Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread [See new thread]

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Interesting info. But you failed to mention, WoW PVE Servers, although maybe fewer in numbers, still have about a million more players than said PVP servers. I like stats, there always so informative.

My Source http://www.warcraftrealms.com/censu...id=-1&minlevel=20&maxlevel=100&servertypeid=2

Check for your self.

Ya know if you like PVP so much, why don't you just make your own group, and go for it, or just go for it in open. Why is it so important to you to, "Have it exactly your way". At what time does it stop being opinions, and just become never ending "Dogma"

PS, I hve no Idea what "Curbstomp" is, but if that just happend. I'm very sorry.
I also made an honest mistake, just did the math its only "705,614" more players. I just glanced at 1m something, and 2m something.

Different sources seem to have different information it seems. Maybe due to a lot of server swapping recently with the new expansion.

Anyway, honestly mate, im not a purist pvper, i have said it so many times now its getting crazy. My preference for multiplayer interaction is co-op, but i do enjoy pvp if its done well and not a sole focus. When i want focused pvp, i go play BF4, there is no substitute. :)

While the pvp in ED is good fun, and sometimes actually serves a purpose in the game world, i agree with what people have already said that consequences for those few douchebags that do just kill people for the sake of it are not strong enough right now, but FD have said its getting tuned so lets see what happens.

The appeal for me in open mode, is that anything can happen. Met some cool people randomly already, and had a random fight with a guy over nothing, just a simple accident, but it was fun. Often i just don't see anyone, but when i do, its exciting, even if they just fly right by. I personally just enjoy knowing other people are sharing my universe, and if they are non threatening its just as interesting for me as it would be if we were dogfighting. I get that others don't share this feeling, for various reasons, it is what it is. Without any ire or sarcasm or pointscoring over anyone here, if i am honest, i just hang around to defend solo because its the mode i enjoy personally. It has nothing to do with wanting to go round targeting people i would perceive as easy pickings, i'm in a type 7 right now anyway! I have no preference for whatever people i could convince to play open, if they are all in type 7's or all in pythons, the more the merrier!

As for groups, they hold no appeal to me as they feel too scripted. The charm of open mode for me is that anything COULD happen. It probably won't but you just never know. And as they develop multiplayer on all levels even further, there will be more and more possibilities. If i was actively seeking pvp, a pvp group would just be too fake to make any altercations enjoyable for me personally. Some people like group modes, i respect that, i personally just don't. I feel that if and when i have other pvp encounters in open mode, the actions and scenarios that brought about the fights, would be as fun for me as the actual fights themselves.

In my own honest opinion, open mode is the most complete way to enjoy ED, and therefore for me it is the most satisfying. I know some people have different reasons for playing solo, and i respect some other people's views that they don't want to play open to avoid Aholes, i just wish they would give trying to just avoid the Aholes more of a chance rather than just boycotting the idea totally. There are so many systems, if you just travel away from the starting areas and the rares, you can trade in near enough solitude and make a ton of money. I trade in a random spot and make 2.2 million an hour right now in a type 7. You can make money anywhere! Some will say that there is no difference between doing that and playing in solo mode, and i can't argue with that. In all honesty i can't even tell you why i want more people to play open with me.

I guess i just feel that the more people play the game together, as one galaxy, the better i feel it will be for the game as a whole. Which can only be a good thing. Rather than people segregating themselves and causing divides and 'camps'. Hopefully if FD can implment anti- measures well enough over the next few patches, maybe more people will give open a pop. I am mature enough to know my opinion isn't the only one however, even if sometimes i can appear to stubborn to realise that. :)

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Been in some of the Beta tests :D (and the missus wants it to, she's been testing as well)

It's awesome - being the monster is AMAZING fun.
Still trying to get my head around some of the classes though.

(As far as I am aware, owners of the L4D range of games get automatic entry in the testing weekends for Evolve - that is how I am playing it/ testing it)

Yeah i am going to get it on my xbox, i could enter the beta for that but i havent got round to it yet. I should. Glad you have found it enjoyable!
 
