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Zwits

My General experience (remove alpha's!)

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Hello Guys,

This is gonna be quite a long post, so if you want a summary, go down to the bottom of the post.

I started playing this game because a friend showed me the trailer.  It was epic, grand and something I really wanted to start playing! So I bought the game, tried to log on onto a server.. It didnt work, we could not enter any server. anyway, everyone knows how bad the launch was, no need to go over it again. Later, after quitting the game because of the insane lag and not being able to do anything and just rubberbanding all over the freeport, I decided to try it again a few days later. Every server seemed full so I picked a server I could actually join.

I Spawned on an island with an insane amount of animals, most of them unfriendly and unkillable. I actually farmed a bit, made some tools and such. I didnt actually know what i was supposed to do except for making a base to store my stuff. I never played ARK. I found out that tools do no damage whatsoever to crocodiles  and that was about it, I lost all my stuff again. The same thing repeated for quite some time until one of my friends suggested we play together because he just bought the game aswell. Great idea, but how do we do that? we tried to spawn in the same zone.. we gave up on that idea after both spawning in the water 20 times in a row at the same spot. judging by the amount of dead players in the water, we were not the only ones who had the same problem. we were trying to get together for an hour and all we were doing was drowning ourselves just to spawn on the same exact spot again, which was great fun. Why would we not spawn on land? why would this game make us spawn somewhere that only wastes our time, because we cant swim to the shore because its too far?

Another friend joined our discord, he had a raft and was going to pick us up. my god we were so happy, finally an actual plan. We tried to spawn on land somewhere, my friend ragequit after another hour of trying to spawn somewhere that wasnt ocean, so i was at it alone again, waiting for the raft. after spending 2 hours losing my mind and doubting the very meaning of life, I finally spawned on a spot that would not instantly kill me. I only wasted about 5 to 6 hours, not doing anything and just getting frustrated so I could finally set sail with my friend. This was going to be good I thought. Finally our adventure was about to start. He explained to me that I could spawn on the bed on his raft now that we were in the same company.. I asked the turd why he wouldnt just invite me to the company before so I could spawn on his raft, he answered that he had to touch me with e to actually invite me to the company. Now I know what you are thinking, why didnt you spawn at the freeport, invite eachother to the company, then spawn back on the raft. We thought of that too you know, was it not that the freeports were actually full all the time and you couldnt never spawn there. What's the point actually anyway, of having people to physically (ingame) having to invite people to a company? you can just both spawn at the freeport, get invited, then spawn on a bed somewhere. its just a waste of time, because thats the only thing you have to do to get in a company. spend a bit of time on something shitty.

We noticed the raft was very slow and that it would take us some time to reach land on the next zone on the map. At first we were both amazed at how good the sea looked. Compared to most objects in this game, that actually look sluggish, dark, sloppy and rough, it looked pretty amazing and realistic. We laughed when we saw a dolphin like the roleplayers we are. after like 25 minutes we were bored out of our minds. We realised it was gonna take hours to reach land. my god. we spent a day and we actually didnt accomplish anything. we reached land in a lawless region and we went ashore. so to sum things up, we spend hours just respawning in the water, trying to reach other and when we finally did, we spent hours sailing a friggin raft to some land where we could actually play the game. is this shit worth it? really?

We started farming the island on the lawless region, only to quickly notice it was full of life. Unfriendly animals, and alot of them. I died after being knocked out in a fight with 3 giant snakes who followed me all over the island. My friend died aswell from the tiger that attacked him while he was running from the same snakes that killed me. 'Wow, this game is intense' i thought, I'm starting to like it. I tried to respawn on the bed but it did not work. what the F? We found out we actually sailed the raft to close to the shore and you cant respawn on a bed on a unclaimed island. wow, bad flashbacks to a few hours ago when we were trying to respawn on actual land instead of the ocean. So yes, you guessed it right. I ragequit and my friend spent 2 hours trying to spawn somewhere near our raft on the lawless island.

