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Mitjitsu wrote:
Could we please define what a full game run for this game would be?
submission text wrote:
Mitjitsu: Could we please clarify what techniques would be allowed in a full game run.
I already said it here, but I guess I should give a more detailed answer.
It doesn't seem to me that this game features any additional ending or any form of completion gauge or point system, so there is no full completion goal applicable for the Vault tier. Read here for more details.
On the other hand, making a "no wall clips" run could have some chances to meet the entertainment requirements for the Moons tier, since the resulting movie would feature much more variety. Just make sure that you follow a definite goal: if you decide to make a "no wall clips" run, then you should never clip through any wall during the whole run.
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FractalFusion wrote:
Challenger wrote:
feos wrote:
Memory wrote:
Warepire wrote:
Spikestuff wrote:
Masterjun wrote:
Happy Birthday! :D
Edit: btw, I also don't celebrate my own birthday, but it's not that I hate it or something, it's just that I don't care.
Edit 2: ok I admit I don't like it. On a side I wish I could have stayed as a kid forever, and on the other side it reminds me that I didn't yet reached my personal goals...
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It seems that the invulnerability period of Innova finishes early when he gets outside the left of the screen.
By the way, all the attacks in this TAS are dealt the moment the invicibility period of Innova ends. You can tell because he never stops the yellow-ish flashing of his sprite; the only moments when he stops, is when the player attacks him with special attacks, because the time stops while these are cast.
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jlun2 wrote:
Given that it's possible to use an easier difficulty now and get accepted, I'm thinking of obsoleting at least one of my Spongebob runs doing so. However, in the process, I discovered annoyingly that while easy/normal saves time in almost all cases, there's literally 1 minigame where it is slower by 12,000/4,000+ frames for easy/normal respectively. This means if submitting an easier mode for obsoletion is fine, I'll have to check both easy/normal just in case, which takes a lot of effort in comparison.
Before I seriously TAS it and check both easy/normal mode, would this be acceptable too, given the Spongebob run I'm talking about is in vault? I mean, I can make a run of all 3 difficulties, but if it gets rejected for using an easier difficulty, I'll be rather annoyed of the wasted work.
Note that there is no definite rule for this, but only a guideline, so take my words more as a personal opinion.
First of all, it doesn't matter if the old run is Vault, since obsoletion takes in consideration only technical aspects of the two runs: if the new run is considered technically superior, then it will be accepted for obsoleting the old one.
In case of a submission that tries to obsolete a published movie by using a different difficulty setting, a case-by-case comparison on technical merits will be performed. To make it simply, there are basically two factors that are taken in consideration: game contents and run technical merits.
If using an easier difficulty does remove any sort of game content, like for example requiring the player to clear less stages, beat less bosses, or not spawning some kind of enemies, then it's likely to get rejected for featuring less game contents.
If using an easier difficulty does remove part of the optimization challenge, like making some tricks easier to perform or making in-game resources easier to manage, then it's likely to be rejected for featuring trivial gameplay compared to the published movie.
Let's take a closer look to the example I've brought in the judgment note you mentioned. In Metal Slug games, the hardest difficulty does not result in any kind of extra game content, but just in more aggressive and sturdier enemies and bosses. However, it is still strongly preferred due to the resulting gameplay being technically superior: it brings the player to have to manage more in-game resources and coming with more complex solutions, so the movie results in featuring more varied and more impressive gameplay.
Contrarily, in Chester Cheetah having bosses with more health points does not add any extra challenge, since the bosses are prevented to move at all anyway due to their stun behaviour. Enemies found in stages move faster in the hardest difficulty, but this doesn't change much of the gameplay; sometimes, it even makes some spots of the game easier to pass through.
If you still have doubts, I could take a look myself into the specific game.
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feos wrote:
About a future run that'd avoid this tech, it might be too boring to get into Moons, and also unvaultable as a goal. So your best bet is making something that is a full completion run instead of "no wall clips", and it also may be allowed to have those wall clips.
