In this movie i try to improve previous run by zyr2288. Using new strategies, reducing lag frames, optimising some boss fights allowed me to save 147 frames.
Level 2, reducing amount of lag frames in the "laggy" room, faster boss fight.
Level 3, using Soig's pacifist root (more double jumps), faster boss fight.
Level 4, removing lag frames, faster boss fight.
Level 6, having better global timer and using pause to control lazers.
Level 7, taking B (invincibility) allows to take a faster path.
feos: Updated the movie file author and removed the hard reset input from the first frame. Movie itself remained the same.
feos: I compared everything closely and even though the previous submission's movie file was initially imported, all the input is original and vastly different. I noticed tiny trade-offs that led to bigger improvements, and overall this movie shows significant optimization effort, every level has been improved. Great job, accepting to obsolete [1783] NES Contra (Japan) "2 players" by zyr2288 in 08:51.73.
Note about future attempts to obsolete this movie: Make use of this WIP that is 5 frames faster in Level 1 than this submission.
feos: Sorry for the delay, but now this movie can't be published, because an improvement has been submitted, and this record has been beaten. So I have to reject it in favor of the new movie.
Hi alex_ik, and welcome to TASVideos.
I see that you had recently submitted a movie that you quickly deleted because you had a faster movie to post instead. just so you know you did not have to cancel that movie, you can simply ask staff to replace the submission file with the new one and there would be no issues.
anyway I had previously watched your last movie and I will give it a yes vote. great job improving an older movie like Contra.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Oh hey, there we go.
I keep being impressed how old movies for games such as Contra are still being improved over and over again. Great work on the run, yes vote!
Hi alex_ik, and welcome to TASVideos.
I see that you had recently submitted a movie that you quickly deleted because you had a faster movie to post instead. just so you know you did not have to cancel that movie, you can simply ask staff to replace the submission file with the new one and there would be no issues.
anyway I had previously watched your last movie and I will give it a yes vote. great job improving an older movie like Contra.
I forgot to cut off frames after last input. Thank you for advice.
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6439
Location: The land down under.
Just a question. Since you do bring it up in your submission text.
FCEUX brings this up:
comment author by zyr2288
Is this TAS combing Soig's input at level 3 to zyr's all round and you're cleaning it all up meaning that the authors are yourself, zyr and Soig?
---
Great job mashing up the input if that's the case and for a newcomer it's well done.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
Just a question. Since you do bring it up in your submission text.
FCEUX brings this up:
comment author by zyr2288
Is this TAS combing Soig's input at level 3 to zyr's all round and you're cleaning it all up meaning that the authors are yourself, zyr and Soig?
---
Great job mashing up the input if that's the case and for a newcomer it's well done.
If by cleaning you mean removing lag frames it's not the case.
Soig's lvl3 jumping root saves 12 frames. Removing lag frames saved me 17 frames. Overall run improved by 147 frames. So it's not only that.
Sometimes I used zyr's branches if i can't find faster solution and anything else would be slower. But, I do not mind if there will be three authors.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11477
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
We don't require adding other people as authors, if you had to use their input just because it's the fastest. There's no automatic authorship for optimal strategies. Only if you copy a huge part of their movie and add a bit of your input here and there, then it might require co-authorship. Or if you copied their artistic choices. But if there's no other way to make it faster, this fastest input can be reused freely.
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.
Great run. Yes vote.
About the co-authorship, I agree with feos and I guess copying an entier movie from and modify few parts doesn't make it belongs to that runner who copied that movie, but in the other hand, copying a part of the movie that is the fastest and optimal won't change/add authors, since logically, there is no way to do better strategy other than that one.
I actually did some copy/paste in some of my old movies, but they were only few parts (usually it was like around 10-15% of time of the pre-published run).
I made a video of this TAS in action. With 1st player controller cam, I didn't think for 2nd player but you still get the run
Link to video
Edit: shit fixed broken link
I like to comment on submissions and look around the site. You have probably seen me before (if you have been around for a while) either on the site, Discord, or any other social media. I recently took up making temporary encodes for new submissions.
Also, I never forget to greet Tompa wherever I find him!
