How was such a mundane problem deemed worthy of Wikipedia/Wolfram/OEIS pages?
Numberphile had an episode where the host is asked two random numbers, and a sequence is created from them by adding two consecutive numbers in the series (to demonstrate that their ratio approaches phi). An off-hand joke is made that it will be soon appear in OEIS.
And sure enough: http://oeis.org/A247698
A "blanket rule" does not mean "Holy Scripture, written in stone, forever immutable, no exceptions allowed nor discussed". It's a general rule of thumb (albeit a rather strong one) that usually holds for the vast majority of cases, and thus can quite safely be taken as the default ruling, but does not rule out the possibility of rare exceptions if there are very good reasons for them.
Such a rule needs to exist because being free to abuse in-game codes can easily make some games trivial, and tool-assisted speedrunning isn't about showcasing trivial walkthroughs that have no challenge.
(Personally I would also ban the exact same effects even if they are being achieved through glitching rather than by entering the actual code, the reasoning for this ban being exactly the same.)
Deliberately and actively lowering the speed of the computer (real or emulated) to a ridiculous extent in order to affect the game, falls fully into this same category.
Where does ridiculous extent start exactly?
Rather obviously it can't be a hard cut-off point, where framerate X fps is ok, but framerate X-1 fps is ridiculous.
I would say that, especially with 3D games, 20fps starts being a bit on the low end (although still acceptable; after all, IIRC, Ocarina of Time runs at that framerate), 10fps starts being very low, and 1fps is already well into the completely ridiculous area.
Are you arguing we're obliged to have 11 branches for SMW just because some other community embraces them?
This question wasn't for me, but I'm going to butt in anyway:
Obliged? No. But personally I actually wouldn't mind. If the RTA community doesn't mind, why should we? I have for long been of the opinion that we are too conservative when it comes to run categories for a given game. There's really no need. It's not like we are running out of some kind of quota. (In fact, some time ago I suggested a complete redesign of the site that would allow lots of categories for a game, just like speedrun.com does.)
The methods that TAS's use in various games to affect the frame rate are not relevant here. All that matters is that there are situations where a TAS would optimally use a different frame rate.
Your main counter-argument to my objection was precisely that, paraphrasing, "the run would simply lower the framerate only on the part that's necessary to trigger the glitch (running at a normal framerate otherwise)". In order for that to be a valid counter-argument, you would have to demonstrate that runs could do exactly that, without resorting to abusing the emulator itself, with input that doesn't go to the game, but to the emulator.
I would find that kind of run to be equally preposterous as, for example, that one Minecraft speedrunning category where the runner alt-tabs to Windows, launches the task manager, kills the game from there, and then re-launches it. That's so far removed from actually playing the game that it isn't even funny.
(In general, I detest at a principle level the idea of using external means to affect the game, rather than purely in-game input. If everything were allowed, nothing would stop someone from eg. alt-tabbing to Windows and hex-editing the savefile of the game. Or running a custom program that affects the game's behavior somehow, such as deliberately glitching it. Deliberately and actively lowering the speed of the computer (real or emulated) to a ridiculous extent in order to affect the game, falls fully into this same category.)
I'm not saying that there should be a blanket rule allowing everything no matter what. I'm saying there shouldn't be a blanket rule forbidding everything no matter what.
There are already blanket rules forbidding all kinds of things (such as cheat codes, and abusing emulator bugs). I don't see why it should be so problematic in this case.
TheProJamer wrote:
Banning the use of a glitch on the grounds that it could potentially harm run entertainment
I'm not advocating the banning of any glitch. I'm questioning the extents to which the game ought to be affected from the outside to change its behavior.
More to my point, as YaLTeR said, such a low frame rate wouldn't be done for the entire video; it would last only a handful of frames
And how exactly are you going to achieve that?
(You seem to be assuming that the game itself supports natively lowering the framerate. I'm not making that assumption. I'm making the assumption that the framerate is lowered by emulating a really slow computer. Which would mean that the entire run would have to be run at a glacial framerate.)
by nature of the fact every frame costs so much time.
