forums. Submissions will be accepted but only as PM, singling out individuals on the forum is prohibited so the selection submission proccess will have to be conducted with this in mind.

Part 4:After a tremendous amount of work I have found an acceptable player that meets every one of the criteria compiled via community input. I have checked and rechecked the stats involved and can attest to the validity of all statements and information contained within the findings.

Part 5:<mark>The results</mark>

The following gamertags are the same exact person, one gamertag was played when the xbox was bought off the free month given with a new xboxs on Halo 3. The second was opened later with the purchase of Reach and is maintained and played to this day. Both meet every qualification for what makes a player a casual in the context of the first hundred games.

SurficialZeus43 Tabulation for K/D and W/L for first 100 games= 712 kills, 717 deaths giving a K/D of .99. Total wins 41 with game losses at 59.

Plunderfull Tabulation for K/D and W/L for first 100 games= 854 kills, 846 deaths giving a K/D of 1.01. Total wins 56 with game losses 44.

These numbers have been checked and rechecked but feel free to verify the results for yourselves.

The results speak for themselves and in my opinion run contrary to popular beliefs around forums, in fact show some very interesting results.

Point 1. The K/D in both games for the same person are almost exactly the same.

Point 2. The amount of kills for Reach surpasses Halo 3 by over a hundred kills.

Point 3. The W/L is drasticly different between both games, with far more wins in Reach over Halo 3(this is a strange dynamic,which might garner further reveiw).

I will answer any and all questions and try and verify any peice of information called into question.

The discussions that led up to this were fairly enjoyable, and I find your little reveal to be quite clever.

There is one little caveat, though. (It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t point out something wrong! :P)

> After a tremendous amount of work I have found an acceptable player that meets every one of the criteria compiled via community input.

“An”? One single player is not a large enough sample size; an outlier in that data set would completely throw off the results (because that outlier would be the data set). The result can’t be considered definitive simply because the sample size is too small.

Even so, what you have attempted is quite interesting. Those discussion threads are the exact kinds of threads I like to see – particularly when the OPs maintain and monitor them as meticulously and thoroughly as you did.

If anecdotes can be used, then i disagree.

I have always thoroughly enjoyed Plunder’s research. Although on a certain other board, the trolls run rampant. I also need to ID myself as being in the same gaming group.

That being said… I feel the need to respectfully disagree with portions of the supposition and the characteristics of said “casual”

The two main things that come to mind are:

  1. The casual by necessity. This is the casual that is as hard-core about the game as any Top-Level MLG Player. They simply do not have the time left in the day to game as much as necessity dictates to maintain a skill level. Simply stated “If you don’t use it, you lose it”

  2. There is simply no one person that embodies every single trait that you listed. Being casual really doesn’t mean all of that all the time.

I proudly consider myself a casual player. But… I use a Mic, I know my callouts, I know my maps… yet my skill level is fairly low, my k/d is low and my w/l is low, I could care less about mechanics (although the controller configuration change bugged me until I adapted), I am a SWAT, LD, FF -Yoink!-…

You really need a much wider test subject pool including all levels of play. Although I applaud the premise, and I believe you are definitely on to sumptin

> The discussions that led up to this were fairly enjoyable, and I find your little reveal to be quite clever.
>
> There is one little caveat, though. (It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t point out something wrong! :P)
>
>
>
> > After a tremendous amount of work I have found an acceptable player that meets every one of the criteria compiled via community input.
>
> “An”? One single player is not a large enough sample size; an outlier in that data set would completely throw off the results (because that outlier would be the data set). The result can’t be considered definitive simply because the sample size is too small.
>
> Even so, what you have attempted is quite interesting. Those discussion threads are the exact kinds of threads I like to see – particularly when the OPs maintain and monitor them as meticulously and thoroughly as you did.

I agree the sample size is less than sufficiant for rock solid proof, unfortunatly there was zero community submission of canidites. It occured to me that it is almost impossible for me to verify qualifications beyond my own first hand experience. I just cant look at numbers and qualify them as a casual, personel knowledge is needed to verify someones “casual” status. I would need the help of the very same group that believes this, to disprove their belief. Im not going to hold my breath waiting for the influx of player submissions LOL.

