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The first thing of note that happens in the movie is that it gets into an unnecessary random encounter. The entry to the swamp palace picks up a red jar for no reason and then demonstrates no ability to manipulate enemies. There is no planning regarding XP. (In the published movies, the entirety of XP routing was planned before the movie started.) The boss fights make it most obvious how little effort went into optimization. The author still doesn't use the encounter glitch, likely being unaware of it. At one point the author went into a town for the sole purpose of refilling the magic meter. The Valley of Death is the toughest spot to manipulate random encounters, and so the author doesn't even bother trying. Some screens in the Great Palace are below RTA level. Dark/Shadow Link is obviously suboptimal.
But the biggest issue is that the author is attempting the same "branch" as before, which isn't really a coherent branch. It tries to be something in between [4234] NES Zelda II: The Adventure of Link "warp glitch" by TASeditor, Arc, Inzult & EZGames69 in 05:31.89 and [4367] NES Zelda II: The Adventure of Link by Arc & Inzult in 34:58.74, but that is impossible. The difference between those two movies is that the 5-minute movie allows L+R and the 34-minute movie doesn't allow L+R, and so this submission is a slower version of the 5-minute movie. L+R is an unintended programming oversight, not possible to do with a normal physical controller, that severely breaks the game. It is not interesting except in the "no restrictions whatsoever" branch because it removes most of the gameplay and strategy from the game.
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Thanks y'all.
Invariel wrote:
am I right in assuming that you can't force a fumble at the 1 yd line, end input, let the opposing team grab the ball, get safety'd, (maybe run the clock out in the process), and if necessary have a kickoff and get tackled without input?
I fooled around with fumbles at the goal line. The computer doesn't run backward, so it would require a backward fumble into the end zone by the defensive player who recovered (not sure that's realistically manipulatable), and even then the game might consider it a touchback instead of a safety. Typically when the defense recovers in the end zone, it's automatically a touchback. Interestingly, a fumble that goes into the end zone and out of bounds is returned to the offense in the game, whereas it would be a turnover/touchback in the NFL.
Chamale wrote:
It may be possible to end input by punting the ball with the score at 0-0, and manipulate the other team into catching it on the 1-yard line, fumbling backwards into their end zone, recovering the ball, and then getting tackled for a safety. This would be improbable to manipulate, but with the kicker at the right distance, it might be doable.
Even on a minimum distance punt to the 1, the returner can get to around the 10-yard-line before coverage gets to him.
Chamale wrote:
It's possible to end input a bit sooner with a different ending strategy. Here's an example that is 438 frames faster. I modified your input to kick a field goal with 50 seconds left, and then made a long kickoff that runs out the clock to 0. The longest kick return I was able to luck manipulate was 50 seconds of in-game time, but longer ones should be theoretically possible.
That is a sharp idea. However, the movie rules do say that the final input is a stylistic choice. It's not easy to decide which way is better. Your method is shorter input, but then the final scoreboard appears 188 frames later. I think that kicking the field goal so early is rather unnatural in real-life football, and it leads only to an underwhelming failed kickoff return, and so I think that ending would leave a viewer feeling less entertained than a game-winning score as time expires. More feedback is welcome here.
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I had not yet seen the Triforce% presentation at SGDQ when I commented in the Pokemon Plays Twitch thread:
Arc wrote:
The issue comes down to the basic philosophy of the site. The original idea is to play games so beautifully that the result can be considered a work of art. The rules emphasize the manner of playing the game. But over 20 years, speedrunning has become more stale, and the rules are limiting artistic potential. And that is how you end up getting submissions like #7390: Arc's NES The Legend of Zelda "Kino" in 04:14.51, which does not complete the game or even really "play" it, but it pushes the concept of "video games as art" in a new direction.
For something "beyond input" like #4947: dwangoAC, Ilari & p4plus2's SGB Pokémon: Red Version "Pokemon Plays Twitch" in 08:11.42, the closest real-life analogy is avant-garde or experimental films. The best example that I know of is Mothlight (1963), which is a short film that was created without using a camera. If a film can be made outside of standard methods, then a TAS can be as well. Publish it as an entirely separate class from other movies, and hold it to a high standard of artistic and technical merits for publication. I don't think we need 1000+ word arguments about breaking rules or whatever. If the sentiment favors including more experimental art, then create a new experimental class (not playground) and publish. Bada bing bada boom.
