Why I hate F-Crew.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by pig

For a long time I have hated F-Crew.

At first I thought it was because F-Crew were crap at the game. After a while I realised that whilst this did bug me it wasn't the only factor, there were others. What I will do is present an agrument to the pa forums as to why I hate F-Crew.

- F-Crew are shit.

This has been something that really gripes me in planetarion. I fail to understand what fun one could get from consistently coming last (I mean this in the sense that you guys have never and will never finish first.) It pains me to know that there is are alliances out there that don't want to do their best.

I agree, they aren't very good and could probably do a lot better. So really lets be clear before we go further into analysing F-Crew. Really you hate the HC of F-Crew, rather than the whole alliance, as they are the individuals running it so terribly. I think you should look at it from their perspective.

You see the F-Crew pravda would say that they are a training alliance. Stepping stones if you like onto bigger things, but I believe that this is a cover. What is it covering? I think that it is really covering up how crap they are.

Take driving a car, for the first time they will be a bit shit, but they should get better right and indeed they do. But why have F-Crew been consistently crap year on year? I have played with several new players, "trained" them so to speak and they have sometimes ended higher than myself and other galaxy mates.

This leads me onto my second point.

- F-Crew don't train.

Linking onto the last paragraph of my first point, it is my belief that F-Crew don't actually train the players in their alliance. From my understanding F-Crew was and they will claim, still is a training alliance.

Let's for a minute take the bait and believe the party line, that they are there to train new players.

Hello. It's 2007, this game stopped gaining new players circa 2002, there are no new players to train. But let's say there are some new players trickling into the game (I myself find this hard to believe when player numbers are down year on year.)

The training F-Crew must do is rubbish. How many of these new players actually learn the ropes? How many of these new players finish in respectable positions? How many of these new players move onto the upper tier of alliances? (although I would like to refrain from using the upper tier of alliances, as it is my belief there is a lack in todays game of that elite operating, the gameplay of today feels so incestuous I believe I could get into eXilition!)

Like I noted above when I have had new players I have taught them the game, introduced them to contacts, advised them and that's it. I am there to answer questions but for the most part it's in the manual. Everyone can read it and it probably does a better job explaining the mechanics of the game than myself. Nevertheless F-Crew don't seem to do training that well.

Now, as you know I once ran BlueTuba, an alliance that was rebuilt on the basis that we had no reputation, absolutely no pull on any established players because of our history, no chance of ever getting people in our direction and a destiny playing catchup with all the top alliances because we had been very badly humiliated. We became a training alliance. What you don't appreciate is that to get better, you have to retain quality, but this is actually quite hard, even if you have quite a charismatic HC and offer newer players what they really want - organised attacks and defence.

Ultimately, there will be some alliance where the grass was always greener in alliances like Fury and Legion, so you leak members like nothing else, apart from the mad loyalists who I treat with the highest regard, who I would happily meet and buy a drink. I did what I would like to think was a reasonable job and we ended it because we felt we couldn't do the alliance justice any more and we'd completed our mission of giving our shitty little alliance a bit of pride back.

Eventually there is a level that you hit, but can't really get beyond, especially with our reputation; F-Crew have the same problem as BlueTuba once did. We did reasonably well, making our alliance extremely resilient and we held a reasonable amount of political power in game. Our relationship with Fury was one of the most productive and cooperative political partnership I've ever seen; we shared defence, used contacts to arrange in galaxy defence to cover using alliance defence as little as possible, we were very efficient.

F-Crew in contrast never played politics like us. So really they are where they want to be; I don't see why you should hate them for that. In my opinion, they should play politics more and get a bigger partner for a while - they can only learn from it. Smaller alliances have always learned from partnering with bigger ones, so why not I say. But ultimately, they can say what they have achieved is longevity, which is one department which they have me all ends up.

As for 'training', their players who usually leave must do so for better alliances, so they must have got players up to a standard. At a minimum, F-Crew have got someone interested in the game and have given them a taste for playing in a alliance, which is more than most alliances offer. I don't see how this is a bad thing.

- Red Red Whine, Why don't you care?