It only occured to me a few months ago that the stats I had in my possesion bore any relevance on this issue. On my word absolutly no tabulation was done before the thread was finished and I was actually surprised by the results myself. The most unusall aspect for me is the wild swing in W/L between the games in favor of Halo 3, which when played was post Reach release so most likely was filled with Halo 3 die hards with far more experience than your average Reach player at the time I started playing Reach. (I may dive into that later)

However if there was a tremendous amount of validity in the belief that Reach is the most casual game, it would show up in almost all results. I have a hard time believing that I stumbled onto a peice of hard data that completely refutes what is held as gospel around Halo forums. Even if I collected a thousand examples (Who has that kinda time?) the results would still be held as invalid due to miniscule sample size. I think maybe for the more reasonable “competitive” player though, I might have started to chip away at what is just accepted as truth, without a single peice of data provided that supports it.

“Point 3. The W/L is drasticly different between both games, with far more wins in Halo 3 over Reach.”

I dont understand this. Both those accounts have 41 wins to 59 losses?

> I agree the sample size is less than sufficiant for rock solid proof, unfortunatly there was zero community submission of canidites. It occured to me that it is almost impossible for me to verify qualifications beyond my own first hand experience. I just cant look at numbers and qualify them as a casual, personel knowledge is needed to verify someones “casual” status. I would need the help of the very same group that believes this, to disprove their belief. Im not going to hold my breath waiting for the influx of player submissions LOL.
>
> It only occured to me a few months ago that the stats I had in my possesion bore any relevance on this issue. On my word absolutly no tabulation was done before the thread was finished and I was actually surprised by the results myself. The most unusall aspect for me is the wild swing in W/L between the games in favor of Halo 3, which when played was post Reach release so most likely was filled with Halo 3 die hards with far more experience than your average Reach player at the time I started playing Reach. (I may dive into that later)
>
> However if there was a tremendous amount of validity in the belief that Reach is the most casual game, it would show up in almost all results. I have a hard time believing that I stumbled onto a peice of hard data that completely refutes what is held as gospel around Halo forums. Even if I collected a thousand examples (Who has that kinda time?) the results would still be held as invalid due to miniscule sample size. I think maybe for the more reasonable “competitive” player though, I might have started to chip away at what is just accepted as truth, without a single peice of data provided that supports it.

A solid assessment. I don’t think any objective proof will ever be possible, but you’ve definitely stirred up a lot of thought here, bro. :slight_smile:

Of course, there’s two dimensions to the whole issue. It’s not just one spectrum from casual to competitive; it’s a two-dimensional spectrum, with the second axis going from skilled to unskilled. Most people who are aware of this distinction don’t usually claim that Reach’s mechanics cater to casuals, but rather that they cater to less-skilled players by removing the need for skill – such that a skilled player wouldn’t get much out of them, but an unskilled player would gain much more of an advantage than they should. I’m not sure your results account for this, because if you’re casual but skilled, there indeed wouldn’t be a difference between your 3 and Reach performance – whereas an unskilled player would, if the claims regarding Reach’s catering are true, be considerably better in Reach.

I so challenge your results not merely for the sake of it, but rather because I want to see a lot more inquisitive/investigative Plunderfull threads in the future. You’ve got sort of a spree going. :3

> “Point 3. The W/L is drasticly different between both games, with far more wins in Halo 3 over Reach.”
>
> I dont understand this. Both those accounts have 41 wins to 59 losses?

Oops, entered the stats twice, but I fixed it now. It was supposed to be 56W/44L for Reach and 41W/59L for Halo 3

> If anecdotes can be used, then i disagree.

Unfortunatly firsthand experience is the only way that a canidate can be qualified, I am unable to verify that the qualifications requried are met simply by looking at numbers. Just to clarify are you suggesting that the findings are irrelevent because they are mine?

plunder, i think you be derping again

i have to that i agree with the results and resemble the conclusions i came to while thinking about it due to your little, er, maybe not little … escapade.

> I have always thoroughly enjoyed Plunder’s research. Although on a certain other board, the trolls run rampant. I also need to ID myself as being in the same gaming group.

You are too kind. tips hat

> That being said… I feel the need to respectfully disagree with portions of the supposition and the characteristics of said “casual”

I like respect, it gets results =)

> The two main things that come to mind are:
> 1) The casual by necessity. This is the casual that is as hard-core about the game as any Top-Level MLG Player. They simply do not have the time left in the day to game as much as necessity dictates to maintain a skill level. Simply stated “If you don’t use it, you lose it”

The skill of the casual is not considered, there might be a casual that could stomp a mudd hole in some of the best players just through natural ability and the obverse, a competitive player who uses forums, callouts and spawn times and all technical knowhow associated with a higher quality of player and could get spanked by complete carefree casual. Skill cannot be a factor in deciding who is casual because everybodies default skill level is completely different.

