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HappyLee wrote:
None. But "0%" may sound like that the game is not completed or mostly skipped. Maybe that's why very few speedruns are called "0%".
I see.
The thing with 0% and low% is that one is a subset of another. They both indicate "fewest possible", one of them simply being a case where known minimum is "none".
Same relation is between "maximum" and "all": if it's impossible to collect all of something, it makes sense to aim for maximum.
So since the items are countable and limited, and optional, you can collect all, some, or none. "Maximum", "minimum", "low", and "high" are simply redundant in this case.
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Turns out the reason it didn't sync with default SRAM was stereo audio in the BIOS settings. If the stereo flag in SRAM is zero (bit 2 of byte 0x13 in User\GC\SRAM.raw) then this movie syncs. Here's how to clear it from the BIOS menu: Post #515065.
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.
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Fortranm wrote:
While I support loosening the restrictions on in-game codes in general, I think we should be very careful about allowing external codes for anything outside Playground. There is a clear line between utilizing what's provided by the game itself and modifying it IMO.
scrimpeh wrote:
If people like speedrunning some category that involves external or internal codes, and people want to see a TAS of that, I think that TAS should also have a place on TASvideos.
I see less of a reason to try to fit everything in Standard and Moon when Playground is already a thing, really. If anything, wouldn't allowing things like real time RAM modification somewhat take away from the purpose of Playground in the first place?
Radiant wrote:
The site only recently added the Playground, and as I understand it, this new area already allows any and all cheats.
And that's fine. It just means that allowing cheats outside the Playground doesn't seem necessary, and I'd say it's changing too many things too quickly.
The point of Playground is keeping movies with esoteric goals that are not entertaining enough for Moons. If something entertains the general audience, why is it bad to publish it?
Fortranm wrote:
The requirement for a hack to be featured on a well-known database effectively sets up canons and categories for the specifics of modifications done to the original game and makes it easy to track them. I doubt something similar can be done for external cheat code usage / RAM modification.
External codes that modify the game are judged as unofficial games if modifications are severe enough. Otherwise, external codes are allowed for Moons only if they unlock gameplay or content that in-game codes can't access.
Also, how would this fit into the game system on the site?
I'd have them as branches of the same (base) game.
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HappyLee wrote:
I didn't call it 0% because it still completes the game with all bosses defeated.
Which bosses are optional?
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Would it be correct to call this "no items" and [1839] PSX Mega Man X4 "X, all items" by sparky in 39:45.00 "all items"? If percentage is not present in the game, we prefer to mention which entity constitutes completion. Also if the final item quantity is zero (RTA rules say "No amount of items can be collected for this category"), then low% wouldn't be accurate since it means "minimum but not 0". Same difference as between "all" versus "max/high".
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This submission really looks like real-time human play. I never TASed SMB, and I only looked up how you should accelerate at the start of the game, and here's what I came up with:
User movie #637911865548543174 - 00:24.48 seconds faster than this submission.
Link to video
Since I don't know how to do any glitches, that test run is also "glitchless" apparently, so should be a good indication of what a movie of that category needs to look like (at the very least) to be of acceptable technical quality. Still easily beatable by anyone aware of SMB TASing.
It may look like I TASed the whole thing just to reject this run harder, but sorry this game is so much fun, I couldn't stop, lol.
More importantly, "glitchless" is a Moons only category so it has to be entertaining and different enough from Fastest Completion. I think that this category is simply not good enough for Moons, since any% looks much cooler.
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.
Would you like to submit this? We relaxed rules on ROM hacks dramatically, so this would be acceptable.
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.
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If this runs aims for entertainment, then [759] N64 Mortal Kombat 4 "playaround" by Xyphys in 09:13.72 is a much better watch: crazy variety, intense action, lots of different weapons and fighter moves, fatalities. It could in theory make sense to have 2 playarounds co-exist if they featured completely different gameplay while still being very entertaining. But regular Endurance mode is almost the same as Arcade (and lacks fatalities I think?), so the difference would have to come from different playing style. And in terms of that, the existing movie surpasses this run as well because it demonstrates abilities of different characters instead of just one.
And if it's meant for speed, then it's surpassed by [4692] N64 Mortal Kombat 4 "Endurance" by KusogeMan in 02:34.02.
