Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
As of the posting of this topic, our Movie Rules page has just received a full rewrite for readability and conciseness. This makes it easier not only on newcomers to the site to understand what we're looking for in submissions, but also makes it easier for staff to tweak and adjust these rules going forward. However, that rewrite did not change any of the actual rules. There are still some fairly outdated rules that could be updated, tweaked, or even removed entirely.
Naturally, since the rules are meant for the community, we want the community to be involved with fixing them! This thread is meant to collect suggestions, feedback, and discussion for any and all changes to the current rules. Any feedback you may have on any aspect of the rules is good: If you think we should be accepting things we currently don't accept, post about it and explain why you think we should! If you're confused on the wording of a certain rule and need it to be clarified, post about it and let us know so we can fix it! If you have any other feedback, post that too!
We'll be watching and maintaining this thread going forward with the site. Keep in mind that some major changes may rely on the rewrite going live before they are able to be implemented. Someone please remind me to edit that last line when the rewrite goes live.
Timeline of Recent Changes
Extended timeline available here: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules/History.htmlNovember 27th, 2021: Movie Rules page completely rewritten from scratch.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
The rules currently say that "You are allowed to start with premade in-game save data (SRAM) for categories that require it". In other words, if you could play the category of your choice without premade save data, you're not allowed to use it. I believe the pre-rewrite rules had a rule which was similar but worded differently.
The site has gotten a few submissions of games where starting from a completed save lets you play through the game from the beginning while being allowed to skip lengthy animations or skip cutscenes. While using a premade save in this way doesn't add any content, I feel like skipping non-gameplay parts of the game can make a TAS more entertaining to watch, and it also removes an arbitrary time advantage that RTA runs currently have over site-eligible TASes. Is this something that would make sense to change in the rules?
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
That's a tricky one, because I think it'd require a different, more drastic change: We currently don't allow SRAM-anchored movies in Standard at all, which means we would have to judge movies that use SRAM just to skip cutscenes under Moons rules, despite them clearly being Standard categories. I'm not opposed to making that change, but it would still have to be defined in the right way for it to make sense. We're still working out what things to allow in Standard to begin with, this might have to wait until that particular revamp stabilizes a bit more before we work out details with allowing SRAM in it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
60Hz NTSC is preferred over 50Hz PAL, unless 50Hz PAL has version-exclusive glitches that make gameplay faster. Any regional release can be used outside of that.
If I recall correctly, the reason why NTSC versions are preferred is because the PAL counterpart is usually a conversion that can be unfaithful to the original release. As such, when a game was actually developed and released first in the EU and then in the rest of the world, the PAL version should be the preferred one instead, right? If that's the case, then I think the relative rule should be tweaked for making clear such scenario. There have been some precedents, but I'm too tired right now for looking for them.
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: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Hold those thoughts and toss 'em into the Tier Revamp thread, that's more of a suggestion for Standard as is, and it could definitely be something we implement in the future.
Speaking of revamping publication classes, we just had a very lengthy discussion on Discord over the Iconoclasts submission and its acceptability, and we seem to have come to a mutual conclusion regarding an update/clarification we can make to Moons guidelines: They currently imply that any goal choice can make it to Moons, but in my opinion I don't think that's explicit. The way I see it, Moons doesn't really account for possible branches that could (and, I would argue, should) be there, such as... Outdated any% routes. Yes, it sounds weird without explanation, but I can sell it pretty easily.
#2976: Kaylee, MICKEY_Vis11189, Moltov, Nahoc, SilentSlayers, snark, sonicpacker & Eru's N64 Super Mario 64 "16 stars" in 13:28.40
There, done. I'm well aware this run in and of itself is very outdated, but I'm focused on the branch here. 16 star is a historic any% route for SM64, one that's still incredibly popular in RTA and one that is still being TASed to this day.
