The Division - officially announced for PC!

Was on last night and 4 guys were going rogue killing everyone, even if you had nothing. They were using hacks i didnt even know existed..I have seen the teleportation one and the ROF hack but one of em went invisible and was shooting...you could see the gunfire but nothing else...thought it was my pc but my teammates saw (or didnt ha) the same thing. they sounded Korean and one of em was called Eric something

Just saw this......makes me feel better that these lowlifes get banned.

The Division team to start permanently banning cheaters
 
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Finally, I'm still a noob, only level 15(not DZ level) but I've been avoiding the DZ cos of the cheaters. So...Ubisoft

impressed_zps1ebb9ee7.gif
 
Dont let em put you off the DZ VF31...its a great addition to the game map. If you find some good players you can have a great time. I think the Rogues add something to the game, yeah I hate being shot as Im extracting but it adds tension and there's the feeling of triumph when you successfully get good gear out.
 
Dont let em put you off the DZ VF31...its a great addition to the game map. If you find some good players you can have a great time. I think the Rogues add something to the game, yeah I hate being shot as Im extracting but it adds tension and there's the feeling of triumph when you successfully get good gear out.

agreed. the DZ is a lot of fun. tense fun.
 
Arrekkz overview of the Patch notes for the short of attention:



It all sounds good except for the increased crafting costs and lowered deconstruction yields. I don't know why they are doing this given the current complaints, but hopefully the outcry may get them to reconsider. In the meantime I'll be saving crafting materials rather then bowing to the grind.
 
Who says there's no good loot drops? Look what I just found. Isn't this what everyone's trying to get? Found this at end of Lexington mission.

Ax3KZeV.png
 
Who says there's no good loot drops? Look what I just found. Isn't this what everyone's trying to get? Found this at end of Lexington mission.

nice! what talents are on that M1A? also i'm curious what your scavenging is at? i'm at 145% and i haven't found very many HE weapons. so far i've found the Caduceus an M4 and two shotguns. i'd love to find a HE ACR....and you have two of them you lucky bastard :D
 
The ACRs you build, but they are level 30, not 31. They cost divtech to craft so probably better to wait for the patch.
 
nice! what talents are on that M1A? also i'm curious what your scavenging is at? i'm at 145% and i haven't found very many HE weapons. so far i've found the Caduceus an M4 and two shotguns. i'd love to find a HE ACR....and you have two of them you lucky bastard :D

Don't hate me but my scavenging is only 15%. So I don't think scavenging has much to do with finding good drops. Here's the talents that came with it. And yeah the ACRs I bought the blueprint for that one. I haven't tried them yet. The Vector with this M1A rules.

NWZrV7E.png
 
Who says there's no good loot drops? Look what I just found. Isn't this what everyone's trying to get? Found this at end of Lexington mission.

So you got one yellow drop after how many hours playing this game?

It's not that nobody gets good drops, it's that they're extremely rare.
 
Iv'e been playing a little bit off and on. I don't care much for the story line but it's been fun. Probably not a game I'd buy but it came free with my GPU.
 
The ACRs you build, but they are level 30, not 31. They cost divtech to craft so probably better to wait for the patch.

Don't hate me but my scavenging is only 15%. So I don't think scavenging has much to do with finding good drops. Here's the talents that came with it. And yeah the ACRs I bought the blueprint for that one. I haven't tried them yet. The Vector with this M1A rules.

thanks for the info on the ACR. since it's a level 30 blueprint i'll hold off. i'm not sure how much affect scavenging has. at the moment, with the gear i have scavenging on, i wouldn't swap it out for another perk anyway. so i'll leave it just to appease RNGesus.
 
Don't hate me but my scavenging is only 15%.

NWZrV7E.png

Congratulations on the drop. Unfortunately the talents aren't the best, but it's still a HE M1A. I managed to snag a HE Fisrt Wave M1A with 170% headshot damage and I've been loving it. Its talant are mostly junk also, but it's still more than most my friends have had drop.

--

MacroStyle pretty much nails how I feel about the crafting nerf coming next week. I think they are going to lose players with this move. Hopefully they will wise up before they fracture the community more than the current PvP system already has.

 
I'm not sure how they plan on the crafting changes being fun.

