Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Samsara wrote:
In-game time is acceptable, though it is explicitly a Moons goal. Tiering shouldn't be a problem with Melee, though, so no worries there.
In-game time is usually eligible for Vault.
Vault rules wrote:
Movies that aim for in-game time instead of real-time are only allowed for Vault if that goal makes game-play shorter. If optimizing for the in-game time makes actual game-play longer, such a movie is not eligible for Vault.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
SmashManiac wrote:
Thanks feos, but your answer appear contradictory to me. I'm not sure if it's because the term "actual gameplay" means something different than what I expect, or because I was unclear in the first place, so allow me to clarify the 2 routes.
Route 1: Warp to the last level, then beat the final boss in 5 minutes. The ending cutscene cannot be interacted with and is 20 minutes long. Total AVI time after the initial warp: 25 minutes,
Route 2: Warp to the last level as before, but then leave, take 15 minutes to make a massive detour halfway around the world to acquire a power-up, then glitch the game using said power-up to wrong warp to the final scene of the ending cutscene without defeating the final boss. The ending cutscene now ends almost immediately afterwards. Total AVI time after the initial warp: 15 minutes.
As such, isn't route 1 containing less actual gameplay than route 2, thus invalidating route 2 for Vault even though the latter's AVI time is faster?
I understand that input time vs interactive state time can both be considered "actual gameplay" and is a matter of opinion, but that logic doesn't apply in this case so I'm still confused here.
If the ending itself is just that long, it doesn't matter if you make the game jump to the beginning of that ending or to its end. What matters is when you trigger the ending itself, and actual gameplay is what happens before this ending, it's the thing that makes the ending happen. So we measure optimality of that, and movies end when it ends. If route 2 triggers the ending later, then it's less optimal in terms of Vault.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
It's up to you, as long as the game properly reaches the final state eventually. Both ways are fine for Vault, because when comparing optimality of 2 movies we compare actual gameplay, which in your case would be identical.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Omnigamer wrote:
I only saw this submission once it was up on the TASVideos YouTube, but I have a lot to add about its optimization and planning.
The briefest way I can summarize this run is that the planning it used was naive, or at least quite outdated as compared to current RTA strategies. This has a significant impact on the entire course of the run. For comparison, consider the current RTA record in the same category: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SrKeb3AlKU
With a comparable route and further luck abuse I think a more optimized TAS could be about 10-15 minutes faster than this submission. I've listed some specific points for improvement below.
That would still be less than 4% of the whole duration of this movie.
Omnigamer wrote:
There's plenty more I can say, but with the above comments it should be clear that this run is not optimized, even to the best of current knowledge. This is a very tough game to optimize since there are so many decisions that have impacts throughout the run duration, but I would at least like to see the run be up-to-date with the current best known strategies, glitches, and movement.
One last thing that I'd like to add is that the author should connect with the rest of the speedrunning community for this game if they'd like to improve this submission. As far as I know, despite being credited in the notes, myself and the active portion of the RTA communities were not consulted for this TAS which would have aided its quality and planning significantly. As it stands, it needs a full rework from beginning to end. That said, the few runners of this game have invested years in understanding all the different mechanics, time tradeoffs and otherwise. I'd really love to see what the limits of running this game are, and am happy to provide my knowledge towards that, but this run is not it.
Since implementing the modern strategies would require redoing the whole thing, and the resulting time difference is not dozens of percents, I don't think accepting this run was a mistake.
Otherwise I agree that when planning to TAS some game, one's best bet is getting in contact with the community that speedruns it, tool-assisted or not.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Finally the variety! Best TR TAS 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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
I watched this side by side with S1 zips, S1 zipless, and Knuckles in S1 zips. It's hard to tell where the most difference is: between this and zipless Knuckles, or between zipped Knuckles and zipless Sonic. Even though some zips with Knuckles are different from Sonic, and some levels in zipless Knuckles are similar to Sonic, I agree that the zipless approach allows us to see more of the game and more of the character movement and mechanics. I'm not sure if a new zipped run with Knuckles is gonna be more entertaining than this. And I don't think they can co-exist, because the nature of this hack is less than ideal in general: hacks with different levels would be preferred, as that introduces something we haven't seen before, instead of mixing up the same things in slightly different amounts..
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
DarkShamilKhan wrote:
Hello, I am a Sonic TASer and I have a question. More obsolete runs were found, so may I ask can me and Shiro take time to obsolete our run.
I don't understand your question.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Rather impressive for a bootleg port, but the game still sounds really bad, the levels repeat, the last boss is very boring, and the screen scrolling as you move vertically makes it almost painful to watch. Voted No.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
The game sound awful and doesn't look enjoyable, especially the last level. Maybe because the original is just too good? Voting No.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
What happened?