This Triforce% presentation adds more context to those comments. I've been around since the very beginning in November 2003 and have seen basically everything. This Triforce% presentation is the first thing that really made me feel the way I did when I first saw Morimoto's Super Mario Bros. 3 video. It is the spark of an artistic revolution. When an idea like this one is released to the world, it can't be stopped. There will be a movement in the new direction.
And the reason is that this Triforce% presentation has restored the soul to TASing. Back in 2003, the concept of achieving 'a perfect run' of a game was full of the best of the human spirit because there was seemingly unlimited potential to dream up ingenious ways to save time. And a lot of amazing movies have been made. But now the big games have been seemingly exhausted of potential after so much effort has gone into them. And the human creative element has faded because now it is often bots that make millions of rerecords to find the fastest method. I'm burned out on the pursuit of technical, numerical perfection.
Conceptually, I think that my NES The Legend of Zelda "Kino" movie very much aligns with this Triforce% presentation. Of course mine did little more than demonstrate an idea; this Triforce% presentation is truly "kino," the pièce de résistance. Earlier in this thread, Noxxa mirrored my earlier comment—create a new experimental class to publish exceptional artistic works like this one where normal rules don't apply. But perhaps as a compromise with the traditional purists, we could call the official presence of these experimental movies on the site something other than 'publication,' so that we (i.e., the people supporting this artistic revolution) could technically claim that they weren't 'published' since they violated site rules, but in reality this would just be lexical trickery. I've been using the word 'presentation' throughout this post, which is maybe the best option. ('Special presentation' is commonly used in cinema.) It could also be called a 'showing,' 'creation,' 'production,' or perhaps 'performance.' So the traditionalists could say, without contradicting their principles, that they don't want to see this submission 'published' on the site, but they accept seeing this submission 'presented' on the site (so technically it's not published but in reality it is exactly like a publication). But I am also fine with outright calling them publications in a new class.
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As previously mentioned, by using warps, this submission has put itself in the same category as [4234] NES Zelda II: The Adventure of Link "warp glitch" by TASeditor, Arc, Inzult & EZGames69 in 05:31.89, which it is slower than.
However in the hypothetical event that someone legitimately tried to make a warpless movie that uses L+R to obsolete [3254] NES Zelda II: The Adventure of Link "warpless" by Arc, FatRatKnight, Inzult & Rising_Tempest in 45:26.04, you could not just say "well, it's faster." It would need to satisfy two questions:
1. How does the entertainment compare? Avoiding L+R was obviously an intentional choice in the lengthier published movies. Making the movie shorter with glitchy hyperspeed movement does not necessarily make it more entertaining. My personal opinion is that L+R completely drains the soul from the game, because the gameplay barely resembles the way it was intended to be played. But this view is somewhat subjective.
2. How does the optimization compare? This question is not subjective at all. The optimization of this submitted movie is very low effort. At times I would say it is outright terrible. At least it helps show how much effort went into the current publications. If the optimization were hypothetically of high quality, I would still consider it less entertaining and less skillful than [3254] NES Zelda II: The Adventure of Link "warpless" by Arc, FatRatKnight, Inzult & Rising_Tempest in 45:26.04 (e.g., getting those perfect fairy spawns on the overworld is nearly a miracle), and so it would be best to put it in a separate branch like "L+R warpless," if it qualified. (Again, purely a hypothetical scenario. The bottom line is that this submission should be rejected.)
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The issue comes down to the basic philosophy of the site. The original idea is to play games so beautifully that the result can be considered a work of art. The rules emphasize the manner of playing the game. But over 20 years, speedrunning has become more stale, and the rules are limiting artistic potential. And that is how you end up getting submissions like #7390: Arc's NES The Legend of Zelda "Kino" in 04:14.51, which does not complete the game or even really "play" it, but it pushes the concept of "video games as art" in a new direction.
For something "beyond input" like #4947: dwangoAC, Ilari & p4plus2's SGB Pokémon: Red Version "Pokemon Plays Twitch" in 08:11.42, the closest real-life analogy is avant-garde or experimental films. The best example that I know of is Mothlight (1963), which is a short film that was created without using a camera. If a film can be made outside of standard methods, then a TAS can be as well. Publish it as an entirely separate class from other movies, and hold it to a high standard of artistic and technical merits for publication. I don't think we need 1000+ word arguments about breaking rules or whatever. If the sentiment favors including more experimental art, then create a new experimental class (not playground) and publish. Bada bing bada boom.
