Fighting Games Weekly | May 13-19 | Throwing coins

End of the day Chris G has bigger D so Tokido will forever hold that L.

Even a fat asian is not enough for his island thickness.
 
I wish every character could do that, or that that input did any kind of damage that could win a match beyond button mashing levels of play.

and your standard marvel launcher > BBCS combo isn't going to win past a certain level either.

also i learned a simple lambda combo as i was playing my "random select" tournament match! j.DD > j.2DD > jump cancel > j.DD > j.2DD > j.214D. this was my first time playing lambda
 
There was a character like that, it was BBCS1 Bang.

I don't think someone that just picked up a game should have a chance vs someone that has been playing a long ass time and don't bring up smash as a counter example of this cause it's not.
I'm not saying that, I'm saying that in fighting games, there are 4 design aspects:
-Execution
-Yomi/Mindgames
-Reaction
-Strategy

A good fighting game puts Reaction at the top of the priority list for win determination. Your ability to respond to your opponent's movement, find openings, and take advantage of the situation.

A bad fighting game puts Execution at the top for determining wins. Hard links, character-specific basic combos, double tap dashes, etc. These are all bad game design.

However, every good fighting game has endless fruit for those who pursue the game seriously. Thus, while Smash Bros and Marvel have very low execution requirements for competent play, they both also push people to endlessly devote themselves to mastery levels, and there is no real limit to this mastery in either game. This is good game design.

Basically, every fighting game will have high execution requirements at the top levels of play, but what matters is the entry level and how much you have to practice just to enjoy the game on a basic level. Creating a barrier to entry just for the sake of having it is bad game design.

Strategy should be second to Reaction, and then Mindgames/Yomi. Execution should be the least important skill to have for competent play.

In other words, let's look at two fighting game players with these four skills.

Player A:
Reaction: 9/10
Strategy: 6/10
Mindgames: 6/10
Execution: 4/10

Player B:
Reaction: 4/10
Strategy: 6/10
Mindgames: 6/10
Execution: 9/10

In a good fighting game, Player A should win more matches than Player B.

and your standard marvel launcher > BBCS combo isn't going to win past a certain level either.

also i learned a simple lambda combo as i was playing my "random select" tournament match! j.DD > j.2DD > jump cancel > j.DD > j.2DD > j.214D. this was my first time playing lambda
Have you seen FChamp's Dormammu combos? All he does is ABC stuff.

Besides, my point wasn't that "anyone should be able to win". That's moronic, and was never my point. I also don't believe that you figured out that Lambda combo mid-match, but I'm amused that you tried to claim you did.
 
Why don't people read my posts before responding? :-(


Haw haw, on at least 3 levels, sir.

dude it's literally just pressing D twice, chaining into another direction of D twice, jumping then repeating that same input again then doing a special move.

how is that hard to figure out? Captain america's bnb's are harder.

And marvel is execution heavy as hell I have no idea why you don't think it is, just because the illusion of it not being execution heavy is there doesn't make it not true.
 
Your arguments regarding the four key things in fighting games are legit, but I can't help feeling like you just haven't played enough fighting games when you list Mahvel in the same place as Smash. I love Mahvel because it is a messy/fun competitive mess, not because I find it intuitive or because of the combo system.

Edit: Man, Smash is just way too different compared to everything else out there right now. I wouldn't put any traditional 2D fighter in the same realm of accessibility(well, besides ST).
LOL no way. BlazBlue is at least three times as combo-dependent as Marvel. When my regular sparring partner's Jin touched me, it was like a goddam Dante combo in length. I fell asleep after a while.
Yeah okay lol

It's like you are not watching the same game I am. I don't get how people can say this stuff with a straight face when it comes to Mahvel. It is literally the face of one player games. That is the main reason why everyone hates Moridoom. It flies directly in the face of coin tosses into super long combos that one touch a character and lead to a corner unblockable or mixup that one touches the next character.

I'm not gonna pretend that BB isn't combo dependent, but I'll never understand how Mahvel fans could see it as anything else. Keep in mind that being a one touch game isn't necessarily a bad thing in my view.
I like characters that wield magical power, not ones that failed to do so. I thought he was cool looking, but he's just a mutated idiot. Plus his bug combos are fucking hard.
I once legit mashed a 100 hit red bug combo. I'm not saying his combos are easy, but his design was a mess. Sometimes you hit the jackpot by just being random as hell with him. Pulling off his combos consistently would probably be a horrible chore, though.
 
