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PracticalTAS wrote:
Hi, I have a few questions about a potential future submission for Super Smash Bros Melee. The submission would be for completion of every character's Target Test stage.
1) Almost half of Melee's 25 characters must be unlocked, sometimes requiring up to several hours of playtime. Could a valid DTM submission be started with a non-empty memory card that has unlocked all characters?
The SSB64 run does this, so it's acceptable as long as there is a verification file for it. Given the nature of Melee and character unlocking, though, the nature of such a file can be discussed further. I highly recommend talking to Mothrayas about it personally, that would be the easiest path of figuring out the best balance between being site-acceptable and leaving your Gamecube on overnight to unlock Mewtwo.
2) Several characters take advantage of a glitch that is activated by playing through part of the first level of a different game mode. The total time spent playing through this level is larger than the time saved by the glitch, but Target Test is a collection of 25 individual levels which are individually timed using the in-game timer. Could a submission primarily targeting minimum in-game time (with a secondary goal of minimizing submission length in total frames) be accepted?
In-game time is acceptable, though it is explicitly a Moons goal. Tiering shouldn't be a problem with Melee, though, so no worries there.
3) Similarly, 5 of the 25 characters depend on RNG for their individual level world record times, and RNG would similarly be needed to minimize the time spent menuing (as the fastest possible way for the player to select any character is with random select - random select is closer to the character selection cursor's starting point than every character is). If a strategy forces a tradeoff between minimum in-game time and minimum submission length (say if iterating the RNG seed to get to a seed that enables the optimal in-game time costs more frames than the optimal in-game time saves over a strategy that doesn't depend on RNG), does tasvideos have a preference on which strategy is to be used?
If you're aiming for in-game time, in-game time takes precedence over real time, though real time should still be minimized wherever possible. If it's only a matter of frames, it's no trouble at all, so feel free to sacrifice those frames to get the optimal RNG. It shouldn't even be a problem at all unless the manipulation takes several seconds or more per stage.
4) Most individual levels do not have accurate re-record counts, as a) players improving on others' records do not iterate on the previous record holder's DTMs, and b) newer records are generally created on a hacked version of Melee with (among other things) debug mode access, then the final inputs are applied to a vanilla version of the game, and we have not kept records of re-record counts on the hacked version. Would the lack of an accurate re-record count negatively impact the submission?
Not at all. Just 0 out the count from the submission DTM and the parser will mark it as "unknown". Alternately, you can put in an estimation. Or don't bother doing either and just give that explanation upfront with an unedited final file, nobody's going to call you out on it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player
(2123)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2795
Location: Northern California
The way I see it, route 1 would be preferred in every case. Even if post-input is shortened by route 2, the ending itself is still triggered far earlier in route 1, so route 2 would just be "suboptimal" in that regard as it requires 10+ minutes of extra gameplay.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
