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HL2.exe hanging on shutdown has finally been fixed :D

I noticed that as well....hasnt crashed the past few times I've closed it......was annoying because for some reason every time it crashed, my video driver reset (both monitors blacked out for a couple seconds then came back on).

Sniping is stupidly easy in this game even without stun. I dominate people even without a scouts help. Nerfing the sandman won't suddenly make you or others get headshotted less. As for ubers, well... so they're not the easy win button they used to be. Oh well. next people will be wanting airblast and sentry knockback removed :rolleyes:

To be blunt though... I don't think it's that overpowered at all. We're talking a typical 1 stun and maybe kill on some classes(if random damage goes in your favor) every 10 seconds. Unless you try to seek out your ball while killing which will significantly hinder your chance of killing. Now, lets compare it to the other worst game mechanic, the backstab. It's not a projectile so it's can't be sidestepped, there's no time between the hit and your death for a teammate to intervene(as with the stun), it's a guaranteed kill vs ANY class no matter any variable(which the stun is not), it doesn't require back hits, and it has no cooldown whatsoever meaning you could take out a small army in the time it takes a scout to kill one. When you compare it to something that is and has been op since day one, the stun looks fine.

Yes thats the point im making... The sandman makes very powerfel classes stupidly powerful. The whole point of an uber is to push forward and make a difference to the entire game, if you don't have medics, you lose (simple). It does make sniping even easier than it was before because there are enemies completely disabled from moving.

Did you actually read the link about the damage of the scout? If you use the normal scattergun (rather than the FaN, its for scouts who can't aim), you can easily get three shots into the target before they can even start to get away, it is your bad aim if you cant kill nearly any enemy stunned from a sandman.

If your against a team with even an ounce of common sense the spies will be killed a lot of the time, they will only get 4+ backstabs in succession once per round no matter how good they are. The backstab is only overpowered now due to the hit detection of the side stab, they increased it so much that you can pretty much stab anyone anywhere and kill them.

Sentry knockback can easily be overcome by the medic running towards the sentry.

Airblast can easily be overcome mainly because in most cases it will only be one or two pyros, they can be killed easily by a demo before the uber, and also it doesn't nerf the uber because it can't stun the medic/ubered player. Scouts can fire the sandman from a safe distance, airblast has to be close.

The sandman can disable the uber for up to 8 seconds of the 10 second uber. The sandman just creates more stalemates than sentries already do, and it makes sentries more effective at doing it because the ubers get stunned before getting to the sentries.

I give up trying to explain it, I think anyone can see that it is overpowered, but if you don't accept it then I don't mind ;)

Pretty much the sandman is the weapon for scouts who can't aim, but if you can't aim then whats the point of playing scout?

you have to be able to aim to hit people with the sandman....

The speed at which it travels makes it very easy to hit someone.......along a medium range hallway you can bait a class around a corner and as soon as he steps out, simply click and you stun him.....letting you kill him when you probably wouldn't have killed him before. Beyond that, if theres a spun-up heavy, they are so easy to hit its not even funny......a normal scout doesn't go after a spun-up heavy, sure they may go after a heavy running around until they spin-up, but its smart to get out of there when they do. But against a spun-up heavy, a scout can step around a corner and line up his shot, step back around the corner, then jump out a split second after they fire, click, and there, they can possibly kill the heavy with ease.

The speed at which it travels makes it very easy to hit someone.......along a medium range hallway you can bait a class around a corner and as soon as he steps out, simply click and you stun him.....letting you kill him when you probably wouldn't have killed him before.

I've done this before, and even hit the characters five times, without them dying. Not all five hits were while they were stunned, but c'mon, five hits, with two at close range and they live? This happened once with a scout and medic too, quite frustrating.

Yes thats the point im making... The sandman makes very powerfel classes stupidly powerful. The whole point of an uber is to push forward and make a difference to the entire game, if you don't have medics, you lose (simple). It does make sniping even easier than it was before because there are enemies completely disabled from moving.