The next day, we parked the raft somewhere not so close to the shore so we could actually spawn there. great, we could get things done finally. We soon noticed that a bed is destroyed in a matter of seconds when we watched another guy sail by in a raft, only to jump on ours and destroy our bed. It literally took him less time then it took us to swim to our raft. He hopped back on his raft and sailed away into the sunset. Luckily we could make another bed from  the materials we had stored away in a box. We started to wonder how to protect our bed.. we simply made more rafts, with more beds. We made a base to store our stuff and we actually had a bit of fun. After building a shipyard, we noticed this game is gonna take alot of grinding and doing the same thing over and over again. The whole game is a big grind, but we dont mind the grind. We played other games, we played rust, we knew sometimes its about farming. We made a sloop only to have it destroyed at the free port. We found out that people can put rocks in your smithy, so the weight goes up. While we were out farming, somebody sank our boat by filling the smithy with stones. joy.

Other friends started to play the game and the lag was finally getting better, we got together and started playing on a island where we could actually claim land so we could spawn on a bed. Hooray! no more constant fear of someone destroying your beds, we can actually make a base and spawn in there. They had built a schooner and were coming over to our island to pick us up. Why they would risk the long journey i didnt understand, untill they told me their island had no fiber nor metal nodes to farm. So we started to farm fiber and metal to take with us on the ship. Then it downed on me.. why would you live on an island that has no fiber nor metal? 'Chinese' was my answer. Apperently the chinese all banded together and had claimed or killed everything in decent area's. FIne then, we will live on an island that has no fiber, no metal nodes and where it is so cold that if you don't have 50 points in fortitude you instantly freeze to death. JOY!

I had been playing ATLAS for quite some time now, and we got used to our new island, without fiber. We didnt make a new boat yet, because 6 of them got sunk by the damn ghost ships. There were so friggin many demon ships everywhere that there was no point in even trying to sail again. We got used to being under constant attack by wildlife. We gained some levels from the wolf and tigers that seemed to be on infinite supply on our island. Every task was a struggle... farm some wood, you die about 6 times to a wolf. Not that we didnt kill the wolves, but if there are 3 wolves on your ass and they all attacks 3 times per second, while knocking you back? it's pretty impossible to survive that. Farm some stone, a tiger will sneak up on you while you are on your knees trying to hit the damn rock. Try to farm some hide? 15 voltures will try and steal the kill and attack you if you stand to close. When you try to kill one of them, they all attack you and you kinda just instantly die. So once in a while we aggroed some voltures, drag them back to our base and shoot them when they clip through the walls. They would disappear for a while so we could actually get some hide. We noticed that animals fall down from the mountain on our island, and because of that there are huge amounts of creatures around. You get used to it and once you actually get some levels. it becomes easier. But i don't recommend this crap when you are level 12 like I was. why only so low level you ask? well, you couldnt go beyond level 8 in lawless regions. we were forced to spend too much time there, as we couldn't sail because of the chinese shooting us down, or the demon ships.

Now I've came across a few alpha's before in the time I spent in this game, but alpha wolves were new to me. Boy did I learn fast. I learned that there is no actual counterplay to an alpha wolf. You can not outplay it, you can not do a certain thing to survive. If you didn't see the wolf coming, it will kill you. In the following days we killed the alpha wolves we encountered by dragging them in our taming pen, then shooting them from above. You take like 8 bows with you and a shitload of arrows, because after the nerf the bows break easier than a fat lady's resistance at the sight of cake. Or by luring them into an alpha bear, so it would kill the wolf. Or hope that it would attack some random animal it came across so we could run away and try to avoid it.

