I've noticed this label a while ago, but recently decided to see what it was all about. And apparently there's no consistency to it at all. I don't know who manages the label, but so far it's been done... poorly, to say the least.
The description says: "These include massive improvements, brand new routes, new glitches, significantly improved entertainment throughout or something else fresh and surprising. [...] The intent of this distinction is to inform viewers of a significant change and not just minor optimizations. [...] When seeing this label on a movie, viewers who saw the prior movie know there is fresh play available."
The terms used in the description are incredibly vague and broad enough to be applied to most improvements on the site.
— How minor must something be to be considered minor?
— Is a single change in gameplay significant? How do you tell what is and what isn't significant?
— Do small isolated portions of altered gameplay interspersed between long stretches of identical one constitute freshness?
— How many improvements out there don't use something out of "a brand new route, new glitches, significantly improved entertainment throughout or something else fresh and surprising"?
— Is the label supposed to help people notice the significance that could otherwise be missed, or just state the obvious?
Apparently the label manager(s) can't decide! For some reason the list of currently published notable improvements contains only 36 movies (21 more in the obsolete list), and the choice is... confusing. They're mostly games from popular franchises: Mario, Mega Man, Sonic, Zelda, and, surprisingly, a whole bunch of RPGs. Let's look at the most ridiculous entries:
— [1946] SNES EarthBound "check glitch" by pirohiko, MUGG in 09:01.77, [1752] GB Final Fantasy Adventure "warp glitch" by Touch-me in 17:41.33, [2080] N64 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time by SwordlessLink in 22:50.27 and others like this: thanks for telling us these were significant, because we absolutely couldn't tell otherwise. It's not like the previous time was suddenly cut in three or anything.
— [1312] Genesis Shining Force by DarkKobold in 1:59:59.05. About a dozen changed battles surely motivate the viewer to watch the rest of the two hours the previous movie already featured. Obviously only the direst fans would do that anyway. Misappropriation at its finest.
— [1715] NES Super Mario Bros. "warps" by HappyLee in 04:57.31. I bet any person can instantly tell where the new frame was gained, right? Including one-frame improvements throws any legitimacy of the description out the window instantly.
— [794] N64 Super Mario 64 "16 stars" by Rikku in 15:24.08. "This 10-second improvement is half made of no saving and a different overworld route, and half of just framewise optimizations". So basically the exact stuff that puts off people who don't watch every improvement unless it's significant, right? Likewise with [748] N64 Super Mario 64 "16 stars" by Rikku in 15:33.77. The label manager just loves Mario.
— [1678] GBC Pokémon: Yellow Version "save glitch" by p4wn3r in 01:36.95. At this point I stop any attempts to comprehend any logic behind "notability".
— [304] SNES Super Mario World "all 96 exits" by VIPer7 in 1:23:38.37. This isn't even an improvement...
Tl;dr: the label manager(s) is/are clearly confused, and it makes the label itself confusing and pointless. Solution: fix it or get rid of it.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
A few years ago there was an almost complete revision of many of the tags, such as "heavy luck manipulation" being applied only to those runs that really do heavy luck manipulation, and so on.
Was this tag added before or after that? It sounds like it should be heavily revised as well.
It's fairly recent, 2012 I believe? The revision you're talking about was way earlier.
If this label is to be used, the current list should be nuked, then some (rough) guidelines established, then a (rough) list assembled collectively by editors, like what was done during the category revision. Right now it seems like only one or two persons are doing it, and they don't have a clue what they're doing. With according results.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
With this example, you've shown to utterly miss the point of the flag. The description is correct and not vague (is it always labeled on each movie properly is another matter).
If you'd compare that movie with the previous, much more was changed than just a single frame. You would have no idea of knowing it by seeing the time alone.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
With this example, you've shown to utterly miss the point of the flag. [...] If you'd compare that movie with the previous, much more was changed than just a single frame. You would have no idea of knowing it by seeing the time alone.
You seem to be knowledgeable about the "point of the flag", so I'd like you to please explain that and the "much more" in the SMB run that constitutes notability according to the description. Maybe it makes sense, maybe it doesn't. Right now I wouldn't know because the description is too broad and vague.
