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I'm not overly familiar with SMB tasing, but there's an apparent time loss at 2:00 into the encode. Mario bonks into the elevator platform in 4-2. Had you taken a slightly different route prior to that bonk, you wouldn't have been slowed by it.
There is also a brief slowdown in 8-3 around 4:04 in the encode where you slow down to kill a hammer bros.
I know there are frame rules involved with SMB, so i don't know if either of these slowdowns cause loss of a frame rule. It does look sloppy and suboptimal though.
Also, regarding entertainment, I'm personally annoyed by all the constant unnecessary jumping in so many SMB TASes (this one included). This is simply a personal preference and not a complaint per se, but i figured I'd leave it here anyway.
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I think we need to be careful about picking a new name that unintentionally sounds 'better' than "Standard."
Though entertainment is still a requirement for Moon publication, the purpose of this class is publishing non-standard goals; not to specifically publish runs more entertaining than those available in the Standard class.
While it does sound more exciting than "moon," using "showcase" could unfortunately make it sound like the movies published in that class are better (or deemed more worthy of watching by the site itself) than runs published into the Standard class. This could unfortunately lead some to believe that the "Standard" designation is for runs that the site/community is less concerned about people watching.
In a hypothetical situation where I didn't have any foreknowledge about the site, I'd personally be more drawn to watch something labeled as a "showcase" than something just labeled as "standard."
TL:DR We need to pick a name that identifies the class as non-standard goals, but that name needs to be such that it doesn't make the class sound like a higher tier. We need to be careful that the Standard class doesn't get looked at negatively (or less positively) because of what we choose to rename the current Moon class.
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I threw my vote in for 7 days.
While I believe our judges are perfectly capable of making an appropriate judgement in less time, I also see no necessary reason for rapid judgements. Even runs with blatantly obvious suboptimal play don't NEED rejected rapidly; waiting a longer period before declaring judgement on these type runs won't hurt, nor will it change the ultimate outcome. Runs ready to be rejected before the 3 day period rarely 'clog up' the workbench to a problematic degree; I can't imagine extending the time to 7 days would amplify this into a greater problem.
Given that our judges can claim submissions for judgment even before the judgment delay period has passed (and thus already begin their judging process itself), a week delay gives the community a bit more time to evaluate and offer perspectives. As has been mentioned already, many of us are busy with other daily life stuff (work, family, etc.). Offering a bit more time for community participation would likely be appreciated by those members who are not able to be as consistently engaged/connected as others who can be on more frequently.
The only time i can imagine a week delay being a huge issue is if a known improvement run is submitted near the end of the year, and the author (or even judges) are hoping to have it published before the year end. In this hypothetical rare case, i feel an exception to the delay timeframe could be considered on a case-by-case basis.
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Context:
I recently submitted this run of NES Pinball.
In the discussion thread, I mentioned that I couldn't beat the time of the submission when using the VS Pinball ROM with the standard DIP Switch settings.
£e Nécroyeur suggested that I relook into the VS ROM with different DIP switch settings, because the default setting is slow ball movement. I investigated the DIP switch settings and changed the proper one to allow fast ball movement instead of slow. TASing with this setting did allow me to beat the time of the sumbission linked above.
As ThunderAxe31 had claimed the submission for judging, I privately asked his opinion on what to do regarding the submission and the new faster run that used the VS ROM. This was what I sent:
My question is three-part:
1) Are the VS game ROMs for NES games considered Arcade or NES for site publication? If they aren't considered arcade, we may need to consider that they should be (since that's the 'system' they were intended to be).
2) If VS games are considered Arcade, could I make an additional submission of that version and potentially have both published; one on each 'system'.
3) If VS games are only considered NES platform and not arcade, should i cancel the current submission and make a new one (since the ROM also changes); or should i just provide a userfile to update the current submission? In the latter case, I'd also update the temp encode and submission notes.
ThunderAxe31 informed me that he believes this may be a new situation that has never been discussed before. Thus I've created this thread.
What I believe needs Discussed:
1) What system do we want to consider these VS Nintendo ROMs?
While the VS game ROMs (at least this one) run on BizHawk under NES emulation, their purpose was for Arcade cabinet use. I feel that the site needs to make a definitive decision on which system to consider these VS ROMs.
