The Truth About Rested XP
Oh, so you actually came here looking for this article after I mentioned it in the FFXIV review, huh? Well, here we go.
There’s an ugly hidden truth to the Rested XP system most often featured in World MMOs. What could be wrong with a system that rewards you for not playing, you ask? Read on.
For those of you who might not know what Rested XP is, it’s a system first implemented by World of Warcraft but adopted by games like Rift, SWTOR, FFXIV and many others. By finding an appropriate location, usually an Inn, you will gain a limited amount of bonus experience when killing monsters, until it wears off. Sounds awesome right? This way you can more easily catch up to friends that can play more often, as long as you log out in the appropriate spot every night!
Now before I start explaining something, I want to talk about another experience system often featured in Chinese and Korean MMOs, called “Experience Fatigue” also known as a Stamina system. A game like Rappelz would feature multiple tiers of this, dropping your experience gain by 25% per portion of your stamina level. If it was depleted, there was nearly no point in enemy grinding, which was a heavy part of the game, and you’d need to log off for a while to recover it. Some of these systems are more Draconian than others, some forcing you to log off, or making it impossible to progress through the game until you do. MMO players HATE these kind of systems, and every time I made mention of one in a game, I’d see more than a few people talking about how much they refused to play games with these restrictions. XP Fatigue systems were put in place to discourage players from playing a game for far too long, as MMO addiction and lack of productivity was an epidemic in these countries.
In fact, when Blizzard started to create their MMO, they knew the risks of addiction, and seen what happened with Everquest, so they decided they would include their own XP Fatigue system.
As you play the game, you gain normal XP amounts, but slowly become fatigued as you kill enemies. After a while, you’ll reach Fatigued status, and earn half the experience until you find an Inn and log off to replenish it. Players in the beta threw a FIT, flooding the forums with complaints, screaming about how Blizzard had no right to control how much people play, and punishing them for doing so was wrong.
Come the next patch, Blizzard announced a new system called the “Rested Experience Bonus”. As you play the game, you’ll gain normal experience from monster kills, but if you take a break by logging out in an Inn, you’ll earn a Rested Experience Bonus, giving you double the amount of XP you’d normally gain until you run out. Players rejoiced, and considered Blizzard as the most amazing and giving developer.
Here’s something you’re probably figured out unless you’re not very good at math. The values were never changed.
Under the Fatigue System, if a monster gives you 100 XP with normal status, it would give you 50 XP when you were fatigued.
Under the Rested XP System, the same monster will give you 50 XP with “normal” status, and will give you 100 XP with the Rested XP “bonus.”
It’s the exact same system! By switching which version of XP gain was called “normal”, and making it sound like players were being rewarded, rather than punished, they were able to keep their original system without changing a single thing about how it worked.
THE RESTED XP SYSTEM IS, AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN, A FATIGUE SYSTEM.
Blizzard wrapped it in a pretty bow, changed around the terms, made us feel special, and we all fell for it. GG, Blizz.
Posted on November 25, 2014, in Miscellaneous, News and Updates and tagged blizzard, fatigue system, rested xp, world of warcraft, wow. Bookmark the permalink. 42 Comments.
MMO Grinder 
That’s just plain dumb. You used two different monsters. If a monster is worth 50 then under fatigue it’s worth 25. With rested it will never fall below it’s standard 50 but you can also sometimes have 100. It’s infinitely better to play with 100/50 than 50/25…
No, I didn’t. I literally said “the same monster, and it was a hypothetical, not an experiment. Blizzard scammed you. Don’t be dumb. Seriously think about what’s written here and don’t be a reactionary.
Your example with WoW makes sense, they introduced a system and when people didn’t like it they flipped it on its head and gave it a new name.
But with games like FF14 and TOR which had rested xp systems since conception and never even mentioned fatigue penalties I don’t think this kind of conspiracy applies, you’re simply turning it into a glass half full/glass half empty question. Is rested xp actually supposed to be the norm? who cares? Nobody grinds monsters in those games anyway because there are better ways of earning xp.
Do you suddenly earn less experience points after playing over a certain amount of time? It’s a fatigue system. End of story.
The real question should be, “Why are they still implemented in modern MMOs where mob grinding is not the optimal levelling option?” All I have a “blatant traditionalism” and “WoW did it.:
That is a fair question. It does seem really odd, would people pick up on it if it wasn’t there since it’s a staple mmo feature these days?