The scout was very powerful? I disagree. The only place the scout was "very powerful" in was ctf due to it's speed. It most other places it was a highly situational class. Also, it's not a guaranteed loss if you don't have medics. Even an army of ubers wont save you and make you win against the blatantly stacked teams that make up 99% of [pub] games. The team stacking issue needs fixing badly, but that's another topic.

Did you actually read the link about the damage of the scout? If you use the normal scattergun (rather than the FaN, its for scouts who can't aim), you can easily get three shots into the target before they can even start to get away, it is your bad aim if you cant kill nearly any enemy stunned from a sandman.
Even those with perfect aim aren't immune to this games ****poor hit detection(thanks to ping comp.), as well as it's stupidly random damage. One could also argue that the default shotgun is for those who can't aim too. As you have six shots before you have to reload, so you don't HAVE to make them all count as with the FaN.
If your against a team with even an ounce of common sense the spies will be killed a lot of the time, they will only get 4+ backstabs in succession once per round no matter how good they are. The backstab is only overpowered now due to the hit detection of the side stab, they increased it so much that you can pretty much stab anyone anywhere and kill them.
The average person doesn't have common sense. You should know that. If not just look at some of the stupid things you hear in the real world news section here. So most teams wont have it either. And The last part is exactly why it's (arguably) more overpowered than the sandman is. It's a requirementless instant kill when the sandman is not.
Pretty much the sandman is the weapon for scouts who can't aim, but if you can't aim then whats the point of playing scout?
It's also for scouts who like to be able to have the scout be useful outside of ctf(and maybe cp). Prior to the sandman the scout was barely played on many maps due to being so damn near useless. And when i did see one pre-update, he was always easily disposed of.

But anyway, I guess it's kinda pointless to go on with this. People will always say something is overpowered as long as it is capable of beating them. Which the scout can do now, unlike before.

The scout was very powerful? I disagree. The only place the scout was "very powerful" in was ctf due to it's speed. It most other places it was a highly situational class. Also, it's not a guaranteed loss if you don't have medics. Even an army of ubers wont save you and make you win against the blatantly stacked teams that make up 99% of [pub] games. The team stacking issue needs fixing badly, but that's another topic.

Even those with perfect aim aren't immune to this games ****poor hit detection(thanks to ping comp.), as well as it's stupidly random damage. One could also argue that the default shotgun is for those who can't aim too. As you have six shots before you have to reload, so you don't HAVE to make them all count as with the FaN.

The average person doesn't have common sense. You should know that. If not just look at some of the stupid things you hear in the real world news section here. So most teams wont have it either. And The last part is exactly why it's (arguably) more overpowered than the sandman is. It's a requirementless instant kill when the sandman is not.

It's also for scouts who like to be able to have the scout be useful outside of ctf(and maybe cp). Prior to the sandman the scout was barely played on many maps due to being so damn near useless. And when i did see one pre-update, he was always easily disposed of.

But anyway, I guess it's kinda pointless to go on with this. People will always say something is overpowered as long as it is capable of beating them. Which the scout can do now, unlike before.

The FaN has greater spread, which is why I said that. The sandman is the main weapon for scouts who can't aim anyway, since it is just like hitting with the flaregun, and pretty much give you a free kill or assist if you hit (which isn't hard).

If your slightly competent at aiming you can kill half the classes in two hits with the scatter gun and 3 hits at a range, that isn't especially situational, I have played scout a lot and easily pull off a 3 kpd with it on cp, and often get higher. Ctf just generally sucks because of how much engi spam goes on, so the sandman means its just harder to get the objective done for both teams, rather than easier for both teams, since ubers are the main way of taking down engi fortresses.

The backstab kills me a lot, but its isn't overpowered, it is what makes the spy a spy. I get killed from pipes, they are overpowered if you can aim with them, but for some reason most people are incapable of doing it with them, so that is fine.

The sandman makes one of the most deadly offensive class the best at nerfing ubers, where is the sense in that? Playing as scout it seems there is no real weakness, I have played over 100 hours of it now, and enjoyed playing it. It was a deadly class but this just makes it stupid.

