So I have a suggestion.
The changes currently require branch names with iconic numbers in them, such as "120 stars" in Super Mario 64, or "96 exits" in Super Mario World to be changed to "all stars" and "all exits" respectively.
This lowers the amount of information included, which was a positive in the previous branch names.
Are there any drawbacks to using a combined branch name like "all 120 stars" or "all 96 exits" when the number itself is recognizable enough (this would also prevent large numbers to appear, as they would not be recognizable)?
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Masterjun wrote:
Are there any drawbacks to using a combined branch name like "all 120 stars" or "all 96 exits" when the number itself is recognizable enough (this would also prevent large numbers to appear, as they would not be recognizable)?
Let's define "recognizable enough" first. And optionally, "iconic". I understand what they mean, but how do we formalize them to a level of being clear in all cases, which is how we set up the rules?
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.
Spitballing...
Iconic: Has been used as the category label at any Games Done Quick marathon.
It's a huge hack of a definition, but it would get you all the important labels (120 stars, 96 exits and so on).
Alternatively, maybe a number can be used as part of a category label if the game itself recognises that number. For example SM64 reacts to you having 120 stars by giving you the bonus yoshi reward on the top of the castles, and SMW reacts to you having 96 exits by giving you a star on the file select screen (IIRC).
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GDQ is a very subjective criterion. Why GDQ exactly? Note that it's not a question about GDQ in itself, but about any potential resource we'd try to rely on. The answer to "Why does this particular resource make it worth borrowing the definition?" should be clear and sound reasonable.
Also, it's odd that no one wants to know from the branch the exact number of items collected in cases like Metroid Fusion. Such games have rewards for 100% completion, and everyone is fine with just 100%, but not with all X somehow? The question is mostly the same: "Why this criterion exactly?"
To me, there's no natural reason to use such labels, therefore any reason invented to justify that would also sound unnatural and invented just for that purpose.
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.
Doesn't the standard branch label for Metroid Fusion, "100%", exactly show the number of optional items that are collected (100 of them)? I think there'd be opposition to relabelling the branch as "all optional items".
Nobody cares about the mandatory items because the game doesn't count them (and in fact is technically incapable of recognising game completion unless it considers them all to have been collected, thus any glitched state in which the game can be completed via the intended ending will also contain every mandatory item).
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My point is, when using percentages, you know it's full completion as long as it's 100% (or more). But with those "iconic" labels, why isn't "all" enough?
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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feos wrote:
My point is, when using percentages, you know it's full completion as long as it's 100% (or more). But with those "iconic" labels, why isn't "all" enough?
"All exits" is enough for random Joe.
Something iconic like "96 exits" is enough for SMW expert.
"All 96 exits" is enough for random Joe and also informative for the SMW expert, and may be especially helpful if new knowledge later on somehow makes 97 exits sensible as a goal.
Also to put it differently, I don't see any downsides to something like "All 96 exits".
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So should it be so for all "all X" branches, or just for some of them?
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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Well something like "all 100%" is kind of silly.
But "all X something'' style, I think makes sense.
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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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I missed when we officially agreed on the definition of "iconic enough". You see, I can't add "X enough" to the publisher guidelines talking about branches, because it would require a clear borderline, like I already said. It can't be handled by asking others every time. And no rule can be enforced if it's not idiot-proof.
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.
I agree, my suggestion needs a proper definition of "iconic enough".
And it seems there might be problems with actually counting certain units of something, so maybe we need to constrict the definition even further.
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Here's what I've been thinking of. #4657: Lord_Tom & Tompa's NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "100%" in 1:04:36.90 defines the goal as:
1. All regular levels entered and completed
2. All World-Map Hammer Brother and Pirahna Plant levels completed
3. All World-8 Auto-Scrollers and Hand levels completed
Regular levels are obviously fixed in count. World-8 Auto-Scrollers and Hand levels, I don't know what they are. But what is Hammer Brother and Pirahna Plant levels? Are they fixed in count?
Masterjun wrote:
And it seems there might be problems with actually counting certain units of something, so maybe we need to constrict the definition even further.
I expected that as well, just didn't have any examples when it's actually hard.
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.
Here's what I've been thinking of. #4657: Lord_Tom & Tompa's NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "100%" in 1:04:36.90 defines the goal as:
1. All regular levels entered and completed
2. All World-Map Hammer Brother and Pirahna Plant levels completed
3. All World-8 Auto-Scrollers and Hand levels completed
Regular levels are obviously fixed in count. World-8 Auto-Scrollers and Hand levels, I don't know what they are. But what is Hammer Brother and Pirahna Plant levels? Are they fixed in count?
