Topic by jlun2

Posted: 2/10/2014 4:54 PM

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jlun2

Skilled player (1707)

Joined: 9/17/2009
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Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

feos wrote:

I didn't even say "memory corruption" once. It doesn't matter HOW it's done. But to be a separate branch it must be different enough from the "no game-breaking glitches" run, otherwise they would just obsolete one another. And then we determine HOW it is different and branch it.

Wait, then does that mean this Spongebob movie technically counts as "glitched" simply because the last boss was skipped via OoB thus confusing the game to count as completed? Actually, now that I think about it, that can be totally used as some branch for a similar legit submission on April Fools.

LLCoolDave wrote:

This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.

Posted: 2/10/2014 5:02 PM

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thatguy

Editor

Joined: 11/3/2013
Posts: 506

feos: That's as good a definition of "glitched" as we are going to get. The thing is: where do you draw the line? Here are some examples of ways a game could be completed: Normal gameplay Sequence-breaking the overworld to the point where very little gameplay remains (Super Mario 64) Glitching out of bounds and just walking to the final room (ALTTP) Warping to the final boss and defeating it (Super Metroid) Warping to the room/cutscene after the final boss (Pokemon Yellow) Warping to the credits (Kirby's Adventure) Warping to the post-credits (Super Mario World) No credits/end-game sequences at all (Japenese Super Mario Bros) Now somewhere along the line these movies go from any% to glitched (in terms of your definition of "beating the game without beating the game"), but it is tricky to pinpoint exactly where and the dividing line is somewhat subjective. TL;DR: "Glitched" = "makes game run ending" - all TASes do that anyway, but also "glitched" = "not actually completing game" - well then what exactly is completing the game if it isn't making it run the ending?

Posted: 2/10/2014 5:47 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Warp wrote:

game in time by author or: game "alternative branch" in time by author

And to add to what I said: I think it ought to be possible to have only "alternative branch" TASes, without an official WR (iow. there is no version of the TAS without a branch name in its name.) This would be the case with games for which completion speed is ill-defined or otherwise considered irrelevant.

Posted: 2/10/2014 5:56 PM

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Radiant

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Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
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Warp wrote:

And to add to what I said: I think it ought to be possible to have only "alternative branch" TASes, without an official WR (iow. there is no version of the TAS without a branch name in its name.) This would be the case with games for which completion speed is ill-defined or otherwise considered irrelevant.

Would this be an example of what you mean? [1248] SNES Family Feud "playaround" by Heisanevilgenius in 06:46.71

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Posted: 2/10/2014 5:59 PM

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feos

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Warp, I agree with you in everything, but how do we handle naming broken-game runs and the ones that were previously considered any%? Like, glitched versus any%, by our former branching.

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/10/2014 6:35 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Radiant wrote:

Would this be an example of what you mean? [1248] SNES Family Feud "playaround" by Heisanevilgenius in 06:46.71

Yeah. It could have a branch name like "playaround" (to indicate that it's not a speed record.)

feos wrote:

Warp, I agree with you in everything, but how do we handle naming broken-game runs and the ones that were previously considered any%? Like, glitched versus any%, by our former branching.

Could you be a bit more specific about what you mean? The fastest completion gets no branch name, and the other an appropriate name that distinguishes it from the fastest one (ie. describes in one or a few words why it's different from the fastest one.) If you want a better opinion, please give a concrete example.

Posted: 2/10/2014 6:46 PM

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thatguy

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Joined: 11/3/2013
Posts: 506

Warp wrote:

Could you be a bit more specific about what you mean? The fastest completion gets no branch name, and the other an appropriate name that distinguishes it from the fastest one (ie. describes in one or a few words why it's different from the fastest one.) If you want a better opinion, please give a concrete example.

Er... how is this different from what we have at the moment? This sounds like a great idea in theory, and most people agree on this. The problem is that some of the "less glitched" runs ended up having horrible names. Perhaps just "less glitched", although it sounded bad at the time, should have remained, rather than some of the stupidly pedantic branch names that we ended up with (and yes, I take responsibility for my part in that operation, it seemed like a good idea at the time). Ideally we need a phrase that implies "doesn't tear the game a new one, but not necessarily glitchless". The SDA phrase "no large skips" is growing on me, although the term "large skip" would have to be defined on an ad-hoc, game-by-game basis.

