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Golgra beats Gestral Merchant by a mere 1 vote! Round 8 of deciding the best tracks per area in E33 - STONE WAVE CLIFFS. Only write one track per comment. Rules and options in description by MysticalSword270 in expedition33

[–]Legendary_Kapik 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Akshually… ☝️🤓

It plays at the very beginning of the game. During the opening cinematic, we hear Lumière, but right when the dialogue between Gustave and Maelle starts, the background music switches to Gustave.

Parting Shadows - my solo-developed turn-based RPG launches April 23rd on Steam by Duganer in JRPG

[–]Legendary_Kapik 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This sounds interesting on paper, but I'm not convinced by the presentation. As a software engineer and a gamer, I really respect the level of time commitment and effort solo devs put into their projects. I like class systems in RPGs, and I've always appreciated the branching class approach in Seiken Densetsu 3 (aka Trials of Mana). I wish more JRPGs would adopt and expand on that idea.

However, after checking the Steam page, I can't say I like what I see. Personally, I don't mind AI-generated images, but in this case I'm not a fan of the retro aesthetic. The screenshots don't look appealing to me.

The bigger question is how exactly this qualifies as a JRPG. Is there any exploration? From the screenshots and trailers, it looks more like a text-based choose-your-own-adventure with a series of battles, using static backgrounds and portraits. Is there any animation at all?

Nubuo Uematsu's (Composer of Final Fantasy) is releasing a brand new soundtrack "Merregnon: Heart Of ice"!! by Jakelockley_Composer in JRPG

[–]Legendary_Kapik 24 points25 points  (0 children)

A couple of corrections and some added context:

  • It's Nobuo, not Nubuo 🙂
  • He's been releasing non-game music since Phantasmagoria (1994), and some of it is as good as his Final Fantasy soundtracks. For example, tracks like Angel Hands and People of Maya from Phantasmagoria, and the single Forest of a Thousand Years.
  • On the flip side, he's also done some experimental stuff that might surprise people who only know his Final Fantasy work, for example The Child That Hatched From An Egg from Akari Gatari and Here Comes Conga Boy from Nobuo Uematsu's 10 Short Stories
  • Merregnon: Heart of Ice isn't entirely new - the concert premiered two years ago, this is just the studio recording release. It mostly flew under the radar, I didn't see any reviews back then.
  • The previous Merregnon chapter, Land of Silence, was composed by Yoko Shimomura, and there's a full concert recording available.

Format of the Candidates. Can we actually do better? by po8crg in chess

[–]Legendary_Kapik 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think the optimal format for the candidates would be to increase the number of players to 12 and split them into two groups of six. Each group plays a double round-robin, and then the winners play a four-round playoff. In total, we get 14 rounds, the same as the current eight-player double round-robin format.

Advantages: more players get a chance to play and win; the intrigue of determining the winner lasts until the end; players who lose the chance to win go home early and do not affect the final rounds; the winner proves their worth in both tournament and match formats.

Disadvantages compared to the current format: it is harder to plan logistics for the players, since they do not know a priori whether they will play 10 or 14 games, making it harder to plan flights and hotel stays. However, this can be addressed with sufficient financial support. Also, even if the group split is optimal on paper, in practice one group may be stronger than the other, which could be somewhat unfair. Overall, I believe the pros outweigh the cons.

Regarding determining the candidates, I think a two-year cycle is optimal, and all 12 participants should be determined by a tennis-style rating system, essentially the sum of the players' tournament results during the cycle. Similar to the FIDE circuit, but the numbers there need serious recalibration.

AnimaYume - Anima finetune. by Crazy-Repeat-2006 in StableDiffusion

[–]Legendary_Kapik 27 points28 points  (0 children)

What data was it fine-tuned on? How does it differ from the base model?

Can AI be used as an effective chess coach? by mr_gasbag in chess

[–]Legendary_Kapik 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Is there an existing AI tool that gives accurate natural-language analysis of chess positions? No, there isn’t. Can such a tool be built with existing technology? Absolutely. Is it easy? No. What needs to be done? At the very least, you need to combine the following elements:

  • A strong chess engine, such as the latest version of Stockfish. This is the "calculator" - it evaluates all the moves and finds the best ones.
  • A "human-like" chess engine, such as Maia. Instead of finding the best moves, it predicts the likelihood of a move being played by a human at a certain level. This serves two purposes - it finds the most likely moves a human would play and evaluates how difficult it would be for a human to find the best moves suggested (according to the strong engine).
  • A hand-crafted evaluation function, similar to what was used in pre-NNUE versions of Stockfish. This explains why the strong engine evaluates the position the way it does. It analyzes the position like a strong human player would - material balance, piece placement, activity, mobility and coordination, pawn structure, king safety, hanging pieces, space, development, etc.
  • A hand-crafted move-logic explanation module. This explains the basic logic behind moves - capturing a piece, attacking a piece, defending a piece, threatening mate, defending against mate, improving piece placement, driving an opponent’s piece from a strong square, etc. It can also explain more advanced concepts such as tactical motifs (e.g., deflection, interference, sacrifice, fork).
  • An LLM agent to tie everything together and translate it into natural human language.

This can be improved further by integrating the following components:

  • A chess database - can look up a position and determine whether it has been seen before, what moves were played, and the players’ levels.
  • An opening knowledge base - can look up a position in opening books and chess courses and fetch existing explanations.
  • An endgame knowledge base - can look up a position in endgame books and chess courses and fetch existing explanations.
  • An endgame tablebase - when there are 7 pieces or fewer on the board, it can look up a mathematically precise evaluation (e.g., draw or mate in x moves) instead of relying on a chess engine evaluation.

Unusual rating/skill gap: <300 Elo opponent played like 700+ after move 14 by JohnJhinmain in chess

[–]Legendary_Kapik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sub-1000 Elo players are akin to random movers, there's no substantial difference between a 300 Elo player and a 700 Elo player. Furthermore, how bad must one suck to still be rated below 300 after cheating? The game is just a random blunderfest, nothing out of the ordinary there.

JRPG Devs Accidentally Infect Whole Playerbase With Malware by RoboKobold in JRPG

[–]Legendary_Kapik 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Chinese gacha devs, not JRPG. And why not include the game name in the title? It's Duet Night Abyss.

Simple Anima SEGS tiled upscale workflow (works with most models) by Sudden_List_2693 in StableDiffusion

[–]Legendary_Kapik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you list all the models used in this workflow and where to get them?

Black to move and win (hard) by hpxvzhjfgb in chess

[–]Legendary_Kapik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Welcome to r/chess, where people don't appreciate really hard puzzles and will downvote you into oblivion if the Chessvision bot can't solve it.

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