EPTPoll: Hardest race to play at each level of SC2? - Page 19
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Absolutionn
United States512 Posts
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Baarn
United States2702 Posts
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Black Gun
Germany4482 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:07 Supamang wrote: This is why I dont understand how Terran is harder at Diamond/Master level. Everyone says "Oh well its because Zerg mechanics are hard to learn early on but everyones used to it by Diamond/Masters." How the hell does that not apply to Terran micro? Ive said so numerous times, but I started out playing Terran. I was stutter stepping in beta and marine splitting by GSL2. In Diamond/Masters, yea most Zergs are good enough to have their macro mechanics down to a decent level. At the same time most Terrans should have their micro mechanics down to a decent level as well. With that in mind, why would Terrans micro somehow make them the hardest race to play in Diamond/Masters? its not only that the mechanical requirements increase drastically as a terran hits diamond/masters league, its that their whole playstyle becomes much less forgiving. terran units allow for the most amount of micro and they are very versatile. this means that given abundant apm/multitasking, terran has a very high potential. this is reflected by terran being the dominant race at the very top end of the skill spectrum. the downside of this, however, is that terran units have to be relatively weak if their micro- and multitasking-abilities are not used. because terran is gosu in the hands of mvp, bomber or mma, they must necessarily suck in the hands of a skillless casual noob who only knows how to 1a. or to put the same issue from a different perspective: terran armies are by far the weakest in high tech high food count ball vs ball battles. mules are very useful for players with macro deficiencies and the early game strength of terran means that the opposing player needs a certain treshold amount of skill to not die or fall behind massively against early game terran aggression. this is why terran is certainly not the hardest race on bronze to platinum level. once the majority of opponents has passed the skill treshold to enter the mid- to lategame relatively unscathed though, the lack of "raw muscle" of terran armies starts to become a huge issue. an issue that has to be circumvented by splitting armies, doing drops, multi-pronged attacks, micro like a champ in the big engagements and so on. this critical skill treshold currently lies somewhere around the diamond- to masters-level. the opponents start to have good enough scouting, game-knowledge and macro to enter a long macro game against terran on a regular basis, forcing the terran to actually showcase all the micro, apm and multitasking that their race allows for. forced to have and use the skill that, up to this point, wasnt necessary for terran to win games. suddenly they cant lean back anymore, they cant engage directly anymore. their whole tactical approach to any game that goes longer than 10 minutes has to change or else they are lost. and this new approach requires vastly more skill than what you could get away with against lower level opposition. this is the reason why, in my eyes, terran is the hardest to play on the (high) diamond - masters level. in my opinion, at the very top level, terran is the most demanding race, but also the strongest one. the terran race offers more things to put one's skill to use than the other races, so that terran is the strongest race at the top level. at the same time, you are forced to use at least some of the huge potential of the race to remain competitive. imho terran requires the most skill to reach its skill cap (as it is higher than that of the other races), but is also the easiest to win with IF you can come close to this skill cap. | ||
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kofman
Andorra698 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:30 Black Gun wrote: its not only that the mechanical requirements increase drastically as a terran hits diamond/masters league, its that their whole playstyle becomes much less forgiving. terran units allow for the most amount of micro and they are very versatile. this means that given abundant apm/multitasking, terran has a very high potential. this is reflected by terran being the dominant race at the very top end of the skill spectrum. the downside of this, however, is that terran units have to be relatively weak if their micro- and multitasking-abilities are not used. because terran is gosu in the hands of mvp, bomber or mma, they must necessarily suck in the hands of a skillless casual noob who only knows how to 1a. or to put the same issue from a different perspective: terran armies are by far the weakest in high tech high food count ball vs ball battles. mules are very useful for players with macro deficiencies and the early game strength of terran means that the opposing player needs a certain treshold amount of skill to not die or fall behind massively against early game terran aggression. this is why terran is certainly not the hardest race on bronze to platinum level. once the majority of opponents has passed the skill treshold to enter the mid- to lategame