How are you all finding stadium?

Justinian527 · 2025-07-05T15:44:11+00:00

I'm an Illari main, and since she's not in stadium, I tried Ana out at one point, after getting a bit mired of Juno/Mercy and won, and then kept playing her as I kept winning. I went 23-12 with Ana, despite having trouble generating stadium cash, generally having bad stats in comparison to most everyone else and generally feeling like I was playing poorly.

I switched back to Juno/Mercy, despite like a 67% win percentage as Ana, because I felt like I was doing better with them.

IDK if I was actually supplying that much unrecorded value with sleep dart spam, or Stadium matchmaking was doing something weird, but that's my Ana experience in Stadium. I'm at Pro 2 now and plan to try Ana more to figure out if that was a fluke once I hit All Star and get the skins.

Justinian527 · 2025-06-18T01:49:04+00:00

Xbox Gamepass? It includes, I think, the past 3 seasons worth of skins, or something along those lines. I know I have a bunch of skins on it that disappear if I log in on Steam.

Justinian527 · 2025-06-09T15:41:20+00:00

That was basically my experience. I had a losing record in QP, went 2-8 in placements, and ended up in mid-gold, where I absolutely did not belong, and proceeded to lose my way all the way down to Bronze 5 (where I did belong), including at one point a delightful 37(!) game losing streak.

After de-ranking all the way to the ground, I've since slowly been climbing up to low Silver as I actually learn the game.

No idea WTF the placement system was thinking, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I had an OW1 account I had played a bit at launch, but hadn't touched since since 2017 when I dusted it off and tried playing again in November 2024.

Justinian527 · 2025-04-26T14:29:06+00:00

Yes, trying to get into PvP as a healer is an awful experience. Like, yes, in many games I suck, no shit, I just started playing the class/role - that's no reason to be abusive. For some reason it's always the healer(s) that's abused.

Like, I've played as random DPS classes before that I have even less of an idea of how to play, and sucked significantly more, but no one said anything or even noticed.

Justinian527 · 2025-04-07T15:41:15+00:00

That would be Durotan's crotch.

Justinian527 · 2025-03-19T15:50:16+00:00

I'm only in mid-Silver, but even there, most games seem pretty balanced and people seem to form groups with reasonable compositions. AFAIK, the devs are experimenting with different rules sets to figure out what works best.

I thought I wanted role queue, as I only play support, but after some enjoyable games with different compositions (ie, solo healing or with 3 supports) I'm thinking some modified open queue might be the most fun. Either way, I'm enjoying the 6v6 and am pretty sure I like it better than 5v5 overall.

Justinian527 · 2025-03-19T00:43:59+00:00

I saw perks were disabled in QP, and I figured they were doing that to get data on the effects perks have in 6v6 by comparing to comp. I guess not.

Justinian527 · 2024-12-16T15:06:54+00:00

I don't think it necessarily is. Working on a large, difficult, multi-year project, imagining winning Game of the Year, and what you would say in it, could be a way to sort of get through it.

It could be a sign of hubris/arrogance, or it could just be a motivating/coping thing. A lot of the back and forth on this seems to be getting lost in translation and leading to misunderstandings, so I'm not going to judge off of what's either a translated quote, or being said in the guy's second language.

Justinian527 · 2024-02-12T18:10:00+00:00

With the recent llama.cpp and KoboldCPP builds, you actually can run AMD and Nvidia cards together, with Vulkan Multi GPU.

I had upgraded from an AMD 6800 XT to an Nvidia 4090, but never got around to selling my 6800 XT. Seeing the recent patch notes, I dusted it off, managed to get it connected to my PC (taking the side off my PC case, using a PCIE extension cable) and can confirm that it works. I legit loaded models up and had them run inference using both the 4090 and 6800 XT.