> 2) There is simply no one person that embodies every single trait that you listed. Being casual really doesn’t mean all of that all the time.

While I agree that the casual label is thrown around a little too much and generally with a negative conotation, the list was compiled using “competitive” players opinions as to what makes a player a casual. It is my opinion that if you dont get paid, you are just about as casual as anybody else who plays. In order for this to hold any validity the qualifications for a casual had to come directly from the same players that believe that Reach is the most casual game of the entire franchise. <mark>At the time of both of those sets of a hundred games I fit every single qualification listed in the body.</mark>

> I proudly consider myself a casual player. But… I use a Mic, I know my callouts, I know my maps… yet my skill level is fairly low, my k/d is low and my w/l is low, I could care less about mechanics (although the controller configuration change bugged me until I adapted), I am a SWAT, LD, FF -Yoink!-…

I hate to break the bad news, but for several reasons you have been disqualified as a casual according to what the competitive player believes makes a player a casual, skill was never mentioned by a single player except to say that “noobs” will do better in Reach as opposed to Halo 3.

> You really need a much wider test subject pool including all levels of play. Although I applaud the premise, and I believe you are definitely on to sumptin

I agree the sample size leaves something to be desired, but after compiling the list of qualifications it occured to me that beyond firsthand knowledge of the subject it would be impossible to determine by only numbers if the person was infact a casual. Unfortunatly there were zero community submisions, which did present a roadblock for a large size data collection I still felt I should push what results I did have out for the world to see. However this is far from over, I got a year to analize the Yoink out of every single claim made on forums and I intend to provide more than my opinion to back up my position. Muhahaha…MUHAHAHAAAAHAAAA. More to follow.

“1.The casual cannot have played through the transition from Halo 3 to Reach, residual skill from Halo 3 play would skew the results in favor of Reach as the player would come into Reach with better ability to play”

I still don’t understand what you’re implying with this, even after the like 3 threads. Are you saying that someone can’t be a casual if they played h3? Yet earlier you stated that casual has nothing to do with their skill level?

Also saying that a “Casual” wouldn’t have played ranked H3 is definitely pushing it. I’m sure they would spend most of their time in social playlists, but everyone regardless of their skill, competitive-ness, or devotion of a specific game/series, will enjoy proving themselves in some form or another. Whether it be reaching Captain rank in H3, or beating a campaign on the highest difficulty. And you can be a hardcore gamer, while still being a casual Halo player, in which you most likely try to milk most games for all they have (say by achieving a decent level in multiplayer, acquiring all the achievements, or/and beating the campaign on the hardest settings).

And honestly, I think the whole point your even arguing isn’t a point at all. The vast majority people who are saying “Reach is the most “casual friendly” Halo”, aren’t using the term “casual” in it’s widely accepted definition. They are simply using the term “casual” as someone who isn’t very good at Halo and/or anyone who plays for “fun” and doesn’t care about their K/D or W/L. Like I’ve said before, the term “casual” has been transformed into something into having multiple definitions which is confusing everyone.

but the truth is 1. Casual has nothing to do with skill level or competitiveness, and the term can vary from game to game. Also, that we all play for fun; it’s just that what we find fun is different.

For example, I’m not a hardcore gamer, I’m a hardcore Halo player. I play Halo, that’s what I do. I don’t play RPG’s or all that other stuff. I dabble in other FPS’s but for the most part Halo is my game. For all of 2009, the only thing that was permitted into my disk tray was Halo 3 and movies.

Yet my friend who I’ve mentioned before, whose aim is just as good as mine, and who spent a decent amount of time on Halo, is still a “casual” Halo player. He is a hardcore gamer IMO; he spends most of his time on CoD or WoW and cares deeply about his performance in them.

IMO the term “casual” or “hardcore” is FAR more determined by how important your performance in the game is to you coupled with how much you play. While it has a correlation with skill and competition, (Generally casuals are less skilled and less competitive than hardcore players, but that can hardly even be considered the majority) to classify someone as “bad” or “uncompetitive” just because they are casual, and vice versa, is really… ignorant? Kind of harsh but I can’t think of a better word.

Anyways back OT: You’re arguing that Reach is more casual friendly, which while you may find with more research that this “seems” to be correct, it’s just an illusion of correlation and not causation.

What the players on here have been saying is not what they’ve been meaning; what they’re saying is that Reach has the lowest skill gap of all the Halos. That’s it. This implies that bad players will do better under the same circumstances as they were put under in previous Halo’s. They are using the term “casual” as a synonym for lower skilled players, which it isn’t, and which is the reason for this confusion.