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In my own honest opinion, open mode is the most complete way to enjoy ED, and therefore for me it is the most satisfying. I know some people have different reasons for playing solo, and i respect some other people's views that they don't want to play open to avoid Aholes, i just wish they would give trying to just avoid the Aholes more of a chance rather than just boycotting the idea totally. There are so many systems, if you just travel away from the starting areas and the rares, you can trade in near enough solitude and make a ton of money. I trade in a random spot and make 2.2 million an hour right now in a type 7. You can make money anywhere! Some will say that there is no difference between doing that and playing in solo mode, and i can't argue with that. U.

I guess i just feel that the more people play the game together, as one galaxy, the better i feel it will be for the game as a whole. Which can only be a good thing. Rather than people segregating themselves and causing divides and 'camps'. Hopefully if FD can implment anti- measures well enough over the next few patches, maybe more people will give open a pop. I am mature enough to know my opinion isn't the only one however, even if sometimes i can appear to stubborn to realise that. :)

I am glad you are now stating your opinion, with reasons rather than trying to force change, I also hope your empathy is genuine.

In all honesty i can't even tell you why i want more people to play open with me.

You argued pretty strongly to change the game on a gut feeling for days, "stubborn" might be an understatement.

Even in the part I quoted above, whilst you are not trying to force people as before into your way of playing its still I want it to be like this.......... but "In all honesty i can't even tell you why"
 
Do Open and Solo play save data cross-over?

^title

Also, if yes, then will the game prevent me to progress to Elite in Open if I played in solo?
 
Trading in open play is safer but you will get bored quickly with the game. The game isn't about just making credits , its about having fun and without all of the others in the open game to interact with, it would be very stagnant.
 
Trading in open play is safer but you will get bored quickly with the game. The game isn't about just making credits , its about having fun and without all of the others in the open game to interact with, it would be very stagnant.

I think you meant "Trading in solo play"
 
If you play solo you are not eligible for the competition for the first to Elite. Otherwise you can flick from solo to open and everything accrues the same. 1 kill in open, followed by 1 kill in solo means you have a total of 2 kills when you head back to open, same thing with credits. The idea is to encourage solo players to try open. Very unusual, but I think a cracking idea.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
In my own honest opinion, open mode is the most complete way to enjoy ED, and therefore for me it is the most satisfying. I know some people have different reasons for playing solo, and i respect some other people's views that they don't want to play open to avoid Aholes, i just wish they would give trying to just avoid the Aholes more of a chance rather than just boycotting the idea totally. There are so many systems, if you just travel away from the starting areas and the rares, you can trade in near enough solitude and make a ton of money. I trade in a random spot and make 2.2 million an hour right now in a type 7. You can make money anywhere! Some will say that there is no difference between doing that and playing in solo mode, and i can't argue with that. In all honesty i can't even tell you why i want more people to play open with me.

For players who need / want other players around, open may well be the best mode for them - more power to them. Some players appear to have given open several chances before deciding not to play there. I trade / explore in open and have done so exclusively (except for the occasional test to see if the server connection in solo / private group is any better when I experience crashes) since before launch - I've been enjoying it immensely. It really is a case of "to each, his/her own" - not everyone has the same preferences - and we can, with the feature set in the game, make our choice of play-style on an ad-hoc basis rather than once per commander.

I guess i just feel that the more people play the game together, as one galaxy, the better i feel it will be for the game as a whole. Which can only be a good thing. Rather than people segregating themselves and causing divides and 'camps'. Hopefully if FD can implment anti- measures well enough over the next few patches, maybe more people will give open a pop. I am mature enough to know my opinion isn't the only one however, even if sometimes i can appear to stubborn to realise that. :)

The thing is, we *do* all play the game in one galaxy - due to networking limitations we will never be guaranteed to always see every player in a particular location. With respect to segregation - optional segregation using the group switching feature is, in my opinion, significantly better than forced segregation (i.e. if the group switching feature were to be removed). If / when Frontier beef up the consequences for players who behave in an anti-social manner (i.e. no in-game reason for their actions) then players may congregate in open. If the group switching feature were ever to be removed then that congregation could not happen without players needing to start from scratch again in open - therefore, players previously put-off open would probably be significantly less likely to relocate. Hopefully open will flourish over time to the benefit of all players.
 
While the pvp in ED is good fun, and sometimes actually serves a purpose in the game world, i agree with what people have already said that consequences for those few douchebags that do just kill people for the sake of it are not strong enough right now, but FD have said its getting tuned so lets see what happens.