Nach wrote:
The description is correct and not vague.
...Right. Nah, I should just stop taking you seriously. :)
Ilari wrote:
IIRC, "notable improvement" was the other half of "notable publication", after the "first platform" was split away.
"Notable publication" was the single most arbitrary flag issued on the site. If there can be some meaningful logic behind improvement notability—indeed, if only because some people (myself included) often skip minor improvements to avoid wasting time—what decides the notability of publications in general is basically politics and personal preferences. Good thing it's gone.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
moozooh wrote:
Nach wrote:
With this example, you've shown to utterly miss the point of the flag. [...] If you'd compare that movie with the previous, much more was changed than just a single frame. You would have no idea of knowing it by seeing the time alone.
You seem to be knowledgeable about the "point of the flag", so I'd like you to please explain that and the "much more" in the SMB run that constitutes notability according to the description. Maybe it makes sense, maybe it doesn't. Right now I wouldn't know because the description is too broad and vague.
These movies are notable improvements over their predecessors. These include massive improvements, brand new routes, new glitches, significantly improved entertainment throughout or something else fresh and surprising.
The intent of this distinction is to inform viewers of a significant change and not just minor optimizations. A significant distinction is not always obvious from looking at the movie times. When seeing this label on a movie, viewers who saw the prior movie know there is fresh play available. This will attract those who don't watch improvements that are merely frame optimizations.
Edit:
In case it wasn't obvious, I indicated the portions that best apply to the movie in question. You might want to see the last posts in its discussion thread as well. They remarked on how notable the improvement to the run is other than just saving a frame.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
For me, a 1 frame improvement for one of the most overtased games is quite notable.
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
feos wrote:
For me, a 1 frame improvement for one of the most overtased games is quite notable.
Which is NOT the point of a notable improvement.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
These movies are notable improvements over their predecessors. These include massive improvements, brand new routes, new glitches, significantly improved entertainment throughout or something else fresh and surprising.
The intent of this distinction is to inform viewers of a significant change and not just minor optimizations. A significant distinction is not always obvious from looking at the movie times. When seeing this label on a movie, viewers who saw the prior movie know there is fresh play available. This will attract those who don't watch improvements that are merely frame optimizations.
Edit:
In case it wasn't obvious, I indicated the portions that best apply to the movie in question. You might want to see the last posts in its discussion thread as well. They remarked on how notable the improvement to the run is other than just saving a frame.
Nach, I'm pretty sure I asked you to explain how the SMB movie is notable improvement. What I expected you to do was telling me how the new/different things in it corresponded to the description. Instead, you just stated it was a notable improvement and quoted the description. Lazy, unsatisfactory rhetorics like this disappoint me.
For the record, I specifically watched the comparison video linked in the submission post. The difference between two versions is very subtle, and basically the only people who have spoken for improvements in entertainment are SMB TASers/fan(boy)s who watch every improvement anyway. For the rest, it's "he made a bit different stylistic decisions", which happens in virtually every improvement out there. But something would be wrong if SMB didn't get special treatment for the most mundane stuff, I guess.
Again, who is the intended audience for this flag? Is it general audience who doesn't even see nuances so miniscule? Is it experienced community members who know what to expect of the TAS and need to be pointed towards something surprising specifically? Is it the author, whom we tell in this way that we distinctly recognize his contribution? I've yet to see an answer.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
moozooh wrote:
Nach, I'm pretty sure I asked you to explain how the SMB movie is notable improvement. What I expected you to do was telling me how the new/different things in it corresponded to the description. Instead, you just stated it was a notable improvement and quoted the description. Lazy, unsatisfactory rhetorics like this disappoint me.
Perhaps you should read the discussion thread I linked to then, as the posts there explained what it did to achieve the highlighted portions of the description.
moozooh wrote:
For the record, I specifically watched the comparison video linked in the submission post. The difference between two versions is very subtle, and basically the only people who have spoken for improvements in entertainment are SMB TASers/fan(boy)s who watch every improvement anyway.
I don't watch every mere frame improvement, and I found the notable improvement flag on that run to be more striking than on other runs, as did many people in the thread, and I doubt every last one of them is a frame fanatic.
