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GJTASer2018 wrote:
Although the run itself looks impressive, I've abstained from voting because of a possible technical concern I noticed in the encode. If you get items (birdseed or eggs) at a quick enough pace after the fourth one both the bonus counter and death timer will stop for a while until a large enough gap occurs between collecting items. This happens throughout the run, but is a little more obvious on the Mother Duck levels. Is the game supposed to work this way, or is there an emulation error here?
It's nothing to do with eggs, or pace. When you collect birdseed, the timer pauses. It's intended.
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I like the goal and it looks optimal to me (I'd assume nothing less) but I think I'd rather the no-password route; not because this is too short (it's not even FF's shortest run), but this just feels like "pick a random level and do it", similar to "use level select to skip to the last level".
For a goal choice somewhere between 20 seconds and a century, I did all symmetrical levels a couple of years back; playing through all 125 levels which use the same chunk in each quadrant (one of which is the level shown in this run). There are 128 chunks, but because of the way the levels are assigned there are no levels that are entirely made up of chunk #125, #126, or #127. This was the closest to a "100%" run I could come up with that doesn't have a runtime of several human lifespans.
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eien86 wrote:
Hi DigitalDuck
I can totally appreciate the incredible research and work you and crem put to this movie. However, I am a bit conflicted about the choice of goal. "Maximum score, no deaths" is a bit of an arbitrary choice that leads to a rather unsatisfying ending: nothing notable happens, and no game-end is reached either. Viewers (myself) end up dying to see how the actual crash looks like!
I would propose a more concise goal that, in my opinion, would produce a more entertaining output: "Fastest Crash" (see: [7384S], [7307S], [7386S]). This goal entails the original one because, to reach it, you need to reach 356359 without dying. However, it also adds the condition that you actually need to trigger the crash, which is sorely missing in the movie.
Let me know your thoughts
The game doesn't crash; it's simply that the cavern can't be completed, because the attribute corruption overwrites an item. In order to collect that item, you need to take a death (actually four deaths in the state reached) so that the lives counter doesn't overwrite the item.
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
I do love the idea of making these old games do strange things just by being too good at them. Yes vote!
EDIT: It might help to put timestamps for the temp encode in the submission comments so that people can jump directly to the most interesting parts. Also, I'm assuming the "typoed" versions of the level names reflect the ingame corruption going on at that time?
The "typoed" versions of the level names are how they actually display in-game; the corruption also affects the title bar. See 2:09:21 for an example.
Timestamps are a good idea, I'll add them.
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KusogeMan wrote:
Slamo, Fortran, DrD2k9, DigitalDuck, Tompa, Chanoyu, oceanbagel don't TAS any of these, they also do not TAS racing games either. Nobody in this voting TASes racing games,
Yet.
It's worth noting that while I haven't submitted a TAS for a racing game, I have a couple that I haven't submitted because I'm not happy about how optimal they are.
I'vedefinitelyspeedransome,infactI'mintodoubledigits. So I don't think it's out of the question that I might want to TAS one or more of these in the future.
It's not really relevant though, because my argument isn't "I don't like fighting games or racing games so we shouldn't allow runs of them", it's "I don't see why fighting games or racing games need special rules, we should allow the same set of runs we allow for all games". There's a difference between starting from zero, and starting from a saved game. TASVideos tends to prioritise the former. If the latter allows the game to be played faster, then that's great - we should accept it. But it shouldn't obsolete the run starting from scratch.
I don't think DS Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia "Albus mode" by mtbRc in 18:03.21 should obsolete DS Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia by mtbRc in 34:38.32, even though the former completes the game much faster than the latter, because the former requires having played a significant portion of the game first in order to achieve.
I don't think Linux Undertale "Neutral ending, newgame+" by LukeSaward in 36:04.20 should obsolete Linux Undertale "Neutral ending" by OceanBagel in 48:51.95, even though the former completes the game much faster than the latter, because the former requires having played a significant portion of the game first in order to achieve.
As such, I don't think Wii Mortal Kombat: Armageddon "Arcade, Kreate-a-Fighter" by KusogeMan in 06:38.42 should be considered as already obsoleting Submission #9025: KusogeMan's Wii Mortal Kombat: Armageddon "Arcade" in 07:01.67, even though the former completes the game much faster than the latter, because the former requires having played a significant portion of the game first in order to achieve. The latter would be a separate branch, just like the two previous examples.
Edit by feos: URLs without https:// get parsed as relative links, fixed.