-Keep in mind this is all before they nerfed the demon ships, nerfed the amount of resources it takes for boats and before the gathering boosts-

I played ATLAS till late last night, because I was taming a horse. We spent hours to drive to a different zone to get sugar cane and with our second trip we actually managed to get the sugar cane home. The first trip didn't end so well. We managed to find the sugar cane, get it on board only to have our schooner "explode" without warning. We found out if was a whale that destroyed our boat`.We never saw it,  it never warned us, the boat was just gone instantly. So the horse was tamed and I was so happy, we finally had a horse. I took my wolf mount out to clear the area of all the wolves and tigers so i could take the horse out for a bit and make it carry some wood while i was out farming.

I was out of the gates surrounding our base for 2 minutes,  hitting the trees over and over and over to get some wood, to see an alpha wolf appear out of nothing. I run for my horse as fast as I can to hop on it and run from the wolf... but I was too late, it killed the horse. There was nothing I could do, the horse was just behind me, but the alpha blocked me from pressing E to ride the horse and by the time is was on the other side of the horse it was already dead. after that the alpha oneshot me and I spent another like 30 minutes trying to get my stuff back from my dead body while the alpha killed me over and over again. All the time we spent getting the sugar cane, all that time spent taming the horse. gone in a second, by something I can not counter nor outplay. this is just retarded. and don't tell me you can kite it, because you will run away from it untill you run out of stamina, and then you still die. I managed to run from an alpha wolf once, because i was close to our gates and i could jump to the gate and the alpha clipped himself into the door and bugged so it couldnt follow. So for that to work you need to be very close to a gate and the game needs to remain very bugged. Lets not even start about the time 8 out of us got killed by one alpha while treasure hunting. all of us fully geared and armed, shooting and kiting it but it did not matter. everyone got oneshot. it simply attacks too fast, does too much damage and has too much health.

I must be into self-flagellation or something because the next day, after ragequitting over the dead horse the day before, I actually started playing the game again. I took my wolf out to clear our area of wolves and voltures to actually do some grinding. I opened our gates and when I tried to shut them again by pressing E, it actually dismounts me from my wolfmount. I close the gate only to run back to my wolf to see it fighting a wolf.. you guessed it, an alpha wolf. goddamnit... the wolf dies, I die ( a little inside). Where I got the courage to actually stay playing after that I don't know, but I did. I lured the alpha wolf into our taming pen and kept it there. My thoughts were if I just keep the damn alpha wolf alive in there, the game wont spawn another alpha wolf and I would not have to deal with it for a while. So I spent about 40 minutes luring it in the pen, constantly dying, running back and trying again. But I managed to get it inside. Finally I thought, lets have some fun. I swear to god, not 5 minutes later of locking the alpha wolf in the taming pen, i find myself on the beach on my low level wolfmount. I see three wolves running towards me and for sure.. one of them is an alpha wolf level 212. I didnt try to run, I pressed escape and exit the game.

Today I quit this game. I will not come back untill this alpha BS is fixed.

I understand we lived on a harsh island, like it should be. I can deal with having 0 fiber on the entire island to farm, so you have to get it somewhere else by boat. I can deal with no metal nodes on our island, so we get it elsewhere. like I can deal with the cold that constantly tries to kill you, I can deal with running inside as soon as it rains so you don't die from cold. I can deal with not having any source of sugar on our island like sap, so we have to get it somewhere else. I can deal with the risk of our ship getting sunk while doing so by other players or by the ghost ships...

What I can not deal with, is alpha animals that you can not outplay or battle. There is no way to counter it, no way to save yourself or your mount. and it's total BS. You can only do something after you already lost the things of value.

REMOVE THE ALPHA'S

Edited by Zwits
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3 minutes ago, Case of the Scurvy said:

This guy....  

I didn’t want to be like the other guys saying you can kite them if you want to.. 

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29 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Trap them, problem solved. 

While this is really the only way to combat them right now, this guy is still a moron.

 

The real way to be combat them would be making them more rare to spawn, as well as nerfing the general behavior of creatures like Wolves. Getting attacked 7 times in less than 2 seconds is batshit insane.

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22 minutes ago, Aztek said:

He did trap it...