For a little more convincing: [1285] SNES Chrono Trigger "save glitch" by inichi in 21:23.98
This was a huge TAS when it was submitted. It was Starred, hugely popular, very entertaining to watch, and it was killed off by subframe input. Why shouldn't we have this in Moons when so many people enjoyed it? Same goes for [2588] NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "game end glitch" by Lord_Tom & Tompa in 02:54.98: Huge upon submission, hugely popular, very entertaining, and then killed by the DPCM glitch.
We don't really have an explicit home for these runs, though. They're considered "suboptimal" any% routes, meaning they can't be accepted to Standard, and one could easily argue or believe that they're not esoteric enough for Moons either, despite Moons being presented as a place where goal choice doesn't matter as long as the result is sufficiently unique and entertaining.
We can already apply Moons rules to these runs:
Your goal choice should be clearly defined and sensible, especially to those who do not know your chosen game. Assume that the audience is seeing the game for the first time.
"This was formerly the any% route" is clearly defined and sensible enough to me, and it can apply to a huge number of games... quite literally any game that has had drastic changes to the speedrun route.
Your goal choice should result in significantly different gameplay than other runs of the same game.
This is the trickier one, but it still honestly works here. The three examples I listed above are great examples of significantly different gameplay, but any significant route change should be able to apply to this as well. We wouldn't want, say, "1 key" SM64 and "0 star" SM64 published together, as they are functionally the same for the majority of the run, but there is quite a lot of difference between "1 key" and "16 stars".
So, in essence, the proposed change is... Just all of us agreeing that these runs are allowed under Moons, without needing to rewrite anything. There are other factors that could be worth mentioning, such as considering a route's RTA popularity or even its historical relevance, though I don't think those are necessary to be explicitly stated, as a good run should easily be able to speak for itself before we need to consider those things.
Discord was definitely in favor of this proposal, but I'm opening it up here so there's a public paper trail of approval.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Samsara wrote:
Your goal choice should be clearly defined and sensible, especially to those who do not know your chosen game. Assume that the audience is seeing the game for the first time.
"This was formerly the any% route" is clearly defined and sensible enough to me, and it can apply to a huge number of games... quite literally any game that has had drastic changes to the speedrun route.
To me, a more compelling definition would be something that assures that it would be published just fine if it was first submitted today. Like imagine SM64 history started with 1 star, 120 stars, and 70 stars. A 16 star run would ban "Side BLJ and skipping the 30 star door other than via Mips clipping". I don't know the game enough to tell if we could allow slight potential deviations from this ruleset, but I also don't know if there's any interest among players in changing it. Judging by how popular it is RTA, probably we won't have to ever tweak it.
Yeah I should say that popularity of some branch among RTA players does play a role in the end. Because people keep competing, keep finding new tricks, which makes the category still relevant in a TAS too. Since long ago there's nice synergy between the 2 scenes, so I'd like to support it more.
Samsara wrote:
Your goal choice should result in significantly different gameplay than other runs of the same game.
This is the trickier one, but it still honestly works here. The three examples I listed above are great examples of significantly different gameplay, but any significant route change should be able to apply to this as well. We wouldn't want, say, "1 key" SM64 and "0 star" SM64 published together, as they are functionally the same for the majority of the run, but there is quite a lot of difference between "1 key" and "16 stars".
To me this part is easy. There's enough difference in how 16 stars looks and feels compared to other branches. If enough people are interested in still TASing it and in watching it TASed, we want to embrace this and allow such a branch.
The rule of thumb for most rule definitions lately seems to be "it must make sense". It took us centuries to figure this out, but now we have and we should finally use it. Because if it doesn't make sense to us as a community, and we're still enforcing it, we're doing something very wrong.
Supporting a specific route that makes sense to the audience feels like what Moons were invented for. We will probably only need to adjust the acceptability borderline to be less strict, since awareness of the TAS (and RTA) hobby is growing, and demand for smaller differences is rising.
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.
Since the first wasn't in the good thread, here is one suggestion for here that can help the Iconoclasts case maybe :
Here is one suggestion from andypanther Post #389554 :
andypanther wrote:
Personally, I would even be okay with allowing even more games to be accepted there, like pure party games or ports that just have minor differences, so the statistics nerds like me can be happy.