"when resyncing stuff sucks it's called Resuccing" - EZGames69
“If an emulator stops being accepted to the site it should be called an emuLAMEr” - EZGames69
"oh no discord, everything I say will now be logged forever, sdfsdf, time to hide" - Masterjun
"just had to give therapy to a taxi with daddy issues" - psx
Current Projects:
Mother 3 (75% complete)
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 7/25/2015
Posts: 123
Location: Republic of China
welcome come to this side, you is good, and I like this TAS, and amazing for this to improved, no doubt to yes! And I happy you go on many TASs (*^▽^*)
Working on:
[NES] Downtown Special - Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki Dayo Zenin Shuugou! (J) ''2 players 100%''
Plan:
[SNES] Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba (Japan)
_________________
Ｍｙ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ ｉｓ ｐｏｕｒ．
Just saw this submission. Well it's already accepted but does it features my very old improvement? edit: 1st boss 6 frames faster
User movie #8940885000663654
edit2: here's feos' comparison screenshot
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Just saw this submission. Well it's already accepted but does it features my very old improvement? edit: 1st boss 6 frames faster
User movie #8940885000663654
Great lvl1, unfortunately i didn't think of checking wip files to find any new strats and by myself i was able to improve zyr's lvl1 only by 1 frame.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11477
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
MESHUGGAH's Level 1 is 5 frames faster than this submission. And if his input is used there, level 2 quickly desyncs. Which means this known improvement would require redoing most of the movie. Even though I was the one addressing this very WIP back in September, I forgot about it.
Also, recently there was another submission losing a bit of time to an unfinished and abandoned movie. Otherwise, the level of play was quite high and all the other levels were improved.
The goal of the movie rule "A speed-oriented movie must beat all existing records" is not in blindly rejecting anything that's not faster, but in doing due research and optimizing as hard as possible. Yet even then, the Judge Guidelines say:
Avoid meaningless publications. It may turn the audience away when a large improvement is possible, yet each small incremental change with no visible differences in gameplay finds its way onto the main page. If the submitted movie is clearly improvable as well, it should (usually) be rejected.
Small improvements have and will be published, but only in a situation where it seems reasonable that only those small optimizations are left. If larger known improvements aren't implemented, it may be grounds for rejection.
While it is expected that the new run should use all tricks and techniques known at the time, it is not uncommon for new time-saving techniques to be found during the later stages of making a run. Ideally, the run should be restarted or edited to allow for inclusion of these new discoveries, however, if restarting will be especially time consuming, exceptions can be made to this rule per judge's discretion.
Now, even though this improvement was available for long enough and should have been considered, we should look at the situation as a whole. An unfinished abandoned movie is 5 frames faster in the first level than the complete movie, while the complete movie is 150 frames faster than the existing publication, and improves it in every level. I'm convinced the current judgment should stand.
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 also think the judgment is okay and should be published:
- My WIP desyncs on level 2, which means it requires lot of work ("3D" shooting scenes) to resync / add to this movie
- This submission still beats all known records (as in beating the game, not per level)
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11477
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
We should also keep in mind the global timer that controls the lasers.
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: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6439
Location: The land down under.
If you're placing an argument for that you might as well place an argument for this then.
As feos, Mothrayas and myself have pointed out.
The decision won't change and that's final.
It's unfortunate it got bested, but it is what it is.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account.Something better for yourself and also others.
At the time of this runs acceptance, it met all the rules. It's not the author's fault, nor the run's that prevented it from becoming published before the subsequent faster run was submitted. We should not strip the author of the honor of having a run accepted because of publication delay (however long or short that delay may be).
I agree with feos.feos wrote:
Publishing a run that's already been properly obsoleted by a new submission, and claiming "that's the current Contra TAS record", doesn't feel perfectly right either.
But I'm not proposing this run be published as the current Contra TAS record. I'm proposing that it be published as already obsoleted to honor its accomplishment and original official acceptance as an improvement to the current publication. If the newer run must be published first for this to take place, fine. But give credit where it's due.
I also agree with Mothrayas that this situation is unfortunate.Mothrayas wrote:
Not only does it not feel right, it's a blatant violation of the requirement that publications must beat existing records. If the site publishes a movie knowing that a faster movie already exists (and is on the submission queue), it's violating its own rule.
It's unfortunate whenever this happens to an already-accepted submission, but this is not the first time it has happened. No movie is confirmed for publication until it has reached the movie publication list. Accepted movies can still be rejected in light of new evidence.
It's only a violation of our own rules, however, if it's published (as feos said) as the "current Contra TAS record." Again, that's not what I'm proposing.
If 'accepted' movies can still be rejected, then perhaps we should change the judgment of 'accepted' to 'provisionally accepted pending publication' as that's more accurate and less disrespectful toward authors to whom this situation has already occurred and to those whom it will happen to in the future.
Your own statement speaks to how infrequently this occurs.Spikestuff wrote:
This situation has also occurred in the past where the movie that become obsolete sitting ready for Publication was Rejected due to the improvement that showed up on the Submission bench.
(At least twice to my current knowledge, but I can only track down one example of it... should make a page dedicated to this.)
Edit: And now that has been unfortunately done to alex_ik's submission.
Would a page to identify these occurrences be nice? Yes it would. Is it necessary? Perhaps for showing some degree of credit to those who've been unfortunately snubbed in the publication realm.
Still, the proposal to publish 'as obsoleted' would add minimal stress/work to the site staff, maintain honor toward the author, and improve the accuracy of archival for the game's history on the site.
Thank you for your perspective as a member of site staff. I'd like to hear more from other staff members in light of my thoughts.
