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[3871] PSX Vandal Hearts by lapogne36 in 4:22:31.46
Rarely is the pure gameplay of a TAS so interesting to watch that, even after 4 and a half hours of it, it makes me want to buy the game and try it out.
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I plan on making another TAS where I change the memory to set the winds to be perfect, which I'm sure is against certain rules here but opens up the potential to save 20+ seconds from the total time of this TAS because it would be much more optimized.
If you do that you run the risk of getting a set of wind values which are impossible to obtain normally, making it unsuitable for a TAS following RTA rulings (which I believe was the intention) because you can't get that outcome without cheats.
While remaining idle in the Golf menu may not affect RNG at all, perhaps RNG is affected by the RTC in the sense that its initial value depends on the clock (which I imagine would have been what Memory tested). You may want to look into finding the value/s that create the wind values by setting up some breakpoints in Dolphin debug and searching with Dolphin memory engine, look at how those values rely on the RTC, and then finally use the information you have to work out what the time should be when booting up the game in order to get you the best possible combination of legitimate wind values in the shortest amount of time.
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To answer your questions Memory, entering/exiting the Expert course saved me 1 second the first time (by preventing the AB check from appearing again).
This doesn't actually save any time in the context of a TAS, since timing begins from power on. I think Memory is asking how much time is gained or lost by exiting and re-entering twice in this sense, and given the time it takes to do this, is the RNG seeding actually worth it? Clearly from what you've said it saves enough time over the seed you get after the first exit and enter to be worth it, but does just going into 9 hole game from the beginning cost enough time from the RNG seed that it would still be better to enter and exit twice?
EDIT: Oh, and another thing I remembered: It's actually slightly faster to reach the title screen by resetting the game rather than pressing A. Whether this affects the Golf RNG seeding (to a disadvantage), I don't know.
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I really enjoyed this TAS. It was really entertaining to watch, and I think it would be a good fit for the TASVideos site. While as FitterSpace said there was some objection about it not being lowest score, I don't think it's an immediate problem, since in most cases the TAS comes close to that anyway and the amount of swings used are likely the same (apart from Course 7) anyway.
A problem that I could see with this TAS getting accepted is how it would fit in with other potential TASes of other Wii Sports categories. "All Sports" and "All Sports+" are the two of the main categories run for Wii Sports, which more or less represent Any%. The difference between the two is that All Sports+ has more "content" that could be identified better as playing through everything in the game as fast as possible - for example, a "Best of 5" Tennis game is played rather than a Single Game, and a Baseball game must be won by regular means rather than ending the game early with "Mercy Rule". It also requires that all 9 holes are played in Golf rather than just one of the 3-hole options.
As I think that "All Sports+" would be seen as a far less arbitrary category by the TASVideos community in terms of content than "All Sports", I think that it would have a higher chance of getting accepted onto the site. But since it includes all 9 holes of Golf already, having a separate category for 9 hole Golf would seem redundant. That is, of course, unless it was a lowest score TAS, in which case it could be accepted as it would have a different aim and thus wouldn't just be a smaller part of another category, like a World 1 TAS for Super Mario Bros. would just be considered a smaller part of a warpless TAS. I think this is definitely worth considering when judging, although given that no other Wii Sports TASes exist on the site as of now, I think that it could still be put on the site for now, and just be obsoleted should an All Sports+ TAS be made.
Nevertheless, yes vote.
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PC games are inherently a different beast to console games. As has been noted many times in this thread, the platform has never had a consistent standard of what specifications the system should have, and this is very much reflected in how people tend to use PCs. They may have far above or far below the recommended hardware, simply depending on the price range they can afford. They don't necessarily care if it's overkill or underkill for every single one of the games they have - just that it's good enough for their general purposes. It is not a common attitude that anyone whose system differs in any way from the minimum or reccommended requirements is a cheater, because it is usually only a very small percentage of players who have the exact specifications.