You can craft 50 weapons and still never get one that's really particularly good. Why make it more annoying?
 
pretty sure fun isn't the objective, monetizing is the objective once they get people hooked.
 
The objective is to get the Dune jacket with a fern pom pom beanie. Once you have these you win.

Seriously though, considering how hard it is to get an actual drop you will use I think crafting is necessary. And crafting means crafting about 20 of the thing you want so you can get one that is close to ideal. Why make it so hard when all this gear will become obsolete very soon with their aggressive DLC strategy?
 
My favorite change is the recalibration costs from phoenix credits to normal credits. I hated wasting those trying to reroll the same stat a couple of times and still not getting what you wanted.

I've racked up a ton of credits lately with that one gear talent which awards additional credits with landing head shots. I forget the name of it right now.

Why don't they award X number of electronic or weapon parts for completing daily missions? Everybody wanted those phoenix credits, now they want crafting materials.
 
I'm currently at Level 30 with a DZ Rank of 29...I completed all the PvE story missions except for the (final?) General Assembly one...also opened up all the safe houses and did every Encounter and Side-Mission...I actually collected most of the junk like drones, missing agents, echoes etc as well...all of my weapons/gear are pink (Superior)...I haven't gotten any Gold (High-End) loot drops as of yet...do you need to craft those?...are they only available from DZ vendors?...the game is fun but I'm not sure of the staying power of the Dark Zone...if the only point is to collect better loot then I'm not sure I would want to keep going forever...even with my current Pink weapons I can clear the DZ NPC's without too much of an issue (unless they surround and gang up on me)

my main goal was to reach the Level 30 PvE cap and get to DZ Rank of 30...I can't see myself grinding the DZ Rank to 50 or higher
 
...the game is fun but I'm not sure of the staying power of the Dark Zone...if the only point is to collect better loot then I'm not sure I would want to keep going forever...

Nope, you pretty much got it. Literally the only thing you can do once you complete the storyline, is grind for better gear.

At least until the expansion comes.
 
My favorite change is the recalibration costs from phoenix credits to normal credits. I hated wasting those trying to reroll the same stat a couple of times and still not getting what you wanted.

I've racked up a ton of credits lately with that one gear talent which awards additional credits with landing head shots. I forget the name of it right now.

Why don't they award X number of electronic or weapon parts for completing daily missions? Everybody wanted those phoenix credits, now they want crafting materials.

You do get crafting mats for them, just a shitty amount... and it's going to cost even more to craft alongside the nerf.

I mean, if they slow crafting down like that, there has to be some way to bias it so you're not just spinning your fucking tires and shaking your fist at the RNG gods as you roll your 30th vector that is worse than your middle of the road one. It's honestly already annoying to craft the same thing a double digit number of times to try and get a decent one. Now I can't see it being anything besides plain frustrating outside of the planets aligning in your favor.


I'm currently at Level 30 with a DZ Rank of 29...I completed all the PvE story missions except for the (final?) General Assembly one...also opened up all the safe houses and did every Encounter and Side-Mission...I actually collected most of the junk like drones, missing agents, echoes etc as well...all of my weapons/gear are pink (Superior)...I haven't gotten any Gold (High-End) loot drops as of yet...do you need to craft those?...are they only available from DZ vendors?...the game is fun but I'm not sure of the staying power of the Dark Zone...if the only point is to collect better loot then I'm not sure I would want to keep going forever...even with my current Pink weapons I can clear the DZ NPC's without too much of an issue (unless they surround and gang up on me)

my main goal was to reach the Level 30 PvE cap and get to DZ Rank of 30...I can't see myself grinding the DZ Rank to 50 or higher

Just murder players and survive, you drown in exp and dz bucks. If you kill someone in a relatively desolate area, it's not that hard to run the clock without ever being caught. Don't be afraid to run in the street rather than trying to hold off in a building or something. Much harder for you to get swarmed by players if you're on the move.
 
...I haven't gotten any Gold (High-End) loot drops as of yet...do you need to craft those?...are they only available from DZ vendors?

