Sigma
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SteamID64 76561197994017847
SteamID3 [U:1:33752119]
SteamID32 STEAM_0:1:16876059
Country Canada
Signed Up July 7, 2012
Last Posted January 4, 2013 at 12:03 PM
Posts 81 (0 per day)
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#1 chess in Off Topic

I'm by no means a good chess player (openings are more than one move? what??), but I enjoy the game casually, and (at least at the moment) I'm interested in playing more and getting a bit better. Things like this simply amaze me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrWC-H3R8zQ&;

I recently got this chess app to play with a few friends, and it seems pretty good. If anyone wants to play with me, my username is "tksstepan". I'll accept all challenges (but please make the move timer 2-3+ days -- I'll likely make multiple moves a day, but just in case I'm busy) and gladly get destroyed by any real chess players out there.

posted about 11 years ago
#3 TF2 not finding servers, Steam not down in Q/A Help

Sometimes you can fix server related issues by deleting ClientRegistry.blob (in .../Program Files/Steam) and restarting steam. May or may not work.

posted about 11 years ago
#8 30 60 120hz in TF2 General Discussion

To me, the difference between 30 and 60 feels about the same as the difference between 60 and 120.

posted about 11 years ago
#5 koth_granary in Map Discussion

Updated to B4: http://www.mediafire.com/?1hu6lx7tvhaykd8

Changes from B3:
-removed some unintentional hiding spots
-improved lighting at mid (again)
-moved some props to make more jumps at 2 possible
-raised the overhang in front of spawn to make rollout jumps faster

No further changes currently planned. I removed a bunch of unintentional hiding spots between B3 and B4 and may have missed some. If you can stand somewhere you think you shouldn't be able to, let me know. Also, if there are suggestions for other changes resulting from pugs/scrims, tell me and I'll consider them.

posted about 11 years ago
#20 newbie mixes tonight at 8 EST in TF2 General Discussion

The only reason I can think of to bench a player in these is if they're trolling the game... but in my experience in all of these I've played, this has never happened, people just don't know what they're doing (of course). I played one of these where my team just wouldn't listen and got caught by uber disadvantages probably 10 times, even when I spent the 20s prior to us getting caught telling them that they have to stand behind me and watching them walk forward to die. It's a little frustrating, sure, but after 27 minutes of constantly getting caught, they finally took the right position once, so I viewed it as a success.

With respect to coaching, it's really easy and usually quite fun. Just call what you normally do in game and add in more reasoning -- "back up here" -> "because they have numbers", "push into them" -> "their medic just spawned, they don't have buffs and we do", etc.

posted about 11 years ago
#2 huge_status_monitor in TF2 General Discussion

What does this do, specifically? It uses a part of SourceLib https://github.com/frostschutz/SourceLib to mimic the request you make to a server when you do "view game info" on someone through steam and collects the results. It tracks the change in frags for each player over a number of intervals (default 9 intervals, 10s each if the tv_delay is 90s) and fills a queue with the top-fragging player over each interval (taking into consideration frags that occur in future intervals, but with a lower weight). Once the SourceTV has caught up to when those frags happened on the server, we write a cfg file to spectate the best player from that interval. Hence, all you need to do as a spectator is to bind a key to "exec spec_best" and press it periodically to switch to the view of whoever is about to go huge.

I find this particularly useful for when I'm casting and streaming, since I can pay minimal attention to the camera while talking and still get a good picture of what's going on. I'm happy enough just using this script for my own benefit, but it should also be useful for other casters, streamers, and really just anyone who wants to watch a match and catch the maximum number of frags in first person.

To use this, the first thing you'll need is python http://www.python.org/getit/ . I recommend getting python 2.x.x; the 3.x.x have some issues on windows that may prevent this script from running. Then, drop the files from the archive into your tf/cfg folder, run cmd, and cd your way into your tf/cfg folder (I might make a GUI for this someday, but this is command-line only!). You can check out the options with "huge_status_monitor.py -h". The minimum that this script needs to run is the server IP. If the port isn't 27015, you'll also need to provide that (note that you need to give the server info, not info for the SourceTV or relay -- on ESEA you can get the IP/port from viewing game info on a friend, or going into the client and viewing server info from there). The tv_delay is assumed to be 90s (what ESEA uses); you'll have to change that if there's a different delay (and possibly modify the period count as well, depending on what you're after -- more sprees, or more individual frags?). Once that's all taken care of, bind a key to "exec spec_best" while you're in game, and have fun. Here's some sample output from the match I watched tonight (you won't see this if you don't give -v, and you don't really need to see it if you're just pressing your bind ingame)

> huge_status_monitor.py -i 206.217.135.162 -p 27267 -v
Monitor initialized! Now running...
Best is Shwan.vec with 1 points
Best is Shwan.vec with 1 points
Best is Shwan.vec with 3 points
Best is DougyG.vec with 2 points
Best is DougyG.vec with 4 points
Best is thrckstr.vec with 4 points
Best is rb-^SYOPS with 1 points
...