I'm not ripping on him. It's just certain people keep saying Chris G is the overall world's best player in which I personally disagree in jokingly fashion. When it comes to it I may even root for Chris over Tokido. For me allegiance goes from country to coast to area.
Phillies, Eagles, Sixers, Flyers all suck but I still root for them.

ChrisG might not be the best but I can see why anyone would think he is. He's the best Marvel player, great in Injustice, one of the best in North America in AE '12 and he's great in anime games.
 
dude it's literally just pressing D twice, chaining into another direction of D twice, jumping then repeating that same input again then doing a special move.

how is that hard to figure out? Captain america's bnb's are harder
You really think it's reasonable to figure that out mid-match against an opponent? How many dropped combos would it take before you got it right once? How many combos would it take before you figured the inputs out? The only way it would be reasonable is if you had watched a solid amount of Lambda play and knew what the combo looked like. If that's the case, you're not really "figuring it out". If he played BB a lot and knew what all the Lambda inputs looked like already ("2D is this blade", etc.), then his point is stupid, because I'm talking about someone coming into a game fresh and trying to figure these combos out.

Your arguments regarding the four key things in fighting games are legit, but I can't help feeling like you just haven't played enough fighting games when you list Mahvel in the same place as Smash. I love Mahvel because it is a messy/fun competitive mess, not because I find it intuitive or because of the combo system.
I've been playing fighting games since Street Fighter II. I'm 28. I've played a lot of fighting games.

Yeah okay lol

It's like you are not watching the same game I am. I don't get how people can say this stuff with a straight face when it comes to Mahvel. It is literally the face of one player games. That is the main reason why everyone hates Moridoom. It flies directly in the face of coin tosses into super long combos that one touch a character and lead to a corner unblockable or mixup that one touches the next character.
I'm not talking about high level play, though. -_- I've said that so many times!

I'm not gonna pretend that BB isn't combo dependent, but I'll never understand how Mahvel fans could see it as anything else. Keep in mind that being a one touch game isn't necessarily a bad thing in my view.
I ABC my way to victory with Dormammu over and over again. 2/3 of JWong's main team is ABCD combos (D because of Drill Claw and Demon Palm!).

I once legit mashed a 100 hit red bug combo. I'm not saying his combos are easy, but his design was a mess. Sometimes you hit the jackpot by just being random as hell with him. Pulling off his combos consistently would probably be a horrible chore, though.
I know that feeling. I don't know if I got to 100, but I got some pretty high numbers just from mashing Arakune bug combos. That's not how I want to play my character, though - haha.
 
Why don't people read my posts before responding? :-(


Haw haw, on at least 3 levels, sir.

his argument is that all are equally important. therefore in your hypothetical situation, the result is that both players should have an equal number of wins.
 
You really think it's reasonable to figure that out mid-match against an opponent? How many dropped combos would it take before you got it right once? How many combos would it take before you figured the inputs out? The only way it would be reasonable is if you had watched a solid amount of Lambda play and knew what the combo looked like. If that's the case, you're not really "figuring it out". If he played BB a lot and knew what all the Lambda inputs looked like already ("2D is this blade", etc.), then his point is stupid, because I'm talking about someone coming into a game fresh and trying to figure these combos out.

I guess if they never played a fighting game of that style before it would be a bit weird. idk I have a hard time coming to grasp with that these days because I've been playing just about everything for years now so my mind breaks down shit pretty quickly.

And come on now if someone wants to take a game seriously they could easily watch others play it and learn. That's one of the key things for a fighting game.
 
You really think it's reasonable to figure that out mid-match against an opponent? How many dropped combos would it take before you got it right once? How many combos would it take before you figured the inputs out? The only way it would be reasonable is if you had watched a solid amount of Lambda play and knew what the combo looked like. If that's the case, you're not really "figuring it out". If he played BB a lot and knew what all the Lambda inputs looked like already ("2D is this blade", etc.), then his point is stupid, because I'm talking about someone coming into a game fresh and trying to figure these combos out.

yep, i watched a local player play and figured it out by watching.

if you dont' have players to watch, then challenge mode exists.

i dont' know how much general knowledge of fighting games you've got, but just knowing the inputs isn't enough to do a combo... timing, spacing, etc are all factors. though in my lambda example, it's pretty simple execution wise.
 