My personal stance would be to consider them as Arcade as that's the 'system' they were intended for even though BizHawk runs them under NES emulation.
2) Should VS ROMs be able to obsolete runs of other system/region?
This is a multi-part issue.
If it's decided that VS ROMs are to be considered Arcade and not NES system, then we'd be looking at the question of whether or not to have one system potentially obsolete a different system. I think this may have already happened in the past, but I don't know for sure.
If it's decided that VS ROMs are to be considered NES system--just a different 'region' ROM--then it's an issue of one region ROM obsoleting a different region; I know there's already precedent for this (due to one of my own US region runs being obsoleted by a JP region run of the same game).
My personal stance on this one is to lean toward more inclusivity and less obsoletion regardless of what 'system' the VS ROMs are ultimately decided to be considered. I'm one who feels that, even if a game/TAS is identical between two different systems, there's value in having a publication of both systems--if for no other reason than the possibility that some viewers may only look for a particular game on one system and not another system, because they may not know the game was ported to multiple systems.I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on how to handle the VS ROMs.
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I'm guessing each disk image you have is a separate file. You may be able to use BizHawk's multi-disc bundler tool to allow disk swapping during emulation.
Tools > Multi-Disk Bundler
I've not had much experience with this tool though, so I don't know that I can help much beyond that suggestion.
Another thing to consider trying is swapping PAL vs NTSC sync settings. Some games will only work in one region or the other. (Though you'll still likely need to use the multi-disk tool.)
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Impressive. How did you optimize it? Trial and error, botting, or something else?
Just trial and error.
This is the fastest way into the bonus room.
Once in there, this submission was actually the result of my first attempt at saving the maiden.
I tried numerous other variations inside that room; but by dumb luck, my first attempt was the fastest solution i encountered.
Something I didn't try however (because i just thought of it) is whether or not entring the bonus room at a later time caused the ball's initial trajectory to vary. That might allow for a faster solve.
I may play around a bit more on this theory, but for now, I'm content with this run being judged as-is.
EDIT: FWIW, I did a run of the VS Pinball ROM with the default dip switch settings, but it was slower than this one. I'm not very familiar with changing dip switch options for VS NES ROMs though, so there may be settings which could be changed to result in a faster run than this submission.
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Here are a couple thoughts, some of which I've already brought up on discord but am adding here for the record.
Regarding Game Genie/Action Replay type codes: The number of codes allowed on runs could be either unlimited or limited to what was available on the originial hardware the code is intended for.
Examples: the NES Game Genie only allowed for 3 codes at any one time. Other Systems allowed for more than three. From what I can find, newer versions of some such ROM modifying systems may have been effectively unlimited themselves (or limited to some degree of memory, but no set numerical value). I wouldn't be able to make a justification for any number limit other than either original or unlimited, as I see any other numerical limitation as arbitrary.
Another consideration is the fact that, with enough codes, a game could potentially be rewritten completely into a wholly different game. Not that I forsee somebody wanting to go to that extreme; but I bring it up as an example of how extensively such codes can be used to impact a base game.
Regarding increased content & work load: As much potential interesting content that having a showcase/demo class may yield for the site, I have some concerns regarding an influx of new showcase/demo content.
1) If there isn't at least some method of curation or limitation of what's acceptable for this class of movies, the potential exists for the sheer mass of such content to potentially overwhelm the main site publications.
2) If curation/limitation does exist, who performs this? Given the potential freedom of goals within such a movie class, it's feasible that submission numbers could dramatically increase to a point that would majorly overtax the current site staff/judges if it becomes added to their current responsibilities.
3) Back to the idea of limiting what's acceptable. Even if this aspect of the site could be maintained discretely enough from the main site that the main site publications aren't overshadowed by what's presented in the showcase/demo class, I would still have concerns over total quantity of content.
If I understand things properly, the whole reason for wanting a showcase/demo tier is to be able to show runs that unfortunately don't adhere to the main site ruleset, yet are nonetheless interesting, highly entertaining, hold some historical significace, or provide an interesting TASing experience that is simply not publishable under current rules.
I don't want to see such a movie class be so overloaded with uninteresting content that the actually interesting/entertaining/historical runs get lost in the pile.