Playing speed of modern games does not depend on the framerate. It doesn't matter if you are running at 120fps or at 12fps, the gameplay speed (eg. running speed, animations, etc.) will still be the same. It's just that with a lower framerate the game "jumps ahead" by bigger steps.
So with such a game a very low framerate would ostensibly not cost any time. It would just make the run a slideshow.
I don't know of any games with glitches that require very low FPS for the whole duration of the run, but I am familiar with a number of games that require very low FPS just for the duration of exploiting a glitch, which is usually only a couple of frames long and doesn't pose much watchability issue.
Getting the low framerate just on the part where the glitching needs to happen, if the game itself does not support capping the framerate to something so low, would require external means of lowering the framerate. If we are talking about an emulated environment (as is most usually the case with TASes), it would require for the runner to manually lower the emulated speed of the emulated hardware for the duration of that glitch.
I doubt that would be acceptable in any way, not under current rules nor probably ever, because it goes against the spirit of TASing (runs shouldn't abuse the emulator itself to make the game glitch. And how would you even theoretically achieve this in the original hardware, without some sort of external software or something?)
The only way I could theoretically envision this happening is if, rules permitting, the emulator is set to emulate a really slow and old computer, which runs the game like molasses (and this slow running speed is what allows that glitch).
If it's the fastest way to do something, it would have a place in the vault.
Do you really think that anybody would be happy with a game being speedrun abusing glitches that are only possible if the game is running at 0.1 fps?
Imagine the run itself is an hour long. And it runs at 0.1 fps. Meaning that every still frame is shown for 10 seconds, after which the game jumps 10 seconds ahead in time, and so on. It would effectively be just an hour-long slide show of individual frames.
Let's add more to this hypothetical, and say that running the game at a normal 30 or 60 fps would make the run 1 hour 1 minute long. In other words, running the game at 0.1 fps only saves one minute from an hour-long speedrun.
Would anybody watch such a thing? Would it even make any sense?
Should the run be allowed to run the game at 10FPS for the sake of being able to use that glitch?
In fact, to emphasize my point, let's not just limit this hypothetical to 10 fps. (After all, a game running at 10 fps is not optimal, but still somewhat watchable.) Let's say that a glitch becomes possible if the game runs at 1 fps. Or 0.1 fps. One frame every 10 seconds.
Needless to say, that would become quite unwatchable. Should it be allowed?
I'd say this is no different than changing the battle speed in a Final Fantasy game or the text speed in a Pokemon game. It's an option the game provides, so it should be usable.
I think the original post is talking about the speed of emulation, not some setting inside the game itself. This is what I was referring to. Should the TAS be allowed to set the emulation speed to 10FPS for the sake of allowing the glitch to happen?
Does "unique gameplay" also encompass a situation where the entire game is the same for both characters, ie. there are no levels or other content that opens up only when selecting one of the characters but not the other, but the game is a non-linear metroidvania type game and one of the characters has gameplay mechanics that allow for a drastically different route through the map than the other, effectively giving more than 50% of different content to be displayed during the run? Or is that still just a "sub-optimal character" situation?
Edit: Reading the above, I find it a bit confusing. So, to clarify:
In a metroidvania-style non-linear game there are two characters to choose. The optimal game completion for one character is quite different than the optimal game completion when using the other character (even though the entire map is accessible to both characters). These two paths are so different that they show more than 50% of different parts of the game.
Is this situation still just a "uses sub-optimal character" for the slower path, or is this considered two alternate game modes as per this rule?
What happens when some glitch or skip is tied to a particular (or maximum/minimum) framerate? For example, assume that some kind of glitch is only possible when the game runs at 10FPS or less. Should the run be allowed to run the game at 10FPS for the sake of being able to use that glitch? Should the run be allowed to change the framerate mid-run in order to get the glitch?
This is not a purely theoretical question. I am aware of at least one modern game out there where certain glitches are possible only when running the game at a low framerate (namely, The Talos Principle.) There are probably more.
(Personally, I really detest the abuse of framerate changes in order to trigger such glitches in speedruns. Especially since it involves the runner going to the game's graphical settings menu and changing the framerate cap there, doing the glitch, and then going back and changing it back to what it was before. But that's a pet-peeve of mine, and a different topic.)
Dragster is the best example of a very simple game that has been extensively examined to exhaust its limits, and so I gave it a 10 tech.
I agree that the run deserves a high technical score. But not because it can't be improved (that's part of it, but only a part), but because of the sheer amount of work involved in background research, and proving that the time is optimal. That work alone is worthy of a high technical score.
I would rate it low on entertainment. After all, not much happens in the run that's extraordinarily entertaining. (I would say that the "entertainment" score would more reflect how enjoyable the run is to watch assuming you know nothing about the background work, the amount of work put into creating the run, or even the game itself. Simply whether watching it out of the blue, as a fan of speedruns, is enjoyable.)
So it's a good example of high technical rating, low entertainment rating.
I rate tech based on how much improvement I think is possible. 10.0 means a game has been pushed to its limit.
It's not my place to tell people how they should rate, or interpret the meaning of the ratings, but in my opinion it's not necessary to be able to rate a run with 10.0 on either entertainment or technical quality.
I don't think "technical quality" should mean solely "how frame-perfect the run is" (and thus if the run is demonstrably frame-perfect and cannot be improved further, it should get a straight 10.0). It ought to encompass more than that. A lot more.
It's impossible to prove, or even know, if a run is frame-perfect. Or how frame-perfect it is. Therefore such an interpretation would be rather nonsensical. Nobody would be able to give an objective rating, because nobody can know how frame-perfect it is. (It may well even be something that's mathematically impossible to prove.)
I was one of the people, or even the person, who proposed and implemented the original entertainment&technical ratings (although Bisqwit also made a big chunk of that original server code as well. There might have been more people involved, at least in the idea part, but it has been so many years now that I can't remember all the details anymore.) My original idea for "technical quality" was not "how frame-perfect it is". Rather, it was more like "what kind of techniques the run uses, and how well it uses them."
If a run looks technically cool, it should receive a higher technical score than a run that doesn't look as cool. An example of a run that, to me, looks extremely cool in terms of technique, is the Megaman run.
The Super Mario Bros run is one that has gotten technically better over time. Not because it has become faster, but because more techniques are being used. (For example, when the flagpole glitch was found, it upped up the technical coolness of the run, for instance.)
Sometimes technical quality can only be discovered by reading the background material of the run (ie. its submission text). Sometimes the amount of technical work put into the run can be enormous, and is only visible through this text. And that ought to contribute to the score as well.
Is "how technically cool the run looks" a subjective thing to judge? Yes. And that's completely fine! It's supposed to be! Just because it says "technical" doesn't mean it can't be subjective. It's about technique, not about (frame) perfection. (Of course perfection counts, but not as the sole thing.)
In this way, not all games lend themselves to the highest technical score. Perhaps the game is just too linear, too straightforward, too simple, and with too few bugs and glitches to exploit. The run is probably very boring, not because the author made a bad job, but because the game itself is boring when it comes to speedrunning it. You shouldn't feel bad giving it a bad entertainment and/or technical score. It's not the fault of the author, but it was just a bad game choice.
Just my opinion.
"End-game story" sounds like part of the actual gameplay, rather than just ending credits.
Should the run end after the last boss is defeated, or right when the actual end credits (or whatever the game clearly considers an equivalent) is reached?
If there's some kind of epilogue (as seems to be the case in a minor form here), shouldn't it be played through normally?
Firstly, I don't see a difference between 'end-game story' and 'epilogue.' To me, that's semantics.
I don't understand why you think that I consider them different things in my post. I'm using them as synonyms (to avoid repetition).
In my opinion, run timing should end on the last input to defeat the final boss; as all runs should be even timing through this epilogue portion (barring lag differences between emulators). The last input that impacts gameplay/timing differences is the last input for the final boss.
Just to avoid confusion: Are you talking about this one game in particular, or a more general rule of thumb?
For example, Circus Caper requires a few inputs to progress through the end-game story after beating the final boss.
"End-game story" sounds like part of the actual gameplay, rather than just ending credits.
Should the run end after the last boss is defeated, or right when the actual end credits (or whatever the game clearly considers an equivalent) is reached?
If there's some kind of epilogue (as seems to be the case in a minor form here), shouldn't it be played through normally?
I think that the question in the title of the thread, "games games that have only been beaten in a TAS" is, in itself, rather unlikely to occur. After all, games are usually designed to be beatable, save for a few joke games that are intentionally not.
Although another example might be some shovelware that has some bug that makes it unintentionally unbeatable, except for the use of some glitch of bug. (Was Cheetahmen an example of this, or do I remember incorrectly?)
Especially right now there's a lot of talk out there how graphics card A is "n% faster" than graphics card B. For long I have thought about how ambiguous it is to say that something is "n% (comparative)" than something else. What is the correct way of calculating that percentage?
Suppose that using some benchmark, graphics card A runs at an average of 120 frames per second, while graphics card B runs at 150 frames per second. How many "% faster" is B compared to A? Is it even unambiguous to ask that question?
One approach would be to take the 120 fps, see how much larger the second number is (in this case 30), and calculate what portion of the 120 that number is, and declare that as the "% faster" value. In this case, 30 is 25% of 120, and thus one could say that card B is "25% faster" than card A.
(Incidentally, this is the same value you can get more easily by simply dividing 150/120, giving 1.25, meaning that 150 is 125% of 120, ie. 25% more.)
On the other hand, we could also approach the situation by looking at what portion that 120 is compared to 150. In other words, 120/150 = 0.8, which we can interpret as card A having 0.2 = 20% less speed than card B. Since card A is capable of 80% of what card B is, we could interpret this as meaning that card B is "20% faster" than card A.
So, is card B "25% faster" or "20% faster" than card A? Or something else?
This notional difference becomes even more accentuated the higher the difference. Suppose that the difference is exactly double. For example, card A runs at 100 frames per second, while card B runs at 200 frames per second. How many "% faster" is card B?
When trying to prove that a number is not rational, it appears that the most common approach is proof by contradiction (iow. assume that the number is rational, and prove that the assumption leads to a contradiction). Famously, proving that sqrt(2) is irrational is very easy in this way.
I was wondering if there are numbers for which that approach doesn't work, and some other form of proof needs to be used. Perhaps even if there are algebraic numbers that are such.
(I understand that it's probably not possible to say "proof by contradiction is impossible for this number." I suppose what I'm asking is if there's some number that can be proven to not be rational, but for which there is no known proof by contradiction, or that proof is way too complicated to be feasible and there's a much easier way of proving it.)
Edit2: I would really love to see that SMB3 completed in 0 seconds that was done during a TASBot session in GTQ that one time submitted with this flag, regarding what Warp said.
It's one thing to see it. Another thing is whether it should be considered the "official" fastest completion (which I interpret to mean that it's the official, or semi-official, "world record" tool-assisted speedrun of the game).
Somebody might be thrilled to see an awesome tool-assisted speedrun of the game, full of incredible superhuman tricks and impossible skill, close calls, and so on... and all he gets is a 0-second run that just shows the end credits. Yay. And a wall of technical text if he wants to find out what's happening.
Is that really a good criterion?
I'd say that if the run is boring to watch anyway, the most unambiguous rule is to not allow any extra data. This especially since allowing extra CDs would make the run non-console-verifiable.
Well, I just hope it doesn't become widespread. Would hate to see half the list of fastest completions filled with half-second runs that do not show anything of the game.
Why do they steal things with cameras filming the place?
Reminds me of the numerous examples of people cheating in Magic the Gathering pro tournaments (which have relatively large cash prizes), on camera. They know perfectly well they are on camera, yet they still decide to cheat and hope they aren't caught.
