Topic by jlun2

Posted: 5/7/2015 2:34 PM

Post subject: How much should in game time matter for vault?

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jlun2

Skilled player (1707)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

Currently, there's this submission: #4686: Spikestuff's PSX Tekken 3 in 01:49.73 that aims for vault but sacrifices real time for in game time. When questioned, all that was linked was http://tasvideos.org/Movies-Vault-C1012Y.html However, there's also precedent to reject runs that wastes real time for low ingame clock, such as #2956: adelikat's NES Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! "clock stopping glitch" in 19:17.96 where instead of vault, it was rejected. Also, it's known that games such as Super Metroid can technically achieve a very low in game time in comparison by pausing repeatedly at the expense of viewer patience, and real time. Additionally, 2 other games have been noted in the comments of Spikestuff's submission that could allow seemingly infinite real time used yet the game time remains 0. How much should in game time matter for vault? How much time wasted would be considered "reasonable"?

LLCoolDave wrote:

This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.

Posted: 5/7/2015 2:44 PM

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1237)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11275
Location: RU

I see it similarly to stopping the movie. If you stop it too soon, the time on your record is lower, but the game might have been beaten sooner if you prolongate the movie. And neither is better or worse, they are both arguably faster and slower than their counterparts, but there's nothing wrong with it, as long as it feels as "fast enough". One it becomes cheaper, it's not as much of a worthy speed record, which is Vault for. Same with difficulties IMO.

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.

Posted: 5/7/2015 3:02 PM

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Scepheo

Player (144)

Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686

I personally feel that in-game time is much like score: an in-game statistic. Aiming to keep it as low (or get it as high) as possible is an arbitrary goal (i.e. not any% or 100%) and should, like all arbitrary goals, be judged by entertainment value and go to moons if accepted. I don't consider it to be a vaultable goal.

Posted: 5/7/2015 3:14 PM

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adelikat

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I think punchout games are the exception to the rule (I can't think of any other games that meet this criteria) in that in-game time is the only one that should matter. Real time is meaningless in those games, and nobody (TAS or realtime) strives for it, even as an alternate goal. Not to mention aiming for realtime creates a more trivial and less impressive TAS. And imo, my clock stopping glitch run should be vaulted. For a vast majority of games this isn't the case though. I think it should be on a case by case basis, where it rarely is the case.

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Posted: 5/7/2015 3:22 PM

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Tangent

Joined: 3/9/2009
Posts: 530

Kind of repeating what I said in the other thread, but... In a lot of the currently published movies, sacrificing real time I'd say already falls under the "sacrifices time for entertainment" categories. Otherwise, they'd need to get hit or waste weapons/shots by shooting into the air just to make the end-of-level countdowns go faster. Similar goes for fighting games. Many have a special message and bonus for taking no damage which takes far longer than taking a sliver of damage would, so most fighting games that aim for absolute speed will have to work in getting hit which seems contrary to 'perfect play.' Of course, I'm not a great fan of pure speed records for fighting games anyway, so... I hadn't really thought about it the way Feos says, but I kind of agree. Is the goal getting to the endstate of each individual stage/fight as quickly as possible, or to get to the next stage/overall be as quickly as possible? Obviously there's tradeoff when it comes to things like powerups and advantages carrying over between stages, but if someone was able to shave two ticks off SMW 8-3 (so the timer ends on 246), they'd end up losing significant time. I believe (though could be wrong) that there's a similar situation with the SMW fadeout lag and that a number of stages could be completed marginally faster, but the added lag would wipe that out. Either way, pausing eats up both those times so I'm a little leery on that counting.

Posted: 5/7/2015 3:30 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

I think that sacrificing real-time to lower the in-game time for a vault publication should be acceptable only in very special circumstances and if the rationale is good enough. The higher the difference in real-time that this causes, the better the argument should be why it should be accepted. (For example, if 50% of a run is pausing just to lower the final in-game timer by a few seconds, that's not very acceptable anymore.)

