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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Except that Epic Pinball has a credits roll, while this game doesn't at all.
I don't see why credits matter. We have published runs of games that reach actual endings with no credits roll at all, they shouldn't be the de facto way of defining what is or isn't an ending.
Edit: also, this submission can't be considered as fastest-completion, so the goal can be arbitrary, as long as if follows a clear objective.
That doesn't mean the ending can be arbitrary, though. It accomplishes a clear objective, yes, but then it doesn't finish the game afterward. Granted, since pinball is inherently an infinite game, it's harder to define "finishing the game", but in this case it can really only be running out of balls, stop laughing, and game overing on the field.
Samsara wrote:
EDIT: Not to mention this pinball submission that similarly does not end the game, and was rejected for doing so despite accomplishing its goal.
Well, it's true that both this submission and that movie get to a stuck game state after finishing playing back, but it's slightly different. I don't think that movie could be considered entertaining, and on the other hand it couldn't be considered as proper full-completion either, as the movie rules don't consider valid the goal of maxing out the score counter. This submission instead is much more straight-forward in what it does.
Apart that, causing an intentional game over would be pretty trivial to perform, while also detract entertainment by introducing repetitiveness.
I should have clarified that it wasn't PURELY rejected for not ending gameplay and there are other problems with it, but it was explicitly mentioned in the submission text that not ending gameplay was one of those problems, and given that this submission is in a similar state I don't see why the same wouldn't apply here.
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ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Samsara wrote:
I feel like the input should be extended to finish out the game instead of hanging on the next shot for eternity.
Why? It's not like the game over is an ending point, as this game doesn't really have any. Why can't we consider the Rayquaza bonus screen as an ending point?
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Here's a temp encode of the run itself:
Link to video
I feel like the input should be extended to finish out the game instead of hanging on the next shot for eternity.
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Spent some time testing and I'm not quite sure what to make of it just yet. The clip by itself is slower (powerups take way too much time), so it would have to come down to how much time the fire flower saves in 8-4. It could go either way, honestly.
User movie #67790618666319397
I did make this, though. It's an unoptimized testrun up to the world 4 warp. Currently 149 frames behind the submission, though there's definitely room to optimize (and maybe also to figure out if the walljump in 1-1 underground is possible in the same place as it is in the submission, I couldn't get it but also didn't really spend too much time trying). I might take this to the very end to see if it's at least as close as I think it'll be, but it's also free for someone else to take, optimize, and potentially have #234 on the workbench.
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As far as I've tested, it's only (J) and likely not on Rev1. The run does not sync on that version though, would require everything to be redone even outside of getting the power-ups.
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It's still a useful post. 1-2 in the RTA clips through the wall to the warp pipe, TAS doesn't. I'm currently looking into this to see if it's actually an improvement for the TAS or if the TAS precision makes up for the time spent getting the power-ups.
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mlex wrote:
Seems strange to me to allow this but not allow 16 Star SM64 on this site, given the latter’s history as a main speedrun category of one of the biggest games on this site.
That's not really a fair comparison. 16 star was any% for a long time, until faster methods were discovered. Now, it's strictly a suboptimal any% run, and it's made even less acceptable today by the existence of the 70 star BLJ-less run, which serves as a perfect middle ground 1 key and 120 stars.
While this is also a suboptimal any% run at the end of the day (even SRC calls it "any% No W5"), it was at least invented as an alternative to what was already the fastest any% route. Considering this shows more of the game than any% and less of the game than 100%, it was still worth asking the question of whether or not it could serve as a decent middle ground until we get a proper cannonless run, and given the recent posts in this thread I'm pretty much convinced it couldn't. Given the nature of the category, though, it does mean we have to have a little more conversation about it.
Also, daily reminder that we're not SRC or the RTA community at large. We don't, and can't, cater to specific games, we cater to literally every game that could be submitted to us. Our rules - particularly rules about publishable categories - have to reflect that, and they're constantly changing to fit the needs of the site and the audience.
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Radiant wrote:
FWIW I didn't vote "no". But I would find it conceptually weird to have a "some cannons but not other cannons" run.
I suppose I should have opened it to the thread at large in that post since I... Kinda meant to do that anyway...
So let me rephrase the question to the thread at large: This category serves as a middle ground between warps and 100%, but is it worth publishing? It would definitely be obsoleted by a proper cannonless run, but I don't feel like the category is non-arbitrary enough by definition ("uses some warps but not all of them" is fine for SRC but not for us) to accept as a middle ground between warps and the actually acceptable middle ground. Middle-r ground, perhaps.
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For the record, this is an established category on SRC.
To those who are voting no for the category (which, please don't, the poll question is specifically for entertainment and entertainment value is how the Judges make the call on accepting new categories in the first place): Assuming the run holds up to optimization standards, how would you all feel about accepting it for now with the caveat that it would be obsoleted by a full cannonless run once one is made?
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Userfiles are not subjected to the same publication standards that submissions are. A new submission would also have to be judged, and considering this run was partially rejected for suboptimal play and the new file is slower, it would certainly be rejected all the same.