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GMP wrote:
Problem I see with Deferred is that it gives the notion that the rules will change at some point, and the run will become acceptable at some point in the future for sure. We already have 'delayed' for that.
Deferred means that a decision about whether to publish will not be made until some indefinite point in the future. Since no decision has been made, there is no indication either way about whether it will or will not be published. It leaves open the possibility that it could be without promising anything.
Delayed is not the same thing. Delayed is used to mean "hold on, don't accept this yet," usually because of a technical or optimization problem that needs investigation.
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Split it into two separate classifications.
Rejected for movies that will never be published (there is no more accurate term in English than 'rejected').
Deferred is the proper term for something that could be given consideration in the future.
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Noxxa wrote:
It represents the overall rating you gave to the movie, when you filled in all the applicable numbers.
I don't agree that I ever gave an overall rating. I authored an entertainment rating. I authored a technical rating. The site calculated a number from there.
The problem is the principle that the site staff have granted themselves the power to edit users' content, while still attributing authorship to the user, i.e. forgery. It is just as wrong as if staff were stealth-editing the text of users' forum posts.
THE SOLUTION would be to have an opt-in/opt-out choice, where each user could individually decide whether to (a) keep their original entertainment rating as their singular rating or (b) accept the weighted calculation as their singular rating.
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Noxxa wrote:
The point of removing tech rating was never to make entertainment rating the sole measure of rating TASes. TASes can have merits other than being entertaining, and ratings should be able to reflect that as well.
The thread was not framed that way. It was purely about getting rid of the technical rating. The poll asks "Should we remove technical rating?" It does not ask about merging entertainment and tech into a single rating based on a formula. There was no indication that entertainment ratings would be altered until the bait-and-switch merger idea was hastily done by the staff.
The staff callously overwrote the ratings users actually gave—evidently the site staff know better than the rest of us what we "really" intended with our ratings. These are not users' ratings anymore. This seems like something that is not just morally wrong but possibly a legal issue; for example, the site is now falsely claiming that "Arc" gave the Discworld II movie a "3" rating when I never did—that movie is a "0" for me. This is false authorship attribution—literary forgery. These ratings are your creation, but falsely attributed to my name, against my will.
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adelikat wrote:
I also replaced all entertainment ratings with what would have been the calculated average rating.
I have no idea why you thought this was a good thing to implement. You wiped out every entertainment rating with almost no time given to discuss the idea, and you buried it within a topic that was supposed to be about simply removing the tech rating. You created the thread arguing that tech rating has no value, but then you used this supposedly worthless tech rating to calculate a phony "average" (weighted) rating.
I did not post in this thread earlier because I did not object to removing the tech rating. But I stated in two (2) previous posts that I wanted to be able to sort by entertainment rating, which is a clear indication that entertainment rating matters to me. Of course those posts did not receive any sort of acknowledgement.
This "average" rating does not reflect how I intended to rate movies. You are well aware that I have seen and rated every published movie. This is a graph of my entertainment ratings:
I maintain a nearly perfect bell curve. Whereas this "average" rating turns my entertainment ratings into a jumbled mess. The movies that I intended to rate the lowest are now at some random point in the bottom 100.
I am shocked (not really) that the staff would fail to take another person's perspective and consider that each user put a considerable amount of thought into every entertainment rating that they gave. Very, very disrespectful.
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[4495] PCE City Hunter by AmaizumiUni in 15:05.78
Of the choices available in this category, this movie was the most entertaining to me. Side-scrolling run-and-gun type of game somewhat like Rolling Thunder or Rush'n Attack.
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The page address https://tasvideos.org/Rating.exe/My doesn't exist anymore but is still linked in Movie Watching articles.
I see in the profile area there are https://tasvideos.org/Profile/Ratings and https://tasvideos.org/Profile/Unrated.
One issue is that I can't sort them by Entertainment or Tech rating anymore.
Another issue is that I am not sure whether there is still a summary page showing the rating statistics of myself and other users, like this:
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Noxxa wrote:
The screenplay is an integral part of a movie, as without a screenplay not much would happen in it. The content and quality of the screenplay have a very clear bearing on the movie itself. It is more akin to an input file for a TAS (albeit a bit more pleasing to read standalone). Meanwhile, submission notes are an entirely supplementary work. You are not even required to write submission notes (beyond one or two lines), and plenty of times submission notes are written entirely after production of the movie has finished (something obviously impossible with screenplay).
The input file is like the film reel, not the script. It is quite possible (and has been done) to make a motion picture without a script and mostly lacking narrative, in which movement is made art, such as in a photoplay. There are also motion pictures that are largely improvised, working around only a basic premise, and so not much of a script is needed. And some TASes are made the same way. Other TASes require more preparation, and the author largely must follow the detailed "script" planned in advance to optimize the TAS. The analogy to a screenplay is accurate, independent of one's opinion of whether submission notes are award-worthy.
DeepL is better than Google Translate.
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I support Alyosha's idea. But since "Best Submission Text" will not be added to the Awards this year (if ever), then there could alternatively be a thread for it in the Site section, similar to Gruefood Delight. But it would be nice to have more than just a list of good submission texts; it would be encouraging to hear people explain why certain texts stood out to them.
Response to criticisms:
1. Voters would have to read the texts.
Yes, and voters are also supposed to watch movies before nominating or voting on them. I'm the only member who has watched and rated 100% of published movies, but historically that hasn't disqualified everyone else from voting however they want.
2. People would put effort into submission texts.
This argument seems to go against the mission statement of this site and assumes bad faith. "Yes... my evil plan wasn't actually to inform the community in great detail about the game... it was actually just a scheme for me to win an award mwahahahah." But really, whether it's a movie or submission text, what is wrong with wanting others to recognize its quality? People submit very high-effort movies and submission notes to this site, for free, so other people can see and appreciate them. (And also for other reasons, such as the personal satisfaction of producing something meaningful.)
3. Awards are supposed to highlight the qualities of the TASes themselves.
This statement is knowingly self-contradictory since it adds "and the TASers that created high quality works." But, that's ok. The Academy Awards are a model for the TAS Awards, and essentially we vote on the "Best Picture" (TAS of the Year) and "Best Director" (TASer of the Year) categories. But the Academy Awards also have two awards for Best Screenplay, which is the category most analogous to TAS submission notes. You don't see the physical script in the finished film, but you see the script's qualities translated into the film, and the same is true of submission text. To say that the script "has no direct bearing on the" film would definitely be incorrect. And so yes "Screenplay" is a different category, but like "Picture" and "Director," an award for merit is deserved.
4. There is bias toward English.
It is true that the site contains a mix of native English speakers, people who speak it as a second language, and people who barely speak English at all. Fortunately, technology exists that allows people to write in their native language and translate to English with fairly high accuracy. There are also many bilingual members who are willing to help translate, if so desired. Additionally, it is presumed that submissions would be judged more on the quality and depth of the explanation of the game rather than on its poetic style. A few grammatical errors or odd word choices aren't that big of a deal.
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This movie was rejected for being an educational game lacking entertainment value. The rules have recently changed. The movie is non-trivial because it manipulates getting only three-letter words (the shortest possible length). It is significantly faster than the RTA record (3:48). I believe the movie should be unrejected and rejudged.
I watched them and I didn't see any real playaround in them. More like some unexpplaiable actions with unclear goal. Not sure what to think of them. They just look too outdated in general.
[34] NES Track & Field by Arc in 08:28.05 is one of the earliest movies, made in Famtasia. At the time, movies were rejected for not being entertaining enough, but Bisqwit accepted this, meaning it would be Moons-equivalent for its time, although some improvements were found later. The game has Easter eggs called bonus babies, and some but not all of them were shown in this movie. The primary goal in the run was to get the best possible result at least once in each event, but the time wasn't minimized in events that require 3 attempts. Instead it showed slight variations in gameplay, in an attempt to be entertaining. The current movie in Moons uses the same idea. But in the end it doesn't really matter, if tiers are going to be removed from the site.
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I don't see a need to limit branch numbers as long as they all have a different goal. However if there are minor variations that lead to the same result, that would be a limitation. For example, consider Chrono Trigger endings. I wouldn't mind seeing all of the endings as separate branches ("fastest ending #1," "fastest ending #2," etc). But saving the Chancellor doesn't cause a different type of ending; it just changes the scene. So saving the Chancellor would be a slower-than-optimal way to achieve the ending and would be avoided. But if a branch were aiming for, say, full completion instead of that particular ending, then the Chancellor would have to be saved.
The main focus should be on making sure that the player has clearly defined their desired goal and achieved it as fast as possible without violating the goal's internal conditions.
