Overlord

Overlord is a strategy game that I am not terribly familiar with. For better details and goal information I would suggest reading FatRatKnight's previous submission.
This is a 3 frame improvement over the previous submission, these frames were saved by using a slightly different approach in the last battle. This submission is slower overall because 7 frames were lost to emulator differences (several early game screen transitions took longer, but FatRatKnight's previous submission did sync).

Game objectives

Improvements

  • I didn't check the early game for improvements, but I'm guessing FatRatKnight's submission was pretty optimized.
  • Similarly to the previous submission I wouldn't be surprised if frames could be shaved in the last fight still. I did improve it, but my testing was by no means exhaustive.

Thanks to:

  • FatRatKnight for the original submission.
  • The TASMania team

Screenshots:

271, 659, 2935, 14225, 15750

Memory: Judging
Memory: So from what I can tell, optimization is on point and entertainment is uh... well... not.
The unique thing in regards to this submission is the triviality rules we have in play. A previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality. It was considered too similar to what a human could achieve real time.
Years have passed since that submission. With the Zool submission, we realized some major flaws with how we were treating triviality up to this point. Ultimately... the degree of difference between what is possible real time and tool assisted is too subjective to really feasibly make judgments on. Additionally, I don't see much benefit out of limiting these types of runs. The fact that 3 frames can be saved clearly shows the game can be competitive, even if most the "action" is at the end. I think there's also plenty of value to optimizing a sort of strategy game that is largely controlled via menu, even if the strategy itself is a huge part of it.
At the time of the previous run the culture was a bit different. Despite having a Vault tier where supposedly runs that were less entertaining could go, the culture of the site still clung to subjective ideas of what TASes should be. Created ideas that they must be different enough from RTA or what have you. Yet we have plenty of other runs that resemble RTA very closely as well. I don't blame the previous judge for her decision in the slightest. I personally used to feel similarly until not that long ago. However, I now personally (not representative of other staff opinions) think we as a site need to move on this sort of subjective limiting of what we consider meaningful or otherwise. People have been banging on the door begging for us to open up... and more and more I just find myself agreeing with their reasons. It seems dishonest to me to claim that Vault is about limiting subjectivity when plenty of our rules, especially sorts of triviality rules, past or present are filled with it. Some still feel otherwise but I think one way or another we're moving towards broadening our focus.
There are still additional steps to take ultimately, but with the ones we have taken, I think our focus has broadened enough to accept this game and this run. Given that there is clearly room in this game for optimization, I think it passes our current triviality rules.
Accepting to Vault.
fsvgm777: Processing. Zinfidel is handling the encodes for this one.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6783: FatRatKnight & link_7777's NES Overlord in 03:57.41
CoolHandMike
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Yea, this is pretty boring. The only actions are changing sliders and clicking some buttons besides the couple second long fight scene at the end. Does not help I do not really understand this game either. Also the speedrun.com's times for this game seem really really close to this 32 planets run so not really much tas like stuff here. No.
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
GJTASer2018
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The previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality, and I don't understand how this is supposed to improve anything. Voting No.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
The previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality, and I don't understand how this is supposed to improve anything. Voting No.
It is 3 frames faster, so clearly there is something non-trivial.
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link_7777 wrote:
GJTASer2018 wrote:
The previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality, and I don't understand how this is supposed to improve anything. Voting No.
It is 3 frames faster, so clearly there is something non-trivial.
I was hoping to see an improvement so that this game could be reconsidered for Vault, thank you link.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Blazephlozard
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This game came up during the whole Zool debacle, and based on that and Pinocchio having their rejections reversed, this run (which is much harder for a human player to match) should probably be as well.
Samsara
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link_7777 wrote:
GJTASer2018 wrote:
The previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality, and I don't understand how this is supposed to improve anything. Voting No.
It is 3 frames faster, so clearly there is something non-trivial.
I can weigh in on my decision a little bit. My usage of trivial didn't refer to the game's ability to be improved, it referred to the game itself. Even with a three frame improvement, nearly the entire running time is still menus with one 5 second section of shooting at the end. Over 99% of this run cannot be improved by virtue of it being all menuing, and if the last submission's comments are any indication, it would be 100% identical in an RTA run. It didn't quite feel right to me to publish a game where only <1% has any competition, especially when the shooting section doesn't look noticeably tool-assisted. I do think it deserves a second look from a different eye, though. Game choice was always one of those things that felt a little too subjective for a single person to decide.
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You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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I understand the reasoning for your judgement of the previous Overlord submission, but the rules have changes a bit in the meantime, mostly during a discussion for the Zool judgement. Please take a look and tell me what you think about it.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Samsara
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Oh, interesting! Thanks for letting me know! Quoting and emphasizing the relevant info for anyone else interested:
Another important rule change was the introduction of a better definition of triviality. We want to restrict triviality on a game-by-game basis, depending on if a game can or not produce TASes that aren't too easy to make or to match in RTA. This basically means that even if a new submission results easy to make or to match in RTA, it will be accepted anyway if that game was previously known to feature at least one TASing record that wasn't trivial to match in new TASing attempts, with the tech knowledge available at that time. Please note that this new rule is referring to edge cases like GB The Adventures of Pinocchio, which isn't exactly the case for this submission, as it required some extensive research in order be made, as well as appreciable efforts in order to be matched by real-time attempts. Lastly, I want to note that the requirement of being "distinguishable from the best real-time speedruns" was removed from Vault and implemented to Moons and Stars tiers.