The random damage range has been reduced, and one extra hit on a target due to it isn't exactly much, it also occurs for other classes so I don't see the argument there.

All you need is one organised medic + good offensive player and the game can completely change, unless of course you get stunned all the time and waste every uber due to it -.-

I correct myself, all you need is a few players with common sense on each team and the spy makes little impact.

Goldrush is the only map where scouts are (pretty much) useless because of how easy it is to get sentries everywhere, but every other official map is easy as scout. This is of course only if the team isn't full of heavy + medics, but this has been solved by the sandman. This is a bit unfair, seeing as the other updates kept the other classes jobs fundamentally the same, if your against the team full of pyro's you will find it hard as spy, so why should scout be given no weakness?

I am of course not counting junction and egypt since they are badly designed and mainly orientated around spam class (engi, soldier, demo, heavy and medic), then of course on egypt sniper is an uber class as well.

Edit: The scatter gun isn't overpowered on pubs (although its damn powerful in 6v6), I personally think the FaN sucks, my main class being soldier scouts using the FaN are easy to kill. People finding it hard to kill stunned enemies are most likely using the FaN, if not then you are doing something wrong with the scattergun, because it does around 80 damage per hit ;) Also the pistol can do a lot of damage against a stunned enemy...

In essence it is not making scouts that overpowered (although 1v1 is too easy as scout, with the sandman and without), but rather if teamed up with spike damage players it is amazingly overpowered, since no matter how skilled you are, you actually can't possibly dodge it at mid-close range, and the person missing you is not dodging the ball by the way. Once you are stunned all they need to do is spam you down.

Not all classes should be good at every map, what is the point of having classes if they all end up being equally good in all situations. I don't play the same class on every map, I don't see why anyone else feels the need to do so either.

Edited by Minimoose
Play on a non-crit server (Or scrim servers). They're balanced and there are no damage ranges, its a fixed value.

Are the servers modded to have no damage ranges? Just turning off crits would still contain damage ranges on weapons.....unless turning off crits both disables random crits AND gives weapons static damage...

Are the servers modded to have no damage ranges? Just turning off crits would still contain damage ranges on weapons.....unless turning off crits both disables random crits AND gives weapons static damage...

Doesn't make sense for that to be the case because a rocket blowing up on you should be more powerful than a rocket blowing up near you.

Doesn't make sense for that to be the case because a rocket blowing up on you should be more powerful than a rocket blowing up near you.

No, what I mean is the guy I quoted said a non-crit server, weapons do static damage.........rockets already have different damage depending on how far you are from the blast (all explosives do)....weapons on normal servers always have variable damage, despite whether the person crits or not.....what I'm asking, is if disabling crits automatically changes the variable damage of weapons to static damage, such as making a scattergun always do 90 dmg or something, making a rocket do X damage if it hits you, Y damage if your 3 feet from the explosion and Z damage if your 6 feet from the explosion.....as opposed to doing X-Y damage if it directly hits you, X-Y damage if your 3 feet from the explosion, and X-Y damage if your 6 feet from the explosion.

EDIT: Either way, when have the factors in TF2 ever been remotely accurate to real life? :p

No, what I mean is the guy I quoted said a non-crit server, weapons do static damage.........rockets already have different damage depending on how far you are from the blast (all explosives do)....weapons on normal servers always have variable damage, despite whether the person crits or not.....what I'm asking, is if disabling crits automatically changes the variable damage of weapons to static damage, such as making a scattergun always do 90 dmg or something, making a rocket do X damage if it hits you, Y damage if your 3 feet from the explosion and Z damage if your 6 feet from the explosion.....as opposed to doing X-Y damage if it directly hits you, X-Y damage if your 3 feet from the explosion, and X-Y damage if your 6 feet from the explosion.

EDIT: Either way, when have the factors in TF2 ever been remotely accurate to real life? :p

Going back to my original point, it wouldn't make sense to completely change the dynamics of the damage system because crits aren't allowed. It's always going to be variable; to make it otherwise would be retarded.