 

Like he said, I only read the last paragraph, where he stated you can’t do anything against them, I just proved it wrong, that’s all. 

22 minutes ago, Tentarro said:

While this is really the only way to combat them right now, this guy is still a moron.

Well you can kill them, but if he can’t that doesn’t mean he’s a moron

Edited by Percieval

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1 hour ago, Percieval said:

Trap them, problem solved. 

Yes sir. how do you suppose to trap them while they sneak up on you and they kill your mount? yes, you can trap them. but only after you already lost everything. and trapping them is not outplaying or countering them, its avoiding them and actually not battling them at all. which is excactly my point, you can not battle nor outplay them.

Edited by Zwits
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Alphas are pretty rough.  Had TWO alphas in my base, nothing can be done.  I actually hit esc and quit to.. I'll be back tonight to see what's left.

Also, what's annoying as hell is to get an alpha snake or whatever, use 2 to 3 bows (yes durability sucks), and tons of ammo, get it down to ~10% health, and then it to only go and agro a sheep or something, and I have noticed that the health bars always go to 100% regardless of what it was it killed.  If it's you, 100% health, if it's a bird, 100%... could be a pig, horse whatever.. back to 100%.

Not tried taming an alpha yet.. but the only way to get rid of them is via a 'prison'.  I saw a friend of mine had 4 different cages with alpha wolves in them.  They keep spawning, relentlessly pursuing and trolling us trying to get on with things.

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24 minutes ago, Zwits said:

Yes sir. how do you suppose to trap them while they sneak up on you and they kill your mount? yes, you can trap them. but only after you already lost everything. and trapping them is not outplaying or countering them, its avoiding them and actually not battling them at all. which is excactly my point, you can not battle nor outplay them.

Have you tried making something to trap them and just run naked getting them in there? When we can’t kill them on a farm island that is what we do. See it as a taming pen. Only thing you need to hope for is that they don’t bug out. 

Edited by Percieval
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19 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Have you tried making something to trap them and just run naked getting them in there? When we can’t kill them on a farm island that is what we do. See it as a taming pen. Only thing you need to hope for is that they don’t bug out. 

 

Like he said, I only read the last paragraph, where he stated you can’t do anything against them, I just proved it wrong, that’s all. 

Yes yes, we did. its all in my story. I know it's a big wall of text but if you actually bothered to read it (atleast the last bit) you would know that we did that. but you still fail to see my point.

The point is that you can not battle or outplay or counter them. you can only avoid them or trap them. but that doesnt give you your mount back after it snook up on you, or a fair chance for that matter. and that is ridiculous.

Our island is barren and resources are scattered and rare. you can't make a taming pen every 20 meters just to lure alpha wolves in, thats insane. and you would still lose your mount, because no way in hell you will be fast enough to trap it when it comes from behind while you are farming wood/stone we. (and you are not on your mount, as you cant farm wood etc on your wolf/lion) I opened our gate, tried to close it from my mount and the game unmounted me (apparently i was too far from the gate on mount), so i walk 3 steps to close the gate and my wolfmount gets attacked by an alpha. tell me how you would trap it in that situation or how i could have countered it there sir, so I wouldnt have lost my mount i spent 2 days on to get and level. You did not prove it wrong.

Edited by Zwits
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50 minutes ago, Zwits said:

Yes yes, we did. its all in my story. I know it's a big wall of text but if you actually bothered to read it (atleast the last bit) you would know that we did that. but you still fail to see my point.

The point is that you can not battle or outplay or counter them. you can only avoid them or trap them. but that doesnt give you your mount back after it snook up on you, or a fair chance for that matter. and that is ridiculous.