I'm pretty sure that full completion is not applicable for this game.
About the "no wall clips" idea, I think it could have good chances, since the only boring part in the current submission were the boss fights, due to the underpowered main characters.
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Let's see about the movie label... This run skips most of the game by clipping through walls. The game doesn't expect you to be able to do this and warps you ahead in the storyline. I guess this isn't much of a specific glitch so that it could warrant a label, also because it could easily reproduced in real time play. So I'm of the opinon that this movie should be kept labelless, while on the other side a movie that forgoes using this trick should be labelled "no wall clips". Anyone disagreeing?
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I've found the Out of Bounds clip just by accident... I did go away from keyboard and left the emulator running, and when I got back I've found the main character inside the wall... So we could say that the trick was discovered by itself :P
Edit: Meh vote, just because of how long the later boss fights take.
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solo_netbattler wrote:
I want to solve this problem somehow. Where should I report this issue besides here?
Check if you're using the mGBA core. Open the game in BizHawk, then go in GBA > Core. If mGBA is checked, then you should report the issue here: https://github.com/mgba-emu/mgba/issues
Edit: oh and by the way, before report the issue, make sure it wasn't already fixed in the latest version of mGBA: https://mgba.io/downloads.html
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I've voted Meh by mistake, should have been a Yes.
It is indeed repetitive, but it's very fast-paced and action-packed. Also, it's cool to see such a hard game destroyed like this.
This run aims to complete as many exits as possible without collecting any permanent powerups, including Mushrooms, Fire flowers, Feathers, Switch Palace blocks. Unable to fly, Mario is forced to confront most obstacles and overcome them in unique ways. Riding Yoshi is also banned. 86 out of the total 96 exits are completed.
Not sure, but I think it should be changed to "no powerups, 86 exits".
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Support percentage for this submission dropped to 59%. I guess there is no further need to wait for more feedback. However, before I proceed with the verdict, I want to make sure the author is aware of the imprevements found by EZGames69 and of my suggestion to redo the run in easy mode.
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
whether walking really is faster than jumping
Turns out that jumping is faster. During each jump, the horizontal speed doubles for 4 frames in total. While this can't be caught by naked eye, it does save about 15% of the time during walking.
Since the game uses many different addresses for the X and Y position of the player, I've decided to write a quick lua script that automatically tracks the addresses and shows them on screen: User movie #46843624007839304
With some tweaks, the same code could be used for other games that feature the same problem.
Additionally, I want to point out a couple of other improvements, however there would save an extremely little amount of time compared to the one I just mentioned above.
I want to point out a little trick I've found: during level 4-2, these is a place where you can skip jumping on a branch, if you use the correct timing and keeping the jumping button for the maximum height.
(the submitted run does jump on the branch on the left first.)
Also, I want to note that a very small amount of frames could be saved by jumping at the end of the slopes, since these make your speed a little slower at the end.
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feos wrote:
So the branch is "game end glitch"?
No, in this run the ending is triggered normally. The glitch used allowed to walk through walls and other obstructions, in order to skip most story events and zip towards the desired point of the map. This also doesn't count as a warp glitch, either.
The glitch itself is triggered by pressing U+D or L+R at the same time, which causes corruption to multiple RAM addresses. Since the glitch is easy to trigger and its effects are not specific, I feel it's fine to keep the movie labelless.
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Memory wrote:
Actually I thought of more reasons I liked the movie. I was sort of rushed at the time of my first post but... the game features multiple movement options with the bounce and the airswim and the TAS takes advantage of all of them to good effect. The TAS never feels slow, and actually has rather slick movement. The game also has variation in the water stage where you want to avoid jumping and in later stages you need to use the airswim to make certain platforms. I guess I'd give it actually much closer to a 7, if not a 7.
The bosses weren't long enough to feel particularly repetitive to me to begin with aside from the one cloud boss.