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Chanoyu wrote:
I really don't quite get what's so bad about having seperate publications for fresh starts and save starts in fighting games (and racing games, and other games where the game is still played from a 'new game' state - but in an unlocked (hard) mode). I do get the concern of it needing to be clear, also in the obsoletion chain, of what the actual fastest completion is. I guess you would generally be mostly interested in the save start obsoletion chain (which could possibly include fresh starts as well).
The problem in my mind is more that if, for a certain game, the save start is really competitive, and then someone decides to make a fresh start TAS that is, from an optimization standpoint, already obsolete. I would hope that such TASes, and taking the problem a bit broader, those TASes that are aimed more at getting a publication than showcasing the best of TAS, just don't get made, but probably that will not be the case. I can imagine the rules should give leeway for rejections in such cases, even if there is no previously published movie in that specific branch.
Movies that have issues with optimisation can be and often are rejected even when there is no previously published movie. Just look at the recent Segapede drama for an example.
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For fighting and racing games that have additional fighters/cars that you can replay the game with, it makes sense to me if the branches are labelled something along the lines of "initial character/car" (which would start from a fresh power on) and "any character/car" (which would start from a save). If the fastest character/car is accessible from the very start of the game, then naturally that would be the only branch, and/or would obsolete the any character/car branch; but I imagine in most cases the fastest character/car will be locked at the start of the game.
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KusogeMan wrote:
TL;DR The slower runs are here because you wanted to enforce a specific ruleset that doesn't respect the ruleset from the game's specific speedrunning or competitive community. Not because the community values worse and slower runs. Branching will let people find the slower irrelevant runs for no good reason.
What if a game has multiple communities with conflicting rulesets? Splits happen all the time because of differences in opinions on what the rules should be.
How many games' speedrunning or competitive communities time runs from power on? Should we stop doing that too?
Let's take a look at the Mega Drive Road Rash games on SRC as an example. Road Rash 1 has categories for Level 1, Level 1 & 2, and a custom "Rash Mode" category that isn't recognised by the game at all, but no category for actually... beating the game. Road Rash 2 has each Level individually (but only using specific passwords, meaning you could beat these times in a full game run), and Level 1 & 2 and Rash Mode again, and still no full game category. Road Rash 3 has each Level individually, and, finally, a full game category (marked as "100%"). They don't even agree on timing rules between games.
If I were to submit a Road Rash TAS, could I just do Level 1 & 2 and call it a day, because that's what the Road Rash "community" has agreed on, even though it doesn't even come close to beating the game? But then it wouldn't be good enough for Road Rash 3, which doesn't have that category, and would require either stopping earlier, or actually beating the game.
What if the categories changed? Do we have to reject TASes that were technically excellent and completed the game because some other people not part of the TASVideos community changed their minds on what counts as a category?
This is one of the larger problems I have with the user-driven speedrun sites in general, and I greatly appreciate what TASVideos does in terms of trying to create consistent rules that apply universally to all games. I really don't think "here's what other people do for this specific game" should dictate what's done on the site or encourage game-specific rules.
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Spikestuff wrote:
DigitalDuck wrote:
In any case, it's effectively just NG vs. NG+, and it seems wrong to me that a NG+ run would obsolete a NG run. Just my two cents.
Only that it isn't. The only difference in terms of "new content" for a fighting game is that some titles has a rival character that shows up halfway as a mini """boss""".
A new character is technically not new content, for a fighting game. Therefore it should just obsolete.
Given that you described them both as new, the only logical conclusion from this is that characters aren't content, which is a weird thing to say about fighting games.
But ignoring that, in many cases NG+ does not add new content, it merely allows you to play using your character's state from a previous playthrough. What new content is added in Sonic 3 & Knuckles "newgame+" that wasn't there in Sonic 3 & Knuckles "Sonic 100%"? It's NG+ because it allows you to replay under conditions that aren't available when you first play the game.
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DrD2k9 wrote:
I don’t like any save-anchored run obsoleting a run based on a clean start.
I don’t see a point in having a save anchored run be slower than the clean run unless it introduces a significant amount of new/different content. I personally don’t see a different move set (from an unlocked fighter) as qualifying as significantly new/different content in terms of gameplay. So for fighting games, my perspective is as follows:
A clean start run can only be accepted to standard using the optimal base character.
A save anchored run using an unlocked character can only be accepted to standard if that unlocked character is faster than using the fastest base character. This would not obsolete but be published along side the clean start run.
If multiple unlockable characters are more optimal than any of the base roster, then only the most optimal unblocked character is eligible for standard publication as a save anchored movie. Unlockable characters can obsolete each other’s save anchored publications, but cannot obsolete the clean start run.
If no unlockable characters are faster than the fastest base character and no new content is introduced, then there’s no reason to have a save anchored branch in Standard publication for that fighting game.