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Samsara wrote:
You're completely missing the point. Basically, what you're asking is for all of this change to happen just so we can go straight back to the old ways
My position is to accept the part of the proposal about expanding what can go in the Vault and making it the default publication level, but I don't think that you need to completely destroy the concept of Moons as movies that stand out as entertaining. Making a beautiful, entertaining movie is a good thing and should be encouraged. Yes, I have made a suggestion that is slightly different than what is proposed. The initial post asks if there should be any changes, or if anyone has any suggestions. You are free to politely disagree with the suggestion.
Samsara wrote:
Giving a Moon to every single award nomination would pollute the well in such a way that nobody would be able to understand what a Moon is supposed to be under this new system.
A Moon would be every movie nominated for an award. It's right there in the sentence. If you don't like the idea, that's fine. But Moon would have a completely clear and objective meaning. (It is more clear than "player imposed restrictions/concepts that don't explicitly and officially exist in the game that meet acceptability reasons based on entertainment.") People keep incorrectly saying that it would make it too easy to become a Moon, even though I showed that it would reduce the current number of Moons by 550. The percentile breakdown if the suggestion were used would be 61% default pub level, 34% Moons, 5% Stars. (Whereas currently, 58% of movies are Moons.)
I realize you may not like the idea. But, as I often do when I interact with staff, I am simply giving you an alternative perspective to consider.
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Memory wrote:
Arc wrote:
The logical continuation of this thought is that Moons could be every movie that gets (legitimately) nominated for an award in any category.
Thus, Stars and Moons would both have a clear, indisputable meaning, and it would be based on the whole community's evaluation of those movies.
Since we have the full archive of the Awards, these could also be partially or wholly applied retroactively, if desired.
Given how easy it is to nominate a TAS (literally takes only 1 suggestion) I don't think making moons "is nominated" is a good idea.
I looked at what the consequences of my Moons suggestion would be. I went through the whole Awards nominations archive and filtered out the obsoleted movies.
Currently there are 1350 Moons (and 117 Stars) out of 2338 active publications.
Using Awards nominations only, there would be approximately 800 Moons (and 117 Stars—yes I subtracted 117 from the total nominations number).
So, if there is a valid criticism of the suggestion, it is that it would make Moons more exclusive—not that it would be too easy to get into Moons.
But, this suggestion is in line with what Samsara stated in the original post:
Samsara wrote:
[1] Currently, Moons is treated as the "default" tier, a relic of the site's past
...
[1] Expanding Vault in this proposed way would effectively bring it up to the "default" tier of the site.
...
[1] Given that this would be the biggest tier
...
[2] Moons would just be a tag in the same vein as Console Verified or Commentary, denoting that the run is "non-standard" and was voted on by the audience to be a part of the site.
...
[2] Moons would be treated the same way as before, favoring audience reaction heavily
The suggestion to incorporate Moons into the Awards via nominations would fulfill both [1] making the former Vault the default, biggest 'tier' and [2] granting the audience the power to elevate certain well-received 'default' movies up to Moons.
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I concur with ending the current Vault/Moon distinction. By default, just publish or don't.
I would incorporate Stars and Moons into the yearly Awards.
Stars are the top 5% of all publications.
Let's imagine that there were 2232 publications and 111 Stars on 1 Jan 2021.
Let's estimate that there will be 2432 publications on 1 Jan 2022.
5% would then be 121 Stars. So there would be room for 10 new Stars.
(a) There could be nominations specifically for Stars, and the 10 with the most votes would get Starred, or
(b) If you demand "console diversity" in Stars, you could just Star the 10 movies that get the most votes in the final TAS of the Year voting.
But yeah Stars and winners would heavily overlap.
The logical continuation of this thought is that Moons could be every movie that gets (legitimately) nominated for an award in any category.
Thus, Stars and Moons would both have a clear, indisputable meaning, and it would be based on the whole community's evaluation of those movies.
Since we have the full archive of the Awards, these could also be partially or wholly applied retroactively, if desired.
I maintain a nearly perfect bell curve. Whereas this "average" rating turns my entertainment ratings into a jumbled mess. The movies that I intended to rate the lowest are now at some random point in the bottom 100.
I am shocked (not really) that the staff would fail to take another person's perspective and consider that each user put a considerable amount of thought into every entertainment rating that they gave. Very, very disrespectful.
