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Not necessarily. I'd only reject here if Scumtron actually submitted his run. In this case, I would much rather delay the submission and wait for a final, fully optimized file. Perhaps the two of you and Scumtron could work together on it?
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There will be a third version, don't worry. Admittedly, this run was a lot more frustrating to make than my original test run, but through the course of making it I learned a lot more about the game and how it operates, so a V3 should not only be easier to make, but funnier and better paced. If V3 ends up going south too, then I'll just resync the published run to BizHawk as a """V4""". Ideally I'd be working with Heisanevilgenius directly for things like replacing the single offensive word, but regardless of what happens with """V4""", it'll be solely under his name and presented simply as modernizing a poorly emulated TAS to something much more accurate.
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Per this post on the currently published run and the recent rules update that allow runs foregoing major skips as standard branches, I'll be taking another look at this run for potential un-obsoletion.
EDIT: Pretty cut-and-dry case of a no major skips run. I have restored it to publication and re-branched the other run accordingly.
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Submission Text wrote:
Look into further optimising voice lines. Each character has at least 3 different lines for completing a puzzle, but only 2 are chosen from each time. Forcing the fastest one every time would require further manipulation.
To clarify, I'm assuming this means that the game pre-determines two lines from a pool of 3 or more that can randomly play after a puzzle, and that manipulating the absolute fastest line each time would both require manipulating it into being one of those two lines while also manipulating it to appear in the first place? If so, have you figured out what influences these things? Also, is there an estimate on how much time could be saved from this? I seriously doubt it's going to be anywhere near enough to worry about, but I'd like to have as much information here as possible for any future TASers.
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Judging from the submission text, the major skips look to be version exclusive to (J), so there does seem to be a good case for un-obsoleting the (U) version run. I can take a closer look at it, since I'm already looking at another "no major skips" run dealing with version differences.
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I maintain what I said in my judgement of the previous run: A second Trevor only branch is redundant, given that the published one takes as much of a unique path as possible from the others. Grant, Sypha and Alucard have the added bonuses of being unique characters with unique playstyles, but Trevor doesn't really have that since he's already in every route by default. The most this run has to offer then is, effectively, 100% content overlap with the other published branches, since it uses a character that appears in every branch (one of which is already a branch that only uses that character) and takes the exact same route that appears in two other branches.
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Your DTC10 champions are...
Team 6 - g0goTBC, cyberpotato, WarHippy, lapogne36!
Final Results:
1st Place: Team 6 - 14:13.41
2nd Place: Team 8 - 14:29.67
3rd Place: Team 7 (Team 7) - 14:37.34
4th Place: Team 4 (The Galaxy Brains) - 16:35.28
5th Place: Team 3 (The Trans-Atlantic TASers) - DNF (2-BOSS)
6th Place: Team 1 (TAS to the MAX!) - DNF (2-BOSS)
7th Place: Team 2 (FEIJOADA) - did not submit
Last Place: Team 5 (DENT) - submitted a rickroll
Stage Comparisons by Level:Stage Comparisons by Total Framecount:
"START" is the first frame of allowed movement on 1-1, "FINAL" is the frame the character disappears on the final door, each other framecount is the first full frame of black on the fadeout after each stage.
EDIT: Small clarification on 1-2 in the individual level sheet - Team 1's victim routing in 1-1 was vastly different than any other team so I couldn't accurately compare their 1-2 time to the rest... And also I just forgot to look slightly more to the left when doing the colors <_<
I intend to take a deeper dive on every submission and put together some notes, but I wanted to get the results up first since notes + bigger deep dives would take me forever.
Thanks to everyone for participating, and congratulations to everyone for crushing it on such a complex game! If there's anything to take away from these results for DTC11: Sign up late and don't give your team a name! Feel free to discuss the game, your work on it, and definitely organize a space for people to freely work on the final site submission together... And make sure I'm invited, dangit! I wanna work for that free co-authorship credit!