Note that in its current implementation, it gives the next player to watch a bit earlier than the frags actually start happening. I prefer it this way because I get to see the leadup -- after trying it with it directly synced, I found that I'd just jump to a player who immediately killed someone and I couldn't see how they got into position. This does make it so that if you constantly press your bind, you'll switch away from some frags before they happen, so the best way to use it in practice is to hit the bind, wait until frags happen/it looks like they're not in position to do anything more, then hit the bind again. Also note that since this can't track ubers/damage at all (would be possible with log analysis, but you need rcon on the server to do that), you may end up watching a scout hiding in a corner who comes in late and gets 2 frags over a pocket who takes an uber and does a ton of damage. Hence, this isn't a perfect subsitute for good camera work, it's just a tool that helps out a bit.

posted about 11 years ago
#1 huge_status_monitor in TF2 General Discussion

Reposting this from natf2 before it disappears. At some point, I'll update this so it can work with demo and log files.

It would be nice if, while watching SourceTV, you could catch all of the frags. spec_autodirector sort of does this, but it does it at the worst possible third person camera angles imaginable. I'm sure more people than just me have played around with "spec_autodirector 1;firstperson" binds to try to get around this, but the autodirector doesn't kick in until after a few seconds, so this doesn't really work. Hence, I decided to make my own, and wound up with the huge_status_monitor.

Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29208222/huge_status_monitor.zip

posted about 11 years ago
#34 Season 13 map? in Map Discussion

I like those candidates. A standin comeback would be great -- especially now that my ugly partial-cap idea now gives you spawn disadvantage (reduces the amount of time it's a good idea from ~40% to ~1%), and it's a really exciting map to play/watch/cast.

Just a word of warning: don't put on your rose-colored glasses for old maps like yukon, mainline, freight, follower, well, waste. There are some arguments for their inclusion, particularly since they weren't universally disliked and not having 2 heavies/sandvich/natascha fixes some of their problems. However, the maps themselves largely haven't changed (the "new" freight fixes nothing, pro_well is a joke), so many of the problems will still be there: mainline last will still be a death fortress, follower yard will still never be held, there still won't be ammo on 2, the reverse dropdown (aka backcap 2 always) is still there, waste 2 will still be impossible to attack... there were enough reasons for their removal that they'll still be negatively received.

posted about 11 years ago
#11 Job interview - Help in Off Topic

Prepare at least 2 questions to ask something about the job/company that goes beyond/builds upon the information you already have. Gives you more of an idea of what to expect and shows them that you're interested.

Not sure how technical the position you're applying for is, but if you're answering technical questions, make a point of thinking aloud. Even if you can't find an optimal answer on the fly, you can demonstrate the kind of logical thought process that would get you to an optimal answer pretty quickly (especially with colleagues, research material, etc.)

posted about 11 years ago
#17 Season 13 map? in Map Discussion

My suggestions in no particular order (though turbine/dustbowl will probably be disliked by most):

cp_foundry
cp_metalworks
koth_ashville
koth_granary
cp_standin
ctf_turbine_pro
cp_pro_dustbowl

I'll make a new version of koth_gran this weekend with some minor improvements; likely that nothing major will change unless it gets played more and there are convincing reasons to modify something.

posted about 11 years ago
#16 Main calling and playing demo. in TF2 General Discussion

And always remember: stickies do not pop. Stickies det. Ubers pop. Valve delays hl3 by another month every time someone says "they popped" wrt sticks.

posted about 11 years ago
#15 Main calling and playing demo. in TF2 General Discussion

By the nature of the game, everyone has partial information. Once everyone on your team has a reasonable amount of experience (a few seasons playing/thinking about the game, watching demos/casts, etc.), your comms can boil down to everyone offering the information they have, and your team reacting accordingly without an explicit "go here, do this" call because the conclusion is obvious. For example:

Medic: our health is good
Pocket: their demo is low
<you push>
*ubers are popped*
Medic: we're in now, they popped
Medic: we have a good uber
<you want to stay in after>
Scout: we lost the flank
<now you gtfo>

If you have to call the conclusions from the data, your comms will be slow and cluttered. When it's not so obvious, ie, your medic says your health is bad at the same time your pocket says their health is bad, you should have a "fight them" or "reset" call, and in the event of conflicting calls, it's nice to have a main caller defined because you can just always follow their call to avoid splitting.

Obviously I'm simplifying things a lot here, as in the example, you might stay on a "great" uber when your flank is low but you wouldn't stay on a "good" uber, and if both teams are low, you might fight in blands yard if your scouts have health and your heavies don't (but not vice versa), and you might fight on gran 2 if your demo is buffed and your scouts are lit (assuming in both these cases that their team is similarly screwed up so that it's actually worth fighting). Furthermore, you might have a fuzzy definition of a main caller -- I might main call 80% of the time on medic, let's say, but if I say to back out (without much conviction -- something like "we should back" rather than "get out get out") and my pocket says that we need to go in (very strongly -- "get on them now all so low omg" vs "push in") it's probably better to take his call. That said, it may be better to give 100% control to the main caller regardless of what they say to reduce the risk of splitting up (at least at lower levels of experience).

I saved a post from commft where I talk about some details of comms: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dSDb86Hg0gLP0y5L9Id6r5J8PEkS3PN05WgXm0kYm8g/edit
I think this may be somewhat lacking in the sense that I write it under the assumption that the combo is always initiating fights -- but if you have someone initiating on the flank because they got in unseen behind, or just have a good position to do it, etc, then they need to call that timing "going in 3" etc.

Basically what I'm saying is that everyone should call about the game state "they are lit" "demo overextended" etc. and your team should act accordingly. Only when the decision is non-obvious (you have some data that says push, some that says back up) should someone make a "go in"/"back up" type call, and the only useful definition of a main caller is in the event of conflicting calls here. That said, all of this goes out the window when you have varying experience levels -- a much more experienced player will almost always make better decisions than a worse one even with less information.

One point I haven't really addressed here is calls in transitions -- here a main caller becomes more useful because they can spend the time laying out how the next fight will go while there isn't any damage to call. Even if most of this is reiterating obvious detail, you may as well do it since you're not blocking any data, and you can fine-tune what you're doing to what you've observed in the game. No matter how experienced you get, having one person's strategy laid out for the other 6 to make adaptations on top of will be better than each person adapting individually in possibly-divergent ways. To somewhat bring this back to the OP -- picking the main caller as the most experienced player is probably best, with my personal preference lending some bias to medic > pocket > demo > others.

tl;dr -- neeeerrrd

posted about 11 years ago
#8 Recording Issues in Hardware

If I recall correctly, fraps allocates recording space on your disk in 4GB chunks, and doesn't seem to have much in the way of dealing with this in the background as you record. That is to say, when you start recording, it lags a bit as it demands additional resources to claim that disk space, then records happily up until the point where it nears the end of that 4GB, at which point it goes "OH SHIT NEED MORE ROOM" and your FPS dies as it frantically tries to allocate the next chunk.

Better-performing hard drives mitigate this problem, but using a different program as recommended by others is probably a much better solution.

posted about 11 years ago
#126 rip tf2 invite in TF2 General Discussion
PUFFWhy do we have predetermined schedules in invite?

The positive side of predetermined schedules is that it makes the playoff race more fair -- a better team could get edged out of playoffs by a worse team due to a harder schedule (though with 8 teams/16 games, you still have 2 random teams you play 3 times, so even predetermined schedules have different strengths).

The obvious plus of rank-based scheduling is that you get closer games. Probably the best solution would be to use rank-based scheduling and determine rankings by a strength-of-schedule measure rather than pure W/L.

posted about 11 years ago
#122 rip tf2 invite in TF2 General Discussion

I'm pretty sure that dropping the 8th place team to IM and moving the winner up is what would happen in a stable system. However, there never has been (and likely never will be) a season where one or more teams don't break up during or after the season, so the IM winner will just continue to move up into one of the free spots.

The question is if it's better to fill the additional spots with "good" teams that formed in the offseason or limit it to teams that played the previous IM season. You can extol the virtues of team stability and cheer on the guys who have played together for seasons with no "big names" all you want, but I would be wary about making a hard ruling that you must play a roster from open to IM to invite.

As other people have said, it's harder to stay together as a team if you lose all your games, and I would put no more faith in most top IM teams (with some exceptions) sticking together in invite than I would put in reforming invite pugs. You also have to consider the level of competition; even if you claim that an IM roster moving up will have more stability than an invite pug, often times the invite pug will simply be much better than the IM team has any hope of being. Additionally, while the intent of the rule may be to make the players who would be in these invite pugs make the same team in a lower league and move up, hopefully liking each other enough after a season to stick it out longer, this won't happen in practice (and if it did, the state of the lower divisions would be pretty sad for that season). All that you will see is borderline roster hijacks or players floating around as ringers/leaving the game. Furthermore, no team is any more immune to real life getting too busy for some of its players and causing them roster trouble. TF2 is not (and will never be) the kind of game where you can dedicate 8+ hours a day like "real" esports and make a living. Everyone has a day job, thus, TF2 always takes second place, even for top players.

Finally, the last thing that ESEA needs is more automated directives where the admins throw their hands up in the air and say "it's the system, I can't do anything about your dead team/the blatantly invite team in IM/the guaranteed 0-16 IM team in invite". I'd much prefer it if the league was on the whole less consistent, but more like interacting with a reasonable human rather than a machine. Making decisions about where teams should play should be, in my opinion, a completely subjective process on a per-season/per-team basis, with as few hard-and-fast rules governing it as possible.

posted about 11 years ago
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