The open-ended manner of PC hardware also makes a standard very difficult to define, as even within the standard there is potential for wild inconsistency. Two CPUs may have a very similar processing power, but depending on how that power is split up between cores the resulting speed in practice could be very different, depending on the game. If a game uses a technology such as NVIDIA hairworks to improve performance, then it may run much better on an NVIDIA card than an equally competent AMD one. Load times may differ greatly depending on whether an HDD or SSD is used. Even if the hardware is similar, expecting anything close to a consistent output across "generally similar" hardware is ludicrous. Expecting that any combination of that hardware will happen to perfectly run the game at a common framerate is also ludicrous, so it's not like that would solve the "arbitrary framerate" problem either.
Perhaps given all this, we should come to properly acknowledge that PCs are not like consoles, and they hence demand some different rules surrounding matters such as framerate (as long as it doesn't dynamically speed up and slow down with the framerate, of course). My thoughts are this: Either you can acknowledge the small differences in ruleset that PC games demand, or you might as well not accept them at all given that a console-like standard is essentially impossible.
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Perhaps more "extreme" uses of FPS manipulation could be limited to Moons and Stars. That way, if the run is as much of a slideshow as you describe, it would have to somehow also meet high entertainment and audience response standards. The question that arises from such a ruling however is where do you draw the line between "okay" and "extreme"? Is 31.25 fps extreme, for example?
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"For other games, if some technique requires uncommon framerate, we allow to use it. Still, do not use arbitrary values, get the technique to work and settle there."
Does this mean that if a glitch is made possible by a certain framerate value (20, for instance), but it is more advantageous at a "more arbitrary" framerate, like 7.5, the less optimal framerate value must be used in the run on the grounds that it's less arbitrary?
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Banning the use of a glitch on the grounds that it could potentially harm run entertainment - ignoring situations where it would not necessarily harm run entertainment, and could even enhance it - seems like a poor way to make a ruling.
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Is there a ruleset that could be decided upon that disallows running games tied to CPU speed at rates higher than intended, but still allows free framerate manipulation below that limit (and above for games that don't apply)? That seems like the best solution.
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I would like to take this opportunity to point in particular to Half-Life 1, and the way that framerate has an impact on TASing. Tons of fundamental speedrunning tech rely on the framerate, and not necessarily in a consistent way, either. Control over framerate (or more accurately, frametime) is highly valued in that game and others that use the engine. The ability to have a high framerate is valued equally to the ability to have a low framerate. To limit TASers of that game to a value like 60 would be to tell them not to make an optimal TASes at all.
Here's an example of a TAS (made with an injector tool called Bunnymod XT) that takes heavy advantage of the framerate:
https://youtu.be/WsuYogNgDSo
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Certain Wii games, primarily those focused around you playing as your Mii such as Wii Party and Wii Sports, can have time saved by having custom Miis made in Mii Maker stored in Wii memory (so that the player isn't forced to go out of their way to use guest Miis), and certain categories are only possible with the existence of custom-made Miis. What is the current stance of ruling in regards to this?
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HappyLee, I don't believe anyone has said that your opinion is wrong, most posts have said that entertainment is subjective and nothing else. The only post I can recall saying that entertainment is only partially subjective was from you, so I don't believe that it's fair to stare that people are telling you you're wrong for having a different approach (rather, that they personally don't prefer your approach).
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Excuse me? I made it controversial? How?
Well, let's give an overview of the discussion. First, xxNKxx says they don't quite see the point in slowing down for entertainment and think it's a bit "wasteful", and then you explain that in your view it's a better choice and xxNKxx understands. So far so good. Then Spikestuff responds to the movie, criticising the lack of accreditation to MrWint in the submission text and says that in comparison, he prefers the direction of that movie and is giving this a Meh. Kung Knut agrees with Spikestuff, also saying that he prefers MrWint's movie and briefly mentions the slight hypocrisy of how the existence of this submission disproves one of your most repeated complaints on MrWint's submission. You then responded to Spikestuff saying that he got the credit he should have gotten and claim he only voted "Meh" out of spite, and then practically make fun of Kung Knut for preferring MrWint's style, saying that if he prefers that he should just not watch TASes. Shortly after, you cancel the movie submission for a day in response to "too many Meh and No votes" in an attempt to band-aid negative reception of the movie and a firey war over what defines entertainment, the voting system and why people are actually voting No etc. begins.