ChrisG might not be the best but I can see why anyone would think he is. He's the best Marvel player, great in Injustice, one of the best in North America in AE '12 and he's great in anime games.

It's hilarious because this resume is like half a year old, when you consider how old this scene is.

But I guess if people weren't slobbering over Chris, it would be Justin instead.
 
I guess if they never played a fighting game of that style before it would be a bit weird. idk I have a hard time coming to grasp with that these days because I've been playing just about everything for years now so my mind breaks down shit pretty quickly.
When you reach high levels of play, it's important to be able to remember what it was like when you first learned, or even when you were just average. You play a ton of fighting games, and you spend a lot of time playing them.

And come on now if someone wants to take a game seriously they could easily watch others play it and learn. That's one of the key things for a fighting game.
That's why this entire discussion has been about barriers to entry. I don't know if I want to take BlazBlue seriously when I buy it. It's stupid to make me devote myself to learning combos for 3 hours before I know if I like the character/game. Let me play it first.

yep, i watched other players play and figured it out by watching.

if you dont' have players to watch, then challenge mode exists.
Okay, so you didn't actually "figure it out" mid-match.
 
When you reach high levels of play, it's important to be able to remember what it was like when you first learned, or even when you were just average. You play a ton of fighting games, and you spend a lot of time playing them.


That's why this entire discussion has been about barriers to entry. I don't know if I want to take BlazBlue seriously when I buy it. It's stupid to make me devote myself to learning combos for 3 hours before I know if I like the character/game. Let me play it first.


Okay, so you didn't actually "figure it out" mid-match.

so... you're talking about when a new player has no resources at his disposaly outside the game itself? no youtube, no communities, no nothing?

new combos, new "hard to counter" strategies, etc. are ALL barriers to the lay person because the enthusiast will level up and crush new players if they don't knwo what's going on... i think they're all inevitable in competitive fighting games, including marvel and smash.

if they weren't then the game is likely simple enough that the competitve scene would get stale very quickly
 
so... you're talking about when a new player has no resources at his disposaly outside the game itself? no youtube, no communities, no nothing?

new combos, new "hard to counter" strategies, etc. are ALL barriers to the lay person... i think they're all inevitable in competitive fighting games, including marvel and smash.

if they weren't then the game is likely simple enough that the competitve scene would get stale very quickly
I was talking about how it took me 3 hours to do Lambda's bnb, and you responded with "I learned it mid-match". My point is that your comment has no relation to my experience, because you weren't coming into the game trying to learn it like I was. It sounds to me like you have played a lot of BlazBlue, and then decided to venture into Lambda already knowing a lot about her. If you're already serious and deep into a game, then time commitment is not an issue. The context of my discussion was about how BlazBlue demands too much of people before they decide whether they want to commit seriously to the game. Anyone can sit down and enjoy Marvel or Smash Bros, but you have to sit down and practice for several hours before you can actually enjoy BlazBlue. It's bad game design.

Again, the entire context is barrier to entry, not serious play.
 
I was talking about how it took me 3 hours to do Lambda's bnb, and you responded with "I learned it mid-match". My point is that your comment has no relation to my experience, because you weren't coming into the game trying to learn it like I was. It sounds to me like you have played a lot of BlazBlue, and then decided to venture into Lambda already knowing a lot about her. If you're already serious and deep into a game, then time commitment is not an issue. The context of my discussion was about how BlazBlue demands too much of people before they decide whether they want to commit seriously to the game. Anyone can sit down and enjoy Marvel or Smash Bros, but you have to sit down and practice for several hours before you can actually enjoy BlazBlue. It's bad game design.

Again, the entire context is barrier to entry, not serious play.

so... if this is all about the starting levels, then what does "learning real combos" have to do with anythign? anyone can mash anything and get away with it at low levels. if they like hte game, then they can start learning combos thorugh challenge mode or youtube or whatever.

also correct, i'm a tournament player in bb.
 
There was a character like that, it was BBCS1 Bang.

I don't think someone that just picked up a game should have a chance vs someone that has been playing a long ass time and don't bring up smash as a counter example of this cause it's not.
Sentinel's pretty much the prototypical "Anyone can win!" character. Easy combos, giant damage.
 