Unfortunately, I don't really have any good suggestions on how things should be implemented. I am rather curious to see how this plays out.
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zaphod77 wrote:
5) i still disagree on the decision that running a game that was not released in ntsc territory in ntsc is a valid choice. It's not a valid choice because real people don't have that option. their real tvs back in the day can only handle their own video standards. This is also to provide parity with console releases, where PAL versions must be tased on PAL emulation, admn NTSC versions must be tased on ntsc emulations. If we are allowed to tas pal released c64 games on NTSC settings, we would also allowed to tas pal NES game son NTSC settings. The fact that many games run on both is not a valid argument.
The bolded aspect of this statement is untrue (bolding added by me). Real people had the option/ability to play a PAL released games on a NTSC C64 system (and vice-versa) with no special requirements/modifications.
I had an NTSC C64 growing up. I also had games which were only officially released in PAL territories. These games worked just fine on my NTSC system.
It's true that we shouldn't allow emulation of a PAL system at the 60hz framerate. However, while a PAL system wouldn't function with a 60hz NTSC monitor/tv, PAL software itself often runs perfectly well on the NTSC system making it playable on a 60hz tv/monitor. This was not only possible but frequently done by real people.
Parity with console releases doesn't need to be considered. Consoles often have some form of region locking mechanisms in place that prevent play of a PAL cartridge/software on the NTSC system. It's therefore impossible to play such releases on an out-of-region system without modifying the hardware/cartridge to allow it.
The C64 does not have this type of region-locking restriction, and no modification of the hardware is necessary to load out-of-region software onto the system for execution.
EDIT:
If a game was specially coded to work with a specific regions frame timing, one of three things will happen when played on an out-of-region system.
1) The game will play normally aside from slightly increased/decreased speed.
2) The game will run, but glitches will be introduced due to the out of sync code/system refresh rate.
3) The game won't run at all.
Options 2 & 3 would be the only thing preventing someone in real life from playing an out-of-region game on their own system.
EDIT 2:
The above three possibilities still occur with properly emulated systems (BizHawk included). From my play/testing, BizHawk appears to perform the same as real systems would when presented with out-of-region software.
An example is Monty On the Run; the game appears to play fine other than a glitched end-game when played in NTSC mode. It was this glitch that required the TAS to be completed in PAL settings.
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CasualPokePlayer wrote:
DrD2k9 wrote:
I'm getting a desync in 1-3 trying to playback the winning run. Is anyone else seeing this?
Specifically: just after saving the victim, I'm guessing the player is supposed to clip north through the wall, but he doesn't.
The movie syncs fine for me. You're using 2.6.2 with the BSNES core right?
Yep correct version of hawk and correct core. Currently testing 2nd place, I'll update this post if it works or not.
EDIT: 2nd place run desynced in 3-4 for me. I found it odd that both would desync. I double checked everything I could think of including: player settings, core, cheats, etc. Nothing seemed out of place. I decided to completely close and re-open bizhawk and try again. After this restart, both runs synced fine. I have no idea what the original issue was that caused the desyncs and I can't find anything different looking at settings/etc. this time around.
TL:DR Though I can't explain why they didn't before, both of the top runs now sync fine on my system.
Congrats to the winners!
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I'm getting a desync in 1-3 trying to playback the winning run. Is anyone else seeing this?
Specifically: just after saving the victim, I'm guessing the player is supposed to clip north through the wall, but he doesn't.
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I briefly skimmed through various pages on the demo site.
I was impressed by the overall speed improvement. Pages loaded dramatically faster than they do from the current site.
I like that access to one's forum profile stuff and private message inbox are directly available from the menu atop the main page.
I like that within a profile, the submission stats now show: Published, Cancelled, and Rejected instead of Accepted, Waiting, and Gruefood.
I expect there will be other features that I will find I like as well, but don't have time to continue looking around now.
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Now that it's actually been determined why 2 player mode is ultimately slower (longer boss fights due to higher boss health) and while refuting these arguments isn't going to magically make a 2p run faster, I'm going to respond to these anyway in order to point out that none of these arguments you provided are legitimate reasons why a 2 player TAS is slower.Technickle wrote:
1. 2nd player is more of a stand-around character and doesn't provide the necessity of having them around.