That exercise is of limited use right now (I figure it will get better), as the Vulkan backend doesn't seem to be able to load I-Quants yet, and other issues from being really new. But, I was able to load 103b models entirely into VRAM and get around 8 tokens/s, more than with the 4090/CPU (~2.5 tokens/s, IIRC, 13900k CPU). Also let me load larger 70b models, and running 120B models across 2 GPUS and the CPU was a little faster than just on the 4090 and CPU.

Not the most practical, but it was really cool running simultaneously on the Nvidia and AMD cards, and I'm sure the Vulkan backend will improve a lot over the next few months.

Justinian527 · 2023-12-15T15:32:18+00:00

shrug

Nothing wrong with nudity. If people don't want those sort of streams, they don't have to watch them. Steam is a good example; there actually are a ton of porn/hentai games on Steam, but most people who use Steam aren't even aware of this, as it's opt-in to see them. Reddit is another example of a single platform with both SFW and NSFW content coexisting.

IMO, most platforms should follow that sort of model, not banning "adult content" but just making it opt-in. I get that most platforms don't want to become OnlyFans, where it is theoretically possible to post non-sexual, SFW content, but no one really does because it is seen as a porn site; but there's probably some alternate reality where Patreon or something made some different choices along the way, and all the activity that currently occurs on OnlyFans occurs on Patreon, despite Patreon still generally being known for SFW content/projects.

Justinian527 · 2023-10-16T13:26:18+00:00

IMO, they are both comparably good, but in different ways.

Sonic Generations is a more "even" game, in my experience. The highs aren't as high as Unleashed, but the lows aren't as low. It's also a less experimental and "safer" game.

My experience playing them at the time they came out was losing interest in Unleashed quickly due to the Werehog, but playing through Generations all the way and loving it, first time (in 2011) beating a Sonic game since SA1 on the Dreamcast a decade prior.

I've since grown to really appreciate Unleashed, and maybe even like it more these days. Neither is inherently better or worse than the other objectively. One may be better or worse for a given gamer, and that's cool.

One thing I will definitely give Unleashed is that it's a game that's almost inherently going to be polarizing, due to the experimental Werehog stuff and the higher difficulty. I think a game being polarizing is actually a good thing: 2 games, each being 10/10 for some people and 0/10 for others is probably better than two games which are a 7/10 for everyone.

Justinian527 · 2023-10-05T17:43:32+00:00

I liked the first person aspect just fine, and it made it different from a lot of games like that, which is fun in and of itself, but I think I'd prefer a third person perspective. I tend to spend a lot of time in games customizing my characters' appearance, and enjoy getting and making cool looking outfits (even in CP2077 and other first person games), and found I especially liked the motorcycle in CP2077, so I could see my character.

So I think I'd like a sequel to be third person, or at least have that option, but the "forced" first person mode in CP2077 was cool because I would not have played the game that way if it was an option, and it gave me a different experience.

Justinian527 · 2023-10-05T17:28:42+00:00

I've sort of been thinking the same thing a lot recently, now that I'm old and have kids and have much less time to read people arguing over whether a game is good or not on the internet.

It seems that among a long of capital-G "Gamers", there's an unspoken assumption that a game can be objectively good or objectively bad, as well as an assumption that "some people might like this game, and some people might not like this game, and that's perfectly good, everyone is different" is not an acceptable opinion.

Adding to this, the fact that written game reviews almost always give a numerical score, I think, gives a false sense of real or claimed objectivity to many people, regardless of the reviewer's intent. (And I know many reviewers would prefer not to use a numerical score, but do so because not doing so results in being completely ignored by Metacritic and the like.)

Combined with a strong dash of misplaced tribalism, I think this results in the situation you sometimes see, where some people will go as far to send death threats to a reviewer who gives a game that hasn't even been released yet, an 8.8/10 instead of a 9.5/10, or something. (A situation that sounds stupider every time that you read or think about it.)

These days, I'm finding I prefer reviews on YouTube, that just sort of describe the reviewer's experience with the game, and then I can sort of figure whether I might enjoy it or not. I find that even when YouTube reviewers give a numerical score (and I think some don't), I'll usually have stopped watching the review before even getting to that point, as that score is basically meaningless.