My gripe with the F-Crew is that they think they are doing a great public service. It is my belief that they are not. What F-Crew will have you believe is that they are better than you because they are shit and take on shit planets. No F-Crew you aren't better than me or anyone else. There are far better alliances at training than F-Crew, one such alliance that doesn't jump on the moral bandwagon of attempting to massage an ego if it moves is that of Subh. Now that is a proper alliance, that trains players to win.

- Ultimately.

It is my belief that F-Crew are essentially losers. Not in the sense of Beck, but in the sense that they don't aim to win. What kind of attitude is that to pass on to new players (if they exist)? For F-Crew to be a truly great training alliance they should aim to win, and train their players to think accordingly.

It's planetarion, not a picnic. I hate to break it to you, F-Crew, but you can have fun winning, in fact it is normally more fun.

- Over to you.

I believe that I am not alone in having a general hatred towards the F-Crew, I could have made a list but that would be boring and not nearly enough wakeyesque in it's approach.

Instead I ask you the readers of the forums, to chip in and say why you love or hate the F-Crew.

Are they doing planetarion a favour? I think they are. Not in the way or extent they think they are, but they are offering some positive benefit to the game. People might hate some of their HC for being complete codpieces, I'm not going to comment.

My personal view?

I'd rather have F-Crew than not have them, as at least they contribute. I'm pretty indifferent to them as an alliance. I can't say I hate F-Crew - thanks for the interesting discussion, but I disagree with you to some extent. Just because I think I did a better job than them doesn't mean I don't appreciate their difficulties.

[Nadar]

You know you're a failure when you get kicked from F-Crew.

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by Nadar

You know you're a failure when you get kicked from F-Crew.

or a really incompetent spy :/

[Nadar]

Why would anyone put a spy in there?











Sorry F-Crew, I'm really not trying to talk shite about you, just having a little fun at your cost

[wakey]

Originally Posted by pig

- F-Crew are shit.

How exactly are you judging 'how shit we are' on. It cant be rankings as our average rank since r14 to now will have us well inside the top10 and the same thing for the alliances average score over these rounds. It certainly would have us higher than alot of so called 'better' alliances who have competed during these rounds and unlike most of these alliances the sample the average would be taken from would be alot higher as there's not many who have played every round from r14 to now which imho says alot. Even if you expand the range of rounds till include every round with alliances ingame I have to feel that we would rank pretty well

And as from my recollection you havent ever been in F-Crew so don't actually have any first hand knowledge then it cant be based on that.
Now in this part you also mention the Training alliance aspect . Now the word Training is somewhat of a dirty word in PA and and its been adopted as somewhat of a slur against alliances. This has caused many alliances to distance themselves from being tagged an alliance that trains. We have never followed the crowd though and we wear the tag with pride. It describes our attitude when it comes to recruitment and effort we put into helping our members get the most fun possible perfectly.

You also mention something about 'stepping stones' which i'm assuming you are talking about moving onto alliances you consider better and that its all a cover for our so called failings. Now the simple fact is we firmly believe that an alliance that operates under the training alliance parameters can win rounds, I don't think they can just pop up for a round and win it like some of the more elite alliances but I do believe that given time to build a solid core a training alliance can win. And this is the belief that I hold for F-Crew in the next round as soon as the current one ends. At the same time we are also realistic we may want to get #1 but the chances of this happening depend on which core people we keep and keeping players when other alliances see us as their feeder alliances is tough and we have to fight as we don't see ourselves as a stepping stone to another alliance. If we don't reach our ultimate goal of being #1 in a round we are hence not devastated, we may be a little disappointed and regretful but as long as we exceed the realistic level we feel we should have acheived based on our core retention then there's little need for us to enter a deep depression and disband like many alliances do when they fail to achieve their dream goal no matter ow unrealistic it may have been. When we do fail to meet our realistic expectations though its sickening for us, a feeling we have had to endure for the first time in a while for the last couple of rounds

- F-Crew don't train.

Yes anyone can read a manual and everyone should but its not the be all and end all. Every player is different and some need more help and advice to get the most out of the game.

As for moving to top tier alliance's, I dont have exact numbers but alot do. The alliance of 1up that your so proud to be wearing the tag of had a fair number of players who had passed through F-Crew having been turned down by other alliances due to not having the vouches or the name to get into so called better alliances. The thing is as I said above all players are different and some people dont have the ability to be top tier alliance players or the desire BUT due to F-Crew they don't end up being one of those who fall into the black hole of new players who dissapear after a few weeks never to play again. That is the important factor really, does the alliance give them enough training to put them in a position to play at the level they wish to go to and thus keeps them playing and the answer on the whole no matter what the members ambitions is yes

- Red Red Whine, Why don't you care?