I bet if you asked the majority of top players whether execution should be heavily rewarded they would say no. In my experience in SoCal talking the a lot of the top players in Orange County in the Vanilla/SSF4 days execution was not respected as a means of making a great player. Execution was respected as an asset, but none of the top players in the OC area at that time would say that execution should be used as a major balancing mechanic. In game decision making and reactions were the most valued attributes.
 
I was talking about how it took me 3 hours to do Lambda's bnb, and you responded with "I learned it mid-match". My point is that your comment has no relation to my experience, because you weren't coming into the game trying to learn it like I was. It sounds to me like you have played a lot of BlazBlue, and then decided to venture into Lambda already knowing a lot about her. If you're already serious and deep into a game, then time commitment is not an issue. The context of my discussion was about how BlazBlue demands too much of people before they decide whether they want to commit seriously to the game. Anyone can sit down and enjoy Marvel or Smash Bros, but you have to sit down and practice for several hours before you can actually enjoy BlazBlue. It's bad game design.

Again, the entire context is barrier to entry, not serious play.

You could say Dark Souls and Demon Souls have bad game design as well then.
 
I've been playing fighting games since Street Fighter II. I'm 28. I've played a lot of fighting games.
Stuff you said earlier led me to believe otherwise...

You surprise me. I figured someone who has been playing since SFII would have regular IADs down without needing buttons. If you think about it D-pad IAD and button IAD both only use two inputs("diagonal up+forward in the air" and "diagonal up+button"). I honestly see it as a matter of preference. More can be done to make it easier, though. I recall Mike Z explaining how they made IADs easier by buffering(God, I hope I'm using the term correctly) the forward input after a jump so you always get your IAD even if you did the forward input below the minimum airdash height. It gets kinda hard to flub it at that point.
I'm not talking about high level play, though. -_- I've said that so many times!
Now I know and I can see how Mahvel might be more accessible at that level. Unfortunately the game seriously lacks the teaching tools necessary to get the point across, but that is a WHOLE other can of worms for another day and another FGW thread.
I ABC my way to victory with Dormammu over and over again. 2/3 of JWong's main team is ABCD combos (D because of Drill Claw and Demon Palm!).
I can get the comparison to yourself, but once you bring up Wong it seems a bit unfair to ignore the kind of work that other top players put in with their own long combos and crazy inputs. Not to mention the fact that a lot of these new rising teams and stars are looking just as promising as Wong is in Mahvel nowadays.
I know that feeling. I don't know if I got to 100, but I got some pretty high numbers just from mashing Arakune bug combos. That's not how I want to play my character, though - haha.
Yeah, you don't go very far by just pressing buttons randomly with him outside of bug mode.
Okay, so you didn't actually "figure it out" mid-match.
Maybe he did figure it out mid-match, but not while he was fighting! :O

:P
 
so... if this is all about the starting levels, then what does "learning real combos" have to do with anythign? anyone can mash anything and get away with it at low levels.

also correct, i'm a tournament player in bb.
It has to do with what you can do at low levels. Again, in Marvel you just need to know what the "magic series" is. LMHS, sj.MMHS, hyper. That works for 90% of the cast. So, I can start out and play Sentinel/Dormmamu/Doom (my launch team in Vanilla). Then, I can decide that I don't like Doom, so I can swap to Ryu/Dormammu/Sentinel. I can play this team and see how I like it because I only need to know LMHS, sj.MMHS, hyper to be able to play Ryu and see if I like him.

In BlazBlue, I can't do shit without knowing a character-specific combo. Nothing links to anything else consistently across the cast, and its damage is pitiful. Check these two Dormammu combos out for example.

j.S, c.L, s.H, f.H, rdp.L, ADD j.H, j.MHS, s.M, c.HS, sj.MMHS, dp.L, qcf.AA

j.S, c.LHS, sj.MMHS, dp.L, qcf.AA

One of these is much, much more difficult than the other. Yet the damage difference between the two is small. The first combo does ~730K damage. The second combo does ~630K damage. Now, that 100K damage is definitely noticeable, and even more noticeable is the difference in meter generation. Yet a beginner with good fundamentals will still do very well just using the easier combo, and that's a good thing. Most top Dormammu players still use this second combo as their main bnb because the top one is so much more difficult, but slowly people are moving up to it.
 