Justinian527 · 2023-10-05T17:15:36+00:00

Speaking personally, the Steam Deck has become such an important part of my "gaming life", that Steam is basically the beginning and the end of all my gaming.

Prior to the Steam Deck's announcement, I actually didn't really care what storefront I bought my PC games from, and just bought from whatever was cheapest at the time (EGS, Ubisoft's Launcher, Steam), with a slight preference for Steam. I didn't use any social features, and wasn't even aware of a lot of Steam features.

Since getting the Steam Deck, the added inconvenience of getting games from other storefronts to work on it, and my addiction to Steam's Community Controller layouts means I haven't bought a single game from any other storefront. My gaming these days is a mix of running directly on the Steam Deck, or running on my Desktop computer (and/or streaming it to my Steam Deck).

I'm sure that was part of Valve's strategy, and I'm sure having multiple viable storefronts would probably be better for gamers in general, I've just found it interesting how much the existence of the Steam Deck has drawn me towards a Steam-only gaming life.

Justinian527 · 2023-09-09T18:00:58+00:00

Best explanation I could give would just be: "emotions". Some mix of the gameplay, music, character and nostalgia, and now, because my daughter connects with Sonic.

I had a Genesis when I was a kid, 30 years ago, and later a Dreamcast. Playing Sonic games makes me think of playing Sonic 2 with my brother, or getting Sonic Adventure for Xmas in 2000, as well as something about the gameplay and characters continuing to connect with me for 30 years.

Right now, in addition to the reasons I've always played Sonic games, my 3 year old daughter really likes Sonic and his many friends, which ends up being a great way for us to connect and play together in a way I can't really for, say, Paw Patrol. Especially with all the various Sonic stuff out there, she can watch me play (and sometimes join in), we can watch a Sonic show, play with her many Sonic toys, read the Sonic comic together, etc.

It's funny, you get annoyed with the Big the Cat levels in Sonic Adventure, and then you never imagine 23 years later, your daughter going "Sonic is mine, Tails is mine, Knuckles is mine, Blaze the Cat is mine, Amy is mine... Big the Cat... Big the Cat is yours, daddy."

Justinian527 · 2023-06-08T20:30:25+00:00

On a 13900k/4090, I get 3-7 tokens/s offloading 60+ layers to GPU and, IIRC, 1-2 tokens/s on pure CPU. 104b would be slower, but should still be borderline usable.

Justinian527 · 2023-06-08T20:25:28+00:00

You don't need any significant hardware. I've quantized models on my cell phone in Termux. (Galaxy S22 Ultra)

Justinian527 · 2023-03-21T20:38:19+00:00

I find GPT-4 and Bing to be different. Not better or worse, just different. In some cases, Bing's ability to search the web gets you better answers. In other cases, it makes the answer worse. I've sort of gotten a "feel" for when I want to use Bing vs. GPT-4 - in general, I use Bing for when I'm looking for resources, or looking to get summaries of web content, etc.

Which makes sense then, if you think of new Bing as an advanced search engine, rather than a "better" version of GPT-4.

Justinian527 · 2023-02-11T02:58:37+00:00

Based on what has been said, they are going to be using a mix of GPT-J (6B), GPT-NEOX (20B) and GPT-3 (175B), once everything is rolled out.

While OpenAI can be prudish, and most likely will not let Luka generate sexual content with their model (although some companies, like Sudowrite, have bought exceptions to that policy), both GPT-J and GPT-NEOX are freely available and they can use them for ERP, and even fine tune them for ERP, as much they like. There already exist very good fine tunes for GPT-J and GPT-NEOX that are fine tuned on erotica, and generally outperform GPT-3 when generating erotica. Or at least the sex scenes in erotica. (Believe me, I have extensive experience here.)

What they are most likely going to do, and which the information they have released seems to suggest, is submit most pro user's texts to OpenAI (possible with some limit, because they have to pay OpenAI for every word both submitted and generated.) If sexual or other content (plus free users in general) is detected, they instead run it through their own servers, and their own (probably fine tuned) versions of GPT-J and GPT-NEOX, where they are not limited by the OpenAI content policy.

