The inner mind of an Aussie PC gamer Comments - Brought to you by JoeUser

Gambler on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

Gambler — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

The best RTS I played is Blitzkrieg, and it has no unit production at all. No production means no capping and no bullshit economies. Solves lots of problems.

Cykur on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

Cykur — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Based on your definitions, I would consider Starcraft to be softcap -- you had to build structures and protect them to maintain your capacity. Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander is a better example of no-cap.

To be honest, a hard-cap game, by your definition, would actually control peoples strategies a lot more than soft cap. A good game should reward unit diversity via gameplay, not artificial unit caps. That way people build what they think will suit their immediate strategy best.

manbear on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

manbear — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Gradiated soft-caps. Each player then can decide for themselves the point of no return. This leads to the greatest diversity as eventually any unit will become worthless because it's cost will be so high as to be a virtual hard cap. But that hard cap will be different for every player.

Azzizi on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

Azzizi — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I prefer soft-caps, myself, though in some cases, hard caps are just the only choice that works well.

Sins actually has my favorite sort of soft-caps: One falls into Fleet upkeep, where a player needs sufficient economy to support the fleet(though I think in Sins' case it needs a little tuning perhaps), with a harder cap in the form of population limits(both for the overal fleet and for Capital ships specifically), which can be raised via research. It's a flexible setup, in that you can make a lot of choices in fleet make-up, but there are limits and tradeoffs(only so many Cappies you can build, and every capital ship you build keeps you from building a LOT of smaller ships).

No cap is just a bad idea, at least from a multiplayer perspective, in my opinion. Aside from the largest problems of players falling into an attrition mindset-- because whatever your theory is, players *will*, by and large, fall to the path of least resistance-- there also raise unfair technical issues. What's to stop a player on a quad-core double vidcard monster of a system from throwing enough units at another player that his computer starts dropping framerates badly? That sort of scenario, to me, would speak far more of bad design than balance via hard caps.

Roshak on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

Roshak — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I like the Up-keep system. Basically the more you build of unit the more its going to cost you maintain, and the more powerful units require big-upkeep.

This works well, for you means you need a good economy and management to keep a stable army or a few very powerful units. A similiar method is increasing the cost of your unit like the game Rise of Nations did. Getting your first hoplite would be 50 food, 50 metal, but each additional one would cost you like a 25% increase. So your 10th Hoplite would be 175.5 food, and 175.5 Metal (176 rounded up would be the case for the game). What this did, was effectively limit spamming, and make you build more diverse units. Why create a Tank when you can build 3 units of infantry for the same price?

While I like the fact you can't get more of certain units of hard-cap, I prefer more of soft-cap/upkeep method.

TheBigOne on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

TheBigOne — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Insanetitan, in WC3 you had to build farms and had additional upkeep (you got less money if you have more than a certain amount of units (70% if more than 50supply and 40% if more than 80 supply).

Maybe upkeep without farms and not with just 3 steps would be interesting but warcrafts implemention is just fail.

Insanetitan on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

Insanetitan — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I hate hard-caps, imo its just an excuse of lazy balance guys to prevent the game to become a spamfest, why not balance the game so that building only 1 or 2 types will result in a loss vs a balanced army?

Starcraft has a 200 pop cap btw and as units consume different amount of control, it isn't just because of the technical aspect (unlike it is in Warcraft 1 & 2 or Supreme Commander). I am fine which such a general cap as long as they dont implement silly things like upkeep in warcraft III.
Nor do I mind needing to build farms/pylons/supply depots/whatever to extend that cap.

I actually prefer a type of upkeep over building farms. I don't remember how it was done in warcraft 3, but a maintenance cost based on a unit just seems so obvious to me. Both are fine ways to reflect unit maintenance; in fact, farms are easier, but I'm sort of a number cruncher so...

[EDIT]Starcraft is a "no-cap"??!! O_o Seriously???!! Where does Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander fall??

Insanetitan on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

Insanetitan — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I prefer the no-cap, though it is probably the hardest to implement. I don't really understand the way you defined the different types of pop-caps, though I can guess based on RTS games I've played. You may want to give some examples.

Regardless, all other forms of population cap are arbitrary extensions of the no-cap type. Hard-cap and soft cap both just say "This unit here is very expensive and very hard to build (IE just THAT cool), but we still want you to build it in an unrealistically short amount of time and for a disproportionate amount of resources or else it'll never get used". Basically, these type of units are out of balance with other units in the game. Now, I realize this is because of necessary limitations (such as total game time), but I still think there should be a better way based on what these arbitrary limits represent.