relatively unscathed though, the lack of "raw muscle" of terran armies starts to become a huge issue. an issue that has to be circumvented by splitting armies, doing drops, multi-pronged attacks, micro like a champ in the big engagements and so on. this critical skill treshold currently lies somewhere around the diamond- to masters-level. the opponents start to have good enough scouting, game-knowledge and macro to enter a long macro game against terran on a regular basis, forcing the terran to actually showcase all the micro, apm and multitasking that their race allows for. forced to have and use the skill that, up to this point, wasnt necessary for terran to win games. suddenly they cant lean back anymore, they cant engage directly anymore. their whole tactical approach to any game that goes longer than 10 minutes has to change or else they are lost. and this new approach requires vastly more skill than what you could get away with against lower level opposition. this is the reason why, in my eyes, terran is the hardest to play on the (high) diamond - masters level. in my opinion, at the very top level, terran is the most demanding race, but also the strongest one. the terran race offers more things to put one's skill to use than the other races, so that terran is the strongest race at the top level. at the same time, you are forced to use at least some of the huge potential of the race to remain competitive. imho terran requires the most skill to reach its skill cap (as it is higher than that of the other races), but is also the easiest to win with IF you can come close to this skill cap. I think you're spot on. Great analysis. | ||
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Orangu
Canada198 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:22 Baarn wrote: How'd people come up with zerg being hardest when you can 6 pool through those leagues with relative ease? I think this is assuming people are actually trying to play the game rather than just trying to BO win, which all the races have easy ways to do, although 6 pool is probably the easiest. I mean its not like you can 6 pool to masters and then all of a sudden stop 6 pooling and actually know how to play. | ||
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Beece
United States62 Posts
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emc
United States3088 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:22 Baarn wrote: How'd people come up with zerg being hardest when you can 6 pool through those leagues with relative ease? terran can 2 rax proxy and protoss can cannon rush or 2 gate proxy, I really see no difference. The fact that a race can cheese has nothing to do with how hard a race is to play. | ||
BigFan
TLADT24920 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:30 Black Gun wrote: its not only that the mechanical requirements increase drastically as a terran hits diamond/masters league, its that their whole playstyle becomes much less forgiving. terran units allow for the most amount of micro and they are very versatile. this means that given abundant apm/multitasking, terran has a very high potential. this is reflected by terran being the dominant race at the very top end of the skill spectrum. the downside of this, however, is that terran units have to be relatively weak if their micro- and multitasking-abilities are not used. because terran is gosu in the hands of mvp, bomber or mma, they must necessarily suck in the hands of a skillless casual noob who only knows how to 1a. or to put the same issue from a different perspective: terran armies are by far the weakest in high tech high food count ball vs ball battles. mules are very useful for players with macro deficiencies and the early game strength of terran means that the opposing player needs a certain treshold amount of skill to not die or fall behind massively against early game terran aggression. this is why terran is certainly not the hardest race on bronze to platinum level. once the majority of opponents has passed the skill treshold to enter the mid- to lategame relatively unscathed though, the lack of "raw muscle" of terran armies starts to become a huge issue. an issue that has to be circumvented by splitting armies, doing drops, multi-pronged attacks, micro like a champ in the big engagements and so on. this critical skill treshold currently lies somewhere around the diamond- to masters-level. the opponents start to have good enough scouting, game-knowledge and macro to enter a long macro game against terran on a regular basis, forcing the terran to actually showcase all the micro, apm and multitasking that their race allows for. forced to have and use the skill that, up to this point, wasnt necessary for terran to win games. suddenly they cant lean back anymore, they cant engage directly anymore. their whole tactical approach to any game that goes longer than 10 minutes has to change or else they are lost. and this new approach requires vastly more skill than what you could get away with against lower level opposition. this is the reason why, in my eyes, terran is the hardest to play on the (high) diamond - masters level. in my opinion, at the very top level, terran is the most demanding race, but also the strongest one. the terran race offers more things to put one's skill to use than the other races, so that terran is the strongest race at the top level. at the same time, you are forced to use at least some of the huge potential of the race to remain competitive. imho terran requires the most skill to reach its skill cap (as it is higher than that of the other races), but is also the easiest to win with IF you can come close to this skill cap. I think he just won this thread  | ||