To be really honest I have to say that the consequences is absolutely ridiculously weak right now. Instead of a 9K bounty, it should be 90K. Or 300K. Especially ridiculously it becomes because credits are so easily earned. I am not trying to be extreme but actual murder on innocents is not something you just to do by accident. Other consequence and measures could imo be implemented as well, for example NPC elite bounty hunter wings stalking serial killers. Or an integrated bounty hunter search system, so that the game provides some tools for player bounty hunters to search for players with large bounties (right now the only info is the system local "largest player bounties" list). In addition to higher bounties for repeat murders the game could mark the murderous players as 'terrorist', 'heinous villain' etc. This mark could then make it easier for player bounty hunters to track them via the implemented bounty hunter search system. I am not sure how the details would be for such a system. But maybe it could be something like contacting NPC ships talking to them to see if they know something, getting better chance of useful info info if their faction is friendly to you, maybe bribing them if necessary. Players scanning either in or out of SC players marked as such villain/terrorist could perhaps sell/give the info on the whereabouts of the terrorist player to the authorities and the bounty hunters could then get further leads from station authorities from this info (for practical gameplay reasons bounty hunters could perhaps get a time limited realtime tracking of the terrorist players system and station location).

I am sure FD could implement a working system for this, but I realize that it probably is not high enough priority to do so much about it. I fear that FD will only raise bounties, but I don't think it would be enough, I think we need a better system which could also offer some interesting gameplay at the same time.
 
See this is my point. People commenting without actually knowing for sure. Ill dig out the numbers for you instead then.

Currently EU side, there are 103 PVE servers in WoW, and 132 PVP/RPPVP servers. Even if you take out the RPPVP ones, there are only 14 of them so it still leaves more regular PVP servers than PVE.

I'd go so far as to call it a curbstomp! ;)


EDIT: I missed out normal RP servers of which there are 18. Still leaves more PVP servers than PVE though, although not enough to be a majority. My point from earlier stands regardless.
Erm...

https://realmpop.com/eu.html

Yea, he kinda got you there. Plus the "Normal" tag is regarding RP I believe (as in, "normal" people who don't RP ???? )

Interesting info. But you failed to mention, WoW PVE Servers, although maybe fewer in numbers, still have about a million more players than said PVP servers. I like stats, there always so informative.

My Source http://www.warcraftrealms.com/censu...id=-1&minlevel=20&maxlevel=100&servertypeid=2

Check for your self.

Ya know if you like PVP so much, why don't you just make your own group, and go for it, or just go for it in open. Why is it so important to you to, "Have it exactly your way". At what time does it stop being opinions, and just become never ending "Dogma"

PS, I hve no Idea what "Curbstomp" is, but if that just happend. I'm very sorry.
I also made an honest mistake, just did the math its only "705,614" more players. I just glanced at 1m something, and 2m something.

I actually dug out the numbers I was looking for, but won't be posting them as they are hilariously out of date.

Moral of story- don't post before bed but after scotch. Nice to see people getting along a little better in here though.:D
 
I am glad you are now stating your opinion, with reasons rather than trying to force change, I also hope your empathy is genuine.

You argued pretty strongly to change the game on a gut feeling for days, "stubborn" might be an understatement.

Even in the part I quoted above, whilst you are not trying to force people as before into your way of playing its still I want it to be like this.......... but "In all honesty i can't even tell you why"

Why would my empathy not be genuine? I have not lied at any point, nor do i see any need to, what do i have to prove on a video game forum that's important enough to lie about? That would just be plain sad. No I didn't argue strongly to change the game on a 'gut feeling'. In a previous thread, when i was new here, i said i wish they would remove solo, and i didn't know enough about solo mode itself. However, in this thread and others i have simply seen other people's point of view, and why i disagree with it. I have never tried to 'force' change in this thread. Go back and actually read my posts. From discussing and hearing differing opinion, I still have my own, whether you call it a 'gut feeling' or whatever. And i am entitled to it. I still don't like solo mode but i understand positive reasons for it exist and i respect that some people also simply prefer it, even if i don't agree with those reasons entirely. Maybe you should try empathy yourself some time, and stop for a second between your own posts to consider other people's viewpoints rather than dismissing them instantly as wrong because they aren't something you can relate to. Just to clarify, empathy isn't about right or wrong.