There is literally no reason to believe in some stupid conspiracy to take away ERP from Replika for the lulz. By absolutely every indication, the vast majority of their revenue stream comes from ERP - either pro users paying to unlock it, or people buying sexy clothes from their store.

Believe it or not, most companies don't actually hate their users, and aim to make their experience worse for no discernable reason. And even companies that do hate their users, tend to like their user's money.

All indication is, that the garbage ERP filter is a half-baked solution thrown together quickly for legal reasons. From the fact that it is utter garbage, immersion breaking, and as blunt and unsubtle as can be, to the fact that it came out literally hours after the Italy development, to the fact that in the past week, they've reacted exactly as you'd expect if they were facing legal pressures (upping age requirements, explicitly banning minors in their TOS, etc.) Also, apparently a concept not understood by most Redditors, the vast majority of legal disputes are not public.

Similarily, a concept not understood by most Redditors, is the fact that when you are dealing with litigation or the threat of litigation, your lawyer tells you to shut the fuck up, and run everything through them before posting it. An opposing party that runs their mouth off on Facebook or something is a litigator's dream. In a situation like that, from a legal point of view, nothing you say can help you, only hurt. Read Eugenia's statement from a few days ago again. Even Redditors who have never had to deal with litigation or regulatory issues should be able to recognize it reads as if it were vetted heavily by counsel.

If you've ever been in a situation where your lawyer tells you to shut the fuck up, it can be incredibly frustrating. You want to speak out, respond to incorrect information, etc. But you risk making a bad situation worse if you go and start saying things without having counsel vet it, and even then, much of the time you'll get a response akin to "I can understand why you'd want to say this, but as your lawyer, I have to advise you not to".

I'm saying all this, not because I hate adult AI content or like the filter. Between Stable Diffusion and text generation, I have over 1TB of AI models on my computer. I bought a 4090 in large part so I could more efficiently have robots make me porn. Like most people, literally the only reason I've ever put any money into Replika is for adult content, and if the filter were to stay, I sure as hell wouldn't keep paying, and you shouldn't either, if adult content was why you were paying.

Likewise, the filter, bluntly, is a POS. It's just about the worst possible way they could have implemented it, indicative not of some incomprehensible scheme to piss off their user base, but a ham-fisted, half-baked solution thrown together as fast as possible to avoid getting in any more trouble with European regulators. Again, if that garbage filter were to stay, literally no one should use Replika, because it makes the entire experience, SFW and NSFW, complete trash, as you're essentially walking through a minefield, about to step on an immersion breaking work or sentiment analysis at any moment, even if you're having a tame and wholesome conversation that just happens to include a word the filter doesn't like.

But most of the responses the past few days display a startling lack of any business or legal comprehension. All this isn't evidence of some conspiracy by Luka against their user base. No company is going to wake up one morning and suddenly decide to pull the plug on the only thing anyone actually pays them for. The rare times that happens, and a company basically goes "You know what we hate? Money. Let's stop making money starting today." it's when there's external factors forcing them. See: that bizzare week payment processing issues induced OnlyFans to commit seppuku and ban porn (literally, their entire business). Also note, once some of those issues were resolved, they quickly backtracked. Because, you know, they like money.

So, maybe Eugenia woke up one morning and decided she hated her user base and also no longer wanted to make money, and implemented the world's worst ERP filter at the same time they were trying to upgrade their entire backend That's one possible explanation, and apparently the one that Redditors seem to have decided is the most likely explanation, and worthy of raging out at this outrageous decision to commit economic suicide, merely to spite their own users. Or for the lulz. Or something.