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Link to video
Oh boy, this is a fun one. I'll be walking through the "route" here basically action by action. Back at the VERY beginning of the run, I manipulated Claude to only start with the Sense of Design talent. This finally comes into play nearly 2 hours into the TAS with this long spree of Things Happening. Basically, RNG manipulation is either extremely slow, entirely unpredictable and inconsistent, or 1024 calls at once. If the video looks like it's doing things arbitrarily or out of order, rest assured that this "route" was specifically planned this way to be able to account for everything getting done with the lowest amount of manipulation.
1. I enter the menu and go to Claude's skills, wiping out his 42 SP: I max out Perseverance, which reduces the SP needed to learn all other skills, and I take 1 level in both Whistling and Animal Training, giving Claude access to the Familiar specialty.
2. I bought Pet Food in Linga to be able to use Familiar: I use 6 of them in a row for Claude to learn the Love of Animals talent, as it's the fastest way of manipulating that result.
3. With the 100 SP Claude gets from unlocking that talent, I have him take a level in Writing to get the Authoring specialty, I get Scientific Ability up to level 5, and I take a single level in Piety. Authoring creates skill books for certain skills, and you can only use Authoring when you have one of the skills at level 5. Scientific Ability is chosen because it's close, already partially leveled, and makes Claude stronger. Piety is normally a useless small stat raise, but it's helpful here as it calls the RNG with each level. I use this a bit later on as well.
4. The RNG lined up perfectly so that a single attempt at Authoring unlocks Writing Ability for Claude: He normally starts with this ability and has a very high chance of learning it if he does not start with it, so this was an easy way of getting another 100 SP.
5. Hilton is our next destination, we need to take the boat to Hoffmann Ruins but we need to detour slightly to get the best weapon in the game. This is where all the magic starts happening.
6. At the Italian stereotype Music Shop, I buy a Harmonica, a Feather Pen, and 2 Conductor's Batons. I immediately hop into the menu and have Claude learn Musical Talent, then equip a Rainbow Diamond onto him. The Rainbow Diamond increases all specialty skills by 1 level. In short: Extra success for free.
7. Celine uses Scout a couple of times to call the RNG, so when I go back to Claude, he's able to compose a song for the Harmonica. Celine Scouts one more time, and then I go into the item menu and sort my item list. Sorting items, as I mentioned in the previous post, calls the RNG 1024 times. It's essentially a soft reset.
8. This allows Claude to learn Pitch the first time he tries playing the song he composed. I apologize for the failed music, yes that it how it's supposed to sound.
9. I move over to the worst NPC in the game and somehow manage to talk to him. Seriously, this guy is the hardest NPC to talk to in the game. It's shocking that I even managed to do it as quickly as I did. I buy 2 Iron, a Ruby, a Green Beryl, and sell off a significant chunk of my inventory. The Iron is for more talent unlocking, the Ruby will be successfully Metalworked, and the Green Beryl is a safety net for a single battle if I can't manipulate it. Manipulation is weird in this game, that's why I'm writing this. Selling stuff in my inventory calls the RNG once per actual item (selling multiples doesn't work) while also giving me a solid chunk of money.
10. Claude learns the Metalwork and Customize specialties: He requires a Customize level of 8 to be able to even craft the Eternal Sphere, so I get him up to a base level of 7, which becomes 8 with the Rainbow Diamond. Metalwork isn't as high (Esthetic Sense is super expensive) but it's enough for what I need.
11. Celine advances the RNG quite a lot so that Claude can learn Dexterity off of his first Metalwork attempt. This is done for SP, but also to set up Pickpocketing later down the road.
12. Celine advances the RNG two more times, then I pivot and go into Bowman's skills. To craft the Eternal Sphere, I need two Mithrils. The only way I can get Mithril this early in the game is through the Radar skill, which gives you a random item every time it's leveled. I use Bowman for this to save SP on Claude. He takes 10 levels in Playfulness, giving me 100000 Fol (which I use after the video ends), and 1 level in Radar to get the first Mithril.