I am sure FD could implement a working system for this, but I realize that it probably is not high enough priority to do so much about it. I fear that FD will only raise bounties, but I don't think it would be enough, I think we need a better system which could also offer some interesting gameplay at the same time.

Couldn't agree more with you here Mikkel.

Moral of story- don't post before bed but after scotch. Nice to see people getting along a little better in here though.:D

Ha ha, fair play mate. Yeah sometimes people are just stubborn and get entrenched in their opinions, no harm done. Mature compromise from both sides.
 
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You argued pretty strongly to change the game on a gut feeling for days, "stubborn" might be an understatement.

Even in the part I quoted above, whilst you are not trying to force people as before into your way of playing its still I want it to be like this.......... but "In all honesty i can't even tell you why"

That's my opinion Dave, yes. It still stands. I don't have to tell you why. If you had quoted the rest of the post i actually went on and told you why.

"I guess i just feel that the more people play the game together, as one galaxy, the better i feel it will be for the game as a whole. Which can only be a good thing. Rather than people segregating themselves and causing divides and 'camps'. Hopefully if FD can implment anti- measures well enough over the next few patches, maybe more people will give open a pop. I am mature enough to know my opinion isn't the only one however, even if sometimes i can appear to stubborn to realise that."

But instead you took a slightly poor choice of wording by myself and make it into a quote with your own spin on what it meant. One of my gripes from this whole thread, and some of the people opposing my views. Well done for persisting with it.

Tell you what Dave, why don't you tell us what mode you prefer and why?
 
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That's my opinion Dave, yes. It still stands. I don't have to tell you why. If you had quoted the rest of the post i actually went on and told you why.

"I guess i just feel that the more people play the game together, as one galaxy, the better i feel it will be for the game as a whole. Which can only be a good thing. Rather than people segregating themselves and causing divides and 'camps'. Hopefully if FD can implment anti- measures well enough over the next few patches, maybe more people will give open a pop. I am mature enough to know my opinion isn't the only one however, even if sometimes i can appear to stubborn to realise that."

But instead you took a slightly poor choice of wording by myself and make it into a quote with your own spin on what it meant. One of my gripes from this whole thread, and some of the people opposing my views. Well done for persisting with it.

Tell you what Dave, why don't you tell us what mode you prefer and why?

OK in my opinion you were arguing strongly for change including the removal of solo, along with changing this game from something lots of people like & bought with the understanding it would be in the game, to something very different, I am glad you opinion has softened a bit in this aspect.

When I only quote a paragraph it is as that it what I am replying to, I am not trying to take something out of context and twist it, if it appears that way I apologise it was not my intention.

That said I agree with you, once FD implement the "anti- measures well enough" I also think more people will play in open more of the time, when the traders know that the pirates will just rob you, as regularly killing the trader will incur large penalty's, bad rep, increased security interest etc.

I have already said what I prefer, Solo during the week, Open at the weekends if I am feeling sociable and have more time (or on occasion Mobius to take a look in), I am currently giving Open a rest, though I will be back.
 
A known fact? Lol, sure it is. Within which tome is said fact located?

A fact obtained through empirical data measurements isn't any less of a fact. Like it or not, that is the way it is.

Its not a fact, or anything close. No one really has any idea in reality. What you most likely mean personally, is that in actual fact, its you that avoids open world pvp. So you think lots of other people must too. While i am sure many people do, I don't know the statistic, nor does anyone else. So its a pointless comment to even make, and more than that its just wrong.

The devs know, and sometimes do release stats. Like LotRO devs declaring that PvPers plus raiders in LotRO don't amount to even 10% of the player base, and never have. Or EVE developers saying that, of all new players, half leave within the first month, a further 40% never progress beyond safe solo content, and only between 5% and 10% end playing the PvP.

I've never seen any dev declaring the opposite. Never seen any dev saying that they have more PvPers than PvE players, at least not in any game that caters to both play styles.

What statistic about WoW's servers? You think you are the only one that played WoW? I have seen no such trend over the 8 or so years that i dipped in and out of that game. PVP and RPPVP are just as popular as PVE servers.