FFXIV didn’t have rested xp system since conception if you played the game since it’s conception you’d be familiar with “surplus exp” which was a fatigue system that most people were whining about in 1.0 square enix pulled the same thing blizzard did and everyone drooled over it again.
Kinda way late to this but assuming you recorded the exact values of exp they gave before the change over thats a bit presumptuous dont you think? Granted this can very well be true for World of Warcraft but not every MMO that adopted that thought used the exact same idea. Its actually rather well known that FFXIV’s exp gains were readjusted in specific aspects to both balance the gains so you didn’t fall to far into the grinding hole (it happened occasionally with off classes). A lot of games use it as a way to help boost the player and its more of a reward when you look at it from that point of view as apposed to the blatant disadvantage a fatigue system. Fatigue systems are a penalty for putting in to much time were (and this is assuming its being used properly) a rested XP system rewards you for taking a bit of time away.
Bullshit. No one waits for rested bonuses. Fatigue systems are much, much more restrictive.
You are the biggest moron~
Goodbye
So, it has probably been a little while since this has been an active topic. But, recently I started playing this game that has been in alpha for a while called “Project Gorgon”. And it has an interesting system for Rested XP.
Before you log off from the game you can talk to any single NPC you have enough ‘favor’ with and ‘Hang out’ with them while offline. You don’t have to log off at the spot where the NPC is. And, when you log back in you will be where ever you logged off at. Additionally there are usually different time sink options. If you are just going to the store and should be back inside an hour and a half, to play again, you might want to choose a 60 minute hang out option. If you are going to bed, maybe the 4 hour hang out option.
[What your character is supposedly doing while you are offline is just inconsequential story filler like, you went feral rabbit culling with a fairy in the forest. Or (for instance if your a cow) lent your self out to a lonely cave dweller as their pet for an hour.]
Now you can fill that time out as you like. If you thought you were going to be offline longer then you were. you don’t fail the hangout for logging back in per-maturely. If you picked a 60 minute option and you logged back in 45 minutes later. You simply have 15 more minutes of logged out time to do before that is complete.
And when you complete it there is usually an NPC relevant xp reward as well as an item. For instance, if you hang out with the black smith you might get armoring xp and some repair kits (which are only really useful to players who put their characters on hardcore mode as only hardcore mode has degradable armor). But, hanging out with NPC’s also increases your favor with them, which means they may have new skill or ability to introduce you to at the point of being rewarded. Or they may give you better prices and have more shop cash to spend on things you would sell them.
And, hanging out lastly. is not at all mandatory (although not doing it is just shorting yourself). From what I understand about the feature. The developer isn’t concerned with how often you should be playing for your own health reasons. But, more with what the effect of afk’ed logged on accounts have on overall performance. It’s good for everyone’s game that players actually log off once in a while. So doing so is rewarded based on how much time you choose to spend offline.
I thought it is a very interesting take on rested xp. And, worth mentioning here.
Hmm… that does come as a surprise and has changed my way of seeing the rested experience. I didn’t notice as much during leveling as I would actively be out hunting for all the quests in a given zone as I am a sucker for lore. Though it does make sense on why normal/fatigued experience gain is seen a positive light with rested experience by being treated as “bonus”.
It reminds me of a placebo effect honestly in which if a test subject were told a drink would give them more stamina and the test subject believed them, even though it could just be sugar water, then the subject felt they would get more stamina even though the drink had no real effect. By seeing rested experience as not “normal” but as “bonus” an individual would believe they are gaining above 100% experience if they were not aware of what was actually going on with how experience gain worked.
It’s a fair point, though it’s kind of a case of a new perspective makes you dislike the other thing less. If I don’t mind the idea of rested XP, then I guess the fatigue XP systems aren’t so bad either.
Ultimately, no matter how it’s done, people will decide whether they feel they’re leveling up at a good rate or not. If the rest XP gets eaten up too quick, and you’re left to mindlessly grind with no objectives to get to each new level, then people will complain. But if only the people playing 8 hours a day have to grind to each level because they burned out their rested XP, then it’s not an issue for the average player, and is pretty fair.
