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The files listed in the post should already be in the ROM. You'll likely have to find one formatted specifically for MAME. Get that Google goin'.
The CHD thing is a separate issue, though it is still an issue: Seems like bundling the ROM with the CHD file won't quite work by itself. It loads up the CPS3 menu which expects the game to be written to memory, a process it says will take 70 minutes:
There are no-CD versions of Third Strike that work fine without the CHD. Assuming that using the CHD always leads to the above outcome (I am absolutely not ruling out user error, because I am an idiot and no one should ever rule out that I personally am doing something wrong), a no-CD ROM might be the only actual option.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Submission volume has been record-breakingly high, which is absolutely fantastic! I love it! The only issue is that it's overwhelming our current Judge team, and we're in need of more to help maintain the heavily increased flow.
You should have experience with high-level TAS optimization. Having published runs is highly recommended!
You should be an active and supportive member of the community. Judging isn't all looking at submissions, it's being a helpful guide for the community as well!
Joining our Discord Server is a requirement to be able to keep up with staff conversations.
Those interested in being Judges will be trained and advised in the Reviewer role first.
For more detailed information, please read the Wiki: Judging page. If you're interested, please contact me as soon as possible!
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ShesChardcore wrote:
Examples of games currently not allowed in standard are:
Creative games, such as Mario Paint
Free objective sandbox games, such as Harvest Moon
Game show games, such as Jeopardy and Family Feud
Has that rule changed/is it on the table to be changed?
My ultimate goal with the movie rules is to find ways to make every game and genre acceptable, so yes, it is on the table to be changed.
General advice for the thread: Instead of approaching things from the angle of "This submission doesn't follow the current rules, so reject it", let's approach it from "It doesn't follow the current rules, so let's look at the rules and see how we can change them using this submission as a guide".
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I'm down with this, hell yeah. I'm still wondering how nothing hit you, the playarounds were nicely varied, and the overall length was perfect to showcase everything without overstaying its welcome or leading to repetition. I can imagine a pure score-focused run being both tricky to research (32 possible paths, if my math is correct?) and nowhere near as dynamic due to needing to stay on the road as much as possible, so a run focusing on playaround makes a lot of sense to have.
Yes vote.
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feos wrote:
It's the same situation as with fighting games, where it doesn't make sense to control both players and call the result game completion. But I don't know if it requires an explicit rule, or how to word it. It doesn't look like something that used to confuse people over the years...
I don't think we need an explicit rule for it. Versus modes tend to always be separate, single match affairs, not generally suitable for publication outside of playarounds, so I think it's already fairly obvious to submitters that they shouldn't be TASing competitive multiplayer from both sides for speed on any game that allows it.
Also, now that we have board games acceptable, we gotta start taking steps to banish triviality rules outright so we can start allowing other kinds of games.
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SmashManiac wrote:
As such, I believe TASVideos should never publish this submission as it cannot be verified.
Unfortunately, I have no intention of rejecting this. If there's no way to publish it, we will create a way, which we have been exploring in an open - albeit inactive - discussion thread.
Your concerns are valid, however I don't feel like they should be applying to this submission, or any other GDQ/event showcase submission:
A traditional movie file cannot be submitted due to emulation issues, hence the placeholder file in this submission.
The fact that runs must have input files is a limitation of the site itself. Assuming we end up going with a separate method of "publication", there may not be a need to even submit an input file at all, and honestly I don't think there should be a need to do so.
The run cannot be reproduced by an independent 3rd party because some of the data needed to do so has never been released publicly due to copyright concerns.
I honestly can't think of a justifiable reason for why one of these runs should be reproducible in order to be showcased on the site. Verification and legitimacy don't make sense as these runs are inherently created for console playback in front of both a live audience and tens of thousands of viewers watching from home, so there's no need for them to go through a Judge or a Publisher in order to verify that they work universally. Would it be nice to have reproducible runs? Sure, of course, but there are - and will continue to be - cases where this is strictly impossible. A lot of these showcases use live input and/or read from live sources, so they can't be reproduced exactly anyway, not to mention the aforementioned occasional issue with copyright or the fact that some of the runs need additional consoles or tech.