You will get the Demascus, a high end pistol, when you complete General Assembly for the first time. HE weapons and gear can drop from level 30+ bosses in and out of the DZ, so redoing missions and doing the Dailys will give you a chance to loot some. You can also buy some from the various DZ Vendors and the HE Vendor in your base. Outside of all that, your most reliable resource is as you suspected: Blueprints. To be honest, this is you're most efficient place to spend your money... at least it was before they announced the crafting changes coming with the 1.1 patch. It might be a good move to stock pile funds for now, as it sounds like the patch will make more things available for money instead of Phoenix Credits.
 
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it sounds like the patch will make more things available for money instead of Phoenix Credits.

that is a welcome improvement...after getting to Level 30 and DZ Rank 30 I was all set to buy the Black Market AK-74 blueprint, which I heard was a nice assault rifle...saved up my funds...but then I found out that it costs Phoenix credits...I only had like 10 of those at this point as I never even knew about them...locking all the best gear/loot behind DZ Rank 50 and Phoenix credits is silly
 
Don't hate me but my scavenging is only 15%. So I don't think scavenging has much to do with finding good drops. Here's the talents that came with it. And yeah the ACRs I bought the blueprint for that one. I haven't tried them yet. The Vector with this M1A rules.

NWZrV7E.png

You should start an electronics build with that gun. Seems like it'd be pretty good for it.
 
that is a welcome improvement...after getting to Level 30 and DZ Rank 30 I was all set to buy the Black Market AK-74 blueprint, which I heard was a nice assault rifle...saved up my funds...but then I found out that it costs Phoenix credits...I only had like 10 of those at this point as I never even knew about them...locking all the best gear/loot behind DZ Rank 50 and Phoenix credits is silly


There's a vendor upstairs in the electronics area that sells HE plans for Phoenix credits and doesn't require any DZ rank. Get in on the crafting before the nerf. Depending on how many Phoenix credits you have you'll probably want to start with the Vector smg and go from there. There are only plans for about half of the gear slots though. Although the plans are still 150ish Phoenix credits. You can get 15 each for running the Daily hard missions and then 50 for the daily challenge mission (you could probably get a group to carry you through it.) So 2 Days you'll have enough for 1 plan. You can also run any challenge mission for 30 phoenix credits.

After I hit 30 I got in an awesome pub group farming the Lexington challenge mission, went from no HE items to full HE items (some ilvl 30 items and some purple guns) in about 2 hours
 
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The objective is to get the Dune jacket with a fern pom pom beanie. Once you have these you win.

Damn I got both from the scavenging box in the BoO. Guess it's time to uninstall...

Took me like a dozen tries to craft a decent Vector though. Brutal is, well, BRUTAL.
 
last night was odd for me for challenge modes. i ran through 7 total (1 power plant, 3 lexington, 3 lincoln tunel) and for all 7 the HE gear reward was a set of knee pads.
 
there are some flaws with the endgame progression, but maybe that will be addressed in a large content patch releasing tuesday. In any case it would probably take you 100+ hours to reach that point, making the game well worth it.
 
Welp, changes have been detailed -

Increase drop rates of High-End items on named NPCs (100% drop rate, actually)
Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is
Modify loot tables for each named NPC, to make the hunt for loot more controlled
Increase conversion costs of lower quality materials to high quality ones, making it harder to convert low quality materials into high quality ones
Decrease construction yields, making it less interesting to farm lower quality items in order to obtain crafting materials, and because you’ll get more High-End items as a whole
Increase cost of crafting High-End items, because High-End materials will be much easier to come by These changes will not only make crafting and dropping more coherent towards each other, but will also make it feel much more fun and rewarding.

on a whole this sounds a lot better than what everyone was expecting

Edit 1: Agents,

As you already know, we will be deploying update 1.1 in a few days. This is very exciting for all of us as it will be the first major content update since the release of the game! With it, we will implement new End-Game activities and a new layer of character progression with gear score 204 (equivalent level 32) items and Gear Sets items.

However, as we add this new layer of character equipment to the game, we also wanted to seize this opportunity to address something that will change your end game experience significantly: the importance of crafting versus item drops.

STATE OF CRAFTING

The Division is primarily a RPG. As such, gearing up your character is one of the main aspects and incentives to keep playing the game once the story missions are completed and max level is reached.