What do others think?
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Added!
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.
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scrimpeh wrote:
I highly exhibit the purist sentiment mentioned in the OP. I believe that cheats should only be used in exceptional circumstances, and should seriously carry their weight when used. I think that speedrunning (and by extension, TASing) should be a showcase of absolute mastery over the game. Cheats, when used, should be in service of that. This could involve a cheat that makes the game harder, or a cheat that unlocks a level that would not otherwise be accessible, so we can also dunk on that bonus level. What I think cheats should specifically not be in service is of is just getting the fastest possible time by any means necessary. Another valid use of cheats is unlocking a bonus character or something else that drastically changes the gameplay itself.
[...]
That said, let me just take everything I've written so far and throw it into the woodchipper here: TASvideos should be inclusionist if it gets new people on the site. If people like speedrunning some category that involves external or internal codes, and people want to see a TAS of that, I think that TAS should also have a place on TASvideos. It's better in the long term than being all high and mighty about purism.
I think a neat solution to this dichotomy is the very nature of separate branches. Purists still have their maximally legitimate Wiki: FastestCompletion branch, and people who are less pure strict can also have their thing alongside it. Our goal is embracing the good things while annoying the fewest people.
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.
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Mizumaririn wrote:
I am against external cheats. There are too many possibilities and it is up to the players what codes and how many to use.
Playarounds are also completely arbitrary, and the decision on them is mostly on the audience and depends on how entertained they were. If people dislike certain external code usage, it can't go to Moons, therefore it would not be published.
Mizumaririn wrote:
It also can lead to gamebreaking glitches which in-game codes mostly cannot achieve. I have nightmares of SMB game genie TASes.
If the result is entertaining, at the very least we could obsolete different movies that use external codes with one another if the audience agrees.
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DrD2k9 wrote:
In the event that there is a game out there (or will be in the future) that has a programming bug present which prevents a normal win condition from being achieved; I'm fine with an external code being used to bypass the bug and allow succesful completion the game. I think that only this one situation should be eligible for standard. Ideally, the external code here would only allow bypassing the bug and not enable other features that allow for skipping other gameplay.
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.
One obvious negative aspect that's been codified since 2011 is that codes can skip gameplay. Indeed if all the code is doing is removing gameplay or content, it's usually seen as a cheap way of getting farther in the game, reducing the challenge.
A serious offense is when you're trying to trick your viewers. You should not be able to sell your compromised gameplay as legitimate. #3519: RingRush's PSX Croc: Legend of the Gobbos "glitched" in 01:10.12 kinda succeeded in that, even though it was eventually canceled as "just a joke".
A more subjective aspect is if you're cheating, your play feels illegitimate. The game may have a certain feature for "weak" players, but it's not meant for normal play. So when you're using that feature, your play is just training.
Suggestion
In my opinion most issues can be resolved by a rule like this:
In-game codes that add gameplay are allowed for a separate branch in Standard, as long as such codes are used optimally.
As always that wouldn't mean the movie with codes has to be proven unbeatable. It should just not have speed trade-offs, like avoiding some known codes that can save time by adding gameplay. If a new application of those codes is found later, it becomes a known improvement and simply needs to be incorporated as a time-saving technique. Codes would just become an additional optimization factor.
Wait there's more
Hoo boy...
There's also a thing called external codes. We always completely banned them. Things like Game Genie, Action Replay, Gecko codes, etc. Ways to modify the game from the outside without it knowing it's being hacked.
But there's an argument that on principle, they are the same thing as ROM hacks, the latter being the approved way of game modifications, so should be used instead.
Turns out making a ROM hack is not always an option.
For GameCube/Wii games, there's no such thing as modifying game image directly to change gameplay - everybody just uses Gecko codes that patch the game on the fly in software, and they can be as elaborate as full-blown ROM hacks that create new levels.
In some cases modifying your game image is not feasible without deep technical knowledge, for example the last sentence in this post seems to have gotten nowhere.
If some feature doesn't have an in-game code but is otherwise something worth having in a TAS, unlocking it using an external code feels justified at least for Moons, just like we allow unlocking content with in-game codes.
So I suggest adding this rule:
External codes that modify the game are judged as unofficial games if modifications are severe enough. Otherwise, external codes are allowed for Moons only if they unlock gameplay or content that in-game codes can't access.