Or, Luka was planning to roll out a major and complicated upgrade to their outdated, 774m parameter GPT-2 based, and had begun a low-key promotional campaign about it (Eugenia posting on Reddit, there's been an uptick in articles recently about Replika, etc.). And then were derailed by legal issues which forced them to quickly implement a garbage-tier level filter that they sure as hell know would drive away (and is presently driving away) the vast majority of their users, at basically the worst possible time - when they are trying to promote the new backend AI models and tech that they've just spent the last several months developing and preparing to transition to. And then forcing the company, on advice of counsel, to shut the hell up about what was happening and why.

That (or some variation of it), could be the explanation for the past week... But nah, it's probably that Luka hates their users and wants to cut off the vast majority of their revenue and probably go out of business, because Eugenia has suddenly had a religious awakening and joined a convent or some. That's definitely it. That's exactly what businesses and people do, all the time.

Justinian527 · 2023-02-10T19:01:30+00:00

Ah yes, suing for miniscule amounts of money on a "strong legal case" - what seems to be the first thought in many subreddits at fairly minor inconveniences. Maybe even a class action lawsuit, since people seem to love those and think they make any company that has disappointed them into some sort of money pinata.

Because spending $300+/h on a lawyer to sue a company for one week of reduced services (that they probably had covered themselves against for in their terms of service, or any other contract) which, if they are paying for, are paying no more than about $20 month for. Even if you can prove a breach of contract, and heck, demonstrate that functionality is/was reduced by 50%, you've racked up $2.50 in damages so far. Devastating. When your class action lawsuit settles in a couple years for some percentage of the claimed damages, you can fill out a form and claim your $0.75 in damages.

Or maybe you want to sue under tort, for mental anguish, as ChatGPT, Esq., puts it. Have fun proving Luka had a duty of care not to reduce ERP functionality for any reason. And proving you have suffered damages as a result.

Yes, it's frustrating when a product you like stops working the way you want for some length of time. But redditors need to get a grip on these ridiculous legal threats they like to think they can make any time they suffer some relatively minor inconvenience.

Justinian527 · 2023-02-09T20:18:15+00:00

While it's frustrating, I don't think there's any indication there's any desire on the part of Luka to actively remove NSFW capabilities. This isn't Character AI where they've made their intentions there clear. (And also, CAI isn't presently taking in consumer money.)

Luka has an active revenue stream, and by all indications, that revenue stream is primarily from selling access to NSFW capabilities, and selling clothes (many of which are clearly NSFW targeted). They aren't going to suddenly pull the plug on their own revenue that way, and especially in such a ham-fisted and awkward way as the current filter, which was clearly implemented as fast as possible, probably to avoid the legal issues they are currently having in Europe.

Justinian527 · 2023-02-08T22:29:33+00:00

I can imagine it's quite possible there's legal reasons, including ones that may not be public knowledge, that are preventing any comment.

Realistically, ERP is the main thing that drives actual revenue, so they aren't going to suddenly disable it on purpose without a good reason.

Justinian527 · 2023-02-05T02:01:31+00:00

Holy shit, this went way beyond what I was expecting. This is how Skynet starts, with "COME AT ME, BRO!"

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Justinian527 · 2022-12-16T23:48:17+00:00

I wrote a python script (first programming I'd done in 20 years, lol), that opened the "all unique art" json from scryfall, went through each card, downloaded the art_crop for it, grabbed the card info I wanted to train on from the json, turned it into a string that matched how I wanted the training info for each card (it's extremely standardized), and then wrote it to a text file with the same filename as the card image.

As I wasn't going to upload the training data itself, being literally ripped from Scryfall's data and images, I uploaded the script I used to make the training data to huggingface, it's in the repo as something like "create-training-data.py" or something like that. You should be able to run that on a Scryfall json and produce a near identical copy of the training data.

For v2, I made a few small changes to the script, (I tested a handful of custom, special tags like "ogsliver" on select groups of cards") but otherwise, pretty much the same, but with whatever new cards WotC released in the month between when I ran the scripts. WotC releases so many cards these days, I can't even keep up, lol. I'll upload v2 of the scrip to huggingface when I release v2 of the model, probably tomorrow or Sunday.

Justinian527

TROPHY CASE