It's silly to me to keep this up as a requirement just to be able to put these runs somewhere on the site. It's been silly to me since all the way back when Pokemon Plays Twitch was rejected (and yes, I am re-judging and accepting that one once we're able to accept this one).
The only evidence of the run working is through various live demonstrations by the authors, which means there is a possibility for it to be fake in some manner somehow.
I said this in the thread I linked earlier, but as far as I'm concerned, the fact that these runs are specifically created to work on console means they're more legitimate than a large number of our currently published runs. While we will never require console verification for any run to be published, I think in this case the console verification does everything it needs to in order to prove these runs legitimate enough.
On top of all of that, I have a few more words. These runs are created with nothing but showcasing in mind, they're made to entertain an audience and are not made to compete with anything else, RTA or TAS or otherwise. They're grand showcases of technical achievement, literally the best possible definitions of "tool-assisted" out there. They are very strictly created for live events, not meant to be reproduced by others and often not even repeated by the same team. We've recently opened the site to runs that may actually be explicitly illegitimate, so why shouldn't we be able to expand our definition of publication to include the ability to host and showcase these live events? If we're meant to be a centralized source of all things TASing, isn't it ridiculous that we have been actively turning away one of, if not the, most widespread, notable, and popular sets of TASes ever created?
In a way, it's true that we shouldn't be accepting and publishing these runs according to our usual standards of judgement, but these runs are such special cases that we need to make exceptions specifically for them and no other kind of submission. I don't think it wrecks the integrity of the site or the judgement system by doing so, as every single other submission is still going to be judged to the same standards as before. Our integrity is probably being more harmed by the fact that we haven't been making special cases for these, honestly, since doing so just feels arbitrary when the only thing we've ever needed to do is throw a video on a page and provide some links with it.
My claim message is my final answer here: This will be showcased on the site, no matter how long it takes to find and create a way to do so.
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Given that Scumtron removed his own name from this submission, I think it's fair to say that he wishes to have no involvement with it. While it would be nice to have fully accurate co-author attribution, in cases like these where an author removes their own name, we respect their decision and it is final unless they return to say otherwise.
That being said, I also fully support adding aiqiyou and J.Y as co-authors to this submission.
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User movie #638000241742048134
Out of sheer force of will and dedication to a bit, I've saved another 5 frames through some movement optimization in the final stage.
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Wobmiar wrote:
So I just finished a TAS of FEZ of the category 0%. The principle is that you play the game normally, then open menu, and click reset run. The run starts when you click "reset run". For encode, just starting from a savestate is absolutely possible. Could that run be accepted?
Given that you've said this is the only way of being able to run this category, I see nothing wrong with it in theory, but in practice I need to understand more about this before I know for sure. Can you explain exactly how this process works?
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I guess it's time to add my opinion here. These two reasons apply to both runs on the workbench at the moment:
One, I don't find the category itself to be particularly publishable. To me, it doesn't do enough to warrant a separate branch, i.e if any% to 100% is a spectrum, then this sits far too deep into the any% side and just feels like unnecessary work for effectively the same result. It makes even less sense when the final bosses are actually defeated extremely quickly with that edge of screen bug, so all of the extra effort to spawn the other three bosses leads to the payoff of spending a few more seconds throwing them. Even with the edge bug strategy, I think this final fight would be far more interesting at the end of a more "full completion" style run, perhaps something like "all bosses" since a good number are skipped here.
In a way, the category choice is akin to a run that goes out of its way to use a longer setup for a game end glitch: The extra effort feels wasted because the end result ends up being nearly identical anyway. It puts in too much work to be considered fastest completion, but not enough work to differentiate itself from fastest completion in my eyes.
Two, I think neither run quite meets optimization standards. This run gains over 30 seconds from early movement optimization and RNG manipulation, but the strategy it uses is clearly far slower overall than the other run. Since the RNG manipulation comes before the change in strategy, it could easily apply to both runs, meaning that a fully optimized run should be around 9:30, or even less than that. The fights in both could use some work as well from what I'm seeing. On that note, I've put this together, which improves the Moose screen by about 4-5 seconds over both runs:
Link to videoUser movie #637993639964772884 (slightly different from the video, though only in movement after Moose)
Given the dirty hit on the boss, this would likely be more of a pure any% start, though it should apply to this category as well since you only need 0 or more Reputation by Rex, you start with 16, and you're guaranteed to earn at least 28 (7 per boss, 5 from clearing out the gang and 2 from the actual boss), not to mention potential gains just from fighting in the arcane way the game expects from you. The actual strategy to clear out the gang could definitely be improved as well, I just went for the first thing that worked for me. If anyone's wondering why Moose jumps out of the pit throw here when he doesn't on the submissions, it's because of his positioning: The workbench runs wait for the dialogue to run out and for Moose to run a bit downward before the knockdown and throw, not giving him enough time to recover. For the immediate throw, he's placed just high enough on screen to be able to air recover just in time before his defeat. This still ends up being faster than the strat in the submissions.
The optimization thing is sort of an interesting quandary. This run is objectively the fastest completion of this category, meaning that by our rules it's hard to justify accepting the other run as it's not the fastest known run. However, even though this is the fastest known run, it's hard to justify accepting this as well because it's clear the other run uses the far superior strategy. Since that run came first, there aren't really any excuses for this run being strategically slower. I don't think we've ever had this situation happen with two submissions on the workbench at the same time, at least not that I've seen in my time as a Judge. I've seen it happen with submissions that aim to improve published runs but end up coming short on overall execution despite having faster times. In those cases, it's a judgement call, but we can't really do that here because neither run is published. There definitely needs to be a better way of handling situations like these. I might have to go back to the drawing board for our rules and standards and figure out something that makes sense.
Overall, I think the best course of action here is to just make a new strictly any% run from the ground up, with active collaboration instead of whatever led to this situation. In terms of potential improvements off of what's already here, I have a few ideas:
1. Clearly the best possible improvement would be a 2nd prize lotto win, though that seems unlikely unless the RNG is analyzed further.
2. The ultimate strategy here appears to be a combination of what the two runs do, as the Rocketeers and Skaterz are both able to work together, giving both the incredible speed and the teleportation effect.
3. Acro Circus may be worth looking into as both an attack and a movement option, though I'll admit I just love that ability and want to see it used. Ideally, it would be obtained at the same time as Grand Slam.
4. RCREX lets you freely change several options that affect both gameplay and physics. Making full use of these would speed up the run significantly. I don't exactly know how we would handle this from a rules perspective right now: I'd personally allow it, but I'd need to run it by others for a consensus before making it official.
If this happens, feel free to work off of my userfile, though please at least try to improve it instead of using it unmodified.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Please, take your time and use the tools that BizHawk provides such as TAStudio, cause you'll be able to clean up your input
Echoing this. Looking at the input directly, it seems like these runs are being performed in real time, just using rerecords. While that can be considered a TAS in and of itself, a true TAS will work frame by frame to ensure that every movement is precise and optimal. TAStudio is a godsend for this, allowing easy input editing and the ability to jump to any frame you want at any time. I would highly recommend downloading one of our published runs and studying how the author lays out their input. You'll almost certainly see things like single frame presses of buttons as early as possible in order to do things on the first possible frame, which is something that cannot be done consistently in real time over the course of an entire run.
I've said this many times before to many different people over the years: The act of creating a TAS gives you infinite time and infinite retries to create a single run, so use both liberally! Nothing should be out of reach. Every possible idea you have can be tried, and SHOULD be tried, even the ones you know for a fact aren't going to work. You can try any idea at any time, you can tweak your approach in any way you want, and you can test several things far quicker and far more efficiently than even the most experienced RTA runners can. Something else I've said before is that all you need to create a great TAS is patience and Google: The patience comes from learning the tools, learning your workflow, testing and re-testing strategies, optimizing sections frame by frame over and over until you're confident they're done as fast as possible. Google is for everything you might have missed! Also, other search engines are available.