This argument is frankly not true from a movement standpoint.
Even if the 2nd player does nothing combat wise, he allows for improvements in player positions and earlier scrolling of the screen. If not for the longer boss fights, this improvement alone would be reason enough to allow for faster progression through the stages.
Technickle wrote:
2. The 2nd player doesn't have a combo'ing moveset like Cornelius does and makes it harder to kill enemies and bosses quickly. The 2nd player also would have to wait for the enemies to be on screen or semi on the screen to hit them.
All 5 of the characters special music attacks are capable of hitting off-screen characters once they are spawned.
There are times in the 1p TAS that Cornelius attacks on-screen enemies with attacks other than the special music attack. These other characters being present may allow for attacking such enemies faster than Cornelius can manage.
Regarding combo attacks: Not having as efficient combo options with other characters would matter if they were the only character being played, but they aren't. What other characters may lack in combos, the fact that there is a secondary character present means that he could potentially be positioned to attack the enemy before Cornelius could himself execute the second part of a combo attack. Further the secondary character lacking such combo possibilities is moot; because if Cornelius still can do them (and that's the fastest way to clear the enemies), the secondary character may not ever need to do such a combo attack themselves in a 2p mode.
Technickle wrote:
3. Characters such as Maxwell, Angus, Chester, and Clifford are slow movement-wise, have a slow special move, and are awkward to play as.
The only part of this that is legit is that the special music attacks are slower than Cornelius. But this again is moot as the secondary character may never need to use their music special.
Regarding movement, Maxwell literally has a dash move that zips him to the far side of the screen in the same amount of time it takes Cornelius to take 1 animated step. This alone can get things moving earlier if he is used as the 2nd character. Even if a different character were used, the 2nd player starts further to the right of stage 1 than player 1 does. Thus a slower moving player would only delay things if Cornelius could outrun them by an entire screen in such a way that the slower character would then delay scrolling. This is unlikely due to the frequent forced stops of screen scrolling.
A character being awkward to play is NOT an excuse for not using them in a TAS. You have all the time in the world to work out their movement/control in a TAS setting. While a particular character may be awkward for a human to control, a TAS should still use them if they would allow for more optimal play due to having perfect precision/control in a TAS environment. (Granted, they don't appear to be more optimal; but here I'm mainly refuting the argument against using them because of their being awkward).Technickle wrote:
4. With having the benefit of 1 player, I can control the game easier, the screen with 2 players is awkward because either player 1 or player 2 needs to progress the screen first in order to go further towards the end. Some enemies don't even activate if player 1 goes further ahead of player 2, as player 2 would need to be there to do so, thus making it slower. example: Window Guards
At least in level 1, I could not replicate a situation where player 2 being in front of player 1 prevented enemy spawns/actions in such a way that it made things slower than a 1 player version.
In my testing, zipping Maxwell to the right of Cornelius immediately at the beginning of the game allowed for an earlier attack at the first wave of enemies, and nowhere through the first stage did it appear to delay any other enemy action.
Technickle wrote:
5. While not as 'entertaining' as a two-player run, this run still aims for the fastest completion status. If by some miracle I feel obligated enough to make a 2 player TAS, it won't be the same (for me at least). Yeah, the strategies to kill enemies could be neat, but, it lacks the drive and purpose of being fast rather than: "I can do no special moves and play-around with the enemies for minutes on end".
My original question about a 2 player run was not about entertainment... it was regarding if it would be faster (though it has now been confirmed to be slower due to higher boss health).
Regarding entertainment: to me, watching this game in either 1 or 2 player mode is boring because almost all one effectively sees is Cornelius' character screaming. Boss fights really aren't enough to add much entertainment value.
Still, in claiming that you're going for fastest completion (essentially meaning regardless of entertainment), you've failed to make the only true argument as to why a 2 player TAS is ultimately slower...more boss health.TL:DR None of your arguments attempting to explain why a 2p TAS would be slower actually pan out in a TAS setting, and you failed to note the only true reason that 2 Player mode is ultimately slower.
I'm not trying to be mean/rude with my comments; I'm trying to help you understand how to consider things differently and learn from those with more experience who have tried to help you in the past.