It’s an interesting thing to note, but I don’t consider it a sham or anything. If Rested XP were so bad, then it would make the game bad, and we’d notice it. It’s not a lesson in how we were scammed, but a lesson in how something that sounds bad turns out to not actually be bad once we look at it in a different light. Basically, Blizzard had a system for XP that everyone would actually be perfectly happy with, and just prettied it up to convince us to give it an honest try and see if we liked it. And it seems we did.
If they didn’t invent rested XP, they’d just scale back XP to some middle point anyway. So having rested/fatigue XP just means it’s a little easier to keep up if you’re just a casual player, so I got no complaints.
LotRO has rested XP for subscription players which I guess is like this, except f2p folks never even get that (aside from the odd XP tome drop). I was just wondering how this discussion is affected when the game company also sells XP boosting products in the cash shop (LotRO has one these days giving triple XP for an hour if I recall correctly).
Or, on the flip side, I’m one of the weird players that lobbied hard for, and then bought, XP disablers for all my characters so I could do more (specifically all) of the content at any given level without outlevelling it.
So, I was thinking. Why does such an obvious move work (not just once but multiple times across many games since) with no real negative backlash. I don’t think people are that gullible…
Maybe it is all subjective. And, it could be that this something good game design has to understand in order to do well. It might be possible that it is all about how it is framed. And, not at all about what is actually happening.
Think of a game that considers itself hard and meant for people who like to play in a hardcore manner. And, I am sure any update it has had in the way of an easement has been railed against.
Like wise think of a game that is labeled as simplistic. How is anything being introduced that is too involved met?
If they didn’t tell you that you were earning more or less then you should be. How would you know?
Say you kill a monster and earn 50xp…Okay, why? What is so special about 50 xp? say you picked up a mark and started earning 60xp per monster. Or maybe you die and suffer a penalty that has you earning 40xp for a while…Then 50xp becomes important. Because, it has been contrasted against an alternative. Prior to either of these thing happening (and arguably still) 50xp is completely arbitrary.
So, perhaps it doesn’t matter how much you get how fast. Or how much you have to go. as long as there is a begging, middle, and end, and you are given some sort of context. Humans will always try to reason. So, in a world that you build, where you can set the bounds for what is happening, the scope of what may happen, and a standard for should happen. A persons natural need to make sense of things will have them going off the information they have been given. And in-so-much you can control there ability to reason. And, if they don’t like something. All you did was put it the wrong way for what their expectations were.
People aren’t that gullible. The point of contention isn’t the buff/debuff itself, it’s where progress falls with and without it, as well as what the difference is. In a game where experience gain is painfully slow, you can call it anything you want – rested experience will still be a chore. The game itself makes you feel like you HAVE to have it. Contrariwise, in a game with decent experience gain by default rested XP barely even matters. O noes! I’m being penalised for paying too much! Watch me give a crap.
Rest XP/Stamina comes into play when a game cripples your ability to play it without, yet allows you to play just fine when you do. You can call it anything you want, it’s problematic when it becomes an obstacle. I liken this to rare consumable buffs that Korean MMOs like to use. It doesn’t matter if it takes the form of a short buff or a long debuff, if it means I can’t have fun for long stretches of time then I can do without it.
People don’t mind Rested XP when they don’t feel like they need it. Simple as that.
I am thinking that my speculation isn’t any less for that point. You can’t feel that you are getting good or bad XP normally, in order to either appreciate or loath something that gives you more or less, unless you have first been given a frame of reference for what is good and what is bad XP in the game your playing. And a lot of that context just comes from what you have been told. Had you been told something different about the nature of base XP (had they reframed it). You would likely feel differently about in such a case were you were made to feel previously that it was good or bad. I feel it still stands. That kt is all subjective. And I think blizzards move with rested XP supports that idea.
Similarly, people think they are being “rewarded” for doing daily quests to farm gold. The reality is they’re earning normal income doing them, and being punished for “not” doing them. Blizzard did the same trick here, and everyone rejoiced about it just because of the wording and how it looks. You didn’t earn “more” doing daily quests in BC, you earned less whenever you weren’t doing them. This allowed them to slow down your earnings, similar to how they slowed down your leveling with rested “bonuses” that people thought were making them go faster, lol. Suckers. Hearthstone is just the next level of it. You’re not going faster doing your daily quest, you’re going slower whenever you play after it. I don’t know how people still don’t get it when it couldn’t be more obvious this time. In Hearthstone, you earn gold ONLY up to 30 wins, 100g per day. Afterwards, you earn NOTHING until the next day when the counter resets. That’s just an extreme version of rested/fatigue, not much different.