The changes were hardly subtle. There is a drastic difference in a run which just tries to achieve a record and a run which tries to show off as much as possible in the process.
Previous runs lacked cohesion in where they jumped, which on screen bonuses they collected, and so on. Many of them were done just for the heck of it.
In this run, the actual movements seem much more planned out, and there is a reason behind many of the different things done on screen, and can be appreciated by the end viewer.
moozooh wrote:
For the rest, it's "he made a bit different stylistic decisions", which happens in virtually every improvement out there. But something would be wrong if SMB didn't get special treatment for the most mundane stuff, I guess.
The decisions here weren't just a matter of style differences, they were the difference between random luck and precise planning, and that is the exact line between speedruns and TASs. I found previous SMB runs to be boring and technically non-impressive, the last one was head and shoulders above every run before it.
If you want to brush aside everything done as mere unimportant style, and the more precise TASing as something for Mario fanatics, then that is your choice. You're free to ignore the notable improvement flag.
moozooh wrote:
Again, who is the intended audience for this flag? Is it general audience who doesn't even see nuances so miniscule? Is it experienced community members who know what to expect of the TAS and need to be pointed towards something surprising specifically? Is it the author, whom we tell in this way that we distinctly recognize his contribution? I've yet to see an answer.
The flag was created for audience members who don't want to see the same movie over and over again with barely any changes made to it (think percentage of change). The flag indicates notable improvements throughout the run, such as changes of route and changes to the noticeable entertainment and precision shown.
As an example, Super Metroid, the first few minutes and the last few would basically be the same for every run. However, the bulk of the run in between can change drastically. Someone may end up submitting a run which is only a frame faster than the previous, but the run itself will take entirely new routes, and use different items, and even in areas they both cover, they're handled quite a bit differently. The time alone would not alert the audience that this change was notable, while the flag will.
And conversely, someone can submit a Super Metroid run which is a couple of frames faster than a previous run, where a bunch of rooms saved frames here and there, and to the untrained eye, not a single difference will stand out.
To put it differently, for a movie where most people would say they're watching the same movie again, it would not get the notable improvement flag.
Edit:
To highlight an example of non-notable stylistic changes, it would be where one decided to make Mario run across a stretch of area facing left instead of right.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I'm not sure if it is really a good idea to have so many labels on the publication page, it starts to get pretty confusing if some movies have 4 labels at once.
if we keep this label up, we should probably revise the list a bit. It indeed seems rather randomly chosen, for example did both SM64 120 stars and Majora's Mask not get this label, although they definitely fit into the definition mentioned early in this thread.
If it is really only meant to show the visitor, that a new run, which he might not regard as very special, is worth worth watching then it makes sense to list stuff like SMB1, but why's Ocarina of Time Any% on the list then? That category was more than halved, so there would be no need for such a label in order to bring attention to the run.
If this is the case, neither MM nor SM64 should get that label.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell)
Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Oooh, the notable improvement debate. I started one a couple years ago! It dies out unexpectedly quickly without satisfying results, but most of my points from that time still seem to stand. (I was so harsh back then, wow.)
I maintain my opinion that the guidelines for notability should be reviewed (they're still extremely inconsistent), the flag itself issued/revoked correspondingly, and I find it confusing that the list of people in charge of that flag is still closed to all but the core staff. Neither the privileges page nor the roles page ever mention it. If this is simply up to a publisher then it's even more baffling that we have extremely comprehensive guidelines for assigning mostly self-explanatory movie classes but not for something as vague and subjective as notability.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
So moozooh linked this thread after the topic was brought up in another forum (http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6606&start=83) - it appears this debate was never resolved.
I can't even find the Movie Tags page on the wiki. Shouldn't it be made more visible?
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.
Perhaps some (non-strict, flexible) rules of thumb could be outlined, to aid in deciding whether a run deserves the "notable improvement" tag or not?
Something like the run meeting one or more of these:
- The run is at least 10% shorter than the previous version.
- It uses new notable glitches or techniques that are very visible.
- It uses a drastically different route.
- It may be of great interest to the community, or to the fans of the game.
