Where a game has multiple difficulty levels, it is preferred to play on the hardest difficulty level (for more interesting gameplay) unless the only difference between difficulty levels is enemy/boss hit points, in which case the easiest difficulty levels are preferred in the interest of speed.
The topic of difficulty choice has come up pretty frequently as of late, with authors having to, whether pre-emptively or post-submission, defend their choice of easier difficulties. I'm starting this thread in hopes of keeping unnecessary discussion out of the two (as of time of writing) submissions in which difficulty choice appears to be a problem, and to hopefully gather more of the community's opinions on the subject.
Some things I'd like to personally see discussed are:
Why do we have a guideline regarding using the hardest difficulty? It's being enforced as a rule even by the judges: TASes are occasionally, though rarely, rejected for not using the hardest difficulty. Should we lessen how strict this is and let difficulty be up to whatever the author chooses?
What does "hardest difficulty" mean in most games? What are the usual differences between easiest and hardest difficulties? How many games would actually have noticeably different TASes if they were done on different difficulties?
What does "hardest difficulty" mean for a TAS? What does it add to a TAS in terms of entertainment value?
As a separate exercise, here are a few hypothetical situations that should emphasize why we need to discuss this:
1. In a game where difficulty affects enemy health: A boss that changes forms after 10 seconds can be defeated before it changes forms on Easy difficulty. On Normal and Hard, the boss has too much HP, and so it changes forms and fully recovers its health, dragging out the fight by at least 20 seconds. Alternately: A boss has a pattern of being vulnerable for 10 seconds and invulnerable for 20. On Easy, it can be killed within 10 seconds, but on Normal and Hard you have to sit through that 20 second waiting period.
2. In a game where difficulty affects enemy damage: A damage boost that saves 30 seconds of boring downtime can only be done on Easy difficulty due to the enemy being particularly powerful. On Normal, you'll have to spend longer than 30 seconds avoiding more damage, and on Hard you will be killed instantly.
3. In a game where difficulty affects how many enemies there are: You perform a zip glitch that saves 10 seconds, but you're forced to take damage off of fixed enemy spawns. This zip is right before a boss that requires you to take damage for a quick kill that saves 15 seconds. On Easy difficulty, you only take damage twice, and you can perform the quick kill with a little health to spare. On Normal and Hard, you take too much damage performing the zip to be able to perform the quick kill.
4. In a game where difficulty affects the enemy movement speed: On Hard difficulty, enemies move significantly faster, which gives them much more manageable positions for you. On Normal and lower, the enemies move much more slowly and get in the way far more often, requiring creative solutions to overcome. This isn't a hypothetical. This actually happens in Run Saber.
5. In a game where difficulty affects enemy spawn rate: On Hard difficulty, enemies spawn far more frequently, but using various button combinations you can manipulate all of them away without losing time, saving hundreds of lag frames overall. On any difficulty, it is far faster to manipulate away all spawns, meaning no matter what the difficulty, the runs will look almost completely identical.
There are more situations like these that happen more often than you'd think, and there are probably even weirder edge cases where the hardest difficulty isn't actually the hardest difficulty due to coding errors and whatnot.
Anyway. Discuss, I guess.
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Doc Skellington wrote:
Btw, how should I submit this movie ? I mean, should I say the name is "Kingdom Hearts:Chain of Memories Reverse/Rebirth" or, as khleaderboards, that Reverse/Rebirth is the branch name ?
"Reverse/Rebirth" would be the branch name, not part of the game name.
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Mothrayas wrote:
If raising the difficulty just means that boss battles take more repetitive action and damage-taking speed tricks have to be forgone, then it is definitely justifiable to pick a lower difficulty.
That's exactly what it is. On Brave/Jedi difficulties in all three games, bosses have more HP and you take way more damage, and these are games where it is almost literally impossible to avoid taking damage, especially in a speedrun/TAS setting. Considering there are things like damage boosts and using repeated harm from enemies to zip through walls, a run on Brave or Jedi would likely end up at least a minute slower, if not more, due to possibly not being able to use these tricks.
