I think that the idea was that the game creates a random seed (from user input delays or whatever) and then initializes a RNG with that seed, after which the RNG is not affected by anything anymore.
right, but he also said that the current PRNG-state would be written to savegames. So it can be abused in unassisted speedruns/regular gaming for every point after the first save.
It would hinder luck manipulation in a TAS, but at what costs?
The idea was that there would be several such RNG streams.
keeping the PRNGs seperate would prevent the MMX-like problem, but could still be abused depending on the game and situation.
Should I slash this enemy to get more damage against the bigger enemy coming up next?
Should I get another encounter before passing this border, so I'll have less encounters in the more difficult area?
If you want to prevent luck manipulation, you'll have to make a game where luck isn't used. Enemys have to be blind as well, because otherwise you could manipulate the enemies directly instead of manipulating the PRNG.
You'll get something like DDR or SMB, which are nice and easy examples of TASing.
If you just want to make luck manipulation hard.. well, Minish Cap is being TASed as well. So is Breath of Fire. And I believe we have a couple of SNES Mega Man runs somewhere. The game can still be an entertaining TAS, even if not mathematically perfect. (but we should probably agree on a question, see FractalFusion's post)
SXL wrote:
sorry, had to reply that Tub's post looks a bit sadistic. you're a funny, yet a bit scary guy :°)
Or if it detects frame advance or slowdown the game automatically freezes your character so he can't move.
instant notification of the TASer (by freezing etc) would make it pretty easy to detect the TAS-Protection, making it easy to circumvent. "Oh, he froze again? Let's load a save state and try this a bit slower.."
if TASing is detected, it shouldn't lead to immediate visible changes. Lower the players luck, or wait a couple of minutes before screwing the player.
on the topic of a fixed seed for the PRNG that is saved: having predictable and unchangeable randomness once the game is started will be abused by unassisted speedrunners or even regular gamers. Memorisation replaces reflex. Don't do that.
on the other hand, there are games with a fixed PRNG where randomness can still be manipulated: by polling more or less random values from the PRNG. Like creating dust-sprites in Mega Man X.
adding another sadistic idea to my last post, in the spirit of "torture them until they give up": if the game detects that 'start' was pressed within the first two possible frames on the title screen, change an internal luck value so that nothing good will happen. No rare drops, less easy encounters, lower random damage values for yourself and higher for the enemys etc.
First, deliberately add some tricks that can only be pulled off with 30Hz auto fire, pixel precision, a 1/100th chance or other TAS tools.
next, write a few detectors for these tricks. If the player uses auto fire for more than 4 frames, set an unsuspicious variable somewhere in memory. If the player fires a shot at the first possible frame, or hits a boss at the first possible frame, increase some hard-to-find and possibly obfuscated counter.
And at the end of the game, if the player used more of those tricks than humanly possible, just add a subtle crash to prevent the TASer from reaching the ending.. and let him figure out what went wrong.
Without polygons wouldn't he just fall into the void? and he won't have the compass so the map won't be of any use.
there's a difference between the polygons used for physics calculations, and the polygons that are passed to the rendering engine. Unless the game decides to display those polygons (and it seems like it doesn't), wireframe or any other video plugin modification is useless. But feel free to try.
if there aren't any polygons in this room, neither are there any wires when using a different plugin. What about the ingame-map as a reference point? not accurate enough?
Two ways of skipping any (not sure if it's really any) boss keys
skipping the boss keys is useless because this run will skip both dungeons entirely. Unless those glitches can be applied somewhere else, they're worthless for this run.
it is the same. Unfortunately the emulator isn't too stable and will desync sometimes. Try using the same plugins that were used in the movie to see if it'll work.
wow, so it IS possible. I remember talks about it, but everyone who tried said "impossible". But that never stopped you, right?
How did you get it working? Is it just a matter of timing the shot right, or does the power bomb play a role?
oh, even if it's unbeatable time wise, it can still be obsoleted by a more entertaining run. But we all know what happens when we try to argue about entertainment.
note that I couldn't watch the movie due to a missing rom and some hiccup between fceu + wine, so I can't comment on the entertainment value of this run.
I just had to wait for the main page to load. At first I though your server was busy or the connection was slow, then I noticed the text in my browser's status bar: "Waiting for adbrite.com..."
Is there a reasonable way to put both ad boxes at the end of the html code without breaking the layout, to prevent browsers from waiting for them before rendering the page?
for watching WIPs and commenting on the run, I prefer faster downloads over image quality.
so actually, I'd like low bitrate WIPs and a high quality final encode, not the other way around.
oh, while I'm posting, thanks for doing the encoding. :)
GuanoBowl, it's a pleasure to watch your WIPs. It's quite noticable that you get better at TASing in each iteration. Even though I follow the discussion here and know about the routes and tricks, you still manage to surprise me with something I hadn't known or thought about before. Keep up the good work!
But we have better weapons to fight piracy. The MPAA has lawyers. We have ninjas.
So let our four ninjas pay those pirates a nightly visit, problem solved!
(this post should have either a green dog or a giant image, but I'm too poor to afford them.)
more on topic, I hate additional disclaimers during the run. For me, they disrupt the viewing experience as much as commercials during a good movie. The short intro is doing enough to educate those who want to be educated, but little can be done about those who deliberately ignore the rules - so please, let's not ruin the movies in a vain attempt to stop rip-offs.
you're not supposed to get the space jump until you finished maridia. You're not supposed to leave maridia until you finished maridia. you're not supposed to get the varia suit until.. well, until you get the varia suit. you can't miss it.
the best option would be to upgrade AdBlock to a more recent version, and place tasvideos.org on your whitelist. That way any advertisment bisqwit chooses now or in the future is allowed, without affecting your decisions for other sites.
I was asked a couple of times today if I wanted to advertise with AdBrite. Only once I saw an actual ad from them, which wasn't well targeted to begin with.
Is that supposed to improve over time?
obviously it's not meant to redo a whole level with just one character. But if player B notices "oops, I missed that shot, should have fired earlier", he could rewind without player A having to redo his part. And even if randomness is affected in a critical way, the feature would still allow you to keep the input up to the desync.
Anyway, it's meant mostly for short-term-corrections, which doesn't make it useless.
different quality releases won't really help here due to the usage of BitTorrent for distribution. There'd probably be seeding trouble and lower download rates when the available seeders are split between different quality avis.
btw, an idea I just had: when using multiple controllers (no matter if they're "attached" locally or via netplay), wouldn't it be useful to be able to toggle read-only for each controller seperately?
that way you could redo the movement of one player without having to recreate the other players.
uh, quick question:
I tried to push and pull statues on top of switches in both Sheik's and Ruto's dungeons, but the switches wouldn't care. Is this a known bug? Do I need the cane to proceed in both dungeons?
the funny thing is: the switch in the first room of Ruto's dungeon worked fine, but the one in the huge icy two-story-room doesn't.
looks like you can trigger an exploration glitch there:
(although honestly I didn't get too far with it)