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Clocks posted:I don't know that anything locks up but there's a big scene that happens after you pass through the battahli sealed door. I'm actually not entirely sure what happens if you port out at that point. Actually I haven't seen many people mention it, but I'd say the big giant that you fight was a really cool setpiece, kind of on par with the Sphinx. I was sweating a bit as it was making its way inland, worried I wasn't going to get it down in time because it took me a bit to figure out how to climb it, but I think the game is set up in such a way that it's probably impossible to fail to take it down given all the NPC ballista support you get. In fact I had killed all its weak points and had to just sit on it for a few minutes until it finally fell. I had gone to volanic isle before any of this happened and had done most of the sidequests there though, so I'm not entirely certain how much of them you can accomplish if you get there after this segment, so I'd probably do it beforehand. So there's a sealed door and, I was misunderstanding the assignemnt and tried chasing Phaseus. I was under the impression that the gigantus was trying to kill Phaseus, and I thought he was a villain and the gigantus was on my side, but they block off the areas leading to Phaseus until the giant is dead. So I ended up luring the giant to the final area, and I guess I missed his arm getting blown off??? He totally died with me barely even touching the guy. It was a weird segment and I wish I came in knowing the stakes a little better, haha.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:32
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Thundarr posted:Sometimes a cave has a ridiculous number of mining nodes. Sometimes a cave has unique fashion gear stashed away in back above a difficult to scale ledge. Sometimes it connects to a shortcut to another area. Sometimes it has a boss fight! The small number of actually interesting things I’ve found are why I’m still clearing the vermund map bit by bit, but the ratio of “interesting/rewarding” to “salubrious draught chest” is increasingly feeling pretty dire. reducing the number of outfit slots from DD1, the continued absence of a vanity armor system, and making every weapon exclusive to a different class (besides one player-exclusive class you apparently only get at the end of the game?) means that there’s extremely little loot you can find that feels exciting or useful to you. most of the gear I find that actually is useful can be bought in stores anyway. I think content in an open world game needs to be justified by either being intrinsically unique/interesting, or by having a good mechanical reward, or by having story/quest relevance. most of this open world filled with salubrious draught chests does not qualify for any of those. the waterfall cave and elf town were very cool things to find so I don’t want to just drop exploring entirely and miss something like those, but I’ve gone through hours-long stretches without finding anything as interesting as those. meanwhile the act of looking for anything interesting seems to have vastly overleveled me so the combat has lost any kind of edge. When I fought the chimera in the waterfall cave at level 6, the fight took 5 minutes and I only barely scraped by due to explosive arrows and lucky revive openings. when I later encountered a gryphon for the first time it crumpled in 30 seconds to explosive arrows. it’s cool that they still don’t have any enemy scaling, but something about the way everything is tuned feels off.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:36
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Honestly think the fact that most of the best gear can be bought in stores is one of the main reasons for why exploring feels kind of anemic.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:39
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whats kind of funny is that it looks like in NG+ shop contents get replaced and the only city that has anything different is the elf town - bakbattahl, checkpoint town, vernwood, volcano island all have identical inventories, and you can't even buy some things anymore. by the level you are in NG+ you dont really care about defense, honestly if you have like 400 that's plenty for the entire game (i beat it with that), so the point where you can definitely fashion it up offers less buyable stuff. my pawn has like 650 or some nonsense and she's functionally immortal vs any pawn i hire as a sorceror
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Apr 1, 2024 18:40
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Clocks posted:I don't know that anything locks up but there's a big scene that happens after you pass through the battahli sealed door. I'm actually not entirely sure what happens if you port out at that point. Actually I haven't seen many people mention it, but I'd say the big giant that you fight was a really cool setpiece, kind of on par with the Sphinx. I was sweating a bit as it was making its way inland, worried I wasn't going to get it down in time because it took me a bit to figure out how to climb it, but I think the game is set up in such a way that it's probably impossible to fail to take it down given all the NPC ballista support you get. In fact I had killed all its weak points and had to just sit on it for a few minutes until it finally fell. I had gone to volanic isle before any of this happened and had done most of the sidequests there though, so I'm not entirely certain how much of them you can accomplish if you get there after this segment, so I'd probably do it beforehand. I found out that the weak points you damage fall to the ground and can be looted for wakestone shards. Also regarding exploration chat, I never cared about what I actually found, I just enjoyed looking for stuff. When I beat the game it said I opened 476 chests. Also I think the real point of no return before the post-game is when you're following Plot NPC and it seems really urgent, but an NPC will run up to you and be like "hey you look tired, go sleep at the nearby inn", it felt like a real "hey get ready" type of thing but also really funny.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:44
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Owl Inspector posted:I think content in an open world game needs to be justified by either being intrinsically unique/interesting, or by having a good mechanical reward, or by having story/quest relevance. I'm not trying to be argumentative when I ask this, and I ask this question out of sincere curiosity of your view: Why? Why does exploration have to offer anything beyond the exploration for explorations sake?
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Apr 1, 2024 18:52
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Mordiceius posted:I'm not trying to be argumentative when I ask this, and I ask this question out of sincere curiosity of your view: Why? Because for most people that isn't a reward or satisfying.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:53
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It's a fantasy game and it's kinda lovely finding an apple or some sticks instead of cool, unique loot which is the foundation for all these games. Especially trekking for a half hour or more. Should be drops galore and let you wear different things. Instead I just find gold and buy whatever is better at the shop. The loot situation is kinda boring.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:57
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Because for most people that isn't a reward or satisfying. So then they don't need to do it?  Do what you find rewarding and satisfying, don't do the stuff you don't find rewarding and satisfying?
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Apr 1, 2024 18:58
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Ytlaya posted:One cool thing about the giant is that a lot of people talk about it elsewhere in the game, but in contexts where I think it's supposed to be treated like a wacky myth. I was running warfarer with fighter/magick archer skills and a wand for levitation, so while it was still way out to sea I was able to levitate onto its shoulder and start blasting it with sagitate assault. The harpies flying around it were pretty scary but they don't actually attack. Still was confused after I'd knocked off all the weak points and had nothing to target and had to wait a bit for its scripted death. The last weak point seemed to have way more HP since I was knocking off most of them in two attacks and then the one on its knee took dozens with my pawns wailing on it too. Still, it was a very cool set piece.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:59
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Mordiceius posted:So then they don't need to do it? And that was their point. They weren't exploring anymore because to them the rewards were bad. Glad we cleared this up.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:00
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Are there that many places you have to trek a half hour for? Most of the map is just kinda incidental areas between two towns. That could also be a point of criticism though, not for me, but I could see how someone that's not sick of fully open worlds could feel that way. Thinking about the really out of the way areas and they're appropriately memorable for me ancient battleground, the tower in the sw, the medusa cave, nameless village, trysha's house
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Apr 1, 2024 19:04
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IDK why people need a cosmetic armor system, the game's easy just wear what you want
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Apr 1, 2024 19:07
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Clocks posted:I don't know that anything locks up but there's a big scene that happens after you pass through the battahli sealed door. I'm actually not entirely sure what happens if you port out at that point. If you port out the game will give you random cutscenes here and there cutting to what the giant is doing at the volcanic island. After a while the guards will just take care of the giant all by themselves, no need for intervention from the player. It's pretty rad lol
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Apr 1, 2024 19:08
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The trek you have to do for Brokkr and Sara's smithing quest was probably my favorite in the game because it was 4-5 hours of very hostile conditions, an awesome dungeon, and one of the good cave networks where I had to solo it partway on the return trip because a cyclops clubbed my entire party into the brine. Basically all the game's really cool systems interacted just right to craft something really memorable. I think finding the Sphinx is up there too.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:10
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Mordiceius posted:I'm not trying to be argumentative when I ask this, and I ask this question out of sincere curiosity of your view: Why? I mean they do list "intrinsically unique or interesting" which basically IS exploration for its own sake. If the exploration isn't intrinsically interesting to them then they're not gonna do it. Sounds reasonable to me
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Apr 1, 2024 19:11
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MeatwadIsGod posted:The trek you have to do for Brokkr and Sara's smithing quest was probably my favorite in the game because it was 4-5 hours of very hostile conditions, an awesome dungeon, and one of the good cave networks where I had to solo it partway on the return trip because a cyclops clubbed my entire party into the brine. Basically all the game's really cool systems interacted just right to craft something really memorable. I think finding the Sphinx is up there too. And then you just get some cash for doing it
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Apr 1, 2024 19:14
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Broken Cog posted:And then you just get some cash for doing it You unlock one of the better smithing techniques in the game (depending on your class) which was plenty rewarding to me, on top of the experience itself being really rewarding.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:15
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lets hang out posted:IDK why people need a cosmetic armor system, the game's easy just wear what you want theres a pretty limited amount of armor each class can wear so you dont really have that many options until you switch to warfarer MeatwadIsGod posted:You unlock one of the better smithing techniques in the game (depending on your class) which was plenty rewarding to me, on top of the experience itself being really rewarding. this is unlocked for free in the unmoored world after you evacuate bakbattahl
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Apr 1, 2024 19:17
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Mordiceius posted:I'm not trying to be argumentative when I ask this, and I ask this question out of sincere curiosity of your view: Why? Because those are the exact things that make exploration interesting and if it doesn’t have any of those features there’s no point. Elite dangerous has hundreds of billions of stars you can individually visit. Minecraft generates new terrain forever if you walk in a straight line. if “existence of thing” was somehow intrinsically valuable then these would be the best exploration games ever made, but you won’t find many people who play them specifically to fly up to yet another star or walk through another procgen map chunk. DD2’s world has had a couple parts that break the mold and feel more like something exciting you’d find in elden ring’s world, so I’m still poking away at it, but those parts have been pretty rare.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:19
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Sloober posted:this is unlocked for free in the unmoored world after you evacuate bakbattahl
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Apr 1, 2024 19:24
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Sloober posted:this is unlocked for free in the unmoored world after you evacuate bakbattahl If this is a post-game scenario or something that's fine, I did the regalia/dulled forge quests really early into Battahl and the reward for me was being able to max out my pawn's gear with good stats while I still had plenty of game ahead of me, plus it was just a distilled DD experience where the game was at its best for me.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:27
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Phlegmish posted:Mine went from 652 to 749, a 97 boost. Very respectable for an archer. I went and farmed two purple golems on the volcano isle, weird fight because I knocked the head and an arm off with the medal attached so I had to go around looking for them to finish it off. Anyway I figured the Lich in Battahl would have respawned by then so I could get the wailing crystal I need but no luck, so I'm also officially burned out now which is a shame because the crystal is all I need to max out the thunder hammer which should get my pawn past 1k knockdown power but now I can't be arsed.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:30
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Broken Cog posted:Honestly think the fact that most of the best gear can be bought in stores is one of the main reasons for why exploring feels kind of anemic. Yeah, aside from lack of cosmetic layering, there's just sort of a lack of cool stuff in general? I'm not saying I dislike the equipment, because I think a lot of it looks pretty rad (my pawn looks fantastic in the endgame dragonforge thief set), but the fact that there's no cosmetic layering and basically one or two "final" pieces means you're funneled into the same thing as everyone around you. Furthermore I really felt like most of my exploration (and I did a lot of it), when it did yield equipment, gave me fighter or warrior weapons - I swear I have twice as many for those two vocations than literally any other one, and I didn't use those vocations at all lol. And even if you do get something for your vocation, chances are you could already buy it or have bought it already (hell the pawns have a common dialogue about that very thing happening). As a thief I think the only interesting thing I found that wasn't in stores were the ice daggers, replaced only by the holy daggers you can buy in postgame. Frankly each weapon should have a variant for each element. Furthermore I got to volcanic isle pretty early (before exploring most of battahl or doing the elven land area) so once I got the armor there that was kind of it for me for most of the game. And I wasn't even going there "early" on purpose or anything, a couple sidequests sent me there so it's not like I beelined there at level 10 or whatever.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:30
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I feel like "exploration for exploration's sake" worked for me in DD1 where the points of interest had a great deal of thought and care put into them. Practically all of them had a utility i.e; specific resources or shortcuts - quests associated with them, relevant to the story in micro or macro ways - would change over time to demonstrate that the location exists to the world and not just the player. It was rewarding in ways beyond just having an item in them, exploring would add a new layer of context to the world, albeit in minor ways but they add up over the game's runtime. That's not to say some caves don't act as shortcuts nor have quests associated with them in DD2, but when it's basically just bandit camps and cave bandit camps it doesn't feel like I'm doing anything.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:37
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My pawn looking left and right over his shoulder at my new pawn hires: "Arisen? Are you gay, Arisen???"
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Apr 1, 2024 19:41
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Archer vocation is just an explosive arrow delivery person I thinkLil Swamp Booger Baby posted:My pawn looking left and right over his shoulder at my new pawn hires: "Arisen? Are you gay, Arisen???" I once had a master who had many visitors at night, but never the same visitor. strange is it not
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Apr 1, 2024 19:55
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Since 90% of mage/sorc pawns are wearing some stupid revealing outfit, I've taken to equipping them with shawls (and sometimes boots) so they don't freeze their assets. 