As part of the End-Game loop, players are expected to obtain their equipment by trying to beat challenging activities, and be rewarded for it. As each player develops and perfects their build, he or she will be looking for very specific items that will contribute to that build. Looking for one specific item can be quite tedious, but it should also feel extremely satisfying when the item is finally acquired.

The way our crafting feature is designed is to offer an alternative for players to temporarily complete their gear, by crafting missing pieces of their level. For End-Game we want crafting and our different in-game economies to provide reliable but slower source of gear compared to loot dropped from named enemies. If after many attempts you could not find said item, you should have acquired enough materials to try to craft something similar instead. It will not replace the item, but you will still be rewarded for your persistence.

However, at the moment, loot drops are just too rare and disappointing, putting too much of an emphasis on crafting: you are looking for crafting materials and may sometimes end up dropping an interesting item in the process.

This is clearly illustrated in the following graphs. Here you can see how many Item level 31 High-End items were acquired through crafting compared to items acquired as loot drops.

As many of you pointed out in the past weeks, the end result does not provide the level of fun that we had hoped for.

To address the situation, and simply make End-Game more satisfying and more focused towards improving your build one piece at a time, we will be implementing a series of changes with update 1.1, some of which have already been communicated in the Patch Notes, and others that we are about to reveal now.

MORE HIGH-END ITEMS

From now on killing a named NPC will grant you a guaranteed High-End drop! That’s right, you will now always get a High-End item from killing a named NPC of level 30+.

The gear score of said High-End will be determined by the level of the NPC. For example, a level 30 named will guarantee a gear score 163 High-End. With so much more High-End drops, you’ll quickly notice that crafting High-End items, while more expensive, will not necessarily be much more complicated. To make sure that crafting remains a viable alternative, we will also increase drop rates of Division Tech materials to 40% on level 32 named enemies in the Dark Zone.

New drop tables have been designed to grant you just enough control to focus your efforts on specific NPCs, depending on your need. Each named NPC will now have more chances to grant a specific type of High-End item. By discovering the specificities of each named NPC, you will quickly learn which ones you should focus on in order to obtain specific items.

CRAFTING AS AN ALTERNATIVE

You have already seen the changes that will be brought to crafting, but let’s go through them in more details here. Increased costs for converting crafting materials and crafting High-End items:

  • 10 Standard (Green) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 Specialized (Blue) material

  • 15 Specialized (Blue) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 High-End (Gold) material

  • 10 High-End (Gold) materials instead of 8 to craft 1 lvl 31 High-End (Gold) item
Changed deconstruction yield of Standard (Green) and High-End (Gold) items:

  • Deconstructing a Standard (Green) item yields 1 Standard material instead of 2

  • Deconstructing a High-End (Gold) item yields 1 High-End material instead of 2
By changing the conversion rates, we will encourage players to use their low level materials while they are leveling up, instead of saving them until they reach level 30. It will also bring more decision making between selling and deconstructing low quality items. Most High-End materials should come from deconstructing High-End items, and not deconstructing lower quality items to then convert these materials into High-End ones. Similarly, lowering yields when deconstructing items will also lower the efficiency of items farming.

Once again, we want you to consider deconstructing and material converting as an alternative when you get an item that doesn’t contribute to your build, and not the main mean to develop your build as a whole.

CONCLUSION

To sum up the list of changes brought with update 1.1 in regards to item drops and crafting, we will:

  • Increase drop rates of High-End items on named NPCs (100% drop rate, actually)

  • Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is

  • Modify loot tables for each named NPC, to make the hunt for loot more controlled

  • Increase conversion costs of lower quality materials to high quality ones, making it harder to convert low quality materials into high quality ones

  • Decrease construction yields, making it less interesting to farm lower quality items in order to obtain crafting materials, and because you’ll get more High-End items as a whole

  • Increase cost of crafting High-End items, because High-End materials will be much easier to come by These changes will not only make crafting and dropping more coherent towards each other, but will also make it feel much more fun and rewarding.
Balancing an online game is no easy task, and while we believe that these changes are a step in the right direction for the future of the game, we will keep monitoring the situation and address what needs to be modified. But more than that, we will have an eye on all aspects of your experience, and balance things when needed. Sometimes it means making hard decisions that might not be appreciated, and when this happens we will make sure to give you the visibility you need to understand why these decisions are made.