Blizzard doesn't release official statistics, true. But there are multiple sites that track player population. Using as a basis the US servers, RealmPop says that 58.2% of the player base are on PvE realms, 41.8% on PvP realms, while WarcraftRealms gives 59.8% PvE and 40.2% PvP.

With WoW there are two caveats, though. One is that most PvP realms are so imbalanced that they might as well be single faction PvE realms. Of the top 5 US PvP realms by population, according to RealmPop, the best balanced one has two alliance for every horde, and the second best balanced has 2.3 horde for every alliance; the rest are quite worse. The second caveat is that Europeans tend to play more on PvP than PvE realms, though the imbalance is smaller (54.7% PvP to 45.3% PvE) and there seems to be less European players than US ones, so the US+EU data still favors PvE realms.

As i keep saying, there is no open world pvp in open mode unless you choose it by virtue of poor choice of trading locations or failure to acknowledge risk. The alternative to doing any of this, using brainpower, is just to avoid people altogether. Ok, fair enough, the power of choice is for each individual to make. Just glad more things in the world aren't resolved by running from anything that requires effort to overcome in favour of something that doesn't.

In the real world? The whole point of economic progress is to increasingly spend less effort to make things. So, yeah, in the real world most things are solved by figuring all the options that give similar enough results and choosing the one that requires less effort.

Where you get something different is in entertainment. Games and other things that people do just for fun.

I agree with you, penalties for rampant criminals and murderers are too mild, but as we have heard thats getting redressed soon. It will be a work in progress im sure, but to just write off open mode as a haven for hordes of pvpers which it simply isn't is just a bad vibe in general. The only thing rampant in open mode is a blatant lack of care or situational awareness as far as trading goes, then blaming anything and everyone over oneself, but mainly 'the big bad pvper's' to account for losses of assets.

ED is a game where death hurts. The devs themselves have said that, for most players, the costs associated with a single death are high when compared with what they have. Whenever a game has harsh death penalties, expect most players to do anything and everything to reduce risks, even if it means making the game boring for them.

Each to their own. I don't have an issue with people playing solo if they don't like interacting with others or they have limited play time and want a simpler game experience, or for any other semi legitimate reasons people have said over the course of these topics. What consistently amazes me though is the same people droning on and on, that a reason to play solo/group is to avoid 'non consensual' pvp. Or another way to say it, is to avoid any actual threat.

You like facing other players in unscheduled battles. I, and many other players, don't. For me, particularly, getting into a PvP fight when I'm not in the mood completely ruins my day, even if I wipe the floor with my opponent.

It's not, and was never, a matter of difficulty for me. If Frontier ups the NPC difficulty to mirror how hard it's to face other players, I would love it; I want the hardest game I can get, as long as there is no way, at all, for another player to attack me without my explicit consent.
 
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I did assume the WOW servers had more PvE people, interesting to see those charts actually - made a nice surprise.
Look at the US numbers too if you want to see the whole figure. In the US, PvE is more played by a fair margin. When adding US and EU, PvE is still ahead.

I'm not sure on the STO split or the Firefall split, but from what I have observed PvP is lacking in both of those (apart from 1 on 1 duels in Firefall - you see those a lot)
FireFall has a whole zone dedicated to PvP (Broken Peninsula), though last I looked at it it was behaving kinda like the first iteration of Ilum in TOR: players doing their own thing and avoiding PvP in order to maximize gains.

Though During Beta it did took down the old arena PvP element of the game because only a tiny fraction of the player base was playing that, leaving the game with no PvP at all for a long time. Funny development for a game that at the start was conceived as a PvP-first game.

That rewards first, PvP be damned approach is similar to how "open world" (actually battleground) PvP turned out in TSW: factions trading captures to maximize gains for everyone, and people that actually tried to fight getting some nasty lip service from their own faction for slowing things down. The devs were trying to fix it, I have to take a look someday; PvP is one aspect of TSW that never interested me.

Those are not isolated occurrences, unfortunately; almost every time I've seen PvP with actually desirable prizes, it devolved into players doing whatever it took to get the prizes, even to the point of avoiding the PvP and cooperating with their opponents. It's why I really prefer PvP where the prize isn't enticing, or even tied to victory; when the fun in the PvP is a bigger draw than the prize you get most players playing for fun, which IMHO results in a far more engaging and fun game for everyone.
 
A fact obtained through empirical data measurements isn't any less of a fact. Like it or not, that is the way it is.



The devs know, and sometimes do release stats. Like LotRO devs declaring that PvPers plus raiders in LotRO don't amount to even 10% of the player base, and never have. Or EVE developers saying that, of all new players, half leave within the first month, a further 40% never progress beyond safe solo content, and only between 5% and 10% end playing the PvP.

I've never seen any dev declaring the opposite. Never seen any dev saying that they have more PvPers than PvE players, at least not in any game that caters to both play styles.



Blizzard doesn't release official statistics, true. But there are multiple sites that track player population. Using as a basis the US servers, RealmPop says that 58.2% of the player base are on PvE realms, 41.8% on PvP realms, while WarcraftRealms gives 59.8% PvE and 40.2% PvP.

With WoW there are two caveats, though. One is that most PvP realms are so imbalanced that they might as well be single faction PvE realms. Of the top 5 US PvP realms by population, according to RealmPop, the best balanced one has two alliance for every horde, and the second best balanced has 2.3 horde for every alliance; the rest are quite worse. The second caveat is that Europeans tend to play more on PvP than PvE realms, though the imbalance is smaller (54.7% PvP to 45.3% PvE) and there seems to be less European players than US ones, so the US+EU data still favors PvE realms.



In the real world? The whole point of economic progress is to increasingly spend less effort to make things. So, yeah, in the real world most things are solved by figuring all the options that give similar enough results and choosing the one that requires less effort.

Where you get something different is in entertainment. Games and other things that people do just for fun.



ED is a game where death hurts. The devs themselves have said that, for most players, the costs associated with a single death are high when compared with what they have. Whenever a game has harsh death penalties, expect most players to do anything and everything to reduce risks, even if it means making the game boring for them.



You like facing other players in unscheduled battles. I, and many other players, don't. For me, particularly, getting into a PvP fight when I'm not in the mood completely ruins my day, even if I wipe the floor with my opponent.

It's not, and was never, a matter of difficulty for me. If Frontier ups the NPC difficulty to mirror how hard it's to face other players, I would love it; I want the hardest game I can get, as long as there is no way, at all, for another player to attack me without my explicit consent.

Why you are regurgitating, the same stuff over and over? Everyone seems to have backed off this thread after agreeing to disagree somewhat, i don't know why you are kicking it again with no real relevant points. Your post adds nothing to anything, and is almost flamebaiting.

Why are you kicking up the pointless numbers again, about PVE/PVP in other games? You already were proven wrong, and your last comment just highlighted it even more. For example, you aren't talking about empirical data, you are talking about what you think is a fact, based on an assumption. If you have empirical data, link some of the sources for the games you mentioned. Also, the WoW numbers you mention, if they are even accurate, put PVE players just 10% more than PVP players. So, thats your earlier argument from your previous comments blown completely out of the water. You said a 'majority' of people play PVE and not many play PVP. 10% difference is nothing, so you were totally wrong, with your empirical assumptions.

Not only that, in the EU, which is where i live and what i care about, more PVP servers exist for WoW than PVE servers. Im not bothered about US servers, just like 9 times out of 10, no one on a US server even knows EU servers exist let alone cares about what numbers they put out. Regardless, WoW server data is highly innacurate and changes dramatically year to year anyway, depending on expansions, new content and free server transfers.

As for death hurting, you COMPLETELY IGNORED, my point about how easy it is to avoid threats in open mode. As usual, another person that can't go straight up with someone's comment, but instead has to slide and sidle around by either manipulating quotes, or in this case, ignoring valid points from other posters.

So basically to sum up; no relevant points for the discussion, you don't like PVP at all and will not change that view, and my guess is you just want to do the most obvious rare trade routes known to man. Ok then great, thanks for posting. Have fun in solo.
 
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Solo or Open Play?

Hi Commanders

I have now been playing for about 10 hours on solo, I have bought a Hauler and enjoy trundling around the galaxy trading and occasionally checking out Unidentified Signal sources. Should I now go to Open Play? I don't like the thought of being mashed by players who are far better than me!

What are the chances of getting constantly hassled by bigger better and meaner players?

Cheers!
 
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