Our island is barren and resources are scattered and rare. you can't make a taming pen every 20 meters just to lure alpha wolves in, thats insane. and you would still lose your mount, because no way in hell you will be fast enough to trap it when it comes from behind while you are farming wood/stone we. (and you are not on your mount, as you cant farm wood etc on your wolf/lion) I opened our gate, tried to close it from my mount and the game unmounted me (apparently i was too far from the gate on mount), so i walk 3 steps to close the gate and my wolfmount gets attacked by an alpha. tell me how you would trap it in that situation or how i could have countered it there sir, so I wouldnt have lost my mount i spent 2 days on to get and level. You did not prove it wrong.

We just run, die, run, trap, kill, repeat. We want to see this changed, reduce the spams hard, but until that we all just have to live with it. 

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1 hour ago, Vorxius said:

Alphas are pretty rough.  Had TWO alphas in my base, nothing can be done.  I actually hit esc and quit to.. I'll be back tonight to see what's left.

Also, what's annoying as hell is to get an alpha snake or whatever, use 2 to 3 bows (yes durability sucks), and tons of ammo, get it down to ~10% health, and then it to only go and agro a sheep or something, and I have noticed that the health bars always go to 100% regardless of what it was it killed.  If it's you, 100% health, if it's a bird, 100%... could be a pig, horse whatever.. back to 100%.

Not tried taming an alpha yet.. but the only way to get rid of them is via a 'prison'.  I saw a friend of mine had 4 different cages with alpha wolves in them.  They keep spawning, relentlessly pursuing and trolling us trying to get on with things.

Today wasted 40 flintlock bullets and few blunderbuss shots, got a lvl 255 or whatever alpha wolf once to 80%, once to arround 50% and once to less than 25%... then it ran away even tho it had us standing the same way as before, shooting it to get attention back did not help, it would just look back like escaping horses do and keep running away untill found an animal to eat, then kill everything that could agro there, get 100% hp and charge back even thro a goddamn deep ocean just to go back killing animals when shot, literaly can't do anything when exploring, only arround house where they can get stuck in traps, walls or whatever. They are also an instant death if no water closeby, lvl 43, fur armor, even with equilibrium buff will die in max 3 hits from an alpha and since they have that insane attack speed like every other normal wolf, don't need to do long maths to guess how fast we evaporate.

Edited by Nightstrasza
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Don't see why your complaining about alphas..  I mean the xp alone especially when your shooting it with a company sharing xp is amazing xp..  just trap them if you need to..

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6 minutes ago, AreYouReady2Die said:

Don't see why your complaining about alphas..  I mean the xp alone especially when your shooting it with a company sharing xp is amazing xp..  just trap them if you need to..

The game is about more things than dealing with alphas by not even fighting them. No one can even fight them when stumbled upon, the only way to deal with a predator alpha that is agroed is to get it stuck in something or get it into water and hope it won't go after something to eat in the middle of killing it. A normal wolf or lion can be countered when met deep into island, someone with aim, with prepared guns on hotbar can take them in 1 shoot, higher lvls take sometimes 2 headshots from flintlock.  Can't however counter a horde of them that outnumbers the loaded guns (bcs it eliminates the excuse of "learn to aim", there was just no way to deal with them) or can't deal with an alpha that needs like 30-40 flintlock bullets to kill. We don't even talk about slower than player snakes, scorpions or whatever, having a wolf, lion or tiger that is alpha charge in is a bye bye bcs no matter how good the aim is, how good gear got and how good reflex got, there is no way that will kill it in fair fight.

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Free leveling. Just shoot from the distance and collect XP. 🙂

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4 minutes ago, DOA said:

Free leveling. Just shoot from the distance and collect XP. 🙂

After lvl 40, they barely give anything, treasure maps are better exp source after that. Still, that's just an enforced way of leveling bcs they chase us, attack our buildings or prevent our exploration, we don't choose to level up or not, we are forced to.

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Yeah I get that, not saying I didn't spend 2 hours literally last night trying to retrieve my body last night because a alpha tiger and 6 wolves we're camping my body, and then it was a alpha wolf with 5 other wolves doing it, and then several other packs..  ugh

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7 hours ago, Percieval said:

Well you can kill them, but if he can’t that doesn’t mean he’s a moron

I'm pretty sure I was talking about you.

