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Dark Souls II - share your experiences, stories and builds!

Started by Hemingway, March 26, 2014, 12:14:17 PM

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Shjade

I mean...it's basically just a room of regular, unarmed zombies and a couple of guys who can cast a lightning spell that takes forever to build up. There's not really much of a "strat" for that fight other than "kill all the dudes." Maybe "kill the healers first."
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 15, 2014, 03:48:01 PM
I mean...it's basically just a room of regular, unarmed zombies and a couple of guys who can cast a lightning spell that takes forever to build up. There's not really much of a "strat" for that fight other than "kill all the dudes." Maybe "kill the healers first."
I beat him second time around. As long as I can get 3K souls to repair my live-saving ring I'm less likely to break the disk. I also got to buy a Bleed-Resistance ring so I hope that helps me when I go deal with the Bleed Dog Den Mother.

EDIT: I know, I just know (or hope) that Dark Soul 2 will be more fun once I've beat it and removed that desire to win from the game. Beating it that first time feels more like a chore than a challenge. :P
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Hemingway

Quote from: Inkidu on May 15, 2014, 09:25:08 AM
Then I definitely have 100 agility, I just don't roll for crap because I'm using the Draganelic (SP) armor. I'm basically playing a sword, and board knight. I use a Heide (SP) knight sword when I need to be fast and a bastard sword (one handed) when I need crowd control. I have some kind of shield but I don't remember the name.

Unless you're over 69.9% Equip Load, your rolls should be just fine. If I'm not entirely mistaken, there's only normal and fat roll in Dark Souls 2, compared to three different rolls in Dark Souls. And if you're at 70% equip load, either invest in more, or get one of the rings to boost it. Soaking attacks with a shield is decent, but it's generally better to avoid them if you can. It usually gives you a larger opening, and saves you stamina if you avoid several hits.

Inkidu

Quote from: Hemingway on May 16, 2014, 07:29:10 AM
Unless you're over 69.9% Equip Load, your rolls should be just fine. If I'm not entirely mistaken, there's only normal and fat roll in Dark Souls 2, compared to three different rolls in Dark Souls. And if you're at 70% equip load, either invest in more, or get one of the rings to boost it. Soaking attacks with a shield is decent, but it's generally better to avoid them if you can. It usually gives you a larger opening, and saves you stamina if you avoid several hits.
I move at the same rate so I've learned the important art of just stepping back and around their attacks, and taking it on the shield when I misjudge.

Honestly though it's just becoming a trudge. I haven't even gotten to the bad parts and I want this game to be over so much. Instead of looking at a new area with excitement, apprehension, or a little fear of the unknown, I instead look at it like how many times am I going to die just figuring out where to go. The game is about as immersing for me as bad cardboard cutouts. Dark Souls does a terrible time of hiding all the number crunching and cheesing that goes on.

EDIT: Thought about going to play, realized I was just going to find something to kill without feeling like I need to get anywhere. Really there's no sense of progression. Find something kill it, get souls, all that changes is what soul you get. :P

Game is bare-bones, inelegant.

EDIT EDIT: Ugh, fight your way through annoying hollow mages, burrower basilisks, spiders, and the ever-annoying spider-hollows. Walk carefully across the bridge over the spike pit, and open the impressive double doors on the underground temple and... more spiders, except this time they pull out a nasty trick and jump on your back for massive damage. This is teaching me that ranged builds are the way to go. Why bother learning to fight effectively? Dodge and shoot, dodge and shoot!

I mean I already know what I'm going to do, I just don't have the elan to do it. I'm going to agro them, run across the bridge, and bottle neck them across one side somewhere. I can even retreat if the game cheats and decides that spiders don't take spike pit damage.

EDIT: I need help getting into the game. I mean what's the right mindset for a game like this?

Though, more to the point. My Equipment Load is at 60.1%, and I don't roll so much as flop over. So... can you elaborate on that, Hemingway?

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Shjade

Rolling is the same for everyone at 69.9% and lower equip load (maybe 70% too, not positive). The lower your weight below that point, the farther your roll will move - you will cover more ground per roll than a heavier load would. It doesn't affect the invincibility frames of the roll, but obviously being able to move farther can help you avoid attacks better by simply getting out of the way of the attack.

Honestly not sure what caused the problem you're describing at the end of the Cove. I've never had a spider jump on my back. O.o Did you not notice the guys standing above the double doors and let them drop down behind you or something?