It has to do with what you can do at low levels. Again, in Marvel you just need to know what the "magic series" is. LMHS, sj.MMHS, hyper. That works for 90% of the cast. So, I can start out and play Sentinel/Dormmamu/Doom (my launch team in Vanilla). Then, I can decide that I don't like Doom, so I can swap to Ryu/Dormammu/Sentinel. I can play this team and see how I like it because I only need to know LMHS, sj.MMHS, hyper to be able to play Ryu and see if I like him.

In BlazBlue, I can't do shit without knowing a character-specific combo. Nothing links to anything else consistently across the cast, and its damage is pitiful. Check these two Dormammu combos out for example.

j.S, c.L, s.H, f.H, rdp.L, ADD j.H, j.MHS, s.M, c.HS, sj.MMHS, dp.L, qcf.AA

j.S, c.LHS, sj.MMHS, dp.L, qcf.AA

One of these is much, much more difficult than the other. Yet the damage difference between the two is small. The first combo does ~730K damage. The second combo does ~630K damage. Now, that 100K damage is definitely noticeable, and even more noticeable is the difference in meter generation. Yet a beginner with good fundamentals will still do very well just using the easier combo, and that's a good thing. Most top Dormammu players still use this second combo as their main bnb because the top one is so much more difficult, but slowly people are moving up to it.

ic, fair enough. i can see why people don't like that. i think it adds to the uniqueness of each character: they all ahve unique combos that that unique starting positions, meaning i need to behave differently to not get hit by their desired combo.

does that mean you think the mash A combos in persona are a good idea? seems to be the same line of reasoning (for hte record, i htink they're fine)
 
This BB conversation has gone on for a good minute. I'm gonna start getting lost in all of it. I'm not good with these extended discussions...

Also, I started talking about IADs because I saw your mention of it somewhere on the page. Seems like the strangest thing for people to get worked up about nowadays. Combos are a far bigger problem from a gameplay perspective.
 
You could say Dark Souls and Demon Souls have bad game design as well then.
There are no characters to master in either game. Their fundamentals are both very simple. You'll have to be more explicit, because I'm not seeing the connection. The only bad game design in Demon's Souls (haven't played Dark Souls yet), aside from the swamp area (fuck that level), is the "gotcha" moments that 1-shot you throughout the game. Those are definitely bad, but they aren't bad enough to make the whole game bad.

Stuff you said earlier led me to believe otherwise...

You surprise me. I figured someone who has been playing since SFII would have regular IADs down without needing buttons. If you think about it D-pad IAD and button IAD both only use two inputs("diagonal up+forward in the air" and "diagonal up+button"). I honestly see it as a matter of preference. More can be done to make it easier, though. I recall Mike Z explaining how they made IADs easier by buffering(God, I hope I'm using the term correctly) the forward input after a jump so you always get your IAD even if you did the forward input below the minimum airdash height. It gets kinda hard to flub it at that point.
I played on pad until ~4 years ago. IAD on pad is a very different experience when compared to stick. I haven't played a large variety of fighting games on my stick like I have on pad (just Marvel, BlazBlue, MK9, and Street Fighter IV), so the skill just isn't there. Firebrand is actually making me a lot better at the IAD input, since that's also the input for getting his wall climb right off the ground.

Now I know and I can see how Mahvel might be more accessible at that level. Unfortunately the game seriously lacks the teaching tools necessary to get the point across, but that is a WHOLE other can of worms for another day and another FGW thread.
I think that's a very fair criticism.

I can get the comparison to yourself, but once you bring up Wong it seems a bit unfair to ignore the kind of work that other top players put in with their own long combos and crazy inputs. Not to mention the fact that a lot of these new rising teams and stars are looking just as promising as Wong is in Mahvel nowadays.
I just mean that you can win with ABC stuff still. Hell, look at ApologyMan's team. He doesn't even need to complete the ABC combo with Nova to get level 4 Frank, and then it's all footsies and fundamentals.