Posted: 5/7/2015 8:02 PM

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feos

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Joined: 4/17/2010
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I'll just mention, that Sonic TASing won't worth anything if it didn't aim for in-game time. Simply because in real-time, one can find a prefect delay to stop the time counter ASAP, by waiting here and there, and it'd be faster than any current Sonic TAS, but... is there a point? So yeah, Sonic is not the game where you waste time for entertainment to get the lowest possible in-game time, you are forced to aim for it to be really able to talk about optimization (which TASing is about).

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.

Posted: 5/7/2015 8:18 PM

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jlun2

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feos wrote:

I'll just mention, that Sonic TASing won't worth anything if it didn't aim for in-game time. Simply because in real-time, one can find a prefect delay to stop the time counter ASAP, by waiting here and there, and it'd be faster than any current Sonic TAS, but... is there a point? So yeah, Sonic is not the game where you waste time for entertainment to get the lowest possible in-game time, you are forced to aim for it to be really able to talk about optimization (which TASing is about).

I have no idea what you're talking about, but since chances are, sonic TASes get moons, it isn't exactly relevant since no matter what happens, it won't get vaulted. I'm specifically asking for in terms of vault, and do TASes of such deserve a seperate branch, obsolete, etc.

LLCoolDave wrote:

This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.

Posted: 5/7/2015 10:28 PM

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marzojr

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jlun2 wrote:

I have no idea what you're talking about, but since chances are, sonic TASes get moons, it isn't exactly relevant since no matter what happens, it won't get vaulted.

He is talking about this. For what is worth, I think that it should be decided on a case-by-case manner, trying to minimize both in-game time and real time. If the best real time requires (or encourages) sloppy play leading to worse in-game time, in-game time should be preferred; if in-game time is not reliable, very inaccurate, or if it can be manipulated at a large cost in real time, real time should be preferred.

Marzo Junior

Posted: 5/8/2015 12:14 AM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

Are there any ingame-time runs that are not (at least) one of a) for a game with a speedrunning community that relies on the ingame clock, or b) for a game with very long time-based score tallies? My inclination would also be to go on a case-by-case basis, but on the other hand my impression was that the rules for the Vault were rather strict and simple (viz. fastest realtime any% or 100% runs only). I wouldn't want someone to spend a lot of effort on a "Vault-only" ingame-time-oriented run only for it to get rejected...not that I have any evidence that someone is considering making such a run.

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Posted: 5/8/2015 12:20 AM

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Tangent

Joined: 3/9/2009
Posts: 530

Derakon wrote:

Are there any ingame-time runs that are not (at least) one of a) for a game with a speedrunning community that relies on the ingame clock, or b) for a game with very long time-based score tallies? My inclination would also be to go on a case-by-case basis, but on the other hand my impression was that the rules for the Vault were rather strict and simple (viz. fastest realtime any% or 100% runs only). I wouldn't want someone to spend a lot of effort on a "Vault-only" ingame-time-oriented run only for it to get rejected...not that I have any evidence that someone is considering making such a run.

Besides the Tekken one in the first post?

Posted: 5/8/2015 9:01 AM

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feos

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marzojr wrote:

For what is worth, I think that it should be decided on a case-by-case manner, trying to minimize both in-game time and real time. If the best real time requires (or encourages) sloppy play leading to worse in-game time, in-game time should be preferred; if in-game time is not reliable, very inaccurate, or if it can be manipulated at a large cost in real time, real time should be preferred.

I think it's a perfect definition. Both should be minimized for a speed TAS, and priority should be on what makes it more impressive as a record. That'd apply for Vault very well, jlun2. In other words, more impressive in-game time run is a run where real-time "branch" makes little sense in general.

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.

Posted: 5/8/2015 9:57 AM

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andypanther

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Joined: 6/30/2010
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Location: Zurich, Switzerland

I would say allow both ingame and realtime as valid goals for vault, even with separate publications in some cases. It will only happen very rarely anyway.

Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.