The W8 autoscrollers and "hand" levels are the tanks, the ships, those small airships and the three "hand trap" levels in the second portion of W8.
By the way, there's a total of fifteen Hammer Brother fights* (excluding W8-Tank 1, which actually hosts such a fight at the very end) and two Piranha Plant levels (both in W7).
There's a total of 90 levels in SMB3 (regular levels, fortresses, airships, tanks, ships and Bowser's Castle are included in this count).
*For simplicity, I'm referring to them as Hammer Brother fights, since SMB3 also features Bommerang Bros, Fire Bros and Sledge Bros.
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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So here's info we've gathered about SMB3 100% and SMA4SMB3 100%.
The SMB3 game is agnostic to the amount of levels you beat. No indication or reward for beating all the levels. No total count of beaten levels or levels left to beat. Agnostic.
But the run still aims exactly for "all levels" completion, and it beats all levels that can be beaten, without skipping any one that can be skipped. Things that are still not visited don't make sense to visit:
Tompa on IRC wrote:
Toad Houses and the Roulettes are skipped because you can't play them all in a 100% run, because of lack of Hammer items. N-cards are recieved ever 80K points and you can get endless of them, so no point in those.
But the manual doesn't mention anything about beating all the levels either. So I have to admit that it's an arbitrary goal, and it doesn't sound vaultable. Of course it doesn't matter, since the run is in Moons and has great rating. The 2 vaultable goals for this game seem to be "game end glitch" and "warpless".
On IRC we also came to agreement that whenever we're talking about "all X", we need to check whether the game shows the resulting number anywhere. For example, in SMW it show that you've used 96 exits. In such cases we put "all 96 exits" in the label. But when the game doesn't show that number anywhere, we simply go with "all X", "all levels" in the case of SMB3.
On the other hand, SMA4SMB3 has rewards for completing all levels. This includes quite a few things, like getting a PERFECT CLEAR screen for each world. Since the game explicitly cares, it is a valid full completion goal for it. But while the level count is shown as 90, it was reported that to get Perfect Clear rewards, you need to beat all the extra levels, overall the same levels as in SMB3. So putting "all 90 levels" wouldn't be accurate. But anyway, the game gives special rewards for achieving this goal, so I believe we can label it as 100%. But it is still also "all levels". So maybe we should use the same "all levels" label between all the SMB3 ports where this applies?
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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I'm fine with all levels. I think it's pretty clear what that means.
And it doesn't include maximum bonuses, which is fine.
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Added the clause to publisher guidelines. We can now start relabeling the ones that are relevant.
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.
This run aims to complete as many exits as possible without collecting any permanent powerups, including Mushrooms, Fire flowers, Feathers, Switch Palace blocks. Unable to fly, Mario is forced to confront most obstacles and overcome them in unique ways. Riding Yoshi is also banned. 86 out of the total 96 exits are completed.
Not sure, but I think it should be changed to "no powerups, 86 exits".
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Only "all X" is affected by this.
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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86 exits is not iconic.
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The rules currently state ""When a run aims for showcasing internal goals of the game, each goal needs to be put in the label."
My question: When is it considered that a run aims to showcase an internal goal of the game? When does a run showcase an internal goal of the game, but it is not the aim?
For example why no label for 1 Player for Super Mario Bros. but a label for warps? They're both considered internal goals.
This got brought up because of a question as to whether #5977: link_7777 & EZGames69's NES City Connection "warpless" in 04:35.60 should be labeled as warpless. In this instance, it could be argued that it is "Warpless" only incidentally since Warps are slower. Or it could be argued that it is a goal that is being aimed at.
I don't have a strong opinion either way but would like a guideline to help decide when such things are considered the aim of the movie.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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Whether it's slower or faster than something, is only a part of the "compound goals" guideline. Right now this can only be checked concerning similarity to existing examples. As in, warp usage is traditionally such a goal that needs to go to the label, and it's considered internal.
For the 2P example, in this particular game you still play alone each time, not "controls several characters at once" kinda movie. So strictly speaking, the amount of players is still the same. And gameplay is exactly the same for each of them. They are virtually the same character playing each level twice.
However, I agree that there's no way to objectively check if the goal we're dealing with is internal or not, and whether it's "internal enough" to get to the label. I'll need a few days to ponder this.
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.