I’m glad someone else understands this. People are such suckers. By simply changing the wording so it sounds like a bonus rather than a penalty, they’re ok with it. But it did reward you for logging out at inns rather than anywhere in the field, and encouraged you to play alts, not just dump all your time into 1 character. I never had a problem with the system. I do hate what it’s been turned into, though. Now you’ve got BS like Hearthstone where you can’t even progress AT ALL because of daily caps. A penalty is one thing, but a cap telling you that you can’t earn ANYTHING is BS. They only give you 1 quest and 100g per day, regardless of how much you’d like to keep playing. WoW originally had daily quest caps too(First added in BC), but it was never an issue, because again, you could just play an alt for a second dose. 2 characters=2x daily quests. Can’t do this in Hearthstone, because your account is basically your character, not the classes, and the caps are account wide. Their logic is, like any F2P game, make the grind as long drawn out and painful as possible, and people will hit the cash shop to fix the problem.
Everquest 2 has an interesting version of this, in that you don’t have to be in a specific area or even logged out to get your “bonus” XP. You get it regardless of what your character is doing every hour on the hour, up until it caps…it has always been there and caused a lot of confusion in the early years of the game because the “bonus” wasn’t originally shown you you anywhere in the UI people would just some how get more XP the their friend doing the while grouped together doing the exact same thing.
Another point I haven’t seen anyone bring up yet:
The rested XP system gives you bonus experience when you come back and play the game later. The second part of that sentence is what I’m talking about. If you spend time outside of the game, your rested XP will increase up to a cap. However, you don’t actually earn that bonus XP at all when you’re outside of the game. You only earn it when you come back and play the game a little more. Thus, it may seem like Blizzard is just getting you to stop playing the game for a while, but because that bonus XP can only be earned while playing the game, what they’re actually doing is ensuring that you’ll come back… “Hey, go ahead and take a break for now, but be sure to come back tomorrow and collect on that bonus!” It’s the same as the “First win of the day” bonus you get in League of Legends and other MOBAs. What at first might seem like a nice gesture is in fact just a calculated maneuver to get players to come back and play their game every day.
I think one of the biggest ironies is that the rested XP system for WoW is practically moot at this point. With the XP/level reductions, dungeon finder, heirlooms and flying mounts, questing and leveling is super easy and the rested XP is almost unnoticeable.
That is, until you hit the latest content where you’re stuck on the ground and the quests are designed for a natural level progression but even that only lasts until you hit the level cap and the rested XP no longer matters.
RIFT has this? I’ve never experienced it.
I seriously thought it did, as the game was so definitively “WoW-cloney”, but I might have been mistaken there. I’m not about to re-install the game to check.
WoW….Base game, one year subscription, all the expansion packs…Some forum last year figured it wouold cost around $500? Even at $100 that game will never be in my penny pinching price range.
Hmmm….Unless RIFT has added it in the past two months, then it doesn’t have rested XP, unless it’s an exclusive Patron thing. I guess I’ll find out in December.
Vert from Hyperdimension Neptunia said it best:
“I don’t know who it was. But whoever invented the fatigue system must be judged a world-class terrorist.”
4 years later and I only now understand this reference.
To give credit to a show that’s far more popular and well known than mine, here’s where I first found out about this: Extra Credits: Energy Systems
You wanna know what’s even worse.
With the Wow example it’s even more shady. Why would they want you to take a break? To help stop addiction? Nah no way They want you to take breaks because that is time you are actively not spending playing the game. You spend 8 hours away from the game instead of spending those 8 hours beating another dungeon and hitting another 10 levels. The next day you’ll beat that dungeon and claim those levels but that’s tomorrow.
Wow runs on subscription.
The longer they make the game last the more money they can milk out of you.
@lionday
I think that what you said could have very well been one of the motivations. But, it’s important to remember that when a decision is made with potentially millions riding on the outcome. It is unlikely that said decision is going to have a singular driving reason.
I feel that Behavioral Addiction to Online Gaming should be taken seriously by Developers/Publishers of Online Games. So, when they do act in a manner that shows concern for their players. When they assume responsibility towards the better health of their communities. I think it’s a little sad that they are forced to re-frame it in order to be praised and not condemned.
I also think if this is a major point of contention for some people. Those people may very well have a problem. And, need to be regulated in this manner. Getting mad at this, I liken to a drunk bar-goer complaining about being cut off.
That said, maybe some games that use this could try lifting the limitation for some of their players. Perhaps through a system of age verification. That way players who are decidedly at less risk for a addiction (It is just my opinion that people in their teens are more likely yo become addicted), can opt out of a system they feel is unfair.
Another thing to consider (aside from whether or not it is a game proprietors’ responsibility to oversees this). Is that this kind of feature may go beyond community health and into the realm of being good for the game. If players must take breaks. Then every time they do they are giving other players a rest from rendering their characters, Seeing their particle spam in fights etc. And, giving the servers a break from communicating with them. This could mean that in-game play might be over all, a smoother experience. And, that servers might need less mandatory downtime and regular maintenance, more infrequently.
Having a player down time might also get players to have the times that they play, be on more of a regular schedule. It may make them more reliable as to when they will be on and for how long. If you want to play all day. But, have to log off for at least 8 hours in a 24 hour period. Why not make it when you are asleep? If every one is more regular with their play habits. Then bonds of friendship and alliance formed are more likely to be stronger. A player will be more likely to forms such ties with people in a similar time zone who have a similar amount of free time.
A brief example: You know your friend will be on and available after his dailies within a certain time bracket. And, you can plan a raid to include said friend. And, this is probably true of most the people you would naturally think to include.
And, what happens when behavioral psychology catches up with this issue and legislation regulating it starts coming around. We will be glad that our games of choice had these features preemptively then. I think.
Overall, I see a lot more pros then cons to having this sort of feature in place.
I’m not saying gaming addiction isn’t a problem for some people, I’ve seen it happen – but I have serious doubts a system like this would have a significant impact on it. The cases I’ve seen happen were in WoW with this very system in place. The other thing I’ve noticed is gaming addiction often tends to be a symptom of larger mental health issues than the cause. The entire mental healthcare system in the US does need a drastic overhaul, I don’t dispute that but addiction in general rarely happens in a bubble, usually something has gone wrong either within this person or their lives to make them that susceptible to addictions. These can range from caffeine to alcohol to all forms of media and more.
There will likely be no legislation or regulation on the issue of gaming addiction in the United States, where Activision Blizzard is based. Video games have been ruled by the Supreme Court to be works protected under the US constitution from any form of government regulation or censorship would likely violate the constitutional rights of its creators. This is VERY likely the last word on the issue so long as the ESRB stands and the Industry Self-Regulates in the manner it has this is likely to stay as it is.
For reference (if we are going to talk about brown v, EMA it’s good to have transcripts handy):
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf?DCMP=NWL-pro_ussc
1st amendment protection doesn’t make it a hands-off for law makers. They can’t censor the expression itself, as long as it doesn’t step outside previously established bounds for protected speech. Things like the game’s art assets, artistic presentation, story and such…those are off limits. But, not a mechanic that has to do with how the game is ran by it’s proprietors.
I’m not seeming anything here that implies mechanics are not considered protected speech. Games are funny as you can make a real argument that the mechanics are as much a part of the art as anything else, If you were to take Brothers a Tale of Two Sons for example where the mechanics of the game down to the controller layout were designed as a integral part of the narrative the game was trying so hard to get across. so where the line of where the art ends on mechanics is more than a little murky in my eyes and I feel like a lawyer could make a very compelling case for mechanics being as much a part of the art as the textures or music.
I’d recommend these for further food for thought.
True, as mechanics can be integral to a game working itself. It might be a hard point to argue either way. But, probably not in the case wherein there are reasonable alternatives. And, wherein a given mechanic isn’t necessary except to manifest the aims of the policy that brought it about. In any case, I don’t think any group would be attacking this particular mechanic. One would have to be anti-agenda and hard searching for a bone to pick to even begin to. Because ultimately it is good for the company, good for the health of the game, and whether or not they like it, probably better for the over all health of a games community.
But this ruling does open the floor to a lot of discussion and possible legislation. Questions like, is it tantamount to art theft if someone pirates a part or the whole of a game? Should games be required to have insurance (given how big the industry is and how much money might be invested in even a single title and how much players and makers tend to loose)? And, what about propriety; At what point does a game become part of the common wealth/public domain? How will fair use regulatory laws and copyright laws change in time?