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Alpha wolves are ez-mode.

Please don't nerf or lower the spawn rate. We've watered down the game enough.

Guns and traps make any NPC in this game child's-play. Google any basic trap setup from Ark and apply it here. You will be level 100 in no time if you just put your mind to it over your emotions.

Sucks you lost stuff, but that's survival.

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9 hours ago, Percieval said:

Trap them, problem solved. 

And how the fuck are you going to do that when you are out on your bear, trying to get some fiber, which should be everywhere, but is only in a few areas on the island...the main one being an intersection of valleys that funnel predators into that area?  The Alpha aggros to you from long range, and is faster than your tame.  You see it, and it sees you, and your and your tame are dead...the end.

Yes, when I am near our port, or base, we have a taming pen by both, and I have campfires in both.  If I see an Alpha, I light the fires, and kite it into the pen, close the doors, and let the fires do a lot of the work for me.   If you are out on a tame, even with a few extra along for protection, you are dead if an Alpha Lion or Alpha Wolf aggro to you, and that WILL happen at times, before you even know it has happened.  It's hard coded failure.  So I don't mess with tames.  They are pointless with Alphas in the game.

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57 minutes ago, Teach said:

Guns and traps make any NPC in this game child's-play. Google any basic trap setup from Ark and apply it here.

 

Yes, exactly....so long as you don't use tames.  Tames have no chance of survival with Alphas in the game, and they inhibit your ability to kite an Alpha into a trap.  Tames are working creatures.  You gather stuff with them.  Meaning there are plenty of opportunities for an Alpha to aggro to you before you even know it's there, as you try to also concentrate on the gathering.  If an Alpha aggros to your tame, it is dead.  The end.

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I can't speak for how the rest of the world does it- but we're on a predominant Alpha-spawning island and manage to keep our tames alive with planning.  If you're harvesting and just leaving your tames on follow or stationary on flat ground- expect it to die.

We also place accessible traps in every area we harvest. There's no way around the inevitable- all your possessions, regardless if they are inanimate or tame, can be lost at any time in the blink of an eye. That is the definition of survival. It happens. Removing the elements of danger when they are in fact actually manageable just makes this more like the chat simulator everyone is claiming this game is.

The truth is, everyone just chats because they don't have a clue what they're doing, nor are willing to donate the brain juice it would take to come up with a plan of adaptation.

No, let's just have the Dev's make a carebear title instead.

 

Frankly, this is why they have unofficial server and mod capability. If you want a pacifist experience, or one that poses no real challenge or threat, make a PvE server for yourselves, turn off spawns, make campfires and sing kumbaya.

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I have set up on different kinds of Islands, and one thing I have learned is that not all Islands are the same.  We like the one we are on now...it's big, and has many tall mountains, and lot's of pine trees, but those mountains create valleys that funnel all the predators into a very small area of the island...the valleys themselves, which is where you and your tames need to traverse.  You simply cannot move from the middle of the island, to the port area, without spotting at least one Alpha Wolf or Lion.  Even the Alpha Horse is a problem when on a tame, because it is easy to startle one of the other horses, which causes the alpha to attack.

I don't even bother with Tames, because they are a liability.  I can avoid Alphas most of the time, if I am on foot, by staying near the water, or staying on the high rocks as much as possible.  But, if you are traversing the island, and are not on the high rocks, or near water, and one aggros to you, you have no shot.  Just respawn and get back to your stuff if you can.  You have no offensive ability vs an Alpha, without a strong defense, and the only defenses I have found are water to break the aggro and get away...high rocks to do the same, and traps, which are stating, so useless while traversing an island.   At the area we gather our fiber, we have small gates set up with enough room between the poles for us to get through, but not the predators.  If an Alpha attacks, I just get in there and wait for it to break aggro, and go away.  Doesn't take too long, normally.

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