Please tell me, HappyLee, who from this sequence of events you determine started it.
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To put it into perspective, HappyLee, I personally find it disappointing that the new run "wastes time but doesn't technically waste time" in its approach. This is certainly a style which you've become accustomed to taking and I understand that, and honestly when MrWint's run came out I didn't really even care all too much in relation to it. But when watching the new run, while I know it's faster, even if it's just by a bit... It doesn't *feel* faster. There's something strangely displeasuring for me about this, and ends up making me feel like I'd prefer to go and watch MrWint's to be obsoleted run (because even if people are voting no, you and I both know that your run will still almost certainly be accepted onto the site) when I want to watch SMB warpless. You talk both about how entertainment is subjective but also how your run is objectively better, and while I could spend time going over how there's a bit of conflict between those two things, I'll only give you my opinions about the run: I understand that entertainment for you is a nice thing to spend time working on as a way of adding little "motifs", I guess, to a run to avoid making it feel repetitive. I understand the reasons for this, but personally I feel like it doesn't end up adding enough to the run to be worth it, and is slightly outweighed by the satisfaction of seeing Mario get through levels at a constantly fast pace. Maybe I'm the only no voter who voted that way because of this, but I don't think it's impossible other people feel the same.
Now, I maintain that if there's an improvement to a run speed-wise, it doesn't matter what the content is - it automatically obsoletes the old one, unless it's glitch set is so different it demands its own category. The reason I voted no was to voice dissent with the approach; I don't believe that this faster possible time shouldn't be accepted, no, I just don't like the approach and won't feel like going to watch it again many times now I know just how much cooler MrWint's run felt while watching. Hell, you could do a version of the run with no slowdown for entertainment whatsoever as an unlisted video and I'd go watch that. I wasn't intending to ruin your reputation in voting no; in fact, it's because your reputation is so stable that I felt like I wouldn't be hurting you by voicing that I didn't like the run more than the previous one, as opposed to if I did this with a beginner TAS without giving feedback. The question for voting is "Did you find this run entertaining?", which I considered as "Is it more entertaining for me than the previous run?". The answer is no, and I hope you can respect that opinion. I would have embraced it with either a "Meh" or "Yes" (since 43 frames difference isn't going to make the most pronounced difference over another run, which I suppose is another reason you choose to do entertainment-based slowdown) if it were like MrWint's run. I doubt you'll change your ways to what I personally prefer from reading this, but I hope at least you can understand that some people genuinely voted No without it being from spite of your at times frankly appalling responses to MrWint on his submission. I hope that this helps you in the regard this message intends to.[/i][/submission]
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The run was a nice watch and well-planned, but entertainment-wise it's a bit uninteresting to someone who's never played the game, especially considering how little you see of it. Nonetheless, yes vote.
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An entertaining run, but under closer inspection of the submission text and responses it's clear there's many things that it would be preferable to do in a run of this category. Meh vote.
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May I ask what is so important to the people replying that a new 100% run is done on the US version of the game? GBA games were not affected by 50 hz PAL bs, and American trade laws don't exactly make it easy to acquire a US version to say the least. I personally see no problem with the fact this run uses the European version.
As for the e-reader problem...I simultaneously feel that due to the e-reader's separated nature and its lack of release in Europe, it should be excluded as a separate category, but also that a 100% run without e-reader levels shouldn't be called 100%. I'd prefer the second one if it were a limited choice though.