Allowing this to Standard would be too much IMO. But in Moons we can have quite some arbitrariness as long as it's entertaining and makes sense. External codes could in theory be used to replace a verification movie, though verifying legitimacy of such a code would involve some deep technical knowledge or equally deep trust.
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.
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MrTASer wrote:
Is there any FFMPEG script that can encode A7800 TASes?
just like this script
https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Topics/22681
Edit : I've made an encode which looks like this :
Link to video
I used the FFMPEG script linked above.
Is it the correct way of doing that???
Looks like your encode is perfectly fine.
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AntyMew wrote:
I've noticed separate, extended input files for encoding seem to be a relatively common thing nowadays. But the encoder guidelines only really say anything about post-credits secret messages as of yet, which is only really tangentially related. So considering just how seems to be allowed for in extended input, e.g. [4185] GC Super Smash Bros. Melee "Classic Mode" by Noxxa in 05:36.93, I'm curious if there's any reason not to use an extended input movie for an encode? Or is it basically just up to encoder discretion?
Ever since we realized that this is a thing, we just ask TASers to include all the post-completion input right into the main movie, unless they really want to keep it short, in which case they provide a secondary movie to be used for encoding. It's always mentioned in the judgment notes, and the extended movie is always linked (and kept on the site).
So yes if there's an extended input movie, it's what should be used for encoding.
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Samsara wrote:
My main issue is finding a way of making "fastest input time" an objective and standard category without opening the floodgates to things like taking a published run and slightly tweaking the ending input to be able to end it a few frames earlier. We sort of have some subjectivity in allowing "no major skips" runs as standard categories, though I feel fastest input time is a bit more of a minefield of subjectivity than that. It's possible we may have to delay actually figuring out concrete boundaries while also letting things through. We'll figure something out.
It sucks that games where in-game time would have been a great separate goal, sometimes don't actually have in-game time. It would fit so neatly here.
It's also tough to redefine the system to make an exceptional case fit better. Maybe we need more freedom with exceptions in general? If a certain movie universally makes sense, but doesn't indicate which exact changes we need to make it a standard, maybe we simply need to see more of those exceptions first?
Personally I still don't mind sending either of this game's movies to Moons, whichever one people like more.
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adelikat wrote:
I wouldn't want the column to be misnamed. How about we copy all the data from youtube tags into search keys, keep search keys, and then remove youtube tags (and the use of them in the youtube integration)
I like it.
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Memory wrote:
Should we consider retooling the "YT Tags" field to be a more generic "Search terms" field? Like a lot of this I feel could be applied towards other sorts of searches, ie, the site itself. Not sure if it's being used in the site search atm.
To expand on this, here's my Discord quotes from April:
Tags are not necessarily only for youtube. We can connect them to search queries, for example if someone searches for SMB. Also the good thing about them is we can put normalized ASCII names in there (and we do I think?) so you don't have to copypaste non-ASCII to find a game.
And people suggested putting the original game name somewhere if it's not ASCII.
Also for games that have an iconic abbreviation, it could be put there, instead of having a dedicated field for it even tho abbreviations are meaningless for... most a whole bunch games?
So if it doesn't make sense to keep sending tags to youtube, I don't mind stopping doing that. But there's definitely a lot of useful info to put into those tags instead for our own search use.
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Dwedit wrote:
I remember back when the issue of ending input early was controversial.
That time is back!
Wow this movie is a Goldberg machine. It simply gently pushes the ball that then takes 12 minutes to RICH while presenting you a hilarious comedy. I laughed several times, it's the funniest TAS I've seen in a long while. The main feat is gameplay that looks primitive but does in fact have variety for almost the whole time. You never know who loses next and when, and how long the opponents take to defeat themselves. At first it even looks like one of them is winning and maybe the whole thing desynced. And it's much more ridiculous to watch this in the emulator with input display, when you are already sure the actual input ended minutes ago, but keeps delivering.
This movie is not trivial, even simply judging by the fact that it was revised a few times after considered finished, and quite a bit of time was saved since then. While the current input may be trivial to execute, it was not trivial to come up with it. Technically the same situation as with [4173] SMS Zool: Ninja of the "Nth" Dimension "game end glitch" by The8bitbeast in 00:21.61, the only difference is this game doesn't have a published movie yet.