I guess that’s a reference to me. You may feel I whine alot but what exactly has that got to do with F-Crew. Infact on most of my posts I make a point of stating that they are largely things that don’t effect F-Crew that much personally.

The simple fact is I'm normally posting on behalf of the forgotten players and alliances who don't feel comfortable posting their feelings on the forums because people here just lay into them with insults and intimidation tactics. They dont feel able to speak up themselves and the other people in this community who are in a position to know what they are going through and could speak to them and help them get their point across choose instead to sit on their arses and normally join in the baiting of the few like myself that dont just sit back and let anything but the elites view get put across

- Ultimately.

No pig your the loser for being so conceited that you have made no effort to actually get to know what we are about yet act like your all knowing just so you can have this petty little witch hunt

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I think we would call this "crashing", and it's good, because it means earning salvage. A week or so ago I had 4 waves crashing into my planet, which was covered. And though I don't know if that was F-Crew, it was definitely my best night of incomings yet.

We do get some crashing happening, but its no where near the level that seems to be taken as fact in the community. When it is us crashing sometimes its just mistakes, sometimes its a calculated risk that may or may not pay off and at other times its inexperience. We try not to over manage members, we could go along the route of getting members to give us their ships and we assign them targets and it may increase the quality of target picking ten fold but it wouldnt do anything but to produce drones. We like to try and give members a bit of independence and let them make some mistakes. One of the key elements of improving at something is making mistakes and then knowing what the mistake was and never doing it again. We are here to give advice, we do give advice but unless its something really major the final decision will be upto them and we will then go over why they made a mistake after if they arent sure what they did wrong

Anyway we dont have a negative value loss in the alliance, only growth and the individual planets on the whole dont take significant losses so crashing isnt something I think is as much of an issue to the alliance as others outside seem to think. Infact I doubt its much different to any other alliance as theres an awful lot of attacks every night that land that shouldnt, ive had enough top50 land on me and lose all their fleet and get no roids this round to know first hand

Originally Posted by furball

Sadly, wrong. Try re-reading wakey's AD posts for the last 2-3 years and you'll see where I'm coming from. He will, of course, disagree, but that won't really be a surprise will it

Yes because I go around posting "Treat us special" all the time. Infact your reply here is absolutly disgraceful and makes you a complete and utter joke. You used to be someone who could use logical thought and not act like a 'pod person' so much so that in the past when people tried to claim we were asking to be treated special you were one of the few who actually read what I posted rather than believe what others decided to tell you I posted. Infact you even countered the claims youself by pointing out how at no point had i said anything about VGN's organised attacks on us so clearly the issue wasnt anything to do with "being treated special and not being targeted". You will also notice on an awful lot of my threads I clearly state that many of the issues arent issues F-Crew have real problems with anymore but they still are problems for many and that at no point do I expect any other alliance to treat F-Crew or any other alliance as special cases. All I ever ask for is a bit of decency to be shown for the good of the game so as to give the new players a chance to get past the initial hurdles that the community either consiously or sub conciously like putting in the way

So please get back to being the furball with the brain, not the furball whos led by the crowd

However, where I disagree with F-Crew's leaders is their reaction to people leaving. They (F-Crew) may be willing to play the game without aiming for victory, but not everyone wants to play in the same way. F-Crew certainly don't train people in the more complicated attacking styles favoured by the 'elite' alliances.

You know full well that I have NEVER complained about members leaving, I think the fact that almost ever member leaves on good terms shows that, as does the fact many remain involved in the F-Crew community and down the line return to the alliance. What you may be referring to is our reaction to the tactics used to get ours and other less trendy alliances members to switch alliance, often with the kind of propaganda we see on this thread.

Originally Posted by furball

What I was generally referring to was ordinary members who had been trained by F-Crew and then left to join bigger alliances. Wakey made a big thing of this a few rounds ago.

