Posts for Radiant


Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
But collecting the Magic Key first is much faster. Speed is always a concern when TAS'ing.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
NitroGenesis wrote:
Hmm... how come some best ending movies have the "best ending" branch but others don't?
Because the point of the branch name is not to describe the movie, nor to repeat its tag list. "Best ending" only needs to be in the branch name if there's multiple branches, e.g. one that is faster and gets a lesser ending, and one that is slower and gets the best ending. As Adelikat said,
adelikat wrote:
There's some ambiguity between the role of tags and categories. However, I think we should avoid using a category when a tag is more appropriate. ... The intent of the category is for specifying branches, not describing the movie.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Spikestuff wrote:
for tasvideos there's 3. Glitched, any% and 100%
As explained earlier in this thread, that's not the case. "Glitched" has sometimes been used here as a synonym of "any% but faster", but that's not possible since "any%" already means "the fastest run". Pirohiko is the fastest run of this game, and therefore qualifies as "any%".
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Ilari wrote:
Well, out of official Commander Keen games, there's also Keen GBC. But that one is kinda crappy.
La la la I can't hear you :P
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
There's no need to be rude about it. I'm not sure why you call this the "new system" as if it was some shocking change. It's not a new system; it is in fact the old system, how runs were traditionally named on this site. What is actually new is labeling the fastest run as "glitched" and the prettiest run as "any%"; this was tried for a small number of games, but it didn't work out well, so we deprecated it and went back to the old system (i.e. that "any%" means fastest). It's worth mentioning that Super Metroid is really not the standard situation here, because no other game on the site has so many published branches. Also, the branch names in your post are neither the ones currently in use, nor have I seen anyone argue for those, so I don't think you need to worry about those becoming the norm.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
feos wrote:
You call any% runs where you don't have percentage at all, just because it's used to tell the type of game completion. Here I put % just to highlight each category tells exactly the difference against all the rest, and all of them refer to game completion. I'd like to hear your arguments against my very thoughts.
I don't think these are types of game completion. A game is either completed or not, and runs that don't complete the game simply aren't accepted. Rather, there are two types of runs: those without restriction (also known as "any%") and those that have a restriction. Restrictions are self-imposed limits that make the run slower but more entertaining, such as "don't use the warp zone", or "no wall zipping", or "take only the most needed items" (also known as "low%"); unrestricted runs are limitless. The key is that this classification is unambiguous and objective; e.g. it is obvious, given some familiarity with the game, whether or not a particular run uses a warp zone. This means that branches are clear, and it's inarguable whether a run fits into a branch or not. We accept all unrestricted runs, in the vault. We accept restriction-based runs if consensus agrees that they're entertaining, in moon and star tier. On the other hand, whether a run is a "legitimate" completion or whether it's "non-glitched" leaves lots of room for argument. What exactly do those words mean? Is skipping most of the game illegitimate, and if so, wouldn't that disqualify a standard SMB warp run? Is an out-of-bounds glitch allowed in a non-glitched run, and should it distinguish between Megaman's wall zipping and Sonic's x-coord underrun? Is skipping the final boss illegitimate, and if so, what about causing his hit points to wrap to negative at the beginning of the fight? Ultimately these terms are just not precise enough. The bottom line is that we do like runs that show off most of the game. But such runs need a better reason for existing than "shows some levels but not others", or "uses some glitches but not others". And this works out well in practice; if the purpose of a run is not just speed, then the runner needs to explain what restrictions he's working under and why. Because TAS'ing is all about precision; if we can play a game with superhuman precision, then surely we can have precise branch names as well.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
That sounds pretty similar to the issue I'm having, and on the previous page somebody else has similar problems. ...time for an update?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Warepire wrote:
I was referring to the unique value part, the first proper RTS TAS would also have unique value as a run.
There are many RTS games in the world, and only few games where the designers put in a hidden difficulty mode that's intended to be completely impossible.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I believe this is our first run on the site on a difficulty level that is intended to be completely and utterly impossible. That strikes me as unique value of this run, and would be a good reason to star it, wouldn't it?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
There has never been such a thing as "glitched%" or "pacifist%"; those terms don't make sense to me.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
amaurea wrote:
Here I think you are wrong. If I haven't misunderstood, there are several known improvements that can be had using the X-ray glitch.