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NET
United States703 Posts
On October 03 2011 07:57 ffadicted wrote: I think it's pretty easy to sum up: It's generally agreed that it starts off as protoss being the easiest, zerg the hardest, and terran somewhere in the middle at the lowest levels of play. As skill increases, protoss becomes harder and harder to play (steeper slope), and zerg becomes easier and easier (smaller slope), while terran seems to grow appropriately along with skill level (same slope). Somewhere around high diamond/low masters, the races meet up and can be described, for all intents and purposes, as equal in difficulty. From this point on, protoss will grow as the hardest race, further distancing itself from the other two the higher up you go, wherase zerg behaves the exact opposite, and terrran continues to grow linearly along with skill. Agree with this post. On October 03 2011 13:22 Baarn wrote: How'd people come up with zerg being hardest when you can 6 pool through those leagues with relative ease? This is also true, but I think most team liquid members would assume players are playing "macro" games or the way the game "should" be played. On October 03 2011 11:14 BarbieHsu wrote: I'd like to say that people have been surprisingly respectful in the thread. I expect fighting to break out at around page ten. The responses are interesting! Anyway, I'd like to add my observation: If your lag is already at .3 to .5 seconds, terran becomes hardest to play because the effectiveness of stuff like marines and hellions is drastically cut down. The same can be said with a missed FF on a ramp or choke, it can literally make or break a game for a Protoss. Or missing a pinpoint feedback on a ghost or infestor. ZZTP: Seems to be the consensus. Zerg is a reactive race for the most part, the more practice the better you will be at stopping builds you've seen before, ergo the higher the league, the easier it is to play because the player knows what they are doing. Terran is harder I believe in the diamond-low masters range because your counter part P/Z opponents will know how to deal with most Terran 1 base builds, and will usually tech high enough to just flat out beat the Terran. That being said I think it is hard for Terran to also split their mm army from rolling banelings at this level because it requires much more precision to so than the attacking counter parts and the proper multitasking of medivac drop harass is pretty hard at this level. I also agree with Black Gun's post about Terran being the most demanding yet the best race, but there in lies the problem for Protoss' at the highest level: Dealing with one of those gosu Terran's is just as hard if not harder than playing Terran itself. At the highest level of play Protoss is at the most disadvantageous position. Zerg are almost perfect at reacting to what the Protoss are doing and is much more cost effective while taking the entire map where as Terran's at this level can use their amazing multitasking skills to split up and harass the Protoss army and mineral lines. Protoss army is rather weak in smaller fights and the harassment options for Protoss are almost non existent without a heavy investment in infrastructure and not so cost effective units. For people saying Protoss is the easiest race to play, I believe they are wrong because Protoss has to not only outplay their opponent, but have to be creative in the process. Without creative or new play the Toss army will be too predictable and easy to counter (Here's where a player like MC is having problems, Protoss is basically figured out but they still have to do some harass to barely stay on par with Zerg, or they have to take risky economic builds vs a walled in Terran whom could flat out being going for an economic build or a massive allin, which they most likely won't find out until the Terran decides to move out.) They need the most precision in terms of using their spells to the fullest effect. Feedback is a pinpoint spell that can make or break the toss army. Map awarness is key in terms of stopping drops and run bys more effectively for Toss. A missed FF on a ramp will be devastating or a small Terran drop can be hard to deal with if the army is out of position. Colossus are big and bulky and can easily be sniped by either corrupters or vikings making the remaining Protoss army rather vulnerable. This thread is very subjective though. Some arguments include having 3 production buildings vs lets say the Zerg's 1 production building and saying that defines the level of hardness. I think the best we can do is to balance the game at the highest levels of play, and let every other player fall in their respective places. TL;DR: Zerg is hardest at the lower levels of play, Terran is somewhat linear, Protoss is the hardest at highest; which seems to be the basic consensus of the votes. | ||
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.Sic.