I would like to extend this suggestion by removing the "different enough" from all the Rules :
Standard
Official (maybe even unofficial ?) ports of the same game should be allowed to be published side by side even if they don't have a lot of differences because even if there is a few, there are still some and so they can't be considered the same game. For a player, the controller, the screen, the cartridge, the price etc is/was different. That would also be the case of GB/GBC games but not to GB/SGB as even if the platform isn't the same the ROM/cartridge is but this GB/GBC/SGB case could be discussed.
If we can't TAS all games that ever existed, how could we ever have a published movie for all games on the site ?
Game modes of a same game should be accepted side by side even if they don't have many differences as they are considered as different game modes by developpers/creators of the game since they can be chosen by the player on the menu of the game or whatever. The only exception would be fighting games as the choice of your character is a part of the gameplay.
Moons
Two branches of the same game should be published side by side even if the other one isn't that different from a Standard or another Moons movie if it is entertainning enough as even a small difference can change a lot how funny/interresting it is to the audience.
Different Hacks even from the same game and that are close from each other should be acceptable side by side if the TASes are both entertainning and interresting (they would still need to meet a popularity criteria atleast for the moment).
I don't have a clear idea of the general hack situation as I'm not interrested by it so I'll let others give their thoughts/suggestions on how to change it for the best.
End
There are probably other places where this suggestion could apply but I can't think of any at the moment.
To me, a more compelling definition would be something that assures that it would be published just fine if it was first submitted today. Like imagine SM64 history started with 1 star, 120 stars, and 70 stars. A 16 star run would ban "Side BLJ and skipping the 30 star door other than via Mips clipping".
Agreed. A category like that should ultimately be defined by limitations on in-game mechanisms because otherwise a "route" is a rather arbitrary concept.
What is the discovery that made the route in question no longer the fastest in the first place? In other words, under what restrictions would such "route" actually be the fastest possible?
The 70 stars category works well because it simply relies on a specific limitation. "Skipping the 30 star door other than via Mips clipping" still sounds more arbitrary than it should be, but at the very least the 16th star shouldn’t be the star in the final Bowser stage if, hypothetically, that’s part of the fastest way to literally grab 16 stars for the sake of it; at that point it’s just completely arbitrary.
Samsara wrote:
For a little more convincing: [1285] SNES Chrono Trigger "save glitch" by inichi in 21:23.98
This was a huge TAS when it was submitted. It was Starred, hugely popular, very entertaining to watch, and it was killed off by subframe input. Why shouldn't we have this in Moons when so many people enjoyed it?
This, if anything, is more a great counterexample.
First, it itself uses SRAM corruption.
Second, the specific SRAM corruption it does relies on emulation inaccuracy and is thus technically invalid.
Yes, technically it can be "remade" on an accurate emulator, but that requires subframe input. What even separates a run like this from any% in terms of limitations at this point? "No subframe input with lengths below this specific threshold"?
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Fortranm wrote:
What is the discovery that made the route in question no longer the fastest in the first place? In other words, under what restrictions would such "route" actually be the fastest possible?
The 70 stars category works well because it simply relies on a specific limitation. "Skipping the 30 star door other than via Mips clipping" still sounds more arbitrary than it should be, but at the very least the 16th star shouldn’t be the star in the final Bowser stage if, hypothetically, that’s part of the fastest way to literally grab 16 stars for the sake of it; at that point it’s just completely arbitrary.
I took the goal definition from the RTA rules, and I don't know the game myself.
A route is what should be judged in terms of perceived difference from other currently published routes.
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: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
ViGadeomes wrote:
Game modes of a same game should be accepted side by side even if they don't have many differences as they are considered as different game modes by developpers/creators of the game since they can be chosen by the player on the menu of the game or whatever. The only exception would be fighting games as the choice of your character is a part of the gameplay.
How do you define what is and what isn't a mode?