I also remember a movie where it was a meaningful question whether you aim for shortest input or fastest ending: #7123: Jigwally's NES Solitaire in 00:40.93.
feos wrote:
You can potentially delay the ending indefinitely with your shorter input. We wouldn't want t to watch a 10-second movie that makes the game end 10 hours later.
But you can't indefinitely speed it up in your ending-based movie. There's only so much you can do to end the game faster, and it gradually gets harder and harder to come up with new timesaves. You can't make it happen instantly.
And you can't indefinitely delay movie end to make the game end faster. After some point it becomes unnecessary.
So in terms of obsoletion criterion, ending-based movie is clear cut.
I think for this game, judging movie optimality by when the game ends is a better idea.
There's only so much speedrun challenge to this game if one only aims for shortest input. When the only room for further optimization is those 17 frames, it's not hard to just go through them all and test them, checking if either of them leads to an ending at all. Arguably if there's some obscure combination of inputs that makes the game end even later, how do we judge it? Optimality becomes a moot concept when you sacrifice one important aspect to gain another.
But if we aim for quickest ending, there's still a lot to optimize in the future. Aiming to actually win as soon as possible gives you minutes to work with, and after some time you can't make it end sooner by extending your input any further.
Now the really hard question is whether we should prefer some approach to a given game or should we just start allowing both to co-exist.
For me this movie is absolutely Moons, but I'm sure the ratings won't agree with my sense of humor. I'm not ready to allow both for Standard because I don't agree that they are de facto standard goals already. If you only have 2 options, and for every single movie you have to decide which to pick, it may become a part of your actual in-game goal, but it can't become a separate goal in and of itself. It can be a second version of any goal you set, depending on the game. I don't know if many people here would want to see every movie in 2 variations of how it ends.
At the same time I can see unique value in both if they look distinctly different. How about this:
If aiming for a different kind of ending can make the whole movie look different enough, then it's a proof it can work as a goal on its own and deserves a place in the Standard class. If it's just a minor variation of the main goal, it's up to the author and the audience which one to prefer.
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Morrowseer wrote:
It seems like the site rules are outdated, so shouldn't it be updated to allow images up to 125x125?
Updated.
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.
Tell me which config tweaks we need to change for this to become official.
Looks pretty damn close to native if you ask me:
DOSBox dumpPrBoom dump
PS: This is meant to be pixel accurate to native Doom look, with shrinking width to be 4/3 of height in post. Can't trust that job to prboom since non-square pixels won't look right at low resolutions.
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fsvgm777 wrote:
With in-game codes* being allowed for Moons, I feel we should have a separate "Uses an in-game code" tag to properly differentiate from "Uses a level password". What do y'all think?
Use cases would be for unlocking all levels or vehicles or giving access to various items, for instance.
Agreed, we'd use it for any code that's not a level password.
For clarity I think we can reuse the definition of in-game codes that was present in the old movie rules:
When we speak about codes that are part of a game that we allow for use in certain scenarios, we are talking about passwords that can be entered in a menu, pressing some buttons on the title screen, passing execution parameters or setting environment variables for DOS games, or anything of a similar nature. This excludes things like Game Genie codes or emulator cheating tools. Codes are considered secret if the game never tells them to the player: neither through official documentation nor during gameplay.
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Feel free to create a thread for this game in https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Subforum/20 so it's more easily available, and people who want to follow your progress will subscribe to that thread.
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All the manuals I'm reading say Rapier only gets unlocked if you've completed Venom, but it's available here right away?
EDIT:
Ah I see it uses a code
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Yeah if we become the only source of some hack and nobody else on the internet is interested in hosting it, that makes acceptability of certain hacks entirely depend on stability of us hosting the patches. We take stability and future sync seriously so we would do that, but some hacks may contain copyright infringing content. So it turns into a paradox where our publications of hacks start depending on us hosting illegal content. We can't go that path.
I don't think we can even officially endorse any given 3rd party hosting just for us, because if it has to go down we will have issues again. So it makes the most sense to share future-proof-ness with all the people who want to maintain hack databases on their own, instead of exclusively for us.
Even if we mirror all our patch files privately just in case, we can't expose them to the outer world.
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.
