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Scepheo wrote:
Sorry scrimpy. But as you say, there's no name that'll properly explain the categories (that's not also a full sentence) so you're gonna have to explain them to new people anyway, and for people who already know what the categories are, "minimum presses" and "minimum holds" suffice to differentiate the two.
But then the question is whether or not my alternatives are at least MORE descriptive. Like, "minimum buttons recorded" may not be completely clear, but it at least makes sense.
MUGG wrote:
I'd call it "minimum button presses" if it were up to me.
But I want the two to be consistent, and I don't think "minimum button records" makes as much sense as "minimum buttons recorded".
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Scepheo wrote:
Brandon, you're thinking too much. People aren't retarded, Minimum presses and minimum holds are perfectly clear names. And like Nach, I very much dislike the idea of minimum holds.
It confused scrimpy. That's rude of you to call scrimpy retarded. Also, you should see that category in action...I've seen demos of SMB done that way, and I honestly think it's more entertaining than minimum presses. The problem is that they are so impossible to make.
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boct1584 wrote:
Your "Minimum holds" category would be better named "shortest button press time," I think.
But it's the sum of the shortest press times. "Shortest button press time" could easily mean "press start for one frame. That's the shortest press time possible! OK, continue on with your run normally." I really think it should be "minimum buttons ?" where ? is a good description of what's happening to the buttons in relation to the goal. I think recorded is decent, but it'd be easier if there were a name for each instance of a button in the movie file. "Minimum buttons in frames" is also decent except for it being a bit long and inconsistent with the other goal, and who knows what will happen if we eventually support subframes...
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ais523 wrote:
It makes perfect sense to press in minimum holds, and hold in minimum presses. Because in minimum holds, what you're trying not to do is hold. And in minimum presses, what you're trying not to do is press.
This is just the same thing as minimum in-game-time runs sometimes spending a lot of realtime, and minimum realtime runs often wasting in-game time.
Perhaps, but then the problem is "quantifying" holds. In "minimum presses" runs, you're trying to hold down buttons the least number of times. For "minimum holds" runs, you're trying to hold down buttons for the least amount of time. Holds could describe either scenario honestly.
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boct1584 wrote:
Like I've said, I think a good solution is for movies like this to have an "Unconventional Goals" tag.
I don't agree with this. I think if this run or runs of its category deserve to be published on this site, it should have its own tag. The better debate I think that needs to happen is whether or not the current category names are sufficient. I think that they are not. "Minimum presses" is decent, but it doesn't exactly say what is being pressed. The bigger issue is its sister category, "minimum holds". This has been a major source of confusion since I submitted my first run. I believe I was talking to scrimpy describing the two, and he was like "Wait a second...you hold buttons in minimum presses runs...but you press buttons in minimum holds runs?" In truth, yeah, that's pretty much the strategies you have to take in order to make optimal runs in these categories. So, I think "holds" is a terrible term.
I'm thinking of renaming "minimum presses" to "minimum buttons pressed" and "minimum holds" to "minimum buttons recorded". Now, even "buttons recorded" is a little ambiguous (But your run records 8 buttons!), but still, I'm not sure what the alternative can be. I certainly think it's a better strategy to use a verb to describe these categories than a noun, and although MBP TAS and MBR TAS would be stupid abbreviations, I'm willing to give the abbreviations up in order to be more in line with the other categories. Let me know what you think.
I think at the end of the day, I really just want to provide an optimal version of this run (HappyLee and I are working on it) and justify that this category should exist. If the best version of this run isn't entertaining enough to be published, then it should be rejected. I'm still going to do these kinds of runs and track them elsewhere on the site (Although I hope that this run would at least justify the movement of Brandon/MinimumButtons.html to /MinimumButtons.html). However, when one of these runs has potential to be entertaining, I think that they should be submitted and judged based on the entertainment value and not on whether "this is what we do at TASVideos"; I think several people have proven that this is in-fact a superplay and has all of the elements of a TAS.
In order to see if this category can be entertaining enough to publish, I will be submitting another run of this type shortly.
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I think this only has a hope of being acceptable if it's a playaround and cares little for time. Ring-outs for EVERY ROUND is bound to get old really fast.
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goofydylan8 wrote:
Brandon you want to take a couple fights?
I mean, I forgot a lot about how this game works, and I'm super busy, but you can count on me to at least do the final round. I'll take more later on if I find the time...maybe I can sync up sound effects with the soundtrack somehow, just like I did in Arcade's Revenge!
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deuxhero wrote:
Would have voted yes simply because it is a perfection over a manual run, but a previous post improved this a bit, so meh. Will vote yes when that improvement is submitted.
rog wrote:
39 frames saved on just a single fight means my vote is changed to no.
Really? My improvement that merely ends input early has become a voting issue? Seriously, I only did it because I'm envious of goofydylan8's ridiculous output and I saw what looked like an obvious improvement (I tried to improve the end of Wolverine as well, but that was unsuccessful). I honestly don't know if it's worth it for me to redo the final level, re-encode, etc.