Korea (South)497 Posts
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Valikyr
Sweden2653 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:22 Baarn wrote: How'd people come up with zerg being hardest when you can 6 pool through those leagues with relative ease? You can 6 pool successfully at any level. I dont think the poll is about what race can cheese through leagues the easiest. | ||
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Baarn
United States2702 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:22 Baarn wrote: How'd people come up with zerg being hardest when you can 6 pool through those leagues with relative ease? This is also true, but I think most team liquid members would assume players are playing "macro" games or the way the game "should" be played. Oh you mean the players that claim they were "macro" playing off one base? Meh different viewpoint on "how the game is supposed to be played" I guess. | ||
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TheDraken
United States640 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:51 .Sic. wrote: how did 2200 people vote on grandmasters if only 1200 are qualified to do so? just because you're not in GM doesn't mean you are unable to make judgments about the level of skill required to properly play a race at that level. that's like saying only other CEOs can judge whether a particular CEO is doing a good job or not. a homeless man could accurately observe how much time he spends on his ass. same thing with the races. a GM player sluggishly moving around his screen and not paying attention to his stuff while still pulling wins is clearly relying on the strength of his race and is therefore playing an "easier" race. | ||
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TheLetterQ
United States65 Posts
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Belisarius
Australia6233 Posts
On October 03 2011 13:30 Black Gun wrote: its not only that the mechanical requirements increase drastically as a terran hits diamond/masters league, its that their whole playstyle becomes much less forgiving. terran units allow for the most amount of micro and they are very versatile. this means that given abundant apm/multitasking, terran has a very high potential. this is reflected by terran being the dominant race at the very top end of the skill spectrum. the downside of this, however, is that terran units have to be relatively weak if their micro- and multitasking-abilities are not used. because terran is gosu in the hands of mvp, bomber or mma, they must necessarily suck in the hands of a skillless casual noob who only knows how to 1a. or to put the same issue from a different perspective: terran armies are by far the weakest in high tech high food count ball vs ball battles. mules are very useful for players with macro deficiencies and the early game strength of terran means that the opposing player needs a certain treshold amount of skill to not die or fall behind massively against early game terran aggression. this is why terran is certainly not the hardest race on bronze to platinum level. once the majority of opponents has passed the skill treshold to enter the mid- to lategame relatively unscathed though, the lack of "raw muscle" of terran armies starts to become a huge issue. an issue that has to be circumvented by splitting armies, doing drops, multi-pronged attacks, micro like a champ in the big engagements and so on. this critical skill treshold currently lies somewhere around the diamond- to masters-level. the opponents start to have good enough scouting, game-knowledge and macro to enter a long macro game against terran on a regular basis, forcing the terran to actually showcase all the micro, apm and multitasking that their race allows for. forced to have and use the skill that, up to this point, wasnt necessary for terran to win games. suddenly they cant lean back anymore, they cant engage directly anymore. their whole tactical approach to any game that goes longer than 10 minutes has to change or else they are lost. and this new approach requires vastly more skill than what you could get away with against lower level opposition. this is the reason why, in my eyes, terran is the hardest to play on the (high) diamond - masters level. in my opinion, at the very top level, terran is the most demanding race, but also the strongest one. the terran race offers more things to put one's skill to use than the other races, so that terran is the strongest race at the top level. at the same time, you are forced to use at least some of the huge potential of the race to remain competitive. imho terran requires the most skill to reach its skill cap (as it is higher than that of the other races), but is also the easiest to win with IF you can come close to this skill cap. Regarding this essay; you make some good points, but I really don't