Going back to my original point, it wouldn't make sense to completely change the dynamics of the damage system because crits aren't allowed. It's always going to be variable; to make it otherwise would be retarded.

I agree, which is why I questioned Neon when he said there were no damage ranges on non-crit servers.

Just to clear things up:

Disabling crits just disables random crits, user controlled crits are still available. So if you see a no crit server then that does not necessarily mean that random damage is disabled.

There is seperate commands for servers to disable damage spread, if not then there is a mod called Team Fortress True (TFT) which gives people who run the server side more options. This normally means that damage range (+ or - whatever percentage) is collected as an average from every distance, and the average is used as the damage for the weapon from each different range.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, what I meant was that the damage is still varied with the distance and the number of bullets that hit the opponent. The only thing that remains constant is the damage at a given distance. In a pub server you have damage spreads/ranges for various weapons, what a scrim server does is it removes the spread and fixes it at an average. For example, in a pub server there is a probability that a single sticky can do away with a scout standing on it whereas on a scrim server this doesn't hold true (I think it's 108 damage).

Anyway scrim servers are usually used for 6v6, so you might have to join in on that.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, what I meant was that the damage is still varied with the distance and the number of bullets that hit the opponent. The only thing that remains constant is the damage at a given distance. In a pub server you have damage spreads/ranges for various weapons, what a scrim server does is it removes the spread and fixes it at an average. For example, in a pub server there is a probability that a single sticky can do away with a scout standing on it whereas on a scrim server this doesn't hold true (I think it's 108 damage).

Anyway scrim servers are usually used for 6v6, so you might have to join in on that.

After a recent update the damage spread has been reduced, so now stickies cannot kill a scout in one hit and a pipe can't either. I'm pretty sure in europe the main leagues have damage spread when using their server config, it's just less noticable now because of the update.

I don't know if during that update they released a command to disable damage spread. Also I haven't looked at the server configs myself, it's just what I think from playing lots of pcw's.

I'm pretty sure Multiplay pick up servers (6v6, organised teams) have damage spread as well.

After a recent update the damage spread has been reduced, so now stickies cannot kill a scout in one hit and a pipe can't either. I'm pretty sure in europe the main leagues have damage spread when using their server config, it's just less noticable now because of the update.

I don't know if during that update they released a command to disable damage spread. Also I haven't looked at the server configs myself, it's just what I think from playing lots of pcw's.

I'm pretty sure Multiplay pick up servers (6v6, organised teams) have damage spread as well.