Perhaps some (non-strict, flexible) rules of thumb could be outlined, to aid in deciding whether a run deserves the "notable improvement" tag or not?
Something like the run meeting one or more of these:
- The run is at least 10% shorter than the previous version.
- It uses new notable glitches or techniques that are very visible.
- It uses a drastically different route.
- It may be of great interest to the community, or to the fans of the game.
I'm not a fan of the fourth criterion (every TAS of a game is of interest to that game's speedrunning community), and the the first criterion is pretty arbitrary (why 10%?), though I agree the time save should certainly be a factor. The other two are pretty much what I think of as a notable improvement.
In particular, I think "notable improvement" should be a tag that says to the audience: "don't worry if you watched the previous version, this is different enough to be worth watching". This will normally be because a significantly different route is used, often due to the discovery of new sequence breaks; it might occasionally be because a movement optimisation was discovered that, when applied throughout the run, saves a lot of time; sometimes it might be because entertainment during autoscrollers and other downtime is improved.
Another thought - when a game-breaking glitch is discovered that splits the game into two categories, should the first run in the "skip to the end" category be considered a notable improvement? It fits the criteria but is not technically an improvement, but rather a run in a new category.
A few suggestions how to resolve situation:
1)For all new improvements which will be accepted in future: Judge must clearly write in his decision one of two phrases - "this improvement is notable" or "this improvement is not notable".
So problem with unorganized classification of notable improvements at least for future runs will disappear.
2)Make proper classification for all old movies is a lot harder, but with using collective work it can be done:
I think worth to create new thread, similar to Special stars and call it "Notable improvements".
In this thread every tasvideos member will be able to propose to add or to remove this tag for particular movies.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell)
Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Archanfel's #2 would need a flag guy. And a page of guidelines. Which could be used by publishers/vested editors already, once it exists.
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.
I'm not a fan of the fourth criterion (every TAS of a game is of interest to that game's speedrunning community)
It's not a question of whether the TAS would be deemed interesting, but whether the improvement would be deemed interesting compared to the previous one.
Some games, and TAS improvements to them, garner more interest from the wider community than others.
and the the first criterion is pretty arbitrary (why 10%?)
Because it's a nice round number that's easy to remember.
But seriously, though, it's to make it easier to make a decision on whether to grant the tag or not. It could be like "if the new TAS is at least 10% shorter than what it's replacing, it gets the tag by default unless there's a good reason not to." And likewise: "If the improvement is less than 10% shorter than what's replacing, and there's nothing else that makes it notable, then it does not get the tag by default, unless there's a good reason to."
Just an idea. When guidelines are clear, it makes people's jobs easier.
First of all I think we should decide once and for all whether this flag is supposed to state the obvious ("the time has been cut in half, must be notable!") or the otherwise ("this may not look very significant at all, but it actually is!"). The two goals would require fulfillment of quite different criteria, and even more consideration must be taken if we're to satisfy both goals at once.
thatguy wrote:
I'm not a fan of the fourth criterion (every TAS of a game is of interest to that game's speedrunning community), and the the first criterion is pretty arbitrary (why 10%?), though I agree the time save should certainly be a factor. The other two are pretty much what I think of as a notable improvement.
In particular, I think "notable improvement" should be a tag that says to the audience: "don't worry if you watched the previous version, this is different enough to be worth watching". This will normally be because a significantly different route is used, often due to the discovery of new sequence breaks; it might occasionally be because a movement optimisation was discovered that, when applied throughout the run, saves a lot of time; sometimes it might be because entertainment during autoscrollers and other downtime is improved.
I definitely agree with this and want to stress that the criteria shouldn't be too broad or pandering to the fans. For instance, every improvement to SMB any% or Castlevania HoD glitched run, or anything else like that, even by one frame, is going to be "notable" simply because they have been hotly contested and have arrived at the point where no-one has any decent ideas on how to improve them further, so literally anything that ends up faster is surprising and praiseworthy. But to the community at large, and even to a large part of specific game speedrunning communities, an improvement on the scale of <1% would be inconsequential unless it brought some kind of new knowledge with it. Like a new route or a new generic technique that could be used elsewhere to improve other runs, and maybe even runs of different games that share the engine. In this respect a large new skip provided by new knowledge is definitely more notable for me compared to general optimization that amounts to the same amount of time saved.
thatguy wrote:
Another thought - when a game-breaking glitch is discovered that splits the game into two categories, should the first run in the "skip to the end" category be considered a notable improvement? It fits the criteria but is not technically an improvement, but rather a run in a new category.