Well, I'm not intimately familiar with the game in question, but from the submission text I cannot infer that the movie deliberately avoided certain glitches. It may be the case that those glitches were discovered after this run was made. That simply means that a better 100% run can be made; and until it actually is made, we cannot really be certain that these newer glitches work for this run.
By the way, you did not respond the the case of a spacetime-beam using TAS being submitted to the "no X-ray glitch" category.
I cannot truly answer that question as I'm not a site judge, but speaking purely for myself I think it should obsolete the current one. I'm rather fond of runs that suddenly warp to the endgame for no visible reason.
If only we had some sort of lower visibility area of the site, you might call it a "vault", in which we could house these...
As I am told, it is deliberate that the vault only allows Any% and 100% runs, and that any other run on the site has to be sufficiently entertaining and fit all other criteria for moon tier.
Are you sure? Consider games that have a category which skips most of the game with huge glitches (A), a category which doesn't do that (the "no foo-glitch" category) (B), and some other category, like 100% (C). Doesn't C usually avoid the same glitch B avoids, even if it isn't stated in the category name?
I don't think so, but feel free to list any examples you can find. In general, this is avoided by how "100%" is defined for that particular game. For SMW, would a 96-exit run be a run that actually passes all 96 exits, or a run that hacks the ingame counter and shows a little star next to the save slot? I'm reasonably sure most people would agree it's the former. Not because it's "100% no counter hacking", but because people see 100% as "actually passing those exits", and "technically but not really" doesn't cut it (but if you want to wall zip, antigrav glitch, warp whistle, or x coord underrun to get to those exits, more power to you). Generally speaking, arbitrary code execution is only possible in a handful of games; and without that, I don't think it's realistic even with all known glitches and code bugs to skip most of the game and still get 100% completion, for any reasonable definition of 100%.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
amaurea wrote:
Regarding the "100%" category, the reason why I brought that up is because I wondered why it was called, for example "Super Metroid 100%" rather than "Super Metroid 100%, no X-ray glitch". Why is "no X-ray glitch" implicit in "100%", but not in "any%"?
The point of the movie name is not to enumerate all glitches that that movie happens to not contain. Rather, the point of the movie is to list the restrictions the run was made under (in the case of any%, that would be "no restrictions"). So the Metroid 100% run has the restriction of needing to obtain every single piece of equipment, energy tank, and missile upgrade, because that's what maxes out the in-game percentage counter. As far as we know, using the x-ray glitch does not make this run any faster, and therefore "no x-ray glitch" is not an actual restriction on the 100% run. Now it is possible that, at some point, someone will make a faster 100% run which uses the x-ray glitch. At that point, the most likely outcome is that this will obsolete the existing 100% run because it's faster. Only if the jury members decide that for this game (which already has seven branches) an additional branch is warranted, that this is meaningfully different as well as entertaining enough for moon tier, only then will it be necessary to use "100%, no x-ray glitch" as a branch title. As always, the burden is on the creator of a new branch to demonstrate that an extra branch is entertaining enough for moon tier and meaningfully distinct from existing branches; otherwise, it will be rejected. Case in point, this recent "low glitch" run was rejected because it used an arbitrary combination of allowing some glitches but not allowing others. We don't want a run for every possible permutation of glitches.
amaurea wrote:
The "no game-breaking glitches" criterion is implicit in almost all our categories, which is why it makes sense to make it explicit when it is not present, rather than the other way around.
No, it really isn't. The goal of TAS'ing is to complete a game as fast as possible, and if you use game-breaking glitches to do so, more power to you. The proper term for a run that is slower but more entertaining (because it foregoes using glitches to skip significant parts of the game) isn't any%; the proper term for that is "Moon Tier".