You are talking about my responses related to things like the alliance limit. These points were not F-Crew specific issues, go read them again and see who tries to turn them into a “F-Crew moaning about not being able to keep their members” thread. You will notice its not me. Its a little underhand blaming F-Crew in general for others choosing to make out we are complaining about losing members rather than just me posting my opinion on issues. I am allowed to express opinions am I not about the depth and quality of alliances in the game and how I feel it helps the game or is that restricted to people who only share the same opinion as the select few

Originally Posted by furball

More than one. Several times in fact. Enough times that it got incredibly tiring.

Welcome to my world where having to constantly answer to the likes of you and pig ect ect who fail to show any understanding at all and instead go out of their way to turn everything into a “wakey moaning about F-crew’s inability to succeed/keep members ect ect
Tbh perhaps you should all get a life rather than spend it twisting everything i say into such comments just because it makes it easier to ignore any point about the game I make

Originally Posted by Zh|l

wakey himself never really seemed to understand the higher levels, as testamount to his varying discussions with Sid and blatant anti-1up traide in history. I cant remember any significant incidents, but I know Sid grew tired of trying to teach wakey + F-crew anything and left them to their own life.

My anti 1up tirades? You mean the ones that had nothing to do with the game but your members behaviour on the forums. You know what I mean the pack mentality used to hound people off the forums who they didn’t like, often led by your HC and respected members.

As for discussions with Sid I have had very few of these ever so god knows where your getting your facts from. Very few of sids posts related in anyway to anything I was in a position to comment on due to them being largely restricted to 1up politics or Fury before that. The few occasions where we would have had serious discussions then its just as easy to throw the same lack of understanding comments at sid. When there’s two parties with views from polar ends of the discussion then there’s going to be disagreements as neither has complete understanding of the full range of issues

Originally Posted by Dryph

If f-crew were to ditch the training alliance bollocks and move onto calling themselves a fun alliance just out to enjoy PA and if it so happens that u get a good rank then hey ala orbit. Then less people will have a problem with the crashing and the shitness as they know f-crew are just out for a laugh and a joke. but all the time they hide behind the training alliance banner they are not helping themselves unless they are producing top100 planets for other alliances round on round.

just a rather long 2 cents

Sebos

How exactly is the 'fun' alliance tag any better, if anything its more of a cop out than people are claiming the training tag is. And tbh it is certainly less useful for describing us, its basically saying if you want to do well then forget us. This isnt what F-Crew is about, we are about achieving a balance, we want to give people a chance when they havent been given a chance by others because they lack vouches or a name with enough draw to get in, while allowing all members to acheive the best they can (in turn helping the alliance achieve the best it can) but while doing it in the spirit the game should be played in (as whats the point of a game if having fun isnt a top priority). As for what seemed like you were saying by being a fun alliance Orbit achieved a good rank, our record is better than Orbits, our best rank is better than orbits (We have ended rounds 5th) and I cant say ive exactly seen them making many references to simply being a fun alliance and even if they had I dont see how that really changes things

Originally Posted by Lokken

F-Crew in contrast never played politics like us. So really they are where they want to be; I don't see why you should hate them for that. In my opinion, they should play politics more and get a bigger partner for a while - they can only learn from it. Smaller alliances have always learned from partnering with bigger ones, so why not I say. But ultimately, they can say what they have achieved is longevity, which is one department which they have me all ends up.

While much of your post shows a understanding that vastly exceeds most of those replying you are doing us a bit of a disservice by saying we don’t get involved in Politics. While we don’t believe in playing lapdog so we don’t rush into others political issues willy nilly we have and are willing to get involved but it will always be on our own terms. Last round for example we worked with Vision and we were up for taking on Exi this round but on the whole if there’s a political issue that is beneficial for us to be involved with we normally feel comfortable doing so on our own. When it comes to needing help getting people who will work with us is hard, so much is said about us in a negative manner and we are made to look so bad by untrue rumours that people often don’t want to consider working with us and when others want help we rarely get asked (and as we saw with the exi thing this round certain people’s egos decided we weren’t needed and were one of the alliances that were leaking the info, which is funny as the rest of my HC didn’t actually know the details when I was kicked as we hadn’t had our meeting yet so someone leaking would have been tough)

[Cain]

Flippin moses, why dont you make your posts abit easier to read instead of posting a bible.