Your feedback is very valuable to us, so keep the discussions going, we will be reading!

-The Division Team
 
Is this worth picking up for $30-35?

I've surpassed the 100 hr mark, and have reached level 68 in the DZ and 30 in the PvE area. The game has its flaws, but most of it is lack of end game content. This is something that should be addressed with the monthly expansions planned for the next 4 months, starting in less than a week.

So... add another "YES" to the list.
 
Welp, changes have been detailed -

Increase drop rates of High-End items on named NPCs (100% drop rate, actually)
Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is
Modify loot tables for each named NPC, to make the hunt for loot more controlled
Increase conversion costs of lower quality materials to high quality ones, making it harder to convert low quality materials into high quality ones
Decrease construction yields, making it less interesting to farm lower quality items in order to obtain crafting materials, and because you’ll get more High-End items as a whole
Increase cost of crafting High-End items, because High-End materials will be much easier to come by These changes will not only make crafting and dropping more coherent towards each other, but will also make it feel much more fun and rewarding.

on a whole this sounds a lot better than what everyone was expecting

Edit 1: Agents,

As you already know, we will be deploying update 1.1 in a few days. This is very exciting for all of us as it will be the first major content update since the release of the game! With it, we will implement new End-Game activities and a new layer of character progression with gear score 204 (equivalent level 32) items and Gear Sets items.

However, as we add this new layer of character equipment to the game, we also wanted to seize this opportunity to address something that will change your end game experience significantly: the importance of crafting versus item drops.

STATE OF CRAFTING

The Division is primarily a RPG. As such, gearing up your character is one of the main aspects and incentives to keep playing the game once the story missions are completed and max level is reached.

As part of the End-Game loop, players are expected to obtain their equipment by trying to beat challenging activities, and be rewarded for it. As each player develops and perfects their build, he or she will be looking for very specific items that will contribute to that build. Looking for one specific item can be quite tedious, but it should also feel extremely satisfying when the item is finally acquired.

The way our crafting feature is designed is to offer an alternative for players to temporarily complete their gear, by crafting missing pieces of their level. For End-Game we want crafting and our different in-game economies to provide reliable but slower source of gear compared to loot dropped from named enemies. If after many attempts you could not find said item, you should have acquired enough materials to try to craft something similar instead. It will not replace the item, but you will still be rewarded for your persistence.

However, at the moment, loot drops are just too rare and disappointing, putting too much of an emphasis on crafting: you are looking for crafting materials and may sometimes end up dropping an interesting item in the process.

This is clearly illustrated in the following graphs. Here you can see how many Item level 31 High-End items were acquired through crafting compared to items acquired as loot drops.

As many of you pointed out in the past weeks, the end result does not provide the level of fun that we had hoped for.

To address the situation, and simply make End-Game more satisfying and more focused towards improving your build one piece at a time, we will be implementing a series of changes with update 1.1, some of which have already been communicated in the Patch Notes, and others that we are about to reveal now.

MORE HIGH-END ITEMS

From now on killing a named NPC will grant you a guaranteed High-End drop! That’s right, you will now always get a High-End item from killing a named NPC of level 30+.

The gear score of said High-End will be determined by the level of the NPC. For example, a level 30 named will guarantee a gear score 163 High-End. With so much more High-End drops, you’ll quickly notice that crafting High-End items, while more expensive, will not necessarily be much more complicated. To make sure that crafting remains a viable alternative, we will also increase drop rates of Division Tech materials to 40% on level 32 named enemies in the Dark Zone.

New drop tables have been designed to grant you just enough control to focus your efforts on specific NPCs, depending on your need. Each named NPC will now have more chances to grant a specific type of High-End item. By discovering the specificities of each named NPC, you will quickly learn which ones you should focus on in order to obtain specific items.