Ranged/magic builds are basically the "ezmode" for Dark Souls 2 though, that's true, at least in PvE. There are a few encounters that might give you more trouble as a ranged build than a melee build (Scoprioness Najka, for instance, has pretty much higher magic resistance than anything else in the game, so fighting her with a magic-focused build is not a fun time; it can be hard to fight the Lost Sinner as a ranged build since it can be hard to keep your distance from her; etc.), but on the whole I'm told it does make the game much more trivial, so yeah, if it's giving you that much trouble in melee trying out a ranged build might be a good idea.

Mindset, though? Depends on the player. I can't tell you how to enjoy a game.
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Inkidu

I'm not talking about the spider hollows. For whatever reason the spiders in the room past that point decided to break out a jump-on-the-back move that they had never, never ever ever never done before. I need some kind of mindset for this game. In five words or less I need a phrase that boils down what I'm supposed to think to get through this game.

I still don't understand equipment load. When I increased the stat it went up, not down. Is a high percent good or bad. That's confusing me right now.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Shjade

Equip load determines how much you can carry without being overburdened. Having a higher max equip load is good, because it means you can carry heavier stuff while keeping a low percentage of total burden: wearing 40 stones worth of gear with only 50 equip load (80% burden) is going to slow you down a lot more than wearing 40 stones worth of gear with 80 equip load (50% burden).

Five words for your goal in Dark Souls games: to light the fires far.
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 16, 2014, 06:34:15 PM
Equip load determines how much you can carry without being overburdened. Having a higher max equip load is good, because it means you can carry heavier stuff while keeping a low percentage of total burden: wearing 40 stones worth of gear with only 50 equip load (80% burden) is going to slow you down a lot more than wearing 40 stones worth of gear with 80 equip load (50% burden).

Five words for your goal in Dark Souls games: to light the fires far.
Not my goal, my mindset. I know, vaguely, that I have to collect four grand souls. I've played enough Zelda games to know the segmented McGuffin objective when I see it.

I need words on a way to think when playing this game. Because honestly I'm looking for the fun parts and not finding it.

Why I suppose I'm confused on Equipment load is that I'm at 60% roughly and I don't roll quickly or far at all. Yet people are throwing out 69 percent max load is fine. How fast and far do they move. I know when I started with the Falconer Armor I rolled fast and quick. I have 100% agility and am below the good max load, so I don't know why I'm flopping on the ground more than rolling.
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Shjade

I'd have to see your game in action if there's really some kind of problem with your equip load and performance.

People say 69% is fine because, generally speaking, the strength of rolling isn't in physically avoiding attacks as much as it is the ability to roll through attacks, which is more dependent on the invincibility frames and your timing. Faster rolls - as in rolls that cover more ground - do help in that they can move you outside the danger zone of an attack faster, which further increases your window for error, but for the most part just having good agility and timing will be enough at any equip load below 70%. If you can't roll an attack at that point, chances are having a lower equip load wouldn't help; it's most likely an instance of PEBCAC.

For mindset, as I said, I can't really tell you how to enjoy a game. The best I could offer is suggesting you worry less about winning (and dying, for that matter) and take it more as an experience in dread and despair than an event you have to win.

You can't win.

I don't mean you, personally. I mean anyone at all. Lore-wise, beating the game is just another kind of losing. This is not a world in which "winning" is even on the table.

The best you can do is hold on to what you've got as well as you can as long as you can. Considering that just being in Drangleic means you've pretty much already lost everything, that isn't a whole lot to hold onto. But then, it also means you don't have much left to lose.

All these people you meet during the game - Lenigrast and Straid and Lucatiel and the rest - you're no different than they are, really. You're not going to succeed where they failed because you're the better swordsman or superior mage. The only thing that keeps you going where they falter is your will: you still have the power to push yourself forward, a power they lost who knows how long ago. The question isn't really whether you'll fail and follow in their footsteps. The question is when.

Because, just like everyone else, you will.

Eventually.



I realize that isn't much of a pep talk to keep playing. It's not supposed to be. If you've already reached your breaking point, there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe it's better if you just take a rest by the fire where it's safe. No one wants to see you go hollow.
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Inkidu

That's my problem with this game it's terrible at fostering the desire to keep playing. Diablo does it through loot, JRPGs used to do it through story, Zelda does it by dungeons, but the Souls series isn't just minimalist it goes beyond that, and not in a good way.

EDIT: I figured out what irks me about it. I can see all the moving parts, or, perhaps more correctly, the game doesn't, or can't, hide them from me which is not immersion-inducing at all.
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Shjade

I kept playing Dark Souls as long as I did mainly because I enjoyed how many different ways there were to go through the game: different builds, different routes, different tactics. Dark Souls 2 has much less appeal for me since it is much more lacking in that regard - there are still a fairly wide variety of viable builds, but the way physical (particularly Dex) scaling pales in comparison to the effectiveness of magic-enhanced builds and the considerable lack of route differentiation make it much less replayable for me.