feel like the skill-point for Terran is so high their advantages only kick in in grandmaster. I'm obviously biased towards PvT, as that's the matchup I have most experience in, but certainly there, stim-kiting is not difficult. It's apm intensive, yes, but it's a simple, repetetive action, just like stalker-kiting lings or whatever. A gold can stim-kite a zealot ball to death almost as well as MVP. Drops, too, I think are invalid for this discussion. By diamond or whatever it shouldn't be too hard to shift-rally a dropship to the other guy's mineral line, and the psychological effect that has is massive. An awful lot of diamond P/Z will just straight up crack under the kind of harass terran can lay down even at that level, because I think it's a fairly established fact that drop harass is more difficult to defend than to execute until the defender builds excellent map awareness. Look at the BFH debacle pre-patch. I don't deny that things like correctly leapfrogging tanks, splitting/dodging rines against splash and hitting crisp EMPs is difficult. But I think Terran does just fine even when they can't do those things perfectly, because their advantages are able to exploit all manner of comparable errors the other races can commit. Toss can't forcefield perfectly in diamond either, Z can't get perfect flanks and stop banelings wasting themselves on armour in diamond. It comes out in the wash. Terran is also much more resilient to cheese and cloak rushes, which is an advantage that really can't ever be understated, especially in leagues where people are starting to be able to execute those things well. | ||
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Belisarius
Australia6233 Posts
At the end of it all, I think this is a pretty dumb thread. It's easy enough to say Z is hard at low levels, cool, their macro is hard. But dia-masters is where most of the contention is naturally going to be, because that's where something like 90% of the skill gradient (and posters) is probably going to sit. After people's errors can't be drowned out by their basic mechanical fail anymore, but before high-level balance comes into play, you start to have to make judgements on what's "diamond level." That's thin ice. An example in isolation: Blanket EMP is hard. Is placing one or two EMPs on noob templar blobs still hard? Probably not. Is splitting templar to counter EMP hard? It's not impossible, but probably harder than EMPing a single templar blob. So there's a point where Terrans are good enough to EMP bunched up HTs and toss isn't good enough to split them. At that specific point, in this specific situation, terran is ezpz. But then you go up a few hundred mmr, and toss are starting to split HTs and terran aren't yet fast enough to blanket everything. Now toss is ezpz. Then you go up again and it changes again. Do you gain anything from discussing that back and forwards? Not really. This whole thread is essentially devoted to low-level balance discussion. It might be interesting, but it's not really ever going to go anywhere. | ||
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ixi.genocide
United States981 Posts
In Diamond Protoss is the easiest, Terran in the middle again and Zerg is still hardest but now terran is a lot closer to the difficulty of Z than the ease of P. Zerg is still the hardest because of the lack of understanding mu's and the Diamond Z's haven't mastered scouting. In masters I think Terran is prolly the hardest, followed closely by Z. Because of the protoss units need to stay clustered it leads to play that even platinum players can pull off with relative ease. Terran need to start drop play at this point while pushing and macroing, Zergs still die randomly to all-ins and lack of scouting and ranged units. In GM I think that they are fairly even, protoss becomes significantly more difficult when they are being spread out by attacks on multiple fronts from both Z and T, Zerg macro is a non-issue because by this point they know how to play fairly well, the multitasking for T play is not really ahead of the other races either. At pro lvl you are going to see Terran dominate because they have a larger variety of units and playstyles, there is more to do and thus more to do well. Protoss are slightly limited by their play because VR's are not a viable long lasting unit, ht aren't worth it on 2 base and barely on 3 base, so P are limited to robo play and more exactly colossi. Zerg is limited because they don't have any efficient units outside of infesters and brolords and both of those are debatable. Terran just has more options and thus a higher skill cap and a bigger advantage. | ||
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tskarzyn
United States516 Posts
I interpret "difficult to play" as relating to the mechanics, strategy, game sense, and overall strength of player required to play a race. Therefore, T or Z are the most "difficult" races to play. | ||