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Where a game has multiple difficulty levels, it is preferred to play on the hardest difficulty level (for more interesting gameplay) unless the only difference between difficulty levels is enemy/boss hit points, in which case the easiest difficulty levels are preferred in the interest of speed.
From the Guidelines page. I don't know the game either, but if boss HP is the only difference then I see no reason to change the difficulty. Even if it just shaves off a few seconds of hitting bosses, that's a few seconds saved in a run that would otherwise look exactly the same.
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Gay wrote:
I mean in general. If you feel the goal is too arbitrary choice, what you vote? If the movie is not optimal, but entertaining, what you vote? It is not "Yes", right?
Usually when that happens with me, I don't vote at all. I just post my opinion in the thread. It makes it easier for the judges to gauge the audience reaction that way.
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Welp, I suppose it's never too early to kick off a multi-page argument.
What's the point of this category on this site? I'm sure it's an impressive technical achievement, but is "no doors" really non-arbitrary enough as a category* to publish here? Let's look back at the judgement of this Super Metroid TAS: "...but here on TASVideos we can only publish the categories that we deem interesting and entertaining enough..." What does this have over any other interesting (yet ultimately arbitrary) OoT category? Aside from "less doors", I mean.
*Emphasized strictly to avoid meaningless discussions where people miss the point of what "arbitrary" means in regards to publication categories.
Let's also look back at this more relevant TAS, where a lot of the audience feedback was indeed "I thought this was really entertaining, but not worth being published due to the category". So should the audience feedback even play into whether or not the category is publish-worthy? I can already guess that a lot of the people watching are simply going to vote yes because it's OoT, and taking that into account, I already know it's going to be passed around like a blunt at a greasy college party regardless of whether or not it's accepted by the site. So is there a benefit to publication?
I gave the video a quick skim and as far as I could tell it's just the same stuff as the any% but done in different places, so judging purely from my quick skim of the encode I don't see this as unique/interesting enough to be published alongside the current runs. I'm refraining from voting, but I'd personally rather see a much more varied category be published than something that appears to just be 10 extra minutes of avoiding doors using the exact same methods. In terms of this site, I'm against publication.
However, in terms of the TAS itself: I'm glad it exists, just as I'm glad the Super Metroid "100% Map Completion" run exists. I could never fault someone for putting effort into any piece of work. Something like this could lead to even greater TASes down the line, whether it be from tricks adapted to an any% or 100% category or the author using their experience to tackle another run. I don't intend to stifle the creation of any TAS. Not at all. I'd just rather not see this site (and only this site) become saturated with brand new categories that won't ever have any competition.
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Glad to see Tails finally getting the recognition he deserves. It amazes me that, even though the levels are the same, the routes and tricks are still quite different between each character, making each new run unique and very entertaining in their own ways. I think that says a lot about not only the game, but the TASer as well :3 Definite Yes vote here!
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Gay wrote:
It's okay. Nothing you did was wrong, you don't have to apologize. It was I who burst in like an idiot trying to act like I was better than you, I do not blame you for being defensive, if I was confronted like this I would react the same. I do not blame Samsara calling for insulting for her and others, and I do not blame arandomgametaser for what he said. I hope not be discouraged by my being a punk. I will go now.
You are absolutely forgiven. I hope other people learn from this display of respect and class.
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Gay wrote:
I put up the dsm. And really, I don't know what I can say. Your runs have a history of having mediocre to average levels of optimization. And then try to lie out of it. When are you going to learn? It seems every movie you're doing has great errors. I think you are needing some practice.
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Invariel wrote:
Samsara wrote:
Here's another Yes vote, because I'm a sexy duck.
I am fairly certain your duck-ness didn't factor into my yes vote.
You might not have noticed it, but your brain did.
Addition: Having now attempted an SSW game myself, can I upgrade my Yes vote to a Double Yes? These games are insane to get done, let alone optimized, and my enjoyment of watching them get destroyed is increased a thousandfold now that I know the difficulty behind it.
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mattk210 wrote:
I guess this is not what you want to hear, but actually all your times are worse than the best human records as well (except F31, which seems to be maxed).
I mean, yeah, go ahead, keep knowingly pouring salt into the wounds. That's definitely a good thing for you to be doing.