And honestly, even with weeks of research into stats and mindsets and blah blah, there may not be too much hard evidence of this. Because finding players with the exact same conditions as they had in H3, and weeding them out from those with varying conditions would be insanely difficult without interviews between each player.

For example, I sucked at H3 for the first 2 years. I was a 45, didn’t know anything, didn’t even know how awesome BR battles could be, didn’t know anything about teamwork or strategy. So I had a crappy K/D and W/L. Even after finding the wonders of the BR and starting to gain skill, which was boosted greatly by finding other players to play with, half of my recorded Halo 3 games were when I sucked. So my K/D and W/L Still reflects that. But, if I had scrapped that account and kept going with this one, one that all the games were in the prime of my Halo 3 career, it would present a far different story. This in itself, that both my ranked and social K/D are far higher than mine in Reach would skew the results greatly. And yet say if 3/4 of my games in h3, I was still “bad”, that would make my reach stats far higher.

Or say that I didn’t start playing with my friends and getting good until Reach, so I have this 2.0 K/D in Reach, with a .98 K/D in H3 with a HS 43 and AR as my tool of destruction, this would be used as evidence that Reach is “easy”. But in actuality, I just didn’t get good until Reach.

Or say that I had the MattGrimesSucks stats in H3, and only played a little bit of Reach, all of it being Arena by myself or something. I would be a silver with a 1.0 K/D, and that would just look weird; How did this 50 with a 2.0+ Overall K/D in H3 have a 1.0 K/D in Reach with Silver?

Or say I only played MLG in H3 and was a 43 with a 1.0 K/D. And then in Reach, I decided I didn’t like the MLG settings or whatever so I just got 1% onyx and then spent the rest of my time in social with a 3.0 K/D.

Or say I started stating my life away in Big Team, with my 8.0 K/D.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Without knowing the answers to all the variables, stats can mean whatever you want them to mean, and without an insanely extensive and in depth surveying of the community, you really can’t paint the most accurate picture of the situation with hard evidence.

So with that said, just take our word for it, Reach has a smaller skill gap than any previous Halo.

edit: And again, The vast majority of this forum is using incorrect terminology when referring to casual, competitive, or whatever else. So how you say that “Well according to the competitive community this is how it is”, whether it’s supposed to be derogatory or not, taking peoples words and copy pasta’ing them is just presenting more confusion and more “drama”.

When it comes to things like these, you have to look past the words, and see what the people are meaning, not directly the words that they are saying. We’re all just a bunch of gamers trying to convey our beliefs; We’re not scholars with PhD’s in English with a minor in human relations. And just like IRL, for anyone here who actually has any social interaction would be aware of, not everyone can convey what they mean solely with words and without further explanation. nah mean dog?

Unless you’re specifically attempting to troll and turn peoples words back on them to make them realize that they have no idea what they’re talking about. Then all I have to say is, Bravo you yoinking genius.

-Yoink!-, exceeded character limit:

Continuing on:

> Of course, there’s two dimensions to the whole issue. It’s not just one spectrum from casual to competitive; it’s a two-dimensional spectrum, with the second axis going from skilled to unskilled.

IMO it’s at least 3 dimensional

Skill level: Unskilled to Highly Skilled
“Care” Level: Casual to Hardcore
Competitive Level: Not competitive to Highly competitive.

These are the 3 that have found to be very distinguishable so far, although there may be more.

First off, you used yourself in the sample. That causes data to be biased and therefore lowers credibility.

Second off, you used ONLY yourself in the sample. That further reduces credibility, and nobody with any knowledge of statistics will take you seriously.

Third off, you give us this operational definition of a casual that you claim you got from “the competitive community” but offer no source of this information, FURTHER reducing your credibility.

Fourth off, you have more kills AND deaths in Reach than in Halo 3 in the same amount of games. That means that it’s easier for casuals to get kills, and this goes both ways (for both you and other casuals). Overall, everyone gets more kills.

Fifth off, you have more wins in Reach than in Halo 3 in the same amount of games. That means that it’s easier for casuals to win.

Last off, your conclusion is the opposite of what your “hard datum” shows: Reach is more casual friendly than Halo 3.

You might want to (re)take a Statistics class.

> Point 1. The K/D in both games for the same person are almost exactly the same.
>
> Point 2. The amount of kills for Reach surpasses Halo 3 by over a hundred kills.
>
> Point 3. The W/L is drasticly different between both games, with far more wins in Reach over Halo 3(this is a strange dynamic,which might garner further reveiw).