EDIT: Also forgot that while enemies typically didn't seem like much of obstacles, the terrain definitely seemed it could be and the TAS handled that well.
EDIT 2:
I'm pretty confident that the submitted movie is Vault material...
Don't think I agree on this.
Ok, I see your opinion, but I'm still not convinced. But since you insist, I'll wait for more feedback by other people, hopefully commented with posts.
In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to mention the guideline for selecting the difficulty, since in my opinion is the major flaw for the entertaining of the movie:
Guidelines wrote:
When a game has multiple difficulty levels, it is preferred to play on the difficulty that would make the most interesting and entertaining run. Usually, this is the hardest difficulty, and as such it is the most preferred choice for a TAS. However, there are cases where harder difficulties do nothing but add repetition to runs, such as only giving enemies and bosses more HP, where the extra work required to kill them is uninteresting. In these cases, it is preferred to use an easier difficulty in the interest of reducing repetitive actions which do little to entertain upon frequent use.
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Memory wrote:
EDIT: To clarify if I had to vote on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it around a 6.5, but given my expectations going into the movie, I ended up liking it more than I expected.
I see what you mean, I also happened sometimes to apprecciate a movie more because of my personal tastes rather than objective reasons.
By the way, 6.5 is still not enough to warrant Moons tier in my opinion, especially since the hard mode didn't add anything except more HP to the bosses, which only resulted in more repetitiveness.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Why one particular individual likes or finds a run entertaining shouldn't matter in determining if the run is perceived as entertaining to the audience as a whole. Though I can see how the 'why' may make a difference between moon/star tier.
I agree. The fact is that I felt like it was unecessary to ask for more feedback, but just ask for more explaination from the people that already displayed their opinion. In this case, there are currently only 4 Yes votes, and only one person made post.
I'm pretty confident that the submitted movie is Vault material, so pardon me if I was superficial in asking to only one person for further feedback.
DrD2k9 wrote:
DISCLAIMER: I have not yet watched this run, but will be doing so as I am able.
Since we're there, I'll wait for your feedback as well.
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I tried optimizing inputs a bit. Turns out there is no need to press Right button at all, and the Up button pressure don't need any specific timing. Which leaves only the three Start inputs to need precise timing:
As a consequence, replicating this run in real time attempts would be very trivial. And this is a problem due to this Vault rule:
Vault wrote:
Must be distinguishable from the best real-time speedruns, and must not be seen as trivial.
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I've just created a script for Rolan's Curse that does display on screen various enemy data: attack, HP left, item drop. Also, It does display an exclamative mark when the drop can happen. You can download it from there: User movie #56303559949576175
Have a screenshot:
Edit: Now also works in 2 players mode.
Edit 2: Now also works with GBHawk core. Also displays current ATT and HP values.
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The Brandish case was indeed an unfortunate one, and I myself was surpised to see the decision of obsoletion, but after looking closer I understand the reasons behind it.
I think there are still vital differences between the two cases. Street Fighter 2010 features much more diversity in background graphics, music, and gameplay, especially for a NES game. Brandish instead, although the good game it is, has a pretty repetitive and slow gameplay, which was also mentioned in the judgment note:
feos wrote:
If you're looking at this game for the first time, you can understand why it doesn't excite many people: repetitive gameplay, repetitive music, flipping level layout that makes everything hard to follow. And that's true to both this movie and the currently published run.
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While I appreciate the efforts for optimizing, I have to give a No vote for entertaining. I really hope this gets accepted as a separate branch because seriously, this is such a magnificent game and it deserves an active branch that lets show off more contents than this.
(the submitted run does jump on the branch on the left first.)
Also, I want to note that a very small amount of frames could be saved by jumping at the end of the slopes, since these make your speed a little slower at the end.
As a consequence, replicating this run in real time attempts would be very trivial. And this is a problem due to this Vault rule:
Edit: Now also works in 2 players mode.
Edit 2: Now also works with GBHawk core. Also displays current ATT and HP values.