[13:40:10] <TASVideoAgent> Submission #6956: crazyjesse's NES Bio Hazard in 15:18.27 CANCELLED by crazyjesse: http://tasvideos.org/6956S.html
[13:40:12] <TASVideoAgent> Post edited by crazyjesse (Old: #6956: crazyjesse's NES Bio Hazard in 15:18.27): http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/501739#501739 [a:1]
[13:40:14] <TASVideoAgent> New reply by TASVideos Grue (Old: #6956: crazyjesse's NES Bio Hazard in 15:18.27): http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/502097#502097 [a:1]
[13:43:45] <TASVideoAgent> Submission #6956: crazyjesse's NES Bio Hazard in 15:18.27 ACCEPTED for Vault by ThunderAxe31: http://tasvideos.org/6956S.html
[13:43:47] <TASVideoAgent> Post edited by ThunderAxe31 (WorkB: #6956: crazyjesse's NES Bio Hazard in 15:18.27): http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/501739#501739 [a:10]
[13:44:00] <feos> um
[13:44:25] <TASVideoAgent> Post edited by crazyjesse (WorkB: #6956: crazyjesse's NES Bio Hazard in 15:18.27): http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/501739#501739 [a:10]
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
It's why optimization is so important: while testing the combinations you can think of, you can accidentally hit some condition that never happened before, that could save a lot of time, and even be applied in segments that were already considered finished. This is why people keep improving existing runs too: you never know when new qualities of your work emerge from the amount of things you try. But the more you try, the more you find! New discoveries inspire new effort, which leads to newer discoveries, that's the production cycle.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
While this movie ends input 9 frames earlier if you count from the first jump, it beats the boss 6 frames later, delaying the ending.
Probably a cool find, but we don't officially agree that it's enough to get the previous run obsoleted.
Judge Guidelines on Input Length wrote:
There are two basic opinions as to what kind of TAS ending is better:
Minimize input length, the game should reach a stage where it completes itself, no matter how long it takes.
Game must be brought to a certain completion state as soon as possible, after which no normal game input can prevent the game from completing, even when this lengthens the movie file length considerably.
The author can tweak their movie's ending as a stylistic choice, even after it was accepted (but before it is published). However, a run looking to obsolete a published run needs to do more than just tweak the movie's ending, as we aim to avoid meaningless publications. A run with real improvements is free to use a different ending than previous movies did.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Even though this looks okay for a bootleg of this kind, I don't know the original game, so I don't understand the routing here, and gameplay itself is way too boring to enjoy the whole movie. Not enough action IMO. Voted No.
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.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
libTAS will show what key was pressed to activate the command. And PCem does console logging, I just don't know if it reports image changes (it should).
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.
In the cfg file for a given machine.
This would queue 3 file paths in a specific order that the author plans to use them in, and after pressing the "next image" command, the emulator would simply load the next image in the queue.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
If anything, this one feature could be sent upstream as a patch (PCen doesn't accept pull requests).
slamo wrote:
True, doing it that way would allow more CDs. If we need to swap to a previous CD, we can just repeat the file path in the list.
Yeah, or put them in the string in any non-linear order we want.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Looks like we don't have a choice.
I think having as many CD paths as the user needs, in the config file, would be a good approach so that PCem would load the paths, but only make use of them once the key is pressed.
If it's a limited set of keys (0-9), we'd be limited in how many CDs we can use, so I feel having just "next CD" is enough, since the image paths would be in a certain order in the config file (would "previous CD" ever be needed?) Since it's a string field, we could provide several paths using a separator, instead of having several vars, each responsible for a single CD.
Also won't the same approach be needed for floppy disks as well?
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
Can any kind of internal queue be added to PCem, with a command (a hotkey?) to go over them and load the next one in the list, like that menu would load from a path?
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
To document this problem:
<slamo> not sure how we should handle hard drive space in the late 90s config...
<slamo> some of the games with FMVs have huge install options, and i don't know if we should support that
<slamo> for Fallout, installations range from 3 MB to 645 MB
<feoss> looks like a few things will have to be left to the user to finish the config (probably cpu speed too for example)?
<feoss> or we provide something that should be enough, it compressed well after all. tho I forgot if hdd size affects libtas savestate size
<slamo> it affects savestate size and speed
<slamo> hard drive size is not something a user can easily config, they would have to make another hard drive image
<slamo> or, we can offer 2 late 90s configs, one with a 200 MB hard drive and one with a 2 GB or something
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
If a config from a different era appeals better to official requirements of the game than its actual time-wise era, that means it's a legitimate environment for that game too. I'd allow both in such cases.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
c-square wrote:
feos wrote:
c-square wrote:
I'm not certain this is what you're asking, but there are three published runs that are considered "overclocked" by the table I posted last, and by the current rules would require being recreated from scratch to improve them:
How does gameplay change between the divider that was used and the one that should be used?
The currently published runs play faster than they would under the new rules. That should be the only change between a faster divider and a slower divider.
For what it's worth, I have no intention on revisiting the HHGttG run, so the grandfather rule isn't a big thing for me. I'm much more interested in having a list of one CPU divider per year to keep the choice simple without needing extensive research or fear of rejection due to someone digging up a specs doc after submission.
Choosing an unverified custom initial RAM state which is identical to the state used by default for another accepted emulator for the same platform is frowned upon, but is allowed for compatibility reasons.
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.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Site Admin, Skilled player
(1238)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11287
Location: RU
It's in line with what he said too
TiKevin83 wrote:
It's quite accurate that the international organization using the slogan as a name doesn't have much to do with local protesters
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.
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.
In-game settings and environment parameters that are explicitly supported and intended for normal play are allowed.
This means there are limited options the game was designed to work with, for example a few speed variants. Explicit support can be proven by in-game options, official instructions and PC spec recommendations, release notes, source code logic and comments, etc. Burden of proof is on the TAS author here. If this information is completely unavailable for a given game, rely on the environment specs that were common and popular in this game's era.
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.
Probably a cool find, but we don't officially agree that it's enough to get the previous run obsoleted.