Posted: 2/10/2014 7:24 PM

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Radiant

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Joined: 8/29/2011
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Warp wrote:

Yeah. It could have a branch name like "playaround" (to indicate that it's not a speed record.) ... The fastest completion gets no branch name, and the other an appropriate name that distinguishes it from the fastest one (ie. describes in one or a few words why it's different from the fastest one.) If you want a better opinion, please give a concrete example.

Good, I agree with that.

thatguy wrote:

This sounds like a great idea in theory, and most people agree on this. The problem is that some of the "less glitched" runs ended up having horrible names.

I think the system works in general, but as you say there are a few runs that need discussion to get a less awkward name (on estimate, about a dozen or so out of the thousand+ runs on the site). This is probably best decided on a case-by-case basis, as with e.g. the recent Hyper Princess Pitch run.

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Posted: 2/10/2014 7:49 PM

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feos

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Will read posts later... Suddenly I realized sometimes we would NEED to call out the glitch used to break the game. Let's say for Super Metroid someone makes a run that brings the game to end without X-Ray use, and without all the usual sequence of running through rooms and getting into the ship. And it would be awesome and people like it separately, and want to leave X-Ray run published. Then the currently fastest SM run would need the label "X-Ray glitch", and the new one would be, say "ending glitch". Which may then be lovely applied to Kirby, SMW, SMW2, Battletoads, Contra 3. They all just skip to ending. This is a great description of how the game is broken. And it's the most consistent one would get when abstracting something common from all of them. Then some runs may be "savestate glitch", "box glitch", "whatever glitch". And then, any% would be whatever run avoids these glitches, having no branch and staying clear. Any% as in "no game-breaking glitches". Which glitches? The ones used "here" and "here". Why I'm so stuck to having any% separate from glitched? I don't think it's ideal decision. But from all alternatives I see, it's the least evil. Because otherwise you would need to list the unused game-breaking glitches in all the slower branches. So in super metroid it would be:

""
"no X-Ray glitch"
"100%, no X-Ray glitch"
"RBO, no X-Ray glitch"
"..., no X-Ray glitch"

as amaurea said. No one yet resolved this problem. Take whatever game with such branch and it bumps the same problem. Contra 3 would be:

""
"no warp glitch"
"pacifist, no warp glitch"

Battletoads:

""
"2p warpless, no ending glitch"
"1p warpless, no ending glitch"
"2p warps, no ending glitch"

As I said, not using foo-glitch is not unique in each of the branches, it's common. So it makes more sense to specify what they all avoid in the run that does use it.

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/10/2014 8:24 PM

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CoolKirby

Editor, Experienced player (608)

Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012

I really like Warp's idea of having a branch name for any run that isn't any%, including the "best ending" runs. If everyone agrees to this, I would be willing to change branch names where necessary.

feos wrote:

Contra 3 would be:
""
"no warp glitch"
"pacifist, no warp glitch"

Just so you know, the warp glitch in Contra 3 can't be done in a pacifist run, which is why "no warp glitch" was removed from that one. I know what you meant though. By the way, there are only two movies on this site out of almost 2500 that spell out two specific glitches avoided, so it really isn't a big problem as people make it out to be. Dozens of other formerly-any% runs were able to be grouped under an all-encompassing branch name, like SMW "11 exits" and Battletoads "no memory corruption". That Yoshi's Island run does need a better branch name though. How does "all bosses" sound? It wouldn't cause a problem for the 100% run because it's implicit that a 100% run would have to visit and complete all of the boss stages.

Posted: 2/10/2014 10:16 PM

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Potato_Stomper

Joined: 7/29/2009
Posts: 55

I like clear branch names, but I think you are overdoing it. If a regular guy, who is not yet aware of a specific game's glitches, wants to watch a run, he will not know what "x-ray glitch", "no L+R" or "no null egg glitch" means. He will have a basic idea what "warpless" means however. He can then go the warpless run's page and see the precise definition there. Listing every single glitch avoided is also a bad idea in case a new gamebreaking glitch gets discovered. It's clear why a warpless run with slightly different rules can obsolete another warpless run, but not why "no A glitch, no B glitch, no C glitch" can obsolete "no A glitch".

Posted: 2/10/2014 10:23 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

I'd say that if there is no better name for the branch, and there's only one noteworthy glitch that's being avoided in said branch, then use "no (that glitch)", but if there's a bunch of glitches being avoided, just use "low-glitch" and list the glitches in the movie's description box.

Posted: 2/10/2014 11:30 PM

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amaurea

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Joined: 2/19/2007
Posts: 424
Location: UK

CoolKirby wrote:

By the way, there are only two movies on this site out of almost 2500 that spell out two specific glitches avoided, so it really isn't a big problem as people make it out to be.

The point isn't really that this is a very common or big problem. The point is that it is

Not future-proof: Once new glitches are discovered that let you achieve the same thing, the categories need renaming.
Unclear to non-experts: As Potato Stomper mentioned, the categories are not as easy to interpret for casual viewers as our previous system.
Its objectivity is only skin-deep: Since the glitches to be avoided are listed out explicitly, the category names will need to be updated when new glitches are discovered, as mentioned above. This must be done by judges and the community when a TAS using a new glitch is submitted. This judgement will be just as subjective and case-by-case as the judgement whether to put something in a "glitched" or "less glitched" category.

That said, I think it is valuable to have a list of the glitches avoided in a non-glitched TAS somewhere, with the understanding that that list is necessarily incomplete and subject to future changes. But I don't think it belongs in the category name. Here are the schemes we have discussed in my order of preference.

any% glitched, any%, 100% glitched, 100%, pacifist, RBO, ...
any%, any% less glitched, 100%, 100% less glitched, pacifist less glitched, RBO less glitched, ...
any%, any% no foo glitch, 100%, 100% no foo glitch, pacifist no foo glitch, RBO no foo glitch, ...

I included "100% glitched" in the list, but to my knowledge we have never had any runs of this category. I think the only category where we have had "glitched" TASes has been any%, which is why it makes sense to only mention it there instead of mentioning "less glitched" or "no foo glitch" in every other category. Radiant disputed this, but we did not reach an agreement because we didn't have enough detailed knowledge about the individual games we used as examples. Perhaps we should have a poll about these alternatives at some point?

Posted: 2/10/2014 11:35 PM

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Radiant

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amaurea wrote:

[*]Not future-proof: Once new glitches are discovered that let you achieve the same thing, the categories need renaming.

This keeps being brought up but it's not actually true, as discussed earlier in the thread.

[*]Unclear to non-experts: As Potato Stomper mentioned, the categories are not as easy to interpret for casual viewers as our previous system.

It strikes me that a term like "warpless" or "walkathon" is much clearer to a non-expert than "glitched" (which, to the non-expert simply means "uses a glitch"). For that matter, this thread proves that even experts cannot reach agreement on what "glitched" is supposed to mean, so it's quite possibly the most unclear tag mentioned in this thead. Also, this bears repeating, emphasis mine

CoolKirby wrote:

By the way, there are only two movies on this site out of almost 2500 that spell out two specific glitches avoided, so it really isn't a big problem as people make it out to be.

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Posted: 2/11/2014 2:31 PM

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ais523

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Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022

100% glitched is normally only good for April Fools' submissions; nobody wants to see you glitch the percentage counter to read "100%". I guess there are some games where the fastest 100% route uses large-skip glitches (such as DK64); perhaps those would count. The problem is that the bit that's skipped, you eventually have to go back and do anyway.

Posted: 2/11/2014 2:52 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1237)

Joined: 4/17/2010
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CoolKirby wrote:

Just so you know, the warp glitch in Contra 3 can't be done in a pacifist run, which is why "no warp glitch" was removed from that one. I know what you meant though.

Man, I'm not telling you something current is done wrong (it doesn't matter). I'm asking you how to label properly and consistently all the branches we have on our site. I provided enough examples, you only addressed impossibility to skip to ending in pacifist. I REALLY can't understand the secret point: if one uses X in the fastest branch, and writes in the second fastest branch that it was avoided, why not tell that it's avoided in all the rest runs where it's avoided? Why only pick up certain ones for that? Just explain, with examples. Imagine I'm dumb and make a fool-proof explanation.

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/13/2014 2:39 PM

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feos

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So? The reason of sudden silence is that it's so secret, so unexplainable, or so obvious? It's also strange how users are expected to understand the "clear" system if a judge and a publisher can't...

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/13/2014 10:49 PM

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jlun2

Skilled player (1707)

Joined: 9/17/2009
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feos wrote:

So? The reason of sudden silence is that it's so secret, so unexplainable, or so obvious? It's also strange how users are expected to understand the "clear" system if a judge and a publisher can't...