You can approach a TAS from an RTA background, of course, and you can sort of treat the act of TASing the same way, but the only things that should be carried over are mental. An RTA runner will replay a game over and over and over and over again to try and improve their time: This should be kept in TASing, however the replay aspect should be micromanaged down as far as possible. Unlike an RTA runner, who can only "rerecord" to power-on and only knows if they've improved their time once they've finished the entire game, you can rerecord to literally any frame you want and figure out exactly where you're gaining and losing time at any point you want. Each screen becomes its own game to optimize in that way. You can clear a screen in 1800 frames, keep working at it, and find a way of clearing it in 1750 frames, then keep working at it further and possibly complete it in only 1700 frames, and you can move on to the next "game" whenever you're satisfied.
This sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but it'seasy work. Zenlike, in a way. As you optimize your workflow, the process gets even easier, too, and you'll find yourself taking much less time overall while still putting in the same amount of effort, if not even more effort. I've knocked out entire optimized runs over the course of a single day before, and while that's an extreme case, it's also not an unrealistic one.
I'll stop myself before I continue speaking in circles, but I'll leave with a parting thought on top of everything else: If this is a hobby you truly want to continue pursuing, and I damn well hope that's the case (as I do for every new submitter), it's worth it to stick around the community and learn things from people, being led by their examples and working with them to create better results than what one single person can do. The way we operate when it comes to new submitters and suboptimal runs isn't meant to be discouraging at all, it's simply meant to try and produce the best end results possible. We want people to improve and succeed more than anything, so I hope our words aren't coming off as cold and/or pushing you away. We're not coming from a place of mockery or insult when we talk about what we see in submissions, we're coming from a place of providing information, clearing up misunderstandings, and hopefully allowing self-improvement.
In other words, don't give up. We're here to help.
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It never felt right to me for the rules to have said both "we prefer (U) games and English language" and "we explicitly do not allow fan translations", so I don't really mind lessening the restrictions on them, but it's also something I'm not exactly keen on arguing for, if that makes sense.
A few issues come to mind: First, how far should we take it? A game can be translated into potentially dozens of different languages. Do we want to handle all of them, assuming the translation patch exists and that someone is willing to TAS it? What if a published run syncs fine on a translated version? Is that acceptable, or does it have to be completely made from scratch? If a translation introduces a game-breaking glitch not present in the original game, how do we handle it? Is there a reason to accept translations of games without much text? If all that changes in a game is a few HUD elements or a title screen, is there really a point to hosting that? At the same time, if we only allow plot/story/text heavy games, isn't that just an arbitrary restriction?
I feel like instead of discussing this right now, we should be looking more into figuring out how we want to treat Moons as a whole, or working a little more to elevate Playground from its WIP phase into more of what we want it to be. The way things work right now, even after all of the recent changes, doesn't accommodate everything we want in an elegant way quite yet. Ideally, we work things out to let things like fan translations fall into place naturally, rather than explicitly try to consider them and rewrite the rules to account for them. To be blunt, I would sooner crush my hands in a vise than let the rules get back to being a labyrinth of addendums and overworded clauses.
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We're using "new game+" as our general descriptor because it's an extremely commonly used and widely known term that should make it clear to the majority of viewers that the run uses benefits unlocked after completing the game. If the game has its own name for it, then yes, that will always be preferred. In fact, "Replay" is the name that SotN itself gives, so that's why it was used there.
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Samsara wrote:
Unless there are any objections, this will go into effect within the next week. Thank you all for your input!
Done! Thank you all once again for the input! I will leave the thread up for when I inevitably want to revisit the topic of verification, though this will likely not happen for a while.
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As of today, submissions that rely on premade saves are universally acceptable and publishable as standard publications! Prior to this announcement, SRAM-anchored submissions were required to be entertaining enough to make it to Moons, and this is now no longer the case.
The following changes are now in effect:
SRAM will be allowed in standard publications.
Runs that utilize SRAM are separate branches that do not compete with or obsolete runs from power-on.
Verification movies are a hard requirement, and will now be included with publications. Arrangements can be made for submissions where a verification movie is impossible, however.
The following SRAM-anchored branches will be acceptable as standard publications:
Unlockable modes, characters, and difficulties that cannot be unlocked through in-game codes.
New Game +, including minor things like cutscene/text skipping.
Heavily glitched runs that rely on premade SRAM, i.e "save glitch" and "game end glitch" runs that are otherwise impossible to perform without a premade save.
DLC missions and equivalents such as E-Reader, as long as verification is possible in some legally hostable form.
Further changes may come in the future as well. For more information on how this change was presented and discussed, see this thread.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the Ask a Judge thread, or contact Samsara via PM or Discord!
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So, I decided to look into the Reputation system to see what was happening with it.
Total Reputation is stored in IWRAM value $0242 (Combined WRAM value $040242). This only changes on screen transitions. IWRAM $0246 (Combined WRAM $040246) holds the value you've currently gained or lost on the current screen. On every screen transition, this value is added to $0242 and resets to 0. Both of these are signed, 1 byte values.
Running into walls gives you 1 Rep each time you do it.
Defeating a boss gives you 2 Rep.
Dying gives you 4 Rep.
Clearing a field of enemies gives you 5 Rep.
Recruiting a character gives you 16 Rep.
You can gain Rep while fighting, though I don't exactly know how this works.
Losing Rep comes from fighting dirty (hitting enemies while they're on the ground, hitting bosses while they're still talking, etc).
Recruiting Rex, as done in this run, only requires your reputation to not be negative, i.e 0 or above. What this means is that this run has a lot of wiggle room for fighting dirty to save time. 32 points of Rep, in fact:
Also, since Rep only changes on screen transitions, clearing out the gang before Rex can be done however you want, as Rep cannot change between entering the screen and Rex appearing.
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I will say that verification files, in some form, are always going to be strictly required for any SRAM submission. There are cases where a movie may not be possible (such as dekutony's Club Penguin DLC case), in which case we would work with the author to find the best way of handling that specific case.
As of right now, I feel that we've come to a good enough conclusion on what we want to push through right now. These are not official yet, but I will announce when they are:
SRAM will be allowed in standard publications.
- SRAM-anchored movies will be separate branches.
-- They will exist alongside clean branches even if there's significant content overlap, i.e a run that uses SRAM to skip cutscenes will be published alongside a clean run that does not.
- Verification movies are still required. Failure to provide one will result in rejection, unless it is impossible to provide one.
-- If it is impossible to provide a verification movie, the author and staff will work out a solution.
The following SRAM-anchored branches will be acceptable as standard publications:
- Unlockable modes, characters, and difficulties.
-- Assuming they can't be unlocked with in-game codes, of course.
- New Game +
-- This would include minor benefits such as text skipping and cutscene skipping, even if the rest of the run remains the same.
-- There's still a bit of issue with, say, RPG runs that have complete data carryover, but we'll figure those out when we start getting them.
- Glitched runs that rely on premade SRAM.
-- More meaning GEG/save glitch runs that explicitly need SRAM to work. For example, the aforementioned Croc submission would not count as the SRAM usage in that run was simply to load the completed save while the visuals were glitched.
- DLC missions and equivalents such as E-Reader, as long as verification is possible in some legally hostable form.
Verification movies are still a requirement unless otherwise impossible, in which case the author should reach out to us so we can work together to figure out the best possible solution. Verification movies will now be attached to publications using the Additional Downloads section (example here). Support for non-input files is an open issue and will be implemented in the future.
As far as I've read from the thread and followed up on with staff, the above is what the majority of the community has agreed on. Unless there are any objections, this will go into effect within the next week. Thank you all for your input!
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I took a crack at it as well out of curiosity and found a few route improvements and tricks, coming up with a 26 second IGT:
User movie #637977285498912599 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lvaa2J8Q_c
TASing is a hard process to teach, but it's fairly easy to learn and even master just from exposure, though it does still take a good few attempts to start really getting good. Everyone settles into their own distinct workflow once they do it enough, but there are a few key ways of thinking about the process that are universally helpful. Consider approaching future TASes with the following thing in mind: Experiment with everything, and I do mean everything. If you can think of something, even if it seems impossible, try it until you're 100% positive it doesn't work, and then keep trying until you're 1000% positive it doesn't work. Hell, keep trying it at every possible opportunity anyway just in case it happens to work that one particular time. You have infinite time to work and infinite retries at any frame you wish, both should be used as much as possible to ensure that nothing is missed.
Games like this are great choices for practicing! Short, divided up into levels that are only a couple hundred frames at most, enough variety in routing and movement to make multiple options potentially viable but simple enough to not make each one a chore to test, a little bit of movement jank that's worth experimenting with... You can get a good feel for the game through playing around, you can run through levels multiple times without getting sick of it since each one is only a couple of seconds long, and you can have a great finished product with only a few hours of work, done at whatever pace you'd like.
All in all, keep it up! Every minute spent TASing is well spent, in my opinion. Even if you make no progress whatsoever you're still gaining the experience, learning and optimizing your personal workflow in order to make better runs more efficiently. As long as you love TASing, don't stop doing it.
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adelikat wrote:
My vote would be that it is a hard requirement that a verification file is required, in order for it to be accepted to standard. There's too many ways to exploit SRAM, for it to be considered Standard and not a fringe goal, we need the verification.
Verification would still be required for any and all SRAM-anchored submissions. On Discord, we were even discussing the possibility of attaching verification files directly to submissions and publications, which is something I definitely agree with.
Darkman425 wrote:
In general I can agree with having SRAM acceptance in standard since there's quite a number of games that lock full game features behind game completion, such as difficulty levels and characters that change how the game's played. Regardless of entertainment factor, those would generally be considered genuine categories outside of TASVideos worth exploring and should at least be in consideration. This would make less risk of making a TAS for something that takes literal hours to generate the SRAM that might be rejected on the grounds of entertainment.
This is precisely why I'm bringing up the topic, as I alluded to in my thoughts in the OP. There are still explicitly objective categories that require SRAM, it doesn't really make sense to continue locking SRAM-anchored runs behind Moons.
Darkman425 wrote:
On the idea of other methods of verification, the e-Reader for the GBA is an interesting case to think about. For Mario VS Donkey Kong, there are e-Reader exclusive cards that I can't generate SRAM for in BizHawk but I can in mGBA. With a little work I can generate SRAM in mGBA that's compatible with BizHawk. That isn't something that can currently be done with verification files but is reasonably repeatable with instructions for generating a valid save file. I could also use a cheat to do the same thing but since I know of a kind of time consuming but provable way to generate a certain game state without a verification file I feel it's a valid game state to work with. If there are New Game+ or other states that would take unreasonably long to generate but is achievable without making a verification movie, using extra tools to make the same thing is probably fine if there's solid enough proof that the game state can be achievable via proper means.
I feel like your example should be fine, in that it's verified in that the state is achieved through normal gameplay, and that it would be something that BizHawk should eventually be able to do itself but currently can't. At the same time, though, I think the process itself might be up for debate. It's more verifiable in this case since it's effectively mGBA to mGBA conversion, but if we allow something like that as-is we'd have to word it in such a way that ensures we don't have people thinking they can download and convert some premade save off the internet and have it be acceptable.
DrD2k9 wrote:
For now, I only have a comment on number 3:
I don't think we should accept SRAM that isn't obtainable through normal/TAS play (i.e. via hex editing in max stats that wouldn't be obtainable otherwise).