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Apr 1, 2024 19:56
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Wait. Why in the hell does Magick Archer get the Rivet/Pinpoint switch on both Y and Right Stick? What a waste of the Y button, they could've kept the archer kick. I'm mad. How do I mod the kick back in? jokes posted:Archer vocation is just an explosive arrow delivery person I think Yes.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:08
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In a lot of ways DD2 feels like the devs just wanted a do-over of DD1. So much is just so drat similar. I was surprised (in a bad way) at how much carried over. Dark Arisen showed progress from the original game. I would not have been at all hype for this game if Dark Arisen didn't exist. This feels like a regression from Dark Arisen.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:11
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Basically, if you play archer, you're going to be strong and have a good time. Worst case scenario you just drop kick an enemy, which allows you to fly away like Neo from the Matrix. Best case scenario you strategically replace a cyclops's eyeball with a pile of explosive arrows.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:13
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Clocks posted:I don't know that anything locks up but there's a big scene that happens after you pass through the battahli sealed door. I'm actually not entirely sure what happens if you port out at that point. Actually I haven't seen many people mention it, but I'd say the big giant that you fight was a really cool setpiece, kind of on par with the Sphinx. I was sweating a bit as it was making its way inland, worried I wasn't going to get it down in time because it took me a bit to figure out how to climb it, but I think the game is set up in such a way that it's probably impossible to fail to take it down given all the NPC ballista support you get. In fact I had killed all its weak points and had to just sit on it for a few minutes until it finally fell. I had gone to volanic isle before any of this happened and had done most of the sidequests there though, so I'm not entirely certain how much of them you can accomplish if you get there after this segment, so I'd probably do it beforehand. That part of the game had me a little confused actually, I mean dang, cool giant and all but if it's gonna go smoosh the sketchy wizard whose maybe antaging me or least being mean to pawns then... I don't think the big lad even actually attacks you, at least on purpose.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:17
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Vintersorg posted:It's a fantasy game and it's kinda lovely finding an apple or some sticks instead of cool, unique loot which is the foundation for all these games. Especially trekking for a half hour or more. Should be drops galore and let you wear different things. Instead I just find gold and buy whatever is better at the shop. The loot situation is kinda boring. So I keep thinking about this And it makes me feel like the guy loved 2nd edition dnd where every adventurer is poor and only an adventurer because nothing else is available it isn't a path to get money or rare items and the world kinda reflects that every chest is generally crap unless it is one of the few rare ones it is supposed to be harsh in some ways
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Apr 1, 2024 20:18
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The thing is the game is piss easy.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:20
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ChrisBTY posted:In a lot of ways DD2 feels like the devs just wanted a do-over of DD1. So much is just so drat similar. I was surprised (in a bad way) at how much carried over.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:21
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Caidin posted:That part of the game had me a little confused actually, I mean dang, cool giant and all but if it's gonna go smoosh the sketchy wizard whose maybe antaging me or least being mean to pawns then... I don't think the big lad even actually attacks you, at least on purpose. the main enemy in that fight is gravity if you gotta climb, and there's even rest stops on it Third World Reagan posted:So I keep thinking about this i have always liked games where the best stuff is found rather than bought, like you're going through the final dungeon in final fantasy 4 and finding all this cool as hell weapons with boss fights to get them, things of that nature. BBI was one way to do that even with the semi-random way uncursing equipment worked ChrisBTY posted:In a lot of ways DD2 feels like the devs just wanted a do-over of DD1. So much is just so drat similar. I was surprised (in a bad way) at how much carried over. yeah in a lot of ways i agree, dark arisen is what really elevated DD1. hopefully they add an *even better* version of something similar to BBI Vintersorg posted:The thing is the game is piss easy. yes would be nice to have options other than self-limiting your equipment to make it harder
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Apr 1, 2024 20:24
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Yah they missed the opportunity to make it harder.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:27
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The one thing I really don't like is the armor system. It's a lot less fun just having armor to wear instead of layering clothes, vests, and armor. I miss looking like Graham from King's Quest lmao
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Apr 1, 2024 20:28
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Vintersorg posted:The thing is the game is piss easy. if it's so easy then why do I keep getting eaten by wolves
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Apr 1, 2024 20:36
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RubberLuffy posted:if it's so easy then why do I keep getting eaten by wolves If only someone warned you that they hunt in packs
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Apr 1, 2024 20:38
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