I think that's a great change. It reduces subjectivity and broadens the options for what's acceptable on the site, and this run fits under it pretty nicely in my opinion.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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Samsara wrote:
link_7777 wrote:
GJTASer2018 wrote:
The previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality, and I don't understand how this is supposed to improve anything. Voting No.
It is 3 frames faster, so clearly there is something non-trivial.
I can weigh in on my decision a little bit. My usage of trivial didn't refer to the game's ability to be improved, it referred to the game itself. Even with a three frame improvement, nearly the entire running time is still menus with one 5 second section of shooting at the end. Over 99% of this run cannot be improved by virtue of it being all menuing, and if the last submission's comments are any indication, it would be 100% identical in an RTA run. It didn't quite feel right to me to publish a game where only <1% has any competition, especially when the shooting section doesn't look noticeably tool-assisted. I do think it deserves a second look from a different eye, though. Game choice was always one of those things that felt a little too subjective for a single person to decide.
Thanks for the info from the rules side ThunderAxe31. As for the game side, I think there is a misconception that since often menus are really easy to optimize when making a tas that it translates to them being trivial and easy to reproduce RTA. There are runners that are great at menuing, NESCardniality comes to mind. I compared this run with ShesChardcore's current record for this category (the menuing is probably reasonably good, I know Chard as someone that runs a lot of very short categories, so I think it is likely a bunch of them are heavy in menuing). From the end of the intro to the beginning of the fight is 12449 frames for Chard, 12248 for this run. This is a difference of over 3 seconds (keeping in mind that a large chunk of that time is just wait time). I agree that the fight at the end is the main interesting part of the run, and it is quite short. I think the fight looks tool assisted compared to the current record, but part of that may be because I spent some time trying to optimize it. Admittedly it would probably look less tool assisted to a more casual observer. Thanks for weighing in Samasara, and I'm glad you think it deserves a second look. I was initially going to mark this as unpublishable for TASMania, but I decided to revisit and look for an improvement. I know there have been rule changes and I figured if I could shave a few frames it could be revisited under a new submission.
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Does this game require/involve any non-trivial routing?
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.
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feos wrote:
Does this game require/involve any non-trivial routing?
I would say yes. I didn't spend much time looking at the strategy aspect of the game, but the strategy used here seems to make sense at a high level. If you played this game "blind" I suspect you would not arrive at the strategy used here on your first attempt. It doesn't seem like the strategy used is complicated, but the RTA run uses the same route, and FRK seems pretty thorough from what I've seen. The fight is also non-trivial, as I said before I saved time compared to FRK and if it were truly trivial I suspect that would not have been possible. The fight is short, and I wouldn't say it is extremely complicated, but I think calling it trivial is over-simplifying it. Which turret do you kill first? When and where do you move to avoid dying? What is the fastest way to deal damage? If it was trivial I would be convinced that the fight could not be further improved, but as noted in the improvements section I have not ruled out the possibility of further improvements.
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All things considered, sound borderline, but leans towards acceptable imo.
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.
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Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4239] NES Overlord by FatRatKnight & link_7777 in 03:57.41
ShesChardcore
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link_7777 wrote:
Samsara wrote:
link_7777 wrote:
GJTASer2018 wrote:
The previous submission of this game was rejected for triviality, and I don't understand how this is supposed to improve anything. Voting No.
It is 3 frames faster, so clearly there is something non-trivial.
I can weigh in on my decision a little bit. My usage of trivial didn't refer to the game's ability to be improved, it referred to the game itself. Even with a three frame improvement, nearly the entire running time is still menus with one 5 second section of shooting at the end. Over 99% of this run cannot be improved by virtue of it being all menuing, and if the last submission's comments are any indication, it would be 100% identical in an RTA run. It didn't quite feel right to me to publish a game where only <1% has any competition, especially when the shooting section doesn't look noticeably tool-assisted. I do think it deserves a second look from a different eye, though. Game choice was always one of those things that felt a little too subjective for a single person to decide.
Thanks for the info from the rules side ThunderAxe31. As for the game side, I think there is a misconception that since often menus are really easy to optimize when making a tas that it translates to them being trivial and easy to reproduce RTA. There are runners that are great at menuing, NESCardniality comes to mind. I compared this run with ShesChardcore's current record for this category (the menuing is probably reasonably good, I know Chard as someone that runs a lot of very short categories, so I think it is likely a bunch of them are heavy in menuing). From the end of the intro to the beginning of the fight is 12449 frames for Chard, 12248 for this run. This is a difference of over 3 seconds (keeping in mind that a large chunk of that time is just wait time). I agree that the fight at the end is the main interesting part of the run, and it is quite short. I think the fight looks tool assisted compared to the current record, but part of that may be because I spent some time trying to optimize it. Admittedly it would probably look less tool assisted to a more casual observer. Thanks for weighing in Samasara, and I'm glad you think it deserves a second look. I was initially going to mark this as unpublishable for TASMania, but I decided to revisit and look for an improvement. I know there have been rule changes and I figured if I could shave a few frames it could be revisited under a new submission.
I feel honored to be mentioned in the same breath as NEScardinality :p From what I remember about this game, there may be something akin to frame rules. When I was running it I was able to get the same combat entry time with both good and not quite as good menuing. It's likely that the TAS is cleaner and buffers inputs more optimally than I did, enough to catch a faster window. The other thought I had was that it could be possible to advance the game faster by sitting on a different, less laggy screen but I never explored that possibility. The TAS combat is not trivial and very likely not human viable imo. There's a reason why RTA runners use the "magic pixel" at the top where the enemy can't hit you. Also holding left when you start the game cuts out the long intro text.