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 took the goal definition from the RTA rules, and I don't know the game myself.
Me either but I think it is important to ask two questions in this specific case: What are the other techniques/glitches that can be used to skip that door? Are they consistently forgone throughout the run?
If the answer to the second question is yes, then I agree it's a well defined category because as arbitrary as the selection of things to forbid can be, they are at least consistently enforced in the entire run.
I took the goal definition from the RTA rules, and I don't know the game myself.
Me either but I think it is important to ask two questions in this specific case: What are the other techniques/glitches that can be used to skip that door? Are they consistently forgone throughout the run?
If the answer to the second question is yes, then I agree it's a well defined category because as arbitrary as the selection of things to forbid can be, they are at least consistently enforced in the entire run.
Going by the SRC SM64 16 Star Ruleset:
* SBLJ is banned
* Any method of skipping the 30 star door other than MIPS clip is banned.
Source
Going by the SRC SM64 16 Star Ruleset:
* SBLJ is banned
* Any method of skipping the 30 star door other than MIPS clip is banned.
Source
I have seen that. That's why I'm asking "What are the other techniques/glitches that can be used to skip that door? Are they consistently forgone throughout the run?"
A route should be a means to an end, not the end in of itself. It is much better when the end has a set of rules consistently applied through out the game play so that the means in question is actually the optimal path.
* Any method of skipping the 30 star door other than MIPS clip is banned.
Well I'm not highly familiar with this game, but this restriction strikes me as arbitrary. "No skipping the door" or "no using X glitch" seem reasonable, but "you can skip the door with Glitch X but not with Glitch Y" or "you can use Glitch X but not to skip this door" not so much. It sounds rather like "you can warp from world 1 to world 4, but not from world 4 to world 8".
I mean, I'm sure there's history behind it, but it doesn't seem like a clear-cut way to distinguish two separate branches.
* Any method of skipping the 30 star door other than MIPS clip is banned.
Well I'm not highly familiar with this game, but this restriction strikes me as arbitrary. "No skipping the door" or "no using X glitch" seem reasonable, but "you can skip the door with Glitch X but not with Glitch Y" or "you can use Glitch X but not to skip this door" not so much. It sounds rather like "you can warp from world 1 to world 4, but not from world 4 to world 8".
I mean, I'm sure there's history behind it, but it doesn't seem like a clear-cut way to distinguish two separate branches.
This is a difficult thing, because if the route allowed any other method of skipping those doors, then you don't need MIPS. And if you don't need MIPS... then you don't need to collect 15 stars and spawn MIPS in the first place. Just BLJ directly to the door as the 1 Star/0 Star routes do.
If we remove the limitation that causes the run to be 16 star, then it is not 16 star anymore. And while sure, at this moment it would make zero sense to have it as the route, hen the route as first conceived they didn't have current knowledge.
I agree with you that yes, it is arbitrary. But I believe that to some degree _all_ routes and categories are arbitrary, be it RTA or TAS. I think there is no really a rule that allows us to clearly define with no ambiguity what is possible or not acceptable as a route for a movie submission in terms that won't clash with something that already exists or might exist in the future. As such, I think trying to rule that is pointless. If anything, we have seen increases of more and more arbitrary challenges rising to be some of the most well known types of playthroughs or Tool Assisted runs of certain games (from Pokémon solo run challenges to the SM64 ABC, probably the currently most well known TAS challenge of any videogame).
What we have to rule here is how we should rule, and build a framework that allows us to take decisions over cases in the future. We can't make a one size fits all ruleset, but we can establish a proper framework to evaluate submissions that we can apply to them.
------------
In unrelated points, something that got brought up during our discussion last Tuesday was to change the rule about beating all existing WRs to only account for WRs claimed at the time of submission. TASing specific games can take a lot of time, and sometimes stuff gets discovered during development of TASes that can cause RTA runs to follow a TAS submission to be faster. RTA can usually make changes much faster (all it takes is some free time and someone willing to grind) hile TASes might require a lot more work due to the need to resync RNG, adjust routing and such. I feel this rule also could encourage TASers that get caught up in such a situation to still submit and also to improve their own submissions later, accounting for any new discovery that has led to a newer record.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Radiant wrote:
I mean, I'm sure there's history behind it, but it doesn't seem like a clear-cut way to distinguish two separate branches.