It’s bemusing how to attempt to sidestream the direct contradiction between what your results say and what you want them to say by calling it “a strange dynamic”. You’ll make a corporate marketing researcher of yourself yet.

The results are fairly straightforward (notwithstanding the absolute farce that your ‘sample’ is). You were able to trade kills more often in Reach, and win more often. Ergo the game is more casual friendly.

> <mark>The belief that Reach is a “casual” freindly game appears to be false and if it is not, I have yet to see a single peice of data suggesting otherwise.</mark>

Apparently you haven’t seen your own “data”.

Nevertheless, neither the conclusions your data actually reveal nor the ones you are trying to spin from it are valid.

Setting aside all opinions anyone might have about the nature of Reach: the simple truth is that anyone supporting the OP for this thread should be ashamed of themselves. It is an utter farce; I say that not to attack the OP, but simply because it is. There is absolutely no reasonable statistical methodology reflected herein. The OP has one data point. One. This is not a remotely viable foundation for any conclusions to be drawn from.

The use of only one example completely destroys any logical basis.

So, what’s the point to all of this?

> > Point 1. The K/D in both games for the same person are almost exactly the same.
> >
> > Point 2. The amount of kills for Reach surpasses Halo 3 by over a hundred kills.
> >
> > Point 3. The W/L is drasticly different between both games, with far more wins in Reach over Halo 3(this is a strange dynamic,which might garner further reveiw).
>
> It’s bemusing how to attempt to sidestream the direct contradiction between what your results say and what you want them to say by calling it “a strange dynamic”. You’ll make a corporate marketing researcher of yourself yet.
>
> The results are fairly straightforward (notwithstanding the absolute farce that your ‘sample’ is). You were able to trade kills more often in Reach, and win more often. Ergo the game is more casual friendly.
>
>
>
> > <mark>The belief that Reach is a “casual” freindly game appears to be false and if it is not, I have yet to see a single peice of data suggesting otherwise.</mark>
>
> Apparently you haven’t seen your own “data”.
>
> Nevertheless, neither the conclusions your data actually reveal nor the ones you are trying to spin from it are valid.
>
> Setting aside all opinions anyone might have about the nature of Reach: the simple truth is that anyone supporting the OP for this thread should be ashamed of themselves. It is an utter farce; I say that not to attack the OP, but simply because it is. There is absolutely no reasonable statistical methodology reflected herein. The OP has one data point. One. This is not a remotely viable foundation for any conclusions to be drawn from.

I love it when you talk dirty. No seriously, someone should give you a medal for winning this thread. :stuck_out_tongue:

This thread should be locked after i say this: Reach is indeed the most casual friendly Halo game and not because of the mechanics alone. No, the evidence is clear when you take a look on how many social playlists we have in comparison to the hardcore ones (only MLG and lolarena) and when you look at the credit system.

In Halo 3, there was a nice balance of social and ranked playlists, something for everyone. In Reach, we have double, no quadruple amount of social and only one fail ranked playlist. I would include MLG as ranked but it doesn’t have one (odd for a hardcore playlist to have none). Still, one would have to be blind or be so stuck on themselves to dismiss the fact that Reach is without flaw and it is NOT casual. Well it certainly isn’t hardcore, THAT much i can say in my very honest opinion and for the last time, boosting in Grifball does NOT make you good in any sense of the word.

The credit system rewards you regardless of how well you actually do. Sure you have to play in order to avoid afk resets/bans but you can go -10 and still get credits, which falls in with Bungie’s philosophy for Reach “everyone is a winner even if you are not that good”. Couple this with an invisible/non existent true skill system or rank (high ranks scare lesser players off, we can’t show those now can we?), it’s hard not to believe this game was aimed at the casual audience or at the very least, the ones who were not that good at Halo 2/3.

The primary reason why the idea behind “everyone is a winner” fails in game like Halo because not everyone is of equal skill. You have your noobs, decent players, middle men, good players, god tier warriors and finally MLG pros. Each of these players are defined and separated by skill, no amount of game play mechanics or reward system will mask that nor will it EVER bridge the gap (which Reach tries and fails to do because the task itself is impossible). You simply can’t make everyone equal, regardless if you have good intentions or not.

Hey, I said it first! lol

> Hey, I said it first! lol

If this response was aimed at me, then I’ll give ya credit too :stuck_out_tongue: You also win this thread.

Thank you. lol

Yeah, my quote button doesn’t work.