With Dark Souls, it's not really the destination that's the incentive; it's the journey. For some people, anyway. Then there are the mules. -.-
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 16, 2014, 08:42:35 PM
I kept playing Dark Souls as long as I did mainly because I enjoyed how many different ways there were to go through the game: different builds, different routes, different tactics. Dark Souls 2 has much less appeal for me since it is much more lacking in that regard - there are still a fairly wide variety of viable builds, but the way physical (particularly Dex) scaling pales in comparison to the effectiveness of magic-enhanced builds and the considerable lack of route differentiation make it much less replayable for me.

With Dark Souls, it's not really the destination that's the incentive; it's the journey. For some people, anyway. Then there are the mules. -.-
I found Dark Souls lacked a lot of polish, especially for a game so hard. If it had been easier then it might be forgivable. However, it didn't exactly play by the same rules. Enemies never had to worry about clanging against walls, and there were a few places where I actually fell through the scenery and died. Guess where your bloodstain is? Nope it's gone, down in the void.

They're rare, really rare, but in a game so hard it makes it unforgivable.

I was hoping Dark Souls 2 was just better, more refined, maybe they learned something, but I'm not seeing it. This time though I have money invested into it. (I got to play the last one for free until I couldn't tolerate it anymore)
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Shjade

Actually, there's a fair number of enemies you can beat via geography in both games. Enemies don't turn instantly, so having them chase you down corridors tends to give you an opening when they have to turn a corner. The first armored boar in the Parish will happily kill itself by chasing you into the fires on either side of its alley, whereas the boars outside Duke's can't actually follow you outside their corridors which makes them very easy to cheese.

Running into walls more than once in a while is definitely a player issue more than a game issue (the control aren't stellar, but they're not that clunky), but it's one the AI has to deal with to an extent as well. Though it isn't blinded by poor camera angles in tight spaces.

The bad bugs do suck, though. My first total loss of souls/humanity was from the Iron Golem catching me with his slam attack off the roof, which, as it turns out, causes your bloodstain to appear at the bottom of that drop rather than up on the roof where you were initially grabbed. No way to retrieve them. That was a pisser. But souls are inherently transient, so while it was annoying, it wasn't game-breaking. Dealt with it, moved on. The only really game-breaking bullshit in Dark Souls games is the cheaters and hackers, and that's...a little bit out of the game's control. It'd be nice if/when they manage to screen that crap out of Dark Souls 2 entirely, but I'm not holding my breath.
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Inkidu

I think I'm done this time. Really done. I can't deal with how cheap this game is. It also does one thing brutally wrong which it shouldn't do if it's hard game. I spent what felt like an hour getting to the giant spider boss. I carefully killed all the enemies and I got there at full health, but not only, not only does he have a bunch of fucking spider minions to basically make sure he gets to kill you. He has a room sweeping laser beam! Come on. Having to focus on two (really about twenty) enemies at once is fine, but giving the boss a room sweeping attack that you're not going to see while you're busy dodging the spider minions which can also kill you easily is fucking bullshit.

It's cheap, untalented, inelegant fuckwadery. I'm not in there twenty seconds so I can even learn the fight a little before he busts out the fuck room clearing laser beam. So that's not a desire to provide a challenge. That's just some arbitrary hard-ass bullshit to stick it to the player who Fromsoftware apparently despise.

My rant aside. There is one thing it does wrong. If you stick around people who talk and design games there's something called iteration time. It's the time it takes the player to get back to the last point in which they failed. In challenging games you need short ones so the player can take the challenge again, design a new strategy.

Dark Souls and 2 have balls-long ones that basically puts them in the hard-but-not challenging category. I'm not looking forward to the hour-long slog it's going to take me to get back to a cheap-ass unfair boss. That's why I think this is really finally it for me on this game.

EDIT: I know I'm probably going to be back at it, I just can't believe how blatantly cheap that fight is. I bet you ten bucks it spawns more minion spiders too. :(

Up until then it was fairly... manageable. Not exactly fair, but at least it wasn't blatant. This is just throwing death at you for the troll LOL.
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Shjade

Okay, I'm not normally a person who endorses the phrase "you're doing it wrong" when it comes to playing video games, but I have to make an exception in this case.

If you get hit by Freja's laser, you're doing something terribly, horribly wrong. From the sound of it, focusing on all the tiny spiders instead of the enormous spider clearly telegraphing a bad thing is about to happen long before the laser even appears, much less before it slowly sweeps across about a 90-degree cone in front of it.