Which of the current branches look too similar to 16 stars?
Radiant wrote:
ikuyo wrote:
* Any method of skipping the 30 star door other than MIPS clip is banned.
Well I'm not highly familiar with this game, but this restriction strikes me as arbitrary.
Arbitrary is not the same thing as bad or pointless. Moons were created to allow some freedom in what goal people feel like setting.
For example we had these co-existing branches in Moons for several years:
[2202] SNES Super Metroid "low%, Ice Beam" by Saturn in 42:37.13[2220] SNES Super Metroid "low%, Speedbooster" by NameSpoofer in 44:18.62
In Moons, bad or pointless goal is what reduces enjoyment of the movie. Sure we also tried to aim for Moons goals that are easy to define and comprehend. But it is also up to us (the community) where exactly we want the borderline to be. If we don't find enough harm in allowing a bit more things, but enough benefit, we should be able to allow them.
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.
Yes, and those are two distinct paths through the game. However, a movie that's "ice beam against boss X but speed booster against boss Y" would probably not make it as a third branch.
If we don't find enough harm in allowing a bit more things, but enough benefit, we should be able to allow them.
I have no problem with allowing a bit more things. I do see a problem with inconsitently defined goals.
To give a concrete example, "Zelda 1 obtaining all items except the large shield"; or "Iji killing no enemies except robotic ones". As I recall, both of those were rejected for moon goals, and I feel that with the new/expanded site goals they should still be rejected. "SMB64 can't glitch through this door except with that particular glitch" strikes me as a similar case.
I think people get too caught up in rules and category definitions, and they get too worried about whether or not categories are arbitrary. If it's fun and people enjoy it, let it be.
For 16-star, clipping through the door with MIPS is the whole reason the category exists. If you allow other methods of clipping through the door, you don't need 16 stars. I'm just repeating what ikuyo said, though. But it's true. The goal is not to simply "beat the game with 16 stars." It's to follow a particular route. Yes, it's arbitrary, but the category exists that way for a good reason.
The reason I don't think people should get caught up with rules and categories is that every game is unique, and one universal set of rules about categories can't possibly apply to every game. This site is designed so that weird, arbitrary goals can still be accepted if the audience enjoys them enough. So I'm happy with the direction the site is heading, being more open and all that.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
FitterSpace wrote:
I think people get too caught up in rules and category definitions, and they get too worried about whether or not categories are arbitrary. If it's fun and people enjoy it, let it be.
Agreed. We've had a long history of being too strict with what we accept, and I'm still not quite sure why we ever needed to be in the first place apart from just sticking to "tradition" or whatever.
I understand how we got to the point we did. TASing started off as an extreme niche that needed to find its own footing, it slowly accomplished that by selective curation of runs that would universally be seen as awe-inspiring. Where we went wrong, though, is not recognizing soon enough that we didn't need to keep doing that. Once the RTA and TAS communities started crossing over a little more, we should've embraced that immediately and cut out the elitism, but nahhhhhh, instead we kept that going for well over a decade. We pushed away a lot of people and refused to provide a proper home for several growing communities, and those people and communities continue to absolutely trash the site to this day, leading to a lot of misinformation and a steadily decreasing chance for the site to be able to grow and succeed in the future.
I've stated a few times now that my ultimate goal for the site isn't for it to be the authority on TASing, but for it to be the ultimate TASing repository. Ideally, we shouldn't be telling people how to TAS at all, we should just be telling them to TAS. We should be giving people an open space for their efforts to be seen, whether it's actual runs, WIPs, glitch-hunting exhibitions or resources like memory values and Lua scripts. On top of that, we can continue to provide a centralized community for TASers and TAS enthusiasts, while also serving as a jumping off point for anyone looking to get into the growing number of individual communities out there. Of course, we need to be supporting those individual communities as much as we can, without pushing them away by making choices that directly harm them and their methodologies.
The way I'm looking at it from now on is whether or not the site has anything positive to gain from our rules and standards. As it stands, we're only gaining negativity and a decreasing reputation from our Vince McMahon-like tendency to go out there and tell our audience what they want. Rule changes, whether it's adding new rules, rewording existing rules, or removing rules entirely, should always be done with the future of the site and the voice of the community in mind.
What do we gain by explicitly adding alternate routes as a Moons goal? We gain more great movies, we bring in new community members who want to see these movies, we bring in new TASers who want to make these kinds of movies, we bring in RTA runners who want to be inspired by seeing their routes absolutely perfected, we bring in communities that are more comfortable to submit their runs without being scared off by our often arbitrary restrictions on non-standard categories, and most importantly we show an openness for further positive changes down the road.
Are there any drawbacks? I'm not really sure. I can see an increase in submission count, leading to more pressure and work being put on us as a fairly small staff team. At the same time, though, us being more open should lead to more people being around the site, which means a larger pool of potential hires, which means a growing staff team that can account for the increase in work. Apart from that, I really don't think there's any drawback to openness. We might be pushing away some people who still maintain a bit of that old elitist mindset, but at the same time I also feel like those people kept that elitist mindset because it's what the site was actively promoting, and a change in the site would simply lead to a change in them.
I'm aware I'm being extremely optimistic over a simple change. Obviously, this by itself isn't going to make TASvideos perfect, but I think it's a good start.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I totally agree with everything you said. I've gone away from the site for a while because of that elitism I used to see here and on the discord every day. There's nothing more annoying than asking a question about publishing a TAS here then being pointed to why it can't be done, usually because of some rule that was written on the forums ten years ago. I'm really happy with the changes to the site and the general attitude the staff has had lately. It also helps that a lot of the problem users have been dealt with in the last year or so. You'll never totally get rid of elitism, since that same mindset also exists in speedrunning communities, but you all have done a good job of taking care of that recently.
Making this site into a "TAS Repository" would be the best direction to go in. I don't see any reason why route demonstrations, weird goals, and even human theory TASes should be excluded from the site. TASVideos can still be that curator for awesome TASes while having space on the site for everything else. I've seen a lot of TASes get rejected over the years because the people at the time didn't want to "clutter the site". I don't agree with that. If someone puts time into making a TAS for an obscure rom hack, or a TAS with a really weird goal, it should have a place on the site if people liked watching it.
I think one of the things that hurts TASing the most is the idea that everything has to be perfect. For the vast majority of viewers, there's barely any visual difference between a TAS that's 99% perfect and one that's 99.9% perfect. But the difference between making those TASes is that one might take a few weeks to make, but the other would take months or even years to make. For example, I spent three months TASing an autoscroller in 007: Nightfire because I wanted it to be entertaining, and there are really obscure tricks that save fractions of seconds here and there. I spent ages trying to find every possible time save there. In the end, the final time of the TAS was maybe two seconds lower because of it. That's the kind of thing that puts me off of finishing my other projects. I probably could have gotten 90% of the entertainment value in that part while only spending a week on it. I could go on with more personal examples, but I'll save it for another time. But there have been a lot of times where I've been put off of making a TAS because I know how much work it would take to make it perfect. I know I shouldn't think that way, but it's a really common mindset in TASing.
Anyway, I really appreciate the direction the site is headed. It's something I've wanted to see here for a long time!
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Samsara wrote:
What do we gain by explicitly adding alternate routes as a Moons goal?
Are there any drawbacks?
We give people more creative freedom, and hopefully inspiration on making great things. If this means allowing more movies that are not so good, I don't mind that if this leads to also more movies that are incredible.
This reminds me of how USA pilot seats was redesigned at some point. If you design the whole system to perfectly fit an average human, you end up with a system that perfectly fits nobody. Because people are too different in a ton of different aspects, and an average human does not exist!
So if we want to make people's talents shine, we need to create an environment that's inclusive to diversity. We should let the ideal of the average go, and we should design the system to the edges instead. Here's a great video about this approach:
Link to video
I don't know how to implement this approach yet, but this is really some concept that we don't want to keep missing.
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 think one of the things that hurts TASing the most is the idea that everything has to be perfect.
Does this judgement work as a correct example to the problem you're referring to? #5619: Mitjitsu's Saturn Astal in 20:29.92
This submission was rejected for being slower than one RTA record, but only during one boss fight, by 3 seconds.
I think that, in general, a TAS should aim to be better than RTA runners in all parts of the game, but how much better is really up to the author. What I mean is that I know a lot of TASers (myself included) get frustrated when they spend a lot of time on one small part of the game so they can save a fraction of a second. In most cases, I think it's better to do the best you can within a reasonable amount of time and then move on to the next part of the game. It's just about balancing how much time you spend working on something vs. how good the final product is. In other words, you get diminishing returns when it comes to optimizing a TAS.
That's not specifically a problem with movie rules, it's just something I've noticed about TASers over the years.
I can give you a good example of what I mean. For a little while, I was working on TASing the Wii version of Call of Duty 4, and I think I got really good at the movement. I won't go into all the specifics on how the game works, but the movement in that game is similar to how it is in Quake 3: Arena. So the movement for most of the game revolves around bunny hopping and air strafing, both of which are very complicated to optimize. This is made worse because Dolphin doesn't have good TAS tools compared to BizHawk or libTAS, and even the custom versions that have LUA scripting don't support the Wii motion controls this game requires. So all the inputs have to be done manually. The Wii version also runs at a lower framerate, which consistently loses time over speedrunners that play on other versions due to slower movement. However, even with all that, Wii TAS movement can beat PC speedrunners over short distances (but loses time over long distances for reasons I won't get into). The only problem is that air strafing is very annoying to optimize manually, and there's currently no way to do it automatically. That video I linked before took me days to make, and the F.N.G. training mission I TASed a few years ago took me over a month, for just 18 seconds of gameplay, and it wasn't even close to being optimized.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that an optimized TAS for Call of Duty 4 on Wii just isn't going to happen. A perfect strafe jump on Wii can get you up to 385 speed before you hit the ground, which is pretty good even for a player on PC. If I were going to TAS the Wii version, I wouldn't spend all the time trying to get that perfect amount of speed every time. Instead, I'd go for about 370 per jump, which is considered average for a PC speedrunner. Still, that's 96% as fast, which is not noticeable for any casual viewer, but the difference is that a good TAS with slightly slower movement could be made in a fraction of the time. A TAS where I run across the airstrip could be made in one sitting, and not over the course of several days. That training mission could have been made in a few days instead of over a month, and it would probably only be a fraction of a second slower.
One small side note: A Wii TAS would probably be slower than the PC world record, but it's because there are a lot of version differences. So it being slower than a PC speedrun wouldn't necessarily mean the TAS is unoptimized. For other games where there aren't any major version differences, TASes should still strive to be faster than RTA runs in all parts of the game, but I don't believe they have to be perfect to have a good place on this site.
I know I'm getting off topic because this thread is about movie rules, but I wanted to clear up what I meant about balancing the amount of time you spend making a TAS vs. how optimized a TAS needs to be.
I agree with you that yes, it is arbitrary. But I believe that to some degree _all_ routes and categories are arbitrary, be it RTA or TAS. I think there is no really a rule that allows us to clearly define with no ambiguity what is possible or not acceptable as a route for a movie submission in terms that won't clash with something that already exists or might exist in the future. As such, I think trying to rule that is pointless.