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by wakey

As for what seemed like you were saying by being a fun alliance Orbit achieved a good rank, our record is better than Orbits, our best rank is better than orbits (We have ended rounds 5th) and I cant say ive exactly seen them making many references to simply being a fun alliance and even if they had I dont see how that really changes things

Hold up for just one a second Wakey.

Your record, I admit, is better than Orbits. This is because you mass recruit to the tag limit which thus gives you a distinct advantage (and is the reason you end up in the top 10). And yes statstically, since you have "blessed" the universe with your presence since round 2, that gives you an advantage over Orbit in saying that your "better".

However

F-Crew average at tick 950 - 1,574,123 (70 planets)
Orbit average at tick 950 - 1,513,866 (50 planets)

This round in Orbit I admit its been pretty quiet, mainly due to the boredomness of this round, but still just look at those numbers Wakey, if Orbit decided a policy of mass recruitment we'd be breathing down your necks.

I think the idea that Orbit is a fun alliance may actually come from the Recruitment thread that this round I actually wrote. You may want to have a look at it someday Wakey

Not trying to de-rail the thread but just presenting some facts.

[Ceadrath]

Originally Posted by Smudge

Hold up for just one a second Wakey.

Your record, I admit, is better than Orbits. This is because you mass recruit to the tag limit which thus gives you a distinct advantage (and is the reason you end up in the top 10).
However

F-Crew average at tick 950 - 1,574,123 (70 planets)
Orbit average at tick 950 - 1,513,866 (50 planets)

This round in Orbit I admit its been pretty quiet, mainly due to the boredomness of this round, but still just look at those numbers Wakey, if Orbit decided a policy of mass recruitment we'd be breathing down your necks.

Apart from the fact that this 'mass recruitment' is nothing but the open doors policy for anyone at f-crew that they pride themselves on, it's easier to maintain a higher average score with a more active smaller playerbase than a larger less active one. The fact that it's still higher means they must be doing something right

Originally Posted by Smudge

I think the idea that Orbit is a fun alliance may actually come from the Recruitment thread that this round I actually wrote. You may want to have a look at it someday Wakey

Not trying to de-rail the thread but just presenting some facts.

As far as recruitment threads go This is genuinly funny! i suggest anyone who thinks wakey can't take a joke or isn't aware of his alliances reputation go take a look at it.

[robban1]

well i think the problem with f-crew is wakey you guys have made it ok to suck as an allie and player just cos you "train" ppl, i mean the f-crew ppl would prolly do better if they soloed all round than working as a team hehe

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Smudge

I think the idea that Orbit is a fun alliance may actually come from the Recruitment thread that this round I actually wrote. You may want to have a look at it someday Wakey

I had read the thread and have just reread it and theres really not anything in it that makes you stand out from the stance taken by F-Crew or for that matter even the so called elite alliances. There's no grand declaration made that your whole ethos is about simply having a laugh like other alliances, most noteably Asc have done. Infact the first paragraph lays down your marker as being a serious alliance

Now this wasnt an attack on Orbit, it was simpy questioning the couple of people who were basically saying "Be Like Orbit". There's no real evidence that Orbit are 'playing for fun' like claimed by these people and the couple of rounds of 'success' they seem to be pointing at include 2 where Orbit were just 1 place and 1mill ahead of F-Crew and neither of the 3 rounds bettering our best rounds. As such their be more like Orbit and be more successful claims are just daft as theres no evidence to back them up

Infact there's very little reason for Orbit as an alliance to be held in a higher regard than F-Crew because surely they are 'failing' just as much as F-Crew and if they are as claimed saying they are "playing for a laugh" its surely as much of a cover and a cop out as. It just seems that because its F-crew we get labelled failures and cop outs while alliances in the same or worse position are praised which is just stupid

Originally Posted by Smudge

Your record, I admit, is better than Orbits. This is because you mass recruit to the tag limit which thus gives you a distinct advantage (and is the reason you end up in the top 10). And yes statstically, since you have "blessed" the universe with your presence since round 2, that gives you an advantage over Orbit in saying that your "better".

However

F-Crew average at tick 950 - 1,574,123 (70 planets)
Orbit average at tick 950 - 1,513,866 (50 planets).