TheBigOne on Balancing RTS: Hard-cap vs no-cap unit limits

TheBigOne — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Starcraft has a 200 pop cap btw and as units consume different amount of control, it isn't just because of the technical aspect (unlike it is in Warcraft 1 & 2 or Supreme Commander). I am fine which such a general cap as long as they dont implement silly things like upkeep in warcraft III.

Nor do I mind needing to build farms/pylons/supply depots/whatever to extend that cap.

FFLN on TF2 Pyro update review

FFLN — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

While I like the idea behind the Scout, I just can't get a handle for him. His speed works against my aim, at the moment. If I played as Scout more, I would eventually become more accustomed to using him.

garion333 on TF2 Pyro update review

garion333 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Thanks for the info.

Apparently my favorite classes are the least played (with the exception of Engineer, which people play, but I generally end up playing because they are a necessity in most maps).

TheDarkKnight2008 on TF2 Pyro update review

TheDarkKnight2008 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

It's official from steam forums. Next update is scout.

The 'formula' Valve is using is least played characters.

When they first did this, medic was least played.

Then pyro.

Now scout.

After this, obviously the spy will be last, so you can expect him to be updated.

maudlin27 on TF2 Pyro update review

maudlin27 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I never could get to grips with the pryo (prior to this update) - I'd use him, and find he would lose to say a soldier 1 on 1 at close range, while at medium to long range almost anything could kill him. Meanwhile the soldier I found was good both at short, medium and long range, meaning I clocked up loads of hours (and kills) with the soldier, and hardly any with the pyro.

So I'm glad to hear about the suppressed air blast for the pyro - it'll make life much tougher for me as a soldier, but at least if I go pyro I won't feel at quite such a huge disadvantage.

instant on TF2 Pyro update review

instant — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

All the damn fire really ruins my scope abilities when I try to snipe from afar... 4-5 pyros (from both sides) in a big cluster along with friendly and enemy players.. so much flames, hard to see anything.

garion333 on TF2 Pyro update review

garion333 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

That'll be fun to see.I haven't tried out the pyro update yet, but it'll be nice since I liked playing as the pyro even before the update. Required less accuracy...

I really enjoy jumping into a crowd of people and setting them on fire. That is always satisfying.

And they're pretty fast moving.

FFLN on TF2 Pyro update review

FFLN — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

That'll be fun to see.

I haven't tried out the pyro update yet, but it'll be nice since I liked playing as the pyro even before the update. Required less accuracy...

overlordjebus on TF2 Pyro update review

overlordjebus — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

i hErd on teh gr4pEv1ne dat teh SPY!!! is teh next

nothing like 2 teams full of spies

garion333 on TF2 Pyro update review

garion333 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I thought Sniper was next. Anyway, doesn't matter to me. I stopped playing when the did the Medic. I'm not a fan of achievement farming.

It doesn't help that my two favorite classes have been the first to be changed, but maybe I'll start playing again (instead of COD4) since not as many people will be Medics. With all those Pyros running around peopled definitely need medics.

I can't wait to see what they do with the Scout. More health would be great.

WolfoxBR on TF2 Pyro update review

WolfoxBR — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I've heard the next class to be updated is...

The soldier.

Looking forward to it.

Thrawn2787 on TF2 Pyro update review

Thrawn2787 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Also:

Reduced Medic's unlockable requirements to match that of the Pyro's. Medic players now meeting the requirements will receive their unlockables shortly after joining a server

I like having 9 pyros on a team... makes the flare gun harder to use! Its so funny to kill other pyros with it.

I really hope they don't make an update for the Sniper next. There are always too many snipers or one that is killing everyone and everything. We don't need more snipers!!!

fragieD on TF2 Pyro update review

fragieD — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

At the moment, we are experiencing overkill...too many pyros in a team. Hopefully things will settle down and with a more balanced team, the strategic options are limitless.

MagicalCappy on TF2 Pyro update review

MagicalCappy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Their new air blowing ability is extremely useful. One thing is that now, when they are spychecking, if a demoman is trying to blow up a sentry they can just blow the mines/nades away easier than any other class.

Astyanax0 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Astyanax0 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

as the 9800GTX is a pretty shitty launch all around.

Not true, check out the benchmarks on the XFX Black Edition, it's a pretty nice card.

For $200, it's a little less great, but it's still a better buy for higher-resolution setups.

Good enough to make nVidia practically drop the price on the 9800GTX $100 USD.

Carbon016 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Carbon016 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Have you seen the price of the HD 4850? It's $200 at Best Buy with a $50 dollar rebate. How is that not a good deal considering it's on par with a 9800GTX and the drivers at the moment are far from being anywhere near the cards full potential.