13. Celine advances the RNG again so that Claude can learn Originality off of a single Metalwork attempt. Originality is needed for Customize, plus it's another 100 SP.
14. I go back into Bowman's skills and take 4 levels in Piety to advance the RNG, just enough so that the next level in Radar I take will give me my second Mithril. Oracle is learned as a minor side effect, but that plays into my favor slightly.
15. Bowman advances the RNG using Oracle: It works the same way as Scout, it's used here to save some menuing frames. Claude uses Metalwork on the Ruby to make the Berserk Ring. Equipping this ring puts the character in berserk status, which is normally triggered in-battle by the death of a character they're close to. It's a straight up damage doubler, no side effect whatsoever.
16. The RNG only needs to be called once, and the fastest way of doing that here is from equipment. I equip a Weighty Ring onto Leon to call the RNG once and then go straight back in to Customize. Sharp Edge + Mithril = Minus Sword.
17. Bowman advances the RNG one last time so that Claude can Customize once more. Minus Sword + Mithril = Eternal Sphere. Claude now does way too much damage for this point in the game, and all is well.
This is the majority of the setup for the rest of the game. Claude only needs one more accessory (Meteor Ring) to basically be able to handle everything by himself: I could've gotten it now, but it'd require Metalworking a Star Ruby, and getting one takes more time than it would save before I get the free Meteor Ring in Eluria Tower. The rest of the manipulation from here on out will be spread out throughout the run, essentially being done whenever it's most convenient for me. There shouldn't be any further large scale manipulation sessions like this, at least.
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Final stretch, y'all. 23 more hours to get submissions in.
EDIT: Again, incomplete submissions are fine just for stage comparison purposes. If your team does not intend to submit at all, I'd like to know that before the deadline as well.
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One week left for submissions! Someone please remind me next Monday* that I am in fact still doing this!
*so that i can correctly close the contest on tuesday, of course
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Happy "holy crap it's been over half a year since I last worked on this run", everyone!
User movie #74587388183534509
With the release of BizHawk 2.6.3 I've finally picked this back up. This WIP ends right after the Varmillion fight, with my last input sitting at a TAS time of 1:07:04.17 and an approximate RTA time of 1:06:27.13. It's been so long since I last worked that there's a new RTA record, reaching this point at roughly 1:08:30, so I'm about 2 minutes ahead, give or take differences from the RTA record playing on PS2.
This upcoming hour of game time is going to be extremely important, as I intend to do all of the setup I'll need for the rest of the game here. Perhaps a bit of a lofty goal but it honestly should be doable.
EDIT: Just manipulated my way to the Eternal Sphere, about to leave for the Hoffmann Ruins. Once I finish up the Harfainx fight, I'll post a new WIP and a long explanation for my manipulation session. Fun fact in advance: Sorting your items calls the RNG 1024 times!
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Memory wrote:
We will soon be incorporating a major addition to Standard that will result in us needing to revisit a ton of submissions.
This has now happened! While we still intend to do a full manual sweep in the near future, I'd like to officially open the thread up for suggestions so that I can take a look at them now. Please remember to keep discussion to an absolute minimum, this thread is for documentation and suggestion and is not meant for debate and soapboxing.
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Now that we accept runs that forego major skips as standard, we're going to be looking at obsoleted runs, determining whether or not they qualify and returning them to publication if they do.
For a quick explanation, the definition of "major skip" is intentionally vague so as to allow a lot of wiggle room for what counts. Different games can have different definitions of what constitutes a major skip, which is generally determined by the people who know the game well. As long as a run is agreed to not use any major skips, and is otherwise fastest completion (sorry zipless "all souls", I tried ._.), it should be allowed.
If you come across any obsoleted run that you think does not use major skips compared to a published run that does, post it here and we'll take a look at it! Note that we will be doing a manual pass of obsoleted submissions in the future, but with the new rule in place I'd personally like to take on any suggestions people have now.