I think it should. It's notable by the necessity of introducing a new branch to accomodate such an improvement.
I would adapt Warp's and thatguy's ideas as follows. An improvement would be notable if any two or more criteria are fulfilled. (I summed up my reasoning for this at the end of the post.)
1. Improvement uses new generic glitches or techniques that are clear and obvious (i.e. can be spotted in realtime without requiring indepth knowledge of where to look).
Examples:
— attack-backdash in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow;
— flagpole stall in SMB;
— bunnyhopping (6/5) in SMW;
— walljumps in Yoshi's Island;
— quick boss kills in NES Castlevania;
— using Fang's D weapon exploit in Contra: Hard Corps;
— teleflinging in VVVVVV and virtually every kind of zipping in runs where there was none previously;
— probably most (all?) of the memory corruption or ACE-type exploits that work with a generic setup (such as closed lid/open tray-type exploits).
2. Improvement uses new occasional glitches or techniques that skip or significantly shorten portions of gameplay compared to predecessors and are clear and obvious (i.e. skips bosses/levels/paths/items considered necessary, but using methods known only to be applicable in those particular circumstances). As for the significance of the skips, a good check would be to ask yourself whether they altered your perception or enjoyment of the run (for better or for worse); if yes, then the skip is definitely significant enough.
Examples:
— skipping new stars in SM64 any%;
— Arne's Castle Crush zip in DKC2;
— Bomb Torizo skip, Phantoon quick-kill, Draygon quick-kill, etc., in Super Metroid;
— most of the level skips in NES Megaman games;
— most (all?) of the runs that skip bosses or levels where previous ones didn't;
— probably most (all?) of the memory corruption or ACE-type exploits that require a uniquely specific setup (meeting a certain thing at a certain position at a certain time, etc.).
3. Improvement uses a drastically different route and/or item set, etc., that hasn't previously been seen or expected to be seen in the current branch and is clear and obvious (again, a viewer should be able to tell this without indepth knowledge).
Examples:
— the recent Umihara Kawase sightseeing run;
— most of Super Metroid glitched any% runs (all of those that end up over a minute faster at least);
— too lazy to pick, fill this up for me please.
4. Improvement uses more characters controlled at once (i.e. 2P where the previous run was only 1P, 3P/4P instead of 2P, or and so on) or completes an extra game.
Examples:
— The Lost Vikings;
— TMNT;
— The Simpsons;
— Baxter's Adventure of Lolo + Defenders of the Crown;
— pretty much everything of the sort.
These four notability criteria I consider primary, or conceptual. Normally any one of them alone would be enough, but, in my opinion, they also need to significantly contribute to the run itself.
5. Improvement is 10-20% shorter than the previous version. There definitely should be a criterion like this, and 10% seems like the most fitting round figure to start. This would prevent single-frame improvements from being automatically notable unless they fulfill two or more of the other criteria. At the same time I don't think any improvement that is 10-something percent shorter is automatically notable either; it's important to denote the difference between a good improvement and a notable one. There are still runs on the site that were done with outdated tools and whatnot, so generic optimization can save tons of time, there are also runs that save large amounts by singular strategic changes while remaining mostly identical to the predecessors (i.e. those that would beg to comply with criterion #3 but fail to do so). A notable improvement must put something new on the table other than general optimization in my opinion. (I partially amended this notion below, but mostly to save consideration effort, since an improvement larger than 20% is guaranteed to fulfill one of the other criteria as well.)
6. Improvement uses drastically different stylistic choices or speed/entertainment trade-offs. This is mainly intended for playarounds or other entertainment-oriented runs that provide ample freedom of expression.
Examples:
— adelikat's Gradius;
— adelikat & JXQ's River City Ransom playaround;
— various Mortal Kombat TASes.