I'd rather see this run redone with more stylistic variation. Although this game doesn't have a huge amount of variety, I know there must be more to it than this. For every single fight, you immediately go straight down out of the ring. That alone is a bad sign. It may have been over a decade since the last time I've played this game, but I know I wouldn't have had so many fond memories if this was all the game had to offer.
The question now is whether or not it's, in fact, worth redoing. Is there an audience for this? What would be the result of further pushing this game to its limits? It'd be cool to partner up with goofydylan8, but unless there's a significant audience and a great amount of likelihood that a run of this game can be accepted, I'd rather not put it anywhere near the top of my enormous queue.
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goofydylan8 wrote:
Hell, if you wanted to adjust a couple things and resubmit I am all for it. As you said the chances of this being published is looking slim so maybe the thrill of a new submission with possible co-authorship would make people vote yes instead.
A couple things in that level or would you like me to do stuff elsewhere? I can't imagine there are improvements in other levels. I could just try to redo the last level for style and match / beat the time if that's what you'd like, sure.
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Rough real-time improvement of 39 frames. Only final fight is modified. I'd improve it stylistic wise and resubmit it, but I doubt that you'd consider this enough work to warrant a co-authorship. Then again, this game's publishability is questionable to begin with. In the end, the important thing is I've proven that you make mistakes, and perhaps this is enough to slow down your NES reign of terror! >_<
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If your emulator doesn't have a registerwrite function, you can always just do this manually by reading the value at that address every frame and comparing it with the previous value, only printing the value when they differ. memory.registerwrite is almost definitely more efficient, if available, though.
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SuperMario12 wrote:
If everything works this will save 2 presses, and even if you have to jump twice at 2:50 it will save one press!
The problem is that you need to jump three times: 1 to get over the Koopas, 1 to get over the Goombas, and 1 to get over the pipe. I'm pretty sure I've tested this before. So, unless you're right about small Mario being able to jump to the warp pipe in one jump, which is worth testing but I would imagine unlikely because the difference in height is probably not enough, your strategy would at best match mine, and would probably waste time maneuvering around the Piranha Plant. Thanks for the suggestions, though!
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HappyLee wrote:
Brandon wrote:
HappyLee wrote:
I have a feeling that I might find something. After all, world 8 truly is a big world. But I'll try to improve 4-2 first.
Well, the point is, if don't want to complete the run, and are willing to get me up to World 8, I'll complete it. If you find any improvements, I'll implement them while still getting all the manipulation to work.
Well, how about we both try to find improvements, and both do the manipulation work? Then we may be able to get better result. I'll try the manipulation work of 8-2 and 8-3 myself, too.
Meh, I suppose. I still don't understand how you all do these glitches so easily.
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HappyLee wrote:
I have a feeling that I might find something. After all, world 8 truly is a big world. But I'll try to improve 4-2 first.
Well, the point is, if don't want to complete the run, and are willing to get me up to World 8, I'll complete it. If you find any improvements, I'll implement them while still getting all the manipulation to work.
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HappyLee wrote:
Forget the competition. Cooperation makes better movies, isn't that right?
I'm not afraid of doing anything, because 8-2 and 8-3 doesn't seem hard to me at all.
Perhaps. Are you going to try to pick up presses in 4-2 first? I mean, I could just do the second half of the run...I don't think you'll find any additional press improvements / major speed improvements in World 8 anyway.
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HappyLee wrote:
I swear I wouldn't. I'd do the best I can to help you. Is that OK?
I think someone's just afraid of doing 8-2 and 8-3 because there's no way you'll be able to do it with simple S/L. Look, if you're adamant about not making your own run or leading a run and letting me handle the manipulation aspects, I'll obviously be forced to try to match your demo and continue from there, but I acknowledge that I'll inevitably provide a file that's suboptimal in comparison to what you could produce, so why waste both of our times? I mean, I have trouble wall-jumping, let alone know every single facet of this game like the back of my hand. If you truly see this game differently than anyone else and love working with it, then why would you back down from making this kind of branch when, even if it doesn't belong on this site, you've said yourself that it might be a worthwhile competition?
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HappyLee wrote:
As for a fully optimized minimum presses run, I don't really enjoy doing this. So I might be more willing to help you find improvements instead, or a nice and friendly co-authorship would be better.
But then I'm afraid you'll just come back raising more hell that I've done something suboptimal...and I don't really enjoy that.
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HappyLee wrote:
Well, I don't read RAM so well, so what I often do is guessing over and over again. You do better than me of course.
I'm telling you, you will be working on this for hours before you give up. If, at that point, you'd like me to provide the input to get past the Hammer Bros. and offer me co-authorship, then by all means...
HappyLee wrote:
Excuse me, but I didn't get what you meant when you were saying "floating block at the beginning of 4-2". Could you tell me where exactly is the block? Thank you.
1-2, sorry. There's a point in which you run into a block and I don't understand why you do that instead of jumping over it. It doesn't save any presses.
HappyLee wrote:
Edit: Since I've created a demo, don't you like to improve it yourself?
I'd rather you continue and complete this run because I feel and have always felt that a more experienced SMB TASer would be best suited to optimize this for time; I merely wanted to come up with the smallest press count and attempt to further optimize it if there were no other people willing to do it. If I redo this, I will inevitably do a suboptimal job, because regardless of how elitist many of your previous comments have been, and believe me, they were very much so, quite a bit of it is warranted. You don't need to throw the fact into our faces that you know this game's engine more than probably anyone in the world; we know, and I happily concede to you on this front.
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HappyLee wrote:
Thanks, Brandon. I think my input configuration might be wrong, thank you for telling me that.
I've hardly ever watched memory addresses of enemies. I'll try to learn it if it's necessary in 8-3.
I mean, if you think you can do it, do it, but I don't want to hear that you only need to save and load to match 8-3 if you haven't even tried. You'll be wasting a lot of time if you don't use RAM Search; the only other way is to guess over and over again.
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Mars608 wrote:
As an expert on SMB and also a long-term SMB TASer, I hardly think this run has any entertainment or technical standpoint at all. You can easily reach to a total 142 of presses with S/L only and no other tools. Therefore I object to the publication of this TAS.
If this means Saving/Loading, this is total nonsense. There is zero room for error to do the trick in 8-2; one frame off and you're toast, so frame advance is necessary. For 8-3, you can't get those Hammer Bros. to jump at the right times unless you watch their memory addresses.
HappyLee wrote:
Here's another DEMO till 4-2 with an easy 714 frame (12 seconds) improvement in 1-2.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/79973731/HappyLee_SMB_MPdemo4-1.fcm
And somebody please help me check the sum of key presses in my DEMO to make sure it's exactly the same as Brandon's, because that lua script won't run on my computer due to some reasons.
Yes, you are at 41 presses, which is where I'm at, but it through me off at first because there's 2 player input in it for some bizarre reason. Here's a fixed FM2. Granted, your new route gets rid of the need to moonwalk. That said, it's obvious you can improve this further by not running into that floating block at the beginning of 4-2. I hope you fix this and finish this run.
Personman wrote:
Oh HappyLee, how I wish you were excited to add your expertise to Brandon's new idea to produce a well-optimized collaboration! There is no need to tell him how much he sucks - he knows very well that he's not a superstar SMB TASer, and didn't even try for most glitches. That's just not what he cares about! And that's okay!
He has undeniably contributed something that many community members are interested in, and sparked the desire to see how far his idea can go. You could help us all find out and come off as a hero, but instead you've chosen to disparage Brandon's work.
I understand what you said about how for you this game is like a whole other world. But that's why you have to understand that your opinion is in the minority, and that this game can be meaningful for other people in ways you can't appreciate. I wish you could get excited about this run and help out, but if you really can't, please just back off and let the people who do care have their fun. I have no idea if the judges will accept this run or not, but at this point both sides have made their case, and you won't influence them further by continuing to insult people.
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Patashu wrote:
Lots of good information...
I understand the challenge at hand, but do note that many runs do not need presses / releases to be done on a specific frame (Unlike 8-2 in my latest submission). This is where the simplification part comes in: we'd have to edit the TAS to give the largest window of input that's acceptable, pressing a button on the first frame that you can and releasing it on the last frame you can release it on. If a game is flexible enough to allow this, the window can be expanded to great lengths, and luck isn't a big factor, I still think this is promising.
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Most of us have probably heard about my SMB minimum presses submissions by now. The encodes for it all use a Lua script written by FractalFusion to generate an input display that resembles a Dance Dance Revolution stepchart. This is very cool, and shows input in an exciting, new, and precise way, but does it serve another purpose? Perhaps.
Imagine: someone sees a TAS and wants to be able to achieve its record. The player will soon learn that we all have human limitations that the computer does not; as such, it'd be impossible to match it. Or is it? What if that person is incredibly good at rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution? What if they can press and hold those buttons at the right times with near perfect precision?
The solution: simplify a TAS as much as possible (Remove unnecessary input or input that it harder to follow than necessary), dump its step chart, and follow it along as you play on a console. Perhaps this would be useless for the more complicated games, but for relatively trivial ones, this might be the key to setting TAS records without the tool-assistance.
So, would anyone like to try this? If I had the time, I think I might stand a chance, being a pretty good DDR player. Worst comes to worse, I do know Chris Chike...
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Ace Of Hearts wrote:
I'm inclined to believe the only reason this particular lua script was chosen for input display is because the run itself, while it does follow a clear goal, is mostly boring.
Although I think the script does increase the appeal of this run, the reason I included it was because it's the best way to illustrate input that I've ever seen. I didn't come up with the idea; FractalFusion did upon hearing that I was planning to submit this kind of run (The run this was created for had existed for months).
Ace Of Hearts wrote:
On another note, somebody needs to add this script to a run that presses buttons a lot. I'd be very interested in seeing that!
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Would this mean a run where every button is pressed except the ones that cannot be pressed in order to complete the game? That might be interesting, if could somehow be evaluated. One in which every button is held indefinitely, however, is nonsensical. Sorry if I've taken this too seriously.