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Since I was asked about this and it is growing increasingly relevant by the day: The earliest point to end input, and the point where all runs will be compared, is entering the door after the final boss. I'll be using a comparable frame, most likely the fadeout after entering, to avoid a potential weird situation where two teams are incredibly close but one barely wins because of early input end. God, it's almost like I'm judging or something. You are free to continue input after that if you want to be fancy and/or shmancy, it will not be counted towards your final time, because that would be terrible of me to do.
There's like two weeks left now! Do the dang thing!
EDIT: If you don't think you'll finish in time, feel free to submit an unfinished file! It'll be useful for me to make comparisons and could definitely help with the final, super-optimized submission!
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I think it's pretty safe to say there wouldn't be any objections to this. Being wrongfully banned by Discord is kiiiiiiiind of an issue for a group project. I'm currently setting the new end date as October 12th: One base week of extension, plus one extra day for every day since the original bans. Since there are still DTC participants that are banned, I may continue adding extra days as necessary.
LATE EDIT: The date will remain October 12th. You are now officially free to enjoy your ends of September and move your looming dread over the deadline to the start of October.
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Sorry for the lack of info so far! Maria's currently caught up in this severe amount of garbage, and I don't have enough information about the run on my own, so it may be still be some time before the submission text is updated.
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I dunno, how about that time you openly said it was "a shame" I was on TASvideos and then proceeded to intentionally misgender me when asked what you meant?
Not like that was even any worse than your usual bitch tier trolling and half-assed insults towards literally every single published run, really. Nothing but "This trash belongs in Vault" or "Judges were wrong lol". You have said absolutely nothing of value in your entire posting career.
Nobody wants you here. Get the fuck out and stay gone.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Noxxa wrote:
...by my count 4 or 5 (out of 23) TASVideos staff members on Discord are currently banned from the platform.
To give an update on this figure, 7 staff members are now confirmed to have been banned:
* GoddessMaria
* Memory
* fsvgm777
* EZGames69
* Spikestuff
* CasualPokePlayer
* TiKevin83
Anyone who was affected by this, try opening an appeal with Discord: Trust & Safety > Appeals, age update, or other questions > Appeal an action taken on my account or bot > An action taken on my account. Hopefully all wrongfully banned accounts will be reinstated, this has been an absolute nightmare since it began.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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There are officially two (2) weeks left in the contest! Quick reminder that submissions are to be, well, submitted through forum PM or Discord (Samsara#4893). A team is currently in the lead! They have achieved a time! I don't know which team it is or what time it is, but based solely on the nature of how contests work, it must be the case anyway!
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
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Stage Comparisons by Total Framecount:
"START" is the first frame of allowed movement on 1-1, "FINAL" is the frame the character disappears on the final door, each other framecount is the first full frame of black on the fadeout after each stage.
EDIT: Small clarification on 1-2 in the individual level sheet - Team 1's victim routing in 1-1 was vastly different than any other team so I couldn't accurately compare their 1-2 time to the rest... And also I just forgot to look slightly more to the left when doing the colors <_<
I intend to take a deeper dive on every submission and put together some notes, but I wanted to get the results up first since notes + bigger deep dives would take me forever.
Thanks to everyone for participating, and congratulations to everyone for crushing it on such a complex game! If there's anything to take away from these results for DTC11: Sign up late and don't give your team a name! Feel free to discuss the game, your work on it, and definitely organize a space for people to freely work on the final site submission together... And make sure I'm invited, dangit! I wanna work for that free co-authorship credit!
Not like that was even any worse than your usual bitch tier trolling and half-assed insults towards literally every single published run, really. Nothing but "This trash belongs in Vault" or "Judges were wrong lol". You have said absolutely nothing of value in your entire posting career.
Nobody wants you here. Get the fuck out and stay gone.