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#4104: Rum's NES Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom in 11:05.92 was rejected since it used an easier game version and the audience preferred the harder one.
You can't skip anywhere with the bike/surfboard glitch, it either ends the level or rolls through open bus and arrives to the start of the ROM, where game end code is located. If a certain flag is set, it will "beat" the game, otherwise it will execute game over. It's really hard to manipulate what exact code is executed in the glitched state, because it's hard to predict it and there aren't many RAM addresses you can affect in that level. There's no ACE method known, at least yet.
Skipping those 2 levels is subjectively more entertaining too, because they're mostly autoscrollers, and there's not a lot you can do to be creative there after everything we've seen in the current run. It'd be basically the same thing, with little to no complex gameplay to optimize.
So my only complain is the snakes level.
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WarHippy wrote:
nor can I use RAM search or savestates for checking values or optimization
How do you TAS then?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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<RetroEdit> I do have a question: have you had any success with using GDB to debug GCC stuff in VS? Or have you generally just rebuilt through the VS compiler?
<zeromus> my recollection of any such experience would be entirely colored by the agony of it
<zeromus> i have struggled through projects using visualgdb. it was much like riding a bike through a jungle. before then, i struggled through projects with other GDBs. that was more akin to swimming through a desert. sometimes i've debugged stuff with printfs on linux directly. that's about like walking over a thousand miles of broken glass. and ive never used gdb itself in linux; even having done all of the above, I don't think I have the constitution for that.
<zeromus> a few times rather than use gdb for several minutes I have instead simply sat in a dark room for several days straight until I finally fully understood the problem, debugging it entirely in my head.
<zeromus> and I can neither confirm nor deny that you now inhabit around the fortieth iteration of the universe, after I destroyed the timelines in which bugs were created in the first place, which I would otherwise have to debug in gdb
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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GoddessMaria has stepped down as a judge. Thank you for your continuous contribution, goddess!
We happen to have made a call for new judges recently, if anyone feels interest in helping us with the heavy-lifting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Memory wrote:
To me it's incongruent with previous judgments that have been made.
For example, the version of Samurai Shodown II in [3739] Arcade Samurai Shodown II by NhatNM in 11:36.43 is near identical to the version in [2709] PSX Samurai Shodown II by NhatNM in 17:10.02. When I discussed it with you, you suggested that the fact that they were different platforms was enough to not warrant obsoletion.
Meanwhile here we have two games with differing rules, and yet we must only pick one or the other. These two games are far more different from each other than that previous example. This is why I feel there is a bias present. It makes little sense to me otherwise.
I can review those 2 movies closely, comparing every round by speed. The only difference the author mentioned explicitly was lag, and both are in Vault, so we'll see if there's actually any difference in gameplay.
Meanwhile I can reject this run for sub-optimality and set the other one to Delayed until the comparison is done.
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Memory wrote:
They both explicitly aim for ingame time. It's just one aims to manipulate the ingame time in a specific method that the other one bans.
Reminds me of this submission that I had to reject. Glitching in-game time to artificially be lower is like glitching the completion counter in full completion movies. Aiming for in-game time is meant to make speedrunning that game more fair. For example in Sonic we discard the tally, because if we counted it, people would simply find the "perfect" balance between actual level times and tally times, removing the need to optimize the levels further and further. In situations when in-game time doesn't help to have fair optimization competition, it doesn't make sense to rely on.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Memory wrote:
One thing that hasn't really been brought up as far as I know is that just because the minimum amount of effort to create an optimal submission is considered low, that doesn't mean it is the maximum amount of effort one could put in. Take the recent Zool run. The author put additional effort into ensuring that the time was as fast as possible, even botting it. It just so happened that that was all there was left.
If people did like proper analysis of these so called "trivial" games, they might find something new. They might not. But I think there's value and meaning in that for sure.
Research has been put into that movie because the game was already complex enough to be considered non-trivial, so once again, it successfully encouraged competition, which in turn led to those crazy results. I don't understand reasons not to appreciate competition for leading to all the improvements that people keep finding. Of course our whole take on competition is special, as we encourage team work, openness, sharing techniques and developments. But since no movie is absolutely perfect, there's always room for an educated, instrumented "doubt". And since you never know if you'll even find those improvements, finding them also becomes a game on its own!
And yes, if we considered a game trivial, and then someone found a way to make TASing it challenging again, it becomes acceptable, as the rule says.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Challenger wrote:
Also, how TMNT 4: Turtles in Time TAS is going? Your last wip posted was 3 years ago.
I'm curious too.
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Last race is also good. The weak spot of your previous TG2 movies was the start-up, where I easily optimized gear shifts and gained speed sooner, but here it finally looks optimal. The questionable turn where you drive on the grass is necessary not to crash later. Nitro usage I didn't test, because it would be a part of a full-blown new TAS attempt, since it's probably the hardest part of routing.
If no one feels like testing other levels for a week, I'd consider this worth submitting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Builds from 5.0-11231 until 5.0-13180 have audio/video desync in AVI dumps, first frame will be missing. If the first frame repeats, all its duplicates will also be missing. It can't be fixed on user end. Use older or newer versions.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Memory wrote:
My view is partially derived from a distaste of certain biases in regards to sports games, some of them codified into the rules. They are treated as same-y simply due to sharing the same basic rules as the sports they are derived from. From a technical perspective they can be quite different from each other. It seems weird to me to apply this standard to sports games and not other similar games. In a way, isn't the goal of many platformers to head right? What about Tetris variants? It's just odd to me to single out sports games.
I don't think it's random bias, but rather a concern that similar sports games provide similar TAS technicality and similar viewer experience, much like versions of the same game that are too similar to have as branches.
I've read the discussion that led to this rule, and it doesn't look like there can be an easy borderline that everyone could fully agree on, or a clear comprehensible solution that everyone would love. Games vary in how different they can be, for a human and for a TAS, so we just need to understand the spirit of the rule, and it'd be easier to apply.
Mothrayas wrote:
Which game obsoletes which is decided by which game makes a more technically impressive run. - This is certainly arguable, I suppose. I wrote it like this to make it still sound in line with the Vault mentality (tech over entertainment, trying to be reasonably objective), as "whichever game is better" is a very subjective as well as vague question.
I think technicality can be compared by whether or not the same TAS techniques are required for both games, or one allows to showcase some unique aspects. From having tested both 1-on-1's, technicality looks very similar.
Again, it's obvious here that the rules of those games aren't identical, but I still feel there's way too much similarity between them, as explained. Lumping them together may not feel perfect, but if we need to find a clear cut, it's in how this rule's intention compares to intentions of similar rules.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Post the movie and the savestate.
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Developing honest internal interest and finally deciding to jump in feet first is not the same as getting poked and bluntly asked. Let people speak up for themselves.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Judging is an elaborate job. It requires doing research in order to check if the movie is optimal, legitimate, and entertaining. It involves helping people develop TAS skills and encouraging them to contribute more, and on a higher level. It's a responsibility of being fair and open while deciding what content should represent the site.
To cover all these aspects, a judge needs to take their time and assess everything that's relevant to a given movie. And to handle this qualitatively, one needs to be sure that fellow judges are taking on other movies in the workbench, and no one is under heavy stress. It's always better to judge less movies with more care (and then recreate if needed), than to have many in your queue, trying to deliver decisions sooner and slowly burning out.
So to help our judges stay more relaxed and focused, I'm calling for new judges!
Here are the role requirements:
http://tasvideos.org/Roles.html#Judge
As my signature says, if you deal with the Movie Rules and try to apply them, you're taking your TASing to a new level. And to do that, you should be able to understand the rules and the principles behind them, judging not only by the letter, but also by the spirit of the law. But don't worry, every time you're not sure about something, you can always ask me and other judges. It's my duty to provide sensible explanations and to help you make a proper decision.
If you have at least a few hundred player points and at least a few movies published, if you're around on the workbench forum and chats, discussing submissions and WIPs, and you would like to take this hobby to the new level described above, please send me a private message on forum, and we'll discuss it!
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Warp wrote:
CoolHandMike wrote:
Having a lot of low quality and not entertaining published runs would diminish the overall worth of the site. Is there something wrong with userfiles? Even they get a place on the front page and can act as a library for tases.
How many submissions do you expect to see of TASes for games that are not trivial to speedrun by a human but have a completely trivial TAS?
Since that was the answer that I've given before, and it now got questioned further, here's what I can reply with.
We shouldn't base our rules on hope that there won't be many such movies, because it's subjective and based on lack of knowledge ("we don't know exactly how many such games are out there, so we presume only few"). If low-effort movies are allowed, it automatically means they are encouraged, because people tend to prefer low-effort work if the outcome is the same.
Now the borderline is high, and people try to work on something good. If the borderline goes lower, in addition to games that fit the suggested rule, people would also submit trivial games that are even simpler than expected, and figuring out the new borderline will take a while. People would be testing "how low you can go", potentially having fights hoping to allow even more trivial games just because they feel the site should blindly be a record database for everything.
Currently I can't say we see serious demand in this area, with lots of TASers sending simplistic games and getting upset over rejections, making this a trend, implying that the rules aren't thorough enough. But in this thread I only see some people expressing feelings, and no one posting convincing reasons pro that rule change. Feels obscure.
It's meaningful because it gives an interesting piece of information: How fast can the game be completed theoretically, assuming perfect play?
Perfect play isn't how we measure movie quality. If you easily achieve perfect time in a trivial game, it's of the same quality as playing SMB in a sloppy, lazy way. I can't consider lazy play a meaningful record that you need TAS tools and skills for.
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Level 1 looks good, without changing nitro I optimized the start-up a bit, but didn't get any time gain overall. Checking last level...
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I'm doing exactly the same thing with aspect ratio as mame itself! Indeed most arcade games were meant for CRT TVs, and some of them used things like vertical orientation or multiple screens. I account for all that.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Set 1:1 pixel size in config - display - aspect ratio.
About missing roms, does it run in mame 0.220?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Having tried test-tasing both games, I don't think either is trivial, and both require the same approach: keep adjusting simple actions in time in order to align them for perfect overall manipulation, while randomness is constantly fighting back, swallowing your improvements. The number of available actions is low, but here it's higher per level than in the other version, so it's just A LOT of simple adjustments. Very dumb and tedious, but there is some TAS challenge to it.
Due to more variety, both visible and internal, I still prefer this version.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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This game is indeed similar in TAS to its other version, but it feels much more annoying. In addition to random enemy behavior (and randomly failing to grab the ball), it also has random delays, and not a lot of room to manipulate it, because each level consists of just one round (or whatever it's called).
Here's a movie where I reach the third enemy some frames sooner, but grabbing the ball just stopped working: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/63205307056897331
I tried delaying some prior actions but that resulted in being slower than this submission, in various ways.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
If you want to get your WIPs reviewed, post them in threads for games you're TASing and ask for feedback. If people acknowledge that they can't beat your times, only then consider it worth submitting. It's basically how most of the TASers take this hobby: they submit only when there's no feasible improvements to think of.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Weird strat in first level.
https://i.imgur.com/k2oP0M1.png
This game is somewhat simplistic in a TAS, but definitely not trivial. Throwing farther takes time, horizontal aiming takes time, enemies are random, and after one has been improved, the next one may refuse to co-operate. You can manipulate them by delaying your action, so that also takes time. I won 57 frames after shota and then was only 37 (iirc) frames ahead after monkey.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/63188588720498157
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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And what's the question?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