Right. Something like that would go no higher than Playground. I'd even encourage it to be made for Playground, to be honest!
DrD2k9 wrote:
While I understand the argument (and potential time benefit to the author) of being able to manually create an SRAM file that would be possible to achieve through normal play, I personally feel that we should still restrict SRAM anchored movies to provide verification movies.
I realize this may require more work from the author's position, but it would simplify judging. If a judge has the verification movie inputs, it's more readily determinable that the utilized SRAM is legitimate. If, however, verification inputs are not provided/unknown, the judge would then be tasked with first verifying the legitimacy of the SRAM before consideration of the submission in question could even begin.
Keep in mind that the verification file must itself also be verified by Judges. In the hypothetical case of a NewGame+ run that requires dozens of hours of setup to be completely optimal, a Judge would have to watch that file and ensure that it does in fact create the same SRAM state as legitimately as possible. In a way, allowing carefully monitored external tool usage might actually be simpler for both parties.
At the end of the day, I've always felt creating a TAS is almost always more complicated than judging one, and as Senior I would much rather have my process be more time-consuming and complicated if it means simplifying the process of the authors in turn. I want TASing to be as accessible as possible while remaining exactly as legitimate as before, and any way I can find to make that happen, I will at least consider. I understand your point, though. I don't want judging to be overly complicated, especially as someone who isn't particularly gifted in coding/assembly knowledge, but it's more important to me to widen the field of opportunity for the thousands of TASers out there than it is to keep the process of a handful of experienced volunteers as quick and easy as possible.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Much like Samsara, I tend to lean toward a wider acceptance of runs for publication, but there does have to be a line somewhere.
Hypothetical example; if i hex edit a savegame file for a DOS game to provide an longer than legitimately achievable invulnerability time, I could breeze through a game much faster than without that ability.
So if i provide a run that has that savegame situation without any verification inputs, the judge would first have to determine if that ability is achievable normally before they can even start judging the run submitted.
Even if someone provides a manually created SRAM while claiming it's indeed possible to yield that save information via real play, it still falls to the judge to verify that claim if there is no verification movie.
TL:DR In my opinion, SRAM should only be accepted with verification movies provided that create said SRAM state. The impetus for proving legit SRAM should be on the author, not on the judges.
If we were to allow external tools, cheats, hacking, etc, we would require the author to tell us what tools and methods were used in order to generate the save file or SRAM used in the run. Ideally, it would be a step-by-step recreation process that any of us can follow to generate the necessary verification, and it would be transparent enough to be able to pick out people trying to fleece us with illegitimate game states (such as your invulnerability example). Without an explanation, I feel as though we wouldn't be able to accept the run at all. To me, that feels like an acceptable balance between accessibility and complexity for both parties.
Your case in particular is interesting, because on a surface level it sounds both easy to identify as illegitimate, but also easy to overlook if the Judge isn't familiar with the game to begin with. A required explanation would help mitigate those scenarios, but I feel as though it could still be possible for an illegitimate run to slip through the cracks. New Judge guidelines can be workshopped here, and I don't even think it would amount to anything more than a little extra research. Your hypothetical invulnerability scenario would be disproven by just double checking a guide, or playing the game from power-on with no save. Judges would likely be more in the mindset of "something could be off" if they were given an externally hacked file, even if it was presented and explained in great detail, it wouldn't be too much of an issue to just codify that mindset into the guidelines.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
You are allowed to start with premade in-game save data (SRAM) for categories that require it, though keep in mind that these categories must be entertaining enough to make it to Moons. This requires a verification file which must be provided along with the submission. The verification file must start from power-on and not be SRAM-anchored itself. It should create the exact SRAM state that's used in the submission.
This brings to mind three questions:
Should runs with SRAM be allowed as standard?
How should we be allowing SRAM usage in TASes?
Are there more convenient ways of handling verification?