The branch name needs to indicate that the run is save anchored without using the fighter’s name in order to prevent potential confusion that the site would accept all character runs.
This seems like the most reasonable way of handling things to me, if the unlockable characters aren't significantly different gameplay-wise to the base characters.
To me every save-anchored run carries the implication of all the additional time it takes to get the game to produce that save file. If you've just bought the game and started it, you have access to the base characters only. Having access to unlockable characters is only possible if you've already completed the game with a base character at least once, and one would assume that completing the game twice takes longer than completing it once.
I see more reason in not allowing unlockable characters to standard than I do in having them obsolete base characters. The best defence I can think for having both as separate branches is that they're both "fastest completion", but with a difference of timing method - standard characters are fastest completion from absolute zero (no save, power on), whereas unlockable characters are fastest completion from power on, but having already played for a significant amount of time and created saves beforehand. But then that leaves the question of whether a run that prioritises IGT over TAS time should obsolete, or exist in a separate branch from, one that prioritises TAS time over IGT.
In any case, it's effectively just NG vs. NG+, and it seems wrong to me that a NG+ run would obsolete a NG run. Just my two cents.
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nymx wrote:
I have finalized my judgement of this run. The only issue that I found, came from watching Faddy's run against yours. There are times that I see Faddy ahead (early in the game) and you catching back up. Then you are ahead, but get behind again. Eventually, you are growing in your lead and this never happens again. Can you please explain this?
They're using different routes. In the TAS when crossing the clouds for the first time, I pick up the cloth duster and move it to the left side and deathwarp to avoid backtracking across the clouds, which saves a few seconds later. Faddy collects the cloth duster on the second visit to the clouds and has to make an extra screen's worth of journey as a result.
Faddy's route was based on an earlier version of the TAS, after I discovered horizontal item warping but before we'd decided the best places to perform deathwarps to make full use of the two spare lives. As a result, there are no deathwarps in Faddy's run.
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
One concern I have about this is that you have the "flying hearts" cutscene twice, once after rescuing Daisy and the second time once you collect the 30th coin. I know the second one technically occurs after the last input, but couldn't you still skip the first one by getting all the coins you need before rescuing Daisy?
Even if you have 30 coins when you rescue Daisy, you still have to go and meet her at her hut, so nothing is skipped.
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The issue with the Dandanator Mini is that it's a homebrew peripheral, and as such can be made to do pretty much anything. If it's just about loading times, we have SD card readers that just dump a snapshot of the game straight into memory - why bother with the cartridge emulation?
If converting from tape to cartridge via a homebrew peripheral is allowed, can I just edit a tape file to remove the loading screen? There's less changes to code in doing that, and plenty of people did that back in the day.
Personally I'd rather stick to "official" releases hardware-wise, and as close as we can get to that software-wise as well. As much as it's annoying seeing every microcomputer encode flooded with comments about the loading, I'd rather that than what's effectively starting with a savestate.
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LogansGamingRoom wrote:
very interesting stuff! do you think a fully optimised TAS could be made with CPCHawk yet?
When I was TASing the Spectrum version of Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure I gave the CPC version a go at the same time. While it technically ran fine, the timing was clearly wrong - the game was running at about half speed (and not the emulator, as the music was running at normal speed).
I wouldn't recommend it in its current state.
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I was going to make an encode but I couldn't seem to find the same version of the game used here, and couldn't make it sync with any of the four versions I have. That's a me problem though.
One thing I will say is that I notice this was done on a 48K, but I think this game would probably run slightly faster on a +2A? Was that something that was considered?
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nymx wrote:
Because there is no feedback...there is one thing I'm wondering about. The re-record count.... 693?
I've wondered this on previous submissions, but feedback and my review never have shown anything standing out. Are you "slow recording" with the keyboard and then going back to clean them up with TASStudio? Not that I'm saying that a problem exists, but I have been curious.
Pretty much. I usually have TASStudio open the entire time but I'm playing through with the keyboard and frame advance and using TASStudio to jump back to previous frames, and I don't think any of that contributes to re-record count? It's usually only when I'm trying to time a run past a guardian or I'm using branches to test different routes that I'll actually use the piano roll.
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InputEvelution wrote:
The duration of time it takes for Windows XP to actually finish booting up and take you to the desktop is rather inconsistent between different time-and-dates in libTAS (with half of the outcomes being a full 17 seconds longer!). I've documented the duration and outcome of some of these possible starting times in a spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_j1zkYPPHR4jLLW3bybvnjsN6K7sV_vWZHLm7X5SwaE
Every "long" load occurs during daylight savings time, and every "short" load occurs outside of it. I wonder if that's relevant.