The point here being that games are now legitimized. And, with anything that is given an official legal standing and consideration. More laws tend to pop up around it. Something to keep our eyes and ears attuned to, as time goes on. In order to help insure that anything that happens with this happens on terms we are not completely opposed to and that are at least some what fair to those who games are made for (gamers). Otherwise companies like EA are going to pull the same Screw All’s that Time Warner and Disney did with movies (both of which have a strong foothold in the games industry).
EA Ubisoft and Activision have been screwing their customers for years on restrictive DRM and buggy releases. Sim City Unplayable at launch with forced online play for no reason. Assassins Creed Unity Crash prone and a laundry list of optimization issues – Watch Dogs pretty much the same deal. Not to mention all most every other ubisoft game being screwed over by UPlay at launch making most of their games unplayable during launch window, How about the practice of review embargos set after a games launch date? How about the practice of holding ‘Review events’ where reviewers are wined and dined while reviewing a publishers new title. Also the numerous gifts reviewers receive from publishers beyond just their review copies. What about the widespread disturbing sexism that has turned most female developers right out of the industry? Not to mention the numerous cases of harassment sexual and otherwise (and death threats) not only from fans but people inside the industry itself. Gaming may have been legitimized but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like we earned any of it.
A quite good example of how the human mind works
There’s a very important difference: A fatigue system PUNISHES you for playing a lot, rested xp REWARDS the player for taking a break. The systems are fundamental opposites that is simply meant to have a similar effect.
See, I was about to tell you, maybe scream, that it’s the same difference. The end result being it’s a deterrent from playing excessively in a single period. But then something occurred to me. Using Chaos’ example with Fatigue you get 100exp for a set period until you reach a limit to which then exp gained is reduced; there’s nothing to prevent that limit from being reached, it’s inevitable. Now with the Reward system you gain only like 50exp normally and when you rest at an appropriate location, you’ll gain a bonus that give you that 100exp. The key thing here is if you always make sure to logout at the appropriate locations. Typically with Fatigue, no matter where you are, your fatigue will wear off. But with the bonus, it’s only in specific locations. So if you’re kicked from your game or just so tired you just want to log out and be done, if you don’t plant your char’s body in those locations, no bonus. The reward system is effectively worse of a system. If you aren’t mindful, you’re punished!
I’m pretty sure it worked the same way prior – if you didn’t log out at an inn you didn’t become unfatigued. so you were correct the first time its the same exact thing. It’s just about the psychology of it. I have no problem with the system being there – BUT people really shouldn’t be GRATEFUL for it. It’s only there to keep you subscribed longer by making it harder to blaze through all the content. This is why the system applies separately to each character – its not that they don’t want you playing – they don’t want you burning through to level cap do all your raiding and sit around bored waiting for the next content patch – they wanna stall people out on getting there as long as they can – because people have a tendency to unsub when they hit that point for too long and they want to have as much time to put out more stuff before that happens as they can.
This is a pretty old story but an accurate one, people used to login all the time and be like ‘OHMAGERD so much Rested! woo!’ Welcome to the world of games – people parroting the same lines as the marketing departments (“30fps is so much more cinematic”) and supporting the culture of preorders (“Believe the Hype!”). …and people still wonder why I’m bitter…..
The main difference is what’s considered “Normal XP”, because that’s what the leveling curve has to be balanced around.
I think the reason why Rested is more effective a term than a fatigue system is that you can’t have the non-rested XP be too low, because that will cause even bigger complaints, hence why, 99% of the time, Rested XP is only double non-rested, and rarely applies to quest rewards and the like.
Since a Fatigue system is a more explicit penalty, it allows the developers to make the penalty stronger than the non-rested version.
But, yeah, cut from the same cloth, just a different gown.
Except it was still a penalty the system was NOT changed in the slightest they LITERALLY just slapped a new name on it – if you’re at “Normal” XP you’re actually playing at what they used to called “Penalized” XP. the game is still balanced around Rested XP or what they used to call “Normal”. It’s just their way of spin doctoring it into a form people wouldn’t rage at simply by changing a few pieces of text and NOTHING else. You cant says one is better than they other when they are OBJECTIVELY the exact same thing with a new bow on it.