Remember Smudge that Orbits top10 ranks have come from also being at the limit. So they are in the same boat and I'm sure if we were to start posting "orbits only ever been top10 because they had more members" all of orbit would feel your having your achievements undermined. You should know full well that more members is only half the story and that giving people a chance doesn't instantly mean a significant score boost. For ever member you give a chance to and they come good and give you a significant score boost theres a couple who simply lack the drive to get involved or at times even play the game who no matter how hard you try will never be worth anything to the alliance and have to be swapped out for the next person, often with less score. Alliances Like HA who have almost always been full in the rounds they have played and havent got a top10 finish and the alliances who have been significantly below the limit and ended top10 (or even went for the win) show that numbers alone mean very little on their own

And as Cead pointed out the averages are not really that useful especially when it gets beyond a difference of 5 members. Could you realistically say after all that Orbit could recruit 20 players over your average, I highly doubt it and I know certainly almost all our extra 20 members have come in with scores significantly below the alliances average. Ive said it before in such discussions, our recruitment policy lowers our average significantly

[wakey]

Originally Posted by robban1

well i think the problem with f-crew is wakey you guys have made it ok to suck as an allie and player just cos you "train" ppl, i mean the f-crew ppl would prolly do better if they soloed all round than working as a team hehe

And we suck as an alliance while others like Subh, Orbit ect ect who have either acheived less or just marginally more are considered decent for what reason exactly? How is it fair that we get labelled shit and failures when other alliances in the same bracket as us don't get slagged off and often get praised.

If you want to deem us failures then fine that's your choice but come on guys atleast be consistent and label the other 99.9% of alliances that have ever existed who's achievements are in the same kind of bracket as ours or worse instead of bashing it on which alliance its trendy to bad mouth and which ones its trendy to praise

[robban1]

Originally Posted by wakey

And we suck as an alliance while others like Subh, Orbit ect ect who have either acheived less or just marginally more are considered decent for what reason exactly? How is it fair that we get labelled shit and failures when other alliances in the same bracket as us don't get slagged off and often get praised.

If you want to deem us failures then fine that's your choice but come on guys atleast be consistent and label the other 99.9% of alliances that have ever existed who's achievements are in the same kind of bracket as ours or worse instead of bashing it on which alliance its trendy to bad mouth and which ones its trendy to praise

nothing wrong with your members it is just that you i guess as members comes and goes and you stay and the result is the same round after round hmmm

[Furious]

Hello.

Firstly, allow me to (re?) introduce myself.

I played with F-crew for a number of rounds, 18-20 i believe, some people may remember me, some may not. It doesnt matter to be honest because i quit playing PA.

However i do have an opinion on this "debate".

First...history lesson
I played with a number of alliances under a different name from R1 through to R13 and then took a break till R18, which is where i was recruited by another relativly new player, Imperial. I spent 3 fantastic rounds playing the game how i wanted to play it, as opposed to having it dictated to me by some egotistical prick more focused on rank than social.

Now....believe it or not, this worked for me. People want to play this game to have fun, make friends, escape reality and all that...and this is exactly what you get with the Crew.
I wasnt logging on every day to get a beating on a failed strat to land my fleets, or that i didnt do enough to support the alliance. I was logging on to say hello to my friends, to see how their day went and (shox!) to rip the holy hell out of them through jest, and very occasionally song

THAT is what the Crew is about.








Now....Mr Pig.

I'd like to say that the reason i left this game was the elitist attitude that was adopted by people like you. You are not good at this game, but you have a big mouth. A big fat one. And, Mr Pig....you feel the need to run this big fat mouth of yours off. Why? To make drama? To prove your superiority?

YOU started this subject to create some entertainment for yourself.
If this is what it takes to enjoy yourself then clearly you are done with PA and you need to leave the game.

YOU think you are better than people playing for fun, pleasure and social activity.Well...then in your mind you are better, you have nothing to prove. Leave the game.

YOU are attempting to destroy one of the few remaining alliances that
1) Allows an entry route into the game
2) Creates the right atmosphere for said new people
3) Is actively working to extend the Shelf Life of PA.

On point number 3, the Crew works for PA...what you are doing is working aginst it here. You are detrimental to PA, leave the game.


In summary, my opinion is that this thread (and subsequently the OP) embodies the very reason why people either leave the game, or just dont bother starting to play in the first place.



Change your attitude, Pig. Support the community that, in your mind holds you in such high regard, or.....continue working against it to YOUR eventual loss.