This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2110: Thedarksnw's GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance in 1:17:19.92

No luck manipulation

This is a huge red flag. I don't know as much about the GBA Castlevania games, but I know that they are a good exercise in luck manipulation, and the fact that you didn't use it leads me to believe that this is going to be very unoptimized. Another problem is the ROM you used. For some reason, you chose to use a '2 games in 1' ROM, while the normal one is easy to find. Also, you broke the Rules by using and (E) ROM instead of the standard (U). Lastly, I'm not sure what the goals are in this run, because I don't know whether the "Concerto" route has anything to offer. But considering that we have 3 runs of this game already, I'm not sure whether we need a fourth, unless this route shows off some really kickass stuff. All of this is said without having watched the run, which I will do, and edit my post. In the mean time, could you provide a little more information about the points I brought up?

I also have yet to watch and have the exact same doubts. The run being over an hour and having so few rerecords doesn't sound good; JXQ's glitch-lite run getting the good ending was only half an hour, before major warping glitches were found. No luck manipulation, completely glitch free, wrong ROM choice, bad goal choices; I'm not optimistic on this one.

Especially given the listed improvements -- grabbing hearts is straightforward since there's oodles on your path, and controlling bosses is much of what TASing this game genre is all about.

By no luck manipulation i mean i'm not going for 100% crits. ROM choice was wrong i guess, sorry for that. Goal is to beat game with no bookmarking and glitching. I used as many rerecords as i needed to make my moves optimized as i could. Btw thanks for quick responce and pointing out my mistakes. ;p Oh and yes JXQ run is hot and i think i would do better now after watching it but am i supposed to have more skill than he does to get published on this site? Im newb at doing runs for uploading but i'm trying to start somewhere. Going to keep adding more possible improvements to info for a while if thats ok.

You should try to make your run as good as you can. If there is an existing run that does the same thing as your run does, then as a bare minimum your run must be as good as that run. Here's a couple of things I would have recommended you do before making a submission: 1) Post WIPs in the GBA forum. Almost nobody on this site submits TASes without showing somebody their work. Feedback is the best way to improve your runs, since other people will see things that you miss. 2) Watch any other TASes of the game that are on the site. For some games, it's also worth watching TASes in the same genre (e.g. scrolling shmups). This gives you ideas for how to style your run, but more importantly, also shows you how far people have gotten with pushing the limits of the game, whether or not they're glitching. This can help make jumps more precise, show you how quickly you can attack, other such things. You should be manipulating luck as much as possible (to the extent of always going for critical hits when the cost of manipulating them is less than the time saved by getting them). It's expected that, at the time you submit the TAS, it doesn't have any known improvements that don't have a miniscule payoff for the time involved. For example, if a new way of traveling through one room early on is found that saves 1 frame, but it requires re-doing the entire game, then it's not worth re-doing the TAS. If, on the other hand, a new way of walking is found that's 5% faster in all situations, then you get to start over. For a run of this length, I'd say that known improvements should not account for more than a minute of time...but that's just me; other people will be more or less strict (and that's where the movie ratings come in).

The only thing here I approve of is a run without sequence breaking, but if you're going THAT far, why not do 100% and make the journey worthwhile? I don't want to be discouraging, because I'm always in favor of new Castlevania runs, but I can't approve of this one at all. If you do submit another run, I'd sooner suggest a 100% run with some heavy optimization in the way of movement.

Thing is i dont really know anyone who likes watching speedruns, so you guys are only people to comment :). superjupi: It was like 5am when i finished and my head was not working very clear. I feel like it would be better to waste a bit more time but down Dracula.

Well i can't agree that doing crits each hit is whole effort. And there was no rush, i was expecting to finish it in 14 hours and it took 17 because few segments took a bit longer. Just that 3 hour difference late at night affecting the end. And uh isn't this a forum?

Well i can't agree that doing crits each hit is whole effort. And there was no rush, i was expecting to finish it in 14 hours and it took 17 because few segments took a bit longer. Just that 3 hour difference late at night affecting the end. And uh isn't this a forum?

Well, technically it is... but it obviously isn't what I meant, and you know it. I was talking about this. What you did was submitting a movie at the site, and the submission most certainly isn't at the forum, but at the site. This is only a place to discuss it. 14 hours is not a lot of time for such a long TAS... and I dare say that (unless the game is wickedly easy, which would mean it wouldn't make an interesting TAS anyway) it is not even possible to create a good TAS of this length within 14 hours. I don't see how you disagree that luck manipulation doesn't take effort... I'd say it might be the most frustrating part of the run (along with possibly lag reduction). If you didn't do that, it means you skipped the parts of the TAS that take up the biggest part of the time, and are the most frustrating too... which means a lot of effort is required. Just not doing this (even deliberately) means that not enough effort was put into it... I'm sorry but this is just the way it is... and if you disagree (which you apparently do), then please state why you disagree.

cause i was curious, i watched a little bit of the run. i stopped before Shadow. the run syncs with the U rom, for what it's worth. runs can't be done on the Double Pack. of course, there's that extra 20 seconds you have to sit through before starting the actual game. but this version of HoD also took out the door warping glitches. the run is sorely unoptimized. not only from lack of luck manipulation and frame advance, but there are route issues too. getting the Crushing Stone comes to mind. i disagree with running this game's hard mode. from what i saw, it just gave enemies more defense. to me, that doesn't justify a higher difficulty. if there were more enemies, then it would be okay. but that's probably just me. not using savewarps is a ridiculous choice. i also disagree with not using glitches. i can understand no mysterious warps, but only if you do what was done in the full game Maxim run: door warps are okay, but wall sinks aren't. lastly, the goals of this movie aren't good. if you take out the save and glitch restrictions, this is just a slower version of JXQ's initial run. and unfortunately, an all boss run would look and feel too much like the full game Maxim run. i can't see any other category being made. 100% map and/or all relics is a little too arbitrary for this game.

I don't see how you disagree that luck manipulation doesn't take effort...

I said i disagree that this is only thing that is worth effort. And now i know that i have to upload it somewhere and go for forum before actually submitting, will do so next time. Satoryu: Only wrong choice was to play hardgame because all it does is -25% dmg. Current objective was to run through whole the main quest as it is intended.

Since it hasn't been stated yet, and I forgot it in my earlier post: the point of a TAS is perfection. It's trivial to be merely very good at a game, but that doesn't make for interesting movies. What we're looking for is something that's so good that the viewers can't find any flaw with it. Obviously this is unacheivable (we're continually finding new ways to do things faster or more impressively), but we measure the success of movies by how close they get to that perfection. Please don't think we're being hostile. I for one am always glad to see new people try their hand at TASing. But you need to understand what TASing is and what the standards are that you need to meet. What I'd really recommend you do now is find the HoD thread on the GBA subforum and discuss the kind of run you want to do and how you'd go about doing it. There's plenty of precedent for glitch-free movies (though as noted by Satoryu, I doubt you'd be able to convince anyone that savewarping is a glitch).

Savewarping is just an imbalanced feature that i decided to not use. On the other hand i could do it again using saveroom and saving plenty of time and still have run with no glitches. And i dont find people hostile, i find answers usefull. Well most of them ;p. Btw i get the idea of perfection, spent lot of time playing defrag so im into this stuff. Damn do i wish slowdown/savestate tool for q3 ^^.

I don't see how you disagree that luck manipulation doesn't take effort...

I said i disagree that this is only thing that is worth effort. And now i know that i have to upload it somewhere and go for forum before actually submitting, will do so next time.

Maybe I phrased it wrong. The TAS you made obviously took you effort to make. When I said that it means to me "no effort", I meant to say that it means to me "I purposefully didn't put all the effort possible into this TAS"... which usually leads to a very fast rejection, since like Derakon said, these runs should aim for doing something perfect. Good that you will use post a wip at the forum next time. This is a good place to upload them. May I suggest you making a TAS that already has a published movie? That way, you can easily see if you are on the right track. If you make a clear improvement to a published movie, it is almost certain that your movie will get published, while with a movie with a new category it is less certain.

I just didn't knew its only possible to post something if you beat current record. Think im going back to MMZ now lol.

I just didn't knew its only possible to post something if you beat current record. Think im going back to MMZ now lol.

This is certainly not the case, and I didn't say this. I only said that the chances of a movie being published, and certainly if it's your first TAS, are significantly higher if it's an improvement to a published movie. If it's a TAS of a game that already has several movies, it should bring something new to the table. Obviously it is possible to submit runs that doesn't have a published run... how do you think all these runs got here in the first place?

Two reasons why you shouldn't use the 2-in-1 cart: 1: Takes longer then just the regular one, because you have an extra menu. 2: The door glitch doesn't work in the 2-in-1.

hahah... 17 hours... oh ignorance is bliss

2: The door glitch doesn't work in the 2-in-1.

I think that may actually be a useful restriction like the Link's Awakening DX run that had the select warp fixed. Of course HoD already has other glitches that make doorwarps not very necessary for breaking the game like mad.

According to some source, several itemdrops from enemies are changed in the 2-in-1. I'm wondering whether that can help the progress.