I'd like to expand on each of these questions and offer my own thoughts. Spoiler alert: I support allowing more things!
1. Should runs with SRAM be allowed as standard?
I think the main complication with the rule in its current form is that we are explicitly saying that SRAM usage must be entertaining, which feels reductive to me. It definitely goes against the current direction of the site. The way I see it, SRAM does not remove the objectiveness of any given category. It just adds save data. While a point could be made that the varying nature of SRAM is impossible to make objective for a lot of games (think RPGs with New Game + carryover), that subjectivity only applies to the SRAM itself and not the underlying categories. NG+ any% is still objectively completing the game as fast as possible.
I don't feel the need to argue a case that I think everyone already agrees with, but I may as well give people the option to argue against it. My requirement would simply be that SRAM always remains a separate category.
On that note...
2. How should we be allowing SRAM usage in TASes?
This one's a bit trickier. Prompted by the Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 submission, this is about the varying ways that SRAM can be used in a TAS and whether or not said ways should be allowed. In FE776, when you have a completed save file, you are given the ability to speed up unit movement, saving several minutes across a run. The problem with this is that, as far as I'm aware, the rest of the run is unchanged.
This creates kind of a paradox with my requirement from the previous section: Is there a reason to have this be separate from a potential power-on run of the same category? There would be 100% content overlap, just that the units would be moving slightly faster in the SRAM run. In situations like this, where features unlocked with SRAM leave their respective TASes virtually identical to those without SRAM (faster movement, cutscene/text skipping), should we prefer one to the other, and if so which one should we prefer?
I'm really on the fence about this. The easiest way to handle this would be through superseding, i.e we accept the first one we get and obsolete with the other, but we still have to figure out what option we prefer. SRAM better fulfills the goal of being as fast as possible, though it introduces conflicts of "legitimacy", for lack of a better word, in that a run that starts purely from power-on can be instantly verified as legitimate while SRAM needs further investigation to prove that nothing unfair is being carried over.
I'd love to see some discussion on this. I might be overthinking it, but then again, I am Samsara, so me overthinking something is already a given.
3. Are there more convenient ways of handling verification?
Currently, all runs that require SRAM also require a verification input file that creates the exact SRAM state used in the main run. In most cases, this is just a full game playthrough, which can easily be done RTA with save states, but in some cases there's a lot more setup that needs to be done. Consider a New Game + run of an RPG where everything carries over: There's an incentive of getting all of the best items and equipment in the game and grinding to max level, perhaps even manipulating random stat increases to be their highest possible values. This could be an input file dozens of hours long, having taken weeks or even months to make. Is it reasonable for us to require that level of time, effort and dedication to a verification file? Granted, we would never require an absolutely perfect file, but as TASing rolls on, increasingly more complicated setups will be needed for runs to continue improving.
I'd love to find some easier methods for this, with the caveat being that any alternate method would still need to provide a legitimate game state. For example, maxing stats in an RPG through external methods (cheats, save editors, SRAM hacking, etc). It sounds reasonable at first glance, but one would have to verify that maximizing stats is possible to achieve legitimately through normal gameplay before it could actually be allowed.
This all comes together to form a potentially huge change for how the site looks at and accepts runs going forward, so I'd like to get as many opinions and alternate ideas as possible. Positive, negative, indifferent, it's all useful feedback to me. Please step in, share and discuss.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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UI for moving runs from Playground to publication would be my biggest want, here. Vice versa would be nice (nersa) for the extremely rare occasions where a rule-breaking run slips through the cracks, but absolutely not a requirement. Otherwise, that all looks good to me.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
There are no-CD versions of Third Strike that work fine without the CHD. Assuming that using the CHD always leads to the above outcome (I am absolutely not ruling out user error, because I am an idiot and no one should ever rule out that I personally am doing something wrong), a no-CD ROM might be the only actual option.
Also, since Rep only changes on screen transitions, clearing out the gang before Rex can be done however you want, as Rep cannot change between entering the screen and Rex appearing.