Right, and my point was that the ATI marketing team should emphasize that. Still, I think it's relatively stupid to compare to the 9800GTX, as the 9800GTX is a pretty shitty launch all around.

It's more like "at higher resolutions and with AA enabled, this card does marginally better". And for $150, that's great. For $200, it's a little less great, but it's still a better buy for higher-resolution setups.

Astyanax0 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Astyanax0 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Yeah, but those "new features" are largely insignificant

GDDR5 isnt largely insignificant, higher clock speeds while requiring less power is generally something thats fairly significant don't you think?

but I wish they would focus on the thing that matters: price/performance.

Carbon016 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Carbon016 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

This coupled with the fact ATI seems to be first on the bandwagon when it comes to new features lately (DX10.1 / Pixel Shader 4.1 support, using the latest memory standards such as GDDR5) and their superior price to performance ratio with the HD38xx releases onwards means ATI are exactly what I'm after in a producer of graphics cards for a gamer.

Yeah, but those "new features" are largely insignificant, and ATI makes really terrible decisions like pairing those high-bandwidth memory modules with crappy memory buses, or putting crappy bridge chips in the 3870X2 giving it very little performance over a regular 3870. I still think ATI's going to at least win this round, but I wish they would focus on the thing that matters: price/performance.

Astyanax0 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Astyanax0 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I will never buy another ATI product again.

Period.

Its too much money to play dice with.

One bad experience shouldn't label it as crap. ATi doesn't even make their own cards anymore, so if you have an issue with an HIS card for instance then just stay away from HIS. >_>

MINE777 on ATI's new HD48xx range

MINE777 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I will never buy another ATI product again.

Period.

Its too much money to play dice with.

Kaltes on ATI's new HD48xx range

Kaltes — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I only have a X1800, but it has never let me down. Only my 2.8GHz single core CPU is holding me back at the moment. Besides the HD2 series are not as good as the last of the line X1 sereis they just render HD stuff and its not that impresive to me.

Astyanax0 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Astyanax0 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Not to mention the driver development is much better than nVidia's at the moment.

Snidely Whiplash on ATI's new HD48xx range

Snidely Whiplash — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

i'm pretty fond of my 3870. it's been a good card thus far.

Somedeadguy on ATI's new HD48xx range

Somedeadguy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Everything launched past the 9600GT has been crap as far as price/performance. A 512 8800GTS is still $150 in the States.

I agree 100%. I'm still using my 8800gtx 768mb card and I have no plans on upgrading anytime soon. I just don't see it worth buying any of the 9 series cards or the new 280 series. To little performance boost for way to much money.

Of course I've used Nvidia cards all my life and I can't see myself using anything but Nvidia. We'll see /shrug.

Kodiak888 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Kodiak888 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

The new Nvidia cards are slightly, and I mean only slightly better, but cost almost 2x. And 2 ATI's > 1 Nvidia

PurrBall on ATI's new HD48xx range

PurrBall — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Awesome, too bad Nvidia already has their new series ready soon

Carbon016 on ATI's new HD48xx range

Carbon016 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Everything launched past the 9600GT has been crap as far as price/performance. A 512 8800GTS is still $150 in the States.

Bebi Bulma on ATI's new HD48xx range

Bebi Bulma — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I have an HD 2600xt.

Guerney on Battlefield: Bad Company impressions

Guerney — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I struggled in regards to aim at anything and really just found myself strafing rooms while spamming full-auto with the rifle. A far cry from my normal accurately placed fire on PC FPS.

This is mostly a matter of practise and after a while most people - including me - get used to. As in multiplayer on the 360 everyone is playing with a gamepad it's like even weapons for everybody

ShaunMK on Battlefield: Bad Company impressions

ShaunMK — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

It would have been sold for me if they included off-line co-op. Why do developers forget about our families? I am getting so tired of this trend...

nephil on Battlefield: Bad Company impressions

nephil — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I totally agree with you about the aiming on consoles (other than wii). And ever since i've converted almost entirely to PC gaming, every time I play a FPS on consoles i wish it was on PC . Thats also exactly how i felt on this game after i played the 360 demo . I will not be buying this game on consoles, but if it ever gets ported to PC, i will definitely pick it up.

Destraex on Sydney Gaming League experience

Destraex — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

i cannot understand this.
if everybody has cable whats the point? HAve they not got everything they want themselves. I guess at least there is some lanning action going on.

