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Wow, this is an amazing TAS! Congrats on getting this to work! Very fun to watch too :)
I always knew that it was impossible for me to try out all options, so I kept going until I reached a solution was satisfactory. Someone improving my TAS would need to spend a lot of effort for a relatively small improvement. Turns out that evaluating this many options makes for a rather substantial improvement (but one I could not ever hope to have achieved by doing this manually).
A bot was actually also used in the warps TAS of Arkanoid. Bisqwit helped me out with his bot for the part with the laser at the start of the warps TAS. Pressing the A button was the only available button for that part.
Chef Stef wrote:
Note that this strategy is also 98 frames faster than the published warps TAS, which does aim for last-hit timing.
I wonder if I should make this improvement to the existing warps TAS. Or do you think other improvements are possible?
Nicos wrote:
but also i'm wandering : why no laser ? it should save time to have the multi ball AND triple lazer doesn't it ?
No upgrades drop while having more than 1 ball in play. The choice for 3-ball only for this all-level TAS was for entertainment reasons. Using the laser in a TAS would not look vert different from a human player using it, while focussing on 3 balls at the same time at this speed is absolutely impossible for a human player.
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Very nice improvement! It's great to see that you were able to find such a different route for this TAS as well! I liked the usage of the magic wand, very entertaining :).
morningpee wrote:
Now for the important question: Does this movie minimize the number of A presses necessary to complete the game?
It doesn't. The reset is done by using UP+A on the second controller, which could count as using the A button. As for using A on the first controller: you could grab more heart containers, obtain the magical sword and beat Ganon by using A 4 times instead of 16 times, which would be less A-presses (but obviously be slower).
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WarHippy wrote:
This movie only beats Baxter's by 0.3 seconds. It looks like a sub-optimal strategy is being used in this run; mainly that all the single and double line clears are eating into your time to drop more blocks.
I was about to say the same. My version is probably slightly longer because I have to clear lines a lot lower due to clearing the entire board. It should be possible to complete the goal of this movie with less line-clear animations.
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Very nice improvement. It's cool to see that the gambling could be skipped! The new route looks very clean. Entering level 8 surprised me the most :)
I also liked TASing this game. There are lots of games that not as fun to TAS.
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Very entertaining as always!
This was actually the first time in 15 years that I noticed the green blobs rocking back and forth in world 1 aren't ghosts but hills >_>
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TASeditor wrote:
RAT, do you have a lua script for the hitboxes on the HUD?
I never found a way throught this section.
You could have just watched the second quest TAS...
Either way, the HUD is a transposed section of a part of the screen below it. Not sure exactly how it was transposed.
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jlun2 wrote:
Baxter wrote:
jlun2 wrote:
I was thinking more of the warped route obsoleting the any%
The glitch does not work on the (U) version.
I recall other TASes using different regions because its faster. Like OoT. Why would this warrant a new category?
The (J) version of OoT has faster text. It doesn't feature any glitches that are not possible on the (U) version as far as I know. If the any% (U) version had a completely different route due certain glitches not being possible, then there probably would have been multiple versions.
jlun2 wrote:
Isn't there enough categories for this game already?
Any% first quest and any% second quest seem like obvious goals. The first TASes for these categories are nearly as old as the site. About the 100% first quest and the swordless first quest, you can debate. (I personally wasn't the person who first submitted these runs. They were judged like any other run and apparently there was enough support to publish these categories.)
jlun2 wrote:
What more of the game can the existing any% show compared to others?
You can ask the same question for any other game that features a 100% run. This particular run shows a unique route compared to the 100% run (and less arbitrary goals), which can't be said for all any% TASes. I think the main reason people enjoy any% TASes in general is that it truly shows the fastest way to beat the game.
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Nice to see another Tetris DS submission. A long time ago, I argued for a single Tetris DS movie that completed all modes in Tetris DS. It seems like TASVideos didn't choose that road (probably for the better, since it seems that no one will make such a TAS). I did start a TAS like that, but I only completed the first mode, which so happened to be the mission mode. My completion times were a bit faster than the ones in this submission:
Level 1:
9:60 vs 10:28
Level 2:
11:10 vs 12:03
Level 3:
10:95 vs 12:15
Level 4:
13:38 vs 13:95
Level 5:
15:00 vs 15:71
Here is a link to this movie: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/117393187/Tetris_DS_Baxter.dsm
Note that I probably could have selected the mode faster by using touch. Also note that this was made on an older version of the emulator, I don't know if it syncs on the current one. It was made on desmume_0.9.2-rr.
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Ubercapitalist wrote:
Baxter wrote:
Did you maximize the number of kills during the Bonus Time? Did you know that you can break up your big kill combo and start a new combo when using Bonus Time (without losing score)? I wrote a FAQ on how the scoring system for the mercenaries mode works a long time ago, it explains how it works.
Baxter,
I've pulled your wonderful FAQ up often over the years, and will refer to it in my submission. In this run I managed to gather the max enemies before each chest while keeping the combo going, without sacrificing points. Doing this for the 2nd chest took a bit of creativity.
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Did you maximize the number of kills during the Bonus Time? Did you know that you can break up your big kill combo and start a new combo when using Bonus Time (without losing score)? I wrote a FAQ on how the scoring system for the mercenaries mode works a long time ago, it explains how it works.
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Feos: Would you be prepared to put 8 (or more) Tetris DS runs in the vault? If no, reject.
If yes, then this particular TAS is not even close to the site's quality standards, so still reject.
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thatguy wrote:
I'd just like to say I'm pleased you haven't given up on TASing ToonLucas22. After how your previous submission got torn to pieces, it takes a certain amount of determination to carry on. Remember you can always TAS for fun, you don't have to submit everything you make.
I agree that ToonLucas22 should definitely continue making TASes if he enjoys doing so. Before submitting the movie to TASvideos however, be sure to post it on the forum first, so people can give advice and see whether it is suitable for submission.
thatguy wrote:
I actually liked this TAS somewhat, but it seems other people more experienced than me picked up on egregious suboptimalities in the gameplay. As a general rule, if people can tell by watching it that it has mistakes, it won't get published.
I'm actually surprised by the lack of people noticing how unoptimal this TAS is. I don't want to sound mean, but this TAS is not even close to the site standard in terms of optimization. 26 rerecords is about the number of rerecords it takes to find the optimal frame to press start after power on, not to make an entire TAS. Literally 100 times the number of rerecords sounds reasonable for a TAS of this size. The lack of rerecords used on this TAS really shows, especially if you compare it to the gameplay in the published TAS.
thatguy wrote:
This leaves a separate question: does this game mode deserve its own category. If a highly optimised TAS came along would it be published?
I made a long post in an old Tetris DS submission thread about what I think should be published in terms of modes (I would also recommend reading the rest of the thread; fun discussion!). In short: I think a single movie completing all modes isn't too much to ask from a TASer given the size of a single mode. Pretty much all modes are interesting I think, but having like 8 published TASes for this game would be way too much. That's why I was always against publishing the single mode that was completed in the currently published TAS (especially since it is one of the most boring modes).