CRAFTING AS AN ALTERNATIVE

You have already seen the changes that will be brought to crafting, but let’s go through them in more details here. Increased costs for converting crafting materials and crafting High-End items:

  • 10 Standard (Green) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 Specialized (Blue) material

  • 15 Specialized (Blue) materials instead of 5 to craft 1 High-End (Gold) material

  • 10 High-End (Gold) materials instead of 8 to craft 1 lvl 31 High-End (Gold) item
Changed deconstruction yield of Standard (Green) and High-End (Gold) items:

  • Deconstructing a Standard (Green) item yields 1 Standard material instead of 2

  • Deconstructing a High-End (Gold) item yields 1 High-End material instead of 2
By changing the conversion rates, we will encourage players to use their low level materials while they are leveling up, instead of saving them until they reach level 30. It will also bring more decision making between selling and deconstructing low quality items. Most High-End materials should come from deconstructing High-End items, and not deconstructing lower quality items to then convert these materials into High-End ones. Similarly, lowering yields when deconstructing items will also lower the efficiency of items farming.

Once again, we want you to consider deconstructing and material converting as an alternative when you get an item that doesn’t contribute to your build, and not the main mean to develop your build as a whole.

CONCLUSION

To sum up the list of changes brought with update 1.1 in regards to item drops and crafting, we will:

  • Increase drop rates of High-End items on named NPCs (100% drop rate, actually)

  • Increase drop rates of Division Tech, to make it less of a bottleneck than it currently is

  • Modify loot tables for each named NPC, to make the hunt for loot more controlled

  • Increase conversion costs of lower quality materials to high quality ones, making it harder to convert low quality materials into high quality ones

  • Decrease construction yields, making it less interesting to farm lower quality items in order to obtain crafting materials, and because you’ll get more High-End items as a whole

  • Increase cost of crafting High-End items, because High-End materials will be much easier to come by These changes will not only make crafting and dropping more coherent towards each other, but will also make it feel much more fun and rewarding.
Balancing an online game is no easy task, and while we believe that these changes are a step in the right direction for the future of the game, we will keep monitoring the situation and address what needs to be modified. But more than that, we will have an eye on all aspects of your experience, and balance things when needed. Sometimes it means making hard decisions that might not be appreciated, and when this happens we will make sure to give you the visibility you need to understand why these decisions are made.

Your feedback is very valuable to us, so keep the discussions going, we will be reading!

-The Division Team

The Division: Item Drops and Crafting in Update 1.1 | Latest news and content about Tom Clancy's The Division game

^source link. The changes sound great to me. Instead of killing enemies solely to farm materials for crafting (with the occasional interesting drop), there will be more focus on the loot drop. I like it.
 
The Division: Item Drops and Crafting in Update 1.1 | Latest news and content about Tom Clancy's The Division game

^source link. The changes sound great to me. Instead of killing enemies solely to farm materials for crafting (with the occasional interesting drop), there will be more focus on the loot drop. I like it.

Completely agree. Looting has been no more than a crafting resource for me for nearly 2 weeks. It has been about 9 days since I picked up even a HE that I kept instead of deconstructing. It will be nice to have looting mean something again.

It sounds like they are on the right track. I was concerned after the patch notes, but I'm glad they've clarified things. This all sounds good and I'm encouraged, but the proof will be in the pudding as they say. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the 12th again.
 
finished the final single player PvE mission (General Assembly)...77 hours according to Uplay...currently at Level 30 and DZ Rank 31...I think I'm going to farm for some Phoenix credits so I can buy the Black Market AK-74 blueprint...with Dark Souls 3 coming out next week The Division will be taking a back seat for awhile...although I am looking forward to playing the new end-game content being released on April 12th...well worth the $20 I spent on the Nvidia code
 
that is a welcome improvement...after getting to Level 30 and DZ Rank 30 I was all set to buy the Black Market AK-74 blueprint, which I heard was a nice assault rifle...saved up my funds...but then I found out that it costs Phoenix credits...I only had like 10 of those at this point as I never even knew about them...locking all the best gear/loot behind DZ Rank 50 and Phoenix credits is silly

Just an FYI, the AK 74 is a nice Blueprint, as is the Vector. Neither require Div Tech to craft, have noticeably stable Stability (by comparison) and do good damage.

Mod the the Vector out with Horizontal Stability, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Extended Mag and Headshot damage. Mod the AK with Stability, Accuracy, Weapon Damage, Ext. Mag / ROF and Headshot damage. They are both in my inventory and I use them regularly.

Of course, all that may change next week. ;)
 
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