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I've tried that and it doesn't work.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Well, the thing is that the second definition you give for any% is objective, whereas the first is not. This also happens to be the traditional definition of any% (which predates the existence of this site); the notion that there might be a "glitched" run which could be "faster than any%" is only a recent one, and one we've been getting rid of precisely because of how arbitrary it is. The definition of 100% depends on the game, and if for a game there is no consensual and objective definition of 100%, then we do not accept 100% runs for that game.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Please bear in mind that movies titled "No X, Y, and Z glitches" are very much the exception, not the rule. Almost every movie name is something straightforward and simple, like how Super Mario Bros has a "no warps" and a "no running" run. Indeed, to my knowledge we have zero movies whose title mentions three or more separate glitches, and such submissions would most likely be rejected on grounds of having an arbitrary goal choice. Also note that there's no such thing as "the old system" or "the current system". There were never more than a couple dozen movies using the term "glitched", and those were caused by a misunderstanding over what the term "any%" means. After all, we can't objectively define which glitches are "game breaking" and which ones aren't.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Fortranm wrote:
Maybe Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles (World) "newgame+" in 31:16.15 (http://tasvideos.org/1617M.html) should be removed? Now it's even slower than the normal run Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles (World) in 29:51.2 (http://tasvideos.org/1656M.html).
Well, they're both in moon or star tier, and they both play radically differently (one avoids all emeralds, the other relies heavily on Super Sonic). So since both movies have good ratings for entertainment, I don't think there's any call to remove one of them.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I think "Replay Mode" would be clearer. Compare e.g. "Julius Mode".
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I have the opposite opinion, actually. "No null sprite glitch, no stun glitch" tells me there's two explicit glitches not used and what to search for if I want more of them. "Less glitched" tells me basically nothing, as any movie that's slightly slower than the fastest movie is technically "less glitched".
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
But Kirby, it happens to me several times per day. Do you mean I should clear my cookies whenever I open the TAS site?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I prefer having the branch name be specific in that case. Submission texts are long and say lots of things, and a branch name should be clear without requiring the user to read all that.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Something that has been bugging me for awhile: for some reason the site doesn't remember when I last visited, or when I last saw a thread. The "new posts" icon usually remains visible for threads that have no new posts in them, and when clicked the first "new" post it goes to is something several days old. Copious usage of the "mark whole forum read" button solves the first issue but not the second. I don't have this issue with any of the other phpBB sites that I frequent. Running Chrome on win7.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I just found out that [1] NES Solomon's Key by Bisqwit in 22:43.95 (which is an any% run) is marked as obsoleted by [498] NES Solomon's Key "best ending" by Bisqwit in 26:35.83 (which is a 100% run, and slower than the other one). I believe that by our current standards, this is incorrect and they should be counted as separate branches, with the former being un-obsoleted.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I just found out that [1] NES Solomon's Key by Bisqwit in 22:43.95 (which is an any% run) is marked as obsoleted by [498] NES Solomon's Key "best ending" by Bisqwit in 26:35.83 (which is a 100% run, and slower than the other one). I believe that by our current standards, this is incorrect and they should be counted as separate branches, with the former being un-obsoleted. (oops, wrong thread)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
And here's the scene for Iji, where RJD is stated to beat some game while juggling three cakes and doing the laundry, and to complete the game Jumper without pressing the jump button... Link to video (edit) and can someone please convince Nitsuja to submit that run that Patashu linked? It really belongs on this site.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Nach wrote:
Can someone enlighten me as to who is Reallyjoel, and what is this reference to Reallyjoel's Mom? Is she supposed to be some insane gamer?
Yes. Reallyjoel is (the internet nick of) a friend of Daniel Remar, creator of this game, and one of his common betatesters. For an earlier game, I think it was Iji, at some point Remar created a very high difficulty level, and RJ jokingly remarked that his dad could easily do something even harder. So from that point on, every Remar game has a Reallyjoel's Dad (or in this case, Mom) joke difficulty that explains how RJD is doing it blindfolded with only one foot on the controls, a difficulty that is utterly and devastatingly impossible... ...except if you're an expert TAS'er, of course. Wow, this game is so completely ridiculous, I love it :D Recommended for Star Tier as this is running on a difficulty level that is intentionally designed to be completely impossible (and indeed, that normal humans, even expert players, can barely cross the first room in). And it looks great doing it. Awesome! Also, I do think that the official movie of this TAS should be the one that includes the full Galactic Princess BusTAAH endgame sequence. It's only fitting.