I haven't seen that in any of the update info since I have gotten TF2 (a month ago) and I have gotten 1-hit killed by pipe grenades a ton.....they can still do up to 132 dmg without getting a crit, so they are still potentially lethal to 125hp classes.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
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You can only chat in the app and use it in the reader app as a makeshift vocabulary. However, the implementation is kinda awkward. You can only send a selected portion of text to AI without giving it any requests or instructions. I highlighted the word "dumb," and it apologized to me for not being useful. You also cannot ask follow-up questions or send the generated response to a separate chat. The chatbot is also slow, even with fast Wi-Fi, making the overall experience quite frustrating, which makes me again wish for the ability to remap the double press to something else. Spark, the standard voice recording app, also uses AI for note summarization and transcribing. Neither feature works offline, unfortunately. Spark records notes up to 30 minutes using Krono's dual microphones, and you can rename or export notes. Transcription quality is decent, and the speed is alright, but you can find much better solutions in the Google Play Store. What I like about Spark is that transcribed notes are not locked, and you can always type more to elaborate on your ideas, which is handy. Overall, I like that the Krono is not shoving AI down my throat, but to be honest, there is really not that much to shove. AI features here feel raw and need improvements to be more useful. Battery Life Like most E-Ink readers, the Krono has fantastic battery life. Even with a clock as a screensaver, its standby power consumption is incredibly low. And when in use, you can get weeks of reading on a single charge. Without the front light, my unit never sipped more than one or two percent of battery during a one-hour reading session. It was nice to see plenty of battery-related settings. You can limit charging at 80% to protect battery health long-term, check the number of charging cycles, manufacturing/first-time use date, battery health, and the maximum capacity. Additionally, the Krono lets you select what hardware remains enabled when sleeping. This lets you keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on (say, if you want to receive notifications, for some reason) and keep audio playing when locked. Turning these features off effectively eliminates any standby battery drain. I left my Krono sitting for 24 hours with a clock screensaver on, and it did not drop a single percent. The pretty big 3,950 mAh battery justifies the device's thickness and ensures you do not have to charge it for long periods. Speaking of charging, it is capped at only 10W, which is a bit disappointing, as getting such a big battery to 100% takes a notably long time in the era of super-fast charging smartphones. DuRoBo Moodi The Moodi is a standalone, optional accessory for your Krono. It is a wireless remote with two customizable buttons that you can use to flip pages, control media, or scroll webpages. The accessory connects via Bluetooth. Despite having a built-in rechargeable battery, it is extremely light. While the Moodi's shape and form factor is not what I would call particularly ergonomic, it is not uncomfortable to hold and use. The Moodi comes with six removable magnetic buttons with various smiley faces. Buttons sit securely, and they have nice-feeling, albeit a little loud, clicks. It is a cute touch that adds a little more fun and character to the device. There is also an accented power button and a single status LED. The latter displays charging status and connection mode. The Moodi supports three modes: Reading: Buttons work as volume buttons, allowing you to flip pages in the built-in reader or other apps that support page turning with volume buttons. Media: Buttons work as skip forward/backward, which is useful when listening to audiobooks, podcasts, or music. Scroll: The third mode lets you scroll pages in the web browser or any other application The Krono properly detects the Moodi and presents you with an on-screen guide when you connect it for the first time (it also displays the battery level). However, you can only change modes by holding both buttons for a few seconds. It is also worth noting that the Moodi works with other devices. I connected it to my iPhone and it let me adjust volume or control media playback. Sadly, the scroll did not work, so you cannot use it to waste time scrolling TikToks. Overall, the Moodi is a cute little accessory, which I can recommend for those who read a lot. It is very useful for remote page flipping when you do not want to burden your hands by holding the Krono all the time. I only wish DuRoBo included a lanyard for the built-in loop. As for the battery life, after using the Moodi for a few days, I only managed to drop several percent of its 90 mAh battery. Despite the small size, it is rated for weeks of use, which is pretty impressive. At $35.99, I cannot say the Moodi is a must-have accessory, but I see the appeal. I prefer using the Krono with its Smart Dial, as I rarely read for more than 40-60 minutes in one sitting. However, if you have a stand and like reading for long periods, the Moodi is the right thing to have. It is a bit more expensive than regular page flippers on Amazon, but it is on par with similar products from Kobo or BOOX. Plus, it has a little more fun to it with removable buttons and better integration into the Krono. Conclusion At the end of the day, DuRoBo Krono is a nice pocket-sized e-reader. Its software focuses on the main things without trying to be everything at once. The smart dial idea is unique and great, and I wish more manufacturers had something similar in their devices. The display is also good, with an even frontlight and "always-on" support. I did not notice any deal-breaking issues with the Krono. However, you can feel that the idea needs some improvements, such as a slightly stiffer dial in a more ergonomic location, perhaps a little more premium materials, and better software customization. I hope the company won't give up on the idea and improve the dial and ergonomics in the second generation. Buy DuRoBo Krono Black - $279.99 on Amazon Buy DuRoBo Krono White - $279.99 on Amazon Buy DuRoBo Moodi - $35.99 on Amazon As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • In what way is any of what I said incorrect? To install an update you need to close all browser instances, upping it from once a month to once a fortnight is an inconvenience for users. Particularly when updates don't offer functionality that users want (notably copilot). Security updates should come as they are needed, not on a release schedule
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