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Another 10 minutes saved? Wow!
Watching the encode, it's clear that you've put a lot more time and effort into the run this time around. The strategy, while... confusing, to say the least (haven't watched with the subtitles yet, though I plan to), is quite effective. I'm glad you kept at this! Your effort has definitely paid off in a publishable run.
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I remember this game having a lot more bosses... Oh. Right. They're all skipped.
As expected, this is another excellent random game TAS. The Super Star Wars series always makes for an entertaining watch, regardless of whether it's TASed or speedrun normally, and this one is no exception. Here's another Yes vote, because I'm a sexy duck.
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Gay wrote:
I wish there was an easier way to find records made by japan TAS. Now the only way I see, just go Nicovideo and plug in the Japanese name, (that can be hard to find). I was making a race of a unique Japanese NES game and only at the last moment I find a complete Nicovideo race. There was no mention of this game tasvideos, and yet there was already a tas, which had tricks I did not see. Where these Taser Japanese use as site? Is there japan equivalent to Tasvideos?
Yeah, it's really hard to find Nico TASes occasionally, especially when they're hosted offsite on an entirely different service that isn't linked anywhere obvious.
I usually just find the Japanese name of the game and plug it into Google along with TAS. That usually brings out most of the Japanese TASes.
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Back when I was working on the SNES sightseeing run, I found the OneDrive via Youtube and brought it to the attention of the rest of the team. We used it extensively to fully optimize our submitted run, only to have TKDL comment on the video with a Nico link saying there are further improvements. Apart from that specific Youtube video, I found no other mentions of this OneDrive anywhere. So am I really to blame for missing a batch of videos on a basically private link that has, in the past, lead to the submission of a suboptimal run?
I know it's legitimate and I don't care. I'm not going to be the one to grind out new strategies for another 50 hours just to submit a slightly faster run, only to have another entirely different person comment on how there are still faster times out there on some even more obscure service.
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The main stages were nicely choreographed. The bonus stages, while a bit slow, were still entertaining enough to keep me interested all the way through. Definitely a great first effort!
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Alyosha wrote:
Do you think you have leveled up enough to try your hand at flagitous' run Samsara? I've always wondered if there was a frame to save there, even one, but could never do it. Even TKDL just copied flagitious in all the levels in the any% run.
I'm pretty sure I managed to save a couple frames in Field 1, but it was offset by more lag in later stages. I might give it a shot in the future and aim purely for IGT, though I wouldn't expect more than a couple frames of improvement overall. flagitious' run is ridiculously tight given how long ago it was made.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
My only experience with PS games in a TAS setting is with Tenchu: Stealth Assassins on PSXjin and there is no such thing there.
Anyway, thanks for the explanation. In 5 years on this website I never came across anyone mentioning fake lag before. Would be nice to have an explanation as to why the emulator differentiates between true(?) lag and fake lag, though.
PSXjin counts no-input frames as lag frames, while BizHawk does not. I don't know the specifics, but try taking Tekken 3 into PSXjin and you should see what I mean.
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Weegeechan15 wrote:
Also yes, I would like this to be delayed :) I've saved 6 frames on Phase 1 even when I thought it couldn't be done quicker! I have to redo entire parts of this TAS anyways because each bonus stage's balloon RNG changed just from beating Phase 1 quicker.
I'd rather have an even more optimized TAS submitted so I hope I don't take too much longer! ;)
It's always so refreshing to see attitudes like this. I can't wait to see the even more optimized version!
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xy2_ wrote:
Congratulations, ALAKTORN. Your master rusing tactics have gotten us yet again.
I can't see how you are not doing this on purpose, as I fail to this day to know someone with this much stubborness and flat out idiocy.
Oh, you don't need to worry. He's absolutely doing this on purpose:
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Link to video
I quite enjoyed watching this, despite not being too familiar with the game and the game itself being relatively slow-paced. It's clear that you did the best you could to make the game entertaining to watch, and it paid off. The bosses were obliterated very quickly, even though they were all clearly just bullet/dynamite/rocket sponges. Movement looked very well optimized, and I always got a kick out of seeing those ridiculous guns actually being used well.
Excellent work! Voting Yes for sure!
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