I lan regularly with some mates in Sydney just at each others houses. We play sins, armed assault, lockon, sturmovik, homeworld2, dow, company of heroes, silent hunter and anything else that we feel like playing.
We are all late 20s, early 30s. So I guess mature gamers - or average aged gamers if u believe the magazines.
As u can see the kind of games we play are not what your average gamer is into - we dont really play counterstrike. But we still let the energy off with an FPS or two when the mood takes.
We are not serious but out to have a good time..... away from the professional glors (1D10Ts)
Although we do also see our fair share of online VS action and are good at it. There are a lot of life long single game dedicated specialist no lifers that spoil things with their bunny hops and stupid unrealistic BS exploits. U get my point anyway... there is a spirit to things. And it aint camping like a P!!F

Its hard to find players who are into the gear we like actually....

I really need to attend one of these big lans sometime.... I'm sick of BF2 these days though.
And doubt anybody would play stuff i am interested in...

Whats the average age of gamers at these events?

Nimbin on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

Nimbin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

i have been using diskkeeper in it various guises for many years, and have always found that it does an excellent job. count a vote for me

Leo the Lion on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

Leo the Lion — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I tried Diskeeper and whilst I liked it I found PerfectDisk did a better job

pastier on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

pastier — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

Another vote for Diskeeper 2008 from me. Among the automatic defraggers and other third party tools out there in the market, I liked DK the most. It does a great job with the real time background defrag. You can also turn off the feature. Like the interface too. Havent had any problems.

Hawkeye666 on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

Hawkeye666 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I think Diskeeper is a great package, but a couple of years ago I switched to O&O defrag, primarily because they supported Vista sonner and it is every bit as good or maybe even better. If you want to pay either is a good choice.

There are some good free ones out there as well, but after a lot of testing they don't quite do as thurough as job in general. Or they have fewer customizable scheduling features sometimes.

lesvind on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

lesvind — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

My main XP desktop has 4 drives, a total of 1.4 TB. Diskeeper pro 2008 keeps them in excellent shape with it's background defrag mod and I don't have to do anything! I really like Diskeeper's stability, very low resource usage, and useful features (and no useless frills), it has never given me any trouble either. so I would not switch to any other defragger, free or otherwise.

Ausvet on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

Ausvet — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I too changed to Perfect Disk but both are good, just that PerfectDisk is not as in your face and as expensive with new versions continuously and also faster with the on demand defragger.
Oh perfect disk allows 3 computers on one licence too I think.
I have large files on large disks that are part of disease prediction models according to many variables and so defragging is very important to keep everything running fast.

Zydor on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

Zydor — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I've used Diskeeper for years, its outstanding, never had a single issue with it. It will even sort out Network Servers etc etc - superb piece of software.

One example of many: I run Climate Models in the background on my PC from www.climateprediction.net ((good thing to get into for anyone in that kind of thing - see the Site). The models back off processor use when other things are going on, so you end up utilising otherwise unused capacity. The models use hundreds of small files, and fragmentation can be an issue - but with Diskeeper running in the background as well, its no hassle. Diskeeper recognises the modeling going on, and will back away from that as needed. I never really know its there. Brilliant.

So I end up running the modelng, Diskeeper, playing a full blown GalCiv game, the odd few "cntrl-esc" sessions back to desktop during GalCiv games running browsers/mail etc, so processor (AMD FX60 Dual Core) is used absolutely to the max - and not a single contention or hassle. If Diskeeper works through that lot, as it does, you cant ask for better. Superb piece of software that is extremely well supported.

All the features on it are well thought through, all provide value, and there is no "Fluff" about them, they are there for a purpose that gives real benefit, not Fluff to mesmerise the unwary - often the case with freebie ones where they do a good job but you "dont know what you dont know" and the additional features from this paid for version are absolutely 100% worth it.

Regards
Zy

Duke261 on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

Duke261 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I have been using Diskeeper for about 8 Years now! I am not a power user & not a gamer! I love Diskeeper & update the software version every 2 years or so. It does the job for me very well! I like the set it and forget feature & sometimes I think it is not working so I run a diskcheck & my drive is perfectly defragged. I have been using it so long I can't judge any longer how it increases performance but it does do what I want a defragger to do!

ZzzombieBunny on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

ZzzombieBunny — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

I dont think you can really go wrong with either Diskeeper or PerfectDisk. used both for years, although ive settled with PerfectDisk for now.

ArileenDesign on What's the consensus on Diskeeper?

ArileenDesign — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:59:59 -0400

i use Perfectdisk http://www.raxco.com/home_office/home_perfectdisk_professional.cfm
with 250Gb and 500Gb hard drives
Works fine
I heard Diskeeper works fine too but i first started with PerfectDisk and stay on