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Yaotzin
South Africa4280 Posts
On October 03 2011 14:57 tskarzyn wrote: I interpret "difficult to play" as relating to the mechanics, strategy, game sense, and overall strength of player required to play a race. Therefore, T or Z are the most "difficult" races to play. Given how so many Terrans and Zergs are very consistent, whereas Protoss players aren't at all, this would appear to be very false. Kinda amazing how long the "Protoss are the ez race" meme has stuck around. Crappy deathball play died so long ago (above gold anyways), and that's the only easy part of toss. | ||
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synkronized
United States125 Posts
On October 03 2011 14:37 Belisarius wrote: Regarding this essay; you make some good points, but I really don't feel like the skill-point for Terran is so high their advantages only kick in in grandmaster. I'm obviously biased towards PvT, as that's the matchup I have most experience in, but certainly there, stim-kiting is not difficult. It's apm intensive, yes, but it's a simple, repetetive action, just like stalker-kiting lings or whatever. A gold can stim-kite a zealot ball to death almost as well as MVP. Drops, too, I think are invalid for this discussion. By diamond or whatever it shouldn't be too hard to shift-rally a dropship to the other guy's mineral line, and the psychological effect that has is massive. An awful lot of diamond P/Z will just straight up crack under the kind of harass terran can lay down even at that level, because I think it's a fairly established fact that drop harass is more difficult to defend than to execute until the defender builds excellent map awareness. Look at the BFH debacle pre-patch. I don't deny that things like correctly leapfrogging tanks, splitting/dodging rines against splash and hitting crisp EMPs is difficult. But I think Terran does just fine even when they can't do those things perfectly, because their advantages are able to exploit all manner of comparable errors the other races can commit. Toss can't forcefield perfectly in diamond either, Z can't get perfect flanks and stop banelings wasting themselves on armour in diamond. It comes out in the wash. Terran is also much more resilient to cheese and cloak rushes, which is an advantage that really can't ever be understated, especially in leagues where people are starting to be able to execute those things well. I'd agree. Terran's aren't universally difficult to play at all levels. In fact I'd argue at Silver to Gold they're quite strong due to a low minimum of mechanics needed to execute basic strats, a wide range of options that opponents haven't developed enough skills to counter. They can wall off to block quite a few cheeses, that and the Orbital's quite powerful in that it forgives supply blocking, lack of detection and scouting. And yes while both Orbital abilities actually cost a lot at the higher tiers, Bronze - Gold players float so much income that it actually provides a nice cushion for their caliber of play. My experience playing up from Silver to Diamond (Yeah I still suck, sue me). Terran - Originally the scary match up for me. MMM + Stim is relatively easy to execute when both armies just 1A's. Of course stutter step, FF's, banelings etc throw that off but I always felt like Terran MM throws the ball into the oponents court when you first start out playing. I noticed that fighting Terrans became a lot easier up until I hit mid Diamond and then it steadily became harder. I'd say the Mules, MMM ball, Banshee/Reaper harass and Siege crawls make them a race that's very forgiving in the initial stages of play. Yet to play at the higher tiers you need a lot more multi tasking and skill with the full range of the Terran roster. That's my observation as I saw a major plateau in skill amongst Terrans in Platinum and early Diamond. Zergs - On the other end of the spectrum Zergs were laughable up until Platinum when they started becoming progressively more difficult to the point where now they're my 50/50 match up. I do think from experience (I off race Z regularly) that the base mechanics required to play Z is higher, Bronze - Gold they're mediocre, but upon hitting that skill threshold players just fly from there and get really good. Protoss (off topic rant)- I suck at PvP and it's always been a bitch of a match up for me. I hate getting cannoned or proxy Gateway and if that doesn't happen I eat a 4 Gate or a Colo timing push. That fact that most T and Z players miss is that Toss can cheese a lot but they're best at cheesing other Toss and it blows cause of it. It's only after 1.4 that you can find a way to consistently outplay a fellow P since the 4 Gate's finally in its death throes. | ||
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