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I had another thought/question.
Did you (Technickle) ever actually test if a 1P or 2P game was ultimately the fastest method?
I know this was brought up with one of your previous submissions of this game. Your response at the time was:
Technickle wrote:
I do agree with you on your point about the 2 players being more interesting than a 1 player scenario. However, I don't want to put myself in a situation where I am not aiming for a 2 player run.
For the purpose of this submission, I only want to compare to a 1 player run if that is acceptable and or allowed in this context.
Under the current site rules as I understand them (recognizing that the rules may be changing due to recent discussions about vault expansion/change): if a 2 Player run would be faster than this submission (which, based on the previous submission's discussion, it likely would be), this submission would need to receive enough positive entertainment response to be published into the moons tier as it wouldn't be eligible for vault publication due to being a sub-optimal method of completing the game.
Given that this submission is sitting at 1 total vote (which is a NO for entertainment), there doesn't seem to be much interest in this game at all. This means it has a significant uphill battle to garner the necessary feedback for moons publication.
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Just a note for Technickle: You may want to consider taking a bit more time to optimize your runs.
Even before this submission, I had already noted the rapid succession of complete game runs posted to userfiles from keeping an eye on the "Updates" channel in discord. Based on the history there, you have uploaded 12 userfiles of this game since June 30 (just over 2 weeks); only one of these was labeled as a WIP, and the rest were apparently complete game runs.
From what Spike's chart shows, there are odd curiosities from version to version in how long any given stage takes, with numerous occurrences where you actually lose time to one of your own previous versions.
From an optimization standpoint, it makes zero sense that you have two instances where you lost time in Level 1 to a previous version of the TAS. It's the first stage of the game; there's frankly no excuse to lose time to a version you've already made unless you can prove that the time lost in that situation results in an even greater time save later on in the game.
This all results in your runs appearing as if you're not utilizing your own best input from previous versions as you create a new version of the TAS, but instead are redoing everything from scratch each time.
You have 11-12 uploads of seemingly complete redoes of game in barely over 2 weeks. While the total game time improves with each version, the inconsistencies and lost time suggest that you're only considering optimization from a total time perspective, and not considering optimization of individual sections/levels of the game.
Ultimately, all this makes it appear as though you're really rushing through these improvement attempts.
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feos wrote:
4. Turn submission polls into a 0-10 scale
5. Change the poll question back to "Should this be published?" and treat poll results according to presence of external goals, which is finally a clear borderline.
Won't whether a not a movie is published still ultimately be determined by the judge (even if allowing for more flexibility based on viewer feedback from the forum/poll)?
I like your idea of condensing all 3 current polls (workbench yes/no/meh, post publication entertainment rating, and post publication tech rating) into a single rating. However, given that "Should this be Published?" doesn't really ask for a rating that fits on a variable scale; perhaps we could instead present viewers of workbench movies with a simple poll that just asks to "Rate This Movie" on the 0-10 rating scale?
Regardless of the poll question another consideration from a rating standpoint would be a 1-5 scale as that is another format many (if not most) users would be familiar with for rating things.
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I firmly stand behind the idea of opening things up and attempting to remove/reduce any negative 'stigma' of the Vault.
I'm all for entertainment in TASes, and I also believe that fastest completion TASes should be just as celebrated as entertaining ones simply for the TASing achievements they are (regardless of their entertainment value).
Eliminating any degree of negative perception--that Vault publications are somehow less important to the TASing community, just because they may be less entertaining--is a worthwhile endeavor.
Edit:
Out of curiosity; how would this affect things like Board Games and Edutainment? Would these titles still be restricted from the site, or would the proposed changes also potentially open publication opportunity for these types of games?
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If this thread is meant to be a place for all TASes that are known to use uninitialized RAM regardless of whether or not they've been console verified yet,
[4257] GB Donkey Kong by DrD2k9 in 54:15.44 qualifies.
If this thread is only meant for TASes that have yet to be console verified, feel free to delete this post (or tell me to delete it).
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I'm in and teaming up with NYMX.
To anyone else who joins us, be forewarned: I may have very limited time to put toward working on this contest, but they are fun enough that I don't want to completely miss out.
Well....it's not a dumpster fire.