With all due respect this is just nirvana fallacy. All goals are determined by humans and ultimately subjective/arbitrary to an extent in a technical sense, yes. But can we at least all agree that "beating a game" is less arbitrary than "beating a game without utilizing this mechanism", which is in turn less arbitrary than "beating a game without utilizing this mechanism at this specific place while using it elsewhere"? Everything being technically "arbitrary" doesn't mean there can't be a line being drawn somewhere.
Samsara wrote:
The way I'm looking at it from now on is whether or not the site has anything positive to gain from our rules and standards. As it stands, we're only gaining negativity and a decreasing reputation from our Vince McMahon-like tendency to go out there and tell our audience what they want. Rule changes, whether it's adding new rules, rewording existing rules, or removing rules entirely, should always be done with the future of the site and the voice of the community in mind.
I decided to watch both the 16 stars SM64 TAS submitted in 2011 and the current WR of the category, and you know what? I came to the conclusion that this is also a very bad example, possibly even worse than the Chrono Trigger one in some regards.
From what I understand - and please correct me if I’m wrong - the status of the player character in this game is, for the lack of better words, static, for most part. The acquisition of those 16 stars and the traverse inside Bowser stages, aka the absolute majority of this movie, are seemingly identical to their counterparts in a run 120 stars run (from what I vaguely remember) and simply arranged in a different order to my untrained eyes because of how “static” the player character is. In other words, it hardly provides anything not in an any% movie or an 120 star movie.
Do I find these 16 stars runs enjoyable by themselves? I do, but that doesn’t mean I would be eager to watch them knowing how it they don’t add much of anything over any% and 100% movies in this game. If I’m a newcomer, I definitely would appreciate the fact that there isn’t a 16 star movie listed along the other ones. I don’t see how there is a tendency of “tell our audience what they want”, especially when that submission from 2011 has 36 No votes against 31 Yes votes.
There are merits in this category existing for RTA because, for obvious reasons, doing a 16 stars run is very different from doing a 120 stars run for a player. However, when the real time factor is removed, that simply doesn’t seem to be the case. “Incredibly popular in RTA” doesn’t make it a reasonable TAS goal choice. As much as RTA and TASing overlaps, they are still very different things. “This category is well-accepted for RTA” is a bad argument in general for this very reason.
ikuyo wrote:
If anything, we have seen increases of more and more arbitrary challenges rising to be some of the most well known types of playthroughs or Tool Assisted runs of certain games (from Pokémon solo run challenges to the SM64 ABC, probably the currently most well known TAS challenge of any videogame).
I would say beating a Pokemon game with a mon that otherwise wouldn’t be used is very similar in concept to [3640] NES Super Mario Bros. 2 "warps, princess only" by mtvf1 & chatterbox in 08:20.83 and [2015] NES Final Fantasy "White Mage" by TheAxeMan in 1:16:37.56. There is an entire category dedicated to stuff like that, in fact. There is also [3822] DS Super Mario 64 DS "jumpless" by Adeal in 55:05.13. Both of these goals are much more reasonable and well-defined than “it was the optimal route at one point”.
A route is the path between a starting point and a goal. Using a route as a goal by itself is mistakening the means for the end. As I said earlier, I can see the rule set for 16 stars category in SM64 being rephrased to make it better-defined, but given what I mentioned earlier, I probably wouldn’t support the inclusion of this specific category regardless, unless the result looks much different after the mechanisms that can be used to skip that door is consistently forgone throughout the run if they aren’t already.
With all these said, I do agree that we can be open to more categories, and I even have some examples in mind. For one, there are good reasons to have [3216] GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow "all souls" by Fz-Last, klmz & Pike in 17:06.41 and [1759] GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow "all souls, inbounds" by Kriole in 24:56.10 published alongside each other. Super Metroid was brought up earlier, and if there are multiple possible combinations of items for low%, some of them might look different enough to warrant different categories. Heck, I can even see a point in having a “120 stars, no BLJ” category for SM64.
DarkKobold wrote:
Why Super Mario 64 got special treatment is beyond me
With all due respect, why such a bad example of all things was chosen to prove a point is beyond me.