We have a policy that if a user formally submits too many suboptimal runs in a short space of time, we temporarilyremove their submissionprivileges in order to encourage them to improve the quality of their work before being able to make another submission. Obviously, we would prefer that happen naturally, through people joining the community and asking for advice, so we have Userfiles as a convenient way for people to upload their input files for others to take a look at. I highly recommend using it.
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dagit wrote:
Unfortunately, until I learn some new way to use tasstudio I'm unlikely to work on this more. There is some weirdness in the game where moving a menu input, which is most of the inputs in this hour+ tas, changes the minimum delay between inputs. So shifting a menu forward or backward by just a few frames can cause multiple button presses to not be recognized. This cascades to every menu that happens after it in the tas. Finding a new minimum delays between these is very time consuming. This definitely feels like the sort of thing that could hypothetically be automated a bit with scripting specific to this game, but I can't figure out how to do that in tasstudio.
Something that helped me out a lot regarding this was rebinding my TAStudio hotkeys for Insert Frames, Delete Frames and Clone Frames to single keys I could easily reach. It makes finding the first possible frames so much quicker: Put in an input somewhere. If it's recognized, Delete frames before it until it stops being recognized. If it isn't recognized, Insert or Clone frames before it until it is. It gets even faster if you turn off Follow Cursor and let the movie play while you insert/delete frames, since it'll automatically rewind to that point and continue playing to let you instantly see whether or not it works.
I'm not kidding when I say it can save days of TASing time in the long run. One of my current (but on hold... because reasons) projects is the same way, randomly deciding to delay when it wants to recognize inputs, and fixing my hotkeys allowed me to knock out entire test route runs over the course of a few hours, when it was taking 2 or 3 days before. It's a gamechanger.
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Even without the prior warnings, it's still an unnecessarily harsh thing to say to a new member. If people want to pretend to be staff so bad, they could at least be helpful and encouraging like we are.
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Wow, there's a topic for SMT, huh?
I'm working on a proof of concept test TAS for the glitched route and have stumbled across a really lovely problem: The fastest route involves manipulating a 1/256 encounter, then a 1/3 chance of getting the correct encounter, then another 1/256 chance of getting the item drop after the fight. This wouldn't be so bad if the game's RNG didn't only advance when it's called, and "when it's called" is shockingly limited. As far as I can tell, it's overworld movement (specifically movement, turning/bumping walls in the 1st person sections doesn't call it but moving from space to space does) and in-battle actions. In theory, that means getting the encounter in the first place and getting the item drop after can be manipulated separately, so it isn't one single one in 200000 or whatever, but given the limited opportunities to change the RNG and the limited number of ways of doing so, I can't imagine bruteforcing it. I've figured out a few things to the best of my ability (which isn't much, because I am an idiot):
1. The room that the encounter appears in is set, and the encounter is fixed to happen. There's no need to manipulate a random encounter into happening, just what gets encountered. Here's a userfile that reaches that room.
2. 0x050A is the address that determines what gets encountered, 0x050B is the address that determines whether or not a battle is a boss battle. 050A can give different results for the same values depending on whether or not 050B is 0 (regular battle) or 1 (boss battle). Specifically, we need 050A to be 23 and 050B to be 1, giving the David boss encounter. I haven't determined what controls whether or not an item will be dropped.
3. 0x0ED5, 0x0ED7, 0x0ED8, and 0x0ED9 all relate to the RNG in some way, though my limited knowledge (i.e, me being an idiot) can't quite figure out how. Interestingly, when triggering a random encounter, if you instead wait a frame before moving into the encounter tile, the encounter won't happen but the RNG addresses will still change to the same value. Moving any other time will make the values different.
4. The RTA record performs a specific set of steps to manipulate the outcome I want, but it's a fairly lengthy sequence that involves saving and resetting first. I'm assuming this means the RNG gets reset to a fixed state on resets, though I haven't tested this yet.
I'll be looking further into this, but I am an idiot and I think I'm going to need some help here. Good thing this is an incredibly popular game with a worldwide release that everyone knows about and posts about constantly!
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FractalFusion wrote:
Apparently VS Mario is different from normal Mario in that there is only one warp pipe to World 6 instead of warp pipes to Worlds 6-8, and some other level arrangements.
Yeah, that's my mistake. Wasn't aware that VS was significantly different from normal until after making that post. The three submissions I mentioned were the three explicitly labelled glitchless SMB submissions.
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The naming is completely irrelevant. You're much slower in gameplay. You have to be faster in gameplay for this to be published.
Here, I've trimmed off the naming section from the published run. This is the time you have to beat with an improvement: User movie #67442091002277063
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Welp, bit late, but...
User movie #67439898577548166
Easily possible to get 55 on Practice with this route/glitch, so there's at least a theoretical improvement. The entire movie is sloppy, though. Frames can easily be saved on menuing by not mashing. Obviously almost every level is noticeably slower than the published run, with the one level that's tied in in-game time being easily improvable.
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25720:
