So what if I don't like watching crappy movies on obscure, unsuitable games, and hence never have to vote low? Averaging a user's votes is only valid if the user watched an standard distributed set of movies.
It's also doesn't hurt to have our top movies actually display a 9.x on the front page. Promotion and stuff.
If we wish to avoid abuse, we could employ a rating bias metric: Calculate how close a user's ratings were to the public opinion, i.e. the difference between his rating and the total average.
For example, I rated 8 on movie A and 4 on movie B, while the average rating is 6 on A 4 on B. My opinion is on average ((8-6) + (4-4))/2 = 1 above the popular opinion. I'm a high-voter, reduce all my ratings by 1 point.
(there are some corner cases that need to be taken into account to avoid unwanted side-effects, though. Like users with only 1 vote.)
Of course, any form of normalization can be manipulated by placing a few strategic votes to shift your average. But I feel that my suggestion will give better results than just setting the rating's mean to 5.
I prefer this idea that ratings are normalized within each single movie.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
It seems that our test was flawed! We didn't find that the very first half of Ragnarok Control Room could be improved for over 2 seconds even without using double-jump! And definitly would they be lost during later waiting for those moving platforms! Here's the WIP without double-jump.
Now I'll say that using double-jump in that level can be faster, and only in that level or it would require one extra trip to and fro the lab, which would cost too many frames.
EDIT: Fortunately this game is very hex-friendly. I'll try both strategies with and without using double-jump :D
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Please get rid of this stupid robot... Talking about games that didn't make it to publishing is one thing, but ruining them with a useless robot doesn't always make common sense. ~rolls eyes~
tasvideos grue wrote:
om, nom, nom... om, nom, nom... nom nom
I found it stupid too.
Maybe some animated sprites (like Mario on the bar before) can be better? ;)
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Because it doesn't seem to work on the emulator, which suggests inaccurate GBC emulation, I guess.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Now I get your point about double-jump. With tha fabulous way of climbing walls, it just cancel most of the time I could've saved with it.
The main drawback of using the double-jump chip is that it takes slow menu periods to equip/unequip. So in later levels, except for Ragnarok with Craft (I've figured out a fast way to get through the moving-platform part without double-jump!), when the Junk armour being used, it will cost more time than it can save. And in Fenri Lunaedge/Popla Cocapetri's levels, I had to wait for vulnerability/crush-blocks, so double-jump woudn't have helped much.
Xaphan wrote:
Do you have a special method for luck manipulation, cause you get so much parts so effortlessly (it seems) ?
I don't think so. It just seems that I was too lucky in early levels, especially with Glass Cannon.
FYI, I had even got more parts from Glass Cannon:
Unfortunately it was too many frames slower. So it was out then.
However it might come back into the movie when I do the final hex work, if it wouldn't cause heavy sync problems.
Xaphan wrote:
Also about that mniboss dragon fight in Genblem stage, how do you defeat it so quickly ?
Z-Knuckle is the key. Uncharged Z-Knuckle is slightly weaker than slahes while charged it is as powerful as charged slashes and can be used to hit an enemy one more time. Also, it doesn't create "lags" as slashes do. It has longer recovery, though.
Xaphan wrote:
And is there a reason you get hit that much during boss fights ??
Getting hit interrupts Zero's long attack animations as well as makes Zero temporarily invulnerable to attacks ie. it saves time. Consider it as either a good thing or a bad thing.
Xaphan wrote:
Anyway, it's impressive work and I really long for the rest. You're a way better TASer than me and I'm finally glad we get something awesome for that great game !
Thank you for your constructive comments again! There're almost none people except you here concerning about this run. Even Computerbird hasn't got time for it recently.
And finally, latest wip!
Note: I like to hex-edit wips a lot, so savestates from old wips may fail to work.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
For future revisions, you might want to go with a smaller font for the frame and lag counters. When playing a GBX game, the lag counter tends to go offscreen.
You may want to go with "Options" -> "Video" -> "Text display options...", and check "On screen" under "Display" then.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Well, I didn't do very much.
Still some issues to be fixed. LUA can be a workaround for the VBA/VBx Watch problems, though.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
@Xaphan:
Thanks for the comments!
And how's your own MMZ4 run going?
I hate manipulating luck. It's simply pain (link to WIP). I wonder if Heat Gemblem can be improved further with better luck manipulation.
Oops, It seems that I have got much more parts than needed.
EDIT: Now it's up to the settlement mission.
I've modified the boss order to fight Fenri Lunaedge before Popla Cocapetri, with which I can benefit from optimized weapon/weather strategies. And Time Stopper is overall superior to Burning Shot in later levels, even though the latter works better against Fenri Lunaedge.
All the bosses are carefully manipulated to be done in the favourable ways.
EDIT 2: Prison done. So far I've done most of the most difficult parts of luck manipulation in the whole run!
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
RTC emulation will automatically synchronize the in-game clock with your PC's computer, and you don't need to manually set up the time. If you start the movie (from power-on) at night, you will see it's also at night in the game world. If I recall correctly, some monsters only spawn at certain time periods. So using RTC may give you more controls as well as the advantage to skip setting the in-game clock.
However I haven't recorded any movies enabling RTC myself. So I am not certain if movies re-recorded with RTC enabled play correctly. This demands tests.
Oh, there's a published movie with RTC: Pokémon Sapphire
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I didn't have any desync problems, weird.
One more thing comes into mind: Isn't this game using a battery-powered Real-Time Clock? Your wip didn't go with RTC emulation enabled, though.
EDIT: There's one infamous possible cause why you have desynch problems: VBA v19.x has a bug that sometimes it mysteriously erases the Lag Reduction flag from your new movie files. Be sure to replay any GBA movie that you just started to record and see if Options->Emulator->Lag Reduction (GBA) is checked. If not, you may check it and start over, or hex-edit the byte at 17h in your lagged movie file to 30h (RTC disabled) or 34h (RTC enabled).
This bug has been fixed in v21-interim.
See also: VBM format
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
The first ~9 minutes full of conversations look very boring, while it looks better and better as more actions are introduced. I personally like puzzle games, so the heavily puzzle-solving looks comfortable to me.
Lags seem to be a big problem. Is there any way that you can reduce lags? It seems that when the icon on the lower-left blinks, more lags occure.
If you will make a run for publication, be sure that you start recording it from Power-on instead of a snapshot.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
While one may continue applauding this movie for who-knows-how-long, the highest rating it can get from me is 0/0.
It's so awesome that I shouldn't have watched it at all before voting.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Hmm, my previous post looks a little messed up... however you seem to understand what I tried to express.
Well, I'm just curious about which patch you are using at the moment. I've only seen a Boktai 1 patch using L for the solar gauge.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I'm not familliar with this game. The only thing comes into my mind is that you may plan for items in advance so that you can get most of them from enemies along the way rather than farm from the same type of the enemies that you just sneaked past, which you must have already been aware of since it's evident.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Bumphmm.
Thanks to computerbird, my very dead improved run has been resurrected!
Now good news and bad news, just as usual:
Good news:
* You may safely expect ots of improvements to be taken into this run, including insanely faster boss fights!
* Major changes in route:
Trucks (or whatever)
Area Zero
Heat Gemblem
Sol Titanian
Purpura Cockapetri
Fenrir Lunaedge
Settlement
Jail
Nobile Mandrago
Tech Kraken
Mino Magnax
Pegasolta Ekrail
Other sequential missions
So Galacta Armour will be ready for the Jail boss, while...
Bad news:
* No Double Jump. No, because using it would be at least 1.5 seconds slower in the end according to hundreds of our tests.
* You may want to see some up-to-date wips, but unfortunately, there's not even a single one made yet.
EDIT: WIP using the (U) ROM here.
It's... just "slower" than the published run using the (J) ROM.
Now you can see how awful English dialogues are when it comes to TAS. Although the intro was 139 frames longer, I managed to get 30 frames faster by the first score screen. However by the start of Area Zero, I fell behind by 235 frames instead, not to mention that I didn't auto-fire through the lengthy dialogues!
Therefore I've got excuse for switching to the (J) ROM! ;)
EDIT 2: OK I'll stick to the (U) ROM: new WIP.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I just wonder if your new flying method can be ported to other forms...
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Well, as not reviving the perished guy doesn't change the ending, abusing death to save time is very sensible.
And it's fun that his body got a static sprite.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Hmm, a short RPG again. Not so good when your perished team member wasn't revived in the end, but the STR glitch increased the awesomeness nonetheless.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Unfortunately it was too many frames slower. So it was out then.
However it might come back into the movie when I do the final hex work, if it wouldn't cause heavy sync problems.