That attack is one of the least "cheap" boss attacks in the entire game, just thinking about them off the top of my head. The spider rears back so hard you'd think it's an elephant spooked by a mouse running by in front of it, waggles its legs up in the air as if to say, "Oh shit son, I'm dancin', look at me dancin' over here, shit 'bout to get real," and then finally, eventually, gets around to firing the laser way off to its right side (lesson learned: stay to its left) to start turning leftward.

If you're so worried about killing off the tiny pew pew spiders that you don't notice a boss telegraphing an attack that hard, you're worrying way too much about the tiny pew pew spiders. They are there to distract you and you're letting them do it. Stop that. Stoppit. Stahp. You have all the time in the world to kill them if that's really what you want to do, so don't get hung up on trying to kill them right away or all at once. Prioritize not dying to the massive spider that can one-shot you. You have the ability to run, which is both much faster than killing a bunch of spiders and much safer than fighting them in front of a giant spider, so use it. Run circles around that fat fatty until you have a better opportunity to kill off a nearby little one - or, ideally, ignore them altogether and just focus on whacking Freja in the face when there's a window.

Personally, I like to bait out that laser attack on purpose because it's so slow and completely harmless when you're circling her to your right; wait for her to rear up, immediately rush her left side and run to the back, whack her rear face a couple times, run out to laser-bait range again, repeat. Real easy. Maybe I kill a spiderling here or there between lasers, maybe not.

Looking Glass Knight's auto-bounce-regardless-of-what-he's-doing-at-the-time shield is cheap. Freja's laser is "you deserve to get fried if this hits you."


That aside: I'll agree about some of the bonfires being too distant from their respective challenge points. I wouldn't say that's one of them, though. You can get from the nearest bonfires to Freja in, oh...maybe a minute? The first time through takes longer because you'll want to kill those NPC red phantoms near the spike pit area, but those don't respawn and everything else you can just run by. No muss, no fuss. (You can run by the phantoms, too, but I like to put them down just to reduce risk. They hit friggin' hard.)
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Inkidu

I can't keep the big spider and all the little ones in the same field of vision. :\

I agree it's slow, but I can't focus on the two things at once. That's why I died in thirty seconds. If I focused on the big one the little ones would force me to make a wrong move, and if I focus on the little ones I'm getting hit by the big one. You can't take advantage of a telegraphed attack if you don't get the chance to look at it. :P

I'm willing to admit I suck, but I don't think it provides any particular challenge. It's just difficult.

EDIT: Just like I thought. I can't attack and heal with the little spiders there. They'll hound you. Now I'm out a bunch of freaking life gems. Also getting outside of her legs can be a real hassle. They don't hurt but they keep you locked in close. I might have won the last bit, but she hit me just barely with a web and that was all she wrote. I just don't want to do the trudge all the way back right now.

EDIT: I I hurt my hand playing it somehow. I want my 40 bucks back.
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Shjade

Quote from: Inkidu on May 17, 2014, 12:03:16 PM
I don't think it provides any particular challenge. It's just difficult.

I don't know how to address this. It's not challenging, just difficult? Uh... >.>

Sorry about your hand. D:
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 17, 2014, 12:48:12 PM
I don't know how to address this. It's not challenging, just difficult? Uh... >.>

Sorry about your hand. D:
I'm not going into it. I'll beat the spider eventually. I mean I hardly lose anything. I have a ring of life saving or soul saving something like that. I don't go hollow if I didn't die hollow. The game just does not foster the desire to want to beat it. A challenging boss is one I want to beat, a difficult boss is one I have to beat basically speaking, and yes, I'm aware that's subjective. The Pursuer is one I wanted to beat, the Spider is one I have to beat.

Man my hand really hurts. Also, that spider's beam range is more than 90 degrees. It's more like 99 which matters if you're try to just dodge it so you can kill some of the little spiders.
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Shjade

I find the best way to deal with that fight is to just constantly move in oval patterns around Freja. Most of the little spiders won't keep up with you if you're sprinting around (I start the fight by immediately dashing down the right wall to get my distance from EVERYTHING and work from there) and most of the fight will be you running out in a straight line away from Freja until she rears up to signal she's going to laser, doubling back and dashing straight at the left side of her body to get to the backside, whacking that face a couple times while she's lasering, then running in a straight diagonal (to keep on her left and avoid possible acid/web spray randomness on your way out) line away from her again to trigger another round of lasering. Sometimes little spiders will be in the way of this route and on those laps you'll kill a spider or two instead of hitting Freja, but you keep following the same route regardless.
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 17, 2014, 01:09:07 PM
I find the best way to deal with that fight is to just constantly move in oval patterns around Freja. Most of the little spiders won't keep up with you if you're sprinting around (I start the fight by immediately dashing down the right wall to get my distance from EVERYTHING and work from there) and most of the fight will be you running out in a straight line away from Freja until she rears up to signal she's going to laser, doubling back and dashing straight at the left side of her body to get to the backside, whacking that face a couple times while she's lasering, then running in a straight diagonal (to keep on her left and avoid possible acid/web spray randomness on your way out) line away from her again to trigger another round of lasering. Sometimes little spiders will be in the way of this route and on those laps you'll kill a spider or two instead of hitting Freja, but you keep following the same route regardless.
I'm probably just going to kill off all the minions slowly and carefully and then deal with Freja, using her slow attacks to kill the little ones.

Half my problem isn't that I'm doing it wrong. It's just I have to die once on new bosses in order to learn how to beat them, or so the game is telling me. The last boss I took on without dying was the Dragon Rider or something. :P
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Shjade

Quote from: Inkidu on May 17, 2014, 01:24:23 PM
I'm probably just going to kill off all the minions slowly and carefully and then deal with Freja, using her slow attacks to kill the little ones.
There will always be more.

They don't respawn fast, but there will be more. The longer you take to kill her the more spiders will replace the ones you kill.
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 17, 2014, 01:29:35 PM
There will always be more.

They don't respawn fast, but there will be more. The longer you take to kill her the more spiders will replace the ones you kill.
Crap. If I kill all but one?
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Shjade

If you kill any they'll just get replaced eventually. I think they show up one or two at a time, crawling up from the cliff at the far end of the room. Moral of the story is there's usually going to be at least one spider wandering around (related: watch your back after you kill her - I've gotten clawed up a bit not paying attention after the fight is over by a surviving spider nipping me; they don't despawn after the boss dies).
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 17, 2014, 01:35:44 PM
If you kill any they'll just get replaced eventually. I think they show up one or two at a time, crawling up from the cliff at the far end of the room. Moral of the story is there's usually going to be at least one spider wandering around (related: watch your back after you kill her - I've gotten clawed up a bit not paying attention after the fight is over by a surviving spider nipping me; they don't despawn after the boss dies).
Ugh. Maybe I can get through without taking a hit so I can save my healing gems. I don't have many left after the snafu.

EDIT: Nope, the minions are the problem. I circle and circle and circle and they're right on my heels ready to screw everything up. I'm beginning to think this is where I just have to call it quits. Alone all Freja's attacks would make for a fair and somewhat difficult boss fight, but with those minions she's pretty much covered at everything I can throw at her. I'm actually circling so much that I'm getting flanked by the spiders too slow to follow me around. V__V

EDIT: You know the only thing that actually makes the Souls Series hard is that you just take high amounts of damage upon hit. If you did something as simple as adjust the damage to something of an average game it wouldn't be that hard. If that's not the definition of fake difficulty, I don't know what is. "Let's just make them hit hard!"

EDIT: I think I'm going to mug a few of the minion spiders at the start. I can kill groups in one or two swings so that might buy me a few minutes to whittle on the big bitch. I've even got the slog down to about fifteen minutes. :P
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Shjade

Quote from: Inkidu on May 17, 2014, 01:38:33 PM
You know the only thing that actually makes the Souls Series hard is that you just take high amounts of damage upon hit. If you did something as simple as adjust the damage to something of an average game it wouldn't be that hard. If that's not the definition of fake difficulty, I don't know what is. "Let's just make them hit hard!"
Remind me, how much damage can you take in most Mario games?

Only 1-2 hits?

Man, that difficulty is so fake.

-- No. High damage enemies are not inherently fake difficulty. High damage enemies whose attacks you can't avoid would be fake difficulty. If you can avoid the attacks the amount of damage they put out isn't really relevant, since you're only going to take that damage if you're not good enough to avoid it.

The damage isn't the difficulty. The attacks themselves are. Stop getting hit so much; tada, you now take much less damage.

And if that were so easy, you'd be doing it, wouldn't you?

It seems like you're just repeating how cheap and not-challenging this game is when you're stating how you can't manage to execute some core tactics of the game's combat. You're getting destroyed and then blaming the game for getting destroyed as if you're not responsible for that outcome. That you can't seem to deal with the mechanics doesn't mean they're cheap or broken or fake or any such thing considering how many people run circles around these things with no problem. It means you're getting wrecked. It happens. It's not a reason to bash the game.
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