But the real point is that nearly every character in Marvel has a 5-minute combo you can learn and put to use to try him/her out. Every fighting game should have this as its standard. Easy access so people can see whether they like the character. Don't force people to train for 3 hours just to see how the character works. Then you'll have a BlazBomb on your hands.

ic, fair enough. i can see why people don't like that. i think it adds to the uniqueness of each character: they all ahve unique combos that that unique starting positions, meaning i need to behave differently to not get hit by their desired combo.

does that mean you think the mash A combos in persona are a good idea? seems to be the same line of reasoning (for hte record, i htink they're fine)
I know very little about P4A in terms of what buttons are doing what. I'm not inherently opposed to the idea of a basic "mash A" combo, though. And don't think that I'm against unique combos with unique starting positions. I just don't want that to be the base people start at. I think things should be more like this:

1) P4A "mash A" combos / Marvel simple mode combos (small damage, but people new to fighting games can have fun)
2) Marvel ABC stuff (LMHS, sj.MMHS, hyper)
3) Advanced ABC stuff (LMHS, sj.H, fly, j.LH, AD, j.H, etc. - Magneto fly combo and such)
4) Optimized character combos (BlazBlue bnbs, C. Viper burn kick cancel combos, Shuma-Gorath combos, Street Fighter 1-frame links, etc.)

My opinion is that every game should have all 4 of these for each character, and the difference in damage between each category should be small enough that a person who knows 1) can beat 4) with smarter play, but there's a strong incentive to learn 4).
 
also, if you really wanted a simple control scheme to test out each character, you could have picked Stylish mode and gained access to a one button mash button for combos, and single direction + button for specials.
 
I just mean that you can win with ABC stuff still. Hell, look at ApologyMan's team. He doesn't even need to complete the ABC combo with Nova to get level 4 Frank, and then it's all footsies and fundamentals.

fundamentals? frank's goal is to get level 4/5 > call assist to keep the opponent still > do a difficult to react mixup that goes into more mixup if it doesn't hit > kill next character > repeat!
 
This BB conversation has gone on for a good minute. I'm gonna start getting lost in all of it. I'm not good with these extended discussions...

Also, I started talking about IADs because I saw your mention of it somewhere on the page. Seems like the strangest thing for people to get worked up about nowadays. Combos are a far bigger problem from a gameplay perspective.
My eyes instantly went to those two words then I wanted to slit my own throat :D I think that game traumatized me.

To me, fundamentals roughly equates to the Reaction skill I talked about earlier.
To me BB has reaction and fundamental requirements that are really high, it just wants you to have high execution for half the cast as well.

As for the dark souls and demon's souls thing. Those games have really shitty barriers of entry.
 
I played on pad until ~4 years ago. IAD on pad is a very different experience when compared to stick. I haven't played a large variety of fighting games on my stick like I have on pad (just Marvel, BlazBlue, MK9, and Street Fighter IV), so the skill just isn't there. Firebrand is actually making me a lot better at the IAD input, since that's also the input for getting his wall climb right off the ground.
I look at that huge stick and I can see how people might have a problem with IADs versus pressing a button. Pad IADs are a joke in comparison thanks to D-pad being entirely accessible by your thumb.

The solution lies in Mike's approach. Give us both types of IADs! SG has both and BB should do the same!
I just mean that you can win with ABC stuff still. Hell, look at ApologyMan's team. He doesn't even need to complete the ABC combo with Nova to get level 4 Frank, and then it's all footsies and fundamentals.
Yeah, him, Justin and other character specific players(dem Hulk players) go really far with the simple stuff.

Fake edit: Now I remember. It sucks for you, but Q mentioned CS1 Bang earlier. That dude was BB's answer to laborious combos back in the early CS days. He was your MvC3 Wolverine without the derp invincible claw and X-factor. Bang doesn't seem like your kind of character at all, but he was the answer to Litchi's combo madness and low output combo dependent characters like Rachel and Tsubaki.
But the real point is that nearly every character in Marvel has a 5-minute combo you can learn and put to use to try him/her out. Every fighting game should have this as its standard. Easy access so people can see whether they like the character. Don't force people to train for 3 hours just to see how the character works. Then you'll have a BlazBomb on your hands.
I can respect that. Games like BB are the way they are because there is a market for that. Unfortunately it doesn't jive with you and it hasn't stopped me from enjoying the series so we're at odds here.
My eyes instantly went to those two words then I wanted to slit my own throat :D I think that game traumatized me.
I'm gonna have to start using ctrl+f functions on my posts until Phantasma comes out, won't I?
 
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