Well, I'm not even sure how to respond, since I've already mentioned that I don't understand (nor agree) with the use of "glitched", yet you (and probably some other people) seem to like doing this:

Then some runs may be "savestate glitch", "box glitch", "whatever glitch". And then, any% would be whatever run avoids these glitches, having no branch and staying clear. Any% as in "no game-breaking glitches". Which glitches? The ones used "here" and "here". Why I'm so stuck to having any% separate from glitched? I don't think it's ideal decision. But from all alternatives I see, it's the least evil. Because otherwise you would need to list the unused game-breaking glitches in all the slower branches.

LLCoolDave wrote:

This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.

Posted: 2/14/2014 4:12 AM

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feos

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I mean, this question:

feos wrote:

I REALLY can't understand the secret point: if one uses X in the fastest branch, and writes in the second fastest branch that it was avoided, why not tell that it's avoided in all the rest runs where it's avoided? Why only pick up certain ones for that? Just explain, with examples. Imagine I'm dumb and make a fool-proof explanation.

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/17/2014 12:12 PM

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Radiant

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Joined: 8/29/2011
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We appear to have general agreement for what Warp wrote earlier, i.e.

Warp wrote:

I think it would a good idea to name publications in a consistent manner. In other words, either: game in time by author or: game "alternative branch" in time by author The first form would indicate the "official world record" version, ie. the fastest completion of the game by any means, within the rules of the site. The second form would be any other TAS of the same game. The branch name in quotation marks always uniquely and unambiguously defines that particular branch (such as "100%", etc.) and its presence indicates that it's not the "default" WR. (It wouldn't be impossible for an alternate branch to be actually faster than the "official WR". It just means that it uses something that disqualifies it from being the official WR, eg. starting from a savestate.) It ought to be possible to have only "alternative branch" TASes, without an official WR (iow. there is no version of the TAS without a branch name in its name.) This would be the case with games for which completion speed is ill-defined or otherwise considered irrelevant. Descriptive tags ought to be limited to the movie classes.

As I recall, there were only a handful of movies on the site that don't already fit this schema. Shall we proceed with picking a good name for these?

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Posted: 2/17/2014 1:57 PM

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feos

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You have really weird conception of "agreement".

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/17/2014 2:28 PM

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Radiant

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Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
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Feos, you literally said just a few days ago that you also agree. I really don't understand any more what (if anything) you have a problem with here.

feos wrote:

Warp, I agree with you in everything

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Posted: 2/17/2014 2:45 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1237)

Joined: 4/17/2010
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You might have missed my last question I asked a few times. It's not for the sake of argument, I am trying to figure out some logics that can be written on Wiki as a general ruling on naming branches, for judges and publishers, and TASers. And when it comes to cases where there are runs skipping to end or stuff like that, I'm not satisfied with "implying it doesn't skip to ending". Okay Contra 3 pacifist technically can't skip to ending. Warpless Battletoads technically can, but then it won't be warpless (full) run. But I can make a new warped run with 1 player, and it would require the label "no memory corruption, 1p, warps", and the other would be "no memory corruption, 2p, warps", to highlight all the difference from the rest. "Implying" warps could work (all 3 fastest movies woud use them), but implying "no memory corruption" wouldn't. 2 avoid it, 1 uses. Also, "there are only 2 branches, why bother?" won't help with ruling set up for future, because anytime there may be a submission of a different route, moon-worthy. I don't want to need to relabel the existing 2 branches to take into account the third one. I want the existing 2 already be labeled well enough. I may come up with the list of current movies with more than 1 branch to help figuring this out. Then, I propose more general names for game-breaking glitches that are used/avoided. Many games glitch straight to ending, so why not call it "ending glitch", or "glitched ending"? If it's avoided, "no ending glitch" (well that sounds like there's a glitch that kills the very ending), or "no glitched ending" (which sounds ok to me, ending isn't glitched). For other games, with "special" kinds of glitches, it would still make sense to keep calling it exclusively ("no x-ray glitch").

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 2/17/2014 3:30 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

So the problem is not the naming scheme (ie. the unnamed branch is the official WR, named branches are everything else), but how to name the named branches in a way that doesn't cause future conflicts?

Posted: 2/17/2014 3:33 PM

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feos

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Joined: 4/17/2010
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Yes, "doesn't cause future conflicts", as well as "is generally consistent and understandable", and "descriptive enough, while still tight".

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.