These two notability criteria I consider secondary, or practical. They would add weight to any of the primary criteria, or they could prove notable together if the improvement didn't carry any new tricks/ideas but still offered a significant increase in both optimization and entertainment value.
But, like I said, that's just the distinction I made for myself while thinking this up, in practice any two of the six should do. I think having two or more criteria fulfilled is the only way to prevent oversaturating the site with this flag. In general this should translate to providing the audience with multiple reasons to watch a run they could have skipped otherwise, so even if they don't care about one of them they would likely care about the other. Regardless of audience's expectations or preferences, such a run should be guaranteed to succeed at being:
— novel or unexpected (reasons 2, 3; generally well-accepted by broad audience);
— more visually impressive or plain entertaining (reasons 1, 4, 6; particularly important for casual audience who doesn't track every improvement);
— more precise and speedy (reasons 1, 5; particularly important for experienced audience who love TASes for their advantage over unassisted runs);
— contain new/interesting ideas or solutions (reasons 1, 2, 3; particularly important for speedrunners/fans of the game who mainly hunt for new tricks and strats and not as much for the stylistics and gimmicks).
(Also note that I only picked examples I was more-or-less sure about, and that the same people may find themselves as parts of different kinds of audience depending on the game in question.)
Additionally, if the improvement satisfies one of the following two criteria it should be granted the flag automatically:
1) improvement is >20% shorter;
2) improvement is so drastically different from the published works that it necessitates creation of a new branch (obviously this wouldn't be applicable to runs that didn't aim to improve on any of the existing branches to begin with, and as such were first of their kind).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Some games, and TAS improvements to them, garner more interest from the wider community than others.
I think it is very significant that rules about this tag must work exactly the same way and for improvement to ultra-mega-popular and famous games series like Mario, Sonic, Metroid or Zelda, and for improvement to the most boring runs from vault.
and the the first criterion is pretty arbitrary (why 10%?)
Not sure that 10%, 13,14159%, 20%, or any other fixed number can be good criteria.
Would be a lot better to formulate more flexible definitions, independent of frame-count. Look like moozooh in previous post made a pretty good startpoint for formulate such definitions.
Agreed with all his points, except #6.
moozooh wrote:
6. Improvement uses drastically different stylistic choices or speed/entertainment trade-offs. This is mainly intended for playarounds or other entertainment-oriented runs that provide ample freedom of expression.
Notable changes is not the same as notable improvement. It would be wrong to use this tier for all MK tases and for all other playarounds.
Also refinement about point #1:
moozooh wrote:
1. Improvement uses new generic glitches or techniques that are clear and obvious (i.e. can be spotted in realtime without requiring indepth knowledge of where to look).
In cases if benefit of using new tricks/techniques or glitches is very small - it is not notable improvement.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell)
Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Notable improvement tag. It not used properly.
Sometimes improvements are not so notable, nothing outstanding, just better general optimisation, but movies can have this tag.
[2095] DS Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin by mtbRc in 04:18.65
[2853] SNES Demon's Crest "100%" by The Brookman in 35:04.68
[1958] GBA Sonic Advance 2 by Mukki in 18:01.78
[2414] NES Ufouria: The Saga by Aglar in 23:52.60
Another story is absurdly heavy mis-used of tag at this movie:
[1715] NES Super Mario Bros. "warps" by HappyLee in 04:57.31
No matter that this game is infinitely popular and deeply optimised - one single frame is still one single frame, such improvement can not be called "notable".
Sometimes improvements are notable, but tag is not used:
[2973] Genesis Phantasy Star II "warp glitch" by Jiseed in 07:39.46
[2934] NES Super Aladdin by arandomgameTASer in 05:23.37
[2936] NES Super Turrican by Alyosha in 08:36.39
[2786] NES Kid Icarus by Randil, Alyosha in 21:05.75
...
and ect.
There are dozens of other examples.
Such unorganized and chaotic using or not using this tag make it nearly meaningless.
Take attantion that for old improvements before 2011 year situaltion is even more desolate, for old movies this tag almost was not retrospectively applied at all. Why not? I think tag should cover all movies on site, not only recently published.
For example history of publications for Comix Zone (in case if tag correctly cover all movies) should look like approximately like this:
