I am trying a Breath of Fire II TAS (likely to jump to BOF I afterwards).
Although my run is indeed very fast, some think it lacks entertainment because I « overuse» dragons. They point out at FF6, where the author same a lot of time using an instant death trick. However, I intend to show some hidden things like Bleu and Karn and Bow
At what point does speed cut on enternainment?
Well, if you really want to follow the definition of TAS, you have:
"Tool-Assisted" and "Speedrun". The tool-assisted part means that this movie is full of win (if done correctly), yet the speedrun part (in conjunction with TA) means that this movie is done so fast, that it can only be faster if new strategies are found (again, if done correctly). So, you decide. You either want to give a good use to the tools to entertain the audience, or try to complete as fast as possible. In my Bubba 'n' Stix TAS, I'm only gonna do something neat when there's nothing else to do. Other than that, I'm going to try to complete it fast, no matter what.
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Note that the 'S' in TAS stands for "Superplay" (just check the logo at the top of the page). Speed was not the primary goal when the site was originally created; it just happened to be the easiest way for people to compare each others' results and demonstrate technical mastery.
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Actually, before the front page was redesigned, the logo in the top left corner said "Tool Assisted Speedruns", while the logo for the forums said (and still does) "Tool Assisted Superplays". I guess the accepted definition has now grown to include play-arounds and such. However, from everything I've heard, the site was 100% focused on speed at the beginning. I forget whether that was the intention of Bisqwit or not, although I'm sure he's said it before.
To the OP:
Speed does tend to be what most runs here aim for, because it creates a good objective means to base future attempts on (i.e. faster is better [Xkeeper will disagree]). However, entertainment trade-offs are common, but they are usually small, and do not detract a lot from the speed of the run. If you start mixing in too many slow parts to add entertainment, you really have very vague goals, and the movie will likely be rejected because of it. A few interesting glitches here and there are great, but if there's a fastest way to kill an enemy, it is somewhat expected that it will be overused. Yes, it will probably detract from the entertainment value some, but if there are some other easter eggs that you throw in that don't take up a large amount of time, you'll be fine.
But above all else, be sure to clarify what you did and the choices you made regarding speed vs. entertainment in the submission text, so that people (especially judges) don't have to guess at what you meant to do.
Note that "speedrun" is not mutually exclusive with alternative goals (as long as these goals make sense). This is so in the regular speedrunning community (which have things like 100% speedruns, easy-difficulty and hard-difficulty speedruns, etc) as well as the tool-assisted one. Also speed/entertainment tradeoffs are often accepted if the gain in entertainment is significant enough. OTOH it's always best to first consult the forums if a certain speed tradeoff is acceptable or not (as you just did).
And yes: Entertainment by speed has been the goal from the beginning, and sloppy playing (ie. wasting time for no good reason) frowned upon.
Maybe this would be a good heuristic of what makes a good TAS: Since it's tool-assisted, it must show superhuman feats, something no human could possibly ever do. (Ok, there are games where humans are awesomely good at, eg. SMB1, but those are rather the exception.)
I forget whether that was the intention of Bisqwit or not, although I'm sure he's said it before.
My intention at the start, and ever so since has been to provide entertaining video game movies.
That speed is a very effective means to provide that goal, is just a coincidence, but in my books, it has never been the goal by itself.
I'm always ready to sacrifice a few frames here and there if 1) it keeps the player much more motivated (frame-squashing labor can be quite dismotivating) and the audience would never know the difference 2) it allows showing the audience a more impressive vista than otherwise.
Of course, #1 leaves my products open for obsoletion by those who are actually willing to do the frame-squashing labor that no audience member would ever notice if it weren't for the numbers. But I don't care.
And for #2, it's controversial when frames are "saved" by sacrificing a cool stunt or two and always arises some debate. Some of those "cool" stunts are rather subjective, too. This happened with SMB walkathons in my opinion.
As for the logo / slogan: The site name became TASVideos as a replacement to NESVideos since we're no longer limited to NES and I wanted to promote the term TAS as opposed to timeattacks. I expanded the TAS abbreviation to "Tool-assisted speedrun" to show what it stands for. However, speed has never been the site's ultimate goal, so I sometimes changed it to "tool-assisted superplay" which also fits the TAS acronym. But the actual goal is "entertaining video game movies". It just doesn't happen to have a cool acronym.
TAEVGMs are pretty cool.
I'm wondering something. If you make a slower movie, but it is more entertaining than the previous version, will it be accepted? Entertainment is really opinionated though.
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I'm wondering something. If you make a slower movie, but it is more entertaining than the previous version, will it be accepted? Entertainment is really opinionated though.
That has happened at least once already (Gunstar Heroes for Genesis), so yes. With most games it probably wouldn't be so easily accepted though.
I'm wondering something. If you make a slower movie, but it is more entertaining than the previous version, will it be accepted? Entertainment is really opinionated though.
That has happened at least once already (Gunstar Heroes for Genesis), so yes. With most games it probably wouldn't be so easily accepted though.
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andrewg wrote:
TAEVGMs are pretty cool.
The problem with that acronym is that nobody actually uses it tbqhief.
Anyways, I'd actually contribute to this topic, but everything that I would've said has already been said.
Nach wrote:
I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.
That has happened at least once already (Gunstar Heroes for Genesis), so yes. With most games it probably wouldn't be so easily accepted though.
Wasn't this also 2P v. 1P, though?
The old run was 1p then new one was 2p and 3.5min longer.
It was also a harder difficulty tho.
Then it was not really that a newer version with more speed/entertainment tradeoffs (but otherwise the same goals) obsoleted the older publication, but a movie with different goals was accepted and made to obsolete the older one (kind of "unpublishing" the old movie).
Fortunately or Unfortunately, frame squashing is the way the community has become. Just looking at the thread for Deign's Mega Man 1 - People were throwing adulation at him for a less than 1% (.93%) improvement to an already short movie.
On one hand, its cool because we know the game is now beaten faster, and has been pushed closer (via frame whoring) to the final limit.
On the other hand, if you watched the two videos non-simultaneously, with out knowing that one was faster than the other, would you really notice a change of 9 seconds over the course of 15 minutes? I know I would not notice any difference, nor be able to tell which was the faster one at the end of the viewing.
I'd call the first experience 'external entertainment;' entertainment that is derived from knowledge about the accomplishment more than the actual run itself. The second is more 'internal entertainment,' as both videos would entertain equally given no knowledge of the speed of the run.
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I'm wondering something. If you make a slower movie, but it is more entertaining than the previous version, will it be accepted? Entertainment is really opinionated though.
River City Ransom is good example. While it didn't obsolete speedrun version, it kinda outweighted it by higher ratings given by the community. I think every tasworthy game should have at least two movies in Tasvideos base.
In some cases, using the optimal strategy for speed is a lot more boring to watch. A prime example (at least as far as I'm concerned) is Final Fantasy 6j/FF3a. As soon as Setzer joins the group, it's mostly all about using Joker Doom to kill every boss. And that's where the entertainment went downhill. Yes, it's faster, but it's also the reason I stopped watching the movie two or three bosses after Setzer joins and never bothered to watch the movie again. While I watched every other RPG I know multiple times (FF4j/FF2a, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, etc). And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
In the topic author's case, it's Breath of Fire 2. Using the dragon attacks on bosses is a bit similar to Joker Doom in FF6j/3a, which would detract a lot from the entertainment if he went for speed (using dragons) rather than entertainment (killing bosses as fast as possible, but without using dragons). The major problem in this case is that using dragons is not some sort of trick, game flaw or something that can only be used thanks to frame-precision inputs like in FF6 - in BoF2's case, they are regular attacks that the hero, Ryu, can use. It drains all his AP (ability points - basically, magic points) to do massive damage, and then he simply has to use AP restorative items with other characters to cast it again if said boss isn't dead already. It's kinda boring, but it's something just anyone can do without fail, no need for a TAS to do that. So it's even more debatable whether it should be accepted as a TAS to *not* use them, while I would tend to think that a FF6j/3a TAS without using Joker Doom would have a chance to be published if enough people wanted a run without abusing that move.
But I'm afraid that, like with FF6, playing the game while using the dragon attacks would make the overall entertainment value drop tremendously once he starts obtaining the dragon skills.
Anyway, that's just my view on it. I'm well aware that speed is the main goal.
True, the dragon is quicker...
But then, if one is to avoid « easy » tricks, what can make the game quicker? FF6 has critical-hit-when-near-death, which can end battles without joker doom. But for most games, only level building (even with the mightiest weapon) can make enough damage to get around using easy trick...
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DarkKobold wrote:
Just looking at the thread for Deign's Mega Man 1 - People were throwing adulation at him for a less than 1% (.93%) improvement to an already short movie.
Actually he discovered a left-zipping technique, which (at least for rockman fans) is quite a surprising move. I can see how people would miss it, but it is very possible to see and appreciate in full speed.
However, there are countless publications that fit with your argument, so I don't mean to try to squash your point.
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janus wrote:
At what point does speed cut on enternainment?
I think this thread answered your question perfectly. How do you balance speed and entertainment? Ask 10 people and you will get 10 answers.
Its the eternal debate in the TAS community. Maybe this thread will finally answer the question, as well as all politics, religion, and the meaning of life. Most likely we will get nowhere and you will just have to find where you consider the line to be.
In some cases, using the optimal strategy for speed is a lot more boring to watch. A prime example (at least as far as I'm concerned) is Final Fantasy 6j/FF3a. As soon as Setzer joins the group, it's mostly all about using Joker Doom to kill every boss. And that's where the entertainment went downhill.
On the other hand, this issue could be a double-edged sword, very particularly with RPGs.
When playing normally OHKO attacks against big bosses happen extremely rarely, which keeps the game balanced, but if they are calculated by random events, they can be abused in a TAS so that they will happen every time, which may lead to the "boring" run as you say.
On the other hand, if the other alternative is to beat the bosses "honestly", without using such cheap luck manipulation trikcs, the only possibility might be to do it like you would when playing normally, that is, by heavily leveling up before the boss. However, watching someone level up can be even more boring than watching the OHKO hits.
There could be a third possibility as well: Abusing luck to not get enough damage to die in boss battles, and grind the boss slowly to death. However, this can take a long time (for example the very first Dragon Warrior 1 TAS did this with the final boss, and it took something like 20 minutes or the like, IIRC, to beat it; needless to say it was utterly boring).
So which one of these three would you prefer? I don't know about you, but if I had to choose, I'd prefer watching the OHKOs.
One-hit kill/knock-out.
Re: the thread, I hate Joker Doom, but if the alternative isn't substantially more interesting, then it's best to go with the quicker, albeit cheesier, tactic.
The issue may be better illustrated with fighting games then rpgs.
No matter how you tas an RPG if it's more then 30 min long I am going to fall asleep during it.
All fighting games when played for the fastest time are boring as hell, just the same combo over and over. However TAS combo videos are very watchable.
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I hate grinding and in a TAS I don't want to see spamming, either. So the original DQ1 (sleep, attack, attack, attack, attack) and CT (Magus w/ haste, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack) runs both scored an entertainment penalty. Besides that CT also featured a 20 minute grinding session. Because of that people lamented the lack of a Joker Doom strategy to fall back on.
However, DQ1 still got an enthusiastic yes vote from me for bringing the total game under 30 minutes. From this site I expect 2 hours for an RPG, and half an hour for anything else. I won't not watch something if it's 45 minutes or 4 hours, but I'm much happier with a shorter movie.
And I don't think J-RPG battles are exciting to watch. So within my two hours I'd like to see as little of the battle menus as possible. The journey through the maps is fun to watch. The battle strategies might be interesting, but I don't want to watch them play out. There's nothing dramatic about "Oh! He passed a saving throw!" I want to see more TAS tricks like luck manipulation and using frame precision to dodge an event trigger.
